transcriber's note: ten minor typographical errors have been corrected in this text version. Édition d'Élite historical tales the romance of reality by charles morris _author of "half-hours with the best american authors," "tales from the dramatists," etc._ in fifteen volumes volume ix scandinavian j. b. lippincott company philadelphia and london copyright, , by j. b. lippincott company. [illustration: from stereograph copyright by underwood & underwood, n.y. old bridge at oerebro.] _contents_ page how king rolf won his bride ragnar lodbrok and his wives and sons harold fair-haired founds the kingdom of norway gorm the old, denmark's first king erik blood-axe and egil the icelander the sea-kings and their daring feats haakon the good and the sons of gunhild earl haakon and the jomsvikings how olaf, the slave-boy, won the throne olaf dethrones odin and dies a hero olaf the saint and his work for christ canute the great, king of six nations magnus the good and harold hardruler sverre, the cook's son, and the birchlegs the friends and foes of a boy prince king valdemar i. and bishop absolon the fortunes and misfortunes of valdemar ii birger jarl and the conquest of finland the first war between sweden and russia the crime and punishment of king birger queen margaret and the calmar union how sir tord fought for charles of sweden sten sture's great victory over the danes how the ditmarshers kept their freedom the blood-bath of stockholm the adventures of gustavus vasa the fall of christian ii. the tyrant the west gothland insurrection the love affairs of king erik gustavus adolphus on the field of leipsic charles x. and the invasion of denmark charles xii. the firebrand of sweden the english invaders and the danish fleet a french soldier becomes king of sweden and norway the dismemberment of denmark breaking the bond between norway and sweden list of illustrations. scandinavian. page the old bridge at oerebro, one of the most ancient towns of sweden. _frontispiece._ house of parliament, norway home of peasants, norway busy farmers in a hillside field above are, sweden a nordfjord bride and groom with guests and parents. brigsdal, norway norwegian peasants norwegian farm buildings linkoping from tannefors village life and homes in sweden morning greetings of neighbors, sweden gripsholm castle, mari skurusund, stockholm skansen river the famous xvi. century castle at upsala, sweden norwegian carriage called stolkjaem armory and costume hall of the royal museum, sweden statue of gustavus adolphus the return of charles xii. of sweden kronberg castle on the sound, denmark the bourse, copenhagen, denmark _how king rolf won his bride._ at one time very many centuries ago, we cannot say just when, for this was in the days of the early legends, there reigned over upsala in sweden a king named erik. he had no son and only one daughter, but this girl was worth a dozen sons and daughters of some kings. torborg she was named, and there were few women so wise and beautiful and few men so strong and valiant. she cared nothing for women's work, but was the equal of any man of the court in riding, fighting with sword and shield, and other athletic sports. this troubled king erik very much, for he thought that the princess should sit in her maiden chamber like other kings' daughters; but she told him that when she came to succeed him on the throne she would need to know how to defend her kingdom, and now was the time for her to learn. that she might become the better fitted to rule, she asked him to give her some province to govern, and this he did, making her queen of a third of his kingdom, and giving her an army of stout and bold warriors. her court was held at ulleraker in upland, and here she would not let any one treat her as a woman, dressing always in men's clothing and bidding her men to call her king torborg. to fail in this would be at risk of their heads. as her fame spread abroad, there were many who came to court her, for she was at once very beautiful and the heiress of a great kingdom. but she treated all such with laughter and contempt. it is even said that she put out the eyes of some, and cut off the hands and feet of others, but this we do not like to believe. at any rate, she drove away those who troubled her too much with lance and spear. so it was plain that only a strong and bold man could win this warlike maiden for his wife. at that time king götrik who ruled in gothland, a country in southern sweden, had sent his younger son rolf to be brought up at the court of his foster-brother king ring of denmark. his elder son kettil he kept at home, but did not love him much on account of his pride and obstinacy. so it happened that when götrik was very old and like to die, he decided that rolf, who was very tall and strong, and very fit and able, should succeed him, though he was the younger son. all agreed to this, even kettil, so rolf was sent for and made king of gothland, which he ruled with skill and valor. one day rolf and kettil, who loved each other as brothers should, were talking together, and kettil said that one thing was wanting to the glory and honor of rolf's rule, and that was a queen of noble birth and goodly presence. "and whom have you in mind?" asked rolf. "there is torborg, the king of upsala's daughter. if you can win her for wife it will be the greatest marriage in the north." to this advice rolf would not listen. he had heard of how the shrewish torborg treated her suitors, and felt that wooing her would be like taking a wild wolf by the ears. so he stayed unmarried for several years more, though kettil often spoke of the matter, and one day said to him contemptuously: "many a man has a large body with little courage, and i fear you are such a one; for though you stand as a man, you do not dare to speak to a woman." "i will show you that i am a man," said rolf, very angry at these words. he sent to denmark for his foster-brother ingiald, son of king ring, and when he came the two set out with sixty armed men for the court of king erik in upsala. one morning, about this time, queen ingerd of upsala awoke and told king erik of a strange dream she had dreamed. she had seen in her sleep a troop of wolves running from gothland towards sweden, a great lion and a little bear leading them; but these, instead of being fierce and shaggy, were smooth-haired and gentle. "what do you think it means?" asked the king. "i think that the lion is the ghost of a king, and that the white bear is some king's son, the wolves being their followers. i fancy it means that rolf of gothland and ingiald of denmark are coming hither, bent on a mission of peace, since they appear so tame. do you think that king rolf is coming to woo our daughter, torborg?" "nonsense, woman; the king of so small a realm would show great assurance to seek for wife so great a princess as our daughter." so when rolf and his followers came to upsala king erik showed his displeasure, inviting him to his table but giving him no seat of honor at the feast. rolf sat silent and angry at this treatment, but when erik asked him why he had come, he told him courteously enough the reason of his visit. "i know how fond you goths are of a joke," said erik, with a laugh. "you have a way of saying one thing when you mean another. but i can guess what brings you. gothland is little and its revenues are small and you have many people to keep and feed. food is now scarce in gothland, and you have come here that you may not suffer from hunger. it was a good thought for you to come to upsala for help, and you are welcome to go about my kingdom with your men for a month; then you can return home plump and well fed." this jesting speech made rolf very angry, though he said little in reply. but when the king told queen ingerd that evening what he had said she was much displeased. "king rolf may have a small kingdom," she said, "but he has gained fame by his courage and ability, and is as powerful as many kings with a wider rule. you did not well to mock him." the next day erik, thus admonished, begged rolf's pardon, saying that the ale had made him speak foolishly, and thus he became reconciled with his guest. as for rolf's desire to win his daughter, he would first have to gain torborg's consent, which would be no easy matter. the king promised not to interfere but would do no more. soon after this rolf and his men arrived at ulleraker, reaching there when the whole of torborg's court were assembled in the great hall. fearing a hostile reception, rolf took wary precautions. he choose twelve of his stoutest men, with himself and ingiald at their head, to enter the court with drawn swords in their hands. if they were attacked, they were to go out backward fighting, but they were bidden to conduct themselves like men and let nothing alarm them. the others remained outside, keeping the horses in readiness to mount. when the party entered the hall, rolf at their head, all there were struck with his great size and noble aspect. no one assailed them and he walked up the hall, on whose high seat at the front he saw what seemed a tall and finely formed man, dressed in royal robes. knowing that this must be the haughty princess whose hand he had come to seek, he took off his helmet, bowed low before her, and began to tell what brought him to her court. he had scarcely begun when she stopped him. she said that he must be joking; that she knew his real errand was to get food and that this she would give him; but he must apply for it to the chief of the kitchen, not to her. rolf had not come so far to be laughed out of the court, and he sturdily went on with what he had to say, speaking to her as a woman, and demanding her hand in marriage. at this she changed her jesting manner, her cheeks grew red with anger, and springing up, she seized her weapons and called upon her men to lay hold upon and bind the fool that had dared affront their monarch. shouting and confusion followed and a sharp attack was made on the intruders, but rolf put on his helmet and bade his men to retire, which they did in good order. he walked backward through the whole hall, shield on arm and sword in hand, parrying and dealing blows, so that when he left the room, though no blade had touched him, a dozen of the courtiers lay bleeding. but being greatly overmatched, he ordered his men to mount, and they rode away unscathed. back to west gothland they went and told kettil how poorly they had fared. "you have suffered a sore insult and affront at a woman's hand," said kettil, "and my advice is that it be speedily avenged," but rolf replied that he was not yet ready to act. torborg had not taken the trouble to ask the name of her wooer, but when she learned who it was she knew very well that the matter had not reached its end and that her would-be lover would return stronger than before. as she did not want him or any man for husband she made great preparations for an attack, gathering a large body of warriors and having a wall of great strength and the finest workmanship built round the town. it was so high and thick that no battering ram could shake it, while water-cisterns were built into it to put out the fire if any one sought to burn it. from this we may judge that the wall was of wood. this done, torborg made merry with her court, thinking that no lover in the wide world would now venture to annoy her. she did not know the kind of man she had to deal with in king rolf. he had fought with men and fancied he was fit to conquer a woman. the next summer he had a battle with asmund, son of the king of scotland, and when it was over they became friends and foster-brothers and went on viking cruises together. next spring rolf armed and manned six ships and, taking kettil and ingiald and asmund with him, set sail for upsala. he proposed now to woo the warrior princess in another fashion. queen ingerd about this time dreamed again, her dream being the same as before, except that this time there were two white bears, and a hog which was small but spiteful, its bristles pointing forward and its mouth snarling as if ready to bite anything that came before it. and the bears did not look as gentle as before, but seemed irritated. she interpreted this dream to mean that rolf was coming again to avenge the affront he had received, and that the fierce hog must stand for kettil, of whose character she had been told. when rolf now arrived king erik received him with honor, and again agreed to remain his friend, no matter how stormy a courtship he might have. from upsala he set out for ulleraker and sent a herald to princess torborg, asking speech with her. she presented herself at the top of the wall, surrounded by armed men. king rolf renewed his suit, and told her plainly that if she did not accept his proposal he had come to burn the town and slay every man within its walls. "you shall first serve as a goatherd in west gothland before you get any power over me and mine," answered torborg haughtily. rolf lost no time in assailing the walls, but found them stoutly defended. the swedes within poured boiling water and hot pitch on their assailants, threw down stones and beams, and hurled spears and arrows from the wall. for fourteen days the siege continued without effect, until the goths, weary of their hard fighting and the mockery of the defenders, began to complain and wanted to return home. the townspeople derided them by showing costly goods from the ramparts and bidding them come and take them, and ridiculed them in many other ways. king rolf now saw that he must take other measures. he had a cover constructed of boards and brushwood and supported by stout beams, making a strong roof which was set against the wall and defied all the boiling water and missiles of the swedes. under its shelter a hole was dug through the wall and soon the goths were in the queen's citadel. to their surprise they found it empty. not a soul was to be seen, but in every room they found well-cooked food and many articles of value. "this is a fine capture," said kettil. "let us enjoy ourselves and divide the spoil." "not so," said rolf. "it is a lure to draw us off. i will not rest till i have the princess in my power." they sought the palace through and through, but no one was there. finally a secret passage was discovered, leading underground, and the king entered it, the others following. they emerged in a forest where they found torborg and all her men and where a sharp battle began. no warrior could have fought more bravely than the man-like princess, and her men stood up for her boldly, but they gradually gave way before the onset of rolf and his tried warriors. rolf now bade kettil to take torborg prisoner, but not to wound her, saying that it would be shameful to use arms against a woman. kettil sprang forward and gave the princess a sharp blow with the flat of his sword, reviling her at the same time with rude words. in return, torborg gave him so hard a blow on the ear with her battle-axe that he fell prostrate, with his heels in the air. "that is the way we treat our dogs when they bark too loud," she said. kettil sprang up, burning with anger, but at the same moment rolf rushed forward and grasped the warlike princess in his powerful arms, so that she was forced to surrender. he told her that she was his prisoner, but that he did not wish to win a wife in the viking manner and that he would leave it to her father to judge what should be done. taken captive in his arms, there was nothing else for her to do, and she went with him to upsala, where king erik was delighted at rolf's success. as for the warlike princess, she laid down her arms at her father's feet, put on a woman's garments, and seemed glad enough to have been won as a bride in so warlike a manner and by so heroic a wooer. soon after this the marriage took place, the festivities being the grandest the court could afford and lasting for fourteen days, after which rolf and his followers returned home, his new queen with him. the sagas say, as we can well believe after so strenuous a wooing, that afterwards king rolf and queen torborg lived a long and happy life. _ragnar lodbrok and his wives and sons._ the old sagas, or hero tales of the north, are full of stories of enchantment and strange marvels. we have told one of these tales in the record of king rolf and princess torborg. we have now to tell that of ragnar lodbrok, a hero king of the early days, whose story is full of magical incidents. that this king reigned and was a famous man in his days there is no reason to doubt, but around his career gathered many fables, as was apt to be the case with the legends of great men in those days. to show what these tales were like we take from the sagas the marvellous record of ragnar and his wives. in east gothland in the ancient days there lived a mighty jarl, or earl, named herröd, who was descended from the gods. he had a daughter named tora, who was famed for her beauty and virtue, but proved as hard to win for a wife as princess torborg had been. she dwelt in a high room which had a wall built around it like a castle, and was called castle deer, because she surpassed all other women in beauty as much as the deer surpasses all other animals. her father, who was very fond of her, gave her as a toy a small and wonderfully beautiful snake which he had received in a charmed egg in bjarmaland. it proved to be an unwelcome gift. the snake was at first coiled in a little box, but soon grew until the box would not hold it, and in time was so big that the room would not hold it. so huge did it become in the end that it lay coiled in a ring around the outer walls, being so long that its head and tail touched. it got to be so vicious that no one dared come near it except the maiden and the man who fed it, and his task was no light one, for it devoured an ox at a single meal. the jarl was sorry enough now that he had given his daughter such a present. it was one not easy to get rid of, dread of the snake having spread far and wide, and though he offered his daughter with a great dower to the man who should kill it, no one for a long time ventured to strive for the reward. the venom which it spat out was enough to destroy any warrior. at length a suitor for the hand of the lovely princess was found in ragnar, the young son of sigurd ring, then one of the greatest monarchs of the age, with all sweden and norway under his sway, as the sagas tell. ragnar, though still a boy, had gained fame as a dauntless warrior, and was a fit man to dare the venture with the great snake, though for a long time he seemed to pay no heed to the princess. but meanwhile he had made for himself a strange coat. it was wrought out of a hairy hide, which he boiled in pitch, drew through sand, and then dried and hardened in the sun. the next summer he sailed to east gothland, hid his ships in a small bay, and at dawn of the next day proceeded toward the maiden's bower, spear in hand and wearing his strange coat. there lay the dreaded serpent, coiled in a ring round the wall. ragnar, nothing daunted, struck it boldly with his spear, and before it could move in defence struck it a second blow, pressing the spear until it pierced through the monster's body. so fiercely did the snake struggle that the spear broke in two, and it would have destroyed ragnar with the venom it poured out if he had not worn his invulnerable coat. the noise of the struggle and the fierceness of the snake's convulsions, which shook the whole tower, roused tora and her maids, and she looked from her window to see what it meant. she saw there a tall man, but could not distinguish his features in the grey dawn. the serpent was now in its death throes, though this she did not know, and she called out: "who are you, and what do you want?" ragnar answered in this verse: "for the maid fair and wise i would venture my life. the scale-fish got its death wound from a youth of fifteen!" then he went away, taking the broken handle of the spear with him. tora listened in surprise, for she learned from the verse that a boy of fifteen had slain the great monster, and she marvelled at his great size for his years, wondering if he were man or wizard. when day came she told her father of the strange event, and the jarl drew out the broken spear from the snake, finding it to be so heavy that few men could have lifted it. who had killed the serpent and earned the reward? the jarl sent a mandate throughout his kingdom, calling all men together, and when they came he told them the story of the snake's death, and bade him who possessed the handle of the spear to present it, as he would keep his word with any one, high or low. ragnar and his men stood on the edge of the throng as the broken head of the spear was passed round, no one being able to present the handle fitting it. at length it came to ragnar, and he drew forth the handle from his cloak, showing that the broken ends fitted exactly. a great feast for the victor was now given by jarl herröd, and when ragnar saw the loveliness of tora, he was glad to ask her for his queen, while she was equally glad to have such a hero for her spouse. a splendid bridal followed and the victor took his beautiful bride home. this exploit gave ragnar great fame and he received the surname of lodbrok, on account of the strange coat he had worn. ragnar and tora lived happily together but not to old age, for after some years she took sick and died, leaving two sons, erik and agnar, who grew up to be strong and beautiful youths. ragnar had loved her greatly and after her death said he would marry no other woman. nor could he comfort himself at home but began to wander abroad on warlike voyages, that he might drive away his sorrow. leaving ragnar lodbrok to his travels, let us take up the strange story of another fair maiden, who was to have much to do with his future life. she was named aslög and was the daughter of king sigurd fafnisbane, of germany. soon after she was born enemies of her father killed him and her mother and all of his race they could find. her life was saved by heimer, foster-father to her mother, who to get her away from the murderers had a large harp made with a hollow frame, in which he hid the child and all the treasure he could find. then he wandered far as a travelling harper, letting the child out when they came to solitary woods, and when she wept and moaned silencing her by striking the strings of the harp. after long journeying he came to a cottage in norway called spangerhed, where lived a beggar and his wife. seeing a gold bracelet under heimer's rags, and some rich embroidery sticking from the harp, the beggar and his wife killed him during the night and broke open the harp. they found in it the wealth they sought, but the discovery of the pretty little girl troubled them. "what shall we do with this child?" he asked. "we will bring her up as our own, and name her kraka, after my mother," said his wife. "but no one will believe that ugly old people like us can have so fair a daughter." "let me manage it," said the wife. "i will put tar on her head so that her hair will not be too long, and keep her in ragged clothes and at the hardest work." this they did and little aslög grew up as a beggar's child. and as she kept strangely silent, never speaking, all people thought her dumb. one day, when aslög was well grown, ragnar lorbrok came that way, cruising along the norway coast. the crew was out of bread and men were sent ashore to bake some at a house they saw in the distance. this house was spangerhed, where kraka dwelt. she had seen the ships come up and the men land, and was ashamed to be seen by strangers as she was, so she washed herself and combed her hair, though she had been bidden never to do so. so long and thick had her hair grown that it reached to the ground and covered her completely. when the cooks came to bake their bread they were so surprised at the beauty of the maiden that they let the loaves burn while looking at her, and on being blamed for this carelessness on their return to the ship said they could not help it, for they had been bewitched by the face of the loveliest maiden they had ever gazed upon. "she cannot be as lovely as tora was," said ragnar. "there was never a lovelier woman," they declared, and ragnar was so struck by their story that he sent messengers ashore to learn if they were telling the truth. if it were so, he said, if kraka were as beautiful as tora, they were bidden to bring her to him neither dressed nor undressed, neither fasting nor satisfied, neither alone nor in company. the messengers found the maiden as fair as the cooks had said and repeated the king's demand. "your king must be out of his mind, to send such a message," said the beggar's wife; but kraka told them that she would come as their king wished, but not until the next morning. the next day she came to the shore where the ship lay. she was completely covered with her splendid hair, worn like a net around her. she had eaten an onion before coming, and had with her the old beggar's sheep dog; so that she had fulfilled ragnar's three demands. her wit highly pleased ragnar and he asked her to come on board, but she would not do so until she had been promised peace and safety. when she was taken to the cabin ragnar looked at her in delight. he thought that she surpassed tora in beauty, and offered a prayer to odin, asking for the love of the maiden. then he took the gold-embroidered dress which tora had worn and offered it to kraka, saying in verse, in the fashion of those times: "will you have tora's robe? it suits you well. her white hands have played upon it. lovely and kind was she to me until death." kraka answered, also in verse: "i dare not take the gold-embroidered robe which adorned tora the fair. it suits not me. kraka am i called in coal-black baize. i have ever herded goats on the stones by the sea-shore." "and now i will go home," she added. "if the king's mind does not change he can send for me when he will." then she went back to the beggar's cottage and ragnar sailed in his ship away. of course every one knows without telling what came from such an invitation. it was not long before ragnar was back with his ship and he found kraka quite ready to go with him. and when they reached his home a splendid entertainment was given, during which the marriage between ragnar and kraka took place, everything being rich and brilliant and all the great lords of the kingdom being present. it will be seen that, though the princess aslög pretended to be dumb during her years of youthful life in the beggar's cottage, she found her voice and her wits with full effect when the time came to use them. she was now the queen of a great kingdom, and lived for many years happily with her husband ragnar. and among her children were two sons who were very different from other men. the oldest was called iwar. he grew up to be tall and strong, though there were no bones in his body, but only gristle, so that he could not stand, but had to be carried everywhere on a litter. yet he was very wise and prudent. the second gained the name of ironside, and was so tough of skin that he wore no armor in war, but fought with his bare body without being wounded. to the people this seemed the work of magic. there were two others who were like other men. since the older brothers, the sons of tora, had long been notable as warriors, the younger brothers, when they grew up, became eager to win fame and fortune also, and they went abroad on warlike expeditions, fighting many battles, winning many victories, and gaining much riches. but iwar, the boneless one, was not satisfied with this common fighting, but wanted to perform some great exploit, that would give them a reputation everywhere for courage. there was the town of hvitaby (now whitby, in yorkshire, england), which many great warriors had attacked, their father among them, but all had been driven back by the power of magic or necromancy. if they could take this stronghold it would give them infinite honor, said iwar, and to this his brothers agreed. to hvitaby they sailed, and leaving their younger brother ragnwald in charge of the ships, because they thought him too young to take part in so hard a battle, they marched against the town. the place was ably defended, not only by men but by two magical heifers, their charm being that no man could stand before them or even listen to their lowing. when these beasts were loosed and ran out towards the troops, the men were so scared by the terrible sound of their voices that ironside had all he could do to keep them from a panic flight, and many of them fell prostrate. but iwar, who could not stand, but was carried into battle upon shields, took his bow and sent his arrows with such skill and strength that both the magic heifers were slain. then courage came back to the troops and the townsmen were filled with terror. and in the midst of the fighting ragnwald came up with the men left to guard the ships. he was determined to win some of the glory of the exploit and attacked the townsmen with fury, rushing into their ranks until he was cut down. but in the end the townsmen were defeated and the valiant brothers returned with great honor and spoil, after destroying the castle. thus it was that the sons of kraka gained reputation as valiant warriors. but meanwhile kraka herself was like to lose her queenly station, for ragnar visited king osten of upsala who had a beautiful daughter named ingeborg. on seeing her, his men began to say that it would be more fitting for their king to have this lovely princess for his wife, instead of a beggar's daughter like kraka. ragnar heard this evil counsel, and was so affected by it that he became betrothed to ingeborg. when he went home he bade his men to say nothing about this betrothal, yet in some way kraka came to know of it. that night she asked ragnar for news and he said he had none to tell. "if you do not care to tell me news," said kraka, "i will tell you some. it is not well done for a king to affiance himself to one woman when he already has another for his wife. and, since your men chose to speak of me as a beggar's daughter, let me tell you that i am no such thing, but a king's daughter and of much higher birth than your new love ingeborg." "what fable is this you tell me?" said ragnar. "who, then, were your parents?" "my father was king sigurd fafnisbane and my mother was the amazon brynhilda, daughter of king budle." "do you ask me to believe that the daughter of these great people was named kraka and brought up in a peasant's hut?" the queen now told him that her real name was aslög and related all the events of her early life. and as a sign that she spoke the truth, she said that her next child, soon to be born, would be a son and would have a snake in his eye. it came out as she said, the boy, when born, having the strange sign of which she had spoken, so that he was given a name that meant sigurd snake-in-eye. so rejoiced was ragnar at this that he ceased to think of ingeborg and all his old love for kraka, or aslög as she was now called, came back. the remainder of the lives of ragnar and aslög and of their warlike sons is full of valiant deeds and magic arts, far too long to be told here, but which gave them a high place in the legendary lore of the north, in which ragnar lodbrok is one of the chief heroes. at length ragnar was taken prisoner by king ethelred of england and thrown into a pit full of serpents, where he died. afterwards iwar and his brothers invaded england, conquered that country, and avenged their father by putting ethelred to death by torture. iwar took england for his kingdom and the realms of the north were divided among his brothers, and many more were the wars they had, until death ended the career of these heroes of northern legend. _harold fair-haired founds the kingdom of norway._ to the far-off island of iceland we must go for the story of the early days of norway. in that frosty isle, not torn by war or rent by tumult, the people, sitting before their winter fires, had much time to think and write, and it is to iceland we owe the story of the gods of the north and of the scandinavian kings of heathen times. one of these writers, snorri sturlasson by name, has left us a famous book, "the sagas of the kings of norway," in which he tells of a long line of ancient kings, who were descended from the gods. here are some of their names, aun the old, ingjald ill-ruler, olaf the wood-cutter, halfdan whiteleg, and halfdan the swarthy. there were others whom we need not name, and of these mentioned the names must suffice, for all we know of them is legend, not truth. in those times there was no kingdom of norway, but a number of petty provinces, ruled over by warriors who are spoken of as kings, but whose rule was not very wide. most powerful among them was halfdan the swarthy, who was only a year old in when his father was killed in battle. he lived for many years, and he and his wife ragnhild had strange dreams. the queen dreamed that a thorn which she took out of her clothes grew in her hands until one end of it took root in the ground and the other shot up into the air. it kept on growing until it was a great tree, so high that she could barely see its top. the lower part of it was blood-red, higher up it was bright green, and the spreading branches were white as snow. so widely they spread that they seemed to shade the whole country of norway. king halfdan did not like it that his wife had such strange dreams and he had none. he asked a sage why this was so, and was told that if he wanted to have dreams as strange he must sleep in a pig-sty. a queer recipe for dreams, one would think, but the king tried it, and dreamed that his hair grew long and beautiful and hung in bright locks over his shoulders, some of them down to his waist, and one, the brightest and most beautiful of all, still farther down. when he told the sage of this dream, the wise man said it meant that from him was to come a mighty race of kings, one of whom should be the greatest and most glorious of them all. this great hero, snorri tells us, was supposed to be olaf the saint, who reigned two hundred years later, and under whom christianity first flourished in norway. soon after these dreams a son was born to the queen, who was named harold. a bright, handsome lad he grew to be, wise of mind and strong of body and winning the favor of all who knew him. many tales which we cannot believe are told of his boyhood. here is one of them. once when the king was seated at the yuletide feast all the meats and the ale disappeared from the table, leaving an empty board for the monarch and his guests. there was present a finn who was said to be a sorceror, and him the king put to the torture, to find out who had done this thing. young harold, displeased with his father's act, rescued the finn from his tormentors and went with him to the mountains. on they went, miles and leagues away, until they came to a place where a finnish chief was holding a great feast. harold stayed there until spring, when he told his host that he must return to his father's halls. then the chief said: "king halfdan was very angry when i took his meat and ale from him last winter, and now i will reward you with good tidings for what you did. your father is dead and his kingdom waits for you to inherit. and some day you will rule over all norway." harold found it to be as the finn had said, and thus in , when he was only ten years old, he came to the throne. he was young to be at the head of a turbulent people and some ambitious men there were who sought to take advantage of his youth, but his uncle guardian fought for him and put them all down. harold was now the greatest among the petty kings of norway and a wish to be ruler of the whole land grew up in his soul. here comes in a story which may not be all true, but is pretty enough to tell. it is to the effect that love drove harold to strive for the kingdom. old snorri tells the story, which runs this way. king erik of hördaland had a fair daughter named gyda, the fame of whose beauty reached harold's ears and he sent messengers to win her for himself. but the maid was proud and haughty and sent back word: "tell your master that i will not yield myself to any man who has only a few districts for his kingdom. is there no king in the land who can conquer all norway, as king erik has conquered sweden and king gorm denmark?" this was all the answer she had for the heralds, though they pleaded for a better answer, saying that king harold was surely great enough for any maid in the land. "this is my answer to king harold," she said. "i will promise to become his wife if for my sake he shall conquer all norway and rule it as freely as king erik and king gorm rule their kingdoms. only when he has done this can he be called the king of a people." when the heralds returned they told the king of their ill success and advised him to take the girl by force. "not so," harold replied. "the girl has spoken well and deserves thanks instead of injury. she has put a new thought into my mind which had not come to me before. this i now solemnly vow and call god to witness, that i will not cut or comb my hair until the day when i shall have made myself king of all norway. if i fail in this, i shall die in the attempt." [illustration: house of parliament, norway.] such is the legend of gyda and the vow. what history tells us is that the young king set out to bring all norway under his rule and prospered in the great enterprise. one after another, the small kings yielded to his power, and were made earls or governors under him. they collected taxes and administered justice in his name. all the land of the peasants was declared to be the property of the king, and those who had been free proprietors were now made the king's tenants and were obliged to pay taxes if they wished to hold their lands. these changes angered many and there were frequent rebellions against the king, but he put them all down, and year after year came nearer the goal of his ambition. and his hair continued to grow uncut and uncombed, and got to be such a tangled mass that men called him harold lufa, or frowsy-head. there was one great and proud family, the rafnistas, who were not easily to be won. to one of them, kveld-ulf, or night-wolf, harold sent envoys, asking him to enter his service, but the chief sent back word that he was too old to change. then he offered bald grim, old night-wolf's son, high honors if he would become his vassal. bald grim replied that he would take no honors that would give him rank over his father. harold grew angry at this, and was ready to use force where good words would not prevail, but in the end the old chief agreed that his second son thorolf might be the king's man if he saw fit. this he agreed to do, and as he was handsome, intelligent and courtly the king set much store by him. not only with the norway chiefs, but with the king of sweden, harold had trouble. while he was busy in the south king erik invaded the north, and harold had to march in haste to regain his dominions. but the greatest danger in his career came in , when a number of chiefs combined against him and gathered a great fleet, which attacked harold's fleet in halfrs-fjord. then came the greatest and hottest fight known to that day in norway. loudly the war-horns sounded and the ships were driven fiercely to the fray, harold's ship being in the front wherever the fight waxed hottest. thorolf, the son of night-wolf, stood in its prow, fighting with viking fury, and beside him stood two of his brothers, matching him blow with blow. yet the opposing chiefs and their men were stout fighters and the contest long seemed doubtful, many brave and able men falling on both sides. arrows hissed in swift flight through the air, spears hurtled after them, stones were hurled by strong hands, and those who came hand to hand fought like giants. at length harold's berserkers--men who fought without armor, replacing it with fury of onslaught--rushed forward and boarded the hostile ships, cutting down all who opposed them. blood ran like water and the chieftains and their men fell or fled before this wild assault. the day was won for harold, and with it the kingdom, for after that fatal fray none dared to stand up before him. his vow accomplished, all norway now his, harold at last consented to the cutting of his hair, this being done by ragnvald, the earl of möre. the tangled strands being cut and the hair deftly combed, those who saw it marvelled at its beauty, and from that day the king was known as harold the fair-haired. as for gyda, the maid, the great task she set having been accomplished, she gave her hand to harold, a splendid marriage completing the love romance of their lives. this romance, however, is somewhat spoiled by the fact that harold already had a wife, aasa, the daughter of earl haakon, and that he afterwards married other wives. he had his faults and weaknesses, one of these being that he was not faithful to women and he was jealous of men who were growing in greatness. one of the men whom he began to fear or hate was thorolf, who had aided him so mightily in battle and long stood highest in his favor. thorolf married a rich wife and grew very wealthy, living like a prince, and becoming profuse in his hospitality. he was gracious and liberal and won hosts of friends, while he aided the king greatly in collecting taxes from the finns, who were not very willing to part with their money. despite this service harold grew to distrust thorolf, or to hate him for other reasons, and the time came when this feeling led to a tragedy. thorolf had been made bailiff of haalogaland, and when harold came to this province his bailiff entertained him with a splendid feast, to which eight hundred guests were invited, three hundred of them being the king's attendants. yet, through all the hilarity of the feast, harold sat dark and brooding, much to his host's surprise. he unbent a little at the end and seemed well pleased when thorolf presented him with a large dragon ship, fully equipped. yet not long afterwards he took from him his office of bailiff, and soon showed himself his deadly foe, slandering him as a pretext for attacking him on his estate. the assailants set fire to thorolf's house and met him with a shower of spears when he broke out from the burning mansion. seeing the king among them thorolf rushed furiously towards him, cut down his banner-bearer with a sword blow, and was almost within touch of the king when he fell from his many wounds, crying: "by three steps only i failed." it is said that harold himself gave the death blow, yet he looked sadly on the warrior as he lay dead at his feet, saying, as he saw a man bandaging a slight wound: "that wound thorolf did not give. differently did weapons bite in his hand. it is a pity that such men must die." this would indicate that king harold had other reasons than appears from the narrative for the slaughter of his former friend. it must be borne in mind that he was engaged in founding a state, and had many disorderly and turbulent elements with which to deal, and that before he had ended his work he was forced to banish from the kingdom many of those who stood in his way. we do not know what secret peril to his plans led him to remove thorolf from his path. however that be, the killing of the chief sent his father to his bed sick with grief, and he grew content only when he heard that the king's hand had slain him and that he had fallen on his face at his slayer's feet. for when a dying man fell thus it was a sign that he would be avenged. but the old man was far too weak to attack harold openly, and was not willing to dwell in the same kingdom with him; so he, with his son bald grim and all his family and wealth, took ship and set sail for iceland. but long he lingered on norway's coast, hoping for revenge on some of harold's blood, and chance threw in his way a ship containing two cousins of the king. this he attacked, killed the king's cousins, and captured the ship. then bald grim, full of exultation, sang a song of triumph on the ship's prow, beginning with: "now is the hersir's vengeance on the king fulfilled; wolf and eagle tread on yngling's children." there were other chieftains who sought refuge abroad from harold's rule, men who were bitterly opposed to the new government he founded, with its system of taxation and its strict laws. they could not see why the old system of robbing and plundering within norway's confines should be interfered with or their other ancient privileges curtailed, and several thousand sailed away to found new homes in the orkneys, the hebrides, and iceland. one of the chief of these, rolf, or rollo, son of the king's friend, ragnvald of möre, defied harold's laws and was declared an outlaw. his high birth made the king more determined to punish him, as an example to others, and no influence could win forgiveness for rolf the walker, as men called him, saying that he was so tall and heavy that no horse could carry him. we must follow the outlaw in his journey, for it was one destined to lead to great events. setting sail with a fleet and a large number of followers, he made his way to the coast of france, and fixed himself there, plundering the people for several years. charles the simple, king of france, finding that he could not drive the bold norseman off, at length gave him a large province on condition that he would become a christian, and hold his land as a vassal of the king. the province was given the name of normandy, and from rollo descended that sturdy race of kings one of whom conquered england in the following century. thus the exile of rollo led to events of world-wide importance. when the proud norseman was asked to kiss king charles's foot in token of fealty to him, he answered: "i will never bend my knee before any man, nor will i kiss any man's foot." he could hardly be persuaded to let one of his men kiss the king's foot as a proxy for him. the man chosen strode sturdily forward, seized the foot of the king, who was on horseback, and lifted it to his lips so roughly that the poor king turned a somersault from his horse. the norsemen laughed in derision while the king's followers stood by grim and silent. but despite his unruliness at home, rollo, when he got a kingdom of his own, ruled it with all the sternness of king harold, hanging all robbers that fell into his hands, and making his kingdom so secure that the peasants could leave their tools in the fields at night without fear of loss. five generations after him came to the throne william the conqueror, who won himself the kingdom of england. to go back to harold, the builder of the kingdom of norway, we shall only say in conclusion that he built his rule on sure foundations and kept a court of high splendor, and died without a rebel in his realm in , seventy-three years after he succeeded his father as ruler of a province. _gorm the old, denmark's first king._ in ancient times denmark was not a kingdom, but a multitude of small provinces ruled over by warlike chiefs who called themselves kings. it was not until the ninth century that these little king-ships were combined into one kingdom, this being done by a famous chieftain, known by the danes as gorm den gamle, or gorm the old. a great warrior he was, a viking of the vikings, and southern europe felt his heavy hand. a famous story of barbarian life is that of gorm, which well deserves to be told. he was the son of a fierce pagan of norway, hardegon, who was of royal blood, being a grandson of the half-fabulous ragnar lodbrok. a prince with only his sword for kingdom, hardegon looked around for a piece of land to be won by fighting, and fixed upon lejre, in the fruitful danish island of sjölland, which was just then in a very inviting state for the soldier of fortune. some time before it had fallen into the hands of a swedish fortune-seeker named olaf, who left it to his two sons. these in turn had just been driven out by siegric, the rightful king, when hardegon descended upon it and seized it for himself. dying, he left it to his son gorm. it was a small kingdom that gorm had fallen heir to. a lord's estate we would call it to-day. but while small in size, it stood high in rank, for it was here that the great sacrifices to odin, the chief scandinavian deity, were held, and it was looked upon as one of the most sacred of spots. hither at yuletide came the devotees of odin from all quarters to worship at his shrine, and offer gifts of gold and silver, precious stones and costly robes, to the twelve high priests of whom the king of lejre was the chief. and every worshipper, whether rich or poor, was expected to bring a horse, a dog, or a cock, these animals being sacred to odin and sacrificed in large numbers annually at his shrine. in the special nine-year services, people came in great numbers, and it is probable that on these occasions human sacrifices were made, captives taken in war or piratical excursions being saved for this purpose. as one may see, the king of lejre had excellent opportunity to acquire wealth, and young gorm, being brave, clever, and ambitious, used his riches to increase his landed possessions. at least, the danish historians tell us that he began by buying one bit of land, getting another by barter, seizing on one district, having another given him, and so on. but all this is guess-work, and all we actually know is that gorm, the son of a poor though nobly-born sea-rover, before his death gained control of all denmark, then much larger than the denmark of to-day, and changed the small state with which he began into a powerful kingdom, bringing all the small kings under his sway. the ambitious chief did not content himself with this. long before his kingdom was rounded and complete he had become known as one of the most daring and successful of the viking adventurers who in those days made all europe their prey. early in his reign he made a plundering cruise along the shores of the baltic and joined in a piratical invasion of russia, penetrating far inward and pillaging as he went. we hear of him again in as one of the chiefs of a daring band which made a conquering raid into germany, intrenched itself on the river maas, sallied forth on plundering excursions whose track was marked by ruined fields and burnt homesteads, villages and towns, and even assailed and took aix-la-chapelle, one of the chief cities of the empire of charlemagne and the seat of his tomb. the reckless freebooters stalled their horses in the beautiful chapel in which the great emperor lay buried and stripped from his tomb its gilded and silvered railings and everything of value which the monks had not hidden. the whole surrounding country was similarly ravaged and desolated by the ruthless heathens, monasteries were burned, monks were killed or captured, and the emperor, charles the fat, was boldly defied. when charles brought against the plunderers an army large enough to devour them, he was afraid to strike a blow against them, and preferred to buy them off with a ransom of two thousand pounds of gold and silver, all he got in return being their promise to be baptized. finding that they had a timid foe to deal with, the rapacious norsemen asked for more, and when they finally took to their ships two hundred transports were needed to carry away their plunder. the cowardly charles, indeed, was so wrought upon by fear of the pagan danes that he even passed the incredible law that any one who killed a norseman should have his eyes put out and in some cases should lose his life. all this was sure to invite new invasions. a wave of joy passed through the north when the news spread of the poltroonery of the emperor and the vast spoil awaiting the daring hand. back they came, demanding and receiving new ransom, and in there began a great siege of paris by forty thousand danes. king gorm was one of the chiefs who took part in this, and when henry of neustria, whom the emperor had sent with an army against them, was routed and driven back, it was gorm who pursued the fugitives into the town of soissons, where many captives and a great booty were taken. the dastard emperor again bought them off with money and freedom to ravage burgundy, paris being finally rescued by count eudes. in they were so thoroughly beaten by king arnulf, of germany, that their great leaders fell on the field and only a remnant of the norsemen escaped alive, the waters of the river dyle running red with the blood of slain thousands. gorm was one of the chiefs who took part in this disastrous battle of louvaine and was one of the fortunate few who lived to return to their native land. apparently it was not the last of his expeditions, his wife, queen thyra, taking care of the kingdom in his many long absences. thyra needed ability and resolution to fitly perform this duty, for those were restless and turbulent times, and the germans made many incursions into sleswick and jutland and turned the borderlands on the eyder into a desert. this grew so hard to bear that the wise queen devised a plan to prevent it. gathering a great body of workmen from all parts of denmark, she set them to building a wall of defense from forty-five to seventy-five feet high and eight miles long, crossing from water to water on the east and west. this great wall, since known as the dannevirke, took three years to build. there were strong watch-towers at intervals and only one gate, and this was well protected by a wide and deep ditch, crossed by a bridge that could readily be removed. for ages afterwards the danes were grateful to queen thyra for this splendid wall of defense and sang her praises in their national hymns, while they told wonderful tales of her cleverness in ruling the land while her husband was far away. fragments of thyra's rampart still remain and its remains formed the groundwork of all the later border bulwarks of denmark. queen thyra, while a worshipper of the northern gods, showed much favor to the christians and caused some of her children to be signed with the cross. but king gorm was a fierce pagan and treated his christian subjects so cruelly that he gained the name of the "church's worm," being regarded as one who was constantly gnawing at the supports of the church. henry i. the fowler, the great german emperor of that age, angry at this treatment of the christians, sent word to gorm that it must cease, and when he found that no heed was paid to his words he marched a large army to the eyder, giving gorm to understand that he must mend his ways or his kingdom would be overrun. gorm evidently feared the loss of his dominion, for from that time on he allowed the archbishop of bremen to preach in his dominions and to rebuild the churches which had been destroyed, while he permitted his son harald, who favored the christians, to be signed with the cross. but he kept to the faith of his forefathers, as did his son knud, known as "dan-ast," or the "danes'-joy." the ancient sagas tell us that there was little love between knud and harald; and that gorm, fearing ill results from this, swore an oath that he would put to death any one who attempted to kill his first-born son, or who should even tell him that knud had died. while harald remained at home and aided his mother, knud was of his father's fierce spirit and for years attended him on his viking expeditions. on one of these he was drowned, or rather was killed while bathing, by an arrow shot from one of his own ships. gorm was absent at the time, and thyra scarcely knew how the news could be told him without incurring the sworn penalty of death. finally she put herself and her attendants into deep mourning and hung the chief hall of the palace with the ashy-grey hangings used at the grave-feasts of northmen of noble birth. then, seating herself, she awaited gorm's return. on entering the hall he was struck by these signs of mourning and by the silence and dejection of the queen, and broke out in an exclamation of dismay: "my son, knud, is dead!" "thou hast said it, and not i, king gorm," was the queen's reply. the news of the death had thus been conveyed to him without any one incurring the sworn penalty. soon after that--in --king gorm died, and the throne of denmark was left to his son harald, a cruel and crafty man whom many of the people believed to have caused the murder of his brother. _erik blood-axe and egil the icelander._ in the year harold the fair-haired, the famous monarch who made a kingdom of norway, passed a law which was to work mischief for centuries to come. erik, his favorite son, was named overlord of the kingdom, but with the proviso that his other sons should bear the kingly title and rule over provinces, while the sons of his daughters were to be made earls. had the wise harold dreamed of the trouble this unwise law was to make he would have cut off his right hand before signing it. it was to give rise to endless rebellions and civil wars which filled the kingdom with ruin and slaughter for many reigns and at last led to its overthrow and long disappearance from among the separate nations of the earth. a bold and daring prince was erik, with the old viking blood in his veins. when only twelve years of age his father gave him five ships, each with a sturdy crew of norsemen, and sent him out to ravage the southern lands, in the manner of the sea-kings of those days. many were the perilous exploits of the young viking admiral and when he came back to his father's halls and told him of his daring deeds, the old king listened with delight. so fierce and fatal were many of his fights that he won the name of blood-axe, but for this his father loved him all the more and chose him to be his successor on the throne. [illustration: home of peasants. norway.] before his father died erik had shown what was in him, by attacking and killing two of his brothers. but despite all that, when the old king was eighty years of age he led erik to the throne and named him as his successor. three years later harold died and norway fell under the young sea-king's hand--a brave, handsome, stately ruler; but haughty, cruel, and pitiless in his wrath, and with the old viking wildness in his blood. he had married a woman whom men called a witch--cruel, treacherous, loving money and power, and with such influence over him that she killed all the good in his soul and spurred him on to evil deeds. strange stories are told of the wicked queen gunhild. it was said that she had been sent to finland to learn the arts of sorcery, in which the finns of those days were well versed. here erik met her in one of his wanderings, and was taken captive by her bold beauty. she dwelt with two sorcerers, both bent on marrying her, while she would have neither of them. prince erik was a suitor more to her liking and she hid him in her tent, begging him to rescue her from her troublesome lovers. this was no easy task, for sorcerers have arts of their own, but erik proved equal to it, cut his way through all the difficulties in his path and carried gunhild away to his ships, where he made her his wife. in her he had wed a dragon of mischief, as his people were to learn. she was of small size but of wonderful beauty, and with sly, insinuating ways that fitted her well to gain the mastery over strong men. but all her arts were used for evil, and she won the hatred of the people by speaking words of ill counsel in her husband's ears. the treachery and violence he showed were said to be the work of gunhild the witch, and the nobles and people soon grew to hate erik blood-axe and his cruel wife, and often broke out in rebellion against them. his brothers, who had been made kings of provinces, were not ready to submit to his harsh rule, and barely was old king harold dead before halfdan the swarthy--who bore the name of his grandfather--claimed to be monarch in tröndelag, and olaf, another brother, in viken. death came suddenly to halfdan--men whispered that he had been poisoned by the queen--but his brother sigfrid took his place and soon the flame of rebellion rose north and south. erik proved equal to the difficulty. sigfrid and olaf were in tunsberg, where they had met to lay plans to join their forces, when erik, whose spies told him of their movements, took the town by surprise and killed them both. thus, so far, erik blood-axe was triumphant. he had killed four of his brothers--men said five--and every one thought that gunhild would not be content until all king harold's brood except her own husband were in the grave. trouble next came from a region far away, the frost-king's land of iceland in the northern seas, which had been settled from norway in the early reign of harold the fair-haired, some sixty years before. here lived a handsome and noble man named thorolf, who had met erik in his viking days. he was the son of the stern old icelander bald grim, and nephew of the noble thorolf who had been basely slain by king harold. bald grim hated harold and all his race, but thorolf grew to admire erik for his daring and made him a present of a large and beautiful ship. thus erik became his friend, and when thorolf came to norway the young prince begged his father to let him dwell there in peace. when he at length went home to iceland he took with him an axe with a richly carved handle, which erik had sent as a present to his father. old bald grim was not the man to be bought over by a present. the hate he felt for harold he transferred to his son, and when thorolf set sail again for norway his father bade him take back the axe to the king and sang an insulting song which he bade him repeat to erik. thorolf did not like his errand. he thought it best to let the blood-feud die, so he threw the axe into the sea and when he met the king gave him his father's thanks for the fine gift. if thorolf had had his way the trouble would have been at an end, but with him came egil, his younger brother, a man of different character. stern old bald grim seemed born again in his son egil. a man of great size, swarthy face, harsh of aspect, and of fierce temper, in him was the old, tameless spirit of the norse sea-kings, turbulent, passionate, owning no man master, he bent his strong soul to no man's rule. rash and adventurous, he had a long and stormy career, while nature had endowed him with a rich gift of song, which added to his fame. such was the type of men who in those days made all europe tremble before the norsemen's wrath, and won dominion for the viking warriors in many lands. thorold when in norway before had gained powerful friends in the great nobles, thore herse and björn the yeoman. on this visit the brothers became thore's guests, and egil and arinbjörn, thore's son, became warm friends. the young icelander's hot temper soon brewed trouble. sickness kept him from going with thorolf to the house of björn the yeoman, whose daughter, aasgard, he was to marry; but he soon got well and went on a visit to baard, a steward of the king. as fortune decreed he met there king erik and queen gunhild. egil was not the man to play the courtier and his hot blood was under little control. when baard neglected him in favor of his royal visitor, he broke into such a rage that the queen, to quiet him, tried one of her underhand arts. she bade baard to mix sleeping herbs with his beer. suspecting treachery from the taste of the beer egil flung his flagon to the floor, struck baard dead in his fury, and, fleeing for his life, swam to an island in the neighboring stream. when men were sent to search the island and capture him he killed some of them, seized their boat, and made his escape. king erik was furious, but thore herse got him to accept a money payment for baard's death--as was then the custom of the land--and he agreed to let egil dwell in norway unharmed. this was not to the queen's liking. she was fond of baard and was deeply incensed at egil for his murderous act, and she stormed at the king for his mildness of temper till he broke out: "you are forever egging me on to acts of violence; but now you must hold your peace, for i have given my kingly word and cannot break it." gunhild, thus repulsed, sought other means of revenge. a great feast of sacrifice to the old heathen gods was to be held at the temple of gaule, and at her instigation her brother, eyvind skreyja, agreed to kill one of bald grim's sons. finding no opportunity for this, he killed one of thorolf's men, for which act erik outlawed him. the remainder of the story of egil's career is largely that of a viking, that is, a piratical rover, bent on spoil and plunder and the harrying of sea-coast lands. with thorolf he took to the sea and cruised about in quest of wealth and glory, finally landing in england and fighting in a great battle under the banner of king athelstan. he made his mark here, but thorolf was slain, so egil went back to norway, married his brother's widow, and sailed for his old home in iceland, which he had not seen for twelve years. iceland was too quiet a land to hold the stirring sea-king long and news from norway soon made him take ship again. björn the yeoman, his wife's father, had died, and queen gunhild had given his estate to berg-anund, one of her favorites. storming with rage, he reached norway and hotly pleaded his claim to the estate before the assembly or _thing_ at gula, erik and gunhild being present. he failed in his purpose, the _thing_ breaking up in disorder; and egil, probably finding norway too hot to hold him, went back to iceland. if king erik now fancied he was rid of the turbulent icelander he was mistaken. rankling with a sense of injury and borne onward by his impetuous temper, egil was soon in norway again, sought the björn estate, surprised and killed berg-anund, and went so far in his daring as to kill ragnvald, the king's son, who was visiting berg. carried to extremes by his unruly temper he raised what was called a shame-pole, or pole of dishonor, on a cliff top, to the king and queen. on it he thrust the head of a dead horse, crying out: "i turn this dishonor against all the land-spirits of this land, that they may all stray bewildered and none of them find his home until they have driven king erik and queen gunhild out of this land." this message of defiance he cut in runes--the letters of the northland--into the pole, that all might read it, and then sailed back to iceland. egil had not long to wait for his curse to take effect, for erik's reign was soon threatened from a new source. he had not killed all his brothers. in the old days of king harold, when near seventy years old, he had married a new wife, who bore him a son whom he named haakon,--destined in later life to reign with the popular title of haakon the good. this boy, perhaps for his safety, had been sent to england and given over to king athelstan, who brought him up almost as his own son. erik had been four years on the throne when haakon came back to norway, a handsome, noble youth, kind of heart and gentle in disposition, and on all sides hailed with joy, for erik and his evil-minded wife had not won the love of the people. great nobles and many of the people gathered around haakon, men saying that he was like king harold come back again, gentler and nobler than of old and with all his old stately beauty and charm. the next year he was crowned king. erik tried to raise an army, but none of the people were willing to fight for him, and he was forced to flee with his wife and children. only a few of his old friends went with him, but among them was arinbjörn, egil's former friend. sudden had been king erik's fall. lately lord of a kingdom, he had now not a foot of land he could call his own, and he sailed about as a sea-robber, landing and plundering in scotland and england. at length, to rid himself of this stinging hornet of the seas, king athelstan made him lord of a province in northumberland, with the promise that he would fight for it against other vikings like himself. he was also required to be baptized and become a christian. meanwhile egil dwelt in iceland, but in bitter discontent. he roamed about the strand, looking for sails at sea and seeming to care little for his wife and children. men said that gunhild had bewitched him, but more likely it was his own unquiet spirit. at any rate the time came when he could bear a quiet life no longer and he took ship and sailed away to the south. misfortune now went with him. a storm drove his ship ashore on the english coast at the mouth of the humber, the ship being lost but he and his thirty men reaching shore. inquiring in whose land he was, people told him that erik blood-axe ruled that region. egil's case was a desperate one. he was in the domain of his deadly foe, with little hope of escape. with his usual impetuous spirit, he made no attempt to flee, but rode boldly into york, where he found his old friend arinbjörn. with him he went straight to erik, like the reckless fellow he was. "what do you expect from me?" asked erik. "you deserve nothing but death at my hands." "death let it be, then," said the bold viking, in his reckless manner. gunhild on seeing him was eager for his blood. she had hated him so long that she hotly demanded that he should be killed on the spot. erik, less bloodthirsty, gave him his life for one night more, and arinbjörn begged him to spend the night in composing a song in erik's honor, hoping that in this way he might win his life. egil promised to do so and his friend brought him food and drink, bidding him do his best. anxious to know how he was progressing arinbjörn visited him in the night. "how goes the song?" he asked. "not a line of it is ready," answered egil. "a swallow has been sitting in the window all the night, screaming and disturbing me, and do what i would i could not drive it away." at that arinbjörn darted into the hall, where he saw in the dim light a woman running hastily away. going back he found that the swallow had flown. he was sure now that queen gunhild had changed herself into a swallow by sorcery, and for the remainder of the night he kept watch outside that the bird should not return. when morning broke he found that egil had finished his song. determined to save his friend's life if he could, he armed himself and his men and went with egil to the palace of the king, where he asked erik for egil's life as a reward for his devotion to him when others had deserted him. erik made no reply, and then arinbjörn cried out: "this i will say. egil shall not die while i or one of my men remain alive." "egil has well deserved death," replied erik, "but i cannot buy his death at that price." as he stopped speaking egil began to sing, chanting his ode in tones that rang loudly through the hall. famed as a poet, his death song was one of the best he had ever composed, and it praised erik's valor in all the full, wild strains of the northern verse. erik heard the song through with unmoved face. when it was done he said: "your song is a noble one, and your friend's demand for your life is nobler still. nor can i be the dastard to kill a man who puts himself of his own will into my hands. you shall depart unharmed. but do not think that i or my sons forgive you, and from the moment you leave this hall never come again under my eyes or the eyes of my sons." egil thus won his life by his song, which became known as the "ransom of the head." another of his songs, called "the loss of the son," is held to be the most beautiful in all the literature of iceland. he afterwards lived long and had many more adventures, and in the end died in his bed in iceland when he was over ninety years of age. erik died in battle many years earlier, and gunhild then went to denmark with her sons. she was to make more trouble for norway before she died. _the sea-kings and their daring feats._ from the word _vik_, or bay, comes the word viking, long used to designate the sea-rovers of the northland, the bold norse wanderers who for centuries made their way to the rich lands of the south on plundering raids. beginning by darting out suddenly from hiding places in bays or river mouths to attack passing craft, they in the end became daring scourers of the seas and won for themselves kingdoms and dominions in the settled realms of the south. nothing was known of them in the early days. the people of southern europe in the first christian centuries hardly knew of the existence of the race of fair-skinned and light-haired barbarians who dwelt in the great peninsula of the north. it was not until near the year b.c. that these bold brigands learned that riches awaited those who dared seize it on the shores of france, england, and more southern lands. then they came in fleets and spread terror wherever they appeared. for several centuries the realms of civilization trembled before their very name. "from the fury of the northmen, good lord deliver us!" prayed the priests, and the people joined fervently in the prayer. long before this period the sea was the favorite hunting ground of the daring sons of the north, but the small chiefs of that period preyed upon each other, harrying their neighbors and letting distant lands alone. but as the power of the chiefs, and their ability to protect themselves increased, this mode of gaining wealth and fame lost its ease and attraction and the rovers began to rove farther afield. sea-kings they called themselves. on land the ruler of a province might be called either earl or king, but the earl who went abroad with his followers on warlike excursions was content with no less name than king, and the chiefs who set out on plundering cruises became from the first known as sea-kings. pirates and freebooters we would call them to-day, but they were held in high distinction in their native land, and some of the most cruel of them, on their return home, became men of influence, with all the morality and sense of honor known in those early days. their lives of ravage and outrage won them esteem at home and the daring and successful sea-king ranked in fame with the noblest of the home-staying chiefs. we have seen how king erik began his career as a viking and ended it in the same pursuit; how rollo, a king's son, adopted the same profession; and from this it may be seen that the term was one of honor instead of disgrace. from all the lands of the north they came, these dreaded sons of the sea, from norway, sweden, and denmark alike, fierce heathens they who cared nought for church or priest, but liked best to rob chapels and monasteries, for there the greatest stores of gold and silver could be found. when the churches were plundered they often left them in flames, as they also did the strong cities they captured and sacked. the small, light boats with which they dared the sea in its wrath were able to go far up the rivers, and wherever these fierce and bloodthirsty rovers appeared wild panic spread far around. so fond were they of sword-thrust and battle that one viking crew would often challenge another for the pure delight of fighting. a torment and scourge they were wherever they appeared. the first we hear in history of the sea-kings is in the year , when a small party of them landed on the english coast. in came another flock of these vultures of the sea, who robbed a church and a monastery, plundering and killing, and being killed in their turn when a storm wrecked their ships and threw them on shore. as a good monk writes of them: "the heathen came from the northern countries to britain like stinging wasps, roamed about like savage wolves, robbing, biting, killing not only horses, sheep, and cattle, but also priests, acolytes, monks, and nuns." the norsemen had found a gold mine in the south and from this time on they worked it with fierce hands. few dared face them, and even in the days of the great charlemagne they ravaged the coast lands of france. once, when the great emperor was in one of his cities on the mediterranean coast, a fleet of the swift viking ships, known by their square sails, entered the harbor. soon word was brought that they had landed and were plundering. who they were the people knew not, some saying that they were jews, others africans, and others that they were british merchants. "no merchants they," said the emperor. "those ships do not bring us goods, but fierce foes, bloody fighters from the north." the warriors around him at once seized their weapons and hurried to the shore, but the vikings had learned that the great emperor was in the city and, not daring to face him, had sought their ships and spread their sails again. tears came to the eyes of charlemagne as he watched them in their outward flight. he said to those around him: "it is not for fear that these brigands can do me any harm that i weep, but for their daring to show themselves on this coast while i am alive. their coming makes me foresee and fear the harm they may do to my descendants." this story may be one of those legends which the monks were fond of telling, but it serves to show how the dread norsemen were feared. france was one of their chief fields of ravage and slaughter. first coming in single ships, to rob and flee, they soon began to come in fleets and grew daring enough to attack and sack cities. hastings, one of the most renowned of them all, did not hesitate to attack the greatest cities of the south. in this bold freebooter sailed up the loire with a large fleet, took and burned the city of amboise, and laid siege to tours. but here the inhabitants, aided, it is said, by the bones of their patron saint, drove him off. four years later he made an attack on paris, and as fortune followed his flag he grew so daring that he sought to capture the city of rome and force the pope to crown him emperor. for an account of this remarkable adventure of the bold hastings see the article, "the raids of the sea-rovers," in the german volume of "historical tales." in that account are also given the chief exploits of the vikings in france and germany. we shall therefore confine ourselves in the remainder of this article to their operations in other lands, and especially in ireland. this country was a common field for the depredations of the norse rovers. for some reason not very clear to us the early vikings did not trouble england greatly, but for many years they spread terror through the sister isle, and in the year thorgisl, one of their boldest leaders, came with a fleet of one hundred and twenty ships, with which he attacked and captured the city of dublin, and afterwards, as an old author tells us, he conquered all ireland, securing his conquest with stone forts surrounded with deep moats. but the irish at length got rid of their conqueror by a stratagem. it was through love that the sea-king was lost. bewitched with the charms of the fair daughter of maelsechnail, one of the petty kings of the land, he bade this chieftain to send her to him, with fifteen young maidens in her train. he agreed to meet her on an island in loch erne with as many norsemen of high degree. maelsechnail obeyed, but his maidens were beardless young men, dressed like women but armed with sharp daggers. thorgisl and his men, taken by surprise, were attacked and slain. the irish chief had once before asked thorgisl how he should rid himself of some troublesome birds that had invaded the island. "destroy their nests," said the norseman. it was wise advice, and maelsechnail put it in effect against the nests of the conquerors, destroying their stone strongholds, and killing or driving them away, with the aid of his fellow chieftains. thus for a time ireland was freed. it was conquered again by olaf the white, who in defeated some danes who had taken dublin, and then, like thorgisl, began to build castles and tax the people. two other viking leaders won kingdoms in ireland, but olaf was the most powerful of them all, and the kingdom founded by him lasted for three hundred and fifty years. from dublin olaf sailed to scotland and england, the booty he won filling two hundred ships. the sea-rovers did not confine their voyages to settled lands. bold ocean wanderers, fearless of man on shore and tempest on the waves, they visited all the islands of the north and dared the perils of the unknown sea. they rounded the north cape and made their way into the white sea as early as . the faroe, the orkney and the shetland islands were often visited by them after , and in they discovered iceland, which had been reached and settled by irishmen or scots about . the norsemen found here only some irish hermits and monks, and these, disturbed in their peaceful retreat by the turbulent newcomers, made their way back to ireland and left the norsemen lords of the land. from iceland the rovers reached greenland, which was settled in , and about the year they discovered north america, at a place they named vinland. such is, briefly told, the story of the early norse wanderers. they had a later tale, of which we have told part in their conquest of ireland. though at first they came with a few ships, and were content to attack a town or a monastery, they soon grew more daring and their forces larger. a number of them would now fortify themselves on some coast elevation and make it a centre for plundering raids into the surrounding country. at a later date many of them ceased to pose as pirates and took the rôle of invaders and conquerors, storming and taking cities and founding governments in the invaded land. such was the work of thorgisl and olaf in ireland and of rollo in normandy. england was a frequent field of invasion after , which continued until , when king ethelwulf defeated them with great slaughter. fifteen years later they came again, these new invaders being almost all danes. during all his reign alfred the great fought with them, but in spite of his efforts they gained a footing in the island, becoming its masters in the north and east. a century later, in , canute, the king of denmark, completed the conquest and became king of all england. this is not the whole story of the sea-kings, whose daring voyages and raids made up much of the history of those centuries. one of the most important events in viking history took place in , when three brother chiefs, probably from sweden, who had won fame in the baltic sea, were invited by the russian tribes south of lake ladoga to come and rule over them. they did so, making novgorod their capital. from this grew the empire of russia, which was ruled over by the descendants of rurik, the principal of these chiefs, until . other vikings made their way southward through russia and, sailing down the dnieper, put constantinople in peril. only a storm which scattered their fleet saved the great city from capture. three times later they appeared before constantinople, twice (in and ) being bought off by the emperors with large sums of money. later on the emperors had a picked body-guard of varangians, as they called the northmen, and kept these till the fall of the city in . it was deemed a great honor in the north to serve in this choice cohort at myklegaard (great city), and those who returned from there doubtless carried many of the elements of civilization to the scandinavian shores. to some of these varangians was due the conquest of sicily by the northmen. they were in the army sent from constantinople to conquer that island, and seeing how goodly a land it was they aided in its final conquest, which was made by robert guiscard, a noble of normandy, whose son roger took the title of "king of sicily and italy." thus it was that the viking voyages led within a few centuries to the founding of kingdoms under norse rulers in england, ireland, sicily, russia, and normandy in france. _haakon the good and the sons of gunhild._ we have told how king haakon succeeded his brother, erik blood-axe, on the throne, and how, from his kindly and gentle nature, people called him haakon the good. there were other sons and several grandsons of harold the fair-haired in the kingdom, but the new king treated them with friendliness and let them rule as minor kings under him. he dealt with the peasants also in the same kindly spirit, giving them back their lands and relieving them of the tax which harold had laid. but he taxed them all in another way, dividing the country into marine districts, each of which was required to supply the king, on his demand, with a fully equipped warship. yet as this was for the defence of the country, the people did not look on it as oppressive. and as norway had a long mountainous coast, and important events were often long in becoming known, he gave orders that the approach of an enemy should be made known by signal fires lighted all along the coast. haakon made other wise laws, in which he took the advice of the ablest men of the kingdom. but now we have to speak of the most striking event in the new king's career. norway at that time was a haunt of idolatry. men worshipped odin and a host of other gods, and there was not a christian in the whole land except the king himself, who had been brought up in the new faith by his foster-father, king athelstan of england. an earnest christian, he looked with sorrow on the rude worship and heathen belief of his people, but not until he had been many years on the throne did he venture to interfere with it. then, about , when he had won the love of them all, he took steps to carry out his long-cherished desire. sending to england for a bishop and a number of priests, the king issued a decree in which the people were forbidden to make sacrifices to the old gods and ordered to accept the christian faith. this came like a thunderbolt to the worshippers of the old gods. to bid a whole nation to give up at a word the religion which they had cherished from childhood and which their fathers had held for generations before them was too much to demand. the king brought together a concourse of the people and spoke to them of his wish and purpose, but they had no answer to make except that the matter must be settled by their legal assembly. when the _thing_, or assembly, was called into session, a great body of the people were present, for never had so important a question been laid before them. earnest and imploring was the speech made by the king, in which he warmly asked them to accept the god of the christians and give up their heathen idols of wood and stone. these words were followed by an angry murmur from the multitude, and many dark looks were bent upon the rash monarch. then a peasant leader, aasbjörn of medalhus, stepped out from the throng and spoke: "when you, king haakon, first called us here before you and we took you for our king, it was with deep gladness, as if heaven had opened to us. but was it liberty we gained, or do you wish to make thralls of us once more, that you ask us to give up the faith of our fathers and forefathers for the new and unknown one you offer? sturdy men they were, and their faith did well for them and has done well for us. we have learned to love you well and have always kept and will always keep the laws made by you and accepted by us. but in this thing which you now demand we cannot follow. if you are so resolved upon it that your mind cannot be changed, then we shall be forced to part from you and choose a new chief who will support us in worshipping our fathers' gods. choose, o king, what you will do, before this assembly has dispersed." so loud were the shouts of approval with which this speech was greeted that not a word could be heard. then, when quiet reigned again, earl sigurd, who had spoken aside with haakon, rose and said that the king had no wish to lose their friendship and would yield to their wishes. this was not enough to overcome the distrust of the peasants. they next demanded that he should take part in the sacrifices to be given and in the feast to follow. this he felt obliged to do, though he quieted his conscience by making the sign of the cross. when the next yuletide sacrifice came haakon was required to eat horse-flesh at the feast and this time was forbidden to make the sign of the cross when he drank the usual toasts to the ancient gods of norway. this was a humiliation that cut the proud monarch deeply and it was with an angry soul he left, saying to his attendants that when he came back it would be with an army to punish those who had thus insulted his faith. back he did not come, for new troubles were gathering around him. to learn the source of these troubles we must return to the story of erik blood-axe and gunhild, his wicked wife. after erik's death that mischief-loving woman sought denmark with her sons, who grew up to become brave warriors and daring viking rovers, infesting the coast of norway and giving its king and earls all the trouble they could. at length, backed by harold bluetooth, the king of denmark, their piratical raids changed to open war, and they invaded norway, hoping to win their father's old kingdom for themselves. a crisis came in . in that year the sons of erik appeared so suddenly with a large fleet that they took king haakon by surprise. he had with him only a small force, the signal fires had not been lighted, and the enemy were close at hand before he could prepare to meet them. "what shall we do?" he asked his men. "shall we stay and fight, or draw back and gather men?" the answer came from an old peasant, egil woolsack: "often have i fought, king haakon, with king harold, your father. whether the foe was stronger or weaker the victory was always his. never did he ask his friends if he should run; nor need you, for we are ready to fight and think that we have a brave chieftain for our leader." "you speak well and wisely, egil," said the king. "it is not my wish to run, and with your aid i am ready to face the foe." "good words those!" cried egil joyously. "it has been so long since i saw the flash of sword that i feared i would die in my bed of old age, though it has been my hope to fall in battle at my chieftain's back. now will my wish be gained." to land came the sons of erik, having six men to haakon's one. seeing how great were the odds, old egil tried strategy, leading ten standard-bearers to a hidden spot in the rear of the hostile army and leaving them there in ambush. when the armies had met and the fighting was under way, he led these men up a sloping hill until the tops of their standards could be seen above its summit. he had placed them far apart, so that when the danes saw the waving banners it looked like a long line of new troops coming upon them. with sudden alarm and a cry of terror they fled towards their ships. gamle, their leader, was quick to discover the stratagem, and called on them to stop, that it was all a trick; but nothing could check their panic flight, and he was swept along with them to the beach. here a stand was made, but haakon rushed upon them in a furious attack in which old egil had his wish, for he fell in the storm of sword blows, winning the death he craved. victory rested on the king's banners and his foes fled to their ships, gamle, their leader, being drowned in the flight. for six years after this the land lay at peace. king haakon continued a christian and many of his friends joined him in the new faith. but he was too wise and gentle to attempt again to force his belief upon his people and the worship of the heathen gods went on. all the people, nobles and peasants alike, loved their king dearly and he would have ended his reign in a peaceful old age but for his foes without the kingdom. this is the way in which the end came. in the summer of the year , when haakon had been twenty-six years on the throne, he with many guests was at feast in the royal mansion of fitje, in hördaland. while at table a sentinel brought in the alarming news that a large fleet of ships was sailing up the fiord. by the king's side sat eyvnid, his nephew, who was a famous scald, or bard. they rose and looked out on the fiord. "what ships are they, of friends or of foes?" asked the king. the scald replied in a verse, in which he sang that the sons of erik were coming again. "once more they take us unawares," said haakon to his men. "they are many and we are few. never yet have we faced such odds. the danger lies before you. are you ready to meet it? i am loath to flee before any force, but i leave it to the wise among you to decide." eyvnid sang another verse, to the effect that it would be ill counsel to advise a man like king haakon to flee from the sons of gunhild the sorceress. "that is a man's song," cried the king, "and what you say is what i wish." all around him the warriors shouted their war-cry, and while they ran for their weapons he put on his armor, seized his sword and shield, and placed on his head a golden helmet that shone brightly in the sun. never had he looked more like a born king, with his noble and inspired countenance and the bright hair streaming down from under his helmet. the battle that followed was fierce and bloody. harold, gunhild's third son, commanded the invaders, who far outnumbered haakon's small force. and now there was no egil to defeat the foe by stratagem, but the battle was hand to hand and face to face, with stroke of sword and thrust of spear, the war-shout of the fighters and the death-wail of the fallen. king haakon that day showed himself a true and heroic warrior. as the battle grew fiercer his spirit rose higher, and when eyvnid the scald greeted him with a warlike verse, he answered with another. but the midsummer heat growing hard to bear, he flung off his armor and fought with only his strong right arm for shield. the arrows had now been all shot, the spears all hurled, and the ranks met hand to hand and sword to sword, in desperate affray. in the front rank stood the king, his golden helmet making him a shining mark for the warriors of the foe. "your helmet makes you a target for the danish spears," cried eyvnid, and he drew a hood over it to hide its gleam. skreyja, harold's uncle, who was storming onward towards the king, now lost sight of him and cried out: "where is the norse king? has he drawn back in fear? is he of the golden helmet a craven?" "keep on as you are coming, if you wish to meet the norsemen's king," shouted haakon, throwing down his shield and grasping his sword with both hands, as he sprang out before them all. skreyja bounded towards him and struck a furious blow, but it was turned aside by a norse warrior and at the same instant haakon's sword cleft the foeman's head down to the shoulders. this kingly stroke gave new spirit to the norsemen and they rushed with double fury upon the foe, whom the fall of their best warrior filled with fear. back to the beach they were pressed, many being slain, many drowned, a few only, harold among them, reaching the ships by swimming. the norsemen had won against fearful odds, but their king was in deadly peril. in the pursuit he had been struck in the right arm by an arrow with an oddly-shaped head, and do what they would, the flow of blood could not be stopped. it was afterwards said that gunhild the sorceress had bewitched the arrow and sent it with orders to use it only against king haakon. in those days it was easy to have men believe tales like that, but, witchcraft or not, the blood still ran and the king grew weaker. as night came death seemed at hand and one of his friends offered to take his body to england, after his death, that he might be laid in christian soil. "not so," said haakon. "heathen are my people and i have lived among them like a heathen. see then that i am laid in the grave like a heathen." thus he died, and he was buried as he wished, while all men mourned his death, even his foes; for before breathing his last he bade his men to send a ship after the sons of gunhild; asking them to come back and rule the kingdom. he had no sons, he said, and his daughter could not take the throne. thus death claimed the noblest of the norsemen, at once heathen and christian, but in his life and deeds as in his death a great and good man. _earl haakon and the jomsvikings._ chief among the nobles of haakon the good, of norway, was earl sigurd of hlade; and first among those who followed him was earl haakon, sigurd's son. after the death of haakon the good, the sons of gunhild became the masters of norway, where they ruled like tyrants, murdering sigurd, whom they most feared. this made the young earl haakon their bitter foe. a young man then, of twenty-five, handsome, able in mind and body, kindly in disposition, and a daring warrior, he was just the man to contend with the tyrant murderers. when he was born haakon the good had poured water on his head and named him after himself and he was destined to live to the level of the honor thus given him. it is not our purpose to tell how, with the aid of the king of denmark, he drove the sons of gunhild from the realm, and how, as the sagas tell, the wicked old queen was enticed to denmark by the king, under promise of marriage, and by his orders was drowned in a swamp. her powers of sorcery did not avail her then, if this story is true. haakon ruled norway as a vassal of harald bluetooth, king of denmark, to whom he agreed to pay tribute. he also consented to be baptized as a christian and to introduce the christian faith into norway. but a heathen at heart and a norseman in spirit, he did not intend to keep this promise. after a meeting with the danish king in which his baptism took place, he sailed for his native land with his ship well laden with priests. but the heathen in him now broke out. with bold disdain of king harald, he put the priests on shore, and sought to counteract the effect of his baptism by a great feast to the old gods, praying for their favor and their aid in the war that was sure to follow. he looked for an omen, and it came in the shape of two ravens, which followed his ships with loud clucking cries. these were the birds sacred to odin and he hailed their coming with delight. the great deity of the norsemen seemed to promise him favor and success. turning against the king to whom he had promised to act as a vassal, he savagely ravaged the danish coast lands. then he landed on the shores of sweden, burnt his ships, and left a track of fire and blood as he marched through that land. even viken, a province of norway, was devastated by him, on the plea of its being under a danish ruler. then, having done his utmost to show defiance to denmark and its king, he marched northward to drontheim, where he ruled like a king, though still styling himself earl haakon. harald bluetooth was not the man to be defied with impunity, and though he was too old to take the field himself, he sought means to punish his defiant vassal. men were to be had ready and able to fight, if the prize offered them was worth the risk, and men of this kind harald knew where to seek. [illustration: from stereograph, copyright by underwood and underwood, n.y. busy farmers in a hillside field, above are. sweden.] in the town of jomsborg, on the island of wollin, near the mouth of the oder, dwelt a daring band of piratical warriors known as the jomsvikings, who were famed for their indomitable courage. war was their trade, rapine their means of livelihood, and they were sworn to obey the orders of their chief, to aid each other to the utmost, to bear pain unflinchingly, dare the extremity of danger, and face death like heroes. they kept all women out of their community, lest their devotion to war might be weakened, and stood ready to sell their swords to the highest bidder. to this band of plunderers harald appealed and found them ready for the task. their chief, earl sigvalde, brought together a great host of warriors at a funeral feast to his father, and there, while ale and mead flowed abundantly, he vowed, flagon in hand, that he would drive earl haakon from the norse realm or perish in the attempt. his viking followers joined him in the vow. the strong liquor was in their veins and there was no enterprise they were not ready to undertake. when their sober senses returned with the next morning, they measured better the weight of the enterprise; but they had sworn to it and were not the men to retreat from a vow they had taken. erik, an unruly son of earl haakon, had fled from his father's court in disgrace and was now in viken, and here the rumor of the vikings' oath reached his ears. at once, forgetting his quarrel with his father, he hastened north with all the men he could gather to earl haakon's aid, preceding the jomsvikings, who were sailing slowly up the shores of norway, plundering as they went in their usual fashion. they had a fleet of sixty ships and a force of over seven thousand well-trained warriors. haakon, warned by his son, met them with three times their number of ships, though these were smaller and lighter craft. on board were about ten thousand men. such were the forces that met in what the sagas call the greatest battle that had ever been fought in norway. soon the embattled ships met and the conflict grew fast and furious, hurtling weapons filling the air and men falling on all sides. great was the carnage and blood flowed in streams on the fighting ships. earl haakon stood in the prow of his ship in the heat of the fight, arrows and spears whirling around him in such numbers that his shirt of mail became so torn and rent that he threw it off as useless. the high ships of the vikings gave them an advantage which told heavily against their antagonists, spears and arrows being poured down from their sides. in the height of the battle earl haakon disappeared. as the legends tell he went ashore with his youngest son erling, whom he sacrificed to the heathen gods to win their aid in the battle. hardly had he done this deed of blood when a dense black cloud arose and a violent hail-storm broke over the ships, the hail-stones weighing each two ounces and beating so fiercely in the faces of the jomsvikings as nearly to blind them. some say that the valkyries, the daughters of odin, were seen in the prow of the earl's ship, filling the air with their death-dealing arrows. despite the storm and the supernatural terrors that they conjured up, the jomsvikings continued to fight, though their decks were slippery with blood and melting hail. only one coward appeared among them, their chief earl sigvalde, who suddenly turned his ship and fled. when vagn aakesson, the most daring of the jomsvikings, saw this recreant act he was frantic with rage. "you ill-born hound," he cried, "why do you fly and leave your men in the lurch? shame on you, and may shame cling to you to your death!" a spear hurtled from his hand and pierced the man at the helm, where sigvalde had stood a moment before. but the ship of the dastard earl kept on and a general panic succeeded, all the ships in the fleeing earl's line following his standard. only vagn aakesson and bue the big were left to keep up the fight. yet they kept it up in a way to win them fame. when earl haakon's ship drew up beside that of bue, two of the viking champions, haavard the hewer and aslak rock-skull, leaped on deck and made terrible havoc. in the end an icelander picked up an anvil that was used to sharpen their spears and hurled it at aslak, splitting his skull, while haavard had both legs cut off. yet the indomitable viking fought on, standing on his knees. the onset of the jomsvikings was so terrific in this last fierce fight that the earl's men gave back, and might have been all slain had not his son erik boarded bue's ship at this crisis and made an irresistible charge. a terrible cut across the face severed bue's nose. "now," he cried, "the danish maidens will kiss me no more." seeing that all was at an end, he seized two chests of gold to prevent their capture by the victors, and sprang with them into the sea, shouting: "overboard all bue's men!" on vagn's ship a similar fierce fight was taking place, ending only when all but thirty of the vikings were slain. then a savage scene was enacted, one worthy only of those barbarous times. the captives were taken ashore and seated on a long log, their feet bound, their hands free. at the funeral feast in sigvalde's hall vagn had boasted that he would kill thorkill laiva, one of erik's chief warriors, and this threatened man was now chosen as executioner. at the captives he rushed, with uplifted axe, and savagely struck off their heads, one after another. vagn was to be left to the last, that he might suffer from fear, but instead of this he sat joking and laughing with his men. one of them sang and laughed so loudly that erik asked him if he would like to live. "that depends on who it is that asks me." "he who offers has the power to grant. i am earl erik." "then i gladly accept." another made a pun which so pleased the earl that he, too, was set free. one of the captives had long, beautiful hair, and as thorkill came near him on his bloody errand he twisted his hair into a coil and asked the executioner not to soil it with his blood. to humor him thorkill asked one of the bystanders to hold the coil while he struck. the man did so, but as the axe came down the captive jerked his head aside so that the axe fell on the wrists of the coil-holder, both his hands being cut off. "some of the jomsvikings are still alive," laughed the captive. "who are you?" asked erik. "i am said to be a son of bue." "do you wish to live?" "what other choice have i?" at erik's command he, too, was released. angry at being thus robbed of his prey, thorkill now sprang towards vagn, determined that at least his special enemy should fall. as he came near, however, one of the men on the log threw himself forward in such a way that thorkill stumbled over him and dropped his axe. in an instant vagn was on his feet, seized the axe, and dealt thorkill a deadly blow. his boast was kept; thorkill had fallen by his hand. erik saw the bold feat with such admiration that he ordered vagn to be freed, and the prisoners who remained alive were also set free at his order. while this was going on earl haakon sat apart conversing with his chieftains. as they did so they heard a bow-string twang, and before a hand could be raised a keen-pointed arrow pierced the body of gissur the white, one of the chiefs, and he fell over dead. the arrow had come from the ship of bue the big, and thither men ran in haste. what they saw was haavard the hewer, still standing on his knees, though his blood flowed freely. "tell me," he cried, "did any one fall at the tree yonder?" "yes; gissur the white." "then luck failed me, for that arrow was aimed for earl haakon." and he fell over on the deck, with death at his heart-strings. the viking had sent a herald on before, to announce his coming at odin's court. it was haakon who had ordered the murder of the captives, and erik his son who gave life to so many of them. the time was near at hand when the earl was to meet the bloody fate which he had dealt out to others. though erik had done so much to help him in the battle, he was furious with his son for sparing the life of vagn aakesson. as a result they parted in anger, erik going south again. here vagn joined him and from that day forward the two were warm friends and comrades. but haakon fell into ways of vice as he grew older, and at length he did a deed that led him to a shameful death. he had his men bring by force to his palace the wife of a rich peasant, and sent them for another, who was famed for her beauty. orm, her husband, refused to let her go and sent news of the outrage to all the peasants in the valley. from farm to farm flew the tidings, and the peasants, furious at the shameful deeds of the earl, seized their arms and gathered in a great band, which marched upon him at medalhus. earl haakon was taken by surprise. he had not dreamed of a revolt and only a few men were with him. these he dismissed and fled for safety, only one man, his old servant kark, going with him. reaching the gaul river in his flight, he rode his horse into a deep hole and left his cloak on the ice, so that his pursuers, finding the dead horse and the cloak, might think he was drowned. from there he sought the nearby home of thora of rimul, a faithful woman friend, told her of the hot pursuit and begged her to hide him from his furious enemies. the only hiding place she could provide was a deep ditch under her pig-sty, and in this filthy hole the great earl was hidden, with food, candles, and bedding. then boards were laid over the ditch and covered with earth and upon this the pigs were driven. to rimul the peasants soon came, filled with fury, and with them came a man of note who had just landed and was seeking to win the throne. this was olaf, a great-grandson of harold the fair-haired, whose claim to the crown of norway was far better than that of haakon. thinking that thora had hidden the fleeing earl the pursuers searched the whole place. the fugitive not being found, olaf stood on a large stone near the pig-sty and called the peasants around him, loudly announcing that any man who should find and slay earl haakon would be given a large reward. his words were plainly heard in the damp and unpleasant underground den where haakon sat shivering. he looked at kark, the thrall, whose face showed that he, too, had heard the promise of reward. "what ails you?" asked the earl. "your face changes from pale to dark and gloomy. do you propose to betray me?" "no," said kark. "we were born on the same night, and if one of us dies the other will soon follow," said the earl warningly. for a long time they sat, listening to the sounds above. at length all grew still and they felt that the night had come. kark fell asleep, but the earl sat awake, watching him in deep distrust. the slumbering thrall tossed about as if in pain and the earl wakened him, asking of what he had dreamt. "i dreamed that you and i were on shipboard and that i was at the helm." "that means that you rule over both our lives. therefore, kark, you must be true and faithful to me, as duty bids you. better days will soon come to us both and then you shall be richly rewarded." again the thrall fell asleep and again he seemed to dream. the earl woke him again. "of what did you dream?" he asked. "i dreamed that i was at hlade and that olaf tryggvesson put a golden ring around my neck." "that means," said the earl, "that if you seek olaf he will put a red ring [a ring of blood] around your neck. beware of him, kark, and trust in me. be faithful to me and you will find in me a faithful friend." the night dragged slowly on. the earl dared not let himself sleep, but sat staring at kark, who stared back at him. when morning was near at hand weariness lay so heavily on the earl that he could no longer keep awake. but his sleep was sorely disturbed by the terrors of that dreadful night. he tossed about and screamed out in distress and at length rose on his knees with the horrors of nightmare in his face. then kark, who had all night been meditating treachery, killed him with a thrust of his knife. cutting off his head, he broke out of the dark den and sought olaf, with the grisly trophy in his hand. olaf heard his story with lowering face. it was not to traitors like this that he had offered reward. in the end, burning with indignation at the base deed, he ordered the thrall's head to be struck off. thus kark's dream, as interpreted by haakon, came true. the ring put by olaf around his neck was not one of gold, but one of blood. _how olaf, the slave-boy, won the throne._ many sons had harold the fair-haired, and of some of them the story has been told. one of them, olaf by name, left a son named tryggve, who in turn had a son to whom he gave his father's name of olaf. wonderful was the story of this olaf in his youth and renowned was it in his age, for he it was who drove the heathen gods from norway and put christ in their place. but it is the strange and striking adventures of his earlier days with which this tale has to deal. prince tryggve had his enemies and by them was foully murdered. then they sought his dwelling, proposing to destroy his whole race. but aastrid, his wife, was warned in time, and fled from her home with thorold, her foster-father. she hid on a little island in the rand fiord, and here was born the son who was afterwards to become one of norway's most famous kings. the perils of aastrid were not yet at an end. gunhild, the sorceress queen, was her chief enemy, and when her spies brought her word that aastrid had borne a son, the wicked old woman sought to destroy the child. the summer through aastrid remained on the little isle, hiding in the weedy bushes by day and venturing abroad only at night. everywhere gunhild's spies sought her, and when autumn came with its long nights, she left the isle and journeyed with her attendants through the land, still hiding by day and travelling only under the shades of night. in this way she reached the estate of her father, erik ofrestad. the poor mother was not left in peace here, the evil-minded sorceress still pursuing her. a body of murderers was sent to seek for her and her son on her father's estate, but ofrestad heard of their mission in time to send the fugitives away. dressed as beggars, aastrid and her child and thorolf, her foster-father, travelled on foot from the farm, stopping at evening to beg food and shelter from a peasant named björn. the surly fellow drove them away, but they were given shelter farther on by a peasant named thorstein. meanwhile the murderers were hot on their track. not finding aastrid at her father's house, they traced her to björn's farm, where they were told that a handsome but poorly dressed woman, carrying a young child, had asked for help that evening. it chanced that a servant of thorstein overheard this and when he reached home he told it to his master. suspecting the rank and peril of his guests, thorstein roused them from sleep with a great show of anger and drove them out into the night. this was done to deceive the servants, but thorstein followed the weary fugitives and told them the reason of his act. he had driven them out to save them, he said, and he gave them a trusty guide who could show them the best hiding places in the forest. they found shelter for that night amid the tall rushes by the side of a small lake. when the troop of murderers reached thorstein's house he set them astray on the wrong scent and he fed the fugitives in the forest until the murderous gang had given up the search. in the end he aided them to make their way to sweden, where they took refuge with a friend of prince tryggve named haakon the old. still the wicked queen did not let them rest in peace. learning where they were, she sent two embassies to king erik of sweden, demanding the surrender of the mother and child. each time erik gave them permission to capture the fugitives if they could, saying that he would not interfere. but haakon the old was not the man to surrender his guests. in vain gunhild's ambassador came to him with promises and threats. the dispute at length grew so hot that a half-witted servant seized a dung-fork and rushed at the ambassador, who took to his heels, fearing to have his fine clothes soiled. the angry thrall pursued him till he was driven off the estate, haakon looking on with grim mirth. such were the early days of little olaf, whose life began in a series of adventures which were the prologue to a most stirring and active life. few men have had a more adventurous career than he, his whole life being one of romance, activity and peril. he became a leading hero of the saga writers, who have left us many striking stories of his young life and adventures. aastrid and her son remained with haakon the old until earl haakon came into power in norway. as he was not of royal blood, she feared that he might seek to destroy all the descendants of old king harold, and, in doubt if her present protector was strong enough to defend her, she decided to seek refuge in russia, where her brother sigurd had risen to a place of power. with this voyage young olaf's later series of adventures began. the merchant ship in which they set sail was taken by a viking pirate craft, some of the passengers being killed and others sold as slaves. thorolf and his young son thorgills, with the boy olaf, were sold to a viking named klerkon, who killed thorolf because he was too old to bring any price as a slave, but kept the boys, whom he soon traded away in esthonia for a big ram. as for aastrid, she was offered for sale at the slave-market, and here, despite her ragged and miserable plight, she was recognized by a rich merchant named lodin. he offered to pay her ransom if she would become his wife. the poor woman, not knowing what had become of her son, was glad to accept his offer and returned with him to his home in norway. to return to the story of the boy slaves, the man who had bought them for a ram, soon sold them for a coat and cape to a man named reas. the new master put thorgills to hard labor, but took a fancy to olaf and treated him much more kindly, the young prince remaining with him for six years and growing up to be a handsome and sturdy youth. sigurd eriksson, aastrid's brother, and the uncle of olaf, was a man of prominence in esthonia, and one day rode on business of king vladimir through the town in which reas lived. here he saw some boys playing, one of whom attracted him by his manly and handsome face. calling him to his horse's side, he asked his name. "olaf," said the boy. olaf! the name was significant to sigurd, and a few words more taught him that the lad was his lost nephew. seeking reas, he offered him a good price for his two young slaves and took them home with him, bidding olaf not to tell any one else who he was. the boy was now well-grown, active, and strong for his years. walking one day about the town he saw before him the viking klerkon who had killed old thorolf, his foster-father. he had at the moment an axe in his hand and, with no thought but that of revenge on the murderer, he struck him a blow that split his skull and stretched him dead on the ground. the boy was in peril of his life for this impulsive deed. death was its legal penalty, and a crowd quickly gathered who demanded that the boy murderer should be killed. his uncle heard of the act and ran in haste to his rescue, taking him to olga, the queen, and telling her who he was, what he had done, and why he had done it. the queen looked at the beautiful and bright-faced lad and took a great fancy to him at sight. she took him under her protection, and gave him a training in the use of arms and warlike sports, such as beseemed the scion of a royal race. when twelve years of age king vladimir, who esteemed the boy highly, gave him some armed ships and sent him out to try his hand in real war, and for some years he roved abroad as a viking. he also served the king well by conquering for him a rebel province. olaf might have won high rank in russia but for the enemies who envied him and who made the king fear that he would yet find a rival for the throne in the ambitious boy. fearing trouble for her protege, queen olga advised him to leave the kingdom and he sailed for the land of the wends, on the baltic shores, where king burislav received him as a distinguished young warrior. he did not tell who he really was, but went under the name of ole the russian, and as such married the daughter of the king, who fell in love with him for his valor and beauty. many were the valiant deeds he did for king burislav, with whom he stayed until the death of his wife, he being then twenty-one years of age. the young warrior now grew eager for new adventures, and in response to a dream determined to go to greece and become a christian. his dream served the cause of christianity better than this, if the story is true that he sent a missionary bishop to russia who converted both king vladimir and queen olga to the christian faith. [illustration: from stereograph, copyright by underwood and underwood, n.y. a nordfjord bride and groom with guests and parents. brigsdal. norway.] from greece olaf wandered to many countries, including france, denmark, scotland, and northumberland, and his adventures were very numerous. he was twenty-five years of age when he reached england and here he met with an adventure of a new type. the princess gyda, sister of an irish king, was a widow, but was still young and beautiful and had so many suitors that it was hard for her to choose between them. among the most importunate was a warrior named alfvine, a great slayer of men. so many were they and so much did they annoy the fair widow that at last she fixed a day when she would choose a husband from among them, and numbers of them came before her, all in their most splendid attire. it was a championship that attracted many lookers on and among them came olaf with some of his companions. he was plainly dressed, and wore a fur hood and cape. gyda stood forth and looked over her throng of lovers with listless eyes until at length she saw among the spectators the tall stranger with the hood of fur. she walked up to him, lifted the hood, and gazed long into his eyes. what she saw there riveted her fancy. "i do not know you," she said; "but if you will have me for a wife, then you are my choice." olaf must have seen as much in her eyes as she had in his, for he warmly replied: "i know no woman who equals you, and gladly will i accept you." at once their betrothal was published, but alfvine, burning with wrath, challenged the fortunate stranger to mortal combat. fierce and long was the fight, but norse blood and valor conquered and gyda was enraptured with the courage and skill of her spouse. they were duly wedded and olaf spent several years in england and ireland, winning fame there as a doughty champion and growing ever more earnest in the christian faith. in the chronicles of the time we are told much of the doings of the doughty olaf, who won fame as the chieftain of a viking fleet, which in made many descents upon the english coast. in the end he landed in southampton and fixed his winter quarters there, living upon the country. he was finally bought off by king ethelred with £ , , which he divided among his men. he received confirmation in the christian faith the same year, king ethelred being present, and took a solemn vow, which he never broke, that he would never again molest england and her people. olaf's name was no longer concealed and the fame of his deeds reached norway, where they gave no small trouble of mind to earl haakon, who dreaded this young adventurer of royal descent, knowing well how much the people loved king harold and his race. haakon went so far as to try to compass his death, sending his friend thore klakka to dublin, where olaf then was, to kill him if he could, otherwise to entice him to norway when he would himself destroy him. the latter thore did, finding olaf ready for any new adventure, and under thore's treacherous advice he sailed with five ships and landed in hördaland, where haakon's power was the greatest, and thence sailed northward to tröndelag where the earl was and where he hoped to take him by surprise. thore had represented that olaf would find friends in plenty there, and much to his own surprise found that he had told more truth than he knew; for, as told in the last tale, the peasants were then in arms and in pursuit of the recreant earl. they gladly accepted olaf as their leader, on learning who he was, and helped him in the quick and sudden downfall and death of haakon, as already described. all the chiefs and peasants of the district were now summoned to meet in assembly and with one voice they chose olaf tryggvesson, great-grandson of the renowned harold, as their king. all norway confirmed their action and thus easily did the adventurer prince, who had once been a slave-boy, sold for half a fat ram, rise to the throne of norway. _olaf dethrones odin and dies a hero._ earl haakon was the last heathen king of norway. olaf, the new king, was a zealous christian and was determined to introduce the new faith. and this was done not in the mild and gentle way in which haakon the good had attempted it, but with all the fierce fury of the viking spirit. christ the white the northmen called the new deity, but it was rather christ the red in olaf's hands, for, while christian in faith, he was a son of the old gods, odin and thor, in spirit. it is not the christianizing of norway that we have set out to tell, but as this is a matter of great importance some space must be given to it. olaf, high spirited and impetuous, did by storm what he might not have been able to do by milder measures. he had little trouble in the south of norway, where the christian faith had been making its way for years, but in the north the old heathen spirit was strong, sacrifices to the gods were common, and the rude and cruel barbarism which the old doctrines favored everywhere prevailed. here it was that olaf had a strong fortress of heathenism to take by storm. in tröndelag was the temple of hlade, ancient and grand, the stronghold of the norse gods. fierce and impulsive in his zeal, olaf broke into this old temple, destroyed the altar, burned the idols, and carried away the treasure. at once the people were in arms, but the resolute king began to build a christian church where the temple had stood and also a fortress-like residence for himself. in the end the peasants grew so fierce and warlike and were so backed up by a lusty chieftain named ironbeard, that olaf found himself obliged to promise to take part with them in the feast and sacrifices of the coming yuletide. but before this time arrived he appeared again at hlade and he now brought with him a strong fleet and numerous armed warriors. many guests had been invited to meet him, and these were entertained until they were all royally drunk. then the king said to them: "i have promised to sacrifice with you, and am here to keep my word. i propose to make a royal sacrifice, not of thralls and criminals, but of lords and chieftains, for thus we can best do honor to odin." he then selected six of his most powerful opponents and said that he intended to sacrifice them to odin and frey, that the people might have good crops. the dismayed chiefs were instantly seized and were offered the alternative of being sacrificed or baptized. taken by surprise, they were not long in deciding upon the latter, the king making them give hostages for their good faith. soon after came the yuletide and olaf was present with a strong force at möre, where the sacrifices were to be made. the peasants also came in force, all armed, with the burly ironbeard as their leader. they were rude and noisy and it was some time before the king could make himself heard. then he called on them all to accept baptism and acknowledge christ the white in place of their bloodthirsty gods. ironbeard haughtily replied that they were supporters of the old laws and that the king must make the sacrifices as all the kings before him had done. olaf heard him through and said that he was there to keep his promise. then, with many men, he entered the temple, leaving his arms outside as the law required. all he carried was a stout, gold-headed stick. stopping before the statue of the god thor, around which were rings of gold and iron, he raised the stick and gave the idol a blow so fierce and strong that it tumbled in pieces from its pedestal. at the same moment his followers struck down the other idols. the peasants, thunderstruck at the sacrilege, looked for support to ironbeard, but the doughty warrior lay dead. he had shared the fate of the idols he worshipped, being struck down at the same moment with them. what to do the peasants knew not, and when olaf told them they must either be baptized or fight they chose the former as the safest. the province of haalogaland, still farther north, was dealt with in the same arbitrary fashion, those of the chiefs who refused baptism being put to death with torture. and in this fierce and bloody way the dominion of christ the white was established in the land of the vikings. it was but a substitute for the heathen gods that was given them in such a fashion, and years had to pass before they would become true christians. much more might be said about king olaf, his kindliness and winning manners in peace, his love of show and splendor, his prowess in battle and his wonderful skill with weapons. he could use both hands with equal effect in fighting, could handle three spears at once, keeping one always in the air, and when his men were rowing could run from prow to stern of the ship on their oars. but what we have chiefly to tell is the last adventure of the viking king and how death came to him in the heat of the fray. what became of his wife gyda, the irish princess, we are not told, but he had now a new wife, thyra, sister of king sweyn forkbeard of denmark, and it was to this queen he owed his death. she had large estates in wendland and denmark, from which she now received no revenues, and she fretted olaf so by appeals, prayers, and tears to win back for her this property that he had no peace in his palace. the annoyance went on until the hot-tempered king could bear it no longer and he began to prepare for war abroad that he might gain peace at home. word was sent out to the chiefs of the land, bidding them to join the king with the ships required by the laws of the kingdom. among his own ships was one called the short serpent, and he had just finished another of great size and beauty which he named the long serpent. never had so noble a ship been seen in the north. it was feet long and had oars, while it could carry six hundred warriors, none being over sixty or under twenty years of age except the great bowman thambarkskelver, who was but eighteen, yet was so skilful with the bow that he could shoot a blunt arrow through a hanging raw ox-hide. with sixty ships and as many transports olaf sailed south to wendland, where he was well received by his old friend king burislav, whose daughter geira had been his first wife. the wend king royally entertained him and made a just settlement of queen thyra's estates, and olaf prepared to sail homeward again. but dark clouds of war were gathering on his path. sweyn forkbeard of denmark was hostile both to burislav and olaf and the king of sweden was leagued with the danish king. to detain olaf while they gathered their fleets, these kings employed sigvalde, the cowardly chief of the jomsvikings, who had fled from the battle with earl haakon, to visit and lure him into blind confidence. the treacherous viking succeeded. his smooth, soft ways won olaf's heart and the open-minded king put complete trust in him. sigvalde finally, after bringing about much delay by his false arts, engaged to pilot olaf with his own fleet through the dangerous waters of the coast, and even induced him to divide his ships by sending part of them in advance. the traitor meanwhile kept in communication with king sweyn and promised to lure olaf away from his main force and lead him into the snare they were laying for him. chief among the enemies of the norse king was earl erik, the son of earl haakon, whom he was eager to avenge, and king olaf the swede, who was present with a fleet. with sixty or seventy ships of war these foes of norway's king lay hidden behind the little island of svolder, in olaf's track. for a number of days they awaited him with impatience. at last olaf's transports appeared within view of the leaders of the hostile fleet, who were posted at an elevated point on the land. the day was fair, the wind gentle and favorable, and the foremost ships sailed onward, seeing nothing of the foes. when king sweyn saw among them a large and handsome ship he was sure it must be the long serpent, and said: "olaf of norway is afraid to-day, for he carries no dragon-head on his ship." "that is not the king's ship," said earl erik, "but that of erling of sole. i know it by its striped sails. let it pass, for it will be better for us to have erling out of the fray." on, one by one, came the norse ships, sweeping proudly by, and at length sigvalde's eleven ships came in sight. these, signalled from the shore, suddenly turned inward round the island, to the surprise of thorkill dyrdill, captain of the crane, which followed in their wake. seeing this fine ship, sweyn grew eager for the fight and ordered his men on board in spite of erik's warning that the time had not yet arrived. "are you afraid of them?" sneered the dane. "have you lost all desire to avenge your father?" "wait and you will see," retorted erik. "before the sun sets you will find who is most eager for battle, i, or you and your men." when thorkill saw the treacherous act of sigvalde and caught sight of the ambushed fleet, he let fall the sails of the crane and awaited the coming of the king. soon the short serpent came up, its gilded dragon-head shining brightly in the sunlight. not long after the long serpent appeared, its golden prow glittering brilliantly as the sunbeams fell upon it. those who saw it marvelled at its size and beauty and many beheld with dread the glittering array of swords and shields as it came sweeping onward. but the great body of king olaf's ships had gone on without thought of a foeman and were now out of sight. only eleven of them remained, and some of his captains advised him not to fight against such odds. "down with the sails," he cried cheerily. "bind the ships together. never yet have i fled from battle and i will not do so now. god is my shield and i will flee from no foe. he is no king who lets fear put him to flight before his enemies." yet his peril was deadly, as was evident when the fleet of more than sixty ships rowed out from its ambush against olaf's eleven. "who is the leader here before us?" he asked. "that is king sweyn with his danes," said one of the men. "let them come on. danes have never yet beaten norsemen, and they will not to-day. but whose standards are those on the right?" "they are those of olaf of sweden." "the heathen swedes had better have stayed at home to lick their sacrificial bowls. we need not fear these horse-eaters. yonder to the left; whose ships are those?" "they belong to earl erik, the son of earl haakon." "then we may look for hard blows from them. erik and his men are norsemen like ourselves, and he has reason not to love me and mine." while he spoke queen thyra, who was with him, came on deck. when she saw the desperate odds she burst into tears. "do not weep," said olaf. "you have got what was due in wendland; and to-day i will do my best to win your rights from your brother sweyn." king sweyn came first into the fray, but after a stubborn fight was driven off with great carnage. then the swedes swarmed to the rescue, and a second hard battle ensued, in which the norsemen were outnumbered ten to one. yet olaf, with shining helmet and shield and a tunic of scarlet silk over his armor, directed the defence, and gave his men such courage by his fierce valor that the victory would have been his but for earl erik. when erik's great galley, the iron ram, came into the fight and norse met norse, the onset was terrific. greatly outnumbered, worn out with their exertions, and many of them bleeding from wounds, the men in ship after ship were overpowered and these cut adrift, their defenders being slain. at length only the long serpent remained, and against it was driven the iron ram. there was little wind and the damage was not great, and soon the storm of spears and arrows was resumed. einer thambarkskelver, the famous bowman, saw earl erik in the prow of his ship screened by the shields of his men, and soon einer's arrows were hurtling around him. "shoot that tall bowman," said erik to one of his own archers. an arrow sped and hit einer's bow in the middle, breaking it in twain. "what is broke?" asked olaf, hearing the sound. "norway broke then from your hands, my king," said einer. "not so bad as that; take my bow and try what it is worth." einer caught the bow, bent it double, and threw it back. "it is too weak," he said. desperate was now the strait and no escape was possible. olaf sent his spears hurtling on erik's crowded deck, but he saw that his men were scarce able to hold their own. "your swords bite poorly," he said. "have your arms lost their strength?" "no," was the reply, "but our blades are dull and notched." the king ran forward, opened a chest, and flung out armfulls of bright, sharp swords. "here is what will bite deeply," he said. but victory was now hopeless; the earl's men swept back the tired warriors; blood flowed from under the king's armor; all hands were bent against him, for he loomed above his men. kolbjörn, a man who resembled the king, sprang to his side and helped him shrewdly in the fray. still the stern combat went on, still the weapons flew, still men fell groaning, and as the king looked along his deck he saw that only eight men kept their feet besides himself and his companion. all was lost. raising the shield above his head, he leaped over the ship's side. kolbjörn followed and was picked up by the earl's men, who took him to be the king. as for olaf, the hungry sea swallowed his form. legend tells us, indeed, that he was rescued by a ship sent to his aid by aastrid, earl sigvalde's wife, and that he made a pilgrimage to rome and long afterwards lived as a hermit in the holy land. but that is one of the stories based on good wishes rather than sound facts. it was in the year , when king olaf was thirty-six years old, that this famous sea-fight took place. queen thyra felt that she had caused his death and could not be consoled. erik treated her kindly and promised her the honors due to her high estate, but her heart was broken by her loss, and nine days afterwards she died. _olaf the saint and his work for christ._ the story of olaf the saint, the norse king who comes next into our view, illustrates the barbarous character of the heathen people with whom we are dealing. few warriors in those days died in their beds, death coming to them in some more violent form. olaf's grandfather, a son of harold the fair-haired, was killed by his brother, erik blood-axe, and his father was burned alive by a royal widow whom he sought to marry. many wooers came to seek her hand and she got rid of them by setting on fire the hall in which they slept. "i'll teach these little kings the risk of proposing to me," said this viking widow. a proud little fellow was olaf, hot of temper and bearing no opposition. he knew that he was of kingly birth, and despised his step-father sigurd syr, also a descendant of king harold, but caring more for his crops than for the dreams of ambition. once, when olaf was ten years old, sigurd sent him to the stable to saddle and bring out his horse. when he came out he led a big goat, on which he had placed the saddle. "why do you do that?" he was asked. "oh, the goat is good enough for him, for he is as much like a king as a goat is like a war-horse." the boy was only twelve when he began to take part in the cruises of the vikings, and in these quickly showed himself brave and daring. when he grew to a ripe age and found that the rule of norway was divided between two young men, successors of the olaf whose story we have last told, he determined to strike for the throne. the story of how he won the throne is interesting, but must be dealt with here very briefly, as we have rather to do with the story of how he lost it. olaf was fortunate at the start, for he captured a ship on which earl erik, one of these boy kings, was sailing along the coast. a beautiful youth he was, tall and shapely, with silky golden hair which fell in long curls over his shoulders. proud he was too, and answered his captor's questions with manly resolution. "your luck has left you and you are in my power," said olaf; "what shall i do with you?" "that depends on you," answered the fearless young earl. "what will you do if i let you go unharmed?" "what do you wish me to do?" "only this, that you leave your country and renounce your claim of kingship, and that you swear never to make war on me." to this young erik agreed and sailed away to england to join his uncle, canute the dane, who was then king of both denmark and england. with the other young king, earl sweyn, olaf did not find his task so easy, since sweyn fought for his rights in a naval battle in which he had forty-five ships and three thousand men, while olaf had less than half that number of men and ships. olaf won the battle by a shrewd stratagem. he told his men to act at first only on the defensive, holding back their weapons until the enemy had thrown away theirs. on came earl sweyn's fleet, fiercely attacking that of olaf, a cloud of spears and arrows filling the air. as none came back from olaf's men, their opponents fancied they were afraid, and rushed on them eagerly. but by this time their spears and arrows had grown scarce, and when a storm of these came from the opposite side they were taken by surprise and many of them killed. wild with fear, they now sought to escape, and in the end their whole fleet broke and fled, leaving victory to the new king. sweyn fled to sweden, whose king promised him help to regain his kingdom. but he died before his plans were ripe and olaf was left without a rival except the king of sweden, who had won a part of norway in a former battle and now held it. this source of trouble was settled by the swedes themselves, who had no fancy for fighting to help their king's ambition, and forced him to agree to yield his claim and give his daughter ingegerd to olaf for wife. so by a marriage olaf won the remainder of his kingdom and became ruler over all norway; but not by marrying ingegerd, for he chose instead her sister aastrid. there is a pretty story told just here in the sagas, or historical tales of the icelanders. thus it reads: sigurd syr, who had married olaf's mother aasta, died in , and olaf came to her house to help in settling her affairs. she had three boys, guttorm, halfdan, and harold, whom she brought into the hall to introduce to their half-brother, the king. olaf put the two older ones on his knees and made so fierce a face at them that they ran away sadly scared. then he took up little harold and stared at him in the same way. the brave youngster was not so easily frightened as his brothers and stared back at the king. then olaf pulled his hair, but the daring youngster pulled his beard in exchange. "he will do," said olaf, setting him down with a laugh. the next day the king and his mother watched the boys at their play. the older two amused themselves by building barns, in which they put toy cows and sheep; but harold launched mock boats on a pond and watched them drift away. "what do you call them?" asked olaf. "ships of war," said the boy. "good lad," answered the king; "the day will come when you will command real ships." calling the boys to him, he asked guttorm, the oldest, what he most wished for. "land," said the boy. "how much?" "enough to sow as much grain every summer as would cover the headland yonder." ten large farms covered the headland in question. "and what do you most desire?" the king asked halfdan. "enough cows to cover the shores of the headland when they went to the water to drink." "so; one wants land and the other cattle; and what do you want, harold?" "men," said the boy. "how many?" "enough to eat up in a single dinner all brother halfdan's cows." "come, mother," said olaf, laughing; "you have here a chap in training to make himself a king." so it proved, for in later days harold rose to be king of norway. but now we have to tell from what the king gained his title of olaf the saint. it came from his warm endeavors to make norway a christian land. the former king olaf had forced his people to be baptized, but the most of them were heathens at heart still and after his death many began to worship the old gods again. it was the second olaf that made the christian secure in the land, and this still more by his death than by his life. when he was still an infant the former king olaf had baptized him and given him his own name, and the time came when his little namesake took up and finished his work. what most troubled the kings of norway in that age was the power held by the tribal chiefs, who were difficult to control and ready to rebel; and this power came from the fact that they were not only chiefs, but were the priests of the old religion. as priest-kings their people followed them blindly, and no king could be sure of his crown while this system prevailed. olaf, who had been brought up in the new faith, set himself earnestly to spread the true principles of christ's teachings through the land and for years he worked at it earnestly. but he had hard metal to deal with. it is said that one chief, when about to be baptized, turned to the priest and asked him where were his brave forefathers who had died without being baptized. "they are in hell," said the priest. "then hell is the place for me," answered the chief. "i would rather be there with odin and my hard fighting and noble fathers than in heaven with cowardly christians and shaven monks." this was the spirit of the chiefs. a heaven in which there would be no fighting and mead-drinking had no charms for them, and to live forever with the souls of men who had never drawn sword and struck blow was too dreary a prospect for their turbulent tastes. but olaf was ardent in the new faith and persistent in his endeavors, travelling from end to end of the land in his efforts to break up the old idolatry. here is one of the stories told of this missionary work of the king. he was then in nidaros, whose peasantry, called trönders, were said to be celebrating in secret the old pagan festivals and offering sacrifices to odin and frey for bountiful crops. when king olaf came among them they took arms against him, but afterwards agreed to hold a public assembly and deal in that way with the religious question that was troubling the kingdom. on the day they met it was raining hard. when the king asked them to believe in the god of the christians and be baptized, dale guldbrand, their leader, replied: "we know nothing of the being you speak of; a god whom neither you nor any one else can see. now we have a god whom you can see every day, except a rainy day like this. if your god is so powerful, then let him arrange that to-morrow we shall have clouds but no rain." when they met again the next day the weather was what they had asked for, clouds but no rain. bishop sigurd now celebrated mass and preached to the people about the miracles which christ had wrought when on earth. on the third day it was still cloudy. the people had brought with them a great wooden image of the god thor, and their chief spoke as follows: "where is your god now, king olaf? you do not look so bold as you did yesterday, for our god, who rules over all things, is here now and scaring you with his fierce eyes. you scarce dare look at him, but you would be wiser to believe in the god that holds in his hand your destiny." "your god does not frighten me," answered the king. "he is blind and deaf and cannot move from the spot where you have set him without he is carried. he will soon meet his fate. look yonder to the east. there in the flood of light comes our god." [illustration: norwegian peasants.] to the east all eyes were turned, and at that moment the sunlight burst from the clouds and spread over the scene. as it did so a sturdy warrior, at a signal from the king, sprang forwards and struck the idol so fierce a blow with his club that it was shattered to pieces. out from its hollow interior sprang great rats, snakes, and lizards, which had grown fat on the food with which the idol had been fed daily. on seeing these loathsome things squirm from the interior of their god the peasants fled from the spot in a panic of fear, rushing to the river where their boats lay. but king olaf, forecasting this, had sent men to bore holes in the boats so that they would not float. unable to escape, the frightened peasants came back, quite downcast in spirit. "you see what your god is worth," said the king. "has he eaten the bread and meat you fed him, or has it gone to fatten rats and snakes? as for the gold and silver you gave him, there it lies scattered. take up your golden ornaments and hang them no more on worthless logs. now i give you your choice: you shall accept the faith i bring you, or you shall fight for your own. he will win to whom his god gives the victory." the peasants were not prepared to fight, and therefore were obliged to accept baptism. priests were sent to teach them the tenets of the new faith they had accepted, and dale guldbrand signified his honesty by building a church to the christian deity. other provinces were also won over to christ, but there was one great and bold chieftain, erling by name, and a sturdy heathen in his faith, who remained hostile to the king and a war between them became inevitable. while the king and the earl were making busy preparations to fight for their faiths, a warrior king and conqueror stepped in to take advantage for himself of the quarrel. this was king canute, monarch of denmark and england, who was eager to add norway and sweden to his dominions and make himself one of the most powerful of kings. he secretly sent presents to the discontented norse chiefs and took other means to win them to his cause. it was not long before olaf learned of these underhand doings, and he at once made an alliance with king anund of sweden, whose sister he had married, and whom he told that canute would attack him if he should win norway. in his turn, canute sent ambassadors to king anund, with splendid presents, hoping to win him over. two candlesticks of gold were placed before him by the ambassadors. "pretty toys those," said anund, "but not worth enough to break me from my good friend olaf." then they brought forth a golden platter, of artistic finish and adorned with jewels. king anund gazed at it with covetous eyes. "a handsome bit of work," he said; "but i will not sell king olaf for a dish." finally two magnificent rings were offered. king anund laughed when he saw them. "keen and shrewd is king canute," he remarked. "he knows i love golden toys, but he does not know that i love honor better. i have known king olaf since he was a boy; he is my friend and my sister is his queen. i will not forsake him to please your king." on hearing this, king canute laid aside his plots and made a pilgrimage to rome. during his absence his brother-in-law, earl ulf, rebelled against him and allied himself with kings olaf and anund, who sent fleets to his aid. as it proved, king canute was not the man to be caught napping. back from his pilgrimage he travelled in haste and came near to capturing both the kings. they fled with all speed, pursued by him with a more powerful fleet, and went up a little river in southern sweden, which they closed by a dam against their strong foe. canute came soon after and found the harbor deserted and the river closed against him. that night orders were given by the kings to break the dam and the heaped-up water ran down in an immense flood on the danish ships, doing them great damage and drowning many of the people on board. but no attack was made on the disabled fleet, for earl ulf now turned traitor to his allies and joined canute with his ships, making him too strong to attack. this ended the war for the time, canute returning to england. but he had won over many of the norse chiefs by his bribes and the next year came again, sailing north to nidaros, where the assembled chiefs, whom he had gained to his side, proclaimed him king of norway. he appointed earl haakon, grandson of the famous earl haakon of a former tale, regent in his stead, and sailed away again. in this manner olaf lost his kingdom, for with all the powerful chiefs sold to the great king canute and supported by him, little hope remained. he kept up the struggle for a short time, but was soon forced to flee to sweden, whence he made his way to russia and to the court of king jaroslov, who was his brother-in-law, for he had married princess ingegerd of sweden, once affianced to olaf. thus easily had norway been conquered by canute, but it was not long to remain under danish rule at this time. olaf, it is true, never won the throne again, though he made a strong effort to regain it. in russia he grew more and more given to religious thoughts, until he became looked upon as a holy man. this made him open to believe in visions, and when in a dream he saw the former king olaf, who bade him to go back to norway and conquer it or die, he did not hesitate. word had been brought him that earl haakon was dead and norway with no immediate ruler, and against the advice of jaroslov he set out for his late kingdom, leaving his son magnus at the russian court. in sweden the king gave him permission to gather recruits, but now his religious fanaticism stood in the way of his success. he would have none but baptized men in his army, and thus rejected many brave warriors while taking some known to be outlaws and thieves. on reaching norway he showed the same unwisdom. he had but four thousand men under his command, while the army he was soon to meet numbered ten thousand. yet olaf rejected five hundred of his men because they were heathens and, thus weakened, marched to the unequal fray. "forward, christ's men, king's men!" was the battle-cry of olaf's army as it rushed upon the foe. "forward, peasant men!" cried the opposite army, charging under its chiefs. the king's men had the best of it at the opening, but the peasants held their ground stubbornly, and as the battle went on olaf's ranks thinned and wavered. finding the day going against him, he dashed forward with a small band of devoted men. one by one they fell. the standard changed hands again and again as its bearer was struck down. olaf, severely wounded, stood leaning against a rock, when he was cut down by spear and sword. and strangely, at that moment, the sun began to grow blood-red and a dusky hue fell over the field. darker and darker it grew till the sun was blotted out and terror filled the souls of the peasants, who saw in this strange darkness a token of the wrath of olaf's god. but the eclipse came too late to save the king, who lay dead where he had fallen. olaf was gone but tradition built a halo around his name. it was reported that miracles were wrought by his blood and by the touch of his lifeless hand. tales of marvel and magic grew up about him, and he became a wonder-worker for the superstitious people. in time he grew to be the national hero and the national saint, and lives in history as olaf the saint, while his tragic death and his enthusiasm for the cause of christ gave him a strong hold on the people's hearts and aided greatly in making norway truly a christian land. _canute the great, king of six nations._ a famous old king of denmark, known as harald blaatand or bluetooth, had many sons, of whom only one, svend or sweyn, outlived him. while harald was a christian, sweyn was a pagan, having been brought up in the old faith by a noble warrior palnatoke, to whom his father had sent the boy to teach him the use of arms. when the king found that the boy was being made a pagan he tried to withdraw him from palnatoke, but sweyn would not leave his friend, whereupon the crafty king sought to destroy the warrior. we speak of this, for there is a very interesting story connected with it. every one has read of how the austrian governor gessler condemned the swiss peasant william tell to shoot with an arrow an apple from his son's head, but few know that a like story is told of a danish king and warrior four hundred years earlier. this is the story, as told for us by an old historian. one day, while palnatoke was boasting in the king's presence of his skill as an archer, harald told him that, in spite of his boasts, there was one shot he would not dare to try. he replied that there was no shot he was afraid to attempt, and the king then challenged him to shoot an apple from the head of his son. palnatoke obeyed, and the apple fell, pierced by the arrow. this cruel act made palnatoke the bitter foe of king harald, and gathering around him a band of fierce vikings he founded a brotherhood of sea-rovers at jomsborg, and for long years afterwards the jomsborgers, or jomsborg vikings, were a frightful scourge to all christian lands on the baltic sea. in former tales we have told some of their exploits. it is said that sweyn himself, in a later war, killed his father on the battlefield, while palnatoke stood by approving, though in after years the two were bitter foes. all we need say further of these personages is that sweyn invaded england with a powerful force in the time of ethelred the unready and drove this weak king from the island, making himself master of great part of the kingdom. he died at gainsborough, england, in , leaving his son knud, then a boy of fourteen, to complete the conquest. it is this son, known in england as canute the great, and the mightiest of all the danish kings, with whose career we have to deal. england did not fall lightly into canute's hands; he had to win it by force of arms. encouraged by the death of sweyn and the youth of canute, the english recalled ethelred and for a time the danes lost the kingdom which their king sweyn had won. canute did not find a throne awaiting him in denmark. his younger brother harald had been chosen king by the danes and when canute asked him for a share in the government, harald told him that if he wished to be a king he could go back and win england for himself. he would give him a few ships and men, but the throne of denmark he proposed to keep. nothing loth, canute accepted the offer and the next year returned to england with a large and well appointed force, whose work of conquest was rapidly performed. ethelred died and great part of england was surrendered without resistance to the danes. but edmond, ethelred's son, took the field with an army and in three months won three victories over the invaders. a fourth battle was attempted and lost and edmond retreated to the severn, swiftly followed by canute. the two armies here faced each other, with the fate of england in the balance, when a proposal in close accord with the spirit of the times was made. this was to settle the matter by single combat between the kings. both were willing. while edmond had the advantage in strength, canute was his superior in shrewdness. for when the champions met in deadly fray and canute was disarmed by his opponent, the wily dane proposed a parley, and succeeded in persuading edmond to divide the kingdom between them. the agreement was accepted by the armies and the two kings parted as friends--but the death of edmond soon after had in it a suspicious appearance of murder by poison. on the death of edmond, canute called a meeting of the popular assembly of the nation and was acknowledged king of all england. not long afterwards harald of denmark died and the danes chose him, under his home name of knud, as their king also. but he stayed in denmark only long enough to settle the affairs of the church in that realm. he ordered that christianity should be made the religion of the kingdom and the worship of odin should cease; and put english bishops over the danish clergy. he also brought in english workmen to teach the uncivilized danes. thus, dane as canute was, he preferred the religion and conditions of his conquered to those of his native kingdom, feeling that it was superior in all the arts and customs of civilization. a great king was canute, well deserving the title long given him of canute the great. having won england by valor and policy, he held it by justice and clemency. he patronized the poets and minstrels and wrote verses in anglo-saxon himself, which were sung by the people and added greatly to his popularity. of the poems written by him one was long a favorite in england, though only one verse of it now remains. this was preserved by the monks of ely, since they were its theme. thus it runs, in literal translation: "merrily sung the monks within ely when canute king rowed by; row, knights, near the land, and hear we these monks' song." it is said that the verse was suggested to the king when rowing with his chiefs one day in the river nene, near ely minster, by the sweet and solemn music of the monastery choir that floated out to them over the tranquil water. the monks of ely, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of king canute, tell us that he had a strong affection for the fen country and for their church, and gave the following story in that connection. it is at once picturesque and humorous. one year, at the festival of the purification, when king canute proposed to pay his usual visit to ely, the weather was very severe and all the streams and other waters were frozen. the courtiers advised the king to keep the holy festival in some other godly house, which he might reach without danger of drowning under broken ice, but such was his love for the abbot and monks of ely that he would not take this advice. canute proposed to cross the ice by way of soham mere, then an immense body of water, saying that if any one would go before and show him the way he would be the first to follow. the soldiers and courtiers hesitated at this suggestion, and looked at one another with doubt and dread. but standing among the crowd was one brithmar, a churl or serf, who was nicknamed budde, or pudding, from his stoutness. he was a native of the island of ely and doubtless familiar with its waters, and when the courtiers held back he stepped forward and said he would go before and show the way. "go on then, in the name of our lady," said canute, "and i will follow; for if the ice on soham mere can bear a man so large and fat as thou art, it will not break under the weight of a small thin man like me." so the churl went forward, and canute the great followed him, and after the king came the courtiers, one by one, with spaces between; and they all got safely over the frozen mere, with no mishaps other than a few slips and falls on the smooth ice; and canute, as he had proposed, kept the festival of the purification with the monks of ely. as a reward to the fat churl brithmar for his service, he was made a freeman and his little property was also made free. "and so," the chronicle concludes, "brithmar's posterity continued in our days to be freemen and to enjoy their possessions as free by virtue of the grant made by the king to their forefather." there is another and more famous story told of king canute, one showing that his great danish majesty had an abundant share of sound sense. often as this story has been told it will bear retelling. the incident occurred after his pilgrimage to rome in the year ; made, it is said, to obtain pardon for the crimes and bloodshed which paved his way to the english throne. after his return and when his power was at its height, the courtiers wearied him by their fulsome flatteries. disgusted with their extravagant adulations he determined to teach them a lesson. they had spoken of him as a ruler before whom all the powers of nature must bend in obedience, and one day he caused his golden throne to be set on the verge of the sea-shore sands as the tide was rolling in with its resistless might. seating himself on the throne, with his jewelled crown on his head, he thus addressed the ocean: "o thou ocean! know that the land on which i sit is mine and that thou art a part of my dominion; therefore rise not, but obey my commands, and do not presume to wet the edge of my royal robe." he sat as if awaiting the sea to obey his commands, while the courtiers stood by in stupefaction. onward rolled the advancing breakers, each moment coming nearer to his feet, until the spray flew into his face, and finally the waters bathed his knees and wet the skirts of his robe. then, rising and turning to the dismayed flatterers, he sternly said: "confess now how vain and frivolous is the might of an earthly king compared with that great power who rules the elements and says unto the ocean, 'thus far shalt thou go and no farther!'" the monks who tell this story, conclude it by saying that canute thereupon took off his crown and deposited it within the cathedral of winchester, never wearing it again. after his visit to rome, canute ruled with greater mildness and justice than ever before, while his armies kept the turbulent scotch and welsh and the unquiet peoples of the north in order. in the latter part of his reign he could boast that the english, the scotch, the welsh, the danes, the swedes, and the norwegians were his subjects, and he was called in consequence "the king of the six nations," and looked upon throughout europe as the greatest of sovereigns; none of the kings and emperors of that continent being equal in power, wealth and width of dominion to king canute, a descendant of the vikings of denmark. canute spent the most of his life in england, but now and then visited his northern realm, and there are some interesting anecdotes of his life there. though a devout christian and usually a self-controlled man, the wild passions of his viking ancestry would at times break out, and at such times he spared neither friend nor foe and would take counsel from no man, churchman or layman. but when his anger died out his remorse was apt to be great and he would submit to any penance laid upon him by the church. thus when he had killed one of his house servants for some slight offense, he made public confession of his crime and paid the same blood-fine as would have been claimed from a man of lower rank. the most notable instance of these outbursts of uncontrollable anger was that in which he murdered his old friend and brother-in-law ulf, who, after rebelling against him, had saved him from complete defeat by the swedes, by coming to his rescue just as the royal fleet was nearly swamped by the opening of the sluices which held back the waters of the swedish river helge-aae. ulf took canute on board his own ship and brought him in safety to a danish island, while leaving his men to aid those of canute in their escape from the swedes. yet the king bore a grudge against the earl, and this was its cause. at one time ulf ruled over denmark as canute's regent and made himself greatly beloved by the people from his just rule. queen emma, canute's wife, wished to have her little son harthaknud--or hardicanute, as he was afterwards called in england--made king of denmark, but could not persuade her husband king canute to accede to her wishes. she therefore sent letters privately to ulf, saying that the king wished to see the young prince on the throne, but did not wish to do anything the people might not like. ulf, deceived by her story, had the boy crowned king, and thereby won canute's ill-will. the king, however, showed no signs of this, nor of resentment against ulf for his rebellion, but, after his escape from the swedes, asked the earl to go with him to his palace at roeskilde, and on the evening of their arrival offered to play chess with him. during the game canute made a false move so that ulf was able to take one of his knights, and when the king refused to let this move count and wanted his man back again the earl jumped up and said he would not go on with the game. canute, in a burst of anger, cried out: "the coward norwegian ulf jarl is running away." "you and your coward danes would have run away still faster at the helge-aae if i and my norwegians had not saved you from the swedes, who were making ready to beat you all like a pack of craven hounds!" ejaculated the angry earl. those hasty words cost ulf his life. canute, furious at the insult, brooded over it all night, and the next morning, still in a rage, called to one of the guards at the door of his bed-chamber: "go and kill ulf jarl." "my lord king, i dare not," answered the man. "ulf jarl is at prayer before the altar of the church of st. lucius." the king, after a moment's pause, turned to a young man-at-arms who had been in his service since his boyhood and cried angrily: "i command you, olaf, to go to the church and thrust your sword through the jarl's body." olaf obeyed, and ulf was slain while kneeling before the altar rails of st. lucius' church. then, as usual with king canute, his passion cooled and he deeply lamented his crime, showing signs of bitter remorse. in way of expiation he paid to his sister estrid, ulf's widow, a large sum as blood-fine, and gave her two villages which she left at her death to the church in which her husband had been slain. he also brought up ulf's eldest son as one of his own children. the widowed estrid afterwards married robert, duke of normandy, father of william the conqueror, who in became master of england. king canute died in , at thirty-six years of age, and his son harald reigned after him in england for four years, and afterwards his son harthaknud, or hardicanute, for three years, when england again came under an anglo-saxon king--to fall under the power of william of normandy, a conqueror of norwegian descent, twenty-four years later. _magnus the good and harold hardruler._ after the death of king olaf the saint, and after the danes had for some years ruled over norway, olaf's son magnus, who had been left in russia, was brought to norway and proclaimed king. the danes had oppressed the people, and had put over them a woman and her son, and it was this that made the chiefs drive out the tyrants and put young magnus, then a boy of ten years of age, on the throne. a curious thing then took place, one of those strange political somersaults which at times come in the history of nations. for as the danes had lately ruled over norway, now a norseman came to rule over denmark. thus it was that this odd change came about. the great king canute was dead and his son hardicanute had succeeded him on the throne. this new king claimed norway as his and prepared to fight for it. but the chief men in the two countries succeeded in making peace, with the agreement that if either of the kings should die without heirs the other should take his throne. a few years later hardicanute died and magnus was proclaimed king of denmark. thus, in the year , the two kingdoms became united under a norse king, a descendant of harold the fair-haired. magnus, as he grew up, showed an ugly and revengeful temper. very likely some of those around him told the boy that he should avenge his father upon those who had rebelled against and killed him. one of these men was slain by his orders, others fled from the country, and many were made poor by the loss of their cattle. this made the people very angry, and they were ready to fight for just treatment when peace was brought about in another way, the hot-tempered magnus being subdued by the power of song. one of the poets of the land--scalds they were called--made a song called the lay of candor, which he sang before the king. in it he warned him of the evil results of a revengeful spirit and told him of the duties he owed the people who had brought him to norway and made him king. magnus, who had now nearly reached the years of manhood, listened quietly to this song and afterwards sat long in deep thought. it had a wonderful effect on him, for it opened his eyes to the injustice of his course, and from that day he was a new man. all his plans of vengeance fled, he became kind and gentle and so mild and sweet in manner that he grew to be one of the best loved of kings. this may be seen in the name the people gave him, which was that of magnus the good. now we must tell the rest of his story very rapidly. as the heir of hardicanute he claimed to be king of england as well as of norway and denmark, and he might have tried to win the crown of england, then worn by edward the confessor, had he not been kept busy at home. in fact, he had to fight hard to keep the crown of denmark, for sweyn, a nephew of the great canute, claimed it and a fierce war followed. magnus was victorious in this war, and in one great battle, in which ten thousand soldiers were slain, it was his skill and courage that won the field. this display of personal bravery gave him a great name in the north. now we must leave the story of magnus for a time to take up that of another hero of the north. those who have read the tale of olaf the saint will remember his amusing talk with his three little half-brothers, and how while the two elder had an ambition only for land and cows, harold, the youngest, wanted men and ships, and olaf prophesied that the boy would one day be a king. when harold grew up the spirit of the boy was shown in the man. when only fifteen years old he fought in the battle in which king olaf was killed, and received a severe wound. then he became a wanderer, going first to russia and then to constantinople, where he became the captain of the varangians, the body-guard of norsemen kept by the greek emperors. a large, bold, strong, and reckless champion, harold gained a great name in the south. he fought against the saracens and won much treasure; he fought in sicily and captured many cities; he had adventures in love and war and many wonderful stories are told of his exploits. then he came back to russia and married elizabeth, the daughter of king jaroslov, love for whom had sent him abroad to win fame and riches. [illustration: norwegian farm buildings.] not long after this king magnus, as he was sailing one day along the coast of denmark, saw gliding along the most magnificent ship he had ever beheld. he at once sent men aboard to learn to whom the beautiful galley belonged, and they were met by a tall and handsome man, who said that he had been sent by harold sigurdsson, the uncle of king magnus, to learn how the king would receive him. magnus, who was then nineteen years old, sent word that he would gladly welcome his uncle and hoped to find in him a good friend. when they met the tall man proved to be harold himself and magnus was highly pleased with him. he was not so well pleased when harold asked to be made king also, laying claim to half the kingdom. and harold himself was not well pleased when one of the norse chiefs said that if magnus was to share the kingdom with him, he should divide his great treasure with magnus. harold replied hastily and haughtily that he had not dared death and won wealth that he might make his nephew's men rich. the chief answered that he and his friends had not won norway from the danes for the purpose of giving half of it to a stranger, and all the other earls and warriors agreed with him, so that harold found that the apple which he wished to divide was not so easily to be cut. after that there was war and plundering and the cruel deeds that take place when the sword is drawn, and a year or two later harold called an assembly of the people of one district of norway and had himself proclaimed king. magnus, who did not want to fight his father's brother, finally yielded to harold's claim and agreed that they should both be kings; not to divide the realm, but both to rule over the whole country together. thus it was that harold won the prize which he had craved as a young child. every one would say that a compact of this kind could not work well. a gentle, kindly, generous-hearted man like king magnus was ill matched with a haughty, wealth-loving, tyrannical man like harold. no doubt many bitter words passed between them, and the peasants were so incensed by harold's oppression and extortion of money from them that they would have broken into open rebellion only for the love they bore king magnus. the latter was often so incensed that he was tempted to put an end to the double kingship even if he had to remove his troublesome partner by violence. but this was not to be. one day, while out riding, his horse took fright and threw him, his head striking a stump. he was at first stunned, but seemed to recover. soon afterwards he was taken sick with a violent fever and gradually sank, so that it became apparent that he would die. on his death-bed he decided that sweyn, who had fought so hard to win from him the crown of denmark, had a better right to that kingdom than harold, and men were sent to inform him of his succession to the danish throne. but he had barely closed his eyes in death when harold sent other men to intercept these messengers. he proposed to keep denmark for himself. the death of king magnus without an heir left harold the undisputed successor to the throne, as the only living descendant in the male line of harold the fair-haired. yet the people were far from pleased, for he had already shown a disposition to treat them harshly and they feared that a tyrant had succeeded to the throne. by his stern rule he gained several uncomplimentary titles, the english calling him harold the haughty, the germans harold the inflexible, and the northmen harold the hardruler. yet he was able to hold his own over his people, for he was strong and daring, skilled in the art of war, and a man of unusual intellect. he was also a poet and won fame by his verses. he would sit up half the night with the blind scald stuf katson, to hear him recite his stirring songs. but if absolute ruler over norway, harold found denmark slipping away from him. sweyn had in him the blood of the race of canute, and was no weakling to be swept aside at a king's will. magnus had left him the kingdom and he was bent on having it, if his good sword could win and hold it. in this he was supported by the danes, and harold found that the most he could do was to make descents on the danish coast and plunder and murder the innocent people. after this idle kind of warfare had gone on for a number of years and harold found that all he had gained by it was the hatred of the danes, he made an agreement with sweyn to fight it out between them. they were to meet at the mouth of the götha elv and whoever won in the battle was to be the king of denmark. it was a kind of duel for a crown. but sweyn tried to gain his end by stratagem. when harold appeared with his fleet at the appointed place sweyn and his ships were not to be seen. harold waited a while, fuming and fretting, and then sailed south to jutland, where he ravaged the coast, took and burned the city of heidaby, carried away a number of women of high rank, and filled his ships with plunder. then he turned homeward, with so little fear of the danes that he let his ships widely scatter. the winds were adverse, the weather was foggy, and one morning while they lay at anchor by an island shore, the lookout saw a bright flash through the fog. the king was hastily called, and on seeing it cried: "what you see is the flash of the morning sun on the golden dragon-heads of warships. the danish fleet is upon us!" the peril was imminent. it was hopeless to fight with the few ships at command. only flight remained and that was almost as hopeless. the oars were got out in haste, but the ships, soaked and heavy from their long cruise, were hard to move, and as the fog lifted under the sun rays, the danish fleet, several hundred strong, bore down swiftly upon them. the emergency was one that needed all the wit and skill of the king to meet. to distract the enemy harold bade his men nail bright garments and other showy spoil to logs and cast them overboard. as these floated through the danish ships many of them stopped to pick up the alluring prizes. he also was obliged to throw overboard casks of beer and pork to lighten his ships and these also were picked up. yet in spite of all he could do the danes gained on him, and his own ship, which brought up the rear, was in danger of capture. as a last resort the shrewd king had rafts made of boards and barrels and put on these the high-born women he held as captives. these rafts were set afloat one after another, and the pursuers, on seeing these hapless fair ones and hearing their wild appeals for rescue, were obliged to stop and take them up. this final stratagem succeeded and harold escaped, leaving sweyn, who had felt sure of capturing his enemy, furious at his failure. at another time, ten years and more later, harold again fell into peril and again escaped through his fertility in resources. having beaten his rival in a naval battle, he entered the long and narrow lim fiord to plunder the land, fancying that sweyn was in no condition to disturb him. he reckoned too hastily. sweyn, learning where his foe was, gathered what ships he could and took post at hals, the fiord being there so narrow that a few ships could fight with advantage against a much greater number. though caught in a trap harold was not dismayed, but gave orders to sail to the inner end of the fiord. he knew that it ended near the north sea, only a narrow isthmus dividing them. then, with great trouble and labor, he managed to have his ships dragged across the isthmus and launched on the sea waters, and away he sailed in triumph, leaving sweyn awaiting him in vain. finally, with the desire to bring this useless strife to an end, if possible, a new compact was made to meet with their fleets in the götha elv and fight once more for the kingdom of denmark. it was now , thirteen years after the former battle. as before, on reaching the place designated, no danish ship was visible. but it is difficult to credit what we are told, that harold, after a vain wait, made the same error as before, dividing his fleet and sending the greater part of it home. with the remainder, one hundred and eighty ships strong, he sailed along the coast, and suddenly found himself in the presence of the danes, with two ships to his one. this time harold did not flee, but joined battle bravely with his enemy, the contest lasting through a whole night and ending in a complete victory over the danes. it was a great victory, yet it brought harold no advantage, for sweyn did not keep to his compact--if he had made one--to surrender his throne, and the danes hated harold so thoroughly for his cruel raids on their land that they had no idea of submitting to him. two years more passed on, and then harold, finding that the conquest of denmark was hopeless, consented against his will to make peace. in this way sweyn, after many years of battling for his throne, forced his powerful antagonist to give up the contest and promise never to disturb him again. two years after this peace was made, in the year , king harold took part in another adventure which brought his tyranny and his life to an end. it is worth telling for another reason, for it was connected with a great historical event, the conquest of england by william the conqueror. for these two reasons it is very fitting that it should be told. king harold of england, who was soon to fall on the fatal field of hastings, had a brother, earl tostig, who, fired by ambition, set out to conquer that kingdom for himself. he went first to denmark and tried to get king sweyn to join him in the enterprise, but the prudent sweyn told him that he had no desire to follow in the footsteps of his uncle canute, but was quite content to dwell at home and rule his own kingdom. then tostig sought norway, where he found king harold far more ready to listen to him. so in september of that year, harold sailed from norway with the most powerful fleet and army that had ever left its shores. counting what was added in the orkneys and the force under earl tostig, it numbered about three hundred and fifty ships and thirty thousand men. landing in northumberland, a victory was won and the city of york taken. then, leaving about one-third of the army to guard the ships, harold and tostig encamped at stamford bridge, seven miles from york. it was a warm day, there was no reason to fear danger, and the men lounged about without their arms. in this unwary state they found themselves suddenly face to face with a large army, led by the english king harold, who had marched north in furious haste. tostig, finding that they had been taken by surprise, advised a retreat to the ships, but harold was not the man to turn his back to his foe, and decided to stand and fight, ordering the men to arm and prepare for battle. while they were gathering in ranks for the fray, a party of english horsemen rode up and asked if earl tostig was there. "you see him before you," said tostig. "your brother harold sends you greeting and offers you peace and the rule of northumberland. if he cannot gain your friendship for less, he will grant you one-third his kingdom." "last year he had only scorn and disdain to offer me," replied tostig. "but if i should accept his proposal, what has he to offer my ally, the king of norway?" "he will grant him seven feet of english soil; or more if his length of body needs it." "if that is your best offer," said tostig, "ride back and bid harold to begin the battle." harold of norway had heard this brief colloquy, and as the english horsemen rode away asked tostig who was the speaker. "that was my brother, harold himself," answered tostig. "i learn that too late," said harold grimly. the battle that followed was hotly contested. it began with a charge of the english cavalry, which was repulsed, and was followed up fiercely by the norsemen, who fancied the flight of the english to mean a general rout. in this way they broke their ranks, which the king wished to preserve until reinforcements could reach him from the ships. forward rushed the impatient norsemen, king harold throwing himself into their midst and fighting with savage fury. his men seconded him, the english ranks wavered and broke before the fierce onset, and victory seemed within the grasp of the invaders, when an arrow pierced king harold's throat and he fell in a dying state from his horse. his fall checked the onset, and the english king, hearing of his death, offered his brother an armistice. tostig refused this and led his men back to the fray, which was resumed with all its old fury. but tostig, too, was slain, and the king's brother-in-law, who arrived with reinforcements from the ships, met with the same fate. by this time the battlefield was covered with the bodies of the dead, and the norsemen, dispirited by the loss of their leaders, gave way and retreated towards the ships, hotly pursued by their victorious foes. of their great host only a small remnant succeeded in reaching the ships. thus ended the great fight at stamford bridge, and with it the reign and life of harold hardruler, who fell a victim to his ambition and love of strife. for years thereafter the bones of men lay scattered widely over that field, for none stayed to bury the dead, the norsemen fleeing in their ships, while news of the landing of william of normandy called harold hastily to the south--where he fell in the midst of the fighting at hastings as harold of norway had fallen on stamford field. harold's invasion of england was the last great exploit of the vikings of the north, and though ireland was invaded later by a norseland fleet, no foreign foe after the fatal days at stamford and hastings ever landed on england's shores. _sverre, the cook's son, and the birchlegs._ in the year those people in norway who loved a joke must have laughed to their hearts' content, when the tidings reached them that the son of a cook, followed by seventy ragged and half armed men, had set out to win the throne of the kingdom. surely a more extraordinary and laughable enterprise was never undertaken, and the most remarkable thing about it was that it succeeded. a few years of desperate adventures and hard fighting raised the cook's son to the throne, and those who had laughed at his temerity were now glad to hail him as their king. how sverre the adventurer won the crown is a tale full of adventure and amply worth the telling. no common man was sverre and no common woman was his mother gunhild, a cook in the kitchen of king sigurd mouth. not handsome was she, but quick of wit and bright of brain. if the king had had his way the boy would have had a very short life, for he bade the mother to kill her child as soon as it should be born. instead of consenting to this cruel mandate, she fled from the palace to a ship, which took her to the faroe islands, and here her son was born. she was then serving as milkmaid to bishop mathias. the little sverre began his life with an adventure. when he was a few months old a man named unas came from norway to the islands, a smith or comb-maker by profession. but gunhild suspected him of being a spy sent by king sigurd to kill her son, and she hid the boy in a cavern, which is still called sverre's cave. he acted like a spy, for he followed her to the cave, found where she had hidden the child, and threatened to kill it unless she would marry him. gunhild had no love for this dangerous stranger, but she dearly loved her little son, and with much reluctance she consented to marry unas to save the babe's life. such was the first event in the life of the later king sverre. the new-married pair went back to norway, for king sigurd had died, but when the boy was five years old they returned to the faroes, for bishop mathias was now dead, and roe, the brother of unas, had been made bishop in his stead. the little fellow was made to believe that he was the son of unas, and as he grew up bishop roe took a great fancy to him, for he showed himself to be very bright and intelligent. there was no boy in the island his equal, so the good bishop had him educated for the priesthood and when he was old enough had him ordained in the lowest priestly grade. this was much against the wish of gunhild, his mother, who had higher hopes for his future, and when he proudly told her that he was now a priest, and hoped some day to become a bishop, or even a cardinal, she burst into tears. "why do you weep, mother?" he asked in surprise. "i do not know why you should hear of my honor with sorrow." "oh, my son," she cried, "this is but a small honor compared to that to which you were born. i have not told you of the great station that is yours by right, but must now say that you are not the son of my husband unas, but of king sigurd of norway, and you have as good a claim as any man living to the throne." this surprising revelation destroyed sverre's peace of mind. all his ambition to rise in the priesthood was gone, the crown of a kingdom seemed to float in the air before him, and his thoughts by day and his dreams by night were fixed on that shining goal. the great hopes in his mind kept sleep from his eyes and after days of mental unrest he felt that life was worthless to him if his high ambition were not fulfilled. "since i am born heir to the crown," he said to his mother, "i have as much right to it as any man, and i will strive at any cost to win it. i stake my life on this cast, for without it life to me has lost all its joy." magnus, the king then on the throne, was not of royal birth. he was the son of erling skakke, a great and ambitious nobleman, who had killed every descendant of the royal house he could find to make his own son king. of the boy who was destined to dispute his claim, the cook's son on the faroes, he knew nothing, and when the bright youth landed in norway, whether he had gone in spite of the protests of bishop roe, not a soul in the kingdom dreamed that a new claimant for the throne was in the realm. no one was likely to learn from sverre until his plans were ripe. he was too shrewd and cautious for that. he wanted to feel the sentiment of the people, and was disappointed to find them all well satisfied with their king. full of humor and a good talker, everybody he met was pleased with him, and when he talked with the men-at-arms of erling skakke they told him all they knew about the state of affairs. they were quite won over by this lively priest from the faroes. he even made the acquaintance of erling skakke himself and got a thorough idea of his character. the cunning adventurer was feeling his way and found things not at all to his liking. to attempt, alone and with an empty pocket, to drive a favorite monarch from the throne, seemed the act of madness. but the ambitious youth had dreamed his dream of royal state and had no fancy for returning to a humble priesthood on the bleak faroes. in sweden, across the border, dwelt earl birger, who had married a sister of king sigurd mouth. to him sverre went, told who he was, and begged for aid. the earl looked on him as an imposter and would have nothing to do with him. then he sought folkvid the lawman, with whom lived his half-sister cecilia, and told him the same story. folkvid received him more graciously, but he had no power to make him king. but the rumor that a son of the late king sigurd was in the land got abroad, and soon made its way to the ears of a band of rebels who hated the king. here we must go back a step. all the people of norway were not content with the new king. from time to time pretenders to the throne arose, hornets whom magnus and his father erling had some trouble in destroying. they had their following, and the malcontents gathered at last around eystein meyla (little girl), who professed to be the grandson of a former king. but all this last of the pretenders was able to do was to roam about in the wilderness, keeping himself and his followers from starving by robbing the people. they were in so desperate a state that they had to use birch-bark for shoes, and the peasants in derision called them birkebeiner, or birchlegs. though little better than highwaymen, they were sturdy and daring and had some success, but finally were badly beaten by the king and their leader slain. they might have never been heard of again had not the greatest of the pretenders just then came to norway. the rumor that a son of king sigurd mouth was in the land reached the ears of the handful of birchlegs remaining and, learning where sverre was, they sought him and begged him to be their chief. he looked at them, and seeing what dirty and ragged vagabonds they were, he told them that he had no fancy for being their leader, that there was no link of connection between them and him but poverty, and advised them, if they wanted a chief, to seek one of earl birger's sons, who, like himself, were of royal descent. the beggarly troop took his advice, but the earl's son would have nothing to do with them. by way of a joke he told them to go back to sverre and threaten to kill him if he would not be their leader. they did so, using persuasions and possibly threats, and sverre, seeing no hope of success among the great, finally consented to become the leader of this ragged band of brigands. such was his first definite step on the road to the throne. in this humble fashion, the ambitious young prince, then about twenty-four years old, with empty hands and pockets and seventy ragged followers, began his desperate strife for the throne of norway. from vermeland, where his enterprise began, he led his forlorn seventy southward toward viken, his party rolling on like a snowball and growing in size on its way, until it swelled to four hundred and twenty men. in spite of his protest, these vagabonds proclaimed him king and touched his sword to indicate their allegiance. but their devotion to his cause was not great, for when he forbade them to rob and plunder the peasants most of them left him. to test the remainder, he ordered them back to vermeland and before they reached that region only the original seventy remained. desperate was now the position of the youthful adventurer. he had declared himself a claimant for the throne and any one had the right to kill him. the peasants hated his robber band and he could get none to join him. they would rather have killed them all and thus earned the king's favor. had young sverre been a man of common mind his enterprise must now have reached its end. but he was a man of wonderful mental resources, daring, indefatigable, capable of bearing the most extreme reverses and rescuing himself from the most perilous situations. followed by his faithful seventy, he wandered through the pathless mountain wilderness, hopeful and resourceful. his courage was unfailing. often they had to live on bark and frozen berries, which were dug up from under the snow. at times some of his men, worn out with hunger and exposure, would drop lifeless on their barren paths; at times he had to sleep under his shield, as his only protection from the falling snow; but his heart kept stout through it all, and he chided those who talked of ending their misfortunes by suicide. as an example of his courage and endurance and his care of his men, we may tell the following anecdote. once in his wanderings he came to a large mountain lake which had to be crossed. it could only be done on rafts, and the men were so exhausted that it proved desperate work to fell trees and build the necessary rafts. in time they were all despatched, sverre boarding the last, which was so heavily laden that the water rose above his ankles. one man was still on the shore, so utterly worn out that he had to crawl to the water's edge and beg to be taken on, lest he should perish. the others grumbled, but sverre would not listen to their complaints but bade them to take the man on. with his extra weight the raft sank till the water reached their knees. though the raft threatened to go to the bottom sverre kept a resolute face. a great fallen pine on the other side made a bridge up which the men clambered to safety, sverre being the last to leave the raft. scarcely had he done so when the watersoaked logs sank. the men looked on this as a miracle and believed more fully than ever that he would win. now came the first success in his marvellous career. he had one hundred and twenty men on reaching the goal of his terrible journey, but here eighty men more joined him and with these two hundred followers he successfully faced a force of fourteen hundred which had been sent against him. with a native genius for warfare he baffled his enemies at every point, avoiding their onset, falling upon them at unexpected points, forcing them to scatter into separate detachments in the pursuit, then falling on and beating these detachments in succession. while he kept aware of their plans and movements, they never knew where to look for him, and in a short time the peasant army was beaten and dispersed. this striking success gave new courage and hope to the birchlegs and they came in numbers to the place to which sverre had summoned a body of twelve representatives from the province of tröndelag. these met and proclaimed him king of norway. it was now the summer of . the birchlegs were hasty in supposing the beating of fourteen hundred peasants would bring success to their cause. erling skakke was still alive and active, and on hearing of the exploits of this new leader of rebels in the north, he got together a large fleet and sailed northward to deal with him. the new-proclaimed king was too wary to meet this powerful force and he sought refuge in the mountains again, leaving to erling the dominion of the coast. and now, for two years, sverre and his men led a precarious life, wandering hither and thither through the mountain wilderness and suffering the severest privations. he was like a robin hood of the norwegian mountains, loving to play practical jokes on the peasants, such as appearing with his hungry horde at their yuletide feasts and making way with the good cheer they had provided for themselves. he was obliged to forage in the valleys, but he took pity on the poor and more than once made the great suffer for acts of oppression. everywhere he was hated as a desperate brigand; some believed him to be the devil himself. naughty children were scared with the threat that the terrible sverre would take them, and laundresses, beating their clothes at the river's brink, devoutly wished that sverre's head was under the stone. yet his undaunted resolution, his fights with the king's soldiers, his skirmishes with the peasants, and his boldness and daring in all situations, won him a degree of admiration even among those who feared and hated him. thus for two years his adventurous career went on. then came an event that turned the tide in his favor. erling was still pursuing him and in june, , was in the coast town of nidaros, his son, magnus, with him. in the harbor lay the fleet. the earl and the king were feasting with their followers when word was brought them that the birchlegs were approaching. "i wish it was true," said the earl. "i should like nothing better than to meet that hound sverre. but there will be no such good luck to-night, for i am told that the rascals have gone back to the mountains. you can go to bed in safety, for sverre will not dare to trouble us when we are on the watch for him." to bed they went, sleeping heavily from their potations, and down on them came sverre, who, as usual, was well informed about their situation. "now is your time to fight bravely, and repay yourselves for your sufferings," he said to his men. "a fine victory lies before us. i shall promise you this. any one of you who can prove that he has slain a liegeman shall be made a liegeman himself, and each of you shall be given the title and dignity of the man you have slain." thus encouraged, the poorly-armed adventurers rushed down the hills into the town. one sturdy fellow who carried only a club was asked where his weapons were. "they are down in the town," he said. "the earl's men have them now. we are going there to get them." this they did. as they came on the warriors, hastily alarmed and heavy with their drunken sleep, flocked staggering into the streets, to be met with sword and lance. the confusion was great and the king had much trouble in rallying his men. many chieftains advised flight to the ships, but the stout-hearted erling was not ready for that. "it might be best," he said, "but i can't bear the thought of that brigand priest putting himself in my son's place." leading his men outside the city, he awaited the attack. it came in haste, the birchlegs falling furiously upon the much greater force before them. in the onset the earl was killed and his men were put to flight. the king, as he fled by, saw the bloody face of his father lying under the stars. he stooped and kissed him, saying: "we shall meet again, father, in the day of joy." then he was borne away in the stream of flight. this decisive victory turned the tide of the war. the death of erling removed sverre's greatest opponent. king magnus was no match for the priest-king, and the rebel force grew until the contest assumed the shape of civil war. sverre no longer led a band of wanderers, but was the leader of an army. this was not the ordinary army recruited from the settled classes of society, but an army made up of the lower stratum of the people, now first demanding their share of the good things of life. fierce and unruly as they were, sverre knew how to control and discipline them. he kept his promise, as far as was possible, to reward his men with the honors of those they had slain, but charged them with the maintenance of law and order, punishing all who disobeyed his commands. this he could safely do, for they worshipped him. they had shared peril and suffering together, had lived as comrades, but through it all he had kept his authority intact and demanded obedience. birchlegs they still called themselves, for they had grown proud of the title, and they named their opponents heklungs, from the story that some of them had robbed a beggar woman whose money was wrapped in a cloak (_hekl_). for six years afterwards the war for dominion in norway continued, the star of king sverre steadily rising. in magnus attacked his opponent with an army much larger than that of sverre, but was utterly routed; and an army of peasants that came on afterwards, to kill the "devil's priest," met with the same ill success. magnus now took refuge in denmark, abandoning norway to his rival, and from there he came year after year to continue the contest. in a naval battle in , in which sverre had less than half the number of ships of his opponent, his star seemed likely to set. the birchlegs were not good at sea fighting and the heklungs were pressing them steadily back, when sverre sprang into the hottest of the fight, without a shield and with darts and javelins hurtling around him, and in stirring tones sang the latin hymn, "alma chorus domini." this hymn seemed to turn the tide of victory. magnus, storming furiously forward at that moment, was wounded in the wrist as he was boarding a hostile ship. the pain caused him to pause and, his feet slipping on the blood-stained deck, he fell headlong backward, a glad shout of victory coming from the birchlegs who saw him fall. orm, one of king magnus's captains, demanded what had happened. "the king is killed," he was told. "then the fate of the realm is decided," he cried. cutting the ropes that held the ships together, he took to flight, followed by others and breaking the line of battle. leaping to his feet, magnus called out that he was not hurt and implored them not to flee from certain victory. but the terror and confusion were too great, and sverre took quick advantage of the opportunity, capturing a number of ships and putting the others to flight. the final battle in this contest for a throne came in . it was one in which sverre was in imminent danger of a fatal end to his career. usually not easily surprised, he was now taken unawares. he had sailed up the nore fiord with a few ships and a small force of men, to punish some parties who had killed his prefect. magnus, afloat with twenty-six ships and over three thousand men, learned of this and pursued his enemy into the fiord. sverre was caught in a trap. not until he saw the hostile ships bearing down upon him had he a suspicion of danger. escape was impossible. great cliffs bounded the watery cañon. he had but fourteen ships and not half his opponent's force of men. the heklungs were sure that victory was in their hands. but when sverre and his birchlegs dashed forward and attacked them with berseker fury their confidence turned to doubt. soon it began to appear that victory was to be on the other side. before the furious onset the heklungs fell in numbers. many in panic leaped into the sea and were drowned, king magnus among them. till mid-night the hot contest continued, by which hour half the king's force were slain and all the ships captured. the drowned corpse of king magnus was not found until two days after the battle, when it was taken to bergen and buried with royal ceremony. his death ended the contest and sverre was unquestioned king of the whole land. shall we briefly conclude the story of king sverre's reign? for twenty years it continued, the most of these years of war, for rebellion broke out in a dozen quarters and only the incessant vigilance and activity of a great king and great soldier enabled him to keep his throne and his life. after all his wars and perils, he died in his bed, march , , worn out by his long life of toil and strain. never before had norway so noble and able a king; never since has it seen his equal. a man was he of small frame but indomitable soul, of marvellous presence of mind and fertility in resources; a man firm but kindly and humane; a king with a clear-sighted policy and an admirable power of controlling men and winning their attachment. never through all its history has norway known another monarch so admirable in many ways as sverre, the cook's son. _the friends and foes of a boy prince._ after the death of the great king sverre tumult and trouble reigned in norway. several kings came to the throne, but none of them lived long, and there was constant fighting between the birchlegs and the opposing party who called themselves baglers. year after year they kept their swords out and their spears in hand, killing one another, but neither party growing strong enough to put an end to the other. all this time the people were suffering and the country growing poorer, and a strong hand was needed at the helm of the ship-of-state. it was when king inge, who was not of royal blood, and whose hand was not the strong hand needed, was on the throne, that new hope came to the people, for it was made known that they had among them a boy of kingly descent, a grandson of the noble sverre. men thought that king sverre's line had died out, and there was great joy in their hearts when they learned that his son haakon had left a son. this boy was born in , son of the beautiful inga of varteig, whom king haakon had warmly loved though she was not his wife. the little prince was named haakon, after his father, but he was born in the midst of the baglers, his father's foes, and the priest who baptized him bade inga to keep his birth a strict secret, letting none outside her own family know that a new prince had come to the land. the secret was well kept for a time, but whispers got abroad, and thrond, the priest, at length told the story to erland of huseby, whom he knew to be on the right side. erland heard the news with joy, but feared peril for the little prince, thus born in the land of his enemies. rumors were growing, danger might at any moment come, and though it was mid-winter, a season of deep snows and biting winds, he advised the priest to send the boy and his mother to the court of king inge, offering himself to take them across the pathless mountains. the difficult journey was made in safety and the boy and his mother were kindly welcomed by the king, and joyfully greeted by the birchlegs, who were strong in that district. little haakon was then less than two years old, and it is said that the old loyalists, who were eager to have a king of the royal blood, used in playfulness to pull him between them by the arms and legs, to make him grow faster. the birchlegs were in fear of haakon galen, the king's brother, who was ambitious to succeed to the throne. yet earl haakon took a great fancy to the helpless little child and seemed to love him as much as any of them. thus the child prince, though in the midst of plotters for the throne, who would naturally be likely to act as his enemies, seemed protected by the good angels and brought safely through all his perils. even when he was captured by the baglers, when four years of age, they did not harm him, being possibly so taken by his infantile beauty and winning ways that they could not bring themselves to injure their little captive. in the end, after many fights and flights, in which neither party made any gains, the birchlegs and baglers grew tired of the useless strife and a treaty of peace was made between them, the king of the baglers swearing allegiance to king inge and becoming one of his earls. but new trouble was brewing for the youthful prince, for in , when he was eight years old, a compact was made that none but those of legitimate birth should succeed to the throne. as his mother had not been a legal wife, this threatened to rob little haakon of his royal rights. in doing this the plotters were like some politicians of the present day, who lay plans without consulting the people. they did not know how strong the sentiment was in favor of the old royal line. one of the old birchlegs, on hearing of this compact, was bitterly angry. he had made frequent visits to the young prince, whom he loved and admired, but on his next visit he pushed away the playful lad, roughly bidding him begone. haakon reproachfully asked, "what have i done to make you so angry?" "go away from me," cried helge, the veteran; "to-day you have been robbed of your right to the crown and i have ceased to love you." "who did that and where was it done?" "it was done at the _oere-thing_ [the assembly at oere], and those who did it were king inge and his brother earl haakon." "then you should not be angry with me, my kind helge, nor be troubled about this. what they did cannot be lawful, for my guardian was not there to speak on my side." "your guardian! who is he?" asked helge. "i have three guardians, god, the blessed virgin, and st. olaf," said the boy solemnly. "to their keeping i give my cause, and they will guard me against all wrong." the old man, at this declaration, caught the boy in his arms and kissed him. "thanks for your wise words, my prince," he said. "words like those are better spoken than unspoken." these words show that the little fellow was coming to think for himself and had an active and earnest mind. in fact, he was so precocious and said such droll things as greatly to amuse the king and those around him. here is one of his sayings, spoken in a spell of cold weather when the butter could not be spread on the bread. the prince bent a piece of bread around the butter, saying: "let us tie the butter to the bread, birchlegs." this was thought so smart that it became a proverb among the birchlegs. soon after this earl haakon died and the little fellow, who had hitherto lived in his house, was taken to the king's court, where he was treated like a prince. the king was growing feeble from sickness and he loved to have the boy with him, finding his talk very amusing and entertaining. soon after this he also died, prince haakon then being fourteen years old. though earl haakon, the king's brother, who had hoped to be king, died, as we have said, before him, there was another brother named skule who was quite as ambitious and of whom the birchlegs were much afraid. a body-guard of these faithful warriors took charge of the boy as soon as king inge was dead, with orders to follow him day and night. earl skule at once began to plan and plot to seize the throne, and in this he was supported by the archbishop, but in spite of them the birchlegs proclaimed haakon king and skule had to yield to the strong sentiment in his favor. as for the noble then called king by the baglers, he too died just at this time and left no children, so that the way was clear for the boy king, and haakon soon sailed to the south with a large fleet and took possession of viken and the uplands, the chief dominions of the baglers. by the wise policy of the young king and his advisers the baglers were made his friends and the next year they were fighting with the birchlegs against the slittungs or ragamuffins, who were made up of robbers, tramps, and wandering vagabonds of all kinds, thousands of whom had been set adrift by the civil war. but haakon's worst foe was earl skule, who continued his plots and intrigues, and who was supported by the clergy, these saying they had doubts if the boy was really the son of the elder haakon and grandson of king sverre. such things were not in those days usually settled in courts of law, but by what was called the ordeal, one form of which was to walk barefoot over red-hot irons. if not burned the accused was thought to have proved the justice of his cause. [illustration: linkoping from tannefors.] for a king already in possession of the throne to submit to such a demand and humble himself by thus trying to prove who he was, was a thing never done before and an old peasant gave vent to the general sentiment in these words: "who can show in history a case of the sons of peasants prescribing terms like these to an absolute king? it would be wiser and more manly to bear another kind of iron--cold steel--against the king's foes, and let god judge between them in that way." but inga, the king's mother, declared that she was ready to endure the ordeal and haakon consented to it. earl skule now felt sure of succeeding, not dreaming that the ordeal could be gone through without burning, but to make more sure, he bribed a man to approach inga and offer her an herb which he said would heal burns. the plot was discovered by the faithful birchlegs and inga warned of it; for to use such herbs would make the test invalid and subject inga and her son to opprobrium. but all that skule and his fellow-plotters could do proved of no avail, for inga passed through the ordeal unhurt and triumphantly proved, in the legal system of that day, the justice of her cause. how red-hot iron was prevented from burning is a matter which we cannot discuss, and can only say that this ordeal was common and many are said to have gone through it unscathed. we set out in this story to tell how the child haakon passed through all the perils that surrounded him and grew up to become norway's king. here then we should end, but for years new perils surrounded him and of these it is well to speak. they were due to the ambitious earl skule, who made plot after plot against the king's life, and was forgiven again and again by the noble-minded monarch. king haakon's friends sought to put an end to this secret plotting by arranging a marriage between the young monarch and earl skule's still younger daughter margaret. but this did not check him in his plots, and he finally set sail for denmark to try and get aid from king valdemar. he was ready to agree if the kingdom were won to reign as a vassal of the danish king; but when he got there no such king was to be found. he had been captured in battle five days before, and was now with his son in a prison at mecklenburg. the disappointed plotter had to sail home and pretend to be the king's friend as before. for years skule's plots went on. he took the field against a new horde of rebels called the ribbungs, but he took care never to press them too closely, and they long gave the king trouble. for more than twenty years skule thus continued to plot and plan, the king discovering his schemes and pardoning him more than once, but nothing could cure him of his ambitious dream. in the end, when he was nearly fifty years old, he succeeded in having himself proclaimed king and in sending out bands of warriors who killed many faithful friends of king haakon. he tried to conceal his purpose until he had gathered a large force, but one man escaped the vigilance of his guards and brought word of the treachery to haakon. the latter, seeing that he must check this rebellion if he wished to sit safely on his throne, at once took to his fleet, sailed southward with the utmost speed, and rowed, under cover of a fog, up the folden fiord to oslo, where the rebel was. he had been carousing with his followers the night before and the wassailers were roused from their drunken sleep by the war-horns and ran out to see the king's ships driving in towards the piers. the rebels were quickly scattered, but skule escaped, and at length was traced to the woods, where he was wandering with a few friends. the friars of a monastery took pity on them and hid them in a tower, disguised with monkish cowls. despite their disguise they were traced to their hiding place, and when the friars refused to give them up the pursuers set fire to the tower. driven out by the smoke and heat, skule stepped from the gate, holding his shield above his head and saying: "strike me not in the face; for it is not right to treat warriors thus." in a minute more he lay dead, slain by birchleg swords. the next act in king haakon's reign was to have himself crowned king, and thus to rid himself of the blot on his claim to the throne. after some negotiations with the pope, a cardinal was sent from rome, the ceremony being performed with much pomp and ceremony, and followed with the most magnificent feasts and festivities norway had ever seen. from this time on king haakon ruled as a wise, noble and powerful monarch, making his strength felt by his great fleet and setting norway high among the nations of the north. he died at length in , loved by his people and respected by all outside his realm. _king valdemar i. and bishop absolon._ the most brilliant period in the history of denmark was that of the reigns of the valdemars, and especially of valdemar i. and his sons, whose names and memories are still cherished in that kingdom, the danes regarding them as the greatest and best monarchs they ever had. there were wretched times in denmark before , when valdemar came to the throne, and his early years were passed in the midst of civil wars and all kinds of sorrows and troubles. when the new king was crowned and began the business of governing, he found little to govern with. there were no money, no soldiers, no trade, no order in the kingdom, everything being at so low an ebb that he found it necessary, as some writers state, to secure support from germany by recognizing the emperor frederick barbarossa as his suzerain and doing homage to him as a vassal in . but this ceremony did not entail upon him any of the usual duties of a vassal, and was more of an ordinary alliance than a formal act of submission. yet poor as was the state of denmark when valdemar came to it as king, when he died he left it a flourishing, busy and peaceful country, to which he had added great tracts of land on the pagan shores of the baltic, whose people he forced to give up their heathen practices. during his reign valdemar made as many as twenty expeditions against these piratical peoples, gradually subduing them. at first, indeed, he showed very little courage, and found so many reasons for turning back before meeting the foe, that the sailors looked upon him as a coward, and once he overheard one of them say with a laugh, that the king was "a knight who wore his spurs upon his toes, only to help him to run away the faster." this made him very angry, but on speaking of it to his foster-brother, axel hvide,--afterwards bishop absolon,--he found that the feeling that he lacked the courage of a warrior was general. this contempt made him so ashamed that from that time on he faced danger bravely and was never again known to turn back from any risk. though axel became a bishop, he had begun life as a soldier and was throughout life bold and daring, a man who loved nothing better than to command a ship or to lead his men in an assault against some fierce band of sea robbers. from his castle axelborg, on the site of the later city of copenhagen, he kept a keen lookout for these pirates and sought manfully to put an end to their plundering raids. the war against the baltic heathens continued until , when it ended in the capture of the town of arcona, on the island of rygen, and the destruction of the great temple of the slavic god svanteveit, whose monstrous four-headed image was torn down from its pedestal and burned in the presence of its dismayed worshippers. the taking of this temple is an event of much interest, for it was due to the shrewdness of a young danish soldier, who circumvented the heathens by a clever stratagem. while the army lay encamped on the island beach, below the town of arcona, this man noticed that the high cliffs on which the temple was built were honeycombed by many deep holes, which could not be seen from the ramparts above, but were quite visible from the beach below. one day it occurred to him that by making use of these holes he could roast the pagan worshippers out of their nests, and he arranged with some of his fellows to carry out his plan. gathering such dry straw and small sticks as they could collect, the soldiers pretended to be playing at a game of pitch and toss, which if seen by the sentinels on the ramparts above would not seem suspicious to them. in this way they caused much of the straw and sticks to lodge in the holes in the steep cliff. then, by using spears and stones for a ladder, one of them climbed for a distance up the steep rock wall and set fire to some of the inflammable rubbish in the holes. the effect was stupendous. the flames spread from hole to hole, creeping up the face of the rock until the wooden spikes and palings at its summit were in a blaze. this took place unseen by the pagans, who first took the alarm when they saw flames circling round the great mast from which floated the banner of their god. before they could take any steps to extinguish the flames, and while they stood in a panic of apprehension, the danes, headed by bishop absolon, rushed to the assault and succeeded in taking the town. there was nothing left for them but to accept baptism, on which their lives depended, and the worthy bishop and his monks were kept busy at this work for the next two days and nights, the bishop desisting only when, half blind from want of sleep, he dropped down before the altar that had been set up beside the fonts, where the converts were received and signed with the cross. the work of baptism done, king valdemar caused the huge wooden idol of the god to be dragged amid martial music to the open plain beyond the town, where the army servants chopped it up into firewood. in this work the new converts could not be induced to take part, for, christians as yet only in name, they feared some dread revenge from the great svanteveit, such as lightning from heaven to destroy the danes. the christians of that age were quite as superstitious, for they declared that when the image was being carried out of the temple gates, a horrible monster, spitting fire and brimstone, burst from the roof and leaped with howls of wrath into the sea below, which opened to receive it, and closed over its head with billows of smoke and flame. valdemar died in , after making such friends of his people and doing so much for them, that when the funeral procession, headed by bishop absolon, drew near the church of ringsted, where the burial was to take place, it was met by a throng of peasants, weeping and lamenting, who begged the privilege of carrying the body of their beloved king to his last resting place. when the bishop began to read the service for the dead his voice failed him and he wept and trembled so much that he had to be held up by some of the assistant monks. after all was over the people went away in deep grief, saying that denmark's shield and the pagans' scourge had been taken from them and that the country would soon be overrun again by the heathen wends. but absolon kept a firm hand upon the reins of state, and when the young prince knud, valdemar's son, was proclaimed king at the age of twenty everything was in order. knud proved as good and gallant as his father, holding denmark bravely against all foes, and when the emperor barbarossa sent to him to appear before the imperial court at ratisbon and do homage for his crown, he returned a defiant answer. the position of denmark had greatly changed since valdemar had obeyed such a summons, and when the envoy of the emperor brought him the imperial command, he sent back the following proud reply: "tell your master that i am as much monarch in my own realm as the kaiser is in his, and if he has a fancy for giving away my throne, he had better first find the prince bold enough to come and take it from me." this ended all question of the vassalage of denmark, but the emperor never forgot nor forgave the insult and took every opportunity in after years to stir up strife against denmark. in he incited the pagan princes of pomerania to invade the danish islands with a fleet of five hundred ships. but they had old bishop absolon to deal with, and they were so utterly routed that when the fog, which had enabled the danes to approach them unseen, cleared away, only thirty-five of their ships were able to keep the sea. this victory made knud ruler over all pomerania and part of the kingdom later known as prussia, and he added to his title that of "king of the wends and other slavs." he went on adding to his home kingdom until the dominion of denmark grew very wide. that is all we need say about king knud, but it must be said of bishop absolon that he was a wise patron of knightly arts and historical learning and encouraged the great scholar saxo grammaticus to write his famous "history of denmark," in which were gathered all the old danish tales that could be learned from the skalds and poets and found in the monasteries of the age. absolon, who had loved and cared for the princes knud and valdemar since their childhood, died in the year and king knud followed him a few years later, leaving the throne to his brother valdemar. _the fortunes and misfortunes of valdemar ii._ prosperous and glorious was the kingdom of denmark under valdemar ii. in the early part of his reign, though misery was his lot during many years of his life. by his victories he won the title of "sejr," or "the conqueror," and his skill and goodness as a ruler won him the love of his people, while the danes of to-day look upon him as one of the best and noblest of their kings. he was long regarded by them as the perfect model of a noble knight and royal hero, and his first queen, margrete of bohemia, was called by the people "dagmar," or "day's maiden," from their admiration of her gentleness and beauty. in many of their national songs she is represented as a fair, fragile, golden-haired princess, mild and pure as a saint, the only sin she could think of to confess on her death-bed being that she had put on her best dress and plaited her hair with bright ribbons before going to mass. while the danes thus regard the memory of queen dagmar, they have no words too bad to use in speaking of valdemar's second queen, the black-haired berangaria, whose name became with them a by-word for a vile woman. but valdemar's tale is largely one of sorrow and suffering and rarely has monarch had to bear so cruel a fate as was his during many unhappy years of his life. valdemar was the son of valdemar i., and brother of king knud, for whom as a prince he fought bravely, putting down the sleswick rebels, who had been stirred to rebellion by the german emperor, and conquering his enemy, count adolf of holstein. succeeding his brother knud in , his first exploit was the conquest of pomerania, which knud had won before him. this was now added to the danish dominions, and in the german emperor of that date granted to him and the future kings of denmark all the territories north of the elbe and the elde. thus valdemar was made master of a great part of northern germany and ruled over a wider dominion to the south than any danish king before or after. his success in the south led him to attempt the conquest of the north, and armies were sent to norway and sweden with the hope of winning these kingdoms for the danish crown. in this effort he failed, but in his zeal for the church and love of adventure led him to undertake a great expedition, a crusade against the heathens of esthonia. gathering an army of sixty thousand men and a fleet of fourteen hundred ships, a mighty force even for the small craft of that day, he quickly made himself master of that stronghold of paganism, great numbers of the people consenting to be baptized. but here he found a new and unexpected enemy and had to fight fiercely for the privilege of carrying the cross of christ to the heathen esthonians. his new enemies were the knights of the sword, of livonia, who declared that the duty of converting the pagans in that region belonged to them, and that no other christians had the right to interfere. and from this ensued a war in which fierce battles were fought and much blood was shed, for the purpose of deciding who should have the privilege of converting the heathen. it is doubtful if ever before or since a war has been fought for such a purpose, and the heathens themselves must have looked on with grim satisfaction to see their enemies cutting each other's throats to settle the question as to who had the best right to baptize them. in one of the battles with the heathens, while bishop andreas, the successor to bishop absolon, was praying on a high hill with uplifted hands for victory, there suddenly fell down from heaven the danneborg, the national standard of denmark. at least, that is what legend tells us of its appearance. it is held to be much more probable that this banner, bearing a white cross on a blood-red field, was sent by the pope to valdemar as a token of his favor and support, and that its sudden appearance, when the danes were beginning to waver before the pagan assaults, gave them the spirit that led to victory. the result, in those days of superstition, naturally gave rise to the legend. when valdemar returned a victor from esthonia, having beaten alike the pagans and the livonian knights, and bearing with him the victorious danneborg, he was at the height of his glory, and none dreamed of the terrible disaster that awaited him. he had made enemies among the german princes, and they conspired against him, but they were forced to submit to his rule. some of those whose lands he had seized did not hesitate to express openly their hatred for him; but others, while secretly plotting against him, pretended to be his friends, shared in his wars and his courtly ceremonies, and were glad to accept favors from his hands. one of those who hated him most bitterly, yet who seemed most attached to him, was the count-duke of schwerin, a man who, alike from his dark complexion and his evil disposition, was known in his own country as "black henry." the king had often been warned to beware of this man, but, frank and open by nature and slow to suspect guile, he disregarded these warnings and went on treating him as a trusty friend. this enabled count henry to make himself familiar with valdemar's habits and mode of life. he secretly aided certain traitors who cherished evil designs against the king; but when he found that all these plots failed he devised one of his own which the king's trust in him aided him in carrying out. in the spring of the year valdemar invited his seeming friend to a two days' hunt which he proposed to enjoy in the woods of lyö, but the count sent word that he regretted his inability to join him, as he had been hurt by a fall and could not leave his bed. his bed just then was his horse's saddle. the opportunity which he awaited had come, and he spent the night scouring the country in search of aid for the plot he had in view, which was no less than to seize and hold prisoner his trusting royal friend. he knew the island well, and when his spies told him that the king and his son valdemar had landed at lyö with a small following of huntsmen and servants, black henry prepared to carry out his plot. the king's first day's hunt was a hard one and he and his son slept soundly that night in the rude hut that had been put up for their use. no one thought of any need of guarding it and the few attendants of the king were scattered about, sleeping under the shelter of rocks and trees. late that night count henry and his men landed and made their way silently and cautiously through the tired sleepers to the royal hut, which he well knew where to find. quietly entering, they deftly gagged the king and prince before they could awake, and before either of them could raise a hand in resistance sacks of wool and straw were drawn over their heads, so closely as nearly to choke them, and strong bonds were tied round their legs and arms. thus thoroughly disabled, the strong king and his youthful son were carried through the midst of their own people to the strand and laid helplessly in the bottom of the waiting boat, which was rowed away with muffled oars, gliding across the narrow sound to the shore of fyen. here waited a fast-sailing yacht to which the captives were transferred, sail being set before a favoring wind for the german coast. the next morning, when the king's attendants were searching for the missing king, he and his son, still bound and gagged, were landed on a lonely part of the sea-shore, placed on awaiting horses, and tightly secured to the saddles, after which they were hurried on at full gallop, stopping only at intervals to change the armed escort, until the castle of danneberg, in hanover, was reached. this castle had been loaned by its owner to count henry, he having no stronghold of his own deemed secure enough to hold such important captives. so roughly had they been treated that when the bonds were removed from prince valdemar, who resembled his mother dagmar alike in his beauty and her feebleness, the blood flowed from every part of his body. yet, without regard to his youth and sufferings, the cruel captor shut up him and his royal father in a cold and dark dungeon, where they were left without a change of clothing and fed on the poorest and coarsest food. this, many might say, was a just retribution on king valdemar, for years before, when as a prince he had put down the rebellion in sleswick, he had seized its chief leader, his namesake bishop valdemar, and kept him for many years in chains and close confinement in the dungeon of söborg castle, and had later subjected count adolf of holstein to the same fate. bishop valdemar had been released after fourteen years' imprisonment at the entreaty of queen dagmar, and was ever after one of the most bitter enemies of the danish king. but though a bishop and count might be thus held captive, it is difficult to conceive of a powerful monarch being kept prisoner by a minor noble for three long years, despite all that could be done for his release. nothing could give a clearer idea of the lawless state of those times. king valdemar and his son lay wearing the bonds of felons and suffering from cold and hunger while the emperor and the pope sought in vain for their release, threatening black henry with all the penalties decreed by empire and church for those who raised their hands against a prince. the shrewd captor readily promised all that was asked of him. he would release his captives without delay. yet he had no intention to keep his word, for he knew that rome and ratisbon were too far from danneberg to give him serious cause for alarm, especially as the other nobles of northern germany were prepared to help him in keeping their common enemy in prison. as for denmark itself, the people were infuriated and eagerly demanded to be led to the rescue of their beloved king; yet valdemar's sons were still young, all the kinsmen of the royal family had been banished or were dead, and there was no one with the power and right to take control of public affairs. for some time, indeed, the fate of the king remained unknown to the people. valdemar's nephew albert, count of orlamunde, was on his way to rome when the news of the king's capture reached him. he immediately turned back, collected an army, and gave battle to the german princes who were helping count henry to defend danneberg. but his hasty levies were defeated and he taken prisoner, to be thrown into the same dungeon as the royal captive. finally king valdemar, seeing no other hope of release, agreed to the terms offered by black henry, which were that he should pay a ransom of , silver marks, give him all the jewels of the late queen berangaria not already bestowed on churches and monasteries, and send him a hundred men-at-arms, with horses and arms for their use. for assurance of this he was to send his three younger sons to danneberg to be kept in prison with count albert until the money was paid. these terms agreed to, the king and prince were set free. valdemar at once hastened to denmark, which he found in a fearful state from its having been three years without a head. humbled and crushed in spirit, finding all his dominions in germany set free from their allegiance and all the kingdoms won by his valor lost to denmark, he scarcely knew what steps to take. the ransom demanded he was unable to pay and he grieved at the thought of subjecting his young sons to the fate from which he had escaped. in his misery he wrote to the pope, asking to be released from the oath which had been exacted from him to let his children go into captivity. the pope, full of pity for him, sent a bishop to count henry, telling him that if he tried to enforce the demand exacted under durance from the king of denmark, he should be deprived of the services of religion and be heavily fined by the papal power for his cruel and unrighteous act. thus called to account for his treachery and wickedness, black henry was forced to forego the final cruel exaction of his traitor soul. misfortune, however, pursued valdemar. when in the peasants of ditmarsh refused to pay the tribute they had long paid the danish crown, the insult to his weakness was more than the king could endure. he marched an army into their lands, but only to find himself defeated and four thousand of his men killed by the rebels, who were strongly aided by the german princes of holstein, and especially by count adolf, his former captive. he himself was wounded in the eye by an arrow which struck him to the ground, and would have been captured a second time but for the aid of a friendly german knight. this foeman had been formerly in valdemar's service, and when he saw his old royal master helpless and bleeding, he lifted him to his saddle and carried him to kiel, where his wounds were healed, means being then found to send him back to his kingdom. valdemar remained on the throne for fourteen years afterwards, but these were years of peace. war no longer had charms for him and he devoted himself to the duties of government and to preparing codes of law for the provinces of his kingdom. in that age there were no general laws for the whole country. the laws of valdemar continued in force for four hundred and fifty years, and in , when christian v. framed a new code of laws, some of the old ones of valdemar were retained. in them the old custom of the ordeal was set aside, being replaced by the system of the jury, one form of which consisted of "eight good men and true" chosen by the king, and another of twelve men chosen by the people. the laws were lenient, for most crimes could be atoned for by money or other fines. three days after the last of these codes was approved valdemar died, at the age of seventy-one, leaving three sons all of whom in turn ruled after him. his son valdemar, who shared his imprisonment, had died long before. _birger jarl and the conquest of finland._ birger jarl, who became one of the great men of sweden about , rose to such importance in the early history of that kingdom that one cannot pass him by without saying something about his career. sweden was then a christian kingdom and had been for many years, for the religion of christ had been preached there, as the sagas tell, four centuries earlier. but heathenism prevailed until long afterwards, and it was not until the days of king stenkil, who came to the throne in , that an earnest effort was made to introduce the christian worship. finally paganism completely died out, and when birger came to the throne sweden had long been a christian realm. but paganism still had a stronghold in finland, and when bishop thomas, a zealous churchman, of english birth, proclaimed that the christians should have no intercourse with the pagans in finland or even sell them food, the finlanders became so incensed that they invaded the christian country and put the people to death with frightful tortures. their cruelties created terror everywhere and bishop thomas fled to gothland where, crazed with horror at the result of his proclamation, he soon died. king erik was then on the throne of sweden, but birger, the son of a great earl of gothland, became a famous warrior, and as the king had no sons he made birger a jarl, or earl, and chose him as his heir. one of the exploits by which birger had won fame was the following. the town of lübeck, in north germany, was closely besieged by the king of denmark, who had cut it off from the sea by stretching strong iron chains across the river trave, on which the town is situated. he thus hoped to starve the people into surrender, and would have done so had not birger come to their rescue. he had the keels of some large ships plated with iron, loaded them with provisions, and sailed up the river towards the beleaguered city. hoisting all sail before a strong wind, he steered squarely on to the great chains, and struck them with so mighty a force that they snapped asunder and the ships reached the town with their supplies, whereupon the danish king abandoned the siege. this story is of interest, as these are the first iron-plated ships spoken of in history. by this and other exploits birger grew in esteem, and when the finns began their terrible work in the north he and the king summoned the people to arms, and the old warlike spirit, which had long been at rest, was reawakened in the hearts of the swedes. the pope at rome had proclaimed a crusade against the finns, promising the same privileges to all who took part in it as were enjoyed by those then taking part in the crusades to the holy land, and on all sides the people grew eager to engage in this sacred war. then there was brushing and furbishing on all sides; ancestral swords, which had long hung rusting on the walls, were taken down and sharpened anew; helmets and cuirasses were burnished until they shone like silver or gold; tight-closed purses were opened by those who wished to aid the cause of christ; and old ships were made ready for the waves and new ones launched. rosy lips were kissed by lovers who would never kiss them again, and loud was the weeping of the maidens and mothers who saw those they loved setting out for the war, but they consoled themselves as best they could by the thought that it was all for the glory of god. men of sweden had gone to the crusades in palestine, but here was a crusade of their own at home, and all were eager to take part in it. a great fleet was got together and set sail under the command of birger jarl. its course lay up the gulf of bothnia, and where it came to land birger erected a great wooden cross as a sign that he had come for the spread of the christian faith. from this the place was called korsholm. the heathen finns knew of his coming and had gathered in great numbers to defend their country against its invaders, but nothing could stay the fury of the crusaders, who were incensed with the cruelties these barbarians had committed, and drove them back in dismay wherever they met them, birger jarl showing the greatest skill as a leader. he made public a law that all who became christians should be protected in life and property, and within two years he succeeded in introducing christianity into that country--perhaps more in appearance than reality. at any rate he built forts, and settled a colony of swedes in east bothnia, and thus did much towards making finland a province of sweden. while this was going on king erik the lame died (in ). as he left no heir there were many pretenders to the crown. the fact that birger had been named by the king two years before was lost sight of, and it looked as if there would be civil war between the many claimants. to prevent any such result a powerful noble named iwar hastily summoned an assembly and through his influence valdemar, birger jarl's son, was chosen as king. this was all done so quickly that it was completed in fourteen days after erik's death. when the news of this hasty action reached birger in finland he was very angry, and hastened home with all speed, bringing with him the greater part of his army. he was highly displeased that he had not himself been named king, as had been promised, instead of a boy, even if the boy was his son. calling together those who had made the choice of valdemar, he hotly asked them: "who among you was so bold as to order an election during my absence, though you knew that king erik named me jarl and chose me for his heir? and why did you choose a child for your king?" iwar answered that it was he that ordered the election and said: [illustration: from stereograph, copyright by underwood and underwood, n.y. village life and homes in sweden.] "though you are indeed most worthy to wear the crown, you are advanced in years and cannot live to rule us as long as your son." this answer brought another angry outbreak from birger and iwar again said: "if you do not like this, do with your son what you please. there is no fear but we shall be able to find another king." for a time birger sat in moody silence, and then asked: "who then would you take for your king?" "i also can shake out a king from under my cloak," was iwar's haughty answer. this threw the jarl into a dilemma. the faces of the people present showed their approval of what iwar had said, and at length, fearing that if he resisted their action the crown might be lost both to himself and his son, he gave in to their decision. to give dignity to the occasion, he took steps to have his son crowned with much magnificence, and shortly after sent his daughter rikissa with great pomp and a rich dower to the frontier of norway, where she was met by the king of that country and was married with stately ceremony to his son. the next year birger's mother died, and as there was a prophecy that her family would remain in power as long as her head was up, he had her buried upright, being walled up in a pillar in bjelbo church so that her head should never droop. birger jarl belonged to a great family called the folkungers, who long held all the power in sweden, and many of whom had been aspirants for the throne. these were so angry at being deprived of what they had hoped for that they determined to take the throne by force, and their leaders went to denmark and germany, where they collected a large army. when they landed in sweden many of the people of that country joined them, and though birger had also a large force he began to fear the result. he therefore sent his chancellor, bishop kol, to ask for a personal interview with the leaders of the opposite force, with solemn promises of safety. yielding to the bishop's persuasions, the chiefs accompanied him across the river that separated the two armies. then birger did a dastardly act. no sooner had the chiefs come within his power than he had them seized and beheaded on the spot as rebels. thus fell a number of the leading men of sweden, and, the leaders fallen, birger attacked and easily dispersed their army, sparing the swedes, but cutting to pieces all the germans that could be overtaken. thus he added greatly to the power of his family, but by an act of treachery and perjury for which archbishop lars laid upon him a heavy penance. as for bishop kol, who had been made the innocent agent in this shameful deed, he never read mass again, and finally resigned his office and left his country, journeying as a pilgrim to the holy land in expiation for his involuntary crime. he never found peace and rest until he found them in the grave. birger jarl by these means rose to be the mightiest man in the north. his son was king of norway, his daughter was queen of sweden, and his daughter-in-law was a princess of denmark, for when valdemar became twenty years of age he sought and won for his bride the beautiful danish princess sophia. the marriage was one of great pomp, a great hall being built for the occasion, where the courtiers appeared in new-fashioned dresses of rich stuffs, and there were plenty of banquets, games, dances, and even tilts and tournaments, all conducted according to the noblest custom of the times. birger himself had a queen for his wife, having married the dowager queen mechthild of denmark, and to increase his importance he assumed the title of duke, never before borne in sweden. but many of the peasants called him king, since he governed the kingdom and was married to a queen. but meanwhile poor bishop kol was dying of grief for the deed of shame into which this proud lord had led him. shall we here tell an interesting and romantic story about one of birger's brothers? he was a judge in east gothland, his name being bengt, and had fallen deeply in love with a damsel named sigrid, whose family was not rich nor great, though she herself was so beautiful that she was widely known as sigrid the fair. duke birger was not pleased with the idea of such a match, thinking the girl, though of noble birth, of far too lowly rank to mate with a member of his family. but in such things judge bengt had a will of his own and he married sigrid without birger's consent. this so displeased the proud jarl that he sent bengt a cloak, half of which was made of gold brocade and the other of coarse and common baize. this was in token of the difference in rank of the families of bengt and sigrid and a significant hint that he should separate from his new wife. but bengt was equal to the situation. he covered the coarse half of the cloak with gold, pearls and precious stones so as to make it more valuable than the other, and this he sent to his brother with no other answer. this only irritated birger the more, and he sent back the message, "that he would speak with his brother face to face about this affair," adding some harsh words which were also repeated to bengt. then, soon after this, the angry jarl saddled his horse and rode with a large company to ulfasa, where bengt lived. when the judge saw the jarl's train near at hand he fled from his house to the woods, leaving his wife, whom he had carefully instructed how to act, to meet his irritated brother. when the angry jarl rode into the court, fully prepared to call his erring brother severely to account, he was surprised to see the fairest woman he had ever beheld come forward to meet him. she was adorned with the most costly robes and precious ornaments she could command and everything had been done to enhance the charm of her beauty. stepping forth before the jarl, who gazed at her with astonishment, she bowed low and welcomed him with all honor and courtesy. so astonished was birger with the charming vision that he sprang from his horse and seized sigrid in his arms, saying, "had my brother not done this i should have done it myself." leading him to the house, she entertained him with the best cheer, and bengt being sent for to the wood, the two brothers were fully reconciled. such an effect have the charms of a fair woman over the pride and passion of men. a few words must serve to finish the story of birger jarl. the greatest and most valuable service of his reign lay in the new laws he gave the country and his doing away with many of the old barbarian customs to replace them with the customs of civilization. before this time it was the common practice for the relatives of a murdered man to avenge him on the family of the murderer, thus giving rise to long and bloody feuds. this custom birger forbade, ordering every one to seek redress for injury at the courts of justice. he also passed four laws of peace, viz.: for the peace of the church, of women, of house, and of assize. every one was forbidden to assault another in the church or the churchyard or on the way to or from church. whoever did so was declared outlawed, and if the assailed man killed his assailant he was held free from blame or revenge. this was the peace of the church. another ancient custom was to carry away a desired bride by force, without her consent or that of her parents, a fight often arising in which the bride's father and brothers were killed. or on the way of an affianced pair to church the same outrage might take place, the bridegroom being often killed. this, too, was forbidden under penalty of outlawry, the new law being that of peace for women. to promote general security he forbade, under the same penalty, the attacking of any man, his wife, children, or servants, within his house or on his property. this was the law of home-peace or house-peace. all violence was in like manner forbidden to any one going to or attending an assembly of the people, this being the peace of assize. birger jarl improved the laws in many other ways and made sweden a far more civilized country than it had been before his time. another of his useful acts was the founding of the city of stockholm, which before his day was a mere village on an island, but which he made a stronghold and city, inviting that commerce to which its situation so excellently adapted it. this was one of the most important acts of birger jarl, who died soon afterwards, not living to see the rapid growth in importance of his new city. _the first war between sweden and russia._ in the last tale it was told how birger jarl subdued the finns and brought then to give up their heathen practices and accept christianity. but this refers only to the section of finland bordering on the baltic sea. farther east the finns were pagans still, worshipping idols and living a savage life in their vast forests, and bitterly hating the christians. at times they would come in hordes out of their wild woodlands and attack the settled people, killing them in the most cruel way their distorted fancies could contrive. they had two chief deities, jumal, the great good one, and perkel, the great evil one, and these were supposed to meet in fierce encounters in which they would throw each other over high mountains. the people kept wooden images of these deities in their huts, and had also open places in the forest, with a stone on the centre of each, on which they made sacrifices to their divinities. when a karelian, as these people were called, came to within a fixed distance of the sacrificial stone, he took off his cap and crawled up to it silently, making sacrifices there of the bones and horns of elk and reindeer. in case of danger they would sacrifice goats, cats and cocks, sprinkling their idols with the blood of these animals. at that time, shortly before the year , birger, heir to the throne of sweden, was very young, and the country was under the rule of torkel knutson, regent of the kingdom and a wise and energetic man. exasperated by the cruelties committed by the karelians on the christians, he determined to put a stop to them and sailed to finland with a strong army. against this force the pagan foresters could not make head and they were soon obliged to submit. a fort with a strong garrison was built at wiborg to keep them in order, and the churchmen who went with the expedition strove to convert them. it is not with these savage woodsmen, however, that we are concerned, but with the russians, with which people the swedes now first came into warlike contact. the forest russians of that day were as savage as the finns and as hard to deal with. they came to the help of the karelians in this war, and to punish them the regent took castle kexholm, their chief stronghold, and left in it a garrison under sigge lake. it was this that brought on the first war between the swedes and the russians, some of the events of which are so interesting that it is worth telling about. after the swedes had held kexholm for some time their food supply ran very low, and as no aid came from home many of them wished to abandon the fort. this sigge lake would not listen to. he had been left there to hold the place and did not intend to give it up. but only the bravest of his men remained with him, the others leaving under pretext of sending food and reinforcements from home. neither men nor supplies arrived and the russians, learning of the state of affairs, gathered in multitudes around the fort, laying close siege to it. in the end, after a brave resistance lasting many days, food became so scarce that the swedes dared not stay any longer and they determined to try and cut their way through the besiegers. the gates were thrown open and sigge rushed out at the head of his company, with such force and fury that for a time it seemed as if they would succeed. but they were weakened by semi-starvation and in the end the swarming russians killed them all but two, who alone made their escape and carried the news of the disaster back to sweden. the regent was greatly distressed at the loss of the brave men whom he had left so long without support. it was too late to save their lives but he felt it his duty to avenge them. to do so he set sail with another army, making his way up the river neva, the stream on which the city of st. petersburg was afterwards built. no enemy was seen and the regent landed on an island in the river, where he built a strong fort which he named landscrona, furnishing it plentifully with provisions. the russians, when they found what was being done, were infuriated. a great multitude of them, thirty thousand in number, gathered on the neva and made a vigorous effort to burn the swedish fleet, sending rafts down the stream on which were great heaps of blazing wood. but the regent caught these by iron chains which he stretched across the stream, holding the fire-floats until they burned out. this effort failing, the russians made a fierce attack on the fortress, with such savage violence that though many of them fell the others would not give up the assault. but so strong and so well defended was the place that they failed in this also, and in the end were obliged to retreat, leaving great numbers of dead behind them. then a young and brave knight in the garrison, named matts kettilmundson, made a sortie against the russians and drove them back in panic flight, many more of them being killed. shortly after this a party of russian cavalry, one thousand strong, appeared in the edge of a wood, not far from the fort, their armor gleaming brightly in the sunlight. while the garrison were looking at them from the walls, the brave knight matts kettilmundson asked permission of the regent to ride out against them, saying that "he would venture a brush with the bravest among them." the regent having consented, the daring fellow put on his armor and had his horse led through the gate. leaping on it he rode out, and when he had passed the moat, turned back to his friends who lined the wall. "strive to live happily," he said, "and do not be troubled about me, for it depends on god in heaven whether i shall return with a captive foe or fail to return at all." he then rode boldly on and sent an interpreter to the russian lines, challenging the bravest of the russians to fight with him for life, goods and freedom. it must be borne in mind that those were the days of chivalry and knight-errantry, when such adventures and challenges were common things and good faith was kept with those who made them. so no force or treachery was attempted against the daring knight, although we should hardly have looked for knightly deeds and chivalrous ways in the russia of that day. however, as the story goes on to say, the russian king appealed in vain for a knight to try conclusions with the swedish champion. not a man in the troop was ready to make the venture, and sir matts sat his horse there all day long waiting in vain for an antagonist. as evening approached he rode back to the fortress, where every one congratulated and praised him for his courage. the next morning the russians had disappeared. soon after this, the army growing weary and longing for home, the regent set sail down stream, leaving three hundred men and abundant supplies in the fort, under a knight named swen. but as contrary winds detained the fleet sir matts landed with a strong party of horsemen and made long raids into the country, gathering much booty, with which he returned to the ships. then the army continued its way home, where it was received with much joy. but the garrison in landscrona did not find their lot much better than had the former garrison in kexholm. the new walls were damp and the advancing summer brought hot weather, so that their provisions began to spoil. as a consequence scurvy and other diseases broke out and many of the men died. some of those who remained wished to send home for help, but others objected to this, saying that "they preferred waiting for help from heaven and did not wish to trouble the regent, who had enough to attend to at home." when the russians gathered around the fort to attack it, as they soon did, only twenty men in the garrison were fit to bear arms in defence. these could not properly guard the walls and the russians steadily advanced, all losses being made up from their great numbers, until in no great time the walls were taken. the swedes retired to their houses, continuing to fight, but as the russians set fire to these, the governor and some others threw down their arms, offering to surrender. they were at once cut down by the assailants. the few who remained alive now took refuge in a stone cellar, where they defended themselves manfully; and refused to submit until the enemy had offered them their lives. then they yielded and were carried as captives into the country, the fortress being razed to the ground. thus, in the year , ended the first war between russia and sweden. the swedes fought well and died nobly, but they lost their lives through the neglect of their countrymen and rulers. _the crime and punishment of king birger._ when the events narrated in the last tale took place, there were three young princes in the kingdom, birger, erik and valdemar, torkel, the regent, ruling in their name. but when the princes grew up birger, the oldest, was crowned king, the other two becoming dukes. but very early in birger's reign there arose many complaints about the conduct of his brothers, who showed themselves haughty and insubordinate. the ill-blood in time grew to such an extent that the king dismissed his brothers from his presence, giving them until sunset to leave. "after that," he said, "if you shall fall into my hands, it will go ill with you." this gave rise to bitter enmity and the two dukes gave king birger no end of trouble, there being war between them three times in succession, bringing the country into a miserable state. during the second war king birger was taken prisoner by his brothers, but he was afterwards set free under the promise that he would no more disturb sweden, a third part of which was left under his rule. he did not intend to keep his word, but was no sooner set free than he sought aid from his brother-in-law, the king of denmark, and invaded the kingdom with a danish army. this was the third war above spoken of. it ended without the king gaining anything but the third of the kingdom, which had already been promised to him. after each of these wars the brothers became reconciled, and lived for a time peacefully in their dominions, but they laid such heavy taxes on the people to support their extravagant courts that great misery prevailed. after the last outbreak all remained quiet for nearly ten years, and the dukes thought that their brother was friendly towards them, not dreaming that his heart was full of hate and treachery. in , when duke valdemar made a journey to stockholm, which was in his section of the kingdom, he stopped at nyköping to visit his brother birger, whom he had not seen for a long time. birger met him with a great show of friendliness, making him welcome in every way. queen martha was equally kind, and valdemar was highly pleased with these tokens of regard. before he left the queen complained to him that it gave her great pain that duke erik avoided his brother, saying that god knew she loved him as much as if he were her own brother. after spending the night with them valdemar rode away very well pleased. his men were equally pleased, for they had been well entertained. on leaving stockholm he went to erik's home in westmoreland, who told him that he had just been invited to visit birger's court, and asked if he thought it safe to make such a visit. valdemar said he had no doubt of it, telling of what a pleasant visit he had made. erik, however, had doubts, being distrustful of the queen and chancellor brunke, whom he looked upon as his enemies. but in the end the brothers decided to accept the invitation and rode away towards nyköping. when six miles distant they met a knight who advised them to go no farther, saying: "you will cause yourselves and your friends much sorrow if both of you trust yourselves in the king's hands at the same time." valdemar indignantly replied to this that "there are too many who seek to breed disunion between the king and his brothers." the knight then rode off, saying no more, and the dukes rode into swärta, where they proposed to spend the night. to their surprise no preparations had been made for them, but a knight met them and saluted them in the king's name, adding that he earnestly requested them not to repose until they reached nyköping, as his longing to meet them was so great that he could not rest until they arrived. on receiving this warm request they rode on, reaching nyköping in the evening. the king advanced from the castle gate to meet them, greeting them in an affectionate manner, and taking each of them by the hands as he led them into the castle. they found a rich feast prepared for them, at which neither mead, wine, nor fair words were wanting. at length duke valdemar grew suspicious and said to his brother that they were drinking too much wine. but this was soon forgotten and the feast went on, queen martha showing herself very gay and lively and every one being full of the spirit of enjoyment. it was late at night before the merrymaking ended and the dukes went to their rooms. the queen then said to their men, who had also been well taken care of: "lodging has been prepared for you in the town, as there is not room enough for you in the castle." as they went out chancellor brunke stood at the gate, making sure that they had all gone, when he shut the castle gates behind them. then he armed the servants and led them to the king. birger, who seemed in some doubt, bade them to retire and turned to sir knut johanson, asking if he would assist in making prisoners of the dukes. "i will not, my lord," said sir knut. "whoever has counselled you to do this is leading you into a great treachery. what, would you deceive and murder your brothers who came here trusting in your good faith? the devil himself must be your tempter. let who will be angry on this account, i will never help you in it." "small care you have for my honor," said the king angrily. "little honor can accrue to you from such an act," answered sir knut sturdily. "if you should carry out this design your honor will be less here-after." two other knights warned the king against so treacherous a deed, but he was so displeased with their words that he ordered them to prison. then he led his armed servants to the sleeping apartment of the dukes and broke open the door, the noise awakening the sleepers. valdemar sprang up, and seeing armed men entering the room, he seized one of them and threw him down, calling on his brother for help. "there is no use in resisting, brother," said erik, seeing the room filling with armed men. the king now rushed in and called out savagely: "do you remember hatuna? it will not be better for you here than it was for me there, for you shall have the same fate, though it has tarried so long." hatuna was the place where the king had previously been taken prisoner by his brothers, in somewhat the same treacherous manner. but they had not treated him with the same shameful cruelty with which he now treated them. they were taken barefooted deep into the tower and fastened in a dungeon, with a great chain on their legs, while their servants in the town were taken prisoners and locked up in one ward to the number of twenty, all their possessions being divided among their captors. this being done, the king clapped his hands, saying: "the holy ghost bless my queen! now i have all sweden in my hand!" when he set out soon afterwards on an errand of conquest, he left his brothers in the charge of a livonian knight, who had evidently been bidden to treat them harshly, for he removed them to the lowest dungeon and placed a beam upon their legs. they were fastened to the wall by thick iron round the throat and chains weighing one hundred and forty pounds were riveted on their wrists, the other end being fastened to the beam. when the chain was fastened upon erik it was done with such violence that a piece of iron broke out, cutting him on the eye so that blood ran down his cheek. their dungeon was at the bottom of the tower, where they lay on the bare rock, a pool of water lying between them. their food was wretched, their clothing was wretched, and there was every indication that their wicked brother did not wish to have them leave that prison alive. but the cruel and treacherous king did not find it so easy to bring all sweden under his rule. the news of his wicked act got abroad and spread through the land, exciting general horror and detestation. when he rode up to stockholm to take possession he found it closed against him and the burghers made a sally against him, putting his forces to flight. it was the same way everywhere, the whole country rising against him. the wicked king now began to learn that the way of the transgressor is hard, and in his fury of disappointment he locked the door of the dungeon in which his brothers lay and threw the key into the stream, leaving them to die of starvation. but the poor victims were to be thoroughly avenged, for the people were implacable in their wrath, and in a short time had so environed the king that the fortresses of nyköping and stegeborg were alone left to him, and both of these were besieged. nyköping was soon so severely pressed that the garrison brought up the dead bodies of the dukes and laid them under a dais outside the castle, saying to the besiegers: "your siege will now answer no purpose, for the dukes are dead and king birger is heir to all the kingdom." "no one can hope to win an inheritance by murder," they replied. "we now serve as our ruler, lord magnus, duke erik's son." the bodies of the murdered dukes were carried to stockholm, where they were buried with much ceremony. but the siege of the castle was continued until the garrison was forced to surrender. on obtaining possession of it the enraged people razed it to the ground. stegeborg, where prince magnus, king birger's son, was in command, held out much longer. the king and queen, with brunke, their confederate, were in gothland, which province alone they held, and from which they sent a number of ships to stegeborg with provisions and troops. these had no sooner appeared in the river skares, however, than they were attacked and taken, leaving prince magnus as bad off as ever. when this news was brought to the king and queen they exclaimed in despair: "where shall we turn now, since god has sent us such a misfortune?" brunke, the cruel chancellor, volunteered to lead an expedition himself, saying that he would no more spare the dukes' people than they had spared the king's. gathering some vessels, he had them strongly planked all around, and loading these with provisions and the remainder of the king's forces, he set out for stegeborg. on entering the skares the people attacked him with stones and other missiles, but he and his men protected themselves behind the planks. seeing this, fire-rafts were sent off from the shore against the ships, and despite all that could be done to keep them off they drifted upon the vessels, setting three of them on fire, from which the flames spread to the others. brunke and his men leaped overboard, hoping to escape by swimming, but they were all taken and brunke and three of his chiefs sent to stockholm, where they were soon afterwards beheaded. stegeborg was now in a desperate state and was soon forced to surrender, on the condition that the life of prince magnus should be spared. this condition was not kept, notwithstanding the fact that he was innocent of his father's crime. the indignant people were not willing to leave any scion of their wicked king alive and the poor boy's head was cut off. thus the unholy treachery of king birger met with retribution. sir matts kettilmundson, the brave knight who had shown such courage in russia, was made administrator of the kingdom and soon defeated a danish army which had been sent to king birger's aid. then birger and his wicked queen were obliged to flee to sweden, where grief soon brought him to his death-bed. queen martha lived long, but it was a life made bitter by memory of her crimes and heaven's retribution. [illustration: from stereograph, copyright by underwood and underwood, n.y. morning greetings of neighbors, sweden.] _queen margaret and the calmar union._ we have next to tell how the three kingdoms of scandinavia, between which rivalry and hostility had often prevailed, became united into one great scandinavian realm, under the rule of a woman, the great queen margaret. this was a very important event, as its results continued until our own day, the subjection of norway, which was then achieved, not being broken until the early days of the present century. it is important to describe the various steps by which this union was brought about. from , when harold fair-haired, the maker of norway, died, until , when a king known by the odd title of haakon longlegs followed him to the grave, the throne of norway had been nearly always filled by some one of harold's many descendants. but with the death of haakon the male line of king harold's descendants was finally broken, and only a woman remained to represent that great royal stock, princess ingeborg, the daughter of king haakon. this fair maiden was promised in marriage while still a child to duke erik, son of the late king of sweden. they were married in , and on the same day duke valdemar, erik's brother, married another princess of norway, also named ingeborg. about four years later a son was born to each of these happy couples, and king haakon was full of joy, for he now felt that the old royal line was restored. one person was not pleased by the birth of these princes. this was king birger of sweden, who had long been at sword's point with his ambitious brothers and wanted the throne of norway as well as that of sweden to descend to his own son magnus. he pretended to be pleased, however, for he had in mind a treacherous plot to destroy his brothers and their children and thus leave the way clear for his ambitious schemes. the steps he took to bring this about and their fatal end to his brothers and his son we have told in the previous tale. after the indignant people had driven king birger from the throne the kingdoms of sweden and norway were left in a strange plight. magnus, the son of duke erik and ingeborg, was only three years old when his grandfather, the king of norway, died. this left him the successor to the norse realm. but the deposition of king birger and the execution of his son left this royal infant the king of sweden also, so that these two kingdoms became for the first time united, and this under the rule of a three-year-old child, with regents to govern in his name. but the two countries remained separate in everything except that they had now but one king. when king magnus became old enough to act as monarch in reality, he took the government of both countries into his hands. but he proved unfit to govern either of them, being a weak and good-natured man, so anxious to please everybody that he pleased nobody. born and brought up in sweden, he knew little and cared less about affairs in norway and the people of that country grew much incensed at his neglect of their interests. they made him promise, at a public meeting, to divide the two kingdoms between his two sons; erik, the elder, to succeed him in sweden, and haakon, the younger, to be given the crown of norway when he came of age. events happened, as will be seen, to prevent this taking place and to combine all scandinavia under one great queen. this is how it came about. king magnus made a visit to denmark, where it was arranged to marry prince haakon to margaret, daughter and heir of the danish king, valdemar. this marriage took place in due time, and not very long afterwards both king magnus and prince haakon died and prince erik was poisoned by his mother, who was a wicked woman and was angry because he opposed her in one of her base schemes. thus as the death of king birger had left the crowns of sweden and norway to a boy of three, the deaths here named left these crowns and that of denmark also to another child, the son of haakon and margaret. this little fellow, olaf by name, too young to appreciate how great he had become, did not live to enjoy his greatness. he died at the age of seventeen, leaving his royal rights to his mother margaret. it is interesting to learn that the turbulent kingdoms named, the land of the sea-kings and the warlike barbarians of the north, each of which had needed the hand of a strong man to control them, all now fell under the sceptre of a woman, who at first reigned over denmark and norway and soon added sweden to her dominion. but queen margaret was no weakling. she was a woman born to command, strong in mind and body, and more like a man than a woman. in sweden, to which she quickly turned her attention, she had a bitter enemy in duke albrecht of mecklenburg, who had been declared king of that country after the death of king magnus, and who also claimed the crown of norway, being remotely related to its royal house. he bitterly hated margaret, whom he called "queen breechless," and by other satirical and insulting names. finally he took the bold step to call himself king of denmark and norway, a baseless claim which he proposed to enforce. he made a vow never to use a hat until he had driven out margaret, and sent her a whetstone several yards long, advising her to use it to sharpen her scissors and needles instead of using a sceptre. he was much too hasty, as he had only a weak hold upon sweden even, whose nobles did not like his habit of bringing in germans to fill the posts of honor and were anxious to get rid of him. therefore it came about that he found himself confronted by an army of danes, norsemen, and swedes, and a battle followed in which albrecht riding with his heavy cavalry upon a frozen marsh, broke through the ice and was taken prisoner. he was now in the power of queen margaret, who had at length the opportunity to repay him for his insults. to replace the crowns of norway and denmark, which he had sought to wear, she put upon his head a fool's cap, with a tail twenty-eight feet long, and repaid him for his insults and jests in other ways. after she had done her best to make him an object of laughter and ridicule she locked him up in a strong prison cell, where he was given six years to reflect on his folly. it took these six years for margaret's army to subdue the city of stockholm, which held out stoutly for albrecht. she won it at last by setting him free with the proviso that he should pay a ransom of sixty thousand marks. in ease he could not provide it within three years he was to return to prison or surrender stockholm. he did the latter and margaret became mistress of sweden. this able woman had now won a proud position, reached by none of the kings before her. she was ruler of the whole of scandinavia, with its three ancient kingdoms. the triple crown was hers for the lifting, but she was not ambitious to wear it, and preferred to put it on the head of her grand-nephew, erik of pomerania, though she retained the power in her hands until her death in . representatives of the three kingdoms were summoned by her to a meeting at calmar, where, in july, , a compact uniting the three kingdoms under one ruler was drawn up and signed. this was the famous calmar union, which held norway captive for more than four hundred years. from that time until the present century norway had no separate history, though her people vigorously resisted any measures of oppression. in this ancient kingdom was declared to be a province of denmark, being treated like a conquered land; yet there was not a man to protest against the humiliation. the loss of national standing had come on so gradually that the people, widely scattered over their mountain land and absorbed in their occupations, scarcely noticed it, though they were quick enough to resent any encroachment upon their personal liberty and rights. there were outbreaks, indeed, from time to time, but these were soon put down and the danish rule held good. this was not the case with sweden, a more thickly settled and civilized land. the struggle of the swedes for freedom continued for some seventy-five years and was finally accomplished in . how this was done will be told in other tales. as for norway, it was ceded by denmark to sweden in , and the people of that mountain land regained their national rights, with a free constitution, though ruled by the swedish king. this union held good until , when it was peacefully broken and norway gained a king of its own again, after being kingless for more than five hundred years. _how sir tord fought for charles of sweden._ in the year and the succeeding period there was great disorder in the scandinavian kingdoms. the calmar union was no longer satisfactory to the people of sweden, who were bitterly opposed to being ruled by a danish king. there were wars and intrigues and plots and plans, with plenty of murder and outrage, as there is sure to be in such troublous times. there was king after king, none of them pleasing to the people. king erik behaved so badly that neither sweden nor denmark would have anything to do with him, and he became a pirate, living by plunder. then duke christopher of bavaria was elected king of scandinavia, but he also acted in a way that made every one glad when he died. in those days there was a great nobleman in sweden, named karl knutsson, who had a hand in everything that was going on. one thing especially made him very popular at that time, when a new king was to be elected. the spring had been very dry and there was danger of a complete failure of the crops, but on the day when karl landed in stockholm, may , , there came plentiful rains and the people rejoiced, fancying that in some way he had brought about the change of weather. so, when the lords assembled to elect a new king, karl received sixty-two out of seventy votes, while the people shouted that they would have no other king. he was then crowned king as charles viii. there had been only one charles before him, but somehow the mistake was made of calling him charles viii., and in later years came charles ix., x., etc., the mistake never being rectified. all this is in introduction to a tale we have to tell, that of a bold champion of king charles. for the new king had many troubles to contend with. the king of denmark in especial gave him much trouble, and the southern province of west gothland was in danger of seceding from his rule. in this dilemma he chose his cousin, sir tord bonde, a young but daring and experienced warrior, as the captain of his forces in that province. he could not have made a better choice, and the stirring career of sir tord was so full of strange and exciting events that we must devote this tale to his exploits. lödöse, a stronghold of gothland, was still held by the danes, and sir tord's first adventure had to do with this place. on a dark, rainy, and stormy night he led a party of shivering horsemen towards the town, galloping onward at headlong speed over the muddy road and reaching the place before day-dawn. utterly unexpectant of such a coming, the danes were taken by surprise and all made prisoners, sir tord's men feeding luxuriously on the enemy's meat and wine as some recompense for their wet night's journey. master of the place without a blow, sir tord found there a bag of letters, containing some that had to do with plots against the king. these letters he sent to king charles, but they put him upon a new adventure of his own. one of the traitors was ture bjelke, master of axewalla castle, and sir tord, fancying that the traitor would be as welcome a present to the king as his letters, set out for the castle with thirty men. on arriving there ture, not dreaming that his treason had been discovered, admitted his visitor without hesitation. the troopers were also permitted to enter, sir tord having told them to come in groups of five or six only, so as not to excite suspicion by their numbers. that night, while they sat at table, and just as the cabbage was being carried in, sir tord sprang up and seized ture firmly by the collar, calling out that he arrested him as a traitor to the king. the knight's men sprang up to defend him, but sir tord's men attacked them with sword and fist, the matter ending in the men as well as their master being taken prisoners, and the castle falling into sir tord's hands. on receiving the letters, charles laid them before the senate at stockholm, but the traitors were men of such power and note, and there was so much envy and jealousy of charles among the lords, that he dared not attempt to punish the plotters as they deserved, but was obliged to pardon them. as for ture and his men, they managed to escape from the place where they had been left for safe keeping, and made their way to denmark. [illustration: from stereograph, copyright by underwood and underwood, n.y. gripsholm castle, mari.] meanwhile sir tord bonde was kept busy, for king christian of denmark several times invaded the land. on each occasion he was met by the valiant defender of west gothland and driven out with loss. on his final retreat he built a fortress in smaland, which he called danaborg, or danes' castle, leaving in it a danish garrison; but it was quickly attacked by sir tord with his men-at-arms and a force of armed peasantry and the castle taken by storm, the danes suffering so severe a defeat that the place was afterwards known as danasorg, or danes' sorrow. sir tord, to complete his chain of defences, had built several fortresses in norway, then claimed by king christian as part of his dominions. he had with him in this work about four hundred men, so small a force that kolbjörn gast, one of christian's generals, proceeded against him with an army three thousand strong, proposing to drive the daring invader out of the kingdom. weak as he felt himself, sir tord determined to try conclusions with the danes and norsemen, proposing to use strategy to atone for his weakness. one hundred of his men were placed in ambush in a clump of woodland, and with the remaining three hundred the swedish leader marched boldly on the enemy, who were entrenched behind a line of wagons. finding that he could not break through their defences, sir tord and his men turned in a pretended flight and were hotly pursued by the enemy, who abandoned their lines to follow the flying swedes. suddenly sir tord turned and led his men in a fierce attack upon the disordered pursuers, falling upon them with such bold fury that he had two horses killed under him. at the same time the hundred men broke from their ambush, sounding their war-horns loudly, and fell on the flank of the foe, though they were so badly armed that they had no iron points on their lances. confused and frightened by the double attack and the blare of the trumpets, the norsemen broke and fled, crying out that "all the might of sweden was in arms against them"; but they were pursued so closely that the leader and all his men were taken by the brave four hundred. thus the bold and skilful sir tord defended the king's cause in those quarters, winning victories by stratagem where force was lacking and keeping off the attacks of the danes by his watchfulness, bravery, and sound judgment; until men came to say, that his brave cousin was the king's chief support and that his secret enemies dared not undertake anything against him while he had so skilful and courageous a defender. there are two ways of disposing of a troublesome foe, one by fair and open warfare, one by treachery. as sir tord could not be got rid of in the former manner, his enemies tried the latter. jösse bosson, one of his officers, though born a dane, had proved so faithful and won his confidence to such an extent that the valiant swede trusted him completely, and made him governor of the fortress of karlborg. he did not dream that he was nourishing a traitor and one capable of the basest deeds. during the warfare in norway sir tord reached karlborg one afternoon, proposing to spend the night there. he was received with much show of joy by jösse, who begged him to take the repose he needed, promising to keep strict watch in the fortress during his stay there. without a thought of danger sir tord went to the chamber provided for him. jösse said the same to the followers of his guest, and as they were weary they were glad to go to their beds. having thus disposed of his visitors, jösse got his boats ready, loaded them with his most-prized effects, and then turned the key on the followers of his trusting guest, hid their swords, and even cut their bowstrings, so much was he afraid of the heroic soldier who had been his best friend. then, axe in hand, he entered the room of sir tord. the sleeper, awakened by his entrance, raised himself a little in the bed and asked what he wanted. for answer the murderous wretch brought down his axe with so heavy a blow that the head of sir tord was cleft in twain to the shoulders. then, taking to his boats, the assassin made his escape to the danes, by whom his bloody act was probably instigated. with the death by treason and murder of the brave sir tord, the chief bulkwark of the realm of king charles, this tale should end, but the later career of charles viii. is so curious a one that it will be of interest to make some brief mention of it. never has king had a more diversified career. with the death of his brave defender, enemies on all sides rose against him, his great wealth and proud ostentation having displeased nobles and people alike. chief among his enemies was the archbishop of upsala, who nailed a letter to the door of the cathedral in which he renounced all loyalty and obedience to king charles, took off his episcopal robes before the shrine of st. erik, and vowed that he would not wear that dress again until law and right were brought back to the land. it was a semi-civilized age and land in which churchmen did not hesitate to appeal to the sword, and the archbishop clad himself in armor, and with helmet on head and sword by side, set out on a crusade of his own against the man he deemed an unworthy and oppressive king. he found many to sustain him, and charles, taken utterly by surprise, barely escaped to stockholm, wounded, on a miserable old horse, and with a single servant. besieged there and unable to defend the town, he hid part of his treasures, put the rest on board a vessel, and while going on board himself was accosted by one of the archbishop's friends, who asked him: "have you forgotten anything?" "nothing except to hang you and your comrades," was the bitter reply of the fugitive king. king christian of denmark was called in by the archbishop to take the vacant throne, charles was pronounced a traitor by his enemies, and for some years christian ruled over sweden. then his avarice and the heavy taxes he laid on the people aroused such dissatisfaction that an insurrection broke out, christian's army was thoroughly defeated, and he was forced to take ship for denmark, while charles was recalled to the throne and landed in stockholm in , a second time king of sweden. this reign was not a long one. christian, who had imprisoned the archbishop because he opposed the heavy taxation of the peasants, now sought his aid again and sent him with an army to sweden. as a result charles found himself once more shut up in stockholm and was again forced by his enemies to resign the crown, being given instead of his kingdom the government of raseborg castle in finland. and instead of having treasures to take with him, as before, he was now so poor that he could not pay a debt of fifty marks he owed in stockholm. he expressed his state of poverty in the following verse: "while i was lord of fogelwich, i was a mighty man and rich; but since i'm king of swedish ground a poorer man was never found." but his career was not yet ended. he was again to sit on the throne. friends arose in his favor, the people again grew dissatisfied with danish rule, and the archbishop, his greatest enemy, died. charles was recalled and returned from finland, a third time standing on swedish ground as king. he had still a hard fight before him. a swedish nobleman, erik wase, sought to win the throne for himself, and christian of denmark sent a new army to sweden; but by the aid of a brave young knight, sten sture, nils sture, his cousin, and some other valiant friends, all his enemies were overcome and thus, after years of struggle and a remarkably diversified career, he was at length firmly seated on the throne. but the unfortunate monarch was not long to enjoy the quiet which he had so hardly won. he fell seriously ill in may, , and feeling that death was near, he sent for sten sture and made him administrator of the kingdom, with control of the castle of stockholm. but he earnestly warned him never to seek for the royal power, saying: "that ambition has ruined my happiness and cost me my life." _sten sture's great victory over the danes._ historical tales have much to do with war and bloodshed, with rides and raids, with schemes and stratagems, with plunder and piracy, and with outrage and oppression. these are the things to which historians give the most space in their pages and which many readers find fullest of interest and excitement. in the present tale we have to do wholly with scenes of war, for we propose to tell the story of one of the most remarkable battles ever fought on swedish soil. this is what led to it. after the death of charles viii. and the appointment of sten sture as administrator of the kingdom, christian i. of denmark, whom the brave sture had driven away with his army, fancied that the way was open to him again, and that sweden, without a king, was a ripe plum ready to drop into his mouth. he was to find it a sour plum, for in sten sture he had to deal with a man of notable ability, just and upright in his dealings, wise and prudent in government, and brave and skilful in war. he was a man who did not swear to keep his word, but who never broke it. "i promise by my three water-lilies" (the arms of the stures) was his form of affirmation, but this simple promise was more to be trusted than the solemn oaths of many kings and potentates. the people loved and trusted him, and on the st of may, , the late king's appointment was confirmed at a general diet of the people, which accepted him by acclamation as the administrator and captain-general of the realm. he soon had work cut out for him. christian of denmark equipped a great fleet and sailed to stockholm, where he anchored in the harbor and opened negotiations with the swedish senate, then the great source of power in the land. he promised to govern the kingdom in the way they might decide upon and be to them a mild and merciful father. while some of them were seduced by his specious promises, the majority had no fancy to make him their "father." but they made a truce with him until the matter could be decided, the danes being allowed to buy provisions in the town, and on their side selling salt to the citizens, this being at that time very scarce in stockholm. thus matters went on for seven weeks, at the end of which time christian concluded that the swedes were playing with him, seeking to spin out the time until all his provisions would be consumed and winter with its storms would be at hand to destroy his fleet. as it began to appear that nothing was to be gained by peace, he resolved to try the effect of war, and on the st of september landed his army and laid his plans to besiege the city. his camp was pitched on the hill of brunkenberg, near the city, connection being made with the fleet by a strong bridge built from the shore to an island in the harbor. bulwarks and ramparts of earth were thrown up on the side next the town, and were mounted with cannon, with which he soon opened a bombardment. he enticed some of the swedish peasants into his camp by promise of an abundance of salt, but his main army consisted of the danish nobles and their troops and of german and scottish soldiers of fortune, brave, stout, able warriors who exercised themselves daily in military sports and led a merry and careless life in camp, heedless of everything except pay and plunder. when the proud danish king was told that sture was collecting an army of peasants with which to fight him, he sneeringly said: "herr sten sneaks along ditches and dikes, but i shall punish my little gentleman with the rod like a child, and teach him to keep himself quiet." threats were also made by the foreign mercenaries against the citizens, but these only served to rouse their anger and make them more resolute in the defence of the city. as for herr sten, he went on raising troops and driving out the danes whom he found infesting the seaboard lands, not marching towards the city until he had got rid of all hostility in his rear. on his march he was met by his brave cousin, nils sture, with an army of the bold dalmen of the north, and the united armies marched on to jerfva, in the vicinity of the beleaguered city. from this point sture wrote to king christian, offering him safe passage home, if he would leave sweden without the need of blows; but he only roused the wrath of the king, who loudly swore: "by god's five wounds, i have not gone to so much trouble and expense to go home without finishing what i came for." all that could be done in the cause of peace had been done without avail, and events had reached a point in which the affair could be settled only at sword's point and cannon's mouth. it was the th of october, . long before the sun rose on that memorable day the swedes of sture's army were awake and busy preparing their arms for the coming fray, in which the mastery of their kingdom was to be decided. at an early hour the whole army was called to the solemn service of the mass, after which holy and impressive ceremony they refreshed themselves with a hasty meal and returned to their ranks ready for battle. nils sture was already on the march with a third of the army, secretly leading them around a clump of woodland with the purpose of attacking the danish camp at brunkenberg from the east. as the ranks of the main army formed for the attack, their brave leader was gratified to see a body of gallant horsemen, in shining armor, riding to join him. they were thirteen hundred in number, and had been sent from the town of kungsholm. advancing before his people, sture spoke to them with few but telling words: "if you ever desire to enjoy peace and security in sweden stand by me this day and cling one to another. i shall do my part. i fear not the king nor his danes and mercenaries, but gladly venture life and blood and all that i possess on the event of this battle. if you will do the same, lift up your hands." [illustration: skurusund, stockholm.] "that will we do with god's help," came the roar of response, followed by a great shout and wild clanging of arms. immediately the advance began, the men singing the verse of a psalm written for the occasion. it was now the hour of eleven. king christian and his army boldly awaited the assault, looking down from their commanding position on the swedes, who came on heedless of the roar of guns and flight of arrows. reaching the foot of the hill, they began its ascent, met as they did so by the danes, who rushed down upon them with lance and sword. in a moment more the hostile lines met and the bloody work of war began. on the summit of the hill proudly waved the danneborg, the sacred standard of denmark. in the midst of the swedes fluttered their country's flag, borne resolutely up the hill. around these banners gathered the bravest of the champions, fighting with heroic fury--the danes, under their ambitious king, fighting for glory and riches; the swedes, under their patriot leader, striking for peace and freedom from foreign rule. while the battle was thus raging outside the town, knut posse, its governor, a skilful soldier, was not idle. he was not content to rest within the walls while his countrymen were fighting so vigorously for his relief. the heat of the fight had left the bridge leading from the shore to the ships without a guard, and he sent some men in boats to row towards it and with saws and axes to sever the supports beneath it. this was successfully done and the men returned unseen. while this was being accomplished the warlike governor, seeing that the swedes had been checked in their ascent of the hill, made a sally from the town with two thousand of the garrison, taking possession of the danish fortifications in that quarter and setting them on fire. his position, however, could not long be held, for sten sture's troops had been driven down the hill and christian was free to lead a heavy column against him, forcing him back with his handful of men. in the struggle, however, the bold governor advanced so vigorously upon the king, that he received a wound from christian's own hand. while knut posse was thus being driven back into the town sten sture was seeking to infuse new spirit into his defeated people, telling them that "it would be to their eternal shame if they suffered themselves thus to be repulsed." marshalling them into orderly ranks as quickly as possible he led them again towards the hill, and the battle recommenced with its old fire and vigor. sture rode valiantly at their head, encouraging them with a display of heroic valor. while he fought on horseback, by his side ran a peasant named björn the strong, who kept pace with the horse and at times ran before it, swinging his broad battle-axe with such strength that he opened a road for his leader to ride through. though surrounded by enemies, the two held their own with the fiery energy of the berserkers of an earlier day, dispensing death while not receiving a wound. king christian, on the other hand, showed himself not wanting in valor, keeping well in the front rank of his men. in the midst of the fight a ball struck him in the mouth, knocking out three of his teeth and so disabling him that he was carried fainting from the field. in the end the swedes, who had borne their banner to the summit of the hill, where they looked in vain for the expected aid from nils sture and his men, were driven back again and a second time forced down the hill, the victorious danes driving them well into the plain at its foot. three hours of hard fighting had now passed and both armies were wearied. trotte karlsson, a swedish renegade who had been fighting against his country in the ranks of its foes, seated himself on a stone to rest, taking off his helmet that he might breathe the fresh air. as he did so a ball from the swedish ranks struck him between the eyes and he fell dead--a traitor fighting with strangers against his native land. though twice beaten sten sture had no thought of giving up the fight. for some reason nils sture, who with the large force under his command had been depended upon to make a diversion in their favor, had not appeared. bad roads had detained him and he was still struggling onward towards his assigned position. looking around him, and satisfied that it was hopeless to dislodge the enemy from their post of vantage, sten now attempted a diversion by sending a force to attack the troops stationed at the convent of st. claire. the danes on the hill, seeing the danger of this detachment, and thinking that they had thoroughly beaten off the swedes, rushed down to the aid of those at the convent, and sten, with the skill of an able commander, took advantage of this movement and at once marshalled his men for a third attack. they did not need much encouragement. though twice beaten they were not dispirited, but rushed forward shouting: "now the danes come to us on equal ground! let us at them and swing our swords freely!" some bright streaks appearing on the sky, the cry ran through the ranks: "st. erik is waving his sword over his people to aid them and point the way to victory." on the enemy they rushed, with a valor not weakened by their previous repulses, and knut posse, who had been watching the fight with keen eyes, made a fresh sally from the town. soon the battle was on again with all its former fury, the danes fighting at first for victory, then, as they were forced to give way, striking resolutely to defend their standard, the danneborg. knut posse made a fierce onset upon the proud banner, but was not able to reach it until five hundred noble danes, who gathered around it as a guard of honor, had fallen under the swords of the swedes. when the danes saw their great standard fall they gave way, but only with the intention to regain the height and defend themselves on its summit. it was at this critical juncture that nils sture appeared with his long-delayed troops and attacked the enemy from a fresh side. before this unlooked-for and powerful force the danes gave way in a panic, their ranks being broken and the fugitives rushing in wild flight down the hill to take refuge in their ships. now the stratagem of knut posse became effective, the weakened bridge swaying and sinking under the multitude of fugitives who crowded it, plunging them by hundreds into the water. others leaped into boats to row to the vessels, but these were so crowded that many of them sank, their occupants being drowned. in all, nine hundred men were drowned in the flight, while as many more who were not able to escape threw down their arms and surrendered. christian succeeded in escaping with that portion of his army which had reached the ships, while sten sture marched in triumph into stockholm with his victorious troops, there to be received with shouts of gladness, and with tears of joy by his wife fra ingeborg, who had been in the city and with the noble ladies of the place had prayed earnestly for victory while their friends and husbands fought. for four hours the battle had lasted. it was one of vast importance for sweden, since it brought to that country many years of peace and repose. king christian dared not attack the swedes again and the country got on prosperously without a king under the able government of sten sture. _how the ditmarshers kept their freedom._ the name of ditmarshers was given to the inhabitants of a broad, marshy region adjoining the district of holstein on the baltic shores of germany. they were not pure germans, however, but descendants of the ancient frisian tribes who had long occupied the northwest parts of germany and holland and were known as far back as the times of the romans for their courage and love of liberty. for age after age this people had shown the same bold spirit and made many a gallant stand against the princes who sought to subdue them. geert the great and other princes of sleswick and holstein had suffered defeat at their hands, and the warlike valdemar iii. of denmark had been sadly beaten by them. at a much later date the emperor frederick had formally given the lands of the ditmarshers to christian i. of denmark, to be joined to holstein, but the marshmen declared that they were not subjects of denmark and would not be given and taken at its king's will. it was in the year that the most striking event in the history of the ditmarshers took place. king hans, the son of christian i., then ruled over denmark and norway and five years before had been crowned king of sweden. it was due to his dealings with the bold sons of the marshes that he lost the latter throne. this is the story of this interesting event. when hans was made king of denmark his ambitious brother frederick, who had sought to obtain the throne, was made duke of sleswick-holstein, and called upon the ditmarshers to pay him taxes and render homage to him for their lands. this they declined to do, not recognizing the right of the emperor frederick to hand them over to denmark and to decide that the country which had belonged to their fathers for so many centuries was part of holstein. finding that he had tough metal to deal with in the brave marshmen, frederick induced his brother hans to invade their country and seek to bring them to terms. king valdemar had done the same thing three centuries before, with the result of losing four thousand men and getting an arrow wound in his eye, but undeterred by this, if they knew anything about it, the nobles and knights, who were very numerous in the army led by frederick and hans, went to the war as lightly as if it were an excursion of pleasure. disdaining to wear their ordinary armor in dealing with peasant foes, they sought to show their contempt for such an enemy by going in their ordinary hunting costume and carrying only light arms. it was a piece of folly, as they were to learn. the marshmen fought like their fathers of old for their much-valued liberty, and the knights found they had no cravens to deal with. it is true that the royal troops took and sacked meldorf, the chief town of the ditmarshers, cruelly killing its inhabitants, but it was their only victory. it proved a lighter thing to get to meldorf than to get away from it, and of the danes and germans who had taken part in the assault few escaped with their lives. it was the depth of winter, cold, bitter weather, and as the army was on its march from meldorf to hejde the advance guard suddenly found itself in face of a line of earthworks which the marshmen had thrown up in front of a dike. this was defended by five hundred ditmarshers under their leader, wolf isebrand. the german guards rushed to the attack, shouting: "back, churls, the guards are coming!" three times they forced the marshmen to retreat, but as often these bold fellows rallied and came back to their works. in the midst of the struggle the wind changed, bringing a thaw with it, and as the troops struggled on, blinded with the sleet and snow that now fell heavily, and benumbed with the cold, the men of the marshes opened the sluices in the dike. through the openings poured the waters of the rising tide, quickly flooding the marshes and sweeping everything before them. the soldiers soon found themselves wading in mud and water, and at this critical juncture the ditmarshers, accustomed to make their way through their watery habitat by the aid of poles and stilts, fell upon the dismayed invaders, cutting them down in their helpless dilemma or piercing them through with their long lances. the victory of the peasants was utter and complete. six thousand of the invaders, nobles and men-at-arms alike, perished on that fatal day, and the victors fell heir to an immense booty, including seven banners. among these was the great danish standard, the famous danneborg, which was carried in triumph to oldenwörden and hung up in the church as the proudest trophy of the victory. as for king hans and his brother duke frederick, they barely escaped falling into the hands of the marshmen, while the estimate of the losses in money, stores, and ammunition in that dread afternoon's work was , florins. king hans lost more than money by it, for he lost the kingship of sweden. the nobles of that country, when the news of the disastrous defeat reached them, rose in revolt, under the leadership of sten sture, drove the danes out of stockholm, and kept his queen, christina of saxony, prisoner for three years. hans had no more armies to send to sweden and he was obliged to renounce its crown. norway also rose against him under a brave leader, and his power over that country was threatened also. it was finally saved for him by his son prince christian, who used his power so cruelly after order was restored that he nearly routed out all the old norwegian nobles. thus, from his attempt to make the ditmarshers pay taxes against their will, king hans lost one kingdom and came near losing another. the only successful war of his reign was one against the traders of lübeck, who had treated him with great insolence. in a war which followed, the fleet of the lübeckers was so thoroughly beaten that the proud merchant princes were glad to pay , gulden to obtain peace. then, having this one success to offset his defeat by the ditmarshers, king hans died. _the blood-bath of stockholm._ the most cruel tyrant the northern lands ever knew was christian ii. of denmark, grandson of christian i., whose utter defeat at stockholm has been told. for twenty-seven years sweden remained without a king, under the wise rule of sten sture. then hans of denmark, son of christian i., was chosen as king, in the belief that he would keep his promises of good government. as he failed to keep them he was driven out after a four years' rule, as we have told in the last tale, and sten sture became practically king again. how christian, who succeeded hans as king of denmark, and had shown himself a master of ferocity and bloodthirsty cruelty in norway and denmark, overcame the swedes and made himself king of sweden, is a story of the type of others which we have told of that unhappy land. it must suffice to say here that by force, fraud, and treachery he succeeded in this ambitious effort and was crowned king of sweden on the th of november, . he had reached the throne by dint of promises, confirmed by the most sacred oaths, not one of which he had any intention of keeping, and the swedes might as well have set a wolf on their throne as given it to this human tiger. one thing he knew, which was that the mischief and disquiet in sweden were due to the ambition of the great lords, and he mentally proposed to ensure for himself a quiet reign by murdering all those whom he feared. [illustration: skansen river.] under what pretence of legality it could be done, and leave to him the appearance of innocence in the matter, was a difficult question. to attempt the bloody work with no ostensible motive might lose for him the crown which he had striven so hard to win, and in the dilemma he consulted with his confidential advisers as to what should be done. some of them proposed that a quarrel and uproar between the danes and swedes in the town should be fomented, which the lords might be accused of bringing about. but there was danger that such a pretended quarrel might become a real one, and endanger his throne. others advised that gun-powder should be laid under the castle and the lords be accused of seeking to blow up the king. but this was dismissed as too clumsy a device. finally it was proposed to proceed against the lords as heretics, they having some years previously been excommunicated by the pope for heretical practices. the king, indeed, had solemnly sworn to forget and forgive the past, but his cunning advisers told him that while he might speak for himself, he had no warrant to speak for the church, the laws and rights of which had been violated. this pretext was seized upon by christian with joy and he proceeded to make use of it in a way that every churchman in the land would have condemned with horror. on the th of november, the day after the coronation festivities ended, the king proceeded to put his treacherous plot into effect. a number of noble swedes who had attended the festivities were brought to the castle under various pretences, and were there ushered into a large and spacious hall. with alarm they saw that the doors were closed behind them so that none could leave, though others might enter. when all were gathered christian entered and took his seat on the throne, with his council and chief lords about him. archbishop trolle was also present as representative of the church, but without knowledge or suspicion of the secret purpose of the king, who had brought him there to sanction by his presence the intended massacre. the charge which it was proposed to bring against the senators and lords was that of trespass against the archiepiscopal dignity and to demand retribution for the same, and this charge was accordingly brought in the name of the church. the king then turned to the archbishop and asked: "my lord archbishop, do you intend to have this matter brought to peace and friendship according to the counsel of good men or will you have it judged by the law?" archbishop trolle answered, "the offence being one against the church, the cause of the accused should be judged by the pope." this was a mode of settling the matter which by no means conformed with the king's intention, and he answered: "this is a matter not to be referred to the pope, but to be terminated at home in the kingdom, without troubling his holiness." in this decision he was not to be shaken, knowing well that if the archbishop's proposal to refer the matter to the pope were carried out his secret sanguinary purpose would be defeated. what he proposed was the murder of the lords, and he had no intention of letting the matter escape from his control. lord sten sture, against whom the accusation had been chiefly directed, was dead, but his widow, the lady christina, was present, and was asked what defence she had to offer for herself and her husband. she replied that the offences against the archbishop were not due to lord sten alone, but were done with the approbation of the senate and the kingdom and she produced a parchment in proof of her words, signed by many of the persons present. christian eagerly seized upon the incriminating document, as giving him a warrant for his proceedings and evidence against those whom he most hated and feared. all whose names were attached to it were brought up, one after another, there being among them several bishops, who had taken part in the matter on patriotic and political grounds, and a number of senators. every one tried to excuse himself, but of the whole number bishop otto was the only one whose excuse was accepted. at the end of the examination all those accused were seized and taken from the hall, the whole number, senators, prelates, noblemen, priests and burghers, being locked up together in a tower, the two bishops among them being alone given a better prison. the true reason for proceeding against the churchmen was that they had been the friends of sten sture and might prefer their country to the king. the wicked tyrant, who in this illegal manner had sought to make the church responsible for his bloodthirsty schemes, hesitated not to condemn clergy and laity alike, and ended the session by the arbitrary decision that all the accused were heretics and as such should die. irreligious, illegal, and ruthless as had been this whole proceeding, into which the artful king had dragged the archbishop and sought to make him a consenting party to his plot, christian had gained his purpose of providing a pretext for ridding himself of his political enemies, actual or possible, and proceeded to put it into execution in the arbitrary manner in which it had been so far conducted, regardless of protests from any quarter. the next day the city gates were closed, so that no one could enter or leave. trumpeters rode round the streets in the early morning, proclaiming that no citizen, on peril of life, must leave his house, unless granted permission to do so. on the chief squares danish soldiers were marshalled in large numbers, and on the great square a battery of loaded cannon was placed, commanding the principal streets. a dread sense of terrible events to come pervaded the whole city. at noon the castle gates were thrown open and a great body of armed soldiers marched out, placing themselves in two long lines which reached from the castle to the town hall. between these lines the accused lords were led, until the great square was reached, where they were halted and surrounded by a strong force of danish soldiers. around these gathered a great body of the people, now permitted to leave their houses. alarm and anguish filled their faces as they saw the preparations for a frightful event. on the balcony of the town hall now appeared sir nils lycke, a knight newly created by the king, who thus addressed the agitated multitude: "you good people are not to wonder at what you now behold, for all these men have proved themselves to be base heretics, who have sought to destroy the holy church; and moreover traitors to his majesty the king, since they had laid powder under the castle to kill him." at this point he was interrupted by bishop vincent from the square below, who called out indignantly to the people: "do not believe this man, for all he tells you is falsehood and nonsense. it is as swedish patriots that we are brought here, and god will yet punish christian's cruelty and treachery." two of the condemned lords also called out to the people, beseeching them "never in future to let themselves be deceived by false promises, but one day to avenge this day's terrible treachery and tyranny." fearing an outbreak by the indignant people, if this appeal should continue, the soldiers now made a great noise, under order of their officers, and the king, who is said to have gloatingly witnessed the whole proceedings from a window in the town hall, ordered the execution to proceed, klas bille, an official, placing himself to receive the golden chain and ring of each knight before he was beheaded. the prisoners implored that they might confess and receive the holy sacrament before they were slain, but even this was refused, and bishop matthew was led forth first. while he was kneeling, with clasped and uplifted hands, two horrified men, one of them his secretary, rushed impulsively towards him, but before they could reach the spot the fatal sword had descended and the good bishop's head rolled to their feet on the ground. they cried out in horror that this was a frightful and inhuman act, and were at once seized and dragged within the circle, where they would have suffered the fate of the victimized bishop had they not been rescued by some german soldiers, who believed them to be germans. bishop vincent next fell beneath the encrimsoned sword, and after him the senators, seven in number, and thirteen nobles and knights of the senate. these were followed by the three burgomasters of stockholm and thirteen members of the town council, with fifteen of the leading citizens, some of them having been dragged from their houses, without the least warning, and led to execution. one citizen, lars hausson by name, burst into tears as he beheld this terrible scene, and at once was seized by the soldiers, dragged within the fearful circle, and made to pay by death for his compassion. with this final murder the executions for that day ended, the heads being set on poles and the dead bodies left lying where they had fallen. a violent rain that came on bore a bloody witness of the sanguinary scene into the streets, in the stream of red-dyed water which ran down on every side from the great square. on the next day christian said that many had hid themselves who deserved death, but that they might now freely show themselves for he did not intend to punish any more. deceived by this trick some of the hidden leaders made their appearance and were immediately seized and haled to the square, where the work of execution was resumed. six or eight of these were beheaded, many were hung, and the servants of the slaughtered lords, who happened to come to the town in ignorance of the frightful work, were dragged from their horses and, booted and spurred as they had come, were haled to the gallows. the king's soldiers and followers, excited by the slaughter and given full license, now broke into many houses of the suspected, murdering the men, maltreating the women, and carrying away all the treasure they could find, and for some hours stockholm seemed to be in the hands of an army that had taken the city by storm. for a day and night the corpses lay festering in the street, their bodies torn by vagrant dogs, and not until a pestilent exhalation began to rise from them were they gathered up and hauled by cartloads to a place in the southern suburbs, where a great funeral pyre was erected and the bodies were burned to ashes. as for the tyrant himself, his bloody work seemed to excite him to a sort of madness of fury. he ordered the body of sten sture the younger to be dug from its grave in riddarholm church, and it is said that in his fury he bit at the half-consumed remains. the body of sten's young son was also disinterred, and the two were carried to the great funeral pile to be burnt with the others. the quarter of the town where this took place is still named sture, in memory of the dead, and on the spot where the great pyre was kindled stands st. christopher's church. such was the famous, or rather the infamous, "blood-bath of stockholm," which still remains as a frightful memory to the land. it did not end here. the dreadful work he had done seemed to fill the monster with an insatiable lust for blood. his next act was to call christina, the widow of sten sture, to his presence. when, overwhelmed with grief and despair, she appeared, he sneeringly asked her whether she would choose to be burned, drowned, or buried alive. the noble lady fell fainting at his feet. her beauty and suffering and the entreaties of those present at length softened the tyrant, but her mother was enclosed in a bag and thrown into the stream, though she was permitted to be drawn out by the people on their promise to the tyrant that he should have her great wealth. but she, with her daughter christina and many other women of noble descent, were carried as hostages to copenhagen and shut up in a dreadful prison called the blue tower, where numbers of them died of hunger, thirst and cold. the massacre was not confined to stockholm; from there the executions spread throughout the country, and the old law of was revived that no peasant should bear arms, danish soldiers being sent through the country to rob the people of their weapons. the story is told that some of them, enraged by this act of tyranny, said: "swords shall not be wanting to punish the tyrant so long as we retain our feet to pursue and our hands to revenge." to this the reply was that "a hand and a foot might well be cut from the swedish peasant; for one hand and a wooden leg would be enough for him to guide his plough." this report, improbable as it was, spread widely and caused a general panic, for so terrified were the people by the reports of christian's cruelty that nothing seemed too monstrous for him to undertake. in december the tyrant prepared to return to denmark, leaving sweden under chosen governors, with an army of danes. but his outgoing from the country was marked by the same sanguinary scenes. he caused even his own favorite, klas hoist, to be hung, and two friends of sten sture being betrayed to him, he had them quartered and exposed upon the wheel. sir lindorm ribbing was seized and beheaded, together with his servants. and, most pitiable of all, sir lindorm's two little boys, six and eight years of age, were ordered by the tyrant to be slain, lest they should grow up to avenge their murdered father. the scene, as related, is pathetic to the highest degree. the older boy was beheaded, and when the younger saw the streaming blood and the red stains on his brother's clothes, he said with childish innocence to the executioner: "dear man, don't stain my shirt like my brother's, for then mamma will whip me." at these words the executioner, his heart softened, threw down the sword, crying: "i would rather blood my own shirt than yours." but the pathos of the scene had no effect on the heart of the tyrant, who witnessed it unsoftened, and called for a more savage follower to complete the work, ending it by striking off the head of the compassionate executioner. with this and other deeds of blood christian left the land where he had sown deeply the seeds of hate, and the terrible "blood-bath" ended. _the adventures of gustavus vasa._ in the parish of orkesta, in upland, sweden, there may be seen the remains of an old tower, now a mere heap of stones, but once the centre of the proud manor-seat of lindholm. it was a noble and lordly castle, built of red bricks and grey granite, seated on a high hill between two lakes, and commanding a wide prospect over mountain, wood, and water. here, in the year , was born gustavus vasa, the son of sir erik and lady cecilia vasa, and destined to win future fame as one of the greatest heroes of sweden and the liberator of his native land. at the age of six the boy was sent to be educated at the court of sten sture, then the administrator and virtual king of sweden. here he was not spoiled by indulgence, his mode of life and his food were alike simple and homely, and he grew up with a cheerful spirit and a strong body, his chief pleasure being that of hunting among the rocks and forests with his companions, all of whom grew to love and admire him. king hans, when monarch of sweden in , on a visit to sten sture noticed the boy playing about the hall and was much pleased by his fine and glowing countenance. patting him on the head, he said: "you will certainly be a man in your day, if you live to see it." he afterwards, thinking of the high descent of the boy and that he might grow to be a future foe of denmark, asked sten sture to let him take the lad to copenhagen and bring him up in his court. the wise lord sten quickly fathomed the king's thoughts and answered that the boy was too young to be taken from his parents. he soon after sent him to his father, then in command at aland. "the young wolf has slipped out of my net," said king hans in later years, when he was told of the splendid development of the boy as he grew to manhood. at the age of twenty-four he left the academy at upsala, where he had been educated in the arts and sciences, and repaired to the court of sten sture the younger, where he was soon a general favorite, loved for his amiable character and admired for his wit and vivacity. at that time the war by which christian ii. made himself master of denmark was going on and young vasa aided by his courage in winning victory on more than one hard-fought field. in , during a negotiation between sten sture and christian, then in sore straits in his fleet, the latter agreed to go ashore to confer with the swedish leader if six gentlemen were sent on board his fleet as hostages. this was done, but before the conference took place a favorable change of wind changed the treacherous king's intention and he sailed off for denmark with his hostages, all of whom were imprisoned and held to secure the neutrality of their relatives in sweden. among these captives was young gustavus vasa, who, thus perfidiously taken, was cruelly confined. finally, at the request of herr erik baner, a distant relative of the vasas, the young man was set free, baner binding himself to pay a heavy penalty in money if he permitted him to escape. thus it was that vasa found a new home at kallö castle, in jutland, where his deliverer lived, and where he was well treated and given much freedom. "i shall not cause you to be strictly guarded nor put you in confinement," said good old baner. "you shall eat at my table and go where you please, if you faithfully promise not to make your escape or journey anywhere without letting me know." to this the young man bound himself verbally and by writing, and was given liberty by his generous warder to go where he pleased within six miles of kallö. at first he was always accompanied by an attendant, but as he won the old man's love and confidence he was suffered to go alone. but he could not forget the perfidy by which he had been made prisoner, and in , when king christian was preparing a great expedition against sweden, the boasts of the young danish nobles of what they proposed to do chafed his proud soul. day and night his bitterness of spirit grew, and finally, as the time came for the expedition to set sail, he could bear it no longer but resolved to break his parole and escape to his native land. it was in the summer of that he set out, having dressed himself in peasant clothing. starting in the early morning and avoiding the open roads, he made his way by by-paths, and at noon of the following day reached the town of flensburg, where he fortunately met some saxon traders driving a herd of cattle from jutland to germany. he joined these, and on september reached the free town of lübeck. here the authorities gave him permission to remain, with a warrant for his personal safety while in the town. meanwhile sir erik baner had been wrathfully seeking him, and appeared in lübeck shortly after he reached there, complaining of his ingratitude for the good treatment given him, and threatening the senate of lübeck with christian's enmity if they should protect one of his foes. gustavus boldly answered that he was no lawful prisoner, but a man seized by breaking a solemn compact, and therefore that he had the right to set himself free. as for the six thousand riks-thalers, which sir erik had bound himself to pay, he would return them with interest and gratitude when he got home. "i trust to this," he concluded, "that i am in a free town, on whose word, when once given, i should be able to depend." this appeal won his case with the senate, and sir erik was obliged to return without his ward. but to make his way to sweden, then torn and distracted by war, and the seas held by hostile craft, was no easy matter and he was forced to remain eight months in lübeck while his country was being rapidly subdued by its invaders. they were not idle months, for gustavus learned much while there of political and industrial economy and the commerce and institutions of the hanseatic league and its free towns, knowledge which became of much service to him in later years. in the end he succeeded in making his way to sweden in a small trading vessel, and on the st of may, , landed secretly on its shores, with nothing but his sword and his courage to sustain him against an enemy who had, step by step, subjugated nearly the whole land. [illustration: from stereograph, copyright by underwood and underwood, n.y. the famous xvi. century castle at upsala, sweden.] of the cities, only stockholm and calmar remained in the hands of the swedes, and the latter, in which he had landed, seemed full of cowards and traitors. the place was not safe for a declared patriot, and he left it, making his way up the country. here he learned with indignation how envy, avarice, and private feuds had induced many swedes to betray one another to the enemy, and his efforts to exhort the people to unity and resistance proved vain. most of them were weary of the war, and christian had won over many of the peasants. "he is a gracious master to us," they said, "and as long as we obey the king neither salt nor herring will fail us." when gustavus sought to win them over to more patriotic views they became angry and threatening, and in the end they assailed him with arrows and lances, so that he was obliged to make his escape. his position, indeed, became so critical that he was forced to disguise himself and proceed through forests and unsettled lands. finally he reached the manor-house in which resided his sister margaret and her husband, sir joachim brahe. they received him with the highest demonstrations of joy, as they had feared that they would never set eyes on him again; but their delight in his presence was turned into consternation when they learned that he was there with the purpose of seeking to foment an insurrection against christian, who had then made himself complete master of sweden and was on the point of being crowned king. joachim brahe and his wife were at that time preparing to attend christian's coronation at stockholm, and were deeply disturbed by what seemed to them the mad purpose of the young patriot. joachim offered to do his utmost to reconcile gustavus to the king, and margaret threw herself in tears and distress on his neck, beseeching him to desist from an undertaking which she felt sure would bring death to him and ruin to his whole family. but gustavus was not to be persuaded, and on the other hand he warned joachim against trusting himself in christian's hands, speaking of him as a base wretch whom no one could trust. joachim proved equally hard to move, and the three soon parted, joachim and his wife for stockholm--where death awaited him at the hands of the traitor king--and gustavus for a place of concealment where he could foment his plans. during this interval he met the old archbishop, jacob ulfsson, who earnestly advised him to go to stockholm and warmly promised to plead his cause with the king. but the fugitive knew christian far better than the aged churchman and had no idea of putting his head within the wolfs jaws. little did the good archbishop dream of the terrible tragedy that was even then taking place in stockholm. the news of it came to gustavus in this way. one day while out hunting in the vicinity of his hiding-place, he unexpectedly met the faithful old steward of his brother-in-law joachim, who was so choked with grief on seeing him that he found it impossible to speak and could answer the young lord's question only with tears and gestures. finally he succeeded in telling the fearful tale of that bloody day at stockholm, the death under the executioner's sword of the father and brother-in-law of the horror-stricken listener, the imprisonment of his mother and sisters, and the fact that he would soon become a hunted fugitive, a high price having been set upon his head. who can describe the bitter grief of the son and brother at these terrible tidings, the hot wrath of the patriot, the indignation of a true and honest heart! on that fatal day the young fugitive had lost all he loved and cherished and was made a hunted, homeless, and almost penniless outlaw. but his courage did not fail him, he could foresee the indignation of the people at the dastardly act, and he determined to venture liberty and life against the ruthless tyrant. a series of striking adventures awaited him, which it needed his utmost resolution to endure. he was then concealed at räfsnäs, one of his paternal estates, but felt it necessary at once to seek a safer refuge, and collecting what gold and silver he could, he set out with a single servant for dalarna. they had not gone far before they reached the ferry at kolsund, which he crossed, leaving his man to follow. but the fellow, who had no faith in his master's project, took the opportunity to mount his horse and flee, taking with him the gold and jewels which had been entrusted to his care. seeing the act of treachery, gustavus in all haste recrossed the ferry, and pursued the runaway so hotly that he leaped from his horse in alarm and hid himself in the woods. recovering the horse and its valuable burden, the fugitive pursued his course, paying no further heed to the treacherous servant. it was late in november when gustavus reached dalarna. he was now completely disguised, having exchanged his ordinary dress for that of a peasant, cutting his hair round, wearing the round hat and short baize jacket of the countrymen, and carrying an axe on his shoulder in the fashion of peasant-lads seeking work. no one would have dreamed of his being the sole heir of the great house of the vasas. his first service was with a rich miner named anders persson, in whose barn he threshed grain for several days. but his fellow threshers soon saw that he was not accustomed to the work and his general manner did not seem that of a common farm-hand, while one of the women caught the glimpse of a silk collar under his coarse jacket. these suspicious circumstances were told to the miner, who sent for gustavus and quickly recognized him, for he had often seen him in former days at upsala. anders received him hospitably, but when he heard from him of the stockholm massacre and his aid was requested in the liberation of the country, he grew alarmed. fearing to entertain so dangerous a guest, he advised him to go farther north and to change his place of abode frequently. accepting this advice, gustavus set out for ornäs, but on his way, while crossing a newly frozen stream, the thin ice broke under him and he was plunged into the chilling water. light and active, he soon got out again, drying his clothes and passing the night at the house of the ferryman. reaching ornäs the next day, he went to the house of a former friend, but who now, unknown to him, had become connected by marriage with the danes and was devoted to the interests of the new king. it was a critical situation for the friendless fugitive. his treacherous host craftily welcomed him and pretended to approve his purpose, in which he offered to assist him and to seek adherents to his cause among his neighbors. the guest was conducted to a garret at the top of the house and here, weary from his wanderings and gratified at having found a sympathizing friend, he lay confidingly down and was soon lost in slumber. meanwhile arendt, the treacherous host, sought a neighbor, mans nilsson, whom he told of the rich prize he had found and asked his aid in capturing him and gaining the high reward offered for him by the king. he was mistaken in his man. mans hated treachery. but arendt found others who were less scrupulous and in the early morning returned to his home heading twenty men, collected to aid him in the capture of his unsuspecting guest. to his utter surprise and dismay, on entering the garret to which gustavus had been led he was nowhere to be found. he had unaccountably disappeared, and search as they could no trace of the fugitive was forthcoming. there was a woman concerned in this strange escape, which had happened thus. barbara, arendt's wife, though danish in her sympathies, had a warm, romantic interest in gustavus vasa, and when she saw her husband, on his return from his visit to mans nilsson, drive past the house and in the direction of the house of the danish steward, she suspected him of treachery and determined to save their too-confiding guest. ordering jacob, one of her men, to harness a sledge with all haste and secrecy and keep it in waiting behind the building, she sought the garret, woke gustavus, and told him of his peril and of her desire to save him. not venturing to bring him down into the house, she opened the window, and though it was eighteen feet from the ground, she aided him in his descent with a long towel, such as were then in common use. gustavus then sprang into the sledge and was driven briskly off. arendt, when he learned of how his expected victim had fled, was furiously angry with his wife, and, as we are told, never forgave her and refused ever to set eyes on her again. this was the most extreme danger that the fugitive patriot ever passed through, and at that interval his hope of freeing his country from the yoke of the foreigner seemed the sheerest madness. but other perils lay before him and only vigilance and good fortune saved him more than once from death or capture. surrounded by foes and with scarce a friend who dared aid him in the whole district, his final escape seemed impossible. the friendly barbara had advised him to seek herr jon, the priest of svärdsjö, and his driver took the road over the frozen lake runn, they ascending its banks in the smoke coming down from the fahun copper mines, and about sunrise reaching a village on the northeast end of the lake. jacob was unacquainted with the country beyond this point and gustavus went to a house to inquire the way. as he was on the point of entering he saw within a miner, nils haussen, whom he knew to be a danish partisan and who would have recognized him at sight. quickly and without being seen, he turned behind the door and went towards another village beyond. here he met a friendly smelter who agreed to guide him on the way. when they parted gustavus gave him a silver dagger, saying gratefully: "if god helps me, seek me, and i will richly repay you for your aid." as night came on he sought quarters in a road-side cottage, and as he sat before the fire in the evening the good-wife said to him: "young man, make me some pudding skewers, since you have nothing else to do." gustavus laughingly replied that he would be glad to do so if he only knew how. this adventure has an interesting resemblance to that of king alfred, when, hidden from the danes in the swine-herd's hut, he let the good woman's cakes burn on the fire. reaching the parsonage of herr jon on the following day, he first went to the barn and helped the laborers to thresh, at the same time asking them what side their master took. learning that he was no friend of the danes, he made himself known to him and was graciously received, staying with him for three days. but this place soon became unsafe. one day herr jon's housekeeper entered a room where gustavus was washing, the priest standing by, towel in hand. "why are you holding the towel for this common fellow?" she asked. "that is none of your affairs," said the priest. but fearing that the woman would talk, he thought it best for his guest to seek a safer retreat, and sent him to swen elfsson, gamekeeper for the crown, who lived not far away. meanwhile the danish steward, who had been told by the treacherous arendt of the character of his guest, had his agents out in search of the fugitive and some of them entered the cottage of the gamekeeper. at that moment the good-wife was about putting her bread in the fire, and gustavus was standing by the hearth in his peasant's dress, warming himself. the men who entered inquired for the fugitive, but before answering the woman raised her bread shovel and struck gustavus hastily on the back, exclaiming: "what are you doing here gaping at strangers? have you never seen a man before? pack yourself off to the barn and go on with your threshing." never dreaming that the man who had been so angrily treated by a peasant's wife could be the young lord they sought, the steward's messengers left the house to continue their search elsewhere. but the incident warned the gamekeeper that his guest was not safe anywhere in that vicinity, and to get him away unobserved he hid him in a large load of hay and drove off towards the forest. on the way some of the danish scouts were met, and these, having some suspicion of swen, began poking their lances through the hay. one of these wounded gustavus in the leg, but he lay silent and motionless and the scouts soon went their way. but the cut on the concealed man's leg bled so freely that blood soon began to run from the cart and tinge the snow. seeing this, swen, fearing that the trail of blood might betray him, opened his knife and thrust it into the leg of his horse, so that if any one should perceive the blood stains he could assign this as their cause. he finally delivered his charge to the care of some loyal gamekeepers on the edge of the forest; but these, not considering their houses safe as hiding-places, took him into the forest, where he lay hidden for three days under a great fallen fir tree, they bringing him food and drink. finding even this place insecure, he went deeper into the woods and sought shelter under a lofty fir tree which stood on a hill in the midst of a marsh. the place has ever since been called "the king's height." finally the effort of the danish agents to find him relaxed and his faithful friends conducted him through the vast forests to rättwik's church, at the eastern end of the great lake silja. his perils were yet by no means at an end. he spoke of his purpose at this place to an assembly of the peasants and was pleased to find that they listened to him with willing ears. having thus sown his first seed in favorable soil, he proceeded to mora on the northern end of the lake, where the priest received him in a friendly manner. but he was being sought by the danes in that district and the priest did not dare to hide him in his own house, but committed him to the care of a peasant named tomte mattes. as the search was becoming active he was concealed in a vaulted cellar, reached by a trap-door in the floor. he had not been long there when the danish scouts, who were searching the whole district, reached the peasant's house, where they found his wife in the midst of her brewing of christmas ale. as they entered, the shrewd woman turned a great tub over the trap-door, so that they did not perceive it, and thus for the third time the future king of sweden owed his liberty and life to a woman's wit. shortly after that, at one of the christmas festivals, as the men of mora were leaving the church, gustavus called them to him where he stood on a low mound beside the churchyard and addressed them in earnest tones, while they gazed with deep sympathy on the manly form of the young noble of whose sufferings and those of his family they were well aware. he spoke of the risk to his life that he ran in venturing to speak to them at all, but said that his unhappy country was dearer to him than life. he pointed out the persecution which sweden had formerly endured from danish kings, and of how they had robbed the country of its wealth. "the same times and the same misfortunes have now returned," he said. "our land swims, so to say, in our own blood. many hundred swedish men have been made to suffer a disgraceful and unmerited death. our bishops and senators have been cruelly murdered. i myself have lost father and brother-in-law," he continued, his eyes streaming with tears, "and the blood of all these martyrs cries for redress and retribution on the tyrant." the men of dalarna, he said, had long been noted for their courage when their land was in danger. they were renowned for this in history, and all sweden looked upon them as the firmest defenders of its liberties. "i will willingly join with you for our land's deliverance," he concluded, "and spare neither my blood nor my sword, for these are all the tyrant has left me to use in your cause." many of the dalmen heard him with cries of vengeance, but the most of them stood in doubt. they did not know gustavus personally and had heard that christian was cruel only to the great, but was kind and generous to the peasantry. they could not yet make up their minds what to do, and begged him to seek safer quarters for himself, since he was being everywhere diligently sought by his pursuers. in fact, his peril continued extreme and for some days he was forced to lie hidden under morkarlely bridge, near mora church, though it was in the dead of a swedish winter. he was able at length to resume his journey, but it was with an almost despairing heart, for he could see no hope either for himself or for his country. his led way over mountains and through desolate valleys, his nights being spent in wayside sheds which had been built for the shelter of travellers. on he went, through forests filled with snow and along the side of mountain torrents, and finally came within view of the lofty mountains beyond which lay the sister kingdom of norway. never had patriot more reason to be disheartened than the unhappy and hunted fugitive, never had the hope of liberating an oppressed country seemed darker, and the fugitive would have been justified in abandoning his native land and seeking a refuge in the bleak hills of norway. yet the adage has often held good that it is the darkest hour before the dawn of day, and so it was to prove in his case. while he waited in that desolate quarter to which he had been driven, events were shaping themselves in his favor and the first rising took place against the danes. the stirring speech of the young noble at mora church had not been made in vain. many of those who heard it had been strongly taken by his manliness and his powerful language, and, strangely, the most deeply impressed of all was rasmas jute, a dane who had served the stures and was now settled in dalarna. hearing that a danish steward had come to that quarter to seek the fugitive and was now at the house of the sergeant of mora parish, he armed himself and his servants and fell on the steward unawares, the first to take arms for gustavus being thus a man of danish birth. soon afterwards a troop of danish horsemen, a full hundred in number, was seen marching over the frozen surface of lake silja. so numerous a body of soldiers was unusual in those parts, and suspecting that they were in search of gustavus, and might do something to their own injury, the peasants began ringing the church bells, the usual summons to arms. the wind carried the sound far to the northward, and on hearing the warning peal the peasantry seized their arms and bodies of them were soon visible hasting down the hills towards mora. the danish troopers, on seeing this multitude of armed men, shut themselves in the priest's house. here they were attacked by the furious dalmen, who broke open the doors and rushed in. the terrified danes now fled to the church and took refuge in its steeple, whither they were quickly followed. only by dejected appeals and a promise not to injure gustavus vasa did they succeed in escaping from the tower, and the dalmen, thinking that some of them might remain concealed in the narrow spire, shot their arrows at it from every side. for more than a hundred years after some of these arrows remained sticking in the old wooden spire. dalarna being looked upon as a centre of swedish patriotism, a number of the persecuted noblemen took refuge there, and those confirmed all that gustavus had told the people. and when lars olssen, an old warrior well known to them, arrived and told them of the gallows which christian had erected, of the new taxes he had laid on the peasantry, and of the report that he had threatened to cut a hand and a foot off each peasant, with other tales true and false, they were deeply stirred. when lars learned that gustavus had been there and what had passed, he reproached them for their folly in not supporting him. "good men," he said, "i know that gentleman well, and tell you that if yourselves and all the people of the country are not to be oppressed and even exterminated gustavus vasa is the only one who has sense and knowledge enough to lead us and lay hand to so great a work." while they were talking another fugitive came from the forest, who confirmed all that lars had said and gave them a full account of the blood-bath at stockholm and of how the body of sten sture, their beloved leader, had been torn from the grave and dishonored. these stories filled their hearers with horror, terror, and fury; war and bloody retribution was their only cry; their hearts were filled with remorse that they had let gustavus, their country's chief hope, depart unaided. two of them, the fleetest snow-skaters of the region, were chosen to follow him and bring him back, and off they went through the forests, following his track, and at length finding him at sälen, the last village in that section, and immediately at the foot of the lofty norwegian mountains. a few words sufficed to tell him of the great change of feeling that had taken place, and with heart-felt joy gustavus accompanied them back, to begin at length the great work of freeing his native land. _the fall of christian ii. the tyrant._ it was in november, , that christian ii. of denmark was crowned king of sweden. norway was his as well and he was monarch of the whole scandinavian world. he had reached the highest point in his career, but so great had been his cruelty and treachery that all men feared and no man trusted him and he was on the brink of a sudden and complete overthrow. the man who had worn the crowns of three kingdoms was to spend years within the narrow walls of a dungeon, with none to pity him in his misery, but all to think that he deserved it all and more. barely has tyranny met with such retribution on earth, and the "fall of the tyrant" will serve as a fitting title to an impressive tale. so sudden and successful was the rebellion of the swedes under gustavus vasa, that in the summer of the year after the massacre in the great square of stockholm the danes held only that city and a few other strongholds in sweden. one after another these fell, calmar and stockholm in , and in june of that year gustavus was chosen king of the land which his hand had freed. a young man still, he was at the beginning of a great and glorious reign. before he became king, christian, his great enemy, had ceased to reign. he had shown the same inhuman spirit in denmark and norway as in sweden and had sown his whole dominion thick with enemies. this is the way his fall was brought about. in he issued a code of laws for denmark of a wise and progressive character, especially in freeing the peasantry from the slavish condition in which they had been held, they before being open to purchase and sale like so many brute animals. christian declared that every man should be his own master and took steps to limit the power and wealth of the clergy and to improve the commerce of the kingdom. these changes, while wise and important, were difficult to introduce against the opposition of the lords and the clergy and needed the hand of a prudent and judicious administrator. such christian was not. he undertook them rashly and endeavored to enforce them by violence. even the people, whom the new laws so favored, were incensed by a great increase in their taxes. no one trusted him; every one hated and feared him. even the monarchs of other countries detested him and would not aid him in his extremity. the details of the blood-bath in stockholm had reached the ears of the pope and he sent a legate to inquire into the atrocities committed under the implied sanction of the church. as they were not to be concealed, christian attempted to excuse them, and, driven to extremity, accused one of his chief favorites, didrik slaghök, as the originator of the massacre. slaghök had just been named archbishop of lund, but was brought to copenhagen, examined under torture, condemned to death, and carried to the gallows and thence to a funeral pile on which he was burned alive, christian leaving the town that he might not witness the cruel death of his late favorite. this cowardly sacrifice of his devoted friend and servant, instead of winning the favor of the people, redoubled their abhorrence of the bloodthirsty tyrant. shortly afterwards the lübeckers invaded the kingdom, and christian, not trusting his people, called in foreign soldiers to repel them. needing money for their pay, he called a diet to meet on december , . few attended it, and in anger he called a new meeting for the following january. before the date arrived rumors were set afloat that he intended to butcher the danish nobles as he had done those of sweden, that chains were being provided to secure them, and that he would have disguised executioners among his guards; also that new and heavier taxes were to be laid on the peasants. these rumors, widely circulated, incensed and frightened the nobility and a meeting was held by the nobles of jutland in which they determined to renounce their allegiance to christian and offer the crown to his uncle, frederick, duke of holstein. magnus munk, one of these lords, was chosen to deliver their decision to christian and sought him for this purpose. but it was far from safe to offer king christian such a document openly, and munk pretended to be making a friendly visit, conversing and drinking with the king until a late hour of the night. on rising to retire, he thrust into christian's glove, which had been left on the table, the letter of renouncement of the jutland nobles. instead of going to bed, munk hastened to the vessel in which he had come and sailed to holstein, where he made to frederick the offer of the crown. as may be imagined, there was little hesitation in accepting it. the next morning a page of the palace found the king's glove on the table and took it to him. on reading the letter which he found in it the tyrant was filled with fear and fury. he sent guards to seize munk, but when told that he was not to be found, his terror grew intense. he knew not where to turn nor what to do. he might have gathered an army of the peasants, to whom he had just given freedom, to fight the nobles, but instead he wrote to the lords, abjectly acknowledging his faults and promising to act differently in the future. they were not to be won, no one trusting him. then the terrified tyrant hurried to copenhagen and rode round the streets, imploring the citizens with tears to aid him, confessing his errors and vowing to change his ways. many of the people, unused to see a king in tears, were moved by his petitions, but no wise man trusted him, few came to his assistance, and the sedition rapidly gained strength. at length he took a desperate step. in the harbor lay twenty large warships, which he might have used for defence, but in his terror he thought only of flight. all the treasure he could lay hands on was carried to these vessels, even the gilt balls on top of the church spires being taken. sigbrit, a detestable favorite, who had given him much evil counsel and dared not show herself to the enraged people, was carried on board in a chest and placed among his valuables. he, his wife and children, and a few faithful servants, followed, and on the th of april, , he set sail from his native land in a passion of grief and despair. a violent storm scattered his ships, but the one that bore him reached antwerp in safety. sigbrit, who had crept from her trunk, sought to console him by saying that if he could no longer be king of denmark he might at least become burgomaster of amsterdam. thus did this cruel and contemptible coward, who less than three years before had been unquestioned monarch of all scandinavia, lose the crown he was so unfit to wear, and land, a despised fugitive, in a dutch city, with but a handful of followers. his fall was thoroughly well deserved, for it was an immediate consequence of the detestation he had aroused by his deed of blood in stockholm, and there was scarce a man in europe to pity him in his degradation. it was a sad thing that the salutary laws he had promulgated in the last year of his reign came from so evil a source. frederick was forced by the nobles to whom he owed his throne to abrogate them, and the code was even burned as "a dangerous book contrary to good morals." the peasants fell back into their former state of semi-slavery and for centuries afterwards failed to enjoy the freedom accorded to the people of their sister states of norway and sweden. in the years that followed the deposed king went from court to court of the german princes, seeking help to regain his throne, but meeting with scorn and contempt from some of them and refusal from all. he still retained much of the wealth of which he had robbed copenhagen, and now, in despair of obtaining assistance, he took into his service a number of soldiers of fortune whom a treaty of peace had lately thrown out of employment. with these sons of adventure, twelve thousand in all, he ravaged holland, which had recently afforded him refuge, doing so much mischief that he was at length bought off. the emperor, charles v., then ruler over holland and brother-in-law to the adventurer, paid him the fifty thousand gulden still due on his wife's dower and gave him twelve battle-ships in addition. the dutch whom he was plundering helped in this as the easiest way to be quit of him, and, with a body of experienced troops, with funds and a fleet, the hope of winning back his old dominions arose in his soul. there were many malcontents then in sweden, ready to aid him in an invasion, and the clergy and nobility of norway, dissatisfied with frederick's rule, subscribed large sums in money and plate for his aid. finally, thus strengthened and encouraged, christian set sail for the northland with twenty-five ships and an army of eight thousand men. unfortunately for him the elements proved adverse, a violent storm scattering the fleet and sending nearly half of it to the bottom. he had only fifteen ships and a reduced number of men when, in november, , he landed at obslo, norway. the nobles and people, however, discontented with frederick's government and eager for a king of their own choice, declared for him and at a diet held at obslo proclaimed him king, only a few nobles dissenting. these, however, held the strongest fortresses in the kingdom. one of these was magnus gyllenstierna, governor of aggerhus. against this stronghold christian led all his force and might easily have taken it, for it was lacking in provisions, but for a stratagem by which magnus saved himself and his fortress. he sent word to christian that the place was too weak for him to attempt to hold and that he had seen the king's success with pleasure; but, to save himself from the imputation of cowardice, he begged leave for time to ask king frederick for assistance. if none came before the st of may he would willingly surrender the place. adept in deceit as christian was, he this time suffered himself to be tricked. at the suggestion of magnus a thousand men were sent from denmark, and led by secret paths over mountains and through forests in all haste, throwing themselves into aggerhus while christian was watching the seas to intercept them. in a rage he hurried back to renew the siege, but the shrewd commandant was now strong enough to defy him. ture jönsson, one of the swedish nobles who had joined christian, led a portion of his forces against the fortress of bohus, writing to its commandant, klass bille, a letter in which he set forth the great change for good which had come upon king christian and begging him to side with his grace. he closed in the manner customary in those days: "commending you, with your dear wife, children, and friends, hereby to god's protection." on the next day he received the following answer: "greeting suited to the season. learn, ture jönsson, that i yesterday received your writing with some of your loose words with which you sought to seduce me from my honor, soil my integrity and oath, and make me like yourself, which god, who preserves the consciences of all honest men, forbid. to the long and false talk which your letter contains, i confess myself, by god's providence to be too good to give you any other answer than this which my letter conveys. you have so often turned and worn your coat, and it is now so miserably thread-bare on both sides, that it is no longer fit to appear among the apparel of any honest man. no more this time, i commend you to him to whom god the father commended that man who betrayed his only son, _ex bohus._ sunday next before lady-day, ." klass bille proved as good with an answer by balls and blows as by pen, and the castle of bohus defied all attempts to take it. meanwhile the swedish exiles were writing to their friends at home, and, elated by the capture of a swedish fort, christian marched his army towards the frontier, and made ready to invade the kingdom from which he had been driven two years before. but gustavus and frederick were not idle. they recognized the danger of this invasion and prepared to meet it, renewing their treaties that they might work loyally together. gustavus wrote to his officers not to fight with christian unless they were from four to six times as strong, as he wished to give him a reception that would cure him of all future desire to return to sweden. the forces of christian and gustavus first met at kungelf, where christian looked with disturbed eyes on his antagonists as he saw them marching across a frozen river, among them three thousand men in armor of polished steel. turning to ture jönsson, who stood beside him, he said wrathfully: "you said that there was not a man-at-arms in sweden. what see you yonder? do you think those old women?" the next morning ture jönsson's body was found lying headless in the street, whether thus punished by christian for his lies or by some swede for his treason, is not known. the war began with equal fortune at first to each side, but later fortune turned in favor of the swedes, while food grew scarce in christian's army, his foragers being beaten back wherever they appeared. soon, with an army dwindled to two thousand men, he was forced to march back to obslo. so far gustavus's army had been fighting alone, and it was not until march, , that some danish ships of war arrived. but their coming soon ended the war. they burned christian's vessels and reinforced aggerhus, and in may sailed towards obslo. christian's hopes of success were now at an end. he had made his final effort and had failed. his men were forsaking him in troops and resistance to his foes became impossible. as a last resort he tried a crafty expedient, contriving to get some forged letters distributed in the danish camp to the effect that twenty dutch men-of-war, with five thousand troops, were coming to his aid. the danish commander, alarmed at this report, hastened to conclude peace with him, on condition that all who had taken part in the rebellion should be pardoned. christian was to cross to denmark, and if he could not agree with frederick was to be free to go to germany, on giving a solemn oath never again to make any attempt on the three scandinavian kingdoms. before this treaty was confirmed messengers arrived from frederick who discovered the condition of christian to be hopeless and insisted on an unconditional surrender. but knut, the danish admiral, who had been given full power to act, took christian on his ships and sailed with him to denmark, where he insisted that the conditions he had made should be observed. frederick and his council were in a strait. to let this tiger loose again was too dangerous, and finally some pretext for breaking the treaty was made and christian was sentenced to a life imprisonment in the castle of sanderberg on the island of femern. frederick and his son were obliged to confirm this sentence by a written promise to the danish nobles that they would never release the detested prisoner. when christian learned that the convention had been broken he wept bitterly, lamenting that "he had fallen into the hands of men who cared neither for oaths, promises, nor seals." these complaints no one heeded. he was taken deep into the dungeons of sanderberg castle, and locked up in a dark and narrow prison vault destitute of every convenience, his only companion being a half-witted dwarf who had long been in his service. with the harshness common in those days, and which in his case was well deserved, the door of the cell was walled up, only one small opening being left through which he could receive the scanty allowance of food brought him, and a little barred window through which some sparse light could make its way. in this dreadful prison the captive remained twelve years without the slightest amelioration of its conditions. then the door was opened and fresh air and other conveniences were allowed him, but a strict watch was kept up. finally in , five years later, it being believed that no harm could possibly come from an old man sixty-eight years of age, he was taken to kallendborg castle, where he was permitted to entertain himself by hunting or in any other manner he pleased. he lived ten years later, ending in a life whose misfortunes were a just reward for his faithlessness and cruelty in his day of power. _the west gothland insurrection._ sweden never had a wiser or more judicious ruler than king gustavus vasa, but in that land of turbulent lords and ambitious mischief-makers the noblest and most generous of kings could not reign without secret plotting and rebellious sentiments. so it fell out in sweden in , after gustavus had been six years on the throne. the leader in this movement was one ture jönsson, a hoary old conspirator of great influence in west gothland, where he and his ancestors had long been judges and where he was looked upon by the people as their lord and chief. by a decision of the court he was obliged to restore to the king certain property which he unjustly held, and he vented his feelings bitterly against the heretic and tyrant, as he called him. in fact, he hatched a conspiracy, which spread widely, through his influence, among the nobles of west gothland. in smaland there was much discontent with the teaching of the lutheran doctrines and an outbreak took place, the king's sister and her husband being taken prisoners by the insurgents. these sent letters to ture jönsson in west gothland, asking him to be their captain, and also wrote to east gothland, inciting the people to rise and expel their monarch. ture jönsson had three sons, one of them a distinguished soldier in the king's service, while the second was a man high in the king's favor. the old rebel had high hopes of aid from these two, and wrote them letters inciting them to rebellion. but they were not to be drawn from their allegiance, and took the letters with unbroken seals to the king, promising to devote their lives to his cause. the third son, herr göran, dean in upsala, was of different mold and sentiment. opposed to the king on religious grounds, he gathered a body of peasant runaways, a hundred in number, and, afraid to stay in his house, he took them to a wood in the neighborhood, felled trees for barricades, and laid up a supply of provisions in his impromptu fort. from there he proceeded to bollnäs, gathering more men and growing bolder, and fancying in his small soul that he was the destined leader of a great rebellion. but his valor vanished when a priest of the vicinity, named erik, a man faithful to the king, called together a body of his parishioners and marched against the would-be insurgent. dean göran was standing at a garret window when he saw these men approaching. at once, with a most unsoldierlike panic, he rushed in terror down stairs and fled through a back door into the forest, without a word to his men of the coming danger. the house was surrounded and the men made prisoners, the king's steward, whom they held captive, being released. erik spoke to them so severely of their disloyalty that they fell on their knees in prayer and petition, and when he told them that the best way to gain pardon for their act was to seek and deliver their fugitive leader, they gladly undertook the task. [illustration: norwegian carriage called stolkjaem.] the scared leader of rebels meanwhile was wandering in anguish and alarm through the wide wood, not knowing what to do. coming at length to a large forest lake, he entered a little boat that he found and pushed off from land, thinking thus to be in greater safety. as he thus sat, lost in his unquiet thoughts, some of his late followers reached the lake and saw him. so absorbed was he in his bitter reflections that he failed to see other boats gliding out towards him, and they were close upon him before he perceived them. then, leaping up in wild fright, he sought in his despair to jump into the water, but before he could do so some of the peasants had rowed up and seized him. in his bitterness of spirit he tore the gold chain from his neck and the rings from his fingers and flung them into the lake, resolved that they should not become the spoil of the king he hated. but gustavus was not the man to trouble himself about such small fry of conspirators as this. the dean was taken to upsala and thence to stockholm, where he was kept in confinement, though with every comfort, until the rebellion incited by his father was quelled. then the king, taking into account his brothers' loyalty and his own insignificance, freed him and restored him his property. he could well afford to be lenient to a rebel of his calibre. if this was all we had to tell, it would not be worth the telling, but the conspiracy in west gothland went on and led to events of far greater interest. a born plotter, old jönsson kept at his work, and to prevent any news of what was taking place from reaching the king, a guard of a thousand men was placed to watch the highway and stop all messengers. at the head of this guard was a priest called nils of hvalstad, a thorough hater of the king. to him the insurgents sent their letters, to be forwarded to those for whom they were intended. such was the state of affairs, the designs of the plotters ripening while the king was in this way kept in ignorance of matters of such importance to him. now we come to the dramatic means by which the king was advised of the plot. a scout was needed to pass the guards set by the rebels and bring word to gustavus of what was going on in west gothland, and for this purpose was chosen a young town-sergeant of stockholm, so famed for boldness that the people called him hans hardy. he had been born in west gothland and was familiar with the people and the roads of that province and was therefore well adapted for the work. he accomplished it in a manner much better than was expected. making his way through forest paths and along little-frequented by-ways, he succeeded in crossing the river that bordered the province and passing the rebel outposts, making his way to his old home, where he spent several weeks with his relations, meanwhile secretly gathering the information needed. on his return he pursued a different course. buying a quantity of west gothland cheese, he went directly towards the ford of the tiweden and so managed as to let himself fall into the hands of the guard, who brought him to their leader, nils of hvalstad. the rebel priest charged the seeming peasant roundly with being a spy, but the cunning fellow pretended to be very simple and bucolic, saying that it had been four years since he had been in upland and he now wanted to go there and sell his cheese. nils was not so easily to be hoodwinked, but bade his men take the supposed spy to the sergeant's house at hofwa, where four men were set over him as guards. the pretended simpleton seemed well-enough pleased, eating and drinking freely, talking cheerfully of country affairs with his guards, and spending his money freely, so that the sergeant grew to like the jovial country lad. after a few days, however, hans pretended to be sick, sighing and groaning as if in severe pain. finally he took to his bed and seemed in such a sad state that they all pitied the poor cheesemonger and his guards often left him for hours alone, thinking his sickness was all the security that was needed. hans hardy had a purpose in this. he had discovered that nils kept a box in a dark corner of the room and imagined that it might contain something of importance to him in his mission. in fact he had thrown himself in his hands for the purpose of fathoming his plots. one day, while left alone, he got up and examined the box, and to his joy found in it a number of letters from the chief conspirators, containing full evidence of their complication. having read enough of them to gain an idea of their character, he put them back, shut the box, and pushed it again into its dark corner. then he took to his bed once more and when his guards returned they found him moaning more sorely than before and seeming in such sad case that they thought him at the point of death. pitying the poor fellow, they deemed it idle to watch him and went contentedly to their beds. the next morning, when they rose, the sick man had vanished and with him the box and its contents. hans had got off with the precious burden into the forest, with whose paths he was thoroughly familiar, leaving his late guards his cheese for consolation. he reached stockholm in safety with his budget of letters and took them to the king, who rewarded him liberally for his valuable service and bade him to keep it secret. this he did, and it was long before any one knew where hans hardy had been or what had become of the lost letters. king gustavus kept his counsel and bided his time. meanwhile the work of the conspirators went on, they going so far as to nominate a new king, their choice falling upon mans bryntesson, ture jönsson's brother-in-law, a handsome and eloquent young man, far more suitable in person than in mind for a king. he was soft, irresolute, and somewhat foolish, and when treated with royal honors by the conspirators, he began holding court with princely pomp, borrowing money from his friends for this purpose when his own was exhausted. having gone so far with his plans, ture called a convention of the people of the province to meet on larfva heath, saying that he had matters of the highest importance to lay before them. here was a great plain, where the gothlanders for ages had held their public meetings, and where ture's summons brought together a goodly number. with the insurgent lords around him, and proud of his power and authority, sir ture now addressed the peasants, in full confidence of their support. his principal charge against the king was that he had accepted the lutheran doctrines and wished to introduce a new faith into the country to the ruin of the common people. "now," he continued, "i have always understood that the good west gothlanders have no mind to become lutherans, but prefer to retain the old faith which their fathers and forefathers have had before them. if you will from this day renounce king gustavus i will give you a mild and gracious sovereign, who will preserve for you your good old customs." bishop magnus followed with a brief address, after which sir ture, convinced from the intent silence of the peasants that they were with him, said: "let him who gives his consent to take a new king stretch up his hands." to his consternation not a hand was lifted, while a threatening murmur was heard among the peasants. neither the lords nor the bishop knew what to make of this. they had gone on with their plots without a dream that the people would not be with them. as for the newly chosen king, who had been eagerly waiting to receive their homage, he fell back white and trembling. at length two young peasants stood forth to speak for the people, one of them loudly declaring: "we have nothing to charge against king gustavus, but owe him deep gratitude for having freed us from the cruel and tyrannical rule of king christian, and kept the land in law and right as well as in peace and quiet. what you, good sirs, say of the new faith, we peasants can neither judge nor understand; perhaps it may not be so bad as fame reports. change of rulers generally costs the peasants and the land dear, and we might by these means draw upon ourselves and our children long disquiet and disorder. it seems, therefore, best for us to remain in the faith and allegiance which we have sworn and promised to our lawful lord and master gustaf eriksson." these words had evidently the full approval of the people, to judge from their upstretched hands and their loud acclamations, and at once the courage of the conspirators fell to the ground. what to say or to do they knew not. they had foolishly gone forward with their plots without consulting the people and now found themselves in a sore dilemma. instead of coming to their aid, as they had expected, there was reason to fear that the peasants would seize them and hand them over to the king. in his utter dismay ture jönsson faltered out: "my very good friends, i only wished by this trial to test your fidelity. none of the lords have a thought of deserting the king. a fortnight hence we hope to meet you here again, to consult further on our mutual interests." this ended the meeting on larfva heath. the peasants returned to their homes and the lords in dismay sought their castles. the bottom had suddenly dropped out from the rebellion and the conspirators were in a perilous position. war against the king was impossible, and in haste they sent a message to nils of hvalstad ordering him to break up the camp on the tiweden and bidding him to come to them without delay. when he came they asked him what he had done with the letters which had been put in his care. not daring to tell that they had been stolen, he said that he had burnt them on hearing of the result of the larfva meeting. another custodian of letters was also sent for and asked the same question. he had really sent his letters to the king, but he produced a budget of papers which he now threw into the fire, telling them that they might be at rest about these perilous papers, which could now never appear against them. somewhat relieved in their minds by this act, mans bryntesson, ture bjelke, and nils winge, three of the leading conspirators, decided to remain at home. to become wandering outlaws was too bitter a fate; they had not spoken at larfva heath, their letters were burnt, there was no evidence against them. but as for ture jönsson and bishop magnus, they had put themselves openly on record. the pretence that the meeting had been called to test the loyalty of the people would have no weight with a man like king gustavus. to remain would be to risk their lives, and collecting their money and valuables they made all haste to set foot on danish territory, ture jönsson finally to meet a tragical death in the invasion of norway by the deposed king christian, as described in the preceding tale. the embers of the rebellion were easily extinguished and the nation returned to its peaceful and satisfied condition, the officers of the king holding meetings with the malcontents and promising full pardon to those who would confess and renounce their disloyal acts. this offer of pardon was accepted by nearly the whole of the conspirators, the only ones who held out being mans bryntesson, the mock king, nils winge, and ture bjelke. trusting to their letters having been destroyed they wrote to the king, saying that, as they felt entirely guiltless, they could not plead guilt and implore pardon, and thus put themselves under suspicion. they begged him to appoint a meeting at which their conduct could be investigated. this he agreed to, the th of june being fixed as the date. when the time came the three lords appeared before the appointed tribunal and were exhorted to confess their share in ture jönsson's rebellion. mans bryntesson answered for the three, boldly declaring: "we did not venture to set ourselves against ture jönsson on account of his great influence in the province; we often heard him speak disrespectfully of the king, but we bore with him in this for the sake of amusement, attributing it to his old age and childishness. but it can never be shown that we bore any share in his treason." "what will you venture that this cannot be proved against you?" asked the king. "our neck to the sword and our bodies to the wheel, as the law exacts," they confidently replied. "take care," said one of the counsellors. "do not venture so much. perhaps you may yet be found guilty." they replied by a haughty "no," and insisted on their innocence. gustavus then spoke again, his gaze now stern and threatening: "choose one of these two. either to confess yourselves guilty and accept pardon, or to be tried and condemned according to law." "we choose to be judged according to the law," they replied; "and if we be found partakers in this rebellion we will willingly suffer and pay for it, as may be adjudged against us." these words, and the stern dignity of the king, impressed all in the hall. complete silence reigned and all eyes were fixed on his face. he gave a signal to his servants and two boxes were carried in. these were opened and a number of letters were produced. the king asked the culprits if they recognized these letters. this they stoutly denied. then a number of them were read aloud and complete proof of their complicity in the rebellion was shown, the judges recognizing the hand and seal of the defendants. pale and thunderstruck, they listened tremblingly to the reading of the fatal letters; then fell upon their knees, weeping and imploring mercy. their repentance came too late. the king bade the council to examine into the matter at once and pronounce sentence. this was that the three criminals should suffer the fate which they had declared themselves ready to bear; they were condemned as traitors and sentenced to loss of life and estate. the trembling culprits were taken to a room above the school-house, locked in and a strong guard set before the door. here they were left to the contemplation of their coming fate. despairingly they looked around for some means of escape, and a shade of hope returned when they fancied they had discovered one. there were no bars to their window, but it was far above the ground. but beneath it stood a pear tree, so near the building that they thought they might leap into its branches and climb down its trunk to the ground. waiting until night had fallen, they prepared to make the effort, mans bryntesson being the first to try. he missed the tree and fell to the ground, breaking his leg in the fall. the others, seeing his ill fortune, did not venture to follow. in great pain he crept from the garden into an adjoining field. here his strength gave out and he lay hidden in the half-grown rye. missed the next morning, his trail through the grass was easily followed and he was found and carried back to prison. soon after the prisoners were taken to stockholm, where mans bryntesson and nils winge were beheaded and their bodies exposed on the wheel. their estates, however, were restored to their widows and children. the third, ture bjelke, being less guilty, was pardoned, but was obliged to pay heavy penalties for his treasonable acts. and thus, with the death of these two criminals and the exile of two others, ended the west gothland insurrection. _the love affairs of king erik._ we have written much of war and bloodshed; a chapter devoted to the lighter themes of courtship and marriage may here be of interest, especially as it has to do with the love affairs of princes and princesses, kings and queens, personages whose every movement are deemed by many worthy the world's attention. prince erik, the eldest son of king gustavus, grew in due course of time to marriageable age and, as young men will, began to look about for a wife. his thoughts first turned towards the princess elizabeth, of england, then in the height of her youthful charms, of which exaggerated accounts were brought to the ardent young swede. when erik sought his father's consent to the suit, saying that it might bring him not only a lovely bride but the throne of two kingdoms, the prudent old monarch threw cold water on the project, saying: "even if erik should gain elizabeth, which i do not think likely, in view of her many suitors, it would be more to the harm than the profit of both kingdoms." but erik, a high-tempered and passionate youth, with a tendency to something like madness, became so violent and determined that his father at length gave way and a lover's embassy was sent to england to ask for the fair lady's hand. but princess elizabeth was too much beset with lovers to accept any of them easily, and the embassy returned with the answer that the royal english maiden was in no haste to marry and considered an unmarried life the happier. in queen mary died and elizabeth mounted to the throne which she was long to adorn. this added to erik's passionate desire to win her. one of his agents, dionysius beurreus, remained in london, where he lived in great display, keeping open table at erik's expense, and sending in all haste to the ardent prince every kind word which the crafty elizabeth let fall. credulous in his ardent passion, erik now felt sure of winning the queenly maiden's hand, and sent a second embassy to england, his brother john going with it. prince john was sumptuously equipped for the journey, the expenses of the courtship eating deeply into the king's revenues, and being added to by erik's lavishness, for he was now so sure of the success of his suit that he ordered a hundred dresses of the most expensive and splendid kind to be made for him at antwerp. when john reached london he was courteously received by the queen, but he found it impossible to bring her to a definite answer. if she ever married, of course she would be happy to win so charming a spouse as prince erik, but it was hard to marry a man she had never seen, and the idea of marriage was not to her taste. in the end elizabeth wrote to gustavus begging him to seek another bride for his son, as she had decided to live unmarried. this should have ended the matter, but it did not. one of the lover's agents had said that the queen of england would never consent unless erik in person were able to win her heart, and prince john reported her as saying that, "though she had no desire for marriage, she could not answer what she might do if she saw erik himself." fired by the baits held out to his eager heart, erik determined to go himself to england, but incognito, disguised as the servant of some foreign lord. thus he would see and conquer the coy maiden queen. the warnings and expostulations of his friends failed to move him from this romantic project, but at length it reached the king's ears, and he strictly forbade the wild-goose project as hazardous and undignified. erik, however, finally got his father's permission to visit england and make his suit to the queen in his own person. but there were many postponements of the journey, and when finally he left stockholm to begin the voyage to england the shock of his departure threw the old king into a serious illness. that afternoon gustavus went to bed, never to rise again, and before erik had left the kingdom word was brought him that his father was dead. this definitely changed the situation and thus it came about that erik never saw elizabeth. the fact of his being king, indeed, did not put an end to his desire to possess the english queen. in he determined to visit her as a king, and on the st of september set sail. but the elements were not propitious to this love errand, a violent storm arising which forced the captains to run back to harbor. then he decided to go overland, through denmark, holland, and france, but while he was laying his plans for this journey, an effort was made by certain love emissaries to turn his thoughts towards mary stuart, the widow of a french king and heiress of the throne of scotland. he listened to these representatives and was so pleased with their description of mary's charms that his single-minded devotion to elizabeth was shaken. the loveliness of mary stuart was a strong inducement to the young king, but the high estate of elizabeth was a greater one, and he did not cease his efforts to win her hand. being told that the chief obstacle in his way was the handsome earl of leicester, he grew violently jealous of this favored courtier. he at first challenged him to mortal combat, but as this could not conveniently be carried out, he secretly bade his agent in london to hire an assassin to deal with the earl, promising protection and a rich reward to the murderer. this villainy the agent refused to perform, and erik now, hoping to frighten elizabeth to give him a favorable answer, spread a report in england that he was courting the scottish queen. the effect was different from what he anticipated, for elizabeth at once positively rejected his suit and all seemed at an end. [illustration: armory and costume hall of the royal museum, sweden.] about this time a third lady fair came into the game. erik was told of the charms and rare character of the princess renata of lotringen, granddaughter of the late christian of denmark, and at once opened negotiations for the hand of this princess. at the same time the crafty elizabeth pretended to relent and erik was again on fire for her hand. thus he had now three love projects under way, from two of which, those for mary stuart and princess renata, favorable answers were returned. but the volatile lover, before receiving these answers, had added a fourth string to his bow of courtships, having decided to propose for the princess christina of hesse. by this time he had spent on his threefold courtship vast sums of money and had gone far towards making himself the laughing-stock of europe. erik's new course of love did not run smooth. the fates seemed against him in his marriage projects. his first proposal for christina, indeed, received a favorable reply and it was decided that the selected bride should arrive at stockholm in the following may, some eight months later. but other emissaries whom he sent in february were detained in denmark, and on some weak pretence were seized and imprisoned, the whole being a ruse of king frederick to prevent a marriage between erik and the princess of hesse, of which for political reasons he did not approve. there was peace at that time with denmark, but these events presaged war. may at length arrived and erik equipped a fleet to meet the promised bride. there were twelve men-of-war, which were got ready for fighting if necessary, james bagge, a famous seaman of those days, being admiral of the elephant, with command of the fleet. the assigned purpose of the expedition was to bring the bride over from lübeck, but it is said that admiral bagge had secret orders to seek and attack the danish fleet, and thus punish king frederick for his treachery. the two fleets met on may off bornholm, and the danish ship hercules immediately opened fire. this fire was at once returned and a fierce fight ensued that lasted five hours, and resulted in the capture of the hercules and two other ships and the flight of the rest. the swedes now sailed on to lübeck, whence ambassadors were sent to hesse to bring back the bride. they returned in two weeks without her, the excuse being that her trousseau was not ready. the truth was that the landgrave of hesse was afraid to trust his daughter in the turbulent north, from which tidings of the naval battle had just come. this delay was fatal to erik's hopes, mainly through his own fault. the first succeeding step was a request from the landgrave for a safe conduct for his daughter through denmark. frederick, who dreaded ill results from the marriage, refused this, and also refused to let ambassadors to hesse pass through his kingdom. and now erik spoiled all by his faithless versatility. on the th of october he sent an order to some agents of his in germany to proceed to hesse with a betrothal ring, worth six thousand thalers, for the princess. four days later he wrote a letter to queen elizabeth, saying that his addresses at the court of hesse had never been serious, and that he still loved and hoped to win her. before this was sent actual war with denmark had broken out, and to prevent the discovery of the letter, he concealed it in a stick and sent it by a secret messenger. this messenger was captured by a privateer and carried to copenhagen; in some way his mission was suspected and the letter found; and the danish king, in ecstasies at his discovery, despatched the incriminating love-missive immediately to the landgrave of hesse. all was going well there when the letter arrived. the landgrave had favorably received erik's emissaries and the prospects of their returning with the bride seemed fair, when the unlucky letter was put into his hands. it fell like a thunderbolt. in a rage at seeing himself and his daughter thus made sport of, the landgrave ordered the swedes to leave the town before sunset, under peril of his high displeasure. this ended the suit for the fair maiden's hand, later ambassadors sent by erik were dismissed with contempt, and through having too many irons in the fire at once the love-sick lord of sweden found himself without a bride. his brother, duke john, was more fortunate, though his courtship also led to war and his marriage brought him into dismal misfortune. before completing the story of erik's love affairs, the episode of john's matrimonial venture, with its dire results, may fitly be told. a marriage had long been arranged between duke john and princess catharine, sister of king sigismund of poland. but obstacles arose and once more the course of true love did not run smooth. sigismund had an older sister anna, whom he wished married first; but this impediment was removed by an agreement that john's brother magnus should marry anna. next the czar of russia proposed for catharine, but some dispute about the marriage contract brought about a refusal. the result was typical of the rudeness of the times. the poles had always hated the russians, and to show their contempt for them sigismund had a white figure dressed in splendid garments and sent to the russian court, in lieu of the looked-for bride. mad with rage at this bitter insult, the czar invaded and cruelly ravaged poland, the people, as is so often the case, being made to suffer for the quarrels and the folly of the kings. from that time forward the czar hated sigismund and john, his fortunate rival. john also had difficulty in getting his brother's consent to go to sigismund's court, and after he had set out an envoy was sent after him ordering him to return. but in disregard of this he went on, and was favorably received at the polish court, being a handsome, courteous and cultivated prince. catharine was highly pleased with him, but king sigismund now repeated his demand that he should marry the elder sister. finally, after many efforts to change the king's mind, he asked catharine if she really desired to marry john. the princess blushed and was silent; but her sister spoke for her and implored their brother not to prevent her marriage with the man she loved. at this appeal he gave way and the marriage was quickly solemnized, for there was imminent peril of war between sweden and poland unless the affair was consummated. a body of polish troops escorted the newly wedded couple into livonia, lest the angry czar should seek to carry them off, and john reached sweden with his bride. he was very ill received, by erik's orders, and hastened to his own duchy, whence he sent an invitation to the king to attend his wedding banquet. the king came in another fashion. angry at john for disobeying his orders, and fearing him as a possible aspirant for the throne, erik cherished evil intentions against his brother. suspicious and superstitious by nature, he had read in the stars the prediction that a light-haired man would deprive him of the throne, and this man he believed to be his newly married brother. he also fancied that john had secretly allied himself with denmark and poland, and there was soon open enmity between the brothers. the whole story of what followed is too long to be told here, but seeming evidence against john was obtained by the torture of some of his friends and he was attacked in his castle and taken prisoner after a two months' defence. erik ordered his incarceration in a dungeon, but his wife was offered a residence with her ladies in one of the king's castles. if she wished to accompany him to prison she could take only two of her maids with her. when catharine heard this she fervently exclaimed: "i would rather die than be separated from my husband," and fainted away. when she recovered she was asked what she intended to do. taking her betrothal ring from her finger and holding it up, she said: "read what stands there." they saw engraved on it, "_nemo nisi mors"_ (none but death). "i will stand by it," said catharine. and she did. the imprisoned dependents of john, all of whom had shared in his resistance to the king, were nearly all condemned to death and executed, more than a hundred bodies being exposed at once at the place of execution. that john would suffer the same fate was highly probable. his brothers, sisters, and other relatives implored erik to let him live; his enemies advised his execution; the king hesitated, and postponed his decision, finally deciding that john might live, but in perpetual imprisonment. he was mildly and kindly treated, however, and four years later, during a spasm of fraternal feeling in erik, was released. we shall not tell the remaining story of king erik, of his wars, his temporary madness, his violence and cruelty to some of the noblest of the sons of denmark, his ruthless persecution and final murder of the stures, descendants of one of the most famous families of sweden and men who had played a great part in its history. it was the story of his love episodes with which we set out and these were not yet ended. erik finally got a wife and a queen, though not a queen or a princess for a wife. love instead of policy lay at the basis of his final courtship. this is the story of the final and real love affair of this suitor of princesses and queens. a soldier named magnus, of peasant birth, who rose to the rank of corporal in erik's life-guard, had a daughter named katrina or catherine, shortened to karin, who as a child sat selling nuts in the market-place at stockholm. here erik one day saw her, then about thirteen, and was so struck by her great beauty that he had her placed among the maids-of-honor of his sister elizabeth. the pretty little karin was quick to learn her duties, and in deportment was modest and very loveable. her beauty also grew with her age, until she became looked upon as the fairest of the fair. erik thought her such and grew greatly attached to her, showing her much attention and winning her regard by his handsome face and kindly manner. in fact she grew to love him dearly and gave herself up entirely to him, a warm affection existing between them. karin in time became everything to the king. he no longer sought for a bride in foreign courts, no other women had attraction for him, and at length, when the charming peasant girl had borne him a son, he determined to find a way to make her his queen. those were days when it was not safe to meddle with the love affairs of a king. one unfortunate young man named maximilian, who had loved karin and sought her hand in marriage, one day intruded into the women's apartment of the palace, where he was seized. erik, burning with jealousy, had him condemned on a false pretence, sewed up in a bag, and cast into the lake. after that no one dared interfere with the love episode of erik and karin. men said she had bewitched him by a love-philter. some of the courtiers who feared her influence upon the king sought to disgrace her, with the result that her intercession alone saved their lives from the incensed monarch. erik's love for karin never seemed to change. on beautiful summer afternoons, when he would sail with a merry party on lake malar, karin was always of the party and the object of his tender attention. as they rowed home at night he would sit beside her, contemplating the beauty of the starry northern skies and listening to the songs from the shore or from distant boats. these were executed by his orders, the words and music often being his. one of these songs, in which he praises his "shepherdess," promises to love her forever, and bids her a "thousand good-nights," is still extant. the time at length came--this was after the period of his foreign wars and his insanity--that he asked permission of the legislative body to marry whom he pleased, at home or abroad. after this was given he privately married karin, and subsequently determined upon a public celebration of his marriage and her coronation as queen. the chief families of the country were invited to the ceremony, but they neither came nor sent excuses. the coronation went on, notwithstanding, and the peasant's daughter karin became queen of sweden as queen catherine. not alone by this marriage, but in a dozen other ways king erik had made enemies and he was now near the end of his career. a rebellion soon broke out against him, headed by duke john, who had some time before been liberated, and by his younger brother duke charles. though erik fought with skill and courage, the insurrection was successful, he being taken prisoner and losing the throne. john was chosen to succeed him as king. erik spent the remainder of his life in prison, where he was far more harshly treated than john had been by him, his greatest consolation being when his wife and children were permitted to visit him. after eight years of this close confinement john, fearful of an attempt at the release of the captive, had him poisoned in his cell. thus ended the career of the elder son of gustavus vasa. it was a fate which he had brought upon himself by the cruelties of his career. a few well-deserved words may well be given to queen catherine. she had never interfered in erik's government, except to restrain him from cruelty. her mildness of disposition won her favor on all sides, which was increased by her loving devotion to him while in prison. after his death she was granted an estate in finland, and there she lived, loved and esteemed by all who knew her and winning the warm devotion of her children and grandchildren. she survived to a good old age, withdrawn but happy, and the memory of her virtues and benevolence still lives among the peasantry of the neighborhood of her abode. _gustavus adolphus on the field of leipsic._ with the accession to the throne of sweden in of gustavus adolphus, grandson of gustavus vasa, that country gained its ablest king, and the most famous with the exception of the firebrand of war, charles xii., of later date. for courage, judgment, administrative ability, generous devotion to the good of his country, and military genius this great monarch was unequalled in his time and won a renown which has placed his name in the roll of the great rulers of mankind. the son of charles ix., the third and ablest son of gustavus vasa to fill the throne, he was carefully educated in all the lore of his time and when a boy of sixteen won a brilliant victory over a danish invading army. during the same year he ascended the throne, his father dying on november , . during the preceding reigns sweden had taken a prominent part in the affairs of northern europe, having frequent wars with russia, poland, and denmark, and the young king fell heir to these wars, all of which he prosecuted with striking ability. but a conflict soon broke out that threatened all europe and brought sweden into the field as the arbiter of continental destinies. this was the famous "thirty years' war," the greatest and most ferocious religious war known in history. into it sweden was drawn and the hand of gustavus was potent in saving the protestant cause from destruction. the final event in his career, in which he fell covered with glory on the fatal field of lutzen, is dealt with in the german "historical tales." we shall here describe another equally famous battle of the war, that of leipsic. it was in , when denmark was in peril from the great armies of ferdinand ii. of austria, and sweden also was threatened, that gustavus consented to become the champion of the protestants of northern europe, and in june, , he landed in pomerania at the head of eight thousand men. here six scottish regiments joined him, under the duke of hamilton, and he marched onward, taking towns and fortresses in rapid succession and gaining large reinforcements from the german states. three great leaders headed the austrian armies, the famous wallenstein, the able but ferocious tilly, and the celebrated cavalry leader pappenheim. all these skilled soldiers gustavus had to face alone, but he did so with the support of the best-drilled army then in europe, a body of soldiery which his able hands had formed into an almost irresistible engine of war. what spurred gustavus to the great battle to be described was the capture by tilly on may , , of the city of magdeburg, and the massacre of its thirty thousand citizens, men, women, and children. from this scene of frightful outrage and destruction tilly failed to call off his men until the city lay in ruins and its people in death. a tall, haggard, grim warrior, hollow-cheeked, and wild-looking, with large bright eyes under his shaggy brows, tilly looked capable of the deeds of ferocity with which the world credited him. [illustration: statue of gustavus adolphus.] while all christendom shuddered with horror at the savage slaughter at magdeburg, the triumphant tilly marched upon and captured the city of leipsic. here he fixed his headquarters in the house of a grave-digger, where he grew pale at seeing the death's-head and cross-bones with which the owner had decorated his walls. these significant emblems may have had something to do with the unusual mildness with which he treated the citizens of that town. the cause of protestantism in germany was now in serious jeopardy and gustavus felt that the time had come to strike a hard blow in its behalf. the elector of saxony, who had hitherto stood aloof, now came to his aid with an army of eighteen thousand men, and it was resolved to attack tilly at once, before the reinforcements on the way to join him could arrive. these statements are needful, to show the momentous import of the great battle of september , . in the early morning of that day the two armies came face to face, tilly having taken a strong and advantageous position not far from leipsic, where he hoped to avoid a battle. but he was obliged, when the enemy began to move upon him, to alter his plans and move towards the hills on his left. at the foot of these his army was drawn up in a long line, with the artillery on the heights beyond, where it would sweep the extensive plain of breitenfeld in his front. over this plain the swedes and saxons advanced in two columns, towards a small stream named the lober, which ran in tilly's front. to prevent this crossing pappenheim had early moved at the head of two thousand cuirassiers, a movement which tilly reluctantly permitted, though strictly ordering him not to fight. disregarding this order pappenheim charged the vanguard of the swedes, only to find that he had met an impregnable line and to be driven back in disorder. to check pursuit he set fire to a village at the crossing-point, but this had no effect upon the movement of the advancing troops nor his own disorderly retreat. the army of gustavus was organized for the coming battle in the following manner. on the right the swedes were drawn up in a double line; the infantry being in the centre, divided into small battalions that could be rapidly manoeuvred without breaking their order; the cavalry on the wings, similarly drawn up in small squadrons, with bodies of musketeers between; this being done to make a greater show of force and annoy the enemy's horse. on the left, at a considerable distance, were the saxons. it was the defeat of pappenheim which obliged tilly to abandon his first strong position and draw up his army under the western heights, where it formed a single extended line, long enough to outflank the swedish army; the infantry in large battalions, the cavalry in equally large and unwieldy squadrons; the artillery, as stated, on the slopes above. the position was one for defence rather than attack, for tilly's army could not advance far without being exposed to the fire of its own artillery. each army numbered about thirty-five thousand men. these forces were small in view of the momentous nature of the struggle before them and the fact that two great generals, both hitherto invincible, were now to be matched in a contest on which the fate of the whole war largely depended and to which the two parties battling for the mastery looked forward with fear and trembling. but of the two, while gustavus was cool and collected, tilly seemed to have lost his usual intrepidity. he was anxious to avoid battle, and had formed no regular plan to fight the enemy when forced into it by pappenheim's impetuous charge. "doubts which he had never before felt struggled in his bosom; gloomy forebodings clouded his ever-open brow; the shade of magdeburg seemed to hover over him." the lines being ready for action, king gustavus rode to the centre of his front, reined in his horse, took off his hat, and with the sword in his right hand lowered to the ground, offered in a loud voice the following prayer: "almighty god, thou who holdest victory and defeat in the hollow of thine hand, turn thine eye unto us thy servants, who have come from our distant homes to fight for freedom and truth and for thy gospel. give us victory for the honor of thy holy name. amen!" then, raising his sword and waving it over his head, he commanded: "forward in the name of the lord!" "god with us!" was the battle-cry as the swedes, inspired by his words, prepared for the fatal fray. the battle, which had lulled after the defeat of pappenheim, was now resumed with the thunder of the cannon, which continued for two hours, the west wind meanwhile blowing clouds of smoke and dust from ploughed and parched fields into the faces of the swedes. to avoid this they were wheeled to face northwards, the movement being executed so rapidly and skilfully that the enemy had no time to prevent it. the cannonading ending, tilly left the shelter of the heights and advanced upon the swedes. but so hot was their fire that he filed off towards the right and fell impetuously upon the saxons, whose ranks quickly broke and fled before the fierce charge. of the whole force of the elector only a few regiments held their ground, but these did so in a noble manner that saved the honor of saxony. so confident now was tilly of victory that he sent off messengers in all haste to munich and vienna with word that the day was his. he was too hasty. the unbroken army of sweden, the most thoroughly drilled body of soldiers then in europe, was still to be dealt with. pappenheim, who commanded the imperial left, charged with his whole force of cavalry upon the swedish right, but it stood against him firm as a rock. here the king commanded in person, and repulsed seven successive charges of the impetuous pappenheim, driving him at last from the field with broken and decimated ranks. in the meantime tilly, having routed the small remnant of the saxons, turned upon the left wing of the swedes with the prestige of victory to animate his troops. this wing gustavus, on seeing the repulse of his allies, had reinforced with three regiments, covering the flank left exposed by the flight of the saxons. gustav horn commanded here, and met the attack with a spirited resistance, materially aided by the musketeers who were interspersed among the squadrons of horse. while the contest went on and the vigor of the attack was showing signs of weakening, king gustavus, having put pappenheim to rout, wheeled to the left and by a sharp attack captured the heights on which the enemy's artillery was planted. a short struggle gave him possession of the guns and soon tilly's army was being rent with the fire of its own cannon. this flank attack by artillery, coming in aid of the furious onset of the swedes, quickly threw the imperial ranks into confusion. hitherto deemed invincible, tilly's whole army broke into wild disorder, a quick retreat being its only hope. the only portion of it yet standing firm was a battalion of four veteran regiments, which had never yet fled the field and were determined never to do so. closing their ranks, they forced their way by a fierce charge through the opposing army and gained a small thicket, where they held their own against the swedes until night, when only six hundred of them remained. with the retreat of this brave remnant the battle was at an end, the remainder of tilly's army being then in full flight, actively pursued by the swedish cavalry, which kept close upon their tracks until the darkness of night spread over the field. on all sides the bells of the villages pealed out the tidings of the victory, and the people poured forth in pursuit of the fleeing foe, giving short shrift to the unhappy fugitives who fell into their hands. eleven thousand of tilly's men had fallen and more than five thousand, including the wounded, were held as prisoners. on the other side the saxons had lost about two thousand, but of the swedes only about seven hundred had fallen. the camp and artillery of the enemy had fallen into the hands of gustavus, and more than a hundred standards had been taken. the rout was so complete that tilly had left with him only about six hundred men and pappenheim less than fifteen hundred. thus was destroyed that formidable army which had long been the terror of germany. as for tilly himself, chance alone left him his life. exhausted by his wounds and summoned to surrender by a swedish captain of horse, he refused. in an instant more he would have been cut down, when a pistol shot laid low the swede. but though saved in body, he was lost in spirit, utterly depressed and shaken by the defeat which had wiped out, as he thought, the memory of all his past exploits. though he recovered from his wounds, he never regained his former cheerfulness and good fortune seemed to desert him, and in a second battle with gustavus on the lech he was mortally wounded, dying a few days later. as for gustavus, he had won imperishable renown as a military leader. all germany seemed to lie open before him and it appeared as if nothing could prevent a triumphant march upon vienna. he had proved himself the ablest captain and tactician of the age, his device of small, rapidly moving brigades and flexible squadrons being the death-blow of the solid and unwieldy columns of previous wars. and his victory formed an epoch in history as saving the cause of protestantism in germany. the emperor, in despair, called again into his service the disgraced and disgruntled wallenstein, granting him extraordinary powers. but this great captain also was beaten by gustavus on the field of lutzen, where the career of the swedish hero came to an untimely end. his renown as a great soldier will live long in history. _charles x. and the invasion of denmark._ when charles x., nephew of gustavus adolphus, succeeded christina, the daughter of gustavus, on the throne, the "thirty years' war" was at an end, but new wars awaited the new king. sweden had won large possessions on the southern shores of the baltic and had become one of the leading powers of europe. but charles found these southern provinces hard to hold, having to battle for them with russia and poland. a worthy successor of his great uncle, charles showed his warlike ability by a rapid march into poland and the overthrow of its army by a three days' battle at warsaw. but his progress was checked by a new and dark cloud which appeared upon the sky. suddenly and unexpectedly, on the d of may, , denmark declared war against sweden, and at the same time an austrian army invaded poland with the purpose of aiding that kingdom and destroying the swedish army. this double attack left charles in a quandary. an able and experienced soldier, who had learned the trade of war in germany during queen christina's reign, he was well fitted to deal with one foe, but could not readily cope with two widely separated ones. he therefore determined to abandon poland, though leaving garrisons in its more important cities, and devote his attention to denmark. this danish war had much in it of interest, and showed that the new swedish king had been taught in the best school of the military art. frederick iii. of denmark had declared war without making preparations for it, fancying that charles would be forced to remain with his army in poland and that he would have abundant time to act. he quickly learned his mistake. with an army of eight thousand well-trained veterans charles marched at all speed from poland, and a few months after war was declared stood with his compact little army on denmark's shores. taken by surprise, the danish general, bilbe, retreated hastily northward and the whole peninsula of jutland was quickly overrun by the swedes. bilbe had much the larger army, but they were mainly raw recruits, and he dared not face the veterans of the thirty years' war. the danes had projected an invasion of sweden, for which they had been deliberately preparing, and were overwhelmed to find their army in retreat and a force of six thousand men closely besieged in the fredericia fortress. a night attack by general vrangel won this stronghold for the swedes, with its garrison and a large amount of arms and provisions. so far the movement of charles had been brilliantly successful, but his position was very dangerous. enemies were advancing on him from various sides, a polish army having invaded pomerania, an austrian army having advanced into prussia, while the elector of brandenburg had joined his enemies. his ally, england, had promised to aid him with a fleet, but it failed to appear, and the situation was growing daily more critical. from his awkward position he was rescued by a combination of daring and the favoring influences of nature. the winter of proved extraordinarily cold. never within the memory of man had such bitter weather been known. the sea that flowed between the danish islands was tightly frozen, a natural bridge of ice connecting them with one another and the mainland. with bold resolution king charles determined to cross to the island of fyen. the enterprise was full of risk. the ice swayed perilously beneath the marching hosts. at places it broke. but the island shore was safely reached, the troops guarding it were beaten, and soon the whole island was in charles's possession. but a more daring and perilous enterprise confronted the king. there was a broader arm of the sea to cross, the great belt, about twelve miles wide. the ice was examined and tested by the quartermaster-general, who said that he would answer with his life for its being strong enough to bear the army. king charles heard this tidings with delight, clapping his hands energetically and exclaiming: "now, brother frederick, we will converse with each other in good swedish." dahlberg, the quartermaster-general, testified to his confidence by riding at the head of the column over the wide field of ice, the army following in safety to the coast of zealand. meeting with no opposition, charles and his army were soon near copenhagen, whose fortifications were in bad condition, and the danger of losing his capital was so imminent that frederick was glad to accept the severe terms of peace which charles offered him. these included the surrender of half a dozen danish provinces to sweden and the independence of the duke of holstein-gottorp from danish control. denmark had paid sorely for making a declaration of war with no preparation to carry it out. but charles x. was so eager for war that in the end he lost most of what he had gained. he was full of schemes of conquest in germany, but feared that denmark might take advantage of his absence with his army to take revenge for her losses. the fleets of holland were threatening the coasts of the baltic sea, and charles sought to make a treaty with denmark which would close this sea to foreign ships. denmark refused to enter such an alliance and charles thereupon determined to make a complete conquest of that kingdom. breaking without warning the treaty of peace he had recently made, he suddenly landed with an army on the coast of zealand. by this unwarranted and stealthy assault he filled the souls of the danes with the courage of despair, changed holland from a secret to an open enemy, and lost the most of his former gains. the danish people, threatened with the loss of their independence, flew to arms, determined to defend their country to the last extremity. charles, his army being small, delayed his attack upon copenhagen, which might easily have been taken by an immediate assault. when he appeared before it he found all its people converted into armed soldiers, while king frederick declared that he was ready to die in his capital like a bird in its nest. every soul in the city burned with patriotism, and nobles, burghers, and laborers alike manned the walls, while even women could be seen wielding spade and axe in the repair of the neglected defences. when the siege began the citizens made several successful sallies against their foes and hope arose in their breasts. but their position soon grew critical, the swedes seizing the castle of cronberg and other points commanding the sound and pushing forward their lines until they had possession of the outer works of the city. the great weakness of the citizens lay in the absence of provisions, which grew so scarce that they would have had to surrender from sheer stress of hunger but for the activity of their allies. the dutch had enlisted in their cause, and a fleet sent from holland under admirals opdam and dewitte passed cronberg and other fortifications held by the swedes, met the swedish fleet under admiral vrangel in the sound and fought a bloody battle for the mastery. for six hours the thunder of cannon echoed from the neighboring shores, then the swedes were put to flight and a favoring wind bore the dutch ships triumphantly to the beleagured city, bringing food and help to the half-starved defenders. their coming saved copenhagen. charles, baffled in his efforts, drew back, and threw up works of defence ten miles from the city. suddenly the tide of fortune had turned and began to run strongly against him. into holstein pressed an invading army of austrians, poles, and brandenburgers. the swedes were forced to evacuate jutland. the newly won provinces were ready to revolt. part of those held in norway were taken by the danes, and the swedish garrison in the island of bornholm was annihilated by a sudden revolt of the inhabitants. when winter came and the waters were closed by ice against invading fleets, the swedish king determined to make a vigorous effort to take the city by assault. the attack was made on the night of february , , generals stenbock and spane leading a storming party against the fortifications. fortunately for the people, they had information of the coming assault and were fully prepared for defence, and a desperate struggle took place at the walls and in the frozen ditches. the fire of a multitude of cannon served to light up the scene, and the attacking swedes found themselves met with the frantic courage of men and women fighting for their homes. a shower of bullets and stones burst upon them, many women taking part, throwing burning brands, and pouring boiling tar upon their heads. in the end the swedes were forced to draw back, leaving two thousand dead and wounded in the hands of their foes. relinquishing his attack upon the city, charles now turned furiously upon the small islands of laaland, falster, moen, and langeland, which had offended him by supplying provisions for the city, and subjected them to all the horrors of invasion by troops to whom every excess of outrage was allowed. yet new misfortunes gathered round him, the peninsula of fyen being taken by the allies of denmark, while the swedish troops near nyberg were attacked and taken prisoners, their commander alone escaping in a small boat. the intervention offered by the neighboring powers was refused by the proud swedish king, who, surrounded by dangers on all sides, now issued a call for a meeting of the estates of the realm at gothenburg, while at the same time preparing to invade norway as a part of the danish dominions. at this interval he was suddenly taken sick and died soon after reaching gothenburg. a treaty followed with the widowed queen, regent of sweden, and frederick preserved his realm, though not without loss of territory. _charles xii. the firebrand of sweden._ on the th of june, , was born one of the most extraordinary of men, the alexander of modern times, one of those meteors of conquest which have appeared at rare intervals in the history of the world. grandson alike of charles x. of sweden and frederick iii. of denmark, charles xii. of sweden united in himself all the soldierly qualities of his ancestors, his chief fault being that he possessed them in too intense a degree, being possessed by a sort of military madness, an overweaning passion for great exploits and wide-spread conquests. in his career sweden reached its greatest height of power, and with his death it fell back into its original peninsular status. his daring activity began almost with his birth. at seven years of age he could manage a horse, and the violent exercises in which he delighted to indulge gave him the vigorous constitution necessary for the great fatigues of his later life, while he developed an obstinacy which made him a terror to his advisers in later years. charles was extraordinary in the fact that he performed the most remarkable of his exploits before he reached the age of manhood, and in a just sense may be given the name of the boy conqueror. his mother died when he was eleven years of age and his father when he was fifteen, his grandmother being appointed regent of the kingdom, with a council of five nobles for her advisers. sweden, when he came to the throne, had risen to a high rank among the powers of europe. in addition to its original dominion, it possessed the whole of finland, the finest part of pomerania, on the southern shores of the baltic, and also livonia, carelia, ingria, wismar, viborg, the duchies of bremen and verden, and other realms, all of long possession and secured by conquest and treaty. but it had dangerous enemies with whom to deal, especially peter the great of russia, then bent on bringing his barbarian dominions into line with the great powers of the continent. such was the inheritance of the fifteen-year-old king, who quickly showed the material of which he was composed. one day in the first year of his reign, after reviewing a number of regiments, he was seen by his special favorite, charles piper, in a spell of abstraction. "may i ask your majesty," said piper, "of what you are thinking so deeply?" "i am thinking," replied the boy monarch, "that i am capable of commanding those brave fellows; and i don't choose that either they or i shall receive orders from a woman." he referred in this irreverent and boastful speech to his grandmother, the regent. he was crowned on the th of december following his father's death, the ceremony being performed by the archbishop of upsala. but when the prelate, having anointed the prince in the customary manner, held the crown in his hand ready to put it upon the new king's head, charles took it from his hand and crowned himself, his eyes fixed sternly upon the dismayed churchman. this act of self-willed insubordination was applauded by the people, who also received him with loud acclamations when he rode into stockholm on a horse shod with silver and with a sceptre in his hand and a crown on his head. the oath of fidelity to his people, usual on such occasions, was not taken, and in fact charles had no thought of being faithful to anything but his own ambitious designs and his obstinate self-will. he soon showed his unfitness for the duties of quiet government. the money collected by his father was quickly squandered by him, and with the eagerness of an untutored boy he plunged into every kind of daring amusement that presented itself, risking his life in break-neck rides, mock fights, bear hunts, and other dangerous sports and exercises. he also gave much attention to military manoeuvres, his time being spent in all sorts of violent activities, with little thought to the duties of government, these being confided to his chief friend and confidant, charles piper. the tidings of the manner in which the new king of sweden occupied himself spread to the neighboring monarchs, who, fancying that they had nothing to fear from a frivolous and pleasure-loving boy, deemed this a good opportunity to recover some of the lands conquered from them by the preceding swedish kings. a secret understanding to this effect was entered into by frederick iv. of denmark, king augustus of poland, and peter the great, czar of russia, and the ball was opened early in by an invasion of livonia on the part of the polish king, while the danes attacked holstein-gottorp, ruled by charles's brother-in-law, taking gottorp and laying siege to tonnigen. peter of russia was the most dangerous of the three confederates, he being then full of the idea of introducing western civilization among his rude subjects and making russia a sea power. to accomplish this he was eager to gain a foothold on the baltic by the conquest of finland. the kingly conspirators, who had begun war against sweden without a declaration, little dreamed of the hornet's nest they were arousing. filled with consternation, some of the swedish councillors of state proposed to avert the danger by negotiation. charles, then a youth of eighteen and of whose real metal no one dreamed, listened to these words with a grave face, and then rose and spoke: "gentlemen, i am resolved never to begin an unjust war, nor ever to end a just one but by the destruction of my enemies. my resolution is fixed. i will attack the first that shall declare war against me, and having conquered him, i hope i shall be able to strike terror into the rest." the old councillors were surprised by the resolute demeanor of the young king, who seemed suddenly transformed into a man before them. they little knew the boy. familiar with the careers of alexander and cæsar, he was inspired with the ambition to attempt the rôle of a great conqueror and prove himself one of the world's ablest soldiers. forsaking his favorite sports, he set himself with intense energy to prepare for the war which had been precipitated upon him, and sent word to the duke of holstein that he would speedily come to his assistance, eight thousand men being at once despatched to pomerania for this purpose. instantly the natives were stirred up, central germany sending troops to reinforce the danes, while england and holland sent fleets to aid sweden and seek to preserve the balance of power in the north. such were the preliminary steps to charles's first great campaign, one of the most remarkable in the whole history of war. on the th of may, , he left stockholm, in which city he was never to set foot again. with a large fleet of swedish, dutch, and english vessels he proposed to attack copenhagen, thus striking at the very citadel of danish power. the assault began with a bombardment of the city, but, seeing that this was having little effect, charles determined to attack it by land and sea, taking command of the land forces himself. a landing was made at the village of humlebek, charles, in his impatience to land, leaping into the water, which came nearly to his waist, and wading ashore. others followed his example, the march through the waves being made amid a shower of bullets from the enemy. springing to land, the young king waved his sword joyously above his head and asked major stuart, who reached the shore beside him, what was the whistling sound he heard. "it is the noise of the musket balls which they are firing at your majesty," said the major. "that is the very best music i ever heard," he replied, "and i shall never care for any other as long as i live." as he spoke, a bullet struck the major in the shoulder and on his other side a lieutenant fell dead, but charles escaped unscathed. the danes were soon put to flight and charles made the arrangements for the encamping of his troops with the skill and celerity of one trained in the art of warfare, instead of a boy on his first campaign and to whom the whistle of a musket ball was a sound unknown. he showed his ability and judgment also by the strict discipline he maintained, winning the good will of the peasantry by paying for all supplies, instead of taking them by force in the ordinary fashion of the times. while the camp was being made and redoubts thrown up towards the town, the fleet was sent back to sweden and soon returned with a reinforcement of nine thousand men, who had marched in haste to the shore and were drawn up ready to embark. the danish fleet looked on at this movement, but was not strong enough to interfere. the rapidity with which this invasion had been made struck the people of copenhagen with terror and they sent an embassy to charles, begging him not to bombard the city. he received them at the head of his guards, while they fell upon their knees before him. his ultimatum to the petitioners was that he would spare the city on the payment of four hundred thousand rix-dollars. they were also commanded to supply his camp with provisions, for which he promised they would be honestly paid. they did not dare refuse, and were very agreeably surprised when charles kept his word and paid good prices for all he got. charles now sent word to king frederick that he had made war only to require him to make peace, and he must agree to act justly towards the duke of holstein or the city of copenhagen would be destroyed and his dominions laid waste with fire and sword. frederick, utterly taken aback by the warlike vigor of king charles, was very glad to accept this proposal and thus to escape from the dangerous position in which he had placed himself, and the negotiations were driven through by charles with the same abrupt energy he had shown in his military movements. in less than six weeks from the beginning of the war it was ended and the treaty made, a surprising achievement for the first campaign of an eighteen-year-old warrior. the treaty was favorable to frederick, charles exacting nothing for himself, but demanding that the duke of holstein should be repaid the expenses of the war. the boy king had reason for haste, for the town of riga, in his dominions, was being invested by a combined army of russians, poles, and saxons. the treaty was no sooner signed than he sailed in all haste to its relief. it had made a gallant and nearly desperate defence under general dahlberg, but the besiegers did not wait for the impact of charles's army, hastily retreating and leaving the field open to him for a great feat of arms, the most famous one in his career. the town of narva, in ingermanland, was then invested by a great russian army, sixty thousand--some say eighty thousand--strong, the czar peter being in supreme command, the duc de croy commanding under him. but the unskilled russians had not proved very successful in the art of besieging, having failed for six weeks to take a city that was very poorly fortified and whose governor, baron herre, had but a thousand regular troops in his garrison. it was in mid-november, , that the czar heard that the swedish king had landed an army of about thirty-two thousand men, and was coming to the relief of narva. not content with his great force, peter hurried forward a second army of thirty thousand men, proposing to enclose king charles between these two hordes and hoping thus to annihilate him. he reckoned without his host. charles landed at pernow and made a forced march to reval, followed by his cavalry, fourteen thousand strong, but with only four thousand foot soldiers. marching, in his usual ardent manner, in the van of his army, he did not wait for the rear, making his way onward by nearly impassable roads and coming before the outposts of the supplementary russian army with only eight thousand men. with apparently utter indifference to the vast disproportion in numbers, the swedish firebrand rushed forward, the russians, not dreaming of such mad temerity, being sure that he had his whole army behind him. the advance guard of the russians, five thousand strong, was posted in a rocky pass where a body of a hundred resolute men might have checked the progress of an army, yet it fled in dismay before the onset of the swedes. the twenty thousand men behind them shared their panic and joined in their flight, terror and confusion pervading the whole army. in two days' time charles carried all their posts, winning what might have been claimed as three distinct victories, yet not delaying an hour in his advance. having thus disposed of the army sent to intercept him, charles marched with all speed to narva, leaving his main army still far in the rear. with his eight thousand men, exhausted with their long march and their hard fight, he suddenly appeared before the czar's great force of sixty or eighty thousand men and one hundred and fifty cannon. giving his weary men scarcely any time for rest, charles advanced against the russians with the impetuosity which had so far marked his career. a general warned him that the danger was very great. "what!" he replied. "do you not think that with my eight thousand brave swedes i may easily beat eighty thousand russians?" whether the general believed so or not, he did not venture any further remonstrances, and, at the signal of two musket shots and the war-cry of "with the aid of god!" the king and his handful of men marched forwards. it was now about mid-day on the th of november, . a breach being made with their cannon in the russian works, charles led his men on with fixed bayonets, a furious snow-fall behind them driving full in the face of the enemy and making their position a very difficult one. after an engagement of three hours the entrenchments were stormed on all sides, the right wing of the russians fleeing to the narva and crowding the bridge with its retreating hosts. so dense was the mass that the bridge gave way beneath them, precipitating them into the stream, in which eighteen thousand of the panic-stricken wretches were drowned. the left wing then broke and fled in utter confusion, so many prisoners being taken that the best the captor could do was to disarm them and let them disperse where they would. thus ended this extraordinary battle, almost without a parallel in history and spreading the fame of the victor widely over europe. for a boy little over eighteen years of age to achieve such a feat, defeating with eight thousand men an army of nearly a hundred thousand, raised him in men's minds to the level of the most famous conquerors. unfortunately for himself, it redoubled his self-will and vanity, the adulation given him leading him into a course of wild and aimless invasion that brought upon him eventually misfortune and defeat and nearly ruined his kingdom. having disposed of two of the enemies who had plotted his destruction, in the following year charles advanced against the third, king augustus of poland, led his victorious army into that kingdom, took warsaw, its capital city, by storm, and in the battles of klissov and pultusk so thoroughly overthrew the forces of augustus that he was forced to give up the throne of poland and retire into his native dominion of saxony, a polish noble being proclaimed king in his place. the swedish conqueror even pursued augustus into saxony, defeated his armies wherever met, and forced him at last to beg humbly for peace. such was the first era of the brilliant career of the young swedish firebrand of war, who in four years had utterly overthrown his enemies and won a reputation for splendid military genius which placed him on a level, in the opinion of the military critics of the age, with alexander the great, whom he had taken as the model of his career. but charles had two great enemies with whom to contend, and as a result his later history was one of decline and fall, in which he lost all that he had won and remained for years practically a prisoner in a foreign land. one of these enemies was himself. his faults of character--inordinate ambition, inflexible obstinacy, reckless daring--were such as in the end to negative his military genius and lead to the destruction of the great power he had so rapidly built up. the other was czar peter of russia. it was unfortunate for the youthful warrior that fate had pitted him against a greater man than himself, peter the great, who, while lacking his military ability, had the other elements of a great character which were wanting in him, prudence, cool judgment, persistence in a fixed course of action. while the career of charles was one of glitter and coruscation, dazzling to men's imaginations, that of peter was one of cool political judgment, backed by the resources of a great country and the staying qualities of a great mind. what would have been the outcome of charles's career if pitted against almost any other monarch of russia that one could name it is difficult to imagine. but pitted against peter the great he was like a foaming billow hurling itself against an impregnable rock. while it is not our purpose to tell the whole story of the exploits of charles xii., yet his life is so interesting from the point of view of military history that a brief epitome of its remainder may be given. after his great victories charles remained in saxony, entertaining the throng of princes that sought his friendship and alliance and the crowd of flatterers who came to shine in his reflected glory. for six years in all he remained in poland and saxony, fighting and entertaining, while peter the great was actively engaged in carrying out the important purpose he had in mind, that of extending the dominion of russia to the shores of the baltic and gaining an outlet on the northern seas. as an essential part of his purpose he began to build a new city on the banks of the neva, to serve as a great port and centre of commerce. it was long before charles awakened to the fact that peter was coming threateningly near to the swedish territories, and when he finally realized the purpose of his great enemy and set out to circumvent it, he did so without any definite plan. he decided, as napoleon did a century later, to plunge into the heart of the country and attack its capital city, moscow, trusting by doing so to bring his enemy to terms. in this he failed as signally as napoleon did in his later invasion. in june, , with an army of forty-three thousand men, charles crossed the beresina and soon after met and defeated the russian army near smolensko. he considered this his most brilliant victory, and, as we are told by voltaire, peter now made overtures for peace, to which charles, with the arrogance of a victor, replied, "i will treat with the czar at moscow." he never reached moscow, but was constrained to turn southward to the ukraine, where he hoped to gain the aid of the cossacks, under their chief, mazeppa, a bitter enemy of the czar. in this march his men suffered terribly, more than half of them dying from hunger and cold. he had met that same enemy which napoleon afterwards met in russia, a winter of bitter severity. in the spring he had only about eighteen thousand swedes and about as many cossacks under his command, but he persisted in his designs. during the wintry cold he had shared in the privations of his men, eating the same coarse food, while his only means of warming his tent was to have heated cannon balls rolled along the floor. the crisis came in the summer of . peter, who was keenly on the alert, had succeeded in winning to his side the cossack chiefs, leaving mazeppa without any followers. then he intercepted the swedish general levenhaupt, who was marching with a new army to the aid of his king, and overwhelmed him with an immense force of russians. losing all his baggage and stores and more than half his men, levenhaupt succeeded in reaching the king's camp with only six thousand battered and worn soldiers. charles had now only eighteen thousand men, and was in such sore need of food and clothing that he laid siege to the city of pultowa, hoping to obtain supplies by its capture. here he was met by peter with an army three times his strength, and in the decisive battle that followed charles was wounded and his army utterly defeated, only three thousand escaping death or capture. charles himself narrowly escaped the latter, and only by a hazardous and adventurous flight over the steppes reached the town of bender, in the turkish realm. [illustration: from stereograph, copyright by underwood and underwood, n.y. the return of charles xii. of sweden.] here the sultan, the bitter enemy of russia, gave him refuge and treated him with much kindness, though he found the young swede a very troublesome guest. in fact, at charles's suggestion, the sultan went to war with russia and got the czar into such a tight place that he only escaped by bribing the turkish vizier. infuriated at his enemy's escape, charles became so violent and unruly that the sultan tried to get rid of him, giving him large sums of money to pay his debts and make preparations to leave. when charles spent all this and asked for more the sultan grew so angry that he ordered the arrest of his troublesome guest. it needed an army of men to take him, for he locked himself in his house and fought furiously with the few hundred of men under his command. many turkish soldiers were killed and he was only captured by setting fire to his house and seizing him as he fled from the flames. the "iron head," as the turks called him from his obstinacy, was guarded in a turkish village for ten months by a force of janizaries. most of this time was spent in bed on pretence that he was dangerously ill. at the end of that time, finding that he could get no more help from the turks, he resolved to escape. accompanied by two persons only, he rode in the incredibly short period of fourteen days from adrianople through austria, hungary, and germany, reaching the swedish post of stralsund on november , . doubtless the sultan was glad to hear of his escape, since he had borne with his restless and unwelcome guest for more than four years. when he came to the gates of stralsund he presented himself to the guard under the name of captain peter frisch. the guard was long in recognizing him, for he was haggard and worn in face and ragged and dirty in person, having never changed his clothes and rarely left the saddle, except to change horses, during his long and weary ride. his long and needless absence in turkey had left sweden exposed to its enemies and it had severely suffered, the greater part of its territory south of the baltic being seized, while sweden itself had been attacked by the danes and saxons and only saved by an army of peasants, so poorly equipped and clothed that they were nicknamed the "wooden shoes." as for charles, his era of brilliant invasion was over and he was obliged to fight in self-defence. when he reached stralsund it was under siege by an army of russians, saxons, and danes. taking command here, he defended it obstinately until the walls were blown up and the outworks reduced to ashes, when he went on board a small yacht and crossed the baltic safely to sweden, though a russian admiral was scouring that sea to prevent his passage. a few words must suffice to complete the story of this remarkable man. he found sweden largely depleted of men and money and in the new army which he sought to raise he was obliged to take boys of fifteen into the ranks. with these he proposed, in the cold winter of , to invade denmark by leading an army over the sound to the danish islands, but a thaw set in and put an end to this adventurous project. then he invaded norway, as a part of the danish realm, and after some unsuccessful efforts, laid siege to the fortress of frederikshald. here the end of his strange career was reached. on the morning of december , , while leaning over the side of a breastwork and giving directions to the men in the trenches, he was seen to stagger, his head sinking on his breast. the officers who ran to his aid found him breathing his last breath. a bullet had struck him, passing through his head and ending his remarkable career at the early age of thirty-six. with the death of this famous soldier ended the military glory and greatness of sweden. as a result of his mad ambition and his obstinate persistence in turkey, sweden lost all the possessions won in previous reigns, losing them never to be regained. and with him also vanished the absolute rule of the swedish kings. for with his death the nobles regained their lost influence and drew up a compact in which the crown was deprived of all its overruling control and the diet of the nobles became the dominant power in the state. _the english invaders and the danish fleet._ the napoleonic wars filled all europe with tumult and disorder, the far-northern realms of norway and sweden and the far-eastern one of turkey alone escaping from being drawn into the maelstrom of conflict. denmark, the scandinavian kingdom nearest the region of conflict, did not escape, but was made the victim of wars with which it had no concern to a disastrous extent. christian vii. was then the danish king, but he was so feeble, both in mind and body, that the crown prince frederick was made regent or joint-ruler in , and was practically king until his father's death in , when he came to the throne as frederick vi. count bernstorf was minister of foreign affairs and kept denmark at peace until his death in , when troubles at once broke out between denmark and england. it was a different state of affairs now from that far-off time of canute and the vikings, when the danes overran england and a dane filled its throne. the tide had long turned and denmark was an almost helpless victim in the hands of the great maritime island, which sought to control the politics of the whole continent during the terrible struggle with napoleon. for some years the english made complaints against denmark, saying that it was carrying food and forage into french and german ports in defiance of the laws of neutrality. as these laws were of english origin the danes did not feel inclined to submit to them, and after the death of bernstorf danish men-of-war were sent to sea to protect their merchant vessels. quarrels and hostile feeling arose from this, but the crisis did not come until the summer of , when russia, sweden, and prussia formed a treaty for an "armed neutrality" and invited denmark to join it. england at once took alarm. while the other nations were powerful enough to defy her, denmark was poor and quite unprepared for warlike operations, and when, in the spring of , a fleet under admirals parker and nelson appeared on her waters she was by no means in readiness for such a demonstration. taken by surprise as they were, however, the danes had no thought of weakly submitting to this hostile movement, and did their best to prevent the english from passing the sound. their chief defence was the fortress of cronberg, near elsinore, where heavy cannon were mounted to command the narrow strait here separating sweden and denmark. but by closely hugging the swedish coast parker kept beyond the range of these guns, and in april, , cast anchor in the harbor of copenhagen. his fleet consisted of fifty-one vessels, twenty of them being line-of-battle ships. alarmed by the coming of the fleet and taking advantage of the delays in its movement, the danes had made every possible preparation for a vigorous resistance. strong batteries defended the city and an imposing array of heavily armed ships, drawn up behind a shoal, presented a formidable line of defence. some delay took place, against the wish of the fiery nelson, who was second in command of the fleet. nelson was eager for an immediate attack, and finally parker gave way and left the matter in his hands. nelson was in command of the elephant, but finding that ship too large for the waters before him he removed his flag to the st. george and led the way to the attack with the smaller vessels of the fleet, parker remaining at anchor some miles distant with the larger vessels. a fierce and bloody conflict ensued, lasting from four to five hours. nelson closed on his foe by getting within the shoal, but he met with a stout and vigorous resistance, the danish seamen, under their able commander olfert fischer, fighting with the daring for which their people had been noted in the far past. three times the aged fischer left one burning ship to hoist his flag on another, and several of the younger captains fought their ships against nelson's larger vessels as long as the shattered hulks kept above water. so protracted and obstinate was the defence that parker grew alarmed and signalled nelson to retreat. this was the last signal to be thought of by a man like nelson and, clapping the glass to his blind eye, he said, "i really do not see the signal," and kept on fighting. nelson was between two fires, that from the shore batteries and that from the ships, and though he destroyed the first line of the danish defence and threatened the capital with serious injury, the batteries were not silenced and the english ships were suffering severely. he therefore sent an english officer on shore with a flag of truce, declaring that unless the danes on shore ceased firing he would burn the ships in his hands without being able to save the crews, and pointing out that these crews were the worst sufferers, as they received a great part of the fire of both parties. a suspension of hostilities was agreed upon to permit of the prisoners being removed, and in the end the crown prince, against the wishes of his commanders, stopped all firing and agreed to discuss terms of peace. thus ended a battle which nelson said was the fiercest and best contested of the many in which he had taken part. the peace that followed lasted for several years, and denmark, freed from connection with the hostilities existing in southern europe, rapidly increased in trading activity. during these years, indeed, the danes served as the commerce carriers for the other countries of europe, and this prosperous state of affairs lasted till , when new troubles arose and england repeated her violent act of . the english government either had, or fancied it had, good grounds for suspecting that denmark had joined alexander of russia in a treaty with france, and on the plea that the fleet of denmark might be used in the cause of the french emperor, an array of fifty-four ships of war was sent to demand its immediate delivery to england. denmark was taken more fully by surprise than before. its army was absent in holstein to guard against an attack which was feared from germany, and copenhagen was thus left without protection. general peymann refused to comply with the preposterous demand of the english admiral, whereupon an army of thirty-three thousand men was landed and the city attacked by land and sea. for three days a fierce bombardment continued, and not until a large portion of the almost unprotected city was laid in ashes and the remainder threatened with like destruction did the general consent to admit the english troops into the citadel of frederikshavn. the outcome of this brigand-like attack, which had nothing more definite than a suspicion to warrant it, and is ranked in history as of the same type with the burning of washington some years later, was the seizure of the entire danish fleet by the assailants. the ships carried off included eighteen ships-of-the-line, twenty-one frigates, six brigs and twenty-five gunboats, with a large amount of naval stores of all kinds. the act was no more warrantable than were the viking descents upon england centuries before. the latter were the acts of barbarian freebooters, and england, in an age of boasted civilization, put herself in the same position. the danes were nearly crushed by the blow and many years passed away before their bitter resentment at the outrage decreased. [illustration: kronberg castle on the sound, denmark.] the political result of it was that denmark allied herself with napoleon, a measure which gave that unhappy land no small amount of trouble and distress and led in to the loss of norway, which for four hundred years had been united with the danish realm. norway was handed over to swedish rule, while england took for her share of the spoils the island of heligoland, which she wanted to secure for the command of the elbe. thus the birds of prey gathered round and despoiled the weak realm of denmark, which was to be further robbed in later years. _a french soldier becomes king of sweden and norway._ the career of napoleon, which passed over europe like a tornado, made itself felt in the scandinavian peninsula, where it gave rise to radical changes. in the preceding tale its effect upon denmark was shown. while the wars which desolated europe did not reach the soil of sweden and norway, yet these countries were deeply affected and their relations decidedly changed. the work began in in the obstinate folly of gustavus iv., who defiantly kept up an active trade with england when russia and prussia had closed their ports against british ships. as a result russia declared war against sweden, sent an immense army into finland, and after a desperate struggle compelled the swedes to evacuate that region. in this way sweden lost a great province which it had held for six hundred years. this was one result of a weak king's setting himself against the great powers of europe. by his lack of political good sense and his obstinacy sweden lost nearly half its territory and gustavus lost his throne, for the bitter indignation of the swedes against him was such that he was taken prisoner by conspirators and forced to sign a deed in which he renounced the throne of sweden for himself and his descendants. not a hand was raised to help him and he spent the remainder of his life as a wandering exile. it was this series of events that in time brought a soldier of the french army to the swedish throne. how this came about is well worth the telling. after the abdication of gustavus, duke charles of sodermanland was elected king as charles xiii., and as he had no children, a danish prince was chosen to succeed him. but this heir to the throne, charles augustus by name, died suddenly the next year. the people believed he had been poisoned, and on the day of the funeral, suspecting the haughty old count fersen of his death, they seized him and in their fury literally tore him to pieces. it was now proposed to take the brother of the deceased prince as heir to the throne, but little could be done in those days without the corsican emperor being consulted about it, and the young baron mörner was sent to paris to inform napoleon of what was proposed. the youthful envoy was an admirer of the conqueror, and thinking to please him he suggested that one of the french generals should be chosen to rule over sweden. napoleon was highly gratified with the suggestion, but when the baron named marshal jean bernadotte as his choice the emperor was much less pleased. he would much rather have chosen some one else, bernadotte being too independent in character to please him. difficulties were thrown in the way, but mörner obtained bernadotte's consent, and by his argument that sweden needed an able and experienced soldier to regain its old power the swedish ricksdag was brought over to his side. in the end napoleon gave his consent, and the marshal was elected crown prince of sweden. but the french emperor evidently doubted him still, for on parting with him he used these significant farewell words: "go, then, and let us fulfil our several destinies." he had reason for his distrust, as the events of later years showed. this selection ranks with the remarkable instances of the mutations of fortune. the new crown prince had begun life as the son of a poor french lawyer and in , at the age of sixteen, entered the army as a common soldier. when the wars of the revolution began he had risen to the rank of a sergeant, which was as high as a man of common birth could rise in the old army of france. but he made rapid progress in the army of the revolution, being a man of great courage and unusual military genius. under napoleon, whose discerning eye no soldier of ability escaped, bernadotte became one of the most successful of the french generals, was made governor of a province, ambassador, and minister of war, and had much to do with winning the great victories of austerlitz, jena, and wagram. finally he was made a marshal of france and prince of ponte corvo in italy. but napoleon had doubts of him. he was too independent. he opposed the emperor's ambitious plans and defended the liberties of the people, and was distrusted by the conqueror for other causes. the astute corsican feared that he would not be the man to reduce sweden to a province of france, and the event proved that napoleon was right. it was in that crown prince bernadotte, who adopted the name of charles john as the title of his new rank, arrived in sweden with his son oscar. the people were delighted with his appearance. a handsome and imposing man, with black wavy hair, an eagle nose, keen, penetrating eyes and the manner of one accustomed to command, also a clear and eloquent speaker, polished in address and courteous in his dealings with all, they felt that in him they had a true king; while his reputation as one of the leading soldiers in napoleon's great army gave them assurance that, if war should arise, their armies would be ably led. sweden, when bernadotte set foot on its soil, was in a helpless state of decadence, having become little better than a dependency of france. if ever it needed a strong ruler then was the time, but charles xiii. was incapable as a monarch, and from the time of his landing the new crown prince ruled the country as though there were no king on the throne. he at once renounced catholicism and was admitted into the lutheran church, the state religion of sweden. proposing to consult the best interests of his new country and not to rule as a vassal of napoleon, he was indignant when the emperor ordered that sweden should declare war against england. in the existing condition of the country he felt compelled to submit, but he secretly advised the british government that the declaration of war was a mere formality and not a gun was fired on either side. he also made a secret alliance with alexander of russia. none of these movements could be made public, for the swedes were then fervent admirers of napoleon and hoped by his aid to gain the lost province of finland and win revenge upon russia, their old enemy. bernadotte saw farther than they, feeling that the inordinate ambition of napoleon must lead to his downfall and that it was best for sweden to have an anchor out to leeward. but all these political deals had to be kept from the knowledge of the swedes. a change in public opinion came when napoleon, suspecting the loyalty to him of his former marshal, heaped insults upon sweden, and finally, in the beginning of , invaded swedish pomerania, intending by this act to frighten the swedes into submission. instead, he exasperated them and lost their friendship, thus giving bernadotte the opportunity he had awaited. "napoleon has himself thrown down the gauntlet, and i will take it up," he said, and at once began to prepare for the struggle which he foresaw. with the incitement of the invasion of pomerania the crown prince charles john--prince karl johan, as the swedes called him--began active preparations for war. the army was largely increased, new levies being raised and arms and equipment purchased, while alliances were made with foreign powers. it came as a surprise to the swedes when the fact leaked out that it was not against russia, but against france, that these warlike movements were being made. napoleon now, seeing the state of affairs his injudicious act had brought about, sought to gain the friendship of sweden, making alluring offers to his late marshal. his change of front came too late. bernadotte had no confidence in him and came into closer relations with his enemies, encouraging the perplexed alexander to a firm resistance against the french emperor in the great invasion threatened. everyone knows the disastrous end of this invasion. when napoleon was marching on moscow alexander and charles john met at abo and a treaty was formed in which sweden was promised recompense for the loss of finland in the acquisition of norway, while a friendship sprang up between the two which lasted till the end of their lives. events now moved rapidly. the corsican conqueror entered moscow. it was burned and he was forced to retreat. a terrible winter and hostile forces destroyed the grand army, only a handful of which escaped. then came the death struggle in germany of the greatest soldier in modern history. on every side his enemies rose against him and in the spring of bernadotte joined them with an army of thirty thousand swedes. this army took part in the several battles that followed, and made its mark especially at dennewitz, where marshal ney commanded the french. bernadotte thought that the prussians should bear the brunt of this battle, since berlin was threatened, and for this reason he held the swedes in reserve. but when the right wing of the prussians was broken, ney cheering his soldiers by shouting, "my children, the victory is ours!" he deemed it time to take a hand, and ordered general cardell, his artillery chief, to support the prussians. cardell won the day by a brilliant stratagem. he ordered the caissons into line with the guns and deployed his regiments so that they bore the appearance of a division of cavalry, the mounted artillerists bearing down upon the french at a gallop, with drawn swords. failing to see the guns, and thinking that they had only cavalry to deal with, the french closed their lines and with fixed bayonets awaited the swedes. suddenly the line halted, the guns were rushed forward and reversed, the men sprang to their pieces, and from a long line of frowning cannon poured a fiery hail of grape and canister that tore remorselessly through the solid ranks of the french. the results were awful: dead and dying strewed the ground; the survivors fled in confusion; that deadly volley turned the day in favor of the french, and ney and his braves were forced to make a hasty retreat. in the great battle of leipsic no section of the swedish army but the artillery took part. when the english agent, sir c. stewart, sought by threats to drive bernadotte into action, he haughtily replied: "do you forget that i am prince of sweden and one of the greatest generals of the age?" bernadotte was considering the uplifting of his new kingdom rather than the overthrow of his old master. he was saving his army for the campaign he proposed against denmark. of this campaign we need only say that it ended in the acquisition of norway. the danes were beaten and their king disheartened, and in the peace of he ceded norway to sweden, receiving swedish pomerania in exchange. for centuries sweden had sought to absorb norway, and now, by the action of this crown prince from a foreign land, the result seemed achieved. but the brave norwegians themselves remained to be dealt with. they did not propose, if they could avoid it, to be forced into vassalage to the swedes. a party arose in favor of the independence of norway, a government was formed, and their danish governor, prince christian frederick, was elected king of norway. it was a hasty act, which could not be sustained against the trained army of sweden. norway was poor, her population small, her defences out of order, her army made up of raw recruits under untried officers, yet the old viking blood flowed in the veins of the people and they were bent on striking for their freedom. bernadotte returned to sweden in the summer of and at once led his army into norway. little fighting took place, the swedish crown prince showing himself favorably disposed, and peace and union finally came, charles xiii. of sweden being elected king of norway. yet it was not as a subject nation, but as an independent and equal kingdom that norway entered this union. all her old rights and privileges were retained and the government remained free from any interference on the part of sweden. it was to the wisdom of bernadotte that this result was due. an enforced union, he knew, would yield only hatred and bitterness, and to drive a brave people to the verge of despair was not the way to bring them into the position of satisfied subjects. norway remained as free as ever in her history, dwelling side by side with sweden, with one king over both countries. in the weak charles xiii. died and the strong bernadotte, or charles john, ascended the throne as charles xiv. the remainder of his reign was one of peace and growing prosperity, and when he died in , leaving the throne to his son oscar, the grateful people of sweden felt that they owed much to their soldier king. _the dismemberment of denmark._ the time once was when, as we have seen, all scandinavia, and england also, were governed by danish kings, and denmark was one of the great powers of europe. since that proud time the power of the danish throne has steadily declined, until now it is but the shadow of its former self. a great blow came in , when it was forced to yield norway to sweden. all its possessions on the baltic had vanished and its dominion was compressed into the danish peninsula and its neighboring islands, with the exception of the duchies of holstein and lauenburg lying south of the peninsula. the time was near at hand when it was to lose these and more and be reduced to a mere fragment of its once great realm. the new trouble began in , when the french revolution of that date stirred up all the peoples of europe to fresh demands. north of holstein lay the duchy of sleswick, occupying the southern half of the peninsula, its inhabitants, like those of holstein, being nearly all germans. these duchies had long chafed under danish rule, though for centuries they had formed part of denmark, and now they made an eager demand for union with what they termed their true "fatherland." a new king, frederick vii., ascended the danish throne in january, . in february the french revolution broke out. almost instantly the duchies were in a blaze of revolt, and on the d of april a danish army of eleven thousand men met one of nearly three times its strength, composed of the insurgents and german allies, and was defeated after a hard fight and forced to take refuge on the little island als, where it was protected by danish ships of war. this was the beginning of a struggle that continued at intervals for nearly three years, the great powers occasionally intervening and bringing about a truce. in , the danes gained some important successes, followed by a second truce. the most severe battle was that of july , , when a danish army nearly forty thousand strong attacked the insurgents and battle went on amid mist and rain for two days, ending in the triumph of the danes. new successes were gained in september, sleswick being fully occupied and holstein invaded, when a strong austrian army marched into the latter province and again the war was brought to an end. sleswick was left under the danish king, but a joint commission of danes, austrians, and prussians was formed to govern holstein until its relations to denmark could be determined. for the thirteen years following all remained at rest. but in that year king frederick vii. of denmark died and immediately the eldest son of the duke of augustenburg, who claimed the duchies, hastened into them and proclaimed himself as ruler, under the title of duke frederick viii., of the united and independent province of sleswick-holstein. [illustration: reproduced by permission of the philadelphia museum. the bourse, copenhagen. denmark.] this impulsive act led to most important results. all the german powers to the south, large and small alike, supported the pretensions of the self-styled frederick viii., and before the end of the year austrian and prussian armies entered the province, which they proposed to hold until the claims of the house of augustenburg should be definitely settled. this threw denmark into a difficult position. if she wished to avoid dismemberment she must fight, and to fight against these two great powers seemed madness. yet prussia and austria pressed one condition after another upon her, each more galling than the last. england, however, offered herself as umpire between the parties, strongly favoring denmark. in consequence, fully expecting aid from england, a danish army of forty thousand men crossed the border and attacked the prussians. but england sent no aid and the danes were forced to retreat and once more take refuge upon als island. as england showed no intention of helping them with armed assistance, despair followed the patriotic effort of the danes, who were left single-handed to oppose their powerful foes. yet in spite of their greatly inferior power they made a gallant defence, their courage and endurance winning the sympathy of those who looked on. yet to struggle against such fearful odds was hopeless. the prussians occupied one strong point after another until they had penetrated to the most northerly point of the peninsula. then, to save his kingdom from utter destruction, christian ix. gave way and accepted the terms offered him, agreeing to renounce all claims on the duchies of sleswick-holstein and lauenburg and to abide by the decision of prussia and austria as to the future fate of these provinces. thus were the weak dealt with by the strong, in the rude old fashion, and of its once proud dominion denmark was left only the northern half of the peninsula, consisting of jutland and its neighboring islands, a pocket kingdom of some , square miles extent in lieu of its once great and proud dominion. yet it was not without satisfaction that the despoiled danes looked on when their two powerful enemies, quarreling over the division of the spoils, sprang at one another's throats like two dogs snarling over a bone, a great war arising between austria and prussia over this question, at a cost far greater than the value of the provinces fought for. prussia being the victor, the rights of denmark and the claims of the duke of augustenburg alike were quietly laid aside and the matter settled by the absorption of the provinces into the german empire, denmark being left to thank god that bismarck did not decide to take the rest. _breaking the bond between norway and sweden._ in the year the people of norway chose the great queen margaret of denmark for their ruler, and from that date until , more than five hundred years later, the realm of the norsemen continued out of existence as a separate kingdom, it remaining attached to denmark until , when it came under the rule of the king of sweden. in norway broke these bonds and for the first time for centuries stood out alone as a fully separate realm. with a description of this peaceful revolution we may fitly close our sketches of the scandinavian countries. during these centuries of union ill feeling frequently arose between the nations involved. though the union with denmark had been on terms of equality, the danes in later years often acted towards norway as though it were a subject country, at times creating great irritation in the proud sons of the sea-kings. it was the same with the swedish union, the swedes at times acting towards norway as though it were a conquered country, won by the sword of prince bernadotte and subject to their will. this was a false view of the relations of the two countries. the act of states that "the union is not a result of warfare but of free convention, and shall be maintained by a clear acknowledgment of the legal rights of the nations in protection of their mutual thrones." it further states that "norway is a free, independent, indivisible, and inalienable kingdom, united with sweden under one king." this must be kept in mind in considering the recent events. norway was in no sense subject to sweden, but had simply accepted the king of sweden as its monarch. they were not one nation, but two nations under one king, being otherwise independent in every respect, each with its own constitution, its own parliament, and its own laws. in fact, norway has had a constitution since , granted by bernadotte when he came to the throne, while sweden was not granted one until over forty years later. and while the constitution of norway makes it the most democratic monarchy in europe, that of sweden gives much greater power to the throne. thus the people of norway for many years had reason to be well content with the situation, though they jealously kept watch over the preservation of their rights, and at times radical parties promoted an irritation that might have led to blows had it been sustained by the people at large. the difficulty that led to their final separation was a commercial one. norway has always been a country with the sea for its province, rugged and unproductive as compared with sweden, but with a long sea-coast inviting maritime pursuits. as a result, during the century its commerce grew much more rapidly than that of sweden and it ended the century with a shipping three times as great. its commercial interests thus made free-trade the economic doctrine of norway, while protection became that of sweden, and this was the wedge that in time forced the two countries asunder. in began the disagreement which led to separation twenty years later. in that year the king made the minister of foreign affairs responsible to the swedish parliament, thus depriving norway, as she claimed, of any important influence in foreign politics. negotiations followed, but sweden resisted, and irritation arose. finally the question of a norwegian minister of foreign affairs was dropped and only that of the right to a separate system of foreign consuls remained. let us now very briefly epitomize the course of events. in norway established a consular commission and made a strong demand for separate consuls to represent her interests in foreign ports. violent quarrels with sweden followed, but no agreement was reached. in the question became serious again, but still there was no agreement, and the same was the case when it came up once more in . a new consular commission was appointed in , its report favoring the demands of norway, and finally, in , king oscar gave his sanction to an agreement for separate consuls. but the king's voice did not settle the question; it came before parliament, and after long consideration a decision was reached which avoided the point in dispute and announced principles which were declared in norway to be in violation of its constitution and at variance with the king's sanction of . this ended the negotiations. the incensed norwegian legislators appointed a new cabinet to carry out the wishes of the people and a consular service law was passed. events now proceeded rapidly. in february, , king oscar retired from active government on account of age and ill health, crown prince gustavus being appointed temporary regent. on considering the subject he dissented from his father's opinion and offered the following proposition for a settlement of the question at issue: first, a common minister of foreign affairs; second, a separate consular service for each country, the consuls to be under the direction of the one foreign minister. this proposition was voted on favorably by the swedish parliament and the main point in dispute seemed settled. but on may king oscar returned to the throne and immediately repudiated this action of his son and the parliament, vetoed the law for separate consuls passed in norway, and when the cabinet of that country resigned in a body refused to accept their resignation. the crisis was now reached. a general wave of indignation swept through the realm of norway. the feeling of the people was shared by their legislators. norway's only connection with sweden was that they had the same king--but the norwegians had no use for a king that would place the interests of one country in precedence of those of another. the decisive move was made on june , when the storthing--the parliament of norway--announced itself as no longer in union with sweden or under the rule of king oscar, declaring that he had admitted that he was unable to govern norway according to its constitution and therefore had ceased to rule as its king. the union flag was lowered from the government fortress in christiania, where it had floated since . in its address to the king the storthing said that "the course of events has proved more powerful than the desire or will of individuals," but to show that good feeling existed towards sweden, the king was requested to name a prince of his own house for the throne of norway, who was to relinquish his right of succession to the swedish throne. the die was cast. would war result? would oscar seek to force norway back into the union as bernadotte had done in , when it rebelled and chose a king of its own? the occasion seemed critical. oscar refused to abdicate, there was much talk of war, the swedish ricksdag--or parliament--disapproved of letting norway depart in peace. if war had been declared the hope of norway sustaining her independence was very doubtful, as her population was only half that of sweden and her army and navy much weaker. yet there was sufficient doubt of the outcome to make all men hesitate. many of the leading men of sweden disapproved of the idea of war, thinking that hostilities were not called for and that sweden's stake in the question was not sufficient to justify the attempt to hold norway by force. a significant event at this juncture was the declaration of the powerful socialist party in sweden that they would not bear arms against their brethren in norway. in this the socialists made the first international declaration of their opposition to war. as the weeks passed on the war feeling cooled. oscar withdrew his refusal to abdicate, and said: "of little use would the union be if norway had to be forced into it." as regards the feeling of the people of norway regarding separation, it was decisively shown on august , when a vote was taken upon the question. it resulted in , votes in favor of to against dissolution of the union. the chief question to be settled was that of the abolition of the frontier fortresses, of which norway had a number on the border while sweden had none. norway held on to hers mainly from patriotic reasons, as several of them were of very ancient date and had great historic interest. the difficulty was finally settled by an agreement to dismantle the new portions and let the ancient ones remain. the final treaty of separation, as approved on september , , covered the following points: st. there was to be arbitration of all questions arising between the two countries. d. a neutral zone was to be established and all forts within this zone to be destroyed or made useless for war purposes. d. the grazing rights of swedish laplanders in norway were to be maintained. th. the laws of each country were to apply to the portion of waterways crossing each. th. no obstacle was to be placed on the commerce between the two countries. the question of the form of government of the new nation had before this arisen. the request to king oscar for a descendant of his house had been at first refused. he subsequently reconsidered it and was willing to let his son charles fill the vacant throne, but meanwhile it had been offered to prince charles of denmark and accepted by him. the offer of the throne by the storthing needed in democratic norway to be confirmed by a vote of the people, and one was taken in october. the sentiment for a republic in norway was supposed to be very strong, but the election resulted in a vote of four to one for a kingdom against a republic, and charles of denmark, grandson of king christian, was formally chosen for the reigning monarch of the new kingdom. in compliment to the nation he chose for himself the national title of haakon vii. and conferred on his son and heir the norwegian name of olaf. formal offer of the throne was made to the new king at copenhagen on november by a deputation from the norwegian parliament, king christian accepting it for his grandson, and saying: "the young king does not come as a stranger to norway, for he claims relationship to former norwegian kings. nor will the kingdom of norway be strange to him, for everywhere in the land common recollections of the history of the kingdom and the history of his race will meet him." on the th of november the new monarch, with his wife, daughter of king edward of england, made his formal entrance to christiania, the capital of his new realm, where he was received with the highest demonstrations of joy. on their voyage from copenhagen the royal pair were escorted by norwegian, danish, british, and german warships, while in their new realm elaborate preparations had been made for their fitting reception. at noon on november prince charles was formally inaugurated king, as haakon vii., before a distinguished assembly consisting of the highest state dignitaries, the diplomatic corps in full costume, and a brilliant concourse of men in uniform and women in court toilets. entering the richly decorated parliament house, surrounded by their suites, the king ascended the throne, the queen taking a seat by his side. the ceremonies were brief, consisting of the king's taking the oath to support the constitution of norway, and pledging himself in a brief speech "to exert all his will and strength to serve the fatherland and promote its peace and happiness." an interesting feature of the ceremony was a despatch of congratulation from oscar, late king of norway, in which he said: "i beg that you be persuaded that every effort looking towards good relations between our two countries will be given a sympathetic reception on my part." thus, after for five hundred and seventeen years standing empty, the throne of norway was filled with a king of its own, and that old land, once more single and separate, swung back into the tide of the nations. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h.zip) transcriber's notes: text that is printed in italic style in the original is enclosed between underscores (_italic text_) the section of the book about norway is not included. peeps at many lands norway by lieut.-col. a. f. mockler-ferryman, f.r.g.s., f.z.s. and denmark by m. pearson thomson with sixteen full-page illustrations in colour the macmillan company & fifth avenue, new york denmark [illustration: sketch-map of denmark.] contents denmark _by m. pearson thomson_ i. merry copenhagen--i ii. merry copenhagen--ii iii. hans andersen--the "fairy-tale" of his life iv. famous danes v. legendary lore and folk-dances vi. manners and customs vii. a jaunt through jutland--i viii. a jaunt through jutland--ii ix. the people's amusements x. farm life--butter-making--"hedeselskabet" xi. soldiers and sailors xii. the people of the isles xiii. fishermen at home and afloat xiv. youthful danes at work and play xv. ingeborg's journey through seeland list of illustrations denmark _by f. j. hyldahl_ facing page flower market in copenhagen dragÖr peasant children's day harvest-time vagt-paraden sunday in the island of lÆsÖ skagen fisherman near the tower of buried church winter in the forest _sketch-map, page ii, denmark section._ denmark chapter i merry copenhagen--i copenhagen, the metropolis of denmark, is a large and flourishing city, with all the modern improvements of a commercial capital. it has an atmosphere of its own, an atmosphere of friendliness and gaiety, particularly appreciated by english people, who in "merry copenhagen" always feel themselves at home. the approach to this fine city from the north by the cattegat is very charming. sailing through the sound, you come upon this "athens of the north" at its most impressive point, where the narrow stretch of water which divides sweden and denmark lies like a silvery blue ribbon between the two countries, joining the cattegat to the baltic sea. in summer the sparkling, blue sound, of which the danes are so justly proud, is alive with traffic of all kinds. hundreds of steamers pass to and from the north sea and baltic, carrying their passengers and freights from russia, germany, finland, and sweden, to the whole world. in olden times denmark exacted toll from these passing ships, which the nations found irksome, but the danes most profitable. this "sundtold" was abolished finally at the wish of the different nations using this "king's highway," who combined to pay a large lump sum to denmark, in order that their ships might sail through the sound without this annoyance in future. kronborg castle, whose salute demanded this toll in olden days, still rears its stately pinnacles against the blue sky, and looking towards the old fortress of kjärnan, on the swedish coast, seems to say, "our glory is of a bygone day, and in the land of memories." elsinore, the ancient town which surrounds this castle, is well known to english and american tourists as the supposed burial-place of hamlet, the prince of denmark immortalized by shakespeare. kronborg castle is interesting to us, in addition, as being the place where anne of denmark was married by proxy to james i. of england. here, also, the "queen of tears," caroline matilda, sister of george iii., spent some unhappy months in prison, gazing sadly over the sound, waiting for the english ships to come and deliver her. we pass up the sound viewing the luxuriant cool green beech-woods of denmark, and the pretty fishing villages lying in the foreground. villas with charming gardens--their tiny rickety landing-stages, bathing sheds, and tethered boats, adding fascination to the homely scene--seem to welcome us to this land of fairy tales and the home of hans andersen. the many towers and pinnacles of copenhagen, with the golden dome of the marble church, flash a welcome as we steam into the magnificent harbour of this singularly well-favoured city. here she stands, this "queen of the north," as a gracious sentinel bowing acquiescence to the passing ships as they glide in and out of the baltic. the broad quays are splendidly built, lined with fine warehouses, and present a busy scene of commercial activity. the warships lying at their moorings in the sound denote that this is the station of the fleet; here also we see the country's only fortress--the formidable bulwarks which surround the harbour. kjöbenhavn in danish means "merchants' harbour," and as early as the eleventh century it was a trading centre for foreign merchants attracted by the rich supply of herrings found by the danish fishermen in the baltic. bishop absalon was the founder of the city. this warrior bishop strongly fortified the place, in , on receiving the little settlement from king valdemar the great, and had plenty to do to hold it, as it was continually harassed by pirates and the wends. these, however, found the bishop more than a match for them. his outposts would cry, "the wends are coming!" and the bishop would leave his preaching, his bed, or anything else he might be doing, gather his forces together, and fight gallantly for his little stronghold. he perhaps recognized that this might one day be the key to the baltic, which it has since become. this city, therefore, is not a new one, but bombardment and conflagrations are responsible for its modern appearance. fortunately, some of the handsome edifices raised during the reign of christian iv. ( - ) still remain to adorn the city. this monarch was a great architect, sailor, warrior, and king, and is one of the most striking figures in danish history. he was beloved by his people, and did much for his kingdom. the buildings planned and erected during this monarch's reign are worthy of our admiration. the beautiful exchange, with its curious tower formed by four dragons standing on their heads, and entwining their tails into a dainty spire; rosenborg castle, with its delicate pinnacles; the famous "runde taarn" (round tower), up whose celebrated spiral causeway peter the great is said to have driven a carriage and pair, are amongst the most noteworthy. the originality in design of the spires and towers of copenhagen is quite remarkable. vor frelsers kirke, or church of our saviour, has an outside staircase, running round the outside of its spire, which leads up to a figure of our saviour, and from this height you get a fine view of the city. the tower of the fire-station, in which the fire-hose hangs at full length; the copper-sheathed clock and bell tower--the highest in denmark--of the town hall; the eiffel-like tower of the zoo, are among the most singular. in all these towers there is a beautiful blending of copper and gold, which gives a distinctive and attractive character to the city. other prominent features are the pretty fish-scale tiling, and the copper and bronze roofs of many of the buildings, with their "stepped" gables. charming, too, are the city's many squares and public gardens, canals with many-masted ships making an unusual spectacle in the streets. but, after all, it is perhaps the innate gaiety of the copenhagener which impresses you most. you feel, indeed, that these kindly danes are a little too content for national development; but their light-hearted way of viewing life makes them very pleasant friends, and their hospitality is one of their chief characteristics. every lady at the head of a danish household is an excellent cook and manager, as well as being an agreeable and intelligent companion. the copenhagener is a "flat" dweller, and the dining-room is the largest and most important room in every home. the dane thinks much of his dinner, and dinner-parties are the principal form of entertainment. they joke about their appreciation of the good things of the table, and say, "a turkey is not a good table-bird, as it is a little too much for one dane, but not enough for two!" a very pleasant side of copenhagen life has sprung up from this appreciation, for the restaurants and cafés are numerous, and cater well for their customers. while the dane eats he must have music, which, like the food, must be good; he is very critical, and a good judge of both. this gay café and restaurant life is one of the fascinations of denmark's "too-large heart," as this pleasant capital is called by its people. chapter ii merry copenhagen--ii the climate of copenhagen is delightful in summer, but quite the reverse in winter. andersen says "the north-east wind and the sunbeams fought over the 'infant copenhagen,' consequently the wind and the 'mud-king' reign in winter, the sunbeams in summer, and the latter bring forgetfulness of winter's hardships." certainly, when the summer comes, the sunshine reigns supreme, and makes copenhagen bright and pleasant for its citizens. then the many water-ways and canals, running up from the sea as they do into the heart of the city, make it delightfully refreshing on a hot day. nyhavn, for instance, which opens out of the kongen's nytorv--the fashionable centre of the town--is one of the quaintest of water-streets. the cobbled way on either side of the water, the curious little shops with sailors' and ships' wares, old gabled houses, fishing and cargo boats with their forests of masts, the little puffing motor-boats plying to and fro--all serve to make a distinctive picture. on another canal-side the fish-market is held every morning. a danish fish-market is not a bit like other fish-markets, for the dane must buy his fish alive, and the canal makes this possible. the fishing-smacks line up the whole side of the quay; these have perforated wooden boat-shaped tanks dragging behind them containing the lively fish. the market-women sit on the quay, surrounded by wooden tubs, which are half-filled with water, containing the unfortunate fish. a trestle-table, on which the fish are killed and cleaned, completes the equipment of the fish-wives. the customers scrutinize the contents of the tub, choose a fish as best they can from the leaping, gasping multitude, and its fate is sealed. when the market-women require more fish, the perforated tank is raised from the canal, and the fish extracted with a landing-net and deposited in their tubs. small fish only can be kept alive in tanks and tubs; the larger kinds, such as cod, are killed and sold in the ordinary way. this market is not at all a pleasant sight, so it is better to turn our backs on it, and pass on to the fragrant flower-market. here the famous amager women expose their merchandise. this market square is a gay spectacle, for the dane is fond of flowers, and the amager wife knows how to display her bright blooms to advantage. these vendors are notable characters. they are the descendants of the dutch gardeners brought over by christian ii. to grow fruit and vegetables for copenhagen, and settled on the fertile island of amager which abuts on the city. every morning these amager peasants may be seen driving their laden carts across the bridge which joins their island to the mainland. these genial, stout, but sometimes testy amager wives have it all their own way in the market-place, and are clever in attracting and befooling a customer. so it has become a saying, if you look sceptical about what you are told, the "story-teller" will say, "ask amager mother!" which means, "believe as much as you like." these women still wear their quaint costume: bulky petticoats, clean checked apron, shoulder-shawl, and poke-bonnets with white kerchief over them; and the merry twinkle of satisfaction in the old face when a good bargain has been completed against the customer's inclination is quite amusing. these interesting old characters are easily irritated, and this the little copenhageners know full well. when stalls are being packed for departure, a naughty band of urchins will appear round the corner and call out: "amager mother, amager mo'er, give us carrots from your store; you are so stout and roundabout, please tell us if you find the door too small to let you through!" the amager wife's wrath is soon roused, and she is often foolish enough to try and move her bulky proportions somewhat quicker than usual in order to catch the boys. this of course she never manages to do, for they dart away in all directions. by this means the amager woman gets a little much-needed exercise, the boys a great deal of amusement. [illustration: the flower market, copenhagen.] sunday is a fête-day in copenhagen, and the dane feels no obligation to attend a church service before starting out on his sunday expedition. a day of leisure means a day of pleasure to the copenhagener. the state helps and encourages him by having cheap fares, and good but inexpensive performances at the theatre and places of entertainment on sunday. even the poorest people manage to spare money for this periodical outing, mother and children taking their full share in the simple pleasures of the day. the copenhagener looks forward to this weekly entertainment, and longs for the fresh air. this is not surprising, for many homes are stuffy, ventilation and open windows not seeming a necessity. a fine summer sunday morning sees a leisurely stream of people--the danes never hurry themselves--making for tram, train, or motor-boat, which will carry them off to the beautiful woods and shores lying beyond the city. basking in the sunshine, or enjoying a stroll through the woods, feasting on the contents of their picnic baskets, with a cup of coffee or glass of pilsener at a café where music is always going on, they spend a thoroughly happy day. in the evening the tired but still joyous throng return home, all the better for the simple and pleasant outing. no country uses the bicycle more than denmark, and sunday is the day when it is used most. for the people who prefer to take their dinner at home on sunday there is the pleasant stroll along the celebrated langelinie. this famous promenade, made upon the old ramparts, overlooks the sound with its innumerable yachts skimming over the blue water, and is a delightful place for pedestrians. a walk round the moat of the citadel, on the waters of which the children sail their little boats, is also enjoyable. this citadel, now used as barracks, was built by frederik iii. in , and formerly served as a political prison. struensee, the notorious prime minister, was imprisoned here and beheaded for treason. a few narrow, picturesque streets surrounding this fort are all that remain of old copenhagen. the art treasures contained in the museums of copenhagen being renowned, i must tell you a little about them. two or three of the palaces not now required by the royal family are used to store some of these treasures. rosenborg castle, built by christian iv., and in which he died, contains a collection of family treasures belonging to the oldenburg dynasty. this historical collection of these art-loving kings is always open to the public. besides thorvaldsen's museum, which contains the greater portion of his works, there is the carlsberg glyptotek, which contains the most beautiful sculpture of the french school outside france. the danish folk-museum is another interesting collection. this illustrates the life and customs of citizens and peasants from the seventeenth century to the present day, partly by single objects, and partly by representations of their dwellings. the "kunstmusæet" contains a superb collection of pictures, sculpture, engravings, and national relics. here a table may be seen which formerly stood in christian ii.'s prison. history tells how the unhappy king was wont to pace round this table for hours taking his daily exercise, leaning upon his hand, which in time ploughed a groove in its hard surface. the amalienborg, a fine tessellated square, contains four royal palaces, in one of which our queen alexandra spent her girlhood. from the windows of these palaces the daily spectacle of changing the guard is witnessed by the king and young princes. copenhagen is celebrated for its palaces, its parks, porcelain, statuary, art-treasures, and last, but not least, its gaiety. chapter iii hans christian andersen, the "fairy tale" of his life i suppose the dane best known to english boys and girls is hans christian andersen, whose charming fairy-tales are well known and loved by them all. most of you, however, know little about his life, but are interested enough in him, i dare say, to wish to learn more, especially as the knowledge will give you keener delight--if that is possible--in reading the works of this "prince of story-tellers." andersen himself said: "my life has been so wonderful and so like a fairy-tale, that i think i had a fairy godmother who granted my every wish, for if i had chosen my own life's way, i could not have chosen better." hans c. andersen was the son of a poor shoemaker, an only child, born in odense, the capital of the island of funen. his parents were devoted to him, and his father, who was of a studious turn of mind, delighted in teaching his little son and interesting him in nature. very early in life hans was taken for long sunday rambles, his father pointing out to him the beauties of woods and meadows, or enchanting him with stories from the "arabian nights." at home the evenings were spent in dressing puppets for his favourite show, or else, sitting on his father's knee, he listened while the latter read aloud to his mother scenes from holberg's plays. all day hans played with his puppet theatre, and soon began to imagine plays and characters for the dolls, writing out programmes for them as soon as he was able. occasionally his grandmother would come and take the child to play in the garden of the big house where she lived in the gardener's lodge. these were red-letter days for little hans, as he loved his granny and enjoyed most thoroughly the pleasant garden and pretty flowers. the boy's first great trouble came when his father caught a fever and died, leaving his mother without any means of support. to keep the little home together his mother went out washing for her neighbours, leaving little hans to take care of himself. being left to his own devices, hans developed his theatrical tendencies by constructing costumes for his puppets, and making them perform his plays on the stage of his toy theatre. soon he varied this employment by reading plays and also writing some himself. his mother, though secretly rejoicing in her son's talent, soon saw the necessity for his doing something more practical with his time and assisting her to keep the home together. so at twelve years of age hans was sent to a cloth-weaving factory, where he earned a small weekly wage. the weavers soon discovered that hans could sing, and the men frequently made him amuse them, while the other boys were made to do his work. one day the weavers played a coarse practical joke on poor sensitive hans, which sent him flying home in such deep distress that his mother said he should not again return to the factory. hans was now sent to the parish school for a few hours daily, and his spare time was taken up with his "peep-show" and in fashioning smart clothes for his puppets. his mother intended to apprentice her son to the tailoring, but hans had fully made up his mind to become an actor and seek his fortune in copenhagen. after his confirmation--on which great occasion he wore his father's coat and his first new boots--his mother insisted on his being apprenticed without further delay. with difficulty he finally succeeded in persuading her to let him start for the capital with his few savings. his mother had married again, so could not accompany him; therefore, with reluctance and with many injunctions to return at once if all did not turn out well, she let him go. accompanying him to the town gate, they passed a gipsy on the way, who, on being asked what fortune she could prophesy for the poor lad, said he would return a great man, and his native place would be illuminated and decorated in his honour! hans arrived in copenhagen on september , a date which he considered lucky for ever after. a few days in the city soon saw an end to his money. he applied and got work at a carpenter's shop, but was driven away by the coarseness of his fellow-workers. hans made a friend of the porter at the stage-door of the theatre, and begged for some employment in the theatre; so occasionally he was allowed to walk across the stage in a crowd, but obtained scanty remuneration, and the lad was often hungry. starving and destitute, the happy idea occurred to our hero to try and earn something by his voice. he applied to siboni, the director of the music school, and was admitted to his presence whilst the latter was at dinner. fortunately for hans, baggersen the poet and weyse the celebrated composer were of the party, so for their amusement the boy was asked to sing and recite. weyse was so struck by the quality of his voice and baggersen with his poetic feeling, that they made a collection among them there and then for him, and siboni undertook to train his voice. unfortunately, in six months' time his voice gave way, and siboni counselled him to learn a trade. hans returned to the theatre in the hope of employment, and his persistence finally gained him a place in a market scene. making a friend of the son of the librarian, he obtained permission to read at the library, and he wrote tragedies and plays, some of which he took to the director of the theatre. this man became andersen's friend for life, for the grains of gold which he saw in his work, marred though it was by want of education, roused his interest. the director brought andersen to the notice of the king, and he was sent to the latin school, where he took his place--although now a grown man--among the boys in the lowest class but one. the master's tongue was sharp, and the sensitive youth was dismayed by his own ignorance. the kindness and sympathetic encouragement of the director was the only brightness of this period of hans' life. university life followed that of school, and andersen took a good degree. he now wrote a play, which was accepted and produced at the theatre with such success that he wept for joy. soon his poems were published, and happiness and prosperity followed. later the king granted him a travelling stipend, of forty-five pounds a year, and travelling became his greatest pleasure. andersen visited england two or three times, and reckoned charles dickens among his friends. he was the honoured guest of kings and princes, and the royal family of denmark treated him as a personal friend. though his "fairy tales" are the best known of his writings, he wrote successful novels, dramas and poems. andersen's tastes were simple, and his child-like, affectionate nature made him much beloved by all. his native town, which he left as a poor boy, was illuminated and decorated to welcome his return. thus the gipsy's prophecy came true. he died after the public celebration of his seventieth birthday, leaving all his fortune to the family of his beloved benefactor, the director of the theatre. a beautiful bronze monument is erected to his memory in the children's garden of the king's park, copenhagen. here the little danes have ever a gentle reminder of their great friend, hans c. andersen, who felt--to use his own words--"like a poor boy who had had a king's mantle thrown over him." [illustration: dragÖr peasant.] chapter iv famous danes bertel thorvaldsen ( - ), the famous danish sculptor, was born in copenhagen. his father was an icelander, his mother a dane, and both very poor. bertel's ambition when a little boy was to work his mother's spinning-wheel, which, of course, he was never permitted to do. one bright, moonlight night his parents were awakened by a soft, whirring sound, and found their little son enjoying his realized ambition. in the moonlit room he had successfully started the wheel and begun to spin, much to his parents' astonishment. this was the beginning of his creative genius, but many years went over his youthful head before he created the works which made him famous. his father carved wooden figure-heads for ships, and intended his son to follow the same calling. bertel, however, soon showed talent and inclination for something better, and was sent to the free school of the art academy, there making great progress. he received very little education beyond what the art school gave him, and his youthful days were hard and poverty-stricken. when his hours at the academy were over he went from house to house trying to sell his models, and in this way eked out a scanty living. in spite of his poverty he was wholly satisfied, for his wants were few. his dog and his pipe, both necessities for happiness, accompanied him in all his wanderings. his true artistic career only began in earnest when he won a travelling scholarship and went to rome, where he arrived on his twenty-seventh birthday. stimulated to do his best by the many beautiful works of art which surrounded him, he found production easy, and the classical beauty of the roman school appealed to him. regretting his wasted years, he set to work in great earnest, and during the rest of his life produced a marvellous amount of beautiful work. a rich scotsman bought his first important work, and the money thus obtained was the means of starting him firmly on his upward career. this highly talented dane founded the famous sculpture school of denmark, which is of world-wide reputation. thorvaldsen's beautiful designs--which were mainly classical--were conceived with great rapidity, and his pupils carried many of them out, becoming celebrated sculptors also. dying suddenly in , while seated in the stalls of the theatre watching the play, his loss was a national calamity. he bequeathed all his works to the nation, and these now form the famous thorvaldsen museum, which attracts the artistic-loving people of all nations to the city of copenhagen. in the courtyard of this museum lies the great man's simple grave, his beautiful works being contained in the building which surrounds it. at the top of this etruscan tomb stands a fine bronze allegorical group--the goddess of victory in her car, drawn by prancing horses--fitting memorial to this greatest of northern sculptors. holger drachmann was the son of a physician, and quite early in life became a man of letters. following the profession of an artist, he became a very good marine painter. this poet loved the sea in all its moods, and was never happier than when at skagen--the extreme northern point of jutland--where he spent most of his summers. his painting was his favourite pastime, but poetry the serious work of his life. he was a very prolific writer, not only of verse and lyrical poems, but of plays and prose works, and was a very successful playwright. drachmann's personality was a strong one, though not always agreeable to his countrymen. he had a freedom-loving spirit, and lived every moment of his life. some of his best poems are about the skaw fishermen, and later in life he settled down among them, dying at skagen in . he was a picturesque figure, with white flowing locks, erratic and unpractical, as poets often are. like other famous danes, he chose a unique burial-place. away at grenen, in the sand-dunes, overlooking the fighting waters of the skagerack and cattegat, stands his cromlech-shaped tomb, near the roar of the sea he loved so much, where time and sand will soon obliterate all that remains of the byron of denmark. nikolai frederik grundtvig, the founder of the popular high-schools for peasants, was born at his father's parsonage, udby, south seeland. he was sent to school in jutland, and soon learned to love his wild native moors. while attending the latin school in aarhus he made friends with an old shoemaker, who used to tell him interesting stories of the old norse heroes and sagas, often repeating the old danish folk-songs. the lad being a true dane, a descendant of the old vikings, he soon became very interested in the history of his race. being sent to the university of copenhagen, he chose to study icelandic in order to read the ancient sagas, english to read shakespeare, and german to read goethe. this studious youth was most patriotic, and the poetry of his country appealed to him especially. Øehlenschläger's (a danish poet) works fired his poetical imagination. grundtvig's poems were for the people, the beloved jutland moors and nature generally his theme. his songs and poems are loved by the peasants, and used at all their festivals. he wrote songs "that would make bare legs skip at sound of them," and, "like a bird in the greenwood, he would sing for the country-folk." so successfully did he write these folk-songs, that "bare legs" do skip at the sound of them even to-day at every festivity. he was an educational enthusiast, and his high-schools are peculiar to denmark. it is owing to these that the country possesses such a splendid band of peasant farmers. being a priest, he was given the honorary title of bishop, and founded a sect called "grundtvigianere." this noble man died in , over ninety years of age, working and preaching till the last, his deep-set eyes, flowing white hair and beard, making him look like moses of old. adam Øehlenschläger, the greatest danish dramatist and poet, was a professor at the university of copenhagen, and a marvellously gifted man. he developed and gave character to danish literature, and is known as the "goethe of the north." some of his finest tragedies have been translated into english. these have a distinctly northern ring about them, dealing as they do with the legends and sagas of the scandinavian people. these tragedies of the mythical heroes of scandinavia, the history of their race, and, indeed, all the works of this king of northern poets, are greatly loved by all scandinavians. every young dane delights in Øehlenschläger as we do in shakespeare, and by reading his works the youths of denmark lay the foundation of their education in poetry. this bard was crowned laureate in lund (sweden) by the greatest of swedish poets, esaias tegner, . buried by his own request at his birth-place, frederiksberg, two danish miles (which means eight english miles) from copenhagen, his loving countrymen insisted on carrying him the whole distance, so great was their admiration for this king of dramatists. niels ryberg finsen, whose name i am sure you have heard because his scientific research gave us the "light-cure"--which has been established at the london hospital by our queen alexandra, who generously gave the costly apparatus required for the cure in order to benefit afflicted english people--was born at thorshavn, the capital of the faroe islands. these islands are under denmark, and lie north of the shetlands. his father was magistrate there. his parents were icelanders. at twelve years of age niels was sent to school in denmark, and after a few years at the grammar school of herlufholm, he returned to his parents, who were now stationed in their native town, reykjavik, the capital of iceland. niels continued his studies there, and when old enough returned to denmark to commence his medical work at the university of copenhagen. hitherto he had shown no particular aptitude, but in his medical work he soon distinguished himself, and his skill gained him a place in the laboratory. he now began to study the effect of light as a curative remedy. all his life finsen thought the sunlight the most beautiful thing in the world--perhaps because he saw so little of it in his childhood. he had watched its wonderful effect on all living things, being much impressed by the transformation caused in nature by the warm life-giving rays. with observations on lizards, which he found charmingly responsive to sun effects, he accidentally made his discovery, and gave to the world this famous remedy for diseases of the skin, which has relieved thousands of sufferers of all nations. chapter v legendary lore and folk dances the legend of holger danske, who is to be denmark's deliverer when heavy troubles come upon her, is one which has its counterpart in other countries, resembling that of our own king arthur and the german frederick barbarossa. when denmark's necessity demands, holger danske will come to her aid; till then he sits "in the deep dark cellar of kronborg castle, into which none may enter. he is clad in iron and steel, and rests his head on his strong arms; his long beard hangs down upon the marble table, into which it has become firmly rooted; he sleeps and dreams. but in his dreams he sees all that happens in denmark. on each christmas eve an angel comes to him and tells him all he has dreamed is true, and that he may sleep again in peace, as denmark is not yet in real danger. but should danger ever come, then holger danske will rouse himself, and the table will burst asunder as he draws out his beard. then he will come forth in all his strength, and strike a blow that shall sound in all the countries of the world." holger danske was the son of the danish king gotrick. while he was a youth his father sent him to carolus magnus, whom he served during all his wars. thus he came to india, where he ate a fruit which made his body imperishable. when denmark is near ruin, and all her young men have been slain in defending her, then holger danske will appear, and, gathering round him all the young boys and aged men, will lead them on to victory, routing the enemy, and thus saving the country. when a little plant growing in the lake of viborg has become a tree, so large that you can tie your horse to it, then the time draws near when all this will happen. once upon a time the danes were in great trouble, for they had no king. but one day they saw a barque, splendidly decked, sailing towards the coast of denmark. as the ship came nearer the shore they saw it was laden with quantities of gold and weapons, but not a soul was to be seen on board. when the danes boarded the ship, they found a little boy lying asleep on the deck, and above his head floated a golden banner. thinking that their god odin had sent the boy, they brought him ashore and proclaimed him king. they named him skjold, and he became a great and good king. his fame was such that the danish kings to this day are called "skjoldunger." when this king died, his body was placed on board a ship which was loaded with treasure; and when it sailed slowly away over the blue water, the danes stood on the shore looking after it with sorrow. what became of the ship no one ever knew. denmark is rich in legends. there is the legend about the "danebrog," denmark's national flag, which is a white cross on a crimson ground. this bright and beautiful flag looks thoroughly at home whatever its surroundings. the story goes that when valdemar seir (the victorious) descended on the shores of esthonia to help the knights who were hard pressed in a battle with the heathen esthonians ( ), a miracle befell him. the valour of his troops soon made an impression on the pagans, and they began to sue for peace. it was granted, and the priests baptized the supposed converts. very soon, however, the esthonians, who had been secretly reinforcing while pretending submission, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the too confiding danes, brought up their forces and commenced fighting anew. "it was the eve of st. vitus, and the danes were singing vespers in camp, when suddenly a wild howl rang through the summer evening, and the heathens poured out of the woods, attacked the surprised danes on all sides, and quickly thinned their ranks. the danes began to waver, but the prince of rugen, who was stationed on the hill, had time to rally his followers and stay the progress of the enemy. it was a terrible battle. the archbishop andreas sunesen with his priests mounted the hill to lay the sword of prayer in the scales of battle; the danes rallied, and their swords were not blunt when they turned upon their enemies. whilst the archbishop and others prayed, the danes were triumphant; but when his arms fell to his side through sheer weariness, the heathens prevailed. then the priests supported the aged man's arms, who, like moses of old, supplicated for his people with extended hands. the battle was still raging, and the banner of the danes had been lost in the fight. as the prayers continued the miracle happened. a red banner, with the holy cross in white upon it, came floating gently down from the heavens, and a voice was heard saying, 'when this sign is borne on high you shall conquer.' the tide of battle turned, the christians gathered themselves together under the banner of the cross, and the heathens were filled with fear and fled. then the danes knelt down on the battle-field and praised god, while king valdemar drew his sword, and for the first time under the folds of the danebrog dubbed five-and-thirty of the bravest heroes knights." another legend tells the fate of a wicked queen of denmark, gunhild by name. this queen was first the consort of a norwegian monarch, who, finding her more than he or his people could stand, thrust her out of his kingdom. she made her way to denmark, and soon after married the danish king. though beautiful, queen gunhild's pride and arrogance made her hateful to her new subjects, and her attendants watched their opportunity to rid themselves of such an obnoxious mistress. the time came for them when the queen was travelling through jutland. a sign was given to her bearers, whilst journeying through the marshes near vejle, to drop her down into the bog. this was done, and a stake driven through her body. to-day in the church at vejle a body lies enclosed in a glass coffin, with a stake lying beside it, the teeth and long black hair being in excellent preservation. this body was found in , when the marshes near vejle were being drained for cultivation. the stake was found through it, thus giving colour to the tradition. poor queen! lost in the eleventh century and found in the nineteenth. _folk-dancers._ the danes, like all the scandinavians, are renowned for their love of dancing. lately they have revived the beautiful old folk-dances, realizing at last the necessity of keeping the ancient costumes, dances and songs before the people, if they would not have them completely wiped out. a few patriotic danes have formed a society of ladies and gentlemen to bring about this revival. these are called the folk-dancers, their object being to stimulate the love of old-time denmark in the modern dane, by showing him the dance, accompanied by folk-song, which his forefathers delighted in. old-time ways the dane of to-day is perhaps a little too ready to forget, but dance and song appeal to his northern nature. the beautiful old costumes of the danish peasants have almost entirely disappeared, but those worn by the folk-dancers are facsimiles of the costumes formerly worn in the districts they represent. these costumes, with heavy gold embroidery, curious hats, or pretty velvet caps, weighty with silver lace, must have been a great addition to local colouring. the men also wore a gay dress, and it is to be regretted that these old costumes have disappeared from the villages and islands of denmark. in olden times the voice was the principal accompaniment of the dance, and these folk-lorists generally sing while dancing; but occasionally a fiddler or flautist plays for them, and becomes the leader in the dance. some of these dances are of a comical nature, and no doubt were invented to parody the shortcomings of some local character. others represent local industries. a pretty dance is "voeve vadmel" (cloth-weaving). in this some dancers become the bobbins, others form the warp and woof; thus they go in and out, weaving themselves into an imaginary piece of cloth. then, rolling themselves into a bale, they stand a moment, unwind, reverse, and then disperse. this dance is accompanied by the voices of the dancers, who, as they sing, describe each movement of the dance. a very curious dance is called "seven springs," and its principal figure is a series of springs from the floor, executed by the lady, aided by her partner. another two are called respectively the "men's pleasure" and the "girls' pleasure." in these both men and girls choose their own partners, and coquet with them by alluring facial expressions during the dance. the "tinker's dance" is a solo dance for a man, which is descriptive and amusing; while the "degnedans" is more an amusing performance in pantomime than a dance, executed by two men. many more than i can tell you about have been revived by the folk-dancers, who take a keen delight in discovering and learning them. they are entertaining and instructive to the looker-on, and a healthy, though fatiguing, amusement for the dancers. in the faroe islands the old-time way is still in vogue, and the dance is only accompanied by the voice and clapping of hands. thus do these descendants of the old vikings keep high festival to celebrate a good "catch" of whales. the old folk-songs, which were sung by the people when dancing and at other times, have a national value which the danes fully realize, many being written down and treasured in the country's archives. chapter vi manners and customs the danes being a polite and well-mannered race, the children are early taught to tender thanks for little pleasures, and this they do in a pretty way by thrusting out their tiny hands and saying, "tak" (thank you). it is the danish custom to greet everybody, including the servants, with "good-morning," and always on entering a shop you give greeting, and say farewell on leaving. in the market-place it is the same; also the children, when leaving school, raise their caps to the teacher and call out, "farvel! farvel!" in the majority of houses when the people rise from the table they say, "tak for mad"[ ] to the host, who replies, "velbekomme."[ ] the children kiss their parents and say the same, while the parents often kiss each other and say, "velbekomme." the danes are rather too eager to wipe out old customs, and in copenhagen the fashionable people ignore this pretty ceremony. the majority, however, feel uncomfortable if not allowed to thank their host or hostess for their food. [illustration: children's day.] a danish lady, about to visit england for the first time, was told that here it was customary to say "grace" after meals. the surprise of the english host may be imagined when his danish guest, on rising from the table, solemnly put out her hand and murmured the word "grace!" after a day or two, when this ceremony had been most dutifully performed after every meal, the englishman thought he had better ask for an explanation. this was given, and the young dane joined heartily in the laugh against herself! the danes begin their day with a light breakfast of coffee, fresh rolls, and butter, but the children generally have porridge, or "öllebröd," before starting for school. this distinctly danish dish is made of rye-bread, beer, milk, cream, and sometimes with the addition of a beaten-up egg. this "ske-mad"[ ] is very sustaining, but i fear would prove a little too much for those unaccustomed to it. Øllebröd also is the favourite saturday supper-dish of the working-classes, with the addition of salt herrings and slices of raw onion, which doubtless renders it more piquant. at noon "mid-dag"[ ] is served. another peculiar delicacy common both to this meal and supper is "smörrebröd," a "variety" sandwich consisting of a slice of bread and butter covered with sausage, ham, fish, meat, cheese, etc. making a tempting display, not hidden as in our sandwich by a top layer of bread. the danes are very hospitable, and often invite poor students to dine with them regularly once a week. dinner consists of excellent soup (in summer made of fruit or preserves), meat, pudding or fruit, and cream, and even the poorest have coffee after this meal. prunes, stewed plums or apples, and sometimes cranberry jam, are always served with the meat or game course, together with excellent but rather rich sauce. the danish housewife prides herself on the latter, as her cooking abilities are often judged by the quality of her sauces. it is quite usual for the danish ladies to spend some months in learning cooking and housekeeping in a large establishment to complete their education. "vær saa god"[ ] says the maid or waiter when handing you anything, and this formula is repeated by everyone when they wish you to enter a room, or, in fact, to do anything. birthdays and other anniversaries are much thought of in denmark. the "födelsdagsbarn"[ ] is generally given pretty bouquets or pots of flowers, as well as presents. flowers are used on every joyous occasion. students, both men and women, may be seen almost covered with bright nosegays, given by their friends to celebrate any examination successfully passed. christmas eve, and not christmas day, is the festive occasion in denmark. everybody, including the poorest, must have a christmas-tree, and roast goose, apple-cake, rice porridge with an almond in it, form the banquet. the lucky person who finds the almond receives an extra present, and much mirth is occasioned by the search. the tree is lighted at dusk, and the children dance round it and sing. this performance opens the festivities; then the presents are given, dinner served, and afterwards the young people dance. christmas day is kept quietly, but the day after (st. stephen's day) is one of merriment and gaiety, when the people go from house to house to greet their friends and "skaal" with them. new year's eve brings a masque ball for the young folk, a supper, fireworks, and at midnight a clinking of glasses, when healths are drunk in hot punch. on midsummer's night fires are lighted all over the country, and people gather together to watch the burning of the tar-barrels. near a lake or on the seashore the reflections glinting on the water make a strangely brilliant sight. on some of the fjords a water carnival makes a pretty addition to these fires, which the children are told have been lighted to scare the witches! the monday before lent is a holiday in all the schools. early in the morning the children, provided with decorated sticks, "fastelavns ris," rouse their parents and others from slumber. all who are found asleep after a certain time must pay a forfeit of lenten buns. later in the day the children dress themselves up in comical costume and parade the streets, asking money from the passer-by as our children do on guy fawkes' day. a holy-day peculiar to denmark is called "store-bededag" (great day of prayer), on the eve of which (danes keep eves of festivals only) the church bells ring and the people promenade in their best clothes. "store-bededag" is the fourth friday after easter, and all business is at a standstill, so that the people can attend church. on whit-sunday some of the young folks rise early to see the sun dance on the water and wash their faces in the dew. this is in preparation for the greatest holiday in the year, whit-monday, when all give themselves up to outdoor pleasure. "grundlovsdag," which is kept in commemoration of the granting of a free constitution to the nation by frederik vii., gives the town bands and trade-unions an opportunity to parade the streets and display their capability in playing national music. "children's day" is a school holiday, and the children dress in the old picturesque danish costumes; they then go about the town and market-places begging alms for the sanatoriums in their collecting-boxes. in this way a large sum is collected for these charities. "knocking-the-cat-out-of-the-barrel" is an old custom of the peasantry which takes place the monday before lent. the young men dress themselves gaily, and, armed with wooden clubs, hie them to the village green. here a barrel is suspended with a cat inside it. each man knocks the barrel with his club as he runs underneath it, and he who knocks a hole big enough to liberate poor puss is the victor. the grotesque costumes, the difficulty of stooping and running under the barrel in them, when all your energies and attention are required for the blow, result in many a comical catastrophe, which the bystanders enjoy heartily. puss is frightened, but not hurt, and i think it would be just as amusing without the cat, but the danish peasants think otherwise. another pastime which takes place on the same day is called "ring-riding." the men, wearing paper hats and gay ribbons, gallop round the course, trying to snatch a suspended ring in passing. the man who takes the ring three times in succession is called "king," he who takes it twice "prince." when the sport is over, king and prince, with their train of unsuccessful competitors, ride round to the farms and demand refreshment for their gay cavalcade, of which "Æleskiver," a peasant delicacy, washed down by a glass of aqua-vitæ, forms a part. on the eve of "valborg's dag" (may-day) bonfires are lighted, and the young danes have a dinner and dance given to them. each dance is so long that it is customary for the young men to change their partners two or three times during the waltz. a beautiful custom is still preserved among the older peasantry: when they cross the threshold of their neighbour's house they say, "god's peace be in this house." all domestic servants, students, and other people who reside away from home for a time, take about with them a chest of drawers as well as a trunk. i suppose they find this necessary, because in denmark a chest of drawers is seldom provided in a bedroom. when the first snowdrops appear, the boys and girls gather some and enclose them in a piece of paper, on which is written a poem. this "vintergække-brev," which they post to their friends, is signed by ink-spots, as numerous as the letters in their name. the friend must guess the name of the sender within a week, or the latter demands a gift. confirmation means coming-out in denmark. as this is the greatest festival of youth, the young folk are loaded with presents; then girls put up their hair and boys begin to smoke. the marriage of a daughter is an expensive affair for parents in denmark, as they are supposed to find all the home for the bride, as well as the trousseau. the wedding-ring is worn by both while engaged, as well as after the marriage ceremony. the epiphany is celebrated in many homes by the burning of three candles, and the children are given a holiday on this, the festival of the three kings. no doubt you know this is a commemoration of the three wise men of the east presenting their offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to our lord. storks are considered the sacred birds of denmark. these harbingers of good-luck the children take great interest in, and more especially in the growth of the stork family on the roof-tree. chapter vii a jaunt through jutland--i jutland is the only province left to denmark which can claim to be mainland, and though it is the most northern part of the country, some of its scenery is very beautiful. the "jyde," as the people of jutland are called, are proud of their birthplace, of their language, and of their pronunciation, which the copenhageners call "accent," but the jyde declare they speak the purest danish in the kingdom. however this may be, i am not in a position to judge, but i do know that i can understand the jyde danish better, and that it falls upon my ear with a more pleasing sound than does the danish of the copenhageners. the east coast of jutland is quite charming, so we will start our tour from the first interesting spot on this route, and try to obtain a glimpse of the country. in kolding stands a famous castle, which was partially burnt down in . this gigantic ruin is now covered in, and used as an historical museum for war relics. fredericia is a very important place. here that part of the train which contains the goods, luggage, and mails, as well as the first-class passenger carriages for copenhagen, is shunted on to the large steam ferry-boat waiting to receive it. this carries it across the smiling waters of the little belt. a fresh engine then takes it across the island of funen to the steam-ferry waiting to carry it across the great belt to korsör, on the shores of seeland, when a locomotive takes the train to copenhagen in the ordinary way. these steam-ferries are peculiar to denmark, and are specially built and equipped for this work. danish enterprise overcomes the difficulties of transport through a kingdom of islands by these ferries. fredericia is an old fortified town with mighty city walls, which make a fine promenade for the citizens, giving them a charming view of the little belt's sunlit waters. in this town the danes won a glorious victory over the prussians in . vejle is one of the most picturesque places on the east coast. along the vejlefjord the tall, straight pines of jutland are reflected in the cool, still depths of blue water, and the tiniest of puffing steamers will carry you over to munkebjerg. the fascinating and famous munkebjerg forest is very beautiful--a romantic place in which the youthful lovers of denmark delight. these glorious beech woods extend for miles, the trees sloping down to the water's edge from a high ridge, whence you have a magnificent view of the glittering fjord. most inviting are these cool green shades on a hot summer's day, but when clothed in the glowing tints of autumn they present to the eye a feast of gorgeous colour. a golden and warm brown carpet of crisp, crackling leaves underfoot, the lap of the fjord as a steamer ploughs along, sending the water hissing through the bowing reeds which fringe the bank, make the soothing sounds which fall on lovers' ears as they wander through these pleasant glades. [illustration: harvest time.] in winter this forest is left to the snow and hoarfrost, and cold, cairn beauty holds it fast for many days. the pretty hotel of munkebjerg, standing on the summit of the ridge, which you espy through a clearing in the trees, is reached by some scores of steps from the landing-stage. patient "moses," the hotel luggage-carrier, awaits the prospective guests at the pier. this handsome brown donkey is quite a character, and mounts gaily his own private zigzag path leading to the hotel when heavily laden. his dejection, however, when returning with empty panniers, is accounted for by the circumstance of "no load, no carrot!" at the end of the climb. grejsdal is another beautiful spot inland from the fjord, past which the primitive local train takes us to jellinge. in this quaint upland village stand the two great barrows, the reputed graves of king gorm and queen thyra, his wife, the great-grandparents of canute the great, the danish king who ruled over england for twenty years. a beautiful norman church stands between these barrows, and two massive runic stones tell that "harald the king commanded this memorial to be raised to gorm, his father, and thyra, his mother: the harald who conquered the whole of denmark and norway, and christianized the danes." steps lead to the top of these grassy barrows, and so large are they that over a thousand men can stand at the top. the village children use them as a playground occasionally. skanderborg, which is prettily situated on a lake, is a celebrated town. here a famous siege took place, in which the valiant niels ebbesen fell, after freeing his country from the tyrannical rule of the german count gert. aarhus, the capital of jutland, is the second oldest town in denmark. its interesting cathedral is the longest in the kingdom, and was built in the twelfth century. the town possesses a magnificent harbour, on the cattegat, the shores of which make a pleasant promenade. randers is a pretty place, with many quaint thatched houses belonging to the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. the gudenaa, denmark's only river, skirts the town. this river is narrow and slow-moving, as there are no heights to give it force. hobro, situated on a fjord, wears an air of seclusion, lying as it does far away from the railway-station. a sail on this fjord will bring us to mariager, the smallest town in denmark. renowned are the magnificent beech-woods and ancient abbey of this tiny town. in the surroundings we have a panoramic view of typical jutish scenery--a charming landscape in the sunset glow, forest, fjord, farmsteads, and moor affording a rich variety of still life. aalborg, the delightful old market town on the limfjord, is fascinating, especially at night, when its myriad lamps throw long shafts of light across the water. scattered through the town are many old half-timbered houses. these beautiful buildings, with their cream-coloured rough-cast walls, oak beams, richly carved overhanging eaves, and soft-red tiled roofs, show little evidence of the ravages of time. the most famous of these houses was built, in the seventeenth century, by jens bang, an apothecary. the chemist's shop occupies the large ground-floor room, the windows of which have appropriate key-stones. on one is carved a man's head with swollen face, another with a lolling tongue, and similar grotesques. to be an idler and watch the traffic going to and fro over the pontoon bridge which spans the limfjord is a delightful way of passing the time. warmed by the sun and fanned by the breezes which blow along the fjord, you may be amused and interested for hours by the life that streams past you. occasionally the traffic is impeded by the bridge being opened to allow the ships to pass through. small vessels can in this way save time and avoid the danger of rounding the north point of jutland. if you look at your map you will see that this fjord cuts through jutland, thus making a short passage from the cattegat to the north sea. jutland north of the limfjord is called vendsyssel. curious effects of mirage may be seen in summer-time in the extensive "vildmose"[ ] of this district. chapter viii a jaunt through jutland--ii as we pass through vendsyssel homely farmsteads and windmills add a charm to the landscape, while tethered kine and sportive goats complete a picture of rural life. when we arrive at frederikshavn we come to the end of the state railway. this terminus lies close to the port, which is an important place of call for the large passenger and cargo steamers bound for norway and other countries, as well as being a refuge for the fishing-fleet. a slow-moving local train takes us across the sandy wastes to skagen, a straggling village, with the dignity of royal borough, bestowed upon it by queen margaret, in the fourteenth century, as a reward to the brave fishermen who saved from shipwreck some of her kins-folk. skagen is a picturesque and interesting place, the home of many artists, as well as a noted seaside resort. bröndum's hotel, a celebrated hostelry, where the majority of visitors and artists stay, is a delightfully comfortable, homely dwelling. the dining-room, adorned with many specimens of the artists' work, is a unique and interesting picture-gallery. on the outskirts of the town the white tower of the old church of skagen may be seen peeping over the sand-dunes. this "stepped" tower, with its red-tiled, saddle-back roof, forms a striking feature in this weird and lonely landscape. the church itself is buried beneath the sand, leaving only the tower to mark the place that is called the "pompeii of denmark," sand, not lava, being answerable for this entombment. it is said that the village which surrounded the church was buried by a sandstorm in the fourteenth century. this scene of desolation, on a windy day, when the "sand fiend" revels and riots, is best left to the booming surf and avoided by those who do not wish to be blinded. to the south of skagen lie other curious phenomena created by this "storm king." the "raabjerg miler" are vast and characteristic dunes of powdery sand in long ridges, like huge waves petrified in the very act of turning over! in the neighbouring quicksands trees have been planted, but refuse to grow. viborg, the old capital of jutland, possesses an historically interesting cathedral. in the crypt stands the tomb of king eric glipping, as well as those of other monarchs. the interior of the cathedral is decorated with fine frescoes by modern artists. as we journey to silkeborg we pass through the vast heathland, "alhede," and are impressed by the plodding perseverance of the heath-folk. the marvellous enterprise of the danes who started and have so successfully carried out the cultivation of these barren tracts of land deserves admiration. the convicts are employed in this work, planting, trenching, and digging, making this waste land ready for the farmer. these men have a cap with a visor-like mask, which can be pulled over the face at will. this shields the face from the cold blasts so prevalent on these moors; also, it prevents the prying eyes of strangers or fellow-workers. many baby forests are being nursed into sturdy growth, as a protection for farm-lands from the sand and wind storms. this monotonous-looking heath is not without beauty; indeed, it has a melancholy charm for those who dwell on it. the children love it when the heather is in bloom, and spend happy days gathering berries from out of the gorgeous purple carpet. the great stacks of peat drying in the sun denote that this is the principal fuel of the moor-folk. from silkeborg we start to see the himmelbjerget, the mountain of this flat country. it rises to a height of five hundred feet, being the highest point in denmark. 'tis the joy and pride of the danes, who select this mountain and lake district before all others for their honeymoons! a curious paddle-boat, worked by hand, or a small motor-boat will take us over the lake to the foot of himmelbjerget. our motor-boat, with fussy throb, carries us away down the narrow river which opens into the lake. the life on the banks of the river is very interesting. as we sail past the pretty villas, with background of cool, green beech-woods, we notice that a danish garden must always have a summer-house to make it complete. in these garden-rooms the danes take all their meals in summer-time. the drooping branches of the beech-trees dip, swish, and bend to the swirl of water created by our boat, which makes miniature waves leap and run along the bank in a playful way. how delightfully peaceful the surrounding landscape is as we skim over the silvery lake and then land! the climbing of this mountain does not take long. there is a splendid view from the top of himmelbjerget, for the country lies spread out like a map before us. this lake district is very beautiful, and when the ling is in full bloom, the heather and forest-clad hills encircling the lakes blaze with colour. at silkeborg the river gudenaa flows through the lakes kundsö and julsö, becoming navigable, but it is only used by small boats and barges for transporting wood from the forests. the termination "sö" means lake, while "aä" means stream. steen steensen blicher, the poet of jutland, has described this scenery, which he loved so much, quite charmingly in some of his lyrical poems. he sings: "the danes have their homes where the fair beeches grow, by shores where forget-me-nots cluster." this poet did much to encourage the home industries of the moor-dwellers, being in sympathy with them, as well as with their lonely moorlands. the old-time moor-dwellers' habitations have become an interesting museum in herning. this little mid-jutland town is in the centre of the moors, so its museum contains a unique collection from the homes of these sturdy peasants. the amount of delicate needlework these lonely, thrifty folks accomplished in the long winter days is surprising. this "hedebo" needlework is the finest stitchery you can well imagine, wrought on home-spun linen with flaxen thread. such marvellous patterns and intricate designs! little wonder that the best examples are treasured by the nation. the men of the family wore a white linen smock for weddings and great occasions. so thickly are these overwrought with needlework that they will stand alone, and seem to have a woman's lifetime spent upon them. needless to say, these family garments were handed down as heirlooms from father to son. knitting, weaving, the making of jyde pottery and wooden shoes (which all wear), are among the other industries of these people. as we journey through skjern and down the west coast to esbjerg, the end of our journey, we notice the picturesque attire of the field-workers. an old shepherd, with vivid blue shirt and sleeveless brown coat, with white straggling locks streaming over his shoulders, tends his few sheep. this clever old man is doing three things at once--minding his sheep, smoking his pipe, and knitting a stocking. the danes are great knitters, men and women being equally good at it. many girls are working in the fields, their various coloured garments making bright specks on the landscape. occasionally a bullock-cart slowly drags its way across the field-road, laden with clattering milk-cans. we pass flourishing farmsteads, with storks' nests on the roofs. the father-stork, standing on one leg, keeping guard over his young, looks pensively out over the moors, thinking, no doubt, that soon it will not be worth his while to come all the way from egypt to find frogs in the marshes! for the indefatigable dalgas has roused the dilatory danes to such good purpose that soon the marshes and waste lands of jutland will be no more. chapter ix the people's amusements "have you been in tivoli?" is the first question a copenhagener would ask you on your arrival in the gay capital. if not, your danish friend will carry you off to see these beautiful pleasure-gardens. tivoli is for all classes, and is the most popular place of amusement in denmark. this delightful summer resort is the place of all others in which to study the jovial side of the danish character. even the king and his royal visitors occasionally pay visits, incognito, to these fascinating gardens, taking their "sixpenn'orth of fun" with the people, whose good manners would never allow them to take the slightest notice of their monarch when he is enjoying himself in this way. to children tivoli is the ideal sunday treat. every taste is catered for at tivoli, and the saturday classical concerts have become famous, for one of the danes' chief pleasures is good music. tivoli becomes fairyland when illuminated with its myriad lights outlining the buildings and gleaming through the trees. the light-hearted gaiety of the dane is very infectious, and the stranger is irresistibly caught by it. the atmosphere of unalloyed merriment which pervades when tables are spread under the trees for the alfresco supper is distinctly exhilarating. these gardens have amusements for the frivolous also, such as switchbacks, pantomimes of the "punch and judy" kind, and frequently firework displays, which last entertainment generally concludes the evening. the royal theatre in copenhagen is a national school of patriotism, and the healthy spirit of its plays has an ennobling effect on the people. everything is danish here, and denmark is the only small nation in europe which has successfully founded a national dramatic art. the "molière of the north," ludwig holberg, was the father of the danish drama, and the first to make the people realize the beauty of their own language. this gifted dane was a great comedy-writer, and had the faculty of making his fellows see the comic side of their follies. the "royal ballet" played at this theatre is quite distinctive. bournonville, its creator, was a poet who expressed himself in motion instead of words, and these "dumb poems" appeal strongly to the scandinavian character. this poet aimed at something more than spectacular effects upon the people: his art consisted in presenting instructive tableaux, which, while holding the attention of his audience, taught them their traditional history. the delicate daintiness of the danish ballet everyone must appreciate. the exquisite and intricate dances, together with the magnificent tableaux, are accompanied by wild and magical music of danish composition. bournonville ballets represent scenes from classical mythology, as well as from ancient scandinavian history, and the danish people are much attached to this northern composer of ballet. "ei blot til lyst"--not only for pleasure--is the motto over this national theatre door, and it is in the ballet school here that the young danes begin their training. these young folk take great pleasure in learning the beautiful dances, as well as in the operatic and dramatic work which they have to study, for they must serve a certain period in this, as in any other profession. another place of amusement which gives pleasure to many of the poorer people is the working men's theatre. actors, musicians, as well as the entire management, are all of the working classes, who are trained in the evenings by professionals. the result is quite wonderful, and proves the pleasure and interest these working people take in their tuition, and how their artistic abilities are developed by it. on sundays, and occasionally in the week, a performance is given, when the working classes crowd into the theatre to see their fellows perform. this entertainment only costs sixpence for good seats, drama and farce being the representations most appreciated. notwithstanding that smoking is prohibited during the performances--a rule which you would think no dane could tolerate, being seldom seen without pipe or cigarette--it is a great success, and denotes that their love of the play is greater than their pleasure in the weed. chapter x farm life--butter-making--"hedeselskabet" farming in denmark is the most important industry of the kingdom, and gives employment to half the nation. the peasant is very enlightened and advanced in his methods; agricultural and farm products form the principal exports of the country. england takes the greater part of this produce. three or four times a week the ships leave esbjerg--this port being the only danish one not blocked by ice during some part of the winter--for the english ports, laden with butter, bacon and eggs for the london market. now, why can the danish farmer, whose land is poorer and his climate more severe than ours, produce so much? education, co-operation and the help given by the state to small farmers lay the foundation, so the danes will tell you, of the farmer's prosperity. the thrift and industry of the peasant farmer is quite astonishing. he is able to bring up a large, well-educated family and live comfortably on seven or eight acres of land; whereas in england we are told that three acres will not keep a cow! the danish farmer makes six acres keep two cows, many chickens, some pigs, himself, wife and family, and there is never any evidence of poverty on these small farms--quite the reverse. the farmer is strong and wiry, his wife fine and buxom, and his children sturdy, well-cared-for little urchins. all, however, must work--and work very hard--both with head and hands to produce this splendid result. the danish farmer grows a rapid rotation of crops for his animals, manuring heavily after each crop, and never allowing his land to lie fallow as we do. on these small farms there is practically no grass-land; hedges and fences are unnecessary as the animals are always tethered when grazing. omission of hedges is more economical also, making it possible to cultivate every inch of land. there is nothing wasted on a danish farm. many large flourishing farms also exist in denmark, with acres of both meadow and arable land, just as in england; but the peasant farmer is the interesting example of the danish system of legislation. the government helps this small holder by every means in its power to become a freehold farmer should he be willing and thrifty enough to try. the typical danish farmstead is built in the form of a square, three sides of which are occupied by the sheds for the animals, the fourth side being the dwelling-house, which is generally connected with the sheds by a covered passage--a cosy arrangement for all, as in bad weather the farmer need not go outside to attend to the animals, while the latter benefit by the warmth from the farmhouse. the danes would never speak crossly to a cow or call her by other than her own name, which is generally printed on a board over her stall. the cow, in fact, is the domestic pet of the danish farm. in the winter these animals are taken for a daily walk wearing their winter coats of jute! these small farmers realize that "union is strength," and have built up for themselves a marvellous system of co-operation. this brings the market literally to the door of the peasant farmer. carts collect the farm produce daily and transport it to the nearest factories belonging to this co-operation of farmers. at these factories the milk is turned into delicious butter, the eggs are examined by electric light, and "mr. pig" quickly changes his name to bacon! these three commodities form the most remunerative products of the farm. the danish farmer is a strong believer in education, thanks to the grundtvig high-schools. bishop grundtvig started these schools for the benefit of the sons and daughters of yeomen. when winter comes, and outside farm-work is at a standstill, the farmer and his family attend these schools to learn new methods of farming and dairy-work. the farmer's children are early taught to take a hand and interest themselves in the farm-work. the son, when school is over for the day, must help to feed the live-stock, do a bit of spade-work or carpentering, and perhaps a little book-keeping before bedtime. these practical lessons develop in the lad a love of farm-work and a pride in helping on the family resources. [illustration: vagt-paraden. lifeguards drawing up outside the palace.] butter-making is an interesting sight at the splendidly equipped steam-factories, and we all know that danish butter is renowned for its excellence. when the milk is weighed and tested it runs into a large receiver, thence to the separator; from there the cream flows into the scalder, and pours over the ice frame in a rich cool stream into a wooden vat. meanwhile the separated milk has returned through a pipe to the waiting milk-cans and is given back to the farmer, who utilizes it to feed his calves and pigs. the cream leaves the vat for the churn through a wooden channel, and when full the churn is set in motion. this combined churn and butter-worker completes the process of butter-making, and when the golden mass is taken out it is ready to be packed for the english market. the milk, on being received at the factory, is weighed and paid for according to weight. it takes lbs. of milk to make lb. of butter. "hedeselskabet" (heath company) is a wonderful society started by captain dalgas and other patriotic danes, in , for the purpose of reclaiming the moors and bogs. the cultivation of these lands seemed impossible to most people, but these few enthusiasts with great energy and perseverance set to work to overcome nature's obstacles. these pioneers have been so successful in their efforts that in less than half a century three thousand square miles of useless land in jutland have been made fertile. trees have been planted and carefully nursed into good plantations, besides many other improvements made for the benefit of the agriculturalist and the country generally. all along the sandy wastes of the west coast of jutland esparto grass has been sown to bind the shifting sand, which is a danger to the crops when the terrible "skaj"[ ] blows across the land with unbroken force. thanks to the untiring energies of this society for reclaiming the moors, denmark has gained land almost equal to that she lost in her beautiful province of schleswig, annexed by prussia in the unequal war of . in the town of aarhus, the capital of jutland, a handsome monument has been raised to the memory of captain dalgas, the father of the movement for reclaiming the moors, by his grateful countrymen. chapter xi soldiers and sailors every danish boy knows he must undergo a period of training as a soldier or sailor when he reaches his twentieth year. this is because denmark is small and poor, and could not maintain a standing army, so her citizens must be able to defend her when called upon. this service is required from all, noble and peasant alike, physical weakness alone bringing exemption. this six or twelve months' training means a hard rough time for young men accustomed to a refined home, but it has a pleasant side in the sympathy and friendship of comrades. the generality of conscripts do not love their soldiering days, and look upon them as something to be got over, like the measles! "jens" is the danish equivalent for "tommy atkins," and "hans" is the "jack tar" of denmark. to see the daily parade of life guards before the royal palace is to see a splendid military display. this parade the king and young princes often watch from the palace windows. the crowd gathers to enjoy the spectacle of "vagt-paraden" (changing the guard) in the palace square, when the standard is taken from the guard house and borne, to the stirring strains of the "fane-marsch," in front of the palace. as the standard-bearer marches he throws forward his legs from the hips in the most curious stiff way. this old elaborate german step is a striking feature of the daily parade. when the guard is changed and the band has played a selection of music, the same ceremony is repeated, and the standard deposited again in its resting-place. then the released guard, headed by the band playing merry tunes, march back to their barracks followed by an enthusiastic crowd. the fresh guard take their place beside the sentry-boxes, which stand around the palace square. these are tall red pillar-boxes curiously like giant letter-boxes! in the schleswig-holstein war of , the last war denmark was engaged in, many danish soldiers proved their valour and heroism in the unequal encounter. these gallant men were buried in schleswig, and as the danish colours were forbidden by the tyrannical prussian conquerors, the loyal schleswigers hit upon a pretty way of keeping the memory of their heroes green. the "danebrog" was designed by a cross of white flowers on a ground of red geraniums over each grave. in this way the kinsmen of these patriots covered their last resting-place with the colours of their glorious national flag, under which they fell in denmark's defence. in holmens kirke, copenhagen, many heroes lie buried. this building, originally an iron foundry, was converted into a church by the royal builder, christian iv., for the dockyard men to worship in, and it is still used by them. this king's motto, "piety strengthens the realm," stands boldly over the entrance of this mortuary chapel for famous danes. as denmark is a kingdom composed mainly of islands and peninsula, she has a long line of sea-board to defend, and a good navy is essential for her safety. the danes being descendants of vikings and sea-rovers, you may be sure that their navy is well maintained. a boy who chooses the navy as his profession must leave school at the age of fourteen years, and go for nine months' training on a warship as a voluntary apprentice. at the end of this time he knows whether he likes the profession well enough to join it--if so, two years' coaching is given to enable him to pass the necessary examinations for entering the naval academy. here he is trained for four years, spending the four summer months of each year in cruising. this naval academy, where officers are trained, is a fine old institution, and prides itself on the record of the famous men it has turned out. the present king of greece, and many other members of the danish royal family, have also been trained at this academy. the academy course is expensive, and as promotion is slow, and pay small in the navy, the lieutenants are sometimes permitted to captain a ship in the merchant service for three years. this they are glad to do, as it increases their pay and knowledge of navigation. denmark being too small to maintain a large cruising fleet, these officers would have little opportunity of proving their sailing powers without this arrangement. when cruising, the high spirits of the young cadets sometimes lead them into mischief, thereby bringing trouble upon their heads. i knew a naval captain who hit upon a very original and effective form of punishment for wrong-doers. the cadet cap is a blue "tam-o'-shanter" with the usual woolly bob of the same colour on the top. "the naughty boys shall have a red bob," said the "kaptejn," "and thus be branded for misdemeanour!" the culprits disliked this badge intensely, i imagine mostly because their comrades derisively admired the colour which made them conspicuous. one day royalties were being shown over the ship, and a young princess asked "why some of the boys had those pretty red tufts on their caps?" you may imagine the chagrin and confusion of the culprits; scarlet faces and crimson tufts told their own tale! the boys, you may be sure, thought twice in future before risking another penitential week of branding and ridicule for breach of discipline. in copenhagen one of the discarded warships is used as public restaurant and training-school for ships' cooks. here the sailor-men are taught every branch of cooking and kitchen-work. when trained, these cooks are employed on the merchant-ships, as well as on the men-of-war. some interesting stories are told of the naval heroes of denmark which you will like to hear. peder tordenskjold is the nelson of denmark. this man, besides being a great admiral, was a most genial character, and had a striking and original personality. many true tales are told about this hero which the young danish lads never tire of hearing. there is a favourite one which tells of the ingenious way by which he discovered the weak points in his enemy's stronghold. dressing himself as a fisherman, he accompanied two other fishers in a little rowing-boat laden with fish to the enemy's shores. taking a basket of fish, he mounted the hill to the fort, saying he had brought the fish for the commandant. he was allowed to pass in to the fort with his fish, and, pretending stupidity, kept losing his way--gaining knowledge thereby--till he reached the commandant's residence. gaining permission from the latter to supply the garrison with fish, he inquired for how many men he should provide. "let me see," said the commandant, half to himself, "a hundred guns--two hundred men; you may bring fish for a hundred men." tordenskjold then left the fort, having obtained all the information he required, and returned to his boat. at this moment the captain of one of the ships lying in the bay arrived on shore, and the pretended fisherman at once accosted him, asking permission to serve his men with fish. this being granted, he at once rowed to the ship, where he soon disposed of his fish, and conversing with the sailors, he gained the information that in two days' time there would be a great festivity held on shore, at which most of them would be present. with this valuable knowledge he returned to his own shore from the swedish coast, and laid plans which gave denmark a victory and proved fatal to the swedes. in holmens kirke, where this hero lies buried, a splendid black marble tomb has been erected to his memory by king frederik iv. near by lies another naval hero, niels juel, whose gilt and copper coffin is surmounted by a tablet which tells of his brave deeds. captain hvitfeldt, the hero of kjöge bay, blew up his ship with three hundred men to save the danish fleet from destruction. in the war of , between denmark and sweden, this captain's ship, the _danebrog_, took fire. to save the ships which were being driven by the wind towards his burning vessel, he and his gallant crew sacrificed their lives. herluf trolle was a danish noble and a famous admiral, who left all his wealth to found a school for orphans. his noble wife, fru bergitta, was greatly distressed that the admiral's will could not be found, as she was most anxious that his wishes, which were also her own, with regard to the school, should be carried into effect. the admiral's relatives would inherit the property, and were already clamouring for it, when one night fru bergitta had a dream. she dreamed she saw someone walking round her husband's writing-table, attentively inspecting the legs. these she examined on awakening, and found one to be hollow. discovering a secret spring, she pressed it, and beheld the will lying in the hollow space. so herluf trolle's school was founded, and although this brave old admiral died from wounds received in battle centuries ago, yet his school is considered to be one of the best at the present day. [illustration: sunday in the island of lÆsÖ.] chapter xii the people of the isles one of the most storm-swept and barren of denmark's many islands is the island of fanö. lying, as it does, exposed to the full force of the north sea gales, it yet serves to protect the harbour of esbjerg from these storms. it is eight miles long, and three miles at its broadest part. a trim little steamer will carry you across from esbjerg to nordby--the fishing town on the east coast of fanö--in twenty minutes. nordby is both quaint and picturesque. the low thatched houses, with rough-cast, whitewashed walls, nestle close to each other for shelter from the winds. the fanö women have a practical but peculiar costume; the thickly-pleated skirt has a bright-coloured border, while the close-fitting bodice is adorned with embroidery, and pretty antique buttons. a folded cotton kerchief and accordion-pleated apron give a daintiness to the whole dress. the head-dress, however, gives the most singular finish to the costume. a dark, checked-bordered handkerchief tied over a stiff, cambric frame, entirely envelops the head. the four ends of this handkerchief are tied in an odd way, two being left upstanding like rabbits' ears! this striking head-dress gives the fanö wife a fantastic appearance. when the good-natured, smiling faces of these women are hidden behind a mask, the combination of dress and mask makes them awesome-looking folk. the men of the island are nearly all fishermen; the women are the farmers, and it is to protect their faces from the blinding sand-storms, while working on the land, that these masks are worn. this mask obliterates all comeliness, for only the eyes peep out from the weird face-protector. this island of heath, dune, and quicksand is wild and romantic. the cultivated fields are protected by sand-hills, and belts of stunted, wind-swept trees that afford some slight protection to the crops. the island belongs to the people, who cultivate it assiduously. the courage and perseverance of these women agriculturalists is rewarded by fair crops, notwithstanding an adverse climate. at the south end of the island, far away from any dwelling, is the interesting "fugleköjerne,"[ ] where three or four hundred wild-duck are taken in a day during the season. decoy-ducks are used for this purpose. the west side of the island is the most fashionable watering-place in denmark. large hotels and pretty villas line the shore, and here the well-to-do danes inhale bracing sea-breezes. on a windy day this western shore is not amusing. clouds of blinding sand whirl high in the air, while the booming surf rolls and plunges on the beach with deafening roar, and makes rank and fashion fly to shelter in hotel or villa till the storm is over. visitors in summer and storms in winter have it all their own way on this west coast--the people of fanö trouble it not. bornholm, situated in the middle of the baltic, is both beautiful and fertile. its products are very valuable to denmark. from here comes the clay of which the exquisite copenhagen porcelain is made. here, too, the granite for building the country's defences and docks is quarried. i fancy if you were to ask a young dane what bornholm is most famed for he would say, "turkeys," for the island supplies the copenhagen market with these birds. the chief town, rönne, is charming, with its many low-roofed houses, which overlook the baltic. it is noted for its terra-cotta ware, clocks, and museum of antiquities. most of the towns are upon the coast. four singular round churches, built of granite, were formerly used as places of refuge for the people when beset by pirates. these "rundkirker" are peculiar to bornholm. a high festival is celebrated every year on the anniversary of the day when the inhabitants succeeded in throwing off the swedish yoke, which they had borne for a short time in the seventeenth century with resentment. hammershus castle, on the northern extremity of bornholm, was built in the thirteenth century. there is a sad tale connected with this romantic castle, about a danish noble and his wife. this noble, corfitz ulfeldt, was imprisoned there for treason. his beautiful wife, eleonora, the favourite daughter of christian iv., accompanied him, preferring imprisonment with him to liberty without him. after the count died, eleonora, who had a mortal enemy in queen caroline amalia, was sent by the latter to the "blaataarn"[ ] of slotsholmen, copenhagen, and there incarcerated for twenty-two years. the illustrious eleonora was only liberated on the death of the vindictive queen, but the long years of captivity--without reason--had wrecked her life. læsö is a small island in the cattegat, the inhabitants of which are mainly farmers and fishermen, and the old women wear a particular costume for sunday, which is called the "church costume." the people of amager are great market-gardeners. they are of dutch extraction. christian ii., after flying from his country, took refuge in holland, and some of the dutch helped him in trying to regain his throne. for this service he gave his dutch followers the island of amager. the descendants of these dutch people still retain their old customs and characteristics. clattering about in wooden shoes, the old women, in quaint costume, may be seen driving their geese down the picturesque streets to the meadows. besides being market-gardeners and florists, these amager folk rear and fatten the geese for the christmas market. the natural beauty of the island of möen is striking, and unlike the rest of denmark. "möen's klint" are great, jagged white cliffs rising abruptly from the sea. enchanting beech-woods thickly crown the summit, giving distinctive and unusual beauty to it. from sommerspiret, the highest point, we have an extensive view over the Østersöen and köjge bay, where the famous victory over the swedes was won by niels juel in . in denmark the town-crier beats a drum to draw attention to the notice he is about to give. danish postmen present a gorgeous appearance, in red coats, with smart cloaks of the same brilliant hue for winter wear. these and the bright yellow mail-vans, which they drive sometimes, arrest attention, and give importance to the carriers of his majesty's mails. in many of the houses the "forhöjning" is still used. this is a raised platform close to the window, on which the lady of the house sits to do her embroidery. while she is here she can follow all that goes on in the street below by an ingenious arrangement of oblique convex mirrors fixed to the outside of the window, and reflecting the life in the streets both ways. the numerous pretty articles made of amber, which adorn the ladies' dressing-tables, and of which beads and ornaments for the girls are composed, are of local manufacture, amber being found in quantities on the west coast of jutland. in the islands of funen and seeland there are many grand old manor-houses belonging to the nobility, whose fine estates give employment to many peasants. a story is told of a certain noble, christian barnekow by name, who saved his king, christian iv., by his heroic self-sacrifice. the king had lost his horse, and was on the point of being killed or made prisoner when barnekow came to his rescue. giving the king his own horse, he said, "i give my horse to my king, my life to the enemy, and my soul to god." a street in copenhagen is called after this brave nobleman "kristenbernikovstrade." it is characteristic of the danes to run words into each other, and streets in denmark often have prodigiously long names. chapter xiii fishermen at home and afloat the class of people most lauded by their own and other nations is that of the brave and hardy fishermen of denmark. these men are always willing to man the life-boat and to risk their lives to save those in peril on the dangerous coast of jutland. although hundreds of ships are wrecked on this dreaded "jernkyst" (iron coast), their crews are invariably saved by these courageous men. the whole length of the west coast of jutland is bleak and exposed to the storms and fogs of the north sea. not one single harbour of refuge can be found between esbjerg and the skaw. dangerous sandbanks and massive cliffs guard the coast, making navigation both difficult and hazardous. all along this perilous coast life-saving apparatus of the newest and best type is stored in the life-boat houses placed at intervals close to the seashore. on stormy nights the watching sentinels summon by telephone the fishermen of the tiny hamlets near. at sound of a rocket the distressful cry, "a wreck, a wreck!" runs over the telephone, and immediately brave hearts and hands are putting off to the rescue, while trembling women anxiously wait their husbands' return with warm restoratives for the saved. these fishermen's wives are brave too, for it is anxious work waiting and watching. it is not to be wondered at that this merciless and cruel coast is dreaded by all seamen. how thankful they must feel when they see the great lighthouse at grenen--the northernmost point of jutland--and can signal "all's well!" "alt vel! passeret grenen" flash the lights across the water, and both passengers and crew breathe a little more freely if it has been a stormy passage. something like eighty thousand vessels pass by this coast in a year, so you may be sure the gallant fishermen of denmark who live on the iron coast have plenty of rescue work to do. [illustration: skagen fisherman near the tower of buried church.] you should see this coast on a stormy day, more especially at grenen, where those two mighty seas, the skagerack and cattegat, meet. when the tempest rages here, far as eye can see a long ridge of seething, tossing water denotes the meeting-place of the currents. the great "white horses" in battle array fight, plunge, and roar--each striving for the mastery which neither gains. this wrestling-match is a splendid spectacle to those who are safe on shore, also to those at sea if the day is clear, because they can then give the reef a wide berth. tossing spray is thrown high into the air and wind-borne to the shore, so even at a distance from the waves you may have a salt shower-bath should you be able to "keep your legs" against the fury of the gale. the screaming gulls which fly around, dipping and rising, enjoying as only "storm-birds" can the roar and tumult of these tempestuous waters, enhance the fierce loneliness of the scene. this awe-inspiring "nature-barrier" saddens you--even while you exult in the madness of its fury--when you think what it means on a foggy night to the poor mariner. what a comfort for the seafarer to know that there is such a famous race of fishermen here, willing and ready to man the life-boat and rescue them from the angry, engulfing waters! you would never guess these seas could be otherwise than kind when you enter their smiling depths for a swim on a calm, sunny day. how gentle and invigorating they can be the fishermen as well as the visitors know, and any morning you may see the former returning from their daily dip with dripping heads and towels along the shore. somehow these fishermen are always picturesque. in the summer evening, sitting or lying on the sunlit beach, smoking their cutty-pipes and waiting for the time to launch their boats for the fishing, they make an impressive picture. kindly blue eyes and weather-beaten faces look at you from under the sou'westers, while blue jerseys, long sea-boots with curled-over tops and oil-skins, complete the sea-going outfit. fully equipped, they charm the eye of the most fastidious, and it is little wonder that they have become subjects for famous artists and poets. these fishermen are very devout, and before launching their boat they all stand round it with clasped hands and bowed heads, offering up a short, silent prayer for help and protection on these dangerous waters. then, pushing the boat out into the water, they jump in while it floats--sea-boots getting wet in the process--and wave farewell to their children on the shore, who cry in return "farvel fa'er!" lars kruse, the late captain of the life-boat at skagen, has had a beautiful monument raised to his memory, and his son will show you with great pride the cups and medals he left behind as mementoes of his brave deeds. these medals have been presented by many different nations whose sea-farers have been saved by him. amongst these is one given by queen victoria. captain larsen, a well-known mariner, who, on retiring from his post on one of the light-ships, settled at old skagen, has left a unique collection to the village. this now constitutes a museum of exquisitely carved furniture, much of it inlaid with ivory, marbles and metals in dainty designs, all made by this old sailor during the last twelve years of his life--a wonderful record of industry. old skagen is a quaint fisher-village, nestling behind the sand-dunes, trying to shelter itself from the sand and sea-storms to which these shores are subjected. many of these fisher-folk are farmers also, tilling and cultivating the heath-lands which lie beyond the village. the fisher cottages are quite pretty, with thatched or red-tiled roofs, white or buff rough-cast walls, green painted doors and windows, with black painted foundations which protect them from the sand. bright flowering plants in the windows and the neat and clean appearance of the whole betoken the joy and comfort that reigns in the fisherman's home. many household duties are performed at the cottage door in the sandy enclosure surrounding the little homestead. here the old men mend the nets, keeping a watchful eye on the babies, while the women clean and salt the fish, hanging them up in rows to dry in the sun. in these garden enclosures, also, many quaintly pretty miniature houses may be seen erected on tall poles. these are to encourage the starlings and other songsters to settle in them, as there are no trees. hen-roosts and outhouses are adorned with the name-boards of wrecked boats washed up on the shore, while discarded boats turned over and tarred make the roofs of these curious shelters worthy of royal hens! the older fishermen have a safe and effective way of trawling from the strand. putting out in a small boat, taking their net with them, to which a long rope is attached--the end of this being left in charge of the fishermen on the shore--they row gaily over the water, paying out the rope as they go. when the limit of this rope is reached, the men drop their weighted net overboard and pull for the shore, bringing with them another attached rope which is paid out till they reach the strand. when they have landed and the boat is beached, half a dozen men or more take hold of each rope--these are fastened to each side of the submerged net--and begin hauling it to the shore. the straining muscles of the men as they march up the beach with a strong, steady, overhand pull on the rope denotes that this is heavy work. it is a grand sight! as the net nears the shore the gleaming, glittering mass of fish can be seen leaping and jumping in vain endeavour to escape from their prison, only the smaller fry succeeding. at last the net with its silver load reaches the shore with the noise as of a great wave breaking upon the beach, which is caused by the efforts of the fish to gain their freedom. the best fish are picked out and the others returned to the sea, while the gulls swoop down with querulous cry and gobble all that float on the surface of the water. these fishermen have a prejudice against skate, and use it only for bait. st. clement is the patron saint of danish fishermen, and many of the churches in the coast towns are dedicated to him. as the cathedral of aarhus is dedicated to st. clement, the skaw fishermen have given an exquisite model of a ship to the church. this ship is a perfect representation in miniature of a man-of-war. it was made in holland for peter the great, but the ship which carried it was wrecked near grenen, and the model was saved by the skaw fishermen. chapter xiv youthful danes at work and play denmark is renowned for its educational system and for its schools. these schools are all under government control, and meet the wants of every class. the authorities are upheld by the parents, both being determined there shall be no such thing as an ignoramus in denmark, so whether the children are educated at home or sent to school, they must begin lessons at the age of seven. if they have a governess at home the parents must give a guarantee to the authorities that the governess is efficient and capable of giving the standard education to the children. should parents elect to take their children abroad during the school term, they must notify their intention, undertaking that a teacher shall accompany them and lessons continue while away. shirking lessons is quite an impossibility for little danes, as everybody thinks that education comes before all else, so parents do not encourage idleness or extra holidays during the school year. school attendance is compulsory for all children between the ages of seven and fourteen. the hours are not long nor wearisome, as the lessons are arranged with a view to holding the attention of young minds during the period of instruction. the classes are small, even in the free schools, never more than thirty-five pupils to a teacher, and generally less. the lesson lasts forty minutes, and then there is an interval for play. the thorough education of the pupils for their future work in life is considered, so lessons in writing, reading, and arithmetic, in the kommune schools, are varied by tailoring lessons for boys, and cookery for girls, after they are ten years of age. at every school gymnastics play an important part--pleasant lessons these are for all--but perhaps the lesson the boys most delight in is their instruction in slöyd. each lad has his carpenter's bench with necessary tools, and as we know every boy is happy when making or marring with hammer and nails, i am sure you will think these must be enviable lessons. i have seen some charming models as well as useful things made by the boys--a perfect miniature landau, complete in every detail, benches, bureaux, carts, tables, chairs, besides many other serviceable articles. besides this pleasure-work at school, the boys, if they are farmers' sons, have practical lessons at home by helping their father on the farm. the authorities being anxious to help the farmer, they allow him to keep a boy at home half the day for instruction in farm-work, but the other half must be spent at school. the prizes at the municipal schools not infrequently consist of clothes, watches, clocks, or tools, all of which are worked for eagerly by the pupils. the boys and girls of denmark begin early with gymnastic exercises, and soon become sturdy little athletes from sheer love of the exhilarating practice. all danes pride themselves--and with good reason--on their national athletic exercises. at the olympic games, held at the stadium in london, the danish ladies carried away the gold medal by their fine gymnastic display. this was a triumph with so many competitors in the field. it is an amusing sight to see the danes at a seaside resort taking their morning swim; each one on leaving the water runs about on the sun-warmed beach, and goes through a gymnastic display on his own account, choosing the exercise he considers most calculated to warm and invigorate him after his dip. the children require no second bidding to follow father's example, and as they emerge from the water breathless, pantingly join in the fun. sons try to go one better than the father in some gymnastic feat which the latter's stoutness renders impossible! the merry peals of laughter which accompany the display speak eloquently of the thorough enjoyment of all the bathers. yachting in denmark is not merely a pleasure for the rich, it is inexpensive, so all classes and every man capable of sailing a boat can enjoy it. in the summer-time the sound and other waters seem alive with the multitudes of white sails and speeding craft of all sizes. the Øresund week, as the royal yacht club's regatta-week is called, is the time of all others for yachtsmen to display their skill, and a gay event in the copenhagener's year. the pleasant waters of denmark are beloved of yachtsmen. sailing round the wooded islands, you are impressed by their picturesque beauty, which is seen to advantage from the water. one is not surprised that this popular pastime comes first with every danish boy, who, whether swimming, rowing, or sailing, feels perfectly at home on the water. everybody cycles in denmark. cycle-stands are provided outside every shop, station, office, and college, so that you have no more difficulty in disposing of your cycle than your umbrella. [illustration: winter in the forest.] football is a summer game here--spirited matches you would think impossible at this season--but the danes have them, and what is more, they will inform you that they quite enjoy what appears to the spectator a hot, fatiguing amusement. cricket has few attractions for the danish lads, but that is because they cannot play, though their schoolmasters and parents would have them try. all things english are much admired, and when a dane intends to do a thing he generally succeeds, so we can only suppose he is too indifferent about cricket--although it is an english game--to excel. golf and hockey are also played, and "bandy"--_i.e._, hockey on the ice--is a favourite winter sport. a "bandy" match is quite exciting to watch. the players, armed with a wooden club, often find the ice a difficulty when rushing after the solid rubber ball. this exhilarating game is known in some parts of the world as "shinty." the danes are proficient skaters, and of late years an artificial ground for winter sport of all kinds has been made in the ulvedal, near copenhagen. here they have "bandy" matches, ski-ing, and tobogganing, as well as other winter games. fox-hunting is unknown in denmark, but frequently foxes are included in the sportsman's bag when shooting. these are shot because it is necessary to keep mr. reynard's depredations under control. trotting-matches are held on sunday on the racecourse near charlottenlund, and horse-racing takes place too. lawn-tennis and croquet are very popular, but the latter is the favourite pastime of the danish ladies. chapter xv ingeborg's journey through seeland funen, the island which lies between the great and little belts, is known as the "garden of denmark," on account of its beauty and fertility. in odense, the capital, ingeborg had lived happily all the fifteen summers of her life. now she was to have an unexpected treat. her grandfather intended taking her with him on the morrow to see some of the historical places in seeland. ingeborg loved history, and had given her grandfather much pleasure by the knowledge she displayed when showing him over her own church, st. knud's. this ancient gothic church is the finest specimen of mediæval architecture in denmark. st. knud, the grand-nephew of canute the great, was slain before the altar while praying for his people. this brave king could have saved himself by flight, but would not, lest his subjects should suffer at the hands of his enemies. he was canonized by the pope, and his brother built the church to his memory. besides being the shrine of st. knud, this church is the burial-place of king christian ii. and his queen, as well as of king hans and his consort. the beautiful altar-piece, given by queen christina, is of the most exquisite workmanship, and took the artists many years to execute. ingeborg's excitement was great when she crossed from nyborg. she remembered that an army once crossed this water on foot, so severe was the winter, and that ice-breakers are still used occasionally. the girl wished it was winter as she watched for the first time the huge paddle-wheels of the steam-ferry ploughing through the waters of the great belt. by the time korsör was reached, herr nielsen, her grandfather, had made acquaintance with a student who was returning to his college at sorö, the town which they intended making their first stopping-place. the student, whose name was hans, informed them that he lived at ribe, a quaint old town of south jutland, left very much to memories and the storks, but possessing a fine twelfth-century cathedral. the college at sorö was founded by ludvig holberg, the father of danish comedy, who left his fortune and library for that purpose. hans was proud of belonging to this college, as it had educated many men of letters famous in danish history. in the cistercian church of sorö, bishop absalon, the founder of copenhagen, lies buried. it is said that this bishop's spirit appears, with menacing attitude, if anyone desecrates the place by irreverence. ludvig holberg is also buried in this cloister church, as well as three danish kings. ingemann the poet spent most of his time at this charming town, which stands on the lake of the sorö sö. in the luxuriant beech-woods which surround the lake, saxo grammaticus, the first historian of denmark, was wont to wander. both these celebrated men also lie in the old church, which ingeborg felt was a fitting resting-place for the noble dead. on the advice of hans, herr nielsen took his young grand-daughter to see the old convent church of ringsted. here many danish kings were buried in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. the interesting romanesque church of kallundborg was also visited. this church, with its four octagonal towers and a square tower in the middle, forms a greek cross. this is the most unique specimen of mediæval architecture in the north. ingeborg had long looked forward to seeing roskilde cathedral, and the day was bright and sunny when they arrived at the sleepy little town on the roskilde fjord. this stately cathedral, with its two tall pointed spires, is called the "westminster abbey" of denmark. it is the burial-place of the danish royal family: thirty-three kings and many queens rest in it. a beautiful alabaster tomb marks the resting-place of queen margrethe, the famous queen who united the three crowns--norway, sweden, and denmark--and was ever ambitious for the glory and development of these countries. she ruled with wisdom and wonderful diplomacy, and was the most powerful queen denmark ever had. she has been called the "semiramis of the north." though the three crowns are still on the shield of denmark, the other two kingdoms were lost to her in the sixteenth century. queen margrethe was the daughter of valdemar iv., known as "atterdag," because of his favourite proverb: "i morgen er der atter en dag."[ ] this powerful monarch kept his subjects in such incessant turmoil by his numerous wars for acquiring territory "that they had not time to eat"! the renaissance chapel erected by christian iv., in which his tomb stands, is very beautiful. this popular monarch, alike celebrated as architect, sailor, and warrior, was one of the most impressive figures in danish history. the mural paintings of the chapel represent scenes in the life of this great king. ingeborg was glad she remembered her history, and could tell her grandfather so much as they went through the cathedral. he, however, informed her that frederik vii. was the last of the kings of the oldenburg line, which had been on the throne of denmark for over four hundred years. the sarcophagus of the beloved christian ix., father of many european crowned heads, including queen alexandra of england, is still kept covered with fresh flowers. this king, whose memory is so revered in all countries, inaugurated a new dynasty in denmark. the curious old clock at the western end of the cathedral interested ingeborg, and she watched with delight, when it struck the hour of noon, st. george, mounted on his fiery steed, with many groans and stiff, jerky movements, kill the dragon, which expired with a gruesome death-rattle! in the thirteenth century this quiet town of roskilde was the capital, and the archiepiscopal see of denmark. an english bishop, william of roskilde, is supposed to have built the cathedral. we will now follow our little friend and her grandfather to frederiksborg castle. the castle, with its many towers and pinnacles reflected in still waters, stands in the middle of a lake. this handsome dutch renaissance building is now used as an historical museum. many of the danish kings have been crowned in its magnificent chapel. wandering through the splendid rooms of the castle, ingeborg could read the history of her country in a very pleasant and interesting manner. the collection being confined to one period for each room made instruction an easy affair for the grandfather. beginning with king gorm the old and canute the great, it comprises all periods up to the last century. the autumn residence of the royal family, fredensborg castle, was the next place of interest visited. this castle of peace was built to commemorate the end of the war between denmark and sweden. "fred" means "peace" in danish, and, indeed, this place proves a home of peace to tired royalty. its park is considered the most beautiful in denmark. the magnificent avenues of lime-trees are lined by marble statues of peasants in national costumes, faroese, icelandic and norwegian, as well as those of denmark. the open-air museum at lyngby, with its ancient farm and peasant buildings, the interiors of which are fitted up just as they used to be, gave ingeborg a peep into the past and old-time denmark. here she saw a curious rolling-pin hanging in the ingle-nook of the farmhouse from the village of ostenfeld. this wooden pin, so her grandfather told her, was a clogg almanac or runic calendar. it had four sides, each marking three months, large notches denoting sundays, small ones showing week-days. saints' days were marked by the symbol of each saint. he had seen some of these old calendars in the ashmolean museum at oxford, when he had been in england, which were relics of danish government there. these quaint and curious clogg almanacs were used throughout scandinavia, small ones made of horn or bone being for the pocket. but here we must say good-bye to ingeborg and her grandfather, as after seeing kronborg castle and elsinore they will return by the beautiful coast-line to copenhagen, there to enjoy many of the sights we have seen in "dear little denmark." footnotes: [footnote : thank you for the food.] [footnote : may it agree with you.] [footnote : spoon-food.] [footnote : luncheon.] [footnote : be so good.] [footnote : birthday child.] [footnote : impenetrable swamp.] [footnote : the sharp, dry, north-west wind which blows in the spring.] [footnote : retreat of wild-duck.] [footnote : blue tower.] [footnote : to-morrow comes another day.] {transcriber's note: all material added by the transcriber is surrounded by braces {}. the original has many inconsistent spellings in all the languages used. a few corrections have been made for obvious typographical errors; they have been noted individually. superscripts in the original are indicated by the ^ character. side notes are enclosed in brackets and preceded with sn, thus [sn: side note]. footnotes are numbered with the page on which they start.} journal of the swedish embassy in the years and . a journal of the swedish embassy in the years and . impartially written by the ambassador bulstrode whitelocke. first published from the original manuscript by dr. charles morton, m.d., f.s.a., librarian of the british museum. _a new edition_, revised by henry reeve, esq., f.s.a. in two volumes. volume ii. "a wicked messenger falleth into mischief, but a faithful ambassador is health." proverbs xiii. . london: longman, brown, green, and longmans. . printed by john edward taylor, little queen street, lincoln's inn fields. journal of the swedish embassy in the years and . march , . [sn: whitelocke continues the negotiation.] now was the heat of whitelocke's business, and many cross endeavours used to render all his labours fruitless, and to bring his treaty to no effect. but it pleased god, in whom his confidence was placed, to carry him through all his difficulties, and to give his blessing and success to this negotiation. whitelocke gave a visit to the count de montecuculi, to give him the welcome home from his journey with the queen; who said he had commands to kiss the hand of the prince of sweden, and took the opportunity of accompanying her majesty when she went to meet the prince. he communicated nothing of the business to whitelocke, nor did he think to inquire it of him. after whitelocke returned home, the resident of france and woolfeldt met at his house to visit him, and staid with him three hours. they had much discourse of france, and of the duke of lorraine, and of the policy of the spaniard in entertaining that duke in his service; by means whereof the country where the duke's soldiers were quartered was better satisfied than with the spanish forces, so that there was no tax levied for them, only they took free quarter, and sometimes a contribution upon the receiving of a new officer. and woolfeldt said, that whereas all other princes give wages to their officers and soldiers, the duke gives no pay; but when he makes an officer, the officer pays money to the duke for his commission; and that he knew a captain of horse who gave a thousand crowns for his commission, which the captain afterwards raised upon the country, and the duke connived at it. he told how he was employed to treat with the duke for the transportation of five thousand foot and three thousand horse into ireland, to assist our king; which the duke undertook on condition to have a hundred thousand crowns in ready money, and ships to transport his men from some haven in france, none of which could be effected. [sn: advances from france.] after woolfeldt went away, the french resident asked whitelocke whether france were comprised in the treaty with holland. whitelocke said he had no information thereof. the resident replied, that his master would willingly entertain a good friendship and correspondence with england; and whitelocke said, he believed england would be ready to do the like with france. the resident said, he observed by their discourse that whitelocke had been in france, and that the late king would have given him the command of a troop of horse in france; and he hoped that whitelocke would retain a good opinion of that country, and be their friend. whitelocke replied, that he was very civilly treated in france, and believed that he should have served the late king there, if, by a sudden accident or misfortune, he had not been prevented, and obliged to return for england sooner than he intended; and that he should be always ready (as he held himself engaged) to pay all respects and service to that crown, as far as might consist with the interest of the commonwealth whom he served. _march , ._ [sn: senator schütt explains the delay in the negotiation.] notwithstanding his great words against the commonwealth and present treaty, yet monsieur schütt was pleased to afford a visit to whitelocke, and they fell (amongst many other things) upon the following discourse:-- _schütt._ my father was formerly ambassador from this crown in england, where i was with him, which occasioned my desire to be known to you. _whitelocke._ your father did honour to this country and to ours in that employment, and your excellence honours me in this visit. _sch._ england is the noblest country and people that ever i saw: a more pleasant, fruitful, and healthful country, and a more gallant, stout, and rich people, are not in the world. _wh._ i perceive you have taken a true measure, both of the country and her inhabitants. _sch._ this is my judgement of it, as well as my affection to it. _wh._ your country here is indeed more northerly, but your people, especially the nobility, of a much-like honourable condition to ours; which may cause the more wonder at her majesty's intention of leaving them, who are so affectionate to her. _sch._ truly her majesty's purpose of resignation is strange to foreigners, and much more to us, who are her subjects, most affectionate to her. _wh._ it is reported that she hath consulted in this business with the senators, whereof you are one. _sch._ three senators are deputed to confer with the prince of sweden, upon certain particulars to be observed in the resignation; and i hope that your excellence will consider the importance of that affair, and will therefore attend with the more patience the issue thereof, being necessary that the advice of the prince be had in it. _wh._ have the three deputed senators any order to confer with the prince about my business? _sch._ i believe they have. _wh._ i had been here two months before the queen mentioned this design of hers to the council, and have staid here all this time with patience, and shall so continue as my lord protector shall command me; and as soon as he requires my return i shall obey him. _sch._ the occasion of the delay hitherto was the uncertainty of the issue of your dutch treaty; and at this season of the year it was impossible for you to return, till the passage be open. _wh._ i believe the alliance with england meriteth an acceptance, whether we have peace or war with holland; and for my return, it is at the pleasure of the protector. they had much other discourse; and probably schütt was sent purposely to excuse the delay of the treaty, for which he used many arguments not necessary to be repeated; and he came also to test whitelocke touching advice to be had with the prince about this treaty, whereunto whitelocke showed no averseness. [sn: treacherous reports to england.] whitelocke received his packet of two weeks from england. in a letter from his wife he was advertised that the protector had spoken of his voyage to sweden as if whitelocke had not merited much by it, though he so earnestly persuaded it; and his wife wrote that she believed one of whitelocke's family was false to him; and upon inquiry she suspected it to be ----, who gave intelligence to the protector of all whitelocke's words and actions in sweden, to his prejudice, and very unbeseeming one of his family. this whitelocke, comparing with some passages told him by his secretary of the same person, found there was cause enough to suspect him; yet to have one such among a hundred he thought no strange thing, nor for the protector to alter his phrase when his turn was served. and though this gave ground enough of discontent to whitelocke, yet he thought not fit to discover it, nor what other friends had written to him, doubting whether he should be honourably dealt with at his return home; but he was more troubled to hear of his wife's sickness, for whose health and his family's he made his supplication to the great physician; and that he might be as well pleased with a private retirement, if god saw it good for him, at his return home, as the queen seemed to be with her design of abdication from the heights and glories of a crown. part of the letters to whitelocke were in cipher, being directions to him touching the sound. he had full intelligence of all passages of the dutch treaty, and a copy of the articles, from thurloe; also the news of scotland, ireland, france, and the letters from the dutch resident here to his superiors in holland, copies whereof thurloe by money had procured. he wrote also of the protector's being feasted by the city, and a full and large relation of all passages of moment. the protector himself wrote also his letters to whitelocke under his own hand, which were thus:-- [sn: letter from the protector.] "_for the lord ambassador whitelocke._ "my lord, "i have a good while since received your letters sent by the ship that transported you to gothenburg, and three other despatches since. by that of the th of december, and that of the th instant, i have received a particular account of what passed at your first audience, and what other proceedings have been upon your negotiation; which, so far as they have been communicated to me, i do well approve of, as having been managed by you with care and prudence. "you will understand by mr. secretary thurloe in what condition the treaty with the united provinces is, in case it shall please god that a peace be made with them, which a little time will show; yet i see no reason to be diverted thereby from the former intentions of entering into an alliance with sweden, nor that there will be anything in the league intended with the low countries repugnant thereunto, especially in things wherein you are already instructed fully. and for the matter of your third and fourth private instructions, if the queen hath any mind thereto, upon your transmitting particulars hither such consideration will be had thereof as the then constitution of affairs will lead unto. in the meantime you may assure the queen of the constancy and reality of my intentions to settle a firm alliance with her. i commend you to the goodness of god. "your loving friend, "oliver p. "_whitehall, rd february, ._" _march , ._ [sn: the son of oxenstiern formerly sent to england.] grave john oxenstiern, eldest son of the chancellor, came to visit whitelocke; a ricks-senator, and had been ricks-schatz-master, or high treasurer, a place next in honour to that of his father. he had been formerly ambassador from this crown to england; but because he was sent by the chancellor his father, and the other directors of the affairs of sweden in the queen's minority, which king charles and his council took not to be from a sovereign prince; and because his business touching the prince elect's settlement, and the affairs of germany relating to sweden, did not please our king; therefore this gentleman was not treated here with that respect and solemnity as he challenged to be due to him as an ambassador; which bred a distaste in him and his father against the king and council here, as neglecting the father and the good offices which he tendered to king charles and this nation, by slighting the son and his quality. the discourse between this grave and whitelocke was not long, though upon several matters; and he seemed to be sent to excuse the delay of the treaty with whitelocke, for which he mentioned former reasons, as his father's want of health, multiplicity of business, the expected issue of the dutch treaty, and the like; and the same excuses were again repeated by lagerfeldt, who came to whitelocke from the chancellor for the same purpose. whitelocke had occasion to look into his new credentials and instructions from the protector, which were thus. [sn: whitelocke's new credentials and instructions.] "_oliver, lord protector, etc., to the most serene and potent prince christina, etc., health and prosperity._ "most serene and potent queen, "god, who is the great disposer of all things, having been pleased in his unsearchable wisdom to make a change in the government of these nations since the time that the noble b. whitelocke, constable, etc. went from hence, qualified and commissioned as ambassador extraordinary from the parliament of the commonwealth of england unto your majesty, to communicate with you in things tending to the mutual good and utility of both the nations, we have thought it necessary upon this occasion to assure your majesty that the present change of affairs here hath made no alteration of the good intentions on this side towards your majesty and your dominions; but that as we hold ourself obliged, in the exercise of that power which god and the people have entrusted us with, to endeavour by all just and honourable means to hold a good correspondence with our neighbours, so more particularly with the crown of sweden, between whom and these nations there hath always been a firm amity and strict alliance; and therefore we have given instructions to the said lord whitelocke, answerable to such good desires, earnestly requesting your majesty to give unto him favourable audience as often as he shall desire it, and full belief in what he shall propound on the behalf of these dominions. and so we heartily commend your majesty and your affairs to the divine protection. given at whitehall this rd of december, old style, . "your good friend, "oliver p." the following instructions were under the hand and private seal of the protector:-- _"an instruction for b. whitelocke, constable, etc., ambassador extraordinary from the commonwealth of england to the queen of sweden._ "whereas you were lately sent in the quality of ambassador extraordinary from the parliament of the commonwealth of england unto her majesty the queen of sweden, for the renewing and contracting an alliance and confederation with that queen and crown, according to the commission and instructions you received from the said parliament and the then council of state; and whereas, since your departure hence, the then parliament hath been dissolved, and the government is settled and established in such a way that you will understand by letters from mr. thurloe, secretary of the council, who is directed to give unto you a full account hereof: now lest the work you are upon (which is so necessary in itself to both the nations, and so sincerely desired on our part) should be interrupted or retarded by reason of the said change of affairs, and the question that may arise thereupon concerning the validity of your commission and instructions, i have thought fit, by advice of the council, to write unto her majesty new letters credential, a copy whereof you will receive herewith, which letters you are to present to the queen. and you are also, by virtue of these presents, to let her majesty know that the alteration of the government here hath made no change in the good intentions on this side towards her majesty and her dominions; but that she shall find the same readiness in me to maintain and increase all good intelligence and correspondence with that queen and crown as in any the former governors of these nations. and to that end you are hereby authorized to proceed in your present negotiation, and to endeavour to bring the treaty with her majesty to a good conclusion according to the tenour and effect of the commission, powers, and instructions you have already received, and which i shall by any further act ratify and confirm according as the nature of the business shall require. "before your lordship deliver these letters credential to the queen, or make any addresses to her, you are to inform yourself fully of the reception you are like to have, and whether her intentions be to come to a treaty of amity with this state as the government is now established, that no dishonour may befall us or these dominions in your addresses upon these letters and instructions. given at whitehall this rd of december, . "oliver p." whitelocke made many despatches this day to england. _march , ._ [sn: the queen talks of visiting the protector.] whitelocke waited on the queen and showed her part of the letters which he received from england, whereupon she again asked him if the protector were _sacré_? whitelocke said, no, and that his letters mentioned only a solemnity of entertaining the protector by the city of london. whitelocke also communicated to her majesty the protector's letter to him, and the expression that whitelocke should assure her majesty of the protector's constant and real intentions to settle a firm alliance with the queen; which, she said, she was also most ready to make with the protector. whitelocke then said it might be fit to make some progress in his treaty upon his articles, and particularly in those which concerned amity and commerce, and had no dependence on the issue of the treaty with holland, and therefore might be had in consideration before the other were fully concluded, and the rest of the articles might be considered afterwards; which the queen said should be done, and that she would send an ambassador to the protector. she was very inquisitive concerning london and our universities; by her discourse gave him to imagine she had thoughts of travelling into france, spain, italy, and into england; and asked whitelocke if he thought the protector would give way to her coming thither. whitelocke answered, that the protector would bid her majesty very welcome thither. he was alone with her near two hours, and at his taking leave she desired him to come to her again on monday next, and that then she would read over with him his articles, both in latin and english, which they would consider together; and such things as she could consent unto she would tell him, and what she could not consent unto he should then know from her, and they might mark it in the margin as they went along. yet she said she would have him to proceed in his conference with her chancellor as before, and that nobody should know of that conference between her and whitelocke; but she would so order the business that what they consented unto should be effected afterwards, and that in two hours they might go over all the articles. whitelocke told her majesty he presumed that she would admit of a free debate upon any of them. she said, by all means, that was reasonable; and in case the peace between england and holland did not take effect, that then the ambassador, whom she intended howsoever to send into england, might conclude upon such other articles as should be thought fit. whitelocke asked her if she had any thoughts of being included in the dutch treaty. she said, no, for she had not meddled with the war, and therefore desired not to be included in the peace with them. [sn: reports of the dutch resident adverse to whitelocke.] from the queen whitelocke went and visited piementelle, who showed him a letter he received from a great person in flanders, mentioning that beningen had written to his superiors that the english ambassador and the spanish resident were often together, and had showed great respect to each other, which his highness the archduke liked very well, and gave piementelle thanks for it; and though monsieur beningen did not like of their being so friendly, yet his superiors endeavoured all they could to have amity with england. when whitelocke told him of the english fleet at sea, he said it was great pity the same was not employed. he then showed whitelocke a letter from beningen to his superiors, wherein he taxed whitelocke with omitting the ceremony of meeting prince adolphus at his door. whitelocke repeated to piementelle the carriage of that business as before; and piementelle said, that neither the queen nor himself had ever heard the prince express any dislike of whitelocke's carriage; and that the queen, seeing beningen's letter, said there were many things in it concerning whitelocke which upon her knowledge were not true. it was also said in the letter that the english ambassador had many long audiences with her majesty, and conferences with the chancellor, but that he could not in the least learn what passed between them; with which whitelocke had no cause to be displeased. _march , ._ _the lord's day._--whitelocke had two good sermons in his house, at which divers english and scots, besides those of his family, were present. in the evening the queen passed through the streets in her coach, with divers other coaches and her servants waiting on her, to take the air, though upon this day; and in the night, many disorderly drunkards were committing debaucheries and insolences in the town, and at whitelocke's door. _march , ._ [sn: further excuses for delay.] whitelocke visited senator schütt, who spake in excuse of the delay of his business. whitelocke said-- _whitelocke._ i have already staid long in this place, and nothing is yet done in my business. _schütt._ your stay here hath been of more advantage to england than if they had sent , men into holland, who, by your stay here, will be brought on with the greater desire of making peace with you. _wh._ they know nothing of my negotiation. _sch._ that makes them the more jealous; the slowness of one person is the cause that hitherto you have received no satisfaction, and i doubt not but ere long you will have answers to your contentment. whilst whitelocke was with him the queen sent one of her gentlemen thither to him, to desire him to put off his visit of her majesty till the next day, by reason she had then extraordinary business; and the messenger being gone, schütt said,-- _schütt._ the queen is busy in despatching three senators to the prince, grave eric oxenstiern, monsieur fleming, and monsieur vanderlin, who are deputed for the business of the queen's resignation; and i, in a few days, shall be sent to the prince. _whitelocke._ i pray do me the favour to present my service to his royal highness, whom i am very desirous to salute as soon as i can gain an opportunity; and do hope that his resort to this place will be before i shall be necessitated to return, that i may give myself the honour to kiss his hand. [sn: whitelocke visits the chief justice of sweden.] whitelocke visited the ricks-droitset grave brahe, who is of the noble family of tycho brahe. he was president of the college of justice, and the first minister of state of the kingdom: the name of his office is as much as viceroy, and his jurisdiction is a sovereign court for the administration of justice, and he hath power both civil and military. the office is in effect the same with that ancient officer with us called the chief justice of england. the habit of this chief justice of sweden was a coat, and a furred cap of black, a sword and belt, and no cloak; two soldiers sentry at his chamber-door, which whitelocke had not observed elsewhere but at the court. they had much discourse of whitelocke's business, wherein he testified affections to the commonwealth of england, though whitelocke had been informed that he was not their friend; but he the rather chose to visit him first, and found him very civil: he spake latin very readily, and no french, although whitelocke was told he could speak it well. he inquired much of the commonwealth and affairs of england, and government of it, and seemed well pleased by whitelocke's relation of it. he informed whitelocke of the swedish government, and particularly of his own office. he discoursed much of the prince of sweden, which whitelocke judged the fitter for him to approve, because prince adolphus's lady was this grave's daughter. he told whitelocke that he had been governor of finland ten years together, which province he affirmed to be greater than france, and that the queen's dominions were larger than france, spain, italy, all together. whitelocke asked him if those countries were well peopled, and flourished with corn and good towns. he answered that finland was well peopled, and had store of corn, and good towns; but that it was not so with lapland and other countries further off. but he said that no part of sweden had such towns as were in england, where he had been when he was a young man, which country he much praised; and whitelocke had no cause to gainsay it. piementelle sent to whitelocke an atlas, in four great volumes, in acknowledgment of a vessel of spanish wine which whitelocke had before sent to him for a present. _march , ._ the governor of upsal, monsieur bannier, presented to whitelocke three latin books:-- . the story of sweden; . of the laws of sweden; . of sea affairs; which were not ordinarily to be had. [sn: whitelocke takes the air with the queen.] the queen sent one of her servants to invite whitelocke to take the air with her in the fields; and being come to the castle, she excused her not being yet ready to confer with him upon his articles, as she had promised, but told him that she had ordered something to be written down on that subject to show to him. she took him into her coach, where was the "belle comtesse," the countess gabriel oxenstiern, prince adolphus, piementelle, montecuculi, tott, and whitelocke. the queen was very merry, and they were full of cheerful discourse. being returned to the castle at night, she desired to hear whitelocke's music, whom he sent for to the castle; and they played and sang in her presence, wherewith she seemed much pleased, and desired whitelocke to thank them in her name. she said she never heard so good a concert of music, and of english songs; and desired whitelocke, at his return to england, to procure her some to play on those instruments which would be most agreeable to her. [sn: the chancellor falls ill.] lagerfeldt came to whitelocke in the court, and told him that the chancellor intended to have had a meeting with him this day, but was hindered by falling sick of an ague; but in case his health would not permit him to meet, that then his son eric oxenstiern, by the queen's appointment, would meet and confer with whitelocke about the treaty in place of his father. but whitelocke was not glad of this deputation, wishing much rather to confer with the old man upon this subject, who was good-natured, civil, and affectionate to whitelocke, than with the son, grave eric, who was of a more rugged and self-conceited humour, and not so soon gained by reason and convinced by arguments as the good old man his father used to be. _march , ._ [sn: the chancellor's son resumes the negotiation.] grave eric oxenstiern visited whitelocke, and spake much to excuse the delay of his treaty; and said that his father was very sick of an ague, and he believed the queen would depute some other to confer with him, in case his father's health would not permit him that liberty. _whitelocke._ i am very sorry for the indisposition of your{ } father, and for the delay of my business. i have been here about three months, and nothing is yet concluded. _gr. eric._ the uncertainty of your dutch affair, and the queen's desire to know the issue of it, hath occasioned this delay. _wh._ as the points of amity and commerce, they concern not our dutch treaty. _gr. eric._ you will be sure to receive all satisfaction and contentment on that subject; but there are many particulars of the commerce to be considered. _wh._ i cannot say much upon those particulars; but i was sent hither by my lord protector to testify his respect to the queen and kingdom of sweden, and to offer to them the amity of england, which i suppose that wise and experienced persons as you are will accept of; and for commerce my proposals are general. _gr. eric._ i confess the particulars thereof may more conveniently be treated on by merchants; and we do not so much desire a confederation with any nation as with england. it was supposed by whitelocke, that by the deferring of his business here, the hollanders would be in the more suspense and doubt of the issue of it, and might thereby come on the more freely in their treaty with england; whereas, if the issue of his business here were known, it might perhaps seem less to them than it was now suspected to be. upon this ground, though he spake of the delay, yet he did not so much press for a positive answer, but that he imagined the dutch treaty might be brought to an issue; he intended to put on his business here, and the default hitherto rested on their part, as was acknowledged by their own excuses. [sn: discourse with the chief justice.] whilst eric was with whitelocke, the chief justice came in. and after grave eric was gone the chief justice discoursed much concerning the protector and his family, his extraction and pedigree, his former quality and condition, and his present state and manner of living: to which whitelocke answered truly, and with honour to the protector; and as to his present post, attendants, and ceremonies of his court, he could not give so punctual an account, it being altered since his coming from england. he also inquired particularly concerning the parliament, the forms of their summons, sitting, debating, voting, power, and authority; in all which whitelocke was the better able to satisfy him, having been a member of parliament for almost thirty years together: and then the chief justice inquired further:-- _chief justice._ what opinions of calvin are most in estimation in england? and what is the state of your religion there? _whitelocke._ neither calvin's opinion nor luther's are esteemed in england further than they are agreeable to the holy scriptures of the old and new testaments, which are the rules and contain the state of religion professed in england. but by what state of religion is the profanation of the lord's day, and of images and crucifixes in churches, permitted? _ch. just._ no recreations or works are permitted on sundays till after divine service ended, and then calvin permits them; and luther is of opinion for the historical use of images and crucifixes, but not to pray to them. _wh._ herein both the opinion of calvin and that of luther are expressly contrary to the holy scripture, and therefore not esteemed in these points in england. the chief justice eagerly asserted these opinions not to be contrary to the scripture, but alleged no proof, either from thence or out of human authors, to make good his assertion. after much argumentation hereupon, the chief justice offered to whitelocke that he would move the queen for a speedy despatch of his business; and said, he did not doubt but that satisfaction would be given him therein. whitelocke was the more desirous to get a conclusion of his business while piementelle was here, because of his great favour with the queen; which, with her respects to montecuculi, both great papists, caused whitelocke to have the more doubt of her inclinations. prince adolphus made a great entertainment for montecuculi, piementelle, and most of the grandees in town; but whitelocke was omitted, his humour and principles as to their jollities and drinking of healths not being agreeable to theirs; and he held this neglect no affliction to him. _march , ._ whitelocke visited the ricks-admiral oxenstiern, the chancellor's brother, who received him with great civility; and they discoursed very much of whitelocke's business to the effect as others did. [sn: whitelocke visits the chancellor's eldest son.] he also visited grave john oxenstiern, the chancellor's eldest son, whose carriage was elated. two of his pages were sons of earls, and had the title of earls; his servants were some of them set at his outer door to receive whitelocke; himself vouchsafed to meet him at the inner door, and, with supercilious reservedness of state, descended to say to whitelocke that he was welcome. they discoursed of england, where this grave had been, as is before remembered, and the distaste he there received, which possibly might cause his greater neglect of whitelocke, who took little notice of it. he took upon him to be fully instructed in the affairs of england, and of the laws and government there; wherein whitelocke presumed to rectify some of his mistakes. when he offered to move the queen for despatch of whitelocke's business, he answered, that he had done it himself already, and there would be no need to trouble any other. this occasioned some discourse about the treaty, to which, with great gravity, this general declared his judgement concerning contraband goods, that great care was to be taken therein, not to give any interruption to trade. whitelocke said, that concerned england much more than sweden. then he took care that the english rebels and traitors might have favour in his country; but whitelocke, knowing that he was neither employed nor versed in the business of his treaty, spent the fewer words in answer to his immaterial objections. [sn: whitelocke confers with the queen on the articles.] in the afternoon, whitelocke attended the queen, who excused her not having conferred with him about his treaty. whitelocke told her, that, if it were now seasonable, he had them ready, and they might read them over together; whereunto she consented, and he read them to her. she took out a paper of notes, written with her own hand in latin, her observations upon the articles. . after whitelocke had read the first article, she said there was nothing therein which needed explanation. . the second, she said, would require consideration, and read out of her notes the words "communis interesse," which she desired whitelocke to explain what was meant by them. he told her those words included matter of safety and matter of traffic. she then demanded why the baltic sea was named as to free navigation, and not other seas likewise. whitelocke said the reason was, because at present navigation was not free in the baltic sea; but if she pleased to have other seas also named, he would consent to it. she asked if he would consent to freedom of navigation in america. whitelocke told her he could not, and that the treaties of the commonwealth were comprehended within the bounds of europe. she asked him what he thought the protector would do in case she demanded that liberty. he said, his highness would give such an answer as should consist with the interest of england, and show a due regard to her majesty. . this third article she said she would agree unto, but she thought it necessary that a form should be agreed upon for certificates and letters of safe-conduct, that ships might pass free upon showing of them. whitelocke said, he thought there would be no need of them, especially if the peace with the dutch were concluded. she replied, that if the war continued it would be necessary. . she said she thought there would be no need of this article, and read another which she herself had drawn in latin to this effect--"that if any hereafter should commit treason, or be rebels in one country, they should not be harboured in the other." whitelocke said, the article was already to that purpose, and he thought it necessary for the good of both nations. she said, it would be too sharp against divers officers who had served her father and herself, and were now settled in sweden. whitelocke offered that amendment which he before tendered to the chancellor, which when she read, she told whitelocke, that might include all those men whom she mentioned before. whitelocke said, that, upon inquiry into it, he found not one excepted by name from pardon. she said, for anything to be done hereafter, it was reasonable, and she would consent to it. whitelocke said, that if any hereafter should come into her country, who were excepted from pardon, it was also reasonable to include them in this article. . she said that this and the second article would require further consideration; because if she should consent thereunto, it would declare her breach of the neutrality which she had hitherto kept. whitelocke told her, if the peace were concluded with the dutch, that neutrality would be gone; and if the war continued, he presumed she would not stick to declare otherwise then that neutrality. she said that was true, but she desired that this and the second article might be let alone until the issue of the dutch treaty. . the sixth article, she said, was reasonable. . she took exception to the words "bona à suis cujusque inimicis direpta," which, she said, was a breach of her neutrality. to that whitelocke answered as before upon the fifth article; and she desired it might be passed over as the second and fifth articles, till the issue of the dutch treaty were known. she said she would desire the liberty of fishing for herrings. whitelocke told her that upon equal conditions he presumed his highness would consent to that which should be fit. she asked what conditions he would demand. whitelocke said, those matters of commerce would be better agreed upon with the advice of merchants. . the eighth article she said was equal. . there was no difference upon it. . she judged fit to be agreed upon. . she made some short observations, which by explanation whitelocke cleared, and she agreed. . the like as upon the eleventh article. . to this article she read in latin an objection to the proviso, and said it was reasonable that, if they did break bulk, they should pay custom for so much only as they sold. whitelocke told her that objection showed that there were great men merchants in sweden, and that the objection was more in favour of the merchants than of herself. she said the merchants were crafty indeed; and she did not much insist upon it. . the last article which whitelocke had given in. to this she said it was fit that the men-of-war that should come into the other ports should be to a number ascertained, to avoid suspicion. whitelocke said he would agree thereunto, with a caution, as in the first article, to be added: if they should be driven by tempest, force, or necessity, then to be dispensed with. whitelocke desired her majesty to give him a copy of her objections. she told him, they were only a few things which she had written with her own hand, upon her apprehension of the articles, and that he should have them in writing; but she desired him not to acquaint any person here with this conference. _march , ._ [sn: whitelocke's despatches to england.] upon yesterday's conference with the queen, whitelocke wrote the passages thereof at large to thurloe, to be communicated to the council in england, and to pray their direction in some points which are set down thus in his letters:-- "i shall desire to know the pleasure of my lord protector and council, whether, in case i shall conclude those articles of amity and commerce, omitting the second, fifth, and seventh articles, if his highness will be pleased to approve thereof. i confess my humble opinion is (unless i receive commands to the contrary) that in case the peace be concluded between us and holland, and denmark included, it will be no disadvantage to us to conclude the alliance here, omitting the second, fifth, and that part of the seventh article against which her majesty objected, if she shall insist upon it. "another point wherein i pray direction is upon the sixteenth article of your treaty with the dutch, that either commonwealth shall be comprehended, if they desire it, in treaties with other princes, and notice to be given of such treaties; whether in case your treaty with the dutch shall be agreed, that then notice ought to be given to them of the treaty with the queen of sweden, and the dutch to be offered to be comprehended therein; or whether, the treaty here being begun before that with the dutch concluded, there will be any cause to give such notice to them, or to give notice to the queen of your treaty with the dutch; which you will be pleased to consider. "i am very willing to hasten homewards when i may obtain my lord's order; and that it will be no prejudice here to your service, as i conceive such a conclusion would not at all be. "i presume you have heard of the news at antwerp, which is very fresh here this week, that the archduke hath imprisoned the duke of lorraine in the castle of antwerp, which caused the gates of the town to be shut; and that hath occasioned to your friends here the loss of the comfort of this week's letters from england, the post being stayed there, as i was certified from your resident at hamburg." many despatches were made by whitelocke to his friends in england, as his constant course was. _march , ._ [sn: admiral oxenstiern visits whitelocke.] the ricks-admiral visited whitelocke. he discoursed of the treaty here, and said that the queen had not yet informed the council of it in particular. he much inquired of the nobility of england, of the earls and barons, and of their privileges, and what rank their children had, and of the several orders of knights, and of their original; in which matters whitelocke was able to give him some satisfaction. he told whitelocke that the duke of lorraine was imprisoned for conspiring with the count de bassigni to betray three strong towns to the king of france. [sn: interview with prince adolphus.] whitelocke visited prince adolphus, who also discoursed of his business, as others did. whitelocke told him of his long being here without any answer. the prince said, the queen's designs to introduce a mutation might cause it. whitelocke said he believed that the amity of england deserved so much regard as to be embraced; and that it would be all one whether the treaty should be agreed upon by the queen or by her successor, for it concerned the people and state of both nations; and he presumed that if the queen should consent to it, that his highness's brother would have the like good opinion of it. the prince said it would be most agreeable to his brother, who very much respected the english nation, as generally the swedish people did. he said that he never was present at the council, nor did meddle with any public business; but he doubted not but that whitelocke would receive contentment. whitelocke said he promised himself so much, being the protector had sent him hither to testify his respects to the queen and to the kingdom of sweden, and to offer them the amity of england. the prince also discoursed of the late king of england, and of the proceedings between him and the parliament, with great dislike thereof; to which whitelocke gave him an account, and a modest answer declining that argument with the prince, and telling him that every nation had their particular rights and laws, according to which they were governed. he testified great respect to whitelocke; and when he took his leave the prince conducted him as far as the great court, which he used not to do to others of whitelocke's quality. _march , ._ [sn: the treaty delayed by reason of the queen's abdication.] mr. bloome--who had been formerly a servant to the old duke of buckingham in england, and after that coming to sweden, was entertained by the chancellor, and his great creature, and had been employed by him as a public minister--did the honour to whitelocke to be often with him, and now, after dinner, discoursed much of the revolution which was likely to happen in this country by the queen's resignation; upon which subject whitelocke thought not fit to speak much in company. afterwards in private whitelocke asked mr. bloome if he had heard the chancellor speak of deferring his business till the prince were crowned. bloome confessed he heard the chancellor say that he thought it would be more convenient to have whitelocke's business resolved after the king should be crowned than at present. whitelocke told him (which he supposed bloome would again relate to the chancellor) that all acts of such nature concluded by the queen before her resignation would be held authentic by her successor. bloome said he believed so, but, being the change would be so soon, he thought it might be better to have the business put into the hands of the new king. whitelocke said it would require a long time to expect the new king's settlement, before which he believed his return home might be commanded. bloome said the business would be soon done after the meeting of the ricksdag, which did not use to sit long. by this and other discourses whitelocke found that there was a purpose in some to defer the conclusion of his treaty to the king, which he therefore prepared to prevent. la belle comtesse made a great entertainment and ball for montecuculi and the rest of the gallants this night, though it were the lord's day; but whitelocke nor none of his company were present at it. _march , ._ [sn: whitelocke confers with count eric oxenstiern on the articles.] grave eric came to whitelocke to confer about his treaty, and said to him. _grave eric._ the queen hath commanded me to come to you and to have some conference with you about your proposals, wherein she is pleased to make use of my service, because at this time my father is very ill of an ague, and is not able himself to meet with you; and his former indisposition of health and extraordinary affairs hath been some occasion of hindrance of the despatch of your business, as have also the uncertainty of the issue of your treaty with holland, and our great business of the queen's intentions here. _whitelocke._ i have long expected some answer to be given in my business, the greatest part whereof hath no dependence upon the treaty with holland, and the queen's intentions here have been but lately made known. i have been three months in this place without any answer to my business, although i presume that the amity of england is grateful to this nation, and may merit the acceptance. _gr. eric._ so is the friendship of sweden. _wh._ my lord protector hath testified that by sending me hither. _gr. eric._ the queen hath likewise sent several public ministers to england, and mr. lagerfeldt was a long time there without effecting anything. _wh._ he had answers to his proposals very often, and it was on his part that a conclusion was not had with him. but if you please to proceed to a conference upon my proposals, i am ready to treat with you, as i have always been to treat with my lord chancellor, your father, for whose ill-health i am heartily sorry. _gr. eric._ i am ready in the same way of secresy as it hath been carried with my father, so that mr. beningen in his letters to his superiors saith that the english ambassador did treat with none but the queen alone, and sometimes alone with the chancellor, whereby he could not possibly give any account of those transactions; for he thought that not one person in sweden, except the queen and the chancellor, knew what they were. _wh._ the gentleman hath done me an honour in that expression. _gr. eric._ my coming to your excellence is to proceed in your business; and i desire a consideration may be had of the great losses which the queen's subjects have sustained by the seizing and detaining of their ships by the english. _wh._ this is a new objection, and i am neither empowered nor have ability to cast up such accounts or to take such examinations; but there is a court of justice in england, which i presume has done, and will do, right to any who have cause to complain; and i know that my lord protector will command that justice shall be done to all the queen's subjects; and if any of them have received any injury, they ought to receive a just satisfaction from the parties that did them wrong; and, if you please, i shall mention these things in my letters to england, and when i come thither myself i will personally endeavour that the same may be had fully. _gr. eric._ i hope a just satisfaction will be given herein, without which there can be no solid foundation of amity between the two nations and their people. _wh._ the same is reasonably and mutually to be expected; and i make no question but my lord protector will order right to be done therein. _gr. eric._ the queen's subjects have received great losses under colour of contraband goods, when the same hath not been proved. _wh._ and many of our allies have been found to colour our enemies' goods to the damage of england; but these matters will be proper for an examination elsewhere. they proceeded to the particular articles. . this, eric said, was equal. . he made the same objections as the queen had done, and whitelocke gave the same answers; and eric said that this article depended upon our treaty with the dutch. . eric desired an explanation of the words "omnibus in locis quibus hactenus commercium exercebatur,"--whether that were not intended to include the english plantations in america, because traffic thither, without special license, was prohibited by our commonwealth; and he said it would be unequal for the english to have the full traffic in the queen's dominions, and her subjects not to have the like in our commonwealth. whitelocke answered, that the english desired no traffic in any of the queen's dominions out of europe, and therefore it was equal not to consent to their traffic in america; and that the opinion of the council of state in england had been made known to mr. lagerfeldt in england, in this point; which paper whitelocke then showed, and the grave urged many other arguments, but whitelocke kept himself to the paper of the council. eric said, those transactions of lagerfeldt were remitted to whitelocke's embassy. whitelocke said, that whatever his instructions might warrant, yet it would not become him to do anything contrary to that wherein the council of state had declared their judgement. the same answer whitelocke gave him concerning the herring-fishing, which eric much insisted upon; and as to the pre-emption of the commodities of sweden, mentioned in the council's paper, which whitelocke showed him, eric said that could not be, because those commodities were of very great value, and belonged to several private persons; and he demanded of whitelocke if he thought england would be contented to give a pre-emption of all their cloth. whitelocke said, the cloth of england was likewise of very great value, and there would hardly be found one stock to buy it all, and there were several staples in other countries to vent it at; and he said he thought the best way would be, first to agree upon the general amity and commerce between the two nations, and afterwards, if sweden held it fit, when they sent an ambassador to england, or otherwise, to propound anything concerning the fishing for herrings or the traffic in america, or touching a staple at narva, revel, or gothenburg (which eric likewise discoursed of at large), that the protector would give a fair and just answer. . eric made the same objections that the queen had done, and had the same answers. . the like discourse was upon this article. . the sixth, eric said, was the same in effect with the fourth article, and might be adjoined to it. whitelocke showed him the difference, chiefly in the beginning of this article; and so they passed on. . they had many arguments touching contraband goods, wherein whitelocke held himself to the paper given by the council to lagerfeldt; and eric passed it over, as depending upon the success of the treaty with holland, especially in the words "bona à suis cujusque inimicis direpta." . this, eric thought, would need explanation of the words "in quolibet suorum marium." whitelocke told him that was intended in europe only. . eric said the words "armatis vel inermibus" were not necessary, because by the law of sweden any might carry their arms with them. whitelocke told him that it was not permitted in england for so many together without license. . eric made no objection to this article. . nor any to this article. . nor was anything objected to this article. . eric said the proviso needed explanation as to the point of breaking bulk, as the queen had objected; and whitelocke gave the same answer. . the like objections and answers as before, and consent to the like amendment. eric and much other good company dined with whitelocke, and after dinner they had further discourse on the same subject. and eric promised to give his objections to whitelocke in writing, and to let him know the queen's pleasure upon their conference; which whitelocke intended to know also from the queen herself. the company being gone, whitelocke visited piementelle, who discoursed much touching the duke of lorraine, and of the insolencies of his soldiers, for which the duke would give no right; but if a poor countryman complained to him, that his wife had been ravished by his soldiers, and his goods taken away, the duke would laugh at the poor man, and say to him, "it is my condition: the king of france hath ravished my wife and my estate, and i have got another wife, and maintain myself with the goods of others; and i advise thee to do the same as i have done." piementelle informed whitelocke of a carriage of beningen of much more incivility towards the queen than that which he attributed to whitelocke towards prince adolphus; and whitelocke imparted to piementelle some passages between grave eric and whitelocke, supposing he would tell it to the queen. _march , ._ [sn: interview with general wrangel.] four of the queen's servants did whitelocke the honour to dine with him; and after they were gone, whitelocke visited the field-marshal wrangel, a gentleman of an ancient noble family in this country, son to general wrangel, of whom so often and so honourable mention is made in the german wars under gustavus adolphus, the queen's father. this field-marshal was about thirty-five years of age; his person proper and burly, his countenance martial and ingenuous, and his discourse answerable; his behaviour courteous, and full of cheerfulness in his words and actions. his education was liberal; some time he had spent in foreign parts, and had attained languages and the military part of learning. he was full of knowledge of the mathematics, and well read in story. his genius led him most to warfare, and the sea affairs seemed most suitable to his affections; whereof he would much discourse with whitelocke, and admired his relations of the english fleets and havens. his valour and conduct had commonly the best associate, good success, which he used to improve, not parting with the least advantage. this brought him to the favour of his queen and honour of his country, wherein he was a ricks-senator, and as a field-marshal commanded the army, and was ricks-vice-admiral, which charge he attained in the late war with denmark; and he it was that took the king of denmark's ships in the late fight with them. whitelocke gave him thanks for his favours to whitelocke's son at stockholm; they discoursed of the english navy, whereof wrangel knew many of the ships by name. he told whitelocke that middleton was arrived in scotland with two hundred officers and six thousand arms, which he brought from the low countries. from wrangel whitelocke went to visit woolfeldt, to congratulate his recovery of health. he told whitelocke that, by letters which he received from one of his servants in the low countries, he was advertised that the states had sold above twenty of their ships of war, and that his servant heard the admiral de witt speak of it. he also told whitelocke that he had spoken with many officers of the army, and found all of them wish that the war between england and holland might continue; by which they hoped they should join with the english, and gain advantage by it, and themselves good employment and plunder. but he said that the chancellor and his sons, and their party, desired that a peace might be between the two commonwealths, because they were rich enough, and had an interest in trade, and were no soldiers; and that the queen desired peace among all her neighbours, and although she was very courageous, yet she loved not the wars. _march , ._ [sn: further conference with the queen.] whitelocke waited on the queen, and gave her an account of the conference between grave eric and him. the queen said that grave eric had told her the same things. whitelocke replied, that her majesty should never find other than truth from him. upon the point of damages she seemed satisfied, though she were informed that those matters were remitted to whitelocke's negotiation. to which he answered as he had done before to eric; and she was contented, and said she would send an ambassador to england, by whom the affairs touching the herring-fishing and the erection of a staple and the trade in america might be concluded; and she told whitelocke that she had ordered those things which she judged fit to be added to his articles, to be written down and given to him. she asked whitelocke by what way he purposed to return to england. he said he was doubtful of going by land, and thought the passage from stockholm to lübeck would be the shortest and most convenient for him. she replied, that would be his best way, and that she would give order for some of her ships to be ready to transport him; for which whitelocke thanked her majesty. she discoursed much of england, and asked many questions about the thames and other rivers of england, and of their havens and armies; whereof whitelocke gave her a full account. she asked him in how many days one might go from plymouth to st. sebastian, and many other things on that subject. they also discoursed of religion and the worship and service of god; wherein whitelocke spake plainly and freely to her majesty, and told her that those who made a mock at religion, and were atheists in their opinion, were not only most miserable in their own condition, but brought others likewise into misery; and all of them would find that god would not be mocked, nor such conversation be excused, but would be brought into a sad account in the end; and that there was no foundation in any such people, or in their opinions, but what was sandy and would fail, and all building thereupon would totter and fall down and become rubbish; that the only solid comfort and true wisdom lay in the sincere worship and service of god, which was not only agreeable to the doctrine of truth, but to reason itself. to this, and much of the like discourse, the queen was very attentive, and seemed pleased with it. _march , ._ [sn: despatches from england.] whitelocke received his letters from england, and in those from thurloe he writes thus:-- "the particular account your excellence gives of your negotiation is very acceptable here, as is also your dexterous management thereof. the paper you were pleased to send to me shall be represented to the council; and your excellence may be assured that a due care will be taken of that business, as well for justice' sake as that your present business be not hindered by things of this kind. the bales of the queen's goods shall also be taken care of, and any omissions which have been therein rectified; and i do assure your excellence that the queen's commissary here hath such speedy and effectual despatches in everything he makes application for, that i know he cannot but give notice of it to the queen." then he gives in his letters a full relation of the state of the dutch treaty, and all particulars of it, and the likelihood of its taking effect; and gives intelligence of the french news; and sends copies of beningen's letters from upsal to the states, and of the posture of affairs in england, scotland, and ireland: and concludes,-- "therefore, with my humble thanks for your excellence's favour to me of your weekly letters, and hearty wishes for your safe and honourable return to your friends and relations here, i rest, "your excellence's most humble and faithful servant, "jo. thurloe. "_february , ._" whitelocke received many letters from his private friends, his brothers-in-law, mr. hall, mr. cokaine, mr. eltonhead, sir charles woolsey, colonel sydenham, and one from mr. selden, which for the extraordinary respect thereof, and the person's sake (of whom the queen made often inquiry), is fit to be remembered, and was thus:-- [sn: letter from selden.] "_to his excellence the lord whitelocke, lord ambassador to her most excellent majesty of sweden._ "may it please your excellence, "there is nothing happens here that can be worthy of your knowledge but you meet with it doubtless long before i could send it,--indeed, i think, long before i know it,--so that i cannot present you with any english news: my still keeping in from the open cold air makes me a mere winter stranger in my own country. the best news i have heard since i had the honour to see you, and that which brought me with it an ample store of gladness, was the assurance of your excellence's safety, which a false rumour with great confidence had utterly destroyed here. there is none living can with more hearty affection wish all happiness to you, and good success in your great employment there, and a safe and timely return, than doth most really, "your excellence's most obliged "and most humble servant, "j. selden. "_whitefriars, february , ._" the occasion of that passage in his letter of a false rumour was news brought into england that whitelocke was stabbed and murdered in sweden; and thus his death was with much confidence reported from several hands, and from divers intelligences out of several parts of christendom. whitelocke's friends were much startled at this news, and the more because of former intelligences of designs of that nature against him, whereof they wrote him word; and he was glad to read the news, and that, through the goodness of god, he was able to confute those reports. they were kept from whitelocke's wife by the care of his friends, till one in gladness came to give her joy that the ill news of her husband was not true; which brought the whole matter to her knowledge, and herself to great perplexity upon the sudden apprehension and fright of it, though there was no truth in it. whitelocke, that he might not seem wholly to neglect the queen's favour, had sent a packet of his letters which had no secrets unto monsieur bonele, the queen's commissary in england, who wrote back an account to whitelocke of his care of them, and of the command he had received from the queen so to do, and prayed whitelocke to speak to the queen on bonele's behalf. _march , ._ [sn: prince adolphus visits whitelocke.] prince adolphus visited whitelocke, and they discoursed much of england and of whitelocke's business; whom the prince persuaded to stay in patience for an answer, and he doubted not but that he would receive satisfaction. whitelocke said that hitherto he had been very patient, and would continue so, and not importune anybody to speed his answer, being it concerned both nations; and he believed that sweden would be as well disposed to entertain the amity of england as england had been in the offer of it. but whitelocke thought fit to inform the prince and some others that he thought his residence here would not be long, and that as soon as my lord protector should send his letter for his return to england (which he expected in a short time), he would presently take his journey. they discoursed also touching his brother, who was to succeed, and of the brotherly affection between them; as also of the proposal which had been heretofore made in the ricksdag of the queen to marry his royal highness, and the council's advice and endeavours to further the same; and how it was not brought to pass, the queen being wholly adverse to marriage, but causing the succession of the prince palatine to be enacted by the ricksdag after her majesty, if she had no children. and in these particulars the prince was free in his discourse, but whitelocke thought not fit for him to be so. [sn: letter of jonathan pickes.] whitelocke communicated to some of his company a letter which he received from a member of a congregation in london, which was thus:-- "_for his excellence the lord ambassador whitelocke at sweden._ "my lord, "the wise and holy carriage of solomon before the queen of sheba are more lasting monuments of his praise than his targets of gold, or magnificent temple. the glory of saints is a glorious name, by which, though dead, yet they speak. god will not be ungrateful, nor unfaithful to forget or not to recompense any labour of love. the interest of christ,--what greater jewel in the world! and yet how little liked and loved by the world! all seek their own, not the things of jesus christ. the best, the noblest, the most lasting, yet not minded: our own things, poor, low, uncertain, unsatisfactory, yet pursued. the heart runneth after the wedge of gold, and the mind seeks for greatness. give me honour, or else i die: a crown here is more desired than heaven hereafter. divine love hath great danger accompanying it, but the recompense is answerable: 'be thou faithful unto death, and i will give thee a crown of life.' learned paul counts all things but dung and dross to holy christ; and moses esteemed reproaches for christ, and afflictions with the people of christ, greater riches than the treasures of egypt or the honours at court. and now, sir, will you have the meaning of all? it is only a christian motive to you to eye the highest lord and the best interest with the greatest industry; that his honour, which is best of all, be dearer to you than all country honour: life, world, are not to be named in the day of his glory. oh mind him who will not forget you in the least! there's none in heaven like him: can there be anything on earth compared to him? two things are chiefly to be minded in all actings,--the springs from whence, and the centre to which, all moves. if love to god be the spring of all, and glory for god the centre of all, then the heart is upright in all. remember the blessed sound, 'well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful in a little, but thou shalt be enjoyer of much; enter into thy lord's joy.' and truly, sir, you have been not a little in my thoughts to god for you; so hath it emboldened me thus to speak to god for you. my soul and many more have been set a-praising god on your behalf, for that noble christian testimony and dislike of that wicked custom of cup-health pledging; whereas a christian's health is god, and his cup salvation. and blessed be the lord, that did give you to dislike the ball of pleasure, and that the lord of that day was so precious. go on nobly for the lord; give your testimony against the wicked customs of a strange country or dying world; bear his image in all your transactions, and follow his steps who was the most glorious ambassador that ever was; and in this motion the lord fill your sails with his gales, make you holily successful, and give you to see your land and relations full of heavenly fruition, is the humble and hearty desire of one of the least sons of zion, ready to serve the lord in you or yours. "jonathan pickes." _march , ._ doctor whistler made a copy of latin verses upon the queen's abdication, which, for the ingenuity and fancy, were worthy the sight of a prince; and whitelocke sent them to the queen, who was much taken with them. whitelocke was so pleased with those verses that, having a little leisure, himself turned them into english.[ ] whitelocke having sent to know if the queen were at leisure that he might wait upon her, she returned an excuse that she was not well: she came away sick from the public schools, where she had been to grace the disputations of a young swedish baron with her presence. [sn: effect of the peace with holland.] senator bundt visited whitelocke, and discoursed with him in english, which he spake indifferently well, and was the only swede he conversed with in that language. part of their discourse was to this effect:-- _bundt._ mr. beningen, the holland resident in this court, acquainted me that his superiors have concluded the agreement with england: only some provinces desire a more express inclusion of the king of denmark than is yet contained in the articles; and they are much troubled that, being upon the conclusion of the treaty, you make so great preparations of war, and have so powerful a fleet at sea; and we here do much wonder what should be your design to have so strong a fleet, and so soon out at sea. _wh._ the design is for the defence of the commonwealth; and it is our custom not to trust to the success of any treaties, which is uncertain, but to prepare for all events. if the treaty be agreed, it will be religiously observed on our part, and the navy will be employed to scour the seas of pirates and enemies, that trade may be free and safe; and we always use in time of peace to have a fleet at sea; and if the war continue, we shall be the more ready, by the blessing of god, to maintain our right. but what suspicion have you here of our navy? _bundt._ we suppose it may be employed to open the passage of the sound, and make the trade and navigation there free. _wh._ the hindrance of navigation there is more prejudicial{ } to sweden than to england. we can have our commodities at gothenburg and in other places, without passing the baltic sea. _bundt._ many amongst us know not what to think of your fleet, and it troubles some. _wh._ i hope we shall be in nearer amity, and then you will be pleased at it. have the senators consulted about the matters of my treaty, or of remitting it to the new king? _bundt._ we have not advised any such thing, but believe the best way for effecting your business will be by the queen herself; and if any tell you the contrary, they are much mistaken in the affairs of this kingdom, and do not give you a right understanding of them. this being wholly contrary to what was informed by monsieur bloome, the chancellor's creature, caused whitelocke the more to mind it, and endeavour to obviate that prejudice of delay to his business; and finding by this discourse with bundt how much the dutch resident and others here were amused at the english fleet now at sea, he made use thereof, and gave advice of it to his superiors in england. _march , ._ [sn: intrigues of the dutch resident against whitelocke.] whitelocke sent to inquire of the queen's health; and it being the lord's day, she was in her chapel. divers english and scots of the town came to whitelocke's house to hear sermons there; and among them was monsieur ravius, who acquainted whitelocke that one of the queen's chaplains asked ravius how long whitelocke intended to stay in sweden. ravius said he would shortly return to his own country. the chaplain replied, he did not believe that, but he thought whitelocke would stay here a long time, and that he durst not return to england because of the displeasure of the protector against him. and when he was answered that whitelocke came hither not in the posture of a man out of favour, and that the protector since his accession to the government had sent him new credentials, and expressed much favour to him, and sent to be certified what respect the queen gave him, the chaplain replied that whitelocke was sent hither purposely to be removed out of england, and because he had been of the former parliament; to which ravius said, that many who were of the former parliament were now in public offices, as whitelocke was. there was cause to believe that this and many the like stories were feigned by the holland resident and other enemies of the commonwealth, to asperse whitelocke and his business, and to give some obstruction to it; but whitelocke took little notice of such things, only he thanked monsieur ravius for his defence of whitelocke and of the truth. it was also related to whitelocke that the inauguration of his royal highness could not probably be performed till the feast of st. john the baptist, and that then nothing could be concluded in his business till the feast (as they expressed it) of the holy archangel st. michael next following, because it was fit to be remitted to the prince for his final agreement thereunto; and so the treaty must necessarily receive a deferring till that time, which, they said, would be best for whitelocke's affairs. whitelocke told them that it would be somewhat difficult to persuade him that such a delay of his business would be best; he was sufficiently convinced of the contrary, and that such an obstruction would render his treaty wholly fruitless both to england and sweden, and that he hoped to be himself in england long before the time which they prefixed for the beginning of his treaty with the new king; and that he daily expected the commands of the protector touching his return home, which he should readily and willingly obey, whether his treaty here should be concluded or not. he spake the more to this effect, and the oftener, that the same might come to the ear of the chancellor and other senators. _march , ._ [sn: peace signed between england and the united provinces.] whitelocke visited piementelle, who communicated to him the news of the duke of lorraine, and that the united provinces of the netherlands had ratified the articles with england. whitelocke asked if groningen had consented. he said yes, but with this restriction, that the prince of orange should be comprised in the treaty, which might yet cause some obstruction in it. whitelocke imparted to him some of his news, and imparted such passages of his conferences and business as he desired might by him be related to the queen. [sn: senator schütt affects to be favourable to the treaty.] senator schütt visited whitelocke, and staid with him above two hours. they discoursed of many things unnecessary to be remembered; some was thus:-- _schütt._ i am sorry that the business of your treaty goes on so slowly; but i hope you will excuse it, in regard the chancellor is not quick in despatches, and affects long deliberations in great matters. _whitelocke._ that is an argument of his prudence and well weighing of things before he come to a resolution; and certainly he hath had sufficient time of deliberation in my business. _sch._ the chancellor sometimes may take more time than is necessary for one business, and borrow it for another; he knows the advantages of times and seasons, and how to improve them. _wh._ i have found it so; but methinks my business should have been so acceptable as to have prevented such great delays. _sch._ your negotiation as to the amity with england was in consideration with the council here before your arrival; and all of us agreed that it was more desirable than any other. _wh._ i believe it would be agreeable to you, who are persons of great experience, knowing the interest of your own country, and how considerable the english nation is; and this caused a belief in me that i might promise myself an answer to my proposals before my departure from hence. _sch._ the great affairs of this kingdom, and the change likely to happen, have put a stop to all other business; and in case your negotiation cannot be brought to a conclusion during your stay here, yet it may be agreed upon afterwards by an ambassador to be sent from hence to england. _wh._ my lord protector having testified so much respect to the queen, as he hath done in sending me ambassador hither, for me, after four or five months' residence and negotiation in this place, to be sent home again without any conclusion of my business, but the same to be remitted to the sending of an ambassador from hence to england, would be no answer to the respect of the protector in sending me hither. _sch._ the parliament sent your excellence hither, as i understood, and not the protector. _wh._ my coming hither was at first by my lord protector's desire, he being then general, and without his earnest request to me i had not undertaken it; and since his access to the government i have received new credentials from him, by virtue whereof only i have negotiated, and am the first public minister employed by his highness. _sch._ it is a very great respect which the protector hath manifested to you, and by you to our queen and nation, and that which you say carries reason with it. i shall do all that possibly may lie in my power to testify my respects and service to his highness and commonwealth of england, and to your excellence their honourable ambassador. _wh._ you are pleased to express a great honour and esteem for my lord protector and for his servant, whereof i shall not fail, by any service in my power, to make acknowledgment to your excellence. there were many other compliments and discourses between them; and the senator fell into a relation of russia, where he had been, and of the great duke's bringing at one time into the field an army of , men, divided into three parties, whereof one part fell upon poland, and had lately taken divers considerable places in that kingdom; and much more he spake of this exploit, which is omitted. _march , ._ [sn: senator schütt's duplicity.] whitelocke was somewhat surprised by the carriage of senator schütt to him yesterday, and with his freedom of discourse, which showed him either to be a courtier and versed in the art of simulation, or the reports made of him to whitelocke to be untrue. now he seemed clearly for the league with england; before, he expressed himself against it; now he showed civility and respect to whitelocke and to his superiors; before, he spake disdainfully of them and their affairs. but an ambassador must hear and see many things, and yet take no notice of them; must court an enemy to become a friend, as he believed he had done to schütt, who, after acquaintance between him and whitelocke, became very friendly. but whitelocke held it requisite to keep at somewhat more distance with him than with others, because he had been informed that there was not much of kindness between the chancellor and this gentleman, which was confirmed by discourse this day with lagerfeldt. _lagerfeldt._ i entreat your excellence's excuse for my long absence, which hath been occasioned by an employment lately bestowed on me by her majesty, which takes up my time in the discharge of it. _whitelocke._ i do congratulate the honour and favour of the queen towards you, in this part of a reward for your good service in england, whereof i was a witness and have affirmed it to her majesty. what is the office she hath given you? _lag._ it is the vice-president of the college of trade. _wh._ i suppose the office is profitable as well as honourable. _lag._ a competent salary is annexed to the office, and with us no person doth serve in any office or public employment, but he hath a salary for it from the state. _wh._ that is honourable, and for the advantage of the state. one of your ricks-senators was here with me yesterday, and i had much discourse with him about my business. _lag._ which of them was with your excellence? _wh._ the senator schütt, whom i saw not before. _lag._ i wonder at his visit; did he express much respect to your commonwealth? _wh._ as much as any i have met with. _lag._ i much wonder at it; but shall advise your excellence not to depend much upon this gentleman, nor to be over-free in your discourse with him; for he hath been under a cloud, and is very intimate with the holland resident. _wh._ i thank you for your caution; but i have communicated nothing to him but what might be published. _lag._ my lord eric oxenstiern hath, by the queen's command, some papers touching your business to be imparted to you. _wh._ do you remember the effect of them? _lag._ they contain some explanation of the articles given in by your excellence, and some additions offered to them, but not much differing from those exhibited by you. they had much discourse about these additions and explanations, whereof whitelocke endeavoured to get as much knowledge from lagerfeldt as he could beforehand, that he might be the better prepared to debate upon them when they should be produced; and he declared his sense positively against some of them to lagerfeldt, which proved an advantage. some of those additions mentioned by lagerfeldt, being upon his report to grave eric of whitelocke's judgement upon them, were left out of grave eric's paper. [sn: further conference with grave eric oxenstiern.] in the afternoon grave eric came to whitelocke, and they had this discourse together:-- _gr. eric._ here is a paper, which i shall read unto you, containing some matters wherein i desire your consideration, being they relate to the treaty, as touching contraband goods; that there may be such a liberty, that trade be not impeached, that prizes may not be brought into the ports of friends, nor enemies admitted into the havens of the friends and allies of either nations; that the fishing for herrings and the trade in america may be free for the swedes, and that they may have satisfaction for the wrongs done to them by the english at sea. _whitelocke._ here is very much in these particulars to which i have formerly given my answer, and can give no other. england hath had no reason to give a liberty of contraband goods when their enemies deny it, and it were hard to forbid friends to bring prizes into the ports of friends, being no prejudice to the owner of the port, but a discourtesy to the friend; neither is it reason to deny a friend to enter into my harbour because he is an enemy to another that is my friend also, whose quarrel i am not bound to wed. for the liberty of herring-fishing, it may be had from our commonwealth upon reasonable conditions; and for the trade in america, i am not instructed to assent to anything therein, but i supposed it had been intended to send from hence to the protector about it. and for satisfaction of wrongs, i know none done by the english to the queen's subjects, and imagined that her majesty had been satisfied in these points. _gr. eric._ i have order to acquaint you with these particulars, and to confer with you about them, being esteemed by us just and reasonable. _wh._ after my attendance here three or four months without any answer to my proposals, i did not expect to receive new ones from you so different from those which i gave in with equal respect to the good of both nations; and i having offered the friendship of england to you in general, you answer that it will be accepted, but upon particular and hard conditions. _gr. eric._ i confess there hath been too much delay in your business, but it hath been occasioned by the uncertainty of the issue of your treaty with holland. _wh._ the issue of that treaty is not yet known, and the articles given in by me had no relation thereunto, and were proposed three months since. _gr. eric._ at present we take it for granted that the peace is concluded between you and holland, and that now you are good friends. _wh._ i wish we may be so; and if that peace be concluded, there is the less need of your proposals touching prizes, contraband{ } goods, etc. _gr. eric._ though the peace be concluded between you, yet it is prudent to make those provisions, in case of a new war with them or others. _wh._ i shall desire a copy of your particulars. _gr. eric._ you shall have them; and i desire you to read this paper, which is an order of the council of state in england, delivered to mr. lagerfeldt when he was there, whereby these particulars are remitted to your negotiation. _wh._ this paper bears date after my departure from england, and i never saw it before, nor received any particular instructions on this subject. _gr. eric._ if you are not satisfied touching the point of damages sustained by her majesty's subjects in the taking of their ships and goods by the english, there may be witnesses examined here for proof thereof. _wh._ i cannot erect a court or commissioners, or consent to examination of witnesses, in this place and upon this occasion; nor can i take accounts of merchants; i confess my ignorance. _gr. eric._ it may be contained in the treaty that justice shall be done, and satisfaction given to my countrymen for the wrongs done to them. _wh._ that cannot be so expressed without accusing our commonwealth, and at least confessing wrongs done, and implying that justice hath not been done; but i can assure you that the commonwealth hath done, and will do, justice to their friends and to all persons, and i shall do all that lies in my power for that end. _gr. eric._ i shall inform the queen what hath passed in our conference, and know her majesty's pleasure therein. _march , ._ monsieur lyllicrone informed whitelocke that prince adolphus had taken a solemn leave of the queen, and was gone into the country. whitelocke asked if it was upon any discontent; lyllicrone said he knew not. whitelocke asked if he would not be at the ricksdag; lyllicrone said he believed the prince did not intend to be at it, but to travel _incognito_ with a few servants into france and italy. [sn: the french advances resumed.] the french resident visited whitelocke in the afternoon, and seeing his coaches and horses ready to go abroad to take the air, offered, with many compliments, to bear whitelocke company, which he could not refuse. the resident acquainted whitelocke that monsieur bordeaux, now in london, had received a commission from the king of france to be his ambassador to the protector, and that bordeaux had written to this gentleman here, to salute whitelocke on his part, and to signify to him that bordeaux would be willing to entertain a correspondence with whitelocke, and had expressed much affection to his person. whitelocke answered that he should be ready to testify all respect and service to monsieur bordeaux, and desired the resident to testify the same to him at his next opportunity. lagerfeldt came to whitelocke, who had some trouble in discourse with them both together,--the resident speaking only french, and lagerfeldt only latin, and he must answer them in their respective languages. after the resident was gone, lagerfeldt discoursed with whitelocke about the treaty, particularly of the new proposals showed him by grave eric. whitelocke gave the same answers to lagerfeldt as he had done to eric: then lagerfeldt said, that by command of the queen, he was to tender to whitelocke a copy of articles. whitelocke asked if they were the same that grave eric yesterday imparted to him, and whether lagerfeldt had any speech with the queen this day about them. lagerfeldt said they were altered in some part, so as to make them the more acceptable to whitelocke, and that he had a few words with the queen about them. this caused whitelocke to marvel that the queen should pretend to him that she was sick, and therefore put off the audience which he desired this day, and yet her majesty found herself well enough to peruse and debate with lagerfeldt these articles; but he said nothing thereof to others, only made thereof his own observations and use, as he saw occasion. lagerfeldt and he perused these new articles, and had much discourse upon them, and in effect the same as with grave eric. [sn: whitelocke's amusements in his household.] in the long winter-nights here, whitelocke thought fit to give way to some passages of diversion to please his people, and to keep them together in his house, and from temptations to disorder and debauchery in going abroad, besides the danger of the streets in being late out. he therefore had music, both instrumental and vocal, in concert, performed by those of his own family, who were some of them excellent in that art, and himself sometimes bore his part with them. he also gave way to their exercise and pleasure of dancing in his great chamber, that he might be present at it, and admitted no undecent postures, but seemly properties of habits in their shows. he encouraged public disputations in latin among the young men who were scholars, himself present in the great chamber, and appointing a moderator; and this exercise they found useful and pleasant, and improving their language. to this end likewise they had public declamations in latin, himself giving them the question, as "an quodcunque evenerit sit optimum," etc., so that his house was like an academy. _march , ._ [sn: whitelocke again negotiates with the queen.] whitelocke attended the queen; and after some discourses of pleasantries, they fell upon the treaty, and whitelocke said to her:-- _whitelocke._ my business, madam, is now brought to a conclusion. _queen._ is it to your liking? _wh._ pardon me, madam, if i say it is not at all to my liking; for in the articles which grave eric sent me there were many particulars to which i could not agree, and i much wondered to receive such articles from him, being persuaded that your majesty was before satisfied by me in most of the particulars in them. _qu._ what are those particulars? the articles whitelocke had in readiness with him, and his observations upon them, having taken pains this morning to compare their articles with his own, and to frame his objections upon them. the queen wrote down the objections with her own hand, and then entered into a debate with whitelocke upon the whole, and seemed to be satisfied in most of the points insisted on by whitelocke; but was stiff upon the law relating to ships of war which is mentioned in her eleventh article, and upon some other particulars. after the debate, she desired that whitelocke would the next morning bring to her his objections in writing; and then she said, "we will not be long before we come to a conclusion of this business." whitelocke thought it convenient to make his addresses to the queen herself, and, as much as he could, to decline conferences with her commissioner grave eric, whom he found more than others averse and cross to him in his treaty. and the queen was pleased to admit whitelocke to this way, and was not displeased to have applications in this and other affairs of the like nature to be made upon her person; whereof whitelocke had private information before from piementelle, woolfeldt, and others, whose advice he pursued herein with good success. her majesty also permitted whitelocke to have a free debate with her upon the points controverted, and would return answers to every argument with as much reason and ingenuity as any of her ministers of state, and be sooner than they satisfied with what was reason. she told whitelocke that she marvelled that he, having received those long articles but late the last night, should be able to make objections, and to enter into a debate upon all of them this day, when her people had much longer time to frame these articles. whitelocke answered, "yes, by two or three months." after some other discourse, whitelocke left her in a pleasant humour. being returned home, lagerfeldt came again to him to sift him, and to know what answer the queen had given to his objections upon the new articles. but whitelocke fitted his inquiry, and thought not convenient to communicate to him more than what might advantage his business to be reported to grave eric; and because, in all conferences with the queen, no person was admitted to be present with them, not her own commissioners for the treaty, or any of the senators, for the secresy of the business, which was much to the liking of whitelocke, and furtherance of the treaty. they had much discourse upon the new articles, to the same effect as formerly; and lagerfeldt said he doubted not but the queen would in a short time conclude it to whitelocke's satisfaction. after this discourse whitelocke inquired of lagerfeldt how the chancellor's health was, and what physicians were about him. lagerfeldt said he was still sick of his ague, and had no physician attending him but one who had been a chirurgeon in the army, and now constantly lived in the house with the chancellor as a humble friend, sat at his table, and had a pension from him of four hundred rix-dollars a year; who had some good receipts, especially for the stone, which agreed with the chancellor's constitution, which this chirurgeon only studied and attended. and so it was generally in this great and large country. whitelocke met with no doctor of physic or professed physician in any town or country, not any attending the person of the queen herself; but there are many good women, and some private persons, who use to help people that are diseased by some ordinary known medicines; and their diseases are but few, their remedies generally communicated, and they live many of them to a great age. [sn: letters and despatches from england.] whitelocke received letters from england, which were always welcome, especially bringing the good news of the welfare of his relations. he received very respectful letters from the earl of clare, sir charles woolsey, colonel sydenham, the master of the rolls, mr. reynolds, lord commissioner lisle, and divers others, besides his usual letters from his wife, mr. hall, mr. cokaine, his brothers-in-law, and divers other friends. in those from thurloe he had the particular passages of the dutch treaty, and that he believed the peace with them would be concluded; and in those letters thurloe also writes thus:-- "your excellence's of the th of january i communicated to his highness and to the council, who, although they do not by this transaction of the queen very well understand her intentions as to the peace, yet they are very much satisfied with the management thereof on your part, and commit the issue thereof unto the lord, who will either bless your endeavours by bringing things to a desired issue, or otherwise dispose of this affair to the glory of god, the good of the commonwealth, and the comfort of yourself who are employed in it. "the council, upon consideration of the whole matter, did not find it necessary to give you any further directions, nor did his highness, especially seeing his last letters but one did express his sense upon that treaty, and nothing hath occurred since which hath given any cause of alteration. "the french king and cardinal, seeing themselves disappointed at the hague as to their inclusion in that treaty, endeavour to effect it here; and to that purpose the cardinal sent hither one monsieur le baas to congratulate his highness, and to assure him of the friendship of the king; and that, if he pleased, the king would banish charles stuart and his family out of his dominions, and proclaim the protector in france; and hath since sent a commissioner to monsieur bordeaux to be ambassador. "the spanish ambassador doth also very much court his highness and the present government. don francisco romero, captain of the guard to the archduke, arrived here the last night, to congratulate his highness in the duke's name. "i have moved the council in the two papers your excellence trusted to my care. what order the council hath been pleased to make thereupon you will see by their enclosed order, and my care shall not be wanting to see an effectual execution thereof. "your excellence's humble and faithful servant, "jo. thurloe. "_ th february, ._" the council's order was this:-- "at the council chamber, whitehall. "_friday, th of february, ._ [sn: order in council on the swedish prizes.] "on consideration of several papers which came enclosed in a letter from the lord ambassador whitelocke, and were this day presented to the council, containing some complaints made by divers of the subjects of her majesty of sweden, viz. concerning a swedish galliot called the 'land of promise,' and a ship called the 'castle of stockholm,' and certain goods taken out of the 'gold star' of hamburg, and claimed as belonging to alexander ceccony, gentleman, principal officer of the queen's wardrobe: _ordered_, that several copies of the said papers be forthwith sent to the judges of the court of admiralty and to the commissioners for prize goods, to whom it is respectively referred, diligently to inform themselves of the true state of the said ship and goods, and what proceedings have been had in the court of admiralty or prize office touching the same or any of them, and thereof to make report to the council. and it is especially recommended and given in charge to the said judges that both in these and in all matters concerning the said queen or her subjects, which do or shall depend before them, all right and fair respect be given upon all occasions; and that whatsoever of the said goods belonging to her majesty's servant they shall discover, be by them ordered to be forthwith delivered. "ex^r w. jessop, "clerk of the council." this order whitelocke caused to be translated into latin, and sent copies of it to the chancellor, to grave eric, to mr. ceccony, and to others; and he showed it to the queen, and all were pleased with it, hoping for further fruit of it, and esteeming whitelocke to be in good credit with his superiors. _march , ._ [sn: reports of the negotiation to england.] whitelocke made his despatches for england, and wrote above twenty letters to several of his friends there, finding it grateful to them to receive letters from him at such a distance; and that answers to letters are expected, and ill taken if neglected; that they cost little, and please much. he was hindered by woolfeldt, who made a long visit to him, though upon the post day; at which he wondered, in regard woolfeldt had been himself often employed as a public minister, and knew so well what belonged to the making of despatches. to recover his lost time, whitelocke (as he often used when business pressed him) wrote one letter himself and dictated two others to his secretaries at the same time, and so, in effect, wrote three letters at once. the letter which he now wrote to secretary thurloe contained his whole transactions since his last letters to him; and the conclusion of the letter, showing the state of his negotiation, was this:-- "this afternoon grave eric came to me from the queen, who desired that my audience, appointed this day, might be put off till the holidays were past, and said that by reason of the sacrament upon easter day, this day and tomorrow were to be spent in preparation thereunto; but he told me that she commanded him to receive my objections to his articles in writing, the which i gave him according to that large paper which you will receive herewith. we had very much debate upon the particulars, much of it according to what i have mentioned before. "i have thought fit to send you this large paper that you might see the whole business before you at one view, and it hath cost me some pains. i shall continue my best endeavours to bring your business to a good effect. i am put to struggle with more difficulties than i could expect, and their policy here is great. one may soon be overtaken with long, intricate, and new proposals; but i hope god will direct me, whom i do seek, and shall not wilfully transgress my instructions. "when i speak with the queen, she seems to be satisfied; and then some of the grandees seek to persuade her to a contrary opinion, and to keep me from her, and lay objections in the way to cross it (for we want no enemies here). i then endeavour again to satisfy the queen, and break through their designs as well as i can; to do which, and to get a good despatch against all opposition, and yet so as not to supplicate anything from them, nor in the least to prostitute the honour of my lord protector and of the commonwealth, or to prejudice them, is a task hard enough for a great favourite, much more hard for a stranger, and whose differing principles may render him the less acceptable. however, i shall hope that the lord will direct me for the best, whether they agree with my judgement or not. "if i can conclude with them, i shall presently be upon my return, and hope within a week or two to receive his highness's order to give me leave to come home. what i cannot consent to or obtain at present, i presume they will be contented to have referred to a future agreement, wherein there can be no prejudice (in my humble opinion) to your affairs. "i ask your pardon for my tedious informations, wherein i take no pleasure; but supposing the business to require it, i presume you will excuse "your very affectionate friend to serve you, "b. whitelocke. "_upsal, th march, ._" most of the night was spent by whitelocke in making his despatches for england; neither did he neglect any one friend from whom he had received the favour and kindness of their letters to him here; by which civility he obtained the more advice and intelligence from england, and made good use of it in this court. his constant letters from his wife and other private friends he also found of much comfort and advantage to him. _march , ._ [sn: new year's day, old style.] this day, by the swedish computation as well as that of england, is the first day of the year . mr. bloome came to whitelocke with a compliment from the chancellor, that he was sorry he could not visit whitelocke before his going out of town, because he was ill, and retired himself into the country, to be quit from business and to recover his health; and at his return he would come to whitelocke and confer with him. this gentleman whitelocke apprehended to be often sent to him as a spy, to inquire of his intentions, and therefore he thought good to make use of him by telling such things to him as whitelocke thought and wished might be again reported by bloome unto the chancellor. therefore, among other discourses, whitelocke told bloome that france, spain, portugal, italy, holland, switzerland, denmark, and other princes and states, had sent their public ministers to the protector, desiring friendship with him; but his highness having sent his ambassador into this kingdom, they had testified so little respect to him, that in three or four months' time they had not vouchsafed to give him an answer to his proposals. mr. symonds, an englishman, excellent in his art of graving and taking off pictures in little, in wax, for which he had regard in this court and promises of money, this person often frequented whitelocke, his countryman, and his house, and after some time made a request to whitelocke to speak to the queen in his favour. whitelocke, knowing that ambassadors' offices ought not to be cheap, told symonds in a kind of drollery that surely he could not expect such a courtesy from him, since, being an englishman, he had not acquainted the english ambassador with any matter of consequence, nor done any service to his country, since whitelocke's arrival here; that when he should deserve it, whitelocke would be ready to do him service. _march , ._ [sn: whitelocke reproves the english for disorder on the lord's day.] _the lord's day._--divers english and scots came to the public duties of the day in whitelocke's house; and amongst other discourse whitelocke learnt from them that waters, one of his trumpets, going late in the evening to his lodging, was set upon by some drunkards with their swords, and wounded, whereof he continued very ill. whitelocke examined and reproved some of his company for disorders committed by them on the lord's day and other days, which he told them he would not bear; and it was the worse in their commitment of those crimes, and the less reason for them to expect a connivance thereat, because whitelocke had so often and so publicly inveighed against the profanation of that day in this place; but among a hundred some will be always found base, vicious, and wicked. _march , ._ [sn: festivities of easter monday.] this being easter monday, some of whitelocke's people went to the castle to hear the queen's music in her chapel, which they reported to whitelocke to be very curious; and that in the afternoon was appointed an ancient solemnity of running at the ring. some italians of the queen's music dined with whitelocke, and afterwards sang to him and presented him with a book of their songs, which, according to expectation, was not unrewarded. whitelocke went not abroad this festival-time to visit anybody, nor did any grandees come to visit him; he had an imagination that they might be forbidden to do it, the rather because piementelle and woolfeldt, who were accustomed to come often to him, had of late refrained to do it, and had not answered whitelocke's last visit in ten days. the queen had also excused her not admitting whitelocke to have audiences, by saying she was busy or sick, when, at the same time, piementelle and others were admitted to her presence, and for two or three hours together discoursed with her. this was resented and spoken of by whitelocke so as it might come to the queen's ear. _march , ._ [sn: the swedes desire to defer the treaty until the new reign.] after the master of the ceremonies had dined with whitelocke, and was in a good humour, he desired whitelocke to withdraw from the rest of the strangers, and that he might speak privately with him; and going into the bedchamber, the master told him that he had heard from some that whitelocke had expressed a discontent, and the master desired to know if any had given him offence, or if there were anything wherein the master might do him service. whitelocke said he apprehended some occasion of discontent in that he had attended here near four months, and had not yet obtained any answer to his proposals. the master excused the delay in regard of the queen's purpose of quitting the government. whitelocke said he believed that occasioned much trouble to her majesty, and which gave him cause to doubt that his frequent visits of her majesty might give her some inconvenience. he replied that whitelocke's company was very agreeable to the queen, though at present she was overcharged with business. _whitelocke._ i do acknowledge the favours i have received from her majesty, and your civilities to me, for which i shall not be ungrateful. _mast. cer._ would it not be of advantage to your business to attend for the conclusion of it until the coronation of our new king, to be assented to by him; by which means the alliance will be more firm than to have it done by the queen so near her quitting of the government? _wh._ i shall hardly stay so long a time as till the beginning of the reign of your new king, nor have i any letters of credence or commission but to the queen; and i believe that all acts done by her before her resignation will be held good, and particularly this touching the friendship with england, which, i suppose, will be also very agreeable to his kingly highness, and be inviolably observed by him. _mast. cer._ i do not doubt but that the new king will observe the alliance which the queen shall make with england, but perhaps it might better be made with the new king himself; and although you have no letters of credence to him, yet you may write into england and have them sent to you. _wh._ that will require more time than i have to stay in this place. i believe the new king will not be crowned yet these two or three months; and it will be two months from this time before i can receive new credentials from england, and two or three months after that before i can return home; by which account i shall be abroad yet eight months longer, which will be till the next winter; and that would be too long a time for me to be absent from my family and affairs in england. _mast. cer._ i shall speak with the queen in this business, and shortly return to you. it was imagined by whitelocke that the master of the ceremonies was purposely sent to him to sound him touching the deferring of the treaty; and the like errand mr. bloome came to him about; and whitelocke fully declared to them his distaste of any thought thereof, and the more at large and positively because he knew what he said would be reported to the full to her majesty and to the chancellor. _march , ._ the master of the ceremonies came to whitelocke from the queen to excuse whitelocke's not having had audiences when he desired them; which he said was because her majesty had been so full of business, which had hindered her, and particularly because of the holidays; but he said, if whitelocke pleased to have his audience tomorrow, the queen would be glad to see him. whitelocke desired the master to return his thanks to her majesty for her favours, and to let her know that he should be ready to attend her at such time as she should appoint. the master said he would acquaint her majesty herewith, and so went away in the midst of dinner. [sn: lord douglas visits whitelocke.] the lord douglas, a scotsman, came to visit whitelocke. he is an ancient servant to this crown; he was a page to king gustavus adolphus, and by him preferred to military command, wherein he quitted himself so well that he was promoted to be general of the horse, and was now a baron and ricks-stallmaster, or master of the horse, in sweden. he excused himself that he had not oftener visited whitelocke, being hindered by his sickness of an ague, which had held him thirty weeks, and had not yet left him. he said that the next day after his arrival here the queen asked him if he had been to see the english ambassador, and that whitelocke was much obliged to the queen for her good opinion of him: whereof whitelocke said he had received many testimonies, and of her respects to the protector and commonwealth as well as to their servant. douglas said, that besides her respect to the protector, she had a particular respect for whitelocke; with much discourse of that nature. [sn: further excuses for delay.] he then went to visit his old comrade colonel potley, who was ill and kept his chamber. he fell upon the discourse that it would be convenient for whitelocke to stay here till the coronation of the new king, that the treaty might be concluded by him: to which the same answers were given by whitelocke as he had before given to the master of the ceremonies. whilst the lord douglas was in whitelocke's house, grave eric came to whitelocke by command of the queen, to excuse the delay of his business, and that some of his audiences had been remitted. he said, her majesty had been informed by the master of the ceremonies that whitelocke should say he had demanded audiences three times, and could not obtain one. whitelocke answered, that there was a little mistake therein, though there was something near it, and said, it was not his desire to occasion trouble to her majesty. eric answered, that the queen desired whitelocke would excuse her by reason of the holidays, during which time they did not use in this country to treat of any business, and that the queen had likewise many other hindrances; but that whensoever it should please whitelocke to come to her majesty, he would be very welcome. he said, he was going out of town to his father to conduct him hither, and that within a day or two he would visit whitelocke, and that his business would have a speedy despatch. whitelocke wished him a good journey, and that he and his father might have a safe and speedy return hither. piementelle sent to whitelocke to move the queen to grant her pardon to a swede who had killed another, for which by the law he was to die; and piementelle offered to second whitelocke, if he would entreat the queen for her pardon to the homicide. whitelocke desired to be excused herein, alleging that he, being a public minister, it was not proper for him nor for piementelle to interpose with her majesty in a matter of this nature, and particularly touching her own subjects, and in a matter of blood; but this denial piementelle seemed to take ill, and to be more strange to whitelocke afterwards. the holidays being past, piementelle had his audience appointed this day to take his leave of the queen. whitelocke sent his son james and some others of his gentlemen to be present at it, who reported to whitelocke that piementelle spake to the queen in spanish, and that she answered him in swedish, which was interpreted by grave tott; that piementelle observed very much ceremony, and when he made his public harangue to the queen he grew very pale and trembled, which was strange for a man of his parts, and who had been so frequent in his conversation with her majesty. but some said it was a high compliment, acted by the spaniard to the life, to please the queen, who took delight to be thought, by her majesty and presence, to put a dread and daunting upon foreigners; which in a truth she was noted often to do when public ministers had their audiences in solemnity with her majesty. _march , ._ [sn: an interview with the queen.] one of the queen's lacqueys came to whitelocke's house in dinner-time, to desire him, from the queen, to come to her at two o'clock. whitelocke was a little sensible of the quality of the messenger, and therefore himself would not speak with him, but sent his answer by one of his servants, and accordingly waited on the queen. he was met at the guard-chamber by grave tott and divers of the queen's servants, with more solemnity than ordinary, and presently brought to the queen. after her excuse of his not having had audiences she fell into discourse of his business. whitelocke presented to her a form of articles, according to his own observations upon those articles he had formerly given in, and upon those he received from grave eric. thereupon the queen said to him, "you will not consent to any one of my articles, but insist upon all your own." whitelocke showed her wherein he had consented to divers of her articles, and for what reasons he could not agree to the rest. they had discourse upon the whole, to the same effect as hath been before remembered. the queen told whitelocke, that if those articles should not be concluded, that nevertheless the amity between the two nations might be continued. whitelocke answered, that it would be no great testimony of amity, nor proof of respect to the protector and commonwealth, to send back their servant after so long attendance, without effecting anything. the queen said she would despatch his business within a few days, and, she hoped, to his contentment. whitelocke told her it was in her majesty's power to do it; that he could not stay until the change whereof people discoursed, and that he had her majesty's promise for his despatch, which he knew she would not break. then the queen fell into other discourses, and in particular of poetry; which occasion whitelocke took to show her a copy of latin verses made by an english gentleman, a friend of whitelocke's, and sent over to him hither, and which he had now about him, and knew that such diversions were pleasing to the queen.[ ] at his leisure hours, whitelocke turned these verses into english, which ran thus:-- "_to the most illustrious and most excellent lord, the lord whitelocke, ambassador extraordinary to the most serene queen of sweden. an ode._ whitelocke, delight of mars, the ornament of gownmen, from thy country being sent, tribunals languish; themis sad is led, sighing under her mourning widow's bed. without thee suitors in thick crowds do run, sowing perpetual strife, which once begun, till happy fate thee home again shall send, those sharp contentions will have no end. but through the snowy seas and northern ways, when the remoter sun made shortest days, o'er tops of craggy mountains, paths untrod, where untamed creatures only make abode, thy love to thy dear country hath thee brought, ambassador from england. thou hast sought the swedish confines buried in frost, straight wilt thou see the french and spanish coast; and them fast bind to thy loved britany in a perpetual league of amity. so wilt thou arbitrator be of peace, her pious author; thou wilt cause to cease the sound of war, our ears it shall not pierce; thou wilt be chancellor of the universe. christina, that sweet nymph, no longer shall detain thee; be thou careful not to fall, prudent ulysses, under those delights to which the learned circe thee invites. thy chaste penelope doth call thee slow; thy friends call for thee home; and they do know new embassies, affairs abroad, at home, require thy service,--stay till thou dost come. thou, keeper of the seal, dost take away foreign contentions; thou dost cause to stay the wars of princes. shut thou janus' gate, ambassador of peace to every state." the queen was much delighted with these and other verses which whitelocke showed her; read them over several times, and desired copies of them, which whitelocke sent her; and in this good humour she wished whitelocke to leave with her a copy of his articles as he had now revised them, and to come to her again the next day, when she would give him a further answer, and, she hoped, to his contentment. [sn: spain suspected of intriguing against the treaty.] woolfeldt visited whitelocke, and excused his long absence by reason of the holidays. he informed whitelocke with much freedom, that it was against the interest of spain that england and sweden should be in alliance together, and that whitelocke's negotiation had been hindered by the spanish resident here, more than by any other. whereunto whitelocke said little positively, but compared his words with the late carriage of piementelle,--especially since whitelocke did not so heartily entertain the queen's motion (which probably piementelle put her upon) to have the spaniard included in the league with england and sweden, which whitelocke was not empowered to treat upon, and whitelocke also remembered the deferring of his audiences lately desired.[ ] but these things he was to keep to himself, and to court woolfeldt, which he did, and piementelle likewise, who came to visit whitelocke whilst woolfeldt was with him, and made the same excuse as he had done for his long absence. they had much general discourse, but nothing (as usually before) touching whitelocke's business. piementelle said he purposed to depart from upsal within seven or eight days; that yesterday he had taken his leave of the queen, and came in the next place to take his leave of whitelocke, who gave him thanks for this honour, and said he was sorry for the departure of piementelle, whereby he should have a very great loss in being deprived of the acceptable conversation of so honourable a friend. [sn: despatches from england complaining of delay.] whitelocke received many letters from england; in those from thurloe he saith:-- "i am sorry your last letters give us no greater hopes of that which we so much long for, to wit, your excellence's speedy return home; it seeming by them that the treaty was not much advanced since your last before, notwithstanding the great care and diligence used by your excellency for the promoting thereof, as also the great acceptance you have with the queen and court, as is acknowledged by other public ministers residing there. it is now more than probable they will expect the issue of the dutch business before they will come to any conclusion; as also to see what terms we are like to be upon with france, that so the queen may manage her treaty with england accordingly, which i suppose she may not be long ignorant of. in the meantime his highness thinks he is somewhat delayed on her part." then thurloe relates all the passages of the dutch ambassadors, and that, in effect, they had agreed to the articles; of the endeavours of the french to have a league with the protector, and no less of the spaniard. and he writes at large the news of the archduke, as also that of scotland and ireland, and confutes the rumour of a discontent in the army of the protector. in another letter from thurloe of a later date, received by the same post, he saith thus:-- "his highness understands by your excellence's last letters, that the treaty with the queen of sweden will much depend upon the treaty with the dutch here, and until the issue of that be known no great matter is to be expected from your negotiation: concerning which, it being very probable that before the next ordinary it will be seen what issue the dutch treaty will be brought unto, his highness will refer his further directions to you till then; leaving it to your excellence to proceed upon the former instructions as you shall find it convenient, and for his service according as affairs now stand." the clause in this letter, of referring further directions till after the issue of the dutch treaty, was some trouble to whitelocke's thoughts, fearing it might delay his return home; but he laid hold upon the latter part of this letter, whereby it is left to whitelocke to proceed upon the former instructions as he should find it convenient and for his highness's service; which, as it reposed a great trust in whitelocke, so it gave him warrant to conclude his treaty, and obliged him to the more care to perform that trust which they had so fully put in him. [sn: claim on behalf of the swedish ships in england.] mr. bonnele representing to the protector the losses which the swedes suffered by the ships of england, the protector caused an answer thereunto to be returned, the copy whereof was sent by thurloe to whitelocke, and was thus:-- "whereas mr. bonnele, resident of the queen of sweden, hath, by a paper of the th of march, remonstrated to his highness that several ships and goods belonging to the said queen and her subjects are taken at sea by the ships of this state, and brought into these parts, contrary to the declaration of the council of state, st april, , whereby they did declare, that for preventing the present obstruction of trade, all ships truly belonging to the queen or her subjects, of sweden, that should bring with them certificates from her said majesty, or the chief magistrate of the place from whence they come, grounded upon the respective oaths of the magistrates and loaders that the said ship and lading do belong _bonâ fide_ to the said queen or her subjects, and to no stranger whatsoever, should and might freely pass without interruption or disturbance. his highness hath commanded that it be returned in answer to the said resident, that although the said declaration was to be in force for the space of three months, in which time a form of passport and certificates was to be thought of for preventing fraud and collusion, yet no provision of that nature having been yet agreed upon, and it being contrary to his intention that the goods and ships belonging to her said majesty or subjects (with whom he desires to conserve all good correspondence) should in the meantime suffer inconvenience or prejudice by the ships of this state, hath renewed, as he doth hereby renew, the said declaration with respect to the present treaty now on foot between the two nations, wherein some course may be provided for preventing the said frauds. "and to the end there may be the better effect of this declaration, his highness hath given order to the judges of the admiralty that if any ships or goods be brought into these parts belonging to her majesty or subjects, that the producing of certificates according to the said declaration, in open court and upon oath made by them that do produce such certificates, that they are good and authentic, and obtained without fraud or deceit, that the judges shall thereupon (there being no proof before them to the contrary) discharge the said ships or goods without further delay. provided that such ships were not bound with contraband goods to the ports or harbours of any of the united provinces. "for the herring-buss, there having been proceedings thereupon in the court of admiralty, and a sentence of condemnation given against her as belonging to the enemies of this state, his highness does not conceive that it can be expected from him to interpose in matters belonging to the decision of that court; besides, the law having in the ordinary course provided a remedy, by way of appeal, in case of wrong or injustice done by that court. "for the goods of mr. alexander cecconi, supposed to be taken by a ship belonging to this state, orders have been given by the council concerning them, and some return made upon those orders; and the said commissary may rest assured that speedy and effectual justice will be done in that particular. "jo. thurloe. "_march th, ._" these orders of the council whitelocke caused to be translated into latin, that he might communicate them as he saw occasion. _march , ._ [sn: reports to england.] whitelocke despatched a great number of letters to his friends in england: in those to secretary thurloe he gave a full account of all transactions of his negotiations and passages here since his last letters. this day, though the post-day, woolfeldt again visited whitelocke, to his no little interruption in his despatches; yet from him whitelocke learned many things in relation to denmark, for the advantage of england, and woolfeldt testified great affection and respect to the protector and commonwealth. he was also interrupted by his attendance upon the queen, according to her appointment. the chancellor came forth from her as whitelocke went in, and he told whitelocke that the queen, hearing of his being without, had sent to desire him to come in to her. whitelocke read some of his news to the queen, and the paper which the protector had caused to be given to her commissary bonnele at london; upon which whitelocke took the boldness a little to paraphrase, and her majesty was well pleased with it. they fell into discourse of the treaty, much to the same effect as formerly; but whitelocke staid the less time with her majesty, because he presumed that the chancellor and his son waited without to speak with her about his business. she promised whitelocke to send him an answer of his business the next day, and that one of her ships should be ready at the dollars (the mouth of the haven of stockholm) to transport him to lübeck when he should desire it; which was acceptable to whitelocke to think on, and he thanked her majesty for it. thus was march passed over, full of trouble, yet nothing effected in his business. footnotes: [ ] [the ambassador's verses i have ventured to omit, as alike destitute of elegance, point, or metre.] [ ] "_ad illustrissimum et excellentissimum dominum, dominum whitelocke, legatum angliæ extraordinarium apud serenissimam sueciæ reginam. ode._ "vitloce, martis deliciæ, decus gentis legatæ; te sine, languidum moeret tribunal, et cubili in viduo themis ingemiscit. denso cientes agmine cursitant, et sempiternas te sine consuunt lites, neque hic discordiarum finis erit, nisi tu revertas. sed te nivosum per mare, per vias septentrionum, per juga montium, inhospitales per recessus duxit amor patriæ decorus. legatus oras jam sueonum vides bruma sepultas; mox quoque galliam, hispaniam mox cum britannis foedere perpetuo ligabis. sic pacis author, sic pius arbiter gentes per omnes qua sonuit tuba dicere; cancellariusque orbis eris simul universi. christina, dulcis nympha, diutiùs ne te moretur: qui merito clues prudens ulysses, sperne doctæ popula deliciasque circes. te casta tentum penelope vocat, vocant amici, teque aliæ vocant legationes, te requirunt ardua multa domi forisque. custos sigilli tu dirimes cito pugnas forenses, bellaque principum legatus idem terminabis: tu (sera candida) claude fanum." [ ] [this change was probably the consequence of the negotiations then going on between louis xiv. and cromwell in london, which had excited the jealousy of the spanish court, as is stated by thurloe in the next page.] april. _april , ._ [sn: a capital execution in sweden.] in the morning, in the market-place, near whitelocke's lodging, was an execution of one adjudged to die for a murder. the offender was brought into the midst of the market-place, which was open and spacious, and a great multitude of people spectators. the offender kneeled down upon the ground, a great deal of sand being laid under and about him to soak up his blood, and a linen cloth was bound about his eyes: he seemed not much terrified, but when the company sang a psalm, he sang with them, holding up his hands together, and his body upright, his doublet off. he prayed also with the company, but made no speech to them; nor did any other speak to the people. the executioner stood behind him, with a great naked sword in his hand and a linen apron before him, and while the offender was praying the headsman in an instant, at one back-blow, cut off his head, which fell down upon the sand; and some friends took it from the executioner, and carried it away with the body to be buried. presently after this execution was past, two other offenders for smaller crimes were brought to the same place, to suffer the punishment of the law, which they call running the gauntlet,--a usual punishment among soldiers. [sn: running the gauntlet.] the people stood in length in the market-place about a hundred yards, leaving an open space or lane between them of about five yards' distance; then the offender, being naked to the waist, was brought to one end of the lane or open place. the people had rods or switches of birch given to as many as would take them; the offender was to run or go, as he pleased (and one of them walked but a spanish pace), from one end of the lane of people to the other, twice or thrice forward and backward; and all the way as he went, the people who had the switches lashed the offender as he passed by them, harder or softer, as they favoured him. these are the most usual ways of executions which they have for criminal offences, and they do not execute men by hanging, which they say is only fit for dogs; but in cases of great robberies and murders sometimes they execute justice by breaking the offenders upon the wheel, and leave the quarters of the body upon it; some whereof were in the way as whitelocke passed in his journey by the great wilderness. [sn: vestiges of the scandinavian mythology.] in the afternoon senator schütt came to whitelocke and invited him to take the air to see the town of old upsal, about a mile off; and being there, schütt showed him three great mounts of earth, cast up by the hands of men, for monuments in memory of their ancient famous kings, whose seat had been here, and the place of their coronation. these mounts had been dedicated to three of their pagan gods: the one to the god whom they call teuo, who was mars, and from him they have the name of the day of the week _teuosdag_, which we call tuesday, and the germans _tuisconsdæg_, and the latins _dies martis_; the second mount was dedicated to their god woden, so they called mercury, and from thence their day of the week is named _wodensdag_, which we also call wednesday, the germans _wodensdæg_, and the latins _dies mercurii_; the third mount was dedicated to their goddess freya, so they called venus, and from thence comes the name of their _friedsdag_, which we call friday, the germans _frigdæg_, and the latins _dies veneris_. there were also other relics of decayed mounts, which whitelocke guessed to have been dedicated to their other gods, from whom they gave the names of the other days of the week: as, to thor, whom they called jupiter, and, from whence the day _thoresdag_, which we call thursday, the germans say _thorsdæg_, and the latins _dies jovis_; another mount dedicated to their god setorn, from whence they call _setornsdag_, as we say saturday, the germans _sæternsdæg_, and the latins _dies saturni_; another mount dedicated to sunnan, as they call the sun, and from thence that day _sunnandag_{ }, as we say sunday, the germans _sunnandæg_, and the latins _dies solis_; the last mount dedicated to monan, that is the moon, and from thence the name of their _monandag_, which we call monday, the germans _monandæg_, and the latins _dies lunæ_. [sn: the war between muscovy and poland.] in discourse upon the way, schütt informed whitelocke of the matter of the embassy from the great duke of muscovia to the queen of sweden, which was to acquaint her majesty that the great duke had begun a war against the king of poland, because in a letter of his to the great duke he had omitted one of his great titles,--a heinous offence, and held by the great duke a sufficient ground of war, and of his resolution to sacrifice the blood of his fellow-christians to satisfy his wicked pride. another ground of the war was because a certain governor of a province in poland, in a writing, had placed the name of the father of the great duke before the name of the present great duke; which was so great an indignity, that for the same the now great duke demanded of the king of poland to have the head of that governor sent to him, and that not being done, was another cause of the begun war. to this the queen answered, that it did not appertain to her to give her opinion in a matter of this nature, whether she did approve or disapprove of what was done by the great duke, but she did presume that the king of poland would therein give fitting satisfaction to the great duke; and that she did wish that there might be peace between these two princes and all the princes of christendom. and with this answer the envoys of the great duke returned as wise as they came. [sn: denmark threatens hamburg.] schütt also communicated unto whitelocke an intelligence that the king of denmark had levied some forces which he designed against hamburg,--pretending injuries done to him by that city in relation to his pretensions of dominion there, which probably might occasion a war between denmark and that free city, which had strength and riches and people and wisdom to defend themselves; and schütt advised whitelocke that if this should be so, that then he should take his voyage some other way, and that it would be a great disturbance and danger to him to go by hamburg and those quarters, which would be infested with soldiers, and that then it would be his best way to return by gothenburg; but he did persuade whitelocke by all means to salute the prince of sweden by the way of his return. whitelocke said he thought it not probable that the king of denmark would at this time engage in a war against hamburg, and that his levying of soldiers might breed a jealousy in the crown of sweden; that the certainty thereof could not be long undiscovered, and accordingly he should govern his own resolutions; that it would be difficult for him to stay in his journey to salute the prince, but he much desired and intended it before his departure. _april , ._ although the lord's day, yet the english and scots who were in the town, and not of whitelocke's family, went abroad to take the air, and did not resort, as they used to do, to whitelocke's house to the exercises of divine worship, which were duly performed in his private family; and after those _sacra peracta_, whitelocke retired himself to his private studies and meditations upon the word of truth. this day likewise the queen went abroad to take the air, and passed through the town in her coach, attended by many gentlemen and others in her train, to the ill example of her people, and after the bad custom of this place. _april , ._ [sn: whitelocke takes the air with the queen.] the queen sent to whitelocke to invite him to accompany her to take the air. by the way whitelocke visited woolfeldt, who had much discourse with him about the english fleet then at sea. from him whitelocke went to court, and attended the queen in her coach to take the air. they had not much discourse about his business, and he thought not fit to interrupt her majesty's pleasures with serious discourses, but sought to delight her with matters of diversion and mirth. when they were come back to the castle, the queen said to whitelocke:-- _queen._ tomorrow my chancellor will present you with the articles drawn up by him, with some alterations which i judge to be reasonable; and that shall be my final resolution about them. _wh._ hath your majesty commanded any mention in those new articles concerning contraband goods? _qu._ there is a specification of them. _wh._ indeed, madam, i can hardly consent to any alteration upon the subject of contraband goods, whilst the edict of the hollanders is in force thereupon. _qu._ after you have considered these new articles, we will speak together again about them. then the queen retired to her chamber, and whitelocke being come home, the secretary canterstein came to him from the chancellor to excuse his not coming to visit whitelocke, and said that, by the queen's command, the chancellor had sent a new copy of articles to whitelocke. he presently read them, and had much discourse with the secretary upon them, who said he did not doubt but that, after communication with the chancellor, whitelocke would receive satisfaction. _april , ._ whitelocke visited piementelle, and they had this discourse:-- _piementelle._ the ambassador of denmark did me the honour to visit me, and we had much discourse together about the english fleet now at sea; he told me that in it were ten thousand foot soldiers embarked for the north, which would occasion great trouble to the king his master, if it should be so, which i acknowledged. _whitelocke._ your excellence knows that i have not been at the council of state in england for six months last past, so that i know not the secret designs of my lord protector; but i believe it is no very difficult matter to land men in denmark. _piem._ what progress hath the french ambassador made in the treaty between you and france? _wh._ if the queen will be pleased to give my despatch, i hope to be upon the place before the treaty with the french be concluded. i have somewhat to communicate to the protector touching a treaty with spain, which your lordship very well knows; and it would be to purpose that his highness should know it before the conclusion of a treaty between england and france.[ ] _piem._ i am assured that the queen will despatch you in good time. but i advise your excellence in your return not to pass by denmark, for it is ill trusting of that king; but your better way will be to lübeck, and from thence to hamburg, and if you do not find ships ready there, you may travel by land to cologne, and from thence to dunkirk; which will be much better than to go by holland, where they do exceedingly exact upon strangers, and your commonwealth hath more enemies there than in any other place, besides the common people are rude and insolent. _wh._ i am engaged to you for your good advice, which i intend to follow. after their discourse, whitelocke presented piementelle his medal in gold very like him, and it was received by piementelle with much affection. then piementelle entreated whitelocke to give him a passport for his servant, who had the charge of conducting his baggage by sea to dunkirk, that he might freely pass the men-of-war of england; the which was willingly done by whitelocke, under his hand and seal.[ ] _april , ._ [sn: conference with the chancellor.] in the morning whitelocke went to the chancellor's lodging, and found his son grave eric with him. the chancellor made a long apology to excuse the delay of the treaty, and said:-- _chancellor._ my indisposition of health hath chiefly occasioned the delay, yet was i so solicitous of your business, that i entreated the queen to appoint some other person in my stead, who might confer with your excellence; and her majesty was pleased to appoint my son for that service. _whitelocke._ i was very sorry for your excellence's want of health, both in regard of my affection to your person, and in respect of the protraction of my business; yet i was glad that your son, my lord eric, was appointed to confer with me, and had rather have the transaction of my business by yourself or some of your family than by any other. i am now come to you to confer upon those articles which yesterday i received from you. then whitelocke gave the chancellor a paper of his animadversions upon his articles. the debate began upon the ninth article; and as to the sale of goods taken from enemies and prohibiting the buying of arms, the chancellor said this would abolish their trade, and would be of no advantage to england, because those arms, and equally as good, might be had from other places; and if the english did light upon them, they would have the benefit by it. whitelocke said it would be a great inconvenience to furnish the enemies of either nation with arms which could not be had elsewhere than in england or sweden, and that this clause would put a bridle in the mouths of the enemies of either nation. the chancellor and his son replied that arms might be had in the province of liége,[ ] and in many other places in germany; that sweden scarce afforded any other commodities but arms, or such things as were serviceable for war; and that the queen would by no means be induced to that clause as whitelocke would have it. then they debated upon the eleventh article, the issue whereof was for whitelocke to consent to a special designation of prohibited goods. whitelocke desired that the catalogue and designation of them might be referred to his return into england, and he would agree that within two months after that there should be a specification of prohibited goods in the name of the protector. the chancellor urged that the specification might be now agreed upon, and produced a paper specifying them, which they alleged was delivered by the council in england unto bonnele. whitelocke said he did not remember the same, and that he was ignorant what goods were prohibited by the dutch placard, which was fit to be known before any specification made by him. upon the twelfth article whitelocke urged, that as to the form of the letters of safe-conduct, it might also be referred to his return into england. they produced a form exhibited by lagerfeldt to the council in england, and desired that the same form might be now agreed upon. whitelocke answered that the council of state had not approved the form given in by lagerfeldt, and therefore it was not fit for him to consent to it; nor could he apprehend any reason why they should not consent to refer the agreement of a form unto his return to england; and the rather, because in the meantime the subjects of the queen might enjoy the benefit of an edict made by the protector in great favour of them, which declaration whitelocke had caused to be delivered to the chancellor. to the thirteenth article, as to satisfaction of damages, their debate was to the like effect as formerly. upon the sixteenth article they had also debate. whitelocke desired that the words "de usu littorum in piscatione" might be altered to these words, "de piscatione et usu littorum." they alleged that this would seem to deny their fishing upon their own coasts. whitelocke said, the other would seem as if england had given up their right as to the fishing, and left all at liberty to those that pleased to take it. this was the sum of the debate of near three hours. the conclusion was that they would certify the queen of all these matters, and in short acquaint whitelocke with her answer; which he desired might be as speedy and positive as they pleased, because if they should reduce him to that necessity, that before he could agree he must send to the protector to know his pleasure, he could not receive an answer of his letters in less than two months' space, within which time the queen purposed to resign her government, and then his commission would be at an end. the chancellor said he desired whitelocke should be speedily in england, not only for the sake of his wife and children, but likewise because then they could promise themselves that they had a good friend in england. [sn: alarm excited by the english fleet.] whitelocke visited the french resident, who was very inquisitive what might be the design of the english fleet now at sea; whereunto, as to much other of his discourse, whitelocke did not much study for answers, only he was careful not to let fall any words which might lessen their amusement about the fleet.[ ] in the evening woolfeldt visited whitelocke and discoursed of the same matter; whereof whitelocke made some use and of this gentleman, to heighten their jealousies about this fleet. woolfeldt acquainted whitelocke that the ambassador of denmark had made a complaint against him to the queen, that woolfeldt had deceived the late king of denmark of certain sums of money, which he should have disbursed for the late king of england against the parliament; and that the present king of denmark having been informed that woolfeldt had lost his papers at sea, and so could not produce his acquittances, the king took the advantage thereof against woolfeldt, and now, by his ambassador, charged him before the queen for those moneys: but that he disappointed the danish ambassador by producing before the queen his papers and acquittances, which his enemies believed had had been lost; and so was justified before the queen, to the great discontent of the ambassador. whitelocke said he was very glad that woolfeldt came so well off, and that he perceived the queen had, by the the treaty, a capacity, as well as by his residence, to examine and do right in such matters. [sn: conversation of a danish gentleman who betrays his country.] this day whitelocke had discourse about norway and the sound with a danish gentleman of great quality and experience whom he had obliged, who desired to have his name concealed;[ ] but part of this discourse follows:-- _dane._ now is a good time for the protector to send some ships towards these parts. _whitelocke._ what places are there in norway considerable as to the interest of england? _dane._ there are two places in norway not far from gothenburg which are easy to be taken, and are excellent harbours, wherein england might keep some ships constantly, and command all that pass by to the baltic sea. _wh._ what are the names of those places? _dane._ the one of those havens is called marstrang; but that i do not like so well because of the paternoster rocks, which are very dangerous for coming out if the wind sit northerly, and the fort there is commanded by the hills near it. but the other place, called flecker town, is an island, and hath a going-in and coming-out two ways; it is an excellent harbour, and ships may ride in it at such a distance from the land (being a broad water) that none from the land can hurt them. there is a little fort in this island which may easily be taken, not having above forty or fifty men in it, and the works decayed. those who assail it must land their men on the south-east side of the island, the fort being on the other side, and they may easily be masters of it; and from thence having some ships, they may go in and out at their pleasure, and command all passing by; and none can come into the harbour to them if they make up the fort, which is soon done, and the passage not above musket-shot to be commanded, and there are no guns there of any consideration at this time. _wh._ how shall they do for victuals there to get fresh from the land? _dane._ there is plenty of butter and cheese, sheep and hogs; and the poor country people will be no trouble to you, but be willing to be commanded by you. _wh._ what towns are there near it? _dane._ higher in the country is bergen, the chief town for trade there, and rich enough. your ships may easily come into that harbour, and plunder the town and get a great booty, and return to fleckeren town again. _wh._ is there anything to be done at iceland? _dane._ i wonder you do not send, in august or september, four or five ships to iceland, being men-of-war. they may have twenty or thirty dutch ships, laden with fish, butter, and hides, which will make no resistance at all; and it would be a rich prize, and might be had without danger or difficulty. _wh._ is the castle of elsinore so strong a piece that it cannot be taken without much expense and danger? _dane._ this will not be the best design for england: it is a small, strong castle, and doth not signify much; though it be esteemed a piece of importance, it is not so. _wh._ it commands the passage of the sound. _dane._ most men believe so, but it is mistaken. i have seen an experiment to the contrary, that a boat, being placed in the middle of that narrow passage of the sound, they shot at it from the castle of elsinore, and likewise from the castle of helsingborg on the other side, with the greatest guns they had, and yet they could not reach the boat from either side by two thousand paces; nor is it so narrow in the passage but that a ship may, when she pleaseth, sail by those castles in despite of them. _wh._ what harbour is there at elsinore? _dane._ there is no harbour for ships to ride in, and in foul weather they will be in danger to be all lost, because they must ride in the open sea, which there is extreme perilous; and therefore elsinore is not worth the keeping, if england had it. but their best design would be to go directly to the town of copenhagen with fifty or sixty good ships, with landsmen in them; and it is easy enough to take that town, for the works of it are not strong, nor is it well guarded, and it would be easier to take that town than elsinore; and if england were masters of it, the castle would quickly come in to them; and at the town they should have a good haven for their ships, and a small matter would build a better fort near the town than elsinore is, and would command the passage more than the castles do, and make you masters of the sound and of all the trade of the baltic sea. _wh._ what revenue would be gained thereby? _dane._ more than will maintain your ships and forces there, and will command all the island of zealand. _wh._ i should be glad to meet you there. _dane._ if you summon me by your letters, i will give you a meeting at copenhagen, or those whom the protector will send thither; and if you will meet me there, i doubt not but to show you a way to get that town without much difficulty; and then you will have all the isle of zealand, which is the best part of denmark, and the rest will follow, being weary of the present tyranny and ill-usage of their king. and if you were masters of zealand, you might thereby keep in awe the swede, the hollander, and all the world that have occasion for the commodities of the baltic sea. _wh._ why then doth not the king of denmark now keep them in such awe? _dane._ because he hath neither the money nor ships nor men that england hath. _wh._ what is the ground and reason of payment of the tolls at elsinore, if ships may pass by without the leave of the castles there? _dane._ because that is known but to a very few; and what i have told you is under secresy, and i desire that none but the protector may know it from you; and as for the grounds of paying the tolls at elsinore, it is rather from the keeping of the lights in jutland and upon that coast, than from any command that elsinore hath of the ships that go that way. _wh._ i have heard those lights are very useful. _dane._ unless they were kept, it would be impossible for ships to sail there in the long nights in winter; and the trade doth enforce them to come that way in october and november, when the nights are very long, because of bringing wine into those parts after the vintage, which is in september. _wh._ they are likewise to carry home corn, which is not inned till august and september. did not the hollanders refuse to pay the toll? _dane._ once they did, and thereupon the last king of denmark, by advice, commanded that the lights upon the coast should not be kept; and the hollanders in that autumn lost above thirty ships upon the danish coast, and came and entreated the king that the lights might be kept again, and promised to pay the tolls as formerly, and have done so ever since. _wh._ let me say to you, in freedom, how can you, being a native of denmark, satisfy yourself to discover these things to me, whereby prejudice may come to your country? _dane._ i do not think i betray my country in this, though, my country having left me to be an exile, i might justly leave them; and wheresoever i breathe and am maintained is more my country than that where i was born, and which will not let me breathe there; yet in this i think i may do good service to denmark, to free them from the tyranny they are under, and to bring them into the free government of the protector, to whom i shall do any service in my power. but for the king of denmark, he is governed by his queen and a few of her party, men of no honour nor wisdom nor experience in public affairs, but proud and haughty, according to the way of these parts of the world. _wh._ i shall not fail to make known to the protector your great affections to him. _april , ._ [sn: effects of the english fleet in the north.] monsieur miller, who had been resident at hamburg for her majesty, came to visit whitelocke, and after dinner discoursed much of the english fleet now at sea, which, he said, did amuse all the northern parts of the world, what the design thereof might be. whitelocke did not lessen the wonder, especially in relation to denmark; yet affirmed nothing positively, as indeed he could not. he inquired of monsieur miller if the king of denmark were making any preparations at sea, or of land forces, or had any design towards hamburg. miller said he knew of none, and in his discourse gave whitelocke good information of the government, strength, and trade of that hanse town. the secretary canterstein came to whitelocke from the chancellor, and brought to him the articles upon which they had last treated, now altered according to whitelocke's desire, except that which concerned the forbidding of our enemies to buy arms in the countries of our confederates. he also delivered to whitelocke the draft of a preamble for the articles, and another article for the ratifying of all the rest; whereunto whitelocke consented, and thanked god that his business was brought so near to a good conclusion. whitelocke received his packet from england, and thurloe wrote that the protector was sensible of the queen's delaying of whitelocke, but approved his proceedings. he sent this enclosed order:-- "at the council chamber, whitehall: "_friday, martii, ._ [sn: order in council in the matter of a swedish prize.] "on consideration of a letter, this day read in council, sent from the lord ambassador extraordinary with her majesty of sweden, mentioning, among other things, the taking of the ship 'charity,' paul paulsen, master, by a private man-of-war, and the carrying of her into dover, and the hard usage of the master and mariners, which ship is claimed by some citizens of gothenburg, subjects of the said queen: "_ordered_, that it be referred to the commissioners of the admiralty speedily to put this matter in a way of examination; and, for their information in the premises, to send for the commander of the said man-of-war, and to receive a particular account and satisfaction concerning the disposal of the ship and goods, and the usage of the master and mariners, and thereupon to state the whole case and report it to the council, to the intent speedy justice may be done therein; and the said commissioners are likewise to take order that all further proceedings touching the said ship, or her lading or disposal of any part thereof, be stayed and forborne till their report made and further order thereupon shall be given by the council. "w. jessop, clerk of the council." thurloe wrote that in case the information given to whitelocke were found to be true, that the parties offending would be severely punished and right done to those who were injured; and that the council were very sensible hereof, as a hindrance to whitelocke's proceedings and a dishonour to the protector. he also wrote unto whitelocke that there was little scruple now of an agreement upon the dutch treaty, which was as good as concluded; and he sent the news of france and of scotland and ireland, as well as that of england, as he constantly used to do. whitelocke caused this order to be translated into latin, and made use of it for the advantage of his business. a description was given to whitelocke, in writing, of the manner of making gunpowder in these parts, and of their mills and vessels for it, not unlike in many things to their way in england. _april , ._ [sn: the queen's plans after abdication.] whitelocke waited on the queen, and she was pleased to discourse with him to this effect:-- _queen._ i am resolved to retire into pomerland, and this summer to go to the spa to drink the waters for my health. _whitelocke._ give me leave, madam, to put you in mind of two things to be specially taken care of: one is the security of your own person, the other is the settling of your revenue. your majesty, being of a royal and bountiful spirit, cannot look into such matters so much beneath you as expenses or accounts; and if care be not taken therein, and good officers, your majesty may be disappointed and deceived. _qu._ i thank you for this counsel. i intend to have mr. flemming with me, to take charge of my revenue; he is a discreet, wise man, and fit for that employment, and to order the expenses of my house; i believe he will neither deceive me himself nor permit others to do it, for he is faithful to me. _wh._ such a servant is a jewel. i hope care is taken that your majesty's revenue be secured in such a manner that you shall not depend upon the pleasure of any other for the receipt of it, but to be in your power as mistress of it, not as a pensioner. _qu._ it shall be settled according to the advice you gave me, and i thank you for it. _wh._ madam, i account it a happiness if in anything i may be serviceable to your majesty. whom doth your majesty take with you beside mr. flemming of that quality? _qu._ i desire the company of mr. woolfeldt and his lady, if they will go with me. _wh._ i suppose they will be very serviceable to your majesty; and i hope it will not be long, after the business here effected, before you transport yourself into pomerland, lest any designs should be against your liberty, for, madam, in this age there be few persons to be trusted. _qu._ that is too great a truth, and i thank you for the caution. i could freely trust yourself with any of my concernments; and if you will come to me into pomerland, you shall be as welcome as any man living, and we will be merry together. _wh._ i humbly thank your majesty for your great favour to your servant, who hath a wife and children enough to people a province in pomerland, and i shall bring them all thither to do your majesty service. _qu._ if you will bring your lady and all your children and family thither, and settle yourself there, you shall want nothing in my power, and shall be very welcome to me. _wh._ i am your majesty's most humble servant; and i pray, madam, give me leave to ask your majesty, whether you judge it requisite for me to wait on the prince of sweden before my going out of this country. _qu._ i think it very fit and necessary for you to see the prince before you leave this country; it will be taken as a respect from the protector to him, and if you do not, it will be looked upon as a neglect of him. _wh._ i am obliged to do all that lies in my power to enlarge the protector's interest. _qu._ the prince being to succeed in the crown, and in so short a time, it will be fit to keep a fair correspondence with him and to show respect to him, whereof your visit will be a good testimony. _wh._ madam, your opinion will be a great direction to me in my affairs. _qu._ i think it will be an advantage to your business for you to speak with the prince himself, who will take it in good part, and hold himself the more obliged to the observance of what shall be agreed upon in your present treaty, being acquainted therewith by you that made it. _wh._ i hope the treaty which your majesty shall make will be observed by any who shall succeed you; but i acknowledge it is very advisable for me to have some discourse with his royal highness, to give him an account of the treaty, and i shall inquire where i may attend him. _qu._ you must go from hence to stockholm, and so to nordköping, and the castle where the prince now resides is within a league of that town; you may have my coaches and horses to transport you, and my servants to guide you thither. _wh._ i humbly desire your majesty to make choice of any of my coach-horses or saddle-horses that may be useful for you, and to command them; they are all at your majesty's service. _qu._ i shall not make choice of any; but if you bestow any of them upon me, they will be very acceptable. _wh._ i humbly acknowledge your majesty's great favour in affording a despatch to my business. _qu._ i wish you with the protector, because i see you are a faithful servant to him, and worthy to serve any prince in christendom. _wh._ your majesty ever had a favour for me, and in nothing more than in my despatch. _qu._ i think it not fit for you to be in sweden too near the time of the coronation of the new king; and then to go away, and not to see him, would be worse. _wh._ i do intend, upon your majesty's advice, to salute him before my going away, and shall desire that the ships may meet me near the place where his royal highness is. _qu._ i will give order for it, and will be gone myself not long after; if i had staid here i should have been glad of your longer stay. whitelocke took his leave of the queen, and, being returned home, field-marshal wrangel visited him, and after dinner, being in a good humour, discoursed freely and much of the english fleet at sea. whitelocke showed him a draught of the ship 'sovereign,' with her dimensions, guns, and men, wherewith he was much pleased. he told whitelocke that, by command of the queen, he had prepared ships for whitelocke's transportation from stockholm to lübeck. [sn: whitelocke reports on the treaty to thurloe.] whitelocke made his despatches for england, and in his letters to thurloe gave this account of the treaty:-- " . their first article differs not in substance from the first which i proposed, and therefore i did not object against it; but as to all of them, i reserved a liberty to myself of further consideration and objection. i did a little stick upon the word 'colonias' in this article, lest it might tend to anything of commerce in america; but finding it only to relate to the amity, i passed it over. " . the first part of it agrees in substance with my sixth article, the latter part of it with my fourth article; only i objected against their words in this article, 'in damnum illius,' who should be judge thereof, and the omission of that part of my fourth article against harbouring of enemies and rebels. " . their third article agrees in substance with my second article, but is more general, not naming the sound, and explaining the word 'aliorsum' in my second article; and i desired that the word 'populos' might be added after the word 'subditos.' " . their fourth in the beginning agrees with my third article; that of it touching the trade of america and the fishing i answered, as i gave you a former account, and thereupon denied it, as also that part of it which concerns importation of goods in foreign bottoms, being contrary to our act of parliament. in this latter end of their fourth article they likewise bring in again the business of fishing implicitly in the words 'maribus, littoribus,' etc., and therefore i desired that all that part might be left out, and in lieu thereof i offered the latter part of my third article beginning with the words 'solutis tamen,' etc., and the last of my reserved articles to be admitted; or else, i desired that this whole article of theirs might be omitted, and in lieu thereof my third article, and the last of my reserved articles to be admitted; and they likewise insist to have these words added if that part of their fourth article be omitted, viz. 'quoad americæ commercium, piscationem halecum, et mercium importationem, de his in posterum erit conventum.' " . their fifth article agrees in substance with my eleventh, only hath more words to express the same matter. " . their sixth agrees in substance with my thirteenth article, with the addition of words for kind usage, and the omission of the proviso in my thirteenth article as to breaking of bulk; which yet seems to be supplied by the latter part of their sixth article, of conforming to the ordinances of the place. " . agrees with my reserved article, marked with fifteen, only the words 'nihil inde juris' i thought fit to be omitted, because in the treaty we are not to meddle with particular rights; yet the sense and desire thereof is answered in the words for restitution. i offered them, if they liked not this, my fifteenth article, which is one of those reserved, omitting only that part as not conducing to this article, viz. 'et si lis,' etc. " . agrees in substance with my twelfth article, only the expressions here are longer; and that for justice to be had agrees with the latter part of my reserved article fifteenth. " . in the general differs not in the substance from my seventh, and the beginning of my reserved articles; and the laws in this ninth article, first, second, third, and fourth, are not contrary to the substance of mine; but to the fifth i excepted, as contrary to part of my seventh article, and to their sixth law, as to bringing in of ships and goods from enemies; both which nevertheless, in case we have peace with the dutch, will be more to our advantage, in my humble opinion, to continue in than to be omitted; as also that not to contend in the harbours; and so the first, second, third, and fourth laws. the seventh law, i humbly conceive, not differing in substance from my articles, nor disadvantageous to england. to their sixth law i desired that my seventh article might be added, the which they denied, as to forbid enemies to either to buy arms, etc. " . agrees in part with my ninth, only the latter part of it seems to bring in the trade of america, and a liberty contrary to the act of navigation; but they insist that the same is saved by the latter words of this article, 'modò consuetudines antiquæ;' but i was not satisfied herewith, and desired that that part of it which is marked might be omitted, and the latter part of my ninth article, viz. 'utrisque utrinque observantibus,' etc. inserted, which i humbly conceive will help it; or else i desire that this tenth article may be wholly omitted, and in lieu thereof my ninth may be agreed. " . to this article of theirs i wholly excepted, because it agrees not with any of mine, nor with reason, that when our enemies have forbidden any to bring contraband goods to us, that yet we should permit them to be brought unto our enemies. they told me that the queen had sent unto the states to repeal that placard of theirs. i answered, that when i was certified that that placard was repealed, i would then desire to know the protector's further pleasure herein; but before that be done, i thought it would be in vain to trouble him about it. " . is not expressly in any of my articles, but agreed by the council of state unto mr. lagerfeldt, only the form of the letters of safe-conduct not fully assented unto; therefore i desired that the same might be remitted to a future agreement; but as to the rest of this article, it is not repugnant to the substance of mine, that the navigation and commerce may be free. " . in the first part of it agrees almost _verbatim_ with my tenth article; the latter part of it, concerning satisfaction for losses, is much altered from what it was at first exhibited, and is now put on both parties, and referred to future agreement, wherein there can be no prejudice to our commonwealth; but before, it was reproachful to the justice thereof and laid on our part only; now it is no more than what the council and state promised in their papers to mr. lagerfeldt. " . agrees in substance with my ninth article. " . contains the substance of my fifth article, but is expressed more generally, and, as i humbly believe, no less to the advantage of our commonwealth. "i found more readiness in the queen to consent to what i proposed than in her commissioners; but some things she told me she could not consent to, because they were against the interest of her people, and were not considerable to england. i gave her thanks for my despatch. she said she had an ambition to have the honour of making an alliance with the protector herself before she quitted the government, and that she might testify her respects to him, and therefore had gone as far as possibly she could; and indeed there is now very little difference, but only in words and expressions, from the sense and substance of what i first proposed. and i presume that what is here agreed by me will give good satisfaction and contentment to the protector and council, and i apprehend it clearly within my instructions; acknowledging the goodness of god to me in this business, where i met with so many difficulties, and of so great weight, that yet in a fortnight's time it should be brought to a full conclusion, with honour and advantage to the protector and present government, for which i have taken all care. "the articles are not yet drawn up, but i hope we shall sign them the next week, and presently after i intend to demand audience to take my leave and to remove from hence, and, as soon as i can, to come to lübeck, and from thence to hamburg; and i have by this post humbly desired my lord protector to appoint some of his ships to meet me at hamburg as soon as they can, for my transportation from thence to england. and i humbly entreat your favour to put his highness in mind of it, and that you will take care that the orders may be had, and the ships to come as soon as may be to the elbe, to hamburg, where i shall stay for them, or till i receive his highness's further commands; and i choose this way as the shortest, and where i shall meet with any despatches that may come from england. i presume you will be troubled with an importunate suitor for hastening my return. "i received your letters of the th march, and the order of the council concerning the swedish ship, for which i return my humble thanks. the queen, and the chancellor and others here, were much satisfied with it. the chancellor and his son have been very civil to me, and lately furthering my despatch. i hope the same goodness of god which hath hitherto brought me through this great business will give me a safe return to my dear country and friends, where i may have opportunity with thankfulness to acknowledge your constant favour and kindness to "your affectionate friend to serve you, "b. w. "_upsal, april th, ._" _april , ._ [sn: a masque at court.] the master of the ceremonies came to whitelocke from the queen, to desire his company this evening at a masque; and they had this discourse:-- _whitelocke._ present my thanks to her majesty, and tell her i will wait upon her. [sn: precedence claimed by denmark.] _mast. cer._ what would your excellence expect in matter of precedence, as in case you should meet with any other ambassador at the masque? _wh._ i shall expect that which belongs to me as ambassador from the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland; and i know no other ambassador now in this court besides myself, except the ambassador of the king of denmark, who, i suppose, hath no thoughts of precedence before the english ambassador, who is resolved not to give it him if he should expect it. _mast. cer._ perhaps it may be insisted on, that he of denmark is an ambassador of an anointed king, and you are only ambassador to the protector--a new name, and not _sacré_. _wh._ whosoever shall insist on that distinction will be mistaken, and i understand no difference of power between king and protector, or anointed or not anointed; and ambassadors are the same public ministers to a protector or commonwealth as to a prince or sultan. _mast. cer._ there hath always been a difference observed between the public ministers of kings and of commonwealths, or princes of inferior titles. _wh._ the title of protector, as to a sovereign title, hath not yet been determined in the world as to superiority or inferiority to other titles; but i am sure that the nation of england hath ever been determined superior to that of denmark. i represent the nations of england, scotland, and ireland, and the protector, who is chief of them; and the honour of these nations ought to be in the same consideration now as it hath been formerly, and i must not suffer any diminution of that honour by my person to please any whatsoever. _mast. cer._ i shall propose an expedient to you, that you may take your places as you come: he who comes first, the first place, and he who comes last, the lower place. _wh._ i shall hardly take a place below the danish ambassador, though i come into the room after him. _mast. cer._ but when you come into the room and find the danish ambassador set, you cannot help it, though he have the upper place. _wh._ i shall endeavour to help it, rather than sit below the danish ambassador. _mast. cer._ i presume you will not use force in the queen's presence. _wh._ master, it is impossible for me, if it were in the presence of all the queens and kings in christendom, to forbear to use any means to hinder the dishonour of my nation in my person. _mast. cer._ i believe the danish ambassador would not be so high as you are. _wh._ there is no reason why he should: he knows his nation never pretended to have the precedence of england, and you, being master of the ceremonies, cannot be ignorant of it. _mast. cer._ i confess that your nation always had the precedence of denmark when you were under a king. _wh._ i should never give it from them though they were under a constable. _mast. cer._ if you insist upon it, the danish ambassador must be uninvited again, for i perceive that you two must not meet. _wh._ i suppose the gentleman would not expect precedence of me. _mast. cer._ i can assure you he doth. _wh._ i can assure you he shall never have it, if i can help it. but i pray, master, tell me whether her majesty takes notice of this question of precedence, or did she wish to confer with me about it? _mast. cer._ the queen commanded me to speak with you about it, hoping that the question might be so composed that she might have the company of you both at her entertainment. _wh._ i shall stay at home rather than interrupt her majesty's pleasures, which i should do by meeting the danish ambassador, to whom i shall not give precedence, unless he be stronger than i. _mast. cer._ the queen makes this masque chiefly for your excellence's entertainment, therefore you must not be absent, but rather the danish ambassador must be uninvited; and i shall presently go about it. [sn: order on the swedish ships.] whitelocke returned a visit to grave eric, and showed him the order of the council touching the swedish ships, much in favour of them, and which seemed very pleasing to the grave; but he also showed to whitelocke several letters which he had received from masters of swedish ships, of new complaints of taking of their ships; and he desired that the order showed him by whitelocke might be extended to those whose ships had been since taken; which whitelocke promised to endeavour, and said that he should be in a better capacity to serve him, and to procure discharges for their ships and goods, when he should be himself in england; and therefore desired that, by his despatch, they would hasten him thither, which the grave promised to do. at his going away, grave eric invited whitelocke to dine with him on monday next, and to come as a particular friend and brother, and not by a formal invitation as an ambassador. whitelocke liked the freedom, and promised to wait on him; and was the more willing to come, that he might see the fashion of their entertainments, this being the first invitation that was made to him by any person in this country. general grave wirtenberg visited whitelocke. he is a finlander by birth, of an ancient family, who had applied himself wholly to the military profession, wherein he became so eminent, and had done so great service for this crown, that he was had in great esteem, especially with the soldiery. he was a ricks-senator, and one of the college of war, and at present had the charge of general of the ordnance, which is of higher account here than in england, being next in command to the generalissimo, and over the soldiery which belong not to the train, and is often employed as a general. this gentleman seemed worthy of his honour; he was of a low stature, somewhat corpulent, of a good mien, and plain behaviour, more in the military than courtly way. his discourse declared his reason and judgement to be very good, and his mention of anything relating to himself was full of modesty. he took great notice of the english navy and soldiery, and of the people's inclinations and violent desires of liberty. he spake only swedish and high dutch, which caused whitelocke to make use of an interpreter, his kinsman andrew potley. [sn: the masque.] in the evening, according to the invitation from the queen, whitelocke went to court to the masque, where he did not find the danish ambassador. but some of the court took notice of the discourse which had been between the master of the ceremonies and whitelocke touching precedence, and they all approved whitelocke's resolution, and told him that the queen highly commended him for it, and said that he was a stout and faithful servant to the protector and to his nation, and that she should love him the better for it; nor was the contest the less pleasing because with the dane in sweden. from eight o'clock at night till two the next morning they were at the masque, which was in the usual room fitted for the solemnity, in which the queen herself was an actor. the floor where they danced was covered with tapestry and hung about with red velvet, but most adorned by the presence of a great number of ladies richly dressed and beautified both by nature and habit, attending on their mistress; and there were also many senators, officers, courtiers, and nobility,--a very great presence of spectators. the music was excellent, especially the violins, which were many, and rare musicians and fittest for that purpose. the queen herself danced very well at two entries: in the first she represented a moorish lady, in the second a citizen's wife; in both the properties were exactly fitted, and in all the rest of the actors and dancers. there were no speeches nor songs; men acting men's parts, and women the women's, with variety of representations and dances. the whole design was to show the vanity and folly of all professions and worldly things, lively represented by the exact properties and mute actions, genteelly, without the least offence or scandal. it held two hours; and after the dances the queen caused her chair to be brought near to whitelocke, where she sat down and discoursed with him of the masque. he (according to his judgement) commended it and the inoffensiveness of it, and rare properties fitted to every representation, with the excellent performance of their parts by all, especially by the moorish lady and citizen's wife; at which the queen smiled, and said she was glad he liked it. he replied, that any of his countrymen might have been present at it without any offence, and he thanked her majesty for the honour she gave him to be present at it. the queen said she perceived that whitelocke understood what belonged to masques and the most curious part of them, the properties,--with much like discourse; after which she retired to her chamber, and whitelocke to his lodging. _april , ._ monsieur bloome came to dine with whitelocke, and to put him in mind of grave eric's request{ } to him to dine with him the next day. he also sent to invite whitelocke's two sons and colonel potley. [sn: the spanish envoy departs with rich presents.] in the afternoon piementelle came to take his leave of whitelocke, and said he intended to begin his journey the next morning. whitelocke offered himself or his coaches and servants, to attend him out of town; but he said it was not the custom when a public minister departed from a place to use any ceremony, but to leave him to the liberty of ordering and taking his journey, but thanked whitelocke for his favour. though it were the lord's day, yet piementelle fell into discourse of the last night's masque, which he could not be present at publicly as formerly, because he had taken his leave of the queen and senators, yet, being desirous to see it, was admitted into the tiring-room; and he told whitelocke that after the queen had acted the moorish lady and retired into that room to put off her disguise, piementelle being there, she gave him her visor; in the mouth whereof was a diamond ring of great price, which shined and glistered gloriously by the torch and candle light as the queen danced; this she bade piementelle to keep till she called for it. piementelle told her he wondered she would trust a jewel of that value in the hands of a soldier; she said she would bear the adventure of it. and when the masque was ended, piementelle offered the ring again to the queen, who told him that he had not kept it according to her commands, which were till she called for it, which she had not yet done, nor intended as long as she lived, but that he should keep it as a memorial of her favour. the spaniard had cause to rest satisfied with the queen's answer and her real and bountiful compliment, the ring being worth ten thousand crowns, which he brought away with him, besides many other jewels and presents from the queen of great value, not publicly known. he took leave of whitelocke and of his sons, colonel potley, and the gentlemen, with great civility. _april , ._ [sn: whitelocke dines with grave eric oxenstiern.] between eleven and twelve o'clock, the usual dining-time here, whitelocke, with his sons and potley, attended only by two gentlemen, one page, and two lacqueys, went to grave eric's lodging to dinner. his rooms were not stately nor richly furnished, but such as could be had in that place. the outer room for servants was like a little hall; within that was a larger room, narrow and long, where they dined; within that was a smaller room hung with tapestry, used for a withdrawing-room: all below stairs, which is not usual in these parts. grave eric met whitelocke at the door of the lodging; in the dining-room was his father the chancellor, and divers friends with him. the father and son went in with whitelocke to the withdrawing-room, where, after a quarter of an hour's discourse, they were called to dinner, the meat being on the table; then a huge massy basin and ewer of silver gilt was brought for them to wash--some of the good booties met with in germany. after washing, one of the pages (after their manner) said grace in swedish. the table was long and narrow; in the middle of it, on the further side, under a canopy of velvet, were set two great chairs: whitelocke sat in the right-hand chair, and woolfeldt in the other, on his left-hand. on the other side of the table, over against these, were set two other like great chairs; in the right-hand chair sat the ricks-droitset, and in the left-hand chair the chancellor. by whitelocke sat grave gabriel oxenstiern and senator vanderlin in lesser chairs, and by woolfeldt sat whitelocke's sons and potley. on the other side, in lesser chairs, by the droitset, sat the senators beilke and bundt the younger; by the chancellor sat senator bundt the elder and baron douglas; at the upper end of the table sat grave eric, and at the lower end stood the carver. the dishes were all silver, not great, but many, set one upon another, and filled with the best meat and most variety that the country did afford; and indeed the entertainment was very noble--they had four several courses of their best meat, and fish and fowl, dressed after the french mode. they had excellent rhenish wine, and indifferent good sack and claret; their beer very thick and strong, after the manner of the country. when the four courses were done, they took off the meat and tablecloth, and under it was another clean cloth; then they brought clean napkins and plates to every one, and set a full banquet on the table, and, as part thereof, tobacco and pipes, which they set before whitelocke as a special respect to him, and he and two or three more of the company took of it as they sat at table; and they so civilly complied with whitelocke as not to observe their own customs, but abstaining from healths or any excess. they all sat bare at the table, according to their usage, chiefly (though no occasion were for it at this time) to avoid the trouble of often putting off and on their hats and caps in healths. they were full of good discourse, more cheerful than serious. most at the table spake or understood somewhat of english, for which reason they were chosen to accompany whitelocke here, as a compliment to his nation; they discoursed also in several other languages, as swedish, high dutch, french, and latin. after dinner, which was very long, they sat yet longer at the table, whitelocke expecting when they would rise; till douglas informed him, that he being the guest, and an ambassador, they used it as a respect to him, that none of the company would offer to rise till he first arose from the table. as soon as this was known to whitelocke, he presently rose and the rest with him, and the chancellor and he retired into the withdrawing-room; where, after compliments and thanks for his noble treatment (which it was said the father made, though put out in the son's name, and was full of respect and magnificence), whitelocke thought fit to show to the chancellor his powers to treat, and they had conference to this effect. [sn: whitelocke exchanges his full powers.] _whitelocke._ father, if you please to peruse this writing, you will be satisfied that the protector, since the late change of government in england, hath thought me worthy to be trusted and furnished with sufficient power as to this treaty. _chancellor._ my dear son, this is very full, and a large testimony of the good opinion your master hath of you. all your powers and the originals of your commissions (according to custom) are to be left with us, to be registered in our chancery. _wh._ i suppose you will also deliver to me the originals of your powers, to be enrolled (according to the english custom also) in our chancery. _chan._ that shall be done. _wh._ the like shall be done on my part; and the protector will be ready to do whatever shall be judged further necessary for the ratifying of this business. _chan._ it will be requisite that you let me have in latin your instructions from the protector. _wh._ i shall cause it to be done, except such part of them as are secret. _chan._ that which is to be reserved in secresy i desire not to see; there will be sufficient besides to show your powers. _wh._ they will fully appear. _chan._ i should counsel you, before your departure out of this kingdom, to make a visit to the prince of sweden; he will take it in good part, and it will testify a respect of the protector to him, and render the alliance the more firm. _wh._ it is my purpose to visit the prince; not that i am in doubt of the validity of the treaty made with the queen, unless the prince approve of it, but, as you advise, to show the respect of the protector to his kingly highness, and to acquit myself of a due civility. _chan._ it will be fit for you to do it; and i shall advise you, at your return home, to put the protector in mind of some particulars which, in my judgement, require his special care. _wh._ i shall faithfully do it, and i know they will be received with much the more regard coming from you: i pray do me the favour to let me know them. [sn: oxenstiern's advice to cromwell.] _chan._ i would counsel the protector to take heed of those dangerous opinions in matters of religion which daily increase among you, and, if not prevented and curbed, will cause new troubles, they never resting till themselves may domineer in chief. _wh._ will not the best way to curb them be to slight them, and so they will fall of themselves? _chan._ i doubt they have taken too much root to fall so easily; but if they be not countenanced with preferments, they will the sooner wither and decay. _wh._ that will surely lessen them. _chan._ the protector must also be careful to provide money and employment for his soldiers, else he will hardly keep them in order. _wh._ that is very requisite; and for money there is good provision already made. _chan._ he must likewise be watchful of the king's party, who will be busy at work, especially upon the new change. _wh._ the care thereof is the life of our affairs, and his highness is most vigilant. _chan._ it behoves him to be so, for they that could not vanquish him by arms will endeavour to do it by craft and treachery of your own party, which you must look to. _wh._ he hath good intelligence of their plots. _chan._ it will also be prudence in him to let the people see that he intends not to rule them with an iron sceptre, nor to govern them by an army, but to give them such a liberty and enjoyment of the benefit of their laws that the continuance of his government may become their interest, and that they may have no cause to desire a change; else, though they must bear the yoke for a time, yet as soon as they meet with an opportunity they will shake it off again. _wh._ this is counsel proper to come from such a mind and judgement as yours is, and i shall not fail to report it to his highness; and your excellence hath rightly stated the disposition of my countrymen, who love peace and liberty, and will hardly brook slavery longer than they are forced to it by necessity; and the best way to govern them is to let them enjoy their laws and rights, which will rule them better than an iron sceptre. _chan._ it is the disposition of all generous and free people, as the english are, whom i truly respect, and him that is their head, that gallant person the protector. they had much other discourse; and after being together till six o'clock, the father and son, and the chancellor and whitelocke, called one another, and all the company parted. _april , ._ [sn: the queen proposes a secret article.] the chancellor had promised to procure whitelocke his despatch in a few days. he sent canterstein to communicate to him the articles drawn in form, with the amendments, to see if there were any mistake in them. whitelocke and the secretary perused them together, and agreed on all except two or three points, in which was some small difference; and canterstein promised to hasten the engrossing of them. many strangers dining with whitelocke made him the later in his visit to the queen, to take his leave of her majesty before her intended journey to see her mother. she promised whitelocke that during her absence she would leave order with the chancellor and his son to conclude the treaty, and at her return she would do what belonged to her for the speedy despatch of whitelocke, to his contentment. she promised also to give order to her chancellor about the business of guinea, whereof they had much discourse. she was pleased to propound to whitelocke a secret article to be between her and the protector, and not to be in the treaty between her commissioners and whitelocke, nor to be known to any of them. she said, that if it might be done, she should take it in very good part; but if whitelocke thought it not likely to be done, then she would think no more of it. she said the substance of what she desired was that it might be agreed, by a particular article between the protector and her, that in case those here should not perform what they promised to her upon her resignation of the government, that then it should be in the power of the protector to break the treaty now made, and not to be bound by it. whitelocke was much troubled at this proposal, and upon a great difficulty in it--that if he should deny it, the queen might be distasted and break off from his treaty; and to consent to it he had no commission, nor held it reasonable; but he told the queen that it was a matter of great weight, deserving her majesty's serious thoughts what to do in it. he said he had no instructions upon any such article as this, nor could agree to it; but if her majesty pleased to have such an article drawn up, and to sign it herself and send it to the protector, he promised to use his best interest to persuade his highness to a consent thereunto, and to sign it at whitelocke's return to england, and so to return it to her majesty. she said that woolfeldt should confer with whitelocke about the drawing up of such an article, whom she would trust in it, but not any of the swedes, because it might concern them, and occasion prejudice to them. whitelocke agreed that woolfeldt was a fit person to be trusted in this business, and one with whom he should willingly confer about any service for her majesty; that he believed something might be done herein to the queen's advantage, but whether in this way of a secret article, and as part of the treaty, he doubted, lest thereby offence might be given, and the treaty thereby, as to both parts, be weakened. the queen replied that it would keep those here in some fear lest if they should break with her, that then the protector would not keep the treaty with them. whitelocke thought it best to be at some reserve in this article of secresy, not wholly to dissuade the queen from it, lest she might be distasted. he saw advantage to the protector to have it put into his power to break the treaty upon this occasion; but he doubted the honour and clearness of it, and therefore he judged it best to say the less at this time. only he observed what a condition the queen had brought her affairs unto when she thought not fit to trust any of her countrymen in this business; and before her resignation she distrusted the performance of the conditions of it towards herself, and therefore would have this secret article as a bridle to them. but as she distrusted her own party, so she testified great confidence in the protector and in whitelocke, to whom she propounded this secret article of so much concernment to her. whitelocke persuaded her majesty to appoint faithful persons to order her revenue for her, and not to stay long here after her resignation, because she would then find a great difference in the carriage of persons to her. she said she had taken care about her revenue as he had advised her, and that she would be gone out of sweden presently after her resignation; that she expected the alteration of men's carriages towards her after it, but it would not trouble her; that the world was of such a condition, that nothing of respect was to be looked for but where advantage was hoped for by it. she never esteemed the fawnings of men for their own ends, but her own private contentment and satisfaction. whitelocke sent his son james and his secretary (earle) to canterstein with a copy of the form which whitelocke intended to follow in the instrument intended to be delivered by him, where he put the protector's name first, and some other small variations, as usage required; wherewith canterstein promised to acquaint the chancellor and to return an answer. whitelocke employed his son for his experience to be gained in these affairs. _april , ._ [sn: woolfeldt opposes the secret article.] mr. woolfeldt having done whitelocke the favour to dine with him, they retired and discoursed privately to this effect:-- _woolfeldt._ the queen was pleased the last night to send for me, and to communicate to me the matter of a secret article which, she said, she had before imparted to you. _whitelocke._ what is your opinion of such an article? _woolf._ truly, i dissuaded her from it, as not convenient, in my poor opinion, for either party. _wh._ i know your judgement is grounded upon solid reason. _woolf._ my reasons are, because this article is to be kept secret, and to be added as a part of the treaty by her majesty without the knowledge of those here, which, when it shall come to be known, will give them the more cause of objection and hatred against her for it, and expose her to more inconveniences than it can bring advantage to her; and therefore i thought it better for her majesty to forbear it. _wh._ your reasons were the true ones: was her majesty convinced by them? _woolf._ she seemed to make more doubt of it than at first, but told me that you were not much against it, and desired to confer with me about it while she was out of town, and she wished me to prepare something against her return. _wh._ as i told her majesty, i can consent to nothing in this point, having no instructions in any matter of this nature, as you will easily believe; but if her majesty shall think fit to have anything drawn up by way of a secret article, all that i can do will be to present it to the protector at my return home, and i know he will be as ready as any person to show respect to the queen; but what he will do as to a consent in this particular i cannot tell, but am doubtful lest it may be apprehended as a weakening of the treaty and alliance. _woolf._ that is a great and true objection against it; and, in my opinion, it would be better for the queen to write a letter to the protector in general compliment, and in it to desire him to be a friend to her, and to give her his assistance upon any occasion that may fall out concerning her; and this letter may be sent by you, and delivered by your hand to the protector, when you may acquaint him with anything further or more particularly relating to her majesty. _wh._ i think this will be much the better way; and if such a letter be sent by me, i hope i shall be able to procure such an answer, or, upon any occasion, such a return as will be to the contentment of her majesty. but in case the queen should sign such an article, and then the protector should not approve it, it would distaste the queen and her friends, and she would be censured to have done too low an act in it. _woolf._ i had yesterday a long discourse with the chancellor about your affairs of england, and particularly of your fleet now at sea--what should be the design of having so strong a fleet at sea, the sea-war between you and your enemies being reported at an end, and peace concluded; and whether your design might be for france or spain or portugal. _wh._ or for the defence of england. _woolf._ he was much amused about it. _wh._ i hope that was not lessened by you. _woolf._ no indeed; i endeavoured to amuse him more, and told him, that for france, england did not care to have it; it would be but a charge and no benefit to them, and embroil them in a long chargeable war. _wh._ england hath had experience thereof formerly when they were masters of france, and many of us think our own country as good as france. _woolf._ i am of that opinion; and i told him there was as little probability for any design against spain because of its distance, and little advantage to england by a war with them. _wh._ i hope you commended a kingdom called denmark? _woolf._ i first told him that for portugal or the indies the like objections were against any design for them; but as for denmark, i told him that england had just cause to make war upon that king, and that it would be no hard business to gain upon him; and the advantage of traffic made me think that to be the most probable design of any other to be intended by this great fleet of england, wherein it is most likely for you to gain advantage to your commonwealth and to give offence to none, having a just cause of quarrel against him. _wh._ your brother the king of denmark hath given cause indeed to be visited. _woolf._ i shall inform you of one thing, of which you may now make advantage. your king james made a treaty with the last king of denmark concerning the isles of the orcades, which were claimed by the dane as part of their territories; and after the death of king james and our last king, that then, upon payment of £ , by the dane, he should have the orcades again. now both these kings being dead, according to that treaty it is in the liberty of the king of denmark to redeem those islands; and it would be good for you, in the treaty with that crown, who would be included in your treaty with the hollanders, to have a clause for the present king of denmark to quit his pretences to the orcades upon the treaty with king james. _wh._ this is a very material thing, and i shall not fail to do somewhat in it, if i can return to england time enough; and i thank you for putting me in mind of it. [sn: discussion on the guinea settlements.] grave eric came to whitelocke, who had much discourse with him touching guinea, and the injuries done by the swedes to the english there. _grave eric._ one of the principal persons of the swedish plantation there is now in this country, and complains of injuries done by the english to the swedes there. i think it may be fit to hear both the complaints of the one and of the other part, and thereupon to come to some agreement upon the whole matter. _whitelocke._ i have here many examinations taken upon oath concerning this matter. _gr. eric._ those complaints ought to be determined by the king of that country, who sold the lands to the planters, and can resolve all differences about that matter. _wh._ i believe that the complaints of this nature are properly to be made to the queen, whose subjects are concerned in them, and they are always under her rule. _gr. eric._ the queen will make no difficulty to do justice in this case, and i hope that the protector will do the like. _wh._ you need not at all to doubt it. _gr. eric._ this messenger, now come to me, hath brought me letters from the queen, in which there is mention of this business. _wh._ why may not an article touching guinea be inserted with the rest? _gr. eric._ that will not be convenient, because the articles are entirely concluded and engrossed on our part; and this of guinea is but a particular business, which till now came not under consideration, nor hath been examined, and it will be better to have an article by itself upon this subject. _wh._ i am satisfied with your reason, and think this way will be no disadvantage to the merchants of either nation. i desire an addition to the article touching passports, that none shall do anything contrary to the letters of passport. _gr. eric._ i cannot consent to that, for it will render the whole article fruitless in both parts; and there is another article, that in case any shall act anything in prejudice of the treaty, he shall be punished. in consideration of this article, and in regard that the agreement touching the form of passports was remitted to something to be done therein afterwards, and he found eric stiff against any alteration, whitelocke did not think it material to insist further upon it. as to that which whitelocke desired to the last article of ratification, that the words "vel successoribus suis" might be omitted, eric said he would consent thereunto if he found it material, and desired the business might be finished; and he desired whitelocke to excuse a little small delay at present by his absence for a few days, he being necessitated to go out of town tomorrow, but at his return all should be concluded; and as soon as the queen came back, the whole business should be finished, which had been done before, but by reason of the queen's unexpected journey. _april , ._ [sn: whitelocke confers with the chancellor, and invites him to dinner.] in the morning the chancellor came to whitelocke and staid with him near three hours. they had much debate touching guinea, to the like effect as before with his son; they had also debate about the amendments which whitelocke had desired might be inserted in the articles, chiefly that touching passports, to which the chancellor would by no means agree. he likewise said to whitelocke:-- _chancellor._ the queen caused the articles to be copied out, to the end (as i believe) to communicate them to the prince, which will be for the greater validity of the treaty and alliance. _whitelocke._ i am glad her majesty is pleased to take the advice of the prince in this business, and am willing to promise myself that nothing is contained in the articles which he will not approve. _chan._ i believe the same. _wh._ this might be the occasion that my business was not finished before her majesty's going out of town. _chan._ i myself am also going into the country, and come now to take my leave of you. _wh._ i hope you will return before her majesty. _chan._ i purpose to stay abroad but four or five days; and i find that frequent exercise and change of air tendeth very much to the improving of my health. _wh._ i do heartily wish your health, and hope that the queen and you will shortly be in town again, and that then my business will be finished. _chan._ there is no doubt but that your business will be despatched within a very few days after the queen's return. they had much other discourse touching the affairs of england, in which the chancellor testified much respect to england and to the protector. whitelocke invited the chancellor to dinner to his house, but he excused himself, alleging that his age and infirmities would not permit him to take a meal out of his own house, or at the houses of some of his children, where he might enjoy the same liberty as at his own house. whitelocke told him that he should have the same liberty at his house, who was one of his sons, as he could take at the houses of any other of his children; but the chancellor earnestly desired to be excused, and whitelocke thought not fit further to importune him, but desired him to hasten his return hither, which he promised to do. whitelocke received his letters from england, and in that from thurloe he writes:-- [sn: letters from thurloe.] "there hath been consideration taken of your return home, but the issue of the treaty with the dutch not being yet known, his highness's resolutions as to your return are deferred until the next; the difficulty of that business lies in the article relating to the danes, etc. all things else remain as they did by my last, so that your excellence will be saved this week the labour of reading my long letter. this day we have a fast for the great drought. "my lady was here with me to hasten your return, wherein i should be glad to be instrumental. i pray god preserve your excellence, and bless the affairs under your hand. i am, "your excellence's humble servant, "jo. thurloe. "_march th, ._ "i saw a letter to his highness from upsal, wherein some expressions were used as if your excellence were like to be removed from the seal. his highness commanded me to assure you that there are no such intentions, but much the contrary, whereof your excellence will have real demonstrations upon all occasions." _april , ._ [sn: passport given to a swedish ship.] grave eric desired whitelocke to give a passport to a swedish ship bound from stockholm to portugal. the chancellor requested the same, and both father and son engaged to whitelocke that there was nothing aboard the vessel, nor any design in her voyage, against england; that she was freighted for portugal only, and that they should esteem the favour as done to themselves, because they had a share in the goods on board this ship. whitelocke, though he were hardly persuaded to give his passports to swedish ships or to any other, yet considering the time when this was desired, and the persons desiring it, he thought not fit to deny it, but gave it in this form.[ ] whitelocke gave an account in his letters this day to thurloe of all passages of moment since his last, and wrote further:-- [sn: letters to thurloe.] "my letters, i confess, have been tedious heretofore, but i ask your pardon, and do hope that my business is now at such a period that i shall not have occasion to trouble you with the like. "there is little to do here at this time; almost all the great lords and courtiers are gone out of town, so that here is a lamentable silent place. i shall be heartily glad to receive my lord's order to authorize my return; but my business being now ended, i presume i may expect his pleasure at any other place. i purpose to visit the queen-mother and the prince of sweden, because other ambassadors have done it, and i have been particularly invited to it. i think it will be a respect from my lord protector which they will take very kindly, and may be some strength to the alliance, and is not the less requisite for me, because our enemies report that none but mechanics are of our party; but since our being here the swedes acknowledge the contrary. "i hope within two or three weeks to be at sea, and that my god, who hath hitherto been so good to me, will give me a safe return to my lord and to my native country, to whom i wish all prosperity. "your affectionate friend to serve you, "b. w. "_upsal, th april, ._ "i hope you will pardon the importunity of my wife's solicitation, being for my return. i have been informed this week that some holland ships are loading here with ordnance and other provisions of war. i hope his highness hath been pleased to give order for two or three ships to be at hamburg for my transportation into england, and therein i entreat your favour. "b. w." in this letter whitelocke also gave advice, what he had been informed touching the treaty between king james and the last king of denmark concerning the orcades, with his humble opinion what was fit to be done in that business, upon the comprehension of the dane in the dutch treaty, yet nothing was done therein; however, whitelocke was satisfied in the acquittal of himself to have done his duty. upon the earnest request of some scots and english gentlemen on the behalf of colonel halsall, now in this town, whitelocke gave him this pass.[ ] _april , ._ [sn: excursion with the french resident.] the resident of france having desired whitelocke that when he went abroad to take the air he would give him leave to accompany him, whitelocke sent to him, this fair day inviting and leisure not hindering it. they went together in whitelocke's coach to a wood, about an english mile from upsal, full of pines, fir-trees, and juniper, and very fair and pleasant walks in it. the beauty of the day and place had also invited thither at this time the ambassador of denmark and the holland resident, who, perceiving whitelocke's coaches and company, crossed out of the way where they were, and betook themselves to another walk; but whitelocke kept on in his, and with the french resident had much general discourse, but little of matters of state, because they could not trust one the other; yet whitelocke learnt from him the condition of several persons in principal credit in the court of france, and the way of their management of affairs. this gentleman was very civil and courteous and good company, desiring the conversation of whitelocke, which he afforded him both going abroad and in his house, to which the resident did him the favour to be no stranger. whitelocke told him he purposed to go by nordköping, and by the way to visit the queen-mother and the prince, and to have his ship meet him there. the resident said the ship could not easily come to nordköping, being no good harbour; but his best way would be to go from thence to calmar, and his ship to meet him there, the haven being open and the ship may come near the town; and that nordköping was the midway between stockholm and calmar, and the ship might be as soon at calmar as at nordköping; that the passage to lübeck was much easier from calmar than from nordköping, and with a good wind might be made from calmar in two days. but hereof whitelocke intended to have the advice of some swedes. _april , ._ [sn: great wealth of the oxenstiern family.] monsieur bloome this lord's day dined with whitelocke, and told him that the chancellor had left him in town to keep whitelocke company in the absence of the chancellor, and to assure him that the chancellor would return again in a very few days. whitelocke made much of him, and had good informations from him. he said that grave john oxenstiern, the chancellor's eldest son, had at that time, whilst his father was alive, above £ , sterling of yearly revenue, which he had from his father and by his wife, an inheritrix; and that grave eric, the second son, had in his father's lifetime near £ , sterling of yearly revenue, besides what both of them might expect from their father: and therefore both father and sons might, as they did, live in great state and with attendance of much port and ceremony. grave leonhough bestowed a visit on whitelocke. he is a senator and one of the college of war, a person of great esteem and good parts; his conversation was full of civility; his discourse (in french) was rational, and for the most part upon matter of war, history, and the mathematics. in his company was an officer, his brother-in-law, who had served the king of portugal in his late wars, and was a civil person, and seemed a gallant man. this grave had been long bred up in the wars, and was now a major-general; and his discourse showed him to be knowing and modest. he demanded of whitelocke many questions touching the affairs of england, and particularly of the late civil dissensions there, and had a full account thereof from whitelocke, by which he seemed to receive much satisfaction, and acknowledged that he had not heard the truth before, and that this relation justified the proceedings of the parliament. he spake nothing to whitelocke touching his business of the treaty, nor did whitelocke mention it to this grave, whom he never saw before, and because it was a day for other duties. _april , ._ [sn: a serenade to whitelocke.] upsal being very empty, by the absence of the queen and all the great lords, who were retired to their country-houses, but most of them to stockholm, it was given out that her majesty would not return to this place, but remain at stockholm, and that the general assembly should be held there; which was not believed by whitelocke, because the queen had assured him that she would return to upsal within eight or ten days, and she never brake her word with him. her absence, and the leisure which they had thereby, gave opportunity to some of her musicians (italians and germans) to pass a compliment on whitelocke, to come to his house, and with great ceremony to entertain him with their vocal and instrumental music, which was excellent good; and they played many lessons of english composition, which the gentlemen who were musical of whitelocke's family brought forth unto them. _april , ._ [sn: the swedish army.] whitelocke returned a visit to the grave leonhough, whose lodgings were but mean, such as the town would afford, but his treatment was with great civility. amongst other discourse he inquired touching the discipline of war and ordering the soldiery in england, who, he said, must be well paid, or else they could not be kept in good order. whitelocke acknowledged that to be very true, and said that in england special care was taken for the constant and due pay of the armies much beyond other countries, by which means they were kept in the best and strictest discipline of any armies in the world; that violence or plunder, contrary to the articles of war, was severely punished. the grave acquainted whitelocke that he was to go out of town the next day to a general muster, about four leagues from hence, within the province where he had the government; which occasioned whitelocke to inquire of him, and to be informed that this was the standing militia of the country, and that the manner of it was thus:-- the whole militia of sweden in the country, besides the standing forces of their armies in service, doth consist of , horse and foot, whereof , horse and , foot in the several provinces are constantly in a readiness to be drawn forth in fourteen days' time. in sweden are about horse and , foot, and in finland and the other provinces about horse and , foot: in all, above , . that the crown is not at any charge for the pay of these militia forces, unless they are drawn forth into actual service, and then they are paid as their other army forces are, which is not very much or constant; but when they are in an enemy's country they live upon the country, and take contribution, if not plunder; and somewhat is allowed them by the crown, as so much in money (which is a very small proportion) and such a weekly quantity of bread, butter, and cheese for every foot-soldier, and a like proportion for the horsemen; whose charge may be guessed at by that of their officers, of whom it was affirmed that the allowance to a captain of horse was his stove and his stable, and twenty rix-dollars a year. his stove they call his fire, candle, and entertainment for himself; his stable, that is horse-meat, and room, and shoeing; and for himself from the crown (besides what he gets from the country) but twenty rix-dollars a year, with the like proportion for other officers and soldiers. the manner of maintaining their militia forces in the country was said to be this:--a horseman was quartered in the house of a boor, or husbandman; if the man will work himself and his horse with the boor, to help him in his husbandry, then the boor gives the man and his horse entertainment freely, and hath their work for it, which is more worth than their meat, and the boor will give the man perhaps some small sum of money besides. by this way the boor hath an advantage--the work of a man and a horse for their meat only; and the horseman hath an advantage--his own and his horse's meat, besides what the crown allows him, and himself and horse kept in better condition by it; and without his work, the boor is not compellable to find him but his lodging only. in like manner it is for the foot-soldier. he is quartered with a boor, and must work for the boor, or have no diet from him; but they do work generally, and by that means the soldier is kept out of idleness. the countryman hath a benefit by his work for his diet only, whereas he must give diet and wages to a servant; and the soldier by his work hath his diet besides what the state allows him, and so he and his landlord are both well pleased. but the crown hath the greatest advantage, which hereby saves the great pay which otherwise they must allow; and yet these forces are constantly in a readiness when the occasions of the crown require their service. the officers of these militia forces have no pay at all but when they are in actual service, neither do they expect any pay, being gentlemen of quality and interest in the country: the chief of whom, who are fit for it, are made colonels; the next to them lieutenant-colonels, majors, captains, and inferior officers, according to their rank of the country gentlemen, known and beloved among their neighbours, with whom their interest and power, increased by their command, makes them the better followed and obeyed. when they write out any from the militia to serve in the armies, these officers and the lords of the boors appoint them; and if any offend, they are presently written out to send abroad into russia, poland, germany, and other parts, from whence they do not all return safe, but are kept in great awe and obedience. this day here fell a great quantity of snow, and was in one night so hard frozen that it would bear a cart; the english wondered at it, but not this country men, the like being here usual at this time of the year and after. the countess of brahe, wife of the ricks-droitset, sent a gentleman to whitelocke to acquaint him that there was a parcel of timber, cut and lying ready within four miles of gothenburg, which did belong to her former husband, and was cut for the building of a ship; but by reason of her husband's death the ship was not built, and she offered the timber to whitelocke at a reasonable price. but he, finding that it had been cut four years, and lay far from the water-side, made an excuse that it would be necessary to have it viewed, which his hastening away would not now permit; but he returned thanks to the countess for her respects in the offer of it. _april , ._ [sn: preparations for the abdication.] monsieur bloome and divers others, having dined with whitelocke, acquainted him that the chancellor intended to return hither the next day after the queen. whitelocke said he hoped the chancellor would have been here before her majesty; but this was an argument to confute the report that the queen would stay at stockholm and hold the ricksdag there. another argument was, the queen's officers removing and altering some of the hangings in whitelocke's house, being longer and fitter for the rooms to be furnished in the castle for the ricksdag than those which they put up in their places in whitelocke's lodging. _april , ._ [sn: swedish mines.] in pursuance of former discourse with monsieur bloome, and by the desire of mr. bushel in england to whitelocke to inquire into it, he received a paper in french, from a person here employed about the mines, to inform him by what means this person might be treated with to be brought into england for improving of our mines there. [sn: hawks.] whitelocke also, by desire of a worthy friend in england, furnished himself with a direction how he might procure some hawks out of this country, and chiefly from the isle of deulandt, where the best hawks are; and he had gained much acquaintance with grave gabriel oxenstiern, great falconer and master of the queen's hawks, who promised his furtherance of whitelocke's desires herein, and to assist and direct any servant whom he should send hither for that purpose. [sn: mrs. penn.] one catharine penn, an englishwoman, the widow of an officer of the queen's army, entreated whitelocke to present for her a sad petition to the queen for some arrears due to her husband, which matters whitelocke was not forward to meddle with; but this being his countrywoman, and of the ancient family of penn in buckinghamshire, to which he had an alliance, whitelocke did undertake to present her petition to the queen. he undertook the like for a decayed english merchant residing at hamburg, who petitioned the queen for moneys owing to him at bremen, where he could have no justice from the governor, vice-chancellor, and others in authority; and this he undertook to move to the queen, upon the earnest request of mr. bradshaw, resident for the protector at hamburg, by his letters this day received. he was also presented with a latin epistle from one jonas olaii, begging for some charity, and who, to be sure to go high enough, gave throughout his letter the style of "illustrissime comes and celsitudo tua," for which his gift from whitelocke was the less. [sn: trade with muscovy.] in this day's packet whitelocke received letters from the muscovia company in england, signed by the governor and consuls, in which they set forth the decay and loss of their trade in muscovia by supplantation of the dutch, and the great duke's disfavour to them, which they hope may be altered upon the late change of government in england; that they understand there is now in this court an ambassador from the great duke to the queen; and they desire whitelocke, that if this ambassador do visit him, or if he think fit to visit the russian ambassador, that he would intimate this matter to him, which they hope may much further their purpose of sending to the great duke for recovery of their trade. by this post whitelocke received these letters from the secretary thurloe:-- [sn: despatch from thurloe.] "_for his excellence my lord ambassador whitelocke, at upsal, in sweden. these._ "my lord, "your letters of the th of february arrived here five or six days later than usual, and this day's post is not yet arrived. the peace with the dutch hath been in such an uncertain condition, that it was very hard to make a judgement concerning the issue of it. in the end of the last and beginning of this week it was more probable that the war should continue than otherwise; and your excellence will see by the enclosed papers, which passed between the commissioners of his highness and the ambassadors (which i have sent to you because there is contained in them the true state of the treaty as it stood whilst the differences lasted); the last of those papers will let your excellence see that they are now very near a closure; and the truth is, that there is now nothing wanting but the drawing up of things into form, and the signing on both sides, which i believe will be effected within three or four days at furthest. but because we cannot rely upon the peace as made until it be actually signed, his highness will defer the sending instructions to you in reference either to your present negotiation or returning home until the next, when your excellence may certainly except them; and in the meantime your excellence may rest assured that there hath been no other cause in delaying instructions to you upon this subject but the desire that there is in everybody to give you clear directions in so doubtful a case as this. if your staying or returning did depend upon your own negotiation there, it were easy to leave you to your own guidance; but when it rests merely upon the conclusion of the present treaty here with the dutch, it is not possible to give you any instructions which you may with safety act upon until the issue thereof be perfectly known; and after that, your excellence shall not be an hour without the knowledge of his highness's pleasure thereupon. "it is certain this state hath moved upon christian grounds only in making this peace: we have not been beaten or frightened into it; the dutch have not yet any fleet at sea, nor can have this month, if the war should continue. in the meantime we have a hundred and forty sail at sea, and better ships than we have had at any time heretofore, which gives occasion to all our neighbours to wonder at our intentions thereby. "since i began my letter i have been with the dutch ambassador, and every article is agreed word for word, so that nothing now remains to be done but to write them over and sign, which will be done upon monday next. it is not possible for me to send unto your excellence a copy of the articles as they are now agreed; i hope to do it by the next, when you will be satisfied concerning the reports i hear there are in sweden, concerning the honourable terms the dutch have gotten by this treaty. i know not what men may expect in matters of honour; i am sure the true interest of the nation, both in point of trade and otherwise, is provided for more fully than ever hath been in any treaty made between these states. "the french ambassador had a public audience on monday last. there is joined with him in commission one monsieur le baas, in quality of a commissary, who is a great confidant of the cardinal's, and a very crafty man. the french doth certainly intend by all means to make a league with his highness, and offers very frankly and considerably as to our present interest. the spaniard thinks he saith more to invite the protector to look that way and embrace an alliance with him; and sure he is the steadier friend, and hath the better and more considerable trade.[ ] "the news i have either from france or holland this week your excellence will receive enclosed. the affairs in scotland do not much alter: middleton is very active to get an army, but keeps in the most northerly parts. we never met with any of their forces but we beat them--the last letters being that we fell upon a party and took forty prisoners and sixty horse, which is all we have from thence. "i have done my utmost to get the swedish ships released; but to say the truth, although some of the swedes are innocent, yet many of them appear to be deceivers, which makes the rest fare the worse. i endeavoured to get a resolution of the case your excellence wrote about by your former letters, so as to have sent it by this post, but could not; the orders which have been made about it since my last i have sent, whereof your excellence may see the care that is had to do justice therein. "what your excellence is informed concerning the preferring of the agent of the swiss to lagerfeldt in their farewell, is a great mistake. i know no honour done to him at his going away, but the sending the answer of his letter to him by the master of the ceremony; he had neither gift nor entertainment that i know of. "i hope the copy of the articles of the dutch treaty, which i formerly sent, your excellence hath received before now. i am sorry to hear that your entertainment in sweden begins to be like my lord st. john's in holland; but i trust the lord will continue his protection to yourself and family, which is the prayer of "your excellence's humble servant, "jo. thurloe. "_march , ._ "monsieur bonnele, the queen of sweden's commissary, hath desired audience to deliver a letter congratulatory to his highness from the queen. the superscription is not very right; besides, your excellency having writ nothing about it, some difficulty hath been in the delivery of it; but yet at last resolved to receive it as it is." this letter is inserted to show by it the constant way and course of intelligence, and the generality and clearness of it, between thurloe and whitelocke, whereby his business and reputation in this court was very much advanced, and whitelocke made great use and advantage by it. the papers usually enclosed in thurloe's letters were many, and contained all particulars of moment touching the dutch treaty, as also relating to the affairs of england and of most parts of christendom. one clause in this letter of thurloe's, that, after the dutch treaty had concluded, his highness would send new instructions to whitelocke, for his direction to proceed in the treaty in sweden,--this gave much trouble and perplexity of thoughts to whitelocke. he could not imagine what those new instructions should be. if they should be contrary to what he had already agreed, it would be not only to the dishonour of whitelocke, but of the protector likewise and of the english nation, for him to go back from what he had before assented to, and to go out here with a snuff, retracting his former agreement, or else he must proceed contrary to his instructions, which would not be ratified; and both of these mischiefs great enough. he was in suspense whether he should seal the articles here beforehand, or expect the receipt of these instructions before he signed them. he considered that if he should defer the signing of the articles till after the receipt of those new instructions, that then they could not at all be signed by the present queen, who intended to continue but one week in the government, and if she did not sign in that time she could not sign at all; but the whole must be remitted to a new treaty with the new king, upon new credentials, commission, and instructions, which would require much time and trouble. he thought not fit to communicate his doubts, but resolved with himself to proceed to the finishing of the treaty without staying for new instructions from england, because otherwise all his negotiation would become fruitless; and he held himself obliged, in honour and conscience, to make good what he had already assented unto before any mention of new instructions came to him, and what he had done being pursuant to his former instructions, and in his judgement for the advantage and good of england. he was also willing to persuade himself that the new instructions would extend only to the order of his return, and was so to be taken by thurloe's letter, and to the close of his whole negotiation; wherein he had done nothing, and resolved not to do anything, but what he believed to be just and honest. he was also troubled lest the queen should put off the treaty upon some distaste about the secret article, and yet pretend only the absence of her chancellor; but whitelocke left all to the providence of god, and his blessing upon honest and diligent means, wherein he resolved not willingly to be wanting. and whether to put it off or to proceed to the despatch of it seemed the more difficult, because of a letter from his wife, wherein she wrote that thurloe said to her, that it was fit her husband should receive certain instructions what to do before his coming away, because, if he should do anything too suddenly, without good warrant, it might cost him his life. this indeed were a worthy and meet recompense for all the hardships, perils, and faithful services undergone and performed for those who were then in power; but his hope and expectation of reward was from above the highest of them. _april , ._ [sn: despatches to thurloe.] whitelocke made his despatches for england, and part of his letters to thurloe was this:-- "the queen and court being out of town, this is a solitary place. the danish ambassador and the dutch resident are still here. the spanish, german, and muscovite envoys are gone away. my business remains in a readiness to be signed, which is appointed upon the queen's return; and she is looked for every day. if they be not signed within these few days, it cannot be done by her at all, because she intends to resign the government the beginning of may, and perhaps the prince may be crowned in june; and two or three months after that will pass before new credentials can be sent from his highness, and it may be two or three months in ceremony and despatch of the business, by which time another winter will be here. "upon which considerations i humbly conceive it much more for the service of my lord to despatch my business here out of hand, and the rather because of the conclusion of the dutch treaty, which i hope will prove very prosperous to our nation. "my articles had been signed before the queen's going away but that she was willing to communicate them to the prince before her commissioners signed them, which i likewise thought very fit to be done, in regard he is so near the succession; and i likewise intend to salute him from my lord protector before my going out of this country. "i am now only in expectation of his highness's further commands and instructions concerning my return, which i hope for by the next post. "i give you most hearty thanks for the papers, which are not only a comfort but very useful to me here. i received formerly from you a copy of the dutch articles, and if i did not return you thanks for them, i confess i forgot myself, and likewise if in one of my letters i did not acquaint you that the queen had an intention (as she told me) of sending a congratulatory letter to my lord the protector; but how the direction of it was i know not, because i never saw it; but i take it as a particular favour to me, that his highness was pleased to receive it, though it were not as it ought to have been, wherein he hath answered the respect of the queen, who excepted against my credentials, but yet received them. "i am exceeding glad of your good conclusion of the dutch business, which, i am persuaded, will be of great advantage to our nation; and i look upon the issue of my business here being agreed before the issue of our treaty with the dutch was known, to be both a particular respect to the protector and government, and less difficult than it would have been if transacted after our agreement with the dutch. "they are much amused in these parts at our gallant fleet, and so early at sea; and i permit them all their conjectures, neither have they gained much allay of them from me by their inquisitiveness. "i had a compliment sent me the last night from the dutch resident, that he hoped ere long to have an opportunity to come and visit me; i answered, that i should not be wanting in that civility which became me. "i was entreated by the citizens of stockholm to receive this suit of theirs in the enclosed paper. "b. w. "_april , . upsal._" _april , ._ [sn: university library at upsal.] the french resident visited whitelocke, and, seeing him ready to go take the air, offered him his company, which whitelocke could not refuse. they went together to the library of this university, where there are many good books, for the most part brought out of germany; but it is not extraordinary, nor exceeding the public libraries in england and elsewhere. one of whitelocke's gentlemen held it not exceeding his lord's private library at his own house in england, as he affirmed to some of the scholars here, who were not pleased therewith, nor would easily believe that the english ambassador's library in his private house was to be compared to that of their university. the keeper of this library is one doctor lovenius, there present, a learned and civil person, who hath published several books in print, touching the laws and government and antiquities of his country, in good latin; and both himself and his works are worthy of esteem. he was attending upon whitelocke all the time of his being in the library and in the public places of the university, and informed him of such things as he inquired touching the same; and, to gratify their civility, whitelocke sent them twenty of his own books which he had in his house, all of them english authors, as the primate of armagh's works, sir henry spelman, selden, and others; which was a present very acceptable, and kindly received by the university from him. [sn: university of upsal.] they affirm this university to be very ancient; but there are no colleges or public houses for the maintenance of the scholars, or public revenue belonging to them; so that they do not live together in bodies or companies by themselves, but every one severally as he can agree or find for his convenience. but here are divers public rooms or schools where the professors and scholars use to meet and perform their exercises openly; and the rooms of their library are three, about twenty foot square apiece. there are all sorts of professors for the arts and sciences, who are promised good salaries, but they complain that they are not well paid; and though some of them be very learned, yet they take not much pains; it may be according to the proverb, "mal payé mal servi"--he that is ill paid doth but ill service. some counted the number of scholars to be about three hundred, which is not more than may be found in one college in england. they make great preparation by printing their theses and publishing them, and inviting the grandees to their disputations, where the queen in person is sometimes present, though the exercise is only the art of well disputing, except in some of their professors and eminent persons. their university is a kind of corporation, like others, their want of supplies not affording them so much perfection, and their defect of government giving them liberty and temptation to disorder, to which they are much addicted; but in their sermons, whilst the english were among them, they would propose them as a pattern of civility and pious conversation. their government is by a chancellor, who at present is the ricks-chancellor; and it hath constantly been in the hands of some eminent and great person. [sn: cathedral of upsal.] whitelocke and the resident visited the cathedral church, which is fair and large, built with brick, and covered with copper. they affirm it to be one of the most ancient churches of europe, and that the gospel was here early planted, but earlier in the church of old upsal, which is of a quadrangular form, and formerly dedicated to their heathen gods. their cathedral, they say, was the seat of an arch-flamen; and in the places of arch-flamens and flamens, upon their conversion to christianity (as in england, so here), bishops and archbishops were instituted; and now their cathedral, as other churches, is full of images, crucifixes, and such other furniture as the lutheran churches tolerate, and is little different therein from the popish churches. the resident and whitelocke took also a view of the castle and city of upsal. the castle is near the town, seated upon the point of a hill; it is built of brick, plastered over, strong and beautiful. if it had been finished, the design was to have had it four-square; but two sides of it only are built. it had been very large and noble if it had been perfected. as it is, it contains many rooms, and sufficient for the court; some of them are great and stately, but up two stories, after the fashion of that country. if it had been finished, it would have equalled any other, if not the castle of stockholm itself. [sn: environs of upsal.] the prospect from the castle is very beautiful; the country round about it pleasant and fruitful, and distinguished into meadows, pastures, and arable fields, and the river sale passing through them, which loseth itself about half a league from thence into a great lake. the river is navigable with boats of about twenty or thirty tons, many leagues together, going through the lake also; it is not muddy, nor unfurnished with the fish of those parts, and is about half as broad as the thames at henley. it runs at the foot of the hill on which the castle stands, and the town is built upon it; and it waters most part of the streets, to their great commodity. it is for this reason called upsal, because ubbo--who, they say, was the son of gomer, the son of japhet, the son of noah--this ubbo built this town upon the river sale, and therefore called it, after his own name, ubbo sale, by contraction of speech now called upsal. all agree it to be one of the most ancient of their cities, the metropolitan see of their archbishop, and in old time the residence of their kings, and where they were invested with the regal dignity. the country about it seemed one of the most pleasant and fruitful of these parts. the town itself is not much beautified with stately buildings, not above nine or ten houses being built with brick; the rest of them, after the fashion of their country, built with great bodies of fir-trees, and covered with turf; the fairest of their brick houses was that where the english ambassador lodged. this city hath not much trade, and therefore not much wealth. the government of it is according to the municipal law of the country, and as other cities are; their head officer is a burgomaster, who hath for his assistants a council, in the nature of the common councils in our corporations in england, consisting of the principal burgesses and inhabitants of the city, who have power, with the burgomaster, as to making of ordinances, and in the government. in their journey to take the air the resident and whitelocke had much discourse touching the images in their church, and about the observation of their sabbath; wherein the resident was furnished with the usual arguments of the papists, and was answered by whitelocke, and was not so positive as most of his persuasion use to be. he discoursed also about the dutch treaty in england, to get from whitelocke what he could to report to the danish ambassador and dutch resident; for which he was fitted by whitelocke's answers to him. _april , ._ [sn: whitelocke punishes two of his retinue for neglect of the lord's day.] this being the lord's day, many gentlemen of the english and scots nation then in town came to whitelocke's house to the morning sermon, and most of them staid the afternoon sermon also. and so many strangers being there attentive in the holy duties, it gave the greater cause of scandal and offence to whitelocke that divers of his own family were absent, whereas, by his orders, they were all enjoined to a constant attendance, especially at those religious exercises; nevertheless some of them (particularly mr. castle and andrew potley) were therein more in fault than others, and, after many admonitions, would not reform, but made it their common practice almost every lord's day in the afternoon to be absent, and to go abroad and take the air. whitelocke considering the reproach and scandal, and the ill example hereby to his family, and the doing of that by some of them against which he had spoken so much here to the people of this place, upon which it would be collected that either he had not the power over his own people to order them as he judged fit, or else that he and the rest of his company were dissemblers, and found fault with that in others which they either acted or tolerated in themselves;--whitelocke finding two absent on this day, he gave order to his steward to see their trunks and goods carried out of his house, and themselves dismissed of further attendance on him, and removed from his family. yet afterwards, upon the interceding of others for them, and their own submission, the punishment was suspended; and when they perceived that whitelocke was in earnest, it caused a reformation, both in those two and in others, as to this duty and in other particulars. [sn: the queen returns to upsal.] about nine o'clock this evening the queen came to town. she had in her train but one coach with six horses, and three horsemen; so little ceremony did she observe as to her own port, but would rather make this sudden and private return than break her word with whitelocke, whom in a compliment she had promised to be here again within a few days; and she kept her word honourably and constantly. but whitelocke was sorry that she continued her old custom, too frequent here, of travelling upon the lord's day. _april , ._ [sn: whitelocke pays his court to the queen.] whitelocke waited on the queen to give her the welcome home, and found her lodgings changed, leaving the better rooms for the prince. she excused her long stay out of town, and said she would now have no more delay in his business, but it should be forthwith despatched. whitelocke told her that the chancellor and his son were not yet come to town, but he humbly thanked her majesty for the speed of her return. she assured him that her chancellor and his son would be in town the next day, and that she should not have come to town so soon but for his business; that the day after her chancellor's coming the articles might be signed. she likewise discoursed with him about the secret article, that in case those here should not perform justly with her, that then the protector should not be bound by this treaty. whitelocke told her that woolfeldt and he had conference about it, and had fully considered it, and were both of opinion that it would be unfit for her majesty to make such an article, and it might turn to her prejudice; but whitelocke said, that if she pleased to write to the protector, and to leave her letters with whitelocke to procure an answer from his highness to her majesty, whereby his care for her good and assistance to her might appear, and the letter to be fit to be shown, it might be of more advantage to her than such a secret article, to which he was not empowered to assent, but it must be remitted to the protector; and whether he would consent to it in that way or not, was doubtful; and when it should be known to those here, it would be distasteful. upon this the queen seemed fully satisfied as to the secret article to be laid aside and not more thought on. whitelocke advised her as formerly touching her liberty, and not long continuing here after her resignation; and she thanked him for his advice, and said, that in case those here should not deal justly with her, she hoped she should find the protector a friend to her, and that she did put herself upon his nobleness and friendship. whitelocke told her, that the protector was a great lover and maintainer of justice and honour, and had a particular affection to her majesty, which he believed she would find him ready to manifest upon this or any other occasion, and find him a true friend to her; wherewith (poor lady!) she seemed much comforted, having brought her affairs to so low an ebb as this was, and thus high was the protector's reputation here. as to the general business of the treaty with whitelocke, she said it would be fit to have the articles signed tomorrow, and that whitelocke soon after should have his audience, and she would give order to have it done accordingly. she asked whitelocke if he would bear her company to take the air, which he did; and she riding a horse managed to the great saddle, who was troublesome, she came into her coach, and caused whitelocke to sit in the same boot with her, that they might discourse the more privately. there were also in her coach the senator rosenhau, grave tott, and steinberg. [sn: whitelocke presents his black horses to the queen,] the queen freely told whitelocke that if he would not sell his horses, as she understood he would not, that yet she should take it for a favour if he would let her have one of his sets of coach-horses, which would do her great service in her intended journey, they being fitter for travel than any she had. whitelocke told her they were all at her majesty's service; that he thought it not becoming him to sell them, but if she pleased to accept them, she should freely have them; that he thought his black horses fittest for her and best, and there were eight of them, and the other set he intended to present unto the prince{ }; that, she said, would be very well, and she kindly thanked him and accepted of his compliment. [sn: some distilled waters,] whitelocke also told the queen that he had a small cabinet of glasses of spirits of waters, essences of excellent kinds, extracted; but he believed that her majesty did not much esteem such things, and they were too inconsiderable to make a present of them to the queen-mother, if she had any liking of them. the queen said her mother was much pleased with such essences, and that she would send them to her from whitelocke. he asked when he should bring them, and an english bible which he promised to the queen. she said, tomorrow if he pleased, and that at all times he should be welcome to her. _april , ._ grave eric sent his secretary to whitelocke to inform him of his being come to town purposely for the despatch of his business, and for the signing of the articles; and he desired to know what time this afternoon he might have the liberty to come and visit whitelocke, after he had been with the queen. whitelocke told the secretary that he should be glad to see his lord after whitelocke had likewise been at the court; and there they met. whitelocke went in to the queen and presented her with the cabinet of essences, which was of green velvet, lined with silver lace very richly; within it were about twenty glasses of spirits of the rarest kinds, each glass stopped with a silver head of english silver, to screw off and on, and a lock and key of the same; and opening the cabinet the queen smelt of most of the glasses, but tasted none of them; she highly commended them and the cabinet, especially the english silver, whereof she had some discourse, and said she would send them to her mother, who would be very glad of them. [sn: and an english bible;] then according to his promise he presented her majesty with an english bible, of a very fair print and richly bound; and upon that they had this discourse:-- _whitelocke._ if your majesty would be pleased to spend some time in reading this bible, and comparing it with those in other languages, it would be a great help to your understanding of the english, if your majesty have any further thoughts thereof. _queen._ my desire still is to gain the english tongue, and i think this which you mention will be a good way to learn it. i ask your pardon that you staid so long before you came in to me; nobody told me of your being without, and i am ashamed of this incivility. _wh._ the incivility, madam, is on my side, by interrupting your greater affairs; but i come not now as an ambassador, but as a particular servant to bring this bible to your majesty. _qu._ it is a noble present, and there was the less reason to make you stay for admittance with it. [sn: and exhorts her majesty to read it.] _wh._ this book was presented to me by an english doctor, with a letter mentioning the text that the beræans were accounted the more noble because they received the word with gladness, as i hope your majesty will. _qu._ i receive it from you with much thankfulness, and shall gladly make use of it as the best of books. _wh._ your majesty, by often reading it, and comparing it with other bibles, will not only thereby gain advantage as to the language, but the highest comfort to your soul. _qu._ i have used to read much in the bible, and take great contentment in it. _wh._ your majesty will find more contentment and comfort in the study of this book than of all other books whatsoever, and therefore i do humbly recommend the often reading of it to your majesty. _qu._ i doubt you have an ill opinion of me that you so earnestly persuade me to this, as if you thought me too backward in it. _wh._ i only give my humble advice to your majesty, out of my own experience, of the great comfort, wisdom, and true pleasure which is to be met with in this book, and nowhere else, and that all things out of it are of no value. _qu._ i am full of the same opinion; but there are too many who have not so venerable an opinion of it as they ought to have. _wh._ there are indeed, madam, too many who mock at this book, and at god himself, whose book it is; but these poor worms will one day know that god will not be mocked, and that they and their reproaches will sadly perish together; and i am glad to hear your majesty's distaste of such wicked ones. _qu._ surely every good christian ought to distaste such men and such opinions. they had much more discourse upon the same subject, wherein whitelocke spake the more, because he found the queen more inclined to it now than he had perceived her to be at other times. being come from the queen, he spake with grave eric in another room, whose opinion was that it would be fit to sign the articles on the morrow, and said that his father would be returned time enough to do it. whitelocke doubted that, by reason of his weariness after his journey, it might not be then convenient. eric replied, that there would be nothing to be done that would occasion trouble, the signing and putting the seals to the articles already prepared and agreed on was all that was to be done. whitelocke demanded if the power given by the queen to her commissioners were sealed. eric said it was not, but that canterstein would be in town this evening, and would see all done. _april , ._ [sn: whitelocke complains of further delays.] grave eric came to whitelocke's house, and this discourse passed between them:-- _whitelocke._ it seems to me somewhat strange that after all things agreed between her majesty's commissioners and me, i should yet attend three weeks to obtain one half-hour for the signing of the articles. _grave eric._ the queen's going out of town hath occasioned it, and the great business touching her resignation, which hath so taken up all men's thoughts and counsels, that there hath been hardly room left for any other matter; and when the queen goes away, those of the council also take the liberty to go into the country; and upon such extraordinary changes as these are, it is no strange thing for public ministers to be retarded; and the same thing hath been practised upon your changes in england. _wh._ i have not observed, either in england or elsewhere, that after an agreement upon a treaty, and nothing remaining but to sign and seal, that they have used afterwards to delay it three weeks together; yet i am willing to promise myself that the servant of the protector may expect from this crown as much respect as any other public minister. _gr. eric._ there hath been more respect showed to you than hath been accustomed to any other. i believe your business may be despatched in half an hour; and if my father return this evening time enough to do it, it may be done this night; if not, then without fail tomorrow morning. _wh._ i am the more earnest herein, looking upon it as my duty to the protector and my respect to this crown, to avoid any occasion of discontent between the two nations; and therefore i shall freely tell you that it will be very material to have the articles signed this day or tomorrow, before i receive this week's letters, by which i expect to understand that the articles between england and holland are signed; among which articles one is, that neither the one nor the other confederate shall make any alliance with any other prince or state, without first giving notice thereof to the other confederate. now if the articles between the protector and the queen be signed before i have notice of this by the dutch articles being signed, the signing of our articles here first will be without exception in this point; but if i receive this information from england before the articles be signed here, it will be doubtful whether then i shall be in a capacity afterwards to sign the articles here, whereupon sundry inconveniences will ensue, which i would willingly prevent. _gr. eric._ this is indeed a material point, and i am much startled at it. i shall go and see if my father be come to town, that i may acquaint him with it, and doubtless the business may be finished tomorrow. _wh._ what do you resolve to do in the matter i proposed touching guinea? _gr. eric._ the person concerned in that business is now in town; i shall bring him to you to give you information therein, and upon speaking together we may come to some conclusion in it. i think the best way will be to prepare an article to this purpose, that all injuries done by the one or the other party in the several plantations in guinea, and the satisfaction and damages to be given to the parties grieved, be upon the whole matter remitted to the consideration and arbitrement of persons to be chosen, as well by the company of english merchants trading to those parts as of the merchants of this country having interest in the plantations there. _wh._ i think this may be a good expedient for this business; and i shall rather submit to it than depart from hence, without any agreement at all, to have this matter, either now or at some other time, to be taken into consideration; and therefore if you please to direct an article to be drawn up to the effect proposed by yourself, and to send it to me to be perused, i shall be willing to consent to any reasonable settlement of this business; so as my countrymen, the english merchants interested in that plantation, may have no cause to believe that i have neglected what was specially recommended to me on their behalf, and that my superiors may see my care in this as well as in other matters. in the evening monsieur bloome sent word to whitelocke that the chancellor was come to town, and that canterstein was expected this night. presently whitelocke sent to the chancellor to know how he did after his journey, and when he might have the liberty to visit him. the chancellor answered that he was well, and purposed this evening or tomorrow morning to go to the queen, and afterwards he would send to whitelocke to let him know what time they might meet to finish his business. this seemed to whitelocke a little different from the ordinary rules of civility--that when he sent to the chancellor to know at what time he might come to him, the chancellor answered that his purpose was to go to the queen; but whitelocke hoped that the intent was to receive her majesty's direction in his business. _april , ._ [sn: signing the articles again deferred till the morrow.] lagerfeldt came to whitelocke from the chancellor to tell him that the chancellor was come to town purposely for the signing of the articles. whitelocke said he was much obliged to the chancellor for so great a favour, and that, after three weeks elapsed since the articles were agreed, he might now hope it would be thought seasonable to confirm that agreement with hand and seal. lagerfeldt answered that it might be done this day, and therefore he came to whitelocke that his secretary might meet with the queen's secretary, and they together might examine the books, which in the evening may be signed and sealed by both parties. _whitelocke._ hath monsieur canterstein procured the queen's patent to authorize her commissioners to conclude this treaty? _lagerfeldt._ it must be done before the signing of the articles, and then you may have your audience when your excellence pleaseth. _wh._ it were fit to have that done. _lag._ i know not whether the presents which her majesty intends to make to your excellence and your company be yet ready; and i know the queen intends to express as much honour to you as she hath done to any ambassador whatsoever. _wh._ i desire no greater honour than the despatch of my business, and liberty to return home. _lag._ i shall serve your excellence therein to the utmost of my power. in the afternoon whitelocke sent his son james and his secretary earle, and swift, with the articles and papers touching his business, unto canterstein, where they examined them and corrected what was mistaken. they asked at what hour whitelocke might repair to the chancellor for signing the articles. canterstein answered, that the chancellor was weary with his journey; but he went to him and brought word that, if whitelocke would come to the chancellor about five or six o'clock this evening, he would be ready to confer with him. this being reported to whitelocke by his son, he sent him back to canterstein to know whether the queen had sealed the grant of power to her commissioners, who brought word that it was not done, and that the queen went out of town this evening, and returned not till tomorrow. after this message, and when whitelocke saw that his letters of this week were not come, he sent to the chancellor to let him know that he feared it might be troublesome to him for whitelocke to come to him this evening, and that, if he pleased, whitelocke would come to him the next morning. to which the chancellor willingly agreed, and appointed their meeting tomorrow, betwixt eight and nine o'clock in the morning. the chancellor inquired whether whitelocke had yet received his letters from england. the servant of whitelocke said that the letters were not yet come, but that by the last week's letters the news came that the peace between england and holland was certainly concluded; to which the chancellor said, i desire to be excused. by these passages whitelocke perceived that their little design was, notwithstanding all he had endeavoured, that before they would sign the articles they desired to see this week's letters; which he took as directed by the good hand of providence, in regard that by this means he should be the more excused in what he intended to do, having staid for this week's letters and received none, and the politicians here would be deceived in their expectation. he wondered at the queen's going out of town before she sealed the commission to her deputies: some thought the reason to be, because her intended presents were not yet ready. whitelocke received a letter from the protector's resident at hamburg, wherein this was part:-- "_for his excellence my lord ambassador whitelocke, extraordinary ambassador from england with the queen of sweden. humbly these._ "the english letters are not yet come, but from holland they write that two expresses were come on the st instant, with letters assuring that the peace was concluded and mutually signed, and that, as soon as the ratification could arrive in england from the states general, hostility should cease. "i am, my lord, "with tender of my humble service, "your excellence's most humble servant, "ri. bradshawe. "_hamburg, th april, ._" whitelocke made use of this intelligence as far as it would go; and some others in this town had the same news from holland. _april , ._ [sn: the signing of the treaty.] at the time appointed whitelocke and his company came to the chancellor's lodging, with whom was his son grave eric and secretary canterstein. whitelocke's son james and his secretary earle were admitted into the room. all the time of their being there secretary canterstein was uncovered and did not sit. whitelocke's son james was also bare, as became him, but was admitted to sit down at the lower end of the table, on the same side with his father, who sat at the upper end, and the chancellor over-against him, and grave eric by his father. the chancellor acquainted whitelocke that the queen had shown the articles to the prince, who did well approve of them, and desired to have a strict league and friendship with the protector, and that the prince was ready in what should appertain to him to contribute to that end. whitelocke answered that the protector would esteem the friendship of the prince a great honour to him; and to show his desire of it, that whitelocke intended to salute the prince from the protector. the chancellor and his son said that it would be very necessary for whitelocke to do so, and that the prince intended to come nearer to this city, and then whitelocke might have the better passage to his court by water by the lake meter, than to go to him by a land-journey; and that from the prince he might, by the same lake, be transported to stockholm. after many ceremonies and compliments, with apologies for the delay of the sealing of the articles, they fell to their business. grave eric read the articles prepared by whitelocke, and his father overlooked them; whitelocke's son james read the articles prepared by the chancellor, and whitelocke overlooked them; and some mistakes being amended, whitelocke asked whether the queen's commission to give them power were sealed. they answered, it was prepared, and that the queen would seal it, and it was usual to be done at any time after the sealing of the articles; that yesterday it was not fully ready for the queen before her going out of town, but that she intended to be here again this day, and all would be ready for her sealing. the chancellor directed canterstein to read the copy of the instrument for giving power to the queen's commissioners, and desired whitelocke to give to him the commission of the protector to whitelocke, who said that he had formerly delivered to them a copy of it, which was then read; and the chancellor took exception to it, because there was no mention in it of ratifying what should be here agreed upon by whitelocke; who answered that this clause of ratification was in his first commission under the great seal of england, unto which the commission and powers given him since by the protector do refer; and he offered to deliver into their hands that commission under the great seal. and if they should require that whitelocke might yet have a larger power, whereof he thought there was no need, (they might perceive by the protector's letters that he would not scruple to give it,) whitelocke said that he would take it upon him, at his return to england, to procure it to be done; but he said he could not leave with them the protector's letters and instructions to him, because part of them was secret. the chancellor said it was the custom to deliver the original letters of power into the hands of the other party, that they might be registered in the public acts of the chancery, and that whitelocke should receive their commissions to carry with him into england; that if he would pass his word that, at his return to england, he would procure new and larger powers, and take care to send the letters of them hither from the protector, they should be satisfied therewith: which whitelocke promised to do, and desired that the queen would ratify all that should be done here before her resignation, and keep the ratification by her until the protector should seal letters of ratification on his part, and then they might be exchanged and mutually delivered. the chancellor consented hereunto, and asked what seal the protector used in these public businesses. whitelocke said he used his own seal. the chancellor asked if he did not use the seal of the commonwealth, in regard that this league was between the queen and kingdom of sweden and the protector and commonwealth of england. whitelocke said that the protector might, if he pleased, command the seal of the commonwealth to be affixed to the letters of ratification, which he believed would be done if they desired it; and that, by the same reason, it was fit that the letters of ratification here should be under the great seal of sweden. the chancellor said that in sweden, when the government was in the hands of commissioners, the king or queen not being crowned, it was usual for some chief men, of alliance to the deceased king, to make use of his private seal, and of no other; that if this treaty were with the poles or danes, or others, that being wanting in their letters which was in whitelocke's, he would not proceed any further with them until they should procure a fuller power and commission; and he said he had been present at many treaties which had been broken off upon a less defect than appeared in whitelocke's letters. but in regard their business was with the protector, whom the queen and himself did so much honour and had so great a confidence in him, and upon whitelocke's promise to procure such a power as they desired to be enlarged to him from the protector, the chancellor said they were ready to confirm the articles with their seals. whitelocke took upon him what they desired, and then the chancellor and his son eric sealed that part of the articles which whitelocke had prepared, and whitelocke sealed the other part of the articles which had been prepared by the chancellor and his son grave eric.[ ] the queen's commissioners insisted to have the date of these articles th of april, because then they were fully agreed, and the time after was for engrossing and preparing them to be signed and sealed; and whitelocke did not oppose their desire herein. thus, after a long and intricate (it might be said vexatious) transaction of this great affair for near five months together, all bitter oppositions, cunning practices, and perplexed difficulties being removed and overcome, through the goodness and assistance of the only wise counsellor, the prince of peace, it pleased him to give a good issue and happy success in the conducting of this treaty by him who accounts his great labour and hazards in this transaction well bestowed, and humbly prays that this treaty may prove to the honour of god, the interest of the protestant cause, and the good of both nations therein concerned. _april , ._ [sn: whitelocke's passport through flanders.] though whitelocke received no letters this week from england, yet he had some from hamburg and from flanders, among which was one from don piementelle full of civility and compliment, giving whitelocke notice of his safe arrival in flanders, and advising him to take that way in his return; and in it was a letter in spanish from piementelle to the prince of mamines in flanders, to be made use of by whitelocke if he should have occasion there, for the more safety and accommodation of his journey. this letter whitelocke caused to be translated:-- "most excellent sir, "my lord whitelocke, the lord ambassador extraordinary of england, having finished his embassy in this court, is resolved to return through this province, having passed from hamburg to cologne, and that he may go to brussels with better security, he desires a passport from your highness to the lord archduke. i, having written that it may be despatched, and added that it may be remitted to your excellence, do entreat you to order that the said despatch may be delivered to the party whom the said lord ambassador shall send from cologne for it; and that, he passing through this town, his lordship, by his civil entertainment, may understand the favour your excellence doth afford me, i owing to this honourable person many and singular respects, which i desire to manifest and acknowledge. i am confident your excellence will assist me herein, and will be disposed to employ me in many services of yours in madrid, whither i am commanded to go, by order from my lord the king, and shall begin my journey within three or four days, by way of brussels, where i hope to find your excellence's commands, which i assure you i shall esteem in all places and obey with the highest punctuality. god preserve your excellence the many years of my desires. "your excellence's greatest servant, "ant^o pimentel." in the letter which whitelocke wrote to thurloe, after an account of the passages since his last, he wrote thus:-- [sn: report of the signing of the treaty to thurloe.] "having received no letters by the post yesterday from england, i was contented to seal the articles of our treaty; for if but a few days should be intermitted, they could not have been signed at all, because upon tuesday next the ricksdag, or parliament here, is appointed to meet, and within two or three days after their meeting the queen intends to resign her government, and it will be some time after before the prince be crowned. i shall have much to do to despatch the necessary ceremonies here of my public audience, to take my leave of the queen, with the many visits i am to perform, according to the custom to which i am to conform, in regard of the honour of his highness and our nation; for he who neglects these ceremonies here is censured for a mechanic or a boor. i intend from hence to go to the prince of sweden, to salute him from my lord protector, as i am advised that the prince expects and desires it. from thence i purpose to go to stockholm, where i am to take ship for lübeck; and from thence to hamburg, where i shall attend his highness's further commands, or some ships to be sent for my transport into england, which i earnestly entreat you to procure in time. "i hope, before my going from hence, to receive his highness's order, which i long since wrote for, concerning my return; but however, my business being effected here, i presume i may, without displeasure to his highness, be upon my return homewards; the rather, because upon the change which is shortly to be here my commission will be at an end. "the queen intends, shortly after her resignation, to go to the spa, which i have cause to believe. in those parts they say the king of the romans will wait upon her, but that i doubt. "her majesty hath showed extraordinary affection and respect to my lord protector; so hath the chancellor and his son grave eric, and my lord lagerfeldt, etc." [sn: whitelocke's interview with the queen after the signing of the treaty.] whitelocke waited on the queen, and gave her an account of the signing and sealing of his articles; whereupon she said:-- _queen._ i am glad that this business is done to your satisfaction. _whitelocke._ there remains only your majesty's sealing your letters of full power to your commissioners who treated with me. _qu._ i sealed them this morning. _wh._ then my humble suit is, that your majesty would appoint a day for my audience to take my leave. _qu._ this is saturday, but if you desire it you may have it on friday next. _wh._ would your majesty's leisure permit to give me audience on tuesday or wednesday next, they being no holidays? _qu._ the assembly is to sit on tuesday, and at their first meeting i shall have a great deal of business with them, which will hinder me from any other affairs. _wh._ i humbly pray your majesty to appoint it as soon as your own leisure will permit, for i shall have many businesses and ceremonies after it to perform, before my going away. _qu._ on monday next i will appoint a day; and touching the secret article, about which i formerly discoursed with you, i have now altered my opinion, and am resolved to follow the advice that you and mr. woolfeldt have given me. i will write a letter under my own hand to the protector to the effect you advised, and deliver it to you to be presented to him. _wh._ this will be much the better way. _qu._ i desire you to be careful of the letter; and before i seal it i will show it to you for your advice in it. _wh._ madam, i shall have a special care of it, and to procure an answer of it from the protector, i hope, to your majesty's contentment, that you may make use of it if there shall be occasion; and i believe the protector will be a firm friend to your majesty. _qu._ i doubt it not, nor your respects to me. _wh._ i am engaged by your many favours to serve your majesty with all faithfulness. _qu._ i had some clothes in a ship coming hither, and the ship is taken, and my clothes detained in england, so that i cannot get them to wear. _wh._ if your majesty want clothes, i have a piece of english stuff at my house, which cost two shillings a yard; and, if that were not too dear for your majesty's wearing, i would send it to you. _qu._ two shillings a yard is dear enough for me: i pray send your stuff hither, and i shall willingly accept of it, and thank you for it. _wh._ will your majesty be pleased on monday next to go into england? _qu._ hardly so soon; yet perhaps i may one day see england. but what is your meaning in this? _wh._ madam, monday next is the first day of may, a great day in england; we call it may-day, when the gentlemen use to wait upon their mistresses abroad to bid the spring welcome, and to have some collation or entertainment for them. now your majesty being my mistress, if you will do me the honour, that, after the custom of england, i may wait on you on may-day, and have a little treatment for you after the manner of england; this i call going into england, and shall take it as a very great favour from your majesty. _qu._ if this be your meaning of going into england, i shall be very willing, as your mistress, to go with you on monday next, and to see the english mode. lagerfeldt and the master of the ceremonies dining with whitelocke, he inquired of them what was to be done by him as to presents to any of the queen's servants or officers who had done him respect in his business, or being here, and what other things were requisite to be done by him, according to the usage of ambassadors in this court before their going away, and when he might obtain his audience to take his leave. the master of the ceremonies gave him good and chargeable instructions; and lagerfeldt agreed in most points with him, and, upon whitelocke's entreaty, undertook to see that the letters of full power to the queen's commissioners, and the recredentials to whitelocke, should be perfected and brought to him, and a day of audience appointed. lagerfeldt told whitelocke that the queen was willing to present him with some of this country's commodities, as copper, to carry with him into england, if it would be as acceptable to him as other presents of diamonds and the like; and he said he hoped there was no order of the commonwealth of england to forbid the receiving of such presents by their public ministers. he said, that formerly he asked of monsieur chanut, the french ambassador here, if he would accept a present of copper, and he willingly accepted it, and carried it with him, saying, that he rather desired copper than diamonds or jewels, because he could better sell the copper than jewels, and make money of it. whitelocke said, that whatsoever her majesty pleased to bestow on him should be welcome to him, and that he liked the commodities of this country as well as those of the indies, and that for chanut's reason. he said that the protector had not forbid him to receive any testimonies of the queen's respect to him, as she used to do to all public ministers; that the order of the commonwealth forbidding gifts or presents to public ministers was not now in force; that he thought her majesty's bounty to him, and his justification of the acceptance of it, might be the more from such valuable presents as her majesty had done him the honour to receive from him, and his intention to bestow all his horses upon her, and such as she would appoint, which, for the honour of the commonwealth, he would not sell. _april , ._ [sn: whitelocke accepts a present of copper.] berkman and monsieur bloome dined with whitelocke, and took occasion to magnify the respects of the chancellor and his son, grave eric, to the protector and to whitelocke, who was not backward to join in those eulogies, and to acknowledge the respects. berkman said that canterstein was to bring some writings to whitelocke, and that lagerfeldt had spoken to the queen to present whitelocke with some copper; that she had given order for two hundred ship-pound of copper to be brought from the mines to stockholm, to be put aboard whitelocke's ship, ready to be carried away with him; that every ship-pound was here worth forty dollars, and was as much as three hundred english pounds, which he cast up in the whole to the value of about £ sterling. and whitelocke was satisfied in his own conscience that he might honourably receive it, having given to the queen as many presents already as were worth £ , and engaged to her his horses, which were worth about £ more, besides the gifts and gratuities which he had liberally given, and intended to give, to the queen's servants and officers; and that, in recompense of above £ given away, he might well receive a present of the value of £ . grave leonhough visited whitelocke, and had much discourse with him, not so proper for this day. footnotes: [ ] [an ingenious device of whitelocke's to lead the spaniard to hasten the business of the treaty with sweden, which he was suspected of having retarded.] [ ] the french, and english copies of the passport were these:-- "comme ainsi soit que don antonio piementel de prado, envoyé extraordinaire de sa majesté le roi d'espagne à sa majesté la reine de suède, soit maintenant sur son retour de ce lieu à neufport en flandres, dont son excellence est gouverneur; et qu'il ait jugé à propos d'envoyer partie de son train et bagage par mer de hambourg à dunquerque, ou public autre port des provinces unies à présent sous l'obéissance de sa dite majesté le roi d'espagne; et pour leur procurer d'autant plus sur convoi, m'ait désiré, comme ambassadeur extraordinaire de son altesse monseigneur le protecteur de la république d'angleterre, d'ecosse, et d'irlande, vers sa majesté la reine de suède, de lui donner passeport: ces présents sont pour requérir tous ceux qui ont commandement par mer ou par terre, et tous officiers et autres de la dite république auxquels il peut appartenir, de permettre le porteur des présents, joos froidure, serviteur du dit don antonio piementel, avec son navire et biens sous sa charge (à savoir, vingt caisses contenantes toutes sortes de meubles, comme vaisselle d'argent, tapisseries, linges, habits, lits de camp, et autres coffres et choses pareilles, et tout conduit par le susdit joos froidure, et les caisses marquées d. a. p.), de passer paisiblement et sans empêchement quelconque jusqu'au dit dunquerque, ou autre port des provinces unies de présent sous l'obéissance de sa dite majesté le roi d'espagne. donné sous ma main et sceau, à upsale en suède, ce ème d'avril, . b. whitelocke." "whereas don antonio pimentel de prado, envoy extraordinary from his majesty the king of spain unto her majesty the queen of sweden, is now upon his return from this place unto newport, in flanders, whereof his excellence is governor, and hath thought fit to send part of his train and goods from hamburg by sea unto dunkirk, or some other port now in obedience to his said majesty the king of spain, in the low countries; and, for the better conveyance of them, hath desired a pass from me, being ambassador extraordinary from his highness my lord protector of the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland, unto her said majesty the queen of sweden; these are therefore to desire all commanders by sea or land, and all officers or others, of the said commonwealth, whom it may concern, to permit the bearer hereof, joos froidure, servant unto the said don antonio pimentel, with the ship and goods under his charge, viz. twenty chests or packages, containing all sorts of household stuff, as vessels of silver, tapestries, linen, apparel, field-beds, and other coffers and such like things, marked with d. a. p., to pass unto the said port of dunkirk, or any other port now in obedience unto his said majesty the king of spain in the low countries, quietly and without any molestation. given under my hand and seal, at upsal, in sweden, this th day of april, . b. whitelocke." [ ] [it is curious to remark at the present time ( ) how the same questions have arisen out of the state of war. the list of contraband articles established by whitelocke's treaty is still in force as between england and sweden, and liége is still the great resource of the continent for arms.] [ ] [cromwell was already preparing the two armaments at portsmouth, one of which afterwards became the mediterranean fleet, under blake, of thirty-five ships, and the other, of thirty-two ships, sailed in the following year under penn and venables for the west indies.] [ ] [this gentleman is doubtless the same m. woolfeldt whom whitelocke frequently refers to; for in a manuscript addressed to his children, woolfeldt is mentioned by name as a person entertaining similar sentiments towards his native country. he was a danish nobleman nearly connected by marriage with the king of denmark, but who had incurred the displeasure of the court, and been driven into exile on account of this marriage.] [ ] "whereas peter gerbrant, citizen of stockholm, and commander of a ship belonging to her majesty the queen of sweden, called the 'sudermanland,' loaden with corn and other swedish merchandises, is now bound for lisbon, in portugal, and, for his better passage, hath desired of me, being ambassador extraordinary from his highness the lord protector of the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland, unto her majesty the queen of sweden, to give him my pass and letters recommendatory: these are therefore to desire all commanders and officers by sea or land, and all others of the said commonwealth whom it may concern, to permit the said peter gerbrant, together with his said ship and lading, to pass unto the said port of lisbon quietly and without any molestation; and so to return from thence unto stockholm, with such lading as the said master shall there think fit to take into his ship. given under my hand and seal at upsal, in sweden, this th day of april, . b. w." [ ] "whereas the bearer hereof, lieutenant-colonel robert halsall, had a pass from colonel robert lilburne, commander-in-chief of the forces in scotland under his highness the lord protector of the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland, to transport himself, his servant, and necessaries into sweden upon his occasions, and, having despatched his business, he hath made his request to me, being ambassador from his said highness the lord protector to her majesty the queen of sweden, to grant him my pass for his return into scotland: these are therefore to desire all commanders by sea or land, and all officers and others of the said commonwealth whom it may concern, to suffer him, the said lieutenant-colonel halsall, quietly to pass into scotland, he acting nothing prejudicial to the commonwealth aforesaid; and further i desire that the commander-in-chief in scotland will be pleased to show unto him, the said lieutenant-colonel, such favour at all times as he shall there deserve. given under my hand and seal, at upsal, in sweden, this th of april, . b. whitelocke." [ ] [these words show that the contest between the french and spanish alliance in london was still going on; but they did not convey the truth to whitelocke, for it was against spain that the great armament previously mentioned was destined to be used, in the expedition to st. domingo and the conquest of jamaica.] [ ] the treaty thus signed ran in the following terms:-- [sn: text of the treaty.] "we whose names are subscribed, axel oxenstiern, chancellor of the kingdom and provincial judge of the west norlanders, of lapland, heredalia, and jemptia, earl of south morea, free baron in kimitho, lord in tiholme and tydoen, knight of the golden spur; and eric oxenstiern, son of axel, general president of the college of trade, earl of south morea, free baron in kimitho, lord in tydoen, viby, and gorwallen, senators of the kingdom of sweden, and plenipotentiary commissioners of the most serene and most potent prince and lady the lady christina, by the grace of god queen of the swedes, goths, and vandals, great prince of finland, duke of esthonia, carelia, bremen, veherden, stettin, pomerland, cassubia and vandalia, prince of rugia, and lady of ingria and of wismar; do make known and testify that formerly there hath been a great amity between the swedish and english nations, for which, to renew and increase the profit of it, it very well happened that the most illustrious and most excellent lord bulstrode whitelocke, constable of windsor castle, and at this time one of the keepers of the great seal of england, being sufficiently authorized to treat of the following affairs, came to the s.r.m. our lady, by commandment and in the name of oliver, lord protector of the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland, ambassador extraordinary from these countries and of the aforesaid commonwealth. the same also our most s.r.m. hath benignly commanded us, who have the same and sufficient power, that after we should have considered with the aforesaid lord ambassador about the things which would be judged the most convenient to establish the liberty of commerce and navigation, and to corroborate the mutual amity in this time, that some certain things should be determined and written in form of articles of mutual alliance. "therefore we, after a good deliberation together, agreed touching the affairs hereafter written, as they are by these following laws which are in this treaty, and by their clear words and without difficulty expressed. that is:-- " . that hereafter there be a good, sincere, firm peace and correspondence between the queen and kingdom of sweden and the lord protector and the aforesaid commonwealth, and between all and every one of the dominions, kingdoms, countries, provinces, islands, lands, colonies, towns, peoples, citizens, inhabitants, and all and every one of the subjects of either of the party, so that they may mutually embrace in entire love and affection. " . the aforesaid confederates and subjects, people and inhabitants of either, shall, when occasion shall be presented, advance the common profit, and shall, if they know of any imminent danger or conspiration or machination of the enemies, admonish one another, and shall hinder them as much as lies in their power. neither shall it be permitted to any of the confederates to do or treat by him, or by any other whatsoever, to the prejudice or damage of the lands and dominions of either, whatsoever they be, or in whatsoever place, either by sea or land. the enemies or rebels or adversaries shall in nowise be suffered, neither shall the rebels or traitors who undertake under the state of the other be received in his countries, and shall much less give them counsel, aid, or favour, nor shall admit that his subjects, people, or inhabitants should do anything like. " . the queen and kingdom aforesaid and the lord protector and commonwealth aforesaid shall, as much as in them lies, endeavour to take care, with all candour and affection, to remove all the hindrances which hitherto have interrupted the liberty of navigation and commerce between both the nations, as much in the dominions, lands, seas, and rivers of either of the confederates with other people and nations. they shall also endeavour to advance and defend the liberty of navigation and commerce against all sorts of disturbers for the reasons agreed upon in this treaty, or upon which hereafter they may agree, nor shall suffer, either through themselves, their subjects, or people, any offence to be committed or done against this institution. " . for it is consented and agreed that the inhabitants and subjects of the aforesaid confederates be free to travel by sea or land into the kingdoms, countries, provinces, lands, islands, towns, cities, villages, walled or unwalled, fortified or no, ports, dominions whatsoever freely, or without safe-conduct, general or special, to go and thence to return, and thence to stay or pass over, and all the while to buy victuals and things necessary for their use, and are to be treated with all benevolence. and also it shall be lawful for the subjects, citizens, and inhabitants of either of the confederates to exercise merchandise and commerce in all places wherein any commerce hath hitherto been exercised, and the same merchandise may be carried in or forth according to their pleasure, paying nevertheless the usual tax, and observing the laws and ordinances of the aforesaid kingdom and commonwealth; supposing on both sides that the people, subjects, and inhabitants of either of the confederates shall have and possess in the countries, lands, dominions, and kingdom of the other as full and ample privileges, and as much freedom, liberty, and immunity, as any stranger possesseth, or shall possess, in the said dominions and kingdoms. " . the merchants, masters of ships, pilots, seamen, and others, their ships, merchandise, and all goods in general of the said confederates and their subjects and inhabitants, shall not be apprehended or detained in the lands, ports, shores, harbours, or dominions whatsoever in alliance with the other, for any public use, expedition of war, or other cause, much less for any private man's use by virtue of any edict, general or special; neither shall they be molested or constrained by violence or injury or anything of that kind: provided that arrests be not prohibited if they are made according to the ordinary form of law, justice, and equity; they shall not neglect the punishment of any for private affection. " . and if one or more ships of the subjects, citizens, or inhabitants, be they of war or of burden and private men's, shall be forced by tempests, or pursued by pirates and enemies, or any urgent necessity to the harbour or shores of the other confederate, and be forced to call for protection, they shall be received there with all benignity, humanity, and friendship, and at no time to be hindered, and all victual, reparation, and things fit for use at the ordinary price; they shall not be prohibited to depart or go out of the port or harbour by any pretence whatsoever, as long as they have not committed anything against the statutes, ordinances, and custom of the place where their ships are brought and where they shall sojourn. " . likewise, if one ship or more of war or of private men of the other confederate, and of the subjects and inhabitants, shall be shipwrecked or cast on the coast of the dominions of the other confederate, or for the future may suffer detriment, they may be relieved and helped at a price agreed on, so that whatsoever shall be saved from the shipwreck shall be preserved and restored to the true owner or his factor. " . and if the subjects and inhabitants of the other confederate, whether they be merchants, their factors, servants, masters of ships, pirates, seamen, or others, have occasion to travel into the dominions of the other confederate, or if anything shall come in their name before a court of justice, or suits for their debts, or for any other lawful reason wherein they may need the help of the magistrate; in these things he shall be benign and ready for equity's sake, and shall administer justice without delay or unnecessary circumstances, and they shall not be hindered in their journey by any pretence, but whithersoever they go are to be used friendly, and shall have the liberty either in going or returning to carry and wear arms for their private defence, and to walk into the harbours, seaports, and in any public place of the other confederate armed; provided they give no occasion of just suspicion to the governors or magistrates of any place of any design against the public or private peace, but chiefly they are to behave themselves modestly, and to live without any injury. " . it is lawful for the foresaid confederates and both their people to buy and export out of any of their countries, dominions, and kingdoms, all sorts of arms and provision of war, and freely and safely to carry their ships into what ports, stations, and harbours of the other confederate they please, and there to sojourn and from thence to go; and they are to carry themselves modestly, peaceably, and conform to all the laws and customs of the place, and they may trade there without any hindrance; likewise the ships of war have free leave to come to the ports, havens, and stations of the other confederates. but nevertheless, if there be a manifest suspicion in their number, they may forbid their access, without they have obtained leave of the confederate in whose ports they are (unless they are drawn in by tempests, or force, or danger, or chief magistrate), and are not to stay longer than the governor or chief magistrate will give them leave. " . it shall be lawful for the subjects and inhabitants of the kingdom of sweden to travel into all the countries of england, scotland, and ireland, and likewise to pass beyond land or sea, and other people that commerce with them, to exercise trade in all kind of merchandise, and to bring them thither and carry thence at their pleasure. the people of the aforesaid commonwealth shall enjoy the same liberty in the kingdoms, dominions, and territories of the queen and kingdom of sweden, but upon condition that they shall observe the respective laws, ordinances, and particular rights of both nations, and of those things which concern the traffic. " . although it be prohibited by the former articles of this league and friendship, that neither of the confederates shall give aid or assistance to the enemies of the other, nevertheless it is no way to be understood that it is denied to the confederate and his subjects and people who is not in war to have commerce and navigation with the enemies of that confederate who is in war: provided only in the meantime, until it may be more fully agreed upon, all laws hereunto pertaining, that none of those commodities called contraband (of which a special designation or catalogue shall be agreed upon within four months from this time) shall be carried to the enemies of either, upon peril that if they be found out by the other confederate, they shall be taken as prize without hope of restitution. " . but lest this free navigation or passage by land or sea with other nations, of the one confederate, his subjects, or people, during the war of the other confederate, should be a deceit to the other confederate, and may conceal commodities and hostile goods by deceit, pretending the name of a friend, for that reason, to remove suspicion and fraud, it is thought fit that the ships, waggons, merchandises, and men belonging to one of the confederates, in their journeys and navigations shall be armed with letters of safe-conduct, commonly called passports and certificates, which shall be signed by the chief governor or magistrate of the province or city from whence they come, and in all them those forms to be observed which shall be agreed upon within the space of four months next ensuing; but where the merchandises, goods, shipping, and men of one of the confederates, or of his subjects or people, in the open sea, straits, ports, stations, lands, and places whatsoever, shall be met with by the ships of war, public or private, or by the men, subjects, and people of the other confederate, or by any means shall be in one place together, then exhibiting only their letters of safe-conduct and certificates, nothing shall be further required of them, nor inquired of them, nor inquiry made as to their goods, shipping, or men any further, much less shall any injury, damage, or trouble be offered to them, but, as is before signified, they shall be freely dismissed to proceed in their intended journey. and in case anything be done by either party contrary to the genuine sense of this article, either of the confederates shall cause severe punishment to be inflicted upon those who shall do contrary hereunto, their subjects and people, and shall take care that satisfaction be made without delay to the other grieved confederate, or his subjects and people, fully of all their losses and expenses. " . also, if it shall fall out hereafter during this friendship and league, that any of the people and subjects of either of the confederates shall take part with, or design anything against this league, the agreement between the aforesaid confederates shall not thereby be interrupted or dissolved, but nevertheless shall continue and wholly remain; but those particular persons only who have broken this league shall be punished, and right and justice shall be administered to those who have received injury, and satisfaction shall be made of all damages and wrong within a twelvemonth's time after restitution demanded. and if the foresaid delinquents and persons guilty of the violence committed shall not yield themselves and submit to justice, or within the prefixed time shall refuse to make satisfaction, they, whosoever they are, shall at length be proclaimed enemies to both states, and their estates, goods, and whatsoever things they have shall be confiscated and sold for a just and full satisfaction of the wrongs by them done, and those offenders and guilty persons, where they shall come into the power of either state, shall suffer also deserved punishment according to the nature of their offence. but restitution and satisfaction for the losses and damages which either of the confederates hath suffered by the other during the war between england and the united provinces of the netherlands shall be made and afforded without delay to the party wronged, or to his subjects. " . the present treaty and confederation shall not at all derogate from the pre-eminence, right, and dominion whatsoever of either of the confederates in their seas, straits, and waters whatsoever; but they shall have and retain the same to themselves in the same fulness as they have hitherto enjoyed the same, and of right belongs unto them. " . whereas therefore it is the principal purpose of this league that the same freedom of navigation and merchandising as is expressed in the former articles should be and remain to either confederate, his subjects and people, in the baltic sea, the strait of the sound, the northern, western, british, and mediterranean seas, and in the channel and other seas of europe, it shall therefore earnestly be endeavoured by common counsel, help, and assistance, that the foresaid mutual freedom of navigation and commerce shall be established and promoted in all the before-mentioned seas, and, if occasion require, shall be defended against disturbers who would interrupt it, prohibit, hinder, constrain, and force it to their own will and the injury of the confederates; and both the confederates shall willingly and mutually afford their goodwill and readiness to promote the benefit and to take away the prejudice of either of the confederates, always saving to either nation the leagues with other kingdoms, commonwealths, and nations which have been heretofore made and are in force; but neither of the confederates for the future shall make any league or alliance with any foreign people or nations whatsoever to any prejudice of this present mutual league, without the knowledge beforehand and consent of the other confederate; and if anything shall hereafter be agreed otherwise, it shall be void, and shall wholly give way to this mutual agreement; but of the manner of mutual aid or assistance to be given for defence of this league, and freedom of commerce and navigation, where it shall be necessary and reason shall require it, it shall be specially agreed upon according to the circumstances of time and all other things. " . concerning other advantages to be enjoyed, and rules according to which the ships of war shall demean themselves which shall come into the ports or stations of the other confederate, of the trade to be had in america, also of the commodities of fishing for herrings and other fish whatsoever, of the staples and marts to be appointed for trade, and of other matters and conditions which may be required for the greater evidence of the former articles, as by a particular treaty and mutual contract shall be hereafter agreed. " . but those matters which we have agreed in the former articles shall forthwith from this moment of time obtain full force and be sincerely and rightly observed by either party, and by all who are under their obedience, faith, and command. and to the end that for the time to come they may be the more established, and remain firm as well by her royal majesty as also by the lord protector of the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland, and the territories thereunto belonging, in the name of his highness and the said commonwealth, these presents, with the proper subscriptions of the hands of her majesty and of his highness, shall be subscribed, signed, and ratified. "in confirmation of all these things which are above written, and for sufficient testimony thereof that on the part of her royal majesty our most clement lady they shall be most religiously and fully observed, and be ratified within the time prefixed, we have subscribed these presents with our proper hands, and armed them with our seals. dated at upsal, the th day of april, in the year . "axel oxenstiern, "eric oxenstiern axelius." may. _may , ._ [sn: preparations for departure.] lagerfeldt, berkman, and the syndic of gothenburg, after dinner with whitelocke, discoursed and advised him touching his departure. lagerfeldt said he believed the queen would give whitelocke audience on friday next, before which time her presents would not be ready for whitelocke and his company; he said also, that he heard the prince intended to be in this town within a few days, and if it should be so, then it would be better for whitelocke to stay here, and expect his coming hither to salute him here, than to go out of his way so far as to the prince's court; in which matter whitelocke said he would entreat the queen's advice. lagerfeldt said further, that the queen had commanded some copper to be brought to stockholm, and to be put aboard the ship where whitelocke was to be embarked, or in some other ship as he should appoint, it being a present intended for him by the queen. the syndic acquainted whitelocke that the city of gothenburg would send into england, to prepare there for an accord concerning traffic between the english merchants and that town, wherein they hoped to have the assistance of whitelocke at his return to england, wherein he promised his advice and furtherance. a danish gentleman of quality and experience gave a visit to whitelocke, advised him the way of his journey, and gave him good information touching denmark, to be communicated to the protector, as that the english merchants might pass the sound without paying any tax, if the protector would insist upon it. whitelocke, in drollery, asked him why he would discover these things to a stranger, which turn so much to the prejudice of his own country. he answered that he did this to testify his respects to the protector, and that he did not betray his country, but his country had betrayed him; and that was his country where he breathed and had present nourishment.[ ] mr. woolfeldt visited whitelocke, and, among other discourses, related to him the story of this gentleman and his lady, which was to this effect, by his and others' relation:-- [sn: woolfeldt's history.] this gentleman was of a noble family and extraction in denmark, grew into great favour with the last king, whose daughter by a second wife he married; and the present king, her brother, made him viceroy of norway, governor of the isle of zealand and of the sound, and a senator of the kingdom and great master of denmark; and he had been employed thirteen times as an ambassador. "his lady, the daughter and sister of a king, was of excellent comeliness of person and behaviour, humbly knowing her distance, of a sweet disposition, and of rare parts, both of mind and body; especially deserving praise for her high and entire affection to her husband, who, notwithstanding his great parts and abilities, and the many perils he had undergone in the service of his king and country, yet after all, by the whisperings and false suggestions of backbiters, his enemies, was traduced to the king for being too much a friend to the people's liberty, and an opposer of the king's absolute power; but beyond all this (as some gave it out), that he was too familiar with one of the king's mistresses; so it was that the king took high displeasure against him. parasites took the occasion to please the king by invectives against one under a cloud; his parts attracted envy, and his merits were too great for any other recompense but his own ruin. "to avoid the king's wrath and his enemies' malice, and to preserve his life, which was aimed to be taken away with his fortune, he was compelled to fly from his country and seek his security in foreign parts. his lady, though a tender, modest woman,--though the sister of the king regnant, high in his favour and the interest of her alliance; though pressingly enticed to cast off her affection to her husband; though unacquainted with any hardships,--yet so entire was her conjugal love and piety, that, rather than part with her husband, she would leave all her relations and pleasures of a court and her dear country, and put herself, though with child, into the disguise of a page, to attend him in his flight as his servant. "it may be imagined that such a servant was not unkindly used; but the greatest trouble was, that being on shipboard to cross the baltic sea, the poor page whispered the master that she had a longing desire to some cherries which she saw in the town as they came to the ship. here was the difficulty: if her lord did not go on shore and procure some cherries for the page, it might cost her life; if he did go on shore, and in the meantime the ship should go off, he and his page would be parted, and his own life endangered. it was reason and honour that persuaded him rather to hazard his own than such a page's life; therefore, having effectually dealt with the master of the ship for a little stay, he soon found out a pretence to go on shore, and neglected not to hasten back again with his provision of cherries, and to find out a way of distributing a large share of them to her that longed for them. after which they happily set sail and arrived in sweden, where, by articles between the two crowns, those in his condition have sanctuary and protection." in the afternoon whitelocke went to court, where he met with canterstein, who excused himself that he had not yet brought to whitelocke the queen's letters of full power to her commissioners, which he said the queen had signed two days before, and that he had been sick, otherwise he had delivered them before this time. whitelocke asked him if his recredentials were prepared. he said they were ready for the queen to sign when she pleased, and that nothing in his charge concerning whitelocke should receive any delay by his occasion. whitelocke gave him thanks for his care, and promised his remuneration. [sn: whitelocke entertains the queen on may-day.] this being may-day, whitelocke, according to the invitation he had made to the queen, put her in mind of it, that, as she was his mistress, and this may-day, he was, by the custom of england, to wait upon her to take the air, and to treat her with some little collation, as her servant. the queen said the weather was very cold, yet she was very willing to bear him company after the english mode. with the queen were woolfeldt, tott, and five of her ladies. whitelocke brought them to his collation, which he had commanded his servants to prepare in the best manner they could, and altogether after the english fashion. at the table with the queen sat "la belle comtesse," the countess gabrielle oxenstiern, woolfeldt, tott, and whitelocke; the other ladies sat in another room. their meat was such fowl as could be gotten, dressed after the english fashion and with english sauces, creams, puddings, custards, tarts, tansies, english apples, _bon chrétien_ pears, cheese, butter, neats' tongues, potted venison, and sweetmeats brought out of england, as his sack and claret also was. his beer was also brewed and his bread made by his own servants in his house, after the english manner; and the queen and her company seemed highly pleased with this treatment. some of her company said she did eat and drink more at it than she used to do in three or four days at her own table. the entertainment was as full and noble as the place would afford and as whitelocke could make it, and so well ordered and contrived that the queen said she had never seen any like it. she was pleased so far to play the good housewife as to inquire how the butter could be so fresh and sweet, and yet brought out of england. whitelocke, from his cooks, satisfied her majesty's inquiry, that they put the salt butter into milk, where it lay all night, and the next day it would eat fresh and sweet as this did, and any butter new made, and commended her majesty's good housewifery; who, to express her contentment in this collation, was full of pleasantness and gaiety of spirit, both in supper-time and afterwards. among other frolics, she commanded whitelocke to teach her ladies the english salutation, which, after some pretty defences, their lips obeyed, and whitelocke most readily. she highly commended whitelocke's music of the trumpets, which sounded all supper-time; and her discourse was all of mirth and drollery, wherein whitelocke endeavoured to answer her, and the rest of the company did their parts. it was late before she returned to the castle, whither whitelocke waited on her; and she discoursed a little with him about his business and the time of his audience, and gave him many thanks for his noble treatment of her and her company. _may , ._ [sn: the swedish full powers.] whitelocke sent to the master of the ceremonies to know if he had desired a time for his last audience, who promised to do it. canterstein brought to whitelocke the queen's letters of full power to her commissioners, under her hand and the great seal of sweden, which were of this tenour.[ ] having received this commission, whitelocke delivered to canterstein his commission under the great seal of england, and the copy of his new instructions from the protector, except what was secret in them. canterstein, the master of the ceremonies, and monsieur bloome, were frolic at dinner with whitelocke, and made many caresses to him, and extolled the chancellor's care and high respect to whitelocke, in bringing his treaty to so good an issue; and after dinner bloome told whitelocke that the chancellor had advised the queen to make a noble present to whitelocke, which was not yet ready, and that had retarded his last audience. the master of the ceremonies, from the queen, desired whitelocke to have a little patience for a few days; that she expected the arrival of the prince within six or seven days in this town, by which means whitelocke would have a fair opportunity to salute him here, without further trouble; and that the queen would give him audience within two days before the arrival of the prince, and so he should receive no disturbance in his voyage. whitelocke saw no other remedy for this but patience. _may , ._ [sn: the guinea question.] whitelocke visited grave eric. they fell into discourse, among other things, touching guinea, to this effect:-- _whitelocke._ it is requisite that we come to some conclusion about the business of guinea. _grave eric._ i think it fit; and for your further information, here is the answer in writing of the swedes who are concerned therein unto the complaints of the english company in that business. _wh._ will you leave the writing with me? _gr. eric._ i shall send you a copy of it. _wh._ the complaints of the english have been proved by depositions of witnesses. _gr. eric._ those depositions were taken in the absence of the other party; and, if you please, witnesses may be produced here on the part of the swedes. _wh._ witnesses produced here will be also in the absence of the other party, though i had leisure and commission to examine them on oath. _gr. eric._ you may see in this map of guinea how the plantations of the swedes, english, and hollanders do lie, and are mingled and near to one another. _wh._ the king of that place made a grant to the english, for them only to dwell and traffic in that country; and the swedes afterwards drove the english, by force, out of their fortifications. _gr. eric._ the english had no fortifications there; all the fort they had was a little lodge with two rooms only in it, out of which the swedes did not force them; and both the hollanders and swedes were planted in this place before any grant made to the english, and the swedes had a grant from the same king, whereof this is a copy. _wh._ it will be material to compare the dates of these two grants: if that to the english was first, then the other to the swedes was of no validity; and the like of the contrary. if you will favour me with a copy of the grant made to the swedes, i will compare it with that made to the english, and return it to you. _gr. eric._ you shall command it. mr. woolfeldt, being visited by whitelocke, told him that the queen was extremely pleased with his treatment of her. whitelocke excused the meanness of it for her majesty. woolfeldt replied, that both the queen and all the company esteemed it as the handsomest and noblest that they ever saw; and the queen, after that, would drink no other wine but whitelocke's, and kindly accepted the neats' tongues, potted venison, and other cates which, upon her commendation of them, whitelocke sent unto her majesty. woolfeldt showed a paper of consequence written by himself in spanish, and he read it in french to whitelocke, being perfect in those and other languages. he said, that whatsoever he wrote he did it in a foreign language, to continue the exercise of them. the paper showed how the english might be freed from paying tolls at the sound. whitelocke entreated a copy of this paper in french, which woolfeldt promised. a great quantity of snow fell and covered the houses and fields, and was hard frozen: a matter at this time strange to the english, but ordinary here. _may , ._ mr. boteler, a scotsman, confidently reported great news to the disparagement of the affairs of england, that the highlanders of scotland had given a great defeat to the english and killed five hundred of them, which news was soon confuted by whitelocke. [sn: a literary dinner party.] the senator vanderlin, and his brother the master of the ceremonies; dr. loccenius, a civilian, keeper of the library in this university; another gentleman, professor of eloquence here; mr. ravius, professor of the eastern tongues; and a french gentleman, captain of one of the companies of guards, doing whitelocke the honour to dine with him, had very learned discourse, particularly of languages and of the affinity between the swedish, english, danish, and high dutch tongues, whereof they gave many instances, and whitelocke was able to add to them. the professors discoursed only in latin, as most proper for them; the others in french; and they hold it a discourtesy if a man be not answered in the same language which he speaks. they also extolled the prince and the protector; and the senator said that there was not any person who came so near to the eminency and grandeur of the protector as the prince of sweden did. [sn: the dutch resident salutes whitelocke on the peace.] the company being gone, whitelocke went to the accustomed place, the great wood, to take the air; and as he was walking in the broad way there, he perceived the coach of the dutch resident coming towards him; and perceiving the english ambassador to be walking there, the resident alighted out of his coach and came on foot towards whitelocke. whether he came after whitelocke in a handsome design or contrivance for their first salutation, or that it was by accident, whitelocke did not examine, but thought fit to answer the civility of the resident by walking back towards him to meet him. they saluted each other and their company with great respect. the resident began the compliment to whitelocke in french, telling him that he was very glad of the opportunity to have the happiness to salute whitelocke, which he would not neglect to do, perceiving him in this place; and that he would take the first occasion to do himself the honour to visit whitelocke at his house. whitelocke answered, that the resident should be very welcome when he pleased to do that honour to whitelocke as to bestow a visit on him; and that he was also very glad of the opportunity which had now presented itself, whereby he had the contentment of being acquainted with the resident. they fell into general discourses, and, among the rest, of the conclusion and ratification of the treaty between the two commonwealths, and of the advantage which thereby would arise to both of them, and to the protestant party.[ ] as they were walking together the queen passed by them, being in that wood also to take the air. when she came near, she saluted them with great respect, and spake to them aloud, "je suis ravie de vous voir ensemble, je vois que la paix est faite." and so the queen went on her way, and whitelocke took leave of the resident. [sn: a despatch from thurloe.] at his return to his house whitelocke found his packet from england ready to entertain him, and thurloe's letter was this:-- "my lord, "your letter of the th of march arrived here this morning, whereby you are pleased to give a very particular and exact account of all proceedings in this treaty you are upon; i presently communicated the contents thereof to his highness and the council, with whom he was willing to advise, and thereupon he was pleased to send you the instructions which your excellence will receive herewith, which are fully agreeable to your own desire in that behalf. the former instructions had come sooner, if the issue of the dutch treaty had been sooner known; now, through the blessing of god, it is fully concluded, and your excellence will receive herewith the articles, as they are signed by the commissioners of his highness and the lords ambassadors of the united provinces. they signed them upon wednesday, at night, and the next morning the ambassadors sent them away to be ratified by their superiors, which they will do without difficulty or scruple, as we believe. "your excellence will see by those articles made with the dutch, that the second and fifth article is omitted out of your instructions; that these two treaties will very well stand together; and for the notice to be given to the dutch, it is clear to me that it will not be necessary, in respect that this treaty was not only begun, but as good as finished, before the conclusion with the dutch. "and for the fourth article, and the proviso your excellence is pleased to send, that being so clearly within the substance of your former instructions, i thought it needless to add any instruction about it now. "his highness in the beginning of this week was pleased to send for the great seal, and kept it in his own custody two days, and now hath disposed it unto your excellence, sir thomas widdrington, and your confrater my lord lisle. his highness is very much resolved upon a good and solid reformation of the law, and proceedings in the courts of equity and laws: the matter of law he hath committed unto mr. justice hale and mr. john vaughan; the reformation of the chancery to my lord widdrington, mr. attorney-general, and mr. chute,--being resolved to give the learned of the robe the honour of reforming their own profession, and hopes that god will give them hearts to do it; and, that no time may be lost, the next term is adjourned. "the french ambassador desires very much to get a despatch of his business. his highness hath at length appointed him commissioners to treat, but no progress hath been yet made thereupon. the speech that he made at his first audience your excellence will receive by this. "the portugal presseth much now to come to an agreement also, and to close the treaty which hath hanged so long; and so doth the spaniard. "i pray for your excellence's safe return home and rest. "your excellence's humble servant, "jo. thurloe. "_april th, ._" whitelocke's new instructions from the protector: "o. p. "_additional instructions to my lord whitelocke, our ambassador extraordinary to her majesty the queen of sweden._ "having considered the particular account you have given by your letters weekly of your negotiation in sweden, and the delay which hath been on the part of that court in the treaty you are upon, we might well have given you positive orders for your speedy return. "but observing that the letters and despatches between this and sweden are a month in their way, and not knowing how affairs may alter in that time with you, and the pretence of their delay--to wit, the uncertainty of the issue of the treaty between us and the united provinces--being removed, as you will see by these letters, which will assure you of the full conclusion thereof, we have thought it more convenient to leave you a latitude in that particular, and to give you liberty (as we do hereby) to return home at such time as you shall find it for the service of the commonwealth. " . whereas, by your letter of the th of march, , you have represented the particular debates which you have had upon all the articles of the treaty, and the exceptions taken by the queen upon the second, fifth, and seventh articles, you are hereby authorized to omit the second and fifth articles out of the treaty, as also the words 'bona à suis cujusque inimicis direpta' out of the seventh article, if the queen shall still insist thereupon; and as for the comprehending the dutch in this treaty with the queen of sweden, notice shall be given from hence, if it shall be found necessary. " . you have hereby power to agree with the queen of sweden that she and her subjects may fish freely for herrings in the seas of this commonwealth, paying the recognition of the tenth herring, or for a lesser recognition, so as it be not less than the twentieth herring, or the value thereof in money. "_whitehall, th april, ._" the order of the council touching the great seal sent by thurloe was this. the title of the order was thus:-- [sn: whitelocke, widdrington, and lisle reappointed of the great seal.] "_order of the council approving of the commissioners of the great seal._ "_tuesday, th april, ._ "at the council at whitehall: "_resolved_, that the council doth approve of the lord ambassador whitelocke to be one of the lords commissioners of the great seal. "_resolved_, that the council doth approve of sir thomas widdrington, knight, serjeant-at-law, to be one of the lords commissioners of the great seal. "_resolved_, that the council doth approve of john lisle, esquire, to be one of the lords commissioners of the great seal. "by the command of his highness mr. serjeant widdrington and mr. lisle were called in, and being come to the table, his highness declared that the lord ambassador whitelocke and themselves had been nominated by his highness, and approved by the council, to be commissioners for the great seal; and his highness did deliver unto the said mr. serjeant widdrington and mr. lisle the said great seal; and then the oath appointed by the ordinance was read by the clerk of the council, and was taken by each of them. "ex^r w. jessop, "clerk of the council." the guinea company sent by this packet a letter to whitelocke of thanks for his care of their business, and that they could not buy the swedes' interest in guinea, and referred the whole matter wholly to whitelocke. the examinations in the court of admiralty touching the ship 'charity,' enclosed in thurloe's letters, made it appear that the swedes had not injury done them, as they complained, and that the goods belonged to hollanders, and not to the swedes; but only coloured by the hollanders under the name of swedish ship and goods, though they were not so. whitelocke made use of these examinations as he saw cause, and found that martin thysen had an interest in these goods. [sn: reception of the french ambassador in london.] the enclosed speech of the french ambassador to the protector was full of compliment, giving him the title of "serene altesse," and as much as could be well offered by the french, seeming to desire a league and amity with the protector. the ambassador was received with great state and solemnity, answerable to the honour of his master the king of france, with whom the protector had a good mind to close at this time, the rather to frustrate the hopes of the king of scots of assistance from thence, where he was now entertained, caressed, and made believe he should have all aid and furtherance for his restitution, which the protector sought to prevent by the interest of the cardinal mazarin, whose creature this ambassador was. _may , ._ [sn: the queen's presents to whitelocke and his suite.] lagerfeldt acquainted whitelocke that the queen intended to gratify him with a gift of as great value as had been bestowed upon any ambassador before; and that she having received from whitelocke many brave horses and many native goods of england, and whitelocke having undertaken, at his return to england, to provide for her majesty several other commodities, she held it reasonable to requite him with some commodities of this country, if whitelocke thought fit to accept of them. whitelocke answered that it did not become him to prescribe bounds to her majesty's favour, but only to refer himself to the queen's judgement herein. lagerfeldt replied that the queen intended to bestow her gift upon him in copper, and gave order that it should be put aboard a ship, to be consigned by him to some of his friends at london, or as he pleased to dispose it. whitelocke desired of lagerfeldt that although the articles were signed, that yet he in the instrument might prefix to the title these words "serenissimi ac celsissimi domini," which words whitelocke did observe to be in the protector's title to the dutch articles, which was not known to whitelocke before the articles were signed here. lagerfeldt promised to acquaint the chancellor herewith, and to bring his answer. whitelocke waited upon the queen, and acquainted her with his news from england, and of the consummation of the treaty of peace between england and the dutch, whereof she said she was very glad, and thanked whitelocke for his news. he then entreated her majesty to appoint a day for his audience to take his leave of her majesty, which she told him should be shortly done; then she desired his company with her in her coach, to take the air. he waited on her, and besides there was in the coach grave tott, grave vandone, and the countess christina oxenstiern. the queen was not very pleasant, but entertained some little discourses, not much of business; and after a short tour, returning to the castle, retired into her chamber, and whitelocke to his lodging. _may , ._ lagerfeldt returned answer to whitelocke, of his motion to insert the words "serenissimi ac celsissimi domini" into the protector's title, that he had acquainted the chancellor with it, who also had communicated it to her majesty, and she willingly assented thereunto; and it was inserted accordingly. he brought with him monsieur carloe, governor of the swedish company for guinea, with whom whitelocke had much discourse upon the same points as he had before with grave eric; and carloe denied all that the english merchants had affirmed, and he continued before and after dinner very obstinate in it. secretary canterstein brought to whitelocke the queen's letters of the grant of two hundred ship-pound of copper for a present to him, which letters were thus.[ ] in the afternoon the master of the ceremonies came to whitelocke's house, and presented to him, from the queen, a handsome jewel, which was a case of gold, fairly enamelled, and having in the midst of it the picture of the queen, done to the life, and very like her. it was set round about with twelve large diamonds, and several small diamonds between the great ones. he told whitelocke that, by command of her majesty, he presented her picture to him; that she was sorry it was not made up so as might have been worthy of his reception; but she desired, if he pleased, that he would do her the honour to wear it for her sake, and to accept the picture in memory of the friend that sent it. whitelocke answered that the queen was pleased to bestow a great honour upon him in this noble testimony of her favour to him, of which he acknowledged himself altogether unworthy; but her majesty's opinion was otherwise, as appeared by such a present as this. he did with all thankfulness accept it, and should with great contentment give himself occasion, by the honour of wearing it, to remember the more often her majesty and her favours to him, her servant, for which he desired the master to present his humble thanks unto her majesty. after he had been with whitelocke, the master went to whitelocke's two sons, and in the queen's name presented to each of them a chain of gold of five links, and at the end of the chain a medal of gold of the queen's picture; the chains and medals were valued at four hundred ducats apiece. then he presented, in the queen's name, to colonel potley, to dr. whistler, to captain beake, and mr. earle, to each of them a chain of gold of four links, and at the end of each chain a medal of gold of the queen's picture; these chains and medals were valued at two hundred ducats apiece, or thereabouts. then he presented, in the queen's name, to mr. stapleton, mr. ingelo, and mr. de la marche, to each of them a chain of gold of three links, with a medal of gold of the queen's picture at the end of each chain; the chains and medals were valued at about a hundred and sixty ducats apiece. to mr. walker he presented a chain and medal of gold of three links, shorter than the rest, of about the value of a hundred and thirty ducats; to captain crispe and to mr. swift, to each of them a chain of gold of two links, with a medal of gold to each of them, of about the value of a hundred ducats apiece. [sn: disputes caused by the queen's presents.] walker the steward, and stapleton, gentleman of the horse to whitelocke, were discontented, because their chains were not of four links apiece; and they and others took exceptions because their chains were not so good and valuable as those given to potley and beake,--so seditious a thing is gold. but whitelocke endeavoured to satisfy them by the reasons why the chains of potley and beake were better than theirs: the one having been an ancient servant of this crown, and the other being commander of the guards of the protector; and nothing was due to them, but only the queen's free gift and bounty was in all of them, and therefore not to be excepted against by any of them. notwithstanding this admonition, they met and discoursed together in discontent about this business, and gave thereby occasion of displeasure to whitelocke. whitelocke being in the mood to take the air, the holland resident came thither, where they walked and discoursed together; and in their return the resident and two of his gentlemen, vorstius and another, went in whitelocke's coach, who brought the resident to his lodging, and there had a civil treatment, and found by discourse that the resident was not well satisfied with his being in this court. whitelocke did not hitherto make a visit to any person since he had received his presents from the queen, after which, in ceremony, he must first visit her majesty to give her thanks, and then he is at liberty to visit others. _may , ._ _the lord's day._--monsieur bloome, and mr. de geeres, the rich merchant of sweden, after dinner with whitelocke, discoursed much about matters not so proper for the day. walker and stapleton attending whitelocke and walking in the evening, he again spake to them about their presents as formerly; but found stapleton stiff in his opinion, and to intend to send back his present to the master of the ceremonies as refusing it; but whitelocke required him not to do so, lest it should be taken as an affront to whitelocke and to the protector himself, as well as a disdaining of the queen's present, which was her majesty's free gift without any obligation. _may , ._ [sn: warrant for the copper.] the warrant formerly inserted was sent to the officers of the treasury, who thereupon made their order to the under-officers for the delivery of the copper accordingly, which order was brought to whitelocke in the swedish language. [sn: the guinea case.] the master of the ceremonies came to whitelocke to inform him that the queen had appointed wednesday next, the th of this month, for his last audience to take his leave. whitelocke said he was sorry it could not be sooner. the master excused it by reason of the great affairs of the queen upon the meeting of the ricksdag. grave eric and lagerfeldt came to whitelocke and debated with him the business of guinea. _grave eric._ i shall read to you this paper, which is in latin and in french,--an answer to the complaints of the english, and denies all their allegations. _whitelocke._ the allegations of the english are proved by oath; here are the depositions. _gr. eric._ the answers of the swedes are upon oath likewise. _wh._ but the english are in the affirmative. _gr. eric._ the swedes have like complaints against the english, which are to be proved by oath in the affirmative also; and in such case the parties or their procurators must appear before the ordinary and competent judges, which will require a great deal of time; but we being to treat with you as an ambassador, we propose that there may be an abolition of all past injuries of the one side and the other, and that there may be an agreement and friendship, and free trade there for the future. _wh._ this will be very proper for the time to come, but it will be no satisfaction for the injuries already done. i have no power from the protector or company of english merchants to make any such agreement; but for what concerns the public, i can make an accord with you, and the satisfaction of damages for wrongs past may be remitted to the determination of the commissioners. _gr. eric._ i shall show you a project in writing, that all the houses and possessions of the one part and the other may continue in the same estate for the time to come as they are in at present. _wh._ to agree to this were to give up the right of the english merchants, and to acknowledge that they have no cause of complaint; whereas i demand in justice a reparation and satisfaction for those injuries whereof they complain. _gr. eric._ then the business must be decided before the judges, witnesses on both sides must be heard, and we must insist upon it that the houses and possessions continue in the same estate as they now are. _wh._ you must pardon me that i cannot assent hereunto. thus their debate broke off. monsieur ravius came to whitelocke in the name of the bishop of stregnes, to acquaint him that if he had any english horses which he would bestow upon the prince, that they would be very acceptable to him, and that whitelocke would very much gratify himself thereby. whitelocke said that his saddle-horses were not worth the presenting to his royal highness, the best of them being already given away; but he had a set of coach-horses which he intended to reserve and to present unto the prince, if he pleased to accept them. ravius said they would be very acceptable to him. _may , ._ [sn: whitelocke compliments the danish minister on the peace.] the king of denmark being included in the treaty between england and the dutch, and so become a friend, whitelocke was advised to send first a compliment to the danish ambassador now residing in this court; which, when whitelocke doubted lest thereby he might diminish the honour of england by sending to the dane before the dane had first sent to him, the master of the ceremonies and others instructed him that it was the constant custom for the ambassador that comes last to send first a compliment to him that had been in the court before; whereupon whitelocke did send one of his gentlemen to the danish ambassador, to visit and compliment him. now the secretary of the ambassador of denmark came to whitelocke, in the name of his lord, to give him thanks for the honour he had done him in sending one of his servants to salute him, and to congratulate the good news of the agreement between england and the dutch, wherein the king his master was comprised. the secretary said that the confirmation thereof was also come to his lord by the way of holland and of denmark, for which news his lordship was very joyful, and would himself have given a visit to whitelocke but that his want of health detained him in his lodging. whitelocke told the secretary that he was very sorry for his lord's indisposition of health, and wished his good recovery; that he was heartily glad of the news which gave him occasion to send to his lord to congratulate with him, and that he would take an opportunity to visit him in person when it might be without prejudice to his excellence's health. berkman came to whitelocke to give him an account of a message wherein he had employed berkman to the marshal wrangel, to desire him, in whitelocke's name, that the ship appointed to transport him might fall down from stockholm to the dollars, for whitelocke to come on board her there, which would save him a hundred miles by sea from stockholm thither, there being a nearer way by a third-part from stockholm to the dollars for boats to pass. berkman said he found wrangel very civil, and ready to do what whitelocke should desire of him for his accommodation, and that he had ordered the ship forthwith to fall down to the dollars; for which whitelocke desired monsieur berkman to return his thanks to the marshal. the ricks-admiral sent to whitelocke, expressing much civility and readiness to serve him, and desired to know if one ship would be sufficient for his transportation; that, if he pleased, there should be more provided for him. whitelocke returned thanks, and that he hoped he should not have occasion to put them to the trouble of more ships for his transportation than that already ordered for him. [sn: whitelocke invited to the ceremony of abdication.] the master of the ceremonies came to whitelocke, by the queen's command, to know if he and his company pleased to see the meeting of the ricksdag; that he had provided a place for that purpose, where they might be unknown and unseen, and yet see all the ceremony and hear all the harangues; that if whitelocke would see it, the master would call him at eight o'clock in the morning and wait upon him to the place; but he said that the danish ambassador had some thoughts of being there also, and if he came first to the place he would take the uppermost seat. whitelocke then desired the master to call him early enough that he might be there first, because he should hardly permit the danish ambassador to sit above him. the master said he would be sure to call whitelocke early enough, but he believed that the danish ambassador would not be there because of his ill health. the master told whitelocke that monsieur bloome had informed him that some of whitelocke's gentlemen took exceptions to the presents sent them by the queen. he protested, upon his soul and his honour, that he had no hand in the disposing of these presents, but that all was done by the officers of the chamber of accounts, and that the queen did not meddle with it; but when he showed her a catalogue of the officers of whitelocke's house, she marked them how she would have the presents bestowed; that how the matter might be altered afterwards he was wholly ignorant, and that he had order, under the hands of the officers, to make the distribution as he had done; and he hoped none of the gentlemen would be offended with him, who had done nothing but as he was ordered by those over him. whitelocke told him that, in so great a family as his was, it would be difficult to please every one; that these presents were the queen's favours, which she might distribute as she pleased, and every one ought to be contented therewith; that some of his company had discoursed hereof more than belonged to them, but that he would take order in it himself. they had also this further discourse:-- _whitelocke._ do you expect the arrival of the prince here on friday next? _mast. cer._ the queen is not assured of his arrival that day, but she will go out on horseback, accompanied with all her nobility, to meet him. _wh._ will it be expected that i go out likewise to meet him? _mast. cer._ that cannot be, because it will be after your last audience, and when you have taken your leave of the queen, so that you cannot then appear in public nor in any public action, because it will be to present yourself before those of whom you had taken your leave before. _wh._ but after my last audience i may in private see the queen? _mast. cer._ yes, for that is but a particular visit; and so you may visit any of your friends after your last audience. _wh._ i intend likewise to salute the prince after my last audience. _mast. cer._ you may do it, because it will be but a particular visit. _wh._ i hope his royal highness will treat me with the same civility and respect as he useth to any other ambassador. _mast. cer._ that he will infallibly do. monsieur chanut, the french ambassador, when he was in this court, did always give the right hand to the prince after the proposal had been made of declaring him prince-heritier of the crown, though the ricksdag had not then confirmed it. but chanut made difficulty of it at the prince's lodging, because he was not the son of a king, yet afterwards he did it both there and elsewhere. _wh._ there is more reason for me now to do it, because the proposal is to be made of investing him with the crown. what was the manner of the prince's reception of chanut, where did he meet chanut at his coming, and how far did he go with him at his taking leave? _mast. cer._ the prince received chanut at the door of the chamber where he had his audience; and when the ambassador went away, the prince brought him to the same place and no further; and i believe he will give the same respect to your excellence, and as much to you as to any public minister. _wh._ i can desire no more. _may , ._ [sn: whitelocke attends a wedding at court.] lagerfeldt came to whitelocke and acquainted him that there was a special article to be agreed upon touching the business of guinea, which the queen and the chancellor were willing might proceed for the despatch of whitelocke, and that grave eric would have come to him about it, but that he was ill and had taken physic. he told whitelocke that the queen said he might have his last audience that day if he pleased; but if he would be present at the solemnity of the nuptials which were this evening to be celebrated at court between the baron horne and the lady sparre, and if he desired to see the assembling of the ricksdag tomorrow, then it would be requisite to defer his audience till friday, because when he had taken his leave of the queen it would not be proper for him afterwards to appear in public. whitelocke said he had rather be dismissed than to be present at any solemnities; that her majesty had taken him captive by her noble presents, so that it was not fit for him to come abroad in public. he asked lagerfeldt if the prince would be here on friday next; if so, then it would not be convenient to have his audience put off to that day. lagerfeldt said he doubted that the prince would not be here so soon. an officer on horseback, accompanied with several other horsemen, with four kettle-drums and eight or ten trumpets beating and sounding before them, made proclamation in several parts of the town that all persons who were summoned to appear at the ricksdag should give their attendance at the place appointed in the queen's castle of upsal tomorrow by eight o'clock in the morning, upon pain of half-a-dollar mulcted for every default. the master of the ceremonies came to whitelocke from the queen, and acquainted him to the same effect as lagerfeldt had done, touching his last audience. the master also, by the queen's command, invited whitelocke to the wedding at court this night; and if he pleased to see the manner of the assembling of the ricksdag, that he had order to take the care of it, and that it would be no hindrance to his going away, because the prince did not come hither till tuesday next. whitelocke said he was sorry that the prince would come no sooner to this place, but since it was the pleasure of the queen that he should wait upon her this evening, he would obey her commands; and as to the time of his audience, he submitted to her pleasure. the ricks-admiral sent again to whitelocke, to know if he would have any more ships provided for his transportation. whitelocke returned his thanks, and that he intended not to take any of his horses with him, and therefore should not need any more ships than were already ordered. studely, one of whitelocke's servants, returned to him from stockholm with an account that the ship appointed for his transportation was not yet ready, which retarded his voyage to his trouble. between ten and eleven o'clock at night the master of the ceremonies came to whitelocke's house, with one of the queen's coaches, to bring him to the wedding at court. he desired whitelocke's two sons to go into that coach, who excused themselves that they had not been in that coach formerly. the master said that when one went to an audience there were certain formalities to be observed, but going to a wedding was another thing; that now the queen had sent her coach for whitelocke as her guest, and it was proper for his sons to go with him. whitelocke wished them to observe the direction of the master, who governed in these things. they went to the bridegroom's house, where were many of his friends; his uncle the ricks-admiral, marshal wrangel, and other senators and noblemen. as soon as whitelocke alighted out of the coach, the bridegroom's brother was there to receive him and bid him welcome; near the door the bridegroom met him, and gave him thanks for the favour in honouring his wedding with his presence. whitelocke said he was very ready to testify his respects to the nobility of this country, and particularly to himself, and took it for an honour to be invited into such company. whitelocke was instructed by the master of the ceremonies, that by the custom of this country the bridegroom takes place of the king, and the bride of the queen, during the solemnities of the wedding; accordingly whitelocke gave the right hand to the bridegroom. after a little discourse they took their coaches;--first the gentlemen, then the lords, then the senators, then the ricks-admiral and senator bundt, who, being next of kin, was to give the bride in marriage; after bundt went whitelocke, and after him the bridegroom, who had precedence in the queen's coach, which went last, and whitelocke next before it, and the other coaches in their order; the bridegroom's coach last of all, as the best place. the like order they observed in their going in the castle. at the head of the stairs the master of the ceremonies met them, and brought them to the presence-chamber, where the queen was with the bride and a great company of gallant ladies. the bridegroom kissed her majesty's hand, and then the bride's hand; the rest of the company did the like. between the queen and whitelocke passed a little discourse. _whitelocke._ madam, i give you humble thanks for your invitation of me to these solemnities. _queen._ it is an honour to us that such an ambassador will be present at our ceremonies. _wh._ i likewise return my most humble thanks to your majesty for your many favours, and the noble presents you have been pleased to bestow on me and on my company. _qu._ sir, you mock me; i am troubled i could not do according to that respect which i bear you. this is only a custom of our country to persons of your condition, and i hope you will take it in good part. _wh._ it is more suitable to your majesty's bounty than to anything i can call desert in me, who have a most grateful sense and acceptance of your majesty's favours. [sn: ceremony of the marriage.] the bride and bridegroom were both clothed in white tabby, his suit laced with a very broad gold and silver lace. the bride had on her head a coronet set full of diamonds, with a diamond collar about her neck and shoulders, a diamond girdle of the same fashion, and a rich diamond jewel at her breast, which were all of them of great value, and by some reported to be the queen's jewels, lent by her to the bride for that time. they went all to the great hall; first the noblemen, then the senators, then the bridegroom between bundt and whitelocke, then the bride between two graves, then the queen and her guards. then the queen presently took her chair of state; at her right-hand at a little distance sat the bride against her; at the queen's left-hand sat the bridegroom, next to him whitelocke, and then bundt. after they were all sat, bundt rose up and went towards the queen, and spake in swedish with a loud voice to this effect, as it was interpreted to whitelocke:--that baron horne, a gentleman there present, of an ancient and noble family, desired to have in marriage a lady who was servant to her majesty, of the ancient and noble family of the sparres; then he spake much of the pedigrees and in the praise of both the families; after that he addressed himself to the bride and bridegroom, giving them good counsel as to the condition which they were entering into, and their demeanour to one another. then some friends led the bridegroom to a place in the midst of the hall purposely railed in, and then they fetched the bride thither also and placed her by the bridegroom; then a grave churchman, one of the queen's chaplains, turning himself to the queen, pronounced the words of marriage after a form in a book which he read, and being interpreted to whitelocke, he found it the same in effect with the words of marriage in the english liturgy. the ceremony of joining them in marriage being ended, two graves with torches came to the bridegroom and bride and led them around; two other lords with torches followed after them, many ladies two by two. the bride being brought to her seat by the bridegroom, he then took the queen by the hand and they walked between the torches; then the bride came and took whitelocke by the hand and they walked after the queen. whitelocke brought the bride again to her place, and being instructed that he was to take the queen and march the round with her also, whitelocke did it, and all this was a solemn walking to the sound of drums and trumpets. after which, every one returned to their places, and then they set to dancing of the brawls; and the queen came to whitelocke to take him out to dance with her, who excused himself. [sn: whitelocke dances with the queen.] _whitelocke._ madam, i am fearful that i shall dishonour your majesty, as well as shame myself, by dancing with you. _queen._ i will try whether you can dance. _wh._ i assure your majesty i cannot in any measure be worthy to have you by the hand. _qu._ i esteem you worthy, and therefore make choice of you to dance with me. _wh._ i shall not so much undervalue your majesty's judgement as not to obey you herein, and i wish i could remember as much of this as when i was a young man. after they had done dancing, and whitelocke had waited upon the queen to her chair of state, she said to him-- _qu._ _par dieu!_ these hollanders are lying fellows. _wh._ i wonder how the hollanders should come into your mind upon such an occasion as this is, who are not usually thought upon in such solemnities, nor much acquainted with them. _qu._ i will tell you all. the hollanders reported to me a great while since that all the _noblesse_ of england were of the king's party, and none but mechanics of the parliament party, and not a gentleman among them; now i thought to try you, and to shame you if you could not dance; but i see that you are a gentleman and have been bred a gentleman, and that makes me say the hollanders are lying fellows, to report that there was not a gentleman of the parliament's party, when i see by you chiefly, and by many of your company, that you are gentlemen. _wh._ truly, madam, in this they told a great untruth to your majesty, as i believe they have done in several other particulars. i do confess that the greatest part of our nobility and gentry were of the king's party, but many of them likewise were of the parliament's party; and i, who am sent to wait upon your majesty, can, without vanity, derive to myself an ancient pedigree of a gentleman. they would not have given the honour to any but a gentleman to kiss your majesty's hand, and you are pleased to do your servant right, and his company, by acknowledging that our superiors have commanded gentlemen to wait on you. _qu._ i assure you that i esteem it the greater honour done to me, and you are the more welcome to me because you are a gentleman; and had i not known and found you to be so, your business would not have been so well despatched as it is. i see you have all the qualities of a gentleman, and i believe that you were excellent in your music and dancing in your younger days. _wh._ i was bred up in the qualities of a gentleman, and in my youth was accounted not inferior to others in the practice of them; but it is so long since i used this of dancing, especially after we learned to march, that had it not been to obey your majesty, i should hardly have been drawn to discover my deficiencies. _qu._ you have discovered nothing but what tends to your honour and to my contentment; and i take it as a favour that you were willing to lay aside your gravity and play the courtier upon my request, which i see you can do so well when you please. after the dancing ended, there was brought into the hall a sumptuous banquet, the hof-marshal with his silver staff ushering it, and after that distributed. the queen and all the company went back in the same order to the presence-chamber, and there the queen bid the bride and bridegroom good-night, and so all went to their lodgings, divers of the nobles waiting on the bride to her chamber. the queen told whitelocke that she believed the prince would be here on tuesday next, and that whitelocke should have his audience on friday next. whitelocke took his coach, after it had waited nine hours at the castle. _may , ._ [sn: the abdication of queen christina.] early in the morning the master of the ceremonies came to accompany whitelocke to the castle, to see the manner of the assembly of the ricksdag, and brought him and his company to the castle to an upper room or gallery, where he sat privately, not taken notice of by any, yet had the full view of the great hall where the ricksdag met, and heard what was said. the danish ambassador did forbear to come thither, as was supposed, because of whitelocke being there. the french resident sat by whitelocke, and conversed with him. the great hall, two stories high, was prepared for the assembly. an outer chamber was hung with cloth of arras; in the antechamber to that were guards of the queen's partisans; in the court was a company of musketeers. the great hall was hung with those hangings which were before in whitelocke's lodgings, with some others added, and was very handsome. on each side of the hall, from the walls towards the middle of the room, forms were placed, covered with red cloth, for seats for the members, and were all alike without distinction, and reached upwards. three parts of the length of the hall, in the midst between the seats, was a space or lane broad enough for three to walk abreast together. at the upper end of the hall, on a foot-pace three steps high, covered with foot-carpets, stood the chair of state, all of massy silver, a rich cushion in it, and a canopy of crimson velvet richly embroidered over it. on the left side of the chair of state were placed five ordinary chairs of crimson velvet, without arms, for the five ricks-officers; and on the same side below them, and on the other side from the foot-pace down to the forms, in a semicircular form, were stools of crimson velvet for the ricks-senators. about nine o'clock there entered at the lower end of the great hall a plain, lusty man in his boor's habit, with a staff in his hand, followed by about eighty boors, members of this council, who had chosen the first man for their marshal, or speaker. these marched up in the open place between the forms to the midst of them, and then the marshal and his company sat down on the forms on the right of the state, from the midst downwards to the lower end of the hall, and put on their hats. a little while after them entered at the same door a man in a civil habit of a citizen, with a staff in his hand, followed by about a hundred and twenty citizens, deputies of the cities and boroughs, who had chosen him to be their marshal. they all took their places upon the forms over-against the boors in the lower end of the hall, and were covered. not long after, at the same door, entered a proper gentleman richly habited, a staff in his hand, who was marshal of the nobility, followed by near two hundred lords and gentlemen, members of the ricksdag, chief of their respective families, many of them rich in clothes, of civil deportment. they took their seats uppermost on the right of the state, and whilst they walked up to their forms the citizens and boors stood up uncovered; and when the nobility sat and put on their hats, the citizens and boors did so likewise. a little after, at the same door, entered the archbishop of upsal with a staff in his hand, who by his place is marshal of the clergy. he was followed by five or six other bishops and all the superintendents, and about sixty ministers, deputies, or proctors of the clergy. while they walked up to their places all the rest of the members stood up uncovered; and when they sat down on the uppermost forms on the left side of the state, and put on their hats and caps, the rest of the members did the like; these were grave men, in their long cassocks and canonical habit, and most with long beards. all the members being thus sat, about a quarter of an hour after entered the captain, followed by divers of the queen's guard, with partisans. after them came many gentlemen of the queen's servants, uncovered, with swords by their sides and well clad, two and two together. after them came the ricks-senators in their order, the puisne first. after them the ricks-officers, all bare. after them came the queen, and kept off her hat in the hall, some of the officers of the court and pages after her. in this order they went up in the open place in the midst of the forms, all the members standing up uncovered. the queen's company made a lane for her to pass through, and she went up to her chair and sat down in it; and all the company, except the members of the council, went out of the hall, and all the doors were shut; the members sat in their places uncovered. after the queen had sat a little, she rose, and beckoned to the chancellor to come to her, who came with great ceremony and respect; and after a little speaking together he returned to his place, and the queen sat down again a little time; then rising up with mettle, she came forward to the utmost part of the foot-pace, and with a good grace and confidence spake to the assembly, as it was interpreted to whitelocke, to this effect:-- [sn: the queen's speech.] "the occasion, my friends, wherefore you are called together to this diet will in some sort appear strange to you; for being so unusual, and as it were unheard of, it cannot be understood without great astonishment. but, gentlemen, when you shall a little reflect upon what hath passed some years since, you will then perceive that it is no new thing, but long since premeditated, and by me wished and intended. "it is sufficiently known to you what hath formerly passed as to the succession of my most dear cousin to this kingdom; and i esteem myself very happy that all things at present are in such a posture that thereupon i may bring my purpose to effect, which is, to offer and to give into the hands of my most dear cousin our most dear country and the royal seat, with the crown, the sceptre, and the government. i need not repeat this subject to you; it sufficeth that all may be done for the good of the country and the prosperity and security of my most dear cousin, to whom you have formerly given this right, and have found him capable to govern you and this kingdom, which he deserves by his great spirits and rare qualities, joined with his heroic actions, witnessed by divers encounters. "and since there is nothing wanting but time to put in execution the succession of my most dear cousin to the government of this kingdom, which depends only upon myself,--and of my purpose nothing remains but to make you parties, which is the only occasion of my calling you together, and which i shall more at large declare unto you by my proposal,--i doubt not but you will consent thereunto, whereby you will testify at this time, as you have done at all times before, your faithfulness and obedience to me. "also i give you thanks that, with so much duty, you are come to this diet, and that with so much affection and loyalty you have demeaned yourselves towards me and our most dear country during my government, so that i have received much content by your deportment; and if in these ten years of my administration i have merited anything from you, it shall be this only which i desire of you, that you will consent to my resolution, since you may assure yourselves that none can dissuade me from my purpose. "you may be pleased also to take in good part what hath passed during the time of my government, and to be assured that herein also, as well as in all other things, my intention hath been always to serve our most dear country. there remains nothing but my wishes that all may work to the glory of god, to the advancement of the christian church, and to the good and prosperity of our most dear country and of all her inhabitants." [sn: the archbishop's speech.] after the queen had spoken she sat down again, and after a little pause the archbishop of upsal went out of his place into the open passage, and making his obeisance to the queen, he, as marshal of the clergy and in their name, made an oration to her majesty, which was somewhat long; but the effect thereof was interpreted to whitelocke to be an acknowledgment of the happy reign of her majesty, whereby her subjects had enjoyed all good, peace, and justice and liberty, and whatsoever were the products of a blessed government. he then recited the great affections of this people to the king her father, and to her majesty his only child; their duty and obedience to her in all her commands; that no prince could be more happy than her majesty was in the affections and duty of her subjects, nor could any people be more contented in the rule of their sovereign than her people were; he therefore used all arguments and humble entreaties to her majesty to desist from her intention of resigning the government, and to continue to sway the sceptre of this kingdom, wherein he did not doubt but that the blessing of god would be with her as it had been, and that it would be to his honour and to the good of this kingdom if her majesty would hearken to the humble desires of the clergy in this particular. then he acknowledged the virtues and admirable abilities of the prince, whose succession would come in due time; that, her majesty reigning at present with so much satisfaction both to this church and state, he humbly desired, in the name of the clergy, that she would be pleased, though to her own trouble, yet for her subjects' good, to continue still to be queen over them. after he had ended his speech, making three congees, he went up to the queen and kissed her hand, and with three more congees returned to his place. then the marshal of the nobility, going forth into the open place between the forms, made his oration in the name of the nobility, much to the same purpose as the archbishop had done, and, after his oration ended, with the like ceremony kissed her majesty's hand, and returned to his place. then the like was done by the marshal of the burgesses, and all to the same effect. [sn: the boor's speech.] in the last place stepped forth the marshal of the boors, a plain country fellow, in his clouted shoon, and all other habits answerable, as all the rest of his company were accoutred. this boor, without any congees or ceremony at all, spake to her majesty, and was interpreted to whitelocke to be after this phrase:-- "o lord god, madam, what do you mean to do? it troubles us to hear you speak of forsaking those that love you so well as we do. can you be better than you are? you are queen of all these countries, and if you leave this large kingdom, where will you get such another? if you should do it (as i hope you won't for all this), both you and we shall have cause, when it is too late, to be sorry for it. therefore my fellows and i pray you to think better on't, and to keep your crown on your head, then you will keep your own honour and our peace; but if you lay it down, in my conscience you will endanger all. continue in your gears, good madam, and be the fore-horse as long as you live, and we will help you the best we can to bear your burden. "your father was an honest gentleman and a good king, and very stirring in the world; we obeyed him and loved him as long as he lived; and you are his own child, and have governed us very well, and we love you with all our hearts; and the prince is an honest gentleman, and when his time comes we shall be ready to do our duties to him as we do to you; but as long as you live we are not willing to part with you, and therefore i pray, madam, do not part with us." when the boor had ended his speech, he waddled up to the queen without any ceremony, took her by the hand and shook it heartily, and kissed it two or three times; then turning his back to her, he pulled out of his pocket a foul handkerchief and wiped the tears from his eyes, and in the same posture as he came up he returned back to his own place again. when the orations were all ended, one of the queen's secretaries, by her command, read unto the assembly a paper, which whitelocke procured to be given to him in a copy, and translated into english. [sn: the queen's declaration to the diet.] _the proposition of her majesty of sweden to the estates assembled at upsal the th of may, in the year ._ "since for certain reasons her majesty found it good and necessary to assemble the estates of the kingdom at this time, and that they have given testimony of their obedience in their coming together, her majesty hath great cause to rejoice that the good god hath preserved our country from all apparent harms, and principally from the contagious sickness of the plague, which spread itself in divers places the last autumn, but at present is ceased, so that we may meet together in all safety. her majesty rejoiceth in the good health of her faithful subjects; and this obligeth us not only to return humble thanks to our good god, but the more to supplicate him for the future to avert his fatherly chastisements from us. "also her majesty understands with great joy, that the scarcity and dearth in the late years is now changed into fruitfulness and abundance, so that the last year there was not only very great abundance of all things which the earth produceth, but further, thanks be to god, we have cause, according to appearances, to hope this year will be no less fruitful; the which great blessing of god to this country clearly shows us the great obligations which we have to him. "also her majesty calls to mind, that which she graciously mentions to her faithful subjects, how the country, within the limits thereof, is at present in a good and peaceable condition, and so hath been kept by divine providence, and the faithful care of her majesty, in times of danger; and when war, and the imminent perils accompanying the same roundabout us, had the sway, yet we always continued in quiet without taking part in others' quarrels, and for this end hath always endeavoured to entertain a sincere friendship and good correspondence with her neighbours and allies. "and as to the neighbourhood of denmark, her majesty hath nothing to fear, since she hath given no occasion in anything but of sincere friendship and firm peace. "in like manner, with all possible care, by her commissioners, hath composed the differences touching the limits between her and the great duke of muscovy; and although the said duke hath signified to her majesty by divers envoys that he would justify the expedition of war newly made by him against the polanders, with all the reasons thereof, yet since that is a business which can no way involve her majesty and the crown of sweden, there is no cause to fear it; provided their actions be watched, and{ } that, by little and little, preparation be made, if there shall be cause to apply some remedies. "with the king and crown of poland is continued the amnesty for twenty-six years, formerly accorded; and although her majesty wisheth that this amnesty had been converted into a perpetual peace,--and for this end she hath caused pains to be taken twice at lübeck, by the mediators and her commissioners, and although they are not yet agreed,--nevertheless her majesty understands so much on the part of poland that they are not disaffected to the renewing of the treaties for a longer time, so that her majesty hath no cause but to promise herself at length a favourable success therein. "with the emperor and roman empire her majesty, since the peace executed in germany, hath continued and maintained good amity and correspondence; and for this end she hath her ambassadors there, who have their places in the present diet for the principality of bremen, verden, and pomerland, among the other members of the empire who do there maintain and observe the interests of her majesty; and for the conclusion of the peace of germany her majesty hath resolved, by a great embassy, to accept the possession and investiture, from the emperor, of the conquered countries. "also her majesty hath a good correspondence and friendship with france and spain by fit means and a good alliance. "but particularly her majesty rejoiceth that the perilous war made in the ocean between the powerful commonwealths of england and the united provinces (by which we have received very great damage in our trade throughout, as it appeareth) is appeased and ended; and that, since, her majesty hath made an alliance with the commonwealth of england for the security of navigation and commerce, so that the faithful subjects of her majesty may thereby hope to have great advantage and profit. "in this posture and state of affairs, her majesty thinks it fit to prosecute her intention, which she hath conceived some years since, and to put the same in execution, that is, to give up the kingdom of sweden and her sceptre to his royal highness, the most high, most illustrious prince charles gustavus, by the grace of god designed hereditary prince of the kingdom of sweden, count palatine of the rhine in bavaria, prince of jülich, cleves, and bergen; and this is the only business which her majesty hath to propose to her faithful subjects at this time. "her majesty also hath this gracious confidence in all the estates here now assembled, that when they shall consider with what dexterity, pains, and travail her majesty for ten years hath managed the affairs of this kingdom, and with such good fortune that all the counsels and intentions of her majesty have been followed with such happy success, that the state, with great honour and reputation, hath escaped many difficulties of war, and yet enjoys such quiet, that they cannot judge or conclude that her majesty would now make any alteration were it not for the good and safety of this nation. "the estates, which have been formerly assembled, know very well how earnestly her majesty pressed that the kingdom and government might be provided of a successor, thereby to avoid and cut off the sudden accidents which happen when a government is uncertain; for which reason the estates in that point did agree and think good heretofore that his highness should be chosen and made hereditary prince and successor to the crown. all this her majesty did propose and urge till it was brought to the effect which that time produced. "and to the end that her majesty, during her life, may have the pleasure to see the happy effect of this design, and that the entire government may be rendered into the hands of his royal highness, therefore her majesty hath resolved to quit the crown and the privileges of it, and to put them into the hands of his royal highness. "and although this resolution of her majesty may seem strange and unexpected to the estates of the kingdom, nevertheless, according to her gracious confidence, she believes that they will consent to her quiet in retiring herself from so heavy a burden, by their contributing an assent to the proposed alteration. "her majesty likewise assures herself (as the estates by their former acts have always testified) of the esteem which they have of the person and of the rare virtues and well-known qualities of his royal highness; and that they will find that he will employ them to a prudent government and to their great advantage, and that at length they will not be deceived by this change, or any ways prejudiced: for which end her majesty promiseth and offereth to contribute all her advice and counsel and endeavour,--chiefly that his royal highness, before his entry into the government, may assure the estates and effectually do that which the kings of sweden upon the like occasions have used to do, and are by the laws and customs obliged unto. "and on the other part, that the estates and all the subjects of sweden be obliged to render unto his royal highness that respect, obedience, and all those rights which appertain to a king, and which they are obliged to perform. "and as her majesty hath considered and resolved upon the means whereby her majesty may enjoy a yearly pension to be settled upon her during her life, and having communicated her purpose therein to his royal highness the successor to the crown, so she graciously hopeth that her faithful subjects and the estates will be content therewith, humbly receiving and consenting to what her majesty hath graciously disposed. "her majesty graciously requires all the estates of the kingdom that they would, as soon as may be, consider this business, to the end that the resolution taken by her majesty may in a short time be brought unto effect. "her majesty most graciously thanks all her faithful subjects for the obedience, honour, and respect which every one of them hath faithfully testified to her majesty during the time of her government; so that her majesty hath received full contentment by their most humble demeanour, which hereafter, upon all occasions, she will acknowledge with all gratitude. "her majesty also hopeth that her most faithful subjects will be satisfied, and give a good construction of the faithful care which her majesty hath employed for all in general and their happiness, and chiefly for the gracious affection which she hath testified towards every one in particular. "her majesty wisheth that the most high and most powerful god would conserve and protect our dear country, with all the inhabitants thereof and all the subjects, from all harm; and to conclude, that the estates of the kingdom, as well in general as in particular, may continue and increase from day to day, and may for ever flourish." after this proposition was read, the queen's servants were called in, and she went out of the hall, attended by them and the ricks-senators in the same way and manner as she came in; and after she was gone, first the archbishop of upsal and the clergy following him; second, the marshal and nobility; third, the marshal and burgesses; fourth, the marshal and boors, went out of the hall in the same order as they first came in; and when they were all gone, whitelocke returned to his lodging. [sn: the solemnities of the marriage resumed.] about eleven o'clock in the evening, the master of the ceremonies came to bring whitelocke to the remainder of the solemnities of the marriage. whitelocke, in no good condition to go abroad, having sat up the last night, yet rather than discontent the queen and the nobility, who had sent for him, he went with the master in the queen's coach to the bridegroom's lodging in the castle, who met him in the outer chamber and brought him into another room where were many senators and lords; they all took their coach, and went in the same order as the day before to the queen, where the bride and ladies were expecting them. they came all to the great hall, where the queen and the company took their places, and the drums beating and trumpets sounding. a gentleman entered the hall carrying a spear or pike covered with taffeta of the bridegroom's colours, all but the head, which was silver, worth about twenty crowns; he stood by the bride, holding the spear in the middle, both ends of it about breast-high, and the bridegroom was brought and placed by his bride. then senator bundt made a solemn speech to the queen, which (according to the interpretation made to whitelocke) was to thank her majesty for the favour which she did to the bride and bridegroom in permitting the nuptials to be in her court; and he acquainted the queen, and published to the company, what dowry the bridegroom had given that morning to his bride, with two thousand ducats for her provision; and that twelve of the nobility, of the alliance and friends to them both, were witnesses thereunto, and were to take care that the money should be disposed to the use of the wife and children, in case she survived her husband. then a gentleman read aloud the names of the twelve witnesses, who, as they were called one after another, making their honours to the queen, went and laid their right hands on the spear; and then was published the dowry and augmentation thus by these twelve witnesses. after this the spear was laid down at the feet of the bride, and all, making their solemn reverences to the queen, took again their places. then the same gentleman that laid down the spear, took it up again and threw it out of the window into the great court; where a multitude of people stood expecting it, and scrambled for the head of it, and for the taffeta, which they tore in pieces and wore in their hats as the bride's favours. after this ceremony ended, the bridegroom came and took the bride by the hand, and they marched after the torches to the sound of the drums and trumpets; after that the bridegroom took the queen by the hand, and the bride came and took the english ambassador by the hand, and other noblemen took their several ladies, and they marched two and two amidst the torches and to the same loud music as they had done the night before. after this the noblemen and ladies went to dance french dances and country dances; but whitelocke having watched the night before, and not being well, he privately withdrew himself from the company and retired to his house, wondering that the queen, after so serious a work as she had been at in the morning, could be so pleased with this evening's ceremonies. _may , ._ [sn: despatches from england.] about one o'clock the last night, whitelocke, coming from the solemnities of the court, received two packets of letters from england. he had the more cause to remember the time, because then, although midnight, he could perfectly read his letters without any candle or other light than that of the heavens, which in this season of the year scarce leaves any night at all, but so as one may well read all the night long with the help of twilight. the letters from thurloe of the first date acquainted whitelocke that now he had sent duplicates of the last instructions by a ship going to sweden. in thurloe's second letters, dated th of april, he mentions the instructions sent formerly to whitelocke, and acquaints him again with the effect of them, and the protector's order, by which he leaves it to whitelocke to return home when he shall judge it fit; and that if he should stay the ceremonies of the coronation of the new king, it would occasion great delay. and he writes further:-- "but in truth we cannot believe, notwithstanding all that is said, that her majesty will quit her crown, being so well qualified in all respects to govern as she is, and seems to be very well accepted of her people." then he again mentions the signing of the peace with the dutch, and that the protector had appointed commissioners to treat with the french, spanish, and portugal ambassadors, but had not yet declared himself to any of his neighbours. "that the business in scotland was well; that the protector had taken away colonel rich's commission, whereof the officers of his regiment were glad; that many congratulatory petitions to his highness came from divers counties, one from bucks; that the protector proceeded to reformation of the law and ministry, and i hope he will merit as well in that as in the military affairs. i return your excellence my humble thanks for your acceptance of my endeavours to serve you; i can say they come from an honest heart, which very really embraceth every opportunity wherein i may manifest myself "your excellence's faithful humble servant, "jo. thurloe. "_whitehall, th april, ._" whitelocke received several letters in these packets from mr. cokaine; one, dated the nd of april, saith thus:-- "you will have leave from his highness to take your first opportunity to come away, and i hope it will not be without bringing your business to a happy and an honourable issue, which is the constant subject of our requests to the lord for you, and i doubt not but we shall have a comfortable answer. in the meantime i think, as i have hinted to your excellence in former letters, it will not be amiss if you draw good store of bills upon us, though but _pro formâ_, that we may get as much money for you as we can before your return, and that you may have a sufficient overplus to pay all servants' wages off, which i believe will amount to a considerable sum; and upon this peace i hope it will be no hard matter to get your bills paid, especially if your excellence please withal to write to my lord protector and mr. thurloe and some of the council about it. i could wish that you would make what haste you can home, for i am informed by a special hand that there is great labouring to make a chancellor whilst you are absent, and to take that opportunity to put you by, whom i believe they doubt to be too much a christian and an englishman to trust in their service; but i hope god will give you a heart to submit to his will, and to prize a good conscience above all the world, which will indeed stand us in stead when all outward things cannot in the least administer to us. "your excellence's most humble servant, "geo. cokaine. "_april nd._" in another letter from mr. cokaine he saith:-- "mr. thurloe was pleased to acquaint me that it was his highness and the council's pleasure to make some alteration in the chancery; that it was determined that your lordship and sir thomas widdrington and my lord lisle should have the custody of the great seal, and i believe an act to that purpose will pass within few hours; but i perceive this business was not done without some tugging; but my lord protector and john thurloe are true to you, and now i am out of all fears that any affront should be offered you in your absence. mr. mackworth deserves a letter from you; but nothing, i pray, of this business. indeed mr. thurloe hath played his part gallantly and like a true friend, for which i shall love him as long as i live." in other letters from mr. cokaine in this packet, dated th april, he saith:-- "your old servant abel is much courted by his highness to be his falconer-in-chief; but he will not accept it except your excellence had been here to give him your explicit leave to serve his highness, and told me, without stuttering, he would not serve the greatest prince in the world except your excellence were present, to make the bargain that he might wait upon you with a cast of hawks at the beginning of september every year into bedfordshire. it is pity that gallantry should hurt any. certainly it is a noble profession that inspires him with such a spirit. "my lord protector this week hath expressed great respect to your excellence upon the death of the clerk of the peace of bucks. some of the justices came up and moved his highness to put one into his place, who thereupon asked who was _custos rotulorum_. they answered, the lord ambassador whitelocke. he thereupon replied that the place should not be disposed of till his return. they urged it again with many reasons; but he gave them the same answer, only with this addition, that he was to return sooner than perhaps they were aware of." by this packet whitelocke received letters from mr. selden, which were thus:-- "_for his excellence the lord whitelocke, lord ambassador from the state of england to her majesty of sweden._ "my lord, "your excellence's last of the rd of february brought me so unexpressible a plenty of the utmost of such happiness as consists in true reputation and honour, as that nothing with me will equal or come near it. first, that her most excellent majesty, a prince so unparalleled and incomparable and so justly acknowledged with the height of true admiration by all that either have or love arts or other goodness, should vouchsafe to descend to the mention of my mean name and the inquiry of my being and condition with such most gracious expressions. next, that your excellence, whose favours have been so continually multiplied on me, should be the person of whom such inquiry was made. all the danger is, that your noble affection rendered me far above myself. however, it necessitates me to become a fervent suitor to your excellence, that if it shall fall out that her majesty and you have again leisure and will to speak of any such trifle as i am, you will be pleased to represent to her majesty my most humble thanks, and my heart full of devotion to her, of which i too shall study to give, if i can, some other humble testimony. god send her most excellent majesty always her heart's desires, and the most royal amplitude of all happiness, and your lordship a good despatch and safe and timely return. "my lord, your excellence's most "obliged and humble servant, "jo. selden. "_whitefriars, march nd, ._" whitelocke had also in this packet letters from his old friends mr. hall, mr. eltonhead, the lord commissioner lisle, his brothers wilson and carleton, mr. peters, sir joseph holland, and divers others; also letters from hamburg, from mr. bradshaw, the protector's resident there, with some intercepted letters from the king's party, as sir edward hyde and several others. [sn: his audience of leave-taking.] this day being appointed for whitelocke's last audience, he was habited in a plain suit of very fine english cloth of musk-colour, the buttons of gold, enamelled, and in each button a ruby, and rich points and ribbons of gold; his gentlemen were in their richest clothes; his pages and lacqueys, above twenty, in their liveries. in the afternoon two of the ricks-senators, with the master of the ceremonies, came with two of the queen's coaches to whitelocke's house, to bring him to his audience. he received them with the usual ceremony, and after they had sat a little while in his bedchamber, one of the senators said that by the queen's command they were come to him to accompany him to his audience which he had desired this day, and that her majesty was ready to receive him. whitelocke answered, that he was always desirous to wait upon her majesty, and not the less now because it was in order to return to his own country. they made no long compliments, but went down and took their coaches. the noblemen's coaches sent thither to accompany him went first, then followed his two coaches, and last the queen's coaches. in the last of them sat the two senators in the fore-end, whitelocke in the back-end, and the master in the boot; the gentlemen in the several coaches, the pages and lacqueys walking and riding behind the coaches. at the bridge of the castle was a guard of musketeers more than formerly, of about two companies, with their officers; they made a lane from the bridge to the end of the court. as soon as whitelocke was alighted out of the coach, the ricks-hofmeister with his silver staff met him at the stairs' foot, very many of the queen's servants and courtiers with him very gallant. whitelocke's gentlemen went first, two and two up the stairs; after them the queen's servants, then the master of the ceremonies, then the hof-marshal, then the two senators and whitelocke between them, followed by his sons, his chaplains, physician, secretaries, and steward, and after them his pages and lacqueys. in this order they mounted the stairs, and through the great chamber to the guard-chamber, where the queen's partisans stood in their rich coats, with the arms of sweden embroidered with gold, their swords by their sides, and rich halberds gilded in their hands; they stood in a fixed posture, more like images than men. when they came to the audience-chamber, there was scarce room for any of whitelocke's gentlemen to come in; but by the civility of the queen's servants room was made for them, and they made a lane from the door of the chamber to the upper end near the queen, who was upon a foot-pace covered with carpets, and a rich canopy over her head. her habit was black silk stuff for her coats, and over them a black velvet jippo, such as men use to wear; she had upon her breast the jewel of the order of the knights of amaranta; her hair hung loose as it used to do, and her hat was after the fashion of men. a great number of senators and of civil and military officers and courtiers,--many more than ordinarily did appear at any audience,--stood all bare about her, and a few ladies were behind her. she stood upon the carpets before the state with her hat on; and when whitelocke came first into the room, and pulled off his hat, the queen presently pulled off her hat; and when whitelocke made his honours, she answered him, though at that distance, with a short curtsey. after his three obeisances, being come up to the queen, he kissed her hand; then the queen put on her hat, and whitelocke{ } put on his hat, and after a little pause, with high silence and solemnity in all the company, whitelocke took off his hat, and the queen took off her hat likewise, and all the time of his speaking both of them were uncovered. whitelocke, having made his ceremonies, spake to the queen thus:-- [sn: whitelocke's farewell speech.] "madam, "i confess that the time of my absence from my relations and concernments in my own country would have seemed very tedious, had i not been in the public service and honoured with admittance into your majesty's presence, whose favours, answerable to your greatness though above my merit, have been enlarged towards me during the whole time of my residence under the just and safe protection of your majesty; the which,--with the civilities of those most excellent persons with whom i treated, and of those who have been pleased to honour me with their acquaintance in your court,--i shall not fail to acknowledge with all respect. "but, madam, to your majesty i shall not presume to return any other acknowledgment than by the thanks of my lord the protector, who is able to judge of the affection shown to him, and to the commonwealth whereof he is the head, by the honour done unto their servant. "madam, it is your great judgement in the public interest, and your desire to advance the good of your own state and that of your neighbours, and the particular respect that you bear to my master, whereby the business trusted to my care by his highness is brought to such an issue as i hope will be a solid foundation of great and mutual prosperity to both these nations. "i have nothing to add on my part, but to entreat that my failings and errors, not wilfully committed, may be excused; to take my leave of your majesty, and to assure you that there is no person who honours you more than i do, and who shall be more ready to lay hold on any opportunity whereby i may endeavour, to the utmost of my power, to contribute to the happiness and prosperity of your royal majesty and of your people." as it was done at whitelocke's first audience, so he now ordered it, that monsieur de la marche, one of his chaplains, did, at the end of every sentence, as whitelocke spake, interpret the same to the queen in french. during all the time of his speaking to the queen she looked him wistly in the face and came up very near unto him, as she had done at his first audience,--perhaps to have daunted him, as she had done others, but he was not daunted; and when he had made an end of speaking, after a little pause the queen answered him in the swedish language, which was then interpreted in latin to whitelocke, to this effect:-- [sn: the queen's reply.] "my lord ambassador, "it may well be that your stay in this place, where you have been so ill accommodated, and your absence from your near relations and native country, hath been tedious to you; but i can assure you that your residence in my court hath been a contentment to myself and to those who have had the honour to converse with you in this place; and it would have been a blemish to me and to all under my government if in this time anything of injury or danger had fallen out to your person or to any of your people. i hope i may say that there hath been no such thing offered to you, and i am glad of it. "i do not know that your judgement hath deceived you in anything but this, that you have too great a value of my understanding of public affairs. it hath been your prudent management of the business committed to your trust by the protector, and my particular respects to him and to your commonwealth, with the good inclinations of the people of this country towards you, and the general interests of the protestant party, which have brought your business to effect, and which, i hope, will occasion much good and happiness to these nations and to all the evangelical party. and truly, sir, your demeanour on all occasions requires from us this testimony, that we have found much honour and great abilities to be in you; and i should be very unwilling to part with so good company, were it not in order to your own satisfaction for your return to england. "i know no errors committed by you here, but desire your excuse of the want of those expressions of our respect which this place would not afford. the thanks are due to you for your patience, and for the affection which you have testified to me and to this nation, from whom you may depend upon a firm friendship and amity, with a true respect to the protector and commonwealth of england, and an honourable esteem of yourself in particular, to whom we wish a safe and prosperous return to your own country." after the queen had done speaking, whitelocke had some private discourse of compliment with her in french, to give her majesty thanks for her noble treatment of him and many favours to him; then, according to the usage of this court, he delivered to mr. lagerfeldt, standing by, a copy of his speech, in english, signed by him with his hand, and another copy of his speech in latin, not signed by him, to be presented to the queen. then whitelocke took his leave, and kissed her majesty's hand, who gave him the _adieu_ with great respect and civility. he was conducted back to his coach with the same ceremony as he was brought to his audience; and the same two senators, with the master of the ceremonies, returned with him to his house, and after usual compliments passed between them, they returned to the court. the trouble of the day was not yet ended; but after whitelocke had come from the court, lagerfeldt brought to him the articles touching guinea which were agreed upon and signed and sealed by the queen's commissioners, as the other part of them was by whitelocke.[ ] after the great toil of this busy day, a yet greater toil must be undergone by whitelocke to make his despatches for england. by his letters to thurloe he again acquainted the council with the good conclusion of his treaty, and with his taking leave of the queen in his last audience; and sent him copies of the speeches, and gave an account of the business of guinea, with all material passages since his last letters, and his resolution and way of return home. he also answered the letters of every one of his friends, which were very many; but that to his wife, as he was afterwards informed, caused much trouble and passion, that by this date of the letter, th may, she perceived that he was not removed from upsal in his journey to return homewards. _may , ._ [sn: whitelocke takes leave of his friends.] whitelocke began his visits and compliments to take his leave of his friends in this court; and herein he was to be very exact, and not to omit any one who had given him the honour of former visits. he, to be the less subject to mistakes, set down in writing the names of those whom he was to visit, which made a long catalogue; but he must get through it, as part of the business of an ambassador. and this day he began by visiting the french and holland residents, and the grave leonhough, whose discourses were concerning the peace between england and the dutch, the english strong fleet at sea, of the queen's resignation, and other general themes not necessary to be repeated. [sn: the sound dues.] woolfeldt gave a visit to whitelocke and discoursed on the same subjects, but more particularly of the interest of england and the payment of toll to the king of denmark at the sound, wherein whitelocke had good information from him, and such as, if it had been hearkened unto, would have been of great advantage to the protector and commonwealth of england. so great an interest whitelocke had gained in the affection and friendship of this gentleman, that he would not conceal from him anything that he knew, who knew more than any other that whitelocke met with concerning the sound, the king of denmark, the court and courtiers here, or whatsoever related to whitelocke's business and to england. _may , ._ this lord's day sir george fleetwood did whitelocke the favour to bear him company at his house, and told him that the queen and her lords were pleased with his deportment at his last audience, and with his speech then made, which they commended, but is here omitted. he and others also acquainted whitelocke that the queen took great pleasure at his carriage at the solemnity of the nuptials at court, and that he would dance with them; and both the queen and her courtiers said that the english ambassador knew how to lay aside the gravity of an ambassador when he pleased, and could play the courtier with as good a grace as any one that ever they saw, with much to the like effect. _may , ._ [sn: a private audience of the queen.] whitelocke visited marshal wrangel and general wittenberg, and went from thence to the castle to visit grave tott, who told him that the queen had altered her purpose of sending him into england, and would do him the honour to retain him with her, but that yet he hoped in a short time to see england. whitelocke said he should be glad to meet him, and to do him service there. they discoursed of the queen's residence in pomerland, or some other place near this country, and of the discommodities and inconveniences which would arise thereby. whitelocke told him that if the queen had leisure, that he should be glad to wait on her; and tott went presently to know her pleasure, and promised to bring word to whitelocke if he might see the queen, and did it at the lady jane ruthven's lodging, whither whitelocke was gone to take his leave of that lady; whence he brought whitelocke to the traverse of the wardrobe, where her majesty came to him and conducted him into her bedchamber, where they thus discoursed:-- _whitelocke._ i humbly thank your majesty for admitting me to be present at the meeting of the ricksdag. _queen._ how did you like the manner and proceedings of it when you were there? _wh._ it was with the greatest gravity and solemnity that i ever saw in any public assembly, and well becoming persons of their quality and interest. _qu._ there be among them very considerable persons, and wise men. _wh._ such an assembly requires such men, and their carriage showed them to be such; but, madam, i expected that your chancellor, after he spake with your majesty, should, according to the course in our parliaments, have declared, by your direction, the causes of the council's being summoned. _qu._ it belongs to the office of the chancellor with us to do it; and when i called him to me, it was to desire him to do it. _wh._ how then came it to pass that he did it not, when his place and your majesty required it? _qu._ he desired to be excused, and gave me this reason, that he had taken an oath to my father to use his utmost endeavour to keep the crown on my head, and that the cause of my calling this diet was to have their consents for me to quit the crown; that if he should make this proposition to them, it would be contrary to the oath which he had taken to my father, and therefore he could not do it. _wh._ did not your majesty expect this answer? _qu._ not at all, but was wholly surprised by it; and when the ricksdag were met, my chancellor thus excusing himself, there was nobody appointed by me to declare to them the cause of their meeting; but rather than the assembly should be put off, and nothing done, i plucked up my spirits the best i could, and spake to them on the sudden as you heard, although much to my disadvantage. _wh._ indeed, madam, you were much surprised; and i cannot but wonder that you should have no intimation given you beforehand of your chancellor's resolution; but your majesty will pardon me if i believe it proved no disadvantage to you, when i had the honour to see and hear with how excellent a grace and how prince-like your majesty, in so great an assembly and on a sudden, delivered your mind and purpose. _qu._ you are apt to make the best construction of it; you see i did adventure upon it, remembering that they were my subjects, and i their queen. _wh._ madam, you spake and acted like yourself, and were highly complimented by the several marshals, but above all the rest by the honest boor. _qu._ was you so taken with his clownery? _wh._ it seemed to me as pure and clear natural eloquence, without any forced strain, as could be expressed. _qu._ indeed there was little else but what was natural, and by a well-meaning man, who has understanding enough in his country way. _wh._ whosoever shall consider his matter more than his form will find that the man understands his business; and the garment or phrase wherewith he clothed his matter, though it was rustic, yet the variety and plain elegancy and reason could not but affect his auditors. _qu._ i think he spake from his heart. _wh._ i believe he did, and acted so too, especially when he wiped his eyes. _qu._ he showed his affection to me in that posture more than greater men did in their spheres. _wh._ madam, we must look upon all men to work according to their present interest; and so i suppose do the great men here as well as elsewhere. _qu._ here i have had experience enough of such actings; i shall try what they do in other places, and content myself, however i shall find it. _wh._ your majesty will not expect to find much difference in the humours of men, as to seeking themselves, and neglecting those from whom they have received favours. _qu._ it will be no otherwise than what i am armed to bear and not to regard; but your particular respects i shall always remember with gratefulness. _wh._ your majesty shall ever find me your faithful servant. do you intend, madam, to go from hence to pomerland? _qu._ my intentions are to go presently, after my resignation, to the spa; but wheresoever i am, you have a true friend of me. _wh._ there is no person alive more cordially your majesty's servant than i am. _qu._ i do believe it, or else i should not have communicated to you such things as i have done. _wh._ your majesty hath therein expressed much confidence in me, which i hope shall never deceive you, however my want of abilities may not answer your majesty's favours to me. _qu._ i have no doubt of your faithfulness, and you have sufficiently manifested your abilities. give me leave to trouble you with the company of a gentleman, my servant, whom i purpose to send over with you to england, to take care for those things which i desire to have from thence. _wh._ he shall be very welcome to me and my company, and i shall give him my best assistance for your majesty's service. _qu._ i shall thank you for it, and command him to obey your directions. _wh._ madam, if you please to accept a set of black english horses for your coach, i shall take the boldness to send them to your stables; and pray your majesty that the master of your horse may furnish me for my journey to stockholm. _qu._ i do thankfully accept your kindness, and all mine are at your service. _wh._ i have interrupted your majesty too long. i desired the favour of this opportunity to present my most humble thanks to your majesty for all your noble favours to me and my company. _qu._ i entreat your excuse for the meanness of my presents. i could not do therein what i desired, nor after your merit. _wh._ madam, there is nothing of my merit to be alleged; but your majesty hath testified much honour to the protector and commonwealth whom i serve. _qu._ england is a noble country, and your master is a gallant man. i desire you to assure him, on my part, of all affection and respect towards him. _wh._ your majesty may be confident of the like from his highness; and your humble servant will heartily pray for your majesty's prosperity, wherever you are. _qu._ i wish you a happy voyage and return to your own country. after he came from the queen, whitelocke met with the baron steinberg, master of her horse, whom he acquainted with what he had moved to her majesty, and he was very forward to accommodate whitelocke. [sn: discourse with grave eric on the customs of swedish nuptials.] from hence he went and visited grave eric oxenstiern, who discoursed with him about the solemnity of the nuptials at court, and asked him how he liked it. _wh._ they were very noble; but i pray, my noble brother, instruct me what the meaning was of the dowry given by the bridegroom to the bride the next morning; and what do you call that dowry? _gr. eric._ by the ancient custom of this country, the next morning after the wedding-night the husband bestows upon his wife a gift of money according to his estate, to show how he is pleased with the cohabitation, and to make some provision, in case of his death before her, for the wife, and children which he shall have by her; and this we call a _morgen-gaven_--a morning's gift. _wh._ the same word _morgen-gaven_ is in the old terms of our english laws, and expounded to signify a second dowry, and hath much affinity with this of yours and in that of your twelve witnesses who testified the contract of marriage and the _morgen-gaven_; to which our trials by twelve men, whom we call juries because they are sworn, are somewhat like, and they are so many witnesses as well as judges of the fact. _gr. eric._ i believe your customs and ours had the same original. _wh._ i find much resemblance between them and yours. what do you call the twelve that laid their hands on the spear? _gr. eric._ we call them the twelve witnesses (_les douze témoins_). _wh._ what do you call the spear or pike which the gentleman held? _gr. eric._ we call it _weppun_. _wh._ we have the same word, weapon, for all manner of arms and warlike instruments. what do you call the laying of their hands upon the spear? _gr. eric._ we call it _tack_,--_weppun-tack_, to touch the spear. _wh._ we have also the word _tack_, for touching; and we have, in the northern parts of england, a particular precinct or territory which we call a wapentake, and a territorial court of justice there which we call a wapentake court; and a very learned gentleman from whom i received letters in my last packet, selden, derives the name of wapentake from _weapon_ and _tack_; and saith they used to come to that court with their weapons, and to touch one another's weapons, from whence came the appellation of wapentake. _gr. eric._ tacitus observes that at the public assemblies and councils of the germans, they used to meet with their weapons, and when anything was said that pleased them they would touch one another's spears or weapons, and thereby make a noise, to testify their consent and approbation. _wh._ your ceremony of laying down the spear at the feet of the bride puts me in mind of another passage in tacitus, 'de moribus germanorum;' that when a man was married, he used to bring his arms and lay them at the feet of his bride, to signify that he would not take them up nor go forth to war, being newly married, without the leave of his wife, to whom he had now given the command of himself and of his arms. _gr. eric._ our customs and those of the ancient germans have much resemblance; but i never heard so good observations upon the ceremonies of a wedding as your excellence hath made. _wh._ i am delighted with these antiquities; but your excellence shows your opinion to be that of a brother. from grave eric, whitelocke went to visit the senator schütt, and lynde, who lodged in one house, and met him at the door; and this day he made seven visits, besides his attendance upon the queen, hastening to get over these matters of compliment and ceremony, that he might be upon his journey to stockholm. _may , ._ [sn: whitelocke entertains a party of ladies.] whitelocke visited general douglas, who had been to visit him before, and now showed great respect unto him, and gave him many thanks for the english horse which whitelocke had bestowed on him. after this, whitelocke visited the ricks-admiral and the senators rosenhau and bundt. in the afternoon he visited woolfeldt, who brought whitelocke into the room where his lady and other ladies of great quality were with her. whitelocke imagined some design to be herein, because it was a thing so unusual to bring gentlemen and strangers into the company of their ladies; and it fell out to be so, for whitelocke, discoursing with the lady woolfeldt, who spake perfect french, she complained that she knew not where to have a place to see the entry of the prince into upsal. whitelocke knowing his house to be conveniently situate for that purpose, and understanding the lady's complaint, he, to free her from the danger of not seeing that solemnity, offered to her and to the rest of the ladies in her company, to command his house, which if they pleased to honour with their presence to see the entry of the prince, he should take it as a great favour from their excellencies; and the ladies readily accepted of his offer. they presently came to whitelocke's house. with the lady woolfeldt was the countess john oxenstiern, the countess eric oxenstiern, the countess tott, the baroness gildenstiern, and seven or eight other ladies of great quality. before the prince came into the town, whitelocke caused a collation to be set on the table for the ladies, all after the english fashion, creams, tarts, butter, cheese, neats' tongues, potted venison, apples, pears, sweetmeats, and excellent wine. they ate heartily, and seemed to be much pleased with it and with the ambassador's discourse, who strove to be cheerful with the ladies, and found it not unacceptable to them. [sn: the entry of the prince.] the prince's entry and reception into upsal this evening was thus:--the day before, by the queen's command, notice was given to all the senators, the nobility, gentry, and persons of quality about the court and in town, to come in their best equipage on horseback, at one o'clock this afternoon to the castle, to attend the queen on her going out to meet the prince. they accordingly resorted to the court, a very great number, and attended the queen forth in this order, all passing and returning by whitelocke's window. first, major-general wrangel marched in the head of four troops of horse of upland, proper men and well armed, their horses not tall but strong; every horseman carried ready in his hand one of his pistols, and his sword by his side, and most of them were well habited. then marched colonel bengt horne in the head of the gentlemen and servants of the senators and other volunteers, marching three and three abreast. after these rode about six of the queen's kettle-drums and twelve trumpets. then came mr. eric flemming, governor of copperberg, marshal of the nobility, followed by the heads of the families of the nobles in the same order as they are matriculated in the ricksdag. they were generally very rich in clothes and well horsed, lords and gentlemen of principal note and consideration in their country, and members of the ricksdag; they also rode three and three abreast. after them rode mr. gabriel gabrielson, marshal of the court, and was followed by all the senators then in town, being about thirty, riding two and two abreast, grave in their habits for the most part, and well horsed. then came the ricks-stallmaster and the hof-stallmaster--that is, the master of the horse of the kingdom, and the master of the horse of the court--riding bareheaded. after them came the queen, gallantly mounted, habited in her usual fashion in grey stuff, her hat on her head, her pistols at her saddle-bow, and twenty-four of the gardes-du-corps about her person. after the queen followed the great chamberlain, grave jacob de la gardie, and grave tott, captain of the guards, both bareheaded. after them the grave donae, gustavus oxenstiern, and gustavus jean banier, riding bareheaded. then rode all the gentlemen of the queen's chamber, then the pages of her chamber. after them, in the last place, marched colonel line, in the head of four companies of the guards, well armed, and indifferently well habited. in this order they marched about half a league out of town, to the place appointed to meet the prince, who was there attending. when they came thither, major-general wrangel marched to the left, leaving sufficient room that the guards might pass to the right hand, the volunteers and queen's servants likewise turned to the left hand, and the marshal of the nobility to the right, with the hof-marshals; and all this train kept excellent order and discipline, as did the prince's train, which was also very great. the prince was alighted from his horse before the queen came very near to him. when the queen alighted, all the senators likewise alighted from their horses, but the nobility did not alight from horseback. after his royal highness had kissed the queen's hand, she discoursed a little with him, he being bareheaded all the time, and showing great respect to her as to his queen. then the queen mounted again on horseback, the prince waiting on her. the troops marched back to the town in the same order as they came forth, with great addition to their numbers. the prince's gentlemen and servants, who were a great number, fell into the troop where those of the queen were, betwixt her gentlemen and the senators' gentlemen,--his pages after the queen's. himself rode after the queen, and sometimes she would call him (as she did in the street) to speak with him, and then he rode even with her, but all the way bareheaded whilst he rode by the queen and she talked with him. the prince was in a plain grey cloth suit of a light colour, mounted upon a very brave grey horse, with pistols at his saddle and his sword by his side. the queen's lacqueys were in rich yellow liveries; the prince's lacqueys in blue liveries, near twenty, walking by them. there were many led horses of the queen's and of the prince's, and seven or eight sumpter-horses of the prince's; the sumpter-clothes all of blue velvet, with the prince's arms embroidered on them, and rich silver fringe about them; the grooms and sumpter-men in the same livery, about twenty of them. in this equipage they marched through the streets of upsal, multitudes of people being spectators of their entry in the ways and windows. when they came to the castle court, the nobility and volunteers alighted, and walked two and two before the queen up into the great hall and to the antechamber; and the queen being come into her withdrawing-room, after some little discourse there with the prince and compliments passed, he went to the lodgings prepared for him, with not a few waiting on him who was the rising sun. whitelocke had spoken to the master of the ceremonies touching the saluting of the prince and the manner of his reception, whereof he wished to know somewhat beforehand, to govern himself accordingly, and to avoid any indignity or dishonour to be put upon the protector and commonwealth by his person. the master having spoken to the prince about it, brought word now to whitelocke, that when he moved his royal highness touching whitelocke's reception, the prince said that the english ambassador should have no cause to complain of any want of respect in his reception. the more to manifest this, about ten o'clock this evening, the prince sent one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber, who came attended with three lacqueys, and spake to whitelocke in french, that the prince, his master, commanded him to salute whitelocke in his name, and to inform him of the prince's arrival in this place, and that it was a great satisfaction to him to hope that he should have the contentment to see the english ambassador, and to entertain him before his departure from sweden. whitelocke desired that his thanks might be returned to his royal highness for this honour, and that he hoped to obtain from him the favour to give him leave to salute him and to kiss his hand; that to do this on the part of the protector, his master, was at present the only occasion of whitelocke's continuance in this place; and for this end he had moved the master of the ceremonies to know the pleasure of his royal highness, and to inform whitelocke what time might be convenient to wait upon the prince. the gentleman replied, that whitelocke's company would be very acceptable to the prince his master, and he doubted not but an account would be given thereof to whitelocke to his full contentment. whitelocke had sent this day to grave john oxenstiern, to know what time he might give him a visit; and the grave returned a proud answer, that it would not yet be convenient. _may , ._ the resident of holland came to visit whitelocke near dinner-time, which gave him occasion to invite his stay; and he and sir g. fleetwood, mr. bloome, colonel hambleton, monsieur lyllicrone, and two dutch gentlemen, did whitelocke the favour to be at his table. whitelocke gave the resident the respect of the upper end of the table, as he had formerly done to the french and spanish residents; and the dutch gentleman was well pleased with it, and with the english entertainment. [sn: whitelocke's audience of the prince.] whitelocke, having received so great a respect from the prince, did again desire the master of the ceremonies to know what time might suit with the prince's leisure to give whitelocke leave to wait on him. this afternoon the master came to whitelocke, and informed him that the prince had appointed four o'clock this afternoon to give whitelocke audience, and the master said that he would come with the queen's coaches to bring whitelocke to the castle when it was time; and accordingly he came between five and six o'clock this evening. whitelocke and his company went with the master to the castle, and as soon as he was alighted out of his coach, he was received by the marshal and gentlemen of the prince, a great number of them, at the foot of the stairs; some of them were very richly habited. they walked first up the stairs, and those of whitelocke's train followed them; the master of the ceremonies was on whitelocke's left hand. when they came to the guard-chamber, the prince in person came thither to receive whitelocke at the door thereof, the same place where the captain of the queen's guard used to meet and receive whitelocke, who was a little surprised, not expecting such a high favour as to be met by the prince so far from the room of audience. the prince was plain, in his habit of black silk, accompanied by a great number of the senators, officers, and nobility, which caused whitelocke to know him, and with due respect to salute him, as he did whitelocke; and after a few compliments between them, the prince desired whitelocke to advance, who excused himself, but the prince pressed it; the contest was almost half an hour who should go first, till the master of the ceremonies, by command of the prince, whispered to whitelocke to give way to the pleasure of the prince, who was resolved to give whitelocke the precedence, thereby to testify the great respect and honour which he had for the protector, and for whitelocke his servant. thereupon whitelocke said to the prince, that since he understood it to be the pleasure of his royal highness, he would obey his commands; and so they went on together, the prince giving whitelocke the right hand; and there was no occasion (by reason of the largeness of the doors) for one to go before the other. in the third room from the place where the prince met whitelocke was the audience chamber; there were set two rich chairs upon foot-carpets one against the other under a canopy of state; here was also much ceremony between the prince and whitelocke, who should take the right-hand chair; but the prince would have whitelocke to sit there; and the room was full of senators, officers, noblemen, courtiers, and others of quality. whitelocke had advised in what language to speak to the prince. he held it not fit to speak in english, because he came not to him as ambassador, nor in latin, there being nothing of treaty between them; but being a matter of ceremony, he was advised and informed that it was the prince's desire that whitelocke should speak to him in french, the which he understood very well: and accordingly, being both set, and their hats on, after a little pause whitelocke put off his hat, and then the prince did so likewise; then both putting on their hats again, whitelocke spake to the prince to this effect:-- "monseigneur, "je répute à grand bonheur l'opportunité qui m'est présentée de baiser les mains de votre altesse royale, et la saluer de la part de monseigneur le protecteur de la république d'angleterre, d'Écosse, et d'irelande, avant mon départ de ce royaume; ce que j'eusse fait plus tôt et en autre lieu, sinon que la nécessité d'attendre l'issue de ce qui m'a été donné en charge m'en avait empêché: mais depuis sa conclusion, j'ai tardé exprès pour ajouter à ma satisfaction celle d'avoir rendu mes devoirs à votre altesse royale, et lui témoigner l'amitié et les respects de sa sérénissime altesse mon maître." after whitelocke had done speaking the prince staid a little time, and then in french answered him to this purpose:-- "monseigneur l'ambassadeur, "ce m'aurait été un grand trouble si, après la conclusion de vos affaires en cette cour, vous aviez été dans l'inconvénience d'attendre mon arrivée en cette place; je suis bien aise de me trouver ici devant votre départ de ce pays, qui m'a donné le contentement de vous connaître, et l'occasion de témoigner le grand respect que j'ai à monseigneur le protecteur et à la république que vous servez, et je reçois beaucoup de satisfaction qu'une amitié et alliance soit contractée entre ce royaume et votre république, de laquelle j'espère et crois qu'elle sera pour le bien des deux nations, et pour l'intérêt des protestants. "il n'y a personne qui a plus d'estime de monseigneur le protecteur que moi, et de votre république; et j'ai tant entendu de votre honorable et prudent maniement des affaires que vous aviez ici, que ce m'a fait désirer de vous connaître et d'avoir l'opportunité de converser avec vous, que vous m'avez présentement alloué, et je vous en remercie, et pour les respects de monseigneur le protecteur, qu'il vous a plu me présenter en son nom, et qui me sont fort agréables." after the speeches were ended, the prince spake to whitelocke to go with him into his cabinet, which he did, and staid discoursing with him there above an hour together, all the company staying in the outer room. they soon fell into a freedom of discourse, but at this time chiefly concerning the affairs of england, the peace with the dutch, and the english fleet now at sea; also somewhat in particular to the protector, his management of affairs, and of their late troubles; in all which whitelocke endeavoured to give the prince satisfaction, without doing injury to any one. the prince brought whitelocke back again to the same place where he met him; and his servants went with him to his coach, and the master of the ceremonies brought him to his own house. after whitelocke was returned home, lagerfeldt came to him, and told him that the prince was very much pleased with the discourse between them, and with whitelocke's deportment; and lagerfeldt said he believed that the prince would visit whitelocke tomorrow; who said he could not expect such an honour, but was glad that anything of his discourse was grateful to his royal highness. lagerfeldt informed whitelocke that grave eric and lagerfeldt were to go to stockholm upon some public occasions by command of the ricksdag. whitelocke asked him what the business was; but lagerfeldt was not forward to declare it, nor whitelocke to press it; but he learned from another that the ricksdag had deputed two of every state to go to stockholm to extract out of the public records and acts the special privileges granted to the people at the coronation of any king, and of the present queen, which they judged fit to be now considered and ratified before the coronation of their new king. they were also to bring hither the acts of the ricksdag when the prince was declared heir of the crown, and such other things as pertained to this business. whitelocke desired lagerfeldt to do somewhat for him at stockholm touching the sending away of his copper from thence for england. _may , ._ [sn: the ladies' message to whitelocke.] the ladies who were at whitelocke's house to see the entry of the prince, sent thanks to whitelocke for his noble treatment of them, which was done by woolfeldt and the master of the ceremonies, whom whitelocke desired to make his excuse to the ladies, and to intercede with them to pardon the affront which whitelocke had put upon them by entertaining such noble ladies with so mean a collation. the master said he durst not deliver any such message to them, who were so well pleased with whitelocke's treatment of them; which appeared the more, in that the lady woolfeldt sent to him to bestow upon her, being great with child, some of his english cheese. whitelocke sent her all he had left, and to other ladies what they desired, his english sweetmeats and other cakes, which with them were of great esteem. [sn: the prince visits whitelocke.] whitelocke having this forenoon visited several senators and great lords, and being returned home, a servant of the prince, a baron of great esteem, came to him from the prince, to know if whitelocke's leisure would permit to receive a visit from his royal highness in the afternoon. whereunto whitelocke answered, that if the prince had any service to command him, he would wait upon his royal highness at his court; the baron replied, that the prince intended a visit to whitelocke at whitelocke's house, who said he could not expect nor admit of such a condescension in the prince and high favour to him, but that he would wait upon the prince in the afternoon. the baron said that must not be, but that it was the resolution of the prince to testify that extraordinary respect to the protector and to whitelocke, as to come in person to visit whitelocke at his own house; who said, that if it were the pleasure of the prince to have it so, he should attend the receiving of that great honour at such a time as his royal highness should think fit to afford it to him. woolfeldt, and douglas, and several others, being with whitelocke at dinner, they discoursed of this extraordinary high respect of the prince to the protector and to whitelocke, and said that it was partly occasioned by the exceptions taken by the public ministers in this court at the reception which the prince gave unto whitelocke yesterday beyond what he used to afford them of respect and honour; and this coming to the prince's ear, he said that if they were offended with him for that, he would yet give them further cause of being displeased, and thereupon sent to whitelocke that he would this afternoon visit him; they also informed whitelocke, as lagerfeldt had done, that the prince was much satisfied with the discourse of whitelocke, and his demeanour. about three o'clock in the afternoon the prince came to whitelocke's house, attended with a very great train. he was in one of the queen's coaches, which was followed by several of his own coaches, all with six horses apiece, and sundry gentlemen on horseback, with the principal officers of the court and of the army, besides his own gentlemen, officers, servants, pages, and lacqueys to a great number, waiting on him. it fell out to be on the day of a fair, kept in the open place before whitelocke's house, so that, with the people coming to the fair, and the prince's train, the streets were exceedingly crowded. as the prince alighted out of his coach, whitelocke was there to receive him, all the gentlemen of whitelocke's train attending on him, and his servants in livery making a lane, about twenty on each hand, from the prince's coach to whitelocke's house, through which the prince and he passed, whitelocke giving the prince the right hand, which he scrupled not to take in that place. they went together covered into whitelocke's house, sat down in his bedchamber, and fell into much freedom of discourse for above two hours together. in the meantime the lords and gentlemen of the prince's train being in several other rooms, according to their respective qualities, whitelocke had taken order to be entertained by his officers and servants, not only with discourse, but with good wine brought from england, and such collation as was then to be had and was pleasing to them. the prince and whitelocke had variety of discourses; and whitelocke looking upon this as an opportunity whereby he might speak in such things as might tend to the honour of god, and which his own subjects perhaps would not so plainly make known to him, whitelocke used the more freedom, and part of their discourse was-- _prince._ i am very glad that your affairs have permitted you a stay in this place so long as to give me the opportunity of your company, wherein i take much contentment. _whitelocke._ your royal highness doth very much honour me in esteeming my company worth your notice, and herein you are pleased to testify great respect to the protector, my master, and to the commonwealth whom i serve. _pr._ i have a very true honour for the protector, and for england, where i have been, and account it one of the best countries in the world. _wh._ it is indeed, sir, a very good country, and honoured by your knowledge of it and having been upon it. _pr._ but i doubt that by your late troubles it may be much damaged. _wh._ truly, sir, god hath so ordered it that those desolations which usually attend on war, especially a civil war, have not been so much in our country as others have felt who have been plunged in those miseries. _pr._ it is a great blessing to you, especially considering your change hath been so great and your troubles so lasting. _wh._ our troubles endured a long time, but, blessed be god, at present we enjoy peace and settlement after our changes. the discourse here is now altogether of the voluntary change like to be in your highness's country. _pr._ her majesty is pleased to take a resolution to resign her government, and i am commanded hither upon that occasion, though altogether unsought for by me. _wh._ you are, sir, every way worthy of it, and the more for not seeking it; and being the will of god is to bring you to such an increase of power as to the royal dignity, it will turn most to your own and your people's good, to employ your power to the honour of him that gives it, and to prefer his service by whom kings reign before any other concernments. _pr._ i must acknowledge that throughout the whole course of my life god hath been very good to me, and i am the more engaged to honour him and to do him service in any station wherein he shall be pleased to set me. _wh._ your royal highness will be pleased to pardon my freedom of speaking to you what i understand may be most for the honour of god and your service. _pr._ such discourse is most pleasing to me, especially from a person of such piety and honour as i esteem you to be, and who can have no private ends thereby. _wh._ we have observed in england, and it is so everywhere, that the blessing of god follows those that serve him. _pr._ that is a true rule; but our service must be in heart, and not in profession or outward show only. _wh._ it is true that the enemies of the parliament use to reproach them with hypocrisy in their profession of religion and with their preaching to their soldiers; yet that our profession is real doth appear somewhat in this, that the blessing of god hath accompanied our profession and our practice; and when our enemies are in debauchery and injuring the people, our officers and soldiers meet together, exhorting one another out of the scripture and praying together, and god hath given his blessing thereupon. _pr._ i do very well approve that course, and your profession and practice in matters of religion; but we hear of too much difference of opinion among you in those matters. _wh._ we have indeed too much difference of opinion among us in matters of religion; but yet the public peace is not broken, but carefully preserved. _pr._ but if there be not a uniformity among you in those matters, your peace will be endangered. _wh._ we do not yet find that danger; and we look upon it as a liberty due to all christians to take what way of worship they think best for the good of their own souls. _pr._ suppose the way they take be not agreeable to the word of god? _wh._ the consequence thereof will be their own misery. _pr._ but should not the magistrate lead them and constrain them in the right way? _wh._ we hold the better way to be, by meek exhortations and instructions to endeavour to reclaim them from any error, and not by force to compel men's consciences, as is used in these parts. _pr._ what if mild means will not work upon them? _wh._ they will have the worst of it; but as long as they do not break the public peace, it is hard for the magistrate imperiously to command and force his brethren to worship god after his opinion; and it is not imaginable that he should take more care of men's souls than they themselves, whose consciences ought to be free. _pr._ we are somewhat strict in this point in our country. _wh._ but i have heard that your royal highness hath shown moderation, and indulged this liberty, in other countries where you commanded. _pr._ i did not think fit to be so severe in this point in germany as we are in sweden. _wh._ i think your highness did therein according to the mind of god, who will not have a restraint upon his children in the worship of him; and i hope you will in time take off the severity of your laws here in this particular. _pr._ i am no friend to severity of laws upon men's consciences; but reformation among us is not soon to be brought about, where there hath been a long usage of the contrary. _wh._ in england we have of late obtained great reformation in many things, particularly touching the observation of the lord's day; and pardon me, sir, if i wish the like reformation in this kingdom, and that the lord's day were not so much neglected, nay profaned, as i have seen in this place. i hope and humbly advise your royal highness that, when god shall place you in the sovereignty over this people, you will take care to provide a remedy and reformation herein, and also of that sin of excessive drinking and swearing with which the people are so much infected, and which may cause a fear lest the anger of god should go forth against this nation; but it will be very much in your power to apply a fit remedy to these evils, and doubtless god will require it at your hands, as his vicegerent. _pr._ i have not heard many soldiers discourse in this strain; but i like it well, and it becomes you; and i hope god will assist me, if he shall call me to the government of this people, to acquit my duty to him and to his people for the restraining of these sins, which i acknowledge are too common among us. _wh._ in doing so, you will render service to god, and find his blessing to accompany such most pious, most honourable, and truly royal endeavours; and i hope your highness will not think amiss of this liberty which your servant hath taken, to speak to you of these things. _pr._ i am so far from thinking amiss of it or taking in ill part what you have said to me, that i do most heartily thank you for it, and do promise that i shall be mindful to put in practice the good counsel you have given me, as soon as it shall please god to give me an opportunity for it, and that the temper of this people will bear it; being convinced of the duty which lies upon me herein, and the service and honour which will thereby be done to god and to the people of this kingdom, both in respect to their temporal and eternal estate. _wh._ i am very glad to find your royal highness so sensible hereof, and shall humbly and earnestly leave it to your thoughts. _pr._ i hope i shall not forget it.[ ] they had other discourse touching the princes and states of christendom, particularly of the house of austria, and of the design of the papists against the protestants, the which, and the increase of the interest of rome, whitelocke said could not be better prevented than by a conjunction of the protestants; to which the prince fully agreed. the prince took his leave of whitelocke with very great respect and civility. after the prince was gone, there came to whitelocke grave eric oxenstiern and lagerfeldt, to take their leaves of whitelocke, they being to go to stockholm by command of the ricksdag; and grave eric gave unto whitelocke a paper, in french, of damage sustained by a swedish ship taken and brought into london, which he recommended to whitelocke to be a means that satisfaction might be procured. [sn: whitelocke goes to a running at the ring.] whitelocke being informed that now at the court, among other solemnities and entertainments to welcome the prince, the gallants used the exercise and recreation of running at the ring, a pleasure noble and useful as to military affairs, improving horsemanship, and teaching the guidance of the lance, a weapon still used by horsemen in these parts of the world; this generous exercise having been in use in england in whitelocke's memory, who had seen the lords, in presence of the king and queen and a multitude of spectators, in the tilt-yards at whitehall and at st. james's house, where the king, when he was prince, used also that recreation: it made whitelocke the more desirous to see the same again, and whether, as they used it here, it were the same with that he had seen in england. he went _incognito_ in the coach of general douglas, without any of his train, to the place where the running at the ring was. he would not go into the room where the queen and prince and great lords were, but sat below in a room where the judges of the course were, with divers other gentlemen, who, though they knew whitelocke very well, yet seeing him cast his cloak over his shoulder, as desiring not to be known, they would take no notice of him--a civility in these and other countries usual. the senator vanderlin, grave tott, and the baron steinberg were the challengers to all the rest; and of the other part were marshal wrangel, grave jacob de la gardie, and nine or ten others. all were well mounted; wrangel upon an english horse, given him by whitelocke. their clothes, scarfs, feathers, and all accoutrements, both of men and horse, were very gallant. they ran for a prize which the queen had ordained, and they comported themselves with much activeness and bravery; and it was the same exercise which whitelocke had formerly seen in his own country. _may , ._ [sn: the sound dues.] woolfeldt visited whitelocke in the morning, and brought with him a paper concerning the sound, written in french with his own hand, wherein he showed much affection to the protector and to england, and as much distaste to his own country. the paper whitelocke laid up, and transcribed in a larger treatise. [sn: effect of the prince's visit.] woolfeldt acquainted whitelocke that the public ministers in this court discoursed much of the extraordinary respect showed by the prince to the english ambassador, both in his reception and the prince's visit to him. and particularly the danish ambassador was greatly discontented, and said that never any ambassador had that honour done him before, and it was so far beyond what he had received that he knew not how to bear it; that the entertainment of public ministers of the same character ought to be with the same ceremony, and not one to be preferred so much as the english ambassador had been before others of equal quality with him, and much matter of complaint of that nature; which being reported to the prince, he said that neither the danish ambassador nor any other public minister had cause to complain that he had not given them the respect due to their several qualities; and if he, out of a particular affection to the english protector and ambassador, had a mind to express more than ordinary particular respects to them, it was no wrong or cause of complaint to any other public minister, who had what was due to him, because another had perhaps more than was due to him; and he said he understood not why his condition should render him less capable than other gentlemen to show particular respects where they did bear a particular affection. general douglas, a scottish gentleman in great favour and honour in this country, came late this year to the court, being hindered by a violent ague upon his coming hither. he made frequent visits to whitelocke, and expressed much of respect and civility to him as his countryman. [sn: whitelocke dines with general douglas.] this day whitelocke was to dine with douglas by a solemn invitation; and during the whole time of his residence in this court he never was invited to any of their tables, but now to douglas, and before to grave eric, notwithstanding the freedom of his table to most of them. with whitelocke were invited his two sons, potley, beake, and croke. there they met grave john oxenstiern, wrangel, wittenberg, bundt, horne, vanderlin, colonel bannier, and one of the prince's servants. of these that thus met, nine had been in commission as generals, two of the english and of the swedes seven, which was noted as very observable. they sat at table in the same manner as they did at grave eric's entertainment, whitelocke in the midst of the table, the company in their ranks on either side, and all the dinner they sat bare. the entertainment was very high and noble, as could be had in this place, and four courses very full, which made a long dinner, in which time whitelocke was solicited often to begin and pledge healths, which he would not do, but left others to their liberty, as he desired his. the healths they drank among themselves were in large beer-glasses of sack, which made them discourse the more freely; and most of it was of england and the late troubles there, of particular passages of the war, of scotland, of the fleet now at sea, and the dutch treaty; in all which whitelocke gave them some satisfaction, as they did to him touching the queen's resignation, the present ricksdag, and the new king's coronation. [sn: whitelocke receives a jewel from the prince.] the same gentleman who had been before from the prince with whitelocke, a baron of great account, first gentleman of the prince's bedchamber, a proper, well accomplished person, came to whitelocke by command of the prince, with remembrance of his highness's hearty respects and affection to whitelocke. after some compliments passed, the baron took out of his pocket a little box of crimson velvet, and told whitelocke that his royal highness had commanded him to present to whitelocke that token of the prince's love and respects to him, and, opening the box, showed to whitelocke a noble jewel, a case of gold enamelled, the one side of it set thick all over with diamonds, some of them fair ones, and on the other side was the prince's picture, lively and well taken. the baron said to whitelocke that the prince desired his excuse because in so short a time he could not procure a better present, but he desired whitelocke to accept of this as a testimony of his affection to him. whitelocke answered, that he had not merited so much favour from his royal highness, but desired the baron to return his hearty thanks to the prince, which he would also do himself when he had the honour to come in his presence. [sn: account of presents made by whitelocke.] upon this occasion whitelocke took account of the presents which he had in this court, besides the several and many gratuities and rewards which he had formerly bestowed on many of the queen's inferior servants, as musicians, guards, pages, lacqueys, trumpets, coachmen, wardrobe men, and others; to whom he had been liberal, to a considerable sum, necessary in his judgement to be done for the honour of his nation, and agreeable to what had been constantly by ambassadors there before him. besides these smaller matters, first he sent to the queen eight black english horses, very handsome, large, brave, and useful horses for the coach, and now in good case; four saddle-horses he had formerly presented to her, all of them were in this place worth to be sold £ . the looking-glass which he gave the queen when she was his valentine was worth £ , besides an english bible richly bound, english stuffs, a cabinet of spirits, and other smaller presents. the queen's officers gave no reward to whitelocke's gentleman of his horse, the clerk of his stable, or to his coachman and people that carried them, though it was presumed that the queen had ordered it, as she had done upon other the like occasions. to the prince whitelocke presented seven bay english horses, very handsome and serviceable for the coach; for which the prince returned many thanks, being most acceptable to him, as he expressed, and sent a chain of gold of the value of two hundred ducats to captain crispe, yeoman of whitelocke's stables, and twenty-five ducats to the servants of whitelocke's stable. to the prince, whitelocke also presented a young english gelding of fenwicke's breed, very handsome and mettlesome; the more esteemed by whitelocke, and afterwards by the prince, when he heard that it had been given to whitelocke by his general. to the old chancellor whitelocke presented a hogshead of good canary wine, and a sober, handsome, strong, well-paced english pad nag, and one of his richest saddles. to wrangel he gave an english gelding; to tott another; to wittenberg another; to steinberg another; to douglas another; and to such of the great men as the queen directed. to lagerfeldt he gave a clock, excellently made, which he used to have constantly with him. to secretary canterstein he sent his secretary earle with a silver standish, curiously wrought; at sight of which canterstein seemed much discontented, till earle showed him the manner of opening the standish, and in it forty pieces of english gold, of jacobuses, which made the present very acceptable. in like manner whitelocke sent to the master of the ceremonies an english beaver hat, with a gold hatband, and a pair of rich english gloves; at which the master seemed offended, saying that ambassadors used to send better presents to the master of ceremonies; but being desired to try if the gloves would fit him, he found therein forty twenty-shilling pieces of english gold, and thereby much satisfaction in the present. to grave eric's lady whitelocke presented a clock of the new make, to hang by the wall, set in ebony, with rich studs of silver. to "la belle comtesse," the lady jane ruthven and other ladies, he presented english gloves, ribbons, silk stockings, and the like, which are of great account with them. all the presents given away by whitelocke in this court were estimated above £ , and the jewels and copper bestowed on him were near the same value; so that none could accuse him to be a receiver of rewards, or that he had enriched himself by this employment. [sn: whitelocke takes leave of the prince and exhorts him.] whitelocke had desired this day another audience of the prince to take his leave; and towards the evening the master of the ceremonies came with two of the queen's coaches and brought whitelocke to the prince's lodging, who received him with the like or greater respect than he had done before. they went directly together to the prince's cabinet, where two chairs were set. they discoursed about half an hour upon the same subjects as their last discourse was; and now also whitelocke earnestly advised the prince to those things which would tend to the honour of god and to the reformation of disorders, drunkenness, swearing, and profanation of the lord's day, which whitelocke told him god would require at his hands to see reformed when he should be called to the government of this kingdom, with much to the like effect; esteeming it seasonable for him to take this opportunity of pressing these things to the prince, as he also did liberty of conscience, and what he hoped was for promoting the interest of christ in these countries. the prince gave good ear to these things, and seemed sensible of what was said to him; and by his answers gave hopes that when he should come to the opportunity he would endeavour the reformation of those great reigning sins in his country, whereof he professed his own detestation. whitelocke going to take his leave, the prince desired him to stay longer, as pleased with the discourse on this subject; but whitelocke was desired by the master of the ceremonies not to continue longer with the prince, because the queen staid within purposely for whitelocke's coming to her. at his parting the prince desired whitelocke to testify his respects to the protector and commonwealth of england; and told whitelocke that he might assure himself of a most entire affection to his person from the prince, who wished him a happy return to his own country. [sn: visits the queen, to take leave;] from the prince whitelocke made a visit to the queen. grave tott conducted him to her bedchamber, where they discoursed about half an hour touching her majesty's affairs. she again mentioned her purpose of going to the spa, and to go thither by land; she desired whitelocke not to speak much of it; she said that perhaps she might yet see him at stockholm, but, if she did not, that she would write a letter to the protector, and send it thither to whitelocke, upon the subject of which they had formerly spoken. whitelocke advised her, as he had done before, and promised to take care of her letter to the protector, and to improve his interest the best he could for effecting what her majesty desired, in case there should be occasion for it. she thanked whitelocke for his advice, wherewith she seemed to be pleased, and resolved to observe it; and expressed very great respect and affection to the protector and to whitelocke, whom she desired to assure the protector in her majesty's name of the sincere affection and honour which she did bear him, and which she should continue, in whatsoever condition she should be. she wished whitelocke a happy voyage, and with many compliments, full of great respect and civility, but not so cheerful as formerly; she twice gave him her hand to kiss, and so took leave of him. [sn: and the chancellor.] from the court whitelocke went and visited the chancellor, and delivered to him (what he had before promised and was put in mind to do) an engagement under his hand to procure a supply of the defect of power, which they excepted to in his commission. the engagement was thus:-- "polliceor plenam me mihi potentiam ac facultatem procuraturum à sua serenissima celsitudine domino meo, domino protectore reipublicæ angliæ, scotiæ, et hiberniæ, intra trimestre spatium, ab appulsu meo in quemlibet portum angliæ, ad supplendum qualemcunque defectum facultatis ac potentiæ mihi antehac datæ, ad tractandum cum serenissima majestate sua regina sueciæ aut commissariis suis, et ad rata habenda omnia, quæ inter majestatem suam vel suos commissarios et me conclusa fuerint. datum upsaliæ ^o maii, anno domini . "bulstrode whitelocke." the chancellor and whitelocke fell into discourse touching their ricksdag; part whereof follows. [sn: the swedish diet and constitution.] _whitelocke._ i received much satisfaction in the favour of being admitted to see the manner of the meeting and proceedings of your ricksdag, and shall be glad to be instructed by you touching some of the passages of it. _chancellor._ i shall be ready to inform you the best i can in these matters, and i have had some experience in them. _wh._ in that and all other matters touching the government of this kingdom, i believe no man's experience or judgement will be opposed to yours. i pray, father, let me know the ground of proposals being made by the queen to the ricksdag, and whether it be as i have heard, that they consult of nothing but what is first proposed to them by the queen. _chan._ that is very true, and is the ground of our quiet and of avoiding factions among us; for where a council consists of seven or eight hundred men, as our ricksdag doth, and they hold themselves to have an equal liberty and power, and are most of them active spirits; if every one amongst them might move and propound what he pleased according to his own fancy, there would never be an end of proposals and debates, and they would break out into several factions and the greater affairs of the kingdom be retarded, and many times thrust out to make way for lesser matters for the most part but of private interest. therefore the wisdom of our government hath so ordered it that nothing is to be consulted upon or debated by the ricksdag, but what is first proposed to them in writing by the king, who hath the advice of the senators therein; and such matters as are by them judged necessary for the good of the kingdom are by the king proposed to the ricksdag for their counsel in them. _wh._ this may be a good way to preserve your quiet; but may it not be ill for the rights and liberty of the people? as to instance in particular, if it be requisite that a new law be made relating to the people's liberty, wherein the former laws may be defective, by this course it rests only in the power of the king and senate whether this matter shall ever come to consideration or not; for, unless they will propound it, no consideration can be had of it; and though it may be necessary as to the people's rights, yet then probably it may be against the king's power, and in that case the king will never propose it to the ricksdag, because it makes against his power and prerogative; and so the people are by this course debarred of the means of supplying any defect as to their rights and liberties, unless the king, to lessen his own power, will first propose it to them. _chan._ this were an inconvenience if the people's rights and liberties were not already settled; but, by our laws, the boundaries of the king's power and of the people's rights are sufficiently known and established, as the king can make no law nor alter or repeal any, nor impose any tax, nor compel men to go out of the kingdom without the assent of the ricksdag; and in that council, which is supreme in this kingdom, every man's vote and assent is included by the deputies of the clergy, boroughs, and boors, which are respectively elected, and by the chiefs of the nobility; so that all sorts of people have their share, either in person or by their deputies, in the supreme council of the kingdom, by whom only those great matters can be done; and this being certain and settled, any alteration in those points tends but to further uncertainty and mischief. and if debates might be had of additions to the king's power, or to the people's liberty, it would but occasion attempts of encroaching of one upon the other, and bring trouble and uncertainty to both; whereas they being already clearly defined and known, and that there is no means of altering either of them, both the king and people are content with what they have, and endeavour nothing of disquiet unto either. _wh._ but this further debars the people from having any new law at all made, except such only as the king shall think fit, for he only can propose them; and it is a necessary thing to supply defects in laws and to make new ones, according as times and circumstances varying shall minister occasion. _chan._ there is nothing more prejudicial to any government than multitude of laws, which is prevented by this course of ours; nor is there any necessity of new laws where both the public rights and private men's property are provided for by the laws in being, which in all nations is from the original of their civil settlement taken care of. and though time and variety of accidents may occasion some defects in old laws, yet it is better they should be borne with than an inundation of new laws to be let in, which causeth uncertainty, ignorance, different expositions, and repugnances in the laws, and are the parents of contention. _wh._ but i suppose your ricksdag hath liberty to complain of maladministration and corruption in officers and judges, and to punish them and cause redress of grievances; else the people are remediless against those public crimes, without the grace and favour of the prince to do it of himself, which every prince in all times will not do. _chan._ the ricksdag may complain to the king of any offence or misdemeanour committed by any great officer, and of any public grievance to the people; whereupon the king and senate are very ready (as it behoves them in justice and prudence) to give a remedy, which they are the more induced to do, because otherwise the people's deputies, who have the power of the purse, may be the more backward to supply the king's occasions with money or men; and this is a good tie upon the court, to procure justice and redress of grievances. _wh._ your laws are founded upon great reason and prudence, and in these and most other main parts and particulars of them, ours are the same in england; but a liberty of proposing anything in our parliament belongs to every member of it. _chan._ that hath been a great occasion of all your troubles. _wh._ i expected to have heard my father, the ricks-chancellor, to have made an harangue in the ricksdag, to have acquainted them, as it is with us, with the causes of their meeting. _chan._ i confess it belongs to my place to have done it; but, by reason of an oath i had taken to my king, to endeavour to keep the crown on his daughter's head, and this assembly was called that she might resign it; therefore i desired to be excused from making that proposal. _wh._ indeed her majesty spake herself with an excellent grace and spirit, which was a wonder to see it done by a young lady to so great and grave an assembly; and the matter of her speech, as it was interpreted to me, was pertinent and full of weight. _chan._ indeed she spake very well and materially, and like a prince. _wh._ i am sorry my time calls me away from further enjoyment of my father's excellent conversation. _chan._ i shall be glad if my noble son would afford me more of his company, in which i take so much contentment. _wh._ my journey tomorrow hastens me away, and occasions your less trouble. _chan._ i pray assure the protector of the respect and high value i have for him, and of my devoted mind to serve him in anything within my power in this kingdom. _wh._ you have been pleased largely to testify this in my transactions, and your noble favours and respects to your son. _chan._ you may be confident of my affection and love to you; and i desire you to be a friend to my countrymen in england, and to take upon you their patronage in all just causes. _wh._ i shall be ready upon all occasions to perform all good offices to your excellence and to your family, and to all of this nation; and shall satisfy the protector of your affections for him, and of your kindness to his servant. _chan._ i am now an old man, and whilst i continue alive i shall do all that lies in my power to serve the protector and the commonwealth of england, and shall embrace your excellence with a special bond of friendship, and will leave it in charge to my sons, when i am dead, to do the same. _wh._ i shall also enjoin my children to continue that obligation of friendship which i have contracted with your excellence and your family. _chan._ i shall but add this further, to pray to god that of his mercy he would vouchsafe to you a prosperous return to your own country, and that you may find there all your family and friends in a comfortable and happy condition. [sn: takes leave of oxenstiern.] thus the chancellor and whitelocke took leave of one another with as much kindness and respect as could be expressed.[ ] whitelocke being returned to his house, grave john oxenstiern came to visit him; and having heard that whitelocke took it ill that he had put off a visit desired by whitelocke to this high grave, yet now he was pleased to descend to excuse it to whitelocke, because his lodging was strait and inconvenient, not fit to receive a person of whitelocke's quality, and his lady was at that time very much indisposed in health. the senator benk schütt came in the evening to visit whitelocke, and discoursed freely with him touching the queen's resignation and their new king, and did not testify much of respect to the chancellor by informing whitelocke that yesterday, at the castle, there was a great rub, as he called it, given by the queen to the chancellor before the prince and the rest of the senators; the occasion whereof was about the island of elsey, which the queen desired as part of her provision, to which the chancellor said, that it was worthy the consideration; the queen replied, "what! is my integrity then questioned?" the chancellor answered, that he did not question her majesty's integrity, but spake only for her security and better satisfaction in what she desired. the queen said, "i understand swedish well enough, and it was not becoming you to question my integrity at all." schütt said, that at this passage the rest of the senators were pleased, and that the prince seemed in this, and all other occasions, to be of the queen's mind, and to grant her more rather than less of what she desired, which was wisdom in him. senator vanderlin visited whitelocke, and, among other discourses, acquainted him the passages of the proposal for the queen to have married the prince; that for this purpose the prince was sent for out of germany, and the queen seemed inclinable to the match; yet, after the prince was come, she used him with a strangeness which was occasioned by the whisperings of grave magnus de la gardie to the queen, that when the prince was in germany he was too familiar with some ladies; at which information, he said, the queen was so enraged that the prince should go to other women, that she thereupon resolved not to marry him, but was otherwise very courteous and full of respect to him. whitelocke did not dispute the authenticness of this relation, but wondered at it from a senator, touching him who was to be a king, and to use so much freedom on such a subject to a stranger. general douglas, the ricks-admiral, and senator bielke, also visited whitelocke this evening while vanderlin was with him; they discoursed of the discontent which the dutch resident expressed before his going away, because more respect was shown to whitelocke by the queen and prince, and by the senators and great men here, than they had shown to the dutch resident, who said he was a public minister as well as the english ambassador. whitelocke said it was true, as the dutch resident had remembered, that he was a public minister; and it might be supposed, that being so, he should understand the difference between a resident and an ambassador extraordinary; and also between the commonwealth of the united provinces of the netherlands, and that of england, scotland, and ireland. the swedish lords replied, that if the dutch resident did not understand it, nor himself, that yet it was sufficiently known in this place, and that the resident was but laughed at for his exceptions, as being without cause, and showing his want of experience in matters of this nature. after the ricks-admiral and bielke were gone, vanderlin and douglas staid with whitelocke and used great freedom of discourse with him, expressing extraordinary respect to the protector and commonwealth of england, and very much affection and kindness to whitelocke, in whom they expressed great confidence. they staid with him till past twelve o'clock at night, inconvenient in respect of his intended journey the next day; but their company was very pleasing, and they took leave with great civility and kindness from each to other of them. _may , ._ [sn: whitelocke commences his journey back to england.] whitelocke began his longed-for journey of return to england. he had taken his leave of the queen, prince, senators, and all his friends in upsal. his business, through the goodness of god, was successfully despatched; himself and all his people in good health, and exceeding joyful to be on their journey homewards. he left not a penny of debt to any in this country, nor any unrewarded who had done him service; for his hospitality, wherein no ambassador in this court ever exceeded him, for his conversation and dealing with all sorts of people, he had gained their love, and left no ill name behind him. the greatest part of his baggage, and most of his inferior servants, were on board a great hoy of the queen's, to go by water to stockholm; he and the rest of his people went by land, in order to which, upon his desire, the hof-stallmaster, by the queen's command, had sent yesterday six coach-horses to be ready in the midway from upsal to stockholm, and this morning he sent six other horses with whitelocke's blue coach to his lodging, to carry him the first half way of this day's journey, driven by the queen's coachman. berkman had provided a sufficient number of saddle-horses, if they might be so called, he having forgot to cause saddles to be brought with them for whitelocke's people, so that most of them were forced to make shift with straw and cushions instead of saddles; and many of the bits and stirrups were such as they had been acquainted with in their journey from gothenburg hither; and thus they rode the two first stages. whitelocke took coach between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, sir george fleetwood, potley, ingelo, and andrews, in his coach with him; the rest on horseback; they came about noon to the place where fresh horses staid for them, and did not tarry long there, wanting good entertainment, but, taking fresh horses both for coach and saddle, they proceeded in their journey. the country through which they passed was better than that near the sea, less rocky and more fruitful, not so replenished with seats of the nobility further off, as nearer to stockholm. by the way they met general axy lyllye, a senator of sweden, newly returned out of germany, and another senator with him; they alighted out of their coach when whitelocke came near them, who, seeing that, did alight also. the general had lost one of his legs in the german wars, and now carried one of wood; he and his companion were very civil in their salutation and discourse with whitelocke, and after compliments, and inquiry by whitelocke of the german news, they took leave and parted. whitelocke and his company arrived between five and six o'clock in the evening at stockholm, the journey being seven swedish leagues, about forty english miles. as he came in the suburbs, he saw a sad sight of many houses lately burnt down, and some pulled down to prevent the further raging of the fire, which had consumed many scores of houses in that place; and it brought to whitelocke's remembrance, that one evening at upsal, in his chamber window, he saw a great fire in a dorf about half a league from the town, which he observed, almost in a moment, to flash from one end of the dorf to the other, consuming all in its way,--and thus it was said to have been in these suburbs. the reason thereof is the combustible matter whereof their houses are built, being of fir timber and boards, which, especially being old, do suddenly take fire, and violently burn, hard to be quenched, few houses escaping, especially in the dorfs, where one is on fire; which causeth more than ordinary care in the inhabitants of all places to prevent that fearful danger. berkman conducted whitelocke to a lodging in the suburbs, over-against the castle, which was used for an inn. this being post-night, whitelocke made up his despatches for england, which he had prepared at upsal, where he wrote his letters, but dated them from stockholm, that his friends in england might thereby perceive that he was in his journey homewards, which he knew would be no small contentment to them. _may , ._ [sn: stockholm.] being the lord's day, divers scotch merchants, inhabitants of this city, and some english, came to whitelocke's lodging to hear the sermon in the morning, and many of them did him the honour to dine with him; he had conference with them, and good advice from them, about his voyage to england and other matters. lagerfeldt came also to salute whitelocke, and to know what service he had for him, before his going from hence this evening. whitelocke desired him to speak to the master of the customs, touching the shipping of his copper and other goods, custom free; and whitelocke prayed lagerfeldt also to speak to vice-admiral wrangel, that the ship appointed for his transportation (which was now in the road in view of whitelocke's lodging) might, with as much speed as could be, fall down to the dollars; which he promised to do. wrangel sent to invite whitelocke to go this afternoon to see the ships, but whitelocke excused it by reason of the day, and sent word that tomorrow, if he pleased, he would wait upon him; and desired his advice touching his voyage. in the evening lagerfeldt came again to whitelocke, to give him an account what he had done by his appointment, and told whitelocke that he should have all contentment. with lagerfeldt came monsieur de geeres to visit whitelocke, who gave him thanks for a vessel of claret wine which de geeres had sent to whitelocke, who said he hoped he should not stay long enough to drink it out in this place. [sn: the queen's garden at stockholm.] at upsal whitelocke was carried to see the queen's garden, which scarce deserved that name, being only a piece of ground of about four or five acres, paled in according to the manner of their paling, and had in it a few hedges which, in the latter end of may, upon the thaw, began to appear a little green; but for flowers or fruit-trees there were none, except a few ordinary tulips. this put whitelocke in mind to inquire if the queen had a better garden here at stockholm, where her residence usually was. the swedes excused the meanness of the garden at upsal because the court was seldom there, but here they commended the garden, and offered whitelocke the favour to see it. he went about seven o'clock this evening to view it, and to walk in the queen's garden here. it was near unto his lodging, but at a distance from the castle; it is about six or seven acres of ground, encompassed with a pale, on which they bestow timber enough in the posts and rails, and the pales are not set upright one by another, but crosswise one upon another, between two great posts, with rivets for the pales to be put into, and so to fall down one upon the other; and the pales are two inches thick or more, made of fir timber, and the posts and rails of oak. this garden was distinguished into walks not well kept nor gravelled, but most of them green; few flowers were to be seen there, though more than at upsal, and most of these were tulips not extraordinary. the sides of the walks were set with elm-trees and the like, but no fruit-trees were there, nor are they common in this cold country, only, as they informed whitelocke, in some places they have a few trees of plums, and small cherries, and of apples; but he saw none in regard of the season, nor do many persons in these parts delight in gardens or in planting fruits or flowers, this climate not encouraging thereunto; yet here were great boxes of wood with orange-trees, citron-trees, and myrtle-trees, very young, planted in them; how they thrived was not much visible. at whitelocke's lodging some of his people made the greater fires to air the rooms, because the plague had been lately in this city, and in that house the chimneys, it seems, being foul, and full of soot, were the sooner set on fire; and when whitelocke came from walking in the garden he found his lodging on fire. it was a stack of chimneys which took fire; a multitude of people were ready about the house to help to quench the fire, and the officers of the city were there to order the people. whitelocke was surprised with this unexpected accident and danger, amongst such houses; but after an hour's flame, the soot being spent and burnt, the fire went out of itself; and it was a mercy that the wind set to carry the flame towards a house which was tiled, whereas, if it had set the other way, it had carried the flame upon houses all built and covered with wood, to the extreme danger of whitelocke's lodging and the whole city. _may , ._ [sn: the harbour of stockholm and swedish fleet.] in the morning berkman conducted whitelocke to the haven, where lay many boats and vessels great and small, and much iron upon the quay, which is convenient, but not much stored. they passed by many fair houses belonging to the great lords. in the afternoon wrangel came to whitelocke, and conducted him to see the queen's ships, which lie round about an island called by them the holm, into which island none are permitted to enter without special license. this is a good harbour for the ships there to anchor safely. there lay about fifty ships of war, some of them carrying eighty pieces of cannon, some sixty, some fifty, some forty, some thirty, and all of them well fitted and useful, strongly built, but not so nimble and serviceable for fight as our english frigates. wrangel was now in his element, and discoursed much with whitelocke about the make and force and goodness of these ships, their force and brass cannon, which were commended by whitelocke, who showed the difference in the make between these ships and the english frigates; that these, for strength to endure an assault and make defence, were very good, but that the english frigates had much advantage in their nimble tacking about, their fleet sailing to fetch up another ship, and the lying of their guns for use of fighting; with which discourse wrangel seemed much pleased, and he preferred their brass cannon before those of iron, which whitelocke assented unto as not so soon hot with firing, nor so apt to break and splinter, and do harm to their own men as the iron ordnance are. within this island is the office of the admiralty, in a fair brick house built for that purpose; in another building there are the forges for all the iron-work belonging to the ships; there also are the timber yards, well stored, and places for the workmen and ship-carpenters. they were shown there likewise the magazine of powder, bullet, match, grenadoes, with other fire instruments; also the bake-houses, where they make provision of biscuit for the ships; it is a great room paved with stone, wherein are three ovens for baking, and a large cellar in which they store the biscuit. there be also stores for pork, peas, and other ship provisions, all in very good order, and carefully looked unto. whitelocke went on board divers of the ships, taking notice of their strength and furniture, and among them he went on board several great ships which wrangel had taken in fight from the king of denmark, which at present were not serviceable; but his commendation of that action, and of these ships of war lying here, was due to them, and not unpleasing to those who showed them to him. they returned by boat, making the tour of the island; and as they passed by the ships of war, they all saluted whitelocke with two guns apiece, which number they do not exceed. as they passed along, whitelocke was desired to go on board the 'hercules,' a great and good ship lying there, which carried eighty pieces of ordnance, all brass; and being brought into the captain's cabin, he found there the table covered, and a banquet set upon it of sweetmeats of divers sorts, with which, and with plenty of excellent rhenish wine, they did with great respect and civility entertain whitelocke and his company. from thence they brought him to his lodging, weary enough with his voyage and the extreme heat of the weather. [sn: position of stockholm.] the island which whitelocke viewed this day, and many other greater and smaller islands, upon which are buildings, do make up this city, which by some is resembled for the situation of it unto the city of venice, which stands as this doth, upon several islands in the sea. the waters are great and deep about this city, which is compassed with mountains, except only where they give way to the passage of the waters. the town, in the prospect of it, seems to be as in the midst of the circuit of the mountains, and as it were composed of divers pieces, each of them apart making a good town, and so appear as several villages separated by the many arms of water, or by the lake mälaren, which come hither to meet one another, and make the large and deep water; and it seems to be the diameter of the mountains, and now all plain, by carrying away the earth of a hill within it, and the stones therewith filling up ditches and uneven grounds, and serving for foundations for their buildings, and to make their streets even and handsome; so that now it is all level, as if no hill had ever been. one of their authors saith that it is "loco et situ commodissimo, inter eximium dulcem lacum mæler ipsumque balticum mare in insula fundatum." the inhabitants (who should best know it) affirm that the situation of this town is very healthful, and that notwithstanding the vast quantity of waters that do surround it, yet they are not troubled with agues, or other diseases, so much as other parts of the country. it is too, in the view of it, pleasant and noble for the situation; and the grounds about it are dry and wholesome, yet fruitful. the streets are some of them large, others more narrow; most of them are straight, the houses being equally advanced and set together. in the heart of the city they are for the most part built of stone or brick, making the fairer show by their height of four or five stories. from the north holm or suburbs to the east is a bridge of wood, very long; from the island where the ships lie they pass another bridge to another island, both small ones, and at the mouth of the harbour for the ships of war, extending about half a league, between which and the continent are the waters of the lake and of the rivers which pass through the town from the west; from the north to the east is a park of deer, pleasant with trees and shade, contributing to the delight and health of the inhabitants; and, taken altogether, from the prospect of the mountains upon the churches, castle, houses, waters, and ships, the town appears noble and beautiful. [sn: legend of stockholm.] whitelocke having been at the island where the ships lie, and observed it to be called the holm, and other islands to have the same name of holm, and holm to be the same which we call an island, and this city named stockholm, caused his inquiry of the original of this name of stockholm; he was informed, in a kind of pleasant story, which is not without some probability, and the earnest affirmations of the inhabitants, who from tradition may be supposed best to know it, that the original of the name stockholm was thus:--that there was a certain great and rich town called bieurkoo, situate upon the lake between upsal and this place, whereof some ruins are yet to be seen. the number of the people in that town increasing so much that the inhabitants could not be therein contained, they held a council what was fit to be done; they also consulted their idol gods, to whom they offered sacrifices and prayers for their direction. the issue was this: they came to a resolution that part of their people should go forth from them, as a colony, to seek for a new habitation, as is usual in these northern countries; that they should find out a place, and build them a new city to dwell in; and how to find out and agree upon this place was thus determined: they took a great block or piece of wood, to which they fastened some gold, and set the block a-swimming in the water, and agreed that there they would build the new town where their gods (to whom they had committed this affair) should cause the block to stay; this block floated, and, descending down the lake, at length staid at a little island about the midst of this city. such an island here (as in our north parts) is called holm, and such a great block or piece of wood is by them (as with us) called a stock; and because this stock staid at this holm, therefore here they built their city, and called it stockholm; which, by degrees, and adding one holm or island to another, became of its present greatness. _may , ._ [sn: the magistrates of stockholm address whitelocke.] berkman brought to whitelocke's lodging this morning two of the magistrates of this city, deputed by their body, and in their name, to salute whitelocke and bid him welcome to this place. one of them made a speech to whitelocke, which was interpreted out of the swedish by berkman into french, to this effect:-- "my lord ambassador, "the senate of this city have deputed us in their name to salute your excellence, and to bid you welcome to this place, where the magistrates and citizens are desirous to embrace any occasion presented to them, whereby they may testify the great respect and honour which they bear to his most serene highness the lord protector, and to the commonwealth of england. "they are likewise very glad of the occasion given them to express their joy for the happy alliance and friendship concluded between this kingdom and the commonwealth of england, which we hope will be to the advantage and good of both nations, and of the protestant interest, which is heartily wished by us. we look upon it as a very great comfort and blessing to this city, that after the misery in which we have lately been, when it pleased god to visit us with the pestilence, that the same is now so well and fully removed through divine mercy, that we have the happiness to see a person of your condition vouchsafe his presence with us. "whilst the occasions of your excellence shall stay you here, we most freely offer our services for your accommodation with whatsoever this place will afford, which your excellence may command; and as a small testimony of the respects of our superiors, they have caused us to present a vessel of wine unto your excellence, whereof they entreat your favourable acceptance." whitelocke presently answered them in english, which berkman interpreted to them in swedish, to this effect:-- "gentlemen, "i rejoice with you in the mercy and goodness of god to this city, who hath caused to cease that contagious disease which lately raged among you, so that your friends (of which number i take the honour to reckon myself) may freely and safely resort to you, and converse with you as formerly. i have also some share in your joy for the friendship and alliance contracted between my lord the protector of the commonwealth of england, and the queen and kingdom of sweden; wherein i doubt not but, through the blessing of god, both nations and the whole protestant interest will have cause to rejoice likewise: and as my poor endeavours have not been wanting, so my hearty prayers to god shall be put up that it may come to this issue; and i shall pray for the continuance of health and prosperity to this noble city. "i return you many thanks for your respects to my lord the protector and the commonwealth whom i serve, whereof i shall not fail (when it shall please god to give me a return to my own country) to acquaint them, and to do all offices of respect in my power for your city; and i desire my thanks may be presented to your honourable senate for their particular favour to me, and for their salutation, which i receive with all gratitude." whilst the citizens were with whitelocke, wrangel, vice-admiral thysen, vice-admiral clerke, sinclair, captain of the 'amarantha,' and others, came and did whitelocke the honour to dine with him, and in the afternoon carried him to see the cannon which the swedes had taken from their enemies, now laid up in a magazine for themselves; there were of them brass cannon ; among them were two pieces taken from the muscovites, each of them weighing , lbs. weight, and carrying a bullet of lbs. weight, as much more as the greatest whole cannon carries. there was also a basilisk of nineteen feet in length, very extraordinary, and a great mortar-piece of brass of a fathom and three fingers in diameter at the mouth of it; with many other pieces of brass ordnance taken from the poles in their wars with them, which were now but of little use; nor were those huge pieces capable to be drawn into the field for any service there. _may , ._ [sn: monuments and public buildings of stockholm.] whitelocke walked abroad, to see the great church where the late king gustavus adolphus lies interred; but as yet there is no monument erected to his memory, nor are there others of magnificence or much antiquity in this or in the other great church, but store of images and crucifixes in all their churches; their building is of brick, and all their churches are covered with copper. whitelocke went to wrangel's lodging to requite his visits, but found him not at home, not having sent beforehand to him. he fetched a little turn in the city, and they showed him a new building for the ricksdag, which they call the ruder-house, that is, the house of the knights; it is a fair building, and the name of it remembers somewhat of the knights of our parliament. in this walk, whitelocke viewed in the fair street near his lodging the monument set up to the honour of queen christina at her coronation, which is beautiful to the view. it is a triumphant arch, of the height of the highest houses, raised upon three arches, which give three passages; those on each side the more strait and low, the middle arch of twice the height and wideness of the other two. the frontispiece unto the tops of the arches is adorned with pillars of a fair work, between which, in the front of the building, are figured the wars, battles, and victories of gustavus the great: above the pillars are divers images, and above the middle of the porch is a large tablet, containing in letters of gold the original of christina, her virtues, and the occasion of this monument. the whole building seems fair and stately, and as of stone, but in truth is only wood plastered over; rather a show, to please for a few years, than lasting. he also viewed many houses of stone and brick, some whereof were very fair and adorned with towers and figures, as those of grave magnus de la gardie, grave gustavus horne, general bannier, and others, and many of them beautifully covered with copper. in the afternoon wrangel conducted whitelocke to see the castle, which is also covered with copper; and that having lain there long, some dutchmen are reported to have offered to give £ , for the copper, and to cover the castle again with new copper; the reason whereof they hold to be, because the copper which hath lain there so long with the sun upon it, is so refined thereby, and would yield so much gold, that it will yield what the dutchmen bid for it and more, besides the charge of new covering it with copper as before. this castle is the principal house in this principal city, belonging to the crown of sweden; it is a large castle, more for conveniency of a court than for stateliness of structure. it is almost four-square, one way longer than the other, all of brick, plastered over to make it seem as if it were of freestone, whereof there is not much in these parts fit for building; the entry into the castle is upon the north quarter; the south and east side is of fair building, four stories high, the windows not large. on the west of the quadrangle is the chapel, about a hundred and thirty feet in length, with the breadth proportionable; it is divided into three arches, upon two ranges of pillars of marble of this country, of divers colours, most in red streaks, handsome and polished. on the windows and walls are several pictures and images, after the manner of the lutheran churches. the rooms in the castle are many, some of them large enough for the state of a court, and most of those are two stories high, after the use of this country. the situation of the castle is pleasant and noble, by the side of the great water, upon which part of it is built, and the other part upon the island where it stands; and though of itself it be not of great strength, yet the situation, prospect of the waters, ships, vessels, islands, and buildings, on the one side, and of the country to the mountains on the other side, give it the repute of a princely palace. in the castle whitelocke was carried up to a room, a magazine, where were a very great number of muskets, pikes, swords, and other foot arms, excellent good, made in this country, of their own iron and steel, and kept exceeding clean, bright, and well fixed, and were said to be sufficient to arm ten thousand men completely. on the other side of the court they brought him to another room, where was a magazine of horse-arms, cuirassiers, with pistols, bright, well kept, and of an excellent make; there were also more foot-arms: in all, in this magazine, two thousand horse-arms, and five thousand foot-arms; and in the other magazine, ten thousand foot-arms. there were likewise colours, ensigns, and standards, taken from their enemies, to the number of about eight hundred; among them one taken by king gustavus in person, and another, which wrangel showed, that he had taken from the duke of saxony. this city is doubtless as well provided of arms and all sorts of ammunition for war as any place in these parts of europe, here being, besides the queen's stores in the public arsenal, arms sufficient for fifty thousand men. here also they showed to whitelocke the lance of the quintain, and, according to their description of it and its use, it seems to be the same with the exercise and recreation used anciently in england, and yet retained in some counties at their marriages, which they likewise call the running at the quintain. in a great hall they showed to whitelocke the skin, stuffed out and standing in the full proportion, of the horse which the late king gustavus rode when he was slain; also his bloody shirt which he then wore, which is carefully preserved in a chest; where they also keep the jewel which king gustavus wore at his coronation, and many rich swords, battle-axes, and other spoils taken from their enemies. _may , ._ [sn: the launch of the 'falcon.'] wrangel came to whitelocke, and invited him to see the launching of one of their ships newly built for a man-of-war; and whitelocke was the more curious to see the manner of it, and how they could do it, in regard they have no docks, nor ebbing and flowing of the water, which here is constantly even, and affords no advantage by flowing tides for the launching of their ships. when whitelocke came to the holm where the ship was to be launched, he found her with the keel set upon great planks of timber, the ship tied upright with cables, as if she were swimming; the planks upon which she stood lay shelving towards the water, and were all thick daubed with grease all along from the poop of the ship, and under her keel, to the water's side, which was within the ship's length of her head, and there the water was very deep. one strong cable held the ship from moving; and she lying thus shelving upon the planks, the cable which held her from sliding down was cut, and then the weight of the ship upon the sloping greased planks carried her with great violence down upon the planks into the sea, near a slight shoot, by force of the weight and swing wherewith she fell down. in the sea were boats ready, which came to her, and put men aboard her; and as she went off, a great shout of a multitude of people, standing by as spectators, was sent after her. wrangel, as an honour and compliment to whitelocke, desired him to give the name to this ship. whitelocke would have called her the 'wrangel,' but the master of that name entreated it might not be so, possibly to avoid the envy of it at court; but he desired it might be called the 'whitelocke,' which whitelocke thought not expedient, lest it might argue too much height in himself; nor would he call her 'cromwell,' or the 'protector,' because she carried but thirty guns; but seeing the mark of her guns to be the falcon, and asking whether they had any other ship of that name, they said, no; whereupon, the falcon being whitelocke's coat of arms and the mark of the ship's guns, and she being built swifter of sail than ordinary, whitelocke gave her the name of the 'falcon.' this pleased wrangel very much, and the seamen and workmen were most pleased with the gratuity which whitelocke bestowed on them; and this ceremony and compliments being passed, whitelocke gave many thanks to wrangel for this honour, and so they parted. the packet from england was brought to whitelocke. thurloe wrote thus:-- "i have acquainted his highness with your excellence's letters received yesterday, wherein he takes little content, more than that he did on his part sincerely intend a peace and union with that crown and kingdom, and committed the management of it to a person who hath performed his trust with honour, wisdom, and fidelity. we hope that your instructions, giving you liberty to return, are by this time arrived, etc." by this packet whitelocke also received letters from his wife, full of affection and piety, and from colonel bulstrode, his brother wilson, mr. attorney hall, mr. cokaine, mr. eltonhead, especially from his great friend dr. winston; and all of these letters, and several others which he received, were so many testimonies of the affection and hearty kindness of these his worthy friends. _may , ._ after whitelocke had walked a tour in the norden mallum,--that is, the north suburbs of this city,--sir george fleetwood came to him, with whom he had much conversation in the latter time of his being in sweden, both at upsal and in this town, who showed much kindness and respect to whitelocke. he informed whitelocke that by letters from upsal he understood that the ricksdag had given leave to the queen to go to colmar, which signified that she could not go without their leave, and that she would find much difference between commanding as a queen and obeying as a subject, and that, by the law of this kingdom, no queen can depart out of it without leave of the ricksdag, on forfeiture of all her estate. [sn: whitelocke's shipment of copper sent to london.] a ship called the 'swart hundt' was by the queen's command appointed and fitted to carry whitelocke's copper and other goods from hence to england. by advice of friends, whitelocke under his hand and seal desired sir george fleetwood to consign the copper to whitelocke's brother-in-law, mr. wilson. the desire was thus:-- "i bulstrode whitelocke, constable of the castle of windsor, one of the lords commissioners of the great seal of england, and ambassador extraordinary from his most serene highness the lord protector of the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland, unto her majesty the queen of sweden, do hereby desire my honourable friend, sir george fleetwood, knight, general-major under the crown of sweden, to ship and consign unto mr. samuel wilson, merchant in london, in bishopsgate-street, two hundred ship-pound, swedish weight, of gore copper; the which the said mr. samuel wilson is to receive and dispose of according to my order. dated at stockholm, in sweden, the th day of may, . "b. whitelocke." according to which warrant, the copper was put on board the 'swart hundt,' fitted and victualled for england. of whitelocke's ship, whitelocke gave the command and charge, and of his goods therein, to one of his servants, taylor, by commission under his hand and seal, and to bring his copper and goods in her from hence to london, as soon as he could, wind and weather favouring. wrangel procured this ship for whitelocke, and a pass from the admiralty of sweden for her to go through the sound; and whitelocke thought it better to see this ship on her voyage, than to leave the sending of her away to the care of others after his departure. [sn: his goods embarked in the amarantha.] whitelocke sent the rest of his goods and baggage on board the 'amarantha,' which weighed yesterday, and he hoped might by this time be within four leagues of the dollars; but the wind came contrary for her advance any further, and whitelocke must continue here till he could understand that his ship was gotten to the dollars, which is fourteen swedish leagues from this city, but may be gone in six or seven hours by boats in a shorter passage. his stay here seemed tedious to whitelocke. this day the wind coming about a little towards the east, increased his hopes of getting away, for which they were in daily expectation. [sn: the trade of stockholm.] by some merchants and others of this city, whitelocke learned what was the commerce of this town, and by his own view he found it to be commodiously seated for trade and to receive all the commodities of the country's growth, which are brought hither by water; and it is the more convenient because the greatest ships may come up to the very houses and there load and unload their merchandises, never wanting water, which there is always deep, and equal in the height of it. but this city is somewhat far distant from the sea by water, so that before the ships can go between the sea and the town, they must fetch a compass of about one hundred english miles, with the danger of many rocks and islands in the way; and they must have also divers winds which are hindrances to their commerce. the present queen hath been curious to invite hither and to entertain many good artists, yet everything here is very dear, except the native commodities; and now gothenburg, growing up in trade, being situate without the sound, a more open and easy place for access of strangers,--some believe that by the growth of that, this port may be diminished. it is the better supported by the court being commonly kept here, and consequently being the residence of the principal nobility and officers. some courts of justice constantly, and the ricksdag generally, being held in this city, increase the trade of it; and this being a good road for ships to defend them from injuries of weather or other dangers, makes it the more frequented. plenty of provisions are brought to this town for the supply of it; and most of their native commodities, as copper, iron, pitch, tar, deal, masts, and the rest, are brought hither and here shipped and transported into foreign parts; from whence their merchants and strangers do bring to this northern market all manner of merchandise here vendible; and from hence again they are vended to all the northern and eastern parts of this country, whereby their trade and wealth is also increased, so that one of their authors calls it, "celeberrimum ac nobilissimum septentrionis emporium." the trade of this place hath brought and settled here as inhabitants,--besides swedes, goths, fins, and laplanders,--divers of germans, of pomerland, mecklenburg, westphalia, etc.; also english, scotch, french, dutch, and almost of every country of europe. some are here now become citizens, and are treated with justice and civility by the natives, to the end that they and others may be the more encouraged to add to the riches, strength, and trade of this place. _may , ._ [sn: detained by contrary winds.] whitelocke visited sir george fleetwood at his lodging in stockholm, and finding with him vice-admiral thysen and peterson, both hollanders and in service of the crown, whitelocke brought them all home with him to dinner, and advised with them about his voyage. the wind came more contrary to whitelocke this day than yesterday, but he knew no other way but a patient submission to the will and time of god. here he bestowed on a german clock sixty-two rix-dollars. [sn: the government of stockholm.] from some of the magistrates and others of this city whitelocke learned that the government thereof is by four councils, and a senate of the citizens, as their common council, consisting of twenty-four chosen yearly in this month by suffrage of the inhabitants, and justice is administered to the people by them in like manner as in other cities. besides these officers there is a castellan, or governor of the castle of stockholm, who, by a peculiar authority over the city, takes care of the walls and buildings thereof, as he doth of the castle and other the king's buildings there. he is to defend the privileges of the town, and is chief in their political administration. he also orders and keeps up the revenue and trade, and suffers not the royalties of the crown to be diminished, nor any of the public treasure, without the license of the king, to be expended. he is always one of the ricks-senators, and hath joined to him a vice-castellan, of the equestrian order, who is chief in the judgements of the city within the senate and councils, and is intent to the execution of justice. [sn: the defence of stockholm.] the strength of this city is chiefly in the situation of it among the waters, which are no small defence, and in the bodies of their inhabitants, who make a considerable number of the soldiery, many of whom have been in foreign service. the castellan commandeth them, sees their musters, and that they be provided with arms and in a posture of defence; and under the castellan is a captain, who hath the military charge next under him. the main body of the town hath somewhat of a wall about it, but the suburbs and other islands are encircled with the waters, with bridges for communication. the castle is of indifferent strength, and notably provided of arms and ammunition, as is before remembered, which adds to the strength and safety as well as command of the city. they have not a formed garrison in the town; but divers companies of the king's guards, when the court is there, and sometimes of other regiments of the army, are quartered there, as occasions do require. the castle commands a good part of the town, and may be as a citadel upon any emergent business; and in case of any troubles at sea, the ships of war lie here in readiness forthwith to be manned, are provided with ammunition, provisions, and all things necessary for the defence and safeguard of this port and city from any attempts which may by sea be made against it. whitelocke made up his despatches for england, and now dated his second letters from stockholm, attending for a wind. _may , ._ _the lord's day._--whitelocke, according to his custom, had a good sermon in his lodging preached by one of his chaplains in the morning, and another good sermon preached there in the afternoon by mr. biger, a scotch minister, and chaplain to sir george fleetwood, then with him. in this city whitelocke observed the inhabitants very orderly to frequent their parish churches, and not so much profanation of this day in this place as he had seen at upsal, and other places in the country. _may , ._ [sn: sir g. fleetwood returns to the king's coronation at upsal.] whitelocke with longing desires attended the coming about of the wind for his voyage; but he must stay god's time, which is always best. he could not persuade sir george fleetwood to stay longer with him. he thought it necessary for him to go to upsal, to be present at the king's coronation; and at his request whitelocke sent by him to wrangel this letter:-- "_a son excellence le feld-maréchal wrangel à upsale._ "monsieur, "je n'ai pu retenir plus longtemps le général major fleetwood avec moi, son désir le portait si fort de se trouver à upsale, au couronnement, de crainte qu'il ne semblerait négligent, et manquer à son devoir envers son altesse royale; mais la raison de ce qu'il a présenté ma requête à votre excellence est qu'il vous plaise moyenner envers son altesse royale, afin qu'il retourne à stockholm; et que je puisse jouir de sa compagnie jusqu'à mon départ, qui en apparence sera différé plus longtemps que je ne le souhaiterais, à raison de la contrariété des vents. "je supplie votre excellence de me faire la faveur de baiser en mon nom les mains de sa majesté et de son altesse royale, et d'accepter, pour tant de faveurs que votre excellence m'a faites, tant à upsale qu'en ce lieu, les actions de grâce de celui qui est, "monsieur, à votre excellence "très-humble serviteur, "b. whitelocke. "_stockholm, may , ._" berkman went from hence th may at night, and returned this morning hither, and brought to whitelocke this letter:-- [sn: lagerfeldt's letter on the swedish prizes.] "_illustrissimo domino domino bulstrode whitelocke, extraordinario reipublicæ angliæ in sueciam legato, officiocissimè._ "illustrissime et excellentissime domine legate, "quanquam valde dubitem, an excellentiam vestram hæ litteræ in sueciam inveniant, nolui tamen, accepta hac occasione, vel meo officio deesse, vel refragari quorundam suecorum petitioni, nam cum naves duæ suecicæ, quarum naucleri bonders et sibrand follis vocantur, nuper ceptæ et in angliam delatæ sint, sperant fore, ut, per hanc meam intercessionem, cum primis autem per benevolam excellentiæ vestræ commendationem, quantocius dimittantur. nisi igitur mihi satis perspecta esset excellentiæ vestræ integritas, pluribus ab ea contenderem, ut dictarum aliarumque detentarum in anglia suecicarum navium liberationem, atque per se æquam ac amicitiæ foederique mutuo conformem sibi haberet commendatam; sufficit nunc saltem indicâsse excellentiæ vestræ, quippe cui nihil jucundius esse scio, quam ut amicæ confoederatæque gentes, sancta fidei justitiæque observantia, inter se strictius colligentur. de cætero excellentiæ vestræ felicem in patriam reditum exopto, ut me nostrumque barkmannum officiose commendo. dabam upsaliæ, maii, anno . "excellentiæ vestræ "ad quævis officia paratissimus, "israel lagerfeldt." in the evening whitelocke walked abroad to take the air, the time of his stay here being very tedious to him, attending for a good wind, that he might proceed in his longed-for return to his native country and relations; but he submitted to the good pleasure of god, who orders all times and seasons and all things for the best. at night the wind came about a little towards the east, favouring his voyage. _may , ._ [sn: preparations for departure.] the wind continued this morning, as it was last night, easterly, but not sufficing for whitelocke to go on his voyage. the vice-admiral clerke coming to whitelocke, he advised with him touching his voyage, and asked him if he thought the 'amarantha' might with this wind be gotten to the dollars. he answered that there could be no assurance thereof, but that possibly it might be so; whereupon whitelocke replied, that he had a great desire to go down himself to the dollars, before the news came of the 'amarantha's' arrival there, because the wind might come good, and within six hours carry them out to the open sea, which, if neglected, might retard their voyage fifteen days or more. clerke said that if whitelocke desired to do so, that he would not advise him to the contrary, but he believed that this might expedite his voyage; only he said that whitelocke must be content to lie on board the ship till the wind should come fair, because there was no accommodation to be had for him and his company at the dollars. whitelocke said he should be well contented to lie on ship-board, and prayed clerke to cause boats to be provided for his passage to the dollars the next day, and ordered his officers and servants to prepare all things in readiness for his departure accordingly. wrangel came back this night from upsal, and several other persons, though very late, having staid the solemnity of the queen's resignation and the coronation of the new king, which they related to whitelocke to be done this day, and in this manner and solemnity. [sn: relation of the ceremony of the queen's resignation.] about nine o'clock this morning the queen, being attired in her royal apparel and robes of purple velvet, with her crown upon her head, and attended by all her officers and servants, came into the room prepared for that occasion, where was set a table with a rich carpet, and five great cushions laid upon it. most of the grandees and officers were present. upon one of the cushions was laid the sword of state; upon the second cushion was laid the sceptre; upon the third cushion was laid the ball; and upon the fourth cushion were laid the keys. the queen being come into the room, after a little pause made a short speech to the company, to this effect:-- "my lords and gentlemen, "you have before this time been acquainted with my resolution to resign the crown and government of this kingdom into the hands of my most dear cousin the prince, here present with me, upon my earnest request to the ricksdag, now convened. after long debates and much solicitation to dissuade me from it, yet at length, though unwillingly, they have assented to this my resolution; and i am now come to put the same in execution before all these honourable witnesses here present; and to you, my most dear cousin, i do heartily wish all happiness and good success in the management of the public affairs of this kingdom." having thus spoken, the queen desired that some of them would take the crown from off her head, but none would do it; she then called to grave tott and the baron steinberg, expressly commanding them to do it, but they refused, till again earnestly commanded by her; they then took the crown from off her majesty's head, and laid it down upon the fifth cushion on the table. after that was done, some others, by her command, took off the royal robes with which she was clothed and laid them down upon the table. then the queen, having thus divested herself of these ensigns of royalty and resigned her crown, being now in her private habit, made courtesy to the prince and to the rest of the company, and retired into her own chamber,--an act of a strange constancy and fixedness of resolution, going through with this great work of her own abdication without the least outward show of reluctancy for what she had done, but with the same behaviour and confidence as at all other times in her particular and private affairs.[ ] for this act of the queen's resignation they had no precedent; for the solemnity of the king's coronation they had many; and the same is at large, with all the circumstances and ceremonies thereof, set down by one of their authors, wexionius (epit. descriptionis sueciæ, lib. v. c. ), from which the ceremonies of this coronation were not much different, and thus shortly related unto whitelocke. [sn: ceremony of the king's coronation.] after the queen was withdrawn to her private chamber, the ricks-officers and senators humbly desired the prince that he would be pleased to walk to the cathedral church, where the archbishop and other prelates were ready to attend his royal highness, and to perform the solemnities of his coronation. the whole company went thither in this order. the officers and servants of the court went first in a very great number, together with many officers of the army and other gentlemen. after them came the nobility, the gentlemen, barons, and earls, members of the ricksdag; then followed the ricks-senators, two and two, in rank. after them came the five ricks-officers: first, the ricks-schatzmaster, or high treasurer, who carried the keys; next to him, the ricks-chancellor, who carried the globe; after him came the ricks-admiral, who carried the sceptre; then one in the place of the feldherr, or general, who carried the sword; and lastly the ricks-droitset, or chief justice, who carried the crown. after the chief justice came the king himself, in his ordinary habit, with a huge troop following him, and the windows and streets crowded with multitudes of people. the guards and soldiers stood in their arms as the company passed by. being thus come to the cathedral, at the door stood the archbishop with a horn of oil in his hand, accompanied with other bishops, superintendents, and many clergymen. he received the prince at the church door, and conducted him up to the high altar, where they had prayers, and then the archbishop anointed the prince with the oil. they put upon him the royal apparel, put the crown upon his head, the sceptre in his right hand, and the ball into his left hand, and so he was invested into the royal dignity, and declared, with all his titles, king of swedes, goths, and vandals, etc.; drums, trumpets, and loud acclamations of the people adding to the proclaiming of their new king. not many days past they laboured to hinder the doing of it; now they shout for joy that it is done. thus are the minds and practice of the multitude, whom nothing pleaseth long,--nothing more than novelty. the ceremonies being performed at the cathedral, the new king, with all his new subjects and servants, returned from thence into the castle in the same order as he came hither. by the way he was saluted with the loud acclamations of the people, "god save the king!" thus coming to his court as he entered it, the abdicated queen looks out of her window, and with a cheerful countenance and voice heard by the company she wished her cousin joy of his crown and government. the king retires for a while to his private chamber, then is called forth to a sumptuous feast, where most of the nobility and senators did attend upon him and rejoice with him, and afterwards did swear fealty, homage, and allegiance to him. but this relation was not so pleasing to whitelocke as the thoughts of his departure from this place, and his longing to proceed in his voyage homewards. _may , ._ [sn: whitelocke takes boat and leaves the shore;] the 'swart hundt' set sail this morning with whitelocke's goods and copper, taylor commanding her, and swedes mariners in her; the wind was come about indifferent good, for his and for his master's voyage. wrangel and clerke affording whitelocke their company at dinner, he advised with them what time of the day would be best for him to go from hence. clerke said that the boats would be ready after dinner to transport him from hence to the dollars, whither he hoped that by this time the 'amarantha' might be come. he and wrangel advised whitelocke not to go on board the boats till six or seven o'clock in the evening, to avoid the heat of the day, and to enjoy the benefit of the cool of the night, which was better to be endured than the extremity of the heat of the day, especially upon the water; and the heat some affirmed to be at this time as violent in this country as it is in spain or italy. whitelocke found it now as much hotter than england as it is colder in the winter. about seven o'clock in the evening whitelocke left his lodging, where they made him pay as an ambassador extraordinary. for the use of the house, only for eleven days, they made him pay a hundred and sixty rix-dollars; for his victuals, but one meal a day, without any dainties, they exacted above a thousand rix-dollars. such is their unconscionable exaction upon strangers. it was time to leave them, and whitelocke being called by wrangel and clerke, he went to prayers with his company, recommending themselves to the protection and blessing of god; and presently after prayers he and all his people went to the water-side, multitudes by the way saluting him with respect as he passed by, and crowding to see him take boat. he went into a galley of the queen's attending for him. most of his gentlemen and clerke were with him in the galley; the rest of his company went in a great boat provided for them. this galley had two masts bearing the queen's colours in silk. in the hinder part of it was a room with a table and benches round about it, the table covered with crimson velvet, the benches with red cloth, and tapestry upon the floor. the room held about ten persons; the outward room about twelve men, besides the watermen for sixteen oars. at her head she carried two small pieces of ordnance, which they fired at loosing from the harbour, and the ships of war fired as they passed by. they went on in a great deep water, sometimes very broad, sometimes more narrow, on the sides whereof were huge rocks, and here and there little trees growing out of the clefts of them, with small heaps of earth lying on them, but they increase not much in that soil. many rocks all along on the shores, and islands of rocks, with the smell of the fir-trees on them, was a variety for strangers; and the water being calm, they made use only of their oars. the trumpets sounding where the rocks were most uneven and made concavities, gave much delight by the resounding of seven or eight echoes to one sound. yet the multitudes of craggy rocks of vast greatness and huge tallness, with their uneven heads and ragged sides, filling all the shores and making many islands, and those causing no small danger in the passage, appeared, especially at first and to the younger seamen, very dreadful and amazing; but after a little acquaintance with them, and constant being in their company, and the seamen knowing the passage, caused the less fear, and the sevenfold answering echoes, as if they had been so many trumpets, gave delight to the hearers, with some admiration of that multiplying sound. but their cheerfulness was increased by meeting with a boat about two swedish miles from stockholm, whose men informed whitelocke that the 'amarantha' was that day come into the dollars, which good news added hopes and spirit to the company of advancing in their voyage towards their longed-for country; and the night seemed the less tedious by discoursing of this providence, that, the same day that whitelocke came away, his ship should fall down to be ready to meet him, and not sooner, and whereof he knew nothing beforehand. clerke informed whitelocke of the places by which they passed, and the condition of the country. they came into a very narrow way and straits, about a bow-shot in length, where a great vessel could not pass, both for want of breadth and depth of water, the greater boat with whitelocke striking the sands as she passed over. this way was to get into the road and channel for the ships from stockholm to the dollars, which is near twenty swedish miles for the ships to go about. from this strait they came again into deep water, environed as before with rocks, and full of islands. [sn: and reaches his ship at the dollars.] when they were within a mile of the dollars, the wind came about to east and north-east, very fair and good to carry them out to sea, whereas before it was flat against them. hereupon whitelocke took occasion, the wind being now good, to order his galley to make way forthright to the 'amarantha' without going on shore at all, which was done, although it seemed long at the latter end of the way, the company weary, and the watermen tired with rowing, though they did not at all row with that nimbleness and mettle as the english use to do. when whitelocke departed from stockholm the wind was contrary to him; after he was certified by the boat which he met that the 'amarantha' was in the dollars, the wind suddenly changed and was fair for him, and after this providence they came in good time to the ship, the tedious passage of the night being over, wherein whitelocke slept upon the boards and in the open air,--hardship enough for one of his age and condition, but god was his protection. footnotes: [ ] [this entry is evidently a repetition of the conversation reported at length on the th of april. the story here related by m. woolfeldt is his own.] [ ] "we christina, by the grace of god queen of swedes, goths, and vandals, etc., do make known and testify, that, whereas it is the common and mutual interest of us and our kingdom, as also of oliver, lord protector of the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland, and the dominions thereof, our good friend, and of the said commonwealth, that the ancient friendship and alliance which hath always been between this kingdom and those nations be conserved and increased; and especially that the freedom of commerce and navigation do continue straitly conformed and uninterrupted; and for that cause the foresaid lord protector and commonwealth have been pleased to send their extraordinary ambassador unto us: therefore we have commanded, and do by these presents, in the best form, command and commit unto the most illustrious our sincerely faithful and beloved the lord axel oxenstiern, chancellor and senator of us and the kingdom of sweden, etc., and also to lord eric oxenstiern of axel, likewise a senator of us and of the kingdom of sweden, etc., that they do treat, agree, and conclude with the before-named ambassador and plenipotentiary about the making of a league concerning the foresaid matters and other things thereunto pertaining. whatsoever therefore our said plenipotentiary commissioners shall act, conclude, and appoint with the before-named ambassador, we shall hold the same ratified and confirmed by force of these presents; in witness and strengthening whereof, we have commanded these presents, subscribed with our hand, to be corroborated with our great seal of the kingdom. given in our castle of upsal, the fourteenth day of march, in the year one thousand six hundred fifty and four. christina." [ ] [no sooner had cromwell assumed the protectorate than his foreign policy took a more definite shape, and was steadily directed to two great objects--peace with holland, and the union of the protestant states. the conclusion of the dutch peace was however not an easy matter. cromwell himself had declared in favour of the daring project of a union of the two republics, and the dutch alliance was hated by many of his stoutest military supporters. moreover he required of the dutch, as a condition _sine quâ non_, that they should engage never to make the young prince of orange or his descendants their stadtholder, or to give him the command of their forces. this was the secret article against which the states general most vehemently protested, and cromwell was at length obliged to content himself with an engagement of the province of holland to exclude the house of orange. even this pretension was strongly opposed by de witt, but cromwell insisted. the public treaty of peace was signed on the th of april, ; but it was not until the th of june following that the secret article was ratified. the king of denmark, the swiss protestant cantons, the hanseatic towns, and some of the protestant princes of north germany were included in the treaty, which formed the complement of the negotiation on which whitelocke was engaged in sweden.--m. guizot, _histoire de la république d'angleterre_, vol. ii. p. .] [ ] "we, christina, by the grace of god queen of the swedes, goths, and vandals, etc., do make known and testify that whereas the endeavours of the illustrious and generous, of us sincerely beloved, the lord bulstrode whitelocke, extraordinary ambassador, are most grateful to us, which he hath negotiated for the common good of our kingdom and his commonwealth, for the making of a league of stricter friendship between both parties: therefore, and to the end it may appear as a testimony of our goodwill and grateful memory on this behalf, we have thereupon granted and assigned, and by these our letters do grant and assign to the said lord ambassador two hundred pound of copper, commonly called ship-pounds; the which two hundred pounds of copper our treasurers and officers of our chamber of accounts are obliged, without delay, to deliver into the hands of the before-mentioned ambassador. in greater testimony whereof we have commanded these presents, subscribed with our hand, to be confirmed by our seal. given in our castle of upsal, the rd day of may, in the year . christina." [ ] "i, the subscribed bulstrode whitelocke, constable of the castle of windsor, and one of the keepers of the great seal of the commonwealth of england, commissioner, procurator, deputy, and extraordinary ambassador of the most serene and most high lord oliver, lord protector of the commonwealth of england, scotland, and ireland, and the dominions thereof and the said commonwealth, do make known and testify, that whereas by the treaty of alliance between the said most serene and my most high lord oliver, lord protector, and the most serene and most potent prince and lady the lady christina, by the grace of god queen of the swedes, goths, and vandals, etc., a firm peace and friendship is established: and i have judged it chiefly consonant thereunto to find out means to remove certain grievances of the people and citizens of either state, and to take away all grounds and occasions thereof which may arise in time to come. therefore, upon some differences moved, i have agreed with the most illustrious and most excellent lords, plenipotentiary commissioners and senators of her said royal majesty and of sweden, the lord axel oxenstiern, chancellor of the kingdom, etc., and the lord eric oxenstiern, son of axel, president of the general college of trade, etc., in manner as by the following articles is expressed and explained. "first, whereas a certain company of english exercising merchandise in guinea have complained of one henry carelove, who, being governor of the swedish company in that country, did take away from the english certain places inhabited by them, and did other injuries to them; but the said swedish company not only took upon them to prove that the before-named governor did commit no fault, but likewise made complaint of grievances against the officers of the said english company; but these particular differences of merchants at this time could not for certain reasons be wholly determined, and therefore it seemed most counselable to both parties that in a friendly way, without any indirect courses, they may be composed by certain commissioners on both sides. in the meantime it is agreed that the differing hereof shall be to the prejudice of none of either part, so that neither the fellows or officers of the said companies nor any subjects or citizens of either state shall offer any injury or molestation to one another in guinea, or in the free commerce or travelling there; but, as before is expressed, the determination of the differences being referred by both sides to the superiors, they may live friendly among themselves, and treat one another with that goodwill which is consonant to the league concluded between them. the same also shall be observed in america between the colonies of new sweden and of the english, that they do embrace a sincere friendship, and that either party do abstain from all troubles and injuries to the other, but chiefly that they do endeavour their mutual preservation until there be a clear agreement before the deputed commissioners on both sides about the limits of the colonies, and other rules of friendship that shall be requisite, together with other affairs of particular persons. which matters, that they may be enjoined to all and singular the subjects and citizens of either state, and may be observed by them, i have fully taken upon me by these presents, by virtue of my commission, and do confirm by subscription of my hand, and by my seal." [ ] [whitelocke, in his zeal to exhort the heir-apparent to the service of god and the observance of the lord's day, appears to have appreciated very imperfectly the extraordinary character and the political capacity of the prince who paid him so signal a mark of deference. yet in the romantic and chivalrous annals of the house of vasa, scarcely any reign is more remarkable than that of the sovereign to whom christina ceded the throne. in the course of the ensuing five years charles gustavus, at the head of a chosen band of swedish veterans, conquered prussia, and compelled the great elector to acknowledge himself to be a swedish vassal; invaded poland, and commenced the partition of that republic; allied himself to rakoczy, to the terror of the house of austria, and attacked denmark with such success that he crossed the little belt on the ice and laid siege to copenhagen, which was only saved by the mediation of the maritime powers. such was the splendid career of charles gustavus between the period of his accession to the throne and the year , when he died, not having completed his thirty-eighth year. more than any of his predecessors or of his successors on the swedish throne, he may be said to have held the empire of the north; and the favour here shown to whitelocke indicates the importance attached by the swedish prince to secure at least the goodwill of cromwell during the prosecution of these extraordinary enterprises.] [ ] [oxenstiern died about three months afterwards.] [ ] [it would be idle to speculate on the political motives which may have combined with other reasons to induce christina of sweden to conceive and execute this extraordinary design. other sovereigns have abdicated from the lassitude of age or the burden of unpopularity, or the desire of ensuring the succession to their offspring; but the resignation of a queen in her twenty-ninth year, surrounded by able ministers and a loyal people, and who had reigned with splendour and success, is an event without a parallel in history. the explanation of it is to be found in the eccentricity, the levity, the feverish curiosity, and the indomitable love of independence and singularity which are to be traced in every part of the queen's character. she was a woman of powerful but ill-regulated mind, capable at one time of sharing in the speculations of descartes or of applauding the exhortations of whitelocke,--at another, of bowing to the spiritual bondage of rome, and even of committing the brutal murder of monaldeschi. the character of cromwell pleased her by its adventurous exploits and its arbitrary tendency, and her reception of the english embassy was as much the result of personal predilection as of policy. whitelocke amused her by his somewhat pedantic erudition, and flattered her vanity, but he seems scarcely to have divined the extraordinary variations of her character.] june. _june , ._ [sn: whitelocke embarks in the amarantha, and sails.] having been part of yesterday and all the last night upon the water, this morning, about seven o'clock, whitelocke and all his company came to the dollars, and, without setting foot on shore, they went on board the ship 'amarantha,' lying there to expect them. and although this was not usual, but passengers generally stay some time at this place till their ships be ready, and to make provisions for their voyage, and spend some money at the cabaret here; yet whitelocke seeing the wind fair, and having all his company together in the boats, was unwilling to let them be scattered by going on shore, which might be troublesome and retard his voyage by getting them all together again. for these reasons he commanded all his people to go forthwith aboard the ship, as he himself did, at which vice-admiral clerke wondered, and said he had not seen the same done before. this ship, the 'amarantha,' had never yet been at sea, and therefore the more dangerous to adventure in her first voyage; but she was well built, a fair ship, of a good burden, and had mounted in her forty pieces of brass cannon, two of them demy cannon, and she was well manned and of good force and strength for war; she was a good sailer, and would turn and tack about well; she held a hundred persons of whitelocke's followers and most of his baggage, besides her own mariners, about two hundred. the cabins wherein whitelocke was were of a handsome make; the breadth of the ship was the length of his bed-cabin, and it was six or seven paces broad, and high enough for the tallest man; it was hung with red cloth, the furniture of the bed was rich cloth of gold and silver; on the table was a rich carpet, and all over it a canopy with broad fringes of silk and gold and silver. within the bed-cabin was another room for him to retire into, with a table and benches covered with red cloth. all the gentlemen had accommodations as the ship could afford. being all settled in the ship, they were fain to stay for the ship-boat which the captain had sent for water; and as soon as it was returned, about ten o'clock in the morning, they weighed anchor and put the ship under sail, recommending themselves to the mercy and protection of him who rules upon the waters as well as on dry land, and of whose goodness they had so great experience. they sailed by the place called the scares, that is, the isles of rocks, which are there in the water and on both sides of the shore, of a strange cragginess, largeness, and number; those in the sea are full of danger, and often afford but a very strait passage for the ships to go between them, and no other course is to avoid them. from hence the sea begins to widen herself towards the furthest point of land, which they call the lands-ort, answerable to our english point of land called the land's end in cornwall. the lands-ort is eight swedish leagues from the dollars, and hither they reached by the evening, the wind being east and south-east all this day. _june , ._ [sn: the voyage.] about eleven o'clock the last night the wind came about more to the south, yet whitelocke advanced in his course and gained some way, but not much, the wind being almost against him; and so it continued in this morning, when there appeared a chain of rocks advancing themselves more than a swedish mile into the sea, and not far from the isle of oeland, to which rocks it is not good to approach too near. they could not maintain their course but to very small advantage, and by veering up and down to gain a little of the wind, and in this manner they spent this whole day: the wind continuing at south-south-east, they did not advance much all this day, only kept what they had gained before, and held plying up and down in that dangerous sea; their support was that this was the good pleasure of their god, whose will the wind and waters do obey. though the weather was not foul, yet it was thick with fog which arose at the foot of the horizon, and the mariners said this weather was ordinary in these seas, but very dangerous. in the evening some of the company made them pastime to divert the tediousness of the way and weather. _june , ._ [sn: the island of gothland.] about midnight the wind came about somewhat fairer than before, and whitelocke gained a little in his course. at sunrising he discovered the isle of gothland, eight leagues distant to the east from the isle of oeland; afterwards the wind returned to the same quarter wherein it was yesterday. the isle of oeland is near the continent, extending itself in length by the shore eighteen swedish miles, but hath not in breadth in any place above two swedish miles. this is the place where the prince of sweden, now king, used to make his residence, in a fair castle built of stone of this island, not inferior to marble,--these stones are in great request for pavements, pillars, and other uses and ornaments in building. the pillars of the king's chapel at stockholm, great and high, well polished and of divers colours, were brought from this island, and they have many of these stones in the buildings of the great lords. this island is a place of the most field-pleasure of any in this country, being open and stored with red and fallow deer, with hares and conies, and with partridges, which are scarce in other parts; but here the game is preserved for the prince's pleasure. the isle of gothland is about fourteen swedish miles in length, and five in breadth. it anciently belonged to the swedes till the danes took it from them, and kept the possession of it till the late wars between those two crowns, when the swedes recovered it from the dane; and by the peace after that war the treaty left it to the swede, and allowed for it the isle of bornholm to the dane, being nearer his dominions. they report that heretofore gothland (belonging to the goths, from whom it hath the name) was famous for the traffic of all these quarters, and had in it a large town called wisby, where formerly certain laws were instituted touching the sea, which are observed to this day. but lübeck, and other towns on that side, having got the trade from hence, and the sea by inundations having much diminished this isle, both it and the town are become but of small consideration. the wind was little and very variable, and this day was a calm, so that they could advance very little in their voyage. in the evening the wind grew fresh, and increased till three o'clock the next morning, so that they made good way in their course; but these deep seas began to rise, and the ship to roll and toss so much, that some of whitelocke's people, sensible of it and of the increasing of the wind and waves, and of the mariners' labour and disorder, began to be afraid and sick. but whitelocke cherished and comforted them the best he could, and gave order for attendance upon them, and that they should want nothing which the ship could afford; the which was the more in his power, the command of it being wholly left to him by the queen; and by his kindness, and ceasing of the storm, they began to recover their courage, the wind changed, and it grew more calm after the ruffling. _june , ._ [sn: the voyage.--bornholm.] _the lord's day._--still whitelocke was toiling on the baltic sea. after three o'clock in the morning he advanced a good way in his course; but about ten o'clock they discovered land, which was the isle of bornholm, distant from the point of south of oeland eighteen german leagues. it seemeth a plain and flat ground, about eight swedish miles in length, and about five in breadth; this isle is fruitful and well peopled, abounding in pastures, so that it yields a good revenue in butter. many witches are affirmed to be in this isle, and no place in this sea hath more shipwrecks than upon bornholm. some give the reason thereof from the strait pass between this isle and the continent; yet is the coast clean and without rocks, and hath good roads; others attribute the cause of these shipwrecks to the great and dangerous sands about this and the other isles of this sea, which (especially about this isle of bornholm) do lie out far and shallow in the sea, on which many ships have been struck and lost; and here whitelocke's ship was in some peril, but it pleased god still to preserve him. he floated in sight of this island almost all this day, the wind veering into most points of the compass, and he was turned back from his course and lost more than he gained of his way. about nine o'clock in the morning the ship's company, having a minister on board with them, were at their exercises of devotion, which they have every morning, beginning with singing a psalm, as we do; then the minister prays, but not long, and the conclusion is to sing about two verses of another psalm, and so they part; except on the lord's day, as this was, their chaplain preached a short sermon in the morning in swedish, but none in the afternoon. whitelocke for his own company had the usual exercises of praying and preaching by his chaplain mr. de la marche, mr. ingelo being sick. towards the evening the wind began to be fresh again; they kept their course near bornholm, and might discern the castle. after whitelocke was gone to rest, vice-admiral clerke, who was on board with him, followed a ship to inquire if she heard any news of a swedish ship laden with salt from portugal; at which some of whitelocke's company taking offence, the vice-admiral desisted; but by this deviation, the 'amarantha' (which is not fleet of sail) lost three leagues, which she was cast back in her course, and was brought in great danger by sailing too near the shore; but the lord guided them. _june , ._ [sn: meet an english ship.] in the morning whitelocke was out of sight of bornholm, and pursued his course, the wind blowing a little in a good quarter. about nine o'clock they descried some ships, of which one seemed to be a great one; and coming nearer, they perceived an english ship to be with them. the 'amarantha' fired a gun to warn them to strike sail, she carrying the flag in her maintop, and being a man-of-war of sweden. the english captain did not obey, and clerke commanded to shoot again at him; but whitelocke ordered clerke first to send his boat with some of whitelocke's servants, to advertise the english captain that whitelocke was in the swedish ship. they coming on board found the captain in choler, preparing to fight with the swede, denying their sovereignty on these seas; but being informed by his countrymen that the english ambassador was on board the swedish ship, he presently, and mr. fisher, a merchant, with him, came to whitelocke, rejoicing to see him, and said that if he had not been there the swedish vice-admiral should have had hot work; but now he struck sail to the ambassador, whom he acquainted that all was well in england; that he had brought in his ship the commissioners to agree the differences between our commonwealth and denmark, who were now at copenhagen; and that when they passed the sound, the king of denmark's officers were very friendly to them. he told whitelocke also that two english frigates, sent by the protector for whitelocke's transportation, were arrived at hamburg, and waited for whitelocke there; after giving him some wine, and discourse, whitelocke dismissed this captain morgan to proceed in his voyage to danzic, whither he was bound. at his parting all were friends, and clerke gave him two guns, after the swedish custom, but morgan answered him with seven pieces of ordnance; then clerke gave him two more guns, to which morgan gave two also, and a third a little while after. the 'amarantha' having loitered by reason of the calm, which continued till the evening, they were most part of this day within sight of the isle of rügen, near the coast of pomerland, and part of that duchy which fell in partage to one of the duke's sons, who there kept his court in a fair castle, whereof somewhat yet remains. the island appears high to those that sail by it, and hath in length about eight german miles, and about five in breadth; the king gustavus took it, and it hath since continued in the possession of the swedes, and was confirmed to them by the late treaty of munster; the coast is full of white sands, and dangerous to those who are not well acquainted with the passages, which hereabout are strait, and a bank of sand comes far out into the sea, on which whitelocke was in great peril, within four-fathom water in the night; but they were glad to veer back again and tack about to escape the danger. the wind blew fresh from the north-east, by which he continued his course till about midnight; when there came a hideous storm of wind, thunder, rain, and lightning, which caused them to furl their sails, and lasted about three hours; but the waves continued very high above twelve hours together afterwards, it being the nature of this sea when it is once stirred, that by reason of the great depth it will not be still again for many hours after. some of whitelocke's company were much affrighted with this tempest, and not without cause; but it pleased god to cease the storm, and give fair weather, and thereby more cause to remember the experiences they have had of his divine goodness throughout their whole voyage. _june , ._ [sn: the coast of pomerania.] in the morning; the wind continued fair, and they made good way till towards eight o'clock, when it grew calm till about seven o'clock in the evening. all this day they were upon the coast of pomerland. one of the mariners, from the top-gallant, espying land and a town, informed them that it was wismar; but coming nearer to the shore, they found it to be rostock, eight leagues further from lübeck than wismar is. both these towns are subject to the crown of sweden, port towns, and of good trade; rostock more famous to the high dutch for their exceeding strong and thick beer. in the evening the wind blew fair north-west, but the sky grew thick, and the night coming on, they, for fear of falling upon the coast, tacked off again to sea, and out of their course. about eleven o'clock at night the storm began much more violent than the night before, continuing about six hours, to the imminent danger of the ship to be overset and foundered in the sea, but still god preserved them. about midnight was a horrible noise, the thunder fierce and strangely loud, the sky all in flames with the wonderful lightnings; and though it be frequent to meet with great tempests of thunder and lightnings upon this sea, and much more dreadful than those in england, yet now the officers and mariners of the ship affirmed that they never saw the like to this tempest, and that they were almost blind with the shining and flashes of this lightning. they saw also on the land houses burning, set on fire by the lightning, any flame whereof fastening upon the combustible matter of the ship the same had instantly been fired and all within her inevitably had perished. but still god was their defence and deliverer. the tempest was so outrageous that they were forced to take down their sails and let fall their anchors. here they found the difference between sweden and this country: there, at midnight, one might plainly read without a candle; here, though nearer the summer solstice and the days at longest, they found at least four hours of dark night, as seeming near the winter. _june , ._ [sn: arrive at lübeck.] the tempest began to cease about five o'clock in the morning, and it grew fair weather, the wind coming good for them to continue and finish their voyage. thus god preserved them from the danger of the last night as of many times before, the which whitelocke held himself obliged more largely to describe as so many monuments, to him and his company, of the goodness of god towards them, and to preserve the memory thereof as arguments to him and his, wholly to depend upon that god of whom they have had so much experience. the wind continued fair, and they sailed all along in the sight of land, drawing nearer and nearer to it, which was pleasant to those who had been in such storms, and were not a little longing to be at their native home. they came about ten o'clock in the morning to the road at lübeck, and no sooner was the ship settled there but the wind ceased and blew not at all, but it became a great calm; wherein also the providence and goodness of god was seen, that had they not come to an anchor at this very moment, they must have been still roaming on the sea till the wind had come about again for them, and perhaps might have been kept out at sea many days longer. they were all filled with joy, having passed one half of their voyage, and seeing the place of their first descent on land. the 'amarantha,' having let fall her anchors, fired two guns, and a ship of the duke of courland's, in the road, answered them with three. this road is a gulf between two arms of land, at the first entrance from one another about a league; but it becomes more narrow as one approacheth nearer to the mouth of the river, which is called trave, and divides the two duchies of mecklenburg and holstein. this is the road or haven belonging to the town of lübeck, and is of good defence and safety to secure the riding of ships, and of conveniency for the trade of that town into the baltic sea. after this perilous voyage of eight days' sailing on the angry baltic seas,--escaping the dismal, infinite, vast, craggy rocks, seen and unseen, and the covered sands and dangerous coasts, in the highest storms,--it pleased him who giveth bounds to the deep waters and stilleth the waves thereof, to conduct whitelocke and all his people in safety to this haven. they were not negligent to prepare for their going on shore, in order whereunto whitelocke sent colonel potley and some of his servants to land, to provide horses for his coach, and waggons for his train and baggage; purposing to go that night to lübeck, being but two german leagues from tremon, and the days now at longest. potley, according to order, gave notice to the governor of tremon of whitelocke's coming on shore in the territories of his masters, the lords of lübeck, and provided boats, horses, waggons, and all things necessary, with diligence and dexterity. whilst this was doing, whitelocke calls his company together into his cabin, where they gave thanks to god for their safe arrival in this place, and humbly prayed for the continuance of his blessing and presence with them, the rest of their journey yet to come. after dinner, whitelocke sent for vice-admiral clerke and captain sinclair into his cabin, where he gave them thanks for the care and pains they had taken for him and his company, and for their particular respects to himself and observance of his desires; whereof he said he would by letters acquaint his majesty of sweden, and report to the protector their respects to him. he desired them to accept a small testimony of his thankfulness for their civilities. he gave the vice-admiral sixty dollars, to distribute to the mariners, and sixty dollars more to the officers of the ship,--that is, the master and his mate, the boatswain, the constable (so they call the master gunner), the gunner's mate, and the rest. to captain sinclair he gave eighty ducats, and to the vice-admiral one hundred ducats, which were the best compliments, and thankfully accepted by them; and whitelocke was the more liberal in these rewards, being to strangers, and for the honour of his nation. the boats being gone, with the coaches, baggage, and most of the people, and the rest not unwilling to be on shore, whitelocke, with most of his gentlemen, went in one of the ship-boats; the vice-admiral bare him company, and did him the honour to steer the boat himself; the rest of the company went in the other ship-boat. after whitelocke was gone off the length of two or three boats, and whilst the other boat lay by the side of the ship, they fired forty pieces of ordnance, which, being so very near, did, with the wind, or fear of the cannon, strike down some that were in the boat, who were more than frighted, insomuch that one of them, after he came to lübeck, continued very ill with swooning fits; but by the care of doctor whistler and good cordials, through the blessing of god, he recovered, and was well again. they went about half a league by water from the ship to the mouth of the river, where there is a little fort with some great guns mounted, and without that are small towers for lights to direct the seamen, and a village called tremon, where they landed, all belonging to the city of lübeck. _mon_, in high dutch, signifies a mouth, and _tre_ is the name of the river; so tremon is the mouth of the river tre. at their landing stood, ready to receive them, a tall old man, with a long, white, venerable beard; he wore a broad belt, with a long basket-hilted sword; he was a colonel, and governor of that fort. he spake to whitelocke in high dutch, which potley interpreted to this effect:-- "my lord ambassador, "in the name of my masters, the lords of lübeck, i bid your excellence welcome on shore and to this place." whitelocke answered him as shortly:-- "noble colonel, "i heartily thank you for your civility, whereof i hope ere long to have the opportunity to acquaint your masters the lords of lübeck." as whitelocke passed by they fired three guns from the fort. the colonel conducted whitelocke to his house, near the landing-place, multitudes of people flocking together. the house was not stately, nor very convenient. there they were entertained with great store of very strong beer, which they call _mum_; and the colonel was exceeding free to call for large flagons of it for whitelocke and for all his people; which whitelocke apprehending to have been the generosity of the governor, yet fearing some disorder by it among the inferior sort, and being whispered by colonel potley that the governor expected to be paid for his drink, which he usually sold to the passengers, whitelocke ordered the reckoning to be paid, and hasted from this honourable alehouse to his coach. it was about four o'clock in the afternoon when whitelocke went from tremon, from whence to lübeck is two dutch miles, that is, eight of our english miles. and coming with such a train, and to pass the usual ceremony in such cases to the lords of lübeck, whitelocke sent mr. berkman and one of his servants before, to salute the lords of lübeck in the name of the protector, as friends to the commonwealth of england, and to advertise them, that the english ambassador having occasions to pass through this city, and to be there this day, he thought it requisite to give them notice of it. in the midway between tremon and lübeck they came to a ferry over the trave; the boat was large enough to carry at once two coaches and many horses. at each end of the ferryboat such artificial work is made with planks that it serves both at the coming in and going out of the boat, meeting with the planks on each side of the shore. by the weight of coach, horses, waggons, cattle, or men, the planks are so wrought that they rise and fall according to the weight upon them, and so as both those on the shore and the ends of the boat come to be even, and without more trouble in the passing over them than a bridge would be. the great company, and some mishap of tearing one of his coaches, hindered whitelocke's journey; but they went on in good time. about an english mile before they came to lübeck, some company appearing on the road, whitelocke's lacqueys alighted out of their waggons, and whitelocke was met upon the way by an ancient person of a good portly carriage, with a great white beard, and a greater ruff. he was attended with four coaches; the first had six good horses in it, and was handsome, but not rich. the gentleman, being alighted, and then whitelocke also, he came and saluted whitelocke, and spake to him in the high dutch, to this effect:-- "my lord ambassador, "my masters, the lords of lübeck, have sent me with their coaches to conduct your excellence into their city, and to bid you welcome hither; and to assure you likewise that whatsoever this city will afford shall be at your excellence's service." whitelocke returned this answer:-- "sir, "i esteem it an honour to receive this respect from the lords of lübeck, your masters, for which ere long i hope to have the opportunity to give them thanks; and in the meantime give me leave to acknowledge your civility." this person they call the marshal of the town, whom the lords sent to meet whitelocke, to answer his civility of sending to them, which they took kindly. then a young gentleman, well mounted and habited, met whitelocke on the way with a packet of three weeks' letters from england, which he said mr. missenden, his father, received from mr. bradshaw, the protector's resident at hamburg, with order to send them to whitelocke to lübeck. whitelocke went into the coach of the lords of lübeck; with him were the marshal, and colonel potley to interpret for him. the country through which they passed was pleasant and fruitful, stored with groves, and fields of corn not enclosed, but much like the champaign counties of england, only more woody, and seemed the pleasanter to those who were lately come out of sweden and from the baltic sea. part of the country was the duchy of mecklenburg, and part of it holstein. when they drew near the city whitelocke ordered that his staffiers and lacqueys, in their liveries, should walk by his coach bare, and his pages after them; then his gentlemen and others in the other coaches and waggons, in which equipage they entered the city. at the first fort they saluted whitelocke with three pieces of ordnance, and at the gates of the city were good guards, with their muskets. the streets were filled with people, and many in the windows--not so many men as women; and those of the best rank and habit were with their bodies and smock sleeves, like the maids in england in hot weather. here the best women, whose age will bear it, are thus habited, and with it sometimes rich clothes and jewels. when they were come into the city, the marshal took his leave of whitelocke, saying that he must go to the lord, to advertise him of whitelocke's arrival. whitelocke passed through a great part of the town before he came to the inn appointed for his reception, which was fairer without than within doors, the rooms for eating and lodging neither handsome nor well finished. about half an hour after he was come to the inn, the lords of the town sent one of their officers to him, to know what time he would be pleased to appoint for them to come and salute him. whitelocke answered, that whensoever they thought fit to do him the honour to visit him they should be welcome, and left to them the time which should be most convenient for their own occasions. being settled and at a little quiet, he read his letters from england. thurloe acquaints him that the issue of his negotiation, and the prudent conduct of it, had very good acceptance in england, whither his return was much wished and prayed for. then he informs him of all the news both foreign and domestic, and the readiness of the protector to send ships for him to hamburg. from mr. cokaine he had several letters about his bills of exchange, and other particular affairs. he had also letters from mr. taylor, from resident bradshaw, from his wife, and from several loving friends in england. _june , ._ [sn: whitelocke receives the senate of lübeck.] in the morning the lords of lübeck sent again to whitelocke, to know what time they might come to visit him. he answered, at their own time, and that they should be welcome to him within an hour. there came to him martin bokel, doctor of the laws, syndic of the city, of good reputation for his learning and abilities, jerome bilderbeck, and matthew rodde, senators and lords of the city. the syndic spake in french to whitelocke to this effect:--"that, by command of the lords of this city, those gentlemen, part of their number, and himself, were come in the name of the lords of lübeck to salute whitelocke, and to bid him welcome to their city; that they rejoiced at his safe arrival here, and for the good success of those affairs wherein he had been employed." whitelocke answered them in french, the same language in which they spake to him, and which is expected in these parts, to this effect:--"that the lords of lübeck had testified much respect to the protector of england by the honour done to his servant, of which he would inform his highness; and in the meantime he thanked them for the favour of this visit." after many compliments, whitelocke gave them the precedence into his lodging, which is the custom here, as in sweden, and their discourse was in french in these matters of ceremony. being sat together in his bedchamber, the syndic told whitelocke that he had a message to deliver to him from his lords; and, according to the custom in matters of business, he desired to deliver what he had to say in latin, and then spake to him in the following oration:-- "illustrissime et excellentissime domine legate, "amplissimus senatus lubicensis grato animo recognoscit celeberrimam nationem anglicanam multiplici favore à multis retro annis populum mercatoresque hujus civitatis affecisse, atque etiam sæviente inter utrasque respublicas durissimo bello, incolas nostras gratiam, et, ex occasione suarum navium ad mare captarum, justitiam accepisse: amplissimus senatus humillimè gratias suas refert, quas melius testari non potuerunt, quam erga personam illius conditionis tantæque eminentiæ quantæ excellentiam vestram esse acceperant, suo speciali respectu, ad hæc cum etiam extraordinarii legati munere à clarissimo illo statu nunc dignissimè fungatur. gratulatur amplissimus senatus negotiationis ab excellentia vestra peractæ felicem successum, ut et tanti viri in suam civitatem adventum. quod si apud se in sua civitate aliquid sit excellentiæ vestræ acceptu dignum, illud quicquid sit offerre in mandatis habemus. "dolore etiam afficitur senatus, se tam sero de excellentiæ vestræ adventu certiorem esse factum, ut rationes unde tantus hospes, et qui in ipsius comitatu sunt, pro merito exciperentur; melius inire non potuerit, se tamen sperare à clementia vestra ipsis id crimini non datum iri. per nos rogant hujus urbis magistratus, excellentiæ vestræ placeat, cervisiæ lubicensis vinique rhenani (quod officiariis excellentiæ vestræ tradi curaverant) parvulum utut munus boni consulere. "excellentissime domine, candore vestro freti speramus, non nobis id vitio datum iri, si etiam hoc temporis articulo paucula ex rebus nostris vestræ excellentiæ consideranda proponamus: intempestivè fatemur importuni sumus, sed certiores facti, non diuturnam fore vestram in civitate nostra moram, id solliciti timemus, ne aliquando nobis similis offeratur opportunitas; ideo à dominis nostris jubemur excellentiam vestram certiorem facere, quam plures hujus urbis naves inter navigandum negotii causâ, occurrentes navibus præliaribus anglis, ab iisdem examen subiisse, liberatas tamen extemplò et dimissas, quod nihil suppetiarum hostibus vestris contulisse deprehendebantur; nihilominus easdem naves à quibusdam privatis vestris captoribus, _capers_ dictis, non multò post apprehensas fuisse, et hucusque detentas esse, magno dominorum detrimento. "sperat amplissimus senatus, intercedente excellentia vestra, ex justitia et favore domini protectoris, restitutionem earundem secundum jus et æquum suo populo futuram, quem in finem, tam magistratus, quem hujusce civitatis populus suppliciter rogat favorem et amicitiam celsitudinis suæ domini protectoris, et illustrissimæ reipublicæ angliæ, in iis, quæ vel commercia vel etiam alia spectant, posse sibi continuari." after a little pause whitelocke made answer in latin to the syndic's speech, to the effect following:-- "spectatissimi viri, "rectè à vobis observatum est, antiquam fuisse inter populum anglicanum civesque lubicenses amicitiam et mutuam officiorum benevolentiam; nec defuisse unquam nobis, data occasione, domini mei domini protectoris reipublicæ angliæ, scotiæ, et hiberniæ, animum benevolentissimum, quem integrum adhuc à serenissima sua celsitudine erga vos conservari nullus dubito. nec suspicio mihi est, quin amplissimus senatus, hujusque celeberrimæ urbis liberi cives, dominum meum dominum protectorem honore omni debito prosequentur, et benevolo affectu quotquot anglorum, commercii aut conversationis causâ, apud vos appellere voluerint. "referte, quæso, meo nomine, amplissimo hujus civitatis senatui, gratias ob respectum erga dominum meum dominum protectorem rempublicamque anglicanam, in honorificâ mei eorum ministri receptione significatum, tam in appulsu meo ad suum portum, quam ad civitatem suam aditu, necnon in munere quod mihi offerre ipsis placuit: honori duco quod per me, in suis negotiis, dominum protectorem compellare ipsis visum est, quod munus in me libenter recipio præstandum, quamprimum deo placuerit ad serenissimam suam celsitudinem mihi reditum indulgere, cui id curæ est, ut unicuique quod est juris uniuscujusque tribuatur. non equidem dubito, quin particularia favoris et respectûs erga hanc celeberrimam civitatem specimina reipsa effecta comperiamini." the syndic replied in french, that they did give many thanks to whitelocke, in that he was pleased to take in so good part the respect of this city to him, and desired that if there were anything here which might do him service, that he would command it. whitelocke said he came by this city in a desire to see it and the fortifications of it, which, if they pleased to give him leave to do, he should take it as a favour. they said, that even now the senate had ordered monsieur bilderbeck and the commander of their forces to wait upon whitelocke at such time as he should appoint, to view the city, with their fortifications and magazines, and whatsoever here should be thought by him worthy of his sight. whitelocke thanked them, and discoursed touching the government of the city, and what laws they used, to which the syndic answered, that their government was chiefly and generally by the municipal laws and customs of the city. [sn: the franchises of lübeck.] of these gentlemen and others whitelocke learned this city is the chief and most ancient of the hanse towns of germany, and a kind of free state; that they have power to send commissioners as public ministers to any foreign prince or state, to treat and conclude with them about any matters relating to their city, and that without the leave or knowledge of the emperor. the people of the city chiefly are the merchants and artificers, most of them tradesmen; and both they who are masters, and their servants, being constantly employed in trades and personal businesses, they are the less troublesome in the government of them; as to the criminal part, idleness, being the mother of mischief, causeth quarrels and debaucheries, from whence pilferings, robberies, fightings, and murders do arise; but where people are kept to occupations, traffic, and employments, as they are here, it breeds civility, peaceableness of disposition, desire of rest and quiet, and a plentiful subsistence, and gives less occasion of proceedings in criminal offences. but as to suits upon bargains and contracts, they are the more, because there be so many contracts as merchants and tradesmen must make; yet those suits are here brought to a speedy determination within themselves by their ordinary judges, which are three, and usually assisted with a doctor or licentiate in the laws, who are in great esteem in this country. these judges commonly sit thrice a week, to determine civil controversies, which they do by their own laws and customs, which also have much affinity to the civil law, especially as to the forms and manners of their proceedings; and where the matter contended for exceeds the value of a thousand rix-dollars, there the party grieved may, if he please, appeal from the sentence of these judges to the imperial chamber at spires, as they also do in capital causes; but civil causes under the value of a thousand dollars are finally determined within themselves, and no appeal lies from them. they acknowledge the emperor as their protector, but afford him no gabels or taxes but what their deputies, whom they elect and send to the general diet of the empire, do assent unto. their chief officers are a burgomaster, like our mayor, twenty-four senators, like our common council, and a syndic, as our recorder. these are the chief council and judicatory of the city, and order all the public affairs thereof; only in some extraordinary occasions of making laws or foreign treaties, matters of war and peace, the people of the town make choice of deputies, sometimes forty or fifty,--more or less, as they please,--who sit and consult with the senate, and by their votes by the people, who willingly submit thereunto. the town-house of their guildhall is reasonably fair, not extraordinary. their court of justice is below at the upper end of a large hall, made four-square, with seats like the court of exchequer in england; above this is another court or council-house, greater than that below, which is for the meeting of the deputies of the hanse towns, who usually all assemble here; they have also several other chambers for the meetings and consultations of their own senators and officers about the affairs of the city. [sn: aspect of the city.] in the afternoon the commander or lieutenant-general of the forces of the town, whom they call obrist lieutenant, monsieur andreas keiser, and the senator bilderbeck, came, with four of the city coaches, to accompany whitelocke to see the town and fortifications of it. the senator spoke only latin, the lieutenant spoke good french. they went through most parts of the town, and found the figure of it exactly done in painting in a table in their magazine, with the fortifications of it: upon the view of the whole town, it seemed a pleasant and noble city. it is of great antiquity, freedom, privileges, trade, polity, and strength, few in these parts exceeding it; not unhealthful in the situation, beautiful in the buildings, profitable in the commerce, strong in the fortifications, and rich in the inhabitants. the streets are large and fair, kept clean and sweet; the houses built of brick, generally uniform, most in the frontispieces, and covered with tile; at the entry into them, usually the first and lower room is largest, paved with orland stone, full of streaks of red and white, and some with black and white rich marble. in this first room they use to set their best household stuff, as the chief room for entertainment; yet they will also in some part of the room have a partition with boards, above a man's height, for a kitchen, where they dress meat and hang their bacon and other provision{ }, which are not out of sight nor smell; and here also, in this room, some of their goods of merchandise are placed; but the better sort keep their houses more neat, and have kitchens and larders out of view. in the second story are ordinarily the lodging-rooms, and some for entertainment; the third and fourth stories are granaries and storehouses, which they hold better for such uses than cellars and lower rooms, which, they say, cause damage to the commodities. the country about, for a league, and in some parts two leagues or more, belongs to the city, is within their jurisdiction, and is fruitful and pleasant, sweetly watered by the trave, adorned by the groves and meadows, and many pleasant summer-houses for the recreation of the citizens. [sn: fortifications and arsenal of lübeck.] the town is regularly and strongly fortified, the more being situated in a plain and low country, with the rivers and waters about it; the grafts of the works are large and deep, full of water on all sides; between the bulwarks are large places, sufficient to draw together five hundred men in each vacant place; and on the banks of some of the ditches are low thorn hedges, kept cut, as good for defence as palisades. there be many pieces of ordnance mounted on several parts of the works, chiefly on the bulwarks, and divers of them are demi-cannon: the fortifications are about a league in compass; the trave furnisheth water for all the grafts, and the earth with which the lines are made is of a good sort and well turfed. they are well stored with arms and ammunition, which whitelocke was admitted to see in their arsenal, which is a large house; in the lower room were twelve mortar-pieces of several sizes, and two hundred pieces of brass ordnance, founded in the town, some of them great culverin, one of an extraordinary length; but there was neither powder nor ball--that was kept elsewhere; but here were the utensils to load and cleanse the guns, hung up in order, and the carriages were strong and good. the story above this was furnished with arms, few for horse or pikemen, but many muskets and swords, disposed in ranks the whole length of the room, with bandoliers between, and cases for bullets beneath; at the upper end of the room hung certain great swords, with which traitors had been beheaded; at the lower end of the room were many halberds; divers of the muskets were firelocks, others for match, and some with double barrels. there was in all, by conjecture, arms for twelve thousand foot, few pikes or horse-arms, but muskets, as most useful for a town, and according to the custom in these parts, where the companies in the town militias are only musketeers, they holding pikes not proper but in the field and against horse. the forces of this city constantly in pay are fifteen hundred men, besides twenty-five companies of the citizens, each company consisting of two hundred men, and two troops of horse of the citizens. their chief strength, under god, consisting in the bodies of their citizens, proper and stout men, who, if they come to fight _pro aris et focis_, for religion, liberty, wives and children, and estates, for their all, are full of courage; not like mercenary, unfixed, unfaithful men, whose trade is in blood, and who are pests to mankind. [sn: honours paid to whitelocke.] at their guildhall they entertained whitelocke and his company with wine and sweetmeats, but not profusely. after a long and large tour, they brought whitelocke back to his inn, and did him the honour to sup with him; and, with much respect and civility, the obrist-lieutenant and senator after supper took their leaves of whitelocke. divers men and women of the best quality of the citizens came with their children to whitelocke's inn to see him, and many of them would stand by whilst he was at meals. he caused his people to show all civility to them, as himself did, saluting the gentlemen and seeming to offer to kiss the women's hands, the salutation of the lip not being in these countries allowed. the lords sent a guard of twelve musketeers to attend whitelocke, which were placed at his door and in the street, and relieved by others during the time of whitelocke's stay here, as an expression of their respects to him. the town musicians, who were masters, well accoutred and behaved, and played some english lessons, and the town trumpets and drums, came likewise to show their respects to whitelocke, but the more readily in expectation of some reward from him, which expenses cannot honourably be avoided. whitelocke's four pages, eight lacqueys, and four grooms, besides the gentlemen's lacqueys, in his livery, walked bare by his coach-side when he went abroad; himself was in his plain grey english cloth suit, with the queen of sweden's jewel at his breast. the people were full of respect to him in their salutations as he passed by them. the secretary of the english company at hamburg came to whitelocke from the resident and company there, to invite him to the english house there, with expression of much ceremony and respect to him as their countryman. whitelocke was not willing to stay longer than one day in this town, and therefore ordered his officers to make preparations of horses and waggons to remove from hence tomorrow; and understanding that it was forty english miles from hence to hamburg, and much of the way bad, he thought it too long a journey for him, with so great a train and hired horses, to travel in one day, and therefore ordered to go from hence tomorrow in the afternoon, to lie at a village midway between lübeck and hamburg. the lords of lübeck, with much courtesy, offered him to lodge in a house of theirs three leagues from hence, and to make use of their horses; but he thought it not convenient, the house not being furnished and their horses not used to travel, and he having sent before to the village midway to take up his quarters; for which reasons he excused it to the lords, yet with many thanks for their courteous offers. _june , ._ [sn: the lutheran church at lübeck.] several gentlemen of the english company at hamburg, and among them his nephew, sir humphry bennett's son, came hither to visit and accompany whitelocke to hamburg. the senators and syndic and obrist-lieutenant, who had been before with whitelocke, came to take their leaves of him. from them and others whitelocke learnt, that the religion professed in this city is after the doctrine of luther and the augsburg confession; yet some calvinists are permitted, though not publicly, among them, and some papists are also connived at, though not publicly tolerated to exercise their worship; yet some of them live in a college of canons, who have a fair house and good revenues in this city. they have many images and crucifixes in their churches: one, made of earth, of the virgin mary, very exactly, is believed by many goodwives of the town, that, upon worshiping and praying to it, they shall become fruitful. in the same church is a rare tablet of the passion of our saviour, admired by artists for the rare painting and lineaments of it. above the altar is a little image of our lady, so contrived with wires fastened to it, that one, being hid on the other side of it, may make it turn forward and backward, to the admiration of the multitude of spectators, who know, by the motion of the image, whether the offerings which they make, and lay upon the altar, be acceptable or not; if one gives a small offering, the image turns away from it in disdain of it; if it be a fat offering, it turns towards it in token of acceptance; and though they tell these stories themselves, yet still they retain these images and trumperies among them. this church is of a good length and breadth, but the height is not proportionable: it hath few monuments of note, only some of their bishops and canons, among which one is indeed remarkable, which they will needs have to be believed, where a canon was buried some hundreds of years since, yet now sometimes is heard to knock in his grave, whereupon instantly some one or other of his surviving brethren, the canons, gives up the ghost, and comes to the dead canon at his call. from hence whitelocke went and viewed the other churches, all alike furnished with images and crucifixes, and full of pews, fitted according to the quality of the parishioners. the churches are built of brick, and some of them covered with copper, which they brought from sweden in older times. they use a liturgy, not much differing from our old book of common prayer; their ministers are grave and formal; they commend them for pious and learned and good preachers; but whitelocke, not having the favour to see one of them at his lodging, can give the less particular account of them. [sn: the trade of lübeck.] whitelocke also learnt that the trade of this city is the most of any town on this side the baltic sea, having a convenient port or road at tremon, belonging to this city, from whence they send into all parts of that sea, and have the advantage for the commerce of copper, deal, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, and all the commodities of those parts; and by this port, they save the trouble and charge of going about through the sound, which southern merchants do. before the swedes had much traffic, and built their own ships, and employed their own mariners, which is not ancient, lübeck did more flourish, and had the sole trade of sweden, and of vending their commodities again into all parts of the world; whereby the lübeckers grew great and rich, especially by the copper and iron which they brought from sweden hither, and wrought it into utensils and arms, and then carried it back to sweden for the use of the inhabitants there; who, growing in time more wise, and learning to work their own materials, and to build and employ their own ships in trade, and the city of hamburg growing up and increasing in trade, and particularly by the staple for english cloth being there settled, and those of lübeck not admitting strangers among them, their town began to decay, and to lessen in their trade and wealth, and is not now so considerable as in former times, yet still they drive a good trade into the baltic sea and other parts, but not with so great ships as others use, which they build at home, of about a hundred and fifty and two hundred tons; and they affirm that they have built here ships of four hundred tons, but there is difficulty for them to go down to the river, by reason of the shallows, which yet serves to bring up their commodities in great boats by the river, from the ships to this town. they find the smaller vessels useful for their trade, and to build them they are provided of good store of timber out of germany, denmark, and sweden; and, by their consent, the king of denmark doth sometimes make use of their town and carpenters to build ships for himself. about three o'clock in the afternoon, the baggage and most of whitelocke's inferior servants went away. the lords offered whitelocke a party of their horse for the guard of his person; but he, with thanks for their courtesy, refused it, having store of company well armed of his own retinue, besides some english of hamburg who were come to him. the lübeckers commended the sobriety and plainness of whitelocke and his company; only they said his liveries were very noble; and they wondered that they saw no more drinking among them, and that he had so constant exercises of religious duties in his family. [sn: whitelocke proceeds to hamburg.] the senators and syndic came again to compliment whitelocke for the lords, and to wish him a good journey; and, after ceremonies passed, about four o'clock in the afternoon, whitelocke took his coach for hamburg; he had another coach and four waggons for his people. as he passed through the streets, multitudes of all sorts stood to see him go by, respectively saluting him. at the gates were guards of soldiers, and having passed the last port, they saluted him with three pieces of ordnance, according to their custom, but with no volleys of small-shot; and so he took his leave of lübeck. being come into the road, and his pages and lacqueys in the waggons, he made what haste he could in his journey with hired horses, and so much company. the country was pleasant and fruitful, groves of wood, fields of corn, pastures, brooks, and meadows adorning it: it is an open champaign; few hedges, but some little ones made with dry wood, like our hurdles, for fencing their gardens and dividing their corn-grounds. the way was exceeding bad, especially for this time of the year, full of deep holes and sloughs in some places and of great stones in others. this duchy of holstein seems to take its name from _holt_, which, with them and in sweden and with us, signifies wood, and _stein_, which is a stone; and this country is very full of wood and stone; yet is it fruitful, and, like england, delightful to the view, but it is not so full of towns, there not being one in the way between lübeck and this night's quarter, which is five german, twenty english, miles. but a few small houses lie scattered by the way; and about four miles from kettell, this night's lodging was a fair brick house by the side of a large pond, which is the house belonging to lübeck, where they offered whitelocke to be entertained, and he found cause afterwards to repent his not accepting their courtesy. when they came to the lamentable lodging taken up for him this night, they found in all but two beds for their whole company. the beds were made only of straw and fleas mingled together; the antechamber was like a great barn, wherein was the kitchen on the one side, the stable on the other side; the cattle, hogs, waggons, and coaches were also in the same great chamber together. they made themselves as merry as they could in this posture, whitelocke cheering and telling them that it was in their way home, and therefore to be borne with the less regret. they of the house excused the want of accommodations, because the war had raged there, and the soldiers had pillaged the people of all they had, who could not yet recover their former happy and plentiful condition; which was not helpful to whitelocke and his people, who must take things as they were, and make the best shift they could. his officers had provided meat sufficient for them; he caused fresh straw enough to be laid all over the room, which was the more tolerable in this hot season. he himself lay in one of his coaches, his sons and some of his servants in straw, near him; the rest of the company, men and women, on straw, where they chose to lie in the room, only affording place for the horses, cows, sheep, and hogs, which quartered in the same chamber together with this good company. _june , ._ [sn: journey through holstein.] in his coach, through god's goodness, whitelocke slept well, and all his people on the ground on fresh straw, yet not so soundly as to hinder their early rising this morning, when they were quickly ready, none having been put to the trouble of undressing themselves the last night. his carriages, twelve great waggons, went away about four o'clock this morning, some of the gentlemen's servants in the van, one upon each waggon; his porter, butlers, and others, in a waggon in the rear, with store of pistols, screwed guns, swords, and other arms, for their defence. whitelocke came forth about six o'clock with his own two coaches, and eight waggons for the rest of his followers. in some of their waggons they drive three horses on-breast, and each waggon will hold eight persons. they passed by better houses in this dorf than that where they quartered, which the harbingers excused, coming thither late and being strangers. the country was still holstein, of the same nature as yesterday. in the lower grounds they saw many storks, one whereof was killed by one of whitelocke's company with his gun,--a thing not endured here, where they are very superstitious, and hold it an ill omen where any of them is killed. but whitelocke, blessed be god! found it not so; yet he warned his people not to kill any of them, to avoid offence to the country, who report that these birds will not resort to any place but where the people are free, as in the united provinces, where they have many of them, and do carefully preserve them, and near to hamburg and other hanse towns. about a mile from kettell is a great gate cross the highway, where they take toll for the duke of holstein of all the waggons and carriages, a loup-shilling apiece (that is, little more than an english penny). this gate they shut against whitelocke, but being informed who he was, they presently opened it again, and a gentleman came to whitelocke's coach-side, excusing the shutting of the gate, being before they knew who it was that passed by. he told whitelocke the custom and right of this toll, but that nothing was demanded of ambassadors, who were to pass freely, especially the ambassador of the protector and commonwealth of england, to whom the duke, his master, he said, was a friend. whitelocke thanked the gentleman for his civility, acknowledging the protector to be a friend to the duke, and so they passed on. about a mile and a half before they came to hamburg, captain parkes, of the 'president' frigate, and captain minnes, of the 'elizabeth' frigate, met whitelocke on the way, and told him all was well in england, and that by command of the protector they had brought those two frigates into the elbe to transport him into england. whitelocke told them he was very glad to see them, especially on this occasion. as they were walking and discoursing of the ships and their voyage, a great number of persons and coaches, the resident bradshaw, with the treasurer, the doctor, their minister, and almost all the english company, with twenty-two coaches, came to meet whitelocke on the way, and to bring him with the more respect to hamburg. all alighted out of their coaches, and, after salutations, the resident told whitelocke that the occasion of their coming forth was to testify their respects to whitelocke, and to desire him to do their company the honour to accept of the english house at hamburg for his entertainment. whitelocke gave them hearty thanks for their respects to the protector and to the commonwealth whereof they were members, in this honour which they did to their servant. he accepted of their courteous offer, desiring the company and conversation of his countrymen above all others. they walked a little on foot together, where the lord resident (so they styled him) showed whitelocke his last week's letters from thurloe, mentioning the imprisonment of many upon suspicion that they were engaged in a plot against the protector, and that the serious considerable malignants discovered it. he also delivered to whitelocke private letters from his wife and other friends. about a mile from the place where they met was a fair inn by the wayside, where the resident moved whitelocke to make a halt and rest himself, because if he should then go directly to the town, he would come into it just at dinner-time, which would not be convenient. upon his persuasion, and perceiving that a preparation was here made, whitelocke went in, where the english company entertained him with a plentiful dinner at a long table holding above sixty persons. from hence, with whitelocke's approbation, the resident, as from himself, sent to the governor of the militia at hamburg, as whitelocke had done before to the lords, to advertise them of his coming. the governor returned thanks, and said that two senators were appointed to receive whitelocke at the port. after dinner they all took their coaches. with whitelocke was the resident and treasurer; the rest in the other coaches, the pages and lacqueys riding and walking by. the country is here low and rich, sprinkled with rivers, and adorned with many neat and sweet houses belonging to the citizens of hamburg, who resort to those houses in the summer-time with their families to have the fresh air. [sn: arrival at hamburg.] almost an english mile before they came to the town, the highway was full of people come forth to see whitelocke pass by. at the port were no senators to receive him, but great guards of musketeers and multitudes of all sorts of people, there and through all the streets unto his lodging thronging so that the coaches could not pass till the guards made way. the people were very courteous, and whitelocke answered to the meanest their civility, which is pleasing and not costly. the windows and doors were also crowded, which showed the populousness of the place and their expectation as to the commonwealth of england. they brought whitelocke to the english house, which is fair and large, the first room below, according to the fashion of lübeck; the chambers, especially where whitelocke lay, handsomely furnished. [sn: reception of the senate of hamburg.] within half an hour after his arrival, an officer of the town, in the nature of a master of the ceremonies, came from the lords of the town to bid whitelocke welcome thither, and to know what hour he would appoint for admittance of some of the lords to visit him. whitelocke returned thanks to the lords for their respects, and prayed the gentleman to tell them that whensoever they pleased to give him the honour of a visit, they should be welcome to him. within half an hour after came two senators, herr jurgen van holtz and herr jacob silm. after ceremonies passed, holtz spake in french to whitelocke, to this effect:-- "monseigneur, qui êtes ambassadeur extraordinaire de sa sérénissime altesse oliver, par la grâce de dieu seigneur protecteur de la république d'angleterre; aussitôt que les messieurs de cette ville ont été avertis de votre intention de passer par cette ville-ci, ils ont été désireux de témoigner leurs très-humbles respects à monsieur le protecteur et à votre personne en particulier, en suite de quoi{ } nous avons reçu commandement de vous venir saluer, et faire à votre excellence la bienvenue en cette ville. ils sont extrêmement aises de l'heureux succès que dieu vous a donné en votre négociation en suède, et qu'il lui a plu aussi vous donner un bon passage, et favoriser votre retour jusqu'en ce lieu, après avoir surmonté beaucoup de difficultés, et échappé beaucoup de dangers, et nous prions sa divine bonté qu'il vous rende en sauveté dans votre pays. nous sommes aussi commandés de reconnaître les faveurs que monseigneur le protecteur d'une si grande république a faites à notre ville et aux habitans d'icelle, et particulièrement durant la guerre entre l'angleterre et les pays bas, en libérant et déchargeant nos navires. nous souhaitons à ce fleurissant état la continuation et l'accroissement de la faveur divine pour leur conservation et accroissement de plus en plus, et nous espérons que monseigneur le protecteur continuera avec la république ses faveurs envers notre ville, qui sera toujours prête de leur rendre tous offices et humbles respects." after a little recollection, whitelocke answered in french to the senator's speech thus:-- "messieurs, j'ai grande occasion de louer le nom de dieu, de sa protection de moi et de ma suite, en notre long et périlleux voyage, et pour l'heureux succès qu'il m'a donné en ma négociation, et ma sauve arrivée en ce lieu, en mon retour en mon pays. je vous désire de remercier messeigneurs les sénateurs de cette ville du respect qu'ils ont témoigné envers sa sérénissime altesse mon maître et la république d'angleterre, par l'honneur qu'ils ont fait à leur serviteur, de quoi je ne manquerai d'en informer: j'avais grande envie de voir cette illustre ville, et mes compatriotes qui par accord vivent ici, desquels j'ai appris avec beaucoup de contentement que leurs priviléges ici étaient maintenus par messeigneurs les magistrats, lesquels je désire d'être informés que son altesse mon maître prendra en fort bon part le respect et la justice qu'on fera aux anglais qui se trouvent ici, chose que je croie tournera en avantage aux uns et aux autres. je vous rends grâces aussi de vos bons souhaits pour la prospérité de notre nation, à laquelle dieu a donné tant de preuves de sa présence, et je prie le même dieu aussi pour l'heureux succès de cette ville, et de tous les habitans d'icelle." after whitelocke had done, the senator again spake to him, desiring him, in the name of the lords of the town, to accept a small present which they had sent, in testimony of their respects towards him, and said that it was somewhat for his kitchen and somewhat for his cellar. the present which they sent for his kitchen, and was laid upon the pavement in the hall, was this:--four great whole sturgeons, two great fresh salmons, one calf, two sheep, two lambs. the present for the cellar was a hogshead of spanish wine, a hogshead of claret wine, a hogshead of rhenish wine, a hogshead of hamburg beer, a hogshead of serbster beer. whitelocke ordered the men that brought this present to be rewarded with ten rix-dollars. he desired the senators to return his hearty thanks to the lords for the noble present which they sent him; and after many compliments and ceremonies whitelocke, giving the senators the right hand, conducted them to their coach, and so they parted. the english company entertained, with a great supper, whitelocke and his company, who had more mind to sleep than to eat. monsieur hannibal schestedt, late viceroy of norway, sent a gentleman to whitelocke to know what time he would appoint for him to come and visit whitelocke, who gave the usual answer, that whensoever he pleased to come he should be welcome. _june , ._ [sn: divine service at hamburg.] _the lord's day._--the english company and the resident bradshaw desired whitelocke that one of his chaplains might preach in the chapel belonging to the english in their house, which they said was a respect to the ambassador of england; and accordingly mr. ingelo preached in the morning, and a very pertinent and good sermon. the doctor, minister to the company here, preached in the afternoon, who far exceeded mr. ingelo in the strength of his voice and lungs, the which was not necessary for that chapel, not being large, but convenient and handsomely made up with pews and seats fit for their company. _june , ._ [sn: interview with the swedish envoy to the emperor.] the resident sent to the governor to inform him that whitelocke had a desire to see the fortifications of the town. he answered that he would send one of his lieutenants to wait on whitelocke for that purpose; but whitelocke and the resident took this for no great compliment that himself came not to whitelocke. much company did whitelocke the honour to dine with him; and after dinner monsieur bernelow, who was ambassador from the queen of sweden to the emperor, and was now upon his return home, came to visit whitelocke, and they had this discourse in latin. _bernelow._ i desire your excellence to excuse me that i cannot express myself in french or italian, but, with your leave, i desire to speak to you in latin. _whitelocke._ your excellence is welcome to me; and if you choose to express yourself in latin, you have your liberty, and i shall understand something of it. _bern._ when i heard of your excellence's arrival in this city, though i purposed to have gone from hence, yet i deferred my journey, to the end i might see you, because i have heard in the emperor's court, as well by letters from her most serene majesty of sweden as from the chancellor and other senators of that kingdom, what great satisfaction they had in the english ambassador, etc. now the league of friendship being concluded between the two nations, i hold myself obliged to make this salutation to your excellence. _wh._ i have very many thanks to return to your excellence for the honour you have done me by this visit, and for these expressions of affection and respect to the protector, my master. i do acknowledge myself much engaged to the ricks-chancellor and senators of sweden, and in the first place to her majesty the queen, for their favourable respect towards me whilst i was in my negotiation with them, whom i found full of honour, wisdom, and justice, in their transactions with me. _bern._ i have been for some time in the service of the queen, my mistress, in germany. _wh._ you met some of my countrymen in the court of the emperor, particularly a noble lord, whom i have the honour to know. _bern._ i met there the earl of rochester, who was at the diet at ratisbon. _wh._ what proposals did he make there? _bern._ he made a kind of precarious proposal in the name of the king, his master. _wh._ did he obtain what he desired? _bern._ he did not much prevail in it, only he obtained a verbal promise of some money, but had no performance. _wh._ what occasion hath drawn your general koningsmark with his forces at this time before bremen? _bern._ it was thus by mistake occasioned. the earl of lüneburg had covenanted with the spanish ambassador to levy some soldiers for the service of the king of spain, which levies he began without acquainting the governor of that circle with it, who taking this occasion, and bearing ill-will to the earl, drew out some forces to oppose those levies. koningsmark understanding this, and jealous that the governor of the circle designed to fall upon the fort of the queen of sweden in those parts, he drew out some forces to oppose the governor. those of bremen, being informed that koningsmark drew out his forces against them, sent some troops, who forced the queen's subjects to a contribution and built a fort upon the queen's land, which coming to the knowledge of koningsmark, and that the governor of the circle of westphalia intended only to suppress the levies of the duke of lüneburg, and not to oppose the queen of sweden, koningsmark thereupon marched with his forces to the new fort built by those of bremen, took it in and finished it, and left there a garrison for the queen, not disturbing the trade of that city. _wh._ here were mistakes one upon another, which might have engaged that city and the neighbours, as well as the crown of sweden, in a troublesome war. _bern._ all is now peaceable and well again. they had much other discourse touching the right of the crown of sweden to the duchy of bremen; and after many compliments, the ambassador took his leave. [sn: whitelocke visits the fortifications of hamburg.] about four o'clock in the afternoon the senator holtz and an ancient gentleman, one of the captains of the town forces, came and accompanied whitelocke, to show him the town and the fortifications of it, and said that the lords had commanded them to do him this service. whitelocke went out with them in his usual equipage, his gentlemen walking before the coach, his pages and lacqueys by it, all bareheaded, and with their swords. they viewed most parts of the city, the streets, buildings, public-houses, churches, the arsenal, the fortifications, the ships, the waters, rivers, and what was remarkable throughout the town. great multitudes of people, especially at their exchange, came forth to see them as they passed by, and all were very civil to them. to the works a great many of people also followed them, and continued there with them. they brought him first to see their arsenal, which is a large house; in the lower rooms thereof lay about two hundred pieces of ordnance mounted on good carriages, fitted and useful. they were not founded in this place, but brought from other parts; two of them were double cannon, each carrying a bullet of forty-eight pounds weight; most of the others were demi-cannon and culverin. there were besides these many smaller pieces and divers mortar-pieces, some of which were near as large in the diameter as that at stockholm. in another place were many shells of grenades and heaps of cannon-bullets. the pavement of the room was all lead, two feet deep, in a readiness to make musket bullets if there should be occasion. in the rooms above were arms for horse and foot, completely fixed and kept; the greatest part of them were muskets. between every division of the arms were representations in painting of soldiers doing their postures, and of some on horseback. here were many cuirasses and a great quantity of corselets, swords, bandoliers, pistols, and bullets. here likewise hung certain old targets, for monuments rather than use, and many engines of war; as, a screw to force open a gate, an instrument like a jack, with wheels to carry match for certain hours' space, and just at the set time to give fire to a mine, petard, or the like. there were, in all, arms for about fifteen hundred horse and fifteen thousand foot. they keep a garrison constantly in pay of twelve hundred soldiers, and they have forty companies of their citizens, two hundred in each company, proper men; whose interest of wives, children, estate, and all, make them the best magazine and defence (under god) for those comforts which are most dear to them. some pains were taken by whitelocke to view their fortifications, which are large, of about two german (ten english) miles in compass; they are very regular and well kept. within the grafts are hedges of thorn, kept low and cut, held by them of better use than palisades. the bulwarks are of an extraordinary greatness; upon every third bulwark is a house for the guards, and they are there placed. there is also a building of brick, a great way within the ground upon the bulwark, and separate by itself, where they keep all their gunpowder; so that if by any mischance or wicked design it should blow up, yet it could do no hurt to the town, being so separated from it. on every bulwark there is space enough to draw up and muster a thousand men; beyond the grafts are divers half-moons, very regularly made. the grafts are broad and deep, filled with the elbe on the one side, and with another smaller river on the other side. the works are stronger, larger, and more regular than those at lübeck. above the works is a piece of ground of above five hundred yards of low ground, gained by industry from the elbe; here they have mills to keep out or let in more or less water, as they find useful for the town and works. the lines of one side of the works are higher than on the other side, and the works better and stronger made. here are also mounds of earth raised very high to command without; there wanted no pains nor expense to put together so great a mass of earth as is in these fortifications. upon every bulwark is mounted one demi-cannon, besides other great guns; in other places are smaller pieces. round about the works are great store of ordnance, well fitted, mounted, and kept; and the platforms are strong and well planked. having made a large tour through the greatest part of the city, whitelocke found it to be pleasantly situated in a plain low country, fertile and delightful, also healthful and advantageous for trade; and notwithstanding the great quantity of waters on every side of it, yet the inhabitants do not complain of agues or other sicknesses to be more rife among them than in other parts. upon one side is a small river, the which comes a great way down the country to this town, where it loseth itself in the elbe, having first supplied the city with wood and other provisions brought down hither by boats, for which this river, though narrow, is deep enough and navigable. on the other side of the town is the stately river of elbe, one of the chief of these parts of germany, which also by boats brings down out of the country great store of all sorts of provisions and merchantable commodities; and which is much more advantage to them, affords a passage for merchants hither, and from hence to vent their merchandises to all parts of the world. it is the best neighbour they have, and the branches and arms of it run through most of their streets by their doors, to the great advantage of their commerce; and although sometimes, upon an extraordinary rising of the elbe to a great flood, these branches of it cover the lower rooms of the houses near them, to the damage of some owners, yet it makes amends by the constant benefit which it brings with it. the buildings here are all of brick, only some few of brick and timber put together, and are generally fashioned and used as is before described touching the lübeck houses. the district or territory belonging to the town is in some places two, in others three, in some more, german miles distant from the city, in which precinct they have the jurisdiction and revenue; and near the town are many pleasant little houses and seats, with gardens and accommodations, belonging to the citizens, to refresh themselves and their wives and children in the summer-time, to take the fresh country air, and to have a diversion for their health and pleasure. it may be said of this town, that god hath withheld nothing from them for their good. they have plenty of provisions, health, profit, and pleasure, to their full contentment, in a peaceable and just government, with freedom, strength in their magazines, fortifications, and bodies of men for their defence and protection, conveniences for their habitation and commerce, and, which is above all, a liberty to know the will of and to worship god, for the health of their own souls. _june , ._ [sn: the diet of germany.] this morning whitelocke returned a visit to the swedes' ambassador, bernelow, at his lodging, where he learnt of him the manner of the sitting of the general diet of germany, at which he was present:--that they have three colleges or chambers: the first is the college of the electors, where they only assemble; the second is the college of the princes, where the archbishops, bishops, dukes, graves, and barons meet, to the number of about one hundred and forty; the third is the college of the free cities, where their deputies, about two hundred, do meet. when they consult, the chancellor of the empire, the archbishop of mentz, sends the proposal in writing to each college severally. when they are respectively agreed, then all the colleges meet together in the great hall, at the upper end whereof is a chair of state for the emperor. on the right-hand of the chair the electors sit, on the left-hand the principal officers of the emperor's court; on the right side of the hall, upon seats, are the ecclesiastic princes, bishops, and abbots; on the left-hand are the temporal princes, upon their seats; and on the seats below, one before another, are the deputies of the towns. the archbishop of mentz, as marshal of the college of the electors, begins and reads the proposal, and the resolution thereupon in writing of that college; after him, the marshal of the college of the princes doth the like; and lastly, the marshal of the college of the free towns, who is always the chief magistrate of the place where the diet sits. if the resolution of the three colleges agrees, or of the college of the electors and one other of the colleges, the business is determined accordingly; if the colleges do not thus agree, then they meet all together and debate the matter; whereupon, if they come not to an accord, the business is remitted to another day, or the suffrage of the emperor decides it. whitelocke asked him, whether the advice of the diet, being the supreme public council, were binding to the emperor. he said, that the emperor seldom did anything contrary to that advice, but held himself bound in prudence, if not in duty, to conform thereunto. whitelocke asked him what opinion they had in the emperor's court of the present king of sweden. he answered, as was expected, and most true, that they have a great opinion of the king, especially for military affairs. upon whitelocke's invitation, he did him the honour to dine with him, and they had much and good discourse together. [sn: visit of m. woolfeldt's brother-in-law.] in the afternoon whitelocke received a visit from monsieur hannibal schestedt, whose wife was sister to woolfeldt's lady, one of the daughters of the late king of denmark by his second wife,--as they term it, his left-handed wife; this relation, and his own good parts, brought him in high esteem with the king, his brother-in-law, till by jealousies (particularly, as was said, in some matters of mistresses), distaste and disfavour was against him, and he was put out of his office of viceroy of norway, and other advantages; upon which he retired himself into these parts, and lived upon a pension of six thousand dollars yearly, allowed by the king unto his lady. whitelocke found him a gentleman of excellent behaviour and abilities, which he had improved by his travels in most countries of europe, and had gained perfectly the french, italian, dutch, english, and latin tongues. his discourse was full of ingenuity and cheerfulness, and very free touching his own country and king, on whom he would somewhat reflect; and he spoke much of the queen of sweden's resignation, which he much condemned, and as much extolled the assuming of the government by the protector of england, and said he had a design shortly to see england, and desired whitelocke, that when he came into england he would move to the protector to give him leave to come into england to serve the protector, which he would willingly do, being forbid his own country; but he prayed whitelocke, that none might know of this his purpose but the protector only. he told whitelocke, that williamson, the king of denmark's ambassador now in england, had been his servant, etc. when monsieur schestedt was gone, whitelocke wrote to secretary thurloe, and to his other friends in england, to give them an account of his being come thus far in his voyage homewards, and of the two frigates being arrived in the elbe, that as soon as the wind would serve he would hasten for england. [sn: a banquet to whitelocke.] the resident invited whitelocke and several senators to a collation this evening, whither came the four burgomasters, and five other senators; a thing unusual for so many of them to meet a foreign public minister, the custom being in such case to depute two or three of their body, and no more; but they were willing to do more than ordinary honour to whitelocke. and of these nine senators every one spoke french or latin, and some both, a thing rare enough for aldermen of a town; but the reason of it was given, because here, for the most part, they choose into those places doctors and licentiates of the laws, which employments they willingly accept, being for life, attended with great authority, and a salary of a thousand crowns yearly, besides other profits. they had a banquet and store of wine; and the senators discoursed much with whitelocke touching england, and the successes of the parliament party, and the many thanksgivings for them; of which they had heard with admiration, and commended the return of thanks to god. upon this occasion, whitelocke gave them an account of many particulars, and of god's goodness to them, and exhorted these gentlemen, in all their affairs, to put their trust in god, to be thankful for his mercies, and not to do anything contrary to his will. they asked how the parliament could get money enough to pay their forces. whitelocke told them that the people afforded money sufficient to defray the public charges both by sea and land; and that no soldiers were paid and disciplined, nor officers better rewarded, than those who have served the parliament. whitelocke asked them concerning the religion professed among them, and of their government and trade, wherein they gave him good information; and he told them he hoped that the agreement made by this city with the merchants, his countrymen, would be carefully observed, and the privileges accorded to them be continued, which would be acceptable to the protector. they answered, that they had been very careful, and should be so still, that on their part the agreement should be exactly observed. they desired whitelocke to speak to the protector in favour of a ship belonging to this town, in which were some moneys belonging to hollanders, and taken by the english two years since. whitelocke promised to move the protector in it, and assured them that his highness would cause right to be done to them. at this collation whitelocke ate very little, and drank only one glass of spanish wine, and one glass of small beer, which was given him by a stranger, whom he never saw before nor after, and the beer seemed at that instant to be of a very bad taste and colour; nor would he inquire what it was, his own servants being taken forth by the resident's people in courtesy to entertain them.[ ] after he came to his lodging he was taken very ill, and grew worse and worse, extreme sick, with pains like the strokes of daggers, which put him in mind of a former passage; and his torment was so great that it was scarcely to be endured, the most violent that he ever felt. he was not well after his journey from lübeck to hamburg, having been extremely jolted in the coach in that way full of holes and sloughs, made by their great carriages in time of the war, and not yet amended: his weariness when he came to hamburg reprieved his pain, which highly increased this evening; and the last of his ill beer still remained with him. _june , ._ [sn: whitelocke's indisposition.] the fierce torment continued on whitelocke above thirteen hours together without intermission. about four o'clock this morning his secretary earle was called to him, who waited on him with care and sadness to see his torment; nature helped, by vomits and otherwise, to give some ease, but the sharpness of his pain continued. about five o'clock this morning dr. whistler was called to him, who gave him several sorts of physic, and amongst the rest a drink with a powder and a great quantity of oil of sweet almonds, suspecting, by the manner of his sickness and some of the symptoms, that he might have had poison given him, which was the jealousy of most about him; and whether it were so or not the lord only knows, who nevertheless in his goodness preserved whitelocke, and blessed the means for his recovery. the drink working contrary to what was intended, and turning to a vomit, the doctor, perceiving the operation of nature to be that way, followed by giving of vomits, which within two hours gave some ease and brought him to a little slumber, and in a few hours after to recovery. thus it pleased god to exercise him, and to cast him down for a little time; and when he had no expectation but of present death in a strange land, god was pleased suddenly, and above imagination, to restore and recover him; the which, and all other the mercies of god, he prays may, by him and his, be thankfully remembered. a doctor of physic, a jew in this town, hearing of whitelocke's being sick, came to his lodging, and meeting with dr. whistler, told him in latin, that, understanding the english ambassador to be dangerously sick, and to have no physician about him but a young inexperienced man, therefore this jew came to offer his service. dr. whistler, smiling, told whitelocke of this rencounter, who presently sent his thanks and discharge to the jewish doctor. several senators came and sent to inquire of whitelocke's health, and to know if he wanted anything in their power to supply him for his recovery, and offered the physicians of the town to wait upon him. he returned thanks, but kept himself to the advice and care of his own doctor, whose endeavours it pleased god to bless, so that in two days whitelocke was abroad again. [sn: feast given by the english company.] the english company had invited divers to bear whitelocke company at dinner this day, where they had a very great feast, and present at it the four burgomasters and ten senators. so many of that number had scarce been seen at any former entertainment; which though purposely made to do whitelocke honour, yet his sickness had brought him to an incapacity of bearing them company; but whilst they were at the table, whitelocke sent his secretary to the resident, praying him to make his apology to the lords, that extremity of sickness the night before had prevented him of the honour of accompanying them at this meeting; that being now somewhat recovered, he sent now to present his hearty thanks to their lordships for this great favour they had done him, wished them all health, and entreated them to be cheerful. the lords returned thanks to whitelocke for his civility, and about an hour after the resident came to whitelocke from the lords to see how he did, to thank him for his compliment, and to know if, without inconvenience, they might be admitted to come to his chamber to see him. whitelocke said he should be glad to see them, but privately told the resident that he hoped they would not stay long with him by reason of his indisposition. the senators sat at the table from twelve o'clock at noon till six o'clock in the evening, according to the fashion of dutchland, and were very merry, wanting no good meat or wine, nor sparing it. about six o'clock they rose from dinner, and came to whitelocke's chamber to visit him, with many compliments, expressing their sorrow for his sickness, their wishes for his health, and offers of anything in their power which might contribute to his recovery. whitelocke used them with all civility, and heartily thanked them for this extraordinary honour they had done him, by so many of their lordships affording him the favour of meeting at this place, and excused by his violent sickness his not bearing them company. after many compliments and a short stay they left his chamber, praying for the recovery of his health again. among this company of fourteen senators were no young men, but all grave and comely persons; and every one of them did particularly speak to whitelocke, either in french or latin, and some in both, which were hard to be met with in so many aldermen of towns in other countries. divers of them staid in the english house till nine o'clock at night, making a very long repast of nine hours together; but it was to testify the more particular respect and honour to the english ambassador, and is according to the usage of these parts, where, at such public entertainments, they eat and drink heartily, and seldom part in less than ten or twelve hours, cheerfully conversing together. whitelocke took great contentment in the civility and respects of these and other gentlemen to him in this place, and in the affection, care, and attendance of his children, friends, and servants, about him in his sickness. _june , ._ [sn: the ecclesiastical state of hamburg.] the lords sent a gentleman to inquire of whitelocke's health, with compliments as before. he took some physic, yet admitted visits and discourse, from which, and those he formerly had with senators and others, he learned that as to matter of religion they are here very strict to maintain a unity thereof, being of plutarch's opinion, that "varietas religionis, dissolutio religionis;" and they permit no other religion to be publicly exercised by their own citizens among them but what in their government they do profess, which is according to the augsburg confession; and luther's opinions do wholly take place among them, insomuch that the exercise of religion in any other form or way is not admitted, except to the english company of merchants in the chapel of their house, and that by stipulation. thus every one who differs from them in matters of religion must keep his opinion to himself, without occasioning any disturbance to the government by practice or publication of such different opinion; and although many are inclined to the tenets of calvin, yet their public profession is wholly lutheran; answerable whereunto whitelocke observed in their churches many images, crucifixes, and the like (not far removed from the practice of the popish churches); particularly in their great church, which is fair and large, built with brick, are many images, rare tablets of painting, crucifixes, and a perspective of curious workmanship in colours. their liturgy (as ours in england was) is extracted from the old mass-book, and their divine service celebrated with much ceremony, music, and outward reverence. their ministers are pensioners, but, as themselves affirm, liberally dealt with, and have bountiful allowances if they are holy men and good preachers; whereof they much satisfy themselves that they are very well provided in this city, to the comfort and blessing of the inhabitants. [sn: the trade of hamburg.] touching the trade of this place, whitelocke learnt that as they are very populous, so few are suffered in idleness, but employed in some way or other of trading, either as merchants, artificers, shopkeepers, or workmen. they have an exchange here, though not a fair one, where they daily meet and confer about their affairs and contracts. the several branches and arms of the river elbe, which pass along by their houses, afford them the better means and advantages for bringing in and carrying forth their commodities. there is a partition between the old and the new town; the old is but a small part of it, and few merchants reside there. the ships of greatest burden come up within two miles of the city; the lesser ships, whereof there be a great number, and the great boats, come up within the town to the very doors of their houses, by the branches of the elbe, to the great advantage of their trading. this city is much greater than lübeck, fuller of trade and wealth, and better situated for commerce, being nearer to england, the netherlands, france, spain, and all the southern and western parts; and they are not to pass the sound in coming home again. the staple of english cloth is here, and the cloths being brought hither for the most part white, it sets on work many hundreds of their people to dress and dye and fit them; and the inhabitants of all germany and other countries do send and buy their cloth here. at this time of whitelocke's being here, there lay in the elbe four english ships which brought cloth hither; one of them carried twenty-five pieces of ordnance, the least fifteen, all of good force; and the english cloth at this time in them was estimated to be worth £ , sterling. in consideration of this trade and the staple of english cloth settled here, which brings wealth to this city, the government here hath granted great privileges to the english merchants residing in this place, and they are part of the company or corporation of merchant adventurers of england,--an ancient and honourable society, of which whitelocke had the favour honorarily to be here admitted a member. _june , ._ [sn: the judicial institutions of hamburg.] whitelocke, being, through the goodness of god, well recovered of his distemper, went abroad this day, and was shown the town-house, which is a fair and handsome building, of the like fashion, but more large and beautiful, than that at lübeck, and much better furnished. here are many chambers for public councils and tribunals; some of them have their pillars covered with copper, and pavements of italian marble; they have also rich hangings, and chairs of velvet, blue, and green, and rare pictures. the chamber of audience, as they call it, is the court of justice, where the right-herrs, who are in the nature of sheriffs, do sit to despatch and determine the causes of the citizens; and if the cause exceed the value of a hundred dollars, an appeal lies to the senate, as it doth also in all causes criminal. from the senate there is no appeal in cases of obligations, letters of exchange, contracts, debts, and matters of merchandise, but therein a speedy remedy is given for the advantage of trade; but in all other cases, where the value exceeds a thousand dollars, and in all causes capital, an appeal lies to the imperial chamber: and in the judicatories of the city, the proceedings are according to the municipal laws and customs thereof, which nevertheless have great affinity with the imperial civil laws, especially in the forms and manner of proceedings; and in cases where the municipal laws and customs are defective, there the proceedings are according to the civil law. they do not proceed by juries of twelve men to try the fact; but the parties contending are heard on both sides, either in person or by their advocates or proctors, as they please, and the witnesses on either side are examined upon oath; after which, the judges taking serious consideration of the whole matter and of all circumstances and proofs therein, at a set time they pronounce their sentence; and commonly the whole process and business is determined in the space of three weeks, except in cases where an appeal is brought. the judges sit in court usually twice in every week, unless in festival times, when they keep vacations, and with them their holidays are not juridical: their equal and speedy administration of justice is commended both by their own people and by strangers who have occasion to make trial of it. [sn: municipal government of hamburg.] their public government, by which their peace is preserved, disorders restrained, and men kept from being wolves to one another, makes them the more to flourish, and consists of four consuls or burgomasters and twenty other senators, of whom twelve were called overholts, and the other twelve ricks-herrs. upon the death or removal of any senator, the choice of a new one is with the rest of the senators. the choice of the overholts is by the people, and they are as tribunes of the people; they have power to control the senate through the supreme magistracy, but they do it with all respect and tenderness, and no new law is made nor tax imposed without their consent. but the execution of the present laws, and the government of the people, and the last appeal in the city, is left unto the senate; as also negotiations with foreigners, the entertainments and ceremonies with strangers, and generally the care of the safety of their state. in cases of extraordinary concernment, as of war and peace, levying of money, making of new laws, and matters of extraordinary weight and consideration, of which the senate are not willing to take the burden wholly upon themselves, or to undergo the envy or hazard of the consequences thereof; in such cases the senate causeth the overholt to be assembled, and, as the weight of the business may be, sometimes they cause to be summoned an assembly of the whole body of the burgesses of the city, before whom the business in the general is propounded, and they are desired by the senate to make choice of some deputies, to be joined to the senate and to assist them in the matters proposed. then the whole body of the freemen do commonly make choice of eight, sometimes more and sometimes fewer, as they please, out of their own number, and these deputies have full power given to them by this assembly to despatch and determine, together with the senate and the overholt, their matters thus proposed to the general consideration of that public assembly; and what this council thus constituted do resolve in these matters, the same is put in execution accordingly, obligeth, and is freely submitted unto by all the citizens, who look upon themselves by this their election of deputies to have their own consents involved in what their deputies determine. in the evening mr. stetkin, with whom whitelocke had been acquainted in england, when he was there, a servant of the late king for his private music, wherein he was excellent, came to whitelocke, and with maylard, one of whitelocke's servants, made very good music for his diversion. this day the wind came about reasonable good for whitelocke's voyage, who thereupon ordered the captains away to their frigates and his people to prepare all things in readiness for his departure tomorrow; his baggage was carried down and put on board the frigates. he gave his most hearty and solemn thanks to the resident, and to all the gentleman of the english company of merchants here, who had very nobly and affectionately entertained whitelocke at their own charge all the time of his being in this city. he ordered his gratuities to be distributed among their servants and to all who had done any service or offices for him, both of the english house and of the townsmen, and ordered all things to be in readiness to proceed in his voyage. _june , ._ [sn: whitelocke takes leave of the senate.] the baggage and inferior servants of whitelocke being gone down before unto the frigates, and the wind being indifferent good, whitelocke resolved this day to set forwards in his voyage, and to endeavour, if he could, before night to reach the frigates, which did attend his coming in the elbe about glückstadt. the resident had provided boats for whitelocke and his company to go down unto the frigates, and had given notice to some of the senators of whitelocke's intention to remove this day; whereupon monsieur müller, the chief burgomaster of the town, came to whitelocke's lodging in the morning to visit him and to inquire of his health, as one that bare a particular respect to him, and was now come to take his leave of him. he was a wise and sober man, and of good conversation, and testified much respect to the protector and commonwealth of england, and much honour to whitelocke in particular. whilst he was with whitelocke, the two senators who came first to whitelocke to bid him welcome hither, came now also to him from the senate, to bid him farewell. the elder of them spake to whitelocke to this effect:-- "my lord ambassador, "the senate hath commanded us in their name to salute your excellence, and to give you thanks for taking in good part the small testimonies of their respect towards you, which they are ashamed were no better, and entreat your pardon for it. "they understand that your excellence is upon your departure from this town, which gives them great cause of sadness, as they had of joy at your arrival here; but since it is your good pleasure, and your great affairs oblige you to depart, all that we can do is to pray to god for your safe arrival in your own country, and we doubt not but that the same god who hath hitherto preserved you in a long and perilous voyage, will continue his goodness to you in the remainder of your journey. "we have a humble request to make to your excellence, that you will give us leave to recommend our town to your patronage, and that you would be pleased to peruse these papers, which concern some of our citizens; and that your excellence will be a means to my lord protector and to the court of admiralty, that justice and favour may be shown to them." as this gentleman spake of the testimonies of respect from this city to whitelocke, he looked back to the table, upon which stood a piece of plate covered with sarsenet. a little after the senator had done speaking, whitelocke answered him to this purpose:-- "gentlemen, "i have cause to acknowledge that god hath been very good and gracious to me, and to all my company, throughout our whole voyage unto this place; for which we desire to bless his name, and hope that he will be pleased to continue his goodness to us in the rest of our journey. i desire you to return my hearty thanks to my lords the senators, who have honoured me with their very great respects during the whole time of my being with them, and have bestowed noble testimonies thereof upon me. i shall not fail to inform the protector, my master, hereof, to whom, and to the commonwealth of england, this respect is given in my person. "i have received much contentment in my being here, not only by the sight of so fair and flourishing a city as this is, so well fortified, and manned, and traded, and governed, but in your civilities, and the honour i have had to be acquainted with your worthy magistrates. and i have had a singular satisfaction to understand from my countrymen living amongst you that their privileges are by you entirely continued to them, which i recommend to you as a thing most acceptable to my lord protector, who takes care of the whole commonwealth, and will expect that i give him an account of what concerns the english merchants and their commerce in this place. the wind being now good, i am obliged, according to the commands of the protector, my master, forthwith to return for england, and do resolve this day to proceed in my voyage towards my ships. i hope my god will conduct me in safety to the place where i would be, and where i shall have the opportunity to testify my gratitude to the lords and people of this city, and to take care of those affairs wherein they may be concerned, which i esteem as an honour to me." [sn: presents of the senate.] after whitelocke had done speaking, the senators, with the accustomed ceremonies, took their leaves of him. the piece of plate which they now presented to him was a vessel of silver, like a little cabinet, wrought with bosses of beautiful figures, curious and rich, of the value, as some prized it, of about £ sterling. whitelocke was somewhat surprised with this present of plate, and doubtful whether he should accept it or not; but considering that it was only a testimony of their respects to the protector; and as to whitelocke, he was not capable of doing them service or prejudice, but as their affairs should deserve; and if he should refuse this present, it would be ill taken by the lords. upon these considerations, and the advice of the resident and other friends, whitelocke took it, and returned his hearty thanks for it. another senator, one monsieur samuel, hearing that whitelocke had a little son at home, sent him a little horse for a present, the least that one hath seen, yet very handsome, and managed to the great saddle, which whitelocke brought home with him; so full of civility and courtesy were the magistrates of this place. after much difficulty to get away, and the earnest request of the resident and english merchants to the contrary, entreating him to stay longer, yet whitelocke kept his resolution to leave the town; and boats being in readiness, he went down to the water-side, accompanied with a great number of his countrymen and his own people, and took his boats to go down the elbe to his ships. the resident and some others went in his boat with him. vice-admiral clerke would not yet leave him, saying that wrangel had commanded him to see whitelocke on board the english frigates, either for a compliment or desiring to see the frigates, which were so much discoursed on in these parts, and thereby to be enabled to give an account to wrangel of the dimensions and make of them, which he longed to know. [sn: whitelocke embarks in boats on the elbe,] the boat in which whitelocke went was large, but not convenient, open, and went only with sails. the streets, as he passed to the water-side, and the windows, and on the bridges, were full of people to see him as he went, and gave him courteous salutations at his farewell. in his own boat he had six trumpets, which sounded all along as he passed through the city and the haven, which was then very full of ships, and they also very civil to make way for whitelocke's boats. upon the bridges and bulwarks which he went by were guards of soldiers in arms; and the bulwarks on that side saluted him with all their cannon, about twenty-one pieces, though they used not to give strangers above two or three guns. thus whitelocke parted from this city of hamburg, recommending himself and his company to the blessing and protection of the almighty. a little below the city they came by a small village called by them _all to nah_ (altona), that is, "all too nigh," being the king of denmark's territory, within half a league, which they thought too near their city. when they came a little lower, with a sudden strong blast of wind the boat in which whitelocke was, was in great danger of being overset; after which it grew to be a calm; whereupon whitelocke sent to the english cloth-ships, which lay a little below, to lend him some of their ship-boats and mariners with oars, to make better way than his boat with sails could do. this they did readily; and as whitelocke passed by them, they all saluted him with their cannon. [sn: but lands at stadt.] having changed their boats and discharged the great ones, they went more cheerfully down the river till they came within half a league of the town of stadt; when being almost dark, and the mariners not accustomed to the river out of the channel, the boat in which whitelocke was, struck upon the sand, and was fast there. presently the english mariners, seven or eight of them, leaped out of the boat into the river, "up to their chins, and by strength removed the boat from off the sands again; and they came to their oars again, within an english mile of stadt, when it was very late, and the boats were two german miles from the frigates, and the tide turning. whitelocke thought it impossible to reach his ships this night, and not prudent to proceed with unexperienced men upon this dangerous river by night; and understanding by general potley, and one of the trumpets who had been formerly here, of a house upon the river that goes to stadt, within a quarter of a mile of the place where they now were, whitelocke ordered the mariners to make to that house, who, with much difficulty, found out the mouth of the river; but for want of water, being low tide, they had much trouble to get the boat up to the cruise, or in there. the master of the house had been a soldier and a cook; he prepared a supper for them of salt eels, salt salmon, and a little poultry, which was made better by the meat and wine that the resident brought with him; yet all little enough when the rest of whitelocke's company, in three other boats, came to the same house, though they could not know of whitelocke being there; but he was very ill himself, and this was a bad quarter for him, who had been so lately very sick at hamburg; yet he contented himself without going to bed. his sons and company had some fresh straw, and god in his wonted mercy still preserved him and his company. the host sent word to his general, koningsmark, that the english ambassador was at his house this night. _june , ._ [sn: embarks in the president.] whitelocke resolved to remove from the cruise early this morning, and the rather because he was informed that koningsmark intended to come hither this morning to visit him, which whitelocke did not desire, in regard of the late accident at bremen, where koningsmark was governor, and that his conferring with him, upon his immediate return from sweden, might give some jealousy to those of bremen, or to the hanse towns, or some of the german princes thereabouts. whitelocke therefore held it best to take no notice of koningsmark's intention to come and visit him, but to avoid that meeting by going early from hence this morning; which he had the more reason to do because of his bad entertainment here, and for that the tide served betimes this morning to get out of this river. he therefore caused his people to make ready about two o'clock this morning, and took boat within an hour after, the weather being very fair and the country pleasant. on the right-hand was holstein, on the left-hand was the duchy of lüneburg, and below that the bishopric of bremen; in which this river comes from stadt near unto bremen, more considerable heretofore when it was the staple for the english cloth, but left by our merchants many years since, partly because they held themselves not well treated by the inhabitants of stadt, and partly by the inconvenientness of this river to bring up their cloth to that town. two miles from this cruise whitelocke came to the frigates, where they lay at anchor. he himself went on board the 'president,' who, at his entry, saluted him with above forty guns, the 'elizabeth' but with twenty-one, and her captain, minnes, came on board to whitelocke to excuse it, because, not knowing whitelocke's time of coming hither, he had no more guns ready to bid him welcome. [sn: glückstadt.] right against the frigates lay the fort and town of glückstadt, that is luckystadt, or lucky town. whitelocke being desirous to take a view of it and of the fortifications, and his baggage not being yet come to the frigates, he with the resident and several others went over in one of the ship's boats to see it. the town is situate in a marsh, having no hill near to command it. the fortifications about it are old, yet in good repair. it belongs to the king of denmark, as duke of holstein, and he keeps a garrison there at the mouth of a river running into the elbe, like that of stadt. the late king of denmark built there a blockhouse in the great river upon piles, to the end he might command the ships passing that way, but the elbe being there above a league in breadth, the ships may well pass notwithstanding that fort. at whitelocke's landing in the town, which is about a bow-shot from the mouth of the river, he sent to acquaint the governor therewith, and that he desired only to see the town and then to return to his ships. the governor sent a civil answer, that he was sorry he could not accompany whitelocke, to show him the town, by reason of his being sick, but that he had sent one of his officers to show him the fortifications, and desired him to command anything in the town; for which civility whitelocke returned thanks. the town is not great nor well-built, but of brick, and some of the houses very fair; chiefly one which they call the king's house, which might fit an english knight to dwell in. the town seems decaying, and the fortifications also in some places. the late king designed to have made this a great town of trade, and by that means to have diminished, if not ruined, his neighbours the hamburgers; to whom this king having done some injuries, and endeavouring to build a bridge over the elbe near to hamburg, to hinder the ships coming up thither, and their trade, the citizens pulled it down again, and came with about twenty vessels to glückstadt upon a design against that town; but the king's ships of war being there, the admiral of hamburg cut his anchors and returned home in haste. the king's men got up the anchors, and at this time whitelocke saw them hung up in their church as great trophies of a small victory thus easily gained. at whitelocke's return, glückstadt saluted him with three pieces of cannon. when he was come back to his ships he found all his people and baggage come up to him, whereupon he resolved to weigh anchor the first opportunity of wind serving, and gave orders accordingly to his captains. the resident bradshaw, vice-admiral clerke, the treasurer and secretary of the english company at hamburg, who accompanied whitelocke to his ships, now the tide serving, took their leaves of him, with much respect and wishes of a happy voyage to him; and so they parted. the wind came to north-east, flat contrary to whitelocke's course, and rose high, with violent storms and much rain, so that it was not possible for whitelocke to weigh anchor and proceed in his voyage; but he had cause to thank god that he was in a safe and good harbour. _june , ._ the wind continued very tempestuous and contrary to whitelocke's course, so that he could not budge, but lay still at anchor. the mariners, in their usual way of sporting, endeavoured to make him some pastime, to divert the tediousness of his stay and of the bad weather. he learned that at glückstadt the hamburgers pay a toll to the king of denmark, who submit thereunto as other ships do, rather than enter into a contest or war with that king. [sn: whitelocke writes to the queen of sweden.] whitelocke thought it becoming him in civility and gratitude to give an account by letters to the queen of sweden of his proceeding thus far in his voyage, for which purpose he had written his letters at hamburg, and now having too much leisure, he made them up and sent them to vice-admiral clerke to be presented to the queen. the letters were to this effect:-- "_a sa sérénissime majesté christine, reine de suède._ "madame, "les grandes faveurs que j'ai reçues de votre majesté m'obligent à lui rendre compte de ce qui me touche, celui en qui vous avez beaucoup d'intérêt. et puisque par votre faveur, sous dieu, j'ai déjà surmonté les difficultés de la plus grande moitié du voyage que j'ai à faire par mer, j'ai pris la hardiesse d'entretenir votre majesté de mon succès jusqu'en ce lieu. le premier de juin, le beau navire 'amaranta' nous fit flotter sur la baltique, et nonobstant les calmes, le vent contraire, et un terrible orage qui nous exercèrent, par l'adresse de l'amiral clerc, du capitaine sinclair (de l'honnêteté, respect, et soin desquels envers moi et ma suite, je suis redevable, comme de mille autres faveurs, à votre majesté), comme par l'obéissance du navire à ses experts conducteurs, nous mîmes pied à terre à tremon, le port de lubec, mercredi le juin. samedi nous arrivâmes à hambourg, où je suis à présent, dans la maison des anglais. ce matin j'ai pensé ne voir point le soir, ayant été travaillé d'un mal soudain, et tempête horrible qui m'a cuidé renverser dans ce port. mais il a plu à dieu me remettre en bonne mesure, ainsi j'espère que je ne serai empêché d'achever mon voyage. je prie dieu qu'il préserve votre majesté, et qu'il me rende si heureux, qu'étant rendu en mon pays, j'aie l'opportunité selon mon petit pouvoir de témoigner en effet que je suis "de votre majesté "le très-humble et obéissant serviteur, "b. whitelocke. "_juin , ._" _june , ._ [sn: whitelocke detained by contrary winds.] the wind continued in the same quarter as before, very high and contrary to whitelocke's course, both the last night and this morning, which gave him and his company much trouble; but they must submit to the time and good pleasure of god. about five o'clock this morning (an unusual hour for visits) mr. schestedt came on board whitelocke's ship from glückstadt, whither he came the day before by land. they had much discourse together, wherein this gentleman is copious, most of it to the same effect as at his former visits at hamburg. he told whitelocke of the lord wentworth's being at hamburg and his carriage there, and that he spake with respect towards the protector and towards whitelocke, but was full of wishes of ruin to the protector's party. whitelocke inquired of him touching the levies of soldiers by the princes in the lower saxony now in action, with whom mr. schestedt was very conversant. he said that the present levies were no other than such as those princes made the last year, and usually make every year for their own defence in case there should be any occasion, and that he knew of no design extraordinary. whitelocke asked him several questions about this matter, that he might be able to give information thereof to the protector; but either there was nothing, or this gentleman would discover nothing in it. he was entertained in whitelocke's cabin at breakfast, where he fed and drank wine heartily, and at his going away whitelocke gave him twenty-one guns, and ordered the 'elizabeth' to give him nineteen, and sent him to shore in one of his ship-boats. the wind being very high, and not changing all this day, to the trouble of whitelocke and hindrance of his voyage. in the evening, a messenger from monsieur schestedt brought to whitelocke these letters:-- "monseigneur, "votre excellence aura reçu, par un de ses serviteurs, un petit billet de moi partant de glückstadt, sur ce qu'avions parlé, suppliant très-humblement votre excellence d'en avoir soin sans aucun bruit. et si la commodité de votre excellence le permettra, je vous supplie de vouloir écrire un mot de lettre au résident d'ici pour mieux jouir de sa bonne conversation sur ce qui concerne la correspondance avec votre excellence; et selon que votre excellence m'avisera je me gouvernerai exactement, me fiant entièrement à la générosité de votre excellence, et m'obligeant en homme d'honneur de vivre et mourir, "monseigneur, de votre excellence "très-humble et très-obéissant serviteur, "hannibal schestedt. "_ juin, ._ "votre excellence aura mille remercîmens de l'honneur reçu par ces canonades, et excusera pour ma disgrace de n'avoir été répondu." to these letters whitelocke sent this answer:-- "monseigneur, "je n'ai rien par voie de retour que mes humbles remercîmens pour le grand honneur que vous m'avez fait, par vos très-agréables visites, tant à hambourg qu'en ce lieu, comme aussi en m'envoyant ce noble gentilhomme qui m'a apporté les lettres de votre excellence. je ne manquerai pas, quand il plaira à dieu me ramener en angleterre, de contribuer tout ce qui sera en mon pouvoir pour votre service, et j'espère que l'issue en sera à votre contentement, et que dans peu de temps je saurai vous rendre bon compte de ce dont vous me faites mention en vos lettres. ce petit témoignage du respect que je porte à votre excellence, que je rendis à votre départ de mon vaisseau, et qu'il vous plaît honorer de votre estime, ne mérite pas que vous en teniez aucun compte; je serai joyeux de vous témoigner par meilleurs effets que je suis "de votre excellence "le très-humble et très-obéissant serviteur, "b. whitelocke. "_a bord le président, rade de glückstadt, juin, ._" many other letters passed between them, not necessary for a recital. _june , ._ [sn: still detained by the wind.] the wind continued in the same quarter as before, very high, and contrary to whitelocke's course. the english cloth-ships came down to him, desiring to be in his squadron homewards. whitelocke knew no reason why his ships might not as well have fallen down lower in the river as these; about which he consulted with the officers and pilot of his ship, who agreed that this morning, the wind being come a little more moderate, the ships might have fallen down with the tide, but that the time was now neglected; which the officers excused because of the fog, which was so thick that they durst not adventure to go down the river. he resolved, upon this, to take the next opportunity, and went aboard the 'elizabeth' to see his company there, who were well accommodated. here a petition was presented to whitelocke from two mariners in hold for speaking desperate words,--that they would blow up the ship and all her company, and would cut the throat of the protector, and of ten thousand of his party. one of them confessed, in his petition, that he was drunk when he spake these words, and had no intention of the least harm to the ship, or to the protector, or any of the state; both of them acknowledged their fault, and humbly asked pardon. after whitelocke had examined them severally, and could get from them no confession of any plot against the protector or state, but earnest asseverations of their innocences; yet having news of a plot in england against the protector and government, he held it not fit for him absolutely to release them; but, because he thought it only a business and words of drunkenness, he ordered them to be had out of the hold, but their captain to see that they should be forthcoming at their arrival in england, that the council, being acquainted herewith, might direct their pleasure concerning them. about noon the wind began again to blow with great tempestuousness, and flat contrary to whitelocke's course. in the evening a gentleman came aboard whitelocke's ship, with letters from monsieur schestedt from glückstadt to the same effect, and with compliments as formerly, to which whitelocke returned a civil answer by the same messenger; and by him he also sent letters of compliment and thanks to the resident bradshaw, which likewise he prayed the resident, in his name, to present to the english company of merchants at hamburg, for their very great civilities and noble respects to whitelocke while he was with them. _june , ._ [sn: a visit from count ranzau.] the wind continued contrary and extraordinary violent all the last night and this morning; and whitelocke had cause to acknowledge the favour of god to him, that during these rough storms he was in a good harbour and had not put out into the open sea. early in the morning a gentleman came from glückstadt on board to whitelocke, and told him that grave ranzau, the governor of the province of holstein, had sent him to salute whitelocke on his part, and to know when he might conveniently come to whitelocke; who answered that he should be always ready to entertain his excellence, but in regard the time was now so dangerous, he desired the governor would not expose himself to the hazard for his sake. about an hour after came another, in the habit of a military officer, from the grave to whitelocke, to excuse the grave's not coming by reason of the very ill weather, and that no boat was to be gotten fit to bring the grave from shore to whitelocke's ship; but he said, that if whitelocke pleased to send his ship-boats and mariners for the governor, the wind being somewhat fallen, he would come and kiss his hand. whitelocke answered in french to the gentleman, who spake dutch, and was interpreted in french, that he was glad his excellence was not in danger of the violent storms in coming on board to him this morning, but he should esteem it great honour to see the governor in his ship, and that not only the boats and mariners, but all in the ship was at the service of his excellence. the gentleman desired that one of the ship-boats and the ship-mariners might carry him back to land, and so bring the governor from thence to whitelocke, who commanded the same to be done. and about an hour after came the grave ranzau, a proper, comely person, habited as a soldier, about forty years of age; with him was another lord, governor of another province, and three or four gentlemen, and other followers. whitelocke received them at the ship's side, and at his entry gave him nine guns. the grave seemed doubtful to whom to make his application, whitelocke being in a plain sea-gown of english grey baize; but (as the governor said afterwards) he knew him to be the ambassador by seeing him with his hat on, and so many brave fellows about him bareheaded. after salutations, the governor spake to whitelocke to this effect:-- "monseigneur, "le roi de danemarck, mon maître, m'a commandé de venir trouver votre excellence, et de la saluer de sa part, et la faire la bienvenue en ses hâvres, et lui faire savoir que s'il y a quelque chose dans ce pays-là dont le gouvernement m'est confié par sa majesté, qu'il est à son commandement. sa majesté aussi a un extreme désir de voir votre excellence, et de vous entretenir en sa cour, désirant d'embrasser toutes les occasions par lesquelles il pourrait témoigner le respect qu'il porte à son altesse monseigneur le protecteur." whitelocke answered in french to this purpose:-- "monseigneur, "je rends grâces à sa majesté le roi de danemarck, du respect qu'il lui à plu témoigner à sa sérénissime altesse mon maître, et de l'honneur qu'il lui à plu faire à moi son serviteur, de quoi je ne manquerai pas d'informer son altesse. je suis aussi beaucoup obligé à votre excellence pour l'honneur de votre visite, qu'il vous plaît me donner en ce lieu, et principalement en un temps si fâcheux. j'eusse aussi grande envie de baiser les mains de sa majesté et de voir sa cour, n'eût été que son altesse a envoyé des navires exprès pour m'emporter d'ici en angleterre, et que j'ai ouï dire que le roi a remué sa cour de copenhague ailleurs, à cause de la peste. je suis très-joyeux d'entendre de la santé de sa majesté, auquel je souhaite toute sorte de bonheur." [sn: visit from the dutch agent.] after many compliments, whitelocke gave, him precedence into his cabin; and after some discourse there, a servant of the agent of holland was brought in to whitelocke, who said his master desired whitelocke to appoint a time when the agent might come on board him to salute whitelocke and to kiss his hand. he answered that, at any hour when his master pleased to do whitelocke that honour, he should be welcome, and that some noble persons being now with him, who, he hoped, would do him the favour to take part of a sea-dinner with him, that if it would please the agent to do him the same favour, and to keep these honourable persons company, it would be the greater obligation unto whitelocke. the grave, hearing this, began to excuse himself, that he could not stay dinner with whitelocke, but, upon entreaty, he was prevailed with to stay. about noon the dutch agent came in one of whitelocke's boats on board his ship, whom he received at the ship's side, and saluted with seven guns at his entry. the agent spake to whitelocke to this purpose:--"that, passing by glückstadt towards hamburg, he was informed of whitelocke's being in this place, and thereupon held it his duty, and agreeable to the will of his lords, not to proceed in his journey without first giving a visit to whitelocke to testify the respect of his superiors to the protector and commonwealth of england, as also to whitelocke in particular." whitelocke returned thanks to the agent for the respect which he testified to the protector, and for the honour done to whitelocke, and that it would be acceptable so the protector to hear of this respect from my lords the states to him, whereof he should not fail to inform his highness when he should have the opportunity to be near him. [sn: entertainment of count ranzau.] the grave went first into whitelocke's cabin, after him the agent, and then whitelocke, who gave these guests a plentiful dinner on ship-board. the grave desired that whitelocke's sons might be called in to dine with them, which was done, and whitelocke asked the grave if he would have any of his company to dine with him. he desired one of the gentlemen, who was admitted accordingly. they were served with the states' plate, which whitelocke had caused to be taken forth on this occasion; and the strangers would often take up the plates and dishes to look on them, wondering to see so many great and massy pieces of silver plate as there were. they drank no healths, the grave telling whitelocke he had heard it was against his judgement, and therefore he did forbear to begin any healths, for which civility whitelocke thanked him; and they had no want of good wine and meat, and such as scarce had been seen before on ship-board. they discoursed of the affairs in sweden, and of the happy peace between england and denmark, and the like. monsieur de la marche gave thanks in french, because they all understood it. after dinner whitelocke took out his tobacco-box, which the grave looked upon, being gold, and his arms, the three falcons, engraven on it; whereupon he asked whitelocke if he loved hawks, who said he was a falconer by inheritance, as his coat of arms testified. the grave said that he would send him some hawks the next winter out of his master's dominions of iceland, where the best in the world were bred, which he nobly performed afterwards. the grave earnestly invited whitelocke to go on shore with him to his house, which was within two leagues of glückstadt, where he should meet monsieur schestedt and his lady, and the next day he would bring whitelocke to the king, who much desired to see him; and the grave offered to bring whitelocke back again in his coach to glückstadt. whitelocke desired to be excused by reason of his voyage, and an order of his country that those who had the command of any of the state's ships were not to lie out of them until they brought them home again; otherwise whitelocke said he had a great desire to kiss his majesty's hand and to wait upon his excellence and the noble company at his house; and he desired that his humble thanks and excuse might be made to the king. the grave replied that whitelocke, being an extraordinary ambassador, was not within the order concerning commanders of the state's ships, but he might be absent and leave the charge of the ships to the inferior officers. whitelocke said that as ambassador he had the honour to command those ships, and so was within the order, and was commanded by his highness to return forthwith to england; that if, in his absence, the wind and weather should come fair, or any harm should come to any of the ships, he should be answerable for neglecting of his trust. whitelocke also was unwilling, though he must not express the same, to put himself under the trouble and temptations which he might meet with in such a journey, and to neglect the least opportunity of proceeding in his voyage homewards. the grave, seeing whitelocke not to be persuaded, hasted away; and after compliments and ceremonies passed with great civility, he and the agent and their company went into one of whitelocke's ship-boats, with a crew of his men and his lieutenant to attend them. at their going off, by whitelocke's order only one gun was fired, and a good while after the 'president' fired all her guns round, the 'elizabeth,' according to custom, did the like; so that there was a continual firing of great guns during the whole time of their passage from the ship unto the shore--almost a hundred guns, and the fort answered them with all the guns they had. at the lieutenant's return he told whitelocke that the grave, when he heard but one gun fired for a good while together, began to be highly offended, saying that his master, the king, was slighted and himself dishonoured, to be sent away with one gun only fired, and he wondered the ambassador carried it in such a manner; but afterwards, when the rest of the guns went off, the grave said he would tell the king how highly the english ambassador had honoured his majesty and his servant by the most magnificent entertainment that ever was made on ship-board, and by the number of guns at his going away, and that this was the greatest honour he ever received, with much to the like purpose; and he gave to the lieutenant for his pains two pieces of plate of silver gilt, and ten rix-dollars to the boat's company, and twenty rix-dollars more to the ship's company. _june , ._ this was the seventh day that whitelocke had lain on the elbe, which was tedious to him; and now, fresh provisions failing, he sent captain crispe to glückstadt to buy more, whose diligence and discretion carried him through his employments to the contentment of his master. he brought good provisions at cheap rates. [sn: whitelocke agrees to convoy four english cloth ships.] the four captains of the english cloth-ships came on board whitelocke to visit him; they were sober, experienced sea commanders; their ships lay at anchor close to whitelocke. after dinner they told whitelocke that if their ships had been three leagues lower down the river, they could not have anchored in this bad weather without extreme danger, the sea being there much higher, and the tide so strong that their cables would not have held their ships; and that if they had been at sea in this weather, they had been in imminent peril of shipwreck, and could not have returned into the river, nor have put into the weser nor any other harbour. whitelocke said that they and he were the more bound to god, who had so ordered their affairs as to keep them, during all the storms wherein they had been, in a safe and good harbour; he wished them, in this and all their voyages, to place their confidence in god, who would be the same god to them as now, and in all their affairs of this life. the captains desired whitelocke's leave to carry their streamers and colours, and to be received by him as part of his fleet in their voyage for england, and they would acknowledge him for their admiral. whitelocke told them he should be glad of their company in his voyage, and would willingly admit them as part of his small fleet, but he would expect their observance of his orders; and if there should be occasion, that they must join with him in fight against any enemies of the commonwealth whom they should meet with, which they promised to do; and whitelocke mentioned it to the captains, because he had received intelligence of a ship laden with arms coming out of the weser for scotland, with a strong convoy, with whom whitelocke resolved to try his strength, if he could meet him. in the afternoon two merchants of the cloth-ships came to visit whitelocke, and showed great respect to him; and they and the captains returned together to their ships, the wind being allayed, and come about to the south, which gave whitelocke hopes to proceed in his voyage. _june , ._ [sn: the convoy sails to rose beacon.] the wind being come to west-south-west, a little fallen, about three o'clock in the morning they began to weigh anchor. by whitelocke's command, all the ships were to observe this order in their sailing. every morning each ship was to come up and fall by whitelocke, and salute him, that he might inquire how they all did; then they were to fall astern again, whitelocke to be in the van, and the 'elizabeth' in the rear, and the other ships in the middle between them; all to carry their colours; whitelocke to carry his in the maintop, and all to take their orders from his ship. thus they did this morning; the cloth-ships came all by whitelocke, and saluted him the first with nine guns. whitelocke answered her with as many. then she gave three guns more, to thank him for his salutation. each of the other ships gave seven guns at their passing by; then the fort of glückstadt discharged all their ordnance to give whitelocke the farewell, who then fired twenty-one guns, and the 'elizabeth' nineteen; then the cloth-ships fired three guns apiece, as thanks for their salutation; and so, with their sails spread, they committed themselves to the protection of the almighty. though these things may be looked upon by some as trivial and expensive, yet those who go to sea will find them useful and of consequence, both to keep up and cheer the spirits of the seamen, who will not be pleased without them, and to give an honour to one's country among strangers who are taken with them; and it is become a kind of sea language and ceremony, and teacheth them also the better to speak it in battle. some emulation happened between the captain of the 'president' and minnes, because whitelocke went not with him, but in the other's ship, which whitelocke would have avoided, but that he apprehended the 'president' sent purposely for him. between seven and eight o'clock in the morning whitelocke passed by a village called brown bottle, belonging to the king of denmark, upon the river in holstein, four leagues from glückstadt; and four leagues from thence he passed by a village on the other side of the elbe, which they told him was called oldenburg, and belonged to the duke of saxony. two leagues below that, he came to anchor over against a village called rose beacon, a fair beacon standing by the water-side. it belongs to hamburg; and by a late accident of a soldier's discharging his musket, it set a house on fire, and burnt half the town. some of whitelocke's people went on shore, and reported it to be a poor place, and no provisions to be had there. the road here is well defended by a compass of land on the south and west, but to the north and east it lies open. the sea there is wide, but full of high sands. the river is so shallow in some places that there was scarce three fathom water where he passed between brown bottle and oldenburg, where his ship struck upon the sand, and made foul water, to the imminent danger of him and all his people, had not the lord in mercy kept them. they were forced presently to tack back, and seek for deeper water. the pilot confessed this to happen because they lay too far to gain the wind, which brought them upon the shallow. whitelocke came to rose beacon before noon, which is not very safe if the wind be high, as now it was; yet much safer than to be out in the open sea, whither the pilot durst not venture, the wind rising and being contrary to them. _june , ._ _the lord's day._--mr. ingelo, whitelocke's chaplain, preached in his ship in the morning. mr. de la marche, his other chaplain, was sick of a dysentery, which he fell into by drinking too much milk on shore. mr. knowles, a confident young man, the ship's minister, preached in the afternoon. [sn: the cloth ships return to glückstadt.] the wind blew very strong and contrary all the last night and this morning, which made it troublesome riding in this place; insomuch that the four cloth-ships, doubting the continuance of this tempestuous weather, and fearing the danger that their cables would not hold, which failing would endanger all, and not being well furnished with provisions, they weighed anchor this morning flood, and sailed back again to glückstadt road; whereof they sent notice to whitelocke, desiring his excuse for what their safety forced them to do. but whitelocke thought it not requisite to follow their example, men of war having better cables than merchantmen; and being better able to endure the stress of weather, and he being better furnished with provisions, he resolved to try it out in this place. [sn: a present from count ranzau.] in the afternoon the wind was somewhat appeased and blew west-south-west. a messenger came on board whitelocke, and informed him that grave ranzau had sent a noble present--a boat full of fresh provisions--to whitelocke; but by reason of the violent storms, and whitelocke being gone from glückstadt, the boat could not come at him, but was forced to return back, and so whitelocke lost his present. the letters mentioning this were delivered to whitelocke by this messenger, and were these:-- "_a son excellence monsieur whitelocke, ambassadeur extraordinaire d'angleterre vers sa majesté la reine de suède._ "monseigneur, "nous croyons être obligés de faire connaître à votre excellence que monseigneur le comte de ranzau, notre maître, nous avait donné commission de venir très-humblement baiser les mains de votre excellence, et lui faire présenter quelques cerfs, sangliers, lièvres, perdrix, et quantité de carpes; la supplier de s'en rafraîchir un peu, pendant que l'opiniâtreté d'un vent contraire lui empêcherait une meilleure commodité, et d'assurer votre excellence, de la part de monseigneur le comte, qu'il souhaite avec passion de pouvoir témoigner à votre excellence combien il désire les occasions pour lui rendre très-humbles services, et contracter avec elle une amitié plus étroite; et comme son excellence s'en allait trouver le roi, son maître, qu'il ne laisserait point de dire à sa majesté les civilités que votre excellence lui avait faites, et que sa majesté épouserait sans doute ses intérêts, pour l'assister de s'acquitter de son devoir avec plus de vigueur, lorsque la fortune lui en fournirait quelque ample matière. "mais, monseigneur, nous avons été si malheureux d'arriver à glückstadt cinq ou six heures après que votre excellence avait fait voile et était descendu vers la mer; toutefois avons-nous pris vitement un vaisseau pour suivre, et n'étions guères loin du hâvre où l'on disait que votre excellence était contrainte d'attendre un vent encore plus favorable, quand notre vaisseau, n'étant point chargé, fut tellement battu par une grande tempête, que nous étions obligés de nous en retourner sans pouvoir executer les ordres de monseigneur le comte, notre maître, dont nous avons un déplaisir incroyable. votre excellence a une bonté et générosité très-parfaite; c'est pourquoi nous la supplions très-humblement, d'imputer plutôt à notre malheur qu'à la volonté de monseigneur le comte, le mauvais succès de cette notre entreprise; aussi bien la lettre ici enfermée de son excellence monseigneur le comte donnera plus de croyance à nos paroles. "nous demandons très-humblement pardon à votre excellence de la longueur de celle-ci, et espérons quelque rencontre plus heureuse pour lui témoigner de meilleure grâce que nous sommes passionément, "monseigneur, de votre excellence "très-humbles et très-obéissans serviteurs, "franÇois louis van de wiele. "balth. borne." the enclosed letter from the count, which they mentioned, was this:-- "_illustri et nobilissimo domino bulstrodo whitelocke, constabulario castri de windsor, et domino custodi magni sigilli reipublicæ angliæ, adque serenissimam reginam sueciæ legato extraordinario; amico meo plurimum honorando._ "illustris et nobilissime domine legate, amice plurimum honorande, "quod excellentia vestra me hesterno die tam magnificè et lautè exceperit, id ut pro singulari agnosco beneficio; ita ingentes excellentiæ vestræ ago gratias, et nihil magis in votis habeo quam ut occasio mihi offeratur, quâ benevolentiam hanc aliquando debitè resarcire possim. "cum itaque videam ventum adhuc esse contrarium, adeo ut excellentia vestra anchoram solvere versusque patriam vela vertere needum possit; partium mearum duxi aliquo modo gratum meum ostendere animum et præsentem ad excellentiam vestram ablegare, simulque aliquid carnis, farinæ, et piscium, prout festinatio temporis admittere potuit, offerre, excellentiam vestram obnixè rogans ut oblatum æqui bonique consulere dignetur. et quamvis ex animo excellentiæ vestræ ventum secundum, et ad iter omnia prospera exoptem, nihilo tamen minus, si forte fortuna in hisce locis vicinis diutius adhuc subsistere cogatur, ministris meis injungam, ut excellentiæ vestræ in absentia mea (quoniam in procinctu sum me crastino mane ad regiam majestatem dominum meum clementissimum conferre) ulterius inservire, et quicquid occasio obtulerit subministrare debeant. de cætero nos divinæ commendo protectioni, et excellentiæ vestræ filios dilectissimos meo nomine salutare obnixè rogo. "dabam in arce mea breitenburos, junii, anno . "excellentiæ vestræ "observantissimus totusque addictus, "christianus, _comes in ranzau_." whitelocke did the rather insert these letters, to testify the abilities of the gentlemen servants to this grave, as also the grateful affection of their master towards him, a stranger to them, upon one meal's entertainment and acquaintance. about six o'clock at night mr. smith, son to alderman smith, of london, and two other young merchants of the english company at hamburg, came on board to whitelocke, and brought letters to him from the resident bradshaw, with those the resident received by this week's post from london; wherein was little news, and no letters came to whitelocke, because (as he supposed) his friends believed him to be upon the sea. whitelocke wrote letters of thanks to the resident, and enclosed in them letters of compliment to the ricks-chancellor, and to his son grave eric of sweden, and to sir george fleetwood and others, his friends, and entreated the resident to send them into sweden. _june , ._ [sn: whitelocke weighs anchor.] the wind not being so high the last night nor this morning as formerly, but the weather promising fair, and whitelocke longing to advance in his voyage, he weighed anchor about break of day, the 'elizabeth' did the like, and they were under sail about four o'clock this morning. as they came out from rose beacon, they told above thirty fisher-boats at sea, testifying the industriousness of this people. about two leagues from rose beacon they passed in sight of another beacon, and of a village which they call newworke, in which is a small castle like unto that at rose beacon. here the sea began to expatiate, and about three leagues from hence was the lowest buoy of the river. and now whitelocke was got forth into the open german ocean, a sea wide and large, oft-times highly rough and boisterous and full of danger, especially in these parts of it, and as whitelocke shortly found it to be. suddenly the wind grew high and the sea swelled, and they were fain to take in their topsails; the ship rolled and tossed sufficiently to make the younger seamen sick, and all fearful. from this place they might see an island on the starboard side of them, called heligoland, standing a great way into the sea, twelve leagues from rose beacon; the island is about six miles in compass. the inhabitants have a language, habit, and laws, different from their neighbours, and are said to have many witches among them; their shores are found very dangerous, and many ships wrecked upon them. about noon the wind came more to the west, and sometimes it was calm; nevertheless the sea wrought high, the waves raised by the former storms not abating a long while after the storm ceased. when they were gone about two leagues beyond heligoland, the wind and tide turning against them, they were driven back again near two leagues short of the island; but about four o'clock in the afternoon, the wind being come to south-south-east and a fresh gale, they went on well in their course, running about eight leagues in a watch. before it was night they had left heligoland out of sight, and got about eight leagues beyond it; and the 'elizabeth' kept up with whitelocke. from hence he came in sight of divers small islands upon the dutch coast, which lie in rank from the mouth of the elbe unto the texel. in the evening they spied a sail to the leeward of them, but so far off that whitelocke held it not fit, being almost dark, to go so far as he must do out of his way to inquire after her, and she seemed, at that distance, to stand for the course of england. _june , ._ [sn: at sea.] the last night, the wind, having chopped about, had much hindered whitelocke's course, and made him uncertain where they were, yet he went on labouring in the main; but the seamen guessed, by the ship's making way and holding it (though sometimes forward and sometimes backward), that this morning by eight o'clock they had gained thirty leagues from heligoland, from which to orfordness they reckon eighty leagues, and the "fly" to be midway. the ship, which they saw last night, coming near them this morning, they found to be of amsterdam, coming from the sound homewards: she struck her sails to whitelocke, and so passed on her course. about noon whitelocke came over-against the fly, and saw the tower there, about five or six leagues from him. the wind lessened, and the sea did not go so high as before; he went on his course about four or five leagues in a watch. about seven or eight holland ships made their course by them, as was supposed, towards the sound, which now they did without fear or danger, the peace between the two commonwealths being confirmed. whitelocke's fresh provisions beginning to fail, and his biscuit lessened by affording part of it to the 'elizabeth,' which wanted, he was enforced to order that there should be but one meal a day, to make his provisions hold out. the most part of the afternoon they were taken with a calm, till about seven o'clock in the evening, when the wind came fresh again to the east and towards the north, and then would again change; and sometimes they kept their course, and sometimes they were driven back again. the wind was high and variable, and they toiled to and again, uncertain where they were. divers took the opportunity to recreate themselves by fishing, and the mackerel and other fish they took gave a little supply to their want of victual. about nine o'clock in the evening they lost the 'elizabeth,' leaving her behind about three leagues; she used to keep a distance from whitelocke's ship, and under the wind of her, since they began their voyage; and, as a stranger, would not keep company with whitelocke, being discontented because he went not in that frigate. _june , ._ [sn: whitelocke's great deliverance.] this wednesday was the day of whitelocke's greatest deliverance. after midnight, till three o'clock in the afternoon, was a great calm, and though the 'president' were taken with it, yet the 'elizabeth' had a good wind; and notwithstanding that the day before she was left behind a great distance, yet this morning she came up near to him, and got before him; so great is the difference sometimes, and at so small a distance, at sea, that here one ship shall have no wind at all, and another ship a few yards from her shall have her sails filled. notwithstanding the calm, yet the wind being by flashes large, they went the last night and the day before twenty leagues up and down, sometimes in their course and sometimes out of it. in the morning, sounding with the plummet, the pilot judged that they were about sixteen leagues from the texel, and twenty-four from orfordness, but he did not certainly know whereabouts they were. between three and four o'clock in the afternoon the wind came to north-north-west, which gave them hopes of finishing their voyage the sooner, and it blew a fresh gale. about five o'clock in the evening rose a very great fog and thick mist, so that it was exceeding dark, and they could not see their way a ship's length before them. whitelocke came upon the decks, and seeing the weather so bad and night coming on, and that all their sails were spread, and they ran extraordinary fast, he did not like it, but called together the captain, the master, the pilot, and others, to consult what was best to be done. he asked them why they spread all their sails, and desired to make so much way in so ill weather, and so near to night. they said they had so much sail because the wind favoured them, and that notwithstanding the bad weather they might safely run as they did, having sea-room enough. whitelocke asked them if they knew whereabouts they were. they confessed they did not, because they had been so much tossed up and down by contrary winds, and the sun had not shined, whereby they might take the elevation. whitelocke replied, that, having been driven forward and backward as they had been, it was impossible to know where they were; that the ship had run, and did now run, extraordinary fast, and if she should run so all night, perhaps they might be in danger of the english coast or of the holland coast; and that by norfolk there were great banks of sand, by which he had passed at sea formerly, and which could not be unknown to them; that in case the ship should fall upon those sands, or any other dangers of that coast, before morning, they should be all lost; and therefore he thought fit to take down some of their sails and slacken their course till, by daylight, they might come to know more certainly in what part they were. the officers of the ship continued earnest to hold on their course, saying they would warrant it that there was running enough for all night, and that to take down any sail, now the wind was so good for them, would be a great wrong to them in their course. but whitelocke was little satisfied with their reasons, and less with their warranties, which among them are not of binding force. his own reason showed him, that, not knowing where they were, and in such weather as this to run on as they did, they knew not whither, with all their sails spread, might be dangerous; but to take down some of their sails and to slacken their course could be no danger, and but little prejudice in the hindrance of their course this night, which he thought better to be borne than to endanger all. [sn: he orders sail to be taken in.] but chiefly it was the goodness of god to put it strongly upon whitelocke's heart to overrule the seamen in this particular, though in their own art, and though his own desires were sufficiently earnest to hasten to his dear relations and country; yet the present haste he feared might hinder the seeing of them at all. upon a strange earnestness in his own mind and judgement, he gave a positive command to the captain to cause all the sails to be taken down except the mainsail only, and that to be half-furled. upon the captain's dispute, whitelocke with quickness told him that if he did not presently see it done he would cause another to do it, whereupon the captain obeyed; and it was a great mercy that the same was done, which god directed as a means to save their lives. [sn: the ship strikes.] after the sails were taken down, whitelocke also ordered them to sound and try what water and bottom they had. about ten o'clock in the evening sounding, they found eighteen fathom water; the next sounding they had but fifteen fathom, and so lessened every sounding till they came to eight fathom, which startled them, and made them endeavour to tack about. but it was too late, for within less than a quarter of an hour after they had eighteen fathom water, the ship struck upon a bank of sand, and there stuck fast. whitelocke was sitting with some of the gentlemen in the steerage-room when this happened, and felt a strange motion of the frigate, as if she had leaped, and not unlike the curveting of a great horse; and the violence of the striking threw several of the gentlemen from off their seats into the midst of the room. the condition they were in was quickly understood, and both seamen and landsmen discovered it by the wonderful terror and amazement which had seized on them, and more upon the seamen than others who knew less of the danger. it pleased his good god to keep up the spirits and faith of whitelocke in this great extremity; and when nothing would be done but what he in person ordered, in this frightful confusion god gave him extraordinary fixedness and assistance, a temper and constancy of spirit beyond what was usual with him. he ordered the master-gunner presently to fire some pieces of ordnance, after the custom at sea, to signify their being in distress. but the gunner was so amazed with the danger, that he forgot to unbrace the guns, and shot away the main-sheet; and had not the ship been strong and staunch, the guns being fired when they were close braced, they had broke the sides of her. whitelocke caused the guns to be unbraced and divers of them fired, to give notice to the 'elizabeth,' or any other ship that might be within hearing, to come in to their assistance; but they heard no guns again to answer theirs, though they longed for it, hoping that the 'elizabeth,' or any other ship coming in to them, by their boats might save the lives of some of them. whitelocke also caused lights to be set up in the top-gallant, used at sea by those in distress to invite help; but the lights were not answered again by any other ship or vessel; particularly they wondered that nothing was heard or seen from the 'elizabeth.' whitelocke then ordered the sails of the ship to be reversed, that the wind, being high, might so help them off; but no help was by it, nor by all the people's coming together to the stern, then to the head, then to the sides of the ship, all in a heap together; nothing would help them. then whitelocke ordered the mariners to hoist out one of the boats, in which some of the company would have persuaded whitelocke to put himself and to leave the rest, and seek to preserve his own life by trusting to the seas in this boat; and they that advised this, offered willingly to go with him. but whitelocke knew that if he should go into the boat, besides the dishonour of leaving his people in this distress, so many would strive to enter into the boat with him (a life knows no ceremony) that probably the boat would be sunk by the crowding; and there was little hope of escaping in such a boat, though he should get well off from the ship and the boat not be overladen. he therefore ordered the captain to take a few of the seamen into the boat with him, and to go round the ship and sound what water was on each side of her, and what hopes they could find, and by what means to get her off, himself resolving to abide the same fortune with his followers. the captain found it very shallow to windward, and very deep to leeward, but no hopes of help; and at his return the master advised to lighten the ship by casting overboard the goods in her. whitelocke held it best to begin with the ordnance, and gave order for it. mr. earle was contriving how to save his master's jewels, which were of some value; his master took more care to save his papers, to him more precious jewels; but there was no hope of saving any goods or lives. whitelocke put in his pocket a tablet of gold of his wife's picture, that this, being found about his dead body when it should be taken up, might show him to have been a gentleman, and satisfy for his burial. one was designing to get upon a plank, others upon the masts, others upon other fancies, any way to preserve life; but no way was left whereby they could have the least shadow or hopes of a deliverance. the captain went up to the quarter-deck, saying, there he lived and there he would die. all the officers, sadly enough, concluded that there was not the least show of any hopes of preservation, but that they were all dead men, and that upon the return of the tide the ship would questionless be dashed in pieces. some lay crying in one corner, others lamenting in another; some, who vaunted most in time of safety, were now most dejected. the tears and sighs and wailings in all parts of the ship would have melted a stony heart into pity; every swelling wave seemed great in expectation of its booty; the raging waves foamed as if their prey were too long detained from them; every billow threatened present death, who every moment stared in their faces for almost two hours together. [sn: exhorts his sons.] in this condition whitelocke encouraged his two sons to undergo the pleasure of god with all submission. he was sorry for them, being young men, who might have lived many years to do god and their country service, that they now should be snatched away so untimely; but he told them, that if father and sons must now die together, he doubted not but they should go together to that happiness which admits no change; that he did not so much lament his own condition, being an old man, in the course of nature much nearer the grave than they: but he besought god to bless them and yet to appear for their deliverance, if it were his will, or else to give him and them, and all the company, hearts willing to submit to his good pleasure. [sn: discourse with the boatswain.] walking on the decks to see his orders executed for throwing the ordnance overboard, the boatswain met him and spake to him in his language:-- _boatswain._ my lord, what do you mean to do? _whitelocke._ wherein dost thou ask my meaning? _bo._ you have commanded the ordnance to be cast overboard. _wh._ it is for our preservation. _bo._ if it be done, we are all destroyed. _wh._ what reason have you to be of this opinion? must we not lighten the ship? and can we do it better than to begin with the ordnance? _bo._ it may do well to lighten the ship, but not by throwing overboard the ordnance; for you can but drop them close to the ship's side, and where the water is shallow they will lie up against the side of the ship and fret it, and with the working of the sea make her to spring leaks presently. _wh._ i think thou speakest good reason, and i will try a little longer before it be done. _bo._ my lord, do not doubt but god will show himself, and bring you off by his own hand from this danger. _wh._ hast thou any ground to judge so, or dost thou see any probability of it? _bo._ i confess there is no probability for it; but god hath put it into my heart to tell your excellence that he will appear our deliverer when all other hopes and helps fail us, and he will save us by his own power; and let us trust in him. upon this discourse with the honest boatswain, who walked up and down as quite unconcerned, whitelocke forbade the throwing of the ordnance overboard; and as he was sitting on the deck, mr. ingelo, one of his chaplains, came to him, and said that he was glad to see him in so good a temper. _whitelocke._ i bless god, who keeps up my spirit. _ingelo._ my lord, such composedness, and not being daunted in this distress, is a testimony of god's presence with you. _wh._ i have cause to thank god, whose presence hath been with me in all my dangers, and most in this greatest, which i hope and pray that he would fit us all to submit unto. _ing._ i hope he will; and i am glad to see your sons and others to have so much courage left in so high a danger. _wh._ god hath not suffered me, nor them, nor yourself, to be dejected in this great trial; and it gives me comfort at this time to observe it, nor doth it leave me without some hopes that god hath yet a mercy in store for us. _ing._ there is little hopes of continuance in this life, it is good to prepare ourselves for a better life; and therefore, if you please that the company may be called together into your cabin, it will be good to join in prayer, and recommending our souls to him that gave them; i believe they are not to remain long in these bodies of clay. _wh._ i hope every one doth this apart, and it is very fit likewise to join together in doing it; therefore i pray send and call the people into my cabin to prayer. whilst mr. ingelo was gone to call the people together, a mariner came from the head of the ship, running hastily towards whitelocke, and crying out to him, which caused whitelocke to suspect that the ship had sprung a leak or was sinking. the mariner called out:-- [sn: the ship moves,] _mariner._ my lord! my lord! my lord! _whitelocke._ what's the matter, mariner? _mar._ she wags! she wags! _wh._ which way doth she wag? _mar._ to leeward. _wh._ i pray god that be true; and it is the best news that ever i heard in my life. _mar._ my lord, upon my life the ship did wag; i saw her move. _wh._ mr. ingelo, i pray stay awhile before you call the people; it may be god will give us occasion to change the style of our prayers. fellow-seaman, show me where thou sawest her move. _mar._ my lord, here, at the head of the frigate, i saw her move, and she moves now,--now she moves! you may see it. _wh._ my old eyes cannot discern it. _mar._ i see it plain, and so do others. [sn: and rights.] whilst they were thus speaking and looking, within less than half a quarter of an hour, the ship herself came off from the sand, and miraculously floated on the water. the ship being thus by the wonderful immediate hand of god, again floating on the sea, the mariners would have been hoisting of their sails, but whitelocke forbade it, and said he would sail no more that night. but as soon as the ship had floated a good way from the bank of sand, he caused them to let fall their anchors, that they might stay till morning, to see where they were, and spend the rest of the night in giving thanks to god for his most eminent, most miraculous deliverance. being driven by the wind about a mile from the sand, there they cast anchor, and fell into discourse of the providences and goodness of god to them in this unhoped-for preservation. one observed, that if whitelocke had not positively overruled the seamen, and made them, contrary to their own opinions, to take down their sails, but that the ship had run with all her sails spread, and with that force had struck into the sand, it had been impossible for her ever to have come off again, but they must all have perished. another observed, that the ship did strike so upon the bank of sand, that the wind was on that side of her where the bank was highest, and so the strength of the wind lay to drive the ship from the bank towards the deep water. another supposed, that the ship did strike on the shelving part of the bank of sand, and the wind blowing from the higher part of the bank, the weight of the ship thus pressed by the wind, and working towards the lower part of the shelving of the bank, the sand crumbled away from the ship, and thereby and with the wind she was set on-float again. another observed, that if the ship had struck higher on the bank or deeper, when her sails had been spread, with the force of her way, they could not in the least probability have been saved. another observed, that through the goodness of god the wind rose higher, and came more to that side of the ship where the bank of sand was highest, after the ship was struck, which was a great means of her coming off; and that, as soon as she was floated, the wind was laid and came about again to another quarter. another observed, that it being at that time ebbing water was a great means of their preservation; because the ship being so far struck into the sand, and so great a ship, a flowing water could not have raised her; but upon the coming in of the tide she would questionless have been broke in pieces. the mariners said, that if god had not loved the landmen more than the seamen they should never have come off from this danger. every one made his observations. whitelocke concluded them to this purpose: [sn: whitelocke orders a thanksgiving to god.] "gentlemen, "i desire that we may all join together in applying these observations and mercies to the praise of god, and to the good of our own souls. let me exhort you never to forget this deliverance and this signal mercy. while the love of god is warm upon our hearts, let us resolve to retain a thankful memory of it to our lives' end, and, for the time to come, to employ those lives, which god hath now given to us and renewed to us, to the honour and praise of him, who hath thus most wonderfully and most mercifully revived us, and as it were new created us. let us become new creatures; forsake your former lusts in your ignorance, and follow that god fully, who hath so eminently appeared for us, to save us out of our distress; and as god hath given us new lives, so let us live in newness of life and holiness of conversation." whitelocke caused his people to come into his cabin, where mr. ingelo prayed with them, and returned praises to the lord for this deliverance: an occasion sufficient to elevate his spirit, and, meeting with his affections and abilities, tended the more to the setting forth his glory, whose name they had so much cause more than others to advance and honour. many of the seamen came in to prayers, and whitelocke talked with divers of them upon the mercy they had received, who seemed to be much moved with the goodness of god to them; and whitelocke sought to make them and all the company sensible of god's gracious dealings, and to bring it home to the hearts of them. he also held it a duty to leave to his own family this large relation, and remembrance of the lord's signal mercy to him and his; whereby they might be induced the more to serve the god of their fathers, to trust in him who never fails those that seek him, and to love that god entirely who hath manifested so much love to them, and that in their greatest extremities; and hereby to endeavour that a grateful acknowledgment of the goodness and unspeakable love of god might be transmitted to his children's children; that as god never forgets to be gracious, so his servants may never forget to be thankful, but to express the thankfulness of their hearts by the actions of their lives. whitelocke spent this night in discourses upon this happy subject, and went not to bed at all, but expected the return of day; and, the more to express cheerfulness to the seamen, he promised that as soon as light did appear, if they would up to the shrouds and top, he that could first descry land should have his reward, and a bottle of good sack advantage. _june , ._ [sn: they make the coast of norfolk.] as soon as day appeared, the mariners claimed many rewards and bottles of sack, sundry of them pretending to have first discovered land; and whitelocke endeavoured to give them all content in this day of rejoicing, god having been pleased to turn their sorrow into joy, by preserving them in their great danger, and presently after by showing them their longed-for native country; making them, when they were in their highest expectation of joy to arrive in their beloved country, then to disappoint their hopes by casting them into the extremest danger--thus making them sensible of the uncertainty of this world's condition, and checking perhaps their too much earthly confidence, to let them see his power to control it, and to change their immoderate expectation of joy into a bitter doubt of present death. yet again, when he had made them sensible thereof, to make his equal power appear for their deliverance when vain was the help of man, and to bring them to depend more on him, then was he pleased to rescue them by his own hand out of the jaws of death, and to restore them with a great addition to their former hopes of rejoicing, by showing them their native coast,--the first thing made known to them after their deliverance from perishing. the day being clear, they found themselves upon the coast of norfolk, and, as they guessed, about eight leagues from yarmouth, where they supposed their guns might be heard the last night. the wind being good, whitelocke ordered to weigh anchor, and they sailed along the coast, sometimes within half a league of it, until they passed orfordness and came to oseley bay, where they again anchored, the weather being so thick with a great fog and much rain that they could not discern the marks and buoys to avoid the sands, and to conduct them to the mouth of the river. a short time after, the weather began to clear again, which invited them to weigh anchor and put the ship under sail; but they made little way, that they might not hinder their sounding, which whitelocke directed, the better to avoid the danger of the sands, whereof this coast is full. near the road of harwich the 'elizabeth' appeared under sail on-head of the 'president,' who overtaking her, captain minnes came on board to whitelocke, who told him the condition they had been in the last night, and expostulated with him to this purpose. _whitelocke._ being in this distress, we fired divers guns, hoping that you, captain minnes, could not but hear us and come in to our relief, knowing this to be the order of the sea in such cases. _minnes._ my lord, i had not the least imagination of your being in distress; but i confess i heard your cannon, and believed them to be fired by reason of the fog, which is the custom of the sea in such weather, to advertise one another where they are. _wh._ upon such an occasion as the fog, seamen use to give notice to one another by two or three guns, but i caused many more to be fired. _minnes._ i heard but four or five in all, and i answered your guns by firing some of mine. _wh._ we heard not one of your guns. _minnes._ that might be by reason we were to windward of you three leagues. _wh._ why then did you not answer the lights which i caused to be set up? _minnes._ my lord, those in my ship can witness that i set up lights again, and caused squibs and fireworks to be cast up into the air, that you might thereby discern whereabouts we were. _wh._ it was strange that we could neither see yours nor you our lights. _minnes._ the greatness of the fog might occasion it. _wh._ the lights would appear through the fog as well as in the night. _minnes._ my lord, i did all this. _wh._ it was contrary to my orders for you to keep so far off from me, and to be on-stern of me three leagues; but this hath been your practice since we first came out to sea together; and if you had been under the command of some others, as you were under mine, they would have expected more obedience than you have given to my orders, or have taken another course with you, which i can do likewise. _minnes._ my lord, i endeavoured to get the wind of you, that i might thereby be able to keep in your company, which otherwise i could not have done, you being so much fleeter than the 'elizabeth;' but in the evenings i constantly came up to your excellence. _wh._ why did you not so the last night? _minnes._ the fog rose about five o'clock, and was so thick that we could not see two ships' length before us. in that fog i lost you, and, fearing there might be danger in the night to fall upon the coast, i went off to sea, supposing you had done so likewise, as, under favour, your captain ought to have done; and for my obedience to your excellency's commands, it hath been and shall be as full and as willing as to any person living. _wh._ when you found by my guns that you were so far from me to the windward, you might fear that i was fallen into that danger which you had avoided by keeping yourself under the wind more at large at sea. _minnes._ if i had in the least imagined your excellence to have been in danger, we had been worse than turks if we had not endeavoured to come in to your succour; and though it was impossible, as we lay, for our ship to come up to your excellence, yet i should have adventured with my boats to have sought you out. but that you were in any danger was never in our thoughts; and three hours after your guns fired, sounding, i found by the lead the red sand, which made me think both your excellence and we might be in the more danger, and i lay the further off from them, but knew not where your excellence was, nor how to come to you. after much more discourse upon this subject, captain parkes pressing it against minnes, who answered well for himself, and showed that he was the better seaman in this action and in most others, and in regard of the cause of rejoicing which god had given them, and that they now were near the end of their voyage, whitelocke held it not so good to continue the expostulation as to part friends with captain minnes and with all his fellow-seamen, and so they proceeded together lovingly and friendly in their voyage. the wind not blowing at all, but being a high calm, they could advance no further than the tide would carry them, the which failed them when they came to a place called shoe, about four leagues from the mouth of thames. having, through the goodness of god, passed by and avoided many banks of sands and dangerous places, the wind failing them and the tide quite spent, they were forced about seven o'clock in the evening to come to an anchor, captain minnes hard by the 'president,' where, to make some pastime and diversion, he caused many squibs and fireworks to be cast up into the air from the 'elizabeth,' in which minnes was very ingenious, and gave recreation thereby to whitelocke and to his company. _june , ._ [sn: reach the nore and gravesend.] friday, the last of this month, was the fifth and last day of whitelocke's voyage by sea from the mouth of the elbe to the mouth of the thames. about twelve o'clock the last night the wind began to blow very strong in the south-west, and by daybreak they had weighed anchor; and though the wind was extreme high and a great tempest, yet such was their desire of getting into the harbour, that, taking the benefit of the tide and by often tacking about, they yet advanced three leagues in their course; and when the tide failed, they were forced to cast anchor at the buoy in the nore, the same place where whitelocke first anchored when he came from england. the pilots and mariners had much ado to manage their sails in this tempestuous weather; and it was a great favour of god that they were not out at sea in these storms, but returned in safety to the place where the kindness of god had before appeared to them. in the afternoon the wind began to fall, and they weighed anchor, putting themselves under sail and pursuing their course, till for want of day and of tide they were fain to cast anchor a little above gravesend, and it being very late, whitelocke thought it would be too troublesome to go on shore; but to keep his people together, and that they might all be the readier to take the morning tide, he lay this night also on ship-board, but sent earle and some others that night to shore, to learn the news, and to provide boats against the morning for transportation of whitelocke and his company the next day to london. thus, after a long, most difficult, and most dangerous journey, negotiation, and voyage from south to north in winter, and from north to south in summer, after the wonderful preservations and deliverances which the lord had been pleased to vouchsafe to them, he was also pleased, in his free and constant goodness to his servants, to bring them all in safety and with comfort again to their native country and dearest relations, and blessed with the success of their employment, and with the wonderful appearances of god for them. may it be the blessed portion of them all, never to forget the loving-kindness of the lord, but by these cords of love to be drawn nearer to him, and to run after him all the days of their lives! to the end that those of his family may see what cause they have to trust in god and to praise his name for his goodness, whitelocke hath thought fit, hereby in writing, and as a monument of god's mercy, to transmit the memory of these passages to his posterity. footnotes: [ ] [another instance of the fear of assassination or of death by poison, which at that time haunted the envoys of the commonwealth abroad.] july. _july , ._ [sn: whitelocke lands, and proceeds to his house at chelsea.] about three o'clock this morning good store of boats came from gravesend to whitelocke's ships, to transport him, his company, and goods to london. by the help of the mariners, without much delay the baggage was put on board the boats; and whitelocke's people, after a perilous and tedious voyage, were not backward to leave their ships and to set forward to london. earle was sent before to greenwich, to acquaint whitelocke's wife with his coming, lest sudden joy and apprehensions might surprise her to her prejudice. whitelocke having distributed his rewards to the officers and seamen of both the frigates, much to the same proportion as when he went forth, and giving them all his hearty thanks, he went into a boat of six oars, his two sons and some of the gentlemen with him, the rest in other boats. when they were gone about a musket-shot from the ships, both the frigates and the fort fired their cannon for a parting salutation. the weather was cold, wet, and windy, as if it had been still winter, but it was cheerfully endured, being the conclusion of a bad voyage. near greenwich earle met them, and informed whitelocke that his family was at chelsea, whither he had sent advertisement of his coming. many of the company being much tired, sick, and wanting sleep, by their desire and for their refreshment he staid a little time at the 'bear' on the bridge-foot, and from thence to whitehall, where not finding the protector, who was gone to hampton court, yet many of his friends meeting him there, he was embraced by them with much show of joy, and heartily bid welcome home, blessing god for his safe return and good success in his business. from whitehall whitelocke went to his own house at chelsea, where he found his wife and family in good health, but in no small passion, surprised with the great and sudden joy, which ofttimes brings no less disturbance to the tempers of people, especially of the more tender and affectionate sex, than other surprises do; sudden fear, grief, and joy, are often equal in their operation upon constitutions and affections. nor was whitelocke's wife alone in this surprise; another with her, at the return of her husband, could not forbear, in all that company, her extraordinary expressions of joy at the happy meeting of her own most near relation. from the time of whitelocke's departure from hence, to his entry into upsal, whitelocke spent forty-seven days; five months he staid there, and in his return from upsal to this place cost him forty-three days; and in all these eight months' time of his absence from his dear relations and country the lord was pleased so to own him and his, and so graciously to preserve and prosper them, that himself and a hundred persons in his company, after so long a journey, so great a change of climate and accommodations, such hardships endured, such dangers surmounted through his goodness, the business effected beyond the expectation of those who employed him, whitelocke and all his company were through mercy returned to their country and relations, in as good condition and health as when they went forth, not one of them left behind dead or sick or impaired in their health, but some improved and bettered therein. only whitelocke, being ancient, will have cause to remember the decay of his strength and health by the hardships and difficulties of this service; but more cause hath he to remember the wonderful goodness of god to him and his company abroad and to his wife and family at home, in his blessing and preservation of them, and in the comfort and safety of their meeting after so long and perilous a separation, for which he is obliged to praise the name of god for ever. after ceremonies past at his coming to his own house, whitelocke sent captain beake to hampton court, to acquaint the protector with his return, to present his duty, and to receive his commands when whitelocke should wait upon his highness to kiss his hand, and to give him an account of his negotiation. beake returned this evening from hampton court to whitelocke with this answer:--that the protector expressed much joy at the news of the safe arrival of whitelocke and of his company in england; that he looked upon it as a mercy, and blessed god for it; and that he much desired to see whitelocke, and hoped, on monday next, at whitehall, to have his company, who should be very welcome to him. a little while after this message returned, there came two of the protector's gentlemen, sent by him to chelsea in his name, to visit whitelocke and to bid him welcome home, to inquire of his health, and to testify the contentment the protector received by whitelocke's happy return home, and that he hoped on monday next to see him. whitelocke desired the gentlemen to present his humble thanks to the protector for this great favour to inquire after so mean a servant, who hoped to have the honour to wait upon his highness at the time appointed by him. _july , ._ [sn: the protector compliments whitelocke on his return.] _the lord's day._--whitelocke began to enjoy some more privacy and retirement than he had been lately accustomed unto, and was at the public church with his wife and family, and courteously saluted and bid welcome home by many. in the evening the protector sent another compliment to whitelocke by mr. strickland, one of his council, who came to whitelocke's house, and told him that he was sent by the protector to salute him, and to inquire of his health after his long and dangerous voyage, and to assure him of the great joy his highness received by whitelocke's safe arrival in england, and the desire he had to see him, and personally to entertain him. whitelocke desired his most humble thanks might be returned to his highness for this great favour, giving him the opportunity of seeing so honourable a person as strickland was, and for taking such care of so poor a servant as whitelocke, and to let his highness know that he should obey his highness's commands in waiting on him the next day as he appointed. _july , ._ [sn: his audience of the protector.] whitelocke came to whitehall about nine o'clock this morning, where he visited mr. secretary thurloe, who brought him to the protector, and he received whitelocke with great demonstration of affection, and carried him into his cabinet, where they were together about an hour, and had this among other discourses:-- _protector._ how have you enjoyed your health in your long journey, both by sea and land? and how could you endure those hardships you were put unto in that barren and cold country? _whitelocke._ indeed, sir, i have endured many hardships for an old crazy carcase as mine is, but god was pleased to show much mercy to me in my support under them, and vouchsafed me competent health and strength to endure them. _prot._ i have heard of your quarters and lodging in straw, and of your diet in your journey; we were not so hardly nor so often put to it in our service in the army. _wh._ both my company and myself did cheerfully endure all our hardships and wants, being in the service of our god and of our country. _prot._ that was also our support in our hardships in the army, and it is the best support, indeed it is, and you found it so in the very great preservations you have had from dangers. _wh._ your highness hath had great experience of the goodness of god to you, and the same hand hath appeared wonderfully in the preservation of my company and myself from many imminent and great dangers both by sea and land. _prot._ the greatest of all other, i hear, was in your return home upon our coast. _wh._ that indeed, sir, was very miraculous. _prot._ i am glad to see you safe and well after it. _wh._ i have cause to bless god with all thankfulness for it as long as i live. _prot._ i pray, my lord, tell me the particulars of that great deliverance. thereupon whitelocke gave a particular account of the passages of that wonderful preservation; then the protector said:-- _prot._ really these passages are full of wonder and mercy; and i have cause to join with you in acknowledgment of the goodness of the lord herein. _wh._ your highness testifies a true sense thereof, and your favour to your servant. _prot._ i hope i shall never forget the one or the other,--indeed i hope i shall not; but, i pray, tell me, is the queen a lady of such rare parts as is reported of her? _wh._ truly, sir, she is a lady excellently qualified, of rare abilities of mind, perfect in many languages, and most sorts of learning, especially history, and, beyond compare with any person whom i have known, understanding the affairs and interest of all the states and princes of christendom. _prot._ that is very much; but what are her principles in matters of religion? _wh._ they are not such as i could wish they were;[ ] they are too much inclined to the manner of that country, and to some persuasions from men not well inclined to those matters, who have had too much power with her. _prot._ that is a great deal of pity; indeed i have heard of some passages of her, not well relishing with those that fear god; and this is too general an evil among those people, who are not so well principled in matters of religion as were to be wished. _wh._ that is too true; but many sober men and good christians among them do hope, that in time there may be a reformation of those things; and i took the boldness to put the queen and the present king in mind of the duty incumbent upon them in that business; and this i did with becoming freedom, and it was well taken. _prot._ i think you did very well to inform them of that great duty which now lies upon the king; and did he give ear to it? _wh._ yes truly, sir, and told me that he did acknowledge it to be his duty, which he resolved to pursue as opportunity could be had for it; but he said, it must be done by degrees with a boisterous people, so long accustomed to the contrary. and the like answer i had from the archbishop of upsal, and from the chancellor, when i spoke to them upon the same subject, which i did plainly. _prot._ i am glad you did so. is the archbishop a man of good abilities? _wh._ he is a very reverend person, learned, and seems very pious. _prot._ the chancellor is the great wise man. _wh._ he is the wisest man that ever i conversed with abroad, and his abilities are fully answerable to the report of him. _prot._ what character do you give of the present king? _wh._ i had the honour divers times to be with his majesty, who did that extraordinary honour to me as to visit me at my house; he is a person of great worth, honour, and abilities, and not inferior to any in courage and military conduct. _prot._ that was an exceeding high favour, to come to you in person. _wh._ he never did the like to any public minister. but this, and all other honour done to me, was but to testify their respects to your highness, the which indeed was very great, both there, and where i passed in germany. _prot._ i am obliged to them for their very great civility. _wh._ both the queen, and the king, and his brother, and the archbishop, and the chancellor, and most of the grandees, gave testimony of very great respect to your highness, and that not only by their words, but by their actions likewise. _prot._ i shall be ready to acknowledge their respects upon any occasion. _wh._ the like respects were testified to your highness in germany, especially by the town of hamburg; where i endeavoured, in your highness's name, to confirm the privileges of the english merchants, who, with your resident there, showed much kindness to me and my company. _prot._ i shall heartily thank them for it. is the court of sweden gallant, and full of resort to it? _wh._ they are extreme gallant for their clothes; and for company, most of the nobility and the civil and military officers make their constant residence where the court is, and many repair thither on all occasions. _prot._ is their administration of justice speedy? and have they many law-suits? _wh._ they have justice in a speedier way than with us, but more arbitrary, and fewer causes, in regard that the boors dare not contend with their lords; and they have but few contracts, because they have but little trade; and there is small use of conveyances or questions of titles, because the law distributes every man's estate after his death among his children, which they cannot alter, and therefore have the fewer contentions. _prot._ that is like our gavelkind. _wh._ it is the same thing; and in many particulars of our laws, in cases of private right, and of the public government, especially in their parliaments, there is a strange resemblance between their law and ours. _prot._ perhaps ours might some of them be brought from thence. _wh._ doubtless they were, when the goths and saxons, and those northern people, planted themselves here. _prot._ you met with a barren country, and very cold. _wh._ the remoter parts of it from the court are extreme barren; but at stockholm and upsal, and most of the great towns, they have store of provisions; but fat beef and mutton in the winter-time is not so plentiful with them as in the countries more southerly; and their hot weather in summer as much exceeds ours, as their cold doth in winter. _prot._ that is somewhat troublesome to endure; but how could you pass over their very long winter nights? _wh._ i kept my people together and in action and recreation, by having music in my house, and encouraging that and the exercise of dancing, which held them by the ears and eyes, and gave them diversion without any offence. and i caused the gentlemen to have disputations in latin, and declamations upon words which i gave them. _prot._ those were very good diversions, and made your house a little academy. _wh._ i thought these recreations better than gaming for money, or going forth to places of debauchery. _prot._ it was much better. and i am glad you had so good an issue of your treaty. _wh._ i bless god for it, and shall be ready to give your highness a particular account of it, when you shall appoint a time for it. _prot._ i think that thursday next, in the morning, will be a good time for you to come to the council, and to make your report of the transactions of your negotiation; and you and i must have many discourses upon these arguments. _wh._ i shall attend your highness and the council. _july , ._ [sn: whitelocke's friends celebrate his return.] this day was spent in visits, very much company resorting to whitelocke's house to bid him welcome into england, so that, by the multitude of company, he had not any opportunity of recollecting himself and his thoughts, touching the matters which he was to communicate to the council the next day; but it could not be avoided, and he must take such time as would be afforded him. _july , ._ [sn: a solemn thanksgiving for his safe return.] by whitelocke's appointment, all his company who were with him in sweden, came this day to his house at chelsea, where divers others of his good friends met them, to the intent they might all join together in returning humble and hearty thanks to god for his great mercy and goodness to them, in their preservation and wonderful deliverances in their voyage, in blessing them with health and with success in their business, and bringing all of them in safety and comfort to their native country and most dear relations. being for this end met together in a large room prepared for them, they began the duty; and first, mr. peters acquainted them with the occasion of the meeting, recommending all to the direction and assistance of the lord. he spoke to them upon the psalm pertinent to the occasion, and to the mention of the voyage, hardships, dangers, and difficulties, wherein god had delivered them; and what sense these things ought to work upon their hearts, and what thankfulness they ought to return to god for his mercies. after a psalm sung, mr. ingelo, one of whitelocke's chaplains, prayed with them, and then amplified the favours and deliverances which god had wrought for them, the great difficulties and dangers wherein he had preserved them, and their unworthiness of any mercy; he exhorted them to all gratitude to the author of their mercies: in all which he expressed himself with much piety, ingenuity, and with great affection. mr. george downing, who had been a chaplain to a regiment in the army, expounded a place of scripture very suitable to the occasion, and very ingeniously and pertinently. after him, mr. stapleton prayed very well, and spake pertinently and feelingly to the rest of the company, his fellow-travellers. then they sang another psalm; and after that, mr. cokaine spake very well and piously, and gave good exhortations on the same subject. [sn: whitelocke's address to his company.] when all these gentlemen had ended their discourses proper for the occasion, whitelocke himself spake to the company to this effect:-- "gentlemen, "you have heard from our worthy christian friends many words of precious truth, with which i hope all our souls are refreshed, and do pray that our practice may be conformed. the duty of this day, and of every person, is _gratiarum actio_: i wish we may all act thankfulness to our god, whereunto we are all obliged who have received so great benefits from him. in a more peculiar manner than others i hold myself obliged to render thanks-- " . to our god, who hath preserved us all, and brought us in safety and comfort to our dear country and relations. " . to our christian friends, from whom we have received such powerful instructions this day, and prayers all the days of our absence. " . to you, gentlemen, who have shown so much affection and respect in bearing me company in a journey so full of hardships and dangers. "i am of the opinion of the roman soldier who told cæsar, 'i have in my own person fought for thee, and therefore that the emperor ought in his own person to plead for the soldier' (which he did); and have in your own persons endured all the hardships, difficulties, and dangers with me: and were i as able as cæsar, i hold myself as much obliged in my own person to serve you, and, to the utmost of my capacity, shall do all good offices for any of you, who have, with so much affection, respect, and hazard, adventured your persons with me. "i am obliged, and do return my hearty thanks, to our worthy friends who have so excellently performed the work of the day, and shall pray that it may be powerful upon every one of our hearts, to build us up in the knowledge of this duty; and i should be glad to promise, in the name of all my company, that we shall give a ready and constant observance of those pious instructions we have received from you. "some here have been actors with us in our story; have gone down to the sea in ships and done business in great waters; have seen the works of god and his wonders in the deep; his commanding and raising the stormy wind, lifting up the waves thereof, which mount up to the heavens and go down again to the deep, whose souls have melted because of trouble, and have been at their wits' end: then have cried unto the lord in their distress, and he hath brought them out of trouble. we have seen him make the storm a calm, and the waves thereof still: then were we glad, and he brought us to our desired harbour. oh that we would praise the lord for his goodness, for his wonderful works! let us exalt him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. "these my companions, who have been actors, and others, i hope will give me leave to make them auditors of some special providences of the lord, wherein we may all reap benefit from the relation. the apostle saith, pet. i., 'wherefore i will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in the present truth.' to all i may say, with the wise man (prov. viii.), 'hear! for i will speak of excellent things,' free mercies, great deliverances, wonderful preservations: excellent things to those who were sharers of them in action, and for the contemplation of those who are hearers of them; therefore i may shortly recite some of the most eminent of them. "in the first day of our voyage with a fair wind, at night it changed, and we were stopped till comfortable letters came to me, which otherwise could not have come, and were no sooner answered but the wind came fair again. when we toiled in the open sea with cross winds and tempests, driven near to our own coast back again, god sent us then fair weather and a good gale for our voyage. how was he pleased to bring us so very near great danger on the riff, and then bring us safe off from it and hold on our course again! "when we were in no small danger in the tempestuous seas on the back of the skaw, when the anchors dragged a league in one night with the storm, and every moment _we_ expected to be devoured by the raging waves, there the lord was also our deliverer; as he also was upon the rocky coast of norway and in the difficult passage to the harbour of gothenburg. throughout our voyage the providence of god watched over us and protected us. thus did he in our land journey, where the extreme hardships we were put unto are sufficiently known to all of us, and will to our life's end be felt by some of us. "my particular preservation was wonderful from an intended assassination by one who thrust himself into my company to have the better opportunity to execute it; but, overcome with kindness, his heart relented, and he forsook his purpose and my company. "if the snow had fallen (as in other years) in the time of our travel, we could not have passed our journey; but he who rules the heavens and the earth restrained it till we came within half a day of our journey's end, and in safety he conducted us to upsal. the same providence kept us there, and when some of our company were sick and hurt, restored health again. "it was marvellous and unexpected, that in a foreign country, at such a distance from friends and acquaintance, god should raise us up friends out of strangers, namely the queen, foreign ministers, and great officers, in whose sight we found wonderful favour, to our preservation under god and a great means of effecting what we came about, maugre the labours and designs of our enemies against it, and their plots and attempts for our destruction, had not our rock of defence secured us. "i should detain you very long, though i hope it would not be thought too long, to recite all our remarkable mercies; and it is an excellent thing that they are so numerous. we are now coming homewards. how did our god preserve us over the baltic sea from innumerable dangers of the rocks, sands, coasts, islands, fierce lightnings, storms, and those high-swelling waters! such was our preservation in the elbe, when our countrymen leaped into the water to bring us off from danger, and when the tempests hurried us up and down, by heligoland, then towards holland, then to the northward, then to the southward, in the open breaking rough seas, when we had lost our course and knew not where we were. "above all other was that most eminent deliverance near our own coast, when our ship was stuck upon the sand twelve leagues from any shore, when no help nor human means were left to save us, when pale death faced us so long together, when no hopes remained to escape his fury or the rages of the waves, which we expected every instant to swallow us; even then, to show where our dependence ought to be, our god would make it his own work to deliver us. he it was that raised the wind, and brought it from the higher part of the bank, to shake our fastened ship, and crumble the loose sands; and no sooner had we taken a resolution of praying and resigning our souls to god, but he gave us our lives again, moving our ship by his powerful arm, making it to float again, none knowing how or by what means, but by the free act of his mercy, and not a return of ours, but of the prayers of some here present, and divers others our christian friends, who at that very time were met together to seek the lord for us and for our safe return. "methinks the hearts of us who were partakers of these mercies should rejoice in the repetition of them, and those that hear them cannot but say they hear excellent things; and certainly never had any men more cause than we have of returning humble and hearty thanks to god who hath thus saved us. "and having received these mercies, and been delivered out of these distresses, i may say to you, as jacob said to his household (gen. xxxv.), 'let us arise and go to bethel;' let us serve god and praise his name who answered us in the day of our distress, and was with us in the way which we went. let us also keep jacob's vow: 'the lord hath been with us and kept us in our way, and brought us again to our fathers' house in peace; let the lord be our god.' let not any of our former vanities or lusts, or love of the world, be any more our god, but let the lord be our god; let our thanksgiving appear in owning the lord for our god, and in walking answerable to our mercies; let our prayers be according to the counsel of the apostle (eph. v.), 'see then that ye walk circumspectly, giving thanks always for all things.' how much more are we bound to do it from our special mercies! "gentlemen, give me leave to conclude with my particular thanks to you who accompanied me in my journey, and have manifested very much respect, care, diligence, courage, and discretion. you have, by your demeanour, done honour to our profession of religion, to our country, to yourselves, to your ambassador, who will be ready to testify the same on all occasions, and to do you all good offices; chiefly in bearing you company to return praises to our god, whose mercies endure for ever." after these exercises performed, wherein whitelocke was the more large in manifesting the abounding of his sense of the goodness of god towards him, and was willing also to recollect his thoughts for another occasion, the company retired themselves; and whitelocke complimented his particular friends, giving them many thanks who had shown kindness to his wife and family, and had taken care of his affairs in his absence. [sn: a banquet held in state, as in sweden.] he bid them all welcome, and desired them to accompany company him the next day to his audience before the protector and council. then he led them into a great room, where the table was spread, and all things in the same state and manner as he used to have them in sweden, that his friends might see the fashion of his being served when he was in that condition, and as his farewell to those pomps and vanities. the trumpets sounding, meat was brought in, and the mistress of the house made it appear that england had as good and as much plenty of provisions as sweden, denmark, or germany. his friends and company sat down to meat as they used to do in sweden; the attendants, pages, lacqueys, and others, in their liveries, did their service as they were accustomed abroad. their discourse was full of cheerfulness and recounting of god's goodness; and both the time of the meat and the afternoon was spent in rejoicing together for the present mercy, and for the whole series of god's goodness to them; and in the evening they parted, every one to his own quarters. _july , ._ [sn: whitelocke give an account of his embassy to the council.] whitelocke went in the morning early to whitehall. at secretary thurloe's lodging he found most of his company, the gentlemen in their habits, the others in their liveries; and in a short time they were all come together, to attend their ambassador to his last audience, who was put to the patience of staying an hour and a half at master secretary's lodging before he was called in to his highness; then, being sent for, he went, attended in the same manner as he used to go to his audiences in sweden. being come to the outward room, he was presently brought into the council-chamber, where the protector sat in his great chair at the upper end of the table, covered, and his council sat bare on each side of the table. after ceremonies performed by whitelocke, and great respect shown him by the protector and his council, whitelocke spake to this effect:-- "may it please your highness, "i attend, by your command, to give an account of the discharge of that great trust and weighty burden which, through the assistance of god, i have undergone in my employment to sweden, and with the success of that negotiation, wherein i shall not waste much of your time, for which you have other great affairs; but, in as few words as i can, i shall with clearness and truth acquaint your highness and your honourable council with those matters which i apprehend most fit and worthy of your knowledge. "after the receipt of my commission and instructions from the parliament then sitting, to go ambassador to sweden, i neglected no time, how unseasonable soever, to transport myself to that country. upon the th of november i embarked at the hope, and after ten days' voyage, through many storms, enemies, and dangers, it pleased god on the th of november to bring me in safety, with all my company, into the port of gothenburg. the next day i despatched two of my servants to the court with letters to prince adolphus, the grand master, and to the ricks-chancellor of sweden, to advertise them of my arrival, and to desire their advice whither to direct my journey to attend the queen. "in this city i received many civilities and testimonies of respect to your highness and this commonwealth from the magistrates, officers, and others there; and a small contest i had with a dutchman, a vice-admiral of her majesty's, about our war with his countrymen, and about some prizes brought in by me, wherein i took the liberty to justify the proceedings of this state, and ordered, upon submission, the release of a small dutch prize taken by me. "having refreshed myself and company some days, i began my land journey the last day of november. the military officers accompanied me out of town; the citizens and garrison-soldiers stood to their arms, and with many volleys of great and small shot (the bullets passing somewhat too near for compliments) they gave me an honourable farewell. "in our journey we met with extreme hardships, both in the weather and in want of necessary accommodations. the greater towns where we quartered showed much respect to your highness and this commonwealth; only in one town a little affront was given in words by a prætor, who acknowledged his fault, and it appeared to proceed more from drink than judgement. in all places the officers took great care, with what the country would afford, to furnish what i wanted; the ways were prepared, waggons and horses brought in, and all things requisite were done by the country, upon command of her majesty. "after twenty-one days in our land-journey, near four hundred miles from gothenburg up into the country, in that climate in december, it pleased god through all our difficulties to bring us safe to upsal the th of december. about half a league from the town, the master of the ceremonies, and after him two senators with two coaches of the queen's, and those of the spanish resident and of divers grandees, met me, and with more than ordinary ceremony conducted me to a house in the town, by the queen's order taken up and furnished for me. divers compliments passed from the queen herself and many of her court, expressing much respect to your highness and this commonwealth, in the person of your servant. "by favour i obtained my first audience from the queen the rd of december, the particular passages whereof (as of most other matters which i have to mention) were in my letters imparted, as they arose, to mr. secretary thurloe, and by him, i presume, to your highness and the council. two or three days after this i procured a private audience from her majesty, when i showed her my commission, and took time to wait on her with my proposals. "the spanish resident, don piementelle, now in this court, expressed high respects for your highness and this commonwealth, and particular affection to me; and i, knowing his great favour with the queen and his own worth, contracted an intimacy of friendship with him, as i had also with m. woolfeldt, the king of denmark's brother-in-law, with field-marshal wrangel, grave tott, the queen's favourite, and with divers senators and great men, but especially with the old chancellor. "i found very useful for your highness's service there mr. lagerfeldt, secretary canterstein, mr. ravius, and others; and i had good assistance from my countrymen, general-major fleetwood, a true friend to england, my lord douglas, colonel hamilton, and others. "and having now given your highness some account of persons, i come to the matter of my negotiation, which i laid the best i could. "by advice i made my applications to the queen herself, and, as much as i could, put the business upon her personal determination, which she liked, and it proved advantageous. i presented to her at once all my articles, except three reserved. the articles proposed a league offensive and defensive; whereupon she objected the unsettledness of our commonwealth, the present peace of her kingdoms, and our being involved in a war. to which i answered, that her kingdoms could not long continue in peace, and would have as much need of our assistance as we of theirs; and our war and successes against holland were arguments that our friendship merited acceptance; that i hoped our commonwealth was settled, and that leagues were between nations, not governments. "this debate was very large with her majesty, who seemed satisfied with my answers, and appointed her chancellor to treat with me; who much more insisted upon the unsettledness of our commonwealth and upon the same objections which the queen had made, and received from me the same answers; which proved the more satisfactory after the news of your highness's accession to the government, which made this treaty proceed more freely. "i had often and long disputes with the chancellor upon the article touching english rebels being harboured in sweden; most of all, touching contraband goods, and about reparation of the losses of the swedes by prizes taken from them in our dutch war by us, besides many other objections, whereof i have given a former account by letters. the chancellor being sick, his son grave eric was commissioned to treat with me in his father's stead, and was much more averse to my business, and more earnest upon the objections, than the old man, whom, being recovered, i found more moderate, yet we could not agree one way or other. and when i pressed for a conclusion, both the queen and her chancellor did ingenuously acknowledge, that they desired first to see whether the peace would be made between us and holland, before they came to a determination upon my treaty; wherein i could not but apprehend reason: and when the news came that the peace between your highness and the dutch was concluded, i urged a conclusion of my treaty; and what the chancellor and i differed in, the queen was pleased to reconcile, and so we came to the full agreement contained in this instrument, signed and sealed by the queen's commissioners, which i humbly present to your highness and this honourable board; and which i hope, through the goodness of god, may be of advantage to this commonwealth, and to the protestant interest." here whitelocke, making a little pause, delivered into the protector's hand the instrument of his treaty, fairly written in latin, in a book of vellum, with the hands and seals to it of the ricks-chancellor and his son grave eric, which being done, whitelocke went on in his speech. "i cannot but acknowledge the great goodness of god to me in this employment, in my preservation from attempts against my person, raising me up such eminent friends, giving me so much favour in the eyes of strangers, inclining the queen's heart to an extraordinary affection and favour towards me, and giving this good success to my business, notwithstanding the designs and labours of many enemies to the contrary. the treaty with me being thus finished, the business came on of the queen's resignation of the crown, wherein she was pleased to express a great confidence in a stranger, by imparting it to me many weeks before, whereof i took the boldness to certify your highness. "the prince who was to succeed the queen was sent for to upsal, and their ricksdag, or parliament, was to meet there in the beginning of may. your highness will not expect many arguments of your servant's longing desires of returning, when he had advice that your frigates sent for him were in the elbe; yet, judging it might conduce to your service to salute the prince, i staid till his entry (which was in great state) into upsal, where i saluted him from your highness, and acquainted him with my negotiation, which he well approved; and, to testify his great respect to your highness and this commonwealth, he came in person to visit me at my house, and used me with so much extraordinary favour and ceremony, that never the like had been done before to any ambassador. we had several conferences at large, much discourse of your highness and of this commonwealth, with the particulars whereof i shall acquaint you at your better leisure. "the time of the queen's resignation being near, i thought it not convenient for me to be then upon the place, but removed to stockholm; where i was when the resignation and new coronation were solemnized at upsal. the magistrates of stockholm expressed good respect to your highness and this commonwealth. from hence i embarked the st of june, in a good ship of the queen's, to cross the baltic sea. she sent one of her vice-admirals, clerke, to attend me; and, after a dangerous voyage and bad weather, the lord gave us a safe arrival at lübeck, on the th of june. the magistrates, by their syndic, here bid me welcome and expressed some respect, and made some requests by me to your highness. "from lübeck i travelled over holstein and lüneburg, and came the th of june to hamburg; where i was also very civilly saluted by some of the magistrates and syndic; and most of the lords came afterwards to me, and testified extraordinary respect and service to your highness and this commonwealth. my countrymen, the company of merchant adventurers there, showed very much kindness to me, and i endeavoured to do them service to the lords of the town, making use of your highness's name therein. "i departed from hamburg the th of june; mr. bradshaw, your highness's worthy resident there, and others of my countrymen, showing much kindness to me, both whilst i was there and at my departure from this city. i embarked in your highness's frigate, near glückstadt, but was detained for some days in the elbe by cross winds, and in some danger, but in more when we came into the open sea. but above all, the lord was pleased to appear for us on the th day of june, when our ship stuck upon the sands, above twelve leagues off from the coast of yarmouth: and when there was no means or help of men for our escape, but we expected every moment to be drowned by the waves, then it pleased god to show his power and free mercy by his own hand to deliver us, and, after two hours' expectation of death, to reprieve us, to set our ship on float again, and to bring us all in health and safety to your highness's presence, and to our dear country and relations. "the queen and the new king were pleased to honour me with jewels off their pictures, and a gift of copper, i having bestowed my horses (of more worth) on them and whom they appointed, and which i refused to sell, as a thing uncomely for my condition in your highness's service. "thus, sir, i have given you a clear and full account of my transactions; and, as i may justify my own diligence and faithfulness therein, so i cannot but condemn my many weaknesses and failings; of which i can only say that they were not wilful, and make a humble demand to your highness and this honourable council, that i may obtain your pardon." when whitelocke had ended his speech and a little pause made, the protector, pulling off his hat and presently putting it on again, desired whitelocke to withdraw, which he did, and within a quarter of an hour was called in again. the protector, using the same ceremony as before, spake to him to this effect:-- [sn: cromwell's answer to his speech.] "my lord, "the council and myself have heard the report of your journey and negotiation with much contentment and satisfaction, and both we and you have cause to bless god for your return home with safety, honour, and good success, in the great trust committed to you; wherein this testimony is due to you, that you have discharged your trust with faithfulness, diligence, and prudence, as appears by the account you have given us, and the issue of the business. truly, when persons to whom god hath given so good abilities, as he hath done to you, shall put them forth as you have done, for his glory and for the good of his people, they may expect a blessing from him, as you have received in an ample measure. "an acknowledgment is also due to them from their country, who have served their country faithfully and successfully, as you have done. i can assure your lordship it is in my heart, really it is, and, i think, in the hearts of all here, that your services in this employment may turn to an account of advantage to you and yours; and it is just and honourable that it should be so. "the lord hath shown extraordinary mercy to you and to your company, in the great deliverances which he hath vouchsafed to you; and especially in that eminent one which you have related to us, when you were come near your own country, and the enjoyment of the comforts of your safe return. it was indeed a great testimony of god's goodness to you all,--a very signal mercy, and such a one as ought to raise up your hearts and our hearts in thankfulness to god, who hath bestowed this mercy on you; and it is a mercy also to us as well as to you, though yours more personally, who were thus saved and delivered by the special hand of providence. "the goodness of god to you was also seen in the support of you, under those hardships and dangers which you have undergone in this service; let it be your comfort that your service was for god, and for his people, and for your country. and now that you have, through his goodness, passed them over, and he hath given you a safe return unto your country, the remembrance of those things will be pleasant to you, and an obligation for an honourable recompense of your services performed under all those hardships and dangers. "for the treaty which you have presented to us, signed and sealed by the queen's commissioners, i presume it is according to what you formerly gave advice to us from sweden. we shall take time to peruse it, and the council have appointed a committee to look into it, together with your instructions, and such other papers and things as you have further to offer to them: and i may say it, that this treaty hath the appearance of much good, not only to england, but to the protestant interest throughout christendom; and i hope it will be found so, and your service thereby have its due esteem and regard, being so much for public good, and so discreetly and successfully managed by you. "my lord, i shall detain you no longer, but to tell you that you are heartily welcome home; that we are very sensible of your good service, and shall be ready on all occasions to make a real acknowledgment thereof to you." when the protector had done speaking, whitelocke withdrew into the outward room, whither mr. scobell, clerk of the council, came to him with a message from the protector, that whitelocke would cause those of his retinue, then present, to go in to the protector and council, which they did; and the protector spake to them with great courtesy and favour, bidding them welcome home, blessing god for their safe return to their friends and native country, and for the great deliverances which he had wrought for them. he commended their care of whitelocke and their good deportment, by which they had testified much courage and civility, and had done honour to religion and to their country; he gave them thanks for it, and assurance of his affection to them when any occasion should be offered for their good or preferment. they withdrew, full of hopes, every one of them, to be made great men; but few of them attained any favour, though whitelocke solicited for divers of them who were very worthy of it. this audience being ended, and with it whitelocke's commission, he willingly parted with his company and greatness, and contentedly retired himself with his wife and children in his private family. after his return from the council, whitelocke dismissed his company and went to those gentlemen whom he had desired to act as a committee for him before his going out of england; these he desired to examine the state of his accounts with his officers, to satisfy what remained due to any, and to make up his account, to be given in tomorrow to the council's committee. _july , ._ [sn: whitelocke renders a minute account of the negotiation to a committee of council.] according to the appointment of the protector and council, signified to him by a letter from mr. jessop, clerk of the council, whitelocke repaired to whitehall, to the lord viscount lisle and colonel nathaniel fiennes, the committee of the council, appointed to peruse and examine his proceedings: to them he produced his commission, orders, credentials, and instructions; and all was sifted into, by virtue whereof he acted throughout by his whole embassy. he deduced his negotiation from the beginning of his treaty to the conclusion of it, with all the reasons and circumstances of his transactions. they took cognizance of all, narrowly searched into and examined everything, comparing all particular passages and actions with the rules and instructions given him; and upon the whole matter they acknowledged that whitelocke had given them full satisfaction in every point, and all his proceedings were by them, and upon their report to the protector and council afterwards, fully approved and commended by them. _july , ._ [sn: the committee of council audits his accounts.] whitelocke again solicited the committee of the council that his accounts might be examined and stated, and order given for the payment of what remained due to him, which he had expended out of his own purse in their service, and was reasonable for him to expect a reimbursement of it. the committee were pleased to take great pains in pursuing and examining his papers, books, and accounts, not omitting (with strictness enough) any particular of his actions and expenses; and after all their strait inquisition and narrow sitting, they again acknowledged, which upon their report was confirmed by the council, that his management of this affair had been faithful and prudent, his disbursements had been just and necessary, his account was clear and honest, and that he ought to be satisfied with what remained upon his accounts due to him. the remainder due to him was above £ , and, notwithstanding all their promises, whitelocke could never get it of them. the sum of all was, that for a most difficult and dangerous work, faithfully and successfully performed by whitelocke, he had little thanks and no recompense from those who did employ him; but, not long after, was rewarded by them with an injury: they put him out of his office of commissioner of the great seal, because he would not betray the rights of the people, and, contrary to his own knowledge and the knowledge of those who imposed it, execute an ordinance of the protector and his council as if it had been a law. but in a succeeding parliament, upon the motion of his noble friend the lord broghill, whitelocke had his arrears of his disbursements paid him, and some recompense of his faithful service allowed unto him. his hopes were yet higher, and his expectation of acceptance was from a superior to all earthly powers; to whom only the praise is due, of all our actions and endeavours, and who will certainly reward all his servants with a recompense which will last for ever. _july , ._ [sn: a familiar letter.] i received this letter from my brother willoughby:-- "_for my lord whitelocke, at chelsea, humbly these._ "my lord, "i being this day commanded by the two within-named persons in your letter to consummate their nuptials, and in that to bear the part of a father, am so confident of my power, as (were it not my lord whitelocke's request, whose interest with them exceeds a mock father) he might be assured of not failing of his commands; but that done which this morning i am going about, i am by them desired to jog on to stanstead, so that i fear i shall by that means be disappointed of attending you upon wednesday; and that, i assure you, will go to nancy's heart, she being yesterday resolved to have visited you this morning at chelsea, had she not apprehended your early being in town; but wherever we are, our thankfulness to god for your safe return you shall not fail of, nor of the keeper tomorrow night. so i rest, "my lord, "your affectionate brother to serve you, "will. willoughby. "_july._" i have inserted this and other letters, that you may observe the change of styles and compliments in the change of fortunes and conditions. _july , ._ i had been several times to visit my lord lambert since my coming home, he being a person in great favour with the army, and not without some close emulation from cromwell; but his occasions were so great, that i could not meet with him. i therefore desired the earl of clare, who was very intimate with lambert, to contrive a conveniency for my meeting with my lord lambert, whereupon he sent me this letter, directed "_for the lord whitelocke, at chelsea._ "my lord, "hearing your lordship had been several times to see my lord lambert and missed, and i desiring that there should be no mistakes between you, i sent mr. bankes to signify so much to his cousin lambert, who, being come this morning to town, says he will be very glad to see your lordship about two this afternoon, and mr. bankes will wait on your lordship to him, if you please to be in the park, in the walk between the elms on this side the water. so i rest "your lordship's humble servant, "clare." i met mr. bankes at the time appointed, who brought me to my lord lambert, and he received me with great civility and respect; we had much discourse together about sweden, and germany, and denmark, and the business of my treaty; and we parted with all kindness, and he desired to have my company often. _july , ._ i received this letter from my lady pratt:-- "_for my ever-honoured friend the lord whitelocke, these humbly._ "my lord, "hearing that it is absolutely in your power to dispose of the time of the assizes, and an unexpected accident being fallen out, which, will make them extremely prejudicial to us if they begin so soon, my humble suit to your lordship is to defer them till, etc. this favour, as it will be an extraordinary great one, so it will lay a suitable obligation upon, "my lord, your most humble servant, "margaret pratt." i could not gratify this lady's desire, being not yet sworn a commissioner of the great seal; but i returned her a civil answer and excuse; and i have inserted the more letters, that you may see the style and compliments of divers persons, and note their change upon the change of times. _july , ._ [sn: a more formal letter.] i received this letter from the lord chief baron wylde:-- "_for the right honourable the lord ambassador whitelocke, these, at chelsea._ "right honourable and my very good lord, "it is not my happiness to be in place or condition to wait upon your lordship, as i would, to present my humble service to you, and the gratulations due for your safe and happy return, for your long and hazardous, but i hope successful journey, wishing the honour and happiness which belongs to your most known deservings may ever attend you, with a reward from above for those inestimable favours by which you have for ever obliged me to you and all that is mine; who, after the long course i have run, through all the degrees of my laborious calling, my services to my country and the commonwealth, my great losses and sufferings for the public, and the discharge of my duty in all my several trusts and employments, have now the hoped-for comfort of all removed from me, and a dark shadow cast upon me, with all the sad consequences thereof to me and mine, and many others that have dependence on me. but god gives and takes, and is able to restore; his help i trust in, and shall still desire the continuance of your lordship's undoubted favours, whose health and happiness i shall ever pray for, who am, "my lord, "your lordship's most faithful servant, "john wylde. "_hampstead, th july, ._" this gentleman was very laborious in the service of the parliament, and stiff for them, and had sustained great losses and hatred by adhering in all matters to them. he was learned in his profession, but of more reading than depth of judgement; and i never heard of any injustice or incivility of him. the parliament made him lord chief baron of the exchequer, which place he executed with diligence and justice; yet upon the alteration made by cromwell, when he assumed the protectorship, in the nomination of officers he left out mr. sergeant wylde from being chief baron or any other employment,--a usual reward, in such times, for the best services. he entreated me to move the protector on his behalf, which i did, but to no effect, the protector having a dislike of the sergeant, but the ground thereof i could not learn. [sn: whitelocke's influence in oxfordshire.] most places were full of trouble about their elections of parliament men. i had recommended my son james to some of my friends in oxfordshire, for one of the knights for that county, myself being chosen for the city of oxford and for the borough of bedford, and one of the knights for bucks. i had at this time such an interest in oxfordshire, that upon my account my son james was chosen for one of their knights for the parliament, as appears by this letter to me:-- "_for the right honourable his dear father the lord commissioner whitelocke, at chelsea, these. haste, haste._ "dear sir, "i held it my duty, upon the instant of the conclusion of the elections at this place, to acquaint you that i am chosen one of the knights for the county in the next parliament. i am told that the number of voices might justly have given the first place to me; but i freely resigned it to lieutenant-general fleetwood, not suffering it to be brought to trial by the poll, which many of the country desired. the persons elected are lieutenant-general fleetwood, mr. robert jenkinson, colonel nathaniel fynes, mr. lenthall, master of the rolls, and myself. "many of your friends appeared really for me, amongst which i can experimentally say none acted more effectually than my cousin captain crooke, his father, and brother. the city of oxford was prepared very seasonably for me, wherein my cousin richard crooke's affections did particularly appear; and i conceive that if you shall be pleased to waive the election for the city of oxford, no truer friend could be commended by you for their choice than my cousin richard crooke, in regard of his interest there, if you think it fit. i shall say no more at present in this haste, but expect your commands in all things, who am "your most obedient son, "j. whitelocke. "_oxford, july , ._" the gentlemen of oxfordshire did generally manifest great civility and respect to me in this business of my son; so did the citizens of oxford; and the scholars were not behindhand in the expression of their favour and good opinion of me and my son, and they stood stoutly and generally for my son to be one of the knights for the county. thus was my interest at this time sufficient to make another to be knight of the shire; yet when my condition fell, my interest fell with it, and i was looked upon as a stranger among them. such is the course and vicissitude of worldly things; therefore put no trust in them. _july , ._ [sn: whitelocke summoned to resume the commissionership of the great seal.] this order of the council was brought unto me:-- "_thursday, the th of july, ._ "at the council at whitehall: _ordered_, by his highness the lord protector and the council, that the lord commissioner whitelocke do attend the council tomorrow morning, to take his oath as one of the lords commissioners for the great seal, and that the rest of the lords commissioners do then also attend with the seal. "henry scobell, "clerk of the council." some of my friends thought it very long before this order was made, and looked upon it as some neglect to me, whereof i was likewise sensible, but had no remedy; only it seemed hard that after so perilous an undertaking, performed, through the blessing of god, faithfully and successfully on my part, my requital should be a neglect of me and my services. yet it pleased god to give me much patience and temperance to bear this slighting and ingratitude, and i knew the condition of him from whom it came, who, when his turn was served, usually forgot the instruments. _july , ._ [sn: receives the seal.] according to the council's order, the lords commissioners lisle and widdrington attended with the seal at whitehall, and i was there also. we were all called into the council, where the protector himself was sitting at the upper end of the table with his hat on, and the council all uncovered. he made a short and grave speech, how much i had deserved from the commonwealth by the great and faithful services i had performed for them, particularly in the treaty with sweden. that in my absence, the custody of the great seal being to be disposed of, the council and himself having good experience of my fidelity and abilities for that great trust, and as a testimony of their favour to me, they thought fit to nominate me for one of the commissioners of the seal. and i being now, through the mercy of god, safely returned again into this commonwealth, they had appointed this time for me to take the oath of a commissioner of the great seal, as the rest of the commissioners had done before. i then desired to see the oath, which was shown to me, and finding it to be the same that i had taken before, i took it now again; and after that, the protector took the great seal in his hand and delivered it to me and the other commissioners, and so we did withdraw with it. sir thomas widdrington seemed a little distasted that i was the first commissioner, named before him, which was done when i was out of england, and, i suppose, because i was then ambassador extraordinary in their actual service. we went away together to consult about the business of the seal, and i sought to win sir thomas widdrington by my civility to him. _july , ._ [sn: entry of certain goods.] i employed my brother wilson to the commissioners of the customs, to get the copper which i had brought from sweden, and some deal boards, to be discharged of paying custom, they being my particular goods, concerning which my brother wilson gave me this account by his letter; and also, touching the arrears of my salary as commissioner of the great seal during my absence out of england, and for one term since my coming home. "_for the right honourable the lord commissioner whitelocke, these; chelsea._ "may it please your lordship, "this morning i waited on the commissioners of the customs with your lordship's letter, who expressed much readiness to answer your expectation about the customs of the copper and deal boards, had it been in their power, their commission not exceeding a bill of store for forty shillings. but i am to wait on the commissioners at whitehall for regulating the customs, on tuesday morning (who sit not till then); they have power to grant the custom thereof, and carrying the letter from your lordship, i question not but will take effect, and so they have acquainted me; which letter i send enclosed, that you may please in the superscription to add to the word commissioners, 'for regulating, etc.,' which then will be fit to present to the said committee. in the meantime i have procured an order to go to work upon the small vessel, which cannot well be done until you are pleased to send word what shall be done with the deals, they being uppermost. if the barge be not ready, if you think fit, i will hire a lighter and load her therewith, which may convey them to queenhithe or chelsea, otherwise it will be less charge for a barge to take them in from the ship; your lordship's pleasure shall be observed in all. "i acquainted the commissioners of the customs of an order your lordship had for £ , which they acquainted me should be paid as soon as brought to them; since which i have received it from mr. earle, which i also send enclosed, that you may please to put your name underneath it, that so receipt may be made over it after their form, and on monday it will be paid. "my humble service to my lady, i beseech you, present. i shall await your lordship's answer, and ever remain "your lordship's most obliged servant, "samuel wilson. "_london, this th july, ._" i ordered a henley barge to take in the deal boards from the ship, and to carry them to fawley court, which was done; and there i made use of them for new flooring my hall and for wainscoting of it. they were extraordinary good boards, and those of the floor were about two inches thick. there they are, and there may they long continue, for the use of me and my children; and may they put us in mind to bless god for his goodness to me in that voyage, and in my safe return to that place, and of all his preservations and mercies to me and my company! i returned order to my brother wilson, to be careful of receiving my money from the commissioners of the customs. _july , ._ i had some conference with major g. disborough, one of the commissioners for the ordnance, about his buying for the state the copper which the queen of sweden gave me, and i brought over from thence, being two hundred and fifty ship-pound. i desired that some merchants might look upon it, who had experience in that commodity; and what they should agree to be a reasonable price for it, i should be content to take it; and so we concluded. _july , ._ [sn: sale of copper.] my brother wilson gave me this account touching my moneys and copper:-- "_for the right honourable the lord commissioner whitelocke, these; at chelsea._ "_london, the th july, ._ "may it please your lordship, "i sent this morning to receive your moneys at the custom-house, and they say there is no more due to your lordship than £ for three terms, as is expressed in the receipt enclosed, which they have made. i would not receive it until i knew your pleasure, which, if this sum doth agree with what is your due, you may please to put your name to the enclosed receipt from them, and it will be paid in the morning. the order also i send back, that you may please to take off your name from it and send it again by the bearer. "in the morning we shall work upon the ship, and i shall wait on the committee at whitehall, for the custom and excise of the copper to be free, which will come to £ . i hope i shall prevail, and shall always remain "your lordship's humble servant, "samuel wilson." there was a mistake by the commissioners of the customs about my money, which i rectified, and had the £ paid to my brother wilson for my use. touching the copper, i at length contracted with major g. disborough, who bought it for the protector, and gave me £ for it, which was justly paid unto me; and the copper was employed to make brass ordnance for the ships, and was excellent good, and no ill bargain. [sn: mr. henry elsing.] i received a letter from mr. henry elsing, late clerk of the parliament, and the best clerk in my judgement that ever i knew, to take the sense of the house and put it in apt terms. he was an excellent scholar,--had the italian, french, and latin languages; a very honest and ingenious man, and fitter for much better employment than to be clerk of the parliament. he was my faithful and kind friend, and i owe very much of affection and gratitude to the memory of this worthy gentleman. he was in great and deserved favour of the house of commons, and gave over his place because he would not meddle in the business about the trial of the king. he often invited mr. selden and me together to his house to dinner, where we had great cheer, and greater learning in excellent discourse, whereof himself bore a chief part. i was the more frequent with him, being godfather to one of his sons, and mr. selden the other godfather, which brought us two the oftener together to his house, to see our godson; and even in such meetings as these i gained very much of knowledge from the most learned and rational discourses of mr. selden. footnotes: [ ] [yet whitelocke seems to have entertained no suspicions of the queen's design to join the church of rome. piementelle and montecuculi were however aware of her intention on this point, and were afterwards present at her abjuration.] the end. john edward taylor, printer, little queen street, lincoln's inn fields. {transcriber's notes. original reads "of our father"; changed to "of your father". original reads "more prejudical to sweden"; changed to "more prejudicial to sweden". original reads "contrabrand goods"; changed to "contraband goods". "sunnandag" not italicised in original. original reads "grave eric's requst"; changed to "grave eric's request". original reads "unto the prinee"; changed to "unto the prince". original reads "and and that"; changed to "and that". original reads "whitleocke"; changed to "whitelocke". original reads "bacon and other provison"; changed to "bacon and other provision". original reads "en suite dequoi"; changed to "en suite de quoi". } transcriber's note: there are many typographical and orthographical errors in the original. they are listed at the end of this etext. no corrections have been made. in the second part of the book lines of dashes are used to represent omissions in excerpts. there are represented in this etext by [-- -- --] or [-- --]. the swedish-norwegian union crisis a history with documents by k. nordlund ph d. upsala & stockholm almqvist & wiksell ltd printed by almqvist & wiksell ltd, upsala author's introductory remarks. the following work is intended to give an insight into the swedish-norwegian crisis. it has been the author's endeavour to attain this object, partly by a condensed account of the events of the last few years, partly by a collection of suitable extracts from documents referring to this crisis. choice in the last items has been confined to the most important ones. touching the consular negotiations only the discussions on the most disputed points are given. in dealing with some of the statements in nansen's brochure the author does not intend a exhaustive criticism of the said work, but has only tried to show, by a few instances, the treatment pure and distinct facts have been submitted to, in these days, by norwegian agitation. the number of instances could be multiplied many times over. if the following representation has caught the tone of present feeling in sweden, it must be excused. the author is, however, convinced that this has not disadvantageously affected his account of the actual facts of the case. upsala. august . _the author._ contents. a. history. sid. i. reasons for union crisis. development of sweden's and norway's different reform programmes - ii. contents of the charge of in § of sweden's constitution. first development of consular question. union committee - - iii. consular committee of . birth and contents of communiqué - iv. treaties on the identical laws - v. norwegian accusations caused by breakdown of consular negatiations - vi. development of crisis this year until the time of the extra-ordinary session of swedish riksdag - vii. supposed and real causes of norwegian revolution - b. acts. . acts from norway's »grundlov» . acts from »riksakten». (special laws relating to union) . preparatory agreement, in consular question, between swedish and norwegian cabinet councils (so called communiqué) . extract from norwegian government's proposal referring to identical laws . extract from boström's reasons for identical laws . extract from hagerup's answer . extract from swedish government's proposal regarding identical laws . extract from norwegian cabinet council's memorandum on account of this proposal . extract from swedish cabinet's answer . report on proceedings of cabinet council held on th february . crown prince-regent's address to special committee of storthing . report on proceedings of cabinet council held on th april . motion on union question in swedish riksdag's upper chamber . motion on union question in swedish riksdag's lower chamber . norwegian government's »proposal» of th april . report on proceedings of cabinet council held on th april . swedish riksdag's statement on union question . norwegian minister's notice of resignation . report on proceedings of norwegian cabinet council th may . king's telegraphic protest against norwegian government's statement . norwegian ministers' announcement to king of resignation . king's telegraphic protest . storthing's president's proposal for conclusion th june . storthing's address to king oscar . king's telegraphic protest . report of proceedings of cabinet council held on th june . king's letter to storthing th june . storthing's reply i. [sidenote: _the object of the union dispute._] not till the present day has the swedish-norwegian union crisis presented itself in the eyes of europe in a thoroughly acute phase. its origin, in reality, dates as far back as the foundation of the union itself. [sidenote: _the efforts to give norway a better position in the union._] the original cause of the agitating union disputes has been that sweden, from the very commencement of the union, has internationally borne the responsibility for the same, in other words, conducted the political affairs of both kingdoms. the inequality produced hereby, the norwegians on their part have striven to efface. sweden has also for a long time shown herself willing to establish full equality in the union, at the same time that she has accommodated herself to norway in questions of detail. as far back as it was acknowledged, on the part of sweden, that norway's position in the union was not in accordance with the claims of equity. thus by a royal decree that year the norwegian minister of state at stockholm was admitted into the swedish so-called ministerial council to take part in foreign matters which concerned norway. in the first great union-committee was formed, and both in this one, and two later--the last - --norway was offered from the swedish side complete equality in the union on certain conditions. added to this sweden has on several occasions granted partial concessions. some have been accepted by norway--as for instance the law passed in concerning equality in government symbols etc. etc.--others again were refused--as the offer in and of increased influence in the administration of foreign affairs. if offers of equality worded in more general terms are added--as in and during the present year--, nansen's characterising sweden's union policy as » years' labour to procure a supremacy for sweden»,--ought to appear in its true colours[ : ]. [sidenote: _unauthorized accusations against sweden for endeavouring to gain the supremacy._] the accusations against sweden for endeavouring to acquire the supremacy have, time after time, arisen from a mixture of various matters, partly the different conceptions of the legal character of the existing union, partly the different programmes for the reformation of the union. owing to the very indistinct and confused wording in the legal documents of the act of union the swedish and norwegian conceptions of the union itself have finally become so antagonistic to each other, that the unionistic transactions have, in an excessive degree, taken the character of a continual judicial process, and the real questions have been more or less ignored[ : ]. swedish policy on its part has always maintained that sweden's supremacy in the union is based on legal grounds. it has especially insisted that the administration of foreign affairs was, from the first, placed in sweden's hands[ : ], and this swedish standpoint has also been acknowledged as the right one by the most eminent of norwegian writers on state law[ : ]. but of late those on the norwegian left side have made stronger and stronger efforts to prove, that the order existed on no legal grounds, that norway, as a sovereign kingdom, had the right, for instance, to create an entire foreign office of its own. and under this influence the norwegian sensitiveness has in sweden's defence of her conception of union law persisted more and more in seeing insulting »designs of supremacy». meanwhile future prospects and reform programmes have had little to do with the swedish conception of the legal character of the union. the most extreme representatives of the so-called supremacy partizans--to mention one, the late professor oscar alin--have on different occasions maintained reform programmes, built on the principle of perfect equality within the union, and it must be asserted that _no swedish political party in recent times has refused perfect equality to norway_[ : ]. [sidenote: _the different programmes of sweden and norway for reforming the union._] that the result seems to become the rupture of the union, and not the reorganization of the same has depended on more and more insurmountable oppositions in opinions concerning _the manner_ and _the aim_ for a reform. sweden has, as a rule, preferred the _entire_ reorganization, norway the _partial_--the consequence being, for instance, the struggles in the so-called stadtholder disputes in the sixties of the last century. sweden has held her standpoint, especially as she has considered it to the interest of the union to insist on creating perfect equality by concessions also from norway, and it seemed that these demands could not gain sufficient consideration unless the reorganization was complete[ : ]. sweden has furthermore insisted on _negotiations_ and _agreements_, as the natural road to reform; how norway has more and more allowed herself to take matters into her own hands, shall now be more clearly explained. above all, however, the differences of opinion respecting the _aim_ of the reform have become more and more pronounced. sweden has adhered to a union, which outworldly represents a perfect unity, and tried to create a safe and secure union. norway has, by degrees, in her ever increasing overwrought sensitiveness, developed her reform programme towards a purely personal union, behind which the rupture of the union has stood as the main object in view. the connection of the norwegian union with the inner party struggles in norway, has had a disastrous effect on the development of the norwegian programme, especially since . through the constitutional crisis in , when the royal powers were forced--practically if not legally--to capitulate in essentials to the orthodox parliamentarism, the norwegian party champions became in need of new programmes upon which to fling themselves. it was then, that the norwegian radicals through the demand for their own minister of state for foreign affairs cast a firebrand into the very midst of the norwegian people[ : ], who to that time had stood unanimous towards the claim of a mutual foreign minister of state for the union. in the struggle for the political ascendency chauvinistic strongwords became more and more rife. the national sensitiveness, already considerable, became excited to the utmost under the influence of the suggestive eloquence of bjÖrnson and other agitators. the suspiciousness disaffection towards sweden increased. the swedish brethren were pointed at by bjÖrnson as the only enemy norway had, and even in the schoolrooms and school-books their (swedish) hereditary enemy was spoken of with curses. simultaneously the »norwegians of the future» buried themselves deeper and deeper in the study of »ancient glorious norway». imagination was fed on norwegian heroic sagas and viking exploits, and the ancient national saint of norway, olaf the holy, was unearthed from his long-forgotten hiding place for renewed worship[ : ]. this overwrought sentimental policy, of course, caused national pride and all its requisite claims, to raise a cloud over sweden and the union, and the essential principles in the union question became of less and less importance. how totally void of essential principles the recent norwegian union policy has been, is most obvious in the matter of effacing the union symbol from the mercantile flag having for a long period of years played a dominating rôle in norwegian party politics[ : ]. it became the more and more hopeless task of sweden and the union king to maintain the cause of the union without support from the dominant left party in norway. the norwegian radical party in their blind fanaticism were scarcely capable of rational action with any feeling of real political responsibility; the friendly attitude towards russia as their friend in need, of bjÖrnson and other radicals, was quite sufficient proof of this. it is true, that one party--the norwegian right side--, for a long time inclined to a more favourable view of the union, has supported the king in his efforts to oppose the dissolving of the union, but in the fight for the political supremacy, the power of nationalism over minds has gradually undermined its position as a pillar of the union, and at the present period of violently agitated feeling, the party has almost entirely vanished from the »national junction.» [sidenote: _sweden's later union policy._] during the process of this chauvinistic hysteria, swedish politicians have naturally had an exceedingly delicate problem to solve. on one point opinion in sweden has been unanimous. it has emphatically refused to accept a mere personal union as a solution of the question. this on two grounds: one for the union, the other for the nation. the interests of the union imperatively demanded outward unity, in order that the union might be able to fulfil its purpose preserving security to the scandinavian peninsula in relation to foreign powers. national interest saw in a personal union, and generally in every more radical rupture of the bonds of the union, a risk that the influence of sweden would thereby become unduly lessened. for if sovereign power became the only essential bond of union, there would be the risk of the balance of power drifting into the hands of the storthing (especially after the events of when the sovereign power of the king was weakened), a risk that has at the present conjuncture of affairs already made itself felt. but if sweden has thus been unanimous in demanding a joint administration of foreign affairs, it might be found within the range of possibilities, for the sake of peace and quietness, to grant concessions in certain matters, which in reality from an union point of view seemed both unnecessary and undesirable. they may have complain as much as they like of the norwegian national obstinacy, of their sickly fears of any sort of »_confusion_»; their inability to comprehend the requirements of the union; it remained, however, a fact, that it was necessary to take into account, and indeed, it was a duty to respect it to a certain extent, as it originated in no slight degree from feelings fed by the subordinate position norway had always held in years gone by. swedish policy had thus to face two alternatives, either firmly and inexorably to insist on the swedish demands for the amendment of the union, conscious that they were in the interests of the union, and like wise the real interest of norway; or make a compromise, be contented with a partially disorganized union, which by its bonds outwardly at least, preserved the appearance of the scandinavian peninsula's unity to europe. the currents of the union policy in sweden have swayed between these two possibilities, but if we follow it along the whole of its course, we shall see that swedish policy has always made a way for concessions. in the union committee of the swedish members insisted on a union parliament as the stipulation of a joint foreign office; the swedish majority in the committe of abandoned that decision and contented itself with a joint court of impeachment as a forum for appeal against the mutual foreign minister of the union, but it insisted on maintaining the necessity of having mutual consular representatives; during the present year, the king and the riksdag have unanimously approved of the principles of a new arrangement with separate consuls for sweden and norway. it is perhaps too soon to now judge between the lines followed by swedish union politicians, but in any case, it can scarcely be a matter of surprise that swedish policy has but slowly and gradually given up its claims. in order to preserve harmony, sweden has been forced to do it, on account of the responsibility she once undertook on behalf of the union, but no direct national interests have influenced the concessions and the enticing reward--harmony within the union, the prospect of getting norway honestly to meet her half way--has been sufficiently uncertain, in fact, the above mentioned concessions have seemed to possess a remarkable faculty for drawing forward new claims. footnotes: [ : ] nansen (english edition). the same author writes (page ): »finally in (!) the swedish government declared openly that the present arrangement was not in accordance with norway's just demands for equality in the union.» how such a statement can be made is simply incomprehensible. [ : ] how the norwegian storthing, made up as it is, of large numbers of lawyers, has contributed to this, is well known to all. [ : ] on this account, it has especially been vindicated that the act of union plainly indicates a joint foreign policy, which is scarcely possible without a joint foreign administration; that the same act of union only acknowledges the swedish foreign minister of state as the head of the foreign administration for the union; that in the »eidswold constitution», at the commencement of the union, the paragraph referring to the norwegian foreign minister of state was simply ignored. this last inconvenient fact is interpreted by the modern norwegian theory of state law as implying, that the norwegian constitution has left the administration of foreign affairs to the king personally, who, in his turn on the grounds of this authority has placed it in the hands of the swedish minister of foreign affairs. nansen (page and following.) the artfulness of this legal construction becomes immediately obvious. it is exceedingly remarkable also to find that norwegian parliamentarism can commit such a blasphemy towards the constitution, that it has confered a position of importance on the king himself. [ : ] the norwegian right side (conservative) has not either emphatically disputed the swedish conception. [ : ] illustrative of the norwegian way of confusing the swedish _legal conception_ and the swedish _amendment programme_ in the union question is an expression of nansen (page ). according to him »the swedish government as late as appeared, as already mentioned, inclined to deny norway every right of taking part in the administration of foreign affairs», while in the swedish government offered a joint minister for foreign affairs for the union. the state of the case was, that the swedish government in offered norway _increase_ of influence in foreign affairs, but in motioning this offer the swedish legal point of view was maintained, that the administration of foreign (diplomatic) affairs for the union by the swedish minister for foreign affairs was founded on legal right. reflections arise of themselves. [ : ] sweden has especially tried to annul the paragraph of norway's fundamental law which limits the duty of its union defence. according to this paragraph, the yeomanry and other norwegian troops, that cannot be reckoned as belonging to the line, may not be employed outside the boundaries of the kingdom. this law has proved so much the more pernicous, as the norwegians by their recruiting regulations have illoyally withdrawn from the union-defence part of their fighting forces, by outrageously entering into the line a limited number only of the annual classes of recruits. [ : ] mr hagerup also affirmed openly in the storthing of that the union question had in quite too high a degree come to be regarded by the norwegian parties as a workshop of weapons for elections campaigns. [ : ] we get a glimpse of this romance, in the midst of the ultra modern »glorious» revolution. at a large meeting at hamar it was decreed, that the new king should bear a name after one on the ancient kings of norway. in a festival number of a »vordens gang» in honour of the revolution we find printed a »psalm on olaf's day» written by bjÖrnson. [ : ] that norway in carrying out the law ( ) respecting the flag, broke an agreement with sweden made in , was of course only in conformity with everything else. ii. [sidenote: _the consul question._] the consular question is a red thread running through the history of the union struggles during the last fourteen years-- [sidenote: _the change in the swedish constitution of ._] the norwegians on their part in attempting to defend the way in which the left side started the union policy in the beginning of , always allude to what happened in sweden in [ : ]. what was it then that happened in ? [sidenote: _norway's attitude to the same._] by the amendment of the swedish constitution, the prime minister was also in the ministerial council (for foreign affairs), so that the council instead of having only two members, ever after had three, the object being to guarantee that the cabinet council should be more fully represented in they the in administration of foreign affairs. now, as previously mentioned, by a royal decree in the norwegian prime minister at stockholm was admitted into the ministerial council when foreign affairs affecting the two kingdoms were negotiated. thus norway by the proposed constitutional amendment was supposed to occupy a somewhat more unfavourable position than formerly. but sweden immediately offers a more extended representation in the council for foreign affairs, which offer, however, is, for some inexplicable reason, refused by norway on formal grounds. in the year this offer was renewed, but then the majority on the left side of the storthing finds a very excellent reason for refusing the proposition, by pointing out, that the swedish council in motioning towards the proposed amendment in the act of union (not in the proposed paragraph itself) maintains the stand-point that sweden's leadership in the administration of foreign affairs is founded on legal right[ : ]. but something else is said to have happened in , which was not discovered by the norwegian side till several years later, and which, being exposed by the norwegian agitation in these days, offers to we swedes the delights of novelty. formerly foreign affairs were supposed to be administered chiefly by the swedish king personally, and the minister for foreign affairs is said to have stood in a more personal relation to the king. foreign affairs under such circumstances were supposed to be more impartially treated, so that even norway's lawful interests could receive due attention. but by the amendment of the constitution of the swedish foreign minister would be entirely subservient to swedish parliamentarism, which made the employment of the swedish minister for foreign affairs, in the protection of norwegian interests, still more dissatisfactory for norway than formerly. this is pretended to have become the source of the last twenty year's union struggle[ : ]. now the state of the case is this, _the foreign minister's parliamentary responsibility has not been increased by the amendment of the constitution in _. formerly he was--just as he is now-- responsible, as reporter, in the first place for all _resolutions_ in foreign affairs. the point that was formally confirmed by law in was, that the minister for foreign affairs should also _prepare_ matters concerning foreign affairs. according to the older version of the paragraph that was altered that year ( ), the king was invested with greater rights in reference to that side of the administration of foreign affairs. thus the amendment of the constitution in only effected that the actual influence of the minister for foreign affairs on sweden's foreign policy was brought into harmony with the formal responsibility he held in all cases for sweden's foreign policy. it may be added that this constitutional amendment only confirmed the old practice, as the minister for foreign affairs was formerly regularly employed to prepare matters concerning foreign affairs, and that his previous employment in the preparation of foreign affairs was naturally carried out under observation of the responsibility in which he stood for the resolutions taken, and was not inspired by any mysterious personal relations to the king. the whole of this norwegian notion of the fatal influence on the union in this constitutional amendment, is, in fact, nothing but a manufactured theory containing no real grounds whatsoever. now it must be observed that norway had formerly no regular parliamentary control over foreign affairs, _but the swedish offer of was just intended to give the norwegian storthing the right to this control, to be exercised under the same conditions as those in the swedish diet_. but the storthing refused (as previously mentioned) the swedish offer; it preferred to keep the quarrel alive, and in order to do this, it was necessary to be able to refer to swedish oppression. [sidenote: _the norwegian radicals' method of taking matters into their hands._] the swedish offer being thus refused, the norwegian union politics in took a new turn. the road was already pointed out by the veteran leader of the left side (separatists) johan sverdrup; it was indicated »to take matters into our own hands». the system was founded on the norwegian left side state-law theory, according to which norway, as a sovereign state, was entitled to its own minister for foreign affairs, its own diplomatic representatives and consuls, all of which was proved with much craft by the constitution of norway and the act of union between sweden and norway. the right to one and all to which norway, as a sovereign power, was entitled, should now be realized, independently and boldly, without consulting sweden. by royal decree, the storting having granted the means, a norwegian minister for foreign affairs, norwegian diplomatic representatives and consuls should be appointed without delay in the norwegian council. thus the lines of the future politics of norway were fixed by the separatists[ : ]. it is obvious, that the notion of the one kingdom in a union being able, of its own accord without consulting the other kingdom, to alter and dissolve the bonds of union, is theoretically inimical to the union itself, and in fact shows enormous disloyalty to the other half of the union. a _union_ policy of this sort is, of course, in spirit, completely revolutionary, and at the outset has no place within the union. nevertheless it has been followed under continued official protestations of fidelity to the union--the last speech of this sort was heard a short time ago, when the well known road was fully marked out, right away to the object so long hovering in view. this is not the only piece of duplicity in norwegian union policy of whech sweden has had to complain. there was a cautious beginning with »their own consuls»; it was too venturesome a task to begin the system at once with the question of their own minister for foreign affairs. [sidenote: _the real innecessity of having separate consuls._] on the side of norway it has been claimed that the mercantile interests of norway demanded a consular service of its own[ : ]. in reality, it is an indisputable fact, even acknowledged by norwegians, that no essentially practical inconvenience has been caused by the system of having a joint consular service. the circles most affected by the matter in norway, commercial men and ship-owners--were in opposition for a long time; not even in did the separatists venture to lay the consular committee's deliberations on the subject before the mercantile authorities. one norwegian, who was well competent to judge of the matter, acknowledged openly, when the question was first broached, that »the grounds of the proposition for a complete separation as being of benefit to the shipping, commerce, and industry of the country, are so weak, that it would be impossible for them except, through persistent agitation to gain conviction, either among the classes most interested, or amongst the masses of the people». there are principally two reasons for the proposed reform, first that sweden and norway have a different tariff-system, secondly, the frequent rivalry between swedish and norwegian trade articles of export. the first reason is baseless, as the different tariff-systems are of importance chiefly for the imports, and not for the exports[ : ]; the second reason loses its chief point by the fact that consuls are not commercial agents, that it is not their business to promote trade for private individuals, but only to give reports of the possibilities of trading with different countries. it is also worthy of mention, that in sweden not the slightest wish has been expressed in this direction, though at present the majority of the consuls abroad are norwegians. and as regards the much-talked of fears, that in the administration of the consular service by the foreign office, partiality might be exercised in the interests of sweden, the fact _that for a long time past the whole of the mercantile portion of the consuls' duties have, on norway's side, been performed by one of the norwegian government departements_, proves how vain those fears were. [sidenote: _the real object of raising the consular question._] norwegian separatists, among others michelsen himself, long ago, in a moment of rare sincerity, have acknowledged that other motives besides the practical have been at the root of the claim for reform. a norwegian consular service meant, in itself, a step in the direction of the rupture of the bonds of union, and was therefore even then an object worth striving for. but it was also openly declared, that a norwegian consular service would necessarily be succeeded by a norwegian diplomatic representation and a norwegian minister for foreign affairs. »directly they have got the wedge fixed into the small end», wrote in president hans forssell, »they will try to persuade us that there will be no danger in letting them drive it in a bit». above all they considered that a norwegian consular service would by degrees disorganize the administration of the foreign office, and on the grounds of the dominating rôle interests of economy play in the foreign politics of our day, it would by degrees expand into a regular norwegian foreign office. [sidenote: _want of union motives for consular reform._] the chief characteristic of this programme is the total absence of any motive for it from a union point of view. modern norwegian nationalism has only really thought of sweden and norway, but not of the union and its claims. whenever sweden has ventured to advocate the cause of the union, norway has begun to talk of the interests of sweden. if, at any time, the claims of the union have been discussed in norway, they have usually been identical with those of norway. the interests of the union demanded that norway, without further parley, got what its national sensitive feeling was pleased to decree as the sovereign norway's right. that is about the gist of the matter. the norwegian policy has by degrees become blind to the fact, that the interests of the union ought to demand a subordination of the inclination to decide arbitrarily on points touching the union, both for the sake of sweden and--of norway. [sidenote: _misinterpretation of the king's opposition._] when therefore the king, in the interests of _the union_, at first opposed both the consular reform itself and the manner of carrying it out, they did not see the king of norway, or the king of the union, only the king of sweden, the veto of the king of norway was called the swedish veto against the rightful claims of norway. this dishonest doctrine has gradually poisoned the minds of the people of norway, and it is this, that has brought about the rupture of the union. [sidenote: _the raising of the consular question in ._] under strong protest from the norwegian right side (conservative), which at that time looked upon a separate consular service under a mutual diplomatic administration as introducing something hitherto unheard of in the annals of history, the consular question was brought to the decision by the norwegian left side. by an order of the storthing, the method was established: the consular question was exclusively a norwegian matter, which must be treated and decided upon by norwegian authorities of state alone; on the other hand the _winding up_ of the joint consular service would be a cause of negotiations with sweden. in plain words, the royal decree must be given in a norwegian cabinet council, not in a so-called joint cabinet consisting of both swedish and norwegian members, which according to the act of union must decide in all questions »concerning the two kingdoms[ : ].» and this one-sided right of decision was maintained in spite of the common consular statutes--the last in --having been confirmed by a joint cabinet, and in spite of the fact that these statutes prescribed the settlement of consular affairs in that council alone. added to this, the relations of the future norwegian consular service to the swedish minister for foreign affairs and diplomatic representatives had also to be arranged. this matter might certainly be considered, to belong to the negotiations relating to the winding up of the joint consular service. but if norway resolved that a separate consular service should be established within a given time, it would be norway's prerogative to dictate the conditions of winding it up; norway might without further ceremony withdraw a portion of its foreign affairs from the joint foreign administration. through its leader, emil stang, the norwegian conservatives supported the union king's view that the matter was as yet too imperfectly developed, and that it must be decided on in a joint cabinet. but in the storthing resolved, with a majority of votes, on the establishment of a norwegian consular service. the king was prepared to refuse the sanction to this, in a norwegian cabinet council, and then and there began the conflict between king and council, as witnessed by the events of later times. the character of this conflict may be mentioned already here, as norway, in fact, was even then, in , on the eve of the revolution, which has now broken out. [sidenote: _»the king and the ministry» according to the norwegian constitution._] when the constitution of norway was framed in , the continent was but little acquainted with the pure parliamentarism, with a ruling council and a powerless king. the constitution is instead based on the theory of the division of the state power into three organs, and this is plainly stated in the division of the constitution. the king's veto over legal questions is only suspensive, but he is not represented as the helpless tool of storthing and council. the cabinet council is certainly responsible to the storthing, but only for its own advice, not for the king's decrees. the king is legally bound to listen to the opinions of his ministers, but the right of making decrees according to his own judgment, is expressly reserved to him. nor does the constitution of norway recognize the law of refusing countersignature, which is found for instance in the swedish constitution. in the storthing explicitly refused a proposition to give the cabinet council this right, declaring that the king ought not to be deprived of all his privileges. all the king's decrees must be countersigned by one of the prime ministers, but this countersignature implies only the responsibility for the agreement of the records with the resolutions taken. the greatest norwegian writers on state law, have acknowledged that this is norwegian national law[ : ]. furthermore the constitution originally did not recognize something else remarkable for modern parliamentarism: the ministers were not even allowed to attend the debates of the storthing. then came the crisis of , when the norwegian radicals with the court of impeachment a weapon, forced the king to capitulate, forced him to summon a radical ministry, and to sanction an amendment of the constitution, by which the ministery were allowed to attend the debates in the storthing. by this means, the modern parliamentarism, with all its claims, elbowed its way into norwegian state life. but the old prescriptions as to the responsibility of the cabinet council, were retained, and they must naturally be interpreted as of old. the new parliamentary interpretation of these prescriptions of responsibility, especially the right of refusing countersignature, was opposed by the king, who adhered to the old only possible forms. [sidenote: _the development of the consular question._] even in the radical cabinet steen did not venture to carry the consular question to an extreme. they were contented to play with fire. before the king found an opportunity to give his definite answer to the consular question, the cabinet retired. the ministerial strike recently set on the political stage, was even then in the perspective. but the king having vainly tried to form a conservative ministry and matters becoming serious, a retreat was sounded, the storthing itself taking the initiative, this time, strange to say, receiving the hint from mr michelsen. the requests of the ministers to resign were withdrawn, and the consular question was postponed to a future date. the norwegian masses were not as yet sufficiently impregnated with the gospel of the dissolution of the union--and norway was not yet armed for defence. the following year the same tale began afresh. the storthing resolved on having a separate consular service, the ministers sent in their requests to resign, to avoid, as they declared, rousing a constitutional dispute on the countersignature question which might bring about consequences »that scarcely any other political question had aroused in our present constitution». this time the conservatives stepped into the breach on behalf of the king and the union. for two years the cabinet stang opposed a furious storthing, while the king was powerless to form a parliamentary radical ministry on reasonable terms. this conflict naturally produced intense excitement, and the radicals, of course, saw in the king's opposition, sweden's and the king's of sweden, not the king's of the united kingdoms fighting a battle against the destruction of the union. it is in this way that the consular question became magnified into a question of national honour. the blow given to their honour by the disloyalty of the radicals to the _union_ was entirely ignored. the consular question became by degrees, the chief national question of the country. [sidenote: _the position in ._] in the spring of the situation in norway was such that a complete standstill was threatened, and all sorts of extravagant plans were mooted on the norwegian radical side. it was then that in limited swedish conservatives circles a plan was said to exist for making norway come to an agreeable settlement of the union question, by main force. this is a matter impossible to decide. these reports spread like wildfire, and had the effect of oil upon fire. and now at last norway begins to think of her defence which of late years she has neglected. [sidenote: _the union committee - ._] the norwegians meanwhile gave in as norway was not ready. the storthing in norway also consented to what sweden had all along endeavoured to obtain, viz. a general settlement. the union committee - effected a couple of year's truce; any real results were not to be expected. the norwegian radicals had other plans than a reasonable settlement of the union question; its representatives in the committee were bound by their party programme, and insisted on having their own minister for foreign affairs. on the other side, the two representatives of the swedish conservatives maintained the demand for a union parliament which the norwegians in the previous union committee had refused. the swedish and norwegian majorities were very nearly balanced. they were united in the opinion that the union necessarily demanded a joint minister for foreign affairs, but differed in everything else on several points. for instance, the norwegian majority, characteristically would not agree to limit the possibility for norway (on the grounds of paragraph in the constitution) of withdrawing of her own accord, a greater or smaller portion of norwegian troops from the defending forces of the union[ : ]. in the consular question there were also differences. the swedish members were unanimous in insisting on a joint consular service for both kingdoms. the norwegian majority preferred, from all points of view, a joint consular service to a separate one for each kingdom, and strongly emphasized the point that in all circumstances the consuls ought to be personally and immediately under the control of the minister for foreign affairs, as the limits in the sphere of operations between the consuls and the diplomatic officials became more and more indefined. but with evident respect to the opposing norwegian opinions, it tried to regulate the consular service, by joint terminable laws, nevertheless, so worded, that not till the lapse of years, the kingdom that so desired, might have the right to dissolve the joint consular service[ : ]. [sidenote: _norway prepares again to the consular question._] the union committee having failed, the norwegian radicals prepared for another attack on the old lines. by passing the flag bill, they prepared to renew negotiations on the consular question, while, at the same time, they were busily engaged in strengthening their defence and raising on the boundaries rumoured fortresses against sweden. the under secretary of state, dr. sigurd ibsen, instituted an inquiry as to the feasibility of having a separate consular service in conjunction with the existing foreign administration. it was on this point that the minister for foreign affairs, for the time being, mr. lagerheim, made a proposal, the consequences of which brought about the present crisis. footnotes: [ : ] compare nansen (page and following). [ : ] the norwegians, as aforesaid, have generally looked upon sweden's maintaining its conception of the union law as something very criminal; this has been norway's right alone. [ : ] compare nansen (page ). »the change in the swedish constitution in has therefore become the principal cause of the last twenty years' strife in the union.» [ : ] on the norwegian side, it has been said, that sweden in adopted the same method, when, by changing the swedish constitution by themselves, they reorganized the council for foreign affairs. it must, however, be observed, that, in this, sweden is supported by its own right, as acknowledged by the foremost norwegian writers on state law and norwegian conservatives, to undertake the management of foreign policy. this legal stand-point had been adopted in , when a resolution was passed in the _swedish_ cabinet to admit the norwegian minister of state to the ministeral council. the norwegian claim to participate in the revision of the swedish constitution is, however, unwarrantable, as norway, in the indisputably unionistic stadtholder question in maintained that sweden was not warranted in interfering when revisions or changes were made in the norwegian constitution. [ : ] compare nansen (page and following). [ : ] it is a singular coincidence, that norway in these days, when it has brought the consular question to a climax, has begun to carry out a general rise in the fiscal rates; the mercantile interests of »the land of free trade» norway evidently do not lie so very deep after all. [ : ] the question as to when a matter shall be discussed in a joint cabinet or not, has not been the smallest of the stumbling blocks in the thorny path of the union negotiations. in norway, to quote mr hagerup, there has been quite a »sickly» fear of having matters settled there. on the norwegian left side they have defended the opinion, that only those matters which, being expressly mentioned in the act of union, as being distinctively union-matters ought to be brought there. in sweden it has been held, that the act of union has no power to give an exhaustive account as to what matters belong to the union and which do not. whether it can be considered a matter which concerns both the kingdoms depends entirely on the exact nature of the matter itself. _this latter conception has been adopted of old._ [ : ] compare no. i §§ , , , . [ : ] the swedish majority had contemplated a provision in the act of union, wherevy it became incumbent for both kingdoms to place a fixed minimum of fighting forces to the disposition of the union. [ : ] nansen says (page ) »divisions arose partly over the resistance from the swedish side to the unanimous demand of the norwegian delegates for a separate consular service.» this is, as plainly apparent, an extremely modified version of the truth. iii. [sidenote: _his excellency mr. lagerheim's proposal._] his excellency mr. lagerheim's proposal implied an attempt to settle the consular question itself, by retaining the existing foreign administration and dissolving the joint consular service. by doing this, he plainly foresaw that the consular question would inevitably be raised afresh on the part of norway. it was necessary therefore to lead the work of reform in the quiet paths of union negotiations, in order to prevent the old attempts on norway's side »to take matters into her own hands», to the detriment of the harmony in the union. if results in that way could be gained, negotiative operations might win more confidence from distrustful norwegian politicians. the swedish government seems also to have taken into account the contingency that, by making this offer, they would get norway to meet them half way, and agree sooner or later to a definite solution of the union conflict, by a reorganisation, on the grounds of having a joint minister for foreign affairs. in one respect, it was undeniably a good opportunity for such an attempt. the violent russianizing of finland, and the undefined plots it concealed, could not fail to open the eyes of many in norway. even norwegian radicals were obliged to acknowledge that the integrity of the kingdoms of scandinavia formed a necessary guarantee for their freedom and independence[ : ]. it was certainly on that account that their courage was not so fully shared by all, when the norwegian radicals prepared to renew their old efforts to break the union. an honourable compromise with sweden, on that occasion, would probably have been acceptable. but mr lagerheim's experiment had, on all hands, almost insurmountable difficulties through which to pilot its way. [sidenote: _the difficulties attending the satisfactory settlement of the consular question._] in sweden it had always been feared that separate consuls for norway without the reorganization of the foreign administration, would act as a wedge to rupture the union, especially as leading norwegian politicians took no pains to hide their ulterior motives. therefore, the swedish diet in expressed a decided wish that the consular question should not be discussed except in connection with the question of foreign administration, and from this decision the swedish diet has not since deviated in any way. in order, therefore, that there might be some prospect of the swedish government gaining the approval of the swedish diet, of the result of the negotiations, it was necessary that it contained safe guarantees that the consular reform would not react to the advantage of a union programme to which sweden could never agree: i. e. a purely personal union. but on the other hand, it was expected that the efforts to get these guarantees fixed on a firm basis would meet with opposition from the norwegian side. the old norwegian traditions of the radical party were as deeply rooted as ever in the political life of norway. it was hard for the norwegian radicals to lose sight of the original political aims in carrying out the reform of the consular service. d:r ibsen's aforesaid inquiry plainly hinted that norwegian opposition would be raised against the swedish minister for foreign affairs having direct control over the norwegian consuls, a stipulation that was absolutely necessary both from a swedish and a union point of view. and norwegian policy had generally with its sickly distrust and susceptibility an instinctive disinclination to bind norway to anything referring to the burning question of the day. »as to one's rights, no one negotiates». this has become well nigh the axiom for norwegian politics. and norway now considers she has a right to one and all of her demands.-- [sidenote: _the consular committee of ._] in a joint cabinet council held on january et , it was resolved to convene a union consular committee consisting of two swedish and two norwegian authorities,[ : ] who were to institute an examination as to how far a new arrangement with separate consuls for each of the united kingdoms would practically work under the administration of the present joint diplomatic representatives. the committee accepted its task in a purely administrative spirit. it declared distinctly that it considered it was not compulsory for them to give an opinion as to the suitability or desirability[ : ] of the arrangement, or of the political importance that might be assigned to the same. this limitation of the duty of the committee is of importance in order to understand the terms of its conclusions; it was meant simply to describe the effect of the aforesaid arrangement under certain circumstances and nothing more. the committee gave two alternatives; norway should either have its own consuls, subordinate, to a certain extent, to the minister of foreign affairs, or a separate consular service, in which case, the consuls would be entirely under norwegian authority. as to the first of these alternatives, the norwegian members explain, that whichever way we look at the arrangement, it would be at the outset in conflict with the spirit of the norwegian constitution; a corps acting for the most part under authority out of norway, would, from an administrative point of view, be an »anomaly». the swedish members evidently ought not to confute the norwegian interpretation of the constitution; they do not approve of it, nor do they agree to it, though they declare that they see plainly the advantages to be obtained, from an disciplinary point of view, by continuing to allow the separate consuls to act under the administration of the minister for foreign affairs. the formal way in which the committee acted naturally brought about very imperfect results. the logical consequences of the issue being, for instance, that the minister for foreign affairs was debarred from giving instructions directly to the different consuls; his 'wishes' were first to be communicated to the norwegian consular administration, on whom rested the decision as to whether or not, the wishes of the minister of foreign affairs should be complied with(!). and the minister of foreign affairs, would not, of course, have any power to interfere disciplinary when a consul compromised the relations of the united kingdoms with foreign powers etc. etc. the swedish members express their extreme doubts on the critical points all through, and point out the necessity of an extremely amicable co-operation between the minister for foreign affairs and the norwegian consular service, as the only guarantee against the total disorganization of the administration for foreign affairs; the norwegians tried to soothe their doubts by declaring that the norwegian consular service would »duly value the importance of a loyal co-operation.» it was evident that these statements from the swedish side could not be considered as contributing to the solution of the problem, so much the more so, as the swedish members had strong doubts. neither could any reference to them be made on norway's part without further notice, the committee itself having shirked the most salient points, namely those of a practical and political nature. and yet in norway the committee's conclusions were considered to be an acknowledged method from the swedish side for the solution of the question[ : ]. [sidenote: _negotiations - between swedish and norwegian delegates._] mr. bostrÖm became prime minister in the summer of , and in the autumn of that year, negotiations on the consular question were commenced between the delegates of the swedish and norwegian cabinets. the conclusions of the consular committee were then preliminarily examined and discussed. in february and march the negotiations were continued in christiania, and touched especially upon the political side of the matter, particularly the nature and binding power of an eventual agreement. in the middle of march negotiations were abruptly broken off on the grounds of divergencies of opinion, but were resumed again by the norwegian side, the result being published on march th in the well known so-called communiqué[ : ]. [sidenote: _the communiqué._] this much-dismissed act must be regarded as a summary compendium of the preliminary results of the negotiations in the consular question, though it must be especially observed that it is not issued by the governments themselves[ : ], but only by different members in each, and that the swedish members, at any rate, had no official authority in the matter. its contents inform us that the swedish negotiators prefer to have the consular question solved in conjunction with the entire question of foreign administration, in other words, _they plainly offered a general agreement to separate consular services under a joint minister of foreign affairs_, but that the norwegian negotiators _refused_ this offer. on the norwegian radical side it was considered that the time was not yet ripe for such a solution, and a resolution in the storthing affirmed this in january , with the consent of the government; the radicals were evidently determined not to give up their claim--so unreasonable from a union point of view--to a separate minister for foreign affairs. with respect to the consular question, the swedish negotiators declare that a dissolution of the joint consular office, appears to them, in itself, undesirable, but as an opposite opinion has long been prevalent in norway, and as during the preliminary negotiations, it was shown to be »not impossible» that under certain circumstances a system with different consuls for each kingdom could be established, in order to obtain the most important advantage of the political agreement between the two countries, they have found it expedient to advise a settlement of the question on the following basis: . separate consular services for sweden and for norway shall be established. the consuls of each kingdom shall be subordinate to the authority of their own country which the latter shall have to determine. . the relations of the separate consuls to the minister for foreign affairs and to the embassies shall be regulated by laws of the same wording which cannot be altered nor abolished without the consent of the authorities of both kingdoms. it is furthermore stipulated that the status quo with reference to the position of the minister for foreign affairs and the ambassadors should remain intact. each kingdom is to have its right to decide on the establishment of its own consular service; the identical laws are only to regulate the relations between the consuls on the one side, and the minister for foreign affairs and diplomatic representatives on the other. the laws are especially designed to give a guarantee that the consuls do not outstep the boundaries of their occupation and at the same time secure the necessary cooperation between the foreign administration and the consular services of the two kingdoms[ : ]. when the communiqué was issued, it was received with very great diversity of feelings on both sides of the state boundaries. the lively discussions which immediately sprung up concerning the actual contents of the agreement, on which considerable divergence of opinion was held, contributed in no small degree to the former. the debates were especially concentrated on the contents of what was called the identical laws, and as the different conceptions on this subject were without doubt of great importance in the final issue of the negotiations, it is as well to give some enlightenment on the point. in the first part of the communiqué, which decribes the offer of the swedish negotiators, it is mentioned, as aforesaid, that the relations of the separate consuls to the minister for foreign affairs and diplomatic representatives should be regulated by identical laws, which could not be _altered_ or _abolished_ without the consent of the government powers of both kingdoms. in the mutual resolution reference is made to laws »which cannot be altered by one of the parties», the word 'abolish' does not occur. this already caused astonishment. it was asked if this omission had any important significance. it was observed that mr bostrÖm, in the swedish diet, made use of the first form of expression, mr blehr in the norwegian diet of the second.[ : ] in reality, the difference depended on some oversight in the final revision which was made in christiania under great excitement in political circles there; this seems to have given a prominent place to the preliminary solution, before the full contents were grasped. mr hagerup acknowledged later that the expressions in reality meant the same, as the conception of the word 'alter', must necessarily include the conception of the word 'abolish'. it was afterwards frequently proposed in debates, that the intended laws should be terminable only by mutual agreement, and this question has been significant only through the connection which may be found to exist between it and the chief point of this discussion itself, as to the extent to which the laws were to be changeable. the divergencies referred especially to the conception of union law by the norwegian radicals, according to which norway had the right to have her own minister for foreign affairs, and consequently was entitled to appoint one without agreeing with sweden. as the proposed laws were based upon the presupposition that the swedish minister for foreign affairs would continue the administration of the foreign affairs of the union, the question now arose as to whether a norwegian minister of foreign affairs could be appointed unless sweden consented to the suspension of the consular laws, or whether the consular laws would become extinct of themselves, if norway made use of her assumed rights in the matter. in other words, was it the intention of the communiqué to force norway to a solution of the question of the foreign administration only through negotiations with sweden, or had the norwegian radicals the liberty to continue to urge norway to take matters into her own hands? in norway much anxiety was expressed lest the negotiations should prove too binding,--norwegian politicians hate, as previously mentioned, to be bound in any way--his excellency blehr meanwhile imagined that he might be able to explain in the storthing, in may , that _the laws will not include any restrictions for either of the two kingdoms, in the matter of their authority, in future, to decide on questions relating to the regulation of foreign administration_; or be reckoned as a proof that they had confirmed the existing terms, or bound themselves to carry them out. this explanation produced a calming effect, and it was confirmed in the following debate with satisfaction that the character of these laws could not be referred to, as showing, that norway was bound in any way whatever. this interpretation was afterwards approved of by mr hagerup, and may be said to form the norwegian official standpoint in all negotiations. now, was this also the swedish interpretation of the communiqué? it is evident that the swedish standpoint in this respect must be of especial importance, considering it plainly referred to a guarantee demanded by sweden[ : ], touching the nature of which the swedish interpretation of the communiqué must, of necessity, in an especial degree be one of authority. on the part of the swedish government, no opinion on the question has yet been published. buth it may nevertheless, with great certainty, be assumed _that the swedish negotiators for the identical laws really, among other matters, intended to bind norway not to take the question of foreign administration »into her own hands_.» the great fear of such a contingency, shown by the norwegian radicals, is sufficient proof of this, for, as a rule, norwegian politicians keep themselves pretty well informed on matters of negotiation, even when they are of a more confidential nature. also, more or less direct references have been made by the norwegian government, that the interpretation of the communiqué by the swedish government differed from its own[ : ]. this supposition is vindicated by the political situation throughout. it is plain that to the swedish government the compensation demanded for concessions in the consular question, was the guarantee that the consequences of having a norwegian consular service would not pave the way for a norwegian foreign office. it was therefore first necessary to demand of norway implicit loyalty with reference to the future solving of the foreign minister question. the swedish delegates have therefore evidently tried to exact from norway, as an expression of implicit loyalty, a contract not to seek to alter the status quo with respect to the foreign administration[ : ], without an agreement with sweden. how is it possible then, that the norwegian government in the storthing could interpret the communiqué as it did? as long as the details in the protocol of negotiations are not known, it is impossible to make any definite assertions. the norwegian government may possibly have felt assured that the communiqué did not intend a direct refusal to norway of its assumed legal right to its own minister for foreign affairs--that demand could scarcely be expected to emanate from sweden--and passed over the swedish delegates' plain intention to bind norway to the _execution_ of that right. but as this question has manifestly been an object of protracted debates, the norwegian government cannot possibly have remained in ignorance of the swedish delegates' intentions with regard to the wording of the communiqué on that point, and the norwegian governments attitude in the matter, is, to say the least, rather strange, especially in the light of the apparently somewhat undiplomatic war minister stang's open declaration in the storthing, that according to his idea of the matter, _the decisions in respect to the identical laws were scarcely in accordance with mr_ blehr's _interpretation of the communiqué_. now, however matters may have been in detail, one indisputable fact remains clear, _that the guarantee the swedish delegates sought to effect by means of the identical laws, has been refused on the grounds of the norwegian interpretation of the communiqué_. this must be kept strictly in view, if any correct idea of the ensuing development of events is to be obtained. footnotes: [ : ] it is undoubtedly russia's proceedings in finland which have especially influenced the recent unionist-political views of bjÖrnson. [ : ] the most effective power in the committee was d:r sigurd ibsen, who is credited with having drawn up the drafts of the result of the committee's debates. the rest of the members were the swedish ambassador bildt at the court of st james, the consul general amÉen in barcelona, and the consul general christophersen in antwerp. [ : ] the swedish members of the committee indicate, incidentally, that they do not consider it to be altogether desirable. [ : ] nansen evidently looks upon the matter in this light (page ): »no change in the consular regulations was made, and it therefore, follows that even the _swedish commissioners_ did not think it incompatible with the terms of the union, for norway to have separate consuls». and, of course, he mentions, »the _unanimous conclusion_ of the committee of experts from _both_ countries» (p. ). [ : ] n:o . [ : ] the swedish members were, the premier, bostrÖm, the minister for foreign affairs mr. lagerheim, and state secretary husberg. the norwegian members were, prime ministers blehr and qvam, and state secretaries knudsen and ibsen [ : ] n:o these latter decisions in the communiqué, which are conclusive in explaining the later standpoint taken by the swedish government, are, of course, omitted by nansen. [ : ] the same difference also occurs in the drafts of laws which have been proposed at more recent dates. [ : ] it is manifest that it is on the part of sweden that the idea of identical laws has arisen. in norway they afterwards complained, especially the radicals, of that »massive instrument.» [ : ] in the debate in the storthing on april :th mr carl berner said he had heard that mr blehr's explanation in the storthing respecting; the communiqué before its publication was made known to the swedish government: that the latter, neither previously, nor later on, had made any objections to it. to this state secretary michelsen sharply replied, that »mr blehr's explanation was only the explanation of the norwegian government on the subject of the communiqué.» [ : ] further affirmation is given by mr ibsen's declaration in the storthing, that the negotiations fell through in consequence of mr bostrÖm's opposition to the request of the norwegian delegates that in the communiqué it should be mentioned that the identical laws were to be valid only »so long as the present system of foreign administration existed.» when, finally, the norwegians consented to omit this condition, it could only have been their intention that the laws should only be valid until by mutual consent they were rescinded. other explanations in the storthing of the divergencies of opinions on this point are to all intents unacceptable. iv. [sidenote: _the reception of the communiqué in sweden and norway._] even without taking into consideration the indistinctness that was supposed to characterise the communiqué, its general contents roused no unanimous approbation. in the swedish diet in may , during a debate, serious doubts were rife, and it was emphatically declared that the consular question must be solved simultaneously with the foreign minister question as resolved by the diet in . the second chamber (lower home) was more leniently inclined towards the negotiations, but it nevertheless referred to the resolution of . nor did it get a promising reception in norway at first. it was known there that one of the chief stipulations of the negotiations had been the cessation of the agitation for a separate minister of foreign affairs. meanwhile after the publication of the communiqué, the norwegian radicals immediately expressed their opinions at their large meeting by again solemnly entering this old claim on their party programme. however when the agitation for a new election for the storthing was started later on in the year, there was a strong inclination towards negotiating, and even bjÖrnson, among others, warmly advocated the cause of the negotiation programme, and that too, in opposition to the radical minister blehr, who, though having introduced the negotiations, was suspected of being but a lukewarm partisan to the cause. the party for negotiation conquered, and was in the majority in the storthing, though not in great numbers. the issue could scarcely be attributed to the swedish proposal alone, but also in no slight degree to the miserable, impoverished condition to which the country had been brought by the old radical government. mr blehr resigned in the autumn , after the elections. professor hagerup, the leader of the conservatives, then became prime minister at christiania in companionship with d:r ibsen as prime minister at stockholm. the old radical party retired from the leadership, but exercised, by its criticising, suspicious attitude, a powerful influence on the progress of the negotiations, and that too, in no favourable direction. [sidenote: _negotiations on the basis of the communiqué._] in a joint council held on th dec. , the cabinets of both kingdoms were commissioned to resume negotiations on the consular question, on the basis of the communiqué. they were carried on slowly during the spring , but it was not till may that the first official break in the proceedings was made by mr. hagerup presenting to the swedish government the norwegian gouvernment proposal for identical laws. [sidenote: _the problem of the relations of the minister of foreign affairs to the consular service._] it was clear that the chief point of the question should concern the real authority to be exercised by the minister for foreign affairs over the consuls in diplomatic matters. it must necessarily be the chief interest of the swedish government to insure a guarantee for this. it was partly a purely practical matter, that the minister for foreign affairs, who was responsible for the relations of both kingdoms to foreign powers, should be able to exercise an efficient control over all matters in any way connected with the diplomatic service. and it was also necessary to hinder the norwegian consular service, in its progressive development, from acting in the direction of a division of the foreign administration within the union. the practical necessity of strict co-operation between the foreign service and the consular service had previously been acknowledged in norway on certain sides. it may thus be of interest to recall the strong efforts that were made by the norwegian majority in the latest union committee, to emphasize the importance of having the consuls under the direct control of the minister for foreign affairs and envoys in all matters which are likely to assume a diplomatic character. the same conclusions may also be drawn from the plan of some norwegians to solve the consular question, by arranging for the separation of the mercantile part of the joint consular service, while the diplomatic part remained intact[ : ]. but the problem now presented a somewhat different aspect from the one it had for the norwegian majority of the last union committee, for it had postulated a union minister of foreign affairs. and, undoubtedly, a deeper penetration into questions it included, had made clearly manifest the impossibility of drawing a distinct line between the diplomatic and mercantile functions of the consuls. the question, for instance, now arose, as to whether a norwegian civil official, in certain cases, would be subordinate to a swedish minister. in the face of this problem, the norwegians on their part lost sight of the real points at issue in a most remarkable way. in the consular committee's deliberations, norwegian opinion on the question of subordination, that it would be an »anomaly», in conflict with the spirit of the norwegian constitution etc. etc. made it evident that the swedish claim would come into collision, on the part of norway, with the formal respect to which the abstract demand of state sovereignty, viewed logically, is entitled. from this conflict, the swedish government had no duty, nor even the right to withdraw without protest. facts are of more importance than mere forms. the evasive talk of the »spirit» of constitutional law, and the administrative anomalies could not be decisive. many events both in public annals and administrative legislature are very illogical, and very great anomalies. the main fact which the swedish government had to hold in view, was this, _that the responsibility of the swedish minister of foreign affairs, for the joint foreign policy of the two kingdoms, must presuppose a fully effective administration of the same in all its branches_. [sidenote: _the norwegian proposal. may ._] the norwegian proposal of the th may showed that the views of the swedish governement could not entirely be ignored. according to this proposal[ : ] the consular administration in christiania should regularly inform the minister of foreign affairs of nominations, orders issued etc., etc. which it would be of importance for him to know. furthermore, when an affair seemed likely to assume a diplomatic character and required immediate treatment, the consul should send the report directly to the minister for foreign affairs, and the latter, under similar conditions, would give direct instructions to the consul. ambassadors were also empowered to give orders to the consuls, but on no account to exceed the instructions given by the norwegian authorities. this was undoubtedly something, but manifestly not much. the connection between the diplomatic service and the norwegian consular administration was very unsatisfactorily provided for. there was no guarantee whatever that the orders of the norwegian consular administration would not come into conflict with those of the minister for foreign affairs, a deficiency so much the more serious as the act § --c allowed the norwegian consular administration rather extensive powers of more or less diplomatic significance, for instance, that of giving instructions to consuls respecting the regulations of international law. furthermore it was deficient of any provisions that would entitle the minister of foreign affairs and the ambassadors to the authority to secure a guarantee, by strict control, that the consuls would not compromise the foreign administration, and, in fact, there was good cause for declaring from the swedish side, »that the proposition includes scarcely any rules calculated to secure the guarantee referred to in the communiqué, that the consuls would not exceed the proper limits of their office», and _was therefore in that respect not in accordance with the acknowledged principles of the communiqué_. [sidenote: _mr bostrom's conditions._] from what has been already stated, it seems that in the swedish cabinet there were divided opinions. but the government was unanimous in not accepting the norwegian proposal, and even in the summer of it must have been evident to the norwegian council, that the swedish cabinet cil would not in any essentials comply with the norwegian proposal. but the question was not thoroughly discussed by the swedish cabinet in pleno, till the autumn. during the autumn mr lagerheim resigned on the grounds of difference of opinion with the prime minister, though the real cause of his resignation was said to have no direct connection with the union negotiations. in november his excellency mr bostrÖm went to christiania and presented his conditions, as to which the swedish cabinet had declared its approval if the norwegian government would approve of them[ : ]. these conditions stipulated among other matters, that no orders should be issued from the consular office that would come into conflict with the commands of the minister of foreign affairs; that, if a consul acted in any way likely to disturb the relations between the united kingdoms and the foreign powers, the minister of foreign affairs could send in an appeal to the king, recommending his dismissal; that the ambassadors, in certain cases, should also be empowered to suspend the consul from his office[ : ]. after personal consultations in christiania his excellency mr hagerup made a written statement of his objections. [sidenote: _mr hagerups reply._] in this, and the ensuing interpolations on the norwegian side, the norwegian system of conducting negotiations appears in its typical manner. of real facts and reasons there is not a trace. for instance, though the norwegian majority itself, in the last union committee, emphasized the danger of separating the consular service from the diplomatic administration, mr hagerup does not make the slightest acknowledgement that interminable practical difficulties would be the results of acceding to the norwegian proposition. neither is there a single proposal, which, from a norwegian point of view, would be acceptable, to make decisions that might in any possible degree remedy the deficiences. on the contrary, mr hagerup mentions that such decisions would be calculated to stamp norway as a dependency, according to international and common law principles, and declared that from a national point of view, it indicates a very great retrogression on the present arrangement of the consular service[ : ]. in this, he forgets that mr bostrÖm's conditions refer to exceptional decisions and do not touch the norwegian consul's normal position as being a norwegian civil official, and he omits to observe that the interference of the diplomatic officials with consular affairs, as proposed by mr bostrÖm, would very seldom occur. [sidenote: _the swedish government's proposal._] it is, meanwhile, easy to understand that mr bostrÖm's demand, that the king, on the swedish minister's representations, should be empowered to dismiss a norwegian civil official, would deeply injure the norwegian susceptibilities, and that it was therefore quite possible to be blind to the fact that the swedish minister was also responsible for norway's foreign politics. when therefore his excellency mr hagerup went to stockholm for further discussions, all the rest of the swedish ministers, as will be seen, were ready to present a swedish proposal[ : ] for identical laws modified especially to meet the sensitive point. the demand that the consular office should not issue orders in conflict with those given by the minister of foreign affairs, remained, but it naturally did not necessarily imply a formal subordination, as the minister could not give orders directly to the consular office. further, the decision remained, that the ambassadors could, on especial occasions, suspend the consuls from their office, but this decision need not necessarily offend the norwegian susceptibility, as the ambassadors, though more directly under the influence of the minister for foreign affairs, are nevertheless, according to the norwegian legal point of view, not only swedish officials, but officials of the union[ : ]. on the other hand, the form for the interference of the minister for foreign affairs with the consuls was modified in a way which showed great consideration for norway; thus when a consul had compromised the united kingdoms, the minister of foreign affairs was to bring the matter before the joint or the ministerial council, after which it was laid before the king for decision at a state council especially dealing with the affairs of that state. [sidenote: _the norwegian government's ultimatum._] what reply now does the norwegian government give to these apparently perfectly fair and moderate demands?[ : ] it declares that it »stands to reason» that the norwegian consular office would not issue orders in conflict with those of the minister for foreign affairs, and remarks that it is not very appropriate in a form of law, to presuppose want of loyalty in a public office[ : ]. if the swedish proposals had been accepted, the norwegian consular service would have been very largely placed under the control of the foreign minister, who is constitutionally a swedish minister. it claims for other more important points the unsuitability of a »hierarchal» relation between swedish and norwegian officials, and several times cites the decisions of the consular committee, the one-sided formal views of which the norwegian government itself had abandoned. but when the norwegian government intends offering other guarantees of cooperation between the minister for foreign affairs and the norwegian consular office, and that the consuls shall not exceed the limits of their duties, it has only to refer to the loyalty of the norwegian consular office, and its interest in keeping norway from being compromised abroad, guarantees, which, of course, have their significance, when reliable, but manifestly are not of the legislative binding nature intended by the communiqué. finally the norwegian government declares these and sundry other swedish conditions unacceptable, and adds, that »if they should be adhered to further discussion the swedish draft about would be useless»[ : ]. really a formal ultimatum! [sidenote: _the swedish government's reply._] before the swedish government replied to the norwegian government's ultimatum, the critical attitude of the consular negotiations became the subject of debate in the lower chamber of the swedish diet, and from the liberal party's side, a strong appeal was made to the government to try, if possible, to avoid any interruption of the negotiations. the reply of the swedish cabinet is dated jan. th [ : ]. its tone is one af decision tempered with undoubted moderation and good-will. the cabinet firmly maintains the real grounds of the disputed claims. it especially emphasizes the importance of the minister for foreign affairs having the power in exceptional cases to interfere in consular matters, as the limits between the diplomatic and consular operations are exceedingly indistinct and, on both sides, there is a natural tendency to extend operations into departments that had previously been considered as belonging to the other party. the reference, made by the norwegian cabinet, to the consular committee's resolution that the norwegian consuls should be entirely under the control of norwegian authority, was met by the norwegian cabinet's own admissions, that the minister for foreign affairs should be authorised to give the separate consuls instructions, and, herewith the claim that, in the diplomatic branch of affairs, the norwegian consuls should be solely under the control of norwegian authority may be considered void. furthermore it points out the unsatisfactory attitude of the norwegian proposal with reference to the guarantees presupposed by the communiqué that the consuls shall not exceed the proper limits of their duty, and the objection made only on norway's side, that the best guarantee would be the control exercised by the norwegian consular office, is met on the grounds that a guarantee of that kind was not intended in the communiqué, as it had nothing to do with the internal relations between norwegian consuls and the norwegian consular office. on the whole the swedish cabinet maintains its claims, but it offers to modify them, if they can be proved to be in conflict with the provisions of the communiqué. furthermore the possibility is not excluded, of making on other accounts changes and modifications in the proposed resolutions, but their essential items must »be adhered to». the cabinet does not consider itself entitled, in the interests of the union, unconditionally to refuse the points designated by the norwegian cabinet. [sidenote: _the norwegian government breaks off negotiations._] to this document from the swedish cabinet, is immediately despatched the reply, »that the norwegian cabinet finds no grounds for further communication on the matter.» footnotes: [ : ] thus, their claim for a separate consular service was worded in the norwegian moderate party's programme as follows: »our own norwegian consular service with the exception of all matters connected with the relations between the consular service and diplomatic administration is hereby declared established». [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] some other points in mr bostrÖm's memorandum were rejected by the norwegian side. they ran as follows: :o before a consul was nominated, opportunity should be given to the minister for foreign affairs to make such observations as he might think necessary. :o in the consular diploma, the king shall be styled king of sweden and norway--not king of norway and sweden, as was the case in norway--as these diplomas are intended for presentation to foreign powers, and the king always makes use of this title abroad foreign powers. :o as long as the appointment of separate consuls was not approved of by foreign powers and so long as ambassadors in a foreign conntry had not been stationed, the joint consular service should continue its functions. --mr hagerup did not refer to these points in his reply partly because the difficulties of his agreeing on them with mr bostrÖm were not, according to his own account, so very insurmountable. [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] they are mentioned, for instance, in the act of union. [ : ] it is characteristic that nansen in his review of the negotiations (page and following) does not mention one of the swedish demands. it can, however, be safely referred to all, who are impartial on the subject, as to whether its decisions, as nansen (page ) insists, imply the subordination of the norwegian consular service to the swedish minister for foreign affairs on a very extensive scale. [ : ] in that case, what numbers of legislative rules and regulations would have remained unwritten! [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o v. [sidenote: _norwegian accusations aganist the swedish government._] the breaking off of the negotiations caused great depression in norway, and even in wide circles in sweden the issue was deeply deplored. norwegian policy had always been a policy of strong feelings, and now it made it an object systematically to work up illwill against sweden. strong expressions were not wanting, and soon the whole of europe-- thanks to the indefatigable manner in which the norwegians cultivated the european press--resounded with accusations against the swedish government, and the entire swedish nation of unreasonableness, fickleness etc. etc.; it was important now to make good cause for the plans then already existing in norway, plans which had probably been laid years ago. now in what does the truth of their accusations lie? [sidenote: _the responsibility of breaking off the negotiations._] the accusations implied in the mildest form that the attitude of the swedish government had caused the break down in the negotiations. to this it must be first pointed out, that the side which first formulated its demands as an ultimatum formally bears the responsibility. formally, therfore, the norwegian government is unquestionably the responsible party, so much the more so, that not even after the norwegian ultimatum, did the swedish government maintain its standpoint as being absolutely inflexible. it must also be observed that the first norwegian proposition in may , in fact, propounded the essentials contained in the ultimatum. it was certainly held to be only the grounds for further negotiations, but it was proclaimed afterwards on the norwegian side, that the norwegian cabinet had found it possible that divergencies in the form and contents of the law, would be limited to a very slight number of points of minor importance. the formal responsibility for the breaking off of the negotiations may now, on the whole, be considered of slight importance. it is interesting only on the grounds that it illustrates the norwegian method of negotiating, which all but commences with the ultimatum, for it explains to a great extent the difficulties of the opposite party in gaining their lawful rights. the accusations on the norwegian side, of course, imply, that the swedish government, in making unreasonable conditions, had practically caused the breaking off of the negotiations, and even wished to bring about that result. as regards the former, an impartial examination of the swedish final proposal is the best refutation. and as regards the latter, it may assuredly be affirmed, that there was no want of good will, on the part of sweden, to come to a good understanding on the point, the last letter on the question written by sweden is a sufficient proof of this. but the government could not reasonably be expected to go further in granting concessions. it was indisputably clear to the norwegian government, that they could not make greater concessions. during the proceeding of the negotiations it had become intimately acquainted with the opinions in norwegian political circles, and it knew that if it went further, it would risk a defeat in the storthing. but with equal right, it behoved the swedish government to take into consideration the prospects of getting the proposal approved of by the swedish diet, so much the more so, as the swedish government, in respect to this question, occupied a more insecure position than the norwegian. the norwegian government was supported in the storthing by a majority on the side of the negotiations. the swedish government had no support at all. the diet had certainly not insisted on the breaking off of the negotiations, but it firmly maintained its old standpoint, that the consular question should be solved in conjunction with the foreign minister question. it must therefore be of importance to the swedish government, to have the proposition worded in such a way that it would remove the doubts of the diet regarding an isolated solution of the consular question. in the matter of the immutability of the identical laws, it had sought an effectual guarantee that the independent consular office would not disloyally--when the time was ripe for it--be provided by norway with its own minister for foreign affairs. this question had been shirked by norway. it was therefore necessary to cling to other guarantees, in order, if possible, to prevent the norwegian consular office from drifting away from under the direction of the minister for foreign affairs, and thus, paving the way by degrees to its original goal--the breaking op of the joint administration for foreign affairs. it is in this light that his excellency bostrÖm's demands ought undoubtedly to be seen. it may in short be said: if during the negotiations the norwegian government was bound by norwegian union-political traditions, the swedish government had the same right to refer to its attachment to swedish union-political traditions. and, it must be added: that if any of the swedish conditions, which the norwegian government pointed out, were an expression for a suspicion of norway's implicit loyalty in conducting its own consular affairs, _it was norwegian traditional radical policy from the beginning of which cast its shadow before it_. and that the old norwegian radical traditions had to be taken into account was prowed by the number and length of the discussions in the storthing, which were dinned into the ears of the negotiators, during the whole period of the negotiations. that even mr michelsen, one of the parties to the negotiations on the norwegian government side, in a debate at the storthing, during the spring , cast friendly glances on the old lines, showed plainly how little they had forgotten the old talk of taking matters into their own hands. [sidenote: _the question as to whether the swedish government had broken the covenant of the communiqué._] but the norwegian accusations were not limited to the negotiators' (especially mr bostrÖm's) bringing about the breaking off of the negotiations by their unreasonable demands. they went further; it was loudly proclaimed that the swedish government had not kept their word, had broken their agreement etc. etc., and, when all of a sudden sweden became identical with the government of sweden she was pathetically pointed at as untrustworthy etc. etc. the amount of moral indignation contained in these norwegian accusations has plainly been made manifest by late events. their object--to throw on sweden the responsibility of plans that were designed to be executed in norway--was too transparent, but just on that account they must be explained, in order that the responsibility of sweden for what happened in norway, may appear in its true light. the most naive accusations of having broken their agreement, are based on the supposition that the swedish government was bound by the communiqué to bring the negotiations to a definite conclusion, which means about the same as, that sweden had beforehand promised to accept the norwegian demands which in future would be presented by the norwegian side. this supposition requires no serious reflection, the communiqué naturally implying only a promise _to try_ to come to a conclusion that would be satisfactory to both parties. this system of reasoning is, however, typical of norwegian politics all through. it is illustrated in one way by the norwegian government's peculiar way of practically commencing negotiations with an ultimatum, and it has been characterised, in a very amusing manner, by professor trygger in a debate in the first chamber of the swedish diet, immediately after the publishing of the communiqué. »norwegians», he said, »are very fond of negotiations. i have sat with them in the union committee, for three years, and they have always taken great pleasure in negotiating with us, so long as we acceded to their demands». far more serious is the accusation that the swedish government had violated the grounds of the negotiations by exceeding the terms of the communiqué[ : ]. it has evidently been privately expressed by the negotiating party in norway, during the latter stage of the negotiations, and it was indirectly referred to by prime minister hagerup when he announced in the storthing, that the negotiations were broken off. the swedish government contradicted it, however, in their last letter, and offered to modify their proposition if it were proved that it exceeded the terms of the communiqué. but the norwegian government failed to produce the proofs, they preferring to cut off negotiations. what the norwegians point out over and over again is the provision of the communiqué that the consuls of each kingdom shall be under the authority of the country to which they belong, which matter the country concerned shall decide. against this, it has been mentioned, is opposed the swedish government's evident plans to arrange a »hierarchal» relationship between the foreign minister and the norwegian consuls. this decision, in itself, undoubtedly seems to speak for the norwegian notion of the affair. but an honest method of interpretation tries to see individual particles in the light of their relation to the whole matter. now, on the contents of the identical laws, the communiqué confirms among other things that they shall »give guarantee that the consuls do not exceed the proper limits of their occupation.» what guarantee? the norwegian negotiators, who scarcely paid any attention to this provision in their proposition, are said to have maintained verbally, that the best guarantee was the control exercised over the consuls by the norwegian consular office. but to this the swedish government may justly object: »that was not the kind of guarantee intended by the communiqué, as this had nothing to do with the internal relations between the norwegian consuls and the norwegian consular service. the guarantee which the communiqué mentions, can refer to nothing but the control to be exercised by the foreign minister and ambassadors over the consuls». if this interpretation is acknowledged as correct--and it is difficult to find any other--it is plain that the presupposition cited by the norwegians only referred to _normal_ conditions and that it did not exclude in exceptional cases--as for instance, when consular affairs were in any way connected with the diplomatic office--a hierarchal relationship between the foreign minister and the consuls. conclusive for the correctness of this interpretation, as represented by the swedish government, _is the approval the norwegian government itself gave this interpretation_ by conceding that the foreign minister might give direct orders to the norwegian consuls, which, in certain cases, implied a hierarchal relationship between the foreign minister and the norwegian consuls. this admission on the norwegian side must not be regarded as a concession _beyond_ the demands of the communiqué. it had already been made before the communiqué was compiled, and must therefore absolutely be included in the frame of the communiqué. the so much-disputed claims of sweden imply nothing but an extension of the above hierarchal exceptional conditions, especially in an disciplinary sense, and are therefore within the frame of the communiqué. in close connection with the norwegian accusations against sweden for breach of faith, are the norwegian governments insinuations that the swedish government, by its later shaped demands, had strayed from the agreement which had previously been decided on, both by the swedish and norwegian sides. the norwegian government especially refers to the preliminary agreements, which, under necessary reservations, had been made in the negotiations between the delegates of the two cabinets, before the communiqué existed. it is clear that these accusations especially touched matters in the negotiations, of which outsiders cannot, of course, form a quite distinct opinion. meanwhile it would not be impossible to gain an idea of the breadth of the case on the grounds of the statements of the cabinets, the references in the papers, and the debates in the swedish diet and the norwegian storthing. the matter that first demands our attention is the communication of the swedish cabinet dated jan. :th , in which it is distinctly declared that, when the norwegian cabinet had assumed that its proposition of the :th may would, without any alteration worth mentioning, be accepted by the swedish cabinet »it would find no support from admissions either of the swedish cabinet or its delegates.» now, there were hardly any negotiations between the governments concerning the contents of the consular laws till the time when the first definite norwegian proposition was presented. the agreements which the norwegian cabinet considers would more nearly refer to the negotiations before the origin of the communiqué, to the feigned conclusions of which the norwegian government tried to attach the greatest importance. what was the character of these negotiations in relation to the contents of the proposed laws? they were in reality free discussions, during which the contents of the deliberations of the consular committee were inquired into. they were regarded by the negotiators themselves as a »preliminary», as the first preparatory step to negotiations, and that the results of many points were indistinct, is evident, as the swedish cabinet gave to understand that, on one or two occasions before the origin of the communiqué, fresh negotiations were proposed, but in vain. the preliminary act of agreement to which the norwegian council referred, seems to have involved one or two particular points to which they firmly adhered, especially the one concerning the power of the foreign minister to give direct orders to the consuls: in all the rest, they confined themselves to a general impression that there was a prospect of their agreeing. according to the authenticated assertion of the swedish cabinet with respect to the protocol, the materially new claims as the norwegian cabinet styled them, had been touched upon in their debates, though not even a preliminary agreement had been decided on, either with respect to them or any of the other points of the question. it is a generally understood fact, not even disputed on the norwegian side, that his excellency bostrÖm brought forward casually several of the questions which afterwards raised so many disputes, and reserved to himself the right, later on, to shape his opinion on points to which be made objections. after first dealing with the deliberations of the consular committee, they proceeded to debate on the terms of the agreement, and during this last stage of the negotiations the contents of the intended laws were discussed only by special delegates from the two cabinets[ : ]. mr lagerheim was uncontradicted by the norwegian side when he explained in the swedish diet that in all these preliminary negotiations respecting the contents of the laws, matters concerning them, »must be subjected to further examination of a very minute and exhaustive nature». according to just reasoning, it is therefore rather audacious of the norwegian side to cite these preliminary negotiations, to which they also add a decided admission on the part of sweden, and on which they build the accusations against the swedish government, and especially mr bostrÖm of breach of agreement[ : ]. with reference to the connection of these negotiations with the communiqué and its interpretation, it is firstly clear that neither the swedish nor the norwegian government had from the first intended by the communiqué to cut off the possibility of pursuing, from different quarters, the points on which they had not expressed themselves to be in unity. and secondly, it is plain that by the same communiqué it was not intended to cut off the possibility of advancing claims which during these very formless negotiations had not been brought forward, so long as the general decisions of the communiqué, sensibly interpreted, were observed. to this may be added one important circumstance. it is manifest that if it was considered necessary to come to some definite conclusion before the existence of the communiqué, it was on account of the binding nature of the final agreement. it is evident that the swedish government has endeavoured to secure the surest guarantee from a swedish point of view, that norway, of her own accord, would make no changes in respect to the foreign administration. now the negotiation on the vital contents of the laws, were _succeeded_ by this, and there is strong reason to suppose that the swedish negotiators expressed their hopes of an eventual termination of the negotiations with respect to the detailed decisions of the laws, _under the express supposition_ that safe guarantee would be granted by the norwegians, against a one-sided disturbance of the status quo in reference to the foreign minister. as meanwhile, through the interpretation which the norwegian side chose to give the communiqué, these--to sweden--very desirable guarantees became an illusion, it may very reasonably be asked if the norwegian side was entitled to exact too much from the swedish delegate's possible optimism respecting the prospects of coming to a definite conclusion on the rest of the points. further demonstrations for the manifestation of the baseless grounds of the moral indignation which was eventually to give the norwegian revolution an essential justification before an enlightened public, are unnessary. the terrible breach of agreement, on the part of sweden, which was trumpeted all over europe, on closer examination, vanishes into thin air. footnotes: [ : ] nansen (page ): »the swedish draft contained a number of demands quite unacceptable to norway as they were opposed to the very basis and object of the negotiations.» [ : ] different drafts of laws were especially to be discussed in this way. these outlines are, however, characterised by the ever well informed norwegian politician mr c. berner as »quite preliminary». [ : ] in an earlier stage of the negotiations, the norwegian cabinet were evidently not under the impression that the most important of these preliminary negotiations was brought to a successful conclusion. c. berner says--in the storthing debate feb. th --he had heard both from norwegian and swedish negotiators that to frame this laws in a quite satisfactory manner would be a very difficult thing. vi. [sidenote: _norwegian policy after the grounding of the consular negotiations._] the breaking off of the consular negotiations undoubtedly put norwegian politicians into a very difficult situation. thanks to the close connection between the union policy and the internal party disputes in norway, a popular interest has arisen for union politics which in comparison with the realities disputed over, may be regarded as extremely abnormal[ : ]. with the lack of consideration which in critical moments distinguishes a similarly excited state on the people's part, it was to be expected that the issue of the negotiations on the consular question would rouse their passions it can hardly be said that norwegian politics stood the trial in the situation. to a norwegian, that which followed may appear as a powerful and magnificent achievement. outsiders can content themselves by stating that _the high-flown radical politics of the last years now bear their fruit_. in these days much is said of »necessity» in the development of events. »necessity», it is said, »has been stronger than the wishes of individuals». to those who in any degree believe in personal influence and personal responsibility, and not only the _needs_ in the progress of history, it may be of interest to observe how those who now advance to the front in norway--michelsen, lÖvland, berner, arctander--belong to the old ranks of radicals from the beginning of . scarcely any leading men have more strongly emphasized the importance of _creating_ public opinion than the norwegian radical leaders, and few, with regard to this, have better conformed their conduct to their views. the road to do so these men pointed out was now followed at an unchecked pace. the norwegian radical policy had reached a climax. the following events in norway point decidedly to an energetic and designing leadership organised from the beginning. it may be left unsaid how far back the plans that where brought to light after the foundering of the consular question, were in existence. that they had already been discussed long before that period can hardly be doubted. neither can it be doubted that just in reference to these plans, strong efforts had been set at work on the norwegian side to get the consular negotiations broken off[ : ]. and it is an indisputable fact that those men of action in norway had scarcely dared to take the step, if the ever threatening danger in the east had not been allayed for a time; the real importance of the union to which they had for some years been alive, could be laid to rest. that the old traditions of the radicals now took the most prominent place became manifest in innumerable ways. one symtom of this, was the systematic labour of exciting opinions against sweden. the orgies of swedish hatred and »national persecution», which in christiania were held in the spring of , far outstepped the limits of decency which even a norwegian ought to feel. the coarsest invectives were flung against the government and people of sweden. all europe rang with accusations of breach of agreement, ambitions for the supremacy spread from christiania. a few sensible and intelligent norwegians, who really comprehended that the swedish government's claims had legal grounds, and were not meant as an insult to norway, made themselves heard[ : ] in the beginning, but their voices were soon silenced in the tumultuons confusion that reigned. in norway feelings were excited, which more than ever gave norwegian opinion a tone of unreasonableness. another symptom was the distinctness with which the union separation shone as the goal. this was shown in the cabinet meeting by the very tactless, but very norwegian expressions when the break-down of the negotiations was officially announced. the old king was pleased to express his hearty wishes, »that the two kingdoms which could soon celebrate the centenary of their union, would never let any differences of opinion break their bonds, as it was the safest security for the independency, safety and happiness of the scandinavian country and its two peoples». to this, the norwegian cabinet replied that they had taken the liberty in all humble submission to dissuade his majesty from making this speech[ : ]. a third symptom, and the one most significant of the spirit that now dominated norwegian politics was the road that they were soon unanimous on taking. one cannot help feeling that it is a punishment for old sins, that when norway has to take a decisive step, and goes from words to actions, it is not done openly and with honest intent. norway does not choose the straight road, it chooses winding crooked paths, which the peculiar advocacy of norwegian politicians long ago staked out. norway's breaking out of the union is not a manly act committed under a sense of personal responsibility, it is a miserable judicial process, in which norway, at the same time party to and self made judge in the case, artfully tries to establish the guilt of their opponents--sweden and the union king--in order to throw the burden of responsibility on them. [sidenote: _the question of resuming negotiations._] in the cabinet meeting held on feb. :th [ : ] the swedish minister for foreign affairs, count gyldenstolpe, pointed out that the chief cause of the wrecking of the negotiations was, that the swedish minister for foreign affairs was supposed still to be at the head of the foreign policy of the union, and he advocated the desirability of resuming negotiations on this phase of the union problem. the minister for foreign affairs only expressed what had in fact been the wish of the swedish side all along, and what especially the swedish negotiators during the first stage of the negotiations, had urgently insisted on. the opinion that the break down of the consular negotiations ought to be immediate cause of the renewal of negotiations which were also to include the question of foreign administration, seemed at first to be regarded with favour from the norwegian side. the majority of the norwegian government led by mr hagerup shared this opinion, though with one reservation. evidently under the influence of the general feelings in norway, mr hagerup considered that if fresh negotiations respecting a revision of the act of union led to no results, the old state of things could not possibly be allowed to continue, but by voluntary agreements they must instead try to obtain »more independent bases for the co-operation of the two nations», in other words, prepare for the disssolution of the union. in this way, said he, it will be possible to establish a peaceful and honorable union treaty. this was the programme he proposed in the storting when he announced the termination of the negotiations, and he further developed it when he resigned in march. a policy on those lines would at least have been open and honest, and even if the results had brought about the rupture of the union, it would not have roused strong ill-will; it would, in fact, have preserved the possibility of establishing conditions of co-operation on more independent lines. though sweden which, in the eyes of all europe, was responsible for the union, could never take the _initiative_ in the matter of dissolving the union, a norwegian proposal in the terms presented by mr hagerup had certainly not been refused without further consideration[ : ]. but it soon appeared that mr hagerup's programme was not likely to be favourably received in norway. immediately after the announcement of the termination of the negotiations, the storthing had summoned a so called special committee to examine the conditions of the union. the members of this committee soon went against the majority of the government, and therefore, when the state secretaries michelsen and schÖning at the end of february protested against mr hagerup's proceeding, in sending in his resignation, a complete crisis within the cabinet was reached. the king had, meanwhile, immediately after the termination of the negotiations, resigned the government to the crown prince in the capacity of regent. after the crown prince regent had conferred with the leading politicians in christiania, he made known his personal opinion on the matter in a document adressed to the president of the special committee appointed by the storthing[ : ] he earnestly expresses his conviction that the strength and prosperity of the two kingdoms lies in the preservation of the union. he emphatically declared that the union was not the chief object for the _dynasty_, but it ought to be so to _the two peoples_ concerned. he expressed warnings against the dissolution of the union, and urged that fresh negotiations, on a broader basis, should be entered into for the settlement of all matters concerning the union. the persuasive tone of this document could not fail to make an effect, but the norwegian press tried hard to explain away the contents by informing the public of their wonderful discovery, that the document was of no »constitutional importance», and shrewdly trying to prove that the crown prince had no legal right to make known his opinion in that manner[ : ]. those who now held the reins in norway, had to carry out their plans before the worked up excitement cooled down. therfore the way of the negotiations was so dangerous. the crown prince found it necessary to consent to a change of ministry. mr michelsen, who was pointed out as the man equal to the situation, was summoned, also a so called mixed cabinet consisting of ministers of different parties; the two prime ministers, however, mr michelsen und mr lÖvland, were rank radicals. in the beginning of march the special committee appointed by the storthing were able preliminarily to communicate the plan to be followed; it was not a novel one, it was the old method from the beginning of the nineties to take matters, especially those relating to the consular service, into »their own hands». in the middle of march the crown prince returned to stockholm, and here twelve members of the diet were immediately summoned, according to decrees in the government regulations, in order to confer with the crown prince regent on the matter. on the th april the crown prince, as regent, dictated a proposal in the joint cabinet[ : ] that the two governments should immediately open negotiations in view of the settlement of all matters concerning the union on the basis of the programme for a mutual minister for foreign affairs and separate consular services. he, at the same time, declared himself willing to accept other proposals for the settlement of the matter so long as the joint control of foreign affairs was allowed to remain undisturbed, as that was an indispensable guarantee for the continuance of the union[ : ]. on the publication of the crown prince-regent's proposal, the prime minister bostrÖm, against whom the wrath of the norwegians had especially been directed, resigned his office, which was immediately placed in the hands of state secretary ramstedt. the crown prince's proposal was immediately unanimously adopted on motions from the leading men in both chambers of the diet[ : ]. _in this we thus find a clear and unevasive offer from sweden to norway, for the establisment of full equality within the union, and that too in terms to which sweden would never have consented but a few years back_[ : ]. but the course of norwegian politics could not be obstructed. the goal was already in sight. in a communication from the norwegian government of the th april the reasons for the refusal are set forth. they are typically norwegian. it refers to preceding negotiations, the failure of which is solely accountable to the circumstance that on the part of sweden it has been found impossible to accede to all the norwegian demands. the termination of the consular negotiations had especially »given ground for great disappointment, and if increased by a renewal of similar unfortunate experiments, will threaten the gravest danger to the good relations existent between the two peoples». the norwegian government knows what means to employ to produce »these good relations», namely, establishing its own consular service in the way prognosticated in the past. this accomplished, »that confidence, which is the mainspring of every friendly and fruitful inquiry into difficult and delicate relations in a union, will have revived». norway is thus always the injured one, and there is never a thought that sweden on her part might have or possibly _could find_ cause for displeausure over norwegian union policy[ : ]. in a joint cabinet in stockholm on april rd the aforementioned statements were carried[ : ]. the swedish cabinet found it impossible, for the present, to resume negotiations. the norwegian cabinet stated imperatively--to those who would believe it--that it is not the object of norwegian action to have the present union dissolved(!), but they were in unity with the swedish cabinet. the crown prince deeply deplored being forced to let these decisions remain final. in the beginning of may the swedish diet resolved, on the basis of the above mentioned motions, to address the king respecting the support they had given the crown prince's resolution[ : ]. the diet deeply deplored the refusal already given by the norwegians, but considered it possible that their unanimous support of the crown prince's programme would lead eventually to more favourable results. [sidenote: _norwegian agitation._] while these efforts on the part of the regent and sweden were being made to bring norway to reason, an energetic and designing agitation was being carried on from christiania. the press went over almost entirely to the side of the programme; from trondhjem alone, where union partisanship was not altogether inclined to submit to the dictates from christiania, were heard hesitations. strong efforts were made in the storthing to win over the doubting and unwilling ones, and they were in the main successful. then followed a most energetic propaganda in order to win european opinion on norway's side. the european press was well supplied with materials for forming an opinion of the situation, and with articles in german and english newspapers, it became possible to persuade the doubting ones at home, that norway's cause was a righteous one,--all europe saw that. [sidenote: _proposal from the special committee of the storthing._] when the ground was thus well prepared the special committee of the storthing presented their proposals. this recommends as before mentioned the old well-known tactics of the first days of the consular dispute. the modifications which were added were only designed to hasten events, so that agitated minds should not have time to reflect, and reason in some way be restored. in the beginning of the 's the so-called state subsidy line was followed, that is, a certain sum of money was voted for the purpose of establishing a separate consular service within a given time. this measure had meanwhile shown that a delay would occur which would under present circumstances be exceedingly inconvenient. therefore the so-called legal measure was adopted. the resolution on the norwegian consular service should be presented to the king in the form of a law, the advantage in this being that according to the norwegian constitution, a law shall be laid before the king immediately after the resolution passed by the storthing. but there was an obstacle to this: the king's right of veto! on the ground of the fundamental law, that if the king refuses his sanction to a bill three successive times after it has been passed by the unaltered resolution of the storting, it becomes the law of the land without his assent, the personal wishes of the king with regard to legal matters had of recent times been to a certain extent respected. thus so recently as the law applying to consular fees had been refused sanction by the crown prince-regent against the decision of the ministry, and the prime minister had countersigned the decision. but now the last vestige of sovereign power was refused. by a resolution that the law should commence to act on april st all possibility of the king pronouncing his veto was cut off beforehand. the settlement of affairs should immediately be brought to a climax. the proposed law made no provisions as to the relations of the consuls to the minister of foreign affairs. that matter was to be settled by a norwegian state ordinance, dictated by the ministry. it is easy to imagine its intended basis by the special committee emphatically declaring it to be their opinion that the norwegian cabinet had made too many concessions in the last consular negotiations. to begin with, it was intimated in the norwegian papers, that the matter referring to the consular service and diplomatic department would be settled by treaty with sweden, a most illusive moderation, considering norway, as previously mentioned[ : ], by fixing the date when the laws would first be in force, had alone the power of considering the basis of the possible agreement. but this intimation was very soon contradicted; norway would take matters entirely into her own hands. and it was openly hinted, that if the king found that he ought to sanction the law, they would then proceed further with the question of their own minister for foreign affairs. [sidenote: _the revolutionary basis of the proposal._] the tactics in the whole of the procedings are characterised as being revolutionary against the union, its object being by one sided norwegian resolutions to dissolve the joint foreign administration. and as regards the consular question it has been explained that to withdraw without consulting sweden a part of the foreign affairs from the minister of foreign affairs who was mainly responsible for them, was utterly unreasonable. to what then did the storthing invite the king? simply this, _to take a revolutionary step against the union, to an initiatory dissolution of the union, to a protracted undermining of the foundation of the union_, far more dangerous than severing it at one blow. and the ugly thought in the background was this: if the king did not submit to this, it would be shouted out all over the world, that the king was faithless to the interests of norway, and had denied norway's sovereign rights; then he should bear the blame for what would happen, the revolutionary rupture of the bonds of union. but not alone on him would the blame be thrown. the king in the first place should be put to the proof. but, if the king said 'no', »it cannot», mr nansen says, »be the result of norwegian influence, _but on account of swedish pressure_»[ : ]. here we are met by the dishonourable train of thought that has formed the foundation on which the norwegian radicals have built the whole of their work for undermining the union, that is, never to acknowledge the true motive--piety towards the union--when the king opposed the one-sided disloyal demands of norway, but instead always point to swedish interests as the ruling motive. and nevertheless, it is certain, that no swedish-norwegian king has kept in view the union, and _all it implied on all sides_, more faithfully than king oscar ii. _they closed all roads by which the king would be able to decide the consular question in a manner acceptable from a union point of view; by this means, they forced the king to exercise his veto--and then they cast the responsibility of the revolution on him and sweden._ this is the basis of the tactics of the norwegian revolution. the characteristicness of this is sufficiently evident. [sidenote: _the decision in the storthing._] the debate on the proposal of the special committee in the storthing was fixed for the day after the national anniversary, may th. national revelries were to precede to encourage and excite. in christiania, especially, the day was celebrated in such a manner, that there could be no doubt as to what was in the wind. nansen used big words about norway, and big words against sweden, and in the presence of several thousand persons, a memorial wreath was laid--as on several previous years--on a colonel krebs' grave; during the short strife between sweden and norway in , the man had succeeded in repulsing a swedish regiment! these imposing preparations were followed by the decision of the storthing. it was first proposed to decide unanimously without any debate. but there were a few members in the storthing who ventured to protest in words--in actions no one dared to protest. with a frankness evidently embarrassing to all present, mr hagerup pointed out the two only possible alternatives with reference to the decision; to retract, or to rupture. the latter alternative he evidently found most acceptable, and in norway's real interest, he warned them as to what the issue might be. he proposed that the decision with respect to these eventualities--which might exceed both the constitution and the act of union--should be deferred till after the new elections, as the constitution with an almost torturing emphasis insists on caution when a change in the government system is contemplated. even the rest of the few in the minority made known their different views, and among them the shipowner jÖrgen knudsen openly confessed that he saw no forcible reasons for dissolving the joint consular service. but the issue was plain. after mr hagerup's proposal for an adjournment was voted against with a minority of few the consular law was passed unanimously. [sidenote: _king oscar's position in regard to the consular law._] nothing remained now but to continue. the uncertainty in various quarters as to how king oscar would express himself, simply implied ignorance of the political situation in an historical light. no norwegian acquainted with the real facts of the case, could be in doubts as to the king's reply. norway herself had dictated it and the innocent distrust of nansen[ : ] and norwegian newspapers, that the king, as they said, »would really refuse norway her right» seemed rather unnatural. [sidenote: _the cabinet meeting. th may _] on the th may a cabinet meeting was held at the royal palace in stockholm[ : ]. to the norwegian cabinet's appeal for sanction to the consular law, the king replied that the present regulations for the joint consular service as resolved in a joint cabinet according to the act of the union § , also under the same conditions, that is to say, by treaty with sweden, must be dissolved, and refused his sanction. the cabinet raised the strongest objections to this, and referred to norway's loyal(!) endeavours to advance the cause. the king's decree implied a violation of norway's independence and sovereign right, and would undoubtedly lead to the dissolution of the union. the cabinet thereupon, sent in their resignations[ : ], which the king, meanwhile, refused to allow, as he had _at present_ no prospect of forming a new ministry. then ensued a discussion between the king and the ministers. the king maintained his right based on the constitutional law, to exercise his veto according to his own judgment and maintained the duty of the minister of state to countersign his decision. the cabinet sought, on their side, to defend the interpretation given in later years to the fundamental law, that it presupposed the right of refusing countersignature, but could, as a precedent, for present circumstances, only quote the not altogether applicable opinion--after full consideration--of the norwegian cabinet in [ : ]. [sidenote: _the situation after the nd may._] now the situation was as follows: the king had been forced to the extremity of exercising his undoubted right, according to constitutional law, to form his decision according to his own judgment. it was furthermore the prime minister's undoubted duty to countersign his decree, the cabinet, by raising protestations, were released from constitutional responsibility for the royal decree according to the rules of the fundamental law. but the cabinet maintained another interpretation of the fundamental law, and sent in their resignations, which the king, meanwhile, refused to grant as he could not _for the present_--»now»-- form a new ministry. this word 'now' in the king's refusal to the cabinets appeal to resign, undoubtedly implies a reminder of earlier similar situations in the beginning of , when the ministry--on one or two occasions _radical_ --had remained in office some time after they had tendered their appeals to resign, as the king was unable to form a new ministry. it was also without doubt the legislative duty of the ministry to remain at their post till the king released them. for, according to the general constitutional and administrative ideas of justice, it is the king who releases his ministers; they have no legal right to retire of themselves. it is not norway's _king_ who has transgressed the law, in spite of all the accusations to that effect from norway's government[ : ]. _the law was transgressed on june th by the norwegian cabinet, when they informed the king that they resigned office_[ : ]. [sidenote: _the norwegian revolution._] their chief reason for this proceeding they declared to be their inability to be a party to the king's policy, which according to their opinion, was not in accordance with the norwegian constitution, and declared themselves to be 'free men' entitled to the right to resign office[ : ]. king oscar immediately sent protestations against this proceeding on the part of the ministers, both to the storthing and the premier[ : ]. but before these came to hand, the next act was played out. on the th june the cabinet informed the storthing of their resignation[ : ]. the storthing forgetful of the very important little word _now_ categorically recorded the fact that the king had declared himself incapable of forming a new government, and came to the conclusion that the constitutional royal power was »no longer effectual», on which the late ministers were admonished to take up the reins of government, which, according to constitutional law, was the king's prerogative alone. the king was therefore deposed. but norwegian logic went boldly further. king oscar having ceased to act as norway's king, the declaration followed, that the union with sweden was dissolved[ : ]. this was all communicated in an address which the storthing prayed to be allowed to deliver to king oscar by a deputation[ : ]. the king of course replied that he would not receive any deputation from the revolutionary storthing[ : ]. it is now these resolutions which are not called revolutionary in norway. they are, on the contrary, perfectly legal[ : ]! the king was dethroned, because, supported by rights given by the constitution, he refused to sanction a resolution in conflict with the principles of the union, to which norway, according to the first paragraph of her constitution, is bound. the union with sweden was declared dissolved without reference to sweden, or observation of the terms in which the slightest change in the constitution and the act of union must be carried out[ : ]. and this last resolution was carried in spite of the constitutional prescription that changes in the same must not come in strife with the principles of state law, to which, if ever, the union with sweden belongs; as the freedom and independence of norway, according to the first paragraph of the constitution, are inseparably connected with this union[ : ]. as aforementioned, all this is not revolution in norway. conceptions of laws and rights have long shown themselves in strange lights in that country. [sidenote: _protestations of sweden and the union king._] on june th sweden declared her protest against the norwegian revolution. in the cabinet council to which the swedish chambers were summoned to meet in on extraordinary session[ : ], the prime minister strongly emphasised the fact that the norwegian storthing's proceedings had deeply violated sweden's rights. the following day, june th, king oscar issued his protest in an address to the norwegian storthing[ : ]. in clear and convincing terms the king maintains his formal legal right to form his resolution in opposition to the cabinet's opinion. and he, as forcibly, maintains that it was in the capacity of the chief representative of the _union_ that he had considered it his duty to refuse his sanction to the consular law. as union-king, he emphasizes his right and prerogative, even in opposition to norwegian public opinion in general, to maintain the principles of the union, and he finally refers to the decisions of himself and sweden »if norway's attack on the existing union should lead to its _legal_ dissolution». [sidenote: _address of the storthing th june ._] the reply to this address of the king was an address[ : ] from the storthing on june th formally to his majesty the king, but in reality to the swedish nation. in this it is explained that the norwegian people entertain no feelings of dislike or ill-will to the swedish people, and appeals to the swedish state powers to promote a peaceful agreement on both sides. the storthing addressed this appeal to the people who by their magnanimity and chivalry had won such a prominent place in the ranks of nations. the swedish nation had good cause for thinking that it might have received this compliment _a little sooner_, instead of the overwhelming mass of infamous accusations which it had formerly had to accept with a good grace. and above all, it is their opinion that if norway had formerly adjusted its actions in accordance with their present ideas of the swedish nation, the present situation would now have been different in all respects. the document of the :th june contains also one detail, which has since, step by step, been forced to the front by the norwegian agitation, and therefore deserves its separate explanation. this said that the swedish government on the :th april had emphatically refused to resume negotiations, with the dissolution of the union as an alternative, in case unity on the new forms of the union could not be arrived at, and on this account, from norway's side they have tried to cast the blame on sweden for the revolution of june :th under the pretext that sweden had already refused settlement by negotiation. what are the real conditions? in the norwegian government's proposal of the :th april negotiations are firmly _refused_, before the consular question has been settled. therefore norway has never proposed negotiations respecting the situation which followed upon the :th may, when the king exercised his veto against the consular law. furthermore, attention must be drawn to the norwegian government's wording of the _presuppositions_ for an eventual negotiation. it should be carried on »_on an entirely free basis with full recognition of the sovereignty of each country without any reservation or restriction whatever_», and among other matters, it was stipulated, that, if the negotiations fell through, each kingdom should be able to decide, of its own accord, »the future form of its national existence.» thus the swedish government was to accept in advance the norwegian radicals legal conception of the union, driven, to it by the contingency that if norway did not get her will in the matter, she would break out, on her own accord, of the union. it is manifestly against this _method_ of negotiating matters, with its legal grounds and its premature threat to rupture the union on norway's side, that the swedish prime minister appeals, when he speaks of a presupposition for negotiations on the norwegian side »as incompatible with the union and the act of union.» the prime minister can never have intended to contest the absurdity, that the union cannot legally be dissolved, so that it was not on that account that he refused to negotiate. but the norwegian cabinet hastened, craftily, to construe the contents af the prime minister's speech, by maintaining that there was a possibility for dissolving the union[ : ]. of all the cunning devices, the object of which has been, on norway's side, cowardly to cast the blame on sweden, this has been one of the most disgusting, so much the more so as the majority of the storthing itself opposed mr hagerup's proposal, and this was certainly not previous to, nor after the council of the :th april, when it was seriously proposed, that a treaty for the dissolution of the union should be drawn up, in the event of the king exercising his veto; the tactics that were adopted on :th june were made up a long time beforehand.-- on the :th june the diet assembled. footnotes: [ : ] it must be remembered that in reality norway had an almost entirely equal influence in the joint consular service, as questions refering to consular matters were decided in a joint cabinet, and a norwegian government department conducted the mercantile part of affairs. [ : ] it does not follow, however, that at least the majority of the members of the norwegian government tried to come to an agreement. [ : ] a very sensible and intelligent article written by mr fritz hansen, member of the last union committee, may especially be brought to notice. [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] this is proved by the motion on the union question brought forward in the lower chamber of the swedish parliament. see n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] nansen does not even mention the document in his book. [ : ] n:o . [ : ] this last alternative was considered to imply proposals for a compromise, which had now and then been hinted at, namely, that a chancellor of the union should direct all matters concerning union policy, but each of the kingdoms should have its own minister for foreign affairs, chiefly with consular affairs under their especial direction. the proposal was said to have been brought forward in the first place at the meeting of the last union committee by one of the norwegian radical representatives. [ : ] n:o and . [ : ] nansen (page ) rouses suspicion in every possible way against this swedish offer. he implies that the new offer, made immediately after the breaking off of the negotiations, which, of course, was caused by swedish perfidy, was not likely to inspire confidence, and especially as it did not include »the same guarantees we had before». it must nevertheless be observed that this treaty contained far _greater_ guarantees, partly on account of the unanimous decision of the diet, partly on the grounds that the crown prince's programme was far easier to carry out than the programme of the communiqué, which implied that the consular question would solve itself. nansen also mentions that »the last union committee worked on a similar basis without being able to come to a decision, as the swedish proposals were not acceptable to any section of the norwegian commissioners». to this it must be observed that this swedish offer was more conciliatory towards the norwegian wishes, than the norwegian majority's proposal had been in the last union committee. why therefore could it not be accepted by the norwegians? [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] page . [ : ] nansen (pag. ). [ : ] nansen page . [ : ] there is no protocol of this cabinet meeting, only a complete report, communicated to the government of christiania by the delegates of the cabinet. compare with n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] compare n:o . [ : ] n:os , and . [ : ] on the norwegian side they attach great praise to themselves for having given the king a few day's grace in order to form a new ministry. the norwegian cabinet also blame the king (compare with n:o ) for not having made use of this truce, and plainly imply hereby, that the king in fact abdicated of his own accord. the king replied to this by alluding to the cabinets open threats (compare with n:o ) that the man who, after being warned by the king, dared to approach the king as adviser, from that moment lost his national rights; in other words, however the king might act, the revolution would come. the king is therefore reproached for not endeavouring to form a new ministry, after he had been threatened with the revolution if the attempt had shown any sign of success. how truly norwegian! [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] the terms of this communication are almost word for word the same as in the address to the king. [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] one reeds, for exemple, nansens arguments in real exaggerated norwegian logic. (page ). [ : ] compare n:o § and n:o § . [ : ] »the kingdom of norway is a free, independent, indivisible and inalienable realm, united with sweden under one king.» [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . [ : ] n:o . they are careful not to confute the king's defence of the legality of his action. [ : ] compare, with n:os and . vii. [sidenote: _the question of the justification of the norwegian revolution._] revolutions are not to be condemned under all conditions. history--even the history of sweden--records many revolutions, which are said to have been a vital necessity. but a revolution can only be morally defended on the grounds of its having been _the extreme means of protecting most important interests_. [sidenote: _the swedish »oppression»._] in these days there have been numerous comparisons made between norway's breaking out of the union, and sweden's struggle for freedom from denmark in the middle ages. sweden's way of using its power has been stamped as an intolerable _oppression_. it can scarcely be necessary to give a more powerful confutation to these very idle fancies, than simply to refer to the fact that norway's »struggle for freedom» has had for its object the enormously important cause--their own consuls! [sidenote: _sweden's loyalty in conducting the foreign policy of the union._] the dominating position of sweden within the union has consisted simply in its administration of foreign affairs of the union; _in everything else norway has had an independent right of decision in full equality with that of sweden_. an norway cannot complain that sweden has conducted the administration of foreign policy in a manner that has been injurious to the interests of norway. this was emphatically conceded during the hottest days of the stadtholder conflict in . it is remarkable that in the present day, when the want to prove an antithesis in norway, they can never produce anything but the episode from the beginning of the union--the well known bodö affair in - --an episode concerning which _norwegian_ investigations of recent date, have served to place swedish foreign administration in a far better light than what norwegian tradition had done. the advantage given to norway by the swedish administration of foreign affairs, is the inestimable gift of a years' uninterrupted peace, which has given the people of norway an opportunity of peacefully devoting themselves to the labour of material and spiritual development. sweden has furthermore especially tried to insure interests so far that, in the direction of foreign affairs, norwegian assistance has been employed as far as the regulations in the organisation of the same would permit. it has already been mentioned that norwegian counsels have used their influence in the council for foreign affairs, that norwegian influence on the consular system has, for a long time, been as near as possible equal to that of sweden. it may also be added, that norwegians have always been appointed to posts in connection with those offices under the foreign office. in the foreign office itself norwegians have always held office: even as under secretary of state-- the next in rank to the minister for foreign affairs--a norwegian has lately been in office. the posts at the embassies at foreign courts, even the most important, have to a great extent been held by norwegians. of those consuls sent abroad, by far the greater number are norwegians. norway has herself given the best proof that the swedish administration of foreign affairs has been conscientiously carried out to the interests of norway, by, time after time, refusing the swedish offers to give norway greater influence in the settlement of foreign affairs, offers, which even if they did not accede to all norway's demands, would, if realised, have given norway a far better position than it had previously held. [sidenote: _has norway been denied its prerogative._] but it has been said on the norwegian side--and this has been brought forward as the main point--norway has been denied her prerogative, as a »free and independent kingdom». if by that, they mean that norway has been denied equality in the union, it is _not true_. sweden's only condition, that norway, as they say, should enjoy her prerogative, has been, that this prerogative in its application should be subordinate to the demands stipulated by the union, demands which sweden on her side was quite prepared to submit to. that a right should be maintained under the consciousness that it has its limits in necessary obligatory respects, has been almost lost sight of by norway. the chief impetus of the revolution has been a reckless desire on the part of the norwegians to be absolutly their own masters, that and nothing else. norway has bragged about her prerogatives without any feeling of responsibility, like an unreasoning whimsical child. it must be _declared_, both on historical and psychological grounds, that it can never be politically _defended_. norway must already have made the discovery that the great era of universal politics, is entitled, if ever, _to political action under a strict sense of responsibility_. [sidenote: _faults on sweden's side._] by this it is by no means our intention to deny that sweden herself is to a certain extent to blame for things going as they have done. looking back over the union policy of sweden, it must, in the first place, be noticeable that there has been, to a certain extent, a lack of firmness and authority. and it cannot either be denied that there have been mistakes that have unnecessarily roused opposition. for instance, in the so-called stadtholder question, in the sixties, sweden's policy was undoubtedly too harsh. but whatever faults may be laid at the door of the union policy of sweden, when the swedish nation in these days tries to make a searching self examination, opinions are not little likely to be unanimous because sweden has been _too conciliatory_ towards norways' demands. [sidenote: _swedish opinion._] it is said that a foreigner recently travelling in the scandinavian countries made the observation that swedes always spoke kindly of the norwegians, and the norwegians always spoke ill of the swedes. the observation doubtless contains a good deal of truth. it is, at least, true that swedish public opinion, at large, has been distinguished by kindliness both to norway and its people, and that every honest effort to smooth discussions has had the sympathy of an overwhelming majority of the people of sweden. swedes have been very unwilling to listen to the prophets of evil who have pointed to the deficiencies and deformities of norwegian policy, and prognosticated trouble. it is just on that account that indignation from one end of sweden to the other is so much the more intense when the veil is so rudely torn aside, and norwegian politics are shown in their true light, such as they are and--have been. the revolutionary act of norway has like a flash of lightning illuminated the past background of norwegian politics, and exhibited to the people of sweden all the unreasonableness, the craftiness and dishonesty which sweden has had to put up with from norway during the past decennials. in this way, the memories of the history of the union of the latest periods are revived with indignation among the people of sweden. if the indignation is at times expressed in unnecessarily strong and ill-chosen terms, norway has in truth no manner of right to complain. acts touching the swedish-norwegian crisis. . extracts from the constitution of norway. [-- -- --] § . the kingdom of norway is a free, independent, indivisible, and inalinenable realm united with sweden under one king. [-- -- --] § . the king's person is sacred. he must not be blamed nor accused. the responsibility is incumbent on his council. [-- -- --] § . [-- --] the prime minister reports the matters and is responsible for the documents issued being in accordance with the resolutions adopted. [-- -- --] § . all matters dealt with in the cabinet council should be recorded. each number of the cabinet council is bound to express, fearlessly, his opinion which the king is obliged to listen to. but it is reserved for the latter to take these resolutions according to his own judgment. if a member of the cabinet council should find the kings' resolution incongruous with the form of government, or the public laws of the country, or else obviously harmful to the realm, it is his duty to make strenuous remonstrance and to have his opinon recorded. he who has not issued a protest in this way, is considered to have agreed with the king and is responsible for it in the way subsequently indicated, and the odelsthing can proeced against him before the court of impeachment. § . all orders (ezcepting matters of military command) issued by the king himself, should be countersigned by one of the prime ministers. [-- -- --] § . each law shall first be moved in the odelsthing, either by its own members or by the government through a cabinet minister. [-- --] § . when a resolution passed by the odelsthing has been approved of by the lagthing, or by the assembled storthing, it is sent to the king if present, or else to the norwegian government with the request of obtaining the sanction of the king. § . if the king approves of the resolution he shall attach his signature to it, through which it passes into law. if he does not approve of it, he shall send it back to the odelsthing with the declaration that he does not find it suitable, at present, to sanction it. in this case the resolution must not again be laid before the king by the storthing then assembled. § . if a resolution has, in unaltered form, been passed by three ordinary storthings constituted after three different consecutive general elections and separated from each other by at least two intermediate ordinary storthings without that, in the interval between the first and the last adoption of the resolution, a divergent resolution has been passed by a storthing, and if it is then submitted to the king with the request that his majesty may be pleased not to negative a resolution regarded as useful by the storthing after mature consideration, then it passes into law, even if the king's sanction should not be obtained before the break-up of the storthing. [-- -- --] § . if experience should teach that some part of the constitution of the realm of norway ought to be altered, the motion for it shall be made at the first ordinary storthing after a new general election and be issued from the press. but it can only to be one of the ordinary storthings after the next general election, to decide as to whether the amendment moved should be accepted or not. such an amendment, however, must never be contrary to the principles of this constitution, but should only regard a modification of particular regulations, not affecting the spirit of this constitution, and such an amendment should be seconded by two thirds of the storthing. [-- -- --] . extracts from the act of union. [-- -- --] § . the king shall have the right to concentrate troops, commence war and to conclude peace, enter into and annul alliances, dismiss and receive ambassadors. [-- --] § . both the norwegian prime ministers and the two cabinet ministers accompaning the king shall have a seat and vote in the swedish cabinet council, whenever matters affecting both countries are there transacted. in such cases the opinion of the government residing in norway shall be consulted unless such a speedy decision be required that time does not allow of it. when, in the norwegian cabinet council, matters affecting both countries are transacted, three members of the swedish cabinet council shall there have a seat and vote. [-- -- --] § [ : ]. [-- --] matters concerning both the kingdoms, but which in consequence of their nature, do not belong to the administration of any special department, are reported by the minister for foreign affairs and are despatched to each kingdom, drawn up in its own language; to sweden by the above mentioned reporter minister and to norway by her prime minister. diplomatic (cabinet) matters are reported by the minister for foreign affairs, and are entered into a separate protocol[ : ]. [-- --] [-- -- --] § . whereas the regulations contained in this act of union partly are copied from the constitution of the realm of norway, partly are additions to it, based on the right awarded to the present storthing by the constitution, they shall, with regard to norway, have and retain the same authority as the constitution of that realm, and they must not be altered but in the way indicated in § of that same constitution. [-- -- --] footnotes: [ : ] this paragraph describes the joint so-called provisional government. . preliminary settlement of the consular question between members of the swedish and the norwegian cabinet council, on march , . (the so-called communiqué). the negotiations carried on in stockholm during the last months of october, december, and january between the members of the swedish and the norwegian government here subjoined, and regarding the consular question, have been continued in christiania during february and march. during these negotiations the swedish members maintained that the establishment of a separate consular service for each of the united kingdoms did not seem to them desirable in itself, and that they were not convinced that a dissolution of the existing community, in this respect, would convey any important practical advantages to either of the kingdoms. on the contrary, there were reasons to apprehend lest this arrangement should lead to inconveniences. whereas, however, an opposite opinion has long been upheld by norway and whereas, during the negotiations resulting from the report of the latest consular committee made up by members from both countries, it has turned out not to be impossible to arrange, on certain conditions, such a system with separate consuls for each kingdom as could, while it was meant to satisfy the desires expressed by norway, also remove the principal apprehensions on the part of sweden, the swedish negotiators in order to attain the most important advantage of political concord between the two kingdoms, have found it possible to recommend an agreement on the following terms: . separate consular services for sweden and for norway shall be established. the consuls of each kingdom shall be subordinate to the authority of their own country which the latter shall have to determine. . the relations of the separate consuls to the minister for foreign affairs and to the embassies shall be regulated by laws of th seame wording which cannot be altered nor abolished without the consent of the authorities, of both kingdoms. the swedish negotiators have added to this that they realise in full and acknowledge that the position held for the present by the minister for foreign affairs, does not correspond to the equality within the union that norway is entitled to claim. they have held forth the desirability of this question being made an object of negotiations, which, however, at present has not met with approval on the part of norway. they have, however, declared themselves prepared to advise the king, whenever such a desire is expressed on the side of norway, to lay before the riksdag and the storthing a proposition about such alterations of the act of union as can clear the way for the king to appoint a swede or a norwegian-minister for foreign affairs and render it possible to institute the minister's constitutional responsibility before the national assemblies of both kingdoms. to this the norwegian negotiators have answered that they naturally concur in the opinion that the existing arrangement for the administration of foreign affairs does not agree with norway's justified claims on equality within the union. it was therefore all the more evident that, on the part of norway, no regulations could be accepted that were meant to bind it to this arrangement. at the same time, however, they wanted to express the hope that the question about a satisfactory arrangement of the administration of foreign affairs might soon be made an object of negotiations between the kingdoms. when the present negotiations had been carried on by norway under the supposition that the question about a change of this unsatisfactory state of things should be left untouched, it had been done so out of regard to the fact that the opinions about the best way of correcting this state of things were so different in the two countries that, for the present, an agreement could not be expected. we swedish and norwegian negotiators, having thus been confined to try to bring about such an arrangement of the consular question as will leave _status quo_ undisturbed with respect to the position of the minister for foreign affairs and of the embassies, have agreed upon that the relation between the minister and the diplomacy on the one hand, and the separate consular services on the other, should be regulated by laws of the same wording which cannot be altered by one of the parties alone and which both shall guarantee that the consuls do not overstep the limits of their authority and at the same time shall add security to the necessary co-operation between the management of foreign affairs and the consular services of both kingdoms. in conclusion we also want to express the hope that the time shall not be remote when, by conciliatory advances on both sides, the question of arranging the management of foreign affairs can be made an object of negotiations and find such a solution as can produce satisfaction in both countries and enduringly secure the futurity of the union. footnotes: [ : ] these enactsments show plainly that the act of union only recognizes the swedish minister for foreign affairs as the leader of the foreign policy of the union. . extracts from the norwegian government's draft of laws of the same wording in order to regulate the relations between the minister for foreign affairs and the legations on the one hand, and the separate consular services of the two countries on the other hand. dated may , . i. the consular administration by which is understood the authority the consuls are subordinate to, has to inform the minister for foreign affairs of: a) the establishment, the suppression, the alteration, or the division of consular services, the appointement or employment of consuls, their power of attorney, leave of absence, suspension, recall, or discharge: b) the general regulations and precepts issued with regard to the consular service; c) measures particularly regarding the relations to foreign powers, as e. g. regulations to be observed by consuls in time of war; orders to, or proceedings against consuls owing to complaints lodged by a foreign power against their actions; instructions to consuls as to the interpretation and the application of international laws or agreements and as to matters simultaneously subject to diplomatic and to consular treatment. [-- -- --] iii. of matters that have assumed or may be anticipated to assume a diplomatic or political aspect and that seem to require a speedy decision, the consul has to send the minister for foreign affairs an exact statement. this proceeding shall particularly be observed in case of an infringement of international agreements; of obstacles raised by the local authorities to the consul's discharge of his official duties; of troubles for warships in foreign ports; of illegitimate confiscation of traders; of arbitrary imprisonment of citizens; of difficulties originating from outbreak of war or insurrection; and of reclamations already committed to diplomatic treatment, but requiring a speedy acquirement of additional information. in matters of this kind where there is reason to apprehend lest a negligence of immediate interference should convey considerable inconveniences, the minister for foreign affairs can make direct inquires of, and give direct injunctions to a consul concerning the diplomatic or political side of the matter. the consul must not refuse to submit to an inquiry or an injunction addressed to him by the minister for foreign affairs, because of finding the matter in question not to be of the kind alluded to above. iv. when the interest of the country or its citizens require being looked after, the legation is entitled to gather information from, and to give orders to the consul concerned. such orders must not conflict with actual law and statute, nor with instructions or other regulations given by the home authority. with regard to a consul's duty to obey the injunctions mentioned above, the last passage of § should be applied. [-- -- --] . extracts from the outlines for laws of the same wording drawn up by his excellency boström, in november . [-- -- --] [-- -- --] with regard to the relations between the minister for foreign affairs and the consular administration, and in addition to general precepts as to their duty of mutual cooperation and of mutual interchange of information about such resolutions and steps, etc. as may be of importance for them to know it should be directed: that a new consulate must not be established until the minister for foreign affairs has stated as to whether any obstacles to its establishment are raised on the part of foreign powers; that, before the appointment of a consul, the foreign minister shall have an opportunity of making the remarks he may find appropriate, as to the persons possible to be taken into consideration for the appointment; that, for obtaining a foreign power's recognition of a consul, the consular administration has to make a proposition of it to the foreign minister just as is the case when, in other matters belonging to the province of the consular administration the question arises about applying to the government of a foreign power; and that if, in matters being dealt with by the consular administration, the minister for foreign affairs has given instructions to a consul, the consular administration must not give the consul an order conflicting with such an instruction. as to the foreign minister's relation to the consuls and _vice versâ_, the law should say that the consuls are subordinate to the minister for foreign affairs in such a way: that, in matters belonging to his province, he has the right to request information directly from the consul and to give him instructions; and that the consul on his part is bound not only to execute implicitly what he is thus requested to do, but also, in such matters dealt with by him as, owing to their nature and other circumstances, may be supposed to affect the relation to a foreign power, to send of his own accord a report of the origination of the matter as well as of its further development. besides it should be instituted: [-- -- --] that, in case a consul should act in such a way as may have a disturbing effect upon the friendly relations between the united kingdoms and the foreign power concerned, and also in case a consul should neglect to execute the instructions of the minister for foreign affairs or the legation, the foreign minister shall have the right to address a humble request to the king about the consul's revocation, whereupon the consular administration concerned should be informed of the resolution. in order to regulate the relations between the legation and the consuls concerned, it should, apart from the general precept of their duty of mutual cooperation, be laid down in the law: that the legation is bound to guard the consul's rights and to lend him necessary assistance and, in matters belonging to the province of the legation, entitled to demand information from the consul and to give him instructions; that the consul has the same duties towards the legation as towards the minister for foreign affairs; and that, if the consul, by participating in political demonstrations or in another way, should openly disregard the consideration he is bound to have for the authorities of the country he is employed in, or if an action affecting his civil repute should he brought against him, the legation has the right to suspend him from his office until further notice. . extract from the answer given by his excellency hagerup to the preceeding draft, on november , . [-- -- --] . no approval on the part of norway can be expected for an arrangement that would give swedish authorities the possibility of interfering with measures taken by a norwegian authority. also in this respect we merely adhere to the communiqué and the protocols of december that, as a basis of agreement, give prominence to the establishment of a separate consular service for sweden and for norway, in which case »the consuls of each kingdom shall be subordinate to the authority of their own country which the latter shall have to determine.» this arrangement does not however preclude, as is also presupposed in the norwegian draft, a certain possibility for the foreign minister to address direct requests to the consuls. [-- -- --] with particular regard to the demand expressed in the »outlines» that the swedish minister for foreign affairs shall have the right--this is the, intention according to your excellency's verbal declaration--to discharge in ministerial--consequently in swedish--cabinet council a consul appointed in norwegian council, i ventured to point out ) that this demand was entirely contrary to the norwegian constitution, ) that an arrangement by which a swedish authority of state might nullify a resolution adopted by a norwegian authority of state would, according to the general principles of political and international law, impress upon norway the stamp of a dependency, and ) that it would therefore from a national point of view signify an enormous retrograde step as compared with the present arrangement of the consular service. [-- -- --] . extracts from the draft of laws of the same wording made by the swedish government in december . [-- -- --] § . if in a matter being dealt with by the consular administration, the minister for foreign affairs has informed that he has taken such a measure as is alluded to in § , it is for the consular administration to observe that, from its side, no such instructions are given to the consul concerned as are conflicting with any reorder relating to this matter given by the minister for foreign affairs and known to the consular administration. § . the minister for foreign affairs has, in a matter belonging to his province, to request immediate information from the consul of the country concerned and also give him instructions about what he has to observe in such a matter; and a consul is absolutely bound to fullfill what is thus requested of him. [-- -- --] § . if the minister for foreign affairs should learn that a consular employé has not acted with good and worthy behaviour towards the authorities of the country where he is employed, or that he has participated in political demonstrations, or secretely, or openly encouraged or supported attacks on the existing government, or else behaves in a way that may have a disturbing effect upon the good relations between the united kingdoms and the foreign power concerned, then the minister has humbly to give notice of it to the king in joint or in ministerial cabinet council whereupon the matter is submitted to the king's consideration in the cabinet council of the country concerned. [-- -- --] § . if a legation should find a consul guilty of a proceeding or a neglect alluded to in § , or if a consul should be prosecuted for a crime affecting his civil repute, the legation, if finding it justified by circumstances, has to suspend the consul from his office; and the matter should immedately be reported both to the minister for foreign affairs and to the consular administration concerned. a consul thus suspended from his office, must not again come into office until the king, after hearing the minister for foreign affairs, has resolved upon it. [-- -- --] . extracts from notes made, in consequence of the swedish government's draft of laws of the same wording by the norwegian cabinet council, on january , . [-- -- --] to § . it is stated here that, when. in a matter being dealt with by the consular administration, the foreign minister has given a consul an order, it is for the consular administration to observe that, from its side, no order conflicting with it is given to the consul. it is difficult to understand what is meant by this paragraph, which is without a parallel in the present consular statutes which do not direct any similar injunction to the norwegian consular department. to judge from reference to § , it does not seem to have been intended to give the foreign minister the right, in whatever be which matter being dealt with by the consular administration, to stop the function of the latter and to assert his own authority instead; for this would be equivalent to instituting a relation of subordination that no governmental department can submit to. the intention, then, can only be supposed to have been the following:--to try, in a consular matter, that has assumed a diplomatic aspect or that is simultaneously subject to a consular and a diplomatic treatment, to prevent the consular administration from arbitrarily trespassing upon the province of the foreign minister. it stands to reason that this must not occur. but just because it stands to reason, the precept is superfluous. and what is of more importance: it is calculated to excite indignation. for, as it is obvious that an interference of the said kind must be a manifestation either of want of judgment or of disloyalty, it should be admitted that it is not very appropriate to give in a law, even in an indirect way, an expression to the thought that such qualities may prevail in the department concerned. [-- -- --] to § . [-- --] we should not however dwell upon these formal considerations which are of a merely secondary importance as compared with the far-reaching question: exclusively norwegian or partly joint treatment of matters concerning the relations of norwegian consuls wheteher to the foreign minister, or to legations, or to foreign authorities. in this connection we want to quote a passage from the report of the last consular committee made up of members from both countries where we read (norwegian edition, p. ): »furthermore the norwegian consular administration has to leave it to the foreign minister (and the legations) to receive and reply to reclamations from foreign governments in the rare cases when subjects of contention arise by the actions of norwegian consuls. for this kind of correspondence, although dealing with the behaviour of consuls, is owing to its nature diplomatic and not consular, and in as much as the matter has a political moment, the foreign minister should continue to keep the management of it; if the matter should become critical so as to grow into a real international conflict, he should report it to the king and procure the instructions necessary for its treatment. it stands to reason that he should not be debarred from influencing the course of the matter by informing the norwegian consular administration of his opinion as to the steps suitable to take with regard to the consul concerned. but the very instructions to the latter or the disciplinary steps occasioned by the matter belong to the home consular management and should therefore be issued from the norwegian department.» we concur in the opinion expressed here and the demand for an exclusively norwegian treatment of questions concerning measures against norwegian consuls, appears still more justified in the cases when the matter is without a political moment, but the question regards the consul's relation to the foreign minister and the legations. in the last-mentioned respect we want again to refer to the statement of the consular committee (norwegian edition, pp. - ), from which it is evident that they did not intend any joint treatment of matters relating to the consul's disobedience of instructions or omission of duties; nor was this intention expressed during the negotiations that took place before the appearance of the communiqué. such a joint treatment that should precede the treatment from the norwegian side, can only imply one of two things. either it means to be a mere formality only calculated to delay matters perhaps requiring a speedy decision. or else it means to be a real treatment, in which case, the foreign minister is intended to get influence on the settlement of the matter; but in this case it will signify an encroachment upon a department which, as it maintained, should be exclusively reserved for a norwegian authority of state. besides, it is self-evident that the consular administration which may justly be supposed to be equally interested as the foreign minister in norway not being compromised by her agents abroad, cannot forbear, when demands for a consul's revocation are made on the part of diplomacy, to make the matter the object of a humble report. [-- -- --] to § . it is proposed here that the legation shall have the right to suspend a consul guilty of such conduct as is spoken of in § , or prosecuted for a crime affecting his civic reputation. in this connection it should be remembered that, according to the present consular statute, the right to suspend a consular official does not lie with the legations, but with the foreign minister who, after having taken his measures, has to submit the matter to his majesty. as to the right to suspend future norwegian consular officials, this right, just as is done with regard to other state officials, shall according to the constitution be exercised by the king (see the constitution, § and aschehoug, norges nuværende statsforfatning, ii, .) to transfer this right upon the legations would be incongruous with the constitution. but not even with regard to consular functionaries who are not state officials, and who, during the present community in consular service, are suspended, by the superior consul concerned, the right of suspension should be granted to the legations. for, the view is held, in accordance with the consular committee of the joint kingdoms (see their report, norwegian edition, pp. , ) that between consular functionaries exclusively subject to norwegian authonity and ambassadors exclusively subject to a swedish minister, there is no possibility of establishing truly hierarchic relations: [-- -- --] [-- -- --] after the considerations made above, it will be obvious that from a norwegian point of view, these paragraphs appear as unacceptable, partly because they are incongruous with the constitution of norway or with the claims that in this country are put upon the contents and the forms of independecy, partly because, by this, the aim cannot be gained, that is intended by the whole negotiation, viz--to use the words of the swedish negotiators--to establish a separate consular service for sweden and for norway the consuls of each kingdom are subject to the home authority that each country decides for itself. (see the communiqué of march , ). on this account we recommend to omit from the swedish draft the paragraphs , , , , , and . if they should be adhered to, further discussion about the swedish draft will be futile. . extracts from the answer of the swedish cabinet council to the memorandum made by the norwegian cabinet council on january , . dated january , . [-- -- --] in the memorandum of the norwegian cabinet council it is suggested that § of the swedish draft can be interpreted so as to be meant with regard to any matter being treated by the consular administration, to give the foreign minister the right to stop the function of the latter and to assert his own authority instead. but as it is expressly indicated in the draft that the precept concerned is meant to be relevant only to a certain case specially mentioned, the opinion expressed does not seem to be justified. the precept has in view to regulate the relations between the foreign minister and the consular administration, if, in a matter subject to consular treatment, the foreign minister, owing to the origination of diplomatic or political circumstances, has found reason to interfere by virtue of the right the laws are meant to bestow upon him. when thus a matter is simultaneously treated by different authorities, that each within its province has to treat it, the possibility of a conflict can hardly be denied, and still less so as the limits between the diplomatic and the consular province, as is generally acknowledged, are extremely uncertain, and as on both sides there is a natural tendency to extend the sphere of activity to departments formerly looked upon as exclusively belonging to the other party. it cannot therefore be incongruous with the laws now being under discussion to insert regulations for the case alluded to; on the contrary, it seems to be entirely in consistency with the basis of these laws and with the end of their institution that such regulations should be given. and it can hardly be denied that in this case that authority, is the foreign minister, who represents both countries, and in the present case it must be considered that attention to the interests most important to the joint countries should be preferred. the precepts of §§ and contain the particular instructions meant to guarrantee that the consuls shall not transgress the due limits of their province. such a guarrantee cannot be dispensed with in the opinion of the swedish cabinet council. for, cases may be imagined when in a foreign country a consul behaves in a way threatening to disturb the good relations between the government of the country and the united kingdoms. to deprive the representatives of the united kingdoms, as to their relations to foreign powers; i. e. the foreign minister and the legations, of all possibility of interfering against the consul under such circumstances would, in the opinion of the swedish cabinet council, hardly be compatible with the dignity of the united kingdoms and might, with regard to the foreign power, involve a danger that should be escaped. the norwegian and the swedish draft alike contain regulations enjoining upon the consul the duty of obedience towards the foreign minister and the legation. also in case the consul should violate his duty of obedience, the proper consideration and regard for the position held by the foreign minister and the legation seem to demand the possibility for them to interfere. for this interference, however, such a form has been proposed that the decision of the consul's conduct, of his remaining in office or his dismissal would be made by the king in the cabinet council of that country represented by the consul. in support of his standpoint that »a joint treatment of matters concerning the consul's relations whether to the foreign minister, or the legations or the foreign authorities» must not occur, the norwegian cabinet council refers to the contents of the report of the consular committee and quotes especially a passage terminating in these words. »but the very instructions to the latter (i. e. the consul) or the disciplinary steps that may be occasioned by the matter, belong to the internal consular management and must therefore be issued by the norwegian department.» to this the objection should be made that the opinion of the consular committee is naturally not binding to the swedish cabinet council, and that besides the norwegian cabinet council has itself given up the same opinion in granting in its draft the foreign minister and the legations, the right to address »injunctions» that the consul cannot forbear to pay heed to. this seems to imply a giving-up of the claim that, in the diplomatic part of a matter, norwegian consuls shall be exclusively subject to norwegian authorities. [-- -- --] from the detailed statement given it may be gathered that the swedish cabinet council considers itself neither bound nor, out of regard to the welfare of the union, justified to cancel outright, in the way demanded in the norwegian memorandum, the abovementioned paragraphs of its draft. this does not however imply that from the swedish side alterations and modifications of the precepts proposed cannot be granted, but what is important in them must however be adhered to; and concerning possible modifications, which can be exactly stated only by continued negotiations, there is at present no occasion for entering into particulars. [-- -- --] . record of foreign office affair, made before h. m. the king in the presence of h. r. h. the crown prince in joint cabinet council at stockholm palace, on february , . his excellency the minister for foreign affairs gave, in all humility, an account of a humble report about terminating the negotiations for the establishment of a separate consular service for sweden and for norway. in answer to the foreign minister's recommendation in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council of the th inst., this proposal had been made by royal norwegian government on the same day, and a copy of it has been appended to this protocol. after having given an account of the contents of the report of the norwegian government, the minister proceeded to say: »the report of the norwegian government does not lead to any alteration of the recommendation[ : ] previously made by me. i venture however, to draw attention to the fact that, if it has been impossible to come to terms about the present question, the principal cause of it should be sought in the present arrangement for treating questions affecting the relations between the united kingdoms and foreign powers. that this arrangement does not satisfy the positions of the two countries within the union, has long been admitted. in connection with what was expressed by all the swedish and the norwegian cabinet ministers who signed the above-mentioned document of march , , i want therfore, to emphasize the desirability that the question as to arranging on other principles the management of foreign affairs should again be taken up for negotiations between the two countries. i do not, however, find any reason now to make proposal as to taking steps to that end; i only refer to what i have previously advocated». what the minister had thus stated and recommended, was endorsed by the other members of the swedish cabinet council. the norwegian part of the cabinet council referred to the norwegian government's humble report of the th inst. and proceeded to state that in its opinion a solution of the question at issue might, in the way expressed by the swedish cabinet ministers in the document of march , , also have been found with the present arrangement for treating foreign affairs. the norwegian part of the cabinet council naturally agreed upon the opinion that this arrangement did not harmonize with the positions of the two countries within the union. whereas, however, the minister for foreign affairs, on the plea of the document of march , , had pointed out the desirability that the question as to arranging on other principles the management of foreign affairs should again be taken up for negotiation between the two countries, the norwegian part of the cabinet council could not forbear to hold forth, partly that the said document presupposed a solution of the question as an independent case, partly that, after the recent occurrences in the consular question, the chances of further negotiations between the two countries, concerning the above-mentioned matters, were considerably clouded. _his majesty the king_ was hereupon pleased to dictate: »in the present state of things i find myself unable to take any other resolution than to assent to what has been recommended to me by the minister for foreign affairs. but i cannot forbear to express to my peoples my heart-felt desire that the two kingdoms, united almost a century ago, shall never suffer any differences of opinion to endanger the union itself. the latter is truly the safest security for the independence, the safety and the happiness of the scandinavian peninsula and her two peoples». upon this, the norwegian part of the cabinet council stated that they, in all humility, had ventured to dissuade his majesty from making this dictate. in accordance with the recommendations made by the swedish and the norwegian cabinet council, _his majesty the king_ was pleased to resolve that the commission entrusted to the swedish and the norwegian cabinet council in persuance of the king's resolution of december , , shall not lead to any further steps, and also to decree that the protocols of the cabinet council regarding this matter shall be published! footnotes: [ : ] in joint cabinet council of february the foreign minister had recommended that the task of negotiation, entrusted by the king to the cabinet councils of the two countries, should not lead to any further steps. . the note of the crown-prince-regent to the special committee of the storthing. dated february , . it is my wish to make the following declaration to the committee. in these fatal days i feel it a necessity to open my heart to you and i do so now only in the capacity of norway's regent. i fully understand the sentiments the norwegian people, in these days, are animated with and that you as the loyal sons of the fatherland in passing your resolutions will solely have in view the welfare of norway. but what is norway's welfare, nay, i say with the same emphasis, what is the welfare of both countries? i do not hesitate a moment to answer this question with the one word: union. it is therefore my sincerest hope and my strongest exhortation to you not to enter upon a way that leads to a rupture between the two peoples. it has so often been said that the dynasty tries to look after its own interests, but this is not true. the union is not of paramount interest to the _dynasty_, but it should be so to the two _peoples_, for it is a vital condition for their happiness and future. the royal power has never tried to prevent norway from obtaining her own consular service. the only condition for the fulfilment of this desire is, and must be, that the relation to the joint administration of foreign affairs should be arranged in a way securing the union and that this matter regarding both countries cannot be definitively settled until after being treated in accordance with § of the act of union. from my standpoint as the regent of the united kingdoms i can never act otherwise than as i consider useful to the existing union to which i hold myself bound to adhere. an attempt has now been made on the way to partial reform, which i am sorry to say has been unsuccessful. but one should not therefore give up everything and enter into a way that, at any rate, cannot lead to the obobject preserved. but the logical consequence of this is to enter into new negotiations with sweden on a larger basis. and to such negotiations on the basis of complete equality between the countries i declare myself fully prepared to lend my assistance. i consider it my imperative duty openly to hold forth to you the great dangers and the fatal consequences for each people to follow their own course. united, we have at any rate a certain power and importance in the european system of states but separated--how much the less the word of norway or of sweden would _then_ weigh! therefore, may these peoples assigned by nature itself to hold together, also do so for the future! when i see all this stand out clearly to my inward eye, you, too will understand with what sincere and intense, and heart-felt sorrow i consider thesituation we are in and the threatening turn matters now seem to take. in conclusion i want only to add this: when you go to your task, do so with entirely open eyes and consider carefully _all_ consequences of your actions. each one may act according to his best convictions! god leads the destinies of the peoples. may he give you and us all prudence so as to enter into the way that leads to the true welfare of the fatherland and of the north. i want this my address to be published. gustaf . record of justice-department affair held at stockholm palace, on wednesday the th of april before his royal highness the crown-prince regent in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council. [-- -- --] his royal highness the crown-prince regent declared: »i have to-day summond you to joint cabinet council in order to make the following address to you: i herewith exhort the cabinet councils of the united kingdoms, on both sides without an one-sided adherence to standpoints formerly held, to immediately enter into free and friendly negotiations concerning a new arrangement of all matters affecting the union, upon the fundamental principle that full equality between the countries should be tried to be established. the way which, in my opinion, ought to be chosen and in which, as far as i know, with a little good intention on both sides a solution of the difficulties satisfactory to all parties can be attained is this: foreign minister in common, be he a swede or a norwegian, responsible to both countries or to a joint institution; separate consular service for each country arranged however, in such a way that the consuls, in everything regarding the relations to foreign powers, should be under the foreign minister's direction and control. if, in the course of the negotiations, another form could be found for arranging the affairs affecting the union, always however with the preservation of the community in the management and charge of foreign affairs, which is an indispensable condition to the existence of the union, i herewith declare myself, prepared to take also this form into earnest consideration.» mr. berger, chief of the swedish justice-department, made the following statement: »in connection with what your royal highness has been pleased to declare and while emphasizing the desirability of opening further negotiations as to arranging the union affairs, i recommend in all humility to request in persuance of § of the act of union, a report from the norwegian government as to the proposition of opening such negotiations.» what the president of the justice-department had thus stated and recommended, was endorsed by the other members of the swedish cabinet council. the norwegian section of the cabinet council stated that, at present, it did not find any reason to give its opinion on the reality of the matter, but, with reference to § of the norwegian constitution and to § of the act of union, it confined itself in recommending the request of a report from the norwegian government. his royal highness the crown-prince regent was graciously pleased to decree that the norwegian government's report of the matter should be requested. . motion on the union question in the first chamber of the swedish riksdag. according to notification made in the »post-och inrikes tidningar» of april , this year, the crown-prince regent has on the th of the same month in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council made the following declaration: [-- -- --] whereas, through the exhortation thus addressed by the crown-prince regent to the cabinet councils of the united kingdoms, a suggestion of new negotiations has been made, which ought to be able to lead to such a solution of the union affairs as may be approved of by both peoples, and whereas the present state of things seems to occasion the riksdag to give already its opinion on the matter, we move, that the riksdag, in an address to his majesty, may announce its support of the declaration made by the crown-prince regent in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council on april th this year with a view to bring about negotiations between the swedish and norwegian governments concerning, a new arrangement of the union affairs. stockholm, april , . _gustaf ax. berg._ _gottfrid billing._ _gustaf björlin._ _hj. palmstierna._ _fredrik pettersson._ _gust. tamm._ _r. törnebladh._ _wilh. walldén._ . motion on the union question in the second chamber of the swedish riksdag. the declaration made by the crown-prince regent in joint cabinet council of the th inst. and published the day after in the »post-och inrikes tidningar», has given great satisfaction to us and certainly also to other friends of the union, to whom the relation arisen between the sister countries after the failure of the consular negotiations, has caused a great deal of anxiety. that new negotiations if brought about, will have a decisive influence on the future of the union, is obvious. the worth of the union, as well as the prospect of maintaining it for a considerable time to come, depend upon the two peoples voluntary adherence to it in the conviction that the union involves advantages well worth of those restrictions in each peoples absolute right of self determination as are necessarily conditioned by it. again, the failure of the negotiations would evidently produce among the two peoples a general and settled opinion that an arrangement satisfactory to both cannot be found within the union, and such a conviction is sure to undermine its existence. because of this, it proves to be of importance for the riksdag not to pass in silence the suggestion of negotiations given in the above-mentioned declaration, but to second it, if found satisfactory. it seems to us that the riksdag should not hesitate to take the latter alternative, since the declaration, while holding in wiew the necessary communion in the management of foreign affairs and in the two peoples' control of it, at the same time in consideration of its latter portion, has the bearing that it should not preclude the possibility to attain a solution satisfactory to both peoples. on that account we beg leave to move: that the riksdag, in an address to his majesty, may announce its support of the declaration made by the crown-prince regent in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council on april th this year with a view to bring about negotiations between the swedish and norwegian governments concerning a new arrangement of the union affairs. stockholm, april , . _carl persson._ _hans andersson._ _sixten von friesen._ _ernst lindblad._ _d. persson i tällberg._ _k. h. gez. von schéele._ _t. zetterstrand._ . the norwegian governments' report of april th . his excellency michelsen, prime minister, and chief of the justice-department, has in all humility made the following statement: in making this matter the subject of a humble report the department desires to state: as is well known the norwegian people have made a unanimous demand for the establishment of a separate norwegian consular service and have with equal unanimity asserted that the decision of this matter, as lying outside the community established between the countries through the act of union, should be reserved to the norwegian constitutional authorities. for the treatement of this matter the norwegian storthing has appointed a special committee and in the immediate future, this committee will prepare a motion that, in the present sitting of the storthing, a bill be to passed with regard to the establishment of a separate consular service. inasmuch as the scheme propounded in joint cabinet council should be based on the supposition that the further advancement of the consular question should, for the present, be deferred norway's approval of such a supposition would, in the opinion of the department be equivalent to giving up of the norwegian people's unanimous desire to now see a just right carried through which is due to norway in her capacity of a sovereign realm and is secured in her constitution, and for a reform requested with cumulative force by the development and the conditions of industry, instead of entering into negotiations between the countries, which, after renewed experience, may unfortunately be apprehended to prove fruitless or at best, to delay the realisation of the matter. for there is no denying the fact that the scheme for negotiations now propounded is nothing new, but that similar schemes in the earlier history of the union have repeatedly been tried in vain. the three committees affecting the union and made up of norwegian and swedish men, that in the past century, after previous treatment in , in , and in propounded schemes for new regulations concerning the mutual relations of the countries did not lead to any positive result. the report of the first committee was in subject to a treatment on the part of the norwegian government, but was afterwards not favoured by the swedish government; the report of the second committee, which did not give expression to norway's equality in the union was rejected by the vast majority of the storthing in and in the third committee no proposal of a future arrangement could obtain plurality among the norwegian and the swedish members. with regard to the last-mentioned committee we beg leave to draw particular attention to the fact, that all the swedish members of the committee certainly agreed upon founding the union on the principle of parity and equality, inasmuch as they proposed that the foreign affairs should be entrusted to the charge of a joint foreign minister of norwegian or swedish nationality. but at the same time the two fractions wherein the swedish members of the committee were divided, proposed such an arrangement of the constitutional responsibility not only for those members of the separate cabinet councils of the countries, who at the side of the foreign minister take part in the treatment of diplomatic affairs, but also for the foreign minister himself, so that no member of the norwegian committee could in this respect support any of the swedish schemes. in addition to the establishment of a joint foreign minister office, all the swedish members recommended an extension of the constitutional community between the countries which no member of the norwegian committee could second and lastly, the scheme for a separate foreign office for each country which already was the expression of the opinion prevailing among the norwegian people, could not gain any support from the swedish side. in this connection it should also be remembered that equally fruitless proved the negotiations about the arrangement of the ministerial cabinet council, carried on between the two governments in - and in - . if thus the results of the above-mentioned efforts have been but little encouraging, this can, in a still higher degree, be said to have been the case with the negotiations just now terminated concerning questions connected with the establishment of a separate consular service for each country. after these negotiations, brought about on swedens initiative, had led to a preliminary agreement presupposing a separate consular service for each country, subject to the home authority which each country decided for itself, and after this agreement had been approved of by the king and the governments of the two countries in joint cabinet council on december , , the matter, as is well known, fell through owing to the so called bills of the same wording that were meant to regulate the relations between the separate consular services on the one hand, and the foreign minister and the legations on the other hand. this negative result was attributed to the circumstance that from the swedish side a number of demands were finally made and adhered to, which are partly considered as incongruous with the constitution of norway and with our rights as a sovereign realm, partly would exclude what had been presupposed in the preliminary agreements viz. that the consuls of each country should be subject to that home authority which each country decided for itself. through this, a deep disappointment has arisen in norway which, if strengthened by new unsuccessful schemes, will imply the greatest danger to the good relations between the two peoples which in a far higher degree than agreements laid down in treatises or juridical forms are the basis of the concord and the strength of both peoples. under these circumstances the department finds it necessary to dissuade from entering into new negotiations on the union affairs ere a separate norwegian consular service has been established. not until this has been done, will the confidence return which is the condition of any friendly and successful consideration of embarrassing and delicate union affairs, and the department will then be able to recommend the opening of negotiations for arranging the management of foreign affairs and of the diplomacy and about the present union based on the act of union, and questions connected with this matter. but, if so, these negotiations must be carried on an entirely free basis with full recognition of the sovereignity of each country without any reservation or restriction whatever and consequently also--in conformity with what occurred in --embrace the arrangement proposed by the norwegian side as to the establishment of a separate norwegian and a separate swedish foreign office administration in such forms as each country will consider necessary for its objects and interests. in harmony with this it should, besides, be agreed upon that, if also new negotiations should prove fruitless one must not return to _status quo_ so as to adhere to the present untenable state of union affairs. there should be a binding presumption that the present state of things must not prevent either country from exercising its right of self-determination, but that instead each country can freely decide upon the future forms of its national existence. for not a coercive union but only the mutual confidence and feeling of solidarity of the free and independent nations can safeguard the future and the happiness of both peoples and the independence and integrity of their countries. with reference to the above-mentioned statement endorsed in substance by the other members of the cabinet council, it is recommended in all humility: that a copy of the present humble report made in joint cabinet council on april th this year, concerning new negotiations affecting the union may graciously be ordered to be delivered over to the swedish iustice-department. . record of justice-departement affair held at stockholm palace on tuesday the th of april, before his royal highness the crown-prince regent in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council. [-- -- --] mr berger, cabinet minister and chief of the swedish justice-department gave, in all humility, a notice of the norwegian government's humble report in consequence of the question raised in joint cabinet council on the th inst. vith regard to opening new negotiations concerning the arrangement of the union question; this report is appended to this protocol. after the chief of department had given an account of the contents of the report, his excellency ramstedt, prime minister made the following statement: »what in the norwegian governments report has been said about the reason why the latest negotiations, regarding the union did not lead to any result, does not, in my opinion, now require a reply, but in this respect, i only refer to the swedish cabinet council's declaration of january , , appended to the protocol made in joint cabinet council on the th of february last. in the declaration made by your royal highness on the th inst. and put on record, the swedish cabinet council expected to find a method of settling the differences of opinion as to the union affairs. therefore the swedish cabinet council gave its support to your royal highness's declaration. the condition of the new negotiations, however, was, according to the same declaration, that the negotiations should embrace all matters affecting the union and consequently also the consular question. whereas now from the norwegian side the thought of further negotiations is rejected, ere a separate norwegian consular service has been established and whereas besides, for eventual new negotiations, such a condition is made from the norwegian side as incompatible with the union and the act of union, it is obvious that negotiations on the basis indicated by your royal highness cannot now be opened with any chance of success». this statement was endorsed by the other members of the swedish cabinet council. the norwegian part of the cabinet council stated: »the section of the cabinet council refers to the report of the norwegian government from which it appears that on the norwegian side there is willingness to bring about negotiations between the countries on the conditions put forward in the report. it is also obvious from the report that from the norwegian side the intention is not to try to dissolve the present union. on the other hand, one finds it necessary to demand that such a dissolution should be within the bounds of possibility and that negotiations presupposing this eventuality with the consent of the constitution authorities of both countries, should be compatible with the act of union. under these circumstances, however, the section of the cabinet council that negotiations concerning the union affairs cannot, agree for the present, opened with any chance of success.» his royal highness the crown-prince regent was hereupon pleased he to declare: »whereas the norwegian government has unfortunately been unwilling to accept my proposition of new negotiations concerning all the affairs affecting the union, i must, while sincerely regretting it, let the matter abide by the declarations made by the cabinet councils.» . the riksdags address to the king on the union question, on may , . to his majesty the king. in both chambers of the riksdag resolutions have been submitted with the object of expressing, in an address, to your majesty the riksdag's support of the declaration published in the »post-och inrikes tidningar» and made by the crown-prince regent in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council on the th of april last. this declaration is to the following effect: [-- -- --] the riksdag realizes to the full the importance of this declaration of the crown-prince regent, as involving a possibility of bringing about a new satisfactory arrangement of the union affairs. it is therefore with an expression of regret that the riksdag has learned from the publishment of the protocol drawn up in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council on the th of april last, that negotiations founded on the basis indicated in the above-mentioned declaration of the crown-prince regent cannot now be opened with any chance of success. although thus the question of such negotiations seems to have been dropped for the present, the riksdag, however, considers itself bound to express its opinion on a question of such a far-reaching importance as the present one, and consequently the riksdag has resolved to announce herewith its support of the declaration made by the crown-prince regent in joint swedish and norwegian cabinet council on april th this year, and recommending the opening of negotiations between the swedish and norwegian governments concerning a new arrangement of the union affairs. stockholm, may , . with all loyal veneration. . the resignation of the norwegian government. dated christiania, may , . to his majesty the king. in case your majesty should find yourself unable to acquiesce in the norwegian government's recommendation to sanction the storthing's resolution for the establishment of a separate norwegian consular service, we venture, in all humility, to apply for permission to immediately resign our posts as members of your majesty's cabinet, since none of us well be able to countersign a resolution considered by us as noxious to the country. a rejection of this unanimous recommendation of the government concerning a norwegian law unanimously adopted by the storthing and issued by the whole norwegian people to be carried through cannot, in our opinion, be grounded on regards paid to the interests of norway, but would involve an abnegation of the sovereignity of the country, and would be a manifestation of a personal royal power in opposition to the constitution and to constitutional practice. christiania, may , . . report of the cabinet council held in stockholm may th , given by the norwegian section of the council. to the president of the norwegian government. the section of the cabinet council herewith presents the following report. in the cabinet council held by the king at the royal palace in stockholm on may th the norwegian government presented their proposal respecting the sanction of the storthing to the norwegian consular law. after which the members of the section expressed their unanimity respecting the proposals, and urgently appealed to the king to sanction them. they emphasized the reform in question for the development of the country in a national and economical respect, which was unanimously approved of both by the national assembly and also the whole of the people of norway. there might be many differences of opinion and divergencies on various public affairs, but in this case, there was complete unanimity among all parties and communities. the storthing, in conjunction with the government, had omitted from the law such questions as might have reference to the points that touched upon the foreign and diplomatic administration and dealt with the consular question alone. therefore it was thought that all cause of opposition would, on this side, be removed. it was therefore the nation's sincere hope, that his majesty would graciously incline to their appeal. the king thereupon read the following reply. »the crown-prince as regent in a joint cabinet council on the th april has already pointed out the only way, in which this important matter can be presented, and all difficulties thereby be removed, that is, by negotiation. i give this decision my entire approval, and do not find the present moment suitable for sanctioning the law, which implies a change in the existing partnership in the consular service, which cannot be dissolved except by mutual agreement. the present regulation is established in consequence of a resolution in a joint cabinet council, and therefore a separate consular service cannot be established either for sweden or for norway before the matter has been dealt with in the same constitutional forms prescribed by the act of union § . in refusing now to give my sanction to this law, i am supported by §§ and in the constitutional law, which give the king this right. the equal love i bear to my two peoples, makes it my duty to exercise this right.» the section of the cabinet council resolved first to institute further negotiations in the cabinet council in christiania, in order that his majesty might deal with this important matter, which might lead to a serious crisis in the government then in office. the king declared himself unwilling to assent to this appeal and pointed out that the norwegian government's proposal was received and dealt with. thereupon the section of the cabinet council made the strongest representations in reference to his majesty's decision, which would rouse complaints in norway, where they had hoped that the persistent and loyal efforts to solve the problem through negotiations with sweden, would have led to happy results in reference to the rights and claims of the kingdom. in this case norway's interests in the union were equal with those of sweden. for that norway's rights were respected, was a necessary condition for a safe guarantee of the union. a resolution after his majesty's decision against the unanimous proposal of the government, and after a declaration which was given with norwegian advice, would have incalculable results. it was in conflict without constitutional law, it was denial of the right according to fundamental law of independent decision on the matter, and a violation of its liberty, independence, and sovereignty. it would inevitably lead to the dissolution of the union. the section of the cabinet council further stated that no member of the present council would countersign such a resolution, and thus give it constitutional legality. they must therefore tender their letters of resignation. his majesty the king then read the following reply: »as it is evident to me that a new government cannot now be formed i cannot consent to he resignation of the ministers.» furthermore his majesty referred to the constitution § , and affirmed that the ministers had now dutifully »expressed their opinions with boldness», and »made strong representations» against his decision; therefore they were free from responsibility. but the same paragraph reserved to the king the right to make his decisions, »according to his own judgment.» he was therefore entitled, according to fundamental law, to make the above mentioned decision, and it was the duty of the ministers to draw up and countersign the protocol respecting the negotiations and agreements on the matter. the section of ministers hereupon alleged that according to the constitutional law § the prime minister was the responsible executive for the accepted resolutions. until the decision had been countersigned, it was not obligatory; a report could, naturally, be given of the negotiations, but not the customary protocol, including also a royal decree. countersignature implied responsibility for the king's decisions, but in this case the government could not take that responsibility. it was prescribed in the constitution § for all commands issued by the king (except affairs relating to military orders). but this conclusion was not a regular rule for the members of the cabinet; it was a prescription for the forms to be observed in order to give a command legal validity. occasions might therefore occur when it was not only right, but also a duty to refuse countersignature. the section of the cabinet council had appealed to the justice-departement for enlightenment on the subject, and they knew that there had been several occasions when the norwegian side had maintained the same opinions as those now presented. the departement now comes to the same conclusion as in when it discussed the question in another agreement namely in a resolution on the intended proposal for a new act of union; in this there is a reference to the norwegian conception that there is nothing to prevent a member of the council from refusing countersignature and resigning his office. this resolution is accepted by the government then in office: lovenskiold, krog, sibbern, schmidt, pettersen, herm. foss and fr. stang and by the members then forming the section of the cabinet council, due, j. h. vogt and fleischer. the section of the cabinet council finally decided that as a refusal to sanction would manifestly not be only injurious to the kingdom, but also a denial of its self-dependence, it had become a necessity to refuse countersignature, in order to avoid being a party in the matter. the norwegian who did countersign would from that moment lose all national rights. after which the letters of resignation from the norwegian government, and from the section of the cabinet council were delivered and read in the presence of the king. respecting this matter, the customary protocol has been drawn up. kristiania :th may . _j. lovland._ _e. hagerup bull._ _harald bothner._ . the king's telegraphic protest against the declarations of the norwegian government. dated stockholm, may , . stockholm, may . on account of what the norwegian government has declared--not only in writing in their resignations, but also verbally in the cabinet council of may after my rejection of the consular service law--i must declare that i, most decidedly, protest against the comments made there on me and my method of action. i adhere to everything i have stated to the assembled cabinet council as to my constitutional right. i beg the premie minister to give publicity to this as soon as possible. _oscar._ . the norwegian cabinet minister's notification to the king that they resigned their posts. dated christiania, juni , . in response to our humble resignations, your majesty has in cabinet council at the palace of stockholm on may th, decreed: »as it is clear to me that no other cabinet can at present be formed, i decline to accept the resignations tendered by the cabinet ministers.» according to norway's constitution it is incumbent on the king to procure a constitutional government for the country. in the same moment as the kings policy is an obstacle to the formation of a responsible council the norwegian royal power has become in-operative. by your majesty's resolution therefore, the constitutional relation between your majesty and the responsible ministers of the crown has assumed such an aspect as cannot be maintained. no government and none of its members individually can, in a constitutional country, be forced against their wishes to remain in office with a ministers responsibility, when their responsible advice in great questions decisive to the fatherland is not followed by the king who, in persuace of the constitution, is exempt from responsibility whereas under these circumstances it is the undoubted right of each member individually as a free man to resign his post, this will also, as a rule, be a duty towards the fatherland in order to maintain its constitutional rights. your majesty has declared that no government can, at present, be formed. your majesty has found this so clear that norway's king in these fatal days has remained at the palace of stockholm without making an attempt at bringing the country back to constitutional conditions. the policy manifested in your majesty's attitude towards the question of sanctioning the consular service law is, in our opinion, incompatible with the norwegian constitution. but no more than a new government is able to take upon itself the responsibility of this policy, no more are we able in office to render us participant of it by remaining in office. it is therefore our duty to resign our posts and to immediately give the storthing the necessary communication of it. this shall now be done. deep and discordant political divergencies have thus burst the frame of the constitutional norwegian monarchy. circumstances have been stranger than the desire of the individual. but the final settlement on the dissolution of the union, that through your majesty's resolution--no doubt passed with a heavy heart, but also with full knowledge of its consequences--has now been started, will however, --this is our hope--turn out before long to have been the introduction to better and happier days for the two peoples, whose happiness and welfare have always been dear to your majesty's heart. in conclusion we venture to tender your majesty our humblest thanks for the personal kindness and amiability shown to us during the time we have had the honour of being members of your majesty's council. we beg your majesty to accept the assurance of our full recognition of your majesty's difficult position and of our invaried esteem. but paramount are our duties towards the fatherland. christiania, june , . _chr. michelsen._ _j. lövland._ _sofus arctander._ _gunnar knudsen._ _w. olssön._ _e. hagerup bull._ _chr. knudsen._ _harald bothner._ _a. vinje._ _kr. lehmkuhl._ . the king's telegraphic protests against the abdication of the norwegian government. to _the prime minister_. i have received the communication of the cabinet ministers and i record a most decided protest against the method of action of the government. _oscar._ * * * * * to _the president of storthing_. having this morning received from the government the communication of the cabinet minister's resolution to resign their posts and to inform the storthing of it i want herewith to make known that, in a telegram to m. michelsen, prime minister, i have recorded a most decided protest against their method of action. _oscar._ . the reasons for the decision proposed by the president, in the storting, on the th june . having on behalf of the storthing received open information from the head of the government that the several members of the cabinet council have one and all resigned hereby declare: we were all prepared for the situation in which we now find ourselves. in meetings of the representatives, the question has therefore been discussed as to what measures would be taken by the storthing to meet the necessities of such a situation. every representative has had an opportunity for making known his personal opinions at these meetings respecting the situation and its demands. on this day the storthing must make known its decisive resolutions. i must also permit myself to express the wish, that these resolutions may be unanimously accepted, and without debate. in respect to the communication given by the head of the government i propose that the storthing shall make the following resolutions: the different members of the council having resigned office, his majesty the king having declared himself unable to form a new government, and the constitutional sovereign having resigned his powers, the storthing authorizes the members of the council who resigned this day, to assume until further notice, as the norwegian government, the authority granted the king in accordance with the constitution of the norwegian kingdom and its valid law--with the changes that become necessary through the fact that the union with sweden under one king is dissolved as a consequence of the king having ceased to act as king of norway. . the address of the storthing to king oscar, dated christiania, june , . your majesty, whereas all the members of the cabinet have to-day, in the storthing, resigned their posts, and whereas your majesty in the protocol of may officially declared that your majesty did not see your way clear to create a new government for the country, the constitutional regal power in norway has thereby become inoperative. it has therefore been the duty of the storthing, as the representative of the norwegian people, without delay to empower the members of the resigning cabinet to exercise until further notice as the norwegian government the power appertaining to the king in accordance with the constitution of the kingdom of norway and the existing laws with the changes which are necessitated by the fact that the union with sweden, which provides that there shall be a common king, is dissolved in consequence of the fact that the king has ceased to act as king of norway. the course of developments, which proved more powerful than the desire and will of the individual, has led to this result. the union entered into in has from its first hour been differently interpreted by the two nations both as regards its spirit and letter. efforts have been made on the swedish side to extend the union, and on the norwegian side to confine it within the limits laid down in the act of union, and otherwise to assert the independent power of both states in all matters which are not defined in that act as coming under the union. the difference of principle in the interpretation of the character of the union has provoked much misunderstanding between the two peoples, and has caused much friction. in the interpretation which, during the last negotiations between the two countries, has been laid down by the swedish government as against norway, the norwegian people were bound to perceive an injury to their constitutional right, their independence, and their national honour. the union was justified as long as it could contribute to promoting the welfare and happiness of both peoples, while maintaining their independence as sovereign states. but above the union their stands for us norwegians our norwegian fatherland, and for the swedes their swedish fatherland. and more valuable than a political union are the feelings of solidarity and voluntary cohesion of both peoples. the union has become a danger to this feeling of solidarity between the norwegian and swedish people which should secure the happiness of both nations and constitute their strength abroad. when the union is now severed, the norwegian people have no loftier wish than to live in peace and good harmony with all, not least with the people of sweden and the dynasty under the direction of which our country, despite many and bitter disputes affecting the union, has attained such important intellectual and material development. as evidence of the fact that the work and the struggle of the norwegian people for the full independence of the fatherland have not been formed on any ill-feeling towards the royal house or the swedish people, and have not left behind any bitterness towards any of these, the storthing respectfully solicits your majesty's co-operation to the end that a prince of your majesty's house may be permitted, while relinquishing his right of succession to the throne of sweden, to accept election as king of norway. the day upon which the norwegian people elect their own king to ascend the ancient throne of norway will open up an era of tranquil conditions of industry for norway, of good and cordial relations to the swedish people, and of peace and concord and loyal co-operation in the north for the protection of the civilization of the people and of their freedom and independence. in full assurance of this, the storthing ventures to express the sincere hope, that the present events, will turn out to be for the good of all, also for their majesties, for whom personally the norwegian people will preserve their respect and affection. . the king's telegraphic protest against the resolution of the storthing. despatched june th . as we hereby declare that we do not approve of the revolutionary measures which have been deplorably taken by the storthing in violation of the constitution and act of union, and in revolt against their king, we refuse to receive the deputation proposed by the storthing. _oscar._ . extract of the protocol of civil business held in council before his majesty in the presence of his royal highness the crown prince at the royal palace stocholm june th . [-- -- --] his excellency mr. ramstedt, prime minister, stated: »according to information received from norway the norwegian storthing has, on the th inst. passed the following resolutions: 'the members of the cabinet having resigned their office and the king having declared himself unable to form a new government; and the constitutional sovereign thereby having resigned his powers, the storthing authorises the members of the council who resigned this day, to assume until further notice, as the norwegian government, the authority granted to the king according to the constitution of the norwegian kingdom and its valid law--with the changes that become neccessary through the fact that the union with sweden under one king is dissolved, in consequence of the king having ceased to act as king of norway.' through this revolutionary measure, the storthing has not only without the king's assistance, but also without referring to sweden arbitrarily passed a resolution respecting the dissolution of a union which has existed on the grounds of legal mutual agreements between the two countries and cannot without mutual consent be broken. the storthing, having thus by this resolution, violated sweden's prerogative it becomes undeniably necessary that an extra session of the diet be immediately summoned in order to debate as to what measures should be taken on sweden's side, with reference to what has thus occurred. herewith i appeal that your majesty will resolve on the summoning of the diet, at the same time your majesty intimates disacknowledgement of the government, proclaimed by the storthing». in this address the rest of the members proclaimed themselves unanimous; and his majesty the king consented to this, and in accordance with the prime minister's recommendation was graciously pleased to decree, by open letter and edict, the import of which are contained in the appendage to this protocol, that the members of both chambers of the diet be summoned to an extra session in stockholm on tuesday june th. . address from the king to the president of the storthing. to the president of the storthing! to you, and through you to the storthing and the entire population of norway, i address the following words, in answer to the address and decision both of the norwegian cabinet and the storthing: the oath that the king of norway takes according to the constitution § on his accession to the throne, »that he will rule the kingdom of norway in accordance with its constitution and law», makes it a kingly duty for me not to pay any attention to the statement of the norwegian cabinet in reference to my decree on may th ult., in which i declared, that, for the present, i did not find it suitable to sanction the storthing's proposal respecting the establishment of a separate norwegian consular service. the cabinet thereby declared that this decree, being in conflict with the unanimous recommendation of the norwegian cabinet would imply a depreciation of a right in accordance with the norwegian fundamental law, independently to settle the matter in question, and also implied a violation of norway's freedom, independence and sovereignty, and at the same time the cabinet declared that no member of the ministry then sitting would be willing to countersign my decree, and thereby, according to the opinion of the cabinet, give it legislative validity. the norwegian king's prerogative, when he thinks the welfare of the kingdom demands it, to refuse his sanction to a proposal presented in due form by the storthing is unconditional. from this rule, there is no exception even though the storthing were to present the same resolution ever so many times in precisely the same terms. meanwhile according to the fundamental law (constitution § ) the decision of the storthing becomes the law of norway without the sanction of the king, but in order to accomplish this, are required unaltered resolutions from three storthings drawn up after three consecutive elections, which resolution must be laid before the king, »with an appeal, that his majesty will not refuse to sanction the resolution, which the storthing after the most careful considerations, believes to be advantageous. in the case now in hand, there was no question of any such resolution from the storthing, and therefore the regulation in the fundamental law § : could be suitably applied: »if the king sanctions the resolution, he signs it with his superscription, on which it becomes the law. if he does not sanction it, he returns it to the odelsthing (lower house) with the declaration that for the present he finds it unsuitable to sanction.» and the paragraph continues: »the resolution may not again on that occasion be laid before the king by the members of the storthing then assembled.» by this last mentioned prescription the constitution has evidently meant to protect the norwegian king's liberty in the exercise of the legislative powers which are his indisputable right. my resolve, not to sanction a law providing for a separate norwegian consular service, can consequently not be considered to imply any transgression whatever of the legislative power, which according to the fundamental law is the king's right, not even, if the matter in question happened to be an affair which concerned norway alone. but on the grounds of the valid union agreement between norway and sweden, it was not only my right, but also my duty as king of norway to refuse my sanction, for the dissolution of the existing identical consular office could only be effected through norway's consent to free and friendly negotiations concerning agreements for altering the union on the basis of full equality between the united kingdoms, to which not only the _powers royal_, but also the diet of sweden had unanimously themselves agreed. that such a respect to the demands of the existing union should imply an attack on norway's independence and sovereignty, is so much the more unfounded, as the fundamental law explicitly connects norway's independence with its union with sweden. norway's king must ever hold in sight the :st paragraph of its constitution: »the kingdom of norway is a free, self-dependant, integral and independent kingdom, united with sweden under one king.» the statement made by the council that my resolve, not to sanction the consular law, proposed by the storthing, would have no legal validity, as none of the members of the cabinet had found themselves able to countersign the royal decree supplies a supposition which i must declare is in conflict with fundamental law. the question of the significance of contrasignature according to norwegian state law, is not a new question brought up to day, but is older than the present norwegian constitution. it was already solved at the convention of eidsvold. a proposal was then made that countersignature was requisite in order that the king's commands should become valid, but was opposed on the grounds that it was against the general principles of the constitution for the division of supreme power. the same standpoint was taken in the fundamental law of the th november. this opinion was also expressed by the constitutional committee without contradiction on two occasions, and , when the storthing had even opposed a proposal concerning another matter. the change, which § in the constitution has since undergone, gives increased support to the opinion that the prime minister's countersignature is intended for nothing else than a witness that the king has made a decree of certain import. and that § is unconditional in its prescription of the duty of the authorised countersignature of the prime minister is a conception that is acceded to by those writers on state law who have framed the constitution. when the cabinet quoted an opinion of the norwegian government in when the proposal for a new act of union was under consideration, the cabinet has overlooked, firstly, that this opinion, in a manner that applies to swedish government regulations § , was intended only to refer to orders issued but not the decree of the king included in the protocol, secondly that the norwegian government could not prove that the norwegian constitution really provided any law respecting the right to refuse countersignature. the constitution on the contrary emphatically prescribes in § : »but to the king it is reserved the right to form his decision according to his own judgment», and in § : »all commands issued by the king himself (military orders excepted) shall be countersigned by the prime minister (before the norwegian prime minister). that under these circumstances i feel myself entitled to demand respect for a decree formed by the king of norway in a constitutional manner, is a matter for which no one can blame me. the powers which the constitution grants the king, in order to further the good of the country to the best of his convictions, are not greater than that they ought to be preserved to the supreme power, so that no constitutional practices in conflict with the principles of the fundamental law are introduced, which, according to the explicit prescriptions in § may not be done, even by an alteration of the fundamental law. one of the chief principles of the constitution--the most important of all, in point of fact--is that norway shall be a constitutional monarchy. it is incompatible with this, that the king should sink to be a helpless tool in the hands of his ministers. if, meanwhile, the members of the council should have the power, by refusing countersignature, to hinder every future royal decree, the norwegian king would be deprived of participating in the government. this position would be as lowering to the monarch as injurious to norway herself. to the circumstances that can thus be adduced against the validity, according to fundamental law, of the prime minister's refusal of countersignature, and against the efficacy of the dogma that the king's decree in order to be valid, must bear the responsibility of some member of the cabinet, can be added, in questions touching the union situation, two more reasons, which have their foundation in the fact that the king of norway is also king of the union. however opinions may have varied, respecting the conception of the unity which the union agreements have created for the binding together of the two kingdoms, one fact remains clear, that royal power is also an institution of the union. this position of the king's as being not only king of norway or of sweden, but also as monarch of the united kingdoms, makes it the king's duty, not to form decisions in conflict with the act of union § , respecting the settlement of matters in one country, which would also affect the other. the king's duty in the aforesaid respect is incompatible with the opinion that the one kingdom, by the refusal of countersignature by its prime minister or otherwise, could undo a royal decree, by which he refused to make a resolution prejudicial to the other kingdom or injurious to the union. in norway, when they endeavoured to adhere to an opposite opinion, when the norwegian people claimed the right to force the king to form his decision in conflict with what he considers his right as king of the union to concede, there was no other way of attaining this object than making the union, and also the king of sweden, in his actions, totally dependent on the will of the norwegian people, its storthing and its cabinet. a sovereign power of this kind i must characterize as being in strife with the union between the kingdoms as confirmed by the act of union it has been my constant endeavour to give norway that position within the union to which it has a just claim. my royal duty has forced me, even in conflict with general opinion in norway, to try to maintain the legal principles of the union. my coronation oath and the good of the united kingdoms prompted my decree concerning the settlement of the consular question, but in this i have been met, not only by the norwegian cabinet's refusal of countersignature, but also the resignation of its members. when i declared, »as it is clear to me, that no other government can now be formed therefore i cannot consent to the resignation of the cabinet», the cabinet answered by the threat that the norwegian who assented to my decree would in the same moment lose all national rights. i was therefore placed in such a situation that i must either break the oaths i took under the act of union, or expose myself to being without ministers. i had no choice. after having in conflict with the fundamental law, tried to undo the king's lawfully made resolution, the council, by resigning their office at the storthing, have left the king without advisers. the storthing has approved of this breaking of the law, and by a revolutionary proceeding declared that the lawful king of norway has ceased to reign, and hat the union between the kingdoms is dissolved. it now becomes the bounden duty of sweden and myself as king of the union to decide whether norway's attack on the existing union shall lead to the legal dissolution of the same. may the opinions of our contemporaries and also those of posterity judge between me and the people of norway! . the norwegian storthings documentary address to the king. dated christiania june th . to the king's most excellent majesty! norway's storthing appeals, in all humility, to your majesty and through the your majesty to the diet and the people of sweden to be allowed to express the following: that which has now happened in norway is the necessary results of the late events in union politics, and cannot be undone. and as it is certain that the nation does not wish to return to the old conditions of the union, the storthing considers it impossible to resume negotiations on the different constitutional and state-law questions, which in your majesty's address to the president of the storthing are referred to, in connection with the settled decisions, and on which the storthing and government have previously fully expressed themselves. the storthing fully understands the difficult position of your majesty, and has not for a moment doubted that your majesty's decree is made with the full conviction that your majesty has considered it to be the right and duty of your majesty. but it is the desire of the storthing to address an appeal to your majesty, to the swedish diet and nation, to assist in a peaceful arrangement for the dissolution of the union, in order to secure relations of friendship and cooperation between the two peoples of the peninsula. from statements made in sweden, the storthing finds that the resolution the storthing considered it its duty towards the fatherland to adopt, by declaring the union between the united kingdoms to be dissolved, has, in its form and the manner of carrying it out, been looked upon as an insult to sweden. this has never been our intention. what has now happened and must happen in norway, was simply done in order to maintain norway's constitutional rights. the nation of norway never intended an insult to the honour of sweden. your majesty having on the th may declared it impossible to sanction the unanimous decision of the storthing to establish a separate norwegian consulate, and as no norwegian government could be formed by your majesty, the constitutional situation became out of joint, so dislocated that the union could no longer be upheld. the norwegian storthing therefore found the position untenable and was forced to get a new government for the country. every other resource was excluded, so much the more so as the swedish government of majesty had already in april :rd emphatically refused fresh negotiations, he alternative of which was the dissolution of the union, if new regulations for the continuance of the union could not be arranged. the storthing has already, before hand, stated that the norwegian people do not entertain any feelings of bitterness or ill-will towards your majesty and the people of sweden. expressions to the contrary which may possibly on different occasions have been heard, have alone been caused on the grounds of the displeasure of norway at her position in the union. when the cause of this bitterness and ill-will on account of the dissolution of the union has been removed, its effects will also disappear. a ninety years' cooperation in material and spiritual culture has inspired in the norwegian people a sincere feeling of friendship and sympathy for the swedish people. the consequences will be, that when norway no longer stands in a position so insulting to its national sense of independence, a friendship will be established that will serve to confirm and increase the mutual understanding between the two peoples. with the confidence that the swedish people will also share these opinions, the storthing appeals to the authorities of state in sweden, in acknowledging the new situation in norway, and its rights as a sovereign state, to consent to the negotiations which are necessary for the final agreements in connection with the now dissolved union. the storthing is ready, on its part, to accede to any fair and reasonable wish, that, in this respect, may contribute to the guarantee of self dependence and integrity of the two kingdoms. in a legislative sense the two peoples are hereafter separated. but the storthing has a certain conviction that happy and confidential relations will arise to the benefit of the interests of both. if the above statement can find support, without prejudice and without bitterness, the storthing is firmly convinced that what has now happened will be to the lasting happiness of europe. on behalf of the welfare of the countries of the north, the storthing addresses this appeal to the people who, by their magnanimity and chivalry, have won such a prominent place in the ranks of nations. * * * * * transcriber's notes there are many typographical and orthographical errors in the original. they are listed below. no corrections have been made. storthing is sometimes spelled storting; the use of apostrophes for possessives is inconsistent; and a number of words are inconsistently hyphenated. neither these nor the frequent neologisms are noted explicitly. title page ph d. table of contents consular negatiations footnote - that it has confered page which outworldly represents footnote - the more pernicous page political ascendency chauvinistic strongwords page they may have complain in the committe of page represented in they the in administration footnote - ministeral council page policy of whech page government departements page by which the ministery footnote - wherevy it became incumbent page january et an disciplinary footnote - is missing a full stop at the end. page which decribes page buth it may nevertheless page norwegian gouvernment page swedish governement page , side note mr bostrom's page , "coun" omitted before "cil" at the start of the page footnote - foreign conntry page remedy the deficiences page tone is one af decision footnote - is missing a full stop at the end. page , side note accusations aganist page illwill against sweden formally, therfore, page the breaking op was prowed by page an disciplinary sense footnote - frame this laws page are unnessary page there is a missing a full stop after "rouse their passions" footnote - as questions refering page one symtom of this the tumultuons confusion page disssolution of the union a document adressed there is a missing full stop after "appointed by the storthing" page therfore the way und mr lÖvland page for the establisment page cause for displeausure page whole of the procedings page side note there is a missing full stop after " th may " page side note nd may footnote - one reeds, for exemple there is an extra full stop after "logic" page on extraordinary session footnote - the marker for this footnote is on page page the contents af page an norway cannot complain page been in office. the posts page absolutly their own page such as they are and--have been document , § inalinenable realm document , § his opinon recorded proeced against him document , § ezcepting matters of military command document , § accompaning the king footnote - these enactsments document th seame wording document , i the appointement or employment document , iii make direct inquires document should he brought against him document the preceeding draft document , this is the, intention document , § bound to fullfill document , § or secretely document , § immedately be reported document , to § when. in a matter document , to § wheteher to the document , to § norwegian authonity document forms of independecy there is a missing full stop after "viz" there is a missing full stop after "sweden and for norway" (see the communiqué (should have upper case s) document to guarrantee that the consuls such a guarrantee cannot the abovementioned paragraphs document i want therfore in persuance of document lead to the obobject thesituation we are in document i have to-day summond you an one-sided adherence request in persuance of document while holding in wiew document for the treatement the sovereignity of each country swedish iustice-department document justice-departement vith regard to document well be able to sovereignity of the country document may th (should read may th) i cannot consent to he resignation j. lovland (spelled lövland elsewhere) document the premie minister document juni , . in persuace of the constitution been stranger than document royal palace stocholm become neccessary document there is a missing full stop after "as confirmed by the act of union" and hat the union the quotation marks opened with "»with an appeal," are not closed the quotation marks opened with "»all commands issued by the king" are not closed document he alternative of which the land of the long night [illustration: your friend, paul du chaillu] the land of the long night by paul du chaillu author of "the viking age," "ivar the viking," "the land of the midnight sun," "exploration in equatorial africa," etc. _illustrated by m. j. burns_ new york charles scribner's sons _copyright, ,_ by charles scribner's sons. university press: john wilson and son, cambridge, u.s.a. _to_ _ex-chief justice charles p. daly_ _as i write this dedication, dear judge daly, a flood of recollections comes over me of unbroken friendship and great kindness on your part and that of your wife, whose memory i venerate and cherish. this friendship has never faltered for a moment, but has grown stronger and stronger as the years have rolled by. fortunate is the man who wins for himself two such friends! i have never ceased to remember the warm interest you and your noble-hearted wife took from the first in my explorations in africa. i can only give you in return love and devotion for all the kindness i have experienced at your hands._ _your devoted friend,_ _paul du chaillu._ _september , ._ introduction my dear young folks: friend paul has led many of you into the great equatorial forest of africa. we met there many strange and wild tribes of men, and lived among cannibals and dwarfs or pygmies. we hunted together, and killed many elephants, fierce gorillas, leopards, huge crocodiles, hippopotami, buffalos, antelopes, strange-looking monkeys, wonderful chimpanzees of different varieties,--some of them white, others yellow or black,--and many other kinds of animals. in this book i am going to take you to a very different part of the world. i am going to lead you towards the far north, to "the land of the long night,"--a land where during a part of the year the sun is not seen, for it does not rise above the horizon, and in some parts of the country does not show itself for sixty-seven days, during which time the moon, stars, and the aurora borealis take its place. "the land of the long night" is a land of darkness, of snow, of wind, and at times of intense cold; and we shall have a long journey before us, and shall have to change horses and vehicles at many post stations, and at those places we shall get meals and lodgings. when once in "the land of the long night," we shall roam far and wide--east, west, north--over a vast trackless region, covered with deep snow, drawn by reindeer instead of horses, and sometimes we shall walk or run with skees, which are the snowshoes of that country, and very unlike those used by our indians. we shall sleep on the snow in bags made of reindeer skins, follow the nomadic laplander and his reindeer, live with him and sleep in his _kåta_ or tent. we shall hunt wolves, bears, and different kinds of foxes and other animals, and sail and fish on the stormy arctic seas. we shall have plenty of fun, in spite of the snow, the terrific wind, and the cold we shall encounter; and, thanks to the houses of refuge which we shall find in our times of peril, we shall not perish in these arctic regions. but woe to the man who wanders in that far northern land without a guide or without knowing where these houses or farms of refuge are to be found, for he will surely succumb in some one of the storms that are certain to overtake him. we shall cross the swedish and norwegian mountains of the far north, which rise to a height of several thousand feet, and come to the desolate shores of the arctic ocean, and there live among the people. in a sunny room at the marlborough in broadway i have written this book. it is a dear little room, made bright at night with electric lights, and full of delightful reminiscences of cheerful evenings with friends, all kinds of knick-knacks, tin horns, "booby" prizes, mugs, etc.,--souvenirs of frolics at which i have had fine times. my two windows look out on the roof of a church; it is all i can see; the noise of a wheel never reaches my ears. it is an ideal room to write books in. i am surrounded by pictures of boys and girls, and many older friends; they look down upon me and cheer me, and when i write they all seem to say, "go on, paul," and at other times, they cry, "stop, paul, you have written enough to-day; go and take a walk, go and see people and life, dine with friends; you will work much better to-morrow. 'all work and no play makes jack a dull boy.' we shall be here to welcome you when you come back." how good it is to have friends, no matter how humble some of them are. i love them all. no one ever has too many friends, and life without them is not worth having. now, as i am ready to lay down my pen, i draw a long breath--"the land of the long night" is ready for the printer. i am just thinking: all my books have been published in new york, and all but two have been written, in the dear old city. your friend, paul du chaillu. contents chapter page i. on the way to "the land of the long night."--homesick.--tempted to return.--girls and boys say "no; go on, go on, paul."--decide to continue my journey.--winter coming on.--don warmer clothing.--from stockholm north. ii. snow land.--a great snowstorm.--fearful roads.--snow-ploughs.--losing the way.--intelligence of the horses.--upset in the snow.--difficulty of righting ourselves.--perspiring at degrees below zero.--houses buried in the snow. iii. halt at a farmhouse.--made welcome.--a strange-looking interior.--queer beds.--snowed in.--exit through the chimney.--clearing paths.--i resume my journey.--reach haparanda. iv. good advice from the people of haparanda.--warned against still colder weather.--different costume needed.--dressed as a laplander.--lapp grass for feet protection. v. what the arctic circle is.--description of the phenomenon of the long night.--reasons for its existence.--the ecliptic and the equinoxes.--length of the long night at different places. vi. fine weather leaving haparanda.--windstorms succeed.--a finlander's farm.--strange fireplace.--interior of a cow-house.--queer food for cattle.--passing the arctic circle. vii. skees, or the queer snowshoes of the north.--how they are made.--learning to use them.--joseff's instructions.--hard work at first.--going down hill.--i bid joseff good-bye. viii. a primitive steam bath house.--how the bath was prepared.--what are the twigs for?--i ascertain.--rolling in the snow.--fine effect of the bath. ix. how the laps and finns travel.--strange-looking sleighs.--different varieties.--lassoing reindeer.--description of the reindeer. x. harnessing reindeer.--the first lessons in driving.--constantly upset at first.--going down hill with reindeer.--thrown out at the bottom.--queer noise made by reindeer hoofs. xi. the last days of the sun.--beginning of the long night.--a mighty wall of ice.--the long night's warning voice--the aurora borealis and its magnificence. xii. the snow getting deeper.--lapp hospitality.--a lapp repast.--coffee and tobacco lapp staples.--babies in strange cradles.--how the tents are made.--going to sleep with the mercury at ° below. xiii. toilet with snow.--a lapp breakfast.--lapp dogs. talks with my lapp friend about the reindeer.--their habits and various forms of usefulness. xiv. moving camp.--another great blizzard.--a remarkable sight--deer getting their food by digging the snow.--how reindeer are butchered. xv. watching for the reappearance of the sun.--the upper rim first visible.--the whole orb seen from a hill.--days of sunshine ahead. xvi. wolves the great foe of the lapps.--how the reindeer are protected against them.--watching for the treacherous brutes.--stories of their sagacity. xvii. in search of wolves.--a large pack.--they hold a consultation.--their fierce attack on the reindeer.--pursuing them on skees.--killing the chief of the pack. xviii. great skill of the lapps with their skees.--leaping over wide gullies and rivers.--prodigious length of their leaps.--accuracy of their coasting.--i start them by waving the american flag. xix. we encounter more wolves.--my guide kills two with his bludgeon.--a visiting trip with a lapp family.--extraordinary speed of reindeer.--we strike a boulder.--lake givijärvi.--eastward again. xx. the lapp hamlet of kautokeino.--a bath in a big iron pot.--an arctic way of washing clothes.--dress and ornaments of the lapps.--appearance and height of the lapps.--givijärvi.--karasjok. xxi. leave karasjok still travelling northward.--the river tana.--river lapps.--filthy dwellings.--on the way to nordkyn.--the most northern land in europe. xxii. leave nordkyn.--frantic efforts of the reindeer to keep their footing on the ice.--the bear's night.--foxes and ermines.--weird cries of foxes.--building snow houses.--shooting-boxes.--killing foxes.--traps for ermines.--a snow owl. xxiii. jakob talks to me about bears.--the bear's night.--watching a bear seeking for winter quarters.--they are very suspicious.--i tell a bear story in my turn. xxiv. preparations for crossing the mountains to the arctic ocean.--decide to take the trail to the ulf fjord.--houses of refuge.--a series of terrific windstorms in the mountains.--lost.--gloomy reflections.--a happy reunion. xxv. a dangerous descent.--how to descend the mountains.--the most perilous portion of the journey.--exhaustion of the reindeer.--all safe at the bottom.--arrival at the shore of the arctic sea. xxvi. sail on the arctic ocean.--the brig _ragnild_.--Ægir and ran, the god and goddess of the sea.--the nine daughters of Ægir and ran.--great storms.--compelled to heave to. xxvii. a dark night at sea.--wake of the _ragnild_.--thousands of phosphorescent lights.--a light ahead.--an arctic fair.--a fishing settlement.--how the cod are cured.--fish and fertilizer fragrance. xxviii. among the fishermen.--their lodgings and how they look.--what they have to eat.--an evening of talk about cod, salmon, and herring.--the immense number of fish.--a snoring match. xxix. departure for the fishing banks.--great number of boats.--more than five thousand oars fall into the water at the same time.--quantities of buoys and glass balls.--a notable catch of cod. xxx. a great viking sea fight.--svein king of denmark, olaf king of sweden, erik jarl of norway, against king olaf tryggvasson of norway.--they lie in ambush.--magnificent ships.--the _long serpent_.--ready for the fight.--the attack.--the _jarn bardi_.--defeat of olaf tryggvasson. xxxi. sailing along the coast of finmarken.--hammerfest, the most northern town in the world.--schools.--fruholmen, the most northern lighthouse in the world.--among the sea lapps.--men and women sailors. xxxii. a sea lapp hamlet.--strange houses.--their interiors.--summer dress of the sea lapps.--primitive wooden cart.--animals eat raw fish.--i sleep in a sea lapp's house.--they tell me to hurry southward. xxxiii. comparison of finmarken with alaska.--the two lands much alike.--what must be done for alaska.--colonization.--importation of reindeer.--protection of fisheries.--houses of refuge. xxxiv. preparation to leave the arctic coast.--great danger of encountering melting snow, or rivers made dangerous by the ice breaking.--reindeer come.--farewell to the sea lapps.--i leave for more southern land. xxxv. we enter a birch forest.--the reindeer are soon fagged.--sleep on the snow.--the rays of the sun melt through the snow.--great difficulty in travelling.--meet herds of reindeer.--reindeer bulls fight each other. xxxvi. variable weather.--snowy days.--an uninhabited house of refuge.--animals changing the color of their fur.--mikel tells me about a bear.--killing the bear.--hurrying on over soft snow and frozen rivers.--the ice begins to break.--pass the arctic circle. list of illustrations "your friend, paul du chaillu." _frontispiece_ facing page "on the road were many snow-ploughs at work levelling the snow." "the husband suddenly disappeared through the trap-door and soon came back with potatoes and a big piece of bacon." "the boys got hold of my hands and pulled me through." "it was, indeed, a fearful wind storm." "paulus, try again!" "the man had to use all his strength." "i was shot out of the sleigh." "at noon i saw the sun's lower rim touching the horizon." "what a strange abode these nomadic lapps have!" "i went outside the tent with my host." "they were really working hard for their living." "the lapp passed him like a flash and gave him a terrible blow." "it was a fight for life!" "suddenly i saw them fly through the air." "i advanced cautiously." "the mist was so thick that i could not see ahead." "we remained seated on the ground, back to back." "once in a while i gave a look towards the ugly precipice." "i am clad in the garb of a fisherman." "i saw a big towering wave rolling towards the stern of the ship." "it is hard work to haul in the nets." "we sailed towards north cape." "he sat on his haunches and looked at us, uttering a tremendous growl." the land of the long night chapter i on the way to "the land of the long night."--homesick.--tempted to return.--girls and boys say "no; go on, go on, paul."--decide to continue my journey.--winter coming on.--don warmer clothing.--from stockholm north. at the time when this narrative begins i was travelling on the highroad that skirts the southern coast of sweden, then turns northward and follows the shores of the baltic sea and the gulf of bothnia. i had reached that part of the highway overlooking the narrow part of the sound which separates sweden from denmark, and had just left the pretty little city of helsingborg, and was looking at the hundreds of vessels and steamers which were moving towards the baltic or coming out of that sea. it was a most beautiful sight. i intended to follow the road as far north as it went, and enter "the land of the long night" when the sun was below the horizon for many weeks. i had plenty of time to spare, for it was the beginning of october. on that day my horse was trotting at the usual gait of post-horses, going at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. he knew every stone, ditch, bridge, and house on the road, for many and many a time the dear old animal had made this journey to and fro, often twice each way in a day. he had been a post-horse for over twelve years. his master, my driver, was very kind to him. he always alighted when there was a hill to ascend, and walked by his side, gently urging him to go on. when the top of the hill was reached, he stopped to give the animal time to take breath; then, before starting again, he would give him a piece or two of black bread, sometimes a potato, which he had put in his pocket before leaving. the people of scandinavia are always kind to their dumb animals. believe me, dear young folks, there is something mean and cowardly about a man who is not kind to dumb creatures. do not have him for a friend! as i looked at the ships sailing from the baltic, a sudden yearning to go home took hold of me, and i forgot all about "the land of the long night." i thought of all my dear friends, of all the school girls and boys whom i knew, and i wanted to see them ever so much, even if it might be only for a day. it would have made me so happy to look upon their faces once more. sometimes one feels very lonely when away from home, and that day i could not help it. i thought of dear jeannie, of sweet gertrude, and hilda, of marie, of pauline, of helen, of laura, of blanche, of julia, of melissa, of rowena, of beatrice, of alice, of maude, of ethel, of evelyn, of louise, of iphigenia, and others that were also dear to me. then i thought of charles, of arthur, of william, of louis, of john, of robert, of frank, of george, of anson, of mortimer, of eddy, of fred, and of many others. many of the girls and boys call me either "paul," "friend paul," or "uncle paul;" some of the girls call me "cousin paul." these are my chums, and it is lovely to have chums! i thought of the fun and good times i had had with all of them; and i felt on that day that i loved them more than ever as the great ocean separated us. i thought of all the young folks whom i had talked to in the public or private schools in many of the states,--for if there is a thing friend paul likes, it is to talk to the young folks at school. as i thought of this, it seemed as if i could see them listening to me. i suddenly became very homesick. i said to myself: "i will go to america and see my dear friends, and then return to go to 'the land of the long night.'" i could cross the sound, go to copenhagen,--the city was almost in sight, and a nice city it is,--and take one of the comfortable steamers of the thingvalla line, now called scandinavian-american line, for new york. as i was thinking of this, it suddenly seemed to me that i heard voices coming across the atlantic,--voices from friends, from school girls and boys, calling: "friend paul, go on, go on to 'the land of the long night' first, and then come and tell us how it is there. be of good cheer; no harm will befall you; you will be all right." friend paul cheered up when in imagination he had heard the voices of his young friends urging him to go on, and he answered back: "girls and boys, you are right. i am going to 'the land of the long night' first, and on my return i will tell you all that i have seen there." the dear old horse did not know what i was thinking, and was trotting along--until suddenly he made a sharp turn and entered the post station, the end of his journey. there i changed horse and vehicle, took some refreshment, and started again. during the afternoon, i came to the town of landskrona. there, looking towards the sound, i saw a steamer of the thingvalla line gliding over the sea on its way to new york, and i said aloud, "steamer, you are not going to take me home this time. i am going to 'the land of the long night' first, to the land of snow and of gales, the land of the bear, of the wolf, of the fox, and of the ermine. good-bye, good-bye, dear steamer! i hope you will have a successful passage, and also that you have on board many scandinavians going to our shores to make their home with us." i thought i again heard the same voices as before cry in response, "good for you, paul, good for you!" i felt now that i was a different man. it was as if i had actually heard the voices of the dear young people encouraging me to go forward. i suddenly became very restless and full of energy. i wanted my horse to go faster. the young folks wished me to go to "the land of the long night." to that country i should go. from that day i was ready for any amount of hardships, of bumping and knocking about in sleighs. i did not care if my ears and nose were frozen. all i wanted was to go ahead as fast as i could until i reached "the land of the long night." i was in splendid condition for the journey. i had been roughing it all summer in the mountain fastnesses of norway. i had been living on cream, butter, cheese, and milk, and had had bacon twice a week, on sundays and wednesdays. there were about one hundred and forty or fifty post stations before i reached haparanda, the most northern town on the gulf of bothnia. every day's travel brought me nearer to "the land of the long night," but it was still a very long way off. i had yet to sleep at many post stations and to change horses and vehicles many times. i entered and left many towns--malmö, skanör, falsterbö, trelleborg,--these last three were quaint, and the most southern towns in sweden. how charming, clean, and neat are those little swedish towns! i wished i could have tarried in some of them. then i made a sweep eastward, following the coast, and passed the town of ystad, and then i gradually drove northward, for now the road skirted the shores of the baltic. i passed cimbrishamn, sölvesberg, carlshamn, and carlskrona. from carlskrona the country was very pretty, and on my way to kalmar, and further north, i could see the island of Öland with its numerous windmills. the continuous driving, often in vehicles without springs, was rather hard on my trousers, and i had not many pairs with me. in a word my outfit was very modest. to travel comfortably, one must have as little baggage as possible; for if you have too much baggage it is as if you were dragging a heavy log behind you; you are not your own master, all kinds of difficulties come in the way, and you have become the slave of your own baggage. i bought clothing as i went along. i wished i could have found some trousers lined with leather, like those used by cavalry soldiers and by men who ride much on horseback; these would have lasted a long time. the weather was getting colder every day, winter was coming, and we had had a few falls of snow. i passed oscarshamn and westervik, and at last about the middle of november i arrived in stockholm. but i had yet to travel more than nine hundred miles to the north before i came to the southern border of "the land of the long night." i had to give up my new york overcoat for warmer clothing and get a new winter outfit. i bought a long, loose overcoat coming down to my feet. it was lined throughout with thick, hairy wolf skin, which is said by the people of the far north to be the warmest lining after the skin of the reindeer. i also purchased big top-boots lined inside with furry wolf skin, and a round beaver cap with a border which, when turned down, protected my ears and came to my eyes. i had besides a big, heavy hood, lined with fur, to be used when it was very cold. i had a pair of leather mittens lined inside with fur (mittens keep one's hands much warmer than gloves, because they are not so tight and they do not impede the circulation of the blood). the collar of my coat rose above my head and almost hid my face, and when i wore my hood only my eyes could be seen. in this winter costume i could drive all day long without feeling cold. from stockholm i drove to upsala by road--for i did not care for railway travelling--changing horse and vehicle at every post station. when i reached gefle winter had come on in earnest. now all the houses in the hamlets and towns which i passed had double windows, and at the bottom, between the two, a layer of cotton was spread to absorb the moisture. instead of sliding sashes, french windows opening like doors are used, and one of the panes of each is free for ventilation. the rooms were uncarpeted, just as in summer, but rugs were spread on the floors. as i drove along it was pleasant to see at the windows, behind the panes of glass, pots filled with roses, carnations, geraniums, and other plants, all bending in the direction of the sun. the sun gave scarcely any heat, yet all the plants in a room liked to look towards the light. i was always so glad at the end of the day's travelling to rest at a post station, to enter the "stuga," the every-day room, where the family lives, and see the blazing open fireplace. how nice it was to jump into a feather bed, and sink deep and be lost in it, and to cover myself with a quilt filled with feathers or eider down! when i found a pleasant station i would remain there a day or two to rest, for it was hard to drive day after day, for ten, twelve, or fifteen, and sometimes eighteen hours. it was interesting to see the whole family at their daily occupations; to see the women spin, weave, or knit; to see the men make skees, wooden shoes, etc., and the girls and boys go to school and have fun and play together, throwing snowballs at each other; making snow forts and defending them against other girls and boys that came to attack them. i wished sometimes to join in the fray, for i love fun. the snow was deep, and the snow-ploughs, drawn by three horses, were seen pretty often on the road. the streets in the little hamlets or towns were often blocked. [illustration: "on the road were many snow-ploughs at work levelling the snow."] chapter ii snow land.--a great snowstorm.--fearful roads.--snow-ploughs.--losing the way.--intelligence of the horses.--upset in the snow.--difficulty of righting ourselves.--perspiring at degrees below zero.--houses buried in snow. after i left the town of gefle the blue sky became obscured by clouds, a few flakes of snow began to fall, then more and more came down, and soon they covered the old snow, that was already of good depth. i had never before had a post-horse that went so fast, and i wondered why. the horse knew, but i did not: a big snowstorm was coming! he was afraid of being caught in it, and wanted to reach his stable in time. after a while the snow fell so thick that i could see nothing ahead. to make things worse it began to blow hard. then i dropped the reins and let the horse go as he pleased. as he knew that the snowstorm was coming, so he would know how to get home. suddenly he gave three or four loud neighs; this announced his arrival. then he turned to the right and entered a yard. he had reached home! the next morning it was still snowing; nevertheless i started. on the road were many snow-ploughs at work levelling the snow. these ploughs were of triangular form, made of heavy timber braced with crossbeams. they were generally from eight to ten feet in width at the back, which was the broadest part, and above fifteen feet long. they were drawn by four horses and attended by two men. the ploughs were followed by heavy rollers of wood to pack the snow. erik, my driver, said that every farmer is obliged to furnish horses to clear the road and level it after a snowstorm. the number of horses he furnishes is regulated by the size of his farm. it is very important that the road should be kept in good order, and the rules are strictly enforced. as we travelled along the road, it was amusing to see horses and dogs roll in the snow; they enjoyed it! the horses that we drove would often take a nip of the snow, and the dogs that followed us did likewise. one day when i was looking at two horses rolling in the snow near a farmhouse, i suddenly felt a great jerk and we were pitched out headlong! our horse wanted to have some fun! so he fell on his side and was about to roll over and enjoy himself, taking the sleigh with him; but we did not see the joke. we succeeded in putting him on his legs. the driver gave the animal a good scolding: "shame on you, shame on you!" he said to him. the horse listened, and seemed to understand him. i think he felt ashamed. as i journeyed further north the snow got deeper and deeper every hour. snow-ploughs were now drawn by five horses and generally attended by three men. the snowstorm still continued. it had now lasted over four days, and with no appearance of holding up. the wind at times blew very hard. in spite of the snowstorm i continued to travel, and had passed the towns of söderhamn, hudicksvall, sundsvall, and hernösand, with their streets deep in snow. on the fifth day we had great difficulty in getting along. in some places the ploughs had not passed over the road since two days before, for we were now going through a very sparsely inhabited country. some parts of the road were honeycombed with holes about fifteen inches deep, made in this way: each horse that had passed stepped in the tracks of the one that had preceded him, and made the holes deeper and deeper, which made walking very difficult for the poor animals. the further north i went the deeper became the snow, and travelling became tedious. our sleigh tumbled on one side or the other, upsetting before we could say "boo!" at each effort the poor horse made to extricate himself, we had either to get out of the sleigh or be thrown out. the poor brute would often sink to his neck, and sometimes almost to his head when he got out of the snow-plough's track! in order to make some headway and to make up for the slowness of the horses and bad roads, i travelled sixteen and eighteen hours a day, and when i came to a post station i was pretty tired. the ploughs i now met were drawn by six horses and attended by four or five men. the struggles of the poor animals as they sank continually in the deep soft snow and tried to extricate themselves, were sometimes painful to behold. we always had to be careful to drive in the middle of the road, where the snow had been cleared and packed by the snow-ploughs and the rollers. sometimes we could not tell where it was, for the land around was deeply buried and the track of the snow-ploughs was hidden by the fresh-fallen snow. when my driver made a mistake and drove one way or the other outside of the track, the first intimation we had was that of the horse sinking suddenly, being ourselves upset or nearly so. then we had a lot of trouble putting him on the track again. after several of these mishaps, the driver would say to me: "now i am going to let the horse go by himself. he is accustomed every year to go in deep snow on this road and he will know the way." "you are right," i would reply. when let alone the horse would walk very slowly, and he would hesitate each time he put either his right or his left foot on the snow, to make sure he was on the right track. if he thought he was on the left of the road, it was his left foot that came down first; if he thought he was to the right of the road, he put his right foot down, but not until he had made sure that he was right. if he saw that he had made a mistake, he turned quickly to one side or the other. one day the horse suddenly dropped one leg in the soft snow, on the right side of the track; this unbalanced him and--bang! he fell on his side, taking the sleigh with him. we were pitched out, and as we got up on our legs we found ourselves in snow up to our necks. only after frantic efforts did the horse succeed in regaining his footing. as i looked around and saw our situation, and that our three heads were just above the snow, with the horse's head looking at us, his eyes seeming to say, "are you not going to help me out of this?" i gave a great shout of laughter, for the sight was so funny that i forgot being pitched out--and i said to the driver, "don't we look funny, the horse included, with only our heads and shoulders above the snow!" what a job we had to extricate ourselves, put the poor horse on the track again, and afterwards right the sleigh. then we found that the harness was broken in several places, and we had to mend it the best way we could with numb fingers. i had stopped laughing, for there was no fun in that. "at this rate of travelling," i said to the driver, "it will take a whole day to go three or four miles. i do not know whether our poor horse will be able to stand it. look at him! he looks as if he were a smoke-stack, so much steam is rising from his body. he may become so exhausted that he will not be able to go further, and we shall have to abandon the sleigh." "it is so," coolly replied lars the driver, and he remained silent afterwards. i felt sorry for the poor horse, and reproached myself for not having tarried at the last post station. then i said to lars, "if the horse gives out, we will try to build a snow house for us three. you have some hay, and he will not starve. as for ourselves, we will try to reach some farm and get some food and some oats for our poor dear horse. i am very sorry we have no skees with us." there was so much snow over the land that i thought i had come to "snow land." it was over twelve feet in depth; it had been snowing for six consecutive days and nights, and it was snowing yet. i was now between the sixty-third and sixty-fourth degrees of north latitude, and i had to travel on the road nearly two hundred miles more before i came to the southern part of "the land of the long night." the little town of umeå for which i was bound was still far away. i said to myself, "i have to cross this 'snow land' before i reach 'the land of the long night.' what hard work it will be!" a little further on we came to the post station--and how glad i was to spend the night there--to get into a feather bed. the following day the snow-ploughs and the rollers were busy, and the centre of the highway was made passable for some miles further north. so bidding good-bye to the station master and to my driver of the day before, i started with a fine young horse and a strong young fellow for a driver. as i looked around, i could see snow, snow, deep snow everywhere. the fences, the stone walls of the scattered farms, and the huge boulders with which that part of the country is covered were buried out of sight; only the tops of the birches and of the fir and pine trees could be seen. i had not met such deep snow before! i had never encountered such a continuous snowstorm! "surely," i said to myself again, as i looked over the country, "this is 'snow land.'" i wondered how long it would take to cross it. the snow was nearly fourteen feet deep on a level. i next came to a part of the country where thousands of branches of pine and fir trees had been planted in two rows to show the line of the road. i could not tell now when i was travelling over a river, a lake, on land, or over the frozen gulf of bothnia! as we were passing over one of the barren districts, a swamp in summer, full of stones and boulders, without a house in sight, i said to my driver: "when are we coming to the next farm?" "at the rate we are going," he replied, "it will take us two hours at least." "then let us stop and give a little of the hay you have brought with you to the horse. after he has rested a while, we will start again." after the horse had eaten his hay, we started. we had not gone long, however, before we were upset. the horse had not kept to the road. we had a hard time to right the sleigh and bring the horse back to firm snow. it was such hard work that the perspiration was dripping from our faces, though it was degrees below zero. "i have had enough of this travelling," i said to the driver; "the snow is too deep and soft to go on. the snow-ploughs have not done much good here. they evidently could not go far." "i do not believe," he replied, "that horses will be given to you at the next post station, even if we should reach there to-day. but i am sure we cannot do it, and we shall have to stop at the first farm we meet and ask the farmer for shelter until people can travel on the road again." two hours afterwards i saw in the distance a little hamlet, or a number of farms close together. what a sight! many of the small houses were buried in the snow, and only their roofs or chimneys could be seen. from some of the chimneys smoke was curling upwards. i was delighted. every one was busy digging and making trenches, so that the light and air might reach the windows, or that communication could be had between the buildings, especially those where the animals were housed. in some cases the exit had first to be made through the chimney. it was a very strange sight indeed! and i said to myself, "surely i am in 'snow land.'" chapter iii halt at a farmhouse.--made welcome.--a strange-looking interior.--queer beds.--snowed in.--exit through the chimney.--clearing paths.--i resume my journey.--reach haparanda. soon after we stopped at one of these farms. a trench about fifteen feet deep had been made, leading to the door of the dwelling-house. here lived friends of my driver. i alighted and walked through the narrow trench and opened the storm door. in the little hall hung long coats lined with woolly sheepskin; on the floor were wooden shoes, shovels, axes, etc. a ladder stood upright against the wall. i opened the other door. as i entered i found myself in a large room. i saluted the farmer and family. they all looked at me with astonishment, for i was not one of the neighbors, and who could i be! the farmer said: "what are you doing, stranger, on the highroad with snow so deep, and when travelling is suspended, snow-ploughs abandoned, horses belonging to them gone to the nearest farms? you cannot go further until the snow packs itself with its own weight, and the snow-ploughs and rollers are able to work on the road. did you come here on skees?" "no, i drove," i replied. "where is your horse?" "at the gate," i answered. "where are you going?" he asked. "i am going north as far as the extremity of northern europe. i want to be in that land during the time of 'the long night,' when no sun is to be seen for weeks; but i am afraid i cannot travel further for a few days on account of the deep snow, and i shall have to wait; and as we cannot go further and reach the post station, i come to ask you if you can give shelter to a stranger far from his country." "you are welcome," he replied; and his wife added, "we are poor people, we have a humble home, for our farm is small, but you will have the best we have." "i thank you ever so much," i replied. the farmer put more wood on the fire, the sticks being placed upright, in which manner they throw out much more heat, and a sudden blaze filled the room with a bright glow. i like these farmers' fireplaces. they are always built of masonry in one of the corners of the room. the platform is about one foot above the floor and generally four or five feet square, with a crane to hang kettles or cooking pots on; and when only the embers remain a trap in the chimney is closed, to prevent the heat from getting out. the wife put the coffee kettle over the fire, and one of the daughters kept herself busy with the coffee mill. in the mean time my driver came in and was welcomed, and they asked him about me. when they heard i was from america they shouted, "from america!" and when they had recovered from their astonishment, the husband said, "i have a brother in america." the wife said, "i have a sister and two nieces in america," and tears came into her eyes. they did also into mine; there was at once a bond of union between us. to them the united states was so far away, and i was so far from home. they often thought of their folks and friends who had emigrated to our land. the family was composed of three daughters and two sons. the girls had fair hair and large blue eyes, and were strong enough to be victorious in a wrestling contest with big boys. the sons helped their father on the farm. the names of the girls were: engla matilda, serlotta maria, and kajsa maria; the mother lovisa kristina; the father carl; the sons were nils and erik. the big room was strange-looking. in one corner was the large open fireplace. a large hand loom, with an unfinished piece of thick coarse woollen stuff or cloth which was being woven, was in another corner. near by were three spinning-wheels; upon one was flax and on the two others wool. on the walls were shelves for plates, saucers, glasses, mugs, dishes, etc. the ceiling was about eight or nine feet in height. there was an opening in it which was accessible by a ladder. i wanted very much to know what there was above. along the walls were several wooden benches like sofas, upon which the people sat. a large wooden table with wooden benches and two or three wooden chairs completed the furniture. there was a trap-door in the middle of the floor, leading into the cellar; and as this never froze, the potatoes and other vegetables, the butter and cheese, and ale were kept there. by the side of the living-room were two doors leading to two small rooms. one had shelves for pails containing milk and the churn to make butter with. in the other room were a number of painted chests, with the initials of the owners upon them, and lots of dresses hanging along the walls, and a bed. the husband suddenly disappeared through the trap-door and soon came back with potatoes and a big piece of bacon. the sight roused my appetite. the potatoes were washed and boiled, and the pan was put over the fire and the bacon cut into slices and fried. the meal was put on a very clean table without tablecloth, and then the driver and i were bidden to sit down and eat. our coffee cups were filled to the brim, and every two or three minutes we were urged to eat more, to drink more coffee. how good were the potatoes! how good were the bacon and the cheese and the butter! i thought that that meal tasted better than any i had eaten in my life. [illustration: "the husband suddenly disappeared through the trap-door and soon came back with potatoes and a big piece of bacon."] when we stopped, for we had eaten to our hearts' content, with one voice husband and wife said: "eat more, eat more;" and before i knew it, our two cups were filled for the third time, and more potatoes and bacon were put on our plates. they all seemed so happy to see us eat with such an appetite. the dear farmers of norway and sweden were always so hospitable and kind to me. do not wonder that i love them. no one in these countries has ever tried to do me harm or ever robbed me of a penny. after our meal we stretched our legs before the open fireplace. i was more happy than if i had been in a splendid palace. i forgot the snow and storm. how nice it was to be in front of a fireplace when the storm was raging! the farmer put more sticks on the fire. the room was in a perfect blaze of light. gradually the fire died out, and when there were only embers left he stirred them with the poker until not a particle of flame appeared, and when there was no danger of fumes he shut the trap so that no heat would escape through the chimney. the time of going to bed had come. i was wondering all the time where we were all going to sleep, for there were no beds in sight. "perhaps," said i to myself, "we are all going up the ladder to sleep upstairs. perhaps we are going to sleep on the floor." but i did not see any mattress, sheepskins, or home-made woollen blankets anywhere--and these when together would have made a big pile. suddenly i saw the daughters come to the bench-like sofas and pull out a drawer out of each sofa. these were to be the beds. they were filled with hay, with two sheepskins on the top to be used as sheets and blankets. these sliding boxes could be made of different widths, according to the number of occupants that were to sleep in the same bed. i said to myself, "strange-looking beds these," when one of the girls said, "sometimes we can squeeze five or six into one of these beds." i was glad i was not going to be the fifth or sixth, for we should have been packed like sardines or herring. when everything was ready the boys ascended the ladder and went to sleep upstairs. a bed was given me, and the rest of the family slept in their own, two girls sleeping in one bed. then we bade each other good-night. how warm and comfortable were my sheepskins! in the middle of the night i heard the howling of the wind; a terrific gale was blowing. how thankful i felt to be under shelter! early in the morning, while still in bed, i was startled by the shouts of one of the boys: "father, we are snowed in! we cannot get out of the house!" "are we snowed in?" i exclaimed. "yes," shouted the two boys at the same time. i jumped out of bed to find out if it was a joke. it was true! the boys were delighted, and said with great glee: "the wind has filled all the trenches with snow. we shall have to get out through the chimney. what fun that will be!" i thought also that it would be fun. i had never got out of a house through the chimney, and i was anxious now to do it, for i might never get another chance. everybody was now out of bed. "it is good that the cellar is full of potatoes and that a sack of the russian flour has not been touched, so we have plenty of food," said the father. "besides, there is bacon, cheese, and butter," said one of the girls. another added, "we have inside firewood for three days without being obliged to go to the woodshed." the farmer said, "there has never been so much snow during living man's memory. old pehr, my neighbor, whom i went to see yesterday, and who is eighty-four years old, said that he never remembered such a snowstorm." i thought of the poor horse that had worked so hard to bring us here. "boys, we must make the way clear to the stable and feed your horse and mine," i said. "let us hurry and go out through the chimney." "they are all right," said the father; "i left so much fodder before them that they will not starve even if we could not reach them to-day." "dear horses, how useful to us," i said. "i often wonder that there are some men so cruel and so hard-hearted as to beat the poor animals when they have not strength enough to carry the heavy load put upon them, or to make them work when they are ill. it is a good thing that there are societies in many countries for the prevention of cruelty to horses and other animals." "it is so," said they all with one voice; "we do not know of any one among our neighbors who is unkind to his horse. we do not know what we should do if our poor horse were ill." "yes," said one of the girls, "when he was a colt our horse used to put his head through the door to get pieces of potatoes and apples. we love him!" the ladder was fetched and put into the chimney. there was no trouble about that, for the chimney was so wide. the shovels were brought in. there were three of them. then nils ascended the ladder, and afterwards crept to the top. this was a hard job. erik followed, and succeeded also in reaching the roof. then we heard voices coming down the chimney. "father," called the boys, "tie the shovels to the cord we drop." they had taken the precaution of carrying a cord with them. the shovels were hauled up. [illustration: "the boys got hold of my hands and pulled me through."] then my turn came to go through. i got into the chimney first, and saw the faces of nils and erik peeping down. "it is all right. come on, herr paul." i ascended the ladder, then crept up the rest of the chimney. the boys got hold of my hands and pulled me through. what a sight! i was black with soot. nils and erik were likewise. we gave three great hurrahs. we shouted through the chimney to the folks with great glee, "be patient, you will get out by and by." we worked with a will, and succeeded in clearing the trench leading to the door, and there was a great shout of joy when it opened. then the girls came out and joined us in making the way clear to the barn, to the two horses, five cows, and twelve sheep. when we opened the door of the barn the horses neighed, the cows lowed, and the sheep baaed. it was a fine concert of voices. they were glad to see us. it was their way of bidding us welcome. returning to the house we cleared the windows, then the well, of snow. the well was surrounded by a mass of ice. we drew water and gave a good drink to the horses and the other animals. the girls milked the cows, and gave fresh fodder to all. when our work was done we were all as hungry as the wolves are in winter, when they have had no food for days. in the mean time the mother had prepared a big meal for us, and we entered the house. we were ready to do justice to the food. the potatoes and the bacon quickly disappeared. after the meal we cleared the other windows of snow, and made passages to them, so that light might come through. it was a hard day's work all round! when supper time came we seated ourselves before a big wooden bowl of porridge called "gröd," made from barley meal. on each side were two wooden bowls filled with sour milk. we ate with wooden spoons from the same dish. there were no plates for supper, and once in a while we took a spoonful of sour milk to help the gröd go down. i always enjoy eating with wooden or horn spoons. i went to sleep in the loft this time. i wanted to be near nils and erik. they were fine boys, and we were friends. did we not sleep well that night! we did not awake until their father came to shake us. "there is nothing like shovelling snow to make one sleep," we all said, after we awoke. the next day the women were very busy a great part of the day. engla spun flax on her spinning-wheel, serlotta carded wool, and maria wove a thick woollen cloth to be turned into garments for three new suits for her father and two brothers, while the mother knitted woollen stockings. i remained three days on this farm. during that time the snow had packed and the snow-ploughs followed by the rollers had made their reappearance on the highroad. it was time for me to leave, for i was in a hurry, and i had to travel nearly nine hundred miles before i could reach nordkyn. when i left i put some money into the hands of the wife, and when she felt it in her hand she said, "no, no; to be paid for giving food and shelter to a person who is overtaken by a storm, is a shame. what would god think of me for doing that? no, no;" she said again, with more earnestness. i succeeded at last, after much insistence, in overcoming her scruples and making her take it; and once more i was on the road leading northward. travelling was still very difficult. i came late to a post station where i intended to spend the night, for i was very tired. the place was filled with travellers and all the beds were taken. men slept on benches, on the top of the table, and on the floor. these were travellers who had been detained on the road and were once more on their way southward. i saw a space on the floor between two men--just enough for me to get in--and i quietly stepped over three fellows who were fast asleep and made for the empty place, and went to sleep in my fur coat. the next morning i was once more on the long and tedious road leading north, towards "the land of the long night." that afternoon i reached the little town of umeå. the days had become shorter and shorter. the sun was very low at noon and was not above the horizon more than one hour. as i travelled further north i was surprised to notice that the snow diminished rapidly. i had left the great "snow land," or snow belt, which seemed to be between and degrees north, behind me. after changing horses at several post stations i came to the little towns of skellefteå, piteå, and luleå, and at last i reached haparanda, situated at the extreme northern part of the gulf of bothnia, at the mouth of the torne river, the most northern town in sweden. at haparanda i had driven about seven hundred and forty miles from stockholm, and over twenty-five hundred miles since i had left the mountains of norway. i was only forty-one miles south of the arctic circle, which is the most southerly part of "the land of the long night." chapter iv good advice from the people of haparanda.--warned against still colder weather.--different costume needed.--dressed as a laplander.--lapp grass for feet protection. i had hardly arrived in haparanda, when the leading people of the place came to welcome me. i was not unknown to several of them, on account of some of my books which have been translated into swedish; and they were my friends at once. they heard with astonishment that i intended to go further north. they looked serious and remained silent for a while. "we will give you letters of introduction to our friends," they said; "but after a time you will be too far north, where we do not know anybody. you will find only finlanders and laplanders until you come to the arctic shores of norway." after saying this they began to fill their big meerschaum pipes with tobacco and lighted them, and smoke came out as if from a small funnel. they gave puff after puff and were again silent; the wrinkles over their foreheads showed that they were thoughtful and anxious. one friend said: "the country which lies between the head of the gulf of bothnia and nordkyn, the most northern part of the mainland in europe, is very stormy in winter, the winds blow with terrific force, and midway between the shores of the baltic and the extremity of the land snow is also very deep. it is a roadless land." when i heard this, i said to myself: "is 'the land of the long night' 'snow land' as well?" then i thought of the great "snow land" i had left behind me, and how hard travelling had been, and i wondered if it would be worse in this second "snow land." if it was, then i had a hard task ahead of me. another friend said, "this big overcoat of yours will never do in the country you are going to. these long boots you wear will not be serviceable." "yes," they all said together. "this costume of yours will be unmanageable on account of the wind. you cannot travel in 'the land of the long night' dressed as you are. you must dress like a laplander. theirs is the only costume that can stand the weather you are to encounter, the only one in which you will be able to get into their small sleighs, and face the fierce wind and the intense cold." "remember," said another of my new friends, "that you are going to travel over a roadless country covered with snow, the reindeer will be your horse, and you will not be able to go about without going on skees, for at every step one sinks deep into the snow." then another added, to reassure me: "our country is a country of laws; we have order, and hate lawlessness. you will feel safe among the people. you will find where the country is uninhabited, or where the farms are very wide apart, houses or farms of refuge where you can get food and reindeer to take you further on. these are post stations where you can remain until the weather is good. there you are as safe as among us." i thanked them for all the advice and information they gave me and said that i would follow their admonition in regard to my dress. they then bade me good-night. the next day i remembered what my friends had said to me the day before, and with one of them i went to get the garments worn by the lapps. i bought two "kaptor."[ ] these are also called "pesh." they are long blouses reaching down to the knee or below, made of reindeer skins, with fur attached; with a narrow aperture for the head to pass through, and fitting closely round the neck. [ ] plural form. singular, "kapta." one of the kaptor was much larger than the other, for in case of intense cold one is worn beneath the other with the fur inside, and the outside one with the fur outside. i got a pair of trousers made of skin from the legs of the reindeer, of which the fur though short is considered the warmest part of the animal, as it protects his legs, which are always in the snow. the provisions of nature are wonderful! there are no openings to the lapp trousers, so that no cold air can reach the body. they are fastened round the waist by a string and are tied above the ankle. there the fur is removed and the leather is made very soft so that it may go round the shoe. i got two pairs of shoes made of the skin of the reindeer near the hoof, with the fur outside. this part is said to be the warmest part of the whole skin. all the lapp shoes are sharp pointed, the point turning upward. they are bound at the seams with red flannel. the upper part fits above the ankle. they were large enough for me to wear two pairs of thick, home-knitted stockings and lapp grass to surround the foot everywhere without pinching it. long narrow bands of bright color are attached to them. these bands are wound around the legs above the ankles, thus preventing snow and wind from penetrating. these shoes can only be used in cold weather when the snow is crisp, and are especially adapted for skees, as they are pointed and have no heels. i procured also four pairs of mittens, one made of the skin of the reindeer near the hoof, another of wool with a sort of down, the third of cow's hair, and the fourth of goat's hair; the two latter are the warmest, but they are very perishable. i also got two pairs of very thick home-knitted stockings. these were of wool. i succeeded in getting two other pairs made of cow's hair, and another pair made of goat's hair, and i was especially cautioned to handle them gently when i put them on or took them off--likewise with the mittens of goat's and cow's hair. i also got a vest made of soft reindeer skin to put on over my underwear, and two sets of thick underwear of homespun, for these are much warmer than those that are made by machinery. i added to my outfit one pair of long and another shorter pair of boots for wet weather in the spring, when the snow is damp and watery. these boots were made of the skin of the lower part of the hind legs of reindeer, the fur being scraped off. the leather is black and it is prepared in such a way as to exclude water or moisture. they were rubbed with a composition of reindeer fat and tar. then i bought a square lapp cap, the top filled with eider down. the rim could be turned down to protect the ears and the forehead. after procuring my lapp outfit, i thought i would try to dress myself in my new garments. the friend who accompanied me said: "i will show you how to prepare your feet before you put your shoes on. one can never be too careful, otherwise the feet are sure to be cold on a journey." i put on my two new pairs of hand-knitted stockings. he surrounded my feet over the stockings with lapp grass; then he put my shoe on most carefully, with the lower part of the trousers inside, and then wound the bands not too tight round my ankle, saying, "now your feet will be warm all day even if you spend all your time on skees. you see how careful i have been in putting on your shoes. dressed as you are you can defy the cold. if you follow the advice i have given you, you will never have cold feet no matter how long you drive or walk in the snow. but take great care that neither shoes, nor stockings, nor grass be damp. i think it will be well for you to let a lapp or a finn put your shoes on before you start on a long journey--until you can do it yourself quite well." the "shoe grass" of which i have spoken grows in the arctic regions in pools in the summer. it is gathered in great quantity by the laplanders and finlanders, who dry it and keep it carefully, for it is indispensable in winter in their land of snow and cold. it has the peculiarity of retaining heat and keeping the feet warm and absorbing the moisture. i always travelled with a good stock of that grass, twisted and knotted together in small bundles. then i looked at myself in the looking-glass, and for the first time saw how i appeared in my new outfit, my lapp costume. the frontispiece will show you exactly how i was dressed (without a hood), for it is from a photograph. unfortunately, being a bachelor, i don't know how to take care of things, and my costume, gloves, stockings, and mittens have been eaten up by moths, and i have had to throw them away. but i appeared before the american geographical society in new york dressed in this suit, seated in my lapp sleigh, with a stuffed reindeer harnessed to it, and my bearskin over me. to complete my outfit i added two large reindeer-skin bags, one larger, so that the smaller one could be put inside it without much difficulty. i was to sleep in these bags when obliged to rest out doors on the snow. one bag was sufficient in ordinary cold weather--say or degrees below zero; the other i would use when the thermometer ranged from to or degrees below zero. chapter v what the arctic circle is.--description of the phenomenon of the long night.--reasons for its existence.--the ecliptic and the equinoxes.--length of the long night at different places. now i was ready to go further northward beyond the arctic circle, and roam in "the land of the long night." the arctic circle is an imaginary line, just as are the equator and the two tropics, going round the earth, and begins at ° ' north latitude and is miles from the north pole. it is the southernmost limit of the region where the sun disappears in winter, under the horizon, for one day. at the north pole on the nd of september the sun descends to the horizon and then disappears till the th of march, when it reappears and remains in sight above the horizon until the nd of september. so at the pole the year is made of one day and one night. on the nd day of december it disappears at the arctic circle for one day only. the space between the arctic circle and the pole is therefore called the arctic region, or the frigid zone. consequently, the further one advances to the north, the longer the duration of the night. i will tell you the causes of this phenomenon of the long night. the earth revolves about the sun once every year, and rotates on its axis once in twenty-four hours, which makes what we call a day. rotate means to move round a centre; thus the daily turning of the earth on its axis is a rotation. its annual course round the sun is called a revolution. the axis about which the daily rotation takes place is an imaginary straight line passing through the centre of the earth, and its extremities are called poles, hence the names of the north and the south pole. the diurnal movement is from west to east and takes place in twenty-four hours. the earth's orbit, or the path described by it in its annual revolution about the sun, is, so to speak, a flattened circle, somewhat elongated, called an ellipse. the axis of the earth is not perpendicular to the plane of the orbit, which is an imaginary flat surface enclosed by the line of the earth's revolution, but is inclined to it at an angle of ° ', which angle is called the obliquity of the ecliptic. the ecliptic is the path or way among the fixed stars which the earth in its orbit appears to describe to an eye placed in the sun, for the sun is the fixed centre and not the earth. the earth, therefore, in moving about the sun, is not upright, but inclined, so that in different parts of its course it always presents a half, but always a different half, of its surface to the sun. twice in the year, st of march and st of september, the exact half of the earth along its axis is illuminated. on these dates, therefore, any point on the earth's surface is, during the rotation of the earth on its axis, half the time in light and half the time in darkness,--that is, day and night are twelve hours each all over the globe. these two dates are called equinoxes, march st being the vernal, and september st being the autumnal, equinox. as the earth moves in its orbit after march st, the north pole inclines more and more towards the sun, till june st, after which it turns away from it. on september st day and night are again equal all over the earth, and after this the north pole is turned away from the sun, and does not receive its light again till the following march. it will thus be seen that from the autumnal to the vernal equinox the north pole is in darkness and has a night of six months' duration, during which time the sun is not seen. therefore, any point near the pole is, during any given twenty-four hours, longer in darkness than in light. the number of days of constant darkness depends on the latitude of the observer. at the pole the sun is not seen for six months, at the arctic circle it is invisible, as i have said, for only one day in december. at north cape and nordkyn the sun disappears november th, and is not seen again till january th. that is the reason i have called the land between north cape and the arctic circle "the land of the long night." this "land of the long night" commences at nordkyn, or the most northern point of the continent of europe,--or at north cape, but five miles distant--on the th of november. the whole sun appears on that day, its lower rim just touching above the horizon at noon. the next day, th of november, the lower half of the sun has disappeared, and the following day, the th, it sinks below the horizon and does not show itself again until the th of january--hence the night there lasts sixty-seven days of twenty-four hours each. and at the arctic circle the sun is only completely hidden on the nd of december. the following table shows you the dates of the disappearance of the sun, and of its reappearance at the principal places to which we are going. the continuous night _where the sun is last seen, begins at:_ karasjok november th vardö nd hammerfest st north cape or nordkyn th _where the sun is first seen again, begins at:_ karasjok january th vardö th hammerfest st north cape or nordkyn th i hope that i have been successful in giving you an idea of day and night in the frigid zone. chapter vi fine weather leaving haparanda.--windstorms succeed.--a finlander's farm.--strange fireplace.--interior of a cow-house.--queer food for cattle.--passing the arctic circle. i left haparanda in the beginning of january, surrounded by the friends who had taken such an interest in me. the atmosphere was clear, and not a cloud was to be seen in the pale blue sky, turning into greenish as it approached the horizon. there was not a breath of wind. once the thermometer marked degrees below zero. "be careful," said my friends. "this is treacherous weather for ears and noses, there is danger of their getting frozen; rub them, and also your face, now and then with snow. keep your ears covered, and protect them with your hood. if it becomes colder put on your mask." i thanked them for their kind advice, but replied: "no mask for me just now, i want to breathe this pure invigorating air as much as i can. i want it to reach my lungs." [illustration: "it was indeed, a fearful wind storm."] "be careful in such weather," they repeated. "this is beautiful weather indeed, but sometimes it does not last long and is followed by furious gales, or great snowstorms; but we hope this fine weather will follow you for many days. often it lasts quite a while." then we bade good-bye to each other. they tucked the sheepskin round me, and bade the driver to take good care of paulus. soon after this we were out of haparanda and on the highroad leading to pajala, which was about one hundred and ten miles further north, there being ten or twelve post stations between the two places. sleighing was fine, the road had been used much, so we went on at a very fast pace. it was just the weather people, horses, dogs, and reindeer liked. i liked it also very much, for it was so exhilarating, and i felt so well and so strong. i was ready, nevertheless, for all kinds of weather, and i was fully prepared to meet great storms, for i wanted to encounter the blizzards of the arctic regions just to find out how strongly the wind could blow. i found out later! i changed horses at several post stations during the day, among them the stations of korpikyla, niemis, ruskola, and matarengi. i found that the finnish language was now prevalent, swedish being only spoken by comparatively few people. that day was the end of the fine weather. towards evening the wind was blowing very hard, and it increased in strength every minute until it blew a perfect hurricane. then what my friends had said to me came to mind. it was indeed a fearful windstorm! the gale had become such that the horse at times did not seem to have strength enough to pull our sleigh. the snow flew in thick cloudy masses to a great height, curling and recurling upon itself and blinding us. fortunately our robes were fastened very securely. i wore my hood, and it was so arranged that my eyes were the only part of my face that was not covered. the wind was so powerful that our sleigh was in continual danger of upsetting, and was only saved because it was so low. i was glad indeed when i reached the hamlet of matarengi with its red-painted log church, two hundred years old, and separate belfry of the same color. the windstorm lasted three days. during that time i found that the temperature varied from to degrees below zero. then it became calm, the sky was perfectly clear, and the mercury marked degrees below zero. there was not a breath of wind. it was fine, and i made ready to continue my journey. wherever i changed horse and sleigh, before starting i shook hands with the station master and his family, and after this bade good-bye to the driver who had brought me to the place. one must not forget that little politeness in these northern lands, otherwise the people would think you ill-bred or proud and would dislike you. no man has ever made friends by being proud or conceited. it is, after all, very silly, and often very ill-bred. i have found that one gets along much better in the world by being polite and obliging. it is so much easier to be pleasant than sour and gruff. in the former case you are happy; in the latter discontented and wretched. i always feel sorry when i meet people who are proud or conceited. often i laugh at them in my sleeve, and when that pride or conceit becomes overbearing i have great contempt for them, and do not wish to have anything to do with them. i approached very fast the regions of "the land of the long night." the road was filled with freshly made, huge snowdrifts, which greatly impeded our progress. towards noon the wind increased again, and soon i was in a worse gale than before. i said to myself, "now i am indeed in 'the land of the wind.'" suddenly i saw dimly through the clouds of snow the dwellings of a farm. "let us go there," i said to my driver, "for we cannot reach the post station to-day." our horse evidently thought as we did; he had made up his mind to go no further, and preferred to be in a stable. he suddenly turned to the right, entered the yard, and stopped before the dwelling-house of the farm. i alighted. i was so dizzy from the effects of the wind that i could not walk straight, and tottered about for a minute or more. my driver was in the same condition. i entered the house and found myself in a large room, in the midst of a family of finlanders, whose language is very unlike the swedish or norwegian. i was welcomed at once by all. i looked around, and saw a queer-looking structure, built of slabs of stone plastered over. it was about seven feet square, the inside oven-like in shape. they were just lighting a fire; then the door was closed. in one section of the structure was an open fireplace used for cooking. poles were secured to the ceiling near the fireplace, upon which hung garments,--stockings, shoes, boots, and other articles. in the middle of the room was the usual trap-door leading into the cellar. there were two large hand looms upon which two girls were weaving. these two looms were very old and had been several generations in the family. three other girls were occupied with wheels, spinning wool and flax. along the walls of this large room, which was about twenty feet square, were a number of bench-like sofas, used for beds. two or three wooden chairs, and a large wooden table surrounded by wooden benches, made up the rest of the furniture. the stove began to heat the room fearfully, for after the firewood had been reduced to charcoal, and the fumes from it were gone, the sliding trap-door in the chimney had been closed, thus preventing the heat from escaping. the thick walls of the oven-like stove had been heated, and threw out a great deal of heat, which to me soon became unbearable. the farmer said to me that the walls would remain warm for two or three days. the windows were all tight; none could be opened, and the only ventilation came through the door when some one came in or went out. i went out and looked at the farm buildings while my sleigh was being made ready. i was surprised to see the buildings of the farm and the big timber of the log house, for i was so far north. the yard was enclosed by houses on three sides. the dwelling-house, the barn, and the cow-houses were the largest buildings. there were besides a blacksmith shop, a storehouse, and a shed for carts. all these buildings were painted red. in the middle of the yard was an old-fashioned well, with its sweep, having at one end a bucket and at the other a heavy stone, and surrounded by a thick mass of ice. from the well there was a trough going into the cow-house, which i entered. the cattle were small and well-shaped and in good order. the building was very low, the windows very small and giving but little light. the floor was entirely planked over, and there were pens on each side. looking towards the end of the building i saw a girl standing by a huge iron pot, about four feet in diameter and three feet deep, encased in masonry. she was putting coarse marsh grass into the pot, which was filled with water made warm by a fire underneath. "much of the grass we gather," said the farmer, "is coarse, and it is so tough that the cattle cannot eat it; so we have to prepare it in this way before we give it to them." a number of sheep were penned in a corner. "our three horses," said the farmer, "have a stable for themselves." this farm was one of the good farms, and there were a number quite as good. in some the dwellings are of two stories, but these were the great exception. in the mean time supper had been prepared. dry mutton as tough as leather but cut very thin, smoked reindeer meat, hard bread, butter, cheese, two wooden bowls of buttermilk, and fish were put on the table. this was a great repast, in my honor. there was no tablecloth, no napkin, no fork, the flat bread was used instead of plates, we had wooden spoons for the sour milk, and helped ourselves to it from the common dish. a little after supper came bedtime. the girls, looking at the clock, which marked nine, suddenly got up to make the beds ready. they pulled out the sliding boxes, in one of which three of them were to sleep. the boxes were filled with straw and hay, and had homespun blankets or sheepskins, and eider down or feather pillows. the sofa-like beds were all along the walls, for there was a large family. it was well that i was at the farm. a more terrific windstorm than all those i had seen before, arose during the night. in the morning the snow swirled to an immense height, hiding everything from sight; the whole country was enveloped in a thick cloud; the huge snowdrifts were carried hither and thither. the storm lasted two days, and after it was over the weather became calm, the temperature was ° below zero, and when the atmosphere was very clear we had about three or four hours of twilight. then i bade farewell to the good farmer and his wife, and once more i was on my way to "the land of the long night," which was now very near. the next day i came to a little lake the natives called kunsijarvi, and further on i came to still another lake called rukojarvi; and between these two i had crossed the arctic circle. but it was january, the sun showed itself above the horizon at noon. near the shore of lake rukojarvi was a solitary farm, where i stopped. chapter vii skees, or the queer snowshoes of the north.--how they are made.--learning to use them.--joseff's instructions.--hard work at first.--going down hill.--i bid joseff good-bye. in the morning joseff, the owner of the farm, said to me: "paulus, before you go further on your journey you must learn to go on skees; otherwise you will not be able to travel, for the snow is very deep further north. i will teach you how to use skees, but in order to learn you must remain with us for some time." then pointing to the lake near by, he said, "this is the place where you are to learn. it will be easy for you to walk with them, for the surface of the lake is smooth and flat." after saying this, he went into one of the outer buildings of the farm and came out with several beautiful pairs of skees, and handed one of them to me with these words: "i give them to you; when you wander further north and walk with them, think of me." i thanked joseff for his gift and said: "i will always remember you, also your wife and your children, without these skees." then looking at them, i added, "how beautiful they are! how proud i shall be when i walk with them." these skees, or snowshoes of northern europe, are made of wood from the fir tree; at their thickest part, in the centre, they are between four and five inches in width. here, where the foot rests, there is a piece of birch bark fastened, over which there is a loop, and through this loop the foot passes. that part of the skee under the foot is concave, and here it is thickest, so that where it supports the weight of the person it cannot bend downward. the under part of the skee is grooved and polished, and soon becomes by use as smooth as glass. the forward end turns slightly upward, as you see by the pictures, so as to pass over the snow easily. joseff left me, and soon came back with a good many more skees; some were not more than six feet long; one pair was much longer than mine. after i had looked at them, he said, "the short ones are used in the forest, especially among the lapps, where pine, fir, or birch trees are close together, for there long skees cannot be used; but a heavily built man must have longer ones." then pointing to the long pair, which were about fourteen feet long, he said, "these long skees are used chiefly in the province of jemtland, which you passed on the shores of the baltic on your way here. the snow is generally very deep there, and after a great snow fall, when it is very soft, long skees are needed so that they can bear up the weight of a man and not sink too deeply. here we use skees of about the size of the pair i gave you, sometimes a little longer; but you are not a heavy man, so longer ones are not necessary for you. they will be able to support your weight without going deeply into the snow, even when it is soft." then showing another pair, he said, "these have sealskin under them. they are used in the spring when the snow is soft and becomes watery; the skin prevents the snow from sticking to the skee." the following morning we started with our skees for the lake, i carrying mine on my shoulders. when we reached the lake joseff said, "put your feet under the loops, and you must manage to keep them there, just as you would do if you had an old pair of slippers much too large for you. you would have all the time to push your feet forward to keep them on. do likewise with the skees. your sharp-pointed lapp shoes will help you to do this, as they somewhat prevent the slipping of the skee. it will be a little difficult at first, but it will not take long for you to learn to do this. constant practice will be the best teacher, and you will soon be able to walk with them." then joseff gave me two staves to propel myself with. at the end of each was an iron spike, and above it a guard of wicker-work, about ten inches in diameter, to prevent the stick from sinking deeper. "these staves," he added, "are very useful when the snow is soft and the skees do not glide easily. then propelling oneself with them makes one go faster. though the snow is packed they will help you, as you are a beginner. the most important point to learn is to keep the skees always parallel with each other; this is somewhat difficult at first. never raise your feet or skees above the ground; make them glide on the snow; push one foot forward, then the other, just as when you walk." then he got on his skees, and said: "now, look at me and see how i go." i saw him gliding on the snow, pushing first one foot then the other, the two skees running parallel with each other; and when one had a tendency to go inside or outside, he corrected the deviation at once by a slight movement of his leg and foot. i noticed afterward that with many persons the ankle was very flexible, owing to their going so much on skees. after going some distance he returned to me, and we started slowly together. i pushed first one foot then the other forward, and tried to do exactly what he had told me to do; but before i knew it the end of one skee overlapped the other and stopped my advance at once. fortunately i was going slowly, otherwise i should have landed on the snow. "the overlapping of one skee over the other is quite common with a beginner," said my teacher to me. putting my skees in position again, we started. this time one of my skees left me. several times the two left me, and i found myself seated on the snow every time. i made slow progress that day. at the end of the lesson joseff said, "do not be discouraged, paulus, you will soon learn the knack. i will now show you how fast a man can go on skees. look at me." then he started; he seemed simply to fly over the snow, and before many minutes he was far away, almost out of sight. he was going at the rate of at least twenty miles an hour. i said to myself: "o paul, when will you go as fast as joseff!" i was filled with ambition. i wanted to learn as fast as i could, and i thought i would take lessons every day. when he returned the perspiration was dripping from his face, though the cold was degrees below zero. i spent several hours every day on the lake, learning and practising, and when joseff had time he would come with me; and after three days i was able to manage the skees tolerably well. i kept them in line and they did not slip out from my feet any more. i could go several thousand yards without stopping and with no mishaps. after i could do this, joseff said to me: "paulus, you know now how to go well on skees upon level land; now you must learn how to go down hill with them. this is difficult, and i do not know whether in one winter you can learn how to do it--at least so as to go down the slopes of mountains; one has to have learned that in boyhood--but i will teach you anyhow to go down hill safely." we left the farm and went on with our skees until we came to the foot of a pretty steep hill. then joseff said: "we will stop here, and i will teach you to go down hill." i noticed that he said this with a roguish eye, which was full of fun, and i began to suspect that things were not to go as smoothly as when i was taught on the lake. "we cannot ascend this steep hill straight forward, for the skees would slip backward. we must ascend in zigzag," said joseff; and then with his staff he showed me how we were to go. "follow my furrow, then it will be easier for you," said he. i found it hard enough, and slow work. when we reached the top of the hill we were very warm, though that day it was degrees below zero. i was wet with perspiration. after a rest, joseff said: "paulus, look at me." straightening his skees and armed with his staff he leaned his body forward, and down he went, faster than boys coasting down a very steep hill at home. it was fine, and i wished i could learn quickly and go down hill as fast as he did. when he had ascended the hill again, joseff said to me: "now, paulus, get ready." he saw that my skees were in position, and saying, "bend your body far forward as you go down," he shouted "go!" at this word i bent my body forward as he had told me, and down i went; but i got scared, as i was going very fast, and forgot to follow his advice; straightened myself and bent backward, and before i knew it my skees slipped from my feet. i was unskeed just like a man who is unhorsed, and was seated on the snow looking at my skees, which were going forward down the steep hill and only stopped at its base, to the great amusement of joseff, who evidently expected something of the kind. "the tendency of a beginner," he explained, "is to bend backward, thinking that by doing so he will be able not to go so fast; this invariably brings about the same result, and he falls." after a good laugh from both of us, joseff said: "paulus, try again; but this time i will teach you to go down hill in another way." he gave me his big stick, and said, "ride this, and rest upon it as heavily as you can, so that a great part of your weight shall be on the end that sinks into the snow, and before you start let the stick be in the snow about three inches deep. thus you will be prevented from going down too fast. don't forget to start with your skees running straight along side of each other." i went down riding the stick, and reached the bottom of the hill in safety. i felt very proud of my success, but thought that if i could ever do this like joseff how happy i should be. then joseff gave me another warning. "paulus," said he, "people must look out carefully not to run into boulders as they go down hill, and a hill full of boulders only those who can guide their skees well can venture to go down. avoid such hills when you are further north, for otherwise you might even be killed." [illustration: "paulus, try again!"] shortly after our return to the farm the wind began again to rise, and another terrific windstorm blew over the land. the hillocks of snow were swept from where they stood and new hillocks were made in other places. when i went out the wind almost took me off my feet. i found that my friends in haparanda were right. the lapp costume is well adapted for cold weather. nothing is warmer than reindeer skin, and it is convenient either when the wearer is driving in his lapp sleigh, walking or travelling on skees, or when breasting violent windstorms. i finally bade good-bye to joseff, and thanked him for having taught me to go on skees. and i continued my journey northward, with a guide to show me the way. chapter viii a primitive steam bath house.--how the bath was prepared.--what are the twigs for?--i ascertain.--rolling in the snow.--fine effect of the bath. a few miles further on i came to a little hamlet composed of a few farms. the inhabitants were all finlanders. travelling was so bad, on account of the big drifts of snow, that i decided to stay a few days in the place. the following day was saturday and the afternoon was the beginning of sunday, and the boys and the young men of the place said to me: "paulus, to-day is bathing day. every saturday we have a bath." "all right, boys," i replied, "i will have a bath with you." of course they did not mean a water bath, but a steam bath. pointing to a little log building, they said, "paulus, this is the bath house. come, and we will show you how we work out a steam bath in our country. you see the bath house stands away from other buildings, to prevent the fire from spreading in case it should start anywhere." so i went with them to the bath house and got in. it was dark, and no light or air could come in except through the door. the room was about fifteen to eighteen feet long and about ten or twelve feet wide. in the centre there was an oven-like structure, made of boulders piled upon each other without any cement whatever. along the walls were three rows of seats, made simply from the branches of trees and rising one above the other, just like seats at a circus, the first one being near the ground. the people had brought wood beforehand. this they put into the oven and set fire to it. they said to me, "we are going to keep the fire burning all the time, to heat the stones, and when they are burning hot this afternoon we will stop the fire, the place will be cleaned, and then we will take our bath." we were soon obliged to go out, on account of the smoke. and the fire was kept up all day, boys coming now and then with more firewood to add to it. late in the afternoon i went with two women who cleaned the place thoroughly and took away the ashes, and a big vessel put next the oven was filled with water. slender boughs of birch trees were brought in, and i wondered why. i found out later! finally word was sent round that everything was ready. then my new friends said to me, "paulus, you will undress in your room and come to the bath room with nothing on, for there is no place there to dress or to hang your clothes. we all go there naked." "but," said i, "it is degrees below zero." "that is nothing," they answered, laughing. "the bath house is close by--just a stone's throw from your place, and you will find it warm enough there," upon which they left me to get ready themselves. when i was undressed i looked through the windows and saw men and boys without clothes on running towards the bath house, which they entered quickly and shut the door. it did not take me much time to reach the bath house. i ran double quick to it. oh! wasn't it cold on the way! but as soon as i was in i could feel the great heat from the oven. it was so warm, and felt so good after coming from the icy air. then water was taken from the large vessel and thrown over the stones with a big dipper. steam rose at once; then more water was thrown, until the place was full of steam. i could not stand it. it was too hot for me. "don't stand up, paulus," they said; "sit on the lower seat." even that was too high for me. i sat on the floor until i got accustomed to breathing the hot air. the perspiration was fairly running down my body. more water was poured and more steam was raised. then one of the fellows said, "paulus, let me give you a switching with the birch twigs. it is fine; it brings the blood into circulation." one of the boys began to switch my back, and soon i cried, "enough, enough, enough!" soon all were switching one another, and the one who had switched me said, "paulus, give me a good switching--harder than the one i gave you." i thought mine had been strong enough; my back must have been as red as a boiled lobster. i followed his injunctions until he said it was enough. then more steam was raised after a while, and after this was done all shouted, "let us have another switching before we go." at last i went out with a few of the men, when, lo! they rolled over two or three times in the snow, calling out to me to do likewise; that it felt so good. i did what they bade me to do. how nice it was! it was a delightful sensation. then we got up and ran as fast as we could for our houses. as we ran, they called to me, "paulus, do not dress at once, and not before you have stopped perspiring." so i walked up and down in my room for more than an hour before i dressed. after this i felt like a new man. the finlanders do not dress like the laplanders when they are at home; it is only when they travel that they wear the kapta or pesh. the men wear long overcoats, lined with woolly sheepskin. the women's dress is composed of a body of black cloth, with skirt of thick homespun wool. their long and heavy jackets are also lined with sheepskin inside, and they wear hoods. chapter ix how the lapps and finns travel.--strange-looking sleighs.--different varieties.--lassoing reindeer.--description of the reindeer. after leaving this hamlet where i had such an odd bath, i came to a farm where i saw sleighs the like of which i had never seen before. to many of these were harnessed reindeer with superb horns, while others were without animals. these sleighs looked exactly like little tiny boats, just big enough to carry one person and a very small amount of luggage, but not big enough for trunks. they were all made of narrow fir-tree planks, strongly ribbed inside just like boats, about seven feet long and two and one-half feet in width at the end, which was the broadest part. the forward part of some was decked. they all had a strong leather ring to which the traces were fastened. they had holes pierced in their sides for strings to pass through from one side to the other to keep everything fast. they had keels like sailing boats; these were very strong and about four inches wide, and varied some in thickness or height; many of the keels were much worn from constant use. as i was looking at these sleighs, strange-looking people of very small stature came out of the farmhouses. these were lapps, and they were dressed as i was. we saluted each other and began to speak together in swedish, and they wondered where i came from. one of them said to me, "you are looking at our sleighs as if you had never seen such ones before." "you are right," i replied, "i have never seen such sleighs before, and if these had been on the shores of a river or lake, i should have taken them to be boats." then the lapp explained: "the higher the keel is the quicker the sleigh can go and the faster we can travel. the keel acts like a runner, and when the snow is well packed and crisp, the sides of the sleigh hardly touch it; but this makes it the more difficult for a beginner to remain inside, for the sleigh rocks to and fro." then pointing to a sleigh, he said, "this kind is called 'kerres.' they are used to carry merchandise or people." then pointing to another, "this kind is called a 'lakkek.'" these were somewhat larger than the other, and had decks like a vessel, with a sort of hatchway. these were used as trunks; two had their decks covered with sealskin to make them more surely water-tight. "in these," said the lapp, "we carry our woollen clothing, our fine handkerchiefs, our jewelry, our silver spoons, our prayer-book and psalm-book--everything that is precious. in them we also carry our provisions, our coffee, our sugar, salt, and everything that has to be protected against snow or dampness." another kind was called "akja," especially built for fast travelling, and had keels about two and a half to three inches thick. the forward part of these was over-decked to about a third of the length, and covered with sealskin. the decked part was a sort of box or trunk to keep provisions or other things necessary for a journey which required to be protected. the backs of most of these were leather-cushioned. after i had looked carefully at all the sleighs, i went to the farmhouse with the lapps and was welcomed by the finlander who owned the place. his name was jon. we were soon friends. the people asked me whither i was bound, and i told them that i was going as far north as the arctic ocean, as far as nordkyn. then they said to me, "you cannot go further without learning how to drive reindeer, for you must give up horses. the snow is too deep and we do not use dogs in our country. we will teach you how to drive reindeer and use our sleighs; then, when you know, some of us will take you where you want to go, either north, east, or west." i bought a very pretty sleigh with the forward part decked over, where some of my things could be stored. the back was cushioned and covered with sealskin made fast with broad rounded-top copper nails. this was a really "swell" sleigh. the next day jon said to me, "let us go together where my herd of reindeer is, and lasso those i want to use, for i am going to teach you myself how to drive," adding: "i own over one thousand reindeer." he called two other lapps, and we put on our skees and started, and soon after we were out of sight of the house. after an hour's travel we reached the reindeer. i noticed that the snow was not very deep. "in this herd i have over sixty reindeer that have been broken to harness," said jon. "how can you find them out of such a great number?" i asked. "to me so many of them look alike, in fact they would all look alike if it were not that with some the horns are not as big as those of the others." "i know them all," he replied. "i could even tell the ones that are missing." then i remembered that i had heard that a shepherd knew every sheep of his flock. "stay where you are," said jon. "many of the reindeer are shy, and do not come to us when we are trying to lasso them." jon and the other two lapps let their skees slip off their feet, so that they could have a stronger footing, looked round so as to recognize the deer they wanted, and then with their lassos in their hands, ready to be flung, walked very carefully towards two reindeer somewhat apart from the others. when they were near enough, some ten or fifteen yards from them, which is about the distance one can lasso with a chance of success, they stopped and threw their lassos over the horns of the animals. one made no effort to escape, for he had been used to this for more than five years; but the other cut up any amount of pranks, though in his efforts to get away the rope got tighter and tighter at the base of his horns. the man had to use all his strength before the animal was subdued. once or twice he was pulled by the reindeer and almost fell. in his efforts to get away the reindeer entangled his legs in the lasso and fell powerless. in the mean time jon had come gently towards his reindeer and knotted the cord of the lasso round his muzzle. "we always do this," said he to me, "as a measure of precaution. when thus corded the reindeer move with far more difficulty if they wish to run away." the other reindeer, which fought so desperately for freedom, had only been used twice during the winter and was not accustomed to being lassoed. these two animals were tied to trees, and then jon and the lapps went to capture two others. jon missed the second reindeer, a splendid bull, on the first throw, the lasso falling on his back; but the next throw caught him. at the same time the other man had succeeded in lassoing the fourth one. [illustration: "the man had to use all his strength."] then jon, pointing to the second reindeer he had lassoed, said: "paulus, i wanted this one especially for you. he is thirteen years old. he is one of my favorites and has been often under harness. he does not go quite as fast as he did formerly, but he is just the reindeer for you, for he is more easily managed than any others i own." i looked at the reindeer. i noticed that the animal had much stouter legs than the common deer, or even than the elk, and the hoofs were particularly large. they are smaller than our own big elks, and looked very much like our caribou. the hair of the majority of the reindeer was gray, very coarse and thick, and almost white under the belly. some of the animals in the herd were white. then we went homeward. two or three times one of the reindeer made a light show of resistance and had to be pulled for a minute or so, and the wilder one was even less easy to manage; he struggled hard several times, and twice the lapp who held him was almost thrown down. chapter x harnessing reindeer.--the first lessons in driving.--constantly upset at first.--going down hill with reindeer.--thrown out at the bottom.--queer noise made by reindeer hoofs. on our return we tied our reindeer securely and went to a small house where the harness was kept. there i saw along the walls many collars, leather straps, and traces, but no bits. i thought this was singular, and i wondered how the reindeer could be driven, but i said nothing. but when harnesses for the reindeer were brought out i found that harnessing a reindeer was very unlike harnessing a horse, and far more simple. a collar was put on, and at the lower part of the collar a strong plaited leather trace was fastened. this passed between the reindeer's legs and was made fast to the forward part of the sleigh. no bits are used. the rein (there was only one) was also of plaited leather and fastened at the base of the horns. during this process the reindeer seemed very restless and several times were on the point of running away. "the harnessing, as you see," said jon to me, "though simple, has to be done with great care, for no matter how well trained a reindeer is, as soon as he is harnessed he wants to go; besides, he is easily scared when in harness." so while things were being made ready for the start the reindeer were tightly held. "i will now show you how to take your place in the sleigh," said jon. then he sat upright at the bottom, with his legs stretched before him and his back resting against the end of the sleigh. then he got out and said, "now you get in." i found the position a very uncomfortable one; but this is the only way one can sit in these little sleighs. and it took me some time to get accustomed to it without getting tired, though afterwards i could sit for hours without getting out. jon handed me the rein and twisted it round my wrist, and said with a rather roguish smile: "now, if you upset, the reindeer cannot run away without you! after a while he will stop when he knows you are tipped over. you will roll over several times in the snow before he stops." "all right," i replied, "there is plenty of snow, no harm can come to me. my head is safe." "be careful, paulus," he added; "see that your rein never touches the snow, for if it should get under the sleigh your arm might become entangled and your wrist or shoulder be dislocated. if you upset, let the rein go. if you want the reindeer to stop, throw the rein to the left. if you want him to go fast, keep it on the right. keep your rein always loose, almost touching the snow. have a sharp lookout about this. "i myself will ride with my legs outside, my toes touching the snow to guide my sleigh; but you are a beginner, and you cannot do so. never ride with your legs out, for it is dangerous for a man who is not accustomed to it to ride that way. sometimes accidents happen even among the most expert, and some lapps get seriously injured. here is a stick to guide your sleigh, and to prevent your reindeer from going too fast push the stick deep into the snow. it will not be as good as feet, but it is much better than nothing. "i will take the lead, you will follow, and two lapps will come behind to watch over you. do not mind if you upset often; do not be discouraged; a beginner has to upset many times before he knows how to drive a reindeer and keep in his sleigh." in the mean time our reindeers had become very restive and they were held with difficulty. suddenly jon gave the order to start. we started at a furious speed, and my sleigh rocked to and fro. it was awful. i swayed first one way, then another. i knew that i could not keep my equilibrium long without being thrown out, and i was right. each reindeer wanted to go faster than the others; they kept on at a terrible gait. i was shot out of the sleigh, heels over head, and rolled over and over in the snow. finally the animal stopped. [illustration: "i was shot out of the sleigh."] the lapps behind me came to the rescue. after brushing the snow from my face i got in again, and my reindeer started off at a fearful speed, and in less than thirty seconds i was once more shot out of my sleigh. this time the rein slipped from my wrist, as i had not secured it well enough, and the animal sped away, leaving me on my back, blinded by the snow. the lapps went on their skees after my reindeer, which in the mean time had stopped, and brought it back to me. then they said to me with a laugh: "often reindeer start that way when they feel frisky. to-day is the right sort of weather for them. the mercury marks degrees below zero. the starting is the most difficult part." i thought so! i got into my sleigh, and the animal started at a furious speed, and once more i was shot out of the sleigh. i got up half stunned, covered with snow. fortunately i had twisted the rein so well round my wrist this time that the reindeer could not run away without me, and he stopped after i had been dragged a few seconds. i was not disheartened--so i kept on driving and being thrown out. it happened so often that i began to tire of counting the number of times i upset. it must have been nearly one hundred times that day. it had been a very hard day's work for me. the second day i took more lessons, and began to learn how to balance myself. it is a knack, and i began to improve and had fewer upsettings. the third day i did better. i gradually learned pretty well how to balance myself on level ground, and did not upset any more. after a few days i knew how to drive reindeer on level ground, and i could guide my sleigh with a stick as well as a sailor steers his boat with the rudder. when i had reached this stage of expertness jon said to me: "paulus, now you can drive in a level country, but soon you will come where there are many steep hills, and mountains. so you must learn how to drive down steep hills. this is often very exciting. the weather is beautiful, and this afternoon i want you to take your first lesson going down hill. i have sent men for a fresh set of reindeer; they will soon be back." in the course of the afternoon the reindeer came out harnessed, and as we were ready to start, "i will lead," said jon, "you will follow, and another lapp will come third. it is far more difficult to go down hill than to drive on a level surface. you must put your stick deep into the snow to slacken the speed and guide your sleigh. don't be frightened at the speed, which is very great, and be careful not to be thrown out when you reach the bottom of the hill; this is the most difficult part of driving, for the reindeer turn sharply so as not to have the sleigh strike their legs." at this remark i thought of my going down hill on skees. that was hard enough, and i wondered what would happen to me with the sleigh. the surface of the country was slightly undulating, and our reindeer followed each other in good order and at a short distance from one another. suddenly jon slackened the pace of his reindeer so that i should overtake him. then, when within hearing distance, he called out: "we will soon go down a steep hill," and he started again. he had hardly said these words when he was out of sight. i reached the crest of the hill, then down went my reindeer at a terrible pace, railway speed in fact, and as the animal reached the bottom of the hill he made a sudden sharp curve. for a few seconds my body swayed from one side to the other, and before i knew it i was flung headlong out of the sleigh. this took place in a great deal less time than i can tell it in. i had been thrown out with great force against the snow, face forward, and as the snow was granulated it hurt. i had learned to be quick. i was in my sleigh in the twinkling of an eye and followed the track made by jon, and we rode quietly on the plain. soon jon stopped and a moment after i joined him. "paulus," said he, when i had caught up with him, "we must try another descent." we ascended the bank in a zigzag way (i following his track) until we reached the summit. it was hard work. this hill was very long and steep. when ready jon shouted: "paulus, look out; we are going to have another descent." the pace of my reindeer was tremendous as he went down. the animal seemed to know that if he did not go fast enough the sleigh would strike against his legs as he descended the hill. down we went; we simply seemed to fly, and as the reindeer got to the bottom he made the same sharp turn again, the sleigh whirled round with a great jerk, and i was thrown out head over heels as before. during the descent, as my animal ran his hind feet threw particles of granulated snow in my face--they were like small stones striking it with great force. it hurt awfully. after this i was obliged to put on my mask for protection that day. ever since i had begun driving reindeer i had heard a noise, a sharp sound, as if sticks of wood were striking against each other, when the animals were trotting at full speed. it occurred to me to ask what was the cause of this curious noise. my lapp replied, "every time the hoof of the reindeer touches the snow it spreads wide apart, broadening in this way and keeping the animal from sinking too deep in the snow; and when the foot is lifted, the two sides of the hoof are brought together again, striking against each other and making the noise you hear." i continued to improve every day in going down hill, and succeeded at last in keeping in by throwing my body in the opposite direction when the reindeer made his sharp turn. this difficulty conquered, i bade jon a hearty good-bye, thanking him for his patience in teaching me, and continued my journey. [illustration: "at noon i saw the sun's lower rim touching the horizon."] from rukojarvi i had followed the highroad, passed the post stations of korpilombolo with its church, sattajarvi, and came to the hamlet of pajala, in latitude ° '. the hamlet is situated near the junction of the torne river with the muonio, and had a church. chapter xi the last days of the sun.--beginning of the long night.--a mighty wall of ice.--the long night's warning voice.--the aurora borealis and its magnificence. the day i left pajala i saw the sun at noon; it was hardly above the horizon; it had barely risen and shown itself when it was sunset and it disappeared under the horizon. then came a long snowstorm, and for a wonder one without a gale. after the snowstorm the sky suddenly cleared, and at noon i saw the sun's lower rim touching the horizon. it was of a fiery red. then after a while it disappeared. the next day only the upper half of the sun was above the horizon at noon, and just as the rim was ready to sink i fancied i heard the sun say to me: "to-morrow you will not see me; then you will have entered 'the land of the long night,' and when you go further and further north you will be in that land. good-bye, good-bye." then i thought i heard the "long night" say to me: "for one night of six months i rule at the north pole. then i am most powerful. in the course of countless years i have frozen the sea and i have built a wall of ice so thick, and so broad, and so hard, that no vessel will ever be strong enough to break through, and no man will ever reach the pole. i guard the approach to the pole and watch carefully the wall of ice i have built around it. when the sun drives me away and rules in his turn one day of six months at the pole (for the whole year is equally divided between us), he tries with his steady heat to destroy the wall i have built. on my return i repair the damage the sun has done and make the wall as strong as it was before. i send terrific gales and mighty snowstorms over oceans and lands, and even far to the south of my dominion, for my power is so great that it is felt beyond my realm." there was a pause; then i thought i heard the sardonic laugh of the "long night." i shuddered when i remembered the words the "long night" had just spoken, and the laugh had in it something sinister. i fancied i saw the dim figure of a woman with long flowing hair standing at the pole, looking towards me. she was the "long night." i remembered the names of the valiant and daring commanders who had led expeditions towards the north pole, and had perished in their endeavors with the gallant men who had trusted and followed them. then i thought of the brave explorers who had followed in their wake with better fortune, for their lives had been spared, though they failed to reach the pole. the wall the "long night" had built could not be passed. as these thoughts came over me, i exclaimed: "'long night,' great and terrible indeed has been the loss of life among those who have tried to reach the pole, but the ingenuity of man is great, and in spite of the ice barrier thou hast built around it we have not lost hope that man by some device of his own may yet be able to reach the pole." after uttering these words i imagined i heard, again coming from the far north, another laugh of the "long night." it seemed like a laugh of defiance in response to what i had said. near me was a forest of tall fir trees; looking up i saw the great blue of heaven studded all over with brilliant stars shining down upon the snow-covered land where i was. the next day the sun did not appear. i was now in "the land of the long night." it was strange now to see stars all the time, and the moon in the place of the sun. the great pines and fir trees of the forest contrasted strongly with the snow of the land. the sun had disappeared below the horizon, but in clear days its glow could be seen. i could not tell the hour of the day, for the stars set and rose in continuous succession in this kingdom of the "long night." i did not know when it was morning or when it was evening, but in fine weather the glow over the horizon told me when it was about noon. it was indeed a strange land; but the lapps could tell from the stars whether it was night or day, for they were accustomed to gauge time by them according to their height above the horizon, just as we do at home with the sun. i had my watch, but could not look at it often, for it was under my garments. for many days the land was illuminated for a while every night by the aurora borealis, or northern lights. sometimes the aurora seemed to imitate the waves of the sea and moved like big heavy swells, changing colors, bluish, white, violet, green, orange. these colors seemed to blend together. then the heaving mass would become gradually intensely red. this red mass broke into fragments which scattered themselves all over the blue sky. it gave its reflection to the snow. it was the end of the aurora or electric storm. they were never twice alike; they varied in forms and colors. the auroras are like everything in creation: on our earth there not two men or women exactly alike, there are not two leaves alike, two blades of grass, two trees, two stones alike, neither two waves, for the sea is ever changing in its ripples. chapter xii the snow getting deeper.--lapp hospitality.--a lapp repast.--coffee and tobacco lapp staples.--babies in strange cradles.--how the tents are made.--going to sleep with the mercury at ° below. when i had left pajala i travelled on the frozen muonio, passed the stations of kaunisvaara, killangi, and parkajoki, and came to muonioniska. all the hamlets or farms had comfortable log buildings. some of the dwelling-houses were quite large. wood was not lacking and the houses were quite warm. forests of the fir were abundant. the sun was now hidden below the horizon. the snow was getting deeper every hour--and was about seven or eight feet deep on a level after being packed. i was coming to another great "snow land." from muonioniska i travelled on between the muonio and ouanasjoki rivers. (joki means river in finnish.) i became acquainted with many nomadic lapps who wandered with their reindeer over that great snow land--among them were two very pleasant men of the name of pinta and wasara, who agreed to travel with me for a while. wasara, the younger, was the son of a very rich lapp who owned nearly ten thousand reindeer, and possessed besides a good bank account. pinta was poor, the possessor of only about one hundred reindeer, which pastured with those of his elder brother. pinta was about thirty years old; wasara about twenty-five. both were men of splendid physique; broad shouldered with very muscular legs and arms, which were apparently as hard as wood. they had blue eyes and fair hair. one was four feet eight inches and a half in height, the other was four feet ten inches. they were very skilful on skees; in summer they could make tremendous leaps over rivers and ditches with the long poles they carried with them, and could drive the most intractable reindeer, which are even worse than our broncos. while travelling, i drove next to the leader, for reindeer follow each other mechanically in the same furrow. the leader is the one that has the most work; but if he follows a furrow, his reindeer gives him little trouble. pinta generally took the lead, i came next, and wasara third. pinta and wasara had their faithful dogs with them. travelling was fine; the snow was well packed, and so crisp that the sleighs glided over it lightly. often we travelled at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, for our animals were strong and had not been used for several days. how i shouted, for i had such an exuberance of spirits. i felt so strong and healthy. i wanted to go, to go onward, to go all the time. sometimes i felt like running, like jumping. one could not help it, for it was the atmosphere that made one feel so. i could not get tired. the fine weather, however, lasted but a few days. then the sky became gray, there was not a star to be seen, the wind began to rise, and snow fell. we could see nothing. wasara thought we were near the tent of his father, but we could not see any landmark to guide us. the two dogs ran in every direction, to try to scent people. they seemed to know that we were looking after the tent of wasara's father; but each time they would return looking in the face of their masters silently, as if to say "we find nothing." we were somewhat afraid of wolves, but trusted in the dogs to warn us of their approach. we at last concluded to stop; we kept the reindeer harnessed and stood near them. we fixed our hoods carefully over our faces, put on our masks, and seated ourselves on the snow. soon i heard heavy snoring--pinta and wasara were fast asleep, with their heads downward and arms crossed on their breasts. the lapps sleep often in that way when travelling. but the weather cleared after three or four hours and we continued our journey. my two friends then knew where they were. after an hour's drive we saw in the midst of the snow, near a large forest of fir trees, a tent. "here is the tent of my father," said wasara, pointing out the tent to me. we hurried our reindeer, and as we approached the place more than a dozen lapp dogs, wolf-like in appearance, announced our arrival by their fierce barking. wasara's father came outside of the tent, drove the dogs away, and told them to be quiet. he recognized his son and bade us come in. "what a strange abode these nomadic lapps have," i said to myself, as i looked around inside of the tent. according to lapp etiquette the left side of the tent was given to us, soft reindeer skins being first laid on the top of branches of young birch trees that were spread on the floor of earth, the snow having been removed where they had pitched their tent. the father took his snuffbox from a small bag and offered me a pinch of snuff. this ceremony meant that i was welcome, and i passed the snuffbox to his son who, in turn, offered a pinch of snuff to pinta. i looked with astonishment at the people that were in the tent, and everything that surrounded me. these lapps had blue eyes; their faces, owing to exposure to the blustering winds, were very red, but the protected part of the skin was as white as that of the whitest people. there were a number of women and men, several young girls and two lads. i was told that there were two men with the reindeer. [illustration: "what a strange abode these nomadic lapps have!"] the women were all busy; one was weaving shoe-bands of bright colors, red predominating; another was just finishing a "kapta," and a third one was putting a lining of red flannel over the seams upon a tiny pair of reindeer-skin shoes for a child; the girls were sewing some undergarments. wasara's father's first name was pehr,--he was a fine-looking lapp, about seventy years old. his father was living, and was about ninety years old. the outdoor life agrees with the lapp. give me the plateaus of the arctic regions for health. there are plenty of mosquitoes in summer, but no malaria at any time. nor is there any sore throat there. i do not remember, indeed, ever to have heard a person cough in that country. the material of the tent was of very coarse woollen stuff, called "vadmal." the tent was about thirteen feet in diameter at the ground. its frame was composed of poles fitting each other; the wood had become black from being smoked for years. these poles are so well knitted together that they can resist the terrific winds which blow over the land. a cross pole high up sustained an iron chain, at the end of which is a hook to hold the kettle and cooking pot. the coarse woollen stuff which covered the frame was composed of two pieces that were made fast by strings. the nature of the vadmal permits the wind to go gently through. the entrance is by a small sliding door made of the same material. inside, along the lower part of the tent, were boxes of different shapes and sizes, packages lying on the top of skins to prevent the wind from blowing in from the bottom; the outside was protected by snow. as i glanced around i saw two queer-looking things, resembling in shape the sabots or wooden shoes of the peasantry of europe, only very much larger, hanging near the sides. i looked in, and to my great astonishment saw a lapp baby in each. they were lapp cradles, called "katkem" or "komse." they were made of a single piece of wood and were about two and a half feet long by fifteen or eighteen inches wide. in one was such a sweet lapp baby, a dear little girl, with her eyes wide open. as i looked at her she smiled. in the other was a big fat boy, fast asleep. two women went out and collected a lot of snow, which they put on to melt in a big iron pot hanging over the fire. this is the way the lapps have to do to procure water. when the snow had melted she put the water in a coffee kettle that had a spout. one of the women ground coffee in a mill. then the ground coffee was put into the kettle and left to boil for quite a while, the woman watching it, taking off the pot when it was about to boil over, and then putting it over the fire again. the third woman was attending to the cups and saucers. when the coffee was ready they put in a little bit of salt to give it flavor, then set the coffee kettle on the ground and put into it a small piece of dried fishskin to clarify it and precipitate the grounds at the bottom of the kettle. when the coffee was ready to be poured, one of the women went out and came back with reindeer milk which had remained frozen for over three months. then the coffee was served. the wife bit several pieces of rock candy from a big lump, to sweeten each cup of coffee, and after putting in frozen reindeer milk with a spoon, licked it with her tongue--"what is the use of being particular when one travels," i said to myself. if one were, he would starve. we had silver spoons, round in shape, with twisted handles. "these," said the father, "have been in the possession of our family for nearly two hundred years." i saw different initials and different dates from the year down. after coffee men, women, and the young girls filled their pipes and had a good smoke. they were very much astonished when i told them i had never smoked in my life. "there are two things we lapps have always with us--coffee and tobacco. after a hard day's work or a long journey there is nothing so refreshing as coffee," said pehr wasara, smacking his lips at the very thought. while we were chatting, pehr was busy cutting reindeer meat and putting the pieces in a pot hanging over the fire which had been filled with snow that had melted. when he had finished, he said: "by and by you will have something to eat." i was prodigiously hungry; travelling over the snow in a temperature between and degrees below zero, as i had done for several days, gives one such a good appetite! while waiting for the meal to be ready, i went outside the tent with my host. the sight outside was quite as strange as the inside of the tent. numerous lapp sleighs were scattered here and there, skees were lying on the ground in different directions. quarters and other large pieces of reindeer meat, out of the reach of wolves, foxes, and dogs, were suspended to the branches of trees. on two racks about eight feet high above the ground were pieces of reindeer meat piled upon each other. collars, traces, reins, everything for the harnessing of reindeer, were seen all round the tent; buckets full of frozen reindeer milk, filled late in the autumn, were on the ground. hanging on trees were bladders filled with congealed milk or blood. the sleighs were of different kinds; several were decked over and used as trunks. others were empty. four were filled with hoofs of the reindeer they had killed to subsist upon during the winter. skins of wolves, of white foxes, of reindeer, were stretched on frames, so that they could not shrink. reindeer pack-saddles, empty pails, wooden vessels, lay here and there. fur garments and underwear were hanging to the branches of trees. it was a strange sight indeed! but a sight i met thereafter at almost every camp. when the meal was ready we were called in. the host served the meat, which had been put in a large platter, in portions, guessing what would satisfy the hunger of each person. the fattest parts, which are considered the most dainty, were given to me, being the guest of honor, and the meat was served to us in wooden plates. we had nothing but reindeer meat. i was getting accustomed to eat meat without bread or potatoes. during the meal small pieces of roots of fir trees, which are full of resin, were thrown into the fire for light. after the meal i thanked all for it, according to the custom. then the lapps lighted their pipes again. pehr wasara employed a man and a woman servant. from their clothing you could not tell them apart from the other people. they were treated like members of the family. the girl was paid three reindeer a year, the man six. "how much can you buy a tent for?" i inquired of pehr wasara. "thirty or forty dollars," he replied. "this is a great deal of money for us poor lapps." pehr had plenty of money in the bank, but pretended poverty. i learned also that a trained reindeer costs eight dollars. i asked many questions. how long a tent lasted? he replied: "the vadmal is very durable, and a tent lasts about twenty years, but it has to be patched very often during that time." i looked round and saw a good many patches, and i thought of the story of the knife and handle,--first the blade broke, then a new blade was put in; after this the handle broke, and a new handle was put on. i remembered that once a dear old aunt of mine said to me: "paul, this black silk dress has lasted me twenty years." i exclaimed, "twenty years, aunty! are you sure of this?" then in the course of a few days, by indirect questions i found out that she had had three new bodices put on at different times, and three different skirts. i thought the tent of the lapp might be twenty years old in the same way. after the meal had been finished the babies were taken from their cradles, and their little beds were made afresh. the cradle bottoms were covered with fine, soft, well-dried lichen or reindeer moss, over which a little cotton sheet was spread. the babies were stark naked, and were wrapped in little sheepskins while their beds were being made. then they were laid in, the sheet turned down, with a coarse piece of vadmal and sheepskin over it; the whole was made fast by a cord fastened through holes on each side of the cradle and laced across. one of the mothers said to me: "when a child is born it is the custom among lapps to give him or her a reindeer. when baptized the sponsor, too, often gives a reindeer to the babe, and these animals, and the increase thereof, become the child's own property." this woman, pointing out her sister to me, observed: "when my baby had his first teeth, my sister here presented him with a reindeer. this is a custom among us lapps." then two of the men and two of the women with their dogs and their skees went to relieve the people who were watching the reindeer herd, and pehr wasara remarked, "my reindeer are divided in a number of herds--for they could not all pasture together. we are afraid of wolves. these people are to remain on the watch all night." the family was very pious; they were, like all the lapps, lutherans. before going to sleep they sang psalms and hymns, praising god for the blessings of the day. then they dressed themselves for the night, putting on over the garments they wore during the day a long reindeer kapta, a sort of nightshirt reaching below the feet. more reindeer skins were put over the skins on which we were seated. then a big bearskin was given to me as a blanket, pehr saying, "i killed this bear myself." before retiring i took off my shoes, the lapp grass, and my stockings, and hung them on the cross poles to dry. all did likewise. i carefully arranged my precious lapp grass so every vestige of dampness would be absorbed when i should put it on again in the morning. one of the women lent me a pair of her own stockings, which she took from one of the little chests by her side. the fire had gradually died out. "we seldom keep fires burning at night," said the head of the family, "for it would be dangerous." the dogs were driven out and the door made secure, comparatively speaking. we were all huddled close together. then we bade each other good-night. i looked at my thermometer, it marked degrees below zero inside the tent; it was degrees outside and everything was perfectly still, there was not a breath of air stirring. through the opening in the tent for the smoke to pass, i could see the stars twinkling in the blue sky as i lay on my back. then putting my head under my bearskin i soon fell asleep, though some dogs succeeded in smuggling themselves in, and two or three times they awoke me by trying to get under my bearskin and lie by me. they did likewise with the other people. once i was awakened by a big booming sound. it was the cracking of the ice over a lake not far off from us. chapter xiii toilet with snow.--a lapp breakfast.--lapp dogs.--talks with my lapp friend about the reindeer.--their habits and various forms of usefulness. when we awoke in the morning it was degrees below zero in the tent and degrees below outside. i felt like washing my face and my hands, but melted snow was sure to turn into ice as soon as it was on my face. i did not want to wash in warm water, for it would have made my skin too tender. so i rubbed my face and hands with snow and dried them thoroughly. this was my usual morning wash when i slept out of doors. a big fire was lighted and the maidservant went to work kneading dough--yeast was not used. the loaves were baked on charcoal, as is often done among the lapps, and at the same time coffee was made. the breakfast was composed of the dry powdered blood of reindeer, mixed with flour, diluted in warm water and made into pancake. we had a porridge of dried reindeer's milk that had been stirred in warm water with a wooden spoon. the milk of the reindeer is very rich and thick. when it was served to me, the wife remarked: "this food is very nutritious." we also had some reindeer meat and finished up with reindeer cheese and a cup of coffee. it was a fine breakfast. i ate heartily of everything. when it is so cold one is always hungry. after the breakfast, all the household with the exception of the host and hostess started on their skees for the reindeer herd, which was to be removed to some other quarters, for the moss had been more or less eaten and they were to take them to a place where the snow was not so deep. the mothers had slung their cradles with their babies on their shoulders. each lapp was followed by his dog. about one hour after breakfast the night watch returned with their dogs. immediately the wife gave to each a cup of coffee; then they took their breakfast. they gave their dogs some of the powdered blood mixed with flour and warm water. the dogs relished this greatly. then they were given the bones, which they had been watching with glaring eyes. they went out with them and gnawed them until there was nothing left of them. such is generally the meal given to the dogs every day. once in a while they get a small piece of meat, which they swallow voraciously in a single mouthful. when the night watch had done eating they went to sleep; so did their dogs. these lapp dogs are thickset. they resemble the pomeranian breed, but are larger; their hair is long, very thick, and bushy. their ears stand upright; they seem to have some wolf blood in them. the tail is curly. pehr wasara said to me: "lapps could not do without their dogs. they are faithful animals; they are our helpmates; they keep our reindeer together when we are on the march, watch them when they are pasturing; they look out constantly for wolves, and warn us when they are in the neighborhood, and of their approach beforehand, and attack them without fear. neither are they afraid of bears. they are very brave. "every man, woman, manservant or maidservant and grown-up child, has his or her dog which obeys and listens to his master alone. they are never allowed to stay behind; wherever their master goes they go, and watch with him night and day if necessary. occasionally, for some reason unknown to us, or because the deer scent the wolves afar off, a panic seizes the herd of reindeer, and instinctively they move away. that is the time when our dogs prove most useful and of the greatest service to us. they go around in every direction and bring the reindeer together. they seem to know that there is some unseen danger. when the wolves come into the herd, the dogs attack them fiercely and act with great cunning, taking care not to be bitten by them and waiting for the opportunity to spring on the wolves." while pehr was talking i wished i could see a pack of wolves attacking reindeer, to see how the dogs fight them. "do not think," added pehr, "that it is our inclination to be harsh towards our dogs. we never overfeed them; it is the only way to keep them hardy, strong, and healthy. they are not allowed to rest until their master or mistress has returned to the tent. then we want them to stay out doors." "i should like very much," i said to pehr, "to see how you break in reindeer and accustom them to harness." "well," he replied, "you will see how we train our reindeer to draw sledges. you came just in time, for we are now training some, as we have several that are getting too old. the males are used as draught animals, as they are stronger than the females. when the snow is in good condition they can draw as much as four hundred pounds, or two or three logs of pine or fir." so he sent two men after the reindeer. they took their lassos with them, and in less than an hour they returned with two reindeer. "the process of teaching a reindeer to draw a sleigh or carry a pack on his back," observed pehr, "is very tedious and very hard work. some of the reindeer are more difficult to teach than others, and in spite of the best training the wild nature and restlessness of the animal shows itself not infrequently." i thought so. i remembered my first lessons. [illustration: "i went outside the tent with my host."] "we begin to train the reindeer," he continued, "when he is about three years old, and he does not become a well trained animal before he is five. when they are under training a daily lesson is given them to let them know their masters, and also a lesson to accustom them to be lassoed, of which they are very much afraid at first. we give them salt and angelica, of which they are very fond, every day, to make them come when they are needed, and in that case the lasso is not necessary. they are never subjected to ill-treatment at any time; if they were we could do nothing with them." the work of teaching the reindeer to draw a sleigh began. salt was first given to one of the deer, which he seemed to enjoy very much. then without trouble a very strong leather cord with a loop was put carefully over his horns, and the loop was drawn tight at the base. the collar was carefully put on his neck and more salt given to him. the trace attached to the sleigh was much longer than those used when driving; it was several yards in length, so that the sleigh could not be touched when the animal kicked; then it was tied to the collar of the reindeer. as soon as the animal was urged to move, and felt the weight of the sleigh, he plunged wildly forward and kicked, then plunged first in one direction and then in another. it was a great sight. i thought they would never be able to break the animal in. it required all the strength of the lapp not to be dragged by the animal. the other man, with a cord, held the sleigh. after a few trials both man and beast were exhausted. a short rest was then taken and another trial was made. with repeated rests for the trainer and the animal, the day's lesson proceeded. the trainer was in profuse perspiration, though it was degrees below zero. my host said to me: "this exercise is repeated day after day until the animal submits to it. they are in their prime at seven or eight years and can work till the age of fifteen or seventeen years. the reason we have to wander so much with our reindeer is that we have to go where the snow is not so deep as in other parts, for the reindeer has to dig into the snow to find his food, the lichen, and he cannot go deeper than three or four feet. we generally know where these places are, for the wind, which blows every year more or less in the same direction, blows away a part of the snow. when we come to such a place we pitch our tent." "when the reindeer is left to himself can he find such a place?" i inquired. "how can the animals know that the snow is only three or four feet deep?" "i do not know," he replied, "but the wild reindeer can find it, otherwise they would starve." "how can they dig through the snow?" i asked with a smile. "they have no shovels." pehr laughed at my remark. "their fore feet are their shovels," he replied. "you will see for yourself how they dig the snow." i asked pehr also about the speed of the reindeer. "the speed of the reindeer," he replied, "varies very much according to the time of the year and the state of the snow, october, november and december being the months when they are the fleetest, as they are fresh from the summer pastures. january and february are also very good months for them. the cold weather strengthens them, and they are not yet exhausted from digging through the snow, as they are at the end of the season. the rapidity of their gait depends very much also on the state of the surface of the snow. if it is well packed and crisp, they go very fast. much depends, too, upon the distance and whether the country is hilly or not, or with a long range of slopes. on the rivers, over well packed snow, and a good track that has been furrowed by previous reindeer, they can average twelve or fifteen miles an hour when in good condition, sometimes twenty for the first hour; down a mountain slope twenty and twenty-five. they can travel five or six hours without stopping; the first hour very rapidly, the second more slowly, and towards the fifth and sixth hours still more slowly, perhaps not more than eight or ten miles an hour, for by that time they require rest and food, and we unharness them in places where the snow is not deep, and let them get their food. early in the winter, when they are in good condition, one can travel with a swift bull reindeer one hundred and fifty miles in a day, and even two hundred miles if the condition of the snow is favorable and the cold is or degrees below zero. the colder the weather is the greater is the speed. seventy or eighty miles a day is a good average for a reindeer." when this talk was ended, pehr wasara said to me, "let us take our skees and go to one of my herds near by." after a run of about two miles we came into the midst of a herd of about three thousand reindeer. "there are more," he said with pride. "are they not fine animals?" "yes, indeed, they are," i replied. while i was looking at the magnificent horns of some of the beasts, pehr remarked: "the horns of the males, which often weigh forty pounds, attain the full size at the age of six or seven years, those of the cow at about four years. the time the reindeer drops his horns is from march until may. in the adult animals they attain their full size in september or at the beginning of october. after the age of eight years the branches gradually drop off. they are the easiest animals that man can keep. they require no barns. they are never housed. they like cold weather and snow. food has not to be stored for them. they will not touch the moss that has been gathered unless brought up to do so by farmers. they get their food themselves. we do not give them water. when thirsty they eat the snow. when our people go among them they will often not even raise their heads, and remain quiet when we pitch our tents. once in a while there is so much snow in some districts that it is impossible for reindeer to get at the moss; then the only way is to go to the lowlands, or into the forest, where the reindeer can feed on the moss hanging from the firs or pines. "some of the reindeer," he went on, "though trained to eat kept moss, hay, and even bread, thrive only when they are free to roam about; they cannot be kept all the time in their stables. they must wander over the snow and eat it. otherwise they are sure to degenerate and become useless as draught animals." "how many reindeer," i asked, "does a family require for its support?" he replied, "a thousand at least. a herd of two thousand to two thousand five hundred gives from two hundred to two hundred and seventy-five, perhaps three hundred, calves a year. sometimes we have bad years with our reindeer. some years prove unfavorable to their increase. some years the snow is very deep, which prevents them from digging for food; the herd then become emaciated from their exertions and want of sufficient food, and many die. "some lapps," he added, "own five or six thousand reindeer, one or two among us, eight or ten thousand. the spring is a bad time for them; the snow melts during the day from the sun's heat, and a thick crust forms at night from the frost, so that their feet break through, causing lameness and disease. at that time we move them as much as we can only during the day, but it is hard work for them to go through the soft snow. "without the reindeer we could not exist in this northern land of snow. the reindeer is our horse, our beast of burden. on him we feed. he gives us our clothing, our shoes, our gloves; his skin is our blanket and our bed; his sinews our thread. on the march a herd of reindeer is easily managed. we keep them together without much trouble, and in winter they remain where we leave them to get the moss; but if the wolves are after them, then they flee in every direction, and many herds then become mixed together." "when your reindeer get mixed with those of other herds, how can you tell which are yours?" i inquired. pehr answered, "every owner has his own mark branded on the ears of all his reindeer, and no other person has the right to use the same, as this is legal proof of ownership; otherwise, when several herds were mingled together the separation would be impossible. the name of the owner of a herd, and each mark, have to be recorded in court like those of any owner of property." chapter xiv moving camp.--another great blizzard.--a remarkable sight.--deer getting their food by digging the snow.--how reindeer are butchered. the next day after our conversation about reindeer pehr wasara said to me: "we are going to move away our camp and take our reindeer to a new pasture," an expression that struck me as somewhat singular, as the country lay under snow to the depth of five or six feet. "some of us are going to fetch the draught animals, and i will be back in a short time." with these words he left with some of his people. they returned with a fine lot of trained reindeer. in the mean time there had been a great commotion in the camp; everybody was busy; the tent had been packed in two bundles; its frame made three packages; the frozen reindeer milk, all the provisions, meat, garments, robes, skins,--in a word, everything they had was loaded on different sleighs and secured. the babies were carefully fixed in their queer-looking cradles, and made quite safe against blustering winds. everything being ready, the reindeer were harnessed and we started. soon after, we came to the herd which had been bunched by the lapps, the dogs keeping them together. then we began our march. the herd moved in advance, in a body. men, women and children on their skees moved after them with great rapidity, with their dogs to help them in the work of keeping the herd together. they all shouted and urged the dogs to look out, but this required, i thought, no urging, for the dogs were on the alert and knew what to do. in the rear were three lapps with their dogs driving the reindeer forward; the dogs barked behind the heels of the animals, and once in a while would bite the legs of those that did not move fast enough. the women worked just as hard as the men, and those who had babies carried them in their cradles, slung on their backs, and went as fast on their skees as if they had been free from burdens. the babies were evidently very comfortable, for they were very quiet. it was a fine sight to see the herd of over three thousand reindeer on the move over the vast plain of snow. after two hours we arrived at the place of our encampment. the lapps hurried the putting up of the tent. the snow had been shovelled from the place where it was to stand. they were laying the birch twigs for a floor, and skins were put on the top of these; alongside of the tent inside boxes and firewood were placed, and outside snow was piled along the sides, also. this was to prevent the wind coming in. in the mean time the reindeer had been unharnessed and some of the sleighs unloaded. just then pehr wasara exclaimed: "paulus, we are going to have a great windstorm very soon. that is the reason we are in so much of a hurry." he was right. soon after the wind began to rise and blew stronger and stronger, hissing and striking against the tent. in another moment we were in the midst of a hurricane. i thought every instant that our tent would be blown away and the woollen canvas torn to pieces. the snow was flying thickly in the air. i said to myself: "if our tent is blown away i will get into my reindeer bags." i was astonished to see that the tent could withstand the storm, but the frame was well knit together, and the woollen vadmal being porous allowed the wind to pass through and did not give the resistance that canvas would have done. if the tent had been made of canvas i am sure the frame could not have withstood the pressure and fury of the blast. the door was protected from the violence of the wind, which struck against the tent on the other side. the reindeer had huddled close together and stood still, except that now and then those which were outside wanted to go inside and let some of the other animals bear the brunt of the storm. i noticed that many of the bulls formed the outer ring, thus protecting the female reindeer. the poor fellows on the outside had a hard time of it. all the herd faced the wind. inside the tent, when everybody was in, we were packed close together, including the dogs. in spite of all the drawbacks the tent was comfortable compared with the weather outside. a blazing fire, over which hung a kettle full of reindeer meat, sent the smoke into our faces; but we were thinking of the warm broth and of the good meal we were going to have, and we laughed merrily and did not care for the storm. the lapps knew that the tent would stand the hurricane. the dogs were in the way of everybody; the lapps continually drove them out, but soon after they were in again. how nice the broth was when we drank it! how good the meat tasted! this was a splendid meal. when it was time to go to sleep i took off my shoes and stockings, and carefully put the lapp grass with the stockings on my breast to dry the moisture, for the fine snow came through the smoke hole. then i got into my two bags and said good-night to the family. i was bothered by the dogs during the night. they were no sooner driven out than they would come in to huddle with the people. one tried to come into my bag and awoke me. i did not blame the poor dogs, for it was far more comfortable inside than outside. when i awoke in the morning the weather was fine, there was no wind, and some of the lapps took the reindeer to their new pasture. after breakfast, my host and i drove to see some of his friends who had pitched their tent some forty or fifty miles from us. on our way we entered a large forest of fir trees, and soon after found ourselves in the midst of a number of deep holes dug by reindeer in order to reach the moss. we also saw furrows made by lapp sleighs and tracks of skees. the holes increased in number as we got deeper into the forest, and driving instead of being a pleasure became a hard task. there was no mistake about that. our little sleighs pitched forward, then side-wise, and rolled on one side or the other. i had the hardest work to keep inside. at last i was pitched into one of the holes with my sleigh almost on top of me. this was no joke. fortunately i had undone the twist of my rein round my wrist, for i did not wish to be dragged against a tree in case i did upset. i was soon in my sleigh again, however, and before long pehr wasara said: "we shall come to the tent of my friend very soon." he had hardly uttered these words when we heard the fierce barking of dogs announcing our arrival. soon after we found ourselves before a tent. these dogs were strange looking, a breed i had never seen; they had the dark color of the brown bear, and were without tails. a man came out to silence them. he was the owner of the tent, the friend of pehr wasara. he bade us in, we were made welcome, and the snuffbox was passed around. coffee was made and served to us with true lapp hospitality, but to my taste it was seasoned with a little too much salt. we had a grand time. a big kettle filled with reindeer meat was cooked, and pehr wasara told his friend all the news, and how his son had come with me to see him. the place of honor was given to us in the tent; we slept well, under a lot of skins, and the next morning after breakfast we bade our host and his family good-bye. we had not been gone long when i saw something very strange ahead. an exclamation escaped from me. i stopped. i thought i saw the ground covered with hares. i could see them moving. "what are such great numbers of hares doing here?" i said to myself. they moved in such a strange manner; they seemed to jump, or rather leap. suddenly i saw my mistake. "these are not hares," i exclaimed; "but the tails of reindeer just above the snow. that is all i see of their bodies. the rest is hidden. they have dug the snow and are eating the moss, and their tails are in motion." i had never seen such a sight before. it was a queer landscape; over two thousand tails shaking above the snow at about the same time. this herd also belonged to pehr wasara, who was smiling all over when he saw how amazed i was at this sight. [illustration: "they were really working hard for their living."] then we continued our journey, and soon found ourselves in the midst of hundreds and hundreds of reindeer of all sizes. they were just beginning to dig the snow with their fore legs. how strange was the sight! as we passed among them they were not in the least afraid of us. they were left to themselves. there were no dogs with them, and no people to watch. every reindeer was working as hard as he could, busily digging in the snow. they were evidently hungry. i said to pehr wasara: "let us stay here a while; i want to watch the reindeer working." pehr, who had been accustomed to see reindeer all his life, wondered at my curiosity, which seemed rather to amuse him. they dug with the right fore foot, then with the left, rested at times, then worked again. it was hard work indeed, but the holes got larger and larger. the bodies gradually disappeared in the holes they made, and were partly hidden by the little mounds of snow coming from these holes, until only the tails of many could be seen. they had reached the moss of which they were so fond. they were really working hard for their living. some of the female reindeer were working with a will, while the young does were looking on, and when the moss had been reached the mothers called the calves by a peculiar grunt and let them feed by their side. after looking at the reindeer for a while, we continued our journey and were completely lost in the midst of deep holes made by the thousands of reindeer. wherever we turned we discovered holes and mounds, until we came to fresh furrows of sleighs and knew that these led to an encampment. we had succeeded in getting out of the honeycombed track into a smooth and open region. all at once i noticed that pehr wasara was going much faster than i did. i was losing ground. his reindeer seemed now to fly over the snow. suddenly he disappeared; he was going down a hill. now it was the turn of my reindeer to go fast. i prepared myself for the occasion, for i did not know how steep was the descent. i said to myself, "paul, you must not upset; bend your body on the opposite side when the sleigh makes the curve, and be quick when the time arrives. do this in the nick of time." down i went. the animal reached the bottom, and before i knew it made a sharp curve to prevent the sleigh striking his legs. i gave a shout of joy. i had not upset. i felt quite proud. at the next hill i was more proud than ever, for pehr wasara upset and i did not, but i had never seen a lapp get quicker into a sleigh than he did. further on pehr stopped and waited for me. when i came to him i found myself on the edge of a long and very abrupt hill, and he said: "this hill is too steep, we must descend it in long zigzags, so that the sleighs may not strike the legs of our reindeer, for if we do not do this the sleigh will go faster than the reindeer. follow in my track, and use your stick with skill to guide the sleigh. your reindeer will follow mine without trouble." hill after hill was ascended and descended. now i had got the knack. at every sharp curve i managed to bend my body out on the other side in time, and thus avoided being thrown out. then we came to a forest of large fir trees, which surprised me, for we were in degrees latitude. the trees were very thick. pehr wasara alighted and led his reindeer, for fear of striking against them, and i did likewise. it was a relief to move one's legs, for it is very tiresome to sit for hours with legs stretched out. afterwards we got again into our sleighs, and at the end of a pleasant drive we reached our own tent and i was received with a hearty welcome by the family. the next day pehr said to me, "we are going to kill some reindeer this morning, for the skins of the animals are at their best now and their fur is very thick. we want clothing, shoes, and gloves. with their sinews we will make our thread. we want also new reins, new traces, new lassos." in the afternoon eight reindeer were brought before the tent. these were to be slaughtered. my host said to me: "paulus, we are going to show you how we slaughter our reindeer." an old bull was brought forward and one of the lapps seized the animal by the antlers, and by a peculiar twist, without apparently great effort, threw him on his back. then he thrust a long, sharp, narrow knife deeply between his forelegs until it pierced the heart, where he let it remain. the poor creature rose dazed, turned round upon himself twice, then tottered and fell dead. i did not like the sight, but i was studying the life of the laplanders and i had to see everything for myself. after the blood had accumulated in the cavity of the chest it was removed and put into a bladder. the intestines were taken out and washed. the skin belonging to the forehead between the eyes, and from the knees to the hoofs, was cut off from the rest of the hide. "this," said pehr wasara, "will be for shoes and gloves;" and each piece was stretched on wooden frames, likewise the skin of the carcass. the tongues were set aside, the host saying to me, "if it were summer we would smoke them." the sinews were collected for thread. the other reindeer were then butchered, and the meat placed on the racks outside of the tent. chapter xv watching for the reappearance of the sun.--the upper rim first visible.--the whole orb seen from a hill.--days of sunshine ahead. i watched the horizon every day towards noon, hoping to see the sun, for the light was getting brighter and brighter. the glow of the hidden sun was so great at noon that it looked as if sunrise were going to take place. how disappointed i felt when the glow became less and less, as the unseen sun sank lower without showing itself. then came to my mind the coast of new jersey, where in the early morning i had often watched for the appearance of the sun above the horizon, in the long glow that preceded sunrise. one day i saw a golden thread above the snowy horizon. it was the upper rim of the sun. i watched, hoping to see the whole sun. but it was at its meridian, and in a very short time the golden thread had disappeared and the sun was on its downward course. i shouted, "dear sun, how much i should like to see you. i am so tired of beholding only the stars and the moon. i am longing for sunshine." near by was a hill. a sudden thought came into my mind. i said to myself, "if i ascend this hill i shall see the whole sun, as the greater height will make up for the curvature of the earth." i ran, and soon was ascending the hill. after a while i stopped, turned round, and looked where i had seen the golden thread. i saw about half the sun. i climbed higher as fast as i could, and when i reached the top of the hill i saw the whole sun. i shouted, "dear sun, i love you. i love sunshine. come and reign once more on this part of the earth. come and cheer me, and drive away the 'long night.'" i watched the sun until it disappeared. oh! i wished the hill had been higher so that i could have ascended it and kept seeing the sun. when i came to the bottom of the hill i said, "i do not wonder that in ancient times there were people who worshipped the sun, for without the sun we could not exist on the earth, for nothing would grow." i felt like a new being, for i had seen the sun and its sight had filled me with joy. days of sunshine were coming, and i gave three cheers with a tiger for the sun. i had had enough of the "long night." i wanted to see a sky without stars and also the pale moon during the day. the following day the glow above the horizon became more brilliant, and towards noon the sun rose slowly above the snow; but only about half of its body made its appearance. it was of a fiery red. then it gradually sank. the third day the whole of the sun appeared above the horizon, then in a short time sank below. as it disappeared i imagined the sun saying to me: "day after day i will rise higher and higher in the sky and shine a longer time. i bring with me joy and happiness. i will gradually transform 'the land of the long night' into a land of sunshine and brightness. i will bring the spring; with me flowers will appear, the trees will be adorned with leaves, grass will grow, the land will be green; i will make gentle winds to blow, the rivers will be free and roll their crystal waters, the birds will come and sing. man will be happy and gather the harvest that grows under my rays and husband it for the days of winter." chapter xvi wolves the great foe of the lapps.--how the reindeer are protected against them.--watching for the treacherous brutes.--stories of their sagacity. after the reappearance of the sun i came to a region where the lapps among whom i lived were in great fear of wolves, for three packs of them had made their appearance in the forests about one hundred and fifty miles away to the eastward, and the news had come to the people. one day as i was in the tent watching the meal that was being cooked, one of the lapps said to me, "we dread the wolves. no animal is as cunning as a wolf when he is hungry, and the chief of the pack is chosen by them as their leader because he is the most cunning of them all." "what do you mean," i asked, "by the chief of the pack being chosen?" he replied, "the wolves are very intelligent, and they choose their leader just as people do. they select the one among them that can lead them where there is prey." then he added, with a tone of sadness in his voice: "our life is one of constant vigilance, and old and young are continually on the lookout for wolves. we have not suffered from them for three years, but they may appear suddenly at any moment when we think they are far away. when wolves attack our herds the reindeer scatter in great fright in every direction to long distances, and we have very hard work in bringing them together again. when they have once been attacked by the wolves they become very suspicious, and take fright easily, and at the least alarm run away. after their flight they roam in small bodies without any one to watch over them, or dogs to look out for their enemies, and they become an easy prey to the wolves. sometimes the herd is destroyed, and the rich lapp becomes suddenly poor. yes," he added with flashing eyes, and in a loud tone, "the wolves are our greatest enemies. we kill them whenever we can." he remained thoughtful for a little while and then proceeded: "reindeer bulls have more fight in them than the females, and sometimes fight successfully one wolf; but what can they do against a pack of them? our life is a hard one indeed when wolves are around, for we have to be constantly on the watch night and day. the wolves are so wary that they always approach a reindeer or a herd of them when the wind blows from the herd towards them, so that neither dogs nor reindeer can scent them." "i hope," i said to myself, "that i shall see bull reindeer fight some of these treacherous wolves and get the better of them; besides i will make them taste my buckshot, and kill them before the poor reindeer is overpowered." after this conversation we went on our skees to scour the country for wolves, but there were none to be seen, and we returned in time for our dinner. the following day, as we stood in front of our tent watching the sun above the horizon, we saw in the distance a black speck coming over the snow. we watched! what could it be? the speck came nearer, and we recognized a woman with a bludgeon coming towards us as fast as her skees could carry her. as soon as she was within hearing distance she shouted, "wolves! wolves!" the dreaded news had come; the wolves had made their appearance in our district. she stopped when she reached us, and with one voice the lapps asked her when the wolves had been seen, and if they had attacked any herd. "no," she answered, "but they will soon do so, for the tracks of three packs have been seen." she had hardly spoken these words when she bade us good-bye, and was on her way to some of her family who had pitched their tent about four miles from where we were. the bludgeon she carried for defence against the wolves. soon every man, woman, and child of our tent were on their skees. the men armed themselves with heavy bludgeons and guns and, followed by all the dogs, we started for the herd, taking a lot of reindeer meat with us. now there was to be an increased watch day and night. i followed the lapps on my skees, and though i lagged behind, as i could not go as fast as they did, one of the girls remained with me to show me the way, and now and then she would stop and scan the country for wolves. i was armed with my double-barrelled shotgun loaded with buckshot. "oh, if i could encounter the wolves," i said to myself, "what havoc i would make amongst them." when we came to the herd we told those who were on the watch the news of the appearance of wolves. immediately preparations were made to discover their whereabouts. some of the people went in different directions to reconnoitre, all armed with their heavy bludgeons. they shouted as they left: "we will show the wolves if we meet and chase them on our skees what our bludgeons can do. we will smash their heads and break their legs." towards dark, when they returned, they had seen no wolves nor their tracks. "the wolves are so cunning and their ways are so unknown to us that we must be on the lookout all night," said the lapps to me. then we partook of our reindeer meat, which had been kept between our clothing and our chests to prevent it from freezing. it is not pleasant to eat a frozen piece of meat as hard as a rock. but i had learned not to be so very particular. otherwise i should never have been able to travel in the country. the moon was on the wane. when it rose it cast its dim light upon the snow. it was a very busy night for the lapps, for the reindeer had to be kept together and required constant watching. the dogs acted with great intelligence; they seemed to know that their masters dreaded the wolves; they barked continually, and looked once in a while into the distance, moving away, as if to see if they could scent the wolves afar off. i walked with my skees slowly, looking off into the distance! suddenly i thought i saw far away a pack of them. i drew the attention of the lapp who was with me to the spot; but his eyes, accustomed to scan the snow, soon discovered what it was. he said to me: "there are no wolves there; only the top of some branches of birch trees above the snow." all the laplanders, men, women, and big boys and girls, remained on their skees all night. the men were outside and made a circle round the herd. the second circle was made by the women; the third circle, the nearest to the reindeer, by the children. all shouted and yelled. i yelled also--i thought it was great fun! the dogs barked as they followed their masters or mistresses, going outside of the ring to look for wolves. they were constantly urged; but little urging was required, for almost all of them knew from past experience that it meant that the herd had to be protected from wolves, for they had seen them come when their masters were acting precisely as we were doing, and they were ready for the fray. if it had been a dark night, or if it had been snowing, we should have been in a bad plight; but the moon was our friend. the night passed away and the wolves had not made their appearance. when daylight came we were all pretty tired, and we moved the reindeer nearer to the tent. then after the coffee was made and drunk, and some reindeer meat had been eaten, we all huddled the best way we could into the tent, covered ourselves with skins, and soon after fell asleep, leaving the care of the reindeer to those who were on the watch and to the dogs--their untiring and faithful friends. when i awoke, three dogs were fast asleep near me--the dear dogs required rest as well as ourselves; they had worked hard for their masters all night. i remembered the time we had had during the night, and said to myself, "hard, indeed, is the life of the laplander." the reindeer lay on the snow. after breakfast they were taken a short distance to pasture, and those who had slept watched them, ready to fight the wolves if they came. the news had spread quickly among the lapps in the district that wolves might make their appearance at any moment, and several families with their tents came to camp near us and their herds were kept near ours for mutual protection. we were numerous enough to fight a great number of hungry wolves, and the country was scoured in every direction. numbers of juniper-brush fires were lighted at night where we had cleared away the snow to scare off the wolves. that evening the lapps told wolf stories. one began thus: "when wolves have lost the chief of the pack, they hold a council and name another chief, who they expect will lead them safely through their wanderings and direct them when an attack is to be made. the wolves understand each other perfectly well, and they obey the chief of the pack. they often speak to each other with their eyes. this appears wonderful, but it is so. but woe to the chief when the wolves become dissatisfied with him. when they find that under his leadership they are constantly starving, they agree among themselves to destroy him. they then pounce upon him, kill him, and devour him. they have a way of agreeing to do this without their chief knowing what is to happen to him. they pass judgment upon him and sentence him to die." "wonderful indeed," i said, "is the intelligence of the wolves, if what you say is true." "it is true," said the narrator, and the rest with one voice confirmed him. "wolves are as knowing as people, and we know some of their cunning ways. the chief of the pack must often lead the wolves on long marches, through forests and unbeaten tracks, over the snow to some place where he supposes they will find prey. besides he must not lead them into ambush where they may be destroyed. the chief must be not only cunning, but brave also. we see them often, after they have discovered us, going away or taking another direction than the one in which they were going. it is simply to deceive us, to make us believe that they are going away. then they make a long detour and take our reindeer in our rear. people say foxes are cunning, but the cunning of a fox is nothing to compare to the cunning of a wolf." "that is so," repeated all the lapps. another man said: "when the chief of the pack becomes old, and is not able to lead the wolves any more, the wolves kill him and eat him. when two packs meet there is often a great fight between the two chiefs for the mastery, and the defeated one runs away. then his own pack over which he ruled runs after him and kills him. then they proclaim the victor the new chief and the two packs join forces. often, when the wolves make an attack, the chief looks on with a few of his followers as a reserve to see how things are going, and then rushes in with them to insure victory." after this story the lapps lighted their pipes and puffed away. then one passed his snuffbox round, each taking a pinch of snuff. i took one, and i had immediately a fit of sneezing that lasted quite a while, to the great amusement of my lapp friends. one of the latter then told the following story: "some winters ago, while a number of us were on skees on our way to church, which was about one hundred miles away, we saw in the distance quite a number of wolves, following the chief of the pack. he was easily recognized, not only because he seemed larger than the others, but because he was always in the lead, and when he stopped they did likewise. it was fortunate that we were on skees instead of in sleighs, for the reindeer would have become unmanageable in their fright and would certainly have been attacked by the wolves. we were armed with our bludgeons, and three of us had guns. the wolves, which had seen us, came in our direction and when at about a quarter of a mile from us stopped and suddenly held a consultation, then advanced again towards us. when they had come within shooting distance i aimed with my gun at the chief of the pack, who stood by himself, and killed him. immediately the other wolves precipitated themselves upon him and fought over his body and devoured him. in the mean time we shot two others. those likewise were devoured by their comrades. it did not take the wolves much time to devour their three companions. it was done in the twinkling of an eye. the wolves were so voracious because they had not eaten for several days. this is the time when they follow men and sometimes attack them when they are a large pack together. "the other wolves made off, cowed by the death of their three comrades, but soon stopped and held a consultation among themselves again, and soon we saw one among them take the lead. this was the new chief of the pack that had been chosen by them. then they walked towards us again, and we were ready to meet them on our skees. our object was to kill this new chief of the pack. i aimed at him and succeeded in killing him also. he had hardly fallen when he was set upon and devoured. now the appetite of the wolves was more or less satisfied, and after we had killed another they fled as they saw him fall; once in a while they looked back towards us, but having no chief they did not know what to do until they had chosen another--and they disappeared in the distance." chapter xvii in search of wolves.--a large pack.--they hold a consultation.--their fierce attack on the reindeer.--pursuing them on skees.--killing the chief of the pack. the following day a great snowstorm swept over the land, and during that time the lapps were much in fear that prowling wolves would get into the midst of their herds and that we should be unable to see them on account of the storm. when the snowstorm was over, the lapps said to me: "we are going to scour the country for miles around and look out for wolves, for now is a good time to hunt them because the snow is soft. they sink into it as they run, and we can go much faster than they do on our skees, and so overtake them and fell them with our bludgeons." and they asked if i would accompany them. "yes," i replied, without hesitation, and added, "i hope we shall meet wolves." the lapps left by twos and threes and went in different directions. one of them and myself took our way directly east. after travelling a few miles i espied a black speck very far away, for i am long-sighted. this at first i thought to be the top of birch trees above the snow, as before; but i was not quite sure, and as i walked along on my skees i kept a sharp lookout. suddenly i thought the black spot was moving. i stopped and watched. there was no mistake, the spot was moving. it was a large pack of wolves. and they were apparently coming towards us. i called to my companion, and pointing to the spot said to him: "look there. i think i see wolves." he looked for a while, then with glittering eyes he said, "paulus, you are right; they are wolves." we stood still to watch them. the spot was getting bigger and bigger as the wolves came nearer. they made a large pack; but they were still too far away for us to be able to guess how many there were. i wondered if they were coming to attack us. they certainly would if they had had no food for several days, for hunger makes them very bold and fierce. i looked at my gun. it was all right. my pouch was filled with buckshot cartridges. my hunting knife hung by my side. my lapp held his bludgeon tightly in his hands. no wolf could run as fast as he could when he was on his skees, and he could run away from them if he was not equal to the contest and if there were too many after him. "the wolves have perhaps scented the reindeer," said he; "they have to come in our direction to reach the herds." not far from where we stood was a big boulder that was not entirely buried in the snow. "let us hide behind it, and watch," said my companion. after we had come to the boulder, the lapp hid at one end of it, i at the other. from our hiding-place we could peep out and keep a sharp lookout on the wolves. the wolves were coming nearer and nearer. i tried to count them, and i thought there were about thirty. i soon recognized the chief of the pack. he was bigger and appeared darker than the rest. he was walking quite ahead of all the pack. they seemed to become more cautious as they neared us. what was the reason? we held a consultation. the lapp said, "the wind has shifted and is blowing from the wolves towards us, so they cannot scent us, and it is by mere chance they are coming in this direction. they have evidently come from the great finland forest east of us." suddenly the chief of the pack stopped, and all the wolves stopped also. then he advanced alone slowly while the remainder of the pack stood still. then the wolves came to join him. they were now evidently holding a consultation, talking wolf fashion among themselves, or listening to their chief, who had something to say. "what are the wolves up to?" i inquired of the lapp. "they are planning some mischief," he replied. [illustration: "the lapp passed him like a flash and gave him a terrible blow."] then they divided themselves into two packs, the old chief having the greater number of wolves with him. the new pack with its chief turned to the right, the ones with the old chief remaining at the same place. i said to the lapp, "how strange is the wolves' behavior! apparently the long conversation they had among themselves was to arrange a plan of campaign and to divide themselves into two packs." "that is so," replied he. "wolves are very knowing, and by their tactics fool us very often." i replied, "we will try to fool them this time, and kill many of them. the reindeer must be protected." "i believe," continued the lapp, "that the new pack that has left is going to take our reindeer in the rear and attack them, and those which remain here are going to wait for this attack. the reindeer in their fright will run in the opposite direction and fall into the midst of these wolves that we see, and which are waiting for them. the cunning of wolves is wonderful. when a pack attacks a herd of reindeer there are always some of them lying in wait somewhere else. "you stay here and watch. i must go and warn our people that the wolves have come among us. we have been expecting them every hour. it is very seldom when their tracks are seen that they do not attack our reindeer. i will return very soon." "all right," i said. i had plenty of buckshot, and with my back to the boulder i was not afraid of being attacked in the rear, and i could face them without fear, fire at them, and kill a number of them. after the lapp had gone i watched the pack carefully. the wolves stood still for a long time. they were looking in a certain direction. i tried to find what they were looking at, but saw nothing. suddenly they advanced, turning away slightly from the boulder, then walked faster, headed by the chief of the pack. there seemed to be great excitement among them. i looked in the direction whither they were moving, when i saw a lot of reindeer coming towards them, pursued by wolves from behind and lapps and dogs following them. what the lapp had said had come to pass; the wolves had attacked the reindeer in the rear, and the pack that had stood still was ready for the fray and to attack them in front. i was also prepared for the fight--ready to kill all the wolves i could. now i saw reindeer in every direction--wolves among them, and the lapps everywhere, moving at great speed on their skees. they seemed to fly over the snow. suddenly i saw one coming near a wolf which was running after a reindeer, and passing by his side give with his bludgeon a blow that broke the back of the beast, which gave a fearful howl. in the mean time the lapp wheeled round, came back, and finished him by a blow on the head. i saw further on a poor reindeer in his death struggle with two wolves that had fastened upon his neck. two lapps had seen this also, and armed with their bludgeons they came at full speed, and as quick as the flight of an arrow they passed on each side of the poor reindeer and broke the fore legs of the wolves, which fell on their backs howling. the lapps wheeled round, returned and gave them two terrific blows on their heads, which stunned them; then they killed them. i had heard the sound of the blows. the wolves had become very fierce in their attacks. i wanted to pursue them on my skees, but unfortunately i was not skilful enough to do so. the reindeer were fleeing, pursued by the wolves which were in their midst. it was a fight for life. i saw four wolves attacking a bull while he was charging one of them and had almost pierced him with his antlers. the three other wolves sprang upon him, their big teeth in his flesh. he ran with them for a while, then the noble animal fell. another wolf came near me and succeeded in bringing down a young reindeer that was running away with all his might. i sent a lot of buckshot through him and killed him on the spot, but i was too late to save the life of the poor reindeer; and in an instant the dying wolf was attacked by his voracious comrades, which precipitated themselves upon him and tore him to pieces and devoured him. i looked at this scene with so much astonishment that i forgot to fire another shot at the wolves. several wolves were killed, and at last all were put to flight. our victory was complete. i recognized the chief of the pack among the slain. what a big fellow he was! what ugly-looking teeth he had! the wolves after this attack were completely disorganized, and fled in different directions. in the mean time my lapp, true to his word, had rejoined me. he said: "these wolves understand each other, and have agreed among themselves to meet somewhere in the great forest east of us. they will visit us again in small packs, so we must be on the watch constantly." then with a sigh he said: "now we are going to have a hard time to bring the reindeer of each owner together." the day after the slaying of the wolves, i bade good-bye to the lapps and once more started to wander over the great snowy waste of "the land of the long night." [illustration: "it was a fight for life!"] chapter xviii great skill of the lapps with their skees.--leaping over wide gullies and rivers.--prodigious length of their leaps.--accuracy of their coasting.--i start them by waving the american flag. i was once more travelling westward, and two days afterward fell in with another company of nomadic lapps. we became, as usual, good friends. one day they said to me: "paulus, the snow is in a very fine condition for skeeing, and we are going to have some fun among ourselves, and run down steep hills on our skees and try our skill in making leaps in the air across a chasm there is over yonder, with a river beyond, and find out who can make the longest leap and be the champion. we want you to come with us, for there will be great fun." i replied, "i am certainly coming, for i have never seen such a game before, and i like fun. yes, boys, i like fun." they laughed heartily when they heard me say this. we made ready, and started on our skees, and after a run of about four miles the lapps stopped near the edge of a long and very steep hill, at the foot of which was a plain. there they said to me: "there is a wide gully, which you cannot see, before reaching the bottom of the hill, and further down is a river. we will go down this hill and leap over both the gully and the river on our skees. of course, the greater our speed, the longer the leap we make. the danger is in not being able to reach the ledge on the other side; but this makes the fun more exciting. it is very seldom, however, that accidents happen, for no one undertakes these dangerous leaps unless he is very sure of himself." "what happens then," i asked, "if the leap falls short?" "then," he answered, "you may break your leg, or arm, or your neck; but i do not know of any such misfortunes happening, though we hear once in a great while in the mountains of an accident which results in death. one of the great dangers in skeeing is that of striking a boulder hidden under the crust of snow, or of falling over an unseen precipice. when we are small children we learn to leap forward in the air and come down on our skees, beginning by making small leaps from insignificant heights, increasing the leap gradually as we have more practice, and so becoming stronger and more agile and skilful in going down a hill." thereupon the lapps took up their position along the brink of the hill and stood in a straight line about ten or fifteen yards from each other. it was a fine sight. at a given signal they started on their skees, holding in one hand their sticks to be used as rudders to guide them. they slid down at tremendous speed; suddenly i saw them fly through the air, and then land below on their skees. they had leaped over the gully. then they continued their course faster than before, on account of the momentum of the leap, and as they reached the bottom of the hill they made another leap in the air, which took them over the river to the plain beyond. after going a little further, for they could not stop at once, they came to a halt. then returning they examined the leaps, to see who among them had made the longest one. after they had ascertained who was the champion in the first contest, they continued to ascend the hill in zigzags on their skees, and after this tiresome task they came to where they had left me. i said to them, "friends, i am going down the hill, for i shall then be able to see better your great leaping feats, and how wide and deep is the space you leap over, for from the top of the hill it cannot be seen. wonderful, indeed, are your skill and daring! such tremendous leaps as you made can never be accomplished by man except on skees. i wish i could have been brought up to go on skees like yourselves, from my childhood, then i should enjoy this greatly, and compete for the championship. it is far better fun than skating." "certainly," they shouted with one voice, "there is ten times more fun in skeeing than in skating. it is like all sports, the more danger there is in them the greater are the excitement and the interest." "but," said i, "i must go down this hill in a roundabout way, for i do not want to fall into the hollow over which you leaped." "it would not hurt you," they cried; "you would find plenty of snow at the bottom if you should fall in." it was agreed that one of the lapps should go with me and show me the way through a less steep descent to the chasm. we made the descent successfully, and came to a good position from which i could see the men make the great leap. looking up, i saw all the lapps in position ready for the descent and waiting for the raising of the little american flag i always carried with me,--a custom which dates from the time of my travels in africa--as the signal to start. as i unfolded it, i kissed it with great affection. how beautiful the stars and stripes looked as they waved in the breeze and over the snow! at this signal the lapps started. suddenly i noticed that one of them--the last one in the row--bore down directly upon me. "goodness!" i said to my companion, pointing out to him the lapp above, "suppose this man as he comes down should happen to strike me." the lapp heard me with a smile, and replied: "paulus, do not be afraid; he will guide his skees as skilfully as a skilful boatman steers his boat. i think perhaps he intends to touch you with his hands as he passes by you, so do not be frightened; do not move an inch; he is one of the most skilful among us." [illustration: "suddenly i saw them fly through the air."] he had hardly finished these words when the lapp with railroad speed and dangerously close bore down upon me, and before i could realize it passed in front of me within three feet, without however touching me, as my companion had predicted. still it took my breath away; my heart beat so quickly. down he went. before i had time to recover i saw the lapps in the air, over the chasm, then in the twinkling of an eye they had alighted on the other side. their momentum was very great, and in less than a minute they had leaped over the river, and continued their forward course, which they could not stop, on the plain below; then lessened their speed gradually with the help of their sticks, the ends of which were thrust deep in the snow. it was a grand sight. as they leaped over their legs were somewhat bent, and as they struck the snow they righted themselves. while in the air they maintained their skees parallel, as if they had been on the snow, and when they alighted the skees were on a perfect level with each other; no man seemed to be more than two or three feet ahead of another. i had followed their motions with great curiosity. they seemed to give a spring as they came near the brink of the chasm, bending their bodies forward, straightening themselves as they struck the snow, and continuing their way as if nothing had happened. on their way back, as they neared me i shouted, "good for you, boys! good for you! it was splendid." i shook hands with every one of them. they were very much excited over the sport. the hollow over which they leaped seemed to be about ninety-five feet wide, and the place from which they sprang was about twelve or fifteen feet above the bank on the other side. they told me that some of the great leaps in the country had been over one hundred and twenty-five feet. "is it possible!" i exclaimed; "it seems incredible." then the lapp who had passed so near me said to me, "you were afraid i would strike you on my way down. we can pass an object far below us within a few inches when we like. we will show you how we do by and by." the lapps once more ascended the hill, and i took a new position by the river and waited for them to come down. they started in the same way as before and came down with very great speed, leaped over the gully, and in an instant, seemingly, they were in the air over the river--a leap of about sixty or seventy feet. i shouted again, "well done, boys! well done!" i was terribly excited myself. then they came to me and said: "now we are going to have a new game." they planted several sticks in the snow in different positions on the declivity of the hill, and said, "paulus, we are going to show you how near we can come to those sticks; we will almost touch them with our skees." when they were ready i raised my flag. they came down the hill almost with the same rapidity as before, but pushed their guiding sticks deeper into the snow; and most of them came within a few inches of the sticks. after passing one they would change their direction and move to another, either on the left or right, further down. this terminated the day's sport. we returned to our encampment. i had had a day of great delight. chapter xix we encounter more wolves.--my guide kills two with his bludgeon.--a visiting trip with a lapp family.--extraordinary speed of reindeer.--we strike a boulder.--lake givijÄrvi.--eastward again. now i kept a sharp lookout over the horizon as we drove along, for i thought wolves might make their appearance again at any moment. my lapp guide was also apprehensive. when we stopped for our meals he said to me, "if our reindeer scent or see wolves, they will become uncontrollable. it will be impossible for us to stop them, and if we try to keep in our sleighs we shall be surely upset, for the animals will be so wild from fright. we had better have our skees handy, so that we can throw them out of our sleighs and then jump out ourselves." then, brandishing his bludgeon, he said fiercely, "i will make short work of some of them. they will never run after any more reindeer." i brandished my gun, and cried, "woe to the wolves if they come near us. i will give them enough buckshot to make them jump." we continued our journey, the lapp keeping close to me. suddenly he stopped and said, "paulus, i am going to tie your sleigh behind mine and fasten your reindeer to it. i do not know why, but i have an idea, somehow, that there are wolves around, and i expect to see them at any moment. at any rate it is better to be prepared for them." after my sleigh was attached as he had said, we resumed our journey, i, quietly seated in my sleigh, having no reindeer to drive, only using my stick as a rudder. about two hours afterwards as we skirted a forest of fir trees we suddenly saw two wolves skulking in the distance. fortunately we discovered them before the reindeer did. we threw out our skees, and then the lapp with his bludgeon and i with my gun jumped out. we were hardly out when our reindeer scented the wolves and plunged wildly in their efforts to escape, and we had to let them go, for we could not hold them. the lapp in an instant was on his skees armed with his bludgeon. he made directly for the wolves at tremendous speed. he seemed to fly over the snow, and before i knew it he had slain a wolf by giving him a mighty blow on his skull. then like a bird of prey he made for the other wolf. the animal stood still, ready to bite him, but the lapp passed by him like a flash and gave him a terrible blow on his mouth which broke his teeth. then after he had stopped the speed of his skees, he turned back and gave him his deathblow. after he had taken breath, he said to me, "paulus, wait here, for you cannot 'skee' fast enough. i must go after our runaway reindeer and our sleighs," and off he went. he followed the tracks they had left behind them. i waited one hour, two hours,--i thought he would never come back. finally i saw a little black speck over the snow. it was my lapp, and soon he was by my side with reindeer and sleighs. in the afternoon we came to a tent, where we were kindly received, and there we slept. the next morning the owner of the tent said to me, "the snow is very fine for sleighing, for it is crisp and well packed. the weather is cold and travelling with reindeer could not be better, for the animals will feel fine. some of my people and i want to go and visit my brother and his family. will you come with us?" "yes," i replied, "i shall be very glad to go with you." a short time after this five reindeer made their appearance; they were all males, and splendid animals,--samoyeds, the finest and largest i had thus far seen. their antlers were superb. "these reindeer," said their owner, "are the fastest i have, and are in their prime for driving, for they are between six and eight years old, the age when they are the strongest. they have not been used for two weeks, so they feel very frisky; and it being so cold they will run at a rate that will perhaps scare you, and i am sure they will go as fast as they ever did. no reindeer that i know of can keep pace with them. i have taken great care in training them." i was delighted at the thought of travelling with such fast animals, and i replied, "i am sure i shall enjoy the drive." then everybody got ready for the start. my host, pointing to one of the biggest reindeer, said to me, "this one will be yours, and you will follow me." we were hardly ready when the reindeer started at a furious rate and in the wildest way. the lapps held their reins as hard as they could and threw themselves across their sleighs and were carried in that way for a little distance. it was a most ludicrous sight, the like of which i had never seen! but they all succeeded in getting in--they were masters of the situation. how they succeeded in getting in i could not tell, it was certainly a great feat of gymnastics. my reindeer had started with the rest and was ahead of them all, but soon the lapps overtook me. we went on at a tremendous rate. these were indeed the fastest reindeer i had ever travelled with. it was a good thing that i had learned how to balance myself in those little lapp sleighs. i did not mind any more their swinging to and fro. i rather liked the excitement. and it was exciting enough! we went so fast that things appeared and disappeared almost before i had time to look at them. we sped with such rapidity that i fancied i was travelling on the pennsylvania railroad, as i often had done on the limited to chicago on the way to see my scandinavian friends and others. i was thinking of that splendid train with its luxurious cars--of the observation cars with their comfortable chairs, sofas, library; of the bath room, stenographer, and barber, and polite employees, and all the comforts travellers had. suddenly i thought of its fine dining-room cars, and as i was hungry i imagined i was seated before one of its tables, with snowy-white linen, and enjoying a glorious meal,--oysters, capon, roast beef, vegetables of several kinds, and puddings and fruits; the ice cream i dismissed, for i did not feel like having any, it was so cold. then i thought of its comfortable beds--when suddenly a tremendous bumping, which almost threw me out, reminded me that i was not on that luxurious train. i had struck a snag or boulder. this made it clear at once that i was dreaming and was not on the chicago limited, but that i was travelling in "the land of the long night." the air was so rarefied, the drive so exciting, that i shouted with all my might, "go on, reindeer, go on. this is fine, i never had such a drive in my life." after two hours, and a drive of nearly fifty miles, we alighted before a lapp tent. the dogs, and there were many, announced our arrival by fierce barking, and the inmates of the tent came out to see who the strangers were. they recognized my friends and received them with demonstrations of joy, which was the more remarkable as the lapps are far from being demonstrative. the next day in the afternoon we returned to our tent, the reindeer as frisky as the day before and running as fast. i have never forgotten those two glorious rides, and i shall remember them as long as i live. bidding my lapp friends good-bye i came one day to lake givijärvi and further on to lake aitijärvi. there i saw a lonely farm with a comfortable dwelling-house of logs. how pleasant this habitation seemed in that snow land. the smoke curling over the chimney told that there were people there, and soon after we were in front of the house, and i entered a large room, and saw a man with long black shaggy hair tinged with grey. his name was adam triump. then a woman, his wife, came in, also with loose shaggy black hair falling over her shoulders. my guide and i were made welcome. from there i travelled once more eastward, driving over the ivalajoki, which falls into the enarejärvi. if i had been travelling alone i should certainly have perished, for i did not know where to find the people of the thinly inhabited country. chapter xx the lapp hamlet of kautokeino.--a bath in a big iron pot.--an arctic way of washing clothes.--dress and ornaments of the lapps.--appearance and height of the lapps.--givijÄrvi.--karasjok. a few days after the events i have just related to you, i found myself in the lapp hamlet of kautokeino, with its lutheran church, near latitude degrees. here and there were queer-looking storehouses which belonged to the nomadic lapps. i alighted before the post station, and entered the house and was welcomed by the station master. the dwelling was composed of two rooms, one for the use of the family, the other for guests or travellers. the place was full of lapp men and women who had come to rest, go to church on the following sunday, or see their children who were at school; or to get coffee, sugar, and other provisions stored in their own houses. on the opposite side of the post station was the cow house, and between it and the house was the old-fashioned wooden-bucket well with its long, swinging pole, surrounded by a thick mass of ice made of the dripping water from the bucket. i did not wonder when i saw the ice, for it was degrees below zero that day, and sometimes it is colder still. i went into the cow-house. it was, as usual, a very low building, lower than most of those i had seen before. the two long windows admitted a dim light. at the further end was the usual big iron pot seen in almost every cow-house, for soaking the grass in boiling water, as the coarse marsh grass is so hard to chew that it has to be thus prepared. the daughter of the house, a girl about twenty years old, said to me, "i am going to prepare a meal for the cows and the sheep." the huge iron pot was filled with reindeer moss and grass and warm water. "this food is for the cows and sheep," she said. "the horse is fed on fine fragrant hay, gathered during the short summer; horses will not eat the food we give to the cows and sheep; they are very particular." i was very much in need of a good wash and of a warm bath, for i had only used snow to wash my hands and face for many days. as i looked at the big iron pot i said to myself, "this pot will make a good wash-tub." i went to the mistress of the house and asked her if i could take a warm bath in the big iron pot. "certainly," she replied. then she called her daughter, and both went to the cow-house. they cleaned the iron pot thoroughly; then filled it about two thirds full with water from the trough communicating with the well, which the old station master drew for them. they lighted a fire under the pot, and cleaned the surroundings, and laid down a reindeer skin for my feet, and a chair for me to sit on. when the water was warm, and the fire under it extinguished, the wife said that my bath was ready. how good i felt when i was in the big iron pot filled with warm water. i gave grunts of satisfaction. i put my head under water and thought "how good; how good the water feels." suddenly one of the family appeared, and before i had time to say "what do you want?" had jumped into the water all dressed and got hold of one of my legs and rubbed it with soap. then came the turn of the other leg, then the body, head and all. i was rubbed with a brush as hard as if i had been a piece of wood that had no feelings, and as if my skin had been the bark of a tree. two or three times i screamed out, but my attendant only laughed. after the rubbing i was switched with birch twigs till i fairly glowed, and then i was left alone. when i looked at my body my skin was as red as a tomato. the blood was in full circulation and i felt fine, for it was such a long time since i had taken a real bath that i had almost forgotten that there was such a thing. how nice it was to put clean underwear on. how comfortable it felt. i put on a new pair of reindeer trousers, that were lent to me and that had never been worn before, and a new "kapta." here was a good occasion to have my underwear washed, and my fur garments cleansed of everything, for it was over degrees below zero. this wearing of the same clothes for a long time is the greatest hardship of travelling in winter in the arctic regions; for in the course of time obnoxious things swarm in the fur and also in the woollen underwear. when these become unendurable the following way of washing has to be performed without soap or water. after a person has changed his fur garments and underwear, he hangs them outside when the temperature is from to degrees below zero. the colder it is, the better for the clothes that are to be cleansed. these are left hanging for several days, during which time all the noxious things are killed by the intense cold. after this the underwear and the fur garments are well shaken and beaten, and then they return from this kind of laundry clean, according to the views of the arctic regions, and are ready to be worn again. i often had my clothing washed in that manner, and also my sleeping-bags. on sunday many lapps attended the lutheran church from different parts of the country, coming either on skees or with their sleighs; those who lived far away starting the day before. some had come even so far as one hundred and fifty miles. i was present at the religious services; the church was crowded. the clergyman was not in his clerical robes, but dressed in furs--like the rest of the congregation, for the churches are not heated. on my return from church, the lapps asked me where i was going. i replied i wanted to go as far as the land went north of me, as far as nordkyn. they all wondered why i wanted to go there. they asked me if i was a merchant and bought fish. i told them i was not, but that i travelled to see the country and its people. they thought i was a very strange man, and they wondered at my ways. this hamlet was composed of about twelve homesteads. the dwelling-houses were built of logs, those for beasts of turf or stones. by the church was the schoolhouse, and there was a large store very much like our country stores at home. the inhabitants owned about sixty cows,--such small cows! they were about three feet in height--one hundred and seventy sheep and a few oxen as small as the cows. kautokeino was full of nomadic lapps, and we had a good time together, for the lapps are very friendly and i had learned to love them. "we come here," they said, "to meet our friends, to see our children who are in school, to get some of the provisions kept in our storehouses and other things we want; and we bring with us skins of reindeer and the garments and shoes that have been made in our tents." in this church hamlet were a number of very old lapps, men and women who could no longer follow their reindeer and endure a hard, wandering life. thither also the sick or the lame come, to stay until they get well or die. two lapps were pointed out to me who were nearly one hundred years old. the inhabitants of these lapp hamlets are not nomadic; they live on the produce of their farms, the increase of their reindeer, by catching salmon, and in employing themselves as sailors on the fishing-boats of the arctic sea, which they reach by descending the rivers. the lapp women wore queer-fitting little caps of bright colors, and when in holiday dress wore a number of large showy silk handkerchiefs. sometimes they had as many as four, on the top of one another, over their fur dresses; they wore necklaces of large glass beads, round their waists were silver belts, and their fingers were ornamented with rings. they wore trousers of reindeer skin, as the lapp women do universally. the men wore peaked caps. these people were short of stature, compactly but slightly built, with strong limbs, their light weight allowing them to climb, jump, and run quickly. there are no heavy men with big stomachs among them. quite a number of lapps have fair hair and blue eyes. they are unlike the esquimaux, and in a crowd at home, dressed like ourselves, would pass unnoticed. there are a number of lapps in the north-west of our own county. the tallest woman that i saw was feet / inch, the tallest man feet - / inches; the smallest woman feet - / inches, the smallest man feet inches. there were more women averaging feet inches than men of that size, men averaging generally above five feet. i left kautokeino, and that same day i came to lake givijärvi. i had to be told that it was a lake, for it was a continuous snow-land. here was a farm, the owner of which kept a small store and sold sugar, coffee, salt, flour, tobacco, matches, some woollen underwear, etc., to the lapps; and bought from them skins, shoes, and gloves, in summer smoked tongue and reindeer meat, reindeer cheese, etc., and every year went with these to some of the norwegian towns on the arctic sea to sell them and buy groceries and other goods. here i had a clean room and bed. the place was a great rendezvous for nomadic lapps, and i found many of them. the farmer extended to them unbounded hospitality, and spread as many reindeer skins on the floor at night as the room could hold, for them to sleep on. the lapps liked the place very much, and came there to rest for a few days, bringing their food with them. their wives and children would also come, and were sure to be welcome at the farm. i could not drink sufficient milk or coffee, or eat enough reindeer meat, cheese, or butter that had been churned in summer, to please the good-hearted farmer. he wanted no pay. he even insisted on accompanying me to karasjok. the sleighing was fine, and the snow was six and seven feet deep on a level. our arrival at karasjok, after a hundred miles' journey from givijärvi, was announced by the fierce barking of the dogs of the place, and twice i was almost overtaken by one more fierce than the others. "they only bark," shouted my guide. i was now in latitude ° ', and within a few miles of the longitude of nordkyn. the hamlet was situated on the shores of the karasjoki river. some of the fir trees of the forests near karasjok measured twenty inches in diameter; but once cut they do not grow again. i saw very few young trees. the hamlet was composed of eighteen or twenty homesteads, with about one hundred and thirty inhabitants. there were over twenty horses, besides cows, sheep, and reindeer. the horses were so plentiful because they are used to haul timber. i reflected that the horse is a wonderful animal, and can live like man in many kinds of climate. all the houses at karasjok were built of logs. the finest residence was that of the merchant of the place. the karasjok lapps, and others in the neighborhood, were very unlike those i had seen before. they were tall; some of them six feet in height. the women were also tall, most of them having dark hair. the fair complexion and blue eyes were uncommon. men and women wore strange-looking head-dresses. the men wore square caps of red or blue flannel, filled up with eider down. the women put on a wooden framework of very peculiar shape, appearing more or less like a casque or the helmet of a dragoon. i only stopped the night in karasjok, and after getting new reindeer at the post station and a new guide, started north. chapter xxi leave karasjok still travelling northward.--the river tana.--river lapps.--filthy dwellings.--on the way to nordkyn.--the most northern land in europe. on leaving karasjok i travelled northward, over the frozen karasjoki, until i came to a broad stream called the tana. as we drove on the river i saw here and there solitary farms and strange little hamlets inhabited by river lapps. the occupation of the river lapps is largely salmon catching in summer. these fish are very abundant in the rivers. many, during the codfish season, engage themselves as sailors on the arctic sea. almost every family has a small farm, stocked with diminutive cows; besides they have sheep and goats. during the summer their reindeer are taken care of by the nomadic lapps. these reindeer have to go to the mountains near the arctic sea, on account of the mosquitoes. now travelling was becoming very hard,--not on account of the snow, but because the inhabitants and their dwellings were so dirty. but i had one comfort. all over that far northern land i felt so safe; it never came into my head that these people would rob me, though they knew i had plenty of money with me, according to their ways of thinking, to pay for reindeer and other travelling expenses; but the finns and the lapps are a god-fearing people. the first day, i came to a place occupied by a single man. the house was so filthy, and vermin apparently so plentiful, that i whispered to my lapp guide, "let us go on." the lapp was so tired that he looked at me with astonishment, and seemed to say: "are not these comfortable quarters?" we got into our sleighs, however, and further on we stopped and tied our reindeer together. the lapp slept in his sleigh covered with a reindeer skin, and i in my bag. the next day we halted before a farm. it was dark. there we intended to spend the night. the people do not lock their doors, neither do they knock to obtain admittance. so we entered. the family were all in bed. a man lighted a light. such filth i thought i had never seen. the beds were filled with dirty hay that had been there all winter. the sheepskin blankets with the wool on were almost as black as soot. the people who slept between them were without a particle of clothes. "what a place for vermin!" i whispered to myself. at this sight, i again said in a low voice to my lapp, "let us go on." he replied, "the reindeer are hungry, and we have had no food ourselves for long hours. let us remain overnight and breakfast here to-morrow." in the mean time the owner of the place got up, put on a long dirty woolen shirt, and went with us into the next room, which was clean. i gave a sigh of relief. the wooden bed had no hay, no sheepskin blankets. the man got for me a clean reindeer skin which he said had just come out of the open air, where it had been for several days. to my consternation my lapp guide offered to sleep alongside of me, and added, "we shall be warmer if we sleep together." i was in a dilemma. i did not want to offend him, but i told him that i always slept by myself. then the owner of the place spread another reindeer skin on the floor, and my guide slept upon it. the next morning we breakfasted on dried reindeer meat, hard bread, and milk. after bidding our host good-bye, and thanking him for his hospitality, we continued our journey, arriving towards noon at a farm owned by a river lapp. the farm had three buildings; only the wife and daughter were at home. the husband was cod fishing in the arctic sea. the wife told me she had been a sailor before she was married, and engaged in cod fishing. there were on this farm three diminutive cows, an ox of the size of the cows, nine sheep, and they owned besides quite a number of reindeer. the cows were getting smaller and smaller as i went north. in the little dwelling-house was a small room for a stranger; reindeer skins made the mattress. my guide and i ate together. we had excellent coffee, smoked reindeer meat, and milk. further on we stopped awhile at a little farm owned by a woman and her daughter. the mother and daughter worked as if they were men; they fished for salmon in the river in summer, mowed hay, collected reindeer moss to feed their cows, went after wood. a faithful dog was their companion. at some seasons the daughter descended the river, and engaged herself as one of the crew on board of a fishing boat on the arctic ocean. resuming our journey we passed the church hamlet of utsjoki. near utsjoki i met some nomadic lapps, who had a large herd of reindeer with them, and were willing to take me to nordkyn. that night i slept in their tent. early the next morning they lassoed some very fine reindeer, which had superb horns and had not been used for quite a while. i did not care now how fast the reindeer went, for i could keep inside of my sleigh. the men said: "we will meet on the promontory lapps with their reindeer herds, and if it is very stormy we can go into their tent." soon after we started. they were not mistaken in regard to the speed of their beasts. they set off at a furious pace, and it was all i could do to keep inside of my sleigh. my pride was up, and i was bound to do my utmost not to upset. we finally reached the high promontory which divides the laxe from the tana fjord, at the extremity of which is nordkyn. it was blowing a gale right from the north, and we had to protect our faces with our masks. fortunately we came to a lapp encampment, and were received with great kindness and hospitality; enjoyed a good meal of reindeer meat, and a good sleep afterwards. the next morning the weather was fine, and i drove on to kjorgosk njarg--hard name to pronounce--the most northern land in europe. the land's end was nearing, and erelong i stood on the edge of cape nordkyn, ° ' "--the most northern end of the continent of europe, and rising majestically over seven hundred feet above the level of the sea. before me was the arctic ocean, and beyond, a long way off and unseen by me, was the impenetrable wall of ice which the long night had built to guard the pole. from there i could see north cape. chapter xxii leave nordkyn.--frantic efforts of the reindeer to keep their footing on the ice.--the bear's night.--foxes and ermines.--weird cries of foxes.--building snow houses.--shooting-boxes.--killing foxes.--traps for ermines.--a snow owl. nordkyn being the land's end, i could not go further north, so i retraced my steps southward. that afternoon we saw on the other side of a frozen lakelet the tent of some nomadic lapps, and we made preparations to cross the lake to go and see them. while we were in the midst of the lake the wind rose, and before we knew it the ice was left bare around us, and our reindeer could not run or walk over it, it was so slippery. they would fall at every step they made, making all kinds of contortions to try to stand on their legs; their hoofs could not possibly hold on fast to the ice. we got out of our sleighs to help them. i said to myself that reindeer ought to be shod, especially to go over the ice. it was awful--the poor beasts made frantic efforts to get on, but could not. i thought we should never be able to cross the lake, and that we should be obliged to abandon the reindeer, or try to put them into our sleighs, and drag these ourselves to the shore. but we watched our opportunity, and when a layer of snow was blown in our way, we succeeded in making some headway. at last we reached the shore, after three or four hours of hard work. the lapps received us very kindly. that night i heard the weird and dismal howls of foxes. they sounded so strange in the stillness of darkness. in the morning i asked the lapps how many kinds of foxes were found in the country. "there are red, blue, and black foxes," they answered. "during the bear's night or winter months the blue foxes and the gray hares turn white; the fur of the black fox is tipped with white, and he is known as the silver-gray fox, the fur thus tipped being very valuable. the ptarmigan also, a species of grouse, turns white during the bear's night." i asked the lapps, "why do you call the winter months the 'bear's night'?" "because," one replied, "in this land the bears sleep all through the winter months." "goodness!" i exclaimed; "then the bear has a sleep that lasts five or six months, and even more?" "yes," the lapp replied. "are there any bears here," i asked, "that are sleeping in the neighborhood?--for i should like immensely to stir one up." "there are none this year," he replied. then i said to him, "let us go fox hunting, for i should like to get some white and silver-gray fox-skins. we will build a snow house for our camp to shelter ourselves." one of the lapps, called jakob, agreed to go with me. besides hunting foxes, we were to trap ermines and kill white hares, for i wanted to have a rug of their skins. i remembered that i had slept between two rugs of white hare skins, and how beautiful, soft, and warm they were. after this talk jakob went off after reindeer, and returned with three of them. in a short time our preparations for camping were made. we took with us our sleeping-bags, some reindeer meat, a little salt, some hard bread, a coffee kettle, coffee, a small iron pot to cook our food in, two wooden shovels to help us in building a snow house and clearing the ground of snow, our skees, guns, and ammunition. i did not forget a couple of wax candles, for i always carried some with me, and plenty of matches, besides a steel and flints in case some accident should happen to our matches. we took also a few slender poles, upon which we intended to hang our meat to keep it out of reach of prowling carnivorous animals. these carefully packed and made secure in a special sleigh, we started. our sleighs glided along as if they were going on smooth ice. after a journey of four hours, having travelled about sixty miles, we came to the shores of a lake, and at one end were two conical dwellings belonging to fishing or river lapps. the smoke curling above their tops showed us the people were at home. "here," said jakob, "we will build our snow houses. i think we shall find plenty of foxes in the neighborhood, for the country is full of ptarmigans, and the foxes prey upon them." we tied our reindeer with long ropes, so that they should have plenty of room to dig for moss. then we began to build our snow house. it was so cold that the snow did not hold well together, so we concluded to make two instead of one, just big enough for each of us to sleep in and be protected from the great cold. it was hard work. when finished they were a little over five feet and a half long and some three feet wide inside. "i like this much better than going in and sleeping in the dwellings of the river or fishing lapps yonder," i said to jakob. clearing a space for our fire in front, we put up three long poles we had carried with us, and hung our meat high up upon them, so that wolves and foxes could not get at it. then we put our sleighs containing our outfit on the top of each other and made them fast with cords. when this was done jakob said: "foxes are often very bold, and they come and rummage around the tents; and when famished they bite everything they get hold of. we shall be able to hear them from our snow houses if they try to get into our sleighs." we had carried with us a few sticks of dry wood to be used as firewood, but jakob knew the country well and that near us were some junipers, the branches of which appeared above the snow, and he went and gathered some of them. the wood of the juniper, though green, burns well, for it is full of resinous matter. our camp was now ready. the day's work being done we lighted a fire, cooked a piece of reindeer meat for our supper, and made coffee. jakob, as usual, had some dried fish skin with him to clarify the coffee. after our meal we went into our snow houses, and taking off my lapp grass and stockings, i laid them inside of my kapta on my chest to dry the dampness out of them during the night. then i got into my bag. jakob did likewise, and after bidding each other good-night we fell asleep. our houses were warm and comfortable. during the night we were startled by the piercing howls of foxes, and these kept us awake for a time. how dismal those howls sounded. we had evidently come to a good place to find foxes! jakob evidently knew what he was about, and had brought me to the right place. when we awoke the weather had become colder, the thermometer marking degrees below zero. after a breakfast of reindeer meat and a cup of coffee we went to reconnoitre on our skees and saw many tracks of foxes. i was delighted at the discovery, and said to myself, "paul, do not leave this place till you have a few fox skins." i wished all the time that these tracks might be those of the white and silver-gray foxes, for they were the ones i particularly wanted. on our return the fishing lapps from the other side of the lake came on their skees to pay us a visit, and invited us to come and see them. looking at their faces i thought they had not been washed for months, for a coat of dirt covered their skins. i looked at their fur garments with great suspicion, and kept away from them without appearing to do so. i found it necessary to use all the tact i possessed to avoid wounding their susceptibilities. after their departure jakob said: "i am going to take the reindeer to some friends of mine who have their camp within two hours from this place, and they will take care of them until we go back." then he bade me good-bye, saying, "i will not be long." i watched him until i lost sight of him and of the reindeer. then i put on my skees, took my gun, and went to look for foxes, and soon came upon fresh tracks of them. once or twice i thought i saw white foxes, but they are difficult to see at a long distance, being of the color of the snow, and i could not be sure. being satisfied of their presence in our neighborhood, i returned to the camp. [illustration: "i advanced cautiously."] as i came within sight of our shelter i thought i saw on the snow, near one of the poles where the reindeer meat was hung, something that was not there when i had left. it was possible that it was only the snow that had been piled up in heaps by us. "strange," i said to myself, "that i did not notice that this morning." i advanced cautiously, when suddenly i discovered that what i thought so strange was three foxes, white ones, seated and looking up intently at the reindeer meat, probably thinking how they might reach it. i watched them while they stood still and kept their heads up, looking at the meat. i was glad the meat was out of their reach, otherwise we should have had no supper. i stood perfectly still and kept watching them. the three foxes did not move. suddenly one turned round, and when he saw me he gave the alarm to his companions and off they ran at a great rate, and soon were out of sight. when i came to the camp i saw that the foxes had gone round and round the pole, in the hope of finding a way to reach the meat. it was lucky that they had not intelligence enough to dig the snow with their paws at the foot of the pole to make it come down. after this, looking over the snow, i saw in the distance a little black spot, which grew bigger and bigger as it came nearer. i recognized jakob on his skees. soon after he arrived in our camp i told him about the foxes. "they will come again," he replied, "for they are hungry. other foxes will also come, for they will surely scent our meat." after a while we began to work, and built two little round enclosures of snow, the walls about three feet high, with openings here and there to fire from, and went inside and waited for the foxes, having previously put within a short shooting distance some reindeer meat. we waited for quite a while--no foxes--when suddenly i thought i saw something moving over the snow. looking carefully i found that they were white foxes. they had evidently scented the meat and were approaching in that direction, and when within shooting distance we fired and two of them fell. they were fine creatures, with soft long hair almost as white as the snow upon which they walked. we skinned them at once, and stretched their skins on frames we made from branches of juniper. the next day we built two new snow entrenchments, in the opposite direction to the others, and when it was dark we went into them, putting reindeer meat near. we had not to wait long. i saw something black on the snow. certainly the animal was not a white fox. it could not be the cub of a bear, for it was the bear's night and they were all asleep. when the animal was near enough i fired and it fell. i ran towards it, and saw that it was a splendid silver-gray fox. how carefully we skinned the animal! the next day jakob made a lot of traps for ermines. these traps are made in the following manner: a string is attached to a loop long enough for the head of the animal to pass through. the string is fastened to a branch, which is bent down above the place where meat is deposited, some distance back of the loop. the ermine approaches, and in trying to reach the meat pushes his head through the loop and pulls the string up, and the loop tightens round the neck and strangles the animal in the air. we scattered these traps in every direction, and caught many ermines. how pretty is the ermine, with its short legs, white fur, and tail tipped with black! the ermine feeds much on the ptarmigans. that day i saw perched on the low branch of a tree a beautiful snowy owl, motionless, evidently watching for something. jakob said to me, "the owl is watching for ermines. there are plenty of these, i am sure, round here, or the owl would not be on this tree. we will set some of our traps here." the owl was big and beautiful, and i said to myself, "the ermine feeds on the ptarmigans, and the owl on the ermine." i did not like the idea of the harmless ptarmigans being eaten by ermines and owls, so i raised my gun and knocked him over. the foxes, after being hunted for two or three days, became very shy and it was impossible to get near them. there were a great number of ptarmigans, and they were so tame that we had no difficulty in getting many for food. strange to say, when we fired our guns they made hardly any noise, for the air was so rarefied. we feasted well at our camp, for we also killed a number of white hares. the white fox had become so scarce that we concluded to leave our camp for good, and jakob went to get our reindeer. after packing we retraced our steps towards his home, his tent on the snow. in one place where we stopped to rest i suddenly noticed that our reindeer had got loose. i shouted to jakob, who was quietly taking a little snooze on the snow, "our reindeer are loose!" without saying a word, he went to his sleigh and took a lasso. the lapps never travel without a lasso. this reassured me. "i must be very wary, for our reindeer are somewhat wild," jakob said; "paulus, follow me." so i took to my skees. as we approached the animals moved off from us. then he came near enough to one of them, and threw his lasso and caught him. after making the animal fast, he went carefully after the others and succeeded in lassoing them. "well done," i said to him. then we lay on the snow, with our masks to protect our faces, and went to sleep. after a short nap we continued our way, and finally reached jakob's tent just in time for supper, and were warmly welcomed by the family. chapter xxiii jakob talks to me about bears.--the bear's night.--watching a bear seeking for winter quarters.--they are very suspicious.--i tell a bear story in my turn. since i had heard of the bear's night, i wanted to know more about these animals and their habits. after our supper, i said to jakob, "talk about bears to me--tell me about them." "all right," he replied. "i will tell you all i know about them." "at the end of the summer and before the first fall of snow," he began, "the bears are very fat, for they have had plenty of berries and roots to eat. they are so fat that they can stand the long fast during the bear's night; but when they go out in the spring from their snow cover, they are very lean. we dread the bear more in the spring than during any part of the summer, for he is voraciously hungry all the time and goes after cattle, horses, sheep, or reindeer." "i do not wonder at their being hungry, for the poor bear has to make up for his long fast," i said. jakob continued: "the bear chooses a place in which he can lie comfortably, such as under boulders or fallen trees, where he can be protected from the snow. he becomes suspicious after he has chosen the place for his winter's night, and for days he walks round and round to see that there is no danger and to make sure that no enemy can see him. he wants to feel perfectly safe before he goes into winter quarters. by walking round wherever the wind blows, he is sure to scent danger, and if he does he moves away and goes to seek some other place. the bear is very wary; it is almost impossible in summer to pursue him without dogs, for he is so quick of foot and always on the alert, that when a hunter sees one he has to be more wary than the bear to approach within shooting distance of him. when badly wounded he attacks his enemy suddenly." after jakob had done speaking, i said to him, in my turn: "let me tell you a bear story. one autumn day when i had crossed the mountains by the great sulitelma glacier and was descending the eastern slope on my way to the gulf of bothnia, my lapp guide and i saw a big brown bear in the distance, but as it was almost dark we decided not to go after him, for the country was very stony. we camped that day in a forest of pines, in order to be sheltered from the wind, for we were to sleep without a fire so as not to make the bear suspicious. after taking our frugal meal of hard bread and butter, my lapp said to me, 'to-morrow we shall see the bear; it is late in the season, and i am sure that he is looking for his winter quarters in the neighborhood, and at the first indication of a big snowstorm he will make ready for his long sleep, for the bears know when a snowstorm is coming.' "'how can they know?' i inquired. "'i cannot tell you, for i do not know,' he replied, 'for i am not a bear; but they do know. do not the swallows and other migrating birds know the approach of winter and then fly southward?' "'they do,' i replied. "that day we were very tired, for we had been tramping all day, down and up hills and leaping over boulders which covered the country in many places, and the wonder to me was that we did not break our necks. "the place we had chosen for the night was by a big boulder almost as large as a small house. there we could be sheltered against the cold wind of the night that came through the trees. i picked out a stone for a pillow, then stretched myself by the side of the boulder on thick lichen that grew over the barren soil, and made a comfortable bed. my guide did likewise. then we bade each other good-night and soon fell asleep. "the next morning we wandered in the neighborhood where we had seen the bear, but that day we did not find him; then we moved in the direction whither we thought he had gone. that evening we saw another boulder some twelve or fifteen feet high. 'this will be a fine place of shelter for the night,' i said to the lapp. he replied, 'it is just the place we want. if the wind shifts we will shift also, so as to be protected.' "i lay flat along the boulder on the thick reindeer moss, the lapp did likewise, and soon after we fell asleep with the pure bracing wind of the mountains blowing over our faces. "the next morning we saw the bear; he was a long way from us. the lapp said to me, 'i think the bear expects to winter round here; we must watch him and follow him.' soon after the bear disappeared. "'do you think he has scented us?' i asked. 'i do not see how he could,' my guide replied, 'the wind is in the wrong direction for that. he has gone for some reason of his own, you may be sure. there may have been people on the other side of the hill and he has scented them.' "we moved all round our boulder to scan the country, but there was no bear in sight as far as our eyes could reach. after a while i noticed a small black spot on the top of a hill. it was the bear; he was looking all round. he then walked away and disappeared. soon he appeared again, and we saw him walk round and round a cluster of pines. the lapp said: 'the bear is walking, making a ring in that manner. he tries to find out if there is any danger for him, and by walking round he is sure to get the wind, no matter from what direction it comes. sometimes the bear will try a number of places for several days before he selects one.' "'how clever the bears are to walk around in that manner,' i said. "suddenly the bear disappeared. 'he has scented us,' said the lapp, 'and i think he will never come back here. we have eaten all the food we have with us. we shall have to feed on berries the rest of our way. this bear will probably remain in this region and take up his winter quarters around here somewhere. i will find out where he will lie. come to me early in the spring, before the snow melts, and we will kill him.' "'all right,' i replied; but the following spring, i regret to say, i was travelling in another part of the country, but i heard that bruin met his fate at the hands of my lapp when he aroused himself from his long sleep and came out from under the snow." the bears in sweden, norway, and finland are very fine animals and attain great size. they vary in the color of their fur, some being almost black, but generally they are of different shades of brown. i think they rank in size next to the grizzly bear of the rocky mountains. they are sometimes dangerous, but not so much so as the grizzly. chapter xxiv preparations for crossing the mountains to the arctic ocean.--decide to take the trail to the ulf fjord.--houses of refuge.--a series of terrific windstorms in the mountains.--lost.--gloomy reflections.--a happy reunion. the next day i said to jakob and to the lapps, "i wish some of you to go with me across the mountains to the shore of the arctic ocean. i will pay you well." we were then between the th and th degrees, north latitude, and we had to cross the mountains at an elevation of about , feet on our way to the sea. i wanted to find out the kind of weather they had in these high altitudes in the arctic regions. "some of us will go with you," they replied; and added: "there are several trails leading to the arctic ocean. we can reach the sea by going to the ofoden, the ulf, the lyngen, the quananger, or the alten fjords." i took my map out. after a conference it was agreed that we should go to the ulf fjord. norway is the country of fjords. a fjord is an arm of the sea, winding its way far inland in the midst of mountains. the sea is very deep, often of greater depth than the towering heights which rise abruptly from the shore, though these are often several thousand feet in altitude. no road can be built along many of these fjords, and boats are the conveyances that are used to go from one place to another. "there are houses of refuge in the mountains, where we shall find shelter in case of heavy storms," said the lapps. "if it were not for those places of refuge people would often perish when overtaken by these storms. paulus, you have met great windstorms on your way here, but they are nothing to compare with the terrific winds to be met in the high mountains. remember that we are in the month of march--the month of storms." as i was listening to what the lapps said, i thought i heard, from across the atlantic, my young folks and friends encouraging me, crying: "be not afraid, paul. go on! go on! no harm will befall you!" i shouted back, "i am not afraid!" so we started. first we came to a finn hamlet, where we met a good many finlanders and laplanders who had arrived with their goods and a great many sleighs and reindeer on their way to the ulf fjord. all the animals had been trained to eat reindeer moss gathered and stored for that purpose. we had come just in time. here it was agreed that jakob and the lapps who had taken me to this place should not go further, but that i should be taken care of by finlanders, whose destination was the same as mine and who were on their way to the arctic sea. i was to go with john puranen. john was a powerfully built man, with a very kind expression. we were soon good friends. john and a party of friends were going with a large number of sleighs loaded with reindeer meat, butter, reindeer cheese, smoked tongues, skins, garments, shoes, and thousands of frozen ptarmigans, to sell to the people living on the coast. the day after our coming parties of finlanders and laplanders began to leave, with forty or fifty sleighs and a number of spare reindeer in case any gave out. as i looked over the snow, i could see the caravans following each other, in single file, and a number of dogs following their masters. the next day we started with a large party. we all hoped for good weather. we took a good supply of reindeer moss with us. late at night we came to the first farm of refuge found in our track. hundreds of sleighs and reindeer were outside, and when i entered the house more than a hundred men were sleeping on the floor. the snoring was something terrific, and the heat and the closeness of the room were unbearable. a lighted lamp shone dimly on the slumberers. so i thought that i would be far more comfortable sleeping outside in my two bags. john said that he would sleep in his bags by me--and in fact we slept very comfortably. [illustration: "the mist was so thick that i could not see ahead."] when i awoke in the morning it was degrees below zero. then we went into the house and had some coffee and reindeer meat for breakfast. as at all the post stations, there is a tariff for everything printed on the walls, so no overcharge is practised. many of the people had already left; we hurried on to overtake them, and as usual went in single file. the weather had become windy, and the wind blew stronger and stronger as we went on, until there was hardly any snow left on the ground. it flew to a great height, and the mist was so thick that i could not see ahead. my reindeer was going of its own accord. i trusted him to scent and follow the other reindeer ahead of me. i hurried him on by striking slightly his right flank with my rein, hoping to overtake the people of our party. the wind kept increasing, and seeing no one ahead or behind i became alarmed. where were john and the other fellows? i had no provisions with me. where was i? once in a while, when there was a lull that lasted about a minute, i saw nothing but huge mountains ahead of me. at sight of them i became more anxious than ever. i could only hear the shrieking of the wind, which at times threatened to upset me. occasionally it blew so hard that my reindeer had to stop. my head was entirely hidden by my mask and my hood, which had been made so secure that i felt it would stay with my head till both were blown away. only my eyes could be seen; but the snow which kept flying in the air became as fine as flour and penetrated everywhere. it got through the open space for my eyes, then gathered on my hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, and mustache, and on my cheeks and nose; in fact, everywhere on my face, and made a mask of ice. i wished i had no mustache, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, no hair--for it was very painful every time i broke this mask of ice. it was hardly broken when it would form again from the particles of new snow adhering to each other. when i broke it, i thought every hair would be torn from my face. if i had not cleared it away the mask of ice would have become so thick that i would have been unable to see. i began to think that there was no fun crossing the mountains after all, if this was the weather we were going to get all the way. as i could not overtake the people ahead, and john was not in sight, gloomy thoughts came over me. suppose i can find nobody, nor even a house of refuge, i repeated: what then? what will become of me in this terrific windstorm, in the midst of these great towering mountains that surround me on every side? an answer to my question, as dark as my thought, said: "starvation! starvation! death! death!" suddenly i thought i heard, through the storm, the same voice from the friends at home shouting to me, "be of good cheer, paul; go on; go on! no harm will befall you!" these imaginary words had hardly been uttered when i said to myself, "if the worst comes to the worst, and when i am on the point of starving, i will kill my reindeer, drink its warm blood to sustain my life, abandon my sleigh, and depend on my skees. by that time the storm may be over, and i may meet some of the people who were with me, or other parties who are going to the arctic sea." soon after i had reached this decision, however, i saw through the mist something black. was it a pack of hungry wolves? it was moving towards me. i seized my gun; but how could i shoot in such weather and be sure to kill? i did not fancy the idea of being attacked by a pack of hungry and starving wolves. at any rate, i would make a desperate effort to kill some; these would be eaten by the pack, and after they were satisfied they would perhaps not follow me but let me alone. perhaps i might kill a wolf and suck his warm blood; this would avoid the need of killing my reindeer. no, they were not wolves, but people! i was in the midst of my friends; they had stopped and were waiting for me. now i felt happy. john's dog also felt happy for he wagged his tail and looked at me, and john said, "paulus, if you had been lost, my dog would have found you." then they exclaimed: "we would never have gone to the sea without you. we would have wandered all over the mountains with our reindeer or on our skees to find you. but we thought your reindeer would follow our track, for he could scent ours, as the wind was in the right direction; and here we were waiting for you." i could hardly hear their voices, though they surrounded me, for they were drowned in the hissing of the wind. we continued our way and came to another house of refuge, where we took shelter. there we could wait until the storm was over. it was so nice to stretch one's legs and to stand up and pace the floor and bring the blood into circulation. what would the people do while travelling in such a climate without houses of refuge? the place of refuge was a mountain farm; they had cows, goats, and sheep, for there were pastures near by in summer. when the time to sleep came i stretched myself at full length upon a reindeer skin on the floor, and fell asleep hearing the wind howling fiercely round the house. when i awoke in the morning the storm had ceased. i washed my face and hands in water and dried them with a clean towel which the wife handed me. what a luxury! after breakfast we bade the kind people of the house of refuge good-bye, and once more we were on our way to the arctic sea. we had not been two hours on the way, however, when the sky began to grow gray and apparently a storm was coming; the wind increased, and flakes of snow began to fall; the squalls increased in force and frequency. little did i know that these were the forerunners of a series of great windstorms that were to take place nearly five thousand feet above the sea. in a word, i was to encounter the greatest windstorms i have ever met in my life. the dark clouds kept flying very fast high over our heads, then at times seemed to be hardly above the top of the mountains. the sky became wild and peculiar. john was hurrying his reindeer as fast as he could by striking his flanks. he evidently knew what was coming, for he was a child of the stormy regions of the north, and knew what such a threatening sky meant in march. the wind was increasing in force every minute, the snow flew thicker in the air. at last, when we reached the station of refuge, john gave a great shout of satisfaction. we had come just in time. the snow was driven in thick clouds, the hills and mountains were hidden from view, and all around was nothing but a thick haze. the fur of our garments was entirely filled with particles of snow; we looked as if we had been rolled in a barrel of flour. i gave a great sigh of relief when we came in front of the house of refuge. it was well that we hurried with all our might, for we would never have reached the place at a slower speed. then what would have become of john and me, and of the others! at bedtime reindeer skins were strewn on the floor, for many had come to get shelter against the furious windstorm. before going to sleep, we took off our shoes, and carefully hung them with our stockings and lapp grass on the poles that were suspended near the ceiling. then we bade each other good-night and thanked the farmer and his wife for their kindness. that night i dreamed that the same voices that i had heard before were saying to me, "go on! go on! friend paul, no harm will befall you. do not be afraid, be valiant, as you were in africa. then come back and tell us what you have seen in 'the land of the long night.'" thereupon i saw all their faces smiling at me. i felt so happy during that sleep. but it was nothing but a sweet dream. when i awoke there was nothing round me to remind me of my far-away friends, of the girls and boys i loved so dearly. "what makes you, paul, so fond of a wandering life," i said to myself, "and of encountering such perils and hardships as you have done all through your life, when you have so many warm friends at home?" in the morning, one by one, the people awoke and got up. the weather was calm, but john said: "the weather is not to be trusted at this time of the year on these high mountains." i had great faith in john, as a weather prophet. most people had their provisions with them. i was to drink my coffee in the finest cup owned by the owners of the house of refuge. "taste some of my butter," a finlander would say. "taste my smoked reindeer meat," urged a laplander. "help yourself to some of my cheese," said a third. if i had eaten a little of all that was offered, i should not have been able to travel. people must not eat too much when they have plenty of exercise to perform, or hard work to do. after breakfast john said to me: "it is wise in these mountains to prepare for all kinds of weather. it has been bad enough already, but it may be a great deal worse, for to-day the mountains we are to cross are very high." "goodness gracious!" i exclaimed. "is it possible that we can have worse weather than we have seen, john?" "certainly," he replied. i wondered what sort of weather it could be! john attended himself to my toilet; he would not trust me. he put my stockings on, put an extra quantity of lapp grass round them, and saw that every part of my foot to my ankle was well protected, tied the shoes over my ankles and my reindeer-skin trousers most carefully, saw that my belt was well fastened, that my "pesh" or fur blouse was carefully made fast round my neck, and that my gloves were well secured to my wrists with bands used for that purpose and my hood tied tightly. when he had finished, he said, with a smile: "paulus, you are ready to stand the strongest windstorm that can blow; everything on your body is made as secure as it can be!" our reindeer being harnessed we bade good-bye to the people of the house of refuge, and a number of parties left together for self-protection. john was not mistaken about the weather. three or four hours after our departure the wind increased, and terrific squalls followed each other and threatened to upset our sleighs. the blinding snow dust prevented my seeing my reindeer, and at times i could not even see the head of my sleigh. night seemed to have taken the place of daylight,--a thick fog could not have been worse. then, to add to my discomfort, i had continually to break through the mask of ice, which formed again quickly after being broken. it was of no use to look for the furrows of the sleighs that had preceded us, for their tracks were filled at once with snow. once more i thought i was lost, when i saw john standing still; he was waiting for me, and attached my sleigh to his, so that the mishap of being parted again could not occur. when he had tied the two sleighs, he said: "if we are lost we will be together." dear john, what a glorious fellow he was! i thought of what i imagined the "long night" had said to me after the disappearance of the sun: "i send terrific gales and mighty snowstorms upon ocean and lands." it seemed to me that i could hear her sardonic laugh after telling me of her power. the storm continued to increase, and swept down upon us from the higher mountain sides with a force which i had never witnessed before, though i have crossed the atlantic more than twenty times in winter and met with furious gales. [illustration: "we remained seated on the ground, back to back."] when i thought that it was impossible for the wind to blow stronger, the next squall proved that it could. then we fell in with a number of men of the party. they had stopped; they did not dare to go further, travelling had become impossible; before we knew it we might fall over a precipice, or go in the wrong direction. i managed to look at my thermometer. it was degrees below zero. i wished it had been forty or forty-five, for instead of a windstorm we should then have had glorious still weather. the wind had risen to such a pitch that no snow was left on the ground, though in many places it must have been twenty or thirty feet deep or more. it was all flying in the air, and though it was noon it was quite dark. we remained seated on the ground, back to back, in order to support each other, with our heads bent, to prevent as far as possible the snow getting under our masks. it was a weird sight, as once in a while i could see dimly through the flying snow our bent, immovable bodies, with heads down. not a man said a word; it seemed as if we were frozen to death. the snow was carried hither and thither, and all at once in a lull of a few seconds fell, forming hillocks, which were in an instant destroyed and sent flying in the air. one of these hillocks settled dangerously near us and scared us. then one of the men suggested that we had better divide into two parties, so that in case one should be buried in the snow, the other party could help to extricate those who were buried. this suggestion was accepted at once. as we got up several of the men were taken off their feet, and rolled over against some sleighs, which stopped them. i was raised bodily and thrown on the ground, and carried away; but some of the men came to my rescue and caught me. finally we succeeded in making two parties; we were about fifty yards from each other and ready to help one another in case of emergency. the wind became so terrific that we had to crouch against the rocks. i thought we must be in the heart of "the land of the wind," and that this was the worst country i had ever come to. i almost believed that the wind had obtained the mastery over the world, and chaos was coming again. but after a few hours these north-west squalls gradually diminished in intensity, and for a time the windstorm seemed to be over. then we made preparations to continue our journey. chapter xxv a dangerous descent.--how to descend the mountains.--the most perilous portion of the journey.--exhaustion of the reindeer.--all safe at the bottom.--arrival at the shore of the arctic sea. as we were ready to start, john said to me: "paulus, we are soon to come to the most dangerous part of the journey; we are to descend the western slopes of the mountains, which at times are very abrupt, to the sea. we will go over mountain tops and descend their steep declivities. we shall have to drive twice along the sides of deep ravines; all that are here are going together, so that we may help each other. get into your sleigh and follow us closely. i will lead, and my brother will be behind you." we set forth, and soon afterwards i noticed that our reindeer went much faster than at the start. i knew by this that we were approaching the slope of a mountain. i was right. next we came to the brink of a hill, and descended with a rapidity of at least twenty-five miles an hour. the animals simply flew. when my reindeer reached the bottom of the hill he made the usual sudden curve to the left to keep the sleigh, which had a tremendous momentum, from striking against his legs. i had prepared myself for the sudden motion; i had been there before! i bent my body almost out of the sleigh in the opposite direction, and succeeded in keeping in. it was a fine sight to see sleigh after sleigh coming down the hill, but no man followed exactly in the track of the others, so that in case of accident the one behind would not pitch headlong into the sleigh ahead. i thought this was lots of fun. but ascending the hill on the opposite side was no fun at all. it was indeed hard work for the reindeer and for the men. the snow had drifted on one side of the hill and was very deep, and in many places very soft. the poor reindeer spread their hoofs as wide as they could, so as not to sink too deeply. but in many places it was of no avail; they would sink to their flanks and even deeper; but it was wonderful to see how quickly they sprang out. we should never have been able to ascend the hill without going in zigzag. we had often to get out of our sleighs and take to our skees. one finn lent me a pair of them that were much shorter than mine, to ascend the hills. i should never have been able to do it had i not followed the track of those ahead. though it was degrees below zero, i was in a profuse perspiration. [illustration: "once in a while i gave a look towards the ugly precipice."] at times the poor reindeer panted; their tongues protruded. they would fall down on their backs, breathing heavily. my reindeer was so exhausted and breathed so hard, with protruding tongue and mouth wide open, that i thought he was going to die. "don't be afraid," said john to me with a smile, as he saw my anxious face, "reindeer often act like this when they are exhausted; yours will soon be all right." john was not mistaken. it was wonderful how quickly they all recovered, and after eating plenty of snow they went on as if nothing had happened to them, until they again became exhausted and powerless. when we reached the top of a mountain, we waited for those of our party that lagged behind. i said to john, "i hope we have not many more of these hills to ascend." "we have none so steep; but, paulus, now we have come to the most dangerous part of our whole journey; we are going to run along the brink of one of the ravines of which i spoke to you. look ahead," said he, pointing to the deep ravine. when all the men of our party had arrived at the top of the hill, every one began to make careful preparations for the descent, and i watched with great earnestness what was done. once in a while i gave a look towards the ugly precipice. i did not like the sight a bit. the men were anxious, and showed this in the care and pains they took in testing every plaited leather cord, and those were especially strong that were to be used for such an emergency. they knew how dangerous was the ride and that no cord must snap. a number of sleighs were lashed with mine by a very strong plaited leather cord. when john was through he said to me: "this cord cannot break." behind each sleigh a reindeer was fastened, the cord being attached at the base of his horns. john said to me: "reindeer cannot bear to be pulled quickly, and make every effort to disengage themselves, and by doing so act as a drag." all the sleighs had been lashed together by fours, sixes, eights, or tens. we had plenty of spare reindeer with us, and at the end of each set of sleighs two or three reindeer were made fast to the last one. a man was in the front sleigh of the set to lead, and another man in the last one. john was to lead the set in which i was, and his brother was to be in the last. as usual each man rode his sleigh with his legs outside, turned back somewhat, or reversed, with the top of his shoes touching the snow, the feet to act as rudder. when i did the same a great cry went up. i heard, "no! no! paulus, your legs will surely be broken; put them inside your sleigh, as you have always done!" and before i could say a word in reply john and a finn were by me, each taking one of my legs and putting it inside. a short time was to elapse between the start of each set of sleighs, so that there would be no chance of their coming in contact. the signal was given, and one set after another started with great speed. it was one of the grandest and most dangerous sights i had ever seen, but the lapps and finns were accustomed to this, for they generally went twice every winter to the arctic sea with their produce for sale. then my turn came. john started and off we went. as the sleighs swerved in the descent the tension was very great. i said to myself, "if the cord that keeps our sleighs together breaks we shall be pitched far below and be dashed against the rocks with incredible force." in the mean time every reindeer was holding back with all his power, making efforts to disengage himself, and by doing this acted as a brake on the sleighs in front. if they had not done so the descent would have been impossible. what speed! i had never seen anything like this descent before. here was a terrifying precipice, the sloping rocks leading towards the chasm. i was afraid the reindeer would miss their footing. i hoped that no bare ice would be met. at any moment we might have been thrown out headlong. after we reached the dale, which closed abruptly at the head of the ravine, i was breathless from excitement. i had just ended one of two of the most exciting rides i had ever taken. we waited for those that were behind, and when they had arrived we rested for a while. i asked john what would have happened if one of the cords had snapped. he did not answer my question, but simply looked at me with a serious expression. i knew what it would have meant. death! further on we had another descent of the same character, but not so dangerous. we were all glad when we reached the station of refuge; we were so tired from the excitement of the day. we had crossed the backbone of the mountain, and had come down the western slope. each stream now flowed to the arctic sea. the next day we continued the descent. the day before we had come to the zone where the juniper grew; to-day we passed the birch. then came the fir trees. darkness overtook us, and i could not make out what sort of land it was, but soon we came to the house of a fisherman, where we all spent the night. when i awoke in the morning and looked out i found that i was at the bottom of a great chasm with towering mountains on each side. i had never seen the like. it seemed to me that i had come to a world unknown before. looking towards the west i saw a long dark green line of water, sunk deeply into the ragged and precipitous mountains. i had come to the ulf fjord. the water was the arctic sea. i was on the shores of grand old norway. the fjord was frozen at its inner extremity for about one mile with thick solid ice. at the inner end of every fjord there is a river, flowing through a valley, which is the continuation of the fjord; consequently the water is only brackish and freezes more easily than salt water. further on the fjord is free of ice, for in this part of the world, though so far north, the sea is made warm by the gulf stream, the very same gulf stream that starts from west africa and flows westward to the coast of brazil, then branches off northward and runs close to our american shores. without the gulf stream this part of norway would be a land of ice, just as the land of north-west america is, in the same latitude. i remembered that i had sailed over the gulf stream waters near the african coast, and it had come to meet the same stream again on that far-away northern shore--beyond the arctic circle. my journey over mountains , feet high, between the th and th degrees of north latitude, was over. i saw a vessel in the distance, and with one of the fishermen living on this inhospitable shore we went on board. it was good luck the vessel was going to sail north. the captain was willing to take me with him on his voyage. i thanked john and my other travelling companions for the kindness they had shown me. we parted with great tokens of friendship. chapter xxvi sail on the arctic ocean.--the brig _ragnild_.--Ægir and ran, the god and goddess of the sea.--the nine daughters of Ægir and ran.--great storms.--compelled to heave to. as i stepped on board i said farewell to my dear skees and sleigh, as they were put into the hold. "i shall miss you very much," i said, "for we have had happy times together." then we sailed away. now i have laid aside my lapp costume, and i am clad in the garb of a fisherman. i am clothed in a suit of oilskin garments, over my woollens, to protect me from the wet. i wear a big sou'wester, instead of a cap, to keep the rain and the spray from running down my neck, and huge sea-boots to keep my legs and feet dry. in these i am ready to brave the storms of the arctic ocean. now a boat will be my sleigh, its sail my reindeer: these will carry me onward on the sea, as the others have done on the snow. as i stood quietly on deck looking at the sea, the captain said to me, "for a wonder we have pleasant weather. this winter we have had nothing but a succession of gales or terrific squalls, and what is worse, blinding snowstorms, when we could not even see each other on deck." [illustration: "i am clad in the garb of a fisherman."] the _ragnild_--such was the name of our vessel--was a staunch norwegian brig that had weathered many a gale on the stormy coast of norway and the arctic sea. she was bound for the coast of finmarken, on the east side of north cape, to buy codfish. on board were provisions and clothing, boots, etc., for sale to the fishermen we were to meet in the coast settlements. our crew was composed of most sturdy seafaring men. the name of the captain was ole petersen, a real old salt who had been at sea for nearly fifty years and was part owner of the craft. john andersen was the first mate; the sailors were lars, evert, ivor, hakon, pehr, and harald. all of these men had encountered many a gale, and two had been wrecked. towards nine o'clock that evening, the captain and i went to our bunks, the captain leaving the first mate and three men on the watch. when i awoke in the morning the _ragnild_ was rolling heavily; we were in the midst of an angry sea and of a great gale, and while i was dressing i was thrown from one side of my little stateroom to the other, and it was no fun. i came on deck, and as i looked at the big waves i said, "the wind and the waves are in their ugly mood." the wind howled and shrieked through the rigging, and waves were like big hills. i thought of the many wrecks of ships and boats, and of the multitude of passengers and seafaring men that have been drowned since people have sailed on the seas. the captain murmured to me, "this is ugly weather indeed. we must employ all the skill we have to fight against the storm. our sails are new, our rigging is strong, and our vessel is staunch, and we are all valiant men on board who have gone through many such a storm before." that morning as i watched the coast, i remembered that the vikings believed and worshipped Ægir as the god of the sea. Ægir ruled over the sea and the wind. ran was his wife, and she had a net in which she caught all those who were lost at sea; her hall was at the bottom of the ocean, and there she welcomed all the shipwrecked people. Ægir and ran had nine daughters, and their names were emblematic of the waves. they were called _hefring_ the hurling, _hrönn_ the towering, _bylgja_ the upheaving, _bara_ the lashing. the five other daughters were called _himinglæfa_ the heaven glittering, _blödughadda_ the bloody haired, _kolga_ the cooling, _unn_ the loving, _dufa_ the dove. the vikings dreaded hefring, hrönn, and bylgja when far out at sea, and bara when they were approaching the shore. these four waves are those the mariners dread to-day. they believed that these daughters of Ægir and ran were seldom partial to men, that the wind awakened them and made them angry and fierce. they called them "the white-hooded daughters of Ægir and ran." they called the spray their hair. they believed that in calm weather they walked on the reefs and wandered gently along the shores, and that their beds were rocks, stone-heaps, pebbles, and sands. i had not been long on the sea before i found that i had exchanged the terrific winds of arctic "snow land" for the gales of the arctic ocean. the weather was fearful! snow, sleet, hurricanes, treacherous heavy squalls, followed each other in succession. "this is the winter weather we have here," said the captain; "we do not expect any better at this time of the year. when there is a lull, it is only to deceive us; then it blows harder than ever, and the snow or the sleet falls thicker than before." my fancy recalled again to me the words of the "long night": "i send terrific gales and mighty snowstorms over oceans and lands." as i looked at the ocean i saw a big towering wave rolling up towards the stern of the ship and apparently gaining upon us. it was transparent and of a deep green color. i imagined i could see hefring with glittering eyes, one of her arms directing the wave against us. the men looked anxiously towards the wave, which was steadily advancing, but our ship rode over it as if she were a gull resting on the ocean. then the ugly wave formed a crest, curled upon itself, and with a heavy boom broke into fragments of snowy foam. i said to the men: "this wave has missed us." they answered in serious voices, "and we must watch, for a more towering one will follow, as there are always three of them going together, and this second one may come and break over us." these words were hardly uttered when i saw far off another mountainous wave rolling up. i imagined it was hrönn. it was so high as it neared us that we could not see the horizon beyond; it looked fierce and dangerous. its crest gradually rose higher and higher, as if getting ready to strike. steadily hrönn advanced. we are lost, and our ship is sure to founder if her wave breaks over our stern. the faces of the captain and men were serious. i said to myself: "if we get into the whirlpool of its crest there will be no escape; we are sure to founder." the wave broke about fifty yards before reaching us. it had become harmless, but the foaming, scattered billows enveloped the ship in their thick spray. it was a narrow escape; but we were saved thus far! then in the wake of the imaginary hrönn rose another wave. i imagined bylgja was coming. it advanced slowly and angrily towards us, ready to sweep our deck and to do the work the two others had tried to do and missed--demolish our ship. it broke before reaching us with a loud boom, making the sea a surging sheet of foam as white as snow for a long distance. this was a beautiful sight. we gave a great shout of joy; we had had a narrow escape. after these three heavy seas came a lull. the captain said thoughtfully, "those are the waves that disable or founder ships and send them to the bottom of the sea!" [illustration: "i saw a big towering wave rolling towards the stern of the ship."] we were indeed still in the midst of a great gale. but the captain and our crew had thus far fought against the storm successfully. i thought of the great viking half, and of his champions. it was their custom always to lie before capes, never to put up a tent on board, and never to reef a sail in a storm. half had never more than sixty men on board of his ship, nor could any one go with him who was not so hardy that he never was afraid or changed countenance on account of his wounds. i wondered if half and his men had ever encountered such a storm as we were having. if so his ship must have been a staunch vessel indeed. as the hours passed the storm continued, the daughters of Ægir and ran rose again and again, trying to strike our ship; when their hoods were rent asunder, their long hair streamed on the gale. in the afternoon the dark clouds were lower than usual and moved rapidly over our heads. the wind howled and hissed through the rigging. wave after wave struck against the ship's side and deluged the deck with water. one of them took me off my feet and pitched me to the other side against the bulwarks, almost washing me overboard. "you had better go into the cabin," said the captain; "this is no weather for you." but i replied, "yes, captain, it is; i want to see this big storm with its mighty sea." i had hardly said these words when another wave came aboard of us. two men were nearly washed overboard; fortunately they held fast to the rigging. soon after another big wave struck our port side, and carried away a part of our bulwarks, swamping our decks with a huge mass of water; this time nearly washing overboard all of us who were on deck. looking at the havoc the wave had wrought, i remembered the saga which tells of the storm the celebrated viking fridthjof encountered at sea, and which says: "then came a wave breaking so strongly that it carried away the gunwales and part of the bow, and flung four men overboard, who were lost. "'now it is likely,' said fridthjof, 'that some of our men will visit ran. we shall not be thought fit to go there unless we prepare ourselves well. i think it is right that every man should carry some gold with him!' he cut asunder the arm ring of his sweetheart ingibjörg, and divided it among his men." we had been running before the wind with all the sails we could carry safely, so that the ship might not be overtaken and swamped. as long as the ship can sail faster or quite as fast as the waves, it is all right; but if the waves go faster then there is great danger that the ship will be pooped by the sea,--that is, that the seas may come over the stern, and sweep over the deck, carrying everything away. in such a case it happens sometimes that all those who are on deck are swept overboard. the sea finally became so high and so threatening that the captain ordered that we should heave to and wait for the storm to abate. to heave a ship to before the wind is a dangerous manoeuvre. we waited until three big seas had passed. there is generally a lull after that, and then is the time to bring the ship's head to the wind. during the evolution the ship is liable to get in the trough of the sea, when she rolls heavily, and has her deck swept by the waves. the dangerous operation in our case proved successful. while our ship lay to we had just sail enough to keep her head to the wind, and she rode like a big albatross on the water, drifting a little to leeward. when she was in the hollow of two waves, these seemed like mountains ready to engulf us, but we rode safely over every one. as we lay to we felt perfectly secure. our ship did not roll as if broadside to the seas, but pitched, rising slowly, over every wave. after lying to for over six hours, the storm having somewhat moderated, we sailed east towards the shore; but before the day was over we encountered a cross-sea, the waves coming in every direction and striking against each other. the man at the helm had to watch them. evidently there had been two or three heavy storms blowing in different directions. a cross-sea is very dangerous, for the man at the helm never knows where the wave will strike. after a while the wind shifted and was ahead, and now we had to beat against it and we sailed under close reefed sails. the wind seemed ten times stronger than before, for when a ship runs before the wind, the wind is not felt so much, as it goes with the ship. as we came to a barren island, running parallel with the main land, we saw the angry sea lashing itself with a tremendous force against the solid base of mountain walls, filling the air each time it struck with a deep booming sound which seemed like the roar of cannon heard far off; the waves, as they struck the immovable wall of rocks which stopped their advance, breaking into a tumultuous mass of seething billows, which recoiled from the barrier that opposed them and fell back into a surging, boiling mass of white which soon after was hurled forward again by another advancing wave rushing on to meet the same fate. the whole coast was fringed as far as the eye could see with a mass of angry white billows. it was an awful sight. seamen dread the coast in a storm more than they do the waves in the middle of the ocean. we steered for the leeward of the island, and when we reached the sound separating it from the main land we came into smooth water where we cast anchor. we were to remain there until the storm abated, to give a good rest to the crew. chapter xxvii a dark night at sea.--wake of the _ragnild_.--thousands of phosphorescent lights.--a light ahead.--an arctic fair.--a fishing settlement.--how the cod are cured.--fish and fertilizer fragrance. the weather having moderated, we raised our anchor and with a fair wind continued our voyage. when the night came it was so pitch-dark that i could not distinguish the sea from the horizon and the sky. it was impressive. i felt so little in the immensity that surrounded our craft. our ship, to my eyes, when compared with the size of the ocean, was not bigger than a tiny hazelnut tossed to and fro upon it. once in a while the crest of a wave broke into a long snowy-white line which appeared to be filled with a thousand lights; this effect was caused by the infinite number of animalculæ, which are struck together by the movement of the wave and give out phosphorescence. these animalculæ are living creatures which cannot be seen without the help of the microscope. it is wonderful that such small things can give such glowing light. the long heavy swells, pushed by the southerly gales that had passed away, moved irresistibly on towards the north, one after another, to break the wall of ice the long night had built round the pole. what terrific booming must take place there at times, when the ice gives way, breaks up, and rises in great ridges over the long wall! a light at our masthead told of our presence to the mariners of the fishing boats, or the vessels coming from far northern ports across our course, and warned them of danger. our ship ploughed her way through the sea, raising a mass of foam brilliant with globules of light. these globules swept astern along the sides of the ship, and disappeared further on. we left behind us an undulating luminous wake, resembling a long bright snake following us, which was gradually in the distance engulfed by the ocean. this luminous track seemed to be reeled off from a windlass at the stern of the ship. as i watched this white serpentine phosphorescent pathway, i thought of the countless wakes that had been made in like manner since vessels sailed upon the seas, on their way to different lands, for thousands of years past, yet not one of those tracks has ever been seen again. no wonder that the norsemen called the sea "the hidden path." on deck were four men on the watch, who guarded the lives of those who had gone below to sleep. the man at the helm watched the compass, which was lighted by a lamp. a man at the prow was on the lookout for sudden danger--ships, derelicts, or rocks. another stood amidships. the first mate paced the deck, watching for any change in the wind. suddenly the man at the prow shouted: "light on the starboard bow!" it was the light of a ship sailing in the opposite direction towards us. in a snowstorm, in a fog, we might have collided; then both might have gone to the bottom of the sea. to the leeward of us was the barren, forbidding coast; to the windward lay rocky islands. "dear compass," i whispered, "we trust in thee; lead us right; the night is very dark, and our eyes cannot see rocks ahead, except, perchance, when it is too late." suddenly the bell struck: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. it was midnight--time for the watch below to relieve the one on duty, and for the captain to take the place of the mate. every four hours this change is made. i remained on deck, for i wanted to watch this dark night. i came on deck early the next morning, for i smothered in the close confined cabin--i had been so accustomed to the bracing open air. as i looked around me i saw nothing but the great horizon which surrounded us. it had seemed so near every day, as we sailed towards it, and yet, no matter how long we sailed, we never came nearer. this was because the horizon is the boundless space in the midst of which the earth moves on its axis round the sun. in the morning we came to a place full of people dressed in furs. they were laplanders and finlanders. a great fair was taking place, and most of the people had crossed the mountains to the arctic sea, taking with them for sale reindeer meat, butter, cheese, reindeer cheese made in the summer and autumn, frozen ptarmigans, skins of reindeer, bears, foxes, ermines, and other animals; ready-made clothing, gloves and shoes of reindeer skin; hoofs of reindeer, and other things. they bought salted and dried codfish, sugar, coffee, salt, and other groceries, flour, lamp oil, tobacco, and things for their wives and children, and took back cash with them. after a short stay we raised our anchor, and continued to sail along that bleak coast until we came to a hidden harbor, well protected by a number of barren islands from the storms of the arctic ocean, and cast anchor before a large fishing settlement. it was the beginning of april. it was a strange place indeed. the port was filled with fishing boats. hundreds of them were drawn up on the shore, and other hundreds were at anchor. there were also a number of good-sized vessels and smaller craft. all along the rocky shore were huge piles of codfish caught that day. the water was crowded with boats moving in every direction, loaded with cod. alongside the big piles of fish, men dressed in wide trousers and overalls of leather were busy preparing the codfish. some were cutting the heads off and throwing them into a pile, while others were opening the fish, cleaning them, and then, after flattening them, throwing them to other men, who salted them. after this operation they were carried to the warehouses and were ready for drying. by some of the piles men opened and cleaned the fish and tied them together by twos. after this they were hung on frames or poles. in other places the men divided the cod in halves, taking their spines out, but kept them connected by their gills. these were also hung on the poles. when dry the fish is as hard as wood. the eggs or ova were put into barrels and salted, and captain ole petersen, who was with me, said to me: "each barrel contains the ova of three hundred cod. they are sent to italy and france and used in the sardine fisheries of those countries." other men were busy putting the livers into barrels, two barrels of fat liver yielding about one barrel of brown oil. the tongues of the cod were taken out of the heads, put into barrels and salted. i visited the warehouses, built partly on piles projecting into the sea. along some of these were brigs and schooners loading. what a sight was the inside of these warehouses! they were filled with long deep rows of freshly salted codfish, piled higher than a man and about the same width. these fish were to be put on board ships and landed upon rocks, there to stay until they were dried and ready to be shipped to foreign countries. the cod is the gold of the people living on this desolate land. the country around was covered with frames upon which fish were hanging. nets and lines were seen in every direction on the rocks, left to dry or ready to be mended. wherever i turned the place was saturated with the blood of fish and offal. the sea was covered with offal; thousands of gulls were flying in every direction and feeding upon it, while great numbers of eider ducks, as tame as farm ducks, were swimming everywhere and feeding. they were not afraid, for no one is allowed to shoot them. the bare rocks were black with hundreds of thousands of heads of cod that had been put there to dry. these heads, with the bones of fish, are turned into a fertilizer, or used to feed cattle. the heads are boiled before they are given to the animals. "cattle and sheep feeding on dried fish heads!" i exclaimed with astonishment to my companion, "i never heard of this before." i asked one of the merchants how he could live in such a place. "the atmosphere that brings money," he replied, "never smells bad. where there is no smell there is no business and no money with us." goodness gracious! what a smell there was in this fishing settlement. it was far from pleasant, especially when compared with the pure air of the land over which i had travelled. several nice houses belonged to the merchants of the place. these were painted white and were very comfortable. the cabins of the fishermen were scattered everywhere and were all alike. they were built of logs, with roofs covered with earth. i wanted to live with the fishermen and become acquainted with them. chapter xxviii among the fishermen.--their lodgings and how they look.--what they have to eat.--an evening of talk about cod, salmon, and herring.--the immense number of fish.--a snoring match. soon after captain petersen and i entered one of the houses of the fishermen. they had just returned from their fishing. i asked them if i could live with them for a few days. "yes," they all replied with one voice. they knew captain petersen, i was with him: that was enough for them. strange indeed was the room. each fisherman's cabin had only one. the wall was surrounded by two rows of bunks, on top of each other. the room was arranged like the forecastle of a ship. "where are you from?" one of the fishermen asked me. "from america," i replied. "from america!" they all exclaimed at once. "is that possible?" "yes, he is from america," said captain petersen. "i have a brother in america, in minnesota," exclaimed one. a second said: "i have a sister in dakota." a third: "i also have a brother in america; he sails on the great lakes." from that moment those fishermen and i were great friends. they asked me my name. i replied, "my name is paul du chaillu." "why!" some of the younger fishermen said, "we have read in school the translation of your travels in africa. are you really he?" "yes," i replied. twenty-eight men, the crews of four boats, including the captains, lived together. a cooking-stove was in the centre of the room; a few wooden benches and a table composed the rest of the furniture, while a number of chests contained the garments of the men, several coffee kettles, a pan and a big pot, etc. all these twenty-eight men insisted that i should have a whole bunk to myself--the occupant would shift and go to another fellow. i must be comfortable, they said. i was not accustomed to living in their way. a man took his things from his bunk. he was the captain of one of the boats. he said to me: "paul, my bunk is yours." i had to accept. when they had cooked their meal, they said: "paul, eat with us simple fisher folk; we will give you the best we have; you are welcome." we had only one dish, and it was entirely new to me. it was what the sailors called lobscouse, a sort of pudding made of ship biscuits, liver, and fish. i did not care much for it, but i said nothing to the fishermen. one said: "we eat this dish every day, and that will be your food when you are with us." "humph!" i said to myself. i remembered the elephants, the crocodiles, the snakes, and the monkeys, etc., i had had to eat while in africa. the monkeys when fat were fine, and tasted so good i should have been willing to exchange a dish of lobscouse for a monkey. after our meal we had coffee; each man owned his own cup. "we drink only coffee," they said, "for no spirits are allowed to be sold here, for fear some of the men while going to sea might become drunk, and endanger their lives, and the lives of those that are with them." our coffee drunk, we talked first about fish and their peculiar habits. the names of the four captains were john ericksen, hakon johansen, ole larsen, harald andersen. "every spring," said captain ole, "salmon come up from the sea and ascend our rivers to spawn, and in time the little ones go to sea. as they grow up they continue to come every year to the same river where they were born, and nobody knows where they spend the interval." after a pause, during which the fishermen filled their pipes, captain ericksen said: "every year the codfish make their appearance in winter in vast shoals and countless millions on the lofoden islands banks to spawn. then they migrate further north to the coast of finmarken, then eastward as far as russia. then they disappear until the following winter. no one knows where they come from or where they go." one of the men observed: "i have been a fisherman for over forty years, and it is wonderful how regularly the cod make their appearance on the fishing banks. we depend so much on their time of coming that we leave home every year at the same date. they must know their way in the ocean and recognize different marks on their journey, for they have to travel thousands of miles before they return to the fishing banks to spawn. the cod in their migration leave behind them a great many stragglers, which are caught all the year round. the number of cod caught on the banks of finmarken and of the lofoden islands averages about forty to forty-two millions a year, and the total catch along the coasts of norway amounts to about fifty millions a year. the land is barren, and if it were not for the fish we could not live in our country." "fifty millions of cod is a great number," i observed. "yes," he replied, "but these fifty millions are nothing but a small fraction compared with the great number that are not caught." after our talk on the cod was finished, captain ericksen spoke about herrings as follows: "if the number of codfish caught is great, the number of herring is far greater. the herrings make their appearance in immense shoals, and it is beyond the power and calculation of man to guess their number, for their millions are countless. the migration of the herring is often very irregular. they appear generally from january to march. the herring are known to have disappeared for years in some districts, then suddenly reappear." "that is strange," i said. "can you account for that?" "no," the captain replied; "if i were a herring i probably could tell." we all laughed when he said this. i remarked: "the number of norwegian fishing boats is so great, how do you know when some are missing and have foundered at sea?" captain ericksen replied: "every fishing district has its own letter on each boat belonging to it, and a number, and the name of every man composing its crew is registered; also his residence, the day of his birth, etc. this is necessary, for every year some poor fisherman's boat is lost and the crew drowned; thus the boat and crew missing can be identified. all the norwegian men you see at the fisheries have homes--humble it is true--either on the fjords, by the coast, or on some little islands where there are a few patches of land which they can cultivate, raise potatoes and some grain, and where there is grass enough to keep a cow or two, sometimes more, some goats, and a few sheep to give us wool. "that is the reason you see us so warmly clad. our wives, daughters, or sisters, while we are absent from home think of us. they spin and weave the wool from our sheep into outer garments and underwear, knit stockings for us, and with some of the money we get from our catch of fish we buy waterproof clothing. with a good part of the money we save we buy things for our family and the provisions that we need, and put the rest in the bank." it was time to retire, for we had to start up at five in the morning, if the weather permitted, for the fishing bank. it was agreed among the fishermen that i should go net-fishing in the boat owned by captain ole. what music we had during the night! all the fishermen snored. i thought i had never heard such a snoring before! i amused myself by wondering which one of them would have received the prize had it been a snoring match. chapter xxix departure for the fishing banks.--great number of boats.--more than five thousand oars fall into the water at the same time.--quantities of buoys and glass balls.--a notable catch of cod. at four o'clock the next morning we were up. it was the dawn of the day. it was wonderful how quickly the nights shortened. coffee, flat bread, butter, and cheese made our breakfast. when we came out almost all the boats with their full crews were ready waiting for the hoisting of the flag at five o'clock, which is the signal for the start, the time changing according to the length of the day. we all had to leave together, and to return the same day. every one, including myself, was dressed in oilskin garments, sou'wester, and high sea-boots. there were more than nine hundred fishing boats. as soon as the flag was hoisted over five thousand oars struck the water at the same time, and filled the air with a deep booming sound. i had never seen so many sea boats and oars together. it was a grand sight! as soon as we were out of the harbor the boats hoisted their sails, and soon we were scattered in every direction, each boat going towards its buoys. i looked at the thousands of white sails with wonder. our fishing boat was a fine craft, forty-two feet long and about seven feet and a half beam. the poop was decked under for a cabin, with bunks for the men to sleep in. the rudder-like oar, several feet long, is held by the captain, who sculls and steers at the same time. captain ole was a regular "old salt." our crew was composed of sven, hakon, fridthjof, ivor, evert, harald and erik. evert and harald were lads about seventeen years old; they were learning to be hardy sailors like their father. after a sail of three hours' beating against the wind, we came to the fishing banks and towards our buoys. the water for as far as i could see was filled with buoys and glass balls (floaters to hold the nets) enclosed in netted ropes. these glass balls were attached by a short cord to the nets to keep them floating, while stones at the bottom held the nets stretched. it was no easy matter to sail among them. looking at the multitudes of buoys i asked captain ole, "how can you ever find and recognize your own buoys?" he answered smiling, "we can find our nets by the bearings, and every buoy has its special mark of ownership. it is hard work to haul in the nets, especially when the sea is rough. each net is one hundred and twenty fathoms long, and about three fathoms deep;--we sailors do not count by yards but by fathoms. each fathom is six feet long. in our boat we have to raise twenty-four nets tied together in fours." [illustration: "it is hard work to haul in the nets."] "i will help you all i can," i replied; "i am willing to work. i have come to sea and i am in your boat as one of the crew, and i will try to do my part. i hope we are going to have good luck, and that the catch of cod will be big." to evert and hakon was assigned the duty of pulling in the nets. two other men stowed the nets carefully. near the net-reels were two men who hooked the fish as they appeared and threw them inside of the boat, and another man and i arranged the nets. how eager we were as the nets were hauled up to peep and see how plentiful the fish were; for these represented money--and the poor fishermen work so hard to get a livelihood. the sea was rough and it took us about ten minutes to haul each net. after they were all in, we estimated that we had caught about eight hundred codfish. this was considered a very fine catch. then a consultation was held to decide where to re-set the nets. it was very important to know the direction in which the fish had gone on the banks, for these big shoals were constantly moving as they spawned. after they had decided where to go our sail was hoisted, and we started for another part of the fishing banks; in the mean time the nets were inspected and put into good order. when we reached the spot, we sounded twice and found the sea too deep. when we found a depth of one hundred fathoms we set our nets, after which we returned home. on our return we went on board of one of the ships, and our fish was bought by the captain at a little over eight dollars a "big hundred,"--that is, cod. on the deck of this ship were already several boat-loads of cod; the fish were cleaned, flattened, washed and salted, and laid in the hold on the top of one another. the captain said to me: "when i am loaded i shall sail for my farm, and then lay the fish on the rocks to dry. i have a nice little home by the sea. i hope my boys will one of these days be sailors as i am." then we shook hands with the captain and returned to our cabin. before we went to bed we learned that the catch of all the boats of the settlement that day had been over six hundred thousand cod. the following morning found me ready to start at the appointed time for fishing with hook and line. the departure of the boats took place in the same manner as the day before. our boat was not so large as the netting boat; it was not decked over. captain johansen steered. the men of our crew were mats, pehr, anders, ole, knut, and roar. captain johansen had fished in the arctic regions for forty-two consecutive years. his face had been permanently reddened by the wind. whenever he had a chance he had his pipe in his mouth, and he told me that his pipe was one of his best friends. we had a fair wind at the start and in about one hour the men came to their buoys. then we lowered the sail. the sea was covered with boats; there were nearly fifteen hundred in sight, for they had come to that part of the banks from several other fishing settlements. these boats were manned by about eleven thousand sailors; men enough to man a big fleet of men-of-war. captain johansen said: "we are going to have hard work raising our lines, but if we catch many fish the work will seem to be much lighter to us." "that is so," i said, "captain, for when i go hunting and see no game i get tired; but if i see plenty of game, then i can tramp all day without fatigue." a large reel was placed on one side of the boat to haul in the line. before we began to haul the lines the captain remarked: "we attach four lines together; each line is one hundred fathoms long. the hooks are generally from four to six feet apart and there are about one hundred and twenty on each line. we have to pull in over twenty-four hundred fathoms or over twenty-six thousand feet of line, to which are attached about five thousand hooks." "indeed," i said to the captain, "it will be hard work and will take quite a while, especially if many fish are caught." "i hope, nevertheless, we shall catch many," he replied with a smile, "for most of us have a home to keep and a wife and children to clothe and feed." we began to haul in the lines on the reel. how we watched! how deep our eyes tried to see into the water! it was quite exciting. we were fortunate: a big shoal of fish had been passing on that part of the banks, and on many a hook a cod was hanging. after we got through, we pulled towards another of our buoys, passing several that belonged to other fishermen on the way. having pulled in about three hundred fathoms of our next line, we found that the rest of the line had drifted into a net and some of the hooks were caught and entangled in it, and we had a hard job to free the line. then we rowed to a third buoy belonging to us and began hauling. almost every other hook had caught a fish. the faces of the fishermen were full of happiness. they felt that on that day they would have a great catch, when suddenly one of the men shouted, "our line is entangled; i wonder whether it has fouled a net or another line." but as we pulled in the line we raised another line with it not belonging to us. we had a hard time to separate them, but after nearly half an hour's work succeeded in doing so. we had caught over two hundred cod on this line. our fourth line proved to be entangled in nets as well as also in several lines belonging to different owners. the untwisting was something awful, and it was no joke to separate them. fortunately we could tell to whom the lines belonged, for each one is marked from distance to distance with the number of the boat and the letter of the district from which the craft comes. the rest of the lines were so badly tangled that we concluded to cut them. then we pulled the cut pieces with the fish on them into our boat, intending to give them to their owners--not a difficult task, as the marks of ownership were on the tackles--and if they belonged to another settlement the fish would be sold and the money given them. captain johansen and the crew thought the cod would remain two days more. their advance guard had passed, but a great deal of the shoal was going northward; and there were miles of cod still to pass over the bank upon which we fished. the wind had been gradually rising. we had had two days of good weather, and now the sea was covered with white caps. the daughters of Ægir and ran were all white-hooded. but as we sailed for home the wind suddenly increased; squall after squall followed each other. we had to reef the sail; the sea at times washed over us, and the poor fishermen began to think seriously of throwing our cargo of fish overboard, for we were pretty deeply loaded, but it would have been like throwing away money, and they had worked so hard to get it. a big black cloud overspread our heads and hail fell thickly upon us, and it hurt us badly for the hailstones were hard and very big. i tried to protect my face, for my sou'wester only protected well the back of my head. the hail was succeeded by sleet, the rigging and mast were covered with ice; our garments and sou'westers were stiff, and we looked like big icy things. the captain, looking at me with a smile,--for he saw i did not like this sort of weather, said: "this weather is the forerunner of spring in these high latitudes; the sun is getting higher at its meridian every day." it was dark long before we reached port, but the men knew every rock on the coast, and yonder was the lighthouse guiding us on our way. boat after boat entered the harbor, and not one of them was lost. the next day the gale was such that no boat was permitted to put out to sea. in the evening there was very little talking, and for a while no one said a word; then captain johansen broke the silence and said: "paul, this arctic ocean is the home of gales; these often bring sadness to many homes; some of us here have lost friends and relatives at sea. some years ago a fishing fleet of eight hundred boats was caught in one of these sudden gales. after the boats had come safely into port the roll-call showed that twenty boats with their crews were missing." "how sad!" i exclaimed; and as captain johansen was speaking i wondered how many people thought, when they ate fish, of the hard life of the poor and brave fishermen and of the gales they encounter. the fishermen wanted to entertain me before we retired for the night, and captain larsen said, "i will tell you, paul, about one of the great sea battles of the vikings." chapter xxx a great viking sea fight.--svein king of denmark, olaf king of sweden, erik jarl of norway, against king olaf tryggvasson of norway.--they lie in ambush.--magnificent ships.--the _long serpent_.--ready for the fight.--the attack.--the _jarn bardi_.--defeat of olaf tryggvasson. after we had clustered round captain larsen, he gave three or four big puffs of his pipe and began: the battle of svold took place in the year one thousand. olaf tryggvasson, king of norway, had left vindland in the baltic and was on his way back to norway with his fleet. he was on his ship the _ormrinn lange_ (the "long serpent"). svein, the king of denmark, olaf king of sweden, and erik jarl of norway, his enemies, lay in ambush for him under the island of svold with all their ships. the three chiefs landed on the island. after a while they espied some ships of the fleet of olaf. among them was a particularly large and splendid one. both kings said: "this is an exceedingly fine ship; it must be the _long serpent_." erik jarl, who knew the _long serpent_, answered: "this is not the _long serpent_, which is much larger and grander, though this is a fine ship." ship after ship passed by and the two kings took each of them to be the _long serpent_, but they received invariably the same answer from erik jarl. the three chiefs drew lots to know who should first attack olaf tryggvasson's ship. svein, king of denmark, drew the lot to attack first; then olaf, king of sweden, and erik jarl last, if it should be found necessary. it was agreed between the three chiefs that each should own the ships which he himself cleared of men and captured. erik jarl's ship was called the _jarn bardi_, an iron-clad ram which had the reputation of cleaving through every ship it attacked; there were beaks on the top of both stem and stern, and below these were thick iron plates which covered the whole of the stem and stern all the way down to the water. when the chiefs had arranged their plan, they saw three very large ships, and following them a fourth; they all saw a dragon-head on the stem, ornamented so that it seemed of pure gold, and it gleamed far and wide over the sea as the sun shone on it. as they looked at the ship, they wondered greatly at its length, for the stern did not appear till long after they had seen the prow, as the ship glided past the point of the island slowly; then all knew that this was the _long serpent_--a ship about three hundred and sixty feet long, with a crew of over seven hundred and fifty men. at this sight many a man grew silent. sigvaldi jarl, one of olaf tryggvasson's commanders, let down the sails on his ship and rowed up towards the island. thorkel dydril on the _tranan_ (the "crane"), and the other ship-steerers (for the commanders were so called), lowered their sails also and followed him. all waited for olaf tryggvasson. when king olaf saw that his men had lowered their sails and were waiting for him, he steered towards them and asked them why they did not go on. they told him that a host of foes was before them and that the fleets of the allied kings lay around the point. advancing further the king olaf tryggvasson and his men saw that the sea was covered far and wide with the warships of his foes. thorkel dydril, a wise and valiant man, said: "lord, here is an overwhelming force to fight against: let us hoist our sails and follow our men out to sea. we can still do so while our foes prepare themselves for battle, for it is not looked upon as cowardice by any one for a man to use forethought for himself and his men." king olaf tryggvasson's men now missed the ships that had sailed ahead. king olaf replied loudly: "tie together the ships and let the men prepare for battle!" for in those days it was the custom to tie the ships together. then the commanders arranged the host. the _long serpent_ was in the middle, with the _short serpent_ on one side and the _crane_ on the other, and four other ships on each side of them; but this fleet was but a small one compared with the overwhelming fleet which their enemies had. when olaf saw that they began to tie together the stern of the _long serpent_ and of the _short serpent_, he called out loudly, "bring the _long serpent_ forward; i will not be the hindmost of all my men in this fleet when the battle begins!" then ulf ("wolf") the red, the king's standard bearer, and who was also his prow-defender, said: "if the _long serpent_ shall be put as much forward as it is larger and longer than other ships, the men in the bows will have a hard time of it!" the king cried: "i had the _serpent_ made longer than other ships so that it should be put forward more boldly in battle, but i did not know i had a prow-defender who was faint-hearted!" ulf replied: "turn thou, king, no more back in defending the high deck than i will in defending the prow!" olaf tryggvasson stood aloft on the high deck of the _long serpent_. he had a shield, and gilt helmet, and was easily recognized. he wore a red silk kirtle over his ring-armor. when he saw that the ships of his foes began to separate, and that the standards were raised in front of each chief, he asked: "who is the chief of that standard which is opposite us?" he was told that it was king svein of denmark with the danish ships. "what chief follows the standard which is to the right?" he was told that it was olaf of sweden. "who owns those large ships to the left of king olaf of sweden?" "it is erik jarl hakonson," they replied. then svein of denmark, olaf of sweden, and erik jarl rowed towards the _long serpent_. the battle horns were blown and both sides shouted a war-cry, and soon the combat raged fiercely,--at first with arrows from crossbows and long bows, then with spears and javelins and slings--and king olaf tryggvasson fought most manfully. king svein's men turned the prows of many of their ships towards both sides of the _long serpent_. the danes also attacked the _short serpent_ and the _crane_. the carnage was great. king svein made the stoutest onset. king olaf tryggvasson made the bravest defence with his men, but they fell one after another. king olaf fought almost too boldly, shooting arrows and hurling spears; he went forward in hand-to-hand fight, and cleft many a man's skull with his sword. the attack proved difficult for the danes, for the stern-defenders of the _long serpent_ and of the _short serpent_ hooked anchors and grappling hooks to king svein's ships, and as they could strike down upon the enemy with their weapons, for they had much larger and higher boarded ships, they cleared of men all the danish ships which they had laid hold of. king svein had to retreat. in the mean time erik jarl had come first with the _jarn bardi_ alongside the farthest ship of olaf tryggvasson on one wing, cleared it, and cut it from the fastenings; he then boarded the next one, and fought until it was cleared of men; and as the men fell on his ship, other danes and swedes took their places. at last all of olaf tryggvasson's ships had been cleared of men and captured except the _long serpent_, which carried all the men who were now able to fight. erik jarl then attacked the _long serpent_ with five large ships; he laid the _jarn bardi_ alongside, and then ensued the fiercest fight and the most terrible hand-to-hand struggle of the day, and such a shower of weapons was poured upon the _long serpent_ that the men could hardly protect themselves. king olaf tryggvasson's men became so furious that they jumped upon the gunwales in order to reach their foes with their swords and kill them, and many went straight overboard; for out of eagerness and daring they forgot that they were not fighting on dry ground, and sank down with their weapons between the ships. when only a few men were left on the _long serpent_ around the mast amidships, erik jarl boarded it with fourteen men. then came against him king olaf's brother-in-law, hyrning, with his followers, and between them ensued a hard fight. it was ended by erik jarl's retreating onto the _bardi_, which took away the dead and the wounded, and in their stead brought fresh and rested men. when erik had prepared his men, he said to thorkel the high, a wise and powerful chief: "often have i been in battles, and never have i before found men equally brave and so skilled in fighting as those on the _long serpent_, nor have i seen a ship so hard to conquer. now, as thou art one of the wisest of men, give me the best advice thou knowest as to how the _long serpent_ may be won!" thorkel replied: "i cannot give thee sure advice, but i can say what seems to me best to do. thou must take large timbers, and let them fall from thy ship upon the gunwales of the _long serpent_, so that it will careen; then thou wilt find it the easier to board the ship." erik jarl did as thorkel had told him. king olaf and his men defended themselves with the utmost bravery and manliness; they slew many of their foes, both on the _jarn bardi_ and on other ships which lay near theirs. when the defenders of the _long serpent_ began to thin out, erik jarl boarded it and met with a warm reception. olaf tryggvasson shot at him with spears. the first flew past his right side, the second his left, and the third struck the fore part of the ship above his head. then king olaf said: "never before did i thus miss a man; great is the jarl's luck." in a short time most of king olaf's champions fell, though they were both strong and valiant. among them hyrning, thorgier, vikar, and ulf the red, and many other brave men who left a famous name behind. the _long serpent_ was now cleared of men and captured, but olaf tryggvasson was never seen or heard of more. he probably threw himself into the sea not to survive his defeat. "it was a grand fight, captain larsen!" i exclaimed, as the narrator concluded his story. i thanked the captain, and after this we all went to our bunks to sleep. the following day was sunday. there was no buying or selling of fish. every man was shaved and wore clean linen; the church was crowded with fishermen, and the afternoon was spent in making social visits. i had fished with the four boats of our house, and now i made my preparations for sailing northward. our catch of fish and that in several neighboring fishing settlements during the fishing season had amounted to over twenty-two millions of cod. chapter xxxi sailing along the coast of finmarken.--hammerfest, the most northern town in the world.--schools.--fruholmen, the most northern lighthouse in the world.--among the sea lapps.--men and women sailors. leaving the fishing settlement, the _ragnild_, which i had rejoined, sailed along the rugged and dreary shore of finmarken, the most northern part of the continent of europe, passing now and then a solitary fisherman's house, or a settlement hidden from sight, though the stranger would never dream that any human being lived in this land of rocks and desolation. we next came to hammerfest, in ° ' north latitude, the most northern town in the world. in its commodious port were english, french, russian, german, swedish, and norwegian vessels. hundreds of fishing boats were there also, waiting for favorable winds to continue their voyage. steamers were going and coming from the south. the population was about three thousand souls. there were warehouses owned by rich merchants, a church, a comfortable hotel, good schools where boys and girls can learn french, english, german, latin and greek. the streets were filled with snow. but though so far north there was not a particle of ice in the port, on account of the warm gulf stream, though sometimes the thermometer reaches degrees below zero. often during the winter the mercury stands for consecutive days above the freezing point. after leaving hammerfest we sailed towards north cape. suddenly i heard one of the sailors on the watch shout, "light! light!" "what," said i, "a lighthouse so far north?" "yes," replied the captain, who was standing near me; "it is the most northern light on the globe. it is the light on the island of fruholmen, situated in latitude ° ' north." we sailed as far as north cape, on the island of magerö, rising majestically to a height of nine hundred and eighty feet above the sea, and in latitude ° '. at the top of the cape there was evidently a gale, for the snow was flying to a great height. as we were sailing along the shore, i saw some strange-looking weather-beaten logs, covered with barnacles. the captain said to me, "some of these logs come probably from the coast of south america, from the amazon and orinoco rivers; the gulf stream has brought them here. it has taken them a long time to reach this place, for they are covered with barnacles." instead of doubling north cape, we sailed through the narrow magerö sound which separates the island from the mainland. [illustration: "we sailed towards north cape."] we had hardly entered the sound when i was astonished by the view that met my eyes, for now there were fishing settlements coming suddenly into view, with comfortable, white-painted houses, ships at anchor, glittering churches shining in the sun, and school buildings. we sailed across the porsanger fjord. far off was nordkyn, upon the summit of which i had stood. the coast looked dreary indeed! we sailed across laxe fjord and doubled nordkyn. the following day we entered a fjord and came upon a number of fishing boats that were returning from the open sea. some of these boats rowed towards us, and soon were alongside of our craft, and we engaged in conversation. these people appeared very strange; they were dressed like the nomadic lapps, with the noteworthy exception, however, that the fur of the reindeer skin was on the _inside_ of their garments. they were sea lapps. i looked at the crews of the boats, and was more astonished still, for some of the boats were partly manned by women, and big girls; other crews were entirely composed of women with a man for captain. one boat was entirely manned by women, the captain included. i could not easily distinguish the men from the women, for the features of the women were coarse from exposure to the storms of the arctic sea. they wore reindeer trousers like the men, as indeed do the women of the nomadic lapps. they rowed quite as well as the men, too. they were distinguishable by their long shaggy hair. it was of a dark chestnut, with a reddish tinge--almost black in some. they wore it hanging over their shoulders. it was indeed a strange sight, and i looked at them with great curiosity, for i had never seen such people before--women who were sailors, some captains of boats, going to sea and braving the storms of the inhospitable ocean. captain petersen said to me: "almost all these sea laplanders own their crafts. some of these are commanded by the husband, while the wife, the daughters, sister or hired woman form the crew; the women are very hardy, and excellent sailors; they pull as hard as strong men, and can use the oar as long as the men do." the captain was right--for i could not see any difference between their rowing and that of the men as they followed us. when they learned that i had come to see their land and wanted to live among them, they were glad. they asked my name, and they were told that i was called paulus. then many of these sea lapps said: "come, paulus, and stay a few days with us; we will take good care of you;" and pointing to a hamlet at a distance, "there we live, and soon we shall be at home." looking towards where they pointed, i saw smoke curling up from strange-looking dwellings. the settlement was scattered on the brow of a hill looking down upon the fjord. as the word went round that i was coming to stay with them, the sea lapps made haste and rowed with all their might; the women were especially in earnest, for they wanted to prepare their houses for my reception before i landed. soon they all were far ahead, and after they had landed i saw them running as fast as they could towards their homes. evidently they were going to announce my arrival to the people who had remained at home. here i parted with the _ragnild_, which sailed to another fjord for more fish. chapter xxxii a sea lapp hamlet.--strange houses.--their interiors.--summer dress of the sea lapps.--primitive wooden cart.--animals eat raw fish.--i sleep in a sea lapp's house.--they tell me to hurry southward. when i had landed, and ascended the hill towards the settlement, i found myself in a sea lapp hamlet. i looked at their dwellings with great curiosity. some of the buildings were conical and resembled the tent of the nomadic lapps; but they were built of sod or turf. there were others resembling in shape log houses, with only a ground floor, built entirely of the same material. others were partly of stone and turf. some were entirely of stone slabs. two houses were built of logs. in the mean time the people had changed their clothes, and wore their summer every-day dress called _vuolpo_ (though it was still cold), ready to receive me. some of these summer dresses were made of coarse vadmal of a gray or blackish color; others were blue. most were in a ragged state, or patched--having when new been used as sunday clothes. the men wore square caps of red or blue flannel, and the women had extraordinary looking head-gear resembling casques of dragoons, on account of the wooden frame under the cloth. these were also red or blue. "come in," said one of the sea lapps, "come into my _gamme_ (house) and see how i live." his house was of conical shape and built of sod, supported inside by a rough frame formed of branches of trees. a fire was burning in the centre of the hut, the smoke escaping by an aperture above; and upon cross poles hung shoes, boots, and clothing. this sod hut was about twelve feet high and eight feet in diameter. a large kettle hung over the fire. it was filled with seaweed, which was cooking for the cows. i tasted it and found it very palatable and not at all salt. i was hardly in this _gamme_ when i wished myself out, but kept this to myself, for i did not want to hurt the feelings of the poor lapp. the interior of the place was horribly filthy--dirty reindeer skins lay on the ground upon old dirty dried grass. a tent of a nomadic lapp was a model of cleanliness compared with this! the outside was just as bad; on the ground lay the entrails and heads of fish, and a couple of barrels filled with half-putrid liver which in time would make a barrel of brown oil; there were a great many codfish heads drying on the rocks. "will you stay and have a cup of coffee with us?" my host asked. "yes," added his wife, "it will not take long to make a cup of coffee." "not to-day," i replied, "but some other time." "all right," the host said; "don't forget." i was glad when i got out. this abode was the _gamme_ of a poor sea lapp, and the poorest kind of dwelling seen among them. the next house, which was at a short distance, belonged to the captain of one of the boats which had been alongside of our ship. he and his wife were waiting for me outside and bade me come in. his house was long, narrow, and low, and built entirely of flat stones. i entered through a wooden door a room built in the centre of the house. their winter garments hung on poles, there was a pile of firewood, and a heap of dry seaweed and reindeer moss. i followed him to the room on the left. there the family lived. the floor of the room was covered with flat slabs; in one corner was a bed on the floor, itself made of young branches of birch, kept together by logs. the skins that made the rest of the bed were outside to be aired. this room was about ten feet long and about ten feet wide, the whole width of the house, and lighted by a small window with tiny panes of glass. at the foot of the bed in the corner was a small cow. such a cow! i had never seen one so small. in the opposite corner was another one. these two cows were hardly three feet high, and between the two were a calf and three sheep. "these animals," said my host, "help us to keep our room warm and comfortable during the winter months." this was a very strange way of heating a room, i thought to myself. "come and stay with us to-night," added the lapp. "you will sleep comfortably and you will not be cold." i accepted. the furniture of the room consisted of some kettles, a coffee pot, coffee grinder, a lamp, and a few chests. everything, strange to say, was very clean. the third room contained a few nets, and on the floor were a few reindeer skins upon which slept any stranger who chanced to share their dwelling. i was a favored guest. i was to sleep in the same room with the host, hostess, cows and sheep. i was considered as one of the family. i slept splendidly. in the morning i had water to wash my face with. that was fine! i gave myself a good rubbing with soap, for i said, "paul, after you leave this place it will be quite a while before you wash your face, except with snow." but i could not as successfully get rid of the odor of the stable, which clung to my clothes with a persistence that would have driven every friend i had away from me if i had been at home. not far from this _gamme_ was the house of another well-to-do sea lapp, one of the rich fellows of the hamlet. his house was long and narrow, one part built of logs, the remainder of layers of turf. the wooden part was the every-day room--parlor, bedroom, kitchen. the roof was supported by poles and covered with birch bark, over which more than a foot of earth had been placed to keep the cold out; the birch bark was used as shingles and kept the rain from dripping inside. two little cows, two dwarfish oxen, eight sheep, and two goats completed the household, and these were housed in the turf compartment. further on i passed a somewhat long and narrow house built entirely of turf, which i also visited, and as i came out of it a very strange sight greeted me. several people were returning with their dwarfish carts loaded with seaweed; each was drawn by a team of two wretched little oxen not bigger than the cows of the place--that is, not more than three feet in height. some were driven by women, others by men or children. these queer-looking small carts were of the same pattern as those used thousands of years ago. the wheels were of a solid block of wood hewn out of the trunk of fir trees, which grow on the banks of some of the fjords, though the land is so far north, owing to the effects of the gulf stream. these wheels were of the pattern first made by man, and for thousands of years there had been no improvement; just as in some parts of the world the natives to-day still use the dug-out, or canoe made of the trunk or bark of a tree--the primitive boat of man. the carts were loaded with seaweed, fish, or reindeer moss. i stayed here several days, and one day i went to see ole maja, the nabob of the place. ole was an old sea lapp, who was considered very rich among his neighbors. his house was entirely built of logs, and was much admired by the people. the little room had two plain pine-wood beds, a cast-iron stove (the only one in the hamlet), a clock and three wooden chairs. everything was exceedingly clean. he belonged to the best type of sea lapps. ole owned a horse, which had a special stable built of turf, and his four cows, two oxen, and twelve sheep were kept in another building. i asked what he wanted a horse for in these high latitudes. he answered: "we use them on the frozen rivers to draw logs." "the hay i gather in summer," he added, "is for him. horses are very particular, they will not eat the kind of food we give to our cattle, sheep or goats." i did not wonder at this. i noticed, as there was no snow on the ground, that all the dwellings of the little hamlet had small patches of land round them, which were to be planted with potatoes when warm weather came. those who had the best houses wanted me to stay with them, and to avoid making distinctions i agreed to remain with each family one day until i went away. they seemed very much pleased. i witnessed one day the feeding of the cattle, sheep, and goats. this was a sight! they were to be fed on that day with raw fish cut in pieces, instead of boiled heads of dry cod, or boiled lichen. these pieces of fish were put in large wide wooden pails, the animals were called, and they devoured the contents with great avidity. this amazed me greatly. just think of cattle feeding on raw fish! one day found me comfortably settled in a _gamme_ which belonged to matias laiti. the chief meal was of reindeer meat and fish,--a boiled head of fresh cod. this is considered the sweetest and nicest part of the fish. a great wooden bowl of milk was given to me. the milk had a queer taste--it had a fishy taste--so had everything else, i thought. i am sure that if the cannibals that were my friends in africa had been here, and eaten me up, they would have found that i tasted of fish, for i had been living on fish ever so long. i kept visiting one sea lapp and his family after another, and had a good time--living on fish and reindeer meat, for the sea lapps own reindeer which are kept for their relations or friends further in the interior. sea lapps intermarry much with river lapps, and also with nomadic lapps. they form really one family. on sunday morning they were dressed in their best _vuolpo_ head-dresses and garments. these were red, blue and white, with red and yellow bands at the bottom of the skirt. some had pretty belts, and wore necklaces of large glass beads. the women and men had combed their hair, and it was not to be combed again for a week. they all had washed their faces and hands. one woman wore a pair of blue woollen trousers, fitting tight from the knees to the ankle, had put on a new pair of lapp shoes, and wore casque-like head-gear, which was blue like her dress and had red seams. the boats were ready to be rowed across the fjord to take them to the church, where service was held once in three weeks. they were all lutherans. there were hardly any children in the place. the school was the other side of the fjord by the church. the children were about to return to their parents, for in summer there is no school. all the swedish-norwegian lapps know how to read and write. one evening as we were talking round a bright fire, one of the lapps said to me, "paulus, you have told us that you intend to travel southward by land. if that is so, there is no time to be lost, for the sun is getting more powerful every day, and the snow will soon be in an unfit condition for reindeer to travel on, and the ice over the rivers and lakes will break; besides you are going to have great difficulty in procuring reindeer, for no reindeer can be had at the post stations now. you may be detained on the way, and be obliged to wait until snow has melted and the rivers become navigable. at this time of the year the reindeer are very feeble; it is the worst time to travel with them; they shed their coats and horns and are weak and lean from their winter digging. during the day they feel the heat of the sun, and do not go as fast as during the winter months. so, though we love to have you stay with us, if you want to go you had better hasten your departure. do not forget to take with you blue or green goggles, for the glare is so intense, on account of the bright sun, you will surely become snow-blind if you have none with you. we are going to send for reindeer, and we will give you a guide to go with you." the long days come on with remarkable rapidity in this far north. the sun was below the horizon till the latter part of january, and now on the th of april in clear weather i could read a newspaper at midnight. there were to be no more nights. the long night had been driven away from the pole. chapter xxxiii comparison of finmarken with alaska.--the two lands much alike.--what must be done for alaska.--colonization.--importation of reindeer.--protection of fisheries.--houses of refuge. that same evening (it has to be called so for the sake of distinction) i stood out on the brow of the hill, looking at the fjord and arctic ocean. suddenly alaska came to my mind. i remembered all i had seen on the coast of finmarken, and also all i had encountered and done in "snow land", "the land of the long night," and "the land of the winds," and i said to myself, "why should not alaska have its fishing towns, settlements, and hamlets, like those of finmarken, and become as prosperous as the country i have travelled through?" there is a wonderful similarity between these two countries; they are both exactly in the same latitudes; they have the same kind of barren coast bathed by a warm stream, and both have fjords. alaska has immense shoals of codfish and herring, besides salmon. both have their long nights, and then long days of midnight sun. we must give inducements to the people of finmarken to come to alaska. they will find in their new country something similar to the one they have left, they will enjoy the same life. california and oregon will provide the people with flour and send them delicacies and products of their state, and take in return the cod and herring. the southern american countries would be a great market for their codfish. then i thought that the only way to make alaska prosperous eventually, is to do exactly what the swedes and norwegians have done for their country in the far north. the fisheries must be protected, and the laws regulating them must be enforced. then, as on the finmarken coast, towns, hamlets, and fishing settlements will rise in the course of time, and the wealth of the people will come from the fish--their gold from the sea. then we shall have more american-born sailors to man our ships. some of the barren hills of alaska should be planted with juniper, birch, alder, and with pine and fir and other trees growing in the high altitudes of the mountains of scandinavia. it will take a good deal of time, but the world was not made in one day. the scandinavian laws regarding the cutting of trees below a certain size ought to be adopted for alaska. then we must import many reindeer, and establish the same laws in regard to them and their pasture as the swedes and norwegians have done. a great many of these reindeer must be broken, and brought up to eat kept reindeer moss. samoides and laplanders must be induced to come to alaska; they know how to take care of the reindeer, they are accustomed to law and order, and they are absolutely honest. "yes, indeed, they are honest," i said loudly without knowing it; "for they knew i had money with me, and i have never been afraid of being robbed or murdered. such thoughts have never entered my head." then i thought of the good care these kind people took of me when there was danger in travelling. wherever there is a little good grazing land, houses and farms of refuge, and post stations where reindeer can be procured, must be built by the government in the interior, so that people can find refuge from the terrific storms that blow over alaska, and i cannot realize how they could be fiercer than those i had encountered in finmarken. with reindeer and skees, travelling will become easy, and good distances will be made in a short time. in summer boat stations must be established along navigable rivers, also a tariff made for distances and for food--so that there be no overcharge--as is done in sweden, norway, and finland. little hamlets with the church and the school will rise. doctors must be sent, and paid a salary by the government; besides a fee must be given by the patient, who will then not call the doctor for a trifle. chapter xxxiv preparations to leave the arctic coast.--great danger of encountering melting snow, or rivers made dangerous by the ice breaking.--reindeer come.--farewell to the sea lapps.--i leave for more southern land. the advice the sea lapps had given me was not to be neglected, and i at once made hasty preparations for my journey southward. there was not one hour or one minute to be lost. i did not want to be caught in the midst of vast tracts of half-melted snow, seven, eight, or ten feet deep, with reindeer unable to travel further; or to drive over rivers and lakes covered with treacherous ice, made the more dangerous by being hidden under the snow--or, worst of all, to find no reindeer to carry me onward; or delayed somewhere, waiting for the snow to melt and the land to become dry and the rivers navigable, for during the time of thaw the country is full of bogs and swamps, and the rivers become in many places but roaring torrents, their waters dashing against huge boulders strewn in their beds, or breaking over them in rapids and pouring cataracts. my little sleigh, my skees, my bags, and winter outfits were landed, and were before me. i left off my sou'wester and oilskin garments and sea-boots, and i said to them: "we have had rough weather together on this stormy arctic sea. henceforth i do not need you any more; i hope you will keep the sea lapp to whom i give you as dry as you did me." then i donned my lapp costume once more. now the fur shoes of winter were unsuitable to travel with, for being porous they are only good to get over dry and crisp snow with. i had to wear henceforth the shoes or boots that are without fur and the leather of which is prepared in such a manner as to be impermeable to water or damp snow. i had provided myself with two pairs of these, while at haparanda on my way to "the land of the long night," for my return journey,--a short pair, of the shape of the winter shoes, and a pair of boots coming as high as my knees. one of the lapps smeared them with a preparation of tar and fat that he used for his own shoes. when they were ready he said: "now you are all right, no dampness or water will penetrate them," and he gave me some of the stuff to use on my journey, saying, "rub your shoes every two days with it." i thanked him. then i put on a new pair of woollen socks. i surrounded my feet with the lapp grass, and wore my short boots. while turning over in my mind the mishaps that might come to me on this southward journey, i fancied the same friendly voices i had heard before from across the atlantic called to me: "hurry on, friend paul! hurry on! for there is danger in delay; and when your journey is finished come back to us at once." "i will hurry on," i replied aloud. "do not be afraid. i will return at once to our dear united states." after this i was more impatient to leave than before. i waited anxiously for the reindeer to arrive. henceforth i shall wear only one fur garment, instead of two as i did during my journey northward, for the weather is getting warmer every day. after i was dressed completely i looked affectionately at my little sleigh, for i remembered the many hundreds of miles we had travelled together, what fun i had had, and how hard it was at first to learn to drive reindeer and to keep inside the sleigh, and all the sudden upsettings i had. then i looked at my skees, and said: "dear skees, we are again to tramp over the snow together. i wish i could leap over chasms with you, as the lapps do. i cannot do that; but we will walk on the snow, and go down hill riding a stick. this will be great fun for me anyhow." then i turned to the bags, and i said: "dear bags, i have often thought of you and how comfortable i was with you." i remembered how cosy i was when i slept in them on the snow. i did not mind how hard the wind blew; the harder it blew the more comfortable i felt inside of them. near by them was the big brown bearskin, which was safely fastened over me in the sleigh. i said: "dear bearskin, i think a great deal of you also, for you have been my friend and have kept my legs so warm when i was driving." the next morning to my great joy the reindeer came,--one for me, one for my guide, and a spare one; but how differently they looked compared with those i had in the winter. they were thin, and were changing their coats. i did not wonder that the poor reindeer did not look frisky--they had had to work so hard for their living, digging the snow to reach the moss during the whole of the winter. i looked at the guide the kind sea lapps had provided for me. he was the man who had come with the reindeer. his name was mikel. he was a nomadic lapp, but had come to visit his sister, who had married a sea lapp. he was about four feet eight inches in height, well built, broad shouldered, nimble as a deer, about forty years old, with a face made by the wind as red as a ripe tomato. he lived and pastured his herd of reindeer south of karesuando. as we were introduced to each other we shook hands, and i said, "mikel, we are going to be friends." "yes," he replied, "we are to be friends." then all the sea lapps that were round us shouted with one voice: "paulus, we are all your friends! mikel will take good care of you." "i will," said mikel. "i will take good care of paulus." "thank you, mikel," i replied. from that moment mikel and i became fast friends. an hour after the arrival of the reindeer and after a hearty meal of codfish and black bread we were ready to start. before seating myself in the sleigh, i turned my face towards the north pole and looked at the arctic ocean beyond the fjord, and shouted: "farewell to thee! farewell, tempestuous arctic sea! farewell to thy gales! farewell to thy snow and sleet storms. but i am glad i have been through it all, for i have learned something i did not know before. i have gained knowledge about the people and 'the land of the long night.'" one of the sea lapps held my reindeer, and after i was seated another drew my bearskin round me, and made it secure with the cord belonging to my sleigh. when mikel saw that i was ready he jumped into his sleigh and we started. "good-bye, good-bye, paulus!" shouted all the lapps. "good-bye, good-bye, dear sea lapps!"--i shouted back to them, and the last words i heard were: "lucky journey, paulus, come to see us again, come to see us again." chapter xxxv we enter a birch forest.--the reindeer are soon fagged.--sleep on the snow.--the rays of the sun melt through the snow.--great difficulty in travelling.--meet herds of reindeer.--reindeer bulls fight each other. we entered the birch forest soon after our departure. we had great difficulty in driving among the trees. i was glad our reindeer were not as frisky as in the earlier part of the winter. i could hardly follow the track of mikel, and sometimes i could not do so at all. i drove sometimes against one tree and then against another, then the boughs of the birch would strike against my face. i had not been five minutes among the birches when i was upset. at last, losing patience, i shouted to mikel, "when are we to get out of these birch trees into the open country?" he replied: "we shall reach the river soon." the snow was not more than three or four or five inches deep at first, but grew gradually deeper as we moved further south. along the coast of finmarken the heat of the gulf stream prevents it from lying deep on the ground. that afternoon we reached the tana river, at a place called polmak, and sped on over its snow-covered ice. seven or eight miles was all that our reindeer could do in an hour, and during the day we had to stop several times to give them rest. about eleven o'clock we stopped for the night. we spread our bags upon the snow, but we got into one only, for two would have been too warm at this time of the year; and as mikel and i were ready to disappear in them, i said "good-night, mikel," and he replied "good-night, paulus." it snowed during the night, and when we awoke in the morning our bags were covered with it. i did not wonder when i saw this that i had felt so warm during the night. i was the first to be up. i shook mikel's bag and shouted to him, "get up, mikel," and as his head peeped out of his bag, i said "good-morning," and he cried "good-morning, paulus." then we took our breakfast. the reindeer, while we were asleep, had dug through the snow to the lichen and fed, and now were quietly resting. we were soon on the way. as the sun rose higher and higher and its rays grew more powerful, the snow became soft, and the travelling so hard for our reindeer that we had to stop; the thermometer marked degrees in the shade and degrees in the sun. there were sometimes twenty or thirty degrees' difference of temperature during the twenty-four hours, but the change came so slowly, hour after hour, that i did not notice it. so we had to stop travelling, and while the reindeer rested we took to our skees and went in search of game, but no foxes or wolves were to be seen. towards four o'clock in the afternoon the snow began to freeze again, and we again took up our journey. now the nights have to be turned into days, for we can only travel during the time when the sun is not shining or has not great power. we travelled without interruption the following day, as the sky was cloudy and the snow was hard. towards midnight mikel said: "our reindeer are tired, we must rest; but we will not sleep more than three or four hours, for we must reach a station where we can procure fresh reindeer." we unharnessed our reindeer, and tied them with long ropes. when this was done we got into our bags and soon were fast asleep. at about three o'clock mikel awoke me, saying, "paulus, it is about time to go." "oh, mikel," i replied, "let me sleep one hour more, for i need more sleep. i want another snooze." "there is no time to be lost," he replied; "you will have a snooze later in the day." so i rubbed my eyes to get fully awake, and washed my face with snow, and felt ready for another start. that morning the sky was very clear, and after a while the sun shone brightly and the glare on the snow was so great that it would have been impossible to travel without green or blue goggles. i had two pairs with me, in case i should lose or break one by some accident. on account of the strength of the sun's rays, which melted the snow, we had to stop our travelling by eleven o'clock. our reindeer were exhausted. i took my short pair of skees, covered with sealskin, and went ptarmigan hunting. i killed four. the birds had already dropped many of their white feathers, which had been replaced by gray ones. they were getting their summer coats, and would soon be entirely gray. after killing these i went further, and saw something in the distance moving on the snow. soon i discovered it was a fox of a peculiar color which i had not seen before. i lay flat on the snow, as the animal was coming in my direction. he was evidently hungry, and was hunting ptarmigans himself. when he came within shooting distance i fired and killed him. he was a white fox, but much of his snowy-white fur had dropped, and was replaced by bluish. i wondered if the change took place for his own protection and advantage. when white he could not be seen so easily by the creatures upon which he preyed, and when bluish he could not be so easily seen as if he had remained white. when i returned mikel was stretched on his back on the snow with his arms spread out, and was snoring like a good fellow. oh, what a noise he made! he had succeeded in frightening our reindeer, which had moved away as far as the rope would allow them. i did not wonder that they did not like mikel's snoring. after looking at mikel i stretched myself on the snow, but quite a distance from him, not to be disturbed by his snoring. now we did not require any masks on our faces, and during the day slept without being obliged to get into our bags. soon i fell asleep, and dreamed that i was attacked by a big pack of wolves--i jumped up and looked round, but there were no wolves. i had had the nightmare from sleeping on my back. mikel was still snoring, and i looked at him and thought i would let him snore a little more. towards four o'clock in the afternoon, as it was beginning to freeze again and the snow was fit for travelling, i awoke him. soon after we started, and we had not driven an hour when we saw a tent in the distance and made for it. the lapp family who owned it received us with great hospitality. coffee was made and we were invited to spend the night. i looked forward with great pleasure to the prospect of a good warm meal of reindeer meat and good reindeer broth. these people were great friends of mikel, and they agreed to give us some of their reindeer that were not as fagged out as ours. i was delighted. how i enjoyed the warm reindeer meat and the reindeer broth! it was fine! i was so hungry. after this meal we were presented with a lot of cooked reindeer meat for our journey, and one of the lapps was to go with us, for he wanted to see some of his friends further south. towards three o'clock in the morning we started. we saw many herds of reindeer--they were moving westward towards the mountains that stretched to the arctic sea. it was a grand sight. i saw more than thirty thousand reindeer that day, in herds from one thousand to two or three thousand. the lapps on their skees, with their dogs, urged the animals onward, and the dogs brought those which were trying to go astray, or lagged behind, into the ranks. many of the reindeer had already dropped their horns, and the calving season had begun. how pretty were the tiny baby reindeer; they were put on special sleighs and driven in them, their mothers following, uttering a queer kind of grunt. the baggage of the family and tents went with them, led by women who carried their young children in their cradles slung on their backs. late that day i saw a splendid sight, two herds were approaching each other in opposite directions. the bulls of each herd advanced to charge the others with great fury and began a terrible fight, advancing and retreating, then charging again, butting furiously. the horns of two combatants sometimes became entangled, and it took a long time for them to disengage themselves. mikel said: "sometimes they cannot be separated and have to be killed." in the mean time, the lapps and dogs went after them, and with great trouble they were parted and made to go to their respective herds. i noticed, as i went further south, that the twilight was not so bright as it was in the north--for in that northern land, the daylight comes from the direction of the pole. the darkest part of the day or night was somewhat after eleven o'clock p.m., but even then i could read, and as we travelled only jupiter and venus looked at us--no other stars were visible, and towards half-past one these two disappeared, for daylight was so strong; and when the weather was clear after that time only the pale blue sky of the north and its fleecy white clouds were to be seen above our heads. how beautiful it was! chapter xxxvi variable weather.--snowy days.--an uninhabited house of refuge.--animals changing the color of their fur.--mikel tells me about a bear.--killing the bear.--hurrying on over soft snow and frozen rivers.--the ice begins to break.--pass the arctic circle. onward we went, sleeping one day in the tent of a nomadic lapp, another day in our bags, at other times in the _gamme_ of a river lapp. the weather was very changeable; one day it was clear, the next day the sky was gray. snowy days were not uncommon. midway between nordkyn and haparanda the snow was of great depth. only the tops of the birch trees could be seen, and strange to say the branches were in bloom, for the trees felt the heat of the sun, and the snow had prevented the freezing of the ground to a great depth. the snow must have been eight or ten feet deep in some regions. when we reached the summit of the plateau, the watershed that divided the rivers falling into the arctic sea and the baltic, the weather was very stormy. though it was the th of may, we met a furious snowstorm. this was dangerous for us, and mikel attached my sleigh to his by a long rope, so that we might not become separated. the snowstorm seemed, however, to give new strength to the reindeer, and they went faster than usual, and besides the cold weather we had had the two previous days--the thermometer marking to degrees of frost--had evidently invigorated them. for a while there was a lull in the storm, and we were glad when we came to a house of refuge. the house was small and uninhabited, but clean inside. some food was hanging from the ceiling, belonging to some lapp or some wanderer like ourselves, who had left it to have it on his return journey. the food was sacred and safe. no one would have dared to touch it, no matter how hungry he was, for it did not belong to him, and the one who had left it perhaps depended upon it to sustain his life on his return. we peeped into the parcel--there was some hard bread, reindeer cheese, and a smoked reindeer tongue, a coffee kettle and some coffee, and a few small pieces of wood tied together, to make a fire to cook the coffee with. this was one of those houses of refuge used only for shelter, without people to keep them, built especially by the government for that purpose, in case of sudden storm. after a while i went out for a walk on my skees, to stretch my legs, for i had been more than ten hours seated in my sleigh. i took my gun with me. soon i spied some hares, and succeeded in killing two. these were also changing their fur coats; much of their fur was gray, and mixed with white; the hares were to be gray during the summer months. as white was their protection in winter against big white owls, foxes, and other animals, so their gray color would protect them against their enemies in summer. "strange indeed is nature," i said to myself. "in some cases the animals change their fur so that they can approach their prey without being seen; in other cases nature changes their fur to protect them against their enemies." when i returned i saw that mikel had prepared our supper. he had fetched some firewood he had in his sleigh, and a bright fire was burning under our coffee kettle. reindeer meat, tongue, and reindeer cheese had been put on a wooden dish, and two tin cups were ready for the coffee to be poured into them. we seated ourselves cross-legged on the floor, and began our meal. what a nice cup of coffee we had! how deliciously it tasted! how good was our coarse hard black bread and our reindeer cheese, and smoked reindeer tongue! after we had drunk our coffee and eaten our supper i noticed that mikel was very silent and thoughtful. i wondered if he was thinking of dangers ahead--of the sudden stopping of our journey,--and just as i was on the point of asking him why he was so thoughtful he broke the silence himself and said: "paulus, i know where there is a big brown bear--a real big fellow. the bear's night is not over with him yet, and he must be still sleeping under the snow at the place where i saw him last autumn getting ready to go into his winter quarters." "you don't say so, mikel!" i exclaimed. "is the bear sleeping near where we are?" "not so very near," he replied with a twinkle in his eye. "a few hours will bring us to his place." he saw by my looks that i was ready to go after the bear. it was just what he wished. so he continued: "paulus, shall we go and kill the bear, before he awakes and goes into the mountains and forests to commit his depredations,--for after his long fast he will be very hungry--and are you willing to lose two or three days and run the risk of having our journey come to an end?" when i heard this, i forgot all about the ice cracking over the streams and lakes, about the snow melting and preventing people from travelling. "yes, mikel," i replied, "let us go after the bear. afterwards we will travel as fast as we can and take very little sleep; perhaps we shall have luck and the weather may be colder than usual for a while." "all right," replied mikel; "we will go after the bear." "mikel," said i "before we stretch ourselves on the floor and go to sleep, tell me how you know that the bear is at the spot you suppose and that he is spending his winter night there." mikel took a big pinch of snuff and replied: "paulus, i think i am the only one, that knows where this bear is sleeping, for i have kept it a secret. i hope no other person knows where he is, for i want his skin. besides i shall get a premium in money if we kill him." then he added: "one day last fall as i was hunting for ptarmigans i saw in the distance a huge brown bear walking about and getting ready for his winter quarters. i knew that he was seeking his winter lodgings, because he was going round and round a big cluster of pines before entering it. i watched! after a a while he disappeared among the pines and i saw no more of him. i knew that if he were not disturbed or frightened away he would stay there. the bear assuredly had seen the place during the summer and thought it was a good one for his long sleep. this bear knew that a big snowstorm was coming, and he was not mistaken, for that night snow fell very heavily and the storm lasted two days. "the bear's night will soon be over in this region," mikel continued, "and at any moment this bear may awaken, break through the snow that is over him, and go away. perhaps he is already gone. at this time of the year the slightest noise will arouse a bear, for by this time he has ceased to sleep soundly." then he added: "we have had very little sleep since we left the coast, paulus; we need a good rest before we go after the bear." "yes," said i, "my eyes ache for want of a good long sleep." we stretched ourselves on the earth floor, and soon after i heard the snoring of mikel. he was an inveterate snorer,--i thought the champion snorer of all those i ever had met. i could not go to sleep, though i was so tired. i turned first on one side, then on the other, then lay on my back. i was much excited, for i thought of the big brown bear and of the hunt that was before us. at last i fell asleep. suddenly i was awakened by a shaking of mikel, and as i opened my eyes he said, "paulus, what is the matter? you have been shouting." i was in a profuse perspiration. i had again had nightmare from lying on my back. i was fighting with a big bear which had seized me, and we were wrestling and i was getting the worst of it, and when ready to fall down in his grasp i had given a big scream. after our breakfast that morning, mikel said: "we must go and tell some of the folks who live in a little hamlet not far from here to come with us." "what do you call not far from here?" i asked. i had begun to know what "not far" meant with the lapps. "two hours' travel, or about fifteen miles," he replied. "i have friends there." before leaving the little house of refuge mikel swept the floor, and made it as clean as we had found it--for it is the custom of the people to do this before they leave. we then started eastward, and after two hours' travelling we came to a few farms and entered a house. mikel told the people about the bear. the news soon spread and there was much excitement. during the day preparations were made for the hunt. the next morning men gathered, taking their guns and big long sticks, with pikes at the ends to prod the bear with; and all the dogs of the place followed us. many men started on their skees, others in their sleighs. according to mikel the bear was about thirty miles away. i was full of enthusiasm, and longed to come face to face with the big brown bear of northern europe. about three hours after, we stopped. all the people took counsel together and spoke in low voices. then mikel, pointing out to me a big cluster of trees, said, "paulus, the bear is there." slowly we made for the spot, and then entered the grove, and went in different directions seeking for the bear's winter quarters. soon after we saw a heap of snow, or little hillock, that covered evidently some boulders piled on the top of each other or a cluster of fallen broken pine trees. we looked at each other and pointed towards the spot--we knew that the bear was under the snow there. mikel whispered to me, "the bear sleeps under that hillock of snow." we surrounded the place, then on a sudden we shouted and made a terrific noise. two or three of the men fired their guns, the dogs barked furiously. [illustration: "he sat on his haunches and looked at us, uttering a tremendous growl."] then we saw the centre of the heap or hillock of snow tremble, as if some live creature were moving slowly under it. then the snow moved a little quicker. there was no mistake, the bear was awakened, had moved, and was on the point of rising; he was listening, and getting ready to come out. the noise had frightened him. the snow trembled more and more and rose higher and higher. suddenly there was a great upheaval, and great cracks appeared in the crusted snow. then we saw peeping out the head and back of a huge brown bear, then two legs, and finally the whole animal. he looked round him with amazement. he seemed to be dazed at the strange and sudden sight before him. he sat on his haunches and looked at us, uttering a tremendous growl. we could not tell whether he meant to fight or to run. the dogs barked angrily around the huge beast, but did not dare to approach near enough to attack him. in the meantime we had all drawn together so that we could fire without danger of hitting any of our party. the bear was getting ugly, gave a series of fierce growls, and rose on his hind legs. at this moment mikel and i fired. a grunt of pain showed that the animal was hit. he ran a few steps towards us and as we got ready to fire again the big beast fell, his blood reddening the snow. we gathered round and looked at him. he was a huge beast, but very thin from his long fast, for he had been six months or more without food. after the killing of the bear there was no time to be lost, for we had deviated from our course and had gone eastward into finland. so now we had to go westward, and after two days' travelling we came to the river muonio, to a finnish hamlet called kuttainen, not far from karesuando. now travelling became really dangerous. the frozen river was full of treacherous cracks, and others were appearing all the time. once in a while we came to small open spaces, where we could see the swift water of the stream rushing with great rapidity; this made me shudder. in some places there were large pools of water. it was getting really warm. some days my "pesh" was comfortable, at other times it was much too warm, the thermometer reaching to degrees in the shade and to degrees in the sun. the dripping from the melted snow came into the river from the hills, and had succeeded in many places in melting the ice on the banks. this travelling was no joke. i followed mikel, and watched him constantly, fearing that his reindeer and sleigh would disappear under the ice. travelling appeared to become more and more perilous as we followed the muonio southward. at times i could hear the angry water under the ice striking against boulders, and this became quite common. at last i shouted to mikel, "let us travel on the land, for surely if we do not we shall fall through the ice and be engulfed." "we cannot," he shouted back, "the snow is too soft. our reindeer could not pull our sleighs. we can get along much better on the river, though the ice is very bad. trust in me, paulus. i have made this journey over the muonio river many times before, but you must follow me very closely, for sometimes i shall have to pass near rotten ice or open spots." "i will follow you carefully, dear mikel. go on! go on!" i said. so i followed mikel closely, as he had bade me, but what thumps our sleighs would sometimes get on the now uneven ice of the river! fortunately they were very strongly built. we slept at a place called songamuodka. in the morning it snowed, but the flakes were big and soft and melted as they fell on the old snow. i met no more herds of reindeer, but since i had left on my journey southward i had seen between sixty-five and seventy thousand of them. two days after i saw the church spire of pajala, rested there, and on the th of may, as i was travelling on the torne river, i passed once more the arctic circle. it was raining. i was told that it was the first rain that had fallen for over seven months. here i said good-bye to the good mikel and thanked him cordially for the care he had taken of me. i had now left the kingdom of the "long night," and the "long day" was to rule over the land through which we have travelled together. now, my dear young folks, friend paul has come back, as you bade him, and i hope you have enjoyed our travelling together in "the land of the long night." good-bye. do not forget your friend paul, who loves you dearly, for once he was one of the young folks himself. paul du chaillu's great work the viking age the early history, manners, & customs of the ancestors of the english-speaking nations with illustrations and map vols., vo, $ . charles scribner's sons, publishers * * * * * new york tribune. "these luxuriously printed and profusely illustrated volumes embody the fullest account of our norse ancestors extant. mr. du chaillu has gone very fully and very carefully over the whole of his ground. this extensive and important work must be of high interest to all english-speaking people." newark advertiser. "their weapons, ornaments, ships, domestic manners and customs, art and industries, are all reconstructed with a minuteness that is remarkable, if we consider (as we must) that all this comes to us after centuries of neglect." london athenæum. "what is really valuable in these volumes is the exhaustive digest which they contain of the extant information respecting the manners and character of the ancient people of scandinavia. the work deals with the entire field of scandinavian archæology. in the main, we believe the picture he has drawn of the manner of life of the vikings and their countrymen to be as accurate as it is undoubtedly full of interest." edinburgh review. "the subject of m. du chaillu's work is vast in extent and full of perplexing difficulties. we have shown that its author has collected a store of valuable information, a great part of which has hitherto been inaccessible to english readers. his enthusiasm will have a very useful effect if it leads the people of this country to study and admire the ancient civilization and the splendid literature of our scandinavian kinsmen." springfield republican. "mr. du chaillu is every whit as agreeable and entertaining as a student of history as he has long proved to be in the character of a traveller." chicago inter-ocean. "mr. du chaillu has certainly given to the literary world a work full of interest." the nation. "while in germany and in scandinavia itself books have been written upon the life of the ancient inhabitants of the north, no such comprehensive, popular work as this, with citations from the old literature and illustrations of all sorts of objects preserved from the ancient days, has yet appeared. it is, accordingly, an unused opportunity that the author of the work, with characteristic energy, has recognized and seized. the two volumes are filled to overflowing with curious and interesting facts concerning the people of the scandinavian north, whose manners, social customs, and national life the more than thirteen hundred illustrations serve to bring up almost visibly before us. the book as a whole is a record of persistent and ingenious research, and of extraordinary literary zeal." philadelphia record. "m. du chaillu's book is full of valuable information respecting the manners and character of the ancient norse people. it is, in fact, a perfect museum of northern antiquities, covering the entire field of scandinavian archæology. the extracts from the sagas which are furnished must whet the appetite of students of norse literature." boston transcript. "mr. du chaillu's monumental work, 'the viking age,' upon which the careful labor of over eight years has been expended, is one for which scholars will be profoundly grateful. it brings together from innumerable sources a vast amount of information, relative to the period covered, never before put in systematic form. the chapters on the mythology and cosmogony of the norsemen, on the superstitions, slavery, graves, finds, weapons, occupations, feasts, warfare, etc., are intensely interesting. the text is accompanied by nearly fourteen hundred illustrations." * * * * * charles scribner's sons, publishers - fifth avenue, new york ivar the viking a romantic history, based upon authentic facts of the third and fourth centuries mo, $ . charles scribner's sons, publishers * * * * * the nation. "'ivar the viking' is to be thoroughly recommended. the story is characteristically spirited, and the romantic part leaves nothing to be desired." chicago tribune. "it is full of vigor, and seems to bear internal evidence of truthfulness as regards its historic side. ivar was a viking whose adventures the juvenile reader, and particularly the boy juvenile, will follow with eager interest." philadelphia press. "of the subsequent adventures of ivar and his foster-brothers the interested reader must gain knowledge in the pages of the delightful narrative itself. suffice it to say that there is no lack of romantic incident at any stage of the story. the prowess of the four vikings is always potent; they fall in love; ivar fights a duel, and then wins the loveliest of brides. there is throughout the volume the stimulating air which blows through the sagas, the nipping salt air of the sea." richard henry stoddard. "there is that in mr. paul du chaillu's 'ivar the viking' which not only satisfies the lover of romantic adventure, but carries the scholar back into the remotest period of scandinavian history. beyond all living writers this traveller in and explorer of many countries has collected the documents and discovered the secrets of the norselands." new york times. "the reader who has begun with a blank mind closes the volume with a tolerably clear impression of a very energetic, powerful, and wealthy young viking, capable of strong affections and disaffections, foremost in games and fights requiring physical force, and with a vast number of habits and customs. it is a history that interests through its simplicity." boston transcript. "for the splendor of the materials and the range and variety of the information imparted concerning the misty dawn of our northern civilization, its religious ideas, its moral conceptions, and its social conditions, 'ivar' will have high esteem among the growing number of students turning to the northern folk-lore and chronicles for the true classic period of our modern races." philadelphia public ledger. "he has rendered a double service, for not only does he instruct the reader in a most graphic and vivid manner, but he also develops a story of adventure and daring which will be followed with breathless interest." * * * * * charles scribner's sons, publishers - fifth avenue, new york transcriber's note minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. none none the danish history, books i-ix by saxo grammaticus ("saxo the learned") fl. late th - early th century a.d. preparer's note: originally written in latin in the early years of the th century a.d. by the danish historian saxo, of whom little is known except his name. the text of this edition is based on that published as "the nine books of the danish history of saxo grammaticus", translated by oliver elton (norroena society, new york, ). this edition is in the public domain in the united states. this electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by douglas b. killings. the preparer would like to thank mr. james w. marchand and mr. jessie d. hurlbut for their invaluable assistance in the production of this electronic text. thank you. i am indebted to you both. although saxo wrote books of his "danish history", only the first nine were ever translated by mr. oliver elton; it is these nine books that are here included. as far as the preparer knows, there is (unfortunately) no public domain english translation of books x-xvi. those interested in the latter books should search for the translation mentioned below. selected bibliography: original text-- olrik, j and raeder (ed.): "saxo grammaticus: gesta danorum" (copenhagen, ). dansk nationallitteraert arkiv: "saxo grammaticus: gesta danorum" (dna, copenhagen, ). web-based latin edition of saxo, substantiallly based on the above edition; currently at the other translations-- fisher, peter (trans.) and hilda ellis davidson (ed.): "saxo grammaticus: history of the danes" (brewer, cambridge, ). recommended reading-- jones, gwyn: "history of the vikings" (oxford university press, oxford, , , ). sturlson, snorri: "the heimskringla" (translation: samual laing, london, ; released as online medieval and classical library e-text # , ). web version at the following url: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/omacl/heimskringla/ introduction. saxo's position. saxo grammaticus, or "the lettered", one of the notable historians of the middle ages, may fairly be called not only the earliest chronicler of denmark, but her earliest writer. in the latter half of the twelfth century, when iceland was in the flush of literary production, denmark lingered behind. no literature in her vernacular, save a few runic inscriptions, has survived. monkish annals, devotional works, and lives were written in latin; but the chronicle of roskild, the necrology of lund, the register of gifts to the cloister of sora, are not literature. neither are the half-mythological genealogies of kings; and besides, the mass of these, though doubtless based on older verses that are lost, are not proved to be, as they stand, prior to saxo. one man only, saxo's elder contemporary, sueno aggonis, or sweyn (svend) aageson, who wrote about , shares or anticipates the credit of attempting a connected record. his brief draft of annals is written in rough mediocre latin. it names but a few of the kings recorded by saxo, and tells little that saxo does not. yet there is a certain link between the two writers. sweyn speaks of saxo with respect; he not obscurely leaves him the task of filling up his omissions. both writers, servants of the brilliant bishop absalon, and probably set by him upon their task, proceed, like geoffrey of monmouth, by gathering and editing mythical matter. this they more or less embroider, and arrive in due course insensibly at actual history. both, again, thread their stories upon a genealogy of kings in part legendary. both write at the spur of patriotism, both to let denmark linger in the race for light and learning, and desirous to save her glories, as other nations have saved theirs, by a record. but while sweyn only made a skeleton chronicle, saxo leaves a memorial in which historian and philologist find their account. his seven later books are the chief danish authority for the times which they relate; his first nine, here translated, are a treasure of myth and folk-lore. of the songs and stories which denmark possessed from the common scandinavian stock, often her only native record is in saxo's latin. thus, as a chronicler both of truth and fiction, he had in his own land no predecessor, nor had he any literary tradition behind him. single-handed, therefore, he may be said to have lifted the dead-weight against him, and given denmark a writer. the nature of his work will be discussed presently. life of saxo. of saxo little is known but what he himself indicates, though much doubtful supposition has gathered round his name. that he was born a dane his whole language implies; it is full of a glow of aggressive patriotism. he also often praises the zealanders at the expense of other danes, and zealand as the centre of denmark; but that is the whole contemporary evidence for the statement that he was a zealander. this statement is freely taken for granted three centuries afterwards by urne in the first edition of the book ( ), but is not traced further back than an epitomator, who wrote more than years after saxo's death. saxo tells us that his father and grandfather fought for waldemar the first of denmark, who reigned from to . of these men we know nothing further, unless the saxo whom he names as one of waldemar's admirals be his grandfather, in which case his family was one of some distinction and his father and grandfather probably "king's men". but saxo was a very common name, and we shall see the licence of hypothesis to which this fact has given rise. the notice, however, helps us approximately towards saxo's birth-year. his grandfather, if he fought for waldemar, who began to reign in , can hardly have been born before , nor can saxo himself have been born before or . but he was undoubtedly born before , since he speaks of the death of bishop asker, which took place in that year, as occurring "in our time". his life therefore covers and overlaps the last half of the twelfth century. his calling and station in life are debated. except by the anonymous zealand chronicler, who calls him saxo "the long", thus giving us the one personal detail we have, he has been universally known as saxo "grammaticus" ever since the epitomator of headed his compilation with the words, "a certain notable man of letters ("grammaticus"), a zealander by birth, named saxo, wrote," etc. it is almost certain that this general term, given only to men of signal gifts and learning, became thus for the first time, and for good, attached to saxo's name. such a title, in the middle ages, usually implied that its owner was a churchman, and saxo's whole tone is devout, though not conspicuously professional. but a number of saxos present themselves in the same surroundings with whom he has been from time to time identified. all he tells us himself is, that absalon, archbishop of lund from to , pressed him, who was "the least of his companions, since all the rest refused the task", to write the history of denmark, so that it might record its glories like other nations. absalon was previously, and also after his promotion, bishop of roskild, and this is the first circumstance giving colour to the theory--which lacks real evidence--that saxo the historian was the same as a certain saxo, provost of the chapter of roskild, whose death is chronicled in a contemporary hand without any mark of distinction. it is unlikely that so eminent a man would be thus barely named; and the appended eulogy and verses identifying the provost and the historian are of later date. moreover, the provost saxo went on a mission to paris in , and was thus much too old for the theory. nevertheless, the good bishop of roskild, lave urne, took this identity for granted in the first edition, and fostered the assumption. saxo was a cleric; and could such a man be of less than canonical rank? he was (it was assumed) a zealander; he was known to be a friend of absalon, bishop of roskild. what more natural than that he should have been the provost saxo? accordingly this latter worthy had an inscription in gold letters, written by lave urne himself, affixed to the wall opposite his tomb. even less evidence exists for identifying our saxo with the scribe of that name--a comparative menial--who is named in the will of bishop absalon; and hardly more warranted is the theory that he was a member, perhaps a subdeacon, of the monastery of st. laurence, whose secular canons formed part of the chapter of lund. it is true that sweyn aageson, saxo's senior by about twenty years, speaks (writing about ) of saxo as his "contubernalis". sweyn aageson is known to have had strong family connections with the monastery of st. laurence; but there is only a tolerably strong probability that he, and therefore that saxo, was actually a member of it. ("contubernalis" may only imply comradeship in military service.) equally doubtful is the consequence that since saxo calls himself "one of the least" of absalon's "followers" ("comitum"), he was probably, if not the inferior officer, who is called an "acolitus", at most a sub-deacon, who also did the work of a superior "acolitus". this is too poor a place for the chief writer of denmark, high in absalon's favor, nor is there any direct testimony that saxo held it. his education is unknown, but must have been careful. of his training and culture we only know what his book betrays. possibly, like other learned danes, then and afterwards, he acquired his training and knowledge at some foreign university. perhaps, like his contemporary anders suneson, he went to paris; but we cannot tell. it is not even certain that he had a degree; for there is really little to identify him with the "m(agister) saxo" who witnessed the deed of absalon founding the monastery at sora. the history. how he was induced to write his book has been mentioned. the expressions of modesty saxo uses, saying that he was "the least" of absalon's "followers", and that "all the rest refused the task", are not to be taken to the letter. a man of his parts would hardly be either the least in rank, or the last to be solicited. the words, however, enable us to guess an upward limit for the date of the inception of the work. absalon became archbishop in , and the language of the preface (written, as we shall see, last) implies that he was already archbishop when he suggested the history to saxo. but about we find sweyn aageson complimenting saxo, and saying that saxo "had `determined' to set forth all the deeds" of sweyn estridson, in his eleventh book, "at greater length in a more elegant style". the exact bearing of this notice on the date of saxo's history is doubtful. it certainly need not imply that saxo had already written ten books, or indeed that he had written any, of his history. all we call say is, that by a portion of the history was planned. the order in which its several parts were composed, and the date of its completion, are not certainly known, as absalon died in . but the work was not then finished; for, at the end of bk. xi, one birger, who died in , is mentioned as still alive. we have, however, a yet later notice. in the preface, which, as its whole language implies, was written last, saxo speaks of waldemar ii having "encompassed (`complexus') the ebbing and flowing waves of elbe." this language, though a little vague, can hardly refer to anything but an expedition of waldemar to bremen in . the whole history was in that case probably finished by about . as to the order in which its parts were composed, it is likely that absalon's original instruction was to write a history of absalon's own doings. the fourteenth and succeeding books deal with these at disproportionate length, and absalon, at the expense even of waldemar, is the protagonist. now saxo states in his preface that he "has taken care to follow the statements ("asserta") of absalon, and with obedient mind and pen to include both his own doings and other men's doings of which he learnt." the latter books are, therefore, to a great extent, absalon's personally communicated memoirs. but we have seen that absalon died in , and that bk. xi, at any rate, was not written after . it almost certainly follows that the latter books were written in absalon's life; but the preface, written after them, refers to events in . therefore, unless we suppose that the issue was for some reason delayed, or that saxo spent seven years in polishing--which is not impossible--there is some reason to surmise that he began with that portion of his work which was nearest to his own time, and added the previous (especially the first nine, or mythical) books, as a completion, and possibly as an afterthought. but this is a point which there is no real means of settling. we do not know how late the preface was written, except that it must have been some time between and , when anders suneson ceased to be archbishop; nor do we know when saxo died. history of the work. nothing is stranger than that a work of such force and genius, unique in danish letters, should have been forgotten for three hundred years, and have survived only in an epitome and in exceedingly few manuscripts. the history of the book is worth recording. doubtless its very merits, its "marvellous vocabulary, thickly-studded maxims, and excellent variety of images," which erasmus admired long afterwards, sealed it to the vulgar. a man needed some latin to appreciate it, and erasmus' natural wonder "how a dane at that day could have such a force of eloquence" is a measure of the rarity both of the gift and of a public that could appraise it. the epitome (made about ) shows that saxo was felt to be difficult, its author saying: "since saxo's work is in many places diffuse, and many things are said more for ornament than for historical truth, and moreover his style is too obscure on account of the number of terms ("plurima vocabula") and sundry poems, which are unfamiliar to modern times, this opuscle puts in clear words the more notable of the deeds there related, with the addition of some that happened after saxo's death." a low-german version of this epitome, which appeared in , had a considerable vogue, and the two together "helped to drive the history out of our libraries, and explains why the annalists and geographers of the middle ages so seldom quoted it." this neglect appears to have been greatest of all in denmark, and to have lasted until the appearance of the "first edition" in . the first impulse towards this work by which saxo was saved, is found in a letter from the bishop of roskild, lave urne, dated may , to christian pederson, canon of lund, whom he compliments as a lover of letters, antiquary, and patriot, and urges to edit and publish "tam divinum latinae eruditionis culmen et splendorem saxonem nostrum". nearly two years afterwards christian pederson sent lave urne a copy of the first edition, now all printed, with an account of its history. "i do not think that any mortal was more inclined and ready for" the task. "when living at paris, and paying heed to good literature, i twice sent a messenger at my own charges to buy a faithful copy at any cost, and bring it back to me. effecting nothing thus, i went back to my country for this purpose; i visited and turned over all the libraries, but still could not pull out a saxo, even covered with beetles, bookworms, mould, and dust. so stubbornly had all the owners locked it away." a worthy prior, in compassion offered to get a copy and transcribe it with his own hand, but christian, in respect for the prior's rank, absurdly declined. at last birger, the archbishop of lund, by some strategy, got a copy, which king christian the second allowed to be taken to paris on condition of its being wrought at "by an instructed and skilled graver (printer)." such a person was found in jodocus badius ascenshls, who adds a third letter written by himself to bishop urne, vindicating his application to saxo of the title grammaticus, which he well defines as "one who knows how to speak or write with diligence, acuteness, or knowledge." the beautiful book he produced was worthy of the zeal, and unsparing, unweariable pains, which had been spent on it by the band of enthusiasts, and it was truly a little triumph of humanism. further editions were reprinted during the sixteenth century at basic and at frankfort-on-main, but they did not improve in any way upon the first; and the next epoch in the study of saxo was made by the edition and notes of stephanus johansen stephanius, published at copenhagen in the middle of the seventeenth century ( ). stephanius, the first commentator on saxo, still remains the best upon his language. immense knowledge of latin, both good and bad (especially of the authors saxo imitated), infinite and prolix industry, a sharp eye for the text, and continence in emendation, are not his only virtues. his very bulkiness and leisureliness are charming; he writes like a man who had eternity to write in, and who knew enough to fill it, and who expected readers of an equal leisure. he also prints some valuable notes signed with the famous name of bishop bryniolf of skalholt, a man of force and talent, and others by casper barth, "corculum musarum", as stephanius calls him, whose textual and other comments are sometimes of use, and who worked with a ms. of saxo. the edition of klotz, , based on that of stephanius, i have but seen; however, the first standard commentary is that begun by p. e. muller, bishop of zealand, and finished after his death by johan velschow, professor of history at copenhagen, where the first part of the work, containing text and notes, was published in ; the second, with prolegomena and fuller notes, appearing in . the standard edition, containing bibliography, critical apparatus based on all the editions and ms. fragments, text, and index, is the admirable one of that indefatigable veteran, alfred holder, strasburg, . hitherto the translations of saxo have been into danish. the first that survives, by anders soffrinson vedel, dates from , some sixty years after the first edition. in such passages as i have examined it is vigorous, but very free, and more like a paraphrase than a translation, saxo's verses being put into loose prose. yet it has had a long life, having been modified by vedel's grandson, john laverentzen, in , and reissued in . the present version has been much helped by the translation of seier schousbolle, published at copenhagen in . it is true that the verses, often the hardest part, are put into periphrastic verse (by laurentius thura, c. ), and schousbolle often does not face a difficulty; but he gives the sense of saxo simply and concisely. the lusty paraphrase by the enthusiastic nik. fred. sev. grundtvig, of which there have been several editions, has also been of occasional use. no other translations, save of a scrap here and there into german, seem to be extant. the mss. it will be understood, from what has been said, that no complete ms. of saxo's history is known. the epitomator in the fourteenth century, and krantz in the seventeenth, had mss. before them; and there was that one which christian pedersen found and made the basis of the first edition, but which has disappeared. barth had two manuscripts, which are said to have been burnt in . another, possessed by a swedish parish priest, aschaneus, in , which stephenhis unluckily did not know of, disappeared in the royal archives of stockholm after his death. these are practically the only mss. of which we have sure information, excepting the four fragments that are now preserved. of these by far the most interesting is the "angers fragment." this was first noticed in , in the angers library, where it was found degraded into the binding of a number of devotional works and a treatise on metric, dated , and once the property of a priest at alencon. in m. gaston paris called the attention of the learned to it, and the result was that the danish government received it next year in exchange for a valuable french manuscript which was in the royal library at copenhagen. this little national treasure, the only piece of contemporary writing of the history, has been carefully photographed and edited by that enthusiastic and urbane scholar, christian bruun. in the opinion both of dr. vigfusson and m. paris, the writing dates from about ; and this date, though difficult to determine, owing to the paucity of danish mss. of the th and early lath centuries, is confirmed by the character of the contents. for there is little doubt that the fragment shows us saxo in the labour of composition. the mss. looks as if expressly written for interlineation. besides a marginal gloss by a later, fourteenth century hand, there are two distinct sets of variants, in different writings, interlined and running over into the margin. these variants are much more numerous in the prose than in the verse. the first set are in the same hand as the text, the second in another hand: but both of them have the character, not of variants from some other mss., but of alternative expressions put down tentatively. if either hand is saxo's it is probably the second. he may conceivably have dictated both at different times to different scribes. no other man would tinker the style in this fashion. a complete translation of all these changes has been deemed unnecessary in these volumes; there is a full collation in holder's "apparatus criticus". the verdict of the angers-fragment, which, for the very reason mentioned, must not be taken as the final form of the text, nor therefore, despite its antiquity, as conclusive against the first edition where the two differ, is to confirm, so far as it goes, the editing of ascensius and pederson. there are no vital differences, and the care of the first editors, as well as the authority of their source, is thus far amply vindicated. a sufficient account of the other fragments will be found in holder's list. in m. kall-rasmussen found in the private archives at kronborg a scrap of fourteenth century ms., containing a short passage from bk. vii. five years later g. f. lassen found, at copenhagen, a fragment of bk. vi believed to be written in north zealand, and in the opinion of bruun belonging to the same codex as kall-rasmussen's fragment. of another longish piece, found in copenhagen at the end of the seventeenth century by johannes laverentzen, and belonging to a codex burnt in the fire of , a copy still extant in the copenhagen museum, was made by otto sperling. for fragments, either extant or alluded to, of the later books, the student should consult the carefully collated text of holder. the whole ms. material, therefore, covers but a little of saxo's work, which was practically saved for europe by the perseverance and fervour for culture of a single man, bishop urne. saxo as a writer. saxo's countrymen have praised without stint his remarkable style, for he has a style. it is often very bad; but he writes, he is not in vain called grammaticus, the man of letters. his style is not merely remarkable considering its author's difficulties; it is capable at need of pungency and of high expressiveness. his latin is not that of the golden age, but neither is it the common latin of the middle ages. there are traces of his having read virgil and cicero. but two writers in particular left their mark on him. the first and most influential is valerius maximus, the mannered author of the "memorabilia", who lived in the first half of the first century, and was much relished in the middle ages. from him saxo borrowed a multitude of phrases, sometimes apt but often crabbed and deformed, as well as an exemplary and homiletic turn of narrative. other idioms, and perhaps the practice of interspersing verses amid prose (though this also was a twelfth century icelandic practice), saxo found in a fifth-century writer, martianus capella, the pedantic author of the "de nuptiis philologiae et mercurii" such models may have saved him from a base mediaeval vocabulary; but they were not worthy of him, and they must answer for some of his falsities of style. these are apparent. his accumulation of empty and motley phrase, like a garish bunch of coloured bladders; his joy in platitude and pomposity, his proneness to say a little thing in great words, are only too easy to translate. we shall be well content if our version also gives some inkling of his qualities; not only of what erasmus called his "wonderful vocabulary, his many pithy sayings, and the excellent variety of his images"; but also of his feeling for grouping, his barbaric sense of colour, and his stateliness. for he moves with resource and strength both in prose and verse, and is often only hindered by his own wealth. with no kind of critical tradition to chasten him, his force is often misguided and his work shapeless; but he stumbles into many splendours. folk lore index. the mass of archaic incidents, beliefs, and practices recorded by the th-century writer seemed to need some other classification than a bare alphabetic index. the present plan, a subject-index practically, has been adopted with a view to the needs of the anthropologist and folk-lorist. its details have been largely determined by the bulk and character of the entries themselves. no attempt has been made to supply full parallels from any save the more striking and obvious old scandinavian sources, the end being to classify material rather than to point out its significance of geographic distribution. with regard to the first three heads, the reader who wishes to see how saxo compares with the old northern poems may be referred to the grimm centenary papers, oxford, , and the corpus poeticurn boreale, oxford, . political institutions. king--as portrayed by saxo, the ideal king should be (as in "beowulf's lay") generous, brave and just. he should be a man of accomplishments, of unblemished body, presumably of royal kin (peasant-birth is considered a bar to the kingship), usually a son or a nephew, or brother of his foregoer (though no strict rule of succession seems to appear in saxo), and duly chosen and acknowledged at the proper place of election. in denmark this was at a stone circle, and the stability of these stones was taken as an omen for the king's reign. there are exceptional instances noted, as the serf-king eormenric (cf. guthred-canute of northumberland), whose noble birth washed out this blot of his captivity, and there is a curious tradition of a conqueror setting his hound as king over a conquered province in mockery. the king was of age at twelve. a king of seven years of age has twelve regents chosen in the moot, in one case by lot, to bring him up and rule for him till his majority. regents are all appointed in denmark, in one case for lack of royal blood, one to scania, one to zealand, one to funen, two to jutland. underkings and earls are appointed by kings, and though the earl's office is distinctly official, succession is sometimes given to the sons of faithful fathers. the absence of a settled succession law leads (as in muslim states) to rebellions and plots. kings sometimes abdicated, giving up the crown perforce to a rival, or in high age to a kinsman. in heathen times, kings, as thiodwulf tells us in the case of domwald and yngwere, were sometimes sacrificed for better seasons (african fashion), and wicar of norway perishes, like iphigeneia, to procure fair winds. kings having to lead in war, and sometimes being willing to fight wagers of battle, are short-lived as a rule, and assassination is a continual peril, whether by fire at a time of feast, of which there are numerous examples, besides the classic one on which biarea-mal is founded and the not less famous one of hamlet's vengeance, or whether by steel, as with hiartuar, or by trick, as in wicar's case above cited. the reward for slaying a king is in one case gold lbs.; "talents" of gold from each ringleader, oz. of gold from each commoner, in the story of godfred, known as ref's gild, "i.e., fox tax". in the case of a great king, frode, his death is concealed for three years to avoid disturbance within and danger from without. captive kings were not as a rule well treated. a slavonic king, daxo, offers ragnar's son whitesark his daughter and half his realm, or death, and the captive strangely desires death by fire. a captive king is exposed, chained to wild beasts, thrown into a serpent-pit, wherein ragnar is given the fate of the elder gunnar in the eddic lays, atlakvida. the king is treated with great respect by his people, he is finely clad, and his commands are carried out, however abhorrent or absurd, as long as they do not upset customary or statute law. the king has slaves in his household, men and women, besides his guard of housecarles and his bearsark champions. a king's daughter has thirty slaves with her, and the footmaiden existed exactly as in the stories of the wicked waiting maid. he is not to be awakened in his slumbers (cf. st. olaf's life, where the naming of king magnus is the result of adherence to this etiquette). a champion weds the king's leman. his thanes are created by the delivery of a sword, which the king bolds by the blade and the thane takes by the hilt. (english earls were created by the girding with a sword. "taking treasure, and weapons and horses, and feasting in a hall with the king" is synonymous with thane-hood or gesith-ship in "beowulf's lay"). a king's thanes must avenge him if he falls, and owe him allegiance. (this was paid in the old english monarchies by kneeling and laying the head down at the lord's knee.) the trick by which the mock-king, or king of the beggars (parallel to our boy-bishop, and perhaps to that enigmatic churls' king of the "o. e. chronicle", s.a. , eadwiceorla-kyning) gets allegiance paid to him, and so secures himself in his attack on the real king, is cleverly devised. the king, besides being a counsel giver himself, and speaking the law, has "counsellors", old and wise men, "sapientes" (like the . e. thyle). the aged warrior counsellor, as starcad here and master hildebrand in the "nibelungenlied", is one type of these persons, another is the false counsellor, as woden in guise of bruni, another the braggart, as hunferth in "beowulf's lay". at "moots" where laws are made, kings and regents chosen, cases judged, resolutions taken of national importance, there are discussions, as in that armed most the host. the king has, beside his estates up and down the country, sometimes (like hrothgar with his palace heorot in "beowulf's lay") a great fort and treasure house, as eormenric, whose palace may well have really existed. there is often a primitive and negroid character about dwellings of formidable personages, heads placed on stakes adorn their exterior, or shields are ranged round the walls. the provinces are ruled by removable earls appointed by the king, often his own kinsmen, sometimes the heads of old ruling families. the "hundreds" make up the province or subkingdom. they may be granted to king's thanes, who became "hundred-elders". twelve hundreds are in one case bestowed upon a man. the "yeoman's" estate is not only honourable but useful, as starcad generously and truly acknowledges. agriculture should be fostered and protected by the king, even at the cost of his life. but gentle birth and birth royal place certain families above the common body of freemen (landed or not); and for a commoner to pretend to a king's daughter is an act of presumption, and generally rigorously resented. the "smith" was the object of a curious prejudice, probably akin to that expressed in st. patrick's "lorica", and derived from the smith's having inherited the functions of the savage weapon-maker with his poisons and charms. the curious attempt to distinguish smiths into good and useful swordsmiths and base and bad goldsmiths seems a merely modern explanation: weland could both forge swords and make ornaments of metal. starcad's loathing for a smith recalls the mockery with which the homeric gods treat hephaistos. slavery.--as noble birth is manifest by fine eyes and personal beauty, courage and endurance, and delicate behaviour, so the slave nature is manifested by cowardice, treachery, unbridled lust, bad manners, falsehood, and low physical traits. slaves had, of course, no right either of honour, or life, or limb. captive ladies are sent to a brothel; captive kings cruelly put to death. born slaves were naturally still less considered, they were flogged; it was disgraceful to kill them with honourable steel; to accept a slight service from a slave-woman was beneath old starcad's dignity. a man who loved another man's slave-woman, and did base service to her master to obtain her as his consort, was looked down on. slaves frequently ran away to escape punishment for carelessness, or fault, or to gain liberty. customary law. the evidence of saxo to archaic law and customary institutions is pretty much (as we should expect) that to be drawn from the icelandic sagas, and even from the later icelandic rimur and scandinavian kaempe-viser. but it helps to complete the picture of the older stage of north teutonic law, which we are able to piece together out of our various sources, english, icelandic, and scandinavian. in the twilight of yore every glowworm is a helper to the searcher. there are a few maxims of various times, but all seemingly drawn from custom cited or implied by saxo as authoritative:-- "it is disgraceful to be ruled by a woman."--the great men of teutonic nations held to this maxim. there is no boudicea or maidhbh in our own annals till after the accession of the tudors, when great eliza rivals her elder kins-women's glories. though tacitus expressly notices one tribe or confederacy, the sitones, within the compass of his germania, ruled by a woman, as an exceptional case, it was contrary to the feeling of mediaeval christendom for a woman to be emperor; it was not till late in the middle ages that spain saw a queen regnant, and france has never yet allowed such rule. it was not till long after saxo that the great queen of the north, margaret, wielded a wider sway than that rejected by gustavus' wayward daughter. "the suitor ought to urge his own suit."--this, an axiom of the most archaic law, gets evaded bit by bit till the professional advocate takes the place of the plaintiff. "njal's saga", in its legal scenes, shows the transition period, when, as at rome, a great and skilled chief was sought by his client as the supporter of his cause at the moot. in england, the idea of representation at law is, as is well known, late and largely derived from canon law practice. "to exact the blood-fine was as honourable as to take vengeance."--this maxim, begotten by interest upon legality, established itself both in scandinavia and arabia. it marks the first stage in a progress which, if carried out wholly, substitutes law for feud. in the society of the heathen danes the maxim was a novelty; even in christian denmark men sometimes preferred blood to fees. marriage.--there are many reminiscences of "archaic marriage customs in saxo." the capture marriage has left traces in the guarded king's daughters, the challenging of kings to fight or hand over their daughters, in the promises to give a daughter or sister as a reward to a hero who shall accomplish some feat. the existence of polygamy is attested, and it went on till the days of charles the great and harold fairhair in singular instances, in the case of great kings, and finally disappeared before the strict ecclesiastic regulations. but there are evidences also of later customs, such as "marriage by purchase", already looked on as archaic in saxo's day; and the free women in denmark had clearly long had a veto or refusal of a husband for some time back, and sometimes even free choice. "go-betweens" negotiate marriages. betrothal was of course the usage. for the groom to defile an espoused woman is a foul reproach. gifts made to father-in-law after bridal by bridegroom seem to denote the old bride-price. taking the bride home in her car was an important ceremony, and a bride is taken to her future husband's by her father. the wedding-feast, as in france in rabelais' time, was a noisy and drunken and tumultuous rejoicing, when bone-throwing was in favor, with other rough sports and jokes. the three days after the bridal and their observance in "sword-bed" are noticed below. a commoner or one of slave-blood could not pretend to wed a high-born lady. a woman would sometimes require some proof of power or courage at her suitor's hands; thus gywritha, like the famous lady who weds harold fairhair, required her husband siwar to be over-king of the whole land. but in most instances the father or brother betrothed the girl, and she consented to their choice. unwelcome suitors perish. the prohibited degrees were, of course, different from those established by the mediaeval church, and brother weds brother's widow in good archaic fashion. foster-sister and foster-brother may marry, as saxo notices carefully. the wolsung incest is not noticed by saxo. he only knew, apparently, the north-german form of the niflung story. but the reproachfulness of incest is apparent. birth and beauty were looked for in a bride by saxo's heroes, and chastity was required. the modesty of maidens in old days is eulogised by saxo, and the penalty for its infraction was severe: sale abroad into slavery to grind the quern in the mud of the yard. one of the tests of virtue is noticed, "lac in ubere". that favourite "motif", the "patient grizzle", occurs, rather, however, in the border ballad than the petrarcan form. "good wives" die with their husbands as they have vowed, or of grief for their loss, and are wholly devoted to their interests. among "bad wives" are those that wed their husband's slayer, run away from their husbands, plot against their husbands' lives. the penalty for adultery is death to both, at husband's option--disfigurement by cutting off the nose of the guilty woman, an archaic practice widely spread. in one case the adulterous lady is left the choice of her own death. married women's homeric duties are shown. there is a curious story, which may rest upon fact, and not be merely typical, where a mother who had suffered wrong forced her daughter to suffer the same wrong. captive women are reduced to degrading slavery as "harlots" in one case, according to the eleventh century english practice of gytha. the family and blood revenge.--this duty, one of the strongest links of the family in archaic teutonic society, has left deep traces in saxo. to slay those most close in blood, even by accident, is to incur the guilt of parricide, or kin-killing, a bootless crime, which can only be purged by religious ceremonies; and which involves exile, lest the gods' wrath fall on the land, and brings the curse of childlessness on the offender until he is forgiven. bootless crimes.--as among the ancient teutons, botes and were-gilds satisfy the injured who seek redress at law rather than by the steel. but there are certain bootless crimes, or rather sins, that imply "sacratio", devotion to the gods, for the clearing of the community. such are treason, which is punishable by hanging; by drowning in sea. rebellion is still more harshly treated by death and forfeiture; the rebels' heels are bored and thonged under the sinew, as hector's feet were, and they are then fastened by the thongs to wild bulls, hunted by hounds, till they are dashed to pieces (for which there are classic parallels), or their feet are fastened with thongs to horses driven apart, so that they are torn asunder. for "parricide", i.e., killing within near degrees, the criminal is hung up, apparently by the heels, with a live wolf (he having acted as a wolf which will slay its fellows). cunning avoidance of the guilt by trick is shown. for "arson" the appropriate punishment is the fire. for "incestuous adultery" of stepson with his stepmother, hanging is awarded to the man. in the same case swanwhite, the woman, is punished, by treading to death with horses. a woman accomplice in adultery is treated to what homer calls a "stone coat." incestuous adultery is a foul slur. for "witchcraft", the horror of heathens, hanging was the penalty. "private revenge" sometimes deliberately inflicts a cruel death for atrocious wrong or insult, as when a king, enraged at the slaying of his son and seduction of his daughter, has the offender hanged, an instance famous in nathan's story, so that hagbard's hanging and hempen necklace were proverbial. for the slayer by a cruel death of their captive father, ragnar's sons act the blood-eagle on ella, and salt his flesh. there is an undoubted instance of this act of vengeance (the symbolic meaning of which is not clear as yet) in the "orkney saga". but the story of daxo and of ref's gild show that for such wrongs were-gilds were sometimes exacted, and that they were considered highly honourable to the exactor. among offences not bootless, and left to individual pursuit, are:-- "highway robbery".--there are several stories of a type such as that of ingemund and ioknl (see "landnamaboc") told by saxo of highwaymen; and an incident of the kind that occurs in the theseus story (the bent-tree, which sprung back and slew the wretch bound to it) is given. the romantic trick of the mechanic bed, by which a steel-shod beam is let fall on the sleeping traveller, also occurs. slain highwaymen are gibbeted as in christian days. "assassination", as distinct from manslaughter in vengeance for a wrong, is not very common. a hidden mail-coat foils a treacherous javelin-cast (cf. the story of olaf the stout and the blind king, hrorec); murderers lurk spear-armed at the threshold, sides, as in the icelandic sagas; a queen hides a spear-head in her gown, and murders her husband (cf. olaf tryggvason's life). godfred was murdered by his servant (and ynglingatal). "burglary".--the crafty discovery of the robber of the treasury by hadding is a variant of the world-old rhampsinitos tale, but less elaborate, possibly abridged and cut down by saxo, and reduced to a mere moral example in favour of the goldenness of silence and the danger of letting the tongue feed the gallows. among other disgraceful acts, that make the offender infamous, but do not necessarily involve public action:-- "manslaughter in breach of hospitality".--probably any gross breach of hospitality was disreputable and highly abhorred, but "guest-slaughter" is especially mentioned. the ethical question as to whether a man should slay his guest or forego his just vengeance was often a "probleme du jour" in the archaic times to which these traditions witness. ingeld prefers his vengeance, but thuriswend, in the lay cited by paul the deacon, chooses to protect his guest. heremod slew his messmates in his wrath, and went forth alone into exile. ("beowulf's lay".) "suicide".--this was more honourable than what earl siward of northumberland called a "cow-death." hadding resolves to commit suicide at his friend's death. wermund resolves to commit suicide if his son be slain (in hopelessness of being able to avenge him, cf. "njal's saga", where the hero, a christian, prefers to perish in his burning house than live dishonoured, "for i am an old man and little fitted to avenge my sons, but i will not live in shame"). persons commit suicide by slaying each other in time of famine; while in england (so baeda tells) they "decliffed" themselves in companies, and, as in the comic little icelandic tale gautrec's birth, a tarpeian death is noted as the customary method of relieving folks from the hateful starvation death. it is probable that the violent death relieved the ghost or the survivors of some inconveniences which a "straw death" would have brought about. "procedure by wager of battle".--this archaic process pervades saxo's whole narrative. it is the main incident of many of the sagas from which he drew. it is one of the chief characteristics of early teutonic custom-law, and along with "cormac's saga", "landnamaboc", and the walter saga, our author has furnished us with most of the information we have upon its principles and practice. steps in the process are the challenge, the acceptance and settlement of conditions, the engagement, the treatment of the vanquished, the reward of the conqueror, and there are rules touching each of these, enough almost to furnish a kind of "galway code". a challenge could not, either to war or wager of battle, be refused with honor, though a superior was not bound to fight an inferior in rank. an ally might accept for his principal, or a father for a son, but it was not honourable for a man unless helpless to send a champion instead of himself. men were bound to fight one to one, and one man might decline to fight two at once. great champions sometimes fought against odds. the challenged man chose the place of battle, and possibly fixed the time. this was usually an island in the river. the regular weapons were swords and shields for men of gentle blood. they fought by alternate separate strokes; the senior had the first blow. the fight must go on face to face without change of place; for the ground was marked out for the combatants, as in our prize ring, though one can hardly help fancying that the fighting ground so carefully described in "cormac's saga", ch. , may have been saxo's authority. the combatants change places accidentally in the struggle in one story. the combat might last, like cuchullin's with ferdia, several days; a nine days' fight occurs; but usually a few blows settled the matter. endurance was important, and we are told of a hero keeping himself in constant training by walking in a mail coat. the conqueror ought not to slay his man if he were a stripling, or maimed, and had better take his were-gild for his life, the holmslausn or ransom of "cormac's saga" (three marks in iceland); but this was a mere concession to natural pity, and he might without loss of honor finish his man, and cut off his head, though it was proper, if the slain adversary has been a man of honor, to bury him afterward. the stakes are sometimes a kingdom or a kingdom's tribute, often a lady, or the combatants fought for "love" or the point of honor. giants and noted champions challenge kings for their daughters (as in the fictitious parts of the icelandic family sagas) in true archaic fashion, and in true archaic fashion the prince rescues the lady from a disgusting and evil fate by his prowess. the champion's fee or reward when he was fighting for his principal and came off successful was heavy--many lands and sixty slaves. bracelets are given him; a wound is compensated for at ten gold pieces; a fee for killing a king is of the same. of the incidents of the combat, beside fair sleight of fence, there is the continual occurrence of the sword-blunting spell, often cast by the eye of the sinister champion, and foiled by the good hero, sometimes by covering his blade with thin skin, sometimes by changing the blade, sometimes by using a mace or club. the strength of this tradition sufficiently explains the necessity of the great oath against magic taken by both parties in a wager of battle in christian england. the chief combats mentioned by saxo are:-- sciold v. attila. sciold v. scate, for the hand of alfhild. gram v. swarin and eight more, for the crown of the swedes. hadding v. toste, by challenge. frode v. hunding, on challenge. frode v. hacon, on challenge. helge v. hunding, by challenge at stad. agnar v. bearce, by challenge. wizard v. danish champions, for truage of the slavs. wizard v. ubbe, for truage of the slavs. coll v. horwendill, on challenge. athisl v. frowine, meeting in battle. athisl v. ket and wig, on challenge. uffe v. prince of saxony and champion, by challenge. frode v. froger, on challenge. eric v. grep's brethren, on challenge, twelve a side. eric v. alrec, by challenge. hedin v. hogni, the mythic everlasting battle. arngrim v. scalc, by challenge. arngrim v. egtheow, for truage of permland. arrow-odd and hialmar v. twelve sons of arngrim samsey fight. ane bow-swayer v. beorn, by challenge. starkad v. wisin, by challenge. starkad v. tanlie, by challenge. starkad v. wasce--wilzce, by challenge. starkad v. hame, by challenge. starkad v. angantheow and eight of his brethren, on challenge. halfdan v. hardbone and six champions, on challenge. halfdan v. egtheow, by challenge. halfdan v. grim, on challenge. halfdan v. ebbe, on challenge, by moonlight. halfdan v. twelve champions, on challenge. halfdan v. hildeger, on challenge. ole v. skate and hiale, on challenge. homod and thole v. beorn and thore, by challenge. ref. v. gaut, on challenge. ragnar and three sons v. starcad of sweden and seven sons, on challenge. civil procedure.--"oaths" are an important art of early procedure, and noticed by saxo; one calling the gods to witness and therefor, it is understood, to avenge perjury if he spake not truth. "testification", or calling witnesses to prove the steps of a legal action, was known, "glum's saga" and "landnamaboc", and when a manslayer proceeded (in order to clear himself of murder) to announce the manslaughter as his act, he brings the dead man's head as his proof, exactly as the hero in the folk-tales brings the dragon's head or tongue as his voucher. a "will" is spoken of. this seems to be the solemn declaration of a childless man to his kinsfolk, recommending some person as his successor. nothing more was possible before written wills were introduced by the christian clergy after the roman fashion. statute laws. "lawgivers".--the realm of custom had already long been curtailed by the conquests of law when saxo wrote, and some epochs of the invasion were well remembered, such as canute's laws. but the beginnings were dim, and there were simply traditions of good and bad lawyers of the past; such were "sciold" first of all the arch-king, "frode" the model lawgiver, "helge" the tyrant, "ragnar" the shrewd conqueror. "sciold", the patriarch, is made by tradition to fulfil, by abolishing evil customs and making good laws, the ideal of the saxon and frankish coronation oath formula (which may well go back with its two first clauses to heathen days). his fame is as widely spread. however, the only law saxo gives to him has a story to it that he does not plainly tell. sciold had a freedman who repaid his master's manumission of him by the ingratitude of attempting his life. sciold thereupon decrees the unlawfulness of manumissions, or (as saxo puts it), revoked all manumissions, thus ordaining perpetual slavery on all that were or might become slaves. the heathen lack of pity noticed in alfred's preface to "gregory's handbook" is illustrated here by contrast with the philosophic humanity of the civil law, and the sympathy of the mediaeval church. but frode (known also to the compiler of "beowulf's lay", ) had, in the dane's eyes, almost eclipsed sciold as conqueror and lawgiver. his name frode almost looks as if his epithet sapiens had become his popular appellation, and it befits him well. of him were told many stories, and notably the one related of our edwin by bede (and as it has been told by many men of many rulers since bede wrote, and before). frode was able to hang up an arm-ring of gold in three parts of his kingdom that no thief for many years dared touch. how this incident (according to our version preserved by saxo), brought the just king to his end is an archaic and interesting story. was this ring the brosinga men? saxo has even recorded the laws of frode in four separate bits, which we give as a, b, c, d. a. is mainly a civil and military code of archaic kind: (a) the division of spoil shall be--gold to captains, silver to privates, arms to champions, ships to be shared by all. cf. jomswickinga s. on the division of spoil by the law of the pirate community of jom. (b) no house stuff to be locked; if a man used a lock he must pay a gold mark. (c) he who spares a thief must bear his punishment. (d) the coward in battle is to forfeit all rights (cf. "beowulf", ). (e) women to have free choice (or, at least, veto) in taking husbands. (f) a free woman that weds a slave loses rank and freedom (cf. roman law). (g) a man must marry a girl he has seduced. (h) an adulterer to be mutilated at pleasure of injured husband. (i) where dane robbed dane, the thief to pay double and peace-breach. (k) receivers of stolen goods suffer forfeiture and flogging at most. (l) deserter bearing shield against his countrymen to lose life and property. (m) contempt of fyrd-summons or call to military service involves outlawry and exile. (n) bravery in battle to bring about increase in rank (cf. the old english "ranks of men"). (o) no suit to lie on promise and pledge; fine of a gold lb. for asking pledge. (p) wager of battle is to be the universal mode of proof. (q) if an alien kill a dane two aliens must suffer. (this is practically the same principle as appears in the half weregild of the welsh in west saxon law.) b. an illustration of the more capricious of the old enactments and the jealousy of antique kings. (a) loss of gifts sent to the king involves the official responsible; he shall be hanged. (this is introduced as illustration of the cleverness of eric and the folly of coll.) c. saxo associates another set of enactments with the completion of a successful campaign of conquest over the ruthenians, and shows frode chiefly as a wise and civilising statesman, making conquest mean progress. (a) every free householder that fell in war was to be set in his barrow with horse and arms (cf. "vatzdaela saga", ch. ). the body-snatcher was to be punished by death and the lack of sepulture. earl or king to be burned in his own ship. ten sailors may be burnt on one ship. (b) ruthenians to have the same law of war as danes. (c) ruthenians must adopt danish sale-marriage. (this involves the abolition of the baltic custom of capture-marriage. that capture-marriage was a bar to social progress appears in the legislation of richard ii, directed against the custom as carried out on the borders of the palatine county of chester, while cases such as the famous one of rob roy's sons speak to its late continuance in scotland. in ireland it survived in a stray instance or two into this century, and songs like "william riley" attest the sympathy of the peasant with the eloping couple.) (d) a veteran, one of the doughty, must be such a man as will attack one foe, will stand two, face three without withdrawing more than a little, and be content to retire only before four. (one of the traditional folk-sayings respecting the picked men, the doughty or old guard, as distinguished from the youth or young guard, the new-comers in the king's company of house-carles. in harald hardrede's life the norwegians dread those english house-carles, "each of whom is a match for four," who formed the famous guard that won stamford bridge and fell about their lord, a sadly shrunken band, at senlake.) (f) the house-carles to have winter-pay. the house-carle three pieces of silver, a hired soldier two pieces, a soldier who had finished his service one piece. (the treatment of the house-carles gave harald harefoot a reputation long remembered for generosity, and several old northern kings have won their nicknames by their good or ill feeding and rewarding their comitatus.) d. again a civil code, dealing chiefly with the rights of travellers. (a) seafarers may use what gear they find (the "remis" of the text may include boat or tackle). (b) no house is to be locked, nor coffer, but all thefts to be compensated threefold. (this, like a, b, which it resembles, seems a popular tradition intended to show the absolute security of frode's reign of seven or three hundred years. it is probably a gloss wrongly repeated.) (c) a traveller may claim a single supper; if he take more he is a thief (the mark of a prae-tabernal era when hospitality was waxing cold through misuse). (d) thief and accomplices are to be punished alike, being hung up by a line through the sinews and a wolf fastened beside. (this, which contradicts a, i, k, and allots to theft the punishment proper for parricide, seems a mere distorted tradition.) but beside just frode, tradition spoke of the unjust kinge helge, whose laws represent ill-judged harshness. they were made for conquered races, (a) the saxons and (b) the swedes. (a) noble and freedmen to have the same were-gild (the lower, of course, the intent being to degrade all the conquered to one level, and to allow only the lowest were-gild of a freedman, fifty pieces, probably, in the tradition). (b) no remedy for wrong done to a swede by a dane to be legally recoverable. (this is the traditional interpretation of the conqueror's haughty dealing; we may compare it with the middle-english legends of the pride of the dane towards the conquered english. the tradition sums up the position in such concrete forms as this law of helge's.) two statutes of ragnar are mentioned:-- (a) that any householder should give up to his service in war the worst of his children, or the laziest of his slaves (a curious tradition, and used by saxo as an opportunity for patriotic exaltation). (b) that all suits shall be absolutely referred to the judgment of twelve chosen elders (lodbroc here appearing in the strange character of originator of trial by jury). "tributes".--akin to laws are the tributes decreed and imposed by kings and conquerors of old. tribute infers subjection in archaic law. the poll-tax in the fourteenth century in england was unpopular, because of its seeming to degrade englishmen to the level of frenchmen, who paid tribute like vanquished men to their absolute lord, as well as for other reasons connected with the collection of the tax. the old fur tax (mentioned in "egil's saga") is here ascribed to frode, who makes the finns pay him, every three years, a car full or sledge full of skins for every ten heads; and extorts one skin per head from the perms. it is frode, too (though saxo has carved a number of frodes out of one or two kings of gigantic personality), that made the saxons pay a poll-tax, a piece of money per head, using, like william the conqueror, his extraordinary revenue to reward his soldiers, whom he first regaled with double pay. but on the conquered folks rebelling, he marked their reduction by a tax of a piece of money on every limb a cubit long, a "limb-geld" still more hateful than the "neb-geld." hotherus (hodr) had set a tribute on the kurlanders and swedes, and hrolf laid a tribute on the conquered swedes. godefridus-gotric is credited with a third saxon tribute, a heriot of snow-white horses payable to each danish king at his succession, and by each saxon chief on his accession: a statement that, recalling sacred snow-white horses kept in north germany of yore makes one wish for fuller information. but godefridus also exacted from the swedes the "ref-gild", or fox-money; for the slaying of his henchman ref, twelve pieces of gold from each man of rank, one from every commoner. and his friesland tribute is stranger still, nor is it easy to understand from saxo's account. there was a long hall built, feet, and divided up into twelve "chases" of feet each (probably square). there was a shield set up at one end, and the taxpayers hurled their money at it; if it struck so as to sound, it was good; if not, it was forfeit, but not reckoned in the receipt. this (a popular version, it may be, of some early system of treasury test) was abolished, so the story goes, by charles the great. ragnar's exaction from daxo, his son's slayer, was a yearly tribute brought by himself and twelve of his elders barefoot, resembling in part such submissions as occur in the angevin family history, the case of the calais burgesses, and of such criminals as the corporation of oxford, whose penance was only finally renounced by the local patriots in our own day. war. "weapons".--the sword is the weapon par excellence in saxo's narrative, and he names several by name, famous old blades like our royal curtana, which some believed was once tristrem's, and that sword of carlus, whose fortunes are recorded in irish annals. such are "snyrtir", bearce's sword; "hothing", agnar's blade; "lauf", or "leaf", bearce's sword; "screp", wermund's sword, long buried and much rust-eaten, but sharp and trusty, and known by its whistle; miming's sword ("mistletoe"), which slew balder. wainhead's curved blade seems to be a halbert; "lyusing" and "hwiting", ragnald of norway's swords; "logthe", the sword of ole siward's son. the "war-club" occurs pretty frequently. but it is usually introduced as a special weapon of a special hero, who fashions a gold-headed club to slay one that steel cannot touch, or who tears up a tree, like the spanish knight in the ballad, or who uses a club to counteract spells that blunt steel. the bat-shapen archaic rudder of a ship is used as a club in the story of the sons of arngrim. the "spear" plays no particular part in saxo: even woden's spear gungne is not prominent. "bows and arrows" are not often spoken of, but archer heroes, such as toki, ane bow-swayer, and orwar-odd, are known. slings and stones are used. the shield, of all defensive armour, is far the most prominent. they were often painted with devices, such as hamlet's shield, hildiger's swedish shield. dr. vigfusson has shown the importance of these painted shields in the poetic history of the scandinavians. a red shield is a signal of peace. shields are set round ramparts on land as round ships at sea. "mail-coats" are worn. frode has one charmed against steel. hother has another; a mail-coat of proof is mentioned and their iron meshes are spoken of. "helmets" are used, but not so carefully described as in "beowulf's lay"; crested helmets and a gilded helmet occur in bearca-mal and in another poem. "banners" serve as rallying points in the battle and on the march. the huns' banners are spoken of in the classic passage for the description of a huge host invading a country. bearcamal talks of golden banners. "horns" ( ) were blown pp at the beginning of the engagement and for signalling. the gathering of the host was made by delivery of a wooden arrow painted to look like iron. "tactics".--the hand-to-hand fight of the wager of battle with sword and shield, and the fighting in ranks and the wedge-column at close quarters, show that the close infantry combat was the main event of the battle. the preliminary hurling of stones, and shooting of arrows, and slinging of pebbles, were harassing and annoying, but seldom sufficiently important to affect the result of the main engagement. men ride to battle, but fight on foot; occasionally an aged king is car-borne to the fray, and once the car, whether by saxo's adorning hand, or by tradition, is scythe-armed. the gathered host is numbered, once, where, as with xerxes, counting was too difficult, by making each man as he passed put a pebble in a pile (which piles survive to mark the huge size of frode's army). this is, of course, a folktale, explaining the pebble-hills and illustrating the belief in frode's power; but armies were mustered by such expedients of old. burton tells of an african army each man of whom presented an egg, as a token of his presence and a means of taking the number of the host. we hear of men marching in light order without even scabbards, and getting over the ice in socks. the war equipment and habits of the irish, light armoured, clipped at back of head, hurling the javelin backwards in their feigned flight; of the slavs, small blue targets and long swords; of the finns, with their darts and skees, are given. watches are kept, and it is noted that "uht", the early watch after midnight, is the worst to be attacked in (the duke's two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage being needed, and the darkness and cold helping the enemy). spies were, of course, slain if discovered. but we have instances of kings and heroes getting into foeman's camps in disguise (cf. stories of alfred and anlaf). the order of battle of bravalla fight is given, and the ideal array of a host. to woden is ascribed the device of the boar's head, hamalt fylking (the swine-head array of manu's indian kings), the terrible column with wedge head which could cleave the stoutest line. the host of ring has men from wener, wermland, gotaelf, thotn, wick, thelemark, throndham, sogn, firths, fialer, iceland; sweden, gislamark, sigtun, upsala, pannonia. the host of harold had men from iceland, the danish provinces, frisia, lifland; slavs, and men from jom, aland, and sleswick. the battle of bravalla is said to have been won by the gotland archers and the men of throndham, and the dales. the death of harald by treachery completed the defeat, which began when ubbe fell (after he had broken the enemy's van) riddled with arrows. the defeated, unless they could fly, got little quarter. one-fifth only of the population of a province are said to have survived an invasion. after sea-battles (always necessarily more deadly) the corpses choke the harbours. seventy sea-kings are swept away in one sea-fight. heads seem to have been taken in some cases, but not as a regular teutonic usage, and the practice, from its being attributed to ghosts and aliens, must have already been considered savage by saxo, and probably by his informants and authorities. prisoners were slaves; they might be killed, put to cruel death, outraged, used as slaves, but the feeling in favour of mercy was growing, and the cruelty of eormenric, who used tortures to his prisoners, of rothe, who stripped his captives, and of fro, who sent captive ladies to a brothel in insult, is regarded with dislike. wounds were looked on as honourable, but they must be in front or honourably got. a man who was shot through the buttocks, or wounded in the back, was laughed at and disgraced. we hear of a mother helping her wounded son out of battle. that much of human interest centered round war is evident by the mass of tradition that surrounds the subject in saxo, both in its public and private aspects. quaint is the analysis of the four kinds of warriors: (a) the veterans, or doughty, who kill foes and spare flyers; (b) the young men who kill foes and flyers too; (c) the well-to-do, landed, and propertied men of the main levy, who neither fight for fear nor fly for shame; (d) the worthless, last to fight and first to fly; and curious are the remarks about married and unmarried troops, a matter which chaka pondered over in later days. homeric speeches precede the fight. "stratagems of war" greatly interested saxo (probably because valerius maximus, one of his most esteemed models, was much occupied with such matters), so that he diligently records the military traditions of the notably skillful expedients of famous commanders of old. there is the device for taking a town by means of the "pretended death" of the besieging general, a device ascribed to hastings and many more commanders (see steenstrup normannerne); the plan of "firing" a besieged town by fire-bearing birds, ascribed here to fridlev, in the case of dublin to hadding against duna (where it was foiled by all tame birds being chased out of the place). there is the "birnam wood" stratagem, by which men advanced behind a screen of boughs, which is even used for the concealment of ships, and the curious legend (occurring in irish tradition also, and recalling capt. b. hall's "quaker gun" story) by which a commander bluffs off his enemy by binding his dead to stakes in rows, as if they were living men. less easy to understand are the "brazen horses" or "machines" driven into the close lines of the enemy to crush and open them, an invention of gewar. the use of hooked weapons to pull down the foes' shields and helmets was also taught to hother by gewar. the use of black tents to conceal encampment; the defence of a pass by hurling rocks from the heights; the bridge of boats across the elbe; and the employment of spies, and the bold venture, ascribed in our chronicles to alfred and anlaf, of visiting in disguise the enemy's camp, is here attributed to frode, who even assumed women's clothes for the purpose. frode is throughout the typical general, as he is the typical statesman and law-giver of archaic denmark. there are certain heathen usages connected with war, as the hurling of a javelin or shooting of an arrow over the enemy's ranks as a "sacratio" to woden of the foe at the beginning of a battle. this is recorded in the older vernacular authorities also, in exact accordance with the homeric usage, "odyssey" xxiv, - . the dedication of part of the spoils to the god who gave good omens for the war is told of the heathen baltic peoples; but though, as sidonius records, it had once prevailed among the saxons, and, as other witnesses add, among the scandinavian people, the tradition is not clearly preserved by saxo. "sea and sea warfare."--as might be expected, there is much mention of wicking adventure and of maritime warfare in saxo. saxo tells of asmund's huge ship (gnod), built high that he might shoot down on the enemy's craft; he speaks of a ship (such as godwin gave as a gift to the king his master), and the monk of st. bertin and the court-poets have lovingly described a ship with gold-broidered sails, gilt masts, and red-dyed rigging. one of his ships has, like the ships in the chansons de geste, a carbuncle for a lantern at the masthead. hedin signals to frode by a shield at the masthead. a red shield was a peace signal, as noted above. the practice of "strand-hewing", a great feature in wicking-life (which, so far as the victualling of raw meat by the fishing fleets, and its use raw, as mr. p. h. emerson informs me, still survives), is spoken of. there was great fear of monsters attacking them, a fear probably justified by such occasional attacks of angry whales as melville (founding his narrative on repeated facts) has immortalised. the whales, like moby dick, were uncanny, and inspired by troll-women or witches (cf. "frithiof saga" and the older "lay of atle and rimegerd"). the clever sailing of hadding, by which he eludes pursuit, is tantalising, for one gathers that, saxo knows the details that he for some reason omits. big fleets of and a monster armada of , vessels are recorded. the ships were moved by oars and sails; they had rudders, no doubt such as the gokstad ship, for the hero arrow-odd used a rudder as a weapon. "champions".--professed fighting men were often kept by kings and earls about their court as useful in feud and fray. harald fairhair's champions are admirably described in the contemporary raven song by hornclofe-- "wolf-coats they call them that in battle bellow into bloody shields. they wear wolves' hides when they come into the fight, and clash their weapons together." and saxo's sources adhere closely to this pattern. these "bear-sarks", or wolf-coats of harald give rise to an o. n. term, "bear-sarks' way", to describe the frenzy of fight and fury which such champions indulged in, barking and howling, and biting their shield-rims (like the ferocious "rook" in the narwhale ivory chessmen in the british museum) till a kind of state was produced akin to that of the malay when he has worked himself up to "run-a-muck." there seems to have been in the th century a number of such fellows about unemployed, who became nuisances to their neighbours by reason of their bullying and highhandedness. stories are told in the icelandic sagas of the way such persons were entrapped and put to death by the chiefs they served when they became too troublesome. a favourite (and fictitious) episode in an "edited" icelandic saga is for the hero to rescue a lady promised to such a champion (who has bullied her father into consent) by slaying the ruffian. it is the same "motif" as guy of warwick and the saracen lady, and one of the regular giant and knight stories. beside men-warriors there were "women-warriors" in the north, as saxo explains. he describes shield-maidens, as alfhild, sela, rusila (the ingean ruadh, or red maid of the irish annals, as steenstrup so ingeniously conjectures); and the three she-captains, wigbiorg, who fell on the field, hetha, who was made queen of zealand, and wisna, whose hand starcad cut off, all three fighting manfully at bravalla fight. social life and manners. "feasts".--the hall-dinner was an important feature in the old teutonic court-life. many a fine scene in a saga takes place in the hall while the king and his men are sitting over their ale. the hall decked with hangings, with its fires, lights, plate and provisions, appears in saxo just as in the eddic lays, especially rigsmal, and the lives of the norwegian kings and orkney earls. the order of seats is a great point of archaic manners. behaviour at table was a matter of careful observance. the service, especially that of the cup-bearer, was minutely regulated by etiquette. an honoured guest was welcomed by the host rising to receive him and giving him a seat near himself, but less distinguished visitors were often victims to the rough horseplay of the baser sort, and of the wanton young gentleman at court. the food was simple, boiled beef and pork, and mutton without sauce, ale served in horns from the butt. roast meat, game, sauces, mead, and flagons set on the table, are looked on by starcad as foreign luxuries, and germany was credited with luxurious cookery. "mimes and jugglers", who went through the country or were attached to the lord's court to amuse the company, were a despised race because of their ribaldry, obscenity, cowardice, and unabashed self-debasement; and their newfangled dances and piping were loathsome to the old court-poets, who accepted the harp alone as an instrument of music. the story that once a king went to war with his jugglers and they ran away, would represent the point of view of the old house-carle, who was neglected, though "a first-class fighting man", for these debauched foreign buffoons. supernatural beings. gods and goddesses.--the gods spring, according to saxo's belief, from a race of sorcerers, some of whom rose to pre-eminence and expelled and crushed the rest, ending the "wizard-age", as the wizards had ended the monster or "giant-age". that they were identic with the classic gods he is inclined to believe, but his difficulty is that in the week-days we have jove : thor; mercury : woden; whereas it is perfectly well known that mercury is jove's son, and also that woden is the father of thor--a comic "embarras". that the persians the heathens worshipped as gods existed, and that they were men and women false and powerful, saxo plainly believes. he has not snorre's appreciation of the humorous side of the mythology. he is ironic and scornful, but without the kindly, naive fun of the icelander. the most active god, the dane's chief god (as frey is the swede's god, and patriarch), is "woden". he appears in heroic life as patron of great heroes and kings. cf. "hyndla-lay", where it is said of woden:-- "let us pray the father of hosts to be gracious to us! he granteth and giveth gold to his servants, he gave heremod a helm and mail-coat, and sigmund a sword to take. he giveth victory to his sons, to his followers wealth, ready speech to his children and wisdom to men. fair wind to captains, and song to poets; he giveth luck in love to many a hero." he appears under various disguises and names, but usually as a one-eyed old man, cowled and hooded; sometimes with another, bald and ragged, as before the battle hadding won; once as "hroptr", a huge man skilled in leechcraft, to ragnar's son sigfrid. often he is a helper in battle or doomer of feymen. as "lysir", a rover of the sea, he helps hadding. as veteran slinger and archer he helps his favourite hadding; as charioteer, "brune", he drives harald to his death in battle. he teaches hadding how to array his troops. as "yggr" the prophet he advises the hero and the gods. as "wecha" (waer) the leech he woos wrinda. he invented the wedge array. he can grant charmed lives to his favourites against steel. he prophesies their victories and death. he snatches up one of his disciples, sets him on his magic horse that rides over seas in the air, as in skida-runa the god takes the beggar over the north sea. his image (like that of frey in the swedish story of ogmund dytt and gunnar helming, "flatey book", i, ) could speak by magic power. of his life and career saxo gives several episodes. woden himself dwelt at upsala and byzantium (asgard); and the northern kings sent him a golden image ring-bedecked, which he made to speak oracles. his wife frigga stole the bracelets and played him false with a servant, who advised her to destroy and rob the image. when woden was away (hiding the disgrace brought on him by frigga his wife), an imposter, mid odin, possibly loke in disguise, usurped his place at upsala, instituted special drink-offerings, fled to finland on woden's return, and was slain by the fins and laid in barrow. but the barrow smote all that approached it with death, till the body was unearthed, beheaded, and impaled, a well-known process for stopping the haunting of an obnoxious or dangerous ghost. woden had a son balder, rival of hother for the love of nanna, daughter of king gewar. woden and thor his son fought for him against hother, but in vain, for hother won the laity and put balder to shameful flight; however, balder, half-frenzied by his dreams of nanna, in turn drove him into exile (winning the lady); finally hother, befriended hy luck and the wood maidens, to whom he owed his early successes and his magic coat, belt, and girdle (there is obvious confusion here in the text), at last met balder and stabbed him in the side. of this wound balder died in three days, as was foretold by the awful dream in which proserpina (hela) appeared to him. balder's grand burial, his barrow, and the magic flood which burst from it when one harald tried to break into it, and terrified the robbers, are described. the death of balder led woden to seek revenge. hrossthiof the wizard, whom he consulted, told him he must beget a son by "wrinda" (rinda, daughter of the king of the ruthenians), who should avenge his half-brother. woden's wooing is the best part of this story, half spoilt, however, by euhemeristic tone and lack of epic dignity. he woos as a victorious warrior, and receives a cuff; as a generous goldsmith, and gets a buffet; as a handsome soldier, earning a heavy knock-down blow; but in the garb of a women as wecha (wakr), skilled in leechcraft, he won his way by trickery; and ("wale") "bous" was born, who, after some years, slew hother in battle, and died himself of his wounds. bous' barrow in bohusland, balder's haven, balder's well, are named as local attestations of the legend, which is in a late form, as it seems. the story of woden's being banished for misbehaviour, and especially for sorcery and for having worn woman's attire to trick wrinda, his replacement by "wuldor" ("oller"), a high priest who assumed woden's name and flourished for ten years, but was ultimately expelled by the returning woden, and killed by the danes in sweden, is in the same style. but wuldor's bone vessel is an old bit of genuine tradition mangled. it would cross the sea as well as a ship could, by virtue of certain spells marked on it. of "frey", who appears as "satrapa" of the gods at upsala, and as the originator of human sacrifice, and as appeased by black victims, at a sacrifice called froblod (freys-blot) instituted by hadding, who began it as an atonement for having slain a sea-monster, a deed for which he had incurred a curse. the priapic and generative influences of frey are only indicated by a curious tradition mentioned. it almost looks as if there had once been such an institution at upsala as adorned the phoenician temples, under frey's patronage and for a symbolic means of worship. "thunder", or "thor", is woden's son, strongest of gods or men, patron of starcad, whom he turned, by pulling off four arms, from a monster to a man. he fights by woden's side and balder's against hother, by whose magic wand his club (hammer) was lopped off part of its shaft, a wholly different and, a much later version than the one snorre gives in the prose edda. saxo knows of thor's journey to the haunt of giant garfred (geirrod) and his three daughters, and of the hurling of the iron "bloom", and of the crushing of the giantesses, though he does not seem to have known of the river-feats of either the ladies or thor, if we may judge (never a safe thing wholly) by his silence. whether "tew" is meant by the mars of the song of the voice is not evident. saxo may only be imitating the repeated catch-word "war" of the original. "loke" appears as utgard-loke, loke of the skirts of the world, as it were; is treated as a venomous giant bound in agony under a serpent-haunted cavern (no mention is made of "sigyn" or her pious ministry). "hela" seems to be meant by saxo's proserpina. "nanna" is the daughter of gewar, and balder sees her bathing and falls in love with her, as madly as frey with gertha in skirnismal. "freya", the mistress of od, the patroness of othere the homely, the sister of frey-frode, and daughter of niord-fridlaf, appears as gunwara eric's love and syritha ottar's love and the hair-clogged maiden, as dr. rydberg has shown. the gods can disguise their form, change their shape, are often met in a mist, which shrouds them save from the right person; they appear and disappear at will. for the rest they have the mental and physical characteristics of the kings and queens they protect or persecute so capriciously. they can be seen by making a magic sign and looking through a witch's arm held akimbo. they are no good comates for men or women, and to meddle with a goddess or nymph or giantess was to ensure evil or death for a man. the god's loves were apparently not always so fatal, though there seems to be some tradition to that effect. most of the god-sprung heroes are motherless or unborn (i.e., born like macduff by the caesarean operation)--sigfred, in the eddic lays for instance. besides the gods, possibly older than they are, and presumably mightier, are the "fates" (norns), three ladies who are met with together, who fulfil the parts of the gift-fairies of our sleeping beauty tales, and bestow endowments on the new-born child, as in the beautiful "helge lay", a point of the story which survives in ogier of the chansons de geste, wherein eadgar (otkerus or otgerus) gets what belonged to holger (holge), the helga of "beowulf's lay". the caprices of the fates, where one corrects or spoils the others' endowments, are seen in saxo, when beauty, bounty, and meanness are given together. they sometimes meet heroes, as they met helgi in the eddic lay (helgi and sigrun lay), and help or begift them; they prepare the magic broth for balder, are charmed with hother's lute-playing, and bestow on him a belt of victory and a girdle of splendour, and prophesy things to come. the verse in biarca-mal, where "pluto weaves the dooms of the mighty and fills phlegethon with noble shapes," recalls darrada-liod, and points to woden as death-doomer of the warrior. "giants".--these are stupid, mischievous, evil and cunning in saxo's eyes. oldest of beings, with chaotic force and exuberance, monstrous in extravagant vitality. the giant nature of the older troll-kind is abhorrent to man and woman. but a giantess is enamoured of a youth she had fostered, and giants carry off king's daughters, and a three-bodied giant captures young children. giants live in caves by the sea, where they keep their treasure. one giant, unfoot (ofoti), is a shepherd, like polyphemus, and has a famous dog which passed into the charge of biorn, and won a battle; a giantess is keeping goats in the wilds. a giant's fury is so great that it takes twelve champions to control him, when the rage is on him. the troll (like our puss-in-boots ogre) can take any shape. monstrous apparitions are mentioned, a giant hand (like that in one story of finn) searching for its prey among the inmates of a booth in the wilds. but this grendel-like arm is torn off by a giantess, hardgrip, daughter of wainhead and niece possibly of hafle. the voice heard at night prophesying is that of some god or monster, possibly woden himself. "dwarves".--these saxo calls satyrs, and but rarely mentions. the dwarf miming, who lives in the desert, has a precious sword of sharpness (mistletoe?) that could even pierce skin-hard balder, and a ring (draupnir) that multiplied itself for its possessor. he is trapped by the hero and robbed of his treasures. funeral rites and man's future state. "barrow-burials".--the obsequies of great men (such as the classic funeral of "beowulf's lay", - ) are much noticed by saxo, and we might expect that he knew such a poem (one similar to ynglingatal, but not it) which, like the books of the kings of israel and judah, recorded the deaths and burials, as well as the pedigrees and deeds, of the danish kings. the various stages of the "obsequy by fire" are noted; the byre sometimes formed out of a ship; the "sati"; the devoted bower-maidens choosing to die with their mistress, the dead man's beloved (cf. the eddic funerals of balder, sigfred, and brunhild, in the long "brunhild's lay", tregrof gudrumar and the lost poem of balder's death paraphrased in the prose edda); the last message given to the corpse on the pyre (woden's last words to balder are famous); the riding round the pyre; the eulogium; the piling of the barrow, which sometimes took whole days, as the size of many existing grass mounds assure us; the funeral feast, where an immense vat of ale or mead is drunk in honor of the dead; the epitaph, like an ogham, set up on a stone over the barrow. the inclusion of a live man with the dead in a barrow, with the live or fresh-slain beasts (horse and bound) of the dead man, seems to point to a time or district when burning was not used. apparently, at one time, judging from frode's law, only chiefs and warriors were burnt. not to bury was, as in hellas, an insult to the dead, reserved for the bodies of hated foes. conquerors sometimes show their magnanimity (like harald godwineson) by offering to bury their dead foes. the buried "barrow-ghost" was formidable; he could rise and slay and eat, vampire-like, as in the tale of asmund and aswit. he must in such case be mastered and prevented doing further harm by decapitation and thigh-forking, or by staking and burning. so criminals' bodies were often burnt to stop possible haunting. witches and wizards could raise corpses by spells to make them prophesy. the dead also appeared in visions, usually foretelling death to the person they visited. other worlds.--the "land of undeath" is spoken of as a place reached by an exiled hero in his wanderings. we know it from eric the traveller's s., helge thoreson's s., herrand and bose s., herwon s., thorstan baearmagn s., and other icelandic sources. but the voyage to the other worlds are some of the most remarkable of the narratives saxo has preserved for us. "hadding's voyage underground".--(a) a woman bearing in her lap angelica fresh and green, though it was deep winter, appears to the hero at supper, raising her head beside the brazier. hadding wishes to know where such plants grow. (b) she takes him with her, under cover of her mantle, underground. (c) they pierce a mist, get on a road worn by long use, pass nobly-clad men, and reach the sunny fields that bear the angelica:-- "through griesly shadowes by a beaten path, into a garden goodly garnished." --f.q. ii. , . (d) next they cross, by a bridge, the "river of blades", and see "two armies fighting", ghosts of slain soldiers. (e) last they came to a high wall, which surrounds the land of life, for a cock the woman brought with her, whose neck she wrung and tossed over this wall, came to life and crowed merrily. here the story breaks off. it is unfinished, we are only told that hadfling got back. why he was taken to this under-world? who took him? what followed therefrom? saxo does not tell. it is left to us to make out. that it is an archaic story of the kind in the thomas of ercildoune and so many more fairy-tales, e.g., kate crack-a-nuts, is certain. the "river of blades" and "the fighting warriors" are known from the eddic poems. the angelica is like the green birk of that superb fragment, the ballad of the wife of usher's well--a little more frankly heathen, of course-- "it fell about the martinmas, when nights are long and mirk, the carline wife's three sons cam hame, and their hats were o' the birk. it neither grew in syke nor dyke, nor yet in ony sheugh, but at the gates o' paradise that birk grew fair eneuch." the mantel is that of woden when he bears the hero over seas; the cock is a bird of sorcery the world over; the black fowl is the proper gift to the underground powers--a heriot really, for did not the culture god steal all the useful beasts out of the underground world for men's use? dr. rydberg has shown that the "seven sleepers" story is an old northern myth, alluded to here in its early pre-christian form, and that with this is mixed other incidents from voyages of swipdag, the teutonic odusseus. "thorkill's second voyage to outgarth-loke to get knowledge".--(a) guthrum is troubled as to the immortality and fate of the soul, and the reward of piety after death. to spite thorkill, his enviers advised the king to send him to consult outgarth-loke. he required of the king that his enemies should be sent with him. (b) in one well-stored and hide-defended ship they set out, reached a sunless, starless land, without fuel; ate raw food and suffered. at last, after many days, a fire was seen ashore. thorkill, setting a jewel at the mast-head to be able to regain his vessel easily, rows ashore to get fire. (c) in a filthy, snake-paved, stinking cavern he sees two horny-nebbed giants, ( ) making a fire. one of the giants offers to direct him to loke if he will say three true things in three phrases, and this done, tells him to row four days and then he would reach a dark and grassless land. for three more true sayings he obtains fire, and gets back to his vessel. (d) with good wind they make grassless land, go ashore, find a huge, rocky cavern, strike a flint to kindle a fire at the entrance as a safeguard against demons, and a torch to light them as they explored the cavern. (e) first appears iron seats set amid crawling snakes. (f) next is sluggish water flowing over sand. (g) last a steep, sloping cavern is reached, in a chamber of which lay outgarth-loke chained, huge and foul. (h) thorkill plucks a hair of his beard "as big as a cornel-wood spear." the stench that arose was fearful; the demens and snakes fell upon the invaders at once; only thorkill and five of the crew, who had sheltered themselves with hides against the virulent poison the demons and snakes cast, which would take a head off at the neck if it fell upon it, got back to their ship. (i) by vow to the "god that made the world", and offerings, a good voyage was made back, and germany reached, where thorkill became a christian. only two of his men survived the effects of the poison and stench, and he himself was scarred and spoilt in the face. (k) when he reached the king, guthrum would not listen to his tale, because it was prophesied to him that he would die suddenly if he heard it; nay, he even sent men to smite him as he lay in bed, but, by the device of laying a log in his place, he escaped, and going to the king as he sat at meat, reproached him for his treachery. (l) guthrum bade him tell his story, but died of horror at hearing his god loke foully spoken of, while the stench of the hair that thorkill produced, as othere did his horn for a voucher of his speech, slew many bystanders. this is the regular myth of loke, punished by the gods, lying bound with his own soils' entrails on three sharp stones and a sword-blade, (this latter an addition, when the myth was made stones were the only blades), with snakes' venom dripping on to him, so that when it falls on him he shakes with pain and makes earthquakes--a titan myth in answer to the question, "why does the earth quake?" the vitriolic power of the poison is excellently expressed in the story. the plucking of the hair as a token is like the plucking of a horn off the giant or devil that occurs in some folk-tale. magic and folk-science. there is a belief in magic throughout saxo's work, showing how fresh heathendom still was in men's minds and memories. his explanations, when he euhemerizes, are those of his day. by means of spells all kinds of wonders could be effected, and the powers of nature forced to work for the magician or his favourite. "skin-changing" (so common in "landnamaboc") was as well known as in the classic world of lucian and apuleius; and, where frode perishes of the attacks of a witch metamorphosed into a walrus. "mist" is induced by spells to cover and hide persons, as in homer, and "glamour" is produced by spells to dazzle foemen's sight. to cast glamour and put confusion into a besieged place a witch is employed by the beleaguerer, just as william the conqueror used the witch in the fens against hereward's fortalice. a soothsayer warns charles the great of the coming of a danish fleet to the seine's mouth. "rain and bad weather" may be brought on, as in a battle against the enemy, but in this, as in other instances, the spell may be counteracted. "panic terror" may be induced by the spell worked with a dead horse's head set up on a pole facing the antagonist, but the spell may be met and combatted by silence and a counter-curse. "magic help" may be got by calling on the friendly magician's name. the magician has also the power of summoning to him anyone, however unwilling, to appear. of spells and magic power to blunt steel there are several instances; they may be counteracted (as in the icelandic sagas) by using the hilt, or a club, or covering the blade with fine skin. in another case the champion can only be overcome by one that will take up some of the dust from under his feet. this is effected by the combatants shifting their ground and exchanging places. in another case the foeman can only be slain by gold, whereupon the hero has a gold-headed mace made and batters the life out of him therewith. the brothers of swanhild cannot be cut by steel, for their mail was charmed by the witch gudrun, but woden taught eormenric, the gothic king, how to overcome them with stones (which apparently cannot, as archaic weapons, be charmed against at all, resisting magic like wood and water and fire). jordanis tells the true history of ermanaric, that great gothic emperor whose rule from the dnieper to the baltic and rhine and danube, and long reign of prosperity, were broken by the coming of the huns. with him vanished the first great teutonic empire. magic was powerful enough even to raise the dead, as was practised by the perms, who thus renewed their forces after a battle. in the everlasting battle the combatants were by some strange trick of fate obliged to fulfil a perennial weird (like the unhappy vanderdecken). spells to wake the dead were written on wood and put under the corpses' tongue. spells (written on bark) induce frenzy. "charms" would secure a man against claw or tooth. "love philtres" (as in the long "lay of gudrun) appear as everywhere in savage and archaic society. "food", porridge mixed with the slaver of tortured snakes, gives magic strength or endues the eater with eloquence and knowledge of beast and bird speech (as finn's broiled fish and sigfred's broiled dragon-heart do). "poison" like these hell-broths are part of the witch or obi stock-in-trade, and frode uses powdered gold as an antidote. "omens" are observed; tripping as one lands is lucky (as with our william the norman). portents, such as a sudden reddening of the sea where the hero is drowned, are noticed and interpreted. "dreams" (cf. eddic lays of attila, and the border ballads) are prophetic (as nine-tenths of europeans firmly believe still); thus the visionary flame-spouting dragon is interpreted exactly as hogne's and attila's dreams. the dreams of the three first bridals nights (which were kept hallowed by a curious superstition, either because the dreams would then bold good, or as is more likely, for fear of some asmodeus) were fateful. animals and birds in dreams are read as persons, as nowadays. a "curse" is powerful unless it can be turned back, when it will harm its utterer, for harm someone it must. the "curse" of a dying man on his slayer, and its lack of effect, is noted. sometimes "magic messengers" are sent, like the swans that bore a token and uttered warning songs to the hero. "witches and wizards" (as belonging to the older layer of archaic beliefs) are hateful to the gods, and woden casts them out as accursed, though he himself was the mightiest of wizards. heathen teutonic life was a long terror by reason of witchcraft, as is the heathen african life to-day, continual precautions being needful to escape the magic of enemies. the icelandic sagas, such as gretter's, are full of magic and witchcraft. it is by witchcraft that gretter is first lamed and finally slain; one can see that glam's curse, the beowulf motif, was not really in the original gretter story. "folk-medicine" is really a branch of magic in old days, even to such pioneers of science as paracelsus. saxo's traditions note drinking of a lion's blood that eats men as a means of gaining might and strength; the drinking of bear's blood is also declared to give great bodily power. the tests for "madness" are of a primitive character, such as those applied to odusseus, who, however, was not able, like hamlet, to evade them. the test for death is the red-hot iron or hot brand (used by the abyssinians of to-day, as it was supposed in the thirteenth century to have been used by grimhild. "and now grimhild goes and takes a great brand, where the house had burnt, and goes to gernot her brother, and thrusts the burning brand in his mouth, and will know whether he is dead or living. but gernot was clearly dead. and now she goes to gislher and thrusts the firebrand in his mouth. he was not dead before, but gislher died of that. now king thidrec of bern saw what grimhild is doing, and speaks to king attila. `see how that devil grimhild, thy wife, is killing her brothers, the good warriors, and how many men have lost their lives for her sake, and how many good men she has destroyed, huns and amalungs and niflungs; and in the same way would she bring thee and me to hell, if she could do it?' then spake king attila, `surely she is a devil, and slay thou her, and that were a good work if thou had done it seven nights ago! then many a gallant fellow were whole that is now dead.' now king thidrec springs at grimhild and swings up his sword eckisax, and hews her asunder at the middle"). it was believed (as in polynesia, where "captain cook's path" was shown in the grass) that the heat of the hero's body might blast the grass; so starcad's entrails withered the grass. it was believed that a severed head might bite the ground in rage, and there were certainly plenty of opportunities for observation of such cases. it was believed that a "dumb man" might be so wrought on by passion that he would speak, and wholly acquire speech-power. little is told of "surgery", but in one case of intestines protruding owing to wounds, withies were employed to bind round the trunk and keep the bowels from risk till the patient could be taken to a house and his wounds examined and dressed. it was considered heroic to pay little heed to wounds that were not dangerous, but just to leave them to nature. personal "cleanliness" was not higher than among savages now. a lover is loused by his lady after the mediaeval fashion. christianity--in the first nine books of saxo, which are devoted to heathendom, there is not much save the author's own christian point of view that smacks of the new faith. the apostleships of ansgarius in denmark, the conversion of king eric, the christianity of several later danish kings, one of whom was (like olaf tryggwason) baptised in britain are also noticed. of "christian legends" and beliefs, besides the euhemerist theory, widely held, of the heathen gods there are few hints, save the idea that christ was born in the reign of frode, frode having been somehow synchronised with augustus, in whose reign also there was a world-peace. of course the christening of scandinavia is history, and the mythic books are little concerned with it. the episode in adam of bremen, where the king offers the people, if they want a new god, to deify eric, one of their hero-kings, is eminently characteristic and true. folk-tales. there might be a classification of saxo's stories akin to that of the irish poets, battles, sieges, voyages, rapes, cattle forays, etc.; and quite apart from the historic element, however faint and legendary, there are a set of stories ascribed by him, or rather his authorities, to definite persons, which had, even in his day, probably long been the property of tis, their original owners not being known owing to lapse of time and the wear of memory, and the natural and accidental catastrophies that impair the human record. such are the "dragon-slayer" stories. in one type of these the hero (frithlaf) is cast on a desolate island, and warned by a dream to attack and slay a dragon guarding treasure. he wakes, sees the dragon arise out of the waves, apparently, to come ashore and go back to the cavern or mound wherein the treasure lay. his scales are too hard to pierce; he is terribly strong, lashing trees down with his tail, and wearing a deep path through the wood and over the stones with his huge and perpetual bulk; but the hero, covered with hide-wrapped shield against the poison, gets down into the hollow path, and pierces the monster from below, afterward rifling its underground store and carrying off its treasure. again the story is repeated; the hero (frode haddingsson) is warned by a countryman of the island-dragon and its hoard, is told to cover his shield and body with bulls' hides against the poison, and smite the monster's belly. the dragon goes to drink, and, as it is coming back, it is attacked, slain, and its treasure lifted precisely as before. the analogies with the beowulf and sigfred stories are evident; but no great poet has arisen to weave the dragon-slaying intimately into the lives of frode and frithlaf as they have been woven into the tragedy of sigfred the wooer of brunhild and, if dr. vigffisson be right the conqueror of varus, or into the story of beowulf, whose real engagements were with sea-monsters, not fiery dragons. another type is that of the "loathly worm". a king out hunting (herod or herraud, king of sweden), for some unexplained reason brings home two small snakes as presents for his daughter. they wax wonderfully, have to be fed a whole ox a day, and proceed to poison and waste the countryside. the wretched king is forced to offer his daughter (thora) to anyone who will slay them. the hero (ragnar) devises a dress of a peculiar kind (by help of his nurse, apparently), in this case, woolly mantle and hairy breeches all frozen and ice-covered to resist the venom, then strapping his spear to his hand, he encounters them boldly alone. the courtiers hide "like frightened little girls", and the king betakes him to a "narrow shelter", an euphemism evidently of saxo's, for the scene is comic. the king comes forth when the hero is victorious, and laughing at his hairy legs, nick-names him shaggy-breech, and bids him to the feast. ragnar fetches up his comrades, and apparently seeks out the frightened courtiers (no doubt with appropriate quip, omitted by saxo, who hurries on), feasts, marries the king's daughter, and begets on her two fine sons. of somewhat similar type is the proud "maiden guarded" by beasts. here the scene is laid in gaulardale in norway. the lady is ladgerda, the hero ragnar. enamoured of the maiden by seeing her prowess in war, he accepts no rebuffs, but leaving his followers, enters the house, slays the guardian bear and dog, thrusting one through with a spear and throttling the other with his hand. the lady is won and wed, and two daughters and a son (frithlaf) duly begotten. the story of alf and alfhild combines several types. there are the tame snakes, the baffled suitors' heads staked to terrify other suitors, and the hero using red-hot iron and spear to slay the two reptiles. the "proud lady", (cf. kudrun and the niebelungen, and are's story of the queen that burnt her suitors) appears in hermintrude, queen of scotland, who battles and slays her lovers, but is out-witted by the hero (hamlet), and, abating her arrogance, agrees to wed him. this seems an obvious accretion in the original hamlet story, and probably owing not to saxo, but to his authority. the "beggar that stole the lady" (told of snio siwaldson and the daughter of the king of the goths), with its brisk dialogue, must have been one of the most artful of the folk-tales worked on by saxo or his informants; but it is only half told, unfortunately. the "crafty soaker" is another excellent comic folk-tale. a terrible famine made the king (snio) forbid brewing to save the barley for bread, and abolished all needless toping. the soaker baffled the king by sipping, never taking a full draught. rebuked, he declared that he never drank, but only sucked a drop. this was forbidden him for the future, so he sopped his bread in ale, and in that inconvenient manner continued to get drunk, excusing himself with the plea that though it was forbidden to drink or sip beer, it was not forbidden to eat it. when this was in turn prohibited, the soaker gave up any pretence, and brewed and drank unabashed, telling the angry king that he was celebrating his approaching funeral with due respect, which excuse led to the repeal of the obnoxious decree. a good rabelaisian tale, that must not have been wide-spread among the danish topers, whose powers both saxo and shakespeare have celebrated, from actual experience no doubt. the "magician's tricks to elude pursuit", so common an incident in our fairy tales, e.g., michael scot's flight, is ascribed here to the wonder-working and uncanny finns, who, when pursued, cast behind them successively three pebbles, which become to their enemies' eyes mountains, then snow, which appeared like a roaring torrent. but they could not cast the glamour on arngrim a third time, and were forced to submit. the glamour here and in the case of the breaking of balder's barrow is akin to that which the druid puts on the sons of uisnach. the tale of the king who shuts up his daughter in an "earth-house" or underground chamber with treasures (weapons and gold and silver), in fear of invasion, looks like a bit of folk-tale, such as the "hind in the wood", but it may have a traditional base of some kind here. a folk-tale, very imperfectly narrated, is the "clever king's daughter", who evidently in the original story had to choose her suitor by his feet (as the giantess in the prose edda chooses her husband), and was able to do so by the device she had practised of sewing up her ring in his leg sometime before, so that when she touched the flesh she could feel the hardness of the ring beneath the scar. bits of folk-tales are the "device for escaping threatened death by putting a log in one's bed" (as in our jack the giant-killer). the device, as old as david's wife, of dressing up a dummy (here a basket with a dog inside, covered outside with clothes), while the hero escapes, is told of eormenric, the mighty gothic king of kings, who, like walter of aquitaine, theodoric of varona, ecgherht, and arminius, was an exile in his youth. this traditional escape of the two lads from the scyths should be compared with the true story in paul the deacon of his little ancestor's captivity and bold and successful stroke for freedom. "disguise" plays a great part in the folk-tales used by saxo. woden disguises himself in a cowl on his earthly travels, and heroes do the same; a king disguises himself as a slave at his rival's court, to try and find occasion of slaying him; a hero wraps himself up in skins, like alleleirah. "escaped recognition" is accordingly a feature in many of these simple but artistic plots. a son is not known by his mother in the story of hrolf. other "devices" are exemplified, such as the "booby-trap" loaded with a millstone, which slays a hateful and despised tyrant, imposed by a foreign conqueror; evasion by secret passages, and concealment in underground vaults or earth-houses. the feigning of madness to escape death occurs, as well as in the better-known hamlet story. these stratagems are universal in folk-history. to eric, the clever and quick of speech, is ascribed an excellent sailor's smuggling trick to hide slaughtered cattle, by sinking them till the search is over. the "hero's mighty childhood" (like david's) of course occurs when he binds a bear with his girdle. sciold is full grown at fifteen, and hadding is full grown in extreme youth. the hero in his boyhood slays a full-grown man and champion. the cinder-biting, lazy stage of a mighty youth is exemplified. the "fierce eyes" of the hero or heroine, which can daunt an assassin as could the piercing glance of marius, are the "falcon eyes" of the eddic lays. the shining, effulgent, "illuminating hair" of the hero, which gives light in the darkness, is noticed here, as it obtains in cuaran's thirteenth century english legend. the wide-spread tale of the "city founded on a site marked out by a hide cut into finest thongs", occurs, told of hella and iwarus exactly as our kentishmen told it of hengist, and as it is also told of dido. the incidents of the "hero sleeping by a rill", of the guarded king's daughter, with her thirty attendants, the king's son keeping sheep, are part of the regular stock incidents in european folk-tales. so are the nausicaa incident of the "king's daughter going a washing", the hero disguising himself as a woman and winding wool (like a second heracles). there are a certain number of stories, which only occur in saxo and in our other northern sources with attributions, though they are of course legendary; such are: the "everlasting battle" between hedhin and hogne, a legend connected with the great brisinga-men story, and paralleled by the cordelia-tale among the britons. the story of the "children preserved" is not very clearly told, and saxo seems to have euhemerized. it is evidently of the same type as the lionel-lancelot story in the arthurian cycle. two children, ordered to be killed, are saved by the slaying of other children in their place; and afterwards by their being kept and named as dogs; they come to their own and avenge their wrongs. the "journey to hell" story is told of eric, who goes to a far land to fetch a princess back, and is successful. it is apparently an adventure of swipdag, if everyone had their rights. it is also told of thorkill, whose adventures are rather of the "true thomas" type. the "test of endurance" by sitting between fires, and the relief of the tortured and patient hero by a kindly trick, is a variant of the famous eddic lays concerning agnar. the "robbers of the island", evidently comes from an icelandic source (cf. the historic "holmveria saga" and icelandic folk-tales of later date), the incident of the hero slaying his slave, that the body might be mistaken for his, is archaic in tone; the powerful horse recalls grani, bayard, and even sleipner; the dog which had once belonged to unfoot (ofote), the giant shepherd (cf. its analogues in old welsh tales), is not quite assimilated or properly used in this story. it seems (as dr. rydberg suspects) a mythical story coloured by the icelandic relater with memory full of the robber-hands of his own land. the stratagem of "starcad", who tried even in death to slay his slayer, seems an integral part of the starcad story; as much as the doom of three crimes which are to be the price for the threefold life that a triple man or giant should enjoy. the noose story in starcad (cf. that told of bicce in the eormenric story), is also integral. saxo's mythology. no one has commented upon saxo's mythology with such brilliancy, such minute consideration, and such success as the swedish scholar, victor rydberg. more than occasionally he is over-ingenious and over-anxious to reduce chaos to order; sometimes he almost loses his faithful reader in the maze he treads so easily and confidently, and sometimes he stumbles badly. but he has placed the whole subject on a fresh footing, and much that is to follow will be drawn from his "teutonic mythology" (cited here from the english version by rasmus b. anderson, london, , as "t.m."). let us take first some of the incontestable results of his investigations that affect saxo. sciold is the father of gram in saxo, and the son of sceaf in other older authorities. dr. rydberg ( - ) forms the following equations for the sciolding patriarchs:-- a. scef--heimdal--rig. b. sciold--borgar--jarl. c. gram--halfdan--koming. chief among the mythic tales that concern saxo are the various portions of the swipdag-myth, which dr. rydberg has been able to complete with much success. they may be resumed briefly as follows:-- swipdag, helped by the incantations of his dead mother, whom he had raised from the dead to teach him spells of protection, sets forth on his quests. he is the odusseus of the teutonic mythology. he desires to avenge his father on halfdan that slew him. to this end he must have a weapon of might against halfdan's club. the moon-god tells him of the blade thiasse has forged. it has been stolen by mimer, who has gone out into the cold wilderness on the rim of the world. swipdag achieves the sword, and defeats and slays halfdan. he now buys a wife, menglad, of her kinsmen the gods by the gift of the sword, which thus passes into frey's hands. how he established a claim upon frey, and who menglad was, is explained in saxo's story of eric, where the characters may be identified thus:-- swipdag--eric freya--gunwara frey--frode iii niord--fridlaf wuldor--roller thor--brac giants--the greps giants--coller. frey and freya had been carried off by the giants, and swipdag and his faithful friend resolve to get them back for the anses, who bewail their absence. they journey to monster-land, win back the lady, who ultimately is to become the hero's wife, and return her to her kindred; but her brother can only be rescued by his father niord. it is by wit rather than by force that swipdag is successful here. the third journey of swipdag is undertaken on frey's behalf; he goes under the name of scirner to woo giant gymer's daughter gerth for his brother-in-law, buying her with the sword that he himself had paid to frey as his sister's bride-price. so the sword gets back to the giants again. swipdag's dead foe halfdan left two young "avengers", hadding and guthorm, whom he seeks to slay. but thor-brache gives them in charge of two giant brothers. wainhead took care of hadding, hafle of guthorm. swipdag made peace with guthorm, in a way not fully explained to us, but hadding took up the blood-feud as soon as he was old enough. hadding was befriended by a woman, who took him to the underworld--the story is only half told in saxo, unluckily--and by woden, who took him over-sea wrapt in his mantle as they rode sleipner over the waves; but here again saxo either had not the whole story before him, or he wished to abridge it for some reason or prejudice, and the only result of this astonishing pilgrimage is that woden gives the young hero some useful counsels. he falls into captivity, entrapped by loke (for what reason again we are left to guess), and is exposed to wild beasts, but he slays the wolf that attacks him, and eating its heart as woden had bidden him, he gains wisdom and foresight. prepared by these adventures, he gets guthorm to join him (how or why the peace between him and swipdag was broken, we know not), and they attack their father's slayer, but are defeated, though woden sunk asmund swipdag's son's ship, grio, at hlessey, and wainhead and hardgrip his daughter fought for hadding. hadding wanders off to the east with his foster-sister and mistress and hardgrip, who is slain protecting him against an angry ghost raised from the underworld by her spells. however, helped by heimdal and woden (who at this time was an exile), hadding's ultimate success is assured. when woden came back to power, swipdag, whose violence and pride grew horribly upon him, was exiled, possibly by some device of his foes, and took upon him, whether by will or doom, a sea-monster's shape. his faithful wife follows him over land and sea, but is not able to save him. he is met by hadding and, after a fierce fight, slain. swipdag's wife cursed the conqueror, and he was obliged to institute an annual sacrifice to frey (her brother) at upsale, who annuls the curse. loke, in seal's guise, tried to steal the necklace of freya at the reef of treasures, where swipdag was slain, but haimdal, also in sealskin, fought him, and recovered it for the gods. other myths having reference to the goddesses appear in saxo. there is the story of "heimdall and sol", which dr. rydberg has recognised in the tale of alf and alfhild. the same tale of how the god won the sun for his wife appears in the mediaeval german king ruther (in which title dr. ryuberg sees hrutr, a name of the ram-headed god). the story of "othar" (od) and "syritha" (sigrid) is obviously that of freya and her lover. she has been stolen by the giants, owing to the wiles of her waiting-maid, loke's helper, the evil witch angrbode. od seeks her, finds her, slays the evil giant who keeps her in the cave; but she is still bewitched, her hair knotted into a hard, horny mass, her eyes void of brightness. unable to gain recognition he lets her go, and she is made by a giantess to herd her flocks. again found by od, and again refusing to recognise him, she is let go again. but this time she flies to the world of men, and takes service with od's mother and father. here, after a trial of her love, she and od are reconciled. sywald (sigwald), her father, weds od's sister. the tale of the vengeance of balder is more clearly given by the dane, and with a comic force that recalls the aristophanic fun of loka-senna. it appears that the story had a sequel which only saxo gives. woden had the giantess angrbode, who stole freya, punished. frey, whose mother-in-law she was, took up her quarrel, and accusing woden of sorcery and dressing up like a woman to betray wrind, got him banished. while in exile wuldor takes woden's place and name, and woden lives on earth, part of the time at least, with scathe thiasse's daughter, who had parted from niord. the giants now resolved to attack ansegard; and woden, under the name of yggr, warned the gods, who recall him after ten years' exile. but for saxo this part of the story of the wars of the gods would be very fragmentary. the "hildiger story", where a father slays his son unwittingly, and then falls at his brother's hand, a tale combining the rustam and the balin-balan types, is one of the hilding tragedies, and curiously preserved in the late "saga of asmund the champions' bane". it is an antithesis, as dr. rydberg remarks, to the hildebrand and hadubrand story, where father and son must fight and are reconciled. the "story of orwandel" (the analogue of orion the hunter) must be gathered chiefly from the prose edda. he was a huntsman, big enough and brave enough to cope with giants. he was the friend of thor, the husband of groa, the father of swipdag, the enemy of giant coller and the monster sela. the story of his birth, and of his being blinded, are lost apparently in the teutonic stories, unless we may suppose that the bleeding of robin hood till he could not see by the traitorous prioress is the last remains of the story of the great archer's death. great part of the troubles which befell the gods arose from the antagonism of the sons of iwalde and the brethren sindre and brokk (cinder and brank), rival artist families; and it was owing to the retirement of their artist foster-parents that frey and freya were left among the giants. the hniflung hoard is also supposed to have consisted of the treasures of one band of primaeval artists, the iwaldings. whether we have here the phenomenon of mythological doublets belonging to different tribes, or whether we have already among these early names that descent of story which has led to an adventure of moses being attributed to garibaldi, given to theodoric the king the adventures of theodoric the god, taken arthur to rome, and charles the great to constantinople, it is hard to say. the skeleton-key of identification, used even as ably as dr. rydberg uses it, will not pick every mythologic lock, though it undoubtedly has opened many hitherto closed. the truth is that man is a finite animal; that he has a limited number of types of legend; that these legends, as long as they live and exist, are excessively prehensile; that, like the opossum, they can swing from tree to tree without falling; as one tree dies out of memory they pass on to another. when they are scared away by what is called exact intelligence from the tall forest of great personalities, they contrive to live humbly clinging to such bare plain stocks and poles (tis and jack and cinderella) as enable them to find a precarious perch. to drop similitudes, we must be prepared, in unravelling our tangled mythology, to go through several processes. we must, of course, note the parallelisms and get back to the earliest attribution-names we can find. but all system is of late creation, it does not begin till a certain political stage, a stage where the myths of coalescing clans come into contact, and an official settlement is attempted by some school of poets or priests. moreover, systematization is never so complete that it effaces all the earlier state of things. behind the official systems of homer and hesiod lies the actual chaos of local faiths preserved for us by pausanias and other mythographers. the common factors in the various local faiths are much the majority among the factors they each possess; and many of these common factors are exceedingly primitive, and resolve themselves into answers to the questions that children still ask, still receiving no answer but myth--that is, poetic and subjective hypothesis, containing as much truth as they can receive or their inventors can grasp. who were our forbears? how did day and night, sun and moon, earth and water, and fire come? how did the animals come? why has the bear no tail? why are fishes dumb, the swallow cleft-tail? how did evil come? why did men begin to quarrel? how did death arise? what will the end be? why do dead persons come back? what do the dead do? what is the earth shaped like? who invented tools and weapons, and musical instruments, and how? when did kings and chiefs first come? from accepted answers to such questions most of the huge mass of mythology arises. man makes his gods in his own image, and the doctrines of omen, coincidence, and correspondence helped by incessant and imperfect observation and logic, bring about a system of religious observance, of magic and ritual, and all the masses of folly and cruelty, hope and faith, and even charity, that group about their inventions, and seem to be the necessary steps in the onward path of progressive races. when to these we add the true and exaggerated memories of actual heroes, the material before the student is pretty completely comprised. though he must be prepared to meet the difficulties caused in the contact of races, of civilisations, by the conversion of persons holding one set of mythical ideas to belief in another set of different, more attractive, and often more advanced stage. the task of arriving at the scientific, speculative ethic, and the actual practice of our remote ancestry (for to that end is the student of mythology and folk-lore aiming) is not therefore easy. nor is the record perfect, though it is not so poor in most cases as was once believed. the brothers grimm, patriarchs alike as mythologists and folk-lorists, the castor and pollox of our studies, have proved this as regards the teutonic nations, just as they showed us, by many a striking example, that in great part folk-lore was the mythology of to-day, and mythology the folk-lore of yesterday. in many cases we are helped by quite modern material to make out some puzzle that an old tale presents, and there is little doubt but that the present activity in the field of folklore will not only result in fresh matter but in fresh methods freshly applied. the scandinavian material, at all events, is particularly rich: there is the extensive icelandic written literature touching the ninth and tenth and eleventh centuries; the noble, if fragmentary remains of old northern poetry of the wickingtide; and lastly, the mass of tradition which, surviving in oral form, and changing in colour from generation to generation, was first recorded in part in the seventeenth, and again in part, in the present century; and all these yield a plentiful field for research. but their evidence gains immensely by the existence of saxo's nine books of traditional and mythic lore, collected and written down in an age when much that was antique and heathen was passing away forever. the gratitude due to the welshman of the twelfth century, whose garnered hoard has enriched so many poets and romances from his day to now, is no less due to the twelfth-century dane, whose faithful and eloquent enthusiasm has swept much dust from antique time, and saved us such a story as shakespeare has not disdained to consecrate to highest use. not only celtic and teutonic lore are the richer for these two men, but the whole western world of thought and speech. in the history of modern literature, it is but right that by the side of geoffrey an honourable place should be maintained for saxo, and "awake remembrance of these mighty dead." --oliver elton endnotes: ( ) a horn and a tusk of great size are described as things of price, and great uroch's horns are mentioned in thorkill's second journey. horns were used for feast as well as fray. ( ) such bird-beaked, bird-legged figures occur on the cross at papil, burra island, shetland. cf. abbey morne cross, and an onchan cross, isle of man. the danish history of saxo grammaticus. preface. forasmuch as all other nations are wont to vaunt the glory of their achievements, and reap joy from the remembrance of their forefathers: absalon, chief pontiff of the danes, whose zeal ever burned high for the glorification of our land, and who would not suffer it to be defrauded of like renown and record, cast upon me, the least of his followers--since all the rest refused the task--the work of compiling into a chronicle the history of denmark, and by the authority of his constant admonition spurred my weak faculty to enter on a labour too heavy for its strength. for who could write a record of the deeds of denmark? it had but lately been admitted to the common faith: it still languished as strange to latin as to religion. but now that the holy ritual brought also the command of the latin tongue, men were as slothful now as they were unskilled before, and their sluggishness proved as faultful as that former neediness. thus it came about that my lowliness, though perceiving itself too feeble for the aforesaid burden, yet chose rather to strain beyond its strength than to resist his bidding; fearing that while our neighbours rejoiced and transmitted records of their deeds, the repute of our own people might appear not to possess any written chronicle, but rather to be sunk in oblivion and antiquity. thus i, forced to put my shoulder, which was unused to the task, to a burden unfamiliar to all authors of preceding time, and dreading to slight his command, have obeyed more boldly than effectually, borrowing from the greatness of my admonisher that good heart which the weakness of my own wit denied me. and since, ere my enterprise reached its goal, his death outran it; i entreat thee chiefly, andrew, who wast chosen by a most wholesome and accordant vote to be successor in the same office and to headship of spiritual things, to direct and inspire my theme; that i may baulk by the defence of so great an advocate that spiteful detraction which ever reviles what is most conspicuous. for thy breast, very fruitful in knowledge, and covered with great store of worshipful doctrines, is to be deemed a kind of shrine of heavenly treasures. thou who hast searched through gaul and italy and britain also in order to gather knowledge of letters and amass them abundantly, didst after thy long wandering obtain a most illustrious post in a foreign school, and proved such a pillar thereof, that thou seemedst to confer more grace on thy degree than it did on thee. then being made, on account of the height of thy honours and the desert of thy virtues, secretary to the king, thou didst adorn that employment, in itself bounded and insignificant, with such works of wisdom as to leave it a piece of promotion for men of greatest rank to covet afterwards, when thou wert transferred to that office which now thou holdest. wherefore skaane has been found to leap for joy that she has borrowed a pontiff from her neighbours rather than chosen one from her own people; inasmuch as she both elected nobly and deserved joy of her election. being a shining light, therefore, in lineage, in letters, and in parts, and guiding the people with the most fruitful labours of thy teaching, thou hast won the deepest love of thy flock, and by thy boldness in thy famous administration hast conducted the service thou hast undertaken unto the summit of renown. and lest thou shouldst seem to acquire ownership on the strength of prescription, thou hast, by a pious and bountiful will, made over a very rich inheritance to holy church; choosing rather honourably to reject riches (which are covered with the rust of cares) than to be shackled with the greed of them and with their burden. likewise thou hast set about an amazing work upon the reverend tenets of the faith; and in thy zeal to set the service of public religion before thy private concerns, hast, by the lesson of thy wholesome admonitions, driven those men who refused payment of the dues belonging to religion to do to holy things the homage that they ought; and by thy pious gift of treasure hast atoned for the ancient neglect of sacred buildings. further, those who pursued a wanton life, and yielded to the stress of incontinence above measure, thou hast redeemed from nerveless sloth to a more upright state of mind, partly by continuing instant in wholesome reproof, and partly by the noble example of simple living; leaving it in doubt whether thou hast edified them more by word or deed. thus thou, by mere counsels of wisdom, hast achieved what it was not granted to any of thy forerunners to obtain. and i would not have it forgotten that the more ancient of the danes, when any notable deeds of mettle had been done, were filled with emulation of glory, and imitated the roman style; not only by relating in a choice kind of composition, which might be called a poetical work, the roll of their lordly deeds; but also by having graven upon rocks and cliffs, in the characters of their own language, the works of their forefathers, which were commonly known in poems in the mother tongue. in the footsteps of these poems, being as it were classic books of antiquity, i have trod; and keeping true step with them as i translated, in the endeavour to preserve their drift, i have taken care to render verses by verses; so that the chronicle of what i shall have to write, being founded upon these, may thus be known, not for a modern fabrication, but for the utterance of antiquity; since this present work promises not a trumpery dazzle of language, but faithful information concerning times past. moreover, how many histories must we suppose that men of such genius would have written, could they have had skill in latin and so slaked their thirst for writing! men who though they lacked acquaintance with, the speech of rome, were yet seized with such a passion for bequeathing some record of their history, that they encompassed huge boulders instead of scrolls, borrowing rocks for the usage of books. nor may the pains of the men of thule be blotted in oblivion; for though they lack all that can foster luxury (so naturally barren is the soil), yet they make up for their neediness by their wit, by keeping continually every observance of soberness, and devoting every instant of their lives to perfecting our knowledge of the deeds of foreigners. indeed, they account it a delight to learn and to consign to remembrance the history of all nations, deeming it as great a glory to set forth the excellences of others as to display their own. their stores, which are stocked with attestations of historical events, i have examined somewhat closely, and have woven together no small portion of the present work by following their narrative, not despising the judgment of men whom i know to be so well versed in the knowledge of antiquity. and i have taken equal care to follow the statements of absalon, and with obedient mind and pen to include both his own doings and other men's doings of which he learnt; treasuring the witness of his august narrative as though it were some teaching from the skies. wherefore, waldemar, ( ) healthful prince and father of us all, shining light of thy land, whose lineage, most glorious from times of old, i am to relate, i beseech thee let thy grace attend the faltering course of this work; for i am fettered under the weight of my purpose, and dread that i may rather expose my unskillfulness and the feebleness of my parts, than portray thy descent as i duly should. for, not to speak of thy rich inheritance from thy fathers, thou hast nobly increased thy realm by conquering thy neighbours, and in the toil of spreading thy sovereignty hast encompassed the ebbing and flowing waves of elbe, thus adding to thy crowded roll of honours no mean portion of fame. and after outstripping the renown and repute of thy forerunners by the greatness of thy deeds, thou didst not forbear to make armed, assault even upon part of the roman empire. and though thou art deemed to be well endowed with courage and generosity, thou hast left it in doubt whether thou dost more terrify to thy foes in warfare or melt thy people by thy mildness. also thy most illustrious grandsire, who was sanctioned with the honours of public worship, and earned the glory of immortality by an unmerited death, now dazzles by the refulgence of his holiness those whom living he annexed in his conquests. and from his most holy wounds more virtue than blood hath flowed. moreover i, bound by an old and inherited duty of obedience, have set my heart on fighting for thee, if it be only with all the forces of my mind; my father and grandfather being known to have served thy illustrious sire in camp with loyal endurance of the toils of war. relying therefore on thy guidance and regard, i have resolved to begin with the position and configuration of our own country; for i shall relate all things as they come more vividly, if the course of this history first traverse the places to which the events belong, and take their situation as the starting-point for its narrative. the extremes, then, of this country are partly bounded by a frontier of another land, and partly enclosed by the waters of the adjacent sea. the interior is washed and encompassed by the ocean; and this, through the circuitous winds of the interstices, now straitens into the narrows of a firth, now advances into ampler bays, forming a number of islands. hence denmark is cut in pieces by the intervening waves of ocean, and has but few portions of firm and continuous territory; these being divided by the mass of waters that break them up, in ways varying with the different angle of the bend of the sea. of all these, jutland, being the largest and first settled, holds the chief place in the danish kingdom. it both lies fore-most and stretches furthest, reaching to the frontiers of teutonland, from contact with which it is severed by the bed of the river eyder. northwards it swells somewhat in breadth, and runs out to the shore of the noric channel (skagerrak). in this part is to be found the fjord called liim, which is so full of fish that it seems to yield the natives as much food as the whole soil. close by this fjord also lies lesser (north) friesland, which curves in from the promontory of jutland in a cove of sinking plains and shelving lap, and by the favour of the flooding ocean yields immense crops of grain. but whether this violent inundation bring the inhabitants more profit or peril, remains a vexed question. for when the (dykes of the) estuaries, whereby the waves of the sea are commonly checked among that people, are broken through by the greatness of the storm, such a mass of waters is wont to overrun the fields that it sometimes overwhelms not only the tilled lands, but people and their dwellings likewise. eastwards, after jutland, comes the isle of funen, cut off from the mainland by a very narrow sound of sea. this faces jutland on the west, and on the east zealand, which is famed for its remarkable richness in the necessaries of life. this latter island, being by far the most delightful of all the provinces of our country, is held to occupy the heart of denmark, being divided by equal distances from the extreme frontier; on its eastern side the sea breaks through and cuts off the western side of skaane; and this sea commonly yields each year an abundant haul to the nets of the fishers. indeed, the whole sound is apt to be so thronged with fish that any craft which strikes on them is with difficulty got off by hard rowing, and the prize is captured no longer by tackle, but by simple use of the hands. moreover, halland and bleking, shooting forth from the mass of the skaane like two branches from a parent trunk, are linked to gothland and to norway, though with wide deviations of course, and with various gaps consisting of fjords. now in bleking is to be seen a rock which travellers can visit, dotted with letters in a strange character. for there stretches from the southern sea into the desert of vaarnsland a road of rock, contained between two lines a little way apart and very prolonged, between which is visible in the midst a level space, graven all over with characters made to be read. and though this lies so unevenly as sometimes to break through the tops of the hills, sometimes to pass along the valley bottoms, yet it can be discerned to preserve continuous traces of the characters. now waldemar, well-starred son of holy canute, marvelled at these, and desired to know their purport, and sent men to go along the rock and gather with close search the series of the characters that were to be seen there; they were then to denote them with certain marks, using letters of similar shape. these men could not gather any sort of interpretation of them, because owing to the hollow space of the graving being partly smeared up with mud and partly worn by the feet of travellers in the trampling of the road, the long line that had been drawn became blurred. hence it is plain that crevices, even in the solid rock, if long drenched with wet, become choked either by the solid washings of dirt or the moistening drip of showers. but since this country, by its closeness of language as much as of position, includes sweden and norway, i will record their divisions and their climates also as i have those of denmark. these territories, lying under the northern pole, and facing bootes and the great bear, reach with their utmost outlying parts the latitude of the freezing zone; and beyond these the extraordinary sharpness of the cold suffers not human habitation. of these two, norway has been allotted by the choice of nature a forbidding rocky site. craggy and barren, it is beset all around by cliffs, and the huge desolate boulders give it the aspect of a rugged and a gloomy land; in its furthest part the day-star is not hidden even by night; so that the sun, scorning the vicissitudes of day and night, ministers in unbroken presence an equal share of his radiance to either season. on the west of norway comes the island called iceland, with the mighty ocean washing round it: a land very squalid to dwell in, but noteworthy for marvels, both strange occurrences and objects that pass belief. a spring is there which, by the malignant reek of its water, destroys the original nature of anything whatsoever. indeed, all that is sprinkled with the breath of its vapour is changed into the hardness of stone. it remains a doubt whether it be more marvellous or more perilous, that soft and flowing water should be invested with such a stiffness, as by a sudden change to transmute into the nature of stone whatsoever is put to it and drenched with its reeking fume, nought but the shape surviving. here also are said to be other springs, which now are fed with floods of rising water, and, overflowing in full channels, cast a mass of spray upwards; and now again their bubbling flags, and they can scarce be seen below at the bottom, and are swallowed into deep hiding far under ground. hence, when they are gushing over, they bespatter everything about them with the white spume, but when they are spent the sharpest eye cannot discern them. in this island there is likewise a mountain, whose floods of incessant fire make it look like a glowing rock, and which, by belching out flames, keeps its crest in an everlasting blaze. this thing awakens our wonder as much as those aforesaid; namely, when a land lying close to the extreme of cold can have such abundance of matter to keep up the heat, as to furnish eternal fires with unseen fuel, and supply an endless provocative to feed the burning. to this isle also, at fixed and appointed seasons, there drifts a boundless mass of ice, and when it approaches and begins to dash upon the rugged reefs, then, just as if the cliffs rang reply, there is heard from the deep a roar of voices and a changing din of extraordinary clamour. whence it is supposed that spirits, doomed to torture for the iniquity of their guilty life, do here pay, by that bitter cold, the penalty of their sins. and so any portion of this mass that is cut off when the aforesaid ice breaks away from the land, soon slips its bonds and bars, though it be made fast with ever so great joins and knots. the mind stands dazed in wonder, that a thing which is covered with bolts past picking, and shut in by manifold and intricate barriers, should so depart after that mass whereof it was a portion, as by its enforced and inevitable flight to baffle the wariest watching. there also, set among the ridges and crags of the mountains, is another kind of ice which is known periodically to change and in a way reverse its position, the upper parts sinking to the bottom, and the lower again returning to the top. for proof of this story it is told that certain men, while they chanced to be running over the level of ice, rolled into the abyss before them, and into the depths of the yawning crevasses, and were a little later picked up dead without the smallest chink of ice above them. hence it is common for many to imagine that the urn of the sling of ice first swallows them, and then a little after turns upside down and restores them. here also, is reported to bubble up the water of a pestilent flood, which if a man taste, he falls struck as though by poison. also there are other springs, whose gushing waters are said to resemble the quality of the bowl of ceres. there are also fires, which, though they cannot consume linen, yet devour so fluent a thing as water. also there is a rock, which flies over mountain-steeps, not from any outward impulse, but of its innate and proper motion. and now to unfold somewhat more thoroughly our delineation of norway. it should be known that on the east it is conterminous with sweden and gothland, and is bounded on both sides by the waters of the neighbouring ocean. also on the north it faces a region whose position and name are unknown, and which lacks all civilisation, but teems with peoples of monstrous strangeness; and a vast interspace of flowing sea severs it from the portion of norway opposite. this sea is found hazardous for navigation, and suffers few that venture thereon to return in peace. moreover, the upper bend of the ocean, which cuts through denmark and flows past it, washes the southern side of gothland with a gulf of some width; while its lower channel, passing the northern sides of gothland and norway, turns eastwards, widening much in breadth, and is bounded by a curve of firm land. this limit of the sea the elders of our race called grandvik. thus between grandvik and the southern sea there lies a short span of mainland, facing the seas that wash on either shore; and but that nature had set this as a boundary where the billows almost meet, the tides of the two seas would have flowed into one, and cut off sweden and norway into an island. the regions on the east of these lands are inhabited by the skric-finns. this people is used to an extraordinary kind of carriage, and in its passion for the chase strives to climb untrodden mountains, and attains the coveted ground at the cost of a slippery circuit. for no crag juts out so high, but they can reach its crest by fetching a cunning compass. for when they first leave the deep valleys, they glide twisting and circling among the bases of the rocks, thus making the route very roundabout by dint of continually swerving aside, until, passing along the winding curves of the tracks, they conquer the appointed summit. this same people is wont to use the skins of certain beasts for merchandise with its neighbours. now sweden faces denmark and norway on the west, but on the south and on much of its eastern side it is skirted by the ocean. past this eastward is to be found a vast accumulation of motley barbarism. that the country of denmark was once cultivated and worked by giants, is attested by the enormous stones attached to the barrows and caves of the ancients. should any man question that this is accomplished by superhuman force, let him look up at the tops of certain mountains and say, if he knows how, what man hath carried such immense boulders up to their crests. for anyone considering this marvel will mark that it is inconceivable how a mass, hardly at all or but with difficulty movable upon a level, could have been raised to so mighty a peak of so lofty a mountain by mere human effort, or by the ordinary exertion of human strength. but as to whether, after the deluge went forth, there existed giants who could do such deeds, or men endowed beyond others with bodily force, there is scant tradition to tell us. but, as our countrymen aver, those who even to-day are said to dwell in that rugged and inaccessible desert aforesaid, are, by the mutable nature of their bodies, vouchsafed the power of being now near, now far, and of appearing and vanishing in turn. the approach to this desert is beset with perils of a fearful kind, and has seldom granted to those who attempted it an unscathed return. now i will let my pen pass to my theme. endnotes: ( ) waldemar the second ( - ); saxo does not reach his history. book one. now dan and angul, with whom the stock of the danes begins, were begotten of humble, their father, and were the governors and not only the founders of our race. (yet dudo, the historian of normandy, considers that the danes are sprung and named from the danai.) and these two men, though by the wish and favour of their country they gained the lordship of the realm, and, owing to the wondrous deserts of their bravery, got the supreme power by the consenting voice of their countrymen, yet lived without the name of king: the usage whereof was not then commonly resorted to by any authority among our people. of these two, angul, the fountain, so runs the tradition, of the beginnings of the anglian race, caused his name to be applied to the district which he ruled. this was an easy kind of memorial wherewith to immortalise his fame: for his successors a little later, when they gained possession of britain, changed the original name of the island for a fresh title, that of their own land. this action was much thought of by the ancients: witness bede, no mean figure among the writers of the church, who was a native of england, and made it his care to embody the doings of his country in the most hallowed treasury of his pages; deeming it equally a religious duty to glorify in writing the deeds of his land, and to chronicle the history of the church. from dan, however, so saith antiquity; the pedigrees of our kings have flowed in glorious series, like channels from some parent spring. grytha, a matron most highly revered among the teutons, bore him two sons, humble and lother. the ancients, when they were to choose a king, were wont to stand on stones planted in the ground, and to proclaim their votes, in order to foreshadow from the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be lasting. by this ceremony humble was elected king at his father's death, thus winning a novel favour from his country; but by the malice of ensuing fate he fell from a king into a common man. for he was taken by lother in war, and bought his life by yielding up his crown; such, in truth, were the only terms of escape offered him in his defeat. forced, therefore, by the injustice of a brother to lay down his sovereignty, he furnished the lesson to mankind, that there is less safety, though more pomp, in the palace than in the cottage. also, he bore his wrong so meekly that he seemed to rejoice at his loss of title as though it were a blessing; and i think he had a shrewd sense of the quality of a king's estate. but lother played the king as insupportably as he had played the soldier, inaugurating his reign straightway with arrogance and crime; for he counted it uprightness to strip all the most eminent of life or goods, and to clear his country of its loyal citizens, thinking all his equals in birth his rivals for the crown. he was soon chastised for his wickedness; for he met his end in an insurrection of his country; which had once bestowed on him his kingdom, and now bereft him of his life. skiold, his son, inherited his natural bent, but not his behaviour; avoiding his inborn perversity by great discretion in his tender years, and thus escaping all traces of his father's taint. so he appropriated what was alike the more excellent and the earlier share of the family character; for he wisely departed from his father's sins, and became a happy counterpart of his grandsire's virtues. this man was famous in his youth among the huntsmen of his father for his conquest of a monstrous beast: a marvellous incident, which augured his future prowess. for he chanced to obtain leave from his guardians, who were rearing him very carefully, to go and see the hunting. a bear of extraordinary size met him; he had no spear, but with the girdle that he commonly wore he contrived to bind it, and gave it to his escort to kill. more than this, many champions of tried prowess were at the same time of his life vanquished by him singly; of these attal and skat were renowned and famous. while but fifteen years of age he was of unusual bodily size and displayed mortal strength in its perfection, and so mighty were the proofs of his powers that the rest of the kings of the danes were called after him by a common title, the skioldung's. those who were wont to live an abandoned and flaccid life, and to sap their self-control by wantonness, this man vigilantly spurred to the practice of virtue in an active career. thus the ripeness of skiold's spirit outstripped the fulness of his strength, and he fought battles at which one of his tender years could scarce look on. and as he thus waxed in years and valour he beheld the perfect beauty of alfhild, daughter of the king of the saxons, sued for her hand, and, for her sake, in the sight of the armies of the teutons and the danes, challenged and fought with skat, governor of allemannia, and a suitor for the same maiden; whom he slew, afterwards crushing the whole nation of the allemannians, and forcing them to pay tribute, they being subjugated by the death of their captain. skiold was eminent for patriotism as well as arms. for he annulled unrighteous laws, and most heedfully executed whatsoever made for the amendment of his country's condition. further, he regained by his virtue the realm that his father's wickedness had lost. he was the first to proclaim the law abolishing manumissions. a slave, to whom he had chanced to grant his freedom, had attempted his life by stealthy treachery, and he exacted a bitter penalty; as though it were just that the guilt of one freedman should be visited upon all. he paid off all men's debts from his own treasury, and contended, so to say, with all other monarchs in courage, bounty, and generous dealing. the sick he used to foster, and charitably gave medicines to those sore stricken; bearing witness that he had taken on him the care of his country and not of himself. he used to enrich his nobles not only with home taxes, but also with plunder taken in war; being wont to aver that the prize-money should flow to the soldiers, and the glory to the general. thus delivered of his bitterest rival in wooing, he took as the prize of combat the maiden, for the love of whom he had fought, and wedded her in marriage. soon after, he had by her a son, gram, whose wondrous parts savoured so strongly of his father's virtues that he was deemed to tread in their very footsteps. the days of gram's youth were enriched with surpassing gifts of mind and body, and he raised them to the crest of renown. posterity did such homage to his greatness that in the most ancient poems of the danes royal dignity is implied in his very name. he practiced with the most zealous training whatsoever serves to sharpen and strengthen the bodily powers. taught by the fencers, he trained himself by sedulous practice to parrying and dealing blows. he took to wife the daughter of his upbringer, roar, she being his foster-sister and of his own years, in order the better to show his gratefulness for his nursing. a little while after he gave her in marriage to a certain bess, since he had ofttimes used his strenuous service. in this partner of his warlike deeds he put his trust; and he has left it a question whether he has won more renown by bess's valour or his own. gram, chancing to hear that groa, daughter of sigtryg, king of the swedes, was plighted to a certain giant, and holding accursed an union so unworthy of the blood royal, entered on a swedish war; being destined to emulate the prowess of hercules in resisting the attempts of monsters. he went into gothland, and, in order to frighten people out of his path, strode on clad in goats' skins, swathed in the motley hides of beasts, and grasping in his right hand a dreadful weapon, thus feigning the attire of a giant; when he met groa herself riding with a very small escort of women on foot, and making her way, as it chanced, to the forest-pools to bathe, she thought it was her betrothed who had hastened to meet her, and was scared with feminine alarm at so strange a garb: so, flinging up the reins, and shaking terribly all over, she began in the song of her country, thus: "i see that a giant, hated of the king, has come, and darkens the highways with his stride. or my eyes play me false; for it has oft befallen bold warriors to skulk behind the skin of a beast." then began bess: "maiden, seated on the shoulders of the steed, tell me, pouring forth in thy turn words of answer, what is thy name, and of what line art thou born?" groa replied: "groa is my name; my sire is a king, glorious in blood, gleaming in armour. disclose to us, thou also, who thou art, or whence sprung!" to whom bess: "i am bess, brave in battle, ruthless to foes, a terror to nations, and oft drenching my right hand in the blood of foes." then said groa: "who, prithee, commands your lines? under what captain raise ye the war-standards? what prince controls the battle? under whose guidance is the war made ready?" bess in answer: "gram, the blest in battle, rules the array: force nor fear can swerve him; flaming pyre and cruel sword and ocean billow have never made him afraid. led by him, maiden, we raise the golden standards of war." groa once more: "turn your feet and go back hence, lest sigtryg vanquish you all with his own array, and fasten you to a cruel stake, your throats haltered with the cord, and doom your carcases to the stiff noose, and, glaring evilly, thrust out your corpses to the hungry raven." bess again: "gram, ere he shall shut his own eyes in death, shall first make him a ghost, and, smiting him on the crest, shall send him to tartarus. we fear no camp of the swedes. why threaten us with ghastly dooms, maiden?" groa answered him: "behold, i will ride thence to see again the roof of my father which i know, that i may not rashly set eyes on the array of my brother who is coming. and i pray that your death-doom may tarry for you who abide." bess replied: "daughter, to thy father go back with good cheer; nor imprecate swift death upon us, nor let choler shake thy bosom. for often has a woman, harsh at first and hard to a wooer, yielded the second time." whereupon gram could brook no longer to be silent, and pitching his tones gruffly, so as to mimic a gruesome and superhuman voice, accosted the maiden thus: "let not the maiden fear the brother of the fleet giant, nor turn pale because i am nigh her. for i am sent by grip, and never seek the couch and embrace of damsels save when their wish matches mine." groa answered: "who so mad as to wish to be the leman of giants? or what woman could love the bed that genders monsters? who could be the wife of demons, and know the seed whose fruit is monstrous? or who would fain share her couch with a barbarous giant? who caresses thorns with her fingers? who would mingle honest kisses with mire? who would unite shaggy limbs to smooth ones which correspond not? full ease of love cannot be taken when nature cries out against it: nor doth the love customary in the use of women sort with monsters." gram rejoined: "oft with conquering hand i have tamed the necks of mighty kings, defeating with stronger arm their insolent pride. thence take red-glowing gold, that the troth may be made firm by the gift, and that the faith to be brought to our wedlock may stand fast." thus speaking, he cast off his disguises, and revealed his natural comeliness; and by a single sight of him he filled the damsel with well-nigh as much joy as he had struck her with fear before at his counterfeit. she was even incited to his embraces by the splendour of his beauty; nor did he fail to offer her the gifts of love. having won groa, bess proceeded and learnt that the road was beset by two robbers. these he slew simply by charging them as they rushed covetously forth to despoil him. this done, loth to seem to have done any service to the soil of an enemy, he put timbers under the carcases of the slain, fastened them thereto, and stretched them so as to counterfeit an upright standing position; so that in their death they might menace in seeming those whom their life had harmed in truth; and that, terrible even after their decease, they might block the road in effigy as much as they had once in deed. whence it appears that in slaying the robbers he took thought for himself and not for sweden: for he betokened by so singular an act how great a hatred of sweden filled him. having heard from the diviners that sigtryg could only be conquered by gold, he straightway fixed a knob of gold to a wooden mace, equipped himself therewith in the war wherein he attacked the king, and obtained his desire. this exploit was besung by bess in a most zealous strain of eulogy: "gram, the fierce wielder of the prosperous mace, knowing not the steel, rained blows on the outstretched sword, and with a stock beat off the lances of the mighty. "following the decrees and will of the gods, he brought low the glory of the powerless swedes, doing their king to death and crushing him with the stiff gold. "for he pondered on the arts of war: he wielded in his clasp the ruddy-flashing wood, and victoriously with noble stroke made their fallen captain writhe. "shrewdly he conquered with the hardness of gold him whom fate forbade should be slain by steel; unsworded, waging war with the worthier metal. "this treasure, for which its deviser claims glory and the height of honour, shall abide yet more illustrious hereafter, known far and wide in ampler fame." having now slain sigtryg, the king of sweden, gram desired to confirm his possession of the empire which he had won in war; and therefore, suspecting swarin the governor of gothland of aspiring to the crown, he challenged him to combat, and slew him. this man's brethren, of whom he had seven lawfully born, and nine the sons of a concubine, sought to avenge their brother's death, but gram, in an unequal contest, cut them off. gram, for his marvellous prowess, was granted a share in the sovereignty by his father, who was now in extreme age, and thought it better and likewise more convenient to give his own blood a portion of the supremacy of the realm, than now in the setting of his life to administer it without a partner. therefore ring, a nobly-born zealander, stirred the greater part of the danes with desire for insurrection; fancying that one of these men was unripe for his rank, and that the other had run the course of his powers, alleging the weakness in years of both, and declaring that the wandering wit of an old man made the one, and that of a boy the other, unfit for royal power. but they fought and crushed him, making him an example to all men, that no season of life is to be deemed incompatible with valour. many other deeds also king gram did. he declared war against sumble, king of the finns; but when he set eyes upon the king's daughter, signe, he laid down his arms, the foeman turned into the suitor, and, promising to put away his own wife, he plighted troth with her. but, while much busied with a war against norway, which he had taken up against king swipdag for debauching his sister and his daughter, he heard from a messenger that signe had, by sumble's treachery, been promised in marriage to henry, king of saxony. then, inclining to love the maiden more than his soldiers, he left his army, privily made his way to finland, and came in upon the wedding, which was already begun. putting on a garb of the utmost meanness, he lay down at the table in a seat of no honour. when asked what he brought, he professed skill in leechcraft. at last, when all were drenched in drunkenness, he gazed at the maiden, and amid the revels of the riotous banquet, cursing deep the fickleness of women, and vaunting loud his own deeds of valour, he poured out the greatness of his wrath in a song like this: "singly against eight at once i drove the darts of death, and smote nine with a back-swung sword, when i slew swarin, who wrongfully assumed his honours and tried to win fame unmerited; wherefore i have oft dyed in foreign blood my blade red with death and reeking with slaughter, and have never blenched at the clash of dagger or the sheen of helmet. now signe, the daughter of sumble, vilely spurns me, and endures vows not mine, cursing her ancient troth; and, conceiving an ill-ordered love, commits a notable act of female lightness; for she entangles, lures, and bestains princes, rebuffing beyond all others the lordly of birth; yet remaining firm to none, but ever wavering, and bringing to birth impulses doubtful and divided." and as he spoke he leapt up from where he lay, and there he cut henry down while at the sacred board and the embraces of his friends, carried off his bride from amongst the bridesmaids, felled most of the guests, and bore her off with him in his ship. thus the bridal was turned into a funeral; and the finns might learn the lesson, that hands should not be laid upon the loves of other men. after this swipdag, king of norway, destroyed gram, who was attempting to avenge the outrage on his sister and the attempt on his daughter's chastity. this battle was notable for the presence of the saxon forces, who were incited to help swipdag, not so much by love of him, as by desire to avenge henry. guthorm and hadding, the son of gram (groa being the mother of the first and signe of the second), were sent over to sweden in a ship by their foster-father, brage (swipdag being now master of denmark), and put in charge of the giants wagnhofde and hafle, for guard as well as rearing. as i shall have briefly to relate doings of these folk, and would fain not seem to fabricate what conflicts with common belief or outsteps the faithful truth, it is worth the knowing that there were in old times three kinds of magicians who by diverse sleights practiced extraordinary marvels. the first of these were men of monstrous stock, termed by antiquity giants; these by their exceeding great bodily stature surpassed the size natural to mankind. those who came after these were the first who gained skill in divination from entrails, and attained the pythonic art. these surpassed the former in briskness of mental parts as much as they fell behind them in bodily condition. constant wars for the supremacy were waged between these and the giants; till at last the sorcerers prevailed, subdued the tribe of giants by arms, and acquired not merely the privilege of ruling, but also the repute of being divine. both of these kinds had extreme skill in deluding the eyesight, knowing how to obscure their own faces and those of others with divers semblances, and to darken the true aspects of things with beguiling shapes. but the third kind of men, springing from the natural union of the first two, did not answer to the nature of their parents either in bodily size or in practice of magic arts; yet these gained credit for divinity with minds that were befooled by their jugglings. nor must we marvel if, tempted by the prodigious miracles of these folk, the barbaric world fell to worshipping a false religion, when others like unto these, who were mere mortals, but were reverenced with divine honours, beguiled even the shrewdness of the latins. i have touched on these things lest, when i relate of sleights and marvels, i be checked by the disbelief of the reader. now i will leave these matters and return to my theme. swipdag, now that he had slain gram, was enriched with the realms of denmark and sweden; and because of the frequent importunities of his wife he brought back from banishment her brother guthorm, upon his promising tribute, and made him ruler of the danes. but hadding preferred to avenge his father rather than take a boon from his foe. this man's nature so waxed and throve that in the early season of his youth he was granted the prime of manhood. leaving the pursuit of pleasure, he was constantly zealous in warlike exercises; remembering that he was the son of a fighting father, and was bound to spend his whole span of life in approved deeds of warfare. hardgrep, daughter of wagnhofde, tried to enfeeble his firm spirit with her lures of love, contending and constantly averring that he ought to offer the first dues of the marriage bed in wedlock with her, who had proffered to his childhood most zealous and careful fostering, and had furnished him with his first rattle. nor was she content with admonishing in plain words, but began a strain of song as follows: "why doth thy life thus waste and wander? why dost thou pass thy years unwed, following arms, thirsting for throats? nor does my beauty draw thy vows. carried away by excess of frenzy, thou art little prone to love. steeped in blood and slaughter, thou judgest wars better than the bed, nor refreshest thy soul with incitements. thy fierceness finds no leisure; dalliance is far from thee, and savagery fostered. nor is thy hand free from blasphemy while thou loathest the rites of love. let this hateful strictness pass away, let that loving warmth approach, and plight the troth of love to me, who gave thee the first breasts of milk in childhood, and helped thee, playing a mother's part, duteous to thy needs." when he answered that the size of her body was unwieldy for the embraces of a mortal, since doubtless her nature was framed in conformity to her giant stock, she said: "be not moved by my unwonted look of size. for my substance is sometimes thinner, sometimes ampler; now meagre, now abundant; and i alter and change at my pleasure the condition of my body, which is at one time shrivelled up and at another time expanded: now my tallness rises to the heavens, and now i settle down into a human being, under a more bounded shape." as he still faltered, and was slow to believe her words, she added the following song: "youth, fear not the converse of my bed. i change my bodily outline in twofold wise, and am wont to enjoin a double law upon my sinews. for i conform to shapes of different figure in turn, and am altered at my own sweet will: now my neck is star-high, and soars nigh to the lofty thunderer; then it falls and declines to human strength, and plants again on earth that head which was near the firmament. thus i lightly shift my body into diverse phases, and am beheld in varying wise; for changefully now cramped stiffness draws in my limbs, now the virtue of my tall body unfolds them, and suffers them to touch the cloud-tops. now i am short and straitened, now stretch out with loosened knee; and i have mutably changed myself like wax into strange aspects. he who knows of proteus should not marvel at me. my shape never stays the same, and my aspect is twofold: at one time it contrasts its outstretched limbs, at another shoots them out when closed; now disentangling the members and now rolling them back into a coil. i dart out my ingathered limbs, and presently, while they are strained, i wrinkle them up, dividing my countenance between shapes twain, and adopting two forms; with the greater of these i daunt the fierce, while with the shorter i seek the embraces of men." by thus averring she obtained the embraces of hadding; and her love for the youth burned so high that when she found him desirous of revisiting his own land, she did not hesitate to follow him in man's attire, and counted it as joy to share his hardships and perils. while upon the journey she had undertaken, she chanced to enter in his company, in order to pass the night, a dwelling, the funeral of whose dead master was being conducted with melancholy rites. here, desiring to pry into the purposes of heaven by the help of a magical espial, she graved on wood some very dreadful spells, and caused hadding to put them under the dead man's tongue; thus forcing him to utter, with the voice so given, a strain terrible to hear: "perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him be punished for calling a spirit out of bale! "whoso hath called me, who am lifeless and dead, back from the abode below, and hath brought me again into upper air, let him pay full penalty with his own death in the dreary shades beneath livid styx. behold, counter to my will and purpose, i must declare some bitter tidings. for as ye go away from this house ye will come to the narrow path of a grove, and will be a prey to demons all about. then she who hath brought our death back from out of void, and has given us a sight of this light once more, by her prayers wondrously drawing forth the ghost and casting it into the bonds of the body, shall bitterly bewail her rash enterprise. "perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him be punished for calling a spirit out of bale! "for when the black pestilence of the blast that engenders monsters has crushed out the inmost entrails with stern effort, and when their hand has swept away the living with cruel nail, tearing off limbs and rending ravished bodies; then hadding, thy life shall survive, nor shall the nether realms bear off thy ghost, nor thy spirit pass heavily to the waters of styx; but the woman who hath made the wretched ghost come back hither, crushed by her own guilt, shall appease our dust; she shall be dust herself. "perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him be punished for calling a spirit out of bale!" so, while they were passing the night in the forest foretold them, in a shelter framed of twigs, a hand of extraordinary size was seen to wander over the inside of the dwelling. terrified at this portent, hadding entreated the aid of his nurse. then hardgrep, expanding her limbs and swelling to a mighty bigness, gripped the hand fast and held it to her foster-child to hew off. what flowed from the noisesome wounds he dealt was not so much blood as corrupt matter. but she paid the penalty of this act, presently being torn in pieces by her kindred of the same stock; nor did her constitution or her bodily size help her against feeling the attacks of her foes' claws. hadding, thus bereft of his foster-mother, chanced to be made an ally in a solemn covenant to a rover, lysir, by a certain man of great age that had lost an eye, who took pity on his loneliness. now the ancients, when about to make a league, were wont to besprinkle their footsteps with blood of one another, so to ratify their pledge of friendship by reciprocal barter of blood. lysir and hadding, being bound thus in the strictest league, declared war against loker, the tyrant of the kurlanders. they were defeated; and the old man aforementioned took hadding, as he fled on horseback, to his own house, and there refreshed him with a certain pleasant draught, telling him that he would find himself quite brisk and sound in body. this prophetic advice he confirmed by a song as follows: "as thou farest hence, a foe, thinking thee a deserter, will assail thee, that he may keep thee bound and cast thee to be devoured by the mangling jaws of beasts. but fill thou the ears of the warders with divers tales, and when they have done the feast and deep sleep holds them, snap off the fetters upon thee and the loathly chains. turn thy feet thence, and when a little space has fled, with all thy might rise up against a swift lion who is wont to toss the carcases of the prisoners, and strive with thy stout arms against his savage shoulders, and with naked sword search his heart-strings. straightway put thy throat to him and drink the steaming blood, and devour with ravenous jaws the banquet of his body. then renewed strength will come to thy limbs, then shall undreamed-of might enter thy sinews, and an accumulation of stout force shall bespread and nerve thy frame through-out. i myself will pave the path to thy prayers, and will subdue the henchmen in sleep, and keep them snoring throughout the lingering night." and as he spoke, he took back the young man on his horse, and set him where he had found him. hadding cowered trembling under his mantle; but so extreme was his wonder at the event, that with keen vision he peered through its holes. and he saw that before the steps of the horse lay the sea; but was told not to steal a glimpse of the forbidden thing, and therefore turned aside his amazed eyes from the dread spectacle of the roads that he journeyed. then he was taken by loker, and found by very sure experience that every point of the prophecy was fulfilled upon him. so he assailed handwan, king of the hellespont, who was entrenched behind an impregnable defence of wall in his city duna, and withstood him not in the field, but with battlements. its summit defying all approach by a besieger, he ordered that the divers kinds of birds who were wont to nest in that spot should be caught by skilled fowlers, and he caused wicks which had been set on fire to be fastened beneath their wings. the birds sought the shelter of their own nests, and filled the city with a blaze; all the townsmen flocked to quench it, and left the gates defenceless. he attacked and captured handwan, but suffered him to redeem his life with gold for ransom. thus, when he might have cut off his foe, he preferred to grant him the breath of life; so far did his mercy qualify his rage. after this he prevailed over a great force of men of the east, and came back to sweden. swipdag met him with a great fleet off gottland; but hadding attacked and destroyed him. and thus he advanced to a lofty pitch of renown, not only by the fruits of foreign spoil, but by the trophies of his vengeance for his brother and his father. and he exchanged exile for royalty, for he became king of his own land as soon as he regained it. at this time there was one odin, who was credited over all europe with the honour, which was false, of godhead, but used more continually to sojourn at upsala; and in this spot, either from the sloth of the inhabitants or from its own pleasantness, he vouchsafed to dwell with somewhat especial constancy. the kings of the north, desiring more zealously to worship his deity, embounded his likeness in a golden image; and this statue, which betokened their homage, they transmitted with much show of worship to byzantium, fettering even the effigied arms with a serried mass of bracelets. odin was overjoyed at such notoriety, and greeted warmly the devotion of the senders. but his queen frigga, desiring to go forth more beautified, called smiths, and had the gold stripped from the statue. odin hanged them, and mounted the statue upon a pedestal, which by the marvellous skill of his art he made to speak when a mortal touched it. but still frigga preferred the splendour of her own apparel to the divine honours of her husband, and submitted herself to the embraces of one of her servants; and it was by this man's device she broke down the image, and turned to the service of her private wantonness that gold which had been devoted to public idolatry. little thought she of practicing unchastity, that she might the easier satisfy her greed, this woman so unworthy to be the consort of a god; but what should i here add, save that such a godhead was worthy of such a wife? so great was the error that of old befooled the minds of men. thus odin, wounded by the double trespass of his wife, resented the outrage to his image as keenly as that to his bed; and, ruffled by these two stinging dishonours, took to an exile overflowing with noble shame, imagining so to wipe off the slur of his ignominy. when he had retired, one mit-othin, who was famous for his juggling tricks, was likewise quickened, as though by inspiration from on high, to seize the opportunity of feigning to be a god; and, wrapping the minds of the barbarians in fresh darkness, he led them by the renown of his jugglings to pay holy observance to his name. he said that the wrath of the gods could never be appeased nor the outrage to their deity expiated by mixed and indiscriminate sacrifices, and therefore forbade that prayers for this end should be put up without distinction, appointing to each of those above his especial drink-offering. but when odin was returning, he cast away all help of jugglings, went to finland to hide himself, and was there attacked and slain by the inhabitants. even in his death his abominations were made manifest, for those who came nigh his barrow were cut off by a kind of sudden death; and after his end, he spread such pestilence that he seemed almost to leave a filthier record in his death than in his life: it was as though he would extort from the guilty a punishment for his slaughter. the inhabitants, being in this trouble, took the body out of the mound, beheaded it, and impaled it through the breast with a sharp stake; and herein that people found relief. the death of odin's wife revived the ancient splendour of his name, and seemed to wipe out the disgrace upon his deity; so, returning from exile, he forced all those, who had used his absence to assume the honours of divine rank, to resign them as usurped; and the gangs of sorcerers that had arisen he scattered like a darkness before the advancing glory of his godhead. and he forced them by his power not only to lay down their divinity, but further to quit the country, deeming that they, who tried to foist themselves so iniquitously into the skies, ought to be outcasts from the earth. meanwhile asmund, the son of swipdag, fought with hadding to avenge his father. and when he heard that henry his son, his love for whom he set even before his own life, had fallen fighting valiantly, his soul longed for death, and loathed the light of day, and made a song in a strain like this: "what brave hath dared put on my armour? the sheen of the helmet serves not him who tottereth, nor doth the breastplate fitly shelter him that is sore spent. our son is slain, let us riot in battle; my eager love for him driveth me to my death, that i may not be left outliving my dear child. in each hand i am fain to grasp the sword; now without shield let us ply our warfare bare-breasted, with flashing blades. let the rumour of our rage beacon forth: boldly let us grind to powder the column of the foe; nor let the battle be long and chafe us; nor let our onset be shattered in rout and be still." when he had said this, he gripped his hilt with both hands, and, fearless of peril, swung his shield upon his back and slew many. hadding therefore called on the powers with which he was allied to protect him, and on a sudden wagnhofde rode up to fight on his side. and when asmund saw his crooked sword, he cried out, and broke into the following strain: "why fightest thou with curved sword? the short sword shall prove thy doom, the javelin shall be flung and bring forth death. thou shouldst conquer thy foe by thy hand, but thou trustest that he can be rent by spells; thou trustest more in words than rigour, and puttest thy strength in thy great resource. why dost thus beat me back with thy shield, threatening with thy bold lance, when thou art so covered with wretched crimes and spotted all over? thus hath the brand of shame bestained thee, rotting in sin, lubber-lipped." while he thus clamoured, hadding, flinging his spear by the thong, pierced him through. but asmund lacked not comfort even for his death; for while his life flickered in the socket he wounded the foot of his slayer, and by this short instant of revenge he memorized his fall, punishing the other with an incurable limp. thus crippling of a limb befell one of them and loss of life the other. asmund's body was buried in solemn state at upsala and attended with royal obsequies. his wife gunnhild, loth to outlive him, cut off her own life with the sword, choosing rather to follow her lord in death than to forsake him by living. her friends, in consigning her body to burial, laid her with her husband's dust, thinking her worthy to share the mound of the man, her love for whom she had set above life. so there lies gunnhild, clasping her lord somewhat more beautifully in the tomb than she had ever done in the bed. after this hadding, now triumphant, wasted sweden. but asmund's son, named uffe, shrinking from a conflict, transported his army into denmark, thinking it better to assail the house of his enemy than to guard his own, and deeming it a timely method of repelling his wrongs to retaliate upon his foe what he was suffering at his hands. thus the danes had to return and defend their own, preferring the safety of their land to lordship of a foreign realm; and uffe went back to his own country, now rid of an enemy's arms. hadding, on returning from the swedish war, perceived that his treasury, wherein he was wont to store the wealth he had gotten by the spoils of war, had been forced and robbed, and straightway hanged its keeper glumer, proclaiming by a crafty device, that, if any of the culprits brought about the recovery of the stolen goods, he should have the same post of honour as glumer had filled. upon this promise, one of the guilty men became more zealous to reap the bounty than to hide his crime, and had the money brought back to the king. his confederates fancied he had been received into the king's closest friendship, and believed that the honours paid him were as real as they were lavish; and therefore they also, hoping to be as well rewarded, brought back their moneys and avowed their guilt. their confession was received at first with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment, thus bequeathing a signal lesson against being too confiding. i should judge that men, whose foolish blabbing brought them to destruction, when wholesome silence could have ensured their safety, well deserved to atone upon the gallows for their breach of reticence. after this hadding passed the whole winter season in the utmost preparation for the renewal of the war. when the frosts had been melted by the springtime sun, he went back to sweden and there spent five years in warfare. by dint of this prolonged expedition, his soldiers, having consumed all their provision, were reduced almost to the extremity of emaciation, and began to assuage their hunger with mushrooms from the wood. at last, under stress of extreme necessity, they devoured their horses, and finally satisfied themselves with the carcases of dogs. worse still, they did not scruple to feed upon human limbs. so, when the danes were brought unto the most desperate straits, there sounded in the camp, in the first sleep of the night, and no man uttering it, the following song: "with foul augury have ye left the abode of your country, thinking to harry these fields in war. what idle notion mocks your minds? what blind self-confidence has seized your senses, that ye think this soil can thus be won. the might of sweden cannot yield or quail before the war of the stranger; but the whole of your column shall melt away when it begins to assault our people in war. for when flight has broken up the furious onset, and the straggling part of the fighters wavers, then to those who prevail in the war is given free scope to slay those who turn their backs, and they have earned power to smite the harder when fate drives the renewer of the war headlong. nor let him whom cowardice deters aim the spears." this prophecy was accomplished on the morrow's dawn by a great slaughter of the danes. on the next night the warriors of sweden heard an utterance like this, none knowing who spake it: "why doth uffe thus defy me with grievous rebellion? he shall pay the utmost penalty. for he shall be buried and transpierced under showers of lances, and shall fall lifeless in atonement for his insolent attempt. nor shall the guilt of his wanton rancour be unpunished; and, as i forebode, as soon as he joins battle and fights, the points shall fasten in his limbs and strike his body everywhere, and his raw gaping wounds no bandage shall bind up; nor shall any remedy heal over thy wide gashes." on that same night the armies fought; when two hairless old men, of appearance fouler than human, and displaying their horrid baldness in the twinkling starlight, divided their monstrous efforts with opposing ardour, one of them being zealous on the danish side, and the other as fervent for the swedes. hadding was conquered and fled to helsingland, where, while washing in the cold sea-water his body which was scorched with heat, he attacked and cut down with many blows a beast of unknown kind, and having killed it had it carried into camp. as he was exulting in this deed a woman met him and addressed him in these words: "whether thou tread the fields afoot, or spread canvas overseas, thou shalt suffer the hate of the gods, and through all the world shalt behold the elements oppose thy purposes. afield thou shalt fall, on sea thou shalt be tossed, an eternal tempest shall attend the steps of thy wandering, nor shall frost-bind ever quit thy sails; nor shall thy roof-tree roof thee, but if thou seekest it, it shall fall smitten by the hurricane; thy herd shall perish of bitter chill. all things shall be tainted, and shall lament that thy lot is there. thou shalt be shunned like a pestilent tetter, nor shall any plague be fouler than thou. such chastisement doth the power of heaven mete out to thee, for truly thy sacrilegious hands have slain one of the dweller's above, disguised in a shape that was not his: thus here art thou, the slayer of a benignant god! but when the sea receives thee, the wrath of the prison of eolus shall be loosed upon thy head. the west and the furious north, the south wind shall beat thee down, shall league and send forth their blasts in rivalry; until with better prayers thou hast melted the sternness of heaven, and hast lifted with appeasement the punishment thou hast earned." so, when hadding went back, he suffered all things after this one fashion, and his coming brought disquiet upon all peaceful places. for when he was at sea a mighty storm arose and destroyed his fleet in a great tempest: and when, a shipwrecked man, he sought entertainment, he found a sudden downfall of that house. nor was there any cure for his trouble, ere he atoned by sacrifice for his crime, and was able to return into favour with heaven. for, in order to appease the deities, he sacrificed dusky victims to the god frey. this manner of propitiation by sacrifice he repeated as an annual feast, and left posterity to follow. this rite the swedes call froblod (the sacrifice or feast of frey). hadding chanced to hear that a certain giant had taken in troth ragnhild, daughter of hakon, king of the nitherians; and, loathing so ignominious a state of affairs, and utterly abominating the destined union, he forestalled the marriage by noble daring. for he went to norway and overcame by arms him that was so foul, a lover for a princess. for he thought so much more of valour than of ease, that, though he was free to enjoy all the pleasures of a king, he accounted it sweeter than any delight to repel the wrongs done, not only to himself, but to others. the maiden, not knowing him, ministered with healing tendance to the man that had done her kindness and was bruised with many wounds. and in order that lapse of time might not make her forget him, she shut up a ring in his wound, and thus left a mark on his leg. afterwards her father granted her freedom to choose her own husband; so when the young men were assembled at banquet, she went along them and felt their bodies carefully, searching for the tokens she had stored up long ago. all the rest she rejected, but hadding she discovered by the sign of the secret ring; then she embraced him, and gave herself to be the wife of him who had not suffered a giant to win her in marriage. while hadding was sojourning with her a marvellous portent befell him. while he was at supper, a woman bearing hemlocks was seen to raise her head beside the brazier, and, stretching out the lap of her robe, seemed to ask, "in what part of the world such fresh herbs had grown in winter?" the king desired to know; and, wrapping him in her mantle, she drew him with her underground, and vanished. i take it that the nether gods purposed that he should pay a visit in the flesh to the regions whither he must go when he died. so they first pierced through a certain dark misty cloud, and then advancing along a path that was worn away with long thoroughfaring, they beheld certain men wearing rich robes, and nobles clad in purple; these passed, they at last approached sunny regions which produced the herbs the woman had brought away. going further, they came on a swift and tumbling river of leaden waters, whirling down on its rapid current divers sorts of missiles, and likewise made passable by a bridge. when they had crossed this, they beheld two armies encountering one another with might and main. and when hadding inquired of the woman about their estate: "these," she said, "are they who, having been slain by the sword, declare the manner of their death by a continual rehearsal, and enact the deeds of their past life in a living spectacle." then a wall hard to approach and to climb blocked their further advance. the woman tried to leap it, but in vain, being unable to do so even with her slender wrinkled body; then she wrung off the head of a cock which she chanced to be taking down with her, and flung it beyond the barrier of the walls; and forthwith the bird came to life again, and testified by a loud crow to recovery of its breathing. then hadding turned back and began to make homewards with his wife; some rovers bore down on him, but by swift sailing he baffled their snares; for though it was almost the same wind that helped both, they were behind him as he clove the billows, and, as they had only just as much sail, could not overtake him. meantime uffe, who had a marvellously fair daughter, decreed that the man who slew hadding should have her. this sorely tempted one thuning, who got together a band of men of perm (byarmenses), being fain so to win the desired advancement. hadding was going to fall upon him, but while he was passing norway in his fleet he saw upon the beach an old man signing to him, with many wavings of his mantle, to put into shore. his companions opposed it, and declared that it would be a ruinous diversion from their journey; but he took the man on board, and was instructed by him how to order his army. for this man, in arranging the system of the columns, used to take special care that the front row consisted of two, the second of four, while the third increased and was made up to eight, and likewise each row was double that in front of it. also the old man bade the wings of the slingers go back to the extremity of the line, and put with them the ranks of the archers. so when the squadrons were arranged in the wedge, he stood himself behind the warriors, and from the wallet which was slung round his neck drew an arbalist. this seemed small at first, but soon projected with more prolonged tip, and accommodated ten arrows to its string at once, which were shot all at once at the enemy in a brisk volley, and inflicted as many wounds. then the men of perm, quitting arms for cunning, by their spells loosed the sky in clouds of rain, and melted the joyous visage of the air in dismal drenching showers. but the old man, on the other hand, drove back with a cloud the heavy mass of storm which had arisen, and checked the dripping rain by this barrier of mist. thus hadding prevailed. but the old man, when he parted from him, foretold that the death whereby he would perish would be inflicted, not by the might of an enemy, but by his own hand. also he forbade him to prefer obscure wars to such as were glorious, and border wars to those remote. hadding, after leaving him, was bidden by uffe to upsala on pretence of a interview; but lost all his escort by treachery, and made his escape sheltered by the night. for when the danes sought to leave the house into which they had been gathered on pretext of a banquet, they found one awaiting them, who mowed off the head of each of them with his sword as it was thrust out of the door. for this wrongful act hadding retaliated and slew uffe; but put away his hatred and consigned his body to a sepulchre of notable handiwork, thus avowing the greatness of his foe by his pains to beautify his tomb, and decking in death with costly distinctions the man whom he used to pursue in his life with hot enmity. then, to win the hearts of the people he had subdued, he appointed hunding, the brother of uffe, over the realm, that the sovereignty might seem to be maintained in the house of asmund, and not to have passed into the hand of a stranger. thus his enemy was now removed, and he passed several years without any stirring events and in utter disuse of arms; but at last he pleaded the long while he had been tilling the earth, and the immoderate time he had forborne from exploits on the seas; and seeming to think war a merrier thing than peace, he began to upbraid himself with slothfulness in a strain like this: "why loiter i thus in darksome hiding, in the folds of rugged hills, nor follow seafaring as of old? the continual howling of the band of wolves, and the plaintive cry of harmful beasts that rises to heaven, and the fierce impatient lions, all rob my eyes of sleep. dreary are the ridges and the desolation to hearts that trusted to do wilder work. the stark rocks and the rugged lie of the ground bar the way to spirits who are wont to love the sea. it were better service to sound the firths with the oars, to revel in plundered wares, to pursue the gold of others for my coffer, to gloat over sea-gotten gains, than to dwell in rough lands and winding woodlands and barren glades." then his wife, loving a life in the country, and weary of the marin harmony of the sea-birds, declared how great joy she found in frequenting the woodlands, in the following strain: "the shrill bird vexes me as i tarry by the shore, and with its chattering rouses me when i cannot sleep. wherefore the noisy sweep of its boisterous rush takes gentle rest from my sleeping eye, nor doth the loud-chattering sea-mew suffer me to rest in the night, forcing its wearisome tale into my dainty ears; nor when i would lie down doth it suffer me to be refreshed, clamouring with doleful modulation of its ill-boding voice. safer and sweeter do i deem the enjoyment of the woods. how are the fruits of rest plucked less by day or night than by tarrying tossed on the shifting sea?" at this time one toste emerged, from the obscure spot of jutland where he was born, into bloody notoriety. for by all manner of wanton attacks upon the common people he spread wide the fame of his cruelty, and gained so universal a repute for rancour, that he was branded with the name of the wicked. nor did he even refrain from wrongdoing to foreigners, but, after foully harrying his own land, went on to assault saxony. the saxon general syfrid, when his men were hard put to it in the battle, entreated peace. toste declared that he should have what he asked, but only if he would promise to become his ally in a war against hadding. syfrid demurred, dreading to fulfill the condition, but by sharp menaces toste induced him to promise what he asked. for threats can sometimes gain a request which soft-dealing cannot compass. hadding was conquered by this man in an affair by land; but in the midst of his flight he came on his enemy's fleet, and made it unseaworthy by boring the sides; then he got a skiff and steered it out to sea. toste thought he was slain, but though he sought long among the indiscriminate heaps of dead, could not find him, and came back to his fleet; when he saw from afar off a light boat tossing on the ocean billows. putting out some vessels, he resolved to give it chase, but was brought back by peril of shipwreck, and only just reached the shore. then he quickly took some sound craft, and accomplished the journey which he had before begun. hadding, seeing he was caught, proceeded to ask his companion whether he was a skilled and practised swimmer; and when the other said he was not, hadding despairing of flight, deliberately turned the vessel over and held on inside to its hollow, thus making his pursuers think him dead. then he attacked toste, who, careless and unaware, was greedily watching over the remnants of his spoil; cut down his army, forced him to quit his plunder, and avenged his own rout by that of toste. but toste lacked not heart to avenge himself. for, not having store enough in his own land to recruit his forces--so heavy was the blow he had received--he went to britain, calling himself an ambassador. upon his outward voyage, for sheer wantonness, he got his crew together to play dice, and when a wrangle arose from the throwing of the cubes, he taught them to wind it up with a fatal affray. and so, by means of this peaceful sport, he spread the spirit of strife through the whole ship, and the jest gave place to quarrelling, which engendered bloody combat. also, fain to get some gain out of the misfortunes of others, he seized the moneys of the slain, and attached to him a certain rover then famous, named koll; and a little after returned in his company to his own land, where he was challenged and slain by hadding, who preferred to hazard his own fortune rather than that of his soldiers. for generals of antique valour were loth to accomplish by general massacre what could be decided by the lot of a few. after these deeds the figure of hadding's dead wife appeared before him in his sleep, and sang thus: "a monster is born to thee that shall tame the rage of wild beasts, and crush with fierce mouth the fleet wolves." then she added a little: "take thou heed; from thee hath issued a bird of harm, in choler a wild screech-owl, in tongue a tuneful swan." on the morrow the king, when he had shaken off slumber, told the vision to a man skilled in interpretations, who explained the wolf to denote a son that would be truculent and the word swan as signifying a daughter; and foretold that the son would be deadly to enemies and the daughter treacherous to her father. the result answered to the prophecy. hadding's daughter, ulfhild, who was wife to a certain private person called guthorm, was moved either by anger at her match, or with aspirations to glory, and throwing aside all heed of daughterly love, tempted her husband to slay her father; declaring that she preferred the name of queen to that of princess. i have resolved to set forth the manner of her exhortation almost in the words in which she uttered it; they were nearly these: "miserable am i, whose nobleness is shadowed by an unequal yoke! hapless am i, to whose pedigree is bound the lowliness of a peasant! luckless issue of a king, to whom a common man is equal by law of marriage! pitiable daughter of a prince, whose comeliness her spiritless father hath made over to base and contemptible embraces! unhappy child of thy mother, with thy happiness marred by consorting with this bed! thy purity is handled by the impurity of a peasant, thy nobility is bowed down by ignoble commonness, thy high birth is impaired by the estate of thy husband! but thou, if any pith be in thee, if valour reign in thy soul at all, if thou deem thyself fit husband for a king's daughter, wrest the sceptre from her father, retrieve thy lineage by thy valour, balance with courage thy lack of ancestry, requite by bravery thy detriment of blood. power won by daring is more prosperous than that won by inheritance. boldness climbs to the top better than inheritance, and worth wins power better than birth. moreover, it is no shame to overthrow old age, which of its own weight sinks and totters to its fall. it shall be enough for my father to have borne the sceptre for so long; let the dotard's power fall to thee; if it elude thee, it will pass to another. whatsoever rests on old age is near its fall. think that his reign has been long enough, and be it thine, though late in the day, to be first. further, i would rather have my husband than my father king--would rather be ranked a king's wife than daughter. it is better to embrace a monarch in one's home, than to give him homage from afar; it is nobler to be a king's bride than his courtier. thou, too, must surely prefer thyself to thy wife's father for bearing the sceptre; for nature has made each one nearest to himself. if there be a will for the deed, a way will open; there is nothing but yields to the wit of man. the feast must be kept, the banquet decked, the preparations looked to, and my father bidden. the path to treachery shall be smoothed by a pretence of friendship, for nothing cloaks a snare better than the name of kindred. also his soddenness shall open a short way to his slaughter; for when the king shall be intent upon the dressing of his hair, and his hand is upon his beard and his mind upon stories; when he has parted his knotted locks, either with hairpin or disentangling comb, then let him feel the touch of the steel in his flesh. busy men commonly devise little precaution. let thy hand draw near to punish all his sins. it is a righteous deed to put forth thy hand to avenge the wretched!" thus ulfhild importuned, and her husband was overcome by her promptings, and promised his help to the treachery. but meantime hadding was warned in a dream to beware of his son-in-law's guile. he went to the feast, which his daughter had made ready for him with a show of love, and posted an armed guard hard by to use against the treachery when need was. as he ate, the henchman who was employed to do the deed of guile silently awaited a fitting moment for his crime, his dagger hid under his robe. the king, remarking him, blew on the trumpet a signal to the soldiers who were stationed near; they straightway brought aid, and he made the guile recoil on its deviser. meanwhile hunding, king of the swedes, heard false tidings that hadding was dead, and resolved to greet them with obsequies. so he gathered his nobles together, and filled a jar of extraordinary size with ale, and had this set in the midst of the feasters for their delight, and, to omit no mark of solemnity, himself assumed a servant's part, not hesitating to play the cupbearer. and while he was passing through the palace in fulfilment of his office, he stumbled and fell into the jar, and, being choked by the liquor, gave up the ghost; thus atoning either to orcus, whom he was appeasing by a baseless performance of the rites, or to hadding, about whose death he had spoken falsely. hadding, when he heard this, wished to pay like thanks to his worshipper, and, not enduring to survive his death, hanged himself in sight of the whole people. book two hadding was succeeded by frode, his son, whose fortunes were many and changeful. when he had passed the years of a stripling, he displayed the fulness of a warrior's prowess; and being loth that this should be spoilt by slothfulness, he sequestered his mind from delights and perseveringly constrained it to arms. warfare having drained his father's treasury, he lacked a stock of pay to maintain his troops, and cast about diligently for the supplies that he required; and while thus employed, a man of the country met him and roused his hopes by the following strain: "not far off is an island rising in delicate slopes, hiding treasure in its hills and ware of its rich booty. here a noble pile is kept by the occupant of the mount, who is a snake wreathed in coils, doubled in many a fold, and with tail drawn out in winding whorls, shaking his manifold spirals and shedding venom. if thou wouldst conquer him, thou must use thy shield and stretch thereon bulls' hides, and cover thy body with the skins of kine, nor let thy limbs lie bare to the sharp poison; his slaver burns up what it bespatters. though the three-forked tongue flicker and leap out of the gaping mouth, and with awful yawn menace ghastly wounds remember to keep the dauntless temper of thy mind; nor let the point of the jagged tooth trouble thee, nor the starkness of the beast, nor the venom spat from the swift throat. though the force of his scales spurn thy spears, yet know there is a place under his lowest belly whither thou mayst plunge the blade; aim at this with thy sword, and thou shalt probe the snake to his centre. thence go fearless up to the hill, drive the mattock, dig and ransack the holes; soon fill thy pouch with treasure, and bring back to the shore thy craft laden." frode believed, and crossed alone to the island, loth to attack the beast with any stronger escort than that wherewith it was the custom for champions to attack. when it had drunk water and was repairing to its cave, its rough and sharp hide spurned the blow of frode's steel. also the darts that he flung against it rebounded idly, foiling the effort of the thrower. but when the hard back yielded not a whit, he noted the belly heedfully, and its softness gave entrance to the steel. the beast tried to retaliate by biting, but only struck the sharp point of its mouth upon the shield. then it shot out its flickering tongue again and again, and gasped away life and venom together. the money which the king found made him rich; and with this supply he approached in his fleet the region of the kurlanders, whose king dorn, dreading a perilous war, is said to have made a speech of the following kind to his soldiers: "nobles! our enemy is a foreigner, begirt with the arms and the wealth of almost all the west; let us, by endeavouring to defer the battle for our profit, make him a prey to famine, which is all inward malady; and he will find it very hard to conquer a peril among his own people. it is easy to oppose the starving. hunger will be a better weapon against our foe than arms; famine will be the sharpest lance we shall hurl at him. for lack of food nourishes the pestilence that eats away men's strength, and lack of victual undermines store of weapons. let this whirl the spears while we sit still; let this take up the prerogative and the duty of fighting. unimperilled, we shall be able to imperil others; we can drain their blood and lose no drop of ours. one may defeat an enemy by inaction. who would not rather fight safely than at a loss? who would strive to suffer chastisement when he may contend unhurt? our success in arms will be more prosperous if hunger joins battle first. let hunger captain us, and so let us take the first chance of conflict. let it decide the day in our stead, and let our camp remain free from the stir of war; if hunger retreat beaten, we must break off idleness. he who is fresh easily overpowers him who is shaken with languor. the hand that is flaccid and withered will come fainter to the battle. he whom any hardship has first wearied, will bring slacker hands to the steel. when he that is wasted with sickness engages with the sturdy, the victory hastens. thus, undamaged ourselves, we shall be able to deal damage to others." having said this, he wasted all the places which he saw would be hard to protect, distrusting his power to guard them, and he so far forestalled the ruthlessness of the foe in ravaging his own land, that he left nothing untouched which could be seized by those who came after. then he shut up the greater part of his forces in a town of undoubted strength, and suffered the enemy to blockade him. frode, distrusting his power of attacking this town, commanded several trenches of unwonted depth to be made within the camp, and the earth to be secretly carried out in baskets and cast quietly into the river bordering the walls. then he had a mass of turf put over the trenches to hide the trap: wishing to cut off the unwary enemy by tumbling them down headlong, and thinking that they would be overwhelmed unawares by the slip of the subsiding earth. then he feigned a panic, and proceeded to forsake the camp for a short while. the townsmen fell upon it, missed their footing everywhere, rolled forward into the pits, and were massacred by him under a shower of spears. thence he travelled and fell in with trannon, the monarch of the ruthenians. desiring to spy out the strength of his navy, he made a number of pegs out of sticks, and loaded a skiff with them; and in this he approached the enemy's fleet by night, and bored the hulls of the vessels with an auger. and to save them from a sudden influx of the waves, he plugged up the open holes with the pegs he had before provided, and by these pieces of wood he made good the damage done by the auger. but when he thought there were enough holes to drown the fleet, he took out the plugs, thus giving instant access to the waters, and then made haste to surround the enemy's fleet with his own. the ruthenians were beset with a double peril, and wavered whether they should first withstand waves or weapons. fighting to save their ships from the foe, they were shipwrecked. within, the peril was more terrible than without: within, they fell back before the waves, while drawing the sword on those without. for the unhappy men were assaulted by two dangers at once; it was doubtful whether the swiftest way of safety was to swim or to battle to the end; and the fray was broken off at its hottest by a fresh cause of doom. two forms of death advanced in a single onset; two paths of destruction offered united peril: it was hard to say whether the sword or the sea hurt them more. while one man was beating off the swords, the waters stole up silently and took him. contrariwise, another was struggling with the waves, when the steel came up and encompassed him. the flowing waters were befouled with the gory spray. thus the ruthenians were conquered, and frode made his way back home. finding that some envoys, whom he had sent into russia to levy tribute, had been horribly murdered through the treachery of the inhabitants, frode was stung by the double wrong and besieged closely their town rotel. loth that the intervening river should delay his capture of the town, he divided the entire mass of the waters by making new and different streams, thus changing what had been a channel of unknown depth into passable fords; not ceasing till the speed of the eddy, slackened by the division of its outlet, rolled its waves onward in fainter current, and winding along its slender reaches, slowly thinned and dwindled into a shallow. thus he prevailed over the river; and the town, which lacked natural defences, he overthrew, his soldiers breaking in without resistance. this done, he took his army to the city of paltisca. thinking no force could overcome it, he exchanged war for guile. he went into a dark and unknown hiding-place, only a very few being in the secret, and ordered a report of his death to be spread abroad, so as to inspire the enemy with less fear; his obsequies being also held, and a barrow raised, to give the tale credit. even the soldiers bewailed his supposed death with a mourning which was in the secret of the trick. this rumour led vespasins, the king of the city, to show so faint and feeble a defence, as though the victory was already his, that the enemy got a chance of breaking in, and slew him as he sported at his ease. frode, when he had taken this town, aspired to the empire of the east, and attacked the city of handwan. this king, warned by hadding's having once fired his town, accordingly cleared the tame birds out of all his houses, to save himself from the peril of like punishment. but frode was not at a loss for new trickery. he exchanged garments with a serving-maid, and feigned himself to be a maiden skilled in fighting; and having thus laid aside the garb of man and imitated that of woman, he went to the town, calling himself a deserter. here he reconnoitred everything narrowly, and on the next day sent out an attendant with orders that the army should be up at the walls, promising that he would see to it that the gates were opened. thus the sentries were eluded and the city despoiled while it was buried in sleep; so that it paid for its heedlessness with destruction, and was more pitiable for its own sloth than by reason of the valour of the foe. for in warfare nought is found to be more ruinous than that a man, made foolhardy by ease, should neglect and slacken his affairs and doze in arrogant self-confidence. handwan, seeing that the fortunes of his country were lost and overthrown, put all his royal wealth on shipboard and drowned it in the sea, so as to enrich the waves rather than his enemy. yet it had been better to forestall the goodwill of his adversaries with gifts of money than to begrudge the profit of it to the service of mankind. after this, when frode sent ambassadors to ask for the hand of his daughter, he answered, that he must take heed not to be spoiled by his thriving fortunes, or to turn his triumph into haughtiness; but let him rather bethink him to spare the conquered, and in this their abject estate to respect their former bright condition; let him learn to honour their past fortune in their present pitiable lot. therefore, said handwan, he must mind that he did not rob of his empire the man with whom he sought alliance, nor bespatter her with the filth of ignobleness whom he desired to honour with marriage: else he would tarnish the honour of the union with covetousness. the courtliness of this saying not only won him his conqueror for son-in-law, but saved the freedom of his realm. meantime thorhild, wife of hunding, king of the swedes, possessed with a boundless hatred for her stepsons ragnar and thorwald, and fain to entangle them in divers perils, at last made them the king's shepherds. but swanhwid, daughter of hadding, wished to arrest by woman's wit the ruin of natures so noble; and taking her sisters to serve as retinue, journeyed to sweden. seeing the said youths beset with sundry prodigies while busy watching at night over their flocks, she forbade her sisters, who desired to dismount, in a poem of the following strain: "monsters i behold taking swift leaps and flinging themselves over the night places. the demon is at war, and the unholy throng, devoted to the mischievous fray, battles in the mid-thoroughfare. prodigies of aspect grim to behold pass by, and suffer no mortal to enter this country. the ranks galloping in headlong career through the void bid us stay our advance in this spot; they warn us to turn our rein and hold off from the accursed fields, they forbid us to approach the country beyond. a scowling horde of ghosts draws near, and scurries furiously through the wind, bellowing drearily to the stars. fauns join satyrs, and the throng of pans mingles with the spectres and battles with fierce visage. the swart ones meet the woodland spirits, and the pestilent phantoms strive to share the path with the witches. furies poise themselves on the leap, and on them huddle the phantoms, whom foreboder (fantua) joined to the flatnoses (satyrs), jostles. the path that the footfarer must tread brims with horror. it were safer to burden the back of the tall horse." thereon ragnar declared that he was a slave of the king, and gave as reason of his departure so far from home that, when he had been banished to the country on his shepherd's business, he had lost the flock of which he had charge, and despairing to recover it, had chosen rather to forbear from returning than to incur punishment. also, loth to say nothing about the estate of his brother, he further spoke the following poem: "think us men, not monsters; we are slaves who drove our lingering flocks for pasture through the country. but while we took our pastime in gentle sports, our flock chanced to stray and went into far-off fields. and when our hope of finding them, our long quest failed, trouble came upon the mind of the wretched culprits. and when sure tracks of our kine were nowhere to be seen, dismal panic filled our guilty hearts. that is why, dreading the penal stripe of the rod, we thought it doleful to return to our own roof. we supposed it safer to hold aloof from the familiar hearth than to bear the hand of punishment. thus we are fain to put off the punishment; we loathe going back and our wish is to lie hid here and escape our master's eye. this will aid us to elude the avenger of his neglected flock; and this is the one way of escape that remains safe for us." then swanhwid gazed intently, and surveying his features, which were very comely, admired them ardently, and said: "the radiant flashing of thine eyes is eloquent that thou art of kingly and not of servile stock. beauty announces blood, and loveliness of soul glitters in the flash of the eyes. a keen glance betokens lordly birth, and it is plain that he whom fairness, that sure sign of nobleness, commends, is of no mean station. the outward alertness of thine eyes signifies a spirit of radiance within. face vouches for race; and the lustre of forefathers is beheld in the brightness of the countenance. for an aspect so benign and noble could never have issued from base parentage. the grace of thy blood makes thy brow mantle with a kindred grace, and the estate of thy birth is reflected in the mirror of thy countenance. it is no obscure craftsman, therefore, that has finished the portrait of so choice a chasing. now therefore turn aside with all speed, seek constantly to depart out of the road, shun encounters with monsters, lest ye yield your most gracious bodies to be the prey and pasture of the vilest hordes." but ragnar was seized with great shame for his unsightly attire, which he thought was the only possible device to disguise his birth. so he rejoined, "that slaves were not always found to lack manhood; that a strong hand was often hidden under squalid raiment, and sometimes a stout arm was muffled trader a dusky cloak; thus the fault of nature was retrieved by valour, and deficiency in race requited by nobleness of spirit. he therefore feared the might of no supernatural prowess, save of the god thor only, to the greatness of whose force nothing human or divine could fitly be compared. the hearts of men ought not to be terrified at phantoms, which were only awful from their ghastly foulness, and whose semblances, marked by counterfeit ghostliness, were wont for a moment to borrow materiality from the fluent air. swanhwid therefore erred in trying, womanlike, to sap the firm strength of men, and to melt in unmanly panic that might which knew not defeat." swanhwid marvelled at the young man's steadfastness, and cast off the cloud of mist which overshadowed her, dispelling the darkness which shrouded her face, till it was clear and cloudless. then, promising that she would give him a sword fitted for diver's kinds of battle, she revealed the marvellous maiden beauty of her lustrous limbs. thus was the youth kindled, and she plighted her troth with him, and proffering the sword, she thus began: "king, in this sword, which shall expose the monsters to thy blows, take the first gift of thy betrothed. show thyself duly deserving hereof; let hand rival sword, and aspire to add lustre to its weapon. let the might of steel strengthen the defenceless point of thy wit, and let spirit know how to work with hand. let the bearer match the burden: and that thy deed may sort with thy blade, let equal weight in each be thine. what avails the javelin when the breast is weak and faint, and the quivering hands have dropped the lance? let steel join soul, and be both the body's armour! let the right hand be linked with its hilt in alliance. these fight famous battles, because they always keep more force when together; but less when parted. therefore if it be joy to thee to win fame by the palm of war, pursue with daring whatsoever is hard pressed by thy hand." after thus discoursing long in harmoniously-adjusted strains, she sent away her retinue, and passed all the night in combat against the foulest throngs of monsters; and at return of daybreak she perceived fallen all over the fields diverse shapes of phantoms, and figures extraordinary to look on; and among them was seen the semblance of thorhild herself covered with wounds. all these she piled in a heap and burnt, kindling a huge pyre, lest the foul stench of the filthy carcases might spread in pestilent vapour and hurt those who came nigh with its taint of corruption. this done, she won the throne of sweden for ragnar, and ragnar for her husband. and though he deemed it uncomely to inaugurate his first campaign with a wedding, yet, moved by gratitude for the preservation of his safety, he kept his promise. meantime one ubbe, who had long since wedded ulfhild the sister of frode, trusting in the high birth of his wife, seized the kingdom of denmark, which he was managing carelessly as deputy. frode was thus forced to quit the wars of the east and fought a great battle in sweden with his sister swanhwid, in which he was beaten. so he got on board a skiff, and sailed stealthily in a circuit, seeking some way of boring through the enemy's fleet. when surprised by his sister and asked why he was rowing silently and following divers meandering courses, he cut short her inquiry by a similar question; for swanhwid had also, at the same time of the night, taken to sailing about alone, and was stealthily searching out all the ways of approach and retreat through devious and dangerous windings. so she reminded her brother of the freedom he had given her long since, and went on to ask him that he should allow her full enjoyment of the husband she had taken; since, before he started on the russian war, he had given her the boon of marrying as she would; and that he should hold valid after the event what he had himself allowed to happen. these reasonable entreaties touched frode, and he made a peace with ragnar, and forgave, at his sister's request, the wrongdoing which ragnar, seemed to have begun because of her wantonness. they presented him with a force equal to that which they had caused him to lose: a handsome gift in which he rejoiced as compensation for so ugly a reverse. ragnar, entering denmark, captured ubbe, had him brought before him, and pardoned him, preferring to visit his ill deserts with grace rather than chastisement; because the man seemed to have aimed at the crown rather at his wife's instance than of his own ambition, and to have been the imitator and not the cause of the wrong. but he took ulfhild away from him and forced her to wed his friend scot, the same man that founded the scottish name; esteeming change of wedlock a punishment for her. as she went away he even escorted her in the royal chariot, requiting evil with good; for he regarded the kinship of his sister rather than her disposition, and took more thought for his own good name than of her iniquity. but the fair deeds of her brother did not make her obstinate and wonted hatred slacken a whit; she wore the spirit of her new husband with her design of slaying frode and mastering the sovereignty of the danes. for whatsoever design the mind has resolutely conceived, it is slow to quit; nor is a sin that is long schemed swept away by the stream of years. for the temper of later life follows the mind of childhood; nor do the traces easily fade of vices which have been stamped upon the character in the impressible age. finding the ears of her husband deaf, she diverted her treachery from her brother against her lord, hiring bravoes to cut his throat while he slept. scot was told about this by a waiting-woman, and retired to bed in his cuirass on the night on which he had heard the deed of murder was to be wrought upon him. ulfhild asked him why he had exchanged his wonted ways to wear the garb of steel; he rejoined that such was just then his fancy. the agents of the treachery, when they imagined him in a deep sleep, burst in; but he slipped from his bed and cut them down. the result was, that he prevented ulfhild from weaving plots against her brother, and also left a warning to others to beware of treachery from their wives. meantime the design occurred to frode of a campaign against friesland; he was desirous to dazzle the eyes of the west with the glory he had won in conquering the east. he put out to ocean, and his first contest was with witthe, a rover of the frisians; and in this battle he bade his crews patiently bear the first brunt of the enemy's charge by merely opposing their shields, ordering that they should not use their missiles before they perceived that the shower of the enemy's spears was utterly silent. this the frisians hurled as vehemently as the danes received it impassively; for witthe supposed that the long-suffering of frode was due to a wish for peace. high rose the blast of the trumpet, and loud whizzed the javelins everywhere, till at last the heedless frisians had not a single lance remaining, and they were conquered, overwhelmed by the missiles of the danes. they fled hugging the shore, and were cut to pieces amid the circuitous windings of the canals. then frode explored the rhine in his fleet, and laid hands on the farthest parts of germany. then he went back to the ocean, and attacked the frisian fleet, which had struck on shoals; and thus he crowned shipwreck with slaughter. nor was he content with the destruction of so great an army of his foes, but assailed britain, defeated its king, and attacked melbrik, the governor of the scottish district. just as he was preparing to fight him, he heard from a scout that the king of the britons was at hand, and could not look to his front and his rear both at once. so he assembled the soldiers, and ordered that they should abandon their chariots, fling away all their goods, and scatter everywhere over the fields the gold which they had about them; for he declared that their one chance was to squander their treasure; and that, now they were hemmed in, their only remaining help was to tempt the enemy from combat to covetousness. they ought cheerfully to spend on so extreme a need the spoil they had gotten among foreigners; for the enemy would drop it as eagerly, when it was once gathered, as they would snatch it when they first found it; for it would be to them more burden than profit. then thorkill, who was a more notable miser and a better orator than them all, dishelming and leaning on his shield, said: "o king! most of us who rate high what we have bought with our life-blood find thy bidding hard. we take it ill that we should fling away what we have won with utmost hazard; and men are loth to forsake what they have purchased at peril of their lives. for it is utter madness to spurn away like women what our manly hearts and hands have earned, and enrich the enemy beyond their hopes. what is more odious than to anticipate the fortune of war by despising the booty which is ours, and, in terror of an evil that may never come, to quit a good which is present and assured? shall we scatter our gold upon the earth, ere we have set eyes upon the scots? those who faint at the thought of warring when they are out for war, what manner of men are they to be thought in the battle? shall we be a derision to our foes, we who were their terror? shall we take scorn instead of glory? the briton will marvel that he was conquered by men whom he sees fear is enough to conquer. we struck them before with panic; shall we be panic-stricken by them? we scorned them when before us; shall we dread them when they are not here? when will our bravery win the treasure which our cowardice rejects? shall we shirk the fight, in scorn of the money which we fought to win, and enrich those whom we should rightly have impoverished? what deed more despicable can we do than to squander gold on those whom we should smite with steel? panic must never rob us of the spoils of valour; and only war must make us quit what in warfare we have won. let us sell our plunder at the price at which we bought it; let the purchase-money be weighed out in steel. it is better to die a noble death, than to molder away too much in love with the light life. in a fleeting instant of time life forsakes us, but shame pursues us past the grave. further, if we cast away this gold, the greater the enemy thinks our fear, the hotter will be his chase. besides, whichever the issue of the day, the gold is not hateful to us. conquerors, we shall triumph in the treasure which now we bear; conquered, we shall leave it to pay our burying." so spoke the old man; but the soldiers regarded the advice of their king rather than of their comrade, and thought more of the former than of the latter counsel. so each of them eagerly drew his wealth, whatever he had, from his pouch; they unloaded their ponies of the various goods they were carrying; and having thus cleared their money-bags, girded on their arms more deftly. they went on, and the britons came up, but broke away after the plunder which lay spread out before them. their king, when he beheld them too greedily busied with scrambling for the treasure, bade them "take heed not to weary with a load of riches those hands which were meant for battle, since they ought to know that a victory must be culled ere it is counted. therefore let them scorn the gold and give chase to the possessors of the gold; let them admire the lustre, not of lucre, but of conquest; remembering, that a trophy gave more reward than gain. courage was worth more than dross, if they measured aright the quality of both; for the one furnished outward adorning, but the other enhanced both outward and inward grace. therefore they must keep their eyes far from the sight of money, and their soul from covetousness, and devote it to the pursuits of war. further, they should know that the plunder had been abandoned by the enemy of set purpose, and that the gold had been scattered rather to betray them than to profit them. moreover, the honest lustre of the silver was only a bait on the barb of secret guile. it was not thought to be that they, who had first forced the britons to fly, would lightly fly themselves. besides, nothing was more shameful than riches which betrayed into captivity the plunderer whom they were supposed to enrich. for the danes thought that the men to whom they pretended to have offered riches ought to be punished with sword and slaughter. let them therefore feel that they were only giving the enemy a weapon if they seized what he had scattered. for if they were caught by the look of the treasure that had been exposed, they must lose, not only that, but any of their own money that might remain. what could it profit them to gather what they must straightway disgorge? but if they refuse to abase themselves before money, they would doubtless abase the foe. thus it was better for them to stand erect in valour than be grovelling in greed; with their souls not sinking into covetousness, but up and doing for renown. in the battle they would have to use not gold but swords." as the king ended, a british knight, shewing them all his lapful of gold, said: "o king! from thy speech can be gathered two feelings; and one of them witnesses to thy cowardice and the other to thy ill will: inasmuch as thou forbiddest us the use of the wealth because of the enemy, and also thinkest it better that we should serve thee needy than rich. what is more odious than such a wish? what more senseless than such a counsel? we recognise these as the treasures of our own homes, and having done so, shall we falter to pick them up? we were on our way to regain them by fighting, we were zealous to win them back by our blood: shall we shun them when they are restored unasked? shall we hesitate to claim our own? which is the greater coward, he who squanders his winnings, or he who is fearful to pick up what is squandered? look how chance has restored what compulsion took! these are, not spoils from the enemy, but from ourselves; the dane took gold from britain, he brought none. beaten and loth we lost it; it comes back for nothing, and shall we run away from it? such a gift of fortune it were a shame to take in an unworthy spirit. for what were madder than to spurn wealth that is set openly before us, and to desire it when it is shut up and kept from us? shall we squeamishly yield what is set under our eyes, and clutch at it when it vanishes? shall we seek distant and foreign treasure, refraining from what is made public property? if we disown what is ours, when shall we despoil the goods of others? no anger of heaven can i experience which can force me to unload of its lawful burden the lap which is filled with my father's and my grandsire's gold. i know the wantonness of the danes: never would they have left jars full of wine had not fear forced them to flee. they would rather have sacrificed their life than their liquor. this passion we share with them, and herein we are like them. grant that their flight is feigned; yet they will light upon the scots ere they can come back. this gold shall never rust in the country, to be trodden underfoot of swine or brutes: it will better serve the use of men. besides, if we plunder the spoil of the army that prevailed over us, we transfer the luck of the conqueror to ourselves. for what surer omen of triumph could be got, than to bear off the booty before the battle, and to capture ere the fray the camp which the enemy have forsaken? better conquer by fear than by steel." the knight had scarce ended, when behold; the hands of all were loosed upon the booty and everywhere plucked up the shining treasure. there you might have marvelled at their disposition of filthy greed, and watched a portentous spectacle of avarice. you could have seen gold and grass clutched up together; the birth of domestic discord; fellow-countrymen in deadly combat, heedless of the foe; neglect of the bonds of comradeship and of reverence for ties; greed the object of all minds, and friendship of none. meantime frode traversed in a great march the forest which separates scotland and britain, and bade his soldiers arm. when the scots beheld his line, and saw that they had only a supply of light javelins, while the danes were furnished with a more excellent style of armour, they forestalled the battle by flight. frode pursued them but a little way, fearing a sally of the british, and on returning met scot, the husband of ulfhild, with a great army; he had been brought from the utmost ends of scotland by the desire of aiding the danes. scot entreated him to abandon the pursuit of the scottish and turn back into britain. so he eagerly regained the plunder which he had cunningly sacrificed; and got back his wealth with the greater ease, that he had so tranquilly let it go. then did the british repent of their burden and pay for their covetousness with their blood. they were sorry to have clutched at greed with insatiate arms, and ashamed to have hearkened to their own avarice rather than to the counsel of their king. then frode attacked london, the most populous city of britain; but the strength of its walls gave him no chance of capturing it. therefore he reigned to be dead, and his guile strengthened him. for daleman, the governor of london, on hearing the false news of his death, accepted the surrender of the danes, offered them a native general, and suffered them to enter the town, that they might choose him out of a great throng. they feigned to be making a careful choice, but beset daleman in a night surprise and slew him. when he had done these things, and gone back to his own land, one skat entertained him at a banquet, desirous to mingle his toilsome warfare with joyous licence. frode was lying in his house, in royal fashion, upon cushions of cloth of gold, and a certain hunding challenged him to fight. then, though he had bent his mind to the joys of wassail, he had more delight in the prospect of a fray than in the presence of a feast, and wound up the supper with a duel and the duel with a triumph. in the combat he received a dangerous wound; but a taunt of hakon the champion again roused him, and, slaying his challenger, he took vengeance for the disturbance of his rest. two of his chamber-servants were openly convicted of treachery, and he had them tied to vast stones and drowned in the sea; thus chastising the weighty guilt of their souls by fastening boulders to their bodies. some relate that ulfhild gave him a coat which no steel could pierce, so that when he wore it no missile's point could hurt him. nor must i omit how frode was wont to sprinkle his food with brayed and pounded atoms of gold, as a resource against the usual snares of poisoners. while he was attacking ragnar, the king of sweden, who had been falsely accused of treachery, he perished, not by the spears, but stifled in the weight of his arms and by the heat of his own body. frode left three sons, halfdan, ro, and skat, who were equal in valour, and were seized with an equal desire for the throne. all thought of sway, none was constrained by brotherly regard: for love of others forsaketh him who is eaten up with love of self, nor can any man take thought at once for his own advancement and for his friendship with others. halfdan, the eldest son, disgraced his birth with the sin of slaying his brethren, winning his kingdom by the murder of his kin; and, to complete his display of cruelty, arrested their adherents, first confining them in bonds, and presently hanging them. the most notable thing in the fortunes of halfdan was this, that though he devoted every instant of his life to the practice of cruel deeds, yet he died of old age, and not by the steel. halfdan's sons were ro and helge. ro is said to have been the founder of roskild, which was later increased in population and enhanced in power by sweyn, who was famous for the surname forkbeard. ro was short and spare, while helge was rather tall of stature. dividing the realm with his brother, helge was allotted the domain of the sea; and attacking skalk, the king of sklavia, with his naval force, he slew him. having reduced sklavia into a province, he scoured the various arms of the sea in a wandering voyage. savage of temper as helge was, his cruelty was not greater than his lust. for he was so immoderately prone to love, that it was doubtful whether the heat of his tyranny or of his concupiscence was the greater. in thorey he ravished the maiden thora, who bore a daughter, to whom she afterwards gave the name of urse. then he conquered in battle, before the town of stad, the son of syrik, king of saxony, hunding, whom he challenged, attacked, and slew in duel. for this he was called hunding's-bane, and by that name gained glory of his victory. he took jutland out of the power of the saxons, and entrusted its management to his generals, heske, eyr, and ler. in saxony he enacted that the slaughter of a freedman and of a noble should be visited with the same punishment; as though he wished it to be clearly known that all the households of the teutons were held in equal slavery, and that the freedom of all was tainted and savoured equally of dishonour. then helge went freebooting to thorey. but thora had not ceased to bewail her lost virginity, and planned a shameful device in abominable vengeance for her rape. for she deliberately sent down to the beach her daughter, who was of marriageable age, and prompted her father to deflower her. and though she yielded her body to the treacherous lures of delight, yet she must not be thought to have abjured her integrity of soul, inasmuch as her fault had a ready excuse by virtue of her ignorance. insensate mother, who allowed the forfeiture of her child's chastity in order to avenge her own; caring nought for the purity of her own blood, so she might stain with incest the man who had cost her her own maidenhood at first! infamous-hearted woman, who, to punish her defiler, measured out as it were a second defilement to herself, whereas she clearly by the selfsame act rather swelled than lessened the transgression! surely, by the very act wherewith she thought to reach her revenge, she accumulated guilt; she added a sin in trying to remove a crime: she played the stepdame to her own offspring, not sparing her daughter abomination in order to atone for her own disgrace. doubtless her soul was brimming over with shamelessness, since she swerved so far from shamefastness, as without a blush to seek solace for her wrong in her daughter's infamy. a great crime, with but one atonement; namely, that the guilt of this intercourse was wiped away by a fortunate progeny, its fruits being as delightful as its repute was evil. rolf, the son of urse, retrieved the shame of his birth by signal deeds of valour; and their exceeding lustre is honoured with bright laudation by the memory of all succeeding time. for lamentation sometimes ends in laughter, and foul beginnings pass to fair issues. so that the father's fault, though criminal, was fortunate, being afterwards atoned for by a son of such marvellous splendour. meantime ragnar died in sweden; and swanhwid his wife passed away soon after of a malady which she had taken from her sorrow, following in death the husband from whom she had not endured severance in life. for it often happens that some people desire to follow out of life those whom they loved exceedingly when alive. their son hothbrodd succeeded them. fain to extend his empire, he warred upon the east, and after a huge massacre of many peoples begat two sons, athisl and hother, and appointed as their tutor a certain gewar, who was bound to him by great services. not content with conquering the east, he assailed denmark, challenged its king, ro, in three battles, and slew him. helge, when he heard this, shut up his son rolf in leire, wishing, however he might have managed his own fortunes, to see to the safety of his heir. when hothbrodd sent in governors, wanting to free his country from alien rule, he posted his people about the city and prevailed and slew them. also he annihilated hothbrodd himself and all his forces in a naval battle; so avenging fully the wrongs of his country as well as of his brother. hence he who had before won a nickname for slaying hunding, now bore a surname for the slaughter of hothbrodd. besides, as if the swedes had not been enough stricken in the battles, he punished them by stipulating for most humiliating terms; providing by law that no wrong done to any of them should receive amends according to the form of legal covenants. after these deeds, ashamed of his former infamy, he hated his country and his home, went back to the east, and there died. some think that he was affected by the disgrace which was cast in his teeth, and did himself to death by falling upon his drawn sword. he was succeeded by his son rolf, who was comely with every gift of mind and body, and graced his mighty stature with as high a courage. in his time sweden was subject to the sway of the danes; wherefore athisl, the son of hothbrodd, in pursuit of a crafty design to set his country free, contrived to marry rolf's mother, urse, thinking that his kinship by marriage would plead for him, and enable him to prompt his stepson more effectually to relax the tribute; and fortune prospered his wishes. but athisl had from his boyhood been imbued with a hatred of liberality, and was so grasping of money, that he accounted it a disgrace to be called openhanded. urse, seeing him so steeped in filthy covetousness, desired to be rid of him; but, thinking that she must act by cunning, veiled the shape of her guile with a marvellous skill. feigning to be unmotherly, she spurred on her husband to grasp his freedom, and urged and tempted him to insurrection; causing her son to be summoned to sweden with a promise of vast gifts. for she thought that she would best gain her desire if, as soon as her son had got his stepfather's gold, she could snatch up the royal treasures and flee, robbing her husband of bed and money to hoot. for she fancied that the best way to chastise his covetousness would be to steal away his wealth. this deep guilefulness was hard to detect, from such recesses of cunning did it spring; because she dissembled her longing for a change of wedlock under a show of aspiration for freedom. blind-witted husband, fancying the mother kindled against the life of the son, never seeing that it was rather his own ruin being compassed! doltish lord, blind to the obstinate scheming of his wife, who, out of pretended hatred of her son, devised opportunity for change of wedlock! though the heart of woman should never be trusted, he believed in a woman all the more insensately, because he supposed her faithful to himself and treacherous to her son. accordingly, rolf, tempted by the greatness of the gifts, chanced to enter the house of athisl. he was not recognised by his mother owing to his long absence and the cessation of their common life; so in jest he first asked for some victual to appease his hunger. she advised him to ask the king for a luncheon. then he thrust out a torn piece of his coat, and begged of her the service of sewing it up. finding his mother's ears shut to him, he observed, "that it was hard to discover a friendship that was firm and true, when a mother refused her son a meal, and a sister refused a brother the help of her needle." thus he punished his mother's error, and made her blush deep for her refusal of kindness. athisl, when he saw him reclining close to his mother at the banquet, taunted them both with wantonness, declaring that it was an impure intercourse of brother and sister. rolf repelled the charge against his honour by an appeal to the closest of natural bonds, and answered, that it was honourable for a son to embrace a beloved mother. also, when the feasters asked him what kind of courage he set above all others, he named endurance. when they also asked athisl, what was the virtue which above all he desired most devotedly, he declared, generosity. proofs were therefore demanded of bravery on the one hand and munificence on the other, and rolf was asked to give an evidence of courage first. he was placed to the fire, and defending with his target the side that was most hotly assailed, had only the firmness of his endurance to fortify the other, which had no defence. how dexterous, to borrow from his shield protection to assuage the heat, and to guard his body, which was exposed to the flames, with that which sometime sheltered it amid the hurtling spears! but the glow was hotter than the fire of spears; as though it could not storm the side that was entrenched by the shield, yet it assaulted the flank that lacked its protection. but a waiting-maid who happened to be standing near the hearth, saw that he was being roasted by the unbearable heat upon his ribs; so taking the stopper out of a cask, she spilt the liquid and quenched the flame, and by the timely kindness of the shower checked in its career the torturing blaze. rolf was lauded for supreme endurance, and then came the request for athisl's gifts. and they say that he showered treasures on his stepson, and at last, in order to crown the gift, bestowed on him an enormously heavy necklace. now urse, who had watched her chance for the deed of guile, on the third day of the banquet, without her husband ever dreaming of such a thing, put all the king's wealth into carriages, and going out stealthily, stole away from her own dwelling and fled in the glimmering twilight, departing with her son. thrilled with fear of her husband's pursuit, and utterly despairing of escape beyond, she begged and bade her companions to cast away the money, declaring that they must lose either life or riches; the short and only path to safety lay in flinging away the treasure, nor could any aid to escape be found save in the loss of their possessions. therefore, said she, they must follow the example of the manner in which frode was said to have saved himself among the britons. she added, that it was not paying a great price to lay down the swedes' own goods for them to regain; if only they could themselves gain a start in flight, by the very device which would check the others in their pursuit, and if they seemed not so much to abandon their own possessions as to restore those of other men. not a moment was lost; in order to make the flight swifter, they did the bidding of the queen. the gold is cleared from their purses; the riches are left for the enemy to seize. some declare that urse kept back the money, and strewed the tracks of her flight with copper that was gilt over. for it was thought credible that a woman who could scheme such great deeds could also have painted with lying lustre the metal that was meant to be lost, mimicking riches of true worth with the sheen of spurious gold. so athisl, when he saw the necklace that he had given to rolf left among the other golden ornaments, gazed fixedly upon the dearest treasure of his avarice, and, in order to pick up the plunder, glued his knees to the earth and deigned to stoop his royalty unto greed. rolf, seeing him lie abjectly on his face in order to gather up the money, smiled at the sight of a man prostrated by his own gifts, just as if he were seeking covetously to regain what he had craftily yielded up. the swedes were content with their booty, and rolf quickly retired to his ships, and managed to escape by rowing violently. now they relate that rolf used with ready generosity to grant at the first entreaty whatsoever he was begged to bestow, and never put off the request till the second time of asking. for he preferred to forestall repeated supplication by speedy liberality, rather than mar his kindness by delay. this habit brought him a great concourse of champions; valour having commonly either rewards for its food or glory for its spur. at this time, a certain agnar, son of ingild, being about to wed rute, the sister of rolf, celebrated his bridal with a great banquet. the champions were rioting at this banquet with every sort of wantonness, and flinging from all over the room knobbed bones at a certain hjalte; but it chanced that his messmate, named bjarke, received a violent blow on the head through the ill aim of the thrower; at whom, stung both by the pain and the jeering, he sent the bone back, so that he twisted the front of his head to the back, and wrung the back of it to where the front had been; punishing the wryness of the man's temper by turning his face sidelong. this deed moderated their wanton and injurious jests, and drove the champions to quit the place. the bridegroom, nettled at this affront to the banquet, resolved to fight bjarke, in order to seek vengeance by means of a duel for the interruption of their mirth. at the outset of the duel there was a long dispute, which of them ought to have the chance of striking first. for of old, in the ordering of combats, men did not try to exchange their blows thick and fast; but there was a pause, and at the same time a definite succession in striking: the contest being carried on with few strokes, but those terrible, so that honour was paid more to the mightiness than to the number of the blows. agnar, being of higher rank, was put first; and the blow which he dealt is said to have been so furious, that he cut through the front of the helmet, wounded the skin on the scalp, and had to let go his sword, which became locked in the vizor-holes. then bjarke, who was to deal the return-stroke, leaned his foot against a stock, in order to give the freer poise to his steel, and passed his fine-edged blade through the midst of agnar's body. some declare that agnar, in supreme suppression of his pain, gave up the ghost with his lips relaxed into a smile. the champions passionately sought to avenge him, but were visited by bjarke with like destruction; for he used a sword of wonderful sharpness and unusual length which he called lovi. while he was triumphing in these deeds of prowess, a beast of the forest furnished him fresh laurels. for he met a huge bear in a thicket, and slew it with a javelin; and then bade his companion hjalte put his lips to the beast and drink the blood that came out, that he might be the stronger afterwards. for it was believed that a draught of this sort caused an increase of bodily strength. by these valorous achievements he became intimate with the most illustrious nobles, and even, became a favourite of the king; took to wife his sister rute, and had the bride of the conquered as the prize of the conquest. when rolf was harried by athisl he avenged himself on him in battle and overthrew athisl in war. then rolf gave his sister skulde in marriage to a youth of keen wit, called hiartuar, and made him governor of sweden, ordaining a yearly tax; wishing to soften the loss of freedom to him by the favour of an alliance with himself. here let me put into my work a thing that it is mirthful to record. a youth named wigg, scanning with attentive eye the bodily size of rolf, and smitten with great wonder thereat, proceeded to inquire in jest who was that "krage" whom nature in her beauty had endowed with such towering stature? meaning humorously to banter his uncommon tallness. for "krage" in the danish tongue means a tree-trunk, whose branches are pollarded, and whose summit is climbed in such wise that the foot uses the lopped timbers as supports, as if leaning on a ladder, and, gradually advancing to the higher parts, finds the shortest way to the top. rolf accepted this random word as though it were a name of honour for him, and rewarded the wit of the saying with a heavy bracelet. then wigg, thrusting out his right arm decked with the bracelet, put his left behind his back in affected shame, and walked with a ludicrous gait, declaring that he, whose lot had so long been poverty-stricken, was glad of a scanty gift. when he was asked why he was behaving so, he said that the arm which lacked ornament and had no splendour to boast of was mantling with the modest blush of poverty to behold the other. the ingenuity of this saying won him a present to match the first. for rolf made him bring out to view, like the other, the hand which he was hiding. nor was wigg heedless to repay the kindness; for he promised, uttering a strict vow, that, if it befell rolf to perish by the sword, he would himself take vengeance on his slayers. nor should it be omitted that in old time nobles who were entering. the court used to devote to their rulers the first-fruits of their service by vowing some mighty exploit; thus bravely inaugurating their first campaign. meantime, skulde was stung with humiliation at the payment of the tribute, and bent her mind to devise deeds of horror. taunting her husband with his ignominious estate, she urged and egged him to break off his servitude, induced him to weave plots against rolf, and filled his mind with the most abominable plans of disloyalty, declaring that everyone owed more to their freedom than to kinship. accordingly, she ordered huge piles of arms to be muffled up under divers coverings, to be carried by hiartuar into denmark, as if they were tribute: these would furnish a store wherewith to slay the king by night. so the vessels were loaded with the mass of pretended tribute, and they proceeded to leire, a town which rolf had built and adorned with the richest treasure of his realm, and which, being a royal foundation and a royal seat, surpassed in importance all the cities of the neighbouring districts. the king welcomed the coming of hiartuar with a splendid banquet, and drank very deep, while his guests, contrary to their custom, shunned immoderate tippling. so, while all the others were sleeping soundly, the swedes, who had been kept from their ordinary rest by their eagerness on their guilty purpose, began furtively to slip down from their sleeping-rooms. straightway uncovering the hidden heap of weapons, each girded on his arms silently and then went to the palace. bursting into its recesses, they drew their swords upon the sleeping figures. many awoke; but, invaded as much by the sudden and dreadful carnage as by the drowsiness of sleep, they faltered in their resistance; for the night misled them and made it doubtful whether those they met were friends or foes. hjalte, who was foremost in tried bravery among the nobles of the king, chanced to have gone out in the dead of that same night into the country and given himself to the embraces of a harlot. but when his torpid hearing caught from afar the rising din of battle, preferring valour to wantonness, he chose rather to seek the deadly perils of the war-god than to yield to the soft allurements of love. what a love for his king, must we suppose, burned in this warrior! for he might have excused his absence by feigning not to have known; but he thought it better to expose his life to manifest danger than save it for pleasure. as he went away, his mistress asked him how aged a man she ought to marry if she were to lose him? then hjalte bade her come closer, as though he would speak to her more privately; and, resenting that she needed a successor to his love, he cut off her nose and made her unsightly, punishing the utterance of that wanton question with a shameful wound, and thinking that the lecherousness of her soul ought to be cooled by outrage to her face. when he had done this, he said he left her choice free in the matter she had asked about. then he went quickly back to the town and plunged into the densest of the fray, mowing down the opposing ranks as he gave blow for blow. passing the sleeping-room of bjarke, who was still slumbering, he bade him wake up, addressing him as follows: "let him awake speedily, whoso showeth himself by service or avoweth himself in mere loyalty, a friend of the king! let the princes shake off slumber, let shameless lethargy begone; let their spirits awake and warm to the work; each man's own right hand shall either give him to glory, or steep him in sluggard shame; and this night shall be either end or vengeance of our woes. "i do not now bid ye learn the sports of maidens, nor stroke soft cheeks, nor give sweet kisses to the bride and press the slender breasts, nor desire the flowing wine and chafe the soft thigh and cast eyes upon snowy arms. i call you out to the sterner fray of war. we need the battle, and not light love; nerveless languor has no business here: our need calls for battles. whoso cherishes friendship for the king, let him take up arms. prowess in war is the readiest appraiser of men's spirits. therefore let warriors have no fearfulness and the brave no fickleness: let pleasure quit their soul and yield place to arms. glory is now appointed for wages; each can be the arbiter of his own renown, and shine by his own right hand. let nought here be tricked out with wantonness: let all be full of sternness, and learn how to rid them of this calamity. he who covets the honours or prizes of glory must not be faint with craven fear, but go forth to meet the brave, nor whiten at the cold steel." at this utterance, bjarke, awakened, roused up his chamber-page skalk speedily, and addressed him as follows: "up, lad, and fan the fire with constant blowing; sweep the hearth clear of wood, and scatter the fine ashes. strike out sparks from the fire, rouse the fallen embers, draw out the smothered blaze. force the slackening hearth to yield light by kindling the coals to a red glow with a burning log. it will do me good to stretch out my fingers when the fire is brought nigh. surely he that takes heed for his friend should have warm hands, and utterly drive away the blue and hurtful chill." hjalte said again: "sweet is it to repay the gifts received from our lord, to grip the swords, and devote the steel to glory. behold, each man's courage tells him loyally to follow a king of such deserts, and to guard our captain with fitting earnestness. let the teuton swords, the helmets, the shining armlets, the mail-coats that reach the heel, which rolf of old bestowed upon his men, let these sharpen our mindful hearts to the fray. the time requires, and it is just, that in time of war we should earn whatsoever we have gotten in the deep idleness of peace, that we should not think more of joyous courses than of sorrowful fortunes, or always prefer prosperity to hardship. being noble, let us with even soul accept either lot, nor let fortune sway our behaviour, for it beseems us to receive equably difficult and delightsome days; let us pass the years of sorrow with the same countenance wherewith we took the years of joy. let us do with brave hearts all the things that in our cups we boasted with sodden lips; let us keep the vows which we swore by highest jove and the mighty gods. my master is the greatest of the danes: let each man, as he is valorous, stand by him; far, far hence be all cowards! we need a brave and steadfast man, not one that turns his back on a dangerous pass, or dreads the grim preparations for battle. often a general's greatest valour depends on his soldiery, for the chief enters the fray all the more at ease that a better array of nobles throngs him round. let the thane catch up his arms with fighting fingers, setting his right hand on the hilt and holding fast the shield: let him charge upon the foes, nor pale at any strokes. let none offer himself to be smitten by the enemy behind, let none receive the swords in his back: let the battling breast ever front the blow. `eagles fight brow foremost', and with swift gaping beaks speed onward in the front: be ye like that bird in mien, shrinking from no stroke, but with body facing the foe. "see how the enemy, furious and confident overduly, his limbs defended by the steel, and his face with a gilded helmet, charges the thick of the battle-wedges, as though sure of victory, fearless of rout and invincible by any endeavour. ah, misery! swedish assurance spurns the danes. behold, the goths with savage eyes and grim aspect advance with crested helms and clanging spears: wreaking heavy slaughter in our blood, they wield their swords and their battle-axes hone-sharpened. "why name thee, hiartuar, whom skulde hath filled with guilty purpose, and hath suffered thus to harden in sin? why sing of thee, villain, who hast caused our peril, betrayer of a noble king? furious lust of sway hath driven thee to attempt an abomination, and, stung with frenzy, to screen thyself behind thy wife's everlasting guilt. what error hath made thee to hurt the danes and thy lord, and hurled thee into such foul crime as this? whence entered thy heart the treason framed with such careful guile? "why do i linger? now we have swallowed our last morsel. our king perishes, and utter doom overtakes our hapless city. our last dawn has risen, unless perchance there be one here so soft that he fears to offer himself to the blows, or so unwarlike that he dares not avenge his lord, and disowns all honours worthy of his valour. "thou, ruta, rise and put forth thy snow-white head, come forth from thy hiding into the battle. the carnage that is being done without calls thee. by now the council-chamber is shaken with warfare, and the gates creak with the dreadful fray. steel rends the mail-coats, the woven mesh is torn apart, and the midriff gives under the rain of spears. by now the huge axes have hacked small the shield of the king; by now the long swords clash, and the battle-axe clatters its blows upon the shoulders of men, and cleaves their breasts. why are your hearts afraid? why is your sword faint and blunted? the gate is cleared of our people, and is filled with the press of the strangers." and when hjalte had wrought very great carnage and stained the battle with blood, he stumbled for the third time on bjarke's berth, and thinking he desired to keep quiet because he was afraid, made trial of him with such taunts at his cowardice as these: "bjarke, why art thou absent? doth deep sleep hold thee? i prithee, what makes thee tarry? come out, or the fire will overcome thee. ho! choose the better way, charge with me! bears may be kept off with fire; let us spread fire in the recesses, and let the blaze attack the door-posts first. let the firebrand fall upon the bedchamber, let the falling roof offer fuel for the flames and serve to feed the fire. it is right to scatter conflagration on the doomed gates. but let us who honour our king with better loyalty form the firm battle-wedges, and, having measured the phalanx in safe rows, go forth in the way the king taught us: our king, who laid low rorik, the son of bok the covetous, and wrapped the coward in death. he was rich in wealth, but in enjoyment poor, stronger in gain than bravery; and thinking gold better than warfare, he set lucre above all things, and ingloriously accumulated piles of treasure, scorning the service of noble friends. and when he was attacked by the navy of rolf, he bade his servants take the gold from the chests and spread it out in front of the city gates, making ready bribes rather than battle, because he knew not the soldier, and thought that the foe should be attempted with gifts and not with arms: as though he could fight with wealth alone, and prolong the war by using, not men, but wares! so he undid the heavy coffers and the rich chests; he brought forth the polished bracelets and the heavy caskets; they only fed his destruction. rich in treasure, poor in warriors, he left his foes to take away the prizes which he forebore to give to the friends of his own land. he who once shrank to give little rings of his own will, now unwillingly squandered his masses of wealth, rifling his hoarded heap. but our king in his wisdom spurned him and the gifts he proffered, and took from him life and goods at once; nor was his foe profited by the useless wealth which he had greedily heaped up through long years. but rolf the righteous assailed him, slew him, and captured his vast wealth, and shared among worthy friends what the hand of avarice had piled up in all those years; and, bursting into the camp which was wealthy but not brave, gave his friends a lordly booty without bloodshed. nothing was so fair to him that he would not lavish it, or so dear that he would not give it to his friends, for he used treasure like ashes, and measured his years by glory and not by gain. whence it is plain that the king who hath died nobly lived also most nobly, that the hour of his doom is beautiful, and that he graced the years of his life with manliness. for while he lived his glowing valour prevailed over all things, and he was allotted might worthy of his lofty stature. he was as swift to war as a torrent tearing down to sea, and as speedy to begin battle as a stag is to fly with cleft foot upon his fleet way. "see now, among the pools dripping with human blood, the teeth struck out of the slain are carried on by the full torrent of gore, and are polished on the rough sands. dashed on the slime they glitter, and the torrent of blood bears along splintered bones and flows above lopped limbs. the blood of the danes is wet, and the gory flow stagnates far around, and the stream pressed out of the steaming veins rolls back the scattered bodies. tirelessly against the danes advances hiartuar, lover of battle, and challenges the fighters with outstretched spear. yet here, amid the dangers and dooms of war, i see frode's grandson smiling joyously, who once sowed the fields of fyriswald with gold. let us also be exalted with an honourable show of joy, following in death the doom of our noble father. be we therefore cheery in voice and bold in daring; for it is right to spurn all fear with words of courage, and to meet our death in deeds of glory. let fear quit heart and face; in both let us avow our dauntless endeavours, that no sign anywhere may show us to betray faltering fear. let our drawn sword measure the weight of our service. fame follows us in death, and glory shall outlive our crumbling ashes! and that which perfect valour hath achieved during its span shall not fade for ever and ever. what want we with closed floors? why doth the locked bolt close the folding-gates? for it is now the third cry, bjarke, that calls thee, and bids thee come forth from the barred room." bjarke rejoined: "warlike hjalte, why dost thou call me so loud? i am the son-in-law of rolf. he who boasts loud and with big words challenges other men to battle, is bound to be venturous and act up to his words, that his deed may avouch his vaunt. but stay till i am armed and have girded on the dread attire of war. "and now i tie my sword to my side, now first i get my body guarded with mail-coat and headpiece, the helm keeping my brows and the stout iron shrouding my breast. none shrinks more than i from being burnt a prisoner inside, and made a pyre together with my own house: though an island brought me forth, and though the land of my birth be bounded, i shall hold it a debt to repay to the king the twelve kindreds which he added to my honours. hearken, warriors! let none robe in mail his body that shall perish; let him last of all draw tight the woven steel; let the shields go behind the back; let us fight with bared breasts, and load all your arms with gold. let your right hands receive the bracelets, that they may swing their blows the more heavily and plant the grievous wound. let none fall back! let each zealously strive to meet the swords of the enemy and the threatening spears, that we may avenge our beloved master. happy beyond all things is he who can mete out revenge for such a crime, and with righteous steel punish the guilt of treacheries. "lo, methinks i surely pierced a wild stag with the teutonic sword which is called snyrtir: from which i won the name of warrior, when i felled agnar, son of ingild, and brought the trophy home. he shattered and broke with the bite the sword hoding which smote upon my head, and would have dealt worse wounds if the edge of his blade had held out better. in return i clove asunder his left arm and part of his left side and his right foot, and the piercing steel ran down his limbs and smote deep into his ribs. by hercules! no man ever seemed to me stronger than he. for he sank down half-conscious, and, leaning on his elbow, welcomed death with a smile, and spurned destruction with a laugh, and passed rejoicing in the world of elysium. mighty was the man's courage, which knew how with one laugh to cover his death-hour, and with a joyous face to suppress utter anguish of mind and body! "now also with the same blade i searched the heart of one sprung from an illustrious line, and plunged the steel deep in his breast. he was a king's son, of illustrious ancestry, of a noble nature, and shone with the brightness of youth. the mailed metal could not avail him, nor his sword, nor the smooth target-boss; so keen was the force of my steel, it knew not how to be stayed by obstacles. "where, then, are the captains of the goths, and the soldiery of hiartuar? let them come, and pay for their might with their life-blood. who can cast, who whirl the lance, save scions of kings? war springs from the nobly born: famous pedigrees are the makers of war. for the perilous deeds which chiefs attempt are not to be done by the ventures of common men. renowned nobles are passing away. lo! greatest rolf, thy great ones have fallen, thy holy line is vanishing. no dim and lowly race, no low-born dead, no base souls are pluto's prey, but he weaves the dooms of the mighty, and fills phlegethon with noble shapes. "i do not remember any combat wherein swords were crossed in turn and blow dealt out for blow more speedily. i take three for each i give; thus do the goths requite the wounds i deal them, and thus doth the stronger hand of the enemy avenge with heaped interest the punishment that they receive. yet singly in battle i have given over the bodies of so many men to the pyre of destruction, that a mound like a hill could grow up and be raised out of their lopped limbs, and the piles of carcases would look like a burial-barrow. and now what doeth he, who but now bade me come forth, vaunting himself with mighty praise, and chafing others with his arrogant words, and scattering harsh taunts, as though in his one body he enclosed twelve lives?" hjalte answered: "though i have but scant help, i am not far off. even here, where i stand, there is need of aid, and nowhere is a force or a chosen band of warriors ready for battle wanted more. already the hard edges and the spear-points have cleft my shield in splinters, and the ravening steel has rent and devoured its portions bit by bit in the battle. the first of these things testifies to and avows itself. seeing is better than telling, eyesight faithfuller than hearing. for of the broken shield only the fastenings remain, and the boss, pierced and broken in its circle, is all left me. and now, bjarke, thou art strong, though thou hast come forth more tardily than was right, and thou retrievest by bravery the loss caused by thy loitering." but bjarke said: "art thou not yet weary of girding at me and goading me with taunts? many things often cause delay. the reason why i tarried was the sword in my path, which the swedish foe whirled against my breast with mighty effort. nor did the guider of the hilt drive home the sword with little might; for though the body was armed he smote it as far as one may when it is bare or defenceless; he pierced the armour of hard steel like yielding waters; nor could the rough, heavy breastplate give me any help. "but where now is he that is commonly called odin, the mighty in battle, content ever with a single eye? if thou see him anywhere, rute, tell me." rute replied: "bring thine eye closer and look under my arm akimbo: thou must first hallow thine eyes with the victorious sign, if thou wilt safely know the war-god face to face." then said bjarke: "if i may look on the awful husband of frigg, howsoever he be covered with his white shield, and guide his tall steed, he shall in no wise go safe out of leire; it is lawful to lay low in war the war-waging god. let a noble death come to those that fall before the eyes of their king. while life lasts, let us strive for the power to die honourably and to reap a noble end by our deeds. i will die overpowered near the head of my slain captain, and at his feet thou also shalt slip on thy face in death, so that whoso scans the piled corpses may see in what wise we rate the gold our lord gave us. we shall be the prey of ravens and a morsel for hungry eagles, and the ravening bird shall feast on the banquet of our body. thus should fall princes dauntless in war, clasping their famous king in a common death." i have composed this particular series of harangues in metrical shape, because the gist of the same thoughts is found arranged in a short form in a certain ancient danish song, which is repeated by heart by many conversant with antiquity. now, it came to pass that the goths gained the victory and all the array of rolf fell, no man save wigg remaining out of all those warriors. for the soldiers of the king paid this homage to his noble virtues in that battle, that his slaying inspired in all the longing to meet their end, and union with him in death was accounted sweeter than life. hiartuar rejoiced, and had the tables spread for feasting, bidding the banquet come after the battle, and fain to honour his triumph with a carouse. and when he was well filled therewith, he said that it was matter of great marvel to him, that out of all the army of rolf no man had been found to take thought for his life by flight or fraud. hence, he said, it had been manifest with what zealous loyalty they had kept their love for their king, because they had not endured to survive him. he also blamed his ill fortune, because it had not suffered the homage of a single one of them to be left for himself: protesting that he would very willingly accept the service of such men. then wigg came forth, and hiartuar, as though he were congratulating him on the gift, asked him if he were willing to fight for him. wigg assenting, he drew and proferred him a sword. but wigg refused the point, and asked for the hilt, saying first that this had been rolf's custom when he handed forth a sword to his soldiers. for in old time those who were about to put themselves in dependence on the king used to promise fealty by touching the hilt of the sword. and in this wise wigg clasped the hilt, and then drove the point through hiartuar; thus gaining the vengeance which he had promised rolf to accomplish for him. when he had done this, and the soldiers of hiartuar rushed at him, he exposed his body to them eagerly and exultantly, shouting that he felt more joy in the slaughter of the tyrant than bitterness at his own. thus the feast was turned into a funeral, and the wailing of burial followed the joy of victory. glorious, ever memorable hero, who valiantly kept his vow, and voluntarily courted death, staining with blood by his service the tables of the despot! for the lively valour of his spirit feared not the hands of the slaughterers, when he had once beheld the place where rolf had been wont to live bespattered with the blood of his slayer. thus the royalty of hiartuar was won and ended on the same day. for whatsoever is gotten with guile melts away in like fashion as it is sought, and no fruits are long-lasting that have been won by treachery and crime. hence it came to pass that the swedes, who had a little before been the possessors of denmark, came to lose even their own liberty. for they were straightway cut off by the zealanders, and paid righteous atonement to the injured shades of rolf. in this way does stern fortune commonly avenge the works of craft and cunning. book three. after hiartuar, hother, whom i mentioned above, the brother of athisl, and also the fosterling of king gewar, became sovereign of both realms. it will be easier to relate his times if i begin with the beginning of his life. for if the earlier years of his career are not doomed to silence, the latter ones can be more fully and fairly narrated. when helgi had slain hodbrodd, his son hother passed the length of his boyhood under the tutelage of king gewar. while a stripling, he excelled in strength of body all his foster-brethren and compeers. moreover, he was gifted with many accomplishments of mind. he was very skilled in swimming and archery, and also with the gloves; and further was as nimble as such a youth could be, his training being equal to his strength. though his years were unripe, his richly-dowered spirit surpassed them. none was more skilful on lyre or harp; and he was cunning on the timbrel, on the lute, and in every modulation of string instruments. with his changing measures he could sway the feelings of men to what passions he would; he knew how to fill human hearts with joy or sadness, with pity or with hatred, and used to enwrap the soul with the delight or terror of the ear. all these accomplishments of the youth pleased nanna, the daughter of gewar, mightily, and she began to seek his embraces. for the valour of a youth will often kindle a maid, and the courage of those whose looks are not so winning is often acceptable. for love hath many avenues; the path of pleasure is opened to some by grace, to others by bravery of soul, and to some by skill in accomplishments. courtesy brings to some stores of love, while most are commended by brightness of beauty. nor do the brave inflict a shallower wound on maidens than the comely. now it befell that balder the son of odin was troubled at the sight of nanna bathing, and was seized with boundless love. he was kindled by her fair and lustrous body, and his heart was set on fire by her manifest beauty; for nothing exciteth passion like comeliness. therefore he resolved to slay with the sword hother, who, he feared, was likeliest to baulk his wishes; so that his love, which brooked no postponement, might not be delayed in the enjoyment of its desire by any obstacle. about this time hother chanced, while hunting, to be led astray by a mist, and he came on a certain lodge in which were wood-maidens; and when they greeted him by his own name, he asked who they were. they declared that it was their guidance and government that mainly determined the fortunes of war. for they often invisibly took part in battles, and by their secret assistance won for their friends the coveted victories. they averted, indeed, that they could win triumphs and inflict defeats as they would; and further told him how balder had seen his foster-sister nanna while she bathed, and been kindled with passion for her; but counselled hother not to attack him in war, worthy as he was of his deadliest hate, for they declared that balder was a demigod, sprung secretly from celestial seed. when hother had heard this, the place melted away and left him shelterless, and he found himself standing in the open and out in the midst of the fields, without a vestige of shade. most of all he marvelled at the swift flight of the maidens, the shifting of the place, and the delusive semblance of the building. for he knew not that all that had passed around him had been a mere mockery and an unreal trick of the arts of magic. returning thence, he related to gewar the mystification that had followed on his straying, and straightway asked him for his daughter. gewar answered that he would most gladly favour him, but that he feared if he rejected balder he would incur his wrath; for balder, he said, had proffered him a like request. for he said that the sacred strength of balder's body was proof even against steel; adding, however, that he knew of a sword which could deal him his death, which was fastened up in the closest bonds; this was in the keeping of miming, the satyr of the woods, who also had a bracelet of a secret and marvellous virtue, that used to increase the wealth of the owner. moreover, the way to these regions was impassable and filled with obstacles, and therefore hard for mortal men to travel. for the greater part of the road was perpetually beset with extraordinary cold. so he advised him to harness a car with reindeer, by means of whose great speed he could cross the hard-frozen ridges. and when he had got to the place, he should set up his tent away from the sun in such wise that it should catch the shadow of the cave where miming was wont to be; while he should not in return cast a shade upon miming, so that no unaccustomed darkness might be thrown and prevent the satyr from going out. thus both the bracelet and the sword would be ready to his hand, one being attended by fortune in wealth and the other by fortune in war, and each of them thus bringing a great prize to the owner. thus much said gewar; and hother was not slow to carry out his instructions. planting his tent in the manner aforesaid, he passed the nights in anxieties and the days in hunting. but through either season he remained very wakeful and sleepless, allotting the divisions of night and day so as to devote the one to reflection on events, and to spend the other in providing food for his body. once as he watched all night, his spirit was drooping and dazed with anxiety, when the satyr cast a shadow on his tent. aiming a spear at him, he brought him down with the blow, stopped him, and bound him, while he could not make his escape. then in the most dreadful words he threatened him with the worst, and demanded the sword and bracelets. the satyr was not slow to tender him the ransom of his life for which he was asked. so surely do all prize life beyond wealth; for nothing is ever cherished more among mortals than the breath of their own life. hother, exulting in the treasure he had gained, went home enriched with trophies which, though few, were noble. when gelder, the king of saxony, heard that hother had gained these things, he kept constantly urging his soldiers to go and carry off such glorious booty; and the warriors speedily equipped a fleet in obedience to their king. gewar, being very learned in divining and an expert in the knowledge of omens, foresaw this; and summoning hother, told him, when gelder should join battle with him, to receive his spears with patience, and not let his own fly until he saw the enemy's missiles exhausted; and further, to bring up the curved scythes wherewith the vessels could be rent and the helmets and shields plucked from the soldiers. hother followed his advice and found its result fortunate. for he bade his men, when gelder began to charge, to stand their ground and defend their bodies with their shields, affirming that the victory in that battle must be won by patience. but the enemy nowhere kept back their missiles, spending them all in their extreme eagerness to fight; and the more patiently they found hother bear himself in his reception of their spears and lances, the more furiously they began to hurl them. some of these stuck in the shields and some in the ships, and few were the wounds they inflicted; many of them were seen to be shaken off idly and to do no hurt. for the soldiers of hother performed the bidding of their king, and kept off the attack of the spears by a penthouse of interlocked shields; while not a few of the spears smote lightly on the bosses and fell into the waves. when gelder was emptied of all his store, and saw the enemy picking it up, and swiftly hurling it back at him, he covered the summit of the mast with a crimson shield, as a signal of peace, and surrendered to save his life. hother received him with the friendliest face and the kindliest words, and conquered him as much by his gentleness as he had by his skill. at this time helgi, king of halogaland, was sending frequent embassies to press his suit for thora, daughter of kuse, sovereign of the finns and perms. thus is weakness ever known by its wanting help from others. for while all other young men of that time used to sue in marriage with their own lips, this man was afflicted with so faulty an utterance that he was ashamed to be heard not only by strangers, but by those of his own house. so much doth calamity shun all witnesses; for natural defects are the more vexing the more manifest they are. kuse despised his embassy, answering that that man did not deserve a wife who trusted too little to his own manhood, and borrowed by entreaty the aid of others in order to gain his suit. when helgi heard this, he besought hother, whom he knew to be an accomplished pleader, to favour his desires, promising that he would promptly perform whatsoever he should command him. the earnest entreaties of the youth prevailed on hother, and he went to norway with an armed fleet, intending to achieve by arms the end which he could not by words. and when he had pleaded for helgi with the most dulcet eloquence, kuse rejoined that his daughter's wish must be consulted, in order that no paternal strictness might forestall anything against her will. he called her in and asked her whether she felt a liking for her wooer; and when she assented he promised helgi her hand. in this way hother, by the sweet sounds of his fluent and well-turned oratory, opened the ears of kuse, which were before deaf to the suit he urged. while this was passing in halogaland, balder entered the country of gewar armed, in order to sue for nanna. gewar bade him learn nanna's own mind; so he approached the maiden with the most choice and cajoling words; and when he could win no hearing for his prayers, he persisted in asking the reason of his refusal. she replied, that a god could not wed with a mortal, because the vast difference of their natures prevented any bond of intercourse. also the gods sometimes used to break their pledges; and the bond contracted between unequals was apt to snap suddenly. there was no firm tie between those of differing estate; for beside the great, the fortunes of the lowly were always dimmed. also lack and plenty dwelt in diverse tents, nor was there any fast bond of intercourse between gorgeous wealth and obscure poverty. in fine, the things of earth would not mate with those of heaven, being sundered by a great original gulf through a difference in nature; inasmuch as mortal man was infinitely far from the glory of the divine majesty. with this shuffling answer she eluded the suit of balder, and shrewdly wove excuses to refuse his hand. when hother heard this from gewar, he complained long to helgi of balder's insolence. both were in doubt as to what should be done, and beat their brains over divers plans; for converse with a friend in the day of trouble, though it removeth not the peril, yet maketh the heart less sick. amid all the desires of their souls the passion of valour prevailed, and a naval battle was fought with balder. one would have thought it a contest of men against gods, for odin and thor and the holy array of the gods fought for balder. there one could have beheld a war in which divine and human might were mingled. but hother was clad in his steel-defying tunic, and charged the closest bands of the gods, assailing them as vehemently as a son of earth could assail the powers above. however, thor was swinging his club with marvellous might, and shattered all interposing shields, calling as loudly on his foes to attack him as upon his friends to back him up. no kind of armour withstood his onset, no man could receive his stroke and live. whatsoever his blow fended off it crushed; neither shield nor helm endured the weight of its dint; no greatness of body or of strength could serve. thus the victory would have passed to the gods, but that hother, though his line had already fallen back, darted up, hewed off the club at the haft, and made it useless. and the gods, when they had lost this weapon, fled incontinently. but that antiquity vouches for it, it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against gods. (we call them gods in a supposititious rather than in a real sense; for to such we give the title of deity by the custom of nations, not because of their nature.) as for balder, he took to flight and was saved. the conquerors either hacked his ships with their swords or sunk them in the sea; not content to have defeated gods, they pursued the wrecks of the fleet with such rage, as if they would destroy them to satiate their deadly passion for war. thus doth prosperity commonly whet the edge of licence. the haven, recalling by its name balder's flight, bears witness to the war. gelder, the king of saxony, who met his end in the same war, was set by hother upon the corpses of his oarsmen, and then laid on a pyre built of vessels, and magnificently honoured in his funeral by hother, who not only put his ashes in a noble barrow, treating them as the remains of a king, but also graced them with most reverent obsequies. then, to prevent any more troublesome business delaying his hopes of marriage, he went back to gewar and enjoyed the coveted embraces of nanna. next, having treated helgi and thora very generously, he brought his new queen back to sweden, being as much honoured by all for his victory as balder was laughed at for his flight. at this time the nobles of the swedes repaired to demnark to pay their tribute; but hother, who had been honoured as a king by his countrymen for the splendid deeds of his father, experienced what a lying pander fortune is. for he was conquered in the field by balder, whom a little before he had crushed, and was forced to flee to gewar, thus losing while a king that victory which he had won as a common man. the conquering balder, in order to slake his soldiers, who were parched with thirst, with the blessing of a timely draught, pierced the earth deep and disclosed a fresh spring. the thirsty ranks made with gaping lips for the water that gushed forth everywhere. the traces of these springs, eternised by the name, are thought not quite to have dried up yet, though they have ceased to well so freely as of old. balder was continually harassed by night phantoms feigning the likeness of nanna, and fell into such ill health that he could not so much as walk, and began the habit of going his journeys in a two horse car or a four-wheeled carriage. so great was the love that had steeped his heart and now had brought him down almost to the extremity of decline. for he thought that his victory had brought him nothing if nanna was not his prize. also frey, the regent of the gods, took his abode not far from upsala, where he exchanged for a ghastly and infamous sin-offering the old custom of prayer by sacrifice, which had been used by so many ages and generations. for he paid to the gods abominable offerings, by beginning to slaughter human victims. meantime hother ( ) learned that denmark lacked leaders, and that hiartuar had swiftly expiated the death of rolf; and he used to say that chance had thrown into his hands that to which he could scarce have aspired. for first, rolf, whom he ought to have killed, since he remembered that rolf's father had slain his own, had been punished by the help of another; and also, by the unexpected bounty of events, a chance had been opened to him of winning denmark. in truth, if the pedigree of his forefathers were rightly traced, that realm was his by ancestral right! thereupon he took possession, with a very great fleet, of isefjord, a haven of zealand, so as to make use of his impending fortune. there the people of the danes met him and appointed him king; and a little after, on hearing of the death of his brother athisl, whom he had bidden rule the swedes, he joined the swedish empire to that of denmark. but athisl was cut off by an ignominious death. for whilst, in great jubilation of spirit, he was honouring the funeral rites of rolf with a feast, he drank too greedily, and paid for his filthy intemperance by his sudden end. and so, while he was celebrating the death of another with immoderate joviality, he forced on his own apace. while hother was in sweden, balder also came to zealand with a fleet; and since he was thought to be rich in arms and of singular majesty, the danes accorded him with the readiest of voices whatever he asked concerning the supreme power. with such wavering judgment was the opinion of our forefathers divided. hother returned from sweden and attacked him. they both coveted sway, and the keenest contest for the sovereignty began between them; but it was cut short by the flight of hother. he retired to jutland, and caused to be named after him the village in which he was wont to stay. here he passed the winter season, and then went back to sweden alone and unattended. there he summoned the grandees, and told them that he was weary of the light of life because of the misfortunes wherewith balder had twice victoriously stricken him. then he took farewell of all, and went by a circuitous path to a place that was hard of access, traversing forests uncivilised. for it oft happens that those upon whom has come some inconsolable trouble of spirit seek, as though it were a medicine to drive away their sadness, far and sequestered retreats, and cannot bear the greatness of their grief amid the fellowship of men; so dear, for the most part, is solitude to sickness. for filthiness and grime are chiefly pleasing to those who have been stricken with ailments of the soul. now he had been wont to give out from the top of a hill decrees to the people when they came to consult him; and hence when they came they upbraided the sloth of the king for hiding himself, and his absence was railed at by all with the bitterest complaints. but hother, when he had wandered through remotest byways and crossed an uninhabited forest, chanced to come upon a cave where dwelt some maidens whom he knew not; but they proved to be the same who had once given him the invulnerable coat. asked by them wherefore he had come thither, he related the disastrous issue of the war. so he began to bewail the ill luck of his failures and his dismal misfortunes, condemning their breach of faith, and lamenting that it had not turned out for him as they had promised him. but the maidens said that though he had seldom come off victorious, he had nevertheless inflicted as much defeat on the enemy as they on him, and had dealt as much carnage as he had shared in. moreover, the favour of victory would be speedily his, if he could first lay hands upon a food of extraordinary delightsomeness which had been devised to increase the strength of balder. for nothing would be difficult if he could only get hold of the dainty which was meant to enhance the rigour of his foe. hard as it sounded for earthborn endeavours to make armed assault upon the gods, the words of the maidens inspired hother's mind with instant confidence to fight with balder. also some of his own people said that he could not safely contend with those above; but all regard for their majesty was expelled by the boundless fire of his spirit. for in brave souls vehemence is not always sapped by reason, nor doth counsel defeat rashness. or perchance it was that hother remembered how the might of the lordliest oft proveth unstable, and how a little clod can batter down great chariots. on the other side, balder mustered the danes to arms and met hother in the field. both sides made a great slaughter; the carnage of the opposing parties was nearly equal, and night stayed the battle. about the third watch, hother, unknown to any man, went out to spy upon the enemy, anxiety about the impending peril having banished sleep. this strong excitement favours not bodily rest, and inward disquiet suffers not outward repose. so, when he came to the camp of the enemy he heard that three maidens had gone out carrying the secret feast of balder. he ran after them (for their footsteps in the dew betrayed their flight), and at last entered their accustomed dwelling. when they asked him who he was, he answered, a lutanist, nor did the trial belie his profession. for when the lyre was offered him, he tuned its strings, ordered and governed the chords with his quill, and with ready modulation poured forth a melody pleasant to the ear. now they had three snakes, of whose venom they were wont to mix a strengthening compound for the food of balder, and even now a flood of slaver was dripping on the food from the open mouths of the serpents. and some of the maidens would, for kindness sake, have given hother a share of the dish, had not eldest of the three forbidden them, declaring that balder would be cheated if they increased the bodily powers of his enemy. he had said, not that he was hother, but that he was one of his company. now the same nymphs, in their gracious kindliness, bestowed on him a belt of perfect sheen and a girdle which assured victory. retracing the path by which he had come, he went back on the same road, and meeting balder plunged his sword into his side, and laid him low half dead. when the news was told to the soldiers, a cheery shout of triumph rose from all the camp of hother, while the danes held a public mourning for the fate of balder. he, feeling no doubt of his impending death, and stung by the anguish of his wound, renewed the battle on the morrow; and, when it raged hotly, bade that he should be borne on a litter into the fray, that he might not seem to die ignobly within his tent. on the night following, proserpine was seen to stand by him in a vision, and to promise that on the morrow he should have her embrace. the boding of the dream was not idle; for when three days had passed, balder perished from the excessive torture of his wound; and his body given a royal funeral, the army causing it to be buried in a barrow which they had made. certain men of our day, chief among whom was harald, ( ) since the story of the ancient burial-place still survived, made a raid on it by night in the hope of finding money, but abandoned their attempt in sudden panic. for the hill split, and from its crest a sudden and mighty torrent of loud-roaring waters seemed to burst; so that its flying mass, shooting furiously down, poured over the fields below, and enveloped whatsoever it struck upon, and at its onset the delvers were dislodged, flung down their mattocks, and fled divers ways; thinking that if they strove any longer to carry through their enterprise they would be caught in the eddies of the water that was rushing down. thus the guardian gods of that spot smote fear suddenly into the minds of the youths, taking them away from covetousness, and turning them to see to their safety; teaching them to neglect their greedy purpose and be careful of their lives. now it is certain that this apparent flood was not real but phantasmal; not born in the bowels of the earth (since nature suffereth not liquid springs to gush forth in a dry place), but produced by some magic agency. all men afterwards, to whom the story of that breaking in had come down, left this hill undisturbed. wherefore it has never been made sure whether it really contains any wealth; for the dread of peril has daunted anyone since harald from probing its dark foundations. but odin, though he was accounted the chief of the gods, began to inquire of the prophets and diviners concerning the way to accomplish vengeance for his son, as well as all others whom he had beard were skilled in the most recondite arts of soothsaying. for godhead that is incomplete is oft in want of the help of man. rostioph (hrossthiof), the finn, foretold to him that another son must be born to him by rinda (wrinda), daughter of the king of the ruthenians; this son was destined to exact punishment for the slaying of his brother. for the gods had appointed to the brother that was yet to be born the task of avenging his kinsman. odin, when he heard this, muffled his face with a cap, that his garb might not betray him, and entered the service of the said king as a soldier; and being made by him captain of the soldiers, and given an army, won a splendid victory over the enemy. and for his stout achievement in this battle the king admitted him into the chief place in his friendship, distinguishing him as generously with gifts as with honours. a very little while afterwards odin routed the enemy single-handed, and returned, at once the messenger and the doer of the deed. all marvelled that the strength of one man could deal such slaughter upon a countless host. trusting in these services, he privily let the king into the secret of his love, and was refreshed by his most gracious favour; but when he sought a kiss from the maiden, he received a cuff. but he was not driven from his purpose either by anger at the slight or by the odiousness of the insult. next year, loth to quit ignobly the quest he had taken up so eagerly, he put on the dress of a foreigner and went back to dwell with the king. it was hard for those who met him to recognise him; for his assumed filth obliterated his true features, and new grime hid his ancient aspect. he said that his name was roster (hrosstheow), and that he was skilled in smithcraft. and his handiwork did honour to his professions: for he portrayed in bronze many and many a shape most beautifully, so that he received a great mass of gold from the king, and was ordered to hammer out the ornaments of the matrons. so, after having wrought many adornments for women's wearing, he at last offered to the maiden a bracelet which he had polished more laboriously than the rest and several rings which were adorned with equal care. but no services could assuage the wrath of rinda; when he was fain to kiss her she cuffed him; for gifts offered by one we hate are unacceptable, while those tendered by a friend are far more grateful: so much doth the value of the offering oft turn on the offerer. for this stubborn-hearted maiden never doubted that the crafty old man was feigning generosity in order to seize an opening to work his lust. his temper, moreover, was keen and indomitable; for she knew that his homage covered guile, and that under the devotion of his gifts there lay a desire for crime. her father fell to upbraiding her heavily for refusing the match; but she loathed to wed an old man, and the plea of her tender years lent her some support in her scorning of his hand; for she said that a young girl ought not to marry prematurely. but odin, who had found that nothing served the wishes of lovers more than tough persistency, though he was stung with the shame of his double rebuff, nevertheless, effacing the form he had worn before, went to the king for the third time, professing the completest skill in soldiership. he was led to take this pains not only by pleasure but by the wish to wipe out his disgrace. for of old those who were skilled in magic gained this power of instantly changing their aspect and exhibiting the most different shapes. indeed, they were clever at imitating any age, not only in its natural bodily appearance, but also in its stature; and so the old man, in order to exhibit his calling agreeably, used to ride proudly up and down among the briskest of them. but not even such a tribute could move the rigour of the maiden; for it is hard for the mind to come back to a genuine liking for one against whom it has once borne heavy dislike. when he tried to kiss her at his departure, she repulsed him so that he tottered and smote his chin upon the ground. straightway he touched her with a piece of bark whereon spells were written, and made her like unto one in frenzy: which was a gentle revenge to take for all the insults he had received. but still he did not falter in the fulfilment of his purpose; for trust in his divine majesty buoyed him up with confidence; so, assuming the garb of a maiden, this indefatigable journeyer repaired for the fourth time to the king, and, on being received by him, showed himself assiduous and even forward. most people believed him to be a woman, as he was dressed almost in female attire. also he declared that his name was wecha, and his calling that of a physician: and this assertion he confirmed by the readiest services. at last he was taken into the household of the queen, and played the part of a waiting-woman to the princess, and even used to wash the soil off her feet at eventide; and as he was applying the water he was suffered to touch her calves and the upper part of the thighs. but fortune goes with mutable steps, and thus chance put into his hand what his address had never won. for it happened that the girl fell sick, and looked around for a cure; and she summoned to protect her health those very hands which aforetime she had rejected, and appealed for preservation to him whom she had ever held in loathing. he examined narrowly all the symptoms of the trouble, and declared that, in order to check the disease as soon as possible, it was needful to use a certain drugged draught; but that it was so bitterly compounded, that the girl could never endure so violent a cure unless she submitted to be bound; since the stuff of the malady must be ejected from the very innermost tissues. when her father heard this he did not hesitate to bind his daughter; and laying her on the bed, he bade her endure patiently all the applications of the doctor. for the king was tricked by the sight of the female dress, which the old man was using to disguise his persistent guile; and thus the seeming remedy became an opportunity of outrage. for the physician seized the chance of love, and, abandoning his business of healing, sped to the work, not of expelling the fever, but of working his lust; making use of the sickness of the princess, whom in sound health he had found adverse to him. it will not be wearisome if i subjoin another version of this affair. for there are certain who say that the king, when he saw the physician groaning with love, but despite all his expense of mind and body accomplishing nothing, did not wish to rob of his due reward one who had so well earned it, and allowed him to lie privily with his daughter. so doth the wickedness of the father sometimes assail the child, when vehement passion perverts natural mildness. but his fault was soon followed by a remorse that was full of shame, when his daughter bore a child. but the gods, whose chief seat was then at byzantium, (asgard), seeing that odin had tarnished the fair name of godhead by divers injuries to its majesty, thought that he ought to be removed from their society. and they had him not only ousted from the headship, but outlawed and stripped of all worship and honour at home; thinking it better that the power of their infamous president should be overthrown than that public religion should be profaned; and fearing that they might themselves be involved in the sin of another, and though guiltless be punished for the crime of the guilty. for they saw that, now the derision of their great god was brought to light, those whom they had lured to proffer them divine honours were exchanging obeisance for scorn and worship for shame; that holy rites were being accounted sacrilege, and fixed and regular ceremonies deemed so much childish raving. fear was in their souls, death before their eyes, and one would have supposed that the fault of one was visited upon the heads of all. so, not wishing odin to drive public religion into exile, they exiled him and put one oller (wulder?) in his place, to bear the symbols not only of royalty but also of godhead, as though it had been as easy a task to create a god as a king. and though they had appointed him priest for form's sake, they endowed him actually with full distinction, that he might be seen to be the lawful heir to the dignity, and no mere deputy doing another's work. also, to omit no circumstance of greatness, they further gave his the name of odin, trying by the prestige of that title to be rid of the obloquy of innovation. for nearly ten years oller held the presidency of the divine senate; but at last the gods pitied the horrible exile of odin, and thought that he had now been punished heavily enough; so he exchanged his foul and unsightly estate for his ancient splendour; for the lapse of time had now wiped out the brand of his earlier disgrace. yet some were to be found who judged that he was not worthy to approach and resume his rank, because by his stage-tricks and his assumption of a woman's work he had brought the foulest scandal on the name of the gods. some declare that he bought back the fortune of his lost divinity with money; flattering some of the gods and mollifying some with bribes; and that at the cost of a vast sum he contrived to get back to the distinction which he had long quitted. if you ask how much he paid for them, inquire of those who have found out what is the price of a godhead. i own that to me it is but little worth. thus oller was driven out from byzantium by odin and retired into sweden. here, while he was trying, as if in a new world, to repair the records of his glory, the danes slew him. the story goes that he was such a cunning wizard that he used a certain bone, which he had marked with awful spells, wherewith to cross the seas, instead of a vessel; and that by this bone he passed over the waters that barred his way as quickly as by rowing. but odin, now that he had regained the emblems of godhead, shone over all parts of the world with such a lustre of renown that all nations welcomed him as though he were light restored to the universe; nor was any spot to be found on the earth which did not hornage to his might. then finding that boe, his son by rhlda, was enamoured of the hardships of war, he called him, and bade him bear in mind the slaying of his brother: saying that it would be better for him to take vengeande on the murderers of balder than to overcome them in battle; for warfare was most fitting and wholesome when a holy occasion for waging it was furnished by a righteous opening for vengeande. news came meantime that gewar had been slain by the guile of his own satrap (jarl), gunne. hother determined to visit his murder with the strongest and sharpest revenge. so he surprised gunne, cast him on a blazing pyre, and burnt him; for gunne had himself treacherously waylaid gewar, and burnt him alive in the night. this was his offering of vengeance to the shade of his foster-father; and then he made his sons, herlek and gerit, rulers of norway. then he summoned the elders to assembly, and told them that he would perish in the war wherein he was bound to meet boe, and said that he knew this by no doubtful guesswork, but by sure prophecies of seers. so he besought them to make his son rorik king, so that the judgment of wicked men should not transfer the royalty to strange and unknown houses; averring that he would reap more joy from the succession of his son than bitterness from his own impending death. this request was speedily granted. then he met boe in battle and was killed; but small joy the victory gave boe. indeed, he left the battle so sore stricken that he was lifted on his shield and carried home by his foot-soldiers supporting him in turn, to perish next day of the pain of his wounds. the ruthenian army gave his body a gorgeous funeral and buried it in a splendid howe, which it piled in his name, to save the record of so mighty a warrior from slipping out of the recollection of after ages. so the kurlanders and the swedes, as though the death of hother set them free from the burden of their subjection, resolved to attack denmark, to which they were accustomed to do homage with a yearly tax. by this the slavs also were emboldened to revolt, and a number of others were turned from subjects into foes. rorik, in order to check this wrongdoing, summoned his country to arms, recounted the deeds of his forefathers, and urged them in a passionate harangue unto valorous deeds. but the barbarians, loth to engage without a general, and seeing that they needed a head, appointed a king over them; and, displaying all the rest of their military force, hid two companies of armed men in a dark spot. but rorik saw the trap; and perceiving that his fleet was wedged in a certain narrow creek among the shoal water, took it out from the sands where it was lying, and brought it forth to sea; lest it should strike on the oozy swamps, and be attacked by the foe on different sides. also, he resolved that his men should go into hiding during the day, where they could stay and suddenly fall on the invaders of his ships. he said that perchance the guile might in the end recoil on the heads of its devisors. and in fact the barbarians who had been appointed to the ambuscade knew nothing of the wariness of the danes, and sallying against them rashly, were all destroyed. the remaining force of the slavs, knowing nothing of the slaughter of their friends, hung in doubt wondering over the reason of rorik's tarrying. and after waiting long for him as the months wearily rolled by, and finding delay every day more burdensome, they at last thought they should attack him with their fleet. now among them there was a man of remarkable stature, a wizard by calling. he, when he beheld the squadrons of the danes, said: "suffer a private combat to forestall a public slaughter, so that the danger of many may be bought off at the cost of a few. and if any of you shall take heart to fight it out with me, i will not flinch from these terms of conflict. but first of all i demand that you accept the terms i prescribe, the form whereof i have devised as follows: if i conquer, let freedom be granted us from taxes; if i am conquered, let the tribute be paid you as of old: for to-day i will either free my country from the yoke of slavery by my victory or bind her under it by my defeat. accept me as the surety and the pledge for either issue." one of the danes, whose spirit was stouter than his strength, heard this, and proceeded to ask rorik, what would be the reward for the man who met the challenger in combat? rorik chanced to have six bracelets, which were so intertwined that they could not be parted from one another, the chain of knots being inextricaly laced; and he promised them as a reward for the man who would venture on the combat. but the youth, who doubted his fortune, said: "rorik, if i prove successful, let thy generosity award the prize of the conqueror, do thou decide and allot the palm; but if my enterprise go little to my liking, what prize canst thou owe to the beaten, who will be wrapped either in cruel death or in bitter shame? these things commonly go with feebleness, these are the wages of the defeated, for whom naught remains but utter infamy. what guerdon must be paid, what thanks offered, to him who lacks the prize of courage? who has ever garlanded with ivy the weakling in war, or decked him with a conqueror's wage? valour wins the prize, not sloth, and failure lacks renown. for one is followed by triumph and honour, the other by an unsightly life or by a stagnant end. i, who know not which way the issue of this duel inclines, dare not boldly anticipate that as a reward, of which i know not whether it be rightly mine. for one whose victory is doubtful may not seize the assured reward of the victor. i forbear, while i am not sure of the day, to claim firmly the title to the wreath. i refuse the gain, which may be the wages of my death as much as of my life. it is folly to lay hands on the fruit before it is ripe, and to be fain to pluck that which one is not yet sure is one's title. this hand shall win me the prize, or death." having thus spoken, he smote the barbarian with his sword; but his fortune was tardier than his spirit; for the other smote him back, and he fell dead under the force of the first blow. thus he was a sorry sight unto the danes, but the slavs granted their triumphant comrade a great procession, and received him with splendid dances. on the morrow the same man, whether he was elated with the good fortune of his late victory, or was fired with the wish to win another, came close to the enemy, and set to girding at them in the words of his former challenge. for, supposing that he had laid low the bravest of the danes, he did not think that any of them would have any heart left to fight further with him upon his challenge. also, trusting that, now one champion had fallen, he had shattered the strength of the whole army, he thought that naught would be hard to achieve upon which his later endeavours were bent. for nothing pampers arrogance more than success, or prompts to pride more surely than prosperity. so rorik was vexed that the general courage should be sapped by the impudence of one man; and that the danes, with their roll of victories, should be met presumptuously by those whom they had beaten of old; nay, should be ignominiously spurned; further, that in all that host not one man should be found so quick of spirit or so vigorous of arm, that he longed to sacrifice his life for his country. it was the high-hearted ubbe who first wiped off this infamous reproach upon the hesitating danes. for he was of great bodily strength and powerful in incantations. he also purposely asked the prize of the combat, and the king promised him the bracelets. then said he: "how can i trust the promise when thou keepest the pledge in thine own hands, and dost not deposit the gift in the charge of another? let there be some one to whom thou canst entrust the pledge, that thou mayst not be able to take thy promise back. for the courage of the champion is kindled by the irrevocable certainty of the prize." of course it was plain that he had said this in jest; sheer courage had armed him to repel the insult to his country. but rorik thought he was tempted by avarice, and was loth to seem as if, contrary to royal fashion, he meant to take back the gift or revoke his promise; so, being stationed on his vessel, he resolved to shake off the bracelets, and with a mighty swing send them to the asker. but his attempt was baulked by the width of the gap between them; for the bracelets fell short of the intended spot, the impulse being too faint and slack, and were reft away by the waters. for this nickname of slyngebond, (swing-bracelet) clung to rorik. but this event testified much to the valour of ubbe. for the loss of his drowned prize never turned his mind from his bold venture; he would not seem to let his courage be tempted by the wages of covetousness. so he eagerly went to fight, showing that he was a seeker of honour and not the slave of lucre, and that he set bravery before lust of pelf; and intent to prove that his confidence was based not on hire, but on his own great soul. not a moment is lost; a ring is made; the course is thronged with soldiers; the champions engage; a din arises; the crowd of onlookers shouts in discord, each backing his own. and so the valour of the champions blazes to white-heat; falling dead under the wounds dealt by one another, they end together the combat and their lives. i think that it was a provision of fortune that neither of them should reap joy and honour by the other's death. this event won back to rorik the hearts of the insurgents and regained him the tribute. at this time horwendil and feng, whose father gerwendil had been governor of the jutes, were appointed in his place by rorik to defend jutland. but horwendil held the monarchy for three years, and then, to will the height of glory, devoted himself to roving. then koller, king of norway, in rivalry of his great deeds and renown, deemed it would be a handsome deed if by his greater strength in arms he could bedim the far-famed glory of the rover; and cruising about the sea, he watched for horwendil's fleet and came up with it. there was an island lying in the middle of the sea, which each of the rovers, bringing his ships up on either side, was holding. the captains were tempted by the pleasant look of the beach, and the comeliness of the shores led them to look through the interior of the springtide woods, to go through the glades, and roam over the sequestered forests. it was here that the advance of koller and horwendil brought them face to face without any witness. then horwendil endeavoured to address the king first, asking him in what way it was his pleasure to fight, and declaring that one best which needed the courage of as few as possible. for, said he, the duel was the surest of all modes of combat for winning the meed of bravery, because it relied only upon native courage, and excluded all help from the hand of another. koller marvelled at so brave a judgment in a youth, and said: "since thou hast granted me the choice of battle, i think it is best to employ that kind which needs only the endeavours of two, and is free from all the tumult. certainly it is more venturesome, and allows of a speedier award of the victory. this thought we share, in this opinion we agree of our own accord. but since the issue remains doubtful, we must pay some regard to gentle dealing, and must not give way so far to our inclinations as to leave the last offices undone. hatred is in our hearts; yet let piety be there also, which in its due time may take the place of rigour. for the rights of nature reconcile us, though we are parted by differences of purpose; they link us together, howsoever rancour estrange our spirit. let us, therefore, have this pious stipulation, that the conqueror shall give funeral rites to the conquered. for all allow that these are the last duties of human kind, from which no righteous man shrinks. let each army lay aside its sternness and perform this function in harmony. let jealousy depart at death, let the feud be buried in the tomb. let us not show such an example of cruelty as to persecute one another's dust, though hatred has come between us in our lives. it will be a boast for the victor if he has borne his beaten foe in a lordly funeral. for the man who pays the rightful dues over his dead enemy wins the goodwill of the survivor; and whoso devotes gentle dealing to him who is no more, conquers the living by his kindness. also there is another disaster, not less lamentable, which sometimes befalls the living--the loss of some part of their body; and i think that succor is due to this just as much as to the worst hap that may befall. for often those who fight keep their lives safe, but suffer maiming; and this lot is commonly thought more dismal than any death; for death cuts off memory of all things, while the living cannot forget the devastation of his own body. therefore this mischief also must be helped somehow; so let it be agreed, that the injury of either of us by the other shall be made good with ten talents (marks) of gold. for if it be righteous to have compassion on the calamities of another, how much more is it to pity one's own? no man but obeys nature's prompting; and he who slights it is a self-murderer." after mutually pledging their faiths to these terms, they began the battle. nor was their strangeness his meeting one another, nor the sweetness of that spring-green spot, so heeded as to prevent them from the fray. horwendil, in his too great ardour, became keener to attack his enemy than to defend his own body; and, heedless of his shield, had grasped his sword with both hands; and his boldness did not fail. for by his rain of blows he destroyed koller's shield and deprived him of it, and at last hewed off his foot and drove him lifeless to the ground. then, not to fail of his compact, he buried him royally, gave him a howe of lordly make and pompous obsequies. then he pursued and slew koller's sister sela, who was a skilled warrior and experienced in roving. he had now passed three years in valiant deeds of war; and, in order to win higher rank in rorik's favour, he assigned to him the best trophies and the pick of the plunder. his friendship with rorik enabled him to woo and will in marriage his daughter gerutha, who bore him a son amleth. such great good fortune stung feng with jealousy, so that he resolved treacherously to waylay his brother, thus showing that goodness is not safe even from those of a man's own house. and behold, when a chance came to murder him, his bloody hand sated the deadly passion of his soul. then he took the wife of the brother he had butchered, capping unnatural murder with incest. for whoso yields to one iniquity, speedily falls an easier victim to the next, the first being an incentive to the second. also, the man veiled the monstrosity of his deed with such hardihood of cunning, that he made up a mock pretence of goodwill to excuse his crime, and glossed over fratricide with a show of righteousness. gerutha, said he, though so gentle that she would do no man the slightest hurt, had been visited with her husband's extremest hate; and it was all to save her that he had slain his brother; for he thought it shameful that a lady so meek and unrancorous should suffer the heavy disdain of her husband. nor did his smooth words fail in their intent; for at courts, where fools are sometimes favoured and backbiters preferred, a lie lacks not credit. nor did feng keep from shameful embraces the hands that had slain a brother; pursuing with equal guilt both of his wicked and impious deeds. amleth beheld all this, but feared lest too shrewd a behaviour might make his uncle suspect him. so he chose to feign dulness, and pretend an utter lack of wits. this cunning course not only concealed his intelligence but ensured his safety. every day he remained in his mother's house utterly listless and unclean, flinging himself on the ground and bespattering his person with foul and filthy dirt. his discoloured face and visage smutched with slime denoted foolish and grotesque madness. all he said was of a piece with these follies; all he did savoured of utter lethargy. in a word, you would not have thought him a man at all, but some absurd abortion due to a mad fit of destiny. he used at times to sit over the fire, and, raking up the embers with his hands, to fashion wooden crooks, and harden them in the fire, shaping at their lips certain barbs, to make them hold more tightly to their fastenings. when asked what he was about, he said that he was preparing sharp javelins to avenge his father. this answer was not a little scoffed at, all men deriding his idle and ridiculous pursuit; but the thing helped his purpose afterwards. now it was his craft in this matter that first awakened in the deeper observers a suspicion of his cunning. for his skill in a trifling art betokened the hidden talent of the craftsman; nor could they believe the spirit dull where the hand had acquired so cunning a workmanship. lastly, he always watched with the most punctual care over his pile of stakes that he had pointed in the fire. some people, therefore, declared that his mind was quick enough, and fancied that he only played the simpleton in order to hide his understanding, and veiled some deep purpose under a cunning feint. his wiliness (said these) would be most readily detected, if a fair woman were put in his way in some secluded place, who should provoke his mind to the temptations of love; all men's natural temper being too blindly amorous to be artfully dissembled, and this passion being also too impetuous to be checked by cunning. therefore, if his lethargy were feigned, he would seize the opportunity, and yield straightway to violent delights. so men were commissioned to draw the young man in his rides into a remote part of the forest, and there assail him with a temptation of this nature. among these chanced to be a foster-brother of amleth, who had not ceased to have regard to their common nurture; and who esteemed his present orders less than the memory of their past fellowship. he attended amleth among his appointed train, being anxious not to entrap, but to warn him; and was persuaded that he would suffer the worst if he showed the slightest glimpse of sound reason, and above all if he did the act of love openly. this was also plain enough to amleth himself. for when he was bidden mount his horse, he deliberately set himself in such a fashion that he turned his back to the neck and faced about, fronting the tail; which he proceeded to encompass with the reins, just as if on that side he would check the horse in its furious pace. by this cunning thought he eluded the trick, and overcame the treachery of his uncle. the reinless steed galloping on, with rider directing its tail, was ludicrous enough to behold. amleth went on, and a wolf crossed his path amid the thicket. when his companions told him that a young colt had met him, he retorted, that in feng's stud there were too few of that kind fighting. this was a gentle but witty fashion of invoking a curse upon his uncle's riches. when they averred that he had given a cunning answer, he answered that he had spoken deliberately; for he was loth, to be thought prone to lying about any matter, and wished to be held a stranger to falsehood; and accordingly he mingled craft and candour in such wise that, though his words did lack truth, yet there was nothing to betoken the truth and betray how far his keenness went. again, as he passed along the beach, his companions found the rudder of a ship, which had been wrecked, and said they had discovered a huge knife. "this," said he, "was the right thing to carve such a huge ham;" by which he really meant the sea, to whose infinitude, he thought, this enormous rudder matched. also, as they passed the sandhills, and bade him look at the meal, meaning the sand, he replied that it had been ground small by the hoary tempests of the ocean. his companions praising his answer, he said that he had spoken it wittingly. then they purposely left him, that he might pluck up more courage to practise wantonness. the woman whom his uncle had dispatched met him in a dark spot, as though she had crossed him by chance; and he took her and would have ravished her, had not his foster-brother, by a secret device, given him an inkling of the trap. for this man, while pondering the fittest way to play privily the prompter's part, and forestall the young man's hazardous lewdness, found a straw on the ground and fastened it underneath the tail of a gadfly that was flying past; which he then drove towards the particular quarter where he knew amleth to be: an act which served the unwary prince exceedingly well. the token was interpreted as shrewdly as it had been sent. for amleth saw the gadfly, espied with curiosity the straw which it wore embedded in its tail, and perceived that it was a secret warning to beware of treachery. alarmed, scenting a trap, and fain to possess his desire in greater safety, he caught up the woman in his arms and dragged her off to a distant and impenetrable fen. moreover, when they had lain together, he conjured her earnestly to disclose the matter to none, and the promise of silence was accorded as heartily as it was asked. for both of them had been under the same fostering in their childhood; and this early rearing in common had brought amleth and the girl into great intimacy. so, when he had returned home, they all jeeringly asked him whether he had given way to love, and he avowed that he had ravished the maid. when he was next asked where he did it, and what had been his pillow, he said that he had rested upon the hoof of a beast of burden, upon a cockscomb, and also upon a ceiling. for, when he was starting into temptation, he had gathered fragments of all these things, in order to avoid lying. and though his jest did not take aught of the truth out of the story, the answer was greeted with shouts of merriment from the bystanders. the maiden, too, when questioned on the matter, declared that he had done no such thing; and her denial was the more readily credited when it was found that the escort had not witnessed the deed. then he who had marked the gadfly in order to give a hint, wishing to show amleth that to his trick he owed his salvation, observed that latterly he had been singly devoted to amleth. the young man's reply was apt. not to seem forgetful of his informant's service, he said that he had seen a certain thing bearing a straw flit by suddenly, wearing a stalk of chaff fixed in its hinder parts. the cleverness of this speech, which made the rest split with laughter, rejoiced the heart of amleth's friend. thus all were worsted, and none could open the secret lock of the young man's wisdom. but a friend of feng, gifted more with assurance than judgment, declared that the unfathomable cunning of such a mind could not be detected by any vulgar plot, for the man's obstinacy was so great that it ought not to be assailed with any mild measures; there were many sides to his wiliness, and it ought not to be entrapped by any one method. accordingly, said he, his own profounder acuteness had hit on a more delicate way, which was well fitted to be put in practice, and would effectually discover what they desired to know. feng was purposely to absent himself, pretending affairs of great import. amleth should be closeted alone with his mother in her chamber; but a man should first be commissioned to place himself in a concealed part of the room and listen heedfully to what they talked about. for if the son had any wits at all he would not hesitate to speak out in the hearing of his mother, or fear to trust himself to the fidelity of her who bore him. the speaker, loth to seem readier to devise than to carry out the plot, zealously proffered himself as the agent of the eavesdropping. feng rejoiced at the scheme, and departed on pretence of a long journey. now he who had given this counsel repaired privily to the room where amleth was shut up with his mother, and lay flown skulking in the straw. but amleth had his antidote for the treachery. afraid of being overheard by some eavesdropper, he at first resorted to his usual imbecile ways, and crowed like a noisy cock, beating his arms together to mimic the flapping of wings. then he mounted the straw and began to swing his body and jump again and again, wishing to try if aught lurked there in hiding. feeling a lump beneath his feet, he drove his sword into the spot, and impaled him who lay hid. then he dragged him from his concealment and slew him. then, cutting his body into morsels, he seethed it in boiling water, and flung it through the mouth of an open sewer for the swine to eat, bestrewing the stinking mire with his hapless limbs. having in this wise eluded the snare, he went back to the room. then his mother set up a great wailing, and began to lament her son's folly to his face; but he said: "most infamous of women; dost thou seek with such lying lamentations to hide thy most heavy guilt? wantoning like a harlot, thou hast entered a wicked and abominable state of wedlock, embracing with incestuous bosom thy husband's slayer, and wheedling with filthy lures of blandishment him who had slain the father of thy son. this, forsooth, is the way that the mares couple with the vanquishers of their mates; for brute beasts are naturally incited to pair indiscriminately; and it would seem that thou, like them, hast clean forgot thy first husband. as for me, not idly do i wear the mask of folly; for i doubt not that he who destroyed his brother will riot as ruthlessly in the blood of his kindred. therefore it is better to choose the garb of dulness than that of sense, and to borrow some protection from a show of utter frenzy. yet the passion to avenge my father still burns in my heart; but i am watching the chances, i await the fitting hour. there is a place for all things; against so merciless and dark spirit must be used the deeper devices of the mind. and thou, who hadst been better employed in lamenting thine own disgrace, know it is superfluity to bewail my witlessness; thou shouldst weep for the blemish in thine own mind, not for that in another's. on the rest see thou keep silence." with such reproaches he rent the heart of his mother and redeemed her to walk in the ways of virtue; teaching her to set the fires of the past above the seductions of the present. when feng returned, nowhere could he find the man who had suggested the treacherous espial; he searched for him long and carefully, but none said they had seen him anywhere. amleth, among others, was asked in jest if he had come on any trace of him, and replied that the man had gone to the sewer, but had fallen through its bottom and been stifled by the floods of filth, and that he had then been devoured by the swine that came up all about that place. this speech was flouted by those who heard; for it seemed senseless, though really it expressly avowed the truth. feng now suspected that his stepson was certainly full of guile, and desired to make away with him, but durst not do the deed for fear of the displeasure, not only of amleth's grandsire rorik, but also of his own wife. so he thought that the king of britain should be employed to slay him, so that another could do the deed, and he be able to feign innocence. thus, desirous to hide his cruelty, he chose rather to besmirch his friend than to bring disgrace on his own head. amleth, on departing, gave secret orders to his mother to hang the hall with woven knots, and to perform pretended obsequies for him a year thence; promising that he would then return. two retainers of feng then accompanied him, bearing a letter graven on wood--a kind of writing material frequent in old times; this letter enjoined the king of the britons to put to death the youth who was sent over to him. while they were reposing, amleth searched their coffers, found the letter, and read the instructions therein. whereupon he erased all the writing on the surface, substituted fresh characters, and so, changing the purport of the instructions, shifted his own doom upon his companions. nor was he satisfied with removing from himself the sentence of death and passing the peril on to others, but added an entreaty that the king of britain would grant his daughter in marriage to a youth of great judgment whom he was sending to him. under this was falsely marked the signature of feng. now when they had reached britain, the envoys went to the king, and proffered him the letter which they supposed was an implement of destruction to another, but which really betokened death to themselves. the king dissembled the truth, and entreated them hospitably and kindly. then amleth scouted all the splendour of the royal banquet like vulgar viands, and abstaining very strangely, rejected that plenteous feast, refraining from the drink even as from the banquet. all marvelled that a youth and a foreigner should disdain the carefully cooked dainties of the royal board and the luxurious banquet provided, as if it were some peasant's relish. so, when the revel broke up, and the king was dismissing his friends to rest, he had a man sent into the sleeping-room to listen secretly, in order that he might hear the midnight conversation of his guests. now, when amleth's companions asked him why he had refrained from the feast of yestereve, as if it were poison, he answered that the bread was flecked with blood and tainted; that there was a tang of iron in the liquor; while the meats of the feast reeked of the stench of a human carcase, and were infected by a kind of smack of the odour of the charnel. he further said that the king had the eyes of a slave, and that the queen had in three ways shown the behaviour of a bondmaid. thus he reviled with insulting invective not so much the feast as its givers. and presently his companions, taunting him with his old defect of wits, began to flout him with many saucy jeers, because he blamed and cavilled at seemly and worthy things, and because he attacked thus ignobly an illustrious king and a lady of so refined a behaviour, bespattering with the shamefullest abuse those who merited all praise. all this the king heard from his retainer; and declared that he who could say such things had either more than mortal wisdom or more than mortal folly; in these few words fathoming the full depth of amleth's penetration. then he summoned his steward and asked him whence he had procured the bread. the steward declared that it had been made by the king's own baker. the king asked where the corn had grown of which it was made, and whether any sign was to be found there of human carnage? the other answered, that not far off was a field, covered with the ancient bones of slaughtered men, and still bearing plainly all the signs of ancient carnage; and that he had himself planted this field with grain in springtide, thinking it more fruitful than the rest, and hoping for plenteous abundance; and so, for aught he knew, the bread had caught some evil savour from this bloodshed. the king, on hearing this, surmised that amleth had spoken truly, and took the pains to learn also what had been the source of the lard. the other declared that his hogs had, through negligence, strayed from keeping, and battened on the rotten carcase of a robber, and that perchance their pork had thus come to have something of a corrupt smack. the king, finding that amletll's judgment was right in this thing also, asked of what liquor the steward had mixed the drink? hearing that it had been brewed of water and meal, he had the spot of the spring pointed out to him, and set to digging deep down; and there he found, rusted away, several swords, the tang whereof it was thought had tainted the waters. others relate that amleth blamed the drink because, while quaffing it, he had detected some bees that had fed in the paunch of a dead man; and that the taint, which had formerly been imparted to the combs, had reappeared in the taste. the king, seeing that amleth had rightly given the causes of the taste he had found so faulty, and learning that the ignoble eyes wherewith amleth had reproached him concerned some stain upon his birth, had a secret interview with his mother, and asked her who his father had really been. she said she had submitted to no man but the king. but when he threatened that he would have the truth out of her by a trial, he was told that he was the offspring of a slave. by the evidence of the avowal thus extorted he understood the whole mystery of the reproach upon his origin. abashed as he was with shame for his low estate, he was so ravished with the young man's cleverness, that he asked him why he had aspersed the queen with the reproach that she had demeaned herself like a slave? but while resenting that the courtliness of his wife had been accused in the midnight gossip of guest, he found that her mother had been a bondmaid. for amleth said he had noted in her three blemishes showing the demeanor of a slave; first, she had muffled her head in her mantle as handmaids do; next, that she had gathered up her gown for walking; and thirdly, that she had first picked out with a splinter, and then chewed up, the remnant of food that stuck in the crevices between her teeth. further, he mentioned that the king's mother had been brought into slavery from captivity, lest she should seem servile only in her habits, yet not in her birth. then the king adored the wisdom of amleth as though it were inspired, and gave him his daughter to wife; accepting his bare word as though it were a witness from the skies. moreover, in order to fulfil the bidding of his friend, he hanged amleth's companions on the morrow. amleth, feigning offence, treated this piece of kindness as a grievance, and received from the king, as compensation, some gold, which he afterwards melted in the fire, and secretly caused to be poured into some hollowed sticks. when he had passed a whole year with the king he obtained leave to make a journey, and returned to his own land, carrying away of all his princely wealth and state only the sticks which held the gold. on reaching jutland, he exchanged his present attire for his ancient demeanour, which he had adopted for righteous ends, purposely assuming an aspect of absurdity. covered with filth, he entered the banquet-room where his own obsequies were being held, and struck all men utterly aghast, rumour having falsely noised abroad his death. at last terror melted into mirth, and the guests jeered and taunted one another, that he whose last rites they were celebrating as through he were dead, should appear in the flesh. when he was asked concerning his comrades, he pointed to the sticks he was carrying, and said, "here is both the one and the other." this he observed with equal truth and pleasantry; for his speech, though most thought it idle, yet departed not from the truth; for it pointed at the weregild of the slain as though it were themselves. thereon, wishing to bring the company into a gayer mood, he jollied the cupbearers, and diligently did the office of plying the drink. then, to prevent his loose dress hampering his walk, he girdled his sword upon his side, and purposely drawing it several times, pricked his fingers with its point. the bystanders accordingly had both sword and scabbard riveted across with all iron nail. then, to smooth the way more safely to his plot, he went to the lords and plied them heavily with draught upon draught, and drenched them all so deep in wine, that their feet were made feeble with drunkenness, and they turned to rest within the palace, making their bed where they had revelled. then he saw they were in a fit state for his plots, and thought that here was a chance offered to do his purpose. so he took out of his bosom the stakes he has long ago prepared, and went into the building, where the ground lay covered with the bodies of the nobles wheezing off their sleep and their debauch. then, cutting away its support, he brought down the hanging his mother had knitted, which covered the inner as well as the outer walls of the hall. this he flung upon the snorers, and then applying the crooked stakes, he knotted and bound them up in such insoluble intricacy, that not one of the men beneath, however hard he might struggle, could contrive to rise. after this he set fire to the palace. the flames spread, scattering the conflagration far and wide. it enveloped the whole dwelling, destroyed the palace, and burnt them all while they were either buried in deep sleep or vainly striving to arise. then he went to the chamber of feng, who had before this been conducted by his train into his pavilion; plucked up a sword that chanced to be hanging to the bed, and planted his own in its place. then, awakening his uncle, he told him that his nobles were perishing in the flames, and that amleth was here, armed with his crooks to help him, and thirsting to exact the vengeance, now long overdue, for his father's murder. feng, on hearing this, leapt from his couch, but was cut down while deprived of his own sword, and as he strove in vain to draw the strange one. o valiant amleth, and worthy of immortal fame, who being shrewdly armed with a feint of folly, covered a wisdom too high for human wit under a marvellous disguise of silliness! and not only found in his subtlety means to protect his own safety, but also by its guidance found opportunity to avenge his father. by this skilful defence of himself, and strenuous revenge for his parent, he has left it doubtful whether we are to think more of his wit or his bravery. ( ) endnotes: ( ) saxo now goes back to the history of denmark. all the events hitherto related in bk. iii, after the first paragraph, are a digression in retrospect. ( ) m. conjectures that this was a certain harald, the bastard son of erik the good, and a wild and dissolute man, who died in , not long before the probable date of saxo's birth. ( ) shakespere's tragedy, "hamlet", is derived from this story. book four. amleth, when he had accomplished the slaughter of his stepfather, feared to expose his deed to the fickle judgment of his countrymen, and thought it well to lie in hiding till he had learnt what way the mob of the uncouth populace was tending. so the whole neighbourhood, who had watched the blaze during the night, and in the morning desired to know the cause of the fire they had seen, perceived the royal palace fallen in ashes; and, on searching through its ruins, which were yet warm, found only some shapeless remains of burnt corpses. for the devouring flame had consumed everything so utterly that not a single token was left to inform them of the cause of such a disaster. also they saw the body of feng lying pierced by the sword, amid his blood-stained raiment. some were seized with open anger, others with grief, and some with secret delight. one party bewailed the death of their leader, the other gave thanks that the tyranny of the fratricide was now laid at rest. thus the occurrence of the king's slaughter was greeted by the beholders with diverse minds. amleth, finding the people so quiet, made bold to leave his hiding. summoning those in whom he knew the memory of his father to be fast-rooted, he went to the assembly and there made a speech after this manner: "nobles! let not any who are troubled by the piteous end of horwendil be worried by the sight of this disaster before you; be not ye, i say, distressed, who have remained loyal to your king and duteous to your father. behold the corpse, not of a prince, but of a fratricide. indeed, it was a sorrier sight when ye saw our prince lying lamentably butchered by a most infamous fratricide-brother, let me not call him. with your own compassionating eyes ye have beheld the mangled limbs of horwendil; they have seen his body done to death with many wounds. surely that most abominable butcher only deprived his king of life that he might despoil his country of freedom! the hand that slew him made you slaves. who then so mad as to choose feng the cruel before horwendil the righteous? remember how benignantly horwendil fostered you, how justly he dealt with you, how kindly he loved you. remember how you lost the mildest of princes and the justest of fathers, while in his place was put a tyrant and an assassin set up; how your rights were confiscated; how everything was plague-stricken; how the country was stained with infamies; how the yoke was planted on your necks, and how, your free will was forfeited! and now all this is over; for ye see the criminal stifled in his own crimes, the slayer of his kin punished for his misdoings. what man of but ordinary wit, beholding it, would account this kindness a wrong? what sane man could be sorry that the crime has recoiled upon the culprit? who could lament the killing of a most savage executioner? or bewail the righteous death of a most cruel despot? ye behold the doer of the deed; he is before you. yea, i own that i have taken vengeance for my country and my father. your hands were equally bound to the task which mine fulfilled. what it would have beseemed you to accomplish with me, i achieved alone. nor had i any partner in so glorious a deed, or the service of any man to help me. not that i forget that you would have helped this work, had i asked you; for doubtless you have remained loyal to your king and loving to your prince. but i chose that the wicked should be punished without imperilling you; i thought that others need not set their shoulders to the burden when i deemed mine strong enough to bear it. therefore i consumed all the others to ashes, and left only the trunk of feng for your hands to burn, so that on this at least you may wreak all your longing for a righteous vengeance. now haste up speedily, heap the pyre, burn up the body of the wicked, consume away his guilty limbs, scatter his sinful ashes, strew broadcast his ruthless dust; let no urn or barrow enclose the abominable remnants of his bones. let no trace of his fratricide remain; let there be no spot in his own land for his tainted limbs; let no neighbourhood suck infection from him; let not sea nor soil be defiled by harboring his accursed carcase. i have done the rest; this one loyal duty is left for you. these must be the tyrant's obsequies, this the funeral procession of the fratricide. it is not seemly that he who stripped his country of her freedom should have his ashes covered by his country's earth. "besides, why tell again my own sorrows? why count over my troubles? why weave the thread of my miseries anew? ye know them more fully than i myself. i, pursued to the death by my stepfather, scorned by my mother, spat upon by friends, have passed my years in pitiable wise, and my days in adversity; and my insecure life has teemed with fear and perils. in fine, i passed every season of my age wretchedly and in extreme calamity. often in your secret murmurings together you have sighed over my lack of wits; there was none (you said) to avenge the father, none to punish the fratricide. and in this i found a secret testimony of your love; for i saw that the memory of the king's murder had not yet faded from your minds. "whose breast is so hard that it can be softened by no fellow-feeling for what i have felt? who is so stiff and stony, that he is swayed by no compassion for my griefs? ye whose hands are clean of the blood of horwendil, pity your fosterling, be moved by my calamities. pity also my stricken mother, and rejoice with me that the infamy of her who was once your queen is quenched. for this weak woman had to bear a twofold weight of ignominy, embracing one who was her husband's brother and murderer. therefore, to hide my purpose of revenge and to veil my wit, i counterfeited a listless bearing; i feigned dulness; i planned a stratagem; and now you can see with your own eyes whether it has succeeded, whether it has achieved its purpose to the full; i am content to leave you to judge so great a matter. it is your turn; trample under foot the ashes of the murderer! disdain the dust of him who slew his brother, and defiled his brother's queen with infamous desecration, who outraged his sovereign and treasonably assailed his majesty, who brought the sharpest tyranny upon you, stole your freedom, and crowned fratricide with incest. i have been the agent of this just vengeance; i have burned for this righteous retribution; uphold me with a high-born spirit; pay me the homage that you owe; warm me with your kindly looks. it is i who have wiped off my country's shame; i who have quenched my mother's dishonour; i who have beaten back oppression; i who have put to death the murderer; i who have baffled the artful hand of my uncle with retorted arts. were he living, each new day would have multiplied his crimes. i resented the wrong done to father and to fatherland: i slew him who was governing you outrageously and more hardly than it beseemed men. acknowledge my service, honour my wit, give me the throne if i have earned it; for you have in me one who has done you a mighty service, and who is no degenerate heir to his father's power; no fratricide, but the lawful successor to the throne; and a dutiful avenger of the crime of murder. it is i who have stripped you of slavery, and clothed you with freedom; i have restored your height of fortune, and given you your glory back; i have deposed the despot and triumphed over the butcher. in your hands is the reward; you know what i have done for you, and from your righteousness i ask my wage." every heart had been moved while the young man thus spoke; he affected some to compassion, and some even to tears. when the lamentation ceased, he was appointed king by prompt and general acclaim. for one and all rested their greatest hopes on his wisdom, since he had devised the whole of such an achievement with the deepest cunning, and accomplished it with the most astonishing contrivance. many could have been seen marvelling how he had concealed so subtle a plan over so long a space of time. after these deeds in denmark, amleth equipped three vessels, and went back to britain to see his wife and her father. he had also enrolled in his service the flower of the warriors, and arrayed them very choicely, wishing to have everything now magnificently appointed, even as of old he had always worn contemptible gear, and to change all his old devotion to poverty for outlay on luxury. he also had a shield made for him, whereon the whole series of his exploits, beginning with his earliest youth, was painted in exquisite designs. this he bore as a record of his deeds of prowess, and gained great increase of fame thereby. here were to be seen depicted the slaying of horwendil; the fratricide and incest of feng; the infamous uncle, the whimsical nephew; the shapes of the hooked stakes; the stepfather suspecting, the stepson dissembling; the various temptations offered, and the woman brought to beguile him; the gaping wolf; the finding of the rudder; the passing of the sand; the entering of the wood; the putting of the straw through the gadfly; the warning of the youth by the tokens; and the privy dealings with the maiden after the escort was eluded. and likewise could be seen the picture of the palace; the queen there with her son; the slaying of the eavesdropper; and how, after being killed, he was boiled down, and so dropped into the sewer, and so thrown out to the swine; how his limbs were strewn in the mud, and so left for the beasts to finish. also it could be seen how amleth surprised the secret of his sleeping attendants, how he erased the letters, and put new characters in their places; how he disdained the banquet and scorned the drink; how he condemned time face of the king and taxed the queen with faulty behaviour. there was also represented the hanging of the envoys, and the young man's wedding; then the voyage back to denmark; the festive celebration of the funeral rites; amleth, in answer to questions, pointing to the sticks in place of his attendants, acting as cupbearer, and purposely drawing his sword and pricking his fingers; the sword riveted through, the swelling cheers of the banquet, the dance growing fast and furious; the hangings flung upon the sleepers, then fastened with the interlacing crooks, and wrapped tightly round them as they slumbered; the brand set to the mansion, the burning of the guests, the royal palace consumed with fire and tottering down; the visit to the sleeping-room of feng, the theft of his sword, the useless one set in its place; and the king slain with his own sword's point by his stepson's hand. all this was there, painted upon amleth's battle-shield by a careful craftsman in the choicest of handiwork; he copied truth in his figures, and embodied real deeds in his outlines. moreover, amleth's followers, to increase the splendour of their presence, wore shields which were gilt over. the king of britain received them very graciously, and treated them with costly and royal pomp. during the feast he asked anxiously whether feng was alive and prosperous. his son-in-law told him that the man of whose welfare he was vainly inquiring had perished by the sword. with a flood of questions he tried to find out who had slain feng, and learnt that the messenger of his death was likewise its author. and when the king heard this, he was secretly aghast, because he found that an old promise to avenge feng now devolved upon himself. for feng and he had determined of old, by a mutual compact, that one of them should act as avenger of the other. thus the king was drawn one way by his love for his daughter and his affection for his son-in-law; another way by his regard for his friend, and moreover by his strict oath and the sanctity of their mutual declarations, which it was impious to violate. at last he slighted the ties of kinship, and sworn faith prevailed. his heart turned to vengeance, and he put the sanctity of his oath before family bonds. but since it was thought sin to wrong the holy ties of hospitality, he preferred to execrate his revenge by the hand of another, wishing to mask his secret crime with a show of innocence. so he veiled his treachery with attentions, and hid his intent to harm under a show of zealous goodwill. his queen having lately died of illness, he requested amleth to undertake the mission of making him a fresh match, saying that he was highly delighted with his extraordinary shrewdness. he declared that there was a certain queen reigning in scotland, whom he vehemently desired to marry. now he knew that she was not only unwedded by reason of her chastity, but that in the cruelty of her arrogance she had always loathed her wooers, and had inflicted on her lovers the uttermost punishment, so that not one but of all the multitude was to be found who had not paid for his insolence with his life. perilous as this commission was amleth started, never shrinking to obey the duty imposed upon him, but trusting partly in his own servants, and partly in the attendants of the king. he entered scotland, and, when quite close to the abode of the queen, he went into a meadow by the wayside to rest his horses. pleased by the look of the spot, he thought of resting--the pleasant prattle of the stream exciting a desire to sleep--and posted men to keep watch some way off. the queen on hearing of this, sent out ten warriors to spy on the approach of the foreigners and their equipment. one of these, being quick-witted, slipped past the sentries, pertinaciously made his way up, and took away the shield, which amleth had chanced to set at his head before he slept, so gently that he did not ruffle his slumbers, though he was lying upon it, nor awaken one man of all that troop; for he wished to assure his mistress not only by report but by some token. with equal address he filched the letter entrusted to amleth from the coffer in which it was kept. when these things were brought to the queen, she scanned the shield narrowly, and from the notes appended made out the whole argument. then she knew that here was the man who, trusting in his own nicely calculated scheme, had avenged on his uncle the murder of his father. she also looked at the letter containing the suit for her band, and rubbed out all the writing; for wedlock with the old she utterly abhorred, and desired the embraces of young men. but she wrote in its place a commission purporting to be sent from the king of britain to herself, signed like the other with his name and title, wherein she pretended that she was asked to marry the bearer. moreover, she included an account of the deeds of which she had learnt from amleth's shield, so that one would have thought the shield confirmed the letter, while the letter explained the shield. then she told the same spies whom she had employed before to take the shield back, and put the letter in its place again; playing the very trick on amleth which, as she had learnt, he had himself used in outwitting his companions. amleth, meanwhile, who found that his shield had been filched from under his head, deliberately shut his eyes and cunningly feigned sleep, hoping to regain by pretended what he had lost by real slumbers. for he thought that the success of his one attempt would incline the spy to deceive him a second time. and he was not mistaken. for as the spy came up stealthily, and wanted to put back the shield and the writing in their old place, amleth leapt up, seized him, and detained him in bonds. then he roused his retinue, and went to the abode of the queen. as representing his father-in-law, he greeted her, and handled her the writing, sealed with the king's seal. the queen, who was named hermutrude, took and read it, and spoke most warmly of amleth's diligence and shrewdness, saying, that feng had deserved his punishment, and that the unfathomable wit of amleth had accomplished a deed past all human estimation; seeing that not only had his impenetrable depth devised a mode of revenging his father's death and his mother's adultery, but it had further, by his notable deeds of prowess, seized the kingdom of the man whom he had found constantly plotting against him. she marvelled therefore that a man of such instructed mind could have made the one slip of a mistaken marriage; for though his renown almost rose above mortality, he seemed to have stumbled into an obscure and ignoble match. for the parents of his wife had been slaves, though good luck had graced them with the honours of royalty. now (said she), when looking for a wife a wise man must reckon the lustre of her birth and not of her beauty. therefore, if he were to seek a match in a proper spirit, he should weigh the ancestry, and not be smitten by the looks; for though looks were a lure to temptation, yet their empty bedizenment had tarnished the white simplicity of many a man. now there was a woman, as nobly born as himself, whom he could take. she herself, whose means were not poor nor her birth lowly, was worthy his embraces, since he did not surpass her in royal wealth nor outshine her in the honour of his ancestors. indeed she was a queen, and but that her sex gainsaid it, might be deemed a king; may (and this is yet truer), whomsoever she thought worthy of her bed was at once a king, and she yielded her kingdom with herself. thus her sceptre and her hand went together. it was no mean favour for such a woman to offer her love, who in the case of other men had always followed her refusal with the sword. therefore she pressed him to transfer his wooing, to make over to her his marriage vows, and to learn to prefer birth to beauty. so saying, she fell upon him with a close embrace. amleth was overjoyed at the gracious speech of the maiden, fell to kissing back, and returned her close embrace, protesting that the maiden's wish was his own. then a banquet was held, friends bidden, the nobles gathered, and the marriage rites performed. when they were accomplished, he went back to britain with his bride, a strong band of scots being told to follow close behind, that he might have its help against the diverse treacheries in his path. as he was returning, the daughter of the king of britain, to whom he was still married, met him. though she complained that she was slighted by the wrong of having a paramour put over her, yet, she said, it would be unworthy for her to hate him as an adulterer more than she loved him as a husband: nor would she so far shrink from her lord as to bring herself to hide in silence the guile which she knew was intended against him. for she had a son as a pledge of their marriage, and regard for him, if nothing else, must have inclined his mother to the affection of a wife. "he," she said, "may hate the supplanter of his mother, i will love her; no disaster shall put out my flame for thee; no ill-will shall quench it, or prevent me from exposing the malignant designs against thee, or from revealing the snares i have detected. bethink thee, then, that thou must beware of thy father-in-law, for thou hast thyself reaped the harvest of thy mission, foiled the wishes of him who sent thee, and with willful trespass seized over all the fruit for thyself." by this speech she showed herself more inclined to love her husband than her father. while she thus spoke, the king of britain came up and embraced his son-in-law closely, but with little love, and welcomed him with a banquet, to hide his intended guile under a show of generosity. but amleth, having learnt the deceit, dissembled his fear, took a retinue of two hundred horsemen, put on an under-shirt (of mail), and complied with the invitation, preferring the peril of falling in with the king's deceit to the shame of hanging back. so much heed for honour did he think that he must take in all things. as he rode up close, the king attacked him just under the porch of the folding doors, and would have thrust him through with his javelin, but that the hard shirt of mail threw off the blade. amleth received a slight wound, and went to the spot where he had bidden the scottish warriors wait on duty. he then sent back to the king his new wife's spy, whom he had captured. this man was to bear witness that he had secretly taken from the coffer where it was kept the letter which was meant for his mistress, and thus was to make the whole blame recoil on hermutrude, by this studied excuse absolving amleth from the charge of treachery. the king without tarrying pursued amleth hotly as he fled, and deprived him of most of his forces. so amleth, on the morrow, wishing to fight for dear life, and utterly despairing of his powers of resistance, tried to increase his apparent numbers. he put stakes under some of the dead bodies of his comrades to prop them up, set others on horseback like living men, and tied others to neighbouring stones, not taking off any of their armour, and dressing them in due order of line and wedge, just as if they were about to engage. the wing composed of the dead was as thick as the troop of the living. it was an amazing spectacle this, of dead men dragged out to battle, and corpses mustered to fight. the plan served him well, for the very figures of the dead men showed like a vast array as the sunbeams struck them. for those dead and senseless shapes restored the original number of the army so well, that the mass might have been unthinned by the slaughter of yesterday. the britons, terrified at the spectacle, fled before fighting, conquered by the dead men whom they had overcome in life. i cannot tell whether to think more of the cunning or of the good fortune of this victory. the danes came down on the king as he was tardily making off, and killed him. amleth, triumphant, made a great plundering, seized the spoils of britain, and went back with his wives to his own land. meanwhile rorik had died, and wiglek, who had come to the throne, had harassed amleth's mother with all manner of insolence and stripped her of her royal wealth, complaining that her son had usurped the kingdom of jutland and defrauded the king of leire, who had the sole privilege of giving and taking away the rights of high offices. this treatment amleth took with such forbearance as apparently to return kindness for slander, for he presented wiglek with the richest of his spoils. but afterwards he seized a chance of taking vengeance, attacked him, subdued him, and from a covert became an open foe. fialler, the governor of skaane, he drove into exile; and the tale is that fialler retired to a spot called undensakre, which is unknown to our peoples. after this, wiglek, recruited with the forces of skaane and zealand, sent envoys to challenge amleth to a war. amleth, with his marvellous shrewdness, saw that he was tossed between two difficulties, one of which involved disgrace and the other danger. for he knew that if he took up the challenge he was threatened with peril of his life, while to shrink from it would disgrace his reputation as a soldier. yet in that spirit ever fixed on deeds of prowess the desire to save his honour won the day. dread of disaster was blunted by more vehement thirst for glory; he would not tarnish the unblemished lustre of his fame by timidly skulking from his fate. also he saw that there is almost as wide a gap between a mean life and a noble death as that which is acknowledged between honour and disgrace themselves. yet amleth was enchained by such great love for hermutrude, that he was more deeply concerned in his mind about her future widowhood than about his own death, and cast about very zealously how he could decide on some second husband for her before the opening of the war. hermutrude, therefore, declared that she had the courage of a man, and promised that she would not forsake him even on the field, saying that the woman who dreaded to be united with her lord in death was abominable. but she kept this rare promise ill; for when amleth had been slain by wiglek in battle in jutland, she yielded herself up unasked to be the conqueror's spoil and bride. thus all vows of woman are loosed by change of fortune and melted by the shifting of time; the faith of their soul rests on a slippery foothold, and is weakened by casual chances; glib in promises, and as sluggish in performance, all manner of lustful promptings enslave it, and it bounds away with panting and precipitate desire, forgetful of old things in the ever hot pursuit after something fresh. so ended amleth. had fortune been as kind to him as nature, he would have equalled the gods in glory, and surpassed the labours of hercules by his deeds of prowess. a plain in jutland is to be found, famous for his name and burial-place. wiglek's administration of the kingdom was long and peaceful, and he died of disease. wermund, his son, succeeded him. the long and leisurely tranquillity of a most prosperous and quiet time flowed by and wermund in undisturbed security maintained a prolonged and steady peace at home. he had no children during the prime of his life, but in his old age, by a belated gift of fortune, he begat a son, uffe, though all the years which had glided by had raised him up no offspring. this uffe surpassed all of his age in stature, but in his early youth was supposed to have so dull and foolish a spirit as to be useless for all affairs public or private. for from his first years he never used to play or make merry, but was so void of all human pleasure that he kept his lips sealed in a perennial silence, and utterly restrained his austere visage from the business of laughter. but though through the years of his youth he was reputed for an utter fool, he afterwards left that despised estate and became famous, turning out as great a pattern of wisdom and hardihood as he had been a picture of stagnation. his father, seeing him such a simpleton, got him for a wife the daughter of frowin, the governor of the men of sleswik; thinking that by his alliance with so famous a man uffe would receive help which would serve him well in administering the realm. frowin had two sons, ket and wig, who were youths of most brilliant parts, and their excellence, not less than that of frowin, wermund destined to the future advantage of his son. at this time the king of sweden was athisl, a man of notable fame and energy. after defeating his neighbours far around, he was loth to leave the renown won by his prowess to be tarnished in slothful ease, and by constant and zealous practice brought many novel exercises into vogue. for one thing he had a daily habit of walking alone girt with splendid armour: in part because he knew that nothing was more excellent in warfare than the continual practice of arms; and in part that he might swell his glory by ever following this pursuit. self-confidence claimed as large a place in this man as thirst for fame. nothing, he thought, could be so terrible as to make him afraid that it would daunt his stout heart by its opposition. he carried his arms into denmark, and challenged frowin to battle near sleswik. the armies routed one another with vast slaughter, and it happened that the generals came to engage in person, so that they conducted the affair like a duel; and, in addition to the public issues of the war, the fight was like a personal conflict. for both of them longed with equal earnestness for an issue of the combat by which they might exhibit their valour, not by the help of their respective sides, but by a trial of personal strength. the end was that, though the blows rained thick on either side, athisl prevailed and overthrew frowin, and won a public victory as well as a duel, breaking up and shattering the danish ranks in all directions. when he returned to sweden, he not only counted the slaying of frowin among the trophies of his valour, but even bragged of it past measure, so ruining the glory of the deed by his wantonness of tongue. for it is sometimes handsomer for deeds of valour to be shrouded in the modesty of silence than to be blazoned in wanton talk. wermund raised the sons of frowin to honours of the same rank as their father's, a kindness which was only due to the children of his friend who had died for the country. this prompted athisl to carry the war again into denmark. emboldened therefore by his previous battle, he called back, bringing with him not only no slender and feeble force, but all the flower of the valour of sweden, thinking he would seize the supremacy of all denmark. ket, the son of frowin, sent folk, his chief officer, to take this news to wermund, who then chanced to be in his house jellinge. ( ) folk found the king feasting with his friends, and did his errand, admonishing him that here was the long-wished-for chance of war at hand, and pressing itself upon the wishes of wermund, to whom was give an immediate chance of victory and the free choice of a speedy and honourable triumph. great and unexpected were the sweets of good fortune, so long sighed for, and now granted to him by this lucky event. for athisl had come encompassed with countless forces of the swedes, just as though in his firm assurance he had made sure of victory; and since the enemy who was going to fight would doubtless prefer death to flight, this chance of war gave them a fortunate opportunity to take vengeance for their late disaster. wermund, declaring that he had performed his mission nobly and bravely, ordered that he should take some little refreshment of the banquet, since "far-faring ever hurt fasters." when folk said that he had no kind of leisure to take food, he begged him to take a draught to quench his thirst. this was given him; and wermund also bade him keep the cup, which was of gold, saying that men who were weary with the heat of wayfaring found it handier to take up the water in a goblet than in the palms, and that it was better to use a cup for drinking than the hand. when the king accompanied his great gift with such gracious words, the young man, overjoyed at both, promised that, before the king should see him turn and flee, he would take a draught of his own blood to the full measure of the liquor he had drunk. with this doughty vow wermund accounted himself well repaid, and got somewhat more joy from giving the boon than the soldier had from gaining it. nor did he find that folk's talk was braver than his fighting. for, when battle had begun, it came to pass that amidst divers charges of the troops folk and athisl met and fought a long while together; and that the host of the swedes, following the fate of their captain, took to flight, and athisl also was wounded and fled from the battle to his ships. and when folk, dazed with wounds and toils, and moreover steeped alike in heat and toil and thirst, had ceased to follow the rout of the enemy, then, in order to refresh himself, he caught his own blood in his helmet, and put it to his lips to drain: by which deed he gloriously requited the king's gift of the cup. wermund, who chanced to see this, praised him warmly for fulfilling his vow. folk answered, that a noble vow ought to be strictly performed to the end: a speech wherein he showed no less approval of his own deed than wermund. now, while the conquerors had laid down their arms, and, as is usual after battle, were exchanging diverse talk with one another, ket, the governor of the men of sleswik, declared that it was a matter of great marvel to him how it was that athisl, though difficulties strewed his path, had contrived an opportunity to escape, especially as he had been the first and foremost in the battle, but last of all in the retreat; and though there had not been one of the enemy whose fall was so vehemently desired by the danes. wermund rejoined that he should know that there were four kinds of warrior to be distinguished in every army. the fighters of the first order were those who, tempering valour with forbearance, were keen to slay those who resisted, but were ashamed to bear hard on fugitives. for these were the men who had won undoubted proofs of prowess by veteran experience in arms, and who found their glory not in the flight of the conquered, but in overcoming those whom they had to conquer. then there was a second kind of warriors, who were endowed with stout frame and spirit, but with no jot of compassion, and who raged with savage and indiscriminate carnage against the backs as well as the breasts of their foes. now of this sort were the men carried away by hot and youthful blood, and striving to grace their first campaign with good auguries of warfare. they burned as hotly with the glow of youth as with the glow for glory, and thus rushed headlong into right or wrong with equal recklessness. there was also the third kind, who, wavering betwixt shame and fear, could not go forward for terror, while shame barred retreat. of distinguished blood, but only notable for their useless stature, they crowded the ranks with numbers and not with strength, smote the foe more with their shadows than with their arms, and were only counted among the throng of warriors as so many bodies to be seen. these men were lords of great riches, but excelled more in birth than bravery; hungry for life because owning great possessions, they were forced to yield to the sway of cowardice rather than nobleness. there were others, again, who brought show to the war, and not substance, and who, foisting themselves into the rear of their comrades, were the first to fly and the last to fight. one sure token of fear betrayed their feebleness; for they always deliberately sought excuses to shirk, and followed with timid and sluggish advance in the rear of the fighters. it must be supposed, therefore, that these were the reasons why the king had escaped safely; for when he fled he was not pursued pertinaciously by the men of the front rank; since these made it their business to preserve the victory, not to arrest the conquered, and massed their wedges, in order that the fresh-won victory might be duly and sufficiently guarded, and attain the fulness of triumph. now the second class of fighters, whose desire was to cut down everything in their way, had left athisl unscathed, from lack not of will but of opportunity; for they had lacked the chance to hurt him rather than the daring. moreover, though the men of the third kind, who frittered away the very hour of battle by wandering about in a flurried fashion, and also hampered the success of their own side, had had their chance of harming the king, they yet lacked courage to assail him. in this way wermund satisfied the dull amazement of ket, and declared that he had set forth and expounded the true reasons of the king's safe escape. after this athisl fled back to sweden, still wantonly bragging of the slaughter of frowin, and constantly boasting the memory of his exploit with prolix recital of his deeds; not that he bore calmly the shame of his defeat, but that he might salve the wound of his recent flight by the honours of his ancient victory. this naturally much angered ket and wig, and they swore a vow to unite in avenging their father. thinking that they could hardly accomplish this in open war, they took an equipment of lighter armament, and went to sweden alone. then, entering a wood in which they had learnt by report that the king used to take his walks unaccompanied, they hid their weapons. then they talked long with athisl, giving themselves out as deserters; and when he asked them what was their native country, they said they were men of sleswik, and had left their land "for manslaughter". the king thought that this statement referred not to their vow to commit the crime, but to the guilt of some crime already committed. for they desired by this deceit to foil his inquisitiveness, so that the truthfulness of the statement might baffle the wit of the questioner, and their true answer, being covertly shadowed forth in a fiction, might inspire in him a belief that it was false. for famous men of old thought lying a most shameful thing. then athisl said he would like to know whom the danes believed to be the slayer of frowin. ket replied that there was a doubt as to who ought to claim so illustrious a deed, especially as the general testimony was that he had perished on the field of battle. athisl answered that it was idle to credit others with the death of frowin, which he, and he alone, had accomplished in mutual combat. soon he asked whether frowin had left any children. ket answering that two sons of his were alive, said that he would be very glad to learn their age and stature. ket replied that they were almost of the same size as themselves in body, alike in years, and much resembling them in tallness. then athisl said: "if the mind and the valour of their sire were theirs, a bitter tempest would break upon me." then he asked whether those men constantly spoke of the slaying of their father. ket rejoined that it was idle to go on talking and talking about a thing that could not be softened by any remedy, and declared that it was no good to harp with constant vexation on an inexpiable ill. by saying this he showed that threats ought not to anticipate vengeance. when ket saw that the king regularly walked apart alone in order to train his strength, he took up his arms, and with his brother followed the king as he walked in front of them. athisl, when he saw them, stood his ground on the sand, thinking it shameful to avoid threateners. then they said that they would take vengeance for his slaying of frowin, especially as he avowed with so many arrogant vaunts that he alone was his slayer. but he told them to take heed lest while they sought to compass their revenge, they should be so foolhardy as to engage him with their feeble and powerless hand, and while desiring the destruction of another, should find they had fallen themselves. thus they would cut off their goodly promise of overhasty thirst for glory. let them then save their youth and spare their promise; let them not be seized so lightly with a desire to perish. therefore, let them suffer him to requite with money the trespass done them in their father's death, and account it great honour that they would be credited with forcing so mighty a chief to pay a fine, and in a manner with shaking him with overmastering fear. yet he said he advised them thus, not because he was really terrified, but because he was moved with compassion for their youth. ket replied that it was idle to waste time in beating so much about the bush and trying to sap their righteous longing for revenge by an offer of pelf. so he bade him come forward and make trial with him in single combat of whatever strength he had. he himself would do without the aid of his brother, and would fight with his own strength, lest it should appear a shameful and unequal combat, for the ancients held it to be unfair, and also infamous, for two men to fight against one; and a victory gained by this kind of fighting they did not account honourable, but more like a disgrace than a glory. indeed, it was considered not only a poor, but a most shameful exploit for two men to overpower one. but athisl was filled with such assurance that he bade them both assail him at once, declaring that if he could not cure them of the desire to fight, he would at least give them the chance of fighting more safely. but ket shrank so much from this favour that he swore he would accept death sooner: for he thought that the terms of battle thus offered would be turned into a reproach to himself. so he engaged hotly with athisl, who desirous to fight him in a forbearing fashion, merely thrust lightly with his blade and struck upon his shield; thus guarding his own safety with more hardihood than success. when he had done this some while, he advised him to take his brother to share in his enterprise, and not be ashamed to ask for the help of another hand, since his unaided efforts were useless. if he refused, said athisl, he should not be spared; then making good his threats, he assailed him with all his might. but ket received him with so sturdy a stroke of his sword, that it split the helmet and forced its way down upon the head. stung by the wound (for a stream of blood flowed from his poll), he attacked ket with a shower of nimble blows, and drove him to his knees. wig, leaning more to personal love than to general usage, ( ) could not bear the sight, but made affection conquer shame, and attacking athisl, chose rather to defend the weakness of his brother than to look on at it. but he won more infamy than glory by the deed. in helping his brother he had violated the appointed conditions of the duel; and the help that he gave him was thought more useful than honourable. for on the one scale he inclined to the side of disgrace, and on the other to that of affection. thereupon they perceived themselves that their killing of athisl had been more swift than glorious. yet, not to hide the deed from the common people, they cut off his head, slung his body on a horse, took it out of the wood, and handed it over to the dwellers in a village near, announcing that the sons of frowin had taken vengeance upon athisl, king of the swedes, for the slaying of their father. boasting of such a victory as this, they were received by wermund with the highest honours; for he thought they had done a most useful deed, and he preferred to regard the glory of being rid of a rival with more attention than the infamy of committing an outrage. nor did he judge that the killing of a tyrant was in any wise akin to shame. it passed into a proverb among foreigners, that the death of the king had broken down the ancient principle of combat. when wermund was losing his sight by infirmity of age, the king of saxony, thinking that denmark lacked a leader, sent envoys ordering him to surrender to his charge the kingdom which he held beyond the due term of life; lest, if he thirsted to hold sway too long, he should strip his country of laws and defence. for how could he be reckoned a king, whose spirit was darkened with age, and his eyes with blindness not less black and awful? if he refused, but yet had a son who would dare to accept a challenge and fight with his son, let him agree that the victor should possess the realm. but if he approved neither offer, let him learn that he must be dealt with by weapons and not by warnings; and in the end he must unwillingly surrender what he was too proud at first to yield uncompelled. wermund, shaken by deep sighs, answered that it was too insolent to sting him with these taunts upon his years; for he had passed no timorous youth, nor shrunk from battle, that age should bring him to this extreme misery. it was equally unfitting to cast in his teeth the infirmity of his blindness: for it was common for a loss of this kind to accompany such a time of life as his, and it seemed a calamity fitter for sympathy than for taunts. it were juster to fix the blame on the impatience of the king of saxony, whom it would have beseemed to wait for the old man's death, and not demand his throne; for it was somewhat better to succeed to the dead than to rob the living. yet, that he might not be thought to make over the honours of his ancient freedom, like a madman, to the possession of another, he would accept the challenge with his own hand. the envoys answered that they knew that their king would shrink from the mockery of fighting a blind man, for such an absurd mode of combat was thought more shameful than honourable. it would surely be better to settle the affair by means of their offspring on either side. the danes were in consternation, and at a sudden loss for a reply: but uffe, who happened to be there with the rest, craved his father's leave to answer; and suddenly the dumb as it were spake. when wermund asked who had thus begged leave to speak, and the attendants said that it was uffe, he declared that it was enough that the insolent foreigner should jeer at the pangs of his misery, without those of his own household vexing him with the same wanton effrontery. but the courtiers persistently averred that this man was uffe; and the king said: "he is free, whosoever he be, to say out what he thinks." then said uffe, "that it was idle for their king to covet a realm which could rely not only on the service of its own ruler, but also on the arms and wisdom of most valiant nobles. moreover, the king did not lack a son nor the kingdom an heir; and they were to know that he had made up his mind to fight not only the son of their king, but also, at the same time, whatsoever man the prince should elect as his comrade out of the bravest of their nation." the envoys laughed when they beard this, thinking it idle lip-courage. instantly the ground for the battle was agreed on, and a fixed time appointed. but the bystanders were so amazed by the strangeness of uffe's speaking and challenging, that one can scarce say if they were more astonished at his words or at his assurance. but on the departure of the envoys wermund praised him who had made the answer, because he had proved his confidence in his own valour by challenging not one only, but two; and said that he would sooner quit his kingdom for him, whoever he was, than for an insolent foe. but when one and all testified that he who with lofty self-confidence had spurned the arrogance of the envoys was his own son, he bade him come nearer to him, wishing to test with his hands what he could not with his eyes. then he carefully felt his body, and found by the size of his limbs and by his features that he was his son; and then began to believe their assertions, and to ask him why he had taken pains to hide so sweet an eloquence with such careful dissembling, and had borne to live through so long a span of life without utterance or any intercourse of talk, so as to let men think him utterly incapable of speech, and a born mute. he replied that he had been hitherto satisfied with the protection of his father, that he had not needed the use of his own voice, until he saw the wisdom of his own land hard pressed by the glibness of a foreigner. the king also asked him why he had chosen to challenge two rather than one. he said he had desired this mode of combat in order that the death of king athisl, which, having been caused by two men, was a standing reproach to the danes, might be balanced by the exploit of one, and that a new ensample of valour might erase the ancient record of their disgrace. fresh honour, he said, would thus obliterate the guilt of their old dishonour. wermund said that his son had judged all things rightly, and bade him first learn the use of arms, since he had been little accustomed to them. when they were offered to uffe, he split the narrow links of the mail-coats by the mighty girth of his chest, nor could any be found large enough to hold him properly. for he was too hugely built to be able to use the arms of any other man. at last, when he was bursting even his father's coat of mail by the violent compression of his body, wermund ordered it to be cut away on the left side and patched with a buckle; thinking it mattered little if the side guarded by the shield were exposed to the sword. he also told him to be most careful in fixing on a sword which he could use safely. several were offered him; but uffe, grasping the hilt, shattered them one after the other into flinders by shaking them, and not a single blade was of so hard a temper but at the first blow he broke it into many pieces. but the king had a sword of extraordinary sharpness, called "skrep", which at a single blow of the smiter struck straight through and cleft asunder any obstacle whatsoever; nor would aught be hard enough to check its edge when driven home. the king, loth to leave this for the benefit of posterity, and greatly grudging others the use of it, had buried it deep in the earth, meaning, since he had no hopes of his son's improvement, to debar everyone else from using it. but when he was now asked whether he had a sword worthy of the strength of uffe, he said that he had one which, if he could recognize the lie of the ground and find what he had consigned long ago to earth, he could offer him as worthy of his bodily strength. then he bade them lead him into a field, and kept questioning his companions over all the ground. at last he recognised the tokens, found the spot where he had buried the sword, drew it out of its hole, and handed it to his son. uffe saw it was frail with great age and rusted away; and, not daring to strike with it, asked if he must prove this one also like the rest, declaring that he must try its temper before the battle ought to be fought. wermund replied that if this sword were shattered by mere brandishing, there was nothing left which could serve for such strength as his. he must, therefore, forbear from the act, whose issue remained so doubtful. so they repaired to the field of battle as agreed. it is fast encompassed by the waters of the river eider, which roll between, and forbid any approach save by ship. hither uffe went unattended, while the prince of saxony was followed by a champion famous for his strength. dense crowds on either side, eager to see, thronged each winding bank, and all bent their eyes upon this scene. wermund planted himself on the end of the bridge, determined to perish in the waters if defeat were the lot of his son: he would rather share the fall of his own flesh and blood than behold, with heart full of anguish, the destruction of his own country. both the warriors assaulted uffe; but, distrusting his sword, he parried the blows of both with his shield, being determined to wait patiently and see which of the two he must beware of most heedfully, so that he might reach that one at all events with a single stroke of his blade. wermund, thinking that his feebleness was at fault, that he took the blows so patiently, dragged himself little by little, in his longing for death, forward to the western edge of the bridge, meaning to fling himself down and perish, should all be over with his son. fortune shielded the old father, for uffe told the prince to engage with him more briskly, and to do some deed of prowess worthy of his famous race; lest the lowborn squire should seem braver than the prince. then, in order to try the bravery of the champion, he bade him not skulk timorously at his master's heels, but requite by noble deeds of combat the trust placed in him by his prince, who had chosen him to be his single partner in the battle. the other complied, and when shame drove him to fight at close quarters, uffe clove him through with the first stroke of his blade. the sound revived wermund, who said that he heard the sword of his son, and asked "on what particular part he had dealt the blow?" then the retainers answered that it had gone through no one limb, but the man's whole frame; whereat wermund drew back from the precipice and came on the bridge, longing now as passionately to live as he had just wished to die. then uffe, wishing to destroy his remaining foe after the fashion of the first, incited the prince with vehement words to offer some sacrifice by way of requital to the shade of the servant slain in his cause. drawing him by those appeals, and warily noting the right spot to plant his blow, he turned the other edge of his sword to the front, fearing that the thin side of his blade was too frail for his strength, and smote with a piercing stroke through the prince's body. when wermund heard it, he said that the sound of his sword "skrep" had reached his ear for the second time. then, when the judges announced that his son had killed both enemies, he burst into tears from excess of joy. thus gladness bedewed the cheeks which sorrow could not moisten. so while the saxons, sad and shamefaced, bore their champions to burial with bitter shame, the danes welcomed uffe and bounded for joy. then no more was heard of the disgrace of the murder of athisl, and there was an end of the taunts of the saxons. thus the realm of saxony was transferred to the danes, and uffe, after his father, undertook its government; and he, who had not been thought equal to administering a single kingdom properly, was now appointed to manage both. most men have called him olaf, and he has won the name of "the gentle" for his forbearing spirit. his later deeds, lost in antiquity, have lacked formal record. but it may well be supposed that when their beginnings were so notable, their sequel was glorious. i am so brief in considering his doings, because the lustre of the famous men of our nation has been lost to memory and praise by the lack of writings. but if by good luck our land had in old time been endowed with the latin tongue, there would have been countless volumes to read of the exploits of the danes. uffe was succeeded by his son dan, who carried his arms against foreigners, and increased his sovereignty with many a trophy; but he tarnished the brightness of the glory he had won by foul and abominable presumption; falling so far away from the honour of his famous father, who surpassed all others in modesty, that he contrariwise was puffed up and proudly exalted in spirit, so that he scorned all other men. he also squandered the goods of his father on infamies, as well as his own winnings from the spoils of foreign nations; and he devoured in expenditure on luxuries the wealth which should have ministered to his royal estate. thus do sons sometimes, like monstrous births, degenerate from their ancestors. after this hugleik was king, who is said to have defeated in battle at sea homod and hogrim, the despots of sweden. to him succeeded frode, surnamed the vigorous, who bore out his name by the strength of his body and mind. he destroyed in war ten captains of norway, and finally approached the island which afterwards had its name from him, meaning to attack the king himself last of all. this king, froger, was in two ways very distinguished, being notable in arms no less than in wealth; and graced his sovereignty with the deeds of a champion, being as rich in prizes for bodily feats as in the honours of rank. according to some, he was the son of odin, and when he begged the immortal gods to grant him a boon, received the privilege that no man should conquer him, save he who at the time of the conflict could catch up in his hand the dust lying beneath froger's feet. when frode found that heaven had endowed this king with such might, he challenged him to a duel, meaning to try to outwit the favour of the gods. so at first, feigning inexperience, he besought the king for a lesson in fighting, knowing (he said) his skill and experience in the same. the other, rejoicing that his enemy not only yielded to his pretensions, but even made him a request, said that he was wise to submit his youthful mind to an old man's wisdom; for his unscarred face and his brow, ploughed by no marks of battle, showed that his knowledge of such matters was but slender. so he marked off on the ground two square spaces with sides an ell long, opposite one another, meaning to begin by instructing him about the use of these plots. when they had been marked off, each took the side assigned to him. then frode asked froger to exchange arms and ground with him, and the request was readily granted. for froger was excited with the dashing of his enemy's arms, because frode wore a gold-hilted sword, a breastplate equally bright, and a headpiece most brilliantly adorned in the same manner. so frode caught up some dust from the ground whence froger had gone, and thought that he had been granted an omen of victory. nor was he deceived in his presage; for he straightway slew froger, and by this petty trick won the greatest name for bravery; for he gained by craft what had been permitted to no man's strength before. after him dan came to the throne. when he was in the twelfth year of his age, he was wearied by the insolence of the embassies, which commanded him either to fight the saxons or to pay them tribute. ashamed, he preferred fighting to payment and was moved to die stoutly rather than live a coward. so he elected to fight; and the warriors of the danes filled the elbe with such a throng of vessels, that the decks of the ships lashed together made it quite easy to cross, as though along a continuous bridge. the end was that the king of saxony had to accept the very terms he was demanding from the danes. after dan, fridleif, surnamed the swift, assumed the sovereignty. during his reign, huyrwil, the lord of oland, made a league with the danes and attacked norway. no small fame was added to his deeds by the defeat of the amazon rusila, who aspired with military ardour to prowess in battle: but he gained manly glory over a female foe. also he took into his alliance, on account of their deeds of prowess, her five partners, the children of finn, named brodd, bild, bug, fanning, and gunholm. their confederacy emboldened him to break the treaty which he made with the danes; and the treachery of the violation made it all the more injurious, for the danes could not believe that he could turn so suddenly from a friend into an enemy; so easily can some veer from goodwill into hate. i suppose that this man inaugurated the morals of our own day, for we do not account lying and treachery as sinful and sordid. when huyrwil attacked the southern side of zealand, fridleif assailed him in the harbour which was afterwards called by huyrwil's name. in this battle the soldiers, in their rivalry for glory, engaged with such bravery that very few fled to escape peril, and both armies were utterly destroyed; nor did the victory fall to either side, where both were enveloped in an equal ruin. so much more desirous were they all of glory than of life. so the survivors of huyrwil's army, in order to keep united, had the remnants of their fleet lashed together at night. but, in the same night, bild and brodd cut the cables with which the ships were joined, and stealthily severed their own vessels from the rest, thus yielding to their own terrors by deserting their brethren, and obeying the impulses of fear rather than fraternal love. when daylight returned, fridleif, finding that after the great massacre of their friends only huyrwil, gunholm, bug, and fanning were left, determined to fight them all single-handed, so that the mangled relics of his fleet might not again have to be imperilled. besides his innate courage, a shirt of steel-defying mail gave him confidence; a garb which he used to wear in all public battles and in duels, as a preservative of his life. he accomplished his end with as much fortune as courage, and ended the battle successfully. for, after slaying huyrwil, bug, and fanning, he killed gunholm, who was accustomed to blunt the blade of an enemy with spells, by a shower of blows from his hilt. but while he gripped the blade too eagerly, the sinews, being cut and disabled, contracted the fingers upon the palm, and cramped them with life-long curvature. while fridleif was besieging dublin, a town in ireland, and saw from the strength of the walls that there was no chance of storming them, he imitated the shrewd wit of hadding, and ordered fire to be shut up in wicks and fastened to the wings of swallows. when the birds got back in their own nesting-place, the dwellings suddenly flared up; and while the citizens all ran up to quench them, and paid more heed to abating the fire than to looking after the enemy, fridleif took dublin. after this he lost his soldiers in britain, and, thinking that he would find it hard to get back to the coast, he set up the corpses of the slain (amleth's device) and stationed them in line, thus producing so nearly the look of his original host that its great reverse seemed not to have lessened the show of it a whit. by this deed he not only took out of the enemy all heart for fighting, but inspired them with the desire to make their escape. endnotes: ( ) jellinge. lat. "ialunga", icel. "jalangr". ( ) general usage. "publicus consuetudini": namely, the rule of combat that two should not fight against one. book five. after the death of fridleif, his son frode, aged seven, was elected in his stead by the unanimous decision of the danes. but they held an assembly first, and judged that the minority of the king should be taken in charge by guardians, lest the sovereignty should pass away owing to the boyishness of the ruler. for one and all paid such respect to the name and memory of fridleif, that the royalty was bestowed on his son despite his tender years. so a selection was made, and the brothers westmar and koll were summoned to the charge of bringing up the king. isulf, also, and agg and eight other men of mark were not only entrusted with the guardianship of the king, but also granted authority to administer the realm under him. these men were rich in strength and courage, and endowed with ample gifts of mind as well as of body. thus the state of the danes was governed with the aid of regents until the time when the king should be a man. the wife of koll was gotwar, who used to paralyse the most eloquent and fluent men by her glib and extraordinary insolence; for she was potent in wrangling, and full of resource in all kinds of disputation. words were her weapons; and she not only trusted in questions, but was armed with stubborn answers. no man could subdue this woman, who could not fight, but who found darts in her tongue instead. some she would argue down with a flood of impudent words, while others she seemed to entangle in the meshes of her quibbles, and strangle in the noose of her sophistries; so nimble a wit had the woman. moreover, she was very strong, either in making or cancelling a bargain, and the sting of her tongue was the secret of her power in both. she was clever both at making and at breaking leagues; thus she had two sides to her tongue, and used it for either purpose. westmar had twelve sons, three of whom had the same name--grep in common. these three men were conceived at once and delivered at one birth, and their common name declared their simultaneous origin. they were exceedingly skillful swordsmen and boxers. frode had also given the supremacy of the sea to odd; who was very closely related to the king. koll rejoiced in an offspring of three sons. at this time a certain son of frode's brother held the chief command of naval affairs for the protection of the country, now the king had a sister, gunwar, surnamed the fair because of her surpassing beauty. the sons of westmar and koll, being ungrown in years and bold in spirit, let their courage become recklessness and devoted their guilt-stained minds to foul and degraded orgies. their behaviour was so outrageous and uncontrollable that they ravished other men's brides and daughters, and seemed to have outlawed chastity and banished it to the stews. nay, they defiled the couches of matrons, and did not even refrain from the bed of virgins. a man's own chamber was no safety to him: there was scarce a spot in the land but bore traces of their lust. husbands were vexed with fear, and wives with insult to their persons: and to these wrongs folk bowed. no ties were respected, and forced embraces became a common thing. love was prostituted, all reverence for marriage ties died out, and lust was greedily run after. and the reason of all this was the peace; for men's bodies lacked exercise and were enervated in the ease so propitious to vices. at last the eldest of those who shared the name of grep, wishing to regulate and steady his promiscuous wantonness, ventured to seek a haven for his vagrant amours in the love of the king's sister. yet he did amiss. for though it was right that his vagabond and straying delights should be bridled by modesty, yet it was audacious for a man of the people to covet the child of a king. she, much fearing the impudence of her wooer, and wishing to be safer from outrage, went into a fortified building. thirty attendants were given to her, to keep guard and constant watch over her person. now the comrades of frode, sadly lacking the help of women in the matter of the wear of their garments, inasmuch as they had no means of patching or of repairing rents, advised and urged the king to marry. at first he alleged his tender years as an excuse, but in the end yielded to the persistent requests of his people. and when he carefully inquired of his advisers who would be a fit wife for him, they all praised the daughter of the king of the huns beyond the rest. when the question was pushed, what reason frode had for objecting to her, he replied that he had heard from his father that it was not expedient for kings to seek alliance far afield, or to demand love save from neighbours. when gotwar heard this she knew that the king's resistance to his friends was wily. wishing to establish his wavering spirit, and strengthen the courage of his weakling soul, she said: "bridals are for young men, but the tomb awaits the old. the steps of youth go forward in desires and in fortune; but old age declines helpless to the sepulchre. hope attends youth; age is bowed with hopeless decay. the fortune of young men increases; it will never leave unfinished what it begins." respecting her words, he begged her to undertake the management of the suit. but she refused, pleading her age as her pretext, and declaring herself too stricken in years to bear so difficult a commission. the king saw that a bribe was wanted, and, proffering a golden necklace, promised it as the reward of her embassy. for the necklace had links consisting of studs, and figures of kings interspersed in bas-relief, which could be now separated and now drawn together by pulling a thread inside; a gewgaw devised more for luxury than use. frode also ordered that westmar and koll, with their sons, should be summoned to go on the same embassy, thinking that their cunning would avoid the shame of a rebuff. they went with gotwar, and were entertained by the king of the huns at a three days' banquet, ere they uttered the purpose of their embassy. for it was customary of old thus to welcome guests. when the feast had been prolonged three days, the princess came forth to make herself pleasant to the envoys with a most courteous address, and her blithe presence added not a little to the festal delights of the banqueters. and as the drink went faster westmar revealed his purpose in due course, in a very merry declaration, wishing to sound the mind of the maiden in talk of a friendly sort. and, in order not to inflict on himself a rebuff, he spoke in a mirthful vein, and broke the ground of his mission, by venturing to make up a sportive speech amid the applause of the revellers. the princess said that she disdained frode because he lacked honour and glory. for in days of old no men were thought fit for the hand of high-born women but those who had won some great prize of glory by the lustre of their admirable deeds. sloth was the worst of vices in a suitor, and nothing was more of a reproach in one who sought marriage than the lack of fame. a harvest of glory, and that alone, could bring wealth in everything else. maidens admired in their wooers not so much good looks as deeds nobly done. so the envoys, flagging and despairing of their wish, left the further conduct of the affair to the wisdom of gotwar, who tried to subdue the maiden not only with words but with love-philtres, and began to declare that frode used his left hand as well as his right, and was a quick and skillful swimmer and fighter. also by the drink which she gave she changed the strictness of the maiden to desire, and replaced her vanished anger with love and delight. then she bade westmar, koll, and their sons go to the king and urge their mission afresh; and finally, should they find him froward, to anticipate a rebuff by a challenge to fight. so westmar entered the palace with his men-at-arms, and said: "now thou must needs either consent to our entreaties, or meet in battle us who entreat thee. we would rather die nobly than go back with our mission unperformed; lest, foully repulsed and foiled of our purpose, we should take home disgrace where we hoped to will honour. if thou refuse thy daughter, consent to fight: thou must needs grant one thing or the other. we wish either to die or to have our prayers beard. something--sorrow if not joy--we will get from thee. frode will be better pleased to hear of our slaughter than of our repulse." without another word, he threatened to aim a blow at the king's throat with his sword. the king replied that it was unseemly for the royal majesty to meet an inferior in rank in level combat, and unfit that those of unequal station should fight as equals. but when westmar persisted in urging him to fight, he at last bade him find out what the real mind of the maiden was; for in old time men gave women who were to marry, free choice of a husband. for the king was embarrassed, and hung vacillating betwixt shame and fear of battle. thus westmar, having been referred to the thoughts of the girl's heart, and knowing that every woman is as changeable in purpose as she is fickle in soul, proceeded to fulfil his task all the more confidently because he knew how mutable the wishes of maidens were. his confidence in his charge was increased and his zeal encouraged, because she had both a maiden's simplicity, which was left to its own counsels, and a woman's freedom of choice, which must be wheedled with the most delicate and mollifying flatteries; and thus she would be not only easy to lead away, but even hasty in compliance. but her father went after the envoys, that he might see more surely into his daughter's mind. she had already been drawn by the stealthy working of the draught to love her suitor, and answered that the promise of frode, rather than his present renown, had made her expect much of his nature: since he was sprung from so famous a father, and every nature commonly answered to its origin. the youth therefore had pleased her by her regard of his future, rather than his present, glory. these words amazed the father; but neither could he bear to revoke the freedom he had granted her, and he promised her in marriage to frode. then, having laid in ample stores, he took her away with the most splendid pomp, and, followed by the envoys, hastened to denmark, knowing that a father was the best person to give away a daughter in marriage. frode welcomed his bride most joyfully, and also bestowed the highest honours upon his future royal father-in-law; and when the marriage rites were over, dismissed him with a large gift of gold and silver. and so with hanund, the daughter of the king of the huns, for his wife, he passed three years in the most prosperous peace. but idleness brought wantonness among his courtiers, and peace begot lewdness, which they displayed in the most abominable crimes. for they would draw some men up in the air on ropes, and torment them, pushing their bodies as they hung, like a ball that is tossed; or they would put a kid's hide under the feet of others as they walked, and, by stealthily pulling a rope, trip their unwary steps on the slippery skill in their path; others they would strip of their clothes, and lash with sundry tortures of stripes; others they fastened to pegs, as with a noose, and punished with mock-hanging. they scorched off the beard and hair with tapers; of others they burned the hair of the groin with a brand. only those maidens might marry whose chastity they had first deflowered. strangers they battered with bones; others they compelled to drunkenness with immoderate draughts, and made them burst. no man might give his daughter to wife unless he had first bought their favour and goodwill. none might contract any marriage without first purchasing their consent with a bribe. moreover, they extended their abominable and abandoned lust not only to virgins, but to the multitude of matrons indiscriminately. thus a twofold madness incited this mixture of wantonness and frenzy. guests and strangers were proffered not shelter but revilings. all these maddening mockeries did this insolent and wanton crew devise, and thus under a boy-king freedom fostered licence. for nothing prolongs reckless sin like the procrastination of punishment and vengeance. this unbridled impudence of the soldiers ended by making the king detested, not only by foreigners, but even by his own people, for the danes resented such an arrogant and cruel rule. but grep was contented with no humble loves; he broke out so outrageously that he was guilty of intercourse with the queen, and proved as false to the king as he was violent to all other men. then by degrees the scandal grew, and the suspicion of his guilt crept on with silent step. the common people found it out before the king. for grep, by always punishing all who alluded in the least to this circumstance, had made it dangerous to accuse him. but the rumour of his crime, which at first was kept alive in whispers, was next passed on in public reports; for it is hard for men to hide another's guilt if they are aware of it. gunwar had many suitors; and accordingly grep, trying to take revenge for his rebuff by stealthy wiles, demanded the right of judging the suitors, declaring that the princess ought to make the choicest match. but he disguised his anger, lest he should seem to have sought the office from hatred of the maiden. at his request the king granted him leave to examine the merits of the young men. so he first gathered all the wooers of gunwar together on the pretence of a banquet, and then lined the customary room of the princess with their heads--a gruesome spectacle for all the rest. yet he forfeited none of his favour with frode, nor abated his old intimacy with him. for he decided that any opportunity of an interview with the king must be paid for, and gave out that no one should have any conversation with him who brought no presents. access, he announced, to so great a general must be gained by no stale or usual method, but by making interest most zealously. he wished to lighten the scandal of his cruelty by the pretence of affection to his king. the people, thus tormented, vented their complaint of their trouble in silent groans. none had the spirit to lift up his voice in public against this season of misery. no one had become so bold as to complain openly of the affliction that was falling upon them. inward resentment vexed the hearts of men, secretly indeed, but all the more bitterly. when gotar, the king of norway, heard this, he assembled his soldiers, and said that the danes were disgusted with their own king, and longed for another if they could get the opportunity; that he had himself resolved to lead an army thither, and that denmark would be easy to seize if attacked. frode's government of his country was as covetous as it was cruel. then erik rose up and gainsaid the project with contrary reasons. "we remember," he said, "how often coveters of other men's goods lose their own. he who snatches at both has oft lost both. it must be a very strong bird that can wrest the prey from the claws of another. it is idle for thee to be encouraged by the internal jealousies of the country, for these are oft blown away by the approach of an enemy. for though the danes now seem divided in counsel, yet they will soon be of one mind to meet the foe. the wolves have often made peace between the quarrelling swine. every man prefers a leader of his own land to a foreigner, and every province is warmer in loyalty to a native than to a stranger king. for frode will not await thee at home, but will intercept thee abroad as thou comest. eagles claw each other with their talons, and fowls fight fronting. thou thyself knowest that the keen sight of the wise man must leave no cause for repentance. thou hast an ample guard of nobles. keep thou quiet as thou art; indeed thou wilt almost be able to find out by means of others what are thy resources for war. let the soldiers first try the fortunes of their king. provide in peace for thine own safety, and risk others if thou dost undertake the enterprise: better that the slave should perish than the master. let thy servant do for thee what the tongs do for the smith, who by the aid of his iron tool guards his hand from scorching, and saves his fingers from burning. learn thou also, by using thy men, to spare and take thought for thyself." so spake erik, and gotar, who had hitherto held him a man of no parts, now marvelled that he had graced his answer with sentences so choice and weighty, and gave him the name of shrewd-spoken, thinking that his admirable wisdom deserved some title. for the young man's reputation had been kept in the shade by the exceeding brilliancy of his brother roller. erik begged that some substantial gift should be added to the name, declaring that the bestowal of the title ought to be graced by a present besides. the king gave him a ship, and the oarsmen called it "skroter." now erik and roller were the sons of ragnar, the champion, and children of one father by different mothers; roller's mother and erik's stepmother was named kraka. and so, by leave of gotar, the task of making a raid on the danes fell to one hrafn. he was encountered by odd, who had at that time the greatest prestige among the danes as a rover, for he was such a skilled magician that he could range over the sea without a ship, and could often raise tempests by his spells, and wreck the vessels of the enemy. accordingly, that he might not have to condescend to pit his sea-forces against the rovers, he used to ruffle the waters by enchantment, and cause them to shipwreck his foes. to traders this man was ruthless, but to tillers of the soil he was merciful, for he thought less of merchandise than of the plough-handle, but rated the clean business of the country higher than the toil for filthy lucre. when he began to fight with the northmen he so dulled the sight of the enemy by the power of his spells that they thought the drawn swords of the danes cast their beams from afar off, and sparkled as if aflame. moreover, their vision was so blunted that they could not so much as look upon the sword when it was drawn from the sheath: the dazzle was too much for their eyesight, which could not endure the glittering mirage. so hrafn and many of his men were slain, and only six vessels slipped back to norway to teach the king that it was not so easy to crush the danes. the survivors also spread the news that frode trusted only in the help of his champions, and reigned against the will of his people, for his rule had become a tyranny. in order to examine this rumour, roller, who was a great traveller abroad, and eager to visit unknown parts, made a vow that he would get into the company of frode. but erik declared that, splendid as were his bodily parts, he had been rash in pronouncing the vow. at last, seeing him persisting stubbornly in his purpose, erik bound himself under a similar vow; and the king promised them that he would give them for companions whomsoever they approved by their choice. the brethren, therefore, first resolved to visit their father and beg for the stores and the necessaries that were wanted for so long a journey. he welcomed them paternally, and on the morrow took them to the forest to inspect the herd, for the old man was wealthy in cattle. also he revealed to them treasures which had long lain hid in caverns of the earth; and they were suffered to gather up whatsoever of these they would. the boon was accepted as heartily as it was offered: so they took the riches out of the ground, and bore away what pleased them. their rowers meanwhile were either refreshing themselves or exercising their skill with casting weights. some sped leaping, some running; others tried their strength by sturdily hurling stones; others tested their archery by drawing the bow. thus they essayed to strengthen themselves with divers exercises. some again tried to drink themselves into a drowse. roller was sent by his father to find out what had passed at home in the meanwhile. and when he saw smoke coming from his mother's hut he went up outside, and, stealthily applying his eye, saw through the little chink and into the house, where he perceived his mother stirring a cooked mess in an ugly-looking pot. also he looked up at three snakes hanging from above by a thin cord, from whose mouths flowed a slaver which dribbled drops of moisture on the meal. now two of these were pitchy of hue, while the third seemed to have whitish scales, and was hung somewhat higher than the others. this last had a fastening on its tail, while the others were held by a cord round their bellies. roller thought the affair looked like magic, but was silent on what he had seen, that he might not be thought to charge his mother with sorcery. for he did not know that the snakes were naturally harmless, or how much strength was being brewed for that meal. then ragnar and erik came up, and, when they saw the smoke issuing from the cottage, entered and went to sit at meat. when they were at table, and kraka's son and stepson were about to eat together, she put before them a small dish containing a piebald mess, part looking pitchy, but spotted with specks of yellow, while part was whitish: the pottage having taken a different hue answering to the different appearance of the snakes. and when each had tasted a single morsel, erik, judging the feast not by the colours but by the inward strengthening effected, turned the dish around very quickly, and transferred to himself the part which was black but compounded of stronger juices; and, putting over to roller the whitish part which had first been set before himself, throve more on his supper. and, to avoid showing that the exchange was made on purpose, he said, "thus does prow become stern when the sea boils up." the man had no little shrewdness, thus to use the ways of a ship to dissemble his cunning act. so erik, now refreshed by this lucky meal, attained by its inward working to the highest pitch of human wisdom. for the potency of the meal bred in him the fulness of all kinds of knowledge to an incredible degree, so that he had cunning to interpret even the utterances of wild beasts and cattle. for he was not only well versed in all the affairs of men, but he could interpret the particular feelings which brutes experienced from the sounds which expressed them. he was also gifted with an eloquence so courteous and graceful, that he adorned whatsoever he desired to expound with a flow of witty adages. but when kraka came up, and found that the dish had been turned round, and that erik had eaten the stronger share of the meal, she lamented that the good luck she had bred for her son should have passed to her stepson. soon she began to sigh, and entreat eric that he should never fail to help his brother, whose mother had heaped on him fortune so rich and strange: for by tasting a single savoury meal he had clearly attained sovereign wit and eloquence, besides the promise of success in combat. she added also, that roller was almost as capable of good counsel, and that he should not utterly miss the dainty that had been intended for him. she also told him that in case of extreme and violent need, he could find speedy help by calling on her name; declaring that she trusted partially in her divine attributes, and that, consorting as she did in a manner with the gods, she wielded an innate and heavenly power. erik said that he was naturally drawn to stand by his brother, and that the bird was infamous which fouled its own nest. but kraka was more vexed by her own carelessness than weighed down by her son's ill-fortune: for in old time it made a craftsman bitterly ashamed to be outwitted by his own cleverness. then kraka, accompanied by her husband, took away the brothers on their journey to the sea. they embarked in a single ship, but soon attached two others. they had already reached the coast of denmark, when, reconnoitering, they learned that seven ships had come up at no great distance. then erik bade two men who could speak the danish tongue well, to go to them unclothed, and, in order to spy better, to complain to odd of their nakedness, as if erik had caused it, and to report when they had made careful scrutiny. these men were received as friends by odd, and hunted for every plan of the general with their sharp ears. he had determined to attack the enemy unawares at daybreak, that he might massacre them the more speedily while they were swathed in their night garments: for he said that men's bodies were wont to be most dull and heavy at that hour of dawn. he also told them, thereby hastening what was to prove his own destruction, that his ships were laden with stones fit for throwing. the spies slipped off in the first sleep of the night, reported that odd had filled all his vessels with pebbles, and also told everything else they had heard. erik now quite understood the case, and, when he considered the smallness of his own fleet, thought that he must call the waters to destroy the enemy, and win their aid for himself. so he got into a boat and rowed, pulling silently, close up to the keels of the enemy; and gradually, by screwing in an auger, he bored the planks (a device practiced by hadding and also by frode), nearest to the water, and soon made good his return, the oar-beat being scarce audible. now he bore himself so warily, that not one of the watchers noted his approach or departure. as he rowed off, the water got in through the chinks of odd's vessels, and sank them, so that they were seen disappearing in the deep, as the water flooded them more and more within. the weight of the stones inside helped them mightily to sink. the billows were washing away the thwarts, and the sea was flush with the decks, when odd, seeing the vessels almost on a level with the waves, ordered the heavy seas that had been shipped to be baled out with pitchers. and so, while the crews were toiling on to protect the sinking parts of the vessels from the flood of waters, the enemy hove close up. thus, as they fell to their arms, the flood came upon them harder, and as they prepared to fight, they found they must swim for it. waves, not weapons, fought for erik, and the sea, which he had himself enabled to approach and do harm, battled for him. thus erik made better use of the billow than of the steel, and by the effectual aid of the waters seemed to fight in his own absence, the ocean lending him defence. the victory was given to his craft; for a flooded ship could not endure a battle. thus was odd slain with all his crew; the look-outs were captured, and it was found that no man escaped to tell the tale of the disaster. erik, when the massacre was accomplished, made a rapid retreat, and put in at the isle lesso. finding nothing there to appease his hunger, he sent the spoil homeward on two ships, which were to bring back supplies for another year. he tried to go by himself to the king in a single ship. so he put in to zealand, and the sailors ran about over the shore, and began to cut down the cattle: for they must either ease their hunger or perish of famine. so they killed the herd, skinned the carcases, and cast them on board. when the owners of the cattle found this out, they hastily pursued the free-booters with a fleet. and when erik found that he was being attacked by the owners of the cattle, he took care that the carcases of the slaughtered cows should be tied with marked ropes and hidden under water. then, when the zealanders came up, he gave them leave to look about and see if any of the carcases they were seeking were in his hands; saying that a ship's corners were too narrow to hide things. unable to find a carcase anywhere, they turned their suspicions on others, and thought the real criminals were guiltless of the plunder. since no traces of free-booting were to be seen, they fancied that others had injured them, and pardoned the culprits. as they sailed off, erik lifted the carcase out of the water and took it in. meantime frode learnt that odd and his men had gone down. for a widespread rumour of the massacre had got wind, though the author of the deed was unknown. there were men, however, who told how they had seen three sails putting in to shore, and departing again northwards. then erik went to the harbour, not far from which frode was tarrying, and, the moment that he stepped out of the ship, tripped inadvertently, and came tumbling to the ground. he found in the slip a presage of a lucky issue, and forecast better results from this mean beginning. when grep heard of his coming, he hastened down to the sea, intending to assail with chosen and pointed phrases the man whom he had heard was better-spoken than all other folk. grep's eloquence was not so much excellent as impudent, for he surpassed all in stubbornness of speech. so he began the dispute with reviling, and assailed erik as follows: grep: "fool, who art thou? what idle quest is thine? tell me, whence or whither dost thou journey? what is thy road? what thy desire? who thy father? what thy lineage? those have strength beyond others who have never left their own homes, and the luck of kings is their houseluck. for the things of a vile man are acceptable unto few, and seldom are the deeds of the hated pleasing." erik: "ragnar is my father; eloquence clothes my tongue; i have ever loved virtue only. wisdom hath been my one desire; i have travelled many ways over the world, and seen the different manners of men. the mind of the fool can keep no bounds in aught: it is base and cannot control its feelings. the use of sails is better than being drawn by the oar; the gale troubles the waters, a drearier gust the land. for rowing goes through the seas and lying the lands; and it is certain that the lands are ruled with the lips, but the seas with the hand." grep: "thou art thought to be as full of quibbling as a cock of dirt. thou stinkest heavy with filth, and reekest of nought but sin. there is no need to lengthen the plea against a buffoon, whose strength is in an empty and voluble tongue." erik: "by hercules, if i mistake not, the coward word is wont to come back to the utterer. the gods with righteous endeavour bring home to the speaker words cast forth without knowledge. as soon as we espy the sinister ears of the wolf, we believe that the wolf himself is near. men think no credit due to him that hath no credit, whom report accuses of treachery." grep: "shameless boy, owl astray from the path, night-owl in the darkness, thou shalt pay for thy reckless words. thou shalt be sorry for the words thou now belchest forth madly, and shalt pay with thy death for thy unhallowed speech. lifeless thou shalt pasture crows on thy bloodless corpse, to be a morsel for beasts, a prey to the ravenous bird." erik: "the boding of the coward, and the will that is trained to evil, have never kept themselves within due measure. he who betrays his lord, he who conceives foul devices, will be as great a snare to himself as to his friends. whoso fosters a wolf in his house is thought to feed a thief and a pest for his own hearth." grep: "i did not, as thou thinkest, beguile the queen, but i was the guardian of her tender estate. she increased my fortunes, and her favour first brought me gifts and strength, and wealth and counsel." erik: "lo, thy guilty disquiet lies heavy on thee; that man's freedom is safest whose mind remains untainted. whoso asks a slave to be a friend, is deceived; often the henchman hurts his master." at this grep, shorn of his glibness of rejoinder, set spurs to his horse and rode away. now when he reached home, he filled the palace with uproarious and vehement clamour; and shouting that he had been worsted in words, roused all his soldiers to fight, as though he would avenge by main force his luckless warfare of tongues. for he swore that he would lay the host of the foreigners under the claws of eagles. but the king warned him that he should give his frenzy pause for counsel, that blind plans were commonly hurtful; that nothing could be done both cautiously and quickly at once; that headstrong efforts were the worst obstacle; and lastly, that it was unseemly to attack a handful with a host. also, said he, the sagacious man was he who could bridle a raging spirit, and stop his frantic empetuosity in time. thus the king forced the headlong rage of the young man to yield to reflection. but he could not wholly recall to self-control the frenzy of his heated mind, or prevent the champion of wrangles, abashed by his hapless debate, and finding armed vengeance refused him, from asking leave at least to try his sorceries by way of revenge. he gained his request, and prepared to go back to the shore with a chosen troop of wizards. so he first put on a pole the severed head of a horse that had been sacrificed to the gods, and setting sticks beneath displayed the jaws grinning agape; hoping that he would foil the first efforts of erik by the horror of this wild spectacle. for he supposed that the silly souls of the barbarians would give away at the bogey of a protruding neck. erik was already on his road to meet them, and saw the head from afar off, and, understanding the whole foul contrivance, he bade his men keep silent and behave warily; no man was to be rash or hasty of speech, lest by some careless outburst they might give some opening to the sorceries; adding that if talking happened to be needed, he would speak for all. and they were now parted by a river; when the wizards, in order to dislodge erik from the approach to the bridge, set up close to the river, on their own side, the pole on which they had fixed the horse's head. nevertheless erik made dauntlessly for the bridge, and said: "on the bearer fall the ill-luck of what he bears! may a better issue attend our steps! evil befall the evil-workers! let the weight of the ominous burden crush the carrier! let the better auguries bring us safety!" and it happened according to his prayer. for straightway the head was shaken off, the stick fell and crushed the bearer. and so all that array of sorceries was baffled at the bidding of a single curse, and extinguished. then, as erik advanced a little, it came into his mind that strangers ought to fix on gifts for the king. so he carefully wrapped up in his robe a piece of ice which he happened to find, and managed to take it to the king by way of a present. but when they reached the palace he sought entrance first, and bade his brother follow close behind. already the slaves of the king, in order to receive him with mockery as he entered, had laid a slippery hide on the threshold; and when erik stepped upon it, they suddenly jerked it away by dragging a rope, and would have tripped him as he stood upon it, had not roller, following behind, caught his brother on his breast as he tottered. so erik, having half fallen, said that "bare was the back of the brotherless." and when gunwar said that such a trick ought not to be permitted by a king, the king condemned the folly of the messenger who took no heed against treachery. and thus he excused his flout by the heedlessness of the man he flouted. within the palace was blazing a fire, which the aspect of the season required: for it was now gone midwinter. by it, in different groups, sat the king on one side and the champions on the other. these latter, when erik joined them, uttered gruesome sounds like things howling. the king stopped the clamour, telling them that the noises of wild beasts ought not to be in the breasts of men. erik added, that it was the way of dogs, for all the others to set up barking when one started it; for all folk by their bearing betrayed their birth and revealed their race. but when koll, who was the keeper of the gifts offered to the king, asked him whether he had brought any presents with him, he produced the ice which he had hidden in his breast. and when he had handed it to koll across the hearth, he purposely let it go into the fire, as though it had slipped from the hand of the receiver. all present saw the shining fragment, and it seemed as though molten metal had fallen into the fire. erik, maintaining that it had been jerked away by the carelessness of him who took it, asked what punishment was due to the loser of the gift. the king consulted the opinion of the queen, who advised him not to relax the statute of the law which he had passed, whereby he gave warning that all who lost presents that were transmitted to him should be punished with death. everyone else also said that the penalty by law appointed ought not to be remitted. and so the king, being counselled to allow the punishment as inevitable, gave leave for koll to be hanged. then frode began to accost erik thus: "o thou, wantoning in insolent phrase, in boastful and bedizened speech, whence dost thou say that thou hast come hither, and why?" erik answered: "i came from rennes isle, and i took my seat by a stone." frode rejoined: "i ask, whither thou wentest next?" erik answered. "i went off from the stone riding on a beam, and often again took station by a stone." frode replied: "i ask thee whither thou next didst bend thy course, or where the evening found thee?" then said erik: "leaving a crag, i came to a rock, and likewise lay by a stone." frode said: "the boulders lay thick in those parts." erik answered: "yet thicker lies the sand, plain to see." frode said: "tell what thy business was, and whither thou struckest off thence." then said erik: "leaving the rock, as my ship ran on, i found a dolphin." frode said: "now thou hast said something fresh, though both these things are common in the sea: but i would know what path took thee after that?" erik answered: "after a dolphin i went to a dolphin." frode said: "the herd of dolphins is somewhat common." then said erik: "it does swim somewhat commonly on the waters." frode said: "i would fain blow whither thou wert borne on thy toilsome journey after leaving the dolphins?" erik answered: "i soon came upon the trunk of a tree." frode rejoined: "whither didst thou next pass on thy journey?" then said erik: "from a trunk i passed on to a log." frode said: "that spot must be thick with trees, since thou art always calling the abodes of thy hosts by the name of trunks." erik replied: "there is a thicker place in the woods." frode went on: "relate whither thou next didst bear thy steps." erik answered: "oft again i made my way to the lopped timbers of the woods; but, as i rested there, wolves that were sated on human carcases licked the points of the spears. there a lance-head was shaken from the shaft of the king, and it was the grandson of fridleif." frode said: "i am bewildered, and know not what to think about the dispute: for thou hast beguiled my mind with very dark riddling." erik answered: "thou owest me the prize for this contest that is finished: for under a veil i have declared to thee certain things thou hast ill understood. for under the name i gave before of `spear-point' i signified odd, whom my hand had slain." and when the queen also had awarded him the palm of eloquence and the prize for flow of speech, the king straightway took a bracelet from his arm, and gave it to him as the appointed reward, adding: "i would fain learn from thyself thy debate with grep, wherein he was not ashamed openly to avow himself vanquished." then said erik: "he was smitten with shame for the adultery wherewith he was taxed; for since he could bring no defence, he confessed that he had committed it with thy wife." the king turned to hanund and asked her in what spirit she received the charge; and she not only confessed her guilt by a cry, but also put forth in her face a blushing signal of her sin, and gave manifest token of her fault. the king, observing not only her words, but also the signs of her countenance, but doubting with what sentence he should punish the criminal, let the queen settle by her own choice the punishment which her crime deserved. when she learnt that the sentence committed to her concerned her own guilt, she wavered awhile as she pondered how to appraise her transgression; but grep sprang up and ran forward to transfix erik with a spear, wishing to buy off his own death by slaying the accuser. but roller fell on him with drawn sword, and dealt him first the doom he had himself purposed. erik said: "the service of kin is best for the helpless." and roller said: "in sore needs good men should be dutifully summoned." then frode said: "i think it will happen to you according to the common saying, `that the striker sometimes has short joy of his stroke', and `that the hand is seldom long glad of the smiting'." erik answered: "the man must not be impeached whose deed justice excuses. for my work is as far as from that of grep, as an act of self-defence is from an attack upon another." then the brethren of grep began to spring up and clamour and swear that they would either bring avengers upon the whole fleet of erik, or would fight him and ten champions with him. erik said to them: "sick men have to devise by craft some provision for their journey. he whose sword-point is dull should only probe things that are soft and tender. he who has a blunt knife must search out the ways to cut joint by joint. since, therefore, it is best for a man in distress to delay the evil, and nothing is more fortunate in trouble than to stave off hard necessity, i ask three days' space to get ready, provided that i may obtain from the king the skill of a freshly slain ox." frode answered: "he who fell on a hide deserves a hide"; thus openly taunting the asker with his previous fall. but erik, when the hide was given him, made some sandals, which he smeared with a mixture of tar and sand, in order to plant his steps the more firmly, and fitted them on to the feet of himself and his people. at last, having meditated what spot he should choose for the fight--for he said that he was unskilled in combat by land and in all warfare--he demanded it should be on the frozen sea. to this both sides agreed. the king granted a truce for preparations, and bade the sons of westmar withdraw, saying that it was amiss that a guest, even if he had deserved ill should be driven from his lodging. then he went back to examine into the manner of the punishment, which he had left to the queen's own choice to exact. for she forebore to give judgment, and begged pardon for her slip. erik added, that woman's errors must often be forgiven, and that punishment ought not to be inflicted, unless amendment were unable to get rid of her fault. so the king pardoned hanund. as twilight drew near, erik said: "with gotar, not only are rooms provided when the soldiers are coming to feast at the banquet, but each is appointed a separate place and seat where he is to lie." then the king gave up for their occupation the places where his own champions had sat; and next the servants brought the banquet. but erik, knowing well the courtesy of the king, which made him forbid them to use up any of the meal that was left, cast away the piece of which he had tasted very little, calling whole portions broken bits of food. and so, as the dishes dwindled, the servants brought up fresh ones to the lacking and shamefaced guests, thus spending on a little supper what might have served for a great banquet. so the king said: "are the soldiers of gotar wont to squander the meat after once touching it, as if it were so many pared-off crusts? and to spurn the first dishes as if they were the last morsels?" erik said: "uncouthness claims no place in the manners of gotar, neither does any disorderly habit feign there." but frode said: "then thy manners are not those of thy lord, and thou hast proved that thou hast not taken all wisdom to heart. for he who goes against the example of his elders shows himself a deserter and a renegade." then said erik: "the wise man must be taught by the wiser. for knowledge grows by learning, and instruction is advanced by doctrine." frode rejoined: "this affectation of thine of superfluous words, what exemplary lesson will it teach me?" erik said: "a loyal few are a safer defence for a king than many traitors." frode said to him: "wilt thou then show us closer allegiance than the rest?" erik answered: "no man ties the unborn (horse) to the crib, or the unbegotten to the stall. for thou hast not yet experienced all things. besides, with gotar there is always a mixture of drinking with feasting; liquor, over and above, and as well as meat, is the joy of the reveller." frode said: "never have i found a more shameless beggar of meat and drink." erik replied: "few reckon the need of the silent, or measure the wants of him who holds his peace." then the king bade his sister bring forth the drink in a great goblet. erik caught hold of her right hand and of the goblet she offered at the same time, and said: "noblest of kings, hath thy benignity granted me this present? dost thou assure me that what i hold shall be mine as an irrevocable gift?" the king, thinking that he was only asking for the cup, declared it was a gift. but erik drew the maiden to him, as if she was given with the cup. when the king saw it, he said: "a fool is shown by his deed; with us freedom of maidens is ever held inviolate." then erik, feigning that he would cut off the girl's hand with his sword, as though it had been granted under the name of the cup, said: "if i have taken more than thou gavest, or if i am rash to keep the whole, let me at least get some." the king saw his mistake in his promise, and gave him the maiden, being loth to undo his heedlessness by fickleness, and that the weight of his pledge might seem the greater; though it is held an act more of ripe judgment than of unsteadfastness to take back a foolish promise. then, taking from erik security that he would return, he sent him to the ships; for the time appointed for the battle was at hand. erik and his men went on to the sea, then covered near with ice; and, thanks to the stability of their sandals, felled the enemy, whose footing was slippery and unsteady. for frode had decreed that no man should help either side if it wavered or were distressed. then he went back in triumph to the king. so gotwar, sorrowing at the destruction of her children who had miserably perished, and eager to avenge them, announced that it would please her to have a flyting with erik, on condition that she should gage a heavy necklace and he his life; so that if he conquered he should win gold, but if he gave in, death. erik agreed to the contest, and the gage was deposited with gunwar. so gotwar began thus: "quando tuam limas admissa cote bipennem, nonne terit tremulas mentula quassa nates?" erik rejoined: "ut cuivis natura pilos in corpore sevit, omnis nempe suo barba ferenda loco est. re veneris homines artus agitare necesse est; motus quippe suos nam labor omnis habet. cum natis excipitur nate, vel cum subdita penem vulva capit, quid ad haec addere mas renuit?" powerless to answer this, gotwar had to give the gold to the man whom she had meant to kill, and thus wasted a lordly gift instead of punishing the slayer of her son. for her ill fate was crowned, instead of her ill-will being avenged. first bereaved, and then silenced by furious words, she lost at once her wealth and all reward of her eloquence. she made the man blest who had taken away her children, and enriched her bereaver with a present: and took away nothing to make up the slaughter of her sons save the reproach of ignorance and the loss of goods. westmar, when he saw this, determined to attack the man by force, since he was the stronger of tongue, and laid down the condition that the reward of the conqueror should be the death of the conquered, so that the life of both parties was plainly at stake. erik, unwilling to be thought quicker of tongue than of hand, did not refuse the terms. now the manner of combat was as follows. a ring, plaited of withy or rope, used to be offered to the combatants for them to drag away by wrenching it with a great effort of foot and hand; and the prize went to the stronger, for if either of the combatants could wrench it from the other, he was awarded the victory. erik struggled in this manner, and, grasping the rope sharply, wrested it out of the hands of his opponent. when erode saw this, he said: "i think it is hard to tug at a rope with a strong man." and erik said: "hard, at any rate, when a tumour is in the body or a hunch sits on the back." and straightway, thrusting his foot forth, he broke the infirm neck and back of the old man, and crushed him. and so westmar failed to compass his revenge: zealous to retaliate, he fell into the portion of those who need revenging; being smitten down even as those whose slaughter he had desired to punish. now frode intended to pierce erik by throwing a dagger at him. but gunwar knew her brother's purpose, and said, in order to warn her betrothed of his peril, that no man could be wise who took no forethought for himself. this speech warned erik to ward off the treachery, and he shrewdly understood the counsel of caution. for at once he sprang up and said that the glory of the wise man would be victorious, but that guile was its own punishment; thus censuring his treacherous intent in very gentle terms. but the king suddenly flung his knife at him, yet was too late to hit him; for he sprang aside, and the steel missed its mark and ran into the wall opposite. then said erik: "gifts should be handed to friends, and not thrown; thou hadst made the present acceptable if thou hadst given the sheath to keep the blade company." on this request the king at once took the sheath from his girdle and gave it to him, being forced to abate his hatred by the self-control of his foe. thus he was mollified by the prudent feigning of the other, and with goodwill gave him for his own the weapon which he had cast with ill will. and thus erik, by taking the wrong done him in a dissembling manner, turned it into a favour, accepting as a splendid gift the steel which had been meant to slay him. for he put a generous complexion on what frode had done with intent to harm. then they gave themselves up to rest. in the night gunwar awoke erik silently, and pointed out to him that they ought to fly, saying that it was very expedient to return with safe chariot ere harm was done. he went with her to the shore, where he happened to find the king's fleet beached: so, cutting away part of the sides, he made it unseaworthy, and by again replacing some laths he patched it so that the damage might be unnoticed by those who looked at it. then he caused the vessel whither he and his company had retired to put off a little from the shore. the king prepared to give them chase with his mutilated ships, but soon the waves broke through; and though he was very heavily laden with his armour, he began to swim off among the rest, having become more anxious to save his own life than to attack that of others. the bows plunged over into the sea, the tide flooded in and swept the rowers from their seats. when erik and roller saw this they instantly flung themselves into the deep water, spurning danger, and by swimming picked up the king, who was tossing about. thrice the waves had poured over him and borne him down when erik caught him by the hair, and lifted him out of the sea. the remaining crowd of the wrecked either sank in the waters, or got with trouble to the land. the king was stripped of his dripping attire and swathed round with dry garments, and the water poured in floods from his chest as he kept belching it; his voice also seemed to fail under the exhaustion of continual pantings. at last heat was restored to his limbs, which were numbed with cold, and his breathing became quicker. he had not fully got back his strength, and could sit but not rise. gradually his native force returned. but when he was asked at last whether he sued for life and grace, he put his hand to his eyes, and strove to lift up their downcast gaze. but as, little by little, power came back to his body, and as his voice became more assured, he said: "by this light, which i am loth to look on, by this heaven which i behold and drink in with little joy, i beseech and conjure you not to persuade me to use either any more. i wished to die; ye have saved me in vain. i was not allowed to perish in the waters; at least i will die by the sword. i was unconquered before; thine, erik, was the first wit to which i yielded: i was all the more unhappy, because i had never been beaten by men of note, and now i let a low-born man defeat me. this is great cause for a king to be ashamed. this is a good and sufficient reason for a general to die; it is right that he should care for nothing so much as glory. if he want that, then take it that he lacks all else. for nothing about a king is more on men's lips than his repute. i was credited with the height of understanding and eloquence. but i have been stripped of both the things wherein i was thought to excel, and am all the more miserable because i, the conqueror of kings, am seen conquered by a peasant. why grant life to him whom thou hast robbed of honour? i have lost sister, realm, treasure, household gear, and, what is greater than them all, renown: i am luckless in all chances, and in all thy good fortune is confessed. why am i to be kept to live on for all this ignominy? what freedom can be so happy for me that it can wipe out all the shame of captivity? what will all the following time bring for me? it can beget nothing but long remorse in my mind, and will savour only of past woes. what will prolonging of life avail, if it only brings back the memory of sorrow? to the stricken nought is pleasanter than death, and that decease is happy which comes at a man's wish, for it cuts not short any sweetness of his days, but annihilates his disgust at all things. life in prosperity, but death in adversity, is best to seek. no hope of better things tempts me to long for life. what hap can quite repair my shattered fortunes? and by now, had ye not rescued me in my peril, i should have forgotten even these. what though thou shouldst give me back my realm, restore my sister, and renew my treasure? thou canst never repair my renown. nothing that is patched up can have the lustre of the unimpaired, and rumour will recount for ages that frode was taken captive. moreover, if ye reckon the calamities i have inflicted on you, i have deserved to die at your hands; if ye recall the harms i have done, ye will repent your kindness. ye will be ashamed of having aided a foe, if ye consider how savagely he treated you. why do ye spare the guilty? why do ye stay your hand from the throat of your persecutor? it is fitting that the lot which i had prepared for you should come home to myself. i own that if i had happened to have you in my power as ye now have me, i should have paid no heed to compassion. but if i am innocent before you in act, i am guilty at least in will. i pray you, let my wrongful intention, which sometimes is counted to stand for the deed, recoil upon me. if ye refuse me death by the sword i will take care to kill myself with my own hand." erik rejoined thus: "i pray that the gods may turn thee from the folly of thy purpose; turn thee, i say, that thou mayst not try to end a most glorious life abominably. why, surely the gods themselves have forbidden that a man who is kind to others should commit unnatural self-murder. fortune has tried thee to find out with what spirit thou wouldst meet adversity. destiny has proved thee, not brought thee low. no sorrow has been inflicted on thee which a happier lot cannot efface. thy prosperity has not been changed; only a warning has been given thee. no man behaves with self-control in prosperity who has not learnt to endure adversity. besides, the whole use of blessings is reaped after misfortunes have been graciously acknowledged. sweeter is the joy which follows on the bitterness of fate. wilt thou shun thy life because thou hast once had a drenching, and the waters closed over thee? but if the waters can crush thy spirit, when wilt thou with calm courage bear the sword? who would not reckon swimming away in his armour more to his glory than to his shame? how many men would think themselves happy were they unhappy with thy fortune? the sovereignty is still thine; thy courage is in its prime; thy years are ripening; thou canst hope to compass more than thou hast yet achieved. i would not find thee fickle enough to wish, not only to shun hardships, but also to fling away thy life, because thou couldst not bear them. none is so unmanly as he who from fear of adversity loses heart to live. no wise man makes up for his calamities by dying. wrath against another is foolish, but against a man's self it is foolhardy; and it is a coward frenzy which dooms its owner. but if thou go without need to thy death for some wrong suffered, or for some petty perturbation of spirit, whom dost thou leave behind to avenge thee? who is so mad that he would wish to punish the fickleness of fortune by destroying himself? what man has lived so prosperously but that ill fate has sometimes stricken him? hast thou enjoyed felicity unbroken and passed thy days without a shock, and now, upon a slight cloud of sadness, dost thou prepare to quit thy life, only to save thy anguish? if thou bear trifles so ill, how shalt thou endure the heavier frowns of fortune? callow is the man who has never tasted of the cup of sorrow; and no man who has not suffered hardships is temperate in enjoying ease. wilt thou, who shouldst have been a pillar of courage, show a sign of a palsied spirit? born of a brave sire, wilt thou display utter impotence? wilt thou fall so far from thy ancestors as to turn softer than women? hast thou not yet begun thy prime, and art thou already taken with weariness of life? whoever set such an example before? shall the grandson of a famous man, and the child of the unvanquished, be too weak to endure a slight gust of adversity? thy nature portrays the courage of thy sires; none has conquered thee, only thine own heedlessness has hurt thee. we snatched thee from peril, we did not subdue thee; wilt thou give us hatred for love, and set our friendship down as wrongdoing? our service should have appeased thee, and not troubled thee. may the gods never desire thee to go so far in frenzy, as to persist in branding thy preserver as a traitor! shall we be guilty before thee in a matter wherein we do thee good? shall we draw anger on us for our service? wilt thou account him thy foe whom thou hast to thank for thy life? for thou wert not free when we took thee, but in distress, and we came in time to help thee. and, behold, i restore thy treasure, thy wealth, thy goods. if thou thinkest thy sister was betrothed to me over-hastily, let her marry the man whom thou commandest; for her chastity remains inviolate. moreover, if thou wilt accept me, i wish to fight for thee. beware lest thou wrongfully steel thy mind in anger. no loss of power has shattered thee, none of thy freedom has been forfeited. thou shalt see that i am obeying, not commanding thee. i agree to any sentence thou mayst pronounce against my life. be assured that thou art as strong here as-in thy palace; thou hast the same power to rule here as in thy court. enact concerning us here whatsoever would have been thy will in the palace: we are ready to obey." thus much said erik. now this speech softened the king towards himself as much as towards his foe. then, everything being arranged and made friendly, they returned to the shore. the king ordered that erik and his sailors should be taken in carriages. but when they reached the palace he had an assembly summoned, to which he called erik, and under the pledge of betrothal gave him his sister and command over a hundred men. then he added that the queen would be a weariness to him, and that the daughter of gotar had taken his liking. he must, therefore, have a fresh embassy, and the business could best be done by erik, for whose efforts nothing seemed too hard. he also said that he would stone gotwar to death for her complicity in concealing the crime; but hanund he would restore to her father, that he might not have a traitress against his life dwelling amongst the danes. erik approved his plans, and promised his help to carry out his bidding; except that he declared that it would be better to marry the queen, when she had been put away, to roller, of whom his sovereignty need have no fears. this opinion frode received reverentially, as though it were some lesson vouchsafed from above. the queen also, that she might not seem to be driven by compulsion, complied, as women will, and declared that there was no natural necessity to grieve, and that all distress of spirit was a creature of fancy: and, moreover, that one ought not to bewail the punishment that befell one's deserts. and so the brethren celebrated their marriages together, one wedding the sister of the king, and the other his divorced queen. then they sailed back to norway, taking their wives with them. for the women could not be torn from the side of their husbands, either by distance of journey or by dread of peril, but declared that they would stick to their lords like a feather to something shaggy. they found that ragnar was dead, and that kraka had already married one brak. then they remembered the father's treasure, dug up the money, and bore it off. but erik's fame had gone before him, and gotar had learnt all his good fortune. now when gotar learnt that he had come himself, he feared that his immense self-confidence would lead him to plan the worst against the norwegians, and was anxious to take his wife from him and marry him to his own daughter in her place: for his queen had just died, and he was anxious to marry the sister of frode more than anyone. erik, when he learnt of his purpose, called his men together, and told them that his fortune had not yet got off from the reefs. also he said that he saw, that as a bundle that was not tied by a band fell to pieces, so likewise the heaviest punishment that was not constrained on a man by his own fault suddenly collapsed. they had experienced this of late with frode; for they saw how at the hardest pass their innocence had been protected by the help of the gods; and if they continued to preserve it they should hope for like aid in their adversity. next, they must pretend flight for a little while, if they were attacked by gotar, for so they would have a juster plea for fighting. for they had every right to thrust out the hand in order to shield the head from peril. seldom could a man carry to a successful end a battle he had begun against the innocent; so, to give them a better plea for assaulting the enemy, he must be provoked to attack them first. erik then turned to gunwar, and asked her, in order to test her fidelity, whether she had any love for gotar, telling her it was unworthy that a maid of royal lineage should be bound to the bed of a man of the people. then she began to conjure him earnestly by the power of heaven to tell her whether his purpose was true or reigned? he said that he had spoken seriously, and she cried: "and so thou art prepared to bring on me the worst of shame by leaving me a widow, whom thou lovedst dearly as a maid! common rumour often speaks false, but i have been wrong in my opinion of thee. i thought i had married a steadfast man; i hoped his loyalty was past question; but now i find him to be more fickle than the winds." saying this, she wept abundantly. dear to erik was his wife's fears; presently he embraced her and said: "i wished to know how loyal thou wert to me. nought but death has the right to sever us, but gotar means to steal thee away, seeking thy love by robbery. when he has committed the theft, pretend it is done with thy goodwill; yet put off the wedding till he has given me his daughter in thy place. when she has been granted, gotar and i will hold our marriage on the same day. and take care that thou prepare rooms for our banqueting which have a common party-wall, yet are separate: lest perchance, if i were before thine eyes, thou shouldst ruffle the king with thy lukewarm looks at him. for this will be a most effective trick to baffle the wish of the ravisher." then he bade brak (one of his men), to lie in ambush not far from the palace with a chosen band of his quickest men, that he might help him at need. then he summoned roller, and fled in his ship with his wife and all his goods, in order to tempt the king out, pretending panic: so, when he saw that the fleet of gotar was pressing him hard, he said: "behold how the bow of guile shooteth the shaft of treachery;" and instantly rousing his sailors with the war-shout, he steered the ship about. gotar came close up to him and asked who was the pilot of the ship, and he was told that it was erik. he also shouted a question whether he was the same man who by his marvellous speaking could silence the eloquence of all other men. erik, when he heard this, replied that he had long since received the surname of the "shrewd-spoken", and that he had not won the auspicious title for nothing. then both went back to the nearest shore, where gotar, when he learnt the mission of erik, said that he wished for the sister of frode, but would rather offer his own daughter to frode's envoy, that erik might not repent the passing of his own wife to another man. thus it would not be unfitting for the fruit of the mission to fall to the ambassador. erik, he said, was delightful to him as a son-in-law, if only he could win alliance with frode through gunwar. erik lauded the kindness of the king and approved his judgment, declaring he could not have expected a greater thing from the immortal gods than what was now offered him unasked. still, he said, the king must first discover gunwar's own mind and choice. she accepted the flatteries of the king with feigned goodwill, and seemed to consent readily to his suit, but besought him to suffer erik's nuptials to precede hers; because, if erik's were accomplished first, there would be a better opportunity for the king's; but chiefly on this account, that, if she were to marry again, she might not be disgusted at her new marriage troth by the memory of the old recurring. she also declared it inexpedient for two sets of preparations to be confounded in one ceremony. the king was prevailed upon by her answers, and highly approved her requests. gotar's constant talks with erik furnished him with a store of most fairshapen maxims, wherewith to rejoice and refresh his mind. so, not satisfied with giving him his daughter in marriage he also made over to him the district of lither, thinking that their connection deserved some kindness. now kraka, whom erik, because of her cunning in witchcraft, had brought with him on his travels, feigned weakness of the eyes, and muffled up her face in her cloak, so that not a single particle of her head was visible for recognition. when people asked her who she was, she said that she was gunwar's sister, child of the same mother but a different father. now when they came to the dwelling of gotar, the wedding-feast of alfhild (this was his daughter's name) was being held. erik and the king sat at meat in different rooms, with a party-wall in common, and also entirely covered on the inside with hanging tapestries. gunwar sat by gotar, but erik sat close between kraka on the one side and alfhild on the other. amid the merrymaking, he gradually drew a lath out of the wall, and made an opening large enough to allow the passage of a human body; and thus, without the knowledge of the guests, he made a space wide enough to go through. then, in the course of the feast, he began to question his betrothed closely whether she would rather marry himself or frode: especially since, if due heed were paid to matches, the daughter of a king ought to go to the arms of one as noble as herself, so that the lowliness of one of the pair might not impair the lordliness of the other. she said that she would never marry against the permission of her father; but he turned her aversion into compliance by promises that she should be queen, and that she should be richer than all other women, for she was captivated by the promise of wealth quite as much as of glory. there is also a tradition that kraka turned the maiden's inclinations to frode by a drink which she mixed and gave to her. now gotar, after the feast, in order to make the marriage-mirth go fast and furious, went to the revel of erik. as he passed out, gunwar, as she had been previously bidden, went through the hole in the party-wall where the lath had been removed, and took the seat next to erik. gotar marvelled that she was sitting there by his side, and began to ask eagerly how and why she had come there. she said that she was gunwar's sister, and that the king was deceived by the likeness of their looks. and when the king, in order to look into the matter, hurried back to the royal room, gunwar returned through the back door by which she had come and sat in her old place in the sight of all. gotar, when he saw her, could scarcely believe his eyes, and in the utmost doubt whether he had recognized her aright, he retraced his steps to erik; and there he saw before him gunwar, who had got back in her own fashion. and so, as often as he changed to go from one hall to the other, he found her whom he sought in either place. by this time the king was tormented by great wonder at what was no mere likeness, but the very same face in both places. for it seemed flatly impossible that different people should look exactly and undistinguishably alike. at last, when the revel broke up, he courteously escorted his daughter and erik as far as their room, as the manner is at weddings, and went back himself to bed elsewhere. but erik suffered alfhild, who was destined for frode, to lie apart, and embraced gunwar as usual, thus outwitting the king. so gotar passed a sleepless night, revolving how he had been apparently deluded with a dazed and wandering mind: for it seemed to him no mere likeness of looks, but sameness. thus he was filled with such wavering and doubtful judgment, that though he really discerned the truth he thought he must have been mistaken. at last it flashed across his mind that the wall might have been tampered with. he gave orders that it should be carefully surveyed and examined, but found no traces of a breakage: in fact, the entire room seemed to be whole and unimpaired. for erik, early in the night, had patched up the damage of the broken wall, that his trick might not be detected. then the king sent two men privily into the bedroom of erik to learn the truth, and bade them stand behind the hangings and note all things carefully. they further received orders to kill erik if they found him with gunwar. they went secretly into the room, and, concealing themselves in the curtained corners, beheld erik and gunwar in bed together with arms entwined. thinking them only drowsy, they waited for their deeper sleep, wishing to stay until a heavier slumber gave them a chance to commit their crime. erik snored lustily, and they knew it was a sure sign that he slept soundly; so they straightway came forth with drawn blades in order to butcher him. erik was awakened by their treacherous onset, and seeing their swords hanging over his head, called out the name of his stepmother, (kraka), to which long ago he had been bidden to appeal when in peril, and he found a speedy help in his need. for his shield, which hung aloft from the rafter, instantly fell and covered his unarmed body, and, as if on purpose, covered it from impalement by the cutthroats. he did not fail to make use of his luck, but, snatching his sword, lopped off both feet of the nearest of them. gunwar, with equal energy, ran a spear through the other: she had the body of a woman, but the spirit of a man. thus erik escaped the trap; whereupon he went back to the sea and made ready to sail off by night. but roller sounded on his horn the signal for those who had been bidden to watch close by, to break into the palace. when the king heard this, he thought it meant that the enemy was upon them, and made off hastily in a ship. meanwhile brak, and those who had broken in with him, snatched up the goods of the king, and got them on board erik's ships. almost half the night was spent in pillaging. in the morning, when the king found that they had fled, he prepared to pursue them, but was advised by one of his friends not to plan anything on a sudden or do it in haste. his friend, indeed, tried to convince him that he needed a larger equipment, and that it was ill-advised to pursue the fugitives to denmark with a handful. but neither could this curb the king's impetuous spirit; it could not bear the loss; for nothing had stung him more than this, that his preparations to slay another should have recoiled on his own men. so he sailed to the harbour which is now called omi. here the weather began to be bad, provision failed, and they thought it better, since die they must, to die by the sword than by famine. and so the sailors turned their hand against one another, and hastened their end by mutual blows. the king with a few men took to the cliffs and escaped. lofty barrows still mark the scene of the slaughter. meanwhile erik ended his voyage fairly, and the wedding of alfhild and frode was kept. then came tidings of an inroad of the sclavs, and erik was commissioned to suppress it with eight ships, since frode as yet seemed inexperienced in war. erik, loth ever to flinch from any manly undertaking, gladly undertook the business and did it bravely. learning that the pirates had seven ships, he sailed up to them with only one of his own, ordering the rest to be girt with timber parapets, and covered over with pruned boughs of trees. then he advanced to observe the number of the enemy more fully, but when the sclavs pursued closely, he beat a quick retreat to his men. but the enemy, blind to the trap, and as eager to take the fugitives, rowed smiting the waters fast and incessantly. for the ships of erik could not be clearly distinguished, looking like a leafy wood. the enemy, after venturing into a winding strait, suddenly saw themselves surrounded by the fleet of erik. first, confounded by the strange sight, they thought that a wood was sailing; and then they saw that guile lurked under the leaves. therefore, tardily repenting their rashness, they tried to retrace their incautious voyage: but while they were trying to steer about, they saw the enemy boarding them; erik, however, put his ship ashore, and slung stones against the enemy from afar. thus most of the sclavs were killed, and forty taken, who afterwards under stress of bonds and famine, and in strait of divers torments, gave up the ghost. meantime frode, in order to cross on an expedition into sclavia, had mustered a mighty fleet from the danes, as well as from neighbouring peoples. the smallest boat of this fleet could carry twelve sailors, and be rowed by as many oars. then erik, bidding his men await him patiently went to tell frode the tidings of the defeat he had inflicted. as he sailed along he happened to see a pirate ship aground on some shallows; and being wont to utter weighty words upon chance occurrences, he said, "obscure is the lot of the base-born, and mean is the fortune of the lowly." then he brought his ship up close and destroyed the pirates, who were trying to get off their own vessel with poles, and busily engrossed in saving her. this accomplished, he made his way back to the king's fleet; and wishing to cheer frode with a greeting that heralded his victory, he said, "hail to the maker of a most prosperous peace!" the king prayed that his word might come true, and declared that the spirit of the wise man was prophetic. erik answered that he spoke truly, and that the petty victory brought an omen of a greater one; declaring that a presage of great matters could often be got from trifles. then the king counselled him to scatter his force, and ordered the horsemen of jutland to go by the land way, while the rest of the army went by the short sea-passage. but the sea was covered with such a throng of vessels, that there were not enough harbours to take them in, nor shores for them to encamp on, nor money for their provisions; while the land army is said to have been so great that, in order to shorten the way, it levelled mountains, made marshes passable, filled up pits with material, and the hugest chasms by casting in great boulders. meanwhile strunik the king of the sclavs sent envoys to ask for a truce; but frode refused him time to equip himself, saying that an enemy ought not to be furnished with a truce. moreover, he said, he had hitherto passed his life without experience of war, and now he ought not to delay its beginning by waiting in doubt; for the man that conducted his first campaign successfully might hope for as good fortune in the rest. for each side would take the augury afforded by the first engagements as a presage of the combat; since the preliminary successes of war were often a prophecy of the sequel. erik commended the wisdom of the reply, declaring that the game ought to be played abroad just as it had been begun at home: meaning that the danes had been challenged by the sclavs. after these words he fought a furious battle, slew strunik with the bravest of his race, and received the surrender of the rest. then frode called the sclavs together, and proclaimed by a herald that any man among them who had been trained to theft or plunder should be speedily given up; promising that he would reward the character of such men with the highest honours. he also ordered that all of them, who were versed in evil arts should come forth to have their reward. this offer pleased the sclavs: and some of them, tempted by their hopes of the gift, betrayed themselves with more avarice than judgment, before the others could make them known. these were misled by such great covetousness, that they thought less of shame than lucre, and accounted as their glory what was really their guilt. when these had given themselves up of their own will, he said: "sclavs! this is the pest from which you must clear your land yourselves." and straightway he ordered the executioners to seize them, and had them fixed upon the highest gallows by the hand of their own countrymen. the punishers looked fewer than the punished. and thus the shrewd king, by refusing to those who owned their guilt the pardon which he granted to the conquered foe, destroyed almost the entire stock of the sclavic race. thus the longing for an undeserved reward was visited with a deserved penalty, and the thirst for an undue wage justly punished. i should think that these men were rightly delivered to their doom, who brought the peril on their own heads by speaking, when they could have saved their lives by the protection of silence. the king, exalted by the honours of his fresh victory, and loth to seem less strong in justice than in battle, resolved to remodel his army by some new laws, some of which are retained by present usage, while others men have chosen to abolish for new ones. (a) for he decreed, when the spoil was divided, that each of the vanguard should receive a greater share than the rest of the soldiery: while he granted all gold that was taken to the generals (before whom the standards were always borne in battle) on account of their rank; wishing the common soldiers to be content with silver. he ordered that the arms should go to the champions, but the captured ships should pass to the common people, as the due of those who had the right of building and equipping vessels. (b) also he forbade that anyone should venture to lock up his household goods, as he would receive double the value of any losses from the treasury of the king; but if anyone thought fit to keep it in locked coffers, he must pay the king a gold mark. he also laid down that anyone who spared a thief should be punished as a thief. (d) further, that the first man to flee in battle should forfeit all common rights. (e) but when he had returned into denmark he wished to amend by good measures any corruption caused by the evil practices of grep; and therefore granted women free choice in marriage, so that there might be no compulsory wedlock. and so he provided by law that women should be held duly married to those whom they had wedded without consulting their fathers. (f) but if a free woman agreed to marry a slave, she must fall to his rank, lose the blessing of freedom, and adopt the standing of a slave. (g) he also imposed on men the statute that they must marry any woman whom they had seduced. (h) he ordained that adulterers should be deprived of a member by the lawful husbands, so that continence might not be destroyed by shameful sins. (i) also he ordained that if a dane plundered another dane, he should repay double, and be held guilty of a breach of the peace. (k) and if any man were to take to the house of another anything which he had got by thieving, his host, if he shut the door of his house behind the man, should incur forfeiture of all his goods, and should be beaten in full assembly, being regarded as having made himself guilty of the same crime. (l) also, whatsoever exile should turn enemy to his country, or bear a shield against his countrymen, should be punished with the loss of life and goods. (m) but if any man, from a contumacious spirit, were slack in fulfilling the orders of the king, he should be punished with exile. for, on all occasion of any sudden and urgent war, an arrow of wood, looking like iron, used to be passed on everywhere from man to man as a messenger. (n) but if any one of the commons went in front of the vanguard in battle, he was to rise from a slave into a freeman, and from a peasant into a nobleman; but if he were nobly-born already, he should be created a governor. so great a guerdon did valiant men earn of old; and thus did the ancients think noble rank the due of bravery. for it was thought that the luck a man had should be set down to his valour, and not his valour to his luck. (o) he also enacted that no dispute should be entered on with a promise made under oath and a gage deposited; but whosoever requested another man to deposit a gage against him should pay that man half a gold mark, on pain of severe bodily chastisement. for the king had foreseen that the greatest occasions of strife might arise from the depositing of gages. (p) but he decided that any quarrel whatsoever should be decided by the sword, thinking a combat of weapons more honourable than one of words. but if either of the combatants drew back his foot, and stepped out of the ring of the circle previously marked, he was to consider himself conquered, and suffer the loss of his case. but a man of the people, if he attacked a champion on any score, should be armed to meet him; but the champion should only fight with a truncheon an ell long. (q) further, he appointed that if an alien killed a dane, his death should be redressed by the slaying of two foreigners. meanwhile, gotar, in order to punish erik, equipped his army for war: and frode, on the other side, equipped a great fleet to go against norway. when both alike had put into rennes-isle, gotar, terrified by the greatness of frode's name, sent ambassadors to pray for peace. erik said to them, "shameless is the robber who is the first to seek peace, or ventures to offer it to the good. he who longs to win must struggle: blow must counter blow, malice repel malice." gotar listened attentively to this from a distance, and then said, as loudly as he could: "each man fights for valour according as he remembers kindness." erik said to him: "i have requited thy kindness by giving thee back counsel." by this speech he meant that his excellent advice was worth more than all manner of gifts. and, in order to show that gotar was ungrateful for the counsel he had received, he said: "when thou desiredst to take my life and my wife, thou didst mar the look of thy fair example. only the sword has the right to decide between us." then gotar attacked the fleet of the danes; he was unsuccessful in the engagement, and slain. afterwards roller received his realm from frode as a gift; it stretched over seven provinces. erik likewise presented roller with the province which gotar had once bestowed upon him. after these exploits frode passed three years in complete and tranquil peace. meanwhile the king of the huns, when he heard that his daughter had been put away, allied himself with olmar, king of the easterlings, and in two years equipped an armament against the danes. so frode levied an army not only of native danes, but also of norwegians and sclavs. erik, whom he had sent to spy out the array of the enemy, found olmar, who had received the command of the fleet, not far from russia; while the king of the huns led the land forces. he addressed olmar thus: "what means, prithee, this strong equipment of war? or whither dost thou speed, king olmar, mighty in thy fleet?" olmar. "we are minded to attack the son of fridleif. and who art thou, whose bold lips ask such questions?" erik. "vain hope of conquering the unconquered hath filled thy heart; over frode no man can prevail." olmar. "whatsoever befalls, must once happen for the first time; and often enough the unexpected comes to pass." by this saying he let him know that no man must put too much trust in fortune. then erik rode up to inspect the army of the huns. as it passed by him, and he in turn by it, it showed its vanguard to the rising and its rear to the setting sun. so he asked those whom he met, who had the command of all those thousands. hun, the king of the huns, happened to see him, and heard that he had undertaken to reconnoitre, and asked what was the name of the questioner. erik said he was the man who came everywhere and was found nowhere. then the king, when an interpreter was brought, asked what work frode was about. erik replied, "frode never waits at home for a hostile army, nor tarries in his house for his foe. for he who covets the pinnacle of another's power must watch and wake all night. no man has ever won a victory by snoring, and no wolf has ever found a carcase by lying asleep." the king, perceiving that he was a cunning speaker of choice maxims, said: "here, perchance, is that erik who, as i have heard, accused my daughter falsely." but erik, when they were bidden to seize him instantly, said that it was unseemly for one man to be dragged off by really; and by this saying he not only appeased the mind of the king, but even inclined him to be willing to pardon him. but it was clear that this impunity came more from cunning than kindness; for the chief reason why he was let go was that he might terrify frode by the report of their vast numbers. when he returned, frode bad him relate what he had discovered, and he said that he had seen six kings each with his fleet; and that each of these fleets contained five thousand ships, each ship being known to hold three hundred rowers. each millenary of the whole total he said consisted of four wings; now, since the full number of a wing is three hundred, he meant that a millenary should be understood to contain twelve hundred men. when frode wavered in doubt what he could do against so many, and looked eagerly round for reinforcements, erik said: "boldness helps the righteous; a valiant dog must attack the bear; we want wolf-hounds, and not little unwarlike birds." this said, he advised frode to muster his fleet. when it was drawn up they sailed off against the enemy; and so they fought and subdued the islands lying between denmark and the east; and as they advanced thence, met some ships of the ruthenian fleet. frode thought it shameful to attack such a handful, but erik said: "we must seek food from the gaunt and lean. he who falls shall seldom fatten, nor has that man the power to bite whom the huge sack has devoured." by this warning he cured the king of all shame about making an assault, and presently induced him to attack a small number with a throng; for he showed him that advantage must be counted before honour. after this they went on to meet olmar, who because of the slowness of his multitude preferred awaiting the enemy to attacking it; for the vessels of the ruthenians seemed disorganized, and, owing to their size, not so well able to row. but not even did the force of his multitudes avail him. for the extraordinary masses of the ruthenians were stronger in numbers than in bravery, and yielded the victory to the stout handful of the danes. when frode tried to return home, his voyage encountered an unheard-of difficulty. for the crowds of dead bodies, and likewise the fragments of shields and spears, bestrewed the entire gulf of the sea, and tossed on the tide, so that the harbours were not only straitened, but stank. the vessels stuck, hampered amid the corpses. they could neither thrust off with oars, nor drive away with poles, the rotting carcases that floated around, or prevent, when they had put one away, another rolling up and driving against the fleet. you would have thought that a war had arisen with the dead, and there was a strange combat with the lifeless. so frode summoned the nations which he had conquered, and enacted (a) that any father of a family who had fallen in that war should be buried with his horse and all his arms and decorations. and if any body-snatcher, in his abominable covetousness, made an attempt on him, he was to suffer for it, not only with his life, but also with the loss of burial for his own body; he should have no barrow and no funeral. for he thought it just that he who despoiled another's ashes should be granted no burial, but should repeat in his own person the fate he had inflicted on another. he appointed that the body of a centurion or governor should receive funeral on a pyre built of his own ship. he ordered that the bodies of every ten pilots should be burnt together with a single ship, but that every earl or king that was killed should be put on his own ship and burnt with it. he wished this nice attention to be paid in conducting the funerals of the slain, because he wished to prevent indiscriminate obsequies. by this time all the kings of the russians except olmar and dag had fallen in battle. (b) he also ordered the russians to conduct their warfare in imitation of the danes, and never to marry a wife without buying her. he thought that bought marriages would have more security, believing that the troth which was sealed with a price was the safest. (d) moreover, anyone who durst attempt the violation of a virgin was to be punished with the severance of his bodily parts, or else to requite the wrong of his intercourse with a thousand talents. (e) he also enacted that any man that applied himself to war, who aspired to the title of tried soldier, should attack a single man, should stand the attack of two, should only withdraw his foot a little to avoid three, but should not blush to flee from four. (f) he also proclaimed that a new custom concerning the pay of the soldiers should be observed by the princes under his sway. he ordered that each native soldier and housecarl should be presented in the winter season with three marks of silver, a common or hired soldier with two, a private soldier who had finished his service with only one. by this law he did injustice to valour, reckoning the rank of the soldiers and not their courage; and he was open to the charge of error in the matter, because he set familiar acquaintance above desert. after this the king asked erik whether the army of the huns was as large as the forces of olmar, and erik answered in the following song: "by hercules, i came on a countless throng, a throng that neither earth nor wave could hold. thick flared all their camp-fires, and the whole wood blazed up; the flame betokened a numberless array. the earth sank under the fraying of the horse-hoofs; creaking waggons rattled swiftly. the wheels rumbled, the driver rode upon the winds, so that the chariots sounded like thunder. the earth hardly bore the throngs of men-at-arms, speeding on confusedly; they trod it, but it could not bear their weight. i thought that the air crashed and the earth was shaken, so mighty was the motion of the stranger army. for i saw fifteen standards flickering at once; each of them had a hundred lesser standards, and after each of these could have been seen twenty; and the captains in their order were equal in number to the standards." now when frode asked wherewithal he was to resist so many, erik instructed him that he must return home and suffer the enemy first to perish of their own hugeness. his counsel was obeyed, the advice being approved as heartily as it was uttered. but the huns went on through pathless deserts, and, finding provisions nowhere, began to run the risk of general starvation; for it was a huge and swampy district, and nothing could be found to relieve their want. at last, when the beasts of burden had been cut down and eaten, they began to scatter, lacking carriages as much as food. now their straying from the road was as perilous to them as their hunger. neither horses nor asses were spared, nor did they refrain from filthy garbage. at last they did not even spare dogs: to dying men every abomination was lawful; for there is nothing too hard for the bidding of extreme need. at last when they were worn out with hunger, there came a general mortality. bodies were carried out for burial without end, for all feared to perish, and none pitied the perishing. fear indeed had cast out humanity. so first the divisions deserted from the king little by little; and then the army melted away by companies. he was also deserted by the prophet ygg, a man of unknown age, which was prolonged beyond the human span; this man went as a deserter to frode, and told him of all the preparations of the huns. meanwhile hedin, prince of a considerable tribe of the norwegians, approached the fleet of frode with a hundred and fifty vessels. choosing twelve out of these, he proceeded to cruise nearer, signalling the approach of friends by a shield raised on the mast. he thus greatly augmented the forces of the king, and was received into his closest friendship. a mutual love afterwards arose between this man and hilda, the daughter of hogni, a chieftain of the jutes, and a maiden of most eminent renown. for, though they had not yet seen one another, each had been kindled by the other's glory. but when they had a chance of beholding one another, neither could look away; so steadfast was the love that made their eyes linger. meanwhile, frode distributed his soldiers through the towns, and carefully gathered in the materials needed for the winter supplies; but even so he could not maintain his army, with its burden of expense: and plague fell on him almost as great as the destruction that met the huns. therefore, to prevent the influx of foreigners, he sent a fleet to the elbe to take care that nothing should cross; the admirals were revil and mevil. when the winter broke up, hedin and hogni resolved to make a roving-raid together; for hogni did not know that his partner was in love with his daughter. now hogni was of unusual stature, and stiff in temper; while hedin was very comely, but short. also, when frode saw that the cost of keeping up his army grew daily harder to bear, he sent roller to norway, olmar to sweden, king onef and glomer, a rover captain, to the orkneys for supplies, each with his own forces. thirty kings followed frode, and were his friends or vassals. but when hun heard that frode had sent away his forces he mustered another and a fresh army. but hogni betrothed his daughter to hedin, after they had sworn to one another that whichever of them should perish by the sword should be avenged by the other. in the autumn, the men in search of supplies came back, but they were richer in trophies than in food. for roller had made tributary the provinces sundmor and nordmor, after slaying arthor their king. but olmar conquered thor the long, the king of the jemts and the helsings, with two other captains of no less power, and also took esthonia and kurland, with oland, and the isles that fringe sweden; thus he was a most renowned conqueror of savage lands. so he brought back ships, thus doubling the numbers of those previously taken out. onef and glomer, hedin and hogni, won victories over the orkneys, and returned with ships. and by this time revenues had been got in from far and wide, and there were ample materials gathered by plunder to recruit their resources. they had also added twenty kingdoms to the sway of frode, whose kings, added to the thirty named before, fought on the side of the danes. trusting in their strength, they engaged with the huns. such a carnage broke out on the first day of this combat that the three chief rivers of russia were bestrewn with a kind of bridge of corpses, and could be crossed and passed over. also the traces of the massacre spread so wide that for the space of three days' ride the ground was to be seen covered with human carcases. so, when the battle had been seven days prolonged, king hun fell; and his brother of the same name, when he saw the line of the huns giving way, without delay surrendered himself and his company. in that war kings, who were either huns or fighting amongst the huns, surrendered to the king. this great number erik had comprised in his previous description of the standards, when he was giving an account of the multitude of the huns in answer to the questions of frode. so frode summoned the kings to assembly, and imposed a rule upon them that they should all live under one and the same law. now he set olmar over holmgard; onef over conogard; and he bestowed saxony on hun, his prisoner, and gave revil the orkneys. to one dimar he allotted the management of the provinces of the helsings, of the jarnbers, and the jemts, as well as both laplands; while on dag he bestowed the government of esthonia. each of these men he burdened with fixed conditions of tribute, thus making allegiance a condition of his kindness. so the realms of frode embraced russia on the east, and on the west were bounded by the rhine. meantime, certain slanderous tongues accused hedin to hogni of having tempted and defiled his daughter before the rites of betrothal; which was then accounted an enormous crime by all nations. so the credulous ears of hogni drank in this lying report, and with his fleet he attacked hedin, who was collecting the king's dues among the slavs; there was an engagement, and hogni was beaten, and went to jutland. and thus the peace instituted by frode was disturbed by intestine war, and natives were the first to disobey the king's law. frode, therefore, sent men to summon them both at once, and inquired closely what was the reason of their feud. when he had heard it, he gave judgment according to the terms of the law he had enacted; but when he saw that even this could not reconcile them (for the father obstinately demanded his daughter back), he decreed that the quarrel should be settled by the sword--it seemed the only remedy for ending the dispute. the fight began, and hedin was grievously wounded; but when he began to lose blood and bodily strength, he received unexpected mercy from his enemy. for though hogni had an easy chance of killing him, yet, pitying youth and beauty, he constrained his cruelty to give way to clemency. and so, loth to cut off a stripling who was panting at his last gasp, he refrained his sword. for of old it was accounted shameful to deprive of his life one who was ungrown or a weakling; so closely did the antique bravery of champions take heed of all that could incline them to modesty. so hedin, with the help of his men, was taken back to his ship, saved by the kindness of his foe. in the seventh year after, these same men began to fight on hedin's isle, and wounded each other so that they died. hogni would have been lucky if he had shown severity rather than compassion to hedin when he had once conquered him. they say that hilda longed so ardently for her husband, that she is believed to have conjured up the spirits of the combatants by her spells in the night in order to renew the war. at the same time came to pass a savage war between alrik, king of the swedes, and gestiblind, king of the goths. the latter, being the weaker, approached frode as a suppliant, willing, if he might get his aid, to surrender his kingdom and himself. he soon received the aid of skalk, the skanian, and erik, and came back with reinforcements. he had determined to let loose his attack on alrik, but erik thought that he should first assail his son gunthion, governor of the men of wermland and solongs, declaring that the storm-weary mariner ought to make for the nearest shore, and moreover that the rootless trunk seldom burgeoned. so he made an attack, wherein perished gunthion, whose tomb records his name. alrik, when he heard of the destruction of his son, hastened to avenge him, and when he had observed his enemies, he summoned erik, and, in a secret interview, recounted the leagues of their fathers, imploring him to refuse to fight for gestiblind. this erik steadfastly declined, and alrik then asked leave to fight gestiblind, thinking that a duel was better than a general engagement. but erik said that gestiblind was unfit for arms by reason of old age, pleading his bad health, and above all his years; but offered himself to fight in his place, explaining that it would be shameful to decline a duel on behalf of the man for whom he had come to make a war. then they fought without delay: alrik was killed, and erik was most severely wounded; it was hard to find remedies, and he did not for long time recover health. now a false report had come to frode that erik had fallen, and was tormenting the king's mind with sore grief; but erik dispelled this sadness with his welcome return; indeed, he reported to frode that by his efforts sweden, wermland, helsingland, and the islands of the sun (soleyar) had been added to his realm. frode straightway made him king of the nations he had subdued, and also granted to him helsingland with the two laplands, finland and esthonia, under a yearly tribute. none of the swedish kings before him was called by the name of erik, but the title passed from him to the rest. at the same time alf was king in hethmark, and he had a son asmund. biorn ruled in the province of wik, and had a son aswid. asmund was engaged on an unsuccessful hunt, and while he was proceeding either to stalk the game with dogs or to catch it in nets, a mist happened to come on. by this he was separated from his sharers on a lonely track, wandered over the dreary ridges, and at last, destitute of horse and clothing, ate fungi and mushrooms, and wandered on aimlessly till he came to the dwelling of king biorn. moreover, the son of the king and he, when they had lived together a short while, swore by every vow, in order to ratify the friendship which they observed to one another, that whichever of them lived longest should be buried with him who died. for their fellowship and love were so strong, that each determined he would not prolong his days when the other was cut off by death. after this frode gathered together a host of all his subject nations, and attacked norway with his fleet, erik being bidden to lead the land force. for, after the fashion of human greed, the more he gained the more he wanted, and would not suffer even the dreariest and most rugged region of the world to escape this kind of attack; so much is increase of wealth wont to encourage covetousness. so the norwegians, casting away all hope of self-defence, and losing all confidence in their power to revolt, began to flee for the most part to halogaland. the maiden stikla also withdrew from her country to save her chastity, proferring the occupations of war to those of wedlock. meanwhile aswid died of an illness, and was consigned with his horse and dog to a cavern in the earth. and asmund, because of his oath of friendship, had the courage to be buried with him, food being put in for him to eat. now just at this time erik, who had crossed the uplands with his army, happened to draw near the barrow of aswid; and the swedes, thinking that treasures were in it, broke the hill open with mattocks, and saw disclosed a cave deeper than they had thought. to examine it, a man was wanted, who would lower himself on a hanging rope tied around him. one of the quickest of the youths was chosen by lot; and asmund, when he saw him let down in a basket following a rope, straightway cast him out and climbed into the basket. then he gave the signal to draw him up to those above who were standing by and controlling the rope. they drew in the basket in the hopes of great treasure; but when they saw the unknown figure of the man they had taken out, they were scared by his extraordinary look, and, thinking that the dead had come to life, flung down the rope and fled all ways. for asmund looked ghastly and seemed to be covered as with the corruption of the charnel. he tried to recall the fugitives, and began to clamour that they were wrongfully afraid of a living man. and when erik saw him, he marvelled most at the aspect of his bloody face: the blood flowing forth and spurting over it. for aswid had come to life in the nights, and in his continual struggles had wrenched off his left ear; and there was to be seen the horrid sight of a raw and unhealed scar. and when the bystanders bade him tell how he had got such a wound, he began to speak thus:-- "why stand ye aghast, who see me colourless? surely every live man fades among the dead. evil to the lonely man, and burdensome to the single, remains every dwelling in the world. hapless are they whom chance hath bereft of human help. the listless night of the cavern, the darkness of the ancient den, have taken all joy from my eyes and soul. the ghastly ground, the crumbling barrow, and the heavy tide of filthy things have marred the grace of my youthful countenance, and sapped my wonted pith and force. besides all this, i have fought with the dead, enduring the heavy burden and grievous peril of the wrestle; aswid rose again and fell on me with rending nails, by hellish might renewing ghastly warfare after he was ashes. "why stand ye aghast, who see me colourless? surely every live man fades among the dead. "by some strange enterprise of the power of hell the spirit of aswid was sent up from the nether world, and with cruel tooth eats the fleet-footed (horse), and has given his dog to his abominable jaws. not sated with devouring the horse or hound, he soon turned his swift nails upon me, tearing my cheek and taking off my ear. hence the hideous sight of my slashed countenance, the blood-spurts in the ugly wound. yet the bringer of horrors did it not unscathed; for soon i cut off his head with my steel, and impaled his guilty carcase with a stake. "why stand ye aghast who see me colourless? surely every live man fades among the dead." frode had by this taken his fleet over to halogaland; and here, in order to learn the numbers of his host, which seemed to surpass all bounds and measure that could be counted, he ordered his soldiers to pile up a hill, one stone being cast upon the heap for each man. the enemy also pursued the same method of numbering their host, and the hills are still to be seen to convince the visitor. here frode joined battle with the norwegians, and the day was bloody. at nightfall both sides determined to retreat. as daybreak drew near, erik, who had come across the land, came up and advised the king to renew the battle. in this war the danes suffered such slaughter that out of , ships only are supposed to have survived. the northmen, however, were exterminated in such a mighty massacre, that (so the story goes) there were not men left to till even a fifth of their villages. frode, now triumphant, wished to renew peace among all nations, that he might ensure each man's property from the inroads of thieves and now ensure peace to his realms after war. so he hung one bracelet on a crag which is called frode's rock, and another in the district of wik, after he had addressed the assembled norwegians; threatening that these necklaces should serve to test the honesty which he had decreed, and threatening that if they were filched punishment should fall on all the governors of the district. and thus, sorely imperilling the officers, there was the gold unguarded, hanging up full in the parting of the roads, and the booty, so easy to plunder, a temptation to all covetous spirits. (a) frode also enacted that seafarers should freely use oars wherever they found them; while to those who wished to cross a river he granted free use of the horse which they found nearest to the ford. he decreed that they must dismount from this horse when its fore feet only touched land and its hind feet were still washed by the waters. for he thought that services such as these should rather be accounted kindness than wrongdoing. moreover, he ordained that whosoever durst try and make further use of the horse after he had crossed the river should be condemned to death. (b) he also ordered that no man should hold his house or his coffer under lock and key, or should keep anything guarded by bolts, promising that all losses should be made good threefold. also, he appointed that it was lawful to claim as much of another man's food for provision as would suffice for a single supper. if anyone exceeded this measure in his takings, he was to be held guilty of theft. now, a thief (so he enacted) was to be hung up with a sword passed through his sinews, with a wolf fastened by his side, so that the wicked man might look like the savage beast, both being punished alike. he also had the same penalty extended to accomplices in thefts. here he passed seven most happy years of peace, begetting a son alf and a daughter eyfura. it chanced that in these days arngrim, a champion of sweden, who had challenged, attacked, and slain skalk the skanian because he had once robbed him of a vessel, came to frode. elated beyond measure with his deed, he ventured to sue for frode's daughter; but, finding the king deaf to him, he asked erik, who was ruling sweden, to help him. erik advised him to win frode's goodwill by some illustrious service, and to fight against egther, the king of permland, and thengil, the king of finmark, since they alone seemed to repudiate the danish rule, while all men else submitted. without delay he led his army to that country. now, the finns are the uttermost peoples of the north, who have taken a portion of the world that is barely habitable to till and dwell in. they are very keen spearmen, and no nation has a readier skill in throwing the javelin. they fight with large, broad arrows; they are addicted to the study of spells; they are skilled hunters. their habitation is not fixed, and their dwellings are migratory; they pitch and settle wherever they have caught game. riding on curved boards (skees or snow-skates), they run over ridges thick with snow. these men arngrim attacked, in order to win renown, and he crushed them. they fought with ill success; but, as they were scattering in flight, they cast three pebbles behind them, which they caused to appear to the eyes of the enemy like three mountains. arngrim's eyes were dazzled and deluded, and he called back his men from the pursuit of the enemy, fancying that he was checked by a barrier of mighty rocks. again, when they engaged and were beaten on the morrow, the finns cast snow upon the ground and made it look like a mighty river. so the swedes, whose eyes were utterly deluded, were deceived by their misjudgment, for it seemed the roaring of an extraordinary mass of waters. thus, the conqueror dreading the unsubstantial phantom of the waters, the finns managed to escape. they renewed the war again on the third day; but there was no effective means of escape left any longer, for when they saw that their lines were falling back, they surrendered to the conqueror. arngrim imposed on them the following terms of tribute: that the number of the finns should be counted, and that, after the lapse of (every) three years, every ten of them should pay a carriage-full of deer-skins by way of assessment. then he challenged and slew in single combat egther, the captain of the men of permland, imposing on the men of permland the condition that each of them should pay one skin. enriched with these spoils and trophies, he returned to erik, who went with him into denmark, and poured loud praises of the young warrior into the ear of frode, declaring that he who had added the ends of the world to his realms deserved his daughter. then frode, considering his splendid deserts, thought it was not amiss to take for a son-in-law a man who had won wide-resounding fame by such a roll of noble deeds. arngrim had twelve sons by eyfura, whose names i here subjoin: brand, biarbe, brodd, hiarrande; tand, tyrfing, two haddings; hiortuar, hiartuar, hrane, anganty. these followed the business of sea-roving from their youth up; and they chanced to sail all in one ship to the island samso, where they found lying off the coast two ships belonging to hialmar and arvarodd (arrow-odd) the rovers. these ships they attacked and cleared of rowers; but, not knowing whether they had cut down the captains, they fitted the bodies of the slain to their several thwarts, and found that those whom they sought were missing. at this they were sad, knowing that the victory they had won was not worth a straw, and that their safety would run much greater risk in the battle that was to come. in fact, hialmar and arvarodd, whose ships had been damaged by a storm, which had torn off their rudders, went into a wood to hew another; and, going round the trunk with their axes, pared down the shapeless timber until the huge stock assumed the form of a marine implement. this they shouldered, and were bearing it down to the beach, ignorant of the disaster of their friends, when the sons of eyfura, reeking with the fresh blood of the slain, attacked them, so that they two had to fight many; the contest was not even equal, for it was a band of twelve against two. but the victory did not go according to the numbers. for all the sons of eyfura were killed; hialmar was slain by them, but arvarodd gained the honours of victory, being the only survivor left by fate out of all that band of comrades. he, with an incredible effort, poised the still shapeless hulk of the rudder, and drove it so strongly against the bodies of his foes that, with a single thrust of it, he battered and crushed all twelve. and, so, though they were rid of the general storm of war, the band of rovers did not yet quit the ocean. this it was that chiefly led frode to attack the west, for his one desire was the spread of peace. so he summoned erik, and mustered a fleet of all the kingdoms that bid him allegiance, and sailed to britain with numberless ships. but the king of that island, perceiving that he was unequal in force (for the ships seemed to cover the sea), went to frode, affecting to surrender, and not only began to flatter his greatness, but also promised to the danes, the conquerors of nations, the submission of himself and of his country; proffering taxes, assessment, tribute, what they would. finally, he gave them a hospitable invitation. frode was pleased with the courtesy of the briton, though his suspicions of treachery were kept by so ready and unconstrained a promise of everything, so speedy a surrender of the enemy before fighting; such offers being seldom made in good faith. they were also troubled with alarm about the banquet, fearing that as drunkenness came on their sober wits might be entangled in it, and attacked by hidden treachery. so few guests were bidden, moreover, that it seemed unsafe for them to accept the invitation; and it was further thought foolish to trust their lives to the good faith of an enemy whom they did not know. when the king found their minds thus wavering he again approached frode, and invited him to the banquet with , men; having before bidden him to come to the feast with , nobles. frode was encouraged by the increase in the number of guests, and was able to go to the banquet with greater inward confidence; but he could not yet lay aside his suspicions, and privily caused men to scour the interior and let him know quickly of any treachery which they might espy. on this errand they went into the forest, and, coming upon the array of an armed encampment belonging to the forces of the britons, they halted in doubt, but hastily retraced their steps when the truth was apparent. for the tents were dusky in colour, and muffled in a sort of pitchy coverings, that they might not catch the eye of anyone who came near. when frode learned this, he arranged a counter-ambuscade with a strong force of nobles, that he might not go heedlessly to the banquet, and be cheated of timely aid. they went into hiding, and he warned them that the note of the trumpet was the signal for them to bring assistance. then with a select band, lightly armed, he went to the banquet. the hall was decked with regal splendour; it was covered all round with crimson hangings of marvellous rich handiwork. a curtain of purple dye adorned the propelled walls. the flooring was bestrewn with bright mantles, which a man would fear to trample on. up above was to be seen the twinkle of many lanterns, the gleam of lamps lit with oil, and the censers poured forth fragrance whose sweet vapour was laden with the choicest perfumes. the whole way was blocked by the tables loaded with good things; and the places for reclining were decked with gold-embroidered couches; the seats were full of pillows. the majestic hall seemed to smile upon the guests, and nothing could be noticed in all that pomp either inharmonious to the eye or offensive to the smell. in the midst of the hall stood a great butt ready for refilling the goblets, and holding an enormous amount of liquor; enough could be drawn from it for the huge revel to drink its fill. servants, dressed in purple, bore golden cups, and courteously did the office of serving the drink, pacing in ordered ranks. nor did they fail to offer the draught in the horns of the wild ox. the feast glittered with golden bowls, and was laden with shining goblets, many of them studded with flashing jewels. the place was filled with an immense luxury; the tables groaned with the dishes, and the bowls brimmed over with divers liquors. nor did they use wine pure and simple, but, with juices sought far and wide, composed a nectar of many flavours. the dishes glistened with delicious foods, being filled mostly with the spoils of the chase; though the flesh of tame animals was not lacking either. the natives took care to drink more sparingly than the guests; for the latter felt safe, and were tempted to make an orgy; while the others, meditating treachery, had lost all temptations to be drunken. so the danes, who, if i may say so with my country's leave, were seasoned to drain the bowl against each other, took quantities of wine. the britons, when they saw that the danes were very drunk, began gradually to slip away from the banquet, and, leaving their guests within the hall, made immense efforts, first to block the doors of the palace by applying bars and all kinds of obstacles, and then to set fire to the house. the danes were penned inside the hall, and when the fire began to spread, battered vainly at the doors; but they could not get out, and soon attempted to make a sally by assaulting the wall. and the angles, when they saw that it was tottering under the stout attack of the danes, began to shove against it on their side, and to prop the staggering pile by the application of large blocks on the outside, to prevent the wall being shattered and releasing the prisoners. but at last it yielded to the stronger hand of the danes, whose efforts increased with their peril; and those pent within could sally out with ease. then frode bade the trumpet strike in, to summon the band that had been posted in ambush; and these, roused by the note of the clanging bugle, caught the enemy in their own trap; for the king of the britons, with countless hosts of his men, was utterly destroyed. thus the band helped frode doubly, being both the salvation of his men and the destruction of his enemies. meantime the renown of the danish bravery spread far, and moved the irish to strew iron calthrops on the ground, in order to make their land harder to invade, and forbid access to their shores. now the irish use armour which is light and easy to procure. they crop the hair close with razors, and shave all the hair off the back of the head, that they may not be seized by it when they run away. they also turn the points of their spears towards the assailant, and deliberately point their sword against the pursuer; and they generally fling their lances behind their back, being more skilled at conquering by flight than by fighting. hence, when you fancy that the victory is yours, then is the moment of danger. but frode was wary and not rash in his pursuit of the foe who fled so treacherously, and he routed kerwil (cearbal), the leader of the nation, in battle. kerwil's brother survived, but lost heart for resistance, and surrendered his country to the king (frode), who distributed among his soldiers the booty he had won, to show himself free from all covetousness and excessive love of wealth, and only ambitious to gain honour. after the triumphs in britain and the spoiling of the irish they went back to denmark; and for thirty years there was a pause from all warfare. at this time the danish name became famous over the whole world almost for its extraordinary valour. frode, therefore, desired to prolong and establish for ever the lustre of his empire, and made it his first object to inflict severe treatment upon thefts and brigandage, feeling these were domestic evils and intestine plagues, and that if the nations were rid of them they would come to enjoy a more tranquil life; so that no ill-will should mar and hinder the continual extention of peace. he also took care that the land should not be devoured by any plague at home when the enemy was at rest, and that intestine wickedness should not encroach when there was peace abroad. at last he ordered that in jutland, the chief district of his realm, a golden bracelet, very heavy, should be set up on the highways (as he had done before in the district of wik), wishing by this magnificent price to test the honesty which he had enacted. now, though the minds of the dishonest were vexed with the provocation it furnished, and the souls of the evil tempted, yet the unquestioned dread of danger prevailed. for so potent was the majesty of frode, that it guarded even gold that was thus exposed to pillage, as though it were fast with bolts and bars. the strange device brought great glory upon its inventor. after dealing destruction everywhere, and gaining famous victories far and wide, he resolved to bestow quiet on all men, that the cheer of peace should follow the horrors of war, and the end of slaughter might be the beginning of safety. he further thought that for the same reason all men's property should be secured to them by a protective decree, so that what had been saved from a foreign enemy might not find a plunderer at home. about the same time, the author of our general salvation, coming to the earth in order to save mortals, bore to put on the garb of mortality; at which time the fires of war were quenched, and all the lands were enjoying the calmest and most tranquil peace. it has been thought that the peace then shed abroad so widely, so even and uninterrupted over the whole world, attended not so much an earthly rule as that divine birth; and that it was a heavenly provision that this extraordinary gift of time should be a witness to the presence of him who created all times. meantime a certain matron, skilled in sorcery, who trusted in her art more than she feared the severity of the king, tempted the covetousness of her son to make a secret effort for the prize; promising him impunity, since frode was almost at death's door, his body failing, and the remnant of his doting spirit feeble. to his mother's counsels he objected the greatness of the peril; but she bade him take hope, declaring, that either a sea-cow should have a calf, or that the king's vengeance should be baulked by some other chance. by this speech she banished her son's fears, and made him obey her advice. when the deed was done, frode, stung by the affront, rushed with the utmost heat and fury to raze the house of the matron, sending men on to arrest her and bring her with her children. this the woman foreknew, and deluded her enemies by a trick, changing from the shape of a woman into that of a mare. when frode came up she took the shape of a sea-cow, and seemed to be straying and grazing about the shore; and she also made her sons look like calves of smaller size. this portent amazed the king, and he ordered that they should be surrounded and cut off from returning to the waters. then he left the carriage, which he used because of the feebleness of his aged body, and sat on the ground marvelling. but the mother, who had taken the shape of the larger beast, charged at the king with outstretched tusk, and pierced one of his sides. the wound killed him; and his end was unworthy of such majesty as his. his soldiers, thirsting to avenge his death, threw their spears and transfixed the monsters, and saw, when they were killed, that they were the corpses of human beings with the heads of wild beasts: a circumstance which exposed the trick more than anything. so ended frode, the most famous king in the whole world. the nobles, when he had been disembowelled, had his body kept embalmed for three years, for they feared the provinces would rise if the king's end were published. they wished his death to be concealed above all from foreigners, so that by the pretence that he was alive they might preserve the boundaries of the empire, which had been extended for so long; and that, on the strength of the ancient authority of their general, they might exact the usual tribute from their subjects. so, the lifeless corpse was carried away by them in such a way that it seemed to be taken, not in a funeral bier, but in a royal carriage, as if it were a due and proper tribute from the soldiers to an infirm old man not in full possession of his forces. such splendour did his friends bestow on him even in death. but when his limbs rotted, and were seized with extreme decay, and when the corruption could not be arrested, they buried his body with a royal funeral in a barrow near waere, a bridge of zealand; declaring that frode had desired to die and be buried in what was thought the chief province of his kingdom. book six. after the death of frode, the danes wrongly supposed that fridleif, who was being reared in russia, had perished; and, thinking that the sovereignty halted for lack of an heir, and that it could no longer be kept on in the hands of the royal line, they considered that the sceptre would be best deserved by the man who should affix to the yet fresh grave of frode a song of praise in his glorification, and commit the renown of the dead king to after ages by a splendid memorial. then one hiarn, very skilled in writing danish poetry, wishing to give the fame of the hero some notable record of words, and tempted by the enormous prize, composed, after his own fashion, a barbarous stave. its purport, expressed in four lines, i have transcribed as follows: "frode, whom the danes would have wished to live long, they bore long through their lands when he was dead. the great chief's body, with this turf heaped above it, bare earth covers under the lucid sky." when the composer of this song had uttered it, the danes rewarded him with the crown. thus they gave a kingdom for an epitaph, and the weight of a whole empire was presented to a little string of letters. slender expense for so vast a guerdon! this huge payment for a little poem exceeded the glory of caesar's recompense; for it was enough for the divine julius to pension with a township the writer and glorifier of those conquests which he had achieved over the whole world. but now the spendthrift kindness of the populace squandered a kingdom on a churl. nay, not even africanus, when he rewarded the records of his deed, rose to the munificence of the danes. for there the wage of that laborious volume was in mere gold, while here a few callow verses won a sceptre for a peasant. at the same time erik, who held the governorship of sweden, died of disease; and his son halfdan, who governed in his father's stead, alarmed by the many attacks of twelve brothers of norwegian birth, and powerless to punish their violence, fled, hoping for reinforcements, to ask aid of fridleif, then sojourning in russia. approaching him with a suppliant face, he lamented that he was himself shattered and bruised by a foreign foe, and brought a dismal plaint of his wrongs. from him fridleif heard the tidings of his father's death, and granting the aid he sought, went to norway in armed array. at this time the aforesaid brothers, their allies forsaking them, built a very high rampart within an island surrounded by a swift stream, also extending their earthworks along the level. trusting to this refuge, they harried the neighborhood with continual raids. for they built a bridge on which they used to get to the mainland when they left the island. this bridge was fastened to the gate of the stronghold; and they worked it by the guidance of ropes, in such a way that it turned as if on some revolving hinge, and at one time let them pass across the river; while at another, drawn back from above by unseen cords, it helped to defend the entrance. these warriors were of valiant temper, young and stalwart, of splendid bodily presence, renowned for victories over giants, full of trophies of conquered nations, and wealthy with spoil. i record the names of some of them--for the rest have perished in antiquity--gerbiorn, gunbiorn, arinbiorn, stenbiorn, esbiorn, thorbiorn, and biorn. biorn is said to have had a horse which was splendid and of exceeding speed, so that when all the rest were powerless to cross the river it alone stemmed the roaring eddy without weariness. this rapid comes down in so swift and sheer a volume that animals often lose all power of swimming in it, and perish. for, trickling from the topmost crests of the hills, it comes down the steep sides, catches on the rocks, and is shattered, falling into the deep valleys with a manifold clamour of waters; but, being straightway rebuffed by the rocks that bar the way, it keeps the speed of its current ever at the same even pace. and so, along the whole length of the channel, the waves are one turbid mass, and the white foam brims over everywhere. but, after rolling out of the narrows between the rocks, it spreads abroad in a slacker and stiller flood, and turns into an island a rock that lies in its course. on either side of the rock juts out a sheer ridge, thick with divers trees, which screen the river from distant view. biorn had also a dog of extraordinary fierceness, a terribly vicious brute, dangerous for people to live with, which had often singly destroyed twelve men. but, since the tale is hearsay rather than certainty, let good judges weigh its credit. this dog, as i have heard, was the favourite of the giant offot (un-foot), and used to watch his herd amid the pastures. now the warriors, who were always pillaging the neighbourhood, used often to commit great slaughters. plundering houses, cutting down cattle, sacking everything, making great hauls of booty, rifling houses, then burning them, massacring male and female promiscuously--these, and not honest dealings, were their occupations. fridleif surprised them while on a reckless raid, and drove them all back for refuge to the stronghold; he also seized the immensely powerful horse, whose rider, in the haste of his panic, had left it on the hither side of the river in order to fly betimes; for he durst not take it with him over the bridge. then fridleif proclaimed that he would pay the weight of the dead body in gold to any man who slew one of those brothers. the hope of the prize stimulated some of the champions of the king; and yet they were fired not so much with covetousness as with valour; so, going secretly to fridleif, they promised to attempt the task, vowing to sacrifice their lives if they did not bring home the severed heads of the robbers. fridleif praised their valour and their vows, but bidding the onlookers wait, went in the night to the river, satisfied with a single companion. for, not to seem better provided with other men's valour than with his own, he determined to forestall their aid by his own courage. thereupon he crushed and killed his companion with a shower of flints, and flung his bloodless corpse into the waves, having dressed it in his own clothes; which he stripped off, borrowing the cast-off garb of the other, so that when the corpse was seen it might look as if the king had perished. he further deliberately drew blood from the beast on which he had ridden, and bespattered it, so that when it came back into camp he might make them think he himself was dead. then he set spur to his horse and drove it into the midst of the eddies, crossed the river and alighted, and tried to climb over the rampart that screened the stronghold by steps set up against the mound. when he got over the top and could grasp the battlements with his hand, he quietly put his foot inside, and, without the knowledge of the watch, went lightly on tiptoe to the house into which the bandits had gone to carouse. and when he had reached its hall, he sat down under the porch overhanging the door. now the strength of their fastness made the warriors feel so safe that they were tempted to a debauch; for they thought that the swiftly rushing river made their garrison inaccessible, since it seemed impossible either to swim over or to cross in boats. for no part of the river allowed of fording. biorn, moved by the revel, said that in his sleep he had seen a beast come out of the waters, which spouted ghastly fire from its mouth, enveloping everything in a sheet of flame. therefore the holes and corners of the island should, he said, be searched; nor ought they to trust so much to their position, as rashly to let overweening confidence bring them to utter ruin. no situation was so strong that the mere protection of nature was enough for it without human effort. moreover they must take great care that the warning of his slumbers was not followed by a yet more gloomy and disastrous fulfilment. so they all sallied forth from the stronghold, and narrowly scanned the whole circuit of the island; and finding the horse they surmised that fridleif had been drowned in the waters of the river. they received the horse within the gates with rejoicing, supposing that it had flung off its rider and swum over. but biorn, still scared with the memory of the visions of the night, advised them to keep watch, since it was not safe for them yet to put aside suspicion of danger. then he went to his room to rest, with the memory of his vision deeply stored in his heart. meanwhile the horse, which fridleif, in order to spread a belief in his death, had been loosed and besprinkled with blood (though only with that which lies between flesh and skin), burst all bedabbled into the camp of his soldiers. they went straight to the river, and finding the carcase of the slave, took it for the body of the king; the hissing eddies having cast it on the bank, dressed in brave attire. nothing helped their mistake so much as the swelling of the battered body; inasmuch as the skin was torn and bruised with the flints, so that all the features were blotted out, bloodless and wan. this exasperated the champions who had just promised fridleif to see that the robbers were extirpated: and they approached the perilous torrent, that they might not seem to tarnish the honour of their promise by a craven neglect of their vow. the rest imitated their boldness, and with equal ardour went to the river, ready to avenge their king or to endure the worst. when fridleif saw them he hastened to lower the bridge to the mainland; and when he had got the champions he cut down the watch at the first attack. thus he went on to attack the rest and put them to the sword, all save biorn; whom he tended very carefully and cured of his wounds; whereupon, under pledge of solemn oath, he made him his colleague, thinking it better to use his services than to boast of his death. he also declared it would be shameful if such a flower of bravery were plucked in his first youth and perished by an untimely death. now the danes had long ago had false tidings of fridleif's death, and when they found that he was approaching, they sent men to fetch him, and ordered hiarn to quit the sovereignty, because he was thought to be holding it only on sufferance and carelessly. but he could not bring himself to resign such an honour, and chose sooner to spend his life for glory than pass into the dim lot of common men. therefore he resolved to fight for his present estate, that he might not have to resume his former one stripped of his royal honours. thus the land was estranged and vexed with the hasty commotion of civil strife; some were of hiarn's party, while others agreed to the claims of fridleif, because of the vast services of frode; and the voice of the commons was perplexed and divided, some of them respecting things as they were, others the memory of the past. but regard for the memory of frode weighed most, and its sweetness gave fridleif the balance of popularity. many wise men thought that a person of peasant rank should be removed from the sovereignty; since, contrary to the rights of birth, and only by the favour of fortune, he had reached an unhoped-for eminence; and in order that the unlawful occupant might not debar the rightful heir to the office, fridleif told the envoys of the danes to return, and request hiarn either to resign the kingdom or to meet him in battle. hiarn thought it more grievous than death to set lust of life before honour, and to seek safety at the cost of glory. so he met fridleif in the field, was crushed, and fled into jutland, where, rallying a band, he again attacked his conqueror. but his men were all consumed with the sword, and he fled unattended, as the island testifies which has taken its name from his (hiarno). and so, feeling his lowly fortune, and seeing himself almost stripped of his forces by the double defeat, he turned his mind to craft, and went to fridleif with his face disguised, meaning to become intimate, and find an occasion to slay him treacherously. hiarn was received by the king, hiding his purpose under the pretence of servitude. for, giving himself out as a salt-distiller, he performed base offices among the servants who did the filthiest work. he used also to take the last place at meal-time, and he refrained from the baths, lest his multitude of scars should betray him if he stripped. the king, in order to ease his own suspicions, made him wash; and when he knew his enemy by the scars, he said: "tell me now, thou shameless bandit, how wouldst thou have dealt with me, if thou hadst found out plainly that i wished to murder thee?" hiarn, stupefied, said: "had i caught thee i would have first challenged thee, and then fought thee, to give thee a better chance of wiping out thy reproach." fridleif presently took him at his word, challenged him and slew him, and buried his body in a barrow that bears the dead man's name. soon after fridleif was admonished by his people to think about marrying, that he might prolong his line; but he maintained that the unmarried life was best, quoting his father frode, on whom his wife's wantonness had brought great dishonour. at last, yielding to the persistent entreaties of all, he proceeded to send ambassadors to ask for the daughter of amund, king of norway. one of these, named frok, was swallowed by the waves in mid-voyage, and showed a strange portent at his death. for when the closing flood of billows encompassed him, blood arose in the midst of the eddy, and the whole face of the sea was steeped with an alien redness, so that the ocean, which a moment before was foaming and white with tempest, was presently swollen with crimson waves, and was seen to wear a colour foreign to its nature. around implacably declined to consent to the wishes of the king, and treated the legates shamefully, declaring that he spurned the embassy because the tyranny of frode had of old borne so heavily upon norway. but amund's daughter, frogertha, not only looking to the birth of fridleif, but also honouring the glory of his deeds, began to upbraid her father, because he scorned a son-in-law whose nobility was perfect, being both sufficient in valour and flawless in birth. she added that the portentous aspect of the sea, when the waves were suddenly turned into blood, simply and solely signified the defeat of norway, and was a plain presage of the victory of denmark. and when fridleif sent a further embassy to ask for her, wishing to vanquish the refusal by persistency, amund was indignant that a petition he had once denied should be obstinately pressed, and hurried the envoys to death, wishing to offer a brutal check to the zeal of this brazen wooer. fridleif heard news of this outrage, and summoning halfdan and biorn, sailed round norway. amund, equipped with his native defences, put out his fleet against him. the firth into which both fleets had mustered is called frokasund. here fridleif left the camp at night to reconnoitre; and, hearing an unusual kind of sound close to him as of brass being beaten, he stood still and looked up, and heard the following song of three swans, who were crying above him: "while hythin sweeps the sea and cleaves the ravening tide, his serf drinks out of gold and licks the cups of milk. best is the estate of the slave on whom waits the heir, the king's son, for their lots are rashly interchanged." next, after the birds had sung, a belt fell from on high, which showed writing to interpret the song. for while the son of hythin, the king of tellemark, was at his boyish play, a giant, assuming the usual appearance of men, had carried him off, and using him as an oarsman (having taken his skiff over to the neighbouring shore), was then sailing past fridleif while he was occupied reconnoitering. but the king would not suffer him to use the service of the captive youth, and longed to rob the spoiler of his prey. the youth warned him that he must first use sharp reviling against the giant, promising that he would prove easy to attack, if only he were assailed with biting verse. then fridleif began thus: "since thou art a giant of three bodies, invincible, and almost reachest heaven with thy crest, why does this silly sword bind thy thigh? why doth a broken spear gird thy huge side? why, perchance, dost thou defend thy stalwart breast with a feeble sword, and forget the likeness of thy bodily stature, trusting in a short dagger, a petty weapon? soon, soon will i balk thy bold onset, when with blunted blade thou attemptest war. since thou art thyself a timid beast, a lump lacking proper pith, thou art swept headlong like a flying shadow, having with a fair and famous body got a heart that is unwarlike and unstable with fear, and a spirit quite unmatched to thy limbs. hence thy frame totters, for thy goodly presence is faulty through the overthrow of thy soul, and thy nature in all her parts is at strife. hence shall all tribute of praise quit thee, nor shalt thou be accounted famous among the brave, but shalt be reckoned among ranks obscure." when he had said this he lopped off a hand and foot of the giant, made him fly, and set his prisoner free. then he went straightway to the giant's headland, took the treasure out of his cave, and carried it away. rejoicing in these trophies, and employing the kidnapped youth to row him over the sea, he composed with cheery voice the following strain: "in the slaying of the swift monster we wielded our blood-stained swords and our crimsoned blade, whilst thou, amund, lord of the norwegian ruin, wert in deep slumber; and since blind night covers thee, without any light of soul, thy valour has melted away and beguiled thee. but we crushed a giant who lost use of his limbs and wealth, and we pierced into the disorder of his dreary den. there we seized and plundered his piles of gold. and now with oars we sweep the wave-wandering main, and joyously return, rowing back to the shore our booty-laden ship; we fleet over the waves in a skiff that travels the sea; gaily let us furrow those open waters, lest the dawn come and betray us to the foe. lightly therefore, and pulling our hardest, let us scour the sea, making for our camp and fleet ere titan raise his rosy head out of the clear waters; that when fame noises the deed about, and frogertha knows that the spoil has been won with a gallant struggle, her heart may be stirred to be more gentle to our prayer." on the morrow there was a great muster of the forces, and fridleif had a bloody battle with amund, fought partly by sea and partly by land. for not only were the lines drawn up in the open country, but the warriors also made an attack with their fleet. the battle which followed cost much blood. so biorn, when his ranks gave back, unloosed his hound and sent it against the enemy; wishing to win with the biting of a dog the victory which he could not achieve with the sword. the enemy were by this means shamefully routed, for a square of the warriors ran away when attacked with its teeth. there is no saying whether their flight was more dismal or more disgraceful. indeed, the army of the northmen was a thing to blush for; for an enemy crushed it by borrowing the aid of a brute. nor was it treacherous of fridleif to recruit the failing valour of his men with the aid of a dog. in this war amund fell; and his servant ane, surnamed the archer, challenged fridleif to fight him; but biorn, being a man of meaner estate, not suffering the king to engage with a common fellow, attacked him himself. and when biorn had bent his bow and was fitting the arrow to the string, suddenly a dart sent by ane pierced the top of the cord. soon another arrow came after it and struck amid the joints of his fingers. a third followed, and fell on the arrow as it was laid to the string. for ane, who was most dexterous at shooting arrows from a distance, had purposely only struck the weapon of his opponent, in order that, by showing it was in his power to do likewise to his person, he might recall the champion from his purpose. but biorn abated none of his valour for this, and, scorning bodily danger, entered the fray with heart and face so steadfast, that he seemed neither to yield anything to the skill of ane, nor lay aside aught of his wonted courage. thus he would in nowise be made to swerve from his purpose, and dauntlessly ventured on the battle. both of them left it wounded; and fought another also on agdar ness with an emulous thirst for glory. by the death of amund, fridleif was freed from a most bitter foe, and obtained a deep and tranquil peace; whereupon he forced his savage temper to the service of delight; and, transferring his ardour to love, equipped a fleet in order to seek the marriage which had once been denied him. at last he set forth on his voyage; and his fleet being becalmed, he invaded some villages to look for food; where, being received hospitably by a certain grubb, and at last winning his daughter in marriage, he begat a son named olaf. after some time had passed he also won frogertha; but, while going back to his own country, he had a bad voyage, and was driven on the shores of an unknown island. a certain man appeared to him in a vision, and instructed him to dig up a treasure that was buried in the ground, and also to attack the dragon that guarded it, covering himself in an ox-hide to escape the poison; teaching him also to meet the envenomed fangs with a hide stretched over his shield. therefore, to test the vision, he attacked the snake as it rose out of the waves, and for a long time cast spears against its scaly side; in vain, for its hard and shelly body foiled the darts flung at it. but the snake, shaking its mass of coils, uprooted the trees which it brushed past by winding its tail about them. moreover, by constantly dragging its body, it hollowed the ground down to the solid rock, and had made a sheer bank on either hand, just as in some places we see hills parted by an intervening valley. so fridleif, seeing that the upper part of the creature was proof against attack, assailed the lower side with his sword, and piercing the groin, drew blood from the quivering beast. when it was dead, he unearthed the money from the underground chamber and had it taken off in his ships. when the year had come to an end, he took great pains to reconcile biorn and ane, who had often challenged and fought one another, and made them exchange their hatred for friendship; and even entrusted to them his three-year-old son, olaf, to rear. but his mistress, juritha, the mother of olaf, he gave in marriage to ane, whom he made one of his warriors; thinking that she would endure more calmly to be put away, if she wedded such a champion, and received his robust embrace instead of a king's. the ancients were wont to consult the oracles of the fates concerning the destinies of their children. in this way fridleif desired to search into the fate of his son olaf; and, after solemnly offering up his vows, he went to the house of the gods in entreaty; where, looking into the chapel, he saw three maidens, sitting on three seats. the first of them was of a benignant temper, and bestowed upon the boy abundant beauty and ample store of favour in the eyes of men. the second granted him the gift of surpassing generosity. but the third, a woman of more mischievous temper and malignant disposition, scorning the unanimous kindness of her sisters, and likewise wishing to mar their gifts, marked the future character of the boy with the slur of niggardliness. thus the benefits of the others were spoilt by the poison of a lamentable doom; and hence, by virtue of the twofold nature of these gifts olaf got his surname from the meanness which was mingled with his bounty. so it came about that this blemish which found its way into the gift marred the whole sweetness of its first benignity. when fridleif had returned from norway, and was traveling through sweden, he took on himself to act as ambassador, and sued successfully for hythin's daughter, whom he had once rescued from a monster, to be the wife of halfdan, he being still unwedded. meantime his wife frogertha bore a son frode, who afterwards got his surname from his noble munificence. and thus frode, because of the memory of his grandsire's prosperity, which he recalled by his name, became from his very cradle and earliest childhood such a darling of all men, that he was not suffered even to step or stand on the ground, but was continually cherished in people's laps and kissed. thus he was not assigned to one upbringer only, but was in a manner everybody's fosterling. and, after his father's death, while he was in his twelfth year, swerting and hanef, the kings of saxony, disowned his sway, and tried to rebel openly. he overcame them in battle, and imposed on the conquered peoples a poll-tax of a coin, which they were to pay as his slaves. for he showed himself so generous that he doubled the ancient pay of the soldiers: a fashion of bounty which then was novel. for he did not, as despots do, expose himself to the vulgar allurements of vice, but strove to covet ardently whatsoever he saw was nearest honour; to make his wealth public property; to surpass all other men in bounty, to forestall them all in offices of kindness; and, hardest of all, to conquer envy by virtue. by this means the youth soon won such favour with all men, that he not only equalled in renown the honours of his forefathers, but surpassed the most ancient records of kings. at the same time one starkad, the son of storwerk, escaped alone, either by force or fortune, from a wreck in which his friends perished, and was received by frode as his guest for his incredible excellence both of mind and body. and, after being for some little time his comrade, he was dressed in a better and more comely fashion every day, and was at last given a noble vessel, and bidden to ply the calling of a rover, with the charge of guarding the sea. for nature had gifted him with a body of superhuman excellence; and his greatness of spirit equalled it, so that folk thought him behind no man in valour. so far did his glory spread, that the renown of his name and deeds continues famous even yet. he shone out among our own countrymen by his glorious roll of exploits, and he had also won a most splendid record among all the provinces of the swedes and saxons. tradition says that he was born originally in the country which borders sweden on the east, where barbarous hordes of esthonians and other nations now dwell far and wide. but a fabulous yet common rumour has invented tales about his birth which are contrary to reason and flatly incredible. for some relate that he was sprung from giants, and betrayed his monstrous birth by an extraordinary number of hands, four of which, engendered by the superfluity of his nature, they declare that the god thor tore off, shattering the framework of the sinews and wrenching from his whole body the monstrous bunches of fingers; so that he had but two left, and that his body, which had before swollen to the size of a giant's, and, by reason of its shapeless crowd of limbs looked gigantic, was thenceforth chastened to a better appearance, and kept within the bounds of human shortness. for there were of old certain men versed in sorcery, thor, namely, and odin, and many others, who were cunning in contriving marvellous sleights; and they, winning the minds of the simple, began to claim the rank of gods. for, in particular, they ensnared norway, sweden and denmark in the vainest credulity, and by prompting these lands to worship them, infected them with their imposture. the effects of their deceit spread so far, that all other men adored a sort of divine power in them, and, thinking them either gods or in league with gods, offered up solemn prayers to these inventors of sorceries, and gave to blasphemous error the honour due to religion. hence it has come about that the holy days, in their regular course, are called among us by the names of these men; for the ancient latins are known to have named these days severally, either after the titles of their own gods, or after the planets, seven in number. but it can be plainly inferred from the mere names of the holy days that the objects worshipped by our countrymen were not the same as those whom the most ancient of the romans called jove and mercury, nor those to whom greece and latium paid idolatrous homage. for the days, called among our countrymen thors-day or odins-day, the ancients termed severally the holy day of jove or of mercury. if, therefore, according to the distinction implied in the interpretation i have quoted, we take it that thor is jove and odin mercury, it follows that jove was the son of mercury; that is, if the assertion of our countrymen holds, among whom it is told as a matter of common belief, that thor was odin's son. therefore, when the latins, believing to the contrary effect, declare that mercury was sprung from jove, then, if their declaration is to stand, we are driven to consider that thor was not the same as jove, and that odin was also different from mercury. some say that the gods, whom our countrymen worshipped, shared only the title with those honoured by greece or latium, but that, being in a manner nearly equal to them in dignity, they borrowed from them the worship as well as the name. this must be sufficient discourse upon the deities of danish antiquity. i have expounded this briefly for the general profit, that my readers may know clearly to what worship in its heathen superstition our country has bowed the knee. now i will go back to my subject where i left it. ancient tradition says that starkad, whom i mentioned above, offered the first-fruits of his deeds to the favour of the gods by slaying wikar, the king of the norwegians. the affair, according to the version of some people, happened as follows:-- odin once wished to slay wikar by a grievous death; but, loth to do the deed openly, he graced starkad, who was already remarkable for his extraordinary size, not only with bravery, but also with skill in the composing of spells, that he might the more readily use his services to accomplish the destruction of the king. for that was how he hoped that starkad would show himself grateful for the honour he paid him. for the same reason he also endowed him with three spans of mortal life, that he might be able to commit in them as many abominable deeds. so odin resolved that starkad's days should be prolonged by the following crime: starkad presently went to wikar and dwelt awhile in his company, hiding treachery under homage. at last he went with him sea-roving. and in a certain place they were troubled with prolonged and bitter storms; and when the winds checked their voyage so much that they had to lie still most of the year, they thought that the gods must be appeased with human blood. when the lots were cast into the urn it so fell that the king was required for death as a victim. then starkad made a noose of withies and bound the king in it; saying that for a brief instant he should pay the mere semblance of a penalty. but the tightness of the knot acted according to its nature, and cut off his last breath as he hung. and while he was still quivering starkad rent away with his steel the remnant of his life; thus disclosing his treachery when he ought to have brought aid. i do not think that i need examine the version which relates that the pliant withies, hardened with the sudden grip, acted like a noose of iron. when starkad had thus treacherously acted he took wikar's ship and went to one bemon, the most courageous of all the rovers of denmark, in order to take up the life of a pirate. for bemon's partner, named frakk, weary of the toil of sea-roving, had lately withdrawn from partnership with him, after first making a money-bargain. now starkad and bemon were so careful to keep temperate, that they are said never to have indulged in intoxicating drink, for fear that continence, the greatest bond of bravery, might be expelled by the power of wantonness. so when, after overthrowing provinces far and wide, they invaded russia also in their lust for empire, the natives, trusting little in their walls or arms, began to bar the advance of the enemy with nails of uncommon sharpness, that they might check their inroad, though they could not curb their onset in battle; and that the ground might secretly wound the soles of the men whom their army shrank from confronting in the field. but not even such a barrier could serve to keep off the foe. the danes were cunning enough to foil the pains of the russians. for they straightway shod themselves with wooden clogs, and trod with unhurt steps upon the points that lay beneath their soles. now this iron thing is divided into four spikes, which are so arranged that on whatsoever side chance may cast it, it stands steadily on three equal feet. then they struck into the pathless glades, where the woods were thickets, and expelled flokk, the chief of the russians, from the mountain hiding-places into which he had crept. and here they got so much booty, that there was not one of them but went back to the fleet laden with gold and silver. now when bemon was dead, starkad was summoned because of his valour by the champions of permland. and when he had done many noteworthy deeds among them, he went into the land of the swedes, where he lived at leisure for seven years' space with the sons of frey. at last he left them and betook himself to hakon, the tyrant of denmark, because when stationed at upsala, at the time of the sacrifices, he was disgusted by the effeminate gestures and the clapping of the mimes on the stage, and by the unmanly clatter of the bells. hence it is clear how far he kept his soul from lasciviousness, not even enduring to look upon it. thus does virtue withstand wantonness. starkad took his fleet to the shore of ireland with hakon, in order that even the furthest kingdoms of the world might not be untouched by the danish arms. the king of the island at this time was hugleik, who, though he had a well-filled treasury, was yet so prone to avarice, that once, when he gave a pair of shoes which had been adorned by the hand of a careful craftsman, he took off the ties, and by thus removing the latches turned his present into a slight. this unhandsome act blemished his gift so much that he seemed to reap hatred for it instead of thanks. thus he used never to be generous to any respectable man, but to spend all his bounty upon mimes and jugglers. for so base a fellow was bound to keep friendly company with the base, and such a slough of vices to wheedle his partners in sin with pandering endearments. still hugleik had the friendship of geigad and swipdag, nobles of tried valour, who, by the lustre of their warlike deeds, shone out among their unmanly companions like jewels embedded in ordure; these alone were found to defend the riches of the king. when a battle began between hugleik and hakon, the hordes of mimes, whose light-mindedness unsteadied their bodies, broke their ranks and scurried off in panic; and this shameful flight was their sole requital for all their king's benefits. then geigad and swipdag faced all those thousands of the enemy single-handed, and fought with such incredible courage, that they seemed to do the part not merely of two warriors, but of a whole army. geigad, moreover, dealt hakon, who pressed him hard, such a wound in the breast that he exposed the upper part of his liver. it was here that starkad, while he was attacking geigad with his sword, received a very sore wound on the head; wherefore he afterwards related in a certain song that a ghastlier wound had never befallen him at any time; for, though the divisions of his gashed head were bound up by the surrounding outer skin, yet the livid unseen wound concealed a foul gangrene below. starkad conquered, killed hugleik and routed the irish; and had the actors beaten whom chance made prisoner; thinking it better to order a pack of buffoons to be ludicrously punished by the loss of their skins than to command a more deadly punishment and take their lives. thus he visited with a disgraceful chastisement the baseborn throng of professional jugglers, and was content to punish them with the disgusting flouts of the lash. then the danes ordered that the wealth of the king should be brought out of the treasury in the city of dublin and publicly pillaged. for so vast a treasure had been found that none took much pains to divide it strictly. after this, starkad was commissioned, together with win, the chief of the sclavs, to check the revolt of the east. they, having fought against the armies of the kurlanders, the sembs, the sangals, and, finally, all the easterlings, won splendid victories everywhere. a champion of great repute, named wisin, settled upon a rock in russia named ana-fial, and harried both neighbouring and distant provinces with all kinds of outrage. this man used to blunt the edge of every weapon by merely looking at it. he was made so bold in consequence, by having lost all fear of wounds, that he used to carry off the wives of distinguished men and drag them to outrage before the eyes of their husbands. starkad was roused by the tale of this villainy, and went to russia to destroy the criminal; thinking nothing too hard to overcome, he challenged wisin, attacked him, made even his tricks useless to him, and slew him. for starkad covered his blade with a very fine skin, that it might not met the eye of the sorcerer; and neither the power of his sleights nor his great strength were any help to wisin, for he had to yield to starkad. then starkad, trusting in his bodily strength, fought with and overcame a giant at byzantium, reputed invincible, named tanne, and drove him to fly an outlaw to unknown quarters of the earth. therefore, finding that he was too mighty for any hard fate to overcome him, he went to the country of poland, and conquered in a duel a champion whom our countrymen name wasce; but the teutons, arranging the letters differently, call him wilzce. meanwhile the saxons began to attempt a revolt, and to consider particularly how they could destroy frode, who was unconquered in war, by some other way than an open conflict. thinking that it would be best done by a duel, they sent men to provoke the king with a challenge, knowing that he was always ready to court any hazard, and that his high spirit would not yield to any admonition whatever. they fancied that this was the best time to attack him, because they knew that starkad, whose valour most men dreaded, was away on business. but while frode hesitated, and said that he would talk with his friends about the answer to be given, starkad, who had just returned from his sea-roving, appeared, and blamed such a challenge, principally (he said) because it was fitting for kings to fight only with their equals, and because they should not take up arms against men of the people; but it was more fitting for himself, who was born in a lowlier station, to manage the battle. the saxons approached hame, who was accounted their most famous champion, with many offers, and promised him that, if he would lend his services for the duel they would pay him his own weight in gold. the fighter was tempted by the money, and, with all the ovation of a military procession, they attended him to the ground appointed for the combat. thereupon the danes, decked in warlike array, led starkad, who was to represent his king, out to the duelling-ground. hame, in his youthful assurance, despised him as withered with age, and chose to grapple rather than fight with an outworn old man. attacking starkad, he would have flung him tottering to the earth, but that fortune, who would not suffer the old man to be conquered, prevented him from being hurt. for he is said to have been so crushed by the fist of hame, as he dashed on him, that he touched the earth with his chin, supporting himself on his knees. but he made up nobly for his tottering; for, as soon as he could raise his knee and free his hand to draw his sword, he clove hame through the middle of the body. many lands and sixty bondmen apiece were the reward of the victory. after hame was killed in this manner the sway of the danes over the saxons grew so insolent, that they were forced to pay every year a small tax for each of their limbs that was a cubit (ell) long, in token of their slavery. this hanef could not bear, and he meditated war in his desire to remove the tribute. steadfast love of his country filled his heart every day with greater compassion for the oppressed; and, longing to spend his life for the freedom of his countrymen, he openly showed a disposition to rebel. frode took his forces over the elbe, and killed him near the village of hanofra (hanover), so named after hanef. but swerting, though he was equally moved by the distress of his countrymen, said nothing about the ills of his land, and revolved a plan for freedom with a spirit yet more dogged than hanef's. men often doubt whether this zeal was liker to vice or to virtue; but i certainly censure it as criminal, because it was produced by a treacherous desire to revolt. it may have seemed most expedient to seek the freedom of the country, but it was not lawful to strive after this freedom by craft and treachery. therefore, since the deed of swerting was far from honourable, neither will it be called expedient; for it is nobler to attack openly him whom you mean to attack, and to exhibit hatred in the light of day, than to disguise a real wish to do harm under a spurious show of friendship. but the gains of crime are inglorious, its fruits are brief and fading. for even as that soul is slippery, which hides its insolent treachery by stealthy arts, so is it right that whatsoever is akin to guilt should be frail and fleeting. for guilt has been usually found to come home to its author; and rumour relates that such was the fate of swerting. for he had resolved to surprise the king under the pretence of a banquet, and burn him to death; but the king forestalled and slew him, though slain by him in return. hence the crime of one proved the destruction of both; and thus, though the trick succeeded against the foe, it did not bestow immunity on its author. frode was succeeded by his son ingild, whose soul was perverted from honour. he forsook the examples of his forefathers, and utterly enthralled himself to the lures of the most wanton profligacy. thus he had not a shadow of goodness and righteousness, but embraced vices instead of virtue; he cut the sinews of self-control, neglected the duties of his kingly station, and sank into a filthy slave of riot. indeed, he fostered everything that was adverse or ill-fitted to an orderly life. he tainted the glories of his father and grandfather by practising the foulest lusts, and bedimmed the brightest honours of his ancestors by most shameful deeds. for he was so prone to gluttony, that he had no desire to avenge his father, or repel the aggressions of his foes; and so, could he but gratify his gullet, he thought that decency and self-control need be observed in nothing. by idleness and sloth he stained his glorious lineage, living a loose and sensual life; and his soul, so degenerate, so far perverted and astray from the steps of his fathers, he loved to plunge into most abominable gulfs of foulness. fowl-fatteners, scullions, frying-pans, countless cook-houses, different cooks to roast or spice the banquet--the choosing of these stood to him for glory. as to arms, soldiering, and wars, he could endure neither to train himself to them, nor to let others practise them. thus he cast away all the ambitions of a man and aspired to those of women; for his incontinent itching of palate stirred in him love of every kitchen-stench. ever breathing of his debauch, and stripped of every rag of soberness, with his foul breath he belched the undigested filth in his belly. he was as infamous in wantonness as frode was illustrious in war. so utterly had his spirit been enfeebled by the untimely seductions of gluttony. starkad was so disgusted at the excess of ingild, that he forsook his friendship, and sought the fellowship of halfdan, the king of swedes, preferring work to idleness. thus he could not bear so much as to countenance excessive indulgence. now the sons of swerting, fearing that they would have to pay to ingild the penalty of their father's crime, were fain to forestall his vengeance by a gift, and gave him their sister in marriage. antiquity relates that she bore him sons, frode, fridleif, ingild, and olaf (whom some say was the son of ingild's sister). ingild's sister helga had been led by amorous wooing to return the flame of a certain low-born goldsmith, who was apt for soft words, and furnished with divers of the little gifts which best charm a woman's wishes. for since the death of the king there had been none to honour the virtues of the father by attention to the child; she had lacked protection, and had no guardians. when starkad had learnt this from the repeated tales of travellers, he could not bear to let the wantonness of the smith pass unpunished. for he was always heedful to bear kindness in mind, and as ready to punish arrogance. so he hastened to chastise such bold and enormous insolence, wishing to repay the orphan ward the benefits he had of old received from frode. then he travelled through sweden, went into the house of the smith, and posted himself near the threshold muffling his face in a cap to avoid discovery. the smith, who had not learnt the lesson that "strong hands are sometimes found under a mean garment", reviled him, and bade him quickly leave the house, saying that he should have the last broken victuals among the crowd of paupers. but the old man, whose ingrained self-control lent him patience, was nevertheless fain to rest there, and gradually study the wantonness of his host. for his reason was stronger than his impetuosity, and curbed his increasing rage. then the smith approached the girl with open shamelessness, and cast himself in her lap, offering the hair of his head to be combed out by her maidenly hands. also he thrust forward his loin cloth, and required her help in picking out the fleas; and exacted from this woman of lordly lineage that she should not blush to put her sweet fingers in a foul apron. then, believing that he was free to have his pleasure, he ventured to put his longing palms within her gown and to set his unsteady hands close to her breast. but she, looking narrowly, was aware of the presence of the old man whom she once had known, and felt ashamed. she spurned the wanton and libidinous fingering, and repulsed the unchaste hands, telling the man also that he had need of arms, and urging him to cease his lewd sport. starkad, who had sat down by the door, with the hat muffling his head, had already become so deeply enraged at this sight, that he could not find patience to hold his hand any longer, but put away his covering and clapped his right hand to his sword to draw it. then the smith, whose only skill was in lewdness, faltered with sudden alarm, and finding that it had come to fighting, gave up all hope of defending himself, and saw in flight the only remedy for his need. thus it was as hard to break out of the door, of which the enemy held the approach, as it was grievous to await the smiter within the house. at last necessity forced him to put an end to his delay, and he judged that a hazard wherein there lay but the smallest chance of safety was more desirable than sure and manifest danger. also, hard as it was to fly, the danger being so close, yet he desired flight because it seemed to bring him aid, and to be the nearer way to safety; and he cast aside delay, which seemed to be an evil bringing not the smallest help, but perhaps irretrievable ruin. but just as he gained the threshold, the old man watching at the door smote him through the hams, and there, half dead, he tottered and fell. for the smiter thought he ought carefully to avoid lending his illustrious hands to the death of a vile cinder-blower, and considered that ignominy would punish his shameless passion worse than death. thus some men think that he who suffers misfortune is worse punished than he who is slain outright. thus it was brought about, that the maiden, who had never had parents to tend her, came to behave like a woman of well-trained nature, and did the part, as it were, of a zealous guardian to herself. and when starkad, looking round, saw that the household sorrowed over the late loss of their master, he heaped shame on the wounded man with more invective, and thus began to mock: "why is the house silent and aghast? what makes this new grief? or where now rest that doting husband whom the steel has just punished for his shameful love? keeps he still aught of his pride and lazy wantonness? holds he to his quest, glows his lust as hot as before? let him while away an hour with me in converse, and allay with friendly words my hatred of yesterday. let your visage come forth with better cheer; let not lamentation resound in the house, or suffer the faces to become dulled with sorrow. "wishing to know who burned with love for the maiden, and was deeply enamoured of my beloved ward, i put on a cap, lest my familiar face might betray me. then comes in that wanton smith, with lewd steps, bending his thighs this way and that with studied gesture, and likewise making eyes as he ducked all ways. his covering was a mantle fringed with beaver, his sandals were inlaid with gems, his cloak was decked with gold. gorgeous ribbons bound his plaited hair, and a many-coloured band drew tight his straying locks. hence grew a sluggish and puffed-up temper; he fancied that wealth was birth, and money forefathers, and reckoned his fortune more by riches than by blood. hence came pride unto him, and arrogance led to fine attire. for the wretch began to think that his dress made him equal to the high-born; he, the cinder-blower, who hunts the winds with hides, and puffs with constant draught, who rakes the ashes with his fingers, and often by drawing back the bellows takes in the air, and with a little fan makes a breath and kindles the smouldering fires! then he goes to the lap of the girl, and leaning close, says, `maiden, comb my hair and catch the skipping fleas, and remove what stings my skin.' then he sat and spread his arms that sweated under the gold, lolling on the smooth cushion and leaning back on his elbow, wishing to flaunt his adornment, just as a barking brute unfolds the gathered coils of its twisted tail. but she knew me, and began to check her lover and rebuff his wanton hands; and, declaring that it was i, she said, `refrain thy fingers, check thy promptings, take heed to appease the old man sitting close by the doors. the sport will turn to sorrow. i think starkad is here, and his slow gaze scans thy doings.' the smith answered: `turn not pale at the peaceful raven and the ragged old man; never has that mighty one whom thou fearest stooped to such common and base attire. the strong man loves shining raiment, and looks for clothes to match his courage.' then i uncovered and drew my sword, and as the smith fled i clove his privy parts; his hams were laid open, cut away from the bone; they showed his entrails. presently i rise and crush the girl's mouth with my fist, and draw blood from her bruised nostril. then her lips, used to evil laughter, were wet with tears mingled with blood, and foolish love paid for all the sins it committed with soft eyes. over is the sport of the hapless woman who rushed on, blind with desire, like a maddened mare, and makes her lust the grave of her beauty. thou deservest to be sold for a price to foreign peoples and to grind at the mill, unless blood pressed from thy breasts prove thee falsely accused, and thy nipple's lack of milk clear thee of the crime. howbeit, i think thee free from this fault; yet bear not tokens of suspicion, nor lay thyself open to lying tongues, nor give thyself to the chattering populace to gird at. rumour hurts many, and a lying slander often harms. a little word deceives the thoughts of common men. respect thy grandsires, honour thy fathers, forget not thy parents, value thy forefathers; let thy flesh and blood keep its fame. what madness came on thee? and thou, shameless smith, what fate drove thee in thy lust to attempt a high-born race? or who sped thee, maiden, worthy of the lordliest pillows, to loves obscure? tell me, how durst thou taste with thy rosy lips a mouth reeking of ashes, or endure on thy breast hands filthy with charcoal, or bring close to thy side the arms that turn the live coals over, and put the palms hardened with the use of the tongs to thy pure cheeks, and embrace the head sprinkled with embers, taking it to thy bright arms? "i remember how smiths differ from one another, for once they smote me. all share alike the name of their calling, but the hearts beneath are different in temper. i judge those best who weld warriors' swords and spears for the battle, whose temper shows their courage, who betoken their hearts by the sternness of their calling, whose work declares their prowess. there are also some to whom the hollow mould yields bronze, as they make the likeness of divers things in molten gold, who smelt the veins and recast the metal. but nature has fashioned these of a softer temper, and has crushed with cowardice the hands which she has gifted with rare skill. often such men, while the heat of the blast melts the bronze that is poured in the mould, craftily filch flakes of gold from the lumps, when the vessel thirsts after the metal they have stolen." so speaking, starkad got as much pleasure from his words as from his works, and went back to halfdan, embracing his service with the closest friendship, and never ceasing from the exercise of war; so that he weaned his mind from delights, and vexed it with incessant application to arms. now ingild had two sisters, helga and asa; helga was of full age to marry, while asa was younger and unripe for wedlock. then helge the norwegian was moved with desire to ask for helga for his wife, and embarked. now he had equipped his vessel so luxuriously that he had lordly sails decked with gold, held up also on gilded masts, and tied with crimson ropes. when he arrived ingild promised to grant him his wish if, to test his reputation publicly, he would first venture to meet in battle the champions pitted against him. helge did not flinch at the terms; he answered that he would most gladly abide by the compact. and so the troth-plight of the future marriage was most ceremoniously solemnized. a story is remembered that there had grown up at the same time, on the isle of zealand, the nine sons of a certain prince, all highly gifted with strength and valour, the eldest of whom was anganty. this last was a rival suitor for the same maiden; and when he saw that the match which he had been denied was promised to helge, he challenged him to a struggle, wishing to fight away his vexation. helge agreed to the proposed combat. the hour of the fight was appointed for the wedding-day by the common wish of both. for any man who, being challenged, refused to fight, used to be covered with disgrace in the sight of all men. thus helge was tortured on the one side by the shame of refusing the battle, on the other by the dread of waging it. for he thought himself attacked unfairly and counter to the universal laws of combat, as he had apparently undertaken to fight nine men single-handed. while he was thus reflecting his betrothed told him that he would need help, and counselled him to refrain from the battle, wherein it seemed he would encounter only death and disgrace, especially as he had not stipulated for any definite limit to the number of those who were to be his opponents. he should therefore avoid the peril, and consult his safety by appealing to starkad, who was sojourning among the swedes; since it was his way to help the distressed, and often to interpose successfully to retrieve some dismal mischance. then helge, who liked the counsel thus given very well, took a small escort and went into sweden; and when he reached its most famous city, upsala, he forbore to enter, but sent in a messenger who was to invite starkad to the wedding of frode's daughter, after first greeting him respectfully to try him. this courtesy stung starkad like an insult. he looked sternly on the youth, and said, "that had he not had his beloved frode named in his instructions, he should have paid dearly for his senseless mission. he must think that starkad, like some buffoon or trencherman, was accustomed to rush off to the reek of a distant kitchen for the sake of a richer diet." helge, when his servant had told him this, greeted the old man in the name of frode's daughter, and asked him to share a battle which he had accepted upon being challenged, saying that he was not equal to it by himself, the terms of the agreement being such as to leave the number of his adversaries uncertain. starkad, when he had heard the time and place of the combat, not only received the suppliant well, but also encouraged him with the offer of aid, and told him to go back to denmark with his companions, telling him that he would find his way to him by a short and secret path. helge departed, and if we may trust report, starkad, by sheer speed of foot, travelled in one day's journeying over as great a space as those who went before him are said to have accomplished in twelve; so that both parties, by a chance meeting, reached their journey's end, the palace of ingild, at the very same time. here starkad passed, just as the servants did, along the tables filled with guests; and the aforementioned nine, howling horribly with repulsive gestures, and running about as if they were on the stage, encouraged one another to the battle. some say that they barked like furious dogs at the champion as he approached. starkad rebuked them for making themselves look ridiculous with such an unnatural visage, and for clowning with wide grinning cheeks; for from this, he declared, soft and effeminate profligates derived their wanton incontinence. when starkad was asked banteringly by the nine whether he had valour enough to fight, he answered that doubtless he was strong enough to meet, not merely one, but any number that might come against him. and when the nine heard this they understood that this was the man whom they had heard would come to the succour of helge from afar. starkad also, to protect the bride-chamber with a more diligent guard, voluntarily took charge of the watch; and, drawing back the doors of the bedroom, barred them with a sword instead of a bolt, meaning to post himself so as to give undisturbed quiet to their bridal. when helge woke, and, shaking off the torpor of sleep, remembered his pledge, he thought of buckling on his armour. but, seeing that a little of the darkness of night yet remained, and wishing to wait for the hour of dawn, he began to ponder the perilous business at hand, when sleep stole on him and sweetly seized him, so that he took himself back to bed laden with slumber. starkad, coming in on him at daybreak, saw him locked asleep in the arms of his wife, and would not suffer him to be vexed with a sudden shock, or summoned from his quiet slumbers; lest he should seem to usurp the duty of wakening him and breaking upon the sweetness of so new a union, all because of cowardice. he thought it, therefore, more handsome to meet the peril alone than to gain a comrade by disturbing the pleasure of another. so he quietly retraced his steps, and scorning his enemies, entered the field which in our tongue is called roliung, and finding a seat under the slope of a certain hill, he exposed himself to wind and snow. then, as though the gentle airs of spring weather were breathing upon him, he put off his cloak, and set to picking out the fleas. he also cast on the briars a purple mantle which helga had lately given him, that no clothing might seem to lend him shelter against the raging shafts of hail. then the champions came and climbed the hill on the opposite side; and, seeking a spot sheltered from the winds wherein to sit, they lit a fire and drove off the cold. at last, not seeing starkad, they sent a man to the crest of the hill, to watch his coming more clearly, as from a watch-tower. this man climbed to the top of the lofty mountain, and saw, on its sloping side, an old man covered shoulder-high with the snow that showered down. he asked him if he was the man who was to fight according to the promise. starkad declared that he was. then the rest came up and asked him whether he had resolved to meet them all at once or one by one. but he said, "whenever a surly pack of curs yelps at me, i commonly send them flying all at once, and not in turn." thus he let them know that he would rather fight with-them all together than one by one, thinking that his enemies should be spurned with words first and deeds afterwards. the fight began furiously almost immediately, and he felled six of them without receiving any wound in return; and though the remaining three wounded him so hard in seventeen places that most of his bowels gushed out of his belly, he slew them notwithstanding, like their brethren. disembowelled, with failing strength, he suffered from dreadful straits of thirst, and, crawling on his knees in his desire to find a draught, he longed for water from the streamlet that ran close by. but when he saw it was tainted with gore he was disgusted at the look of the water, and refrained from its infected draught. for anganty had been struck down in the waves of the river, and had dyed its course so deep with his red blood that it seemed now to flow not with water, but with some ruddy liquid. so starkad thought it nobler that his bodily strength should fail than that he should borrow strength from so foul a beverage. therefore, his force being all but spent, he wriggled on his knees, up to a rock that happened to be lying near, and for some little while lay leaning against it. a hollow in its surface is still to be seen, just as if his weight as he lay had marked it with a distinct impression of his body. but i think this appearance is due to human handiwork, for it seems to pass all belief that the hard and uncleavable rock should so imitate the softness of wax, as, merely by the contact of a man leaning on it, to present the appearance of a man having sat there, and assume concavity for ever. a certain man, who chanced to be passing by in a cart, saw starkad wounded almost all over his body. equally aghast and amazed, he turned and drove closer, asking what reward he should have if he were to tend and heal his wounds. but starkad would rather be tortured by grievous wounds than use the service of a man of base estate, and first asked his birth and calling. the man said that his profession was that of a sergeant. starkad, not content with despising him, also spurned him with revilings, because, neglecting all honourable business, he followed the calling of a hanger-on; and because he had tarnished his whole career with ill repute, thinking the losses of the poor his own gains; suffering none to be innocent, ready to inflict wrongful accusation upon all men, most delighted at any lamentable turn in the fortunes of another; and toiling most at his own design, namely of treacherously spying out all men's doings, and seeking some traitorous occasion to censure the character of the innocent. as this first man departed, another came up, promising aid and remedies. like the last comer, he was bidden to declare his condition; and he said that he had a certain man's handmaid to wife, and was doing peasant service to her master in order to set her free. starkad refused to accept his help, because he had married in a shameful way by taking a slave to his embrace. had he had a shred of virtue he should at least have disdained to be intimate with the slave of another, but should have enjoyed some freeborn partner of his bed. what a mighty man, then, must we deem starkad, who, when enveloped in the most deadly perils, showed himself as great in refusing aid as in receiving wounds! when this man departed a woman chanced to approach and walk past the old man. she came up to him in order to wipe his wounds, but was first bidden to declare what was her birth and calling. she said that she was a handmaid used to grinding at the mill. starkad then asked her if she had children; and when he was told that she had a female child, he told her to go home and give the breast to her squalling daughter; for he thought it most uncomely that he should borrow help from a woman of the lowest degree. moreover, he knew that she could nourish her own flesh and blood with milk better than she could minister to the wounds of a stranger. as the woman was departing, a young man came riding up in a cart. he saw the old man, and drew near to minister to his wounds. on being asked who he was, he said his father was a labourer, and added that he was used to the labours of a peasant. starkad praised his origin, and pronounced that his calling was also most worthy of honour; for, he said, such men sought a livelihood by honourable traffic in their labour, inasmuch as they knew not of any gain, save what they had earned by the sweat of their brow. he also thought that a country life was justly to be preferred even to the most splendid riches; for the most wholesome fruits of it seemed to be born and reared in the shelter of a middle estate, halfway between magnificence and squalor. but he did not wish to pass the kindness of the youth unrequited, and rewarded the esteem he had shown him with the mantle he had cast among the thorns. so the peasant's son approached, replaced the parts of his belly that had been torn away, and bound up with a plait of withies the mass of intestines that had fallen out. then he took the old man to his car, and with the most zealous respect carried him away to the palace. meantime helga, in language betokening the greatest wariness, began to instruct her husband, saying that she knew that starkad, as soon as he came back from conquering the champions, would punish him for his absence, thinking that he had inclined more to sloth and lust than to his promise to fight as appointed. therefore he must withstand starkad boldly, because he always spared the brave but loathed the coward. helge respected equally her prophecy and her counsel, and braced his soul and body with a glow of valorous enterprise. starkad, when he had been driven to the palace, heedless of the pain of his wounds, leaped swiftly out of the cart, and just like a man who was well from top to toe, burst into the bridal-chamber, shattering the doors with his fist. then helge leapt from his bed, and, as he had been taught by the counsel of his wife, plunged his blade full at starkad's forehead. and since he seemed to be meditating a second blow, and to be about to make another thrust with his sword, helga flew quickly from the couch, caught up a shield, and, by interposing it, saved the old man from impending destruction; for, notwithstanding, helge with a stronger stroke of his blade smote the shield right through to the boss. thus the praiseworthy wit of the woman aided her friend, and her hand saved him whom her counsel had injured; for she protected the old man by her deed, as well as her husband by her warning. starkad was induced by this to let helge go scot-free; saying that a man whose ready and assured courage so surely betokened manliness, ought to be spared; for he vowed that a man ill deserved death whose brave spirit was graced with such a dogged will to resist. starkad went back to sweden before his wounds had been treated with medicine, or covered with a single scar. halfdan had been killed by his rivals; and starkad, after quelling certain rebels, set up siward as the heir to his father's sovereignty. with him he sojourned a long time; but when he heard--for the rumour spread--that ingild, the son of frode (who had been treacherously slain), was perversely minded, and instead of punishing his father's murderers, bestowed upon them kindness and friendship, he was vexed with stinging wrath at so dreadful a crime. and, resenting that a youth of such great parts should have renounced his descent from his glorious father, he hung on his shoulders a mighty mass of charcoal, as though it were some costly burden, and made his way to denmark. when asked by those he met why he was taking along so unusual a load, he said that he would sharpen the dull wits of king ingild to a point by bits of charcoal. so he accomplished a swift and headlong journey, as though at a single breath, by a short and speedy track; and at last, becoming the guest of ingild, he went up, as his custom was, in to the seat appointed for the great men; for he had been used to occupy the highest post of distinction with the kings of the last generation. when the queen came in, and saw him covered over with filth and clad in the mean, patched clothes of a peasant, the ugliness of her guest's dress made her judge him with little heed; and, measuring the man by the clothes, she reproached him with crassness of wit, because he had gone before greater men in taking his place at table, and had assumed a seat that was too good for his boorish attire. she bade him quit the place, that he might not touch the cushions with his dress, which was fouler than it should have been. for she put down to crassness and brazenness what starkad only did from proper pride; she knew not that on a high seat of honour the mind sometimes shines brighter than the raiment. the spirited old man obeyed, though vexed at the rebuff, and with marvellous self-control choked down the insult which his bravery so ill deserved; uttering at this disgrace he had received neither word nor groan. but he could not long bear to hide the bitterness of his anger in silence. rising, and retreating to the furthest end of the palace, he flung his body against the walls; and strong as they were, he so battered them with the shock, that the beams quaked mightily; and he nearly brought the house down in a crash. thus, stung not only with his rebuff, but with the shame of having poverty cast in his teeth, he unsheathed his wrath against the insulting speech of the queen with inexorable sternness. ingild, on his return from hunting, scanned him closely, and, when he noticed that he neither looked cheerfully about, nor paid him the respect of rising, saw by the sternness written on his brow that it was starkad. for when he noted his hands horny with fighting, his scars in front, the force and fire of his eye, he perceived that a man whose body was seamed with so many traces of wounds had no weakling soul. he therefore rebuked his wife, and charged her roundly to put away her haughty tempers, and to soothe and soften with kind words and gentle offices the man she had reviled; to comfort him with food and drink, and refresh him with kindly converse; saying, that this man had been appointed his tutor by his father long ago, and had been a most tender guardian of his childhood. then, learning too late the temper of the old man, she turned her harshness into gentleness, and respectfully waited on him whom she had rebuffed and railed at with bitter revilings. the angry hostess changed her part, and became the most fawning of flatterers. she wished to check his anger with her attentiveness; and her fault was the less, inasmuch as she was so quick in ministering to him after she had been chidden. but she paid dearly for it, for she presently beheld stained with the blood of her brethren the place where she had flouted and rebuffed the brave old man from his seat. now, in the evening, ingild took his meal with the sons of swerting, and fell to a magnificent feast, loading the tables with the profusest dishes. with friendly invitation he kept the old man back from leaving the revel too early; as though the delights of elaborate dainties could have undermined that staunch and sturdy virtue! but when starkad had set eyes on these things, he scorned so wanton a use of them; and, not to give way a whit to foreign fashions, he steeled his appetite against these tempting delicacies with the self-restraint which was his greatest strength. he would not suffer his repute as a soldier to be impaired by the allurements of an orgy. for his valour loved thrift, and was a stranger to all superfluity of food, and averse to feasting in excess. for his was a courage which never at any moment had time to make luxury of aught account, and always forewent pleasure to pay due heed to virtue. so, when he saw that the antique character of self-restraint, and all good old customs, were being corrupted by new-fangled luxury and sumptuosity, he wished to be provided with a morsel fitter for a peasant, and scorned the costly and lavish feast. spurning profuse indulgence in food, starkad took some smoky and rather rancid fare, appeasing his hunger with a bitter relish because more simply; and being unwilling to enfeeble his true valour with the tainted sweetness of sophisticated foreign dainties, or break the rule of antique plainness by such strange idolatries of the belly. he was also very wroth that they should go, to the extravagance of having the same meat both roasted and boiled at the same meal; for he considered an eatable which was steeped in the vapours of the kitchen, and which the skill of the cook rubbed over with many kinds of flavours, in the light of a monstrosity. unlike starkad ingild flung the example of his ancestors to the winds, and gave himself freer licence of innovation in the fashions of the table than the custom of his fathers allowed. for when he had once abandoned himself to the manners of teutonland, he did not blush to yield to its unmanly wantonness. no slight incentives to debauchery have flowed down our country's throat from that sink of a land. hence came magnificent dishes, sumptuous kitchens, the base service of cooks, and all sorts of abominable sausages. hence came our adoption, wandering from the ways of our fathers, of a more dissolute dress. thus our country, which cherished self-restraint as its native quality, has gone begging to our neighbours for luxury; whose allurements so charmed ingild, that he did not think it shameful to requite wrongs with kindness; nor did the grievous murder of his father make him heave one sigh of bitterness when it crossed his mind. but the queen would not depart without effecting her purpose. thinking that presents would be the best way to banish the old man's anger, she took off her own head a band of marvellous handiwork, and put it in his lap as he supped: desiring to buy his favour since she could not blunt his courage. but starkad, whose bitter resentment was not yet abated, flung it back in the face of the giver, thinking that in such a gift there was more scorn than respect. and he was wise not to put this strange ornament of female dress upon the head that was all bescarred and used to the helmet; for he knew that the locks of a man ought not to wear a woman's head-band. thus he avenged slight with slight, and repaid with retorted scorn the disdain he had received; thereby bearing himself well-nigh as nobly in avenging his disgrace as he had borne himself in enduring it. to the soul of starkad reverence for frode was grappled with hooks of love. drawn to him by deeds of bounty, countless kindnesses, he could not be wheedled into giving up his purpose of revenge by any sort of alluring complaisance. even now, when frode was no more, he was eager to pay the gratitude due to his benefits, and to requite the kindness of the dead, whose loving disposition and generous friendship he had experienced while he lived. for he bore graven so deeply in his heart the grievous picture of frode's murder, that his honour for that most famous captain could never be plucked from the inmost chamber of his soul; and therefore he did not hesitate to rank his ancient friendship before the present kindness. besides, when he recalled the previous affront, he could not thank the complaisance that followed; he could not put aside the disgraceful wound to his self-respect. for the memory of benefits or injuries ever sticks more firmly in the minds of brave men than in those of weaklings. for he had not the habits of those who follow their friends in prosperity and quit them in adversity, who pay more regard to fortune than to looks, and sit closer to their own gain than to charity toward others. but the woman held to her purpose, seeing that even so she could not win the old man to convivial mirth. continuing with yet more lavish courtesy her efforts to soothe him, and to heap more honours on the guest, she bade a piper strike up, and started music to melt his unbending rage. for she wanted to unnerve his stubborn nature by means of cunning sounds. but the cajolery of pipe or string was just as powerless to enfeeble that dogged warrior. when he heard it, he felt that the respect paid him savoured more of pretence than of love. hence the crestfallen performer seemed to be playing to a statue rather than a man, and learnt that it is vain for buffoons to assail with, their tricks a settled and weighty sternness, and that a mighty mass cannot be shaken with the idle puffing of the lips. for starkad had set his face so firmly in his stubborn wrath, that he seemed not a whit easier to move than ever. for the inflexibility which he owed his vows was not softened either by the strain of the lute or the enticements of the palate; and he thought that more respect should be paid to his strenuous and manly purpose than to the tickling of the ears or the lures of the feast. accordingly he flung the bone, which he had stripped in eating the meat, in the face of the harlequin, and drove the wind violently out of his puffed cheeks, so that they collapsed. by this he showed how his austerity loathed the clatter of the stage; for his ears were stopped with anger and open to no influence of delight. this reward, befitting an actor, punished an unseemly performance with a shameful wage. for starkad excellently judged the man's deserts, and bestowed a shankbone for the piper to pipe on, requiting his soft service with a hard fee. none could say whether the actor piped or wept the louder; he showed by his bitter flood of tears how little place bravery has in the breasts of the dissolute. for the fellow was a mere minion of pleasure, and had never learnt to bear the assaults of calamity. this man's hurt was ominous of the carnage that was to follow at the feast. right well did starkad's spirit, heedful of sternness, hold with stubborn gravity to steadfast revenge; for he was as much disgusted at the lute as others were delighted, and repaid the unwelcome service by insultingly flinging a bone; thus avowing that he owed a greater debt to the glorious dust of his mighty friend than to his shameless and infamous ward. but when starkad saw that the slayers of frode were in high favour with the king, his stern glances expressed the mighty wrath which he harboured, and his face betrayed what he felt. the visible fury of his gaze betokened the secret tempest in his heart. at last, when ingild tried to appease him with royal fare, he spurned the dainty. satisfied with cheap and common food, he utterly spurned outlandish delicacies; he was used to plain diet, and would not pamper his palate with any delightful flavour. when he was asked why he had refused the generous attention of the king with such a clouded brow, he said that he had come to denmark to find the son of frode, not a man who crammed his proud and gluttonous stomach with rich elaborate feasts. for the teuton extravagance which the king favoured had led him, in his longing for the pleasures of abundance, to set to the fire again, for roasting, dishes which had been already boiled. thereupon he could not forbear from attacking ingild's character, but poured out the whole bitterness of his reproaches on his head. he condemned his unfilial spirit, because he gaped with repletion and vented his squeamishness in filthy hawkings; because, following the lures of the saxons, he strayed and departed far from soberness; because he was so lacking in manhood as not to pursue even the faintest shadow of it. but, declared starkad, he bore the heaviest load of infamy, because, even when he first began to see service, he forgot to avenge his father, to whose butchers, forsaking the law of nature, he was kind and attentive. men whose deserts were most vile he welcomed with loving affection; and not only did he let those go scot-free, whom he should have punished most sharply, but he even judged them fit persons to live with and entertain at his table, whereas he should rather have put them to death. hereupon starkad is also said to have sung as follows: "let the unwarlike youth yield to the aged, let him honour all the years of him that is old. when a man is brave, let none reproach the number of his days. "though the hair of the ancient whiten with age, their valour stays still the same; nor shall the lapse of time have power to weaken their manly heart. "i am elbowed away by the offensive guest, who taints with vice his outward show of goodness, whilst he is the slave of his belly and prefers his daily dainties to anything. "when i was counted as a comrade of frode, i ever sat in the midst of warriors on a high seat in the hall, and i was the first of the princes to take my meal. "now, the lot of a nobler age is reversed; i am shut in a corner, i am like the fish that seeks shelter as it wanders to and fro hidden in the waters. "i, who used surely in the former age to lie back on a couch handsomely spread, am now thrust among the hindmost and driven from the crowded hall. "perchance i had been driven on my back at the doors, had not the wall struck my side and turned me back, and had not the beam, in the way made it hard for me to fly when i was thrust forth. "i am baited with the jeers of the court-folk; i am not received as a guest should be; i am girded at with harsh gibing, and stung with babbling taunts. "i am a stranger, and would gladly know what news are spread abroad by busy rumour; what is the course of events; what the order of the land; what is doing in your country. "thou, ingild, buried in sin, why dost thou tarry in the task of avenging thy father? wilt thou think tranquilly of the slaughter of thy righteous sire? "why dost thou, sluggard, think only of feasting, and lean thy belly back in ease, more effeminate than harlots? is the avenging of thy slaughtered father a little thing to thee? "when last i left thee, frode, i learned by my prophetic soul that thou, mightiest of kings, wouldst surely perish by the sword of enemies. "and while i travelled long in the land, a warning groan rose in my soul, which augured that thereafter i was never to see thee more. "wo is me, that then i was far away, harrying the farthest peoples of the earth, when the traitorous guest aimed craftily at the throat of his king. "else i would either have shown myself the avenger of my lord, or have shared his fate and fallen where he fell, and would joyfully have followed the blessed king in one and the same death. "i have not come to indulge in gluttonous feasting, the sin whereof i will strive to chastise; nor will i take mine ease, nor the delights of the fat belly. "no famous king has ever set me before in the middle by the strangers. i have been wont to sit in the highest seats among friends. "i have come from sweden, travelling over wide lands, thinking that i should be rewarded, if only i had the joy to find the son of my beloved frode. "but i sought a brave man, and i have come to a glutton, a king who is the slave of his belly and of vice, whose liking has been turned back towards wantonness by filthy pleasure. "famous is the speech men think that halfdan spoke: he warned us it would soon come to pass that an understanding father should beget a witless son. "though the heir be deemed degenerate, i will not suffer the wealth of mighty frode to profit strangers or to be made public like plunder." at these words the queen trembled, and she took from her head the ribbon with which she happened, in woman's fashion, to be adorning her hair, and proffered it to the enraged old man, as though she could avert his anger with a gift. starkad in anger flung it back most ignominiously in the face of the giver, and began again in a loud voice: "take hence, i pray thee, thy woman's gift, and set back thy headgear on thy head; no brave man assumes the chaplets that befit love only. "for it is amiss that the hair of men that are ready for battle should be bound back with wreathed gold; such attire is right for the throngs of the soft and effeminate. "but take this gift to thy husband, who loves luxury, whose finger itches, while he turns over the rump and handles the flesh of the bird roasted brown. "the flighty and skittish wife of ingild longs to observe the fashions of the teutons; she prepares the orgy and makes ready the artificial dainties. "for she tickles the palate with a new-fangled feast; she pursues the zest of an unknown flavour, raging to load all the tables with dishes yet more richly than before. "she gives her lord wine to drink in bowls, pondering all things with zealous preparation; she bids the cooked meats be roasted, and intends them for a second fire. "wantonly she feeds her husband like a hog; a shameless whore, trusting.... "she roasts the boiled, and recooks the roasted meats, planning the meal with spendthrift extravagance, careless of right and wrong, practising sin, a foul woman. "wanton in arrogance, a soldier of love, longing for dainties, she abjures the fair ways of self-control, and also provides devices for gluttony. "with craving stomach she desires turnip strained in a smooth pan, cakes with thin juice, and shellfish in rows. "i do not remember the great frode putting his hand to the sinews of birds, or tearing the rump of a cooked fowl with crooked thumb. "what former king could have been so gluttonous as to stir the stinking filthy flesh, or rummage in the foul back of a bird with plucking fingers? "the food of valiant men is raw; no need, methinks, of sumptuous tables for those whose stubborn souls are bent on warfare. "it had been fitter for thee to have torn the stiff beard, biting hard with thy teeth, than greedily to have drained the bowl of milk with thy wide mouth. "we fled from the offence of the sumptuous kitchen; we stayed our stomach with rancid fare; few in the old days loved cooked juices. "a dish with no sauce of herbs gave us the flesh of rams and swine. we partook temperately, tainting nothing with bold excess. "thou who now lickest the milk-white fat, put on, prithee, the spirit of a man; remember frode, and avenge thy father's death. "the worthless and cowardly heart shall perish, and shall not parry the thrust of death by flight, though it bury itself in a valley, or crouch in darkling dens. "once we were eleven princes, devoted followers of king hakon, and here geigad sat above helge in the order of the meal. "geigad used to appease the first pangs of hunger with a dry rump of ham; and plenty of hard crust quelled the craving of his stomach. "no one asked for a sickly morsel; all took their food in common; the meal of mighty men cost but slight display. "the commons shunned foreign victual, and the greatest lusted not for a feast; even the king remembered to live temperately at little cost. "scorning to look at the mead, he drank the fermented juice of ceres; he shrank not from the use of undercooked meats, and hated the roast. "the board used to stand with slight display, a modest salt-cellar showed the measure of its cost; lest the wise ways of antiquity should in any wise be changed by foreign usage. "of old, no man put flagons or mixing-bowls on the tables; the steward filled the cup from the butt, and there was no abundance of adorned vessels. "no one who honoured past ages put the smooth wine-jars beside the tankards, and of old no bedizened lackey heaped the platter with dainties. "nor did the vainglorious host deck the meal with little salt-shell or smooth cup; but all has been now abolished in shameful wise by the new-fangled manners. "who would ever have borne to take money in ransom for the death of a lost parent, or to have asked a foe for a gift to atone for the murder of a father? "what strong heir or well-starred son would have sat side by side with such as these, letting a shameful bargain utterly unnerve the warrior? "wherefore, when the honours of kings are sung, and bards relate the victories of captains, i hide my face for shame in my mantle, sick at heart. "for nothing shines in thy trophies, worthy to be recorded by the pen; no heir of frode is named in the roll of the honourable. "why dost thou vex me with insolent gaze, thou who honourest the foe guilty of thy father's blood, and art thought only to take thy vengeance with loaves and warm soup? "when men speak well of the avengers of crimes, then long thou to lose thy quick power of hearing, that thy impious spirit may not be ashamed. "for oft has the virtue of another vexed a heart that knows its guilt, and the malice in the breast is abashed by the fair report of the good. "though thou go to the east, or live sequestered in the countries of the west, or whether, driven thence, thou seek the midmost place of the earth; "whether thou revisit the cold quarter of the heaven where the pole is to be seen, and carries on the sphere with its swift spin, and looks down upon the neighbouring bear; "shame shall accompany thee far, and shall smite thy countenance with heavy disgrace, when the united assembly of the great kings is taking pastime. "since everlasting dishonour awaits thee, thou canst not come amidst the ranks of the famous; and in every clime thou shalt pass thy days in infamy. "the fates have given frode an offspring born into the world when gods were adverse, whose desires have been enthralled by crime and ignoble lust. "even as in a ship all things foul gather to the filthy hollow of the bilge, even so hath a flood of vices poured into ingild. "therefore, in terror of thy shame being published, thou shalt lie crushed in the corners of the land, sluggish on thy foul hearth, and never to be seen in the array of the famous. "then shalt thou shake thy beard at thine evil fate, kept down by the taunts of thy mistresses, when thy paramour galls thy ear with her querulous cries. "since chill fear retards thy soul, and thou dreadest to become the avenger of thy sire, thou art utterly degenerate, and thy ways are like a slave's. "it would have needed scant preparation to destroy thee; even as if a man should catch and cut the throat of a kid, or slit the weazand of a soft sheep and butcher it. "behold, a son of the tyrant swerting shall take the inheritance of denmark after thee; he whose slothful sister thou keepest in infamous union. "whilst thou delightest to honour thy bride, laden with gems and shining in gold apparel, we burn with all indignation that is linked with shame, lamenting thy infamies. "when thou art stirred by furious lust, our mind is troubled, and recalls the fashion of ancient times, and bids us grieve sorely. "for we rate otherwise than thou the crime of the foes whom now thou holdest in honour; wherefore the face of this age is a burden to me, remembering the ancient ways. "i would crave no greater blessing, o frode, if i might see those guilty of thy murder duly punished for such a crime." now he prevailed so well by this stirring counsel, that his reproach served like a flint wherewith to strike a blazing flame of valour in the soul that had been chill and slack. for the king had at first heard the song inattentively; but, stirred by the earnest admonition of his guardian, he conceived in his heart a tardy fire of revenge; and, forgetting the reveller, he changed into the foeman. at last he leapt up from where he lay, and poured the whole flood of his anger on those at table with him; insomuch that he unsheathed his sword upon the sons of swerting with bloody ruthlessness, and aimed with drawn blade at the throats of those whose gullets he had pampered with the pleasures of the table. these men he forthwith slew; and by so doing he drowned the holy rites of the table in blood. he sundered the feeble bond of their league, and exchanged a shameful revel for enormous cruelty; the host became the foe, and that vilest slave of excess the bloodthirsty agent of revenge. for the vigorous pleading of his counsellor bred a breath of courage in his soft and unmanly youth; it drew out his valour from its lurking-place, and renewed it, and so fashioned it that the authors of a most grievous murder were punished even as they deserved. for the young man's valour had been not quenched, but only in exile, and the aid of an old man had drawn it out into the light; and it accomplished a deed which was all the greater for its tardiness; for it was somewhat nobler to steep the cups in blood than in wine. what a spirit, then, must we think that old man had, who by his eloquent adjuration expelled from that king's mind its infinite sin, and who, bursting the bonds of iniquity, implanted a most effectual seed of virtue. starkad aided the king with equal achievements; and not only showed the most complete courage in his own person, but summoned back that which had been rooted out of the heart of another. when the deed was done, he thus begun: "king ingild, farewell; thy heart, full of valour, hath now shown a deed of daring. the spirit that reigns in thy body is revealed by its fair beginning; nor did there lack deep counsel in thy heart, though thou wert silent till this hour; for thou dost redress by thy bravery what delay had lost, and redeemest the sloth of thy spirit by mighty valour. come now, let us rout the rest, and let none escape the peril which all alike deserve. let the crime come home to the culprit; let the sin return and crush its contriver. "let the servants take up in a car the bodies of the slain, and let the attendant quickly bear out the carcases. justly shall they lack the last rites; they are unworthy to be covered with a mound; let no funeral procession or pyre suffer them the holy honour of a barrow; let them be scattered to rot in the fields, to be consumed by the beaks of birds; let them taint the country all about with their deadly corruption. "do thou too, king, if thou hast any wit, flee thy savage bride, lest the she-wolf bring forth a litter like herself, and a beast spring from thee that shall hurt its own father. "tell me, rote, continual derider of cowards, thinkest thou that we have avenged frode enough, when we have spent seven deaths on the vengeance of one? lo, those are borne out dead who paid homage not to thy sway in deed, but only in show, and though obsequious they planned treachery. but i always cherished this hope, that noble fathers have noble offspring, who will follow in their character the lot which they received by their birth. therefore, ingild, better now than in time past dost thou deserve to be called lord of leire and of denmark. "when, o king hakon, i was a beardless youth, and followed thy leading and command in warfare, i hated luxury and wanton souls, and practiced only wars. training body and mind together, i banished every unholy thing from my soul, and shunned the pleasures of the belly, loving deeds of prowess. for those that followed the calling of arms had rough clothing and common gear and short slumbers and scanty rest. toil drove ease far away, and the time ran by at scanty cost. not as with some men now, the light of whose reason is obscured by insatiate greed with its blind maw. some one of these clad in a covering of curiously wrought raiment effeminately guides the fleet-footed (steed), and unknots his dishevelled locks, and lets his hair fly abroad loosely. "he loves to plead often in the court, and to covet a base pittance, and with this pursuit he comforts his sluggish life, doing with venal tongue the business entrusted to him. "he outrages the laws by force, he makes armed assault upon men's rights, he tramples on the innocent, he feeds on the wealth of others, he practices debauchery and gluttony, he vexes good fellowship with biting jeers, and goes after harlots as a hoe after the grass. "the coward falls when battles are lulled in peace. though he who fears death lie in the heart of the valley, no mantlet shall shelter him. his final fate carries off every living man; doom is not to be averted by skulking. but i, who have shaken the whole world with my slaughters, shall i enjoy a peaceful death? shall i be taken up to the stars in a quiet end? shall i die in my bed without a wound?" book seven. we are told by historians of old, that ingild had four sons, of whom three perished in war, while olaf alone reigned after his father; but some say that olaf was the son of ingild's sister, though this opinion is doubtful. posterity has but an uncertain knowledge of his deeds, which are dim with the dust of antiquity; nothing but the last counsel of his wisdom has been rescued by tradition. for when he was in the last grip of death he took thought for his sons frode and harald, and bade them have royal sway, one over the land and the other over the sea, and receive these several powers, not in prolonged possession, but in yearly rotation. thus their share in the rule was made equal; but frode, who was the first to have control of the affairs of the sea, earned disgrace from his continual defeats in roving. his calamity was due to his sailors being newly married, and preferring nuptial joys at home to the toils of foreign warfare. after a time harald, the younger son, received the rule of the sea, and chose soldiers who were unmarried, fearing to be baffled like his brother. fortune favoured his choice; for he was as glorious a rover as his brother was inglorious; and this earned him his brother's hatred. moreover, their queens, signe and ulfhild, one of whom was the daughter of siward, king of sweden, the other of karl, the governor of gothland, were continually wrangling as to which was the nobler, and broke up the mutual fellowship of their husbands. hence harald and frode, when their common household was thus shattered, divided up the goods they held in common, and gave more heed to the wrangling altercations of the women than to the duties of brotherly affection. moreover, frode, judging that his brother's glory was a disgrace to himself and brought him into contempt, ordered one of his household to put him to death secretly; for he saw that the man of whom he had the advantage in years was surpassing him in courage. when the deed was done, he had the agent of his treachery privily slain, lest the accomplice should betray the crime. then, in order to gain the credit of innocence and escape the brand of crime, he ordered a full inquiry to be made into the mischance that had cut off his brother so suddenly. but he could not manage, by all his arts, to escape silent condemnation in the thoughts of the common people. he afterwards asked karl, "who had killed harald?" and karl replied that it was deceitful in him to ask a question about something which he knew quite well. these words earned him his death; for frode thought that he had reproached him covertly with fratricide. after this, the lives of harald and halfdan, the sons of harald by signe the daughter of karl, were attempted by their uncle. but the guardians devised a cunning method of saving their wards. for they cut off the claws of wolves and tied them to the soles of their feet; and then made them run along many times so as to harrow up the mud near their dwelling, as well as the ground (then covered with, snow), and give the appearance of an attack by wild beasts. then they killed the children of some bond-women, tore their bodies into little pieces, and scattered their mangled limbs all about. so when the youths were looked for in vain, the scattered limbs were found, the tracks of the beasts were pointed out, and the ground was seen besmeared with blood. it was believed that the boys had been devoured by ravening wolves; and hardly anyone was suffered to doubt so plain a proof that they were mangled. the belief in this spectacle served to protect the wards. they were presently shut up by their guardians in a hollow oak, so that no trace of their being alive should get abroad, and were fed for a long time under pretence that they were dogs; and were even called by hounds' names, to prevent any belief getting abroad that they were hiding. ( ) frode alone refused to believe in their death; and he went and inquired of a woman skilled in divination where they were hid. so potent were her spells, that she seemed able, at any distance, to perceive anything, however intricately locked away, and to summon it out to light. she declared that one ragnar had secretly undertaken to rear them, and had called them by the names of dogs to cover the matter. when the young men found themselves dragged from their hiding by the awful force of her spells, and brought before the eyes of the enchantress, loth to be betrayed by this terrible and imperious compulsion, they flung into her lap a shower of gold which they had received from their guardians. when she had taken the gift, she suddenly feigned death, and fell like one lifeless. her servants asked the reason why she fell so suddenly; and she declared that the refuge of the sons of harald was inscrutable; for their wondrous might qualified even the most awful effects of her spells. thus she was content with a slight benefit, and could not bear to await a greater reward at the king's hands. after this ragnar, finding that the belief concerning himself and his wards was becoming rife in common talk, took them, both away into funen. here he was taken by frode, and confessed that he had put the young men in safe keeping; and he prayed the king to spare the wards whom he had made fatherless, and not to think it a piece of good fortune to be guilty of two unnatural murders. by this speech he changed the king's cruelty into shame; and he promised that if they attempted any plots in their own land, he would give information to the king. thus he gained safety for his wards, and lived many years in freedom from terror. when the boys grew up, they went to zealand, and were bidden by their friends to avenge their father. they vowed that they and their uncle should not both live out the year. when ragnar found this out, he went by night to the palace, prompted by the recollection of his covenant, and announced that he was come privily to tell the king something he had promised. but the king was asleep, and he would not suffer them to wake him up, because frode had been used to punish any disturbance of his rest with the sword. so mighty a matter was it thought of old to break the slumbers of a king by untimely intrusion. frode heard this from the sentries in the morning; and when he perceived that ragnar had come to tell him of the treachery, he gathered together his soldiers, and resolved to forestall deceit by ruthless measures. harald's sons had no help for it but to feign madness. for when they found themselves suddenly attacked, they began to behave like maniacs, as if they were distraught. and when frode thought that they were possessed, he gave up his purpose, thinking it shameful to attack with the sword those who seemed to be turning the sword against themselves. but he was burned to death by them on the following night, and was punished as befitted a fratricide. for they attacked the palace, and first crushing the queen with a mass of stones and then, having set fire to the house, they forced frode to crawl into a narrow cave that had been cut out long before, and into the dark recesses of tunnels. here he lurked in hiding and perished, stifled by the reek and smoke. after frode was killed, halfdan reigned over his country about three years, and then, handing over his sovereignty to his brother harald as deputy, went roving, and attacked and ravaged oland and the neighbouring isles, which are severed from contact with sweden by a winding sound. here in the winter he beached and entrenched his ships, and spent three years on the expedition. after this he attacked sweden, and destroyed its king in the field. afterwards he prepared to meet the king's grandson erik, the son of his own uncle frode, in battle; and when he heard that erik's champion, hakon, was skillful in blunting swords with his spells, he fashioned, to use for clubbing, a huge mace studded with iron knobs, as if he would prevail by the strength of wood over the power of sorcery. then--for he was conspicuous beyond all others for his bravery--amid the hottest charges of the enemy, he covered his head with his helmet, and, without a shield, poised his club, and with the help of both hands whirled it against the bulwark of shields before him. no obstacle was so stout but it was crushed to pieces by the blow of the mass that smote it. thus he overthrew the champion, who ran against him in the battle, with a violent stroke of his weapon. but he was conquered notwithstanding, and fled away into helsingland, where he went to one witolf (who had served of old with harald), to seek tendance for his wounds. this man had spent most of his life in camp; but at last, after the grievous end of his general, he had retreated into this lonely district, where he lived the life of a peasant, and rested from the pursuits of war. often struck himself by the missiles of the enemy, he had gained no slight skill in leechcraft by constantly tending his own wounds. but if anyone came with flatteries to seek his aid, instead of curing him he was accustomed to give him something that would secretly injure him, thinking it somewhat nobler to threaten than to wheedle for benefits. when the soldiers of erik menaced his house, in their desire to take halfdan, he so robbed them of the power of sight that they could neither perceive the house nor trace it with certainty, though it was close to them. so utterly had their eyesight been dulled by a decisive mist. when halfdan had by this man's help regained his full strength, he summoned thore, a champion of notable capacity, and proclaimed war against erik. but when the forces were led out on the other side, and he saw that erik was superior in numbers, he hid a part of his army, and instructed it to lie in ambush among the bushes by the wayside, in order to destroy the enemy by an ambuscade as he marched through the narrow part of the path. erik foresaw this, having reconnoitred his means of advancing, and thought he must withdraw for fear, if he advanced along the track he had intended, of being hard-pressed by the tricks of the enemy among the steep windings of the hills. they therefore joined battle, force against force, in a deep valley, inclosed all round by lofty mountain ridges. here halfdan, when he saw the line of his men wavering, climbed with thore up a crag covered with stones and, uprooting boulders, rolled them down upon the enemy below; and the weight of these as they fell crushed the line that was drawn up in the lower position. thus he regained with stones the victory which he had lost with arms. for this deed of prowess he received the name of biargramm ("rock strong"), a word which seems to have been compounded from the name of his fierceness and of the mountains. he soon gained so much esteem for this among the swedes that he was thought to be the son of the great thor, and the people bestowed divine honours upon him, and judged him worthy of public libation. but the souls of the conquered find it hard to rest, and the insolence of the beaten ever struggles towards the forbidden thing. so it came to pass that erik, in his desire to repair the losses incurred in flight, attacked the districts subject to halfdan. even denmark he did not exempt from this harsh treatment; for he thought it a most worthy deed to assail the country of the man who had caused him to be driven from his own. and so, being more anxious to inflict injury than to repel it, he set sweden free from the arms of the enemy. when halfdan heard that his brother harald had been beaten by erik in three battles, and slain in the fourth, he was afraid of losing his empire; he had to quit the land of the swedes and go back to his own country. thus erik regained the kingdom of sweden all the more quickly, that he quitted it so lightly. had fortune wished to favour him in keeping his kingdom as much as she had in regaining it, she would in nowise have given him into the hand of halfdan. this capture was made in the following way: when halfdan had gone back into sweden, he hid his fleet craftily, and went to meet erik with two vessels. erik attacked him with ten; and halfdan, sailing through sundry winding channels, stole back to his concealed forces. erik pursued him too far, and the danish fleet came out on the sea. thus erik was surrounded; but he rejected the life, which was offered him under condition of thraldom. he could not bear to think more of the light of day than liberty, and chose to die rather than serve; lest he should seem to love life so well as to turn from a slave into a freeman; and that he might not court with new-born obeisance the man whom fortune had just before made only his equal. so little knows virtue how to buy life with dishonour. wherefore he was put in chains, and banished to a place haunted by wild beasts; an end unworthy of that lofty spirit. halfdan had thus become sovereign of both kingdoms, and graced his fame with a triple degree of honour. for he was skillful and eloquent in composing poems in the fashion of his country; and he was no less notable as a valorous champion than as a powerful king. but when he heard that two active rovers, toke and anund, were threatening the surrounding districts, he attacked and routed them in a sea-fight. for the ancients thought that nothing was more desirable than glory which was gained, not by brilliancy of wealth, but by address in arms. accordingly, the most famous men of old were so minded as to love seditions, to renew quarrels, to loathe ease, to prefer fighting to peace, to be rated by their valour and not by their wealth, to find their greatest delight in battles, and their least in banquetings. but halfdan was not long to seek for a rival. a certain siwald, of most illustrious birth, related with lamentation in the assembly of the swedes the death of frode and his queen; and inspired in almost all of them such a hatred of halfdan, that the vote of the majority granted him permission to revolt. nor was he content with the mere goodwill of their voices, but so won the heart of the commons by his crafty canvassing that he induced almost all of them to set with their hands the royal emblem on his head. siwald had seven sons, who were such clever sorcerers that often, inspired with the force of sudden frenzy, they would roar savagely, bite their shields, swallow hot coals, and go through any fire that could be piled up; and their frantic passion could only be checked by the rigour of chains, or propitiated by slaughter of men. with such a frenzy did their own sanguinary temper, or else the fury of demons, inspire them. when halfdan had heard of these things while busy roving, he said it was right that his soldiers, who had hitherto spent their rage upon foreigners, should now smite with the steel the flesh of their own countrymen, and that they who had been used to labour to extend their realm should now avenge its wrongful seizure. on halfdan approaching, siwald sent him ambassadors and requested him, if he was as great in act as in renown, to meet himself and his sons in single combat, and save the general peril by his own. when the other answered, that a combat could not lawfully be fought by more than two men, siwald said, that it was no wonder that a childless bachelor should refuse the proffered conflict, since his nature was void of heat, and had struck a disgraceful frost into his soul and body. children, he added, were not different from the man who begot them, since they drew from him their common principle of birth. thus he and his sons were to be accounted as one person, for nature seemed in a manner to have bestowed on them a single body. halfdan, stung with this shameful affront, accepted the challenge; meaning to wipe out with noble deeds of valour such an insulting taunt upon his celibacy. and while he chanced to be walking through a shady woodland, he plucked up by the roots all oak that stuck in his path, and, by simply stripping it of its branches, made it look like a stout club. having this trusty weapon, he composed a short song as follows: "behold! the rough burden which i bear with straining crest, shall unto crests bring wounds and destruction. never shall any weapon of leafy wood crush the goths with direr augury. it shall shatter the towering strength of the knotty neck, and shall bruise the hollow temples with the mass of timber. the club which shall quell the wild madness of the land shall be no less fatal to the swedes. breaking bones, and brandished about the mangled limbs of warriors, the stock i have wrenched off shall crush the backs of the wicked, crush the hearths of our kindred, shed the blood of our countrymen, and be a destructive pest upon our land." when he had said this, he attacked siwald and his seven sons, and destroyed them, their force and bravery being useless against the enormous mass of his club. at this time one hardbeen, who came from helsingland, gloried in kidnapping and ravishing princesses, and used to kill any man who hindered him in his lusts. he preferred high matches to those that were lowly; and the more illustrious the victims he could violate, the more noble he thought himself. no man escaped unpunished who durst measure himself with hardbeen in valour. he was so huge, that his stature reached the measure of nine ells. he had twelve champions dwelling with him, whose business it was to rise up and to restrain his fury with the aid of bonds, whenever the rage came on him that foreboded of battle. these men asked halfdan to attack hardbeen and his champions man by man; and he not only promised to fight, but assured himself the victory with most confident words. when hardbeen heard this, a demoniacal frenzy suddenly took him; he furiously bit and devoured the edges of his shield; he kept gulping down fiery coals; he snatched live embers in his mouth and let them pass down into his entrails; he rushed through the perils of crackling fires; and at last, when he had raved through every sort of madness, he turned his sword with raging hand against the hearts of six of his champions. it is doubtful whether this madness came from thirst for battle or natural ferocity. then with the remaining band of his champions he attacked halfdan, who crushed him with a hammer of wondrous size, so that he lost both victory and life; paying the penalty both to halfdan, whom he had challenged, and to the kings whose offspring he had violently ravished. fortune never seemed satisfied with the trying of halfdan's strength, and used to offer him unexpected occasions for fighting. it so happened that egther, a finlander, was harrying the swedes on a roving raid. halfdan, having found that he had three ships, attacked him with the same number. night closed the battle, so that he could not conquer him; but he challenged egther next day, fought with and overthrew him. he next heard that grim, a champion of immense strength, was suing, under threats of a duel, for thorhild, the daughter of the chief hather, and that her father had proclaimed that he who put the champion out of the way should have her. halfdan, though he had reached old age a bachelor, was stirred by the promise of the chief as much as by the insolence of the champion, and went to norway. when he entered it, he blotted out every mark by which he could be recognized, disguising his face with splashes of dirt; and when he came to the spot of the battle, drew his sword first. and when he knew that it had been blunted by the glance of the enemy, he cast it on the ground, drew another from the sheath, with which he attacked grim, cutting through the meshes on the edge of his cuirass, as well as the lower part of his shield. grim wondered at the deed, and said, "i cannot remember an old man who fought more keenly;" and, instantly drawing his sword, he pierced through and shattered the target that was opposed to his blade. but as his right arm tarried on the stroke, halfdan, without wavering, met and smote it swiftly with his sword. the other, notwithstanding, clasped his sword with his left hand, and cut through the thigh of the striker, revenging the mangling of his own body with a slight wound. halfdan, now conqueror, allowed the conquered man to ransom the remnant of his life with a sum of money; he would not be thought shamefully to rob a maimed man, who could not fight, of the pitiful remainder of his days. by this deed he showed himself almost as great in saving as in conquering his enemy. as a prize for this victory he won thorhild in marriage, and had by her a son asmund, from whom the kings of norway treasure the honour of being descended; retracing the regular succession of their line down from halfdan. after this, ebbe, a rover of common birth, was so confident of his valour, that he was moved to aspire to a splendid marriage. he was a suitor for sigrid, the daughter of yngwin, king of the goths, and moreover demanded half the gothic kingdom for her dowry. halfdan was consulted whether the match should be entertained, and advised that a feigned consent should be given, promising that he would baulk the marriage. he also gave instructions that a seat should be allotted to himself among the places of the guests at table. yngwin approved the advice; and halfdan, utterly defacing the dignity of his royal presence with an unsightly and alien disguise, and coming by night on the wedding feast, alarmed those who met him; for they marvelled at the coming of a man of such superhuman stature. when halfdan entered the palace, he looked round on all and asked, who was he that had taken the place next to the king? upon ebbe replying that the future son-in-law of the king was next to his side, halfdan asked him, in the most passionate language, what madness, or what demons, had brought him to such wantonness, as to make bold to unite his contemptible and filthy race with a splendid and illustrious line, or to dare to lay his peasant finger upon the royal family: and, not content even with such a claim, to aspire, as it seemed, to a share even in the kingdom of another. then he bade ebbe fight him, saying that he must get the victory before he got his wish. the other answered that the night was the time to fight with monsters, but the day the time with men; but halfdan, to prevent him shirking the battle by pleading the hour, declared that the moon was shining with the brightness of daylight. thus he forced ebbe to fight, and felled him, turning the banquet into a spectacle, and the wedding into a funeral. some years passed, and halfdan went back to his own country, and being childless he bequeathed the royal wealth by will to yngwin, and appointed him king. yngwin was afterwards overthrown in war by a rival named ragnald, and he left a son siwald. siwald's daughter, sigrid, was of such excellent modesty, that though a great concourse of suitors wooed her for her beauty, it seemed as if she could not be brought to look at one of them. confident in this power of self-restraint, she asked her father for a husband who by the sweetness of his blandishments should be able to get a look back from her. for in old time among us the self-restraint of the maidens was a great subduer of wanton looks, lest the soundness of the soul should be infected by the licence of the eyes; and women desired to avouch the purity of their hearts by the modesty of their faces. then one ottar, the son of ebb, kindled with confidence in the greatness either of his own achievements, or of his courtesy and eloquent address, stubbornly and ardently desired to woo the maiden. and though he strove with all the force of his wit to soften her gaze, no device whatever could move her downcast eyes; and, marvelling at her persistence in her indomitable rigour, he departed. a giant desired the same thing, but, finding himself equally foiled, he suborned a woman; and she, pretending friendship for the girl, served her for a while as her handmaid, and at last enticed her far from her father's house, by cunningly going out of the way; then the giant rushed upon her and bore her off into the closest fastnesses of a ledge on the mountain. others think that he disguised himself as a woman, treacherously continued his devices so as to draw the girl away from her own house, and in the end carried her off. when ottar heard of this, he ransacked the recesses of the mountain in search of the maiden, found her, slew the giant, and bore her off. but the assiduous giant had bound back the locks of the maiden, tightly twisting her hair in such a way that the matted mass of tresses was held in a kind of curled bundle; nor was it easy for anyone to unravel their plaited tangle, without using the steel. again, he tried with divers allurements to provoke the maiden to look at him; and when he had long laid vain siege to her listless eyes, he abandoned his quest, since his purpose turned out so little to his liking. but he could not bring himself to violate the girl, loth to defile with ignoble intercourse one of illustrious birth. she then wandered long, and sped through divers desert and circuitous paths, and happened to come to the hut of a certain huge woman of the woods, who set her to the task of pasturing her goats. again ottar granted her his aid to set her free, and again he tried to move her, addressing her in this fashion: "wouldst thou rather hearken to my counsels, and embrace me even as i desire, than be here and tend the flock of rank goats? "spurn the hand of thy wicked mistress, and flee hastily from thy cruel taskmistress, that thou mayst go back with me to the ships of thy friends and live in freedom. "quit the care of the sheep entrusted to thee; scorn to drive the steps of the goats; share my bed, and fitly reward my prayers. "o thou whom i have sought with such pains, turn again thy listless beams; for a little while--it is an easy gesture--lift thy modest face. "i will take thee hence, and set thee by the house of thy father, and unite thee joyfully with thy loving mother, if but once thou wilt show me thine eyes stirred with soft desires. "thou, whom i have borne so oft from the prisons of the giants, pay thou some due favour to my toil of old; pity my hard endeavours, and be stern no more. "for why art thou become so distraught and brainsick, that thou wilt choose to tend the flock of another, and be counted among the servants of monsters, sooner than encourage our marriage-troth with fitting and equal consent?" but she, that she might not suffer the constancy of her chaste mind to falter by looking at the world without, restrained her gaze, keeping her lids immovably rigid. how modest, then, must we think, were the women of that age, when, under the strongest provocations of their lovers, they could not be brought to make the slightest motion of their eyes! so when ottar found that even by the merits of his double service he could not stir the maiden's gaze towards him, he went back to the fleet, wearied out with shame and chagrin. sigrid, in her old fashion, ran far away over the rocks, and chanced to stray in her wanderings to the abode of ebb; where, ashamed of her nakedness and distress, she pretended to be a daughter of paupers. the mother of ottar saw that this woman, though bestained and faded, and covered with a meagre cloak, was the scion of some noble stock; and took her, and with honourable courtesy kept her by her side in a distinguished seat. for the beauty of the maiden was a sign that betrayed her birth, and her telltale features echoed her lineage. ottar saw her, and asked why she hid her face in her robe. also, in order to test her mind more surely, he feigned that a woman was about to become his wife, and, as he went up into the bride-bed, gave sigrid the torch to hold. the lights had almost burnt down, and she was hard put to it by the flame coming closer; but she showed such an example of endurance that she was seen to hold her hand motionless, and might have been thought to feel no annoyance from the heat. for the fire within mastered the fire without, and the glow of her longing soul deadened the burn of her scorched skin. at last ottar bade her look to her hand. then, modestly lifting her eyes, she turned her calm gaze upon him; and straightway, the pretended marriage being put away, went up unto the bride-bed to be his wife. siwald afterwards seized ottar, and thought that he ought to be hanged for defiling his daughter. but sigrid at once explained how she had happened to be carried away, and not only brought ottar back into the king's favour, but also induced her father himself to marry ottar's sister. after this a battle was fought between siwald and ragnald in zealand, warriors of picked valour being chosen on both sides. for three days they slaughtered one another; but so great was the bravery of both sides, that it was doubtful how the victory would go. then ottar, whether seized with weariness at the prolonged battle, or with desire of glory, broke, despising death, through the thickest of the foe, cut down ragnald among the bravest of his soldiers, and won the danes a sudden victory. this battle was notable for the cowardice of the greatest nobles. for the whole mass fell into such a panic, that forty of the bravest of the swedes are said to have turned and fled. the chief of these, starkad, had been used to tremble at no fortune, however cruel, and no danger, however great. but some strange terror stole upon him, and he chose to follow the flight of his friends rather than to despise it. i should think that he was filled with this alarm by the power of heaven, that he might not think himself courageous beyond the measure of human valour. thus the prosperity of mankind is wont ever to be incomplete. then all these warriors embraced the service of king hakon, the mightiest of the rovers, like remnants of the war drifting to him. after this siwald was succeeded by his son sigar, who had sons siwald, alf, and alger, and a daughter signe. all excelled the rest in spirit and beauty, and devoted himself to the business of a rover. such a grace was shed on his hair, which had a wonderful dazzling glow, that his locks seemed to shine silvery. at the same time siward, the king of the goths, is said to have had two sons, wemund and osten, and a daughter alfhild, who showed almost from her cradle such faithfulness to modesty that she continually kept her face muffled in her robe, lest she should cause her beauty to provoke the passion of another. her father banished her into very close keeping, and gave her a viper and a snake to rear, wishing to defend her chastity by the protection of these reptiles when they came to grow up. for it would have been hard to pry into her chamber when it was barred by so dangerous a bolt. he also enacted that if any man tried to enter it, and failed, he must straightway yield his head to be taken off and impaled on a stake. the terror which was thus attached to wantonness chastened the heated spirits of the young men. alf, the son of sigar, thinking that peril of the attempt only made it nobler, declared himself a wooer, and went to subdue the beasts that kept watch beside the room of the maiden; inasmuch as, according to the decree, the embraces of the maiden were the prize of their subduer. alf covered his body with a blood-stained hide in order to make them more frantic against him. girt with this, as soon as he had entered the doors of the enclosure, he took a piece of red-hot steel in the tongs, and plunged it into the yawning throat of the viper, which he laid dead. then he flung his spear full into the gaping mouth of the snake as it wound and writhed forward, and destroyed it. and when he demanded the gage which was attached to victory by the terms of the covenant, siward answered that he would accept that man only for his daughter's husband of whom she made a free and decided choice. none but the girl's mother was stiff against the wooer's suit; and she privately spoke to her daughter in order to search her mind. the daughter warmly praised her suitor for his valour; whereon the mother upbraided her sharply, that her chastity should be unstrung, and she be captivated by charming looks; and because, forgetting to judge his virtue, she cast the gaze of a wanton mind upon the flattering lures of beauty. thus alfhild was led to despise the young dane; whereupon she exchanged woman's for man's attire, and, no longer the most modest of maidens, began the life of a warlike rover. enrolling in her service many maidens who were of the same mind, she happened to come to a spot where a band of rovers were lamenting the death of their captain, who had been lost in war; they made her their rover captain for her beauty, and she did deeds beyond the valour of woman. alf made many toilsome voyages in pursuit of her, and in winter happened to come on a fleet of the blacmen. the waters were at this time frozen hard, and the ships were caught in such a mass of ice that they could not get on by the most violent rowing. but the continued frost promised the prisoners a safer way of advance; and alf ordered his men to try the frozen surface of the sea in their brogues, after they had taken off their slippery shoes, so that they could run over the level ice more steadily. the blacmen supposed that they were taking to flight with all the nimbleness of their heels, and began to fight them, but their steps tottered exceedingly and they gave back, the slippery surface under their soles making their footing uncertain. but the danes crossed the frozen sea with safer steps, and foiled the feeble advance of the enemy, whom they conquered, and then turned and sailed to finland. here they chanced to enter a rather narrow gulf, and, on sending a few men to reconnoitre, they learnt that the harbour was being held by a few ships. for alfhild had gone before them with her fleet into the same narrows. and when she saw the strange ships afar off, she rowed in swift haste forward to encounter them, thinking it better to attack the foe than to await them. alf's men were against attacking so many ships with so few; but he replied that it would be shameful if anyone should report to alfhild that his desire to advance could be checked by a few ships in the path; for he said that their record of honours ought not to be tarnished by such a trifle. the danes wondered whence their enemies got such grace of bodily beauty and such supple limbs. so, when they began the sea-fight, the young man alf leapt on alfhild's prow, and advanced towards the stern, slaughtering all that withstood him. his comrade borgar struck off alfhild's helmet, and, seeing the smoothness of her chin, saw that he must fight with kisses and not with arms; that the cruel spears must be put away, and the enemy handled with gentler dealings. so alf rejoiced that the woman whom he had sought over land and sea in the face of so many dangers was now beyond all expectation in his power; whereupon he took hold of her eagerly, and made her change her man's apparel for a woman's; and afterwards begot on her a daughter, gurid. also borgar wedded the attendant of alfhild, groa, and had by her a son, harald, to whom the following age gave the surname hyldeland. and that no one may wonder that this sex laboured at warfare, i will make a brief digression, in order to give a short account of the estate and character of such women. there were once women among the danes who dressed themselves to look like men, and devoted almost every instant of their lives to the pursuit of war, that they might not suffer their valour to be unstrung or dulled by the infection of luxury. for they abhorred all dainty living, and used to harden their minds and bodies with toil and endurance. they put away all the softness and lightmindedness of women, and inured their womanish spirit to masculine ruthlessness. they sought, moreover, so zealously to be skilled in warfare, that they might have been thought to have unsexed themselves. those especially, who had either force of character or tall and comely persons, used to enter on this kind of life. these women, therefore (just as if they had forgotten their natural estate, and preferred sternness to soft words), offered war rather than kisses, and would rather taste blood than busses, and went about the business of arms more than that of amours. they devoted those hands to the lance which they should rather have applied to the loom. they assailed men with their spears whom they could have melted with their looks, they thought of death and not of dalliance. now i will cease to wander, and will go back to my theme. in the early spring, alf and alger, who had gone back to sea-roving, were exploring the sea in various directions, when they lighted with a hundred ships upon helwin, hagbard, and hamund, sons of the kinglet hamund. these they attacked and only the twilight stayed their blood-wearied hands; and in the night the soldiers were ordered to keep truce. on the morrow this was ratified for good by a mutual oath; for such loss had been suffered on both sides in the battle of the day before that they had no force left to fight again. thus, exhausted bye quality of valour, they were driven perforce to make peace. about the same time hildigisl, a teuton of noble birth, relying on his looks and his rank, sued for signe, the daughter of sigar. but she scorned him, chiefly for his insignificance, inasmuch as he was not brave, but wished to adorn his fortunes with the courage of other people. but this woman was inclined to love hakon, chiefly for the high renown of his great deeds. for she thought more of the brave than the feeble; she admired notable deeds more than looks, knowing that every allurement of beauty is mere dross when reckoned against simple valour, and cannot weigh equal with it in the balance. for there are maids that are more charmed by the fame than by the face of their lovers; who go not by the looks, but by the mind, and whom naught but regard for a man's spirit can kindle to pledge their own troth. now hagbard, going to denmark with the sons of sigar, gained speech of their sister without their knowledge, and in the end induced her to pledge her word to him that she would secretly become his mistress. afterwards, when the waiting-women happened to be comparing the honourable deeds of the nobles, she preferred hakon to hildigisl, declaring that the latter had nothing to praise but his looks, while in the case of the other a wrinkled visage was outweighed by a choice spirit. not content with this plain kind of praise, she is said to have sung as follows: "this man lacks fairness, but shines with foremost courage, measuring his features by his force. "for the lofty soul redeems the shortcoming of harsh looks, and conquers the body's blemish. "his look flashes with spirit, his face, notable in its very harshness, delights in fierceness. "he who strictly judges character praises not the mind for the fair hue, but rather the complexion for the mind. "this man is not prized for beauty, but for brave daring and war-won honour. "while the other is commended by his comely head and radiant countenance and crest of lustrous locks. "vile is the empty grace of beauty, self-confounded the deceptive pride of comeliness. "valour and looks are swayed by different inclinations: one lasts on, the other perishes. "empty red and white brings in vice, and is frittered away little by little by the lightly gliding years; "but courage plants firmer the hearts devoted to it, and does not slip and straightway fall. "the voice of the multitude is beguiled by outward good, and forsakes the rule of right; "but i praise virtue at a higher rate, and scorn the grace of comeliness." this utterance fell on the ears of the bystanders in such a way, that they thought she praised hagbard under the name of hakon. and hildigisl, vexed that she preferred hagbard to himself, bribed a certain blind man, bolwis, to bring the sons of sigar and the sons of hamund to turn their friendship into hatred. for king sigar had been used to transact almost all affairs by the advice of two old men, one of whom was bolwis. the temper of these two men was so different, that one used to reconcile folk who were at feud, while the other loved to sunder in hatred those who were bound by friendship, and by estranging folk to fan pestilent quarrels. so bolwis began by reviling the sons of hamund to the sons of sigar, in lying slanders, declaring that they never used to preserve the bonds of fellowship loyally, and that they must be restrained by war rather than by league. thus the alliance of the young men was broken through; and while hagbard was far away, the sons of sigar, alf and alger, made an attack, and helwin and hamund were destroyed by the harbour which is called hamund's bay. hagbard then came up with fresh forces to avenge his brothers, and destroyed them in battle. hildigisl slunk off with a spear through both buttocks, which was the occasion for a jeer at the teutons, since the ugliness of the blow did not fail to brand it with disgrace. afterwards hagbard dressed himself in woman's attire, and, as though he had not wronged sigar's daughter by slaying her brothers, went back to her alone, trusting in the promise he had from her, and feeling more safe in her loyalty than alarmed by reason of his own misdeed. thus does lust despise peril. and, not to lack a pretext for his journey, he gave himself out as a fighting-maid of hakon, saying that he took an embassy from him to sigar. and when he was taken to bed at night among the handmaids, and the woman who washed his feet were wiping them, they asked him why he had such hairy legs, and why his hands were not at all soft to touch, he answered: "what wonder that the soft hollow of my foot should harden, and that long hairs should stay on my shaggy leg, when the sand has so often smitten my soles beneath, and the briars have caught me in mid-step? "now i scour the forest with leaping, now the waters with running. now the sea, now the earth, now the wave is my path. "nor could my breast, shut in bonds of steel, and wont to be beaten with lance and missile, ever have been soft to the touch, as with you who are covered by the mantle or the smooth gown. "not the distaff or the wool-frails, but spears dripping from the slaughter, have served for our handling." signe did not hesitate to back up his words with like dissembling, and replied that it was natural that hands which dealt more in wounds than wools, and in battle than in tasks of the house should show the hardness that befitted their service; and that, unenfeebled with the pliable softness of women, they should not feel smooth to the touch of others. for they were hardened partly by the toils of war, partly by the habit of seafaring. for, said she, the warlike handmaid of hakon did not deal in woman's business, but had been wont to bring her right hand blood-stained with hurling spears and flinging missiles. it was no wonder, therefore, if her soles were hardened by the immense journeys she had gone; and that, when the shores she had scoured so often had bruised them with their rough and broken shingle, they should toughen in a horny stiffness, and should not feel soft to the touch like theirs, whose steps never strayed, but who were forever cooped within the confines of the palace. hagbard received her as his bedfellow, under plea that he was to have the couch of honour; and, amid their converse of mutual delight, he addressed her slowly in such words as these: "if thy father takes me and gives me to bitter death, wilt thou ever, when i am dead, forget so strong a troth, and again seek the marriage-plight? "for if the chance should fall that way, i can hope for no room for pardon; nor will the father who is to avenge his sons spare or have pity. "for i stripped thy brothers of their power on the sea and slew them; and now, unknown to thy father, as though i had done naught before counter to his will, i hold thee in the couch we share. "say, then, my one love, what manner of wish wilt thou show when thou lackest the accustomed embrace?" signe answered: "trust me, dear; i wish to die with thee, if fate brings thy turn to perish first, and not to prolong my span of life at all, when once dismal death has cast thee to the tomb. "for if thou chance to close thy eyes for ever, a victim to the maddened attack of the men-at-arms;--by whatsoever doom thy breath be cut off, by sword or disease, by sea or soil, i forswear every wanton and corrupt flame, and vow myself to a death like thine; that they who were bound by one marriage-union may be embraced in one and the same punishment. nor will i quit this man, though i am to feel the pains of death; i have resolved he is worthy of my love who gathered the first kisses of my mouth, and had the first fruits of my delicate youth. i think that no vow will be surer than this, if speech of woman have any loyalty at all." this speech so quickened the spirit of hagbard, that he found more pleasure in her promise than peril in his own going away (to his death). the serving-women betrayed him; and when sigar's men-at-arms attacked him, he defended himself long and stubbornly, and slew many of them in the doorway. but at last he was taken, and brought before the assembly, and found the voices of the people divided over him. for very many said that he should be punished for so great an offence; but bilwis, the brother of bolwis, and others, conceived a better judgment, and advised that it would be better to use his stout service than to deal with him too ruthlessly. then bolwis came forward and declared that it was evil advice which urged the king to pardon when he ought to take vengeance, and to soften with unworthy compassion his righteous impulse to anger. for how could sigar, in the case of this man, feel any desire to spare or pity him, when he had not only robbed him of the double comfort of his sons, but had also bestained him with the insult of deflowering his daughter? the greater part of the assembly voted for this opinion; hagbard was condemned, and a gallows-tree planted to receive him. hence it came about that he who at first had hardly one sinister voice against him was punished with general harshness. soon after the queen handed him a cup, and, bidding him assuage his thirst, vexed him with threats after this manner: "now, insolent hagbard, whom the whole assembly has pronounced worthy of death, now to quench thy thirst thou shalt give thy lips liquor to drink in a cup of horn. "wherefore cast away fear, and, at this last hour of thy life, taste with bold lips the deadly goblet; "that, having drunk it, thou mayst presently land by the dwellings of those below, passing into the sequestered palace of stern dis, giving thy body to the gibbet and thy spirit to orcus." then the young man took the cup offered him, and is said to have made answer as follows: "with this hand, wherewith i cut off thy twin sons, i will take my last taste, yea the draught of the last drink. "now not unavenged shall i go to the elysian regions, not unchastising to the stern ghosts. for these men have first been shut in the dens of tartarus by a slaughter wrought by my endeavours. this right hand was wet with blood that was yours, this hand robbed thy children of the years of their youth, children whom thy womb brought to light; but the deadly sword spared it not then. infamous woman, raving in spirit, hapless, childless mother, no years shall restore to thee the lost, no time and no day whatsoever shall save thy child from the starkness of death, or redeem him!" thus he avenged the queen's threats of death by taunting her with the youths whom he had slain; and, flinging back the cup at her, drenched her face with the sprinkled wine. meantime signe asked her weeping women whether they could endure to bear her company in the things which she purposed. they promised that they would carry out and perform themselves whatsoever their mistress should come to wish, and their promise was loyally kept. then, drowned in tears, she said that she wished to follow in death the only partner of her bed that she had ever had; and ordered that, as soon as the signal had been given from a place of watch, torches should be put to the room, then that halters should be made out of their robes; and to these they should proffer their throats to be strangled, thrusting away the support to the feet. they agreed, and that they might blench the less at death, she gave them a draught of wine. after this hagbard was led to the hill, which afterwards took its name from him, to be hanged. then, to test the loyalty of his true love, he told the executioners to hang up his mantle, saying that it would be a pleasure to him if he could see the likeness of his approaching death rehearsed in some way. the request was granted; and the watcher on the outlook, thinking that the thing was being done to hagbard, reported what she saw to the maidens who were shut within the palace. they quickly fired the house, and thrusting away the wooden support under their feet, gave their necks to the noose to be writhen. so hagbard, when he saw the palace wrapped in fire, and the familiar chamber blazing, said that he felt more joy from the loyalty of his mistress than sorrow at his approaching death. he also charged the bystanders to do him to death, witnessing how little he made of his doom by a song like this: "swiftly, o warriors! let me be caught and lifted into the air. sweet, o my bride! is it for me to die when thou hast gone. "i perceive the crackling and the house ruddy with flames; and the love, long-promised, declares our troth. "behold, thy covenant is fulfilled with no doubtful vows, since thou sharest my life and my destruction. "we shall have one end, one bond after our troth, and somewhere our first love will live on. "happy am i, that have deserved to have joy of such a consort, and not to go basely alone to the gods of tartarus! "then let the knot gripe the midst of the throat; nought but pleasure the last doom shall bring, "since there remains a sure hope of the renewal of love, and a death which will soon have joys of its own. "either country is sweet; in both worlds shall be held in honour the repose of our souls together, our equal truth in love, "for, see now, i welcome the doom before me; since not even among the shades does very love suffer the embrace of its partner to perish." and as he spoke the executioners strangled him. and, that none may think that all traces of antiquity have utterly disappeared, a proof of the aforesaid event is afforded by local marks yet existing; for the killing of hagbard gave his name to the stead; and not far from the town of sigar there is a place to be seen, where a mound a little above the level, with the appearance of a swelling in the ground, looks like an ancient homestead. moreover, a man told absalon that he had seen a beam found in the spot, which a countryman struck with his ploughshare as he burrowed into the clods. hakon, the son of hamund, heard of this; but when he was seen to be on the point of turning his arms from the irish against the danes in order to avenge his brother, hakon the zealander, the son of wigar, and starkad deserted him. they had been his allies from the death of ragnald up to that hour: one, because he was moved by regard for friendship, the other by regard for his birth; so that different reasons made both desire the same thing. now patriotism diverted hakon (of zealand) from attacking his country; for it was apparent that he was going to fight his own people, while all the rest warred with foreigners. but starkad forbore to become the foe of the aged sigar, whose hospitality he had enjoyed, lest he should be thought to wrong one who deserved well of him. for some men pay such respect to hospitality that, if they can remember ever to have experienced kindly offices from folk, they cannot be thought to inflict any annoyance on them. but hakon thought the death of his brother a worse loss than the defection of his champions; and, gathering his fleet into the haven called herwig in danish, and in latin hosts' bight, he drew up his men, and posted his line of foot-soldiers in the spot where the town built by esbern now defends with its fortifications those who dwell hard by, and repels the approach of barbarous savages. then he divided his forces in three, and sent on two-thirds of his ships, appointing a few men to row to the river susa. this force was to advance on a dangerous voyage along its winding reaches, and to help those on foot if necessary. he marched in person by land with the remainder, advancing chiefly over wooded country to escape notice. part of this path, which was once closed up with thick woods, is now land ready for the plough, and fringed with a scanty scrub. and, in order that when they got out into the plain they might not lack the shelter of trees, he told them to cut and carry branches. also, that nothing might burden their rapid march, he bade them cast away some of their clothes, as well as their scabbards; and carry their swords naked. in memory of this event he left the mountain and the ford a perpetual name. thus by his night march he eluded two pickets of sentries; but when he came upon the third, a scout, observing the marvellous event, went to the sleeping-room of sigar, saying that he brought news of a portentous thing; for he saw leaves and shrubs like men walking. then the king asked him how far off was the advancing forest; and when he heard that it was near, he added that this prodigy boded his own death. hence the marsh where the shrubs were cut down was styled in common parlance deadly marsh. therefore, fearing the narrow passages, he left the town, and went to a level spot which was more open, there to meet the enemy in battle. sigar fought unsuccessfully, and was crushed and slain at the spot that is called in common speech walbrunna, but in latin the spring of corpses or carnage. then hakon used his conquest to cruel purpose, and followed up his good fortune so wickedly, that he lusted for an indiscriminate massacre, and thought no forbearance should be shown to rank or sex. nor did he yield to any regard for compassion or shame, but stained his sword in the blood of women, and attacked mothers and children in one general and ruthless slaughter. siwald, the son of sigar, had thus far stayed under his father's roof. but when he heard of this, he mustered an army in order to have his vengeance. so hakon, alarmed at the gathering of such numbers, went back with a third of his army to his fleet at herwig, and planned to depart by sea. but his colleague, hakon, surnamed the proud, thought that he ought himself to feel more confidence at the late victory than fear at the absence of hakon; and, preferring death to flight, tried to defend the remainder of the army. so he drew back his camp for a little, and for a long time waited near the town of axelsted, for the arrival of the fleet, blaming his friends for their tardy coming. for the fleet that had been sent into the river had not yet come to anchor in the appointed harbour. now the killing of sigar and the love of siwald were stirring the temper of the people one and all, so that both sexes devoted themselves to war, and you would have thought that the battle did not lack the aid of women. on the morrow hakon and siwald met in an encounter and fought two whole days. the combat was most frightful; both generals fell; and victory graced the remnants of the danes. but, in the night after the battle, the fleet, having penetrated the susa, reached the appointed haven. it was once possible to row along this river; but its bed is now choked with solid substances, and is so narrowed by its straits that few vessels can get in, being prevented by its sluggishness and contractedness. at daybreak, when the sailors saw the corpses of their friends, they heaped up, in order to bury the general, a barrow of notable size, which is famous to this day, and is commonly named hakon's howe. but borgar, with skanian chivalry suddenly came up and slaughtered a multitude of them. when the enemy were destroyed, he manned their ships, which now lacked their rowers, and hastily, with breathless speed, pursued the son of hamund. he encountered him, and ill-fortune befell hakon, who fled in hasty panic with three ships to the country of the scots, where, after two years had gone by, he died. all these perilous wars and fortunes had so exhausted the royal line among the danes, that it was found to be reduced to gurid alone, the daughter of alf, and granddaughter of sigar. and when the danes saw themselves deprived of their usual high-born sovereigns, they committed the kingdom to men of the people, and appointed rulers out of the commons, assigning to ostmar the regency of skaane, and that of zealand to hunding; on hane they conferred the lordship of funen; while in the hands of rorik and hather they put the supreme power of jutland, the authority being divided. therefore, that it may not be unknown from what father sprang the succeeding line of kings, some matters come to my mind which must be glanced at for a while in a needful digression. they say that gunnar, the bravest of the swedes, was once at feud with norway for the most weighty reasons, and that he was granted liberty to attack it, but that he turned this liberty into licence by the greatest perils, and fell, in the first of the raids he planned, upon the district of jather, which he put partly to the sword and partly to the flames. forbearing to plunder, he rejoiced only in passing through the paths that were covered with corpses, and the blood-stained ways. other men used to abstain from bloodshed, and love pillage more than slaughter; but he preferred bloodthirstiness to booty, and liked best to wreak his deadly pleasure by slaughtering men. his cruelty drove the islanders to forestall the impending danger by a public submission. moreover, ragnald, the king of the northmen, now in extreme age, when he heard how the tyrant busied himself, had a cave made and shut up in it his daughter drota, giving her due attendance, and providing her maintenance for a long time. also he committed to the cave some swords which had been adorned with the choicest smith-craft, besides the royal household gear; so that he might not leave the enemy to capture and use the sword, which he saw that he could not wield himself. and, to prevent the cave being noticed by its height, he levelled the hump down to the firmer ground. then he set out to war; but being unable with his aged limbs to go down into battle, he leaned on the shoulders of his escort and walked forth propped by the steps of others. so he perished in the battle, where he fought with more ardour than success, and left his country a sore matter for shame. for gunnar, in order to punish the cowardice of the conquered race by terms of extraordinary baseness, had a dog set over them as a governor. what can we suppose to have been his object in this action, unless it were to make a haughty nation feel that their arrogance was being more signally punished when they bowed their stubborn heads before a yapping hound? to let no insult be lacking, he appointed governors to look after public and private affairs in its name; and he appointed separate ranks of nobles to keep continual and steadfast watch over it. he also enacted that if any one of the courtiers thought it contemptible to do allegiance to their chief, and omitted offering most respectful homage to its various goings and comings as it ran hither and thither, he should be punished with loss of his limbs. also gunnar imposed on the nation a double tribute, one to be paid out of the autumn harvest, the other in the spring. thus he burst the bubble conceit of the norwegians, to make them feel clearly how their pride was gone, when they saw it forced to do homage to a dog. when he heard that the king's daughter was shut up in some distant hiding-place, gunnar strained his wits in every nerve to track her out. hence, while he was himself conducting the search with others, his doubtful ear caught the distant sound of a subterranean hum. then he went on slowly, and recognized a human voice with greater certainty. he ordered the ground underfoot to be dug down to the solid rock; and when the cave was suddenly laid open, he saw the winding tunnels. the servants were slain as they tried to guard the now uncovered entrance to the cave, and the girl was dragged out of the hole, together with the booty therein concealed. with great foresight, she had consigned at any rate her father's swords to the protection of a more secret place. gunnar forced her to submit to his will, and she bore a son hildiger. this man was such a rival to his father in cruelty, that he was ever thirsting to kill, and was bent on nothing but the destruction of men, panting with a boundless lust for bloodshed. outlawed by his father on account of his unbearable ruthlessness, and soon after presented by alver with a government, he spent his whole life in arms, visiting his neighbours with wars and slaughters; nor did he, in his estate of banishment, relax his accustomed savagery a whir, but would not change his spirit with his habitation. meanwhile borgar, finding that gunnar had married drota, the daughter of ragnald, by violence, took from him both life and wife, and wedded drota himself. she was not an unwilling bride; she thought it right for her to embrace the avenger of her parent. for the daughter mourned her father, and could never bring herself to submit with any pleasure to his murderer. this woman and borgar had a son halfdan, who through all his early youth was believed to be stupid, but whose later years proved illustrious for the most glorious deeds, and famous for the highest qualities that can grace life. once, when a stripling, he mocked in boyish fashion at a champion of noble repute, who smote him with a buffet; whereupon halfdan attacked him with the staff he was carrying and killed him. this deed was an omen of his future honours; he had hitherto been held in scorn, but henceforth throughout his life he had the highest honour and glory. the affair, indeed, was a prophecy of the greatness of his deeds in war. at this period, rothe, a ruthenian rover, almost destroyed our country with his rapine and cruelty. his harshness was so notable that, while other men spared their prisoners utter nakedness, he did not think it uncomely to strip of their coverings even the privy parts of their bodies; wherefore we are wont to this day to call all severe and monstrous acts of rapine rothe-ran (rothe's robbery). he used also sometimes to inflict the following kind of torture: fastening the men's right feet firmly to the earth, he tied the left feet to boughs for the purpose that when these should spring back the body would be rent asunder. hane, prince of funen, wishing to win honour and glory, tried to attack this man with his sea-forces, but took to flight with one attendant. it was in reproach of him that the proverb arose: "the cock (hane) fights better on its own dunghill." then borgar, who could not bear to see his countrymen perishing any longer, encountered rothe. together they fought and together they perished. it is said that in this battle halfdan was sorely stricken, and was for some time feeble with the wounds he had received. one of these was inflicted conspicuously on his mouth, and its scar was so manifest that it remained as an open blotch when all the other wounds were healed; for the crushed portion of the lip was so ulcerated by the swelling, that the flesh would not grow out again and mend the noisome gash. this circumstance fixed on him a most insulting nickname,... although wounds in the front of the body commonly bring praise and not ignominy. so spiteful a colour does the belief of the vulgar sometimes put upon men's virtues. meanwhile gurid, the daughter of alf, seeing that the royal line was reduced to herself alone, and having no equal in birth whom she could marry, proclaimed a vow imposing chastity on herself, thinking it better to have no husband than to take one from the commons. moreover, to escape outrage, she guarded her room with a chosen band of champions. once halfdan happened to come to see her. the champions, whose brother he had himself slain in his boyhood, were away. he told her that she ought to loose her virgin zone, and exchange her austere chastity for deeds of love; that she ought not to give in so much to her inclination for modesty as to be too proud to make a match, and so by her service repair the fallen monarchy. so he bade her look on himself, who was of eminently illustrious birth, in the light of a husband, since it appeared that she would only admit pleasure for the reason he had named. gurid answered that she could not bring her mind to ally the remnants of the royal line to a man of meaner rank. not content with reproaching his obscure birth, she also taunted his unsightly countenance. halfdan rejoined that she brought against him two faults: one that his blood was not illustrious enough; another, that he was blemished with a cracked lip whose scar had never healed. therefore he would not come back to ask for her before he had wiped away both marks of shame by winning glory in war. halfdan entreated her to suffer no man to be privy to her bed until she heard certain tidings either of his return or his death. the champions, whom he had bereaved of their brother long ago, were angry that he had spoken to gurid, and tried to ride after him as he went away. when he saw it, he told his comrades to go into ambush, and said he would encounter the champions alone. his followers lingered, and thought it shameful to obey his orders, but he drove them off with threats, saying that gurid should not find that fear had made him refuse to fight. presently he cut down an oak-tree and fashioned it into a club, fought the twelve single-handed, and killed them. after their destruction, not content with the honours of so splendid an action, and meaning to do one yet greater, he got from his mother the swords of his grandfather, one of which was called lyusing.... and the other hwyting, after the sheen of its well-whetted point. but when he heard that war was raging between alver, the king of sweden, and the ruthenians (russians), he instantly went to russia, offered help to the natives, and was received by all with the utmost honour. alver was not far off, there being only a little ground to cross to cover the distance between the two. alver's soldier hildiger, the son of gunnar, challenged the champions of the ruthenians to fight him; but when he saw that halfdan was put up against him, though knowing well that he was halfdan's brother, he let natural feeling prevail over courage, and said that he, who was famous for the destruction of seventy champions, would not fight with an untried man. therefore he told him to measure himself in enterprises of lesser moment, and thenceforth to follow pursuits fitted to his strength. he made this announcement not from distrust in his own courage, but in order to preserve his uprightness; for he was not only very valiant, but also skilled at blunting the sword with spells. for when he remembered that halfdan's father had slain his own, he was moved by two feelings--the desire to avenge his father, and his love for his brother. he therefore thought it better to retire from the challenge than to be guilty of a very great crime. halfdan demanded another champion in his place, slew him when he appeared, and was soon awarded the palm of valour even by the voice of the enemy, being accounted by public acclamation the bravest of all. on the next day he asked for two men to fight with, and slew them both. on the third day he subdued three; on the fourth he overcame four who met him; and on the fifth he asked for five. when halfdan conquered these, and when the eighth day had been reached with an equal increase in the combatants and in the victory, he laid low eleven who attacked him at once. hildiger, seeing that his own record of honours was equalled by the greatness of halfdan's deeds could not bear to decline to meet him any longer. and when he felt that halfdan had dealt him a deadly wound with a sword wrapped in rags, he threw away his arms, and, lying on the earth, addressed his brother as follows: "it is pleasing to pass an hour away in mutual talk; and, while the sword rests, to sit a little on the ground and while away the time by speaking in turn, and keep ourselves in good heart. time is left for our purpose; our two destinies have a different lot; one is surely doomed to die by a fatal weird, while triumph and glory and all the good of living await the other in better years. thus our omens differ, and our portions are distinguished. thou art a son of the danish land, i of the country of sweden. once, drota thy mother had her breast swell for thee; she bore me, and by her i am thy foster-brother. lo now, there perishes a righteous offspring, who had the heart to fight with savage spears; brothers born of a shining race charge and bring death on one another; while they long for the height of power, they lose their days, and, having now received a fatal mischief in their desire for a sceptre, they will go to styx in a common death. fast by my head stands my swedish shield, which is adorned with (as) a fresh mirror of diverse chasing, and ringed with layers of marvellous fretwork. there a picture of really hues shows slain nobles and conquered champions, and the wars also and the notable deed of my right hand. in the midst is to be seen, painted in bright relief, the figure of my son, whom this hand bereft of his span of life. he was our only heir, the only thought of his father's mind, and given to his mother with comfort from above. an evil lot, which heaps years of ill-fortune on the joyous, chokes mirth in mourning, and troubles our destiny. for it is lamentable and wretched to drag out a downcast life, to draw breath through dismal days and to chafe at foreboding. but whatsoever things are bound by the prophetic order of the fates, whatsoever are shadowed in the secrets of the divine plan, whatsoever are foreseen and fixed in the course of the destinies, no change of what is transient shall cancel these things." when he had thus spoken, halfdan condemned hildiger for sloth in avowing so late their bond of brotherhood; he declared he had kept silence that he might not be thought a coward for refusing to fight, or a villain if he fought; and while intent on these words of excuse, he died. but report had given out among the danes that hildiger had overthrown halfdan. after this, siwar, a saxon of very high birth, began to be a suitor for gurid, the only survivor of the royal blood among the danes. secretly she preferred halfdan to him, and imposed on her wooer the condition that he should not ask her in marriage till he had united into one body the kingdom of the danes, which was now torn limb from limb, and restored by arms what had been wrongfully taken from her. siwar made a vain attempt to do this; but as he bribed all the guardians, she was at last granted to him in betrothal. halfdan heard of this in russia through traders, and voyaged so hard that he arrived before the time of the wedding-rites. on their first day, before he went to the palace, he gave orders that his men should not stir from the watches appointed them till their ears caught the clash of the steel in the distance. unknown to the guests, he came and stood before the maiden, and, that he might not reveal his meaning to too many by bare and common speech, he composed a dark and ambiguous song as follows: "as i left my father's sceptre, i had no fear of the wiles of woman's device nor of female subtlety. "when i overthrew, one and two, three and four, and soon five, and next six, then seven, and also eight, yea eleven single-handed, triumphant in battle. "but neither did i then think that i was to be shamed with the taint of disgrace, with thy frailness to thy word and thy beguiling pledges." gurid answered: "my soul wavered in suspense, with slender power over events, and shifted about with restless fickleness. the report of thee was so fleeting, so doubtful, borne on uncertain stories, and parched by doubting heart. i feared that the years of thy youth had perished by the sword. could i withstand singly my elders and governors, when they forbade me to refuse that thing, and pressed me to become a wife? my love and my flame are both yet unchanged, they shall be mate and match to thine; nor has my troth been disturbed, but shall have faithful approach to thee. "for my promise has not yet beguiled thee at all, though i, being alone, could not reject the counsel of such manifold persuasion, nor oppose their stern bidding in the matter of my consent to the marriage bond." before the maiden had finished her answer, halfdan had already run his sword through the bridegroom. not content with having killed one man, he massacred most of the guests. staggering tipsily backwards, the saxons ran at him, but his servants came up and slaughtered them. after this halfdan took gurid to wife. but finding in her the fault of barrenness, and desiring much to have offspring, he went to upsala in order to procure fruitfulness for her; and being told in answer, that he must make atonement to the shades of his brother if he would raise up children, he obeyed the oracle, and was comforted by gaining his desire. for he had a son by gurid, to whom he gave the name of harald. under his title halfdan tried to restore the kingdom of the danes to its ancient estate, as it was torn asunder by the injuries of the chiefs; but, while fighting in zealand, he attacked wesete, a very famous champion, in battle, and was slain. gurid was at the battle in man's attire, from love for her son. she saw the event; the young man fought hotly, but his companions fled; and she took him on her shoulders to a neighbouring wood. weariness, more than anything else, kept the enemy from pursuing him; but one of them shot him as he hung, with an arrow, through the hinder parts, and harald thought that his mother's care brought him more shame than help. harald, being of great beauty and unusual size, and surpassing those of his age in strength and stature, received such favour from odin (whose oracle was thought to have been the cause of his birth), that steel could not injure his perfect soundness. the result was, that shafts which wounded others were disabled from doing him any harm. nor was the boon unrequited; for he is reported to have promised to odin all the souls which his sword cast out of their bodies. he also had his father's deeds recorded for a memorial by craftsmen on a rock in bleking, whereof i have made mention. after this, hearing that wesete was to hold his wedding in skaane, he went to the feast disguised as a beggar; and when all were sunken in wine and sleep, he battered the bride-chamber with a beam. but wesete, without inflicting a wound, so beat his mouth with a cudgel, that he took out two teeth; but two grinders unexpectedly broke out afterwards and repaired their loss: an event which earned him the name of hyldetand, which some declare he obtained on account of a prominent row of teeth. here he slew wesete, and got the sovereignty of skaane. next he attacked and killed hather in jutland; and his fall is marked by the lasting name of the town. after this he overthrew hunding and rorik, seized leire, and reunited the dismembered realm of denmark into its original shape. then he found that asmund, the king of the wikars, had been deprived of his throne by his elder sister; and, angered by such presumption on the part of a woman, went to norway with a single ship, while the war was still undecided, to help him. the battle began; and, clothed in a purple cloak, with a coif broidered with gold, and with his hair bound up, he went against the enemy trusting not in arms, but in his silent certainty of his luck, insomuch that he seemed dressed more for a feast than a fray. but his spirit did not match his attire. for, though unarmed and only adorned with his emblems of royalty, he outstripped the rest who bore arms, and exposed himself, lightly-armed as he was, to the hottest perils of the battle. for the shafts aimed against him lost all power to hurt, as if their points had been blunted. when the other side saw him fighting unarmed, they made an attack, and were forced for very shame into assailing him more hotly. but harald, whole in body, either put them to the sword, or made them take to flight; and thus he overthrew the sister of asmund, and restored him his kingdom. when asmund offered him the prizes of victory, he said that the reward of glory was enough by itself; and demeaned himself as greatly in refusing the gifts as he had in earning them. by this he made all men admire his self-restraint as much as his valour; and declared that the victory should give him a harvest not of gold but glory. meantime alver, the king of the swedes, died leaving sons olaf, ing, and ingild. one of these, ing, dissatisfied with the honours his father bequeathed him, declared war with the danes in order to extend his empire. and when harald wished to inquire of oracles how this war would end, an old man of great height, but lacking one eye, and clad also in a hairy mantle, appeared before him, and declared that he was called odin, and was versed in the practice of warfare; and he gave him the most useful instruction how to divide up his army in the field. now he told him, whenever he was going to make war with his land-forces, to divide his whole army into three squadrons, each of which he was to pack into twenty ranks; the centre squadron, however, he was to extend further than the rest by the number of twenty men. this squadron he was also to arrange in the form of the point of a cone or pyramid, and to make the wings on either side slant off obliquely from it. he was to compose the successive ranks of each squadron in the following way: the front should begin with two men, and the number in each succeeding rank should only increase by one; he was, in fact, to post a rank of three in the second line, four in the third, and so on behind. and thus, when the men mustered, all the succeeding ranks were to be manned at the same rate of proportion, until the end of (the edge that made) the junction of men came down to the wings; each wing was to be drawn up in ten lines from that point. likewise after these squadrons he was to put the young men, equipped with lances, and behind these to set the company of aged men, who would support their comrades with what one might call a veteran valour if they faltered; next, a skilful reckoner should attach wings of slingers to stand behind the ranks of their fellows and attack the enemy from a distance with missiles. after these he was to enroll men of any age or rank indiscriminately, without heed of their estate. moreover, he was to draw up the rear like the vanguard, in three separated divisions, and arranged in ranks similarly proportioned. the back of this, joining on to the body in front would protect it by facing in the opposite direction. but if a sea-battle happened to occur, he should withdraw a portion of his fleet, which when he began the intended engagement, was to cruise round that of the enemy, wheeling to and fro continually. equipped with this system of warfare, he forestalled matters in sweden, and killed ing and olaf as they were making ready to fight. their brother ingild sent messengers to beg a truce, on pretence of his ill-health. harald granted his request, that his own valour, which had learnt to spare distress, might not triumph over a man in the hour of lowliness and dejection. when ingild afterwards provoked harald by wrongfully ravishing his sister, harald vexed him with long and indecisive war, but then took him into his friendship, thinking it better to have him for ally than for enemy. after this he heard that olaf, king of the thronds, had to fight with the maidens stikla and rusila for the kingdom. much angered at this arrogance on the part of women, he went to olaf unobserved, put on dress which concealed the length of his teeth, and attacked the maidens. he overthrew them both, leaving to two harbours a name akin to theirs. it was then that he gave a notable exhibition of valour; for defended only by a shirt under his shoulders, he fronted the spears with unarmed breast. when olaf offered harald the prize of victory, he rejected the gift, thus leaving it a question whether he had shown a greater example of bravery or self-control. then he attacked a champion of the frisian nation, named ubbe, who was ravaging the borders of jutland and destroying numbers of the common people; and when harald could not subdue him to his arms, he charged his soldiers to grip him with their hands, throw him on the ground, and to bind him while thus overpowered. thus he only overcame the man and mastered him by a shameful kind of attack, though a little before he thought he would inflict a heavy defeat on him. but harald gave him his sister in marriage, and thus gained him for his soldier. harald made tributaries of the nations that lay along the rhine, levying troops from the bravest of that race. with these forces he conquered sclavonia in war, and caused its generals, duk and dal, because of their bravery, to be captured, and not killed. these men he took to serve with him, and, after overcoming aquitania, soon went to britain, where he overthrew the king of the humbrians, and enrolled the smartest of the warriors he had conquered, the chief of whom was esteemed to be orm, surnamed the briton. the fame of these deeds brought champions from divers parts of the world, whom he formed into a band of mercenaries. strengthened by their numbers, he kept down insurrections in all kingdoms by the terror of his name, so that he took out of their rulers all courage to fight with one another. moreover, no man durst assume any sovereignty on the sea without his consent; for of old the state of the danes had the joint lordship of land and sea. meantime ingild died in sweden, leaving only a very little son, ring, whom he had by the sister of harald. harald gave the boy guardians, and put him over his father's kingdom. thus, when he had overcome princes and provinces, he passed fifty years in peace. to save the minds of his soldiers from being melted into sloth by this inaction, he decreed that they should assiduously learn from the champions the way of parrying and dealing blows. some of these were skilled in a remarkable manner of fighting, and used to smite the eyebrow on the enemy's forehead with an infallible stroke; but if any man, on receiving the blow, blinked for fear, twitching his eyebrow, he was at once expelled the court and dismissed the service. at this time ole, the son of siward and of harald's sister, came to denmark from the land of norway in the desire to see his uncle. since it is known that he had the first place among the followers of harald, and that after the swedish war he came to the throne of denmark, it bears somewhat on the subject to relate the traditions of his deeds. ole, then, when he had passed his tenth to his fifteenth year with his father, showed incredible proofs of his brilliant gifts both of mind and body. moreover, he was so savage of countenance that his eyes were like the arms of other men against the enemy, and he terrified the bravest with his stern and flashing glance. he heard the tidings that gunn, ruler of tellemark, with his son grim, was haunting as a robber the forest of etha-scog, which was thick with underbrush and full of gloomy glens. the offence moved his anger; then he asked his father for a horse, a dog, and such armour as could be got, and cursed his youth, which was suffering the right season for valour to slip sluggishly away. he got what he asked, and explored the aforesaid wood very narrowly. he saw the footsteps of a man printed deep on the snow; for the rime was blemished by the steps, and betrayed the robber's progress. thus guided, he went over a hill, and came on a very great river. this effaced the human tracks he had seen before, and he determined that he must cross. but the mere mass of water, whose waves ran down in a headlong torrent, seemed to forbid all crossing; for it was full of hidden reefs, and the whole length of its channel was turbid with a kind of whirl of foam. yet all fear of danger was banished from ole's mind by his impatience to make haste. so valour conquered fear, and rashness scorned peril; thinking nothing hard to do if it were only to his mind, he crossed the hissing eddies on horseback. when he had passed these, he came upon defiles surrounded on all sides with swamps, the interior of which was barred from easy approach by the pinnacle of a bank in front. he took his horse over this, and saw an enclosure with a number of stalls. out of this he turned many horses, and was minded to put in his own, when a certain tok, a servant of gunn, angry that a stranger should wax so insolent, attacked him fiercely; but ole foiled his assailant by simply opposing his shield. thinking it a shame to slay the fellow with the sword, he seized him, shattered him limb by limb, and flung him across into the house whence he had issued in his haste. this insult quickly aroused gunn and grim: they ran out by different side-doors, and charged ole both at once, despising his age and strength. he wounded them fatally; and, when their bodily powers were quite spent, grim, who could scarce muster a final gasp, and whose force was almost utterly gone, with his last pants composed this song: "though we be weak in frame, and the loss of blood has drained our strength; since the life-breath, now drawn out by my wound, scarce quivers softly in my pierced breast: "i counsel that we should make the battle of our last hour glorious with dauntless deeds, that none may say that a combat has anywhere been bravelier waged or harder fought; "and that our wild strife while we bore arms may, when our weary flesh has found rest in the tomb, win us the wage of immortal fame. "let our first stroke crush the shoulder-blades of the foe, let our steel cut off both his hands; so that, when stygian pluto has taken us, a like doom may fall on ole also, and a common death tremble over three, and one urn cover the ashes of three." here grim ended. but his father, rivalling his indomitable spirit, and wishing to give some exhortation in answer to his son's valiant speech, thus began: "what though our veins be wholly bloodless, and in our frail body the life be brief, yet our last fight be so strong and strenuous that it suffer not the praise of us to be brief also. "therefore aim the javelin first at the shoulders and arms of the foe, so that the work of his hands may be weakened; and thus when we are gone three shall receive a common sepulchre, and one urn alike for three shall cover our united dust." when he had said this, both of them, resting on their knees (for the approach of death had drained their strength), made a desperate effort to fight ole hand to hand, in order that, before they perished, they might slay their enemy also; counting death as nothing if only they might envelope their slayer in a common fall. ole slew one of them with his sword, the other with his hound. but even he gained no bloodless victory; for though he had been hitherto unscathed, now at last he received a wound in front. his dog diligently licked him over, and he regained his bodily strength: and soon, to publish sure news of his victory, he hung the bodies of the robbers upon gibbets in wide view. moreover, he took the stronghold, and put in secret keeping all the booty he found there, in reserve for future use. at this time the arrogant wantonness of the brothers skate and hiale waxed so high that they would take virgins of notable beauty from their parents and ravish them. hence it came about that they formed the purpose of seizing esa, the daughter of olaf, prince of the werms; and bade her father, if he would not have her serve the passion of a stranger, fight either in person, or by some deputy, in defence of his child. when ole had news of this, he rejoiced in the chance of a battle, and borrowing the attire of a peasant, went to the dwelling of olaf. he received one of the lowest places at table; and when he saw the household of the king in sorrow, he called the king's son closer to him, and asked why they all wore so lamentable a face. the other answered, that unless someone quickly interposed to protect them, his sister's chastity would soon be outraged by some ferocious champions. ole next asked him what reward would be received by the man who devoted his life for the maiden. olaf, on his son asking him about this matter, said that his daughter should go to the man who fought for her: and these words, more than anything, made ole long to encounter the danger. now the maiden was wont to go from one guest to another in order to scan their faces narrowly, holding out a light that she might have a surer view of the dress and character of those who were entertained. it is also believed that she divined their lineage from the lines and features of the face, and could discern any man's birth by sheer shrewdness of vision. when she stood and fixed the scrutiny of her gaze upon olaf, she was stricken with the strange awfulness of his eyes, and fell almost lifeless. but when her strength came slowly back, and her breath went and came more freely, she again tried to look at the young man, but suddenly slipped and fell forward, as though distraught. a third time also she strove to lift her closed and downcast gaze, but suddenly tottered and fell, unable not only to move her eyes, but even to control her feet; so much can strength be palsied by amazement. when olaf saw it, he asked her why she had fallen so often. she averred that she was stricken by the savage gaze of the guest; that he was born of kings; and she declared that if he could baulk the will of the ravishers, he was well worthy of her arms. then all of them asked ole, who was keeping his face muffled in a hat, to fling off his covering, and let them see something by which to learn his features. then, bidding them all lay aside their grief, and keep their heart far from sorrow, he uncovered his brow; and he drew the eyes of all upon him in marvel at his great beauty. for his locks were golden and the hair of his head was radiant; but he kept the lids close over his pupils, that they might not terrify the beholders. all were heartened with the hope of better things; the guests seemed to dance and the courtiers to leap for joy; the deepest melancholy seemed to be scattered by an outburst of cheerfulness. thus hope relieved their fears; the banquet wore a new face, and nothing was the same, or like what it had been before. so the kindly promise of a single guest dispelled the universal terror. meanwhile hiale and skate came up with ten servants, meaning to carry off the maiden then and there, and disturbed all the place with their noisy shouts. they called on the king to give battle, unless he produced his daughter instantly. ole at once met their frenzy with the promise to fight, adding the condition that no one should stealthily attack an opponent in the rear, but should only combat in the battle face to face. then, with his sword called logthi, he felled them all, single-handed--an achievement beyond his years. the ground for the battle was found on an isle in the middle of a swamp, not far from which is a stead that serves to memorise this slaughter, bearing the names of the brothers hiale and skate together. so the girl was given him as prize of the combat, and bore him a son omund. then he gained his father-in-law's leave to revisit his father. but when he heard that his country was being attacked by thore, with the help of toste sacrificer, and leotar, surnamed.... he went to fight them, content with a single servant, who was dressed as a woman. when he was near the house of thore, he concealed his own and his attendant's swords in hollowed staves. and when he entered the palace, he disguised his true countenance, and feigned to be a man broken with age. he said that with siward he had been king of the beggars, but that he was now in exile, having been stubbornly driven forth by the hatred of the king's son ole. presently many of the courtiers greeted him with the name of king, and began to kneel and offer him their hands in mockery. he told them to bear out in deeds what they had done in jest; and, plucking out the swords which he and his man kept shut in their staves, attacked the king. so some aided ole, taking it more as jest than earnest, and would not be false to the loyalty which they mockingly yielded him; but most of them, breaking their idle vow, took the side of thore. thus arose an internecine and undecided fray. at last thore was overwhelmed and slain by the arms of his own folk, as much as by these of his guests; and leotar, wounded to the death, and judging that his conqueror, ole, was as keen in mind as he was valorous in deeds, gave him the name of the vigorous, and prophesied that he should perish by the same kind of trick as he had used with thore; for, without question he should fall by the treachery of his own house. and, as he spoke, he suddenly passed away. thus we can see that the last speech of the dying man expressed by its shrewd divination the end that should come upon his conqueror. after these deeds ole did not go back to his father till he had restored peace to his house. his father gave him the command of the sea, and he destroyed seventy sea-kings in a naval battle. the most distinguished among these were birwil and hwirwil, thorwil, nef and onef, redward (?), rand and erand (?). by the honour and glory of this exploit he excited many champions, whose whole heart's desire was for bravery, to join in alliance with him. he also enrolled into a bodyguard the wild young warriors who were kindled with a passion for glory. among these he received starkad with the greatest honour, and cherished him with more friendship than profit. thus fortified, he checked, by the greatness of his name, the wantonness of the neighbouring kings, in that he took from them all their forces and all liking and heart for mutual warfare. after this he went to harald, who made him commander of the sea; and at last he was transferred to the service of ring. at this time one brun was the sole partner and confidant of all harald's councils. to this man both harald and ring, whenever they needed a secret messenger, used to entrust their commissions. this degree of intimacy he obtained because he had been reared and fostered with them. but brun, amid the toils of his constant journeys to and fro, was drowned in a certain river; and odin, disguised under his name and looks, shook the close union of the kings by his treacherous embassage; and he sowed strife so guilefully that he engendered in men, who were bound by friendship and blood, a bitter mutual hate, which seemed unappeasable except by war. their dissensions first grew up silently; at last both sides betrayed their leanings, and their secret malice burst into the light of day. so they declared their feuds, and seven years passed in collecting the materials of war. some say that harald secretly sought occasions to destroy himself, not being moved by malice or jealousy for the crown, but by a deliberate and voluntary effort. his old age and his cruelty made him a burden to his subjects; he preferred the sword to the pangs of disease, and liked better to lay down his life in the battle-field than in his bed, that he might have an end in harmony with the deeds of his past life. thus, to make his death more illustrious, and go to the nether world in a larger company, he longed to summon many men to share his end; and he therefore of his own will prepared for war, in order to make food for future slaughter. for these reasons, being seized with as great a thirst to die himself as to kill others, and wishing the massacre on both sides to be equal, he furnished both sides with equal resources; but let ring have a somewhat stronger force, preferring he should conquer and survive him. endnotes: ( ) a parallel is the lionel-lancelot story of children saved by being turned into dogs. book eight. starkad was the first to set in order in danish speech the history of the swedish war, a conflict whereof he was himself a mighty pillar; the said history being rather an oral than a written tradition. he set forth and arranged the course of this war in the mother tongue according to the fashion of our country; but i purpose to put it into latin, and will first recount the most illustrious princes on either side. for i have felt no desire to include the multitude, which are even past exact numbering. and my pen shall relate first those on the side of harald, and presently those who served under ring. now the most famous of the captains that mustered to harald are acknowledged to have been sweyn and sambar (sam?), ambar and elli; rati of funen, salgard and roe (hrothgar), whom his long beard distinguished by a nickname. besides these, skalk the scanian, and alf the son of agg; to whom are joined olwir the broad, and gnepie the old. besides these there was gardh, founder of the town stang. to these are added the kinsfolk or bound followers of harald: blend (blaeng?), the dweller in furthest thule, ( ) and brand, whose surname was crumb (bitling?). allied with these were thorguy, with thorwig, tatar (teit), and hialte. these men voyaged to leire with bodies armed for war; but they were also mighty in excellence of wit, and their trained courage matched their great stature; for they had skill in discharging arrows both from bow and catapult, and at fighting their foe as they commonly did, man to man; and also at readily stringing together verse in the speech of their country: so zealously had they trained mind and body alike. now out of leire came hortar (hjort) and borrhy (borgar or borgny), and also belgi and beigad, to whom were added bari and toli. now out of the town of sle, under the captains hetha (heid) and wisna, with hakon cut-cheek came tummi the sailmaker. on these captains, who had the bodies of women, nature bestowed the souls of men. webiorg was also inspired with the same spirit, and was attended by bo (bui) bramason and brat the jute, thirsting for war. in the same throng came orm of england, ubbe the frisian, ari the one-eyed, and alf gotar. next in the count came dal the fat and duk the sclav; wisna, a woman, filled with sternness, and a skilled warrior, was guarded by a band of sclavs: her chief followers were barri and gnizli. but the rest of the same company had their bodies covered by little shields, and used very long swords and targets of skiey hue, which, in time of war, they either cast behind their backs or gave over to the baggage-bearers; while they cast away all protection to their breasts, and exposed their bodies to every peril, offering battle with drawn swords. the most illustrious of these were tolkar and ymi. after these, toki of the province of wohin was conspicuous together with otrit surnamed the young. hetha, guarded by a retinue of very active men, brought an armed company to the war, the chiefs of whom were grim and grenzli; next to whom are named geir the livonian, hame also and hunger, humbli and biari, bravest of the princes. these men often fought duels successfully, and won famous victories far and wide. the maidens i have named, in fighting as well as courteous array, led their land-forces to the battle-field. thus the danish army mustered company by company. there were seven kings, equal in spirit but differing in allegiance, some defending harald, and some ring. moreover, the following went to the side of harald: homi and hosathul (eysothul?), him...., hastin and hythin (hedin) the slight, also dahar (dag), named grenski, and harald olafsson also. from the province of aland came har and herlewar (herleif), with hothbrodd, surnamed the furious; these fought in the danish camp. but from imisland arrived humnehy (?) and harald. they were joined by haki and by sigmund and serker the sons of bemon, all coming from the north. all these were retainers of the king, who befriended them most generously; for they were held in the highest distinction by him, receiving swords adorned with gold, and the choicest spoils of war. there came also.... the sons of gandal the old, who were in the intimate favour of harald by reason of ancient allegiance. thus the sea was studded with the danish fleet, and seemed to interpose a bridge, uniting zealand to skaane. to those that wished to pass between those provinces, the sea offered a short road on foot over the dense mass of ships. but harald would not have the swedes unprepared in their arrangements for war, and sent men to ring to carry his public declaration of hostilities, and notify the rupture of the mediating peace. the same men were directed to prescribe the place of combat. these then whom i have named were the fighters for harald. now, on the side of ring were numbered ulf, aggi (aki?), windar (eywind?), egil the one-eyed; gotar, hildi, guti alfsson; styr the stout, and (tolo-) stein, who lived by the wienic mere. to these were joined gerd the glad and gromer (glum?) from wermland. after these are reckoned the dwellers north on the elbe, saxo the splitter, sali the goth; thord the stumbler, throndar big-nose; grundi, oddi, grindir, tovi; koll, biarki, hogni the clever, rokar the swart. now these scorned fellowship with the common soldiers, and had formed themselves into a separate rank apart from the rest of the company. besides these are numbered hrani hildisson and lyuth guthi (hljot godi), svein the topshorn, (soknarsoti?), rethyr (hreidar?) hawk, and rolf the uxorious (woman-lover). massed with these were ring adilsson and harald who came from thotn district. joined to these were walstein of wick, thorolf the thick, thengel the tall, hun, solwe, birwil the pale, borgar and skumbar (skum). but from, tellemark came the bravest of all, who had most courage but least arrogance--thorleif the stubborn, thorkill the gute (gothlander), grettir the wicked and the lover of invasions. next to these came hadd the hard and rolder (hroald) toe-joint. from norway we have the names of thrand of throndhjem, thoke (thore) of more, hrafn the white, haf (war), biarni, blihar (blig?) surnamed snub-nosed; biorn from the district of sogni; findar (finn) born in the firth; bersi born in the town f(i)alu; siward boarhead, erik the story-teller, holmstein the white, hrut rawi (or vafi, the doubter), erling surnamed snake. now from the province of jather came odd the englishman, alf the far-wanderer, enar the paunched, and ywar surnamed thriug. now from thule (iceland) came mar the red, born and bred in the district called midfirth; grombar the aged, gram brundeluk (bryndalk?) grim from the town of skier (um) born in skagafiord. next came berg the seer, accompanied by bragi and rafnkel. now the bravest of the swedes were these: arwakki, keklu-karl (kelke-karl), krok the peasant, (from akr), gudfast and gummi from gislamark. these were kindred of the god frey, and most faithful witnesses to the gods. ingi (yngwe) also, and oly, alver, folki, all sons of elrik (alrek), embraced the service of ring; they were men ready of hand, quick in counsel, and very close friends of ring. they likewise held the god frey to be the founder of their race. amongst these from the town of sigtun also came sigmund, a champion advocate, versed in making contracts of sale and purchase; besides him frosti surnamed bowl: allied with him was alf the lofty (proud?) from the district of upsala; this man was a swift spear-thrower, and used to go in the front of the battle. ole had a body-guard in which were seven kings, very ready of hand and of counsel; namely, holti, hendil, holmar, lewy (leif), and hame; with these was enrolled regnald the russian, the grandson of radbard; and siwald also furrowed the sea with eleven light ships. lesy (laesi), the conqueror of the pannonians (huns), fitted with a sail his swift galley ringed with gold. thririkar (erik helsing) sailed in a ship whose prows were twisted like a dragon. also thrygir (tryggve) and torwil sailed and brought twelve ships jointly. in the entire fleet of ring there were , ships. the fleet of gotland was waiting for the swedish fleet in the harbour named garnum. so ring led the land-force, while ole was instructed to command the fleet. now the goths were appointed a time and a place between wik and werund for the conflict with the swedes. then was the sea to be seen furrowed up with prows, and the canvas unfurled upon the masts cut off the view over the ocean. the danes had so far been distressed with bad weather; but the swedish fleet had a fair voyage, and had reached the scene of battle earlier. here ring disembarked his forces from his fleet, and then massed and prepared to draw up in line both these and the army he had himself conducted overland. when these forces were at first loosely drawn up over the open country, it was found that one wing reached all the way to werund. the multitude was confused in its places and ranks; but the king rode round it, and posted in the van all the smartest and most excellently-armed men, led by ole, regnald, and wivil; then he massed the rest of the army on the two wings in a kind of curve. ung, with the sons of alrek, and trig, he ordered to protect the right wing, while the left was put under the command of laesi. moreover, the wings and the masses were composed mainly of a close squadron of kurlanders and of esthonians. last stood the line of slingers. meantime the danish fleet, favoured by kindly winds, sailed, without stopping, for twelve days, and came to the town (stead) of kalmar. the wind-blown sails covering the waters were a marvel; and the canvas stretched upon the yards blotted out the sight of the heavens. for the fleet was augmented by the sclavs and the livonians and , saxons. but the skanians, knowing the country, were appointed as guides and scouts to those who were going over the dry land. so when the danish army came upon the swedes, who stood awaiting them, ring told his men to stand quietly until harald had drawn up his line of battle; bidding them not to sound the signal before they saw the king settled in his chariot beside the standards; for he said he should hope that an army would soon come to grief which trusted in the leading of a blind man. harald, moreover, he said, had been seized in extreme age with the desire of foreign empire, and was as witless as he was sightless; wealth could not satisfy a man who, if he looked to his years, ought to be well-nigh contented with a grave. the swedes therefore were bound to fight for their freedom, their country, and their children, while the enemy had undertaken the war in rashness and arrogance. moreover, on the other side, there were very few danes, but a mass of saxons and other unmanly peoples stood arrayed. swedes and norwegians should therefore consider, how far the multitudes of the north had always surpassed the germans and the sclavs. they should therefore despise an army which seemed to be composed more of a mass of fickle offscourings than of a firm and stout soldiery. by this harangue of king ring he kindled high the hearts of the soldiers. now brun, being instructed to form the line on harald's behalf, made the front in a wedge, posting hetha on the right flank, putting hakon in command of the left, and making wisna standard-bearer. harald stood up in his chariot and complained, in as loud a voice as he could, that ring was requiting his benefits with wrongs; that the man who had got his kingdom by harald's own gift was now attacking him; so that ring neither pitied an old man nor spared an uncle, but set his own ambitions before any regard for harald's kinship or kindness. so he bade the danes remember how they had always won glory by foreign conquest, and how they were more wont to command their neighbours than to obey them. he adjured them not to let such glory as theirs to be shaken by the insolence of a conquered nation, nor to suffer the empire, which he had won in the flower of his youth, to be taken from him in his outworn age. then the trumpets sounded, and both sides engaged in battle with all their strength. the sky seemed to fall suddenly on the earth, fields and woods to sink into the ground; all things were confounded, and old chaos come again; heaven and earth mingling in one tempestuous turmoil, and the world rushing to universal ruin. for, when the spear-throwing began, the intolerable clash of arms filled the air with an incredible thunder. the steam of the wounds suddenly hung a mist over the sky, the daylight was hidden under the hail of spears. the help of the slingers was of great use in the battle. but when the missiles had all been flung from hand or engines, they fought with swords or iron-shod maces; and it was now at close quarters that most blood was spilt. then the sweat streamed down their weary bodies, and the clash of the swords could be heard afar. starkad, who was the first to set forth the history of this war in the telling, fought foremost in the fray, and relates that he overthrew the nobles of harald, hun and elli, hort and burgha, and cut off the right hand of wisna. he also relates that one roa, with two others, gnepie and gardar, fell wounded by him in the field. to these he adds the father of skalk, whose name is not given. he also declares that he cast hakon, the bravest of the danes, to the earth, but received from him such a wound in return that he had to leave the war with his lung protruding from his chest, his neck cleft to the centre, and his hand deprived of one finger; so that he long had a gaping wound, which seemed as if it would never either scar over or be curable. the same man witnesses that the maiden weghbiorg (webiorg) fought against the enemy and felled soth the champion. while she was threatening to slay more champions, she was pierced through by an arrow from the bowstring of thorkill, a native of tellemark. for the skilled archers of the gotlanders strung their bows so hard that the shafts pierced through even the shields; nothing proved more murderous; for the arrow-points made their way through hauberk and helmet as if they were men's defenceless bodies. meanwhile ubbe the frisian, who was the readiest of harald's soldiers, and of notable bodily stature, slew twenty-five picked champions, besides eleven whom he had wounded in the field. all these were of swedish or gothic blood. then he attacked the vanguard and burst into the thickest of the enemy, driving the swedes struggling in a panic every way with spear and sword. it had all but come to a flight, when hagder (hadd), rolder (hroald), and grettir attacked the champion, emulating his valour, and resolving at their own risk to retrieve the general ruin. but, fearing to assault him at close quarters, they accomplished their end with arrows from afar; and thus ubbe was riddled by a shower of arrows, no one daring to fight him hand to hand. a hundred and forty-four arrows had pierced the breast of the warrior before his bodily strength failed and he bent his knee to the earth. then at last the danes suffered a great defeat, owing to the thronds and the dwellers in the province of dala. for the battle began afresh by reason of the vast mass of the archers, and nothing damaged our men more. but when harald, being now blind with age, heard the lamentable murmur of his men, he perceived that fortune had smiled on his enemies. so, as he was riding in a chariot armed with scythes, he told brun, who was treacherously acting as charioteer, to find out in what manner ring had his line drawn up. brun's face relaxed into something of a smile, and he answered that he was fighting with a line in the form of a wedge. when the king heard this he began to be alarmed, and to ask in great astonishment from whom ring could have learnt this method of disposing his line, especially as odin was the discoverer and imparter of this teaching, and none but himself had ever learnt from him this new pattern of warfare. at this brun was silent, and it came into the king's mind that here was odin, and that the god whom he had once known so well was now disguised in a changeful shape, in order either to give help or withhold it. presently he began to beseech him earnestly to grant the final victory to the danes, since he had helped them so graciously before, and to fill up his last kindness to the measure of the first; promising to dedicate to him as a gift the spirits of all who fell. but brun, utterly unmoved by his entreaties, suddenly jerked the king out of the chariot, battered him to the earth, plucked the club from him as he fell, whirled it upon his head, and slew him with his own weapon. countless corpses lay round the king's chariot, and the horrid heap overtopped the wheels; the pile of carcases rose as high as the pole. for about , of the nobles of ring fell upon the field. but on the side of harald about , nobles fell, not to name the slaughter of the commons. when ring heard that harald was dead, he gave the signal to his men to break up their line and cease fighting. then under cover of truce he made treaty with the enemy, telling them that it was vain to prolong the fray without their captain. next he told the swedes to look everywhere among the confused piles of carcases for the body of harald, that the corpse of the king might not wrongfully lack its due rights. so the populace set eagerly to the task of turning over the bodies of the slain, and over this work half the day was spent. at last the body was found with the club, and he thought that propitiation should be made to the shade of harald. so he harnessed the horse on which he rode to the chariot of the king, decked it honourably with a golden saddle, and hallowed it in his honour. then he proclaimed his vows, and added his prayer that harald would ride on this and outstrip those who shared his death in their journey to tartarus; and that he would pray pluto, the lord of orcus, to grant a calm abode there for friend and foe. then he raised a pyre, and bade the danes fling on the gilded chariot of their king as fuel to the fire. and while the flames were burning the body cast upon them, he went round the mourning nobles and earnestly charged them that they should freely give arms, gold, and every precious thing to feed the pyre in honour of so great a king, who had deserved so nobly of them all. he also ordered that the ashes of his body, when it was quite burnt, should be transferred to an urn, taken to leire, and there, together with the horse and armour, receive a royal funeral. by paying these due rites of honour to his uncle's shade, he won the favour of the danes, and turned the hate of his enemies into goodwill. then the danes besought him to appoint hetha over the remainder of the realm; but, that the fallen strength of the enemy might not suddenly rally, he severed skaane from the mass of denmark, and put it separately under the governorship of ole, ordering that only zealand and the other lands of the realm should be subject to hetha. thus the changes of fortune brought the empire of denmark under the swedish rule. so ended the bravic war. but the zealanders, who had had harald for their captain, and still had the picture of their former fortune hovering before their minds, thought it shameful to obey the rule of a woman, and appealed to ole not to suffer men that had been used to serve under a famous king to be kept under a woman's yoke. they also promised to revolt to him if he would take up arms to remove their ignominious lot. ole, tempted as much by the memory of his ancestral glory as by the homage of the soldiers, was not slow to answer their entreaties. so he summoned hetha, and forced her by threats rather than by arms to quit every region under her control except jutland; and even jutland he made a tributary state, so as not to allow a woman the free control of a kingdom. he also begot a son whom he named omund. but he was given to cruelty, and showed himself such an unrighteous king, that all who had found it a shameful thing to be ruled by a queen now repented of their former scorn. twelve generals, whether moved by the disasters of their country, or hating ole for some other reason, began to plot against his life. among these were hlenni, atyl, thott, and withne, the last of whom was a dane by birth, though he held a government among the sclavs. moreover, not trusting in their strength and their cunning to accomplish their deed, they bribed starkad to join them. he was prevailed to do the deed with the sword; he undertook the bloody work, and resolved to attack the king while at the bath. in he went while the king was washing, but was straightway stricken by the keenness of his gaze and by the restless and quivering glare of his eyes. his limbs were palsied with sudden dread; he paused, stepped back, and stayed his hand and his purpose. thus he who had shattered the arms of so many captains and champions could not bear the gaze of a single unarmed man. but ole, who well knew about his own countenance, covered his face, and asked him to come closer and tell him what his message was; for old fellowship and long-tried friendship made him the last to suspect treachery. but starkad drew his sword, leapt forward, thrust the king through, and struck him in the throat as he tried to rise. one hundred and twenty marks of gold were kept for his reward. soon afterwards he was smitten with remorse and shame, and lamented his crime so bitterly, that he could not refrain from tears if it happened to be named. thus his soul, when he came to his senses, blushed for his abominable sin. moreover, to atone for the crime he had committed, he slew some of those who had inspired him to it, thus avenging the act to which he had lent his hand. now the danes made omund, the son of ole, king, thinking that more heed should be paid to his father's birth than to his deserts. omund, when he had grown up, fell in nowise behind the exploits of his father; for he made it his aim to equal or surpass the deeds of ole. at this time a considerable tribe of the northmen (norwegians) was governed by ring, and his daughter esa's great fame commended her to omund, who was looking out for a wife. but his hopes of wooing her were lessened by the peculiar inclination of ring, who desired no son-in-law but one of tried valour; for he found as much honour in arms as others think lies in wealth. omund therefore, wishing to become famous in that fashion, and to win the praise of valour, endeavoured to gain his desire by force, and sailed to norway with a fleet, to make an attempt on the throne of ring under plea of hereditary right. odd, the chief of jather, who declared that ring had assuredly seized his inheritance, and lamented that he harried him with continual wrongs, received omund kindly. ring, in the meantime, was on a roving raid in ireland, so that omund attacked a province without a defender. sparing the goods of the common people, he gave the private property of ring over to be plundered, and slew his kinsfolk; odd also having joined his forces to omund. now, among all his divers and manifold deeds, he could never bring himself to attack an inferior force, remembering that he was the son of a most valiant father, and that he was bound to fight armed with courage, and not with numbers. meanwhile ring had returned from roving; and when omund heard he was back, he set to and built a vast ship, whence, as from a fortress, he could rain his missiles on the enemy. to manage this ship he enlisted homod and thole the rowers, the soils of atyl the skanian, one of whom was instructed to act as steersman, while the other was to command at the prow. ring lacked neither skill nor dexterity to encounter them. for he showed only a small part of his forces, and caused the enemy to be attacked on the rear. omund, when told of his strategy by odd, sent men to overpower those posted in ambush, telling atyl the skanian to encounter ring. the order was executed with more rashness than success; and atyl, with his power defeated and shattered, fled beaten to skaane. then omund recruited his forces with the help of odd, and drew up his fleet to fight on the open sea. atyl at this time had true visions of the norwegian war in his dreams, and started on his voyage in order to make up for his flight as quickly as possible, and delighted omund by joining him on the eve of battle. trusting in his help, omund began to fight with equal confidence and success. for, by fighting himself, he retrieved the victory which he had lost when his servants were engaged. ring, wounded to the death, gazed at him with faint eyes, and, beckoning to him with his hand, as well as he could--for his voice failed him--he besought him to be his son-in-law, saying that he would gladly meet his end if he left his daughter to such a husband. before he could receive an answer he died. omund wept for his death, and gave homod, whose trusty help he had received in the war, in marriage to one of the daughters of ring, taking the other himself. at the same time the amazon rusla, whose prowess in warfare exceeded the spirit of a woman, had many fights in norway with her brother, thrond, for the sovereignty. she could not endure that omund rule over the norwegians, and she had declared war against all the subjects of the danes. omund, when he heard of this, commissioned his most active men to suppress the rising. rusla conquered them, and, waxing haughty on her triumph, was seized with overweening hopes, and bent her mind upon actually acquiring the sovereignty of denmark. she began her attack on the region of halland, but was met by homod and thode, whom the king had sent over. beaten, she retreated to her fleet, of which only thirty ships managed to escape, the rest being taken by the enemy. thrond encountered his sister as she was eluding the danes, but was conquered by her and stripped of his entire army; he fled over the dovrefjeld without a single companion. thus she, who had first yielded before the danes, soon overcame her brother, and turned her flight into a victory. when omund heard of this, he went back to norway with a great fleet, first sending homod and thole by a short and secret way to rouse the people of tellemark against the rule of rusla. the end was that she was driven out of her kingdom by the commons, fled to the isles for safety, and turned her back, without a blow, upon the danes as they came up. the king pursued her hotly, caught up her fleet on the sea, and utterly destroyed it, the enemy suffered mightily, and he won a bloodless victory and splendid spoils. but rusla escaped with a very few ships, and rowed ploughing the waves furiously; but, while she was avoiding the danes, she met her brother and was killed. so much more effectual for harm are dangers unsurmised; and chance sometimes makes the less alarming evil worse than that which threatens. the king gave thrond a governorship for slaying his sister, put the rest under tribute, and returned home. at this time thorias (?) and ber (biorn), the most active of the soldiers of rusla, were roving in ireland; but when they heard of the death of their mistress, whom they had long ago sworn to avenge, they hotly attacked omund, and challenged him to a duel, which it used to be accounted shameful for a king to refuse; for the fame of princes of old was reckoned more by arms than by riches. so homod and thole came forward, offering to meet in battle the men who had challenged the king. omund praised them warmly, but at first declined for very shame to allow their help. at last, hard besought by his people, he brought himself to try his fortune by the hand of another. we are told that ber fell in this combat, while thorias left the battle severely wounded. the king, having first cured him of his wounds, took him into his service, and made him prince (earl) over norway. then he sent ambassadors to exact the usual tribute from the sclavs; these were killed, and he was even attacked in jutland by a sclavish force; but he overcame seven kings in a single combat, and ratified by conquest his accustomed right to tribute. meantime, starkad, who was now worn out with extreme age, and who seemed to be past military service and the calling of a champion, was loth to lose his ancient glory through the fault of eld, and thought it would be a noble thing if he could make a voluntary end, and hasten his death by his own free will. having so often fought nobly, he thought it would be mean to die a bloodless death; and, wishing to enhance the glory of his past life by the lustre of his end, he preferred to be slain by some man of gallant birth rather than await the tardy shaft of nature. so shameful was it thought that men devoted to war should die by disease. his body was weak, and his eyes could not see clearly, so that he hated to linger any more in life. in order to buy himself an executioner, he wore hanging on his neck the gold which he had earned for the murder of ole; thinking there was no fitter way of atoning for the treason he had done than to make the price of ole's death that of his own also, and to spend on the loss of his own life what he had earned by the slaying of another. this, he thought, would be the noblest use he could make of that shameful price. so he girded him with two swords, and guided his powerless steps leaning on two staves. one of the common people, seeing him, thinking two swords superfluous for the use of an old man, mockingly asked him to make him a present of one of them. starkad, holding out hopes of consent, bade him come nearer, drew the sword from his side, and ran him through. this was seen by a certain hather, whose father hlenne starkad had once killed in repentance for his own impious crime. hatfier was hunting game with his dogs, but now gave over the chase, and bade two of his companions spur their horses hard and charge at the old man to frighten him. they galloped forward, and tried to make off, but were stopped by the staves of starkad, and paid for it with their lives. hather, terrified by the sight, galloped up closer, and saw who the old man was, but without being recognized by him in turn; and asked him if he would like to exchange his sword for a carriage. starkad replied that he used in old days to chastise jeerers, and that the insolent had never insulted him unpunished. but his sightless eyes could not recognize the features of the youth; so he composed a song, wherein he should declare the greatness of his anger, as follows: "as the unreturning waters sweep down the channel; so, as the years run by, the life of man flows on never to come back; fast gallops the cycle of doom, child of old age who shall make an end of all. old age smites alike the eyes and the steps of men, robs the warrior of his speech and soul, tarnishes his fame by slow degrees, and wipes out his deeds of honour. it seizes his failing limbs, chokes his panting utterance, and numbs his nimble wit. when a cough is taken, when the skin itches with the scab, and the teeth are numb and hollow, and the stomach turns squeamish,--then old age banishes the grace of youth, covers the complexion with decay, and sows many a wrinkle in the dusky skin. old age crushes noble arts, brings down the memorials of men of old, and scorches ancient glories up; shatters wealth, hungrily gnaws away the worth and good of virtue, turns athwart and disorders all things. "i myself have felt the hurtful power of injurious age, i, dim-sighted, and hoarse in my tones and in my chest; and all helpful things have turned to my hurt. now my body is less nimble, and i prop it up, leaning my faint limbs on the support of staves. sightless i guide my steps with two sticks, and follow the short path which the rod shows me, trusting more in the leading of a stock than in my eyes. none takes any charge of me, and no man in the ranks brings comfort to the veteran, unless, perchance, hather is here, and succours his shattered friend. whomsoever hather once thinks worthy of his duteous love, that man he attends continually with even zeal, constant to his purpose, and fearing to break his early ties. he also often pays fit rewards to those that have deserved well in war, and fosters their courage; he bestows dignities on the brave, and honours his famous friends with gifts. free with his wealth, he is fain to increase with bounty the brightness of his name, and to surpass many of the mighty. nor is he less in war: his strength is equal to his goodness; he is swift in the fray, slow to waver, ready to give battle; and he cannot turn his back when the foe bears him hard. but for me, if i remember right, fate appointed at my birth that wars i should follow and in war i should die, that i should mix in broils, watch in arms, and pass a life of bloodshed. i was a man of camps, and rested not; hating peace, i grew old under thy standard, o war-god, in utmost peril; conquering fear, i thought it comely to fight, shameful to loiter, and noble to kill and kill again, to be for ever slaughtering! oft have i seen the stern kings meet in war, seen shield and helmet bruised, and the fields redden with blood, and the cuirass broken by the spear-point, and the corselets all around giving at the thrust of the steel, and the wild beasts battening on the unburied soldier. here, as it chanced, one that attempted a mighty thing, a strong-handed warrior, fighting against the press of the foe, smote through the mail that covered my head, pierced my helmet, and plunged his blade into my crest. this sword also hath often been driven by my right hand in war, and, once unsheathed, hath cleft the skin and bitten into the skull." hather, in answer, sang as follows: "whence comest thou, who art used to write the poems of thy land, leaning thy wavering steps on a frail staff? or whither dost thou speed, who art the readiest bard of the danish muse? all the glory of thy great strength is faded and lost; the hue is banished from thy face, the joy is gone out of thy soul; the voice has left thy throat, and is hoarse and dull; thy body has lost its former stature; the decay of death begins, and has wasted thy features and thy force. as a ship wearies, buffeted by continual billows, even so old age, gendered by a long course of years, brings forth bitter death; and the life falls when its strength is done, and suffers the loss of its ancient lot. famous old man, who has told thee that thou mayst not duly follow the sports of youth, or fling balls, or bite and eat the nut? i think it were better for thee now to sell thy sword, and buy a carriage wherein to ride often, or a horse easy on the bit, or at the same cost to purchase a light cart. it will be more fitting for beasts of burden to carry weak old men, when their steps fail them; the wheel, driving round and round, serves for him whose foot totters feebly. but if perchance thou art loth to sell the useless steel, thy sword, if it be not for sale, shall be taken from thee and shall slay thee." starkad answered: "wretch, thy glib lips scatter idle words, unfit for the ears of the good. why seek the gifts to reward that guidance, which thou shouldst have offered for naught? surely i will walk afoot, and will not basely give up my sword and buy the help of a stranger; nature has given me the right of passage, and hath bidden me trust in my own feet. why mock and jeer with insolent speech at him whom thou shouldst have offered to guide upon his way? why give to dishonour my deeds of old, which deserve the memorial of fame? why requite my service with reproach? why pursue with jeers the old man mighty in battle, and put to shame my unsurpassed honours and illustrious deeds, belittling my glories and girding at my prowess? for what valour of thine dost thou demand my sword, which thy strength does not deserve? it befits not the right hand or the unwarlike side of a herdsman, who is wont to make his peasant-music on the pipe, to see to the flock, to keep the herds in the fields. surely among the henchmen, close to the greasy pot, thou dippest thy crust in the bubbles of the foaming pan, drenching a meagre slice in the rich, oily fat, and stealthily, with thirsty finger, licking the warm juice; more skilled to spread thy accustomed cloak on the ashes, to sleep on the hearth, and slumber all day long, and go busily about the work of the reeking kitchen, than to make the brave blood flow with thy shafts in war. men think thee a hater of the light and a lover of a filthy hole, a wretched slave of thy belly, like a whelp who licks the coarse grain, husk and all. "by heaven, thou didst not try to rob me of my sword when thrice at great peril i fought (for?) the son of ole. for truly, in that array, my hand either broke the sword or shattered the obstacle, so heavy was the blow of the smiter. what of the day when i first taught them, to run with wood-shod feet over the shore of the kurlanders, and the path bestrewn with countless points? for when i was going to the fields studded with calthrops, i guarded their wounded feet with clogs below them. after this i slew hame, who fought me mightily; and soon, with the captain rin the son of flebak, i crushed the kurlanders, yea, or all the tribes esthonia breeds, and thy peoples, o semgala! then i attacked the men of tellemark, and took thence my head bloody with bruises, shattered with mallets, and smitten with the welded weapons. here first i learnt how strong was the iron wrought on the anvil, or what valour the common people had. also it was my doing that the teutons were punished, when, in avenging my lord, i laid low over their cups thy sons, o swerting, who were guilty of the wicked slaughter of frode. "not less was the deed when, for the sake of a beloved maiden, i slew nine brethren in one fray;--witness the spot, which was consumed by the bowels that left me, and brings not forth the grain anew on its scorched sod. and soon, when ker the captain made ready a war by sea, with a noble army we beat his serried ships. then i put waske to death, and punished the insolent smith by slashing his hinder parts; and with the sword i slew wisin, who from the snowy rocks blunted the spears. then i slew the four sons of ler, and the champions of permland; and then having taken the chief of the irish race, i rifled the wealth of dublin; and our courage shall ever remain manifest by the trophies of bravalla. why do i linger? countless are the deeds of my bravery, and when i review the works of my hands i fail to number them to the full. the whole is greater than i can tell. my work is too great for fame, and speech serves not for my doings." so sang starkad. at last, when he found by their talk that hather was the son of hlenne, and saw that the youth was of illustrious birth, he offered him his throat to smite, bidding him not to shrink from punishing the slayer of his father. he promised him that if he did so he should possess the gold which he had himself received from hlenne. and to enrage his heart more vehemently against him, he is said to have harangued him as follows: "moreover, hather, i robbed thee of thy father hlenne; requite me this, i pray, and strike down the old man who longs to die; aim at my throat with the avenging steel. for my soul chooses the service of a noble smiter, and shrinks to ask its doom at a coward's hand. righteously may a man choose to forstall the ordinance of doom. what cannot be escaped it will be lawful also to anticipate. the fresh tree must be fostered, the old one hewn down. he is nature's instrument who destroys what is near its doom and strikes down what cannot stand. death is best when it is sought: and when the end is loved, life is wearisome. let not the troubles of age prolong a miserable lot." so saying, he took money from his pouch and gave it him. but hather, desiring as much to enjoy the gold as to accomplish vengeance for his father, promised that he would comply with his prayer, and would not refuse the reward. starkad eagerly handed him the sword, and at once stooped his neck beneath it, counselling him not to do the smiter's work timidly, or use the sword like a woman; and telling him that if, when he had killed him, he could spring between the head and the trunk before the corpse fell, he would be rendered proof against arms. it is not known whether he said this in order to instruct his executioner or to punish him, for perhaps, as he leapt, the bulk of the huge body would have crushed him. so hather smote sharply with the sword and hacked off the head of the old man. when the severed head struck the ground, it is said to have bitten the earth; thus the fury of the dying lips declared the fierceness of the soul. but the smiter, thinking that the promise hid some treachery, warily refrained from leaping. had he done so rashly, perhaps he would have been crushed by the corpse as it fell, and have paid with his own life for the old man's murder. but he would not allow so great a champion to lie unsepulchred, and had his body buried in the field that is commonly called rolung. now omund, as i have heard, died most tranquilly, while peace was unbroken, leaving two sons and two daughters. the eldest of these, siward, came to the throne by right of birth, while his brother budle was still of tender years. at this time gotar, king of the swedes, conceived boundless love for one of the daughters of omund, because of the report of her extraordinary beauty, and entrusted one ebb, the son of sibb, with the commission of asking for the maiden. ebb did his work skilfully, and brought back the good news that the girl had consented. nothing was now lacking to gotar's wishes but the wedding; but, as he feared to hold this among strangers, he demanded that his betrothed should be sent to him in charge of ebb, whom he had before used as envoy. ebb was crossing halland with a very small escort, and went for a night's lodging to a country farm, where the dwellings of two brothers faced one another on the two sides of a river. now these men used to receive folk hospitably and then murder them, but were skilful to hide their brigandage under a show of generosity. for they had hung on certain hidden chains, in a lofty part of the house, an oblong beam like a press, and furnished it with a steel point; they used to lower this in the night by letting down the fastenings, and cut off the heads of those that lay below. many had they beheaded in this way with the hanging mass. so when ebb and his men had been feasted abundantly, the servants laid them out a bed near the hearth, so that by the swing of the treacherous beam they might mow off their heads, which faced the fire. when they departed, ebb, suspecting the contrivance slung overhead, told his men to feign slumber and shift their bodies, saying that it would be very wholesome for them to change their place. now among these were some who despised the orders which the others obeyed, and lay unmoved, each in the spot where he had chanced to lie down. then towards the mirk of night the heavy hanging machine was set in motion by the doers of the treachery. loosened from the knots of its fastening, it fell violently on the ground, and slew those beneath it. thereupon those who had the charge of committing the crime brought in a light, that they might learn clearly what had happened, and saw that ebb, on whose especial account they had undertaken the affair, had wisely been equal to the danger. he straightway set on them and punished them with death; and also, after losing his men in the mutual slaughter, he happened to find a vessel, crossed a river full of blocks of ice, and announced to gotar the result, not so much of his mission as of his mishap. gotar judged that this affair had been inspired by siward, and prepared to avenge his wrongs by arms. siward, defeated by him in halland, retreated into jutland, the enemy having taken his sister. here he conquered the common people of the sclavs, who ventured to fight without a leader; and he won as much honour from this victory as he had got disgrace by his flight. but a little afterwards, the men whom he had subdued when they were ungeneraled, found a general and defeated siward in funen. several times he fought them in jutland, but with ill-success. the result was that he lost both skaane and jutland, and only retained the middle of his realm without the head, like the fragments of some body that had been consumed away. his son jarmerik (eormunrec), with his child-sisters, fell into the hands of the enemy; one of these was sold to the germans, the other to the norwegians; for in old time marriages were matters of purchase. thus the kingdom of the danes, which had been enlarged with such valour, made famous by such ancestral honours, and enriched by so many conquests, fell, all by the sloth of one man, from the most illustrious fortune and prosperity into such disgrace that it paid the tribute which it used to exact. but siward, too often defeated and guilty of shameful flights, could not endure, after that glorious past, to hold the troubled helm of state any longer in this shameful condition of his land; and, fearing that living longer might strip him of his last shred of glory, he hastened to win an honourable death in battle. for his soul could not forget his calamity, it was fain to cast off its sickness, and was racked with weariness of life. so much did he abhor the light of life in his longing to wipe out his shame. so he mustered his army for battle, and openly declared war with one simon, who was governor of skaane under gotar. this war he pursued with stubborn rashness; he slew simon, and ended his own life amid a great slaughter of his foes. yet his country could not be freed from the burden of the tribute. jarmerik, meantime, with his foster-brother of the same age as himself, gunn, was living in prison, in charge of ismar, the king of the sclavs. at last he was taken out and put to agriculture, doing the work of a peasant. so actively did he manage this matter that he was transferred and made master of the royal slaves. as he likewise did this business most uprightly, he was enrolled in the band of the king's retainers. here he bore himself most pleasantly as courtiers use, and was soon taken into the number of the king's friends and obtained the first place in his intimacy; thus, on the strength of a series of great services, he passed from the lowest estate to the most distinguished height of honour. also, loth to live a slack and enfeebled youth, he trained himself to the pursuits of war, enriching his natural gifts by diligence. all men loved jarmerik, and only the queen mistrusted the young man's temper. a sudden report told them that the king's brother had died. ismar, wishing to give his body a splendid funeral, prepared a banquet of royal bounty to increase the splendour of the obsequies. but jarmerik, who used at other times to look after the household affairs together with the queen, began to cast about for means of escape; for a chance seemed to be offered by the absence of the king. for he saw that even in the lap of riches he would be the wretched thrall of a king, and that he would draw, as it were, his very breath on sufferance and at the gift of another. moreover, though he held the highest offices with the king, he thought that freedom was better than delights, and burned with a mighty desire to visit his country and learn his lineage. but, knowing that the queen had provided sufficient guards to see that no prisoner escaped, he saw that he must approach by craft where he could not arrive by force. so he plaited one of those baskets of rushes and withies, shaped like a man, with which countrymen used to scare the birds from the corn, and put a live dog in it; then he took off his own clothes, and dressed it in them, to give a more plausible likeness to a human being. then he broke into the private treasury of the king, took out the money, and hid himself in places of which he alone knew. meantime gunn, whom he had told to conceal the absence of his friend, took the basket into the palace and stirred up the dog to bark; and when the queen asked what this was, he answered that jarmerik was out of his mind and howling. she, beholding the effigy, was deceived by the likeness, and ordered that the madman should be cast out of the house. then gunn took the effigy out and put it to bed, as though it were his distraught friend. but towards night he plied the watch bountifully with wine and festal mirth, cut off their heads as they slept, and set them at their groins, in order to make their slaying more shameful. the queen, roused by the din, and wishing to learn the reason of it, hastily rushed to the doors. but while she unwarily put forth her head, the sword of gunn suddenly pierced her through. feeling a mortal wound, she sank, turned her eyes on her murderer, and said, "had it been granted me to live unscathed, no screen or treachery should have let thee leave this land unpunished." a flood of such threats against her slayer poured from her dying lips. then jarmerik, with gunn, the partner of his noble deed, secretly set fire to the tent wherein the king was celebrating with a banquet the obsequies of his brother; all the company were overcome with liquor. the fire filled the tent and spread all about; and some of them, shaking off the torpor of drink, took horse and pursued those who had endangered them. but the young men fled at first on the beasts they had taken; and at last, when these were exhausted with their long gallop, took to flight on foot. they were all but caught, when a river saved them. for they crossed a bridge, of which, in order to delay the pursuer, they first cut the timbers down to the middle, thus making it not only unequal to a burden, but ready to come down; then they retreated into a dense morass. the sclavs pressed on them hard and, not forseeing the danger, unwarily put the weight of their horses on the bridge; the flooring sank, and they were shaken off and flung into the river. but, as they swam up to the bank, they were met by gunn and jarmerik, and either drowned or slain. thus the young men showed great cunning, and did a deed beyond their years, being more like sagacious old men than runaway slaves, and successfully achieving their shrewd design. when they reached the strand they seized a vessel chance threw in their way, and made for the deep. the barbarians who pursued them, tried, when they saw them sailing off, to bring them back by shouting promises after them that they should be kings if they returned; "for, by the public statute of the ancients, the succession was appointed to the slayers of the kings." as they retreated, their ears were long deafened by the sclavs obstinately shouting their treacherous promises. at this time budle, the brother of siward, was regent over the danes, who forced him to make over the kingdom to jarmerik when he came; so that budle fell from a king into a common man. at the same time gotar charged sibb with debauching his sister, and slew him. sibb's kindred, much angered by his death, came wailing to jarmerik, and promised to attack gotar with him, in order to avenge their kinsman. they kept their promise well, for jarmerik, having overthrown gotar by their help, gained sweden. thus, holding the sovereignty of both nations, he was encouraged by his increased power to attack the sclavs, forty of whom he took and hung with a wolf tied to each of them. this kind of punishment was assigned of old to those who slew their own kindred; but he chose to inflict it upon enemies, that all might see plainly, just from their fellowship with ruthless beasts, how grasping they had shown themselves towards the danes. when jarmerik had conquered the country, he posted garrisons in all the fitting places, and departing thence, he made a slaughter of the sembs and the kurlanders, and many nations of the east. the sclavs, thinking that this employment of the king gave them a chance of revolting, killed the governors whom he had appointed, and ravaged denmark. jarmerik, on his way back from roving, chanced to intercept their fleet, and destroyed it, a deed which added honour to his roll of conquests. he also put their nobles to death in a way that one would weep to see; namely, by first passing thongs through their legs, and then tying them to the hoofs of savage bulls; then hounds set on them and dragged them into miry swamps. this deed took the edge off the valour of the sclavs, and they obeyed the authority of the king in fear and trembling. jarmerik, enriched with great spoils, wished to provide a safe storehouse for his booty, and built on a lofty hill a treasure-house of marvellous handiwork. gathering sods, he raised a mound, laying a mass of rocks for the foundation, and girt the lower part with a rampart, the centre with rooms, and the top with battlements. all round he posted a line of sentries without a break. four huge gates gave free access on the four sides; and into this lordly mansion he heaped all his splendid riches. having thus settled his affairs at home, he again turned his ambition abroad. he began to voyage, and speedily fought a naval battle with four brothers whom he met on the high seas, hellespontines by race, and veteran rovers. after this battle had lasted three days, he ceased fighting, having bargained for their sister and half the tribute which they had imposed on those they had conquered. after this, bikk, the son of the king of the livonians, escaped from the captivity in which he lay under these said brothers, and went to jarmerik. but he did not forget his wrongs, jarmerik having long before deprived him of his own brothers. he was received kindly by the king, in all whose secret counsels he soon came to have a notable voice; and, as soon as he found the king pliable to his advice in all things, he led him, when his counsel was asked, into the most abominable acts, and drove him to commit crimes and infamies. thus he sought some device to injure the king by a feint of loyalty, and tried above all to steel him against his nearest of blood; attempting to accomplish the revenge of his brother by guile, since he could not by force. so it came to pass that the king embraced filthy vices instead of virtues, and made himself generally hated by the cruel deeds which he committed at the instance of his treacherous adviser. even the sclavs began to rise against him; and, as a means of quelling them, he captured their leaders, passed a rope through their shanks, and delivered them to be torn asunder by horses pulling different ways. so perished their chief men, punished for their stubbornness of spirit by having their bodies rent apart. this kept the sclavs duly obedient in unbroken and steady subjugation. meantime, the sons of jarmerik's sister, who had all been born and bred in germany, took up arms, on the strength of their grandsire's title, against their uncle, contending that they had as good a right to the throne as he. the king demolished their strongholds in germany with engines, blockaded or took several towns, and returned home with a bloodless victory. the hellespontines came to meet him, proffering their sister for the promised marriage. after this had been celebrated, at bikk's prompting he again went to germany, took his nephews in war, and incontinently hanged them. he also got together the chief men under the pretence of a banquet and had them put to death in the same fashion. meantime, the king appointed broder, his son by another marriage, to have charge over his stepmother, a duty which he fulfilled with full vigilance and integrity. but bikk accused this man to his father of incest; and, to conceal the falsehood of the charge, suborned witnesses against him. when the plea of the accusation had been fully declared, broder could not bring any support for his defence, and his father bade his friends pass sentence upon the convicted man, thinking it less impious to commit the punishment proper for his son to the judgment of others. all thought that he deserved outlawry except bikk, who did not shrink from giving a more terrible vote against his life, and declaring that the perpetrator of an infamous seduction ought to be punished with hanging. but lest any should think that this punishment was due to the cruelty of his father, bikk judged that, when he had been put in the noose, the servants should hold him up on a beam put beneath him, so that, when weariness made them take their hands from the burden, they might be as good as guilty of the young man's death, and by their own fault exonerate the king from an unnatural murder. he also pretended that, unless the accused were punished, he would plot against his father's life. the adulteress swanhild, he said, ought to suffer a shameful end, trampled under the hoofs of beasts. the king yielded to bikk; and, when his son was to be hanged, he made the bystanders hold him up by means of a plank, that he might not be choked. thus his throat was only a little squeezed, the knot was harmless, and it was but a punishment in show. but the king had the queen tied very tight on the ground, and delivered her to be crushed under the hoofs of horses. the story goes that she was so beautiful, that even the beasts shrank from mangling limbs so lovely with their filthy feet. the king, divining that this proclaimed the innocence of his wife, began to repent of his error, and hastened to release the slandered lady. but meantime bikk rushed up, declaring that when she was on her back she held off the beasts by awful charms, and could only be crushed if she lay on her face; for he knew that her beauty saved her. when the body of the queen was placed in this manner, the herd of beasts was driven upon it, and trod it down deep with their multitude of feet. such was the end of swanhild. meantime, the favourite dog of broder came creeping to the king making a sort of moan, and seemed to bewail its master's punishment; and his hawk, when it was brought in, began to pluck out its breast-feathers with its beak. the king took its nakedness as an omen of his bereavement, to frustrate which he quickly sent men to take his son down from the noose: for he divined by the featherless bird that he would be childless unless he took good heed. thus broder was freed from death, and bikk, fearing he would pay the penalty of an informer, went and told the men of the hellespont that swanhild had been abominably slain by her husband. when they set sail to avenge their sister, he came back to jarmerik, and told him that the hellespontines were preparing war. the king thought that it would be safer to fight with walls than in the field, and retreated into the stronghold which he had built. to stand the siege, he filled its inner parts with stores, and its battlements with men-at-arms. targets and shields flashing with gold were hung round and adorned the topmost circle of the building. it happened that the hellespontines, before sharing their booty, accused a great band of their men of embezzling, and put them to death. having now destroyed so large a part of their forces by internecine slaughter, they thought that their strength was not equal to storming the palace, and consulted a sorceress named gudrun. she brought it to pass that the defenders of the king's side were suddenly blinded and turned their arms against one another. when the hellespontines saw this, they brought up a shield-mantlet, and seized the approaches of the gates. then they tore up the posts, burst into the building, and hewed down the blinded ranks of the enemy. in this uproar odin appeared, and, making for the thick of the ranks of the fighters, restored by his divine power to the danes that vision which they had lost by sleights; for he ever cherished them with fatherly love. he instructed them to shower stones to batter the hellespontines, who used spells to harden their bodies against weapons. thus both companies slew one another and perished. jarmerik lost both feet and both hands, and his trunk was rolled among the dead. broder, little fit for it, followed him as king. the next king was siwald. his son snio took vigorously to roving in his father's old age, and not only preserved the fortunes of his country, but even restored them, lessened as they were, to their former estate. likewise, when he came to the sovereignty, he crushed the insolence of the champions eskil and alkil, and by this conquest reunited to his country skaane, which had been severed from the general jurisdiction of denmark. at last he conceived a passion for the daughter of the king of the goths; it was returned, and he sent secret messengers to seek a chance of meeting her. these men were intercepted by the father of the damsel and hanged: thus paying dearly for their rash mission. snio, wishing to avenge their death, invaded gothland. its king met him with his forces, and the aforesaid champions challenged him to send strong men to fight. snio laid down as condition of the duel, that each of the two kings should either lose his own empire or gain that of the other, according to the fortune of the champions, and that the kingdom of the conquered should be staked as the prize of the victory. the result was that the king of the goths was beaten by reason of the ill-success of his defenders, and had to quit his kingdom for the danes. snio, learning that this king's daughter had been taken away at the instance of her father to wed the king of the swedes, sent a man clad in ragged attire, who used to ask alms on the public roads, to try her mind. and while he lay, as beggars do, by the threshold, he chanced to see the queen, and whined in a weak voice, "snio loves thee." she feigned not to have heard the sound that stole on her ears, and neither looked nor stepped back, but went on to the palace, then returned straightway, and said in a low whisper, which scarcely reached his ears, "i love him who loves me"; and having said this she walked away. the beggar rejoiced that she had returned a word of love, and, as he sat on the next day at the gate, when the queen came up, he said, briefly as ever, "wishes should have a tryst." again she shrewdly caught his cunning speech, and passed on, dissembling wholly. a little later she passed by her questioner, and said that she would shortly go to bocheror; for this was the spot to which she meant to flee. and when the beggar heard this, he insisted, with his wonted shrewd questions, upon being told a fitting time for the tryst. the woman was as cunning as he, and as little clear of speech, and named as quickly as she could the beginning of the winter. her train, who had caught a flying word of this love-message, took her great cleverness for the raving of utter folly. and when snio had been told all this by the beggar, he contrived to carry the queen off in a vessel; for she got away under pretence of bathing, and took her husband's treasures. after this there were constant wars between snio and the king of sweden, whereof the issue was doubtful and the victory changeful; the one king seeking to regain his lawful, the other to keep his unlawful love. at this time the yield of crops was ruined by most inclement weather, and a mighty dearth of corn befell. victuals began to be scarce, and the commons were distressed with famine, so that the king, anxiously pondering how to relieve the hardness of the times, and seeing that the thirsty spent somewhat more than the hungry, introduced thrift among the people. he abolished drinking-bouts, and decreed that no drink should be prepared from gram, thinking that the bitter famine should be got rid of by prohibiting needless drinking, and that plentiful food could be levied as a loan on thirst. then a certain wanton slave of his belly, lamenting the prohibition against drink, adopted a deep kind of knavery, and found a new way to indulge his desires. he broke the public law of temperance by his own excess, contriving to get at what he loved by a device both cunning and absurd. for he sipped the forbidden liquor drop by drop, and so satisfied his longing to be tipsy. when he was summoned for this by the king, he declared that there was no stricter observer of sobriety than he, inasmuch as he mortified his longing to quaff deep by this device for moderate drinking. he persisted in the fault with which he was taxed, saying that he only sucked. at last he was also menaced with threats, and forbidden not only to drink, but even to sip; yet he could not check his habits. for in order to enjoy the unlawful thing in a lawful way, and not to have his throat subject to the command of another, he sopped morsels of bread in liquor, and fed on the pieces thus soaked with drink; tasting slowly, so as to prolong the desired debauch, and attaining, though in no unlawful manner, the forbidden measure of satiety. thus his stubborn and frantic intemperance risked his life, all for luxury; and, undeterred even by the threats of the king, he fortified his rash appetite to despise every peril. a second time he was summoned by the king on the charge of disobeying his regulation. yet he did not even theft cease to defend his act, but maintained that he had in no wise contravened the royal decree, and that the temperance prescribed by the ordinance had been in no way violated by that which allured him; especially as the thrift ordered in the law of plain living was so described, that it was apparently forbidden to drink liquor, but not to eat it. then the king called heaven to witness, and swore by the general good, that if he ventured on any such thing hereafter he would punish him with death. but the man thought that death was not so bad as temperance, and that it was easier to quit life than luxury; and he again boiled the grain in water, and then fermented the liquor; whereupon, despairing of any further plea to excuse his appetite, he openly indulged in drink, and turned to his cups again unabashed. giving up cunning for effrontery, he chose rather to await the punishment of the king than to turn sober. therefore, when the king asked him why he had so often made free to use the forbidden thing, he said: "o king, this craving is begotten, not so much of my thirst, as of my goodwill towards thee! for i remembered that the funeral rites of a king must be paid with a drinking-bout. therefore, led by good judgment more than the desire to swill, i have, by mixing the forbidden liquid, taken care that the feast whereat thy obsequies are performed should not, by reason of the scarcity of corn, lack the due and customary drinking. now i do not doubt that thou wilt perish of famine before the rest, and be the first to need a tomb; for thou hast passed this strange law of thrift in fear that thou wilt be thyself the first to lack food. thou art thinking for thyself, and not for others, when thou bringest thyself to start such strange miserly ways." this witty quibbling turned the anger of the king into shame; and when he saw that his ordinance for the general good came home in mockery to himself, he thought no more of the public profit, but revoked the edict, relaxing his purpose sooner than anger his subjects. whether it was that the soil had too little rain, or that it was too hard baked, the crops, as i have said, were slack, and the fields gave but little produce; so that the land lacked victual, and was worn with a weary famine. the stock of food began to fail, and no help was left to stave off hunger. then, at the proposal of agg and of ebb, it was provided by a decree of the people that the old men and the tiny children should be slain; that all who were too young to bear arms should be taken out of the land, and only the strong should be vouchsafed their own country; that none but able-bodied soldiers and husbandmen should continue to abide under their own roofs and in the houses of their fathers. when agg and ebb brought news of this to their mother gambaruk, she saw that the authors of this infamous decree had found safety in crime. condemning the decision of the assembly, she said that it was wrong to relieve distress by murder of kindred, and declared that a plan both more honourable and more desirable for the good of their souls and bodies would be, to preserve respect towards their parents and children, and choose by lot men who should quit the country. and if the lot fell on old men and weak, then the stronger should offer to go into exile in their place, and should of their own free will undertake to bear the burden of it for the feeble. but those men who had the heart to save their lives by crime and impiety, and to prosecute their parents and their children by so abominable a decree, did not deserve life; for they would be doing a work of cruelty and not of love. finally, all those whose own lives were dearer to them than the love of their parents or their children, deserved but ill of their country. these words were reported to the assembly, and assented to by the vote of the majority. so the fortunes of all were staked upon the lot and those upon whom it fell were doomed to be banished. thus those who had been loth to obey necessity of their own accord had now to accept the award of chance. so they sailed first to bleking, and then, sailing past moring, they came to anchor at gothland; where, according to paulus, they are said to have been prompted by the goddess frigg to take the name of the longobardi (lombards), whose nation they afterwards founded. in the end they landed at rugen, and, abandoning their ships, began to march overland. they crossed and wasted a great portion of the world; and at last, finding an abode in italy, changed the ancient name of the nation for their own. meanwhile, the land of the danes, where the tillers laboured less and less, and all traces of the furrows were covered with overgrowth, began to look like a forest. almost stripped of its pleasant native turf, it bristled with the dense unshapely woods that grew up. traces of this are yet seen in the aspect of its fields. what were once acres fertile in grain are now seen to be dotted with trunks of trees; and where of old the tillers turned the earth up deep and scattered the huge clods there has now sprung up a forest covering the fields, which still bear the tracks of ancient tillage. had not these lands remained untilled and desolate with long overgrowth, the tenacious roots of trees could never have shared the soil of one and the same land with the furrows made by the plough. moreover, the mounds which men laboriously built up of old on the level ground for the burial of the dead are now covered by a mass of woodland. many piles of stones are also to be seen interspersed among the forest glades. these were once scattered over the whole country, but the peasants carefully gathered the boulders and piled them into a heap that they might not prevent furrows being cut in all directions; for they would sooner sacrifice a little of the land than find the whole of it stubborn. from this work, done by the toil of the peasants for the easier working of the fields, it is judged that the population in ancient times was greater than the present one, which is satisfied with small fields, and keeps its agriculture within narrower limits than those of the ancient tillage. thus the present generation is amazed to behold that it has exchanged a soil which could once produce grain for one only fit to grow acorns, and the plough-handle and the cornstalks for a landscape studded with trees. let this account of snio, which i have put together as truly as i could, suffice. snio was succeeded by biorn; and after him harald became sovereign. harald's son gorm won no mean place of honour among the ancient generals of the danes by his record of doughty deeds. for he ventured into fresh fields, preferring to practise his inherited valour, not in war, but in searching the secrets of nature; and, just as other kings are stirred by warlike ardour, so his heart thirsted to look into marvels; either what he could experience himself, or what were merely matters of report. and being desirous to go and see all things foreign and extraordinary, he thought that he must above all test a report which he had heard from the men of thule concerning the abode of a certain geirrod. for they boasted past belief of the mighty piles of treasure in that country, but said that the way was beset with peril, and hardly passable by mortal man. for those who had tried it declared that it was needful to sail over the ocean that goes round the lands, to leave the sun and stars behind, to journey down into chaos, and at last to pass into a land where no light was and where darkness reigned eternally. but the warrior trampled down in his soul all fear of the dangers that beset him. not that he desired booty, but glory; for he hoped for a great increase of renown if he ventured on a wholly unattempted quest. three hundred men announced that they had the same desire as the king; and he resolved that thorkill, who had brought the news, should be chosen to guide them on the journey, as he knew the ground and was versed in the approaches to that country. thorkill did not refuse the task, and advised that, to meet the extraordinary fury of the sea they had to cross, strongly-made vessels should be built, fitted with many knotted cords and close-set nails, filled with great store of provision, and covered above with ox-hides to protect the inner spaces of the ships from the spray of the waves breaking in. then they sailed off in only three galleys, each containing a hundred chosen men. now when they had come to halogaland (helgeland), they lost their favouring breezes, and were driven and tossed divers ways over the seas in perilous voyage. at last, in extreme want of food, and lacking even bread, they staved off hunger with a little pottage. some days passed, and they heard the thunder of a storm brawling in the distance, as if it were deluging the rocks. by this perceiving that land was near, they bade a youth of great nimbleness climb to the masthead and look out; and he reported that a precipitous island was in sight. all were overjoyed, and gazed with thirsty eyes at the country at which he pointed, eagerly awaiting the refuge of the promised shore. at last they managed to reach it, and made their way out over the heights that blocked their way, along very steep paths, into the higher ground. then thorkill told them to take no more of the herds that were running about in numbers on the coast, than would serve once to appease their hunger. if they disobeyed, the guardian gods of the spot would not let them depart. but the seamen, more anxious to go on filling their bellies than to obey orders, postponed counsels of safety to the temptations of gluttony, and loaded the now emptied holds of their ships with the carcases of slaughtered cattle. these beasts were very easy to capture, because they gathered in amazement at the unwonted sight of men, their fears being made bold. on the following night monsters dashed down upon the shore, filled the forest with clamour, and beleaguered and beset the ships. one of them, huger than the rest, strode over the waters, armed with a mighty club. coming close up to them, he bellowed out that they should never sail away till they had atoned for the crime they had committed in slaughtering the flock, and had made good the losses of the herd of the gods by giving up one man for each of their ships. thorkill yielded to these threats; and, in order to preserve the safety of all by imperilling a few, singled out three men by lot and gave them up. this done, a favouring wind took them, and they sailed to further permland. it is a region of eternal cold, covered with very deep snows, and not sensible to the force even of the summer heats; full of pathless forests, not fertile in grain and haunted by beasts uncommon elsewhere. its many rivers pour onwards in a hissing, foaming flood, because of the reefs imbedded in their channels. here thorkill drew up his ships ashore, and bade them pitch their tents on the beach, declaring that they had come to a spot whence the passage to geirrod would be short. moreover, he forbade them to exchange any speech with those that came up to them, declaring that nothing enabled the monsters to injure strangers so much as uncivil words on their part: it would be therefore safer for his companions to keep silence; none but he, who had seen all the manners and customs of this nation before, could speak safely. as twilight approached, a man of extraordinary bigness greeted the sailors by their names, and came among them. all were aghast, but thorkill told them to greet his arrival cheerfully, telling them that this was gudmund, the brother of geirrod, and the most faithful guardian in perils of all men who landed in that spot. when the man asked why all the rest thus kept silence, he answered that they were very unskilled in his language, and were ashamed to use a speech they did not know. then gudmund invited them to be his guests, and took them up in carriages. as they went forward, they saw a river which could be crossed by a bridge of gold. they wished to go over it, but gudmund restrained them, telling them that by this channel nature had divided the world of men from the world of monsters, and that no mortal track might go further. then they reached the dwelling of their guide; and here thorkill took his companions apart and warned them to behave like men of good counsel amidst the divers temptations chance might throw in their way; to abstain from the food of the stranger, and nourish their bodies only on their own; and to seek a seat apart from the natives, and have no contact with any of them as they lay at meat. for if they partook of that food they would lose recollection of all things, and must live for ever in filthy intercourse amongst ghastly hordes of monsters. likewise he told them that they must keep their hands off the servants and the cups of the people. round the table stood twelve noble sons of gudmund, and as many daughters of notable beauty. when gudmund saw that the king barely tasted what his servants brought, he reproached him with repulsing his kindness, and complained that it was a slight on the host. but thorkill was not at a loss for a fitting excuse. he reminded him that men who took unaccustomed food often suffered from it seriously, and that the king was not ungrateful for the service rendered by another, but was merely taking care of his health, when he refreshed himself as he was wont, and furnished his supper with his own viands. an act, therefore, that was only done in the healthy desire to escape some bane, ought in no wise to be put down to scorn. now when gudmund saw that the temperance of his guest had baffled his treacherous preparations, he determined to sap their chastity, if he could not weaken their abstinence, and eagerly strained every nerve of his wit to enfeeble their self-control. for he offered the king his daughter in marriage, and promised the rest that they should have whatever women of his household they desired. most of them inclined to his offer: but thorkill by his healthy admonitions prevented them, as he had done before, from falling into temptation. with wonderful management thorkill divided his heed between the suspicious host and the delighted guests. four of the danes, to whom lust was more than their salvation, accepted the offer; the infection maddened them, distraught their wits, and blotted out their recollection: for they are said never to have been in their right mind after this. if these men had kept themselves within the rightful bounds of temperance, they would have equalled the glories of hercules, surpassed with their spirit the bravery of giants, and been ennobled for ever by their wondrous services to their country. gudmund, stubborn to his purpose, and still spreading his nets, extolled the delights of his garden, and tried to lure the king thither to gather fruits, desiring to break down his constant wariness by the lust of the eye and the baits of the palate. the king, as before, was strengthened against these treacheries by thorkill, and rejected this feint of kindly service; he excused himself from accepting it on the plea that he must hasten on his journey. gudmund perceived that thorkill was shrewder than he at every point; so, despairing to accomplish his treachery, he carried them all across the further side of the river, and let them finish their journey. they went on; and saw, not far off, a gloomy, neglected town, looking more like a cloud exhaling vapour. stakes interspersed among the battlements showed the severed heads of warriors and dogs of great ferocity were seen watching before the doors to guard the entrance. thorkill threw them a horn smeared with fat to lick, and so, at slight cost, appeased their most furious rage. high up the gates lay open to enter, and they climbed to their level with ladders, entering with difficulty. inside the town was crowded with murky and misshapen phantoms, and it was hard to say whether their shrieking figures were more ghastly to the eye or to the ear; everything was foul, and the reeking mire afflicted the nostrils of the visitors with its unbearable stench. then they found the rocky dwelling which geirrod was rumoured to inhabit for his palace. they resolved to visit its narrow and horrible ledge, but stayed their steps and halted in panic at the very entrance. then thorkill, seeing that they were of two minds, dispelled their hesitation to enter by manful encouragement, counselling them, to restrain themselves, and not to touch any piece of gear in the house they were about to enter, albeit it seemed delightful to have or pleasant to behold; to keep their hearts as far from all covetousness as from fear; neither to desire what was pleasant to take, nor dread what was awful to look upon, though they should find themselves amidst abundance of both these things. if they did, their greedy hands would suddenly be bound fast, unable to tear themselves away from the thing they touched, and knotted up with it as by inextricable bonds. moreover, they should enter in order, four by four. broder and buchi (buk?) were the first to show courage to attempt to enter the vile palace; thorkill with the king followed them, and the rest advanced behind these in ordered ranks. inside, the house was seen to be ruinous throughout, and filled with a violent and abominable reek. and it also teemed with everything that could disgust the eye or the mind: the door-posts were begrimed with the soot of ages, the wall was plastered with filth, the roof was made up of spear-heads, the flooring was covered with snakes and bespattered with all manner of uncleanliness. such an unwonted sight struck terror into the strangers, and, over all, the acrid and incessant stench assailed their afflicted nostrils. also bloodless phantasmal monsters huddled on the iron seats, and the places for sitting were railed off by leaden trellises; and hideous doorkeepers stood at watch on the thresholds. some of these, armed with clubs lashed together, yelled, while others played a gruesome game, tossing a goat's hide from one to the other with mutual motion of goatish backs. here thorkill again warned the men, and forbade them to stretch forth their covetous hands rashly to the forbidden things. going on through the breach in the crag, they beheld an old man with his body pierced through, sitting not far off, on a lofty seat facing the side of the rock that had been rent away. moreover, three women, whose bodies were covered with tumours, and who seemed to have lost the strength of their back-bones, filled adjoining seats. thorkill's companions were very curious; and he, who well knew the reason of the matter, told them that long ago the god thor had been provoked by the insolence of the giants to drive red-hot irons through the vitals of geirrod, who strove with him, and that the iron had slid further, torn up the mountain, and battered through its side; while the women had been stricken by the might of his thunderbolts, and had been punished (so he declared) for their attempt on the same deity, by having their bodies broken. as the men were about to depart thence, there were disclosed to them seven butts hooped round with belts of gold; and from these hung circlets of silver entwined with them in manifold links. near these was found the tusk of a strange beast, tipped at both ends with gold. close by was a vast stag-horn, laboriously decked with choice and flashing gems, and this also did not lack chasing. hard by was to be seen a very heavy bracelet. one man was kindled with an inordinate desire for this bracelet, and laid covetous hands upon the gold, not knowing that the glorious metal covered deadly mischief, and that a fatal bane lay hid under the shining spoil. a second also, unable to restrain his covetousness, reached out his quivering hands to the horn. a third, matching the confidence of the others, and having no control over his fingers, ventured to shoulder the tusk. the spoil seemed alike lovely to look upon and desirable to enjoy, for all that met the eye was fair and tempting to behold. but the bracelet suddenly took the form of a snake, and attacked him who was carrying it with its poisoned tooth; the horn lengthened out into a serpent, and took the life of the man who bore it; the tusk wrought itself into a sword, and plunged into the vitals of its bearer. the rest dreaded the fate of perishing with their friends, and thought that the guiltless would be destroyed like the guilty; they durst not hope that even innocence would be safe. then the side-door of another room showed them a narrow alcove: and a privy chamber with a yet richer treasure was revealed, wherein arms were laid out too great for those of human stature. among these were seen a royal mantle, a handsome hat, and a belt marvellously wrought. thorkill, struck with amazement at these things, gave rein to his covetousness, and cast off all his purposed self-restraint. he who so oft had trained others could not so much as conquer his own cravings. for he laid his hand upon the mantle, and his rash example tempted the rest to join in his enterprise of plunder. thereupon the recess shook from its lowest foundations, and began suddenly to reel and totter. straightway the women raised a shriek that the wicked robbers were being endured too long. then they, who were before supposed to be half-dead or lifeless phantoms, seemed to obey the cries of the women, and, leaping suddenly up from their seats, attacked the strangers with furious onset. the other creatures bellowed hoarsely. but broder and buchi fell to their old and familiar arts, and attacked the witches, who ran at them, with a shower of spears from every side; and with the missiles from their bows and slings they crushed the array of monsters. there could be no stronger or more successful way to repulse them; but only twenty men out of all the king's company were rescued by the intervention of this archery; the rest were torn in pieces by the monsters. the survivors returned to the river, and were ferried over by gudmund, who entertained them at his house. long and often as he besought them, he could not keep them back; so at last he gave them presents and let them go. buchi relaxed his watch upon himself; his self-control became unstrung, and he forsook the virtue in which he hitherto rejoiced. for he conceived an incurable love for one of the daughters of gudmund, and embraced her; but he obtained a bride to his undoing, for soon his brain suddenly began to whirl, and he lost his recollection. thus the hero who had subdued all the monsters and overcome all the perils was mastered by passion for one girl; his soul strayed far from temperance, and he lay under a wretched sensual yoke. for the sake of respect, he started to accompany the departing king; but as he was about to ford the river in his carriage, his wheels sank deep, he was caught up in the violent eddies and destroyed. the king bewailed his friend's disaster and departed hastening on his voyage. this was at first prosperous, but afterwards he was tossed by bad weather; his men perished of hunger, and but few survived, so that he began to feel awe in his heart, and fell to making vows to heaven, thinking the gods alone could help him in his extreme need. at last the others besought sundry powers among the gods, and thought they ought to sacrifice to the majesty of divers deities; but the king, offering both vows and peace-offerings to utgarda-loki, obtained that fair season of weather for which he prayed. coming home, and feeling that he had passed through all these seas and toils, he thought it was time for his spirit, wearied with calamities, to withdraw from his labours. so he took a queen from sweden, and exchanged his old pursuits for meditative leisure. his life was prolonged in the utmost peace and quietness; but when he had almost come to the end of his days, certain men persuaded him by likely arguments that souls were immortal; so that he was constantly turning over in his mind the questions, to what abode he was to fare when the breath left his limbs, or what reward was earned by zealous adoration of the gods. while he was thus inclined, certain men who wished ill to thorkill came and told gorm that it was needful to consult the gods, and that assurance about so great a matter must be sought of the oracles of heaven, since it was too deep for human wit and hard for mortals to discover. therefore, they said, utgarda-loki must be appeased, and no man would accomplish this more fitly than thorkill. others, again, laid information against him as guilty of treachery and an enemy of the king's life. thorkill, seeing himself doomed to extreme peril, demanded that his accusers should share his journey. then they who had aspersed an innocent man saw that the peril they had designed against the life of another had recoiled upon themselves, and tried to take back their plan. but vainly did they pester the ears of the king; he forced them to sail under the command of thorkill, and even upbraided them with cowardice. thus, when a mischief is designed against another, it is commonly sure to strike home to its author. and when these men saw that they were constrained, and could not possibly avoid the peril, they covered their ship with ox-hides, and filled it with abundant store of provision. in this ship they sailed away, and came to a sunless land, which knew not the stars, was void of daylight, and seemed to overshadow them with eternal night. long they sailed under this strange sky; at last their timber fell short, and they lacked fuel; and, having no place to boil their meat in, they staved off their hunger with raw viands. but most of those who ate contracted extreme disease, being glutted with undigested food. for the unusual diet first made a faintness steal gradually upon their stomachs; then the infection spread further, and the malady reached the vital parts. thus there was danger in either extreme, which made it hurtful not to eat, and perilous to indulge; for it was found both unsafe to feed and bad for them to abstain. then, when they were beginning to be in utter despair, a gleam of unexpected help relieved them, even as the string breaks most easily when it is stretched tightest. for suddenly the weary men saw the twinkle of a fire at no great distance, and conceived a hope of prolonging their lives. thorkill thought this fire a heaven-sent relief, and resolved to go and take some of it. to be surer of getting back to his friends, thorkill fastened a jewel upon the mast-head, to mark it by the gleam. when he got to the shore, his eyes fell on a cavern in a close defile, to which a narrow way led. telling his companions to await him outside, he went in, and saw two men, swart and very huge, with horny noses, feeding their fire with any chance-given fuel. moreover, the entrance was hideous, the door-posts were decayed, the walls grimy with mould, the roof filthy, and the floor swarming with snakes; all of which disgusted the eye as much as the mind. then one of the giants greeted him, and said that he had begun a most difficult venture in his burning desire to visit a strange god, and his attempt to explore with curious search an untrodden region beyond the world. yet he promised to tell thorkill the paths of the journey he proposed to make, if he would deliver three true judgments in the form of as many sayings. then said thorkill: "in good truth, i do not remember ever to have seen a household with more uncomely noses; nor have i ever come to a spot where i had less mind to live." also he said: "that, i think, is my best foot which can get out of this foremost." the giant was pleased with the shrewdness of thorkill, and praised his sayings, telling him that he must first travel to a grassless land which was veiled in deep darkness; but he must first voyage for four days, rowing incessantly, before he could reach his goal. there he could visit utgarda-loki, who had chosen hideous and grisly caves for his filthy dwelling. thorkill was much aghast at being bidden to go on a voyage so long and hazardous; but his doubtful hopes prevailed over his present fears, and he asked for some live fuel. then said the giant: "if thou needest fire, thou must deliver three more judgments in like sayings." then said thorkill: "good counsel is to be obeyed, though a mean fellow gave it." likewise: "i have gone so far in rashness, that if i can get back i shall owe my safety to none but my own legs." and again: "were i free to retreat this moment, i would take good care never to come back." thereupon thorkill took the fire along to his companions; and finding a kindly wind, landed on the fourth day at the appointed harbour. with his crew he entered a land where an aspect of unbroken night checked the vicissitude of light and darkness. he could hardly see before him, but beheld a rock of enormous size. wishing to explore it, he told his companions, who were standing posted at the door, to strike a fire from flints as a timely safeguard against demons, and kindle it in the entrance. then he made others bear a light before him, and stooped his body through the narrow jaws of the cavern, where he beheld a number of iron seats among a swarm of gliding serpents. next there met his eye a sluggish mass of water gently flowing over a sandy bottom. he crossed this, and approached a cavern which sloped somewhat more steeply. again, after this, a foul and gloomy room was disclosed to the visitors, wherein they saw utgarda-loki, laden hand and foot with enormous chains. each of his reeking hairs was as large and stiff as a spear of cornel. thorkill (his companions lending a hand), in order that his deeds might gain more credit, plucked one of these from the chin of utgarda-loki, who suffered it. straightway such a noisome smell reached the bystanders, that they could not breathe without stopping their noses with their mantles. they could scarcely make their way out, and were bespattered by the snakes which darted at them on every side. only five of thorkill's company embarked with their captain: the poison killed the rest. the demons hung furiously over them, and cast their poisonous slaver from every side upon the men below them. but the sailors sheltered themselves with their hides, and cast back the venom that fell upon them. one man by chance at this point wished to peep out; the poison touched his head, which was taken off his neck as if it had been severed with a sword. another put his eyes out of their shelter, and when he brought them back under it they were blinded. another thrust forth his hand while unfolding his covering, and, when he withdrew his arm, it was withered by the virulence of the same slaver. they besought their deities to be kinder to them; vainly, until thorkill prayed to the god of the universe, and poured forth unto him libations as well as prayers; and thus, presently finding the sky even as before and the elements clear, he made a fair voyage. and now they seemed to behold another world, and the way towards the life of man. at last thorkill landed in germany, which had then been admitted to christianity; and among its people he began to learn how to worship god. his band of men were almost destroyed, because of the dreadful air they had breathed, and he returned to his country accompanied by two men only, who had escaped the worst. but the corrupt matter which smeared his face so disguised his person and original features that not even his friends knew him. but when he wiped off the filth, he made himself recognizable by those who saw him, and inspired the king with the greatest eagerness to hear about his quest. but the detraction of his rivals was not yet silenced; and some pretended that the king would die suddenly if he learnt thorkill's tidings. the king was the more disposed to credit this saying, because he was already credulous by reason of a dream which falsely prophesied the same thing. men were therefore hired by the king's command to slay thorkill in the night. but somehow he got wind of it, left his bed unknown to all, and put a heavy log in his place. by this he baffled the treacherous device of the king, for the hirelings smote only the stock. on the morrow thorkill went up to the king as he sat at meat, and said: "i forgive thy cruelty and pardon thy error, in that thou hast decreed punishment, and not thanks, to him who brings good tidings of his errand. for thy sake i have devoted my life to all these afflictions, and battered it in all these perils; i hoped that thou wouldst requite my services with much gratitude; and behold! i have found thee, and thee alone, punish my valour sharpliest. but i forbear all vengeance, and am satisfied with the shame within thy heart--if, after all, any shame visits the thankless--as expiation for this wrongdoing towards me. i have a right to surmise that thou art worse than all demons in fury, and all beasts in cruelty, if, after escaping the snares of all these monsters, i have failed to be safe from thine." the king desired to learn everything from thorkill's own lips; and, thinking it hard to escape destiny, bade him relate what had happened in due order. he listened eagerly to his recital of everything, till at last, when his own god was named, he could not endure him to be unfavourably judged. for he could not bear to hear utgarda-loki reproached with filthiness, and so resented his shameful misfortunes, that his very life could not brook such words, and he yielded it up in the midst of thorkill's narrative. thus, whilst he was so zealous in the worship of a false god, he came to find where the true prison of sorrows really was. moreover, the reek of the hair, which thorkill plucked from the locks of the giant to testify to the greatness of his own deeds, was exhaled upon the bystanders, so that many perished of it. after the death of gorm, gotrik his son came to the throne. he was notable not only for prowess but for generosity, and none can say whether his courage or his compassion was the greater. he so chastened his harshness with mercy, that he seemed to counterweigh the one with the other. at this time gaut, the king of norway, was visited by ber (biorn?) and ref, men of thule. gaut treated ref with attention and friendship, and presented him with a heavy bracelet. one of the courtiers, when he saw this, praised the greatness of the gift over-zealously, and declared that no one was equal to king gaut in kindliness. but ref, though he owed thanks for the benefit, could not approve the inflated words of this extravagant praiser, and said that gotrik was more generous than gaut. wishing to crush the empty boast of the flatterer, he chose rather to bear witness to the generosity of the absent than tickle with lies the vanity of his benefactor who was present. for another thing, he thought it somewhat more desirable to be charged with ingratitude than to support with his assent such idle and boastful praise, and also to move the king by the solemn truth than to beguile him with lying flatteries. but ulf persisted not only in stubbornly repeating his praises of the king, but in bringing them to the proof; and proposed their gainsayer a wager. with his consent ref went to denmark, and found gotrik seated in state, and dealing out the pay to his soldiers. when the king asked him who he was, he said that his name was "fox-cub" the answer filled some with mirth and some with marvel, and gotrik said, "yea, and it is fitting that a fox should catch his prey in his mouth." and thereupon he drew a bracelet from his arm, called the man to him, and put it between his lips. straightway ref put it upon his arm, which he displayed to them all adorned with gold, but the other arm he kept hidden as lacking ornament; for which shrewdness he received a gift equal to the first from that hand of matchless generosity. at this he was overjoyed, not so much because the reward was great, as because he had won his contention. and when the king learnt from him about the wager he had laid, he rejoiced that he had been lavish to him more by accident than of set purpose, and declared that he got more pleasure from the giving than the receiver from the gift. so ref returned to norway and slew his opponent, who refused to pay the wager. then he took the daughter of gaut captive, and brought her to gotrik for his own. gotrik, who is also called godefride, carried his arms against foreigners, and increased his strength and glory by his successful generalship. among his memorable deeds were the terms of tribute he imposed upon the saxons; namely, that whenever a change of kings occurred among the danes, their princes should devote a hundred snow-white horses to the new king on his accession. but if the saxons should receive a new chief upon a change in the succession, this chief was likewise to pay the aforesaid tribute obediently, and bow at the outset of his power to the sovereign majesty of denmark; thereby acknowledging the supremacy of our nation, and solemnly confessing his own subjection. nor was it enough for gotrik to subjugate germany: he appointed ref on a mission to try the strength of sweden. the swedes feared to slay him with open violence, but ventured to act like bandits, and killed him, as he slept, with the blow of a stone. for, hanging a millstone above him, they cut its fastenings, and let it drop upon his neck as he lay beneath. to expiate this crime it was decreed that each of the ringleaders should pay twelve golden talents, while each of the common people should pay gotrik one ounce. men called this "the fox-cub's tribute". (refsgild). meanwhile it befell that karl, king of the franks, crushed germany in war, and forced it not only to embrace the worship of christianity, but also to obey his authority. when gotrik heard of this, he attacked the nations bordering on the elbe, and attempted to regain under his sway as of old the realm of saxony, which eagerly accepted the yoke of karl, and preferred the roman to the danish arms. karl had at this time withdrawn his victorious camp beyond the rhine, and therefore forbore to engage the stranger enemy, being prevented by the intervening river. but when he was intending to cross once more to subdue the power of gotrik, he was summoned by leo the pope of the romans to defend the city. obeying this command, karl intrusted his son pepin with the conduct of the war against gotrik; so that while he himself was working against a distant foe, pepin might manage the conflict he had undertaken with his neighbour. for karl was distracted by two anxieties, and had to furnish sufficient out of a scanty band to meet both of them. meanwhile gotrik won a glorious victory over the saxons. then gathering new strength, and mustering a larger body of forces, he resolved to avenge the wrong he had suffered in losing his sovereignty, not only upon the saxons, but upon the whole people of germany. he began by subduing friesland with his fleet. this province lies very low, and whenever the fury of the ocean bursts the dykes that bar its waves, it is wont to receive the whole mass of the deluge over its open plains. on this country gotrik imposed a kind of tribute, which was not so much harsh as strange. i will briefly relate its terms and the manner of it. first, a building was arranged, two hundred and forty feet in length, and divided into twelve spaces; each of these stretching over an interval of twenty feet, and thus making together, when the whole room was exhausted, the aforesaid total. now at the upper end of this building sat the king's treasurer, and in a line with him at its further end was displayed a round shield. when the frisians came to pay tribute, they used to cast their coins one by one into the hollow of this shield; but only those coins which struck the ear of the distant toll-gatherer with a distinct clang were chosen by him, as he counted, to be reckoned among the royal tribute. the result was that the collector only reckoned that money towards the treasury of which his distant ear caught the sound as it fell. but that of which the sound was duller, and which fell out of his earshot, was received indeed into the treasury, but did not count as any increase to the sum paid. now many coins that were cast in struck with no audible loudness whatever on the collector's ear, so that men who came to pay their appointed toll sometimes squandered much of their money in useless tribute. karl is said to have freed them afterwards from the burden of this tax. after gotrik had crossed friesland, and karl had now come back from rome, gotrik determined to swoop down upon the further districts of germany, but was treacherously attacked by one of his own servants, and perished at home by the sword of a traitor. when karl heard this, he leapt up overjoyed, declaring that nothing more delightful had ever fallen to his lot than this happy chance. endnotes: ( ) furthest thule--the names of icelanders have thus crept into the account of a battle fought before the discovery of iceland. book nine. after gotrik's death reigned his son olaf; who, desirous to avenge his father, did not hesitate to involve his country in civil wars, putting patriotism after private inclination. when he perished, his body was put in a barrow, famous for the name of olaf, which was built up close by leire. he was succeeded by hemming, of whom i have found no deed worthy of record, save that he made a sworn peace with kaiser ludwig; and yet, perhaps, envious antiquity hides many notable deeds of his time, albeit they were then famous. after these men there came to the throne, backed by the skanians and zealanders, siward, surnamed ring. he was the son, born long ago, of the chief of norway who bore the same name, by gotrik's daughter. now ring, cousin of siward, and also a grandson of gotrik, was master of jutland. thus the power of the single kingdom was divided; and, as though its two parts were contemptible for their smallness, foreigners began not only to despise but to attack it. these siward assailed with greater hatred than he did his rival for the throne; and, preferring wars abroad to wars at home, he stubbornly defended his country against dangers for five years; for he chose to put up with a trouble at home that he might the more easily cure one which came from abroad. wherefore ring (desiring his) command, seized the opportunity, tried to transfer the whole sovereignty to himself, and did not hesitate to injure in his own land the man who was watching over it without; for he attacked the provinces in the possession of siward, which was an ungrateful requital for the defence of their common country. therefore, some of the zealanders who were more zealous for siward, in order to show him firmer loyalty in his absence, proclaimed his son ragnar as king, when he was scarcely dragged out of his cradle. not but what they knew he was too young to govern; yet they hoped that such a gage would serve to rouse their sluggish allies against ring. but, when ring heard that siward had meantime returned from his expedition, he attacked the zealanders with a large force, and proclaimed that they should perish by the sword if they did not surrender; but the zealanders, who were bidden to choose between shame and peril, were so few that they distrusted their strength, and requested a truce to consider the matter. it was granted; but, since it did not seem open to them to seek the favour of siward, nor honourable to embrace that of ring, they wavered long in perplexity between fear and shame. in this plight even the old were at a loss for counsel; but ragnar, who chanced to be present at the assembly, said: "the short bow shoots its shaft suddenly. though it may seem the hardihood of a boy that i venture to forestall the speech of the elders, yet i pray you to pardon my errors, and be indulgent to my unripe words. yet the counsellor of wisdom is not to be spurned, though he seem contemptible; for the teaching of profitable things should be drunk in with an open mind. now it is shameful that we should be branded as deserters and runaways, but it is just as foolhardy to venture above our strength; and thus there is proved to be equal blame either way. we must, then, pretend to go over to the enemy, but, when a chance comes in our way, we must desert him betimes. it will thus be better to forestall the wrath of our foe by reigned obedience than, by refusing it, to give him a weapon wherewith to attack us yet more harshly; for if we decline the sway of the stronger, are we not simply turning his arms against our own throat? intricate devices are often the best nurse of craft. you need cunning to trap a fox." by this sound counsel he dispelled the wavering of his countrymen, and strengthened the camp of the enemy to its own hurt. the assembly, marvelling at the eloquence as much as at the wit of one so young, gladly embraced a proposal of such genius, which they thought excellent beyond his years. nor were the old men ashamed to obey the bidding of a boy when they lacked counsel themselves; for, though it came from one of tender years, it was full, notwithstanding, of weighty and sound instruction. but they feared to expose their adviser to immediate peril, and sent him over to norway to be brought up. soon afterwards, siward joined battle with ring and attacked him. he slew ring, but himself received an incurable wound, of which he died a few days afterwards. he was succeeded on the throne by ragnar. at this time fro (frey?), the king of sweden, after slaying siward, the king of the norwegians, put the wives of siward's kinsfolk in bonds in a brothel, and delivered them to public outrage. when ragnar heard of this, he went to norway to avenge his grandfather. as he came, many of the matrons, who had either suffered insult to their persons or feared imminent peril to their chastity, hastened eagerly to his camp in male attire, declaring that they would prefer death to outrage. nor did ragnar, who was to punish this reproach upon the women, scorn to use against the author of the infamy the help of those whose shame he had come to avenge. among them was ladgerda, a skilled amazon, who, though a maiden, had the courage of a man, and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose over her shoulders. all-marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back betrayed that she was a woman. ragnar, when he had justly cut down the murderer of his grandfather, asked many questions of his fellow soldiers concerning the maiden whom he had seen so forward in the fray, and declared that he had gained the victory by the might of one woman. learning that she was of noble birth among the barbarians, he steadfastly wooed her by means of messengers. she spurned his mission in her heart, but feigned compliance. giving false answers, she made her panting wooer confident that he would gain his desires; but ordered that a bear and a dog should be set at the porch of her dwelling, thinking to guard her own room against all the ardour of a lover by means of the beasts that blocked the way. ragnar, comforted by the good news, embarked, crossed the sea, and, telling his men to stop in gaulardale, as the valley is called, went to the dwelling of the maiden alone. here the beasts met him, and he thrust one through with a spear, and caught the other by the throat, wrung its neck, and choked it. thus he had the maiden as the prize of the peril he had overcome. by this marriage he had two daughters, whose names have not come down to us, and a son fridleif. then he lived three years at peace. the jutlanders, a presumptuous race, thinking that because of his recent marriage he would never return, took the skanians into alliance, and tried to attack the zealanders, who preserved the most zealous and affectionate loyalty towards ragnar. he, when he heard of it, equipped thirty ships, and, the winds favouring his voyage, crushed the skanians, who ventured to fight, near the stead of whiteby, and when the winter was over he fought successfully with the jutlanders who dwelt near the liim-fjord in that region. a third and a fourth time he conquered the skanians and the hallanders triumphantly. afterwards, changing his love, and desiring thora, the daughter of the king herodd, to wife, ragnar divorced himself from ladgerda; for he thought ill of her trustworthiness, remembering that she had long ago set the most savage beasts to destroy him. meantime herodd, the king of the swedes, happening to go and hunt in the woods, brought home some snakes, found by his escort, for his daughter to rear. she speedily obeyed the instructions of her father, and endured to rear a race of adders with her maiden hands. moreover, she took care that they should daily have a whole ox-carcase to gorge upon, not knowing that she was privately feeding and keeping up a public nuisance. the vipers grew up, and scorched the country-side with their pestilential breath. whereupon the king, repenting of his sluggishness, proclaimed that whosoever removed the pest should have his daughter. many warriors were thereto attracted by courage as much as by desire; but all idly and perilously wasted their pains. ragnar, learning from men who travelled to and fro how the matter stood, asked his nurse for a woolen mantle, and for some thigh-pieces that were very hairy, with which he could repel the snake-bites. he thought that he ought to use a dress stuffed with hair to protect himself, and also took one that was not unwieldy, that he might move nimbly. and when he had landed in sweden, he deliberately plunged his body in water, while there was a frost falling, and, wetting his dress, to make it the less penetrable, he let the cold freeze it. thus attired, he took leave of his companions, exhorted them to remain loyal to fridleif, and went on to the palace alone. when he saw it, he tied his sword to his side, and lashed a spear to his right hand with a thong. as he went on, an enormous snake glided up and met him. another, equally huge, crawled up, following in the trail of the first. they strove now to buffet the young man with the coils of their tails, and now to spit and belch their venom stubbornly upon him. meantime the courtiers, betaking themselves to safer hiding, watched the struggle from afar like affrighted little girls. the king was stricken with equal fear, and fled, with a few followers, to a narrow shelter. but ragnar, trusting in the hardness of his frozen dress, foiled the poisonous assaults not only with his arms, but with his attire, and, singlehanded, in unweariable combat, stood up against the two gaping creatures, who stubbornly poured forth their venom upon him. for their teeth he repelled with his shield, their poison with his dress. at last he cast his spear, and drove it against the bodies of the brutes, who were attacking him hard. he pierced both their hearts, and his battle ended in victory. after ragnar had thus triumphed the king scanned his dress closely, and saw that he was rough and hairy; but, above all, he laughed at the shaggy lower portion of his garb, and chiefly the uncouth aspect of his breeches; so that he gave him in jest the nickname of lodbrog. also he invited him to feast with his friends, to refresh him after his labours. ragnar said that he would first go back to the witnesses whom he had left behind. he set out and brought them back, splendidly attired for the coming feast. at last, when the banquet was over, he received the prize that was appointed for the victory. by her he begot two nobly-gifted sons, radbard and dunwat. these also had brothers--siward, biorn, agnar, and iwar. meanwhile, the jutes and skanians were kindled with an unquenchable fire of sedition; they disallowed the title of ragnar, and gave a certain harald the sovereign power. ragnar sent envoys to norway, and besought friendly assistance against these men; and ladgerda, whose early love still flowed deep and steadfast, hastily sailed off with her husband and her son. she brought herself to offer a hundred and twenty ships to the man who had once put her away. and he, thinking himself destitute of all resources, took to borrowing help from folk of every age, crowded the strong and the feeble all together, and was not ashamed to insert some old men and boys among the wedges of the strong. so he first tried to crush the power of the skanians in the field which in latin is called laneus (woolly); here he had a hard fight with the rebels. here, too, iwar, who was in his seventh year, fought splendidly, and showed the strength of a man in the body of a boy. but siward, while attacking the enemy face to face, fell forward upon the ground wounded. when his men saw this, it made them look round most anxiously for means of flight; and this brought low not only siward, but almost the whole army on the side of ragnar. but ragnar by his manly deeds and exhortations comforted their amazed and sunken spirits, and, just when they were ready to be conquered, spurred them on to try and conquer. ladgerda, who had a matchless spirit though a delicate frame, covered by her splendid bravery the inclination of the soldiers to waver. for she made a sally about, and flew round to the rear of the enemy, taking them unawares, and thus turned the panic of her friends into the camp of the enemy. at last the lines of harald became slack, and harald himself was routed with a great slaughter of his men. ladgerda, when she had gone home after the battle, murdered her husband.... in the night with a spear-head, which she had hid in her gown. then she usurped the whole of his name and sovereignty; for this most presumptuous dame thought it pleasanter to rule without her husband than to share the throne with him. meantime, siward was taken to a town in the neighbourhood, and gave himself to be tended by the doctors, who were reduced to the depths of despair. but while the huge wound baffled all the remedies they applied, a certain man of amazing size was seen to approach the litter of the sick man, and promised that siward should straightway rejoice and be whole, if he would consecrate unto him the souls of all whom he should overcome in battle. nor did he conceal his name, but said that he was called rostar. now siward, when he saw that a great benefit could be got at the cost of a little promise, eagerly acceded to this request. then the old man suddenly, by the help of his hand, touched and banished the livid spot, and suddenly scarred the wound over. at last he poured dust on his eyes and departed. spots suddenly arose, and the dust, to the amaze of the beholders, seemed to become wonderfully like little snakes. i should think that he who did this miracle wished to declare, by the manifest token of his eyes, that the young man was to be cruel in future, in order that the more visible part of his body might not lack some omen of his life that was to follow. when the old woman, who had the care of his draughts, saw him showing in his face signs of little snakes; she was seized with an extraordinary horror of the young man, and suddenly fell and swooned away. hence it happened that siward got the widespread name of snake-eye. meantime thora, the bride of ragnar, perished of a violent malady, which caused infinite trouble and distress to the husband, who dearly loved his wife. this distress, he thought, would be best dispelled by business, and he resolved to find solace in exercise and qualify his grief by toil. to banish his affliction and gain some comfort, he bent his thoughts to warfare, and decreed that every father of a family should devote to his service whichever of his children he thought most contemptible, or any slave of his who was lazy at his work or of doubtful fidelity. and albeit that this decree seemed little fitted for his purpose, he showed that the feeblest of the danish race were better than the strongest men of other nations; and it did the young men great good, each of those chosen being eager to wipe off the reproach of indolence. also he enacted that every piece of litigation should be referred to the judgment of twelve chosen elders, all ordinary methods of action being removed, the accuser being forbidden to charge, and the accused to defend. this law removed all chance of incurring litigation lightly. thinking that there was thus sufficient provision made against false accusations by unscrupulous men, he lifted up his arms against britain, and attacked and slew in battle its king, hame, the father of ella, who was a most noble youth. then he killed the earls of scotland and of pictland, and of the isles that they call the southern or meridional (sudr-eyar), and made his sons siward and radbard masters of the provinces, which were now without governors. he also deprived norway of its chief by force, and commanded it to obey fridleif, whom he also set over the orkneys, from which he took their own earl. meantime, some of the danes who were most stubborn in their hatred against ragnar were obstinately bent on rebellion. they rallied to the side of harald, once an exile, and tried to raise the fallen fortunes of the tyrant. by this hardihood they raised up against the king the most virulent blasts of civil war, and entangled him in domestic perils when he was free from foreign troubles. ragnar, setting out to check them with a fleet of the danes who lived in the isles, crushed the army of the rebels, drove harald, the leader of the conquered army, a fugitive to germany, and forced him to resign unbashfully an honour which he had gained without scruple. nor was he content simply to kill his prisoners: he preferred to torture them to death, so that those who could not be induced to forsake their disloyalty might not be so much as suffered to give up the ghost save under the most grievous punishment. moreover, the estates of those who had deserted with harald he distributed among those who were serving as his soldiers, thinking that the fathers would be worse punished by seeing the honour of their inheritance made over to the children whom they had rejected, while those whom they had loved better lost their patrimony. but even this did not sate his vengeance, and he further determined to attack saxony, thinking it the refuge of his foes and the retreat of harald. so, begging his sons to help him, he came on karl, who happened then to be tarrying on those borders of his empire. intercepting his sentries, he eluded the watch that was posted on guard. but while he thought that all the rest would therefore be easy and more open to his attacks, suddenly a woman who was a soothsayer, a kind of divine oracle or interpreter of the will of heaven, warned the king with a saving prophecy, and by her fortunate presage forestalled the mischief that impended, saying that the fleet of siward had moored at the mouth of the river seine. the emperor, heeding the warning, and understanding that the enemy was at hand, managed to engage with and stop the barbarians, who were thus pointed out to him. a battle was fought with ragnar; but karl did not succeed as happily in the field as he had got warning of the danger. and so that tireless conqueror of almost all europe, who in his calm and complete career of victory had travelled over so great a portion of the world, now beheld his army, which had vanquished all these states and nations, turning its face from the field, and shattered by a handful from a single province. ragnar, after loading the saxons with tribute, had sure tidings from sweden of the death of herodd, and also heard that his own sons, owing to the slander of sorle, the king chosen in his stead, had been robbed of their inheritance. he besought the aid of the brothers biorn, fridleif, and ragbard (for ragnald, hwitserk, and erik, his sons by swanloga, had not yet reached the age of bearing arms), and went to sweden. sorle met him with his army, and offered him the choice between a public conflict and a duel; and when ragnar chose personal combat, he sent against him starkad, a champion of approved daring, with his band of seven sons, to challenge and fight with him. ragnar took his three sons to share the battle with him, engaged in the sight of both armies, and came out of the combat triumphant. biorn, having inflicted great slaughter on the foe without hurt to himself, gained from the strength of his sides, which were like iron, a perpetual name (ironsides). this victory emboldened ragnar to hope that he could overcome any peril, and he attacked and slew sorle with the entire forces he was leading. he presented biorn with the lordship of sweden for his conspicuous bravery and service. then for a little interval he rested from wars, and chanced to fall deeply in love with a certain woman. in order to find some means of approaching and winning her the more readily, he courted her father (esbern) by showing him the most obliging and attentive kindness. he often invited him to banquets, and received him with lavish courtesy. when he came, he paid him the respect of rising, and when he sat, he honoured him with a set next to himself. he also often comforted him with gifts, and at times with the most kindly speech. the man saw that no merits of his own could be the cause of all this distinction, and casting over the matter every way in his mind, he perceived that the generosity of his monarch was caused by his love for his daughter, and that he coloured this lustful purpose with the name of kindness. but, that he might balk the cleverness of the lover, however well calculated, he had the girl watched all the more carefully that he saw her beset by secret aims and obstinate methods. but ragnar, who was comforted by the surest tidings of her consent, went to the farmhouse in which she was kept, and fancying that love must find out a way, repaired alone to a certain peasant in a neighbouring lodging. in the morning he exchanged dress with the women, and went in female attire, and stood by his mistress as she was unwinding wool. cunningly, to avoid betrayal, he set his hands to the work of a maiden, though they were little skilled in the art. in the night he embraced the maiden and gained his desire. when her time drew near, and the girl growing big, betrayed her outraged chastity, the father, not knowing to whom his daughter had given herself to be defiled, persisted in asking the girl herself who was the unknown seducer. she steadfastly affirmed that she had had no one to share her bed except her handmaid, and he made the affair over to the king to search into. he would not allow an innocent servant to be branded with an extraordinary charge, and was not ashamed to prove another's innocence by avowing his own guilt. by this generosity he partially removed the woman's reproach, and prevented an absurd report from being sown in the ears of the wicked. also he added, that the son to be born of her was of his own line, and that he wished him to be named ubbe. when this son had grown up somewhat, his wit, despite his tender years, equalled the discernment of manhood. for he took to loving his mother, since she had had converse with a noble bed, but cast off all respect for his father, because he had stooped to a union too lowly. after this ragnar prepared an expedition against the hellespontines, and summoned an assembly of the danes, promising that he would give the people most wholesome laws. he had enacted before that each father of a household should offer for service that one among his sons whom he esteemed least; but now he enacted that each should arm the son who was stoutest of hand or of most approved loyalty. thereon, taking all the sons he had by thora, in addition to ubbe, he attacked, crushed in sundry campaigns, and subdued the hellespont with its king dia. at last he involved the same king in disaster after disaster, and slew him. dia's sons, dia and daxo, who had before married the daughters of the russian king, begged forces from their father-in-law, and rushed with most ardent courage to the work of avenging their father. but ragnar, when he saw their boundless army, distrusted his own forces; and he put brazen horses on wheels that could be drawn easily, took them round on carriages that would turn, and ordered that they should be driven with the utmost force against the thickest ranks of the enemy. this device served so well to break the line of the foe, that the danes' hope of conquest seemed to lie more in the engine than in the soldiers: for its insupportable weight overwhelmed whatever it struck. thus one of the leaders was killed, while one made off in flight, and the whole army of the area of the hellespont retreated. the scythians, also, who were closely related by blood to daxo on the mother's side, are said to have been crushed in the same disaster. their province was made over to hwitserk, and the king of the russians, trusting little in his own strength, hastened to fly out of the reach of the terrible arms of ragnar. now ragnar had spent almost five years in sea-roving, and had quickly compelled all other nations to submit; but he found the perms in open defiance of his sovereignty. he had just conquered them, but their loyalty was weak. when they heard that he had come they cast spells upon the sky, stirred up the clouds, and drove them into most furious storms. this for some time prevented the danes from voyaging, and caused their supply of food to fail. then, again, the storm suddenly abated, and now they were scorched by the most fervent and burning heat; nor was this plague any easier to bear than the great and violent cold had been. thus the mischievous excess in both directions affected their bodies alternately, and injured them by an immoderate increase first of cold and then of heat. moreover, dysentery killed most of them. so the mass of the danes, being pent in by the dangerous state of the weather, perished of the bodily plague that arose on every side. and when ragnar saw that he was hindered, not so much by a natural as by a factitious tempest, he held on his voyage as best he could, and got to the country of the kurlanders and sembs, who paid zealous honour to his might and majesty, as if he were the most revered of conquerors. this service enraged the king all the more against the arrogance of the men of permland, and he attempted to avenge his slighted dignity by a sudden attack. their king, whose name is not known, was struck with panic at such a sudden invasion of the enemy, and at the same time had no heart to join battle with them; and fled to matul, the prince of finmark. he, trusting in the great skill of his archers, harassed with impunity the army of ragnar, which was wintering in permland. for the finns, who are wont to glide on slippery timbers (snowskates), scud along at whatever pace they will, and are considered to be able to approach or depart very quickly; for as soon as they have damaged the enemy they fly away as speedily as they approach, nor is the retreat they make quicker than their charge. thus their vehicles and their bodies are so nimble that they acquire the utmost expertness both in advance and flight. ragnar was filled with amazement at the poorness of his fortunes when he saw that he, who had conquered rome at its pinnacle of power, was dragged by an unarmed and uncouth race into the utmost peril. he, therefore, who had signally crushed the most glorious flower of the roman soldiery, and the forces of a most great and serene captain, now yielded to a base mob with the poorest and slenderest equipment; and he whose lustre in war the might of the strongest race on earth had failed to tarnish, was now too weak to withstand the tiny band of a miserable tribe. hence, with that force which had helped him bravely to defeat the most famous pomp in all the world and the weightiest weapon of military power, and to subdue in the field all that thunderous foot, horse, and encampment; with this he had now, stealthily and like a thief, to endure the attacks of a wretched and obscure populace; nor must he blush to stain by a treachery in the night that noble glory of his which had been won in the light of day, for he took to a secret ambuscade instead of open bravery. this affair was as profitable in its issue as it was unhandsome in the doing. ragnar was equally as well pleased at the flight of the finns as he had been at that of karl, and owned that he had found more strength in that defenceless people than in the best equipped soldiery; for he found the heaviest weapons of the romans easier to bear than the light darts of this ragged tribe. here, after killing the king of the perms and routing the king of the finns, ragnar set an eternal memorial of his victory on the rocks, which bore the characters of his deeds on their face, and looked down upon them. meanwhile ubbe was led by his grandfather, esbern, to conceive an unholy desire for the throne; and, casting away all thought of the reverence due to his father, he claimed the emblem of royalty for his own head. when ragnar heard of his arrogance from kelther and thorkill, the earls of sweden, he made a hasty voyage towards gothland. esbern, finding that these men were attached with a singular loyalty to the side of ragnar, tried to bribe them to desert the king. but they did not swerve from their purpose, and replied that their will depended on that of biorn, declaring that not a single swede would dare to do what went against his pleasure. esbern speedily made an attempt on biorn himself, addressing him most courteously through his envoys. biorn said that he would never lean more to treachery than to good faith, and judged that it would be a most abominable thing to prefer the favour of an infamous brother to the love of a most righteous father. the envoys themselves he punished with hanging, because they counselled him to so grievous a crime. the swedes, moreover, slew the rest of the train of the envoys in the same way, as a punishment for their mischievous advice. so esbern, thinking that his secret and stealthy manoeuvres did not succeed fast enough, mustered his forces openly, and went publicly forth to war. but iwar, the governor of jutland, seeing no righteousness on either side of the impious conflict, avoided all unholy war by voluntary exile. ragnar attacked and slew esbern in the bay that is called in latin viridis; he cut off the dead man's head and bade it be set upon the ship's prow, a dreadful sight for the seditious. but ubbe took to flight, and again attacked his father, having revived the war in zealand. ubbe's ranks broke, and he was assailed single-handed from all sides; but he felled so many of the enemy's line that he was surrounded with a pile of the corpses of the foe as with a strong bulwark, and easily checked his assailants from approaching. at last he was overwhelmed by the thickening masses of the enemy, captured, and taken off to be laden with public fetters. by immense violence he disentangled his chains and cut them away. but when he tried to sunder and rend the bonds that were (then) put upon him, he could not in any wise escape his bars. but when iwar heard that the rising in his country had been quelled by the punishment of the rebel, he went to denmark. ragnar received him with the greatest honour, because, while the unnatural war had raged its fiercest, he had behaved with the most entire filial respect. meanwhile daxo long and vainly tried to overcome hwitserk, who ruled over sweden; but at last he enrapped him under pretence of making a peace, and attacked him. hwitserk received him hospitably, but daxo had prepared an army with weapons, who were to feign to be trading, ride into the city in carriages, and break with a night-attack into the house of their host. hwitserk smote this band of robbers with such a slaughter that he was surrounded with a heap of his enemies' bodies, and could only be taken by letting down ladders from above. twelve of his companions, who were captured at the same time by the enemy, were given leave to go back to their country; but they gave up their lives for their king, and chose to share the dangers of another rather than be quit of their own. daxo, moved with compassion at the beauty of hwitserk, had not the heart to pluck the budding blossom of that noble nature, and offered him not only his life, but his daughter in marriage, with a dowry of half his kingdom; choosing rather to spare his comeliness than to punish his bravery. but the other, in the greatness of his soul, valued as nothing the life which he was given on sufferance, and spurned his safety as though it were some trivial benefit. of his own will he embraced the sentence of doom, saying, that ragnar would exact a milder vengeance for his son if he found that he had made his own choice in selecting the manner of his death. the enemy wondered at his rashness, and promised that he should die by the manner of death which he should choose for this punishment. this leave the young man accepted as a great kindness, and begged that he might be bound and burned with his friends. daxo speedily complied with his prayers that craved for death, and by way of kindness granted him the end that he had chosen. when ragnar heard of this, he began to grieve stubbornly even unto death, and not only put on the garb of mourning, but, in the exceeding sorrow of his soul, took to his bed and showed his grief by groaning. but his wife, who had more than a man's courage, chid his weakness, and put heart into him with her manful admonitions. drawing his mind off from his woe, she bade him be zealous in the pursuit of war; declaring that it was better for so brave a father to avenge the bloodstained ashes of his son with weapons than with tears. she also told him not to whimper like a woman, and get as much disgrace by his tears as he had once earned glory by his valour. upon these words ragnar began to fear lest he should destroy his ancient name for courage by his womanish sorrow; so, shaking off his melancholy garb and putting away his signs of mourning, he revived his sleeping valour with hopes of speedy vengeance. thus do the weak sometimes nerve the spirits of the strong. so he put his kingdom in charge of iwar, and embraced with a father's love ubbe, who was now restored to his ancient favour. then he transported his fleet over to russia, took daxo, bound him in chains, and sent him away to be kept in utgard. ( ) ragnar showed on this occasion the most merciful moderation towards the slayer of his dearest son, since he sufficiently satisfied the vengeance which he desired, by the exile of the culprit rather than his death. this compassion shamed the russians out of any further rage against such a king, who could not be driven even by the most grievous wrongs to inflict death upon his prisoners. ragnar soon took daxo back into favour, and restored him to his country, upon his promising that he would every year pay him his tribute barefoot, like a suppliant, with twelve elders, also unshod. for he thought it better to punish a prisoner and a suppliant gently, than to draw the axe of bloodshed; better to punish that proud neck with constant slavery than to sever it once and for all. then he went on and appointed his son erik, surnamed wind-hat, over sweden. here, while fridleif and siward were serving under him, he found that the norwegians and the scots had wrongfully conferred the title of king on two other men. so he first overthrew the usurper to the power of norway, and let biorn have the country for his own benefit. then he summoned biorn and erik, ravaged the orkneys, landed at last on the territory of the scots, and in a three-days' battle wearied out their king murial, and slew him. but ragnar's sons, dunwat and radbard, after fighting nobly, were slain by the enemy. so that the victory their father won was stained with their blood. he returned to denmark, and found that his wife swanloga had in the meantime died of disease. straightway he sought medicine for his grief in loneliness, and patiently confined the grief of his sick soul within the walls of his house. but this bitter sorrow was driven out of him by the sudden arrival of iwar, who had been expelled from the kingdom. for the gauls had made him fly, and had wrongfully bestowed royal power on a certain ella, the son of hame. ragnar took iwar to guide him, since he was acquainted with the country, gave orders for a fleet, and approached the harbour called york. here he disembarked his forces, and after a battle which lasted three days, he made ella, who had trusted in the valour of the gauls, desirous to fly. the affair cost much blood to the english and very little to the danes. here ragnar completed a year of conquest, and then, summoning his sons to help him, he went to ireland, slew its king melbrik, besieged dublin, which was filled with wealth of the barbarians, attacked it, and received its surrender. there he lay in camp for a year; and then, sailing through the midland sea, he made his way to the hellespont. he won signal victories as he crossed all the intervening countries, and no ill-fortune anywhere checked his steady and prosperous advance. harald, meanwhile, with the adherence of certain danes who were cold-hearted servants in the army of ragnar, disturbed his country with renewed sedition, and came forward claiming the title of king. he was met by the arms of ragnar returning from the hellespont; but being unsuccessful, and seeing that his resources of defence at home were exhausted, he went to ask help of ludwig, who was then stationed at mainz. but ludwig, filled with the greatest zeal for promoting his religion, imposed a condition on the barbarian, promising him help if he would agree to follow the worship of christ. for he said there could be no agreement of hearts between those who embraced discordant creeds. anyone, therefore, who asked for help, must first have a fellowship in religion. no men could be partners in great works who were separated by a different form of worship. this decision procured not only salvation for ludwig's guest, but the praise of piety for ludwig himself, who, as soon as harald had gone to the holy font, accordingly strengthened him with saxon auxiliaries. trusting in these, harald built a temple in the land of sleswik with much care and cost, to be hallowed to god. thus he borrowed a pattern of the most holy way from the worship of rome. he unhallowed, pulled down the shrines that had been profaned by the error of misbelievers, outlawed the sacrificers, abolished the (heathen) priesthood, and was the first to introduce the religion of christianity to his uncouth country. rejecting the worship of demons, he was zealous for that of god. lastly, he observed with the most scrupulous care whatever concerned the protection of religion. but he began with more piety than success. for ragnar came up, outraged the holy rites he had brought in, outlawed the true faith, restored the false one to its old position, and bestowed on the ceremonies the same honour as before. as for harald, he deserted and cast in his lot with sacrilege. for though he was a notable ensample by his introduction of religion, yet he was the first who was seen to neglect it, and this illustrious promoter of holiness proved a most infamous forsaker of the same. meanwhile, ella betook himself to the irish, and put to the sword or punished all those who were closely and loyally attached to ragnar. then ragnar attacked him with his fleet, but, by the just visitation of the omnipotent, was openly punished for disparaging religion. for when he had been taken and cast into prison, his guilty limbs were given to serpents to devour, and adders found ghastly substance in the fibres of his entrails. his liver was eaten away, and a snake, like a deadly executioner, beset his very heart. then in a courageous voice he recounted all his deeds in order, and at the end of his recital added the following sentence: "if the porkers knew the punishment of the boar-pig, surely they would break into the sty and hasten to loose him from his affliction." at this saying, ella conjectured that some of his sons were yet alive, and bade that the executioners should stop and the vipers be removed. the servants ran up to accomplish his bidding; but ragnar was dead, and forestalled the order of the king. surely we must say that this man had a double lot for his share? by one, he had a fleet unscathed, an empire well-inclined, and immense power as a rover; while the other inflicted on him the ruin of his fame, the slaughter of his soldiers, and a most bitter end. the executioner beheld him beset with poisonous beasts, and asps gorging on that heart which he had borne steadfast in the face of every peril. thus a most glorious conqueror declined to the piteous lot of a prisoner; a lesson that no man should put too much trust in fortune. iwar heard of this disaster as he happened to be looking on at the games. nevertheless, he kept an unmoved countenance, and in nowise broke down. not only did he dissemble his grief and conceal the news of his father's death, but he did not even allow a clamour to arise, and forbade the panic-stricken people to leave the scene of the sports. thus, loth to interrupt the spectacle by the ceasing of the games, he neither clouded his countenance nor turned his eyes from public merriment to dwell upon his private sorrow; for he would not fall suddenly into the deepest melancholy from the height of festal joy, or seem to behave more like an afflicted son than a blithe captain. but when siward heard the same tidings, he loved his father more than he cared for his own pain, and in his distraction plunged deeply into his foot the spear he chanced to be holding, dead to all bodily troubles in his stony sadness. for he wished to hurt some part of his body severely, that he might the more patiently bear the wound in his soul. by this act he showed at once his bravery and his grief, and bore his lot like a son who was more afflicted and steadfast. but biorn received the tidings of his father's death while he was playing at dice, and squeezed so violently the piece that he was grasping that he wrung the blood from his fingers and shed it on the table; whereon he said that assuredly the cast of fate was more fickle than that of the very die which he was throwing. when ella heard this, he judged that his father's death had been borne with the toughest and most stubborn spirit by that son of the three who had paid no filial respect to his decease; and therefore he dreaded the bravery of iwar most. iwar went towards england, and when he saw that his fleet was not strong enough to join battle with the enemy, he chose to be cunning rather than bold, and tried a shrewd trick on ella, begging as a pledge of peace between them a strip of land as great as he could cover with a horse's hide. he gained his request, for the king supposed that it would cost little, and thought himself happy that so strong a foe begged for a little boon instead of a great one; supposing that a tiny skin would cover but a very little land. but iwar cut the hide out and lengthened it into very slender thongs, thus enclosing a piece of ground large enough to build a city on. then ella came to repent of his lavishness, and tardily set to reckoning the size of the hide, measuring the little skin more narrowly now that it was cut up than when it was whole. for that which he had thought would encompass a little strip of ground, he saw lying wide over a great estate. iwar brought into the city, when he founded it, supplies that would serve amply for a siege, wishing the defences to be as good against scarcity as against an enemy. meantime, siward and biorn came up with a fleet of ships, and with open challenge declared war against the king. this they did at the appointed time; and when they had captured him, they ordered the figure of an eagle to be cut in his back, rejoicing to crush their most ruthless foe by marking him with the cruellest of birds. not satisfied with imprinting a wound on him, they salted the mangled flesh. thus ella was done to death, and biorn and siward went back to their own kingdoms. iwar governed england for two years. meanwhile the danes were stubborn in revolt, and made war, and delivered the sovereignty publicly to a certain siward and to erik, both of the royal line. the sons of ragnar, together with a fleet of , ships, attacked them at sleswik, and destroyed them in a conflict which lasted six months. barrows remain to tell the tale. the sound on which the war was conducted has gained equal glory by the death of siward. and now the royal stock was almost extinguished, saving only the sons of ragnar. then, when biorn and erik had gone home, iwar and siward settled in denmark, that they might curb the rebels with a stronger rein, setting agnar to govern england. agnar was stung because the english rejected him, and, with the help of siward, chose, rather than foster the insolence of the province that despised him, to dispeople it and leave its fields, which were matted in decay, with none to till them. he covered the richest land of the island with the most hideous desolation, thinking it better to be lord of a wilderness than of a headstrong country. after this he wished to avenge erik, who had been slain in sweden by the malice of a certain osten. but while he was narrowly bent on avenging another, he squandered his own blood on the foe; and while he was eagerly trying to punish the slaughter of his brother, sacrificed his own life to brotherly love. thus siward, by the sovereign vote of the whole danish assembly, received the empire of his father. but after the defeats he had inflicted everywhere he was satisfied with the honour he received at home, and liked better to be famous with the gown than with the sword. he ceased to be a man of camps, and changed from the fiercest of despots into the most punctual guardian of peace. he found as much honour in ease and leisure as he had used to think lay in many victories. fortune so favoured his change of pursuits, that no foe ever attacked him, nor he any foe. he died, and erik, who was a very young child, inherited his nature, rather than his realm or his tranquillity. for erik, the brother of harald, despising his exceedingly tender years, invaded the country with rebels, and seized the crown; nor was he ashamed to assail the lawful infant sovereign, and to assume an unrightful power. in thus bringing himself to despoil a feeble child of the kingdom he showed himself the more unworthy of it. thus he stripped the other of his throne, but himself of all his virtues, and cast all manliness out of his heart, when he made war upon a cradle: for where covetousness and ambition flamed, love of kindred could find no place. but this brutality was requited by the wrath of a divine vengeance. for the war between this man and gudorm, the son of harald, ended suddenly with such slaughter that they were both slain, with numberless others; and the royal stock of the danes, now worn out by the most terrible massacres, was reduced to the only son of the above siward. this man (erik) won the fortune of a throne by losing his kindred; it was luckier for him to have his relations dead than alive. he forsook the example of all the rest, and hastened to tread in the steps of his grandfather; for he suddenly came out as a most zealous practitioner of roving. and would that he had not shown himself rashly to inherit the spirit of ragnar, by his abolition of christian worship! for he continually tortured all the most religious men, or stripped them of their property and banished them. but it were idle for me to blame the man's beginnings when i am to praise his end. for that life is more laudable of which the foul beginning is checked by a glorious close, than that which begins commendably but declines into faults and infamies. for erik, upon the healthy admonitions of ansgarius, laid aside the errors of his impious heart, and atoned for whatsoever he had done amiss in the insolence thereof; showing himself as strong in the observance of religion as he had been in slighting it. thus he not only took a draught of more wholesome teaching with obedient mind, but wiped off early stains by his purity at the end. he had a son kanute by the daughter of gudorm, who was also the granddaughter of harald; and him he left to survive his death. while this child remained in infancy a guardian was required for the pupil and for the realm. but inasmuch it seemed to most people either invidious or difficult to give the aid that this office needed, it was resolved that a man should be chosen by lot. for the wisest of the danes, fearing much to make a choice by their own will in so lofty a matter, allowed more voice to external chance than to their own opinions, and entrusted the issue of the selection rather to luck than to sound counsel. the issue was that a certain enni-gnup (steep-brow), a man of the highest and most entire virtue, was forced to put his shoulder to this heavy burden; and when he entered on the administration which chalice had decreed, he oversaw, not only the early rearing of the king, but the affairs of the whole people. for which reason some who are little versed in our history give this man a central place in its annals. but when kanute had passed through the period of boyhood, and had in time grown to be a man, he left those who had done him the service of bringing him up, and turned from an almost hopeless youth to the practice of unhoped-for virtue; being deplorable for this reason only, that he passed from life to death without the tokens of the christian faith. but soon the sovereignty passed to his son frode. this man's fortune, increased by arms and warfare, rose to such a height of prosperity that he brought back to the ancient yoke the provinces which had once revolted from the danes, and bound them in their old obedience. he also came forward to be baptised with holy water in england, which had for some while past been versed in christianity. but he desired that his personal salvation should overflow and become general, and begged that denmark should be instructed in divinity by agapete, who was then pope of rome. but he was cut off before his prayers attained this wish. his death befell before the arrival of the messengers from rome: and indeed his intention was better than his fortune, and he won as great a reward in heaven for his intended piety as others are vouchsafed for their achievement. his son gorm, who had the surname of "the englishman," because he was born in england, gained the sovereignty in the island on his father's death; but his fortune, though it came soon, did not last long. he left england for denmark to put it in order; but a long misfortune was the fruit of this short absence. for the english, who thought that their whole chance of freedom lay in his being away, planned an open revolt from the danes, and in hot haste took heart to rebel. but the greater the hatred and contempt of england, the greater the loyal attachment of denmark to the king. thus while he stretched out his two hands to both provinces in his desire for sway, he gained one, but lost the lordship of the other irretrievably; for he never made any bold effort to regain it. so hard is it to keep a hold on very large empires. after this man his son harald came to be king of denmark; he is half-forgotten by posterity, and lacks all record for famous deeds, because he rather preserved than extended the possessions of the realm. after this the throne was obtained by gorm, a man whose soul was ever hostile to religion, and who tried to efface all regard for christ's worshippers, as though they were the most abominable of men. all those who shared this rule of life he harassed with divers kinds of injuries and incessantly pursued with whatever slanders he could. also, in order to restore the old worship to the shrines, he razed to its lowest foundations, as though it were some unholy abode of impiety, a temple which religious men had founded in a stead in sleswik; and those whom he did not visit with tortures he punished by the demolition of the holy chapel. though this man was thought notable for his stature, his mind did not answer to his body; for he kept himself so well sated with power that he rejoiced more in saving than increasing his dignity, and thought it better to guard his own than to attack what belonged to others: caring more to look to what he had than to swell his havings. this man was counselled by the elders to celebrate the rites of marriage, and he wooed thyra, the daughter of ethelred, the king of the english, for his wife. she surpassed other women in seriousness and shrewdness, and laid the condition on her suitor that she would not marry him till she had received denmark as a dowry. this compact was made between them, and she was betrothed to gorm. but on the first night that she went up on to the marriage-bed, she prayed her husband most earnestly that she should be allowed to go for three days free from intercourse with man. for she resolved to have no pleasure of love till she had learned by some omen in a vision that her marriage would be fruitful. thus, under pretence of self-control, she deferred her experience of marriage, and veiled under a show of modesty her wish to learn about her issue. she put off lustful intercourse, inquiring, under the feint of chastity, into the fortune she would have in continuing her line. some conjecture that she refused the pleasures of the nuptial couch in order to win her mate over to christianity by her abstinence. but the youth, though he was most ardently bent on her love, yet chose to regard the continence of another more than his own desires, and thought it nobler to control the impulses of the night than to rebuff the prayers of his weeping mistress; for he thought that her beseechings, really coming from calculation, had to do with modesty. thus it befell that he who should have done a husband's part made himself the guardian of her chastity so that the reproach of an infamous mind should not be his at the very beginning of his marriage; as though he had yielded more to the might of passion than to his own self-respect. moreover that he might not seem to forestall by his lustful embraces the love which the maiden would not grant, he not only forbore to let their sides that were next one another touch, but even severed them by his drawn sword, and turned the bed into a divided shelter for his bride and himself. but he soon tasted in the joyous form of a dream the pleasure which he postponed from free loving kindness. for, when his spirit was steeped in slumber, he thought that two birds glided down from the privy parts of his wife, one larger than the other; that they poised their bodies aloft and soared swiftly to heaven, and, when a little time had elapsed, came back and sat on either of his hands. a second, and again a third time, when they had been refreshed by a short rest, they ventured forth to the air with outspread wings. at last the lesser of them came back without his fellow, and with wings smeared with blood. he was amazed with this imagination, and, being in a deep sleep, uttered a cry to betoken his astonishment, filling the whole house with an uproarious shout. when his servants questioned him, he related his vision; and thyra, thinking that she would be blest with offspring, forbore her purpose to put off her marriage, eagerly relaxing the chastity for which she had so hotly prayed. exchanging celibacy for love, she granted her husband full joy of herself, requiting his virtuous self-restraint with the fulness of permitted intercourse, and telling him that she would not have married him at all, had she not inferred from these images in the dream which he had related, the certainty of her being fruitful. by a device as cunning as it was strange, thyra's pretended modesty passed into an acknowledgment of her future offspring. nor did fate disappoint her hopes. soon she was the fortunate mother of kanute and harald. when these princes had attained man's estate, they put forth a fleet and quelled the reckless insolence of the sclavs. neither did they leave england free from an attack of the same kind. ethelred was delighted with their spirit, and rejoiced at the violence his nephews offered him; accepting an abominable wrong as though it were the richest of benefits. for he saw far more merit in their bravery than in piety. thus he thought it nobler to be attacked by foes than courted by cowards, and felt that he saw in their valiant promise a sample of their future manhood. for he could not doubt that they would some day attack foreign realms, since they so boldly claimed those of their mother. he so much preferred their wrongdoing to their service, that he passed over his daughter, and bequeathed england in his will to these two, not scrupling to set the name of grandfather before that of father. nor was he unwise; for he knew that it beseemed men to enjoy the sovereignty rather than women, and considered that he ought to separate the lot of his unwarlike daughter from that of her valiant sons. hence thyra saw her sons inheriting the goods of her father, not grudging to be disinherited herself. for she thought that the preference above herself was honourable to her, rather than insulting. kanute and harald enriched themselves with great gains from sea-roving, and most confidently aspired to lay hands on ireland. dublin, which was considered the capital of the country, was beseiged. its king went into a wood adjoining the city with a few very skilled archers, and with treacherous art surrounded kanute (who was present with a great throng of soldiers witnessing the show of the games by night), and aimed a deadly arrow at him from afar. it struck the body of the king in front, and pierced him with a mortal wound. but kanute feared that the enemy would greet his peril with an outburst of delight. he therefore wished his disaster to be kept dark; and summoning voice with his last breath, he ordered the games to be gone through without disturbance. by this device he made the danes masters of ireland ere he made his own death known to the irish. who would not bewail the end of such a man, whose self-mastery served to give the victory to his soldiers, by reason of the wisdom that outlasted his life? for the safety of the danes was most seriously endangered, and was nearly involved in the most deadly peril; yet because they obeyed the dying orders of their general they presently triumphed over those they feared. germ had now reached the extremity of his days, having been blind for many years, and had prolonged his old age to the utmost bounds of the human lot, being more anxious for the life and prosperity of his sons than for the few days he had to breathe. but so great was his love for his elder son that he swore that he would slay with his own hand whosoever first brought him news of his death. as it chanced, thyra heard sure tidings that this son had perished. but when no man durst openly hint this to germ, she fell back on her cunning to defend her, and revealed by her deeds the mischance which she durst not speak plainly out. for she took the royal robes off her husband and dressed him in filthy garments, bringing him other signs of grief also, to explain the cause of her mourning; for the ancients were wont to use such things in the performance of obsequies, bearing witness by their garb to the bitterness of their sorrow. then said germ: "dost thou declare to me the death of kanute?" ( ) and thyra said: "that is proclaimed by thy presage, not by mine." by this answer she made out her lord a dead man and herself a widow, and had to lament her husband as soon as her son. thus, while she announced the fate of her son to her husband, she united them in death, and followed the obsequies of both with equal mourning; shedding the tears of a wife upon the one and of a mother upon the other; though at that moment she ought to have been cheered with comfort rather than crushed with disasters. endnotes: ( ) utgard. saxo, rationalising as usual, turns the mythical home of the giants into some terrestrial place in his vaguely-defined eastern europe. ( ) kanute. here the vernacular is far finer. the old king notices "denmark is drooping, dead must my son be!", puts on the signs of mourning, and dies. none transcribed from the ingram, cooke, and co. edition by david price, email ccx @pglaf.org; second proof by mike ruffell. visit to iceland and the scandinavian north translated from the german of madame ida pfeiffer. with numerous explanatory notes and eight tinted engravings. to which are added an essay on icelandic poetry, from the french of m. bergmann; a translation of the icelandic poem the voluspa; and a brief sketch of icelandic history. second edition. london: ingram, cooke, and co. [picture: pictorial title page] advertisement to the first edition the success which attended the publication in this series of illustrated works of _a woman's journey round the world_, has induced the publication of the present volume on a country so little known as iceland, and about which so little recent information exists. the translation has been carefully made, expressly for this series, from the original work published at vienna; and the editor has added a great many notes, wherever they seemed necessary to elucidate the text. in addition to the matter which appeared in the original work, the present volume contains a translation of a valuable essay on icelandic poetry, by m. bergmann; a translation of an icelandic poem, the 'voluspa;' a brief sketch of icelandic history; and a translation of schiller's ballad, 'the diver,' which is prominently alluded to by madame pfeiffer in her description of the geysers. { } the illustrations have been printed in tints, so as to make the work uniform with the _journey round the world_. london, august , . author's preface "another journey--a journey, moreover, in regions which every one would rather avoid than seek. this woman only undertakes these journeys to attract attention." "the first journey, for a woman alone, was certainly rather a bold proceeding. yet in that instance she might still have been excused. religious motives may perhaps have actuated her; and when this is the case, people often go through incredible things. at present, however, we can see no just reason which could excuse an undertaking of this description." thus, and perhaps more harshly still, will the majority judge me. and yet they will do me a grievous wrong. i am surely simple and harmless enough, and should have fancied any thing in the world rather than that it would ever be my fate to draw upon myself in any degree the notice of the public. i will merely indicate, as briefly as may be, my character and circumstances, and then i have no doubt my conduct will lose its appearance of eccentricity, and seem perfectly natural. when i was but a little child, i had already a strong desire to see the world. whenever i met a travelling-carriage, i would stop involuntarily, and gaze after it until it had disappeared; i used even to envy the postilion, for i thought he also must have accomplished the whole long journey. as i grew to the age of from ten to twelve years, nothing gave me so much pleasure as the perusal of voyages and travels. i ceased, indeed, to envy the postilions, but envied the more every navigator and naturalist. frequently my eyes would fill with tears when, having ascended a mountain, i saw others towering before me, and could not gain the summit. i made several journeys with my parents, and, after my marriage, with my husband; and only settled down when it became necessary that my two boys should visit particular schools. my husband's affairs demanded his entire attention, partly in lemberg, partly in vienna. he therefore confided the education and culture of the two boys entirely to my care; for he knew my firmness and perseverance in all i undertook, and doubted not that i would be both father and mother to his children. when my sons' education had been completed, and i was living in peaceful retirement, the dreams and aspirations of my youth gradually awoke once more. i thought of strange manners and customs, of distant regions, where a new sky would be above me, and new ground beneath my feet. i pictured to myself the supreme happiness of treading the land once hallowed by the presence of our saviour, and at length made up my mind to travel thither. as dangers and difficulties rose before my mind, i endeavoured to wean myself from the idea i had formed--but in vain. for privation i cared but little; my health was good and my frame hardy: i did not fear death. and moreover, as i was born in the last century, i could travel alone. thus every objection was overcome; every thing had been duly weighed and considered. i commenced my journey to palestine with a feeling of perfect rapture; and behold, i returned in safety. i now feel persuaded that i am neither tempting providence, nor justly incurring the imputation of wishing to be talked about, in following the bent of my inclinations, and looking still further about me in the world i chose iceland for my destination, because i hoped there to find nature in a garb such as she wears nowhere else. i feel so completely happy, so brought into communion with my maker, when i contemplate sublime natural phenomena, that in my eyes no degree of toil or difficulty is too great a price at which to purchase such perfect enjoyment. and should death overtake me sooner or later during my wanderings, i shall await his approach in all resignation, and be deeply grateful to the almighty for the hours of holy beauty in which i have lived and gazed upon his wonders. and now, dear reader, i would beg thee not to be angry with me for speaking so much of myself; it is only because this love of travelling does not, according to established notions, seem proper for one of my sex, that i have allowed my feelings to speak in my defence. judge me, therefore, not too harshly; but rather grant me the enjoyment of a pleasure which hurts no one, while it makes me happy. the author. chapter i in the year i undertook another journey; { } a journey, moreover, to the far north. iceland was one of those regions towards which, from the earliest period of my consciousness, i had felt myself impelled. in this country, stamped as it is by nature with features so peculiar, as probably to have no counterpart on the face of the globe, i hoped to see things which should fill me with new and inexpressible astonishment. how deeply grateful do i feel to thee, o thou that hast vouchsafed to me to behold the fulfilment of these my cherished dreams! the parting from all my dear ones had this time far less bitterness; i had found by experience, that a woman of an energetic mind can find her way through the world as well as a man, and that good people are to be met with every where. to this was added the reflection, that the hardships of my present voyage would be of short duration, and that five or six months might see me restored to my family. i left vienna at five o'clock on the morning of the tenth of april. as the danube had lately caused some devastations, on which occasion the railroad had not entirely escaped, we rode for the first four miles, as far as florisdorf, in an omnibus--not the most agreeable mode of travelling. our omnibuses are so small and narrow, that one would suppose they were built for the exclusive accommodation of consumptive subjects, and not for healthy, and in some cases portly individuals, whose bulk is further increased by a goodly assemblage of cloaks, furs, and overcoats. at the barriers a new difficulty arose. we delivered up our pass-warrants (_passirscheine_) in turn, with the exception of one young man, who was quite astounded at the demand. he had provided nothing but his passport and testimonials, being totally unaware that a pass-warrant is more indispensable than all the rest. in vain did he hasten into the bureau to expostulate with the officials,--we were forced to continue our journey without him. we were informed that he was a student, who, at the conclusion of term, was about to make holiday for a few weeks at his parents' house near prague. alas, poor youth! he had studied so much, and yet knew so little. he had not even an idea of the overwhelming importance of the document in question. for this trifling omission he forfeited the fare to prague, which had been paid in advance. but to proceed with my journey. at florisdorf a joyful surprise awaited me. i met my brother and my son, who had, it appears, preceded me. we entered the train to proceed in company to stockerau, a place between twelve and thirteen miles off; but were obliged to alight halfway, and walk a short distance. the embankment had given way. luckily the weather was favourable, inasmuch as we had only a violent storm of wind. had it rained, we should have been wetted to the skin, besides being compelled to wade ankle-deep in mud. we were next obliged to remain in the open air, awaiting the arrival of the train from stockerau, which unloaded its freight, and received us in exchange. at stockerau i once more took leave of my companions, and was soon securely packed in the post-carriage for transmission. in travelling this short distance, i had thus entered four carriages; a thing sufficiently disagreeable to an unencumbered person, but infinitely more so to one who has luggage to watch over. the only advantage i could discover in all this was, that we had saved half an hour in coming these seventeen miles. for this, instead of fl. kr. from vienna to prague, we paid fl. kr. from stockerau to prague, without reckoning expense of omnibus and railway. it was certainly a dearly-bought half-hour. { } the little town of znaim, with its neighbouring convent, is situated on a large plain, extending from vienna to budwitz, seventeen miles beyond znaim; the monotony of the view is only broken here and there by low hills. near schelletau the scenery begins to improve. on the left the view is bounded by a range of high hills, with a ruined castle, suggestive of tragical tales of centuries gone by. fir and pine forests skirt the road, and lie scattered in picturesque groups over hill and dale. april th. yesterday the weather had already begun to be ungracious to us. at znaim we found the valleys still partly covered with snow, and the fog was at times so thick, that we could not see a hundred paces in advance; but to-day it was incomparably worse. the mist resolved itself into a mild rain, which, however, lost so much of its mildness as we passed from station to station, that every thing around us was soon under water. but not only did we ride through water, we were obliged to sit in it also. the roof of our carriage threatened to become a perfect sieve, and the rain poured steadily in. had there been room for such a proceeding, we should all have unfurled our umbrellas. on occasions like these, i always silently admire the patience of my worthy countrymen, who take every thing so good-humouredly. were i a man, i should pursue a different plan, and should certainly not fail to complain of such carelessness. but as a woman, i must hold my peace; people would only rail at my sex, and call it ill-humoured. besides, i thanked my guardian-angel for these discomforts, looking upon them as a preparation for what was to befall me in the far north. passing several small towns and villages, we at length entered the bohemian territory, close behind iglau. the first town which we saw was czaslau, with its large open square, and a few neat houses; the latter provided with so-called arbours (or _verandahs_), which enable one to pass round the square dry-footed, even in the most rainy weather. journeying onwards, we noticed the fine cathedral and town of kuttenberg, once famous for its gold and silver mines. { } next comes the great tobacco-manufactory of sedlitz, near which we first see the elbe, but only for a short time, as it soon takes another direction. passing the small town of collin, we are whirled close by the battle-field where, in the year , the great king frederick paid his score to the austrians. an obelisk, erected a few years since to the memory of general daun, occupies a small eminence on the right. on the left is the plain of klephorcz, where the austrian army was drawn up. { } at eleven o'clock on the same night we reached prague. as it was my intention to pursue my journey after two days, my first walk on the following morning was to the police-office, to procure a passport and the all-important pass-warrant; my next to the custom-house, to take possession of a small chest, which i had delivered up five days before my departure, and which, as the expeditor affirmed, i should find ready for me on my arrival at prague. { } ah, mr. expeditor! my chest was not there. after saturday comes sunday; but on sunday the custom-house is closed. so here was a day lost, a day in which i might have gone to dresden, and even visited the opera. on monday morning i once more hastened to the office in anxious expectation; the box was not yet there. an array of loaded wagons had, however, arrived, and in one of these it might be. ah, how i longed to see my darling little box, in order that i might--_not_ press it to my heart, but unpack it in presence of the excise officer! i took merely a cursory glance at prague, as i had thoroughly examined every thing there some years before. the beautiful "graben" and horse-market once more excited my admiration. it was with a peculiar feeling that i trod the old bridge, from which st. john of nepomuk was cast into the moldau for refusing to publish the confession of king wenceslaus' consort. { } on the opposite bank i mounted the hradschin, and paid a visit to the cathedral, in which a large sarcophagus, surrounded and borne by angels, and surmounted by a canopy of crimson damask, is dedicated to the memory of the saint. the monument is of silver, and the worth of the metal alone is estimated at , florins. the church itself is not spacious, but is built in the noble gothic style; the lesser altars, however, with their innumerable gilded wooden figures, look by contrast extremely puny. in the chapel are many sarcophagi, on which repose bishops and knights hewn in stone, but so much damaged, that many are without hands and feet, while some lack heads. to the right, at the entrance of the church, is the celebrated chapel of st. wenceslaus, with its walls ornamented with frescoes, of which the colours and designs are now almost obliterated. it is further enriched with costly stones. not far from the cathedral is situated the palace of count czernin, a building particularly favoured with windows, of which it has one for every day in the year. i was there in an ordinary year, and saw ; how they manage in leap-year i do not know. the view from the belvedere of this palace well repays the observer. it takes in the old and new town, the noble river with its two bridges (the ancient venerable-looking stone structure, and the graceful suspension-bridge, six hundred paces long), and the hills round about, clothed with gardens, among which appear neat country-houses. the streets of the "kleinseite" are not particularly attractive, being mostly tortuous, steep, and narrow. they contain, however, several remarkable palaces, among which that of wallenstein duke of friedland stands pre-eminent. { } after visiting st. nicholas' church, remarkable for the height of its spire and its beautifully arched cupola, i betook myself to wimmer's gardens, and thence to the "bastei," a place of public resort with the citizens of prague. i could now observe the devastation caused by the rising of the water shortly before my arrival. the moldau had overstepped its banks in so turbulent a manner, as to carry along with it several small houses, and even a little village not far from prague, besides damaging all the dwellings upon its banks. the water had indeed already fallen, but the walls of the houses were soaked through and through; the doors had been carried away, and from the broken windows no faces looked out upon the passers-by. the water had risen two feet more than in , in which year the moldau had also attained an unusual height. from the same tower of observation, i looked down upon the great open space bought a few years ago, and intended to be occupied by the termini of the vienna and dresden railroads. although several houses were only just being pulled down, and the foundations of but few buildings were laid, i was assured that within six months every thing would be completed. i have still to mention a circumstance which struck me during my morning peregrinations, namely, the curious method in which milk, vegetables, and other provisions are here brought to town. i could have fancied myself transported to lapland or greenland, on meeting every where carts to which two, three, or four dogs were harnessed. one pair of dogs will drag three hundredweight on level ground; but when they encounter a hill, the driver must lend a helping hand. these dogs are, besides, careful guardians; and i would not advise any one to approach a car of this kind, as it stands before the inn-door, while the proprietor is quenching his thirst within, on the money he has just earned. at five o'clock on the morning of the th of april i left prague, and rode for fourteen miles in the mail-carriage, as far as obristwy on the elbe, at which place i embarked for dresden, on board the steamer bohemia, of fifty-horse power, a miserable old craft, apparently a stranger to beauty and comfort from her youth up. the price charged for this short passage of eight or nine hours is enormously dear. the travellers will, however, soon have their revenge on the extortionate proprietors; a railroad is constructing, by means of which this distance will be traversed in a much shorter time, and at a great saving of expense. but at any rate the journey by water is the more agreeable; the way lies through very picturesque scenery, and at length through "saxon switzerland" itself. the commencement of the journey is, however, far from pleasing. on the right are naked hills, and on the left large plains, over which, last spring, the swollen stream rolled, partly covering the trees and the roofs of the cottages. here i could for the first time see the whole extent of the calamity. many houses had been completely torn down, and the crops, and even the loose alluvial earth swept away; as we glided by each dreary scene of devastation, another yet more dismal would appear in its place. this continued till we reached melnick, where the trees become higher, and groups of houses peer forth from among the innumerable vineyards. opposite this little town the moldau falls into the elbe. on the left, in the far distance, the traveller can descry st. george's mount, from which, as the story goes, czech took possession of all bohemia. below the little town of raudnitz the hills gave place to mountains, and as many enthusiasts can only find those regions romantic where the mountains are crowned with half-ruined castles and strongholds, good old time has taken care to plant there two fine ruins, hafenberg and skalt, for the delectation of such sentimental observers. near leitmeritz, a small town with a handsome castle, and a church and convent, the eger flows into the elbe, and a high-arched wooden bridge connects the two banks. here our poor sailors had difficult work to lower the mast and the funnel. the rather pretty village of gross-czernoseck is remarkable for its gigantic cellars, hewn out of the rock. a post-carriage could easily turn round in one of these. the vats are of course proportioned to the cellars, particularly the barrels called the "twelve apostles," each of which holds between three and four thousand gallons. it would be no more than fair to stop here awhile, to give every hero of the bottle an opportunity to enjoy a sight of these palace-cellars, and to offer a libation to the twelve apostles; but the steamer passed on, and we were obliged to make the most of the descriptions furnished by those who were more at home in these parts, and had no doubt frequently emerged in an inspired state from the depths of the cellars in question. the view now becomes more and more charming: the mountains appear to draw closer together, and shut in the bed of the stream; romantic groups of rocks, with summits crowned by rains yet more romantic, tower between. the ancient but well-preserved castle of schreckenstein, built on a rock rising boldly out of the elbe, is particularly striking; the approaches to it are by serpentine walks hewn out of the rock. near the small town of aussig we find the most considerable coal-mines in bohemia. in their neighbourhood is situated the little mountain estate paschkal, which produces a kind of wine said to resemble champagne. the mountains now become higher and higher, but above them all towers the gigantic jungfernsprung (maiden's leap). the beauty of this region is only surpassed by the situation of the town and castle of tetschen. the castle stands on a rock, between twenty and thirty feet high, which seems to rise out of the elbe; it is surrounded by hot-houses and charming gardens, shelving downwards as far as the town, which lies in a blooming valley, near a little harbour. the valley itself, encompassed by a chain of lofty mountains, seems quite shut out from the rest of the world. the left bank of the river is here so crowded with masses and walls of rock, that there is only room at intervals for an isolated farm or hut. suddenly the tops of masts appear between the high rocks, a phenomenon which is soon explained; a large gap in one of the rocky walls forms a beautiful basin. and now we come to schandau, a place consisting only of a few houses; it is a frontier town of the saxon dominions. custom-house officers, a race of beings ever associated with frontier towns, here boarded our vessel, and rummaged every thing. my daguerreotype apparatus, which i had locked up in a small box, was looked upon with an eye of suspicion; but upon my assertion that it was exclusively intended for my own use, i and my apparatus were graciously dismissed. in our onward journey we frequently observed rocks of peculiar shapes, which have appropriate names, such as the "zirkelstein," "lilienstein," &c. the konigstein is a collection of jagged masses of rock, on which is built the fortress of the same name, used at present as a prison for great criminals. at the foot of the rocks lies the little town of konigstein. not far off, on the right bank, a huge rock, resting on others, bears a striking resemblance to a human head. the more distant groups of rocks are called those of "rathen," but are considered as belonging to saxon switzerland. the "basteien" (bastions) of this switzerland, close by which we now pass, are most wonderful superpositions of lofty and fantastically shaped rocks. unfortunately, the steamer whirled us so rapidly on our way, that whilst we contemplated one bank, the beauteous scenes on the opposite side had already glided from our view. in much too short a time we had passed the town of pirna, situate at the commencement of this range of mountains. the very ancient gate of this town towers far above all the other buildings. lastly we see the great castle sonnenstein, built on a rock, and now used as an asylum for lunatics. all the beautiful and picturesque portion of our passage is now past, and the royal villa of pillnitz, with its many chinese gables, looks insignificant enough, after the grand scenes of nature. a chain of hills, covered with the country-houses of citizens, adjoins it; and on the right extends a large plain, at the far end of which we can dimly descry the saxon metropolis. but what is that in the distance? we have hardly time to arrange our luggage, when the anchor is let go near the fine old dresden bridge. this bridge had not escaped unscathed by the furious river. one of the centre arches had given way, and the cross and watchbox which surmounted it were precipitated into the flood. at first, carriages still passed over the bridge; it was not until some time afterwards that the full extent of the damage was ascertained, and the passage of carriages over the bridge discontinued for many months. as i had seen the town of dresden several years before, and the only building new to me was the splendid theatre, i took advantage of the few evening hours of my stay to visit this structure. standing in the midst of the beautiful cathedral-square, its noble rotunda-like form at once rivets the attention. the inner theatre is surrounded by a superb broad and lofty corridor, with fine bow-windows and straight broad staircases, leading in different directions towards the galleries. the interior of the theatre is not so spacious as, judging from the exterior, one would imagine it to be, but the architecture and decorations are truly gorgeous and striking. the boxes are all open, being separated from each other merely by a low partition; the walls and chairs are covered with heavy silken draperies, and the seats of the third and fourth galleries with a mixture of silk and cotton. one single circumstance was disagreeable to me in an acoustic point of view--i could hear the slightest whisper of the prompter as distinctly as though some one had been behind me reading the play. the curtain had scarcely fallen before the whole house was empty, and yet there was no crowding to get out. this first drew my attention to the numerous and excellently contrived doors. april th. the dresden omnibuses may be cited as models of comfort; one is certain of plenty of room, and there is no occasion to dread either the corpulent persons or the furs and cloaks of fellow-passengers. a bell-pull is fixed in the interior of the carriage, so that each individual can give the coachman a signal when he or she wishes to alight. these omnibuses call at the principal inns, and wait for a moment; but the traveller who is not ready in advance is left behind. at half-past five in the morning it called at our hotel. i was ready and waiting, and drove off comfortably to the railway. the distance from dresden to leipzig is reckoned at fifty-six miles, and the journey occupied three hours. the first fourteen miles are very agreeable; gardens, fields, and meadows, pine-forests in the plain and on the hills, and between these, villages, farms, country-houses, and solitary chapels, combine to form a very pretty landscape. but the scene soon changes, and the town of meissen (famous for its porcelain manufactory), on the right hand, seems to shut out from our view all that is picturesque and beautiful. from here to leipzig we travel through a wearisome monotonous plain, enlivened at long intervals by villages and scattered farms. there is nothing to see but a great tunnel, and the river pleisse--the latter, or rather the elster, is rendered famous by the death of prince poniatowski. { } the town of leipzig, celebrated far and wide for its fairs, and more for its immense publishing trade, presents an appearance of noise and bustle proportionate to its commercial importance. i found streets, squares, and inns alike crowded. { } perhaps there does not exist a town with its houses, and consequently its streets, so disfigured with announcements, in all sizes and shapes, covering its walls, and sometimes projecting several feet, as leipzig. among the public buildings, those which pleased me most were the augusteum and the burgerschule. the bucherhalle (book-hall) i should suppose indebted for its celebrity rather to its literary contents than to its architectural beauty or its exterior. the hall itself is indeed large, and occupies the whole length of the building, while the lower story consists of several rooms. the hall, the chambers, and the exterior are all plain, and without particular decoration. the tuchhalle (cloth-hall) is simply a large house, with spacious chambers, containing supplies of cloth. the theatre stands on a very large square, and does not present a very splendid appearance, whether viewed from within or from without. the plan of having stalls in front of the boxes in the second and third galleries was a novelty to me. the orchestra i could only hear, but could not discover its whereabouts; most probably it was posted behind the scenes. on inquiry, i was told that this was only done on extraordinary occasions, when the seats in the orchestra were converted into stalls, as was the case on the night of my visit. the play given was "the original tartuffe," a popular piece by gutzkow. it was capitally performed. in the leipzig theatre i had a second opportunity of observing, that as regards the love of eating our good saxons are not a whit behind the much-censured viennese. in the dresden theatre i had admired a couple of ladies who sat next me. they came provided with a neat bag, containing a very sufficient supply of confectionery, to which they perseveringly applied themselves between the acts. but at leipzig i found a delicate-looking mother and her son, a lad of fifteen or sixteen years, regaling themselves with more solid provisions--white bread and small sausages. i could not believe my eyes, and had made up my mind that the sausages were artificially formed out of some kind of confectionery--but alas! my nose came forward but too soon, as a potent witness, to corroborate what i was so unwilling to believe! neither did these two episodes take place in the loftiest regions of thalia's temple, but in the stalls of the second tier. beautiful alleys are planted round leipzig. i took a walk into the rosenthal (valley of roses), which also consists of splendid avenues and lawns. a pretty coffee-house, with a very handsome alcove, built in a semicircular form, invites the weary traveller to rest and refreshment, while a band of agreeable music diffuses mirth and good humour around. the rest of the scenery around leipzig presents the appearance of a vast and monotonous plain. april th. i had intended to continue my journey to hamburgh via berlin, but the weather was so cold and stormy, and the rain poured down so heavily, that i preferred the shorter way, and proceeded by rail to magdeburg. flying through the dismal plain past halle, kothen, and other towns, of which i could only discern groups of houses, we hurriedly recognised the saale and the elbe; and towards o'clock in the morning arrived at magdeburg, having travelled seventy miles in three hours and a quarter. as the steamer for hamburgh was not to start until o'clock, i had ample time to look at the town. magdeburg is a mixed pattern of houses of ancient, mediaeval, and modern dates. particularly remarkable in this respect is the principal street, the "broadway," which runs through the whole of the town. here we can see houses dating their origin from the most ancient times; houses that have stood proof against sieges and sackings; houses of all colours and forms; some sporting peaked gables, on which stone figures may still be seen; others covered from roof to basement with arabesques; and in one instance i could even detect the remains of frescoes. in the very midst of these relics of antiquity would appear a house built in the newest style. i do not remember ever having seen a street which produced so remarkable an impression on me. the finest building is unquestionably the venerable cathedral. in italy i had already seen numbers of the most beautiful churches; yet i remained standing in mute admiration before this masterpiece of gothic architecture. the monument with the twelve apostles in this church is a worthy memorial of the celebrated sculptor vischer. in order to view it, it is necessary to obtain the special permission of the commandant. the cathedral square is large, symmetrical, and decorated with two alleys of trees; it is also used as a drilling-ground for the soldiers' minor manoeuvres. i was particularly struck with the number of military men to be seen here. go where i would, i was sure to meet soldiers and officers, frequently in large companies; in time of war it could scarcely have been worse. this was an unmistakeable token that i was on prussian territory. the open canals, which come from all the houses, and meander through the streets, are a great disfigurement to the town. half-past three o'clock came only too quickly, and i betook myself on board the steamer _magdeburg_, of sixty-horse power, to proceed to hamburgh. of the passage itself i can say nothing, except that a journey on a river through execrable scenery is one of the most miserable things that can well be imagined. when, in addition to this, the weather is bad, the ship dirty, and one is obliged to pass a night on board, the discomfort is increased. it was my lot to endure all this: the weather was bad, the ship was dirty, the distance more than miles, so that we had the pleasant prospect of a delightful night on board the ship. there were, moreover, so many passengers, that we were forced to sit crowded together; so there we sat with exemplary patience, stared at each other, and sighed bitterly. order was entirely out of the question; no one had time to think of such a thing. smoking and card-playing were perseveringly carried on all day and all night; it can easily be imagined that things did not go so quietly as at an english whist-party. the incessant rain rendered it impossible to leave the cabin even for a short time. the only consolation i had was, that i made the acquaintance of the amiable composer lorzing, a circumstance which delighted me the more, as i had always been an admirer of his beautiful original music. chapter ii morning dawned at length, and in a short time afterwards we reached the great commercial city, which, half destroyed by the dreadful conflagration of , had risen grander and more majestic from its ashes. { } i took up my quarters with a cousin, who is married to the wurtemburg consul, the merchant schmidt, in whose house i spent a most agreeable and happy week. my cousin-in-law was polite enough to escort me every where himself, and to shew me the lions of hamburgh. first of all we visited the exchange between the hours of one and two, when it is at the fullest, and therefore best calculated to impress a stranger with an idea of the extent and importance of the business transacted there. the building contains a hall of great size, with arcades and galleries, besides many large rooms, which are partly used for consultations, partly for the sale of refreshments. the most interesting thing of all is, however, to sit in the gallery, and looking downwards, to observe the continually increasing crowd passing and repassing each other in the immense hall and through the galleries and chambers, and to listen to the hubbub and noise of the thousands of eager voices talking at once. at half-past one o'clock the hall is at its fullest, and the noise becomes absolutely deafening; for now they are marking up the rates of exchange, by which the merchants regulate their monetary transactions. leaving the exchange, we bent our steps towards the great harbour, and entering a small boat, cruised in and about it in all directions. i had resolved to count only the three-masted ships; but soon gave it up, for their number seemed overwhelming, even without reckoning the splendid steamers, brigs, sloops, and craft. in short, i could only gaze and wonder, for at least ships lay before me. let any one fancy an excursion amidst ships, great and small, which lined both shores of the elbe in tiers of three deep or more; the passing to and fro of countless boats busily employed in loading or unloading these vessels; these things, together with the shouting and singing of the sailors, the rattling of anchors which are being weighed, and the rush and swell of passing steamers, combine to constitute a picture not to be surpassed in any city except in that metropolis of the world, london. { } the reason of this unusual activity in the harbour lay in the severity of the past winter. such a winter had not been experienced for seventy years: the elbe and the baltic lay for months in icy chains, and not a ship could traverse the frozen river, not an anchor could be weighed or lowered. it was only a short time before my arrival that the passage had once more become free. in the neighbourhood of the harbour are situated the greater number of the so-called "yards." i had read concerning them that, viewed from the exterior, they look like common houses; but that they constitute separate communities, and contain alleys and streets, serving as the domicile of innumerable families. i visited several of these places, and can assure the reader that i saw nothing extraordinary in them. houses with two large wings, forming an alley of from eighty to a hundred paces in length, are to be met with in every large town; and that a number of families should inhabit such a house is not remarkable, considering that they are all poor, and that each only possesses a single small apartment. the favourite walk in the town is the "jungfernstieg" (maiden's walk), a broad alley, extending round a spacious and beautiful basin of the alster. on one side are splendid hotels, with which hamburgh is richly provided; on the other, a number of private residences of equal pretensions. other walks are, the "wall," surrounding the town, and the "botanical garden," which resembles a fine park. the noblest building, distinguished alike as regards luxury, skill, tastefulness of design, and stability, is the bazaar. it is truly a gigantic undertaking, and the more to be admired from the fact that it is not built upon shares, but at the expense of a single individual, herr carl sillem; the architect's name is overdick. the building itself is constructed entirely of stone, and the walls of the great room and of the hall are inlaid with marble. a lofty cupola and an immense glazed dome cover both the great room and the hall; the upper staircases are ornamented with beautiful statues. when in the evening it is brilliantly lighted with gas, and further ornamented by a tasteful display of the richest wares, the spectator can almost fancy himself transported to a fairy palace. altogether the shops in hamburgh are very luxurious. the wares lie displayed in the most tasteful manner behind huge windows of plate-glass, which are often from five to six feet broad, and eight or ten feet high; a single sheet frequently costs florins. this plate-glass luxury is not confined to shops, but extends to windows generally, not only in hamburgh, but also in altona, and is also seen in the handsomest country-houses of the hamburghers. many a pane costs eight or ten florins; and the glass is insured in case of breakage, like houses in case of fire. this display of glass is equalled by the costliness of the furniture, which is almost universally of mahogany; a wood which is here in such common use, that in some of the most elegant houses the very stair-banisters are constructed of it. even the pilots have often mahogany furniture. the handsomest and most frequented street is the "neue wall" (new wall). i was particularly struck with the number of shops and dwellings underground, to which one descends by a flight of six or eight stairs; an iron railing is generally placed before the entrance, to prevent the passers-by from falling down. a very practical institution is the great slaughterhouse, in which all cattle are killed on certain days of the week. concerning the town of altona, i have only to observe that it appeared to me a continuation of hamburgh; from which town, indeed, it is only separated by a wooden door. a very broad, handsome street, or, more properly speaking, an elongated square, planted with a double row of large trees, is the most remarkable thing about altona, which belongs to the danish government, and is considered, after copenhagen, the most important place in the kingdom. it is a delicious ride to the village of blankenese, distant nine miles from hamburgh; the road lies among beautiful country-houses and large park-like gardens. blankenese itself consists of cottages, grouped in a picturesque manner round the sulberg, a hill from which the traveller enjoys a very extended view over the great plain, in which it is the only elevated point. the course of the elbe, as it winds at moderate speed towards the sea, is here to be traced almost to its embouchure at cuxhaven. the breadth of the elbe at blankenese exceeds two miles. another interesting excursion is to the "new mills," a little village on the elbe, not more than half a mile from altona, and inhabited only by fishermen and pilots. whoever wishes to form an idea of dutch prettiness and cleanliness should come here. the houses are mostly one story high, neatly and tastefully built; the brightest of brass handles adorn the street-doors; the windows are kept scrupulously clean, and furnished with white curtains. in saxony i had found many dwellings of the peasantry tidy and neat enough, displaying at any rate more opulence than we are accustomed to find with this class of people; but i had seen none to compete with this pretty village. among the peasants' costumes, i only liked that worn by the women from the "vierlanden." they wear short full skirts of black stuff, fine white chemisettes with long sleeves, and coloured bodices, lightly fastened in front with silk cords or silver buckles. their straw hats have a most comical appearance; the brim of the hat is turned up in such a manner that the crown appears to have completely sunk in. many pretty young girls dressed in this manner come to hamburgh to sell flowers, and take up their position in front of the exchange. the th of april, the day appointed for my departure, arrived only too speedily. to part is the unavoidable fate of the traveller; but sometimes we part gladly, sometimes with regret. i need not write many pages to describe my feelings at the parting in hamburgh. i was leaving behind me my last relations, my last friends. now i was going into the wide world, and among strangers. at eight o'clock in the morning i left altona, and proceeded by railway to kiel. i noticed with pleasure that on this railway even the third-class carriages were securely covered in, and furnished with glass windows. in fact, they only differed from those of the first and second class in being painted a different colour, and having the seats uncushioned. the whole distance of seventy miles was passed in three hours; a rapid journey, but agreeable merely by its rapidity, for the whole neighbourhood presents only widely-extended plains, turf-bogs and moorlands, sandy places and heaths, interspersed with a little meadow or arable land. from the nature of the soil, the water in the ditches and fields looked black as ink. near binneburg we notice a few stunted plantations of trees. from eisholm a branch-line leads to gluckstadt, and another from neumunster, a large place with important cloth-factories, to rendsburg. from here there is nothing to be seen but a convent, in which many dukes of holstein lie buried, and several unimportant lakes; for instance, those of bernsholm, einfeld, and schulhof. the little river eider would have passed unnoticed by me, had not some of my fellow-passengers made a great feature of it. in the finest countries i have found the natives far less enthusiastic about what was really grand and beautiful, than they were here in praise of what was neither the one nor the other. my neighbour, a very agreeable lady, was untiring in laudation of her beautiful native land. in her eyes the crippled wood was a splendid park, the waste moorland an inexhaustible field for contemplation, and every trifle a matter of real importance. in my heart i wished her joy of her fervid imagination; but unfortunately my colder nature would not catch the infection. towards kiel the plain becomes a region of low hills. kiel itself is prettily situated on the baltic, which, viewed from thence, has the appearance of a lake of middling size. the harbour is said to be good; but there were not many ships there. { } among these was the steamer destined to carry me to copenhagen. little did i anticipate the good reason i should have to remember this vessel. thanks to the affectionate forethought of my cousin schmidt, i found one of his relations, herr brauer, waiting for me at the railway. i was immediately introduced to his family, and passed the few hours of my stay very agreeably in their company. evening approached, and with it the hour of embarkation. my kind friends the brauers accompanied me to the steamer, and i took a grateful leave of them. i soon discovered the steamer _christian viii._, of -horse power, to be a vessel dirtier and more uncomfortable than any with which i had become acquainted in my maritime excursions. scrubbing and sweeping seemed things unknown here. the approach to the cabin was by a flight of stairs so steep, that great care was requisite to avoid descending in an expeditious but disagreeable manner, by a fall from top to bottom. in the fore-cabin there was no attempt at separate quarters for ladies and gentlemen. in short, the arrangements seemed all to have been made with a view of impressing the ship vividly on the recollection of every traveller. at nine o'clock we left kiel. the day and the twilight are here already longer than in the lands lying to the south and the west. there was light enough to enable me to see, looming out of the surrounding darkness, the fortress "friedrichsort," which we passed at about ten o'clock. april th. to-day i still rose with the sun; but that will soon be a difficult matter to accomplish; for in the north the goddess of light makes amends in spring and summer for her shortcomings during the winter. i went on deck, and looked on the broad expanse of ocean. no land was to be seen; but soon a coast appeared, then disappeared, and then a new and more distant one rose out of the sea. towards noon we reached the island of moen, which lies about forty { } miles distant from copenhagen. it forms a beautiful group of rocks, rising boldly from the sea. they are white as chalk, and have a smooth and shining appearance. the highest of these walls of rock towers feet above the level of the surrounding ocean. soon we saw the coast of sweden, then the island of malmo; and at last copenhagen itself, where we landed at four o'clock in the afternoon. the distance from kiel to copenhagen is sea-miles. i remained seven days at copenhagen, and should have had ample time to see every thing, had the weather been more favourable. but it blew and rained so violently, that i was obliged to give up all thoughts of visiting the surrounding parks, and was fain to content myself with seeing a few of the nearest walks, which i accomplished with some difficulty. the first street in copenhagen which i traversed on coming from the harbour generally produces a great impression. it is called the "broad street," and leads from the harbour through the greater part of the town. in addition to its breadth it is very long and regular, and the splendid palaces and houses on either side give it a remarkably grand appearance. it is a peculiar sight, when, in the midst of this fine quarter, we come suddenly upon a ruin, a giant building resting on huge pillars, but half completed, and partly covered with moss and lichens. it was intended for a splendid church, and is built entirely of marble; but the soft ground would not bear the immense weight. the half-finished building began to sink, and the completion of the undertaking became for ever impossible. many other streets rival the "broad street" in size and magnificence. foremost among them comes the amalienstrasse. the most bustling, but by far not the finest, are the oster and gotherstrasse. to walk in these is at first quite a difficult undertaking for a stranger. on one side of the pavement, which is raised about a foot above the carriage-way, he comes continually in contact with stairs, leading sometimes to warehouses above, at others to subterranean warehouses below the level of the street. the approaches to the latter are not guarded by railings as in hamburgh. the other side of the pavement is bounded by a little unostentatious rivulet, called by unpoetical people "canal," into which tributaries equally sweet pour from all the neighbouring houses. it is therefore necessary to take great care, lest you should fall into the traitorous depths on the one side, or stumble over the projecting steps on the other. the pavement itself is covered with a row of stone slabs, a foot and a half wide, on which one walks comfortably enough. but then every body contends for the possession of these, to avoid the uneven and pointed stones at the side. this, added to the dreadful crowding, renders the street one which would scarcely be chosen for a walk, the less so as the shops do not contain any thing handsome, the houses are neither palace-like nor even tastefully built, and the street itself is neither of the broadest nor of the cleanest. the squares are all large and regularly built. the finest is the kongensnytorf (king's new market). some fine mansions, the chief guard-house, the theatre, the chief coffee-houses and inns, the academy of the fine arts, and the building belonging to the botanical garden, the two last commonly known by the name of "charlottenburg," are among the ornaments of this magnificent square, in the midst of which stands a beautiful monument, representing christian v. on horseback, and surrounded by several figures. smaller, but more beautiful in its perfect symmetry, is the "amalienplatz," containing four royal palaces, built exactly alike, and intersected by four broad streets in the form of a cross. this square also is decorated by a monument standing in the midst, and representing frederick v. in another fine square, the "nytorf" (new market), there is a fountain. its little statue sends forth very meagre jets of water, and the fountain is merely noticeable as being the only one i could find at copenhagen. the traveller can hardly fail of being surprised by the number and magnificence of the palaces, at sight of which he could fancy himself in the metropolis of one of the largest kingdoms. the "christianensburg" is truly imperial; it was completely destroyed by fire in the year , but has since been rebuilt with increased splendour. the chapel of this palace is very remarkable. the interior has the appearance rather of a concert-room than of a building devoted to purposes of worship. tastefully decorated boxes, among which we notice that of the king, together with galleries, occupy the upper part of the chapel; the lower is filled with benches covered with red velvet and silk. the pulpit and altar are so entirely without decoration, that, on first entering, they wholly escape notice. in the "christianensburg" is also the "northern museum," peculiarly rich in specimens of the ornaments, weapons, musical instruments, and other mementoes of northern nations. the winter riding-school, in which concerts are frequently given, is large and symmetrical. i admired the stalls, and yet more the grey horses which occupied them--descendants of the pure arabian and wild norwegian breeds--creatures with long manes and tails of fine silky hair. every one who sees these horses, whether he be a connoisseur or one of the uninitiated, must admire them. adjoining the "christianensburg" is thorwaldsen's museum, a square building with fine saloons, lighted from above. when i saw it, it was not completed; the walls were being painted in fresco by some of the first native artists. the sculptured treasures were there, but unfortunately yet unpacked. in the midst of the courtyard thorwaldsen's mausoleum is being erected. there his ashes will rest, with his exquisitely finished lion as a gravestone above them. { } the largest among the churches is the "woman's church." the building has no architectural beauty; the pillars, galleries, and cupola are all of wood, covered with a mixture of sand and plaster. but whatever may be wanting in outward splendour is compensated by its contents, for this church contains the masterpieces of thorwaldsen. at the high altar stands his glorious figure of our saviour, in the niches of the wall his colossal twelve apostles. in the contemplation of these works we forget the plainness of the building which contains them. may the fates be prosperous, and no conflagration reach this church, built as it is half of wood! the catholic church is small, but tasteful beyond expression. the late emperor of austria presented to it a good full-toned organ, and two oil-paintings, one by kuppelweiser, the other by a pupil of this master. in the "museum of arts" i was most interested in the ancient chair, used in days of yore by tycho de brahe. { } the exchange is a curious ancient building. it is very long and narrow, and surmounted by nine peaks, from the centre of which protrudes a remarkable pointed tower, formed of four crocodiles' tails intertwined. the hall itself is small, low, and dark; it contains a full-length portrait in oil of tycho de brahe. nearly all the upper part of the building is converted into a kind of bazaar, and the lower portion contains a number of small and dingy booths. several canals, having an outlet into the sea, give a peculiar charm to the town. they are, in fact, so many markets; for the craft lying in them are laden with provisions of all kinds, which are here offered for sale. the sailors' town, adjoining copenhagen, and situated near the harbour, is singularly neat and pretty. it consists of three long, broad, straight streets, built of houses looking so exactly alike, that on a foggy night an accurate knowledge of the locality is requisite to know one from the other. it looks as though, on each side of the way, there were only one long house of a single floor, with a building one story high in the middle. in the latter dwell the commandant and overseers. the lighting of the streets is managed in copenhagen in the same way as in our smaller german towns. when "moonlight" is announced in the calendar, not a lamp is lighted. if the lady moon chooses to hide behind dark clouds, that is her fault. it would be insolent to attempt to supply the place of her radiance with miserable lamps--a wise arrangement! (?) of the near walks, the garden of the "rosenburg," within the town, pleased me much; as did also the "long line," an alley of beautiful trees extending parallel with the sea, and in which one can either walk or ride. a coffee-house, in front of which there is music in fine weather, attracts many of the loungers. the most beautiful place of all is the "kastell," above the "long line," from whence one can enjoy a beautiful view. the town lies displayed below in all its magnificence: the harbour, with its many ships; the sparkling blue sound, which spreads its broad expanse between the coasts of denmark and sweden, and washes many a beautiful group of islands belonging to one or the other of these countries. the background of the picture alone is uninteresting, as there is no chain of mountains to form a horizon, and the eye wanders over the boundless flats of denmark. among the vessels lying at anchor in the harbour i saw but few three-masters, and still fewer steamers. the ships of the fleet presented a curious appearance; at the first view they look like great houses with flag-staves, for every ship is provided with a roof, out of which the masts rise into the air; they are besides very high out of the water, so that all the port-holes and the windows of the cabins appear in two or three stories, one above the other. a somewhat more distant excursion, which can be very conveniently made in a capital omnibus, takes you to the royal chateau "friedrichsberg," lying before the water-gate, two miles distant from the town. splendid avenues lead to this place, where are to be found all the delights that can combine to draw a citizen into the country. there are a tivoli, a railway, cabinets, and booths with wax-figures, and countless other sights, besides coffee-houses, beer-rooms, and music. the gardens are planted at the sides with a number of small arbours, each containing a table and chairs, and all open in front, so as to shew at one view all the visitors of these pretty natural huts. on sundays, when the gardens are crowded, this is a very animated sight. on the way to this "prater" of copenhagen, we pass many handsome villas, each standing in a fine garden. [picture: copenhagen: from frederiesbourg] the royal palace is situated on the summit of a hill, at the end of the avenue, and is surrounded by a beautiful park; it commands a view of a great portion of the town, with the surrounding country and the sea; still i far prefer the prospect from the "kastell." the park contains a considerable island, which, during some part of the year, stands in the midst of an extensive lake. this island is appropriated to the court, but the rest of the park is open to the public. immediately outside the water-gate stands an obelisk, remarkable neither for its beauty nor for the skill displayed in its erection, for it consists of various stones, and is not high, but interesting from the circumstance to which it owes its origin. it was erected by his grateful subjects in memory of the late king christian vii., to commemorate the abolition of feudal service. surely no feeling person can contemplate without joyful emotion a monument like this. i have here given a faithful account of what i saw during my short stay at copenhagen. it only remains for me to describe a few peculiar customs of the people, and so i will begin as it were at the end, with the burial of the dead. in denmark, as in fact in the whole of scandinavia, not excepting iceland, it is customary not to bury the dead until eight or ten days have elapsed. in winter-time this is not of so much consequence, but in summer it is far from healthy for those under the same roof with the corpse. i was present at copenhagen at the funeral of dr. brandis, physician to the king. two of the king's carriages and a number of private equipages attended. nearly all these were empty, and the servants walked beside them. among the mourners i did not notice a single woman; i supposed that this was only the case at the funerals of gentlemen, but on inquiry i found that the same rule is observed at the burial of women. this consideration for the weaker sex is carried so far, that on the day of the funeral no woman may be seen in the house of mourning. the mourners assemble in the house of the deceased, and partake of cold refreshments. at the conclusion of the ceremony they are again regaled. what particularly pleased me in copenhagen was, that i never on any occasion saw beggars, or even such miserably clad people as are found only too frequently in our great cities. here there are no doubt poor people, as there are such every where else in the world, but one does not see them beg. i cannot help mentioning an arrangement which certainly deserves to be universally carried out;--i mean, the setting apart of many large houses, partly belonging to the royal family, partly to rich private people or to companies, for the reception of poor people, who are here lodged at a much cheaper rate than is possible in ordinary dwellings. the costumes of the peasants did not particularly please me. the women wear dresses of green or black woollen stuff, reaching to the ankle, and trimmed at the skirt with broad coloured woollen borders. the seams of the spenser, and the arm-holes, are also trimmed with smaller coloured borders. on their heads they wear a handkerchief, and over this a kind of shade, like a bonnet. on sundays i saw many of them in small, pretty caps, worked with silk, with a border of lace of more than a hand's breadth, plaited very stiffly; at the back they have large bows of fine riband, the ends of which reach half down to their feet. i found nothing very remarkable in the dress of the peasants. as far as strength and beauty were concerned, i thought these peasants were neither more nor less gifted than those of austria. as regards the beauty of the fair sex, i should certainly give the preference to the austrians. fair hair and blue eyes predominate. i saw but few soldiers; their uniforms, particularly those worn by the king's life-guards, are very handsome. i especially noticed the drummers; they were all little lads of ten or twelve years old. one could almost have exclaimed, "drum, whither art thou carrying that boy?" to march, and to join in fatiguing manoeuvres, carrying such a drum, and beating it bravely at the same time, is rather cruel work for such young lads. many a ruined constitution may be ascribed to this custom. during my stay in copenhagen i spent many very delightful hours with professor mariboe and his amiable family, and with the kind clergyman of the embassy, herr zimmermann. they received me with true politeness and hospitality, and drew me into their circle, where i soon felt myself quite at ease. i shall never forget their friendship, and shall make use of every opportunity to shew them my appreciation of it. herr edouard gottschalk and herr knudson have also my best thanks. i applied to the first of these gentlemen to procure me a passage to iceland, and he was kind enough to use his interest with herr knudson on my behalf. herr knudson is one of the first general dealers in copenhagen, and carries on a larger and more extended commerce with iceland than any other house trading thither. he is already beginning to retire, as the continual journeys are becoming irksome to him; but he still owns a number of great and small vessels, which are partly employed in the fisheries, and partly in bringing all kinds of articles of consumption and luxury to the different harbours of iceland. he himself goes in one of his ships every year, and stays a few months in iceland to settle his affairs there. on the recommendation of herr gottschalk, herr knudson was kind enough to give me a passage in the ship in which he made the journey himself; a favour which i knew how to value. it is certainly no small kindness to take a lady passenger on such a journey. herr knudson knew neither my fortitude nor my perseverance; he did not know whether i should be able to endure the hardships of a journey to the north, whether i would bear sea-sickness philosophically, or even if i had courage enough, in case of storms or bad weather, to abstain from annoying the captain by my fears or complaints at a time when he would only have too much to harass him. the kind man allowed no such considerations to influence him. he believed me when i promised to behave courageously come what might, and took me with him. indeed his kindness went so far that it is to him i owe every comfort i enjoyed in iceland, and every assistance in furthering the attainment of my journey's object. i could certainly not have commenced a voyage under better auspices. all ships visiting iceland leave copenhagen at the end of april, or at the latest in the middle of may. after this time only one ship is despatched, to carry the mails of the danish government. this vessel leaves copenhagen in october, remains in iceland during the winter months, and returns in march. the gain or loss of this expedition is distributed in shares among the merchants of copenhagen. besides this, a french frigate comes to iceland every spring, and cruises among the different harbours until the middle of august. she superintends the fishing vessels, which, attracted by the large profits of the fisheries, visit these seas in great numbers during the summer. { } opportunities of returning from iceland occur during the summer until the end of september, by means of the merchant-ships, which carry freights from the island to denmark, england, and spain. at length, on sunday the th of may, a favourable wind sprung up. herr knudson sent me word to be ready to embark at noon on board the fine brig _john_. i immediately proceeded on board. the anchor was weighed, and the sails, unfolding themselves like giant wings, wafted us gently out of the harbour of copenhagen. no parting from children, relations, or old-cherished friends embittered this hour. with a glad heart i bade adieu to the city, in the joyful hope soon to see the fulfilment of my long-expected journey. the bright sky smiled above us, and a most favourable wind filled our sails. i sat on deck and revelled in the contemplation of scenes so new to me. behind us lay spread the majestic town; before us the sound, an immense natural basin, which i could almost compare to a great swiss lake; on the right and left were the coasts of sweden and denmark, which here approach each other so closely that they seem to oppose a barrier to the further progress of the adventurous voyager. soon we passed the little swedish town of carlscrona, and the desolate island hveen, on which tycho de brahe passed the greater portion of his life, occupied with stellar observations and calculations. now came a somewhat dangerous part, and one which called into action all the careful seamanship of the captain to bring us safely through the confined sea and the strong current,--the entrance of the sound into the cattegat. the two coasts here approach to within a mile of each other. on the swedish side lies the pretty little town of helsingborg, on the danish side that of helsingor, and at the extremity of a projecting neck of land the fortress kronburg, which demands a toll of every passing ship, and shews a large row of threatening cannon in case of non-compliance. our toll had already been paid before leaving copenhagen; we had been accurately signalled, and sailed fearlessly by. { } the entrance once passed, we entered the cattegat, which already looked more like the great ocean: the coasts retired on each side, and most of the shifts and barques, which till now had hovered around us on all sides, bade us "farewell." some bent their course towards the east, others towards the west; and we alone, on the broad desert ocean, set sail for the icy north. twilight did not set in until o'clock at night; and on the coasts the flaming beacons flashed up, to warn the benighted mariner of the proximity of dangerous rocks. i now offered up my thanksgiving to heaven for the protection hitherto vouchsafed me, with a humble prayer for its continuance. then i descended to the cabin, where i found a convenient bunk (a kind of crib fixed to the side of the ship); i laid myself down, and was soon in a deep and refreshing sleep. i awoke full of health and spirits, which, however, i enjoyed but for a short time. during the night we had left behind us the "cattegat" and the "skagerrack," and were driving through the stormy german ocean. a high wind, which increased almost to a gale, tumbled our poor ship about in such a manner, that none but a good dancer could hope to maintain an upright position. i had unfortunately been from my youth no votary of terpsichore, and what was i to do? the naiads of this stormy region seized me, and bandied me to and fro, until they threw me into the arms of what was, according to my experience, if not exactly after schiller's interpretation, "the horrible of horrors,"--sea-sickness. at first i took little heed of this, thinking that sea-sickness would soon be overcome by a traveller like myself, who should be inured to every thing. but in vain did i bear up; i became worse and worse, till i was at length obliged to remain in my berth with but one consoling thought, namely, that we were to-day on the open sea, where there was nothing worthy of notice. but the following day the norwegian coast was in sight, and at all hazards i must see it; so i crawled on deck more dead than alive, looked at a row of mountains of moderate elevation, their tops at this early season still sparkling with their snowy covering, and then hurried back, benumbed by the piercing icy wind, to my good warm feather-bed. those who have never experienced it can have no conception of the biting, penetrating coldness of a gale of wind in the northern seas. the sun shone high in the heavens; the thermometer (i always calculate according to reaumur) stood degrees above zero; i was dressed much more warmly than i should have thought necessary when, in my fatherland, the thermometer was or degrees _below_ zero, and yet i felt chilled to the heart, and could have fancied that i had no clothes on at all. on the fourth night we sailed safely past the shetland islands; and on the evening of the fifth day we passed so near the majestic rocky group of the feroe islands, that we were at one time apprehensive of being cast upon the rocks by the unceasing gale. { } already on the seventh day we descried the coast of iceland. our passage had been unprecedentedly quick; the sailors declared that a favourable gale was to be preferred even to steam, and that on our present voyage we should certainly have left every steamer in our wake. but i, wretched being that i was, would gladly have dispensed with the services both of gale and steam for the sake of a few hours' rest. my illness increased so much, that on the seventh day i thought i must succumb. my limbs were bathed in a cold perspiration; i was as weak as an infant, and my mouth felt parched and dry. i saw that i must now either make a great effort or give up entirely; so i roused myself, and with the assistance of the cabin-boy gained a seat, and promised to take any and every remedy which should be recommended. they gave me hot-water gruel with wine and sugar; but it was not enough to be obliged to force this down, i was further compelled to swallow small pieces of raw bacon highly peppered, and even a mouthful of rum. i need not say what strong determination was required to make me submit to such a regimen. i had, however, but one choice, either to conquer my repugnance or give myself up a victim to sea-sickness; so with all patience and resignation i received the proffered gifts, and found, after a trial of many hours, that i could manage to retain a small dose. this physicking was continued for two long, long days, and then i began slowly to recover. i have here circumstantially described both my illness and its cure, because so many people are unfortunately victims to the complaint, and when under its influence cannot summon resolution to take sustenance. i should advise all my friends not to hold out so long as i did, but to take food at once, and continue to do so until the system will receive it. as i was now convalescent, i tried to recruit my wearied mind by a diligent study of the mode of life and customs of the mariners of the northern seas. our ship's company consisted of herr knudson, herr bruge (a merchant whom we were to land at the westmann islands), the captain, the mate, and six or seven sailors. our mode of life in the cabin was as follows: in the morning, at seven o'clock, we took coffee, but whence this coffee came, heaven knows! i drank it for eleven days, and could never discover any thing which might serve as a clue in my attempt to discover the country of its growth. at ten o'clock we had a meal consisting of bread and butter and cheese, with cold beef or pork, all excellent dishes for those in health; the second course of this morning meal was "tea-water." in scandinavia, by the way, they never say, "i drink _tea_," the word "water" is always added: "i drink _tea-water_." our "tea-water" was, if possible, worse than its predecessor, the incomparable coffee. thus i was beaten at all points; the eatables were too strong for me, the drinkables too--too--i can find no appropriate epithet--probably too artificial. i consoled myself with the prospect of dinner; but, alas, too soon this sweet vision faded into thin air! on the sixth day i made my first appearance at the covered table, and could not help at once remarking the cloth which had been spread over it. at the commencement of our journey it might perhaps have been white; now it was most certainly no longer of that snowy hue. the continual pitching and rolling of the ship had caused each dish to set its peculiar stamp upon the cloth. a sort of wooden network was now laid upon it, in the interstices of which the plates and glasses were set, and thus secured from falling. but before placing it on the table, our worthy cabin-boy took each plate and glass separately, and polished it on a towel which hung near, and in colour certainly rather resembling the dingy floor of the cabin than the bight-hued rainbow. this could still have been endured, but the article in question really did duty _as a towel_ in the morning, before extending its salutary influence over plates and glasses for the remainder of the day. on making discoveries such as these, i would merely turn away my eyes, and try to think that perhaps _my glass_ and _my plate_ would be more delicately manipulated, or probably escape altogether; and then i would turn my whole attention to the expected dishes. first came soup; but instead of gravy-soup, it was water-soup, with rice and dried plums. this, when mingled with red wine and sugar, formed a most exquisite dish for danish appetites, but it certainly did not suit mine. the second and concluding course consisted of a large piece of beef, with which i had no fault to find, except that it was too heavy for one in my weak state of health. at supper we had the same dishes as at dinner, and each meal was followed by "tea-water." at first i could not fancy this bill of fare at all; but within a few days after my convalesence, i had accustomed myself to it, and could bear the sea-diet very well. { } as the rich owner of the vessel was on board, there was no lack of the best wines, and few evenings passed on which a bowl of punch was not emptied. there was, however, a reason found why every bottle of wine or bowl of punch should be drunk: for instance, at our embarkation, to drink the health of the friends we were leaving, and to hope for a quick and prosperous voyage; then, when the wind was favourable, its health was drunk, with the request that it would remain so; when it was contrary, with the request that it would change; when we saw land, we saluted it with a glass of wine, or perhaps with several, but i was too ill to count; when we lost sight of it, we drank a farewell glass to its health: so that every day brought with it three or four distinct and separate occasions for drinking wine. { } the sailors drank tea-water without sugar every morning and evening, with the addition of a glass of brandy; for dinner they had pease, beans, barley, or potatoes, with salted cod, bacon, "or junk;" good sea-biscuit they could get whenever they chose. the diet is not the worst part of these poor people's hardships. their life may be called a continual fight against the elements; for it is precisely during the most dreadful storms, with rain and piercing cold, that they have to be continually upon deck. i could not sufficiently admire the coolness, or rather the cheerfulness and alacrity with which they fulfilled their onerous duties. and what reward have they? scanty pay, for food the diet i have just described, and for their sleeping-place the smallest and most inconvenient part of the ship, a dark place frequently infested with vermin, and smelling offensively from being likewise used as a receptacle for oil-colours, varnish, tar, salt-fish, &c. &c. to be cheerful in the midst of all this requires a very quiet and contented mind. that the danish sailors are contented, i had many opportunities of observing during the voyage of which i am speaking, and on several other occasions. but after all this long description, it is high time that i should return to the journey itself. the favourable gale which had thus wafted us to the coast of iceland within seven days, now unfortunately changed its direction, and drove us back. we drifted about in the storm-tost ocean, and many a spanish wave { } broke completely over our ship. twice we attempted to approach the westmann islands { } (a group belonging to iceland) to watch an opportunity of casting anchor, and setting ashore our fellow-traveller herr bruge; but it was in vain, we were driven back each time. at length, at the close of the eleventh day, we reached havenfiord, a very good harbour, distant nine miles from reikjavik, the capital of iceland. in spite of the very inopportune change in the direction of the wind, we had had an unprecedentedly quick passage. the distance from copenhagen to iceland, in a straight line, is reckoned at geographical miles; for a sailing vessel, which must tack now and then, and must go as much with the wind as possible, to miles. had the strong wind, which was at first so favourable, instead of changing on the seventh day, held on for thirty or forty hours longer, we should have landed in iceland on the eighth or ninth day--even the steamer could not have accomplished the passage so quickly. the shores of iceland appeared to me quite different from what i had supposed them to be from the descriptions i had read. i had fancied them naked, without tree or shrub, dreary and desert; but now i saw green hills, shrubs, and even what appeared to be groups of stunted trees. as we came nearer, however, i was enabled to distinguish objects more clearly, and the green hills became human dwellings with small doors and windows, while the supposed groups of trees proved in reality to be heaps of lava, some ten or twelve feet high, thickly covered with moss and grass. every thing was new and striking to me; i waited in great impatience till we could land. at length the anchor descended; but it was not till next morning that the hour of disembarkation and deliverance came. but one more night, and then, every difficulty overcome, i should tread the shores of iceland, the longed-for, and bask as it were in the wonders of this island, so poor in the creations of art, so rich in the phenomena of nature. * * * * * before i land in iceland, i must trouble the reader with a few preliminary observations regarding this island. they are drawn from mackenzie's _description of iceland_, a book the sterling value of which is appreciated every where. { } the discovery of iceland, about the year of our lord , is attributed to the spirit of enterprise of some swedish and norwegian pirates, who were drifted thither on a voyage to the feroe isles. it was not till the year that the island was peopled by a number of voluntary emigrants, who, feeling unhappy under the dominion of harold harfraga (fine hair), arrived at the island under the direction of ingold. { } as the newcomers are said to have found no traces of dwellings, they are presumed to be the first who took possession of the island. at this time iceland was still so completely covered with underwood, that at some points it was necessary to cut a passage. bringing with them their language, religion, customs, and historical monuments, the norwegians introduced a kind of feudal system, which, about the year , gave place to a somewhat aristocratic government, retaining, however, the name of a republic. the island was divided into four provinces, over each of which was placed an hereditary governor or judge. the general assembly of iceland (called allthing) was held annually on the shores of the lake thingvalla. the people possessed an excellent code of laws, in which provision had been made for every case which could occur. this state of things lasted for more than years, a period which may be called the golden age of iceland. education, literature, and even refined poetry flourished among the inhabitants, who took part in commerce and in the sea-voyages which the norwegians undertook for purposes of discovery. the "sagas," or histories of this country, contain many tales of personal bravery. its bards and historians visited other climes, became the favourites of monarchs, and returned to their island covered with honour and loaded with presents. the _edda_, by samund, is one of the most valued poems of the ancient days of iceland. the second portion of the _edda_, called _skalda_, dates from a later period, and is ascribed by many to the celebrated snorri sturluson. isleif, first bishop of skalholt, was the earliest icelandic historian; after him came the noted snorri sturluson, born in , who became the richest and mightiest man in iceland. snorri sturluson was frequently followed to the general assembly of iceland by a splendid retinue of armed men. he was a great historian and poet, and possessed an accurate knowledge of the greek and latin tongues, besides being a powerful orator. he was also the author of the _heims-kringla_. the first school was founded at skalholt, about the middle of the eleventh century, under isleif, first bishop of iceland; four other schools and several convents soon followed. poetry and music seem to have formed a staple branch of education. the climate of iceland appears to have been less inclement than is now the case; corn is said to have grown, and trees and shrubs were larger and thicker than we find them at present. the population of iceland was also much more numerous than it is now, although there were neither towns nor villages. the people lived scattered throughout the island; and the general assembly was held at thingvalla, in the open air. fishing constituted the chief employment of the icelanders. their clothing was woven from the wool of their sheep. commerce with neighbouring countries opened to them another field of occupation. the doctrines of christianity were first introduced into iceland, in the year , by friederich, a saxon bishop. many churches were built, and tithes established for the maintenance of the clergy. isleif, first bishop of skalholt, was ordained in the year . after the introduction of christianity, all the icelanders enjoyed an unostentatious but undisturbed practice of their religion. greenland and the most northern part of america are said to have been discovered by icelanders. in the middle of the thirteenth century iceland came into the power of the norwegian kings. in the year norway was united to the crown of denmark; and iceland incorporated, without resistance, in the danish monarchy. since the cession of the island to norway, and then to denmark, peace and security took the place of the internal commotions with which, before this time, iceland had been frequently disturbed; but this state of quiet brought forth indolence and apathy. the voyages of discovery were interfered with by the new government, and the commerce gradually passed into the hands of other nations. the climate appears also to have changed; and the lessened industry and want of perseverance in the inhabitants have brought agriculture completely into decline. in the year the plague broke out upon the island, and carried off two-thirds of the population. the first printing-press was established at hoolum, about the year , under the superintendence of the bishop, john areson. the reformation in the icelandic church was not brought about without disturbance. it was legally established in the year . during the fifteenth century the icelanders suffered more from the piratical incursions of foreigners. as late as the year the french and english nations took part in these enormities. the most melancholy occurrence of this kind took place in , in which year a great number of algerine pirates made a descent upon the icelandic coast, murdered about fifty of the inhabitants, and carried off nearly others into captivity. { } the eighteenth century commenced with a dreadful mortality from the smallpox; of which disease more than , of the inhabitants died. in a famine swept away about , souls. the year was distinguished by most dreadful volcanic outbreaks in the interior of the island. tremendous streams of lava carried all before them; great rivers were checked in their course, and formed lakes. for more than a year a thick cloud of smoke and volcanic ashes covered the whole of iceland, and nearly darkened the sunlight. horned cattle, sheep, and horses were destroyed; famine came, with its accompanying illnesses; and once more appeared the malignant small-pox. in a few years more than , persons had died; more than one-fourth of the whole present population of the island. iceland lies in the atlantic ocean; its greatest breadth is geographical miles, and its extreme length from north to south miles. the number of inhabitants is estimated at , , and the superficial extent of the island at , square miles. chapter iii on the morning of the th of may i landed in the harbour of havenfiord, and for the first time trod the shores of iceland. although i was quite bewildered by sea-sickness, and still more by the continual rocking of the ship, so that every object round me seemed to dance, and i could scarcely make a firm step, still i could not rest in the house of herr knudson, which he had obligingly placed at my disposal. i must go out at once, to see and investigate every thing. i found that havenfiord consisted merely of three wooden houses, a few magazines built of the same material, and some peasants' cottages. the wooden houses are inhabited by merchants or by their factors, and consist only of a ground-floor, with a front of four or six windows. two or three steps lead up to the entrance, which is in the centre of the building, and opens upon a hall from which doors lead into the rooms to the right and left. at the back of the house is situated the kitchen, which opens into several back rooms and into the yard. a house of this description consists only of five or six rooms on the ground-floor and a few small attic bedrooms. the internal arrangements are quite european. the furniture--which is often of mahogany,--the mirrors, the cast-iron stoves, every thing, in short, come from copenhagen. beautiful carpets lie spread before the sofas; neat curtains shade the windows; english prints ornament the whitewashed walls; porcelain, plate, cut-glass, &c., are displayed on chests and on tables; and flower-pots with roses, mignonnette, and pinks spread a delicious fragrance around. i even found a grand pianoforte here. if any person could suddenly, and without having made the journey, be transported into one of these houses, he would certainly fancy himself in some continental town, rather than in the distant and barren island of iceland. and as in havenfiord, so i found the houses of the more opulent classes in reikjavik, and in all the places i visited. from these handsome houses i betook myself to the cottages of the peasants, which have a more indigenous, icelandic appearance. small and low, built of lava, with the interstices filled with earth, and the whole covered with large pieces of turf, they would present rather the appearance of natural mounds of earth than of human dwellings, were it not that the projecting wooden chimneys, the low-browed entrances, and the almost imperceptible windows, cause the spectator to conclude that they are inhabited. a dark narrow passage, about four feet high, leads on one side into the common room, and on the other to a few compartments, some of which are used as storehouses for provisions, and the rest as winter stables for the cows and sheep. at the end of this passage, which is purposely built so low, as an additional defence against the cold, the fireplace is generally situated. the rooms of the poorer class have neither wooden walls nor floors, and are just large enough to admit of the inhabitants sleeping, and perhaps turning round in them. the whole interior accommodation is comprised in bedsteads with very little covering, a small table, and a few drawers. beds and chests of drawers answer the purpose of benches and chairs. above the beds are fixed rods, from which depend clothes, shoes, stockings, &c. a small board, on which are arranged a few books, is generally to be observed. stoves are considered unnecessary; for as the space is very confined, and the house densely populated, the atmosphere is naturally warm. rods are also placed round the fireplace, and on these the wet clothes and fishes are hung up in company to dry. the smoke completely fills the room, and slowly finds its way through a few breathing-holes into the open air. fire-wood there is none throughout the whole island. the rich inhabitants have it brought from norway or denmark; the poor burn turf, to which they frequently add bones and other offal of fish, which naturally engender a most disagreeable smoke. on entering one of these cottages, the visitor is at a loss to determine which of the two is the more obnoxious--the suffocating smoke in the passage or the poisoned air of the dwelling-room, rendered almost insufferable by the crowding together of so many persons. i could almost venture to assert, that the dreadful eruption called lepra, which is universal throughout iceland, owes its existence rather to the total want of cleanliness than to the climate of the country or to the food. throughout my subsequent journeys into the interior, i found the cottages of the peasants every where alike squalid and filthy. of course i speak of the majority, and not of the exceptions; for here i found a few rich peasants, whose dwellings looked cleaner and more habitable, in proportion to the superior wealth or sense of decency of the owners. my idea is, that the traveller's estimate of a country should be formed according to the habits and customs of the generality of its inhabitants, and not according to the doings of a few individuals, as is often the case. alas, how seldom did i meet with these creditable exceptions! the neighbourhood of havenfiord is formed by a most beautiful and picturesque field of lava, at first rising in hills, then sinking into hollows, and at length terminating in a great plain which extends to the base of the neighbouring mountains. masses of the most varied forms, often black and naked, rise to the height of ten or fifteen feet, forming walls, ruined pillars, small grottoes, and hollow spaces. over these latter large slabs often extend, and form bridges. every thing around consists of suddenly cooled heaped-up masses of lava, in some instances covered to their summits with grass and moss; this circumstance gives them, as already stated, the appearance of groups of stunted trees. horses, sheep, and cows were clambering about, diligently seeking out every green place. i also clambered about diligently; i could not tire of gazing and wondering at this terribly beautiful picture of destruction. after a few hours i had so completely forgotten the hardships of my passage, and felt myself so much strengthened, that i began my journey to reikjavik at five o'clock on the evening of the same day. herr knudson seemed much concerned for me; he warned me that the roads were bad, and particularly emphasised the dangerous abysses i should be compelled to pass. i comforted him with the assurance that i was a good horsewoman, and could hardly have to encounter worse roads than those with which i had had the honour to become acquainted in syria. i therefore took leave of the kind gentleman, who intended to stay a week or ten days in havenfiord, and mounting a small horse, set out in company of a female guide. in my guide i made the acquaintance of a remarkable antiquity of iceland, who is well worthy that i should devote a few words to her description. she is above seventy years of age, but looks scarcely fifty; her head is surrounded by tresses of rich fair hair. she is dressed like a man; undertakes, in the capacity of messenger, the longest and most fatiguing journeys; rows a boat as skilfully as the most practised fisherman; and fulfils all her missions quicker and more exactly than a man, for she does not keep up so good an understanding with the brandy-bottle. she marched on so sturdily before me, that i was obliged to incite my little horse to greater speed with my riding-whip. at first the road lay between masses of lava, where it certainly was not easy to ride; then over flats and small acclivities, from whence we could descry the immense plain in which are situated havenfiord, bassastadt, reikjavik, and other places. bassastadt, a town built on a promontory jutting out into the sea, contains one of the principal schools, a church built of masonry, and a few cottages. the town of reikjavik cannot be seen, as it is hidden behind a hill. the other places consist chiefly of a few cottages, and only meet the eye of the traveller when he approaches them nearly. several chains of mountains, towering one above the other, and sundry "jokuls," or glaciers, which lay still sparkling in their wintry garb, surround this interminable plain, which is only open at one end, towards the sea. some of the plains and hills shone with tender green, and i fancied i beheld beautiful meadows. on a nearer inspection, however, they proved to be swampy places, and hundreds upon hundreds of little acclivities, sometimes resembling mole-hills, at others small graves, and covered with grass and moss. i could see over an area of at least thirty or forty miles, and yet could not descry a tree or a shrub, a bit of meadow-land or a friendly village. every thing seemed dead. a few cottages lay scattered here and there; at long intervals a bird would hover in the air, and still more seldom i heard the kindly greeting of a passing inhabitant. heaps of lava, swamps, and turf-bogs surrounded me on all sides; in all the vast expanse not a spot was to be seen through which a plough could be driven. after riding more than four miles, i reached a hill, from which i could see reikjavik, the chief harbour, and, in fact, the only town on the island. but i was deceived in my expectations; the place before me was a mere village. the distance from havenfiord to reikjavik is scarcely nine miles; but as i was unwilling to tire my good old guide, i took three hours to accomplish it. the road was, generally speaking, very good, excepting in some places, where it lay over heaps of lava. of the much-dreaded dizzy abysses i saw nothing; the startling term must have been used to designate some unimportant declivities, along the brow of which i rode, in sight of the sea; or perhaps the "abysses" were on the lava-fields, where i sometimes noticed small chasms of fifteen or sixteen feet in depth at the most. shortly after eight o'clock in the evening i was fortunate enough to reach reikjavik safe and well. through the kind forethought of herr knudson, a neat little room had been prepared for me in one of his houses occupied by the family of the worthy baker bernhoft, and truly i could not have been better received any where. during my protracted stay the whole family of the bernhofts shewed me more kindness and cordiality than it has been my lot frequently to find. many an hour has herr bernhoft sacrificed to me, in order to accompany me in my little excursions. he assisted me most diligently in my search for flowers, insects, and shells, and was much rejoiced when he could find me a new specimen. his kind wife and dear children rivalled him in willingness to oblige. i can only say, may heaven requite them a thousand-fold for their kindness and friendship! i had even an opportunity of hearing my native language spoken by herr bernhoft, who was a holsteiner by birth, and had not quite forgotten our dear german tongue, though he had lived for many years partly in denmark, partly in iceland. so behold me now in the only town in iceland, { } the seat of the so-called cultivated classes, whose customs and mode of life i will now lay before my honoured readers. nothing was more disagreeable to me than a certain air of dignity assumed by the ladies here; an air which, except when it is natural, or has become so from long habit, is apt to degenerate into stiffness and incivility. on meeting an acquaintance, the ladies of reikjavik would bend their heads with so stately and yet so careless an air as we should scarcely assume towards the humblest stranger. at the conclusion of a visit, the lady of the house only accompanies the guest as far as the chamber-door. if the husband be present, this civility is carried a little further; but when this does not happen to be the case, a stranger who does not know exactly through which door he can make his exit, may chance to feel not a little embarrassed. excepting in the house of the "stiftsamtmann" (the principal official on the island), one does not find a footman who can shew the way. in hamburgh i had already noticed the beginnings of this dignified coldness; it increased as i journeyed further north, and at length reached its climax in iceland. good letters of recommendation often fail to render the northern grandees polite towards strangers. as an instance of this fact, i relate the following trait: among other kind letters of recommendation, i had received one addressed to herr von h---, the "stiftsamtmann" of iceland. on my arrival at copenhagen, i heard that herr von h--- happened to be there. i therefore betook myself to his residence, and was shewn into a room where i found two young ladies and three children. i delivered my letter, and remained quietly standing for some time. finding at length that no one invited me to be seated, i sat down unasked on the nearest chair, never supposing for an instant that the lady of the house could be present, and neglect the commonest forms of politeness which should be observed towards every stranger. after i had waited for some time, herr von h--- graciously made his appearance, and expressed his regret that he should have very little time to spare for me, as he intended setting sail for iceland with his family in a short time, and in the interim had a number of weighty affairs to settle at copenhagen; in conclusion, he gave me the friendly advice to abandon my intention of visiting iceland, as the fatigues of travelling in that country were very great; finding, however, that i persevered in my intention, he promised, in case i set sail for reikjavik earlier than himself, to give me a letter of recommendation. all this was concluded in great haste, and we stood during the interview. i took my leave, and at first determined not to call again for the letter. on reflection, however, i changed my mind, ascribed my unfriendly reception to important and perhaps disagreeable business, and called again two days afterwards. then the letter was handed to me by a servant; the high people, whom i could hear conversing in the adjoining apartment, probably considered it too much trouble to deliver it to me personally. on paying my respects to this amiable family in reikjavik, i was not a little surprised to recognise in frau von h--- one of those ladies who in copenhagen had not had the civility to ask me to be seated. five or six days afterwards, herr von h--- returned my call, and invited me to an excursion to vatne. i accepted the invitation with much pleasure, and mentally asked pardon of him for having formed too hasty an opinion. frau von h---, however, did not find her way to me until the fourth week of my stay in reikjavik; she did not even invite me to visit her again, so of course i did not go, and our acquaintance terminated there. as in duty bound, the remaining dignitaries of this little town took their tone from their chief. my visits were unreturned, and i received no invitations, though i heard much during my stay of parties of pleasure, dinners, and evening parties. had i not fortunately been able to employ myself, i should have been very badly off. not one of the ladies had kindness and delicacy enough to consider that i was alone here, and that the society of educated people might be necessary for my comfort. i was less annoyed at the want of politeness in the gentlemen; for i am no longer young, and that accounts for every thing. when the women were wanting in kindliness, i had no right to expect consideration from the gentlemen. i tried to discover the reason of this treatment, and soon found that it lay in a national characteristic of these people--their selfishness. it appears i had scarcely arrived at reikjavik before diligent inquiries were set on foot as to whether i was _rich_, and should see much company at my house, and, in fact, whether much could be got out of me. to be well received here it is necessary either to be rich, or else to travel as a naturalist. persons of the latter class are generally sent by the european courts to investigate the remarkable productions of the country. they make large collections of minerals, birds, &c.; they bring with them numerous presents, sometimes of considerable value, which they distribute among the dignitaries; they are, moreover, the projectors of many an entertainment, and even of many a little ball, &c.; they buy up every thing they can procure for their cabinets, and they always travel in company; they have much baggage with them, and consequently require many horses, which cannot be hired in iceland, but must be bought. on such occasions every one here is a dealer: offers of horses and cabinets pour in on all sides. the most welcome arrival of all is that of the french frigate, which visits iceland every year; for sometimes there are _dejeuners a la fourchette_ on board, sometimes little evening parties and balls. there is at least something to be got besides the rich presents; the "stiftsamtmann" even receives florins per annum from the french government to defray the expense of a few return balls which he gives to the naval officers. with me this was not the case: i gave no parties--i brought no presents--they had nothing to expect from me; and therefore they left me to myself. { } for this reason i affirm that he only can judge of the character of a people who comes among them without claim to their attention, and from whom they have nothing to expect. to such a person only do they appear in their true colours, because they do not find it worth while to dissemble and wear a mask in his presence. in these cases the traveller is certainly apt to make painful discoveries; but when, on the other hand, he meets with good people, he may be certain of their sincerity; and so i must beg my honoured readers to bear with me, when i mention the names of all those who heartily welcomed the undistinguished foreigner; it is the only way in which i can express my gratitude towards them. as i said before, i had intercourse with very few people, so that ample time remained for solitary walks, during which i minutely noticed every thing around me. the little town of reikjavik consists of a single broad street, with houses and cottages scattered around. the number of inhabitants does not amount to . the houses of the wealthier inhabitants are of wood-work, and contain merely a ground-floor, with the exception of a single building of one story, to which the high school, now held at bassastadt, will be transferred next year. the house of the "stiftsamtmann" is built of stone. it was originally intended for a prison; but as criminals are rarely to be met with in iceland, the building was many years ago transformed into the residence of the royal officer. a second stone building, discernible from reikjavik, is situated at langarnes, half a mile from the town. it lies near the sea, in the midst of meadows, and is the residence of the bishop. the church is capable of holding only at the most from to persons; it is built of stone, with a wooden roof. in the chambers of this roof the library, consisting of several thousand volumes, is deposited. the church contains a treasure which many a larger and costlier edifice might envy,--a baptismal font by thorwaldsen, whose parents were of icelandic extraction. the great sculptor himself was born in denmark, and probably wished, by this present, to do honour to the birth-place of his ancestors. to some of the houses in reikjavik pieces of garden are attached. these gardens are small plots of ground where, with great trouble and expense, salad, spinach, parsley, potatoes, and a few varieties of edible roots, are cultivated. the beds are separated from each other by strips of turf a foot broad, seldom boasting even a few field-flowers. the inhabitants of iceland are generally of middle stature, and strongly built, with light hair, frequently inclining to red, and blue eyes. the men are for the most part ugly; the women are better favoured, and among the girls i noticed some very sweet faces. to attain the age of seventy or eighty years is here considered an extraordinary circumstance. { } the peasants have many children, and yet few; many are born, but few survive the first year. the mothers do not nurse them, and rear them on very bad food. those who get over the first year look healthy enough; but they have strangely red cheeks, almost as though they had an eruption. whether this appearance is to be ascribed to the sharp air, to which the delicate skin is not yet accustomed, or to the food, i know not. in some places on the coast, when the violent storms prevent the poor fishermen for whole weeks from launching their boats, they live almost entirely on dried fishes' heads. { } the fishes themselves have been salted down and sold, partly to pay the fishermen's taxes, and partly to liquidate debts for the necessaries of the past season, among which brandy and snuff unfortunately play far too prominent a part. another reason why the population does not increase is to be found in the numerous catastrophes attending the fisheries during the stormy season of the year. the fishermen leave the shore with songs and mirth, for a bright sky and a calm sea promise them good fortune. but, alas, tempests and snow-storms too often overtake the unfortunate boatmen! the sea is lashed into foam, and mighty waves overwhelm boats and fishermen together, and they perish inevitably. it is seldom that the father of a family embarks in the same boat with his sons. they divide themselves among different parties, in order that, if one boat founder, the whole family may not be destroyed. i found the cottages of the peasants at reikjavik smaller, and in every respect worse provided, than those at havenfiord. this seems, however, to be entirely owing to the indolence of the peasants themselves; for stones are to be had in abundance, and every man is his own builder. the cows and sheep live through the winter in a wretched den, built either in the cottage itself or in its immediate neighbourhood. the horses pass the whole year under the canopy of heaven, and must find their own provender. occasionally only the peasant will shovel away the snow from a little spot, to assist the poor animals in searching for the grass or moss concealed beneath. it is then left to the horses to finish clearing away the snow with their feet. it may easily be imagined that this mode of treatment tends to render them very hardy; but the wonder is, how the poor creatures manage to exist through the winter on such spare diet, and to be strong and fit for work late in the spring and in summer. these horses are so entirely unused to being fed with oats, that they will refuse them when offered; they are not even fond of hay. as i arrived in iceland during the early spring, i had an opportunity of seeing the horses and sheep in their winter garments. the horses seemed to be covered, not with hair, but with a thick woolly coat; their manes and tails are very long, and of surprising thickness. at the end of may or the beginning of june the tail and mane are docked and thinned, their woolly coat falls of itself, and they then look smooth enough. the sheep have also a very thick coat during the winter. it is not the custom to shear them, but at the beginning of june the wool is picked off piece by piece with the hand. a sheep treated in this way sometimes presents a very comical appearance, being perfectly naked on one side, while on the other it is still covered with wool. the horses and cows are considerably smaller than those of our country. no one need journey so far north, however, to see stunted cattle. already, in galicia, the cows and horses of the peasants are not a whit larger or stronger than those in iceland. the icelandic cows are further remarkable only for their peculiarly small horns; the sheep are also smaller than ours. every peasant keeps horses. the mode of feeding them is, as already shewn, very simple; the distances are long, the roads bad, and large rivers, moorlands, and swamps must frequently be passed; so every one rides, both men, women, and children. the use of carriages is as totally unknown throughout the island as in syria. the immediate vicinity of reikjavik is pretty enough. some of the townspeople go to much trouble and expense in sometimes collecting and sometimes breaking the stones around their dwellings. with the little ground thus obtained they mix turf, ashes, and manure, until at length a soil is formed on which something will grow. but this is such a gigantic undertaking, that the little culture bestowed on the spots wholly neglected by nature cannot be wondered at. herr bernhoft shewed me a small meadow which he had leased for thirty years, at an annual rent of thirty kreutzers. in order, however, to transform the land he bought into a meadow, which yields winter fodder for only one cow, it was necessary to expend more than florins, besides much personal labour and pains. the rate of wages for peasants is very high when compared with the limited wants of these people: they receive thirty or forty kreutzers per diem, and during the hay-harvest as much as a florin. for a long distance round the town the ground consists of stones, turf, and swamps. the latter are mostly covered with hundreds upon hundreds of great and small mounds of firm ground. by jumping from one of these mounds to the next, the entire swamp may be crossed, not only without danger, but dry-footed. in spite of all this, one of these swamps put me in a position of much difficulty and embarrassment during one of my solitary excursions. i was sauntering quietly along, when suddenly a little butterfly fluttered past me. it was the first i had seen in this country, and my eagerness to catch it was proportionately great. i hastened after it; thought neither of swamp nor of danger, and in the heat of the chase did not observe that the mounds became every moment fewer and farther between. soon i found myself in the middle of the swamp, and could neither advance nor retreat. not a human being could i descry; the very animals were far from me; and this circumstance confirmed me as to the dangerous nature of the ground. nothing remained for me but to fix my eyes upon one point of the landscape, and to step out boldly towards it. i was often obliged to hazard two or three steps into the swamp itself, in order to gain the next acclivity, upon which i would then stand triumphantly, to determine my farther progress. so long as i could distinguish traces of horses' hoofs, i had no fear; but even these soon disappeared, and i stood there alone in the morass. i could not remain for ever on my tower of observation, and had no resource but to take to the swamp once more. i must confess that i experienced a very uncomfortable feeling of apprehension when my foot sank suddenly into the soft mud; but when i found that it did not rise higher than the ankles, my courage returned; i stepped out boldly, and was fortunate enough to escape with the fright and a thorough wetting. the most arduous posts in the country are those of the medical men and clergymen. their sphere of action is very enlarged, particularly that of the medical man, whose practice sometimes extends over a distance of eighty to a hundred miles. when we add to this the severity of the winter, which lasts for seven or eight months, it seems marvellous that any one can be found to fill such a situation. in winter the peasants often come with shovels, pickaxes, and horses to fetch the doctor. they then go before him, and hastily repair the worst part of the road; while the doctor rides sometimes on one horse, sometimes on another, that they may not sink under the fatigue. and thus the procession travels for many, many miles, through night and fog, through storm and snow, for on the doctor's promptitude life and death often hang. when he then returns, quite benumbed, and half dead with cold, to the bosom of his family, in the expectation of rest and refreshment, and to rejoice with his friends over the dangers and hardships he has escaped, the poor doctor is frequently compelled to set off at once on a new and important journey, before he has even had time to greet the dear ones at home. sometimes he is sent for by sea, where the danger is still greater on the storm-tost element. though the salary of the medical men is not at all proportionate to the hardships they are called upon to undergo, it is still far better than that of the priests. the smallest livings bring in six to eight florins annually, the richest florins. besides this, the government supplies for each priest a house, often not much better than a peasant's cottage, a few meadows, and some cattle. the peasants are also required to give certain small contributions in the way of hay, wool, fish, &c. the greater number of priests are so poor, that they and their families dress exactly like the peasants, from whom they can scarcely be distinguished. the clergyman's wife looks after the cattle, and milks cows and ewes like a maid-servant; while her husband proceeds to the meadow, and mows the grass with the labourer. the intercourse of the pastor is wholly confined to the society of peasants; and this constitutes the chief element of that "patriarchal life" which so many travellers describe as charming. i should like to know which of them would wish to lead such a life! the poor priest has, besides, frequently to officiate in two, three, or even four districts, distant from four to twelve miles from his residence. every sunday he must do duty at one or other of these districts, taking them in turn, so that divine service is only performed at each place once in every three or four weeks. the journeys of the priest, however, are not considered quite so necessary as those of the doctor; for if the weather is very bad on sundays, particularly during the winter, he can omit visiting the most distant places. this is done the more readily, as but few of the peasants would be at church; all who lived at a distance remaining at home. the sysselmann (an officer similar to that of the sheriff of a county) is the best off. he has a good salary with little to do, and in some places enjoys in addition the "strand-right," which is at times no inconsiderable privilege, from the quantity of drift timber washed ashore from the american continent. fishing and the chase are open to all, with the exception of the salmon-fisheries in the rivers; these are farmed by the government. eider-ducks may not be shot, under penalty of a fine. there is no military service, for throughout the whole island no soldiers are required. even reikjavik itself boasts only two police-officers. commerce is also free; but the islanders possess so little commercial spirit, that even if they had the necessary capital, they would never embark in speculation. the whole commerce of iceland thus lies in the hands of danish merchants, who send their ships to the island every year, and have established factories in the different ports where the retail trade is carried on. these ships bring every thing to iceland, corn, wood, wines, manufactured goods, and colonial produce, &c. the imports are free, for it would not pay the government to establish offices, and give servants salaries to collect duties upon the small amount of produce required for the island. wine, and in fact all colonial produce, are therefore much cheaper than in other countries. the exports consist of fish, particularly salted cod, fish-roe, tallow, train-oil, eider-down, and feathers of other birds, almost equal to eider-down in softness, sheep's wool, and pickled or salted lamb. with the exception of the articles just enumerated, the icelanders possess nothing; thirteen years ago, when herr knudson established a bakehouse, { } he was compelled to bring from copenhagen, not only the builder, but even the materials for building, stones, lime, &c.; for although the island abounds with masses of stone, there are none which can be used for building an oven, or which can be burnt into lime: every thing is of lava. two or three cottages situated near each other are here dignified by the name of a "place." these places, as well as the separate cottages, are mostly built on little acclivities, surrounded by meadows. the meadows are often fenced in with walls of stone or earth, two or three feet in height, to prevent the cows, sheep, and horses from trespassing upon them to graze. the grass of these meadows is made into hay, and laid up as a winter provision for the cows. i did not hear many complaints of the severity of the cold in winter; the temperature seldom sinks to twenty degrees below zero; the sea is sometimes frozen, but only a few feet from the shore. the snowstorms and tempests, however, are often so violent, that it is almost impossible to leave the house. daylight lasts only for five or six hours, and to supply its place the poor icelanders have only the northern light, which is said to illumine the long nights with a brilliancy truly marvellous. the summer i passed in iceland was one of the finest the inhabitants had known for years. during the month of june the thermometer often rose at noon to twenty degrees. the inhabitants found this heat so insupportable, that they complained of being unable to work or to go on messages during the day-time. on such warm days they would only begin their hay-making in the evening, and continued their work half the night. the changes in the weather are very remarkable. twenty degrees of heat on one day would be followed by rain on the next, with a temperature of only five degrees; and on the th of june, at eight o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at one degree below zero. it is also curious that thunderstorms happen in iceland in winter, and are said never to occur during the summer. from the th or th of june to the end of the month there is no night. the sun appears only to retire for a short time behind a mountain, and forms sunset and morning-dawn at the same time. as on one side the last beam fades away, the orb of day re-appears at the opposite one with redoubled splendour. during my stay in iceland, from the th of may to the th of july, i never retired to rest before eleven o'clock at night, and never required a candle. in may, and also in the latter portion of the month of july, there was twilight for an hour or two, but it never became quite dark. even during the last days of my stay, i could read until half-past ten o'clock. at first it appeared strange to me to go to bed in broad daylight; but i soon accustomed myself to it, and when eleven o'clock came, no sunlight was powerful enough to cheat me of my sleep. i found much pleasure in walking at night, at past ten o'clock, not in the pale moonshine, but in the broad blaze of the sun. it was a much more difficult task to accustom myself to the diet. the baker's wife was fully competent to superintend the cooking according to the danish and icelandic schools of the art; but unfortunately these modes of cookery differ widely from ours. one thing only was good, the morning cup of coffee with cream, with which the most accomplished gourmand could have found no fault: since my departure from iceland i have not found such coffee. i could have wished for some of my dear viennese friends to breakfast with me. the cream was so thick, that i at first thought my hostess had misunderstood me, and brought me curds. the butter made from the milk of icelandic cows and ewes did not look very inviting, and was as white as lard, but the taste was good. the icelanders, however, find the taste not sufficiently "piquant," and generally qualify it with train-oil. altogether, train-oil plays a very prominent part in the icelandic kitchen; the peasant considers it a most delicious article, and thinks nothing of devouring a quantity of it without bread, or indeed any thing else. { } i did not at all relish the diet at dinner; this meal consisted of two dishes, namely, boiled fish, with vinegar and melted butter instead of oil, and boiled potatoes. unfortunately i am no admirer of fish, and now this was my daily food. ah, how i longed for beef-soup, a piece of meat, and vegetables, in vain! as long as i remained in iceland, i was compelled quite to give up my german system of diet. after a time i got on well enough with the boiled fish and potatoes, but i could not manage the delicacies of the island. worthy madame bernhoft, it was so kindly meant on her part; and it was surely not her fault that the system of cookery in iceland is different from ours; but i could not bring myself to like the icelandic delicacies. they were of different kinds, consisting sometimes of fishes, hard-boiled eggs, and potatoes chopped up together, covered with a thick brown sauce, and seasoned with pepper, sugar, and vinegar; at others, of potatoes baked in butter and sugar. another delicacy was cabbage chopped very small, rendered very thin by the addition of water, and sweetened with sugar; the accompanying dish was a piece of cured lamb, which had a very unpleasant "pickled" flavour. on sundays we sometimes had "prothe grutze," properly a scandinavian dish, composed of fine sago boiled to a jelly, with currant-juice or red wine, and eaten with cream or sugar. tapfen, a kind of soft cheese, is also sometimes eaten with cream and sugar. in the months of june and july the diet improved materially. we could often procure splendid salmon, sometimes roast lamb, and now and then birds, among which latter dainties the snipes were particularly good. in the evening came butter, cheese, cold fish, smoked lamb, and eggs of eider-ducks, which are coarser than hen's eggs. in time i became so accustomed to this kind of food, that i no longer missed either soup or beef, and felt uncommonly well. my drink was always clear fresh water; the gentlemen began their dinner with a small glass of brandy, and during the meal all drank beer of herr bernhoft's own brewing, which was very good. on sundays, a bottle of port or bordeaux sometimes made its appearance at our table; and as we fared at herr bernhoft's, so it was the custom in the houses of all the merchants and officials. at reikjavik i had an opportunity of witnessing a great religious ceremony. three candidates of theology were raised to the ministerial office. though the whole community here is lutheran, the ceremonies differ in many respects from those of the continent of europe, and i will therefore give a short sketch of what i saw. the solemnity began at noon, and lasted till four o'clock. i noticed at once that all the people covered their faces for a moment on entering the church, the men with their hats, and the women with their handkerchiefs. most of the congregation sat with their faces turned towards the altar; but this rule had its exceptions. the vestments of the priests were the same as those worn by our clergymen, and the commencement of the service also closely resembled the ritual of our own church; but soon this resemblance ceased. the bishop stepped up to the altar with the candidates, and performed certain ceremonies; then one would mount the pulpit and read part of a sermon, or sing a psalm, while the other clergymen sat round on chairs, and appeared to listen; then a second and a third ascended the pulpit, and afterwards another sermon was preached from the altar, and another psalm sung; then a sermon was again read from the pulpit. while ceremonies were performed at the altar, the sacerdotal garments were often put on and taken off again. i frequently thought the service was coming to a close, but it always began afresh, and lasted, as i said before, until four o'clock. the number of forms surprised me greatly, as the ritual of the lutheran church is in general exceedingly simple. on this occasion a considerable number of the country people were assembled, and i had thus a good opportunity of noticing their costumes. the dresses worn by the women and girls are all made of coarse black woollen stuffs. the dress consists of a long skirt, a spencer, and a coloured apron. on their heads they wear a man's nightcap of black cloth, the point turned downwards, and terminating in a large tassel of wool or silk, which hangs down to the shoulder. their hair is unbound, and reaches only to the shoulder: some of the women wear it slightly curled. i involuntarily thought of the poetical descriptions of the northern romancers, who grow enthusiastic in praise of ideal "angels' heads with golden tresses." the hair is certainly worn in this manner here, and our poets may have borrowed their descriptions from the scandinavians. but the beautiful faces which are said to beam forth from among those golden locks exist only in the poet's vivid imagination. ornamental additions to the costume are very rare. in the whole assembly i only noticed four women who were dressed differently from the others. the cords which fastened their spencers, and also their girdles, were ornamented with a garland worked in silver thread. their skirts were of fine black cloth, and decorated with a border of coloured silk a few inches broad. round their necks they wore a kind of stiff collar of black velvet with a border of silver thread, and on their heads a black silk handkerchief with a very strange addition. this appendage consisted of a half-moon fastened to the back of the head, and extending five or six inches above the forehead. it was covered with white lawn arranged in folds; its breadth at the back of the head did not exceed an inch and a half, but in front it widened to five or six inches. the men, i found, were clothed almost like our peasants. they wore small-clothes of dark cloth, jackets and waistcoats, felt hats, or fur caps; and instead of boots a kind of shoe of ox-hide, sheep, or seal-skin, bound to the feet by a leather strap. the women, and even the children of the officials, all wear shoes of this description. it was very seldom that i met people so wretchedly and poorly clad as we find them but too often in the large continental towns. i never saw any one without good warm shoes and stockings. the better classes, such as merchants, officials, &c. are dressed in the french style, and rather fashionably. there is no lack of silk and other costly stuffs. some of these are brought from england, but the greater part come from denmark. on the king's birthday, which is kept every year at the house of the stiftsamtmann, the festivities are said to be very grand; on this occasion the matrons appear arrayed in silk, and the maidens in white jaconet; the rooms are lighted with wax tapers. some speculative genius or other has also established a sort of club in reikjavik. he has, namely, hired a couple of rooms, where the townspeople meet of an evening to discuss "tea-water," bread and butter, and sometimes even a bottle of wine or a bowl of punch. in winter the proprietor gives balls in these apartments, charging kr. for each ticket of admission. here the town grandees and the handicraftsmen, in fact all who choose to come, assemble; and the ball is said to be conducted in a very republican spirit. the shoemaker leads forth the wife of the stiftsamtmann to the dance, while that official himself has perhaps chosen the wife or daughter of the shoemaker or baker for his partner. the refreshments consist of "tea-water" and bread and butter, and the room is lighted with tallow candles. the music, consisting of a kind of three-stringed violin and a pipe, is said to be exquisitely horrible. in summer the dignitaries make frequent excursions on horse-back; and on these occasions great care is taken that there be no lack of provisions. commonly each person contributes a share: some bring wine, others cake; others, again, coffee, and so on. the ladies use fine english side-saddles, and wear elegant riding-habits, and pretty felt hats with green veils. these jaunts, however, are confined to reikjavik; for, as i have already observed, there is, with the exception of this town, no place in iceland containing more than two or three stores and some half-dozen cottages. to my great surprise, i found no less than six square piano-fortes belonging to different families in reikjavik, and heard waltzes by our favourite composers, besides variations of herz, and some pieces of liszt, wilmers, and thalberg. but such playing! i do not think that these talented composers would have recognised their own works. in conclusion, i must offer a few remarks relative to the travelling in this country. the best time to choose for this purpose is from the middle of june to the end of august at latest. until june the rivers are so swollen and turbulent, by reason of the melting snows, as to render it very dangerous to ride through them. the traveller must also pass over many a field of snow not yet melted by the sun, and frequently concealing chasms and masses of lava; and this is attended with danger almost as great. at every footstep the traveller sinks into the snow; and he may thank his lucky stars if the whole rotten surface does not give way. in september the violent storms of wind and rain commence, and heavy falls of snow may be expected from day to day. a tent, provisions, cooking utensils, pillows, bed-clothes, and warm garments, are highly necessary for the wayfarer's comfort. this paraphernalia would have been too expensive for me to buy, and i was unprovided with any thing of the kind; consequently i was forced to endure the most dreadful hardships and toil, and was frequently obliged to ride an immense distance to reach a little church or a cottage, which would afford me shelter for the night. my sole food for eight or ten days together was often bread and cheese; and i generally passed the night upon a chest or a bench, where the cold would often prevent my closing my eyes all night. it is advisable to be provided with a waterproof cloak and a sailor's tarpaulin hat, as a defence against the rain, which frequently falls. an umbrella would be totally useless, as the rain is generally accompanied by a storm, or, at any rate, by a strong wind; when we add to this, that it is necessary in some places to ride quickly, it will easily be seen that holding an umbrella open is a thing not to be thought of. altogether i found the travelling in this country attended with far more hardship than in the east. for my part, i found the dreadful storms of wind, the piercing air, the frequent rain, and the cold, much less endurable than the oriental heat, which never gave me either cracked lips or caused scales to appear on my face. in iceland my lips began to bleed on the fifth day; and afterwards the skin came off my face in scales, as if i had had the scrofula. another source of great discomfort is to be found in the long riding-habit. it is requisite to be very warmly clad; and the heavy skirts, often dripping with rain, coil themselves round the feet of the wearer in such a manner, as to render her exceedingly awkward either in mounting or dismounting. the worst hardship of all, however, is the being obliged to halt to rest the horses in a meadow during the rain. the long skirts suck up the water from the damp grass, and the wearer has often literally not a dry stitch in all her garments. heat and cold appear in this country to affect strangers in a remarkable degree. the cold seemed to me more piercing, and the heat more oppressive in iceland, than when the thermometer stood at the same points in my native land. in summer the roads are marvellously good, so that one can generally ride at a pretty quick pace. they are, however, impracticable for vehicles, partly because they are too narrow, and partly also on account of some very bad places which must occasionally be encountered. on the whole island not a single carriage is to be found. the road is only dangerous when it leads through swamps and moors, or over fields of lava. among these fields, such as are covered with white moss are peculiarly to be feared, for the moss frequently conceals very dangerous holes, into which the horse can easily stumble. in ascending and descending the hills very formidable spots sometimes oppose the traveller's progress. the road is at times so hidden among swamps and bogs, that not a trace of it is to be distinguished, and i could only wonder how my guide always succeeded in regaining the right path. one could almost suppose that on these dangerous paths both horse and man are guided by a kind of instinct. travelling is more expensive in iceland than any where else, particularly when one person travels alone, and must bear all the expense of the baggage, the guide, ferries, &c. horses are not let out on hire, they must be bought. they are, however, very cheap; a pack-horse costs from eighteen to twenty-four florins, and a riding-horse from forty to fifty florins. to travel with any idea of comfort it is necessary to have several pack-horses, for they must not be heavily laden; and an additional servant must likewise be hired, as the guide only looks after the saddle-horses, and, at most, one or two of the pack-horses. if the traveller, at the conclusion of the journey, wishes to sell the horses, such a wretchedly low price is offered, that it is just as well to give them away at once. this is a proof of the fact that men are every where alike ready to follow up their advantage. these people are well aware that the horses must be left behind at any rate, and therefore they will not bid for them. i must confess that i found the character of the icelanders in every respect below the estimate i had previously formed of it, and still further below the standard given in books. in spite of their scanty food, the icelandic horses have a marvellous power of endurance; they can often travel from thirty-five to forty miles per diem for several consecutive days. but the only difficulty is to keep the horse moving. the icelanders have a habit of continually kicking their heels against the poor beast's sides; and the horse at last gets so accustomed to this mode of treatment, that it will hardly go if the stimulus be discontinued. in passing the bad pieces of road it is necessary to keep the bridle tight in hand, or the horse will stumble frequently. this and the continual urging forward of the horse render riding very fatiguing. { } not a little consideration is certainly required before undertaking a journey into the far north; but nothing frightened me,--and even in the midst of the greatest dangers and hardships i did not for one moment regret my undertaking, and would not have relinquished it under any consideration. i made excursions to every part of iceland, and am thus enabled to place before my readers, in regular order, the chief curiosities of this remarkable country. i will commence with the immediate neighbourhood of reikjavik. chapter iv may th. stiftsamtmann von h--- was to-day kind enough to pay me a visit, and to invite me to join his party for a ride to the great lake vatne. i gladly accepted the invitation, for, according to the description given by the stiftsamtmann, i hoped to behold a very eden, and rejoiced at the prospect of observing the recreations of the higher classes, and at the same time gaining many acquisitions in specimens of plants, butterflies, and beetles. i resolved also to test the capabilities of the icelandic horses more thoroughly than i had been able to do during my first ride from havenfiord to reikjavik, as i had been obliged on that occasion to ride at a foot-pace, on account of my old guide. the hour of starting was fixed for two o'clock. accustomed as i am to strict punctuality, i was ready long before the appointed time, and at two o'clock was about to hasten to the place of rendezvous, when my hostess informed me i had plenty of time, for herr von h--- was still at dinner. instead of meeting at two o'clock, we did not assemble until three, and even then another quarter of an hour elapsed before the cavalcade started. oh, syrian notions of punctuality and dispatch! here, almost at the very antipodes, did i once more greet ye. the party consisted of the nobility and the town dignitaries. among the former class may be reckoned stiftsamtmann von h--- and his lady; a privy councillor, herr von b---, who had been sent from copenhagen to attend the "allthing" (political assembly); and a danish baron, who had accompanied the councillor. i noticed among the town dignitaries the daughter and wife of the apothecary, and the daughters of some merchants resident here. our road lay through fields of lava, swamps, and very poor grassy patches, in a great valley, swelling here and there into gentle acclivities, and shut in on three sides by several rows of mountains, towering upwards in the most diversified shapes. in the far distance rose several jokuls or glaciers, seeming to look proudly down upon the mountains, as though they asked, "why would ye draw men's eyes upon you, where we glisten in our silver sheen?" in the season of the year at which i beheld them, the glaciers were still very beautiful; not only their summits, but their entire surface, as far as visible, being covered with snow. the fourth side of the valley through which we travelled was washed by the ocean, which melted as it were into the horizon in immeasurable distance. the coast was dotted with small bays, having the appearance of so many lakes. as the road was good, we could generally ride forward at a brisk pace. occasionally, however, we met with small tracts on which the icelandic horse could exercise its sagacity and address. my horse was careful and free from vice; it carried me securely over masses of stone and chasms in the rocks, but i cannot describe the suffering its trot caused me. it is said that riding is most beneficial to those who suffer from liver-complaints. this may be the case; but i should suppose that any one who rode upon an icelandic horse, with an icelandic side-saddle, every day for the space of four weeks, would find, at the expiration of that time, her liver shaken to a pulp, and no part of it remaining. all the rest of the party had good english saddles, mine alone was of icelandic origin. it consisted of a chair, with a board for the back. the rider was obliged to sit crooked upon the horse, and it was impossible to keep a firm seat. with much difficulty i trotted after the others, for my horse would not be induced to break into a gallop. at length, after a ride of an hour and a half, we reached a valley. in the midst of a tolerably green meadow i descried what was, for iceland, a farm of considerable dimensions, and not far from this farm was a very small lake. i did not dare to ask if this was the _great_ lake vatne, or if this was the delicious prospect i had been promised, for my question would have been taken for irony. i could not refrain from wonder when herr von h--- began praising the landscape as exquisite, and farther declaring the effect of the lake to be bewitching. i was obliged, for politeness' sake, to acquiesce, and leave them in the supposition that i had never seen a larger lake nor a finer prospect. we now made a halt, and the whole party encamped in the meadow. while the preparations for a social meal were going on, i proceeded to satisfy my curiosity. the peasant's house first attracted my attention. i found it to consist of one large chamber, and two of smaller size, besides a storeroom and extensive stables, from which i judged that the proprietor was rich in cattle. i afterwards learnt that he owned fifty sheep, eight cows, and five horses, and was looked upon as one of the richest farmers in the neighbourhood. the kitchen was situated at the extreme end of the building, and was furnished with a chimney that seemed intended only as a protection against rain and snow, for the smoke dispersed itself throughout the whole kitchen, drying the fish which hung from the ceiling, and slowly making its exit through an air-hole. the large apartment boasted a wooden bookshelf, containing about forty volumes. some of these i turned over, and in spite of my limited knowledge of the danish language, could make out enough to discover that they were chiefly on religious subjects. but the farmer seemed also to love poetry; among the works of this class in his library, i noticed kleist, muller, and even homer's _odyssey_. i could make nothing of the icelandic books; but on inquiring their contents, i was told that they all treated of religious matters. after inspecting these, i walked out into the meadow to search for flowers and herbs. flowers i found but few, as it was not the right time of the year for them; my search for herbs was more successful, and i even found some wild clover. i saw neither beetles nor butterflies; but, to my no small surprise, heard the humming of two wild bees, one of which i was fortunate enough to catch, and took home to preserve in spirits of wine. on rejoining my party, i found them encamped in the meadow around a table, which had in the meantime been spread with butter, cheese, bread, cake, roast lamb, raisins and almonds, a few oranges, and wine. neither chairs nor benches were to be had, for even wealthy peasants only possess planks nailed to the walls of their rooms; so we all sat down upon the grass, and did ample justice to the capital coffee which made the commencement of the meal. laughter and jokes predominated to such an extent, that i could have fancied myself among impulsive italians instead of cold northmen. there was no lack of wit; but to-day i was unfortunately its butt. and what was my fault?--only my stupid modesty. the conversation was carried on in the danish language; some members of our party spoke french and others german, but i purposely abstained from availing myself of their acquirements, in order not to disturb the hilarity of the conversation. i sat silently among them, and was perfectly contented in listening to their merriment. but my behaviour was set down as proceeding from stupidity, and i soon gathered from their discourse that they were comparing me to the "stone guest" in mozart's _don giovanni_. if these kind people had only surmised the true reason of my keeping silence, they would perhaps have thanked me for doing so. as we sat at our meal, i heard a voice in the farmhouse singing an icelandic song. at a distance it resembled the humming of bees; on a nearer approach it sounded monotonous, drawling, and melancholy. while we were preparing for our departure, the farmer, his wife, and the servants approached, and shook each of us by the hand. this is the usual mode of saluting such _high_ people as we numbered among our party. the true national salutation is a hearty kiss. on my arrival at home the effect of the strong coffee soon began to manifest itself. i could not sleep at all, and had thus ample leisure to make accurate observations as to the length of the day and of the twilight. until eleven o'clock at night i could read ordinary print in my room. from eleven till one o'clock it was dusk, but never so dark as to prevent my reading in the open air. in my room, too, i could distinguish the smallest objects, and even tell the time by my watch. at one o'clock i could again read in my room. excursion to vidoe. the little island of vidoe, four miles distant from reikjavik, is described by most travellers as the chief resort of the eider-duck. i visited the island on the th of june, but was disappointed in my expectations. i certainly saw many of these birds on the declivities and in the chasms of the rocks, sitting quietly on their nests, but nothing approaching the thousands i had been led to expect. on the whole, i may perhaps have seen from one hundred to a hundred and fifty nests. the most remarkable circumstance connected with the eider-ducks is their tameness during the period of incubation. i had always regarded as myths the stories told about them in this respect, and should do so still had i not convinced myself of the truth of these assertions by laying hands upon the ducks myself. i could go quite up to them and caress them, and even then they would not often leave their nests. some few birds, indeed, did so when i wished to touch them; but they did not fly up, but contented themselves with coolly walking a few paces away from the nest, and there sitting quietly down until i had departed. but those which already had live young, beat out boldly with their wings when i approached, struck at me with their bills, and allowed themselves to be taken up bodily rather than leave the nest. they are about the size of our ducks; their eggs are of a greenish grey, rather larger than hen's eggs, and taste very well. altogether they lay about eleven eggs. the finest down is that with which they line their nests at first; it is of a dark grey colour. the icelanders take away this down, and the first nest of eggs. the poor bird now robs herself once more of a quantity of down (which is, however, not of so fine a quality as the first), and again lays eggs. for the second time every thing is taken from her; and not until she has a third time lined the nest with her down is the eider-duck left in peace. the down of the second, and that of the third quality especially, are much lighter than that of the first. i also was sufficiently cruel to take a few eggs and some down out of several of the nests. { } i did not witness the dangerous operation of collecting this down from between the clefts of rocks and from unapproachable precipices, where people are let down, or to which they are drawn up, by ropes, at peril of their lives. there are, however, none of these break-neck places in the neighbourhood of reikjavik. salmon fishery. i made another excursion to a very short distance (two miles) from reikjavik, in the company of herr bernhoft and his daughter, to the laxselv (salmon river) to witness the salmon-fishing, which takes place every week from the middle of june to the middle of august. it is conducted in a very simple manner. the fish come up the river in the spawning season; the stream is then dammed up with several walls of stone loosely piled to the height of some three feet; and the retreat of the fish to the sea is thus cut off. when the day arrives on which the salmon are to be caught, a net is spread behind each of these walls. three or four such dams are erected at intervals, of from eighty to a hundred paces, so that even if the fishes escape one barrier, they are generally caught at the next. the water is now made to run off as much as possible; the poor salmon dart to and fro, becoming every moment more and more aware of the sinking of the water, and crowd to the weirs, cutting themselves by contact with the sharp stones of which they are built. this is the deepest part of the water; and it is soon so thronged with fish, that men, stationed in readiness, can seize them in their hands and fling them ashore. the salmon possess remarkable swiftness and strength. the fisherman is obliged to take them quickly by the head and tail, and to throw them ashore, when they are immediately caught by other men, who fling them still farther from the water. if this is not done with great quickness and care, many of the fishes escape. it is wonderful how these creatures can struggle themselves free, and leap into the air. the fishermen are obliged to wear woollen mittens, or they would be quite unable to hold the smooth salmon. at every day's fishing, from five hundred to a thousand fish are taken, each weighing from five to fifteen pounds. on the day when i was present eight hundred were killed. this salmon-stream is farmed by a merchant of reikjavik. the fishermen receive very liberal pay,--in fact, one-half of the fish taken. and yet they are dissatisfied, and show so little gratitude, as seldom to finish their work properly. so, for instance, they only brought the share of the merchant to the harbour of reikjavik, and were far too lazy to carry the salmon from the boat to the warehouse, a distance certainly not more than sixty or seventy paces from the shore. they sent a message to their employer, bidding him "send some fresh hands, for they were much too tired." of course, in a case like this, all remonstrance is unavailing. as in the rest of the world, so also in iceland, every occasion that offers is seized upon for a feast or a merry-making. the day on which i witnessed the salmon-fishing happened to be one of the few fine days that occur during a summer in iceland. it was therefore unanimously concluded by several merchants, that the day and the salmon-fishing should be celebrated by a _dejeuner a la fourchette_. every one contributed something, and a plentiful and elegant breakfast was soon arranged, which quite resembled an entertainment of the kind in our country; this one circumstance excepted, that we were obliged to seat ourselves on the ground, by reason of a scarcity of tables and benches. spanish and french wines, as well as cold punch, were there in plenty, and the greatest hilarity prevailed. i made a fourth excursion, but to a very inconsiderable distance,--in fact, only a mile and a half from reikjavik. it was to see a hot and slightly sulphurous spring, which falls into a river of cold water. by this lucky meeting of extremes, water can be obtained at any temperature, from the boiling almost to the freezing point. the townspeople take advantage of this good opportunity in two ways, for bathing and for washing clothes. the latter is undoubtedly the more important purpose of application, and a hut has been erected, in order to shield the poor people from wind and rain while they are at work. formerly this hut was furnished with a good door and with glazed windows, and the key was kept at an appointed place in the town, whence any one might fetch it. but the servants and peasant girls were soon too lazy to go for the key; they burst open the lock, and smashed the windows, so that now the hut has a very ruinous appearance, and affords but little protection against the weather. how much alike mankind are every where, and how seldom they do right, except when it gives them no trouble, and then, unfortunately, there is not much merit to be ascribed to them, as their doing right is merely the result of a lucky chance! many people also bring fish and potatoes, which they have only to lay in the hot water, and in a short time both are completely cooked. this spring is but little used for the purpose of bathing; at most perhaps by a few children and peasants. its medicinal virtues, if it possesses any, are completely unknown. the sulphur-springs and sulphur-mountains of krisuvik. the th of june was fixed for my departure. i had only to pack up some bread and cheese, sugar and coffee, then the horses were saddled, and at seven o'clock the journey was happily commenced. i was alone with my guide, who, like the rest of his class, could not be considered as a very favourable specimen of humanity. he was very lazy, exceedingly self-interested, and singularly loath to devote any part of his attention either to me or to the horses, preferring to concentrate it upon brandy, an article which can unfortunately be procured throughout the whole country. i had already seen the district between reikjavik and havenfiord at my first arrival in iceland. at the present advanced season of the year it wore a less gloomy aspect: strawberry-plants and violets,--the former, however, without blossoms, and the latter inodorous,--were springing up between the blocks of lava, together with beautiful ferns eight or ten inches high. in spite of the trifling distance, i noticed, as a rule, that vegetation was here more luxuriant than at reikjavik; for at the latter place i had found no strawberry-plants, and the violets were not yet in blossom. this difference in the vegetation is, i think, to be ascribed to the high walls of lava existing in great abundance round havenfiord; they protect the tender plants and ferns from the piercing winds. i noticed that both the grass and the plants before mentioned throve capitally in the little hollows formed by masses of lava. a couple of miles beyond havenfiord i saw the first birch-trees, which, however, did not exceed two or three feet in height, also some bilberry-plants. a number of little butterflies, all of one colour, and, as it seemed to me, of the same species, fluttered among the shrubs and plants. the manifold forms and varied outline of the lava-fields present a remarkable and really a marvellous appearance. short as this journey is--for ten hours are amply sufficient for the trip to krisuvik,--it presents innumerable features for contemplation. i could only gaze and wonder. i forgot every thing around me, felt neither cold nor storm, and let my horse pick his way as slowly as he chose, so that i had once almost become separated from my guide. one of the most considerable of the streams of lava lay in a spacious broad valley. the lava-stream itself, about two miles long, and of a considerable breadth, traversing the whole of the plain, seemed to have been called into existence by magic, as there was no mountain to be seen in the neighbourhood from which it could have emerged. it appeared to be the covering of an immense crater, formed, not of separate stones and blocks, but of a single and slightly porous mass of rock ten or twelve feet thick, broken here and there by clefts about a foot in breadth. another, and a still larger valley, many miles in circumference, was filled with masses of lava shaped like waves, reminding the beholder of a petrified sea. from the midst rose a high black mountain, contrasting beautifully with the surrounding masses of light-grey lava. at first i supposed the lava must have streamed forth from this mountain, but soon found that the latter was perfectly smooth on all sides, and terminated in a sharp peak. the remaining mountains which shut in the valley were also perfectly closed, and i looked in vain for any trace of a crater. we now reached a small lake, and soon afterwards arrived at a larger one, called kleinfarvatne. both were hemmed in by mountains, which frequently rose abruptly from the waters, leaving no room for the passage of the horses. we were obliged sometimes to climb the mountains by fearfully dizzy paths; at others to scramble downwards, almost clinging to the face of the rock. at some points we were even compelled to dismount from our horses, and scramble forward on our hands and knees. in a word, these dangerous points, which extended over a space of about seven miles, were certainly quite as bad as any i had encountered in syria; if any thing, they were even more formidable. i was, however, assured that i should have no more such places to encounter during all my further journeys in iceland, and this information quite reconciled me to the roads in this country. for the rest, the path was generally tolerably safe even during this tour, which continually led me across fields of lava. a journey of some eight-and-twenty miles brought us at length into a friendly valley; clouds of smoke, both small and great, were soon discovered rising from the surrounding heights, and also from the valley itself; these were the sulphur-springs and sulphur-mountains. i could hardly restrain my impatience while we traversed the couple of miles which separated us from krisuvik. a few small lakes were still to be crossed; and at length, at six o'clock in the evening, we reached our destination. with the exception of a morsel of bread and cheese, i had eaten nothing since the morning; still i could not spare time to make coffee, but at once dismounted, summoned my guide, and commenced my pilgrimage to the smoking mountains. at the outset our way lay across swampy places and meadow lands; but soon we had to climb the mountains themselves, a task rendered extremely difficult by the elastic, yielding soil, in which every footstep imprinted itself deeply, suggesting to the traveller the unpleasant possibility of his sinking through,--a contingency rendered any thing but agreeable by the neighbourhood of the boiling springs. at length i gained the summit, and saw around me numerous basins filled with boiling water, while on all sides, from hill and valley, columns of vapour rose out of numberless clefts in the rocks. from a cleft in one rock in particular a mighty column of vapour whirled into the air. on the windward side i could approach this place very closely. the ground was only lukewarm in some places, and i could hold my hand for several moments to the gaps from which steam issued. no trace of a crater was to be seen. the bubbling and hissing of the steam, added to the noise of the wind, occasioned such a deafening clamour, that i was very glad to feel firmer ground beneath my feet, and to leave the place in haste. it really seemed as if the interior of the mountain had been a boiling caldron. the prospect from these mountains is very fine. numerous valleys and mountains innumerable offered themselves to my view, and i could even discern the isolated black rock past which i had ridden five or six hours previously. i now commenced my descent into the valley; at a few hundred paces the bubbling and hissing were already inaudible. i supposed that i had seen every thing worthy of notice; but much that was remarkable still remained. i particularly noticed a basin some five or six feet in diameter, filled with boiling mud. this mud has quite the appearance of fine clay dissolved in water; its colour was a light grey. from another basin, hardly two feet in diameter, a mighty column of steam shot continually into the air with so much force and noise that i started back half stunned, and could have fancied the vault of heaven would burst. this basin is situated in a corner of the valley, closely shut in on three sides by hills. in the neighbourhood many hot springs gushed forth; but i saw no columns of water, and my guide assured me that such a phenomenon was never witnessed here. there is more danger in passing these spots than even in traversing the mountains. in spite of the greatest precautions, i frequently sank in above the ankles, and would then draw back with a start, and find my foot covered with hot mud. from the place where i had broken through, steam and hot mud, or boiling water, rose into the air. though my guide, who walked before me, carefully probed the ground with his stick, he several times sank through half-way to the knee. these men are, however, so much accustomed to contingencies of this kind that they take little account of them. my guide would quietly repair to the next spring and cleanse his clothes from mud. as i was covered with it to above the ankles, i thought it best to follow his example. for excursions like these it is best to come provided with a few boards, five or six feet in length, with which to cover the most dangerous places. at nine o'clock in the evening, but yet in the full glare of the sun, we arrived at krisuvik. i now took time to look at this place, which i found to consist of a small church and a few miserable huts. i crept into one of these dens; it was so dark that a considerable time elapsed before i could distinguish objects, the light was only admitted through a very small aperture. i found in this hut a few persons who were suffering from the eruption called "lepra," a disease but too commonly met with in iceland. their hands and faces were completely covered with this eruption; if it spreads over the whole body the patient languishes slowly away, and is lost without remedy. churches are in this country not only used for purposes of public worship, but also serve as magazines for provisions, clothes, &c., and as inns for travellers. i do not suppose that a parallel instance of desecration could be met with even among the most uncivilised nations. i was assured, indeed, that these abuses were about to be remedied. a reform of this kind ought to have been carried out long ago; and even now the matter seems to remain an open point; for wherever i came the church was placed at my disposal for the night, and every where i found a store of fish, tallow, and other equally odoriferous substances. the little chapel at krisuvik is only twenty-two feet long by ten broad; on my arrival it was hastily prepared for my reception. saddles, ropes, clothes, hats, and other articles which lay scattered about, were hastily flung into a corner; mattresses and some nice soft pillows soon appeared, and a very tolerable bed was prepared for me on a large chest in which the vestments of the priest, the coverings of the altar, &c., were deposited. i would willingly have locked myself in, eaten my frugal supper, and afterwards written a few pages of my diary before retiring to rest; but this was out of the question. the entire population of the village turned out to see me, old and young hastened to the church, and stood round in a circle and gazed at me. irksome as this curiosity was, i was obliged to endure it patiently, for i could not have sent these good people away without seriously offending them; so i began quietly to unpack my little portmanteau, and proceeded to boil my coffee over a spirit-lamp. a whispering consultation immediately began; they seemed particularly struck by my mode of preparing coffee, and followed every one of my movements with eager eyes. my frugal meal dispatched, i resolved to try the patience of my audience, and, taking out my journal, began to write. for a few minutes they remained quiet, then they began to whisper one to another, "she writes, she writes," and this was repeated numberless times. there was no sign of any disposition to depart; i believe i could have sat there till doomsday, and failed to tire my audience out. at length, after this scene had lasted a full hour, i could stand it no longer, and was fain to request my amiable visitors to retire, as i wished to go to bed. my sleep that night was none of the sweetest. a certain feeling of discomfort always attaches to the fact of sleeping in a church alone, in the midst of a grave-yard. besides this, on the night in question such a dreadful storm arose that the wooden walls creaked and groaned as though their foundations were giving way. the cold was also rather severe, my thermometer inside the church shewing only two degrees above zero. i was truly thankful when approaching day brought with it the welcome hour of departure. june th. the heavy sleepiness and extreme indolence of an icelandic guide render departure before seven o'clock in the morning a thing not to be thought of. this is, however, of little consequence, as there is no night in iceland at this time of year. although the distance was materially increased by returning to reikjavik by way of grundivik and keblevik, i chose this route in order to pass through the wildest of the inhabited tracts in iceland. the first stage, from krisuvik to grundivik, a distance of twelve to fourteen miles, lay through fields of lava, consisting mostly of small blocks of stone and fragments, filling the valley so completely that not a single green spot remained. i here met with masses of lava which presented an appearance of singular beauty. they were black mounds, ten or twelve feet in height, piled upon each other in the most varied forms, their bases covered with a broad band of whitish-coloured moss, while the tops were broken into peaks and cones of the most fantastic shapes. these lava-streams seem to date from a recent period, as the masses are somewhat scaly and glazed. grundivik, a little village of a few wretched cottages, lies like an oasis in this desert of lava. my guide wished to remain here, asserting that there was no place between this and keblevik where i could pass the night, and that it would be impossible for our horses, exhausted as they were with yesterday's march, to carry us to keblevik that night. the true reason of this suggestion was that he wished to prolong the journey for another day. luckily i had a good map with me, and by dint of consulting it could calculate distances with tolerable accuracy; it was also my custom before starting on a journey to make particular inquiries as to how i should arrange the daily stages. so i insisted upon proceeding at once; and soon we were wending our way through fields of lava towards stad, a small village six or seven miles distant from grundivik. on the way i noticed a mountain of most singular appearance. in colour it closely resembled iron; its sides were perfectly smooth and shining, and streaks of the colour of yellow ochre traversed it here and there. stad is the residence of a priest. contrary to the assertions of my guide, i found this place far more cheerful and habitable than grundivik. whilst our horses were resting, the priest paid me a visit, and conducted me, not, as i anticipated, into his house, but into the church. chairs and stools were quickly brought there, and my host introduced his wife and children to me, after which we partook of coffee, bread and cheese, &c. on the rail surrounding the altar hung the clothes of the priest and his family, differing little in texture and make from those of the peasants. the priest appeared to be a very intelligent, well-read man. i could speak the danish language pretty fluently, and was therefore able to converse with him on various subjects. on hearing that i had already been in palestine, he put a number of questions to me, from which i could plainly see that he was alike well acquainted with geography, history, natural science, &c. he accompanied me several miles on my road, and we chatted away the time very pleasantly. the distance between krisuvik and keblevik is about forty-two miles. the road lies through a most dreary landscape, among vast desert plains, frequently twenty-five to thirty miles in circumference, entirely divested of all traces of vegetation, and covered throughout their extreme area by masses of lava--gloomy monuments of volcanic agency. and yet here, at the very heart of the subterranean fire, i saw only a single mountain, the summit of which had fallen in, and presented the appearance of a crater. the rest were all completely closed, terminating sometimes in a beautiful round top, and sometimes in sharp peaks; in other instances they formed long narrow chains. who can tell whence these all-destroying masses of lava have poured forth, or how many hundred years they have lain in these petrified valleys? keblevik lies on the sea-coast; but the harbour is insecure, so that ships remain here at anchor only so long as is absolutely necessary; there are frequently only two or three ships in the harbour. a few wooden houses, two of which belong to herr knudson, and some peasants' cottages, are the only buildings in this little village. i was hospitably received, and rested from the toils of the day at the house of herr siverson, herr knudson's manager. on the following day (june th) i had a long ride to reikjavik, thirty-six good miles, mostly through fields of lava. the whole tract of country from grundivik almost to havenfiord is called "the lava-fields of reikianes." tired and almost benumbed with cold, i arrived in the evening at reikjavik, with no other wish than to retire to rest as fast as possible. in these three days i had ridden miles, besides enduring much from cold, storms, and rain. to my great surprise, the roads had generally been good; there were, however, many places highly dangerous and difficult. but what mattered these fatigues, forgotten, as they were, after a single night's rest? what were they in comparison to the unutterably beautiful and marvellous phenomena of the north, which will remain ever present to my imagination so long as memory shall be spared me? the distances of this excursion were: from reikjavik to krisuvik, miles; from krisuvik to keblevik, miles; from keblevik to reikjavik, miles: total, miles. chapter v as the weather continued fine, i wished to lose no time in continuing my wanderings. i had next to make a tour of some miles; it was therefore necessary that i should take an extra horse, partly that it might carry my few packages, consisting of a pillow, some rye-bread, cheese, coffee, and sugar, but chiefly that i might be enabled to change horses every day, as one horse would not have been equal to the fatigue of so long a journey. my former guide could not accompany me on my present journey, as he was unacquainted with most of the roads. my kind protectors, herr knudson and herr bernhoft, were obliging enough to provide another guide for me; a difficult task, as it is a rare occurrence to find an icelander who understands the danish language, and who happens to be sober when his services are required. at length a peasant was found who suited our purpose; but he considered two florins per diem too little pay, so i was obliged to give an additional zwanziger. on the other hand, it was arranged that the guide should also take two horses, in order that he might change every day. the th of june was fixed for the commencement of our journey. from the very first day my guide did not shew himself in an amiable point of view. on the morning of our departure his saddle had to be patched together, and instead of coming with two horses, he appeared with only one. he certainly promised to buy a second when we should have proceeded some miles, adding that it would be cheaper to buy one at a little distance from the "capital." i at once suspected this was merely an excuse of the guide's, and that he wished thereby to avoid having the care of four horses. the event proved i was right; not a single horse could be found that suited, and so my poor little animal had to carry the guide's baggage in addition to my own. loading the pack-horses is a business of some difficulty, and is conducted in the following manner: sundry large pieces of dried turf are laid upon the horse's back, but not fastened; over these is buckled a round piece of wood, furnished with two or three pegs. to these pegs the chests and packages are suspended. if the weight is not quite equally balanced, it is necessary to stop and repack frequently, for the whole load at once gets askew. the trunks used in this country are massively constructed of wood, covered with a rough hide, and strengthened on all sides with nails, as though they were intended to last an eternity. the poor horses have a considerable weight to bear in empty boxes alone, so that very little real luggage can be taken. the weight which a horse has to carry during a long journey should never exceed lbs. it is impossible to remember how many times our baggage had to be repacked during a day's journey. the great pieces of turf would never stay in their places, and every moment something was wrong. nothing less than a miracle, however, can prevail on an icelander to depart from his regular routine. his ancestors packed in such and such a manner, and so he must pack also. { } we had a journey of above forty miles before us the first day, and yet, on account of the damaged saddle, we could not start before eight o'clock in the morning. the first twelve or fourteen miles of our journey lay through the great valley in which reikjavik is situated; the valley contains many low hills, some of which we had to climb. several rivers, chief among which was the laxselv, opposed our progress, but at this season of the year they could be crossed on horseback without danger. nearly all the valleys through which we passed to-day were covered with lava, but nevertheless offered many beautiful spots. many of the hills we passed seemed to me to be extinct volcanoes; the whole upper portion was covered with colossal slabs of lava, as though the crater had been choked up with them. lava of the same description and colour, but in smaller pieces, lay strewed around. for the first twelve or fourteen miles the sea is visible from the brow of every successive hill. the country is also pretty generally inhabited; but afterwards a distance of nearly thirty miles is passed, on which there is not a human habitation. the traveller journeys from one valley into another, and in the midst of these hill-girt deserts sees a single small hut, erected for the convenience of those who, in the winter, cannot accomplish the long distance in one day, and must take up their quarters for the night in the valley. no one must, however, rashly hope to find here a human being in the shape of a host. the little house is quite uninhabited, and consists only of a single apartment with four naked walls. the visitor must depend on the accommodation he carries with him. the plains through which we travelled to-day were covered throughout with one and the same kind of lava. it occurs in masses, and also in smaller stones, is not very porous, of a light grey colour, and mixed, in many instances, with sand or earth. some miles from thingvalla we entered a valley, the soil of which is fine, but nevertheless only sparingly covered with grass, and full of little acclivities, mostly clothed with delicate moss. i have no doubt that the indolence of the inhabitants alone prevents them from materially improving many a piece of ground. the worst soil is that in the neighbourhood of reikjavik; yet there we see many a garden, and many a piece of meadow-land, wrung, as it were, from the barren earth by labour and pains. why should not the same thing be done here--the more so as nature has already accomplished the preliminary work? thingvalla, our resting-place for to-night, is situate on a lake of the same name, and only becomes visible when the traveller is close upon it. the lake is rather considerable, being almost three miles in length, and at some parts certainly more than two miles in breadth; it contains two small islands,--sandey and nesey. my whole attention was still riveted by the lake and its naked and gloomy circle of mountains, when suddenly, as if by magic, i found myself standing on the brink of a chasm, into which i could scarcely look without a shudder; involuntarily i thought of weber's _freyschutz_ and the "wolf's hollow." { } the scene is the more startling from the circumstance that the traveller approaching thingvalla in a certain direction sees only the plains beyond this chasm, and has no idea of its existence. it was a fissure some five or six fathoms broad, but several hundred feet in depth; and we were forced to descend by a small, steep, dangerous path, across large fragments of lava. colossal blocks of stone, threatening the unhappy wanderer with death and destruction, hang loosely, in the form of pyramids and of broken columns, from the lofty walls of lava, which encircle the whole long ravine in the form of a gallery. speechless, and in anxious suspense, we descend a part of this chasm, hardly daring to look up, much less to give utterance to a single sound, lest the vibration should bring down one of these avalanches of stone, to the terrific force of which the rocky fragments scattered around bear ample testimony. the distinctness with which echo repeats the softest sound and the lightest footfall is truly wonderful. the appearance presented by the horses, which are allowed to come down the ravine after their masters have descended, is most peculiar. one could fancy they were clinging to the walls of rock. this ravine is known by the name of almanagiau. its entire length is about a mile, but a small portion only can be traversed; the rest is blocked up by masses of lava heaped one upon the other. on the right hand, the rocky wall opens, and forms an outlet, over formidable masses of lava, into the beautiful valley of thingvalla. i could have fancied i wandered through the depths of a crater, which had piled around itself these stupendous barriers during a mighty eruption in times long gone by. the valley of thingvalla is considered one of the most beautiful in iceland. it contains many meadows, forming, as it were, a place of refuge for the inhabitants, and enabling them to keep many head of cattle. the icelanders consider this little green valley the finest spot in the world. not far from the opening of the ravine, on the farther bank of the river oxer, lies the little village of thingvalla, consisting of three or four cottages and a small chapel. a few scattered farms and cottages are situated in the neighbourhood. thingvalla was once one of the most important places in iceland; the stranger is still shewn the meadow, not far from the village, on which the allthing (general assembly) was held annually in the open air. here the people and their leaders met, pitching their tents after the manner of nomads. here it was also that many an opinion and many a decree were enforced by the weight of steel. the chiefs appeared, ostensibly for peace, at the head of their tribe; yet many of them returned not again, but beneath the sword-stroke of their enemies obtained that peace which no man seeketh, but which all men find. on one side the valley is skirted by the lake, on the other it is bounded by lofty mountains, some of them still partly covered with snow. not far from the entrance of the ravine, the river oxer rushes over a wall of rock of considerable height, forming a beautiful waterfall. it was still fine clear daylight when i reached thingvalla, and the sky rose pure and cloudless over the far distance. it seemed therefore the more singular to me to see a few clouds skimming over the surface of the mountains, now shrouding a part of them in vapour, now wreathing themselves round their summits, now vanishing entirely, to reappear again at a different point. this is a phenomenon frequently observed in iceland during the finest days, and one i had often noticed in the neighbourhood of reikjavik. under a clear and cloudless sky, a light mist would appear on the brow of a mountain,--in a moment it would increase to a large cloud, and after remaining stationary for a time, it frequently vanished suddenly, or soared slowly away. however often it may be repeated, this appearance cannot fail to interest the observer. herr beck, the clergyman at thingvalla, offered me the shelter of his hut for the night; as the building, however, did not look much more promising than the peasants' cottages by which it was surrounded, i preferred quartering myself in the church, permission to do so being but too easily obtained on all occasions. this chapel is not much larger than that at krisuvik, and stands at some distance from the few surrounding cottages. this was perhaps the reason why i was not incommoded by visitors. i had already conquered any superstitious fears derived from the proximity of my silent neighbours in the churchyard, and passed the night quietly on one of the wooden chests of which i found several scattered about. habit is certainly every thing; after a few nights of gloomy solitude one thinks no more about the matter. june th. our journey of to-day was more formidable than that of yesterday. i was assured that reikholt (also called reikiadal) was almost fifty miles distant. distances cannot always be accurately measured by the map; impassable barriers, only to be avoided by circuitous routes, often oppose the traveller's progress. this was the case with us to-day. to judge from the map, the distance from thingvalla to reikholt seemed less by a great deal than that from reikjavik to thingvalla, and yet we were full fourteen hours accomplishing it--two hours longer than on our yesterday's journey. so long as our way lay through the valley of thingvalla there was no lack of variety. at one time there was an arm of the river oxer to cross, at another we traversed a cheerful meadow; sometimes we even passed through little shrubberies,--that is to say, according to the icelandic acceptation of the term. in my country these lovely shrubberies would have been cleared away as useless underwood. the trees trail along the ground, seldom attaining a height of more than two feet. when one of these puny stems reaches four feet in height, it is considered a gigantic tree. the greater portion of these miniature forests grow on the lava with which the valley is covered. the formation of the lava here assumes a new character. up to this point it has mostly appeared either in large masses or in streams lying in strata one above the other; but here the lava covered the greater portion of the ground in the form of immense flat slabs or blocks of rock, often split in a vertical direction. i saw long fissures of eight or ten feet in breadth, and from ten to fifteen feet in depth. in these clefts the flowers blossom earlier, and the fern grows taller and more luxuriantly, than in the boisterous upper world. after the valley of thingvalla has been passed the journey becomes very monotonous. the district beyond is wholly uninhabited, and we travelled many miles without seeing a single cottage. from one desert valley we passed into another; all were alike covered with light-grey or yellowish lava, and at intervals also with fine sand, in which the horses sunk deeply at every step. the mountains surrounding these valleys were none of the highest, and it was seldom that a jokul or glacier shone forth from among them. the mountains had a certain polished appearance, their sides being perfectly smooth and shining. in some instances, however, masses of lava formed beautiful groups, bearing a great resemblance to ruins of ancient buildings, and standing out in peculiarly fine relief from the smooth walls. these mountains are of different colours; they are black or brown, grey or yellow, &c.; and the different shades of these colours are displayed with marvellous effect in the brilliant sunshine. nine hours of uninterrupted riding brought us into a large tract of moorland, very scantily covered with moss. yet this was the first and only grazing-place to be met with in all the long distance from thingvalla. we therefore made a halt of two hours, to let our poor horses pick a scanty meal. large swarms of minute gnats, which seemed to fly into our eyes, nose, and mouth, annoyed us dreadfully during our stay in this place. on this moor there was also a small lake; and here i saw for the first time a small flock of swans. unfortunately these creatures are so very timid, that the most cautious approach of a human being causes them to rise with the speed of lightning into the air. i was therefore obliged perforce to be content with a distant view of these proud birds. they always keep in pairs, and the largest flock i saw did not consist of more than four such pairs. since my first arrival in iceland i had considered the inhabitants an indolent race of people; to-day i was strengthened in my opinion by the following slight circumstance. the moorland on which we halted to rest was separated from the adjoining fields of lava by a narrow ditch filled with water. across this ditch a few stones and slabs had been laid, to form a kind of bridge. now this bridge was so full of holes that the horses could not tell where to plant their feet, and refused obstinately to cross it, so that in the end we were obliged to dismount and lead them across. we had scarcely passed this place, and sat down to rest, when a caravan of fifteen horses, laden with planks, dried fish, &c. arrived at the bridge. of course the poor creatures observed the dangerous ground, and could only be driven by hard blows to advance. hardly twenty paces off there were stones in abundance; but rather than devote a few minutes to filling up the holes, these lazy people beat their horses cruelly, and exposed them to the risk of breaking their legs. i pitied the poor animals, which would be compelled to recross the bridge, so heartily, that, after they are gone, i devoted a part of my resting-time to collecting stones and filling up the holes,--a business which scarcely occupied me a quarter of an hour. it is interesting to notice how the horses know by instinct the dangerous spots in the stony wastes, and in the moors and swamps. on approaching these places they bend their heads towards the earth, and look sharply round on all sides. if they cannot discover a firm resting-place for the feet, they stop at once, and cannot be urged forward without many blows. after a halt of two hours we continued our journey, which again led us across fields of lava. at past nine o'clock in the evening we reached an elevated plain, after traversing which for half an hour we saw stretched at our feet the valley of reikholt or reikiadal; it is fourteen to seventeen miles long, of a good breadth, and girt round by a row of mountains, among which several jokuls sparkle in their icy garments. a sunset seen in the sublime wildness of icelandic scenery has a peculiarly beautiful effect. over these vast plains, divested of trees or shrubs, covered with dark lava, and shut in by mountains almost of a sable hue, the parting sun sheds an almost magical radiance. the peaks of the mountains shine in the bright parting rays, the jokuls are shrouded in the most delicate roseate hue, while the lower parts of the mountains lie in deep shadow, and frown darkly on the valleys, which resemble a sheet of dark blue water, with an atmosphere of a bluish-red colour floating above it. the most impressive feature of all is the profound silence and solitude; not a sound can be heard, not a living creature is to be seen; every thing appears dead. throughout the broad valleys not a town nor a village, no, not even a solitary house or a tree or shrub, varies the prospect. the eye wanders over the vast desert, and finds not one familiar object on which it can rest. to-night, as at past eleven o'clock we reached the elevated plain, i saw a sunset which i shall never forget. the sun disappeared behind the mountains, and in its stead a gorgeous ruddy gleam lighted up hill and valley and glacier. it was long ere i could turn away my eyes from the glittering heights, and yet the valley also offered much that was striking and beautiful. throughout almost its entire length this valley formed a meadow, from the extremities of which columns of smoke and boiling springs burst forth. the mists had almost evaporated, and the atmosphere was bright and clear, more transparent even than i had seen it in any other country. i now for the first time noticed, that in the valley itself the radiance was almost as clear as the light of day, so that the most minute objects could be plainly distinguished. this was, however, extremely necessary, for steep and dangerous paths lead over masses of lava into the valley. on one side ran a little river, forming many picturesque waterfalls, some of them above thirty feet in height. i strained my eyes in vain to discover any where, in this great valley, a little church, which, if it only offered me a hard bench for a couch, would at any rate afford me a shelter from the sharp night-wind; for it is really no joke to ride for fifteen hours, with nothing to eat but bread and cheese, and then not even to have the pleasant prospect of a hotel _a la villa de londres_ or _de paris_. alas, my wishes were far more modest. i expected no porter at the gate to give the signal of my arrival, no waiter, and no chambermaid; i only desired a little spot in the neighbourhood of the dear departed icelanders. i was suddenly recalled from these happy delusions by the voice of the guide, who cried out: "here we are at our destination for to-night." i looked joyfully round; alas! i could only see a few of those cottages which are never observed until you almost hit your nose against one of them, as the grass-covered walls can hardly be distinguished from the surrounding meadow. it was already midnight. we stopped, and turned our horses loose, to seek supper and rest in the nearest meadow. our lot was a less fortunate one. the inhabitants were already buried in deep slumbers, from which even the barking set up by the dogs at our approach failed to arouse them. a cup of coffee would certainly have been very acceptable to me; yet i was loath to rouse any one merely for this. a piece of bread satisfied my hunger, and a draught of water from the nearest spring tasted most deliciously with it. after concluding my frugal meal, i sought out a corner beside a cottage, where i was partially sheltered from the too-familiar wind; and wrapping my cloak around me, lay down on the ground, having wished myself, with all my heart, a good night's rest and pleasant dreams, in the broad daylight, { } under the canopy of heaven. just dropping off to sleep, i was surprised by a mild rain, which, of course, at once put to flight every idea of repose. thus, after all, i was obliged to wake some one up, to obtain the shelter of a roof. the best room, _i.e._ the store-room, was thrown open for my accommodation, and a small wooden bedstead placed at my disposal. chambers of this kind are luckily found wherever two or three cottages lie contiguous to each other; they are certainly far from inviting, as dried fish, train-oil, tallow, and many other articles of the same description combine to produce a most unsavoury atmosphere. yet they are infinitely preferable to the dwellings of the peasants, which, by the by, are the most filthy dens that can be imagined. besides being redolent of every description of bad odour, these cottages are infested with vermin to a degree which can certainly not be surpassed, except in the dwellings of the greenlanders and laplanders. june th. yesterday we had been forced to put upon our poor horses a wearisome distance of more than fifty miles, as the last forty miles led us through desert and uninhabited places, boasting not even a single cottage. to-day, however, our steeds had a light duty to perform, for we only proceeded seven miles to the little village of reikiadal, where i halted to-day, in order to visit the celebrated springs. the inconsiderable village called reikiadal, consisting only of a church and a few cottages, is situated amidst pleasant meadows. altogether this valley is rich in beautiful meadow-lands; consequently one sees many scattered homesteads and cottages, with fine herds of sheep, and a tolerable number of horses; cows are less plentiful. the church at reikiadal is among the neatest and most roomy of those which came under my observation. the dwelling of the priest too, though only a turf-covered cottage, is large enough for the comfort of the occupants. this parish extends over a considerable area, and is not thinly inhabited. my first care on my arrival was to beg the clergyman, herr jonas jonason, to procure for me, as expeditiously as possible, fresh horses and a guide, in order that i might visit the springs. he promised to provide me with both within half an hour; and yet it was not until three hours had been wasted, that, with infinite pains, i saw my wish fulfilled. throughout my stay in iceland, nothing annoyed me more than the slowness and unconcern displayed by the inhabitants in all their undertakings. every wish and every request occupies a long time in its fulfilment. had i not been continually at the good pastor's side, i believe i should scarcely have attained my object. at length every thing was ready, and the pastor himself was kind enough to be my guide. we rode about four miles through this beautiful vale, and in this short distance were compelled at least six times to cross the river sidumule, which rolls its most tortuous course through the entire valley. at length the first spring was reached; it emerges from a rock about six feet in height, standing in the midst of a moor. the upper cavity of the natural reservoir, in which the water continually boils and seethes, is between two and three feet in diameter. this spring never stops; the jet of water rises two, and sometimes even four feet high, and is about eighteen inches thick. it is possible to increase the volume of the jet for a few seconds, by throwing large stones or lumps of earth into the opening, and thus stirring up the spring. the stones are cast forcibly forth, and the lumps of earth, dissolved by the action of the water, impart to the latter a dingy colour. whoever has seen the jet of water at carlsbad, in bohemia, can well imagine the appearance of this spring, which closely resembles that of carlsbad. { } in the immediate neighbourhood of the spring is an abyss, in which water is continually seething, but never rises into the air. at a little distance, on a high rock, rising out of the river sidumule, not far from the shore, are other springs. they are three in number, each at a short distance from the next, and occupy nearly the entire upper surface of the rock. lower down we find a reservoir of boiling water; and at the foot of the rock, and on the nearest shore, are many more hot springs; but most of these are inconsiderable. many of these hot springs emerge almost from the cold river itself. the chief group, however, lies still farther off, on a rock which may be about twenty feet in height, and fifty in length. it is called tunga huer, and rises from the midst of a moor. on this rock there are no less than sixteen springs, some emerging from its base, others rather above the middle, but none from the top of the rock. the construction of the basins and the height and diameter of the jets were precisely similar to those i have already described. all these sixteen springs are so near each other that they do not even occupy two sides of the rock. it is impossible to form an idea of the magnificence of this singular spectacle, which becomes really fairy-like, if the beholder have the courage to climb the rock itself, a proceeding of some danger, though of little difficulty. the upper stratum of the rock is soft and warm, presenting almost the appearance of mud thickened with sand and small stones. every footstep leaves a trace behind it, and the visitor has continually before his eyes the fear of breaking through, and falling into a hot spring hidden from view by a thin covering. the good pastor walked in advance of me, with a stick, and probed the dangerous surface as much as possible. i was loath to stay behind, and suddenly we found ourselves at the summit of the rock. here we could take in, at one view, the sixteen springs gushing from both its sides. if the view from below had been most interesting and singular, how shall i describe its appearance as seen from above? sixteen jets of water seen at one glance, sixteen reservoirs, in all their diversity of form and construction, opening at once beneath the feet of the beholder, seemed almost too wonderful a sight. forgetting all pusillanimous feelings, i stood and honoured the creator in these his marvellous works. for a long time i stood, and could not tire of gazing into the abysses from whose darkness the masses of white and foaming water sprung hissing into the air, to fall again, and hasten in quiet union towards the neighbouring river. the good pastor found it necessary to remind me several times that our position here was neither of the safest nor of the most comfortable, and that it was therefore high time to abandon it. i had ceased to think of the insecurity of the ground we trod, and scarcely noticed the mighty clouds of hot vapour which frequently surrounded and threatened to suffocate us, obliging us to step suddenly back with wetted faces. it was fortunate that these waters contain but a very small quantity of brimstone, otherwise we could scarcely have long maintained our elevated position. the rock from which these springs rise is formed of a reddish mass, and the bed of the river into which the water flows is also completely covered with little stones of the same colour. on our way back we noticed, near a cottage, another remarkable phenomenon. it was a basin, in whose depths the water boils and bubbles violently; and near this basin are two unsightly holes, from which columns of smoke periodically rise with a great noise. whilst this is going on, the basin fills itself more and more with water, but never so much as to overflow, or to force a jet of water into the air; then the steam and the noise cease in both cavities, and the water in the reservoir sinks several feet. this strange phenomenon generally lasts about a minute, and is repeated so regularly, that a bet could almost be made, that the rising and falling of the water, and the increased and lessened noise of the steam, shall be seen and heard sixty or sixty-five times within an hour. in communication with this basin is another, situate at a distance of about a hundred paces in a small hollow, and filled like the former with boiling water. as the water in the upper basin gradually sinks, and ceases to seethe, it begins to rise in the lower one, and is at length forced two or three feet into the air; then it falls again, and thus the phenomenon is continually repeated in the upper and the lower basin alternately. at the upper spring there is also a vapour-bath. this is formed by a small chamber situate hard by the basin, built of stones and roofed with turf. it is further provided with a small and narrow entrance, which cannot be passed in an upright position. the floor is composed of stone slabs, probably covering a hot spring, for they are very warm. the person wishing to use this bath betakes himself to this room, and carefully closes every cranny; a suffocating heat, which induces violent perspiration over the whole frame, is thus generated. the people, however, seldom avail themselves of this bath. on my return i had still to visit a basin with a jet of water, in a fine meadow near the church; a low wall of stone has been erected round this spring to prevent the cattle from scalding themselves if they should approach too near in the ardour of grazing. some eighty paces off is to be seen the wool-bath erected by snorri sturluson. it consists of a stone basin three or four feet in depth, and eighteen or twenty in diameter. the approach is by a few steps leading to a low stone bench, which runs round the basin. the water is obtained from the neighbouring spring, but is of so high a temperature that it is impossible to bathe without previously cooling it. the bath stands in the open air, and no traces are left of the building which once covered it. it is now used for clothes and sheep's wool. i had now seen all the interesting springs on this side of the valley. some columns of vapour, which may be observed from the opposite end of the valley, proceed from thermal springs, that offer no remarkable feature save their heat. on our return the priest took me to the churchyard, which lay at some distance from his dwelling, and showed me the principal graves. though i thought the sight very impressive, it was not calculated to invigorate me, when i considered that i must pass the approaching night alone in the church, amidst these resting-places of the departed. the mound above each grave is very high, and the greater part of them are surmounted by a kind of wooden coffin, which at first sight conveys the impression that the dead person is above ground. i could not shake off a feeling of discomfort; and such is the power of prejudice, that--i acknowledge my weakness--i was even induced to beg that the priest would remove one of the covers. though i knew full well that the dead man was slumbering deep in the earth, and not in this coffin, i felt a shudder pass over me as the lid was removed, and i saw--as the priest had assured me i should do--merely a tombstone with the usual inscription, which this coffin-like covering is intended to protect against the rude storms of the winter. close beside the entrance to the church is the mound beneath which rest the bones of snorri sturluson, the celebrated poet; { } over this grave stands a small runic stone of the length of the mound itself. this stone is said to have once been completely covered with runic characters; but all trace of these has been swept away by the storms of five hundred winters, against which the tomb had no protecting coffin. the stone, too, is split throughout its entire length into two pieces. the mound above the grave is often renewed, so that the beholder could often fancy he saw a new-made grave. i picked all the buttercups i could find growing on the grave, and preserved them carefully in a book. perhaps i may be able to give pleasure to several of my countrywomen by offering them a floweret from the grave of the greatest of icelandic poets. june th. in order to pursue my journey without interruption, i hired fresh horses, and allowed my own, which were rather fatigued, to accompany us unloaded. my object in this further excursion was to visit the very remarkable cavern of surthellir, distant a good thirty-three miles from this place. the clergyman was again kind enough to make the necessary arrangements for me, and even to act as my mentor on the journey. though we were only three strong, we departed with a retinue of seven horses, and for nearly ten miles rode back the same way by which i had come from reikholt on the preceding morning; then we turned off to the left, and crossing hills and acclivities, reached other valleys, which were partly traversed by beautiful streams of lava, and partly interspersed with forests--_forests_, as i have already said, according to icelandic notions. the separate stems were certainly slightly higher than those in the valley of thingvalla. at kalmannstunga we left the spare horses, and took with us a man to serve as guide in the cavern, from which we were now still some seven miles distant. the great valley in which this cavern lies is reckoned among the most remarkable in iceland. it is a most perfect picture of volcanic devastation. the most beautiful masses of lava, in the most varied and picturesque forms, occupy the whole immeasurable valley. lava is to be seen there in a rough glassy state, forming exquisite flames and arabesques; and in immense slabs, lying sometimes scattered, sometimes piled in strata one above the other, as though they had been cast there by a flood. among these, again, lie mighty isolated streams, which must have been frozen in the midst of their course. from the different colours of the lava, and their transitions from light grey to black, we can judge of the eruptions which have taken place at different periods. the mountains surrounding this valley are mostly of a sombre hue; some are even black, forming a striking contrast to the neighbouring jokuls, which, in their large expanse, present the appearance almost of a sea of ice. i found one of these jokuls of a remarkable size; its shining expanse extended far down into the valley, and its upper surface was almost immeasurable. the other mountains were all smooth, as though polished by art; in the foreground i only noticed one which was covered with wonderful forms of dried lava. a deathlike silence weighed on the whole country round, on hill and on valley alike. every thing seemed dead, all round was barren and desert, so that the effect was truly icelandic. the greater portion of iceland might be with justice designated the "northern desert." the cavern of surthellir lies on a slightly elevated extended plain, where it would certainly not be sought for, as we are accustomed to see natural phenomena of this description only in the bowels of rocks. it is, therefore, with no little surprise that the traveller sees suddenly opening before him a large round basin about fifteen fathoms in diameter, and four in depth. it was with a feeling of awe that i looked downwards on the countless blocks of rock piled one upon the other, extending on one side to the edge of the hollow, across which the road led to the dark ravines farther on. we were compelled to scramble forward on our hands and knees, until we reached a long broad passage, which led us at first imperceptibly downwards, and then ran underneath the plain, which formed a rocky cavern above our heads. i estimated the different heights of this roof at not less than from eighteen to sixty feet; but it seldom reached a greater elevation than the latter. both roof and walls are in some places very pointed and rough: a circumstance to be ascribed to the stalactites which adhere to them, without, however, forming figures or long sharp points. from this principal path several smaller ones lead far into the interior of this stony region; but they do not communicate with each other, and one is compelled to return from each side-path into the main road. some of these by-paths are short, narrow, and low; others, on the contrary, are long, broad, and lofty. in one of the most retired of these by-paths i was shewn a great number of bones, which, i was told, were those of slaughtered sheep and other animals. i could gather, from the account given by the priest of the legend concerning them, that, in days of yore, this cave was the resort of a mighty band of robbers. this must have been a long, long time ago, as this is related as a legend or a fable. for my part, i could not tell what robbers had to do in iceland. pirates had often come to the island; but for these gentry this cavern was too far from the sea. i cannot even imagine beasts of prey to have been there; for the whole country round about is desert and uninhabited, so that they could have found nothing to prey upon. in fact, i turned over in my mind every probability, and can only say that it appeared to me a most remarkable circumstance to find in this desert place, so far from any living thing, a number of bones, which, moreover, looked as fresh as if the poor animals to whom they once belonged had been eaten but a short time ago. unfortunately i could obtain no satisfactory information on this point. it is difficult to imagine any thing more laborious than to wander about in this cavern. as the road had shewed itself at the entrance of the cavern, so it continued throughout its whole extent. the path consisted entirely of loose fragments of lava heaped one upon the other, over which we had to clamber with great labour. none of us could afford to help the others; each one was fully occupied with himself. there was not a single spot to be seen on which we could have stood without holding fast at the same time with our hands. we were sometimes obliged to seat ourselves on a stone, and so to slide down; at others, to take hands and pull one another to the top of high blocks of stone. we came to several immense basins, or craters, which opened above our heads, but were inaccessible, the sides being too steep for us to climb. the light which entered through these openings was scarcely enough to illumine the principal path, much less the numerous by-paths. at kalmannstunga i had endeavoured to procure torches, but was obliged to consider myself fortunate in getting a few tapers. it is necessary to provide oneself with torches at reikjavik. the parts of the cavern beneath the open craters were still covered with a considerable quantity of snow, by which our progress was rendered very dangerous. we frequently sunk in, and at other times caught our feet between the stones, so that we could scarcely maintain our balance. in the by-paths situated near these openings an icy rind had formed itself, which was now covered with water. farther on, the ice had melted; but it was generally very dirty, as a stratum of sand mixed with water lay there in place of the stones. the chief path alone was covered with blocks of lava; in the smaller paths i found only strata of sand and small pieces of lava. the magical illumination produced by the sun's rays shining through one of these craters into the cavern produced a splendid effect. the sun shone perpendicularly through the opening, spread a dazzling radiance over the snow, and diffused a pale delicate light around us. the effect of this point of dazzling light was the more remarkable from its contrasting strongly with the two dark chasms, from the first of which we had emerged to continue our journey through the obscurity of the second. this subterranean labyrinth is said to extend in different directions for many miles. we explored a portion of the chief path and several by-paths, and after a march of two hours returned heartily tired to the upper world. we then rested a quarter of an hour, and afterwards returned at a good round pace to kalmannstunga. unfortunately i do not possess sufficient geognostic knowledge to be able to set this cavern down as an extinct volcano. but in travelling in a country where every hill and mountain, every thing around, in fact, consists of lava, even the uninitiated in science seeks to discover the openings whence these immense masses have poured. the stranger curiously regards the top of each mountain, thinking every where to behold a crater, but both hill and dale appear smooth and closed. with what joy then does he hail the thought of having discovered, in this cavern, something to throw light upon the sources of these things! i, at least, fancied myself walking on the hearth of an extinct volcano; for all i saw, from the masses of stone piled beneath my feet and the immense basin above my head, were both of lava. if i am right in my conjecture, i do not know; i only speak according to my notions and my views. i was obliged to pass this night in a cottage. kalmannstunga contains three such cottages, but no chapel. luckily i found one of these houses somewhat larger and more cleanly than its neighbours; it could almost come under the denomination of a farm. the occupants, too, had been employed during my ride to the cavern in cleansing the best chamber, and preparing it, as far as possible, for my reception. the room in question was eleven feet long by seven broad; the window was so small and so covered with dirt that, although the sun was shining in its full glory, i could scarcely see to write. the walls, and even the floor, were boarded--a great piece of luxury in a country where wood is so scarce. the furniture consisted of a broad bedstead, two chests of drawers, and a small table. chairs and benches are a kind of _terra incognita_ in the dwellings of the icelandic peasantry; besides, i do not know where such articles could be stowed in a room of such dimensions as that which i occupied. my hostess, the widow of a wealthy peasant, introduced to me her four children, who were very handsome, and very neatly dressed. i begged the good mother to tell me the names of the young ones, so that i might at least know a few icelandic names. she appeared much flattered at my request, and gave me the names as follows: sigrudur, gudrun, ingebor, and lars. i should have felt tolerably comfortable in my present quarters, accustomed as i am to bear privations of all kinds with indifference, if they would but have left me in peace. but the reader may fancy my horror when the whole population, not only of the cottage itself, but also of the neighbouring dwellings, made their appearance, and, planting themselves partly in my chamber and partly at the door, held me in a far closer state of siege than even at krisuvik. i was, it appeared, quite a novel phenomenon in the eyes of these good people, and so they came one and all and stared at me; the women and children were, in particular, most unpleasantly familiar; they felt my dress, and the little ones laid their dirty little countenances in my lap. added to this, the confined atmosphere from the number of persons present, their lamentable want of cleanliness, and their filthy habit of spitting, &c., all combined to form a most dreadful whole. during these visits i did more penance than by the longest fasts; and fasting, too, was an exercise i seldom escaped, as i could touch few icelandic dishes. the cookery of the icelandic peasants is wholly confined to the preparation of dried fish, with which they eat fermented milk that has often been kept for months; on very rare occasions they have a preparation of barley-meal, which is eaten with flat bread baked from icelandic moss ground fine. i could not but wonder at the fact that most of these people expected to find me acquainted with a number of things generally studied only by men; they seemed to have a notion that in foreign parts women should be as learned as men. so, for instance, the priests always inquired if i spoke latin, and seemed much surprised on finding that i was unacquainted with the language. the common people requested my advice as to the mode of treating divers complaints; and once, in the course of one of my solitary wanderings about reikjavik, on my entering a cottage, they brought before me a being whom i should scarcely have recognised as belonging to the same species as myself, so fearfully was he disfigured by the eruption called "lepra." not only the face, but the whole body also was covered with it; the patient was quite emaciated, and some parts of his body were covered with sores. for a surgeon this might have been an interesting sight, but i turned away in disgust. but let us turn from this picture. i would rather tell of the angel's face i saw in kalmannstunga. it was a girl, ten or twelve years of age, beautiful and lovely beyond description, so that i wished i had been a painter. how gladly would i have taken home with me to my own land, if only on canvass, the delicate face, with its roguish dimples and speaking eyes! but perhaps it is better as it is; the picture might by some unlucky chance have fallen into the hands of some too-susceptible youth, who, like don sylvio de rosalva, in wieland's _comical romance_, would immediately have proceeded to travel through half the world to find the original of this enchanting portrait. his spirit of inquiry would scarcely have carried him to iceland, as such an apparition would never be suspected to exist in such a country, and thus the unhappy youth would be doomed to endless wandering. june th. the distance from kalmannstunga to thingvalla is fifty-two miles, and the journey is certainly one of the most dreary and fatiguing of all that can be made in iceland. the traveller passes from one desert valley into another; he is always surrounded by high mountains and still higher glaciers, and wherever he turns his eyes, nature seems torpid and dead. a feeling of anxious discomfort seizes upon the wanderer, he hastens with redoubled speed through the far-stretched deserts, and eagerly ascends the mountains piled up before him, in the hope that better things lie beyond. it is in vain; he only sees the same solitudes, the same deserts, the same mountains. on the elevated plateaux several places were still covered with snow; these we were obliged to cross, though we could frequently hear the rushing of the water beneath its snowy covering. we were compelled also to pass over coatings of ice spread lightly over rivers, and presenting that blue colour which is a certain sign of danger. our poor horses were sometimes very restive; but it was of no use; they were beaten without mercy until they carried us over the dangerous places. the pack-horse was always driven on in front with many blows; it had to serve as pioneer, and try if the road was practicable. next came my guide, and i brought up the rear. our poor horses frequently sank up to their knees in the snow, and twice up to the saddle-girths. this was one of the most dangerous rides i have ever had. i could not help continually thinking what i should do if my guide were to sink in so deeply that he could not extricate himself; my strength would not have been sufficient to rescue him, and whither should i turn to seek for help? all around us was nothing but a desert and snow. perhaps my lot might have been to die of hunger. i should have wandered about seeking dwellings and human beings, and have entangled myself so completely among these wastes that i could never have found my way. when at a distance i descried a new field of snow (and unfortunately we came upon them but too frequently), i felt very uncomfortable; those alone who have themselves been in a similar situation can estimate the whole extent of my anxiety. if i had been travelling in company with others, these fears would not have disturbed me; for there reciprocal assistance can be rendered, and the consciousness of this fact seems materially to diminish the danger. during the season in which the snow ceases to form a secure covering, this road is but little travelled. we saw nowhere a trace of footsteps, either of men or animals; we were the only living beings in this dreadful region. i certainly scolded my guide roundly for bringing me by such a road. but what did i gain by this? it would have been as dangerous to turn back as to go on. a change in the weather, which till now had been rather favourable, increased the difficulties of this journey. already when we left kalmannstunga, the sky began to be overcast, and the sun enlivened us with its rays only for a few minutes at a time. on our reaching the higher mountains the weather became worse; for here we encountered clouds and fog, which wreaked their vengeance upon us, and which only careered by to make room for others. an icy storm from the neighbouring glaciers was their constant companion, and made me shiver so much that i could scarcely keep my saddle. we had now ridden above thirteen hours. the rain poured down incessantly, and we were half dead with cold and wet; so i at length determined to halt for the night at the first cottage: at last we found one between two or three miles from thingvalla. i had now a roof above my head; but beyond this i had gained nothing. the cottage consisted of a single room, and was almost completely filled by four broad bedsteads. i counted seven adults and three children, who had all to be accommodated in these four beds. in addition to this, the kvef, a kind of croup, prevailed this spring to such an extent that scarcely any one escaped it. wherever i went, i found the people afflicted with this complaint; and here this was also the case; the noise of groaning and coughing on all sides was quite deplorable. the floor, moreover, was revoltingly dirty. the good people were so kind as immediately to place one of their beds at my disposal; but i would rather have passed the night on the threshold of the door than in this disgusting hole. i chose for my lodging-place the narrow passage which separated the kitchen from the room; i found there a couple of blocks, across which a few boards had been laid, and this constituted the milk-room: it might have been more properly called the smoke-room; for in the roof were a few air-holes, through which the smoke escaped. in this smoke or milk-room--whichever it may be called--i prepared to pass the night as best i could. my cloak being wet through, i had been compelled to hang it on a stick to dry; and thus found myself under the necessity of borrowing a mattress from these unhealthy people. i laid myself down boldly, and pretended sleepiness, in order to deliver myself from the curiosity of my entertainers. they retired to their room, and so i was alone and undisturbed. but yet i could not sleep; the cold wind, blowing in upon me through the air-holes, chilled and wetted as i already was, kept me awake against my will. i had also another misfortune to endure. as often as i attempted to sit upright on my luxurious couch, my head would receive a severe concussion. i had forgotten the poles which are fixed across each of these antechambers, for the purpose of hanging up fish to dry, &c. unfortunately i could not bear this arrangement in mind until after i had received half a dozen salutations of this description. june st. at length the morning so long sighed for came; the rain had indeed ceased; but the clouds still hung about the mountains, and promised a speedy fall; i nevertheless resolved rather to submit myself to the fury of the elements than to remain longer in my present quarters, and so ordered the horses to be saddled. before my departure roast lamb and butter were offered me. i thanked my entertainers; but refrained from tasting any thing, excusing myself on the plea of not feeling hungry, which was in reality the case; for if i only looked at the dirty people who surrounded me, my appetite vanished instantly. so long as my stock of bread and cheese lasted, i kept to it, and ate nothing else. taking leave of my good hosts, we continued our journey to reikjavik, by the same road on which i had travelled on my journey hither. this had not been my original plan on starting from reikjavik; i had intended to proceed from thingvalla directly to the geyser, to hecla, &c.; but the horses were already exhausted, and the weather so dreadfully bad, without prospect of speedy amendment, that i preferred returning to reikjavik, and waiting for better times in my pleasant little room at the house of the good baker. we rode on as well as we could amidst ceaseless storms of wind and rain. the most disagreeable circumstance of all was our being obliged to spend the hours devoted to rest in the open air, under a by no means cloudless sky, as during our whole day's journey we saw not a single hut, save the solitary one in the lava desert, which serves as a resting-place for travellers during the winter. so we continued our journey until we reached a scanty meadow. here i had my choice either to walk about for two hours, or to sit down upon the wet grass. i could find nothing better to do than to turn my back upon the wind and rain, to remain standing on one spot, to have patience, and for amusement to observe the direction in which the clouds scudded by. at the same time i discussed my frugal meal, more for want of something to do than from hunger; if i felt thirsty, i had only to turn round and open my mouth. if there are natures peculiarly fitted for travelling, i am fortunate in being blessed with such an one. no rain or wind was powerful enough to give me even a cold. during this whole excursion i had tasted no warm or nourishing food; i had slept every night upon a bench or a chest; had ridden nearly miles in six days; and had besides scrambled about bravely in the cavern of surthellir; and, in spite of all this privation and fatigue, i arrived at reikjavik in good health and spirits. short summary of this journey: miles first day, from reikjavik to thingvalla second day, from thingvalla to reikholt third day, from reikholt to the different springs, and back again fourth day, from reikholt to surthellir, and back to kalmannstunga fifth day, from kalmannstunga to thingvalla sixth day, from thingvalla to reikjavik total chapter vi the weather soon cleared up, and i continued my journey to the geyser and to mount hecla on the th june. on the first day, when we rode to thingvalla, we passed no new scenery, but saw instead an extremely beautiful atmospheric phenomenon. [picture: the geysers] as we approached the lake, some thin mist-clouds lowered over it and over the earth, so that it seemed as if it would rain. one portion of the firmament glowed with the brightest blue; while the other part was obscured by thick clouds, through which the sun was just breaking. some of its rays reached the clouds of mist, and illuminated them in a wonderfully beautiful manner. the most delicate shades of colour seemed breathed, as it were, over them like a dissolving rainbow, whose glowing colours were intermingled and yet singly perceptible. this play of colours continued for half an hour, then faded gradually till it vanished entirely, and the ordinary atmosphere took its place. it was one of the most beautiful appearances i had ever witnessed. june th. the roads separate about a mile behind the little town of thingvalla; the one to the left goes to reikholt, the right-hand one leads to the geyser. we rode for some time along the shores of the lake, and found at the end of the valley an awful chasm in the rock, similar to the one of almanagiau, which we had passed on such a wretched road. the contiguous valley bore a great resemblance to that of thingvalla; but the third one was again fearful. lava covered it, and was quite overgrown with that whitish moss, which has a beautiful appearance when it only covers a portion of the lava, and when black masses rise above it, but which here presented a most monotonous aspect. we also passed two grottoes which opened at our feet. at the entrance of one stood a pillar of rock supporting an immense slab of lava, which formed an awe-inspiring portal. i had unfortunately not known of the existence of these caves, and was consequently unprepared to visit them. torches, at least, would have been requisite. but i subsequently heard that they were not at all deep, and contained nothing of interest. in the course of the day we passed through valleys such as i had seen nowhere else in iceland. beautiful meadow-lawns, perfectly level, covered the country for miles. these rich valleys were, of course, tolerably well populated; we frequently passed three or four contiguous cottages, and saw horses, cows, and sheep grazing on these fields in considerable numbers. the mountains which bounded these valleys on the left seemed to me very remarkable; they were partly brown, black, or dark blue, like the others; but the bulk of which they were composed i considered to be fine loam-soil layers, if i may trust my imperfect mineralogical knowledge. some of these mountains were topped by large isolated lava rocks, real giants; and it seemed inexplicable to me how they could stand on the soft soil beneath. in one of these valleys we passed a considerable lake, on and around which rose circling clouds of steam proceeding from hot springs, but of no great size. but after we had already travelled about twenty-five miles, we came to the most remarkable object i had ever met with; this was a river with a most peculiar bed. this river-bed is broad and somewhat steep; it consists of lava strata, and is divided lengthwise in the middle by a cleft eighteen to twenty feet deep, and fifteen to eighteen feet broad, towards which the bubbling and surging waters rush, so that the sound is heard at some distance. a little wooden bridge, which stands in the middle of the stream, and over which the high waves constantly play, leads over the chasm. any one not aware of the fact can hardly explain this appearance to himself, nor understand the noise and surging of the stream. the little bridge in the centre would be taken for the ruins of a fallen bridge, and the chasm is not seen from the shore, because the foaming waves overtop it. an indescribable fear would seize upon the traveller when he beheld the venturous guide ride into the stream, and was obliged to follow without pity or mercy. the priest of thingvalla had prepared me for the scene, and had advised me to _walk_ over the bridge; but as the water at this season stood so high that the waves from both sides dashed two feet above the bridge, i could not descend from my horse, and was obliged to ride across. the whole passage through the stream is so peculiar, that it must be seen, and can scarcely be described. the water gushes and plays on all sides with fearful force; it rushes into the chasm with impetuous violence, forms waterfalls on both sides, and breaks itself on the projecting rocks. not far from the bridge the cleft terminates; and the whole breadth of the waters falls over rocks thirty to forty feet high. the nearer we approached the centre, the deeper, more violent, and impetuous grew the stream, and the more deafening was the noise. the horses became restless and shy; and when we came to the bridge, they began to tremble, they reared, they turned to all sides but the right one, and refused to obey the bridle. with infinite trouble we at last succeeded in bringing them across this dangerous place. the valley which is traversed by this peculiar river is narrow, and quite enclosed by lava mountains and hills; the inanimate, silent nature around is perfectly adapted to imprint this scene for ever on the traveller's memory. this remarkable stream had been the last difficulty; and now we proceeded quietly and safely through the beautiful valleys till we approached the geyser, which a projecting hillock enviously concealed from my anxiously curious gaze. at last this hillock was passed; and i saw the geyser with its surrounding scenery, with its immense steam pillars, and the clouds and cloudlets rising from it. the hill was about two miles distant from the geyser and the other hot springs. there they were, boiling and bubbling all around, and through the midst lay the road to the basin. eighty paces from it we halted. and now i stood before the chief object of my journey; i saw it, it was so near me, and yet i did not venture to approach it. but a peasant who had followed us from one of the neighbouring cottages, and had probably guessed my anxiety and my fear, took me by the hand and constituted himself my cicerone. he had unfortunately, it being sunday, paid too great a devotion to the brandy-bottle, so that he staggered rather than walked, and i hesitated to trust myself to the guidance of this man, not knowing whether he had reason enough left to distinguish how far we might with safety venture. my guide, who had accompanied me from reikjavik, assured me indeed that i might trust him in spite of his intoxication, and that he would himself go with us to translate the peasant's icelandic jargon into danish; but nevertheless i followed with great trepidation. he led me to the margin of the basin of the great geyser, which lies on the top of a gentle elevation of about ten feet, and contains the outer and the inner basins. the diameter of the outer basin may be about thirty feet; that of the inner one six to seven feet. both were filled to the brim, the water was pure as crystal, but boiled and bubbled only slightly. we soon left this spot; for when the basins are quite filled with water it is very dangerous to approach them, as they may empty themselves any moment by an eruption. we therefore went to inspect the other springs. my unsteady guide pointed those out which we might unhesitatingly approach, and warned me from the others. then we returned to the great geyser, where he gave me some precautionary rules, in case of an intervening eruption, and then left me to prepare some accommodation for my stay. i will briefly enumerate the rules he gave me. "the pillar of water always rises perpendicularly, and the overflowing water has its chief outlets on one and the same side. the water does indeed escape on the other side, but only in inconsiderable quantities, and in shapeless little ducts, which one may easily evade. on this side one may therefore approach within forty paces even during the most violent eruptions. the eruption announces itself by a dull roaring; and as soon as this is heard, the traveller must hastily retire to the above-named distance, as the eruption always follows very quickly after the noise. the water, however, does not rise high every time, often only very inconsiderably, so that, to see a very fine explosion, it is often necessary to stay some days here." the french scholar, m. p. geimard, has provided for the accommodation of travellers with a truly noble disinterestedness. he traversed the whole of iceland some years ago and left two large tents behind him; one here, and the other in thingvalla. the one here is particularly appropriate, as travellers are frequently obliged, as stated above, to wait several days for a fine eruption. every traveller certainly owes m. geimard the warmest thanks for this convenience. a peasant, the same who guides travellers to the springs, has the charge of it, and is bound to pitch it for any one for a fee of one or two florins. when my tent was ready it was nearly eleven o'clock. my companions retired, and i remained alone. it is usual to watch through the night in order not to miss an eruption. now, although an alternate watching is no very arduous matter for several travellers, it became a very hard task for me alone, and an icelandic peasant cannot be trusted; an eruption of mount hecla would scarcely arouse him. i sat sometimes before and sometimes in my tent, and listened with anxious expectation for the coming events; at last, after midnight--the witching hour--i heard some hollow sounds, as if a cannon were being fired at a great distance, and its echoing sounds were borne by the breeze. i rushed from my tent and expected subterranean noises, violent cracking and trembling of the earth, according to the descriptions i had read. i could scarcely repress a slight sensation of fear. to be alone at midnight in such a scene is certainly no joke. many of my friends may remember my telling them, before my departure, that i expected i should need the most courage on my icelandic journey during the nights at the geyser. these hollow sounds were repeated, at very short intervals, thirteen times; and each time the basin overflowed and ejected a considerable quantity of water. the sounds did not seem to proceed from subterranean ragings, but from the violent agitation of the waters. in a minute and a half all was over; the water no longer overflowed, the caldron and basin remained filled, and i returned to my tent disappointed in every way. this phenomenon was repeated every two hours and a half, or, at the latest, every three hours and a half. i saw and heard nothing else all night, the next day, or the second night. i waited in vain for an eruption. when i had accustomed myself to these temporary effusions of my neighbour, i either indulged in a gentle slumber in the intermediate time, or i visited the other springs and explored. i wished to discover the boiling vapour and the coloured springs which many travellers assert they have seen here. all the hot-springs are united with a circumference of to paces: several of them are very remarkable, but the majority insignificant. they are situated in the angle of an immense valley at the foot of a hill, behind which extends a chain of mountains. the valley is entirely covered with grass, and the vegetation only decreases a little in the immediate vicinity of the springs. cottages are built every where in the neighbourhood; the nearest to the springs are only about to paces distant. i counted twelve large basins with boiling and gushing springs; of smaller ones there were many more. among the gushing springs the strokker is the most remarkable. it boils and bubbles with most extraordinary violence at a depth of about twenty feet, shoots up suddenly, and projects its waters into the air. its eruptions sometimes last half an hour, and the column occasionally ascends to a height of forty feet. i witnessed several of its eruptions; but unfortunately not one of the largest. the highest i saw could not have been above thirty feet, and did not last more than a quarter of an hour. the strokker is the only spring, except the geyser, which has to be approached with great caution. the eruptions sometimes succeed each other quickly, and sometimes cease for a few hours, and are not preceded by any sign. another spring spouts constantly, but never higher than three to four feet. a third one lies about four or five feet deep, in a rather broad basin, and produces only a few little bubbles. but this calmness is deceptive: it seldom lasts more than half a minute, rarely two or three minutes; then the spring begins to bubble, to boil, and to wave and spout to a height of two or three feet; without, however, reaching the level of the basin. in some springs i heard boiling and foaming like a gentle bellowing; but saw no water, sometimes not even steam, rising. two of the most remarkable springs which can perhaps be found in the world are situated immediately above the geyser, in two openings, which are separated by a wall of rock scarcely a foot wide. this partition does not rise above the surface of the soil, but descends into the earth; the water boils slowly, and has an equable, moderate discharge. the beauty of these springs consists in their remarkable transparency. all the varied forms and caves, the projecting peaks, and edges of rock, are visible far down, until the eye is lost in the depths of darkness. but the greatest beauty of the spring is the splendid colouring proceeding from the rock; it is of the tenderest, most transparent, pale blue and green, and resembles the reflection of a bengal flame. but what is most strange is, that this play of colour proceeds from the rock, and only extends eight to ten inches from it, while the other water is colourless as common water, only more transparent, and purer. i could not believe it at first, and thought it must be occasioned by the sun; i therefore visited the springs at different times, sometimes when the sun shone brightly, sometimes when it was obscured by clouds, once even after its setting; but the colouring always remained the same. one may fearlessly approach the brink of these springs. the platform which projects directly from them, and under which one can see in all directions, is indeed only a thin ledge of rock, but strong enough to prevent any accident. the beauty consists, as i have said, in the magical illumination, and in the transparency, by which all the caves and grottoes to the greatest depths become visible to the eye. involuntarily i thought of schiller's _diver_. { } i seemed to see the goblet hang on the peaks and jags of the rock; i could fancy i saw the monsters rise from the bottom. it must be a peculiar pleasure to read this splendid poem in such an appropriate spot. i found scarcely any basins of brodem or coloured waters. the only one of the kind which i saw was a small basin, in which a brownish-red substance, rather denser than water, was boiling. another smaller spring, with dirty brown water, i should have quite overlooked, if i had not so industriously searched for these curiosities. at last, after long waiting, on the second day of my stay, on the th june, at half-past eight in the morning, i was destined to see an eruption of the geyser in its greatest perfection. the peasant, who came daily in the morning and in the evening to inquire whether i had already seen an eruption, was with me when the hollow sounds which precede it were again heard. we hastened out, and i again despaired of seeing any thing; the water only overflowed as usual, and the sound was already ceasing. but all at once, when the last sounds had scarcely died away, the explosion began. words fail me when i try to describe it: such a magnificent and overpowering sight can only be seen once in a lifetime. all my expectations and suppositions were far surpassed. the water spouted upwards with indescribable force and bulk; one pillar rose higher than the other; each seemed to emulate the other. when i had in some measure recovered from the surprise, and regained composure, i looked at the tent. how little, how dwarfish it seemed as compared to the height of these pillars of water! and yet it was about twenty feet high. it did, indeed, lie ten feet lower than the basin of the geyser; but if tent had been raised above tent, these ten feet could only be deducted once, and i calculated, though my calculation may not be correct, that one would need to pile up five or six tents to have the height of one of the pillars. without exaggeration, i think the largest spout rose above one hundred feet high, and was three to four feet in diameter. fortunately i had looked at my watch at the beginning of the hollow sounds, the forerunners of the eruption, for during its continuance i should probably have forgotten to do so. the whole lasted four minutes, of which the greater half must have been taken up by the eruption itself. when this wonderful scene was over, the peasant accompanied me to the basin. we could now approach it and the boiler without danger, and examine both at leisure. there was now nothing to fear; the water had entirely disappeared from the outer basin. we entered it and approached the inner basin, in which the water had sunk seven or eight feet, where it boiled and bubbled fiercely. with a hammer i broke some crust out of the outer as well as out of the inner basin; the former was white, the latter brown. i also tasted the water; it had not an unpleasant taste, and can only contain an inconsiderable proportion of sulphur, as the steam does not even smell of it. i went to the basin of the geyser every half hour to observe how much time was required to fill it again. after an hour i could still descend into the outer basin; but half an hour later the inner basin was already full, and commenced to overflow. as long as the water only filled the inner basin it boiled violently; but the higher it rose in the outer one, the less it boiled, and nearly ceased when the basin was filled: it only threw little bubbles here and there. after a lapse of two hours--it was just noon--the basin was filled nearly to the brim; and while i stood beside it the water began again to bubble violently, and to emit the hollow sounds. i had scarcely time to retreat, for the pillars of water rose immediately. this time they spouted during the noise, and were more bulky than those of the first explosion, which might proceed from their not rising so high, and therefore remaining more compact. their height may have been from forty to fifty feet. the basins this time remained nearly as full after the eruption as before. i had now seen two eruptions of the geyser, and felt amply compensated for my persevering patience and watchfulness. but i was destined to be more fortunate, and to experience its explosions in all their variety. the spring spouted again at seven o'clock in the evening, ascended higher than at noon, and brought up some stones, which looked like black spots and points in the white frothy water-column. and during the third night it presented itself under another phase: the water rose in dreadful, quickly-succeeding waves, without throwing rays; the basin overflowed violently, and generated such a mass of steam as is rarely seen. the wind accidentally blew it to the spot where i stood, and it enveloped me so closely that i could scarcely see a few feet off. but i perceived neither smell nor oppression, merely a slight degree of warmth. june th. as i had now seen the geyser play so often and so beautifully, i ordered my horses for nine o'clock this morning, to continue my journey. i made the more haste to leave, as a dutch prince was expected, who had lately arrived at reikjavik, with a large retinue, in a splendid man-of-war. i had the luck to see another eruption before my departure at half-past eight o'clock; and this one was nearly as beautiful as the first. this time also the outer basin was entirely emptied, and the inner one to a depth of six or seven feet. i could therefore again descend into the basin, and bid farewell to the geyser at the very brink of the crater, which, of course, i did. i had now been three nights and two days in the immediate vicinity of the geyser, and had witnessed five eruptions, of which two were of the most considerable that had ever been known. but i can assure my readers that i did not find every thing as i had anticipated it according to the descriptions and accounts i had read. i never heard a greater noise than i have mentioned, and never felt any trembling of the earth, although i paid the greatest attention to every little circumstance, and held my head to the ground during an eruption. it is singular how many people repeat every thing they hear from others--how some, with an over-excited imagination, seem to see, hear, and feel things which do not exist; and how others, again, tell the most unblushing falsehoods. i met an example of this in reikjavik, in the house of the apothecary moller, in the person of an officer of a french frigate, who asserted that he had "ridden to the very edge of the crater of mount vesuvius." he probably did not anticipate meeting any one in reikjavik who had also been to the crater of vesuvius. nothing irritates me so much as such falsehoods and boastings; and i could not therefore resist asking him how he had managed that feat. i told him that i had been there, and feared danger as little as he could do; but that i had been compelled to descend from my donkey near the top of the mountain, and let my feet carry me the remainder of the journey. he seemed rather embarrassed, and pretended he had meant to say _nearly_ to the crater; but i feel convinced he will tell this story so often that he will at last believe it himself. i hope i do not weary my readers by dwelling so long on the subject of the geyser. i will now vary the subject by relating a few circumstances that came under my notice, which, though trifling in themselves, were yet very significant. the most unimportant facts of an almost unknown country are often interesting, and are often most conclusive evidences of the general character of the nation. i have already spoken of my intoxicated guide. it is yet inexplicable to me how he could have conducted me so safely in such a semi-conscious state; and had he not been the only one, i should certainly not have trusted myself to his guidance. of the want of cleanliness of the icelanders, no one who has not witnessed it can have any idea; and if i attempted to describe some of their nauseous habits, i might fill volumes. they seem to have no feeling of propriety, and i must, in this respect, rank them as far inferior to the bedouins and arabs--even to the greenlanders. i can, therefore, not conceive how this nation could once have been distinguished for wealth, bravery, and civilisation. on this day i proceeded on my journey about twenty-eight miles farther to skalholt. for the first five miles we retraced our former road; then we turned to the left and traversed the beautiful long valley in which the geyser is situated. for many miles we could see its clouds of steam rising to the sky. the roads were tolerable only when they passed along the sides of hills and mountains; in the plains they were generally marshy and full of water. we sometimes lost all traces of a road, and only pushed on towards the quarter in which the place of our destination was situated; and feared withal to sink at every pace into the soft and unresisting soil. i found the indolence of the icelandic peasants quite unpardonable. all the valleys through which we passed were large morasses richly overgrown with grass. if the single parishes would unite to dig trenches and drain the soil, they would have the finest meadows. this is proved near the many precipices where the water has an outlet; in these spots the grass grows most luxuriantly, and daisies and herbs flourish there, and even wild clover. a few cottages are generally congregated on these oases. before arriving at the village of thorfastadir, we already perceived hecla surrounded by the beautiful jokuls. i arrived at thorfastadir while a funeral was going on. as i entered the church the mourners were busily seeking courage and consolation in the brandy-bottle. the law commands, indeed, that this be not done in the church; but if every one obeyed the law, what need would there be of judges? the icelanders must think so, else they would discontinue the unseemly practice. when the priest came, a psalm or a prayer--i could not tell which it was, being icelandic--was so earnestly shouted by peasants under the leadership of the priest and elders, that the good people waxed quite warm and out of breath. then the priest placed himself before the coffin, which, for want of room, had been laid on the backs of the seats, and with a very loud voice read a prayer which lasted more than half an hour. with this the ceremony within the church was concluded, and the coffin was carried round the church to the grave, followed by the priest and the rest of the company. this grave was deeper than any i had ever seen. when the coffin had been lowered, the priest threw three handfuls of earth upon it, but none of the mourners followed his example. among the earth which had been dug out of the grave i noticed four skulls, several human bones, and a board of a former coffin. these were all thrown in again upon the coffin, and the grave filled in presence of the priest and the people. one man trod the soil firm, then a little mound was made and covered with grass-plots which were lying ready. the whole business was completed with miraculous speed. the little town of skalholt, my station this night, was once as celebrated in religious matters as thingvalla had been politically famous. here, soon after the introduction of christianity, the first bishopric was founded in , and the church is said to have been one of the largest and richest. now skalholt is a miserable place, and consists of three or four cottages, and a wretched wooden church, which may perhaps contain a hundred persons; it has not even its own priest, but belongs to thorfastadir. my first business on arriving was to inspect the yet remaining relics of past ages. first i was shewn an oil-picture which hangs in the church, and is said to represent the first bishop of skalholt, thorlakur, who was worshipped almost as a saint for his strict and pious life. after this, preparations were made to clear away the steps of the altar and several boards of the flooring. i stood expectantly looking on, thinking that i should now have to descend into a vault to inspect the embalmed body of the bishop. i must confess this prospect was not the most agreeable, when i thought of the approaching night which i should have to spend in this church, perhaps immediately over the grave of the old skeleton. i had besides already had too much to do with the dead for one day, and could not rid myself of the unpleasant grave-odour which i had imbibed in thorfastadir, and which seemed to cling to my dress and my nose. { } i was therefore not a little pleased when, instead of the dreaded vault and mummy, i was only shewn a marble slab, on which were inscribed the usual notifications of the birth, death, &c. of this great bishop. besides this, i saw an old embroidered stole and a simple golden chalice, both of which are said to be relics of the age of thorlakar. then we ascended into the so-called store-room, which is only separated from the lower portion of the church by a few boards, and which extends to the altar. here are kept the bells and the organ, if the church possesses one, the provisions, and a variety of tools. they opened an immense chest for me there, which seemed to contain only large pieces of tallow made in the form of cheeses; but under this tallow i found the library, where i discovered an interesting treasure. this was, besides several very old books in the icelandic tongue, three thick folio volumes, which i could read very easily; they were german, and contained luther's doctrines, letters, epistles, &c. i had now seen all there was to be seen, and began to satisfy my physical wants by calling for some hot water to make coffee, &c. as usual, all the inhabitants of the place ranged themselves in and before the church, probably to increase their knowledge of the human race by studying my peculiarities. i soon, however, closed the door, and prepared a splendid couch for myself. at my first entrance into the church, i had noticed a long box, quite filled with sheep's wool. i threw my rugs over this, and slept as comfortably as in the softest bed. in the morning i carefully teased the wool up again, and no one could then have imagined where i had passed the night. nothing amused me more, when i had lodgings of this description, than the curiosity of the people, who would rush in every morning, as soon as i opened the door. the first thing they said to each other was always, "krar hefur hun sovid" (where can she have slept?). the good people could not conceive how it was possible to spend a night _alone_ in a church surrounded by a churchyard; they perhaps considered me an evil spirit or a witch, and would too gladly have ascertained how such a creature slept. when i saw their disappointed faces, i had to turn away not to laugh at them. june th. early the next morning i continued my journey. not far from skalholt we came to the river thiorsa, which is deep and rapid. we crossed in a boat; but the horses had to swim after us. it is often very troublesome to make the horses enter these streams; they see at once that they will have to swim. the guide and boatmen cannot leave the shore till the horses have been forced into the stream; and even then they have to throw stones, to threaten them with the whip, and to frighten them by shouts and cries, to prevent them from returning. when we had made nearly twelve miles on marshy roads, we came to the beautiful waterfall of the huitha. this fall is not so remarkable for its height, which is scarcely more than fifteen to twenty feet, as for its breadth, and for its quantity of water. some beautiful rocks are so placed at the ledge of the fall, that they divide it into three parts; but it unites again immediately beneath them. the bed of the river, as well as its shores, is of lava. the colour of the water is also a remarkable feature in this river; it inclines so much to milky white, that, when the sun shines on it, it requires no very strong imaginative power to take the whole for milk. nearly a mile above the fall we had to cross the huitha, one of the largest rivers in iceland. thence the road lies through meadows, which are less marshy than the former ones, till it comes to a broad stream of lava, which announces the vicinity of the fearful volcano of hecla. i had hitherto not passed over such an expanse of country in iceland as that from the geyser to this place without coming upon streams of lava. and this lava-stream seemed to have felt some pity for the beautiful meadows, for it frequently separated into two branches, and thus enclosed the verdant plain. but it could not withstand the violence of the succeeding masses; it had been carried on, and had spread death and destruction everywhere. the road to it, through plains covered with dark sand, and over steep hills intervening, was very fatiguing and laborious. we proceeded to the little village of struvellir, where we stopped to give our horses a few hours' rest. here we found a large assembly of men and animals. { } it happened to be sunday, and a warm sunny day, and so a very full service was held in the pretty little church. when it was over, i witnessed an amusing rural scene. the people poured out of the church,--i counted ninety-six, which is an extraordinarily numerous assemblage for iceland,--formed into little groups, chatting and joking, not forgetting, however, to moisten their throats with brandy, of which they had taken care to bring an ample supply. then they bridled their horses and prepared for departure; now the kisses poured in from all sides, and there was no end of leave-taking, for the poor people do not know whether they shall ever meet again, and when. in all iceland welcome and farewell is expressed by a loud kiss,--a practice not very delightful for a non-icelander, when one considers their ugly, dirty faces, the snuffy noses of the old people, and the filthy little children. but the icelanders do not mind this. they all kissed the priest, and the priest kissed them; and then they kissed each other, till the kissing seemed to have no end. rank is not considered in this ceremony; and i was not a little surprised to see how my guide, a common farm-labourer, kissed the six daughters of a judge, or the wife and children of a priest, or a judge and the priest themselves, and how they returned the compliment without reserve. every country has its peculiar customs! the religious ceremonies generally begin about noon, and last two or three hours. there being no public inn in which to assemble, and no stable in which the horses can be fastened, all flock to the open space in front of the church, which thus becomes a very animated spot. all have to remain in the open air. when the service was over, i visited the priest, herr horfuson; he was kind enough to conduct me to the salsun, nine miles distant, principally to engage a guide to hecla for me. i was doubly rejoiced to have this good man at my side, as we had to cross a dangerous stream, which was very rapid, and so deep that the water rose to the horses' breasts. although we raised our feet as high as possible, we were yet thoroughly wet. this wading across rivers is one of the most unpleasant modes of travelling. the horse swims more than it walks, and this creates a most disagreeable sensation; one does not know whither to direct one's eyes; to look into the stream would excite giddiness, and the sight of the shore is not much better, for that seems to move and to recede, because the horse, by the current, is forced a little way down the river. to my great comfort the priest rode by my side to hold me, in case i should not be able to keep my seat. i passed fortunately through this probation; and when we reached the other shore, herr horfuson pointed out to me how far the current had carried us down the river. the valley in which salsun and the hecla are situated is one of those which are found only in iceland. it contains the greatest contrasts. here are charming fields covered with a rich green carpet of softest grass, and there again hills of black, shining lava; even the fertile plains are traversed by streams of lava and spots of sand. mount hecla notoriously has the blackest lava and the blackest sand; and it may be imagined how the country looks in its immediate neighbourhood. one hill only to the left of hecla is reddish brown, and covered with sand and stones of a similar colour. the centre is much depressed, and seems to form a large crater. mount hecla is directly united with the lava-mountains piled round it, and seems from the plain only as a higher point. it is surrounded by several glaciers, whose dazzling fields of snow descend far down, and whose brilliant plains have probably never been trod by human feet; several of its sides were also covered with snow. to the left of the valley near salsun, and at the foot of a lava-hill, lies a lovely lake, on whose shores a numerous flock of sheep were grazing. near it rises another beautiful hill, so solitary and isolated, that it looks as if it had been cast out by its neighbours and banished hither. indeed, the whole landscape here is so peculiarly icelandic, so strange and remarkable, that it will ever remain impressed on my memory. salsun lies at the foot of mount hecla, but is not seen before one reaches it. arrived at salsun, our first care was to seek a guide, and to bargain for every thing requisite for the ascension of the mountain. the guide was to procure a horse for me, and to take me and my former guide to the summit of hecla. he demanded five thaler and two marks (about fifteen shillings), a most exorbitant sum, on which he could live for a month. but what could we do? he knew very well that there was no other guide to be had, and so i was forced to acquiesce. when all was arranged, my kind companion left me, wishing me success on my arduous expedition. i now looked out for a place in which i could spend the night, and a filthy hole fell to my lot. a bench, rather shorter that my body, was put into it, to serve as my bed; beside it hung a decayed fish, which had infected the whole room with its smell. i could scarcely breathe; and as there was no other outlet, i was obliged to open the door, and thus receive the visits of the numerous and amiable inhabitants. what a strengthening and invigorating preparation for the morrow's expedition! at the foot of mount hecla, and especially in this village, every thing seems to be undermined. nowhere, not even on mount vesuvius, had i heard such hollow, droning sounds as here,--the echoes of the heavy footsteps of the peasants. these sounds made a very awful impression on me as i lay all night alone in that dark hole. my hecla guide, as i shall call him to distinguish him from my other guide, advised me to start at two o'clock in the morning, to which i assented, well knowing, however, that we should not have mounted our horses before five o'clock. as i had anticipated, so it happened. at half-past five we were quite prepared and ready for departure. besides bread and cheese, a bottle of water for myself, and one of brandy for my guides, we were also provided with long sticks, tipped with iron points to sound the depth of the snow, and to lean upon. we were favoured by a fine warm sunny morning, and galloped briskly over the fields and the adjoining plains of sand. my guide considered the fine weather a very lucky omen, and told me that m. geimard, the before-mentioned french scholar, had been compelled to wait three days for fine weather. nine years had elapsed, and no one had ascended the mountain since then. a prince of denmark, who travelled through iceland some years before, had been there, but had returned without effecting his purpose. our road at first led us through beautiful fields, and then over plains of black sand enclosed on all sides by streams, hillocks, and mountains of piled-up lava. closer and closer these fearful masses approach, and scarcely permit a passage through a narrow cleft; we had to climb over blocks and hills of lava, where it is difficult to find a firm resting-place for the foot. the lava rolled beside and behind us, and we had to proceed carefully not to fall or be hit by the rolling lava. but most dangerous were the chasms filled with snow over which we had to pass; the snow had been softened by the warmth of the season, so that we sank into it nearly every step, or, what was worse, slipped back more than we had advanced. i scarcely think there can be another mountain whose ascent offers so many difficulties. after a labour of about three hours and a half we neared the summit of the mountain, where we were obliged to leave our horses. i should, indeed, have preferred to do so long before, as i was apprehensive of the poor animals falling as they climbed over these precipices--one might almost call them rolling mountains--but my guide would not permit it. sometimes we came to spots where they were useful, and then he maintained that i must ride as far as possible to reserve my strength for the remaining difficulties. and he was right; i scarcely believe i should have been able to go through it on foot, for when i thought we were near the top, hills of lava again rose between us, and we seemed farther from our journey's end than before. my guide told me that he had never taken any one so far on horseback, and i can believe it. walking was bad enough--riding was fearful. at every fresh declivity new scenes of deserted, melancholy districts were revealed to us; every thing was cold and dead, every where there was black burnt lava. it was a painful feeling to see so much, and behold nothing but a stony desert, an immeasurable chaos. there were still two declivities before us,--the last, but the worst. we had to climb steep masses of lava, sharp and pointed, which covered the whole side of the mountain. i do not know how often i fell and cut my hands on the jagged points of the lava. it was a fearful journey! the dazzling whiteness of the snow contrasted with the bright black lava beside it had an almost blinding effect. when crossing fields of snow i did not look at the lava; for having tried to do so once or twice, i could not see my way afterwards, and had nearly grown snow-blind. [picture: hecla] after two hours' more labour we reached the summit of the mountain. i stood now on mount hecla, and eagerly sought the crater on the snowless top, but did not find it. i was the more surprised, as i had read detailed accounts of it in several descriptions of travel. i traversed the whole summit of the mountain and climbed to the adjoining jokul, but did not perceive an opening, a fissure, a depressed space, nor any sign of a crater. lower down in the sides of the mountain, but not in the real cone, i saw some clefts and fissures from which the streams of lava probably poured. the height of the mountain is said to be feet. during the last hour of our ascent the sun had grown dim. clouds of mist blown from the neighbouring glaciers enshrouded the hill-tops, and soon enveloped us so closely that we could scarcely see ten paces before us. at last they dissolved, fortunately not in rain but in snow, which profusely covered the black uneven lava. the snow remained on the ground, and the thermometer stood at one degree of cold. in a little while the clear blue sky once more was visible, and the sun again shone over us. i remained on the top till the clouds had separated beneath us, and afforded me a better distant view over the country. my pen is unfortunately too feeble to bring vividly before my readers the picture such as i beheld it here, and to describe to them the desolation, the extent and height of these lava-masses. i seemed to stand in a crater, and the whole country appeared only a burnt-out fire. here lava was piled up in steep inaccessible mountains; there stony rivers, whose length and breadth seemed immeasurable, filled the once-verdant fields. every thing was jumbled together, and yet the course of the last eruption could be distinctly traced. i stood there, in the centre of horrible precipices, caves, streams, valleys, and mountains, and scarcely comprehended how it was possible to penetrate so far, and was overcome with terror at the thought which involuntarily obtruded itself--the possibility of never finding my way again out of these terrible labyrinths. here, from the top of mount hecla, i could see far into the uninhabited country, the picture of a petrified creation, dead and motionless, and yet magnificent,--a picture which once seen can never again fade from the memory, and which alone amply compensates for all the previous troubles and dangers. a whole world of glaciers, lava-mountains, snow and ice-fields, rivers and lakes, into which no human foot has ever ventured to penetrate. how nature must have laboured and raged till these forms were created! and is it over now? has the destroying element exhausted itself; or does it only rest, like the hundred-headed hydra, to break forth with renewed strength, and desolate those regions which, pushed to the verge of the sea-shore, encircle the sterile interior as a modest wreath? i thank god that he has permitted me to behold this chaos in his creation; but i thank him more heartily that he has placed me to dwell in regions where the sun does more than merely give light; where it inspires and fertilises animals and plants, and fills the human heart with joy and thankfulness towards its creator. { } the westmann isles, which are said to be visible from the top of hecla, i could not see; they were probably covered by clouds. during the ascent of the hecla i had frequently touched lava,--sometimes involuntarily, when i fell; sometimes voluntarily, to find a hot or at least a warm place. i was unfortunate enough only to find cold ones. the falling snow was therefore most welcome, and i looked anxiously around to see a place where the subterranean heat would melt it. i should then have hastened thither and found what i sought. but unfortunately the snow remained unmelted every where. i could neither see any clouds of smoke, although i gazed steadily at the mountain for hours, and could from my post survey it far down the sides. as we descended we found the snow melting at a depth of to feet; lower down, the whole mountain smoked, which i thought was the consequence of the returning warmth of the sun, for my thermometer now stood at nine degrees of heat. i have noticed the same circumstance often on unvolcanic mountains. the spots from which the smoke rose were also cold. the smooth jet-black, bright, and dense lava is only found on the mountain itself and in its immediate vicinity. but all lava is not the same: there is jagged, glassy, and porous lava; the former is black, and so is the sand which covers one side of hecla. the farther the lava and sand are from the mountain, the more they lose this blackness, and their colour plays into iron-colour and even into light-grey; but the lighter-coloured lava generally retains the brightness and smoothness of the black lava. after a troublesome descent, having spent twelve hours on this excursion, we arrived safely at salsun; and i was on the point of returning to my lodging, somewhat annoyed at the prospect of spending another night in such a hole, when my guide surprised me agreeably by the proposition to return to struvellir at once. the horses, he said, were sufficiently rested, and i could get a good room there in the priest's house. i soon packed, and in a short time we were again on horseback. the second time i came to the deep rangaa, i rode across fearlessly, and needed no protection at any side. such is man: danger only alarms him the first time; when he has safely surmounted it once, he scarcely thinks of it the second time, and wonders how he can have felt any fear. i saw five little trees standing in a field near the stream. the stems of these, which, considering the scarcity of trees in iceland, may be called remarkable phenomena, were crooked and knotty, but yet six or seven feet high, and about four or five inches in diameter. as my guide had foretold, i found a very comfortable room and a good bed in the priest's house. herr horfuson is one of the best men i have ever met with. he eagerly sought opportunities for giving me pleasure, and to him i owe several fine minerals and an icelandic book of the year . may god reward his kindness and benevolence! july st. we retraced our steps as far as the river huitha, over which we rowed, and then turned in another direction. our journey led us through beautiful valleys, many of them producing abundance of grass; but unfortunately so much moss grew among it, that these large plains were not available for pastures, and only afforded comfort to travellers by their aspect of cheerfulness. they were quite dry. the valley in which hjalmholm, our resting-place for this night, was situated, is traversed by a stream of lava, which had, however, been modest enough not to fill up the whole valley, but to leave a space for the pretty stream elvas, and for some fields and hillocks, on which many cottages stood. it was one of the most populous valleys i had seen in iceland. hjalmholm is situated on a hill. in it lives the sysselmann of the rangaar district, in a large and beautiful house such as i saw no where in iceland except in reikjavik. he had gone to the capital of the island as member of the allthing; but his daughters received me very hospitably and kindly. we talked and chatted much; i tried to display my knowledge of the danish language before them, and must often have made use of curious phrases, for the girls could not contain their laughter. but that did not abash me; i laughed with them, applied to my dictionary, which i carried with me, and chatted on. they seemed to gather no very high idea of the beauty of my countrywomen from my personal appearance; for which i humbly crave the forgiveness of my countrywomen, assuring them that no one regrets the fact more than i do. but dame nature always treats people of my years very harshly, and sets a bad example to youth of the respect due to age. instead of honouring us and giving us the preference, she patronises the young folks, and every maiden of sixteen can turn up her nose at us venerable matrons. besides my natural disqualifications, the sharp air and the violent storms to which i had been subjected had disfigured my face very much. they had affected me more than the burning heat of the east. i was very brown, my lips were cracked, and my nose, alas, even began to rebel against its ugly colour. it seemed anxious to possess a new, dazzling white, tender skin, and was casting off the old one in little bits. the only circumstance which reinstated me in the good opinion of the young girls was, that having brushed my hair unusually far out of my face, a white space became visible. the girls all cried out simultaneously, quite surprised and delighted: "hun er quit" (she is white). i could not refrain from laughing, and bared my arm to prove to them that i did not belong to the arab race. a great surprise was destined me in this house; for, as i was ransacking the sysselmann's book-case, i found rotteck's universal history, a german lexicon, and several poems and writings of german poets. july d. the way from kalmannstunga to thingvalla leads over nothing but lava, and the one to-day went entirely through marshes. as soon as we had crossed one, another was before us. lava seemed to form the soil here, for little portions of this mineral rose like islands out of the marshes. the country already grew more open, and we gradually lost sight of the glaciers. the high mountains on the left seemed like hills in the distance, and the nearer ones were really hills. after riding about nine miles we crossed the large stream of elvas in a boat, and then had to tread carefully across a very long, narrow bank, over a meadow which was quite under water. if a traveller had met us on this bank, i do not know what we should have done; to turn round would have been as dangerous as to sink into the morass. fortunately one never meets any travellers in iceland. beyond the dyke the road runs for some miles along the mountains and hills, which all consist of lava, and are of a very dark, nearly black colour. the stones on these hills were very loose; in the plain below many colossal pieces were lying, which must have fallen down; and many others threatened to fall every moment. we passed the dangerous spot safely, without having had to witness such a scene. i often heard a hollow sound among these hills; i at first took it for distant thunder, and examined the horizon to discover the approaching storm. but when i saw neither clouds nor lightning, i perceived that i must seek the origin of the sounds nearer, and that they proceeded from the falling portions of rock. the higher mountains to the left fade gradually more and more from view; but the river elvas spreads in such a manner, and divides into so many branches, that one might mistake it for a lake with many islands. it flows into the neighbouring sea, whose expanse becomes visible after surmounting a few more small hills. the vale of reikum, which we now entered, is, like that of reikholt, rich in hot springs, which are congregated partly in the plain, partly on or behind the hills, in a circumference of between two and three miles. when we had reached the village of reikum i sent my effects at once to the little church, took a guide, and proceeded to the boiling springs. i found very many, but only two remarkable ones; these, however, belong to the most noteworthy of their kind. the one is called the little geyser, the other the bogensprung. the little geyser has an inner basin of about three feet diameter. the water boils violently at a depth of from two to three feet, and remains within its bounds till it begins to spout, when it projects a beautiful voluminous steam of from to feet high. at half-past eight in the evening i had the good fortune to see one of these eruptions, and needed not, as i had done at the great geyser, to bivouac near it for days and nights. the eruption lasted some time, and was tolerably equable; only sometimes the column of water sank a little, to rise to its former height with renewed force. after forty minutes it fell quite down into the basin again. the stones we threw in, it rejected at once, or in a few seconds, shivered into pieces, to a height of about to feet. its bulk must have been to . feet in diameter. my guide assured me that this spring generally plays only twice, rarely thrice, in twenty-four hours, and not, as i have seen it stated, every six minutes. i remained near it till midnight, but saw no other eruption. this spring very much resembles the strukker near the great geyser, the only difference being that the water sinks much lower in the latter. the second of the two remarkable springs, the arched spring, is situated near the little geyser, on the declivity of a hill. i had never seen such a curious formation for the bed of a spring as this is. it has no basin, but lies half open at your feet, in a little grotto, which is separated into various cavities and holes, and which is half-surrounded by a wall of rock bending over it slightly at a height of about feet, and then rises to feet higher. this spring never is at rest more than a minute; then it begins to rise and boil quickly, and emits a voluminous column, which, striking against the projecting rock, is flattened by it, and rises thence like an arched fan. the height of this peculiarly-spread jet of water may be about feet, the arch it describes to feet, and its breadth to feet. the time of eruption is often longer than that of repose. after an eruption the water always sinks a few feet into the cave, and for or seconds admits of a glance into this wonderful grotto. but it rises again immediately, fills the grotto and the basin, which is only a continuation of the grotto, and springs again. i watched this miraculous play of nature for more than an hour, and could not tear myself from it. this spring, which is certainly the only one of its kind, gratified me much more than the little geyser. there is another spring called the roaring geyser; but it is nothing more than a misshapen hole, in which one hears the water boil, but cannot see it. the noise is, also, not at all considerable. july d. near reikum we crossed a brook into which all the hot springs flow, and which has a pretty fall. we then ascended the adjoining mountain, and rode full two hours on the high plain. the plain itself was monotonous, as it was only covered with lava-stones and moss, but the prospect into the valley was varied and beautiful. vale and sea were spread before me, and i saw the westmann islands, with their beautiful hills, which the envious clouds had concealed from me on the hecla, lying in the distance. below me stood some houses in the port-town, eierbach, and near them the waters of the elvas flow into the sea. at the end of this mountain-level a valley was situated, which was also filled with lava, but with that jagged black lava which presents such a beautiful appearance. immense streams crossed it from all sides, so that it almost resembled a black lake separated from the sea by a chain of equally black mountains. we descended into this sombre vale through piles of lava and fields of snow, and went on through valleys and chasms, over fields of lava, plains of meadow-land, past dark mountains and hills, till we reached the chief station of my icelandic journey, the town of reikjavik. the whole country between reikum and reikjavik, a distance of to miles, is, for the most part, uninhabited. here and there, in the fields of lava, stand little pyramids of the same substance, which serve as landmarks; and there are two houses built for such persons as are obliged to travel during the winter. but we found much traffic on the road, and often overtook caravans of to horses. being the beginning of august, it was the time of trade and traffic in iceland. then the country people travel to reikjavik from considerable distances, to change their produce and manufactures, partly for money, partly for necessaries and luxuries. at this period the merchants and factors have not hands enough to barter the goods or close the accounts which the peasants wish to settle for the whole year. at this season an unusual commotion reigns in reikjavik. numerous groups of men and horses fill the streets; goods are loaded and unloaded; friends who have not met for a year or more welcome each other, others take leave. on one spot curious tents { } are erected, before which children play; on another drunken men stagger along, or gallop on horseback, so that one is terrified, and fears every moment to see them fall. this unusual traffic unfortunately only lasts six or eight days. the peasant hastens home to his hay-harvest; the merchant must quickly regulate the produce and manufactures he has purchased, and load his ships with them, so that they may sail and reach their destination before the storms of the autumnal equinox. miles. from reikjavik to thingvalla is from thingvalla to the geyser from the geyser to skalholt from skalholt to salsun from salsun to struvellir from struvellir to hjalmholm from hjalmholm to reikum from reikum to reikjavik chapter vii during my travels in iceland i had of course the opportunity of becoming acquainted with its inhabitants, their manners and customs. i must confess that i had formed a higher estimate of the peasants. when we read in the history of that country that the first inhabitants had emigrated thither from civilised states; that they had brought knowledge and religion with them; when we hear of the simple good-hearted people, and their patriarchal mode of life in the accounts of former travellers, and which we know that nearly every peasant in iceland can read and write, and that at least a bible, but generally other religions books also, are found in every cot,--one feels inclined to consider this nation the best and most civilised in europe. i deemed their morality sufficiently secured by the absence of foreign intercourse, by their isolated position, and the poverty of the country. no large town there affords opportunity for pomp or gaiety, or for the commission of smaller or greater sins. rarely does a foreigner enter the island, whose remoteness, severe climate, inhospitality, and poverty, are uninviting. the grandeur and peculiarity of its natural formation alone makes it interesting, and that does not suffice for the masses. i therefore expected to find iceland a real arcadia in regard to its inhabitants, and rejoiced at the anticipation of seeing such an idyllic life realised. i felt so happy when i set foot on the island that i could have embraced humanity. but i was soon undeceived. i have often been impatient at my want of enthusiasm, which must be great, as i see every thing in a more prosaic form than other travellers. i do not maintain that my view is _right_, but i at least possess the virtue of describing facts as i see them, and do not repeat them from the accounts of others. i have already described the impoliteness and heartlessness of the so-called higher classes, and soon lost the good opinion i had formed of them. i now came to the working classes in the vicinity of reikjavik. the saying often applied to the swiss people, "no money, no swiss," one may also apply to the icelanders. and of this fact i can cite several examples. scarcely had they heard that i, a foreigner, had arrived, than they frequently came to me, and brought quite common objects, such as can be found any where in iceland, and expected me to pay dearly for them. at first i purchased from charity, or to be rid of their importunities, and threw the things away again; but i was soon obliged to give this up, as i should else have been besieged from morning to night. their anxiety to gain money without labour annoyed me less than the extortionate prices with which they tried to impose on a stranger. for a beetle, such as could be found under every stone, they asked kr. (about d.); as much for a caterpillar, of which thousands were lying on the beach; and for a common bird's egg, to kr. ( d. to d.) of course, when i declined buying, they reduced their demand, sometimes to less than half the original sum; but this was certainly not in consequence of their honesty. the baker in whose house i lodged also experienced the selfishness of these people. he had engaged a poor labourer to tar his house, who, when he had half finished his task, heard of other employment. he did not even take the trouble to ask the baker to excuse him for a few days; he went away, and did not return to finish the interrupted work for a whole week. this conduct was the more inexcusable as his children received bread, and even butter, twice a week from the baker. i was fortunate enough to experience similar treatment. herr knudson had engaged a guide for me, with whom i was to take my departure in a few days. but it happened that the magistrate wished also to take a trip, and sent for my guide. the latter expected to be better paid by him, and went; he did not come to me to discharge himself, but merely sent me word on the eve of my departure, that he was ill, and could therefore not go with me. i could enumerate many more such examples, which do not much tend to give a high estimate of icelandic morality. i consoled myself with the hope of finding simplicity and honesty in the more retired districts, and therefore anticipated a twofold pleasure from my journey into the interior. i found many virtues, but unfortunately so many faults, that i am no longer inclined to exalt the icelandic peasants as examples. the best of their virtues is their honesty. i could leave my baggage unguarded any where for hours, and never missed the least article, for they did not even permit their children to touch any thing. in this point they are so conscientious, that if a peasant comes from a distance, and wishes to rest in a cottage, he never fails to knock at the door, even if it is open. if no one calls "come in," he does not enter. one might fearlessly sleep with open doors. crimes are of such rare occurrence here, that the prison of reikjavik was changed into a dwelling-house for the chief warden many years since. small crimes are punished summarily, either in reikjavik or at the seat of the sysselmann. criminals of a deeper dye are sent to copenhagen, and are sentenced and punished there. my landlord at reikjavik, the master-baker bernhoft, told me that only one crime had been committed in iceland during the thirteen years that he had resided there. this was the murder of an illegitimate child immediately after its birth. the most frequently occurring crime is cow-stealing. i was much surprised to find that nearly all the icelanders can read and write. the latter quality only was somewhat rarer with the women. youths and men often wrote a firm, good hand. i also found books in every cottage, the bible always, and frequently poems and stories, sometimes even in the danish language. they also comprehend very quickly; when i opened my map before them, they soon understood its use and application. their quickness is doubly surprising, if we consider that every father instructs his own children, and sometimes the neighbouring orphans. this is of course only done in the winter; but as winter lasts eight months in iceland, it is long enough. there is only one school in the whole island, which originally was in bessestadt, but has been removed to reikjavik since . in this school only youths who can read and write are received, and they are either educated for priests, and may complete their studies here, or for doctors, apothecaries, or judges, when they must complete their studies in copenhagen. besides theology, geometry, geography, history, and several languages, such as latin, danish, and, since , german and also french, are taught in the school of reikjavik. the chief occupation of the icelandic peasants consists in fishing, which is most industriously pursued in february, march, and april. then the inhabitants of the interior come to the coasting villages and hire themselves to the dwellers on the beach, the real fishermen, as assistants, taking a portion of the fish as their wages. fishing is attended to at other times also, but then exclusively by the real fishermen. in the months of july and august many of the latter go into the interior and assist in the hay-harvest, for which they receive butter, sheep's wool, and salt lamb. others ascend the mountains and gather the iceland moss, of which they make a decoction, which they drink mixed with milk, or they grind it to flour, and bake flat cakes of it, which serve them in place of bread. the work of the women consists in the preparation of the fish for drying, smoking, or salting; in tending the cattle, in knitting, sometimes in gathering moss. in winter both men and women knit and weave. as regards the hospitality of the icelanders, { } i do not think one can give them so very much credit for it. it is true that priests and peasants gladly receive any european traveller, and treat him to every thing in their power; but they know well that the traveller who comes to their island is neither an adventurer nor a beggar, and will therefore pay them well. i did not meet one peasant or priest who did not accept the proffered gift without hesitation. but i must say of the priests that they were every where obliging and ready to serve me, and satisfied with the smallest gift; and their charges, when i required horses for my excursions, were always moderate. i only found the peasant less interested in districts where a traveller scarcely ever appeared; but in such places as were more visited, their charges were often exorbitant. for example, i had to pay to kr. ( d. to s.) for being ferried over a river; and then my guide and i only were rowed in the boat, and the horses had to swim. the guide who accompanied me on the hecla also overcharged me; but he knew that i was forced to take him, as there is no choice of guides, and one does not give up the ascent for the sake of a little money. this conduct shows that the character of the icelanders does not belong to the best; and that they take advantage of travellers with as much shrewdness as the landlords and guides on the continent. a besetting sin of the icelanders is their drunkenness. their poverty would probably not be so great if they were less devoted to brandy, and worked more industriously. it is dreadful to see what deep root this vice has taken. not only on sundays, but also on week-days, i met peasants who were so intoxicated that i was surprised how they could keep in their saddle. i am, however, happy to say that i never saw a woman in this degrading condition. another of their passions is snuff. they chew and snuff tobacco with the same infatuation as it is smoked in other countries. but their mode of taking it is very peculiar. most of the peasants, and even many of the priests, have no proper snuff-box, but only a box turned of bone, shaped like a powder-flask. when they take snuff, they throw back their head, insert the point of the flask in their nose, and shake a dose of tobacco into it. they then, with the greatest amiability, offer it to their neighbour, he to his, and so it goes round till it reaches the owner again. i think, indeed, that the icelanders are second to no nation in uncleanliness; not even to the greenlanders, esquimaux, or laplanders. if i were to describe a portion only of what i experienced, my readers would think me guilty of gross exaggeration; i prefer, therefore, to leave it to their imagination; merely saying that they cannot conceive any thing too dirty for iceland delicacy. beside this very estimable quality, they are also insuperably lazy. not far from the coast are immense meadows, so marshy that it is dangerous to cross them. the fault lies less in the soil than the people. if they would only make ditches, and thus dry the ground, they would have the most splendid grass. that this would grow abundantly is proved by the little elevations which rise from above the marshes, and which are thickly covered with grass, herbage, and wild clover. i also passed large districts covered with good soil, and some where the soil was mixed with sand. i frequently debated with herr boge, who has lived in iceland for forty years, and is well versed in farming matters, whether it would not be possible to produce important pasture-grounds and hay-fields with industry and perseverance. he agreed with me, and thought that even potato-fields might be reclaimed, if only the people were not so lazy, preferring to suffer hunger and resign all the comforts of cleanliness rather than to work. what nature voluntarily gives, they are satisfied with, and it never occurs to them to force more from her. if a few german peasants were transported hither, what a different appearance the country would soon have! the best soil in iceland is on the norderland. there are a few potato-grounds there, and some little trees, which, without any cultivation, have reached a height of seven to eight feet. herr boge, established here for thirty years, had planted some mountain-ash and birch-trees, which had grown to a height of sixteen feet. in the norderland, and every where except on the coast, the people live by breeding cattle. many a peasant there possesses from two to four hundred sheep, ten to fifteen cows, and ten to twelve horses. there are not many who are so rich, but at all events they are better off than the inhabitants of the sea-coast. the soil there is for the most part bad, and they are therefore nearly all compelled to have recourse to fishing. before quitting iceland, i must relate a tradition told me by many icelanders, not only by peasants, but also by people of the so-called higher classes, and who all implicitly believe it. it is asserted that the inhospitable interior is likewise populated, but by a peculiar race of men, to whom alone the paths through these deserts are known. these savages have no intercourse with their fellow-countrymen during the whole year, and only come to one of the ports in the beginning of july, for one day at the utmost, to buy several necessaries, for which they pay in money. they then vanish suddenly, and no one knows in which direction they are gone. no one knows them; they never bring their wives or children with them, and never reply to the question whence they come. their language, also, is said to be more difficult than that of the other inhabitants of iceland. one gentleman, whom i do not wish to name, expressed a wish to have the command of twenty to twenty-five well-armed soldiers, to search for these wild men. the people who maintain that they have seen these children of nature, assert that they are taller and stronger than other icelanders; that their horses' hoofs, instead of being shod earth iron, have shoes of horn; and that they have much money, which they can only have acquired by pillage. when i inquired what respectable inhabitants of iceland had been robbed by these savages, and when and where, no one could give me an answer. for my part, i scarcely think that one man, certainly not a whole race, could live by pillage in iceland. departure from iceland.--journey to copenhagen. i had seen all there was to be seen in iceland, had finished all my excursions, and awaited with inexpressible impatience the sailing of the vessel which was destined to bring me nearer my beloved home. but i had to stay four very long weeks in reikjavik, my patience being more exhausted from day to day, and had after this long delay to be satisfied with the most wretched accommodation. the delay was the more tantalising, as several ships left the port in the mean time, and herr knudson, with whom i had crossed over from copenhagen, invited me to accompany him on his return; but all the vessels went to england or to spain, and i did not wish to visit either of these countries. i was waiting for an opportunity to go to scandinavia, to have at least a glance at these picturesque districts. at last there were two sloops which intended to sail towards the end of july. the better of the two went to altona; the destination of the other was copenhagen. i had intended to travel in the former; but a merchant of reikjavik had already engaged the only berth,--for there rarely is more than one in such a small vessel,--and i deemed myself lucky to obtain the one in the other ship. herr bernhoft thought, indeed, that the vessel might be too bad for such a long journey, and proposed to examine it, and report on its condition. but as i had quite determined to go to denmark, i requested him to waive the examination, and agree with the captain about my passage. if, as i anticipated, he found the vessel too wretched, his warnings might have shaken my resolution, and i wished to avoid that contingency. we heard, soon, that a young danish girl, who had been in service in iceland, wished to return by the same vessel. she had been suffering so much from home-sickness, that she was determined, under any circumstances, to see her beloved fatherland again. if, thought i to myself, the home-sickness is powerful enough to make this girl indifferent to the danger, longing must take its place in my breast and effect the same result. our sloop bore the consolatory name of haabet (hope), and belonged to the merchant fromm, in copenhagen. our departure had been fixed for the th of july, and after that day i scarcely dared to leave my house, being in constant expectation of a summons on board. violent storms unfortunately prevented our departure, and i was not called till the th of july, when i had to bid farewell to iceland. this was comparatively easy. although i had seen many wonderful views, many new and interesting natural phenomena, i yet longed for my accustomed fields, in which we do not find magnificent and overpowering scenes, but lovelier and more cheerful ones. the separation from herr knudson and the family of bernhoft was more difficult. i owed all the kindness i had experienced in the island, every good advice and useful assistance in my travels, only to them. my gratitude to these kind and good people will not easily fade from my heart. at noon i was already on board, and had leisure to admire all the gay flags and streamers with which the french frigate anchoring here had been decked, to celebrate the anniversary of the july revolution. i endeavoured to turn my attention as much as possible to exterior objects, and not to look at our ship, for all that i had involuntarily seen had not impressed me very favourably. i determined also not to enter the cabin till we were in the open sea and the pilots had left our sloop, so that all possibility of return would be gone. our crew consisted of captain, steersman, two sailors, and a cabin-boy, who bore the title of cook; we added that of valet, as he was appointed to wait on us. when the pilots had left us, i sought the entrance of the cabin,--the only, and therefore the common apartment. it consisted of a hole two feet broad, which gaped at my feet, and in which a perpendicular ladder of five steps was inserted. i stood before it puzzled to know which would be the best mode of descent, but knew no other way than to ask our host the captain. he shewed it me at once, by sitting at the entrance and letting his feet down. let the reader imagine such a proceeding with our long dresses, and, above all, in bad weather, when the ship was pitched about by storms. but the thought that many other people are worse off, and can get on, was always the anchor of consolation to which i held; i argued with myself that i was made of the same stuff as other human beings, only spoiled and pampered, but that i could bear what they bore. in consequence of this self-arguing, i sat down at once, tried the new sliding-ladder, and arrived below in safety. i had first to accustom my eyes to the darkness which reigned here, the hatches being constructed to admit the light very sparingly. i soon, however, saw too much; for all was raggedness, dirt, and disorder. but i will describe matters in the order in which they occurred to me; for, as i flatter myself that many of my countrywomen will in spirit make this journey with me, and as many of them probably never had the opportunity of being in such a vessel, i wish to describe it to them very accurately. all who are accustomed to the sea will testify that i have adhered strictly to the truth. but to return to the sloop. its age emulated mine, she being a relic of the last century. at that time little regard was paid to the convenience of passengers, and the space was all made available for freight; a fact which cannot surprise us, as the seaman's life is passed on deck, and the ship was not built for travellers. the entire length of the cabin from one berth to the other was ten feet; the breadth was six feet. the latter space was made still narrower by a box on one side, and by a little table and two little seats on the other, so that only sufficient space remained to pass through. at dinner or supper, the ladies--the danish girl and myself--sat on the little benches, where we were so squeezed, that we could scarcely move; the two cavaliers--the captain and the steersman--were obliged to stand before the table, and eat their meals in that position. the table was so small that they were obliged to hold their plates in their hands. in short, every thing shewed the cabin was made only for the crew, not for the passengers. the air in this enclosure was also not of the purest; for, besides that it formed our bed-room, dining-room, and drawing-room, it was also used as store-room, for in the side cupboards provisions of various kinds were stored, also oil-colours, and a variety of other matter. i preferred to sit on the deck, exposed to the cold and the storm, or to be bathed by a wave, than to be half stifled below. sometimes, however, i was obliged to descend, either when rain and storms were too violent, or when the ship was so tossed by contrary winds that the deck was not safe. the rolling and pitching of our little vessel was often so terrible, that we ladies could neither sit nor stand, and were therefore obliged to lie down in the miserable berths for many a weary day. how i envied my companion! she could sleep day and night, which i could not. i was nearly always awake, much to my discomfort; for the hatches and the entrance were closed during the storm, and an egyptian darkness, as well as a stifling atmosphere, filled the cabin. in regard to food, all passengers, captain and crew, ate of the same dish. the morning meal consisted of miserable tea, or rather of nauseous water having the colour of tea. the sailors imbibed theirs without sugar, but the captain and the steersman took a small piece of candied sugar, which does not melt so quickly as the refined sugar, in their mouth, and poured down cup after cup of tea, and ate ship's biscuit and butter to it. the dinner fare varied. the first day we had salt meat, which is soaked the evening before, and boiled the next day in sea-water. it was so salt, so hard, and so tough, that only a sailor's palate can possibly enjoy it. instead of soup, vegetables, and pudding, we had pearl-barley boiled in water, without salt or butter; to which treacle and vinegar was added at the dinner-table. all the others considered this a delicacy, and marvelled at my depraved taste when i declared it to be unpalatable. the second day brought a piece of bacon, boiled in sea-water, with the barley repeated. on the third we had cod-fish with peas. although the latter were boiled hard and without butter, they were the most eatable of all the dishes. on the fourth day the bill of fare of the first was repeated, and the same course followed again. at the end of every dinner we had black coffee. the supper was like the breakfast,--tea-water, ship's biscuit and butter. i wished to have provided myself with some chickens, eggs, and potatoes in reikjavik, but i could not obtain any of these luxuries. very few chickens are kept--only the higher officials or merchants have them; eggs of eider-ducks and other birds may often be had, but more are never collected than are wanted for the daily supply, and then only in spring; for potatoes the season was not advanced enough. my readers have now a picture of the luxurious life i led on board the ship. had i been fortunate enough to voyage in a better vessel, where the passengers are more commodiously lodged and better fed, the seasickness would certainly not have attacked me; but in consequence of the stifling atmosphere of the cabin and the bad food, i suffered from it the first day. but on the second i was well again, regained my appetite, and ate salt meat, bacon, and peas as well as a sailor; the stockfish, the barley, and the coffee and tea, i left untouched. a real sailor never drinks water; and this observation of mine was confirmed by our captain and steersman: instead of beer or wine, they took tea, and, except at meals, cold tea. on sunday evenings we had a grand supper, for the captain had eight eggs, which he had brought from denmark, boiled for us four people. the crew had a few glasses of punch-essence mixed in their tea. as my readers are now acquainted with the varied bill of fare in such a ship, i will say a few words of the table-linen. this consisted only of an old sailcloth, which was spread over the table, and looked so dirty and greasy that i thought it would be much better and more agreeable to leave the table uncovered. but i soon repented the unwise thought, and discovered how important this cloth was. one morning i saw our valet treating a piece of sailcloth quite outrageously: he had spread it upon the deck, stood upon it, and brushed it clean with the ship's broom. i recognised our tablecloth by the many spots of dirt and grease, and in the evening found the table bare. but what was the consequence? scarcely had the tea-pot been placed on the table than it began to slip off; had not the watchful captain quickly caught it, it would have fallen to the ground and bathed our feet with its contents. nothing could stand on the polished table, and i sincerely pitied the captain that he had not another tablecloth. my readers will imagine that what i have described would have been quite sufficient to make my stay in the vessel any thing but agreeable; but i discovered another circumstance, which even made it alarming. this was nothing less than that our little vessel was constantly letting in a considerable quantity of water, which had to be pumped out every few hours. the captain tried to allay my uneasiness by asserting that every ship admitted water, and ours only leaked a little more because it was so old. i was obliged to be content with his explanation, as it was now too late to think of a change. fortunately we did not meet with any storms, and therefore incurred less danger. our journey lasted twenty days, during twelve of which we saw no land; the wind drove us too far east to see the feroe or the shetland isles. i should have cared less for this, had i seen some of the monsters of the deep instead, but we met with scarcely any of these amiable animals. i saw the ray of water which a whale emitted from his nostrils, and which exactly resembled a fountain; the animal itself was unfortunately too far from our ship for us to see its body. a shark came a little nearer; it swam round our vessel for a few moments, so that i could easily look at him: it must have been from sixteen to eighteen feet long. the so-called flying-fish afforded a pretty sight. the sea was as calm as a mirror, the evening mild and moonlight; and so we remained on deck till late, watching the gambols of these animals. as far as we could see, the water was covered with them. we could recognise the younger fishes by their higher springs; they seemed to be three to four feet long, and rose five to six feet above the surface of the sea. their leaping looked like an attempt at flying, but their gills did not do them good service in the trial, and they fell back immediately. the old fish did not seem to have the same elasticity; they only described a small arch like the dolphins, and only rose so far above the water that we could see the middle part of their body. these fish are not caught; they have little oil, and an unpleasant taste. on the thirteenth day we again saw land. we had entered the skagerrak, and saw the peninsula of jutland, with the town of skaggen. the peninsula looks very dreary from this side; it is flat and covered with sand. on the sixteenth day we entered the cattegat. for some time past we had always either been becalmed or had had contrary winds, and had been tossed about in the skagerrak, the cattegat, and the sound for nearly a week. on some days we scarcely made fifteen to twenty leagues a day. on such calm days i passed the time with fishing; but the fish were wise enough not to bite my hook. i was daily anticipating a dinner of mackerel, but caught only one. the multitude of vessels sailing into the cattegat afforded me more amusement; i counted above seventy. the nearer we approached the entrance of the sound, the more imposing was the sight, and the more closely were the vessels crowded together. fortunately we were favoured by a bright moonlight; in a dark or stormy night we should not with the greatest precaution and skill have been able to avoid a collision. the inhabitants of more southern regions have no idea of the extraordinary clearness and brilliancy of a northern moonlight night; it seems almost as if the moon had borrowed a portion of the sun's lustre. i have seen splendid nights on the coast of asia, on the mediterranean; but here, on the shores of scandinavia, they were lighter and brighter. i remained on deck all night; for it pleased me to watch the forests of masts crowded together here, and endeavouring simultaneously to gain the entrance to the sound. i should now be able to form a tolerable idea of a fleet, for this number of ships must surely resemble a merchant-fleet. on the twentieth day of our journey we entered the port of helsingor. the sound dues have to be paid here, or, as the sailor calls it, the ship must be cleared. this is a very tedious interruption, and the stopping and restarting of the ship very incommodious. the sails have to be furled, the anchor cast, the boat lowered, and the captain proceeds on shore; hours sometimes elapse before he has finished. when he returns to the ship, the boat has to be hoisted again, the anchor raised, and the sails unfurled. sometimes the wind has changed in the mean time; and in consequence of these formalities, the port of copenhagen cannot be reached at the expected time. if a ship is unfortunate enough to reach helsingor on a dark night, she may not enter at all for fear of a collision. she has to anchor in the cattegat, and thus suffer two interruptions. if she arrives at helsingor in the night before four o'clock, she has to wait, as the custom-house is not opened till that time. the skipper is, however, at liberty to proceed direct to copenhagen, but this liberty costs five thalers (fifteen shillings). if, however, the toll may thus be paid in copenhagen just as easily, the obligation to stop at helsingor is only a trick to gain the higher toll; for if a captain is in haste, or the wind is too favourable to be lost, he forfeits the five thalers, and sails on to copenhagen. our captain cared neither for time nor trouble; he cleared the ship here, and so we did not reach copenhagen until two o'clock in the afternoon. after my long absence, it seemed so familiar, so beautiful and grand, as if i had seen nothing so beautiful in my whole life. my readers must bear in mind, however, where i came from, and how long i had been imprisoned in a vessel in which i scarcely had space to move. when i put foot on shore again, i could have imitated columbus, and prostrated myself to kiss the earth. departure from copenhagen.--christiania. on the th august, the day after my arrival from iceland, at two o'clock in the afternoon, i had already embarked again; this time in the fine royal norwegian steamer _christiania_, of horsepower, bound for the town of christiania, distant sea-miles from copenhagen. we had soon passed through the sound and arrived safely in the cattegat, in which we steered more to the right than on the journey to iceland; for we not only intended to see norway and sweden, but to cast anchor on the coast. we could plainly see the fine chain of mountains which bound the cattegat on the right, and whose extreme point, the kulm, runs into the sea like a long promontory. lighthouses are erected here, and on the other numerous dangerous spots of the coast, and their lights shine all around in the dark night. some of the lights are movable, and some stationary, and point out to the sailor which places to avoid. august th. bad weather is one of the greatest torments of a traveller, and is more disagreeable when one passes through districts remarkable for beauty and originality. both grievances were united to-day; it rained, almost incessantly; and yet the passage of the swedish coast and of the little fiord to the port of gottenburg was of peculiar interest. the sea here was more like a broad stream which is bounded by noble rocks, and interspersed by small and large rocks and shoals, over which the waters dashed finely. near the harbour, some buildings lie partly on and partly between the rocks; these contain the celebrated royal swedish iron-foundry, called the new foundry. even numerous american ships were lying here to load this metal. { } the steamer remains more than four hours in the port of gottenburg, and we had therefore time to go into the town, distant about two miles, and whose suburbs extend as far as the port. on the landing-quay a captain lives who has always a carriage and two horses ready to drive travellers into the town. there are also one-horse vehicles, and even an omnibus. the former were already engaged; the latter, we were told, drives so slowly, that nearly the whole time is lost on the road; so i and two travelling companions hired the captain's carriage. the rain poured in torrents on our heads; but this did not disturb us much. my two companions had business to transact, and curiosity attracted me. i did not at that time know that i should have occasion to visit this pretty little town again, and would not leave without seeing it. the suburbs are built entirely of wood, and contain many pretty one-story houses, surrounded, for the most part, by little gardens. the situation of the suburbs is very peculiar. rocks, or little fields and meadows, often lie between the houses; the rocks even now and then cross the streets, and had to be blasted to form a road. the view from one of the hills over which the road to the town lies is truly beautiful. the town has two large squares: on the smaller one stands the large church; on the larger one the town-hall, the post-office, and many pretty houses. in the town every thing is built of bricks. the river ham flows through the large square, and increases the traffic by the many ships and barks running into it from the sea, and bringing provisions, but principally fuel, to market. several bridges cross it. a visit to the well-stocked fish-market is also an interesting feature in a short visit to this town. i entered a swedish house for the first time here. i remarked that the floor was strewed over with the fine points of the fir-trees, which had an agreeable odour, a more healthy one probably than any artificial perfume. i found this custom prevalent all over sweden and norway, but only in hotels and in the dwellings of the poorer classes. about eleven o'clock in the forenoon we continued our journey. we steered safely through the many rocks and shoals, and soon reached the open sea again. we did not stand out far from the shore, and saw several telegraphs erected on the rocks. we soon lost sight of denmark on the left, and arrived at the fortress friedrichsver towards evening, but could not see much of it. here the so-called scheren begin, which extend sixty leagues, and form the christian's sound. by what i could see in the dim twilight, the scene was beautiful. numerous islands, some merely consisting of bare rocks, others overgrown with slender pines, surrounded us on all sides. but our pilot understood his business perfectly, and steered us safely through to sandesund, spite of the dark night. here we anchored, for it would have been too dangerous to proceed. we had to wait here for the steamer from bergen, which exchanged passengers with us. the sea was very rough, and this exchange was therefore extremely difficult to effect. neither of the steamers would lower a boat; at last our steamer gave way, after midnight, and the terrified and wailing passengers were lowered into it. i pitied them from my heart, but fortunately no accident happened. august st i could see the situation of sandesund better by day; and found it to consist only of a few houses. the water is so hemmed in here that it scarcely attains the breadth of a stream; but it soon widens again, and increases in beauty and variety with every yard. we seemed to ride on a beautiful lake; for the islands lie so close to the mountains in the background, that they look like a continent, and the bays they form like the mouths of rivers. the next moment the scene changes to a succession of lakes, one coming close on the other; and when the ship appears to be hemmed in, a new opening is suddenly presented to the eye behind another island. the islands themselves are of a most varied character: some only consist of bare rocks, with now and then a pine; some are richly covered with fields and groves; and the shore presents so many fine scenes, that one hardly knows where to look in order not to miss any of the beauties of the scenery. here are high mountains overgrown from the bottom to the summit with dark pine-groves; there again lovely hills, with verdant meadows, fertile fields, pretty farmsteads and yards; and on another side the mountains separate and form a beautiful perspective of precipices and valleys. sometimes i could follow the bend of a bay till it mingled with the distant clouds; at others we passed the most beautiful valleys, dotted with little villages and towns. i cannot describe the beauties of the scenery in adequate terms: my words are too weak, and my knowledge too insignificant; and i can only give an idea of my emotions, but not describe them. near walloe the country grows less beautiful; the mountains decrease into hills, and the water is not studded with islands. the little town itself is almost concealed behind the hills. a remarkable feature is the long row of wooden huts and houses adjoining, which all belong to a salt-work established there. we entered one of the many little arms of the sea to reach the town of moss. its situation is beautiful, being built amphi-theatrically on a hillock which leans against a high mountain. a fine building on the sea-shore, whose portico rests upon pillars, is used for a bathing institution. a dock-yard, in which men-of-war are built at the expense of the state, is situated near the town of horten, which is also picturesquely placed. there does not seem to be much work doing here, for i only saw one ship lying at anchor, and none on the stocks. about eight leagues beyond horten a mountain rises in the middle of the sea, and divides it into two streams, uniting again beyond it, and forming a pretty view. we did not see christiania till we were only ten leagues from it. the town, the suburbs, the fortress, the newly-erected royal palace, the freemasons' lodge, &c., lie in a semicircle round the port, and are bounded by fields, meadows, woods, and hills, forming a delightful _coup-d'oeil_. it seems as if the sea could not part from such a lovely view, and runs in narrow streams, through hills and plains, to a great distance beyond the town. towards eleven o'clock in the forenoon we reached the port of christiania. we had come from sandesund in seven hours, and had stopped four times on the way; but the boats with new-comers, with merchandise and letters, had always been ready, had been received, and we had proceeded without any considerable delay. chapter viii my first care on arriving in this town was to find a countrywoman of mine who had been married to a lawyer here. it is said of the viennese that they cannot live away from their stephen's steeple; but here was a proof of the contrary, for there are few couples living so happily as these friends, and yet they were nearly one thousand miles from st. stephen's steeple. { } i passed through the whole town on the way from the quay to the hotel, and thence to my friend. the town is not large, and not very pretty. the newly-built portion is the best, for it at least has broad, tolerably long streets, in which the houses are of brick, and sometimes large. in the by-streets i frequently found wooden barracks ready to fall. the square is large, but irregular; and as it is used as a general market-place, it is also very dirty. [picture: christiania] in the suburbs the houses are mostly built of wood. there are some rather pretty public buildings; the finest among them are the royal castle and the fortress. they are built on little elevations, and afford a beautiful view. the old royal palace is in the town, but not at all distinguishable from a common private house. the house in which the storthing { } assembles is large, and its portico rests on pillars; but the steps are of wood, as in all stone houses in scandinavia. the theatre seemed large enough for the population; but i did not enter it. the freemasons' lodge is one of the most beautiful buildings in the town; it contains two large saloons, which are used for assemblies or festivities of various kinds, besides serving as the meeting-place of the freemasons. the university seemed almost too richly built; it is not finished yet, but is so beautiful that it would be an ornament to the largest capital. the butchers' market is also very pretty. it is of a semi-circular shape, and is surrounded by arched passages, in which the buyers stand, sheltered from the weather. the whole edifice is built of bricks, left in their natural state, neither stuccoed with mortar nor whitewashed. there are not many other palaces or fine public buildings, and most of the houses are one-storied. one of the features of the place--a custom which is of great use to the traveller, and prevails in all scandinavian towns--is, that the names of the streets are affixed at every corner, so that the passer-by always knows where he is, without the necessity of asking his way. open canals run through the town; and on such nights as the almanac announces a full or bright moon the streets are not lighted. wooden quays surround the harbour, on which several large warehouses, likewise built of wood, are situated; but, like most of the houses, they are roofed with tiles. the arrangement and display of the stores are simple, and the wares very beautiful, though not of home manufacture. very few factories exist here, and every thing has to be imported. i was much shocked at the raggedly-clad people i met every where in the streets; the young men especially looked very ragged. they rarely begged; but i should not have been pleased to meet them alone in a retired street. i was fortunate enough to be in christiania at the time when the storthing was sitting. this takes place every three years; the sessions commence in january or february, and usually last three months; but so much business had this time accumulated, that the king proposed to extend the length of the session. to this fortunate accident i owed the pleasure of witnessing some of the meetings. the king was expected to close the proceedings in september. { } the hall of meeting is long and large. four rows of tapestried seats, one rising above the other, run lengthways along the hall, and afford room for eighty legislators. opposite the benches a table stands on a raised platform, and at this table the president and secretary sit. a gallery, which is open to the public, runs round the upper portion of the hall. although i understood but little of the norwegian language, i attended the meetings daily for an hour. i could at least distinguish whether long or short speeches were made, or whether the orator spoke fluently. unfortunately, the speakers i heard spoke the few words they mustered courage to deliver so slowly and hesitatingly, that i could not form a very favourable idea of norwegian eloquence. i was told that the storthing only contained three or four good speakers, and they did not display their talents during my stay. i have never seen such a variety of carriages as i met with here. the commonest and most incommodious are called carriols. a carriol consists of a narrow, long, open box, resting between two immensely high wheels, and provided with a very small seat. you are squeezed into this contrivance, and have to stretch your feet forward. you are then buckled in with a leather apron as high as the hips, and must remain in this position, without moving a limb, from the beginning to the end of your ride. a board is hung on behind the box for the coachman; and from this perch he, in a kneeling or standing position, directs the horses, unless the temporary resident of the box should prefer to take the reins himself. as it is very unpleasant to hear the quivering of the reins on one side and the smacking of the whip on the other, every one, men and women, can drive. besides these carriols, there are phaetons, droschkas, but no closed vehicles. the carts which are used for the transport of beer are of a very peculiar construction. the consumption of beer in christiania is very great, and it is at once bottled when made, and not sold in casks. the carts for the transport of these bottles consist of roomy covered boxes a foot and a half high, which are divided into partitions like a cellaret, in which many bottles can be easily and safely transported from one part to another. another species of basket, which the servants use to carry such articles as are damp or dirty, and which my readers will excuse my describing, is made of fine white tin, and provided with a handle. straw baskets are only used for bread, and for dry and clean provisions. there are no public gardens or assemblies in christiania, but numerous promenades; indeed, every road from the town leads to the most beautiful scenery, and every hill in the neighbourhood affords the most delightful prospects. ladegardoen is the only spot which is often resorted to by the citizens by carriage or on foot. it affords many and splendid views of the sea and its islands, of the surrounding mountains, valleys, and pine and fir groves. the majority of the country-houses are built here. they are generally small, but pretty, and surrounded by flower-gardens and orchards. while there, i seemed to be far in the south, so green and verdant was the scenery. the corn-fields alone betrayed the north. not that the corn was poor; on the contrary, i found many ears bending to the ground under their weight; but now, towards the end of august, most of it was standing uncut in the fields. near the town stands a pine-grove, from which one has splendid views; two monuments are raised in it, but neither of them are of importance: one is raised to the memory of a crown-prince of sweden, christian augustus; the other to count hermann wenel jarlsberg. journey to delemarken. all i had hitherto seen in norway had gratified me so much, that i could not resist the temptation of a journey to the wildly romantic regions of delemarken. i was indeed told that it would be a difficult undertaking for a female, alone and almost entirely ignorant of the language, to make her way through the peasantry. but i found no one to accompany me, and was determined to go; so i trusted to fate, and went alone. according to the inquires i had instituted in respect to this journey, i anticipated that my greatest difficulties would arise from the absence of all institutions for the speedy and comfortable progress of travellers. one is forced to possess a carriage, and to hire horses at every station. it is sometimes possible to hire a vehicle, but this generally consists only of a miserable peasant's cart. i hired, therefore, a carriol for the whole journey, and a horse to the next station, the townlet of drammen, distant about twenty-four miles. on the th august, at three o'clock in the afternoon, i left christiania, squeezed myself into my carriage, and, following the example of norwegian dames, i seized the reins. i drove as if i had been used to it from infancy. i turned right and left, and my horse galloped and trotted gaily on. the road to drammen is exquisite, and would afford rich subjects for an artist. all the beauties of nature are here combined in most perfect harmony. the richness and variety of the scenery are almost oppressive, and would be an inexhaustible subject for the painter. the vegetation is much richer than i had hoped to find it so far north; every hill, every rock, is shaded by verdant foliage; the green of the meadows was of incomparable freshness; the grass was intermingled with flowers and herbs, and the corn-fields bent under their golden weight. i have been in many countries, and have seen beautiful districts; i have been in switzerland, in tyrol, in italy, and in salzburg; but i never saw such peculiarly beautiful scenery as i found here: the sea every where intruding and following us to drammen; here forming a lovely lake on which boats were rocking, there a stream rushing through hills and meadows; and then again, the splendid expanse dotted with proud three-masters and with countless islets. after a five hours' ride through rich valleys and splendid groves, i reached the town of drammen, which lies on the shores of the sea and the river storri elf, and whose vicinity was announced by the beautiful country-houses ornamenting the approach to it. a long, well-built wooden bridge, furnished with beautiful iron palisadings, leads over the river. the town of drammen has pretty streets and houses, and above inhabitants. the hotel where i lodged was pretty and clean. my bedroom was a large room, with which the most fastidious might have been contented. the supper which they provided for me was, however, most frugal, consisting only of soft-boiled eggs. they gave me neither salt nor bread with them, nor a spoon; nothing but a knife and fork. and it is a mystery to me how soft eggs can be eaten without bread, and with a knife and fork. august th. i hired a fresh horse here, with which i proceeded to kongsberg, eighteen miles farther. the first seven miles afforded a repetition of the romantic scenery of the previous day, with the exception of the sea. but instead i had the beautiful river, until i had ascended a hill, from whose summit i overlooked a large and apparently populous valley, filled with groups of houses and single farms. it is strange that there are very few large towns in norway; every peasant builds his house in the midst of his fields. beyond this hill the scenery grows more monotonous. the mountains are lower, the valley narrower, and the road is enclosed by wood or rocks. one peculiarity of norwegian rocks is their humidity. the water penetrates through countless fissures, but only in such small quantities as to cover the stones with a kind of veil. when the sun shines on these wet surfaces of rock, of which there are many and large ones, they shine like mirrors. delemarken seems to be tolerably populous. i often met with solitary peasant-huts in the large gloomy forests, and they gave some life to the monotonous landscape. the industry of the norwegian peasant is very great; for every spot of earth, even on the steepest precipices, bore potatoes, barley, or oats; their houses also look cheerful, and were painted for the most part of a brick-red colour. i found the roads very good, especially the one from christiania to drammen; and the one from drammen to kongsberg was not very objectionable. there is such an abundance of wood in norway, that the streets on each side are fenced by wooden enclosures; and every field and meadow is similarly protected against the intrusion of cattle, and the miserable roads through the woods are even covered with round trunks of trees. the peasantry in this district have no peculiar costume; only the head-covering of the females is curious. they wear a lady's hat, such as was fashionable in the last century, ornamented with a bunch behind, and with an immense shade in front. they are made of any material, generally of the remains of old garments; and only on sundays better ones, and sometimes even silk ones, make their appearance. in the neighbourhood of kongsberg this head-dress is no longer worn. there they wear little caps like the suabian peasantry, petticoats commencing under the shoulders, and very short spencers: a very ugly costume, the whole figure being spoilt by the short waist. the town of kongsberg is rather extended, and is beautifully situated on a hill in the centre of a splendid wooded valley. it is, like all the towns in norway except christiania, built of wood; but it has many pretty, neat houses and some broad streets. the stream storri elf flows past the town, and forms a small but very picturesque waterfall a little below the bridge. what pleased me most was the colour of the water as it surged over the rock. it was about noon as i drove across the bridge; the sun illuminated the whole country around, and the waves breaking against the rocks seemed by this light of a beautiful pale-yellow colour, so that they resembled thick masses of pure transparent amber. two remarkable sights claimed my attention at kongsberg,--a rich silver-mine, and a splendid waterfall called the labrafoss. but as my time was limited and i could only remain a few hours in kongsberg, i preferred to see the waterfall and believe the accounts of the silver-mine; which were, that the deepest shaft was eight hundred feet below the surface, and that it was most difficult to remain there, as the cold, the smoke, and the powder-smell had a very noxious effect on the traveller accustomed to light and air. i therefore hired a horse and drove to the fall, which is situated in a narrow pass about four miles from kongsberg. the river collects in a quiet calm basin a little distance above the fall, and then rushes over the steep precipice with a sudden bound. the considerable depth of the fall and the quality of water make it a very imposing sight. this is increased by a gigantic rock planted like a wall in the lower basin, and opposing its body to the progress of the hurrying waters. the waves rebound from the rock, and, collecting in mighty masses, rush over it, forming several smaller waterfalls in their course. i watched it from a high rock, and was nevertheless covered by the spray to such a degree, that i sometimes could scarcely open my eyes. my guide then took me to the lower part of the fall, so that i might have a view of it from all sides; and each view seemed different and more splendid. i perceived the same yellow transparent colour which i had remarked in the fall at kongsberg in the waters which dashed over the rock and were illuminated by the sun. i imagine it arises from the rock, which is every where of a brownish-red colour, for the water itself was clear and pure. at four o'clock in the afternoon i left kongsberg, and drove to bolkesoe, a distance of eighteen miles. it was by no means a beautiful or an agreeable drive; for the road was very bad, and took me through passes and valleys, across woods and over steep mountains, while the night was dark and unilluminated by the moon. the thought involuntarily entered my mind, how easily my guide, who sat close behind me on the vehicle, could put me out of the world by a gentle blow, and take possession of my effects. but i had confidence in the upright character of the norwegians, and drove on quietly, devoting my attention entirely to the reins of my little steed, which i had to lead with a sure hand over hill and valley, over ruts and stones, and along precipices. i heard no sound but the rushing of the mountain-river, which leaped, close beside us, over the rocks, and was heard rushing in the far distance. we did not arrive at bolkesoe until ten o'clock at night. when we stopped before an insignificant-looking peasant's cot, and i remembered my icelandic night-accommodations, whose exterior this resembled, my courage failed me; but i was agreeably disappointed when the peasant's wife led me up a broad staircase into a large clean chamber furnished with several good beds, some benches, a table, a box, and an iron stove. i found equal comforts on all the stations of my journey. there are no proper hotels or posthouses on the little-frequented norwegian roads; but the wealthy peasants undertake the duties of both. i would, however, advise every traveller to provide himself with bread and other provisions for the trip; for his peasant-host rarely can furnish him with these. his cows are on the hills during the summer; fowls are far too great a luxury for him; and his bread is scarcely eatable: it consists of large round cakes, scarcely half an inch thick, and very hard; or of equally large cakes scarcely as thick as a knife, and quite dry. the only eatables i found were fish and potatoes; and whenever i could stay for several hours, they fetched milk for me from the hills. the travelling conveniences are still more unattainable; but these i will mention in a future chapter, when my experience will be a little more extensive. august th. i could not see the situation of the town of bolkesoe till daylight to-day, for when i arrived the darkness of night concealed it. it is situated in a pretty wooded vale, on a little hill at whose foot lies a beautiful lake of the same name. the road from here to tindosoe, about sixteen miles, is not practicable for vehicles, and i therefore left my carriol here and proceeded on horseback. the country grows more quiet and uninhabited, and the valleys become real chasms. two lakes of considerable size form an agreeable variety to the wildness of the scenery. the larger one, called the foelsoe, is of a regular form, and above two miles in diameter; it is encircled by picturesque mountains. the effect of the shadows which the pine-covered mountain-tops throw on the lakes is particularly attractive. i rode along its shores for more than an hour, and had leisure to see and examine every thing very accurately, for the horses here travel at a very slow pace. the reason of this is partly that the guide has no horse, and walks beside you in a very sleepy manner; the horse knows its master's peculiarities by long experience, and is only too willing to encourage him in his slow, dull pace. i spent more than five hours in reaching tindosoe. my next object of interest was the celebrated waterfall of rykanfoss, to reach which we had to cross a large lake. although it had rained incessantly for an hour, and the sky looked threatening, i at once hired a boat with two rowers to continue my journey without interruption; for i anticipated a storm, and then i should not have found a boatman who would have ventured a voyage of four or five hours on this dangerous lake. in two hours my boat was ready, and i started in the pouring rain, but rejoiced at least at the absence of fog, which would have concealed the beauties of nature which surrounded me. the lake is eighteen miles long, but in many parts only from two to three miles wide. it is surrounded by mountains, which rise in terraces without the least gap to admit a distant view. as the mountains are nearly all covered with dark fir-groves, and overshadow the whole breadth of the narrow lake, the water seems quite dark, and almost black. this lake is dangerous to navigate on account of the many rocks rising perpendicularly out of the water, which, in a storm, shatter a boat dashed against them to pieces, and the passengers would find an inevitable grave in the deep waters. we had a flesh and a favourable breeze, which blew us quickly to our destination. one of the rocks on the coast has a very loud echo. an island about a mile long divides the lake into equal parts; and when we had passed it, the landscape became quite peculiar. the mountains seemed to push before each other, and try whose foot should extend farthest into the sea. this forms numerous lovely bays; but few of them are adapted for landing, as the dangerous rocks seem to project every where. the little dots of field and meadow which seem to hang against the rock, and the modest cottages of the peasants, which are built on the points of the most dangerous precipices, and over which rocks and stones tower as mountains, present a very curious appearance. the most fearful rocks hang over the huts, and threaten to crush them by falling, which would inevitably carry cottage and field with them into the sea. it is difficult to say whether the boldness or the stupidity of the peasants induces them to choose such localities for their dwellings. from the mountains many rivers flow into the lake, and form beautiful falls. this might only have been the case at that time, because it was raining incessantly, and the water poured down from all sides, so that the mountains seemed embroidered with silver threads. it was a beautiful sight; but i would willingly have relinquished it for a day of sunshine. it is no trifle to be exposed to such a shower-bath from morning till night; i was wet through, and had no hope for better weather, as the sky was clouded all round. my perseverance was nearly exhausted; and i was on the point of relinquishing the purpose of my journey,--the sight of the highest norwegian waterfall,--when it occurred to me that the bad weather was most favourable for my plan, as each drop of water would increase the splendour of the waterfall. after three hours and a half's rowing we reached haukaness-am-see, where it is usual to stop a night as there is a pretty farm here, and the distance from the fall is still considerable. august th. my first care in the morning was the weather; it was unchanged, and the experienced peasants prophesied that it would remain wet. as i would not return nor wait for better weather, i could only take to my boat again, put on my half-dried cloak, and row on boldly. the termination of the lake, which we soon reached, was already sufficient to compensate for my perseverance. a high mountain advances into the lake, and divides it into two beautiful bays. we entered the left bay, and landed at mael, which lies at the mouth of the river rykaness. the distance from haukaness is a little more than two miles. i had to mount a horse to reach the waterfall, which was yet eleven miles distant. the road runs through a narrow valley, which gradually narrows still more until it can only contain the river; and the traveller is obliged to ascend the heights and grope on along the sides of the mountains. below in the vale he sees the foam of the waves surging against the rocks; they flow like a narrow band of silver in the deep chasm. sometimes the path is so high that one neither sees nor hears the river. the last half mile has to be journeyed on foot, and goes past spots which are really dangerous; numerous waterfalls rush from the mountain-sides, and have to be crossed on paths of tree-trunks laid alongside each other; and roads scarcely a foot wide lead along giddy precipices. but the traveller may trust unhesitatingly to his guide's arm, who has hitherto led every one in safety to his destination. the road from haukaness to the waterfall must be the finest that can be imagined on a bright sunny day; for i was enchanted with the wildly-romantic scenery in spite of the incessant rain and my wet clothes, and would on no consideration have missed this sight. unfortunately the bad weather increased, and thick fogs rolled down into the valleys. the water flowed down from the mountains, and transformed our narrow path into a brook, through which we had to wade ankle-deep in water. at last we reached the spot which afforded the best view of the fall. it was yet free from mist, and i could still admire the extraordinary beauty of the fall and its quantity of water. i saw the immense mountain-rock which closes the valley, the tremendous pillar of water which dashes over it, and rebounds from the rock projecting in the centre of the fall, filling the whole valley with clouds of spray, and concealing the depth to which it descends. i saw this, one of the rarest and of the most magnificent of natural beauties; but alas, i saw it only for a moment, and had scarcely time to recover from the surprise of the first view when i lost it for ever! i was not destined to see the single grandeurs of the fall and of the surrounding scenery, and was fain to be content with one look, one glance. impenetrable mists rolled from all sides into the wild glen, and shrouded every thing in complete darkness; i sat on a piece of rock, and gazed for two hours stedfastly at the spot where a faint outline of the fall was scarcely distinguishable through the mist sometimes this faint trace even was lost, and i could perceive its vicinity only by the dreadful sounds of the fall, and by the trembling of the rock beneath my feet. after i had gazed, and hoped, and raised my eyes entreatingly to heaven for a single ray of sunshine, all in vain, i had at last to determine on my return. i left my post almost with tears in my eyes, and turned my head more backwards than forwards as we left the spot. at the least indication of a clearing away of the fog i should have returned. but i retired farther and farther from it till i reached mael again, where i sadly entered my boat, and proceeded uninterruptedly to tindosoe. i arrived there towards ten o'clock at night. the wet, the cold, the want of food, and, above all, the depressed and disappointed state of my mind, had so affected me, that i went to bed with a slight attack of fever, and feared that i should not be able to continue my journey on the following day. but my strong constitution triumphed over every thing, and at five o'clock in the morning i was ready to continue my journey to bolkesoe on horseback. i was obliged to hurry for fear of missing the departure of the steamer from christiania. the journey to delemarken had been represented to me as much shorter than i found it in reality; for the constant waiting for horses, boats, guides, &c. takes up very much time. august th. i had ordered my horse to be ready at five o'clock, but was obliged to wait for it until seven o'clock. although i made only a short trip into the interior, i had sufficient opportunities for experiencing the extortions and inconveniences to which a traveller is liable in norway. no country in europe is so much in its infancy as regards all conveniences for locomotion. it is true that horses, carriages, boats, &c. can be had at every station, and the law has fixed the price of these commodities; but every thing is in the hands of the peasants and the publicans, and they are so skilled in tormenting the traveller by their intentional slowness, that he is compelled to pay the two-fold tax, in order to proceed a little more quickly. the stations are short, being rarely above five or six miles, and one is therefore constantly changing horses. arrived at a station, it either happens that there is really no horse to be had, or that this is an ostensible excuse. the traveller is told that the horse has to be fetched from the mountain, and that he can be served in one and a half or two hours. thus he rides one hour, and waits two. it is also necessary to keep the tariff, as every trifle, the saddle, the carriage, the harness, fetching the horse, the boat, &c., has to be paid for extra; and when the traveller does not know the fixed prices, he is certain to be dreadfully imposed upon. at every station a book lies, containing the legal prices; but it is written in the language of the district, and utterly unintelligible to the stranger. into this book, which is examined by the judge of the district every month, one may enter complaints against the peasant or publican; but they do not seem to fear it, for the guide who accompanied me to the fall of rykanfoss endeavoured to cheat me twice in the most barefaced manner, by charging me six-fold for the use of the saddles and the fetching of the horse. when i threatened to inscribe my complaint in the book, he seemed not to care, and insisted on his demand, till i was obliged to pay him. on my return to mael, i kept my word, asked for the book, and entered my complaint, although i was alone with all the peasants. it was not so much the money which annoyed me, as the shameless imposition. i am of opinion that every one should complain when he is wronged; if it does not benefit him, it will make the matter more easy for his successor. i must confess, in justice to the peasants, that they were very indignant when i told them of the dishonesty of their countryman, and did not attempt to prevent my complaint. to conclude my journey, i need only remark that, although the rain had ceased, the sky was still covered with clouds, and the country shrouded in mist. i therefore took the shorter road to christiania, by which i had come, although i thereby missed a beautiful district, where i should, as i was told, have seen the most splendid perspective views in norway. this would have been on the road from kongsberg over kroxleben to christiania. the finest part is near kroxleben. but the time was too short to take this round, and i returned by way of drammen. in the village of muni, about five miles from kongsberg, where i arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, the amiable host wished to keep me waiting again two hours for a horse; and as this would probably have happened at every station, i was obliged to hire a horse for the whole distance to christiania, at a threefold price. i slept here for a few hours, left in the night at one o'clock, and arrived at christiania the following afternoon at two. on this journey i found all those people very kind and obliging with whom i came into no sort of pecuniary relation; but the hosts, the boatmen, the drivers, the guides, were as selfish and grasping as in any other country. i believe that kindness and disinterestedness would only be found in any district by him who has the good fortune to be the first traveller. this little excursion was very dear; and yet i think i could now travel cheaply even in this country, universally acknowledged to be dear. i would go with the steamer along the coast to hammerfest, buy a little vehicle and a good horse there, and then travel pleasantly, and without annoyance, through the whole country. but for a family who wished to travel in a comfortable covered carriage, it would be incalculably dear, and in many parts impossible, on account of the bad roads. the norwegian peasantry are strong and robust, but their features are not the most comely, and they seemed neither wealthy nor cleanly. they were generally very poorly clad, and always barefooted. their cottages, built of wood and covered with tiles, are more roomy than those of the icelanders; but they are nevertheless dirty and wretched. a weakness of the norwegians is their fondness for coffee, which they drink without milk or sugar. the old women, as well as the men, smoke their pipes morning and night. miles. from christiania to kongsberg is about from kongsberg to the waterfall labrafoss from kongsberg to bolkosoe from bolkosoe to tindosoe from tindosoe across the lake to mael from mael to the waterfall rykanfoss chapter ix august th. at seven o'clock this morning i left christiania, accompanied by the good wishes of my countrywoman and her husband, and went back to gottenburg by the same steamer which had brought me thence ten days before. i need only mention the splendid view of a portion of christian's sound--also called fiord--which i lost on the former journey from the darkness of the night. we passed it in the afternoon. the situation of the little town of lauervig is superb. it is built on a natural terrace, bordered in the background by beautiful mountains. in front, the fortress of friedrichsver lies on a mountain surrounded by rocks, on which little watch-towers are erected; to the left lies the vast expanse of sea. we were delayed an hour at friedrichsver to transfer the travellers for bergen { } to a vessel waiting for them, as we had stopped on our previous journey at sandesund for the same purpose. this is the last view in the fiord; for now we steered into the open sea, and in a few hours we had lost sight of land. we saw nothing but land and water till we arrived the next morning at the scheren, and steered for gottenburg. august st. the sea had been rough all night, and we therefore reached gottenburg three hours later than usual. in this agitated sea, the surging of the breakers against the many rocks and islets near gottenburg has a very curious effect. the few travellers who could keep on their feet, who did not suffer from sea-sickness, and remained on deck, spoke much of the dangerous storm. i had frequently marvelled to hear people who had made a journey, if it were even only a short one of forty to sixty leagues, relate of some fearful storm they had witnessed. now i comprehended the reason, when i heard the travellers beside me call the brisk breeze, which only occasioned what seamen call a little swell, a dreadful storm; and they will probably tell at home of the dangers they have passed. storms are, fortunately, not so frequent. i have travelled many thousand leagues, and have often met with stormy weather, especially on the passage from copenhagen to iceland; but i only experienced one real storm, but a violent and dangerous one, as i was crossing the black sea to constantinople in april . we arrived at gottenburg at nine instead of at six o'clock in the morning. i landed at once, to make the celebrated trip through the locks, over the waterfalls of trollhatta, with the next stockholm steamer. by the junction of the river gotha with some of the interior lakes, this great construction crosses the whole country, and connects the north sea with the baltic. i found the town of gottenburg very animated, on account of the presence of the king of sweden, who was spending a few days here on his way to christiania to prorogue the storthing. i arrived on a sunday, and the king, with his son, were in the church. the streets swarmed with human beings, all crowding towards the cathedral to catch a glimpse of his majesty on his departure. i, of course, mingled with the crowd, and was fortunate enough to see the king and prince come out of the church, enter their carriage, and drive away very near to me. both were handsome, amiable-looking men. the people rushed after the carriage, and eagerly caught the friendly bows of the intelligent father and his hopeful son; they followed him to his palace, and stationed themselves in front of it, impatiently longing for the moment when the royal pair would appear at a window. i could not have arrived at a more favourable time; for every one was in holiday attire, and the military, the clergy, the officials, citizens and people, were all exerting themselves to the utmost to do honour to their king. i noticed two peasant-girls among the crowd who were peculiarly dressed. they wore black petticoats reaching half way down the calf of the leg, red stockings, red spensers, and white chemises, with long white sleeves; a kerchief was tied round the head. some of the citizens' wives wore caps like the suabian caps, covered by a little black, embroidered veil, which, however, left the face free. here, as in copenhagen, i noticed boys of ten to twelve years of age among the drummers, and in the bands of the military. the king remained this day and the next in gottenburg, and continued his journey on the tuesday. on the two evenings of his stay the windows in the town were ornamented with wreaths of fresh flowers, interspersed with lighted tapers. some houses displayed transparencies, which, however, did not place the inventive powers of the amiable gottenburgers in a very favourable light. they were all alike, consisting of a tremendous o (oscar), surmounted by a royal crown. i was detained four days in gottenburg; and small consideration seems to be paid to the speedy transport of travellers in sweden. the steamer for stockholm started on the day i arrived from christiania, but unfortunately at five o'clock in the morning; and as in the month of september only two steamers go in the week to stockholm, i was compelled to wait till thursday. the time hung heavily on my hands; for i had seen the town itself, and the splendid views on the hills between the suburbs, during my former visit to the town, and the other portions only consisted of bare rocks and cliffs, which were of no interest. september th. the press of travellers was so great this time, that two days before the departure the cabins were all engaged; several ladies and gentlemen who would not wait for the next steamer were compelled to be satisfied with the deck, and i was among them; for the probability of such a crowd of passengers had not occurred to me, and i applied for a place only two days before our departure. during the journey fresh passengers were taken in at every station, and the reader may conceive the misery of the poor citizens unused to such hardships. every one sought a shelter for the night, and the little cabins of the engineer and steersman were given up to some, while others crept into the passages, or squatted down on the steps of the stairs leading to the cabins. a place was offered to me in the engineer's cabin; but as three or four other persons were to share the apartment calculated only for one person, i preferred to bivouac night and day upon deck. one of the gentlemen was kind enough to lend me a thick cloak, in which i could wrap myself; and so i slept much more comfortably under the high canopy of heaven than my companions did in their sweating-room. the arrangements in the vessels navigating the gotha canal are by no means the best. the first class is very comfortable, and the cabin-place is divided into pretty light divisions for two persons; but the second class is all the more uncomfortable: its cabin is used for a common dining-room by day, and by night hammocks are slung up in it for sleeping accommodation. the arrangements for the luggage are worse still. the canal-boats, having only a very small hold, trunks, boxes, portmanteaus, &c. are heaped up on the deck, not fastened at all, and very insufficiently protected against rain. the consequence of this carelessness on a journey of five or six days was, that the rain and the high waves of the lakes frequently put the after-deck several inches under water, and then the luggage was wetted through. it was worse still in a squall on the wenner lake; for while the ship was rather roughly tossed about, many a trunk lost its equilibrium and fell from its high position, frequently endangering the safety of the passengers' heads. the fares are, however, very cheap, which seemed doubly strange, as the many locks must cause considerable expense. and now for the journey itself. we started at five o'clock in the morning, and soon arrived in the river gotha, whose shores for the first few miles are flat and bare. the valley itself is bounded by bare, rocky hills. after about nine miles we came to the town of kongelf, which is said to have inhabitants. it is so situated among rocks, that it is almost hidden from view. on a rock opposite the town are the ruins of the fortress bogus. now the scenery begins to be a little more diversified, and forests are mingled with the bleak rocks; little valleys appear on both the shores; and the river itself, here divided by an islet, frequently expands to a considerable breadth. the peasants' cottages were larger and better than those in norway; they are generally painted brick-red, and are often built in groups. the first lock is at lilla edet: there are five here; and while the ship passes through them, the passengers have leisure to admire the contiguous low, but broad and voluminous fall of the gotha. this first batch of locks in the canal extends over some distance past the fall, and they are partly blasted out of the rock, or built of stone. the river past akestron flows as through a beautiful park; the valley is hemmed in by fertile hills, and leaves space only for the stream and some picturesque paths winding along its shores, and through the pine-groves descending to its banks. in the afternoon we arrived at the celebrated locks near trollhatta. they are of gigantic construction, which the largest states would be honoured in completing, and which occasion surprise when found in a country ranking high neither in extent nor in influence. there are eleven locks here, which rise feet in a space of feet. they are broad, deep, blasted out of the rock, and walled round with fine freestone. they resemble the single steps of a giant's staircase; and by this name they might fitly rank as one of the wonders of the world. lock succeeds lock, mighty gates close them, and the large vessel rises miraculously to the giddy heights in a wildly romantic country. [picture: falls of trollhatta] scarcely arrived at the locks, the traveller is surrounded by a crowd of boys, who offer their services as guides to the waterfalls near trollhatta. there is abundance of time for this excursion; for the passage of the ship through the many locks occupies three to four hours, and the excursion can be made in half the time. before starting, it is, however, advisable to climb the rock to which the locks ascend. a pavilion is erected on its summit, and the view from it down over all the locks is exceedingly fine. pretty paths hewn out of the wood lead to trollhatta, which is charmingly situated in a lovely valley, surrounded by woods and hills, on the shore of a river, whose white foaming waves contrast strongly with the dark foliage of the overshadowing groves. the canal, which describes a large semicircle round the chief stream, glitters in the distance; but the highest locks are quite concealed behind rocks; we could neither observe the opening of the gates nor the rising of the water in them, and were therefore surprised when suddenly the masts and then the ship itself rose from the depth. an invisible hand seemed to raise it up between the rocks. the falls of the river are less distinguished for their height than for their diversity and their volumes of water. the principal arm of the river is divided at the point of decline into two equal falls by a little island of rock. a long narrow suspension-bridge leads to this island, and hangs over the fall; but it is such a weak, frail construction, that one person only can cross it at a time. the owner of this dangerous path keeps it private, and imposes a toll of about . d. on all passengers. a peculiar sensation oppresses the traveller crossing the slender path. he sees the stream tearing onwards, breaking itself on the projecting rock, and fall surging into the abyss; he sees the boiling waves beneath, and feels the bridge vibrate at every footstep, and timidly hastens to reach the island, not taking breath to look around until he has found footing; on the firm island. a solid rock projects a little over the fall, and affords him a safe position, whence he sees not only the two falls on either side, but also several others formed above and below his point of view. the scene is so enchanting, that it is difficult to tear oneself away. beyond trollhatta the river expands almost to a lake, and is separated into many arms by the numerous islands. the shores lose their beauty, being flat and uninteresting. we unfortunately did not reach the splendid wennersee, which is from forty-five to sixty-five miles long, and proportionally broad, until evening, when it was already too dark to admire the scenery. our ship remained some hours before the insignificant village wennersborg. we had met six or seven steamers on our journey, which all belonged to swedish or norwegian merchants; and it afforded us a peculiarly interesting sight to see these ships ascend and descend in the high locks. september th. as we were leaving wennersborg late on the previous night, and were cruising about the sea, a contrary wind, or rather a squall, arose, which would have signified little to a good vessel, but to which our small ship was not equal. the poor captain tried in vain to navigate the steamer across the lake; he was at last compelled to give up the attempt, to return and to cast anchor. we lost our boat during this storm; a high wave dashed over the deck and swept it away: it had probably been as well fastened as our boxes and trunks. though it was but nine o'clock in the morning, our captain declared that he could not proceed during the day, but that if the weather became more favourable, he would start again about midnight. fortunately a fishing-boat ventured to come alongside, and some of the passengers landed. i was among them, and made use of this opportunity to visit some cottages lying at the edge of a wood near the lake. they were very small, but consisted of two chambers, which contained several beds and other furniture; the people were also somewhat better clad than the norwegians. their food too was not so unpalatable; they boiled a thick mess of coarse black flour, which was eaten with sweet milk. september th. we raised anchor at one o'clock in the morning, and in about five hours arrived at the island eken, which consists entirely of rock, and is surrounded by a multitude of smaller islets and cliffs. this is one of the most important stations in the lake. a large wooden warehouse stands on the shore, and in it is stored the merchandise of the vicinity intended for export; and in return it receives the cargo from the ships. there are always several vessels lying at anchor here. we had now to wind through a cluster of islands, till we again reached the open lake, which, however, was only remarkable for its size. its shores are bare and monotonous, and only dotted here and there with woods or low hills; the distant view even is not at all noteworthy. one of the finest views is the tolerably large castle of leko, which lies on a rock, and is surrounded by fertile groves. further off rises the kinne kulle, { } to which the traveller's attention is directed, because it is said to afford an extended view, not only over the lake, but far into the country. a curious grotto is said to exist in this hill; but unfortunately one loses these sights since the establishment of steamers, for we fly past every object of interest, and the longest journey will soon be described in a few words. a large glass-factory is established at bromoe, which fabricates window-glass exclusively. we stopped a short time, and took a considerable cargo of the brittle material on board. the factory and the little dwellings attached to it are prettily situated on the undulating ground. near sjotorp we entered the river again through several locks. the passage of the wennersee is calculated at about ten or eleven hours. the river at first winds through woods; and while the ship slowly passes through the locks, it is pleasanter to walk a portion of the distance in their shade. farther on it flows through broad valleys, which, however, present no very attractive features. september th. early in the morning we crossed the pretty vikensee, which distinguishes itself, like all swedish lakes, by the multitude of its islands, cliffs, and rocks. these islands are frequently covered with trees, which make the view more interesting. the lake is feet above the level of the north sea, and is the highest point of the journey; from thence the locks begin to descend. the number of ascending and descending locks amounts to seventy-two. a short canal leads into the boltensee, which is comparatively free from islands. the passage across this little lake is very charming; the shores are diversified by hills, woods, meadows, and fields. after it comes the weltersee, which can be easily defended by the beautiful fortress of karlsborg. this lake has two peculiarities: one being the extraordinary purity and transparency of its waters; the other, the number of storms which prevail in it. i was told that it frequently raged and stormed on the lake while the surrounding country remained calm and free. the storm sometimes overtakes the ship so suddenly and violently, that escape is impossible; and the sagas and fables told of the deceitful tricks of these waves are innumerable. we fortunately escaped, and crossed its surface cheerfully and merrily. on its shores are situated the beautiful ladies' pensionary, wadstena, and the celebrated mountain omberg, at whose foot a battle was fought. the next canal is short, and leads through a lovely wood into the little lake of norbysee. it is customary to walk this distance, and inspect the simple monument of count platen, who made the plans for the locks and canals,--a lasting, colossal undertaking. the monument is surrounded by an iron railing, and consists of a slab bearing an inscription, simply stating in swedish his name, the date of his death, &c. nearly opposite the monument, on the other side of the canal, is the town of motala, distinguished principally for its large iron factories, in which the spacious work-rooms are especially remarkable. fifteen locks lead from the norbysee into the roxersee, which is a descent of feet. the canal winds gracefully through woods and meadows, crossed by pretty roads, and studded with elegant little houses and larger edifices. distant church-steeples point out the village of norby, which sometimes peeps forth behind little forests, and then vanishes again from the view of the traveller. when the sun shines on the waters of this canal, it has a beautiful, transparent, pea-green colour, like the purest chrysolite. the view from the hill which rises immediately before the lake of roxen is exceedingly fine. it looks down upon an immense valley, covered with the most beautiful woods and rocks, and upon the broad lake, whose arm flows far in land. the evening sun shed its last rays over a little town on the lake-shore, and its newly-painted tiles shone brightly in its light beams. while the ship descended through the many locks, we visited the neighbouring church of the village of vretakloster, which contains the skeletons of several kings in beautifully-made metal coffins. we then crossed the lake, which is from four to five miles broad, and remained all night before the entrance of the canal leading into a bay of the baltic. september th. this canal is one of the longest; its environs are very pretty, and the valley through which it runs is one of the largest we had passed. the town of soderkoping is situated at the foot of high, picturesque groups of rocks, which extend to a considerable distance. every valley and every spot of soil in sweden are carefully cultivated. the people in general are well dressed, and inhabit small but very pretty houses, whose windows are frequently decorated with clean white draperies. i visited several of these houses, as we had abundance of time for such excursions while the ship was going through the locks. i think one might walk the whole distance from gottenburg to stockholm in the same time that the ship takes for the journey. we lose some hours daily with the locks, and are obliged to lie still at night on their account. the distance is calculated at from to miles, and the journey takes five days. in the evening we approached the baltic, which has the same character as the scheren of the north sea. the ship threads its way through a shoal of islands and islets, of rocks and cliffs; and it is as difficult to imagine here as there how it is possible to avoid all the projecting cliffs, and guide the ship so safely through them. the sea divides itself into innumerable arms and bays, into small and large lakes, which are formed between the islands and rocks, and are hemmed in by beautiful hills. but nothing can exceed the beauty of the view of the castle storry husby, which lies on a high mountain, in a bay. in front of the mountain a beautiful meadow-lawn reaches to the shores of the sea, while the back is surrounded in the distance by a splendid pine-forest. near this picturesque castle a steeple rises on a neighbouring island, which is all that remains of the ancient castle of stegeborg. nothing can be more romantic than the scenery here, and on the whole journey over the fiord; for it presents itself in ever-varying pictures to the traveller's notice. but gradually the hills become lower, the islands more rare; the sea supersedes every thing, and seems jealously anxious to exclude other objects from the traveller's attention, as if it wished to monopolise it. now we were in the open sea, and saw only water and sky; and then again we were so hemmed in by the rocks and cliffs, that it would be impossible to extricate the ship without the assistance of an experienced pilot. september th. we left the sea, and entered another lake, the malarsee, celebrated for its numerous islands, by a short canal. the town of sotulje lies at its entrance, charmingly situated in a narrow valley at the foot of a rather steep hill. this lake at first resembles a broad river, but widens at every step, and soon shews itself in its whole expanse. the passage of the malarsee takes four hours, and is one of the most charming excursions that can be made. it is said to contain about a thousand islets of various sizes; and it may be imagined how varied in form and feature the scenery must be, and, like the fiord of the baltic, what a constant succession of new scenes it must present. the shores also are very beautiful: in some spots hills descend sharply to the water's edge, the steep rocks forming dangerous points; on others dark, sombre pine-forests grow; and again there are gay valleys and meadows, with villages or single cottages. many travellers assert that this lake is, after all, very monotonous; but i cannot agree with their opinion. i found it so attractive, that i could repeat the journey many times without wearying of this lovely sameness. it certainly has not the majestic backgrounds of the swiss lakes; but this profusion of small islands is a pleasing peculiarity which can be found on no other lake. on the summit of a steep precipice of the shore the hat of the unfortunate eric is hoisted, fastened to a long pole. history tells that this king fled from the enemy in a battle; that one of his soldiers pursued him, and reproached him for his cowardice, whereupon eric, filled with shame and despair, gave spurs to his horse and leaped into the fearful abyss. at his fall his hat was blown from his head, and was left on this spot. not far from this point the suburbs of stockholm make their appearance, being spread round one of the broad arms of the lake. with increasing curiosity we gazed towards the town as we gradually approached it. many of the pretty villas, which are situated in the valleys or on the sides of the hills as forerunners of the town, come into view, and the suburbs rise amphi-theatrically on the steep shores. the town itself closes the prospect by occupying the whole upper shore of the lake, and is flanked by the suburbs at either side. the ritterholm church, with its cast-iron perforated towers, and the truly grand royal palace, which is built entirely in the italian style, can be seen and admired from this distance. we had scarcely cast anchor in the port of stockholm, when a number of herculean women came and offered us their services as porters. they were delekarliers, { } who frequently come to stockholm to earn a livelihood as porters, water-carriers, boatwomen, &c. they easily find employment, because they possess two excellent qualities: they are said to be exceedingly honest and hard-working, and, at the same time, have the strength and perseverance of men. their dress consists of black petticoats, which come half way over the calf of the leg, red bodices, white chemises with long sleeves, short narrow aprons of two colours, red stockings, and shoes with wooden soles an inch thick. they twist a handkerchief round their head, or put on a little close black cap, which fits close on the back part of the head. in stockholm there are entire houses, as well as single rooms, which, as in a hotel, are let by the day. they are much cheaper than hotels, and are therefore more in demand. i at once hired one of these rooms, which was very clean and bright, and for which, with breakfast, i only paid one riksdaler, which is about one shilling. chapter x as my journey was ostensibly only to iceland, and as i only paid a flying visit to this portion of scandinavia, my readers will pardon me if i treat it briefly. this portion of europe has been so frequently and so excellently described by other travellers, that my observations would be of little importance. i remained in stockholm six days, and made as good use of my time as i could. the town is situated on the shores of the baltic sea and the malar lake. these two waters are connected by a short canal, on whose shores the most delightful houses are erected. [picture: stockholm] my first visit was to the beautiful church of ritterholm, which is used more for a cemetery and an armory than for a place of worship. the vaults serve as burial-places for the kings, and their monuments are erected in the side-chapels. on each side of the nave of the church are placed effigies of armed knights on horseback, whose armour belonged to the former kings of sweden. the walls and angles of the church are profusely decorated with flags and standards, said to number five thousand. in addition to this, the keys of conquered towns and fortresses hang along the side-walls, and drums are piled upon the floor; trophies taken from different nations with which sweden has been at war. besides these curiosities, several coats of armour and garments of swedish regents are displayed behind glass-cases in the side-chapels. among them, the dress which charles xii. wore on the day of his death, and his hat perforated by a ball, interested me most. his riding-boots stand on the ground beside it. the modern dress and hat, embroidered with gold and ornamented with feathers, of the last king, the founder of the new dynasty, is not less interesting, partly perhaps from the great contrast. the church of st. nicholas stands on the same side of the canal, and is one of the finest protestant churches i had seen; it is very evident that it was built in catholic times, and that its former decorations have been allowed to remain. it contains several large and small oil-paintings, some ancient and some modern monuments, and a profusion of gilding. the organ is fine and large; flanking the entrance of the church are beautiful reliefs, hewn in stone; and above it, carved in wood, a statue of the archangel michael, larger than life, sitting on horseback on a bridge, in the act of killing the dragon. near the church is situated the royal palace, which needs a more fluent pen than mine to describe it. it would fill a volume were i to enumerate and describe the treasures, curiosities, and beauties of its construction, or its interior arrangement; i can only say that i never saw any thing to equal it, except the royal palace of naples. such an edifice is the more surprising in the north, and in a country which has never been overstocked with wealth. the church of shifferholm is remarkable only for its position and its temple-like form; it stands on the ledge of a rock facing the royal palace, on the opposite shore of the same indentation of the baltic. a long bridge of boats leads from the one to the other. the church of st. catharine is large and beautiful. in an outer angle of the church is shewn the stone on which one of the brothers sturre was beheaded. { } on the ritterplatz stands the ritterhouse, a very fine palace; also the old royal palace, and several other royal and private mansions; but they are not nearly so numerous nor so fine as in copenhagen, and the streets and squares also cannot be compared with those of the capital of denmark. the finest prospect is from a hill in one of the suburbs called the great mosbecken; it affords a magnificent view of the sea and the lake, of the town and its suburbs, as far as the points of the mountains, and of the lovely country-houses which border the shores of lake and sea. the town and its environs are so interspersed with islets and rocks, that these seem to be part of the town; and this gives stockholm such a curious appearance, that i can compare it to no other city i have seen. wooded hills and naked rocks prolong the view, and their ridges extend into the far distance; while level fields and lawns take up but a very small proportion of the magnificent scenery. on descending from this hill the traveller should not fail to go to sodermalm, and to inspect the immense iron-stores, where iron is heaped up in countless bars. the corn-market of stockholm is insignificant. the principal buildings besides those already enumerated are, the bank, the mint, the guard-house, the palace of the crown-prince, the theatre, &c. the latter is interesting, partly because gustavus iii. was shot in it. he fell on the stage, while a grand masquerade was taking place, for which the theatre had been changed into a ball-room. the king was shot by a mask, and died in a few hours. there is not a representation in the theatre every night; and on the one evening of performance during my visit a festival was to be celebrated in the hall of antiquities. the esteemed artist vogelberg, a native of sweden, had beautifully sculptured the three heathen gods, thor, balder, and odin, in colossal size, and brought them over from rome. the statues had only been lately placed, and a large company had been invited to meet in the illuminated saloon, and do honour to the artist. solemn hymns were to be sung at the uncovering of the statues, beside other festivities. i was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to this festival, which was to commence a little past seven. before that i went to the theatre, which, i was told, would open at half-past six. i intended to remain there half an hour, and then drive to the palace, where my friends would meet me to accompany me to the festival. i went to the theatre at six, and anxiously waited half an hour for the commencement of the overture; it was after half-past six, and no signs of the commencement. i looked again at the bill, and saw, to my annoyance, that the opera did not begin till seven. but as i would not leave until i had seen the stage, i spent the time in looking at the theatre itself. it is tolerably large, and has five tiers of boxes, but is neither tastefully nor richly decorated. i was most surprised at the exorbitant price and the variety of seats. i counted twenty-six different kinds; it seems that every row has a different price, else i don't understand how they could make such a variety. at last the overture began; i listened to it, saw the curtain rise, looked at the fatal spot, and left after the first air. the door-keeper followed me, took my arm, and wished to give me a return-ticket; and when i told him that i did not require one, as i did not intend to return, he said that it had only just commenced, and that i ought to stop, and not have spent all the money for nothing. i was unfortunately too little acquainted with the swedish language to explain the reason of my departure, so i could give him no answer, but went away. i, however, heard him say to some one, "i never met with such a woman before; she sat an hour looking at the curtain, and goes away as soon as it rises." i looked round and saw how he shook his head thoughtfully, and pointed with his forefinger to his forehead. i could not refrain from smiling, and enjoyed the scene as much as i should have done the second act of mozart's _don giovanni_. i called for my friends at the royal palace, and spent the evening very agreeably in the brilliantly-illuminated galleries of antiquities and of pictures. i had the pleasure also of being introduced to herr vogelberg. his modest, unpretending manners must inspire every one with respect, even if one does not know what distinguished talent he possesses. the royal park is one of the finest sights in the neighbourhood of stockholm, and is one of the best of its kind. it is a fine large natural park, with an infinity of groves, meadows, hills, and rocks; here and there lies a country-house with its fragrant flower-garden, or tasteful coffee and refreshment houses, which on fine sundays are filled with visitors from the town. good roads are made through the park, and commodious paths lead to the finest points of view over sea and land. the bust of the popular poet bellmann stands on an open sunny spot, and an annual festival is given here in his honour. deeper in the park lies the so-called rosenthal (rose valley), a real eden. the late king was so partial to this spot, that he spent many hours in the little royal country-house here, which is built on a retired spot in the midst of groves and flower-beds. in front of the palace stands a splendid vase made of a single piece of porphyry. i was told that it was the largest in europe, but i consider the one in the museum of naples much larger. i spent the last hours of my visit to stockholm in this spot, with the amiable family of herr boje from finnland, whose acquaintance i had made on the journey from gottenburg to stockholm. i shall therefore never forget this beautiful park and the agreeable associations connected with it. i made a very agreeable excursion also to the royal palace of haga, to the large cemetery, and to the military school karlberg. the royal castle of haga is surrounded by a magnificent park, which owes little to art; it contains some of the finest trees, with here and there a hill, and is crossed by majestic alleys and well-kept roads for driving and walking. the palace itself is so small, that i could not but admire the moderation of the royal family; but i was informed that this is the smallest of their summer palaces. nearly opposite to this park is the great cemetery; but as it has only existed for about seventeen years, the trees in it are yet rather young. this would be of little consequence in other countries, but in sweden the cemeteries serve as promenades, and are crossed by alleys, ornamented with groves, and provided with seats for the accommodation of visitors. this cemetery is surrounded by a dark pine-forest, and really seems quite shut off from the outer world. it is the only burial-place out of the town; the others all lie between the churches and the neighbouring houses, whose fronts often form the immediate boundary. burials take place there constantly, so that the inhabitants are quite familiar with the aspect of death. from the great cemetery a road leads to the neighbouring karlberg, which is the academy for military and naval cadets. the extensive buildings attached to this seminary are built on the slope of a mountain, which is washed on one side by the waters of the lake, and surrounded on the other by the beautiful park-plantations. before leaving stockholm i had the honour of being introduced to her majesty the queen of sweden. she had heard of my travels, and took a particular interest in my account of palestine. in consequence of this favour, i received the special permission to inspect the whole interior of the palace. although it was inhabited, i was conducted, not only through the state-rooms, but through all the private rooms of the court. it would be impossible to describe the splendour which reigns here, the treasures of art, the magnificent appointments, and the evident taste every where displayed. i was delighted with all the treasures and splendour, but still more with the warm interest with which her majesty conversed with me about palestine. this interview will ever dwell on my memory as the bright salient point of my northern expedition. excursion to the old royal castle of griptholm on the malarsee every sunday morning, at eight o'clock, a little steamer leaves stockholm for this castle; the distance is about forty-five miles, and is passed in four hours; four hours more are allowed for the stay, and in the evening the steamer returns to stockholm. this excursion is very interesting, although we pass the greater part of the time on that portion of the lake which we had seen on our arrival, but for the last few miles the ship turned into a pretty bay, at whose apex the castle is situated. it is distinguished for its size, its architecture, and its colossal turrets. it is unfortunately, however, painted with the favourite brick-red colour of the swedes. two immense cannons, which the swedes once gained in battle from the russians, stand in the courtyard. the apartments in the castle, which are kept in good condition, display neither splendour nor profusion of appointments, indeed almost the contrary. the pretty theatre is, however, an exception: for its walls are inlaid from top to bottom with mirrors, its pillars are gilt, and the royal box tapestried with rich red velvet. there has been no performance here since the death of gustavus iii. the immensely massive walls are a remarkable feature of this palace, and must measure about three yards in thickness in the lower stories. the upper apartments are all large and high, and afford a splendid view of the lake from their windows. but it is impossible to enjoy these beautiful scenes when one thinks of the sad events which have taken place here. two kings, john iii. and eric xiv., the latter with four of his ministers, who were subsequently beheaded, were imprisoned here for many years. the captivity of john iii. would not have been so bad, if captivity were not bad enough in itself. he was confined in a large splendid saloon, but which he was not permitted to quit, and which he would therefore probably have gladly exchanged for the poorest hut and liberty. his wife inhabited two smaller apartments adjoining; she was not treated as a prisoner, and could leave the castle at will. his son sigismund was born here in the year , and the room and bed in which he was born are still shewn as curiosities. eric's fate was much more unfortunate, for he was kept in narrow and dark confinement. a small rudely-furnished apartment, with narrow, iron-barred windows, in one of the little turrets was his prison. the entrance was closed by a solid oaken door, in which a small opening had been made, through which his food was given him. for greater security this oaken door was covered by an iron one. round the outside of the apartment a narrow gallery had been made, on which the guards were posted, and could at all times see their prisoner through the barred windows. the spot is still shewn at one of the windows where the king sat for hours looking into the distance, his head leaning on his hand. what must have been his feelings as he gazed on the bright sky, the verdant turf, and the smiling lake! how many sighs must have been echoed from these walls, how many sleepless nights must he have passed during those two long years in anxious expectation of the future! the guide who took us round the castle maintained that the floor was more worn on this spot than any where else, and that the window-sash had been hollowed by the elbow of the miserable king; but i could not perceive any difference. eric was kept imprisoned here for two years, and was then taken to another prison. there is a large picture-gallery in this castle; but it contains principally portraits of kings, not only of sweden, but of other countries, from the middle ages down to the present time; also portraits of ministers, generals, painters, poets, and learned men; of celebrated swedish females, who have sacrificed themselves for their country, and of the most celebrated female beauties. the name and date of birth of each person are affixed to his or her portrait, so that each visitor may find his favourite without guide or catalogue. in many of them the colouring and drawing are wretched enough, but we will hope that the resemblance is all the more striking. on our return several gentlemen were kind enough to direct my attention to the most interesting points of the lake. among these i must mention kakeholm, its broadest point; the island of esmoi, on which a swedish female gained a battle; norsberg, also celebrated for a battle which took place there; and sturrehof, the property of a great swedish family. near bjarkesoe a simple cross is erected, ostensibly on the spot where christianity was first introduced. indeed the malarsee has so many historical associations, in addition to the attractions of its scenery, that it is one of the most interesting seas not only of sweden but of europe. journey from stockholm to upsala and to the iron-mines of danemora september th. the intercourse between stockholm and upsala is very considerable. a steamer leaves both places every day except sunday, and traverses the distance in six hours. tempted by this convenient opportunity of easily and quickly reaching the celebrated town of upsala, and by the unusually fine weather, i took my passage one evening, and was greatly disappointed when, on the following morning, the rain poured down in torrents. but if travellers paid much attention to the weather, they would not go far; so i nevertheless embarked at half-past seven, and arrived safely in upsala. i remained in the cabin during the passage, and could not even enjoy the prospect from the cabin-windows, for the rain beat on them from the outside, while inside they were obscured by the heat. but i did not venture on deck, hoping to be favoured by better weather on my return. at last, about three o'clock, when i had been in upsala more than an hour, the weather cleared up, and i sallied out to see the sights. first i visited the cathedral. i entered, and stood still with astonishment at the chief portal, on looking up at the high roof resting on two rows of pillars, and covering the whole church. it is formed in one beautiful straight line, unbroken by a single arch. the church itself is simple: behind the grand altar a handsome chapel is erected, the ceiling of which is painted azure blue, embossed with golden stars. in this chapel gustavus i. is interred between his two wives. the monument which covers the grave is large, and made of marble, but clumsy and void of taste. it represents a sarcophagus, on which three bodies, the size of life, are laid; a marble canopy is raised over them. the walls of the chapel are covered with pretty frescoes, representing the most remarkable scenes in the life of this monarch. the most interesting among them are, one in which he enters a peasant's hut in peasant's attire, at the same moment that his pursuers are eagerly inquiring after him in front of the hut; the other, when he stands on a barrel, also dressed as a peasant, and harangues his people. two large tablets in a broad gold frame contain in swedish, and not in the latin language, the explanation of the different pictures, so that every swede may easily learn the monarch's history. several other monuments are erected in the side-chapels; those of catharine magelone, john iii., gustavus erichson, who was beheaded, and of the two brothers sturre, who were murdered. the monument of archbishop menander, in white marble, is a tasteful and artistic modern production. the great linnaeus is buried under a simple marble slab in this church; but his monument is in one of the side-chapels, and not over his grave, and consists of a beautiful dark-brown porphyry slab, on which his portrait is sculptured in relief. the splendid organ, which reaches nearly to the roof of the church, also deserves special attention. the treasure-chamber does not contain great treasures; the blood-stained and dagger-torn garments of the unfortunate brothers sturre are kept in a glass case here; and here also stands a wooden statue of the heathen god thor. this wooden affair seems to have originally been an ecce homo, which was perhaps the ornament of some village church, then carried off by some unbeliever, and made more shapeless than its creator, not proficient in art, had made it. it has a greater resemblance now to a frightful scarecrow than to any thing else. the churchyard near the church is distinguished for its size and beauty. it is surrounded by a wall of stone two feet high, surmounted by an iron palisading of equal height, broken by stone pillars. on several sides, steps are made into the burying-ground over this partition. in this cemetery, as in the one of stockholm, one seems to be in a lovely garden, laid out with alleys, arbours, lawns, &c.; but it is more beautiful than the other, because it is older. the graves are half concealed by arbours; many were ornamented with flowers and wreaths, or hedged by rose-bushes. the whole aspect of this cemetery, or rather of this garden, seems equally adapted for the amusement of the living or the repose of the dead. the monuments are in no way distinguished; only two are rather remarkable, for they consist of tremendous pieces of rock in their natural condition, standing upright on the graves. one of these monuments resembles a mountain; it covers the ashes of a general, and is large enough to have covered his whole army; his relatives probably took the graves of troy as a specimen for their monument. it is moreover inscribed by very peculiar signs, which seemed to me to be runic characters. the good people have united in this monument two characteristics of the ancients of two entirely distinct empires. the university or library building in upsala is large and beautiful; it is situated on a little hill, with a fine front facing the town. the park, which is, however, still somewhat young, forms the background. { } near this building, on the same hill, stands a royal palace, conspicuous for its brick-red colour. it is very large, and the two wings are finished by massive round towers. in the centre of the courtyard, behind the castle, is placed a colossal bust of gustavus i., and a few paces from it two artificial hills serve as bastions, on which cannons are planted. this being the highest point of the town, affords the best view over it, and over the surrounding country. the town itself is built half of wood and half of stone, and is very pretty, being crossed by broad streets, and ornamented with tastefully laid-out gardens. it has one disadvantage, which is the dark brownish-red colour of the houses, which has a peculiarly sombre appearance in the setting sun. an immense and fertile plain, diversified by dark forests contrasting with the bright green meadows and the yellow stubble-fields, surrounds the town, and in the distance the silvery river fyris flows towards the sea. forests close the distant view with their dark shadows. i saw but few villages; they may, however, have been hidden by the trees, for that they exist seems to be indicated by the well-kept high roads crossing the plain in all directions. before quitting my position on the bastions of the royal palace i cast a glance on the castle-gardens, which were lying lower down the hill, and are separated from the castle by a road; they do not seem to be large, but are very pretty. i should have wished to be able to visit the botanic garden near the town, which was the favourite resort of linnaeus, whose splendidly-sculptured bust is said to be its chief ornament; but the sun was setting behind the mountains, and i repaired to my chamber, to prepare for my journey to danemora. september th. i left upsala at four o'clock in the morning, to proceed to the far-famed iron-mines of danemora, upwards of thirty miles distant, and where i wished to arrive before twelve, as the blasting takes place at that hour, after which the pits are closed. as i had been informed how slowly travelling is done in this country, and how tedious the delays are when the horses are changed, i determined to allow time enough for all interruptions, and yet arrive at the appointed hour. a few miles behind upsala lies old upsala (gamla upsala). i saw the old church and the grave-hills in passing; three of the latter are remarkably large, the others smaller. it is presumed that the higher ones cover the graves of kings. i saw similar tumuli during my journey to greece, on the spot where troy is said to have stood. the church is not honoured as a ruin; it has yet to do service; and it grieved me to see the venerable building propped up and covered with fresh mortar on many a time-worn spot. half way between upsala and danemora we passed a large castle, not distinguished for its architecture, its situation, or any thing else. then we neared the river fyris, and the long lake of danemora; both are quite overgrown with reeds and grass, and have flat uninteresting shores; indeed the whole journey offers little variety, as the road lies through a plain, only diversified by woods, fields, and pieces of rock. these are interesting features, because one cannot imagine how they came there, the mountains being at a great distance, and the soil by no means rocky. the little town of danemora lies in the midst of a wood, and only consists of a church and a few large and small detached houses. the vicinity of the mines is indicated before arriving at the place by immense heaps of stones, which are brought by horse-gins from the pits, and which cover a considerable space. i had fortunately arrived in time to see the blastings. those in the great pit are the most interesting; for its mouth is so very large, that it is not necessary to descend in order to see the pit-men work; all is visible from above. this is a very peculiar and interesting sight. the pit, feet deep, with its colossal doors and entrances leading into the galleries, looks like a picture of the lower world, from which bridges of rocks, projections, arches and caverns formed in the walls, ascend to the upper world. the men look like pigmies, and one cannot follow their movements until the eye has accustomed itself to the depth and to the darkness prevailing below. but the darkness is not very dense; i could distinguish most of the ladders, which seemed to me like children's toys. it was nearly twelve, and the workmen left the pits, with the exception of those in charge of the mines. they ascended by means of little tubs hanging by ropes, and were raised by a windlass. it is a terrible sight to see the men soaring up on the little machine, especially when two or three ascend at once; for then one man stands in the centre, while the other two ride on the edge of the tub. [picture: mines of danemora] i should have liked to descend into the great pit, but it was too late on this day, and i would not wait another. i should not have feared the descent, as i was familiar with such adventures, having explored the salt-mines of wieliczka and bochnia, in gallicia, some years before, in which i had had to let myself down by a rope, which is a much more dangerous method than the tub. with the stroke of twelve, four blasting trains in the large pit were fired. the man whose business it was to apply the match ran away in great haste, and sheltered himself behind a wall of rock. in a few moments the powder flashed, some stones fell, and then a fearful crash was heard all around, followed by the rolling and falling of the blasted masses. repeated echoes announced the fearful explosion in the interior of the pits: the whole left a terrible impression on me. scarcely had one mine ceased to rage, when the second began, then the third, and so on. these blastings take place daily in different mines. the other pits are deeper, the deepest being feet; but the mouths are smaller, and the shafts not perpendicular, so that the eye is lost in darkness, which is a still more unpleasant sensation. i gazed with oppressed chest into the dark space, vainly endeavouring to distinguish something. i should not like to be a miner; i could not endure life without the light of day; and when i turned from the dark pits, i cast my eyes thankfully on the cheerful landscape basking in the sun. i returned to upsala on the same day, having made this little journey by post. i can merely narrate the facts, without giving an opinion on the good or bad conveniences for locomotion, as this was more a pleasure-trip than a journey. as i had hired no carriage, i had a different vehicle at every station, and these vehicles consisted of ordinary two-wheeled wooden carts. my seat was a truss of hay covered with the horse-cloth. if the roads had not been so extremely good, these carts would have shaken terribly; but as it was, i must say that i rode more comfortably than in the carriols of the norwegians, although they were painted and vanished; for in them i had to be squeezed in with my feet stretched out, and could not change my position. the stations are unequal,--sometimes long, sometimes short. the post-horses are provided here, as in norway, by wealthy peasants, called dschns-peasants. these have to collect a certain number of horses every evening for forwarding the travellers the next morning. at every post-house a book is kept, in which the traveller can see how many horses the peasant has, how many have already been hired, and how many are left in the stable. he must then inscribe his name, the hour of his departure, and the number of horses he requires. by this arrangement deception and extortion are prevented, as every thing is open, and the prices fixed. { } patience is also required here, though not so much as in norway. i had always to wait from fifteen to twenty minutes before the carriage was brought and the horses and harness prepared, but never longer; and i must admit that the swedish post-masters hurried as much as possible, and never demanded double fare, although they must have known that i was in haste. the pace of the horse depends on the will of the coachman and the powers of his steed; but in no other country did i see such consideration paid to the strength of the horses. it is quite ridiculous to see what small loads of corn, bricks, or wood, are allotted to two horses, and how slowly and sleepily they draw their burdens. the number of wooden gates, which divide the roads into as many parts as there are common grounds on it, are a terrible nuisance to travellers. the coachman has often to dismount six or eight times in an hour to open and close these gates. i was told that these delectable gates even exist on the great high road, only not quite in such profusion as on the by-roads. wood must be as abundant here as in norway, for every thing is enclosed; even fields which seem so barren as not to be worth the labour or the wood. the villages through which i passed were generally pretty and cheerful, and i found the cottages, which i entered while the horses were changed, neatly and comfortably furnished. the peasants of this district wear a peculiar costume. the men, and frequently also the boys, wear long dark-blue cloth surtouts, and cloth caps on their heads; so that, at a distance, they look like gentlemen in travelling dress. it seems curious to a foreigner to see these apparent gentlemen following the plough or cutting grass. at a nearer view, of course the aspect changes, and the rents and dirt appear, or the leathern apron worn beneath the coat, like carpenters in austria, becomes visible. the female costume was peculiar only in so far that it was poor and ragged. in dress and shoes the norwegian and swedes are behind the icelanders, but they surpass them in the comfort of their dwellings. september th. to-day i returned to stockholm on the malarsee, and the weather being more favourable than on my former passage, i could remain on deck the whole time. i saw now that we sailed for several miles on the river fyris, which flows through woods and fields into the lake. the large plain on which old and new upsala lie was soon out of sight, and after passing two bridges, we turned into the malar. at first there are no islands on its flat expanse, and its shores are studded with low tree-covered hills; but we soon, however, arrived at the region of islands, where the passage becomes more interesting, and the beauty of the shores increases. the first fine view we saw was the pretty estate krusenberg, whose castle is romantically situated on a fertile hill. but much more beautiful and surprising is the splendid castle of skukloster, a large, beautiful, and regular pile, ornamented with four immense round turrets at the four corners, and with gardens stretching down to the water's edge. from this place the scenery is full of beauty and variety; every moment presents another and a more lovely view. sometimes the waters expand, sometimes they are hemmed in by islands, and become as narrow as canals. i was most charmed with those spots where the islands lie so close together that no outlet seems possible, till another turn shews an opening between them, with a glimpse of the lake beyond. the hills on the shores are higher, and the promontories larger, the farther the ship advances; and the islands appear to be merely projections of the continent, till a nearer approach dispels the illusion. the village of sixtuna lies in a picturesque and charming little valley, filled with ruins, principally of round towers, which are said to be the remains of the roman town of sixtum; the name being retained by the new town with a slight modification. after this follow cliffs and rocks rising perpendicularly from the sea, and whose vicinity would be by no means desirable in a storm. of the castle of rouse only three beautiful domes rise above the trees; a frowning bleak hill conceals the rest from the eye. then comes a palace, the property of a private individual, only remarkable for its size. the last of the notabilities is the rokeby bridge, said to be one of the longest in sweden. it unites the firm land with the island on which the royal castle of drottingholm stands. the town of stockholm now becomes visible; we turn into the portion of the lake on which it lies, and arrive there again at two o'clock in the afternoon. from stockholm to travemunde and hamburgh i bade farewell to stockholm on the th september, and embarked in the steamer _svithiold_, of -horse power, at twelve o'clock at noon, to go to travemunde. few passages can be more expensive than this one is. the distance is five hundred leagues, and the journey generally occupies two and a half to three days; for this the fare, without food, is four pounds. the food is also exorbitantly dear; in addition to which the captain is the purveyor; so that there is no appeal for the grossest extortion or insufficiency. it pained me much when one of the poorer travellers, who suffered greatly from sea-sickness, having applied for some soup to the steward, who referred him to the amiable captain, to hear him declare he would make no exception, and that a basin of soup would be charged the whole price of a complete dinner. the poor man was to do without the soup, of which he stood so much in need, or scrape every farthing together to pay a few shillings daily for his dinner. fortunately for him some benevolent persons on deck paid for his meals. some of the gentlemen brought their own wine with them, for which they had to pay as much duty to the captain as the wine was worth. to these pleasures of travelling must be added the fact, that a swedish vessel does not advance at all if the weather is unfavourable. most of the passengers considered that the engines were inefficient. however this may be, we were delayed twenty-four hours at the first half of our journey, from stockholm to calmar, although we had only a slight breeze against us and a rather high sea, but no storm. in calmar we cast anchor, and waited for more favourable wind. several gentlemen, whose business in lubeck was pressing, left the steamer, and continued their journey by land. at first the baltic very much resembles the malarsee; for islands, rocks, and a variety of scenery make it interesting. to the right we saw the immensely long wooden bridge of lindenborg, which unites one of the larger islands with the continent. at the end of one of the turns of the sea lies the town of wachsholm; and opposite to it, upon a little rocky island, a splendid fortress with a colossal round tower. judging by the number of cannons planted along the walls, this fortress must be of great importance. a few hours later we passed a similar fortress, friedrichsborg; it is not in such an open situation as the other, but is more surrounded by forests. we passed at a considerable distance, and could not see much of it, nor of the castle lying on the opposite side, which seems to be very magnificent, and is also surrounded by woods. the boundaries of the right shore now disappear, but then again appear as a terrible heap of naked rocks, at whose extreme edge is situated the fine fortress dolero. near it groups of houses are built on the bare rocks projecting into the sea, and form an extensive town. september th. to-day we were on the open, somewhat stormy sea. towards noon we arrived at the calmar sound, formed by the flat, uniform shores of the long island oland on the left, and on the right by schmoland. in front rose the mountain-island the jungfrau, to which every swede points with self-satisfied pride. its height is only remarkable compared with the flatness around; beside the proud giant-mountain of the same name in switzerland it would seem like a little hill. september th. on account of the contrary wind, we had cast anchor here last night, and this morning continued the journey to calmar, where we arrived about two in the forenoon. the town is situated on an immense plain, and is not very interesting. a few hours may be agreeably spent here in visiting the beautiful church and the antiquated castle, and we had more than enough leisure for it. wind and weather seemed to have conspired against us, and the captain announced an indefinite stay at this place. at first we could not land, as the waves were too high; but at last one of the larger boats came alongside, and the more curious among us ventured to row to the land in the unsteady vessel. the exterior of the church resembles a fine antiquated castle from its four corner towers and the lowness of its dome, which rises very little above the building, and also because the other turrets here and there erected for ornament are scarcely perceptible. the interior of the church is remarkable for its size, its height, and a particularly fine echo. the tones of the organ are said to produce a most striking effect. we sent for the organist, but he was nowhere to be found; so we had to content ourselves with the echo of our own voices. we went from this place to the old royal castle built by queen margaret in the sixteenth century. the castle is so dilapidated inside that a tarrying in the upper chambers is scarcely advisable. the lower rooms of the castle have been repaired, and are used as prisons; and as we passed, arms were stretched forth from some of the barred windows, and plaintive voices entreated the passers-by to bestow some trifle upon the poor inmates. upwards of prisoners are said to be confined here. { } about three o'clock in the afternoon the wind abated, and we continued our journey. the passage is very uniform, and we saw only flat, bare shores; a group of trees even was a rarity. september st. when i came on deck this morning the sound was far behind us. to the left we had the open sea; on the right, instead of the bleak schmoland, we had the bleaker schonen, which was so barren, that we hardly saw a paltry fishing-village between the low sterile hills. at nine o'clock in the morning we anchored in the port of ystadt. the town is pretty, and has a large square, in which stand the house of the governor, the theatre, and the town-hall. the streets are broad, and the houses partly of wood and partly of stone. the most interesting feature is the ancient church, and in it a much-damaged wooden altar-piece, which is kept in the vestry. though the figures are coarse and disproportionate, one must admire the composition and the carving. the reliefs on the pulpit, and a beautiful monument to the right of the altar, also deserve admiration. these are all carved in wood. in the afternoon we passed the danish island malmo. at last, after having been nearly four days on the sea instead of two days and a half, we arrived safely in the harbour of travemunde on the d september at two o'clock in the morning. and now my sea-journeys were over; i parted sorrowfully from the salt waters, for it is so delightful to see the water's expanse all around, and traverse its mirror-like surface. the sea presents a beautiful picture, even when it storms and rages, when waves tower upon waves, and threaten to dash the vessel to pieces or to engulf it--when the ship alternately dances on their points, or shoots into the abyss; and i frequently crept for hours in a corner, or held fast to the sides of the ship, and let the waves dash over me. i had overcome the terrible sea-sickness during my numerous journeys, and could therefore freely admire these fearfully beautiful scenes of excited nature, and adore god in his grandest works. we had scarcely cast anchor in the port when a whole array of coachmen surrounded us, volunteering to drive us overland to hamburgh, a journey of thirty-six miles, which it takes eight hours to accomplish. travemunde is a pretty spot, which really consists of only one street, in which the majority of the houses are hotels. the country from here to lubeck, a distance of ten miles, is very pretty. a splendid road, on which the carriages roll smoothly along, runs through a charming wood past a cemetery, whose beauty exceeds that of upsala; but for the monuments, one might take it for one of the most splendid parks or gardens. i regretted nothing so much as being unable to spend a day in lubeck, for i felt very much attracted by this old hanse town, with its pyramidically-built houses, its venerable dome, and other beautiful churches, its spacious squares, &c.; but i was obliged to proceed, and could only gaze at and admire it as i hurried through. the pavement of the streets is better than i had seen it in any northern town; and on the streets, in front of the houses, i saw many wooden benches, on which the inhabitants probably spend their summer evenings. i saw here for the first time again the gay-looking street-mirrors used in hamburgh. the trave, which flows between travemunde and lubeck, has to be crossed by boat. near oldesloe are the salt-factories, with large buildings and immensely high chimneys; an old romantic castle, entirely surrounded by water, lies near arensburg. past arensburg the country begins to be uninteresting, and remains so as far as hamburgh; but it seems to be very fertile, as there is an abundance of green fields and fine meadows. the little journey from lubeck to hamburgh is rather dear, on account of the almost incredible number of tolls and dues the poor coachmen have to pay. they have first to procure a license to drive from lubeck into hamburgh territory, which costs about _s._ _d._; then mine had to pay twice a double toll of _d._, because we passed through before five o'clock in the morning, and the gates, which are not opened till five o'clock, were unfastened especially for us; besides these, there was a penny toll on nearly every mile. this dreadful annoyance of the constant stopping and the toll-bars is unknown in norway and in sweden. there, an annual tax is paid for every horse, and the owner can then drive freely through the whole country, as no toll-bars are erected. the farm-houses here are very large and far-spread, but the reason is, that stable, barn, and shippen are under the same roof: the walls of the houses are of wood filled in with bricks. after passing arensburg, we saw the steeples of wandsbeck and hamburgh in the distance; the two towns seem to be one, and are, in fact, only separated by pretty country-houses. but wandsbeck compared to hamburgh is a village, not a town. i arrived in hamburgh about two o'clock in the afternoon; and my relatives were so astonished at my arrival, that they almost took me for a ghost. i was at first startled by their reception, but soon understood the reason of it. at the time i left iceland another vessel went to altona, by which i sent a box of minerals and curiosities to my cousin in hamburgh. the sailor who brought the box gave such a description of the wretched vessel in which i had gone to copenhagen, that, after having heard nothing of me for two months, he thought i must have gone to the bottom of the sea with the ship. i had indeed written from copenhagen, but the letter had been lost; and hence their surprise and delight at my arrival. chapter xi i had not much time to spare, so that i could only stay a few days with my relatives in hamburgh; on the th september, i went in a little steamer from hamburgh to harburg, where we arrived in three quarters of an hour. from thence i proceeded in a stage-carriage to celle, about sixty-five miles. the country is not very interesting; it consists for the most part of plains, which degenerate into heaths and marshes; but there are a few fertile spots peeping out here and there. september th. we arrived at celle in the night. from here to lehrte, a distance of about seven miles, i had to hire a private conveyance, but from lehrte the railway goes direct to berlin. { } many larger and smaller towns are passed on this road; but we saw little of them, as the stations all lie at some distance, and the railway-train only stops a few minutes. the first town we passed was brunswick. immediately beyond the town lies the pretty ducal palace, built in the gothic style, in the centre of a fine park. wolfenbuttel seems to be a considerable town, judging by the quantity of houses and church-steeples. a pretty wooden bridge, with an elegantly-made iron balustrade, is built here across the ocker. from the town, a beautiful lane leads to a gentle hill, on whose top stands a lovely building, used as a coffee-house. as soon as one has passed the hanoverian domains the country, though it is not richer in natural curiosities, is less abundant in marshes and heaths, and is very well-cultivated land. many villages are spread around, and many a charming town excites the wish to travel through at a slower pace. we passed schepenstadt, jersheim, and wegersleben, which latter town already belongs to prussia. in ashersleben and in magdeburg we changed carriages. near salze we saw some fine buildings which belong to the extensive saltworks existing here. jernaudau is a colony of moravians. i should have wished to visit the town of kotten,--for nothing can be more charming than the situation of the town in the midst of fragrant gardens,--but we unfortunately only stopped there a few minutes. the town of dessau is also surrounded by pretty scenery: several bridges cross the various arms of the elbe; that over the river itself rests on solid stone columns. of wittenberg we only saw house tops and church-steeples; the same of juterbog, which looks as if it were newly built. near lukewalde the regions of sand begin, and the uniformity is only broken by a little ridge of wooded hills near trebbin; but when these are past, the railway passes on to berlin through a melancholy, unmitigated desert of sand. i had travelled from six o'clock this morning until seven in the evening, over a distance of about two hundred and twenty miles, during which time we had frequently changed carriages. the number of passengers we had taken up on the road was very great, on account of the leipzic fairs; sometimes the train had thirty-five to forty carriages, three locomotives, and seven to eight hundred passengers; and yet the greatest order had prevailed. it is a great convenience that one can take a ticket from lehrte to berlin, although the railway passes through so many different states, because then one needs not look after the luggage or any thing else. the officials on the railway are all very civil. as soon as the train stopped, the guards announced with a loud voice the time allowed, however long or short it might be; so that the passengers could act accordingly, and take refreshments in the neighbouring hotels. the arrangements for alighting are very convenient: the carriages run into deep rails at the stations, so that the ground is level with the carriages, and the entrance and exit easy. the carriages are like broad coaches; two seats ran breadthwise across them, with a large door at each side. the first and second class contain eight persons in each division, the third class ten. the carriages are all numbered, so that every passenger can easily find his seat. by these simple arrangements the traveller may descend and walk about a little, even though the train should only stop two minutes, or even purchase some refreshments, without any confusion or crowding. these conveniences are, of course, impossible when the carriages have the length of a house, and contain sixty or seventy persons within locked doors, and where the doors are opened by the guards, who only call out the name of the station without announcing how long the stay is. in such railways it is not advisable for travellers to leave their seats; for before they can pass from one end of the carriage to the other, through the narrow door and down the steep steps, the horn is sounded, and at the same time the train moves on; the sound being the signal for the engine-driver, the passengers having none. in these states there was also not the least trouble with the passport and the intolerable pass-tickets. no officious police-soldier comes to the carriage, and prevents the passengers alighting before they have answered all his questions. if passports had to be inspected on this journey, it would take a few days, for they must always be taken to the passport-office, as they are never examined on the spot. such annoying interruptions often occur several times in the same state. and one need not even come from abroad to experience them, as a journey from a provincial to a capital town affords enough scope for annoyance. i had no reason to complain of such annoyances in any of the countries through which i had hitherto passed. my passport was only demanded in my hotel in the capitals of the countries, if i intended to remain several days. in stockholm, however, i found a curious arrangement; every foreigner there is obliged to procure a swedish passport, and pay half-a-crown for it, if he only remains a few hours in the town. this is, in reality, only a polite way of taking half-a-crown from the strangers, as they probably do not like to charge so much for a simple _vise_! stay in berlin--return to vienna i have never seen a town more beautifully or regularly built than berlin,--i mean, the town of berlin itself,--only the finest streets, palaces, and squares of copenhagen would bear a comparison with it. i spent but a few days here, and had therefore scarcely time to see the most remarkable and interesting sights. the splendid royal palace, the extensive buildings for the picture-gallery and museums, the great dome--all these are situated very near each other. the dome church is large and regularly built; a chapel, surrounded by an iron enclosure, stands at each side of the entrance. several kings are buried here, and antiquated sarcophagi cover their remains, known as the kings' graves. near them stands a fine cast-iron monument, beneath which count brandenburg lies. the catholic church is built in the style of the rotunda in rome; but, unlike it, the light falls from windows made around the walls, and not from above. beautiful statues and a simple but tasteful altar are the only ornaments of this church. the portico is ornamented by beautiful reliefs. the werder church is a modern erection, built in the gothic style, and its turrets are ornamented by beautiful bronze reliefs. the walls inside are inlaid with coloured wood up to the galleries, where they terminate in gothic scroll-work. the organ has a full, clear tone; in front of it stands a painting which, at first sight, resembles a scene from heathen mythology more than a sacred subject. a number of cupids soar among wreaths of flowers, and surround three beautiful female figures. the mint and the architectural college stand near this church. the former is covered with fine sculptures; the latter is square, of a brick-red colour, without any architectural embellishment, and perfectly resembling an unusually large private house. the ground-floor is turned into fine shops. near the palace lies the opera square, in which stand the celebrated opera-house, the arsenal, the university, the library, the academy, the guardhouse, and several royal palaces. three statues ornament the square: those of general count bulov, general count scharnhorst, and general prince blucher. they are all three beautifully sculptured, but the drapery did not please me; it consisted of the long military cloth cloak, which, opening in front, afforded a glimpse of the splendid uniforms. the arsenal is one of the finest buildings in berlin, and forms a square; at the time of my stay some repairs were being made, so that it was closed. i had to be content with glimpses through the windows of the first floor, which showed me immense saloons filled by tremendous cannons, ranged in rows. the guardhouse is contiguous, and resembles a pretty temple, with its portico of columns. the opera-house forms a long detached square. it would have a much better effect if the entrances were not so wretched. the one at the grand portal looks like a narrow, miserable church-door, low and gloomy. the other entrances are worse still, and one would not suppose that they could lead to such a splendid interior, whose appointments are indescribably luxurious and commodious. the pit is filled by rows of comfortably-cushioned chairs with cushioned backs, numbered, but not barred. the boxes are divided by very low partitions, so that the aristocratic world seems to sit on a tribune. the seats in the pit and the first and second tiers are covered with dark-red silk damask; the royal box is a splendid saloon, the floor of which is covered with the finest carpets. beautiful oil-paintings, in tasteful gold frames, ornament the plafond; but the magnificent chandelier is the greatest curiosity. it looks so massively worked in bronze, that it is painful to see the heavy mass hang so loosely over the heads of the spectators. but it is only a delusion; for it is made of paste-board, and bronzed over. innumerable lamps light the place; but one thing which i miss in such elegant modern theatres is a clock, which has a place in nearly every italian theatre. the other buildings on this square are also distinguished for their size and the beauty of their architecture. an unusually broad stone bridge, with a finely-made iron balustrade, is built over a little arm of the spree, and unites the square of the opera with that on which the palace stands. the royal museum is one of the finest architectural piles, and its high portal is covered with beautiful frescoes. the picture-gallery contains many _chefs-d'oeuvre_; and i regretted that i had not more time to examine it and the hall of antiquities, having only three hours for the two. from the academy runs a long street lined with lime-trees, and which is therefore called under-the-limes (_unter den linden_). this alley forms a cheerful walk to the brandenburg-gate, beyond which the pleasure-gardens are situated. the longest and finest streets which run into the lime-alley are the friedrichs street and the wilhelms street. the leipziger street also belongs to the finest, but does not run into this promenade. the gens-d'arme square is distinguished by the french and german churches, at least by their exterior,--by their high domes, columns, and porticoes. the interiors are small and insignificant. on this square stands also the royal theatre, a tasteful pile of great beauty, with many pillars, and statues of muses and deities. i ascended the tower on which the telegraph works, on account of the view over the town and the flat neighbourhood. a very civil official was polite enough to explain the signs of the telegraph to me, and to permit me to look at the other telegraphs through his telescope. the konigstadt, situated on the opposite shore of the spree, not far from the royal palace, contains nothing remarkable. its chief street, the konigsstrasse, is long, but narrow and dirty. indeed it forms a great contrast to the town of berlin in every thing; the streets are narrow, short, and winding. the post-office and the theatres are the most remarkable buildings. the luxury displayed in the shop-windows is very great. many a mirror and many a plate-glass window reminded me of hamburgh's splendour, which surpasses that of berlin considerably. there are not many excursions round berlin, as the country is flat and sandy. the most interesting are to the pleasure-gardens, charlottenburg, and, since the opening of the railway, to potsdam. the park or pleasure-garden is outside the brandenburg-gate; it is divided into several parts, one of which reminded me of our fine prater in vienna. the beautiful alleys were filled with carriages, riders, and pedestrians; pretty coffee-houses enlivened the woody portions, and merry children gambolled on the green lawns. i felt so much reminded of my beloved prater, that i expected every moment to see a well-known face, or receive a friendly greeting. kroll's casino, sometimes called the winter-garden, is built on this side of the park. i do not know how to describe this building; it is quite a fairy palace. all the splendour which fancy can invent in furniture, gilding, painting, or tapestry, is here united in the splendid halls, saloons, temples, galleries, and boxes. the dining-room, which will dine persons, is not lighted by windows, but by a glass roof vaulted over it. rows of pillars support the galleries, or separate the larger and smaller saloons. in the niches, and in the corners, round the pillars, abound fragrant flowers, and plants in chaste vases or pots, which transform this place into a magical garden in winter. concerts and _reunions_ take place here every sunday, and the press of visitors is extraordinary, although smoking is prohibited. this place will accommodate persons. that side of the park which lies in the direction of the potsdam-gate resembles an ornamental garden, with its well-kept alleys, flower-beds, terraces, islets, and gold-fish ponds. a handsome monument to the memory of queen louise is erected on the louise island here. on this side, the coffee-house odeon is the best, but cannot be compared to kroll's casino. here also are rows of very elegant country-houses, most of which are built in the italian style. charlottenburg this place is about half an hour's distance from the brandenburg-gate, where the omnibuses that depart every minute are stationed. the road leads through the park, beyond which lies a pretty village, and adjoining it is the royal country-palace of charlottenburg. the palace is built in two stories, of which the upper one is very low, and is probably only used for the domestics. the palace is more broad than deep; the roof is terrace-shaped, and in its centre rises a pretty dome. the garden is simple, and not very large, but contains a considerable orangery. in a dark grove stands a little building, the mausoleum in which the image of queen louise has been excellently executed by the famed artist rauch. here also rest the ashes of the late king. there is also an island with statues in the midst of a large pond, on which some swans float proudly. it is a pity that dirt does not stick to these white-feathered animals, else they would soon be black swans; for the pond or river surrounding the island is one of the dirtiest ditches i have ever seen. fatigue would be very intolerable in this park, for there are very few benches, but an immense quantity of gnats. potsdam. the distance from berlin to potsdam is eighteen miles, which is passed by the railroad in three-quarters of an hour. the railway is very conveniently arranged; the carriages are marked with the names of the station, and the traveller enters the carriage on which the place of his destination is marked. thus, the passengers are never annoyed by the entrance or exit of passengers, as all occupying the same carriage descend at the same time. the road is very uninteresting; but this is compensated for by potsdam itself, for which a day is scarcely sufficient. immediately in front of the town flows the river havel, crossed by a long, beautiful bridge, whose pillars are of stone, and the rest of the bridge of iron. the large royal palace lies on the opposite shore, and is surrounded by a garden. the garden is not very extensive, but large enough for the town, and is open to the public. the palace is built in a splendid style, but is unfortunately quite useless, as the court has beautiful summer-palaces in the neighbourhood of potsdam, and spends the winter in berlin. the castle square is not very good; it is neither large nor regular, and not even level. on it stands the large church, which is not yet completed, but promises to be a fine structure. the town is tolerably large, and has many fine houses. the streets, especially the nauner street, are wide and long, but badly paved; the stones are laid with the pointed side upwards, and for foot-passengers there is a stone pavement two feet broad on one side of the street only. the promenade of the townspeople is called am kanal (beside the canal), and is a fine square, through which the canal flows, and is ornamented with trees. of the royal pleasure-palaces i visited that of sans souci first. it is surrounded by a pretty park, and lies on a hill, which is divided into six terraces. large conservatories stand on each side of these; and in front of them are long alleys of orange and lemon-trees. the palace has only a ground floor, and is surrounded by arbours, trees, and vines, so that it is almost concealed from view. i could not inspect the interior, as the royal family was living there. a side-path leads from here to the ruinenberg, on which the ruins of a larger and a smaller temple, raised by the hand of art, are tastefully disposed. the top of the hill is taken up by a reservoir of water. from this point one can see the back of the palace of sans souci, and the so-called new palace, separated from the former by a small park, and distant only about a quarter of an hour. the new palace, built by frederick the great, is as splendid as one can imagine. it forms a lengthened square, with arabesques and flat columns, and has a flat roof, which is surrounded by a stone balustrade, and ornamented by statues. the apartments are high and large, and splendidly painted, tapestried, and furnished. oil-paintings, many of them very good, cover the walls. one might fill a volume with the description of all the wonders of this place, which is, however, not inhabited. behind the palace, and separated from it by a large court, are two beautiful little palaces, connected by a crescent-shaped hall of pillars; broad stone steps lead to the balconies surrounding the first story of the edifices. they are used as barracks, and are, as such, the most beautiful i have ever seen. from here a pleasant walk leads to the lovely palace of charlottenburg. coming from the large new palace it seemed too small for the dwelling even of the crown-prince. i should have taken it for a splendid pavilion attached to the new palace, to which the royal family sometimes walked, and perhaps remained there to take refreshment. but when i had inspected it more closely, and seen all the comfortable little rooms, furnished with such tasteful luxury, i felt that the crown-prince could not have made a better choice. beautiful fountains play on the terraces; the walls of the corridors and anterooms are covered with splendid frescoes, in imitation of those found in pompeii. the rooms abound in excellent engravings, paintings, and other works of art; and the greatest taste and splendour is displayed even in the minor arrangements. a pretty chinese chiosque, filled with good statues, which have been unfortunately much damaged and broken, stands near the palace. these three beautiful royal residences are situated in parks, which are so united that they seem only as one. the parks are filled with fine trees, and verdant fields crossed by well-kept paths and drives; but i saw very few flower-beds in them. when i had contemplated every thing at leisure, i returned to the palace of sans souci, to see the beautiful fountains, which play twice a week, on tuesday and friday, from noon till evening. the columns projected from the basin in front of the castle are so voluminous, and rise with such force, that i gazed in amazement at the artifice. it is real pleasure to be near the basin when the sun shines in its full splendour, forming the most beautiful rainbows in the falling shower of drops. equally beautiful is a fountain rising from a high vase, enwreathed by living flowers, and falling over it, so that it forms a quick, brisk fountain, transparent, and pure as the finest crystal. the lid of the vase, also enwreathed with growing flowers, rises above the fountain. the neptune's grotto is of no great beauty; the water falls from an urn placed over it, and forms little waterfalls as it flows over nautilus-shells. the marble palace lies on the other side of potsdam, and is half an hour's distance from these palaces; but i had time enough to visit it. entering the park belonging to this palace, a row of neat peasants' cottages is seen on the left; they are all alike, but separated by fruit, flower, or kitchen-gardens. the palace lies at the extreme end of the park, on a pretty lake formed by the river havel. it certainly has some right to the name of marble palace; but it seems presumption to call it so when compared to the marble palaces of venice, or the marble mosques of constantinople. the walls of the building are of brick left in its natural colour. the lower and upper frame-work, the window-sashes, and the portals, are all of marble. the palace is partly surrounded by a gallery supported on marble columns. the stairs are of fine white marble, and many of the apartments are laid with this mineral. the interior is not nearly so luxurious as the other palaces. this was the last of the sights i saw in potsdam or the environs of berlin; for i continued my journey to vienna on the following day. before quitting berlin, i must mention an arrangement which is particularly convenient for strangers--namely, the fares for hackney-carriages. one need ask no questions, but merely enter the carriage, tell the coachman where to drive, and pay him six-pence. this moderate fare is for the whole town, which is somewhat extensive. at all the railway stations there are numbers of these vehicles, which will drive to any hotel, however far it may be from the station, for the same moderate fare. if only all cab-drivers were so accommodating! october st. the railway goes through leipzic to dresden, where i took the mail-coach for prague at eight o'clock the same evening, and arrived there in eighteen hours. as it was night when we passed, we did not enjoy the beautiful views of the nollendorf mountain. in the morning we passed two handsome monuments, one of them, a pyramid fifty-four feet high, to the memory of count colloredo, the other to the memory of the russian troops who had fallen here; both have been erected since the wars of napoleon. on we went through charming districts to the famed bathing-place teplitz, which is surrounded by the most beautiful scenery; and can bear comparison with the finest bathing-places of the world. further on we passed a solitary basaltic rock, boren, which deserves attention for its beauty and as a natural curiosity. we unfortunately hurried past it, as we wished to reach prague before six o'clock, so that we might not miss the train to vienna. my readers may imagine our disappointment on arriving at the gates of prague, when our passports were taken from us and not returned. in vain we referred to the _vise_ of the boundary-town peterswalde; in vain we spoke of our haste. the answer always was, "that is nothing to us; you can have your papers back to-morrow at the police-office." thus we were put off, and lost twenty-four hours. i must mention a little joke i had on the ride from dresden to prague. two gentlemen and a lady beside myself occupied the mail-coach; the lady happened to have read my diary of palestine, and asked me, when she heard my name, if i were that traveller. when i had acknowledged i was that same person, our conversation turned on that and on my present journey. one of the gentlemen, herr katze, was very intelligent, and conversed in a most interesting manner on countries, nationalities, and scientific subjects. the other gentleman was probably equally well informed, but he made less use of his acquirements. herr katze remained in teplitz, and the other gentleman proceeded with us to vienna. before arriving at our destination, he asked me if herr katze had not requested me to mention his name in my next book, and added, that if i would promise to do the same, he would tell me his name. i could not refrain from smiling, but assured him that herr katze had not thought of such a thing, and begged him not to communicate his name to me, so that he might see that we females were not so curious as we are said to be. but the poor man could not refrain from giving me his name--nicholas b.--before we parted. i do not insert it for two reasons: first, because i did not promise to name him; and secondly, because i do not think it would do him any service. the railway from prague to vienna goes over olmutz, and makes such a considerable round, that the distance is now nearly miles, and the arrangements on the railway are very imperfect. there were no hotels erected on the road, and we had to be content with fruit, beer, bread, and butter, &c. the whole time. and these provisions were not easily obtained, as we could not venture to leave the carriages. the conductor called out at every station that we should go on directly, although the train frequently stood upwards of half an hour; but as we did not know that before, we were obliged to remain on our seats. the conductors were not of the most amiable character, which may perhaps be ascribed to the climate; for when we approached the boundary of the austrian states at peterswalde, the inspector received us very gruffly. we wished him good evening twice, but he took no notice of it, and demanded our papers in a loud and peremptory tone; he probably thought us as deaf as we thought him. at ganserndorf, twenty-five miles from vienna, they took our papers from us in a very uncivil, uncourteous manner. on the th of october, , after an absence of six months, i arrived again in sight of the dear stephen's steeple, as most of my countrywomen would say. i had suffered many hardships; but my love of travelling would not have been abated, nor would my courage have failed me, had they been ten times greater. i had been amply compensated for all. i had seen things which never occur in our common life, and had met with people as they are rarely met with--in their natural state. and i brought back with me the recollections of my travels, which will always remain, and which will afford me renewed pleasure for years. and now i take leave of my dear readers, requesting them to accept with indulgence my descriptions, which are always true, though they may not be amusing. if i have, as i can scarcely hope, afforded them some amusement, i trust they will in return grant me a small corner in their memories. in conclusion, i beg to add an appendix, which may not be uninteresting to many of my readers, namely: . a document which i procured in reikjavik, giving the salaries of the royal danish officials, and the sources from whence they are paid. . a list of icelandic insects, butterflies, flowers, and plants, which i collected and brought home with me. appendix a salaries of the royal danish officials in iceland, which they receive from the icelandic land-revenues. florins { } the governor of iceland office expenses the deputy for the western district office expenses rent the deputy for the northern and eastern districts office expenses the bishop of iceland, who draws his salary from the school-revenues, has paid him from this treasury the members of the supreme court: one judge first assessor second assessor the land-bailiff of iceland office expenses rent the town-bailiff of reikjavik the first police-officer of reikjavik, who is at the same time gaoler, and therefore has _fl._ more than the second officer the second police-officer the mayor of reikjavik only draws from this treasury his house-rent, which is the sysselman of the westmanns islands the other sysselmen, each medical department and midwifery: the physician house-rent apothecary of reikjavik house-rent the second apothecary at sikkisholm six surgeons in the country, each house-rent for some for others a medical practitioner on the northland reikjavik has two midwives, each receives the other midwives in iceland, amounting to thirty, each receives these midwives are instructed and examined by the land physician, who has the charge of paying them annually. organist of reikjavik from the school-revenues the bishop receives the teachers at the high school: the teacher of theology the head assistant, besides free lodging the second assistant house-rent the third assistant house-rent the resident at the school list of invertebrated animals collected in iceland . crustacea. pagarus bernhardus, _linnaeus_. . insecta. a. _coleoptera_. nebria rubripes, _dejean_. patrobus hyperboreus. calathus melanocephalus, _fabr_. notiophilus aquaticus. amara vulgaris, _duftsihm_. ptinus fur, _linn_. aphodius lapponum, _schh_. otiorhynchus laevigatus, _dhl_. otiorhynchus pinastri, _fabr_. otiorhynchus ovatus. staphylinus maxillosus. byrrhus pillula. b. _neuroptera_. limnophilus lineola, _schrank_. c. _hymenoptera_. pimpla instigator, _gravh_. bombus subterraneus, _linn_. d. _lepidoptera_. geometra russata, hub. geom. alche millata. geom. spec. nov. e. _diptera_. tipula lunata, _meig_. scatophaga stercoraria. musca vomitaria. musca mortuorum. helomyza serrata. lecogaster islandicus, _scheff_. { } anthomyia decolor, _fallin_. list of icelandic plants _collected by ida pfeiffer in the summer of the year_ _felices_. cystopteris fragilis. _equisetaceae_. equisetum teltamegra. _graminae_. festuca uniglumis. _cyperaceae_. carea filiformis. carea caespitosa. eriophorum caespitosum. _juncaceae_. luzula spicata. luzula campestris. _salicineae_. salix polaris. _polygoneae_. remux arifolus. oxyria reniformes. _plumbagineae_. armeria alpina (in the interior mountainous districts). _compositae_. chrysanthemum maritimum (on the sea-shore, and on marshy fields). hieracium alpinum (on grassy plains). taraxacum alpinum. erigeron uniflorum (west of havenfiord, on rocky soil). _rubiaceae_. gallium pusillum. gallium verum. _labiatae_. thynus serpyllum. _asperifoliae_. myosotis alpestris. myosotis scorpioicles. _scrophularineae_. bartsia alpina (in the interior north-western valleys). rhinanthus alpestris. _utricularieae_. pinguicula alpina. pinguicula vulgaris. _umbelliferae_. archangelica officinalis (havenfiord). _saxifrageae_. saxifraga caespitosa (the real linnaean plant: on rocks round hecla). _ranunculaceae_. ranunculus auricomus. ranunculus nivalis. thalictrum alpinum (growing between lava, near reikjavik). caltha palustris. _cruciferae_. draba verna. cardamine pratensis. _violariceae_. viola hirta. _caryophylleae_. sagina stricta. cerastium semidecandrum. lepigonum rubrum. silene maritima. lychnis alpina (on the mountain-fields round reikjavik). _empetreae_. empetrum nigrum. _geraniaceae_. geranium sylvaticum (in pits near thingvalla). _troseaceae_. parnassia palustris. _oenothereae_. epilobium latifolium (in clefts of the mountain at the foot of hecla). epilobium alpinum (in reiker valley, west of havenfiord). _rosaceae_. rubus arcticus. potentilla anserina. potentilla gronlandica (on rocks near kallmanstunga and kollismola). alchemilla montana. sanguisorba officinalis. geum rivale. dryas octopela (near havenfiord). _papilionaceae_. trifolium repens. footnotes: { } in this gutenberg etext only madame pfeiffer's work appears--dp. { } madame pfeiffer's first journey was to the holy land in ; and on her return from iceland she started in on a "journey round the world," from which she returned in the end of . this adventurous lady is now ( ) travelling among the islands of the eastern archipelago. { } a florin is worth about _s._ _d._; sixty kreutzers go to a florin. { } at kuttenberg the first silver groschens were coined, in the year . the silver mines are now exhausted, though other mines, of copper, zinc, &c. are wrought in the neighbourhood. the population is only half of what it once was. --ed. { } the expression of madame pfeiffer's about frederick "paying his score to the austrians," is somewhat vague. the facts are these. in frederick the great of prussia invaded bohemia, and laid siege to prague. before this city an austrian army lay, who were attacked with great impetuosity by frederick, and completely defeated. but the town was defended with great valour; and during the time thus gained the austrian general daun raised fresh troops, with which he took the field at collin. here he was attacked by frederick, who was routed, and all his baggage and cannon captured. this loss was "paying his score;" and the defeat was so complete, that the great monarch sat down by the side of a fountain, and tracing figures in the sand, was lost for a long time in meditation on the means to be adopted to retrieve his fortune. { } i mention this little incident to warn the traveller against parting with his effects. { } the true version of this affair is as follows. john of nepomuk was a priest serving under the archbishop of prague. the king, wenceslaus, was a hasty, cruel tyrant, who was detested by all his subjects, and hated by the rest of germany. two priests were guilty of some crime, and one of the court chamberlains, acting under royal orders, caused the priests to be put to death. the archbishop, indignant at this, placed the chamberlain under an interdict. this so roused the king that he attempted to seize the archbishop, who took refuge in flight. john of nepomuk, however, and another priest, were seized and put to the torture to confess what were the designs of the archbishop. the king seems to have suspected that the queen was in some way connected with the line of conduct pursued by the archbishop. john of nepomuk, however, refused, even though the king with his own hand burned him with a torch. irritated by his obstinate silence, the king caused the poor monk to be cast over the bridge into the moldau. this monk was afterwards canonised, and made the patron saint of bridges.--ed. { } albert von wallenstein (or waldstein), the famous duke of friedland, is celebrated as one of the ablest commanders of the imperial forces during the protracted religious contest known in german history as the "thirty years' war." during its earlier period wallenstein greatly distinguished himself, and was created by the emperor ferdinand duke of friedland and generalissimo of the imperial forces. in the course of a few months wallenstein raised an army of forty thousand men in the emperor's service. the strictest discipline was preserved _within_ his camp, but his troops supported themselves by a system of rapine and plunder unprecedented even in those days of military license. merit was rewarded with princely munificence, and the highest offices were within the reach of every common soldier who distinguished himself;--trivial breaches of discipline were punished with death. the dark and ambitious spirit of wallenstein would not allow him to rest satisfied with the rewards and dignities heaped upon him by his imperial master. he temporised and entered into negotiations with the enemy; and during an interview with a swedish general (arnheim), is even said to have proposed an alliance to "hunt the emperor to the devil." it is supposed that he aspired to the sovereignty of bohemia. ferdinand was informed of the ambitious designs of his general, and at length determined that wallenstein should die. he despatched one of his generals, gallas, to the commander-in-chief, with a mandate depriving him of his dignity of generalissimo, and nominating gallas as his successor. surprised before his plans were ripe, and deserted by many on whose support he had relied, wallenstein retired hastily upon egra. during a banquet in the castle, three of his generals who remained faithful to their leader were murdered in the dead of night. roused by the noise, wallenstein leapt from his bed, and encountered three soldiers who had been hired to despatch him. speechless with astonishment and indignation, he stretched forth his arms, and receiving in his breast the stroke of a halbert, fell dead without a groan, in the fifty-first year of his age. the following anecdote, curiously illustrative of the state of affairs in wallenstein's camp, is related by schiller in his _history of the thirty years' war_, a work containing a full account of the life and actions of this extraordinary man. "the extortions of wallenstein's soldiers from the peasants had at one period reached such a pitch, that severe penalties were denounced against all marauders; and every soldier who should be convicted of theft was threatened with a halter. shortly afterwards, it chanced that wallenstein himself met a soldier straying in the field, whom he caused to be seized, as having violated the law, and condemned to the gallows without a trial, by his usual word of doom: "let the rascal be hung!" the soldier protested, and proved his innocence. "then let them hang the innocent," cried the inhuman wallenstein; "and the guilty will tremble the more." the preparations for carrying this sentence into effect had already commenced, when the soldier, who saw himself lost without remedy, formed the desperate resolution that he would not die unrevenged. rushing furiously upon his leader, he was seized and disarmed by the bystanders before he could carry his intention into effect. "now let him go," said wallenstein; "it will excite terror enough.""--ed. { } poniatowski was the commander of the polish legion in the armies of napoleon, by whom he was highly respected. at the battle of leipzig, fought in october , poniatowski and marshal macdonald were appointed to command the rear of napoleon's army, which, after two days hard fighting, was compelled to retreat before the allies. these generals defended the retreat of the army so gallantly, that all the french troops, except those under their immediate command, had evacuated the town. the rear-guard was preparing to follow, when the only bridge over the elster that remained open to them was destroyed, through some mistake. this effectually barred the escape of the rear of napoleon's army. a few, among whom was marshal macdonald, succeeded in swimming across; but poniatowski, after making a brave resistance, and refusing to surrender, was drowned in making the same attempt.--ed. { } leipzig has long been famous as the chief book-mart of germany. at the great easter meetings, publishers from all the different states assemble at the "buchhandler borse," and a large amount of business is done. the fairs of leipzig have done much towards establishing the position of this city as one of the first trading towns in germany. they take place three times annually: at new-year, at easter, and at michaelmas; but the easter fair is by far the most important. these commercial meetings last about three weeks, and during this time the town presents a most animated appearance, as the streets are thronged with the costumes of almost every nation, the smart dress of the tyrolese contrasting gaily with the sombre garb of the polish jews. the amount of business transacted at these fairs is very considerable; on several occasions, above twenty thousand dealers have assembled. the trade is principally in woollen cloths; but lighter wares, and even ornaments of every description, are sold to a large extent. the manner in which every available place is taken advantage of is very curious: archways, cellars, passages, and courtyards are alike filled with merchandise, and the streets are at times so crowded as to be almost impassable. when the three weeks have passed, the wooden booths which have been erected in the market-place and the principal streets are taken down, the buyers and sellers vanish together, and the visitor would scarcely recognise in the quiet streets around him the bustling busy city of a few days ago.--ed. { } the fire broke out on th may , and raged with the utmost fury for three days. whole streets were destroyed, and at least houses burned to the ground. nearly half a million of money was raised in foreign countries to assist in rebuilding the city, of which about a tenth was contributed by britain. such awful fires, fearful though they are at the time, seem absolutely necessary to great towns, as they cause needful improvements to be made, which the indolence or selfishness of the inhabitants would otherwise prevent. there is not a great city that has not at one time or another suffered severely from fire, and has risen out of the ruins greater than before.--ed. { } there are no docks at hamburgh, consequently all the vessels lie in the river elbe, and both receive and discharge their cargoes there. madame pfeiffer, however, is mistaken in supposing that only london could show a picture of so many ships and so much commercial activity surpassing that of hamburgh. such a picture, more impressive even than that seen in the elbe, is exhibited every day in the mersey or the hudson.--ed. { } kiel, however, is a place of considerable trade; and doubtless the reason why madame pfeiffer saw so few vessels at it was precisely the same reason why she saw so many at hamburgh. kiel contains an excellent university.--ed. { } at sea i calculate by sea-miles, of which sixty go to a degree. { } this great danish sculptor was born of poor parents at copenhagen, on the th november, ; his father was an icelander, and earned his living by carving figure-heads for ships. albert, or "bertel," as he is more generally called, was accustomed during his youth to assist his father in his labours on the wharf. at an early age he visited the academy at copenhagen, where his genius soon began to make itself conspicuous. at the age of sixteen he had won a silver, and at twenty a gold medal. two years later he carried off the "great" gold medal, and was sent to study abroad at the expense of the academy. in we find him practising his art at rome under the eye of zoega the dane, who does not, however, seem to have discovered indications of extraordinary genius in the labours of his young countryman. but a work was soon to appear which should set all questions as to thorwaldsen's talent for ever at rest. in he produced his celebrated statue of "jason," which was at once pronounced by the great canova to be "a work in a new and a grand style." after this period the path of fame lay open before the young sculptor; his bas-reliefs of "summer" and "autumn," the "dance of the muses," "cupid and psyche," and numerous other works, followed each other in rapid succession; and at length, in , thorwaldsen produced his extraordinary work, "the triumph of alexander." in thorwaldsen returned rich and famous to the city he had quitted as a youth twenty-three years before; he was received with great honour, and many feasts and rejoicings were held to celebrate his arrival. after a sojourn of a year thorwaldsen again visited rome, where he continued his labours until , when, wealthy and independent, he resolved to rest in his native country. this time his welcome to copenhagen was even more enthusiastic than in . the whole shore was lined with spectators, and amid thundering acclamations the horses were unharnessed from his carriage, and the sculptor was drawn in triumph by the people to his _atelier_. during the remainder of his life thorwaldsen passed much of his time on the island of nyso, where most of his latest works were executed. on sunday, march th, , he had been conversing with a circle of friends in perfect health. halm's tragedy of _griselda_ was announced for the evening, and thorwaldsen proceeded to the theatre to witness the performance. during the overture he rose to allow a stranger to pass, then resumed his seat, and a moment afterwards his head sunk on his breast--he was dead! his funeral was most sumptuous. rich and poor united to do honour to the memory of the great man, who had endeared himself to them by his virtues as by his genius. the crown-prince followed the coffin, and the people of copenhagen stood in two long rows, and uncovered their heads as the coffin of the sculptor was carried past. the king himself took part in the solemnity. at the time of his decease thorwaldsen had completed his seventy-second year.--ed. { } tycho de brahe was a distinguished astronomer, who lived between and . he was a native of denmark. his whole life may be said to have been devoted to astronomy. a small work that he published when a young man brought him under the notice of the king of denmark, with whose assistance he constructed, on the small island of hulln, a few miles north of copenhagen, the celebrated observatory of uranienburg. here, seated in "the ancient chair" referred to in the text, and surrounded by numerous assistants, he directed for seventeen years a series of observations, that have been found extremely accurate and useful. on the death of his patron he retired to prague in bohemia, where he was employed by rodolph ii. then emperor of germany. here he was assisted by the great kepler, who, on tycho's death in , succeeded him.--ed. { } the fisheries of iceland have been very valuable, and indeed the chief source of the commerce of the country ever since it was discovered. the fish chiefly caught are cod and the tusk or cat-fish. they are exported in large quantities, cured in various ways. since the discovery of newfoundland, however, the fisheries of iceland have lost much of their importance. so early as , the english sent fishing vessels to the icelandic coast, and the sailors who were on board, it would appear, behaved so badly to the natives that henry v. had to make some compensation to the king of denmark for their conduct. the greatest number of fishing vessels from england that ever visited iceland was during the reign of james i., whose marriage with the sister of the danish king might probably make england at the time the most favoured nation. it was in his time that an english pirate, "gentleman john," as he was called, committed great ravages in iceland, for which james had afterwards to make compensation. the chief markets for the fish are in the catholic countries of europe. in the seventeenth century, a great traffic in fish was carried on between iceland and spain.--ed. { } the dues charged by the danish government on all vessels passing through the sound have been levied since , and therefore enjoy a prescriptive right of more than five hundred years. they bring to the danish government a yearly revenue of about a quarter of a million; and, in consideration of the dues, the government has to support certain lighthouses, and otherwise to render safe and easy the navigation of this great entrance to the baltic. sound-dues were first paid in the palmy commercial days of the hanseatic league. that powerful combination of merchants had suffered severely from the ravages of danish pirates, royal and otherwise; but ultimately they became so powerful that the rich merchant could beat the royal buccaneer, and tame his ferocity so effectually as to induce him to build and maintain those beacon-lights on the shores of the sound, for whose use they and all nations and merchants after them have agreed to pay certain duties.--ed. { } the feroe islands consist of a great many islets, some of them mere rocks, lying about halfway between the north coast of scotland and iceland. at one time they belonged to norway, but came into the possession of denmark at the same time as iceland. they are exceedingly mountainous, some of the mountains attaining an elevation of about feet. the largest town or village does not contain more than or inhabitants. the population live chiefly on the produce of their large flocks of sheep, and on the down procured, often at great risk to human life, from the eider-duck and other birds by which the island is frequented.--ed. { } i should be truly sorry if, in this description of our "life aboard ship," i had said any thing which could give offence to my kind friend herr knudson. i have, however, presumed that every one is aware that the mode of life at sea is different to life in families. i have only to add, that herr knudson lived most agreeably not only in copenhagen, but what is far more remarkable, in iceland also, and was provided with every comfort procurable in the largest european towns. { } it is not only at sea that ingenious excuses for drinking are invented. the lovers of good or bad liquor on land find these reasons as "plenty as blackberries," and apply them with a marvellous want of stint or scruple. in warm climates the liquor is drank to keep the drinker cool, in cold to keep him warm; in health to prevent him from being sick, in sickness to bring him back to health. very seldom is the real reason, "because i like it," given; and all these excuses and reasons must be regarded as implying some lingering sense of shame at the act, and as forming part of "the homage that vice always pays to virtue."--ed. { } the sailors call those waves "spanish" which, coming from the west, distinguish themselves by their size. { } these islands form a rocky group, only one of which is inhabited, lying about fifteen miles from the coast. they are said to derive their name from some natives of ireland, called west-men, who visited iceland shortly after its discovery by the norwegians. in this there is nothing improbable, for we know that during the ninth and tenth centuries the danes and normans, called easterlings, made many descents on the irish coast; and one norwegian chief is reported to have assumed sovereign power in ireland about the year , though he was afterwards deposed, and flung into a lough, where he was drowned: rather an ignominious death for a "sea-king."--ed. { } this work, which madame pfeiffer does not praise too highly, was first published in . after passing through two editions, it was reprinted in , at a cheap price, in the valuable people's editions of standard works, published by messrs. chambers of edinburgh. { } it is related of ingold that he carried with him on his voyage the door of his former house in ireland, and that when he approached the coast he cast it into the sea, watching the point of land which it touched; and on that land he fixed his future home. this land is the same on which the town of reikjavik now stands. these old sea-kings, like the men of athens, were "in all things too superstitious."--ed. { } these sea-rovers, that were to the nations of europe during the middle ages what the danes, norwegians, and other northmen were at an earlier period, enjoyed at this time the full flow of their lawless prosperity. their insolence and power were so great that many nations, our own included, were glad to purchase, by a yearly payment, exemption from the attacks of these sea-rovers. the americans paid this tribute so late as . the unfortunate icelanders who were carried off in the seventeenth century nearly all died as captives in algiers. at the end of ten years they were liberated; but of the four hundred only thirty-seven were alive when the joyful intelligence reached the place of their captivity; and of these twenty-four died before rejoining their native land.--ed. { } this town, the capital of iceland, and the seat of government, is built on an arm of the sea called the faxefiord, in the south-west part of the island. the resident population does not exceed , but this is greatly increased during the annual fairs. it consists mainly of two streets at right angles to each other. it contains a large church built of stone, roofed with tiles; an observatory; the residences of the governor and the bishop, and the prison, which is perhaps the most conspicuous building in the town.--ed. { } as madame pfeiffer had thus no opportunity of attending a ball in iceland, the following description of one given by sir george mackenzie may be interesting to the reader. "we gave a ball to the ladies of reikjavik and the neighbourhood. the company began to assemble about nine o'clock. we were shewn into a small low-roofed room, in which were a number of men, but to my surprise i saw no females. we soon found them, however, in one adjoining, where it is the custom for them to wait till their partners go to hand them out. on entering this apartment, i felt considerable disappointment at not observing a single woman dressed in the icelandic costume. the dresses had some resemblance to those of english chambermaids, but were not so smart. an old lady, the wife of the man who kept the tavern, was habited like the pictures of our great-grandmothers. some time after the dancing commenced, the bishop's lady, and two others, appeared in the proper dress of the country. "we found ourselves extremely awkward in dancing what the ladies were pleased to call english country dances. the music, which came from a solitary ill-scraped fiddle, accompanied by the rumbling of the same half-rotten drum that had summoned the high court of justice, and by the jingling of a rusty triangle, was to me utterly unintelligible. the extreme rapidity with which it was necessary to go through many complicated evolutions in proper time, completely bewildered us; and our mistakes, and frequent collisions with our neighbours, afforded much amusement to our fair partners, who found it for a long time impracticable to keep us in the right track. when allowed to breathe a little, we had an opportunity of remarking some singularities in the state of society and manners among the danes of reikjavik. while unengaged in the dance, the men drink punch, and walk about with tobacco-pipes in their mouths, spitting plentifully on the floor. the unrestrained evacuation of saliva seems to be a fashion all over iceland; but whether the natives learned it from the danes, or the danes from the natives, we did not ascertain. several ladies whose virtue could not bear a very strict scrutiny were pointed out to us. "during the dances, tea and coffee were handed about; and negus and punch were ready for those who chose to partake of them. a cold supper was provided, consisting of hams, beef, cheese, &c., and wine. while at table, several of the ladies sang, and acquitted themselves tolerably well. but i could not enjoy the performance, on account of the incessant talking, which was as fashionable a rudeness in iceland as it is now in britain. this, however, was not considered as in the least unpolite. one of the songs was in praise of the donors of the entertainment; and, during the chorus, the ceremony of touching each other's glasses was performed. after supper, waltzes were danced, in a style that reminded me of soldiers marching in cadence to the dead march in saul. though there was no need of artificial light, a number of candles were placed in the rooms. when the company broke up, about three o'clock, the sun was high above the horizon." { } a man of eighty years of age is seldom seen on the island.--_kerguelen_. { } kerguelen (writing in ) says: "they live during the summer principally on cod's heads. a common family make a meal of three or four cods' heads boiled in sea-water."--ed. { } this bakehouse is the only one in iceland, and produces as good bread and biscuit as any that can be procured in denmark. [in kerguelen's time ( ) bread was very uncommon in iceland. it was brought from copenhagen, and consisted of broad thin cakes, or sea-biscuits, made of rye-flour, and extremely black.--ed.] { } in all high latitudes fat oily substances are consumed to a vast extent by the natives. the desire seems to be instinctive, not acquired. a different mode of living would undoubtedly render them more susceptible to the cold of these inclement regions. many interesting anecdotes are related of the fondness of these hyperborean races for a kind of food from which we would turn in disgust. before gas was introduced into edinburgh, and the city was lighted by oil-lamps, several russian noblemen visited that metropolis; and it is said that their longing for the luxury of train-oil became one evening so intense, that, unable to procure the delicacy in any other way, they emptied the oil-lamps. parry relates that when he was wintering in the arctic regions, one of the seamen, who had been smitten with the charms of an esquimaux lady, wished to make her a present, and knowing the taste peculiar to those regions, he gave her with all due honours a pound of candles, six to the pound! the present was so acceptable to the lady, that she eagerly devoured the lot in the presence of her wondering admirer.--ed. { } an american travelling in iceland in thus describes, in a letter to the _boston post_, the mode of travelling:--"all travel is on horseback. immense numbers of horses are raised in the country, and they are exceedingly cheap. as for travelling on foot, even short journeys, no one ever thinks of it. the roads are so bad for walking, and generally so good for riding that shoe-leather, to say nothing of fatigue, would cost nearly as much as horse-flesh. their horses are small, compact, hardy little animals, a size larger than shetland ponies, but rarely exceeding from or . hands high. a stranger in travelling must always have a 'guide,' and if he does go equipped for a good journey and intends to make good speed, he wants as many as six horses; one for himself, one for the guide, one for the luggage, and three relay horses. then when one set of horses are tired the saddles are exchanged to the others. the relay horses are tied together and are either led or driven before the others. a tent is often carried, unless a traveller chooses to chance it for his lodgings. such an article as an hotel is not kept in iceland out of the capital. you must also carry your provisions with you, as you will be able to get but little on your route. plenty of milk can be had, and some fresh-water fish. the luggage is carried in trunks that are hung on each side of the horse, on a rude frame that serves as a pack-saddle. under this, broad pieces of turf are placed to prevent galling the horse's back." { } the down of the eider-duck forms a most important and valuable article of icelandic commerce. it is said that the weight of down procurable from each nest is about half a pound, which is reduced one-half by cleansing. the down is sold at about twelve shillings per pound, so that the produce of each nest is about three shillings. the eider-duck is nearly as large as the common goose; and some have been found on the fern islands, off the coast of northumberland.--ed. { } the same remark applies with equal force to many people who are not icelanders. it was once the habit among a portion of the population of lancashire, on returning from market, to carry their goods in a bag attached to one end of a string slung over their shoulders, which was balanced by a bag containing a stone at the other. some time ago, it was pointed out to a worthy man thus returning from market, that it would be easier for him to throw away the stone, and make half of his load balance the other half, but the advice was rejected with disdain; the plan he had adopted was that of his forefathers, and he would on no account depart from it.--ed. { } the description of the wolf's hollow occurs in the second act of _der freyschutz_, when rodolph sings: "how horrid, dark, and wild, and drear, doth this gaping gulf appear! it seems the hue of hell to wear. the bellowing thunder bursts yon clouds, the moon with blood has stained her light! what forms are those in misty shrouds, that stalk before my sight? and now, hush! hush! the owl is hooting in yon bush; how yonder oak-tree's blasted arms upon me seem to frown! my heart recoils, but all alarms are vain: fate calls, i must down, down." { } the reader must bear in mind that, during the season of which i speak, there is no twilight, much less night, in iceland. { } the springs of carlsbad are said to have been unknown until about five hundred years ago, when a hunting-dog belonging to one of the emperors of germany fell in, and by his howling attracted the hunters to the spot. the temperature of the chief spring is degrees.--ed. { } history tells of this great icelandic poet, that owing to his treachery the free island of iceland came beneath the norwegian sceptre. for this reason he could never appear in iceland without a strong guard, and therefore visited the allthing under the protection of a small army of men. being at length surprised by his enemies in his house at reikiadal, he fell beneath their blows, after a short and ineffectual resistance. [snorri sturluson, the most distinguished name of which iceland can boast, was born, in , at hoam. in his early years he was remarkably fortunate in his worldly affairs. the fortune he derived from his father was small, but by means of a rich marriage, and by inheritance, he soon became proprietor of large estates in iceland. some writers say that his guard of men, during his visit to the allthing, was intended not as a defence, as indicated in madame pfeiffer's note, but for the purposes of display, and to impress the inhabitants with forcible ideas of his influence and power. he was invited to the court of the norwegian king, and there he either promised or was bribed to bring iceland under the norwegian power. for this he has been greatly blamed, and stigmatised as a traitor; though it would appear from some historians that he only undertook to do by peaceable means what otherwise the norwegian kings would have effected by force, and thus saved his country from a foreign invasion. but be this as it may, it is quite clear that he sunk in the estimation of his countrymen, and the feeling against him became so strong, that he was obliged to fly to norway. he returned, however, in , and in two years afterwards he was assassinated by his own son-in-law. the work by which he is chiefly known is the _heimskringla_, or chronicle of the sea-kings of norway, one of the most valuable pieces of northern history, which has been admirably translated into english by mr. samuel laing. this curious name of heimskringla was given to the work because it contains the words with which begins, and means literally _the circle of the world_.--ed.] { } a translation of this poem will be found in the appendix. [not included in this gutenberg etext--dp] { } in iceland, as in denmark, it is the custom to keep the dead a week above ground. it may be readily imagined that to a non-icelandic sense of smell, it is an irksome task to be present at a burial from beginning to end, and especially in summer. but i will not deny that the continued sensation may have partly proceeded from imagination. { } every one in iceland rides. { } i cannot forbear mentioning a curious circumstance here. when i was at the foot of mount etna in , the fiery element was calmed; some months after my departure it flamed with renewed force. when, on my return from hecla, i came to reikjavik, i said jocularly that it would be most strange if this etna of the north should also have an eruption now. scarcely had i left iceland more than five weeks when an eruption, more violent than the former one, really took place. this circumstance is the more remarkable, as it had been in repose for eighty years, and was already looked upon as a burnt-out volcano. if i were to return to iceland now, i should be looked upon as a prophetess of evil, and my life would scarcely be safe. { } every peasant in tolerably good circumstances carries a little tent with him when he leaves home for a few days. these tents are, at the utmost, three feet high, five or six feet long, and three broad. { } "though their poverty disables them from imitating the hospitality of their ancestors in all respects, yet the desire of doing it still exists: they cheerfully give away the little they have to spare, and express the utmost joy and satisfaction if you are pleased with the gift." _uno von troil_, .--ed. { } the presence of american ships in the port of gottenburg is not to be wondered at, seeing that nearly three-fourths of all the iron exported from gottenburg is to america.--ed. { } "st. stephen's steeple" is feet high, being about feet higher than st. paul's, and forms part of st. stephen's cathedral in vienna, a magnificent gothic building, that dates as far back as the twelfth century. it has a great bell, that weighs about eighteen tons, being more than double the weight of the bell in st. peter's at rome, and four times the weight of the "great tom of lincoln." the metal used consisted of cannons taken from the turks during their memorable sieges of vienna. the cathedral is feet long and wide, being less than st. paul's in london, which is feet long and wide.--ed. { } the _storthing_ is the name given to the norwegian parliament, which assembles once every three years at christiania. the time and place of meeting are fixed by law, and the king has no power to prevent or postpone its assembly. it consists of about a hundred members, who divide themselves into two houses. the members must not be under thirty years of age, and must have lived for ten years in norway. the electors are required to be twenty-five years of age, and to be either burgesses of a town, or to possess property of the annual value of _l._ the members must possess the same qualification. the members of the storthing are usually plain-spoken, sensible men, who have no desire to shine as orators, but who despatch with great native sagacity the business brought before them. this storthing is the most independent legislative assembly in europe; for not only has the king no power to prevent its meeting at the appointed time, but should he refuse to assent to any laws that are passed, these laws come into force without his assent, provided they are passed by three successive parliaments.--ed. { } the present king of sweden and norway is oscar, one of the few fortunate scions of those lowly families that were raised to royal power and dignity by napoleon. his father, bernadotte, was the son of an advocate, and entered the french army as a common soldier; in that service he rose to the rank of marshal, and then became crown-prince, and ultimately king of sweden. he died in . the mother of oscar was desiree clary, a sister of julie clary, wife of joseph bonaparte, the elder brother of napoleon. this lady was asked in marriage by napoleon himself, but her father refused his assent; and instead of becoming an unfortunate empress of france, she became a fortunate queen of sweden and norway. oscar was born at paris in , and received his education chiefly in hanover. he accompanied his father to sweden in , and ascended the throne on his father's death in . in he married josephine beauharnois, daughter of prince eugene, and granddaughter of the brilliant and fascinating josephine, the first and best wife of napoleon. oscar is much beloved by his subjects; his administration is mild, just, and equable; and his personal abilities and acquirements are far beyond the average of crowned heads.--ed. { } bergen is a town of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, situated near the kons fiord, on the west coast of norway, and distant about miles from christiania. it is the seat of a bishopric, and a place of very considerable trade, its exports being chiefly fish. it has given its name to a county and a township in the state of new jersey. there are three other bergens,--one in the island of rugen, one in the netherlands, and another in the electorate of hesse. { } _kulle_ is the swedish for hill. { } delekarlien is a swedish province, situated ninety or one hundred miles north of stockholm. { } the family of sturre was one of the most distinguished in sweden. sten sturre introduced printing into sweden, founded the university of upsala, and induced many learned men to come over. he was mortally wounded in a battle against the danes, and died in . his successors as governors, suante, nilson sturre, and his son, sten sturre the younger, still live in the memory of the swedish nation, and are honoured for their patriotism and valour. { } the university of upsala is the most celebrated in the north. it owes its origin to sten sturre, the regent of the kingdom, by whom it was founded in , on the same plan as the university of paris. through the influence of the jesuits, who wished to establish a new academy in stockholm, it was dissolved in , but re-established in . gustavus vasa, who was educated at upsala, gave it many privileges, and much encouragement; and gustavus adolphus reconstituted it, and give it very liberal endowments. there are twenty-four professors, and the number of students is between four and five hundred.--ed. { } see novel of _ivar_, _the skjuts boy_, by miss emilie carlen. { } at calmar was concluded, in , the famous treaty which bears its name, by which denmark, sweden, and norway were united under one crown, that crown placed nominally on the head of eric duke of pomerania, but virtually on that of his aunt margaret, who has received the name of "the semiramis of the north." --ed. { } there is now a railway direct from hamburgh to berlin.--ed. { } a florin is about two shillings sterling.--_tr._ { } herr t. scheffer of modling, near vienna, gives the following characteristic of this new dipteral animal, which belongs to the family muscidae, and resembles the species borborus: _antennae_ deflexae, breves, triarticulatae, articulo ultimo phoereco; seda nuda. _hypoctoma_ subprominulum, fronte lata, setosa. _oculi_ rotundi, remoti. abdomen quinque annulatum, dorso nudo. _tarsi_ simplices. _alae_ incumbentes, abdomine longiores, nervo primo simplici. niger, abdomine nitido, antennis pedibusque rufopiceis. norwegian life an account of past and contemporary conditions and progress in norway and sweden edited and arranged by ethlyn t. clough preface an excursion into norwegian life has for the student all the charm of the traveler's real journey through the pleasant valleys of the norse lands. much of this charm is explained by the tenacity of the people to the homely virtues of honesty and thrift, to their customs which testify to their home-loving character, and to their quaint costumes. it is a genuine delight to study and visit these lands, because they are the least, perhaps in europe, affected by the leveling hand of cosmopolitan ideas. go where you will,--to england, about germany, down into italy,--everywhere, the same monotonous sameness is growing more oppressive every year. but in norway and sweden there is still an originality, a type, if you please, that has resisted the growth of an artificial life, and gives to students a charm which is even more alluring than modern cities with their treasures and associations. the student takes up norwegian life as one of the subjects which has been comparatively little explored, and is, therefore replete with freshness and delight. this little book can not by any means more than lift the curtain to view the fields of historical and literary interest and the wondrous life lived in the deep fiords of viking land. but its brief pages will have, at least, the merit of giving information on a subject about which only too little has been written. taken in all, there are scarcely half a dozen recent books circulating in american literary channels on these interesting lands, and for one reason or another, most of these are unsuited for club people. there is an urgent call for a comprehensive book which will waste no time in non-essentials,--a book that can be read in a few sittings and yet will give a glimpse over this quaint and wondrously interesting corner of europe. this book has been prepared, as have all the predecessors in this series, by the help of many who have written most delightfully of striking things in norwegian life. one has specialized in one thing, while another has been allured by another subject. accordingly, "norwegian life" is the product of many, each inspired with feeling and admiration for the one or two subjects on which he has written better than on any others. liberty has been taken to make a few verbal changes in order to give to the story the unity and smoothness desired, and a key-letter at the end of each chapter refers the reader to a page at the close where due credits are given. j.m. hall. contents chapter i prehistoric and early historic times chapter ii norway in the nineteenth century chapter iii sweden in the nineteenth century chapter iv the religion of the northmen chapter v the literature of norway chapter vi the literature of sweden chapter vii government and politics of norway and sweden chapter viii the army and navy chapter ix public education chapter x haakon vii, new king of norway chapter xi the royal family of sweden chapter xii charitable and benevolent institutions chapter xiii material conditions chapter xiv highways, railways, and waterways chapter xv the people: their manners and customs chapter xvi health, exercise, and amusements chapter xvii the newspapers of norway and sweden chapter xviii norwegian folk songs chapter xix women of norway and sweden norwegian life chapter i prehistoric and early historic times a glance at the map will show that the scandinavian peninsula, that immense stretch of land running from the arctic ocean to the north sea, and from the baltic to the atlantic, covering an area of nearly three hundred thousand square miles, is, next to russia, the largest territorial division of europe. surrounded by sea on all sides but one, which gives it an unparalleled seaboard of over two thousand miles, it hangs on the continent by its frontier line with russia in lapland. down the middle of this seabound continent, dividing it into two nearly equal parts, runs a chain of mountains not inappropriately called kölen, or keel. the name suggests the image which the aspect of the land calls to mind, that of a huge ship floating keel upwards on the face of the ocean. this keel forms the frontier line between the kingdoms of norway and sweden: sweden to the east, sloping gently from the hills to the baltic, norway to the west, running more abruptly down from their watershed to the atlantic. norway (in the old norse language _noregr_, or _nord-vegr, i.e_., the north way), according to archaeological explorations, appears to have been inhabited long before historical time. the antiquarians maintain that three populations have inhabited the north: a mongolian race and a celtic race, types of which are to be found in the finns and the laplanders in the far north, and, finally, a caucasian race, which immigrated from the south and drove out the celtic and laplandic races, and from which the present inhabitants are descended. the norwegians, or northmen (norsemen), belong to a north-germanic branch of the indo-european race; their nearest kindred are the swedes, the danes, and the goths. the original home of the race is supposed to have been the mountain region of balkh, in western asia, whence from time to time families and tribes migrated in different directions. it is not known when the ancestors of the scandinavian peoples left the original home in asia; but it is probable that their earliest settlements in norway were made in the second century before the christian era. the scandinavian peoples, although comprising the oldest and most unmixed race in europe, did not realize until very late the value of writing chronicles or reviews of historic events. thus the names of heroes and kings of the remotest past are helplessly forgotten, save as they come to us in legend and folk-song, much of which we must conclude is imaginary, beautiful as it is. but mother earth has revealed to us, at the spade of the archaeologist, trustworthy and irrefutable accounts of the age and the various degrees of civilization of the race which inhabited the scandinavian peninsula in prehistoric times. splendid specimens now extant in numerous museums prove that scandinavia, like most other countries, has had a stone age, a bronze age, and an iron age, and that each of these periods reached a much higher development than in other countries. the scandinavian countries are for the first time mentioned by the historians of antiquity in an account of a journey which pyteas from massilia (the present marseille) made throughout northern europe, about b.c. he visited britain, and there heard of a great country, thule, situated six days' journey to the north, and verging on the arctic sea. the inhabitants in thule were an agricultural people who gathered their harvest into big houses for threshing, on account of the very few sunny days and the plentiful rain in their regions. from corn and honey they prepared a beverage (probably mead). pliny the elder, who himself visited the shores of the baltic in the first century after christ, is the first to mention plainly the name of scandinavia. he says that he has received advices of immense islands "recently discovered from germany." the most famous of these islands was scandinavia, of as yet unexplored size; the known parts were inhabited by a people called _hilleviones_, who gave it the name of another world. he mentions scandia, nerigon, the largest of them all, and thule. scandia and scandinavia are only different forms of the same name, denoting the southernmost part of the peninsula, and still preserved in the name of the province of scania in sweden. nerigon stands for norway, the northern part of which is mentioned as an island by the name of thule. the classical writers were ignorant of the fact that scandinavia was one great peninsula, because the northern parts were as yet uninhabited and their physical connection with finland and russia unknown. that the romans were later acquainted with the scandinavian countries is evidenced from the fact that great numbers of roman coins have been found in excavating, also vessels of bronze and glass, weapons, etc., as well as works of art, all turned out of the workshops in rome or its provinces. there, no doubt, existed a regular traffic over the baltic, through germany, between the scandinavian countries and the roman provinces. the first settlers probably knew little of agriculture, but made their living by fishing and hunting. in time, however, they commenced to clear away the timber that covered the land in the valleys and on the sides of the mountains and to till the ground. at the earliest times of which the historical tales or _sagas_ tell us anything with regard to the social conditions, the land was divided among the free peasant-proprietors, or _bonde class_. bonde, in english translation, is usually called peasant; but this is not an equivalent; for with the word "peasant" we associate the idea of inferior social condition to the landed aristocracy of the country, while these peasants or bondes were themselves the highest class in the country. the land owned by a peasant was called his _udal_. by udal-right the land was kept in the family, and it could not be alienated or forfeited from the kindred who were udal-born to it. the free peasants might own many thralls or slaves, who were unfree men. these were mostly prisoners captured by the vikings on their expeditions to foreign shores; the owner could trade them away, or sell them, or even kill them without paying any fine or _man-bote_ to the king, as in the case of killing a free man. as a rule, however, the slaves were not badly treated, and they were sometimes made free and given the right to acquire land. in early days norway consisted of a great number of small states called _fylkis_, each a little kingdom by itself. the free peasants in a fylki held general assemblies called _things_, where laws were made and justice administered. no public acts were undertaken without the deliberation of a _thing_. the _thing_ was sacred, and a breach of peace at the _thing-place_ was considered a great crime. at the _thing_ there was also a hallowed place for the judges, or "lag-men," who expounded and administered the laws made by the _thing_. almost every crime could be expiated by the payment of fines, even if the accused had killed a person. but if a man killed another secretly, he was declared an assassin and an outlaw, was deprived of all his property, and could be killed by any one who wished to do so. the fine or man-bote was heavier, the higher the rank of the person killed. the _thing_ or _fylkis thing_ was not made up of representatives elected by the people, but was rather a primary assembly of the free udal-born peasant-proprietors of the district. there were leading men in the _fylki_, and each _fylki_ had one or more chiefs, but they had to plead at the _thing_ like other free men. when there were several chiefs, they usually had the title of _herse_; but when the free men had agreed upon one chief, he was called _jarl_ (earl), or king. the king was the commander in war, and usually performed the judicial functions; but he supported himself upon his own estates, and the free peasants paid no tax. the dignity of the king was usually inherited by his son, but if the heir was not to the liking of the people, they chose another. no man, however clear his right of succession, would think of assuming the title or power of a king except by the vote of the _thing_. there he was presented to the people by a free peasant, and his right must be confirmed by the _thing_ before he could exert any act of kingly power. the king had a number of free men in his service, who had sworn allegiance to him in war and in peace. they were armed men, kept in pay, and were called _hird-men_ or court-men, because they were members of the king's hird or court. if they were brave and faithful, they were often given high positions of trust; some were made _lendermen_ (liegemen), or managers of the king's estates. it is but natural that the ancient norwegians should become warlike and brave men, since their firm religious belief was that those who died of sickness or old age would sink down into the dark abode of hel (helheim), and that only the brave men who fell in battle would be invited to the feasts in odin's hall. sometimes the earls or kings would make war on their neighbors, either for conquest or revenge. but the time came when the countries of the north, with their poorly developed resources, became overpopulated, and the warriors had to seek other fields abroad. the viking cruises commenced, and for a long time the norwegians continued to harry the coasts of europe. at first the viking expeditions were nothing but piracy, carried on for a livelihood. the name viking is supposed to be derived from the word _vik_, a cove or inlet on the coast, in which they would harbor their ships and lie in wait for merchants sailing by. soon these expeditions assumed a wider range and a wilder character, and historians of the time paint the horrors spread by the vikings in dark colors. in the english churches they had a day of prayer each week to invoke the aid of heaven against the harrying northmen. in france the following formula was inserted in the church prayer: "_a furore normannorum libera nos, o domine_!" (free us, o lord, from the fury of the northmen!) gradually the viking life assumed a nobler form. there appear to have been three stages or periods in the viking age. in the first one the vikings make casual visits with single ships to the shores of england, ireland, france or flanders, and when they have plundered a town or a convent, they return to their ships and sail away. in the second period their cruises assume a more regular character, and indicate some definite plan, as they take possession of certain points, where they winter, and from where they command the surrounding country. during the third period they no longer confine themselves to seeking booty, but act as real conquerors, take possession of the conquered territory, and rule it. as to the influence of the northmen on the development of the countries visited in this last period, the eminent english writer, samuel laing, the translator of the _heimskringla_, or the sagas of the norse kings, says: "all that men hope for of good government and future improvement in their physical and moral condition--all that civilized men enjoy at this day of civil, religious, and political liberty--the british constitution, representative legislation, the trial by jury, security of property, freedom of mind and person, the influence of public opinion over the conduct of public affairs, the reformation, the liberty of the press, the spirit of the age--all that is or has been of value to man in modern times as a member of society, either in europe or in the new world, may be traced to the spark left burning upon our shores by these northern barbarians." the authentic history begins with halfdan the swarthy, who reigned from the year to . the icelander snorre sturlason, who, in the twelfth century, wrote the _heimskringla_, or sagas of the norse kings, gives a long line of preceding kings of the yngling race, the royal family to which halfdan the swarthy belonged; but that part of the saga belongs to mythology rather than to history. according to tradition, the yngling family were descendants of fiolner, the son of the god frey. one of the surnames of the god was yngve, from which the family derived the name ynglings. king halfdan was a wise man, a lover of truth and justice. he made good laws, which he observed himself and compelled others to observe. he fixed certain penalties for all crimes committed. his code of laws, called the eidsiva law, was adopted at a common _thing_ at eidsvol, where about a thousand years later the present constitution of norway was adopted. one day in the spring of , when halfdan the swarthy was driving home from a feast across the randsfjord, he broke through the ice and was drowned. he was so popular that, when his body was found, the leading men in each _fylki_ demanded to have him buried with them, believing that it would bring prosperity to the district. they at last agreed to divide the body into four parts, which were buried in four different districts. the trunk of the body was buried in a mound at stien, ringerike, where a little hill is still called halfdan's mound. and this halfdan became the ancestor of the royal race of norway. halfdan's son, harald the fairhaired, at the age of ten years succeeded his father on the throne of norway, or it afterward proved to be the throne of united norway. when he became old enough to marry, he sent his men to a girl named gyda, a daughter of king erik of hordaland, who was brought up a foster-child in the house of a rich _bonde_ in valders. harald had heard of her as a very beautiful though proud girl. when the men delivered their message, she answered that she would not marry a king who had no greater kingdom than a few _fylkis_ (districts), and she added that she thought it strange that "no king here in norway will make the whole country subject to him, in the same way that gorm the old did in denmark, or erik at upsala." when the messengers returned to the king, they advised him to punish her for her haughty words, but harald said she had spoken well, and he made the solemn vow not to cut or comb his hair until he had subdued the whole of norway, which he did, and became sole king of norway. the decisive battle was a naval one in the hafrsfjord, near the present city of stavanger. after this battle, which occurred in , when he had been declared king of united norway, he attended a feast, and the earl of more cut his hair, which had not been cut or combed for ten years, and gave him the name of fairhaired. harald shortly afterward married gyda. from this time on, the history of norway for nearly three hundred years consists mainly in internecine warfare among the various claimants of the throne, and the result of all this warfare was not only to exhaust the material resources of the people, but to drive a large proportion of the population to make viking excursions to win land elsewhere, and also to make peaceable settlements in other countries. iceland was settled by the leading men of norway in harald the fairhaired's reign because they would not submit to his rule and therefore emigrated to a land where they could rule. in duke rollo with a large following conquered normandy and settled there with many of his countrymen. as the result of over three centuries of foreign and domestic war, norway and her people and her industries were prostrate when in queen margaret of denmark claimed the succession to the throne of norway for her son eric of pomerania. the council of norway and the people were willing to accept a union with a more populous country under a powerful sovereign in order to obtain peace and reestablish order and prosperity. norway had not been conquered by denmark, and the union was supposed to be equal. the danish sovereigns, however, without directly interfering with the local laws and usages of the people of norway, filled all the executive and administrative offices in norway with danes; the important commands in the army were also given exclusively to them. the result was that the interpretation and execution of the laws of the land were in the hands of foreigners, and norway became and remained for four hundred years a province of denmark and unable to throw off the yoke because her army was in the control and command of her oppressor, and her material resources inadequate to wage successful war against him. like norway, the most that we know of prehistoric times in sweden we gather from the early sagas, which are more or less faulty in their statements, romantic and tragic though they be. like the norwegians, the early swedes are reported to have migrated from asia under the leadership of a chief who called himself odin. and for centuries under different kings and queens, the romantic and tragic story of sweden goes on to form at last her authentic history. in this brief survey we can not go into details, and its history is very much the same as that of norway, except that sweden was oftener her own mistress and at longer intervals. the sources of swedish history during the first two centuries of the middle ages are very meager. this is a deplorable fact, for during that period sweden passed through a great and thorough development, the various stages of which consequently are not easily traced. before the year , sweden is an old teutonic state, certainly of later form and larger compass than the earliest of such, but with its democracy and its elective kingdom preserved. the older sweden was, in regard to its constitution, a rudimentary union of states. the realm had come into existence through the cunning and violence of the king of the sviar, who made way with the kings of the respective lands, making their communities pay homage to him. no change in the interior affairs of the different lands was thereby effected; they lost their outward political independence, but remained mutually on terms of perfect equality. they were united only through the king, who was the only center for the government of the union. no province had constitutionally more importance than the rest, no supremacy by one over the other existed. on this historic basis the swedish realm was built, and rested firmly until the commencement of the middle ages. in the old swedish state-organism the various parts thus possessed a high degree of individualized and pulsating life; the empire as a whole was also powerful, although the royal dignity was its only institution. the king was the outward tie which bound the provinces together; besides him there was no power of state which embraced the whole realm. the affairs of state were decided upon by the king alone, as regard to war, or he had to gather the opinion of the thing in each province, as any imperial representation did not exist and was entirely unknown, both in the modern sense and in the form of one provincial, or sectional, assembly deciding for all the others. in society there existed no classes. it was a democracy of free men, the slaves and free men enjoying no rights. the first centuries of the middle ages were one continued process of regeneration, the swedish people being carried into the european circle of cultural development and made a communicant of christianity. with the commencement of the thirteenth century, sweden comes out of this process as a medieval state, in aspect entirely different to her past. the democratic equality among free men has turned into an aristocracy, with aristocratic institutions, the hereditary kingdom into an elective kingdom, while the provincial particularism and independence have given way to the constitution of a centralized, monopolistic state. no changes could be more fundamental. the old provincial laws of sweden are a great and important inheritance which this period has accumulated from heathen times. the laws were written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but they bear every evidence of high antiquity. many strophes are found in them of the same meter as those on the tombstones of the viking age and those in which the songs of the edda are chiefly written. in other instances the texts consist of alliterative prose, which proves its earlier metrical form. the expressions have, in places, remained heathen, although used by christians, who are ignorant of their true meaning, as, for instance, in the following formula of an oath, in the west gothic law: _sva se mer gud hull_ (so help me the gods). in lieu of a missing literature of sagas and poetry, these provincial laws give a good insight into the character, morals, customs, and culture of the heathen and early christian times of sweden. from the point of philology they are also of great value, besides forming the solid basis of later swedish law. how the laws could pass from one generation to another, without any codification, depends upon the fact that they were recited from memory by the justice (_lag-man_ or _domare_), and that this dignity generally was inherited for centuries, being carried by the descendants of one and the same family.[a] chapter ii norway in the nineteenth century as early as negotiations took place between count armfeldt on behalf of gustavus iii of sweden and various patriotic and influential norwegians with a view to effecting a union between norway and sweden on equal terms, but the norwegian negotiators expressed themselves unwilling to accept for norway the government prevailing in sweden. a minority of the patriots thought that the danish yoke could only be broken by means of a union with sweden, while a majority aimed at nothing less than absolute independence at any cost. such was the condition of norway when by the treaty of kiel (jan. , ) the allies compelled the king of denmark to cede norway to sweden and made charles john bernadotte crown prince of sweden and norway. the norwegians denied the right of denmark to norway, refused to recognize the treaty of kiel as having any binding force on them, as they were not parties to it, and invited prince christian frederick of denmark to accept the norwegian throne from its people and to govern pursuant to a constitution adopted at eidsvold, may , . among the provisions of this instrument are the following: that norway should be a limited hereditary monarchy, independent and indivisible, whose ruler should be called a king; that all legislative power should reside in and be exercised by the people through their representatives; that all taxes should be levied by the legislative authority; that the legislative and judicial authority should be distinct departments; that the right of free press should be maintained; that no personal or hereditary distinction shall hereafter be granted to any one. the election of a king and adoption of an independent constitution in disregard of the treaty of kiel was tatamount to a declaration of war against sweden, and as such it was taken. after the treaty of paris and the abdication of napoleon, the powers agreed to force norway to accept the treaty of kiel, and representatives of the allied powers came to norway and demanded its compliance on penalty of war with the allies. the norwegians remained obdurate. the swedes, under bernadotte, marched across the frontier and took the fortress fredricksteen. another division of the swedish army was beaten by the norwegians and driven back over the frontier. several other engagements were fought, and it became evident that norway could not be subdued without serious war. sweden was exhausted by the wars of the allies against napoleon and could ill endure more warfare. on aug. , , an armstice was declared, and it was provided that an extraordinary storthing should be called to settle the terms of permanent peace. by the terms finally agreed upon, bernadotte was elected king of norway under the title of charles xiii, and he accepted the norwegian constitution adopted at eidsvold, may , , and agreed to govern under and subject to its provisions. at the same time the supreme court of norway was established in christiania. the bank of norway was established at thronedjem in . at the death of charles xiii, in , charles john ascended the throne of both countries as charles xiv john. on several occasions there was friction between the king and the norwegian storthing. at the treaty of kiel the king had promised that norway would assume a part of the norwegian-danish public debt; but as the norwegians had never acknowledged this treaty, they held that it was not their duty to pay any part of the debt, and declared besides that norway was not able to do so. but as the powers had agreed to help denmark to enforce her claims, a compromise was effected in , by which the storthing agreed to pay three million dollars, the king relinquishing his civil list for a certain number of years. the same storthing adopted the law abolishing the nobility in norway. this step also was strongly opposed by charles john, but as it had been adopted by three successive storthings, the act under the constitution became a law in spite of any veto. for a number of years there existed a want of confidence between the king and the norwegian people. the king did not like the democratic spirit of the norwegians, and the reactionary tendencies of his european allies had quite an influence upon his actions. in he proposed ten amendments to the constitution, looking to an increase of the royal power, among which was one giving the king an absolute instead of a suspensive veto; another giving him the right to appoint the presidents of the storthing, and a third authorizing him to dissolve the storthing at any time. but these amendments met the most ardent opposition in the storthing, and were unanimously rejected. when the norwegians commenced to celebrate the anniversary of the adoption of the constitution (may ), the king thought he saw in this a sign of a disloyal spirit, because they did not rather celebrate the day of their union with sweden, and he forbade the public celebration of the day. the result of this was that "independence day" was celebrated with so much greater eagerness. the students at the university especially took an active part under the leadership of that champion of liberty, the poet henrik wergeland, who died in . the unwise prohibition was the cause of the "market-place battle" in christiania, may , , when the troops were called out, and general wedel dispersed the crowds that had assembled in the market-place. there was also dissatisfaction in norway because a swedish viceroy (statholder) was placed at the head of the government, and because their ships had to sail under the swedish flag. the french july revolution of , which started the liberal movement throughout europe, also had its influence in norway. liberal newspapers were established at the capital, and the democratic character of the storthing became more pronounced, especially after , when the farmers commenced to take an active part in the elections. prominent among them was ole gabriel ueland. the king was so displeased with the majority in the storthing of that he suddenly dissolved it; but the storthing answered this action by impeaching the minister of state, lövenskiold, for not having dissuaded the king from taking such a step. lövenskiold was sentenced to pay a fine; the king then yielded and reconvened the storthing. he also took a step toward conciliating the norwegians by appointing their countryman, count wedel-jarlsberg, as viceroy. this action was much appreciated in norway. during the last years of this reign there existed the best of understanding between the king and the people. charles john's great benevolence tended to increase the affection of the people, and he was sincerely mourned at his death, march , , at the age of eighty years. charles john was succeeded by his son, oscar i, who very soon won the love of the norwegians. one of his first acts was to give norway her own commercial flag and other outward signs of her equality with sweden. his father had always signed himself "king of sweden and norway"; but king oscar adopted the rule to sign all documents pertaining to the government of norway as "king of norway and sweden." during the war between germany and denmark, king oscar gathered a swedish-norwegian army in scania, and succeeded in arranging the armstice of malmoe in . the war broke out anew, however, the following year, and he then occupied northern schleswig with norwegian and swedish troops, pending the negotiations for peace between germany and denmark. during the crimean war, king oscar made a treaty with england and france ( ), by which the latter powers promised to help sweden and norway in case of any attack from russia. general contentment prevailed during the happy reign of king oscar, and the prosperity, commerce, and population of the country increased steadily. these satisfactory conditions did not, however, result in weakening the national feeling, and the storthing, in , declined to promote a plan, prepared by a joint swedish and norwegian commission, looking to a strengthening of the union. after a sickness of two years, during which his son, crown prince charles, had charge of the government as prince-regent, king oscar i died in july, , at the age of sixty years. he was married to josephine of leuchtenberg, daughter of napoleon's stepson, eugene beauharnais. charles xv was thirty-three years old when he ascended the throne. the progress in the material welfare of the country continued during his reign, and, like his father, he was very popular with the norwegians. numerous roads and railroads were started, all parts of the country were connected by telegraph, and the merchant marine grew to be one of the largest in the world. in a law was passed providing for annual sessions of the storthing instead of triennial as heretofore. charles xv died sept. , , and, having no sons, was succeeded by his younger brother, oscar ii, the late ruler of sweden. the storthing appropriated the necessary funds for the expense of the coronation at throndhjem (july , ), while the king sanctioned the bill abolishing the office of statholder. but soon differences between the storthing and the ministry brought on sharp conflicts. long before norway deposed king oscar ii (june , ), disruptions and war would doubtless have occurred had it not been for the wisdom and tact of the king. the last straw that broke the camel's back in this instance was the refusal of separate consular representation for norway. the basis of this last demand was not mainly the commercial value to norway of having its distinct consuls, though this was an element, but the right of norway as a nation entirely independent of sweden to be represented as such in its commercial relations with foreign nations. sweden and norway are now not only two distinct nations, but are competitors in trade and commerce. norway's shipping and carrying trade far exceeds that of sweden. the norwegians have always been a seafaring people, and norwegian sailors and marines are found in large numbers in the commercial marine and navies of all europe and america. from the standpoint of norway, common justice demanded that norwegian merchants and sailors should, like every other nation, have their own consuls to represent and protect them in foreign countries. not being able to secure the approval of the king for separate consular representation, the storthing, on june , , passed resolutions declaring the dissolution of the union between norway and sweden, and that king oscar had ceased to be the ruler of norway. in the place of the king, the storthing appointed the members of the norway council of state to act as a temporary government for the nation. the storthing further declared that norway had no ill feeling against king oscar or his dynasty of sweden, and asked the king to cooperate in selecting one of his own house to be king of norway. the riksdag of sweden met in extraordinary session, june , , at the call of king oscar, to consider the action of the norwegian storthing in declaring the dissolution of the union between the two countries. the opening of the session was marked by the usual ceremonial pomp, but also by a gravity and solemnity befitting the unusual occasion. the emotional feeling was intense and repressed with difficulty by both speakers and audience. the king, in his address to the riksdag, maintained with dignity that he had acted within his constitutional rights and that norway had not the power to dissolve the union which legally could be effected only by mutual consent. nevertheless, it was with great sadness that he now urged negotiations for the severance of the ties between the two nations, believing that "the union was not worth the sacrifice which acts of coercion would entail." the bill prepared by the government was immediately presented to the riksdag. it was of the same tenor as the king's address, and asked for authorization to negotiate with the norwegian storthing for the establishment of a common basis for the settlement of the question involved in the separation of the two kingdoms. the bill encountered strong opposition, both in and out of the riksdag. in the senate it was referred to a committee of nine anti-government members, while in the lower house the composition of the corresponding committee was equally divided between the two opposing parties, with the addition of two independent members. the riksdag authorized the government to negotiate a loan of $ , , for works of defense, and declared the harbors of stockholm, karlskrona, gothenburg, and farosund to be war ports from which all foreign naval vessels were to be excluded. norway's army was also mobilized and brought near the swedish boundary. notwithstanding these warlike aspects, a peaceful dissolution of the union between sweden and norway was finally effected. the conference at karlstad between the representatives of the two nations, on sept. , , drew up a protocol which became a treaty when subsequently ratified by the riksdag and the storthing, on the ninth of the following october. thereupon sweden canceled the charter of which governed the union of the two countries, and king oscar declared norway to be again separate and independent. thus were severed the political relations between two countries, which, during a period of ninety years, had led to ever-increasing discord. king oscar ii of sweden steadfastly refused, however, to allow any prince of his house to be chosen as the new king of norway, and the choice finally fell upon prince charles of denmark, who was elected by an overwhelming majority at the plebiscite held throughout norway on nov. , . he accepted the throne offered him and was crowned june , . the idea is prevalent that there is ill will between the norwegian and swedish peoples. this is a popular misconception. the norwegian and swedish peoples are racially very similar in character and habits, and mutually respect each other. king oscar was as beloved and honored in norway as he was in sweden, and deservedly so. the norwegians felt proud of his character, life, and statesmanship. they appreciated his wisdom and moderation, and gave him full credit for his earnest conviction that he was right in his differences with the norwegian government. and yet, the dissolution was a blessing to both countries concerned. so long as norway and sweden were united under one king, there would have been friction. in like manner the long union between norway and denmark was a continuous source of irritation, but after the dissolution they were the best of friends. it has been suggested that russia has long had her eye on the ice-free harbors of the norwegian coast and has coveted them; that she has built her railroads across finland close up to the norwegian frontier, and that there is trouble ahead for norway, because she has isolated herself from sweden, her natural protector. but we see in the division a greater scandinavia. there are now the three great scandinavian nations, norway, sweden, denmark, and it can be imagined that, so close of kin, any one of them would rush to arms in defense of the others. a united norway and sweden under one king brought constant bickerings; a separate norway and sweden can be of mutual help.[b] chapter iii sweden in the nineteenth century leading up to the events of the nineteenth century in sweden were centuries of splendid history, some points of which will be briefly touched upon to connect the present-day sweden with the mediaeval state. during the folkung dynasty, in the fourteenth century, the royal houses of sweden and norway became united through the marriage of duke eric, of sweden, and ingeborg, only child of king haakon, of norway; and duke valdemar to the king's niece of the same name. in may, , king haakon died, and magnus ericsson, the young son of duke eric and princess ingeborg, inherited the crown of norway, and july of the same year was elected king of sweden, at mora in upland. for the attainment of this end, magnus' mother, duchess ingeborg, and seven swedish councillors had worked with great activity. they had taken part in shaping the first act of union of the north in june, , and from oslo, in norway, hastened to have magnus elected at the stone of mora, where the swedish kings since time immemorial were nominated. the act of union stipulated that the two kingdoms were to remain perfectly independent, the king to sojourn an equally long part of the year in each, with no official of either country to accompany him further than the frontier. in their foreign relations the countries were to be independent, but to support each other in case of war. the king was the only tie to bind them together. there was another magnus whose candidacy was spoiled by this union. he was the son of king birger, already as a child chosen king of sweden in succession to his father. magnus birgersson, a prisoner at stockholm, was beheaded in , to make safe the reign of his more fortunate cousin. king magnus was only three years old, and drotsete mattias kettilmundsson presided over the government during his minority, the nobles of the state council having great power and influence. both in sweden and norway the nobility had by this time attained a supremacy which was oppressive both to the king and the people, not so much through their privileges as through the liberties they took. their continual feuds between themselves disturbed the peace of the country. in , king magnus took charge of the government. he was a ruler of benign and good disposition toward the common people, whose interests he always furthered. but he lacked strength of character, and was not able to control the obnoxious nobles. the provinces of scania and bleking suffered greatly under danish rule, which was changed into german oppression when handed over to the counts of holstein as security for a loan. the people of scania rose in revolt and asked for protection from king magnus. at a meeting in kalmar, in , both provinces were united to sweden. but the king had to pay heavy amounts in settlement, which were increased when halland was procured in a similar way. king magnus was, at his zenith of power, one of the mightiest monarchs in europe, having under his rule the entire scandinavian peninsula and finland, a realm stretching from the sound at elsinore to the polar sea, from the river neva to iceland and greenland. in , king magnus decreed that no christian within his realm should remain a thrall, thus practically abolishing the remnants of slavery. but financial difficulties arose, an unsuccessful crusade was attempted, the "black death" came from england to norway in and spread with great rapidity, and several other things convened to fill the people with discontent, so that the union with norway did not prove a happy one. a separation was brought about in , when haakon, the younger son of magnus, was made king of norway, magnus remaining in power until haakon came of age, and his older son, eric, was chosen king or heir-apparent of sweden. it seems that this division had been preconceived by king magnus when he gave this older son the swedish name of eric and to the younger the norwegian name of haakon, both equally characteristic of the royal lines of the respective countries. it was during the folkung period that there flourished one of the most remarkable and renowned of swedish women, st. birgitta. at the swedish court, she was the highest functionary of queen blanche, where she gathered deep and strong indignation against the mighty and powerful world. by some she is considered a reformer before luther, because she insisted on direct communication between the communicant and god without the mediation of priests or saints. yet there was a difference between birgitta and luther, because the latter sought to reform institutions, while the former would reform the upholders of the institutions. after the reign of magnus and his sons, there came for a brief season albrecht of germany, and after him queen margaret, who united for the first time in history the three scandinavian countries and their dependencies. this period was denominated one of unionism against patriotism, and closed with the rebellion of denmark and the ascending of the swedish throne by christian of denmark, who claimed the right of his descent from st. eric. then followed the public execution under edict of king christian, when eighty-two persons were beheaded, including many bishops and men of note in sweden. it is needless to say that this period was followed immediately by one of revolution and reformation, characterized by much heroism and patriotism, and bringing into prominence those splendid warriors, gustavus vasa, gustavus adolphus, charles xii, and others, and the memorable battle of pultowa and other lesser engagements. after this came a period of political grandeur under various rulers, notably queen christine, followed by what has been called the period of liberty, or the aristocratic republic, under queen ulrica eleonore, when literature and the arts and sciences flourished, and swedenborg, linnaeus, dahlin, tegnér, and many others came into prominence. one of the most loved rulers of this period was gustavus iii. by his influence a revolution similar to that in france was put down, for which, at a mask ball in the royal opera, he was assassinated by conspiritors. it is true, historians tell us, that he was superficial, that he violated the law, had no regard for a constitutional government, and led the people into adventurous and expensive wars. yet his noble patriotism, frank heroism, brilliant genius, and great generosity compelled the love of his countrymen. in this mixture of patriotism and universal cosmopolitanism, true genius and superficiality, earnestness and recklessness in the character of gustavus iii, the swedes recognized peculiarities of their own national temperament, for which they love him dearly, and tegnér has voiced this love in a few lines of his eulogy: there rests o'er gustav's days a golden shimmer, fantastic, foreign, frivolous, if you please; but why complain when sunshine caused the glamour? where stood we now if it were not for these? all culture on an unfree ground is builded, and barbarous once the base of patriotism true; but wit was planted, iron-hard language welded, the song was raised, life more enjoyed and shielded, and what gustavian was, is, therefore, swedish too. on his death-bed, gustavus iii appointed his brother charles and charles gustavus armfelt members of the government during the minority of his son. gustavus iv adolphus was declared of age and took charge of the government when eighteen (in ). his guardians retired, and the new monarch ruled alone, without favorites or influential advisers. this proved most unfortunate for sweden, for he was entirely without the gifts of a regent. he was a lover of order, economy, justice, and pure morals, but through lack of mental and physical strength his good qualities were misdirected. his father's tragic fate had a sinister effect upon his mind, the equilibrium of which was also shaken by the outrages of the revolutionists in france. of a morbid sensibility, and without inclination to confide in any one, his religious mysticism led him into a state close to insanity. he imagined himself to be the reincarnation of charles xii, while in napoleon he recognized the monster of the apocalypse, which he himself was sent to fight and conquer. he refused any alliance with russia and denmark, and stubbornly resisted the friendship france wished to bestow. by his imbecility he lost finland to the kingdom, and was compelled to abdicate in . this "lunatic monarch," as he was called, was escorted out of the country with his family, never to return, and died in st. gallin, in . under these conditions we find sweden at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when charles xiii was chosen to succeed his nephew, the abdicated gustavus iv adolphus. charles xiii was one of the most unsympathetic of swedish kings, but his reign marks a new period in swedish history, commencing the era of constitutional government. the new constitution to which the king subscribed was not a radical document; it only reduced the power of the king. hans jaerta, one of the nobles who had renounced their privileges and been active in the conspiracy against gustavus iv, was the leading spirit of the constitutional committee, and was appointed secretary of state in the new cabinet. it was necessary to select an heir to the throne, as charles xiii was childless, and prince christian august of augustenborg was chosen, much in opposition to the nobles, who wanted the son of gustavus iv. the prince of augustenborg, who was danish governor-general of norway, accepted, and was adopted by the king, changing his name to charles august. beloved by the lower classes who had effected his selection, he was treated coldly by the gustavian aristocrats, and reports of attempts to poison the heir-apparent were in circulation even before he arrived in sweden. prince charles august himself said he had often been warned that he would die young of paralysis, but paid no attention to the warnings given him. during a parade of troops at qvidinge, in scania, he was suddenly seen to lose consciousness and dropped dead from his horse. a report that seemed to favor the supposition that death resulted from poison, threw the populace into a frenzy, and the stoning to death of count fersen resulted. this occurred at the burial of the dead prince, when count fersen, as marshal of the realm, opened the procession. approaching the church of riddarholm, his carriage was pelted with stones, fersen himself seeking shelter in various places, but being pursued by the mob and killed. thus perished a man who, with curt von stedingk, had received the order of cincinnatus from the hands of george washington, and who once was so near saving louis xvi and marie antoinette from their cruel fate. fersen's brother was saved only by mere chance, and his sister by a flight in disguise. sweden was once more without an heir-apparent to the throne, and, though others had been proposed, king charles sent two emissaries to napoleon to notify him of the death of charles august and the selection of his brother. then one of the most original and daring schemes ever attempted on such a line was carried through by count otto moerner, one of the emissaries. on his own responsibility, he inquired of marshal bernadotte, one of napoleon's ablest generals, if he would consent to become heir-apparent to the swedish throne. bernadotte consented, and the consent of napoleon was obtained through the swedish ambassador in paris. upon his return, moerner was ordered to leave the capital, by the minister of state, who blamed him for his unauthorized action. but, from upsala, moerner led an eager agitation, with the result that the riksdag of oerebro selected bernadotte, who was represented by a secret emissary. thus, the two generals who, at the abdication of gustavus iv, were, one in norway, the other in denmark, with troops ready to attack sweden, both within one year were chosen to succeed charles xiii. and this is how the bernadottes, the present reigning family of sweden, came to the throne. marshal bernadotte took the name of prince charles johann. it was in , four years after norway had been joined to sweden, that charles xii died, at the age of seventy, and charles xiv johann, the first of the bernadotte dynasty, succeeded him, at the age of fifty-four years. his reign was one of reconstruction--politically, financially, and socially,--and during the last years of his life he received strong and repeated evidence of the love of his people, especially upon the twenty-fifth anniversary as king of sweden. oscar i, his son, was forty-five years of age at the death of his father. he did not possess his father's brilliant genius or power of personal influence, but was fondly devoted to the fine arts, himself a talented painter and composer. he was a hard worker, and also fond of the pleasures of life. his health was injured through illness, in , and he never recovered. the premature death of his second son, prince gustavus, a talented composer and highly popular, had a disastrous effect on him, and he died july , , after a long illness, beloved by the two nations who, during his reign, had enjoyed the happiest epoch of their history. it was during the reign of the late king, oscar ii, that sweden attained her greatest prosperity and made most progress. oscar ii, brother of his predecessor, ascended the throne at a moment when universal peace was restored after the great conflict between france and germany, and when an age of commercial prosperity for sweden seemed to have begun. king oscar had received the same superior education as his older brothers, was as brilliantly gifted as they, and of a more scholarly mind. as a writer on scientific subjects, a poet, and an orator, oscar ii distinguished himself before his succession to the throne, and still he did not find it easy to gain the love and admiration of the swedish people, of which he was so eminently worthy. he was the successor of one of the most popular rulers the country ever saw, and, though appreciation came slowly, he lived to see his own popularity almost outrival that of his predecessor. during the last years of his life he was considered the most learned and popular of the monarchs of europe. he showed great discernment in his arrangement of dynastic matters. himself married to the fervently religious princess sophie of nassau, the king brought about the marriage of his oldest son, crown prince adolphus, the present king of sweden, to princess victoria of bade, a granddaughter of emperor william of germany, and a great-granddaughter of gustavus iv of sweden. his third son, prince charles, duke of west gothland, is married to princess ingeborg of denmark, a granddaughter of charles xv of sweden. these unions are well calculated to accentuate the increasing political, commercial, and cultural intimacy with germany, the scandinavian policy of life predecessor, and the desire of king oscar to see the descendants of the old royal line of sweden as heirs to the crown. in giving his consent to the marriage of his second son, prince oscar, to lady ebba munck, of the swedish nobility, king oscar gave evidence of the fact that he was not a matchmaker regardless of the feelings of the parties involved. prince oscar, formerly duke of gothland, upon renouncing his share of inheritance to the throne of sweden, also the throne of norway, for the two kingdoms were then united, was allowed to marry the choice of his heart. king oscar also tried to heal the wounds of the past by opening the vaults of the church of riddarholm to the sarcophagi of gustavus iv, the exiled king, and his son, and by giving queen carola of saxony, the only living granddaughter of gustavus, repeated proofs of esteem and considerate distinction. king oscar with his two crowns received as an inheritance two important problems to be solved--the reorganization of the swedish army and the settlement of the difficulties between norway and sweden. how he handled the latter has been told about in the preceding chapter. the reorganization of the swedish army was not effected until after twenty years of parliamentary struggle, but is now, thanks to the energies and perseverance of king oscar, on a solid basis. during the nearly one hundred years of peace which sweden has enjoyed under the rule of the bernadotte dynasty, she has developed her constitutional liberty and her material prosperity in a high degree. the dreams of glory by conquest belonged to the days gone by, but in the fields of peaceable industries she has attained a greatness which the world begins to realize. at the expositions of paris in , , and , of vienna in , of philadelphia in , and of chicago in , swedish industry and art have taken part with honor in the international competition. the railways of sweden have incessantly spun a more and more extended network of steel over the country, opening connections for enterprises in new districts, and furthering commerce and industrial art in a wide measure. in all this advancement, king oscar took a lively initiative, and that his policy will be continued by his successor, who has been so short a time on the throne, is not to be doubted, since the reins of government were in his hands practically long before the death of his father, who for several years suffered ill health. to say the least, sweden, in the nineteenth century, played an important part in the strengthening of the great scandinavian amalgamation, norway, sweden, and denmark, which greets the twentieth century,[c] chapter iv the religion of the northmen the religion of the ancient norwegians was of the same origin as that of all other germanic nations, and, as it is the basis of their national life, a brief outline of it will be necessary in these pages. in the beginning of time there were two worlds: in the south was muspelheim, luminous and flaming, with surt as a ruler; in the north was niflheim, cold and dark, with the spring hvergelmer, where the dragon nidhugger dwells. between these worlds was the yawning abyss ginungagap. from the spring hvergelmer ran icy streams into the ginungagap. the hoarfrost from these streams was met by sparks from muspelheim, and by the power of the heat the vapors were given life in the form of the yotun or giant ymer and the cow audhumbla, on whose milk he lives. from ymer descends the evil race of yotuns or frost-giants. as the cow licked the briny hoarfrost, the large, handsome and powerful bure came into being. his son was bur, who married a daughter of a yotun and became the father of odin, vile, and ve. odin became the father of the kind and fair aesir, the gods who rule heaven and earth. bur's sons killed ymer, and in his blood the whole race of yotuns drowned except one couple, from whom new races of yotuns or giants descended. bur's sons dragged the body of ymer into the middle of ginungagap. out of the trunk of the body they made the earth, and of his blood the sea. his bones became mountains, and of his hair they made trees. from the skull they made the heavens, which they elevated high above the earth and decorated with sparks from muspelheim. but his brain was scattered in the air and became clouds. around the earth they let the deep waters flow, and on the distant shores the escaped yotuns took up their abode in yotunheim and in utgard. for protection against them the kind gods made from ymer's eyebrows the fortification midgard as a defense for the inner earth. but from heaven to earth they suspended the quivering bridge called bifrost, or the rainbow. the yotun woman night, black and dark as her race, met delling (the dawn) of the aesir race, and with him became the mother of day, who was bright and fair as his father. odin placed mother and son in the heavens, and bade them each in turn ride over the earth. night rides ahead with her horse hrimfaxe, from whose foaming bit the earth is every morning covered with dew. day follows with his horse skinfaxe, whose radiant mane spreads light and air over the earth. a great number of maggots were bred in ymer's body, and they became gnomes or dwarfs, little beings whom the gods gave human sense and appearance. they lived within the mountains, and were skilful metal-workers, but they could not endure the light of day. four dwarfs, the east, west, north, and south, were placed by the gods to carry the arch of heaven. as yet there were no human beings on earth. then, one day, the three gods, odin, keener and lodur, were walking on the shore of the sea, where they found two trees, and from them they made the first man and the first woman, ask and embla (ash and elm). odin gave them life, hoener reason, lodur blood and fair complexion. the gods gave them midgard for a home, and from them the whole human race is descended. the evergreen ash tree ygdrasil is the finest of all trees. it shoots up from three roots. one of them is in the well hvergelmer in niflheim, and on this the dragon nidhugger is gnawing. the other root is in yotunheim, in the wise yotun mimer's fountain. one of odin's eyes, which he pledged for a drink at this fountain, is kept here. whoever drinks of this fountain becomes wise. the third root is in heaven, at the urdar well, where the gods hold their thing or court. to this place they ride daily over the bridge bifrost. here also the three norns abide, the maidens urd, verdande, and skuld (past, present, and future). they pour water from the well over the roots of the tree. the norns distribute life and govern fate, and nothing can change their decision. the dwelling in heaven of the aesir or gods is called asgard. in its middle was the field of ida, the gathering-place of the gods, with odin's throne, lidskialv, from which he views the whole world. odin is the highest and the oldest of the gods, and all the others honor him as their father. odin's hall is valhalla. the ceiling of this hall is made of spears, it is covered with shields, and its benches are ornamented with coats of mail. to this place odin invites all who have fallen in battle, and he is therefore called valfather, _i.e._, the father of the fallen. the invited fallen heroes are called einherier; their sport and pastime is to go out every day and fight and kill each other; but toward evening they awake to life again and ride home as friends to valhalla, where they feast on pork of the barrow saerimmer, and where odin's maidens, the valkyrias, fill their horns with mead. these valkyrias were sent by odin to all battles on earth, where they selected those who were to be slain and afterward become the honored guests at valhalla. at odin's side sit the two wolves, gere and freke, and on his shoulders the ravens, hugin and munin. these ravens fly forth every morning and return with tidings from all parts of the world. odin's horse is the swift, gray, eight-footed sleipner. when he rides to battle he wears a golden helmet, a beautiful coat of mail, and carries the spear gungner, which never fails. odin is also the god of wisdom and poesy; in the morning of time he deposited one of his eyes in pledge for a drink of mimer's fountain of wisdom, and he drank suttung's mead in order to gain the gift of poesy. he has also taught men the art of writing runes and all secret arts. thor, the son of odin, is the strongest of all the gods. his dwelling is called thrudvang. he rides across the heavens in a cart drawn by two rams. he is always at war with the yotuns or evil giants, and in battle with them he uses his great hammer, mjolner, which he hurls at the heads of his enemies. the earth trembles under the wheels of his cart, and men call the noise thunder. thor's wife is sif, whose hair is of gold. balder is a son of odin and frigg. he is so fair that his countenance emits beams of brightness. he is wise and gentle, and is therefore loved by all. his dwelling is breidablik, where nothing impure exists. nanna is his wife. njord comes from the race of the wise vanir. he rules the wind, can calm the seas and stop fire, and he distributes wealth among men. his aid is invoked for success in navigation and fishing. his wife is skade, daughter of a yotun, and his dwelling is noatun by the sea. frey, the son of njord, rules rain and sunshine and the productiveness of the soil, and his aid is needed to get good crops, peace and wealth. his dwelling is alfheim. he sails in the magnificent ship skibladner, which was built for him by the dwarfs. his wife is the yotun daughter gerd, but in order to get her he had to give away his good sword, so that he will be unarmed in the coming final battle of the gods. tyr, odin's son, is the god of courage and victory, whom brave men call upon in battle. he has only one hand, for the fenris-wolf bit off his right hand. brage, the long-bearded, is the god of eloquence and poetry. his wife is idun, who has in her keeping the apples of which the gods eat to preserve their eternal youth. heimdal, the white god with teeth of gold, was in the beginning of time born by nine yotun maidens, all sisters. he is the watchman of the gods. he is more wakeful than birds. he can see a hundred miles off, and he can hear the grass grow. his dwelling is himinbjorg, which is situated where the bifrost bridge reaches heaven. when he blows his gjallar-horn, it is heard throughout the world. among the other gods were haad, son of odin, blind but strong; the silent and strong vidar; vale, the archer; ull, the fast ski-runner, and forsete, the son of balder, who settles disputes between gods and men. among the goddesses (or _asynier_), frigg, odin's wife, is the foremost. she knows the fate of everybody and shields many from danger. her dwelling is fensal. next comes freya, the goddess of love. she is the daughter of njord and sister of frey. she is also called vanadis, or the goddess of the vanir. she was married to odd, and by him had a daughter noss. but odd left her, and freya weeps in her longing for him, and her tears are red gold. when she travels, her wagon is drawn by two cats. the name of her dwelling is folkvang. there were also a number of other goddesses, who were in the service of either frigg or freya. aeger, the ruler of the turbulent and stormy sea, is a yotun, but he is a friend of the gods. when they visit him his hall is lighted with shining gold. his wife is ran, and their daughters are the waves. in the beginning there was peace among gods and men. but the arrival of the yotun women in asgard undermined the happiness of the gods, and in heaven and on earth a struggle commenced which must last until both are destroyed. the yotuns continually attack the inhabitants of asgard, and it is only the mighty thor who can hold them at bay. it is the evil loke, who is the worst enemy of gods and men. he belongs to the yotun race, but was early adopted among the gods. he was fair in looks, but wily and evil in spirit. he had three evil children--the fenris-wolf, the midgard-serpent, and hel. the gods knew that this offspring of loke would cause trouble; therefore they tied the fenris-wolf, threw the serpent into the sea, and hurled hel down into niflheim, where she became the ruler of the dead. all who die from sickness or age are sent to her awful dwelling, helheim. this is the origin of the saying, "whom the gods love die young." the greatest sorrow which loke caused the whole world was that by deceit he caused the death of the lovely god, balder. then the gods took an awful revenge. they tied him to three stones, and over his head they fastened a venomous serpent, whose poison was always to drip upon his face. loke's faithful wife, sigyn, placed herself at his side and held a cup under the poisonous drip; but whenever the cup is full and she goes to empty it, the poison drips into loke's face, and then he writhes in agony so that the whole world trembles. this is the cause of earthquakes. there will come a time when these gods and the world shall perish in _ragnarokk_, which means the perdition of the gods. they will have many warnings. corruption and wickedness will be common in the world. for three years there will be winter without sun. the sun and the moon will be swallowed up by the wolves of the yotuns, and the bright stars will disappear. the earth will tremble and the mountains will collapse, and all chains and ties are sundered. the fenris-wolf and loke get loose, and the midgard-serpent leaves the ocean. the ship naglfar carries the army of the yotuns across the sea under the leadership of the yotun _rym_, and loke advances at the head of the hosts from the abode of hel. the heavens split, and the sons of muspel come riding ahead, led by their chief surt. as the hosts are rushing across the bifrost, the bridge breaks with them. all are hastening to the great battlefield, the plains of _vigrid_, which is a hundred miles wide. now heimdal arises and blows his gjallar-horn, all the gods are assembled, the ash ygdrasil trembles, and everything in heaven and on earth is filled with terror. gods and einherier (the fallen heroes) arm themselves for battle. in the front rides odin with his golden helmet and beaming coat of mail and carrying his spear, gungner. he meets the fenris-wolf, who swallows him, but vidar avenges his father and kills the wolf. thor crushes the head of the midgard-serpent, but is stifled to death by its venom. frey is felled by surt, and loke and heimdal kill each other. finally surt hurls his fire over the world, gods and men die, and the shriveling earth sinks into the abyss. but the world shall rise again and the dead come to life. from above comes the all-powerful one, he who rules everything, and whose name no one dares utter. all those who were virtuous and pure of heart will gather in _gimle_ in everlasting happiness, while the evil ones will go to naastrand at the well hvergelmer to be tortured by nidhugger. a new earth, green and beautiful, shall rise from the ocean. the gods awake to new life and join _vidar_ and _vale_, and the sons of thor, mode and magne, who have survived the great destruction and who have been given their father's hammer, because there is to be no more war. all the gods assemble on the field of ida, where asgard was located. and from _liv_ and _livthraser_, who hid themselves in ygdrasil during the burning of the world, a new human race shall descend.[d] chapter v norwegian literature the people who emigrated from norway and settled in iceland, after harald the fairhaired had subdued the many independent chiefs and established the monarchy ( ), for the most part belonged to the flower of the nation, and iceland naturally became the home of the old norse literature. among the oldest poetical works of this literature is the so-called "elder edda," also called "saemund's edda," because for a long time it was believed to be the work of the icelander saemund. "the younger edda," also called "snorre's edda," because it is supposed to have been written by snorre sturlason (born , died ), contains a synopsis of the old norse religion and a treatise on the art of poetry. fully as important as the numerous poetical works of that period was the old norse saga-literature (the word saga means a historical tale). the most prominent work in this field is snorre sturlason's _heimskringla_, which gives the sagas of the kings of norway from the beginning down to . a continuation of the _heimskringla_, to which several authors have contributed, among them snorre sturlason's relative, sturla thordson, contains the history of the later kings down to magnus law-mender. the literary development above referred to ceased almost entirely toward the end of the fourteenth century, and later, during the union with denmark, the danish language gradually took the place of the old norse as a book-language, and the literature became essentially danish. copenhagen, with its court and university, was the literary and educational center, where the young men of norway went to study, and authors born in norway became to all intents and purposes, danish writers. but norway furnished some valuable contributors to this common literature. one of the very first names on the records of the danish literature, peder claussön ( - ), is that of a norwegian, and the list further includes such illustrious names as holberg, tullin, wessel, steffens, etc. one of the most original writers whom norway produced and kept at home during the period of the union with denmark was the preacher and poet, peder dass ( - ). the best known among his secular songs is _nordlands trompet_, a beautiful and patriotic description of the northern part of norway. ludvig holberg was born in bergen, norway, dec. , . his father, colonel holberg, had risen from the ranks and distinguished himself, in , at halden. shortly after his death the property of the family was destroyed by fire, and at the age of ten years ludvig lost his mother. it was now decided to have him educated for the military service; but he showed a great dislike for military life, and, at his earnest request, he was sent to the bergen latin school. in he entered the university of copenhagen. being destitute of means, he took a position as private tutor. as soon as he had saved a small sum he went abroad. he was first in holland, and afterward studied for a couple of years at oxford, where he supported himself by giving instruction in languages and music. upon his return to copenhagen he again took a position as private tutor and had an opportunity to travel as teacher for a young nobleman. in he received a stipend from the king, which enabled him to go abroad for several years, which he spent principally in france and italy. in he became regular professor at the copenhagen university. among holberg's many works the following are the most prominent: _peder paars_, a great comical heroic poem, containing sharp attacks on many of the follies of his time; about thirty comedies in moliere's style, and a large number of historical works. holberg, who was ennobled in , died in january, , and was buried in sorö church. his influence on the literature and on the whole intellectual life of denmark was very great. he is often called the creator of danish literature. christian baumann tullin ( - ), a genuine poetical genius, who has been called the father of danish lyrical verse, was born in christiania, and his poetry, which was mainly written in his native city, breathes a national spirit. from his day, for about thirty years, denmark obtained the majority of her poets from norway. the manager of the danish national theater, in , was a norwegian, niels krog-bredal ( - ), who was the first to write lyrical dramas in danish. a norwegian, johan nordal brun ( - ), a gifted poet, wrote tragedy in the conventional french taste of the day. it was a norwegian, johan herman wessel ( - ), who by his great parody, _kjaerlighed uden strömper_, "love without stockings," laughed the french taste out of fashion. among the writers of this period are also claus frimann ( - ), peter harboe frimann ( - ), claus fasting ( - ), john wibe ( - ), edward storm ( - ), c.h. pram ( - ), jonas rein ( - ), and jens zetlitz ( - ), all of them norwegians by birth. two notable events led to the foundation of an independent norwegian literature: the one was the establishment of a norwegian university at christiania, in , and the other was the separation of norway from denmark, in . at first the independent norwegian literature appeared as immature as the conditions surrounding it. the majority of the writers had received their education in old copenhagen, and were inclined to follow in the beaten track of the old literature, although trying to introduce a more national spirit. all were greatly influenced by the political feeling of the hour. there was a period when all poetry had for its subject the beauties and strength of norway and its people, and _the rocks of norway, the lion of norway_, etc., sounded everywhere. three poets called _trefoil_, were the prominent writers of this period. of these, conrad nicolai schwach ( - ) was the least remarkable. henrik a. bjerregaard ( - ) was the author of _the crowned national song_, and of a lyric drama, _fjeldeventyret_, "the adventures in the mountains." the third member of the _trefoil_, mauritz christian hansen ( - ), wrote a large number of novels and national stories, which were quite popular in their time. his poems were among the earliest publications of independent norway. the time about the year is reckoned as the beginning of the new norwegian literature, and henrik wergeland is called its creator. henrik arnold wergeland was born in . his father, nicolai wergeland, a clergyman, was a member of the constitutional convention at eidsvold. henrik studied theology, but did not care to become a clergyman. in , and the following years, he wrote a number of satirical farces under the signature _siful sifadda_. in appeared his lyric, dramatic poem, _skabelsen, mennesket og messias_, (the creation, man and messiah), a voluminous piece 'of work, in which he attempted to explain the historical life of the human race. as a political writer he was editorial assistant on the _folkebladet_ ( - ), and edited the opposition paper _statsborgeren_ ( - ). he worked with great zeal for the education of the laboring class, and from until his death edited a paper in the interest of the laborer. the prominent features of his earliest efforts in literature are an unbounded enthusiasm and a complete disregard of the laws of poetry. at an early age he had become a power in literature, and a political power as well. from to he was subjected to severe satirical attacks by the author welhaven and others, and later his style became improved in every respect. his popularity, however, decreased as his poetry improved, and in he had become a great poet but had no political influence. among his works may be named _hasselnödder, jöden_, "the jew," _jodinden_, "the jewess," _jan van huysum's blomsterstykke_, "jan van huysum's flowerpiece," _den engleske lods_, "the english pilot," and a great number of lyric poems. the poems of his last five years are as popular to-day as ever. wergeland died in . the enthusiastic nationalism of henrik wergeland and his young following brought conflict with the conservative element, which was not ready to accept everything as good simply because it was norwegian. this conservative element maintained that art and culture must be developed on the basis of the old association with denmark, which had connected norway with the great movement of civilization throughout europe. as the political leader of this "intelligence" party, as it was called, appeared j.s. welhaven. john sebastian cammermeyer welhaven was born in bergen in , entered the university in , became a _lector_ in , and afterward professor of philosophy. "his refined esthetic nature," says fr. winkel horn, "had been early developed, and when the war once broke out between him and wergeland, he had reached a high point of intellectual culture, and thus was in every way a match for his opponent." the fight was inaugurated by a preliminary literary skirmish, which was, at the outset, limited to the university students; but it gradually assumed an increasingly bitter character, both parties growing more and more exasperated. welhaven published a pamphlet, _om henrik wergelands digtekunst og poesie_, in which he mercilessly exposed the weak sides of his adversary's poetry. thereby the minds became still more excited. the "intelligence" party withdrew from the students' union, founded a paper of their own, and thus the movement began-to assume wider dimensions. in , appeared welhaven's celebrated poem, _norges daemring_, a series of sonnets, distinguished for their beauty of style. in them the poet scourges, without mercy, the one-sided, narrow-minded patriotism of his time, and exposes, in striking and unmistakable words, the hollowness and shortcomings of the wergeland party. welhaven points out, with emphasis, that he is not only going to espouse the cause of good taste, which his adversary has outraged, but that he is also about to discuss problems of general interest. he urges that a norwegian culture and literature can not be created out of nothing and to promote their development it is absolutely necessary to continue the associations which have hitherto been common to both norway and denmark, and thus to keep in _rapport_ with the general literature of europe. when a solid foundation has in this manner been laid, the necessary materials for a literature would surely not be wanting, for they are found in abundance, both in the antiquities and in the popular life of norway. welhaven continued his effective work as a poet and critic. through a series of romantic and lyrical poems, rich in contents and highly finished in style, he developed a poetical life, which had an important influence in the young norwegian literary circles. he died in . andreas munch ( - ), an able and industrious poetical writer, took no part in the controversy between wergeland and welhaven, but followed his danish models independently of either. his _poems, old and new_, published in , were quite popular. his best work is probably _kongedatterens brudefart_, "the bridal tour of the king's daughter," . in the period of about a dozen years following the death of wergeland, the life, manners, and characteristics of the norwegian people were given the especial attention of literary writers. prominent in this period was peter christian ashbjornsen ( - ), who, partly alone and partly in conjunction with bishop jorgen moe ( - ), published some valuable collections of norwegian folk tales and fairy tales. moe also published three little volumes of graceful and attractive poems. among other writers of this period may be named hans h. schultz, n. ostgaard, harald meltzer, m.b. landstad, and the linguist sophus bugge. the efforts to bring out the national life and characteristics of the people in literature also led to an attempt to nationalize the language in which the literature was written. the movement was the so-called _maalstraev_, and had in view the introduction of a pure norwegian book language, based upon the peasant dialects. the prominent supporter of this movement was ivar aasen ( - ), the author of an excellent dictionary of the norwegian language. a prominent poetical representative of this school was aasmund olafson vinje ( - ), while kristofer janson (born ) has also written a number of stories and poems in the _landsmaal_ (country tongue). a new and grand period in norwegian literature commenced about , and the two most conspicuous names in this period--and in the whole norwegian literature--are those of henrik ibsen and björnstjerne björnson. henrik ibsen was born in skien, in . he has written many beautiful poems; but his special field is in the drama, where he is a master. his first works were nearly all historical romantic dramas. his first work, _catilina_, printed in , was scarcely noticed until years afterward, when he had become famous. in appeared the romantic drama, _gildet paa solhaug_, "the feast at solhaug," followed by _fru inger til oestraat_, , and _haermaedene paa helgeland_, "the warriors on helgeland," . in , he wrote the historical tragedy _kongsemnerne_, "the pretenders," in which the author showed his great literary power. before this play was published, he had been drawn into a new channel. in , he began a series of satirical and philosophical dramas with _kjaerlighedens komedie_, "love's comedy," which was succeeded by two masterpieces of a similar kind, _brand_, in , and _peer gynt_, in . these two works were written in verse; but in _de unges forbund_, "the young men's league," , a political satire, he abandoned verse, and all his subsequent dramas have been written in prose. in came _keiser og galilaeer_, "emperor and galilean." since then he has published a number of social dramas which have attracted world-wide attention. among them are: _samfundets stötter_, "the pillars of society," _et dukkehjem_, "a doll's house," _gengangere_, "ghosts," _en folkefiende_, "an enemy of the people," _rosmerholm, fruenn fra havet_, "the lady from the sea," _little eyolf, bymester solnes_, "masterbuilder solnes," _john gabriel borkman_, and the latest and most-talked-about, _hedda gabler_. björnstjerne björnson (born in osterdalen, in ) is the more popular of the two giants of norwegian literature of to-day. his works are more national in tone. it has been said that to mention his name is to raise the norwegian flag. his first successes were made in the field of the novel, and the first two, _synnöve solbakken_, , and _arne_, , made his name famous. these, and his other peasant stories, will always retain their popularity. he soon, however, entered the dramatic field, and has since published a great number of dramas and novels. in the field of belles-lettres there is at the present time a number of other talented authors. jonas lie (born ) has produced a number of excellent novels. then there are alexander kielland (born ) magdalene thoresen (born ), arne garborg, gunnar heiberg, and a number of young authors. in the field of science, also, modern norway has a rich literature, with many prominent names, such as the historian peter andreas munch ( - ), johan ernst sars (born ), and o.a. Överland.[e] chapter vi the literature of sweden swedish literature is sublime and magnificent, like its history and its scenery; it is simple and glad, as well as sad, like the lives of its people. one of the great days in sweden, or at least in stockholm, is the celebration, on the th of july, of the anniversary of the birth, more than a century and a half ago, of the national poet bellman. his songs are as household words throughout the land. to the stockholm born they speak of their daily life and surroundings, of the green isles and shady banks of the malar, the flowery woods of haga, the smiling park of dijurgarden. burlesque scenes of the life of the people, street tragedies, drinking bouts, and country junketings; broad humor and nature's philosophy; lively fancies and exquisite landscape painting--such are the themes of his song, which from one generation to another has held the heart of the people spellbound. every man, woman, and child knows his favorite ditties by heart, has sung or hummed them in moments of joy or sorrow. for his song is both joyful and sad. his joy is the joy of the simple hearted, his gladness a dionysian gladness, the very enjoyment of existence; his sadness that of sympathy with suffering humanity, of anguish at the evanescence of life and happiness. his fancy oscillates between constant extremes and ever-recurring contrasts. it makes of his song, as tegnér has so aptly defined it, "a sorrow decked in roses." bright, gay, enraptured, full of sunshine and glamour, like the summer day around stockholm, it is traversed by a strain of melancholy like a smile through tears, the laugh which conceals a sob. there is symbolism and there is parody in his rustic figures, but they are so living, so real, they appeal so strongly to the innermost feelings, that they seem the embodiment of one's thoughts. his pictures are like those of the dutch painters: every trait in the rustic scene tells the life-story of some humble existence. it is this characteristic which has made the poet appeal so powerfully to the minds of the people. he seems to see with their eyes and feel with their hearts, and to have experienced all the vicissitudes of their own life. and yet he eminently reflects his own time, the gay, the light-hearted gustavian era, with its classical fancies and rococo tastes. venus and bacchus, the nymphs and the dryads, hebe and amor are mixed up incongruously with the homely scenes of scandinavian life. his dutch pictures assume then a watteau-like coloring of extraordinary effect, as fancy and contrast enhance the sharp outlines of his figures and give their vitality still greater relief. they are so lifelike and so various that the whole of the every-day life of sweden, and more especially of stockholm, of the eighteenth century, is unrolled before our eyes. it is said that if every other book descriptive of the period were to fail, his verses would suffice to inform us how the middle classes then lived, thought, and felt. around the poet's monument--his bust in bronze on a white marble column--there gather, on the anniversary of his birth, the crowds who love him and love his song. every heart beats high as the bellman choirs burst forth in turn into the well-known melodies, composed or adapted by the poet himself to his words, and sung by him to the accompaniment of his lute. and song alternates with enthusiastic orations, addressed to the crowd by improvised orators, teeming with quotations of well-known lines. it is an orgy of bellman's verse, such as the stockholmer specially delights in. bellman's songs generally form a sequence, a continuous chain of lyrical romance. his _fredman's epistles_ are a sort of epic cycle of lyrics. this is a form often adopted by swedish poets. we find it in tegnér's _frithiof's saga_, in runeberg's _sayings of sergeant stal_, and in the works of other poets. it is a question, however, whether even by these master singers, in their more elaborate conceptions and genial flights of poetry, bellman has ever been surpassed. in lyric power and vivid realism, his popular ditties are unrivaled. the next to incarnate the genius of the scandinavian race was tegnér. his love of brave deeds and reckless adventure and his exaltation of the man of action above the man of thought are typical. his heroes, fair-haired and blue-eyed, stalwart and vigorous, relying on strength and longing for adventure, tender-hearted and contemplative when not aroused to violent action and bent on deeds of valor, personify the national ideal. his whole vision of life is scandinavian, bright and vivid, with a tinge of melancholy. tegnér was, with geijer and ling, the first to adopt national subjects, to use the scandinavian myths and folk-lore in their poetry, in opposition to the classical themes and the hellenic mythology, until then exclusively in vogue in the poetical field. geijer was a romantic by nature, in politics as well as in literature, but he was above all an ardent scandinavian, opposed to exotics, and passionately devoted to the great traditions of the past, a hero-worshiper, an enthusiast, and a _goth_. the goths were members of a society formed to revive the old national manners and customs, the freedom of the age of the vikings, and the ardor of the heroes of walhalla. their organ was the _idun_, an exclusively literary publication. in a letter written by geijer from stockholm to his _fiancee_, then living in the country, dated march , , he says: "we have formed a society which meets nearly daily. we talk, smoke, and read together about gothic viking deeds. we call each other by gothic names, and live in the past." and anna-lisa, his future wife, writing to a friend, says: "my _fiancee_ has become a goth; instead of loving me, he is in love with valkyries and shield-bearing maidens, drinks out of viking horns, and carries out viking expeditions--to the nearest tavern. he writes poems which must not be read in the dark, they are so full of murders and deeds of slaughter." ling, who also belonged to this society, was a fervent admirer of the eddas and sagas, of the scandinavian myths and folk-lore. tegnér, despite his classical education and hellenic turn of mind, was an ardent norseman in feeling and instinct. "go to greece for beauty of form," he would say, "but to the north for depth of feeling and thought." he scorned alike the metaphysical subtleties of french philosophy and the moonshine heroics of german romanticism. but he was at one with geijer and ling in the desire to make scandinavian heroes and myths the subjects of poetry. the result of the movement was _frithiof's saga_, by tegnér, geiger's _viking_, and ling's heavy epics of walhalla warriors. but geijer and ling alone had followed out the theory in all its consequences. their heroes were simply _eddic_, of their time, in spirit and in thought. ling's realism went so far that his northern gods and warriors, "everlastingly killed but to revive again," were deemed "pork-eating and mead-drinking yokels." they were soon forgotten, and ling himself is best known as the inventor of gymnastic exercises on scientific principles, an art now practiced all the world over as "swedish gymnastics." geijer, whose _viking_ gave a pure and true picture of viking life seen in its own light, was himself disappointed. he abandoned poetry and took to history, though tegnér says of him that if he had devoted himself to poetry, he would have surpassed all his contemporaries. as historian he rose to the highest rank; and he is perhaps the greatest historian sweden has ever produced. tegnér had modernized his hero and heroine in _frithiof's saga_. he gave them viking garbs and surroundings, but modern thoughts and sentiments. by the more copious development of the inner life, and by placing woman on an equality with man, love had received a higher meaning, and his poetry unfolded inspirations unknown to the ancient world, such as melancholy and the love of nature. he did no more than tennyson did later in making of king arthur the type of an english gentleman. frithiof and ingeborg were representatives of the national ideal. the success of his poem was immense. it had a lyrical intensity which set the scandinavian mind vibrating. unmindful of the anachronism, youth gloried in the noble disinterestedness of frithiof, in his generosity to his rival, his melancholy philosophising and his high-minded love, as well as in his daring and his love of adventure. manly breasts heaved in sympathy with him, and women's tears flowed at the story of ingeborg's love. as the poet snolisky has said-- from the highest to the lowest throughout the land the poet had created a bond of union. in every home, within every school door, his verses were read and conned and loved, and sweden's youth felt its cheek glow at frithiof's courage and manly mood. while ingeborg's love to the maiden's dream gave life and thoughts to her weaving and sewing. in his _children of the lord's supper_, so beautifully translated for us by longfellow, tegnér conveyed a true image of sweden's religious life. the scene in the country church, decked out with flowers and evergreens for the solemn ceremony, the rustic boys and girls bowing and curtseying as they make their responses before the assembled congregation, and the attitude and words of the patriarchal pastor are all true to life. the somewhat declamatory tone of the oration is not less consistent with the character of the rural parson, the trend of swedish religious thought, and the solemnity associated with these occasions. it was in his patriotic war-songs, however, that tegnér roused the greatest enthusiasm. his _svea_, his dithryambic declamation _king charles_, and his _scanean reserves_, sent a thrill through young and old. when _svea_ was read at the swedish academy, which awarded the poem its gold medal, the friends and opponents of tegnér alike were moved to undisguised admiration. in breadth and intrinsic power, and in the beauty of its rythm, which seems to echo the clash of arms and the marching of masses, this poem is unequalled in swedish literature. tegnér's name soon became known far beyond the limits of the lands where his language is understood. his works were translated into almost all modern tongues, so that some fifty different translations of the whole or parts of his poems now exist in eleven european languages. a new feature was introduced into swedish poetry by runeberg. although born of swedish parents, he was brought up in finland, his mind being nurtured in the traditions and the mixed racial influences of his new fatherland. thus he breathed a new spirit, and a new inspiration, drawn from the realities of life, into poetical fiction. he was a realist in the best sense of that much-misused word. he sought his ideals _in_ life, instead of outside of it and above it in imaginary creations. he saw nature such as it is, with all its faults and sublimities, and, loving it with a true poet's devotion, he painted it simply and faithfully, without aiming at ennobling it, but seeking and finding what there is of native dignity in its humblest expressions. in his lyrical poem, _the sayings of sergeant stal_, he portrayed incidents of the wars of finland fighting by the side of sweden in , when the country was conquered by russia. it was a series of war pictures, a collection of hero types, painted in living colors, and breathing the most ardent patriotism.--simple tales told by a sergeant of his recollections of the war, they deal with real personages, most of them drawn from the humblest stations in life, described just as they really lived and spoke and acted. yet throughout the story of their simple acts and thoughts there swept a breeze which kindled the blood, roused the emotions; and fired the patriotic feeling of runeberg's contemporaries. in poetic depth and beauty of language, as in style and conception, and in their departure from all the prevailing ideas and methods of romanticism, these lyric tales were a revelation. they classed their author at once as in the line of true-born poets. the works of runeberg, although properly belonging to the literature of a country politically no longer one with sweden, have from the nature of their subjects and the identity of languages, always been looked upon in sweden as common property, and they have certainly exercised a powerful influence on swedish thought and letters. some of his songs, set to music, are to this day sung as national anthems. the last champion of dying romanticism was a sort of universal genius, eccentric, _bizarre_, unequal, a spirit out of harmony with itself, but gifted with the most wonderful imagination and power, k.j.l. almquist. his life was as checquered as his writings were various. in turn a clergyman, a schoolmaster, a journalist, and an exile, he has written volumes on almost every conceivable subject, from fiction, poetry, and history, to lexicography, pedagogy, and mathematics. his stories, published in two series, under the common title of _the book of the hedgerose_, show powers of conception, imagination, and description such as are only to be found in edgar allen poe. his was an essentially revolutionary temperament. he disdained all authority, and cavilled at all moral restraints. he was in constant rebellion against society, its accepted laws and precepts, and vented his moral skepticism in bitter sarcasm and cutting paradoxes. "but two things are white in this world," he would say, "innocence and arsenic." the coupling of the two, however, nearly proved fatal to him. he was involved in a mysterious affair of poisoning, in which the victim was a dunning creditor. he was suspected of having given him arsenic by way of ridding himself of the debt which he could not pay. no proof of the fact could be adduced, and the crime was never brought home to him; but public opinion was against him, and fearing or distrusting the justice of his country, he fled from it ere the case was tried. he wandered over europe and america, trying his hand at everything, and died, a literary wreck, in germany, longing, and yet not daring, to return to his country. lately, the society of authors in stockholm, judging that his crime was "not proven," while his literary merits were great beyond all doubt, undertook the rehabilitation of his memory. his remains were brought back from lubeck, and buried in stockholm with "literary" honors, among others a remarkable oration delivered at his grave by verner von heidenstam, in which he was styled a martyr in the great cause of the emancipation of thought. whatever may be thought of his moral character, almquist was a great thinker and a wonderfully versatile writer. the last of the romantics, he has been called a realist, a psychologist, and a symbolist, and he was certainly something of all these, half a century before the terms became battle-cries in literature, and came to designate literary schools. one critic has made him out to have been a sort of forerunner of ibsen, while another calls him the most modern of classics. his genius placed him in advance of his age in most things. he was the first in the list of those scandinavian revolutionists who have laid out new landmarks in the field of thought, and introduced new methods in fiction and the drama. liberalism, which spread like wildfire over europe after its outbreak in the july revolution in france, reached sweden soon after. it was represented in literature by such men as sturzen-becker, wetterbergh, and strandberg, writing under the names of orvar odd, uncle adam, and talis-qualis; blanche, who wrote stirring novels in the style of eugene sue; hjerta, and the staff of the then newly founded _aftonbladet_, who were revolutionizing the press. the press was beginning to enlist the highest literary capacities of the country, gradually becoming what it now is, a purveyor not only of news but of thought, and a leader of opinion in literature and art, in science and philosophy. in poetry, liberalism found its echo in the verses of malmström, nybom, schlstedt. in fiction its banner was carried by three women, two of whom--well known in england and america--frederica bremer, whose novels portrayed the home life of the middle class, emelie carlen, who idealized the fishermen and sea-faring folk of the west coast, and sophie von knorring, who gave rather stilted descriptions of life in aristocratic circles. all three were very productive, and their novels count by dozens. yet they failed to sustain the reputations their first works had won for them. verner von heidenstam is now foremost among the writers of his country. his early works, _endymion, hans alienus_, and others, raised him to this rank, and his last two productions, _the carolines_ (the companions of charles xii) and _saint brigitt_, have more than confirmed it. _hans alienus_ was, like goethe's _faust_, a work of deep philosophical research into the problems of existence, the purpose and significance of life, set forth in symbolical images and explained by allegory. in the _carolines_, a series of short stories connected by the red thread of history which runs through them, he gives a new conception, but a wonderfully graphic and striking one, of charles xii and his times. it is an epic, and yet so living and so human a picture of the wild, iron-souled, quick-tempered hero, whose "eyes flew around like two searching bees," and whose will was like the steel of his sword; who had the heart of a lion and a "woman's hatred for women," but for whom men shed their blood freely; who "never grieved over a misfortune longer than the darkness lasted," and was "best loved by those who tried to hate him." his pictures are drawn by a master hand, and with the intuitive coloring of genius. _saint brigitt_ carries us back to medieval sweden. here, too, the picture is lifelike, centered round the struggle of a high-minded woman, who makes everything bend to her stern rule of holiness, her thirst for sanctity, as charles xii did to his inexorable policy and thirst for dominion. the psychological and the historical novel, the latter, in its modern conception, akin to the former, since it is a study of the psychology of historical characters and a historical epoch, is the form of fiction at present most in vogue. it is in this form that such writers as tor hedberg, per hallström, and axel lundegard have made their reputations. tor hedberg's romances embody profound analysis of the inner workings of the soul, of the secret motives which, more or less consciously, determine a man's acts. in this line he ventures on the most difficult psychological problems. in his _judas_, a scriptural romance from which he has drawn a drama, he attempts to solve the darkest psychological enigma that has puzzled humanity, viz., to analyze the motives which led judas to betray his master and become the typical traitor. the character he draws of him is original and striking, and departs entirely from the accepted tradition. but bold and subtle as the theory is, it is far from convincing. his judas is a dark, brooding spirit, fierce and inharmonious, divided between extatic love and admiration of his master and inward irresistible forces of hatred and revolt: a double nature, thirsting for freedom and love, yet predestined to evil, and led by fearful secret impulses to the accomplishment of his destiny and the fulfilment of his mission, necessary to the scheme of salvation. he rushes blindly to his fate while struggling in vain to escape it. but in the very act of betrayal, while obeying the command: "what thou doest, do quickly," his better nature triumphs for one instant and he falls on the neck of his master and embraces him. it is the judas kiss which betrays his lord. the last look of jesus, however, showed him that he had been understood and forgiven. the detestation of humanity to the end of the world will be his expiation, but that look of jesus has freed him. woman, represented by writers like ellen key, selma lagerlöf, sophie elkau, alfhild agress, hilma stanberg, and others, holds a high position in swedish letters. ellen key is an essayist of virile power and argumentative breadth, of superior intellect and unfailing erudition. she is a fearless and unfailing champion of free thought, individualism, and woman's emancipation. as was said of madame de staël, her writings are "the most masculine productions of the faculties of woman." selma lagerlöf occupies as a novelist a position of her own. her style and her manner in fiction are unique. symbolism and allegory are blended in it with the most realistic pictures of everyday life. she thinks in parables, and describes realities, and the realities convey the moral teachings of parables. with something of the peculiar power of george eliot in the delineation of character, she makes each humble life preach some great moral truth. her latest book, _jerusalem_, is one of extraordinary fascination, created quite a sensation in sweden, and places selma lagerlöf quite among the foremost writers of the day. it may in general be said of swedish writers that they have a high idea of their calling. few, if any, have accepted as their sole function the idealization of form. they hold mostly that the highest aim of art should be to teach and elevate, to destroy prejudice and conventionality, and indicate, in so far as it is possible, the solution of moral problems through the creative faculty of inspired productiveness. the wish to inculcate action, the energy that is born of enthusiasm, the chivalry that is inspired by high ideals and unselfish motives. raised thus from the region of mere chronicles of human passions, of woman's frailty and man's baseness, and exercising themselves with the political, social, and religious problems of the day, these works of imagination have become, alongside the press, a powerful factor in the development of modern thought.[f] chapter vii government and politics of norway and sweden only for the past three years has norway had an independent political life, and so few changes in local government have so far been made under the new king that it will be profitable, in this chapter, to take up the government and political life as it existed under the united constitutional monarchy of norway and sweden. in fact, it is no different than at that time, except that each has its separate king. in internal rule, the two countries were always separate, except in matters that pertained to the common weal of both. thus, the swedish minister of foreign affairs had charge of the united kingdoms, and, as previously stated, this was the rock on which the union finally split. the constitution of norway, like that of the united states, invests all power in the people, who are represented by their legislature and their judiciary, with the king as an executive to administer the laws passed by the one, and enforce the decrees of the other. when the two houses of parliament disagree upon a measure, they sit in joint session, when it requires a vote of two-thirds to enact it, and the approval of the king is necessary. he is also required to promulgate all the acts of the legislature. many norwegian statesmen assert that the king has no veto power, but merely temporary authority to suspend a law pending the action of the people. if three successive parliaments, after three successive elections, pass a bill in exactly the same terms, it does not require the sanction of the king when it is passed the fourth time. thus the people may exercise their sovereignty. all edicts of the executive, all decisions of the court, and all resolutions of the legislature are proclaimed in the king's name, but the ministry is responsible to the legislature for the acts of the king, and if they are not approved, as in england, the ministry must resign and a new one be organized in sympathy with a majority of the parliament. the king may choose his own ministers, but they must represent the will of the people. they are called counsellors of state, are eight in number. before the disunion, two of these eight counsellors were without portfolios, and resided alternately at stockholm, while the other members presided over six executive departments in christiania. a record is kept of the meetings of the ministry by a permanent secretary, and the constitution requires that each minister shall express his opinion upon all questions brought up for consideration. he who remains silent is counted in the affirmative. no matter of business can be determined by the king without the advice of the ministry, unless an emergency demands a prompt decision, when he must take the responsibility of securing a ratification of his act. in the same manner the king may issue edicts of a provisional character in matters of commerce, finance, industrial activity, customs dues, police and military affairs during a recess of the parliament, subject to its approval within a limited time after reassembling. the minister may act in the king's name in cases of emergency or during his absence from the country, subject to his approval. these conditions were adopted in earlier times, when the norwegian legislature sat only once in three years and some such power was necessary, but now that there are annual and often semi-annual sessions, and they have a king of their own residing always in norway, it is very seldom necessary for the executive power to exercise such responsibility. the king appoints all the officials of the executive part of the government, all the officers of the army and navy, and all the clergymen in the established church, but exercises this power through his ministers. dissenting congregations are not subject to government control, and may choose their own clergymen, although the latter are required to register an oath of allegiance and a pledge to obey the laws of the nation and fulfill their duties with fidelity and conscientiousness. the king is the head of the established church, which is the lutheran. he is also commander-in-chief of the army and navy, but can not increase or decrease the military establishment without the approval of the parliament. he has the right to declare war and conclude peace, but can not expend money for military purposes, not even for the national defense, without the consent of the legislature. the norwegian constitution is silent concerning his authority to conclude treaties with foreign powers, and the question has never been raised. he conducts negotiations through his ministers and submits the result of their labors for the approval of parliament. he has the power to suspend the collection of customs duties temporarily until the parliament can meet to consider the matter, but it has very rarely been exercised. the parliament is called the storthing, and is composed of one hundred and fourteen representatives, thirty-eight from the towns and seventy-six from the rural districts. it divides itself into two sections, known as the odelsthing and the lagthing. the members are elected for three years by an indirect and complicated system which is nearly the reverse of our own. the voters of each parish, which forms an election district, assemble at a given place and time and select delegates to a convention which chooses their representatives in the storthing, and, when the storthing meets, its one hundred and fourteen members select one-fourth of their own members, generally the most experienced and distinguished men, to constitute a senate, or upper chamber, called the lagthing, which exercises a sort of supervisory power over legislation. the storthing sits for about six months every year. the members are paid $ a day during the session and their traveling expenses. the presiding officer is chosen every four weeks, and can not succeed himself without an interval. the committees are appointed by a "selection committee" elected by ballot, and each committee chooses his own chairman. there is a rather novel rule requiring bills referred to committees to be assigned for consideration to the several members in rotation. any member may introduce a bill modifying the constitution, but all other classes or measures must proceed from the government and the members of the lower house. members of the upper house, or lagthing, are not permitted to propose ordinary legislation, on the theory that they should remain unprejudiced so as to exercise a judicial revision. thus, bills must originate in the odelsthing, which, having passed them, sends them to the lagthing for its approval. the financial officers of the government and the directors of the national bank are elected by the storthing, which appoints a committee every six months to revise and audit the accounts of officials who have to do with the disbursement or collection of money. when an irregularity or improper expenditure is discovered, the legislature is asked to decide whether the minister in charge of the department shall repay the sum from his own pocket and repair the damage that has been caused by one of his subordinates. in the same manner the storthing regulates all loans, on the theory that the money belongs to the people. the members of the ministry may be impeached by the odelsthing for a violation of the constitution and tried before the lagthing and the supreme court. the following eight executive departments are in charge of ministers: . for ecclesiastical matters and public instruction, which also has charge of charities, insurance companies, and matters relating to the relief of the people. . the department of justice. . the department of the interior, which has jurisdiction over everything that is not under the other departments. . the department of agriculture. . the department of public works. . the department of finances and customs. . the department of defense. . the revision of public accounts department. for administrative purposes, norway is divided into twenty districts, viz.: the cities of christiania and bergen and eighteen "amts" or provinces, which coinside with the diocese of the church, and there is a very close relation between the ecclesiastical and the civil authorities. the chief magistrate in each of the counties, nominated by the king, is known as an "amtmand." his duties are similar to those of the french prefects, although the theory of home-rule and self-government is carried into each county and each municipality and parish, where every magistrate is responsible to a council elected by the people from among their own number. they make the laws for the magistrate to administer. there are few countries in which the theory of self-government is carried to such an extent as in norway. the sovereignty of the people is absolute and their rights are jealously guarded. norway is divided into ecclesiastical parishes, which are the voting districts, as in england, and are governed in a similar way. the norwegian constitution of , based upon the principle of popular self-government, declared these municipalities completely independent in the management of their own affairs, placing the administrative authority, with the power of taxation and the disbursement of revenues in the hands of the taxpayers and householders, so that they could not be coerced by the national government, if there ever was any disposition in that direction. this authority is exercised through a council called a "bystyre," composed of from twelve to forty-eight members, according to the population of the parish, who are elected for terms of three years, and serve gratuitously. the council elects from its own number a chairman who is the head of the whole municipal organization, and is known as an _ordförer_. he corresponds to the german burgomaster and the mayor of the american city. in addition to the popular council there is a magistrate representing the royal government, who, with the consent of the council, may be admitted to their deliberations, but is not allowed to vote. he is also ex-officio a member and often chairman of the municipal departments or commissions, such as the board of public works, the school board, the harbor commission. in this way he becomes a connecting link between the national authority at christiania and the municipal councils throughout the kingdom, because certain measures of local interest are subject to restrictions by the national parliament, particularly those involving finances. under the direction of the council are permanent executive departments similar to those found in the united states, pertaining to public highways, the public buildings, the public health, the relief of the poor, the fire department, police department, etc. these in every case are managed by permanent officials under the supervision of committees of the council. every year a budget is made up of the income and expenditures expected; each department being permitted to submit its own estimates, which are approved or amended by the council, and the amount is raised by taxation of houses, lands, personal property, and incomes, with fees for licenses to transact business. the entire system of local taxation is similar to our own, and the methods of assessment are the same. in order to meet the expense of unusual undertakings for the benefit of the municipality, such as waterworks, tramways, docks, etc., funds are raised in the usual manner by the issue of interest bearing bonds, which are usually in small denominations in order to permit people of limited means to invest in them. they are redeemed, as a rule, in forty annual instalments, the bonds to be canceled being selected by lot. in this system of local government women now participate upon an equal basis with men. with the exception of the british parliament, the swedish riksdag is the oldest legislative body in the world. the kingdom of sweden has maintained its integrity for not less than four thousand years. so far back as the anthropologists can trace the history of swedish people, the boundaries of their land have remained the same. the duchy of finland was subject to swedish sovereignty at one time, and at different times sweden has been united with norway and denmark under the same ruler, but sweden has been sweden ever since human beings inhabited its territory, and it is the only nation in europe that has never been conquered or had its boundaries changed by foreign powers. since the beginning of history, home rule has prevailed among the people and has been defended and recognized as their right. the parishes have always controlled their own affairs, and since the reformation their government has been in the hands of a board or council elected by the people, of which the pastor of the church is chairman. everybody who pays taxes, men and women alike, may vote at the election of the council. the burgomaster serves for life, and is usually required to abstain from all other business except that which pertains to the public weal. the parishes are consolidated into twenty-four provinces, similar to our states, each having a certain independence and government of its own, although the governor-general, who also serves for life on good behavior, is appointed by the king. the city of stockholm is an independent jurisdiction like the district of columbia, with a governor appointed by the king. the riksdag was formerly composed of four distinct bodies,--nobles, clergymen, burghers, peasants,--representing the different classes of the community, and all laws required their approval. in , however, this clumsy arrangement was abolished and the national legislature was consolidated into two bodies known as the first and second chamber, similar to our senate and house of representatives. the two chambers are equal in every respect, except that the second chamber, or lower house, has the advantage of numbers when a deadlock arises and the question in dispute is decided by a joint ballot. then, unless there should be an overwhelming difference of opinion, the second chamber usually has its will, which is perfectly right, because it represents the people. the king must approve all legislation to make it effective, and his veto is final, except in matters concerning taxation and the expenditure of public money. the diet has the sole power to levy taxes and make appropriations with or without his consent. the first chamber, which corresponds to our senate, is composed of one hundred and fifty members, elected for terms of nine years by the provincial councils and by the city councils in towns of more than , inhabitants. as the councils are elected by the taxpayers, both men and women, the members of the first chamber may be regarded as the representatives of the property-owning portion of the community. to be eligible to the first chamber a candidate must be thirty-five years old, own property assessed at $ , , or pay taxes upon an income of not less than $ , . rank does not count. the qualification is pecuniary entirely, and so evenly is property distributed in sweden that only ten thousand people in the entire kingdom are eligible to the first chamber of the diet. the members of the second chamber, two hundred and thirty in number, are elected for three years, of whom eighty are elected by the towns and one hundred and fifty by the rural districts. each must have property worth $ , or have leased $ , worth of land for five years, or pay taxes on an income of $ . these are also the qualifications for voting for members of the parliament. there is very little of politics in sweden. there are three parties, known as the conservatives, the liberals, and the socialists. the conservative party is comprised of the aristocracy, the church, the agricultural classes and people of conservative sentiment generally. the liberal party is composed of progressive elements, the theorists, the artisans, the machinists, and the thinking men among the laboring element, who advocate a reduction of the tariff on imported merchandise and free trade so far as possible; a separation of church and state on the theory that no man should be taxed to support a religious faith that he does not believe in; a reduction in the army and navy and other official expenses; the modification of the election laws as above stated; rotation in office, so that all shall have a chance, and they oppose the general tendency to centralization in the government. the socialists go a little farther. they are not so radical as those who go by the same name in germany, france, and other european countries. they are very moderate in their views. they favor most of the planks in the liberal platform, and, in addition, advocate the adoption of socialistic reforms, the loaning of public money without interest to the poor, public pensions to the helpless, sweeping reforms in the labor laws, and the purchase and maintenance by the state of all public enterprises that affect public welfare, such as the street-car lines, the insurance companies, the banks, etc. the peasants in the country are protectionists and belong to the conservative party. the mechanics in the cities are generally socialists. politics, however, is not very exciting. the tariff, labor questions, and other propositions are always discussed, and of late years the most interesting issues have been the appropriation of money for national defense, the increase of the term of military service from ninety to three hundred and sixty days for every citizen, the modification of the electoral law, and the regulations of the forests. peasants have been members of parliament for more than five hundred years, and now constitute more than half the membership of the second chamber--intelligent, well-educated mechanics and farmers, who take a deep interest in the affairs of the government and generally are on the right side. the agricultural peasants are invariably loyal supporters of the king. the mechanics from the city are usually opposed to him. the annual session of the riksdag opens immediately after the holidays with a great deal of pomp and ceremony. it is one of the most imposing functions in all europe. the members of both houses meet at their respective halls, attend divine service at the cathedral, where they receive the sacrament and listen to a sermon of admonition. then they march in a body to the royal palace, where they are received by the king's ministers with great formality, and escorted to what is known as the throne room. as they enter, each man bows reverently to a silver throne which stands upon a dais at the other end of the apartment. the members of the first chamber are seated on the right side of the great hall, and those of the second upon the left. when the sound of trumpets is heard, all rise, and the master of ceremonies enters in gorgeous apparel, followed by four pages in dress of the sixteenth century. behind them is a squad of trumpeters, then the grand marshal of the court, preceded by four heralds and followed by the assistant marshals, the grand chamberlain, the lord steward, the master of the horse, and other officers of the royal household, the eighteen judges of the supreme court, the archbishop and bishops, and the members of the king's cabinet. then follows a guard of honor, composed of the highest nobles of the kingdom in glittering uniforms and carrying old-fashioned weapons, such as were once used in actual warfare. they surround the king, who wears his royal robes, and, as he enters, the band plays the favorite air of the people, "from the depths of the swedish heart." he wears the crown of state and a purple robe bordered and lined with crimson the two corners of which are carried by chamberlains upon the right side of the king walks the prime minister of sweden. following the king walk his sons, the princes of the royal house. when the king has reached the center of the room, he stops, turns with great dignity and bows first to one chamber and then to the other, and then to the queen, who has taken her position in the balcony, attended by the princesses and other members of the royal family and the officers of the court. then he proceeds slowly until he ascends the dais and seats himself upon the throne, his minister of state occupying a position on his right. before the separation of the union, the norwegian minister of state sat upon his left. the grand marshal steps forward and strikes the floor three times with a long staff of silver, tipped with jewels. at this signal all arise again except the king. in old-fashioned swedish the heralds command silence. the king, seated upon his throne, reads his speech, which always begins, "good gentlemen and swedish men." the prime minister then reads a review of the acts of state since the adjournment of parliament, which he skims over as rapidly as possible, because the printed copy will be placed in the hands of every person present as soon as the ceremony is over. the presiding officers of the two houses of parliament step forward and make speeches of congratulation, and reassure their sovereign of their loyalty and respect. the king then rises, bows first to the queen, and to each house in turn, and slowly leaves the chamber accompanied by the procession that followed him in. the courts of sweden are conducted upon the french plan, and no jury is ever impaneled except in cases concerning the liberty of the press. when a newspaper is accused of libel or sedition, the complainant, whether he be a member of the police or any other official of the government, chooses three jurymen, the defendant three, and the court three. these nine men hear and decide the merits of the case without application of such strict rules of evidence as prevail in the legal practice of the united states. all judicial procedure in sweden is based upon the assumption that the court is sufficiently intelligent and impartial to determine the reliability of witnesses and to judge of the application of facts laid before it. all judges and judicial magistrates are appointed for life on good behavior, but they can be impeached by processes similar to those authorized by the constitution of the united states.[g] chapter viii the army and navy everybody in norway, that is every man, has to serve five years in the army, so that every citizen is a soldier--the first year after the twenty-third birthday seventy days, and thirty days or so each year thereafter for four years more. the organization has a nominal strength of , men of three divisions known as the landstrom, or reserves ( , ); the landvern, or militia ( , ), and the opbud, or regulars, who numbered about , , garrison the different fortresses along the coast. every able-bodied norwegian, except pilots and clergymen, is obliged to serve in any position to which he is assigned by the king, who is commander-in-chief. the sailors and fishermen are enrolled in the navy and must serve aboard a man-of-war at least twelve months. the land forces require five months' service for infantry, seven months for cavalry and artillery, and six months for engineers, which is distributed over a period of five years. training camps are established every summer in convenient localities from two to three months. every man capable of bearing arms is in time of war liable to do service in the reserves, from the eighteenth to the fiftieth year of age. the organization is complete throughout the nation, so that an army of , men can be mobilized in a few days. every cavalryman and artilleryman is required to bring a horse with him when he is called to camp, and the arsenals contain a complete equipment of arms and accoutrements. the non-commissioned officers are former members of the regular army, in which they must have served three years in the infantry and cavalry or four years in artillery and engineers. during this period they are given a practical education in books and in the mechanical duties of the soldier. they are taught to repair guns, manufacture powder, make harness, shoe horses, and do everything else that is likely to come within their experience in the field. this training is highly valued by the young men of the country, particularly by boys from the farms, because it gives them a certain social standing, the right to wear a uniform, and a corresponding amount of influence in the community. this regular army school takes in about , young men every year. the officers are educated in a military college. the complete course covers five years for the staff, artillery, and engineer corps. candidates must first have graduated from one of the government technical schools. the infantry and cavalry course is three years. graduates are appointed second lieutenants in the regular army, and are promoted through the regular grades. the army of norway costs the government about , , kroner, or $ , , a year, which is an average of $ . per capita of the population, or half the tax paid by the english and germans. the last budget was about $ , , larger than usual, for the purpose of erecting new fortresses upon the southern coast. all the principal seaports are already fortified, and there is an excellent system of torpedo defense in the different fjords, but there is a remarkable public apprehension concerning the intentions of russia; and, mindful of the fate of finland, the norwegians are preparing to resist any aggressiveness on the part of the czar. it is not disputed that russia desires a winter port on her northern coast for st. petersburg and kronstadt are always closed by the ice for five and sometimes six months in the year. the norwegian fjords never freeze. they are protected by the monstrous mountains, and the water is tempered by warm currents that flow in from the gulf stream. the national apprehension of both norway and sweden that russia covets one of their seaports has existed a good many years. the bugbear has appeared at intervals for half a century, and a great deal of money has been expended in preparations to meet it. the people are, therefore, cordially patriotic in their support of the army, although many of them emigrate to the united states to avoid military service. norway has a small but efficient navy, composed of third and fourth class cruisers, monitors, small gunboats and torpedo boats, forty-six in all, aggregating , tons, , horse-power, carry guns, and manned by officers and , men. the officers are educated in naval schools, with a five-year course for regulars and three years for the reserves, which include all the merchant sailors and fishermen. norway has taken an active part in the promotion of international arbitration, and has sent delegates to every conference on that subject. the storthing, in a decided manner, has repeatedly expressed its belief in that method of settling disputes, and in correspondence with the russian government has laid a foundation that may be useful in case the czar, under any pretext, should use aggressive measures in this direction. so much interest has been shown in the question that alfred nobel, the swedish philanthropist, and the inventor of dynamite, who made his money manufacturing that most powerful explosive, by his will authorized the members of the norwegian storthing to award a prize of $ , annually to the person who, in their judgment, during the preceding year, shall have done the most to promote peace among nations and the adoption of the plan of arbitration in the settlement of international differences. for many years the chief political issue in sweden has been the increase of the army and the military service required of each citizen. the king finally won, and in a law was passed increasing the term of service from ninety days to eight and twelve months. the nation claims that period in the life of every able-bodied man, and it is given more or less reluctantly. every male citizen is enrolled in the army, and at the time when he becomes twenty-one years of age, he is required to report himself at the military headquarters nearest home, where he submits to a physical examination, and if accepted, is assigned to the proper company and regiment of militia, and directed to report for duty to his immediate commander. the small number of persons rejected for disability is good testimony to the health and vigor of the race. severe penalties are placed upon those who attempt to escape military service by feigning illness or maiming themselves, but it is said there are still men who would cut off one or two of their fingers and run risk of spending four years in the penetentiary in preference to spending a couple of months every year under military instruction. the military spirit in sweden is not strong, although history shows that there are no better fighters in the human family, and it is remarkable to watch the high degree of efficiency to which green boys from the farms can be brought after a few weeks of drill and discipline. the regular army of sweden oh a peace footing is composed of , enlisted men, , officers, , musicians, engineers, and members of the staff, making a total effective fighting force of , . of these , are cavalry and , artillery. these forces compose the garrisons at stockholm and other principal cities of the country, and are at all times under arms. the militia, divided into regiments and companies according to location, numbers , men, and is subject to call by the king at all hours and under all circumstances. each member of the militia, as i have said, must serve a certain time in the army, eight months for infantry and twelve months for cavalry and artillery, the service being extended over the period of five years. during this five years a man spends from two to four months each year in a garrison or camp, according to the judgment of his commanding officers, when he receives the nominal pay of the private in the regular army. he has no option as to the time of the annual period or service. he may be asked to remain in the army for eight or twelve months continuously; it all depends upon the plans of the war office. when a man has served his time in the militia, he is given a certificate to that effect, which exempts him from further active military service, and makes him a member of the reserves, which number , men, all of whom have served in the militia, and are subject to the summons of the king whenever the country is invaded by foreign foe. with local troubles they have nothing to do. the militia is considered sufficient for any such emergency, but under the swedish system the effective force at the command of the king in case of foreign invasion is something like , men. there are a lot of picturesque old castles and fortresses on the coast of sweden in which garrisons are still maintained, but they would not last an hour if attacked by modern guns and projectiles. they are reinforced, however, by earthworks, with the very best artillery. swedish guns rank among the highest, and several swedish patents in ordnance have been already adopted by the fortification board of the united states. all the harbors are protected by torpedoes, and stockholm is absolutely impregnable from the sea, being situated upon a fjord or bay that can not be entered except through passages that are easily defended. the navy of sweden is comparatively small, but for its numerical strength it is probably the most effective in the world. at least that is the opinion of competent critics. the total force numbers , officers and men on a peace footing, which may be increased to , from the reserve on a few hours' notice. the fleet consists of fourteen first-class cruisers and battle ships, four second- and nine third-class, five torpedo catchers, twenty-six torpedo boats, and twenty gunboats of small tonnage, the armament of the fleet being guns and ninety-seven rapid-firing guns. all the vessels were built in sweden. every swede is a sailor. he is brought up on the water, and taught in childhood to swim and to sail a boat, and, although the shipping industry is not so extensive as in norway, the national interest in aquatic sports is probably greater and more general than in any other nation. the long line of seacoast and the , lakes within swedish territory gives abundant opportunity for the exercise of this inclination. hence in the case of war, the navy could be recruited indefinitely with competent men. king oscar took a deep personal interest in naval affairs, because his early life was spent in the navy, his commission as lieutenant bearing the date of june , . when he was called to the throne, he at once commenced to plan for improvement of that branch of the service, and for many years was virtually his own minister of marine. he did much to encourage the maritime spirit among the people, being honorary president of the royal yacht club, and presided over its meetings, which were sometimes held in the palace to suit his convenience. he took an active part in the organization and promotion of the naval reserve, and never lost an opportunity to show his zeal in the development of the shipping industry and the aquatic pastimes. nor was the king a paper sailor. on special occasions he showed great bravery and presence of mind at sea, and of his sixty decorations and medals he valued none higher than that which was awarded him by the humane society of france in , when he saved the lives of three people at the risk of his own. the swedish militia is commanded by officers of the regular army. no man can receive a commission in the militia unless he has spent at least sixteen months in the military academy and passed the required examinations. about a thousand young men are graduated each year from the several schools situated in different parts of the country, which are a part of the regular educational system of the nation. thus the government has at its command abundant material for the military organization. the officers are promoted as vacancies occur, are retired on half pay when they are aged or disabled--generals at years, colonels at , lieutenant colonels and majors at , and captains at . militia officers are eligible to appointments in the civil service; they may be elected to the riksdag, and they have the same social standing at the palace as the officers of the regular army. the palace is the center of the social system in sweden, and only certain persons are eligible to invitations to the king's balls and dinners. all officers of the militia are included in the list, and all peasants in the riksdag, although their wives are never invited.[h] chapter ix public education there are few countries in which education is as free as in sweden. from the grammar school to the university in all its stages, the cost is defrayed entirely by the state or the parish. education is thus not a privilege of the wealthy, but a benefit common to all. in norway you are scarcely ever out of sight of a schoolhouse, and professor nielsen, of the university, on being asked concerning the ratio of the illiterates, looked surprised and replied that he was not aware of any illiterates; that he did not recollect having seen any statistics on the subject, and ventured to assert that anybody in norway could both read and write. education is free throughout the entire primary system, a course of seven years, between the ages of seven and fourteen, when the law prohibits the employment of children in any occupation, and requires them to attend school at least thirty hours a week for twelve weeks each year in the country and fifteen weeks in the cities. the maximum term is forty weeks in both city and country districts. there are in the kingdom , school districts, governed by _skolestyret_--boards consisting of the parish priest, the president of the municipal council, and one of the teachers chosen by themselves. there is also a board of supervisors, composed of three men or women, elected by the parents of the parish. childless people are not allowed to vote. this board of supervisors does not appear to have any definite function except to advise and find fault. the school board elects the teachers, determines the courses of study and methods of discipline, and submits recommendations and estimates for appropriations annually to the municipal council. in both city and country what is called "voluntary instruction" is provided outside of the legal school hours, which may be taken advantage of by people who are willing to pay for additional attention from the school teachers, but it is neither free nor compulsory. the compulsory studies in the primary schools are the bible, the catechism of the lutheran creed, the norwegian language, the usual elementary branches, with history (including a treatise on the constitution and the government of norway), botany, physiology (including the fundamental principles of hygiene and the effects of the use of intoxicating liquors), singing, drawing, wood-carving, the use of the lathe and other tools, manual training, gymnastics, and rifle shooting. the national law requires that schoolhouses shall be so located as to be within a distance of two miles of the residences of ninety per cent of the children of school age. the poor are provided with text-books upon application, and in some places the municipal council provides every child a warm dinner at noon. it can be paid for if the parents prefer, but the better classes look upon this provision with prejudice, as they do upon all charities. nevertheless, it is an excellent idea to be sure that the children of the poor get at least one warm meal every day. in the city of christiania, , meals are served annually in the primary schools. the average attendance is , , so that only about per cent of the children take advantage of the free dinner. only , of these meals are paid for, and those are taken on stormy days by children of well-to-do parents. the norway school teachers must be graduates of normal schools, of which there are twelve in the kingdom; they must pass examinations and serve a probation of three months before they are definitely engaged, but when they have once received an appointment, they are settled for life and sure of a pension at the end of the long term of faithful service. the same rule applies to all civil service employees, for the school system is a part of the government. there is no such thing as rotation in office. promotion is expected by all who deserve it. a worthy and efficient teacher, having begun in youth at the lowest grade, expects advancement to the highest, according to the judgment of the school boards and supervisors. school teaching is a career, just as a government clerkship is a career. people enter both professions with the expectation of making them their life-work, although from our point of view they offer very little inducement. the average salary of the school teachers in norway is only about $ a year, the men receiving a little above the average and the women a little less. the highest salaries are paid in the city of christiania--$ for men and $ for women. head masters to the number of , , like parsons, are furnished with houses to live in and little tracts of land, three or four acres, where they can raise vegetables for their families and keep cows; and nine hundred and ten of them add a little to their incomes by serving as parish clerks. when they become too old to teach, they receive pensions of from $ to $ a year, and when they die, their widows are remembered by the government to the extent of from $ to $ per year. the primary school system of norway costs an average of $ . per child per year in the country, and $ . per child in the city, or $ . per capita of population in a year. there is a secondary school system under the control of the national government, administered by the department of education and religion. it embraces forty-six high schools, located in different parts of the country, known as _latin-gymnasier_, or classical schools, at which students are prepared for the university, and _real-gymnasier_, or technical schools, in which they are taught english, mathematics, the natural and applied sciences, bookkeeping, stenography, and other branches that will fit them for commercial or industrial pursuits. there are also twelve cathedral schools, one for each ecclesiastical diocese, which were founded in the middle ages, and are supported by large estates acquired from the early kings and by confiscation of church property after the reformation. there are also five private academies, attended chiefly by the sons of rich men. the university of christiania, which is one of the first in europe, was founded in , and has five faculties, with sixty-three professors, eighteen fellows, and about , students, of whom are studying theology, law, medicine, and are in the scientific department. the professors are appointed by the king, and receive salaries of about $ a year, with a longevity allowance in addition amounting to about $ every five years. the fellows are paid about $ a year, and are provided with lodging rooms. tuition at the university is free upon payment of a matriculation fee of $ . women have been admitted on even terms with men since , and have matriculated, of whom have taken degrees. the university has an endowment of $ , , , with legacies amounting to about $ , to encourage original investigations in special lines of study. the nansen fund, which amounts to about $ , , is intended to encourage exploration on the seas. the hospitals of christiania are in charge of the medical department. there are also the usual schools for the deaf, dumb, blind, weak-minded, and crippled children, supported by the state, and reform schools for the correction and restraint of the depraved. technical schools, with day and night classes, for teaching the trades to young men and women, four schools of engineering in different parts of the country, nine industrial schools for women only, where they can be trained to earn their living by sewing, dressmaking, weaving, millinery, embroidery, and other needlework, bookkeeping, typesetting, stenography, typewriting, photography, and other lines of industry, and an art school especially patronized by the king in connection with the art gallery at christiania, where painting, drawing, and designing, modeling, decoration, and the art of architecture are taught. in most of the counties are found what are called _amtsskoler_--schools to educate people for a practical life, with separate courses for each sex, the boys being taught farming, gardening, and mechanics, and the girls the arts of the household. there are also schools of deportment, where girls are fitted to act as governesses and are taught the social graces, music, dancing, the languages, and conversation. in several of the cities are workingmen's colleges, known as _arbeiderakademier_, where mechanics who have an ambition to acquire a better knowledge of their trades and general culture, may attend lectures in the evenings, delivered by scientific men, successful mechanics, and other specialists. the range of subjects includes every branch of human activity. in sweden, in the _folkskola_, elementary or people's school, maintained by the parish under the direction of the school board and the close supervision of the state, instruction is compulsory as well as gratuitous. as in norway, between the ages of seven and fourteen every boy and girl must attend a public school, unless the parents can show that their child is receiving equivalent instruction elsewhere, in a private school or at home. no exception or compromise is allowed, and no "half-time" system or "rush" through the school to suit the convenience of the factory or the farmer. for seven years, during eight and a half months of the year,--allowing for summer, christmas and easter holidays,--and thirty-six hours per week, every boy and girl in the kingdom receives instruction and goes through the same curriculum. the school board, which has the direct management of the schools is elected to the parish, and women are eligible to it. the state, which controls the whole system of education, from the a.b.c. class to the college and university, maintains alike its unity and its efficiency, and sees to the strict enforcement of the law. parents who try to evade it, through malevolence or neglect, may even, after due warning, be deprived of their children, who are taken over by the community during their school years. in thinly populated districts the school may be "ambulatory," held now in one part of the district and now in another, so that all may attend in turn. in such cases the schooling is reduced to four months in the year. but there is no district, however poor or thinly populated, without its _folkskola_. there are nearly twelve hundred of these in the land, attended by seven hundred and forty-two thousand pupils, and employing sixteen thousand two hundred and seventy teachers of both sexes. no more conscientious, hardworking, and respectable class of men and women can be found than the teachers. eight years' study, first in a special seminary and then in a training college, has taught them their profession both in theory and practice. they are convinced of the importance and dignity of their office, and are respected accordingly. socially, the general type of the school teacher is a superior one. there are at present in the riksdag, occupying seats as members of the second chamber, no fewer than eleven teachers in elementary schools, twelve teachers in secondary schools, one inspector of schools, and one university professor. in the rural community, the school teacher is something of an authority. most of the members of the parish have "sat under him" at school in their early life, and owe to him most of what they know. for years he has been diffusing knowledge around him, and has been looked up to as the fountain of book learning. he is the local parson's great coadjutor in parish matters, and being a ready speaker, is of no mean influence in the parish assemblies. the one dark blot in the existence of the school teacher is the small salary received. few of them receive so much as $ a year, the average running from $ to $ ; even in stockholm the figure going little beyond $ . living is, however, cheap in the rural districts, and these teachers, who are drawn generally from the rural and indigent classes, are accustomed to frugality and economy. they are lodged free of rent in the schoolhouse or a cottage attached to it, and are allowed firewood and other small prerequisites. they have generally a small garden or potato patch to cultivate, and can keep a cow and a few hens. they often add to their modest stipend by extra work, such as teaching in the evening classes, playing the organ in church, and writing, or some such work after school hours. at fifteen, after seven years' assiduous attendance at the _folkskola_, the boy and girl have finished their education, so far as compulsory instruction goes, and they are free to begin work on their father's farm, in his shop or his trade, or take service anywhere and shift for themselves. they may, however, if they like, pursue their studies further in the continuation schools, or in the evening classes provided in most parishes, or repair to a college or gymnasium town, if they elect to enter the church, the liberal professions, or the service of the state. but they have first to be confirmed, and it is here that the definite religious instruction is given. the preparation for confirmation, which entails a much longer and more advanced course of religious instruction than is usual for confirmation in england, is independent of the school and takes place in church, parents being allowed every liberty in the choice of the clergyman who performs this office for their children. english readers who are acquainted with longfellow's admirable translation of tegnér's beautiful poem, "the children of the lord's supper," are aware of the importance of this ceremony in swedish social life. it is the great turning point in the existence of scandinavian youth. the boy and girl emerging from it leave boyhood and girlhood behind them. knee-breeches and short frocks have given way to pants and long skirts. the boy sports his first watch and glories in his first shirt-front. the girl discards her long plaits, and wears her hair in a top-knot. they have made their profession of faith in public, have been examined in regard to it, and have had to answer for it in the presence of the whole congregation. they have assumed henceforth the full responsibility of their acts. in the eyes of the church, if not in the eyes of the law, they are free and responsible members of society. the secondary schools are maintained by the state, and are confined to the towns. they comprise nine forms in seven classes, of which the last two have double forms. the first three correspond to the curriculum of the primary schools, where are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, history, natural sciences, singing, drawing, and gymnastics, to which are added _sloyd_ and gardening for the boys, and needlework and cooking for the girls. scholars who have passed these in the primary schools enter into the fourth form. they are generally divided into two branches, the classical and the modern, according as the classics or languages predominate in the curriculum, which comprises religion, swedish composition, history, geography, philosophy, latin, greek, german, french, mathematics, zoology, botany, physics, chemistry, and drawing. after the fourth form, pupils must declare, with the written approbation of their parents or guardians, whether they will follow the classical or non-classical course, according as they intend to qualify for the universities or the technical high schools. not all the pupils who attend these secondary schools complete the full course and pass the final examination. more than half--those who mean to devote themselves to trade, agriculture, or industry, and those who have not developed the capabilities necessary to confront the severe final test of the "maturity" examination--leave the school on attaining the upper forms. to those who intend to enter the professions, the civil and military service, and the church, the full course of the secondary school is necessary, the "maturity" examination certificate being the only open sesame to the universities, the special colleges, and the technical high schools. to obtain it and to don the white cap, which is the outward and visible sign of university membership, is the first great step in the life of the ambitious youth. for young men destined for the technical trades and professions, there are open, after they have passed the maturity examination at the secondary school, two special institutions, where they complete their technical training--the technical high school of stockholm, and the chalmers technical institute at gothenburg, besides elementary technical schools at other places. the stockholm technical school, which is the most complete, comprises five branches: ( ) mechanical technology and machinery, shipbuilding and electrotechnics; ( ) chemical technology; ( ) mineralogy, metallurgy, and mining mechanics; ( ) architecture; ( ) engineering. the course in each of these sections takes between three and four years. generally several are combined, constituting a course of six or seven years. there are two universities in sweden--upsala in the north, founded in ; and lund in the south, founded in , to which may be added the medical college in stockholm, founded in , and limited to the medical faculty. the studies at these universities are thorough and comprehensive, but unusually long. they have each four faculties,--theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and philosophy,--and grant three different degrees in each, besides special degrees in theology and jurisprudence for entering the church and the government services. even these last, which are easiest to obtain, require a course of from four to five years. to take a medical degree a young man must stay nine years at the university, and two additional years in the hospitals, making eleven years in all. unlike english and american universities, the swedish universities are non-residential. like those of the continent, they are only teaching institutions, and the students who matriculate at upsala and lund must lodge in town or board with families living there. beyond attending the lectures and going up to be tested, they have no direct intercourse with their professors. in this brief sketch of the institutions provided by the state it will be seen that what especially characterizes public instruction in norway and sweden is its undoubted thoroughness and depth, though a serious penalty is paid for this in the extreme length of the course. by the time it is completed, and the young man issues from the protracted ordeal, armed for the battle of life, several of the best years of his youth are passed; he is already between twenty-five and thirty years of age when he first treads on the threshold of his career. on the other hand, he enters it not only with the necessary qualifications whereby to rise to eminence in it, of which the severe tests he has undergone offer evident proof, but with the assurance of finding the way more or less open to success.[i] chapter x haakon vii, the new king of norway there is something essentially, almost ludicrously, modern about the creation of norway's new king. not that it is the first time a sovereign has been, so to speak, "custom-made." an eligible foreign prince is tendered a seat upon an ancient throne; the form is old, but the spirit, how new! republican though she is to the backbone, norway has elected to be governed by monarchical methods, fearing with her isolated and primitive peasantry, to put the machinery of control into the hands of the people themselves. she must have a king, but he shall be of a new variety; in short, a republican king. she will not even have him addressed as were the monarchs of old, by the norwegian equivalent of "your majesty." he shall be just _herre konge_, plain "mister the king." even as the norwegians welcomed haakon vii to their shores, they took pains to show him clearly his rightful place. in his address delivered to the newly arrived sovereign on board the battleship heimdal, herr michelsen, president of council, and for six months virtual president of norway, used these significant words: "for nearly six centuries the norwegian people have had no king of their own. to-day a king of norway comes to make his home in the norwegian capital, elected by a free people to occupy, conjointly with free men, the first place in the land. the norwegian people love their liberty, their independence, and their autonomous government which they themselves have won. it will be the glory of the king and his highest pleasure to protect this sentiment, finding his support in the people themselves. this is why the norwegian people hail you to-day with profound joy and cry, 'long live the king and queen of norway!'" was ever so frank a bargain driven with a king before? "behold," says norway in effect, "you may sit on a throne; but beware how you attempt to king it over us. we will give you a salary to transact our official business and act as official figurehead. but you must never overlook the fact that it was we who made you and not you yourself." is it any wonder that when asked to undertake to govern a people so independent, so proud spirited as this, prince karl of denmark took time to think? or that he asked for a popular vote that he might know how large a proportion of the _frei_ people of norway really wanted him for a king? this was not the only reason why he hesitated. being himself on his mother's side a bernadotte, he could scarcely ascend the norwegian throne without the friendly sanction of sweden. moreover, his wife, princess maud of england, was more than reluctant to undertake life in christiania and the duties of queenship. lastly, prince charles himself ran a shrewd risk in assuming the crown, lest, should his relations with norway become difficult, he might be forced to resign, and find himself--having abandoned his naval career for the throne--in a state of abject poverty. all three objections were finally overruled. sweden, fearing lest an empty throne in norway should give impetus to the movement for a republic, and that such a movement might afterward spread to her own borders, was as much in haste to see norwegian affairs settled as the norwegians themselves, so she swallowed her grievances. most amicable correspondence passed between prince karl and the crown prince of sweden, the latter expressing himself anxious to be the first to welcome haakon vii into his capital. what became of princess maud's reluctance is not definitely known. it is understood that she never found life at the danish court very amusing, and probably the prospect of exchanging copenhagen for a city of less than half its size did not allure her. she must have realized that if she accepted a share of the norwegian throne, she would be forced to abandon her favorite cure for _ennui_--frequent flights to the court of england--for norway has had quite enough of absentee royalty. the english papers asserted that king edward used his parental authority to overcome his daughter's scruples. at all events, she gave in. as for prince karl's reasonable fear of dethronement and penury, the norwegian government quieted that by promising a respectable pension in case the king should find it expedient to abdicate. so, then, the affair was comfortably arranged. the king has a salary of $ , , a crown when he had no hope of ever feeling one on his brow, and the problems of a court without a nobility. and now the world is asking, "has norway done well for herself?" certainly she has done well in putting a scandinavian prince on the throne. no alien would ever understand norway or be understood. if reports are creditable, the kaiser made the most of his friendship with the country in support of the claims of a son of his own. had a german secured the throne, there would have been sown fresh seeds of discord on a peninsula which can raise a sufficient crop of dissensions without any aid from the rest of europe. for denmark, still nursing the rankling grievance of the schleswig-holstein affair, detests the thought of everything german. king haakon combines the advantages of scandinavian birth with the very positive political asset of blood relationship to half the courts of europe. grandson of the late king christian of denmark, the young monarch is also nephew to king george of greece, the dowager empress of russia, and alexandria of england, a grand-nephew to the late oscar of sweden, son-in-law to king edward vii, and cousin to the czar. to a relatively defenseless country like norway, this means a good deal. in himself the new king is a clean-lived, healthy young man of thirty-three, in personality quite fit to represent a nation which thinks well of itself. tall, though not quite so tall as his uncle, prince christian, whose mark on the famous old royal measuring-column at roskilde comes just under that of the giant, peter the great, king haakon is slight, yet vigorous-looking, and splendidly well set up. the face, while scarcely so handsome as the profile pictures lead us to think, is a distinguished one, and has for norway this charm, that it is markedly not of the bernadotte type, although his mother is a bernadotte. those who know him describe him as an extremely intelligent and sensible young man, easy and tolerant without being weak, and capable of strenuous devotion to hard work. these things bespeak an industrious, efficient, and tractable king, such as the norwegians, who would equally resent either vacillation or tyranny, know how to appreciate. it has been said in france that king haakon abandons tiller and compass for crown and scepter without one hour's training in politics or diplomacy. the statement appears incontestable. in view of the remarkable longevity of the late king of denmark, and the excellent health and prospects of the crown prince and his immediate heir, this younger son of a royal house was not brought up to look for a crown. instead, he was destined from the outset for a naval career. for all that, it is not safe to say that he has had no training in politics or diplomacy. one can scarcely grow up in the family of the "father-in-law of europe" and not learn the principles of the great game of world affairs. king haakon is no stranger to the queer old palace among the beeches at fredensborg, where every summer king christian gathered together his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren from the courts of england, russia, denmark, sweden, and greece; and where conversations took place which, if reported, would vitally interest the whole round world. in his lifetime, the czar alexander iii was particularly fond of holding long talks at fredensborg with his nephew karl, then a lieutenant of the navy, whom he found especially intelligent and open-minded. it is thought in copenhagen that king haakon may, even during the last years of his father's life, have had some experience in the government of denmark, since his father, the crown prince, was called upon to perform many of the old king's duties. at least, if he did not actually transact royal business, he acquired no small acquaintance with the working of government machinery. nothing, certainly, could have been more fitting than that a ruler of vikingland should be educated for the sea. nor could anything have been devised better calculated to knock the nonsense out of a princeling than apprenticeship in the danish navy. hrolf wisby, who messed with prince karl when he was a naval cadet, says that the lad was at first little more than a piece of court furniture. any one who is familiar with the appalling frankness and unvarnished brusquerie of grown-up danes can judge whether the hazing and horse-play on a danish man-of-war was agreeable, and whether it was medicinal in a case of congenital self-esteem. prince karl lived the life of an ordinary middy, scrubbed decks, mended his own clothes, slept in a hammock, and ate provender which was anything but fit to set before a king. it is recorded of him that he was an expert in polishing a certain brass binnacle lantern. we wonder if he ever thinks now of a certain line in pinafore, "i polished that handle so care-ful-lee, that now--" as ensign, second lieutenant, first lieutenant, and finally captain of a frigate, the young man acquitted himself well, earning the reputation of a capital officer, hardworking, careful, no martinet towards his men, though by no means to be trifled with. in practical seamanship, he excels any other prince of his age, and can command any kind of naval craft from torpedo boat to battleship, and lead in actual battle. in forming their court, king haakon and queen maud are gathering about them the literary, artistic, and musical people of the realm, for they are devoted to the companionship of gifted folk. the queen has herself written plays under the pseudonym "graham irving," and the king paints a little in aquarelles, and plays the piano almost too well to be termed an amateur. both are accomplished linguists, speaking with discrimination french, german, russian, english, norwegian, swedish, and, naturally, danish. there is no barrier of speech in their intercourse with members of the diplomatic corps. the little heir apparent, alexander, rechristened olaf, has already done much toward ingratiating himself with the norwegian people, although but a half dozen years old. on the day when the royal couple entered christiania, the boy was but two and a half years old, but he was very much interested in the decorations, and seemed to catch the enthusiasm of the crowd, for he waved his little hand spontaneously. in counting up the merits of the king, the promising little heir must by no means be left out. trondhjem cathedral, where all the kings and queens of norway for centuries have been crowned, and where the coronation of king haakon vii and queen maud occurred, stands on the site of what was undoubtedly the first christian church in the country--that erected by olaf trygvason in . within its confines bubbles the spring which sprang from the tomb of that later olaf who is the patron saint of norway, and somewhere under its walls lie moldering the bones of medieval kings, four of whom accepted their consecration before the altar where king haakon received his crown. it is a thousand pities that hammer and chisel should have exorcised the spirits which ought to haunt this venerable shrine. it is as if england's abbey had been scrubbed and resurfaced, and new noses had been provided for all the crumbling stone kings and queens. trondhjem cathedral has burned down so many times, and the work of restoration has been so sweeping, that it takes an active imagination to invest it with the proper glamour of romance. trondhjem itself is an odd place for festivities. the people say that it is fear of fire which makes them separate their insignificant wooden houses by such disproportionately broad streets. certainly it gives to the town a low look anything but imposing. whatever may be the esthetic shortcomings of king haakon's coronation city, it was amply atoned for by the enthusiasm and whole-hearted devotion of his new people. the king and queen are in very truth "the father and mother of the land." even toward the rulers they shared with sweden their cherished warm affection until their grievances waxed too sore. when sophie of nassau was on her way to trondhjem to be crowned, in , she drove herself in a carriole from the romsdal, stopping perforce at humble posting-stations by the way. and everywhere the peasants came with flowers, greeting their queen by the affectionate and familiar "du." more than once when the press was thick about her, and those on the outskirts could not see, the queen was urged to mount upon the housetop that the eyes of all might be gladdened by the sight of the dear land-mother. there was a significant demonstration of this sort of heart-loyalty when haakon vii and queen maud entered christiania. the crowds which waited in the steadily falling snow, and shouted themselves hoarse, might be accounted for by curiosity and mob enthusiasm. triumphal arches, flags, and even the rain of flowers which descended on the royal pair, might be classed as perfunctory, an essential part of the occasion. but at night the spirit of the people showed beyond mistake. not only were the streets arched and bordered with festoons of colored incandescent lights, not only were the battleships in the harbor strung with fiery beads to the topmost spar, but every window in every house in the city bore its light. fine houses had candelabra behind the glass, and the poorest mere tapers, but everywhere the same fire of welcome burned. haakon vii has the privilege of ruling over the most united people on the face of the earth. before the plebiscite, sweden declared that the desire for separation was confined to a party who were poisoning the minds of the common people. when the plebiscite had shown that only men out of , could be found to uphold the union, sweden protested that the peasants had been intimidated and dared not vote as they thought! now, it was just at this stirring time that i was driving through norway, or cruising in her fjords, and talking with graduates of her university, with sea-captains, hotel proprietors, traveling men, porters, drivers, serving-maids--all, in short, who spoke english enough to make themselves clear. it was as if all norway spoke with one voice. from hamerfest to stavanger there was the same complaint of the same wrongs, the same quiet insistence upon the same remedy. nor was it only the subjects of king oscar who spoke; norwegians settled in france, in england, or in america either hurried home to vote or sent their vigorous endorsement of the revolutionary proceedings. a window in christiania was completely filled by the mingled flags of norway and the united states, crossed by a banner bearing the words, "for disunion." it was the voice of norway and america. it was a modest desire they expressed. in the words of olaf sprachehaug, our humble-minded _skydsgut_, the whole country was saying, "and now i t'ink we get a king of our own." they have their own king now, and all the world wishes them joy in him.[j] chapter xi the royal family of sweden the present reigning family of sweden is too young to be very numerous, and in this brief survey it is well to begin with a bit of information about that grand democratic monarch, oscar ii, passed away less than two years ago. how the bernadotte dynasty was formed has already been shown in a previous chapter, and something of the kings, who succeeded the former field marshal of france has also been related, so that we have in these few pages simply to deal with oscar ii, the late king, and his four sons and their families. oscar's grandfather, the originator of the bernadotte dynasty, was still on the throne when he was born, in , as the third son of crown prince oscar and the beautiful josephine of leuchtenberg. he seemed far removed from the throne then, and thus he found freedom to develop himself more in keeping with his individual tastes and inclinations. another factor to be borne in mind is the character of his governor and principal instructor, the historian, f.f. carlson, who gave to his pupil a fondness for scientific exactness as well as an insight into the true causes of civilizatory development found none too frequently in professional thinkers, and hardly ever in princes. the things that drew him most strongly in those days were the sea, and music. one of the foremost of swedish composers, a.f. lindblad, taught him the latter, while his fondness for the former was richly satisfied during the years when he worked his way through the ranks of the swedish navy. and his position on board the various man-of-war's-men in which he traveled on many seas was never merely ornamental or even exceptional. he took not only the title but also the work of the offices he held, from midshipman to admiral. it was characteristic of him, too, that when he married, he did so out of love. on a tour through several countries; in , he was fortunate enough to meet princess sophia of nassau. the courtship was brief and ardent. within a few months occurred the engagement, and the wedding followed in less than a year. to the last that royal couple remained strongly devoted to each other in spite of widely differing tastes and temperaments. she has all her life been intensely religious, with a strong leaning toward pietism, and illness has still further developed this inborn tendency. he, on the other hand, was always gay, light-hearted, fond of merriment, and given to many pleasures and pursuits which his spouse could only look upon as far too worldly. duke oscar frederick, as he was known in those early days, found himself heir to the throne after death had unexpectedly removed the two claimants with rights prior to his own. and on the succession of his eldest brother, he became the crown prince. it was a delicate position which imposed on him a reserve foreign to his nature. as it contrasted sharply with the unceremonious jollity of his brother, king charles, he came by degrees to be regarded by those ignorant of his true character with a distrust bordering on dislike. thus, when the succession fell to him in , he found himself little understood and less loved. it took him years to overcome the prejudice. perhaps it was his sanction of the impeachment proceedings by the norwegian radicals against the retiring conservative ministry which, in the early ' 's, first served to turn the trend of public opinion in his favor, both in sweden and norway. that act was one of the many by which he showed his ability to submit his own inclinations to the demands of the people without becoming a mere tool in the hands of any one political party. about the same time he succeeded in bringing about a deeply needed and by himself long-cherished reform of the popular educational system in sweden. previously,--it was, in fact, his first important step after his ascension to the throne,--he had on his own initiative proclaimed full freedom of worship for persons not belonging to the established church. a scandinavianism of the purely sentimental kind,--the kind that talked without ever dreaming of putting the talk into deeds,--had prevailed until then on the peninsula. intermixed with it was an equally sentimental sympathy with france. though himself the grandson of a frenchman and still keenly devoted to french literature and art, king oscar had the foresightedness to recognize that the interests of the country were more closely bound up with those of germany. and one of the most striking features of his reign was the growing cultural intercourse between the nations in the north and their neighbor south of the baltic. and while the king discouraged the speech-making, empty scandinavianism against which ibsen was fond of launching his most vitriolic invectives, he fostered instead a fellow-feeling between sweden, norway and denmark that found its expression in practical co-operation, in the equalization of commercial and industrial regulations, in the breaking down of as many as possible of the unnecessary barriers between them. as the years passed on and the trend of his labors became understood and appreciated, he found a part of his reward in a steadily increasing respect for him throughout the civilized world, a respect that repeatedly found expression in requests that he act as arbiter of international differences. he had always been fond of traveling, and this fondness he continued to indulge up to the last. unlike those of some other monarchs having a similar taste, his comings and goings on the continent were always the objects of pleasant and welcoming comment. if gossip had to name king christian of denmark "the father-in-law of all europe," king oscar was surely "the friend of all the world." apace with his own fame grew the prosperity of his people. on either side of the kjölen his reign marked an era of unprecedented economical, social, and spiritual progress which not even the internal dissensions of the sister nation could interrupt. king oscar's motto was _brödrafolkens väl_ "the brother-peoples weal!" the scandinavian peninsula is still populated by brother-peoples, as was indicated at the time of the death of the old king. it was the week for the distribution in norway of the nobel prizes, always attended in christiania with great rejoicing and merry-making. on this occasion all demonstration was prohibited, and the norwegian capital was almost as much in mourning as was stockholm. though entirely devoted to the new order of things, the norwegians did not forget, nor will they forget, the character of the king who ruled them for a generation. more democratic than the swedes, they were peculiarly attached personally, if not politically, to one whom they felt to be really of like democratic instincts with themselves, even if he did show himself every inch a king. not only as a ruler, but as a father, king oscar was both wise and fortunate. four sons came to him through his marriage, and these have proved men of his own type. the crown prince gustave was born just one year after the marriage of his parents, on june th, at the castle of drottingholm, in the year ; prince oscar, known as prince bernadotte, was born on nov. , , at stockholm; prince carl on feb. , , also at stockholm; while the youngest, prince eugene, like his eldest brother, first saw the light at the castle of drottingholm, on aug. , . as has been previously stated, the crown prince (now king) was married to the princess victoria of bade, granddaughter of emperor william i of germany, and great-granddaughter of the exiled gustavus iv of sweden. the third son, prince carl, is wedded to his cousin, the princess ingeborg of denmark, which was a source of great satisfaction to king oscar and queen sophie. the youngest son, prince eugene, is devoted to art, and spends much time out of the country. never did king oscar do more to win the approval of his subjects, and thinking men and women everywhere, than when he permitted the marriage of his second son, prince oscar, to a young swedish noblewoman, fröken ebba munck, of fulkila, who was also queen sophie's maid-of-honor. while the prince had to renounce his right of succession and his position as a royal prince of sweden, his relations to his father and the other members of the royal family remained the same. of this incident in the history of the royal family of sweden, the following story is told: the queen interceded long and persistently with her husband for permission for her second son to be married to the woman he loved. although the munck family had played a very important part in the history of the nation, the king was opposed to the _mésalliance_. "it is oscar's duty to be true to himself and to his love," she used to say. but the king, who was not wont to refuse any of the wishes of his consort, steadily refused to sanction the union. there were many things against such a marriage, for prince oscar was the second son of the king, and the very fact that the reigning house of norway and sweden was one of the most youthful of the royal houses of europe made it all the more necessary that its scions should intermarry with the members of the ancient reigning houses. about this time the queen was seized with one of her serious attacks of illness, and her state was such that at one time her life was despaired of. her physicians declared that her only hope of recovery lay in an instant operation, which was both dangerous and extremely painful. the queen called the king to her bedside, and said, "if i undergo this operation and recover, will you allow oscar and ebba to have their way?" the king was unable to resist such an appeal, made at such a time, and gave his promise. a short time afterwards the operation was successfully performed, and when the queen was convalescent, the king redeemed his promise and gave his consent to the marriage of his second son. it was on christmas eve, and the king had come to his wife's apartments to see her. he found ebba munck and his son oscar with her. the maid-of-honor was, at the time of his entrance, singing one of his poems to her majesty, which, oddly enough, was on the subject of the right to love. after waiting until the song was ended, the king went up to his son, and, leading him to the girl, laid his hand in hers, in this manner signifying that he had withdrawn his opposition to their plans. the marriage has proved a most happy one. prince oscar has found perfect content, and has been able to follow his career as a philanthropist. the wedding took place at bournemouth, in the presence of the queen of sweden, on march , , and for some time after it the prince and his wife were known as prince and princess bernadotte; but later the uncle of prince oscar, the grand duke of luxemburg, gave him the title of the count of wisborg for himself and his descendants. when their children were born, prince oscar and his wife proclaimed them as the children of oscar and ebba bernadotte, and, during their entire married life, they have lived as quietly and simply as possible, and have found their greatest interest in working for the poor and suffering. they have a son and a daughter, the former, count carl oscar, having been born on may , , and the latter, the countess marie, on february , ; and three other children. and so, as the years went by, a third generation grew up in the palace at stockholm,--a brood of long-limbed and broad-shouldered sons with wholesome tastes and bright minds and kindly temperaments. and at last, when the king was seventy-eight years old, a great-grandchild was laid in his arms,--the first son of prince gustavus adolphus (now the crown prince) and the princess margaret of connaught. up to the last king oscar remained active and interested in all public affairs. though he had experienced several brief but rather severe illnesses of late years, the end came without warning, after a few days of indisposition, on dec. , . a kindly "thanks" for a small favor rendered him by a member of his family was the last word heard from his lips. previously he had expressed his wish to the members of his cabinet that no interruption in public or private business be made on account of his death. king gustavus v, who took the oath of office within a few hours of his father's death, has suffered something resembling his father's fate as crown prince. overshadowed by the more brilliant gifts and more attractive personality of the parent, he was for years spoken of in rather a disparaging manner in sweden, while in norway he harvested outright hatred in return for his determined upholding of the union. on frequent occasions during the last decade of his father's reign, he acted as vice-regent while his father was sick or traveling, and in this way he found chances to display qualities that gradually changed the popular regard of him from one of suspicion to one of hearty respect. his near-sightedness, his serious-mindedness, have militated against him, but it seems probable that he will prove the very _best_ ruler sweden could desire at the present juncture. he is slow to make up his mind, and will not do so until he has searched every phase and detail of the problem before him, but once he has come to a conclusion, he pursues his path without looking to the right or left. gustavus is fifty years old, tall, rather dark, quite unassuming, and is essentially democratic, while seeming the opposite, whereas oscar was aristocratic, although he made much of the people. like all other swedish kings, gustavus adopted a motto when he ascended the throne; it is "with the people for the fatherland"--not inappropriate in view of his inheritance of a problem clamoring for solution, the extension of the suffrage and a more direct representation of the people in both the upper and lower houses of the riksdag. the new king, who possesses an uncommon amount of energy, may probably be depended upon to accomplish this reform. there is neither pride of an objectionable type, nor any tendency to tyranny, nor one strain of arrogance in the new king. he may not be able to draw upon such ripe culture or upon such fine talents as the monarch who preceded him, yet the swedes have no fear that his love of truth and justice will not outweigh this deficiency and probably make him a more practical ruler. as for the french descent of the swedish royal house, neither the present nor the late king have ever been ashamed of their ancestry, or forgotten that the first bernadotte on their throne was one of napoleon's greatest marshals. never will gustavus v be able to give to words or actions that brilliantly original and kingly tone for which his late father was so admired everywhere. that, to the mind of all beholders, is to be the drawback of his reign, for he is the merest mortal; where his father was the luminous angel. where oscar would have been finely eloquent, gustavus shows himself merely sensible. oscar's temper was heated, his emotions were forever coming to the surface. gustave is, if more poised, less interesting. he has always been addicted to manly sports and exercises. he has often been observed to "put up" an excellent game of tennis at the club in stockholm. but he is without the alert and springy step of the old oscar, whose muscles remained taut and elastic almost to his dying day. gustave lacks the literary aptitudes of his late father, likewise, who left a well-filled book of verse which admirers all over europe did into french, german, italian, danish, and even hungarian. gustave has not inherited his mother's musical genius, either. she was at one time a devotee of wagner, a disciple of kant, and always a pious evangelical of the german cast. from both his parents gustave received every encouragement to proficiency in music. music, to the late oscar, was, both in theory and practice, an essential element in the intellectual life. gustave is less the artist than the practical king. he encourages international congresses of every kind to come to sweden; he helps the universities and the cause of education throughout his kingdom; he feels his father's interest in hedin's travels through central asia, but he can give no creative impulse after his father's grand fashion. oscar was the man of ideas, the vitalizer of projects literary, musical, dramatic and scientific. he made stockholm the capital of the whole intellectual world. gustave is very courteous, affable in a dignified way, impressive as he opens the riksdag in royal ermine. he has commenced his reign in simplicity, rising at eight, breakfasting on coffee and rolls, reading the morning papers until ten, and reviewing the military with a conscientious assiduity. his note is repose both in manner and in speech, in striking contrast with the late oscar, who was majestic in the very way he had of eating cold meat at supper, and whose height of six feet three towered, almost without the drooping heaviness of age, till his seventy-ninth year. notwithstanding the adverse comparison with his parent, one has but to see gustave's face, with its determination and refinement, to feel a certain assurance as to sweden's future. it is a curious fact that there has been such a dearth of girls in the swedish royal family, the only princess of the house being the crown princess of denmark, a daughter of the late king charles xv. the present queen has only sons: crown prince gustavus adolphus, wedded to margaret of connaught; prince wilhelm, who was recently married to the russian princess marie palvona, and prince erik, now about twenty years of age. the present crown prince and princess are seemingly perpetuating the tradition, as their first child is a lusty little son. queen victoria is said to be endowed with an instinct for business of every kind far finer and more efficient than that of her husband, and it is to be regretted that her health is so frail that she is obliged to spend much time outside her husband's realm, and the duties of her royal dignity devolve upon her daughter-in-law, the crown princess. it is very satisfying to the swedish people that by a strange play of circumstances, the claims of the extinct house of vasa,--the last direct descendant of which passed away a few days after king oscar, in the person of carola, dowager-queen of saxony, and daughter of the deposed king gustavus adolphus iv of sweden,--are again restored, and that the reigning house of bernadotte and the ancient house of vasa have become joined through the present crown prince. it is something to consider, too, that adolphus v is the first of the bernadotte dynasty in whose veins, through his mother, sophie of nassau, there flows royal blood.[k] chapter xii charitable and benevolent institutions this is the age of munificent benefactions in aid of science and learning. the rhodes scholarships, mr. carnegie's free libraries and educational endowments, the duc d'aumale's gift to the french academy of his fine _chatteau_ at chantilly, with its magnificent historical and art collections; many institutions founded in the united states and elsewhere by multi-millionaires for the advancement of knowledge, are a sign of the times. they foreshadow the abolishment of pauperism and its attendant charities to give place to beneficent institutions, and norway and sweden are abreast with other countries in this movement. apart from charitable institutions and endowments for the maintenance of hospitals and asylums, of universities, scholarships and fellowships, which the generosity of former generations has secured, the present generation has seen noble donations made by private men for more special objects, having the general advancement of knowledge in view, such as the encouragement of scientific research and the support of voyages of geographical exploration. nordenskiöld's arctic voyages, his and palander's navigation through the polar northeast passage in the _vega_, nathort's exploration of king carl's land, the swedish expedition to the antarctic regions under otto nordenskiöld, which has lately returned after two years' adventurous exploration in graham land and the discovery of king oscar land, sven hedin's travels in central asia, which have had such important results and made his works so widely read--all these were undertaken as the result of such aid. the latest case in point, alfred nobel's foundation of annual prizes for the reward of scientific discovery, of literary merit, and humanitarian endeavor, deserves special notice. the annual distribution of these prizes, each of which represents a small fortune ($ , ), has of late years fixed the attention of the learned world on the swedish literary and scientific bodies, and the norwegian parliamentary committee, who were entrusted by him with the difficult and invidious task of awarding them. alfred nobel, the dynamite king, as he was styled, belonged to a family of inventors and industrial magnates. his father, emmanuel nobel, was the inventor of nitroglycerine, and of fixed submarine torpedoes or mines. his two brothers, robert and louis nobel, founded the naptha and petroleum works at bacou, one of the largest industrial enterprises of russia. alfred himself invented dynamite and dynamite gum, and a smokeless powder, ballistite, which he patented in , , and . it is mainly due to the works of the nobel family that sweden has attained the reputation of master producer of explosives. chemical research has always been a specialty among swedish men of science, and a large number of the known chemical elements were discovered and made known by swedish scientists. in , alfred nobel had perfected his invention of dynamite gum. he went to paris with his patented invention, and there formed a company with a capital of ten million francs for the manufacture of dynamite. it proved to be an article of the greatest industrial importance, and one destined to revolutionize mining and engineering. erelong he had established extensive works in france, scotland, germany, belgium, austria, and the united states. he produced over $ , , worth a year. he became, in fact, the world's purveyor of an article which was now exclusively used in mining and engineering works. thanks to it, engineers were able to pierce tunnels through the alps, miners to sink their shafts into the bowels of the earth, and harbor constructors to remove sunken rocks out of the way of shipping. but thanks to it, too, the communards were enabled to blow up the finest monuments of paris in a few hours. it was at once a powerful instrument of industrial development, and of progress in the conquest of man over inert matter, and a terrible engine of devastation in warfare, and of massacre and vandalism where homicidal and destructive passions were aroused in mankind. it was perhaps this thought, that in benefiting industry he had also made war more destructive, which led alfred nobel, who was a most pacific and humane man, endowed with the kindliness and sympathy of a great mind, to make the provisions he did in his will. he devoted all his fortune to the encouragement of scientific discovery and the reward of endeavors to diminish standing armies and the chances of war, to promote fraternity among nations, and the settlement of international disputes by peace congresses. his will, in its very conciseness and unsophisticated simplicity, is characteristic of the man. it is dated nov. , , and he died a year afterwards, on dec. , , leaving a fortune of $ , , . after instituting several small legacies, the will proceeds: "with the residue of my convertible estate i hereby direct my executors to proceed as follows: they shall convert my said residue of property into money, which they shall then invest in safe securities; the capital thus secured shall constitute a fund, the interest accruing from which shall be annually awarded in prizes to those persons who shall have contributed most materially to benefit mankind during the year immediately preceding. the said interest shall be divided into five equal amounts, to be apportioned as follows: one share to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention in the domain of physics; one share to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one share to the person who shall have made the most important discovery in the domain of physiology or medicine; one share to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency; and, finally, one share to the person who shall have most or best promoted the fraternity of nations and the abolition or diminution of standing armies and the formation or increase of peace congresses. the prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the swedish academy of science in stockholm, the one for physiology or medicine by the caroline medical institute in stockholm; the prize for literature by the swedish academy in stockholm, and that for peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the norwegian storthing. i declare it to be my express desire that, in awarding these prizes, no consideration whatever be paid to the nationality of the candidates, that is to say, the most deserving be awarded the prize, whether of scandinavian origin or not." it was nobel's object to reward and help the pure man of science, too much absorbed in his researches to think of drawing any industrial or pecuniary advantages from his scientific discoveries. "i would not leave anything to a man of action or industrial enterprise," he said to a friend with whom he was discussing the project of his will; "the sudden acquisition of a fortune would probably only damp the energy and weaken the spirit of enterprise of such a man. i want to aid the dreamer, the scientific enthusiast, who forgets everything in the pursuit of his ideas." it seems like dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous to follow so ideal a benefaction with a report of so mundane a thing as a soup kitchen, but soup is as necessary to humanity at the present period of life as some of the exalted things of the intellect, and, as pauperism in norway and sweden is so almost unobservable, it is difficult to search out with the keenest vision any charity that is doing more than are the "steam kitchens" of norway and sweden. and the keenest vision would hardly observe that these "steam kitchens" are charitable institutions. they are called "steam kitchens" because they are the first institutions in the peninsula where steam was used for the cooking of food. the one at stockholm, instituted by prince carl, is very similar in detail and operation to the one in christiania, but the latter was established first and is more perfect in its arrangement and methods, so we will take it for illustration. this kitchen at christiania was established in by benevolent people to provide wholesome food for the poor at low prices. the charter granted to the company limited its profits to six per cent of the capital invested, with a provision that the balance, if any, should be paid into the poor fund of the city. there was a hard struggle at first to make both ends meet, and an annual deficit for many years, which was made up by the stockholders, but at last the "kitchen" became so popular that it began to pay dividends, and the stock has since been watered four times, until it now pays what is equivalent to twenty-four per cent annually upon the original investment, with a surplus larger than the capital on which it was started. it is one of the most profitable enterprises in europe for the amount of money involved, but that fact does not diminish the benefits conferred upon the public, and the generosity of the company to the poor, particularly in times of labor troubles and financial depression, can not be questioned. hundreds of bachelors and single women take their meals there regularly, and hundreds of families obtain their entire supply of food, wholesome and well cooked, at nominal cost. there is a long official title to the company, but nobody ever mentions it. it occupies a two-story building covering nearly half an ordinary block. the location is convenient to the business portion of the city, the docks and the market-place. there are two large halls, one above the other, containing five long tables, seating thirty persons each, thus accommodating three hundred customers at a sitting. in the upstairs room it costs eleven cents in our money for a good dinner; in the lower room it costs nine cents. there are no tablecloths and no napkins, but the tops of the tables have been scoured until they shine and everything is spotless. the whole institution is a model of neatness. it seems remarkable how it can be kept so clean with so many unwashed customers and so much business. the windows are large and let in plenty of light. the walls are covered with bright tints, and the waitresses wear white caps, aprons, and oversleeves. at each place is a knife, fork, spoon, drinking glass, cup and saucer, and a piece of bread about three inches square. dinner is served from ten in the morning until six in the afternoon to an average of , people daily. some of them come twice. they take a cup of coffee and eat a piece of cheese and bread at their homes early in the morning. then at ten or eleven, and again at four or five o'clock, they go to the "kitchen" for a square meal. thus it costs them not more than twenty-five cents a day, all told, for their food. in the last ten years they have never served less than , people in a day. the bill of fare varies from day to day, but we will take one day, tuesday, for example. a large dish of barley soup is served, wholesome and nourishing, a ball of hashed meat, with potatoes and rice, or boiled salmon, potatoes and turnips. the nine-cent dinner is pretty much the same, with the exception of the soup; boiled potatoes and rice, or boiled salmon, potatoes and turnips. a plate of soup alone, which in itself would be more than a meal for most people, being filled with meat and vegetables, is served for three cents. the same dinners are furnished to the public to be eaten at their homes for nine and seven cents respectively, and usually contain enough food for two or three women, although norwegians have stalwart appetites. the outdoor service is conducted in another part of the building, upon another street. the patrons procure tickets at an office and then form in line--men, women and children, each with a bucket or a basket, or both, in hand. many tickets are given gratuitously, but it is impossible to distinguish the paying from the charity customers. benevolent people throughout the city purchase bunches of tickets, which they give to the poor, and sometimes in lieu of wages. if you hire a man to clean up the yard, you can give him so much cash and so many meal tickets, or if a person appeals to you for relief, it is always better to give a ticket to the "steam kitchen" rather than money. many customers buy two portions which they take home and warm up at meal time for the whole family. in the center of a large room are rows of immense caldrons with coils of steam pipe embracing them. the air is filled with pungent odors from the bubbling soup, and clouds of steam rise from the other cook-pots. on a long table are pyramids of bread, cut into cubes three or four inches square, usually rye or black bread, such as the natives of norway prefer. along the walls are deep cupboards containing the linens, the culinary supplies and utensils. in an adjoining but detached building is a furnace and boiler-room which furnishes the steam, and beside it a laundry and dish-washing establishment. it requires a good many dishes to serve three thousand people even in a simple way. in an annex the finer qualities of beef, mutton, and other meats are cut off and sold to the public, thus utilizing all the supplies which are bought in large quantities, the beef by the carcass and the vegetables by the carload. the sausage of the "steam kitchen" is said to be the best to be found in christiania. all kinds of prepared meats are also sold in this annex butcher shop. during the fruit season the company runs a canning department upstairs, preserving all kinds of fruits, jellies, pickles, and that sort of thing. at the baking department bread is sold to the general public at wholesale or retail, and small retail establishments are supplied with all kinds of groceries as well as meats and other edibles. thus the restaurant is only part of this large business from which the company derives its profits. there is naturally a good deal of jealousy among the competing small dealers against the "steam kitchen," but it serves a benevolent purpose, and there is no disposition among its customers to question its business methods or reduce its profits. it has succeeded in abolishing the cheap restaurants such as are found in all large cities, at which wretched food, generally the scrapings from high-class hotels and eating-houses, is worked over and sold to the poor. it is an interesting sight, this bucket brigade, that stands in line and passes slowly by the serving windows, which are attended by half a dozen brawny norwegian women with bare arms and broad, good-natured-looking faces. they wear neat white aprons and caps, and handle the food with a dexterity that shows long experience. they seem to know most of the customers and carry on a familiar conversation with them while falling their orders. when a bucket and a ticket passes up, blue for a nine-cent and red for a seven-cent dinner, the waitress first plunges a huge ladle into the soup pot and empties its contents into the bucket; then passing along the rows of kettles she harpoons a piece of meat with a long two-pronged fork, scoops up a quart of rice with a wooden shovel, and then, adding a portion of potatoes, slams on the cover, and, grabbing a cube of bread, passes it over to the purchaser with a joke or a few pleasant words. many of the customers are well dressed, according to the norway standard, but no people in the world seem to care so little for their personal appearance, except on sundays, when you can scarcely recognize men and women you have been familiar with during the week. on the day i ate at the restaurant, my cicerone pointed out at the dining table two professors of the university faculty, a lawyer in good standing, a photographer, and a sub-editor of one of the daily papers, who were his personal acquaintances. the remainder of the customers appeared to be professional men, clerks, bookkeepers, and a good many laborers, many of them coming for their dinner without having removed the traces of toil from their faces and hands. at one of the tables was a group of students inclined to be boisterous and evidently enjoying themselves. the "steam kitchen" is the favorite eating-place for the undergraduates, from four to five hundred being served every day. such an institution as the "steam kitchen" is especially suitable to a norwegian city, where a portion of the population work for very small wages, the average income of the wage-earner being less than $ a year--so small that, measured by the american standard, it would seem a difficult problem to find food, clothing, and shelter for a family. few norwegians suffer from poverty or privation, even through the cold and gloomy winters that are eight months long. our own people might die, or at least suffer seriously under the same circumstances, but the norwegians are a hardy race. they have inherited the power of endurance and the ability to survive hunger and thirst and discomforts better than most races. there are comparatively few poor in sweden, probably fewer than in any other european country except norway and switzerland, because of the low cost of living, the sparse population, and the ability of all men and women to find work if they are willing to earn their own subsistence. able-bodied paupers are compelled to work upon poor farms, but the aged, decrepit and invalids who are dependent upon public charity are kindly taken care of by what is called outdoor and indoor relief. in the cities are asylums and almshouses similar to those in the united states, but in the parishes, as a rule, the care of the poor is assigned to individual farmers and others who are willing to take care of them under contract, subject to the supervision of a board of guardians, of which the pastor is the chairman and the elders of the church are members. this has long been a practice in sweden, but is not universal. there are at present , relief establishments of all kinds in the kingdom, and the total contributions for the benefit of the poor amount to $ , , annually, or on an average of cents per capita of the entire population, an average of cents in the country and $ . in the cities. this includes all poorhouses, asylums, hospitals, and other institutions for adults and children who can not take care of themselves. a large part of the relief work in the cities is looked after by the salvation army under contract with the municipal authorities, but there are many institutions, hospitals, asylums, homes for the friendless and aged and for orphan children, supported by private charity. the free hospital for children in stockholm is famous as one of the best equipped and managed institutions in the world. the private charities in stockholm are united for cooperation in an organization similar to those found in american cities, and all charitable institutions are subject to government supervision.[l] chapter xiii material conditions the chief occupation of the scandinavian peninsula is agriculture, employing more men and yielding larger monetary returns than any other industry in either norway or sweden. this may seem strange when it is recalled that sixty per cent of the surface of norway is occupied by bare mountains, twenty-one per cent by woodlands, eight per cent by grazing lands, four per cent by lakes, and two per cent by ice fields, leaving only seven-tenths of one per cent for meadows and cultivated fields. and yet, the products of the farm equal the combined returns from shipping, lumber, and fisheries. in sweden the proportion of land under cultivation is considerably larger, the arable lands consisting of about twelve per cent of the total area, and in sweden as in norway, the agricultural products are more than those from shipping, lumber, and fisheries combined. nine-tenths of the farms of norway and sweden are owned by small proprietors; and although the right to dispose of landed property is relatively free, the laws of the country favor the retention of the farms in the families possessing them. an old allodial right makes it possible to redeem at an appraised value a farm that has been sold. this right is acquired after the property has belonged to the family for twenty years, but it is lost after the farm has been in the possession of strangers for three years. there are some farms that have been worked for a thousand years by the descendants of the same family. the best farms are about the banks of the lakes and in the narrow river valleys, and there are many fertile meadows which have never been plowed or put under cultivation, so that there are great future possibilities for tillage. and yet these meadows furnish fine hay-crops, and every blade of grass represents money in scandinavia. in a country extending through thirteen degrees of latitude, one might naturally expect a wide range of agricultural products. in the southeastern part of the peninsula most of the plants and orchard fruits of central europe are found; whereas in the northern sections it is impossible to grow even the most hardy plants. oats, barley, and rye are the chief cereals, but their production scarcely meets the needs of the country. potatoes are the only root crops extensively cultivated. while the summers are short, vegetables and small fruit do excellently during the long, sun-lit hours. scandinavians, however, do not seem habituated to a vegetable diet, and the cultivation of root plants seems very generally neglected. pears, cherries, apples, raspberries, gooseberries, and currants may be grown under favorable conditions; but they play a minor role in scandinavian horticulture. the cow is a staple of wealth to the people of scandinavia. they are diminutive in size, dun-colored, docile in habits, and excellent milk producers. it is said when they are well-fed they average from six to nine hundred gallons of milk a year. the mountain saeters, or dairies as we would call them, are the centers of the butter and cheese industry during the summer months. the peninsula is also supplied with an excellent breed of small but hardy horses. the cream-colored fjord horses of norway are only sixty inches high. they are active, hardy, and gentle; and in the mountainous parts of the country they are vastly more serviceable than mules would be. the gudbrandsdalen breed, found chiefly in the mountain valleys, are larger than the fjord horses, and they are generally brown or black in color. good horses bring surprisingly high prices. working horses cost from $ to $ and the best stallions bring as much as $ , . the agricultural interests of norway have suffered unmistakably by the enormous emigration to the united states. two-thirds of the norwegians of the world live in iowa, wisconsin, minnesota, and the dakotas. nearly every norwegian farmstead has kinsmen in our country; and the strong and vigorous always emigrate, thus leaving the farms at home in the hands of the old and infirm. america has been greatly benefited by this almost incessant exodus; for the norse peasants have, without an exception, made splendid citizens, the best, in fact, that have come to us from europe. commenting on the enormous emigration from the norwegian farms, william eleroy curtis remarks: "notwithstanding the large emigration of young people, for whom the norwegian farms are too small, it is apparent that the development of norway is continually progressing along the highest lines, and that the tendency of the people, is upward socially and industrially, in culture and in wealth. the population of the kingdom not only holds its own, but shows a slight increase which seems remarkable because of the continual drain of young, able-bodied men and women who have removed to our western states. in all public movements, in all social, commercial, and industrial activities, in art, science, and literature, in wealth and prosperity, norway stands abreast of the most advanced nations of europe; but its progress is not won without greater effort than any other people put forth, and the application of thrift and industry elsewhere unknown, but which is required in a climate so bleak and inhospitable, and by a soil so wild and rocky. none but a race like the norsemen could have kept a foothold here." norwegian economists recognize the loss to the country through emigration, and in recent years the national parliament has attempted to improve the condition of agricultural laborers. a fund of $ , has been set aside by the government for the purchase of land. loans are granted to municipalities ( ) for the purpose of buying large estates to be assigned to people without means at the purchase price, in plots of not more than twelve acres of tillable soil, and ( ) for the purpose of being granted as loans on the security of parcels of the same size, which people without means may acquire as freehold property. the interest on these loans is from three to four per cent, and the time of payment is up to twenty-five years. there is also a cultivation fund of $ , , from which loans are granted for the purpose of cultivating and draining the soil. the interest is two and one-half per cent, and the time of repayment is up to twenty years, including five years in which no instalments are required. such loans are granted ( ) on the security of mortgages and ( ) on the guaranty of the municipality. agricultural societies--national and county--receive government grants for the purpose of holding meetings and issuing documents that might be of service to farmers. there is also a staff of surveyors paid by the state to assist in the public allotment of land and otherwise to render assistance to needy lot-owners. considerable attention is also being given to the matter of agricultural education. connected with the state agricultural college is an experimental farm, where not only farmers but also dairymen, gardeners, and foresters receive practical instruction. connected with the larger farms of norway and sweden are cotters' places--farm laborers who have leased a small part of the farm for a definite period (often during their natural lives). in some cases the cotter leases only a building with a garden attached; in other cases several acres of ground. the cotter is usually required to work on the farm of the owner at certain times of the year for a small wage regulated by contract. these cotters correspond to our truck farmers, and their plots of ground number about , on the outskirts of the cities and villages. they raise potatoes and other vegetables, and hay enough to feed a horse and several cows. in most cases the women and children do the work, while the men are engaged in other occupations. it is no longer permitted to establish entails which can not be sold or mortgaged, and the national government in recent years has sought to further the partition and allotment of the common ownership of land. pastures and grazing lands are still often held by the community, and similarly mountain pastures. but the community farms, when the consent of all the part owners and tenants has been secured, may now be partitioned by surveyors appointed by the public authorities. in the great timber districts of the mountain ranges, the trees are felled in winter and the logs are dragged to the tops of the steep mountain sides, where they are slid down to the river, or they are carted on sledges to the river's edge. during the early summer, after the ice has gone, and while the rivers are yet full of water, they are floated down the streams to the sawmills. but, as the logs are constantly being driven into corners or lodging against piers, floaters are employed to keep the logs in the current. log-floating is both the most dangerous and the most unhealthful occupation in norway. men often fall into the streams; they are forced to sleep on the cold ground in uninhabited parts of the country; they frequently fall from the rolling logs into the whirling currents and are tossed against sharp rocks; and the marvel is not that the death-rate among floaters is so high, but that any of them survive the perilous occupation. the value of the exports of forest products and timber industries reaches about eighteen million dollars a year, and the combined forest industries furnish employment to a large number of laborers. the state forests occupy about , square miles, more than half being located in the northern provinces of tromsö and finmark. the state also has nurseries at vossevangen and hamar, and three forestry schools, by means of which widespread interest in tree-planting has been aroused. destructive forest fires and the slaughter of the trees by the remarkable development of the wood-pulp industries have emphasized in recent times the need of larger forest reserves and closer government supervision. under the most favorable conditions, the pine requires from seventy-five to one hundred years to yield timber twenty-five feet in length and ten inches in diameter at the top. spruce will reach the same size in seventy-five to eighty years. in the higher altitudes of the central part of the country the pine requires one hundred and fifty years, and rarely exceeds one hundred feet in height, and it decreases toward the coast and northwards. the fisheries of norway are among the most important in the world, yielding the nation more than seven million dollars a year, and furnishing employment to eighty thousand men. the sea-fisheries play the chief part in this branch of industry. the long coast line and the great ocean depth near the coast combine to give the fisheries of norway unusual advantages. the abundance of fish is also due to the presence of masses of glutinous matter, apparently living protoplasm, which furnishes nutriment for millions of animalcules which again become food for the herring and other fish. the fish are mainly of the round sort found in deep waters, the cod, herring, and mackerel being the most important. the cod yields the largest monetary returns. this fish migrates to the coast of norway to spawn and in search of food. the best cod fisheries are in romsdal, nordland, and tromsö counties, the lofoten islands in tromsö alone furnishing employment to more than four thousand men. the cod weighs from eight to twenty pounds and measures from five to six feet in length. some are merely dried after having been cleaned. this is done by hanging them by the tail on wooden frames. the others are sent to the salting stations where they are salted and dried on flat rocks. a fish weighing ten pounds will yield two pounds of salted cod, the loss being due to the removal of the head and entrails and the drying out of the water. there are numerous secondary products from the cod, the most valuable being the cod liver oil. the livers of the fish are exposed to a jet of superheated steam which destroys the liver cells and causes the small drops of oil to run together. the roe are salted and sent to france to be used for bait in the sardine fisheries. in the matter of the handicraft industries carried on in the homes, norway has long taken high rank. as early as the ninth century her artisans were skilled in the manufacture of arms, farming implements, and boats, and her women in cloth weaving and embroidery. during recent times the ease and cheapness with which foreign products could be obtained caused a marked decline in home industries; but at the present moment an effort is being made to rehabilitate them through a national domestic industry association, organized in , which has taken up the manufacture of hand-carved articles, sheath-knives, skis, sledges, and woven and embroidered woolen and linen goods after the old norwegian patterns. the manufacture of lumber and wooden ware is one of the leading industrial pursuits. with the exception of the two most northern counties, practically every section of the country is represented by sawmills and planing mills. ship-building in recent times has attained considerable importance, and the manufacture of paper of the chemical wood-pulp variety has become one of the leading industries. there are a few cloth, rope, and jersey mills at bergen and christiania, but the textile industries of norway are relatively unimportant. on the other hand, leather, india rubber, glass, metal, and chemical industries have become important of late years. norway is not rich in mineral products. the combined mining industries do not yield more than two million dollars a year, and they furnish employment to less than four thousand men. the kongsberg silver mines have been operated for more than three hundred years, but the recent fall in the price of silver has reduced the output. the copper mines at rorös have been operated for two hundred and fifty years, and there are less important copper mines in nordland, telemarken, and the hardanger. there are iron mines at arendal and elsewhere, but the rise in the cost of charcoal, due to the scarcity of wood, has greatly crippled the iron industry. there are important soapstone quarries in the gudbransdal and the trondhjem basin; green colored slate in the valders and at vossevangen; and granite, syenite, and porphyry in many parts of the country. measured by population and national wealth, the commerce of norway is relatively important, due in a large measure to her enormous merchant marine and the efficiency of her hardy seamen. relatively to the population of the country, norway has the largest merchant fleet in the world, and in the matter of steamships and sailing vessels she is surpassed only by three countries--great britain, germany, and the united states. not only is her fleet large, but her service is efficient. norwegian seamen the world over are esteemed for ability and honesty, inspiring all commercial nations with confidence that goods carried in norse bottoms will be carefully and conscientiously treated; and her seamen are everywhere sought to man foreign vessels. in industries, the swedes excel in the manufacture of iron. to fully appreciate the value of this industry, one should visit gefle, the most important shipping point on the eastern coast of sweden. here there is a fine harbor, with docks and warehouses owned by the government. from this port the ore from the mines of central sweden is shipped to all parts of the world and handled by brown hoisting machinery, which is made in cleveland, ohio--the same that you see on the ore docks at south chicago and at cleveland, buffalo, ashtabula, and other points on the great lakes where iron ore and coal are handled. at gefle, too, an annual industrial exposition is held, where you may see on exhibit all the utensils manufactured or used by the people--all kinds of machinery, tools, and implements, recent novelties in patents, weaving, wood-carving, and a large part of the exposition building is given up to beautiful articles in iron, in the manufacture of which we have said the swedes excel. a little west of gefle is the town of fahlun, which is the headquarters of the kopparberg mining company, the, oldest industrial corporation in the world. the buildings date back to the seventeenth century and the mines are even more ancient. a mortgage bond was filed upon them in the year by a german company, and the records show that in the privilege of working them was sold by the king of sweden to a syndicate of lubeck miners. but these documents which are on file in the archives of the town are comparatively modern, because the copper deposits at fahlun were known and worked in prehistoric times, and from them the vikings obtained the sheathings for their ships and the material from which their copper armor, implements, and utensils were made. an immense amount of copper was used and worked with great skill in scandinavia even before the christian era, and the most of it came from the great deposits at fahlun. the iron industry is old in sweden. isaac breant, a tradesman in stockholm, founded a company and received a charter from charles xi in . he built the first blast furnace in sweden, and died in , leaving the property to his son, who died in . the heirs sold out in to a man named grill, in whose family the property remained until , when it was purchased by the ancestors of the present owners. the famous dannemora mines, which produce the best bessemer ore in the world, have been worked continuously since . it is one of the most valuable and extensive iron deposits in the world, and resembles those of lake superior. the area of ore already located covers , square meters.[m] chapter xiv highways, railways, and waterways since the sixteenth century norway has had an excellent public posting system which enables the traveler to go to the most remote parts of the country at moderate and fixed rates. fast and slow posting stations are established by the government along all the national highways. at the former, horses must be kept in readiness; whereas, at the latter, the horses may be in distant fields at work, and a couple of hours may elapse before the traveler can proceed upon his journey. the rates, which are determined by the government, are, from fast stations, about seven cents a mile for a horse and two-wheeled conveyance or sledge; but from slow stations they are scarcely more than half that price. when the road is over very steep mountains, an extra fare is charged, usually double; but this is a government regulation and is always understood. the posting stations are, for the most part, isolated and solitary farms. the farmers undertake to provide rooms and meals, as well as drivers, horses, and conveyances. stations are usually from seven to fifteen miles apart, and farmers are required to convey the traveler only as far as the next station. two kinds of wagons are used, the carriole and the stolkjaerre. the carriole resembles an american sulky, except that it is springless, and nearly the entire weight is forward of the axle. it is a two-wheeled gig with the body shaped like the bowl of a spoon. the seat, in front of the axletree, is fastened by cross-pieces to the long, slender shafts that project behind and provide a place for light luggage and a seat for the driver. the carriole is for one passenger. it is falling into disuse, and its place is being taken by the stolkjaerre, a two-wheeled cart that will carry two passengers. it also has long shafts which extend under the axletree to make a support for the luggage and a seat for the driver. the passenger's seat is in front, perched on two wooden bars stretched obliquely upwards and backwards from the front of the vehicle. the drivers, usually men although sometimes girls, vary in age from six to sixty years. the norwegian horses are stout, stubby, and spirited little beasts. they are cream-colored, high crested, and have black manes and tails; the manes are cropped, except the forelocks, which are left to protect the eyes from the sun, and the tails are very full. horses are valued in norway by the size and fullness of their tails. these little animals are so trustworthy and intelligent that tourists, as well as peasants, soon get to look upon them as companions. in every "skyds-station," as the posting stations are called, in a conspicuous place is posted this inscription: _vaer god mod hesten_. this means "be good to the horse." at every station there is also a book, called the _skydsbog_, in which travelers are requested to write their names and any complaints they may have to make regarding their treatment. at intervals these books are examined by government officials. swedish horses are much larger than those of norway, tall, heavy, with long legs and barrel-shaped bodies, very much like canadian stock. they drive well, make good speed, and will eat anything. at the livery stables one can hire outfits by the day or hour--the legal price being cents an hour or cents to any point within the city limits, and there is an excellent cab system, with what is known as the "taxameter" register. every cab is equipped with an arrangement similar to a gas meter, which shows on a dial the money due, whether you are using it by the hour or by the distance. the hackman sets his clock at zero at the time of starting, according to the number of passengers or whether he is hired by time or distance, and it ticks away while you ride or while he waits. the fare for one or two persons is sixty-two cents per hour; for three persons, eighty-seven cents an hour; for four persons, $ . and a tip to the driver anywhere from one cent to fifteen cents, according to the time he has been with you. the public posting system outside of the cities is similar to that of norway. the national government builds the main highways, while the cross roads are built by the parishes. the management is in the hands of a bureau in the national department of public works, and the maintenance falls upon the people who live in the neighborhood, under the supervision of a local inspector. every farmer has a piece of road to take care of, according to the amount of land he owns, and at intervals slabs of cast iron are erected bearing his name and the section of the road he is to keep in order. thus every man's reputation is at stake in the neighborhood, and if there is a muddy place or a rut, everybody knows who is to blame for it, and it can not be laid to the county commissioner, as is the case in america. on the outside of each road is a line of large blocks of stone set upright, which serves as a barrier to prevent wagons from going off into the ditch. there are , miles of main highway, and , miles of cross-road, or a total of , miles of roads in norway, and the total expenditure upon them by national and local authorities will average a million and a half dollars every year. the first cost of a road is usually about $ , a mile. they first dig an excavation about three feet deep, as if they were going to make a canal. on the bottom are thrown heavy blocks of stone through which the water can filter, and occasionally there is a little drain to carry it off. upon this is a layer of smaller stones, and then still smaller, until the surfacing is reached, which is macadam of pounded slate, mixed with gravel and stone. during the winter the farmers have to keep their several sections free from snow, but to do this it is necessary for them to co-operate, for it would be impossible for one family to handle the heavy plows that are necessary. six, eight, and ten horses are often hitched to them--all the horses in the neighborhood--and it is often the work of weeks instead of days to get the roads opened up for travel, but when it is once done, it is as clear and smooth for sleighs as a city boulevard. norway has only one mile of railway for every one hundred square miles of land; but the mountainous character of the country, the heavy snowfall during the long winters, and the thin, scattered population make railway construction almost prohibitive. nevertheless, the new kingdom has made a commendable beginning, and the state has plans for enormous extensions during the next twenty-five years. there are now nine railway lines in the country, with a total mileage of one thousand five hundred and eighty-four, but half of which is broad gauge. the state railways have been constructed partly by subscriptions taken in the districts interested in the construction of new lines, and partly at the expense of the national government. the leading railway lines radiate from christiania to stockholm, goteborg, trondhjem, gudbransdal, telemarken, and the valders. the longest line--three hundred and fifty miles--is from christiania to trondhjem through hamar. there is also a relatively long line--one hundred and ninety miles--from christiania up the gudbrandsdal by lake mjosen and through lillehammer to otta. in , the valders railway, connecting christiania with fagernaes--a distance of one hundred and thirty-one miles--was opened. this connects with the most important of the new roads being built, the one from christiania to bergen. this road will reach entirely across the country, from christiania on the swedish frontier to bergen on the atlantic coast, thus making connection between the two largest cities of norway, journeys between which are now only possible by steamships and carriages, consuming from three to six days. the new road goes through the mountains and presents many engineering difficulties. two-thirds of the way the roadbed must be cut out of the mountain side, and there is a tunnel three miles long at a height of two thousand eight hundred and twenty feet above the sea level. the snow in the winter is so heavy that it will be necessary to cover the tracks with sheds for a distance of nearly sixty miles. the construction is not only difficult, but expensive, and although the distance is but three hundred and ten miles, it will be one of the most costly railroads ever built. sixty-seven miles of the line between bergen and vose, on the western coast, is already in operation, and it is a favorite journey of tourists, for the scenery is superb, although the traveler is in a tunnel one-tenth of the entire distance. there are forty-eight tunnels in all. a shelf has been hewn and blasted along the side of the mountains that encloses the celebrated sorfjord. the norwegians call a railway a _jernbane_, literally "an iron path." their cars are made on the conventional european pattern, and are light and comfortable. they are furnished with toilet rooms, and run smoothly and noiselessly. most of the trains are equipped with westinghouse brakes, steam heat, and electric lights. the trains run very slowly. economy is studied in this respect, as in every other. there is a certain speed--say, fifteen or eighteen miles an hour--which can be maintained at a minimum consumption of fuel, and the scandinavian railway managers have figured it down to a dot. they can haul a longer train a greater distance with a ton of coal than any other engineers, and the most scrupulous attention is applied to every feature of management, the tracks, the rolling stock, the station, the crossings. the crossing-keepers are usually women. a large number of that sex are employed by the railways. the stops at the stations seem unnecessarily long to impatient americans, but the time is utilized by the leisurely passengers in drinking big goblets of beer, and by the conductor in parading up and down the platform so that the patrons of the road can have an opportunity to admire his radiant uniform and fine shape. in scandinavian countries the best-looking men seem to have been selected for railway conductors and policemen, and their deportment is decidedly different from what we are used to in america. if you ask a question of a norwegian policeman, he will bring his heels together, give a military salute, and stand in the attitude of attention like a soldier while he answers. he usually understands english, too, and those who can not are remarkably accurate guessers, and all take a friendly interest in your inquiries instead of giving you a short answer and a cold shoulder like the policemen in our cities. they will walk to the corner to point out the house in the middle of the next block if that is where you want to go, and when you thank them for their attention, you get another salute that makes you feel as big as a major general, or as if you had been mistaken for a member of the royal family. railway conductors are equally polite, and seem to understand that it is a part of their business to protect tender-footed travelers, as angels always look after good little boys. in southern sweden there is scarcely a parish without a railway, and in the northern part of the kingdom, where the railway facilities are limited, posting stations are maintained by the government similar to those in norway. there is a railway running as far north as the th parallel of latitude, about fifty miles beyond the polar circle into lapland, to the famous mines of malmberget, with a branch to trondhjem, norway. the line follows the coast of the gulf of bothnia very closely, through a country well covered with small pine timber, which was being rapidly stripped until the government interfered by passing rigid regulations and appointing foresters to enforce them. you can see the midnight sun from several places on this railway, anywhere above degrees and minutes of latitude, from the th of june to the d of july, and farther north for a longer period. at gellivare the midnight sun can be seen regularly from june to july , and it is a much more convenient and quicker journey than to the north cape and other polar resorts in norway. during that period a traveler is reasonably certain of seeing the sun at all hours of the day as long as he cares to stay, while over in norway that privilege is rare and uncertain, owing to the fogs and clouds that obscure the horizon sometimes for days at a time. but there is nothing else to call the tourist to this part of sweden, for the scenery is monotonous and uninteresting and the facilities for travel are primitive and the tourists are few. everybody who has taken the trouble to make the journey, of course, advises other people to do the same, and insists that it is worth the time, money, and fatigue it costs, on the same principle as the fox that lost his tail in a trap wanted all the other foxes to cut off their tails. there is one train each way daily, but it runs very slowly,--about fifteen or eighteen miles an hour,--and stops a long time at the stations. the cars are comfortable. the road belongs to the government, and was built in the ' 's for the transportation of ore from the iron mines, which was previously hauled by cart in summer and reindeer sledges in winter, to the ports of lulea and allapen, a distance of about one hundred and forty miles. when it is recalled that two-thirds of the inhabitants of norway live upon the coasts and fjords, the large part which water traffic plays in the economy of the country will be easily understood. the coast being well protected by a chain of islands, the skjaergaard, both travel and commerce are carried on by means of small open boats. the fjord rowboats, as a rule, are light and pointed, with upright and high prow, and they carry a square sail. they are light to row, and they go capitally before the wind. there is an extensive government posting system on the coasts, fjords, and inland lakes, similar to that along the public highways already described. the tariff from fast stations for a four-oared boat and sail with two rowers is about twelve cents a mile; eighteen cents for three rowers and a six-oared boat, and twenty-four cents a mile for a boat with eight oars and four rowers. the tariff is decided by the size of the boat and not by the number of passengers. the rowers are not infrequently girls and women. the large fjords and lakes have ample steamboat facilities, the coast service between bergen and trondhjem being especially good. the navigable channels of the fjords represent a coast line of twelve thousand miles, and they are so entirely separated from the sea by islands and reefs and obstructed at their entrances by old moraines, that the fresh water from the melting snows and rivers lies four or five feet deep on the surface. small steamers ply on all the larger fjords on which the rates are moderate and the accommodations fair. on most of these boats a passenger pays full fare for himself and half fare for the other members of his family, including his wife. persons who want to see the fjords of norway thoroughly should take the regular mail steamers, which call at all small ports and take a month instead of a week for the voyage. the boats are small, but clean and comfortable, and only occasionally have bad weather--very seldom in summer. they wind in and out of the narrow passages, and because of their size can navigate where the larger tourist steamers are not able to go, and therefore the passengers on the latter miss some of the finest scenery. voyages to the north cape by the tourist steamers are limited to a few weeks during the midsummer, when the sun is supposed to be visible at midnight in the arctic regions, but steamers run regularly all the year way around the cape to archangel, vadsö, and horningsvaag, the arctic ports of russia. the fjords never freeze, so that navigation is always open, and there is more or less travel in midwinter between the civilized portions of the arctic regions. if you will take your map and examine the north coast of europe within the arctic circle, you will find several towns east of the north cape on the white sea which are wide open days in the year, and do more business in the winter than during the summer months. they do not see the sun from december to february. at some places it is invisible for a longer period, but at hammerfest the streets, houses, and business places are lighted with electric lights, and similar plants are being introduced into other cities of the polar section. it is stated, also, that the aurora borealis is so brilliant night after night as to make it easy to read ordinary newspaper print without artificial light, and by long experience people are prepared for the peculiar conditions that exist there. the passengers on the steamers in these waters in winter are mostly commercial travelers and men interested in the fisheries, which are more active from october to march than at any other time of the year. there are also two canals in norway that are used for passenger traffic--the fredrikshald canal, connecting the femsjöen and skullerud lakes, and the skien-nordsjö-bandak canal, connecting the nordsjö lake with the hitterdal and bandak lakes. between the hitterdal and the nordsjö lake there is a rise of fifty feet, which is overcome by two locks at skien and four at loveid; and between the nordsjö and the bandak lakes there is a rise of one hundred and eighty-seven feet, which is overcome by fourteen locks, five of which are around a waterfall, the vrangfos, where the average rise for each lock is about thirteen feet. the postal, telegraph, and telephone systems, all under government control, are both cheaper and more efficient than in the united states, where the two latter are private monopolies. with the exception of switzerland, norway is more abundantly supplied with postoffices, in proportion to her size, than any other country in the international postal union. the length of her telegraph lines, in relation to the population of the country is greater than in any other country. there is no place in the world where telephones are so cheap or so numerous as in stockholm. there are more telephones in stockholm than in berlin or london, and it is contended that there are more than in paris, but that is doubtful. the total number of instruments in use is nearly , to a population of , . you can find a telephone in every shop and in almost every house, and in the parks and on the street corners on lamp posts are little booths similar to those used for police boxes in the cities of the united states. they work automatically. you drop a little coin worth three cents into the slot, and then ring the bell. for several years every room in the principal hotels has had its own telephone, on the same system that has recently been introduced into the united states, and upon some of the steamers sailing from stockholm there is a telephone in every stateroom. the long distance 'phones and all the lines outside of two or three of the principal cities belong to the government and are operated by the postoffice department. the rents vary from $ to $ a year. the telegraph system is owned by the government, which charges a uniform rate of fifteen cents for ten words to any part of the country. chapter xv the people: their manners and customs because of its geographic isolation, the scandinavian peninsula is the home of the purest teutonic ethnic stock. the norwegians, icelanders, swedes, and danes are racially closely related, and they belong to the same branch of the aryan family as the germans, flemish, english, and anglo-americans. physically, these people are powerfully built and tall, of the pure scandinavian type, with fair hair and blue eyes, and their healthy, intelligent look strikes the traveler. in addition to the physical characteristics held in common by these scandinavian peoples, the norwegians are to be specially noted for their long narrow heads, particularly is this so among the people in the interior of the country. here, too, the stature is the greatest. during the civil war in the united states, it was found that among the enlisted troops the norwegians, after the americans, had the greatest stature, and that in breadth of chest they were excelled by none. it is probably true, however, that the norwegians who emigrate represent the finest physical types, and that they possess a higher average stature than one finds in norway to-day, if the most northerly provinces are excepted. the norwegians are a very plain people--neither pretty nor handsome. the women are strong and square-built, and what beauty they have is of the solid and substantial sort. of the two sexes, the men are the better proportioned, both in the matter of figures and features. they have light complexions,--barring the bronzing of the skin due to constant exposure,--light hair, blue eyes, and reasonably well-formed noses. both men and women have frank and open countenances. the most marked mental characteristics are clear insight, unconquerable pertinacity, dogged obstinacy, absolute honesty, and a sturdy sense of independence. björnson has well remarked concerning his people: "opinions are slowly formed and tenaciously held, and much independence is developed by the rigorous isolation of farm from farm each on its own freehold ground, unannoyed and uncontradicted by any one. the way the people work together in the fields, in the forests, and in their large rooms has given them a characteristic stamp of confidence in each other." it is perhaps this isolation that has perpetuated so many of the old customs and superstitions for which the norwegians are noted. william eleroy curtis tells of seeing the funeral of one of these norway farmers: "his house was trimmed with green boughs and festooned with ropes of flowers and ground pine. the word _farvel_, "farewell," was worked in green over the front door. the coffin, which was carried on a bier by the neighbors to the little cemetery not far away, was covered with flowers, and following it were a number of women clad in somber black with little white shawls tied under their chins, each carrying a wreath in her hands. the minister led the procession. he was dressed in a long black gown reaching to his heels, like the cassock of a catholic priest; his hat was of felt, with a low crown and a broad brim, similar to those worn by the curates of the church of england, while around his neck was a linen ruff that looked as if it might have been worn in the time of queen elizabeth. "a grave had been dug in the churchyard. the neighbors who had borne the body, lowered it tenderly to the bottom, and when they had lifted the cover of the coffin in place, each man, the oldest first, threw in a shovelful of earth. all the women did not use the shovel, some of them took up handsful of soil and let it gently filter through their fingers into the open vault; and finally three children, somewhere about ten or eleven years of age, followed the example of their elders and added their little share to the brown coverlid of the dead. the pastor removed his hat, extended his arms and pronounced a benediction. then the women laid their wreaths on the newly covered grave and sorrowfully turned homeward." independence and frankness characterize all classes of society. norway has no hereditary aristocracy. in it was provided that those holding titles might be allowed to retain them during their lives, but they could not transmit them to their children. the norse character has never been marred by the yoke of slavery. the feudal system, with its serfdom, never got a footing in the north. the people have always been small landholders, which has developed among them an independence of character not found in countries where the mass of the inhabitants have no direct property interests. there is no class in norway corresponding to the country gentleman of england or to the grand seigneurs and provincial noblemen of the continent. the wealthiest landlord is only a peasant. honesty is one of the valuable assets of the norwegian people. attempts at extortion are so rare that tourists, accustomed to the proverbial dishonesty of the latin races, find travel in norway and sweden a joy. an english traveler relates this typical incident: he had lost his purse shortly after leaving vossevangen for stalheim. altogether unconscious of his loss, he walked on placidly. suddenly hearing hurried footsteps following him, he turned about and faced a lad who thrust the pocketbook into the owner's hand and disappeared before the englishman could get a coin from his pocket to reward the boy for his honesty. the norwegian boy very properly did not expect a reward for doing the only thing open to his mind upon finding the purse. kindness to animals is another virtue of the norwegian people. illustrating this trait we again quote william eleroy curtis: "there seems to be a close relation between the human kind and their animals. the men and women talk to the horses and cattle as if they were understood. we had a _skydsgut_, or driver, one day, who held continuous conversation with his horses. every time he would come to a hill he would walk beside them and talk to them all the way up in a gentle, caressing sort of way, like a child talking to a doll, and once when he stopped for water and the near horse wanted to drink more than the driver thought was good for him, he scolded like an old woman. the horse shook his head and rattled his harness impatiently, as much as to say, 'you get back onto your box and attend to your business and i'll attend to mine.'" that intellectuality is one of the traits of the swedes and norwegians alike is evidenced in the long list of names that have become famous in the world's literature. in spite of the high intellectual attainments of these people, they are fond of the quiet, simple life, with friends and kinsfolk and home employments and home enjoyments. and they are very superstitious, too, and, in spite of their lutheran faith, they have never discarded the customs that grew from belief in gods many, and fairies, trolls, gnomes and norns without number. the forests, the mountains and gorges, are inhabited by these people still. nissen is the good fairy of the farmers. he looks after the cattle particularly, and if he is well treated they are healthy, and the cows give lots of milk. to propitiate him it is necessary to put a dish of porridge on the threshold of the cow stable on christmas morning. whenever the family move, this invisible being goes along with them and sits on the top of the loads. in haying time he always rides on the load of hay, and the _bedstemoder_, best mother or grandmother, in every farmhouse can tell the children dozens of interesting stories about the mischief or the kindness of nissen. he is invariably represented in pictures of farm life; he appears on the illustrated advertisements of farm machinery; his figure carved in wood is sold at all the curiosity stores, and he appears as a prominent character in most of the fairy stories that deal with farm life. he is represented as a short, fat, bow-legged man, with big whiskers and long white hair, wearing a red hat like those worn by clowns in circuses. he usually appears in his shirt sleeves, with an open collar, a blue vest, and knickerbockers upon his legs, which are as slim as those of a brownie. his circumference is greater than his height, and his head is almost as large as his body. noek is the fairy of the waterfalls and is a sort of merman. you never see more than half his body. he is very, very old, his hair and beard are long and white, and his face is always pale and pensive. he carries a harp and plays to amuse the spirits in the waterfall. a statue of ole bull has recently been erected in his native city of bergen. he stands upon a pedestal which rises from a fountain, and the water flows over the head and shoulders of a noek at the base. norway offers a fine field for reformers to study the effects of regulation upon the vice of drunkenness. within the limits of the kingdom are all grades of restriction, from prohibition to liberal license. there are no pretensions about the norwegians; there is no affectation about their morals and no leniency in the administration of their laws. the police and the magistrates are merciless and inexorable, and crime is punished more severely perhaps than in any other country. at the same time the people distinguish an important difference between temperance and total abstinence. they give their children beer in unlimited quantities, but absolutely prohibit the sale of whisky, and send drunken men to prison with burglars and assassins. norwegian reformers hold that beer is the great promoter of temperance, and encourage its use as a beverage, although every saloon in the kingdom is closed on sundays, on all holidays, and saturday afternoon, which is the regular pay day for the working classes. these are practical regulations, devised for the purpose of restraining those who are not capable of controlling their own appetites and encouraging thrift and economy. while the saloons are closed on pay day, the savings banks are open until midnight. it is difficult to become accustomed to the long twilights in norway. one can read and write at a window as late as ten o'clock without difficulty, and during the months of june, july, and august few artificial lights are used, either in the streets or in the shops or in the residences. a candle is usually kept handy for an emergency, but it is light enough to dress and undress at any hour of the night, and it seems childish to go to bed before dark. the hours for meals are awkward to those accustomed to american ways. breakfast is usually served from seven till nine o'clock. four o'clock is the fashionable dinner hour, without luncheon. after dinner men return to their business and keep open their shops and offices until a nine or ten o'clock supper during the long days. no one will ever starve to death in norway. american palates may not always crave the food, but they can not complain of its abundance. the table is usually loaded with all sorts of fish and cold meats, both fresh and preserved, that foreigners are usually afraid of. the norwegians are fond of things with a pronounced flavor, the more pronounced the better, and cheese is one of the chief articles of diet. a norwegian housewife would not consider a meal complete without five or six different kinds of cheese of all degrees of pungency in taste and odor upon the table. at breakfast you are served sardines, anchovies, smoked salmon, dried herring and five or six other kinds of fish and an equal variety of cheese before they think of offering you coffee and meat and potatoes. you get seven or eight kinds of bread also, but it is all cold. the national bread, which is made of flour, water and a little salt, with a sprinkling of caraway seed, rolled very thin and punctured with holes like a cracker, is baked only once or twice a year, and then in large quantities, as new england women bake mince pies and put them on the top shelf to season. it is called _grovboröd_, and tastes like a water cracker. the servant-girl problem has been solved in norway to the satisfaction of all concerned, although it is doubtful whether a similar solution would be accepted by domestic servants in the united states. in large cities like bergen and christiania, there is a central employment bureau under the direction of the municipal government, and twice a year--one week before new year's day and one week before st. john's day, the th of june--there is a general change of servants by those who are dissatisfied with existing conditions, and engagements are made for the ensuing six months of the year. families who want servants, fill out blanks setting forth what is required and the wages they are willing to pay. these are filed at the employment office and are noted in a conspicuous manner upon a blackboard. women or men in search of employment go to this bureau during the weeks named, examine the blackboard, and apply to the clerk in charge for further information. if they desire to apply for a particular position, they submit their recommendations to the clerk, and if he is satisfied, he gives them a card to the lady of the house. that card is good for the day only, and must be returned by the lady of the house before the close of office hours. if the girl is engaged, the blanks upon the card are filled out with a general statement as to her duties, the term of service, and the wages agreed upon, and the card is filed away for reference if necessary. if the lady of the house is not satisfied with the applicant, she sends her away and returns the card marked "not satisfactory," with the request that other applicants be sent her. if the applicant is satisfactory, the lady of the house pays her a bonus of one krone or two kroner called "hand money"--that is, she crosses her hand with silver as an evidence of good faith--and the girl agrees to report for duty within one week after new year's or midsummer's day, as the case may be. that is to allow her present employer to fill her place. in some of the smaller towns the dates for changing servants are april and october . the law protects both the employer and the employed. the employer guarantees to give the servant a comfortable room, wholesome food, take care of her if sick, and pay her wages regularly as agreed upon during good behavior; while the girl agrees to perform her duties faithfully during the term for which she is engaged. if there is any complaint upon either side, it must be made to a magistrate, who investigates and decides between them. a family can not get rid of a servant during her term of employment without official intervention. on the other hand, the girl's wages are a first lien upon their property for the entire term, although judgment must be rendered and made a matter of record. if a servant runs away from her employer, she can be arrested and fined. cooks are paid from $ to $ a month; housemaids from $ to $ a month; men butlers from $ to $ ; coachmen from $ to $ a month; scullery maids and men of all work receive corresponding wages. nearly all of these domestic customs here related apply to sweden as well as norway, and there are many interesting additional ones. in sweden the state dinners at the palace are always at six o'clock. at nearly all the other courts of europe it is customary to dine at eight o'clock. the king's dinners are short, his guests seldom remaining more than an hour at the table, after which the ladies adjourn to one of the drawing rooms, the gentlemen to the smoking room, and later all are entertained by musicians from the opera house or the royal conservatory. carriages are usually ordered at ten o'clock. this seems old-fashioned, but for people who like to go to bed early and those who are occupied with business all day it is much more sensible than the custom followed in some cities, where social festivities do not begin until the hour when the king of sweden's guests are bidding him good night. but everybody complains that the swedes are drifting away from old customs and are becoming modernized. the french influence seems to prevail, and modern swedish life is becoming an imitation of that of paris. another of the old customs is for people to indicate their business upon their visiting cards. you will receive the card of lawyer jones, or banker smith, or music professor smith, and so on; and these titles are also used in addressing them. it would seem rather queer for any one in the united states to ask, "wholesale merchant macveigh, will you kindly pass the butter?" or "banker hutchinson, will you escort fru board of trade operator jones to the table?" but that is the custom in sweden and it is observed by children as well as grown people. a lisping child will approach a guest, make a pretty little bob-courtesy, and say, "good morning, chief justice of the supreme court fuller," or "good night, representative in congress boutell." it is customary for ladies to print their maiden names upon their visiting cards in smaller type, under their married names, particularly if they have a pride of family and want people to know their ancestry. to see the old swedish customs that have almost entirely disappeared from the country, one must go to the hill districts of dalecarlia, where the people are so unlike the rest of the swedes in their dress, their customs and habits, and in many other respects as to almost seem another race. the dalecarlians are great dancers, and the social gatherings at their homes during the winter are always accompanied by that form of amusement. during the summer they dance in the open air. on st. john's day the entire population, old and young, dance around a may-pole erected at some convenient place, and at harvest time, whenever the last sheaf in a field is pitched upon the cart or the stack, it is customary for somebody to produce a musical instrument, a violin, a nyckleharpa, a harmonicum, or perhaps only a mouth organ, and everybody--for the boys and girls of the family all work together in the hay and harvest fields--join in a dance before returning home. the dances are original and often interesting. one of the most ancient and popular is the _däfva vadmal_ (weaving homespun), whose figures are supposed to imitate the action of the shuttle, the beating in of the woof, and other motions used in weaving at an old-fashioned loom. some of the dances resemble those of scotland, and one is almost exactly like the virginia reel as danced by old-fashioned people in the united states. in another, called the "garland," the dancers wind in and out under their clasped hands in imitation of the weaving of a wreath of flowers. all the dances require violent physical exercise, but the swedish men and women are famous for muscular development. some of the dances are accompanied by pretty melodies sung in unison by both sexes. the songs of the dalecarlian peasant are not lively, but rather slow in movement, and are usually sung in unison, the music being rarely arranged for parts. dalecarlia has a certain preeminence among the districts of sweden because of the part its people have played in the history of the country, and however the other provinces may dispute among themselves about their claims for distinction, each will admit that dalecarlia is entitled to special consideration. its people represent the highest patriotism and the noblest characteristics of the swedish race, and when any one is spoken of as a dalecarlian, it means that he is a free and intelligent citizen of independent thought and action and lives a life of manly simplicity.[o] chapter xvi health, exercise, and amusements perhaps in no other country in the world have health and exercise been united and formed into a national institution, as they have been in sweden. the true swede believes that exercise will cure everything, and that as a preventive of disease there is nothing like it. if you go to a swedish physician for advice, he will invariably prescribe the movement cure, and send you to a gymnasium or a massage establishment instead of to a drug store. physical exercise is therefore the national remedy, particularly for complaints due to sedentary employment, neglect of nature's laws, and high living. the movement cure for invalids, which is practically the same as that we have in the united states, is used in all the hospitals as well as in private practice. it was invented about a century ago by dr. ling, a patriot, a gymnast and a poet, who was inspired to revive the ancestral national spirit in the swedish people by the aid of sports and songs, and to develop once more the great qualities of strength, courage, and endurance which in old times distinguished the scandinavian race. after a hard struggle he succeeded, in , in securing the recognition of the government and founded the royal gymnastic central institute, where all persons desiring to teach gymnastics in the public schools or in private institutions must take a course of training and take a degree. the swedes are quite as particular about this as they are about the study of medicine. no medical practitioner can hang out a sign without a diploma from one of the universities, and no person can teach gymnastics in that country without a similar certificate of competency from the royal institute. every officer of the army is required to undergo a course of instruction, not only to develop his physical constitution, but to qualify him to teach gymnastics to his soldiers. the teachers of physical culture in the public schools, both men and women, are obliged to take a similar course in order to drill their pupils properly, for in every schoolroom in the country, down to the kindergartens, daily physical exercise upon ling's plan is required to promote the development of the body and improve the health. this is required in private as well as public schools, and the methods of instruction are subject to the inspection and approval of the central institute. in every town of any size there are gymnastic clubs and associations, which are generally guided by instructors educated at the central institute. they include women as well as men in their membership, and in many of them fencing and other sword exercises are also taught. in common with all the gymnasiums are bath-houses. you will find them in every part of the city of stockholm and in other large towns. some of them occupy entire buildings. it is the habit of business men to go to their stores or offices at nine o'clock in the morning and remain there until two or three in the afternoon, when they go to their club or gymnasium and take an hour's exercise and afterward a bath. these establishments in the business quarter of stockholm and other cities are considered just as important as clubs, restaurants, or other places of resort, and usually have connected with them reading and smoking rooms where patrons can read the daily newspapers and current magazines and sip coffee and smoke while they are cooling off. it would surprise a visitor in new york or chicago to be informed that his broker or his lawyer or his banker or a contractor with whom he has business, had gone to a bathhouse or gymnasium at three o'clock in the afternoon, but in stockholm it is a common reply to an inquiry. during winter afternoons you can usually find anybody you want by going to his favorite gymnasium or bathhouse, just as you would look for him at his club in chicago. there is a distinctive dress for the exercise. the patrons take off their street clothing and put on light woolen shirts and trousers, and canvas shoes on their bare feet, and, standing in rows, go through a series of motions under the command of their instructor to exercise the arms, legs, neck, and every other part of the body, gently, not violently. the idea is movement, not exertion, and the muscles are restrained. the arm is raised slowly with self-resistance. no clubs or dumb-bells are used, only a gentle motion like the exercise of the children in the schools. after twenty minutes or half an hour of this the class marches in a column, still going through the same movements; then they run, following their leader, doing everything that he does, until at the end of an hour the body is in a glow, the blood is pulsating in every vein, the perspiration is oozing from every pore, every muscle is limbered up and strengthened, and every nerve tingles. there is regular gymnasium apparatus for those who like more violent exercise. then a bath is taken, followed by a cold plunge and violent rubbing with massage, after which a man is in shape to go home to his dinner with a good appetite. in october every year the scandinavian gymnastic instructors' association meets in stockholm for several weeks, at which lectures are delivered, papers are read, and discussions are held upon all branches of their work. these meetings are quite as important as annual conventions of the bar or medical associations, and are not only attended by gymnastic instructors, but by physicians generally, for every swedish physician must be well versed in medical gymnastics, particularly in what is known as _kinesitherapym_ or movement cure, which embraces active, passive, and resisting movements, as well as massage, for the latter is the basis of medical gymnastics. the swedes have accepted this treatment as a specific for nearly all diseases, deformities, and weaknesses of the body; for internal complaints, for the lungs, the heart, and the digestive organs. it removes superfluous tissue, and this is the reason you see so few fat men in sweden, notwithstanding their beer-drinking propensities, and why the women keep their youthful shape until old age. it is a spectacle to witness in some of the gymnastic institutes venerable and dignified gentlemen going through comical motions and assuming ridiculous postures with great activity and zeal, keeping time to the music of a band in the adjoining café. in sweden doctors never send bills to their patients, but trust entirely to their generosity. each family has an attending physician, who expects them to pay him by the year for his services, according to their wealth and the amount of attention they receive. ten dollars a year in our money is a good fee; one hundred dollars is princely. at the beginning of the year you put the amount in an envelope and send it to the doctor by a messenger with your card. he sends back his card with an acknowledgment of thanks and the compliments of the season. it is very bad form to talk about it, although grateful patients often write their physicians affectionate letters of gratitude for his devotion and the benefit he has brought them. it is a good deal like the relation between a minister and his parishioners in other countries, and the annual contribution for the support of the doctor is just as voluntary as the contribution to the treasury of the church. if there is any reason why one should feel grateful to the doctors; if you or your children have suffered a severe illness and he has pulled you through, he expects a present in addition to the annual honorarium, just as you would send the minister a present after a marriage or a funeral or some other special occasion at which his services are required. the amount you pay depends upon your ability and the value of his services, but it is a violation of the most sacred canon of professional etiquette for a doctor to ask compensation or question the amount he receives. he keeps no accounts of his visits and no books. if a stranger or an acquaintance who does not contribute regularly makes one call or two upon the doctor to ask his advice or a prescription, he leaves something on the table, but it would be equivalent to an insult if he should ask for a bill. when a person is very sick, he is taken to a hospital. sweden has some of the best hospitals in the world. his own doctor looks after him there, assisted by the house physician and nurses, who expect fees, but the regular doctor gets none. he supervises the treatment and acts as adviser to the house physician. the government pays subsidies to doctors in remote parts of the country, just as it pays the salaries of the ministers where the people are so poor that they can not support a doctor and a parson. in fact, all the clergymen of the established church are paid by the government and are government officials. the members of their parishes give them presents, something on the donation party order, because their salaries are small, and if there happen to be rich men in the parish, it is their custom to send around a handsome present to the minister's wife or to himself on christmas day. the swedes have a short summer, and so far as possible spend it in the open air. every citizen of stockholm who can afford it has a place in the country, no matter how humble or primitive it may be, and if he can not afford a cabin, he pitches a tent in the woods under the pine trees, and if necessary cooks his own meals. the banks of the lakes and rivers throughout the entire kingdom--and there are more than , lakes in sweden and , islands in the stockholm skärgard--are surrounded by such dwellings and camps, for the swedes love the water. those who are compelled to remain in town take their meals and spend their evenings at the open-air cafes, which are found in every part of the city with bands of music, and take daily excursions on the boats which ply through the fjord and the lakes which encircle the town. in the suburbs are circuses, open-air theaters, concert gardens, and other forms of entertainments, simple and serious. a number of fine restaurants are maintained in the parks, where people can get a good dinner and spend the evening under the cool foliage, listening to an orchestral concert or a band. every form of outdoor amusement is furnished, and the people eat, drink, and are merry, making the most of their time from june to september before the long and dreary winter comes upon them. the working classes have their simple amusements also, and during the summer evenings in every village there is music and dancing, even if an accordion or jewsharp is the only instrument to be obtained. the national dances are quite energetic, and furnish a form of exercise which lazy people would not admire, but both the men and women of sweden are famous for their muscular strength, and the young woman who can dance down her companions is as much of a hero as the champion wrestler of the town. those who can not enjoy the opportunity of visiting rural sweden will find in the suburbs of stockholm, at the favorite resort and place of amusement of the common people, a perfect representation of swedish country life. it is called skansen, and is rural sweden in miniature. it is a patriotic and scientific enterprise, conceived and undertaken by the late dr. artur hazelius, an eminent ethnologist, for the purpose of preserving the habits and customs of the scandinavian races. in no country of europe, excepting perhaps russia and turkey, have the people adhered to the manner and costumes of their fathers so tenaciously as in sweden, and the life of past generations is preserved in its picturesqueness. the conservatism of the people, their tenacious preference for their own ways and means has kept out innovations, and very few changes have been made since the beginning of the eighteenth century. but fearing that the peasants of sweden, like all other peoples, would sooner or later surrender to modern fashions, dr. hazelius attempted to collect at skansen actual types representing every industry, activity, and national trait. his thought was expressed in a motto inscribed over one of the gates of this outdoor museum: "the day will come when all our gold will not be sufficient to buy an accurate picture of the times long past." he procured from the king a rocky plateau on the edge of a royal park known as _djurgarden_, covered with crippled pines and resembling the wild, uncultivated, neglected landscape in dalecaria or norrland, the two most interesting portions of sweden. by careful landscape gardening, without destroying its natural beauty, he introduced broad paths, restaurants, cafes, band stands, and other places for the merry to meet and hold their festivals, and for the students to sing their songs, and he reserved a part of the grounds in its natural condition, where the lovers of nature can find a quiet retreat among the gloom of a pine grove. it has become the most popular resort in sweden, particularly in the long summer evenings, and when a man can not reach the country, skansen is never too far. it is accessible by street-cars and by boats, and is not more than half an hour's walk from the palace. here the "folk festivals," for which the swedish poets have composed their most beautiful songs, are held every spring; here the national holidays are celebrated as in olden times, both in summer and winter, and national customs are preserved with great care and amid surroundings that give them a realistic tone, like the true thing. dr. hazelius secured original types of peasant houses from every part of the country where they have individual or unique character. from the huts of the fishermen on the south coast of the scandinavian peninsula to the camps of the lapps in the frozen zone, every feature of swedish country life is represented. the lapps brought their dogs and reindeer, and live exactly as they do upon the snowy plains of the polar regions. with the forty acres that compose the park are about one hundred and twenty-five people, living exactly as their forefathers lived and practicing the primitive customs that prevailed two centuries ago in the agricultural districts of the kingdom. they wear the same costumes, eat the same kind of food, use the same kind of dishes, and preserve so far as possible every feature of their daily life. every one of the provinces of sweden which has a distinctive dress or unique custom is represented by the actual people who have always lived that way. every man and woman continues their former occupations. there is no theatrical business about it, no imitations on the grounds; everything is genuine. three or four times a week at sunset, after their daily work is done, the peasants gather for a dance at a central place, which is always surrounded by a large crowd of spectators, and is the greatest attraction of skansen. on alternate nights the dancing is by the children, of whom there are thirty-seven under fifteen years of age living in the cabins with their parents, dressed just like their great-great-grandfathers and grand mothers when they were of the same age. the music for the dancing is furnished by old-fashioned instruments, and none but old-fashioned tunes are allowed. there is a society in sweden known as _svenska folkdansens vänner_ for preserving the swedish national peasant dances and for encouraging their use in the higher circles of society in preference to the french dances. there are several fine museums and picture galleries in sweden. the national gallery in stockholm, which is across the bay from the royal palace, and the northern museum founded in by dr. hazelius. then there is the royal opera and the national theater, so that the people of stockholm do not want for places of amusement in winter as well as summer. the father of athletic sports in sweden is lieutenant colonel victor gustaf balck, who holds a military position in the garrison at stockholm. he introduced lawn tennis, cricket, baseball and football, and has established numerous athletic clubs in different parts of the country. sailing is popular, there being many yacht clubs with good houses and fleets. and swimming is a part of the national education, nearly every man, woman, and child in sweden taking naturally to the water and being able to swim. everybody can skate as well as swim. in the cities rinks can be found with music and many conveniences. in stockholm there is a general skating club, with a rink large enough to accommodate six thousand skaters, and popular fêtes given there at intervals during the winter are attended by the royal family and members of the court, and are regarded as important social functions. all skating is done upon the numerous lakes, and often during the long nights of the winter hundreds of people, young and old, will gather at an early hour--it gets dark at four o'clock in the afternoon--and spend the entire night skating by moonlight. a big fire is built in some convenient place for the crowd, and smaller fires by individual parties, who bring luncheon with them and have a picnic in the snow in the winter. in various parts of the country, national and international skating contests are held, and winners in local tournaments, both for speed and fancy skating, are sent to stockholm to contest for the grand prizes against the crack skaters of norway, denmark, russia, and northern germany. but the national winter sport of all scandinavia is skeeing--skimming over the snow on snow-shoes. there is no more vigorous or exciting exercise. in the country districts men and women alike are educated to the use of snowshoes from childhood. as soon as boys and girls are old enough to skate, they put on skees of a size appropriate to their stature, and are quite as agile and daring as their elders. it requires nerve, skill, and muscular strength to skee, and a person who has never tried snow-shoes always finds it difficult to use them. it is a sport to which people must be trained from childhood. a skilful "skeer" can make a mile in two minutes. ice yachting and sailing on skates are two of the oldest and most popular national sports, and are practiced in both sweden and norway by all classes. all the ice yachts and snow-shoes are home-made, and in the country districts many of the skates.[p] chapter xvii the newspapers of norway and sweden there are seven hundred and fifty-one newspapers and periodicals in sweden, including fifty-two dailies. stockholm has twelve dailies, seven published in the morning and five in the evening, which is a large number for a city of three hundred and ten thousand inhabitants, and the wonder is how they all manage to exist. none of them is as large as the ordinary dailies in the united states. it is the practice of the swedish editors to waste very little room in headlines, and to condense as much as possible. they state facts without padding or comment, and manage to bring the daily allowance of news within ten or twelve columns. there is usually a continued story, three or four articles of a literary character, a couple of columns of clippings and miscellany, and the same amount of editorial. the balance of the paper is given up to advertising, but with all that it is seldom necessary to print more than four pages. the morning papers stick to the blanket sheet. most of the stockholm papers have a good advertising patronage, which runs to display at times. the swedish business men have learned that it pays to advertise. the rates are much lower than in the united states. the ordinary want ad. costs from seven to ten cents, and for display advertisements the rates run from two and one-half to twenty cents a line, according to the location. in the semi-weekly edition of _aftonbladet_, which is considered the best advertising medium in sweden on account of its large circulation and superior class of readers, display ads. in preferred places cost about twenty-eight cents a line. the subscription price corresponds. you can have any one of the evening papers delivered at your house for $ a year, and the highest rate for the morning dailies is $ a year. it is worth while to know that postmasters in sweden will receive subscriptions for newspapers published in any part of the world. a small fee is exacted to cover the amount of postage and the stationery required in forwarding the subscription. the father of cheap newspapers in sweden is anders jeurling, the publisher of _stockholm-tidningen_ and _hyvad nytt i dag_, who started the first-named journal about twelve years ago and sold it on the street for two _öre_, which is about one-half cent. now the price of the former is four _öre_, about one cent, and of the latter a half cent. the former paper has the largest circulation in the city of stockholm, its ordinary edition reaching about one hundred thousand copies, but _aftonbladet_ exceeds it in the country. mr. jeurling has the reputation of being the ablest publisher in sweden, and is a better business man than the editor. he has made a fortune out of his papers on the theory that the people care more for news than for politics. mr. adolph hallgren is the editor-in-chief of _stockholms-tidningen_, and the managing editor is mr. f. zethraens, who studied journalism in the office of the chicago _record-herald_. the official paper of the swedish government is _post och inriches tidning_, which was founded as far back as , and is one of the oldest periodicals in the world. for more than a century it has been published under the auspices of the swedish academy, an organization of eighteen of the most learned scholars and philosophers in the kingdom. the editor is dr. j.a. spilhammar, a very learned gentleman, who, on account of his position, is naturally conservative and discreet in all his utterances. _aftonbladet_, a liberal evening paper, to which i have already alluded, has the greatest circulation in sweden, the daily edition varying from one hundred and fifty thousand to one hundred and sixty thousand copies, and it is one of the most influential forces in the kingdom. the editor, harald sohlman, is regarded is an able writer and shrewd business man. he is also editor and publisher of _dagen_, a morning paper, liberal in politics, which has a circulation of about forty thousand copies, and is sold at three _öre_--about three-quarters of a cent. _aftonbladet's_ semi-weekly edition goes into every corner of the kingdom, has a high literary standard, contains correspondence from all the european capitals, and has a special department devoted to news concerning the swedes and swedish affairs in america. the most conservative of all swedish papers is _nya dagligt allehanda_, edited by dr. j.a. bjorklund. its circulation is confined almost exclusively to the nobility and wealthier classes, and is said to be more loyal to the government than royalty itself. _vart land_, another conservative paper, edited by professor gustaf torelius, an eminent author and scholar, is an organ of the swedish state church, and on that account is taken by every lutheran clergyman and active layman in the kingdom. it contains the official announcement of the minister of religion and the archbishop, and is especially given to news of an ecclesiastical character. its most prominent writer is dr. c.d. af wirsén, one of "the immortal eighteen" of the swedish academy and a lyric poet of reputation. _svenska morgonbladet_, another religious daily, opposes _vart land_, and represents the dissenters from the established church. its circulation, according to its sarcastic competitors, "is limited to those who have been saved." its most eminent contributor and patron is dr. peter paul waldenström, founder and leader of the free lutheran church, "the swedish moody." scarcely a week passes without an article from his pen in _morgonbladet_, which gives that paper its standing among free lutherans. _dagbladet_ is the only paper in stockholm which is issued twice a day, and it has also a sunday edition. it styles itself in politics a "moderate," but is more popular among the conservatives than the liberals. having the city printing, it is not inclined to quarrel with its bread and butter. _dagens nyheter_, a liberal morning paper, made a fortune for rudolph wall, its founder, who died a millionaire. it is considered one of the most profitable newspaper properties in europe. it sells for a cent and a quarter, and has a circulation of about thirty thousand. the stockholm paper which imitates the american press most closely is _svenska dagbladet_, ably edited by helmer key, a doctor of philosophy, and c.g. tengwall, who is regarded as one of the best all-around newspaper men in sweden. it has the best class of contributors of any of the swedish papers in a literary way, including professor oscar levertin, verner von heidenstam, the poet, tor hedberg, an art and literary critic, and ellen key, the authoress, and the most influential woman in sweden. the paper has a large circulation among the thinking people of the country, and exercises a wide influence. the official organ of the royal yacht club, the royal jockey club, and all representative swedish sport clubs, is the _ny tidning för idrott_, which is owned by count clarence von rosen, one of the grandsons of the late mrs. bloomfield moore, of philadelphia. the count, himself the finest rider in the swedish army, edits the horse news, while colonel victor balck, the father of modern swedish sports, and alex. lindman are the editors. _ny tidning för idrott_ has a regular correspondent in america. hjalmar branting, leader of the socialists in sweden and a member of the second chamber of parliament, is editor of _social demokraten_, the organ of his party. although a man of aristocratic origin, he has cast his lot with the laboring classes. he is a man of great force of character, an able writer, an eloquent speaker, and is generally respected even by those who can not approve his views. the circulation of his paper is almost exclusively confined to the laboring classes. the compensation of newspaper men in sweden is much less than in the united states. the highest salary paid to an editor-in-chief is $ , , while the lowest for that position is about $ , . managing editors are paid from $ , to $ , a year, and ordinary reporters from $ to $ a year. contributors of fame receive special rates. the price for news items is two and one-half cents a line. space writers seem to be paid more in proportion than the regular members of the staff, but the difference is more apparent than real, because of the tendency to condensation. articles in the swedish papers are seldom more than half a column long. stockholm has several comic papers, even more in proportion to population than we have in the united states. the most prominent are _strix, puck, söndags-nisse, kasper_ and _nya nisse_. they are small and comparatively insignificant, and sell for two and one-half cents a copy. they satirize politicians with good humor, and their cartoons are based upon current events. there are several literary weeklies, monthlies, and other periodicals, for swedes are great readers and, unlike the americans, have not lost their taste for poetry. a poet enjoys a much higher position and larger income from his writings in sweden than at home. there is a press club in stockholm with four hundred and forty members, of whom twenty-two are women. in the club arranged "a week of festivals," including military tournaments, public entertainments and a fair, and closed with a masquerade ball at the royal opera house to raise funds for a building. it was a great success. king oscar accepted an invitation, and enjoyed himself very much among his "colleagues," as he called them. the king was always considerate to newspaper men. he appreciated the purpose and understood the requirements of reporters, and never failed to assist them whenever he was able to do so. hence he was very popular among them, and they reciprocated by showing their appreciation in every possible way. the old king once said to hjalmar branting, the socialist editor: "we have different opinions, branting, but we are both working for the welfare of our country." in , during the international congress of the press at stockholm, the king gave the editors a banquet at the royal castle at drottningholm, and mingled among them as "one of yourselves." he also proposed a toast in most complimentary language. oscar ii made many speeches, and upon occasions of great formality he used manuscript, but generally spoke without notes, preparing himself in advance by study and reflection. when he spoke from manuscript, he invariably furnished copies to the press, and was never known to request that part of his speech be suppressed. reporters are invariably admitted to state ceremonials. there is very little secrecy about the stockholm court, and intrigue is entirely unknown in swedish politics. there are no mysteries in the council chamber and no skeletons in the royal closet. hence the doors are open, and the reporters can come and go as they please. as a natural consequence comparatively little attention is paid to affairs at the palace. there is an announcement every morning of the movements of the king and the royal family and occurrences of public interest, but with very little detail, and the newspapers depend upon the officials to furnish the information voluntarily. reporters are seldom sent to the palace unless some special inquiry is necessary. the story is told that once when oscar ii went to gothenburg to attend a dedication or opening of something or other, where he was expected to make a speech, he was intercepted at the railway station by an enterprising reporter who wanted a copy of his speech. the paper was to be published that afternoon, and there would be no time for a stenographer to write out his notes afterward. the king greeted him pleasantly and explained that he had no manuscript; that he intended to speak without notes. the reporter was very much dissappointed, and confided to the king that he was a new man and that his future standing with his employer might be seriously affected if he failed to get the speech. king oscar responded sympathetically, invited the reporter to get into his carriage, and while they were driving to the hotel, gave a brief synopsis of what he expected to say. newspapers in norway are not so good an investment; in fact, none of them may be considered financial ventures. as a rule, they have to be assisted by the government or by political clubs in order to survive. their subscription lists are limited, the largest circulation in norway not exceeding fifteen thousand and few publications print more than five thousand copies, while advertising pays not more than ten or twelve cents a line at top prices in the most expensive papers. an ordinary newspaper reporter in norway receives a salary of about $ a week, while the most competent editors are satisfied with $ or $ . norway was the last of the european countries, except turkey, to adopt the art of printing, notwithstanding its early famous literature, but to-day has four hundred and twenty-nine newspapers and periodicals, an average of one to every five thousand of the population; one hundred and ninety-six are political newspapers; eighty-eight are literary weeklies, and one hundred and forty-five are reviews, magazines, professional, religious, and scientific publications. _norske intelligens-seddeler_ is one of the oldest papers in the world, having been founded in christiania in , and has been the organ of the government from the beginning. for a century and a quarter its contents were limited to advertisements and official announcements. it was a sort of a government gazette, but when hjalmar loken took hold of it, ten or twelve years ago, he changed its character entirely and has turned it into a good modern newspaper and a vigorous advocate of government measures, exercising a wide influence through its columns. monopolies were formerly granted to newspapers in norway. the government allowed only one paper to be published within the limits of an ecclesiastical diocese, or at least only the favored paper was permitted to receive money for the publication of advertisements. competitors resorted to all sorts of ingenious methods, by issuing pamphlets and 'handbills and such things, that a free discussion of political issues might be had, but it was not until that the last monopoly, which happened to be in the city of trondhjem, expired. in freedom of the press was granted by the new constitution, and from that date the political agitators have found expression in various publications, and partisanship has often risen to a bitterness that would not be permitted in other countries. the norway newspapers have not known a censor since that date. _morganbladet_, the first daily, was established in , and has played an important part in the political affairs of the. country. it is still very influential, being edited with great ability by mr. nils vogt. björnson, the author, has been connected with two newspapers--the first, _krydseren_, a literary weekly which survived only a few years, and _verdens gang_, which has been published since as the leading organ of the liberal party. among its editors and contributors have been other distinguished men, poets, dramatists, and novelists. nearly every writer of distinction has contributed to its columns, for most of the thinking men of norway are liberals. since mr. thommessen has been the editor, and he was the first to modernize the norwegian press by printing cable dispatches, cartoons, caricatures and other illustrations. _dagbladet_ is also a widely read and influential daily, under the editorship of mr. a.t. omholt, and has a large circulation. its list of contributors has included some of the most distinguished writers of the country. there are numerous other dailies of more or less influence and circulation, and all the trades and occupations have organs, as in the united states. in every town and almost every village, a weekly or semi-weekly is published, usually by the liberal party, and sometimes by other parties. even hammerfest, the most northerly town in the world, which lies in the arctic circle, has two enterprising weeklies.[q] chapter xviii norwegian folk songs if the dwellers of the deep fjords, the somber fir-clad mountain valleys, and the bleak ice-fields do not "open their lips so readily for song" as the people of southern lands where the sun creates an eternal spring, it is not because they are without lyric power, as is clearly apparent from the rich and varied folk-songs and the splendid creative work of edvard grieg. the norwegian folk-songs, spring dances, hallings, and wedding marches, have been well characterized as the outpourings of the inner lives of the common people, the expression of their dauntless energy, their struggles and aspirations. the folk-song of norway, more than in any other land, embodies the character and expresses the tendencies of viking life, ancient and modern. it bears the unmistakable marks of weal and woe of norse life, the strongly marked and regularly introduced rythms of the developed and developing national character. and while an undercurrent of melancholy runs through most of it, it is, after all, the faithful interpreter of the lives of isolated and solitary occupants of fjords, fjelds, and dalen. the folk-songs of norway are singularly typical of the country and its inhabitants. some "seem to take us into the dense forest among mocking echoes from, the life outside; others show us the trolls tobogganing down the highest peaks of norway; in some we feel human souls hovering over reefs; in others, memories of the old sun-lit land flit before us; but in none do we meet with sentimentalism, despondency, or disconsolateness." but with their weird and minor strains, and their odd jumps from low tones to high, on first acquaintance they strike the hearer as strange and elusive. some of the epic songs, as telemarken, are of great antiquity. but it was not until the last century that norse tone artists discovered the wealth that had long been cherished by the peasants of the fjords and mountain valleys. lindeman ( - ) was the first to recognize the musical significance of norwegian folk-songs. he collected many hundred national ballads, hymns and dances, and called attention to their richness and variety as thematic material for a school of national music. in lindeman's collection will be found songs which tell of the heroic exploits of old norse vikings, kings, and earls of the heathen days of thor and odin, together with lyrics, deep and ardent, which sing of the loves, the joys, and the sorrows of the humbler christian folks. the hardanger violin, the lur and the langeleik have played a leading role in the development of norwegian folk-songs and dances. the hardanger instrument is more arched than the ordinary violin; there are four strings over the finger-board and four underneath, the latter of fine steel wire, acting as sympathetic strings. the men of the hardanger fjord have long been distinguished for the workmanship and tonal qualities of their violins, and with them the peasants have improvised the rich and varied impressions of nature which we find embodied in folk-songs. the lur is a long wooden instrument, of the trumpet order, and is usually made of birch bark. it is much used in the mountains. the langeleik, or norwegian harp, is a long, narrow, box-like stringed instrument, something of the character of the ancient zither. it has seven strings and sound holes, but its tone is weak and monotonous. the national dances of norway have bold rythms which at once arrest the attention. perhaps the most characteristic is the hailing, a solo dance in two-four time. it is usually danced by young men in country barns, and its most striking feature is the kicking of the beam of the ceiling. in the story of nils the fiddler, in his novel _arne_, björnson has given this account of the hailing: "the music struck up, a deep silence followed, and he began. he dashed forward along the floor, his body inclining to one side, half aslant, keeping time to the fiddle. crouching down, he balanced himself, now on one foot, now on the other, flung his legs crosswise under him, sprang up again, and then moved on aslant as before. the fiddle was handled by skilful fingers, and more and more fire was thrown into the tune. nils threw his head back and suddenly his boot heel touched the beam." the spring dance is less vigorous, but more graceful than the hailing. it is a round dance in three-quarter time, in which two persons, or groups of two, participate. it is danced with a light, springing step, and has been compared with the mazurka by liszt. like the hailing, however, it is markedly individual in its pleasing combinations of tones. forestier says of the spring dance of norway: "there is a freshness, a sparkle, and energy, a graceful life about it that is invigorating." if lindeman was the first to collect folk-songs and dances in norway, ole bull ( - ) was the first to popularize them. he was, as grieg once declared, a pathbreaker for the young national music. at the early age of nineteen he sallied forth with his fiddle and wherever he appeared in europe and america he played the folk-music and national dances of norway. the favor which he found encouraged his countrymen. his brilliant career glorified musical norway; gave it confidence to assert itself, and serve as the inspiration of a long list of creative tone artists--kjerulf, nordraak, grieg, svendsen, winter-hjelm, sindling, and behrens--to write out and arrange for voice and modern instruments the music that had so long been preserved in the memories of the people. the best art-made music of norway has been built upon the folk-songs and dances of the common people. halfdan kjerulf ( - ) was the first serious composer of the new art school. he lived during the trying period of norwegian storm and stress, but he wrote something like a hundred compositions, and in his songs is found "the bud of national feeling which has burst into full bloom in grieg." richard nordraak ( - ), during his brief career, set to music several of björnson's plays, and composed some strong pianoforte pieces and songs. "he was," says siewers, "a man with a bold fresh way of looking at things, strong artistic interests, an untiring love of work, and deep national feeling. he had decided influence upon his friend grieg's artistic views, and he is the connecting link between kjerulf and grieg in the chain of norwegian musical art." otto winter-hjelm, who, with grieg, attempted to establish a conservatory of music at christiania after their return from germany in the sixties, contributed much to the national art of norway by his excellent arrangements of hallings and spring dances for piano and violin. thomas thellefsen ( - ), a pupil and friend of chopin, was distinguished as a national composer as well as a pianist, and carl f.e. neupert ( - ), who lived in america six years, did much by his concert tours and teaching to dignify norse music. johan severin svendsen, while a norwegian by birth and training, has expatriated himself by his long residence in denmark. so far as his compositions have national flavor they are german. johan selmer, while a prolific composer, will probably be best remembered as a conductor. christian sinding, after grieg, is the best-known norwegian composer. his productions range from symphonies and symphonic poems through chamber music to romances. he is credited with a wide range of musical ideas, deep artistic earnestness, and bold power of expression; but his compositions in the larger forms are thought unduly noisy and restless. two women who have helped to make the music history of norway are agatha backer-gröndahl and catharinus elling. mrs. backer-gröndahl was a pupil, first of kjerulf and winter-hjelm, and later of kullak, hans von bülow, and liszt. many of her songs and instrumental pieces display fine artistic feeling and musical scholarship of no mean order. catharinus elling has ventured into the larger fields of music-forms, and has produced operas, symphonies, and oratorios, as well as chamber music and songs. her music drama, "the cossacks," is her most ambitious work. says henry t. finck, an able american music critic: "when i had revelled in the music of chopin and wagner, liszt and franz, to the point of intoxication, i fancied that the last word had been said in harmony and melody; when lo! i came across the songs and piano pieces of grieg, and once more found myself moved to tears of delight." edvard grieg ( - ) undoubtedly occupies the foremost place among norwegian composers. he is the highest representative of the norse element in music, "the great beating heart of norwegian musical art." grieg's _genere_ pieces represent the pearls of his compositions. the arrangements of folk-songs and dances for the piano in "pictures of popular life" (opus ) are characterized by consummate lyric skill; and ole bull once declared that they were the finest representations of norse life that had been attempted. grieg wrote one hundred and twenty-five songs, most of which take high rank. finck is of the opinion that fewer fall below par than in the list of any other song writer. he adds: "i myself believe that grieg in some of his songs equals schubert at his best; indeed, i think he should and will be ranked ultimately as second to schubert only; but it is in his later works that he rises to such heights, not in the earliest ones, in which he was still a little afraid to rely on his wings." when it is recalled that grieg was a pianist of exceptional merit, the large place occupied by pianoforte pieces--twenty-eight of the seventy-three opus numbers--it is easily understood. grieg's piano pieces are brief, but they are veritable gems. the jumbo idea in music still lingers with minor professionals. they shrug their shoulders, remarks finck, and exclaim: "yes, that humming bird _is_ very beautiful, but of course it can not be ranked as high as an ostrich. don't you see how small it is?" grieg composed nine works for the orchestra; and here, as in lyric art-songs and pianoforte pieces, he reveals himself as a consummate master in painting delicate yet glowing colors. the music which he set to ibsen's _peer gynt_ brought him the largest measure of fame as an orchestral composer. indeed it was more cordially received than the drama, as is indicated by this criticism by hanslick: "perhaps in a few years ibsen's _peer gynt_ will live only through grieg's music, which, to my taste, has more poetry and artistic intelligence in every number than the whole five-act monstrosity of ibsen." among other notable orchestral and chamber music numbers may be mentioned a setting of björnson's _sigurd the crusader, bergliot_, based upon the sagas of the norse kings, a suite composed for the two hundredth anniversary of ludwig holberg, and a number of choice chamber music pieces. it may be remarked that edvard grieg has not only given norway a conspicuous place on the map of musical europe, but that he has influenced unmistakably composers of the rank of tschaikowsky, the russian; paderewski, the pole; eugene d'albert, the scotch-english-german; richard strauss, the german; and our own lamented edward mcdowell, the american. "from every point of view that interests the music lover," says mr. finck, "grieg is one of the most original geniuses in the musical world of the present or past. his songs are a mine of melody, surpassed in wealth only by schubert's, and that only because there are more of schubert's. in originality of harmony and modulation he has only six equals: bach, schubert, chopin, schumann, wagner, and liszt. in rythmic invention and combination he is inexhaustible, and as orchestrator he ranks among the most fascinating. to speak of such a man--seven-eighths of whose works are still music of the future--as a writer of 'dialect,' is surely the acme of unintelligence. if grieg did stick to the fjord and never got out of it, even his german critics ought to thank heaven for it. grieg in a fjord is much more picturesque and more interesting to the world than he would have been in the elbe or the spree." while norway has neither permanent opera nor permanent orchestras, she has produced concert virtuosi of a high order. ole bull, the so-called violin-king, already referred to, was unsurpassed in his day. among piano artists may be named the talented composer, mrs. agatha backer-gröndahl, thomas thellefsen, edmund neupert, martin knutzen, and the great composer edvard grieg. the flutist olaf svenssen and the vocal artists thorvald lammers, ingeborg oselio-björnson, and ellen gulbranson, have also brought distinction to their country. the male choirs of norway have always played a leading rôle in the music life of the nation. the students', merchants', and artists' singing clubs at christiania during the past seventy-five years, have had artistic as well as patriotic aims. festivals, after the pattern of those held at cincinnati, and worcester and springfield, massachusetts, have also contributed toward the development of national music. the most eminent choral leaders in norway have been johan d. behrens, f.a. reissinger, and o.a. gröndahl. the norwegian musical union has also been active in the development of tonal ideals. its aim has been to provide chamber concerts of a high order. grieg and svendsen were its first conductors. they were succeded by ole olsen, who combined the talents of orchestral leader with those of composer, chorister, and band leader. for many years he directed the second brigade band at christiania with the rank of captain. johan selmer, also a composer, succeeded olsen in the direction of the musical union; and iver holier, a composer of symphonies, orchestral suites, chamber music, and vocal scores, followed selmer. other orchestral leaders are johan hennum, per winge, and johan halvorsen, chapter xix the women of norway and sweden no volume dealing with scandinavian life would be complete without some tribute to the women of norway and sweden. they are magnificent specimens wherever you may find them--in the kitchen, the factory, the harvest field, the hospital, the schoolhouse, the drawing-room, or the palace. they are good mothers, good daughters, and good wives, and while their devotion to their sons, husbands, and fathers is not surpassed by their sisters in any land, they are at the same time independent, self-reliant, and progressive to a degree that offers a striking contrast to the statue of the representatives of their sex in other countries of europe. they give their best talents, affections, and strength; they ask the same in return. there is no country, not even the united states, where women exercise a wider influence, both direct and indirect in the home, the school, the church, upon the platform, and in the press. there is no other country in which the professions, trades, and other occupations are so free to them, or in which their opportunities are utilized with greater zeal, ability, and success. they work side by side with men upon the farms, in the factories, in mercantile establishments, counting-houses, government offices, and in art, science, and literature, and are equally capable, although, as in other lands, their pay for the same labor and equal results is less. from the time that margit larsson saved gustavus vasa from capture by the danish soldiers by hiding him in her cellar, the women of sweden have exercised a powerful influence in politics, although it has been indirect, and the ablest and most progressive to-day prefer that their present political condition shall remain unchanged. they do not think it wise to extend the franchise any farther for fear that universal suffrage will result in the corruption of national politics, which is now comparatively pure. they prefer the present restrictions, which give the ballot only to women who pay taxes, because it deprives ignorant and incompetent women of a voice in the government, and avoids the dangers that often attend the participation of the masses in elections. they prefer to direct their efforts to securing an increase in women's wages, so that they may receive the same compensation as men for the same work, and hope to accomplish practical results by educating public sentiment and bringing moral pressure upon the employing class. speaking on this subject, an eminent swedish writer says: "in the energetic campaign for the betterment of the condition of women, the swedes have taken the first place among european nations. if one seeks the cause of it, it is found in part in the fact that in sweden, since the remotest time, women have enjoyed a respect greater than in most of the other countries, but without doubt it is also due to the superiority of the intellect, judgment, and wisdom of swedish women, and in later years to the numerical excess of women in our population. this has made the means of existence to single women a practical problem. during the present generation a great change has worked itself out in this sense, that the field of activity for women has been greatly enlarged. the activity of women, who at other times found ample domain in the multitude of occupations in the domestic life, has become less important in that respect and has grown in importance in the labor and occupations that in other countries are left exclusively to men." the advancement of women in sweden was greatly encouraged and assisted by the quiet influence of the late queen sophia and her sister-in-law, the late princess eugenie, the sister of oscar ii. the queen, always an intelligent, progressive christian woman, with a profound consciousness of the responsibility attached to her official rank and influence, was a women's woman, and was habitually engaged in promoting movements for the benefit of her sex, and with due respect to the proprieties of her position. she never lost an opportunity to assist and encourage all who were engaged in advancing the physical, moral, and social well-being of the women of sweden and norway. the association of swedish women, which is a branch of the international council of women, was organized in , and has over twelve thousand members, its object being to promote the welfare of the sex, to educate them on all questions concerning their legal and social rights, to enlarge their sphere of activity, and to assist those who are thrown upon their own resources to earn their living. the active, practical work is done by subordinate societies devoted to particular interests, as, for example, the fredrika bremer association manages a sick relief fund for wage earners, assists students in the universities and technical schools, finds employment for those who need it, conducts schools for trained nurses, keeps a register of women who are capable of performing various duties, and is continually engaged in works of benevolence. another organization, known as the swedish woman's association for the defense of their country, is purely patriotic, and was organized in in connection with the movement for the increase of the army, for the purpose of educating public opinion. it has forty affiliated local committees carrying on a propaganda of patriotism. there is a women's club at stockholm whose special purpose is to protect working women from persecution by their employers and others, to educate them concerning legal rights of women wage-earners, and to furnish legal advice and counsel to those who are in trouble. the seamstresses have an alliance, and the shop girls are organized into a union. the advancement of women commenced under the leadership and inspiration of the late fredrika bremer, the famous authoress, who is well known in the united states because of her frequent visits here and her literary works. she was the pioneer of the movement to improve the condition of women morally, socially, and intellectually. sweden was the first country to recognize the property rights of women. this was due to an event that occurred a thousand years ago. while the king and his army were engaged in foreign wars, the danes invaded the province of smoland, when the women armed themselves to defend their homes. they were led to battle by the beautiful blenda, who defeated the invaders and drove them from the country. in recognition of their heroism the king proclaimed a decree granting the women of the country property rights, and it has been since recognized as the law of the land. all the professions and occupations common to men are open to the women of sweden, and in suffrage was granted women in municipal affairs. they are permitted to vote at the election of delegates to conventions which choose members of the first chamber of parliament. these rights can now be exercised by all women who pay taxes. in stockholm, however, a woman voter must be out of debt and the lawful owner of the property upon which the taxes are paid. the members of the first chamber of the parliament, which corresponds to the united states senate, are elected by conventions of delegates chosen at popular elections in the country and in cities by the members of the municipal councils. therefore, as women have the right to vote for members of the municipal council and for delegates to these conventions, they participate indirectly in the election of the swedish senate; but comparatively few exercise the privilege. women of advanced views, aided by the members of the socialist party, are now seeking universal suffrage and a law making them eligible to parliament and to membership in the provincial and municipal councils. this proposition has not met with much favor, and the only time it has ever been brought to vote it was unanimously defeated in the first chamber of parliament and in the second by fifty-three nays to forty-four yeas, less than one-half the members present voting. the first woman to practice medicine in sweden was caroline widerstrom, who is still living and occupies a prominent position in stockholm. her practice is as large and as profitable as that enjoyed by most of the men physicians. the foremost woman in sweden to-day in intellect and influence, in popular esteem and in public movements, and the recognized successor of fredrika bremer, is ellen key, an authoress and editorial writer upon _svenska dagbladet_. in the system of local government in norway, women now participate upon an equal basis with men. the movements which culminated may, , had been going on since under the leadership of miss gina krog, who may be called the susan b. anthony of norway. in the latter year she organized a woman's suffrage association, delivered a series of lectures on the subject, and established a newspaper called the _nyloende_--meaning "the new ground." miss krog is something over fifty years of age, of fine education and excellent family, and has been noted for her activity in literary and charitable affairs. she has been a teacher, a writer for the press, a director of charitable institutions, and has lived a life of great activity and usefulness, devoting her own means with generosity to the cause which she has undertaken. the suffrage movement at first attracted little attention, but public sentiment grew slowly, and in miss krog succeeded in having a bill brought into the storthing giving women the right to vote in school matters. it received forty-four out of a total of one hundred and fourteen votes. the liberal party then made it an issue, and two years after the same bill received a majority in the storthing, but required two-thirds of the votes to pass. at that time a property qualification was required of men. the income tax returns were used as registration lists at the polls, and none but those who paid on incomes of $ in the country and $ in the city were allowed to vote. the leaders of the movement for universal suffrage for men united forces with the women suffragists, and in accomplished their purpose. the women might have succeeded the same year but for an unfortunate division in their ranks. one faction wanted to limit suffrage to unmarried women who own property and deprive married women and dependent daughters and wage-earners of the ballot. but a compromise was finally arranged, the two factions were brought together, and in may, , succeeded in accomplishing the purpose for which they have been engaged. they received the support of a large portion of the conservative members of the storthing as well as the unanimous support of the liberal and radical parties, only twenty votes being cast in the negative. the women of norway do not propose to rest on their present success. miss krog is continuing the fight to secure the right of participation in national as well as municipal affairs, and believes that the women will have all the political rights of men in norway within the next few years. she insists that public sentiment favors the cause and that parliament will take a step further soon and amend the law by making it broader and more general. universities are open to women on an equal basis with men, and many women are taking advantage of the opportunity to secure the higher education, and if ever, like the women of finland, they are allowed to sit in parliament, they will be amply fitted to do so. under the present law only women who pay a certain amount of taxes can vote. an unmarried woman living at home is deprived of the ballot unless she has an income of her own; a married woman can not vote unless either she or her husband has a stated income. thus many of the most intelligent and progressive women of the country are still outside the suffrage line. everybody in norway who earns a dollar pays an income tax. it may be very small, but a certain percentage of each day's wages of every peasant goes into the government treasury. every person in norway declares that it is the least objectionable means of raising money for national and municipal expenses that has ever been tried there, and that it stimulates the patriotism of the people, who realize that they are contributors to the support of their government, and should take an active interest in its management. many of the wisest men in norway consider the universal suffrage amendment to the constitution, which was passed in , a mistake for this reason--because it removes a powerful incentive for men to accumulate money. the norwegian has a large and natural fund of patriotism. he loves his country like the swiss. nowhere else do men and women have to work so hard for a living, but life is the more precious the harder one has to labor to sustain it. we value things according to their cost. in the tropics, where no man need work, human life is held cheaply. men die and kill without compunction; they excite revolutions and overthrow governments, sparing neither themselves nor others. but in norway, as in switzerland, where it is a ceaseless struggle from the cradle to the grave, there is more national pride and patriotism than in any land, and the privilege of living and working and suffering is esteemed as the most precious inheritance of man. women in america who are working for the ballot have only to go to norway to find that having a voice in the making of the laws of the country does not remove every obstacle to the progress of the sex; that there are still many injustices, and that the women work as hard as the men. the norwegian woman usually carries a little more than her share of the load, and can support a husband without difficulty if he insists upon it. there is nothing so admirable in this world as a useful woman, particularly if she is married to a man inclined to leisure and loafing. in norway and other countries of northern europe the ballad, "i love to see my dear old mother work," is something more than an affectionate sentiment. it has a practical significance, and is frequently found in husbands as well as sons. of all the labor that the women of norway engage in, especially women in the rural districts, is the occupation of caring for the _saeter_. a _saeter_ is a summer ranch or dairy farm peculiar, to norway--a cabin among the pastures way up in the mountains, where the cattle are driven during the summer months and butter and cheese are made. almost every large farmer has a _saeter_. when the spring field work at home has been finished, the cattle are taken thither by the young women and girls,--often twenty and sometimes forty miles away,--where they stay during the summer and make butter and cheese, gather hay, knit stockings, and embroider linen. the dwelling is usually a rude hut with a single room, mud floor, an open fireplace without chimney, and a few pieces of rough furniture. sheds and pens surround the hut, and there are patches of enclosed ground where hay is made and where the younger members of the flock are protected. the cattle are called at night by a horn made of birch bark. when blown lustily, it gives a clear note not unlike the cornet, and the cattle invariably respond to its sound. there is a good deal of romance about _saeter_ life in books, but i should say that there is very little in actual experience. many of the charming fairy stories in norwegian literature have their scenes in those mountain dairies. the _saeter_ girls (_saeterjenter_ they are called), have a peculiar and melodious cattle call, known as the _huldrelok_, which is said to have been inherited from the _huldre-folk_, a species of fairy that are very pretty, but unfortunately have tails. usually a young farmer falls in love with one of the girls, and when he discovers that she has a tail, is so shocked and disappointed that he throws himself over a precipice; or perhaps the _huldre-folk_ gobble him up and carry him off into the mountains of the _josteldalsbrae_ and keep him there, while the girl he left behind him grieves herself to death because of his desertion. the dairy maids are supposed to have a peculiar costume, and photographs are often seen of them arrayed in picturesque dress, but i never saw them worn. in all the _saeters_ i visited the clothes worn were very plain and ordinary, and seemed to have been selected for wear and not for looks. we visited a _saeter_ one day and found two young people in charge, a boy and a girl, neither of them over seventeen, we should judge from appearances. their herd consisted of fifteen cows, and they expected to remain in that desolate country two or three months, making cheese and butter. our little _saeterjenta_ had the heart of a poet, although her brother seemed stupid, and even liberal presents of money did not wake him up or make him interesting. i do not suppose that this child had ever been twenty miles from the humble cabin in which she was born, but the wide, wide world had been opened to her through the books she had studied at school. she could talk a little english, and knew a good deal about the united states. she had a brother in minnesota, and many of the boys and girls in the neighborhood had gone across the atlantic and found homes on the saeterless prairies of our northwest. she would like to go herself, she said, but her mother was old and feeble and the work of the farm fell upon her little shoulders. yet she was brave and contented. her mind was clear, her imagination active, and among her homely surroundings she had found food for thought and an opportunity to give expression to the poetic sentiments that inspired her. each of her fifteen cows had a name. one she called moon lady, because she often wanders away at night; another the crown wearer, because of a peculiar tuft upon her head. she addressed them all in terms of affection and talked to them, seeking their sympathy, for, poor child, they and that stupid, tow-headed _broder_ were her only companions. in the little _saeterjenta_ we have a type of the laboring peasant women of norway and sweden; all willingly industrious and all philosophically extracting some sweets out of the burdensome life they must live, and that is why i say they deserve a tribute, whether in the field or factory, the _saeter_, the common home, or the palace.[s] authorship of chapters _a_ and _b_, sigvart sörensen's _norway_ (p.f. collier, new york). _c_, nillson's _sweden_ (p.f. collier, new york). _d_, sigvart sörensen's _norway_ (p.f. collier, new york). _e_, sigvart sörensen's _norway_ (p.f. collier, new york). _f_, o.g. von herdenstam's _swedish life in town and country_. _g, h_, and _i_, william e. curtis's _denmark, norway, _and sweden_ (saafield pub. co., akron, ohio). _j_, mary bronson hartt, in _outlook_. _k_, swedish american in _review of reviews_. _l_, wm. e. curtis' _denmark, norway, and sweden_, and w.s. monroe's _in viking land_ (l.c. page & co., boston). _m_, w.s. monroe's _in viking land_. _n_, monroe and curtis in above-mentioned books. _o_, o.g. van herdenstam in _swedish life in town and country_. _p_ and _q_, curtis's _denmark, norway, and sweden_. _r_, w.s. monroe's _in viking land_. _s_, wm. eleroy curtis's _denmark, norway, and sweden_. proofreading team hero tales of the far north by jacob a. riis author of "how the other half lives" "the making of an american" "the old town," etc. new york, [illustration: frederiksborg] this book of my dead heroes i dedicate to my living hero theodore roosevelt may it be many years before the last chapter of his splendid wholesome life is written in the pages of our country's history foreword when a man knocks at uncle sam's gate, craving admission to his house, we ask him how much money he brings, lest he become a hindrance instead of a help. if now we were to ask what he brings, not only in his pocket, but in his mind and in his heart, this stranger, what ideals he owns, what company he kept in the country he left that shaped his hopes and ambitions,--might it not, if the answer were right, be a help to a better mutual understanding between host and guest? for the _mayflower_ did not hold all who in this world have battled for freedom of home, of hope, and of conscience. the struggle is bigger than that. every land has its george washington, its kosciusko, its william tell, its garibaldi, its kossuth, if there is but one that has a joan d'arc. what we want to know of the man is: were its heroes his? this book is an attempt to ask and to answer that question for my own people, in a very small and simple way, it is true, but perhaps abler pens with more leisure than mine may follow the trail it has blazed. i should like to see some swede write of the heroes of his noble, chivalrous people, whom lack of space has made me slight here, though i count them with my own. i should like to hear the epic of united italy, of proud and freedom-loving hungary, the swan-song of unhappy poland, chanted to young america again and again, to help us all understand that we are kin in the things that really count, and help us pull together as we must if we are to make the most of our common country. these were my--our--heroes, then. every lad of northern blood, whose heart is in the right place, loves them. and he need make no excuses for any of them. nor has he need of bartering them for the great of his new home; they go very well together. it is partly for his sake i have set their stories down here. all too quickly he lets go his grip on them, on the new shore. let him keep them and cherish them with the memories of the motherland. the immigrant america wants and needs is he who brings the best of the old home to the new, not he who threw it overboard on the voyage. in the great melting-pot it will tell its story for the good of us all. to those who wonder that i have left the saga era of the north untouched, i would say that i have preferred to deal here only with downright historic figures. for valuable aid rendered in insuring accuracy i am indebted to the services of dr. p.a. rydberg, dr. j. emile blomén, gustaf v. lindner, and professor joakim reinhard. my thanks are due likewise to many friends, danes by birth like myself, who have helped me with the illustrations. j. a. r. richmond hill, june, . contents a knight errant of the sea hans egede, the apostle to greenland gustav vasa, the father of sweden absalon, warrior bishop of the north king valdemar, and the story of the dannebrog how the ghost of the heath was laid king christian iv gustav adolf, the snow-king king and sailor, heroes of copenhagen the trooper who won a war alone carl linnÉ, king of the flowers niels finsen, the wolf-slayer a knight errant of the sea the eighteenth century broke upon a noisy family quarrel in the north of europe. charles the twelfth of sweden, the royal hotspur of all history, and frederik of denmark had fallen out. like their people, they were first cousins, and therefore all the more bent on settling the old question which was the better man. after the fashion of the lion and the unicorn, they fought "all about the town," and, indeed, about every town that came in their way, now this and now that side having the best of it. on the sea, which was the more important because neither swedes nor danes could reach their fighting ground or keep up their armaments without command of the waterways, the victory rested finally with the danes. and this was due almost wholly to one extraordinary figure, the like of which is scarce to be found in the annals of warfare, peder tordenskjold. rising in ten brief years from the humblest place before the mast, a half-grown lad, to the rank of admiral, ennobled by his king and the idol of two nations, only to be assassinated on the "field of honor" at thirty, he seems the very incarnation of the stormy times of the eleven years' war, with which his sun rose and set; for the year in which peace was made also saw his death. peder jansen wessel was born on october , , in the city of trondhjem, norway, which country in those days was united with denmark under one king. his father was an alderman with eighteen children. peder was the tenth of twelve wild boys. it is related that the father in sheer desperation once let make for him a pair of leathern breeches which he would not be able to tear. but the lad, not to be beaten so easily, sat on a grind-stone and had one of his school-fellows turn it till the seat was worn thin, a piece of bravado that probably cost him dear, for doubtless the exasperated father's stick found the attenuated spot. since he would have none of the school, his father had him apprenticed out to a tailor with the injunction not to spare the rod. but sitting cross-legged on a tailor's stool did not suit the lad, and he took it out of his master by snowballing him thoroughly one winter's day. next a barber undertook to teach him his trade; but peder ran away and was drifting about the streets when the king came to norway. the boy saw the splendid uniforms and heard the story of the beautiful capital by the Öresund, with its palaces and great fighting ships. when the king departed, he was missing, and for a while there was peace in trondhjem. down in copenhagen the homeless lad was found wandering about by the king's chaplain, who, being himself a norwegian, took him home and made him a household page. but the boy's wanderings had led him to the navy-yard, where he saw mid-shipmen of his own size at drill, and he could think of nothing else. when he should have been waiting at table he was down among the ships. for him there was ever but one way to any goal, the straight cut, and at fifteen he wrote to the king asking to be appointed a midshipman. "i am wearing away my life as a servant," he wrote. "i want to give it, and my blood, to the service of your majesty, and i will serve you with all my might while i live!" the navy had need of that kind of recruits, and the king saw to it that he was apprenticed at once. and that was the beginning of his strangely romantic career. three years he sailed before the mast and learned seamanship, while charles was baiting the muscovite and the north was resting on its arms. then came pultava and the swedish king's crushing defeat. the storm-centre was transferred to the north again, and the war on the sea opened with a splendid deed, fit to appeal to any ardent young heart. at the battle in the bay of kjöge, the _dannebrog_, commanded by ivar hvitfeldt, caught fire, and by its position exposed the danish fleet to great danger. hvitfeldt could do one of two things: save his own life and his men's by letting his ship drift before the wind and by his escape risking the rest of the fleet and losing the battle, or stay where he was to meet certain death. he chose the latter, anchored his vessel securely, and fought on until the ship was burned down to the water's edge and blew up with him and his five hundred men. ivar hvitfeldt's name is forever immortal in the history of his country. a few years ago they raised the wreck of the _dannebrog_, fitly called after the danish flag, and made of its guns a monument that stands on langelinie, the beautiful shore road of copenhagen. fired by such deeds, young wessel implored the king, before he had yet worn out his first midshipman's jacket, to give him command of a frigate. he compromised on a small privateer, the _ormen_, but with it he did such execution in swedish waters and earned such renown as a dauntless sailor and a bold scout whose information about the enemy was always first and best, that before spring they gave him a frigate with eighteen guns and the emphatic warning "not to engage any enemy when he was not clearly the stronger." he immediately brought in a swedish cruiser, the _alabama_ of those days, that had been the terror of the sea. in a naval battle in the baltic soon after, he engaged with his little frigate two of the enemy's line-of-battle ships that were trying to get away, and only when a third came to help them did he retreat, so battered that he had to seek port to make repairs. accused of violating his orders, his answer was prompt: "i promised your majesty to do my best, and i did." king frederik iv, himself a young and spirited man, made him a captain, jumping him over fifty odd older lieutenants, and gave him leave to war on the enemy as he saw fit. the immediate result was that the governor of göteborg, the enemy's chief seaport in the north sea, put a price on his head. captain wessel heard of it and sent word into town that he was outside--to come and take him; but to hurry, for time was short. while waiting for a reply, he fell in with two swedish men-of-war having in tow a danish prize. that was not to be borne, and though they together mounted ninety-four guns to his eighteen, he fell upon them like a thunderbolt. they beat him off, but he returned for their prize. that time they nearly sank him with three broad-sides. however, he ran for the norwegian coast and saved his ship. in his report of this affair he excuses himself for running away with the reflection that allowing himself to be sunk "would not rightly have benefited his majesty's service." however, the opportunity came to him swiftly of "rightly benefiting" the king's service. after the battle of kolberger heide, that had gone against the swedes, he found them beaching their ships under cover of the night to prevent their falling into the hands of the victors. wessel halted them with the threat that every man jack in the fleet should be made to walk the plank, saved the ships, and took their admiral prisoner to his chief. when others slept, wessel was abroad with his swift sailer. if wind and sea went against him, he knew how to turn his mishap to account. driven in under the hostile shore once, he took the opportunity, as was his wont, to get the lay of the land and of the enemy. he learned quickly that in the harbor of wesensö, not far away, a swedish cutter was lying with a danish prize. she carried eight guns and had a crew of thirty-six men; but though he had at the moment only eighteen sailors in his boat, he crept up the coast at once, slipped quietly in after sundown, and took ship and prize with a rush, killing and throwing overboard such as resisted. in sweden mothers hushed their crying children with his dreaded name; on the sea they came near to thinking him a troll, so sudden and unexpected were his onsets. but there was no witchcraft about it. he sailed swiftly because he was a skilled sailor and because he missed no opportunity to have the bottom of his ship scraped and greased. and when on board, pistol and cutlass hung loose; for it was a time of war with a brave and relentless foe. his reconnoitring expeditions he always headed himself, and sometimes he went alone. thus, when getting ready to take marstrand, a fortified seaport of great importance to charles, he went ashore disguised as a fisherman and peddled fish through the town, even in the very castle itself, where he took notice, along with the position of the guns and the strength of the garrison, of the fact that the commandant had two pretty daughters. he was a sailor, sure enough. once when ashore on such an expedition, he was surprised by a company of dragoons. his men escaped, but the dragoons cut off his way to the shore. as they rode at him, reaching out for his sword, he suddenly dashed among them, cut one down, and, diving through the surf, swam out to the boat, his sword between his teeth. their bullets churned up the sea all about him, but he was not hit. he seemed to bear a charmed life; in all his fights he was wounded but once. that was in the attack on the strongly fortified port of strömstad, in which he was repulsed with a loss of killed and wounded, while the swedish loss footed up over , a fight which led straight to the most astonishing chapter in his whole career, of which more anon. all denmark and norway presently rang with the stories of his exploits. they were always of the kind to appeal to the imagination, for in truth he was a very knight errant of the sea who fought for the love of it as well as of the flag, ardent patriot that he was. a brave and chivalrous foe he loved next to a loyal friend. cowardice he loathed. once when ordered to follow a retreating enemy with his frigate _hvide Örnen_ (the white eagle) of thirty guns, he hugged him so close that in the darkness he ran his ship into the great swedish man-of-war _Ösel_ of sixty-four guns. the chance was too good to let pass. seeing that the _Ösel's_ lower gun-ports were closed, and reasoning from this that she had been struck in the water-line and badly damaged, he was for boarding her at once, but his men refused to follow him. in the delay the _Ösel_ backed away. captain wessel gave chase, pelted her with shot, and called to her captain, whose name was _söstjerna_ (sea-star), to stop. "running away from a frigate, are you? shame on you, coward and poltroon! stay and fight like a man for your king and your flag!" seeing him edge yet farther away, he shouted in utter exasperation, "your name shall be dog-star forever, not sea-star, if you don't stay." "but all this," he wrote sadly to the king, "with much more which was worse, had no effect." however, on his way back to join the fleet he ran across a convoy of ten merchant vessels, guarded by three of the enemy's line-of-battle ships. he made a feint at passing, but, suddenly turning, swooped down upon the biggest trader, ran out his boats, made fast, and towed it away from under the very noses of its protectors. it meant prize-money for his men, but their captain did not forget their craven conduct of the night, which had made him lose a bigger prize, and with the money they got a sound flogging. the account of the duel between his first frigate, _lövendahl's galley_, of eighteen guns, and a swede of twenty-eight guns reads like the doings of the old vikings, and indeed both commanders were likely descended straight from those arch fighters. wessel certainly was. the other captain was an english officer, bactman by name, who was on the way to deliver his ship, that had been bought in england, to the swedes. they met in the north sea and fell to fighting by noon of one day. the afternoon of the next saw them at it yet. twice the crew of the swedish frigate had thrown down their arms, refusing to fight any more. vainly the vessel had tried to get away; the dane hung to it like a leech. in the afternoon of the second day wessel was informed that his powder had given out. he had a boat sent out with a herald, who presented to captain bactman his regrets that he had to quit for lack of powder, but would he come aboard and shake hands? the briton declined. meanwhile the ships had drifted close enough to speak through the trumpet, and captain wessel shouted over from his quarter-deck that "if he could lend him a little powder, they might still go on." captain bactman smilingly shook his head, and then the two drank to one another's health, each on his own quarter-deck, and parted friends, while their crews manned what was left of the yards and cheered each other wildly. wessel's enemies, of whom he had many, especially among the nobility, who looked upon him as a vulgar upstart, used this incident to bring him before a court-martial. it was unpatriotic, they declared, and they demanded that he be degraded and fined. his defence, which with all the records of his career are in the navy department at copenhagen, was brief but to the point. it is summed up in the retort to his accusers that "they themselves should be rebuked, and severely, for failing to understand that an officer in the king's service should be promoted instead of censured for doing his plain duty," and that there was nothing in the articles of war commanding him to treat an honorable foe otherwise than with honor. it must be admitted that he gave his critics no lack of cause. his enterprises were often enough of a hair-raising kind, and he had scant patience with censure. thus once, when harassed by an admiralty order purposely issued to annoy him, he wrote back: "the biggest fool can see that to obey would defeat all my plans. i shall not do it. it may suit folk who love loafing about shore, but to an honest man such talk is disgusting, let alone that the thing can't be done." he was at that time twenty-six years old, and in charge of the whole north sea fleet. no wonder he had enemies. however, the king was his friend. he made him a nobleman, and gave him the name tordenskjold. it means "thunder shield." "then, by the powers," he swore when he was told, "i shall thunder in the ears of the swedes so that the king shall hear of it!" and he kept his word. charles had determined to take denmark with one fell blow. he had an army assembled in skaane to cross the sound, which was frozen over solid. all was ready for the invasion in january . the people throughout sweden had assembled in the churches to pray for the success of the king's arms, and he was there himself to lead; but in the early morning hours a strong east wind broke up the ice, and the campaign ended before it was begun. charles then turned on norway, and laid siege to the city of frederikshald, which, with its strong fort, frederiksteen, was the key to that country. a danish fleet lay in the skagerak, blocking his way of reënforcements by sea. tordenskjold, with his frigate, _hvide Örnen_, and six smaller ships (the frigate _vindhunden_ of sixteen guns, and five vessels of light draught, two of which were heavily armed), was doing scouting duty for the admiral when he learned that the entire swedish fleet of forty-four ships that was intended to aid in the operations against frederikshald lay in the harbor of dynekilen waiting its chance to slip out. it was so well shielded there that its commander sent word to the king to rest easy; nothing could happen to him. he would join him presently. tordenskjold saw that if he could capture or destroy this fleet norway was saved; the siege must perforce be abandoned. and norway was his native land, which he loved with his whole fervid soul. but no time was to be lost. he could not go back to ask for permission, and one may shrewdly guess that he did not want to, for it would certainly have been refused. he heard that the swedish officers, secure in their stronghold, were to attend a wedding on shore the next day. his instructions from the admiralty were: in an emergency always to hold a council of war, and to abide by its decision. at daybreak he ran his ship alongside _vindhunden_, her companion frigate, and called to the captain: "the swedish officers are bidden to a wedding, and they have forgotten us. what do you say--shall we go unasked?" captain grip was game. "good enough!" he shouted back. "the wind is fair, and we have all day. i am ready." that was the council of war and its decision. tordenskjold gave the signal to clear for action, and sailed in at the head of his handful of ships. the inlet to the harbor of dynekilen is narrow and crooked, winding between reefs and rocky steeps quite two miles, and only in spots more than four hundred feet wide. halfway in was a strong battery. tordenskjold's fleet was received with a tremendous fire from all the swedish ships, from the battery, and from an army of four thousand soldiers lying along shore. the danish ships made no reply. they sailed up grimly silent till they reached a place wide enough to let them wear round, broadside on. then their guns spoke. three hours the battle raged before the swedish fire began to slacken. as soon as he noticed it, tordenskjold slipped into the inner harbor under cover of the heavy pall of smoke, and before the swedes suspected their presence they found his ships alongside. broadside after broadside crashed into them, and in terror they fled, soldiers and sailors alike. while they ran tordenskjold swooped down upon the half-way battery, seized it, and spiked its guns. the fight was won. but the heaviest part was left--the towing out of the captured ships. all the afternoon tordenskjold led the work in person, pulling on ropes, cheering on his men. the swedes, returning gamely to the fight, showered them with bullets from shore. one of the abandoned vessels caught fire. lieutenant tönder, of tordenskjold's staff, a veteran with a wooden leg, boarded it just as the quartermaster ran up yelling that the ship was full of powder and was going to blow up. he tried to jump overboard, but the lieutenant seized him by the collar and, stumping along, made him lead the way to the magazine. a fuse had been laid to an open keg of powder, and the fire was sputtering within an inch of it when lieutenant tönder plucked it out, smothered it between thumb and forefinger, and threw it through the nearest port-hole. there were two hundred barrels of powder in the ship. tordenskjold had kept his word to the king. not as much as a yawl of the dynekilen fleet was left to the enemy. he had sunk or burned thirteen and captured thirty-one ships with his seven, and all the piled-up munitions of war were in his hands. king charles gave up the siege, marched his army out of norway, and the country was saved. the victory cost tordenskjold but nineteen killed and fifty-seven wounded. on his own ship six men were killed and twenty wounded. of infinite variety was this sea-fighter. after a victory like this, one hears of him in the next breath gratifying a passing whim of the king, who wanted to know what the swedish people thought of their government after charles's long wars that are said to have cost their country a million men. tordenskjold overheard it, had himself rowed across to sweden, picked up there a wedding party, bridegroom, minister, guests, and all, including the captain of the shore watch who was among them, and returned in time for the palace dinner with his catch. king frederik was entertaining czar peter the great, who had been boasting of the unhesitating loyalty of his men which his danish host could not match. he now had the tables turned upon him. it is recorded that the king sent the party back with royal gifts for the bride. one would be glad to add that tordenskjold sent back, too, the silver pitcher and the parlor clock his men took on their visit. but he didn't. they were still in copenhagen a hundred years later, and may be they are yet. it was not like his usual gallantry toward the fair sex. but perhaps he didn't know anything about it. then we find him, after an unsuccessful attack on göteborg that cost many lives, sending in his adjutant to congratulate the swedish commandant on their "gallant encounter" the day before, and exchanging presents with him in token of mutual regard. and before one can turn the page he is discovered swooping down upon marstrand, taking town and fleet anchored there, and the castle itself with its whole garrison, all with two hundred men, swelled by stratagem into an army of thousands. we are told that an officer sent out from the castle to parley, issuing forth from a generous dinner, beheld the besieging army drawn up in street after street, always two hundred men around every corner, as he made his way through the town, piloted by tordenskjold himself, who was careful to take him the longest way, while the men took the short cut to the next block. the man returned home with the message that the town was full of them and that resistance was useless. the ruse smacks of peder wessel's boyish fight with a much bigger fellow who had beaten him once by gripping his long hair, and so getting his head in chancery. but peder had taken notice. next time he came to the encounter with hair cut short and his whole head smeared with soft-soap, and that time he won. the most extraordinary of all his adventures befell when, after the attack on strömstad, he was hastening home to copenhagen. crossing the kattegat in a little smack that carried but two three-pound guns, he was chased and overtaken by a swedish frigate of sixteen guns and a crew of sixty men. tordenskjold had but twenty-one, and eight of them were servants and non-combatants. they were dreadfully frightened, and tradition has it that one of them wept when he saw the swede coming on. her captain called upon him to surrender, but the answer was flung back: "i am tordenskjold! come and take me, if you can." with that came a tiny broadside that did brisk execution on the frigate. tordenskjold had hauled both his guns over on the "fighting side" of his vessel. there ensued a battle such as homer would have loved to sing. both sides banged away for all they were worth. in the midst of the din and smoke tordenskjold used his musket with cool skill; his servants loaded while he fired. at every shot a man fell on the frigate. word was brought that there was no more round shot. he bade them twist up his pewter dinner service and fire that, which they did. the swede tried vainly to board. tordenskjold manoeuvred his smack with such skill that they could not hook on. seeing this, captain lind, commander of the frigate, called to him to desist from the useless struggle; he would be honored to carry such a prisoner into göteborg. back came the taunt: "neither you nor any other swede shall ever carry me there!" and with that he shot the captain down.[ ] [footnote : he was not mortally wounded, and tordenskjold took him prisoner later at the capture of marstrand.] when his men saw him fall, they were seized with panic and made off as quickly as they could, while tordenskjold's crew, of whom only fourteen were left, beat their drums and blew trumpets in frantic defiance. their captain was for following the swede and boarding her, but he couldn't. sails, rigging, and masts were shot to pieces. perhaps the terror of the swedes was increased by the sight of tordenskjold's tame bear making faces at them behind his master. it went with him everywhere till that day, and came out of the fight unscathed. but during the night the crew ran the vessel on the swedish shore, whence tordenskjold himself reached denmark in an open boat which he had to keep bailing all night, for the boat was shot full of holes, and though he and his companions stuffed their spare clothing into them it leaked badly. the enemy got the smack, after all, and the bear, which, being a norwegian, proved so untractable on swedish soil that, sad to relate, in the end they cut him up and ate him. king charles, himself a knightly soul and an admirer of a gallant enemy, gave orders to have all tordenskjold's belongings sent back to him, but he did not live to see the order carried out. he was found dead in the rifle-pits before frederiksteen on december , , shot through the head. it was tordenskjold himself who brought the all-important news to king frederik in the night of december ,--they were not the days of telegraphs and fast steamers,--and when the king, who had been roused out of bed to receive him, could not trust his ears, he said with characteristic audacity, "i wish it were as true that your majesty had made me a schoutbynacht,"--the rank next below admiral. and so he took the step next to the last on the ladder of his ambition. within seven months he took marstrand. it is part of the record of that astonishing performance that when the unhappy commandant hesitated as the hour of evacuation came, not sure that he had done right in capitulating, tordenskjold walked up to the fort with a hundred men, half his force, banged on the gate, went in alone and up to the commandant's window, thundering out: "what are you waiting for? don't you know time is up?" in terror and haste, colonel dankwardt moved his hessians out, and tordenskjold marched his handful of men in. when he brought the king the keys of marstrand, frederik made him an admiral. it was while blockading the port of göteborg in the last year of the war that he met and made a friend of lord carteret, the english ambassador to denmark, and fell in love with the picture of a young englishwoman, miss norris, a lady of great beauty and wealth, who, lord carteret told him, was an ardent admirer of his. it was this love which indirectly sent him to his death. lord carteret had given him a picture of her, and as soon as peace was made he started for england; but he never reached that country. the remnant of the swedish fleet lay in the roadstead at göteborg, under the guns of the two forts, new and old elfsborg. while tordenskjold was away at marstrand, the enemy sallied forth and snapped up seven of the smaller vessels of his blockading fleet. the news made him furious. he sent in, demanding them back at once, "or i will come after them." he had already made one ineffectual attempt to take new elfsborg that cost him dear. in göteborg they knew the strength of his fleet and laughed at his threat. but it was never safe to laugh at tordenskjold. the first dark night he stole in with ten armed boats, seized the shore batteries of the old fort, and spiked their guns before a shot was fired. the rising moon saw his men in possession of the ships lying at anchor. with their blue-lined coats turned inside out so that they might pass for swedish uniforms, they surprised the watch in the guard-house and made them all prisoners. now that there was no longer reason for caution, they raised a racket that woke the sleeping town up in a fright. the commander of the other fort sent out a boat to ascertain the cause. it met the admiral's and challenged it, "who goes there?" "tordenskjold," was the reply, "come to teach you to keep awake." it proved impossible to warp the ships out. only one of the seven lost ones was recovered; all the rest were set on fire. by the light of the mighty bonfire tordenskjold rowed out with his men, hauling the recovered ship right under the guns of the forts, the danish flag flying at the bow of his boat. he had not lost a single man. a cannon-ball swept away all the oars on one side of his boat, but no one was hurt. at marstrand they had been up all night listening to the cannonading and the crash upon crash as the big ships blew up. they knew that tordenskjold was abroad with his men. in the morning, when they were all in church, he walked in and sat down by his chief, the old admiral judicher, who was a slow-going, cautious man. he whispered anxiously, "what news?" but tordenskjold only shrugged his shoulders with unmoved face. it is not likely that either the old admiral or the congregation heard much of that sermon, if indeed they heard any of it. but when it was over, they saw from the walls of the town the danish ships at anchor and heard the story of the last of tordenskjold's exploits. it fitly capped the climax of his life. sweden's entire force on the north sea, with the exception of five small galleys, had either been captured, sunk, or burned by him. the king would not let tordenskjold go when peace was made, but he had his way in the end. to his undoing he consented to take with him abroad a young scalawag, the son of his landlord, who had more money than brains. in hamburg the young man fell in with a gambler, a swedish colonel by name of stahl, who fleeced him of all he had and much more besides. when tordenskjold heard of it and met the colonel in another man's house, he caned him soundly and threw him out in the street. for this he was challenged, but refused to fight a gambler. "friends," particularly one colonel münnichhausen, who volunteered to be his second, talked him over, and also persuaded him to give up the pistol, with which he was an expert. the duel was fought at the village of gledinge, over the line from hanover, on the morning of november , . tordenskjold was roused from sleep at five, and, after saying his prayers, a duty he never on any account omitted, he started for the place appointed. his old body-servant vainly pleaded with his master to take his stout blade instead of the flimsy parade sword the admiral carried. münnichhausen advised against it; it would be too heavy, he said. stahl's weapon was a long fighting rapier, and to this the treacherous second made no objection. almost at the first thrust he ran the admiral through. the seconds held his servant while stahl jumped on his horse and galloped away. tordenskjold breathed out his dauntless soul in the arms of his faithful servant and friend. his body lies in a black marble sarcophagus in the "navy church" at copenhagen. the danish and norwegian peoples have never ceased to mourn their idol. he was a sailor with a sailor's faults. but he loved truth, honor, and courage in foe and friend alike. like many seafaring men, he was deeply religious, with the unquestioning faith of a child. there is a letter in existence written by him to his father when the latter was on his death-bed that bears witness to this. he thanks him with filial affection for all his care, and says naïvely that he would rather have his prayers than fall heir to twenty thousand daler. his pictures show a stocky, broad-shouldered youth with frank blue eyes, full lips, and an eagle nose. his deep, sonorous voice used to be heard, in his midshipman days, above the whole congregation in the navy church. in after years it called louder still to denmark's foes. when things were at their worst in storm or battle, he was wont to shout to his men, "hi, _now_ we are having a fine time!" and his battle-cry has passed into the language. by it, in desperate straits demanding stout hearts, one may know the dane after his own heart, the real dane, the world over. among his own tordenskjold is still and always will be "the admiral of norway's fleet." hans egede, the apostle to greenland when in the fall of the statement was flashed around the world that the north pole had at last been reached, a name long unfamiliar ran from mouth to mouth with that of the man who claimed to be its discoverer. dr. cook was coming to copenhagen, the daily despatches read, on the danish government steamer _hans egede_. a shipload of reporters kept an anxious lookout from the skaw for the vessel so suddenly become famous, but few who through their telescopes made out the name at last upon the prow of the ship gave it another thought in the eager welcome to the man it brought back from the perils of the farthest north. yet the name of that vessel stood for something of more real account to humanity than the attainment of a goal that had been the mystery of the ages. no such welcome awaited the explorer hans egede, who a hundred and seventy-two years before sailed homeward over that very route, a broken, saddened man, and all he brought was the ashes of his best-beloved that they might rest in her native soil. no gold medal was struck for him; the people did not greet him with loud acclaim. the king and his court paid scant attention to him, and he was allowed to live his last days in poverty. yet a greater honor is his than ever fell to a discoverer: the simple natives of greenland long reckoned the time from his coming among them. to them he was in their ice-bound home what father damien was to the stricken lepers in the south seas, and dr. grenfell is to the fishermen of labrador. hans poulsen egede, the apostle of greenland, was a norwegian of danish descent. he was born in the northlands, in the parish of trondenäs, on january , . his grandfather and his father before him had been clergymen in denmark, the former in the town of west egede, whence the name. graduated in a single year from the university of copenhagen, "at which," his teachers bore witness, "no one need wonder who knows the man," he became at twenty-two pastor of a parish up in the lofoden islands, where the fabled maëlstrom churns. eleven years he preached to the poor fisherfolk on sunday, and on week-days helped his parishioners rebuild the old church. when it was finished and the bishop came to consecrate it, he chided egede because the altar was too fine; it must have cost more than they could afford. "it did not cost anything," was his reply. "i made it myself." no wonder his fame went far. when the church bell of vaagen called, boats carrying sunday-clad fishermen were seen making for the island from every point of the compass. great crowds flocked to his church; great enough to arouse the jealousy of neighboring preachers who were not so popular, and they made it so unpleasant that his wife at last tired of it. they little dreamed that they were industriously paving the way for his greater work and for his undying fame. the sea that surges against that rockbound coast ever called its people out in quest of adventure. some who went nine hundred years ago found a land in the far northwest barred by great icebergs; but once inside the barrier, they saw deep fjords like their own at home, to which the mountains sloped down, covered with a wealth of lovely flowers. on green meadows antlered deer were grazing, the salmon leaped in brawling brooks, and birds called for their mates in the barrens. above it all towered snow-covered peaks. they saw only the summer day; they did not know how brief it was, and how long the winter night, and they called the country greenland. they built their homes there, and other settlers came. they were hardy men, bred in a harsh climate, and they stayed. they built churches and had their priests and bishops, for norway was christian by that time. and they prospered after their fashion. they even paid peter's pence to rome. there is a record that their contribution, being in kind, namely, walrus teeth, was sold in by the pope's agent to a merchant in flanders for twelve livres, fourteen sous. they kept up communication with their kin across the seas until the black death swept through the old world in the fourteenth century; norway, when it was gone, was like a vast tomb. two-thirds of its people lay dead. those who were left had enough to do at home; and greenland was forgotten. the seasons passed, and the savages, with whom the colonists had carried on a running feud, came out of the frozen north and overwhelmed them. dim traditions that were whispered among the natives for centuries told of that last fight. it was the ragnarok of the northmen. not one was left to tell the tale. long years after, when fishing vessels landed on that desolate coast, they found a strange and hostile people in possession. no one had ever dared to settle there since. this last egede knew, but little more. he believed that there were still settlements on the inaccessible east coast of greenland where descendants of the old northmen lived, cut off from all the world, sunk into ignorance and godlessness,--men and women who had once known the true light,--and his heart yearned to go to their rescue. waking and dreaming, he thought of nothing else. the lamp in his quiet study shone out over the sea at night when his people were long asleep. their pastor was poring over old manuscripts and the logs of whalers that had touched upon greenland. from bergen he gathered the testimony of many sailors. none of them had ever seen traces of, or heard of, the old northmen. to his bishop went egede with his burden. ever it rang in his ears: "god has chosen you to bring them back to the light." the bishop listened and was interested. yes, that was the land from which seafarers in a former king's time had brought home golden sand. there might be more. it couldn't be far from cuba and hispaniola, those golden coasts. if one were to go equipped for trading, no doubt a fine stroke of business might be done. thus the right reverend bishop krog of trondhjem, and egede went home, disheartened. at home his friends scouted him, said he was going mad to think of giving up his living on such a fool's chase. his wife implored him to stay, and with a heavy heart egede was about to abandon his purpose when his jealous neighbor, whose parishioners had been going to hear egede preach, stirred up such trouble that his wife was glad to go. she even urged him to, and he took her at her word. they moved to bergen, and from that port they sailed on may , , on the ship _haabet_ (the hope), with another and smaller vessel as convoy, forty-six souls all told, bound for the unknown north. the danish king had made egede missionary to the greenlanders on a salary of three hundred daler a year, the same amount which egede himself contributed of his scant store toward the equipment. the bishop's plan had prevailed; the mission was to be carried by the expected commerce, and upon that was to be built a permanent colonization. early in june they sighted land, but the way to it was barred by impassable ice. a whole month they sailed to and fro, trying vainly for a passage. at last they found an opening and slipped through, only to find themselves shut in, with towering icebergs closing around them. as they looked fearfully out over the rail, their convoy signalled that she had struck, and the captain of _haabet_ cried out that all was lost. in the tumult of terror that succeeded, egede alone remained calm. praying for succor where there seemed to be none, he remembered the one hundred and seventh psalm: "he brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder." and the morning dawned clear, the ice was moving and their prison widening. on july , _haabet_ cleared the last ice-reef, and the shore lay open before them. the eskimos came out in their kayaks, and the boldest climbed aboard the ship. in one boat sat an old man who refused the invitation. he paddled about the vessel, mumbling darkly in a strange tongue. he was an angekok, one of the native medicine-men of whom presently egede was to know much more. as he stood upon the deck and looked at these strangers for whose salvation he had risked all, his heart fell. they were not the stalwart northmen he had looked for, and their jargon had no homelike sound. but a great wave of pity swept over him, and the prayer that rose to his lips was for strength to be their friend and their guide to the light. not at once did the way open for the coveted friendship with the eskimos. while they thought the strangers came only to trade they were hospitable enough, but when they saw them build, clearly intent on staying, they made signs that they had better go. they pointed to the sun that sank lower toward the horizon every day, and shivered as if from extreme cold, and they showed their visitors the icebergs and the snow, making them understand that it would cover the house by and by. when it all availed nothing and the winter came on, they retired into their huts and cut the acquaintance of the white men. they were afraid that they had come to take revenge for the harm done their people in the olden time. there was nothing for it, then, but that egede must go to them, and this he did. they seized their spears when they saw him coming, but he made signs that he was their friend. when he had nothing else to give them, he let them cut the buttons from his coat. throughout the fifteen years he spent in greenland egede never wore furs, as did the natives. the black robe he thought more seemly for a clergyman, to his great discomfort. he tells in his diary and in his letters that often when he returned from his winter travels it could stand alone when he took it off, being frozen stiff. after a while he got upon neighborly terms with the eskimos; but, if anything, the discomfort was greater. they housed him at night in their huts, where the filth and the stench were unendurable. they showed their special regard by first licking off the piece of seal they put before him, and if he rejected it they were hurt. their housekeeping, of which he got an inside view, was embarrassing in its simplicity. the dish-washing was done by the dogs licking the kettles clean. often, after a night or two in a hut that held half a dozen families, he was compelled to change his clothes to the skin in an open boat or out on the snow. but the alternative was to sleep out in a cold that sometimes froze his pillow to the bed and the tea-cup to the table even in his own home. above all, he must learn their language. it proved a difficult task, for the eskimo tongue was both very simple and very complex. in all the things pertaining to their daily life it was exceedingly complex. for instance, to catch one kind of fish was expressed by one word, to catch another kind in quite different terms. they had one word for catching a young seal, another for catching an old one. when it came to matters of moral and spiritual import, the language was poor to desperation. egede's instruction began when he caught the word "kine"--what is it? and from that time on he learned every day; but the pronunciation was as varied as the workaday vocabulary, and it was an unending task. it proceeded with many interruptions from the angekoks, who tried more than once to bewitch him, but finally gave it up, convinced that he was a great medicine-man himself, and therefore invulnerable. but before that they tried to foment a regular mutiny, the colony being by that time well under way, and egede had to arrest and punish the leaders. the natives naturally clung to them, and when egede had mastered their language and tried to make clear that the angekoks deceived them when they pretended to go to the other world for advice, they demurred. "did you ever see them go?" he asked. "well, have you seen this god of yours of whom you speak so much?" was their reply. when egede spoke of spiritual gifts, they asked for good health and blubber: "our angekoks give us that." hell-fire was much in theological evidence in those days, but among the eskimos it was a failure as a deterrent. they listened to the account of it eagerly and liked the prospect. when at length they became convinced that egede knew more than their angekoks, they came to him with the request that he would abolish winter. very likely they thought that one who had such knowledge of the hot place ought to have influence enough with the keeper of it to obtain this favor. it was not an easy task, from any point of view, to which he had put his hands. as that first winter wore away there were gloomy days and nights, and they were not brightened when, with the return of the sun, no ship arrived from denmark. the dutch traders came, and opened their eyes wide when they found egede and his household safe and even on friendly terms with the eskimos. pelesse--the natives called the missionary that, as the nearest they could come to the danish _präst_ (priest)--pelesse was not there after blubber, they told the dutchmen, but to teach them about heaven and of "him up there," who had made them and wanted them home with him again. so he had not worked altogether in vain. but the brief summer passed, and still no relief ship. the crew of _haabet_ clamored to go home, and egede had at last to give a reluctant promise that if no ship came in two weeks, he would break up. his wife alone refused to take a hand in packing. the ship was coming, she insisted, and at the last moment it did come. a boat arriving after dark brought the first word of it. the people ashore heard voices speaking in danish, and flew to egede, who had gone to bed, with the news. the ship brought good cheer. the government was well disposed. trading and preaching were to go on together, as planned. joyfully then they built a bigger and a better house, and called their colony godthaab (good hope). the work was now fairly under way. of the energy and the hardships it entailed, even we in our day that have heard so much of arctic exploration can have but a faint conception. shut in on the coast of eternal ice and silence,--silence, save when in summer the arctic rivers were alive, and crash after crash announced that the glaciers coming down from the inland mountains were "casting their calves," the great icebergs, upon the ocean,--the colonists counted the days from the one when that year's ship was lost to sight till the returning spring brought the next one, their only communication with their far-off home. in summer the days were sometimes burning hot, but the nights always bitterly cold. in winter, says egede, hot water spilled on the table froze as it ran, and the meat they cooked was often frozen at the bone when set on the table. summer and winter egede was on his travels between sundays, sometimes in the trader's boat, more often the only white man with one or two eskimo companions, seeking out the people. when night surprised him with no native hut in sight, he pulled the boat on some desert shore and, commending his soul to god, slept under it. once he and his son found an empty hut, and slept there in the darkness. not until day came again did they know that they had made their bed on the frozen bodies of dead men who had once been the occupants of the house, and had died they never knew how. peril was everywhere. again and again his little craft was wrecked. once the house blew down over their heads in one of the dreadful winter storms that ravage those high latitudes. often he had to sit on the rail of his boat, and let his numbed feet hang into the sea to restore feeling in them. on land he sometimes waded waist-deep in snow, climbed mountains and slid down into valleys, having but the haziest notion of where he would land. at home his brave wife sat alone, praying for his safety and listening to every sound that might herald his return. tremble and doubt they did, egede owns, but they never flinched. their work was before them, and neither thought of turning back. the eskimos soon came to know that egede was their friend. when his boat entered a fjord where they were fishing, and his rowers shouted out that the good priest had come who had news of god, they dropped their work and flocked out to meet him. then he spoke to a floating congregation, simply as if they were children, and, as with him whose message he bore, "the people heard him gladly." they took him to their sick, and asked him to breathe upon them, which he did to humor them, until he found out that it was an angekok practice, whereupon he refused. once, after he had spoken of the raising of lazarus from the dead, they took him to a new-made grave and asked him, too, to bring back their dead. they brought him a blind man to be healed. egede looked upon them in sorrowful pity. "i can do nothing," he said; "but if he believes in jesus, he has the power and can do it." "i do believe," shouted the blind man: "let him heal me." it occurred to egede, perhaps as a mere effort at cleanliness, to wash his eyes in cognac, and he sent him away with words of comfort. he did not see his patient again for thirteen years. then he was in a crowd of eskimos who came to godthaab. the man saw as well as egede. "do you remember?" he said, "you washed my eyes with sharp water, and the son of god in whom i believed, he made me to see." children the eskimos were in their idolatry, and children they remained as christians. by egede's prayers they set great store. "you ask for us," they told him. "god does not hear us; he does not understand eskimo." of god they spoke as "him up there." they believed that the souls of the dead went up on the rainbow, and, reaching the moon that night, rested there in the moon's house, on a bench covered with the white skins of young polar bears. there they danced and played games, and the northern lights were the young people playing ball. afterward they lived in houses on the shore of a big lake overshadowed by a snow mountain. when the waters ran over the edge of the lake, it rained on earth. when the "moon was dark," it was down on earth catching seal for a living. thunder was caused by two old women shaking a dried sealskin between them; the lightning came when they turned the white side out. the "big nail" we have heard of as the eskimos' pole, was a high-pointed mountain in the farthest north on which the sky rested and turned around with the sun, moon, and stars. up there the stars were much bigger. orion's belt was so near that you had to carry a whip to drive him away. the women were slaves. an eskimo might have as many wives as he saw fit; they were his, and it was nobody's business. but adultery was unknown. the seventh commandment in egede's translation came to read, "one wife alone you shall have and love." the birth of a girl was greeted with wailing. when grown, she was often wooed by violence. if she fled from her admirer, he cut her feet when he overtook her, so that she could run no more. the old women were denounced as witches who drove the seals away, and were murdered. an eskimo who was going on a reindeer hunt, and found his aged mother a burden, took her away and laid her in an open grave. returning on the third day, he heard her groaning yet, and smothered her with a big stone. he tried to justify himself to egede by saying that "she died hard, and it was a pity not to speed her." yet they buried a dog's head with a child, so that the dog, being clever, could run ahead and guide the little one's steps to heaven. they could count no further than five; at a stretch they might get to twenty, on their fingers and toes, but there they stopped. however, they were not without resources. it was the day of long sunday services, and the eskimos were a restless people. when the sermon dragged, they would go up to egede and make him measure on their arms how much longer the talk was going to be. then they tramped back to their seats and sat listening with great attention, all the time moving one hand down the arm, checking off the preacher's progress. if they got to the finger-tips before he stopped, they would shake their heads sourly and go back for a remeasurement. no wonder egede put his chief hope in the children, whom he gathered about him in flocks. for all that, the natives loved him. there came a day that brought this message from the north: "say to the speaker to come to us to live, for the other strangers who come here can only talk to us of blubber, blubber, blubber, and we also would hear of the great creator." egede went as far as he could, but was compelled by ice and storms to turn back after weeks of incredible hardships. the disappointment was the more severe to him because he had never quite given up his hope of finding remnants of the ancient norse settlements. the fact that the old records spoke of a west bygd (settlement) and an east bygd had misled many into believing that the desolate east coast had once been colonized. not until our own day was this shown to be an error, when danish explorers searched that coast for a hundred miles and found no other trace of civilization than a beer bottle left behind by the explorer nordenskjold. egede's hope had been that greenland might be once more colonized by christian people. when the danish government, after some years, sent up a handful of soldiers, with a major who took the title of governor, to give the settlement official character as a trading station, they sent with them twenty unofficial "christians," ten men out of the penitentiary and as many lewd and drunken women from the treadmill, who were married by lot before setting sail, to give the thing a halfway decent look. they were good enough for the eskimos, they seem to have thought at copenhagen. there followed a terrible winter, during which mutiny and murder were threatened. "it is a pity," writes the missionary, "that while we sleep secure among the heathen savages, with so-called christian people our lives are not safe." as a matter of fact they were not, for the soldiers joined in the mutiny against egede as the cause of their having to live in such a place, and had not sickness and death smitten the malcontents, neither he nor the governor would have come safe through the winter. on the eskimos this view of the supposed fruits of christian teaching made its own impression. after seeing a woman scourged on shipboard for misbehavior, they came innocently enough to egede and suggested that some of their best angekoks be sent down to denmark to teach the people to be sober and decent. there came a breathing spell after ten years of labor in what had often enough seemed to him the spiritual as well as physical ice-barrens of the north, when egede surveyed a prosperous mission, with trade established, a hundred and fifty children christened and schooled, and many of their elders asking to be baptized. in the midst of his rejoicing the summer's ship brought word from denmark that the king was dead, and orders from his successor to abandon the station. egede might stay with provisions for one year, if there was enough left over after fitting out the ship; but after that he would receive no further help. when the eskimos heard the news, they brought their little children to the mission. "these will not let you go," they said; and he stayed. his wife, whom hardship and privation and the lonely waiting for her husband in the long winter nights had at last broken down, refused to leave him, though she sadly needed the care of a physician. a few of the sailors were persuaded to stay another year. "so now," egede wrote in his diary when, on july , , he had seen the ship sail away with all his hopes, "i am left alone with my wife and three children, ten sailors and eight eskimos, girls and boys who have been with us from the start. god let me live to see the blessed day that brings good news once more from home." his prayer was heard. the next summer brought word that the mission was to be continued, partly because egede had strained every nerve to send home much blubber and many skins. but it was as a glimpse of the sun from behind dark clouds. his greatest trials trod hard upon the good news. to rouse interest in the mission egede had sent home young eskimos from time to time. three of these died of smallpox in denmark. the fourth came home and brought the contagion, all unknown, to his people. it was the summer fishing season, when the natives travel much and far, and wherever he went they flocked about him to hear of the "great lord's land," where the houses were so tall that one could not shoot an arrow over them, and to ask a multitude of questions: was the king very big? had he caught many whales? was he strong and a great angekok? and much more of the same kind. in a week the disease broke out among the children at the mission, and soon word came from islands and fjords where the eskimos were fishing, of death and misery unspeakable. it was virgin soil for the plague, and it was terribly virulent, striking down young and old in every tent and hut. more than two thousand natives, one-fourth of the whole population, died that summer. of two hundred families near the mission only thirty were left alive. a cry of terror and anguish rose throughout the settlements. no one knew what to do. in vain did egede implore them to keep their sick apart. in fever delirium they ran out in the ice-fields or threw themselves into the sea. a wild panic seized the survivors, and they fled to the farthest tribes, carrying the seeds of death with them wherever they went. whole villages perished, and their dead lay unburied. utter desolation settled like a pall over the unhappy land. through it all a single ray of hope shone. the faith that egede had preached all those years, and the life he had lived with them, bore their fruit. they had struck deeper than he thought. they crowded to him, all that could, as their one friend. dying mothers held their suckling babes up to him and died content. in a deserted island camp a half-grown girl was found alone with three little children. their father was dead. when he knew that for him and the baby there was no help, he went to a cave and, covering himself and the child with skins, lay down to die. his parting words to his daughter were, "before you have eaten the two seals and the fish i have laid away for you, pelesse will come, no doubt, and take you home. for he loves you and will take care of you." at the mission every nook and cranny was filled with the sick and the dying. egede and his wife nursed them day and night. childlike, when death approached, they tried to put on their best clothes, or even to have new ones made, that they might please god by coming into his presence looking fine. when egede had closed their eyes, he carried the dead in his arms to the vestibule, where in the morning the men who dug the graves found them. at the sight of his suffering the scoffers were dumb. what his preaching had not done to win them over, his sorrows did. they were at last one. that dreadful year left egede a broken man. in his dark moments he reproached himself with having brought only misery to those he had come to help and serve. one thorn which one would think he might have been spared rankled deep in it all. some missionaries of a dissenting sect--egede was lutheran--had come with the smallpox ship to set up an establishment of their own. at their head was a man full of misdirected zeal and quite devoid of common-sense, who engaged egede in a wordy dispute about justification by faith and condemned him and his work unsparingly. he had grave doubts whether he was in truth a "converted man." it came to an end when they themselves fell ill, and egede and his wife had the last word, after their own fashion. they nursed the warlike brethren through their illness with loving ministrations and gave them back to life, let us hope, wiser and better men. at christmas, , egede's faithful wife, gertrude, closed her eyes. she had gone out with him from home and kin to a hard and heathen land, and she had been his loyal helpmeet in all his trials. now it was all over. that winter scurvy laid him upon a bed of pain and, lying there, his heart turned to the old home. his son had come from copenhagen to help, happily yet while his mother lived. to him he would give over the work. in denmark he could do more for it than in greenland, now he was alone. on july , , he preached for the last time to his people and baptized a little eskimo to whom they gave his name, hans. the following week he sailed for home, carrying, as all his earthly wealth, his beloved dead and his motherless children. the eskimos gathered on the shore and wept as the ship bore their friend away. they never saw him again. he lived in denmark eighteen years, training young men to teach the eskimos. they gave him the title of bishop, but so little to live on that he was forced in his last days to move from copenhagen to a country town, to make both ends meet. his grave was forgotten by the generation that came after him. no one knows now where it is; but in ice-girt greenland, where the northern lights on wintry nights flash to the natives their message from the souls that have gone home, his memory will live when that of the north pole seeker whom the world applauds is long forgotten. hans egede was their great man, their hero. he was more,--he was their friend. gustav vasa, the father of sweden a great and wise woman had, after ages of war and bloodshed, united the crowns of the three scandinavian kingdoms upon one head. in the strong city of kalmar, around which the tide of battle had ever raged hottest, the union was declared in the closing days of the thirteenth century. norwegian, swede, and dane were thenceforth to stand together, to the end of time; so they resolved. it was all a vain dream. queen margaret was not cold in her grave before the kingdoms fell apart. norway clung to denmark, but sweden went her own way. in the wars of two generations the danish kings won back the swedish crown and lost it, again and again, until in king christian ii clutched it for the last time, at the head of a conquering army. he celebrated his victory with a general amnesty, and bade the swedish nobles to a great feast, held at the capital in november. christian is one of the unsolved riddles of history. ablest but unhappiest of all his house, he was an instinctive democrat, sincerely solicitous for the welfare of the plain people, but incredibly cruel and faithless when the dark mood seized him. the coronation feast ended with the wholesale butchery of the unsuspecting nobles. hundreds were beheaded in the public square; for days it was filled with the slain. it is small comfort that the wicked priest who egged the king on to the dreadful deed was himself burned at the stake by the master he had betrayed. the stockholm massacre drowned the kalmar union in its torrents of blood. retribution came swiftly. above the peal of the christmas bells rose the clash and clangor of armed hosts pouring forth from the mountain fastnesses to avenge the foul treachery. they were led by gustav[ ] eriksson vasa, a young noble upon whose head christian had set a price. [footnote : the older spelling of this name is followed here in preference to the more modern gustaf. gustav vasa himself wrote his name so.] the vasas were among the oldest and best of the great swedish families. it was said of them that they ever loved a friend, hated a foe, and never forgot. gustav was born in the castle of lindholmen, when the news that the world had grown suddenly big by the discovery of lands beyond the unknown seas was still ringing through europe, on may , . he was brought up in the home of his kinsman, the swedish patriot sten sture, and early showed the fruits of his training. "see what i will do," he boasted in school when he was thirteen, "i will go to dalecarlia, rouse the people, and give the jutes (danes) a black eye." master ivar, his danish teacher, gave him a whaling for that. white with anger, the boy drove his dirk through the book, nailing it to the desk, and stalked out of the room. master ivar's eyes followed the slim figure in the scarlet cloak, and he sighed wearily "_nobilium nati nolunt aliquid pati_,--the children of the great will put up with nothing." hardly yet of age, he served under the banner of sten sture against king christian, and was one of six hostages sent to the king when he asked an interview of the swedish leader. but christian stayed away from the meeting and carried the hostages off to denmark against his plighted faith. there gustav was held prisoner a year. all that winter rumors of great armaments against sweden filled the land. he heard the young bloods from the court prate about bending the stiff necks in the country across the sound, and watched them throw dice for swedish castles and swedish women,--part of the loot when his fatherland should be laid under the yoke. ready to burst with anger and grief, he sat silent at their boasts. in the spring he escaped, disguised as a cattle-herder, and made his way to lübeck, where he found refuge in the house of the wealthy merchant kort könig. they soon heard in denmark where he was, and the king sent letters demanding his surrender; but the burghers of the hanse town hated christian with cause, and would not give him up. then came gustav's warder who had gone bail for him in sixteen hundred gulden, and pleaded for his prisoner. "i am not a prisoner," was gustav's retort, "i am a hostage, for whom the danish king pledged his oath and faith. if any one can prove that i was taken captive in a fight or for just cause, let him stand forth. ambushed was i, and betrayed." the lübeck men thought of the plots king christian was forever hatching against them. now, if he succeeded in getting sweden under his heel, their turn would come next. better, they said, send this gustav home to his own country, perchance he might keep the king busy there; by which they showed their good sense. his ex-keeper was packed off back home, and gustav reached sweden, sole passenger on a little coast-trader, on may , . a stone marks the spot where he landed, near kalmar; for then struck the hour of sweden's freedom. but not yet for many weary months did the people hear its summons. swedish manhood was at its lowest ebb. stockholm was held by the widow of sten sture with a half-famished garrison. in kalmar another woman, anna bjelke, commanded, but her men murmured, and the fall of the fortress was imminent. when gustav vasa, who had slipped in unseen, exhorted them to stand fast, they would have mobbed him. he left as he had come, the day before the surrender. travelling by night, he made his way inland, finding everywhere fear and distrust. the king had promised that if they would obey him "they should never want for herring and salt," so they told gustav, and when he tried to put heart into them and rouse their patriotism, they took up bows and arrows and bade him be gone. indeed, there were not wanting those who shot at him. like a hunted deer he fled from hamlet to hamlet. such friends as he had left advised him to throw himself upon the king's mercy; told him of the amnesty proclaimed. but gustav's thoughts dwelt grimly among the northern mountaineers whom as a boy he had bragged he would set against the tyrant. insensibly he shaped his course toward their country. he was with his brother-in-law, joachim brahe, when the king's message bidding him to the coronation came. gustav begged him not to go, but brahe's wife and children were within christian's reach, and he did not dare stay away. when he left, the fugitive hid in his ancestral home at räfsnäs on lake mälar. there one of brahe's men brought him news of the massacre in which his master and gustav's father had perished. his mother, grandmother, and sisters were dragged away to perish in danish dungeons. on gustav's head the king had set a price, and spies were even then on his track. gustav's mind was made up. what was there now to wait for? clad as a peasant, he started for dalecarlia with a single servant to keep him company, but before he reached the mines the man stole all his money and ran away. he had to work now to live, and hired out to anders persson, the farmer of rankhyttan. he had not been there many days when one of the women saw an embroidered sleeve stick out under his coat and told her master that the new hand was not what he pretended to be. the farmer called him aside, and gustav told him frankly who he was. anders persson kept his secret, but advised him not to stay long in any one place lest his enemies get wind of him. he slipped away as soon as it was dark, nearly lost his life by breaking through the ice, but reached ornäs on the other side of lake runn, half dead with cold and exposure. he knew that another persson who had been with him in the war lived there, and found his house. arendt persson was a rascal. he received him kindly, but when he slept harnessed his horse and went to måns nilsson, a neighbor, with the news: the king's reward would make them both rich, if he would help him seize the outlawed man. måns nilsson held with the danes, but he was no traitor, and he showed the fellow the door. he went next to the king's sheriff; he would be bound to help. to be sure, he would claim the lion's share of the blood-money, but something was better than nothing. the sheriff came soon enough with a score of armed men. but arendt persson had not reckoned with his honest wife. she guessed his errand and let gustav down from the window to the rear gate, where she had a sleigh and team in waiting. when the sheriff's posse surrounded the house, gustav was well on his way to master jon, the parson of svärdsjö, who was his friend. tradition has it that while christian was king, the brave little woman never dared show her face in the house again. master jon was all right, but news of the man-hunt had run through the country, and when the parson's housekeeper one day saw him hold the wash-bowl for his guest she wanted to know why he was so polite to a common clod. master jon told her that it was none of her business, but that night he piloted his friend across the lake to isala, where sven elfsson lived, a gamekeeper who knew the country and could be trusted. the good parson was hardly out of sight on his way back when the sheriff's men came looking for gustav. it did not occur to them that the yokel who stood warming himself by the stove might be the man they were after. but the gamekeeper's wife was quick to see his peril. she was baking bread and had just put the loaves into the oven with a long-handled spade. "here, you lummox!" she cried, and whacked him soundly over the back with it, "what are ye standing there gaping at? did ye never see folks afore? get back to your work in the barn." and gustav, taking the hint, slunk out of the room. for three days after that he lay hidden under a fallen tree in the snow and bitter cold; but even there he was not safe, and the gamekeeper took him deeper into the forest, where a big spruce grew on a hill in the middle of a frozen swamp. there no one would seek him till he could make a shift to get him out of the country. the hill is still there; the people call it the king's hill, and not after king christian, either. but in those long nights when gustav vasa listened to the hungry wolves howling in the woods and nosing about his retreat, it was hardly kingly conceits his mind brooded over. his father and kinsmen were murdered; his mother and sister in the pitiless grasp of the tyrant who was hunting him to his death; he, the last of his race, alone and forsaken by his own. bitter sorrow filled his soul at the plight of his country that had fallen so low. but the hope of the young years came to the rescue: all was not lost yet. and in the morning came sven, the gamekeeper, with a load of straw, at the bottom of which he hid him. so no one would be the wiser. it was well he did it, for half-way to the next town some prowling soldiers overtook them, and just to make sure that there was nothing in the straw, prodded the load with their spears. nothing stirred, and they went on their way. but a spear had gashed gustav's leg, and presently blood began to drip in the snow. sven had his wits about him. he got down, and cut the fetlock of one of the beasts with his jack-knife so that it bled and no one need ask questions. when they got to marnäs, gustav was weak from the loss of blood, but a friendly surgeon was found to bind up his wounds. farther and farther north he fled, keeping to the deep woods in the day, until he reached rättwik. feeling safer there, he spoke to the people coming from church one sunday and implored them to shake off the danish yoke. but they only shook their heads. he was a stranger among them, and they would talk it over with their neighbors. not yet were his wanderings over. to mora he went next, where parson jakob hid him in a lonely farm-house. evil chance led the spies direct to his hiding-place, and once more it was the housewife whose quick wit saved him. dame margit was brewing the yule beer when she saw them coming. in a trice she had gustav in the cellar and rolled the brewing vat over the trap-door. then they might search as they saw fit; there was nothing there. the first blood was spilled for gustav vasa while he was at mora, and it was a dane who did it. he was the kind that liked to see fair play; when an under-sheriff came looking for the hunted man there, the dane waylaid and killed him. christmas morning, when master jakob had preached his sermon in the church, gustav spoke to the congregation out in the snow-covered churchyard. a gravestone was his pulpit. eloquent always, his sorrows and wrongs and the memory of the hard months lent wings to his words. his speech lives yet in dalecarlia, for now he was among its mountains. "it is good to see this great meeting," he said, "but when i think of our fatherland i am filled with grief. at what peril i am here with you, you know who see me hounded as a wild beast day by day, hour by hour. but our beloved country is more to me than life. how long must we be thralls, we who were born to freedom? those of you who are old remember what persecution swedish men and women have suffered from the danish kings. the young have heard the story of it and have learned from they were little children to hate and resist such rule. these tyrants have laid waste our land and sucked its marrow, until nothing remains for us but empty houses and lean fields. our very lives are not safe." he called upon them to rise and drive the invaders out. if they wanted a leader, he was ready. his words stirred the mountaineers deeply. cries of anger were heard in the crowd; it was not the first time they had taken up arms in the cause of freedom. but when they talked it over, the older heads prevailed; there had not been time enough to hear both sides. they told him that they would not desert the king; he must expect nothing of them. broken-hearted and desperate, gustav vasa turned toward the norwegian frontier. he would leave the country for which there was no hope. while the table in the poorest home groaned with yuletide cheer, sweden's coming king hid under an old bridge, outcast and starving, till it was safe to leave. then he took up his weary journey alone. the winter cold had grown harder as the days grew shorter. famished wolves dogged his steps, but he outran them on his snow-shoes. by night he slept in some wayside shelter, such as they build for travellers in that desolate country, or in the brush. the snow grew deeper, and the landscape wilder, as he went. for days he had gone without food, when he saw the sun set behind the lofty range that was to bar him out of home and hope forever. even there was no abiding place for him. what thoughts of his vanished dream, perchance of the distant lands across the seas where the tyrant's hand could not reach him, were in his mind, who knows, as he bent his strength to the last and hardest stage of his journey? he was almost there, when he heard shouts behind him and turned to sell his life dear. two men on skis were calling to him. they were unarmed, and he waited to let them come up. their story was soon told. they had come to call him back. after he left, an old soldier whom they knew in mora had come from the south and told them worse things than even gustav knew. it was all true about the stockholm murder; worse, the king was having gallows set up in every county to hang all those on who said him nay; a heavy tax was laid upon the peasants, and whoever did not pay was to have a hand or foot cut off; they could still follow the plow. and now they had sent away the one man who could lead against the danes, with the forests full of outlawed men who would have enlisted under him as soon as ever the cry was raised! while the men of dalecarlia were debating the news among themselves orders came from the bailiff at westerås that the tax was to be paid forthwith. that night runners were sent on the trail of gustav to tell him to come back; they were ready. when he came, it was as if a mighty storm swept through the mountains. the people rose in a body. every day whole parishes threw off their allegiance to king christian. sunday after sunday gustav spoke to the people at their meeting-houses, and they raised their spears and swore to follow him to death. two months after the murder in stockholm an army of thousands that swelled like an avalanche was marching south, and province after province joined in the rebellion. king christian's host met them at brunbäck in april. one of its leaders asked the country folk what kind of men the dalecarlians were, and when he was told that they drank water and ate bread made of bark, he cried out, "such a people the devil himself couldn't whip; let us get out." but his advice was not taken and the danish army was wiped out. gustav halted long enough to drill his men and give them time to temper their arrows and spears, then he fell upon westerås and beat the danes there. the peasant mob scattered too soon to loot the town, and the king's men came back with a sudden rush. only gustav's valor and presence of mind saved the day that had been won once from being lost again. when it was seen that the danes were not invincible, the whole country rose, took the scattered castles, and put their defenders to the sword. gustav bore the rising on his shoulders from first to last. he was everywhere, ordering and leading. his fiery eloquence won over the timorous; his irresistible advance swept every obstacle aside. in may he took upsala; by midsummer he was besieging stockholm itself. most of the other cities were in his hands. the hanse towns had found out what this gustav could do at home. they sang his praise, but as for backing him with their purse, that was another matter. they refused to lend gustav two siege-guns when he lay before stockholm, though he offered to pledge a castle for each. he had no money. happily his enemy, christian, was even worse off. neither pledges nor promises could get him the money he needed. his chief men were fighting among themselves and made peace only to turn upon him. within a year after the swedish people had chosen gustav vasa to be regent at the diet of vadstena, christian went into exile and, when he tried to get his kingdom back, into prison, where he languished the rest of his life. he fully deserved his fate. yet he meant well and had done some good things in his day. had he been able to rule himself, he might have ruled others with better success. schoolboys remember with gratitude that he forbade teachers to "spank their pupils overmuch and without judgment, as was their wont." at the diet of vadstena the people had offered gustav the crown, but he put it from him. scarce eight months had passed since he hid under the bridge, hunted and starving. when stockholm had fallen after a siege of two years and all sweden was free, the people met ( ) and made him king, whether or no. he still objected, but gave in at last and was crowned. popular favor is fickle. hard times came that were not made easier by gustav's determination to fill the royal coffers, and the very dalecarlians who had put him in the high seat rose against him and served notice that if things did not mend they would have none of him. gustav made sure that they had no backing elsewhere, then went up and persuaded them to be good by cutting off the heads of their leaders, who both happened to be priests: one was even a bishop. he had been taught in a school that always found an axe ready to hand. let those who lament the savagery of modern warfare consider what happened then to a danish fleet that tried to bring relief to hard-pressed stockholm. it was beaten in a fight in which six hundred men were taken prisoners. they were all, say the accounts, "tied hand and foot and flung overboard amid the beating of drums and blowing of trumpets to drown their cries." the clergy fared little better than the laymen in that age, but then it was their own fault. in plotting and scrapping they were abreast of the worst and took the consequences. they were the days of the reformation, and gustav would not have been human had he failed to see a way out of his money troubles by confiscating church property. he had pawned the country's trade to the merchants of lübeck and there was nothing else left. naturally the church opposed him. the king took the bull by the horns. he called a meeting and told the people that he was sick of it all. he had encouraged the reformation for their good; now, if they did not stand by him, they might choose between him and his enemies. the oldest priest arose at that and said that the church's property was sacred. the king asked if the rest of them thought the same way. only one voice was raised, and to say yes. "then," said gustav, "i don't want to be your king any more. if it does not rain, you blame me; if the sun does not shine, you do the same. it is always so. all of you want to be masters. after all my trouble and labor for you, you would as lief see my head split with an axe, though none of you dare lay hold of the handle. give me back what i have spent in your service and i will go away and never come back." and go he did, to his castle, with half a dozen of his nearest friends. they sat and looked at one another when he was gone, and then priests and nobles fell to arguing among themselves, all talking at once. the plain people, the burghers and the peasants, listened awhile, but when they got no farther, let them know that if they couldn't settle it, they, the people, would, and in a way that would give them little joy. the upshot of it all was that messengers were sent to bring the king back. he made them go three times, and when he came at last, it was as absolute master. in the ordering of the kingdom that was made there, he became the head of the church as well as of the state. gustav's pen was as sharp as his tongue. when hans brask, the oldest prelate in the land, who had stood stoutly by the old régime, left the country and refused to come back, he wrote to him: "as long as you might milk and shear your sheep, you staid by them. when god spake and said you were to feed them, not to shear and slaughter them, you ran away. every honest man can judge if you have done well." hard words to a good old man; but there were plenty of others who deserved them. that was the end of the hierarchy in sweden. but not of the unruly peasants who had tasted the joys of king-making. how kindly they took to the reformation at the outset one can judge from the demand of some of them that the king should "burn or otherwise kill such as ate meat on friday." they rose again and again, and would listen only to the argument of force. when the lübeckers pressed hard for the payment of old debts, and the treasury was empty as usual, king gustav hit upon a new kind of revenue. he demanded of every church in the land that it give up its biggest bell to the funds. it was the last straw. the dalecarlians rose against what they deemed sacrilege, under the leadership of måns nilsson and anders persson of rankhyttan, the very men who had befriended gustav in his need, and the insurrection spread. the "war of the bells" was settled with the sword, and the peasants gave in. but gustav came of a stock that "never forgot." two years later, when his hands were free at home, he suddenly invaded dalecarlia with a powerful army, determined to "pull those weeds up by the roots." he summoned the peasants to thing, made a ring around them of armed men, and gave them their choice: "submit now for good and all," he said, "or i will spoil the land so that cock shall not crow nor hound bark in it again forever!" the frightened peasants fell on their knees and begged for mercy. he made them give up their leaders, including his former friends, and they were all put to the sword. after that there was peace in dalecarlia. gustav vasa's long reign ended in . like his enemy, christian ii, he was a strange mixture of contradictions. he was brave in battle, wise in council, pious, if not a saint, clean, and merciful when mercy fitted into his plans. his enemies called him a greedy, suspicious despot. greedy he was. more than eleven thousand farms were confiscated by the crown during his reign, and he left four thousand farms and a great fortune to his children as his personal share. but historians have called him "the great housekeeper" who found waste and loss and left an ordered household. he gave all for sweden, and all he had was at her call. it was share and share alike, in his view. despotic he could be, too. _l'état c'est moi_ might have been said by him. but he did not exploit the state; he built it. he fashioned sweden out of a bunch of quarrelsome provincial governments into a hereditary monarchy, as the best way--indeed, the only way then--of giving it strength and stability. he was suspicious because everybody had betrayed him, or had tried to. with all that, his steady purpose was to raise and enlighten his people and make them keep the peace, if he had to adopt the irishman's plan of keeping it himself with an axe. he was the father of a line of great warriors. gustav adolf was his grandson. bent under the burden of years, he bade his people good-by at the diet of stockholm, a few weeks before his death. his old eloquence rings unimpaired in the farewell. he thanked god, who had chosen him as his tool to set sweden free from thralldom. almost might he liken himself to king david, whom god from a shepherd had made the leader of his people. no such hope was in his heart when, forty years before, he hid in the woods from a bloodthirsty enemy. for what he had done wrong as king, he asked the people's pardon; it was not done on purpose. he knew well that many thought him a hard ruler, but the time would come when they would gladly dig him up from his grave if they only could. and with that he went out, bowing deeply to the diet, the tears streaming down his face. they saw him no more; but on his tomb the swedish people, forgetting all else, have written that he was the "father of his country." absalon, warrior bishop of the north a welcome change awaits the traveller who, having shaken off the chill of the german dreadnaughts at kiel, crosses the baltic to the danish islands--a change from the dread portents of war to smiling peace. there can be nothing more pastoral and restful than the seeland landscape as framed in a car window; yet he misses its chief charm whom its folk-lore escapes--the countless legends that cling to field and forest from days long gone. the guide-book gives scarce a hint of them; but turn from its page and they meet you at every step, hail you from every homestead, every copse. nor is their story always of peace. here was knud lavard slain by his envious kinsman for the crown, and a miraculous spring gushed forth where he fell. of the church they built for the pilgrims who sought it from afar they will show you the site, but the spring dried up with the simple old faith. yonder, under the roof of ringsted church, lie denmark's greatest dead. not half an hour from the ferry landing at korsör, your train labors past a hill crowned by a venerable cross, holy anders' hill. so saintly was that masterful priest that he was wont, when he prayed, to hang his hat and gloves on a sunbeam as on a hook. and woe to the land if his cross be disturbed, for then, the peasant will tell you, the cattle die of plague and the crops fail. a little further on, just beyond sorö, a village church rears twin towers above the wheat-field where the skylark soars and sings to its nesting mate. for seven hundred years the story of that church and its builder has been told at danish firesides, and the time will never come when it is forgotten. fjenneslev is the name of the village, and asker ryg[ ] ruled there in the twelfth century, when the king summoned his men to the war. bidding good-by to his wife, sir asker tells her to build a new church while he is away, for the old, "with wall of clay, straw-thatched and grim," is in ruins. and let it be worthy of the master: "the roof let make of tiling red; of stone thou build the wall;" and then he whispers in her ear: "hear thou, my lady inge, of women thou art the flower; an' thou bearest to me a son so bold, set on the church a tower." [footnote : pronounce reeg.] should the child be a girl, he tells her to build only a spire, for "modesty beseemeth a woman." well for sir asker that he did not live in our day of clamoring suffragists. he would have "views" without doubt. but no such things troubled him while he battled in foreign lands all summer. it was autumn when he returned and saw from afar the swell behind which lay fjenneslev and home. impatiently he spurred his horse to the brow of the hill, for no news had come of lady inge those many months. the bard tells us what he saw there: "it was the good sir asker ryg; right merrily laughed he, when from that green and swelling hill two towers did he see." two sons lay at the lady inge's breast, and all was well. "the first one of the brothers two they called him esbern snare.[ ] he grew as strong as a savage bear and fleeter than any hare. "the second him called they absalon, a bishop he at home. he used his trusty danish sword as the pope his staff at rome." [footnote : pronounce snaré, with a as in are. in the danish hare rhymes with snare, so pronounced.] absalon and esbern were not twins, as tradition has it. they were better than that. they became the great heroes of their day, and the years have not dimmed their renown. and absalon reached far beyond the boundaries of little denmark to every people that speaks the english tongue. for it was he who, as archbishop of the north, "strictly and earnestly" charged his friend and clerk saxo to gather the danish chronicles while yet it was time, because, says saxo, in the preface of his monumental work, "he could no longer abide that his fatherland, which he always honored and magnified with especial zeal, should be without a record of the great deeds of the fathers." and from the record saxo wrote we have our hamlet. it was when they had grown great and famous that sir asker and his wife built the church in thanksgiving for their boys, not when they were born, and the way that came to light was good and wholesome. they were about to rebuild the church, on which there had been no towers at all since they crumbled in the middle ages, and had decided to put on only one; for the sour critics, who are never content in writing a people's history unless they can divest it of all its flesh and make it sit in its bones, as it were, sneered at the tradition and called it an old woman's tale. but they did not shout quite so loud when, in peeling off the whitewash of the reformation, the mason's hammer brought forth mural paintings that grew and grew until there stood the whole story to read on the wall, with sir asker himself and the lady inge, clad in garments of the twelfth century, bringing to the virgin the church with the twin towers. so the folk-lore was not so far out after all, and the church was rebuilt with two towers, as it should be. under its eaves, whether of straw or tile, the two boys played their childish games, and before long there came to join in them another of their own age, young valdemar, whose father, the very knud lavard mentioned above, had been foully murdered a while before. it was a time, says saxo, in which "he must be of stout heart and strong head who dared aspire to denmark's crown. for in less than a hundred years more than sixteen of her kings and their kin were either slain without cause by their own subjects, or otherwise met a sudden death." sir asker and the murdered knud had been foster brothers, and throughout the bloody years that followed, he and his brothers, sons of the powerful skjalm hvide,[ ] espoused his cause in good and evil days, while they saw to it that no harm came to the young prince under their roof. [footnote : pronounced veethé.] the three boys, as they grew up, were bred to the stern duties of fighting men, as was the custom of their class. absalon, indeed, was destined for the church; but in a country so recently won from the old war gods, it was the church militant yet, and he wielded spear and sword with the best of them. when, at eighteen, they sent him to france to be taught, he did not for his theological studies neglect the instruction of his boyhood. there he became the disciple and friend of the abbot bernard of clairvaux, more powerful then than prince or pope, and when the abbot preached the second great crusade, promising eternal salvation to those who took up arms against the unbelievers, whether to wrest from them the holy sepulchre or to plant the cross among the wild heathen on the baltic, his heart burned hot within him. it was a long way to the holy land, but with the baltic robbers his people had a grievous score to settle. their yells had sounded in his boyish ears as they ravished the shores of his fatherland, penetrating with murder and pillage almost to his peaceful home. and so, while he lent a diligent ear to the teachings of the church, earning the name of the "most learned clerk" in the cloister of ste. geneviève in paris, daily he laid the breviary aside and took up sword and lance, learning the arts of modern warfare with the graces of chivalry. in the old way of fighting, man to man, the men of the north had been the equals of any, if not their betters; but against the new methods of warfare their prowess availed little. absalon, the monk, kept his body strong while soul and mind matured. when nothing more adventurous befell, he chopped down trees for the cloister hearths. but oftener the clash of arms echoed in the quiet halls, or the peaceful brethren crossed themselves as they watched him break an unruly horse in the cloister fen. saxo tells us that he swam easily in full armor, and in more than one campaign in later years saved drowning comrades who were not so well taught. the while he watched rising all about some of the finest churches in christendom. it was the era of cathedral building in europe. the romanesque style of architecture had reached its highest development in the very france where he spent his young manhood's years, and the gothic, with its stamp of massive strength, was beginning to displace its gentler curve. ten years of such an environment, in a land teeming with historic traditions, rounded out the man who set his face toward home, bent on redeeming his people from the unjust reproach of being mere "barbarians of the north." it was a stricken denmark to which he came back. three claimants were fighting for the crown. the land was laid waste by sea-rovers, who saw their chance to raid defenceless homes while the men able to bear arms were following the rival kings. the people had lost hope. just when absalon returned, peace was made between the claimants. knud, svend, and valdemar, his foster brother of old, divided up the country between them. they swore a dear oath to keep the pact, but for all that "the three kingdoms did not last three days." the treacherous svend waited only for a chance to murder both his rivals, and it came quickly, when he and valdemar were the guests of knud at roskilde. they had eaten and drunk together and were gathered in the "storstue," the big room of the house, when knud saw svend whispering aside with his men. with a sudden foreboding of evil, he threw his arms about valdemar's shoulders and kissed him. the young king, who was playing chess with one of his men, looked up in surprise and asked what it meant. just then svend left the hall, and his henchmen fell upon the two with drawn swords. knud was cut down at once, his head cleft in twain. valdemar upset the table with the candles and, wrapping his cloak about his arm to ward off the blows that showered upon him, knocked his assailants right and left and escaped, badly wounded. absalon came into the room as knud fell and, thinking it was valdemar, caught him in his arms and took his wounded head in his lap. sitting there in utter sorrow and despair, heedless of the tumult that raged in the darkness around him, he felt the king's garment and knew that the man who was breathing his last in his arms was not his friend. he laid the lifeless body down gently and left the hall. the murderers barred his way, but he brushed their swords and spears aside and strode forth unharmed. valdemar had found a horse and made for fjenneslev, twenty miles away, with all speed, and there absalon met him and his brother esbern in the morning. king svend sought him high and low to finish his dastardly work, while on thing he wailed loudly before the people that valdemar and knud had tried to kill him, showing in proof of it his cloak, which he had rent with his own sword. but valdemar's friends were wide awake. esbern flew through the island on his fleet horse in valdemar's clothes, leading his pursuers a merry dance, and when the young king's wound was healed, he found him a boat and ferried him across to the mainland, where the people flocked to his standard. when svend would have followed, it was the lady inge who scuttled his ship by night and gave her foster son the start he needed. there followed a short and sharp struggle that ended on grathe heath with the utter rout of svend's forces. he himself was killed, and valdemar at last was king of all denmark. from that time the three friends were inseparable as in the old days when they played about the fields of fjenneslev. absalon was the keeper of the king's conscience who was not afraid to tell him the truth when he needed to hear it. and where they were esbern was found, never wavering in his loyalty to either. within a year absalon was made bishop of roskilde, the chief see of denmark. saxo innocently discovers to us king valdemar's little ruse to have his friend chosen. he was yet a very young man, scarce turned thirty, and had not been considered at all for the vacancy. there were three candidates, all of powerful families, and, according to ecclesiastical law, the brethren of the chapter were the electors. the king went to their meeting and addressed them in person. nothing was farther from him, he said, than to wish to interfere with their proper rights. each must do as his conscience dictated, unhindered. and with that he laid on the table _four_ books with blank leaves and bade them write down their names in them, each for his own choice, to get the matter right on the record. the brethren thanked him kindly and all voted "nicely together" for absalon. so three of the books were wasted. but presently saxo found good use for them. for now had come the bishop's chance of putting in practice the great abbot's precepts. "pray and fight" was the motto he had written into the knights templars' rule, and absalon had made it his own. of what use was it to build up the church at home, when any day might see it raided by its enemies who were always watching their chance outside? the danish waters swarmed with pirates, the very pagans against whom abbot bernard had preached his crusade. of them all the wends were the worst, as they were the most powerful of the slav tribes that still resisted the efforts of their neighbors, the christian germans, to dislodge them from their old home on the baltic. they lived in the island of rügen, fairly in sight of the danish shores. every favoring wind blew them across the sea in shoals to burn and ravage. the danes, once the terror of the seas, had given over roving when they accepted the white christ in exchange for thor and his hammer, and now, when they would be at peace, they were in turn beset by this relentless enemy, who burned their homes and their crops and dragged the peaceful husbandman away to make him a thrall or offer him up as a sacrifice to heathen idols. more than a third of all denmark lay waste under their ferocious assault. here was the blow to be struck if the country was to have peace and the church prosperity. the chance to strike came speedily. absalon had been bishop only a few months when, on the evening before palm sunday, word was brought that the enemy had landed, twenty-four ship-crews strong, and were burning and murdering as usual. absalon marshalled his eighteen house-carles and such of the country-folk as he could, and fell upon the wends, routing them utterly. a bare handful escaped, the rest were killed, while the bishop lost but a single man. he said mass next morning, red-handed it is true, but one may well believe that for all that his easter message reached hearts filled with a new, glad hope for their homes and for the country. that was a bishop they could understand. so the first blow absalon struck for his people was at home. but he did not long wait for the enemy to come to him. half his long and stirring life he lived on the seas, seeking them there. saxo mentions, in speaking of his return from one of his cruises, that he had then been nine months on shipboard. and in a way he was shepherding his flock there, if it was with a scourge; for, many years before, a danish king had punished the wends in their own home and laid their lands under the see of roskilde, though little good it did them or any one else then. but when absalon had got his grip, there were days when he baptized as many as a thousand of them into the true faith. he was not altogether alone in the stand he took. here and there, from very necessity, the people had organized to resist the invaders, but as no one could tell where they would strike next, they were not often successful, and fear and discouragement sat heavy on the land. from his own city of roskilde a little fleet of swift sailers under the bold wedeman had for years waged relentless war upon the freebooters and had taken four times the number of their own ships. their crews were organized into a brotherhood with vows like an order of fighting monks. before setting out on a cruise they were shriven and absolved. their vows bound them to unceasing vigilance, to live on the plainest of fare, to sleep on their arms, ready for instant attack, and to the rescue of christians, wherever they were found in captivity. the roskilde guild became the strong core of the king's armaments in his score of campaigns against the wends. perhaps it was not strange that valdemar should be of two minds about venturing to attack so formidable an enemy in his own house. the nation was cowed and slow to move. in fact, from the first expedition, that started with vessels, only seven returned with the standard, keeping up a running fight all the way across the baltic with pursuing wends. the rest had basely deserted. on the way over, the king, listening to their doubts and fears, turned back himself once, but absalon, who always led in the attack and was the last on the homeward run, overtook him and gave him the talking to be deserved. saxo, who was very likely there and heard, for there is little doubt that he accompanied his master on many of the campaigns he so vividly describes, gives us a verbatim report of the lecture: "what wonder," said the bishop, "if the words stick in our throats and are nigh to stifling us, when such grievous dole is ours! grieve we must, indeed, to find in you such a turncoat that naught but dishonor can come of it. you follow where you should lead, and those you should rule over, you make your peers. there is nothing to stop us but our own craven souls, hunt as we may for excuses. is it with such laurel you would bind your crown? with such high deed you would consecrate your reign?" the king was hard hit, and showed it, but he walked away without a word. in the night a furious storm swept the sea and kept the fleet in shelter four whole days, during which valdemar's anger had time to cool. he owned then that absalon was right, and the friends shook hands. the king gave order to make sail as soon as the gale abated. if there was still a small doubt in absalon's mind as he turned, on taking leave, and asked, "what now, if we must turn back once more?" valdemar set it at rest: "then you write me from wendland," he laughed, "and tell me how things are there." if little glory or gain came to the danes from this first expedition, at least they landed in the enemy's country and made reprisal for past tort. the spirit of the people rose and shamed them for their cowardice. when the king's summons went round again, as it did speedily, there were few laggards. attacked at home, the wends lost much of the terror they had inspired. before many moons, the chronicle records, the danes cut their spear-shafts short, that they might the more handily get at the foe. scarce a year passed that did not see one or more of these crusades. absalon preached them all, and his ship was ever first in landing. in battle he and the king fought shoulder to shoulder. in the spring of , he had at last his wish: the heathen idols were destroyed and their temples burned. the holy city of the wends, arcona, stood on a steep cliff, inaccessible save from the west, where a wall a hundred feet high defended it. while the sacred banner stanitza waved over it the danes might burn and kill, but the power of svantevit was unbroken. svantevit was the god of gods in whose presence his own priests dared not so much as breathe. when they had to, they must go to the door and breathe in the open, a good enough plan if saxo's disgust at the filth of the wendish homes was justified. svantevit was a horrid monster with four heads, and girt about with a huge sword. up till then the christian arms had always been stayed at his door, but this time the king laid siege to arcona, determined to make an end of him. some of the youngsters in his army, making a mock assault upon the strong walls, discovered an accidental hollow under the great tower over which the stanitza flew and, seizing upon a load of straw that was handy, stuffed it in and set it on fire. it was done in a frolic, but when the tower caught fire and was burned and the holy standard fell, absalon was quick to see his advantage, and got the king to order a general assault. the besieged wends, having no water, tried to put out the fire with milk, but, says the chronicle, "it only fed the flames." they fought desperately till, between fire and foe, they were seized with panic and, calling loudly upon absalon in their extremity, offered to give up their city. the army clamored for the revenge that was at last within their grasp, and the king hesitated; but absalon met the uproar firmly, reminding them that they had crossed the seas to convert the heathen, not to sack their towns. the city was allowed to surrender and the people were spared, but svantevit and his temple were destroyed. a great crowd of his followers had gathered to see him crush his enemies at the last, and absalon cautioned the men who cut the idol down to be careful that he did not fall on them and so seem to justify their hopes. "he fell with so great a noise that it was a wonder," says saxo, naïvely; "and in the same moment the fiend ran out of the temple in a black shape with such speed that no eye could follow him or see where he went." svantevit was dragged out of the town and chopped into bits. that night he fed the fires of the camp. so fickle is popular favor that when the crowd saw that nothing happened, they spurned the god loudly before whom they had grovelled in the dust till then. when they heard of arcona's fall in the royal city of karents, they hastened with offers of surrender, and absalon went there with a single ship's crew to take possession. they were met by armed wends, who guarded the narrow approach to the city. in single file they walked between the ranks of the enemy, who stood with inverted spears, watching them in sullen silence. his men feared a trap, but absalon strode ahead unmoved. coming to the temple of their local god, rygievit, he attacked him with his axe and bade his guard fall to, which they did. saxo has left us a unique description of this idol that stood behind purple hangings, fashioned of oak "in every evil and revolting shape. the swallows had made their nests in his mouths and throats" (there were seven in so many faces) "and filled him up with all manner of stinking uncleanness. truly, for such god was such sacrifice fit." he had a sword for every one of his seven faces, buckled about his ample waist, but for all that he went the way of the others, and even had to put up with the indignity of the christian priests standing upon him while he was being dragged out. that seems to have helped cure his followers of their faith in him. they delivered the temple treasure into the hands of the king--seven chests filled with money and valuables, among them a silver cup which the wretched king svend had sent to svantevit as a bribe to the wends for joining him against his own country and kin. but those days were ended. it was the danes' turn now, and wendland was laid waste until "the swallows found no eaves of any house whereunder to build their nests and were forced to build them on the ships." a sad preliminary to bringing the country under the rule of the prince of peace; but in the scheme of those days the sword was equal partner with the cross in leading men to the true god. the heathen temples were destroyed and churches built on their sites of the timber gathered for the siege of arcona. the people, deserted by their own, accepted the christians' god in good faith, and were baptized in hosts, thirteen hundred on one day and nine hundred on the next. three days and nights absalon saw no sleep. he did nothing half-way. no sooner was he back home than he sent over priests and teachers supplied with everything, even food for their keep, so that they "should not be a burden to the people whom they had come to show the way to salvation." the wends were conquered, but the end was not yet. they had savage neighbors, and many a crusade did absalon lead against them in the following years, before the new title of the danish rulers, "king of the slavs and wends," was much more than an empty boast. he organized a regular sea patrol of one-fourth of the available ships, of which he himself took command, and said mass on board much oftener than in the roskilde church. it is the sailor, the warrior, the leader of men one sees through all the troubled years of his royal friend's life. now the danish fleet is caught in the inland sea before stettin, unable to make its way out, and already the heathen hosts are shouting their triumph on shore. it is absalon, then, who finds the way and, as one would expect, he forces it. the captains wail over the trap and abuse him for getting them into it. absalon, disdaining to answer them, leads his ships in single file straight for the gap where the wendish fleet lies waiting, and gets the king to attack with his horsemen on shore. between them the enemy is routed, and the cowards are shamed. but when they come to make amends, he is as unmoved as ever and will have none of it. again, when he is leading his men to the attack on a walled town, a bridge upon which they crowd breaks, and it is the bishop who saves his comrades from drowning, swimming ashore with them in full armor. resting in his castle at haffn, the present copenhagen, which he built as a defence against the sea-rovers, he hears, while in his bath, his men talking of strange ships that are sailing into the sound, and, hastily throwing on his clothes, gives chase and kills their crews, for they were pirates whose business was murder, and they merely got their deserts. in the pursuit his archers "pinned the hands of the rowers to the oars with their arrows" and crippled them, so skilful had much practice made them. turn the leaf of saxo's chronicle, and we find him under rügen with his fleet, protecting the now peaceful wendish fishermen in their autumn herring-catch, on which their livelihood depended. of such stuff was made the bishop who "used his trusty danish sword as the pope his staff in rome." wherever danger threatens valdemar and absalon, esbern is found, too, earning the name of the fleet (snare), which the people had fondly given to their favorite. where the fighting was hardest, he was sure to be. the king's son had ventured too far and was caught in a tight place by an overwhelming force, when esbern pushed his ship in between him and the enemy and bore the brunt of a fight that came near to making an end of him. he had at last only a single man left, but the two made a stand against a hundred. "when the heathen saw his face they fled in terror." at last they knocked him senseless with a stone and would have killed him, but in the nick of time the king's men came to the rescue. coming home from norway he ran afoul of forty pirate ships under the coast of seeland. he tried to steal past; forty against one were heavy odds. but it was moonlight and he was discovered. the pirates lay across his course and cut him off. esbern made ready for a fight and steered straight into the middle of them. the steersman complained that he had no armor, and he gave him his own. he beat his pursuers off again and again, but the wind slackened and they were closing in once more, swearing by their heathen gods that they would have him dead or alive, for a danish prisoner on one of their ships had told who he was. but esbern had more than one string to his bow. he sent a man aloft with flint and steel to strike fire in the top, and the pirates, believing that he was signalling to a fleet he had in ambush, fled helter-skelter. esbern got home safe. the german emperors' fingers had always itched for the over-lordship of the danish isles, and they have not ceased to do so to this day. when frederick barbarossa drove alexander iii from rome and set up a rival pope in his place, archbishop eskild of lund, who was the primate of the north, championed the exiled pope's case, and valdemar, whose path the ambitious priest had crossed more than once, let it be known that he inclined to the emperor's cause, in part probably from mere pique, perhaps also because he thought it good politics. the archbishop in a rage summoned absalon and bade him join him in a rising against the king. absalon's answer is worthy the man and friend: "my oath to you i will keep, and in this wise, that i will not counsel you to your own undoing. whatever your cause against the king, war against him you cannot, and succeed. and this know, that never will i join with you against my liege lord, to whom i have sworn fealty and friendship with heart and soul all the days of my life." he could not persuade the archbishop, who went his own way and was beaten and exiled for a season, nor could he prevent the king from yielding to the blandishments of frederick and getting mixed up in the papal troubles; but he went with him to germany and saved him at the last moment from committing himself by making him leave the church council just as the anti-pope was about to pronounce sentence of excommunication against alexander. he commanded absalon to remain, as a servant of the church, but absalon replied calmly that he was not there in that capacity, but as an attendant on his king, and must follow where he went. it appeared speedily that the emperor's real object was to get valdemar to own him as his over-lord, and this he did, to absalon's great grief, on the idle promise that frederick would join him in his war upon all the baltic pagans. however, it was to be a purely personal matter, in nowise affecting his descendants. that much was saved, and absalon lived long enough to fling back, as the counsellor of valdemar's son, from behind the stout wall he built at denmark's southern gate, the emperor's demand for homage, with the reply that "the king ruled in denmark with the same right as the emperor in germany, and was no man's subject." however grievously absalon had offended the aged archbishop, when after forty years in his high office illness compelled him to lay it down, he could find no one so worthy to step into his shoes. he sent secretly to rome and got the pope's permission to name his own successor, before he called a meeting of the church. the account of what followed is the most singular of all saxo's stories. valdemar did not know what was coming and, fearing fresh trouble, got the archbishop to swear on the bones of the saints before them all that he was not moved to abdication by hate of the king, or by any coercion whatever. then the venerable priest laid his staff, his mitre, and his ring on the altar and announced that he had done with it all forever. but he had made up his mind not to use the power given him by the pontiff. they might choose his successor themselves. he would do nothing to influence their action. the bishops and clergy went to the king and asked him if he had any choice. the king said he had, but if he made it known he would get no thanks for it and might estrange his best friend. if he did not, he would certainly be committing a sin. he did not know what to do. "name him," said they, and valdemar told them it was the bishop of roskilde. at that the old archbishop got up and insisted on the election then and there; but absalon would have none of it. the burden was too heavy for his shoulders, he said. however, the clergy seized him, "being," says saxo, who without doubt was one of them, "the more emboldened to do so as the archbishop himself laid hands upon him first." intoning the hymn sung at archiepiscopal consecrations, they tried to lead him to the altar. he resisted with all his might and knocked several of the brethren down. vestments were torn and scattered, and a mighty ruction arose, to which the laity, not to be outdone, added by striking up a hymn of their own. archbishop and king tried vainly to make peace; the clamor and battle only rose the higher. despite his struggles, absalon was dragged to the high seat, but as they were about to force him into it, he asked leave to say a single word, and instantly appealed his case to the pope. so there was an end; but when the aged eskild, on the plea of weakness, begged him to pronounce the benediction, he refused warily, because so he would be exercising archiepiscopal functions and would be _de facto_ incumbent of the office.[ ] [footnote : that all this in no way affected the personal relations of the two men saxo assures us in one of the little human touches with which his chronicle abounds. when eskild was going away to end his days as a monk in the monastery of clairvaux, he rested awhile with absalon at his castle haffn, where he was received as a father. the old man suffered greatly from cold feet, and absalon made a box with many little holes in, and put a hot brick in it. with this at his feet, eskild was able to sleep, and he was very grateful to absalon, both because of the comfort it gave him and "because that he perceived that filial piety rather than skill in the healer's art" prompted the invention.] here, as always, absalon thought less of himself than of his country, so the event showed. for when the pope heard his plea, though he decided against him, he allowed him to hold the bishopric of roskilde together with the higher office, and so he was left at valdemar's side to help finish their work of building up denmark within and without. at roskilde he spent, as a matter of fact, most of his time while valdemar lived. at lund he would have been in a distant part of the country, parted from his friend and out of touch with the things that were the first concern of his life. they were preparing to aim a decisive blow against the pomeranian pagans when valdemar died, on the very day set for the sailing. the parting nearly killed absalon. saxo draws a touching picture of him weeping bitterly as he said the requiem mass over his friend, and observes: "who can doubt that his tears, rising with the incense, gave forth a peculiar and agreeable savour in high heaven before god?" the plowmen left their fields and carried the bier, with sobs and lamentations, to the church in ringsted, where the great king rests. his sorrow laid absalon on a long and grievous sick-bed, from which he rose only when valdemar's son needed and called him. in the fifteen years that follow we see his old warlike spirit still unbroken. thus his defiance of the german emperor, whose anger was hot. frederick, in revenge, persuaded the pomeranian duke bugislav to organize a raid on denmark with a fleet of five hundred sail. scant warning reached absalon of the danger. king knud was away, and there was no time to send for him. mustering such vessels as were near, he sailed across the baltic and met the enemy under rügen the day after whitsuntide ( ). the bishop had gone ashore to say mass on the beach, when word was brought that the great fleet was in sight. hastily pulling off his robe and donning armor instead, he made for his ship with the words: "now let our swords sing the praise of god." the pomeranians were taken completely by surprise. they did not know the danes were there, and when they heard the archbishop's dreaded war-cry raised, they turned and fled in such terror and haste that eighteen of their ships were run down and sunk with all on board. on one, a rower hanged himself for fear of falling into the hands of the danes. absalon gave chase, and the rout became complete. of the five hundred ships only thirty-five escaped; all the rest were either sunk or taken. duke bugislav soon after became a vassal of denmark, and of the emperor's plots there was an end. it was the last blow, and the story of it went far and wide. absalon's work was nearly done. denmark was safe from her enemies. the people were happy and prosperous. valdemar's son ruled unchallenged, and though he was childless, by his side stood his brother, a manly youth who, not yet full grown, had already shown such qualities of courage and sagacious leadership that the old archbishop could hang up the sword with heart at ease. the promise was kept. the second valdemar became denmark's royal hero for all time. absalon's last days were devoted to strengthening the church, around which he had built such a stout wall. he built churches and cloisters, and guided them with a wise and firm hand. and he made saxo, his clerk, set it all down as an eye-witness of these things, and as one who came to the task by right; for, says the chronicler, "have not my grandfather and his father before him served the king well on land and sea, hence why should not i serve him with my book-learning?" he bears witness that the bishop himself is his authority for much that he has written. archbishop absalon closed his eyes on st. benedict's day, march , , in the cloister at sorö which sir asker built and where he lived his last days in peace. absalon's statue of bronze, on horseback, battle-axe in hand, stands in the market square in copenhagen, the city he founded and of which he is the patron saint; but his body lies within the quiet sanctuary where, in the deep forest glades, one listens yet for the evensong of the monks, long silent now. when his grave was opened, in , the lines of his tall form, clad in clerical robes, were yet clearly traceable. the strong hands, turned to dust, held a silver chalice in which lay his episcopal ring. they are there to be seen to-day, with remnants of his staff that had partly crumbled away. no dane approaches his grave without emotion. "all denmark grieved for him," says a german writer of that day, "and commended his soul to jesus christ, the prince of peace, for that in his lifetime he had led many who were enemies to peace and concord." in his old cathedral, in roskilde town, lies saxo, according to tradition under an unmarked stone. when he went to rest his friend and master had slept five years. esbern outlived his brother three years. the hero of so many battles met his death at last by an accidental fall in his own house. the last we hear of him is at a meeting in the christmas season, , where emissaries of pope gregory viii preached a general crusade. their hearers wept at the picture they drew of the sufferings christians were made to endure in the holy land. then arose esbern and reminded them of the great deeds of the fathers at home and abroad. the faith and the fire of absalon were in his words: "these things they did," he said, "for the glory of their name and race, knowing nothing of our holy religion. shall we, believing, do less? let us lay aside our petty quarrels and take up this greater cause. let us share the sufferings of the saints and earn their reward. perhaps we shall win--god keeps the issue. let him who cannot give himself, give of his means. so shall all we, sharing the promise, share also the reward." the account we have says that many took the cross, such was the effect of his words, more likely of the man and what he was and had been in the sight of them all throughout his long life. king valdemar, and the story of the dannebrog to the court of king ottocar of bohemia there came in the year a brilliant embassy from far-off denmark to ask the hand of his daughter dragomir for king valdemar, the young ruler of that country. sir strange[ ] ebbesön and bishop peder sunesön were the spokesmen, and many knights, whose fame had travelled far in the long years of fighting to bring the baltic pagans under the cross, rode with them. the old king received them with delight. valdemar was not only a good son-in-law for a king to have, being himself a great and renowned ruler, but he was a splendid knight, tall and handsome, of most courteous bearing, ambitious, manly, and of ready wit. so their suit prospered well. the folk-song tells how they fared; how, according to the custom of those days, sir strange wedded the fair princess by proxy for his lord, and how king ottocar, when he bade her good-by, took this promise of her: in piety, virtue, and fear of god, let all thy days be spent; and ever thy subjects be thy thought, their hopes on thy care be bent. [footnote : pronounce as strangle, with the l left out.] the daughter kept her vow. never was queen more beloved of her people than dagmar. that was the name they gave her in denmark, for the bohemian dragomir was strange to them. dagmar meant daybreak in their ancient tongue, and it really seemed as if a new and beautiful day dawned upon the land in her coming. the dry pages of history have little enough to tell of her beyond the simple fact of her marriage and untimely death, though they are filled with her famous husband's deeds; but not all of his glorious campaigns that earned for him the name of "the victor" have sunk so deep into the people's memory, or have taken such hold of their hearts, as the lovely queen who came without burden, she came with peace; she came the good peasant to cheer. through all the centuries the people have sung her praise, and they sing it yet. of the many folk-songs that have come down from the middle ages, those that tell of queen dagmar are the sweetest, as they are the most mournful, for her happiness was as brief as her life was beautiful. they sailed homeward over sunny seas, until they came to the shore where the royal lover awaited his bride, impatiently scanning the horizon for the gilded dragon's head of the ship that bore her. the minstrel sings of the great wedding that was held in the old city of ribe.[ ] the gray old cathedral in which they knelt together still stands; but of valdemar's strong castle only a grass-grown hill is left. it was the privilege of a bride in those days to ask a gift of her husband on the morning after the wedding, and have it granted without question. two boons did dagmar crave, "right early in the morning, long before it was day": one, that the plow-tax might be forgiven the peasant, and that those who for rising against it had been laid in irons be set free; the other, that the prison door of bishop valdemar be opened. bishop valdemar was the arch-enemy of the king. the first request he granted; but the other he refused for cause: an' he comes out, bishop valdemar, widow he makes you this year. and he did his worst; for in the end the king yielded to dagmar's prayers, and much mischief came of it. [footnote : pronounced reebe, in two syllables.] seven years the good queen lived. seven centuries have not dimmed the memory of them, or of her. the king was away in a distant part of the country when they sent to him in haste with the message that the queen was dying. the ballad tells of his fears as he sees dagmar's page coming, and they proved only too true. the king his checker-board shut in haste, the dice they rattled and rung. forbid it god, who dwells in heaven, that dagmar should die so young. in the wild ride over field and moor, the king left his men far behind: when the king rode out of skanderborg him followed a hundred men. but when he rode o'er ribe bridge, then rode the king alone. the tears of weeping women told him as he thundered over the drawbridge of the castle that he was too late. but dagmar had only swooned. as he throws himself upon her bed she opens her eyes, and smiles upon her husband. her last prayer, as her first, is for mercy and peace. her sin, she says, is not great; she has done nothing worse than to lace her silken sleeves on a sunday. then she closes her eyes with a tired sigh: the bells of heaven are chiming for me; no more may i stay to speak. thus the folk-song. long before dagmar went to her rest, bishop valdemar had stirred up all germany to wreak his vengeance upon the king. he was an ambitious, unscrupulous priest, who hated his royal master because he held himself entitled to the crown, being the natural son of king knud, who was murdered at roskilde, as told in the story of absalon. while they were yet young men, when he saw that the people followed his rival, he set the german princes against denmark, a task he never found hard. but young valdemar made short work of them. he took the strong cities on the elbe and laid the lands of his adversaries under the danish crown. the bishop he seized, and threw him into the dungeon of söborg castle, where he had sat thirteen years when dagmar's prayers set him free. he could hardly walk when he came out, but he could hate, and all the world knew it. the pope bound him with heavy oaths never to return to denmark, and made him come to italy so that he could keep an eye on him himself. but two years had not passed before he broke his oath, and fled to bremen, where the people elected him to the vacant archbishopric and its great political power. forthwith he began plotting against his native land. in the bitter feud between the guelphs and the ghibellines he found his opportunity. one of the rival emperors marched an army north to help the perjured priest. king valdemar hastened to meet them, but on the eve of battle the emperor was slain by one of his own men. on sunday, when the archbishop was saying mass in the bremen cathedral, an unknown knight, the visor of whose helmet was closed so that no one saw his face, strode up to the altar, and laying a papal bull before him, cried out that he was accursed, and under the ban of the church. the people fled, and forsaken by all, the wretched man turned once more to rome in submission. but though the pope forgave him on condition that he meddle no more with politics, war, or episcopal office, another summer found him wielding sword and lance against the man he hated, this time under the banner of the guelphs. the germans had made another onset on denmark, but again king valdemar defeated them. the bishop intrenched himself in hamburg, and made a desperate resistance, but the king carried the city by storm. the beaten and hopeless man fled, and shut himself up in a cloister in hanover, where daily and nightly he scourged himself for his sins. if it is true that "hell was fashioned by the souls that hated," not all the penance of all the years must have availed to save him from the torments of the lost. denmark now had peace on its southern border. dagmar was dead, and valdemar, whose restless soul yearned for new worlds to conquer, turned toward the east where the wild esthland tribes were guilty of even worse outrages than the wends before absalon tamed them. the dreadful cruelties practised by these pagans upon christian captives cried aloud to all civilized europe, and valdemar took the cross "for the honor of the virgin mary and the absolution of his sins," and gathered a mighty fleet, the greatest ever assembled in danish waters. with more than a thousand ships he sailed across the baltic. the pope sped them with his apostolic blessing, and took king and people into his especial care, forbidding any one to attack the country while they were away converting the heathen. archbishop anders led the crusade with the king. as the fleet approached the shore they saw it covered with an innumerable host of the enemy. so great was their multitude that the crusaders quailed before the peril of landing; but the archbishop put heart into them, and led the fleet in fervent prayer to the god of battle. then they landed without hindrance. there was an old stronghold there called lyndanissa that had fallen into decay. the crusaders busied themselves for two days with building another and better fort. on the third day, being st. vitus' day, they rested, fearing no harm. the esthlanders had not troubled them. some of their chiefs had even come in with an offer of surrender. they were willing to be converted, they said, and the priests were baptizing them after vespers, while the camp was making ready for the night, when suddenly the air was filled with the yells of countless savages. on every side they broke from the woods, where they had been gathering unsuspected, and overwhelmed the camp. the guards were hewn down, the outposts taken, and the king's men were falling back in confusion, their standard lost, when prince vitislav of rügen who had been camping with his men in a hollow between the sand-hills, out of the line of attack, threw himself between them and the esthlanders, and gave the danes time to form their lines. in the twilight of the june evening the battle raged with great fury. with the king at their head, who had led them to victory on so many hard-fought fields, the danes drove back their savage foes time after time, literally hewing their way through their ranks with sword and battle-axe. but they were hopelessly outnumbered. their hearts misgave them as they saw ten heathen spring out of the ground for every one that was felled. the struggle grew fiercer as night came on. the christians were fighting for life; defeat meant that they must perish to a man, by the sword or upon pagan altars; escape there was none. upon the cliff overlooking the battle-field the archbishop and his priests were praying for success to the king's arms. tradition that has been busy with this great battle all through the ages tells how, while the aged bishop's hands were raised toward heaven, victory leaned to the danes; but when he grew tired, and let them fall, the heathen won forward, until the priests held up his hands and once more the tide of battle rolled back from the shore, and the christian war-cry rose higher. suddenly, in the clash of steel upon steel and the wild tumult of the conflict, there arose a great and wondering cry "the banner! the banner! a miracle!" and christian and pagan paused to listen. out of the sky, as it seemed, over against the hill upon which the priests knelt, a blood-red banner with a great white cross was seen falling into the ranks of the christian knights, and a voice resounded over the battle-field, "bear this high, and victory shall be yours." with the exultant cry, "for god and the king," the crusaders seized it, and charged the foe. terror-stricken, the esthlanders wavered, then turned, and fled. the battle became a massacre. thousands were slain. the chronicles say that the dead lay piled fathom-high on the field that ran red with blood. upon it, when the pursuit was over, valdemar knelt with his men, and they bowed their heads in thanksgiving, while the venerable archbishop gave praise to god for the victory. that is the story of the dannebrog which has been the flag of the danes seven hundred years. whether the archbishop had brought it with him intending to present it to king valdemar, and threw it down among the fighting hordes in the moment of extreme peril, or whether, as some think, the pope himself had sent it to the crusaders with a happy inspiration, the fact remains that it came to the danes in this great battle, and on the very day which, fifty years before, had seen the fall of arcona, and the end of idol-worship among the western slavs. three hundred years the standard flew over the danes fighting on land and sea. then it was lost in a campaign against the holstein counts and, when recovered half a century later, was hung up in the cathedral at slesvig, where gradually it fell to pieces. in the first half of the nineteenth century, when national feeling and national pride were at their lowest ebb, it was taken down with other moth-eaten old banners, one day when they were cleaning up, and somebody made a bonfire of them in the street. such was the fate of "the flag that fell from heaven," the sacred standard of the danes. but it was not the end of it. the dannebrog flies yet over the denmark of the valdemars, no longer great as then, it is true, nor master of its ancient foes; but the world salutes it with respect, for there was never blot of tyranny or treason upon it, and its sons own it with pride wherever they go. king valdemar knighted five and thirty of his brave men on the battle-field, and from that day the order of the dannebrog is said to date. it bears upon a white crusader's cross the slogan of the great fight "for god and the king," and on its reverse the date when it was won, "june , ." the back of paganism was broken that day, and the conversion of all esthland followed soon. king valdemar built the castle he had begun before he sailed home, and called it reval, after one of the neighboring tribes. the russian city of that name grew up about it and about the church which archbishop anders reared. the dannebrog became its arms, and its people call it to this day "the city of the danes." denmark was now at the height of her glory. her flag flew over all the once hostile lands to the south and east, clear into russia. the baltic was a danish inland sea. king valdemar was named "victor" with cause. his enemies feared him; his people adored him. in a single night foul treachery laid the whole splendid structure low. the king and young valdemar, dagmar's son, with a small suite of retainers had spent the day hunting on the little island of lyö. count henrik of schwerin,--the black count they called him,--who had just returned from a pilgrimage to the holy land, was his guest. the count hated valdemar bitterly for some real or fancied injury, but he hid his hatred under a friendly bearing and smooth speech. he brought the king gifts from the holy sepulchre, hunted with him, and was his friend. but by night, when the king and his son slept in their tent, unguarded, since no enemy was thought to be near, he fell upon them with his cutthroats, bound and gagged them despite their struggles, and gathering up all the valuables that lay around, to put the finishing touch upon his villainy, fled with his prisoners "in great haste and fear," while the king's men slept. when they awoke, and tried to follow, they found their ships scuttled. the count's boat had been lying under sail all day, hidden in a sheltered cove, awaiting his summons. germany at last had the lion and its whelp in her grasp. in chains and fetters they were dragged from one dungeon to another. the traitors dared not trust them long in any city, however strong. the german emperor shook his fist at count henrik, but secretly he was glad. he would have liked nothing better than to have the precious spoil in his own power. the pope thundered in rome and hurled his ban at the thugs. but the black count's conscience was as swarthy as his countenance; and besides, had he not just been to the holy land, and thereby washed himself clean of all his sins, past and present? behind prison walls, comforted only by dagmar's son, sat the king, growing old and gray with anger and grief. denmark lay prostrate under the sudden blow, while her enemies rose on every side. day by day word came of outbreaks in the conquered provinces. the people did not know which way to turn; the strong hand that held the helm was gone, and the ship drifted, the prey of every ill wind. it was as if all that had been won by sixty years of victories and sacrifice fell away in one brief season. the forests filled with out-laws; neither peasant nor wayfarer, nor yet monk or nun in their quiet retreat, was safe from outrage; and pirates swarmed again in bay and sound, where for two generations there had been peace. the twice-perjured bishop valdemar left his cloister cell once more and girt on the sword, to take the kingdom he coveted by storm. he was met by king valdemar's kinsman and friend, albert of orlamunde, who hastened to the frontier with all the men he could gather. they halted him with a treaty of peace that offered to set valdemar free if he would take his kingdom as a fief of the german crown. he, albert, so it was written, was to keep all his lands and more, would he but sign it. he did not stop to hear the rest, but slashed the parchment into ribbons with his sword, and ordered an instant advance. the bishop he made short work of, and he was heard of no more. but in the battle with the german princes albert was defeated and taken prisoner. the door of king valdemar's dungeon was opened only to let his friend in. after two years and a half in chains, valdemar was ransomed by his people with a great sum of gold. the danish women gave their rings and their jewels to bring back their king. they flocked about him when he returned, and received him like the conqueror of old; but he rode among them gray and stern, and his thoughts were far away. they had made him swear on oath upon the sacrament, and all denmark's bishops with him, before they set him free, that he would not seek revenge. but once he was back in his own, he sent to pope gregory, asking him to loose him from an oath wrung from him while he was helpless in the power of bandits. and the pope responded that to keep faith with traitors was no man's duty. then back he rode over the river eider into the enemy's land--for they had stripped denmark of all her hard-won possessions south of the ancient border of the kingdom, except esthland and rügen--and with him went every man who could bear arms in all the nation. he crushed the black count who tried to block his way, and at bornhöved met the german allies who had gathered from far and near to give him battle. well they knew that if valdemar won, the reckoning would be terrible. all day they fought, and victory seemed to lean toward the danes, when the base holsteiners, the danish rear-guard whom the enemy had bought to betray their king, turned their spears upon his army, and decided the day. the battle ended in utter rout of valdemar's forces. four thousand danish men were slain. the king himself fell wounded on the field, his eye pierced by an arrow, and would have fallen into the hands of the enemy once more but for an unknown german knight, who took him upon his horse and bore him in the night over unfrequented paths to kiel, where he was safe. "but all men said that this great hurt befell the king because that he brake the oath he swore upon the sacred body of the lord." the wars of valdemar were over, but his sorrows were not. four years later the crushing blow fell when dagmar's son, who was crowned king to succeed him, lost his life while hunting. with him, says the folk-song, died the hope of denmark. the king had other sons, but to dagmar's boy the people had given their love from the first, as they had to his gentle mother. the old king and his people grieved together. but valdemar rose above his sorrows. great as he had been in the days of victory, he was greater still in adversity. the country was torn by the wars of three-score years, and in need of rest. he gave his last days to healing the wounds the sword had struck. valdemar, the victor, became valdemar, the law-giver. the laws of the country had hitherto made themselves. they were the outgrowths of the people's ancient customs, passed down by word of mouth through the generations, and confirmed on thing from time to time. king valdemar gave denmark her first written laws that judged between man and man, in at least one of her provinces clear down into our day. "with law shall land be built" begins his code. "the law," it says, "must be honest, just, reasonable, and according to the ways of the people. it must meet their needs, and speak plainly so that all men may know and understand what the law is. it is not to be made in any man's favor, but for the needs of all them who live in the land." that is its purpose, and "no man shall judge (condemn) the law which the king has given and the country chosen; neither shall he (the king) take it back without the will of the people." that tells the story of valdemar's day, and of the people who are so near of kin with ourselves. they were not sovereign and subjects; they were a chosen king and a free people, working together "with law land to build." king valdemar was married twice. the folk-song represents dagmar as urging the king with her dying breath "that bengerd, my lord, that base bad dame you never to wife will take." bengerd, or berengaria, was a portuguese princess whom valdemar married in spite of the warning, two years later. as the people had loved the fair dagmar, so they hated the proud southern beauty, whether with reason or not. the story of her "morning gift," as it has come down to us through the mists of time, is very different from the other. she asks the king, so the ballad has it, to give her samsö, a great and fertile island, and "a golden crown[ ] for every maid," but he tells her not to be quite so greedy: there be full many an honest maid with not dry bread to eat. [footnote : a coin, probably.] undismayed, bengerd objects that danish women have no business to wear silken gowns, and that a good horse is not for a peasant lad. the king replies patiently that what a woman can buy she may wear for him, and that he will not take the lad's horse if he can feed it. bengerd is not satisfied. "let bar the land with iron chains" is her next proposal, that neither man nor woman enter it without paying tax. her husband says scornfully that danish kings have never had need of such measures, and never will. he is plainly getting bored, and when she keeps it up, and begrudges the husbandman more than "two oxen and a cow," he loses his temper, and presumably there is a matrimonial tiff. very likely most of this is fiction, bred of the popular prejudice. the king loved her, that is certain. she was a beautiful high-spirited woman, so beautiful that many hundreds of years after, when her grave was opened, the delicate oval of her skull excited admiration yet. but the people hated her. twenty generations after her death it was their custom when passing her grave to spit on it with the exclamation "out upon thee, bengerd! god bless the king of denmark"; for in good or evil days they never wavered in their love and admiration for the king who was a son of the first valdemar, and the heir of his greatness and of that of the sainted absalon. tradition has it that bengerd was killed in battle, having gone with her husband on one of his campaigns. "it was not heard in any place," says the folk-song wickedly, "that any one grieved for her." but the king mourned for his beautiful queen to the end of his days. bengerd bore valdemar three sons upon whom he lavished all the affection of his lonely old age. erik he chose as his successor, and to keep his brothers loyal to him he gave them great fiefs and thus, unknowing, brought on the very trouble he sought to avoid, and set his foot on the path that led to denmark's dismemberment after centuries of bloody wars. for to his second son abel he gave slesvig, and abel, when his brother became king, sought alliance with the holstein count adolf,[ ] the very one who had led the germans at the fatal battle of bornhöved. the result was a war between the brothers that raged seven years, and laid waste the land. worse was to follow, for abel was only "abel in name, but cain in deed." but happily the old king's eyes were closed then, and he was spared the sight of one brother murdering the other for the kingdom. [footnote : that was the beginning of the slesvig-holstein question that troubled europe to our day; for the fashion set by abel other rulers of his dukedom followed, and by degrees slesvig came to be reckoned with the german duchies, whereas up till then it had always been south-jutland, a part of denmark proper.] some foreboding of this seems to have troubled him in his last years. it is related that once when he was mounting his horse to go hunting he fell into a deep reverie, and remained standing with his foot in the stirrup a long time, while his men wondered, not daring to disturb him. at last one of them went to remind him that the sun was low in the west. the king awoke from his dream, and bade him go at once to a wise old hermit who lived in a distant part of the country. "ask him," he said, "what king valdemar was thinking of just now, and bring me his answer." the knight went away on his strange errand, and found the hermit. and this was the message he brought back: "your lord and master pondered as he stood by his horse, how his sons would fare when he was dead. tell him that war and discord they shall have, but kings they will all be." when the king heard the prophecy he was troubled in mind, and called his sons and all his great knights to a council at which he pleaded with them to keep the peace. but though they promised, he was barely in his grave when riot and bloodshed filled the land. the climax was reached when abel inveigled his brother to his home with fair words and, once he had him in his power, seized him and gave him over to his men to do with "as they pleased." they understood their master only too well, and took king erik out on the fjord in an open boat, and killed him there, scarce giving him time to say his prayers. they weighted his body with his helmet, and sank it in the deep. abel made oath with four and twenty of his men that he was innocent of his brother's blood, and took the crown after him. but the foul crime was soon avenged. within a few years he was himself slain by a peasant in a rising of his own people. for a while his body lay unburied, the prey of beast and bird, and when it was interred in the slesvig cathedral there was no rest for it. "such turmoil arose in the church by night that the monks could not chant their vigils," and in the end they took him out, and buried him in a swamp, with a stake driven through the heart to lay his ghost. but clear down to our time when people ceased to believe in ghosts, the fratricide was seen at night hunting through the woods, coal-black and on a white horse, with three fiery dogs trailing after; and blue flames burned over the sea where they vanished. that was how the superstition of the people judged the man whom the nobles and the priests made king, red-handed. christopher, the youngest of the three brothers, was king last. his end was no better than that of the rest. indeed, it was worse. hardly yet forty years old, he died--poisoned, it was said, by the abbot arnfast, in the sacrament as he knelt at the altar-rail in the ribe cathedral. he was buried in the chancel where the penitents going to the altar walk over his grave. so, of all valdemar's four sons, not one died a peaceful, natural death. but kings they all were. valdemar was laid in ringsted with his great father. he sleeps between his two queens. dagmar's grave was disturbed in the late middle ages by unknown vandals, and the remains of denmark's best-loved queen were scattered. only a golden cross, which she had worn in life, somehow escaped, and found its way in course of time into the museum of antiquities at copenhagen, where it now is, its chief and priceless treasure. there also is a braid of queen bengerd's hair that was found when her grave was opened in . the people's hate had followed her even there, and would not let her rest. the slab that covered her tomb had been pried off, and a round stone dropped into the place made for her head. otherwise her grave was undisturbed. "truly then fell the crown from the heads of danish men," says the old chronicle of king valdemar's death, and black clouds were gathering ominously even then over the land. but in storm and stress, as in days that were fair, the danish people have clung loyally to the memory of their beloved king and of his sweet dagmar. how the ghost of the heath was laid on the map of europe the mainland of denmark looks like a beckoning finger pointing due north and ending in a narrow sand-reef, upon which the waves of the north sea and of the kattegat break with unceasing clamor and strife. the heart of the peninsula, quite one-fourth of its area, was fifty years ago a desert, a barren, melancholy waste, where the only sign of life encountered by the hunter, gunning for heath-fowl and plover, was a rare shepherd tending a few lonesome sheep, and knitting mechanically on his endless stocking. the two, the lean sheep and the long stocking, together comprised the only industries which the heath afforded and was thought capable of sustaining. a great change has taken place within the span of a single life, and it is all due to the clear sight and patient devotion of one strong man, the gifford pinchot of denmark. the story of that unique achievement reads like the tale of the sleeping beauty who was roused from her hundred years' sleep by the kiss of her lover prince. the prince who awoke the slumbering heath was a captain of engineers, enrico dalgas by name. not altogether fanciful is the conceit. barren, black, and desolate, the great moor gripped the imagination as no smiling landscape of field and forest could--does yet, where enough of it remains. far as eye reaches the dun heather covers hill and plain with its sombre pall. like gloomy sentinels, furry cattails nod in the bog where the blue gentian peeps timidly into murky pools; the only human habitation in sight some heath boer's ling-thatched hut, flanked by rows of peat stacks in vain endeavor to stay the sweep of the pitiless west wind. on the barrows where the vikings sleep their long sleep, the plover pipes its melancholy lay; between steep banks a furtive brook steals swiftly by as if anxious to escape from the universal blight. over it all broods the silence of the desert, drowsy with the hum of many bees winging their swift way to the secret feeding-places they know of, where mayflower and anemone hide under the heather, witness that forests grew here in the long ago. in midsummer, when the purple is on the broom, a strange pageant moves on the dim horizon, a shifting mirage of sea and shore, forest, lake, and islands lying high, with ships and castles and spires of distant churches--the witchery of the heath that speaks in the tales and superstitions of its simple people. high in the blue soars the lark, singing its song of home and hope to its nesting mate. this is the heath which, denying to the hardest toil all but the barest living, has given of its poetry to the danish tongue some of its sweetest songs. but in this busy world day-dreams must make way for the things that make the day count, castles in the air to homes upon the soil. the heath had known such in the dim past. it had not always been a desert. the numberless cairns that lie scattered over it, sometimes strung out for miles as if marking the highways of the ancients, which they doubtless do, sometimes grouped where their villages stood, bear witness to it. great battles account for their share, and some of them were fought in historic times. on grathe heath the young king valdemar overcame his treacherous rival svend. alone and hunted, the beaten man sought refuge, saxo tells us, behind a stump, where he was found and slain by one of the king's axemen. a chapel was built on the spot. more than seven centuries later (in ) they dug there, and found the bones of a man with skull split in two. the stump behind which the wretched svend hid was probably the last representative of great forests that grew where now is sterile moor. in the bogs trunks of oak and fir are found lying as they fell centuries ago. the local names preserve the tradition, with here and there patches of scrub oak that hug the ground close, to escape the blast from the north sea. there is one such thicket near the hamlet of taulund--the name itself tells of long-forgotten groves--and the story runs among the people yet that once squirrels jumped from tree to tree without touching ground all the way from taulund to gjellerup church, a stretch of more than five miles to which the wild things of the woods have long been strangers. in the shelter of the old forests men dwelt through ages, and made the land yield them a living. some cairns that have been explored span over more than a thousand years. they were built in the stone age, and served the people of the bronze and iron ages successively as burial-places, doubtless the same tribes who thus occupied their homesteads from generation to generation. that they were farmers, not nomads, is proved by the clear impression of grains of wheat and barley in their burial urns. the seeds strayed into the clay and were burned away, but the impression abides, and tells the story. clear down to historic times there was a thrifty population in many of the now barren spots. but a change was slowly creeping over the landscape. the country was torn by long and bloody wars. the big men fought for the land and the little ones paid the score, as they always do. they were hunted from house and home. next the wild hordes of the holstein counts overran jutland. its towns were burned, the country laid waste. great fires swept the forests. what ravaging armies had left was burned in the smelteries. in the sandy crust of the heath there is iron, and swords and spears were the grim need of that day. the smelteries are only names now. they went, but they took the forests with them, and where the ground was cleared the west wind broke through, and ruin followed fast. last of all came the black death, and set its seal of desolation upon it all. when it had passed, the country was a huge graveyard. the heath had moved in. rovers and smugglers found refuge there; honest folk shunned it. under the heather the old landmarks are sometimes found yet, and deep ruts made by wheels that long since ceased to turn. in the eighteenth century men began to think of reclamation. a thousand german colonists were called in and settled on the heath, but it was stronger than they, and they drifted away until scarce half a hundred families remained. the government tried its hand, but there was no one who knew just how, and only discouragement resulted. then came the war with germany in , that lost to denmark a third of her territory. the country lay prostrate under the crushing blow. but it rose above defeat and disaster, and once more expectant eyes were turned toward the ancient domain that had slipped from its grasp. "what was lost without must be won within" became the national slogan. and this time the man for the task was at hand. enrico mylius dalgas was by the accident of birth an italian, his father being the danish consul in naples; by descent a frenchman; by choice and training a dane, typical of the best in that people. he came of the huguenot stock that left france after the repeal of the edict of nantes in and scattered over europe, to the great good of every land in which it settled. they had been tillers of the soil from the beginning, and at least two of the family, who found homes in denmark, made in their day notable contributions to the cause of advanced, sensible husbandry. enrico's father, though a merchant, had an open eye for the interests which in later years claimed the son's life-work. in the diary of a journey through sweden he makes indignant comment upon the reckless way in which the people of that country dealt with their forests. that he was also a man of resolution is shown by an incident of the time when jew-baiting was having its sorry day in denmark. an innkeeper mistook the dark-skinned little man for a jew, and set before him a spoiled ham, retorting contemptuously, when protest was made, that it was "good enough for a sheeny." without further parley mr. dalgas seized the hot ham by its shank and beat the fellow with it till he cried for mercy. the son tells of the first school he attended, when he was but five years old. it was kept by the widow of one of napoleon's generals, a militant lady who every morning marshalled the school, a lilliputian army with the teachers flanking the line like beardless sergeants in stays and petticoats, and distributed rewards and punishments as the great emperor was wont to do after a battle. for the dunces there was a corner strewn with dried peas on which they were made to kneel with long-eared donkey caps adorning their luckless heads. very likely it was after an insult of this kind that enrico decided to elope to america with his baby sister. they were found down by the harbor bargaining with some fishermen to take them over to capri _en route_ for the land of freedom. the elder dalgas died while the children were yet little, and the widow went back to denmark to bring up her boys there. they were poor, and the change from the genial skies of sunny italy to the bleak north did not make it any easier for them. enrico's teacher saw it, and gave him his overcoat to be made over. but the boys spotted it and squared accounts with their teacher by snowballing the wearer of the big green plaid until he was glad to leave it at home, and go without. he was in the military school when war broke out with germany in . both of his brothers volunteered, and fell in battle. enrico was ordered out as lieutenant, and put on the shoulder-straps joyfully, to the great scandal of his godfather in milan, who sympathized with the german cause. when the young soldier refused to resign he not only cut him off in his will, but took away a pension of four hundred kroner he had given his mother in her widowhood. if he had thoughts of bringing them over by such means, he found out his mistake. mother and son were made of sterner stuff. dalgas fought twice for his country, the last time in , as a captain of engineers. it was no ordinary class, the one of that resumed its studies in the military high school. two of the students did not answer roll-call; their names were written among the nation's heroic dead. some had scars and wore the cross for valor in battle. all were first lieutenants, to be graduated as captains. dalgas had himself transferred from the artillery to the engineers, and was detailed as road inspector. so the opportunity of his life came to him. there were few railways in those days; the highways were still the great arteries of traffic. dalgas built roads that crossed the heath, and he learned to know it and the strong and independent, if narrow, people who clung to it with such a tenacious grip. he had a natural liking for practical geology and for the chemistry of the soil, and the deep cuts which his roads sometimes made gave him the best of chances for following his bent. the heath lay as an open book before him, and he studied it with delight. he found the traces of the old forests, and noted their extent. occasionally the pickaxe uncovered peat deposits of unsuspected depth and value. sometimes the line led across the lean fields, and damages had to be discussed and assessed. he learned the point of view of the heath farmer, sympathized with his struggles, and gained his confidence. best of all, he found a man of his own mind, a lawyer by the name of morville, himself a descendant of the exiled huguenots. it is not a little curious that when the way was cleared for the heath society's great work, in its formal organization with m. mourier-petersen, a large landowner, as their associate in its management, the three men who for a quarter of a century planned the work and marked out the groove in which it was to run were all of that strong stock which is by no means the most common in denmark. with his lawyer friend captain dalgas tramped the heath far and wide for ten years. then their talks had matured a plan. dalgas wrote to the copenhagen newspapers that the heath could be reclaimed, and suggested that it should be done by the state. they laughed at him. "nothing better could have happened," he said in after years, "for it made us turn to the people themselves, and that was the road to success, though we did not know it." in the spring of a hundred men, little and big landowners most of them, met at his call, and organized the heath society[ ] with the object of reclaiming the moor. dalgas became its managing director. [footnote : danske hedeselskab.] to restore to the treeless waste its forest growth was the fundamental idea, for until that was done nothing but the heather could grow there. the west wind would not let it. but the heath farmer shook his head. it would cost too much, and give too little back. what he needed was water and marl. could the captain help them to these?--that was another matter. the little streams that found their way into the heath and lost it there, dire need had taught them to turn to use in their fields; not a drop escaped. but the river that ran between deep banks was beyond their reach. could he show them how to harness that? dalgas saw their point. "we are working, not for the dead soil, but for the living men who find homes upon it," he told his associates, and tree planting was put aside for the time. they turned canal diggers instead. irrigation became their aim and task; the engineer was in his right place. the water was raised from the stream and led out upon the moor, and presently grass grew in the sand which the wiry stems of the heather had clutched so long. green meadows lined the water-runs, and fragrant haystacks rose. to the lean sheep was added a cow, then two. the farmer laid by a little, and took in more land for cultivation. that meant breaking the heath. also, it meant marl. the heath is lime-poor; marl is lime in the exact form in which it best fits that sandy soil. it was known to exist in some favored spots, but the poor heath farmer could not bring it from a distance. so the marl borer went with the canal digger. into every acre he drove his auger, and mapped out his discoveries. at last accounts he had found marl in more than seventeen hundred places, and he is not done yet. where there was none, dalgas's society built portable railways into the moor far enough to bring it to nearly every farmer's door. it was as if a magic wand had been waved over the heath. with water and marl, the means were at hand for fighting it and winning out. heads that had drooped in discouragement were raised. the cattle keep increased, and with it came the farmer's wealth. marl changes the character of the heath soil; with manure to fertilize it there was no reason why it should not grow crops--none, except the withering blast of the west wind. the time for dalgas to preach tree planting had come. while the canal digger and marl seeker were at work, there had been neighborhood meetings and talks at which captain dalgas did the talking. when he spoke the heath boer listened, for he had learned to look upon him as one of them. he wore no gold lace. a plain man in every-day gray tweeds, with his trousers tucked into his boots, he spoke to plain people of things that concerned them vitally, and in a way they could understand. so when he told them that the heath had once been forest-clad, at least a large part of it, and pointed them to the proofs, and that the woods could be made to grow again to give them timber and shelter and crops, they gave heed. it was worth trying at any rate. the shelter was the immediate thing. they began planting hedges about their homesteads; not always wisely, for it is not every tree that will grow in the heath. the wind whipped and wore them, the ahl cramped their roots, and they died. the ahl is the rusty-red crust that forms under the heather in the course of the ages where the desert rules. sometimes it is a loose sandstone formation; sometimes it carries as much as twenty per cent of iron that is absorbed from the upper layers of the sand. in any case, it must be broken through; no tree root can do it. the ahl, the poverty of the sand, and the wind, together make the "evil genius" of the heath that had won until then in the century-old fight with man. but this time he had backing, and was not minded to give up. the heath society was there to counsel, to aid. and soon the hedges took hold, and gardens grew in their shelter. there is hardly a farm in all west jutland to-day that has not one, even if the moor waits just beyond the gate. out in the desert the society had made a beginning with plantations of norway spruce. they took root, but the heather soon overwhelmed the young plants. not without a fight would this enemy let go its grip upon the land. it had smothered the hardy scotch pine in days past, and now the spruce was in peril. searching high and low for something that would grow fast and grow green, dalgas and his associates planted dwarf pine with the spruce. strangely, it not only grew itself, but proved to be a real nurse for the other. the spruce took a fresh start, and they grew vigorously together--for a while. then the pine outstripped its nursling, and threatened to smother it. the spruce was the more valuable; the other was at best little more than a shrub. the croaker raised his voice: the black heath had turned green, but it was still heath, of no value to any one, then or ever. he had not reckoned with dalgas. the captain of engineers could use the axe as well as the spade. he cut the dwarf pine out wherever the spruce had got its grip, and gave it light and air. and it grew big and beautiful. the heath society has now over nineteen hundred plantations that cover nearly a hundred thousand acres, and the state and private individuals, inspired by the example it set, have planted almost as large an area. the ghost of the heath has been laid for all time. go now across the heath and see the change forty years have wrought. you shall seek in vain the lonely shepherd with his stocking. the stocking has grown into an organized industry. in grandfather's day the farmer and his household "knitted for the taxes"; if all hands made enough in the twelvemonth to pay the tax-gatherer, they had done well. last year the single county of hammerum, of which more below, sold machine-made underwear to the value of over a million and a half kroner. the sheep are there, but no longer lean; no more the ling-thatched hut, but prosperous farms backed by thrifty groves, with hollyhock and marigold in the dooryards, heaps of gray marl in the fields, tiny rivulets of water singing the doom of the heath in the sand; for where it comes the heather moves out. a resolute, thrifty peasantry looks hopefully forward. not all of the heath is conquered yet. roughly speaking, thirty-three hundred square miles of heath confronted dalgas in . just about a thousand remain for those who come after to wrestle with; but already voices are raised pleading that some of it be preserved untouched for its natural beauty, while yet it is time. meanwhile the plow goes over fresh acres every year--once, twice, then a deeper plowing, this time to break the stony crust, and the heath is ready for its human mission. from the society's nurseries that are scattered through the country come thousands of tiny trees, and are set out in the furrows, two of the spruce for each dwarf pine till the nurse has done her work. then she is turned into charcoal, into tar, and a score of other things of use. the men who do the planting in summer find chopping to do in winter in the older plantations, at good wages. money is flowing into the moor in the wake of the water and the marl. roads are being made, and every day the mail-carrier comes. in the olden time a stranger straying into the heath often brought the first news of the world without for weeks together. game is coming, too,--roebuck and deer,--in the young forests. the climate itself is changing; more rain falls in midsummer, when it is needed. the sand-blast has been checked, the power of the west wind broken. the shrivelled soil once more takes up and holds the rains, and the streams will deepen, fish leap in them as of yore. groves of beech and oak are springing up in the shelter of their hardier evergreen kin. "make the land furry," dalgas said, with prophetic eye beholding great forests taking the place of sand and heather, and in his lifetime the change was wrought that is transforming the barren moor into the home-land of a prosperous people. to the most unlikely of places, through the very prison doors, his gospel of hope has made its way. for the last dozen years the life prisoners in the horsens penitentiary have been employed in breaking and reforesting the heath, and their keepers report that the effect upon them of the hard work in the open has been to notably cheer and brighten them. the discipline has been excellent. there have been few attempts at escape, and they have come to nothing through the vigilance of the other prisoners. while the population in the rest of denmark is about stationary, in west jutland it grows apace. the case of skåphus farm in the parish of sunds shows how this happens. prior to this farm of three thousand acres was rated the "biggest and poorest" in denmark. last year it had dwindled to three hundred and fifty acres, but upon its old land thirty-three homesteads had risen that kept between them sixty-two horses and two hundred and fifty-two cows, beside the sheep, and the manor farm was worth twice as much as before. the town of herning, sometimes called "the star of the heath," is the seat of hammerum county, once the baldest and most miserable on the danish mainland. in twenty-one persons lived in herning. to-day there are more than six thousand in a town with handsome buildings, gas, electric lighting, and paved streets. the heath is half a dozen miles away. and this is not the result of any special or forced industry, but the natural, healthy growth of a centre for an army of industrious men and women winning back the land of their fathers by patient toil. all through the landscape one sees from the train the black giving way to the green. churches rear their white gables; bells that have been silent since the black death stalked through the land once more call the people to worship on the old sites. more churches were built in the reign of "the good king christian," who has just been gathered to his fathers, than in all the centuries since the day of the valdemars. bog cultivation is the heath society's youngest child. the heath is full of peat-bogs that only need the sand, so plentiful on the uplands, to make their soil as good as the best, the muck of the bog being all plant food, and they have a surplus of water to give in exchange. with hope the keynote of it all, the state has taken up the herculean task of keeping down the moving sands of the north sea coast. all along it is a range of dunes that in the fierce storms of that region may change shape and place in a single night. the "sand flight" at times reached miles inland, and threatened to bury the farmer's acres past recovery. austrian fir and dwarf pine now grow upon the white range, helping alike to keep down the sand and to bar out the blast. with this exception, the great change has been, is being, wrought by the people themselves. it was for their good, in the apathy that followed , that it should be so, and dalgas saw it. the state aids the man who plants ten acres or more, and assumes the obligation to preserve the forest intact; the heath society sells him plants at half-price, and helps him with its advice. it disposes annually of over thirteen million young trees. the people do the rest, and back the society with their support. the danish peasant has learned the value of coöperation since he turned dairy farmer, and associations for irrigation, for tree planting, and garden planting are everywhere. they even reach across the ocean. this year a call was issued to sons of the old soil, who have found a new home in america, to join in planting a danish-american forest in the desert where hill and heather hide a silvery lake in their deep shadows and returning wanderers may rest and dream of the long ago. soldier though he was, enrico dalgas's pick and spade brigade won greater victories for denmark than her armies in two wars. he literally "won for his country within what she had lost without." a natural organizer, a hard worker who found his greatest joy in his daily tasks, a fearless and lucid writer who yet knew how to keep his cause out of the rancorous politics that often enough seemed to mistake partisanship for patriotism, he was the most modest of men. praise he always passed up to others. at the "silver wedding" of the society he founded they toasted him jubilantly, but he sat quiet a long time. when at last he arose, it was to make this characteristic little speech: "i thank you very much. his excellency the minister of the interior, who is present here, will see from this how much you think of me, and possibly my recommendation that the state make a larger contribution to the heath society's treasury may thereby acquire greater weight with him. i drink to an increased appropriation." on the heath dalgas was prophet, prince, and friend of the people. in the crowds that flocked about his bier homespun elbowed gold lace in the grief of a common loss. boughs of the fragrant spruce decked his coffin, the gift of the heath to the memory of him who set it free. to dalgas apply the words of the seer with which he himself characterized the society that was the child of his heart and brain: "the good men are those who plant and water," for they add to the happiness of mankind. king christian iv [illustration: musical notation with lyrics] _maestoso_. king christian stood by loft-y mast in mist and smoke; his sword was ham-mer-ing so fast, thro' goth-ic helm and brain it passed; then sank each hos-tile hulk and mast. in mist and smoke. "fly," shout-ed they, "fly, he who can! who braves of denmark's christ-i-an, who braves of denmark's christian the stroke?" deep in the beech-woods between copenhagen and elsinore, upon the shore of a limpid lake, stands frederiksborg, one of the most beautiful castles in europe. in its chapel the danish kings were crowned for two centuries, and here was born on april , , king christian of the danish national hymn which longfellow translated into our tongue. no danish ruler since the days of the great valdemars made such a mark upon his time; none lives as he in the imagination of the people. he led armies to war and won and lost battles; indeed, he lost more than he won on land when matched against the great generals of that fighting era. on the sea he sailed his own ship and was the captain of his own fleet, and there he had no peer. he made laws in the days of peace and reigned over a happy, prosperous land. in his old age misfortune in which he had no share overwhelmed denmark, but he was ever greatest in adversity, and his courage saved the country from ruin. the great did not love him overmuch; but to the plain people he was ever, with all his failings, which were the failings of his day, a great, appealing figure, and lives in their hearts, not merely in the dry pages of musty books. he was eleven years old when his father died, and until he came of age the country was governed by a council of happily most able men who, with his mother, gave him such a schooling as few kings have had. he not only became proficient in the languages, living and dead, and in mathematics which he put to such practical use that he was among the greatest of architects and ship-builders; he was the best all-round athlete among his fellows as well, and there was some sense in the tradition that survives to this day that whoever was touched by him in wrath did not live long, for he was very tall with a big, strong body, and when he struck, he struck hard. he was a dauntless sailor who knew as much about sailing a ship as any one of his captains, and much more about building it. danger appealed to him always. when the spire on the great cathedral in copenhagen threatened to fall, he was the one who went up in it alone and gave orders where and how to brace it. as he grew, he sat in the council of state, learning kingcraft, and showed there the hard-headed sense of fairness and justice that went with him through life. he was hardly fourteen when the case of three brothers of the powerful friis family came before the council. they had attacked another young nobleman in the street, struck off one of his hands, and crippled the other. because of their influence, the council was for being lenient, atrocious as the crime was. a fine was deemed sufficient. the young prince asked if there were not some law covering the case with severer punishment, and was told that in the province of skaane there was such a law that applied to serfs. but the assault had not been committed in skaane, and these were high noblemen. "all the worse for them," said the prince. "is then a serf in skaane to have more rights under the law than a nobleman in the rest of denmark? let the law for the serf be theirs." and the judgment stood. he had barely attained his majority, when the young king was called upon to judge between another great noble and a widow whom he sued for daler, money he claimed to have lent to her husband. in proof he laid before the judges two bonds bearing the signatures of husband and wife. the widow denounced them as forgeries, but the court decided that she must pay. she went straight to the king with her story, assuring him that she had never heard of the debt. the king sent for the bonds and upon close scrutiny discovered that one of them was on paper bearing the water-mark of a mill that was not built till two years after the date written in the bond. the noble was arrested and the search of his house brought to light several similar documents waiting their turn. he went to the scaffold. his rank only aggravated his offence in the eyes of the king. no wonder the fame of this judge spread quickly through the land. a dozen contented years he reigned in peace, doing justice between man and man at home. then the curse of his house gripped him. in two centuries, since the brief union between the three scandinavian kingdoms was broken by the secession of sweden, only two of sixteen kings in either country had gone to their rest without ripping up the old feud. it was now christian's turn. the pretext was of little account: there was always cause enough. gustav adolf, whose father was then on the throne of sweden, said in after years that there was no one he had such hearty admiration for and whose friend he would like so well to be as christian iv: "the mischief is that we are neighbors." king christian crossed over into sweden and laid siege to the strong fortress of kalmar where he first saw actual war and showed himself a doughty campaigner of intrepid courage. it came near costing him his life when a cannoneer with whom he had often talked on his rounds deserted to the enemy and picked the king out as his especial target. twice he killed an officer attending upon him, but the king he never hit. it is almost a pleasure to record that when he tried it again, in another fight, christian caught him and dealt with him as the traitor he was, though the rough justice of those days is not pleasant to dwell on. the besieged tried to create a diversion by sneaking into camp at night and burying wax images of the king and his generals in the earth, where they were afterwards found and spread consternation through the army; for such things were believed to be wrought by witchcraft and to bring bad luck to those whom they represented. however, neither the real courage of the defenders, nor their dallying with the black art, helped them any. king christian stormed the town at the head of his army and took it. the burgomaster hid in the church, disguised as a priest, and pretended to be shriving some women when the crash came, but it did not save him. when the swedish king came with a host twice the size of his own, there was a battle royal, but christian drove him off and laid siege to the castle where dissension presently arose between the garrison and its commander who was for surrendering. in the midst of their noisy quarrel, king christian was discovered standing upon the wall, calmly looking on. he had climbed up alone on a rope ladder which the sentinel let down at his bidding. at the sight they gave it up and opened the gates, and the king wrote home, proudly dating his letter from "our castle kalmar." its loss so angered the swedish king who was old and sick, that he challenged christian to single combat, without armor. the letters that passed between them were hardly kingly. king christian wrote that he had other things to do: "better catch a doctor, old man, and have your head-piece looked after." helpless anger killed karl, and gustav adolf, of whom the world was presently to hear, took the command and the crown. after that christian had a harder road to hoe. a foretaste of it came to him when he tried to surprise the fortress of gullberg near the present götaborg. its commander was wounded early in the fight, but his wife who took his place more than filled it. she and her women poured boiling lye upon the attacking danes until they lay "like scalded pigs" under the walls. their leader knew when he had enough and made off in haste, with the lady commandant calling after him, "you were a little unexpected for breakfast, but come back for dinner and we will receive you properly." she would not even let them take their dead away. "since god gave us luck to kill them," she said, "we will manage to bury them too." they were very pious days after their own fashion, and god was much on the lips of his servants. troubles rarely come singly. soon after, king christian met the enemy unexpectedly and was so badly beaten that for the second time he had to run for it, though he held out till nearly all his men had fallen. his horse got mired in a swamp with the pursuers close behind. the gay and wealthy sir christen barnekow, who had been last on the field, passed him there, and at once got down and gave him his horse. it meant giving up his life, and when sir christen could no longer follow the fleeing king he sat down on a rock with the words, "i give the king my horse, the enemy my life, and god my soul." the rock is there yet and the country folk believe that the red spots in the granite are christen barnekow's blood which all the years have not availed to wash out. they tired of fighting at last and made it up. sweden paid denmark a million daler; for the rest, things stayed as they had been before. king christian had shown himself no mean fighter, but the senseless sacking and burning of town and country that was an ugly part of those days' warfare went against his grain, and he tried to persuade the swedes to agree to leave that out in future. gustav adolf had not yet grown into the man he afterward became. "as to the burning," was his reply, "seeing that it is the usage of war, and we enemies, why we will each have to do the best we can," which meant the worst. had the two kings, who had much in common, got together in the years of peace that followed, much misery might have been saved denmark, and a black page of history might read very differently. for those were the days of the thirty years' war, in which together they might have dictated peace to harassed europe. now king christian's ambition, his piety, for he was a sincerely religious man, as well as his jealousy of his younger rival and of the growing power of sweden--so mixed are human motives--made him yield to the entreaties of the hard-pressed protestant princes to take up alone their cause against the german emperor. he had tried for half a dozen years to make peace between them. at last he drew the sword and went down to force it. after a year of fighting tilly and wallenstein, the emperor's great generals, he met the former in a decisive battle at lutter-am-baremberg. king christian's army was beaten and put to rout. he himself fled bareheaded through the forests of the hartz mountains, pursued by the enemy's horsemen. it was hardly necessary for the emperor to make him promise as the price of peace to keep out of german affairs thenceforth. his allies had left him to fight it out alone. all their fine speeches went for nothing when it came to the test, and king christian rode back to denmark, a sadder and wiser man. it was left to gustav adolf, after all, to teach the german generals the lesson they needed. in the years of peace before that unhappy war, danish trade and danish culture had blossomed exceedingly, thanks to the wisdom, the clever management, and untiring industry of the king. he built factories, cloth-mills, silk-mills, paper-mills, dammed the north sea out from the rich marshlands with great dikes, taught the farmers profitable ways of tilling their fields; for he was a wondrous manager for whom nothing was too little and nothing too big. he kept minute account of his children's socks and little shirts, and found ways of providing money for his war-ships and for countless building schemes he had in hand both in denmark and norway. for many of them he himself drew the plans. wherever one goes to this day, his monogram, which heads this story, stares at him from the splendid buildings he erected. the bourse in copenhagen and the round tower, the beautiful palace of rosenborg, a sort of miniature of his beloved frederiksborg which also he rebuilt on a more magnificent scale--these are among his works which every traveller in the north knows. he built more cities and strongholds than those who went before or came after him for centuries. christiania and christiansand in norway bear his name. he laid out a whole quarter of copenhagen for his sailors, and the quaint little houses still serve that purpose. regentsen, a dormitory for poor students at the university, was built by him. he created seven new chairs of learning and saw to it that all the professors got better pay. he ferreted out and dismissed in disgrace all the grafting officials in norway, and administered justice with an even hand. at the same time he burned witches without end, or let it be done for their souls' sake. that was the way of his time; and when he needed fireworks for his son's wedding (he made them himself, too), he sent around to all the old cloisters and cathedral churches for the old parchments they had. heaven only knows what treasures that can never be replaced went up in fire and smoke for that one night's fun. king christian founded a score of big trading companies to exploit the east, taking care that their ships should have their bulwarks pierced for at least six guns, so that they might serve as war-ships in time of need. he sent one expedition after another to the waters of greenland in search of the northwest passage. it was on the fourth of these, in , that jens munk with two ships and sixty-four sailors was caught in the ice of hudson bay and compelled to winter there. one after another the crew died of hunger and scurvy. when jens munk himself crept out from what he had thought his death-bed, he found only two of them all alive. together they burrowed in the snow, digging for roots until spring came when they managed to make their way down to bergen in the smallest of the two vessels. jens munk had deserved a better end than he got. he spun his yarns so persistently at court that he got to be a tiresome bore, and at last one day the king told him that he had no time to listen to him. whereat the veteran took great umbrage and, slapping his sword, let the king know that he had served him well and was entitled to better treatment. christian snatched the weapon in anger and struck him with the scabbard. the sailor never got over it. "he withered away and died," says the tradition. it was the old superstition; but whether that killed him or not, the king lost a good man in jens munk. he was not averse to hearing the truth, though, when boldly put. when ole vind, a popular preacher, offended some of the nobles by his plain speech and they complained to the king, he bade him to the court and told him to preach the same sermon over. master vind was game and the truths he told went straight home, for he knew well where the shoe pinched. but king christian promptly made him court preacher. "he is the kind we need here," he said. there was never a day that the king did not devoutly read his bible, and he was determined that everybody should read it the same way. the result was a kind of puritanism that filled the churches and compelled the employment of men to go around with long sticks to rap the people on the head when they fell asleep. christian the fourth was not the first ruler who has tried to herd men into heaven by battalions. but his people would have gladly gone in the fire for him. he was their friend. when on his tramps, as likely as not he would come home sitting beside some peasant on his load of truck, and would step off at the palace gate with a "so long, thanks for good company!" he was everywhere, interested in everything. in his walking-stick he carried a foot-rule, a level, and other tools, and would stop at the bench of a workman in the navy-yard and test his work to see how well he was doing it. "i can lie down and sleep in any hut in the land," was his contented boast. and he would have been safe anywhere. gustav adolf was a wise and generous foe. while he lived he refused to listen to proposals for the partition of denmark after king christian's defeat in germany. he knew well that she was a barrier against the ambition of the german princes and that, once she was out of the way, sweden's turn would come next. but when he had fallen on the battle-field of lützen, and his generals, following in his footsteps, had achieved fame and lands and the freedom of worship for which he gave his life, the swedish statesmen lost their heads and dreamed of the erection of a great northern protestant state by the conquest of denmark and norway, to balance the power of the german empire. without warning or declaration of war a great army was thrown into the danish peninsula from the south. another advanced from sweden upon the eastern provinces, and a fleet hired in holland for swedish money came through the north sea to help them over to the danish islands. if the two armies met, denmark was lost. in swedish harbors a still bigger fleet was fitting out for the baltic. king christian was well up in the sixties, worn with the tireless activities of a long reign; but once more he proved himself greater than adversity. when the evil tidings reached him, in the midst of profound peace, the enemy was already within the gates. the country lay prostrate. the name of torstenson, the swedish general, spread terror wherever it was heard. in the german campaigns he had been known as the "swedish lightning." beset on every side, never had denmark's need been greater. the one man who did not lose his head was her king. by his personal example he put heart into the people and shamed the cowardly nobles. he borrowed money wherever he could, sent his own silver to the mint, crowded the work in the navy-yard by night and by day, gathered an army, and hurried with it to the sounds where the enemy might cross. when the first ships were ready he sailed around the skaw to meet the dutch hirelings. "i am old and stiff," he said, "and no good any more to fight on land. but i can manage the ships." and he did. he met the dutchmen in the north sea, in under the danish coast, and whipped them, almost single-handed, for his own ship _trefoldigheden_ was for a long while the only one that wind and tide would let come up with them. that done, he left one of his captains to watch lest they come out from among the islands where their ships of shallower draught had sought refuge, and sailed for copenhagen. everything that could carry sail was ready for him by that time; also the news that the swedish fleet of forty-six fighting ships under klas fleming had sailed for the coast of holstein to take on board torstenson's army. king christian lost no time. he hoisted his flag on _trefoldigheden_ and made after them with thirty-nine ships, vowing that he would win this fight or die. at kolberger heide, the water outside the fjord of kiel, he caught up with them and attacked at once. the battle that then ensued is the one of which the poet sings and with which the name of christian iv is forever linked. at the outset the danish fleet was in great peril. the swedes fought gallantly as was their wont, and they were three or four against one, for most of the king's ships came up slowly, some of them purposely, so it seems. the king said after the battle of certain of his captains, "they used me as a screen between them and the enemy." his own ship and that of his chief admiral's bore the brunt of the battle for a long time. _trefoldigheden_ fired shots during the engagement, and at one time had four hostile, ships clustering about her. king christian was on the quarter-deck when a cannon-ball shivered the bulwark and one of his guns, throwing a shower of splintered iron and wood over him and those near him, killing and wounding twelve of the crew. the king himself fell, stunned and wounded in twenty-three places. his right eye was knocked out, two of his teeth, and his left ear hung in shreds. the cry was raised that the king was dead and panic spread on board. the story has it that a sailor was sent aloft to strike the flag but purposely entangled it in the rigging so that it could not fall; he could not bear to see the king's ship strike its colors. in the midst of the tumult the aged monarch rose to his feet, torn and covered with blood. "i live yet," he cried, "and god has left me strength to fight on for my country. let every man do his duty." leaning on his sword, he led the fight until darkness fell and the battle was won. denmark was saved. the danger of an invasion was averted. in the palace of rosenborg the priceless treasure they show to visitors is the linen cloth, all blood-stained, that bound the king's face as he fought and won his last and biggest fight that day. half blind, his body black and blue and sore from many bruises, king christian yet refused to sail for copenhagen to have his wounds attended. three weeks he lay watching the narrow inlet behind which the beaten enemy was hiding, to destroy his ships when he came out. then he gave over the command to another and hastened to the province of skaane on the swedish mainland, from which he expelled a hostile army. but when his back was turned, the men he had set to watch fell asleep and let the swedish admiral steal out into the open. there he found and joined the dutch ships that had slipped around the skaw during the rumpus. together they overwhelmed the danish fleet, being now three to one, and crushed it. the slothful admiral paid for it with his life, but the harm was done. it was the last and heaviest blow. the old king sheathed his sword and set his name to a peace that took from denmark some of her ancient provinces, with the bitter sigh: "god knows i had no share in this," and he had not. even at the last he appealed to the country to try the fortunes of war with him once more. the people were willing, but the nobles wanted peace, "however god send it," and he had to yield. the treaty was made at brömsebro, where a bridge crossed the river dividing the two kingdoms. in the middle of the river was an island and the negotiations were carried on in a tent erected there, the french and the dutch being the arbitrators. the envoys of sweden and denmark sat on opposite sides of the boundary post where the line cut through, each on the soil of his own country. so bitterly did they hate one another that they did not speak but wrote their messages, though they could have shaken hands where they sat. even that was too close quarters, and they ended up by negotiating at second hand through the foreign ambassadors, all at the same table, but each looking straight past the other as if he were not there. another touch of comedy relieves the gloom of that heavy day. it was the conquest of the särnadal, a mountain valley in norway just over the swedish frontier, by pastor buschovius who, bible in hand, at the head of two hundred ski-men invaded and captured it one winter's day without a blow. he came over the snow-fields into the valley that had not seen a preacher in many a long day, had the church bells rung to summon the people, preached to them, married and christened them, and gave them communion. the simple mountaineers had hardly heard of the war and had nothing against their neighbors over the mountain. they joined sweden then and there at the request of the preacher, and they stayed swedes too, for in the final muster they were forgotten with their valley. very likely the treaty-makers did not know that it existed. king christian died four years later, in , past the three score and ten allotted to man. he was not a great leader like gustav adolf, and he was very human in some of his failings. but he was a strong man, a just king, and a father of his people who still cling to his memory with more than filial affection. gustav adolf, the snow-king the city of prague, the capital of bohemia, went wild with excitement one spring morning in the year . the protestant estates of germany had met there to protest against the aggressions of the catholic league and the bad faith of the emperor, who had guaranteed freedom of worship in the land and had now sent two envoys to defy the meeting and declare it illegal. in the old castle they delivered their message and bade the convention disperse; and the delegates, when they had heard, seized them and their clerk and threw them out of the window "in good old bohemian fashion." they fell seventy feet and escaped almost without a scratch, which fact was accepted by the catholics of that strenuous day as proof of their miraculous preservation; by the protestants as evidence that the devil ever takes care of his own. it was the tiny spark that set europe on fire. out of it grew the thirty years' war, the most terrible that ever scourged the civilized world. when catholic league and evangelical union first mustered their armies, bohemia had a prosperous population of four million souls; when the war was over there were less than eight hundred thousand alive in that unhappy land, and the wolves that roamed its forests were scarcely more ferocious than the human starvelings who skulked among the smoking ruins of burned towns and hamlets. other states fared little better. two centuries did not wipe out the blight of those awful years when rapine and murder, inspired by bigotry and hate, ran riot in the name of religion. in the gloom and horror of it all a noble figure stands forth alone. it were almost worth the sufferings of a thirty years' war for the world to have gained a gustav adolf. the "snow-king" the emperor's generals named him when he first appeared on german soil at the head of his army of northmen, and they prophesied that he would speedily melt, once the southern sun shone upon his host. they little knew the man. he went from victory to victory, less because he was the greatest general of his day than because he, and all his army with him, believed himself charged by the almighty with the defence of his country and of his faith. the emperor had attacked both, the first by attempting to extend his dominion to the baltic; but pommerania and the baltic provinces were regarded by the swedish ruler as the outworks of his kingdom; and sweden was protestant. hence he drew the sword. "our brethren in the faith are sighing for deliverance from spiritual and bodily thraldom," he said to his people. "please god, they shall not sigh long." that was his warrant. axel oxenstjerna, his friend and right hand who lived to finish his work, said of him, "he felt himself impelled by a mighty spirit which he was unable to resist." as warrior, king, and man, he was head and shoulders above his time. gustav adolf saved religious liberty to the world. he paid the price with his life, but he would have asked no better fate. a soldier of god, he met a soldier's death on the field of battle, in the hour of victory. a man of destiny he was to his people as to himself. long years before his birth, upon the appearance of the comet of , tycho brahe, the astronomer, who was deep in the occultism of his day, had predicted that a prince would appear in finland who would do great things in germany and deliver the protestant peoples from the oppression of the popes, and the prophecy was applied to gustav adolf by his subjects all through his life. he was born on december , , old style, as they still reckon time in russia. very early he showed the kind of stuff he was made of. when he was yet almost a baby he was told that there were snakes in the park, and showed fight at once: "give me a stick and i will kill them." with the years he grew into a handsome youth who read his books, knew his seneca by heart, was fond of the poets and the great orators, and mastered eight languages, living and dead. at seventeen he buckled on the sword and put the books away, but kept xenophon as his friend; for he was a military historian after his own heart. he was then duke of finland. the king, his father, was a stern but observant man who, seeing his bent, threw him with soldiers to his heart's content, glad to have it so, for it was a warlike age. from his tenth year he let him sit in council with him and early delegated to him the duty of answering ambassadors from foreign countries. the lad was the only one who dared oppose the king when he was in a temper, and often he made peace and healed wounds struck in anger. the people worshipped the fair young prince, and his father, when he felt the palsy of old age and bodily infirmities creeping upon him and thought of his unfinished tasks, would murmur as his eyes rested upon the bonny youth: "_ille faciet_--he will do it." there is still in existence a document in which he laid down to him his course as a sovereign. "first of all," he writes, "you shall fear god and honor your father and mother. give your brothers and sisters brotherly affection; love your father's faithful servants and requite them after their due. be gracious to your subjects; punish evil and love the good. believe in men, but find out first what is in them. hold by the law without respect of person." it was good advice to a prince, and the king took it to heart. on the docket of the supreme court at stockholm is a letter written by gustav adolf to the judges and ordered by him to be entered there, which tells them plainly that if any of them is found perverting justice to suit him, the king, or any one else, he will have him flayed alive and his hide nailed to the judgment-seat, his ears to the pillory! not a nice way of talking to dignified judges, perhaps, but then the prescription was intended to suit the practice, if there was need. the young king earned his spurs in a war with denmark that came near being his last as it was his first campaign. he and his horsemen were surprised by the danes on a winter's night as they were warming themselves by a fire built of the pews in the wittsjö church, and they cut their way through only after a desperate fight on the frozen lake. the ice broke under the king's horse and he was going down when two of his men caught him in the nick of time. he got away with the loss of his sword, his pistols, and his gloves. "i will remember you with a crust that shall do for your bairns too," he promised one of his rescuers, a stout peasant lad, and he kept his word. thomas larsson's descendants a generation ago still tilled the farm the king gave him. when the trouble with denmark was over for the time being, he settled old scores with russia and poland in a way that left sweden mistress of the baltic. in the polish war he was wounded twice and was repeatedly in peril of his life. once he was shot in the neck, and, as the bullet could not be removed, it ever after troubled him to wear armor. his officers pleaded with him to spare himself, but his reply was that cæsar and alexander did not skulk behind the lines; a general must lead if he expected his men to follow. in this campaign he met the league's troops, sent to chase him back to his own so that wallenstein, the leader of the imperial armies, might be "general of the baltic sea," unmolested. "go to poland," he commanded one of his lieutenants, "and drive the snow-king out; or else tell him that i shall come and do it myself." the proud soldier never knew how near he came to entertaining the snow-king as his unwilling guest then. in a fight between his rear-guard and the imperial army gustav adolf was disarmed and taken prisoner by two troopers. there was another prisoner who had kept his pistol. he handed it to the king behind his back and with it he shot one of his captors and brained the other. for all that they nearly got him. he saved himself only by wriggling out of his belt and leaving it in the hands of the enemy. eight years he campaigned in poland and prussia, learning the arts of war. then he was ready for his life-work. he made a truce with poland that freed his hands for a season, and went home to sweden. that spring ( ) he laid before the swedish estates his plan of freeing the protestants. to defend sweden, he declared, was to defend her faith, and the estates voted supplies for the war. to gauge fully the splendid courage of the nation it must be remembered that the whole kingdom, including finland, had a population of only a million and a half at the time and was preparing to attack the mighty roman empire. in the first year of the war the swedish budget was thirteen millions of dollars, of which nine and a half went for armaments. the whole army which gustav adolf led into germany numbered only , soldiers, but it was made up of swedish veterans led by men whose names were to become famous for all time, and welded together by an unshakable belief in their commander, a rigid discipline and a religious enthusiasm that swayed master and men with a common impulse. such a combination has in all days proven irresistible. the king's farewell to his people--he was never to see sweden again--moved a nation to tears. he spoke to the nobles, the clergy and to the people, admonishing them to stand together in the hard years that were coming and gave them all into the keeping of god. they stood on the beach and watched his ships sail into the sunset until they were swallowed up in glory. then they went back home to take up the burden that was their share. on the rügen shore the king knelt with his men and thanked god for having brought them safe across the sea, then seized a spade, and himself turned the first sod in the making of a camp. "who prays well, fights well," he said. he was not exactly hospitably received. the old duke of pommerania would have none of him, begged him to go away, and only when the king pointed to his guns and hinted that he had keys well able to open the gates of stettin, his capital, did he give in and promise help. the other german princes, with one or two exceptions, were as cravenly short-sighted. they held meetings and denounced the emperor and his lawless doings, but gustav they would not help. the princes of brandenburg and of saxony, the two protestant electors of the empire, were rather disposed to hinder him, if they might, though brandenburg was his brother-in-law. only when the king threatened to burn the city of berlin over his head did he listen. while he was yet laboring with them, recruiting his army and keeping it in practice by driving the enemy out of pommerania, news reached him of the fall of magdeburg, the strongest city in northern germany, that had of its own free will joined his cause. the sacking of magdeburg is one of the black deeds of history. in a night the populous city was reduced to a heap of smoking ruins under which twenty thousand men, women, and children lay buried. not since the fall of jerusalem, said pappenheim, tilly's famous cavalry leader to whom looting and burning were things of every day, had so awful a visitation befallen a town. only the great cathedral and a few houses near it were left standing. the history of warfare of the christian peoples of that day reads like a horrid nightmare. the fighting armies left a trail of black desolation where they passed. "they are not made up of birds that feed on air," sneered tilly. peaceful husbandmen were murdered, the young women dragged away to worse than slavery, and helpless children spitted upon the lances of the wild landsknechts and tossed with a laugh into the blazing ruins of their homes. but no such foul blot cleaves to the memory of gustav adolf. while he lived his men were soldiers, not demons. in his tent the work of hugo grotius on the rights of the nations in war and peace lay beside the bible and he knew them both by heart. when he was gone, the fame of some of his greatest generals was smirched by as vile orgies as tilly's worst days had witnessed. it is told of john banér, one of the most brilliant of them, that he demanded ransom of the city of prix, past which his way led. the city fathers permitted themselves an untimely jest: "prix giebt nichts--prix gives nothing," they said. banér was as brief: "prix wird zu nichts--prix comes to nothing," and his army wiped it out. grief and anger almost choked the king when he heard of magdeburg's fate. "i will avenge that on the old corporal (tilly's nickname)," he cried, "if it costs my life." without further ado he forced the two electors to terms and joined the saxon army to his own. on september , , fifteen months after he had landed in germany, he met tilly face to face at breitenfeld, a village just north of leipzig. the emperor's host in its brave show of silver and plumes and gold, the plunder of many campaigns under its invincible leader, looked with contempt upon the travel-worn swedes in their poor, soiled garb. the stolid finns sat their mean but wiry little horses very unlike pappenheim's dreaded walloons, descendants of the warlike belgæ of gaul who defied the germans of old in the forest of the ardennes and joined cæsar in his victorious march. but tilly himself was not deceived. he knew how far this enemy had come and with what hardships cheerfully borne; how they had routed the russians, written laws for the poles in their own land, and overthrown armies and forts that barred their way. he would wait for reinforcements; but his generals egged him on, said age had made him timid and slow, and carried the day. the king slept in an empty cart the night before the battle and dreamed that he wrestled with tilly and threw him, but that he tore his breast with his teeth. when all was ready in the morning he rode along the front and told his fusiliers not to shoot till they saw the white in the enemy's eyes, the horsemen not to dull their swords by hacking the helmets of the walloons: "cut at their horses and they will go down with them." in the pause before the onset he prayed with head uncovered and lowered sword, and his voice carried to the farthest lines: "thou, god, in whose hands are victory and defeat, look graciously upon thy servants. from distant lands and peaceful homes have we come to battle for freedom, truth and thy gospel. give us victory for thy holy name's sake, amen!" tilly had expected the king to attack, but the fiery pappenheim upset his plans. the smoke of the guns drifted in the faces of the swedes and the king swung his army to the south to get the wind right. in making the turn they had to cross a brook and this moment pappenheim chose for his charge. like a thunderbolt his walloons fell upon them. the swedish fire mowed them down like ripened grain and checked their impetuous rush. they tried to turn the king's right and so outflank him; but the army turned with them and stood like a rock. the extreme mobility of his forces was gustav adolf's great advantage in his campaigns. he revised the book of military tactics up to date. the imperial troops were massed in solid columns, after the old spanish fashion, the impact of which was hard to resist when they struck. the king's, on the contrary, moved in smaller bodies, quickly thrown upon the point of danger, and his artillery was so distributed among them as to make every shot tell on the compact body of the enemy. whichever way pappenheim turned he found a firm front, bristling with guns, opposing him. seven times he threw himself upon the living wall; each time his horsemen were flung back, their lines thinned and broken. the field was strewn with their dead. tilly, anxiously watching, threw up his hands in despair. "this man will lose me honor and fame, and the emperor his lands," he cried. the charge ended in wild flight, and tilly saw that he must himself attack, to turn the tide. on the double-quick his columns of spearmen charged down the heights, swept the saxons from the field, and fell upon the swedish left. the shock was tremendous. general gustav horn gave back to let his second line come up, and held the ground stubbornly against fearful odds. word was brought the king of his danger. with the right wing that had crushed pappenheim he hurried to the rescue. in the heat of the fight the armies had changed position, and the swedes found themselves climbing the hill upon which tilly's artillery was posted. seeing this, the king made one of the rapid movements that more than once won him the day. raising the cry, "remember magdeburg!" he carried the position with his finns by a sudden overwhelming assault, and turned the guns upon the dense masses of the enemy fighting below. in vain they stormed the heights. both wings and the centre closed in upon them, and the day was lost. tilly fled, wounded, and narrowly escaped capture. a captain in the swedish army, who was called long fritz because of his great height, was at his heels hammering him on the head with the butt of his pistol. a staff officer shot him down in passing, and freed his chief. twilight fell upon a battle-field where seven thousand men lay dead, two-thirds of them the flower of the emperor's army. blood-stained and smoke-begrimed, gustav adolf and his men knelt on the field and thanked god for the victory. had the king's friend and adviser, axel oxenstjerna, been with him he might have marched upon vienna then, leaving the protestant estates to settle their own affairs, and very likely have ended the war. gustav adolf thought of tilly who would return with another army. oxenstjerna saw farther, weighing things upon the scales of the diplomatist. "how think you we would fare," asked the king once, when the chancellor saw obstacles in their way which he would brush aside, "if my fire did not thaw the chill in you?" "but for my chill cooling your majesty's fire," was his friend's retort, "you would have long since been burned up." the king laughed and owned that he was right. instead of bearding the emperor in his capital he turned toward the rhine where millions of protestants were praying for his coming and where his army might find rest and abundance. the cathedral city of würzburg he took by storm. the bishop who ruled it fled at his approach, but the full treasury of the jesuits fell into his hands. the madonna of beaten gold and the twelve solid silver apostles, famous throughout europe, were sent to the mint and coined into money to pay his army. in the cellar they found chests filled with ducats. the bottom fell out of one as they carried it up and the gold rolled out on the pavement. the soldiers swarmed to pick it up, but a good many coins stuck to their pockets. the king saw it and laughed: "since you have them, boys, keep them." the dead were still lying in the castle yard after the siege, a number of monks among them. the color of some of them seemed high for corpses. "arise from the dead," he said waggishly, "no one will hurt you," and the frightened monks got upon their feet and scampered away. frankfort opened its gates to his victorious host and nürnberg received him as a heaven-sent liberator. but tilly was in the field with a fresh army, burning to avenge breitenfeld. he had surprised general horn at bamberg and beaten him. at the approach of the king he camped where the river lech joins the danube, awaiting attack. there was but one place to cross to get at him, and right there he stood. the king seized donauworth and ulm, and under cover of the fire of seventy guns threw a bridge across the lech. three hundred finns carrying picks and spades ran across the shaky planks upon which the fire of tilly's whole artillery park was concentrated. once across, they burrowed in the ground like moles and, with bullets raining upon them, threw up earthworks for shelter. squad after squad of volunteers followed. duke bernhard of saxe-weimar swam his horsemen across the river farther up-stream and took the bavarian troops in the flank, beating them back far enough to let him join the finns at the landing. the king himself was directing the artillery on the other shore, aiming the guns with his own hand. the walloons, tilly's last hope, charged, but broke under the withering fire. in desperation the old field-marshal seized the standard and himself led the forlorn hope. half-way to the bridge he fell, one leg shattered by a cannon-ball, and panic seized his men. the imperialists fled in the night, carrying their wounded leader. he died on the march soon after. men said of him that he had served his master well. the snow-king had not melted in the south. he was master of the roman empire from the baltic to the alps. the way to austria and italy lay open before him. protestant princes crowded to do him homage, offering him the imperial crown. but gustav adolf did not lose his head. toward the humbled catholics he showed only forbearance and toleration. in munich he visited the college of the jesuits, and spoke long with the rector in the latin tongue, assuring him of their safety as long as they kept from politics and plotting. the armory in that city was known to be the best stocked in all europe and the king's surprise was great when he found gun-carriages in plenty, but not a single cannon. looking about him, he saw evidence that the floor had been hastily relaid and remembered the "dead" monks at würzburg. he had it taken up and a dark vault appeared. the king looked into it. "arise!" he called out, "and come to judgment," and amid shouts of laughter willing hands brought out a hundred and forty good guns, welcome reënforcements. the ignorant bavarian peasants had been told that the king was the very anti-christ, come to harass the world for its sins, and carried on a cruel guerilla warfare upon his army. they waylaid the swedes by night on their foraging trips and maimed and murdered those they caught with fiendish tortures. the bitterest anger filled gustav adolf's soul when upon his entry into landshut the burgomaster knelt at his stirrup asking mercy for his city. "pray not to me," he said harshly, "but to god for yourself and for your people, for in truth you have need." for once thoughts of vengeance seemed to fill his soul. "no, no!" he thundered when the frightened burgomaster pleaded that his townsmen should not be held accountable for the cruelty of the country-folk, "you are beasts, not men, and deserve to be wiped from the earth with fire and sword." from out the multitude there came a warning voice: "will the king now abandon the path of mercy for the way of vengeance and visit his wrath upon these innocent people?" no one saw the speaker. the day was oppressively hot and the king came near fainting in the saddle. as he rode out of the city toward the camp, a bolt of lightning struck the ground beside him and a mighty crash of thunder rolled overhead. pale and thoughtful, he rode on. but landshut was spared. that evening general horn brought the anxious citizens the king's promise of pardon. a few weeks later tidings reached gustav adolf that wallenstein and the elector of bavaria were marching to effect a junction at nürnberg. if they took the city, his line of communication was cut and his army threatened. wallenstein, who was a traitor, had been in disgrace; but he was a great general and in his dire need emperor ferdinand had no one else to turn to. so he took him back on his own terms, and in the spring he had an army of forty thousand veterans in the field. this was the host he was leading against nürnberg. but the king got there first and intrenched himself so strongly that there was no ousting him. wallenstein followed suit and for eleven weeks the enemies eyed one another from their "lagers," neither willing to risk an attack. in the end gustav adolf tried, but even his finns could not take the impregnable heights the enemy held. at last he went away with colors flying and bands playing, right under the enemy's walls, in the hope of tempting him out. but he never stirred. when wallenstein was sure he had gone, he burned his camp and turned toward saxony to punish the elector for joining the swedes. a wail of anguish went up from that unhappy land and the king heard it clear across the country. by forced marches he hurried to the rescue of his ally, picking up bernhard of saxe-weimar on the way. at naumburg the people crowded about him and sought to kiss or even to touch his garments. the king looked sadly at them. "they put their trust in me, poor weak mortal, as if i were the almighty. it may be that he will punish their folly soon upon the object of their senseless idolatry." he had come to stay, but when he learned that wallenstein had sent pappenheim away to the west, thus weakening his army, and was going into winter quarters at lützen, near leipzig, a half-day's march from the memorable breitenfeld, he broke camp at once and hastened to attack him. starting early, his army reached lützen at nightfall on november , . wallenstein believed the campaign was over for that year and the swedes in winter quarters, and was taken completely by surprise. had the king given battle that night, he would have wiped the enemy out. two things, in themselves of little account, delayed him: a small brook that crossed his path, and the freshly plowed fields. his men were tired after the long march and he decided to let them rest. it was wallenstein's chance. overnight he posted his army north of the highway that leads from lützen to leipzig, dug deep the ditches that enclosed it, and made breastworks of the dirt. sunrise found sheltered behind them twenty-seven thousand seasoned veterans to whom gustav adolf could oppose but twenty thousand; but he had more guns and they were better served. as the day broke the swedish army, drawn up in battle array, intoned luther's hymn, "a mighty fortress is our god," and cheered the king. he wore a leathern doublet and a gray mantle. to the pleadings of his officers that he put on armor he replied only, "god is my armor." "to-day," he cried as he rode along the lines, "will end all our hardships." he himself took command of the right wing, the gallant duke bernhard of the left. as at breitenfeld, the rallying cry was, "god with us!" the king hoped to crush his enemy utterly, and the whole line attacked at once with great fury. from the start victory leaned toward the swedish army. then suddenly in the wild tumult of battle a heavy fog settled upon the field. what followed was all confusion. no one knows the rights of it to this day. the king led his famous yellow and blue regiments against the enemy's left. "the black fellows there," he shouted, pointing to the emperor's cuirassiers in their black armor, "attack them!" just then an adjutant reported that his infantry was hard pressed. "follow me," he commanded, and, clapping spurs to his horse, set off at full speed for the threatened quarter. in the fog he lost his way and ran into the cuirassiers. his two attendants were shot down and a bullet crushed the king's right arm. he tried to hide the fact that he was wounded, but pain and loss of blood made him faint and he asked the duke of lauenburg who rode with him to help him out of the crush. at that moment a fresh troop of horsemen bore down upon them and their leader, moritz von falkenberg, shot the king through the body with the exultant cry, "you i have long sought!" the words had hardly left his lips when he fell with a bullet through his head. the king swayed in the saddle and lost the reins. "save yourself," he whispered to the duke, "i am done for." the duke put his arm around him to support him, but the cuirassiers surged against them and tore them apart. the king's horse was shot in the neck and threw its rider. awhile he hung by the stirrup and was dragged over the trampled field. then the horse shook itself free and ran through the lines, spreading the tidings of the king's fall afar. a german page, leubelfing, a lad of eighteen, was alone with the king. he sprang from his horse and tried to help him into the saddle but had not the strength to do it. gustav adolf was stout and very heavy. while he was trying to lift him some croats rode up and demanded the name of the wounded man. the page held his tongue, and they ran him through. gustav adolf, to save him, said that he was the king.[ ] at that they shot him through the head, and showered blows upon him. when the body was found in the night it was naked. they had robbed and stripped him. [footnote : this is the story as the page told it. he lived two days.] the king was dead. through the swedish ranks duke bernhard shouted the tidings. "who now cares to live? forward, to avenge his death!" with the blind fury of the berserkers of old the swedes cleared the ditches, stormed the breastworks, and drove the foe in a panic before them. the duke's arm was broken by a bullet. he hardly knew it. with his regiment he rode down the crew of one of the enemy's batteries and swept on. in the midst of it all a cry resounded over the plain that made the runaways halt and turn back. "pappenheim! pappenheim is here!" he had come with his walloons in answer to the general's summons. "where is the king?" he asked, and they pointed to the finnish brigade. with a mighty crash the two hosts that had met so often before came together. wallenstein mustered his scattered forces and the king's army was attacked from three sides at once. the yellow brigade fell where it stood almost to the last man. the blue fared little better. slowly the swedish infantry gave back. the battle seemed lost. but the tide turned once more. in the hottest fight pappenheim fell, pierced by three bullets. the "man of a hundred scars" died, exulting that the king whom he hated had gone before. with his death the emperor's men lost heart. the swedes charged again and again with unabated fury. night closed in with wallenstein's centre still unbroken; but he had lost all his guns. under cover of the darkness he made his escape. the king's army camped upon the battle-field. the carnage had been fearful; nine thousand were slain. it was wallenstein's last fight. with the remnants of his army he retreated to bohemia, sick and sore, and spent his last days there plotting against his master. he died by an assassin's hand. the cathedrals of vienna, brussels, and madrid rang with joyful te deums at the news of the king's death. the spanish capital celebrated the "triumph" with twelve days of bull-fighting. emperor ferdinand was better than his day; he wept at the sight of the king's blood-stained jacket. the protestant world trembled; its hope and strength were gone. but the swedish people, wiping away their tears, resolved stoutly to carry on gustav adolf's work. the men he had trained led his armies to victory on yet many a stricken field. peace came at length to europe; the last religious war had been fought and won. freedom of worship, liberty of conscience, were bought at the cost of the kingliest head that ever wore a crown. the great ruler's life-work was done. gustav adolf was in his thirty-eighth year when he fell. of stature he was tall and stout, a fair-haired, blue-eyed giant, stern in war, gentle in the friendships of peace. he was a born ruler of men. though he was away fighting in foreign lands all the years of his reign, he kept a firm grasp on the home affairs of his kingdom. one traces his hand everywhere, ordering, shaping, finding ways, or making them where there was none. the valuable mines of sweden were ill managed. the metal was exported in coarse pigs to germany for very little, worked up there, and resold to sweden at the highest price. he created a board of mines, established smelteries, and the day came when, instead of going abroad for its munitions of war, sweden had for its customers half europe. like christian of denmark with whom he disagreed, he encouraged industries and greatly furthered trade and commerce. he built highways and canals, and he did not forget the cause of instruction. upon the university at upsala he bestowed his entire personal patrimony of three hundred and thirteen farms as a free gift. his people honor him with cause as the real founder of the swedish system of education. the master he was always. sweden had, on one hand, a powerful, able nobility; on the other, a strong, independent peasantry,--a combination full of pitfalls for a weak ruler, but with equal promise of great things under the master hand. his father had cowed the stubborn nobles with the headsman's axe. gustav adolf drew them to him and imbued them with his own spirit. he found them a contentious party within the state; he left them its strongest props in the conduct of public affairs. nor was it always with persuasion he worked. his reward for the unjust judge has been quoted. when the council failed to send him supplies in germany, pleading failure of crops as their excuse, he wrote back: "you speak of the high prices of corn. probably they are high because those who have it want to profit by the need of others." and he set a new chief over the finances. on the other hand, he gave shape to the relations between king and people. the riksdag held its sessions, but the laws that ruled it were so vague that it was no unusual thing for men who were not members at all to attend and join in the debates. gustav adolf put an abrupt end to "a state of things that exposed sweden to the contempt of the nations." as he ordered it, the initiative remained with the crown; it was the right of the riksdag to complain and discuss; of the king to "choose the best" after hearing all sides. as a young prince, gustav adolf fell deeply in love with ebba brahe, the beautiful daughter of one of sweden's most powerful noblemen. the two had been play-mates and became lovers. but the old queen frowned upon the match. he was the coming king, she was a subject, and the queen managed, with the help of oxenstjerna, who was gustav's best friend all through his life, to make him give up his love. "then i will never marry," he cried in a burst of tempestuous grief. but when the queen had got ebba brahe safely married to one of his father's famous generals, he wedded the lovely sister of the elector of brandenburg. she adored her royal husband, but never took kindly to sweden, and the people did not like her. they clung to the great king's early love, and to this day they linger before the picture of the beautiful ebba in the stockholm castle when they come from his grave in the riddarholm church, while they pass the queen's by with hardly a glance. it is recorded that ebba made her husband a good and dutiful wife. if her thoughts strayed at times to the old days and what might have been, it is not strange. in one of those moods she wrote on a window-pane in the castle: i am happy in my lot, and thanks i give to god. the queen-mother saw it and wrote under it her own version: you wouldn't, but you must. 'tis the lot of the dust. king and sailor, heroes of copenhagen of all the foolish wars that were ever waged, it would seem that the one declared by denmark against sweden in had the least excuse. a century before, the two countries had fought through eight bitter years over the momentous question whether denmark should carry in her shield the three lions that stood for the three scandinavian kingdoms, the swedish one having set up for itself in the dissolution of the union between them, and at the end of the fight they were where they had started: each of them kept the whole brood. but this war was without even that excuse. denmark was helplessly impoverished. her trade was ruined; the nobles were sucking the marrow of the country. of the freehold farms that had been its strength scarce five thousand were left in the land. it could hardly pay its way in days of peace. its strongholds lay in ruins; it had neither arms, ammunition, nor officers. on its roster of thirty thousand men for the national defence were carried the dead and the yet unborn, while the swedish army of tried veterans had gone from victory to victory under a warlike king. to cap the climax, copenhagen had been harassed by pestilence that had killed one-fifth of its fifty thousand people. so ill matched were they when a stubborn king forced a war that could end only in disaster. when one of his councillors advised against the folly, he caned him and sent him into exile. yet out of the fiery trial this king came a hero; his queen, whose pride and wasteful vanity[ ] had done its full share in bringing the country to the verge of ruin, became the idol of the nation. in the hour of its peril she grew to the stature of a great woman who shared danger and hardship with her people and by her example put hope and courage into their hearts. [footnote : it is of record that queen sofie amalie used one-third of the annual revenues of the country for her household. the menu of a single "rustic dinner" of the court mentions courses and nearly as many kinds of preserves and dessert, served on gold, with wines in corresponding abundance.] karl gustav, the swedish king, was campaigning in poland, but as soon as he could turn around he marched his army against denmark, scattered the forces that opposed him, and before news of his advance had reached copenhagen knocked at the gate of denmark demanding "speech of brother frederik in good swedish." a winter of great severity had bridged the baltic and the sounds of the island kingdom. in two weeks he led his army, horse, foot, and guns, over the frozen seas where hardly a wagon had dared cross before. great rifts yawned in their way, and whole companies were swallowed up; his own sleigh sank in the deep, but nothing stopped him. danish emissaries came pleading for peace. he met them on the way to the capital, surrounded by his finnish horsemen, and gave scant ear to their speeches while he drove on. before the city he halted and dictated a peace so humiliating that one of the danish commissioners exclaimed when he came to sign, "i wish i could not write." perhaps the same wish troubled the conqueror's ambitious dreams. the peace was broken as swiftly as made. in five months he was back before frederik's capital with his whole army, while a swedish fleet anchored in the roadstead outside. "what difference does it make to you," was the contemptuous taunt flung at the anxious envoys who sought his camp, "whether the name of your king is karl or frederik so long as you are safe?" he had come to make an end of denmark. copenhagen was almost without defences. the old earth walls mounted only six guns, with breastworks scarce knee-high. in places king karl could have driven his sleigh into the heart of the city at the head of his army. but for the second time he hesitated when a swift blow would have won all--and lost. overnight the danish nation awoke to a fight for its life. king and people, till then strangers, in that hour became one. frederik the third met the craven counsel that he fly to norway with the proud answer, "i will die in my nest, if need be, and my wife with me." with a shout the burghers swore to fight to the last man. the walls of the city rose as if by magic. nobles and mechanics, clergy and laborers, students, professors and sailors worked side by side; high-born women wheeled barrows. every tree was cut down and made into palisades. the crops ripening in the fields were gathered in haste and the cattle driven in. the city had been provisioned for barely a week and garrisoned by four hundred raw recruits. sailors from the useless ships took out their guns and mounted them in the redoubts. peasants flocked in and were armed with battle-axes, clubs, and boat-hooks when the supply of muskets gave out. when karl gustav drew his lines tight he faced six thousand determined men behind strong walls. the city stood in a ring of blazing fires. its defenders were burning down the houses and woods beyond the moats to clear the way for their gunners. the king watched the sight from his horse in silence. he knew what it meant; he had fought in the thirty years' war: "now, i vow, we shall have fighting," was all he said. it was not long in coming. on the second night the garrison made a sortie and drove back the invaders, destroying their works with great slaughter. night after night, and sometimes in the broad day, they returned to the charge, overwhelming the swedes where least expected, capturing their guns, their supplies, and their outposts. short of arms and ammunition, they took them in the enemy's lines. in one of these raids karl gustav himself was all but made prisoner. a horseman had him by the shoulder, but he wrenched himself loose and spurred his horse into the sea where a boat from one of the ships rescued him. the defence took on something of the fervor of religious frenzy. twice a day services were held on the walls of the city; within, the men who could not bear arms, and the women, barricaded the streets with stones and iron chains for the last fight, were it to come. in his place on the wall every burgher had a hundred brickbats or stones piled up for ammunition, and by night when the enemy rained red-hot shot upon the city, he fought with a club or spear in one hand, a torch in the other. eleven weeks the battle raged by night and by day. then a dutch fleet forced its way through the blockade after a fight in which it lost six ships and two admirals. it brought food, ammunition, and troops. the joy in the city was great. all day the church bells were rung, and the people hailed the dutch as the saviours of the nation. but when they, too, would thank god for the victory and asked for the use of the university's hall, they were refused. they were followers of calvin and their heresies must not be preached in the place set apart for teaching the doctrines of the "pure faith," said the professors, who were lutheran. it was the way of the day. the reformation had learned little from the bigotry of the inquisition. the dutchmen had to be content with the court-house. but the siege was not over. another hard winter closed in with the enemy at the door, burrowing hourly nearer the outworks, and food and fire-wood grew scarcer day by day in the hard-pressed city. when things were at the worst pass in february, the swedes gathered their hosts for a final assault. in the midnight hour they came on with white shirts drawn over their uniforms to make it hard to tell them from the snow. karl gustav himself led the storming party and at last was in the way of "getting speech of brother frederik," for the danish king was as good as his word. he had said that he would die in his nest, and time and again he had to be sternly reasoned with to prevent him from exposing himself overmuch. where the danger was greatest he was, and beside him ever the queen, all her frivolity gone and forgotten. she who had danced at the court fêtes and followed the hounds on the chase as if the world had no other cares, became the very incarnation of the spirit of the bitter and bloody struggle. all through that winter the royal couple lived in a tent among their men, and when the alarm was sounded they were first on foot to lead them. now that the hour had come, they were in the forefront of the fight. where the famous pleasure garden tivoli now is, the strength of the enemy was massed against the redoubts at the western gate. the name of "storm street" tells yet of the doings of that night. king karl had promised to give over the captured town to be sacked by his army three days and nights, and like hungry wolves they swarmed to the attack, a mob of sailors and workmen with scaling ladders in the van. the moats they crossed in spite of the gaps that had been made in the ice to stop them, but the garrison had poured water over the walls that froze as it ran, until they were like slippery icebergs. a bird could have found no foothold on them. showers of rocks and junk and clubs fell upon the laddermen. three times karl gustav hurled his columns against them; as often they were driven back, broken and beaten. a few gained a foothold on the walls only to be dashed down to death. the burghers fought for their lives and their homes. their women carried boiling pitch and poured it over the breastworks, and when they had no more, dragged great beams and rolled them down upon the ladders, sweeping them clear of the enemy. in the hottest fight gunde rosenkrantz, one of the king's councillors, trod on a fallen soldier and, looking into his face, saw that it was his own son breathing his last. he bent over and kissed him, and went on fighting. in the early morning hour karl gustav gave the order to retreat. the attack had failed. many of his general officers were slain; nearly half of his army was killed, disabled, or captured. six swedish standards were taken by the danes. the moats were filled with the dead. the swedes had "come in their shrouds." the guns of the city thundered out a triple salute of triumph and the people sang te deums on the walls. their hardships were not over. fifteen months yet the city was invested and the home of daily privation; but their greatest peril was past. copenhagen was saved, and with it the nation; the people had found itself and its king. that autumn a second swedish army under the veteran stenbock was massacred in the island of fyen, and karl gustav exclaimed when the beaten general brought him the news, "since the devil took the sheep he might have taken the buck too." he never got over it. three months later he lay dead, and the siege of copenhagen was raised in may, . it had lasted twenty months. * * * * * seven score years and one passed, and the morning of holy thursday[ ] saw a british fleet sailing slowly up the deep before copenhagen, the deck of every ship bristling with guns, their crews at quarters, lord nelson's signal to "close for action" flying from the top of the flag-ship _elephant_. between the fleet and the shore lay a line of dismantled hulks on which men with steady eyes and stout hearts were guarding denmark's honor. once more it had been jeopardized by foolish counsel in high places. danish statesmen had trifled and temporized while england, facing all europe alone in the fight for her life, made ready to strike a decisive blow against the armed neutrality that threatened her supremacy on the sea. once more the city had been caught unprepared, defenceless, and once more its people rose as one man to meet the danger. but it was too late. outside, in the sound, a fleet as great as that led by nelson waited, should he fail, to finish his work. that was to destroy the danish ships, if need be to bombard the city and so detach denmark from the coalition of england's foes. so she chose to consider such as were not her declared friends. [footnote : the battle of copenhagen was fought april , .] denmark had no fighting ships at home to pit against her. her sailors were away serving in the merchant marine. she had no practised gunners, nothing but a huddle of dismantled vessels in her navy-yard, most of them half-rotten hulks without masts. those that had standing rigging were even worse, for none of them had sails and the falling spars in battle lumbered up the decks and menaced the crew. but such as they were she made the most of them. eighteen hulks were hauled into the channel and moored head and stern. where they lay they could not be moved. only the guns on one side were therefore of use, while the enemy could turn and manoeuvre. they were manned by farm lads, mechanics, students, enlisted in haste, not one of whom had ever smelt powder, and these were matched against nelson's grim veterans. even their commander, j. olfert fischer, had not been under fire before that day, for denmark had had peace for eighty years. but his father had served as a midshipman with tordenskjold and the son did not flinch, outnumbered though his force was, two to one, in men and guns. the sun shone fair upon the blue waters as the great fleet of thirty-odd fighting ships sailed up from the south. from the city's walls and towers a mighty multitude watched it come, unmindful of peril from shot and shell; the danish line was not half a mile away. in the churches whose bells were still ringing when the first gun was fired from the block-ship _prövestenen_, the old men and women prayed through the long day, for there were few homes in copenhagen that did not have son, brother, or friend fighting out there. a single gun answered the challenge, now two and three at once, then broadside crashed upon broadside with deafening roar. when at length all was quiet a tremendous report shook the city. it was the flag-ship _dannebrog_ that blew up. she was on fire with only three serviceable guns left when she struck her colors, but no ship of her name might sail with an enemy's prize crew on board, and she did not. the story of that bloody day has been told many times. briton and dane hoist their flags on april with equal right, for never was challenge met with more dauntless valor. lord nelson owned that of all the hundred and five battles he had fought this was hottest. on the _monarch_, which for hours was under the most galling fire from the danish ships, two hundred and twenty of the crew were killed or wounded. "there was not a single man standing," wrote a young officer on board of her, "the whole way from the mainmast forward, a district containing eight guns a side, some of which were run out ready for firing, others lay dismounted, and others remained as they were after recoiling.... i hastened down the fore ladder to the lower deck and felt really relieved to find somebody alive." the slaughter on the danish ships was even greater. more than one-fifth of their entire strength of a little over five thousand men were slain or wounded. of the eighteen hulls they lost thirteen, but only one were the british able to take home with them. the rest were literally shot to pieces and were burned where they lay. as one after another was silenced, those yet alive on board spiked their last guns, if indeed there were any left worth the trouble, threw their powder overboard and made, for the shore. twice the danish admiral abandoned his burning ship, the last time taking up his post in the island battery tre kroner. each time one of the old hulls was crushed, a briton pushed into the hole made in the line and raked the remaining ones fore and aft until their decks were like huge shambles. the block-ship _indfödsretten_ bore the concentrated fire of five frigates and two smaller vessels throughout most of the battle. her chief was killed. when the news reached head-quarters on shore, captain von schrödersee, an old naval officer who had been retired because of ill health, volunteered to take his place. he was rowed out, but as he came over the side of the ship a cannon-ball cut him in two. _prövestenen_, as it was the first to fire a shot, held out also to the last. one-fourth of her crew lay dead, and her flag had been shot away three times when the decks threatened to cave in and captain lassen spiked his last guns and left the wreck to be burned. all through the fight she was the target of ninety guns to which she could oppose only twenty-nine of her own sixty. nelson had promised admiral parker to finish the fight in an hour. when the battle had lasted three, parker signalled to him to stop. every school-boy knows the story of how lord nelson put the glass to his blind eye and, remarking that he could see no signal, kept right on. in the end he had to resort to stratagem to force a truce so that he might disentangle some of his ships that were drifting into great danger in the narrow channel. the ruse succeeded. crown prince frederik, moved by compassion for the wounded whom nelson threatened to burn with the captured hulks if firing did not stop, ordered hostilities to cease without consulting the admiral of the fleet, and the battle was over. denmark's honor was saved. "nothing," wrote our own captain mahan, "could place a nation's warlike fame higher than did her great deeds that day." all else was lost; for "there had come upon denmark one of those days of judgment to which nations are liable who neglect in time of peace to prepare for war." it had been long coming, but it had overtaken her at last and found all the bars down. alongside the _dannebrog_ throughout her fight with nelson's flag-ship, and edging ever closer in under the _elephant's_ side until at last the marines were sent to man her rail and keep it away with their muskets, lay a floating battery mounting twenty guns under command of a beardless second lieutenant. the name of peter willemoes will live as long as the danish tongue is spoken. barely graduated from the naval academy, he was but eighteen when the need of officers thrust the command of "floating battery no. " upon him. so gallantly did he acquit himself that nelson took notice of the young man who, every time a broadside crashed into his ship or overhead, swung his cocked hat and led his men in a lusty cheer. when after the battle he met the crown prince on shore, the english commander asked to be introduced to his youthful adversary. "you ought to make an admiral of him," he said, and prince frederik smiled: "if i were to make admirals of all my brave officers, i should have no captains or lieutenants left." when the _dannebrog_ drifted on the shoals, abandoned and burning, willemoes cut his cables and got away under cover of the heavy smoke. having neither sails nor oars, he was at the mercy of the tide, but luckily it carried him to the north of the tre kroner battery, and he reached port with forty-nine of his crew of one hundred and twenty-nine dead or wounded. the people received him as a conqueror returning with victory. his youth and splendid valor aroused the enthusiasm of the whole country. wherever he went crowds flocked to see him as the hero of "holy thursday's battle." especially was he the young people's idol. sailor that he was, he was "the friend of all pretty girls," sang the poet of that day. he danced and made merry with them, but the one of them all on whom his heart was set, so runs the story, would have none of him, and sent him away to foreign parts, a saddened lover. meanwhile much praise had not made him vain. "i did my duty," he wrote to his father, a minor government official in the city of odense where four years later hans christian andersen was born on the anniversary day of the battle, "and i have whole limbs which i least expected. the crown prince and the admiral have said that i behaved well." he was to have one more opportunity of fighting his country's enemy, and this time to the death. in the summer of , england was advised that by the treaty of tilsit russia and prussia had secretly joined napoleon in his purpose of finally crushing his mortal enemy by uniting all the fleets of europe against her, denmark's too, by compulsion if persuasion failed. without warning a british fleet swooped down upon the unsuspecting nation, busy with the pursuits of peace, bombarded and burned copenhagen when the commandant refused to deliver the ships into the hands of the robbers as a "pledge of peace," and carried away ships, supplies, even the carpenters' tools in the navy-yard. nothing was spared. seventy vessels, sixteen of them ships of the line, fell into their hands, and supplies that filled ninety-two transports beside. a single fighting ship was left to denmark of all her fleet,--the _prince christian frederik_ of sixty-eight guns. she happened to be away in a norwegian port and so escaped. willemoes was on leave serving in the russian navy, but hastened home when news came of the burning of copenhagen, and found a berth under captain jessen. on march , , the _prince christian_, so she was popularly called, hunting a british frigate that was making danish waters insecure, met in the kattegat the _stately_ and the _nassau_, each like herself of sixty-eight guns. the _nassau_ was the old _holsteen_, renamed,--the single prize the victors had carried home from the battle of copenhagen. three british frigates were working up to join them. the coast of seeland was near, but wind and tide cut off escape to the sound. captain jessen ran his ship in close under the shore so that at the last he might beach her, and awaited the enemy there. the sun had set, but the night was clear when the fight between the three ships began. with one on either side, hardly a pistol-shot away, jessen returned shot for shot, giving as good as they sent, and with such success that at the end of an hour and a half the britons dropped astern to make repairs. the _prince christian_ drifted, helpless, with rudder shot to pieces, half a wreck, rigging all gone, and a number of her guns demolished. but when the enemy returned he was hailed with a cheer and a broadside, and the fight was on once more. this time they were three to one; one of the british frigates of forty-four guns had come up and joined in. when the hull of the _prince christian_ was literally knocked to pieces, and of her men lay dead and wounded, including the chief and all of his officers who were yet alive, captain jessen determined as a last desperate chance to run one of his opponents down and board her with what remained of his crew. but his officers showed him that it was impossible; the ship could not be manoeuvred. there was a momentary lull in the fire and out of the night came a cry, "strike your colors!" the danish reply was a hurrah and a volley from all the standing guns. three broad-sides crashed into the doomed ship in quick succession, and the battle was over. the _prince christian_ stood upon the shore, a wreck. young willemoes was spared the grief of seeing the last danish man-of-war strike its flag. in the hottest of the fight, as he jumped upon a gun the better to locate the enemy in the gloom, a cannon-ball took off the top of his head. he fell into the arms of a fellow officer with the muttered words, "oh god! my head--my country!" and was dead. in his report of the fight captain jessen wrote against his name: "fell in battle--honored as he is missed." they made his grave on shore with the fallen sailors, and as the sea washed up other bodies they were buried with them. the british captured the wreck, but they could only set fire to it after removing the wounded. in the night it blew up where it stood. that was the end of the last ship of denmark's proud navy. the trooper who won a war alone jens kofoed was the name of a trooper who served in the disastrous war of denmark against sweden in karl gustav's day. he came from the island of bornholm in the baltic, where he tilled a farm in days of peace. when his troop went into winter quarters, he got a furlough to go home to receive the new baby that was expected about christmas. most of his comrades were going home for the holidays, and their captain made no objection. the swedish king was fighting in far-off poland, and no one dreamed that he would come over the ice with his army in the depth of winter to reckon with denmark. so jens kofoed took ship with the promise that he would be back in two weeks. but they were to be two long weeks. they did not hear of him again for many moons, and then strange tidings came of his doings. single-handed he had bearded the swedish lion, and downed it in a fair fight--strangest of all, almost without bloodshed. the winter storms blew hard, and it was christmas eve when he made land, but he came in time to receive, not one new heir, but twin baby girls. then there were six of them, counting jens and his wife, and a merry christmas they all had together. on twelfth night the little ones were christened, and then the trooper bethought himself of his promise to get back soon. the storms had ceased, but worse had befallen; the sea was frozen over as far as eye reached, and the island was cut off from all communication with the outer world. there was nothing for it but to wait. it proved the longest and hardest winter any one then living could remember. easter was at hand before the ice broke up, and let a fishing smack slip over to ystad, on the mainland. it came back with news that set the whole island wondering. peace had been made, and denmark had ceded all its ancient provinces east of the Öresund to karl gustav. ystad itself and skaane, the province in which jens kofoed had been campaigning, were swedish now, and so was bornholm. all unknown to its people, the island had changed hands in the game of war overnight, as it were. a swedish garrison was coming over presently to take charge. when jens kofoed heard it, he sat down and thought things over. if there was peace, his old captain had no use for him, that was certain; but there might be need of him at home. what would happen there, no one could tell. and there were the wife and children to take care of. the upshot of it all was that he stayed. only, to be on the safe side, he got the burgomaster and the aldermen in his home town, hasle, to set it down in writing that he could not have got back to his troop for all he might have tried. kofoed, it will be seen, was a man with a head on his shoulders, which was well, for presently he had need of it. there were no danish soldiers in the island, only a peasant militia, ill-armed and untaught in the ways of war; so no one thought of resisting the change of masters. the people simply waited to see what would happen. along in may a company of one hundred and twenty men with four guns landed, and took possession of castle hammershus, on the north shore, the only stronghold on the island, in the name of the swedish king. colonel printzensköld, who had command, summoned the islanders to a meeting, and told them that he had come to be their governor. they were to obey him, and that was all. the people listened and said nothing. perhaps if the new rulers had been wise, things might have kept on so. the people would have tilled their farms, and paid their taxes, and jens kofoed, with all his hot hatred of the enemy he had fought, might never have been heard of outside his own island. but the swedish soldiers had been through the thirty years' war and plunder had become their profession. they rioted in the towns, doubled the taxes, put an embargo on trade and export, crushed the industries; worse, they took the young men and sent them away to karl gustav's wars in foreign lands. they left only the old men and the boys, and these last they kept a watchful eye on for drafts in days to come. when the conscripts hid in the woods, so as not to be torn from their wives and sweethearts, they organized regular man-hunts as if the quarry were wild beasts, and, indeed, the poor fellows were not treated much better when caught. all summer they did as they pleased; then came word that karl gustav had broken the peace he made, and of the siege of copenhagen. the news made the people sit up and take notice. their rightful sovereign had ceded the island to the swedish king, that was one thing. but now that they were at war again, these strangers who persecuted them were the public enemy. it was time something were done. in hasle there was a young parson with his heart in the right place, poul anker by name. jens kofoed sat in his church; he had been to the wars, and was fit to take command. also, the two were friends. presently a web of conspiracy spread quietly through the island, gripping priest and peasant, skipper and trader, alike. its purpose was to rout out the swedes. the hasle trooper and parson were the leaders; but their secret was well kept. with the tidings that the dutch fleet had forced its way through to copenhagen with aid for the besieged, and had bottled the swedish ships up in landskrona, came a letter purporting to be from king frederik himself, encouraging the people to rise. it was passed secretly from hand to hand by the underground route, and found the island ready for rebellion. governor printzensköld had seen something brewing, but he was a fearless man, and despised the "peasant mob." however, he sent to sweden for a troop of horsemen, the better to patrol the island and watch the people. early in december, , just a year after jens kofoed, the trooper, had set out for his home on furlough, the governor went to rönne, the chief city in the island, to start off a ship for the reinforcements. the conspirators sought to waylay him at hasle, where he stopped to give warning that all who had not paid the heavy war-tax would be sold out forthwith; but they were too late. master poul and jens kofoed rode after him, expecting to meet a band of their fellows on the way, but missed them. the parson stayed behind then to lay the fuse to the mine, while kofoed kept on to town. by the time he got there he had been joined by four others, aage svendsön, klavs nielsen, jens laurssön, and niels gummelöse. the last two were town officers. as soon as the report went around rönne that they had come, burgomaster klaus kam went to them openly. the governor had ridden to the house of the other burgomaster, per larssön, who was not in the plot. his horse was tied outside and he just sitting down to supper when jens kofoed and his band crowded into the room, and took him prisoner. they would have killed him there, but his host pleaded for his life. however, when they took him out in the street, printzensköld thought he saw a chance to escape in the crowd and the darkness, and sprang for his horse. but his great size made him an easy mark. he was shot through the head as he ran. the man who shot him had loaded his pistol with a silver button torn from his vest. that was sure death to any goblin on whom neither lead nor steel would bite, and it killed the governor all right. the place is marked to this day in the pavement of the main street as the spot where fell the only tyrant who ever ruled the island against the people's will. the die was cast now, and there was need of haste. under cover of the night the little band rode through the island with the news, ringing the church bells far and near to call the people to arms. many were up and waiting; master poul had roused them already. at hammershus the swedish garrison heard the clamor, and wondered what it meant. they found out when at sunrise an army of half the population thundered on the castle gates summoning them to surrender. burgomaster kam sat among them on the governor's horse, wearing his uniform, and shouted to the officers in command that unless they surrendered, he, the governor, would be killed, and his head sent in to his wife in the castle. the frightened woman's tears decided the day. the garrison surrendered, only to discover that they had been tricked. jens kofoed took command in the castle. the swedish soldiers were set to doing chores for the farmers they had so lately harassed. the ship that was to have fetched reënforcements from sweden was sent to denmark instead, with the heartening news. they needed that kind there just then. but the ex-trooper, now commandant, knew that a day of reckoning was coming, and kept a sharp lookout. when the hostile ship _spes_ was reported steering in from the sea, the flag of sweden flew from the peak of hammershus, and nothing on land betrayed that there had been a change. as soon as she anchored, a boat went out with an invitation from the governor to any officers who might be on board, to come ashore and arrange for the landing of the troops. the captain of the ship and the major in charge came, and were made prisoners as soon as they had them where they could not be seen from the ship. it blew up to a storm, and the _spes_ was obliged to put to sea, but as soon as she returned boats were sent out to land the soldiers. they sent only little skiffs that could hold not over three or four, and as fast as they were landed they were overpowered and bound. half of the company had been thus disposed of when the lieutenant on board grew suspicious, and sent word that without the express orders of the major no more would come. but jens kofoed's wit was equal to the emergency. the next boat brought an invitation to the lieutenant to come in and have breakfast with the officers, who would give him his orders there. he walked into the trap; but when he also failed to return, his men refused to follow. he had arranged to send them a sign, they said, that everything was all right. if it did not come, they would sail away to sweden for help. it took some little persuasion to make the lieutenant tell about the sign, but in the end jens kofoed got it. it turned out to be his pocket-knife. when they saw that, the rest came, and were put under lock and key with their fellows. the ship was left. if that went back, all was lost. happily both captain and mate were prisoners ashore. four boat-loads of islanders, with arms carefully stowed under the seats, went out with the mate of the _spes_, who was given to understand that if he as much as opened his mouth he would be a dead man. they boarded the ship, taking the crew by surprise. by night the last enemy was comfortably stowed, and the ship on her way to rönne, where the prisoners were locked in the court-house cellar, with shotted guns guarding the door. perhaps it was the cruelties practised by swedish troops in denmark that preyed upon the mind of jens kofoed when he sent the parson to prepare them for death then and there; but better counsel prevailed. they were allowed to live. the whole war cost only two lives, the governor's and that of a sentinel at the castle, who refused to surrender. the mate of the _spes_ and two of her crew contrived to escape after they had been taken to copenhagen, and from them karl gustav had the first tidings of how he lost the island. the captured ship sailed down to copenhagen with greeting to king frederik that the people of bornholm had chosen him and his heirs forever to rule over them, on condition that their island was never to be separated from the danish crown. the king in his delight presented them with a fine silver cup, and made jens kofoed captain of the island, beside giving him a handsome estate. he lived thirty-three years after that, the patriarch of his people, and raised a large family of children. not a few of his descendants are to-day living in the united states. in the home of one of them in brooklyn, new york, is treasured a silver drinking cup which king frederik gave to the ex-trooper; but it is not the one he sent back with his deputation. that one is still in the island of bornholm. carl linnÉ, king of the flowers years ago there grew on the jonsboda farm in småland, sweden, a linden tree that was known far and wide for its great age and size. so beautiful and majestic was the tree, and so wide the reach of its spreading branches, that all the countryside called it sacred. misfortune was sure to come if any one did it injury. so thought the people. it was not strange, then, that the farmer's boys, when they grew to be learned men and chose a name, should call themselves after the linden. the peasant folk had no family names in those days. sven carlsson was sven, the son of carl; and his son, if his given name were john, would be john svensson. so it had always been. but when a man could make a name for himself out of the big dictionary, that was his right. the daughter of the jonsboda farmer married; and her son played in the shadow of the old tree, and grew so fond of it that when he went out to preach he also called himself after it. nils ingemarsson was the name he received in baptism, and to that he added linnæus, never dreaming that in doing it he handed down the name and the fame of the friend of his play hours to all coming days. but it was so; for parson nils' eldest son, carl linné, or linnæus, became a great man who brought renown to his country and his people by telling them and all the world more than any one had ever known before about the trees and the flowers. the king knighted him for his services to science, and the people of every land united in acclaiming him the father of botany and the king of the flowers. they were the first things he learned to love in his baby world. if he was cross, they had but to lay him on the grass in the garden and put a daisy in his hand, and he would croon happily over it for hours. he was four years old when his father took him to a wedding in the neighborhood. the men guests took a tramp over the farm, and in the twilight they sat and rested in the meadow, where the spring flowers grew. the minister began telling them stories about them; how they all had their own names and what powers for good or ill the apothecary found in the leaves and root of some of them. carl's father, though barely out of college, was a bright and gifted man. one of his parishioners said once that they couldn't afford a whole parson, and so they took a young one; but if that was the way of it, the men of stenbrohult made a better bargain than they knew. they sat about listening to his talk, but no one listened more closely than little carl. after that he had thought for nothing else. in the corner of the garden he had a small plot of his own, and into it he planted all the wild flowers from the fields, and he asked many more questions about them than his father could answer. one day he came back with one whose name he had forgotten. the minister was busy with his sermon. "if you don't remember," he said impatiently, "i will never tell you the name of another flower." the boy went away, his eyes wide with terror at the threat; but after that he did not forget a single name. when he was big enough, they sent him to the latin school at wexiö, where the other boys nicknamed him "the little botanist." his thoughts were outdoors when they should have been in the dry books, and his teachers set him down as a dunce. they did not know that his real study days were when, in vacation, he tramped the thirty miles to his home. every flower and every tree along the way was an old friend, and he was glad to see them again. once in a while he found a book that told of plants, and then he was anything but a dunce. but when his father, after carl had been eight years in the school, asked his teachers what they thought of him, they told him flatly that he might make a good tailor or shoemaker, but a minister--never; he was too stupid. that was a blow, for the parson of stenbrohult and his wife had set their hearts on making a minister of carl, and small wonder. his mother was born in the parsonage, and her father and grandfather had been shepherds of the parish all their lives. there were tears in the good minister's eyes as he told carl to pack up and get ready to go back home; he had an errand at dr. rothman's, but would return presently. the good doctor saw that his patient was heavy of heart and asked him what was wrong. when he heard what carl's teachers had said, he flashed out: "what! he not amount to anything? there is not one in the whole lot who will go as far as he. a minister he won't be, that i'll allow, but i shall make a doctor of him such as none of them ever saw. you leave him here with me." and the parson did, comforted in spite of himself. but carl's mother could not get over it. it was that garden, she declared, and when his younger brother as much as squinted that way, she flew at him with a "you dare to touch it!" and shook him. when dr. rothman thought his pupil ready for the university, he sent him up to lund, and the head-master of the latin school gave him the letter he must bring, to be admitted. "boys at school," he wrote in it, "may be likened to young trees in orchard nurseries, where it sometimes happens that here and there among the saplings there are some that make little growth, or even appear as wild seedlings, giving no promise; but when afterwards transplanted to the orchard, make a start, branch out freely, and at last yield satisfactory fruit." by good luck, though, carl ran across an old teacher from wexiö, one of the few who had believed in him and was glad to see him. he took him to the rector and introduced him with warm words of commendation, and also found him lodgings under the roof of dr. kilian stobæus. dr. stobæus was a physician of renown, but not good company. he was one-eyed, sickly, lame in one foot, and a gloomy hypochondriac to boot. being unable to get around to his patients, he always had one or two students to do the running for him and to learn as best they might, in doing it. carl found a young german installed there as the doctor's right hand. he also found a library full of books on botany, a veritable heaven for him. but the gate was shut against him; the doctor had the key, and he saw nothing in the country lad but a needy student of no account. perhaps the rector had passed the head-master's letter along. however, love laughs at locksmiths, and carl linnæus was hopelessly in love with his flowers. he got on the right side of the german by helping him over some hard stiles in the _materia medica_. in return, his fellow student brought him books out of the library when the doctor had gone to bed, and carl sat up studying the big tomes till early cockcrow. before the house stirred, the books were back on their shelves, the door locked, and no one was the wiser. no one except the doctor's old mother, whose room was across the yard. she did not sleep well, and all night she saw the window lighted in her neighbor's room. she told the doctor that carl linnæus fell asleep with the candle burning every single night, and sometime he would upset it and they would all be burned in their beds. the doctor nodded grimly; he knew the young scamps. no doubt they both sat up playing cards till dawn; but he would teach them. and the very next morning, at two o'clock, up he stumped on his lame foot to carl's room, in which there was light, sure enough, and went in without knocking. carl was so deep in his work that he did not hear him at all, and the doctor stole up unperceived and looked over his shoulder. there lay his precious books, which he thought safely locked in the library, spread out before him, and his pupil was taking notes and copying drawings as if his life depended upon it. he gave a great start when dr. stobæus demanded what he was doing, but owned up frankly, while the doctor frowned and turned over his notes, leaf by leaf. "go to bed and sleep like other people," he said gruffly, yet kindly, when he had heard it all, "and hereafter study in the daytime;" and he not only gave him a key to his library, but took him to his own table after that. up till then carl had merely been a lodger in the house. when he was at last on the home stretch, as it seemed, an accident came near upsetting it all. he was stung by an adder on one of his botanizing excursions, so far from home and help that the bite came near proving fatal. however, dr. stobæus' skill pulled him through, and in after years he got square by labelling the serpent _furia infernalis_--hell-fury--in his natural history. it was his way of fighting back. all through his life he never wasted an hour on controversy. he had no time, he said. but once when a rival made a particularly nasty attack upon him, he named a new plant after him, adding the descriptive adjective _detestabilis_--the detestable so-and-so. on the whole, he had the best of it; for the names he gave stuck. it was during his vacation after the year at lund that linnæus made a catalogue of the plants in his father's garden at stenbrohult that shows us the country parson as no mean botanist himself; for in the list, which is preserved in the academy of sciences at stockholm, are no less than two hundred and twenty-four kinds of plants. among them are six american plants that had found their way to sweden. the poison ivy is there, though what they wanted of that is hard to tell, and the four-o'clock, the pokeweed, the milkweed, the pearly everlasting, and the potato, which was then ( ) classed as a rare plant. not until twenty years later did they begin to grow it for food in sweden. when carl linnæus went up to upsala university, his parents had so far got over their disappointment at his deserting the ministry that they gave him a little money to make a start with; but they let him know that no more was coming--their pocket-book was empty. and within the twelvemonth, for all his scrimping and saving, he was on the point of starvation. he tells us himself that he depended on chance for a meal and wore his fellow students' cast-off clothes. his boots were without soles, and in his cheerless attic room he patched them with birch bark and card board as well as he could. he was now twenty-three years old, and it seemed as if he would have to give up the study that gave him no bread; but still he clung to his beloved flowers. they often made him forget the pangs of hunger. and when the cloud was darkest the sun broke through. he was sitting in the botanical garden sketching a plant, when dean celsius, a great orientalist and theologian of his day, passed by. the evident poverty of the young man, together with his deep absorption in his work, arrested his attention; he sat down and talked with him. in five minutes carl had found a friend and the dean a helper. he had been commissioned to write a book on the plants of the holy land and had collected a botanical library for the purpose, but the work lagged. here now was the one who could help set it going. that day linnæus left his attic room and went to live in the dean's house. his days of starvation were over. in the dean's employ his organizing genius developed the marvellous skill of the cataloguer that brought order out of the chaos of groping and guessing and blundering in which the science of botany had floundered up till then. here and there in it all were flashes of the truth, which linnæus laid hold of and pinned down with his own knowledge to system and order. thus the frenchman, sebastian vaillant, who had died a dozen years before, had suggested a classification of flowers by their seed-bearing organs, the stamens and pistils, instead of by their fruits, the number of their petals, or even by their color, as had been the vague practice of the past. linnæus seized upon this as the truer way and wrote a brief treatise developing the idea, which so pleased dr. celsius that he got his young friend a license to lecture publicly in the botanical garden. the students flocked to hear him. his message was one that put life and soul into the dry bones of a science that had only wearied them before. the professor of botany himself sat in the front row and hammered the floor with his cane in approval. but his very success was the lecturer's undoing. envy grew in place of the poverty he had conquered. the instructor, nils rosén, was abroad taking his doctor's degree. he came home to find his lectures deserted for the irresponsible teachings of a mere undergraduate. he made grievous complaint, and linnæus was silenced, to his great good luck. for so his friend the professor, though he was unable to break the red tape of the university, got him an appointment to go to lapland on a botanical mission. his enemies were only too glad to see him go. linnæus travelled more than three thousand miles that summer through a largely unknown country, enduring, he tells us, more hardships and dangers than in all his subsequent travels. again and again he nearly lost his life in swollen mountain streams, for he would not wait until danger from the spring freshets was over. once he was shot at as he was gathering plants on a hillside, but happily the finn who did it was not a good marksman. fish and reindeer milk were his food, a pestilent plague of flies his worst trouble. but, he says in his account of the trip, which is as fascinating a report of a scientific expedition as was ever penned, they were good for something, after all, for the migrating birds fed on them. from his camps on lake or river bank he saw the water covered far and near with swarms of ducks and geese. the laplander's larder was easily stocked. he came back from the dangers of the wild with a reputation that was clinched by his book "the flora of lapland," to find the dragon of professional jealousy rampant still at upsala. his enemy, rosén, persuaded the senate of the university to adopt a rule that no un-degreed man should lecture there to the prejudice of the regularly appointed instructors. tradition has it that linnæus flew into a passion at that and drew upon rosén, and there might have been one regular less but for the interference of bystanders. it may be true, though it is not like him. men wore side-arms in those days just as some people carry pistols in their hip-pockets to-day, and with as little sense. at least they had the defence, such as it was, that it was the fashion. however, it made an end of linnæus at upsala for the time. he sought a professorship at lund, but another got it. then he led an expedition of his former students into the dalecarlia mountains and so he got to falun, where baron reuterholm, one of sweden's copper magnates, was seeking a guide for his two sons through the region where his mines were. linnæus was not merely a botanist, but an all around expert in natural science. he took charge of the boys and, when the trip was ended, started a school at falun, where he taught mineralogy. it had been hit or miss with the miners up till then. there was neither science nor system in their work. what every-day experience or the test of fire had taught a prospector, in delving among the rocks, was all there was of it. linnæus was getting things upon a scientific basis, when he met and fell in love with the handsome daughter of dr. moræus. the young people would marry, but the doctor, though he liked the mineralogist, would not hear of it till he could support a wife. so he gave him three years in which to go abroad and get a degree that would give him the right to practise medicine anywhere in sweden. the doctor's daughter gave him a hundred dollars she had saved, and her promise to wait for him. he went to harderwyk in holland and got his degree at the university there on the strength of a thesis on the cause of malarial fever, with the conclusions of which the learned doctors did not agree; but they granted the diploma for the clever way in which he defended it. on the way down he tarried in hamburg long enough to give the good burghers a severe jolt. they had a seven-headed serpent that was one of the wonders of the town. the keen sight of the young naturalist detected the fraud at once; the heads were weasels' heads, covered with serpent's skin and cunningly sewed on the head of the reptile. the shape of the jaws betrayed the trick. but the hamburgers were not grateful. the serpent was an asset. there was a mortgage on it of ten thousand marks; now it was not worth a hundred. they took it very ill, and linnæus found himself suddenly so unpopular that he was glad to get out of town overnight. what became of the serpent history does not record. linnæus had carried more than his thesis on malarial fever with him to holland. at the bottom of his trunk were the manuscripts of two books on botany which, he told his sweetheart on parting, would yet make him famous. probably she shook her head at that. pills and powders, and broken legs to set, were more to her way of thinking, and her father's, too. if only he had patients, fame might take care of itself. but now he put them both to shame. at leyden he found friends who brought out his first book, "systema naturæ," in which he divides all nature into the three kingdoms known to every child since. it was hardly more than a small pamphlet, but it laid the foundation for his later fame. to the enlarged tenth edition zoölogists point back to this day as to the bed-rock on which they built their science. the first was quickly followed by another, and yet another. seven large volumes bearing his name had come from the press before he set sail for home, a whole library in botany, and a new botany at that, so simple and sensible that the world adopted it at once. dr. hermann boerhaave was at that time the most famous physician in europe. he was also the greatest authority on systematic botany. great men flocked to his door, but the testy old dutchman let them wait until it suited him to receive them. peter the great had to cool his heels in his waiting-room two long hours before his turn came. linnæus he would not see at all--until he sent him a copy of his book. then he shut the door against all others and summoned the author. the two walked through his garden, and the old doctor pointed proudly to a tree which was very rare, he said, and not in any of the books. yes, said linnæus, it was in vaillant's. the doctor knew better; he had annotated vaillant's botany himself, and it was not there. linnæus insisted, and the doctor, in a temper, went for the book to show him. but there it was; linnæus was right. nothing would do then but he must stay in holland. linnæus demurred; he could not afford it. but dr. boerhaave knew a way out of that. he had for a patient burgomaster cliffort, a rich old hypochondriac with whom he could do nothing because he would insist on living high and taking too little exercise. when he came again he told him that what he needed was a physician in daily attendance upon him, and handed him over to linnæus. "he will fix your diet and fix your garden, too," was his prescription. the burgomaster was a famous collector and had a wondrous garden that was the apple of his eye. he took linnæus into his house and gave him a ducat a day for writing his menu and cataloguing his collection. that was where his books grew, and the biggest and finest of them was "hortus cliffortianus," the account of his patron's garden. armed with letters from dr. boerhaave and the burgomaster, he took one stronghold of professional prejudice after another. not without a siege. one of them refused flatly to surrender. that was sir hans sloan, the great english naturalist, to whom dr. boerhaave wrote in a letter that is preserved in the british museum: "linnæus, who bears this letter, is alone worthy of seeing you, alone worthy of being seen by you. he who shall see you both together shall see two men whose like will scarce ever be found in the world." and the doctor was no flatterer, as may be inferred from his treatment of peter the great. but the aged baronet had had his own way so long, and was so well pleased with it, that he would have nothing to do with linnæus. at oxford the learned professor dillenius received him with no better grace. "this," he said aside to a friend, "is the young man who confounds all botany," and he took him rather reluctantly into his garden. a plant that was new to him attracted linnæus' attention and he asked to what family it belonged. "that is more than you can tell me," was the curt answer. "i can, if you will let me pluck a flower and examine it." "do, and be welcome," said the professor, and his visitor after a brief glance at the flower told its species correctly. the professor stared. "now," said linnæus, who had kept his eyes open, "what did you mean by the crosses you had put all through my book?" he had seen it lying on the professor's table, all marked up. "they mark the errors you made," declared the other. "suppose we see about that," said the younger man and, taking the book, led the way. they examined the flowers together, and when they returned to the study all the pride had gone out of the professor. he kept linnæus with him a month, never letting him out of his sight and, when he left, implored him with tears to stay and share his professorship; the pay was enough for both. a letter that reached him from home on his return to holland made him realize with a start that he had overstayed his leave. it was now in the fourth year since he had left sweden. all the while he had written to his sweetheart in the care of a friend who proved false. he wanted her for himself and, when the three years had passed, told her that carl would never come back. dr. moræus was of the same mind, and had not a real friend of the absent lover turned up in the nick of time linnæus would probably have stayed a dutchman to his death. now, on the urgent message of his friend, he hastened home, found his elisabeth holding out yet, married her and settled down in stockholm to practise medicine. famous as he had become, he found the first stretch of the row at home a hard one to hoe. his books brought him no income. nobody would employ him, "even for a sick servant," he complained. envious rivals assailed him and his botany, and there were days when herring and black bread was fare not to be despised in dr. linnæus' household. but he kept pegging away and his luck changed. one well-to-do patient brought another, and at last the queen herself was opportunely seized with a bad cough. she saw one of her ladies take a pill and asked what it was. dr. linnæus' prescription for a cold, she said, and it always cured her right up. so the doctor was called to the castle and his cure worked there, too. not long after that he set down in his diary that "now, no one can get well without my help." but he was not happy. "once, i had flowers and no money," he said; "now, i have money and no flowers." that they appointed him professor of medicine at upsala did not mend matters. his lectures were popular and full of common sense. diet and the simple life were his hobbies, temperance in all things. he ever insisted that where one man dies from drinking too much, ten die from overeating. children should eat four times a day, grown-ups twice, was his rule. the foolish fashions and all luxury he abhorred. he himself in his most famous years lived so plainly that some said he was miserly, and his clothes were sometimes almost shabby. the happiest day of his life came when he and his old enemy rosén, whom he found filling the chair of botany at the university, and with whom he made it up soon after they became fellow members of the faculty, exchanged chairs with the ready consent of the authorities. so, at last, linnæus had attained the place he coveted above all others, and the goal of his ambition was reached. he lived at upsala thirty-seven years and wrote many books. his students idolized him. they came from all over the world. twice a week in summer, on wednesday and saturday, they sallied forth with him to botanize in field and forest, and when they had collected specimens all the long day they escorted the professor home through the twilight streets with drums and trumpets and with flowers in their hats. but however late they left him at his door, the earliest dawn saw him up and at his work, for the older he grew the more precious the hours that remained. in summer he was accustomed to rise at three o'clock; in the dark winter days at six. he found biology a chaos and left it a science. in his special field of botany he was not, as some think, the first. he himself catalogued fully a thousand books on his topic. but he brought order into it; he took what was good and, rejecting the false, fashioned it into a workable system. in the mere matter of nomenclature, his way of calling plants, like men, by a family name and a given name wrought a change hard to appreciate in our day. the common blue grass of our lawns, for instance, he called, and we call it still, _poa pratensis_. up to his time it had three names and one of them was _gramen pratense paniculatum majus latiore folio poa theophrasti_. dr. rydberg, of the new york botanical gardens, said aptly at the bicentenary of his birth, that it was as if instead of calling a girl grace darling one were to say "mr. darling's beautiful, slender, graceful, blue-eyed girl with long, golden curls and rosy cheeks." the binomial system revolutionized the science. what the lines of longitude and latitude did for geography linnæus' genius did for botany. and he did not let pride of achievement persuade him that he had said the last word. he knew his system to be the best till some one should find a better, and said so. the king gave him a noble name and he was proud of it with reason--vain, some have said. but vanity did not make the creature deny the creator. he ever tried to trace science to its author. when the people were frightened by the "water turning to blood" and overzealous priests cried that it was a sign of the wrath of god, he showed under the magnifying glass the presence of innumerable little animals that gave the water its reddish tinge, and thereby gave offence to some pious souls. but over the door of his lecture room were the words in latin: "live guiltless--god sees you!" and in his old age, seeing with prophetic eye the day of bacteriology that dawned a hundred years after his death, he thanked god that he had permitted him to "look into his secret council room and workshop." he was one of the clear thinkers of all days, uniting imagination with sound sense. it was linnæus who discovered that plants sleep like animals. the pope ordered that his books, wherever they were found in his dominions, should be burned as materialistic and heretical; but linnæus lived to see a professor in botany at rome dismissed because he did not understand his system, and another put in his place who did, and whose lectures followed his theories. when he was seventy he was stricken with apoplexy, while lecturing to his students, and the last year of his life was full of misery. "linnæus limps," is one of the last entries in his diary, "can hardly walk, speaks unintelligibly, and is scarce able to write." death came on january , . under the white flashes of the northern lights in the desolate land he explored in his youth, there grows in the shelter of the spruce forests a flower which he found and loved beyond any other, the _linnæa borealis_, named after him. in some pictures we have of him, he is seen holding a sprig of it in his hand. it is the twin flower of the northern pacific coast and of labrador, indeed of the far northern woods from labrador all the way to alaska, that lifts its delicate, sweet-scented pink bells from the moss with gentle appeal, "long overlooked, lowly, flowering early" despite cold and storm, typical of the man himself. niels finsen, the wolf-slayer hard by the town of thorshavn, in the faröe islands, a little lad sat one day carving his name on a rock. his rough-coated pony cropped the tufts of stunted grass within call. the grim north sea beat upon the shore below. what thoughts of the great world without it stirred in the boy he never told. he came of a people to whom it called all through the ages with a summons that rarely went unheeded. if he heard he gave no sign. slowly and laboriously he traced in the stone the letters n.r.f. when he had finished he surveyed his work with a quiet smile. "there!" he said, "that is done." the years went by, and a distant city paused in its busy life to hearken to bells tolling for one who lay dead. kings and princes walked behind his coffin and a whole people mourned. yet in life he had worn no purple. he was a plain, even a poor man. upon his grave they set a rock brought from the island in the north sea, just like the other that stands there yet, and in it they hewed the letters n.r.f., for the man and the boy were one. and he who spoke there said for all mankind that what he wrought was well done, for it was done bravely and in love. niels ryberg finsen was born in in the faröe islands, where his father was an official under the danish government. his family came of the sturdy old iceland stock that comes down to our time unshorn of its strength from the day of the vikings, and back to iceland his people sent him to get his education in the reykjavik latin school, after a brief stay in denmark where his teachers failed to find the key to the silent, reserved lad. there he lived the seven pregnant years of boyhood and youth, from fourteen to twenty-one, and ever after there was that about him that brought to mind the wild fastnesses of that storm-swept land. its mountains were not more rugged than his belief in the right as he saw it. the reykjavik school had a good name, but school and pupils were after their own kind. conventional was hardly the word for it. some of the "boys" were twenty and over. finsen loved to tell of how they pursued the studies each liked best, paying scant attention to the rest. in their chosen fields they often knew much more than the curriculum called for, and were quite able to instruct the teacher; the things they cared less about they helped one another out with, so as to pass examinations. for mere proficiency in lessons they cherished a sovereign contempt. to do anything by halves is not the iceland way, and it was not niels finsen's. all through his life he was impatient with second-hand knowledge and borrowed thinking. so he worked and played through the long winters of the north. in the summer vacations he roamed the barren hills, helped herd the sheep, and drank in the rough freedom of the land and its people. at twenty-one the school gave him up to the university at copenhagen. training for life there was not the heyday of youthful frolicking we sometimes associate with college life in our day and land. not until he was thirty could he hang up his sheepskin as a physician. yet the students had their fun and their sports, and finsen was seldom missing where these went on. he was not an athlete because already at twenty-three the crippling disease with which he battled twenty years had got its grip on him, but all the more he was an outdoor man. he sailed his boat, and practised with the rifle until he became one of the best shots in denmark. and it is recorded that he got himself into at least one scrape at the university by his love of freedom. the country was torn up at that time by a struggle between people and government over constitutional rights, and it had reached a point where a country parish had refused to pay taxes illegally assessed, as they claimed. it was their boston tea-party. a delegation of the "tax refusers" had come to copenhagen, where the political pot was boiling hot over the incident. the students were enthusiastic, but the authorities of the university sternly unsympathetic. the "reds" were for giving a reception to the visitors in regentsen, the great dormitory where, as an iceland student, finsen had free lodging; but it was certain that the dean would frown upon such a proposition. so they applied innocently for permission to entertain some "friends from the country," and the party was held in finsen's room. great was the scandal when the opposition newspapers exploited the feasting of the tax refusers in the sacred precincts of the university. to the end of his days finsen chuckled over the way they stole a march on the dean. for two or three years after getting his degree he taught in the medical school as demonstrator, eking out his scant income by tutoring students in anatomy. his sure hand and clear decision in any situation marked him as a practitioner of power, and he had thoughts once of devoting himself to the most delicate of all surgery,--that of the eye. he was even then groping for his life-work, without knowing it, for it was always light, light--the source or avenue or effect of it--that held him. and presently his work found him. it has been said that finsen was a sick man. a mysterious malady[ ] with dropsical symptoms clutched him from the earliest days with ever tightening grip, and all his manhood's life he was a great but silent sufferer. perhaps it was that; perhaps it was the bleak north in which his young years had been set that turned him to the light as the source of life and healing. he said it himself: "it was because i needed it so much, i longed for it so." probably it was both. add to them his unique power of turning the things of everyday life to account in his scientific research, and one begins to understand at once his success and his speedy popularity. he dealt with the humble things of life, and got to the heart of things on that road. and the people comprehended; the wise men fell in behind him--sometimes a long way behind. [footnote : the autopsy which he himself ordered on his death-bed as his last contribution to medical knowledge, showed it to be a slow ossification of the membrane of the heart, involving the liver and all the vital organs. he was "tapped" for dropsy more than twenty times.] in the yard of regentsen there grows a famous old linden tree. standing at his window one day and watching its young leaf sprout, finsen saw a cat sunning itself on the pavement. the shadow of the house was just behind it and presently crept up on pussy who got up, stretched herself, and moved into the sunlight. in a little while the shadow overtook her there, and pussy moved once more. finsen watched the shadow rout her out again and again. it was clear that the cat liked the sunlight. a few days later he stood upon a bridge and saw a little squad of insects sporting on the water. they drifted down happily with the stream till they came within the shadow of the bridge, when they at once began to work their way up a piece to get a fresh start for a sunlight sail. finsen knew just how they felt. his own room looked north and was sunless; his work never prospered as it did when he sat with a friend whose room was on the south side, where the sun came in. it was warm and pleasant; but was that all? was it only the warmth that made the birds break into song when the sun came out on a cloudy day, made the insects hum joyously and man himself walk with a more springy step? the housekeeper who "sunned" the bed-clothes and looked with suspicion on a dark room had something else in mind; the sun "disinfected" the bedding. finsen wanted to know what it was in the sunlight that had this power, and how we could borrow it and turn it to use. the men of science had long before analyzed the sunlight. they had broken it up into the rays of different color that together make the white light we see. any boy can do it with a prism, and in the band or spectrum of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet that then appears, he has before him the cipher that holds the key to the secrets of the universe if we but knew how to read it aright; for the sunlight is the physical source of all life and of all power. the different colors represent rays with different wave-lengths; that is, they vibrate with different speed and do different work. the red vibrate only half as fast as the violet, at the other end of the spectrum, and, roughly speaking, they are the heat carriers. the blue and violet are cold by comparison. they are the force carriers. they have power to cause chemical changes, hence are known as the chemical or actinic rays. it is these the photographer shuts out of his dark room, where he intrenches himself behind a ruby-colored window. the chemical ray cannot pass that; if it did it would spoil his plate. this much was known, and it had been suggested more than once that the "disinfecting" qualities of the sunlight might be due to the chemical rays killing germs. finsen, experimenting with earthworms, earwigs, and butterflies, in a box covered with glass of the different colors of the spectrum, noted first that the bugs that naturally burrowed in darkness became uneasy in the blue light. as fast as they were able, they got out of it and crawled into the red, where they lay quiet and apparently content. when the glass covers were changed they wandered about until they found the red light again. the earwigs were the smartest. they developed an intelligent grasp of the situation, and soon learned to make straight for the red room. the butterflies, on the other hand, liked the red light only to sleep in. it was made clear by many such experiments that the chemical rays, and they only, had power to stimulate, to "stir life." finsen called it that himself. in the language of the children, he was getting "warm." that this power, like any other, had its perils, and that nature, if not man, was awake to them, he proved by some simple experiments with sunburn. he showed that the tan which boys so covet was the defence the skin puts forth against the blue ray. the inflammation of sunburn is succeeded by the brown pigmentation that henceforth stands guard like the photographer's ruby window, protecting the deeper layers of the skin. the black skin of the negro was no longer a mystery. it is his protection against the fierce sunlight of the tropics and the injurious effect of its chemical ray. searching the libraries in copenhagen for the records of earlier explorers in his field, and finding little enough there, finsen came across the report of an american army surgeon on a smallpox epidemic in the south in the thirties of the last century. there were so many sick in the fort that, every available room being filled, they had to put some of the patients into the bomb-proof, to great inconvenience all round, as it was entirely dark there. the doctor noted incidentally that, as if to make up for it, the underground patients got well sooner and escaped pitting. to him it was a curious incident, nothing more. upon dr. finsen, sitting there with the seventy-five-year-old report from over the sea in his hand, it burst with a flood of light: the patients got well without scarring _because_ they were in the dark. red light or darkness, it was all the same. the point was that the chemical rays that could cause sunburn on men climbing glaciers, and had power to irritate the sick skin, were barred out. within a month he jolted the medical world by announcing that smallpox patients treated under red light would recover readily and without disfigurement. the learned scoffed. there were some of them who had read of the practice in the middle ages of smothering smallpox patients in red blankets, giving them red wine to drink and hanging the room with scarlet. finsen had not heard of it, and was much interested. evidently they had been groping toward the truth. how they came upon the idea is not the only mystery of that strange day, for they knew nothing of actinic rays or sunlight analyzed. but finsen calmly invited the test, which was speedy in coming. they had smallpox in bergen, norway, and there the matter was put to the proof with entire success; later in sweden and in copenhagen. the patients who were kept under the red light recovered rapidly, though some of them were unvaccinated children, and bad cases. in no instance was the most dangerous stage of the disease, the festering stage, reached; the temperature did not rise again, and they all came out unscarred. finsen pointed out that where other methods of treatment such as painting the face with iodine or lunar caustic, or covering it with a mask or with fat, had met with any success in the past, the same principle was involved of protecting the skin from the light, though the practitioner did not know it. he was doing the thing they did in the middle ages, and calling them quacks. it is strange but true that dr. finsen had never seen a smallpox patient at that time, but he knew the nature of the disease, and that the sufferer was affected by its eruption first and worst on the face and hands--that is to say, on the parts of the body exposed to the light--and he was as sure of his ground as was leverrier when, fifty years before, he bade his fellow astronomers look in a particular spot of the heavens for an unknown planet that disturbed the movements of uranus. and they found the one we call neptune there. presently all the world knew that the first definite step had been taken toward harnessing in the service of man the strange force in the sunlight that had been the object of so much speculation and conjecture. the next step followed naturally. in the published account of his early experiments finsen foreshadows it in the words, "that the beginning has been made with the hurtful effects of this force is odd enough, since without doubt its beneficial effect is far greater." his clear head had already asked the question: if the blue rays of the sun can penetrate deep enough into the skin to cause injury, why should they not be made to do police duty there, and catch and kill offending germs--in short, to heal? finsen had demonstrated the correctness of the theory that the chemical rays have power to kill germs. but it happens that these are the rays that possess the least penetration. how to make them go deeper was the problem. by an experiment that is, in its simplicity, wholly characteristic of the man, he demonstrated that the red blood in the deeper layers of the skin was the obstacle. he placed a piece of photographic paper behind the lobe of his wife's ears and concentrated powerful blue rays on the other side. five minutes of exposure made no impression on the paper; it remained white. but when he squeezed all the blood out of the lobe, by pressing it between two pieces of glass, the paper was blackened in twenty seconds. that night finsen knew that he had within his grasp that which would make him a rich man if he so chose. he had only to construct apparatus to condense the chemical rays and double their power many times, and to apply his discovery in medical practice. wealth and fame would come quickly. he told the writer in his own simple way how he talked it over with his wife. they were poor. finsen's salary as a teacher at the university was something like $ a year. he was a sick man, and wealth would buy leisure and luxury. children were growing up about them who needed care. they talked it out together, and resolutely turned their backs upon it all. hand in hand they faced the world with their sacrifice. what remained of life to him was to be devoted to suffering mankind. that duty done, what came they would meet together. wealth never came, but fame in full measure, and the love and gratitude of their fellow-men. there is a loathsome disease called lupus, of which, happily, in america with our bright skies we know little. lupus is the latin word for wolf, and the ravenous ailment is fitly named, for it attacks by preference the face, and gnaws at the features, at nose, chin, or eye, with horrible, torturing persistence, killing slowly, while the patient shuts himself out from the world praying daily for death to end his misery. in the north of europe it is sadly common, and there had never been any cure for it. ointments, burning, surgery--they were all equally useless. once the wolf had buried its fangs in its victim, he was doomed to inevitable death. the disease is, in fact, tuberculosis of the skin, and is the most dreadful of all the forms in which the white plague scourges mankind--was, until one day finsen announced to the world his second discovery, that lupus was cured by the simple application of light. it was not a conjecture, a theory, like the red-light treatment for smallpox; it was a fact. for two years he had been sending people away whole and happy who came to him in despair. the wolf was slain, and by this silent sufferer whose modest establishment was all contained within a couple of small shanties in a corner of the city hospital grounds, at copenhagen. there was a pause of amazed incredulity. the scientific men did not believe it. three years later, when the physician in charge of finsen's clinic told at the medical congress in paris of the results obtained at the light institute, his story was still received with a polite smile. the smile became astonishment when, at a sign from him, the door opened and twelve healed lupus patients came in, each carrying a photograph of himself as he was before he underwent the treatment. still the doctors could not grasp it. the thing was too simple as matched against all their futile skill. but the people did not doubt. there was a rush from all over europe to copenhagen. its streets became filled with men and women whose faces were shrouded in heavy bandages, and it was easy to tell the new-comers from those who had seen "the professor." they came in gloom and misery; they went away carrying in their faces the sunshine that gave them back their life. finsen never tired, when showing friends over his institute, of pointing out the joyous happiness of his patients. it was his reward. for not "science for science's sake," or pride in his achievement, was his aim and thought, but just the wish to do good where he could. then, in three more years, they awarded him the great nobel prize for signal service to humanity, and criticism was silenced. all the world applauded. "they gave it to me this year," said finsen, with his sad little smile, "because they knew that next year it would have been too late." and he prophesied truly. he died nine months later. all that is here set down seems simple enough. but it was achieved with infinite toil and patience, by the most painstaking experiments, many times repeated to make sure. in his method of working finsen was eminently conservative and thorough. nothing "happened" with him. there was ever behind his doings a definite purpose for which he sought a way, and the higher the obstacles piled up the more resolutely he set his teeth and kept right on. "the thing is not in itself so difficult," he said, when making ready for his war upon the wolf, "but the road is long and the experiments many before we find the right way." he took no new step before he had planted his foot firmly in the one that went before; but once he knew where he stood, he did not hesitate to question any scientific dogma that opposed him, always in his own quiet way, backed by irrefutable facts. in a remarkable degree he had the faculty of getting down through the husk to the core of things, but he rejected nothing untried. the little thing in hand, he ever insisted, if faithfully done might hold the key to the whole problem; only let it be done _now_ to get the matter settled. whatever his mind touched it made perfectly clear, if it was not so already. as a teacher of anatomy he invented a dissecting knife that was an improvement on those in use, and clamps for securing the edges of a wound in an operation. as a rifle shot he made an improved breech; as a physician, observing the progress of his own disease, an effective blood powder for anæmia. at the light institute, which friends built for him, and the government endowed, he devised the powerful electric lamps to which he turned in the treatment of lupus, for the sun does not shine every day in copenhagen; and when it did not, the lenses that gathered the blue rays and concentrated them upon the swollen faces were idle. and gradually he increased their power, checking the heat rays that would slip through and threatened to scorch the patient's skin, by cunning devices of cooling streams trickling through the tubes and the hollow lenses. nothing was patented; it was all given freely to the world. the decision which he and his wife made together was made once for all. when the great nobel prize was given to him he turned it over to the light institute, and was with difficulty persuaded to keep half of it for himself only when friends raised an equal amount and presented it to the institute. finsen knew that his discoveries were but the first groping steps upon a new road that stretched farther ahead than any man now living can see. he was content to have broken the way. his faith was unshaken in the ultimate treatment of the whole organism under electric light that, by concentrating the chemical rays, would impart to the body their life-giving power. he himself was beyond their help. daily he felt life slipping from him, but no word of complaint passed his lips. he prescribed for himself a treatment that, if anything, was worse than the disease. only a man of iron will could have carried it through. a set of scales stood on the table before him, and for years he weighed every mouthful of food he ate. he suffered tortures from thirst because he would allow no fluid to pass his lips, on account of his tendency to dropsy. through it all he cheerfully kept up his labors, rejoicing that he was allowed to do so much. his courage was indomitable; his optimism under it all unwavering. his favorite contention was that there is nothing in the world that is not good for something, except war. that he hated, and his satire on the militarism of europe as its supreme folly was sharp and biting. of such quality was this extraordinary man of whom half the world was talking while the fewest, even in his own home city, ever saw him. fewer still knew him well. it suited his temper and native modesty, as it did the state of his bodily health, to keep himself secluded. his motto was: "_bene vixit qui bene latuit_--he has lived well who has kept himself well hidden"--and his contention was always that in proportion as one could keep himself in the background his cause prospered, if it was a good cause. when kings and queens came visiting, he could not always keep in hiding, though he often tried. on one of his days of extreme prostration the dowager empress of russia knocked vainly at his door. she pleaded so hard to be allowed to see dr. finsen that they relented at last, and she sat by his bed and wept in sympathy with his sufferings, while he with his brave smile on lips that would twitch with pain did his best to comfort her. she and queen alexandra, both daughters of king christian, carried the gospel of hope and healing from his study to their own lands, and light institutes sprang up all over europe. in his own life he treated nearly nineteen hundred sufferers, two-thirds of them lupus patients, and scarce a handful went from his door unhelped. when his work was done he fell asleep with a smile upon his lips, and the "universal judgment was one of universal thanksgiving that he had lived." he was forty-three years old. when the news of his death reached the rigsdag, the danish parliament, it voted his widow a pension such as had been given to few danes in any day. the king, his sons and daughters, and, as it seemed, the whole people followed his body to the grave. the rock from his native island marks the place where he lies. his work is his imperishable monument. his epitaph he wrote himself in the speech another read when the nobel prize was awarded him, for he was then too ill to speak. "may the light institute grasp the obligation that comes with its success, the obligation to maintain what i account the highest aim in science--truth, faithful work, and sound criticism." the story of norway by hjalmar h. boyesen the story of the nations octavo, illustrated. per vol., $ . the earlier volumes will be the story of greece. by prof. jas. a. harrison the story of rome. by arthur gilman the story of the jews. by prof. jas. k. hosmer the story of chaldea. by z. a. ragozin the story of norway. by prof. h. h. boyesen the story of germany. by s. baring-gould the story of spain. by e. e. and susan hale the story of hungary. by prof. a. vÁmbÉry the story of carthage. by prof. alfred j. church the story of the saracens. by arthur gilman the story of assyria. by z. a. ragozin the story of the moors in spain. by stanley lane-poole the story of the normans. by sarah o. jewett the story of persia. by s. g. w. benjamin the story of alexander's empire. by prof. j. p. mahaffy the story of ancient egypt. by geo. rawlinson the story of the goths. by henry bradley for prospectus of the series see end of this volume g. p. putnam's sons new york and london [illustration] the story of the nations the story of norway by hjalmar h. boyesen gebhard professor of german in columbia college, author ok "goethe & schiller," "gunnar," "idyls of norway," etc. new york & london g. p. putnam's sons the knickerbocker press copyright by g. p. putnam's sons press of g. p. putnam's sons new york to christian bÖrs knight of st. olaf, wasa, and the north star, consul of norway and sweden in new york, this history of his native land is dedicated by his friend the author [illustration] preface. it has been my ambition for many years to write a history of norway, chiefly because no such book, worthy of the name, exists in the english language. when the publishers of the present volume proposed to me to write the story of my native land, i therefore eagerly accepted their offer. the story, however, according to their plan, was to differ in some important respects from a regular history. it was to dwell particularly upon the dramatic phases of historical events, and concern itself but slightly with the growth of institutions and sociological phenomena. it therefore necessarily takes small account of proportion. in the present volume more space is given to the national hero, olaf tryggvesson, whose brief reign was crowded with dramatic events, than to kings who reigned ten times as long. for the same reason the four centuries of the union with denmark are treated with comparative brevity. many things happened, no doubt, during those centuries, but "there were few deeds." moreover, the separate history of norway, in the time of her degradation, has never proved an attractive theme to norse historians, for which reason the period has been generally neglected. the principal sources of which i have availed myself in the preparation of the present volume, are snorre sturlasson: _norges kongesagaer_ (christiania, , vols.); p. a. munch: _det norske folks historie_ (christiania, , vols.); r. keyser: _efterladte skrifter_ (christiania, , vols.); _samlede afhandlinger_ ( ); j. e. sars: _udsigt over den norske historie_ (christiania, , vols.); k. maurer: _die bekehrung des norwegischen stammes zum christenthume_ (münchen, , vols.), and _die entstehung des isländischen staates_ (münchen, ); g. vigfusson: _sturlunga saga_ (oxford, , vols.); and _um tímatal í islendinga sögum i fornöld_ (contained in _safn til sögu islands_, ); g. storm: _snorre sturlasson's historieskrivning_ (kjöbenhavn, ); c. f. allen: _haandbog i fædrelandets historie_ (kjöbenhavn, ); besides a large number of scattered articles in german and scandinavian historical magazines. a question which has presented many difficulties is the spelling of proper names. to adopt in every instance the ancient icelandic form would scarcely be practicable, because the names in their modernized forms are usually familiar and easy to pronounce, while, in their icelandic disguises, they are to english readers nearly unpronounceable, and present a needlessly forbidding appearance. where a name has no well-recognized english equivalent, i have therefore adopted the modern norwegian form, which usually differs from the ancient, in having dropped a final letter. thus sigurdr (which with an english genitive would be sigurdr's) becomes in modern norwegian sigurd, eirikr, erik, etc. those surnames, which are descriptive epithets, i have translated where they are easily translatable, thus writing harold the fairhaired, haakon the good, olaf the saint, etc. absolute consistency would, however, give to some names a too cumbrous look, as, for instance, einar the twanger of thamb (thamb being the name of his bow), and i have in such instances kept the norse name (thambarskelver). it is a pleasant duty to acknowledge my indebtedness for valuable criticism to my friends, e. munroe smith, j.u.d., adjunct professor of history in columbia college, and hon. rasmus b. andersen, united states minister to denmark, without whose kindly aid in procuring books, maps, etc., the difficulties in the preparation of the present volume would have been much increased. i am also under obligation to dr. w. h. carpenter, of columbia college, and to the norwegian artist, mr. h. n. gausta, of la crosse, wis., who has kindly sent me two spirited original compositions, illustrative of peasant-life in norway. hjalmar h. boyesen. columbia college, new york, april , . contents. i. page who were the norsemen? - the aryan migrations, - --the physical characteristics of norway, , --early tribal organization and means of livelihood, - --sense of independence and aptitude for self-government, - . ii. the religion of the norsemen - theories regarding the origin of the scandinavian gods, - --the eddaic account of the creation of the world and of man, - --the world-tree ygdrasil, --the _aesir_, their functions and their dwellings, - --loke the evil-doer and his terrible children, , . iii. the age of the vikings.--origin of the viking cruises - the norsemen launch forth upon the arena of history, --the origin of the viking cruises, - --kingship among the scandinavian tribes, , --the three periods of the viking age, - --the contribution of the vikings to the political life of europe, , --sigfrid of nortmannia, --godfrey the hunter, , ---charlemagne's prophecy in regard to the vikings, - --hasting's stratagem, - --ragnar, asgeir, and rörek, , --thorgisl in ireland, , --olaf the white, , --the vikings in england, --simeon of durham's account of the vikings, --the character of the vikings at home and abroad, , . iv. halfdan the swarthy - the descent of the yngling race, --the sacrifices of aun the old, --olaf the wood-cutter, halfdan whiteleg, and godfrey the hunter, --birth of halfdan the swarthy, sigurd hjort and the _berserk_ hake, , --halfdan the swarthy weds ragnhild, --ragnhild's dream, --king halfdan's dream, --birth of harold the fairhaired, --the finn's trick, --king halfdan's death, . v. harold the fairhaired - harold the fairhaired woos gyda, , --harold's vow, --herlaug and rollaug, --harold's policy toward the conquered kings, , --the feudal state, --taxation and the peasants' loss of allodial rights, , --haakon grjotgardsson and ragnvald, earl of möre, --kveld-ulf and his sons, , --erik eimundsson's invasion of norway, --his meeting with king harold, --the battle of hafrs-fjord, --earl ragnvald cuts king harold's hair, --harold marries gyda, , --harold's treachery to thorolf kveld-ulf's son, - --kveld-ulf's vengeance and migration to iceland, , --duke rollo in norway and france, , --emigration of discontented magnates, , --snefrid, --queen ragnhild, --erik blood-axe's feuds with his brothers, - --guttorm sindre, , --birth of haakon the good, --haakon is sent to ethelstan, , --death of harold, . vi. erik blood-axe - erik's meeting with gunhild, - --erik kills his brothers, sigfrid and olaf, --thorolf, bald grim's son, --egil, bald grim's son, kills baard, --egil kills berg-anund, , --egil's pole of dishonor, --egil ransoms his head by a song, - --erik is exiled, . vii. haakon the good - character of haakon, --proclaimed king of norway, --legislative reforms and restoration of allodium, --signal fires, --first attempt to introduce christianity, - --speech of asbjörn of medalhus, --the king eats horse-flesh, - --the sons of erik blood-axe make war upon norway, , --battles of sotoness and agvaldsness, , --egil woolsark, , --battle of fraedö, - --failure of attempt to christianize the country, --battle of fitje (eyvind scald-spoiler), - --death of haakon the good, . viii. harold greyfell and his brothers - unpopularity of the sons of erik, - --their characters, --harold greyfell and eyvind scald-spoiler, --treachery of harold toward earl sigurd, , --independence of earl haakon, , --murder of tryggve olafsson, , --birth of olaf tryggvesson, --adventures of aastrid and thoralf lousy-beard, - --sigurd sleva insults aaluf, --earl haakon's intrigues in denmark, , --gold-harold slays harold greyfell, --expulsion of the sons of erik, , . ix. earl haakon - earl haakon defends dannevirke, , --harold bluetooth, --haakon's devastations in sweden and in viken, --earl erik and tiding-skofte, --the funeral feast of the jomsvikings, , --battle in hjörungavaag, - --the jomsvikings on the log, , --haavard the hewer, --the power and popularity of earl haakon, , --gudrun lundarsol, --revolt of the peasants, --the earl hides under a pigsty, , --"why art thou so pale, kark?" --kark murders the earl, --haakon's character, , . x. the youth of olaf tryggvesson - aastrid's flight to russia, , --olaf is sold for a ram, --he is taken to vladimir's court, , --king burislav and geira, , --the wooers' market in england, --marriage with gyda, , --olaf's warfare in england, , --thore klakka tries to entrap olaf, , --return to norway and proclamation as king, - . xi. olaf tryggvesson - olaf christianizes viken, , --character of old germanic christianity, - --thangbrand the pugnacious priest, --the chiefs of haalogaland, --ironbeard and the peasants of tröndelag, , --the yule-tide feast at möre, - --olaf woos sigrid the haughty, - --he marries thyra, --thore hjort, eyvind kinriva, and haarek of thjotta, - --thangbrand in iceland, , --olaf's character, --thyra's tears for her lost possessions, --"the long-serpent," --king olaf sails to wendland, , --earl sigvalde's treachery, --battle of svolder, - --king olaf's death. , . xii. the earls erik and sweyn.--ihe discovery of vinland - division of norway between the victors at svolder, --erling skjalgsson of sole, - --earl erik's character, --and attitude toward christianity, , --revival of the viking spirit, --earl erik abdicates in favor of his brother and son, , --bjarne herjulfsson's glimpse of america, --leif eriksson's expedition to vinland, , --thorfinn karlsevne and gudrid, . xiii. olaf the saint - birth and childhood of olaf the saint, , --viking cruises, --return to norway, --he captures earl haakon, --his reception by aastrid and sigurd syr, , --family council, , --support of the shire-kings, --the trönders recognize olaf as king, --surprised by earl sweyn in nidaros, --battle of nessje, , --earl sweyn's flight and death, --quarrel with king olaf the swede, , --björn stallare's mission, - --speech of thorgny the lawman, , --olaf marries aastrid, --conspiracy of the shire-kings and their punishments, --the play of the sons of sigurd syr, , --rörek's hard fate, --his attempt to murder olaf, --the attitude of the tribal aristocracy toward olaf, , --paganism _versus_ christianity, , --"where are my ancestors?" --olaf's character and appearance, - --dale-guldbrand, - --slaying of aasbjörn sigurdsson, --knut the mighty bribes the norse chieftains, , --anund jacob refuses the bribe, , --battle of helge-aa, , --death of erling skjalgsson, --olaf goes to russia, --björn stallare's confession, --olaf returns to norway, --his vision, , --battle of sticklestad, , --thormod kolbruna-scald, - --burial of st. olaf, . xiv. sweyn alfifasson - alfifa and the norse chiefs, --unpopular and oppressive laws, --king olaf canonized, --tryggve olafsson's defeat, --einar thambarskelver rebukes alfifa, --magnus olafsson returns from russia, --expulsion of sweyn, . xv. magnus the good - circumstances of magnus' birth, --magnus and harthaknut, --jealousies of the chieftains, --magnus and kalf arnesson at stiklestad, --sighvat scald's lay of candor, --sweyn estridsson rebels, , --battle of lyrskog's heath, --thorstein side-hall's son, --einar thambarskelver's disagreement and reconciliation with magnus, , --arrival of harold sigurdsson, --his adventures abroad, - --magnus' reception of harold, --harold's alliance with sweyn estridsson, --agreement to share the government, --the peasant toke's speech, , --expeditions of magnus against sweyn estridsson, , --death of magnus the good, , . xvi. harold hard-ruler - the tribal chieftains and the hereditability of the crown, , --harold decides to conquer denmark, --determination to break the power of the aristocracy, --einar thambarskelver's hostility, , --harold marries thora, --st. hallvard and the founding of oslo, --burning of heidaby, --sweyn's pursuits and harold's stratagems, - --battle of nis-aa, --peace of götha elv, --feuds with einar thambarskelver, , --harold tests the loyalty of the chieftains, , --högne langbjörnsson, , --murder of einar and his son, --harold's treachery to kalf arnesson and haakon ivarsson, - --arrival of earl tostig in norway, --battles of fulford and stamford bridge, - --styrkaar and the yeoman, - --position of the norwegian church, . xvii. olaf the quiet and magnus haroldsson, - olaf and magnus divide the country, --war with sweyn estridsson, , --death of magnus, --character of olaf the quiet, , --gradual cessation of viking cruises, , --gradual abolition of serfdom, --vikings and merchants, , --appearance and appointments of dwellings, , --increased splendor of the court, , --establishment of guilds, , --skule tostigsson, --death of olaf the quiet, . xviii. magnus barefoot and haakon magnusson, - the trönders proclaim haakon king, --magnus' expedition to scotland and ireland, , --death of haakon, --punishment of his partisans, , --war-like spirit of magnus, --war with sweden, --war with ireland, --death of magnus in ulster, . xix. eystein sigurd the crusader and olaf magnusson - division of the land, --sigurd's crusade, , --eystein's meritorious activity at home, --hostility of the brothers, --the case of sigurd ranesson, , --borghild of dal, --the "man-measuring," - --death of eystein, --ottar birting, - --arrival of harold gille, --cecilia, --death of sigurd, , . xx. magnus the blind and harold gille - character of magnus and of harold, --battle of fyrileiv, --magnus captured and maimed, , --sigurd slembedegn, --harold gille murdered, --burning of konghelle by the wends, . xxi. the sons of harold gille - the sons of harold gille proclaimed kings, --sigurd slembedegn allies himself with magnus the blind, , --inge crookback's first experience of war, --battles of krokaskogen, , and holmengraa, --sigurd slembedegn's fortitude, --arrival of eystein haroldsson, --feuds between the brothers, - --character and appearance of sigurd mouth, - --death of sigurd, --death of eystein, --erling skakke and gregorius dagsson, - --fall of inge at oslo, --the cardinal's visit, , . xxii. haakon the broad-shouldered - christina bribes the priest, --erling skakke's intrigues, --seeks aid in denmark, , --battle of sekken, . xxiii. magnus erlingsson - rebellion of the "sigurd party," , --battle of ree, --erling's alliance with archbishop eystein, --magnus takes the land in fief from st. olaf, , --magnus crowned, --king valdemar's expedition to norway, , --the rebellion of the hood-swains, --battle of djursaa, --erling accepts an earldom from valdemar, --kills his stepson harold, --eystein meyla and the birchlegs, , --childhood and youth of sverre sigurdsson, - --sverre becomes the chief of the birchlegs, --vicissitudes and adventures of the birchlegs, - --battle of kalvskindet, - --death of erling skakke, --social revolution inaugurated by sverre, - --battle at nordness, --warfare between birchlegs and heklungs, - --battle of norefjord and death of magnus, , . xxiv. sverre sigurdsson - a dangerous precedent, --erik kingsson, --the lawmen and prefects, , --the new democracy, , --rebellion of the kuvlungs, , ; the varbelgs, ; and the oyeskeggs, - --sverre's controversy with the church, , --nicholas arnesson, --sverre is put in the ban, --origin of the bagler party, , --nicholas shows the white feather, --treason of thorstein kugad, --the baglers besiege the block-house in bergen, - --burning of bergen, --the traitor's return, --the papal bull and sverre's defence, - --the bagler's defeated at strindsö, --the great peasant rebellion, - --sverre's magnanimity, --aristocracy _versus_ democracy, , --siege and surrender of tunsberg, , --death of sverre, , --his character, , . xxv. haakon sverresson - peace with the church, --popularity of haakon, --discontent of the queen-dowager, --abduction of princess christina, , --the fatal yule-tide feast, , --death of haakon by poison, --flight of queen margaret, . xxvi. guttorm sigurdsson and inge baardsson, - the bagler troop reorganized under erling stonewall, --successful ordeal, --death of guttorm sigurdsson by poison, --inge baardsson proclaimed king, --society disorganized by the civil wars, , --unbidden guests at the bridal feast, , --philip simonsson made king of the baglers, --birth and childhood of haakon haakonsson, , --compromise of hvitingsöe, --the intrigues of haakon galen, , --helge hvasse and the boy haakon, , --discontent of the birchlegs, --death of king inge, . xxvii. haakon haakonsson the old - haakon proclaimed king, --rebellion of the slittungs, --effects of the civil war, , --the intrigues of earl skule, - --inga of varteig carries glowing irons, - --rebellion of the ribbungs, , --skule's double-dealing, - --assembly of notables in bergen, --bishop nicholas' hypocrisy, --sigurd ribbung renews the rebellion, --haakon's campaign in vermeland, , --duke skule's leaky ships, --death of bishop nicholas and sigurd ribbung, --squire knut as the chief of the ribbungs, --skule's "crusade," , --skule allies himself with valdemar the victorious, , --skule called to account, - --intrigues at the roman curia, , --the plot revealed, , --skule proclaims himself king, --battle of laaka, --skule defeated at oslo, --death of skule, , --coronation of haakon, - --his power and fame at home and abroad, - --expedition to scotland, and death, , . xxviii. the sturlungs in iceland - snorre sturlasson's _heimskringla_, , --snorre's parentage and youth, --character of snorre, --reykjaholt, --brother feuds, --snorre's visit to norway, --plots and counterplots, - --snorre's death, --sturla thordsson, , . xxix. magnus law-mender - cession of man and the shetland isles to scotland, --reasons for and against the cession, --condition of icelandic society and submission of the island to norway, --magnus as a law-giver, - --the tribal aristocracy and the court nobility, , --concessions to the church, , --degeneracy of the old royal house, --death of magnus, . xxx. erik priest-hater - the barons increase their power, --quarrels with the clergy, --the false "maid of norway," --depredations of "little sir alf," , --war with denmark and the hansa, , --capture and death of little sir alf, --death of king erik, . xxxi. haakon longlegs - sir audun's treason, --the dukes erik and valdemar --complications with sweden, --war with denmark, --death of haakon, . xxxii. magnus smek, haakon magnusson, and olaf the young - magnus smek becomes king of norway and sweden, --duchess ingeborg's unpopularity, , --discontent with magnus, --alliance with valdemar atterdag, , --magnus deposed in sweden, --haakon's war with albrecht of mecklenberg, --the power of the hansa in norway, --death of magnus, --the black death, , --olaf the young, . xxxiii. norway during the kalmar union - margaret unites the three kingdoms, - --the kalmar union, , --reasons for its disastrous consequences, - --death of margaret, --erik of pomerania's misrule and extortions, , --christopher of bavaria, , . xxxiv. the union with denmark - the condition of norway and denmark during the union compared, , --charles knuttson elected king of sweden, --christian i.'s war with charles knutsson, , --misrule in norway, --the scottish isles pawned, , --king hans, , --christian ii.'s accession, --his attempt to humble the nobility, --the carnage of stockholm, , --his vain appeal to the bourgeoisie, , --christian's flight, --frederick i., , --struggle about the succession, , --christian iii., , --norway becomes a province of denmark, . xxxv. norway as a province of denmark - the reformation introduced, , --the power of the hansa broken, - --frederick ii., - --christian iv.'s interest in norway, --the kalmar war, --participation in the thirty years' war, , --the hannibal's feud, --frederick iii.'s disastrous war with sweden, --absolutism introduced, , --christian v., , --frederick iv.'s accession, --the great northern war, - --tordenskjold, , --christian vi., - --frederick v, --christian vii., - --the armed neutrality, , --frederick vi. mounts the throne, --war with sweden, , --christian august as viceroy, - --the treaty of paris, --protest of the norsemen, --separation from denmark, . xxxvi. norway recovers her independence - christian frederick as viceroy, - --constitutional convention at eidsvold, - --war with sweden, , --armistice at moss, --charles xiii. accepts the constitution, --charles xiv. john becomes king of norway, --his controversies with the _storthing_, - --henrik wergeland, , --count wedel-jarlsberg as viceroy, --oscar i., - --the character of the norse peasantry, - --charles xv., , --oscar ii., and the constitutional struggle, - --impeachment of the ministry selmer, --"the pure flag," --present condition of norway and her place among the nations, --literature and science, - . list of illustrations. page. stone axes from the later stone age stone used for shaping instruments stone hammer stone knife adze of elk-horn stone wedge rock picture of a ship at lÖkeberg rock picture at borgen bronze sword loor or war horn of bronze bronze sword buckles from the early iron age the viking ship recently unearthed at sandefjord the viking ship, various views of st. ansgarius the apostle of the north iron implement--use unknown two-edged sword buckle from the iron age ruin of norse tower at mosÖ buckle with byzantine ornamentation gilt buckle found at skedsmo cylindrical mounting in bronze iron point of spear, iron chisel frying-pan of bronze breastpin of bronze oval bronze buckle egil woolsark's monument ornamental bronze mounting church at egilÖ scissors and arrow-head of iron harold bluetooth runestone from strand in ryfylke oblong buckle olaf tryggvesson's arrival in norway old norse loom runic stone from gran in hadeland instrument of unknown use old loom from the faeroe islands church at moster island shuttles of iron and whalebone knives of iron found in hedemark and hadeland st. olaf from drontheim cathedral st. olaf and the trolds magnus the good and kalf arnesson at stiklestad marble lion from the pirÆus pommel of gilt bronze from the viking age the old man of hoy interior of orkhaugen hitterdal church village during fishing season the raft sund in vestfjord hornelen thorghÄtten hÖnefoss haakon haakonsson and helge hvasse west front of drontheim cathedral old norse capitals on the sogne fjord a storm on the fjord norwegian stabbur or store-house hÖrgadal in the north of iceland almannagjaa with the hill of laws queen margaret christian i. belt wrestling the north cape frederick iii., king of denmark and norway the capercailzie in norway carved lintel, stabbur, and beer-mugs peasants dancing prince christian frederick, viceroy of norway charles xiv. john (bernadotte) skee-running bride and groom portrait of oscar ii. bjÖrnstjerne bjÖrnson [illustration] [illustration] the story of norway. chapter i. who were the norsemen? the norsemen are a germanic race, and belong, accordingly, to the great aryan family. their next of kin are the swedes and danes. their original home was asia, and probably that part of asia which the ancients called bactria, near the sources of the rivers oxus and jaxartes. not only the norsemen are supposed to have come from this region, but the ancestors of all the aryan nations which now inhabit the greater portion of the civilized world. among the first to leave this cradle of nations were the tribes which settled upon the eastern islands and peninsulas of the mediterranean, and, under the name of hellenes, developed, long before the christian era, an art and a literature which are, in some respects, yet unrivalled. the early italic tribes, from which sprung in time the world-empire of rome, trace their descent from the same ancestry; as do also the kelts, who in ancient times inhabited england, ireland, and france; the slavs who settled in the present russia, bohemia, and the northern turkish provinces; and the germans, who occupied the great central regions of the european continent. among asiatic nations, the iranians inhabiting persia, and the hindoos in india, have aryan blood. it seems almost incredible that persons differing so widely in appearance, habits, and disposition, as, for instance, a hindoo and an englishman, should, if you go sufficiently far back, have the same ancestry. and yet there cannot be the slightest doubt that such is the case. the question, then, naturally arises: "if they were once alike, what can have made them so different?" and the answer is: "the climate, the soil, and the general character of the countries in which they settled." the country from which the first aryans emigrated was mountainous, with fertile valleys, and an even, temperate climate. there was no excessive heat to make men drowsy and indolent, nor excessive cold to stunt them in their growth and paralyze their energies. the earth did not, as in the tropics, produce a luxurious vegetation which would support the inhabitants without labor, but it offered sustenance to herds of cattle which, with the proper care, would supply the simple needs of primitive men. the race, thus situated, progressed physically as well as mentally, until it became superior to all the tribes inhabiting the neighboring regions. war followed, in which the weaker succumbed. the aryans, increasing rapidly in numbers, took possession of the conquered territories, enslaved the indigenous population, or drove it back into localities where the conditions of life were less favorable. it is not positively known when the first migration on a large scale took place; but some scholars have supposed that the hindoos separated from the parent race as early as b.c. the dates of the greek, italic, keltic, and slavic migrations are likewise uncertain, and the period which has been fixed upon for the aryan occupation of germany is also conjectural. the same uncertainty prevails regarding the earliest history of the scandinavian tribes; although there is a strong probability that their invasion of the countries which they now inhabit must have taken place during the second century preceding the christian era. it is not unlikely that they left their asiatic home simultaneously with the germans, with whom they were then almost, if not entirely, identical, and that their conquering hordes spread northward, subduing the finns and lapps, whom they found in possession of the land, partly exterminating them, partly forcing them up into the barren mountains of the extreme north. among the tribes whose path of conquest was turned in this direction, the goths (_gauter_), the swedes (_svear_), and the danes (_daner_) were the most prominent, though several other names are mentioned, both by native and foreign authors. the name norseman, or northman, is not found among these, because it refers not to any of the aryan tribes, but is solely derived from the country in which they settled. their country soon became known as norway (noregr or norvegr), _i. e._, the northern way. it is the long strip of territory extending north and south between the mountain chain kjölen, which separates it from sweden and the arctic and atlantic oceans. it looks on the map like a big bag slung across the shoulders of sweden. it is a wonderful country--this land of the norsemen. the ocean roars along its rock-bound coast, and during the long, dark winter the storms howl and rage, and hurl the waves in white showers of spray against the sky. great swarms of sea-birds drift like snow over the waters, and circle screaming around the lonely cliffs. the aurora borealis flashes like a huge shining fan over the northern heavens, and the stars glitter with a keen frosty splendor. but in the summer all this is changed, suddenly, as by a miracle. then the sun shines warmly, even within the polar circle; innumerable wild flowers sprout forth, the swelling rivers dance singing to the sea, and the birches mingle their light-green foliage with the darker needles of the pines. in the northern districts it is light throughout the night, even during the few hours while the sun dips beneath the horizon; the ocean spreads like a great burnished mirror under the cloudless sky, the fishes leap, and the gulls and eider-ducks rock tranquilly upon the shining waters. all along the coast there are excellent harbors, which are free of ice both winter and summer. a multitude of islands, some rocky and barren, others covered with a scant growth of grass and trees, afford hiding-places for ships and pasturage for cattle. moreover, long arms of the ocean--the so-called fiords--penetrate far into the country, and being filled with water from the gulf-stream which strikes the western coast of norway, tend greatly to moderate the climate. about the shores of these fiords narrow strips of arable land stretch themselves, with many interruptions, along the edge of the water, and here the early germanic settlers built their houses and began their fight for existence. behind them and before them the great snow-hooded mountains rose threateningly, sending down upon them avalanches, floods, and sudden whirlwinds. but, nothing daunted, they clung to the soil, explored the land and the sea, and selected the most favorable sites for their permanent dwellings. [illustration: stone axes from the later stone age.] it is tolerably certain that the aryan settlers in norway knew at that time very little of agriculture, but made their living by hunting, fishing, and cattle-raising. the huts which they built of logs were rude contrivances which could be easily torn down and moved. but, as at a very early period, they began to devote themselves more to the culture of the ground, their dwellings were made larger, and were built with greater care. when a horde of warriors invaded a valley their first task was to clear away the forests which grew dense and dark up over the mountain sides. their chieftain then built a _hov_ or temple for the gods, where sacrifices were made at certain stated times. whether it was the chieftain's task to allot to each his share of land, or whether each one chose according to his own preference, is not known, but the former is the more probable; for the norsemen, proud and pugnacious as they were, subordinated themselves, in historic times, readily to their local chiefs, and accorded them great honor. this sense of kinship within the tribe and willing recognition of authority was the more important in norway, because the character of the ground there compelled the people to live far apart on scattered _gaards_ or farms, between which communication was often difficult. it would therefore have been easy for the _bönder_ or peasants to forget all public concerns and gradually to lapse into isolation and savagery. but here their germanic nature, which had in it the germs of social progress, asserted itself. as the centuries passed the people were bound more strongly together by common pursuits and common interests. first of all, their religious observances brought them together, then the necessity of defence against external enemies. life and property were in those days insecure possessions, and it was only by acting in concert, under the leadership of a valiant chief, that the scattered peasants could hope to preserve either. men had then fiercer and more inflammable passions than they have now, and only fear of retaliation could teach them self-restraint. [illustration: stone hammer.] [illustration: stone used for shaping implements.] it happened in this way that almost every separate valley in norway became a little kingdom by itself. such a diminutive kingdom was called a _fylki_. there was not always a king, but a chief there was always, and sometimes more than one. to the king belonged the leadership in war. he was in some district called a _jarl_ or earl, though this name came in later times to mean not an independent ruler, but rather a land-grave, a royal governor. the king could not tax the peasants for his support, nor impose any burden upon them which they did not of their own free choice accept. as a rule, his dignity was inherited by his son, though the people were at liberty, in case they disapproved of the heir, to select another. this right was repeatedly exercised in historic times, both in sweden and norway. sometimes, when the crops failed or bad weather destroyed their herds, the peasants sacrificed their king to their gods. all public misfortunes they interpreted as a sign that the gods were angry, and craved bloody atonement. if the crops were good it was evident that their king was in favor with the gods. [illustration: stone knife.] it thus appears that the royal dignity among the early norsemen was burdened with unpleasant responsibilities. it involved more duties than privileges, for, besides commanding in war, the king had also to conduct the public sacrifices at the great pagan festivals. he was thus priest as well as king. in fact, as before stated, he built the _hov_ or temple himself, and it was chiefly his ownership of this, which raised him to a dignity superior to that of other chieftains. it was by dint of this same authority that he acted as judge at the _fylkis thing_, or popular assembly, where all freeman met to consult concerning public and private affairs. the _fylkis thing_ was neither a parliament nor a court of law, but both combined. private quarrels were settled, blood-wites or fines agreed upon for homicides and other injuries, and resolutions taken concerning peace and war. it was not a representative assembly, the members of which were elected by vote, but rather a county meeting (_shiremote_) where every man who could bear arms had a right to make himself heard. you would scarcely wonder that where so many fierce and turbulent warriors were gathered, breaches of the peace were frequent. but when swords were drawn, it was impossible to judge and deliberate. therefore the _fylkis thing_ was hallowed, and to break the peace of the _thing_ was regarded as the greatest of crimes. if a man killed another, and publicly proclaimed himself his slayer, the crime could be atoned for by money (blood-wite) paid to the nearest surviving relative of the dead man. if the relatives accepted the blood-wite, they were not at liberty to seek revenge. but in ancient times it was regarded as more honorable to refuse the money and resort to the sword. if a man slew another secretly and denied the crime he was held to be a murderer, and could not offer blood-wite. he was then outlawed, and every man who saw him was at liberty to slay him. [illustration: adze of elk-horn.] [illustration: stone wedge.] [illustration: rock picture of a ship at lokeberg in bohuslen.] such were the norsemen during the first centuries after their settlement in their present home. in spite of their violence and proneness to bloodshed, you will yet admit that they had many traits which were admirable. they could recognize authority, and yet preserve their sturdy sense of independence. simple and imperfect as their _fylkis things_ were, they suffice to show an aptitude for self-government, and a recognition of the people itself, as the source of authority. these tall blonde men with their defiant blue eyes, who obeyed their kings while they had confidence in them, and killed them when they had forfeited their respect, were the ancestors of the normans who under william the conqueror invaded england, and founded the only european state which has since reached the highest civilization and the highest liberty, through slow and even stages of orderly development. [illustration: rock picture at borgen in smaalenene.] [illustration] [illustration] chapter ii. the religion of the norsemen. the icelander snorre sturlasson wrote in the thirteenth century a very remarkable book, called the heimskringla, or the sagas of the kings of norway. in this book he says that odin, the highest god of the norsemen, was the chief who first led the germanic tribes into europe. he was a great warrior and was always victorious. therefore, when he was dead, the people made sacrifices to him and prayed to him for victory. they did not believe, however, that he was actually dead, but that he had returned to his old home in asia, whence he still watched their fortunes and occasionally visited them in person. many tales are told in the sagas of people who had seen odin, particularly when a great battle was to be fought. he was represented as a tall, bearded man with one eye, and clad as a warrior. he had two brothers, vile and ve, and many sons and daughters who were worshipped like him and became gods and goddesses. odin and his children were called _aesir_, which snorre says means asia-men; and their home _asgard_, or _asaheim_, likewise indicates their asiatic origin. during their migrations the _aesir_ came in contact with another people, called the _vanir_, with whom, after an indecisive battle, they formed an alliance. the _vanir_ then made common cause with the _aesir_ and were worshipped like them. [illustration: bronze sword. (vestergötland in sweden.)] whether there is any basis of truth in this tradition, is difficult to determine. we know that primitive nations usually make gods of their early kings and chieftains, and worship them after death. every year that passes makes them look greater and more mysterious. in storms and earthquakes, in thunder and lightning, they hear their voices and see the manifestations of their power. more and more they become identified with the elements which they are supposed to rule; the mighty attributes of the sun, the sky, and the sea are given to them, and to each is allotted his particular sphere of action. the chieftain who has been a valiant warrior in his life-time is supposed to give victory to those who call upon him. he who has excelled in the arts of peace continues to rule over the seasons, and to give good crops and prosperity to those who, by sacrifices, secure his good-will. this may have been the origin of the scandinavian gods; although many scholars maintain that they were from the beginning personifications of the elements, and have never had an actual existence on earth. but whether they were originally men or sun-myths, interesting legends have been told about them which may be worth recounting. [illustration: loor or war horn of bronze. (skaane.)] in the beginning of time there were two worlds, muspelheim, the world of fire, whose king was surtur, and niflheim, the world of frost and darkness. in niflheim was the spring hvergelmer, where dwelt the terrible dragon nidhögger. between these two worlds was the yawning chasm ginnungagap. the spring hvergelmer sent forth twelve icy rivers, which were called the elivagar. these gradually filled up the chasm ginnungagap. as the wild waters rushed into the abyss, they froze and were again thawed by the sparks that were blown from the fiery muspelheim. the frozen vapors fell as hoar-frost, and the heat imparted life to them. they took shape and fashioned themselves into the yotun or giant ymer, from whom descends the evil race of frost-giants. simultaneously with ymer the cow audhumbla came into being. she licked the briny hoar-frost, and a mighty being appeared with the shape of a man. he was large and beautiful, and was named bure. his son was bör, who married the daughter of a yotun, and got three sons, odin, vile, and ve. these three brothers slew the yotun ymer, and in his blood all the race of yotuns was drowned except one couple, from whom a new race of giants descended. then odin and his brothers dragged the huge body of ymer into the middle of ginnungagap, and fashioned from it the world. out of the flesh they made the earth, the bones became stones and lofty mountains, and his blood the sea. from his hair they made the trees, and from his skull the great vault of the sky. his brain they scattered in the air, where its fragments yet float about in queer, fantastic shapes, and are called clouds. the flying sparks from muspelheim they gathered up and fashioned them into sun, moon, and stars, which they flung up against the blue vault of the sky. then they arranged land and water so that the ocean flowed round about the entire earth, and beyond the watery waste they fixed the abode of the yotuns. this cold and barren realm beyond the sea is therefore called utgard or yotunheim. from the earth to the sky they suspended a bridge of many colors, which they named bifrost or the rainbow. the yotun woman night married delling (the dawn) and became the mother of day, who rode in his shining chariot across the sky, always followed by his dark mother. the latter drove a huge black horse named hrimfaxe, from whose foamy bit dropped the dew that refreshed the grass during the hours of darkness, while day's horse, skinfaxe, spread from his radiant mane the glorious light over the earth. it is further told that the heat bred in ymer's body a multitude of maggots, which assumed the shapes of tiny men and were called gnomes or dwarves. they live in caves and mountains, and know of all the treasures of gold and silver and precious stones in the secret chambers of the rocks. they also have great skill in the working of metals, but they cannot endure the light of the sun. last of all man was created. one day when the three gods, odin, höner, and lodur were walking on the shores of the sea they found two trees, and from these they made a man and a woman, named ask and embla (ash and elm). odin gave them the breath of life, höner, speech and reason, lodur, blood and fair complexions. [illustration: bronze sword. (sandherred.)] the old norsemen conceived of the world as an enormous ash tree, named ygdrasil, the three roots of which extend, one to the gods in asgard, another to yotunheim, the third to niflheim. on the third gnaws continually the dragon nidhögger. in the top of the tree sits an eagle; among the branches four stags are running; and up and down on the trunk frisks a squirrel who carries slander and endeavors to make mischief between the eagle and the dragon. under the root which stretches to yotunheim is the fountain of the wise yotun mimer, to whom odin gave one of his eyes in return for a draught from his fountain. for whoever drank from its water became instantly wise. under the second root of the ash, which draws its nourishment from heaven, is the sacred fountain of urd, whither the gods ride daily over the bridge bifrost. here they meet the three norns--urd, verdande, and skuld (past, present, and future), the august goddesses of fate, whose decrees not even the gods are able to change. the norns pour the water of the fountain over ygdrasil's root, and thereby keep the world-tree alive. they govern the fates of gods and men, giving life or death to whomever they please. [illustration: buckle from the early iron age. found at hetland in stavanger amt.] odin dwells with all the other gods in asgard, where he receives in his shining hall valhalla all those who have died by the sword. he is therefore called valfather, and those fallen warriors whom he chooses to be his guests, are known as _einheriar_, _i. e._, great champions. valhalla is splendidly decorated with burnished weapons. the ceiling is made of spears, the roof is covered with shining shields, and the walls are adorned with armor and coats of mail. hence the champions issue forth every day and fight great battles, killing and maiming each other. but every night they wake up whole and unscathed and return to odin's hall, where they spend the night in merry carousing. the maidens of odin--the valkyries, who, before every battle, select those who are to be slain, wait upon the warriors, fill their great horns with mead, and give them the flesh of swine to eat. the great gathering-place of the gods in asgard is the plains of ida. here is odin's throne, where he sits looking out over the whole world. at his side sit the two wolves--gere and freke, and on his shoulders the ravens, hugin and munin, who daily fly forth and bear him tidings from the remotest regions of the earth. if he wishes to travel, he mounts his eight-footed horse sleipner, which carries him far and wide with wonderful speed. when the father of gods and men rides to battle he wears a helmet of gold and a suit of mail, which shines dazzlingly from afar. he carries also his spear gungner, which he sends forth whenever he wishes to arouse men to warfare and strife. but, besides being the god of war, odin also delights in poetry and sage counsel. he is the god of the scalds or poets; for he had drunk of suttung's mead, which imparted the gift of song. he is well skilled in sorcery, and has taught men the art of writing runes. thor, the son of odin, lives in thrudvang. he is the strongest of all the gods, and has an enormous hammer, mjolner, with which he carries on a ceaseless warfare against the yotuns, or mist-giants. he rides in a cart drawn by two rams across the gjallar bridge (the resounding bridge), which leads to yotunheim, and the rattling of the cart and the noise of his hammer, as he hurls it at the heads of the fleeing giants, make the vault of the sky tremble. this is what men call thunder. when thor is hungry, he kills his rams and eats their flesh, but he is always careful to gather up the bones and to throw them back into the skins. then, the next morning, the rams are as frisky as ever and ready for service. thor has a wife named sif, whose hair is of gold. balder, the good and the beautiful, is also the son of odin. he is wise and gentle, and kindness beams from his countenance. his wife is nanna, and his dwelling breidablik. njord is ruler of the sea, and can raise storms and calm the waves at his pleasure. he is of the race of the vanir, but is yet worshipped as a god. he is the owner of great wealth, and can give prosperity to those who obtain his favor. njord was married to the yotun woman, skade, but was again separated from her. his abode is at noatun, from which he has wide view of the sea. frey, the son of njord, rules over the seasons, and gives peace and good crops. fields and pastures grow, and the cattle thrive in the sunshine of his favor. he lives with his wife gerd in alfheim. tyr is the god of courage, whom men call upon as they are about to go into battle. he has but one hand, having thrust the other into the mouth of the fenris-wolf, who bit it off. brage is the god of song, and of vows and pledges. he has a long beard, and, is possessed of wisdom and eloquence. when men drained the horn in his honor, they made vows of daring deeds which they would perform, and called the god to witness that they would keep them. many were those who, while drunk, pledged themselves to foolhardy undertakings, and perished in the attempt to carry them out. brage's wife is the ever-young idun. she has in her keeping the wonderful apples, which the gods eat to preserve the beauty and vigor of an eternal youth. the watchman of the gods is named heimdal. his senses are so keen that nothing can escape him. he can see hundreds of miles, and he can hear the grass grow. when he blows his gjallar horn (the resounding horn), its rousing call is heard throughout the world. heimdal's dwelling is himinbjarg at the bifrost bridge. among gods of less consequence may be mentioned uller, the step-son of thor, who is a master in running on snow-shoes; forsete, the son of balder, who makes peace between those who have quarrelled; höder, the blind god, who shot balder; and the silent vidar. foremost among the goddesses is frigg, the wife of odin, who dwells in fensal. she shields from danger those who call upon her. freya, the northern venus, is the goddess of beauty. she is the daughter of njord, and was forsaken by her husband odd, and is ever hoping for his return. she travelled far and wide in search of him, and wept because she could not find him. her tears turned into gold, and gold is therefore by the poets called the tears of freya. her chariot, in which she drives over the sky, is drawn by cats, though at times she flies in the guise of a swan and visits distant lands. her necklace, brising, made by wonder-working gnomes, is of dazzling splendor. the dwelling of freya is folkvang, and thither ascend the prayers of lovelorn swains and maidens. freya's daughter, hnos, is of marvellous beauty and a sweet disposition. her name is still used in the nursery as a pet-name for babes. the dominion of the sea does not belong entirely to njord. the yotun aeger rules over the towering waves, and lashes them into fury, until njord again curbs them and bids them be still. yet aeger is the friend of the gods, and is at times visited by them in his magnificent submarine hall, where ale and mead flow abundantly. he is himself peaceably disposed toward men, but is overruled by his terrible wife ran, who with her nine daughters (the waves) causes shipwrecks and draws the drowned men down to her watery abode. one dweller in asgard is still to be mentioned, and that is the evil loke, who disturbs the peace of the gods, and will work their final ruin. he was born among the yotuns, but gained the confidence of odin by his agreeable presence and his fair speech. he delighted in mischief and loved evil-doing. he had three terrible children--the wolf fenris, the world-serpent, and hel. as these monsters grew up, the gods foresaw that their presence in asgard would cause trouble. the wolf fenris was, therefore, after having broken the strongest chains, tied with a magical cord, made of the noise of cats'-paws, women's beard, roots of mountains, and other equally intangible things. this cord he could not break. the world-serpent was thrown into the ocean, where it continued to grow until it encircled all the earth and at last bit its own tail. hel was banished to helheim, where she became the ruler of the dead, and the goddess of the under-world. [illustration] [illustration] chapter iii. the age of the vikings. the origin of the viking cruises. the norsemen had up to the middle of the eighth century played no part in the world's history. their very existence had been unknown or but vaguely known to the rest of europe. but towards the close of the eighth century they broke like a destructive tempest over the civilized lands, spreading desolation in their path. when their fast-sailing ships with two square sails were sighted at the river-mouths, people fled in terror, and the priests prayed in vain: "deliver us, o lord, from the rage of the norsemen." [illustration: the viking ship recently unearthed at gogstad, near sandefjord.] there were several reasons for this sudden warlike activity on the part of the norsemen. they had waged war from immemorial times; because war was with them the most honorable occupation. as tacitus says of their kinsmen, the germans: "they deemed it a disgrace to acquire by sweat what they might obtain by blood." but previous to the viking period they had fought each other. one earl or king made foraging expeditions into the land of his neighbors, and carried away with him whatever booty he could lay hands on. but in this perpetual warfare one or the other must at length become exhausted, and the stronger would be likely to oust or vanquish the weaker. this was what happened in the north. large tracts of land, made up of small conquered kingdoms, were united under one successful chief, who, of course, made haste to prevent depredations within his own boundaries. with the growing power of these local kings, it became more and more risky to attack them, and the field for domestic warfare thus became constantly narrower. but war was the very condition of the chieftain's existence among the early norsemen. his honor was dependent upon the number of his followers and the splendor of their equipments, and to gain the means to entertain and to equip them he was obliged to wage war. when he could no longer do it at home, he naturally went abroad. it was neither ferocity nor excessive avarice which impelled him to draw the sword; but the desire to preserve his honor among men, which, in a warlike state, is merely another form of the instinct of self-preservation. the high-born chieftain had to make himself formidable in order to protect his life and property. he had to live in accordance with his rank, if he wished to live at all. his men-at-arms were his body-guard as well as his army. he had to behave royally toward them in order to preserve their good-will; and next to personal valor, liberality in giving was the first duty of a king. the king is therefore called the breaker of rings (large solid arm-rings of gold being used for purposes of payment) and the hater of gold.[a] [footnote a: munch (det norske folk's historie, - ) derives the word king (old norse, konungr; anglo-saxon, cyning; o. h. german, chuninc and chunig) from kun or kon, meaning race, descent; and interprets the word as meaning (like lat., generosus) of high birth or descent.] there is in the earliest germanic times no sharp distinction between the titles "earl" and "king." the viking cruises, however, helped to establish a distinction. the earl who, having gathered a large number of warriors about him, went abroad for purposes of conquest, was hailed by his men as king. a number of vikings, of high birth, assumed the name of kings, when starting on warlike expeditions; but were known as sea-kings, in contra-distinction to those who ruled at home over a fixed domain. the number of these sea-kings increased (for the reasons cited above) enormously toward the close of the eighth century. they harried not only the coasts of the neighboring lands, but they crossed the north sea and the baltic, carrying away or slaughtering the inhabitants and destroying the cities. churches and monasteries they plundered, scattering the bones of the saints to the four winds; all that christian men held sacred they trod under foot. and yet we must bear in mind that all we know about these early vikings is derived from the writings of their enemies, who were smarting under the injury they had done them. that they were fierce and brutal is credible enough. the warlike state is in itself brutalizing. it arouses all the slumbering savagery in man, and smothers his gentler impulses. but certain moral qualities even their hostile chroniclers concede to them. they admit that the norse barbarians were, as a rule, faithful to their oaths and kept their promises. three periods [a] are recognizable in the viking age, though there are, in point of time, no sharp divisions between them. it would, perhaps, be more correct to say that there were three kinds of vikings. the first cruises were more or less tentative and irregular. chieftains gather about them crews for a few ships and sail over to england, denmark, or flanders, where they attack a city or a monastery, and return home with their booty. the second period shows an advance in the art of war and in military experience. several vikings attack in company some exposed point, take possession of it, erect fortifications, and make forays into the surrounding country. during the third period the norsemen abandon their character of pirates and assume the rôle of conquerors. with large fleets, counting from one to five hundred ships, they storm and sack cities, assume the government of the conquered territories, treat, as regular belligerents, with kings and emperors, and establish themselves permanently in the conquered land. of the two first classes of vikings we have only scattered and unreliable accounts. to go on viking cruises is a recognized occupation in the norse sagas, and it was regarded as a kind of liberal education for a young man of good birth to spend some years of his youth on such expeditions. his honor was thereby greatly increased at home, and his position in society assured. royal youths of twelve or fifteen years often went abroad as commanders of viking fleets, in order to test their manhood and accumulate experience and knowledge of men. [footnote a: sars: "udsigt over den norske historie," - .] [illustration: .--side view of the gogstad viking ship. .--viking ship restored. .--details of viking ship.] the third class of vikings, the conquerors, have found their historians both at home and abroad; and the different narratives, though not strictly accurate, supplement and correct each other. it is these conquering vikings who have demonstrated the historic mission of norway, and doubly indemnified the world for the misery they brought upon it. the ability to endure discipline without loss of self-respect, voluntary subordination for mutual benefit, and the power of orderly organization, based upon these qualities, these were the contributions of the norse vikings to the political life of europe. the feudal state, which, with all its defects, is yet the indispensable basis of a higher civilization, has its root in the germanic instinct of loyalty--of mutual allegiance between master and vassal; and the noble spirit of independence which restrains and limits the power of the ruler, and at a later stage leads to constitutional government, is even a more distinctly norse than germanic characteristic. while norway, up under the pole, has developed a democracy, germany, coming at too early a period into contact with rome, has developed a military despotism under constitutional forms. the breath of new life which the vikings infused into history lives to-day in norway, in england, and in america. among the earliest conquests of the norse vikings was a portion of the present sleswick which after them was called nortmannia. it is possible that they recognized the sovereignty of the kings of denmark, though there is no direct evidence that they regarded themselves as vassals. the first intelligence we obtain concerning them is that their king sigfrid, in the year , received hospitably the saxon chieftain widukind, who, when summoned to meet charlemagne in paderborn, fled northward and sought refuge with his norse co-religionists. this sigfrid belonged to the renowned race of the ynglings, from whom descended harold the fairhaired, and through him a long line of norwegian kings. a later king of nortmannia, who also had great possessions in norway, was gudröd or godfrey the hunter. he came, through the friendship of the saxons, repeatedly into collision with charlemagne, and even threatened to attack the emperor in aachen. it is told that he was killed by his own men in the year . he had about a year before attacked and slain the king of agder, whose daughter aasa he married. she bore him a son named halfdan the swarthy, but avenged her father's death by inducing her servant to kill her husband while he was drunk. one of godfrey's sons, erik, carried on an intermittent warfare with charlemagne's son, louis the pious, sent embassies to aachen, and in , during the reign of louis the german, sacked and burned the city of hamburg. st. ansgarius, the apostle of the north, who had been established by the emperor as archbishop of hamburg, fled with all his priests; and the church and the monastery which he had founded were utterly destroyed. it was not only in his remote northern domains that charlemagne came in contact with the vikings. the chronicles of the monks of st. gall relate that he also encountered them in his mediterranean provinces. once, as he was visiting a city in gallia narbonensis, some fast-sailing norse ships with square sails were seen out in the harbor. soon a message was brought to the emperor that the crews had landed and were plundering the shore. nobody then knew to what nationality these ships belonged, some conjecturing that they were jewish, others african, and again others that they were british merchant vessels. "no," said charlemagne, "these ships are not filled with merchandise, but with the most pugnacious foes." hearing this everybody seized his weapons and hastened to the harbor; but the vikings had in the meanwhile learned that the emperor was in the city, and as they were not strong enough to fight with him, they fled to sea. [illustration: st. ansgarius, the apostle of the north.] it is related that charlemagne, as he stood at his window and watched their flight, wept. remarking the wonder of his men, he said: "i do not weep because i fear that these miscreants can do me any harm; but i am grieved that, while i am alive, they have dared to show themselves upon this coast; and i foresee with dread all the evil they will do to my descendants."[a] [footnote a: munch (det. norske folks historie - ) questions the credibility of this story, because the norsemen did not show themselves in the mediterranean as early as the chronicle here indicates; in fact not before a.d.] this story, endowing the emperor with prophetic vision, has a certain legendary flavor, and may be a monkish invention. similar prophecies, dating after the event, are found in other ecclesiastical authors, and show sufficiently the feeling with which the norsemen were regarded. it is especially one typical viking, the renowned hasting, who figures both in sacred and profane chronicles. he sailed up the loire in , with a large fleet, burned the city of amboise, and besieged tours. the inhabitants, however, carried the bones of their patron saint up on the walls; and, according to the story, by the intervention of the saint, the vikings were put to flight. in , hasting is reported to have attacked paris, in company with björn ironside, the son of ragnar lodbrok. to the baltic and even to the shore of the mediterranean this fearless marauder extended his ravages, and as success attended his banner, he grew more daring and determined to lay siege to rome. he even aspired to put the imperial crown upon his brow. with as large a fleet as he could muster he sailed through the pillars of hercules, but before he reached the mouth of the tiber, a storm drove his ships to the city of luna, near carrara. being poorly versed in geography, hasting mistook this city for rome, and resolved to capture it by strategem. [illustration: iron implement of frequent occurrence; use unknown.] he sent word to the bishop that he was very ill and desired to be baptized, so that he might die a christian. the bishop, as well as the commander of the town, fell into the trap. delighted at the prospect of gaining so valuable a convert, they opened the gates and invited the norsemen to enter. these, in the meanwhile, declared, that since sending his message, hasting had died; and with great pomp they bore his coffin, followed by a funeral procession of enormous length, into the cathedral where the bishop stood ready to read the mass for the repose of the viking's soul. suddenly, however, as the coffin was deposited before the altar and the mass commenced, hasting sprang up, flung away his shroud, and stood in flashing armor before the astonished populace. his men, at this signal, also flung off their mourning cloaks and drew their swords. the bishop and his priests were killed, and blood flowed in torrents through the sacred aisles. a terrible carnage ensued, and the city was captured. having accomplished this enterprise, hasting discovered that, while deceiving, he had himself been deceived. it was not rome he had taken after all. whether he accepted this as an omen or not, he lost his desire to make his entry into the eternal city. content with the booty he had accumulated, he turned his prows toward france where he became the vassal of charles the bald, from whom he received valuable fiefs.[a] [footnote a: the norse sagas make no mention of hasting, and munch ( - ) gives several reasons for questioning whether he was an historical character.] many other vikings are mentioned in chronicles of later date, who by their incessant attacks upon the coasts, taxed the energy of the weak carolingian kings to the utmost. one of them, named ragnar, is said to have plundered paris in , and another, named asgeir, had four years earlier sacked and burned rouen and the monastery jumièges. he spent eleven years ravaging the coasts of france, and finally, in , sailed up the seine, destroyed the monastery fontenelle and burned beauvois. on his return to the sea he was defeated by the french, and had to hide with his men in the woods, but succeeded in recapturing his ships and making good his escape. of a third one, rörek, it is told that about the year he accepted christianity, without, as it appears, experiencing any perceptible change of heart. after having ravaged dorestad and nimwegen, two flourishing cities on the rhine, and having defended himself heroically against king lothair, the younger, he made peace ( ) with louis the german, and refrained from further depredations. [illustration: two-edged sword. hilt of silver and bronze.] there is a certain uniformity in the deeds of the vikings, whether they be norsemen or danes, which makes further description superfluous. only a few of their more daring enterprises may be briefly alluded to. to ireland the norsemen had been attracted at a comparatively early period. in the last decade of the eighth century they destroyed the monastery of iona or icolmkill, and between the years and they spread terror and devastation along the entire coast. in the year they sailed with one hundred and twenty ships up to dublin and conquered the city, under the leadership of thorgisl, who still lives in irish song and story under the names of turges and turgesius. "after many sharp fights," says an old author,[a] "he conquered in a short time all ireland, and erected, wherever he went, high fortifications of masonry with deep moats, of which many ruins are yet to be seen in the country." at last he fell in love with the daughter of maelsechnail, king in meath, and demanded of him that he should send her to him, attended by fifteen young maidens. thorgisl promised to meet her with the same number of high-born norsemen on an island in loch erne. but instead of maidens maelsechnail sent fifteen beardless young men, disguised as women and armed with daggers. when thorgisl arrived he was attacked by these and slain. on a previous occasion maelsechnail had asked thorgisl what he should do to get rid of some strange and injurious birds that had got into the country. "destroy their nests," said thorgisl. accordingly maelsechnail began at once to destroy the norse castles, while the irish slew or chased away the norsemen. [footnote a: giraldus cambrensis, _de topogr. hiberniæ_, cap. . quoted from munch, - .] [illustration: buckle from the iron age.] it appears probable that thorgisl's reign in ireland lasted from to , although a much longer period is given by the above-quoted chronicler. a more enduring sway over the country was gained by the norse sea-king olaf the white, who belonged to the great yngling race. in a company of danish vikings had possession of dublin; but olaf defeated them and compelled them to send him hostages. he then established himself in the city, built castles, and taxed the surrounding country. two other norsemen, the brothers sigtrygg and ivar, founded about the same time kingdoms--the former in waterford, the latter in limerick--without, however, being able to compete with olaf in splendor and power. the dominion of the norsemen in dublin is said to have lasted for three hundred and fifty years. from irish sources a somewhat different account is derived of these remarkable events. it is told that the norsemen often sailed up the rivers, not as warriors, but as peaceful merchants, and that the irish found it advantageous to trade with them. they thus gained considerable possessions in the cities, and when the vikings came there was already a party in the larger cities who favored them and made their conquests easy. from dublin olaf the white made two cruises to scotland, laid siege to dumbarton, sailed southward to england, plundering and ravaging, and returned to dublin with two hundred ships laden with precious booty. the orkneys, the hebrides, and the faroe isles were also, during this period, repeatedly visited by the vikings, and even to iceland expeditions were made, which did not, however, result in permanent settlement. the irish hermits and pious monks, who had retired from the world into the arctic solitude, were disturbed in their devotions by the unwelcome visitors, and the majority returned to ireland, while some are said to have remained until the island was regularly settled by the norsemen. to england the norsemen went for the first time with hostile intent in . during the reign of king beorthric in wessex a small flock of vikings landed in the neighborhood of dorchester, killed some people, and were driven away again. the anglo-saxon chronicle [a] relates the incident in these words: [footnote a: _monum. hist. brit._, pp. , . quoted from munch, i., .] "in this year ( ) king beorthric married eadburg, daughter of king offa. in those days came for the first time northmen and ships from heredhaland. the _gerêfa_ (commander) rode down to them and wished to drive them to the king's dwelling. for he knew not who they were; but they slew him there. these were the first ships belonging to danish men which visited england." it is noticeable that the ships are said in the same breath to have belonged to northmen and to danes, and it is obvious that the chronicler supposes the terms to be synonymous. the heredhaland from which the men came was in all probability hardeland in jutland, where the norsemen had at that time a colony. the next attack of which we have an account was directed against the coast of northumberland, and took place in the year . the monk simeon of durham,[a] who lived in the beginning of the twelfth century, writes as follows: [footnote a: simeon of durham, _monum. hist. brit._, p. . quoted from munch, i., .] "the heathen came from the northern countries to britain like stinging wasps, roamed about like savage wolves, robbing, biting, killing not only horses, sheep, and cattle, but also priests, acolytes, monks, and nuns. they went to lindisfarena church, destroying every thing in the most miserable manner, and trod the sanctuary with their profane feet, threw down the altars, robbed the treasures of the church, killed some of the brothers, carried others away in captivity, mocked many and flung them away naked, and threw some into the ocean. in they harried king ecgfridh's harbor, and plundered the monastery of donmouth. but st. cuthbert did not permit them to escape unpunished; for their chieftain was visited with a cruel death by the english and, a short time after, their ships were destroyed by a storm, and many of them perished; a few who swam ashore were killed without pity." it is an odd circumstance that while an incessant stream of norse vikings, during the first half of the ninth century, poured southward, devastating the shores of the baltic and the mediterranean, only a comparatively small number found their way to england. we hear in the sagas of many individual warriors who visited the saxon kings in england and took service under them, and of several who sailed up the thames and put an embargo on the trade of the river, capturing every ship that ventured into their clutches. but as a field for conquest they left england (probably not from any fraternal consideration) to their kinsmen, the danes, while they themselves turned their attention to france, ireland, and the isles north of scotland. in the hebrides, the orkneys, the shetland islands, and the faeroe isles, their descendants are still living, and norse names are yet frequent. [illustration: ruin of norse tower at mosÖ, shetland islands.] another notable circumstance in connection with the vikings is, that the very men whom foreign chroniclers describe as stinging wasps and savage wolves, and of whom the greatest atrocities are related during their sojourn abroad, became, as a rule, after their return home, men of weight and influence, with respect for tradition and law--men who, according to the standard of the time, were moral and honorable. there were exceptions, of course, but they go to prove the rule. the explanation is not far to seek. religion in those days was tribal, and morality had no application outside the tribe. every people is the chosen people of its own god or gods. as the jews divided humanity into jews and gentiles, and the greeks into greeks and barbarians, so the norsemen retaliated towards jews and greeks, by including them with all other nations in the norse equivalent for barbarians. english, irish, and germans, often men of high birth, were constantly brought to norway by the vikings as thralls, bartered and sold and forced to menial tasks. no law extended its protection to them; and yet maltreatment of thralls was, both in iceland and norway, regarded as unworthy of a freeman. for all that, the vikings were children of their age, and practised only the rude morality which their religion prescribed. the humanitarian sentiment which regards all men as brethren and creatures of the same god is a comparatively modern growth, and it would be unfair to judge the old norsemen by any such advanced standard. it is therefore quite credible that the vikings may have been guilty of deeds abroad which they would not have committed at home. [illustration] chapter iv. halfdan the swarthy. the yngling race traced its ancestry from the god frey. snorre sturlasson, in his famous work, "the sagas of the kings of norway,"[a] mentions a long line of kings who were descended from fjölne, a son of frey, and reigned in sweden having their residence in upsala. yngve was one of the god's surnames, and yngling means a descendant of yngve. one of the ynglings, named aun the old, sacrificed every ten years one of his sons to odin, having been promised that for every son he sacrificed, ten years should be added to his life. when he had thus slain seven sons, and was so old that he had to be fed like an infant, his people grew weary of him and saved the eighth son, whom he was about to sacrifice. ingjald ill-ruler, when he took the kingdom on the death of his father anund, sixth in descent from aun the old, made a great funeral feast, to which he invited all the neighboring kings. when he rose to drink the brage goblet,[b] he vowed that he would increase his kingdom by one half toward all the four corners of the heavens, or die in the attempt. as a preliminary step he set fire to the hall, burned his guests, and took possession of their lands. when he died, about the middle of the seventh century, he was so detested by his people that they would not accept his son, nor any of his race, as his successor. the son, whose name was olaf, therefore gathered about him as many as would follow him, and emigrated to the great northern forests, where he felled the trees, gained much arable lands, and thereby acquired the nickname the wood-cutter.[c] he and his people became prosperous, and a great influx of the discontented from the neighboring lands followed. in fact, so great was the number of immigrants that the country could not feed them, and they were threatened with famine. this they attributed, however, to the fact that olaf was not in the favor of the gods, and they sacrificed him to odin. [footnote a: "the heimskringla, or the sagas of the kings of norway," by the icelander snorre sturlasson, was written in the twelfth century, and continued by his nephew sturla thordsson, is the principal source of the history of norway up to the middle of the thirteenth century.] [footnote b: the toast to the god brage.] [footnote c: tretelgja.] his son, halfdan whiteleg,[a] was a great warrior. he conquered raumarike in norway and the great and fertile district called vestfold, west of the fjord called folden (now the christiania fjord). here he founded a famous temple in skiringssal, which soon became a flourishing trading station and a favorite residence of the norwegian kings. the third in descent from him was the great viking godfrey the hunter, who waged war against charlemagne, and godfrey's son was halfdan the swarthy. [footnote a: hvitbein.] halfdan was but a year old in when his father was killed. at the age of eighteen, he assumed the government of agder, which he inherited from his maternal grandfather. by warfare and by marriage he also increased the great possessions he had received from his father, and, was, beyond dispute, the mightiest king in all norway. it is told of him that he was a man of great intelligence, who loved justice and truth. he gave laws which he himself kept and compelled every one else to keep. in order that no one should with impunity tread the law under foot, he fixed a scale of fines which offenders should pay in accordance with their birth and dignity. this code was the so-called eidsiva-law, which had great influence in politically uniting the southern districts of norway which halfdan had gathered under his sway. about king halfdan's second marriage a story is told, which, whether originally true or not, has obviously been the subject of legendary adornment. it runs as follows: there was a king in ringerike whose name was sigurd hjort. he was a large and strong man. he had a daughter named ragnhild, who was very beautiful, and a son named guttorm. while sigurd hjort was out hunting he was attacked by the _berserk_ [a] hake and thirty men. he fought desperately, and slew twelve of his assailants, and cut off hake's hand, but in the end he had to bite the dust. the berserk then rode to his house and carried away ragnhild and guttorm, besides much valuable property. he determined to marry ragnhild and would have done so at once, if his wound had not grown constantly more painful. at yule-tide, when king halfdan came to feast in hedemark, he heard of the outrage and resolved to punish it. he sent one of his trusted warriors, named haarek gand, with a hundred armed men to hake's house; they arrived in the early morning before any one was awake. they set sentinels at all the doors, then broke into the sleeping-rooms and carried off sigurd hjort's children and the stolen goods. then they set fire to the house and burned it up. hake escaped, but seeing ragnhild drive gayly away over the ice with king halfdan's men, he threw himself upon his sword and perished. halfdan the swarthy became enamored of ragnhild, as soon as he saw her, and made her his wife. [footnote a: berserks or berserkir were champions of extraordinary strength, who in battle were possessed with a sanguinary fury which made them irresistible. many of them were reputed to be were-wolves, and to be invulnerable.] while queen ragnhild was with child she dreamed marvellous dreams. once she seemed to be standing in the garden, trying to take a thorn out of her chemise, but the thorn grew in her hand until it was like a long spindle--the one end of which struck root in the earth, while the other shot up into the air. presently it looked like a big tree, and it grew bigger and bigger and taller and taller, until she stood in its shade and her eye could scarcely reach to the top of it. the lower part of the tree was red as blood; further up the trunk was green and fair, and the branches were radiantly white like snow. they were, however, of very unequal size, and it seemed to her that they spread out over the whole kingdom of norway. king halfdan was much puzzled at hearing this dream, and perhaps a little jealous too. why was it that his wife had such remarkable dreams, while he had none? he consulted a wise man as to the cause of this, and was by him advised to sleep in a pig-sty; then he would be sure to have remarkable dreams. the king did as he had been told, and dreamed that his hair was growing very long and beautiful. it fell in bright locks about his head and shoulders, but the locks were of unequal length and color; some seemed like little curly knots just sprouting from his scalp, while others hung down over his back, even unto the waist. but one lock there was that was brighter and more beautiful than all the rest. the king related this dream to his sage friend, who interpreted it to mean that a mighty race of kings should spring from him, and that his descendants, though some of them should attain to great glory, should be unequal in fame. but one of them should be greater and more glorious than all the rest. the longest and brightest lock, says snorre, was supposed to indicate olaf the saint. when her time came, the queen bore a son who was named harold. he grew rapidly in stature as in intelligence, and was much liked by all men. he was fond of manly sports and won admiration by his strength and his beauty. his mother loved him much, while his father often looked upon him with disfavor. of his childhood many tales are told which cannot lay claim to credibility. thus, it is said, that once, while king halfdan was celebrating yule-tide on hadeland, all the dishes and the ale suddenly disappeared from the table. the guests went home, and the king, full of wrath, remained sitting. in order to find out who had dared thus to trifle with his dignity, he seized a finn, who was a sorcerer, and tormented him. the finn appealed to harold, who, contrary to his father's command, rescued him and followed him to the mountains. after a while, they came to a place where a chieftain was having a grand feast with his men. there they remained until spring, and when harold was about to take his leave, his host said to him: "your father took it much to heart that i took some meat and beer away from him last winter; but for what you did to me i will reward you with glad tidings. your father is now dead, and you will go home and inherit his kingdom. but some day you will be king of all norway." [illustration: buckle with byzantine ornamentation, found at hoen in eker.] when harold returned home, he found that the chieftain had spoken the truth. his father had been drowned while driving across the ice on the randsfjord ( ). he was mourned by all his people; for there had been good crops during his reign, and he had been a wise ruler and much beloved. when it was rumored that he was to be buried in ringerike, the men of hadeland and of raumarike came and demanded that the corpse be given to them for burial. for they believed that the favor of the gods would rest upon the district where the king's barrow was. at last they agreed to divide the body into four parts. the men of ringerike kept the trunk; the head was buried at skiringssal in vestfold; and the rest was divided between hadeland and hedemark. for a long time, sacrifices were made upon these barrows, and king halfdan was worshipped as a god. [illustration] [illustration] chapter v. harold the fairhaired ( - ). harold was only ten years old when his father died, and the kings whom halfdan had conquered thought that the chance was now favorable for recovering what they had lost. but harold's guardian guttorm, his mother's brother, conducted the government with power and ability, and assisted his nephew in his efforts to put down his enemies. a long series of battles was fought in which harold was usually victorious. it was but natural that the young king, flushed with success, should resolve to extend his domain. he knew that there was no king in norway whose power and resources were equal to his own, and the determination to conquer the whole country may therefore have naturally ripened in his mind. snorre, however, tells a different story, and as it is a very pretty one, it may be worth repeating. there was a maid named gyda, the daughter of king erik of hördaland; she was being fostered by a rich yeoman in valders. when harold heard of her beauty, he sent his men to her and asked her to become his mistress. the maid's eyes flashed with anger while she listened to this message, and throwing her head back proudly she answered: "tell your master that i will not sacrifice my maidenly honor for a king who has only a few counties to rule over. strange it seems to me that there is no king here who can conquer all norway, as king erik has conquered sweden and king gorm denmark."[a] [footnote a: king gorm had not at that time conquered denmark.] the messengers, amazed at her insolence, warned her to give a more conciliatory answer. king harold was surely good enough for her, they thought; but she would not listen to them. when, at last, they took their leave, she followed them out and said: "give this message from me to king harold. i will promise to become his wedded wife, on this condition, that he shall for my sake conquer all norway, and rule over it as freely as king erik rules over sweden and king gorm over denmark. for only then can he be called the king of a people."[b] [footnote b: tjodkonungr.] when the messengers returned, they advised the king to break the girl's pride by sending them to take her by force. but the king answered: "this maid has not spoken ill and does not deserve to be punished. on the contrary, she deserves much thanks for her words. she has put something into my mind, of which i wonder that it has not occurred to me before. but this i now solemnly vow, and call god to witness who made me and rules over all, that i will not cut or comb my hair until the day when i shall have conquered all norway; or if i do not, i shall die in the attempt." guttorm praised harold for these words, saying, that he had spoken like a king. in accordance with his promise, the young king now set about the task which he had undertaken. he went northward with an army and conquered orkdale and tröndelag, the district about the drontheim fjord. in naumdale, north of drontheim, there were two kings named herlaug and rollaug. the former, when he heard of harold's march of conquest, built a great barrow, into which he entered with eleven of his men and had it closed behind him. rollaug, his brother, ordered his royal high-seat to be carried to the top of a hill, and an earl's seat to be placed below, at the foot of the hill. he seated himself in the royal seat, but when he saw harold approaching, he rolled from the king's seat into the earl's seat, thereby declaring himself to be king harold's vassal. harold tied a sword about his waist, hung a shield about his neck, and made him earl of naumdale. wherever he went, harold pursued the same policy. the old kings who acknowledged his overlordship he reinstated as his earls in their former dominions. those who opposed him be killed or maimed. the earls were really governors or representatives of the king's authority. they administered justice in the king's name, and collected taxes, of which they were entitled to keep one third on condition of entertaining sixty warriors, subject to the king's command. each earl had under him four or more _hersir_ (sub-vassals), who held in fief a royal estate, of an income of twenty marks, on condition of keeping twenty warriors ready to serve the king. it will be seen that the feudal principle was the basis of harold's state. he deprived the peasants of their allodium, and declared all land to be the property of the king. the cultivators of the soil, from having been free proprietors, became the tenants of the king, and in so far as they were permitted to retain their inherited estates, derived this privilege no more from allodial but from feudal right. it followed that the king could levy a tax on all land, and that every man who refused to pay the tax forfeited his title. also a personal tax, which the peasants derisively called the nose-tax (because it was levied in every household according to the number of noses), is said to have been exacted by harold, and to have caused much dissatisfaction. it is added that many of the former kings who accepted earldoms from him, found themselves in a better position, both financially and as to authority, than they had been before. and this is scarcely to be wondered at. their royal title had conferred upon them no rights except such as their people voluntarily conceded to them, and their chief privilege amounted to a usage rather than a right to assume command in war, and conduct the public sacrifices. still it was only in rare cases that they were willing to exchange this shadowy authority for the real power which harold, by right of conquest, conferred upon them. a still greater antagonism did the introduction of the feudal land tenure arouse among the free yeomanry, who in their fierce independence could not endure any relation of enforced obedience and subordination. therefore rebellions against the royal authority, on a smaller or greater scale, were of constant occurrence during the first half of harold's reign, and there are even indications that they continued much longer. many of his provinces he had to conquer twice, and it was only the enormous odds in his favor, and the promptness and severity of his punishments, which at length forced the disloyal to accept his sway. it required an energy and resolution such as his to make a nation of all these scattered, predatory, and often mutually hostile tribes; and his uniform and systematic policy, as well as his uncompromising sternness, in dealing with resistance, show that he was fully conscious of the magnitude of his task. it would be tedious to enumerate the battles he fought and the victories he won. with every year that passed he approached nearer to his goal--to be the ruler of all norway. many of the mightiest men in the land who had hitherto held aloof now offered him their services, and were glad to accept honors at his hands. among these were the earl haakon grjotgardsson of haalogaland, and ragnvald, late earl of möre, who was the father of duke rollo of normandy, and through william the conqueror the ancestor of the kings of england. ragnvald was a brave and sagacious man, who assisted the king with counsel and with deeds, and became his most intimate friend and adviser. less readily did the men of the great rafnista family accept harold's overtures. kveld-ulf (night-wolf) pleaded old age, when the king sent messengers to him, requesting him to enter his service. this was the more disappointing to harold, because he had counted on kveld-ulf's using the great influence which he wielded, in his favor. he sent messengers once more and offered kveld-ulf's son, bald grim, high dignities if he would become his vassal. but bald grim replied that he would accept no dignity which would raise him in rank above his father. then the king's patience was exhausted, and he would have resorted to other arguments than verbal ones, if kveld-ulf's brother-in-law, oelve nuva, had not interceded in his behalf. oelve finally obtained the old chieftain's consent to have his second son thorolf enter the king's service if he saw fit. thorolf was then out on a viking cruise with oelve's brother, eyvind lambe, but he was expected home in the autumn. on their return, both accepted harold's offer and became his men. thorolf particularly rose rapidly in the king's favor, on account of his intelligence, beauty, and courtly manners. the old kveld-ulf, however, looked with suspicion upon their friendship, and hinted that he expected that nothing good would come of it. the kings of sweden had from of old had claims on that part of norway which is called viken.[a] also vermeland, which since the days of olaf the woodcutter had belonged to the ynglings, was declared to be an integral part of sweden, and the swedish king, erik eimundsson, seized the opportunity, while harold was occupied with his conquests in the north, to invade the latter province, besides ranrike and portions of vingulmark. [footnote a: viken was the country about the present christiania fjord, and was divided into vestfold, vingulmark, and ranrike (the present bohuslen in sweden).] when these tidings reached harold, he hastened southward, fined and punished those of the peasants who had promised allegiance to his enemy, and finally went northward to vermeland where, by a singular coincidence, he met the swedish king at a great feast given by the mighty yeoman aake. probably to avoid bloodshed, the two kings and their warriors were entertained in separate buildings; but while harold and his men were lodged in the new mansion and made to eat and drink out of new horns and precious dishes, erik's party were made to enjoy their cheer in an old building, and their horns and dishes, though artfully wrought, were not new. when the time came for leaving, aake brought his son to harold and begged him to take him into his service. at this erik grew very wroth and rode away. aake hastened to accompany him; and when asked why he had made such a difference in the entertainment, he replied that it was because erik was old, while harold was young. "thou must indeed remember that thou art my man," said king erik. "when thou sayest that i am thy man," answered the yeoman, "then i may say with equal right that thou art my man." this answer so angered the king that he drew his sword and killed aake. harold, when he heard of his death, pursued his slayer but did not succeed in overtaking him. the princes and chieftains who had opposed harold had, so far, accomplished nothing but their own ruin. those who still retained their lands concluded that separately they could never hope to prevail against him, and they therefore united and met the conqueror in with a great fleet in the hafrs-fjord.[a] the war-horns were blown, and king harold's ship was foremost, wherever the fight was hottest. in its prow stood thorolf, the son of kveld-ulf, who fought with splendid bravery, and the brothers oelve nuva and eyvind lambe. the issue seemed long doubtful, and many of the king's best men were slain; spears and stones rained down in showers, and the arrows flew hissing through the air. at last, harold's _berserks_, seized with a wild fury, stormed forward, and boarded the enemies' ships. the carnage was terrible, and one by one the chieftains fell or fled. king harold here won (as the sagas relate) one of the greatest battles that was ever fought in norway; and there was from this day no longer any formidable opposition to him. among the many who were wounded at hafrs-fjord was thorolf, and in fact all who had stood before the mast in the king's ship, except the _berserks_. the scald thorbjörn hornklove made a song about the victory, fragments of which are still extant. [footnote a: hafrs-fjord is a little fjord in jaederen, west of the present city of stavanger] at a feast which shortly after the battle was given in his honor, harold's hair was cut by ragnvald, the earl of möre, and all marvelled at its beauty. while he had formerly been called harold lufa, _i. e._, the frowsy-headed, he was now named harold the fairhaired. having now accomplished what he had set out to do, he married gyda. the romance is, however, spoiled by the fact that he had some years before married aasa, the daughter of the earl, haakon [a] grjotgardsson, and had by her three sons--halfdan the white, halfdan the swarthy, and sigfrid. the sons gyda bore him were named guttorm, haarek, and gudröd. [footnote a: the letter _aa_ in norwegian (icelandic _á_) is pronounced like the english _aw_ in _hawk_. haakon is therefore pronounced hawkon; aasa, awsa, etc. the modern icelanders pronounce the sound like _ou_ in _out_, _rout_. they say houkon, hourek, etc.] in his relations with men harold was no more faithful than in his relations with women. he was a man of indomitable will and courage, sagacious and far-seeing; shunning no means for the accomplishment of his ends. he could not, however, endure the characteristics in others which he valued in himself. when his jealousy was once aroused, it was not easily again allayed. as is the manner of tyrants, he was apt to humiliate those the most whom he had most exalted, and his suspicion often fell upon those who least deserved it. the first victim of his jealousy was thorolf, the son of kveld-ulf, who, after the battle of hafrs-fjord, had stood especially high in his favor. thorolf had by a wealthy marriage and by inheritance accumulated a large fortune and lived in princely style. his liberality and winning exterior made him hosts of friends, and his thrift and ability procured him the means to practise a magnificent hospitality. the king had made him his _sysselmand_, or bailiff, in haalogaland, and thorolf particularly distinguished himself by the energy and shrewdness which he displayed in collecting the tax from the finns, who, as a rule, were not anxious to make contributions to the royal treasury. during a journey which harold made through haalogaland, thorolf made a feast for him, the splendor of which had never been equalled in those parts of the country. there were in all eight hundred guests--five hundred of whom thorolf had invited, while three hundred were the attendants of the king. to the astonishment of his host, harold sat, dark and silent, in the high-seat, and seemed ill-pleased with the efforts that were made to entertain him. toward the end of the feast he repressed his ill-humor, however, and when his host at parting presented him with a large dragon-ship with complete equipment, he seemed much pleased. nevertheless, it was not long before he deprived him of his office as royal bailiff, then espoused the cause of his enemies, and used all sorts of contemptible slanders as a pretext for attacking him on his estate, sandness, and burning his house. when thorolf broke out through the burning wall, he was received with a hail-storm of spears. seeing the king he rushed toward him, with drawn sword, and cut down his banner-bearer; then, when his foe was almost within reach of his sword, fell, crying: "by three steps only i failed." it was said that harold himself gave him his death-wound, and he later avowed himself as his slayer to the old kveld-ulf. when he saw his former friend lying dead at his feet, he looked sadly at him; and when a man passed him who was busy bandaging a slight wound, he said: "that wound thorolf did not give thee; for differently did weapons bite in his hands. it is a great pity that such men must perish." when kveld-ulf heard of his son's death, his grief was so great that he had to go to bed. but when he heard that it was the king who had slain him, and that he had fallen prone at his slayer's feet, he got up and was well content. for when a dying man fell on his face, it was a sign that he would be avenged. in the meanwhile, being far from powerful enough to attack harold openly, the old man gathered all his family and his goods and set out for iceland; but lingered long along the coast of norway, in the hope of finding some one of harold's race upon whom he could wreak vengeance. in this he was successful. the two sons of guttorm, harold's uncle and former guardian, were sailing northward with two of the king's men. these bald grim and kveld-ulf attacked, killed the king's cousins, and captured the ship. then, wild with exultation, bald grim mounted the prow and sang: now is the hersir's vengeance on the king fulfilled. wolf and eagle tread on yngling's children. seaward swept flew halvard's lacerated corpse, and the eagle's beak tears snarfare's wounds. from that time forth, there was a blood-feud between the yngling race and kveld-ulf's descendants, and the famous saga of egil, bald grim's son, tells of a long chain of bloody deeds which all had their origin in the king's treachery to thorolf. kveld-ulf and bald grim were not the only chieftains who sought refuge abroad from harold's oppression. after the battle of hafrs-fjord, when the king proceeded with uncompromising rigor to enforce the feudal system, several thousand men, many of whom belonged to the noblest families of the land, crossed the sea, and found new homes in the orkneys and the hebrides, whence again many found their way to iceland. a great number also sailed direct for the latter country, and the so-called landnama book (the domesday book of iceland) has preserved the names, and, at times, bits of the history of the most important original settlers. much as we may sympathize with the indomitable spirit which made these men sacrifice home and country for a principle, there is also another view of the case which has to be considered. harold the fairhaired was founding a state, which would support a higher civilization than could possibly be developed among a loose agglomeration of semi-hostile tribes. the idea of a national unity, which was the inspiration of his work, required the enforcement of an organic system which to the independent chieftains must have appeared extremely oppressive. the payment of taxes, which to the citizen of the modern state is not apt to appear humiliating, seemed to the norse chieftains unworthy of a freeman. when harold commanded them to refrain from robbing and plundering expeditions within the confines of his kingdom, they felt outraged, and could see no reason why they should submit to such unwarrantable curtailment of time-honored privileges. one of them, rolf, or rollo, son of the king's friend, ragnvald, earl of möre, defied the order, made _strand-hug_ [a] in viken, and was declared an outlaw. neither his father's influence, nor his mother's prayers, could save him. just on account of his high birth, harold was determined to make an example of him. [footnote a: strand-hug was an enforced provisioning of the viking fleet from the nearest inhabited country. it was the common practice of vikings to make strand-hug, wherever they might happen to be.] rollo is known in the norse sagas as rolf the walker, because he was so tall and heavy that no horse could carry him. with a large number of followers he sailed southward to france, and after having harried the country for several years, made in a compromise with king charles the simple, by which he was to accept christianity and receive a large province in fief for himself and his descendants. this province was named normandy; and has played a large rôle in the history of the world. it is told of rollo that when he was requested to kiss the king's foot in token of fealty, he answered: "i will never bend my knee before any man; nor will i kiss any one's foot." after much persuasion, however, he permitted one of his men to perform the act of homage for him. his proxy stalked sullenly forward, and pausing before the king, who was on horse-back, seized his foot and lifted it to his lips. by this manoeuvre, the king came to make a somersault, at which there was great laughter among the norsemen. rollo did literally, like the poor boy in the fairy tale, marry the princess and get half the kingdom. for, it is told, that charles gave him for a bride his daughter gisla, who, however, died childless. he ruled his duchy with a rod of iron; and he must have learned a useful lesson from king harold, for it is said that he restrained robbery with a firm hand, and hanged the robbers. so great was the public security in his day, that the peasants could leave their ploughs and tools in the field over night without fear of losing them. rollo's son was william longsword, who was the father of richard the fearless, who again had a son of his own name. this latter richard, surnamed the good, had a son named rollo, or robert [a] the magnificent, who was the father of william the conqueror. [footnote a: the first duke rollo had, when he was baptized, assumed the name robert.] the emigration of the discontented yeomen and chieftains removed the last obstacle to the organization of harold's feudal state. according to an approximately accurate calculation, about eight hundred heads of families went with their households to iceland, to the scottish isles, and to jemteland, leaving behind them estates which were promptly confiscated by the king. those who endeavored to sell their lands met with small success; for to buy the property of emigrants was considered as an act hostile to the king. great wealth was thus accumulated in harold's hands, and the means of rewarding his friends at the expense of his enemies were at his disposal. the emigrants were, therefore, doubly instrumental in cementing the state which they had endeavored to destroy. a large number of officials were needed to superintend the great landed estates, and harold chose these from his immediate dependents. the so-called aarmaend were merely superintendents or stewards, who took charge of the crown lands, and forwarded to the king his share of the income. they were often thralls or freedmen, and were looked down upon by the yeomanry as their inferiors. the earls, on the other hand, who belonged to the old tribal aristocracy, held their land in fief, and were, in a limited sense, proprietors, though their sons could not, by any absolute right, claim to inherit them. it was, however, the custom to continue such estates from father to son. the third class of property was the land which the yeomanry had formerly held by allodial right, and which they now held with as much security and right of inheritance, as the king's nominal tenants. as long as they paid their taxes, it was of course in the king's interest to leave them unmolested. it was natural that with his great wealth harold should keep a court of exceptional splendor. he was fond of song and story and always kept scalds about him who sang his praise and glorified his deeds. he could be generous when the occasion demanded, and would then scatter his gold with royal liberality. but in little things he was reputed to be mean; and it was a common complaint among his courtiers that they did not get enough to eat. some legends recounted by snorre show that with all his stern inflexibility toward men, he was easily deceived by women. thus, it is related that once, while he was at a yule-tide feast, in guldbrandsdale, a finn came to him and persuaded him to accompany him to his tent. there he showed the king a girl named snefrid, whose beauty made a great impression upon him. he chatted with her for a while; then drank a goblet of mead which the finn brought him. no sooner had he swallowed the liquid than he became so enamoured of snefrid that he refused to leave her, and demanded that she should that very day become his wife. he loved her with such abandonment and passion that he neglected the government and lived only for her. she bore him five sons in rapid succession, and then died. harold's grief knew no bounds. he refused to have her buried, but sat staring at her beautiful corpse, night and day. for, oddly enough, it is told that snefrid's beauty remained unchanged after death, and there was no sign of decay. all the king's men feared that he had lost his reason, and one of them finally persuaded him, on some pretext, to have the corpse moved. but the very instant it was touched, the most hideous change occurred. the flesh turned blue, and a terrible stench filled the room. the king then recovered his reason, and ordered the body to be burned. but when it was placed on the pyre, snakes, adders, toads, and horrible creeping things teemed in and about it, so that no one could endure the sight of it. then harold comprehended that he had been the victim of sorcery; and he grew so angry that he chased away from him the children snefrid had borne him. and yet, strangely enough, it was this branch which endured the longest, and from which a long line of kings descended. the names of snefrid's sons were sigurd rise (giant), gudröd ljome, halfdan haalegg (longlegs), and ragnvald rettilbeine. the only one of king harold's wives who was of royal birth was ragnhild, the daughter of king erik the younger in south jutland. she replied, when he first sent messengers to woo her, that she would not marry the mightiest king in all the world, if she had to put up with one thirtieth part of his affection. to a second message she replied that she would marry king harold if he would put away all his other wives. this he consented to do, and made ragnhild his queen. she lived, however, only three years after her marriage; and harold then took back several of his former wives and mistresses. ragnhild had left him one son, erik, whom he loved the most of all his children. marriage was entirely a civil contract during the days of germanic paganism and was in no wise associated with religion or religious ceremonies. it was an easy thing for a husband to obtain a divorce from his wife, but it was customary to go through with this formality before marrying a second. open polygamy, as practised by harold, was contrary to custom and must have been regarded with reprobation by the people. for all that, harold was, during the latter part of his reign, a popular ruler and well beloved both by yeomanry and chieftains. as his children grew up, harold began to reap some of the disadvantages of his scattered family relations. his sons, having different mothers, and having been fostered by yeomen in different parts of the country, could scarcely be strongly conscious of their kinship. they were jealous of each other, and particularly jealous of the mighty earls who sat like little kings upon their estates ruling over land and people. it was to give vent to this feeling that halfdan longlegs and gudröd ljome, without any warning, attacked ragnvald, the earl of möre, and burned him up with sixty of his men. when harold heard of this dastardly deed, he gathered an army and resolved to punish his sons. gudröd, who had taken possession of the earldom after ragnvald, surrendered without fighting, while halfdan longlegs sailed with three ships for the orkneys, where he chased away turf-einar, the son of the earl of möre, and made himself king of the islands. turf-einar returned, however, surprised halfdan, and put him to death in a barbarous manner. although halfdan had been a rebel against the king's authority, and turf-einar in slaying him had avenged his own father, harold had no choice but to wreak vengeance upon the slayer of his son. he accordingly sailed with a fleet for the orkneys, opened negotiations with turf-einar, and accepted as "blood-atonement" sixty marks in gold. whether it was on the same occasion that he made a cruise to scotland, harrying the coast, is perhaps, doubtful. his chief purpose, as on a previous cruise in the same waters, was to break up the various nests of vikings, who from this convenient retreat made frequent attacks upon the coast of norway during the summer months. a fertile cause of disagreement among harold's sons was their jealousy of erik, whom their father conspicuously favored. when he was twelve years old, erik was given five ships to command, and with a choice crew went on viking cruises. much did the old king delight in hearing the tales of his prowess, and the daring enterprises in which he had played a part. the ominous surname "blod-oexe" (blood-axe) which the lad acquired by his deeds in battle only endeared him the more to his father. it was his love of this favorite son which induced him in his fiftieth year ( ) to commit an act, whereby he virtually undid the great work of his life and brought misery upon unborn generations. he called a _thing_ or general assembly of the people, probably at eidsvold, and made all his sons kings, on condition that they should, after his death, acknowledge erik as their overlord. to each he gave a province to govern, permitting him to keep one third of the revenues for himself, leaving one third for the earls, and sending one third to the sovereign. the royal title should be inherited by all his direct descendants in the male line, legitimate or illegitimate birth making no difference. to the sons of his daughters he gave earldoms. in this disastrous act of harold, making no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children, lies the germ of the civil wars and terrible internecine conflicts which ravaged the kingdom he had established and exhausted its powers, until for four hundred years it sank out of sight, and its name seemed to have been blotted out from among the nations. it seems incredible that the wisdom and energy which had built up a great state could be coupled with the unwisdom and the weakness which in the end broke it down again. harold evidently looked upon the royal office as a piece of personal property which he had by his sword acquired, and which all his male descendants had an equal right to inherit. at the same time he must, after the experience he had had with his sons, have known them too well to suppose that they would peacefully acquiesce in his decision, living together in fraternal unity. if he cherished any illusion, erik lost no time in dispelling it. he first killed ragnvald rettilbeine, the son of snefrid, because he was said to be a sorcerer. next he attacked his brother björn the merchant (farmand) because he declined to pay him tribute, killed him and plundered his house. halfdan the swarthy (svarte) in drontheim resolved to avenge this outrage, concluding that none of harold's sons were safe, as long as erik was permitted, with impunity, to take the law into his own hands. while erik was feasting at the farm, selven, halfdan surrounded the house and set fire to it. erik succeeded in escaping with four men, and he hastened southward to complain to his father. king harold, it is told, was greatly incensed, collected his fleet and sailed to drontheim, where halfdan, though with an inferior force, stood ready to meet him. the battle was about to begin, when the scald, guttorm sindre, reminded the two kings of a promise they had made him. once he had sung a song in their honor, and as he refused all the gifts they offered him, they both swore that whatever he should ask of them, they would fulfil. "now," he said, "i have come to claim the guerdon of my song." hard as it was, they could not break their royal promise. peace was made, and father and son separated. halfdan was permitted to keep his province, but had to vow solemnly that he would henceforth make no hostile demonstration against erik. for all that the hatred between the two lasted, though curbed for a while by the fear of the king. [illustration: gilt buckle found at skedemo in nedenes amt.] when harold was nearly seventy years old, he took for his mistress thora of moster, who on account of her great height was surnamed moster-stang (moster-pole). she bore him a son who was named haakon. much dissatisfaction was there among the king's other sons when this late-comer made his appearance, and he would probably not have grown to manhood, if an incident had not occurred which removed him beyond their reach. the story told by snorre in this connection is full of interest, but sounds incredible. once, it is told, messengers arrived from king ethelstan in england, bringing a precious sword to king harold, who accepted it and returned thanks. "now," said the messengers, "thou hast taken the sword, as our king wished, and thou art therefore his sword-taker or vassal." harold was angry at having been thus tricked, but did not molest the messengers. the next year, however, he sent his young son haakon with an embassy to ethelstan. they found the king in london, and were well received by him. the spokesman of the embassy then placed the boy, haakon, on ethelstan's knee, saying, "king harold begs thee to foster this child of his servant-maid." ethelstan angrily drew his sword, as if he would kill the child; but the spokesman said: "now that thou hast once put him upon thy knee, thou mayst murder him, if it please thee; but thereby hast thou not slain all king harold's sons." to foster another man's child was in norway regarded as an acknowledgment of inferiority; and harold had thus repaid ethelstan in his own coin. there are, however, several circumstances which make the story suspicious. in the first place ethelstan and his ancestors had had too severe an experience of norsemen and danes to wish to challenge the mightiest of them by a wanton insult; and again, it is more credible that harold sent his youngest son out of the country for his own safety,[a] than in order to play an undignified trick upon a foreign king. at all events, haakon was treated with the greatest kindness by the english king, and won his affection. [footnote a: see munch, i., .] when harold the fairhaired was eighty years old, he felt no longer able to bear the burden of the government. he therefore led erik to his royal high-seat, and abdicated in his favor. three years later he died ( ), after having ruled over norway for seventy-three years. [illustration] chapter vi. erik blood-axe ( - ). while harold's despotism had been civilizing and, on the whole, beneficent, that of erik blood-axe was disorganizing and destructive. with him the old turbulent viking spirit ascended the throne. power meant with him the means of gratifying every savage impulse. brave he was, delighting in battle; cruel and pitiless; and yet not without a certain sense of fairness and occasional impulses of generosity. in person he was handsome, of stately presence, but haughty and taciturn. unhappily he married a woman who weakened all that was good in him and strengthened all that was bad. queen gunhild possessed a baneful influence over him during his entire life. she was cruel, avaricious, and treacherous, and was popularly credited with all the ill deeds which her husband committed. there are strange legends about her, attributing to witchcraft the power she had over every one who came in contact with her. according to snorre, erik met her in finmark, whither she had been sent by her parents to learn sorcery. for the finns were in those days credited with a deep knowledge of the black art. the two sorcerers with whom she was staying were both determined to marry her, and like the princess in the fairy-tale, she concealed prince erik in her tent, and begged him to rid her of her troublesome suitors. this, in spite of many difficulties, erik did, carried gunhild away to his ships, and made her his wife. she was, it is said, small of stature, insinuating, and of extraordinary beauty; but she was the evil genius of her husband, egging him on to deeds of treachery and violence which made him detested by his people. it was in great part the disfavor with which she was regarded which raised rebels against erik's authority in various parts of the country and brought popular support to his brothers in their endeavor to cast off his yoke. in spite of his father's efforts, erik's sovereignty had not been universally recognized, and no sooner was king harold dead than halfdan the swarthy declared himself to be sovereign in tröndelag and olaf [a] in viken. a few years after that, however, halfdan died suddenly, and the rumor said that he had been poisoned by queen gunhild. the men of tröndelag then chose his brother sigfrid for their king, and erik found his kingdom gradually shrinking both from the north and the south. being prepared for an attack from erik, sigfrid and olaf determined to join their forces, and to complete all arrangements, the former went to visit the latter in tunsberg. when erik heard of this, he went in haste to the town with a large number of men, and surprised and killed both his brothers. olaf's son tryggve escaped, however, and was kept in concealment, as long as erik was master in the land. [footnote a: olaf was the son of king harold and svanhild, a daughter of earl eystein of hedemark and vestfold.] [illustration: cylindrical mounting of bronze probably for the shaft of a spear. found near stavanger.] erik had now killed four of his brothers, if not five, and it was the common opinion that gunhild would not rest until she had exterminated all the race of harold the fairhaired outside of her husband's line. while erik was a youth, he had made the acquaintance of an icelander named thorolf, the son of skallagrim (bald grim) and nephew of thorolf kveld-ulf's son, whom king harold had treacherously slain. this thorolf, like his uncle and namesake, was a tall and handsome man, of fine presence and winning manners. he had made erik a present of a ship, very beautifully built and decorated, and had thereby gained his friendship. in return erik had obtained from his father permission for thorolf to remain unmolested in the country. the handsome icelander made many friends in norway, among whom two mighty men named thore herse and björn the yeoman. when he returned to iceland he brought with him, as a gift from the king to his father, an axe with a handle of precious workmanship. but bald grim, though he received his son well, treated king erik's gift with contempt, and finally, when thorolf again made a cruise to norway, he sang an insulting verse and begged to have it reported to erik. the axe he also wished to have returned. thorolf, who was determined not to revive the ancient feud, threw the axe into the ocean, and conveyed his father's thanks and greeting to the king. if he had had his way, the blood-feud would have been at an end. but he had a younger brother named egil,[a] who insisted upon bearing him company, and he soon fanned the dying embers into flame. [footnote a: pronounced _agil_, "g" hard, as in gimlet, gilt, etc.] egil was the very incarnation of the old untamable norse spirit, the turbulent and indomitable individualism, which is incapable of considering any but personal aims, and of submitting to any kind of discipline. like his father, bald grim, he was large of stature, swarthy, and ill-favored, and displayed in his childhood a fierce and revengeful spirit, but also a rare gift of song, which, no less than his foolhardy deeds, brought him fame during his long and adventurous career. the two brothers arrived safely in norway and became the guests of thore herse, between whose son arinbjörn and egil a warm friendship sprung up. while thorolf went to be married to aasgerd, the daughter of björn the yeoman, egil was forced by a severe illness to remain at home. when he became convalescent, he accompanied one of thore's overseers to a royal steward named baard, and met there king erik and queen gunhild. baard, in his zeal to please the king, neglected the icelander, and when the latter became unruly, at a hint from the queen, mixed soporific herbs in his beer. egil's suspicion was aroused, however, and he poured out the beer and killed baard. then he ran for his life, swam out to an island in the fjord, and when the island was searched, killed some of those who had been sent to find him; whereupon he made his escape in their boat. although king erik was very angry, he accepted the atonement in money which thore herse offered for baard's death, and was persuaded to allow egil to remain in the land. queen gunhild was much incensed at his forgiving spirit, and asked if he counted the slaying of baard as naught; to which the king replied: "for ever thou art egging me on to violence; but my word, once given, i cannot break." as no persuasions availed, gunhild made up her mind to use some one else as the instrument of her retaliation. it is told that she had been fond of baard, whom egil had slain; but as he was a man of low birth, it was scarcely this personal fondness, but rather a sense of outraged dignity which impelled her to persevere in her plans of vengeance. at a great sacrificial feast, at the temple of gaule, she made her brother, eyvind skreyja, promise to kill one of bald grim's sons; but as no chance presented itself, he slew instead one of thorolf's men; in return for which he was outlawed by erik, as a _vargr [=i] veum_--_i. e._, wolf in the sanctuary. the two brothers now went on viking cruises, took service under ethelstan, in england, and fought under his standard a great battle, in which thorolf fell. egil now married his widow, aasgerd, and returned with her to iceland. he had then been abroad for twelve years. hardly had he settled down, however, when he learned that his father-in-law, björn the yeoman, was dead, and that one of gunhild's favorites named berg-anund, had taken possession of his property. he therefore lost no time in returning to norway, and with his friend arinbjörn's aid pleaded his case at the _gulathing_, in the presence of the king and queen. but the _thing_ broke up in disorder, and egil had to sail back to iceland without having accomplished his purpose. considerations of prudence had, however, no weight with him, and before long he started for the third time for norway, surprised berg-anund, and killed not only him, but the king's son ragnvald, who was his guest. in order to add insult to injury, he mounted a cliff, and raised what was called a shame-pole, or pole of dishonor, to gunhild and the king. on the top of the pole he put the head of a dead horse, while he called out in a loud voice: "this dishonor do i turn against all the land-spirits [a] that inhabit this land, so that they may all stray on wildering ways, and none of them may chance or hit upon his home, until they shall have chased king erik and gunhild from the land." [footnote a: the land-spirits were _genii loci_; the alliterative formula which egil pronounced was supposed to have magic power.] thereupon he cut these words, in runes, into the pole, and sailed back to iceland. it seemed, too, as if the curse took effect. for when erik had been four years upon the throne, his youngest brother, haakon, landed in tröndelag, and the following year was made king. the news ran like wildfire through the country, and was everywhere received with jubilation. erik made a desperate effort to raise an army, but the people turned away from him, and he was obliged to flee with his wife and children, and a few followers. among those who remained faithful to him was egil's friend, arinbjörn. he now sailed about as a viking, harrying the coasts of scotland and england, and finally accepted a portion of northumberland in fief from king ethelstan, on condition of defending the country against norse and danish vikings. it was also stipulated that he should be baptized and accept christianity. although the different sagas which deal with erik's later life give somewhat conflicting accounts, it is obvious that he was no more popular in england than he had been in norway. it appears that he was once, or probably twice, expelled from northumberland, but again returned. by a most singular chance, a tempest here drove his mortal enemy right into his clutches. egil, it is told, was restless and discontented at home; and the common belief was that gunhild by sorcery had stolen his peace of mind. he wandered uneasily along the strand and looked out for sails, and took no pleasure in his wife and children. finally, when he could stay at home no longer, he equipped a ship and sailed southward to england. he was shipwrecked at the mouth of the humber, lost his ship, but saved himself and his thirty warriors. from people whom he met, he learned that erik blood-axe ruled over the country; and knowing that there was slight chance of escape, he rode boldly into york and sought his friend arinbjörn. together they went to erik, who inquired of egil how he could be so foolish, as to expect any thing but death at his hands. gunhild, when she saw him demanded impatiently, that he should be killed on the spot. she had thirsted so long for his blood; she could not endure a moment's delay in her hotly-desired vengeance. erik, however, granted the icelander a respite until the next morning; arinbjörn begged him, as a last bid for life, to spend the night in composing a song in honor of erik. this egil promised; and arinbjörn had food and drink brought to him and bade him do his best. being naturally anxious, he went to his friend in the night and asked him how the song was progressing. egil replied that he had not been able to compose a line, because there was a swallow sitting in the window whose incessant screaming disturbed him, and he could not chase it away. arinbjörn darted out into the hall, and caught a glimpse of a woman, who ran at the sight of him. at that very instant, too, the swallow disappeared. to prevent her from returning, arinbjörn seated himself outside of egil's door and kept watch through the night. for he knew that the swallow was none other than the queen, who by sorcery had assumed the guise of the bird. the next morning egil had finished his song and committed it to memory. arinbjörn now armed all his men, and went with egil and his warriors to the king's house. he reminded erik of his fidelity to him, when others had forsaken him, and asked, as a reward for his services, that his friend's life be spared. gunhild begged him to be silent; and the king made no response. then arinbjörn stepped forward and declared that egil should not die, until he and his last man were dead. "at that price," answered the king, "i would not willingly buy egil's death, although, he has amply deserved whatever i may do to him." suddenly, when the king had spoken, egil began to recite with a clear, strong voice, and instantly there was silence in the hall. this is a portion of his song: [illustration: iron chisel found in aamot parish, oesterdalen.] [illustration: iron point of a spear with inlaid work of silver, found at nesne, in nordland.] westward i sailed o'er the sea. vidrar [a] himself gave me the ichor of his breast,[b] and with joy i roamed. as the ice-floes broke,[c] forth i launched the oak;[d] for my mind's hull [e] of thy praise was full. for thy fame, o king, made me fain to sing; and to england's shore, odin's mead [f] i bore. lo, in erik's praise, loud my voice i raise. may my song resound the wide earth around. list to me, my king, well remembering what i sing to thee now, unquailingly. for the world knows well how men round thee fell; glad has odin seen the field where thou hast been. burst the shield and bayed deep the battle-blade. at its ruddy draught the valkyrias laughed.[g] lo, the sword-stream swayed like a wild cascade. o'er the fields away rang the steel's strong lay. men with eager feet sprang their foe to meet; none thy band knew save heroes true and brave. for in heart and frame bright burned valor's flame; 'neath their thund'ring tread shook the earth with dread. 'mid the weapons' clank men in death-throes sank: from the heaps of slain rose thy fame amain. [footnote a: odin.] [footnote b: the gift of song.] [footnote c: in the spring.] [footnote d: the ship.] [footnote e: literally: in my mind's ship (_i. e._, in my breast) bore i this draught of praise.] [footnote f: odin's mead is the gift of poetry.] [footnote g: the maids of odin, the choosers of the slain, the valkyrias, had to keep watch of erik, to receive the souls of the many whom he slew, and conduct them to valhalla.] erik sat immovable while egil sang, watching his face narrowly. when the song was at an end, the king said: "the song is excellent, and i have now considered what i will do for arinbjörn's sake. thou, egil, shalt depart hence unharmed; because i will not do the dastardly deed to kill a man who gave himself voluntarily into my power. but from the moment thou leavest this hall, thou shalt never come before my eyes again, nor before the eyes of my sons. nor is this to be regarded as a reconciliation between thee and me or my sons and kinsmen." thus egil bought his head by his song, and the song is therefore called "höfudlausn," or "the ransom of the head." egil then took his leave, visited ethelstan once more; went to norway and had many adventures, before he returned to iceland, where he died between and . he was then over ninety years old.[a] another of his poems, called sonartorek, "the loss of the son," is the most beautiful poem in the icelandic language. [footnote a: his life is minutely related in saga egils skallagrims-sonar.] erik blood-axe remained in england and suffered many vicissitudes of fate, until he fell in battle in or . he is repeatedly mentioned by the english chroniclers under the name of erik haroldson. after his death gunhild had a _draapa_ composed in his honor, an interesting fragment of which is still extant. she then went to denmark with her sons, and was well received by the danish king, harold bluetooth (blaatand), the son of gorm the old. [illustration] [illustration] chapter vii. haakon the good ( - ). haakon, though he was outwardly his father's image, did not resemble him in spirit. he was of a conciliatory nature, amiable, and endowed with a charm of manner which won him all hearts. it is said that his foster-father had given him the counsel at parting never to sit glum at the festal board, and it is obvious that he took the lesson to heart. when he landed in tröndelag, people flocked about him, and he won the chieftains for his cause by friendliness and promises which he afterwards conscientiously kept. he took part in the games of the young, and in the serious discussions of the old, excelled in all manly sports, and won admiration no less by his beauty than by his intelligence and generous disposition. the rumor of his arrival spread like fire in withered grass, and people said that old king harold had come back once more to his people, gentler and more generous than before, but no less mighty and beautiful. the first chieftain whose influence haakon sought to enlist in his behalf was the powerful sigurd, earl of hlade, who had been the friend and protector of his mother, and the guardian of his infancy. the earl received him well, and promised to support his claims to the kingdom. with this view he called, in haakon's name, a great meeting of the peasants in tröndelag, and made a speech in which he denounced the cruelty of erik blood-axe and declared his allegiance to haakon. when the earl had finished, haakon arose and offered, in case the peasants would make him their king, to restore to them their allodium, of which his father had deprived them. this announcement was received with great rejoicing; and from all parts of the plain came cries of homage and approval. amid joyful tumult haakon was made king, and immediately started southward with a large train of warriors. wherever he went, the people flocked about him and offered him allegiance. the oplands [a] followed the example of tröndelag, and in viken both chieftains and peasants eagerly espoused his cause. as already related, erik made a desperate attempt to gather an army, and, failing in this, fled with his family and a few faithful followers to the orkneys, and thence to england. [footnote a: see map.] it was consistent with haakon's conciliatory disposition that he did not molest or depose his nephews, gudröd björnsson and tryggve olafsson, but confirmed them as kings in viken. it appears, however, that, nominally at least, they recognized his overlordship. other sons and grandsons of harold the fairhaired he met with the same friendliness, giving to each what he considered to be his due. as soon as peace was thus established, and there was no one left to dispute his power, haakon devoted himself energetically to the improvement of the internal administration of his kingdom. he divided the country into _thing-unions_, or judicial districts, and by the aid of wise and experienced men greatly improved the laws. one famous code, called the gulathings-law, has particularly shed lustre upon his name, and the enlargement and improvement of the frostathings-law is also, by some of the sagas, attributed to him. the only radical change which he introduced was the breaking up of his father's feudal state, by the restoration of the allodium to the peasants. but this one change necessitated many others. when the king relinquished his right to tax the land, he thereby deprived himself of the ability to keep an army, and had to consign, in part, to the peasants themselves the defence of their respective districts. it was naturally the sea-coast which was most exposed to attack; and in the absence of all but the most primitive means of communication it became possible for an enemy to ravage long stretches of land, before the intelligence of his presence reached the king. in order to remedy this, haakon ordered _varder_ or signal-fires to be lighted, at fixed intervals, all along the coast at the approach of an enemy; but he partly counteracted the good effect of the reform by the severe punishment with which he threatened those who, without adequate cause, lighted the _varder_. in order to obtain the means to defend the coast, he divided it into marine districts, each of which was bound, on demand, to place a fully manned and equipped ship of war at the disposal of the king. this was, of course, but another form of taxation, but was less distasteful to the peasants, because its purpose and necessity were obvious, and no degrading dependence was implied, since the people had again become the free possessors of the soil. nevertheless there are indications that the personal tax, derisively called the nose-tax, which had been introduced by harold, was continued, at least for a while, by haakon; as it is expressly stated that his first ships of war were built by the income of the nose-tax. [illustration: frying pan of bronze with iron handle. from the viking age.] having arranged the military and judicial affairs of his kingdom, haakon turned his attention to a matter which he had long had at heart. he had been christened in his childhood in england, and was an earnest votary of the christian religion. but, coming, as he did, to the kingdom of his father, not as a conqueror, but as a candidate for the people's favor, he did not venture at once to attack the national faith. his friend, earl sigurd of hlade, was a fanatical adherent of the asa-faith, and haakon might have counted on his enmity rather than his support, if he had exhibited an ill-considered zeal for the displacement of the old by a new religion. haakon, therefore, temporized, and it was not until the fifteenth or sixteenth year of his reign ( - ), when his unbonded popularity seemed to warrant any venture, that he took a decisive step in behalf of christianity. he sent to england for a bishop and a number of priests, and published a decree, forbidding the people to sacrifice to the old gods, and demanding of them that they should accept the faith in christ. he called upon the peasants to meet him at drontheim, where he repeated his demand. but the peasants refused to declare themselves; and begged the king to have the matter legally settled at the _frosta-thing_. here there was a great concourse of people; and when the assembly had been called to order, haakon rose and in an earnest and dignified speech begged the peasants to forsake the old heathen gods who were but wood and stone, and to believe in the one living god and be baptized in his name. an ominous murmur ran through the crowd at these words, and the peasant aasbjörn of medalhus arose and answered in these words: [illustration: breast-pin of bronze. found at by in loiten.] "when thou, king haakon, didst call thy first assembly here in drontheim, and we took thee for our king, we believed that heaven itself had descended upon us; but now we do not know whether it was liberty we gained, or whether thou wishest to make us thralls once more, by thy strange demand that we shall forsake the faith which our fathers and all their forefathers have had before us. * * * they were sturdier men than we are; and yet their faith has done well enough for us. we have learned to love thee well, and we have allowed thee to share with us the administration of law and justice. now, we peasants have firmly determined and unanimously agreed to keep the laws which thou didst propose here at the _frosta-thing_, and to which we gave our assent. we all wish to follow thee, and to have thee for our king, as long as a single one of us peasants is alive--if only thou, king, wilt show moderation, and not demand of us things in which we cannot follow thee, and which it would be unseemly for us to do. but if thou hast this matter so deeply at heart that thou wilt try thy might and strength against ours, then we have resolved to part from thee and take another chieftain who will aid us in freely exercising the religion which pleases us. choose now, o king, between these two conditions, before the assembly has dispersed." [illustration: oval bronze buckle.] loud shouts of approval greeted this speech; and it was, for a while, impossible for any one to make himself heard. at last, when the tempest had subsided, earl sigurd of hlade, probably after consultation with haakon, rose and said that the king would yield to the wishes of the peasants and would not part with their friendship. encouraged by this first concession, the peasants now demanded that the king should participate in their sacrifices and preside at the sacrificial feast. much against his will, haakon was again induced to yield, but tried to pacify his conscience by making the sign of the cross over the horn consecrated to odin. during the following year he was also compelled to eat horse-flesh at the yule-tide sacrifice, and to omit the sign of the cross when drinking the toasts of the heathen gods. full of wrath he departed, intimating that he would soon come back with an army large enough to punish the trönders for the humiliation they had put upon him. there is little doubt that he would have carried out this threat, if external enemies had not directed his energies in another direction. the sons of erik blood-axe had, after their father's death, sought refuge with king harold bluetooth in denmark. the two elder, gamle and guttorm, had roamed about as vikings, ravaged the coasts of norway and the lands about the baltic, while the third son, harold, was adopted by his namesake, the danish king, and received his education at his court. they were all valiant warriors, but were much governed by their shrewd and cruel mother, gunhild. they naturally cherished no good-will toward their uncle haakon, who had dispossessed them of their kingdom; and while they were not yet strong enough to wage regular war, they seized every opportunity to annoy and harass him. they fought many battles with tryggve olafsson, who, as king in viken, was charged with the defence of the southern coast, and were sometimes victorious and sometimes vanquished. in the year , when tryggve was absent, haakon took occasion to deliver an effective blow at the danish vikings who were infesting this part of the country (though the sons of erik were not this time among them), pursued them southward, and harassed the coasts of jutland and the danish isles. it appears, however, that this mode of retaliation did not permanently discourage the vikings, and as long as harold bluetooth showed open hostility against norway, by espousing the cause of gunhild and her sons, it is quite natural that the warlike zeal and rapacity of the danes should be directed against the neighboring kingdom. it is obvious, too, that haakon, by his attack upon danish soil, gave a more personal character to the animosity which the danish king entertained toward him, and gunhild lost no time in profiting by this change of feeling. from this time forth her sons appear no longer as warlike adventurers, bent upon private vengeance, but as commanders of fleets and armies, and formidable pretenders to the norwegian throne. in they defeated tryggve olafsson at sotoness, and compelled him to abandon his ships and save himself by flight. when the news of this disaster reached haakon, he hastily made peace with the trönders who had forced him to sacrifice, and called upon earl sigurd to aid him with all the ships and men at his command. earl sigurd promptly obeyed and sailed southward to meet the king. at agvaldsness they overtook the sons of gunhild and vanquished them in a hotly contested battle. haakon slew with his own hand his nephew guttorm eriksson, and cut down his standard. the surviving brothers fled with the remnants of their army to denmark, and kept the peace for two years. but in they returned once more with a largely increased force and surprised king haakon at fraedö in nordmöre. the signal fires had not been lighted, and no intelligence of the presence of the enemy had reached the king until it was too late. he asked his men whether they preferred to stay and fight or avoid battle, until they had gathered a sufficient force. to this an old peasant named egil uldsaerk (woolsark) made answer: "i have been in many battles with thy father, king harold. sometimes he fought with a stronger and sometimes with a weaker foe. but he was always victorious. never have i heard him ask counsel of his friends as to whether he should run; nor will we give thee such counsel. for we think that we have in thee a brave chieftain, and trusty aid shalt thou receive from us." [illustration: egil woolsark's monument or bautastone at freiness.] when the king praised these words and declared himself ready to fight, egil cried out joyously: "in this long season of peace i have been afraid that i should die of old age on the straw of my bed--i who never asked any thing better than to follow my chieftain and die in battle! now, at last, i shall have my wish fulfilled." [illustration: ornamental bronze mounting.] as soon as the sons of erik had landed, the battle commenced. they had six men for every one of king haakon's. seeing that the odds were so heavily against his lord, egil woolsark took ten standard-bearers aside and stole up a slope of land in the rear of gamle eriksson's battle-array. he made them march with long intervals, so that only the tops of their standards could be seen above the slope, and not the men themselves. the danes, spying the waving banners, supposed that a fresh force was coming to cut them off from their ships, and they raised a great cry and fled. it was in vain that gamle, who had discovered the stratagem, shouted with a loud voice commanding them to stay. panic had seized them, and their commander himself was swept away with the hurrying mass, until he reached the beach, where he made a final stand. here egil woolsark attacked him and received his death-wound after a desperate conflict. haakon too rushed in upon gamle, who defended himself bravely, but having received terrible wounds, threw himself into the ocean and was drowned. the other brothers swam to their ships and returned to denmark. this victory secured peace to norway for six years. haakon had thus an opportunity to resume his efforts to christianize the country. but his experience of the peasants' temper had apparently discouraged him. personally he remained a christian, and induced many of his friends to forsake the heathen faith. he lacked, however, the uncompromising vigor and the burning zeal of a martyr and propagandist. he preferred gentle to harsh measures, and shrank from antagonizing those who had been faithful to him in time of need. it is probable, too, that the counsel of his friend, earl sigurd, tended to cool his ardor, by emphasizing the political phase of the religious question. the result of this conciliatory policy, in connection with the good crops which prevailed during his reign, was to make king haakon universally beloved. it is doubtful if a king has ever sat upon the throne of norway who has been closer to the hearts of the people. therefore, as an expression of their affection for him, they named him haakon the good. in the twenty-sixth year of his reign ( ) haakon was summering with his men-at-arms on his estate fitje in hördaland. a large number of guests were with him, among whom the scald eyvind skaldespilder (scald-spoiler),[a] who was on his mother's side a great-grandson of harold the fairhaired. the king was seated at the breakfast-table, when the sentinels saw a large fleet of ships sailing in through the fjord. they called the scald eyvind aside, and begged him to decide whether those were not hostile ships. eyvind sprang into the hall where the king was sitting, and sang a verse, announcing the approach of the sons of erik. haakon arose and looked at the ships. then he turned to his men and said: "here many ships are coming against us, and our force is but small. it is plainly to be seen that we shall have to fight against heavier odds than ever before; for the sons of gunhild come with a larger force to-day than on previous occasions. loath i am to bring my best men into too great a danger; and loath i am, too, to flee, unless wise men decide that it would be foolhardy to await the foe." [footnote a: skaldespilder means waster or spoiler of scalds, because no other scald could bear comparison with him.] eyvind scald-spoiler replied in verse that it would ill befit a man like king haakon to flee from the sons of gunhild. "manly speech is that, and in accordance with my mind," answered the king; and when the other warriors with one accord clamored for battle, he put on his armor, buckled his sword about his loins, and seized spear and shield. on his head he wore a golden helmet which flashed in the sun. beautiful he was to behold, with his mild and noble countenance, and his bright hair streaming down over his shoulders. upon the fields without he arranged his men in battle array, and raised his standards. the sons of erik disembarked with a large army, commanded by the third of the brothers, harold, and his two uncles, eyvind skreyja and alf askman. the battle which now commenced was wild and bloody. the army of the sons of gunhild was six times as numerous as that of king haakon. but haakon, knowing his norsemen well, did not lose heart. wherever the fight was hottest, there flashed his golden helmet. he joked with eyvind, the scald, when he passed him, and improvised a verse in reply to the one with which he was greeted. the fiercer the conflict grew, the higher rose the king's spirits. at last, when the heat oppressed him, he flung away his armor and stormed forward at the head of his men. the supply of spears and arrows soon ran short, and the hostile ranks clashed together and fought, hand to hand, with their swords. the shining helmet made the king very conspicuous, and eyvind scald-spoiler noticed that it served as a target for the danish spears. he therefore took a hood and pulled it over the helmet. eyvind skreyja, who was just rushing forward to meet the king, thereby lost sight of him, and he cried out: "what has become of the king of the norsemen? does he hide himself, or is he afraid? no more do i see the golden helmet?" "keep on as thou art steering, if thou wishest to find the king of the norsemen," shouted haakon, and throwing away his shield, seized his sword with both hands, and sprang forward where all could see him. eyvind skreyja bounded forward with uplifted sword, but one of the king's men caught the blow upon his shield, and in the same instant haakor, cleft eyvind's head and neck down to the shoulders. the example of their king fired the norsemen's courage, while the fall of their greatest champion brought confusion to the danes. the former charged with renewed fury, while the latter were pressed down to the beach, and leaped into the ocean; many were killed or drowned, but a few, including harold eriksson, saved themselves by swimming, and were picked up by the ships. while pursuing the fleeing foe, haakon was hit in his right arm by a peculiarly shaped arrow, and all efforts to staunch the blood proved in vain. it was said that gunhild had bewitched this arrow and given it to her chamberlain, with the charge that he should shoot it off against king haakon. as night approached, the king grew weaker and weaker, and fainted repeatedly. one of his friends offered to take his body over to england, when he was dead, so that he might be buried in christian soil. but haakon replied: "i am not worthy of it. i have lived like a heathen, and therefore it is meet that i should be buried like a heathen." thus died haakon the good and, as the saga says, was mourned alike by friends and foes. his last act before dying was to send a ship after the sons of gunhild, and beg them to come back and take the kingdom; for he had himself no sons, and his only daughter, thora, could not, according to the law, succeed to the throne. eyvind scald-spoiler made a song in king haakon's honor, called _haakonarmaal_, in which he praised his virtues and described his reception in valhalla. [illustration] chapter viii. harold grayfell and his brothers ( - ). the sons of gunhild lost no time in taking possession of the kingdom of their fathers. it was not, however, the entire norway to which they succeeded, but only the middle districts. in viken, tryggve olafsson and gudröd björnsson, both grandsons of harold the fairhaired, ruled as independent kings, and in tröndelag earl sigurd, of hlade, refused to acknowledge the supremacy of the race of erik blood-axe. undoubtedly the brothers were only biding their time until they should be strong enough to punish these contemptuous rebels; but so bitter was the feeling against them, even in the provinces which they nominally ruled, that they had all they could do in maintaining their authority within the narrow limits which had from the beginning been assigned to them. one of the chief causes of their unpopularity was their dependence upon the danish king, by whose aid they had gained the kingdom, and to whom they apparently stood in a relation of vassalage. as a consequence of this, they took no pains to gain the favor of the norwegian people, but surrounded themselves with a great throng of danish warriors who constituted their court and the main-stay of their strength. very unfortunate, too, was the influence which their mother gunhild exercised over them. scarcely had she returned to norway, when she resumed her baneful activity, egging her sons on to cruel and treacherous deeds, by which they forfeited the people's respect and undermined their own power. misfortune had not taught her caution, nor had age softened the fierce malignity of her temper. [illustration: church at egilÖ, or egil's island (one of the orkneys); supposed to have been built before the viking age.] the oldest surviving brother, harold, surnamed graafeld (grayfell) resembled, in appearance his father, erik blood-axe. he was haughty, avaricious, and revengeful; tall of stature, finely built, and of lordly presence, but for all that a weak and vacillating character. he lacked entirely that kindliness and _bonhommie_ which had made his uncle haakon the good beloved of all the people. of the other brothers we have no definite knowledge; they seem, however, all to have inherited their share of the traits which made their parents odious. two of them, gudröd and sigurd sleva, proved themselves worthy sons of the malicious gunhild. the others are usually spoken of collectively, and their names are variously given. it may have been the sense of his unpopularity which induced harold grayfell to make overtures to the former courtiers of king haakon. several of them, it appears, entered his service, but felt themselves ill at ease among the foreign warriors who enjoyed his favor and confidence. jealousies and petty bickerings were the order of the day; every allusion to king haakon's virtues gave offence, and when the song of eyvind scald-spoiler, praising his former lord, reached the king's ears, he exclaimed angrily: "you love king haakon yet, and it is best that you follow him and become his men." the men then departed, not suddenly, but one by one, and made the names of the sons of gunhild still more detested throughout the land. eyvind scald-spoiler in a noble verse refused to be king harold's court poet, and after his departure made a song in which he compared haakon with harold, much to the latter's disadvantage. there was in that year ( ) a great dearth of food in the land; crops and fisheries failed, and the cattle had to be fed with leaf-buds instead of grass. in some districts snow fell in the middle of summer. the people who believed that the gods had sent these evil times because of their anger at the kings, gave vent to their discontent in loud murmuring. harold grayfell and his brothers, it appears, had been baptized in their youth in england and were nominally christians. they refrained from sacrificing, and broke down and destroyed many heathen temples. but they made no effort to enlighten the people regarding the new religion; and probably considered questions of faith as being of small moment. surrounded, as they were, by enemies on all sides, their first ambition was naturally to re-conquer the kingdom which harold the fairhaired had bequeathed to their father. it became, therefore, a political necessity to break the power of earl sigurd of hlade, as well as of tryggve olafsson and gudröd björnsson in viken. to do this in open warfare was out of the question; and gunhild, therefore, persuaded her sons to resort to treachery. by flattery and promises, harold bribed grjotgard haakonsson, a younger brother of earl sigurd, to send him word when a favorable opportunity should present itself for killing the earl. at the same time the king sent messengers with gifts and friendly assurances to the intended victim, but failed for awhile to lead him into any trap. at last, when these repeated protestations of friendship had, perhaps, made him relax his vigilance, harold grayfell and his brother erling, having received notice from grjotgard, surprised the earl in the night, while he was away from home, and burned him and all his retinue. by this deed, however, they raised up against themselves an enemy who proved more dangerous to them than the one they had slain. earl sigurd's son, haakon, was twenty-five years old, when his father died, and a man splendidly equipped in body and mind. he was a great warrior, handsome in person, sagacious, resolute, and friendly and affable in his demeanor. his family was, in some respect, as good as any king's; for he belonged to the old tribal aristocracy which had maintained its authority in tröndelag from the earliest germanic times. when he was born, king haakon the good, who happened just then to be his father's guest, had poured water upon his head and given him his own name. when the intelligence of earl sigurd's death reached him, haakon called the trönders together, and a great multitude responded to his summons. they clamored for vengeance upon the treacherous sons of gunhild, confirmed haakon in the dignity which his father had possessed, and declared themselves ready to follow him. with a great fleet he sailed out of the drontheim fiord; but the sons of gunhild fled southward and did not venture to give battle. the trönders, having given their allegiance to earl haakon, refused to pay taxes to harold grayfell, who, after some indecisive fights, was compelled virtually to recognize his rival's independence. haakon, however, was well aware what such a concession must have cost the haughty king, and he knew, too, that his independence would last only so long as he was able to defend it. with a view to strengthening his position, he therefore formed an alliance with the two kings in viken, which only had the effect of speedily bringing down upon the latter the vengeance of gunhild's sons. harold grayfell and his brother gudröd made a pretence of quarrelling, and feigned a furious hostility to each other. a viking cruise which they were about to undertake together was accordingly deferred, and gudröd, complaining of his brother's conduct, sent a friendly message to tryggve olafsson, begging him to accompany him on his cruise. tryggve accepted the invitation, and on arriving at the appointed place of meeting was foully murdered with all his men. king gudröd björnsson (the son of björn the merchant) was about the same time surprised at a banquet by harold grayfell, and slain after a desperate resistance. after these exploits, harold and gudröd re-united and took possession of viken. they hastened to king tryggve's dwelling in the hope of exterminating his whole race. but tryggve's widow, aastrid, anticipating their intention, had fled with her foster-father, thorolf luse-skjegg, (lousy-beard), and a few attendants. she was then with child, and on a little islet in the rand's fiord, where she was hiding, she bore her son olaf tryggvesson. wherever she went gunhild's spies pursued her. hearing that she had borne a son, the wily queen spared no effort to get her in her power. during the entire summer aastrid was compelled to remain on the solitary islet, venturing out only in the night, and hiding among the underbrush in the daytime. when toward autumn the nights began to grow darker, she went ashore with her attendants, travelling only when the darkness protected them. after many hardships she reached her father erik ofrestad's estate in the oplands; but even here the wily gunhild left her no peace. a man named haakon was despatched with thirty armed attendants to search for her and her child; but erik of ofrestad got news of their mission in time to send his daughter and grandson away. disguised as beggars, aastrid and thoralf lousy-beard travelled on foot from farm to farm, and came toward evening to the house of a man named björn. they asked for food and shelter, but were rudely driven away by the inhospitable peasant. at a neighboring farm, however, they were kindly received by a peasant named thorstein. gunhild's emissaries, having searched in vain at ofrestad, got on the track of the fugitives, and learned at the house of björn that a handsome woman in poor attire, bearing a babe in her arms, had applied for shelter early in the evening. this conversation one of thorstein's servants happened to overhear, and on arriving home, related it to his master. thorstein immediately, with loud chiding and pretended wrath, roused the supposed beggars from their sleep, and drove them out into the night. this he did in order to deceive the servants and other listeners. but when aastrid and thoralf were well under way, he told them that gunhild's hired assassins had arrived at the neighboring farm, and that his only desire was to save them. he also gave them a trusted attendant who could show them the best hiding-places in the forest. at the shores of a lake they concealed themselves among the tall bulrushes. [illustration: scissors and arrow-heads of iron.] thorstein, in the meanwhile, sent their pursuers in the opposite direction, and led them a dance through forest and field in a vain search for the fugitives. the next night, when haakon and his men had given up the search, he sent food and clothes to aastrid, and furnished her with an escort to sweden, where she found a place of refuge with a friend of her father's named haakon the old. gunhild, however, was not to be discouraged. she sent two embassies to king erik of sweden, demanding the surrender of olaf tryggvesson, and received each time permission to capture the child, without interference on the part of the king. but haakon the old was a mighty man, and determined to defend his guests. the threats of gunhild's embassador did not frighten him. while the latter was speaking, a half-witted thrall, named buste, seized a dung-fork, and rushed at him, threatening to strike. the embassador, fearing to be soiled, took to his heels, and was pursued by the thrall. how the queen received him on his return is not recorded. of the internal enemies of gunhild's sons, earl haakon of hlade now alone remained; and it was not an unnatural desire on their part to reduce him to subjection. anticipating, as usual, their action, the earl was on the look-out for them; but having ascertained the size of their fleets, he saw the hopelessness of his cause, and forthwith sailed to denmark, where he was well received by king harold bluetooth ( ). it will thus be seen that the friendship between harold grayfell and the danish king had not endured the strain of diverging interests. the former, as soon as he felt secure in his power, refused to recognize the latter's claim to viken, and paid him no taxes. harold bluetooth, therefore, allied himself with earl haakon, the bitterest enemy of the sons of gunhild, hoping, by his aid, to regain his lost dominion. what particularly encouraged him in this expectation was the continued dearth which prevailed in norway, and the resulting unpopularity of the kings which, with every year, grew more pronounced. it was of no avail that harold grayfell almost every summer went on viking cruises, gaining a great fame as a warrior and bringing home rich treasures. the people hated him only less than they hated his mother gunhild. an exploit of his brother sigurd sleva aroused a demonstration of wrath which came near culminating in open rebellion. sigurd sleva had paid a visit to a mighty yeoman named klypp thorsson, and had, in the absence of the master of the house, been hospitably received by his beautiful wife aaluf. he had become enamoured of his hostess, and had grievously insulted her. klypp, on his return, learned what had occurred; and swore to avenge the shame which had been brought upon him by gunhild's son. when harold grayfell and sigurd, in the autumn of , held a _thing_ at vors, they were attacked by the enraged peasants, and had to save themselves by flight. klypp, with a number of his friends, pursued sigurd, slew him with his own hand, and was himself slain by one of sigurd's men. earl haakon, who, from his danish retreat, watched the events in norway, heard these tidings with satisfaction. the sudden check which his ambition had received had made him ill, and for some time he appeared listless, refusing to eat and drink, or to communicate with anybody. but when his plans of vengeance were matured, he rose from his bed, strode forth with his old vigor, and proceeded to weave a complicated net of intrigues. harold bluetooth had at that time a difficulty with his nephew gold-harold, who demanded a share in the government; and, having confidence in the sagacity of the earl, he asked his advice. the earl saw here his opportunity, and had no scruple in availing himself of it. he dissuaded the king from killing his nephew, because such a deed would arouse indignation and alienate the great party in denmark, who desired to see gold-harold on the throne. far better would it be if he employed gold-harold to punish harold grayfell and his brothers, and in the end reward him with the throne of norway. thereby the king would increase his own power, and convert a dangerous rival into a friend and ally. this advice seemed good to harold bluetooth, and after some persuasion he found courage to act upon it. he sent a friendly message to his foster-son, harold grayfell, inviting him to come and take possession of his old fief in denmark, the income of which he might, indeed, need during the hard times that prevailed in norway. harold grayfell, after some vacillation, accepted this invitation, and sailed to denmark with three ships and two hundred and forty men; but no sooner had he set foot upon danish soil than he was attacked by gold-harold, who slew him and nearly all his men. this was the first act in the drama which earl haakon had planned. the second contained a surprise. the earl went to harold bluetooth, and represented to him that his nephew, as king of norway, would become a more dangerous rival than he had been before; and frankly offered to kill him, if the king would promise not to avenge his death. furthermore, he demanded, as his reward, the kingdom of norway in fief, under the overlordship of the king. all this seemed very tempting to harold bluetooth; and like all weak and vicious men, he made objections only for the purpose of having them overcome. in the end he gave his consent; and gold-harold was immediately attacked and killed by earl haakon. with a large army the two conspirators now sailed for norway, and won the whole country without striking a blow. so great was the hatred of gunhild and her sons, that not a man drew his sword in their defence. the two surviving brothers, gudröd and ragnfred, made a pretence of resistance, rallying a few followers about them; but did not venture to give battle. seeing the hopelessness of their cause, they fled with their mother to the orkneys ( ). ragnfred, however, returned the following year with a considerable fleet, largely made up of vikings who had gathered about him, and fought an indicisive battle with earl haakon. he even succeeded in reconquering four of the northwestern shires. for nearly a year haakon made no effort to expel him. it was not until the spring of , that he felt himself strong enough to appeal to arms once more; and this time ragnfred and his brother gudröd, who in the meantime had joined him, were defeated at dingeness, and driven into exile. according to the most reliable accounts, they went to scotland, but continued for several years to harass the coast of norway by sudden attacks. they were, however, no longer sufficiently formidable to cause the earl any serious inconvenience, although he was not slow to seize upon their attacks as a pretext for discontinuing the payment of the tax which he had pledged to the danish king. gunhild died, in all probability, either in scotland or the orkneys, although one of the sagas relates, that she was enticed to denmark by harold bluetooth, under promise of marriage, and at his command drowned in a swamp [illustration] [illustration] chapter ix. earl haakon ( - ). by his daring intrigue earl haakon had attained the goal of his desires. he had avenged his father's death, humiliated his enemies, and gained a power far beyond that of any of his ancestors. with a nature like his, however, no goal is final. the ease with which he had managed harold bluetooth and his nephew--using them as tools for his own ends--had, no doubt, inspired him with a supreme confidence in his ability, and a corresponding contempt of those whose shrewdness was inferior to his own. the purpose therefore soon matured in his mind to repudiate his obligations to the danish king, and make himself the independent ruler of norway. the opportunity for carrying this purpose into effect soon presented itself. the emperor otto i. of germany, who claimed sovereignty over denmark, died in , and was succeeded by his young son, otto ii. harold bluetooth, who had always resented the emperor's claim, even though he was forced to recognize it, made extensive preparations for a campaign against otto ii., and sent messengers to his vassal, earl haakon, commanding him to come to his aid with all the forces at his disposal. earl haakon, whatever his inclinations may have been, did not deem it advisable to disobey, and in the spring of the year sailed southward with a large fleet and army. he did duty for a while in defending the wall of dannevirke, and actually beat the emperor in a great battle. then, feeling that his task had been accomplished, he boarded his ships and prepared to sail homeward. the emperor, however, hearing that dannevirke was deserted by its defenders, returned for a second attack, and forced his way into jutland. whether harold bluetooth fought with him does not appear. we only know that he accepted a humiliating peace, reaffirming his vassalage, and, according to a creditable source, promising to introduce the christian religion, both in his own kingdom and in norway. it is probable that both harold and his son, sweyn forkbeard, had been baptized before, but continued in their hearts to be devoted to the asa faith. it was scarcely zeal for christianity, but fear of the emperor, which induced harold to send for earl haakon and force him to accept baptism and to promise to convert his countrymen to the new religion. it is strange that a man as shrewd as haakon, after his recent desertion of dannevirke, should have obeyed this summons. in all likelihood the victorious battle which he had fought gave him confidence in his power to justify himself; and there may also have been circumstances connected with the affair which changed its aspect to contemporaries. it is not inconceivable, however, that he really wished for a plausible pretext for rebellion, and deliberately took his chances. [illustration: harold bluetooth.] with a ship-load of priests haakon departed from this fateful meeting with the danish king. but no sooner was he out of harold's sight, than he put his priests ashore, and began to harry on both sides of the sound. on the rocky cliffs of gautland he made a grand sacrificial feast, to counteract the effect of his recent baptism, and stood watching for a response from the old gods, that they looked upon him with favor, and would give him success in the war he was about to undertake. then two ravens came and followed his ships, "clucking" loudly. the ravens were the birds of odin, and haakon saw in their flight a happy augury. a warlike fury seems now to have possessed him. with a recklessness which in so prudent a man is inconceivable (except under high religious excitement), he burned his ships, landed with his army on the coast of sweden, and marched northward, ravaging the land with fire and sword. a broad track of blood and desolation followed his destructive progress. even in the norwegian province viken, which harold bluetooth had given to sweyn forkbeard, he continued his devastations in pure wantonness, as if to advertise his defiance of the danish king and all that belonged to him. from viken he took his way overland to drontheim, where he henceforth lived as an independent sovereign; though for some reason he refrained from assuming the royal title. it was probably some time before harold bluetooth could raise an army strong enough to pursue the earl and defeat him in his own stronghold. there is some doubt, however, whether his campaign to norway, for the purpose of punishing his rebellious vassal, took place in or two or three years later. following haakon's example, he laid the land waste, killing and burning every thing in his path. in laerdal in sogn, he left only five houses unburned. when, however, earl haakon sailed southward to meet him with a numerous fleet, the king suddenly lost his courage, set sail, and made for home. it is said that harold bluetooth had on that occasion no less than twelve hundred ships. earl haakon had now peace for some years. he had, as soon as he had conquered the sons of gunhild, married the beautiful thora, daughter of the powerful chieftain skage skoftesson: and had by her two sons, sweyn and heming, and a daughter, bergljot. considerably older than these children, was the earl's illegitimate son, erik, who, according to one account, was born when his father was but fifteen years old. there is, however, good reason for questioning this statement. erik was a stubborn and turbulent youth, who could not be induced to respect the authority of his father. when he was ten or eleven years old, he got into a dispute with haakon's brother-in-law tiding-skofte, about the right to anchor his ship next to the earl's. tiding-skofte, who was a great favorite of the earl's, had been especially granted this privilege and was inclined to insist upon it. to avenge this insult erik watched his chance and slew him a year later. he thereby incurred the hostility of his father, and fled to viken, where sweyn forkbeard gave him a cordial reception. it was scarcely to be expected that harold bluetooth should quietly accept the humiliation which earl haakon had put upon him. he was, indeed, getting too old himself to measure strength again with his powerful antagonist; and he therefore delegated the task of punishing him to his friends and allies. among the latter were the celebrated jomsvikings, who lived at jomsborg, on the island of wollin, at the mouth of the river oder. these vikings were a well-disciplined company of pirates, who made war their exclusive business, living by rapine and plunder. they were bound by very strict laws to obey their chief, to spurn death and danger, to aid each other, and to endure pain uncomplainingly. like the italian condottieri, they were willing to serve any master with whom their chief could make satisfactory arrangements. for women they professed contempt, and no woman was permitted to enter their burgh. these formidable marauders harold bluetooth endeavored to stir up against his rebellious vassal. at a funeral feast which their chief, earl sigvalde, made in honor of his father, a great throng of warriors were present; the ale and mead flowed abundantly, and there was much good cheer in the hall. when earl sigvalde rose to drink the toast to brage, he vowed that before three winters were past he would kill earl haakon or expel him from his realm, or himself die in the attempt. the other vikings, not wishing to be outdone by their chief, made vows scarcely less daring; and the enthusiasm rose to such a pitch that no achievement seemed beyond their strength. when they woke up the next morning, the affair wore a slightly different aspect; but having once promised, they could not retreat. so they made a virtue of necessity, and prepared in haste for the attack. the rumor of their vows had, however, preceded them, and reached erik, the son of earl haakon. disregarding his father's hostility, he hurried northward to drontheim with all the men he could gather, and placed them at the disposal of the earl. the jomsvikings, in the meanwhile, occupied themselves in plundering the coasts of norway, sailing slowly northward with a well-manned fleet of sixty ships. the number of their warriors was between seven and eight thousand. they met earl haakon and his sons erik, sweyn, sigurd, and erling at hjörungavaag in söndmöre. the earl had one hundred and eighty ships, the majority of which were inferior in size and equipment to those of his enemies; and according to a probable calculation, his force amounted to ten or eleven thousand men. so many men and ships had scarcely ever before been seen together in the north, and the sagas relate that the fight in hjörungavaag ( ) was the greatest battle that has ever been fought in norway. [illustration: runestone from strand in ryfylke. the inscription which is in the oldest norse runes reads as follows: i, hagustald, buried in this hill my son, hadulaik.] as earl haakon saw the first of the jomsvikings sailing up the sound, he disposed his own ships in battle-array. he gave his oldest son erik command of the right wing, placed sweyn on the left, and himself commanded the centre. opposite to sweyn were the ships of the famous jomsviking vagn aakesson, whose impetuosity and daring had made him dreaded far and wide. the young earl sweyn was no match for such an antagonist, and after a gallant resistance he began to retreat. his brother erik, seeing the imminent danger, rowed around to his wing, drove vagn back, and forced his brother to resume his position. then he hastened back to his own wing, and came just in time to check the progress of bue the big (digre), who commanded the corresponding wing of the jomsvikings. the battle now grew furious, and the carnage on both sides was tremendous. the spears and arrows fell in rattling showers about earl haakon, as he stood in the prow of his ship, and so many hit him that his shirt of mail was torn into strips, and he was forced to throw it away. the ships of the vikings were higher than those of the norsemen, and the advantage which this afforded the former told at first heavily against the latter. then, it is told, earl haakon suddenly disappeared, and the legend relates that he took his youngest son erling, went ashore with him, and sacrificed him to the gods for victory. instantly the skies grew black, and a violent hail-storm beat down, pelting the faces of the jomsvikings and almost blinding them. every grain of hail, says the saga, weighed two ounces. some even declared that they saw the maidens of odin, the valkyrias, thorgerd and irp, standing in the prow of earl haakon's ship, sending forth a deadlier hail of unerring arrows. the jomsvikings fought half blindly, fell on the slippery decks in a slush of blood and melting hail, but in spite of the twilight and confusion yet held their own. then suddenly their chief, earl sigvalde, turned and fled. vagn aakesson, who saw him, cried out in a frenzy of rage: "why dost thou flee, thou evil hound, and leave thy men in the lurch? that shame shall cling to thee all thy days." earl sigvalde made no reply; and it was well for him that he did not; for in the same instant a spear was hurled forth from vagn's hand, transfixing the man at the helm. a moment before vagn had seen his chieftain there, and it was for him the spear was intended. confusion now became general; and all earl sigvalde's men, seeing that his standard was gone, fell out of line and fled. at last only vagn aakesson and bue the big were left. earl haakon pulled up alongside the ship of the latter and a combat ensued, which, in wildness and fury, has scarcely a parallel in the records of the sagas. two great champions of the jomsvikings, haavard the hewer (huggende) and aslak rock-skull (holmskalle), vaulted over the gunwale of the earl's ship and made tremendous havoc, until an icelander seized an anvil which was used for sharpening the weapons and dashed it against aslak's head, splitting his skull. haavard had both his feet cut off, but fought on furiously, standing on his knees. the spears whizzed about the earl's ears and the arrows flew past him with their angry twang. his men fell and the jomsvikings were pressing forward. then, in the nick of time, came his son erik, and, with a throng of his men, boarded the galley of bue the big. in their first onset bue received a terrible cut across the nose. "now," he cried, "i fear the danish maidens will no more kiss me." then, seeing that resistance was vain, he seized two chests full of gold and shouted: "overboard all bue's men," and leaped into the sea. vagn aakesson's galley was likewise boarded, and there was a repetition of former scenes of carnage. when all but thirty of his men were dead he at last surrendered. the captives were brought ashore and ordered to sit down in a row upon a long log. their feet were tied together with a rope, while their hands remained free. one of earl erik's men, thorkell leira, whom vagn at that memorable funeral feast had promised to kill, was granted the privilege to reciprocate the intended favor toward vagn. with his axe uplifted he rushed at the captives, and, beginning at one end of the log, struck off one head after another. he meant to keep vagn until the last, in order to increase his agony. but vagn sat chatting merrily with his men; and there was much joking and laughter. "we have often disputed," said one, "as to whether a man knows of any thing when his head is off. that we can now test, for if i am conscious, after having lost my head, i will stick my knife into the earth." when his turn came all sat watching with interest. but his knife fell from his nerveless grasp, and there was no trace of consciousness. one of the vikings on the log seemed particularly in excellent spirits. he laughed and sang, as he saw the bloody heads of his comrades rolling about his feet. just at that moment earl erik approached and asked him if he would like to live. "that depends," answered the viking, "upon who it is who offers me life." "he offers who has the power to do it," said the earl; "earl erik himself." "then i gladly accept," the viking replied. the next in order, as the executioner walked up to him, made an equivocal pun, which, however, pleased earl erik so well that he set him free. eighteen had now been beheaded and two pardoned. the twenty-first was a very young man with long, beautiful hair and a handsome countenance. as thorkell leira paused before him he twisted his hair into a coil and begged him not to soil it with his blood. in order to humor him, thorkell told one of the bystanders to take hold of the coil while he struck off the head. the man consented; but just as the axe was descending, the jomsviking pulled his head violently back, and the obliging assistant had both his hands cut off. "some of the jomsvikings are alive yet," he cried, as he raised his head laughing. earl erik, who had witnessed this scene, asked him his name. "i am said to be a son of bue," he answered. "very likely is that," said the earl; "do you wish to live?" "what other choice have i?" asked the young viking. when thorkell leira observed that earl erik was in a forgiving mood, he grew very wroth. fearing that he might be thwarted in his vengeance on vagn aakesson, he sprang past the remaining men and, with his axe raised above his head, rushed toward his enemy. one of the men on the log, however, seeing his chief's danger, flung himself forward so that thorkell stumbled over his body and dropped his axe. instantly vagn was on his feet, seized the axe and dealt thorkell such a blow that the axe went through the neck, and the blade was buried in the earth. thus vagn aakesson was the only one of the jomsvikings who accomplished what he had vowed to do. earl erik, full of admiration of his feat, now had his bonds removed and gave him his liberty. the other prisoners who were yet alive were also set free at the earl's command. not far from the spot where this occurred sat earl haakon with many of his chieftains. suddenly the loud twang of a bow-string was heard, and in the same instant gissur the white, from valders, who sat next to the earl and was more magnificently dressed than he, fell dead, pierced by an arrow. many men hastened down to the ship whence the arrow had come, and found haavard the hewer, who, half dazed with loss of blood, stood on his knees with his bow in his hands. "tell me, lads," he said, "did any one fall over there at the tree?" he was told that gissur the white had fallen. "then i was not so much in luck as i had hoped," he remarked; "for that arrow was meant for the earl." it was plain that the favorable result of this great battle was due chiefly to the intrepidity and circumspection of earl erik. his father would perhaps have recognized this fact, if the son had not apparently superseded his authority in sparing the life of so important a man as vagn aakesson without consultation with the commander-in-chief. he did not, however, venture to disregard earl erik's pardon, but loudly expressed his discontent, and parted from his son in anger. vagn followed his rescuer southward, and became his familiar friend and companion. earl haakon's power was now so well confirmed that no one ventured to dispute his supremacy. crops and fisheries were good. the people enjoyed many years of peace and contentment. the earls of the orkneys paid haakon tribute, as if he had been a king, and a king he was in every thing except the name. his family had always been associated with the ancient temple and earldom of hlade; and it was a matter of pride with him to retain his ancestral dignity. this is significant when we consider how he was in all things a man of the old dispensation. at a time when heathenism was slowly crumbling away, and the faith in the old gods was losing its hold upon the upper classes, haakon was a devout and sincere heathen. the continual intercourse of norway with england and the lands of the south had half imperceptibly weakened the old superstitions and made the legends of odin and thor appear to many like nursery tales which grown-up men could scarcely be expected to believe. repudiation of all supernaturalism and a proud reliance upon his own good sword was at this time characteristic of the norse viking, who prided himself upon his knowledge of the world and his deeds in distant lands. for all that the asa faith as later events will prove, had yet a sufficient number of sincere believers to make the progress of the new faith slow and sanguinary. nevertheless so atrocious an act as the sacrifice of one's own child could not have failed to arouse indignation even among the worshippers of odin and thor. such horrors were tolerated far back in the gloom of primeval antiquity, but must have been felt in the tenth century as a hideous anachronism. how much earl haakon's heathen fanaticism contributed to his downfall is difficult to determine. the sacrifice of erling during the battle with the jomsvikings, though it was generally regarded as a fact, was not the original cause of the rebellion which cost the earl his throne and his life. the vices by which he forfeited his early popularity were of a kind which assert their sway over men, irrespective of religions. in the year earl haakon was travelling in gauldale, collecting taxes. his son erlend, of whom he was very fond, lay with some ships out in the fiord, waiting to receive the treasure. one evening the earl sent a company of thralls to the house of the powerful peasant brynjulf, commanding him to send him his wife, who was renowned for her beauty. brynjulf refused, and the earl in great anger sent the thralls back with this message to the indignant husband, that he had the choice between death and the surrender of his wife. the peasant was obliged to yield, and with a heavy heart let his wife depart with the thralls. but no sooner was she gone than he recovered his manhood and swore vengeance. he summoned the inhabitants of the valley from far and near, and told them of the shame the earl had put upon him. all promised him their help, and resolved to hold themselves in readiness, awaiting the first opportunity for attacking the daring profligate. the earl, in the meanwhile, being quite ignorant of their designs, played into their hands. very soon after his adventure with brynjulf's wife, he sent a message of similar purport to orm lyrgja, whose wife gudrun, on account of her beauty, was surnamed "lundarsol" (the sun of lunde).[a] orm, who was a man of great authority in his valley, sent word to all his neighbors, and after having feasted the earl's thralls, in order to detain them, refused to comply with their demand. gudrun, who saw them depart, cried jeeringly after them: "give the earl my greeting, and tell him that i will not go to him unless he sends thora of rimul to fetch me." thora of rimul was one of the earl's mistresses, whom his favor had made rich and powerful. [footnote a: lund means a grove, and her name might thus be rendered: "the sun of the grove."] war-summons was now sent from farm to farm and a great band of armed peasants came together, and marched toward medalhus where haakon was staying. he sent in haste a message to his son erlend, to meet him at möre, whither he intended to go, as soon as the army of the peasants had dispersed. then his time for vengeance would be at hand. in the meanwhile he would be obliged to dismiss his men and hide, until the excitement should have subsided. with a single thrall named kark, whom he had received as tooth-gift [a] and who had been his playmate in his boyhood, he fled across the gaul river, rode his horse into a hole, and left his cloak upon the ice, in order that his pursuers might believe that he had been drowned. then he hastened to his mistress, thora of rimul, who hid him and the thrall in a deep ditch under her pigsty. food, candles, and bedclothes, were given them, whereupon the ditch was covered with boards and earth, and the pigs were driven out over it. as it happened, olaf tryggvesson, whose young life queen gunhild had vainly endeavored to destroy, had just then landed in tröndelag and had slain the earl's son erlend. the peasants, hearing that he was of the race of harold the fairhaired, received him with delight and accompanied him to rimul, where they thought it likely that the earl must be hidden. [footnote a: it was customary to give to infants of high birth a thrall or some other valuable gift when it got its first tooth. this gift was called a tooth-gift.] after a vain search olaf called them together, and mounting a big stone, close to the pigsty, declared in a loud voice that he would give a great reward to him who would find the earl and slay him. in his damp and malodorous hiding-place the earl sat, gazing anxiously at his thrall. every word of olaf's speech he could plainly hear, and by the light of the candle which stood on the earth between them, he saw that kark, too, was eagerly listening. "why art thou now so pale?" asked the earl, "and now again as black as earth. is it not because thou wilt betray me?" "no," replied kark. "we were both born in the same night," said the earl, after a pause; "and our deaths will not be far apart." they sat for a long time in shuddering silence, each distrusting the other. from the stillness above they concluded that night was approaching; but neither dared to sleep. at last kark's weariness overpowered him; but he tossed and mumbled excitedly in his sleep. the earl waked him and asked him what he had been dreaming. "i dreamed," answered kark, "that we were both on board the same ship and that i stood at the helm." "that must mean that thou rulest over thine own life as well as mine. be therefore faithful to me, kark, as behooves thee, and i will reward thee when better days come." once more the thrall fell asleep and labored heavily, as in a nightmare. the earl woke him again and asked him to relate his dream. "i thought i was at hlade," said kark, "and olaf tryggvesson put a golden ring about my neck." "the meaning of that," cried the earl, "is that olaf tryggvesson will put a red ring [a] about thy neck, if thou goest to seek him. therefore, beware of him, kark, and be faithful to me. then thou wilt enjoy good things from me, as thou hast done before." [footnote a: the red ring means, of course, a ring of blood; _i.e._, olaf would cut kark's head off.] the night dragged slowly along and each sat staring at the other, with rigid, sleepy eyes, which yet dared not close. toward morning, however, the earl fell backward and sleep overwhelmed him. but the terrors of his vigil pursued him sleeping. his soul seemed to be tossed on a sea of anguish. he screamed in wild distress, rolled about, rose upon his knees and elbows, and his face was terrible to behold. then kark sprang up, seized his knife and thrust it into his master's throat. soon after he presented himself before olaf tryggvesson with the earl's head, claiming the reward. but olaf verified the murdered man's prophecy. he put not a ring of gold, but one of blood about the traitor's neck ( ). earl haakon was the last champion of paganism upon the throne of norway. he was a man of great natural endowment, fearless yet prudent, formidable in battle, and in his earlier years justly popular for his kindliness and liberality. it appears, however, as if the dignity and power which he conquered by his own ability intoxicated him and disturbed the fine equilibrium of his mind. morally, he was, barring the profligacy of his later days, a legitimate product of the old germanic paganism and the conditions of life which must of necessity prevail in a militant community. the shrewdness and faithlessness which we are apt to censure in the heroic types of this age, were, in reality, enforced by the hostile attitude of man to man and the resultant necessity for distrust and simulation. candor and veracity were virtues which, according to the old norse code, were only to be practised between friends, while mendacity and deceit were legitimate weapons against enemies. earl haakon was, however, even according to his code, culpable in not discriminating between friend and foe. he rose by faithlessness, and by faithlessness he fell. [illustration: oblong buckle. found at rosseland in lister and mandal's amt.] [illustration] chapter x. the youth of olaf tryggvesson. the story of olaf tryggvesson's youth, as related in the sagas, is so marvellous that it can scarcely claim absolute credibility. the wonder-loving tradition seized upon him from his very birth as its favorite hero, and adorned every incident of his career with a multitude of romantic details. to separate the framework of fact from the embellishments of fiction is, under such circumstances, no easy task. that olaf's career, even stripped of all fanciful additions, was as remarkable as any romance, there can be no question. we have seen how queen gunhild with untiring vigilance tracked him through forests and wildernesses while he was an infant, and how his mother aastrid finally found a place of refuge with haakon the old in sweden. her sense of security could scarcely have been increased when earl haakon succeeded the sons of gunhild; for the earl was not of royal blood, and must fear, no less than gunhild, a scion of the race of harold the fairhaired. aastrid therefore determined to go with her son to gardarike, or russia, where her brother, sigurd eriksson, held a position of authority under king vladimir. she took passage for herself, her son, and their attendants, upon a merchant-ship bound for a russian port, but the ship was captured by vikings, who killed some of the passengers and sold others as slaves. the young olaf, his foster-father thoralf lousy-beard, and the latter's son thorgills, became the property of a viking named klerkon, who killed thoralf because he was too old to command any price in the slave-markets. the two boys he bartered away in esthonia for a big ram. the purchaser again disposed of them for a coat and a cape to a man named reas, who treated olaf kindly, while he put thorgills to hard labor. with him olaf remained for six years. his mother, aastrid, in the meanwhile, had been found at a slave-market by a rich norse merchant named lodin, who had recognized her in spite of her miserable appearance, and offered to ransom her on condition of her becoming his wife. she had gladly given her consent and had returned with him to norway. one day olaf's uncle, sigurd eriksson, had occasion to visit the town in esthonia where his nephew was living. he was just riding across the market-place, when his attention was attracted to a group of boys who were playing. there was especially one of them whose appearance struck him, and he called to him and asked him his name. the boy said that his name was olaf. sigurd now discovered by further questioning that it was his nephew he was addressing. he made haste to buy him and his foster-brother thorgills, and took them with him to his house. he enjoined upon olaf to say nothing about his race and birth, and the boy promised to be silent. one day, however, when he was out walking, he caught sight of the viking klerkon who had slain his foster-father. without a moment's reflection, he went up and split his skull with an axe which he happened to have in his hand. now the penalty for breaking the public peace was death, and a crowd of people rushed together, demanding that the boy should be killed. his uncle, in order to save him, took him to the queen, olga, or allogia, told her who he was, and implored her protection. the queen became greatly interested in the beautiful boy, and had him educated, as behooved a king's son, in the use of arms and all athletic sports. at the age of twelve he received men and ships from vladimir, and spent some years roaming about as a viking. he is said to have done important service to his benefactor, reconquering a province which had rebelled; but the favor which he enjoyed raised him up enemies who slandered him, representing him as a dangerous rival of the king in the affections both of the queen and the people. olaf then, at the advice of olga, left russia with his men and ships and went to wendland,[a] where he was received with distinction by king burislav. he did not, however, reveal himself as an heir to the throne of norway, but travelled under the name ole the russian. burislav's eldest daughter, or, more probably, sister, geira, fell in love with him, and he married her, performed many valiant deeds in the service of his father-in-law, and finally, at the death of his wife, sailed once more in search of adventures. he was then twenty-one years old. a dream induced him to go to greece and accept christianity, and he is also said to have sent a bishop to russia who converted vladimir and olga to the christian faith. thence olaf went to northumberland, denmark, scotland, and france, and had adventures without number. at the age of twenty-five he found himself in england, and was summoned to appear before princess gyda, sister of the irish king, olaf kvaran. she had been the wife of an earl, but was yet a young and beautiful woman. a great many wooers were importuning her, among whom a certain alfvine, a great champion and man-slayer. a day had been fixed on which gyda had promised to choose a husband, and many high-born men had come together, hoping to be chosen. all were splendidly attired, and glittered in scarlet and gold. olaf, with a few companions, came sauntering up to the market-place, and stationed themselves somewhat apart from the rest as if merely to look on. he had pulled a fur hood and cape over his head and shoulders, and was otherwise plainly clad. gyda, after having somewhat listlessly regarded the ranks of her wooers, caught sight of the tall stranger with the fur hood. she approached him, lifted up his hood, and looked long and earnestly into his eyes. [footnote a: the present baltic provinces of prussia. the wends were a slavonic people, and not identical with the vandals, with whom they have often been confounded. the latter, according to the best authority, were of germanic origin.] "if thou wilt have me," she said, "then i choose thee for my husband." olaf replied that he was not unwilling to take her at her word; and their betrothal was forthwith published. alfvine in great wrath now challenged the norseman, fought, and was conquered. the wedding was then celebrated, and olaf spent several years in england and ireland. he became here more intimately acquainted with christianity, was baptized, and became a zealous defender of the faith. in greece, he had, according to the legend, only been _primsigned_--_i.e._, marked with the sign of the cross. this was regarded as a sort of compromise between the old faith and the new, and was supposed to secure a certain favor from christ the white, without entirely forfeiting the good-will of the old gods. the anglo-saxon annals contain repeated references to olaf tryggvesson, and name him as the chieftain of a great viking fleet, which, in the year , ravaged the coasts of essex, kent, sussex, and hampshire. he even landed with a considerable army, and put up his winter quarters in southampton, levying supplies from the neighboring country. the unhappy proposition was then made to king ethelred ii. to buy immunity from further depredations, and the sum of £ , was paid to olaf and by him apportioned among his men. sweyn forkbeard, the son of harold bluetooth, then exiled from his native land, is also named as one of the chieftains concerned in this expedition, though in the treaty of peace between king ethelred and the vikings, which is yet preserved, his name does not occur. at the confirmation of olaf, which took place with great pomp in the same year, king ethelred was present, and it is said that olaf solemnly vowed, on that occasion, that he would henceforth never more molest the inhabitants of england. this promise he appears to have kept. sweyn, however, tempted by the great sums of money which he had extorted, returned again and again, expelled ethelred for a time from his kingdom, and for many years was the virtual ruler of england. the fame of olaf tryggvesson's deeds spread far and wide, and also reached norway, where earl haakon anxiously listened to every rumor regarding him. that this daring young adventurer would, as soon as he felt himself strong enough, lay claim to his paternal kingdom, the earl could not doubt; and as his own popularity waned, he looked forward with increasing uneasiness to the conflict. he well knew the devotion of the people to the race of harold the fairhaired, and the thought took possession of him that his own safety demanded olaf tryggvesson's death. he confided his plan to his friend, thore klakka, and begged him to sail to dublin, where olaf was then staying, and either kill him, if the chance presented itself, or entice him over to norway where he could easily destroy him. thore klakka accepted this mission, met olaf in dublin, and readily gained his confidence. the young man was eager for information concerning his native land, and the earl's emissary lost no opportunity to urge him to sail thither, the sooner the better, and take possession of his inheritance. the earl, said thore klakka, was indeed powerful, but if the peasants heard that a descendant of harold the fairhaired was in the land, they would all forsake him and join the legitimate king. olaf was easily persuaded to believe these flattering assurances, and in the spring of the year sailed with five ships for norway. in accordance with thore klakka's treacherous advice, he went straight to the northwestern shires where earl haakon's power was the greatest, and landed on the island moster in hördaland. he raised his tent, planted the cross on the beach, and had the mass celebrated. being convinced of thore's disinterestedness, he also accepted his advice not to reveal who he was, but sail northward to tröndelag in order to attack the earl unawares and slay him. great must have been thore's surprise when, on landing at the mouth of the drontheim fjord, he found that he had truthfully represented the condition of the country. the peasants were united in open rebellion against his master, and olaf had only to make himself known in order to secure immediate allegiance. of his speech at rimul, and the ignominious death of the earl, we have already spoken. all the chieftains and peasants of tröndelag were now summoned to meet at the oere-_thing_, at the mouth of the river nid, and here olaf tryggvesson was formally proclaimed king of all norway. the trönders from this time forth reserved for themselves the right to proclaim the king in the name of the whole country, and even to this day the sovereigns of norway are crowned in drontheim. nevertheless, the king was required to travel from district to district and receive the allegiance of the people. this olaf now did, and was everywhere greeted with enthusiastic homage. [illustration: olaf tryggvesson's arrival in norway.] the above narrative exhibits several improbabilities, which, however, do not of necessity vitiate its essential truthfulness. of olaf's sojourn in russia there can be no doubt, although, to be sure, the vladimir who at that time reigned in novgorod had no wife named allogia or olga, and if it was his grandmother olga to whom reference is made, the king's jealousy seems altogether unreasonable. likewise olaf's visit to wendland and his marriage there are capable of proof from contemporary poems, while the deeds which are attributed to him in king burislav's service have a suspiciously legendary character. the adventure with gyda in england also conceals a framework of fact under its mythical embroidery. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xi. olaf tryggvesson ( - ). king olaf's first endeavor, after having ascended the throne, was to christianize the country. he was by nature well adapted for this task, being zealous in the faith, resolute, and uncompromising. where gentle means did not avail he had no hesitation in employing sword and fire. vehement as he was by temperament, brooking no argument, he wasted no time in weighing the probabilities of success or failure, but in the conviction of the sanctity of his cause stormed resistlessly onward and by his impetuosity and ardor, bore down all opposition. his first appearance as the champion of the new religion was in viken, where he called his relations and adherents together and told them, that it was his intention to convert the whole kingdom of norway to faith in christ the white, even though he were to lose his life in the attempt. in viken lived at that time his mother and his step-father, lodin, who had a large following of friends and relations. some of these were, no doubt, already christians, or had been _primsigned_, as christianity had, twenty-five years before, been preached for a short time in this part of the country by two germans. no particular opposition was therefore offered to the king's command, and within a brief period olaf had the satisfaction of seeing all of viken--the old kingdom of his father, tryggve--nominally, at least, converted to christianity. it is not to be inferred, however, that the converts, in accepting baptism, renounced their faith in the gods whom they had previously worshipped. on the contrary, they continued to believe in their existence, and perhaps even secretly to worship them. the christian priests themselves professed belief in odin and thor, but represented them as evil powers who had been conquered by christ and thrown into the outer darkness. as christ had now all power in heaven and earth, it was futile to invoke the favor of the vanquished gods by sacrifice. in this practical shape the new religion unquestionably appealed to many whom otherwise it could not have reached. the relation to the old gods had been in its essence a contract for protection and good crops, in return for certain tangible values sacrificed. as christianity was then preached, it was in many respects the same thing under a different name. prayers formerly addressed to odin or frey were now addressed to christ and the virgin mary, and though offerings of horses and bullocks were discontinued, the fragrant incense was still supposed to rise to the nostrils of the new god and propitiate his favor. the salient and essential difference between the old and the new faith, and the only one which the norsemen in the beginning vividly apprehended, was the great doctrine of peace upon earth and good-will among men. while odin and thor took pleasure in bloodshed and rejoiced in war, christ the white loved peace and accorded no merit to the man-slayer. [illustration: old norse loom. from fane near bergen.] that this doctrine, though it was slow to affect the lives of the new converts, nevertheless from generation to generation wrought a change in the moral consciousness of the norsemen, can scarcely be questioned. the old asa faith was inconsistent with any kind of civilization, because it meant, in the end, universal destruction. as long as killing was _per se_ meritorious and secured the favor of the gods and honor among men, no trade but that of arms could flourish, and every peaceful industry became impossible. in iceland, where the spirit of the old germanic paganism survived, even long after the introduction of christianity, internecine feuds of the most atrocious character prevailed for centuries, resulting in a gradual decadence, followed by stagnation and decay. the result in norway, as the subsequent narrative will show, was scarcely better. a universal exhaustion followed the long carnival of bloodshed, and a heavy lethargy, lasting for four hundred years, settled upon the people. it would be vain to pretend that olaf tryggvesson, when he undertook the task of destroying the asa faith, had any conception of the superior sociological value of the new faith over the old. not even the conception of one god, instead of many, seems to have been emphasized in the preaching of those days. on the contrary, the christian religion was adapted, as far as possible, to the pre-existing polytheistic notions, and a new hierarchy, consisting of the trinity, the virgin mary, and a host of saints, was exalted as objects of worship instead of the old gods. if the character of the religious teaching is to be inferred from the character of the teachers, it is safe to conclude that the early germanic christianity was ethically not far removed from the religion which it came to supplant. thus we hear much in the saga of olaf tryggvesson of a priest named thangbrand, whose violence, pugnacity, and readiness to kill must have made him an odd exponent of the gospel of peace. thangbrand was a saxon, and had been sent north with many other missionaries to assist in converting the danes. bishop siric, of canterbury, presented him during a visit with a curiously wrought shield, upon which was the image of the crucified christ. shortly after this occurrence, thangbrand made the acquaintance of olaf tryggvesson, who admired the shield greatly and desired to buy it. the priest received a munificent compensation, and finding himself suddenly rich, went and bought a beautiful irish girl, whose charms had beguiled him. a german warrior who saw the girl claimed her, and when his demand was scornfully refused challenged the priest. a duel was fought and the german was killed. some ill feeling was aroused against thangbrand by this incident, and he fled to his friend, olaf tryggvesson, and became his court chaplain. as such he was under the authority of bishop sigurd, an anglo-saxon, probably of norse descent, whom olaf had brought with him from england. bishop sigurd was a man of grave and gentle spirit and a striking contrast to the ferocious court chaplain. the christianization of viken was followed by that of agder. any decided opposition the king did not meet until he came to south hördaland, where a number of mighty chieftains had gathered in the hope of intimidating him. his fearless and resolute behavior, however, impressed them so much that, after some negotiations, they accepted the faith and were baptized. in return for this concession, they demanded of the king that he should give his sister aastrid in marriage to the young and high-born chief, erling skjalgsson of sole; and as the king thought this marriage in every way desirable, he gave his consent. encouraged by his success, olaf hastened on to tröndelag, where was the old and magnificent temple of hlade, the principal sanctuary of norse paganism. impelled by holy zeal, and heedless of the consequences, he broke down the altar of the gods, burned their images, and carried off their treasures. the trönders promptly responded to this challenge by sending the war-arrow [a] from house to house, and preparing to fight with the king. olaf, who had but a small force with him, did not venture to offer them battle; but sailed northward to haalogaland, where another armed band, under the command of thore hjort and haarek of thjotta, stood ready to receive him. as discretion was here the better part of valor, the king was in no haste to land, but returned to tröndelag, where the peasants in the meanwhile had dispersed, and began to build a church in the place where the old temple had stood. he meant to show the trönders that he was neither discouraged nor frightened, that neither threats nor arms could induce him to desist from his undertaking. with the desire to strengthen his power here, where it most needed strengthening, he began also the building of a royal residence, and laid the foundation of the future city of nidaros or drontheim ( ). [footnote a: the war-arrow (_hærör_) was carried by every man to his next neighbor and stuck into his door, as a sign that war was at hand. to send or to cut the war-arrow is, therefore, to send a war message.] at the beginning of the winter he again summoned the peasants to meet him at the _frostathing_, and they again responded by an armed concourse, much greater than the preceding one. when the assembly was called to order, the king rose and eloquently expounded the new faith, repeating his demand that the trönders should accept baptism and cease to sacrifice. but he had not spoken long when the peasants began to interrupt him by angry shouts, threatening to attack him and chase him out of the country, unless he was silent. one of them, a chieftain named skegge aasbjörnsson or ironbeard (jernskjegge) was especially active in denouncing the king and exciting the people against him. olaf came to the conclusion that nothing was to be accomplished here by persuasion, and he resolved reluctantly to postpone his propaganda until a more propitious time. he then began to talk in a more conciliatory spirit; promised the peasants to be present at their sacrificial feast at yule-tide, and discuss further with them the change of faith. this promise was received with great satisfaction, and the assembly peacefully dispersed. shortly before the time appointed for the sacrifice, olaf invited the chieftains and the most powerful peasants from all the neighboring shires, to meet him at a feast at hlade. he placed thirty well-manned ships out in the fjord, where he could summon them in case of need. the guests were royally entertained, and as the night advanced became very drunk. in the morning the king ordered his priests to celebrate the mass, and a crowd of armed men arrived from the ships to attend the religious service. the guests, who were scarcely in a condition to profit by the worship, observed with growing uneasiness the size of the congregation. when the service was at an end, the king rose and addressed them as follows: "when we held _thing_ the last time, at frosten, i demanded of the peasants that they should accept baptism; and they, on the other hand, demanded of me that i should sacrifice with them, as haakon, ethelstan's foster-son, had done. i made no objection to this, but promised to be present at the sacrificial feast at möre. however, if i am to sacrifice with you, then i am minded to make a sacrifice of the biggest kind that has ever been made. i will not take thralls and criminals; but i will sacrifice the most high-born men and the mightiest peasants." he then named six of the most powerful chieftains present, who had been his most active opponents, and declared that he meant to offer them up to odin and frey for good crops. before they had time to recover from their astonishment, they were seized, and presented with the alternative of being baptized, or sacrificed to their own gods. they did not meditate long before choosing the former. when the ceremony was finished, they begged to be allowed to depart, but the king declared that he would detain them, until they had sent him their sons or brothers as hostages. at the yule-tide sacrifice at möre, the king arrived with a large number of followers. the peasants, too, came in full force, armed to the teeth, and defiant as ever. conspicuous among them was the burly form of ironbeard, who was everywhere active and seemed the head and front of the opposition. the king endeavored to speak, but the noise was so great that nobody could hear him. after a while, however, the tumult subsided, and he repeated his former demand, that all present should accept baptism, and believe in christ the white; to which ironbeard haughtily responded, that the peasants were here to prevent the king from breaking the law, that sacrificing to the gods was in accordance with the law, and that olaf, whether he would or not, would have to sacrifice, as his predecessors had done. the king listened patiently to this speech; and declared himself ready to keep his promise. accompanied by many men he entered the temple, leaving his arms without; for no one was allowed to enter the sanctuary, bearing arms. the king carried, however, in his hand a stout stick with a gold head. he inspected the images of the gods carefully; lingering especially before that of thor, which was adorned with rings of gold and silver. suddenly, while all were looking at him, he raised his stick and gave the god a blow, so that he fell from his pedestal and broke into many pieces. at the very same instant his men struck down the other idols; and ironbeard who was outside was slain. it was all evidently pre-arranged; and the peasants, who stood aghast at the magnitude of the sacrilege, scarcely knew whither to turn or how to resent it. they looked to ironbeard to give voice to their outraged feeling, but ironbeard was dead; and there was no one among the rest who had any desire to speak. when the king, therefore, for the third time, repeated his demand that they be baptized, or fight with him on the spot, they chose the former alternative. after having given hostages for their perseverance in the faith, and their abandonment of heathen practices, they made haste to return to their homes. for the slaying of ironbeard, olaf offered to pay a large "atonement" to his relatives, and to marry his daughter gudrun. on the wedding-night, however, gudrun attempted to murder him, and was returned to her kinsmen. he can scarcely have regretted her much, as he immediately prepared for a new matrimonial venture. this time his attention was directed to sigrid the haughty, the widow of king erik the victorious of sweden. sigrid was rich and wielded a large influence, being the mother of king olaf the swede, and the possessor of great landed estates in gautland. she was, therefore, much afflicted with wooers, who came from many countries to share her heart and her possessions. one descendant of harold the fairhaired, harold grönske (the greenlander), she had burned up, in order to punish his presumption in offering himself to her. "i'll teach little kings the risks of proposing to me," she said, as she ordered the hall where her wooers slept to be fired. olaf tryggvesson's overtures, which were conducted by negotiations, she received favorably, and agreed to meet him at konghelle, near the boundary line between norway and sweden. olaf sent in advance, as a present, a large gold ring which he had taken from the door of the temple at hlade. it was admired, but on being tested was found to be filled with copper. this incensed sigrid, but she still concluded to keep her appointment with olaf. they accordingly met and discussed the terms of the marriage. olaf demanded, as an indispensable condition, that sigrid should be baptized, to which sigrid strenuously objected. then the king sprang up in great wrath and struck her with his glove in the face, crying: "what do i want with thee, thou old heathen jade?" she arose, speechless with anger, but when she had reached the door she turned back, saying: "that shall be thy death." [illustration: runic stone from gran in hadeland. the inscription reads in translation: "gunvor, daughter of thirik, made a bridge in memory of aastrid, her daughter. she was the fairest maiden in hadeland." prof. bugge reads: "the most skillful maiden with her hands."] a short time after this meeting, sigrid married sweyn forkbeard, of denmark, possibly with a view to accomplishing her vengeance upon olaf. sweyn's sister thyra, whom he had married against her will to the wendic king burislav, fled immediately after the wedding and arrived in norway, imploring olaf's protection. it is possible that he had met her before, and was well disposed toward her. at all events, he solved the problem by marrying her ( ), although she was fully as old as sigrid the haughty, and had had two husbands before. after this brief interval, devoted to personal affairs, olaf returned once more to the task to which he had consecrated his life. the chieftains of haalogaland, who had prevented him from landing when he came to convert them, still remained unsubdued; and the time was now convenient for teaching them a lesson in submission. there were especially three, viz.: thore hjort, eyvind kinriva, and haarek of thjotta, the son of eyvind scald-spoiler, who were the chieftains and leaders of the tribal aristocracy of those regions. it was natural enough that these men, who derived much of their dignity from their priesthoods and consequent identification with the old religion, should be most tenacious in their adherence to the faith which was the foundation of their power. haarek, who descended from a daughter of harold the fairhaired, felt himself to be quite as great a man as king olaf, and he was in no wise disposed to submit without a trial of strength. it so happened that two men from haalogaland, named sigurd and hauk, had been captured by the king and escaped. these, pretending to be the king's enemies, sought refuge with haarek, and were well received by him. one day they proposed a sailing tour, to which their host willingly assented. they took provisions and beer with them in the boat, set sail, and steered for nidaros, where they delivered haarek into the power of the king. he stubbornly refused to be baptized, but was, nevertheless, after a brief detention, given a ship and permitted to return unmolested to his home. from that day, however, haarek, though making no pretence of friendship, acted as the ally of the king. he even helped to betray his friend, eyvind kinriva, into olaf's hands. the king presented eyvind with the usual alternative of baptism or death, but with the unusual result that the latter was preferred. thore hjort was now alone left; he allied himself with raud the strong, who had the reputation of being a wizard, and delivered a regular battle in which he was defeated by the king. raud escaped on his fleet dragon-ship, while thore was pursued by olaf, who set a dog named vige on his track, saying: [illustration: instrument of unknown use, possibly a pair of scales, found in silgjord, bratsberg amt.] "vige, catch thou the stag."[a] [footnote a: hjort means a stag.] the dog did actually overtake thore, and the king cut him down with his own hands. olaf strove in vain to get on the track of raud, but the weather was so terrible that he did not venture to go to sea. he began to suspect, after a while, that it was raud himself who, by his witchcraft, had aroused the elements; and after having waited for several days and nights for a change in the weather, he called bishop sigurd to him and asked his advice. the bishop, it is told, raised up a crucifix, surrounded by lighted tapers, in the prow of the king's ship, "the crane," and stood himself beside it, clad in sacerdotal vestments, praying and scattering holy water. instantly the storm ceased about "the crane," though it still roared wildly under the heavens, and the smoke of the lashed waves stood like a wall on either side. the men now seized the oars and rowed in toward the island where raud was living, "the crane" keeping the lead and the other ships following in the smooth water in her wake. raud was surprised while asleep, and as he still refused to become a christian, was tortured until he died. the king forced an adder down his throat, according to the legend; and it cut its way through his side, killing him by its poison. there is much in this story which is obviously legendary. but there is one circumstance which stamps the adventure itself as essentially true, viz.: the detailed description of raud's ship, "the serpent," which the king took, and which figures later in the battle of svolder. one may be reluctant to believe that a man so chivalrous and noble as olaf tryggvesson on other occasions proved himself to be, can have been guilty of the cruelty which is here attributed to him. this instance is, however, not a solitary one. eyvind kinriva, when he refused to be baptized, had glowing coals put upon his stomach, at the king's command, and expired under horrible tortures. olaf's fanaticism led him to believe that praise rather than censure was due to him for thus punishing the enemies of god. it is, indeed, probable that a man of gentler calibre, and more squeamish in the selection of his means, would never have accomplished even the nominal christianization of norway. in fact, so great was olaf's zeal, and so single his purpose, that he subordinated all other concerns to this one great object, the thought of which filled him with a noble enthusiasm. even before he had secured the allegiance of the surviving chief of haalogaland, haarek of thjotta, who, with all his household, accepted the christian faith, he sent messengers to the faeroe isles, iceland, and greenland, and commanded the chieftains there to renounce their old religion. sigmund bresteson, the earl of the faeroe isles, whom he summoned to him, arrived in norway ( ) and was baptized. thangbrand, who was sent to iceland to preach the gospel, had at first a considerable success, baptizing such important chiefs as hall of the side, and gissur the white, and the great lawyer njaal of bergthor's knoll. the pugnacious priest, however, soon got into difficulties by his readiness to draw his sword, killed several men, was outlawed, and compelled to leave the island. in norway, where olaf had given him the church at moster, he had, previous to his departure for iceland, found it inconvenient to live on his income, and in order to increase his revenue, had been in the habit of making forays into the neighboring shires, replenishing his stores at the expense of the heathen. this freebooting propensity incensed the king, and thangbrand's missionary expedition to iceland was undertaken as a penance for his misbehavior. it had, however, far greater results than either olaf or the priest could have anticipated. the public sentiment in iceland, after thangbrand's flight, changed with astonishing rapidity in favor of the new faith, which was legally accepted at the _althing_ june, a.d. . [illustration: old loom from the faeroe isles.] olaf's great achievement, as the first successful propagandist of christianity on the throne of norway, surrounded his name with a halo which dazzled his biographers and disposed them to exalt him beyond his deserts. for all that, it is a fact that his contemporaries, many of whom had small reason to love him, were no less dazzled by his brilliant personality than his biographers. in the first place, his manly beauty and his resemblance to haakon the good, which was frequently commented upon, predisposed the people in his favor. secondly, his natural kindliness and winning manners attracted every one who came in contact with him. last, but not least, his extraordinary skill in athletic sports and the use of arms was greatly admired. he could, as snorre relates, use his right and his left hand equally well in shooting; he could play with three spears at once, so that one was always in the air; he could run forward and backward on the oars of a ship while the men were rowing. in daily intercourse he was affable and generous, fond of a joke, and easily moved to laughter and to wrath. in anger he could do things which he later regretted; and we have seen how, when fired with holy zeal, he committed acts which he ought to have regretted, though there is no evidence that he did. his love of splendor in attire and surroundings may be accounted a weakness, but it served, nevertheless, to endear him to his people. although surrounded by enemies on all sides, norway suffered but little from foreign wars during the brief reign of olaf tryggvesson. gudröd, the last surviving son of erik blood-axe, made an attack upon viken in the summer of , but was defeated and slain in the king's absence by his brothers-in-law, thorgeir and hyrning. much more dangerous to king olaf proved the hostility of sigrid the haughty, who was watching for an opportunity to take revenge upon him. although he must have been well aware of the risks, he did not hesitate to furnish this opportunity. his queen, thyra, had great estates in wendland and denmark, and was dissatisfied, because she was deprived of the revenues which they had formerly brought her. whenever he spoke to her, she always contrived to bring in something about these estates, and by appeals to his vanity egg him on to war with her brother sweyn forkbeard, who withheld from her her rightful property. when these tactics failed, she resorted to prayers and tears, until her husband's patience was wellnigh exhausted. if only for the sake of domestic peace, an expedition to wendland began to be discussed as an approaching possibility. one sunday in march--it was palm sunday--the king met a man in the street who sold spring vegetables. he bought a bunch and brought it to the queen, remarking that these vegetables were large, considering the earliness of the season. the queen, who was, as usual, weeping for her estates in wendland, thrust the vegetables contemptuously away, and with the tears streaming down her face, cried: "greater gifts did my father, harold gormsson, give me when, as a child, i got my first teeth; he came hither to norway and conquered it; while thou, for fear of my brother sweyn, darest not journey through denmark in order to get me what belongs to me, and of which i have been shamefully robbed." to this king olaf wrathfully replied: "never shall i be afraid of thy brother sweyn, and if we meet, he shall succumb." summons was now sent through all the shires of the land, calling upon the chieftains to join the king with as many ships as were by law required of them. he had himself just finished a ship of extraordinary size and beauty, called "the long-serpent," the fame of which spread through all the lands of the north. it was norwegian ells, or about feet from prow to stern, had oars on either side, and could accommodate warriors. the crew was made up of picked men, none of whom must be over and less than years of age. only one exception was permitted to this rule in the case of einar eindridsson surnamed thambarskelver, who was but years old, but the most skilful archer in all norway. with his bow, called thamb, from which he derived his surname, he could shoot a blunt arrow through a raw ox-hide, depending from a pole. in order to distinguish "the long-serpent" from the dragon-ship he had taken from raud the strong, olaf called the latter "the short-serpent." he had many other excellent ships besides, and his brothers-in-law, erling skjalgsson of sole, thorgeir, and hyrning, joined him, each with a large and finely-equipped galley. when he steered southward to wendland, he had about ships of war besides a similar number of smaller transports. king burislav, in spite of his union with thyra, received him well, possibly on account of the earlier relationship through geira, or on account of their common hostility to sweyn forkbeard in denmark. the question of the estates was amicably settled and olaf, after having been splendidly entertained, prepared to start homeward. the rumor, in the meanwhile, had gone abroad that he was in wendland, and his enemies, in order to gather a sufficiently large force to destroy him, employed earl sigvalde, the chief of the jomsvikings, to detain him and lull him into a false security. in this the treacherous earl succeeded. he gained olaf's confidence, scouted the thought that sweyn forkbeard should ever dare attack him; and finally offered to escort him on the way with his own fleet and pilot him through the dangerous waters along the wendic coast. it was of no avail that sigvalde's wife, aastrid, the night before olaf's departure, warned him against her husband as openly as she dared, and proposed to send a ship along in case of danger. a strange infatuation bound him to his false friend. at sigvalde's advice he even permitted part of his fleet to start in advance, as the straits between the islands were narrow. the traitor, in the meanwhile, was in constant communication with king sweyn, at whose request he agreed to separate olaf from his main force and lead him into the trap which his foes had prepared for him. besides king sweyn there were earl erik, who had the death of his father, earl haakon, to avenge, and king olaf the swede, the son of sigrid the haughty. all these were lying in wait with about sixty or seventy war galleys, behind the little island of svolder, between the island rügen and the present prussian province, pomerania. from their hiding-place they looked for several days in vain for the norse ships, and began to grow impatient. they had gone ashore with their crews in order to while away the time, and the three commanders were standing together, sweeping the horizon with their glances, when, to their delight, the norse transport fleet hove in sight, spreading its sails before the favoring breeze. the day was fair. the sun shone brightly, and the surface of the water barely curled into slight undulations. gayly the proud ships stood out to the sea, one larger and finer than the other. when king sweyn saw the beautiful ship of erling skjalgsson of sole, he was sure that it must be "the long serpent," though it had no dragon-head in its prow. "afraid is olaf tryggvesson to-day," he said, "since he dares not carry a head on his dragon." "this ship i know well by its striped sails," said earl erik; "it does not belong to the king, but to erling skjalgsson. let it pass; for if, as i suppose, he is himself on board, we shall be best served, if he and his band are not found among those with whom we are to fight to-day." by twos and threes the great ships of the norse chieftains passed by, and every time the swedish and the danish king were sure that one of them must be "the long serpent." presently sigvalde's fleet of eleven ships became visible, and having received signals from the allied princes, turned its course suddenly around the island, to the great astonishment of thorkill dyrdill, who was steering the king's ship, "the crane," right in its wake. king sweyn, at the sight of this splendid galley, could no more be restrained, but ordered his men aboard, in spite of earl erik's warning. he even insinuated that the latter was a coward who had no ambition to avenge his father; to which the earl replied, that before the setting of the sun it would be seen who was the more eager for battle, the swedes and danes, or he and his men. thorkill dyrdill dropped the sails of "the crane," and, taking in the situation at a glance, determined to await the arrival of king olaf. then came "the short serpent," casting golden gleams across the water from its shining dragon-head; and king sweyn cried exultingly: "loftily shall the serpent bear me to-night, and i shall steer her." earl erik, in whom king sweyn's recent taunt was rankling, replied: "even if olaf tryggvesson had no larger ship than this, sweyn, with all his army of danes, could not win it from him." when at last "the long serpent" reared its flaming prow against the horizon, shooting long beams in the sun, the three princes marvelled at its beauty. many a one trembled, too, with fear, when he saw the majestic ship approaching, and the dense rows of polished shields and swords flashing from afar. "this glorious ship," said earl erik, "is fitting for such a king as olaf tryggvesson; for it may, in sooth, be said of him, that he is distinguished above all other kings as 'the long serpent' above all other ships." all king olaf's fleet, with the exception of eleven ships, were now out of sight, and many of his chieftains advised him not to fight against such heavy odds. he would not listen to their counsel, but ordered the ships to be bound together and every thing to be prepared for battle. "down with the sails," he cried with a loud voice, which could be clearly heard across the waters; "never have i yet fled from any battle. god rules over my life. never will i flee; for he is no king who shuns his foes because of fear." the whole hostile fleet now rowed forward from behind the island, and it seemed as if the sea was covered with ships as far as the eye could reach. king sweyn, with his sixty galleys, became first visible. "what chieftain is that right opposite to us?" asked king olaf. "that is king sweyn with the danish army," answered one of his men. "i have no fear of them," said the king. "never yet have danes beaten norsemen, and they will not beat us to-day. but to what chieftain belong the standards there on the right?" he was told that they belonged to olaf, the king of the swedes. "the swedes," said he, "would find it more agreeable to sit at home and lick their sacrificial bowls,[a] than to meet our arms to-day on 'the long serpent.' scarcely do i think that we need be afraid of those horse-eaters. but whose are those large ships on the left side of the danes?" [footnote a: this is meant as a taunt at the swedes, who were yet heathen.] "that," answered his informant, "is earl erik, earl haakon's son." [illustration: the church at moster island (mosterÖ), supposed to have been built by olaf tryggvesson.] "from them we may expect a hard battle; for, methinks, earl erik has considerable reason for attacking us; and he and his men are norsemen like ourselves," while the king was speaking, queen thyra, who had accompanied him, came up on deck. seeing the enormous hostile fleet before her, and the smallness of her husband's force, she burst into tears. "now thou must not weep," said king olaf; "for now thou hast, indeed, gotten what was due to thee in wendland; and to-day i mean to demand of thy brother sweyn thy tooth-gift which thou hast so often asked me for." king sweyn was the first to attack, but after a short and stubborn fight was compelled to retreat. one of his galleys was disabled after the other, and there was a great carnage. king olaf himself stood on the poop royal [a] of "the long serpent," where all could see him, directing the defence, and himself fighting with spears and arrows. his helmet and his shield, which were gilt, shone in the sun. over his armor he wore a short tunic of scarlet silk. while the danes were in full retreat, the swedes hastened to their rescue, and they now bore for a while the brunt of the battle. for every swede or dane that fell there were ten ready to take his place; while the norsemen, surrounded on all sides by hostile ships, had to endure an incessant shower of spears and arrows, and the shock of repeated onsets that had to be repelled by the sword in hand-to-hand conflicts. however tired and thirsty they were, they could give themselves no respite. every man that fell or was disabled by wounds left a gap that could not be filled. and yet, in spite of the great numerical superiority of their foes, they would have carried the day at svolder, if earl erik had not commenced a destructive attack upon the right wing, while the swedes and the danes were engaging the centre. in fact, the latter were again retreating in disorder before the furious bravery of king olaf's men, when earl erik rowed up alongside the outermost ship on the right, with his great galley, "the iron ram," and made a vigorous onslaught. here norseman met norseman, and the numbers had to decide. the men on the king's ship fought desperately, but were overpowered, and leaped into the sea, or saved themselves on board the next ship. the first was then cut adrift, and erik, in accordance with a well-matured plan, engaged the next and the next. at last all of king olaf's ships except "the long serpent" were cut adrift, and their defenders slain. then a space was cleared in front of "the iron ram," and she was rowed forward with tremendous force, striking "the long serpent" amidships. the good ship creaked in all her beams; but as there was scarcely any wind no great damage was done. einar thambarskelver, who stood before the mast on "the long serpent," saw earl erik standing near the prow of "the iron ram," covered by many shields. he bent his bow and sent an arrow whizzing over his head, and in the next instant another, which flew between the earl's arm and his body. the earl, turning to the archer, finn eyvindsson, said: "shoot that tall man on the forward deck." [footnote a: _löftingen_ is the elevated deck in the stern of an old war-galley, and corresponds very nearly to the poop royal of french and spanish men-of-war of the thirteenth century.] finn aimed an arrow at einar just as he was bending his bow for a third shot at the earl; the arrow hit the bow in the middle, and it broke with a loud crash. "what was it that broke?" asked olaf. "norway from thy hands, my king," cried einar. "so great was not the breach, i hope," the king made answer; "take my bow and shoot with that." he flung his own bow to the archer, who seized it, bent it double, and flung it back. "too weak is the king's bow," he said. earl erik was now preparing for the final attack, and he could not doubt its result. king olaf's men were in a desperate strait, from which no escape was possible. the king flung forth his spears, two at a time, from his station on the poop, and many men were transfixed by his keen shafts. he watched at the same time the combat on the forward deck, whither the earl was just directing his attack, and it seemed to him that his men made no headway. "do you wield your swords with so little strength," he cried, "since they bite so poorly?" "no," answered a warrior; "but our swords are dull and broken." the king then hastened to the forward deck, where there was a large chest of arms. he opened it and took out armfuls of bright, sharp swords, which he flung to his men. as he stooped down, the blood trickled down over his hands from under his armor. his men then knew that he was wounded, but it was no time then for nursing any one's wounds. the earl's men were storming forward, and the tired norsemen fell in heaps, and could no longer keep them back. the arrows rained thick and fast about the king, and it was obvious he could not hold out much longer. he was visible to all; for he made no attempt to hide or shelter himself. one of his trusted men, kolbjörn stallare, who saw his danger, sprang upon the poop and placed himself at his side. his resemblance to the king had often been remarked upon; moreover, he was of the same height, and was similarly dressed. the storm of missiles was now directed against both, and, as they raised their shields, they were thickly fringed with arrows. the clash of arms, the groans of the dying, and the whizzing of flying missiles, filled the air. the king let his shield drop and looked out over the ship. there were but eight men alive, besides himself and kolbjörn. he raised the shield above his head and leaped overboard. kolbjörn followed his example, but was picked up by the earl's men, who mistook him for the king. that the latter was drowned, there can be no reasonable doubt, although there is a legend, which was fondly cherished, that he swam to the galley which aastrid, earl sigvalde's wife, had sent out for his rescue. according to this story, he made a pilgrimage to rome, and lived long as a hermit in the holy land. king olaf tryggvesson was thirty-six years old when he died ( ). queen thyra, who, with good reason, held herself responsible for his death, was inconsolable. when she came up on deck, after the battle, and saw the destruction she had wrought she broke into lamentation. earl erik was moved by her sorrow and spoke kindly to her, assuring her that if she would return to norway she would be accorded the honor which was due to her as the widow of so great a king. she thanked him for his offer, but said that she had no heart to survive her lord. on the ninth day after the battle she died. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xii. the earls erik and sweyn haakonsson ( - ). the discovery of vinland. after king olaf's death at svolder, the allied princes divided his kingdom between them. to earl erik were given all the shires along the western coast from finmark to lindesness,[a] with the exception of seven, which were allotted to king olaf the swede. all the shires from lindesness, including agder, to the swedish boundary, with the exception of ranrike, came into the possession of sweyn forkbeard. ranrike (which is now a part of sweden) was given to the swedish king, who again gave it, as well as his other possessions in norway, in fief to his brother-in-law, earl sweyn, the brother of earl erik, on condition of his paying one half of the royal revenues to his feudal overlord, and placing a specified number of troops at his disposal in case of war. on similar conditions earl erik received the eastern shires, raumarike and vingulmark, in fief from sweyn forkbeard. [footnote a: lindesness is the southernmost point in norway.] though a man of ability and many noble qualities, earl erik never succeeded in asserting his sway over norway as his father, earl haakon, had done; and earl sweyn could boast even less authority than his brother. in the oplands semi-independent kings of the race of harold the fairhaired were still living; and in rogaland olaf tryggvesson's brother-in-law, erling skjalgsson of sole, refused to recognize the supremacy of either the earls or the kings whom they represented. he surrounded himself with a court which, in magnificence, equalled that of the earls, if it did not surpass it. ninety warriors constituted his daily household, and when occasion demanded he kept or more. of thralls he kept thirty for his daily attendance, besides a large number who cultivated his lands. he was a good master, stimulating them to thrift and economy. he demanded of each a certain fixed amount of labor, and gave him a piece of land for cultivation. when the required task was over the thrall's time was his own, and he was at liberty to apply it for his own advantage. the products of his land he sold to his master at the market rates, and was thus enabled to buy his freedom within one, two, or three years. over his freedmen erling continued to exercise a supervising care, employing them at wages or on shares in the fisheries, in the reclaiming of land from the forests, or in other branches of industry. clinging, as he did, tenaciously to the authority which olaf tryggvesson had conferred upon him, erling could not avoid coming into collision with the authority of the earls. he exacted a land-tax from the peasants of rogaland, and, as earl erik did the same, the poor landowners had to pay a double tax, unless they were prepared to offer resistance. [illustration: shuttles of iron and of whalebone; and weights for the loom.] but both the earl and erling were too powerful to make such a course advisable. it is, indeed, strange that erik, with his great connections abroad, should have tolerated the defiance of this small potentate without in some way trying to break his power. it is true, erling had a large number of mighty kinsmen and supporters in many of the coast-shires; and he would have been able to make a strong resistance. but it is scarcely credible that he could have maintained himself against earl erik, if the latter had seriously resolved to punish him. in fact, earl erik, although his early life had been passed in the tumult of war, was essentially a conciliatory character. a mighty warrior he was when duty or diplomatic necessity forced him to fight; but he hesitated to draw his sword, except on extreme provocation. it was his misfortune, by his birth and the circumstances which brought him into power, to represent an age and a régime which were destined to pass away. it was the so-called "heroic" age--that is, the age of turbulent individualism, opposed to the modern conception of the state. it is obvious that erik had no sympathy with the feudalism instituted by the conquests of harold the fairhaired; probably he did not comprehend the progressive idea which dignified king harold's ambition and made him the conscious or unconscious agent of advancing civilization. it is proof enough of this to state, that erik allowed the dependencies of norway, the orkneys, and the shetland isles to detach themselves from the motherland, and made no attempt to force them back to their allegiance. there was no inspiring tradition in his family, as in that of harold the fairhaired, demanding a great and united kingdom; but, on the contrary, a local separatistic tradition, identifying him with the greatness and fame of a special locality. to have carried out this tradition completely, the earls erik and sweyn ought to have remained pagans as their father was before them. they seem, indeed, to have been conscious of a certain inconsistency in accepting christianity, for they made not the faintest attempt to assert their faith in their relation to the people, or to check the relapse into paganism, which became very prevalent during their reign. quite in keeping with the general reactionary character of the earls' government, was the revival of the viking cruises which, during the reign of olaf tryggvesson, had been diminishing in frequency. earl erik himself had been a valiant viking in his youth, and probably could see no harm in the careless and predatory life in which the old germanic paganism found its most characteristic expression. a great impetus must have been given to this mode of life by sweyn forkbeard's repeated expeditions to england, in which a large number of norsemen participated. it makes little difference if the aggressors were nominally christians; their actions were an outburst of the old, tribal pagan spirit, which respected no right but that of might. it was natural that the earls, if they expected to make their dominion permanent, should endeavor to extend their connections beyond tröndelag. the strength of a government in those days depended largely upon the support which it received among the chieftains or tribal aristocracy, whose sentiments were usually reflected by the peasants. it was therefore necessary in some way to conciliate the late adherents of olaf tryggvesson, whose influence upon public opinion could be utilized to advantage. it may have been some such consideration which restrained earl erik from attacking erling skjalgsson. it is obvious that the overtures which he made to einar thambarskelver had the same end in view. we have seen how the young archer came within an inch of ending the earl's days at svolder, thereby exciting the admiration of erik for his skill and bravery. after the battle, the earl, with his usual generosity, spared his life, and sought in many ways to secure his friendship. he married him to his sister, the high-minded bergljot, and gave him large fiefs, so that no chieftain in tröndelag could rival him in power. toward his brother, sweyn, earl erik behaved with the same magnanimity that he showed toward all who had claims on him. sweyn was dissatisfied because of the disparity in their positions; he ruling over one third of the country as the vassal of the swedish king, while erik held two thirds as an independent sovereign. these complaints were repeated with growing importunity, until erik resolved to abandon the government. he called together the chieftains and the mightiest peasants of the country, and abdicated ( ) in favor of his son haakon and his brother sweyn, between whom he divided his share of the land in equal portions. as haakon was not yet of full age, einar thambarskelver was appointed his guardian. in the autumn of the year , earl erik set sail for england, and assisted knut the mighty in the subjugation of that country. he was joined later by his son haakon, who was expelled from norway by olaf haroldsson, and was compelled to swear that he would never renew his claims to the kingdom. earl erik died in england, from the effect of a surgical operation, in or . before their expulsion, the earls sweyn and haakon made peace with erling skjalgsson, confirming him in the possession of the fiefs which he had received from olaf tryggvesson, embracing all the coast-shires from the sogne-fiord to lindesness. to cement their friendship, earl sweyn gave his daughter, sigrid,[a] in marriage to erling's son, aslak. [footnote a: her name is differently given as sigrid and gunhild.] it was during the reign of the earls that the north american continent was first visited by the norsemen. an icelander named bjarne herjulfsson, during a voyage to greenland ( ), was blown out of his course, and discovered, while sailing northward, an unknown land on his left. he concluded that it could not be greenland, as there were no glaciers, but only low, wooded heights sloping gently toward the ocean. on his arrival in greenland, bjarne told of the new country he had seen, but was much ridiculed because he had not gone ashore and explored it. his story made a great impression, however, upon the adventurous leif, son of erik the red. he bought bjarne's ship, and, with a crew of thirty-five men, set sail for the unknown shore in the west ( ). the first land he saw was on his right as he sailed southward. it was full of glaciers and had no grass. he called it helluland, because it seemed, at the foot of the glaciers, to be one flat expanse.[a] this must have been the present labrador. continuing his southward course, leif came to a country which was well wooded, and had long, smooth beaches. he called it markland (woodland), and the supposition is that it was nova scotia. with a stiff northeaster, he made considerable headway, and came, after another day's voyage, to an island where a river flowed into the sea. as it was ebb-tide he could not land, but so eager were the men to explore the country, that they jumped overboard and waded ashore. the statement that the sun rose in this region, on the shortest day of the year, at half-past seven and set at half-past four, indicates a latitude of ° ' "; leif, accordingly, must have landed somewhere in the neighborhood of cape cod or fall river, mass. he found the country possessed of many advantages. it was so mild in the winter that cattle would require no stable-feeding. the rivers abounded in salmon and the woods in game. a german, named tyrker, became so enthusiastic over the discovery of grapes, that he relapsed into his native tongue, and was supposed, by the crew to be intoxicated. leif and his men put up some booths and spent the winter in the new land, which they called vinland, but set sail the following spring for greenland. [footnote a: _helle_, in norwegian, means a great flat stone.] it is evident from the description here given that there is either some mistake in regard to the latitude, or the climate of new england must have grown severer during the last nine centuries. cattle could scarcely be left in the open air in the cape cod region nowadays. nor do grapes of any choice variety grow wild in the chill blasts which now gambol about the massachusetts coast; and the tart fox grape, it seems, could scarcely rouse enthusiasm even in the breast of a german. a second expedition to vinland was undertaken in by the icelander thorfinn karlsevne and his wife gudrid. among their followers, who numbered , were erik the red's son thorwald and his daughter freydis. this was the first expedition which was undertaken with a view to colonizing the country. cattle were therefore taken along, and preparations made for a permanent settlement. thorfinn found without difficulty the booths abandoned by leif, and himself added to their number. a strange people, whom the norsemen called _skraellings_, came to them in light boats made of skin and offered furs in exchange for cloth, ornaments, and weapons. karlsevne, however, refused to sell them weapons; and when, during the negotiations, a bull came out of the woods and began to roar, the skraellings became frightened and hastened away. from that time forth they became hostile to the settlers and attacked them repeatedly, killing several of their number. this perpetual state of insecurity disheartened the survivors, and after a sojourn of three years in vinland, they returned to greenland. [illustration] chapter xiii. olaf the saint ( - ). we have seen that christianity did not advance in norway during the mild and lax government of the earls. olaf tryggvesson, with all his zeal and vigor, could not in the short space of five years eradicate paganism from the norsemen's hearts; and after his death a great number of those whom he had compelled to profess the christian name relapsed into their former practices. it was not until king olaf haroldsson by his life, and still more by his death, took the imagination of the norsemen captive, that christianity became securely established in the land. olaf was the son of harold grönske and a grandson of björn the merchant, who was slain by his brother, erik blood-axe. it was accordingly a new branch of the race of harold the fairhaired who with him ascended the throne. his father, as we have seen, was burned to death by sigrid the haughty, whom he had the presumption to woo, regardless of the fact that he had a wife named aasta, who was then expecting her confinement. olaf was born in the house of his maternal grandfather and passed his childhood with sigurd syr, king in ringerike, whom his mother married. sigurd syr was a grandson of sigurd the giant, a son of harold the fairhaired and snefrid, and had accordingly as much right to the throne as olaf tryggvesson, who was then reigning. he was, however, a quiet and unpretentious man, who was contented to raise his crops and superintend his large estates, without troubling himself with ambitious projects. during the infancy of his step-son, sigurd syr entertained olaf tryggvesson at his house and was induced by him to accept christianity. it is said that king olaf on this occasion stood sponsor at the baptism of his namesake and kinsman. when olaf haraldsson was ten years old, his step-father begged him, one day, to go and saddle his horse for him. olaf went to the stable and put the saddle on a large billy-goat, which he led up to the door where sigurd stood waiting. when questioned as to the meaning of this joke, he replied that the billy-goat was good enough for sigurd, who resembled other kings about as much as the goat resembled a war-horse. in his games olaf was hot-tempered and imperious, proud of his birth, and determined to assert himself above every one. at the age of twelve he went on viking cruises and distinguished himself greatly by his prowess and daring. he ravaged the coasts of sweden in order to avenge his father's death, and during a cruise to england helped the sons of ethelred against the danes ( ). this wild, roaming life, with its constant vicissitudes, matured his character, giving him a wide experience of men and developing his inborn faculty for leadership. the departure of earl erik from norway in gave him the desired opportunity to assert his claim to the throne, and he lost no time in embarking for the land of his birth. he proceeded in this matter, however, with characteristic caution. knowing that the sentiment of the people toward him would have to determine his action, he did not wish to commit himself without having ascertained beforehand the chances of success. he therefore left his galleys of war behind him in england and sailed across the north sea with two merchant-ships. as he disembarked, his foot slipped and he fell upon the beach. "there, i fell," he cried, dreading, probably, the bad omen. "no," answered one of his men, "thou didst plant thy foot in norway's soil." he sailed southward along the coast, no one knowing him or suspecting his errand. one day, as he was sitting in his tent on the beach, whittling a spear handle, a peasant entered and looked hard at him. "who art thou?" he asked. "i am a merchant," said olaf. "likely enough," rejoined the peasant, "art thou a merchant; but i know the eyes of olaf tryggvesson, and i believe that thou wilt soon meet earl haakon and win a great victory." "if it be true, as thou sayest," responded the prince, "thou mayst come to me and thou shalt profit by my victory." the shrewdness of olaf's plan to avoid all warlike display was demonstrated by the issue. in saudung sound he succeeded in capturing the young earl haakon, who, without thought of danger, was sailing along with a single ship and a small retinue. when olaf saw him he marvelled at his beauty. the earl was but seventeen years old, tall, and well shaped. his hair fell in golden curls upon his shoulders and shone like silk. about his head he wore a fillet of gold. "it is true what is said about you and your race," said olaf, "you are indeed very beautiful. but now your luck has forsaken you." "i see no sign that our luck has forsaken us," answered the youth proudly; "even if such a thing as this may happen. it is ever so, that sometimes the one is victorious and sometimes the other. i myself am young and inexperienced, and i was expecting no breach of the peace, and could therefore make no defence. another time, perhaps, i shall do better." "but art thou not aware," retorted olaf, "that from this time forth there can be no question either of victory or defeat in thy case?" "that all depends upon you," said the earl, fearlessly. "what wilt thou do, if i let thee depart unscathed?" "let me know what you demand." "only this, that thou shalt leave the country and renounce thy dominion over it. and, moreover, thou shalt swear an oath that thou wilt never wage war against me." the earl having no choice agreed to these terms, and forthwith sailed to his uncle, king knut, in england. before taking up the combat with earl sweyn, olaf found it advisable to sound the popular sentiment and to secure supporters among the powerful peasants and chieftains. to this end he visited his step-father, sigurd syr, in ringerike, and asked his counsel. the story of his reception by his mother, aasta, which is circumstantially related by snorre, is full of vivid details, and throws a strong light upon the customs and manners of the age. when the rumor of her son's approach reached aasta, she arose and prepared to give him a fitting reception. she ordered four maid-servants to drape the walls with hangings of cloth and likewise to cover the benches. tables were put up and an abundance of food and beer was provided. messengers were sent in haste to invite guests from far and near; and each was requested to appear in his best clothes; and to those who had no good clothes, fitting apparel was given. king sigurd was, as usual, in the field superintending his laborers. it was just in the midst of the harvest, and every hour was precious. he wore a blue tunic, of coarse cloth, blue breeches, high shoes, a gray cloak, and a broad-brimmed gray hat. in his hand he carried a staff with a gilt silver head. when his wife's messengers brought him the tidings of his step-son's return, he probably did not relish the interruption. still less was he pleased with the admonition which they brought him in her name, that he prove himself, on this occasion, as a true descendant of harold the fairhaired. he made a little speech in the field, in which he cloaked his ill-humor as well as he might. then he sat down and exchanged his every-day garments for the splendid attire which aasta had sent him. while the field-hands stood about staring, he pulled on a silken tunic, breeches to match, and cordovan boots, with spurs of gold. a sword of beautiful workmanship was buckled about his loins, a gilt helmet put upon his head, and a scarlet cloak hung over his shoulders. thus arrayed and with a train of thirty attendants he sallied forth to meet his step-son. as he rode down over the fields, he saw olaf and his train of warriors approaching from the other side. they marched up into the court-yard with waving banner, and there sigurd greeted the returned viking and welcomed him home. his mother kissed him, invited him to stay with her as long as he wished, and placed all that was hers--land, people, and money--at his disposal. in the family council that was held, after the feast of welcome was over, sigurd syr pledged his aid to olaf, and promised to employ his influence in his favor. on the other hand, he cautioned him to proceed with prudence, and dissuaded him from measuring strength with earl sweyn, until he had a sufficient force of adherents. in the end he did not question his success. "the multitude," he said, "always love change. thus it proved to be, when olaf tryggvesson arrived. all became fond of him, although, to be sure, he did not long enjoy his kingdom." to this the proud aasta replied that she would rather have her son die young, after a brief and glorious career, like olaf tryggvesson, than die old, after a long and deedless one, like sigurd syr. among the small shire-kings, who lived like rich landholders in different parts of the oplands, there were many who were descendants of harold the fairhaired. all these sigurd syr summoned to a meeting, made them acquainted with olaf's design, and begged them to assist in its accomplishment. one of them, named rörek, refused, declaring that the people and the shire-kings were usually better off the farther away the overlord was. the kings of denmark and sweden, in whose names the earls had governed, were very good rulers, because they were too far away to do much mischief. rörek was, therefore, inclined to let well enough alone, and he advised the rest to do the same. his brother ring spoke in quite a different spirit. "i would fain once more see our race at the helm in the land," he said; * * * "if our kinsman, olaf, becomes overlord over the kingdom, that man will be best off who has the greatest claim upon his friendship." the other shire-kings were of the same opinion, and all pledged their kinsman their support. the people were immediately summoned to a _thing_, at which olaf eloquently affirmed his right to the throne and was proclaimed king. in return he promised, according to ancient usage, to rule in accordance with the laws, and to protect the land against external enemies. a great multitude of warriors thronged forward to enroll themselves under his banner, and his following became so great as to cause him inconvenience. for food was not abundant, and the levying of supplies from the country might easily alienate the people. again, if he meant to surprise earl sweyn, who was at that time sojourning at steinker in tröndelag, it was important to attract as little attention as possible, and to choose unfrequented routes over mountains and through wildernesses. nevertheless, he succeeded in penetrating into orkdale [a] with about men, and to induce an army of peasants, which had been sent against him by einar thambarskelver, to swear him allegiance. earl sweyn, hearing of this disaster, fled southward to frosten and escaped only by a stratagem from falling into his pursuer's hands. the trönders were now summoned to meet olaf at the _thing_ and compelled to recognize him as their king ( ). but they did this reluctantly, being strongly attached to the race of the earls of hlade. many of the most powerful chieftains, among them einar thambarskelver, were absent from the _thing_, preferring to make common cause with the earl. [footnote a: orkdale is a part of tröndelag.] in spite of the insecurity of his position, king olaf determined to celebrate christmas in nidaros, the town founded by olaf tryggvesson, and later known as drontheim. the earls, caring little for commerce, had allowed this trading-post to go to ruin; and of its former prosperity there was scarcely a vestige left. olaf, emphasizing here as ever his rôle as the legitimate heir of his great kinsman, began to repair the dilapidated houses and arranged himself as well as he could with his retinue. he might, however, have saved himself the trouble; for no sooner had he moved his goods up from the ships than earl sweyn and einar thambarskelver descended upon him in the night with , men, and would have made an end of his career, if his sentinels had not warned him in the nick of time of the impending danger. he made his escape southward to the oplands, where he was again well received by his step-father. his one endeavor now was to raise an army large enough to crush his rival. sigurd syr's popularity and influence stood him in good stead, and many chieftains who had hitherto held aloof were induced to join him. among these was ketil calf of ringeness. the remainder of the winter was occupied in ship-building and in securing resources for a decisive campaign. it was at this time that the great galley "karlshoved" (churl's head) was built, the prow of which was adorned with a man's head, which the king himself had carved. in the spring, as soon as the ice broke up, he sailed out of the folden fjord with about twenty ships and from , to , men. earl sweyn, in the meanwhile, had strained all his powers to meet the emergency. with the aid of erling skjalgsson of sole and einar thambarskelver he had got together a fleet of forty-five well-equipped ships, manned with about , warriors. with this formidable force he met olaf at nessje, a head-land on the coast of vestfold. it was palm sunday (march , ), and, according to the story, olaf sent a messenger to the earl requesting him to grant a truce until the next day. the earl, however, who had no scruples on account of the holiday, refused the request, and the battle commenced. as was the custom in naval battles, the ships were tied together with ropes, "the churl's-head" occupying the centre and the smaller crafts the extreme wings. on board the king's ship were picked men, all clad in ring armor and with french helmets on their heads. their shields were white, with crosses of red or blue or gilt; crosses of the same colors also adorned their helmets. the king instructed his men to appear at first to act on the defensive, saving their spears until the enemy had thrown away theirs. this stratagem proved effective; for, as the king's battle-array bore down upon that of the earl, he was received with a storm of missiles. his men, however, were only at pains to protect themselves, thereby redoubling the martial zeal of their opponents, who imagined they were afraid. then, when spears and arrows grew scarce on the earl's side, a vehement onslaught from the king met with no adequate resistance. olaf took advantage of the momentary surprise to steer up to the earl's ship and engage him at close quarters. the fight there was long and bitter, and men fell in heaps on both sides. at last earl sweyn's men began to waver, and one by one the ships were cut loose and prepared to flee. but olaf's men held them fast with boat-hooks until sweyn ordered the prows to be cut off; even thus he would not have escaped with his life, if his brother-in-law, einar thambarskelver, had not flung an anchor aboard to him, and by means of the rope attached to it hauled him out of the line of battle. for all that, he managed to collect his ships further out in the fjord, and for a while it looked as if a fresh attack was imminent. sigurd syr urged olaf not to let the opportunity escape of utterly destroying erling skjalgsson and einar thambarskelver. "for," said he, "i well foresee that thou with thy character and ambition, wilt scarcely ever reach the point, when thou canst trust those magnates who are accustomed to bid defiance to chieftains." before olaf had time to answer, the earl's fleet suddenly scattered, and the opportunity for destroying the chiefs was lost. the king's first act after the battle was to kneel upon the strand and thank god for the victory. earl sweyn, though he had yet a large following and sufficient resources to continue the struggle, sailed eastward to sweden where he was well received by his brother-in-law, king olaf the swede. he seems to have contemplated a fresh campaign against norway, and was encouraged by the swedish king to avenge his defeat. instead of that, however, he undertook during the following summer a warlike expedition into russia, probably to replenish his treasury, was taken ill and died on the way ( ). olaf availed himself of the earl's absence to extort oaths of allegiance from the peasantry along the coast; he hesitated, however, for some reason to attack erling skjalgsson and passed by the provinces which he held in fief without landing. he returned to nidaros, rebuilt the ruined "king's hall," and the church of st. clement. from his sojourn abroad he had learned a lesson in regard to the advantages of commercial intercourse, and he encouraged merchants and artisans to take up their abode in the resuscitated city. he had small confidence in the good-will of the trönders; and therefore liked to surround himself with men who were free from local ties and traditions. the death of earl sweyn, however, as soon as the rumor of it reached norway, changed the situation. the trönders, having now no chieftain of their own, began to send the king friendly messages and in various ways to court his favor. presently he felt himself safe in summoning chiefs and peasantry to meet him at the _thing_, and his formal recognition as king followed in all the shires of tröndelag. but it will be remembered that four of these shires, besides the adjacent provinces of nordmöre, raumsdale, and söndmöre, had after the battle of svolder been awarded to the king of sweden, in whose behalf earl sweyn had governed them. a great wrath, therefore, possessed king olaf the swede, when he heard that the trönders had sworn allegiance to "olaf the big." this was the nickname which he had conferred upon his opponent on account of his stoutness and burly frame. he could never refer to him except with oaths and opprobrious terms. his threats and insults, however, brought no response, and finally he determined to send a party of tax-gatherers into his former provinces. having vainly solicited the tax, they sought an audience with king olaf, who commanded them to go home and invite the king of sweden to meet him at the boundary between the two countries. "then," he said, "he may, if he chooses, come to an agreement with me, on the condition that each keeps the kingdom to which his birthright entitles him." twelve of the tax-gatherers who ventured to disobey his command, were captured and hanged. such an insult the swedish king could not allow to pass unavenged, and olaf made preparations to receive him. he built a rude fortress on a headland projecting into the river glommen, near the cataract sarpen. in connection with these fortifications he founded a city called borg or sarpsborg, built a "king's hall," and offered protection to traders who came to settle there. the expected invasion from sweden would naturally be directed through this district, and the site of the new city was therefore chosen chiefly for its strategic value. for a while, however, no decisive action was taken by the king of sweden, who contented himself with killing olaf's tax-gatherers in jemteland in retaliation. the fact was that the feud was purely a personal one between the two kings, while their subjects, having no grudge against each other, desired peace. the king's friend and marshal, björn stallare, was induced to speak in the people's cause, and was finally commissioned to go as olaf's embassador to sweden, proposing peace on the conditions already named. but this embassy involved great danger, as olaf the swede, in his fury, did not even permit the name of his enemy to be mentioned in his presence. björn therefore sent his friend, the icelander, hjalte skeggesson, in advance to prepare the way for him, while he himself tarried with ragnvald, the earl of vestergötland, who had married the sister of olaf tryggvesson. ragnvald's foster-father was the mighty peasant, thorgny thorgnysson, the law-man.[a] by securing the friendship of the earl, björn accordingly assured himself of protection, in case the king should attempt violence against him. at the great winter _thing_ in upsala, where the king was present, he suddenly rose out of the throng of the people and said in a loud voice; so that all could hear him: "king olaf sends me hither to offer the king of sweden peace and the boundary which from ancient times has been between norway and sweden." [footnote a: _laga-madr_ is not a lawyer in the modern sense, but rather a kind of judge. the office had a slightly different significance in sweden from what it acquired in norway when introduced there by king sverre.] when olaf the swede heard the name of king olaf, he first supposed that the speaker referred to himself; but when he began to see the connection, he rose and called out, in great wrath, that the man who was speaking should be silent, as such speech would not be tolerated. björn then sat down; but instantly earl ragnvald arose and said that his people had suffered greatly from the interruption of commercial intercourse with norway, and were all of opinion that the king should accept the proposal of olaf the big; and, as guaranty of peace, give him his daughter, ingegerd, in marriage. the king, on hearing this, declared, angrily, that he would hear of no peace; he called the earl a traitor who deserved to be driven out of the country, and berated him for having married a woman who sympathized with the king's enemies. in the hope that the matter would now be dropped, he resumed his seat. then up rose thorgny the lawman. he was very large of stature, gray-haired, and broad-chested, and his beard fell like a cataract down to his girdle. the moment he was on his feet, the people thronged forward with great noise and rattle of arms. "quite different are the kings of sweden now," thorogny began, "from what they were in earlier times. thorgny, my grandfather, could remember erik eimundsson, and told of him that, while he was in his best years, he went in warfare every summer to different lands, and subjugated finnland, karelen, esthonia, kurland, and many other eastern lands. men may yet see the earthworks and other great enterprises he undertook; and yet he was not too proud to listen to people who had necessary things to say to him. thorgny, my father, was for a long time with king björn, and knew his manner of behaving. in björn's time, the kingdom was very powerful and suffered no loss; he was very easy to get along with, to his friends. i can myself remember king erik the victorious, and i was with him in many a war. he increased the realm of the swedes and bravely defended it. he, too, accepted good counsel from us. but this king whom we now have will suffer no man to speak to him, unless he speaks that which he likes. this he insists upon with all his might; but he suffers provinces to be lost for want of briskness and enterprise. he wishes to conquer the realm of norway--a thing which no swedish king has hitherto desired,--and this causes many a man disquietude. now, it is the wish of us, the peasants, that thou, king olaf, makest peace with olaf the big, the king of norway, and givest him thy daughter, ingegerd, in marriage. * * * if thou wilt not consent to this, then we will attack thee and kill thee, and no longer suffer breach of the peace and breach of law from thee. thus our forefathers did in days of old. they flung five kings down into a swamp at the mora _thing_, because they were too inflated with pride--just as thou art. tell us now, in this hour, which of these conditions thou wilt choose." the peasants signified loudly, by rattle of arms, their approval of this sentiment; and the king, quite overawed, rose and said that he would yield and let the peasants have their way in this matter. the conditions of peace were thus accepted, and the time for the wedding was fixed. björn and his men returned to norway and received valuable gifts from king olaf, for having successfully accomplished a difficult mission. unhappily, however, the swedish king, as soon as the danger was removed, began to reconsider his promise; and it gave him, no doubt, satisfaction to hear of his enemy's discomfort when, after vainly waiting for his bride on the boundary, he returned to sarpsborg ( ). it did not occur to him that his own subjects, who had demanded the cessation of hostilities, might resent his undignified trick; and he was both surprised and alarmed when a revolt broke out, which came very near costing him his crown. once more he had to make concessions, promise to make peace with the king of norway, and accept his twelve-year-old son, anund jacob, as co-regent. king olaf, of norway, had, in the meanwhile, contrary to the will of her father, married aastrid, a younger sister of ingegerd. at the peace of konghelle ( ), where the two kings finally met, this marriage was recognized by the king of sweden, and friendly relations were established. the province of jemteland remained in the possession of olaf of norway. this is the first time that norway, as an integral kingdom, treats with a foreign power. the kings of sweden and denmark who claimed descent from ragnar lodbrok and through him from the gods, had never until now recognized the descendants of harold the fairhaired as rulers of a united realm and their own equals in dignity. norway was to them merely a collection of small, scattered communities which, having once been united, made haste to fall to pieces again, and had at different times recognized the overlordship of the kings of sweden and denmark. the reluctance of the swedish king to give his daughter in marriage to olaf haroldsson is therefore quite comprehensible. olaf haroldsson was, undoubtedly, the first king, since harold the fairhaired, who had any clear conception of a national unity. the thought may have been present in the mind of olaf trygvesson, but he died too soon to carry it out. olaf haroldsson, on the other hand, set to work with deliberate purpose to unite all norway under the cross of christ. with armed men he travelled from shire to shire, and severely punished those who secretly or openly sacrificed to the old gods or indulged in any pagan practice. some were outlawed and their property confiscated, others were maimed, and a few hanged or beheaded. fugitives spread the report of the king's violence; and alarm and resentment filled the minds of all who were yet devoted to the asa faith. five shire-kings in the oplands, all of whom had given allegiance to olaf, formed a conspiracy, under the leadership of king rörek, to murder him. but ketil calf of ringeness got wind of their purpose, and hastened with the tidings to olaf, who crossed the lake mjösen in the night, surprised the conspirators, and captured them. rörek was blinded, gudröd, the king of hadeland and raumarike, had his tongue cut out, and the others were punished with similar severity. the death of sigurd syr ( ) called olaf to ringerike where he spent some days arranging the affairs of his widowed mother. aasta had three sons by sigurd syr--guttorm, halfdan, and harold. these she brought into the hall to make them acquainted with their half-brother, the king. olaf, it is told, put guttorm and halfdan on his knees, and made such a fierce face at them that they grew frightened and ran away. he then took the youngest boy, harold, and stared at him with the same stern expression. the boy, instead of running away, made a face as stern as the king's and stared back at him. olaf, to test him further, pulled his hair; but harold, nothing daunted, retaliated by pulling the king's beard. the next day olaf and aasta stood watching the boys at play. guttorm and halfdan had built barns and stables, and made figures representing cows and sheep; while harold had started a fleet of chips and shavings on a pond, and delighted in seeing them drift before the wind. the king asked him what they were meant to represent. "ships of war," answered the boy. "i should not wonder, kinsman," said olaf, "if some day thou wouldst command ships of war." guttorm was now called and asked what he desired most of all. "land," he replied. "how much?" asked the king. "i wish," said the boy, "to sow as much every summer as would cover the headland that sticks out into the water there." the headland included ten large farms. "much grain could grow there," observed the king. halfdan declared that what he wished most of all was cows, and so many of them that in drinking they would cover the shores of guttorm's headland. "but what do you wish, harold?" asked olaf, turning to the youngest boy. "men,"[a] answered harold. [footnote a: the word used is _hus-karler, i. e._, house-carles, retainers. what the boy meant to say was that he wished to have men under his command.] "how many?" "so many that they would in a single meal eat up all my brother halfdan's cattle." "there, mother," said olaf, laughing, as he turned to aasta, "thou art fostering a king." this prophecy was verified, for harold sigurdsson became king of norway. from ringerike olaf went southward to tunsberg, where he intended to celebrate easter. he carried the blind king rörek with him, and seemed inclined by kindness to make him forget his hard fate. he gave him servants and money and the seat at table next to his own. but rörek could not forget that he was of the race of harold the fairhaired, and that he had once been king. for a long while he disguised his feelings, appearing careless and jolly, while in his heart he was nursing plans of vengeance. first he induced his servant, sweyn, to attempt the life of the king. but when in the critical moment the king looked hard at him, sweyn grew pale, fell at olaf's feet, and implored forgiveness. from that time rörek was no longer allowed to sit at the king's table; but he continued to be well treated, although he had to submit to the company of two keepers, who were made responsible for his actions. these he killed by the aid of his friends, and made a futile effort to regain his liberty. but even after he had been brought back, the king took no vengeance upon him. on ascension day, , olaf attended mass, and rörek accompanied him. when olaf knelt down, the blind man laid his hands upon his shoulder, saying: "thou hast ermine on to-day, kinsman." "yes," said the king, "for to-day we celebrate a great festival in memory of christ's ascent from earth to heaven." "you tell me so much about christ," said rörek, "which i don't understand, and therefore can't remember; although, to be sure, many incredible things may have happened in ancient times." when the mass commenced, olaf arose, raised his hands above his head, and bowed toward the altar, so that his cloak fell from his shoulders. swift as a flash rörek sprang forward and made a lunge with his dagger at the place where the king had stood. the cloak was rent in twain, but the forward inclination of the king's body saved him. rörek made a second thrust, but olaf had by this time rushed out upon the floor, and was beyond his reach. "fleest thou now, olaf the big," shouted rörek, "from me who am blind?" he had put his hand on the king's shoulder merely to feel if he wore armor. the would-be murderer was now seized, but though many urged him, olaf refused to put him to death. being, however, compelled to protect himself from his machinations, he sent rörek to iceland, where, a few years later, he died. all the shire-kings had now lost their power, and for the first time in the history of norway, no one had royal title in all the country except the king. it was as the representatives of a narrow local patriotism, which was shared by a large number of the people, that these men had been formidable, and to weld all the scattered tribes into one nation would have been impossible, without first breaking their power. but as has already been observed, to break their power, as long as the asa faith was the national religion, was out of the question; because the old tribal chieftainships embraced also the priesthoods, and the hereditary dignity of the local priest-kings was thus hallowed by all the religious as well as the political traditions of the tribe. king olaf's zeal for the christianization of the country had, therefore, its political as well as its religious aspect; and it was no mere coincidence that he directed his energy simultaneously against the old gods and the men who derived the chief benefit from their worship. during the years of peace from - he devoted himself with unflagging ardor to this task of eradicating every vestige of heathenism, and bringing the laws and institutions of the land into conformity with the religion of christ. it was a noble task and, if we overlook a certain tendency to violence which was in the spirit of the age, nobly performed. to perform it completely would have been a superhuman labor. the ideals and sentiments of men, of which their institutions are but the expression, do not change radically in the course of one or two generations. there are traces of a gradual change of sentiment, even before the days of olaf haroldsson, in favor of gentler and more peaceful ideals. not only by bloody deeds was honor acquired, but a man could by just and honorable conduct, and particularly by insight into the law, make for himself a respected position, even if he was reluctant to unsheath the sword. instances of this kind are, however, rare, and to draw general inferences from them would be hazardous. war was the norseman's occupation, and his gods were war-gods. a life full of warlike achievements, and after death an honorable fame, he had been taught to regard as the worthiest objects of aspiration. asceticism and humility he looked upon with pitying disdain, and the sublimity of self-sacrificing suffering, as revealed in christ, could scarcely appeal to him. a god who consented to be slain by his enemies must have appeared to him quite an incomprehensible being, whose feebleness contrasted strikingly with the grandeur of the thundering thor. the joys of valhalla, the _valkyrias_ with the mead-horns, the daily diet of pork, the exhilarating tumult of never-ending combat, and the glorious companionship with departed heroes, were in conformity with the ideas of happiness which his life and training had fostered; while the christian heaven, with its prospect of unending praise, in the company of saints who had no taste for fight or craving for honor, must, by comparison, have appeared ineffably dreary. it is told of a frisian chieftain, who was about to be baptized, that he suddenly turned to the priest and asked him where his brave forefathers were who had died unbaptized. [illustration: knives of iron found in hedemarken and hadeland.] "they are in hell," answered the priest. "then," said the chief, flinging off his baptismal robe and stepping out of the water, "i will rather be in hell with odin and my forefathers, who were brave and noble men, than in heaven with cowardly christians and bald-headed monks." it will be seen, then, that the relapse into paganism which followed the death of olaf tryggvesson was what might have been expected; and the general reaction against the new faith which set in during the reign of the earls was also quite natural. olaf, haroldsson, therefore, had, in a large measure, to do the work of his kinsman over again, and he did it with such energy that, in the end, he forced the expiring asa faith, and the tribal magnates who founded their power upon it, into a mortal combat in which he himself succumbed, while the religion of christ rose from his tomb, victorious. king olaf was by nature well equipped for his mission. he had a robust frame, indomitable will, and great endurance. there was something in his very build and look which indicated that he was not to be trifled with. it was not the youthful enthusiasm of an olaf tryggvesson which inspired his measures for the propagation of the faith; but rather a firm, dogged determination to accomplish a task, the moral and political importance of which had strongly impressed him. we need not question his sincerity because in serving god he also served himself. all his habits and actions seem to show that he was by conviction and temperament a religious man. but a fanatic he was not; and the legends which in later times clustered about his name have, by attributing to him an undue ardor, distorted his image. he was, in spite of his later sainthood, a strong-willed, ambitious, and worldly-wise man; far-seeing in his plans, business-like in his methods, relentless in his hates, ruthless in his punishments. and yet, as we have seen him in his treatment of rörek, he was by no means devoid of pity, and could, when occasion demanded, show himself magnanimous. his severity, which the sagas comment upon, was never wanton; but was in proportion to the magnitude of the offence. robbers, thieves, and vikings who plundered within the land he punished with death, no matter whether their birth was high or low; because the extirpation of the old predatory spirit with its internecine feuds was the first condition for the establishment of a united nationality. in appearance king olaf was of middle height, large-limbed, broad-necked, of florid complexion, and inclined to corpulence. he wore a full red beard, and his eyes were piercing and of great brilliancy. in spite of his stoutness, he was brisk in his motions and of active habits. he was a good judge of men, and staunch in his friendship to those who did him faithful service. he selected bishop grimkel, an englishman, though probably of norse blood, to elaborate a christian law, and revise the previous legislation so as to bring it into accord with the teaching of christ. although himself no scholar, he valued theological learning, and showed great favor to the priests whom he brought over from england to instruct the people. such instruction was indeed needed; for during the journeys which the king undertook through the length and breadth of the land for the purpose of "inquiring into the condition of christianity," he made the most disheartening discoveries. during his sojourn in nidaros he ascertained that the trönders, in spite of their assertions to the contrary, were in the habit of celebrating the old pagan festivals and offering up sacrifices to odin and frey for good crops. the chieftain, oelve of egge, who had twice deceived the king in regard to the practices of the peasants, and himself participated in them, was slain, and a great number of others who had been similarly guilty were killed, maimed, or outlawed, and their estates confiscated. in guldbrandsdale the peasants had the hardihood to send eight hundred armed men against the king, under the leadership of alf, son of dale-guldbrand, the first chieftain in the valley. the battle was, however, scarcely opened when the peasants fled, and dale-guldbrand invited olaf to hold _thing_ with them and deliberate concerning the change of faith. to the king's request that the men of guldbrandsdale should believe in the one god and be baptized, dale-guldbrand replied: "we know not of whom thou art speaking; for thou callest him a god whom neither thou canst see nor any one else. i cannot ask help of any one whom i do not see or know. then we have a very different kind of god whom we can look at every day. the reason why he is not out to-day is that it is raining so hard. but i dare say that when you get sight of him you will be frightened, nay, quite terrified because of his might. but if there is any truth in what thou sayest, that thy god is so powerful, then let him arrange it so that to-morrow we shall have cloudy weather but no rain." the next morning the _thing_ again met, and the sky was overcast, but no drop of rain fell. the king ordered the mass to be celebrated by bishop sigurd, who preached to the peasants about the miracles which christ had wrought when he was on earth. on the third day the people again came to the _thing_, this time bearing a great image of the god thor, which they placed upon the green. the weather was still cloudy, but without rain. from out of the throng of the peasants dale-guldbrand arose and said: "where is now thy god, king? he wears his chin beard pretty low now, and methinks that thou art not so bold as thou wast yesterday, nor is the horned man at thy side who is called the bishop. for now our god has come who rules over all things, and he is looking at you with his fierce eyes. i see now that you are full of fear and scarcely dare look into his eyes. therefore give up your folly and believe in our god who holds your fate in his hand." to this the king replied: "many things thou hast spoken to us this day, and thou art wondering that thou canst not see our god. but i think he will soon come to us. thou wishest to frighten us with thy god, who is both deaf and blind, and can save neither himself nor others; who cannot stir from the spot unless he is carried. now i have a foreboding that he will soon come to grief. for, behold! look eastward! there our god is coming with much light," just at that moment the sun burst through the clouds, and the peasants all turned toward the east. but instantly kolbjörn the strong, at a sign from the king, struck the idol with his club, so that it burst into many pieces. out leaped rats as big as cats, snakes, and lizards, which had fattened on the delicacies with which the god had daily been fed. a terrible consternation seized the peasants when they saw what their god contained. they fled to the river; but olaf, who had foreseen this, had bored holes in their boats so that they were unable to float them. quite subdued in spirit, they were compelled to return to the _thing_-meadow, where the king addressed them in these words: * * * "now you see what power there was in your god, to whom you bore silver and gold and bread and meat, and who it was that enjoyed it all. it was mice and snakes, vipers and toads. * * * take now your gold and ornaments, which lie scattered on the ground, and bring them home to your wives, but hang them no more on logs and stones. now i will give you the choice of two things. either you shall accept the christian faith or you shall fight with me this day. he will win to whom the god in whom we trust will give victory." the peasants were in no mood to fight; and therefore, after the discomfiture of their god, declared their faith in christ and were baptized by the king's bishop. priests were left behind to instruct them, and dale-guldbrand built the first church in guldbrandsdale. after having with the same firm hand put down paganism in hedemarken and raumarike, olaf called a great _thing_ at eidsvold, where the eidsivia law was proclaimed and adopted for all the oplands. it was his intention to revise the laws of all the judicial districts in the same spirit, and he naturally turned his attention to the western coast-shires, which belonged under the jurisdiction of the _gula-thing's_ law. but these shires were part of erling skjalgsson's fief, which extended from lindesness to the sogne fjord. having small faith in erling's friendship, which on a previous occasion had been pledged to him, olaf prepared to travel with a large force through his shires; and as the crops had partly failed in the northern shires, he forbade all exportation of grain from the districts which he meant to traverse. this was merely a measure of self-protection, and though oppressive in its effect, was prompted by no unfriendly motive. erling's nephew, the young chief aasbjörn sigurdsson, of haalogaland, in spite of the prohibition, with the connivance of his uncle, bought malt and grain of the latter's thralls, and was in consequence deprived of his cargo by the king's steward, thore sel, at agvaldsness. in return for this he killed the steward in the king's presence, was seized, and sentenced to death, but forcibly liberated by his uncle. enraged by this unexampled audacity, the king came near taking summary vengeance upon erling, but allowed himself to be persuaded by bishop sigurd to make peace, on condition that aasbjörn should surrender himself to his mercy. the second sentence was, however, according to the notions of those days, severer than the first. olaf demanded of the young chief that he should perform the service of the man he had slain. any personal service, even under a king, was held to be degrading and unworthy of a freeman. the royal stewards were usually men of low birth; sometimes even thralls or sons of thralls. for a man of illustrious lineage to take the place of such a minion would be tantamount to accepting a badge of servitude. aasbjörn, therefore, broke his promise, relying upon erling skjalgsson, and his father's brother, the powerful thore hund of bjarkö, to shield him from the king's vengeance. in this, however, he made a miscalculation. for one day, as he was sailing in his fine ship along the coast, another ship passed him, from which a spear was hurled forth that transfixed him. this spear was thrown by a friend of the king. aasbjörn's mother, sigrid, made a great funeral feast over her son, and gave each of the guests gifts by which to remember him. only thore hund of bjarkö received no gift. but when the time came for departing, sigrid accompanied him down to his ship and gave him a spear inscribed with strange runes. "this spear it was," she said, "which pierced my son aasbjörn. it is yet sticky with his blood. * * * it would be a brave deed, if thou didst part with this spear in such wise that it stuck in the heart of olaf the big, and i declare thee as a nithing before all men, if thou dost not avenge aasbjörn." thore hund remembered this injunction, six years later, at the battle of stiklestad. there could now no longer be any question of peace between olaf and the race of erling skjalgsson. a decisive conflict was inevitable, and each party began to make preparations for utterly crushing the other. king knut the mighty, of england and denmark, took advantage of this state of things, and by bribes and promises encouraged the discontented chieftains throughout the land to unite in revolt against the tyrannical king. secret messengers from knut were sent with presents to nearly all the heads of the tribal aristocracy, and the friendliest reception awaited those of them who went to england. two of erling skjalgsson's sons, who visited knut in london, were quite dazzled by the splendor and friendliness of the english king. in thus maturing the revolt, knut's first purpose was to punish olaf for his insolence in refusing to consider his claim to norway, which in an embassy ( ) he had threatened to enforce. secondly, it tallied well with his ambitious dream of uniting england and the three scandinavian countries in one grand monarchy, which in the north might counterbalance the german and french power in the south. olaf did not long remain ignorant of king knut's machinations; and he took immediate measures to protect himself. he spent the winter ( - ) in sarpsborg, and not, as usual, in nidaros; for he had learned that knut was in denmark and contemplated an invasion of norway. viken, being the province nearest denmark, and having formerly belonged to the danish kings, would naturally be exposed to the first attack. in order to strengthen himself further, he entered into an alliance with his brother-in-law, the swedish king anund jacob, impressing upon him the probability that his own turn would come next, in case knut gained possession of norway. when knut heard of this, he too sent an embassy to anund jacob, for the purpose of winning his friendship, or at least secure his neutrality. the embassadors supported their arguments with splendid gifts; and king anund was no doubt sorely tempted to listen to them. first they put two candlesticks of gold on the table. "a very pretty toy is that," said anund, "but i will not, in order to get it, break with olaf." a golden platter of rare workmanship, and set with jewels, was placed before him. he gazed longingly at it; but finally cried out: "a glorious treasure is that; but i will not sell king olaf for a dish." the spokesman of the embassy, talking eagerly in his master's behalf, at last pulled out two gorgeous rings. "king knut has much shrewdness," ejaculated anund, "for he knows that i would fain win treasure, and that i know little of courtly custom. but king olaf i have known since i was a boy, and learned to love him so much, that i cannot now forsake him." possibly it was this staunch attitude of anund jacob which discouraged knut from waging open war against olaf. at all events he went ( ) as a pilgrim to rome, not as conqueror to norway. in the meanwhile, his brother-in-law, earl ulf,[a] headed a rebellion against him in denmark, and entered into an alliance with olaf haroldsson and anund jacob. both thought this a convenient opportunity for striking a blow at the threatening power of knut, and gathered a fleet with which they ravaged the coasts of halland and skaane. they even in some places summoned the people to the _thing_ and received their homage. these tidings reached knut who promptly returned from his pilgrimage, and came within a hair of capturing the two kings who did not suspect that he was near. knut's ships were so greatly superior both in size, number, and equipment, that it would have been folly to remain and await battle. olaf and anund, therefore, hastened along the coast of skaane toward swedish territory, hotly pursued by knut. they put up in the helge-aa, a short river, uniting a series of lakes, near what was then the boundary between sweden and denmark. olaf made haste to dam up the river where it issued from the lake, and filled the river-bed with a mass of trees and other obstructions. late in the afternoon knut sailed into the harbor, and found it deserted. the allies lay with their fleet outside the harbor, apparently ready for battle. it was, however, too late in the day to begin the fight, and knut left part of his fleet outside to watch them. in the night the command was given to break the dam, and an enormous volume of water rushed down upon the danish and english fleet, which broke from its moorings, and drifted seaward in disorder. a considerable number of people were drowned, but the ships though much damaged were not wrecked. the confusion was, on the whole, less than had been anticipated, and earl ulf, seeing that there was a chance that knut might save himself, turned traitor once more and went to his rescue. the swedes and the norsemen, perceiving that the danish king with this accession of strength was too formidable, sailed away without making an attack ( ). knut, instead of pursuing them further, sailed back to england, but in the following year returned with a greatly increased force. he had by his extensive system of bribes effectually secured the friendship of the disaffected norse chiefs, and therefore steered without hesitation to nidaros where he was proclaimed king of norway. he appointed his nephew earl haakon, the son of earl erik, regent in his absence. [footnote a: ulf jarl, the ancestor of a long line of danish kings, was the grandson of thyra, the sister of sweyn forkbeard, by her first husband the swedish prince styrbjörn. he was, accordingly, through his grandmother, a descendant of gorm the old, and of ragnar lodbrok.] for olaf there was now really nothing to do but to leave the country. he determined, however, to make a last effort to maintain himself and sailed with a few ships, and as many men as remained faithful to him, up along the coast, hoping that he might yet be able to rally a sufficient force to expel earl haakon. when erling skjalgsson heard of his approach, he called together his household troops, and manned his fleet. the king, however, who had no desire to fight with erling, had already slipped by, but was no further in advance than that he could easily be overtaken. erling, accordingly, started in pursuit, but allowed himself by a stratagem to be separated from his main force, and after a heroic fight lost all his men and was captured by olaf. as he stood alone among a heap of the slain, his gray locks falling down over his shoulders, the king called to him: "thou settest thy face straight against us to-day, erling." "face to face do eagles fight," answered erling; "wilt thou give me peace?" olaf, after some deliberation, declared that he would; but on second thought half repented of his generosity. he took his axe and gently scratched the old man's cheek, saying: "something must be done to mark the traitor to his king." one of the king's men who stood by suddenly raised his axe and cleft erling's skull, saying: "this is the way to mark a traitor to his king." thus died the mightiest chieftain in all norway. no representative of the tribal aristocracy, before or since, ever possessed such power as erling skjalgsson. olaf continued his voyage northward to söndmöre where a great number of his followers left him, while at the news of erling's death enemies blocked his way wherever he turned. he saw that his last hope was gone; and with a few friends fled through valdalen across the mountains into sweden, where he left his wife and daughter. thence he travelled to russia ( ), where he was warmly welcomed by his brother-in-law, king jaroslav, who had married ingegerd, the sister of anund jacob. norway was now a province of a foreign power. the separatistic tendencies of the old tribal magnates had triumphed over the national idea represented by king olaf. it was they and not king knut who, in order to gratify their own greed for power, had destroyed the national unity. in order to secure their own independence, each in his own shire, they sacrificed the national independence. it was natural that knut, who based his dominion upon their support, should make them large concessions. he flattered einar thambarskelver, hinting that if earl haakon had not been his nephew he would have made einar regent of norway. kalf arnesson, the mightiest chief among the in-trönders, he called over to england and assured him, too, that he was the man for the earl's place. for earl haakon, he said, was too conscientious to break his oath to olaf haroldsson, in case the latter should return and attempt to regain his kingdom. it may have been true that he vaguely distrusted the earl; for on a slight pretext he summoned him to england and sent him on an expedition, the nature of which is not entirely clear. from this expedition, however, earl haakon never returned, and it was reported that he had been drowned at sea with all his men. björn stallare, olaf's friend, hastened to russia with this intelligence, and found his old master at king jaroslav's court. olaf asked him for tidings of home, and how his friends had kept their oath of allegiance. "some well and some poorly," answered björn, and threw himself at the king's feet, embracing his knees; "every thing is in god's power and in yours, king. i have received money from knut's men and sworn him allegiance; but now i will follow thee and not forsake thee as long as we are both alive." "few men have remained faithful to me in norway," said the king, sadly, "when such men as thou art have been led astray. * * *" he was not at first ready to accept björn's invitation to return to his kingdom. in his forced inactivity a resolution had half matured in his mind to become a monk and go on a pilgrimage to the holy land. an offer from jaroslav to accept a russian province in fief he declined. religious meditations occupied much of his time; and he acquired the reputation of being a holy man. while in this frame of mind, he had a vision in which he saw olaf tryggvesson who commanded him to go back to norway and conquer it or die. he could now no longer hesitate. much against the advice of jaroslav and ingegerd, he started out for norway, leaving his young son magnus at the russian court. in sweden he received permission from king anund to collect whatever recruits he could; but while he accepted robbers and outlaws, if they would only be baptized, he had the courage to reject large bands of brave men who refused to renounce paganism. [illustration: st. olaf, from the antependium of the altar in drontheim cathedral. removed to copenhagen.] tradition has preserved with minute fidelity a number of incidents of king olaf's progress through sweden to the fatal field of vaerdalen. there is a melancholy radiance, as of the setting sun, about his figure as he returns with the gospel of christ to his people who had rejected him. first, bishop sigurd came to meet him and strongly dissuaded him from entering his kingdom. but he would listen to no remonstrance. through forests and wildernesses he broke his way; cheerful amid the greatest hardships, encouraging his people and never showing, except on a single occasion, the foreboding that cast its shadow over his soul. when he crossed the mountains between norway and sweden, and he caught the first glimpse of the land of his birth with its rivers, mountains, and sunny valleys, he reined his horse and sat gazing, lost in thought, on the beautiful sight. a profound sadness was expressed in his features. at last the bishop roused him from his reverie, asking him what he was thinking. "strange things," answered the king, "have for a while been borne past me. it seemed to me, as if i looked not only out over drontheim, but over all norway; and the longer the vision lasted, the wider it grew, until i surveyed the whole world, both land and ocean. then it seemed to me that i recognized all the places where i had ever been before; even as plainly i saw places where i had never been before;--nay even some of which i had never even heard--both inhabited and uninhabited, as far as the world goes." it is then told that the bishop, dismounting from his horse and embracing the king's foot, said: "it is a holy man whom we are following." among the few norsemen of rank who had joined olaf before he crossed the boundary, was his half-brother harold, the son of sigurd syr. he was only fifteen years old, but large for his age. he led men under his banner. when the king's entire army was mustered, the day before the battle, it was found to number , men; but of these were sent away because they were heathen, and many of them no doubt joined the hostile army. the king woke early on the morning of the battle, and called the poet, thormod kolbruna-scald, and asked him to sing to him. thormod stood up and sang with a ringing voice the ancient bjarkemaal, which resounded over forest and field. the army woke and was arranged in battle array on the heights of stiklestad in vaerdalen; the peasant army, , strong being seen approaching in the distance. with the battle-cry: "forward, christ's men, crusaders, the king's men!" olaf's warriors rushed down the hill-sides, and the peasant army stormed to meet them with the cry: "forward, forward, peasant-men!" the fight was long indecisive, though the king's men, on account of the advantage of their position, had the upper hand in the first onset. the peasants, however, fought with dogged determination, and their superior number told, the longer the battle raged. olaf's ranks wavered and grew thinner. then, with desperate courage, the king broke forth from the shield-burgh that surrounded him, and followed by a small band of devoted men, dashed against the front of the peasant host. one by one his men fell about him, and again and again his standard-bearer was cut down. severely wounded, he stood leaning against a boulder, when thore hund sprang forward and plunged his spear into his abdomen. in the next moment kalf arnesson gave him a cut across the throat, which was the immediate cause of his death, though thore hund's spear had already dealt him a mortal wound. then, so runs the record, the sun grew blood-red, and a strange red sheen spread over the landscape. darkness fell upon the fighting hosts, and the sun grew black. a great terror took possession of the peasants, who saw in the eclipse [a] an evidence of the wrath of olaf's god. [footnote a: this eclipse--lasting from o'clock ' p.m. to o'clock ', aug. , --fixes definitely the date of the battle. it was total in vaerdalen.] with the king's death the battle was virtually at an end. the peasants remained in possession of the field. wounded warriors of both parties crawled about among the trees and stones, and some reached a hut where a woman surgeon was busy washing and bandaging their wounds. hither came also thormod kolbruna-scald, whose left side had been pierced by an arrow. he sat down on a bench, and a man of the peasant army who stood by said to him: "why art thou so pale? art thou badly wounded?" he answered in verse that he had got his wound from danish weapons--a mocking allusion to the alliance of the peasants with the danish king. the woman, not knowing how serious his hurt was, asked him to go out and get an armful of firewood. when he returned he looked white as a ghost. she begged to see his wound, and with a pair of tongs attempted to pull out the arrow, the shaft of which was broken off. but her attempts were futile. then the scald took from his arm the heavy gold ring which the king had given him for his song and handed it to her. [illustration: st. olaf and the trolds. from fresco painting in tegelsmora church in upland.] "it came from a good man," he said; "king olaf gave it to me this morning." taking the tongs, he clenched them over the stump of the arrow and pulled it out. pieces of flesh and red and white fibres adhered to the barbs. he looked at them for a moment and said: "the king has fed us well, for i am yet fat about the heart-roots"; then fell back and died. the king's body was found by a peasant named thorgils, who before the battle had promised olaf to bury him if he fell. as later tradition reports, many miracles were wrought by the king's blood and by the mere touch of his lifeless hand. tales without number were told of his marvellous powers in life as well as in death, and legends attributing to him the work of the thundering thor, have clustered luxuriantly about his name. he slew the trolds whom his church-bells annoyed, and turned them to stone. st. olaf, with the flame-red beard, became not only the national saint, but also the national hero. the tragic circumstances of his death, no less than his valiant work for the cause of christ, imbedded his memory deeply in the people's hearts. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xiv. sweyn alfifasson ( - ). king knut could not, with his extensive possessions, devote much time to the government of norway. he therefore had his son sweyn proclaimed king of norway in his stead. sweyn's mother, who accompanied him to his new kingdom, was aelgifa, the daughter of an ealdorman in northampton. the norsemen, however, called her alfifa, and her son sweyn alfifasson. this was, accordingly, what the chiefs had gained by their rebellion--to be openly governed by the mistress of a foreign king and a boy who was and could be nothing but a tool in her hands. it was a humiliation which they could ill brook. if alfifa had had the faintest comprehension of the people whom she undertook to govern, she might possibly for a time have maintained her son upon the throne; but when she proceeded to remodel the norse legislation in the feudal spirit, she struck a blow at the very men who were the main-stay of her power. what the chiefs had desired was local independence--the right to manage their own affairs with as little interference as possible. they had hoped to obtain this liberty under a king who was too far away to trouble them. but now came sweyn, and with him a number of danes who became very important personages, and induced the king to modify the norse laws so as to bring them more nearly into conformity with the laws of denmark. it was then enacted that no one should have the right to leave the country without the king's permission, and that confiscation of property should be the punishment for transgression. man-slaying was likewise to be punished by confiscation. so also an inheritance coming to an outlawed man should go into the king's treasury. ships, fisheries, pasture-land, nay, even the peasant's hearthstones were taxed, and a system of extortion was instituted which was galling to the spirit of free men. even the christmas gifts which the peasants were to give the king, were fixed by law. the chief end of government seemed to be to transfer money from the people's pockets to those of the king. it was even asserted, though there was no law to that effect, that during sweyn's reign the testimony of one dane was sufficient to invalidate that of ten norsemen. the central principle in this legislation was the feudal idea that all land belonged to the king, and that the possessors, as his tenants, had to pay for the usufruct. it was the same appropriation by the king of all allodial rights, which was encountered for the first time during the reign of harold the fairhaired. alfifa, whom the people regarded as the author of the odious enactments, may have had her share in them; but far less than was popularly supposed. it was, no doubt, knut who meant to crush the rebellious spirit of the norse chiefs, by which he had himself profited, and sweyn and alfifa were merely his agents. under these circumstances it was but natural that the chieftains began to repent of their rebellion against king olaf. einar thambarskelver, who prided himself on his absence from the battle of stiklestad, was especially active in awakening regret among the trönders at his death, and indignation at the rule of the danes. he sent for bishop grimkel, who was living as an exile in sweden, and agreed with him upon a plan of action. the bishop sent for the peasant thorgils, who revealed the spot where he had buried the king. permission was obtained from king sweyn to bring the corpse to nidaros, where it was placed in a splendid sarcophagus and interred under the altar in the church of st. clement (aug. ). although nearly a year had elapsed since the first burial, it was asserted that there was no trace of decay on the body and that the hair and the nails had grown. einar and the bishop, at all events, encouraged such reports, and they grew in number and minuteness of convincing details. grimkel now declared olaf to be a saint, and sweyn and alfifa, though they raised many objections, dared no longer profess their disbelief. the th of july was set apart for the commemoration of his martyrdom. for the first time in their history the norsemen felt themselves as one nation, united in their indignation against their foreign rulers and in their regret and veneration for the martyred king. if sweyn and alfifa were aware of the sentiment with which they were regarded, they chose to ignore it. they were, however, not prepared for open defiance, and the events of must have taken them by surprise. in that year, a young man calling himself tryggve, and professing to be a son of olaf tryggvesson and his wife gyda, came from england or ireland with a band of warriors and claimed the throne of norway as his inheritance. sweyn called upon the chiefs to aid him in punishing the pretender, but einar thambarskelver, kalf arnesson, and many other magnates, refused to follow him. with those who still recognized his authority the king sailed southward and defeated tryggve in a short battle in sognesund. on his return he and alfifa met the trönders at the _thing_ and listened to their complaints, but could give them no satisfaction. then einar thambarskelver said aloud and in the hearing of many: "i was not a friend of king olaf; but the trönders proved themselves to be poor merchants when they sold their king and got in his place a mare with her colt. the king cannot speak, and his mother only wishes what is bad and has the power to do it." alfifa rose to speak, but she could get no hearing. einar thambarskelver taunted her openly, and so hostile was the sentiment that she dared not take him to task. a sense of insecurity took possession of the king, and he and his whole household left tröndelag and took up their abode in the southern part of the country. his authority had practically ceased, though in name he yet remained king. in , einar thambarskelver, kalf arnesson, and several other chiefs started for russia and invited magnus, king olaf's only son, to return with them and become king of norway. they asked and received his forgiveness for their hostility to his father, and swore to be faithful to him and to shield him from all harm. magnus, who was then ten years old, accompanied them back to his native land, and was received with enthusiastic homage at oere-_thing_, where he was proclaimed king. sweyn and alfifa made vain efforts to raise an army, but as no one heeded their summons, were forced to flee to denmark. here sweyn died in the year . as his father, knut, had died in , his half-brother, harthaknut, became the heir to his claim to norway, and, as we shall see, soon took measures to enforce it. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xv. magnus the good ( - ). magnus olafsson was an illegitimate child, his mother, alfhild, being, according to one report, an englishwoman of high birth; according to another, the queen's laundress. when he was born he was so small and feeble that it seemed as if he could not live many hours. it was in the middle of the night and no one dared to wake the king. his friend, sighvat scald, was therefore called, and he assumed the responsibility of naming the child magnus, after carolus magnus, the german emperor. a priest was then found who baptized it. when the king heard of the occurrence he was very wroth, and chided the scald. there was no one in his family named magnus, and perhaps he even suspected that sighvat had made a mistake in selecting the latin surname of the emperor rather than his real name, karl. it was under these unpropitious circumstances that the boy was born who became the heir to st. olaf's kingdom and the love which a repentant people lavished upon his memory. he was not quite eleven years old when he was proclaimed king at the oere-_thing_, but well grown and intelligent. he allowed himself, during the first years of his reign, to be guided by the counsel of einar thambarskelver and kalf arnesson; but soon gained sufficient independence of judgment to assert his own will. it was but a short time after the proclamation of magnus as king that harthaknut prepared to invade norway. magnus, who was eager to punish the race of knut for their insidious plottings against his father, also made warlike preparations, apparently with the intention of invading denmark. whether any actual fighting took place is not known. it is not improbable that some insignificant skirmishing may have been done; but before any decisive battle was fought, the chieftains in both countries interfered and persuaded the two youthful combatants to make peace. at a meeting at the brenn islands, at the mouth of the götha elv, an agreement was made in accordance with which each made the other his heir and successor, in case he died, without issue ( ). this might, indeed, seem to be a remote contingency, but it actually came to pass four years later ( ) when harthaknut died and magnus was, without opposition, proclaimed king of denmark at the viborg-_thing_, and received the allegiance of the people. thus norway and denmark were for the first time united, and the descendants of harold the fairhaired were recognized by the danish branch of ragnar lodbrok's race as their equals, as they already had been recognized by the branch governing sweden. magnus must have been aware that it was to the sainthood of his father that he owed this recognition, and he lost no opportunity to show his reverence for his memory. he commenced the erection of a church in nidaros, which was to bear st. olafs name, and made him a new sarcophagus, adorned with gold and silver and precious stones. it was natural enough that he should take pleasure in the society of those who had been nearest to his father and stood at his side at stiklestad. but the hostility aroused by the battle and the events that led to it existed, in some measure, yet; and one party began to fan the smouldering embers of distrust in the king's mind and incite him to vengeance against the other. young as magnus was, it is scarcely to be wondered at that he allowed himself to be influenced by this evil counsel. in spite of the amnesty which he had in russia given to those who had borne arms against st. olaf, he began now to punish all the leaders in the rebellion with great harshness. it was the trönders, particularly, who had to bear the brunt of his wrath; because it was they who had made common cause with knut and had been foremost in driving the sainted king into exile. kalf arnesson was among the first to experience the changed temper of king magnus. jealousies had early arisen between him and einar thambarskelver, both of whom called the king their foster-son and prided themselves on possessing his confidence. once, it is said, kalf had seated himself in einar's seat next to the king, whereupon einar sat down upon kalf's shoulder, saying: "it behooves an old bull to be stalled before the calf." at a party at the estate haug, in vaerdalen, the king uttered to einar a desire to visit the field where his father had fallen. "i can give you no information about that," answered einar, "as i was not present. but let kalf ride along with you. he can give you full particulars." "then thou shalt accompany me, kalf," said the king; and kalf, though he was very reluctant, was obliged to follow. when they reached the battle-field the king dismounted and asked to be shown the spot where his father had received his death-wound. "he lay here," said kalf, pointing with his spear. "where didst thou stand then, kalf?" asked magnus. "here where i am now standing." "then thy axe could well reach him," cried the king, flushing violently. "my axe did not reach him," kalf replied, jumped on his horse and rode away. he had already given orders to have his ship in readiness, loaded with all his movable goods. and as soon as he reached home he put to sea and sailed for the orkneys. the great possessions which he left behind were confiscated by magnus. thore hund escaped punishment by making a pilgrimage to jerusalem from which he never returned. haarek of thjotta was slain with the king's consent by a private enemy, and many others were deprived of their cattle and otherwise molested. the odious laws which had been given by sweyn alfifasson were not repealed; and the king acted as if he regarded himself as the master of every one's goods, life, and liberty. but the norsemen were not accustomed to endure arbitrary conduct in their kings. a general dissatisfaction spread through the country, and threatened to break out in open rebellion. in sogn the peasants were already under arms, and in tröndelag a largely attended meeting was held at which the bitterest denunciation of the king found utterance. happily, however, some were present who were yet kindly disposed to magnus, and these determined to let him know how the people felt toward him. the question then arose as to who was to undertake this hazardous mission, for magnus was hot-tempered and had, moreover, made up his mind to inflict exemplary punishment upon the rebellious sognings. his friends determined to let chance decide. they drew lots, and the lot fell upon sighvat scald, who, in a song called the lay of candor, took the king earnestly to task for his inconsiderate harshness, warned him of the consequences, and reminded him of his duties to the people, who had of their own accord made him their king. the song made a deep impression upon magnus, and he was from that day a changed man. he gave up all plans of vengeance, became gentle and forgiving, and governed the land in accordance with the law. his kindness and charm of manner made him now so popular that scarcely enough could be said in his praise. the people called him magnus the good. [illustration: magnus the good and kalf arnesson, at stiklestad.] when magnus, in , had become king of denmark, his ambition led him as the heir of harthaknut, also to assert his claim to the crown of england. edward the confessor, who was called to the throne at the death of harthaknut, was in honor bound to disregard such a claim; but it compelled him to keep a fleet in readiness to repel an expected norse invasion. there is little doubt but that magnus would have made the attempt to oust him, if the events in denmark had not taken a turn which obliged him to abandon, for a time, all thought of conquest. among the danes who swore allegiance to magnus and endeavored to win his favor was sweyn estridsson, the son of earl ulf and estrid, the sister of knut the mighty. he was both on his father's and his mother's side descended from the race of ragnar lodbrok, and was therefore better entitled to the danish throne than the king of norway. sweyn was like his father ulf, a shrewd intriguer, smooth of speech, and fair of face, but false and treacherous. he was loud in protestations of devotion to magnus and succeeded in gaining his confidence. contrary to the advice of his friends, magnus made him his vassal and appointed him his earl, giving him the same fiefs that his father had had before him. it was to be his special duty to defend jutland against the wends and the saxons. when the ceremony of investiture took place, einar thambarskelver cried out to the king: "too great earl, foster-son; too great earl!" to which the king replied angrily: "you do not credit me with any judgment or knowledge of men. i do not know what you mean by regarding some earls as too great, and some as nothing at all." sweyn was scarcely out of magnus' sight, before he made haste to justify einar's apprehension. having regained his father's fiefs and the power which they gave him, he called the danish chieftains together at the _thing_ in viborg, and was proclaimed king of denmark. magnus, incensed at his treachery, started with a large fleet to punish him; but sweyn ran away, first to sweden and later to the wendic provinces along the baltic. no opposition was, therefore, offered to magnus, and after having chastised many who had acknowledged sweyn as king, he started for jomsborg, which had also rebelled against his authority. he stormed and destroyed the old viking nest, and killed and scattered its occupants. in the meanwhile an enormous army of wends, among the chiefs of which was sweyn estridsson himself, was pouring in over sleswick and met magnus at lyrskogs heath ( ) where, in spite of their superior numbers, they were overwhelmingly defeated. it is told that , corpses covered the battle-field. the victory, which was in a large measure due to king magnus' personal bravery, gained him a great prestige, and what was more, stemmed the tide of slavonic migration in the north. if the wends had then gained a foot-hold in jutland, denmark would probably to-day have been a slavonic country, and the whole destiny of the scandinavian north would have been changed. magnus took up his winter-quarters in sleswick; but no sooner had he dismissed part of his army than sweyn was again in arms, and was defeated by magnus in two naval battles at aaros and helgeness. in the spring of , when magnus was twenty years old, he returned to norway. his fame filled the north; for so great things scarcely any king of his race had achieved at so early an age. in spite of his hot temper, he was well beloved by all his people; for with all his vehemence, he was upright, generous, and noble. a pleasant story is told of him, which throws much light upon his character. in magnus' guard there was a high-born icelander, named thorstein, son of side-hall. like most of his countrymen he was not amenable to discipline, and offended the king by going to dublin without his permission. in return for this he was outlawed; but, relying upon his friends and family connections, he returned to norway, paying no heed to the judgment of outlawry. he brought with him some fine stud-horses, and offered them as a gift to einar thambarskelver, whose influence with the king was known to be great. einar declined them; but his son eindride, not knowing of his father's refusal, accepted them with joy. he even invited thorstein to be his guest for the winter and had the hardihood to bring him in his company to the king's yule-feast. he was, however, persuaded by his father to return home with the outlaw, before the king had seen him. on the fourth day after christmas, einar, who was sitting at magnus' side, ventured to put in a good word for thorstein, to which the king answered: "let us talk of something else: for i would not willingly anger thee." four days later, einar again mentioned the icelander; but the king with a perfectly friendly manner dismissed the subject. then einar let five days pass; and once more asked that the icelander be forgiven. "we will not speak of that," said magnus, with some irritation; "i do not understand how thou canst presume to protect a man who has provoked my wrath." "that was my son eindride's doing rather than mine," replied einar; "but i did think that my prayer for a single man would have some weight with thee; when we in all things have done and will continue to do what will promote thy honor. * * * i, my lord, shall be in an evil plight, if you will not accept atonement in money from my son for thorstein, instead of fighting with him. for i cannot bring it over my heart to carry arms against you. but this will i say, that i do not perceive that you remember how i went to find you east in russia, became your foster-father, and have since supported and strengthened your kingdom, thinking late and early of how i could advance your honor. now i will depart from the land, and no more aid thee. but there will be those who will say that thou wilt not be the gainer by all this." thus spoke einar, in anger, jumped up from his seat, and went toward the door. but the king arose, hurried after him, and flung his arms about his neck. "come back, my dear foster-father," he cried; "never shall aught, whatever it be, have the power to break our friendship. take the man in peace, as it may please thee." when magnus had been king nine years, his uncle harold sigurdsson, the son of sigurd syr and aasta, came to norway and demanded half of the kingdom. harold had, as we have seen, at the age of fifteen fought at stiklestad, and had been severely wounded. after his recovery he betook himself to russia, where for some years he held a command under jaroslav, and went thence to constantinople, where he became the captain of the varangians, the foreign body-guard kept by the greek emperors. he was a man of gigantic frame, fair of face, with long blonde hair, and an imperious glance which betrayed the race from which he had sprung. according to the sagas, he made a sensation in constantinople by his mere appearance, and his wit, strength, and reckless bravery opened for him a brilliant career. as the chieftain of the varangians, he participated in many campaigns against the saracens in asia and in sicily, and accumulated great treasures. that some antagonism must have existed between him and the greek general-in-chief, georgios maniakes, is evident from the anecdotes preserved in the sagas, all of which accord to harold the glory for all victories, and express the contempt with which the norsemen regarded the most exalted personage of the southern nations. that harold's importance in these campaigns has been exaggerated by his norse followers, to whom the saga-men were indebted for their accounts, is natural enough; but even allowing for exaggerations, it is evident that he made a great name for himself, and was powerful enough to bid defiance, when he was so disposed, to the greek commander. he chose, however, if the saga account is reliable, to outwit maniakes rather than openly resist him. [illustration: marble lion from the pirÆus, removed in to venice, where it now stands at the entrance to the arsenal. the runic inscription, cut by some varangian, is now half effaced and illegible.] harold's adventures in sicily, where he invented ingenious stratagems for the capture of cities; his love adventures with maria, a relative of the empress zoë, the latter's jealousy and attempt to ruin him, his imprisonment, fight with the serpent, flight, vengeance upon the emperor, etc., are all of the typical kind and, therefore, more or less suspicious. many germanic heroes, both norse and german,[a] had adventures of this order, when they visited the orient, and there was a curious uniformity in the fates that befell them, both in love and war. to make the similarity complete, it was to make himself worthy of elizabeth or ellisif, the daughter of jaroslav, that harold set out in quest of fame and riches; and he did not fail to claim her on his return, and bring her back with him to the land of his fathers. he met his nephew, king magnus, in denmark, as he was sailing through the sound along the coast of skaane. his ship, in which he carried his treasures, was the most magnificent that had ever been seen in the north; and made a sensation wherever it appeared. magnus, when he saw the beautiful galley, sent men aboard to find out whence it came and to whom it belonged. a very tall and handsome man, with courtly manners stepped forward, and said that he was an embassador from harold sigurdsson, king magnus' uncle, and his errand was to learn how the king would receive his master. in response to this, the generous magnus sent a message that he would receive his uncle with open arms, as he would expect to find a strong friend and supporter in a kinsman like him. the tall man was none other than harold himself. a meeting was then arranged, and the two kinsmen were well pleased with each other. one there was, however, who was not pleased and that was einar thambarskelver. he foresaw what was coming, and when harold presently advanced his claim to half the kingdom, he could scarcely restrain his wrath. nevertheless, the king, who was most closely concerned in this demand, answered gently that he would not hastily dismiss his kinsman's request, but would be guided by the opinion of his counsellors. einar, as the most important, was now asked for his advice and he arose, saying that if king magnus was to cede half the kingdom of norway to harold, it was only fair that harold should share his treasures with magnus. this proposal did not prove agreeable to harold; he had not, he said, braved dangers and gathered wealth for the purpose of enriching his nephew's men. [footnote a: the german stories of "herzog ernst" and "hugditrich," and particularly that of "king rother," have many features in common with the saga records of harold sigurdsson.] "but," rejoined einar aptly, "thou wast far away, harold, when we won the land back from the race of knut, and no desire have we now to divide it between the chieftains. hitherto we have only served one king at a time, and thus it shall continue to be, as long as king magnus is alive and governs. i will do all i can to prevent thee from getting any share in the kingdom." the other counsellors agreed that this judgment was sound, and declared themselves in the same spirit. this was the beginning of the bitter enmity between harold sigurdsson and einar thambarskelver which led to so many unhappy events in the near future. harold, who in his victorious career had been unaccustomed to rebuffs, resented keenly his nephew's attitude toward him; and, for the purpose of bringing him to terms, formed an alliance with sweyn estridsson. with his great wealth he had no difficulty in raising a considerable force, with which, in sweyn's company, he attacked denmark, ravaging seeland and funen with ruthless cruelty. but the moment he learned that magnus was approaching with his fleet, he separated from his ally and returned in haste to norway. to justify this breach of faith, he spread the rumor that sweyn had tried to assassinate him. a man did actually, in the dead of night, row over from sweyn's ship to that of harold, and steal into the latter's cabin. but harold, pretending to expect an attempt upon his life, had put a log in his bed, covering it carefully with the bedclothes. the assassin, creeping across the floor, struck his axe into the log and made his escape. the next morning harold showed the log with the axe yet sticking in it to his men, and denouncing sweyn's faithlessness, set sail for norway. there was, however, a suspicion that he had himself arranged the whole affair. on his arrival in norway, harold sought his old friends and kinsmen in ringerike, offering them great rewards if they would recognize him as king. but, partly because magnus was so generally beloved, partly for fear of the consequences, the chieftains held aloof from the new pretender and discouraged his aspirations. in guldbrandsdale he met with a better reception, and succeeded in gathering a band of partisans who were ready to share his fortunes. here he summoned the people to a _thing_, where his cousin thore of steig, a youth of fifteen years, proclaimed him king. as soon as magnus heard of his uncle's doings, he sailed to viken. here a battle seemed imminent, as harold and his men were coming southward to attack the king. magnus, however, was reluctant to fight against his father's brother, and, after some negotiations, it was agreed that the two kinsmen should both be kings, govern together, and share equally the income from taxes and the royal estates ( ). norway was, accordingly, not divided into equal parts, each with a separate king, but the royal dignity was divided between two kings, who both exercised authority over the entire land. it was, as the future proved, a most disastrous precedent, which, however, harold the fairhaired himself had been the first to establish. in return for his nephew's concession, harold consented to share with him his wealth, which is said to have been very great, thus enabling magnus to prosecute with the greater vigor his war with sweyn estridsson. the friendship between the two kings was, however, but of short duration. not only their interests were in many points conflicting, but their characters were such as to invite antagonism. harold's greed of money, his extortion of the peasants, and his jealous insistence upon every right which magnus had of his own accord bestowed upon him, must have aroused in the latter's mind many bitter reflections. and still, with his innate generosity and forbearance, magnus refused to credit the many complaints that reached his ears. he was so averse to quarrelling that, where his dignity permitted, he rather ignored an affront than resented it. it seems, on the other hand, as if harold foresaw that so strained a relation could not last, and perhaps even desired to put an end to it. to his imperious temperament it was galling to suffer any restraint in the exercise of power. many incidents are related of his controversies with magnus and his men. thus, on one occasion, einar thambarskelver, in order to convince his foster-son of harold's untrustworthiness, went to a _thing_, which the latter had summoned, and witnessed the proceedings. einar wore a gilt helmet and was accompanied by sixty armed men. harold, irritated by his presence, surpassed himself in the severity of his demands upon the peasants, and aroused much indignation. an old peasant named toke, rose and said: "i have now lived and borne the name of peasant in the reigns of several kings, but i supposed when we had one king who with full right had accepted the kingdom and been proclaimed at oere-_thing_, according to the counsel of the chiefs and with the consent of the people, and a man came later demanding the name and power of a king, that it is the former and not the latter who has the most power over us, his _thegns_. my advice is, therefore, ye peasants, that we await king magnus' decision in regard to king harold's demands and extortions, and that we continue in all things to accord honor to king magnus." when the old man had finished, einar thambarskelver arose and thanked him and all the peasants for their friendly disposition toward king magnus. this was more than king harold could endure. he sprang up and cried angrily: "loftily dost thou wear thy helmet now, einar, and always thou showest thyself as my opponent. happy will the day be when thy helmet shall be laid low. as thou now art a head taller than others, thou shalt then be a head shorter." disagreements, of a more or less serious character, between the kings themselves were of frequent occurrence, and it was usually the prudence and self-control of magnus which prevented an open rupture. no record has been preserved of the war which they waged together against sweyn estridsson. it is to be inferred that the greater number of the danes took the part of magnus against sweyn, and that no battle of any consequence was fought. it is told that one day while the norse fleet was lying close under land, a horseman, in splendid armor, came riding out of the forest, and began to exhibit his horsemanship, to the great admiration of the norse warriors. when he had thus amused them for a while, he rode down to the edge of the water, and shouted: "i am a traitor to king magnus, but so is king harold to me; there is an immense difference between these kings." at that moment king magnus came on deck, and recognized sweyn. but sweyn spurred his horse and vanished among the trees. no attempt was made to pursue him. "sweyn ulfsson is a goodly man," said magnus, "and if he had as much people as he has courage and intrepidity, he would win more victories." it was the bitterness that rankled in magnus' heart against his uncle which made him lenient in his judgment of sweyn. and we shall see how this sentiment presently affected his action. he had one day gone ashore with many of his men, and was riding in the neighborhood of the village alsted, in seeland, when his horse took fright and threw him. he was flung with his head against a stump, and was stunned, but afterward apparently recovered. nevertheless, a morbid feeling took possession of him, and a foreboding of death darkened his mind. a dream which he had was rather the result than the cause of his melancholy presentiment. it seemed to him that his father, st. olaf, came to him and gave him the choice between two things--viz., either to follow him now, or to live long and be the mightiest of kings, but load upon his soul a sin which hardly, if at all, could be forgiven. "choose thou for me, father," he seemed to answer. "then follow me now," said st. olaf. it is not hard to guess what the mortal sin was. that the temptation to resort to violence against his burdensome rival must have been frequently present to magnus' mind, is scarcely to be wondered at. that the temptation was resisted, is rather a matter of wonder. a few days passed, during which magnus pondered the dream. then, one morning, he woke up, burning with fever. einar thambarskelver, who stood at his bedside, asked if he was ill. "not very ill, yet, dear foster-father," he answered. "it would be a sorrow which we could never get over if we were to lose thee," said einar. magnus begged to be moved from one part of the ship to another; but changed his mind again and wished to be taken back to where he had first lain. then einar took alarm. "say to thy friends now, my lord, that which is nearest to thy heart," he said. "give us good counsel; for mayhap our converse will not be long." "dear friend," the king replied, "i fear that this illness will soon make an end of our intercourse." when the rumor spread that king magnus was ill, harold came aboard his ship and inquired about his condition. "yes, in sooth i am ill, kinsman," said the king, "and i have one prayer to you, that you will not show disfavor to my friends." "that is only my duty for your sake," replied harold, "but there are some of them who seem eternally sufficient unto themselves, and overlook me." "what boots it to speak of such things now?" said einar; "whatever harold may promise, he has already determined in his mind what he will do." little was lacking that harold got into a dispute with the dying king about the throne of denmark, which magnus had destined for sweyn estridsson, and the gold which they had shared between them when they shared the government. after having distributed gifts and keepsakes to his men, king magnus died ( ), twenty-four years old, after having governed norway for twelve years and a half, and denmark for five years. no sooner had he closed his eyes than harold sent men to intercept the messengers which had been despatched to sweyn estridsson to inform him of his succession to the danish throne. the death of king magnus was announced to the fleet by the blowing of _loors_,[a] and the saying was indeed true, in his case, that he was mourned by all the people. [footnote a: loors are long alpine horns, made of wood bound with birch-bark, or of metal. they give a powerful sound.] [illustration: pommel of gilt bronze from the viking age.] [illustration] chapter xvi. harold sigurdsson hard-ruler ( - ). as magnus the good left no sons behind him, harold sigurdsson was the only remaining descendant in the male line of harold the fairhaired, and therefore undisputed heir to the throne. for, although the monarchy in norway had not from the earliest times been strictly hereditary, the idea had gradually gained acceptance that the land belonged by allodial right to the male descendants of its first conqueror. in apparent, though not in real, conflict with this idea, was the custom of proclaiming the king separately at the _thing_ in each shire and personally swearing him allegiance, on condition of his promising to rule in accordance with law and ancient usage. as we have seen, on many occasions, the tribal aristocracy never gave so blind an adherence to the hereditary principle as to renounce the practice of dictating conditions and, in many instances, deciding the choice between the various aspirants for the crown. if it had not been for the unhappy precedent, established by harold the fairhaired, that not one but all the sons of a king, legitimate and illegitimate, should succeed him on the throne, this balance of power would have prevented an arbitrary use of his authority, on the part of the king, and thus in the end have proved beneficial. in fact, the great principle of constitutional liberty is involved in this conflict of interests, and the natural opposition of an aristocracy to the encroachments of the crown. the situation in norway, as well as the temperament of the people, was favorable to the gradual and uninterrupted development of a constitutional monarchy, such as the english, and if the long civil wars growing out of the claims of rival heirs to the throne had not exhausted the land, four hundred years of political extinction would not have preceded the resurrection of the nation in the present century. harold sigurdsson soon showed that he appreciated the advantages of his position as the sole heir both of harold the fairhaired and st. olaf. for st. olaf's sanctity had shed new lustre upon the royal house, and greatly strengthened its hold upon the people. in fact, the later kings refer the source of their authority more frequently to their heirship of st. olaf than to that of harold the fairhaired. when the tidings of king magnus' death had gone abroad, his successor called a _thing_ together and declared that it was not his intention to abide by his late nephew's decision to leave denmark to sweyn estridsson. denmark was his by right of inheritance, and he meant to go at once to viborg-_thing_ and proclaim himself king of the danes. this declaration was not well received by the friends of king magnus, and einar thambarskelver voiced their feelings, when he reminded harold that it was his first duty to take the corpse to nidaros and bury it with the proper honors. the fleet then broke up, and harold having but a small force left, had no choice but to accept einar's advice. at borgar-_thing_, and later at oere-_thing_, he was, according to ancient custom, proclaimed king, no opposition being offered to his succession. but cheerfully the peasants did not offer him their allegiance, for they knew him well and expected nothing good of him. his ideas of government he had imbibed among the southern races, which patiently bore tyranny, because they lacked the sense of dignity and the sturdy manhood of the north. he had, indeed, a more definite political programme than any of his predecessors, but it was not a programme which was in accord with the genius of a free germanic people. harold's first object, and the one which he pursued with indefatigable zeal throughout his reign, was to break the power of the tribal aristocracy. the influence, authority, and calm defiance of those miniature kings were perpetually a thorn in his flesh. his tall growth and great physical strength, no less than the ease with which he had so far achieved all that he had striven for, had inspired him with a supreme self-reliance and a corresponding contempt for all forces and interests opposed to his own. the ruthlessness with which he carried out his purposes made him many enemies and procured for him the surname _haardraade_,[a] _i. e._, the hard ruler, the tyrant. what enabled him to maintain so stern a sway over a people, so jealous of their rights, was his superior intellect. "he was," says snorre, "extremely intelligent, so that all men are agreed that there has never been a more intelligent king in the north. moreover, he was an excellent swordsman, strong, and skilled in the art of war, and altogether a man who knew how to accomplish his purposes." [footnote a: harold is referred to in english history as harold the haughty. german histories call him h. der _unbeugsame_ (h. the inflexible).] interesting in this connection is also his fondness for poetry and his skill as a scald. it is told that he sat up half the night with the blind icelandic scald, stuf katson, and would not sleep as long as stuf could recite to him. this little trait adds a vivid touch to his character and brings it closer to our sympathy and comprehension. as the leader of the opposition to harold, einar thambarskelver had long been prominent. as the son-in-law of earl haakon, the friend of earl erik and the foster-father of king magnus, he occupied an exceptional position and was highly respected. his personal qualities were also such as to increase the esteem with which he was regarded. in natural endowments he was fully king harold's match, and in imperiousness and proud self-assertion he did not yield much to him. moreover, he was well skilled in the law, and when the king, as often happened, demanded more of the peasants than was his right, einar rose as the people's spokesman and checked the arbitrary exaction. it was not to be wondered at that harold hated him, but it is a striking tribute to the esteem in which he was held, that the king refrained so long from molesting him. but rashness was not among harold's faults. he was fully capable of forecasting the results of his actions. as yet he felt that too great a risk would be involved in an attempt to rid himself of his enemy, who lived on a war-footing and was prepared to meet emergencies. with a view to weakening his power, harold, therefore, made the icelander ulf uspaksson his liegeman, and gave him far greater fiefs in tröndelag than einar had. again, in order to break the solid front of the tribal magnates in that part of the country and divide their interests, he married the beautiful thora, the sister of eystein orre, of the great race of the arnmodlings.[a] the king was not then divorced from his first wife, queen ellisif, and it has therefore been supposed, that thora was only his mistress. but it is not likely that her proud kinsmen would have allowed her to occupy such a position,[b] and it appears that the title of queen was everywhere accorded her. it is therefore impossible to escape the conclusion that harold had, at the same time, two lawful wives. [footnote a: to this family belonged finn arnesson, who fought at st. olaf's side at stiklestad, and kalf arnesson, whom magnus the good exiled.] [footnote b: see munch: "det norske folks historie," ii., p. .] the tendency to subordinate all other considerations to policy, which harold showed in his marriage, was also visible in his efforts to establish a rival saint to st. olaf in the south of the country. the presence of the sanctuary of the national saint in tröndelag had tended to increase the natural predominance of that province over the southern districts and to foster jealousies, which, in an imperfectly amalgamated nationality, are always rife. viken, which had formerly belonged to denmark, had never become intimately attached to the kingdom and race of harold the fairhaired; and harold sigurdsson judged rightly that a local saint of his own family would accomplish the double purpose. such a saint was soon found in the person of hallvard, the son of vebjörn, and a cousin of the king. his history was not very remarkable, nor was his martyrdom, even with all its legendary embellishments, sufficient to warrant canonization. but it served the king's purpose well, and the regulation miracles began to manifest themselves in the usual fashion at st. hallvard's shrine. without submitting the question to the pope, "the people" then proclaimed him a saint, and the king founded the town of oslo, probably to shelter the new sanctuary ( or ). the site of the town was chosen with excellent judgment at the end of the folden fjord, where christiania, the capital of norway, is now situated. when we consider the restless energy and power with which king harold carried out his plans, both in internal and in foreign affairs, we cannot but derive a high idea of his ability. whether, on the other hand, his activity was for the welfare of his subjects, is another question. certainly, his long-continued war with denmark was disastrous, both to himself and his people. his annual summer amusement consisted, for some time, in surprising the exposed ports on the danish coast and harrying them with savage cruelty. at last, when both sides grew tired of this aimless destruction, it was agreed that sweyn estridsson should meet harold at the mouth of the götha elv, and that the issue of the battle should decide in regard to the latter's claim to the throne of denmark. at the time appointed, however, sweyn failed to make his appearance, and harold, after having waited for him in vain, sailed southward with his fleet, ravaging the coast of jutland, burning the great city of heidaby (sleswick), and carrying away a number of high-born women, besides an enormous booty ( ). he was far from expecting to be pursued by the danes, and, accordingly, allowed his ships to scatter on their homeward way. head-winds and foggy weather delayed the norsemen, and one morning when they were laying to under the island of lesö, they saw a sudden flash through the fog which caused alarm. the king was called and asked what he supposed it to be. "the danish fleet is upon us," he said; "that which shines is the golden dragon-heads which flash in the morning sun." resistance was not to be thought of, and flight seemed also hopeless. but the king's presence of mind did not desert him. he ordered the men to the oars, but the ships, which were heavy and swollen from having been long in the water, made little headway, and, as the fog lifted, the danish fleet, counting several hundred galleys, was seen bearing down upon them. harold then commanded his men to nail bright garments and other precious things to logs and throw them overboard. the danes, who could not resist the temptation to stop and pick them up, thereby lost time, and were rebuked by sweyn for their folly. again the pursuit began, and harold was obliged to throw overboard malt, beer, and pork, in order to lighten his ships. nevertheless, sweyn was still gaining upon him, and harold's own dragon-ship, which was the hindmost, was in danger of being captured. then, in sheer desperation, he made rafts out of barrels and boards, put the danish matrons and maidens upon them, and lowered them into the sea. one after another of these rafts was sent out at intervals, and the pursuers seeing their wives and daughters stretching out their arms to them, crying to be rescued, and some even struggling in the water, could not forbear to pause and save them. thus harold escaped, and sweyn cursed his ill-luck. nevertheless, when he captured some laggards among the norse galleys, he refused to take vengeance upon them. during a later expedition to denmark ( ) harold displayed again the same presence of mind, and daring invention. he had just beaten sweyn in the battle of djursaa, and felt perfectly safe in entering the long and narrow lim-fjord for purposes of plunder. but sweyn, hearing that his antagonist had gone into such a trap, hastily gathered what forces he could command and laid to at hals, where the fjord is so narrow that a few ships could easily engage a much superior number. harold, perceiving that he was caught, gave orders to sail in through the fjord to the very end. here a narrow isthmus separates the fjord from the north sea. with enormous difficulty he now dragged his ships across the isthmus, and sailed gaily northward while sweyn lay guarding the empty cage from which he had escaped. to make, however, an end of this wasteful and unprofitable warfare, harold proposed to sweyn that they should stake their kingdoms in a decisive battle in the götha elv. it is not perfectly clear whether sweyn accepted this challenge, though there is a probability that he did, as harold would scarcely otherwise have gone to the place appointed for the battle. as on the former occasion, however, he waited in vain for the foe, and, dismissing the greater part of his force, sailed with one hundred and eighty ships down along the coast of skaane until he came to nis-aa, where he was surprised by sweyn with a fleet of three hundred and sixty ships. a bloody battle was fought, lasting through an entire night ( ), and ending with the complete rout of the danes. the victory was in a large measure due to the norse chieftain haakon ivarsson, a man whom harold had treated with harshness, but who, in the king's need, nevertheless, came to his rescue. sweyn, too, owed his safety to haakon, on board whose ship he sought refuge, and by whose aid he made his escape. great as the victory at nis-aa was, its results, as far as harold was concerned, proved insignificant. it was vain to suppose that sweyn, as long as he had any power of resistance, would renounce his throne; and even if he had been willing to abide by such an agreement, the norsemen's many plundering expeditions had made them so hated in denmark that an army of occupation would have been needed to keep the land under their sway. they were, however, no less weary than the danes of the incessant hostilities, and much against his will, harold was forced to make peace at götha elv in . he recognized sweyn as king of denmark, and promised no more to molest him. the excessive burdens which harold had imposed upon his people, in order to obtain the means to carry on this war, had produced great discontent among the peasants, and the important domestic events which preceded the peace will now claim our attention. during the prosecution of the war nothing irritated the king more than the captious criticism and opposition of the chieftains, and particularly of their leader, einar thambarskelver. einar, with his six hundred men-at-arms, following him wherever he went, was the personified defiance of the king's authority; and harold, when he once saw him land at the pier in nidaros, flaunting his power in his face, is said to have exclaimed in verse: "here i must see the haughty einar land with a band of _hus-carles_ so large that many an earl would have been satisfied with less. he thinks, perhaps, himself to mount the throne; and he will not stop until he has deprived me of my kingdom, unless he has first to kiss the thin lips of the axe." though this supposition may have been unfounded, it is very sure that einar shunned no opportunity for manifesting his hostility to the king. once he broke up a meeting when harold was present, and with his armed retinue freed a convicted thief who had once been in his service. another time he forced the king, by threatening an attack, to surrender a great treasure which once had been found in the ground, although the law adjudged all property thus acquired to the king. einar, however, claimed that some runes on the lid of the chest, containing the treasure, showed it to have belonged to his father-in-law, earl haakon, whose only surviving heir was his wife bergljot. the king could scarcely be blamed for resenting such insolence, but the means he chose to get even with his enemy was unworthy of him. he had, by chance, captured some danish men who had in their possession king sweyn's seal. it is not improbable that they were secret emissaries from the danish king, who was perhaps trying the tactics of his uncle knut, whose bribes had once alienated the norse chieftains from olaf the saint. it now occurred to harold that he might use these men to test the disposition of the chieftains toward him and, what was especially important, gain a just reason for destroying those who should prove to be traitors. it was particularly against einar thambarskelver that this plot was directed. the men, purporting to come from king sweyn, brought forged letters full of flattering assurances, and a large sum of money which they offered einar as a pledge of the king's friendship. but he was equal to the test. "every one knows," he said, "that king harold is not my friend, while king sweyn often speaks kindly of me, and i would fain be his friend. but if he comes to norway with an army to fight king harold and harry his kingdom, i will make him all resistance in my power, and i will help king harold, with all the force at my command, to defend his kingdom." when the danes returned with this message to king harold, he said: "it was to be expected that he would answer like a man of honor, though not out of love for me." there were other surprises in store for the king on this occasion. his friend and kinsman, thore of steig, who had first recognized his claim to the kingdom, accepted the bribe, and when informed that harold was coming to punish him, he went cheerfully to meet him, and handed him the money, saying: "a short while ago, there were some danish men at my house who brought me friendly letters and money from king sweyn. i accepted the money, because i found it proper that you should receive what foreign kings were using to steal your country from you." this was so shrewd an act that it extorted from harold, even if he did see through it, a reluctant admiration. a third man,--a peasant, named högne langbjörnsson--to whom the emissaries came, made them this answer: "i did not think king sweyn had heard of me, who am only a common peasant, but my answer to him is this: that if he comes to norway with war-shield, no peasant's son shall do him more harm than i." when this reply was reported to harold he was greatly pleased, and presently offered högne, as a reward for his fidelity, the title of liegeman, which was the highest dignity next to that of earl. but högne was also proof against this temptation. "all the friendship which you show me, my lord," he said, "i accept with thanks. but the title of liegeman i will not have, for i well know how things will go. when the liegemen came together they would say: 'högne shall have the lowest seat, for he is only of peasant race, and thus the lowest of the liegemen.' my dignity would then not bring me honor, but shame. far greater honor it is to be called a peasant and have the peasants say when they come together, that högne is the foremost among them." it is this sturdy sense of independence among peasants which makes norwegian history unlike the history of any other country, and norway the fountain-head of constitutional liberty in europe. it was upon this rock that feudalism was wrecked in norway, while it sailed triumphant down the current of history in sweden, in denmark, and all other european lands. king harold could not help recognizing this proud integrity, even when found in his enemies. he was more kindly disposed even toward einar thambarskelver after having become assured of his loyalty. in order to put an end to all differences between them, he invited the old man to a feast at the royal mansion in nidaros, gave him the seat of honor next to himself, and entertained him in princely fashion. the horns were industriously drained, and einar, who was nearly eighty years old, grew sleepy. as ill-luck would have it, the king was just then telling of his adventures in constantinople, and he regarded the sleepiness of his guest as a mark of disrespect. he directed one of his men to play a rough trick on the sleeper, in return for which einar, the next day, had the man slain. the old enmity then broke out afresh; and harold, weary of the humiliations he had had to suffer, determined to rid himself of his foe. under pretence of wishing to make peace with him, he invited him to a meeting. einar came with his son eindride and a large crowd of followers. the king, having concealed assassins in the hall, had covered up the smoke-hole so as to exclude the light. as einar entered, leaving his son at the door outside, he expressed his astonishment at the darkness. "dark it is in the king's hall," he said. the murderers immediately fell upon him and cut him down. "sharp are the fangs of the king's hounds," he cried. eindride, hearing his father's voice, rushed in to defend him, but was instantly surrounded and slain. in a few minutes the king strode out of the hall, and ordered his men to prepare themselves for an attack; but einar's followers stood irresolute, and made no sign to pursue him, as he walked down to the river with his guard and rowed out to the fjord. the old bergljot, when she heard of the king's treachery, rushed through the streets of the town, vainly calling upon the people to avenge her husband and son. she arrived at the king's mansion just in time to see harold's boat gliding down the river. "now we miss my kinsman haakon ivarsson," she cried; "for if he stood here on the slope, einar's slayer would not be rowing down the river." harold acted wisely in betaking himself away after having aroused the wrath of the trönders by this dastardly deed. he went to his kinsman by marriage, finn arnesson, and persuaded him to use his influence to quiet the people; in return for which he promised to recall his brother kalf, and restore to him his property and dignities, of which king magnus had deprived him. moreover, finn had to undertake a mission to haakon ivarsson, and induce him to forego his vengeance for the slaying of his kinsmen, and accept, as blood-wite, any favor which it was in the king's power to bestow. finn accomplished both these missions with success; quieted the trönders, and reconciled haakon, who, as the price of peace, demanded the hand of ragnhild, the daughter of magnus the good, in marriage. nevertheless, the king had lost much in the estimation of the people by murdering einar. the slaying itself they would readily have condoned; but the breach of faith they regarded as a crime, unworthy of an honorable warrior. harold's disregard of faith and honor brought about a general disregard of moral obligations. toward a treacherous king treason seemed pardonable. one after another of his liegemen, discovering his duplicity, turned away from him, left their country, and went to king sweyn in denmark, who received them well. the first who took this course was finn arnesson; kalf, his brother, was a brave and able man, and king harold seemed after his return to be kindly disposed toward him. for all that, during an expedition to denmark, he sent him ashore with a small band of men and commanded him to attack a much superior danish force, promising to come to his aid, if necessary. kalf obeyed, and was killed with nearly all his men. then, at last, when there was no need of it, the king landed and made an incursion for plunder into the country. later, he boasted of having caused the death of thirteen men, and finn was not wrong in supposing that his brother was one of them. he was so incensed at the king's treachery that he could no more endure to meet him face to face. he sailed with all his movable possessions to denmark, where king sweyn made him earl of halland, a province which now belongs to sweden, and borders on the norwegian province viken. a similar experience with king harold had haakon ivarsson. he wooed ragnhild, the daughter of king magnus, but received the reply that she would not wed any man less than an earl. haakon then begged the king to make him an earl; but harold answered that he did not wish to have more than one earl at the time in his kingdom. full of wrath, haakon then betook himself to king sweyn; but in the battle of nis-aa again joined harold, and saved him from defeat. his obligations toward sweyn he also discharged by rescuing him after the battle, and sending him in safety to his friends. the fame which haakon acquired by these exploits, so far from bringing him the favor of the king, rather excited his hostility. harold did, indeed, persuade ragnhild to marry him, and positively promised to make him an earl; but, after the wedding had taken place, he put him off on one pretext or another, and when haakon pressed him for an answer, gave him a blank refusal. his wife, who had expected a different result, cried out to him joyously, as he returned: "welcome, my earl." he was forced to tell her what had occurred; and as he would not have the appearance of having won her under false pretences, he offered her divorce, and the right to keep all his property. this was a generous offer, but ragnhild refused to accept it. haakon, then, began secretly to dispose of his property, in the hope of escaping from the country without attracting the king's attention. harold, however, got wind of his purpose, and started out with two hundred and forty men, in the night, to kill him. being warned by a friend, he made his escape into sweden, and thence to denmark. sweyn made him earl of halland after finn arnesson's death; and the swedish king, steinkil, gave him the two large provinces, vestgötland and vermeland. haakon was now in possession of almost royal power, and he availed himself of his position to do as much damage to king harold as possible. in the oplands he had always been popular, while the king was much disliked for having deprived the peasants of certain privileges, bestowed upon them by olaf the saint. haakon, therefore, had the audacity to levy taxes in this province, and when the king's tax-gatherers came, they were informed that there was no money due to him, as the taxes had been paid to earl haakon. but king harold was not the man to pocket such insults. he gathered an army, invaded sweden, and defeated haakon and the vestgoths; and the oplanders he punished with exemplary severity. in the year , earl tostig, the brother of the english king harold godwineson, came to norway to enlist harold sigurdsson's aid in an attempt to conquer england. he had been on a similar errand in denmark, but had there met with small success. sweyn estridsson declared that he had no ambition to imitate the deeds of his uncle, knut the mighty; but would be quite content if he could keep and defend his own kingdom. harold sigurdsson, who never was averse to adventurous undertakings, lent a more favorable ear to the earl's representations, and in september, , sailed for england with the largest fleet which up to that time had ever left the shores of norway. about twenty thousand warriors embarked, and with the contingent which he exacted from the earls of the orkneys, and earl tostig's own contribution, the entire force must have amounted to three hundred or three hundred and fifty ships and thirty thousand men. his queen, ellisif, and his two daughters, maria and ingegerd, whom he had brought with him, he left on the orkneys, and himself sailed down along the coast of scotland to northumberland. at fulford he was met by an army under the earls markere and eadwine, and won a great victory, whereupon the city of york surrendered. he encamped at stamford bridge, about seven miles from york; but left about one third of his army, under command of his son olaf, to guard the ships. the weather was warm, and the men, having no thought of danger, did not wear their armors. at stamford bridge, however, they were surprised by a large army, led by harold godwineson. tostig advised a speedy return to the ships; but harold sigurdsson, being too proud to turn his back to any foe, gave orders to await the attack of the english. while the army was being arranged in battle array, twenty english horsemen came riding toward them, and one of them asked if earl tostig was present. "it is not to be denied that you will find him here," answered tostig. "we bring thee this greeting from thy brother harold," said the englishman, "that he offers thee peace and northumberland; nay, he is not indisposed to grant thee one third of his kingdom, if he can gain thy friendship on no other terms." "this, in sooth, is another offer than the scorn and strife which were offered me last autumn. * * * suppose, now, that i accept this proposal; what does then my brother offer the king of norway?" "he has intimated how large a piece of england he will grant to king harold sigurdsson; it is the space of seven feet, or so much more as he is taller than other men." "if such is the case," tostig rejoined, "then ride back and bid king harold commence the battle." harold sigurdsson, who had listened to this colloquy, asked tostig who the spokesman of the englishmen was. "that was my brother, harold godwineson himself," answered the earl. "too late did i learn that," said king harold. the english cavalry made the first onslaught, but were repulsed. thinking that their retreat indicated a general flight, the norsemen started in pursuit, thus breaking up their battle array, which it was the king's intention to preserve until the expected reinforcements arrived from the ships. king harold fought with _berserkir_ fury, rushing into the thick of the fray and hewing savagely about him. the english ranks broke, and every thing indicated a victory for the norsemen, when the king's throat was pierced by an arrow, and he fell from his horse dying. tostig now assumed command, after having refused an armistice, offered by his brother. he fought bravely for a while, and the norsemen, weary and wounded though they were, shouted their battle-cry and rushed forward once more, eager to avenge their king. then tostig, too, was cut down, and the wide battle-field was covered with the bodies of the slain. just then, eystein orre, king harold's brother-in-law, arrived with reinforcements, and a short and desperate combat ensued, until he, too, fell. under cover of the twilight a small remnant of the great army succeeded in reaching the ships. one man, named styrkaar stallare, had got hold of a horse and dashed furiously away over the fields, arrayed in his shirt and a helmet. his clothes had been torn off him in the heat of the combat. a cold wind was blowing, and chilled him to the bone. on his way, he met an english yeoman, dressed in a warm jerkin of sheepskin. styrkaar asked him how much he would take for the garment. "i won't sell it to thee," answered the yeoman, "for i know thee by thy speech that thou art a norseman." "if that's so," said styrkaar, "what wilt thou then do?" [illustration: the old man of hoy, on the orkneys.] "i'll kill thee; but unhappily i have no weapon that will avail me." "well, since thou seest that thou canst not kill me," rejoined the norseman, "let me try if i can't kill thee." and raising his sword, he struck off the yeoman's head and made off with his jerkin. for many years after this battle, heaps of human bones lay scattered over the fields, for no one stayed to bury the dead. the landing of william the conqueror (september th) called harold godwineson to hastings, where the fruits of the victory at stamford bridge were lost. olaf haroldsson, harold sigurdsson's son, steered his course first to the orkneys, where his half-sister maria, in the meanwhile, had died. there he remained during the winter and spring, and sailed the following summer, with queen ellisif and his sister ingegerd, to norway. of all the splendid fleet with which his father had sailed away only twenty-four ships returned. king harold was fifty-one years old when he fell. in spite of the discontent of the chiefs, norway took great strides, during his reign, toward a settled internal condition. the tribes were being welded into a people. in every branch of the administration the king's strong hand was felt. his wars, though in one sense disastrous, tended, on the whole, to give norway a secure place among the nations. a long controversy which he had concerning ecclesiastical affairs with archbishop adalbert of bremen ended in his triumph, and though no formal decision was made, the norwegian church ceased, for a while, to recognize the supremacy of the see of bremen. if king harold had been as noble as he was able, he would have left a greater name behind him. [illustration] chapter xvii. olaf the quiet (kyrre) ( - ) and magnus haroldsson ( - ). on his return to norway, olaf haroldsson found his elder brother magnus, who had already been acknowledged as king before his father's death, in possession of the government. after some negotiations it was agreed that the two brothers should divide the kingdom between them--magnus taking the larger portion toward the north and west, and olaf contenting himself with viken. if this division was founded upon the equal allodial rights of the brothers, it was obviously unfair. but olaf, being averse to quarrelling, accepted it, as far as we know, without protest. the campaign to england had largely exhausted the resources of the country; and sweyn estridsson of denmark thought that the opportunity was now favorable for avenging the wrongs which he had suffered at the hands of king harold. the brothers then made levy in mass from all the country, but sweyn succeeded in engaging olaf with his division of the fleet, off the coast of halland ( ), before magnus had joined him. the battle must have been indecisive; for both sides claimed a victory. it is, however, probable that olaf suffered the more, as he was the first to propose peace. magnus had, in the meanwhile, come, and their allied fleets were, in all probability, equal or superior to sweyn's. at all events, sweyn had suddenly lost the desire to prosecute the war; and a peace was made at konghelle ( ), at which assurances of friendship and good-will were exchanged. olaf is said to have borne his part in the negotiations with a firmness and intrepidity which inspired sweyn with respect. as a first result of the meeting, two marriages were arranged, viz.: one between harold hard-ruler's widow, ellisif, and king sweyn, and the other between olaf and sweyn's daughter, ingrid. it is not known whether magnus was present at the peace of konghelle. if he was, his ill health must have prevented him from transacting any business; for only olaf's name is mentioned in connection with the treaty. during the following year, too, all public business devolved upon olaf; for magnus lay ill in nidaros and finally died in the spring, . he left one son, haakon, who was but an infant and was fostered by thore of steig. no one put forth any claim to the kingdom in his name, and olaf thus became king of the whole country. with the exception of the little ripple of martial excitement during the first years after his accession, olaf haroldsson's reign of twenty-seven years presents not a single warlike event. his saga is a saga of peace--a long and honorable record of achievements in the service of civilization. the key-note of his character was prudent moderation. he was religious, but not fanatical; devout, but not bigoted. easy-going by temperament, yet negligent of no duty, cheerful but not jolly, calm but not indolent, he is indeed a unique but none the less attractive figure among the martial descendants of harold the fairhaired. he is the more remarkable because his leading traits of character contrast so strikingly with those of the prevailing type of man in his age. serenity of soul shines out of those of his utterances which the sagas have thought it worth while to preserve. there seems to be a conscious conviction, far in advance of his century, in a saying like this: "why should i not be happy, since i am sitting here with you at a feast, which is consecrated to my kinsman st. olaf, and i see both joy and liberty among my subjects? in the days of my father this people lived under much compulsion and fear. then most of them hid away their gold and treasures, but now i see shine upon every one the ornaments which he possesses. your freedom and joy are my feast and my delight." the surname _kyrre, i. e._, the tranquil, the quiet one, which the people gave him, whether originally meant as a compliment or not, became, in the course of time, an honorable distinction; for during the century of strife and bloodshed which followed, all looked upon his bloodless reign as upon a golden age of peace.[a] as a later author [b] says: "he was in favor both with god and men; he laid great stress upon peace and tranquillity; let every man keep what was his own, and suppressed nothing but what was evil. * * * there were then excellent crops and manifold splendor, so that norway had never since harold the fairhaired been in such a prosperous condition, as in his days. all the people loved him warmly; for he conceded many a thing for their convenience which harold had insisted upon with harshness and enforced with severity. he was liberal with gold and silver and good ornaments; but only tenacious of land; the reason of this was his intelligence; for he saw that it was for the welfare of the kingdom." [footnote a: see munch, ii., p. .] [footnote b: thjodrek munk, cap. . quoted from munch det norske folk's historie.] the story of olaf the quiet occupies but a few pages in the sagas, while that of his father and his son, both great warriors, fills much space. the work of destroying lives, in which the latter were accomplished, appealed more to the warlike historian of the kings of norway than the quiet activity for the preservation of life and the amelioration of its ills, to which olaf devoted his energies. the little that snorre says about him is, indeed, all in his praise, and very likely there was no one in those days who thought of singing songs or otherwise preserving other deeds than those of the sword. the scald who has sung olaf's praise has, therefore, dwelt chiefly upon his participation in his father's foolhardy expedition to england, and his battle with sweyn estridsson. it was natural that a man of olaf's character should have small sympathy with the viking spirit which was yet to a certain extent prevalent; and though we do not know what he did to discourage viking cruises, we hear that this form of piracy became very much rarer during his reign. one circumstance which must have been discouraging to the vikings was the greatly increased risk which they ran, on account of the consolidation and increased power of the states which they were wont to attack. england under william the conqueror was no longer a congenial stopping-place for norse pirates, and france, spain, and germany had likewise taken measures for the protection of their coasts, which greatly interfered with the summer amusements of the norse chieftains. a trip to ireland, to be sure, still offered some inducements in the way of slaves and plunder; but along the swedish and the russian coasts of the baltic, the native tribes had proved apt pupils of the vikings, and had commenced plundering on their own account, thus diminishing the chances of profit for the norsemen. that the influence of christianity may also have been active in weaning men from their predatory habits we would fain believe, if the long carnival of bloodshed which followed did not seem to prove the contrary. the material considerations just cited, were evidently the more powerful; though in the case of the king, who himself set the example of devotion to peaceful industries, there is no doubt that his religion influenced his life by strengthening the unwarlike side of his character. he manifested his sincerity as a christian, not only by his fondness for the priests, whose vestments he often assisted in putting on, but more particularly by his efforts to change and suppress every thing which he believed to be antagonistic to the spirit of the religion of christ. thus he was the first king of norway who endeavored to put an end to serfdom. he gave the law, that every shire in the kingdom should annually manumit one thrall. his first object in giving this order, however, was to get citizens for his towns, and thereby encourage commerce and peaceful occupations. many of the thralls were artisans, and a large number of those who had been enthralled as prisoners of war were men of intelligence and enterprise. commerce had, even previous to the reign of olaf the quiet, enjoyed periods of prosperity. the vikings were often merchants as well as pirates, and bought for money or goods what they could not take with the sword. merchants, on the other hand, who were not vikings, had always to have the sword at hand to defend their cargoes. a very sharp distinction between the warrior caste and that of the merchants, did not therefore exist, and we find that great chieftains, nay even kings themselves, engaged in commerce, and were not ashamed of the profit they reaped by mercantile enterprise. thus we hear that olaf the saint went into partnership, for one voyage, with the merchant gudleik gerdske, and harold hard-ruler made the trade with the finns a royal monopoly which he farmed out to his underlings. a considerable exchange of commodities by barter took place between norway and denmark, sweden and england, and as piracy declined, and the precious metals came into general use, a more regular commercial intercourse. these first effects of a more orderly social organization were beginning to be visible during the reign of olaf the quiet, and it is owing to this fact, that we hear so much about the promotion of commerce and the prosperity of the towns. the city of björgvin (now bergen) was founded by him ( - ) and very soon became a commercial centre of great importance. [illustration: interior of orkhaugen, old norse dwelling on the orkneys.] as long as their occupation was war and industrial pursuits were left to thralls, the norsemen could not be expected to have much sense for domestic comfort. and the fact is that, before the days of olaf the quiet, even the wealthiest of them lived in a primitive way, on coarse food and with rude surroundings. their houses contained but one room, with closed alcoves along the walls for beds. as floor, served the bare earth, stamped hard and covered with straw, and along the middle of it burned fires which sent gusts of smoke and sparks through the room. in the roof was a large hole for the escape of the smoke, and also for the admission of light. there were no ceilings; but the smoke-encrusted rafters from which often depended fishing-tackle, skins, and articles of clothing, stretched from wall to wall. near the eaves there were square holes in the roof, closed with shutters. on both sides of the fire were tables and benches which extended lengthwise through the hall. in the middle of each of the two benches which ran along the walls was a more elaborately carved seat with tall posts, called the high-seat. the high-seat on the north wall, facing south, belonged to the master of the house; that on the south wall was assigned to distinguished guests. the walls were, in the houses of chieftains, decorated with finely wrought weapons and hangings of colored cloth. besides the principal dwelling (_skâli_) there were a number of smaller houses, such as the bath-house, kitchen, woman's bower, servant's hall, and sometimes a guest-house. among the out-houses the store-house, the barn, and the cow-stables were the most important. it will be seen from this that the farm of a well-to-do peasant must have had the appearance of a small village. in these arrangements olaf made certain changes, all tending toward increased comfort. in the first place, he removed the fire-place from the middle of the floor into a corner, and had a chimney built for the escape of the smoke. it thus became possible to have floors of stone or wood, and this innovation immediately followed. windows were cut in the walls and furnished with panes of glass or translucent membranes. ceilings were made to enable one to keep the room at a more even temperature; and gradually several rooms were gathered under one roof. the master's high-seat was removed to a cross-bench on the western(?) wall; and in the king's hall, it was placed upon a raised dais, reserved for the king, the queen, and persons of distinction. while in former times, the feasters had contented themselves with the light from the fire, olaf introduced candles and tapers, and stationed as many taper-bearers in front of the royal table as there were persons of princely blood present. courtiers were appointed to wait upon the guests; and to members of the _hird_, or court, who filled this office was accorded a higher rank than the rest. these innovations were undoubtedly a departure from the old democratic simplicity. a more lavish expenditure was necessitated in connection with the court, and we find that olaf increased the number of courtiers (_hirdmennir_) from , which had hitherto been the legal number, to . a more elaborate ceremonial was a direct consequence of the greater luxury, and artificial distinctions in rank were more emphasized than formerly. the king's even good-nature and gentleness disguised to a great extent the true meaning of all this, and prevented people from seeing any harm in it. in fact, the norsemen were in those days fond of splendor, and with all their fierce sense of independence they were greatly attracted by glitter and show. the magnificence of olaf's household tended to increase his popularity, for he did not impose greater burdens upon the people in order to defray his increased expenses. we have heard that olaf the quiet was a zealous christian, and took a warm interest in the moral welfare of his people. with a view to softening their manners and preventing the bloody frays which were then apt to disturb social intercourse, he instituted clubs or associations, which were made subject to rigid regulations. these clubs or guilds, as they were called, met at first in the houses of their members, but gradually, as they increased in prosperity, built separate club-houses, or even churches, in honor of their patron saints. st. olaf was their favorite patron, but guilds were also formed under the protection of other saints. the clergy had supervision over the members; and a peaceful and conciliatory behavior was strenuously insisted upon. weapons were not permitted in the guild-halls; and all disputes had to be settled, when both parties had had time to cool off. to prevent brawls, by placing a restraint upon the behavior of the turbulent, women of good repute were made eligible, and brief religious ceremonies opened the meetings. the only objects of the gatherings were at first social; but as the guilds grew more powerful, it was impossible to prevent them from assuming a semi-political character. the laws pledged the members to mutual protection, and often to avenge each other's death. they might have become dangerous to the state, if the king and his principal advisers had not, themselves, been members and thus able to control their action. the artisans' guilds, which in later medieval times begin to gain political importance, were developed from these social guilds, which did not, however, from the beginning, confine themselves to people of one trade or profession. we hear very little about the tribal chieftains during olaf's reign, probably because many of the most eminent of them had fallen at stamford bridge, and the king's popularity made it seem inadvisable to those who remained to oppose him. one of the few men whose doings are recorded is skule, the son of earl tostig, whom olaf had brought with him from england after his father's death. skule was in sent on a mission to william the conqueror, for the purpose of bringing harold hard-ruler's body back to norway, and accomplished this to the king's satisfaction. he was the ancestor of king inge baardsson, and the arch intriguer, skule, who vainly aspired for the throne. olaf the quiet died on his estate, haukby in ranrike, september , . his body was brought to nidaros and interred in the christ-church which he had himself built. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xviii. magnus barefoot ( - ) and haakon magnusson ( - ). when the tidings of king olaf's death had gone abroad, the inhabitants of viken acknowledged his son, magnus, as king, while the trönders made haste to proclaim his nephew, haakon magnusson. the country was, accordingly, once more divided; two thirds, including tröndelag, the oplands, and all the northern shires, belonging to haakon, and about one third to magnus. the latter was scarcely prepared to find a rival to the throne in his cousin, who during his father's long reign had given no evidence that he cherished such an ambition. only ignorance, on his part, of haakon's intentions can explain his departure on an adventurous expedition to scotland. the restless, warlike spirit of his grandfather dwelt in him, and he had chafed under the restraint which his father's peaceful policy imposed upon him. now that he was free, he could afford to lose no more time in dallying. he therefore started, as soon as he had his hands free, on a wild-goose chase for glory; helped the scottish king, donald bane, in his warfare against eadgar the etheling and his brother, malcolm's children; asserted (apparently with success) his claim to the scottish isles, which, during harold hard-ruler's reign, had made themselves independent; aided the irish king muirkertach against the earl, gudröd meranagh; and finally returned home in the summer of to find two thirds of his kingdom in the hands of a rival. he sailed directly to nidaros with seven ships and took up his abode in the new royal mansion, resolved to make the trönders feel the weight of his wrath. haakon and his foster-father, thore of steig, also hastened to the city and put up at the old royal mansion. the relation between the two parties was strained, and every day people expected an outbreak of hostilities. finally haakon opened negotiations with his cousin, offering to divide the kingdom with him in equal parts; but magnus repelled his overtures, refusing to recognize his title to any share in the government. suddenly, in the middle of the night (february, ), magnus had great fires made around the city, and haakon's men, expecting an attack, seized their arms and rushed into the streets. no attack was, however, made, and both parties left the city without any hostile collision. haakon, in crossing the dovre mountain on snow-shoes, was taken ill and died. one would have supposed that the trönders had now no longer any pretext for persevering in their opposition to magnus. but apparently they both hated him, and feared that he would mete out severe punishments to them for the support they had given his cousin. therefore they gave heed to the counsel of thore of steig, who demanded their allegiance to a pretender named sweyn, a dane by birth, and not related to the royal house of norway. the rebels found many adherents in the oplands, among whom the liegeman egil aaslaksson. under the leadership of thore and sweyn they started out, ravaging and plundering in nordmore and tröndelag. they gave the peasants the choice either to join them or have their houses burned over their heads; and there were many who preferred the former alternative to the latter. magnus' liegeman and devoted friend, sigurd wool-string (ullstreng), sent out war summons, but his force, which was quite inadequate, was utterly defeated by the rebels. he fled to magnus, who instantly started in pursuit, captured thore of steig and egil, and hanged them. many others who had participated in the rebellion were killed or deprived of their property; and as a punishment to the trönders, the laws of sweyn alfifasson were re-enacted. magnus was now undisputed master of all norway and devoted himself with much energy to the maintenance of order by meting out relentless justice to evil-doers. to sit at home in inglorious ease, punishing rebels and marauders, was not, however, in accordance with his taste. he hated peace as much as his father had loved it. without any special provocation he, therefore, determined to pay a second visit to scotland and ireland for the purpose of securely founding his dominion in those lands. it appears that he was also cherishing a plan for invading england and avenging the death of his grandfather at stamford bridge. haakon paulsson, a son of earl paul of the orkneys, who came to norway, stimulated his ambition, hoping himself in some way to profit by it. with a fleet of ships and upward of , men the warlike king sailed in the spring of for the orkneys, and thence to the hebrides, where he harried with remorseless cruelty. he conquered also the english islands of man and anglesey, and made great efforts to colonize the latter island. in the summer of he returned to norway, but managed within a year to get himself into a promising quarrel with king inge of sweden, one of whose provinces (dalsland) he claimed on a flimsy pretext. he won a great victory over the swedes at fuxerne, and left a garrison of men in a fortress which he built on an island in lake wener. but king inge forced this garrison to surrender, on humiliating terms, during the winter; and magnus, to avenge this disgrace, invaded sweden a second time, and was defeated not far from trollhättan. he came then near losing his life, but was saved by agmund skoftesson, who changed cloaks with him, and, starting conspicuously away from the other fugitives, drew the pursuers after him. this kind of warfare was, of course, sheer waste of life and treasure, and by the mediation of the danish king, erik eiegod, peace was concluded at konghelle, ( ). magnus was to marry king inge's daughter margaret, who was to receive the disputed province as her dowry. the marriage, however, was without issue, and dalsland became, at the death of magnus, again a part of sweden. queen margaret, because she was the bringer of peace, was called by the norsemen, _fridkulla, i.e._, the peace-maker. it was not to be expected that magnus should rest contented with the fame he had now gained, and turn his mind to the pursuits of peace. his sentiments in that regard are well expressed in his saying: "a king should rather strive for glory than for a long life." in his anxiety to find a pretext for war he finally, as it is told, sent a pair of his shoes to king muirkertach, in ireland, with the request that he should carry them on his shoulders, on christmas day, in the presence of the norse ambassadors, as a sign that he recognized magnus at his overlord. the irish were greatly incensed at this demand; but muirkertach, who knew something of magnus' style of warfare, declared that he would not only carry the shoes, but that he would eat them too, rather than receive another visit from the king of norway. this humility did not, however, save him from the dreaded visitation. magnus had determined upon the conquest of ireland, and forthwith sailed ( ) westward with a large fleet. after having touched at the orkneys, he landed on man, where he had his son, sigurd, proclaimed king and married to muirkertach's nine-year old daughter, biadmuin. he fought for a while with varying success in ulster, nominally in alliance with muirkertach, though there is every reason to believe that the latter was only watching for a chance to destroy him. such a chance finally presented itself, while magnus was waiting on the coast of ulster for a herd of cattle that had been promised him. he had gone ashore with a small part of his force in a swampy region, and was suddenly surrounded by the irish, who had hid in the underbrush, and who, on account of their knowledge of the ground, had a great advantage. here magnus fell after a heroic combat, and the remnant of his army made haste to return to norway. magnus was but thirty years old at the time of his death. he was a tall and well-grown man, of fine features and a commanding appearance. his surname barefoot or bareleg was given to him because, after his return from his first scotch campaign, he adopted the highland costume, wearing kilts instead of trousers. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xix eystein ( - ), sigurd the crusader ( - ), and olaf magnusson ( - ). in accordance with established custom, the three sons of magnus barefoot were proclaimed kings, and the land was divided between them. there is, however, a probability that this division pertained chiefly to the royal estates, from which the kings derived their principal revenue, but did not involve a division of the country itself into separate kingdoms. eystein was at the time of his proclamation fourteen years old, sigurd thirteen, and olaf three or four. they were all illegitimate, but had been acknowledged by their father. there was, at that time, a great agitation throughout europe on account of the crusades. kings, knights, and even children, in their anxiety to save their souls, threw reason to the winds, and, relying upon supernatural aid, started with insufficient preparations on adventurous undertakings. this grand religious enthusiasm did not reach the north until its force was partly spent. some of the men who had visited jerusalem returned home, but apparently were but little affected by religious phases of the war against the unbelievers. they talked rather of the chances for worldly fame and gain which the crusade presented, and aroused a desire in many of their countrymen to win both heavenly and earthly glory by an expedition to the holy land. it was the general desire that one of the princes should command the expedition, and sigurd, who had inherited his father's spirit, willingly consented. in order to fit himself out properly he needed money, and this he could not get without the good-will of the people. he had the wisdom to see, that the success of his enterprise could be better advanced by concession than by extortion, and he therefore abolished, once for all, the oppressive laws of sweyn alfifasson, and gained thereby a great popularity. eystein assisted his brother energetically in his equipments, and, in the autumn of , sigurd sailed away with a fleet of sixty large ships and ten thousand men. he paid first a friendly visit to england, where he was received with great distinction by king henry i. thence he steered his course to spain, where he had many adventures, fought against the moors, and destroyed a pirate's nest on the island formentera. in italy he was magnificently received by robert guiscard's son, duke roger, who was proud of his norse descent, and greeted the king of norway as he would a kinsman. he even (if the saga account is to be trusted) acknowledged sigurd as his overlord, and consented to receive the royal title from his hands. duke roger died, however, soon after and had no opportunity to assert his new dignity. it was not until august, , that sigurd reached the holy land. he landed at joppa, where he was met by king baldwin, who accompanied him to jerusalem, and showed him the holy sepulchre and all the places that are associated with the saviour's life and death. the patriarch of jerusalem presented sigurd with a splint of the true cross to be preserved at st. olaf's shrine, on condition that the king, on his return, should impose tithes for the support of the church. before starting on his homeward way, sigurd assisted baldwin and count bertrand of tripolis, at the sieges of sidon and akron, and received his share of the booty. he then betook himself to constantinople, where games were celebrated in his honor by the emperor alexius, and a lavish magnificence was displayed in his entertainment, the like of which the norsemen had never beheld. sigurd forbade them, however, to show surprise at any thing they saw, lest the greeks should conclude that they were barbarians, unaccustomed to luxury. in july, , the king returned to norway after an absence of three years and a half. he received henceforth the surname the crusader (jorsalfar). the thirst for glory which animated sigurd was in striking contrast to the peaceful spirit which dwelt in his brother, eystein. upon the former had descended the restless ambition of magnus barefoot, while the latter had inherited his grandfather olaf the quiet's taste for building and calm delight in well-doing. while sigurd scoured sea and land in search of fame, eystein sat quietly at home, building churches, encouraging trade and industry, and improving the laws. by sheer dint of persuasion, gifts, and appeals to their self-interest, he gained the allegiance of the inhabitants of the swedish province, jemteland, which in the reign of haakon the good had belonged to norway. knowing the importance of the fisheries, as a source of national wealth, he had booths erected in vaagen for the accommodation of the fishermen, and a church and parsonage for their spiritual welfare. at agdeness, where many ships were wrecked, he made an artificial harbor by the construction of a mole. as a guide to sailors along the dangerous coast, he put up sea-marks and primitive light-houses, in the shape of fires which were lighted, after dark, on certain rocks and promontories. for the shelter of pilgrims to st. olaf's shrine and other travellers, he built taverns on the dovre mountain, the passage of which had hitherto been perilous, on account of the snow and the absence of roads. among the many churches which were erected by him were the church of the apostles, and st. michael's in bergen, st. nicholas in nidaros, and the rich benedictine monastery, munkeliv. with all their devotion to war and tendency to violence, the norsemen could not help loving this wise and peaceful king, whose constant care was their welfare. that their old bellicose ideals were being superseded by gentler and nobler ones is indicated by their devotion for their two unwarlike kings, olaf the quiet and eystein magnusson. of these two eystein was, in point of intellect and strength of character, the more eminent. he seems to have pursued his policy of construction, instead of destruction, not merely from temperamental bias, but from clear-sighted conviction. his fondness for the study of law and the importance he attached to legal knowledge are, in this respect, significant. the sound sense and moderation which distinguished his grandfather he also possessed in a marked degree, besides the same gentleness and charm of manner. in appearance he was like most of his race, large and handsome; he had blue eyes, blonde, curly hair, and a dignified presence. it was scarcely to be expected that two brothers, so antagonistic in disposition as sigurd and eystein, could avoid clashing. sigurd felt himself as a man of the world, who had cut a brilliant figure in foreign lands, and he looked upon eystein as a stay-at-home, who could boast of no such experience. he scarcely appreciated the fact that his brother, though he might have put obstacles in his path, received him heartily, on his return, and willingly shared his authority with him. it was incomprehensible to him that a quiet man like eystein, who had no great deeds to boast of, should enjoy as much consideration and respect as himself. above all, it was eystein's insistence upon legal methods, in all relations between subject and king, which seemed to sigurd an interference with his authority, and, therefore, irritated him. a serious disagreement soon arose from this source. once, when sigurd was in tröndelag, he insulted the beautiful sigrid, the wife of the liegeman, ivar of fljod, after having sent the latter on a dangerous expedition to ireland. this sigrid's brother, sigurd ranesson, resented, and was, by way of revenge, accused by the king of embezzlement in the finn-trade, which had been farmed out to him by magnus barefoot. in his need he appealed to king eystein, who, when he heard the story, promised him his assistance. three times sigurd ranesson was now summoned to court by king sigurd, but every time eystein's superior knowledge of the law saved him. the legal procedure, which is recorded in detail, is full of interest, and shows a remarkable development of the social organization, considering the time. in the end, however, eystein had not only to assume the conduct of the case, but became a party to the suit, in his client's place. king sigurd was greatly incensed, and sigurd ranesson, in order to avoid bloodshed, went late in the evening on board of his enemy's ship, fell on his knees before him, and said: "i will not, my lord king, that you and your brother shall be at strife on my account. * * * rather i surrender myself and my head to your power and mercy, * * * for i would rather die than be the cause of hostility between you and king eystein." the king, after having pondered long, answered: "in sooth thou art a noble man, sigurd, and thou hast chosen the way which will be best for us all. know that * * * i had firmly resolved to-morrow to go up to the ilevolds with all my men, and fight with king eystein." he now gave judgment that his antagonist should pay fifteen marks in gold, which should be divided between the three kings, but as eystein and olaf both refused to accept their share of the money, sigurd, not wishing to be outdone in generosity, likewise renounced his claim. though there was now no danger of war, the relation between the brothers was yet far from cordial. a fresh source of disagreement soon arose, for which sigurd, as usual, was to blame. the rumor came to him that eystein was very fond of a maiden, named borghild, the daughter of the powerful peasant, olaf of dal; that he loved to sit at her side and talk with her, and that his predilection for her society had been the cause of scandalous reports. borghild, in order to prove her innocence, walked on glowing plough-shares, and endured the test. sigurd, seeing that here was an opportunity to pay his brother back for his protection of sigurd ranesson, abducted borghild and made her his mistress. she became the mother of magnus, who, for a short time, was king after his father's death. eystein took this affair much to heart, but made no effort to avenge the wrong he had suffered. that he felt sore about it was, however, natural enough, and this feeling burst forth on one occasion most unexpectedly; though, to be sure, no allusion was made to the real grievance. it happened once, during the winter, that the two kings were feasting together at one of eystein's estates. king sigurd's men, reflecting the spirit of their master, behaved arrogantly toward king eystein's people, and were fond of exalting the one brother at the other's expense. many complaints were brought to eystein, but he refused to take note of them. the strained relation between the two parties, however, spoiled the cheer of the table, and the men sat sullen over their cups and were ill at ease. then eystein, with perhaps a deeper purpose than the apparent one, proposed a so-called "man-measuring," or comparison of merits, which was a favorite social pastime in those days. it is to be remarked, that etiquette did not then forbid a man to boast of his own deeds and accomplishments. on the contrary, the custom survived from the age of paganism to emphasize frankly one's merits, and when occasion demanded, to hurl tremendous volleys of vituperation against an adversary. "dost thou remember," sigurd began, in response to his brother's challenge, "how i threw thee in wrestling, * * * although thou wast a year older than i?" "i remember also," eystein replied, "that thou wast my inferior in agility." step by step they now advanced through childhood and youth, comparing each other's proficiency in swimming, skating, shooting, skee-running, and in personal appearance. finally, sigurd touched the main point at issue, when he said: "it has been generally acknowledged that the campaign, which i made in foreign lands, was in sooth worthy of a chieftain, while thou sattest at home in thy country like thy father's daughter." "* * * i think i also remember," eystein rejoined, "that it was i who fitted thee out from home for that campaign, as i would have done a daughter." "but i went to the holy land and to africa, but there i saw thee not. i won eight battles. thou wast not in one of them. i went to the sepulchre of christ; there i saw thee not. i went to the river jordan, by the same road that our lord had gone, and i swam across; but i saw thee not there. i tied a knot for thee in the underbrush on the river-bank, and it is yet waiting for thee to untie it. i conquered the city of sidon with the king of jerusalem, without thy aid or counsel." [illustration: hitterdal church. illustrating old norse ecclesiastical architecture.] eystein listened imperturbably to this long list of his brother's deeds, and finally answered: "i have indeed heard, that thou didst fight some battles abroad, and what i have to match against such deeds is but trifles. north in vaagen i put up booths for the fishermen, so that poor people may find shelter and earn their living. i had a church erected, appointed a priest, and gave land for the support of the church. * * * those who enjoy the benefit of this will remember that eystein was king in norway. * * * across the dovre mountain there was much travel. there people lay out on the rocks and suffered hardships. i built an inn and endowed it. the travellers, who now reap the benefit of this, will remember king eystein. at agdeness there was a dangerous coast and no harbor, so that ships were often wrecked. there i constructed a harbor, where there is excellent anchorage for all ships. * * * i likewise built a church there and put up sea-marks on the high mountains. * * * all these things are now of service to fishermen and merchants who carry the products of the land from place to place, and they, while benefiting by them, will remember me. * * * the inhabitants of jemteland i made subject to this realm, not by violence, but by gentle words and rational negotiations. * * * all these things are perhaps of small moment, but i do not believe that they are of less benefit to my country and people, and will profit my soul less, than it will profit thine to have sent moors to the devil, and expedited them head over heels to hell. * * * now, as regards the knot thou didst tie for me, then, methinks, i might have tied such a knot for thee that thou wouldst never have been king in norway, when thou returnedst from thy campaign, and didst sail hither with but a single ship. let, now, intelligent men judge, what advantage thou hast over me, and know ye, ye purse-proud braggarts, that there are yet men in norway, who dare hold themselves your equals." this was the end of the "man-measuring"; and both kings were very wroth. several other incidents are recorded, which show that sigurd's jealousy of his brother would, at length, have brought about a breach of the peace, if death had not suddenly made an end of their intercourse. eystein died at the age of thirty-three, august , . the youngest brother, olaf, had died ( ) before he reached manhood, and sigurd was accordingly the sole ruler in the land. he was now free from the restraint, which eystein's pacific disposition had imposed upon him, and he presently availed himself of his liberty to make a crusade into the swedish province smaaland, where paganism yet lingered ( ). he attacked the town of kalmar, from which incident the war has been called the kalmar war. whether he succeeded in converting the pagans is not known; nor are any other results of the crusade recorded. after his return from this campaign, a great calamity befell him. once, it is told, when he was in his bath, he called out, that there was a fish in the bath-tub, and ran about trying to catch it. it was the first symptom of the insanity which darkened the remaining years of his life. he was often sane for long periods; but, at times, he would sit and brood with wildly rolling eyes, or break out into paroxysms of wrath. once, on the day of pentecost, when his madness came upon him, he took a precious book,[a] which he had brought with him from constantinople, and, gazing gloomily at queen malmfrid, who was sitting at his side, said: "how many things can change in a man's lifetime! when i returned to my country, i owned two things which seemed to me most precious,--this book and the queen. now the one seems only more worthless than the other. the queen does not know how hideous she is; for a goat's horn is sticking out of her head. * * * and this book here is good for nothing." [footnote a: a codex written in letters of gold, containing probably a portion of the bible.] then he rose, gave the queen a slap, and flung the book into the fire. but in the same instant, a young taper-bearer, named ottar birting, jumped forward, snatched the book from the flames, and stepped fearlessly before the king. "different it is now, my lord," he said, "from the time, when thou didst sail with pomp and splendor to norway, and all thy friends hastened with joy to meet thee. * * * now the days of sorrow have come upon us; for to this glorious feast many of thy friends have come, but they cannot be glad because of thy sad condition. be now so kind, good my lord, to accept this advice. rejoice by thy gentleness first the queen, whom thou hast so sorely offended, and then all thy chieftains, thy men-at-arms, thy friends, and thy servants." "how darest thou, ugly, low-born tenant's son, give me counsel?" cried the king, springing up and drawing his sword. all the guests expected, in the next moment, to see ottar's head roll on the floor. but ottar stood, gazing calmly into the king's face, and did not stir from the spot. then sigurd suddenly stayed his hand and let the sword fall gently upon his shoulder. he rebuked his liegemen, for not having protested against his insane acts, and thanked the youth for his courage. "go, therefore, ottar," he finished; "and take thy seat among the liegemen. thou shalt no more wait upon any one." ottar birting became in later years a man of great fame and authority. it may have been due to the unsoundness of his mind that sigurd, in the last years of his life committed an act, which, however generous it may seem, was scarcely politically defensible. in the year , a young irishman named harold gilchrist arrived in norway and declared that he was a son of magnus barefoot. it was known that king magnus had had a mistress in ireland, and during his last battle he is said to have recited a verse about an irish girl, whom he loved above all others. it is therefore probable that harold gilchrist was, or at least believed himself to be, heir to the throne of norway. he went to king sigurd, who listened to his story, and allowed him to prove the truth of his statement by submitting to the ordeal by fire. he walked over the red-hot ploughshares and endured the test successfully. it was the priests who had charge of such ordeals, and it was believed that they had the result in their power. harold gilchrist, or gille, as the norsemen called him, was now acknowledged by the king as his brother, on condition that he should make no claim to the government, as long as sigurd or his son magnus was alive. it was, however, no easy task for the king to secure for the long-necked, thin-legged, and lanky irishman the respect which was due to a member of the royal family. in the first place harold's appearance was against him, and in the second place, he stammered and could scarcely make himself understood in norwegian. the king's son, magnus, hated and ridiculed him, and among the liegemen there were many who believed him to be an unscrupulous adventurer. a few years before his death, sigurd put away queen malmfrid, disregarding the warning of bishop magne, and married a beautiful and high-born woman, named cecilia. he did not long survive this marriage. many of his friends urged him, for the good of his soul, to dissolve it. but the fascination, which cecilia exercised over him, was so great, that he could not bear the thought of losing her. at last, when he was taken ill, she herself suggested a separation. "i did not know that thou, too, didst despise me like the rest," he answered sadly. his face flushed purple, and he turned away from her. his illness now took a turn for the worse, and on march , , he died, forty years old. dissipations had undermined his health, and his insanity had long unfitted him for the cares of government. for all that, there seems to be a halo about his name, partly on account of his early fame, and partly because of the good crops and commercial prosperity which prevailed during his reign. he seemed to the people a grand figure, and, in spite of his great faults, every inch a king. what may have contributed more than any thing else to endear his memory to later generations was the evil times that broke over the land at his death. he seemed himself to have a foreboding of this, when he said: "ye are badly off, ye norsemen, for you have a mad king; and yet methinks that, in a short while, you will be willing to give the red gold to have me as your king, rather than harold or magnus; for the former is cruel; the latter is devoid of sense." [illustration] [illustration] chapter xx. magnus the blind ( - ) and harold gille ( - ). when the tidings of his father's death reached him, magnus hastened to summon a _thing_ in oslo and have himself proclaimed king of the whole country. harold, who had been waiting for this opportunity to break his oath, did the same at tunsberg; only he contented himself preliminarily with half the kingdom. magnus naturally refused to recognize his claim, and the people were soon divided into two parties, one of which sided with magnus, while the other supported harold. in point of character they were both equally unfitted for the leadership of a nation. magnus was a coarse, avaricious, and arrogant roisterer, addicted to drink, and incapable of any noble impulse. harold was a weak and vacillating man, jolly, liberal, and easy-going, in whom the irish characteristics predominated. he was pliable as wax in the hands of the liegemen, to whom he left all the cares of state, while he himself conceived of the royal dignity as a mere privilege to live high, wear good clothes, and enjoy certain honors in daily intercourse. the tribal magnates, who had long been excluded from the power which they believed to be their due, were therefore attracted to him, while magnus repelled them by his haughtiness and avarice. for three years the two rivals kept the peace; but the fourth winter after their accession, magnus began to collect troops, and attacked harold at fyrileiv ( ) in viken, winning a great victory. he was so elated at his success that, contrary to the advice of the liegemen, he dismissed his army and betook himself to bergen, where he lived riotously, paying no heed to harold's movements. the latter, in the meanwhile, had found a refuge in denmark, and had received the province of halland in fief. he soon gathered a sufficient force to invade norway, and as he sailed northward to bergen, he gained many adherents in the coast-shires. magnus, when he heard of his approach, lost his head completely, rejected the counsel of his friend, sigurd sigurdsson, and contented himself with scattering about the city a kind of sharp, iron "foot-hooks," which in the end only injured his own men, and locking the harbor with iron chains, whereby he prevented his own escape, when shortly afterward the town fell into his enemy's hands. most of his men then abandoned him, while he himself, with his faithful friend, ivar assersson, remained on his ship, until it was boarded by harold's men. it is scarcely an excuse for harold gille to say, that his friends induced him to commit the atrocity, of which he was now guilty. he did not content himself with putting magnus' eyes out, but he cut off one of his legs and subjected him to another still more revolting mutilation. ivar assersson, who strikingly resembled king magnus, was asked whether he would now care to resemble him; and the brave man answered unflinchingly that he would, whereupon he too was blinded. the miserable magnus was now dressed in a monk's garb and shut up in the monastery of nidarholm. bishop reinald, who was suspected of having the royal treasures in his keeping, was hanged because he would not reveal their hiding-place. these misdeeds did not long remain unavenged. in the summer of came a man, named sigurd, to norway, who also claimed to be a son of magnus barefoot. sigurd was a man of great intelligence, courage, and ambition; and in those respects, at least, a much worthier pretender than the weak, vicious harold gille. he had led a very adventurous life, played an important role in the feuds between the earls of the orkneys, visited rome and the holy land, and bathed in the jordan. the ability of harold hard-ruler and the restless and enterprising spirit of magnus barefoot seemed to be united in him. his mother, thora saxe's-daughter, is said to have kept the secret of his paternity from him until he was grown, because magnus barefoot had had a child by her sister, and a sense of shame had therefore kept her silent. as a boy, sigurd had an ungovernable disposition, and in order to tame his wildness, his foster-father had him educated and consecrated to the church. when he finally kicked through the traces, he was therefore called sigurd slembedegn, _i.e._, the bad priest. on his return to norway in sigurd went to harold gille, after having procured a safe-conduct, and announced his origin. there was now a chance for harold to return the generosity, which sigurd the crusader had shown to him when he came, as a poor and unknown youth from ireland, and proclaimed himself heir to the throne of norway. but, although sigurd slembedegn could bring apparently satisfactory proof of the truth of his assertion, harold was perhaps, on this account, only the more afraid of him. his advisers among the liegemen who were now governing without restraint, in the king's name, had cause to fear a man like sigurd who would make short work of their pretensions. they therefore advised the king to rid himself of the new aspirant to the throne, by fair means or foul. on the pretence of punishing him for his alleged participation in a slaying, harold made an attempt to capture him; but sigurd escaped by swimming, and returned the king's breach of faith by killing him in the house of his mistress, thora guttorm's-daughter. he then called the citizens of bergen together, and, standing upon his ship, avowed the murder and asked them to make him their king. contrary to his expectation, however, a great indignation was aroused against him, and the liegemen artfully fanned the excitement, until it was no longer safe for him to remain in the city. "if thou art the son of king magnus," the citizens said, "then it is thy brother whom thou hast assassinated." and they forthwith outlawed the regicide and all his adherents. sigurd fled in haste northward on his ships and arrived in nordhördland. harold gille was thirty-two years old, when he was slain. he was one of the most unworthy kings that ever disgraced the throne of norway. it was a short while before his death ( ) that the wends, under their prince, ratibor, sacked and burned the flourishing town of konghelle, which sigurd the crusader had enlarged and beautified. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxi. the sons of harold gille ( - ). queen ingerid, the widow of harold gille, availed herself of the general indignation against sigurd slembedegn, to have her own two-year-old son, inge, proclaimed king. she also sent a swift ship to nidaros, with the request to the trönders that they give their allegiance to king harold's son, sigurd, who had reached the age of five. the powerful liegemen, to whom this arrangement was highly agreeable, made haste to secure the recognition of the two boys throughout the land. sigurd slembedegn's chances of becoming king were thus very slight. but, hoping to revive the indignation against harold gille and thereby mitigate his own offence, he took the blind and maimed magnus, sigurd the crusader's son, out of the monastery, and tried to rally his old friends and followers about him. in this he had some success, but less than he had expected. he therefore sailed to the hebrides for the purpose of increasing his force, leaving magnus in charge of björn egilsson and gunnar of gimse. before sigurd had returned, however, magnus had been attacked at minne, in the oplands, by king inge's guardian, thjostulf aalesson, and defeated in a bloody battle ( ). thjostulf, either to encourage his men, or because he was afraid to trust him to anybody else, carried the two-year-old king in his girdle during the battle, while he himself fought with a sword and spear, and the deadly missiles fell in showers about him. the poor boy, who was unequal to such hardships, soon began to show the effects of his premature experience of war. a hump grew on his back and one of his legs withered away. he therefore received the surname "crook-back." magnus the blind fled after the battle into sweden, where he persuaded the earl, charles sunesson, of vestergötland, to come to his assistance; but was again overwhelmingly beaten at krokaskogen by thostulf aalesson ( ). the little king, inge, was again carried under his guardian's cloak, and heard, though scarcely without fear, the clash of arms and the fierce tumult of battle. this time magnus fled to denmark and succeeded in inducing king erik emune to sail to norway with a fleet of ships. the norsemen, however, defended their coast so well that the danish king for a long while did not venture to land. at last he burned the city of oslo, but was immediately afterward attacked by king inge and his liegeman, aamunde gyrdsson, at hornboresund, and all his great fleet routed. sigurd slembedegn, in the meanwhile, had returned from the hebrides and was cruising about in the baltic, fighting in viking fashion with wendic pirates, and occasionally harrying on the coasts of norway, and injuring the friends of the young kings. he was soon joined by magnus, and the two were met by the fleet of the kings, sigurd and inge, at holmengraa ( ). the battle was fought with great vehemence on both sides, until suddenly all the danes fled, and left their allies in the lurch. hoping to save the blind magnus, reidar grjotgardsson lifted him from the bed upon which he was lying, and tried to carry him on board another ship. but a spear pierced both from behind and they fell down, dying. magnus exclaimed as he felt the steel in his vitals: "that comes seven years too late." sigurd slembedegn leaped overboard and would have escaped, if he had not been betrayed by one of his own men. he was put to death by the liegemen with the most horrible tortures. he was scourged until his skin hung in tatters about him; then his bones were crushed with stones; and at last he was hanged. his marvellous fortitude during his agony filled even his executioners with admiration. he talked in a perfectly natural voice, and not a muscle of his face betrayed what he suffered. several times he sank into a swoon; but when he revived, he was calm and unmoved. never did a man meet a more horrible death with more heroic equanimity. sigurd slembedegn had the stuff in him for a great king, and if sigurd the crusader had sat upon the throne, when he advanced his claim, instead of the irishman, harold gilchrist, the history of norway would have taken a different turn, and his might have been one of the great names in its pages. it was true what many, both friends and foes, said after his death, that "there was no man more capable in all things than sigurd * * * but he was born under an unlucky star." the country now had peace for some years; chiefly because the kings were too small to have serious quarrels. in , however, came eystein, a third son of harold gille, from scotland, and claimed his share of the kingdom. he was considerably older than the others, and must have been often mentioned by his father during his lifetime; for no one thought of disputing his claim, nor was any proof required as to his origin. he was a dark-haired, corpulent, and somewhat indolent youth, avaricious in the extreme, and devoid of all personal attractions. some time elapsed before he exerted any influence upon the affairs of the country, and we shall therefore leave him, until his quarrels with his brothers demand our attention. the first cause of discord in the royal family was the marriage of the queen dowager, ingerid, to the above-mentioned liegeman, ottar birting. king inge thereby came under the guardianship of his step-father, whereby the jealousy of other liegemen was aroused. especially was king sigurd indignant, because ottar had hitherto been one of his most powerful adherents; while now he became attached to the fortunes of inge. amid this agitation, ottar birting was suddenly assassinated, and it became clear to every one that king sigurd had caused his death. many other circumstances conspired to make sigurd unpopular, and his personal qualities were, indeed, such as to repel all who came in contact with him. it was particularly his immorality which alienated his friends. when he was but fifteen years old, he had a son, named haakon, whose mother was a pretty servant-girl. many pretenders appeared later, who claimed him as their father. in appearance he was more of a norseman than his brothers--light-haired, blue-eyed, tall of stature, and of great vigor. his beauty was, however, marred by a pair of ugly thick lips, from which he derived the surname mouth (mund). [illustration: lofoten village during fishing season.] he hated his brother inge, whose popularity caused him uneasiness; and, as eystein shared this sentiment, he approached the latter and opened negotiations with him, with a view to thrusting inge from the throne. they were soon agreed, and would perhaps have carried out their plan, if inge's faithful friend, gregorius dagsson, who had taken ottar birting's place as his guardian and adviser, had not got wind of their purpose. when, therefore, king sigurd arrived in bergen, he found inge prepared to receive him; and he contented himself with killing one of his men-at-arms and threatening "to roll the golden helmet of gregorius in the dust," but denied that any agreement existed between him and eystein to inge's detriment. neither inge nor gregorius put any trust, however, in his assurances; and, after many bickerings and hostile acts on both sides, gregorius received inge's permission to attack his brother. sigurd was then surprised in his house and slain ( ), after having vainly begged for mercy. it is told that the men, whose wives he had insulted, rushed at him, eager for vengeance, and ran him through with their swords. he was then but twenty-one years old. eystein, who knew that his turn would come next, gathered in haste as many men as he could induce to join him, in order to take vengeance on gregorius. but gregorius learned of his approach in time to escape with all his men. his family estate, bratsberg, was, however, burned by eystein and his cattle hewn down. next, inge's excellent dockyards, which had been built by eystein i., were given over to the flames, and war seemed unavoidable between the two kings, when eystein, seeing his brother's superior strength, proposed to make peace. he agreed to pay inge marks in silver, one third of which was to be given to gregorius as compensation for the destruction of bratsberg. this fine, however, he failed to pay; and, repenting of his placability, sent inge hostile messages, accusing him of breach of faith. at last, when they had been exchanging this kind of civilities for about a year, they met with hostile fleets near fors in ranafylke ( ) and prepared for battle. the greater part of eystein's force, however, abandoned him, leaving him no choice but flight. he was captured by his brother-in-law, simon skaalp, who, after having allowed him to hear mass, coolly murdered him. there is a legend that a spring with healing powers burst forth on the spot where he was slain, and there were some who believed him to have been a saint. inge was now lord of all the kingdom, although the noble and capable gregorius dagsson conducted the government and was the virtual ruler. a warm friendship bound the two together, based not only upon community of interests but upon real attachment. inge's bad health, which unfitted him for action in the many serious crises of his life, made him dependent upon his sagacious and resolute adviser, and gregorius, who was equal to his responsibility, kept a vigilant watch upon the king's enemies, and at the same time exercised, with a wise moderation, the power which had been put into his hands. it was natural that a man occupying such a position had many ill-wishers. there were those, of course, who envied him the place he held in the confidence of the king. thus the great chieftain, erling skakke (the lop-sided), who had married sigurd the crusader's daughter, christina, thought that he was entitled to the first place among the liegemen of the land. erling traced his descent from the mighty hörda-kaare (who lived in the reigns of halfdan the swarthy and harold the fairhaired), and was thus in kinship with erling skjalgsson of sole, who played so great a part in the times of olaf tryggvesson and olaf the saint. he had made a crusade and fought the saracens in the mediterranean, and had received a wound in the neck, which compelled him to carry his head on one side. his wealth and fame made him now a conspicuous figure in the land, and it was obvious that whichever party he should join might thereby gain a preponderance. erling was, indeed, himself aware of that fact, and refrained, for this reason, for a while, from committing himself. he was understood to be favorably disposed to king inge and paid him the customary civilities, but there are indications that inge did not trust him. at all events, he had no intention of buying erling's unequivocal adherence at the only price at which it could be bought, viz., the dismissal of gregorius. this was the situation of affairs when, after king eystein's death, the remnants of his and sigurd mouth's party rallied around the latter's ten-year-old son, haakon, and demanded for him a third part of the kingdom. inge answered by outlawing his nephew and all his adherents. gregorius was at that time in konghelle, occupied with defending the frontier against the rebellious partisans of haakon who had found a refuge in sweden, and erling skakke availed himself of his absence to approach the king. although the relation between the two liegemen was constantly growing more strained, the common danger, to which they were exposed from haakon's party, made them postpone hostilities. a decisive battle was at last fought between the latter and king inge at konghelle ( ), and haakon was defeated. both erling and gregorius were present and to their valor the victory was largely due. a very slight provocation was now needed to bring them into collision, and this was supplied by a quarrel between their men, which soon became a general fight, and would have become a battle, if king inge had not personally interfered. in the meanwhile haakon, who had gathered under his banner robbers, outlaws, and all sorts of adventurers, began to ravage the frontier shires in viken, and the presence of gregorius was again needed to keep him in order. he made an attack upon the estate of haldor brynjulfsson, gregorius' brother-in-law, and the latter's sister, sigrid, was compelled to flee in her night clothes from the burning house, carrying her five-year-old son in her arms. this wanton destruction gregorius resolved to avenge, but during his pursuit of haakon's robber band, he ventured too far out upon the insecure ice of the bevje-aa, fell through, and while struggling to get ashore was killed by an arrow ( ). king inge wept like a child, when he heard of his friend's death, and swore either to avenge him or to die in the attempt. scarcely a month had elapsed, when he was attacked by haakon's band at oslo, and fought a bloody battle upon the ice of the folden fjord. here he fell, defending himself desperately, after having been deserted by king gudröd of the hebrides, who by his treason decided the battle in haakon's favor ( ). inge crookback was the only one of harold gille's sons who was an honorable man. in spite of his physical weakness, he had courage and pluck, and a strong sense of loyalty to those who served him well. he was but twenty-five years old when he died. it was during his reign, but while his brothers still were alive, that the cardinal nicolas breakspeare was sent to norway ( ) by pope eugene iii., to arrange the ecclesiastical affairs of the country. he established an archiepiscopal see in nidaros, under the jurisdiction of which were included norway and all its dependencies among the scottish isles, besides iceland, greenland, the faeroe isles, and the isle of man. as the first archbishop he appointed, in accordance with the wishes of king inge, the bishop of stavanger john birgersson. the bishopric of hamar at lake mjösen also owes its foundation to the cardinal's visit. nicolas breakspeare became, later, pope under the name hadrian iv., and always preserved a lively interest in the welfare of the church in norway. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxii. haakon the broad-shouldered, ( - ). haakon sigurdsson lost no time in proclaiming himself king of all norway, though he dispensed preliminarily with the ceremony of a formal proclamation at oere-_thing_. as he was but a boy of fourteen, it was, of course, his advisers who dictated his actions. he was a tool in the hands of a few ambitious liegemen, who had staked their fortunes on the chance of his ascendancy. for the purpose of portioning out lucrative offices among his adherents, he called a secret meeting in the church of st. hallvard in oslo. as it was of great importance to erling skakke to know how these men felt toward him, his wife christina bribed the priest who kept the keys of the church, to conceal one of her friends where he could hear the proceedings. she then sent a messenger to her husband, enjoining him under no circumstances to trust haakon or his party. but erling was too conspicuous a man to be allowed to preserve neutrality; and as he could not declare for haakon, he was obliged to declare against him. he then proposed, though scarcely in good faith, to make the child, nicholas simonsson, the son of simon skaalp and harold gille's daughter maria, the head of the opposition and to proclaim him king. there were, however, serious objections to this course; and after many consultations, erling allowed himself to be urged to do, what had been his intention from the beginning, viz., to proclaim his own son magnus. magnus, to be sure, was not of royal birth, but he had royal blood in his veins, being the grandson of sigurd the crusader. by shrewd manoeuvres, erling succeeded in rallying the greater part of king inge's party about his son, who was but five years old, and to induce the liegemen to swear him allegiance. a _thing_ was then summoned to meet in bergen, and magnus was formally acknowledged as king ( ). the land was now divided between two tolerably evenly balanced parties, and only the sword could decide to which of the two the government should belong. after the great defeat at oslo, however, inge's party had lost much of its prestige, and erling felt that foreign help was needed to secure its predominance. he, therefore, sailed with his son and a large following of high-born men to denmark and obtained the promise of help from king valdemar the great on condition of ceding to him the greater part of viken. haakon availed himself of his absence to take possession of the fleet which had belonged to inge and to have himself proclaimed king at oere-_thing_. his friend sigurd of reyr he raised to the dignity of earl, and delegated to him the task of watching for erling, whose return from denmark was expected. erling was, however, a shrewd man who did what was least expected of him. he did, indeed, return from denmark, but by a singular route. he crossed from skagen in jutland to agder, and thence steered northward to bergen, where he killed or otherwise punished many who had given their allegiance to haakon. then, before earl sigurd had yet heard of his arrival, he attacked haakon in tunsberg and beat him. having accomplished this and secured the recognition of his son in viken, agder, rogaland, and hördaland, he returned to bergen where he spent the winter. haakon, who found his strongest support in tröndelag, went into winter quarters in nidaros. it was merely a question of time when the two rival kings, or the men who represented them, should meet for a final contest. therefore, as soon as the ice broke up, preparations began on a grand scale. erling's cunning again stood him in good stead, for by a stratagem he succeeded in surprising haakon at sekken, in söndmöre, and utterly destroying him ( ). the poor boy, who was but fifteen years old, jumped from his ship on board the one which lay nearest, and found himself unexpectedly among enemies. he told the men who he was, and surrendered himself to their mercy. the battle was then virtually at an end; but when erling found that the men to whom haakon had surrendered were determined to guard his life, he began a fresh attack, and managed it so that, in the tumult, the boy-king was slain. his own former candidate for the throne, nicholas simonsson, whom he had forcibly abducted from bergen, he also contrived to get rid of in the same battle, and there can be little doubt that he was responsible for his death. haakon sigurdsson was king of norway for about a year and three months. he was large for his age, and on account of the slenderness of his waist and the breadth of his shoulders, was called haakon the broad-shouldered (_herdebred_). [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxiii. magnus erlingsson ( - ). erling skakke had effectually cleared the way to the throne for his son, by killing every descendant of the royal house whom he could lay hands on. there was, however, another undoubted son of sigurd mouth left, whom he had not got into his power, besides several whose claims had not yet been pronounced upon. the bitterness between the party of erling and that of haakon was indeed so great, that a reconciliation was not to be thought of, and the latter, therefore, seized the opportunity to rally about a king whose royal descent was unquestioned. this new claimant was a boy named sigurd marcusfostre (the foster-son of marcus), probably ten or twelve years old, who had been brought up by marcus of skog, a friend and kinsman of earl sigurd of reyr. another magnate, the much-travelled eindride the young, transferred his allegiance to sigurd, and a large number of proud and adventurous men, who could not tolerate erling's supremacy, joined the new party. the peasants, however, who had hitherto suffered but little from the feuds of the kings, now began to find these roving bands troublesome, especially when they levied contributions and foraged wherever they went. erling availed himself of this circumstance to excite their indignation against the "sigurd party," as it was called, and he presently succeeded in forcing the hostile chieftains to give battle at ree, near tunsberg. here earl sigurd fell, and eindride the young, marcus of skog, and the boy-king sigurd were captured and executed. although no formidable pretender was now left, erling, whose ambition was nothing less than the founding of a new dynasty, did not feel secure in his possession of power. the trönders, who had been partisans of sigurd mouth, were yet at heart devoted to the party which represented him, and the danish king valdemar was incensed, because erling had not kept his promise in regard to the cession of viken. to fortify himself against the contingencies arising from this situation, erling found it necessary to cast about him for new allies, and the choice which he made was exceedingly shrewd. the archbishop of nidaros, at that time, was the able and imperious eystein erlendsson, who descended from a mighty tröndelag family, and therefore, apart from his episcopal office, was a man of great influence. he shared the political sympathies of the community in which he lived, and was therefore more disposed to be erling's enemy than his friend. the sagacious chieftain, however, succeeded in propitiating him and in forming an alliance with him for mutual advantage. the result of their negotiations was, that a great meeting was called in bergen, at which norway was declared to be st. olaf's heritage and property, and the bishops, as his representatives, acquired the right to reject any legitimate heir to the throne, in case they held him to be unworthy. the clerical and secular magnates were, at the death of a king, to select among his heirs the one who was to succeed him, the presumption being always in favor of the eldest son born in wedlock, unless he was declared unworthy. in case of disagreement, a majority of votes was to decide the choice, but only in so far as the archbishop and the other bishops gave their consent. if the king left no heirs of whom the magnates approved, they were at liberty to elect any one whom they regarded as fit to guard "the right of god and the laws of the land." it is obvious that the secular and the clerical magnates here united for the spoliation of the crown, and in return for the concessions which erling had made, as the nominal representative of the latter, the archbishop crowned magnus in bergen ( ), thereby repairing, in the eyes of many, the deficiency of his title. he had the friendship of the church, which had it in her power to influence the people in his favor. he could therefore look forward without fear to meeting the danish king, who was preparing to take forcible possession of the province which had been promised him. in order to test the sentiment of the people toward magnus, valdemar sent secret messengers with presents and friendly greetings to many prominent trönders, some of whom committed themselves in writing to join him, in case he invaded norway. their letters, however, fell into erling's hands, and the offenders were punished with severity. some were killed, others outlawed, and again others were sentenced to pay enormous fines. when king valdemar finally, in , sailed with a large fleet to norway he received a different reception from what he had expected. the number of the disaffected who were ready to do him homage was very small, compared to the number of those who were ready to fight him. he, therefore, returned to denmark, without awaiting erling's arrival. it is said that he suffered from lack of provisions; and was indisposed to harry in a province which he hoped soon to lay under his crown. before erling had time to return this visit, a band of rebels was organized in the oplands under the leadership of olaf guldbrandsson, a grandson on the mother's side of king eystein i., the brother of sigurd the crusader. this new pretender attempted to rally the discontented chieftains under his banner. his adherents were called the hood-swains (hettesveiner), and he himself got the surname, the unlucky (ugæva), because he came within an ace of capturing erling at the farm, rydjökel, north of lake oieren, but failed through mischance ( ). the hood-swains then for some time eked out a precarious existence in forest and field; for the fear of erling was so great that few who had any thing to lose dared to make common cause with them. he would probably have put an end to them without delay, if the hostilities with denmark had not demanded his attention. it was, just then, the favorable moment for attacking valdemar's kingdom, as he was himself absent in wendland and his kinsman, buris henriksson, who had the greater part of jutland in fief, had promised to co-operate with the norsemen and even to capture and kill the king on his return. erling accordingly sailed with his fleet to denmark and beat the danes at djursaa; but was prevented, by the resolute conduct of bishop absalon, from reaping any benefit from his victory. a second campaign of valdemar in norway was as indecisive as the first, and finally, when both parties were tired of the aimless warfare, peace was concluded ( ), on condition that erling should govern viken as valdemar's vassal and accept from him the title of earl. it is probable that erling, after his return, made known only in part the terms of this peace; for the national feeling had now begun to assert itself in norway; and it is scarcely credible that the people of viken, who had, but a short time ago, manifested their hostility to the danish king, should now willingly submit to becoming his subjects. what erling did was really to confirm his own power and that of his son, at the expense of the integrity and the independence of his country. but in that respect he only followed the traditions of his class. the aristocracy of norway usually (though there were many honorable exceptions) regarded their own independence and power as more important than those of their country. it was not the first time that the tribal magnates bartered away faith and honor for personal gain. in the olden time, when norway was but a loose agglomeration of tribes, who felt their kinship to the danes and swedes more strongly than they did their own geographical isolation, such conduct was often excusable. but in the days of erling skakke, the norsemen were a nation, quite distinct from their neighbors, and the cession of a fertile province, like viken, gave the danes a foot-hold on the peninsula, and meant in the future, as erling was shrewd enough to know, infinite complications, wars, and the possible loss of independence. [illustration: the raft sund in vestfjord, between lofoten and vesteraalen islands.] having thus placated his foreign foes, erling set himself to the task of exterminating the domestic ones. olaf the unlucky he had already, before the conclusion of the negotiations, beaten in two fights (at stanger and at dav, ), and had destroyed his band. olaf had fled to denmark, where he died ( ). there were, however, several pretenders left who had as much right to the throne as magnus erlingsson; and erling did not choose to wait until they became dangerous, before relieving himself of their presence. sigurd mouth's daughter, cecilia, he sent to vermeland and made her the mistress of a man, named folkvid the lawman. his own step-son, harold, an illegitimate son of his wife christina, and accordingly a grandson of sigurd the crusader, he beheaded, in spite of king magnus' prayers and protests. that kind of clemency which involved future danger he professed not to understand. "if i let him live," he said to his son, "they will all want him for their king, and thee to kiss the lips of the axe." in spite of all his precautions, however, there was one scion of the royal house, and that the most dangerous of all, who escaped his attention. there was, at that time, living in the faeroe isles a youth named sverre sigurdsson, and the history of norway for the next thirty years is chiefly his story. but before he enters upon the scene, a pretender named eystein meyla (little girl), who professed to be a son of harold gille's son eystein, made a little stir and gathered about him the remnants of the rebellious party. he tried to obtain aid in sweden, and was well received by earl birger in götland, who had married harold gille's daughter, brigida. he could, however, not sustain himself against erling's power, and was obliged to roam about with his band on mountains and in wildernesses, robbing and plundering in order to keep from starving. his men thereby got a bad name, and on account of their dilapidated appearance and their habit of using birch-bark for shoes, the peasants called them derisively birkebeiner, _i. e._, birchlegs. the discipline of hardship and danger which their arduous life imposed upon them stood them, however, in good stead; and insignificant though they were in number, they were, as erling found to his cost, not a foe to be despised. however often he beat them, they would never stay beaten. with wonderful intrepidity and endurance they rallied after each defeat, and fought again, whenever there was a chance of fighting. many of them were undoubtedly little better than highwaymen, and to treat them as a political party would be an extravagant compliment. their chief political purpose was, for a good while, to keep body and soul together. gradually, however, their band was increased by political malcontents and even by men of high birth, who had quarrelled with erling, or had the death of kinsmen to avenge. in the summer of they were numerous enough to surprise the city of nidaros and have their chieftain, eystein meyla, proclaimed king at the oere-_thing_; but the following year their luck deserted them, and in the battle of ree, near tunsberg, they were overwhelmingly defeated by king magnus, and eystein meyla was slain ( ). the band then broke up, and the birchlegs would perhaps never have been heard of again, if their fortunes had not become identified with those of a great man--sverre sigurdsson. sverre was born in the faeroe isles. his mother gunhild was, according to the legend, cook in the service of king sigurd mouth. she was not particularly handsome, but quick-witted and intelligent. the king begged her to kill her child, as soon as it was born; and being unwilling to listen to such a proposition, she fled on a ship to the faeroe isles, where she took service as milkmaid with bishop mathias. here she bore a son, whom she named sverre. a smith or combmaker named unas came, the following spring, from norway, and she suspected him of having been sent by the king to kill her child. she therefore hid it in a cave, which is yet called sverre's cave. unas, however, followed her and discovered where the child was hidden, but promised not to harm it, if she would marry him. she consented, though reluctantly, and returned with him to norway. sigurd mouth was then dead, and she had nothing to fear. when the boy was five years old, he returned to the faeroe isles with his mother and step-father. the latter's brother, roe, had been made bishop after the death of mathias, and unas was not insensible to the advantage of living in a neighborhood, where he had such an influential relative. sverre grew up in the belief that he was the son of unas, and bishop roe, who took a fancy to him on account of his extraordinary intelligence, began to educate him for the priesthood. his ambition, as he himself asserts, did not then extend beyond a bishopric, or possibly a cardinal's hat. but when he was ordained as _diaconus_ (which is one of the lower grades of the priesthood), his mother burst into tears, and to his question why she was displeased at the honor conferred upon him, she answered: "this is but a paltry honor, compared to that which by right belongs to thee. thou art not the son of him whom thou thinkest, but of king sigurd in norway. i have kept this from thee, until thou shouldst reach the age of manhood." from that day sverre's peace of mind was gone. great thoughts tossed and whirled about in his soul and his life seemed poor and meaningless. his ambition kept him awake in the night and bright vistas of future achievements beckoned him from afar. "if i am born to a crown," he said to his mother, "then i will strive to win it, whatever it may cost me. life has no more joy for me without it, and therefore i will stake life on it." disregarding the warnings of the bishop he embarked for norway, and, without revealing who he was, spent some time in investigating the sentiments of the people toward king magnus. this is highly characteristic of sverre. he made no leap in the dark, but computed carefully the strength of the enemy whom he was to combat. what he learned was, however, far from encouraging. the people seemed everywhere devoted to king magnus and well contented with his rule. sverre also made the acquaintance of erling skakke, studied him thoroughly, and talked with his men-at-arms, who found the priest from the faeroe isles a droll and entertaining fellow, and freely told him all the gossip of the royal household. to enter the lists, alone and penniless, against a power so formidable as this, seemed madness. sverre was too shrewd not to see that such an undertaking was hopeless. at the same time, he was not minded to return, after his dream of royalty, to his obscure priesthood on the bleak isles in the north sea. he knew that earl birger in sweden was married to a sister of sigurd mouth, and, as a forlorn hope, he crossed the frontier, revealed his origin to the earl, and begged him for aid. the earl, it appears, who had reaped no glory from his alliance with eystein meyla, did not receive sverre's request graciously, suspecting that he had been sent by erling to mock him. sverre, then, betook himself to his half-sister, cecilia, who was the mistress of folkvid the lawman, and met here with a better reception. the rumor that a son of sigurd mouth had made his appearance in sweden had, in the meanwhile, gone abroad and had reached the remnants of the birchleg band. they made haste to find sverre and requested him to be their chief; but sverre, seeing what condition they were in, declined. he made them a little speech, in which he remarked that the only thing he had in common with them was poverty; and advised them, in conclusion, to select as their chief one of earl birger's sons, who were, like himself, descendants of harold gille. the birchlegs acted upon this advice, but received no encouragement from the earl. he told them, perhaps not without a humorous intention, that sverre was their man, and advised them, in case he persisted in his refusal, to threaten him with death. back they went, accordingly, to sverre, and this time he yielded to their persuasions. he must then have been twenty-four or twenty-five years old. and thus, with two empty hands and seventy ragged and badly armed men, he began the fight for the crown of norway. he started from vermeland southward for viken, and so many gathered about him on the way, that by the time he arrived in the saurbygd, he had men. these proclaimed him, in spite of his protest, king, and touched his sword in token of allegiance. but when he forbade them to rob and plunder the peasants, the majority grew discontented and left him. in order to test them he ordered them back to vermeland, but by the time he reached the eidskog, his band had shrunk to the original seventy. sverre was now in a serious dilemma. he had announced himself as a claimant to the throne, thereby making himself fair game for any one who could slay him. and to wage war against king magnus and erling skakke with seventy men was too absurd to be considered. in his extremity he sent messengers to thelemark, where he had heard that some birchlegs had sought refuge after the battle of ree, and where there was said to be much dissatisfaction with king magnus. wherever he appeared, the peasants met him with hostile demonstrations, and many were those who wished to earn the gratitude of earl erling by destroying the runaway priest and his robber band. but it was in these desperate emergencies that the wonderful resources of sverre's mind became apparent. though he often had to live on bark and frozen berries, which were dug up from under the snow, his courage never failed him. though in his journeys through pathless mountain wildernesses, his men dropped dead about him from exposure and hunger, and he had to cover himself with his shield and allow himself to be snowed down, he kept a stout heart in his bosom and rebuked those who talked of suicide. it is told of him that during his march from sweden to nidaros, he came to a large mountain lake which it was necessary to cross. rafts were made, but the men were so exhausted, that it took them a good while to fell the logs. one by one the rafts were launched and rowed across. sverre himself boarded the last, but it was already so heavily loaded, that the water reached above his ankle. one man, however, who was half dead with weariness, had been left. he crawled down to the edge of the water and begged the king to take him along, as otherwise he must perish. the birchlegs grumbled loudly, but sverre commanded them to lay to and take the man aboard. the raft then sank still deeper and the king stood in the icy water up to his knees. it looked for awhile as if they would go to the bottom. but sverre did not change a mien. they reached, at last, the further shore, where an enormous pine had fallen into the water. the men, eager for safety, scrambled over into the tree, and sverre was the last to leave the raft, which, the moment his foot was off it, sank. this incident was regarded by the birchlegs as a miracle, and strengthened their faith in sverre's mission. [illustration: hornelen; a cliff on the island bremangerland at the mouth of the nordfjord.] at last, after incredible hardships, sverre arrived early in june, , at the goal of his journey. he had then men, but fortunately his message to thelemark brought him a reinforcement of eighty more. with these he performed the most amazing manoeuvres--dodging a force of fourteen hundred men which the partisans of erling had sent against him. he anticipated with ease what his enemies would do, while they never could form the remotest conception of what he meant to do. therefore the peasant army scattered in its search for him, and was easily beaten in separate detachments. it seems incredible that with his or warriors he could have beaten six or seven times their number, and the explanation lies near, that many of the trönders in secret sympathized with him, though fear of erling deterred them from openly espousing his cause. their success now gave the birchlegs courage, and they thronged joyously out to oere-_thing_, whither sverre had summoned twelve representatives from each of the eight shires of tröndelag. here he was proclaimed king of norway ( ). the rejoicings of the birchlegs were however, a little premature. erling skakke was, by no means, dead yet, and he had no sooner heard of sverre's performances in tröndelag than he gathered a large fleet and sailed northward to have a reckoning with him. sverre did not care to meet the relentless earl just then, and he therefore sought refuge again in the mountains. for two years he led, most of the time, a life which no dog would have envied him; now descending into the valleys on foraging expeditions, now again retiring into the wilderness and suffering untold privations. occasionally hunger drove him to play a practical joke on the peasants, surprising them as an uninvited guest at their yule-tide feasts, sitting down with his birchlegs at the banqueting boards and devouring their holiday fare. altogether his hardships were not unrelieved by humor. like robin hood and his merry men, he had pity on the small, and often dispensed a kind of rough justice to the great. his name was cursed from one end of the kingdom to the other; as he himself remarked, many believed him to be the devil incarnate. nurses scared naughty children with the threat that sverre would come and take them, and the girls when they pounded the wet clothes at the river brink never failed to wish that sverre's head was under the pounder. at the same time, a certain admiration for the power of the man and his undauntable spirit can scarcely have failed to affect those who had not directly suffered by his depredations. his many battles and guerilla fights with king magnus and his liegemen, his second and unsuccessful attempt to capture nidaros, and his skirmishing with the peasants cannot here be described in detail, though the saga, which was prepared under his own supervision, enables us to follow all his movements with tolerable accuracy. it was not until june, , that he fought a battle which gave a decisive turn to his future. then, he made a sudden descent from gauldale upon erling, who was feasting in nidaros. "would that it were true," said the earl, when the approach of the birchlegs was announced to him; "they shall then get their deserts, but for that matter, we may sleep soundly to-night, for i have been told that they have already retired into the mountains, and sverre will not venture to attack us, when we are watching for him, as we are doing now." accordingly he told his men to go to bed; and this they did in a condition which made it no easy task to wake them. when sverre, who, as usual, was well informed, was about to make his attack, he addressed his men as follows: "now it is necessary to fight well and bravely; for a beautiful victory is to be won. i will tell you what you can now obtain by your bravery. he who can prove by truthful witnesses that he has slain a liegeman shall himself become a liegeman; and every man shall get the title and dignity of the man who falls by his hand." the birchlegs needed no further encouragement. poorly armed though they were, they stormed down over the hill-sides into the city. one fellow who was rushing along with a wooden club in his hand was asked what he had done with his weapons. "they are down in the town," he answered; "as yet, the earl's men have got them." the alarm was now given, and bewildered and heavy with sleep, the earl's warriors tumbled out into the streets. king magnus was also present, but the confusion was so great that he had much difficulty in rallying his followers. many of the chieftains advised erling to flee on board his ships and make his escape. "i don't deny," he answered, "that that might seem to be the best; but i can't endure the thought that that devil of a priest, sverre, should put himself in my son's place." he therefore retired outside the city to kalvskindet and there awaited the attack; but though his force was far greater than sverre's, he could not maintain himself against the furious onslaught of the birchlegs. after a brief defence the earl was slain, and the flight became general. king magnus, when he saw his father's bloody face upturned against the sky, paused in his flight, stooped down and kissed him. "we shall meet again, father mine, in the day of joy," he said, and hastened reluctantly away. great was the rejoicing among the birchlegs when it became known, that earl erling was dead. sverre, who rarely missed a chance to make a speech, and who, moreover, was duly qualified for the office of conducting obsequies, made a funeral oration over his fallen foe. he drew the moral of the earl's life, and said some things which, no doubt, were true. but as he went on he gave more and more play to his caustic irony, and was, perhaps, less generous than he could have afforded to be in his judgment of the dead chieftain. from this time forth, sverre had the upper hand, and though the war lasted for several years more, it changed its character. it was no longer a fight between law and order on one side and a handful of outlawed adventurers on the other. it was rather a civil war between two well-matched parties. personally magnus was indeed no match for sverre, but as the representative of the old order of things--a monarchy deriving its power and support from the tribal aristocracy,[a]--he was no mean opponent. with sverre and his birchlegs a lower stratum of society arose--an uncouth and hungry democracy,--demanding its share of the good things of life, which had not hitherto been within its reach. it is sverre's merit that he knew how to discipline these fierce and greedy elements, and force them into subjection to law and order. while before the battle at kalvskindet he stimulated their cupidity by offering each man the honors and dignities of the man whom he slew, he took good care, when the victory was won, to keep this cupidity within bounds. he kept his promises, raised men of low degree to high offices, rewarded fidelity and valor, and revolutionized society in a democratic spirit. but, considering the time in which he lived and the completeness of his victory, he showed remarkable moderation. he meant the new order of things which he founded to be lasting, and instead of turning his victorious birchlegs loose to prey upon the state, he charged them with the maintenance of law and order, invested them with responsibility, and punished them if they exceeded their authority. he could do this without peril, because his men loved and admired him as much as they feared him. his power over them was complete. he had shared the evil days with them, braved dangers and hardships, and tested their manhood. [footnote a: munch: det norske folks historie, iii., . sars: udsigt over den norske historie, ii., cap. iv.] an intimate comradeship and attachment had grown up between them, which, however, did not exclude authority on one side, and respect and obedience on the other. how much magnus had lost by the battle of kalvskindet is indicated by the fact that his adherents now get a party name and sink to the position formerly occupied by their opponents. they were called "heklungs," because it was told of them that they had once robbed a beggar woman whose money was wrapped up in a cloak (_hekl_). "birchlegs," from having been a term of reproach, now became an honorable appellation which sverre's veterans were not a little proud of.[a] [footnote a: munch: iii., .] magnus spent the year after his defeat mostly in bergen where he had many adherents, went thence to viken, and made every effort to gather an army with which to destroy his enemies. he must have had considerable success, for when he went northward to nidaros, he had a force much more numerous than the one sverre could muster. nevertheless he suffered an ignominious defeat at the ilevolds ( ), near nidaros, and had to flee head over heels to bergen. thither sverre followed him, and came near being caught in a trap by one of magnus' followers, jon kutiza, who came with an army of peasants to kill that "devil's priest." the devil's priest was, however, as usual, too clever for the heklungs, and sent them flying, as soon as he lifted his sword. magnus, in the meanwhile, had sought refuge in denmark, where king valdemar received him well, and this kingdom became the base of operations against sverre. long time did not elapse before the heklungs were again on the way northward with thirty-two ships, and came within an ace of making an end of sverre in the saltö sound; but as usual he slipped out of the trap by a daring stratagem. soon after, magnus overtook the birchlegs at nordness ( ), near bergen, and this time sverre, who was anxious not to lose his prestige, determined to stay and give battle, although his fleet was but half as large as that of his enemies. the birchlegs were, as a rule, not good sailors, and never fought as well on the sea as on dry land. the heklungs made a fierce onset, and were gradually gaining several advantages, when sverre stepped forward where the fight was hottest, lifted his hands toward the sky, and sang in a loud, clear voice the latin hymn, "alma chorus domini." hostile missiles beat like hail about him; but though he had no shield, he remained unharmed. just then magnus, flushed with warlike zeal, stormed forward and was on the point of boarding one of the hostile ships, when he received a wound through the wrist. the pain made him pause abruptly, and in so doing he slipped upon the bloody deck and fell backward. the birchlegs sent up a tremendous shout of victory, and orm king's-brother (a half-brother of harold gille's sons), hearing that the king was slain, cried: "then the fate of the realm is decided." instantly he cut the ropes which held the ships together, and, breaking the battle-line, fled as fast as he could. magnus, getting on his feet, called vainly to his men that he was alive, and begged them not to flee from a victory. but the confusion soon became general, and sverre, who was quick to take advantage of it, captured ship after ship and forced the rest into ignominious flight. the war was still continued for three years with changing fortunes. in fact, magnus, whenever he returned from denmark, where he sojourned in the intervals between his defeats, seemed as formidable as ever, and had little difficulty in gathering an army under his banner. sverre, therefore, in order to put an end to an internecine conflict which was draining the resources of the country, proposed to share the kingdom with him, and, when this proposal was rejected, that they should reign alternately for a term of three years each. this well-meant offer magnus likewise repelled, and, after repeated interviews and fruitless negotiations, hostilities were resumed. three times during the years and the heklungs attacked nidaros, where the birchlegs had their head-quarters, and fought with variable success. in sverre assumed again the offensive, surprised magnus in bergen, and compelled him to flee to denmark, abandoning his fleet, his treasures, and the crown regalia. archbishop eystein, who had been one of the staunchest partisans of the heklungs, had, some years before, fled to england, and had hoped to injure sverre by declaring him in the ban of the church. sverre was, however, not in the least disturbed by the ban, while the archbishop was greatly disturbed by the loss of his see. perceiving that magnus' chances of regaining his power were diminishing, the wily prelate opened negotiations with the excommunicated king and received him back into the bosom of the church, on condition of being restored to his dignities. a last attempt to recover what he had lost was made by magnus in the summer of . he then sailed northward to bergen with a fleet of twenty-six ships and about three thousand two hundred men. he learned that sverre had sailed up into the norefjord (a narrow arm of the sognefjord) with a few ships and a small force of men, for the purpose of punishing the sognings, who had killed his prefect, ivar darre. sverre was, as a rule, not easily surprised. but in the present instance he had not the faintest suspicion of danger until he saw the galleys of the heklungs steering right down upon him. escape was not to be thought of. he was shut in on all sides. the heklungs, seeing that he had but fourteen ships, and that his force scarcely numbered more than half of theirs, were disposed to give thanks to god for having at last delivered their enemies into their hands. but it is sometimes a doubtful blessing to have such enemies as the birchlegs delivered into one's hands. at all events, magnus began to have doubts, as soon as battle had commenced, as to who were the captors and who the captives. the birchlegs fought with heroism, and the heklungs fell in great numbers and many leaped into the sea. among the latter was king magnus. it was midnight before the bloody work was at an end, and by that time two thousand men had lost their lives. all the ships of the heklungs and much booty fell into sverre's hands. when the morning broke there could be seen through the clear waters of the sognefjord the corpses of slain chieftains lying outstretched on the bottom, while the fishes swam around them. the corpse of king magnus was not found until two days after the battle, and was then taken to bergen, where it was buried with great solemnity. in the battle of norefjord fell, beside the king, the flower of the norse aristocracy. king inge's son harold, orm king's-brother and his son ivar steig, and a large number of proud chieftains, were among the slain. they had pinned their hope to king magnus, and with his death their dominion was at an end. with sverre sigurdsson's reign begins a new epoch in the history of norway. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxiv. sverre sigurdsson ( - ). it was a dangerous precedent sverre established when, without any other proof of his royal birth than his own assertion, he ascended the throne of norway. the prospect was thus opened to any ambitious adventurer, skilled in mendacity and the use of arms, to snatch the crown at the point of the sword. the mere fact that a doubt existed in the minds of many, as to sverre's origin, was in itself demoralizing. it destroyed that bond of loyalty which had hitherto bound the people to the descendants of harold the fairhaired, and made it easy for unscrupulous pretenders, by the prospect of booty, to entice men into rebellion. we see, therefore, during sverre's reign and that of his immediate successors, an abundant crop of pretenders and rebellious bands start up in different parts of the country, only to be cut down after a more or less extended existence by the constituted authority. that sverre, in a measure, had himself to thank for this state of things he must have been well aware; and the frequency of his insistence upon his mission to deliver norway from the illegal sway of erling skakke's son shows how anxious he was, lest the same thought should occur to others. even though he was the son of sigurd mouth (which, is indeed, probable), he must have seen that the people were suffering no hardships from magnus' mild exercise of his power, while the wars which were directly and indirectly inflicted upon the realm by his own pretendership shook it to its very core. in the rôle of a deliverer sverre was therefore scarcely sincere, and a certain insecurity in his position, springing, perhaps, from an inward doubt, made him at times appear with less dignity than we might expect in a man of his genius and power. thus, when in a man named erik, whose origin seems wrapped in obscurity, obtained permission to prove by ordeal that he was sigurd mouth's son, sverre insisted upon inserting in his oath the words "and sverre's brother," thereby obtaining, as it were, a surreptitious proof of his own descent from the royal house. erik, however, objected to assuming this double responsibility, but succeeded in proving the truth of his assertion in regard to himself. he was from this time named erik kingsson; but pledged himself never to aspire to the crown. sverre gave him first command of his household troops and made him later earl of viken. sverre's first endeavor, after having become sole ruler in the land, was to strengthen the foundation of his throne. an alliance with the aristocracy who had hitherto wielded the greatest influence was out of the question, first because the magnates had been the partisans of magnus, and secondly, because to the birchlegs, to whom sverre owed his power, such an alliance would have been odious. he therefore determined to seek the supports of his kingship among the same class, from which his birchlegs had come, viz., the tenants, small farmers, and, in general, among the lower strata of the population. these men had hitherto been at the mercy of the chieftains; and though it was in the interest of the latter not to injure or maltreat them, their position was one of dependence and penury. they were practically beyond the pale of the law; because, if wronged by one of their superiors they lacked the means and influence to prosecute him at the _thing_. in order to improve the position of these lowly people and thereby gain their friendship, sverre appointed a new class of officers, the so-called lawmen, whose business it should be to procure justice for the oppressed at small expense and without delay. as one of the first appointed lawmen, gunnar grjonbak in tröndelag, said: "king sverre, when he gave me this office, bade me administer justice among cottagers, not among chieftains." the lawmen were thus judges who, backed by the authority of the crown, were charged with the interests of the small, both in their mutual quarrels and in their quarrels with the great. that their appointment was a shrewd act, on sverre's part, is obvious. another class of officers who, though they were not first appointed by sverre, had more definite functions and duties assigned to them by him, were the prefects (_syslu-madr_ [a]). they were not, like the liegemen, royal vassals who held land in fief and exercised independent authority, but servants of the king and the representatives of his power.[b] they collected the royal revenues in their districts, and watched over the interests of the crown. they thus deprived the liegemen of their principal functions and a large share of their income. as a measure intended to weaken the influence of the aristocracy, the appointment of these prefects was therefore most effective. sverre was not minded to share his power with these haughty magnates, many of whom had not hesitated to barter away provinces and enter into alliances with foreign princes against their own king. he wished the crown to be strong enough to curb this unruly element, and by the aid of the small prevent the great from growing above his head. with great shrewdness and statesmanlike insight he began this work, which in one way or another absorbed his time and energy during his entire reign. [footnote a: vigfusson translates _syslu-madr_, "prefect, bailiff, king's steward"; but he also translates _gjald-keri_ and _ar-madr_ with steward, and in this case correctly. the only english term i know for an officer whose functions correspond approximately to those of the _syslu-madr_ is prefect, as the office now exists in france. even this term is, however, imperfect.] [footnote b: munch, iii., .] seeing that the king meant to deprive them of their ancient privileges, the remnants of the liegemen's party began to look about for a new pretender, whom they could put in the field against sverre. such a one was soon found in the person of a monk named jon, who professed to be a son of king inge crookback. though his story was evidently mendacious, there gathered about him a considerable band, which received the name kuvlungs or cowlmen. not all the former adherents of magnus did, by any means, join this band, but yet a sufficient number to make it formidable. now began the usual depredations along the coast, attacks upon bergen and nidaros, indecisive fights and sudden retreats, occasional victories, and a great deal of destructive guerilla warfare. there was a suspicion that archbishop eystein, who hated sverre, was the power that kept the kuvlungs in motion, and it was obvious that he secretly favored them. the archbishop, however, died in having, as sverre asserted, made peace with him on his death-bed. soon after, the rebel band was destroyed in bergen ( ) and their leader slain. if sverre had expected to sit at ease in the enjoyment of his power, he must by this time have been undeceived. he had indeed sown the wind, and he reaped the whirlwind. no sooner were the kuvlungs out of the way than a new band, called the varbelgs (wolf skins), was organized by the chieftain simon kaaresson, who picked up a pretender in the person of a child, named vikar. this boy, who was but a few years old, was born in denmark, and was alleged to be a son of king magnus erlingsson. but the deception was a little too barefaced to gain credence, and the varbelgs came to an inglorious end at bristein, near tunsberg ( ), where both the little vikar and simon kaaresson were slain. rebellion had by this time grown so popular that any plausible impostor, who chose to take the risks, might expect to gain a considerable number of adherents. the many who were unable or indisposed to put up with the new order of things, preferred to stake all on a desperate chance rather than submit meekly to the terms of sverre's amnesty. it was, therefore, of small consequence who headed the rebellion; the rebellious spirit which was abroad was sure to find expression, and was never in want of a leader. the successors of the varbelgs were called oyeskeggs (the islanders), because their band was recruited largely from the orkneys, where earl harold favored them. their chieftains were hallkel jonsson, a brother-in-law of king magnus, sigurd jarlsson, an illegitimate son of erling skakke, and olaf, a brother-in-law of earl harold, of the orkneys. all these had nominally submitted to sverre and had received many favors at his hands. nay, even after they had hatched their conspiracy, olaf continued to act as the king's friend and sit at his table. sverre was, however, not deceived by his duplicity. one day when they were talking together the king said: "thou, olaf, oughtest to have been faithful to me." "why do you say that, my lord?" asked olaf. the king, instead of answering directly, made a thrust with his knife in the air and said: "the followers of our foes are now swarming about us." at this the traitor took alarm and quickly left the hall. outside he met his foster-son sigurd, who was said to be a son of king magnus, and was later pushed into the rôle of a pretender by the oyeskeggs. "there we narrowly escaped a trap, foster-son," said he, as he took the boy by the hand and hurried away. he immediately set sail for the shetland islands, where he could mature his plans without interference. in the summer of he appeared with hallkel and sigurd jarlsson and a large flock of rebels in viken, where shire after shire submitted to them without resistance. there were, probably, no royal troops in viken at this time, and the inhabitants, who had formerly been partisans of king magnus, had not recently acquired any deep sense of loyalty to sverre. when provisions became scarce, the rebel chieftains went aboard their ships and began to prey upon the shipping in the belts. in this way they gained such large amounts of goods and money that they became known as the "goldlegs" (_gullbeiner_). in the autumn of they sailed northward, full of courage, hoping soon to make an end of sverre, who was understood to have but few people about him. they met him at florsvaag, near bergen, and prepared for battle. his force amounted to about twelve hundred men, while the oyeskeggs had two thousand. as it was too late to fight, when the fleets first approached each other, sverre betook himself to the city with a few followers in order to get reinforcements. on his way back, it occurred to him that it might be a good plan to pay the rebels a visit. in a small boat he rowed stealthily, under cover of the darkness, up to the ship where the chieftains were having a council of war, and had the pleasure of hearing hallkel jonsson unfold the whole plan of the battle. he took his own measures accordingly, and by his well-calculated manoeuvres frustrated their plans. the battle was, however, a bloody one, and fiercely contested. it looked badly for the birchlegs for a while, but the arrival of ninety well-armed men from the city decided the day in sverre's favor. the king of the oyeskeggs leaped overboard, but was pierced by a spear while he was swimming shoreward. all the rebel chieftains, except sigurd jarlsson, and nearly all the men were slain ( ). while thus indefatigably engaged in quelling rebellion, sverre had another struggle on his hands which made even heavier demands upon his vigilance and energy. the church is not apt to look with favor upon one who deserts it, even for a throne, and the fact that the king had been admitted to the lowest order of the priesthood, so far from reconciling the priests to his authority, placed them in a hostile attitude to him. in spite of this, however, there is little doubt but that he could have bought their friendship by making the proper concessions. if he had been willing to ratify the agreement between archbishop eystein and erling skakke, hold his crown in fief from st. olaf, which was but another name for the hierarchy, and give the bishops the right to exact similar conditions from his successors, his former deaconship would have proved no obstacle to his receiving the support of the church. sverre knew, however, too well the spirit of the priesthood to venture upon such concessions. it was his policy to make the monarchy strong enough to quell the unruly spirit of the aristocracy and give peace and security to the people. the church had from the beginning taken sides against him, and secretly or openly aided every band of rebels which had endeavored to overthrow his government. no wonder that, apart from all other considerations, he was not favorably disposed toward the church. when archbishop eystein died, after having made a pretended peace with the king, bishop erik, of stavanger, was elected as his successor. it is said that eystein, on his death-bed, obtained sverre's reluctant consent to this choice. at all events, erik was chosen, and was no sooner warm in his seat, than he showed his disposition toward the king. without consulting sverre, he named for his successor to the bishopric of stavanger one of his bitterest enemies, nicholas arnesson, a half-brother of king inge crookback. sverre naturally objected, first because nicholas had never taken orders, secondly because his election had taken place in an illegal manner, the king having not been present. for all that, he agreed in the end to waive his objections, because his queen, margaret (a sister of the swedish king, knut eriksson), interposed in nicholas' behalf. the latter, who was a master of intrigue, had, by his humility and flatteries, gained the favor of the queen, and even sverre, who was ordinarily a keen judge of men, was made to waver in his distrust of him. he was, however, soon to have his eyes opened. as soon as nicholas had received his investiture, he again joined the ranks of the king's enemies, making common cause with the archbishop, who was indefatigably quarrelling with sverre about the alleged prerogatives of his office. first, he wanted the fines and penances, payable to the church in tröndelag, to be rendered according to actual weight in silver, and not in the coin of the realm, which was but worth half its nominal value. secondly, he wished to reserve for himself and his fellow bishops the right of making all clerical appointments, and thirdly, he claimed the privilege of surrounding himself with a kind of ecclesiastical court, and keeping ninety to one hundred men-at-arms in his service, although the law only allowed him thirty. to settle these points, sverre summoned the archbishop to frosta-_thing_, and, after having read him the law, decided against him. full of wrath, the haughty prelate left the country, seeking refuge with archbishop absalon in denmark, who received him cordially. here he composed a letter to the pope in which he bitterly complained of the king's usurpations and infringements of the rights of the church. the pope responded by putting sverre in the ban and releasing his subjects from their oath of allegiance. before the bull reached norway, however, sverre had induced the bishops, remaining in the country, to crown him at bergen (june , ). even bishop nicholas, who had recently been transferred from stavanger to oslo, had participated in this ceremony, though probably much against his will. sverre treated the papal bull, at first, as a mere fraudulent invention of archbishops, erik and absalon, but that he was far from believing this to be the case is shown by the fact that he sent embassadors to rome to present counter charges against the archbishop, and to explain the causes of the controversy from his point of view. as far as we know these embassadors accomplished nothing, and on their homeward way they died suddenly in denmark ( ), having probably been poisoned. soon after, a falsified papal bull was published by sverre, in which the ban was revoked. it is not improbable that he was himself responsible for this falsification. it was a question of "to be or not to be" with him, and he had been long enough connected with the church to know how to soothe his conscience in such a matter. it is, moreover, scarcely credible that any one else would have committed the fraud in his favor. seeing that they could not destroy sverre by spiritual weapons only, his enemies resorted once more to the sword, and this time chance played into their hands in a most remarkable manner. the byzantine emperor alexius sent, in , a norseman named reidar the messenger (_sendemand_), to norway to hire him mercenaries, and sverre, though he was of opinion that norway had no troops to spare, was persuaded to permit the emperor's emissary to enlist such as desired to follow him. reidar went to work without delay and gathered a considerable force, but in the meanwhile bishop nicholas had approached him and induced him to enter into a league for the overthrow of sverre's government. next to nicholas himself, the most important man in the league was sigurd jarlsson, the son of erling skakke, and formerly a chief of the oyeskeggs. a boy named inge, alleged to be the son of king magnus erlingsson, was their candidate for the throne. the band received the name of _bagler_, _i.e._, crookmen, after _bagall_, a crook or bishop's staff. they were, owing to the accession of reidar's mercenaries, much more formidable than any of the former bands which had risen in rebellion against sverre. in the first battle which the king fought with them, they had no less than ships and , men. this encounter, which took place in saltö sound, in viken ( ), was indecisive, though some advantage seems to have been gained by the baglers. at all events, sverre dared not remain in viken, but steered northward to nidaros, leaving the rebels masters of all the southern provinces. they had here the sympathy of the population, and experienced no difficulty in having the pretender inge proclaimed king at borgar-_thing_. sverre, in the meanwhile, levied troops in the northern provinces, and in the summer of attacked the rebels at oslo, where they suffered a crushing defeat. here his prudent foresight and strategic skill insured him a splendid success, while nicholas showed himself a cowardly braggart, devoid of generalship. he tried to make his men believe that the swords of the birchlegs would not bite, because they were in the ban, and when this lie had been effectually disproved, the bishop was among the first to take to his heels. "ride forth hard now, my lord," one of the baglers called to him. "our men sorely need your help and exhortation; for, methinks, in sooth, that the swords of the birchlegs bite pretty well." "no, let us ride away as fast as we can," nicholas made answer; "for now the devil is loose." after the battle the prelate sent a priest to sverre with offers of peace; but the latter, who knew the treacherous character of his foe, would not treat with him, unless he appeared in person. he promised him safe-conduct, averring that he had other means of gaining fame than by killing a man like him. nicholas made no response to this proposition; but instead of presenting himself before the king, hastened with his men overland to nidaros, attacked the city, burned sverre's fleet, which was lying in the fjord, and besieged the block-house, which finally fell by the treason of its commander, thorstein kugad. this was a severe blow to the king, and placed him in the subsequent contest at a great disadvantage. to meet the rebels on the sea with the small ships which were now left to him, was hazardous, as the battle of thorsberg, near the mouth of the drontheim fjord, during the following year plainly showed ( ). the birchlegs were here worsted, in spite of their splendid bravery, and many of the king's staunchest friends and adherents were slain. sverre hastened thence to bergen, where the bagler chief, sigurd jarlsson, in the meanwhile had been raging with fire and sword. he had burned those of sverre's ships which he had found in the harbor, as well as the houses of the birchlegs in the city, and he now laid siege to the block-house, where queen margaret was with all her household. as this rude fort was built of wood, his first intention was to fire it, and he began, for this purpose, to pile up wood for an enormous bonfire close to the walls. sigurd borgarklett, the commander of the fort, succeeded in lighting the wood-pile, before it was large enough to do any harm. the baglers began to pile up wood once more, but again the besieged flung burning barrels of tar down upon them and drove them off. after many fruitless attempts, sigurd jarlsson gave up the plan of firing the block-house. [illustration: thorghÄtten, a famous island with a natural tunnel, in nordland.] it was not, however, only his enemies without, who gave sigurd borgarklett trouble. the queen, at the sight of the fire, grew frantic and insisted upon surrendering; and all her women surrounded the brave commander, tearfully imploring him not to expose them to being burned alive. a friend of sverre, named aura-paul, to whose care the queen had especially been entrusted, feared that the lamentations of the women might have a discouraging effect upon the garrison, and in order to save the commander from their importunities, he persuaded them to enter the room above the gate, which had been used as a jail, and there await the issue of the negotiations with the baglers. to this they readily consented; and were forthwith locked up, with full permission to wail to their hearts' content. when, however, the danger from fire was past, aura-paul went to the queen and asked her, what she would give him if he could induce the baglers to depart. she offered him a great sum of money; whereupon he begged the loan of her seal. he now sat down and wrote a letter in the queen's name to two priests in the city, urging them to use every means in their power to detain the enemy, as the king was coming with a large force the next day and would be sure to make an end of them. this communication he despatched by a small boy who managed to be caught by the baglers and, on being searched, had to deliver up the letter. sigurd jarlsson, without suspecting the deceit, hurried away as fast as he could, not, however, without having punished the two priests, who, though professing friendship for him, yet were in communication with the queen. this was regarded by the birchlegs as a delightful joke; for the priests were, like most of their order, enemies of the king. but to make this comedy of errors complete, sverre did actually, to the surprise of his friends, arrive on the day appointed in the letter. nevertheless, it was fortunate that sigurd jarlsson had taken to his heels; for the main force of the baglers were pursuing the king southward, and if the two divisions had effected a junction in bergen, sverre would scarcely have been able to hold his own against them. the summer of , which became known among the people as the bergen summer, was passed by the hostile armies in and about the latter city, and there was almost an incessant skirmishing, besides some hard fighting. a battle at the jonvolds resulted in favor of the birchlegs, but was not decisive enough to destroy the baglers' power of resistance. the summer passed, neither party gaining any decided advantage. then bishop nicholas, despairing of destroying the birchlegs as long as they had the town to fall back upon, determined to deprive them of this shelter. he accordingly set fire to the town and burned the greater part of it. the birchlegs had enough to do in saving the block-house, and could give but little aid to the citizens in their efforts to limit the conflagration. it is doubtful, however, if the baglers gained any thing by this unwarrantable destruction, for the citizens of bergen, a large number of whom had been favorably inclined toward them, became from this day their enemies. sverre was, indeed, compelled to abandon his position, leaving, however, a garrison in the block-house. but the baglers scarcely profited by his departure, as the country round about had been denuded of provisions, and want compelled them to move. bishop nicholas then sailed northward to nordmöre and haalogaland, where he met with no opposition; and desertion from the ranks of the birchlegs increased his army until its very magnitude caused him embarrassment. oddly enough, at this very time, when the king's fortune was at its lowest ebb, the traitor, thorstein kugad, who had surrendered the block-house in nidaros, returned to him. he flung himself at sverre's feet, embraced his knees, and cried: "happy i am now, my lord, that i am so near you--that i can touch you. * * * dear my lord, receive me, and let me never more part from you." though his former comrades demanded his death, sverre gave him full pardon. the king's desperate position was indeed sufficient guaranty of the sincerity of thorstein's repentance. the whole country, outside of tröndelag, was now in the hands of the rebels. the royal fleet was burned, and even many of the veteran birchlegs had deserted. then, as the final crushing blow, came the bull of pope innocent iii., laying the country under interdict, prohibiting the celebration of public worship and the administration of the sacraments, in all those parts of the kingdom that yet remained faithful to sverre. if the vicar of christ had contented himself with hurling the thunderbolt of divine wrath against the king, he might perhaps have achieved his destruction. but the pope, finding that the bull of his predecessor had been practically ineffective, aimed this time to affect the popular conscience, and he addressed to it certain arguments which showed how completely he had allowed himself to be deceived by sverre's enemies. in his bull he described the king in a manner which must have appeared absurd to those who knew him; he attributed to him crimes which all knew that he had never committed; and exposed thereby--not sverre's wickedness, but his own fallibility and partisanship. the king, instead of meekly submitting to an unfair sentence, felt, therefore, justified in coming forward in his own defence. he wrote or caused to be written, under his immediate supervision, a polemical brochure, in which he reviewed his relation to the church and ably defended his conduct. the behavior of the clergy he subjected to a scathing criticism, showed the inconsistency of their position, as the partisans of baglers, and exposed the true motive of their actions. the author's shrewdness, ability, and learning are manifest in every page, and the lucidity of expression and the plain common-sense arguments seem to reveal the well-known personality of sverre. that it had the effect of preventing many from leaving him, who otherwise might have been frightened into desertion, is very probable. the disloyal clergy had, however, better facilities for reaching the people than the few who were yet faithful, and they improved their opportunity in inciting the peasants to an unreasoning, fanatical hostility to the excommunicated king. the pope, in the meanwhile, was active in stirring up foreign enemies against him, and wrote the most urgent letters to the kings of sweden and denmark, exhorting them to merit the gratitude of god and his vicar, the pope, by destroying the sacrilegious monster, sverre. happily, these exhortations had no effect; for king knut of denmark had his hands full at home, and king sverke of sweden was rather favorably inclined toward his neighbor. in this desperate strait sverre's true greatness revealed itself. he had been accustomed to fight against heavy odds, and the sense of danger served to bring all his energies into play. with undaunted resolution he set to work to repair his losses and to equip himself once more to meet his foes. his first task was to build a fleet instead of the one which the baglers had destroyed; for without ships he would have been at their mercy. the trönders whom he called upon for help assisted him faithfully; and by the beginning of spring ( ) he had eight large galleys ready to be launched. besides these he expected a number of others which the peasants were building for him throughout tröndelag. the city of nidaros he fortified with a large new block-house, and built hurling-machines which were used for throwing stones at the enemy. early in june the baglers appeared in the fjord with a large fleet, and the usual skirmishing commenced. all their efforts to capture the city were, however, unavailing, and in the battle at strindsö (june, ) their great fleet, which had formerly given them an advantage over the birchlegs, fell into sverre's hands. the battle was stubbornly contested, and both parties were wrought up to a warlike fury which refused to give or to take quarter. the king, whose gentleness and humane sentiments had made his stern resolution and courage the more admirable, put here a blot upon his fair name. he yielded to the importunities of his men, and allowed them to avenge the death of their kinsman upon the prisoners. it is but fair to ascribe this single act of cruelty to the momentary ferment of his blood and the hate that flared up uncontrollably against the authors of all his misfortunes. after the battle of strindsö the baglers fled southward with the few ships that were left to them, and were pursued by sverre, who did not, however, succeed in overtaking them. they found, as usual, a refuge in denmark, where they continued to plot mischief. they felt themselves, in point of strength and resources, so superior to sverre that it seemed to them merely a question of time, when they should gain possession of the entire land. even in nidaros, where the king was yet able to hold his own, the rebels had many sympathizers among the clergy. after his victory at strindsö, sverre sailed southward and went into winter-quarters in oslo. the baglers took advantage of his absence to visit nidaros where they fought indecisively with an army of , peasants who undertook to defend the city. in the meanwhile a storm was drawing up over sverre's head more menacing than any which he had hitherto weathered. the preaching of the disloyal clergy was beginning to show its effects. the peasants of viken and the oplands rose in rebellion, and poured in great torrents toward oslo, for the purpose of destroying the excommunicated king. from three different directions their armies came marching, intending to effect a junction near the city, and by their greatly superior numbers overwhelm sverre. the king had then only three thousand men, while the forces of the peasants, all told, must have numbered forty or fifty thousand. to fight against such odds would seem to be simple madness. nevertheless he determined to sell his life dearly. never did his genius shine more brightly than in the hour of danger. calmly and confidently he addressed his men, assigning to each commander his task, and exhorting his birchlegs to be brave, and to trust in god. then, by a series of swift manoeuvres, he prevented the junction of the hostile armies, leaving his sons, sigurd lavard and haakon, to guard his rear, while he engaged and defeated the two main divisions of the peasant army. the force under sigurd and haakon, which only numbered four hundred and eighty men, had in the meanwhile been routed by the third division, numbering twenty-four hundred, and the king would have had small chance of escape, if the peasants had had the wit to follow up their advantage. instead of that they began carousing in the city, and even refrained from firing the royal fleet, which was in their power, because they regarded it already as their own. when, however, the sanguinary battle which was in progress out on the ice was at an end, the hilarious peasants discovered their mistake. sverre came, not as vanquished, but as victor. then there was hurly-burly of battle once more--fight, flight, and pursuit. the yeomen, sturdy fellows though they were, and not unaccustomed to war, lacked discipline, and above all they lacked a competent commander. sverre chased them so hotly that they had to fling away their shields and trust for safety to their speed alone. [illustration: hÖnefoss.] the exhausted birchlegs had now need of rest, and the king ordered the famous _loor_ andvake to be blown, and gathered the army about him. food and drink were brought from the city and the hungry warriors were about to refresh themselves, when they perceived that the fugitives of the several peasant armies had united, and were returning to challenge once more the fortune of battle. the rebels had discovered that they were yet, with a proper plan of attack, formidable enough to destroy the birchlegs. their chief purpose now was to kill sverre, because they supposed that if he were dead, the resistance of his party would soon collapse. reluctant though they were to fight again, the birchlegs responded bravely to their king's exhortation. they stormed down to the frozen fjord, where the peasants were forming their battle line, and made a fierce onset. sverre, as was his wont, rode about among them, was now at the front, now in the rear, and with his clear eye directed each manoeuvre. the peasants, when they saw him, cried out: "stab him, hew him down, kill him, cut his horse from under him." and from all sides resounded hoarsely the shout: "stab him, kill him." but in their eagerness to slay sverre, they neglected to preserve order. their battle array broke up into a series of wild and irregular charges, the weak points of which sverre was not slow to detect. the birchlegs rushed in among them and routed them with great carnage. a liegeman, named aale hallvardsson, whom the rebels mistook for the king, because he was similarly dressed, fell after a brave defence, and an exultant shout was heard, that the king was slain. the birchlegs were for a moment stricken with terror, and stopped in their pursuit. but suddenly sverre came dashing forward on his horse; the warriors rallied joyously about him, the _loor_ was blown for a fresh attack, and at the head of his men the king charged once more and broke the last resistance of the discomfited peasants. this was the greatest victory that sverre ever won, and altogether one of the most extraordinary battles ever fought in norway. for the peasants a day of accounting was now at hand, and the king made them feel the heavy hand of his wrath. a policy of gentleness and amnesty they would have mistaken for fear; only severity could inspire them with respect. many farms were burned and great fines in money and provisions were exacted from those who had taken part in the rebellion. one incident will suffice to show, however, how little sverre's heart was in this work. as he was approaching a farm, a little boy came running out of the woods and begged him piteously not to burn his home. "nay, surely it shall be spared, since thou askest," answered sverre, gently; "and if the peasants had stayed at home and begged for peace, no farm would have been burned. tell them now, that the rest will be spared." forthwith he gave orders to his men to refrain from further destruction. the heroic endurance which sverre had developed in this long and exhausting struggle had indeed weakened the cause of the baglers, but had by no means deprived them of their courage. a civil war and particularly a war of classes, such as this was, arouses fiercer hates and passions than international contests, and must therefore continue, until one party or the other is utterly humbled or destroyed. the norse magnates, who formed the bone and sinew of the bagler party, hated sverre, not only because they believed him to be an upstart and an adventurer, but as the destroyer of the old oligarchic government, in which they had secured the lion's share of power. a class, so formidably intrenched both in the institutions and the traditions of the country, could not be overthrown at one blow; nor could it be humbled by misfortunes and reverses. it was not in his clerical capacity, but as the most eminent representative of the old aristocracy, that bishop nicholas became their leader; and the adherence of the clergy to the bagler party was not so much the result of a personal sympathy with him, as of a common animosity to the democratic king, the leveller of distinctions, the champion of the rabble. these proud descendants of the great historic families of norway were of the same blood as the norman nobility of england, and though they did not live in castles, nor dress in satin and ermine, yet they were animated by the same spirit. they were ready to fight for their rights, whether real or imagined, even against their own king and country. in the spring of sverre called fresh levies from the ever faithful north, and sailed again southward, leaving a garrison in bergen under the command of his friend, dagfinn peasant, and his son-in-law einar, surnamed the priest. he learned that the bagler chief, reidar messenger, with about two hundred and forty men had taken possession of the block-house at tunsberg, and he thought the opportunity a favorable one for annihilating one of his most dangerous enemies. to this end he laid siege to the block-house, which, however, from its situation on the mountain, overlooking the town, was wellnigh impregnable. his attempt to take it by storm failed, and his various ingenious stratagems were likewise unsuccessful. after a siege of twenty weeks, the baglers were reduced to such a strait that for their christmas dinner they had to eat boiled and chopped ropes, made out of walrus and sealskin. they could not endure this long; one by one they began to desert, in the dead of night, and instead of being slain, as they expected, they were received with kindness by the king. the birchlegs grumbled loudly at his forbearance, but he rebuked them sternly, and they had to own that he was right. last of all came reidar messenger with the little band that had remained with him. sverre not only spared his life, but he treated him with the greatest consideration. he warned the baglers not to eat too heartily after their long fast, and cared for those among them who were ill. many who disregarded his advice died; while others dragged themselves through life with ruined health. the chief himself also suffered much, although sverre exerted all his medical skill to cure him. the incessant hardships of war and the strain upon his energies which they involved had, in the meanwhile, undermined the king's strength, and he was after a while compelled to take to his bed. when he left tunsberg in january or february, , he had his bed made on the raised poop of the deck, and that of the bagler chief was placed at his side. and there lay, side by side, the conqueror and the conquered, gazing up into the wintry sky, and watching the clouds that chased each other under the wind-swept vault. often they talked pleasantly together, and each learned to admire the remarkable qualities of the other. reidar, who had been a crusader, told of his adventures and observations in constantinople, and the holy land; and the days passed quickly to the king, while he listened to the entertaining narrative. on the arrival of the fleet in bergen, the king was moved to the royal mansion where his bed was made in the great hall. when he felt that his death was near, he called some of his trusted friends to him and declared solemnly, in their presence, that he had but one son living, namely haakon, and if any one else claimed to be his son, he was a rebel, and an impostor. then he ordered a letter, which he had dictated to haakon, to be read and sealed, and he charged his nephews, haakon galen, and peter steyper, to deliver it into his hands. "i wish," he said, "before receiving the extreme unction, to be lifted into my high-seat, and there await life or death." when the sacrament, in spite of his excommunication, had been administered to him, he continued: "my kingship has brought me more tribulation, disquietude, and danger, than ease and pleasure, and methinks that mere envy has impelled many to become my enemies, which sin may god now forgive them, and judge between them and me and in my whole cause." king sverre expired march th, . he was in point of genius the greatest king who has ever ruled over norway. a bright, clear, and resolute spirit dwelt within his small frame. his presence of mind and his wonderful fertility of resource saved him out of the most desperate situations. firmness, and gentleness were admirably united in his character. a clear-sighted policy, based upon expediency as well as upon conviction, governed his actions from the beginning of his reign to its end. he possessed the faculty of attaching men to him, even when he punished them and restrained their lawless passions. though he did not possess the beauty or the magnificent physical presence of the earlier kings of norway, he knew how to inspire respect as well as love. the charm of his conversation, and his affability of manner impressed every one who came in contact with him. "what especially makes his personality interesting," says munch,[a] "is the remarkable mingling of seriousness and humor, which seems to be peculiar to the norse national character, and which, in his demeanor, was so striking that he may almost be regarded as its embodiment." [footnote a: munch, iii., .] in many respects he was much in advance of his age. thus, it is told of him that, so far from regarding the national vice, drunkeness, as an amiable weakness, for which no man was any the worse, he endeavored earnestly to check it, and punished with severity those who committed excesses under the influence of drink. as far as his constant occupation with war permitted him, he encouraged trade and all industrial pursuits. for learning he had a high regard; was himself a good latin scholar and well read in the law, and displayed much zeal in procuring for his sons the best educational advantages that the time afforded. in spite of the hardships and dangers, to which he was constantly exposed, he lived to be fifty years old,--an age which, since the death of harold the fairhaired, but one king of norway had reached. [illustration] chapter xxv. haakon sverresson ( - ). in his dying message to his son sverre advised him to make peace with the church. he foresaw that the interdict which was weighing heavily upon the land would be an increasingly powerful weapon in the hands of the baglers, and would continue to alienate the hearts of the people from the king. haakon, who had not personally been engaged in the controversy, could, without loss of dignity, make overtures for a reconciliation, and might, if necessary, make concessions. the bishops were, however, so tired of their long exile and dependence upon foreign bounty, that they accepted with eagerness his offer of peace and hastened to return to their bishoprics. what the terms of the reconciliation were we do not know. the old archbishop erik, who was now blind and decrepit, was especially glad to return home, as his patron, archbishop absalon, had recently died, and his position in denmark, as a dependent of the king, was scarcely an agreeable one. no sooner had he set foot on norse soil than he declared the interdict revoked, without even awaiting the pope's consent--a rashness for which he was later rebuked by innocent iii. the pope, however, though he no doubt enjoyed wielding the tremendous weapons of his wrath, acquiesced in the terms of the peace, and had no fault to find with the new king's attitude toward the church. the fact was, haakon sverresson was a gentle and lovable character, who delighted in peace rather than war. all the people, weary of the long and bloody civil feud, felt drawn toward him and hastened to acknowledge him. after his proclamation as king at oere-_thing_, and the revocation of the interdict, he was undisputed master of the land; and the star of the baglers seemed forever to have set. many of their influential chiefs deserted to haakon; and their so-called king, inge, was slain on an island in mjösen by his own men and the peasants. bishop nicholas exchanged temporarily the helmet for the mitre, and kept as quiet as his restlessly intriguing mind would permit. reidar messenger had, after his capitulation at tunsberg, sworn fidelity to sverre, and meant to keep faith with his son. it seemed therefore that, at last, all dangers were removed, and that the young and popular king had a prospect of a long and happy reign. then, as a bolt of lightning out of a sunny sky, came a calamity which suddenly plunged the country again into war and misery. we have heard that sverre married margaret, the daughter of the swedish king, erik the saint. he had with her no sons, but a daughter, christina. his two sons, sigurd lavard, who died before his father, and haakon, were born on the faeroe isles; and their mother was astrid, the daughter of bishop roe. it is probable that sverre was married to her, but it is told that he did not bring her to norway, because she had been unfaithful to him. according to a tradition, however, she was brought to norway by her son, who gave her a large estate near nidaros and treated her with consideration and kindness. this act haakon's step-mother, the queen-dowager margaret, regarded as an insult to her, and determined to leave the country. being a passionate and imperious woman, proud of her birth and relentless in her hate, she imagined that she was not accorded the honor that was her due at the court, and she particularly took offence because the king claimed precedence before her. being averse to strife, he did his best to conciliate her, but with small success. the queen-dowager betook herself to oslo with her daughter, intending thence to proceed to sweden, where she owned large estates. the king, though he did not dispute her right to leave, denied her right to take with her his half-sister, whose natural guardian he was; and sent his cousin, peter steyper, to induce her to desist from her resolution. the queen, however, remained obdurate. she would not concede that haakon had any right over her child. finding threats and persuasion unavailing, peter steyper attempted a stratagem. he burst into the princess' room, while her mother was taking a bath, crying at the top of his voice that the baglers had come to town. christina implored him in terror to save her; whereupon he seized her in his arms and ran with her down to the piers, jumped on board of his ship, and set sail. the queen, as soon as she heard the noise, rushed into the street, and reached the pier just as the ship was gliding from its moorings. beside herself with wrath, she screamed after the birchlegs: "would that i may live to see the day when i shall cause you as great a sorrow as you to-day have caused me." much more that she cried they did not hear, for her voice came more faintly to them through the wind, as the distance increased. from that day she hated the king, though it is by no means clear that he approved of peter steyper's violence. finding her position in sweden less agreeable than she had expected, she was soon induced to return to norway, where she became a centre of mischievous intrigue. among her partisans was the king's cousin, haakon galen, a son of sigurd mouth's daughter cecilia and folkvid the lawman, a brave and reckless youth who was deeply in love with the queen's niece, mistress christina.[a] over him the two women, both of whom were arch-plotters, had considerable influence, and the desire rose in them to put him on the throne in his cousin's place. king haakon, who, if he had suspected his stepmother's design, would have been on his guard, furnished her now with the opportunity for accomplishing her evil purpose. he invited her and her daughter to his yule-tide feast, offering her the high-seat at his own side. so far from being conciliated by this offer, the queen burst forth vehemently: "long shall i remember how i sat in the high-seat with my lord, king sverre, on christmas eve. bring my greeting to king haakon, and tell him that i shall not share his high-seat to-night." [footnote a: not the same as the princess christina, sverre's and margaret's daughter.] the king was aggrieved at this rebuff, and sent a second message, begging her at least to allow his sister christina to grace his feast by her presence. the messenger added that the king was very wroth. "does he suppose," cried margaret, "that i do not remember how he caused my daughter to be torn away from me at oslo, without his reminding me of it into the bargain?" to everybody's surprise, however, she began to dress for the feast, and soon both mother and daughter entered the banqueting hall, where they were received with much honor. the feast was a merry one and good cheer reigned in the hall. toward the evening of the day after christmas, however, the king began to feel indisposed, and grew worse as the night advanced. he had himself bled, but the illness made rapid progress, until he lost consciousness. his body turned blue and swelled up terribly. on new year's day, , he died. it was evident that he had been poisoned, and the rumor soon got abroad that it was the queen who had killed him. although haakon galen did his best to lead suspicion away from her, a general clamor arose that she should prove her innocence by carrying glowing irons. this the queen refused to do, and in consideration of her rank obtained permission to appoint a substitute who should submit to the ordeal in her place. this substitute, however, though he betrayed no fear of the result, was found to have been badly burned, and the belief now became general that the queen was guilty. the excitement against her was so great that haakon galen was obliged to conduct her secretly away from nidaros, and to hide her in the house of one of his kinsmen in the country. later she made her escape to sweden, where she probably passed the rest of her days on her estates. both the princess christina and her cousin christina remained in norway, the latter as haakon galen's mistress. the death of haakon sverresson plunged the country in deep grief, not only because he was personally beloved, but because it was supposed that he left no issue. the opportunity was now at hand for a new crop of pretenders to fight for the crown and spread once more anarchy and desolation over the land. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxvi. guttorm sigurdsson ( ), and inge baardsson ( - ). the legitimate heir to the throne after haakon's death was his nephew, guttorm sigurdsson, a son of his brother, sigurd lavard. in spite of his tender age, the birchlegs made haste to elect him, with the understanding that haakon galen, with the title of earl, should conduct the government. there were, however, some of the birchlegs who were dissatisfied with this arrangement, partly because they were jealous of haakon galen, partly because they felt that, in such troublous times, a king was needed, who should be something more than a name or a figure-head. the baglers, too, strange to say, were ill at ease, because they feared that, haakon sverresson's restraining influence being removed, the birchleg chiefs would give free rein to their passions of avarice and vengeance. half in self-defence they, therefore, reorganized their troop under the leadership of an impostor, calling himself erling stonewall (steinvegg), who pretended to be a son of king magnus erlingsson. a pretender of this name had, during the reign of sverre, made some little stir, and had been imprisoned by king knut of sweden in a tower, whence he had escaped by means of a rope, made out of his bed-clothes. the rope proved, however, to be too short, and in letting himself drop to the ground, erling broke his hip. he was overtaken, on his flight, by sverre's men and in all probability slain. nevertheless, it required audacity rather than proof of royal birth, in those days, to figure as a pretender; and the second erling stonewall, though probably few at first believed in him, soon had a considerable following. it was of no use that bishop nicholas opposed him, and urged his own nephew, philip, a grandson of harold gille's queen, ingerid, for the chieftainship. when erling demanded the right to prove his birth by the ordeal of fire, the bishop told him bluntly that the result was in his hands. under such circumstances, the pretender found it more to his advantage to make terms with the bishop and receive his assurance that the ordeal should turn out successfully. erling, on his side, promised, when he became king, to make philip his earl, and in other respects satisfied the prelate's demands. the latter had, in the meanwhile, by conferences with his peasants, ascertained that philip's candidacy was regarded with great disfavor, because he neither had nor pretended to have a drop of royal blood. the peasants utterly refused to recognize him, and threatened to rebel, in case he was elected. it was therefore to the bishop's advantage to keep faith with erling. the ordeal accordingly took place with great solemnity in the presence of the danish king, valdemar the victorious, and proved successful. erling was then proclaimed king, and received as a present from valdemar a fleet of thirty fine ships. in return he recognized him as his feudal overlord and gave him hostages. the party of the magnates was thus faithful to its traditions, in sacrificing patriotism to private interests. with the aid of the powerful danish king the party had, indeed, a good prospect of crushing the disheartened and disunited birchlegs, who just at that time received a fresh blow in the death of their newly elected king. christina, haakon galen's mistress, could not allow so slight an obstacle, as the life of a child, to stand between her and the goal of her wishes. if guttorm were dead, her lover would have the best chance of succeeding him, being on his mother's side a grandson of sigurd mouth. it was, therefore, no mere accident that guttorm died; and with all the symptoms of poisoning. he said that the "swedish woman" had taken him upon her lap and stroked him caressingly over his whole body. soon after he felt, as if needles were piercing his flesh, and before long he expired in great agony. though christina's guilt was obvious, her lover had yet sufficient influence to have the matter hushed up; and in order to give her the full benefit of his protection, he married her soon after. a meeting was now called in nidaros to elect a new king. earl haakon, who was a favorite with the army, seemed to have every chance in his favor; and he would probably have been the choice of the birchlegs, if archbishop erik had not opposed him, on account of his relation to christina. the guilt thus defeated its own object. several candidates were discussed, some of whom were related to sverre only on his mother's side and thus had no consanguinity with the royal house. the most prominent among these was peter steyper, who had the additional advantage of having married a daughter of king magnus erlingsson. after long deliberations, the chiefs finally decided to leave the choice to the peasants, who would then be sure to stand by the king whom they themselves elected. the peasants were according summoned to oere-_thing_ where they conferred the royal dignity upon inge baardsson, a younger half-brother of haakon galen and like him, on the maternal side, a grandson of sigurd mouth. no sooner did the baglers hear that the birchlegs had chosen a new king than they started northward from tunsberg, in order to test his mettle. the caution of bishop nicholas prevailed, however, over the counsel of the more warlike chiefs, and after some unimportant fights in and about bergen, the rebels betook themselves to denmark, where they had always a safe place of refuge. king inge and earl haakon, therefore, found no opposition, when they visited viken, and the peasants, though the great majority of them sympathized with the baglers, had no scruple in swearing them allegiance. in fact, the long war was having a demoralizing influence upon the people, and its barbarizing effects began to be visible in many ways. to save their lives, the yeomen were obliged to feign friendship for every pretender who came along with his band, and swear him fidelity, or fly to the woods, leaving their farms a prey to the marauders. even the ties of blood which had been exceptionally strong among the norsemen, began to be disregarded, as members of the same family were impelled, by diverging interests, to join different parties. it was no rare occurence that brother fought against brother, and father against son. thus it is told of a bagler that during the attack upon nidaros in , he was hotly pursuing a birchleg whom he finally killed. as he stooped over the dying man, in order to deprive him of his arms and garments, he discovered that it was his own brother. a great laxity in all moral obligations resulted from this state of things. kings and chieftains broke their words; enemies who had surrendered on promise of pardon were ruthlessly slain; murder and rapine filled the land. under these circumstances it was no great privilege for the young and inexperienced inge to wear a crown which merely put a price upon his head. in the spring of , while he was in nidaros celebrating the wedding of his sister, the baglers surprised him in the night and slew a large number of his men. the king himself escaped by pure chance, threw himself into the river, and swam, half-clad, in the icy water, out to a ship, and clung for a while to the anchor cable. more dead than alive he reached the shore, and would probably have perished from exposure, if the birchleg, reidulf, who was also fleeing, had not found him, wrapped him in his cloak, and carried him on his back to a place of safety. yet inge never overcame the effects of this terrible night. he grew morose and despondent, and never regained his former light-heartedness. it was not merely that he felt discredited as a chieftain by the disgrace of having been surprised by his enemies in a drunken sleep, in the house of his mistress; his health, too, had suffered a shock from which it was slow to recover. on their return from nidaros, the baglers paid a visit to bergen, where they expected to starve the birchleg garrison in the block-house into surrender. but here they reckoned without their host. earl haakon, though he had not been present at the assault upon his brother in nidaros, felt impelled to avenge it. he therefore sailed southward with a small fleet and about seven hundred men, overtook the rebels in bergen and inflicted upon them a severe defeat. thus blindly pursuing partisan advantage, baglers and birchlegs kept killing each other, forgetting that they were all norsemen, who would, in the end, suffer by the devastation and exhaustion of their common country. year after year they continued surprising each other in nidaros, bergen, tunsberg, and oslo, burning each other's ships, and robbing each other's treasures; but they appeared to avoid a decisive battle which would have given an overwhelming advantage to one party or the other, thereby securing peace to the land. the death of erling stonewall in enabled bishop nicholas to carry out his desire to make his nephew, philip simonsson, king of the baglers. but philip made no change in the policy of his predecessor, persevering in the same aimless marauding, which could scarcely be dignified by the name of war. the parties were, indeed, so evenly matched, that it seemed hopeless for the one to destroy the other, for which reason the political stake in the struggle was almost lost sight of, while immediate profit yet furnished a motive for continuing in arms. it was while anarchy was thus rioting and despondency reigning throughout the land, that a hope suddenly sprang up, like a star out of the depth of night. it was well known that king haakon sverresson, during his visit to sarpsborg in , had become enamoured of the beautiful inga of varteig, and it had also been whispered that she had reciprocated his love. soon after haakon's death, she had borne a son, and though it was taken for granted that the king was his father, the matter had been hushed up, lest the baglers, who were masters in viken, should hear that an heir had been born to the throne. the priest, thrond, in whose house inga gave birth to the boy, baptized him and gave him the name haakon, after his father; but advised the utmost secrecy, and let no one but his immediate family know of the child's existence. such a secret is, however, hard to keep, and, after a while, the priest took erlend of huseby, a man of good repute and a friend of sverre's house, into his confidence. erlend rejoiced that king sverre's race was not extinct; but found the boy's position, in the midst of the enemies' land, perilous. he therefore persuaded thrond to send him and his mother to king inge, and himself offered to take them across the mountains. the boy haakon was then (december, ,) about a year and a half old. there must have been some imminent danger at hand which impelled the priest, after having waited so long, to choose the most inclement season of the year for the journey across the trackless, snow-covered wilderness. the two friends started northward with their precious charge and arrived, after infinite hardships, in nidaros, where they were well received by king inge. the boy now, for a while, sojourned with his mother at court and was kindly treated. the old birchlegs came often to see him and playfully took him between them and pulled him by the arms and legs in order to make him grow faster. for they were impatient to serve, once more, a king of the old royal race. haakon galen, too, took a great fancy to his young kinsman, though his demonstrations of love were, no doubt, looked upon with fear by those who had the boy's welfare at heart. nevertheless, it appears that the earl was actually sincere, and felt moved, perhaps, by the very helplessness of the boy to protect him. a kind providence seemed to be watching over him; for though living in the midst of the intrigues and plottings of rival chiefs, all of whom must have seen in him their most dangerous rival, his life was preserved, and he escaped unharmed from many dangers. even the baglers refrained from killing him, when in he fell into their hands, at the surrender of the block-house in bergen. it is perhaps not safe to assume that a half-latent consciousness asserted itself, that in this boy norway's future was bound up; that upon him depended the country's deliverance from the scourge of civil war. more likely it is that his beauty and winning ways appealed to friends and foes alike, while on the other hand, the love of the birchlegs was his best guard, because it convinced his ill-wishers that disaster would swiftly overwhelm any one who should venture to harm him. of the many small victories and defeats, sieges and surrenders, flights and pursuits, which filled the years and , without according any decisive advantage to either party, it is not necessary to speak at length. they were a series of barren futilities, resulting in loss of life, and waste of the resources of the land, without lastingly benefiting any one. under these circumstances, it is not strange that both birchlegs and baglers began to long for a reconciliation. even to so bitter a partisan as bishop nicholas, it became evident that a continuance of the war would mean mutual destruction, and that the prize of victory would be a devastated land and a barbarized people. king inge, too, was heartily tired of the aimless hostilities, and even his pugnacious brother, haakon galen, was not disinclined to listen to proposals of peace. the new archbishop, thore, acted as mediator between the parties and used his influence and his eloquence to extort from both the necessary concessions. at last, when the conditions were well understood on both sides, a meeting of the birchleg and bagler chiefs was held at hvitingsöe ( ), at which philip simonsson, the king of the baglers, swore allegiance to inge, and became his earl. in return he received viken and the oplands in fief, and was wedded to sverre's daughter, christina. the restoration of peace was not hailed as an unmixed boon by many of those who had lost their property by the war, and could only hope to enrich themselves by the same means. others had carried arms so long, as to have lost all inclination for peaceful industry. a great number of these, irrespective of parties, started on an old-fashioned viking expedition to the orkneys, hebrides, and man, ravaged and plundered, and compelled the earls of those isles, once more, to acknowledge the supremacy of the crown of norway. in spite of this service which they had done to the king, they were severely censured on their return, and forced by the bishops to surrender their booty to the church. the last years of king inge's reign were embittered by his strained relation to earl haakon. the latter, feeling his superiority to inge in all the qualities that grace a king, could not reconcile himself to his subordinate position. he began intriguing behind his brother's back, and privately sounded the sentiments of the prominent peasants and chiefs, in regard to his pretensions. from many he received a favorable answer, and the plot was in a fair way to succeed, when it was unexpectedly discovered by the king. inge, who had had perfect confidence in his older brother, was more shocked than angered by the proof of his treachery. he summoned all his men to a house-_thing_ and called upon them to stand by him, declaring that he would tolerate no other king in the land, as long as he was alive. this speech won general approval and compelled haakon henceforth to weave his plots with greater secrecy. whether he was the instigator of the attempt upon the king's life, which was made a year later, is not known, but that either he or his wife christina was in some way implicated in it, is evident from the king's unwillingness to have the would-be assassin tried or punished. when his brother, skule baardsson, urged him to make an example of the wretch, he promised to have the matter investigated, to exile the criminal, etc., but as nothing was done, skule lost his patience and killed him on his own responsibility. it was, on the whole, a laudable spirit on inge's part which impelled him to avoid an open rupture with earl haakon, even at the cost of personal sacrifice. he knew the horrors of civil war and would not take the responsibility of precipitating a breach of the peace, as long as it was in his power to prevent it. the fact that his health was poor, and that there was a chance that haakon might succeed him, may also have disinclined him to discredit the latter in the eyes of the people. among haakon's partisans was archbishop thore, to whose intervention it was chiefly due that the king and the earl in made a compact, in accordance with which illegitimate children were to be excluded from the succession, and the one of the brothers who survived the other should inherit the throne. this agreement, which was proclaimed at oere-_thing_, and sanctioned by the bishops and the magnates of the land, was chiefly aimed against the young prince, haakon haakonsson, who, though a direct descendant in the male line of the old royal house, was of illegitimate birth. it excluded also, for the same reason, inge's son guttorm, and transferred the succession to haakon galen and his legitimate son, knut. but in making this compact, they underestimated the strength of the sentiment which bound sverre's veterans to the boy haakon. one of them, helge hvasse, who was in the habit of going frequently to see the prince, and playing with him, grew very wroth when he heard of the agreement. when haakon ran up to him to have his usual romp, he pushed him roughly away and bade him begone. the boy, unaccustomed to such treatment, looked reproachfully at him, and asked why he was angry. "begone," cried helge; "to-day thy paternal heritage was taken from thee, and i don't care for thee any more." "where was that done, and who did it?" asked haakon. "it was done at oere-_thing_, and they who did it were the two brothers, king inge and earl haakon." "do not be angry with me, mine own helge," said the boy; "and be not troubled about this; their judgment cannot be valid, as my guardian was not present to answer in my behalf." "who, then, is thy guardian?" inquired helge. "my guardians are god, and the holy virgin, and st. olaf," exclaimed haakon solemnly; "into their keeping i have given my cause, and they will guard my interests, both in the division of the country and in all my welfare." much moved, the veteran seized the boy in his arms and kissed him. "thanks for those words, my prince," he said; "such words are better spoken than unspoken." [illustration: haakon haakonsson and helge hvasse.] when this occurrence was reported to christina, she scolded haakon, and henceforth treated him harshly. but she dared not show her evil disposition toward him in the presence of her husband. for the earl, though he had no scruples in barring the boy's way to the throne, was yet attached to him, and would not allow him to come to harm. haakon's remarkable precocity amused him, as it did all his men. several anecdotes are preserved of his droll sayings and doings. thus, when once the weather was so cold that the bread could not be buttered, the little prince took a piece of bread and bent it around the butter, saying: "let us tie the butter to the bread, birchlegs." this saying became a proverb in the camp of the birchlegs. the king's indulgence to his brother in the matter of the succession had not quieted but rather stimulated the latter's ambition. by incessant intriguing he succeeded in fomenting a peasant's rebellion in tröndelag which was, however, quelled without serious loss of life. soon after this exploit, he was taken ill and died in bergen , aged thirty-eight years. his wife, who knew that the birchlegs had a long score to settle with her, made haste to quit the country with her son. haakon haakonsson, who had been fostered in the earl's house, was now transferred to the court, where he was treated as became his rank. there the birchlegs flocked again about him, watching jealously every one who approached him. they were in many ways discontented with king inge, whom they held to be an aristocrat, and by his poor health and peaceful disposition unfitted for the chieftainship. besides, his brother skule was openly intriguing to push haakon aside and place himself in the line of succession. the disaffection then became so great that a number of birchlegs under the leadership of andres skjaldarband endeavored to persuade haakon to place himself at the head of a rebellion. but haakon refused to give ear to such counsel. as the king's health declined and he perceived that his death was approaching, he loved to have the boy about him and to listen to his droll and vivacious talk. all public business passed, during this time, through the hands of skule baardsson, whom inge made his earl, and the guardian of his son. the king died in april, , being but thirty years old. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxvii. haakon haakonsson the old ( - ). the first act of the birchlegs, after the death of king inge, was to give haakon a body-guard, which was to follow him night and day. earl skule, on his side, opened a campaign of intriguing and chicanery, in which he was faithfully supported by the new archbishop, guttorm, and the canons of the cathedral chapter in nidaros. in spite of all their underhand measures, however, haakon was proclaimed king at oere-_thing_ by the birchlegs, and skule, who did not feel himself strong enough to defy the general sentiment, had to acquiesce in what he could not prevent. it was of no avail that the canons of the chapter locked up the shrine of st. olaf upon which the king was to swear to keep the laws; the birchlegs determined to dispense with the shrine rather than to dispense with their king. nor did the negotiations of the earl with philip, the so-called king of the baglers, lead to anything; for philip died shortly after king inge, leaving no children; and haakon sailed southward with a large fleet and took possession of viken and the oplands, which since the treaty of hvitingsöe in had been under the dominion of the baglers. by a wise policy of conciliation he induced the chiefs of the rebels to acknowledge his overlordship, on condition of their being permitted to keep one half of the fiefs which had been granted to philip. the following year, they also consented to give up their old party name, which recalled the times of civil dissension and strife, and to fight side by side with the birchlegs, against a new band of rebels, called the slittungs (ragamuffins), which had been organized under the leadership of a priest, named benedikt or bene skindkniv (skin-knife). this arrant impostor professed, like so many of his predecessors, to be the son of king magnus erlingsson, and in spite of the utter improbability of his story, upwards of a thousand men soon gathered about him and began robbing and plundering. it was merely to furnish an excuse for a breach of the peace that they professed belief in bene's pretensions. robbers, footpads, and all sorts of nomadic vagabonds could, in those days, give themselves a semblance of respectability by providing themselves with a candidate for the throne. a great many credulous people could then be induced to join them and their depredations were called war instead of robbery. a war, and especially a civil war, always drags in its wake a long train of disastrous consequences. the longer it lasts, the more difficult is the return to peace. the miserable internecine strife which had lasted, with brief interruptions, since harold gille's ascension of the throne ( ), had weaned a whole generation from the pursuits of peace, accustoming it to scenes of bloodshed and violence. it had added to the natural risks of industrial occupations, and made rebellion, as it were, a legitimate profession. the thousands of homeless vagabonds who infest every imperfectly organized society, and the numerous class who, by nature, are criminally inclined, will always seize such an opportunity to support themselves, at the expense of society, and will far rather endure the dangers and hardships of a perpetual war than the wearing routine and sustained activities of peace. the material was therefore at hand for continued rebellion, and as long as the supply of pretenders showed no signs of giving out, there was every prospect that the king would have his hands full. only the gradual destruction of the turbulent and the greater chances of the survival of the friends of order would, in the end, decide the struggle in favor of the latter. the problem is, however, more complicated than it appears to be, for the gradual destruction of the turbulent came, in the course of time, to mean the destruction of the warlike spirit itself. and a century after peace had been concluded, a period of decline set in, which continued for four hundred years. a greater danger than the rebellion of the slittungs was, however, threatening king haakon from one who called himself his friend. the rôle of intriguer and mischief-maker, which during king inge's reign had been filled by haakon galen, appeared to have devolved with his other dignities upon his brother, earl skule. to see royal honor bestowed upon a fourteen-year-old boy, who had done nothing to merit it, galled his proud soul. like haakon galen, he had long stood so near to the throne, that he could not comprehend, why it should always remain beyond his reach. after the brief campaign against the slittungs, he began again his machinations, aided as usual by the archbishop and the clergy, who seemed yet to cherish their ancient grudge against sverre's house. when haakon arrived in nidaros, two weeks before easter ( ), the archbishop treated him with studious discourtesy, while he did every thing in his power to distinguish the earl. when the king on palm sunday went up to place his offering upon the altar, the prelate did not even turn toward him, or in any way appear to be conscious of his presence. when taken to task for his incivility, he replied boldly that he was acting deliberately on the advice of all the bishops and many chieftains, who, like himself, had doubts as to whether the king was the son of haakon sverresson. haakon, young as he was, saw at once the plot that was here concealed. but so great was his confidence in the justice of his cause, that he consented to have his mother bear glowing irons, to prove his origin. inga had before offered to submit to this ordeal, but had been prevented by the archbishop, who for some reason did not then desire to pronounce upon her son's claim, possibly because he had not yet arranged his terms with skule. it was of course unheard of, that a king, actually in possession of the realm, should be put to the humiliation of proving who he was; and his friend dagfinn peasant expressed the general sentiment when he said: "it will be hard to show another instance of such a case; that the sons of peasants and cottagers have ventured to prescribe such humiliating terms to an absolute king. * * * i think it were just as well to bear another kind of iron, viz., cold steel, against the king's foes, and then let god judge between them." [illustration: west front of drontheim cathedral.] as earl skule's plot seemed now in a fair way to succeed, he became suddenly affable and affectionate toward the king. he felt positive that his clerical friends would manage to have the ordeal result in accordance with his wishes. nevertheless, to make assurance doubly sure, he bribed a foreigner in his service, named sigar of brabant, to approach the king's mother, and offer her an herb which, he asserted, had the power to heal burns; but a guard of devoted birchlegs, among whom was dagfinn peasant, surrounded the church in which she was fasting, preparatory to the ordeal, and the earl's emissary was, therefore, compelled to confide his errand to the latter. dagfinn replied: "no art or healing will we employ here, except such as christ in his mercy will grant. begone with thy twaddle, or disaster will overtake thee, if thou darest again utter such speech." inga was then warned of the plot and told to be on her guard. for if it could be proved that she had used healing herbs, the test would be invalid, and opprobrium would have overwhelmed both her and her son. all the machinations of her enemies, however, came to naught; she endured the ordeal triumphantly. it is difficult to explain how this result came about, for the odds were certainly against her. the earl had, perhaps, from over-confidence, neglected some link in his long chain of precautions. however that may be, he had, after this severe check, to start all over again--to spin, with painstaking care, a fresh web of intrigue, in order slowly to undermine the king's power. his plan seems to have been to alienate haakon's trustiest friends from him, or to get them removed to such a distance that they could no longer be of any help to him; then to set them by the ears mutually, so that one slew the other and the king punished the survivor. but ingenious as this plot was, it was not entirely successful. the king's forgiving disposition, and a suspicion, on his part, that the earl was really at the bottom of these mysterious enmities and slayings, impelled him to act contrary to the latter's expectation. it was obvious to all that he bought the earl's pretended friendship at too high a price, and many of his men would have preferred open warfare to this suppressed suspicion and hypocritical good-will. there was, indeed, ample opportunity for strife between the two parties, and quarrels and bloody fights between the "earl's-men" and the "king's-men" were of frequent occurrence. all the conditions for another civil war were, in fact, at hand, and it was only the disinclination of the king to let loose, once more, the dogs of war, which preserved even the semblance of peace. the fact that the king was under the guardianship of a man who spent his time in plotting against them, seemed to the birchleg chiefs to call for precautions, on their part; and the idea occurred to them to convert skule's hostility into friendship, by identifying his interests with those of the king. for this purpose they proposed a marriage between haakon and the earl's ten-year-old daughter, margaret. the king, though he was not eager for such a marriage, yielded to the representations of his counsellors, and skule, after some hesitation, consented to have the betrothal take place ( ). the actual marriage was preliminarily postponed, on account of the tender age of the bride. but those who had supposed that skule could be made to abandon his scheming, because the king was his son-in-law, had made a miscalculation. circumstances, however, compelled him, soon after the betrothal, to fight in defence of the crown, against a new band of rebels, called the ribbungs, who had absorbed their predecessors, the slittungs, and added largely to their number. this band owed its origin to the former bagler chief, gudolf of blakkestad, who had been appointed a prefect by haakon, but had later been deprived of his office, on account of his unpopularity with the peasants. to avenge himself, he raised the banner of rebellion, and provided himself with a candidate for the throne in the person of sigurd, an alleged son of the bagler king, erling stonewall. all those who had a real or an imagined cause for discontent, and many who were merely intent upon plunder, now rushed together under the standard of the ribbungs. these made considerable progress in viken, defeated and chased away the royal prefects, and gained much booty. they were secretly supported by that hoary mischief-maker, bishop nicholas, who, in spite of his professions of friendship, yet remained consistent in his hatred of sverre's race. the earl, too, who was sent to destroy the rebels, was less energetic than he might have been, giving himself an appearance of zeal in his master's behalf, but being really disinclined to strike an effective blow. it was, rather, in his interest to keep them in the field, for the purpose of injuring the king and preventing him from growing too powerful. in the various fights which he had with the ribbungs in viken ( ), he did, indeed, inflict considerable injury upon them, and in the battle of svang, at lake mjösen ( ), killed one hundred and fifty of their number. but immediately afterward he made peace with sigurd ribbung, who had the impudence to demand one third of the kingdom and the earl's daughter for his wife. skule replied that neither had he brought up his daughter to live in the woods, nor was he minded to give up any part of his fiefs. but if the king was inclined to consider sigurd's proposition, the earl promised to use whatever influence he had with his son-in-law in his behalf. on these conditions the rebel chief dismissed his band, and, on the promise of safe-conduct, betook himself to the earl's camp where he was treated with great distinction. the moment for pushing his claim was, however, not a favorable one, as the relation between the king and the earl, at this time, took a sudden turn for the worse. it appeared that skule had levied troops and contributions, outside of his own fief, accordingly in the king's domain, and haakon was so incensed at this fresh infringement of his rights that he wrote him a letter, in which he threatened him with war, in case he persevered in disregarding their agreement. the earl replied to this letter by immediately setting sail for denmark. he had evidently taken a great resolution. what this resolution was is easy to guess. [illustration: old norse capitals.] the kings of denmark had, since the days of harold bluetooth, claimed overlordship over viken, and they had repeatedly fomented rebellion in norway for the purpose of regaining the lost province. skule's intention was now to thrust haakon from the throne by the aid of valdemar the victorious, and to take the entire country in fief from him. but to his unutterable astonishment, when he arrived in denmark, valdemar was nowhere to be found. he had been captured, five days before, by count henrik of schwerin, and was now languishing with his son in a prison in mecklenburg. bitterly disappointed, skule returned home, and was compelled to resume his mask of benevolent interest in his son-in-law's affairs. the latter had just filled his eighteenth year, which, in the case of princes, was regarded as the age of majority. he needed, therefore, no longer a guardian, and custom seemed to demand some ceremony on his formal assumption of the government. an assembly of notables was therefore summoned to meet in bergen ( ), where archbishop guttorm, who, in the meanwhile, by concessions, had been bribed to take the king's side, solemnly reaffirmed his right to the throne. sigurd ribbung's claim was pronounced invalid, as was also that of squire knut, the son of haakon galen and christina, who had sent representatives to the meeting. earl skule saw from the beginning that the sentiment of the assembly was so overwhelmingly in haakon's favor, that it would be of no use for him to urge his pretensions. he therefore contented himself with extorting as favorable terms for himself as possible at the renewal of his compact with the king. after many negotiations he exchanged his southern fief for the northern third of the country, extending from the north cape to the southern boundary at söndmöre. but he still remained, in name at least, a royal vassal, and was compelled to swear allegiance to the king; although he enjoyed all the royal revenues from his fiefs, and paid no tax or tribute to any one. in accordance with this agreement haakon now moved southward and took up his residence in oslo. this city, which had recently been burned down, he rebuilt with great care, and came thereby into frequent contact with the ancient enemy of his race, bishop nicholas. this venerable scoundrel succeeded actually in gaining his confidence for a time, and obtained during this brief friendship substantial advantages for himself and his see. haakon always took pleasure in showing his zeal for religion by liberality toward the church, and the wily bishop was the man to take advantage of such a disposition. he persuaded him on the death of archbishop guttorm ( ) to give the weight of his recommendation to his enemy, peter of husastad, who, in accordance with the advice of nicholas, feigned friendship, until he had got the mitre securely on his head. it was not in accordance with the earl's plans to let the king sit quietly in viken, increasing his popularity and power. he was therefore scarcely grieved, when he heard of sigurd ribbung's flight; nay, it is even probable, that he gave the rebel chief the opportunity to escape, if he did not actually persuade him to renew the rebellion. the ribbungs, who were not loath to resume their former activity, gathered again in large numbers about their leader, and began plundering and killing the king's adherents as of old. whenever they were pursued, they made their escape across the frontier into the swedish province, vermeland, only to return as soon as their pursuers had turned their backs on them. king haakon wrote repeatedly to the swedish king, or rather to his guardians, as he was himself a child, complaining of the protection which sweden afforded his enemies. prominent among the counsellors of king erik was then eskil lawman, who had married christina, the widow of haakon galen. this unscrupulous woman, who had hated haakon from his childhood, now exerted her influence against him at the swedish court; the consequence was that the counsellors disregarded his remonstrance, and continued to give the ribbungs an asylum. their audacity naturally grew, in proportion as they became conscious of this protection; and haakon was at last compelled to invade vermeland with an army of , men, in the middle of winter ( ). he burned many farms, and ravaged several parishes, but had no chance to fight any decisive battle, either with the ribbungs or the swedes. the latter had fled to the woods, and the former had availed themselves of the king's visit to sweden to make a foray into vestfold, and attack tunsberg. the former bagler chief, arnbjörn jonsson, who was close on their heels with his troops, was detained in oslo by bishop nicholas, who by his double dealing succeeded in insuring the escape of the rebels. in april, , the king, in the midst of his protracted campaign against the ribbungs, celebrated his wedding in bergen with his betrothed, earl skule's daughter. the bride was then about seventeen years old, the groom twenty. if it was skule's intention, when he gave his consent to the marriage, to secure himself an ally at court, he was disappointed. for margaret, from the moment she became queen, made common cause with her husband, and in no wise favored her father's schemes. she was a gentle and affectionate wife and a good mother. the ribbungs in the meanwhile continued their guerilla warfare, having taken possession of the helgeö, an island in lake mjösen, whence they made forays into the fertile parishes that border on the lake, and practically controlled the oplands. earl skule, who was again sent out to quell the rebellion, dawdled as usual, nursing his secret treason and being at heart more anxious to injure the king than his enemies. in order to destroy the ribbungs, it was necessary to reach the island, and ostensibly for this purpose he began to build ships on the shores of the lake. he built them, however, deliberately in such a fashion that they leaked, and could scarcely be kept afloat. the ribbungs, instead of being frightened by his preparations, grew daily bolder, and sent messengers to the king in oslo, proposing to give him battle. haakon accepted the offer, and advanced with his army to the appointed place of meeting (eidsvold), while the earl, instead of hastening to meet him, took the road across the mountains to nidaros, after having burned his worthless ships. here was the most incontrovertible proof of treason; and there are also indications that in a correspondence between bishop nicholas and the ribbungs which had fallen into the king's hands, the earl was seriously compromised. nevertheless, haakon chose to feign blindness rather than call the traitor to account. possibly he did not feel himself strong enough to fight skule and the ribbungs at the same time, preferring to get rid of one enemy before engaging the other. after having waited in vain for the ribbungs at eidsvold, haakon returned with his army to oslo, where he learned that bishop nicholas was lying upon his death-bed. the old prelate, with whom falsity and double-dealing had become a second nature, seemed yet to feel some anxiety as to his fate in the hereafter. he therefore summoned the king to his bedside, made him a full confession (not, however, until the king had shown him the evidence of his treason), and implored his forgiveness, which was readily granted. the bishop died in november, , seventy-five years old, having spent his long life in fomenting rebellion, and in ravaging and destroying his native land. his great talents proved a curse both to himself and his people. not long after his demise, sigurd ribbung died ( ), and haakon galen's son, squire knut, was induced by his guileful mother to take his place. he brought with him a large band of swedes, thereby giving his warfare the appearance of a foreign invasion, and arousing the hostility of the peasantry of the oplands, who had formerly been friendly to the ribbungs. in a fight at aker he was defeated by a united army of birchlegs and peasants, and during the following months he suffered repeated disasters, and was deserted by many of his best men. after a dastardly attempt to capture the king by inviting him to a conference, under promise of safety,--an attempt which failed by the merest chance,--squire knut dismissed his band ( ), submitted to haakon, who not only forgave him, but for his father's sake gave him fiefs, and treated him with distinction. the young man, as soon as he was removed from his mother's influence, gave up all thought of rebellion, married, some years later, a younger daughter of earl skule, and became one of the king's most devoted friends. [illustration: on the sogne fjord.] as the ribbungs were now out of the way and could no longer be made to serve his purposes, the earl hatched a new plot which, on account of its ingenuity, ran less risk of premature detection. he professed a desire to take the cross, and began warlike preparations on a grand scale. he obtained from the pope permission to exact one twentieth of all the ecclesiastical revenues of the province of nidaros in aid of his enterprise, and satisfied his conscience by endowing the church, in return, with his great family estate, rein, which was converted into a nunnery. extreme caution was characteristic of skule; and he meant, this time, to leave nothing to chance. he began at once to build ships, and to gather warriors about him from all parts of the country. as the danish king, valdemar the victorious, had now regained his liberty, he could also count upon his aid, and a formal agreement was made between them in accordance with which skule should assist the king in recovering his lost provinces. in return for this service valdemar promised to put skule on the throne of norway. that some such agreement must have existed is obvious from the fact that the earl actually set sail for denmark ( ), without asking haakon's permission, but was met on his way by the latter and informed of the disastrous defeat of his ally at bornhöved. he then concluded to await developments; as he would run too great a risk in visiting denmark, while valdemar's enemies had the upper hand. putting on a bold face, he joined his fleet to that of his son-in-law and returned to bergen. the king, although he did not deceive himself as to skule's purposes, kept his counsel and feigned ignorance. nay, he even carried his generosity so far as to lend the traitor ships and provisions when, the following year, ( ) he set out once more to visit the king of denmark. since his defeat at bornhöved, valdemar was indeed much less formidable than before his captivity, and the warlike spirit had wellnigh left him. haakon may therefore have suspected that, surrounded as he was with enemies, both on the south and the west, he would scarcely care to add another on the north. moreover, haakon had by this time secured the friendship of the german emperor, frederick ii., who was a bitter enemy of denmark, and he might, therefore, have a chance to keep valdemar in check, in case he should lend a favorable ear to the earl's persuasions. under these circumstances he hardly exposed himself to any risk, nay hoped, perhaps, by facilitating his father-in-law's approach to the danish king, to convince him of the futility of all his plottings. if that was his intention, he must have been disappointed in the result. for when skule returned he had added to his power for mischief, by obtaining the northern half of the danish province of halland in fief, thereby becoming the vassal of a foreign prince, who, moreover, was the enemy of his own king. one would have supposed that he was now ready for a decisive blow. but he hesitated again, and seemed half inclined to retrace his steps. there was always something lacking in the completeness of his preparations, and another delay was always necessary. he is, indeed, an interesting figure, this wily and ambitious intriguer, who has the courage to plot treason, nay takes pleasure in perfecting all the details of his plot, but always pauses before taking the irretrievable step. like schiller's wallenstein, he fondles the thought, plays with it, utters it cautiously and hypothetically, but leaves himself always, as he supposes, a path of retreat, until his own acts spin a web about him and bar him the road back to safety. year by year he compromises himself more irretrievably; his treasonable letters fall into the hands of the king, and when, after twenty-two years of covert treason, he drifts into open rebellion, it is because there is apparently no other alternative left to him. [illustration: a storm on the fjord.] in the meanwhile, the king left no means untried to keep the earl to his allegiance. in he summoned him to an assembly of notables in bergen (_rigsmöde_), at which the archbishop, the bishops, and a great number of secular dignitaries were present. the king here called his father-in-law formally to account for his actions, and the liegemen rose, one after the other, and cited proofs of the earl's disloyalty. when the turn came to skule to defend himself, he began in this wise: "i know a ditty: 'the eagle sat on a stone,' and i also know another which runs like this: 'the eagle sat on a stone,' and a lot more which all run the same way. thus it is here to-day. every one talks in his own way, but they all finish up with the same ditty, viz.: to bring accusations against me." he made a long and eloquent speech, and, as it is said, defended himself with great adroitness. it is doubtful, however, if anybody believed him, and it was only the king's reluctance to resort to the sword, which saved him, on this as on many previous occasions. a new agreement was drawn up which was no more effective in restraining the earl's treasonable scheming than the previous ones had been. on the contrary, he was no sooner left to his own devices than he resumed his activity for the overthrow of the king. his purpose this time was to involve haakon in a quarrel with the church, in order afterward to crush him with the formidable weapons which the church had at its command. he shrewdly provided himself with a cat's paw in the person of bishop paul of hamar, who was his devoted adherent. the archbishop, at this time, sigurd tavse, was a partisan of the king, but zealous for the welfare of the church, and therefore, as skule reasoned, capable of being alienated by a controversy in which the interests of the church and those of the king were in conflict. bishop paul accordingly produced a document, alleged to have been issued by the bagler king, inge, in , in which the helgeö in mjösen, which was the property of the crown, was presented to the episcopal see of hamar. the king naturally contested the validity of this document, as inge, a rebel chief, had no right to give away the property of the crown which had never been his. an appeal was now made to the pope, gregory ix., and a campaign of intrigue and mendacity was begun. the excellent and honorable haakon was systematically reviled and slandered, until the pope came to believe that he was a villain of the deepest dye. bishop paul, virtually as the ambassador of the earl, though nominally in the interest of the church, betook himself to rome, where he succeeded in prejudicing gregory ix. against all the king's adherents, and even against his own superior, the archbishop. skule, on the other hand, was represented in the most flattering light, as the munificent friend of the church, and its defender against the encroachments of the unscrupulous king. the object was to procure a ban-bull against haakon. the plot was spoiled, however, by being prematurely revealed. an icelander, named sturla sighvatsson, a nephew and an active enemy of the historian snorre sturlasson, met bishop paul in rome and started homeward in his company. whether he gained the confidence of his travelling companion, or otherwise obtained an insight into his intrigues at the roman curia, is not known. at all events, he immediately sought the king, on his arrival in norway, and acquainted him with the doings of his enemies. the king summoned the earl once more to meet him in bergen; but this time skule's courage failed him. instead of going to bergen, he went with his army to nidaros, and thence across the mountains to the oplands, which was the king's territory. this was about equivalent to a declaration of war, but as usual, he took only half measures, hesitated, talked threateningly, but refrained from actual hostilities. at the intercession of archbishop sigurd, he was induced to promise to keep the peace during the winter ( - ) on condition of receiving one third of the royal prefectures (_sysler_) in the oplands and viken. it seems to indicate weakness on haakon's part that he was willing to make such concessions; and his readiness to yield had naturally the effect of encouraging the earl's adherents and making them screw their demands still higher. during the following year ( ) a new agreement was made, in accordance with which skule was confirmed in the possession of his territory in the south, and was raised to the rank of duke--a rank which had never before been conferred upon any man in norway. there was but one title, however, which could satisfy skule's ambition, and as long as haakon refused to grant that, he felt himself justified in continuing his agitation. with increasing recklessness he defied the king's will, gathered great numbers of warriors about him, built ships, and conducted himself in every way as an independent ruler. it became the fashion at his court to ridicule the king as a cowardly busybody who only talked, but lacked the heart to strike. the varbelgs [a]--thus the partisans of the duke were called--invented for him the nickname, haakon sleepy. his reluctance to assume the responsibility for civil war, they mistook for fear, and his conscientiousness for pusillanimity. [footnote a: the same name had been borne by another band of rebels which, under the boy vikar, had fought against king sverre.] when the spirit of rebellion which the duke had bred in his surroundings had thrown away all restraint, it began to react upon himself, spurring him on to deed, and counteracting his natural indecision of character. he was now nearly fifty years old, and if he ever were to gain the crown, there was no time to be lost. accordingly he mustered courage in to summon the trönders to oere-_thing_, and to proclaim himself king of all norway. when the canons of the cathedral refused to permit the shrine of st. olaf to be used for the ceremony, skule's son, peter,[b] jumped up on the altar, pulled the coffin up, and had it removed, by force, to the _thing_. in order that haakon should gain no intelligence of what had taken place, all the roads which led out of the city were guarded, but for all that, one man, named grim keikan, managed to make his escape and to warn the king of the threatening danger. it was in the middle of the night that the king received this message, and he went instantly to the queen's rooms and demanded admittance. the queen, aroused from her sleep, asked anxiously what news he brought. [footnote b: peter was an illegitimate child. his mother was the wife of andres skjaldarband.] "only this trifle," he said, "that there are now two kings in norway." "only one is the right king," she answered gravely, "and that one are you." it had been skule's first plan to surprise haakon in bergen, and capture him. but he soon learned that the king had heard of his exploits, and was prepared to receive him. he then sent out bands of warriors to different parts of the country to kill the royal prefects and all prominent friends of the king. a great many excellent men, who were utterly unprepared for hostilities, were thus foully murdered; churches were violated, and many atrocities committed. the duke, in the meanwhile, remained quietly in nidaros where he occupied himself in writing letters to foreign princes and potentates, informing them of the step he had taken, and endeavoring to stir up difficulties for haakon by unscrupulous misrepresentations. when, however, he learned that the king was coming with a large force to attack him, he started (feb., ) with six hundred men across the mountains to the oplands. here he was met by his son-in-law, squire knut, who had been appointed earl in his place, and defeated him and the able commander, arnbjörn jonsson, at laaka. it was now high time for the king to appear upon the scene, if he were to prevent the rebellion from assuming such proportion, as to be beyond his power to quell it. the danger suddenly developed in him a decision and promptness of action, which went far to raise the sinking courage of his men. he declined the archbishop's offer to open negotiations once more; arrived, after a voyage of unprecedented rapidity, in viken, and rowed, under cover of a fog, up the folden fjord to oslo. in view of the possibility of his death, he had made all preparations for the succession, but he was resolved to sell his life dearly. the varbelgs, who had not the faintest suspicion that he was near, were sleeping soundly after a night's carouse, when suddenly the war-horn resounded, and the storm-bell rang. the prows of the royal fleet were then seen emerging from the fog and making for the piers. the duke, as soon as the alarm was given, tumbled out of bed and flung on his clothes. the dawn was just reddening in the east, and the fog was lifting. the ships were now at the piers, and the troops were disembarking. the varbelgs supposed, at first, that it was earl knut, who had come to revenge his defeat at laaka. but they were soon undeceived. when they caught sight of the royal banner they knew that king haakon was not far away. strangely enough, though they saw him storming forward, every moment exposing himself to danger, nay, even rushing on ahead of his men, they were not eager to kill him. they feared that the duke's cause was lost, and though they fought bravely, they had no hope of victory. the duke fled and was pursued by the birchlegs; but they did not succeed in overtaking him. many men fell in that fight, but many more sought refuge in the churches and were pardoned. it was, indeed, the duke himself, as we have seen, who was the originator as well as the leader of the rebellion. he was not the expression and embodiment of a disloyal feeling among the people, as many previous pretenders had been, but the rebellion was solely due to his own personal ambition. as long as he was alive, therefore, the brands of civil war might at any moment be rekindled. it was this reflection which prompted the king, in this instance, to smother all natural feeling for his father-in-law and not to shrink from punishing him as he had deserved. seven days after the battle of oslo he sent fifteen well-manned ships to nidaros, whither the duke had fled, under the command of aasulf of austraat, a resolute man and one of skule's bitterest enemies. on his arrival in nidaros, skule fled to the woods, roaming about for two days and nights with a few friends who would not desert him. at last the friars of the monastery of elgeseter took pity on him, provided him and his followers with cowls, and hid them in a tower. the tidings soon reached aasulf that some strange-looking monks had been seen to enter the cloister, and he immediately set out with his men and demanded their surrender. when the friars refused, some of the birchlegs set fire to the monastery. others endeavored to put out the fire, but their efforts were futile. the smoke and the heat now compelled the duke and his companions to descend from the tower. as he stepped out of the gate he held his shield above his head, saying: "hew me not in the face; for it is not meet thus to treat chieftains." instantly the birchlegs fell upon him and slew him ( ). the death of skule ended the rebellion. there was now no man in norway who was strong enough to contest the power of the king; probably no one who had the desire. it is a remarkable fact, considering the duration of the civil war, since the death of sigurd the crusader, that the country apparently recovered so soon from its effects. the period of stagnation and decline did not occur until nearly a century later, and may then have been in part attributable to other and more immediate causes. the seed, however, of destruction had been sown during this disastrous epoch, even though it required a century to sprout. the return of peace left the king free to further an ambition which he had long had at heart. in a half unacknowledged way, he regarded his illegitimate birth as a blot upon his 'scutcheon which he was anxious to have removed. for this purpose he desired to be crowned. he had made an effort to gain the pope's consent to such a ceremony during skule's lifetime, but his ever-active enemy had frustrated his plan. gregory ix. was now dead, as was also his successor, celestin iv., and st. peter's chair was occupied by innocent iv., who had no prejudice against haakon. the bishops, as usual, endeavored to exact fresh privileges, in return for their good offices in this matter, proposing that the king, on assuming the crown, should swear the same oath as magnus erlingsson had sworn, acknowledging himself the vassal of the church, and taking the crown in fief from st. olaf. but here they were met by a firm refusal. "if i should swear such an oath as king magnus swore," haakon replied, "then methinks my honor in being crowned would be diminished, instead of increased. for king magnus did not care what he did in order to attain that to which he had no right. but by god's help i shall not need to buy of you what god has rightly chosen me to be, after my father and my ancestors." when the pope's consent was obtained, cardinal william of sabina was sent to norway to set the crown upon the king's head. but on arriving, he, too, incited by the native prelates, was disposed to exact conditions. haakon, however, secure in his right, maintained his attitude with firmness and dignity, and in the end the cardinal had to accept his terms. the coronation took place with great pomp on st. olaf's day, july , , in christ's church in bergen. the guests at the banquet which followed the ceremony were so numerous that the royal mansion could not hold them, and it became necessary to fit out a huge boat-house as a temporary banqueting hall. the feast continued for three days, and outdid in magnificence any thing that had hitherto been seen in the north. then followed a five days' _fête_ in honor of the cardinal and the other dignitaries. when the festivities were at an end, a meeting was called at which affairs of state were discussed, and the king voluntarily made several concessions to the clergy. the right of the church to choose its own servants was confirmed, as also its right of separate jurisdiction. ordeals were solemnly abolished, because, as the cardinal expressed it, it was not seemly for christian men to challenge god to give his verdict in human affairs. at his departure from norway, the cardinal received a present of , marks sterling, or about half a million francs, for his master the pope, besides a munificent compensation for his own services. the remainder of haakon's reign was externally uneventful, and for that very reason beneficial to the country. the king was wise enough to see that the noisy deeds of war bring no enduring blessing, while the industries of peace produce sound prosperity and progress. he therefore devoted himself with unflagging energy to the furtherance of agriculture and trade. his chief interest was, however, architecture. cloisters, churches, and fortifications were built in different parts of the country. his love of splendor he indulged in the erection of a magnificent royal mansion in bergen, and his benevolence in the erection of a hospital for lepers. in tromsö he put up a church, which long enjoyed the distinction of being the northernmost church in the world. the laws of succession were so amended as to exclude illegitimate sons; the civil and criminal codes were improved, and the number of lawmen increased to eleven. a well-equipped fleet of ships was maintained, which, in the hands of a peace-loving king, was a guaranty of peace rather than a menace of war. by embassies, by exchanges of gifts with foreign princes, and by the power and splendor which he displayed at home and abroad, haakon gained a place among the rulers of europe, which had been accorded to no norwegian king before him. the german emperor, the noble and gifted frederick ii., sought his friendship, and maintained communication with him until his death. the russian grand duke, alexander newsky, applied for the hand of his daughter, christina, for his son, and king alfonso the wise of castile wooed her for his brother. the suit of the latter was accepted, and christina married in the spanish prince, don philip. the pope, alexander iv., endeavored to extort from haakon a promise to participate in a crusade, and the king of france, louis ix., offered him, "in view of his power and experience on the seas," the command of an allied norse-french fleet; and to crown his honors, it is said that the pope in urged him as his candidate for emperor of germany. what gave king haakon, in spite of the remoteness of his country, this extraordinary influence abroad was particularly his fleet. during a brief war with denmark in and , the awe which the sight of this strong naval force inspired was so great, that it induced the danish king, christopher, to make peace on haakon's terms without venturing a battle. the icelanders, enfeebled and brutalized by perpetual internecine feuds, acknowledged his supremacy and promised to pay him tribute ( ). the few and scattered inhabitants of greenland likewise recognized his overlordship. a dispute concerning the orkneys and the shetland isles led to war with the scottish king, alexander iii. haakon, determined to maintain his power over these distant dependencies, which had already cost norway so much blood and treasure, started with his fleet for scotland ( ), but suffered severely from a storm which wrecked many of his ships. he sailed around to th western side of scotland, ravaged the coasts of cantire and bute, and fought a battle at largs (near the entrance to the firth of clyde), in which, according to the account of the scots, the norsemen were defeated, while, according to the sagas, they were victorious. at best, however, the battle afforded them no advantage. for haakon retired, immediately after, to the orkneys, where he determined to spend the winter, hoping to renew the campaign again in the spring. here he was suddenly taken ill and died in kirkevaag, december , . during his illness he had the sagas of his ancestors read aloud to him, from halfdan the swarthy down to the days of his grandfather, king sverre. during the reading of sverre's saga he passed quietly away. [illustration: norwegian stabbur, or store-house.] all records agree in the judgment that haakon haakonsson was a wise and noble king. he was not a man of genius, not endowed with the brilliant gifts of his grandfather. but he was what we call a safe man. he possessed strong common-sense; was generous and forgiving, yet resolute and firm where justice demanded severity. his noble heart and his clear-sighted intelligence led him invariably to choose the right. he was therefore a great king, without being necessarily a great man, unless a well-balanced combination of all average good qualities constitutes in itself greatness. his enemy, duke skule, was in many respects a more brilliant personality, and yet what a misfortune it would have been to norway, if skule had displaced haakon! in appearance haakon resembled his grandfather. he was, like him, of middle height, and had the same large and wondrously expressive eyes. he looked taller when he sat than when he stood, but his presence was always dignified and impressive. he was fifty-nine years old when he died, and had ruled over norway forty-six years. chapter xxviii. the sturlungs in iceland. during the reign of haakon haakonsson lived the renowned icelandic historian, snorre sturlasson. it is due to him that the ancient history of norway has been saved from oblivion. his great work, called _heimskringla_ (the circle of the earth), after the words with which it begins, is a coherent and in the main reliable record of the events which took place in norway from the time of harold the fairhaired down to the battle of ree in . the more or less mythical history which precedes the reign of harold is also included, though it can scarcely, in many features, lay claim to credibility. the style is clear and vigorous, and the characterizations are extremely vivid. scaldic lays are introduced into the text as evidences of the veracity of the narrative, and anecdotes are preserved which throw a strong light upon the characters of the heroes. the heimskringla is, accordingly, not a loose conglomeration of fact and fiction, such as monkish chroniclers in the middle ages were in the habit of composing, but a historic work of high rank, betraying a mature critical spirit and artistic taste, in style and arrangement. several scaldic lays are also attributed to snorre, besides portions of the younger edda--a collection of myths and legends, dealing with the traditions of the ancient asa faith. it is as editor and collector, however, not as author, that he is here entitled to credit. snorre sturlasson was born in iceland in , and was, at the age of three, adopted by the great chieftain, jon loftsson, a grandson of saemund the learned. his father was sturla thordsson, a high-born but turbulent man, and his mother, gudny bödvar's daughter. jon loftsson had inherited a very considerable collection of historical mss. from his grandfather, saemund, and his house was the home of the best culture which the island at that time possessed. snorre, though any thing but a book-worm, became interested in the myths and tales of paganism, and by intercourse with his foster-father imbibed a taste for historical research. after the death of the latter in , he found himself penniless, his mother having wasted his paternal inheritance. in order to maintain his dignity, he was therefore obliged to look about for a rich marriage, and by the aid of his brothers succeeded in gaining the hand of the wealthiest heiress in iceland. he now devoted himself to the task of increasing his power. by shrewd bargaining, by intimidation, and by open violence he gained possession of six large estates and amassed an enormous fortune. iceland, at that time, was torn with factional feuds, and snorre understood to perfection the art of fishing in troubled waters. he was a man of energetic and determined character--a man of large plans and few scruples. there is a vigorous worldliness visible in all his acts, and a prudent adaptation of means to ends. at his residence, reykjaholt, which he fortified, improved, and beautified in a manner, the like of which had never been seen in iceland, he lived like a prince, maintaining an armed force which seemed to threaten the republic. ruins of his bath-house are yet to be seen, and yet bear his name (snorrelaug). the bath was built of hewn stones, and the hot water was conducted by a stone aqueduct from the neighboring geysers. [illustration: hÖrgadal in the north of iceland.] snorre had two brothers, thord and sighvat. the former was of a quiet disposition, and not over-ambitious, while the latter was snorre's counterpart, and like him engaged in increasing his fortune by trickery and violence. two men, thus constituted, would scarcely be restrained by their fraternal relation, when their interests clashed; and before long, we find sighvat and snorre at swords' points. by the weight of his influence, snorre gradually absorbed the more important offices in the gift of his countrymen. thus he was, in , elected speaker of the law, and in this capacity came in conflict with his foster-brother, saemund jonsson, who took exception to one of his rulings. the icelandic althing was both a legislative assembly and a supreme court, and it was the duty of the speaker in legal cases to decide what was law. if any of the contending parties rejected the decision of the althing, an appeal to the sword was always open to him. the law was a consultative, not an absolute power, and depended upon its fairness for its authority. snorre, whose duty it was to give weight to the law, had so small respect for his office, that he appeared with eight hundred and forty armed men, determined to overawe his opponents. a compromise was with difficulty arranged, but the seed of mischief had been sown, and was not slow to sprout and bear fruit. snorre's fame had, in the meanwhile, reached norway, and many honorable invitations were extended to him from the foremost chieftains of the land. accordingly he set sail in , with a large train of followers, visited king haakon and earl skule, and gained the latter's friendship. the king made him his liegeman, and it is said that snorre promised skule to bring iceland under the dominion of the mother country. the plan was a tempting one. if by the surrender of the liberties of the island, he could attain the dignity of earl of iceland, he could, at one blow, by skule's aid, crush all his enemies, and reign undisputed as the first man in the land. on his return home, however, he discovered that the obstacles in his way were greater than he had anticipated. it appears, even, that he repented of his rash promise, and was anxious to postpone the day of its fulfilment. whether, in his subsequent machinations, he meant to secure his own predominance, as a means to carrying out his bargain with the earl, is difficult to determine. in snorre's rival and bitterest enemy, saemund jonsson, died, and his children, who were at variance about an inheritance from their uncle, orm jonsson, called upon snorre to arbitrate between them. they did this, not because they loved him and had confidence in his fairness, but because they feared him and were anxious to have the old feud terminated. snorre understood this perfectly, and had no hesitation in taking advantage of his position. having recently been separated from his wife, he saw a chance of further enriching himself by marrying the beautiful solveig, the sister of the contending brothers. he accordingly divided the inheritance so as to give her the lion's share; but just as he seemed to have made sure of his game, his nephew, sturla sighvatsson, stepped up and snatched the girl from his expectant arms. by his unfair arbitration, he thus benefited the man who was henceforth to become his most dangerous enemy. nothing daunted, however, snorre turned his attention to another and far wealthier heiress, whom he succeeded in marrying. by a series of bargains, in which he made an unscrupulous use of the fear which his name inspired, he continued to increase his wealth, until his power overshadowed that of all other chieftains in the island. sturla, who in shrewdness and daring was more than a match for his uncle, pursued a similar course, and with the perpetual clashing of interests their hostility grew more pronounced. snorre had, in the meanwhile, by his friendship for earl skule, incurred the enmity of king haakon. sturla on his return from a pilgrimage to rome, succeeded in gaining the king's confidence, and in deepening his distrust of snorre. he made now the same bargain with the king that his uncle had previously made with skule, promising, in return for the dignity of earl of iceland, to bring the country under the norwegian crown. on his return home, he did not, however, at once venture to attack his rival, but contented himself with picking quarrels with his son, urökja, and his son-in-law, gissur thorvaldsson. the former he captured and maimed, but in his conflict with the latter he succumbed. in a regular battle, which was fought in , both sturla and his father, sighvat, were killed. snorre was at that time in norway, where he had the imprudence to commit himself as a partisan of skule, and thereby still further incensed the king. contrary to the command of the latter, he returned to iceland, where his predominance seemed now secured. but king haakon, who henceforth regarded him as an open enemy, became the means of his destruction. snorre had already, by his rapacity and greed, incurred the hostility of his son-in law, gissur thorvaldsson, and with him the king opened negotiations, demanding of him that he should either kill his father-in-law or send him as a prisoner to norway. gissur accordingly attacked snorre at reykjaholt with seventy armed men, and slew him ( ). [illustration: almannagjaa with the hill of laws.] snorre's nephew, sturla thordsson, who at one time was a great chieftain and a defender of icelandic independence, continued the heimskringla in his uncle's spirit, writing the saga of haakon haakonsson. this is a model biography, clearly and vigorously written, and abounding in interesting details. another remarkable book, which was written in norway during haakon's reign, is the so-called king's mirror (konungsskuggsjá). it contains, in the shape of a dialogue between father and son, moral teachings and rules of life and conduct. its maxims of worldly wisdom and rules of etiquette give a vivid insight into the modes of life and thought in the thirteenth century. [illustration] chapter xxix. magnus law-mender ( - ). with the death of haakon haakonsson, the continuous story of the sagas ceases. a fragment of the life of his son, magnus law-mender (lagaböter), written by sturla thordsson, is preserved, but the greater portion has unhappily been lost. what is known concerning the later kings, during the period of independence, is derived from many scattered and often unreliable sources. a period of decline, at first gradual and imperceptible, set in with the reign of king magnus, and culminated in the loss of independence. magnus had been proclaimed king during his father's lifetime, and as he was of age, the government passed into his hands without dispute. being indisposed to continue the expensive war with scotland, he sent his chancellor, askatin, to alexander iii. and obtained peace on the condition of ceding the island of man and the shetland isles, receiving in return , marks sterling, besides an annual tribute of marks. the latter stipulation was intended to save appearances, as an annual tribute might well be interpreted as a continued recognition of the supremacy of the king of norway. it has often been questioned whether magnus acted wisely in refusing to draw the sword to preserve the integrity of his kingdom. that the scottish isles already had cost norway more in blood and treasure than they were worth, is generally conceded; and the chances were that, as scotland increased in power, still greater efforts would be required to assert the sway of norway over the remote dependencies. moreover, as england later rose to become a european power and absorbed scotland, it was merely a question of time when norway would be compelled to relax its hold upon the islands. whether it was a mere native disinclination to fight, or a careful counting of the cost, which induced magnus to depart from his father's policy, time seems to have justified the wisdom of his course. for all that, it is undeniable that the respect and influence abroad which norway had gained by haakon's assertion of the national dignity, were much diminished by the unwarlike spirit of his son. he had indeed the satisfaction to add iceland to his possessions. but even this was in no wise due to his skill or merit. it was apparently the result of king haakon's interference in the feuds of the sturlungs, but in a deeper sense it was due to causes which do not lie so near the surface. the descendants of the proud men who, during the reign of harold the fairhaired, emigrated from norway, merely because they would not surrender their allodial rights, would not have surrendered liberty itself without resistance, if they had not sadly degenerated from their ancestors. liberty had in iceland long ago degenerated into license. no law had the power to bind the strong. it is a mistake to suppose that the institutions of the country were democratic. though theoretically the rights of every free man were recognized, in practice they soon came to amount to very little. icelandic society early separated itself into a yeomanry or peasantry and an aristocracy. the latter, who had the government entirely in their hands, proceeded by a series of bloody feuds to exterminate each other, until, of the fifty or more ruling families, scarcely half a dozen were left in possession of their dignity and power. as a matter of course, these half a dozen then endeavored to cut each other's throats, and, as the struggle grew fiercer, welcomed aid from any source and at any price. all public interests were lost sight of in the furious strife for personal ascendency. the proud sense of independence, which had been the glory of the race, developed into a mere ferocious passion for power, and a savage determination to crush out rivalry. civic rights, moral obligations, and the bonds of blood were equally disregarded; brother waged war against brother and father against son. murder and arson were every-day occurrences. complete anarchy prevailed. of this state of things haakon haakonsson took advantage, and by aiding one faction against the other secured the allegiance of the conquering party and thereby the submission of the island itself to the crown of norway. snorre's son-in-law and slayer, gissur thorvaldsson, was the first earl of iceland. he received the dignity from king haakon ( ), before his countrymen had yet recognized the latter's overlordship. if it be true that the happiest nations are those which have no history, it may be safe to conclude that the happiest periods of a nation's life are the most uneventful. if so, the reign of magnus haakonsson afforded every chance of happiness to his subjects. the peasant cultivated contentedly his fields, and, undisturbed, the merchant and the artisan pursued their avocations. the development of the resources of the country afforded the king satisfaction, and he did all in his power to further every peaceful industry. to this end he also interested himself in legislation, and spent many years of his life in revising the laws and making them uniform. formerly the country had been divided into four judicial districts, each with its own _thing_ and its own laws. the frosta-_thing's_ code was the law of tröndelag, the gula-_thing's_ code was valid on the western coast, the eidsivia code in the oplands, and the borgar-_thing's_ code in viken. out of these four, magnus now caused a new general code to be elaborated for the whole country, abolishing what was antiquated, removing inconsistencies and adapting the spirit of the legislation to the needs of the age. for four hundred years his laws remained in force, and a few of them have remained until recent times. all things, great and small, relating to civic life interested him; and a certain over-confidence in the power of law to regulate all human concerns is traceable in his labors. for the cities he elaborated a municipal law, and for his vassals and courtiers a court law (_hirdskraa_), which was, however, an adaptation of a previously existing code, dating from the days of sverre. the court law dealt with the feudal duties and privileges of vassals, prescribed rules for courtly intercourse, and a fixed ceremonial for the proclamation of a king, the conferring of the feudal dignities, etc. among other things it ordained that no longer, as of old, should a peasant, as the representative of the people, confer the royal dignity upon the heir to the throne, but the man of highest rank present. an inclination is visible in king magnus' legislation to break with the democratic past, and to remodel norway, as nearly as possible, after foreign patterns. it was particularly england, with its feudal institutions, which seemed to him and his surroundings worthy of imitation. although it was by no means a pure democracy which had prevailed in norway hitherto, there had yet been a recognition of the people as the source of power, and the old stubborn sense of independence which characterized the peasantry had never been eradicated. hitherto the laws had been submitted to the people at the _things_, where every free-born man could make himself heard. now this venerable custom was abolished, and the king and his council reserved for themselves the right to make and repeal laws, without consulting the people. that this decree was accepted without protest, nay appears to have caused no particular excitement, shows plainly the change that had come over the spirit of the norsemen. if a king had proposed such a law, in the days of haakon the good or olaf tryggvesson, he would have risked his throne and his life. whether it was because royalty had risen to such dignity and power that it seemed hopeless to oppose it, or because the tribal aristocracy, instead of making common cause with the people, had attached itself to the crown, certain it is that the supine acceptance of so radical a change argued a degeneracy which explains the subsequent events. it is scarcely to be wondered at that the rise of feudalism throughout europe, during the thirteenth century, also had its effect upon the institutions of norway. the ideas which magnus embodied in his laws were, so to speak, in the air; and the commercial intercourse with england had familiarized the norsemen with the titles and the pomp and circumstance of chivalry. thus the royal council, consisting of the chancellor, the earls, and the liegemen, was obviously copied after the english institution of the same name, and, to make the resemblance complete, the ancient title of liegeman was abolished and that of baron substituted. the court officials were made knights and squires.[a] a privileged class was thus raised distinctly above the people; and the foundation laid for a hereditary nobility. a partial immunity from taxes was granted to barons and knights, and the lucrative offices in the gift of the crown were parcelled out among them. though some elements of the ancient tribal aristocracy were absorbed in the new order, there was also a large element which owed its rise purely to royal favor. it is thus to be noted, that the new nobility of norway was in the main a court nobility, which depended upon the crown for its dignity, and could not be expected, when occasion demanded, to antagonize the king in the interest of the people. it therefore shared the fate of royalty and lost its power when the royal house became extinct. for the later rulers, the danish kings, were surrounded by a hungry aristocracy of their own, whose fortunes they were bound to push, and the norse candidates for their favor had to be neglected. thus it happened that the norse aristocracy again returned to the people, from which it had originally risen. it was gradually absorbed by and identified with the peasantry, which thereby gained more than the nobles lost. "a compact class of allodial freeholders was formed, which, on account of their numbers and their remoteness from public affairs, may be styled a peasantry, but by reason of their liberty and self-assertion almost maintained the rank of a nobility."[b] [footnote a: it is impossible to give an adequate translation of the word _herra_ in this connection. it is a lower title than baron and knight.] [footnote b: j. sars: udsigt over norge's historie, ii., .] it is this proud peasant-nobility which until this day have constituted the strength of the norse people and the bulwark of its re-arisen liberty. they have at all times, even during the darkest days of the union with denmark, constituted a force with which the government had to reckon. in spite of his conciliatory disposition, king magnus' reign had its share of quarrels and disturbances. chief among these was his controversy with the church, which ended, on his part, with an abject surrender. the archbishop, at that time, was the haughty and ambitious jon the red (röde), who, before consenting to a change in the law of succession, which the king had much at heart, extorted from him a series of humiliating concessions. at a meeting of notables in tunsberg ( ), magnus bound himself to abstain from all interference in the selection of bishops, and to surrender to the latter the right of filling, in accordance with their pleasure, all the clerical offices. he conceded, moreover, to the archbishop the privilege of coining money and to have a hundred men in his personal service, who should be exempt from feudal obligations to the king. in his relation to foreign powers magnus was equally unsuccessful in maintaining the dignity of his crown. when his brother-in-law, the swedish king, valdemar, begged him for help against his brother magnus, who had deprived him of the greater part of his kingdom, preparations were indeed made for a grand campaign, but after several futile meetings and much talk, the norwegian fleet was ordered home again and the swedish king was left to his fate. to a proud and adventurous people like the norsemen, jealous of their dignity at home and abroad, this unconquerable reluctance to draw the sword must have appeared humiliating. a high regard for honor and a genius for war had characterized the race up to this time; and however much one may disapprove of war, one cannot deny that peace may be bought at too high a price. the right to hold one's head high; to feel proud of one's history and one's country, is a precious privilege, without which no race ever achieved great things. king magnus, by lessening the prestige which the country had enjoyed during the reign of his father, therefore contributed much toward the decadence which followed. physically as well as mentally, signs of degeneracy are beginning to be perceptible in the royal race of norway. king magnus was, indeed, endowed with a good intellect and his morals were blameless. but for all that, he was a far less sturdy and impressive personality than his father, and a still greater distance separated him from his great-grandfather, the wise, brave, gentle, unconquerable sverre. many of his imprudent acts are explained by the fact that his health was never vigorous. while he was yet in the prime of life, he began to suffer from ailments which warned his councillors that his days were numbered. he died in , at the age of forty-one. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxx. erik priest-hater ( - ). the barons, who had acquired extensive privileges during the reign of king magnus, had a chance to establish their power still more securely during the minority of his son erik, who, at his father's death, was but twelve years old. a great influence was also wielded by the imperious queen-dowager, ingeborg, who made common cause with the barons and was the real soul of the regency. of her two surviving sons, duke haakon, the younger, was the more fitted, by strength of body and mind, to occupy the throne. he received great fiefs, and though recognizing erik's overlordship, conducted himself as an independent sovereign. he issued decrees, coined money, and made independent alliances with foreign princes. his brother was a weak, good-natured man who never knew how to assert his will against that of his mother and his high-handed councillors. the latter, among whom the barons, hallkell agmundsson, audun hugleiksson, and bjarne erlingsson of giske and bjarkö, were the most eminent, disapproved highly of the concessions which king magnus had made to the church, and were watching for an opportunity to check the power and arrogance of the clergy. they found it necessary, however, to conceal their plans, until the king had been crowned by archbishop jon, and they even consented to have him include in the coronation oath the promise "to yield all due honor to the clergy and the bishops, and to repeal all bad laws, especially such as might conflict with the liberty of the church." the archbishop interpreted this promise literally, and demanded after the coronation the repeal of the laws in question. the queen and the barons were, however, not disposed to yield a single point, but rather welcomed the opportunity to measure strength with the domineering prelates. it was of no use that the archbishop put hallkell agmundsson in the ban; his colleagues only honored him more conspicuously, and when queen ingeborg and bjarne erlingsson received the same punishment, they, as well as the people, showed an indifference, which left the archbishop powerless. after having vainly appealed to the pope, and having been foiled at the roman curia by ambassadors from the barons, jon the red and two other bishops were outlawed and compelled to leave the country. the archbishop died in exile in sweden in . the king, who was yet a mere boy, was neutral in this struggle. if the decision had rested with him, he would probably have continued his father's policy of concession, and the epithet "priest-hater," which has been attached to his name, is therefore undeserved. when erik was fourteen years old, he was married to margaret of scotland, the daughter of his grandfather's enemy, king alexander iii. the young queen died, however, a year later, after having given birth to a daughter, who, on the death of king alexander ( ), was acknowledged as the heir to the throne of scotland. while yet a child ( ), the maid of norway, as she was called, embarked for the land which she was to rule, but died before reaching it. her father then, as his daughter's heir, laid claim to the scottish crown, but the armed interference of king edward i. of england compelled him to abandon his candidacy. he had at that time another controversy on his hands, which threatened serious results. the queen-dowager, ingeborg, was the daughter of the danish king, erik plowpenny. his nephew, erik glipping, who succeeded his father, christopher i., refused to surrender her inheritance, which consisted in landed estates in different parts of the kingdom. magnus law-mender had vainly insisted upon the surrender of the property, and erik, at the instigation of his mother, resumed negotiations, and, when these resulted in nothing, made threatening demonstrations. the norse baron, sir alf erlingsson, a special favorite of the queen, began to prey upon the shipping in the sound, and by his recklessness and daring, made his name dreaded among seamen and merchants. he did, indeed, inflict much injury upon danish commerce, and ravaged the coasts of jutland and halland; but the principal sufferers were the cities of the hanseatic league, which, by the concessions of magnus law-mender, had obtained a virtual monopoly of the foreign trade of norway. their ships were now seized without mercy by the noble pirate, who added insult to injury by once appearing incognito among them in an open boat, and bargaining with them about the price which they had set upon his head. it was of no use that the league sent out ships of war to capture him; he out-manoeuvred them, deceived them, sent them on a wild-goose chase, and ended by capturing his would-be captors. though not officially authorized to carry on war in this fashion, sir alf perceived that his performances were winked at by the queen-dowager, who was actually so gratified at his success, that she had him created an earl, and induced the king to use him as his ambassador to england. as allies of the king of denmark, the hanseatic cities were, in the queen's opinion, entitled to no consideration, but she forgot in her blind hostility that they had it in their power to take revenge. partly on account of the risk, partly as a measure of retaliation, the hansa forbade the importation of grain and other staples of food to norway, and the result was famine and misery. the hostilities with denmark in the meanwhile continued, but were, after the death of queen ingeborg ( ), conducted, not by piracy, but by open warfare. a conspiracy was formed against the life of king erik glipping, and he was murdered, while on the chase ( ), by marshal stig, count jacob of halland, and others. the murderers, who were outlawed in denmark, found a refuge in norway, and accompanied king erik on his campaign against their native country in . the city of elsinore was burned, and the norwegian fleet lay for four weeks near copenhagen, serving as a basis of operations for the outlawed king-slayers, who satisfied their private vengeance by burning cities and castles. three similar expeditions, during the following six years, brought erik neither honor nor profit in proportion to the cost of the enterprise; although, in the end, the danish king, erik menved, was compelled to conclude an armistice for three years at hinsgavl, in funen ( ), at which he made a definite promise of the surrender of the disputed property. the king-slayers were permitted to return unmolested to their homes, and their estates were to be restored to them. the war with the hanseatic cities had come to an end long before, by the peace of kalmar, ( ). the formidable weapon which they wielded, in their ability to cut off supplies, gave them so great an advantage that king erik had no choice but to accept their terms. king magnus of sweden, who, according to mutual agreement, had been selected as umpire negotiated peace, on the conditions that king erik should return to their owners all ships which had been captured, pay an indemnity of six thousand marks and greatly extend the commercial privileges of the hansa. thus the lawless valor of "little sir alf," as the pirate earl was called, proved no less disastrous to his country than it did to himself. he did not appreciate the difference which the death of the queen had made in his position; but continued to tread law and honor under foot with defiant heedlessness. the baron, sir hallkell agmundsson the commander of oslo castle, had for some reason incurred his hostility; and earl alf gathered, in the ancient fashion, a band of adventurers about him and commenced a rebellion, as it appears, against duke haakon, who was sir hallkell's protector. he even had the audacity to attack oslo, set fire to the town, capture his foe, and after a brief imprisonment executed him. this daring murder brought upon him a sentence of outlawry; and he was forced to seek refuge in sweden, where king magnus took him under his protection. his luck had, however, deserted him, for when again he appeared as a corsair in danish waters, he was captured and brought in irons into the presence of queen agnes. according to the ballad, she twitted him on the smallness of his stature; to which he replied that she would never live to see the day when she could bear such a son. another and still more insolent remark made the queen so furious that she struck her fist against the table and declared that little sir alf should be tortured on the rack, and his bones broken on the wheel. the sentence was executed the following day ( ). after the death of his first queen, king erik had married isabella bruce, the sister of robert, who later became king of scotland. he had by this marriage a daughter, ingeborg, who became the wife of duke valdemar, the brother of the swedish king, birger magnusson. king erik died at the age of thirty-one ( ), after having been king for nineteen years. [illustration] chapter xxxi. haakon longlegs (haalegg), - . duke haakon, the second son of magnus law-mender, succeeded his brother without opposition. he was then twenty-nine years old, tall and of stately appearance. he had not been long upon the throne, before he showed the haughty barons that he meant to have a reckoning with them. he first summoned sir audun hugleiksson to meet him in bergen, tried him for treason, and had him executed ( ). a woman from lübeck had, two years before, appeared in norway and created much excitement by claiming to be the princess margaret, "the maid of norway," who had died on the orkneys. her trial proved her to be an impostor, and she was burned at the stake. according to one conjecture, sir audun was in some way compromised by her trial, and it is not unlikely that he may have encouraged her pretensions. the legend, however, relates that sir audun suffered death for having insulted the king's bride, countess euphemia of arnstein, whom, in , he brought over from germany. it must have been an unpleasant surprise to the barons, who had had their own way so long, to find a stern and determined master in the new king, and it is the more to his credit that, in spite of their hostility, he induced them to consent to a change in the law of succession in favor of his daughter ingeborg and her issue. as he was the only male descendant in the direct line of the old royal house, it was a source of uneasiness to him that he had no sons, and he foresaw that the only means of averting civil war, after his death, was to secure the succession to the prospective sons of his daughter, and in case she had none, to herself. princess ingeborg was, while a mere child, promised in marriage to the brilliant and ambitious duke erik, the second son of king magnus birgersson of sweden. by this betrothal, king haakon became involved in the quarrels of the dukes erik and valdemar with their brother, birger magnusson, whom they were endeavoring to dethrone. the dukes hated the king, and the king, who was jealous of erik's popularity and eminence in chivalrous accomplishments, reciprocated their feelings. the long-smouldering hostility at last blazed forth, in , when the dukes treacherously assaulted their brother and held him captive for about eighteen months. king haakon was induced to take their part in the struggle, perhaps chiefly because his enemy, the king of denmark, made common cause with king birger. the good understanding between them did not, however, last long, for when it began to look as if duke erik aimed at the union of the three scandinavian kingdoms under his own sceptre, haakon, as an interested party, could scarcely remain inactive. he demanded the restoration of the fiefs which he had granted the duke during his exile. when this was refused, he opened negotiations with the king of denmark, who was the brother-in-law of king birger, and concluded a preliminary treaty at copenhagen ( ) in accordance with which the princess ingeborg was to marry magnus, the son of king birger. duke erik then invaded norway with an army, took oslo and vainly besieged the fortress of akershus. the province of jemteland was also attacked by the swedes, and the duke had in an indecisive fight with a portion of the norwegian fleet in kalfsund. finally, after another fight, in which erik gained the upper hand, negotiations were resumed, and by mutual concessions peace was reëstablished ( ). duke erik had a powerful ally at the norwegian court in queen euphemia, whose love for him was not of an entirely maternal character. he had thus little difficulty in conciliating king haakon and getting again the promise of his daughter's hand. the wedding was finally celebrated with much splendor in oslo in . duke valdemar married the same day the king's niece, ingeborg, the daughter of king erik priest-hater. about four years later, when the hope had almost been abandoned, each of the duchesses bore a son. king haakon's joy at this happy event was great, for it relieved him of his anxiety for the succession. but his joy was of short duration. there was one man in sweden who was not rejoiced at the birth of the young princes, and that was king birger. he feigned, however, delight, and invited his brothers to a great feast of reconciliation at the castle of nyköping. when the festivities were at an end, the dukes were thrown into prison and deprived of their lives. as there was no sign of violence on their bodies, the rumor went abroad that they had been starved to death. this was probably true. the tidings of this calamity gave king haakon such a shock that he never recovered from it. he died, , aged forty-nine years. with him the male line of the race of harold the fairhaired became extinct. the war with denmark which had lasted twenty-eight years, was continued in a desultory fashion during haakon's reign, but no important battles were fought. he used his fleet mainly as a threat to enforce his claims. all that he gained was the temporary possession of the province of northern halland, as security for the final surrender of his maternal inheritance. in internal affairs king haakon exhibited, according to the ideas of his age, no mean degree of statesmanship. his administration was both prudent and vigorous. he checked the usurpations of the hanseatic cities, which were driving native merchants out of the foreign trade, and deprived them of some of their privileges. an honest intention to do right, coupled with considerable ability, characterized both his public and private life. for all that, his despotic temper tended to alienate the people from public affairs; and thus prepared the way for the following centuries of humiliation. [illustration] chapter xxxii. magnus smek ( - ), haakon magnusson ( - ), and olaf the young ( - ). magnus eriksson, the son of duke erik and ingeborg, was only three years old when his grandfather died, and the government therefore fell into the hands of a regency, the members of which had already been designated by king haakon. shortly before, a rebellion had broken out in sweden against king birger, who, on account of the murder of his brothers, was detested by his people. he was deposed and his son magnus, though he was in no wise responsible for his father's crimes, was executed. at the instance of the regent, mats kettilmundsson, magnus eriksson was proclaimed king; and norway and sweden were thus for the first time united under one ruler. the union was a mere nominal one, the two countries having separate laws and administrations, and nothing in common except the king, who was to divide his time equally between them. during magnus' minority, however, his mother, duchess ingeborg, governed in norway with the utmost recklessness, making great scandal by her love of the danish nobleman knut porse, duke of halland, whom she later married. to enrich him she squandered the revenues and forfeited her popularity. when the treasury was on the verge of bankruptcy and loud murmurs of discontent were heard from all sides, the duchess was at last deprived of her power, and sir erling vidkunsson of bjarkö and giske was made regent in her place. when king magnus, surnamed smek, reached his majority, he assumed the government in both countries ( ). being born a swede, he lacked comprehension of the norsemen, and showed little interest in their affairs. he was a weak and good-natured man, anxious to please all, and therefore succeeded in pleasing no one. in sweden he had his hands full, in endeavoring to control the unruly nobility, whose pretensions were supported by his oldest son, erik. he therefore rarely came to norway, and made no adequate provision for the government during his absence. erling vidkunsson then made himself the spokesman of the universal discontent, and with other magnates compelled the king, at a meeting in bergen ( ), to take his second son, haakon, as co-regent and to abdicate the crown of norway, in his favor, as soon as he should have reached his majority. it was then understood that erik would be his father's successor in sweden. but unforseen events frustrated this expectation. in magnus and his queen, the wily and malicious blanca of namur, made a visit to king valdemar atterdag in copenhagen. it was there arranged that haakon should marry valdemar's eldest daughter and heir, margaret, and that the danish king should extend his protection to queen blanca's favorite, bengt algotsson, whom erik had declared to be a public enemy and was determined to destroy. at the instigation of king valdemar, she chose, however, an easier way to accomplish her baneful purposes. she poisoned her son. haakon was now heir both to norway and sweden, and his and margaret's issue, presumptively, to denmark. the swedes were by no means pleased with this arrangement, and the norwegian magnates would, if they had been consulted, have expressed themselves no less strongly against it. they must have foreseen in this union the inevitable decay of the norse national spirit and the gradual extinction of their nationality. the swedes, being a larger people, had less to fear from it, but yet regarded it as prejudicial to their interests. their feeling toward denmark was not, just then, of a friendly character, chiefly owing to the pusillanimity of their king, in ceding the provinces skaane, halland, and blekinge to the latter country, without any adequate return, unless it was a pledge of aid from king valdemar against his own subjects. so secure felt magnus in his new alliance, that he actually helped the danish king to conquer the swedish island gottland, and permitted him to sack the town of visby, which was one of the principal depots of the baltic trade. now, the patience of the swedes was at last exhausted. the royal council, supported by the nobility, declared that king magnus, as well as his son haakon, had forfeited their rights to the crown ( ), and called duke albrecht of mecklenburg to the succession. weak as he was, however, magnus was not minded to give up his kingdom without a struggle. with whatever troops he could scrape together from the provinces which were yet faithful to him, he attacked king albrecht at enköping, but was defeated and taken prisoner. haakon, dangerously wounded, made his escape into norway. though the norwegians cared little for magnus, they were too loyal to refuse haakon their aid in his attempt to liberate him from the horrible prison in which he was languishing. the war was therefore continued with varying success until the hanseatic league interfered and came near deciding it in albrecht's favor. the german merchants had, during the feeble government of magnus, obtained so great a power in norway that they trod justice under foot, slew their enemies, refused to accept the king's money (which was not good), and leagued together to defy the laws and protect each other from punishment. the king was so incensed at their arrogant conduct, that he issued a decree expelling all germans from the country. unhappily he had not the power to enforce obedience to this mandate, and when the hansa made war upon him, he was obliged to buy peace by further concessions. this left him comparatively free, however, to prosecute the war with king albrecht, and when all negotiations had proved futile, he advanced with an army upon stockholm, laying the country waste as he progressed. here, at last, peace was concluded ( ) on the condition that haakon should pay a ransom of twelve thousand marks for his father and renounce his claim to the throne of sweden. in return, magnus was to receive skara-stift, vestergötland, and vermeland. the old king was, however, not to enjoy long his dearly bought liberty. three years later he was drowned in the bömmelfjord in norway ( ), and his son only survived him six years. like so many of the kings of norway, he died in his prime ( ). the reigns of magnus eriksson and his son were a period of great disaster to norway. in the gula-elv suddenly changed its course, owing to the fall of an enormous rock into its bed, and forty-eight farms were destroyed, and two hundred and fifty people and a multitude of cattle were drowned. in iceland an earthquake and a great eruption of hekla spread alarm and desolation. but the worst of all calamities was the black death, a terrible pestilence, which, after having ravaged germany, england, and southern europe, reached norway in . an english merchant vessel first brought the pestilence to bergen, whence it spread with great rapidity over the entire land. in drontheim the archbishop and all the canons of the cathedral chapter died, except a single one, who then alone elected the new archbishop. in many districts the entire population was swept away; horses and cattle starved to death, for want of attendance, or perished in the woods. the results of the labor of centuries were destroyed. where once there had been fertile valleys and animated human intercourse, the forest grew up unheeded. the fox barked in the deserted farm-houses, and the wolf prowled in the empty churches. in many places the dead lay unburied, until, by the slow process of dissolution, the earth reclaimed them. sloth and indifference took possession of the survivors. the peasant neglected to till his fields, because he could procure neither horses nor laborers to assist him. famine and death were the result. all industries stagnated, and what there was left of norwegian commerce fell completely into the hands of foreigners. as is usually the case in the times of great plagues, when the restraints of social order are relaxed, vice grew riotous, and every extreme of lawless passion was wantonly displayed. centuries elapsed before the country recovered from the results of this terrible calamity. but there were other causes which combined with the pestilence in producing the political impotence and social barbarism which followed. there is a danger in doing injustice, even to the black death, and it has, until recently, been the fashion to make it solely responsible for the eclipse of norway's glory. olaf, the only son of haakon magnusson and margaret, was proclaimed king of norway at his father's death. five years earlier he had, after the death of his maternal grandfather, been elected king of denmark. as he was yet a child, his mother margaret and the council of the regency conducted the government in his name. thus commenced the union of norway and denmark, which lasted without interruption for years, and which proved so disastrous to the former country. olaf died at the age of seventeen at falsterbro in skaane. [illustration] chapter xxxiii. norway during the kalmar union. olaf was succeeded both in denmark and norway by his mother, margaret, who became reigning queen. the real heir to the norwegian throne was, in accordance with the law of succession, the lord high steward (drost) haakon jonsson, a grandson of agnes, an illegitimate daughter of haakon longlegs. but he did not possess the power to assert his claim against margaret, who, by skilful intriguing, had induced the archbishop, vinald, and the majority of the clergy to take her side. the norwegian council of regency, in which the partisans of the queen likewise preponderated, seemed ready to do any thing which she demanded, and even yielded to her wish in pledging themselves to choose her grand-nephew, erik of pomerania, as her successor ( ). in accordance with this promise they declared erik, during the following year ( ), king of norway, under the guardianship of margaret, until he should reach his majority. the ambitious queen now turned her attention to sweden, where she had a bitter and determined foe in albrecht of mecklenburg. he was remotely related to the royal house of norway, and therefore believed himself to be the nearest heir to the throne. he was boiling over with animosity toward margaret, whom he called "queen breechless," and never referred to, except with opprobrious epithets. as this kind of harmless ammunition produced no effect, however, he boldly assumed the title of king of denmark and norway, and prepared to enforce his claim. but he had reckoned without his host, when he supposed that the swedes would support him in this enterprise. the swedish nobility, which possessed greater power than the king, had long been dissatisfied with albrecht, because he had surrounded himself with germans, to whom he had given fiefs and posts of honor. they had long desired to rid themselves of him, and when margaret made overtures to them, they seized the opportunity to accomplish their purpose. in february, , albrecht had to confront a united swedish, danish, and norwegian army. the battle, fought at falköping, in vestergötland, was fraught with great results. albrecht, who was unacquainted with the region, ventured with his heavy cavalry out upon a frozen marsh, fell through, and was taken prisoner. margaret had him now in her power and determined to make him pay the penalty for the liberty he had taken with her name. instead of the crown of denmark, which he had meant to wear, she put upon his head a fool's cap with a tail feet long, and mocked him mercilessly. he was then imprisoned in the castle of lindholm, in skaane, where he spent six years. after the battle of falköping margaret's army met with no resistance in the southern provinces; but stockholm had to be subjected to a long siege, during which it suffered greater depredations from internal than from external foes. bloody feuds between two contending parties raged within the city. a brotherhood of pirates, the so-called vitalie brethren, furnished the citizens with provisions, thereby delaying their surrender. these pirates had for the nonce entered into an alliance with rostock and wismar, two cities of mecklenburg, which sympathized with the imprisoned albrecht. in the end stockholm was forced to open its gates to queen margaret, in accordance with a compromise which was concluded in . albrecht was to pay a ransom of sixty thousand marks, and in case of his failure to provide this sum, within three years, he should either return to his prison or surrender stockholm. he chose to do the latter. margaret had now reached the goal of her desires. she was the ruler of the whole scandinavian race. she might have placed the triple crown upon her head, but preferred to secure this proud prize to her nephew, erik of pomerania, by having him crowned while she was yet alive. to this end she summoned representatives of the three kingdoms to a meeting in kalmar, where a draft was made for a constitution, upon which the union was to be based. although the document was signed by the norwegian, swedish, and danish magnates present, it was scarcely legally binding upon their countrymen. it bears the date of july , , and contains the following stipulations: . the three kingdoms were to be eternally united under one king. . if the king died without issue, the magnates of the three kingdoms should come together and peaceably elect a successor. . each kingdom should be governed in accordance with its own laws and customs; but if one of the kingdoms was attacked, the two others should, in good faith, assist in its defence. . the king and his councillors from the three kingdoms should have the right to enter into foreign alliances, and whatever they agreed upon should be binding upon the three countries. this was the famous kalmar union, which might have been a blessing to the brother kingdoms, but which to two of them, at least, became a curse. at first sight, it seemed a rational arrangement which promised success. the three nations were so closely akin, that they understood without effort each other's languages, which were but slight modifications of the same original tongue. if the forces which had been wasted in mutual wars and rivalries could have been combined for mutual help and common purposes, the kingdom of scandinavia would have risen in prosperity and strength and would have taken a place among the european powers. under a wise and far-sighted policy, the society of the three kingdoms could have been gradually amalgamated, its similarities and common interests emphasized, its differences slowly obliterated. if the kings of the union had had the slightest conception of the task that was presented to them, and had been capable of viewing themselves apart from their danish nationality, such results might have been achieved. but they were, with a single exception, utterly destitute of political ability and foresight. they were determined to raise the danish to the position of a dominant nationality and to reduce norway and sweden to a provincial relation. hereby they aroused again the ancient jealousies. they sent a troop of danish and german nobles to prey upon the latter countries, which they seemed to regard as conquered territory. the swedes complained of their being obliged to pay taxes, in order to defray the expenses of danish wars, and they were vehement in their denunciation of the extortion of the danish officials who plundered their provinces like roman proconsuls. [illustration: queen margaret.] the norwegians were preliminarily disposed to be more patient, chiefly because they lacked spokesmen, the remnants of their old nobility being too powerless to assert themselves against the danes. nor can it be said that, during queen margaret's life, the conditions were intolerable. she died, however, in flensborg ( ) aged years, leaving her wide dominions in the feeble hands of erik of pomerania. erik had inherited from margaret a war with the dukes of sleswick, which lasted for twenty-five years, exhausting the resources of his realm and completely revealing his incapacity for government. the swedes grumbled at the taxation which the war necessitated, and rebelled under the leadership of engelbrekt engelbrektsson. a danish prefect, jösse eriksson, had been guilty of great cruelty to the peasants in dalarne, taking their horses and oxen from the plow, hitching their pregnant wives to hay-loads, and horribly maiming all who dared to complain. engelbrekt went twice to denmark and asked the king to remove this malefactor, but was the first time put off with promises and the second time bluntly rebuffed. he then placed himself at the head of a rebellion, which spread from dalarne over the whole kingdom. in norway a similar, though less formidable, revolt broke out under amund sigurdsson bolt ( ), who likewise sought to obtain redress against the danish magistrates. the king, however, who saw his advantage in allowing considerable latitude to his creatures, wearied of the eternal complaints, and, carrying with him whatever money was left in the treasury, took up his residence in a fortified castle on the island of gottland ( ). he was now formally deposed both in denmark and sweden, while in norway the regent, or governor, sigurd jonsson, continued for a while to conduct the government in his name. when it became generally known, however, that the king had become a pirate, the norwegians, too, revoked their allegiance ( ). for ten years erik lived in his castle in gottland, supporting himself by piracy, but was finally driven away. he then returned to pomerania, where he died in . during the reign of this unworthy king, the city of bergen was twice sacked and partly burned by the vitalie brethren, who murdered the citizens, plundered the churches and the episcopal residence, and carried away a rich booty. with the tenacious fidelity peculiar to their race, the norwegians adhered to the cause of erik, even after he himself had abandoned it. they had, however, no choice but to recognize as his successor his nephew, christopher of bavaria, who had already been proclaimed king in denmark and sweden. in the latter country charles knutsson peasant (bonde), who, after the murder of engelbrekt, had become the leader of the rebellion, and later regent, had vainly endeavored to break the union. the clergy made common cause with christopher, and were instrumental in securing his election. christopher was a jolly and good-natured man, who had no aptitude for affairs of state. when the swedes complained of the piracy of erik of pomerania, he answered merrily: "our uncle is sitting on a rock; he, too, must earn his living." he deserves, however, as far as norway was concerned, the credit of good intentions. he made an effort, though a futile one, to deprive the hanseatic cities of their monopoly of trade, by giving equal privileges to the citizens of amsterdam. the league was then less formidable than it had been, owing to the successful rivalry of the dutch in other markets. it is difficult to say what the issue of the struggle would have been, if christopher had lived. death overtook him in , when he was but thirty-two years old. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxxiv. the union with denmark. it has been said that, during the union with denmark, norway had no history, and this is partly true. the history of the oldenborg kings, with their wars, and court intrigues and mistresses, is in no sense the history of norway. nor was the social development of norway parallel with that of denmark, during the reign of these kings. though oppressed and politically powerless, the remoter kingdom escaped the utter misery and degradation which overtook its oppressor. the danish nobility, though, like hungry wolves, they consumed the people's substance, did not succeed in reducing the norse peasantry to serfdom, as they did their own. the so-called _vornedskab_[a] in denmark was but another name for serfdom. the nobles, who held the land, in a hundred ways oppressed and maltreated their peasants; they could sell, though they were not at liberty to kill them. denmark, being an elective and not an hereditary kingdom, afforded the nobility opportunities for continually strengthening their position, by exacting an increase of their privileges of each candidate for the throne, before consenting to elect him. this contract or charter granted by the kings to the nobles (_haandfestning_) became a terrible instrument for the oppression of those estates which were either unrepresented or without influence in the royal council. from having been a body, subordinate to the king, the council gradually became co-ordinate with him, and at last his superior. from this state of things it followed that the king needed some counterbalancing support against its overweening influence, and this support he sought in norway. here the election was a mere form, the succession being based upon hereditary right. the king could, if he was minded to redress the grievances of the people, rely upon their loyalty. even if he was deaf to their complaints, they were disposed to excuse him, and hold his councillors responsible for his shortcomings. but, as a rule, the kings of the house of oldenborg did pay more attention to the complaints of their norse subjects than to those of their own, and they did this--first, because it was important to them to preserve the loyalty of the norsemen; secondly, because the norsemen, if their petitions were unheeded, stood ready to take up arms. they knew their rights from of old, and a continued infringement of them, on the part of the foreign officials, made sooner or later the war-arrow fly from farm to farm; and the king was confronted with an armed rebellion. again and again the obnoxious magistrates, who had imagined that these sturdy mountaineers were as meek and long-suffering as their danish brethren, were mercilessly beaten, maimed, or killed. repeatedly the government was forced to concede to rebels what they had not yielded to supplicants. unpopular laws were revoked, oppressive burdens removed, and promises made of improved administration. [footnote a: prof. j. e. sars: "norge under foreningen med danmark." nordisk universitets-tidskrift for and .] and yet, in spite of these ameliorating circumstances, norway's condition during the danish rule was miserable. the revenues of the country were spent in copenhagen, and the people were heavily taxed to support a foreign court and a hungry brood of foreign officials, whose chief interest was to fill their own pockets. danish nobles married into the great norwegian families, and secured, by bribery and intrigue in copenhagen, a virtual franchise for unlimited ill-doing. great estates were accumulated in the hands of men like vincentz lunge, hartvig krummedike, and hannibal sehested, and the courts were prostituted to favor the land-grabbing schemes of noble adventurers. the public spirit which, in times of old, had jealously watched over the interests of the realm, had already been weakened by the incipient despotism of the last national kings; and what there was left of it now gradually expired. a most striking proof of this is the fact that when, in , norway lost the last vestige of her independence, being declared to be a province of denmark, the decree was accepted without protest, and caused no perceptible excitement. so gradually had the change taken place, that no one was surprised. the same peasants who boldly resented any encroachment upon their personal rights and killed the magistrate who overtaxed them, heard without a murmur of the extinction of their nationality. it has been surmised, as a cause of their lethargy, that they did not hear of it--at least, not simultaneously, but gradually and casually, in the course of years; and it is not improbable that the imperfect means of communication was responsible for their apparent acquiescence. no attempt will be made in the following pages to relate the history of denmark, except in so far as it directly affected that of norway, and the plan of the present work excludes any but the most general characterization of the social conditions. the story of the union will, therefore, be disproportionately short. the death of christopher of bavaria afforded the swedes an opportunity to assert again their independence. the common hatred of the danes enabled the hostile estates to forget their differences and to unite in electing charles knutsson peasant king of sweden. the norsemen had a candidate for the throne of norway in the regent, sigurd jonsson, a descendant of agnes, the daughter of haakon longlegs, but they failed to support him. one party desired to make common cause with sweden and elect charles knutsson, while another favored count christian of oldenborg, who had just been elected in denmark. this latter party, supported by the danish nobles, who already wielded a great influence, was victorious. king christian i. ( - ) arrived in norway in the summer of , and was crowned in the cathedral of drontheim. at a meeting of the council of regency in bergen, it was resolved that norway was to remain eternally united with denmark under one king, but that each kingdom should be free and the other's equal, and should be governed in accordance with its own laws and by native-born officials. [illustration: christianus. i. _rex daniæ._] christian could not give up the thought of reëstablishing the kalmar union, and he therefore waged war for several years with king charles knutsson. in the latter invaded norway and conquered drontheim, but the commandant in bergen, sir olaf nilsson, again drove him back across the frontier. soon internal dissensions in sweden enabled christian to defeat charles and expel him from his country ( ); and, in , the three kingdoms were thus again united. christian's extortions and shameless breaches of faith made him, however, soon so detested both among peasants and nobles, that a rebellion broke out; charles was recalled, and, though he did not at once become master of the situation, he succeeded in keeping the danes at bay. he died as king of sweden in . when christian during the following year made an attempt to conquer sweden, he was overwhelmingly beaten at brunkeberg near stockholm by the regent, steen sture the elder. in norway christian broke his promises with the same cynical disregard as he did in sweden. instead of appointing native officials, he allowed the danish nobles to plunder as of old, and made no effort to discipline them. the german merchants in bergen also became constantly more insolent in their behavior toward the citizens, whom they drove away from the wharves and treated like conquered people; but christian did not dare to restrain them in their violations of law and order, because he feared that the hansa might avenge itself by interfering in his war with sweden. even when the germans murdered sir olaf nilsson, his friend, bishop thorleif, and sixty other citizens, and burned the cloister of munkeliv, the king refrained from punishing them. highly characteristic of the way the danish kings regarded norway was christian's transaction with james iii. of scotland. a marriage was arranged with the latter and christian's daughter margaret, and the dower was fixed at , gülden. as the danish king was unable to pay this amount, he remitted the tribute due from scotland for the hebrides, pawned the orkneys for , gülden and the shetland isles for an additional amount. thus norway lost these ancient dependencies; for it is needless to say that they were never redeemed. christian i. was succeeded by his son hans or johannes ( - ). the norsemen, who had now had a sufficient taste of danish rule, were not anxious to be governed by him, and a rebellion broke out, which, however, was short-lived. the danish nobles, who, by marrying norwegian women, could obtain citizenship, had by this time secured a preponderating power in the council of regency, and had small difficulty in getting their king acknowledged. the swedes resisted until the year , when hans defeated steen sture's army and was declared king of sweden. three years later, however, he suffered a terrible defeat in ditmarsken ( ), whose inhabitants opened the dikes and called in the ocean as their ally. four thousand danes were here slain or drowned, and enormous treasures were lost. this was the signal for renewed risings both in sweden and in norway. the norse knight, sir knut alfsson, of giske, who derived his descent from the old royal house, united with the swedes and defeated duke christian, the king's son, in vestergötland. then he invaded norway and captured the fortresses tunsberghus and akershus; but was besieged in the latter place by the danes under henrik krummedike. seeing small chance of taking the fortress, the danish general invited sir knut to a conference, under safe-conduct, but foully slew him and threw his body into the water. the wretched king apparently approved of this treason, for instead of punishing sir henrik, he heaped honors upon him, and declared the great possessions of the murdered man to be forfeited to the crown. once more the norsemen attempted to throw off the detested danish yoke ( ), under the leadership of the peasant herluf hyttefad, but the country was already too divided between the foreign and the native interest to afford sufficient support for a successful rising. duke christian came with a danish army and quelled the rebellion, and executed its leaders. he did not, however, satisfy himself with this. he was a believer in radical measures. in order to break the rebellious temper of the norsemen, once for all, he captured and murdered as many of the representatives of the great norse families, as he could lay hold of. with atrocious cruelty he raged in norway until every trace of the rebellion seemed extinct. the swedes were more fortunate in their resistance to this blood-thirsty tyrant. after the death of steen sture the elder ( ), they elected svante nilsson sture regent, and after his death, his son, steen sture the younger. these brave and patriotic men conducted the government with wisdom and energy, and succeeded in maintaining themselves against the power of the danes during the remainder of the reign of king hans. christian ii. ( - , d. ), was forced, on mounting the throne, to grant a charter to the nobility, which nearly deprived him of all power. the rule of the nobles had by this time become so great a curse, both in denmark and norway, that any measure for its curtailment seemed justifiable. their principle of government was that of hawks in a poultry-yard. whatever the citizens undertook for their advancement was checked by the interference of the privileged classes; commerce and industry were discouraged, lest the bourgeoisie should gain power enough to assert itself. the peasantry were given absolutely into the barons' power, and their degradation was made complete by the so-called "right of neck and hand," which christian ii. granted as the price of his crown. by this concession the nobles acquired the right to sentence and punish their peasants at their own discretion, without the intercession of the courts. the king, however, felt the humiliation of this concession scarcely less than its victims. he determined to prepare himself for a life and death struggle with the nobility; and with this in view strove to increase his power. he secured foreign alliances and married the wealthiest princess in europe, isabella, sister of the german emperor charles v. in order to reach that summit of power from which he should be able to crush the refractory magnates he deemed it important to regain the crown of sweden, and at bogesund he defeated steen sture the younger, who fell in the battle ( ). the latter had had a bitter enemy in the wily archbishop, gustavus trolle, who made common cause with christian, and crowned him king of sweden. the archbishop thought this a good chance to avenge himself upon his enemies, of steen sture's party, and at his instigation christian executed fifty of the most eminent men in sweden, among whom were two bishops, thirteen members of the council of regency, and many brave citizens. this was the notorious carnage of stockholm. secure in the thought that the swedes were now cowed into submission, christian ii. returned to denmark; but his dastardly deed had an unforeseen effect. a young nobleman, gustavus eriksson wasa, whose father had been beheaded and who had himself been captured by christian, escaped from his prison and became the deliverer of his country. the common indignation against the tyrant united once more all warring factions; the danes were everywhere defeated, and gustavus wasa became first, regent, and later, king of sweden ( ). from that time forth, the power of the danes in sweden was at an end. the failure of his plans abroad discredited christian ii. at home. his overweening self-esteem and impetuosity led him to commit rash acts, whereby he gave his enemies an advantage. also in inaugurating reforms, which would have been beneficial, if they could have been carried into effect, he failed to measure the strength of the opposition which he would be sure to encounter. he issued a decree abolishing serfdom, encouraged commerce and industry, and hoped in the impending struggle to find support among the bourgeoisie and peasants, whose gratitude he had earned. nor did he in this respect deceive himself. but long oppression had made the people timid, and their support was largely passive, and could not, without energetic leaders, be made to assert itself. the upper estates were yet too powerful. christian had, by his devotion to luther's teachings, also added the clergy to the number of his enemies, and by his championship of dutch and native commerce he had incensed the hansa. his uncle, duke frederick, of holstein, took advantage of his many blunders, made alluring promises to the nobility, allied himself with the hansa and began a war against his nephew. christian summoned an assembly of notables to meet him at viborg, but the nobles of jutland, fearing that he might repeat the carnage of stockholm, sent him a letter, revoking their allegiance. christian lost his courage, and instead of summoning the citizens to his support gathered all his treasures and fled to holland ( ). duke frederick, of holstein, now ascended the throne under the name of frederick i. ( - ), and by the aid of the danish nobleman, vincentz lunge, soon succeeded in gaining norway. sir vincentz, who was a highly-cultivated but rapacious and unscrupulous man, had married the daughter of the norse knight, sir nils henriksson, whose wife, inger ottesdatter, was related to the old royal house. this remarkable woman, commonly known as mistress inger of oestraat, played a prominent rôle in her day, but, unhappily, threw the weight of her wealth and influence on the side of the oppressors. one of her daughters married the danish nobleman erik ugerup, another nils lykke, and a fourth was betrothed by her ambitious mother to a swedish impostor who pretended to be a son of steen sture and a candidate for the swedish throne. the doctrines of luther were at that time being zealously preached in sweden and denmark, and were favored by the king and the greater portion of the nobility. in norway there was no effort made to introduce the reformation, and the people there remained devoted to the catholic faith. christian ii. saw in this circumstance a chance of regaining his lost throne. he had previously inclined toward luther, but he now declared himself the champion of the old faith, arrived in norway with a fleet ( ), and gained a large number of adherents. but the same incapacity and imprudence, which had wrecked his fortunes before, again precipitated his downfall. in the critical moment, when resolution and courage were required, christian, as usual, showed himself a poltroon. when the fortress of akershus, which he was besieging, was relieved by the lübeckers, and a danish fleet arrived under the command of knut gyldenstjerne, he began to despair and finally betook himself to denmark under safe-conduct, in order to negotiate with his uncle. on arriving there he was unceremoniously thrown into prison. frederick i., although he had pledged his royal honor, at the request of the nobility, broke his promise and christian was held a prisoner until the day of his death ( ). the norsemen were severely punished for their alliance with the deposed king, although frederick i. had promised them immunity, on condition of their returning to their allegiance. at the death of frederick i. an interregnum of four years occurred ( - ), before a successor was chosen. it was the religious question which had divided denmark into two hostile camps. christian, the oldest son of the late king, was devoted to protestantism, while hans, the younger, had been brought up in the catholic faith. the nobles, accordingly, favored the former, and the clergy the latter, while the lower estates desired to reinstate christian ii. in the possession of his throne. in norway there were but two parties, one headed by vincentz lunge, favoring duke christian, and a catholic party, which pinned its hopes upon the imprisoned king. a sudden show of strength was imparted to the latter's faction, when the lübeckers took up his cause, and their general, count christopher of oldenborg, invaded denmark, and gave the peasantry a chance to avenge themselves upon their oppressors. this opportunity was eagerly embraced; castles were sacked and destroyed, noblemen murdered, and the wildest atrocities committed. for a while civil war raged in denmark with all its horrors, and in the presence of this calamity the opposing parties buried their differences and elected christian iii. king ( - ). by the aid of king gustavus in sweden he succeeded in defeating and expelling count christopher, after whom this war is called the count's feud. the norwegians were not disposed to recognize the validity of king christian's election, concerning which they had not been consulted; and when, after the capitulation of count christopher, the cause of christian ii. seemed hopelessly lost, they declared in favor of his son-in-law, count palatine frederick, whose candidacy was supported by the german emperor. the danish nobles, headed by vincentz lunge, were, of course, adherents of christian iii., while the archbishop, olaf engelbrektsson, was the leader of the opposition. at a meeting in bergen, called for the purpose of electing a king, the people grew furious at the sight of the danish magnates, attacked them and murdered sir vincentz lunge. many others were imprisoned and otherwise maltreated. if the count palatine had now arrived in norway and supported his adherents, there might have been a chance of his success. but unhappily he lacked money and was not effectually aided by the emperor. the archbishop had therefore no choice but to offer his allegiance to christian iii. on condition of his respecting the ancient liberties of the land. but the danish king, though he seemingly acquiesced, had no intention of granting such easy terms. he sailed to norway with his fleet ( ), and although he met with no opposition, he seemed to think that he had conquered the country and had the right to do with it as he chose. he abolished the norwegian council of regency and henceforth administered the government through a viceroy and a chancellor, both of whom were danes. the last vestige of norwegian independence was thus lost, and norway became a province of denmark. archbishop olaf, without awaiting the king's arrival, fled to holland, taking with him the treasures of the cathedral, and died in exile. [illustration] chapter xxxv. norway as a province of denmark ( - ). during the reign of christian iii. the lutheran faith was introduced into denmark, and its introduction into norway followed as a matter of course. the new danish ecclesiastical law, called the ordinance, was also made to apply to the provinces. the landed estates which had belonged to the church were confiscated by the crown or distributed among royal favorites. in fact, the plunder of churches and monasteries was the only evidence of religious zeal which the danes exhibited in norway. the catholic bishops were removed; but many of the priests were allowed to remain, as lutheran pastors were hard to obtain and were needed at home. gradually, however, the change took place; and everywhere aroused discontent among the peasantry. many parishes were left, for long periods, without any kind of religious teaching, and when lutheran pastors were sent up from denmark, they were usually ignorant or vicious men who could not be used at home. ex-soldiers, ex-sailors, bankrupt traders, and all sorts of vagabonds, who were in some way disqualified for making a living, were thought to be good enough to preach the word of god in norway. the majority of them were utterly destitute of theological training, and it is said that there were some who could not even read. no one, then, ought to wonder at the reception they received from their parishioners. some of them were killed, others driven away and horribly beaten. at last physical strength became the prime requisite for holding a pastorate in the norse mountain valleys, and the surest road to popularity for a parson was to thrash the refractory members of his congregation. that inspired respect and inclined the rest more favorably toward his preaching. great credit deserves the first lutheran bishop in bergen, gjeble pedersson, for his efforts to educate a native protestant clergy. the danish language, however, remained the language of the norwegian church; all religious instruction was imparted in it, and at the present day, all who lay claim to culture in norway speak danish. the depredations committed by the danish nobles, during the reign of christian iii., defy description. it was the darkest period in the history of norway, and, as far as the people were concerned, very nearly the darkest, too, in the history of denmark. the power of the nobles reached such a height that the king himself was merely the tool of their will and was used by them, as an instrument for the most cruel and heartless oppression. the discomfiture of the lübeckers in the count's feud was the first serious check which the hansa received in the north, and it never regained its former power. the danish nobleman, christopher valkendorf, who was governor (_lensherre_) in bergen, succeeded in destroying the monopoly of the germans in the fish trade, which now fell into the hands of native merchants. [illustration: belt wrestling, a mode of settling differences formerly in vogue in norway, described in bayard taylor's "lars."] christian iii. was succeeded by his son frederick ii. ( - ), a vain and worthless man, whose fondness for drink shortened his life. he waged a long and costly war with sweden about the right to carry the swedish "three crowns" in the danish coat-of-arms. the norwegians, although their sympathies were at the outset with the swedes, suffered greatly from the inroads of hostile armies, which burned cities and ravaged the land. sweden, regarding norway merely as a danish province, thought to injure its foe, by destroying whatever belonged to him or acknowledged his sway. thus the cathedral of hamar was burned; the fertile districts of aker were harried, and the city of drontheim was taken. the danes burned oslo in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the swedes. two danish governors, ludwig and erik munk, became notorious for their unheard of cruelties and extortions. the peasants sent repeated complaints to the king and threatened rebellion. at last erik munk was sentenced to return all taxes which he had illegally collected, and to restore to a peasant his property, of which he had unlawfully taken possession. later he was deprived of his office, and committed suicide while in prison. the city of frederickstad, which was forced into existence, after the burning of the ancient sarpsborg, bears the name of frederick ii. [illustration: the north cape.] christian iv. ( - ) had not inherited his father's infirmities. he was a man of many excellent qualities; desirous of furthering the welfare of his subjects, but crippled in his efforts by the opposition of the arrogant nobility. what particularly deserves notice was his good disposition toward the norsemen. unlike his predecessors, he paid frequent visits to their country, once even penetrating within the arctic circle. he listened to the complaints of the people, and punished with fines and imprisonment the danish officials who ventured to exceed their rights. the old law of magnus law-mender which, on account of the change of the language, was now hard to comprehend, he abolished, and elaborated, in its stead, a norse law, some regulations of which are yet in force. also the ecclesiastical law or ordinance was altered and adapted to the needs of the country. the present capital of norway, christiania, was founded by him, as also the city of christiansand. the discovery of silver at kongsberg, and of copper at röraas, gave an impetus to the mining industries of the country, and thereby started the growth of two small towns. by his kindness, his love of justice, and his interest in their affairs, christian iv. won the hearts of the norsemen, as no king of the house of oldenborg, before or since. sometimes he dropped in at a peasant's wedding, and drank the health of the bride; watched the games upon the german wharf in bergen, and attended a party at the apothecary's where the jolly guests smashed all the windows. he had a pair of eyes which nothing escaped; and an active and alert mind which turned his observations to good account. all economical questions interested him; whatever he undertook, he supervised with the most minute care every detail of its execution. with level and square in his pocket he walked about testing the soundness of the work of his carpenters, masons, and architects. three great wars, two of which concerned norway, disturbed the reign of christian iv. the first, the so-called kalmar war ( - ), occasioned an invasion of scotch mercenaries hired by the king of sweden. these came, however, to grief at kringen in guldbrandsdale, where the peasants attacked them, and at the first shot killed their commander, colonel sinclair. of the entire force, numbering nine hundred, not one man, it is said, escaped. more fortunate was colonel mönnikhofen, who landed with eight hundred dutch mercenaries in söndmöre, and made his way, ravaging and plundering, across the frontier. the cause of this war was the assumption, on the part of the swedish king, charles ix., of the title of king of the lapps, and his claim to the norwegian province of finmark. charles died during the hostilities, and his son gustavus adolphus made peace at knaeröd, abandoning both the claim and the title. the participation of christian iv. in the thirty years' war, as the ally of the oppressed german protestants, brought him no glory. after his defeat by tilly at lutter and barenberge, the imperial armies overran sleswick and jutland, and at the peace of lübeck ( ), christian had to promise nevermore to meddle in german politics. after this humiliation, he could not see, without alarm, the progress of the swedes in germany; and could not refrain from placing obstacles in their way. the war was being continued, after the death of gustavus adolphus, by able generals and diplomats, who resolved to anticipate the danish king in his efforts to thwart them. before christian suspected that his intentions were revealed, general torstenson crossed the southern frontier, invaded holstein, and advanced into jutland ( ). the danes were utterly unable to resist the conquering host, and though they hotly contested two naval battles, their inability to cope with the swedes soon became apparent. peace was, therefore, concluded at brömsebro; and norway was made to pay the costs of danish incapacity and miscalculation. the two great norse provinces jemteland and herjedale were ceded to sweden; as also the island of gottland, which had latterly belonged to denmark ( ). in norway this war was named hannibal's feud, after the viceroy hannibal sehested, a son-in-law of the king, who, with the aid of the brave parson, kjeld stub, guarded the frontier. one might have supposed that the nobles, at the death of christian iv. would have rested content with the excessive privileges which they already possessed, and allowed his son frederick iii. ( - ) to ascend the throne, without stripping himself of the last remnant of his power. but as long as there was any thing left to grab, it seemed worth grabbing. frederick iii. was, therefore, compelled to grant a more humiliating charter than any of his predecessors, and would have been, if he had long acquiesced in the agreement, a mere shadow king. the arrogance and greed of the nobles, fostered by long security in aggression, became, however, the cause of their downfall. the royal council, which was the real governing power in the state, had the imprudence to declare war against sweden, on the strength of a rumor, that the swedish king, charles x. gustavus, had suffered an overwhelming defeat in poland. this rumor proved to be false, and charles conquered in a short time both jutland and funen, and threatened copenhagen. denmark was completely at his mercy, and the council was compelled to buy peace at roskilde ( ) by the cession of skaane, halland, blekinge, bornholm, and the norwegian provinces, viken and drontheim. and yet in norway the only success of the war had been won, the norwegian general bjelke having conquered jemteland. it seemed as if charles gustavus, after having obtained these enormous advantages, regretted that he had not made an end of denmark altogether. he hesitated to quit danish territory, renewed the war, and was, by aid of the dutch and austrians, who feared his overweening power, defeated at nyborg and repulsed at copenhagen. in norway the trönders revolted successfully against the swedish rule, and the bornholmers likewise drove away the invaders. at the peace of copenhagen ( ), charles gustavus was forced to relinquish his hold upon these provinces, while keeping his other conquests. [illustration: frederick iii., king of denmark and norway.] it was plain that it was chiefly the nobles composing the royal council who were responsible for the degradation which these wars had brought upon denmark. and yet, although they were in possession of great wealth, gained by pillaging the lower estates, they refused to bear any share of the public burdens. the condition of the country was now so desperate and the misery so great that but a breath was needed to kindle the smouldering indignation into flame. the public debt had reached an enormous amount, and there was no prospect of paying it without increased taxation. the king then summoned a diet to meet him at copenhagen, and invited representatives of the clergy and the bourgeoisie to participate in its deliberations. these entered into an alliance with him against the nobles, and the latter, fearing an outbreak of violence, did not at first dare offer any resistance. when they picked up their courage again, the citizens of copenhagen locked the gates and compelled them to come to terms. it was then resolved that denmark should henceforth be an hereditary kingdom, and that the royal council should be abolished. all fiefs were revoked and a new system of administration was introduced, with royal officials, responsible to the king. it was agreed that a constitution should be adopted, and its elaboration was, very unwisely, entrusted to the king. frederick iii. was thus master of the situation, and as the matter seemed to have been left to his discretion, he preferred to rule without any constitution. the so-called royal law, which he endeavored to pass off as such, was rather intended to make his power secure, than to subject it to limitations. thus absolutism pure and simple was introduced into denmark ( ). the danes had jumped from the frying-pan into the fire; and yet, though their condition was not enviable, there was a relief in having one master instead of many. in norway the effects of absolutism were chiefly perceptible in placing the country more nearly upon an equal footing with denmark, and in producing a somewhat improved administration. the nobles continued to hold many lucrative offices, but the king was able to exercise a more restraining influence over them now that his authority was absolute. the fiefs were changed into counties (_amter_) and administered by royal officials with well-defined functions. a chance was presented to citizens to rise in the service of the state, and was improved by several able norsemen, among whom the naval hero, kort adeler, was preëminent. after an honorable career in dutch and venetian service, against the turks, he was made admiral in the danish navy, and greatly increased its efficiency. frederick iii. visited norway but once. the city of frederickshald bears his name. although the royal revenues had been quintupled by the revocation of the fiefs, frederick's son, christian v. ( - ), was always in want of money. he spent his time in all sorts of costly amusements, hoping to rival the splendor of the french king, louis xiv., whom he had taken for his model. in order to counteract the influence of the old danish nobility, which, on account of its wealth, was yet formidable, christian v. created a new court nobility of counts and barons, most of whom were germans. german became the language of the court, and lands and lucrative offices were given away to german favorites. in order to procure money wherewith to imitate the glittering vices of versailles, christian v. sold his subjects, both norwegians and danes, as mercenaries for foreign service. he had an able adviser in his chancellor, griffenfeld, who rose from poverty to the highest position, in order as suddenly to be plunged into misery. his enemies aroused the fickle king's suspicions as to his loyalty; and he was condemned to death, but his sentence, on the scaffold, was commuted to imprisonment for life. "oh mercy more cruel than death," he exclaimed. toward the end of his life he was, however, pardoned. christian v. had a new code of laws elaborated for norway, which is yet partly in force. he waged a futile war with sweden which cost blood and treasure, but brought no advantage to either of the combatants. frederick iv. ( - ) ascended the throne like his father, by right of inheritance, but did not in other respects follow in his footsteps. he was a shrewd, but ignorant man; penurious, industrious, and heartless. by his feud with the duke of holstein, he came into collision with the latter's brother-in-law, charles xii., of sweden, and after a brief and unsuccessful campaign, made peace on unfavorable terms at travendal ( ). when, however, charles xii., in , lost the battle of pultawa, in russia, frederick thought his opportunity had come for regaining what he had lost; wherefore he entered into an alliance with russia and poland and began the great northern war ( - ). sixteen thousand danish troops invaded skaane, but were beaten by the swedish general, magnus stenbock ( ). in the naval battle of kjögebugt, the norseman, ivar hvitfeldt, who commanded the ship dannebrog, made a valiant attack upon the swedish fleet. his ship, however, took fire, and although he might have saved himself by beaching it, such a course would have endangered the rest of the danish fleet, which lay nearer shore. hvitfeldt, therefore stayed where he was, sending volley after volley against the swedes, while death was staring him in the face. when the fire reached the powder magazine, he, with five hundred men, was blown into the air. on his return to sweden in charles attempted to conquer norway and penetrated by three different routes into the country. he himself commanded the division which entered höland ( ). the norwegian colonel kruse met him with men, who fought with such heroism, that charles, brave as he was himself, was filled with admiration. "has my brother, king frederick, many such officers as thou?" he asked the colonel, as he lay wounded at his feet. "oh, yes," answered kruse, "he has plenty of them, and i am far from being among the ablest." in his blindness, frederick had, in order to raise money, hired out a large number of the country's defenders as mercenaries, leaving only a wretched little, half-naked and half-starved force of , men under general lützow. charles with his well-drilled troops expected to make short work of such paltry opponents. but he failed to take account of the norsemen's temper. every man, young and old--nay, many a woman, too, was ready to defend hearth and home against the foe. colonel löwen, whom he had sent with men to destroy the silver mines of kongsberg, was captured with swedes, by the norsemen at the parsonage in ringerike, after having been hoodwinked by the parson's wife, the intrepid and quick-witted anna kolbjörnsdatter. when, suspecting that he was trapped, löwen put the pistol to her head, she asked, coolly: "do you serve your king in order to kill old women?" charles captured christiania, but could accomplish nothing against the fortress of akershus. the citizens of frederickshald burned their town, so that it might not afford a shelter for the swedes against the cannon of the fortress fredericksteen. here the two brave and patriotic brothers, peter and hans kolbjörnsson, half-brothers of anna, distinguished themselves, and, with their hardy volunteers, harassed the enemy incessantly. it became evident to charles that he could not take the norse fortresses without artillery, and he expected a convoy from home with field-cannon and other munitions of war. but this expectation, too, failed. his fleet was destroyed in dynekilen by a daring deed of tordenskjold, the greatest naval hero that norway has produced. tordenskjold, having learned from some fishermen that the swedish admiral was to have a banquet on board, that night, concluded that the officers would scarcely be in condition for fighting, after having risen from the table. he cried to his lieutenant, peter grib: "i hear that the swedish admiral is going to have a carousal on his fleet. would it not be advisable if we went with our ships and became his guests, though unbidden? the pilot says we have wind." under a rattling fire from the shore batteries tordenskjold ran into dynekilen and attacked the hostile fleet. he was right in his supposition that the enemy had imbibed heavily. but the danger sobered them. after three hours of heavy cannonading, the swedish admiral capitulated with ships and cannon. when this intelligence reached the king, he began his retreat from norway. but he could not give up the thought of conquering a country which was so poorly equipped for defence. in he sent general armfelt with , men against drontheim and moved, himself, against fredericksteen with , . the outer redoubt was stormed and taken and trenches were dug toward the main fortress. in one of these trenches charles was standing, when he was hit in the head by a bullet from the fortress and fell dead. armfelt, on receiving this intelligence, immediately retreated toward the frontier, but lost a great number of men, who froze and starved to death upon the mountains. thus the war was at an end, and peace was concluded in fredensborg ( ). [illustration: the capercailzie in norway.] the fortitude of the norsemen had saved denmark from a great danger. frederick iv. rewarded their staunchness and intrepidity by subjecting them to further pillaging. in order to raise money for danish needs, he sold all the churches of norway to private parties, contending that, if the people owned them, they must have deeds and papers proving their right of property. by this miserable quibble, he pretended to give a show of legality to his spoliations. the trade with finmark he sold to three citizens of copenhagen, who interpreted their monopoly as a license for unlimited extortion. the population sank into misery and degradation. during the reign of frederick iv. lived the norseman ludvig holberg, who was born in bergen, . he spent his life, however, in denmark, writing a great number of excellent comedies, in molière's style, mock-heroic poems, satires and historical works. the life of the first half of the eighteenth century is vividly portrayed and satirized in his writings. christian vi. ( - ) was an extreme pietist, and surrounded himself with germans who sympathized with his morbid and lugubrious religion. he was lavish in his expenditures, built costly palaces, and introduced a rigid ceremonial at his court. the one meritorious act of his reign was the issue of a decree ordering confirmation in the lutheran faith, and thus indirectly compelling all classes of the people to learn to read. well-meant, but misdirected, were his efforts to encourage trade and manufactures, and positively disastrous was his decree forbidding the inhabitants of southern norway to import grain from any other country than denmark. [illustration: carved lintel, stabbur, or store-house; carved beer-mugs.] frederick v. ( - ) was a man of kindly nature, but limited intelligence. he opened the theatres, which his father had closed, and abolished the many arduous regulations for the keeping of the sabbath. he came within a hair of having war with russia, and was only saved by the murder of the emperor, peter iii. but the great preparations he had made necessitated an increase of taxation, which especially fell heavily upon the poor norse peasants. in bergen, the "extra-tax" led to a revolt. the peasants broke into the city, and insulted and maltreated the magistrates, whereupon the tax was abolished. the norwegian military academy in christiania was founded during the reign of this king, as also the academy of sciences in drontheim. christian vii. ( - ) succeeded to the throne at the age of seventeen, and wasted his youth in the wildest dissipation. his vitality was accordingly used up before he reached mature manhood, and insanity followed. during a journey abroad, he became much attached to his body physician, a german, named struensee, and, after his return, made him prime-minister, and left the government entirely in his hands. struensee was a man of great ability, penetrated with the ideas of voltaire and rousseau, and rather headlong in the reforms which he introduced. the nobles and the queen-dowager, juliana maria, hated him, and, by their influence, the king was induced to sign an order for his arrest. from the prison to the block the road was short. a favorite of the queen-dowager, named ove guldberg, carried on the government during the next twelve years, and revoked all struensee's liberal measures. he endeavored to abolish the very name of norseman, insisting that no such nationality existed, all being citizens of the danish state. during the reign of the last three kings, norway had, owing to the peace, steadily advanced in material prosperity. the population had, in one hundred years, nearly doubled, being, in , , ; and the merchant marine had, since the destruction of the hanseatic monopoly, grown from to , ships. a class of native officials, educated at the university of copenhagen, began to replace the danish, and, by the sale of the estates of the crown, the number of freeholders among the peasants was largely increased. as the insanity of the king made him unable to attend to the government, his son, crown prince frederick, became, in , the responsible regent, and made an excellent selection of a premier in andreas bernsdorff ( - ). this capable and enlightened man piloted denmark and norway safely through the stormy times of the french revolution. in the latter country four provincial superior courts were established, and a peculiar institution called "commissions of reconciliations," intended to prevent litigation. in denmark had the imprudence to conclude a treaty of armed neutrality with russia and sweden, with a view to resisting the right, which england demanded, of searching the ships of non-combatants for munitions of war. it was the aim of england to cut france off from all commercial intercourse with the rest of the world and, as munitions of war were regarded not only guns and powder, but grain and all kinds of provisions. the norwegian and danish merchant marines, which were then doing a great business as carriers, were injured by this arbitrary interpretation. the government was, however, not strong enough to bid defiance to england, and after the battle in copenhagen harbor (april , ) denmark was forced to retire from the "armed neutrality." the crown prince, frederick, seemed, however, to have a poor idea of the power of england, for his policy soon again began to show symptoms of friendliness for the emperor of the french. according to a secret agreement between napoleon and alexander of russia ( ) at the peace of tilsit, the former was to take possession of the danish fleet, and by means of it dispute england's dominion over the sea. the english government soon got wind of this plan, and immediately demanded the temporary surrender of the danish fleet, guaranteeing its return as soon as peace was reëstablished. when this demand was refused, the english landed troops on seeland and surrounded copenhagen, while from the sea side they bombarded the city for three days and a half ( ). the danes then had no choice but to surrender their fleet, but, owing to their resistance, it was never returned. this second battle of copenhagen threw denmark more completely into the arms of napoleon, and when the emperor's star declined and set, his ally was left helpless at the mercy of his enemies. owing to the isolation of denmark during the war and the difficulty of maintaining communication, norway was temporarily governed by a commission, or council of regency, under the presidency of prince christian august of augustenborg. [illustration: peasants dancing.] when frederick vi. ( - ), at the death of his insane father, mounted the throne, the condition of his two countries was deplorable. his wrong-headed policy had placed him in a position which was wellnigh desperate. the war with england had put an embargo upon all commerce, and famine and misery were the result. norway, which, without being consulted, had been dragged into this maze of difficulties, suffered from constant naval attacks, to which it was, by its long coast-line, particularly exposed. the finances were in hopeless disorder. to add to the confusion, a war broke out with sweden, which, in time, had seen its advantage in seeking an english alliance. general armfelt once more invaded the country, but christian august did not lose his courage. the council of regency unfolded a heroic activity in carrying out his measures for the defence of the land, and divisions of norwegian troops beat the swedes in three successive fights (toverud, trangen, and prestebakke). simultaneously sweden was attacked by russia, which had guaranteed to enforce the stipulations of the peace of tilsit, one of which was the blockading of the swedish ports against the english. but the obstinate king, gustavus iv., would not give his consent to this measure, in consequence of which the russians invaded finland, and, after several hotly contested engagements, drove the swedes out. the result of these disasters was the dethronement of the king and the election of his brother, charles xiii., as his successor. as the latter was childless, he was induced to adopt the regent of norway, prince christian august, as his heir, and there was thus a chance of the peaceful union of norway and sweden under an able and popular king. but, unhappily, this beloved prince died very soon after, at a review of troops in skaane ( ). at the peace of frederickshamn, sweden was obliged to cede finland to russia, but by the treaty of paris was guaranteed possession of pomerania, on condition of its adhering to napoleon's so-called "continental system." this naturally involved war with england, which was the one unconquered and irreconcilable enemy of the emperor; but as long as sweden refrained from actively aiding napoleon, england, which had its hands full elsewhere, assumed an expectant attitude and exercised no hostilities. but this semi-neutrality was far from satisfying napoleon. enraged by the indecision of charles xiii., he again occupied pomerania, thereby giving sweden a pretext for openly siding with his enemies. peace was concluded with england at oerebro ( ), and soon after sweden joined the great european alliance, which had for its object the overthrow of napoleon. this change of policy was, no doubt, to a large extent, due to jean baptiste bernadotte, prince of pontecorvo, who had risen from the ranks in napoleon's service, had become a field marshal, and after the death of christian august, had been made crown prince of sweden ( ). at a meeting with alexander of russia at aabo, he was promised norway, as a reward for his adherence to the cause of the allies; and the same promise was later repeated by england. the condition of norway, during this period, was aggravated by the continued blockading of her ports by the english. in a famine broke out, and the people were obliged to grind birch bark into flour and bake it into bread. the depreciation of the danish paper money swept away the savings of thousands of families, and demoralized all commercial relations. everywhere the greatest discontent prevailed at the union with denmark, which had brought the country to such a strait. the tardy grant of a charter for a norwegian university ( ) which had before been refused, caused a temporary enthusiasm, but did not allay the discontent. the political sense which seemed to have been dormant for centuries, began to awake again, and a feeling of independence and a desire for national self-assertion found expression in the society for norway's welfare, ( ), in the liberal contributions to the university, and in a sudden patriotic ferment, which pervaded the land. the native official class came to the front as the leaders and exponents of these political aspirations, and rendered important service by formulating the people's desires and leading them toward rational aims. to be disposed of, like chattels, by foreign powers, which had no sympathy with norway's traditions, nor interest in her welfare, was revolting to their self-respect, and amid all the insecurity, which the various moves upon the foreign diplomatic chess-board produced, a stubborn determination to resist to the utmost asserted itself among the thinking classes of the people. as long, however, as norway was a mere appendage of denmark, it could not escape being involved in the consequences of king frederick's policy. when, after napoleon's disastrous campaign in russia, the allies demanded the surrender of norway to sweden, the king refused and sent his cousin, prince christian frederick, to govern the country as viceroy. but napoleon's defeat at leipsic and bernadotte's invasion of holstein, at the head of a large army, compelled him to come to terms. at the peace of kiel, (january , ) he ceded norway to sweden, and soon after released the norsemen from their allegiance to him, giving up all claim upon their country for himself and his descendants. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xxxvi. norway recovers her independence. the indignation which the peace of kiel aroused in norway was evidence that the norsemen had awakened from their long hibernating torpor and meant to assert their rights. they were quite ready to give up their allegiance to frederick vi., but contended that he had no right to dispose of it to any one else. remembering how their country had without its own consent, contrary to law and treaties, become a dependency of denmark, they held that the sovereignty, which frederick renounced, reverted to the people who were thus in position to bestow it upon whom they chose. the viceroy, christian frederick, finding this sentiment very general, refused to abide by the decision of the powers and summoned several representative men to meet him at eidsvold ( ). it had been his first intention to claim the crown of norway by hereditary right and to govern as absolute monarch. but yielding to the advice of professor sverdrup and other patriotic men, he declared himself ready to accept the crown from the people and to govern in accordance with the constitution which the people should adopt. in order to explore the sentiment throughout the country, the prince had travelled in the middle of winter across the dovre mountain to drontheim, and there were many who believed that it had been his intention to have himself crowned at once in the ancient city of kings. in guldbrandsdale he stopped to read the inscription upon the monument, erected to commemorate the destruction of sinclair and his scottish mercenaries: [illustration: prince christian frederick, viceroy of norway; later, king of denmark (christian viii.).] "woe to the norseman whose blood does not course more warmly through his veins when he looks upon this stone." "are you, too," he asked the peasants who had come to see him, "like your forefathers, willing to sacrifice life and blood for your country?" the result of the deliberations at eidsvold was the summoning of a diet, consisting of representatives of the people from all parts of the country. the place of meeting was again eidsvold, and the number of representatives was , most of whom were officials. a constitution, which was extremely liberal in its provisions, was adopted may , , and prince christian frederick was elected king. norway was declared to be a free and independent country, but there was a division of opinion as to whether it should seek a union with sweden or maintain a king of its own. the so-called party of independence, which was led by judge falsen, professor sverdrup, and captain motzfeldt, largely outnumbered the friends of sweden, prominent among whom were count wedel-jarlsberg, chamberlain peder anker, iron-master jacob aal, and the rev. nicolai wergeland. the latter were not desirous of surrendering the liberty of the country, believing, on the contrary, that liberty was securer in a union with a stronger power. the smallness of norway and the inability of the people to maintain an army adequate for its defence would, in their opinion, ultimately make the country the prey of any foreign power that chose to pick a quarrel with it. the norwegian constitution, which, slightly amended, is yet in force, provides that: . norway shall be a limited, hereditary, monarchy, independent and indivisible, whose ruler shall be called king. . the people shall exercise the legislative power through their representatives. . the people shall alone have the right to levy taxes through their representatives. . the king shall have the right to declare war and to make peace. . the king shall have the right of pardon. . the judicial authority shall be separated from the executive and the legislative power. . there shall be liberty of the press. . the evangelical lutheran religion shall be the religion of the state and of the king. . no personal or hereditary privileges shall, in future, be granted to any one. . every male citizen, irrespective of birth, station, or property, shall be required, for a certain length of time, to carry arms in defence of his country. the representatives at eidsvold were not unaware that the step which they had taken involved war with sweden. for bernadotte would scarcely regard the resolutions of a deliberative assembly as an obstacle to the possession of the prize, which he had earned by assisting in the overthrow of napoleon. in the meanwhile, it was a happy circumstance to the norsemen, that this overthrow had not yet taken place, and that the emperor for several months kept the army of the allies busy, thereby preventing bernadotte from turning his immediate attention to norway. it was a surprise to him to find the norsemen determined to defend their rights, as he imagined that their long dependence upon denmark had accustomed them to obedience and subordination. a letter which charles xiii. had sent them, previous to the diet at eidsvold, offering them a constitution and a swedish viceroy, had been received with indignation, but after the surrender of paris (march st) and the abdication of the emperor, the napoleonic drama seemed preliminarily at an end, and there were no more foreign complications to prevent the swedes from enforcing the paragraph in the treaty of kiel, relating to norway. the intelligence now arrived that the great powers had promised bernadotte to compel norway to accept the treaty, and envoys were sent from the various courts, commanding the norsemen forthwith to submit themselves unconditionally to the king of sweden. this the norsemen refused to do, and soon after a swedish army under bernadotte crossed the frontier. the newly elected king now began to waver, and, being destitute of warlike spirit, he ordered the surrender of the fortress fredericksteen to the swedish fleet, without having fired a shot in its defence. the norwegian army, ill-provided though it was with food and ammunition, was eager for fight, but the faint-spirited king showed his generalship chiefly in retreating. a second division of the swedish army under gahn was beaten in lier by the norwegians, under colonel krebs, and after a second assault at matrand was forced to retire across the frontier. it became obvious that, without bloodshed, the conquest of the country was not to be accomplished, and as the swedes, after their german campaign, were no less desirous of peace than the norsemen, an armistice was concluded at moss (august , ), in accordance with the terms of which the king should summon an extraordinary _storthing_ or parliament, for the negotiation of a permanent peace. this _storthing_, which met october th, accepted king christian frederick's renunciation of the norwegian crown and elected charles xiii. king, on condition of his recognizing the independence of norway and governing it, in accordance with the constitution given at eidsvold. these terms bernadotte accepted, in behalf of the king of sweden (november th), and swore allegiance to the constitution. the swedish troops then evacuated the country, and christian frederick returned to denmark, where, at the death of his cousin, he became king under the name of christian viii. the following year a convention was negotiated with sweden, fixing the terms of the union (_rigsakten_). the bank of norway was established in drontheim, and a supreme court in christiania. [illustration: charles xiv. john. (bernadotte.) king of norway and sweden.] to all appearances norway had now regained her independence. considering the desperate position in which the country was placed in , resisting single-handed the decree of the powers, there can be no doubt that the terms of the union were more favorable than there was reason to expect. for all that, there was one feature of it which was incompatible with the idea of independence, and that was the presence in the capital of a swedish viceroy (_statholder_), representing the authority of the king. bernadotte, who, at the death of charles xiii. ( ), succeeded to the throne under the name of charles xiv. john ( - ), scarcely regarded, at first, the independence of norway seriously, but rather allowed the norsemen to deceive themselves with an illusion of liberty, as long as their illusion was harmless. but he showed plainly his irritation when he found that the _storthing_ began to oppose his measures, and to insist upon a stricter interpretation of the constitution. one of the first causes of contention was the question of the payment by norway of a part of the danish public debt which charles john had guaranteed in the treaty of kiel. the _storthing_ was of opinion that, as norway had never accepted the treaty of kiel, it could not be bound by any of its stipulations. a compromise was finally effected by which the king renounced his civil list from norway for ten years for himself and his son, the crown prince, and the _storthing_ of agreed to pay about three million dollars. simultaneously came the struggle about the abolition of the nobility. three successive _storthings_ passed a law, abolishing noble titles and privileges, and the king, who feared a conflict with the powerful nobility of sweden, in case he sanctioned it, made repeated efforts to induce the _storthing_ to abandon its position. he urged that norway was watched by the powers of europe, and that the democratic spirit which manifested itself in its legislative assembly would arouse suspicion and hostility abroad. the _storthing_, however, remained inflexible, and finally the law was promulgated, though in a slightly modified form. those of the privileges of the nobility which were in conflict with the constitution were forthwith abolished; their exemption from taxation and all personal privileges should cease on the demise of the nobles then living, and should not be inherited by their descendants. this postponed the final abolition of nobility for one generation. a number of other laws and proposals for laws, concerning which the king and the _storthing_ differed, caused ill-feeling and excitement during the reign of charles john. and it is indeed marvellous, considering the comparative inexperience of the representatives in political life, that they dared present so bold a front and insist so strenuously upon their rights. to these intrepid men norway owes the position she occupies to-day. for, if they had been meek and conciliatory, accepting gratefully what the king was pleased to grant them, their country would inevitably have sunk into a provincial relation to sweden, as it had formerly to denmark. the manly ring and fearless self-assertion, which resound through the debates of those early _storthings_, show that the ancient strength was still surviving, and could, indeed, never have been dead. no inert and degraded nation can draw such representatives from its midst; and the fact that norway has continued to draw them, up to the present time, shows that she is truly represented by manliness and fearless vigor--that she is worthy of the liberty she gained. the attitude which the norwegian _storthings_ assumed toward the king is illustrated by the determination with which they resisted his efforts to extend the royal authority. though he had been trained in the school of the french revolution, charles john was no believer in democracy or "the rights of man." he was an able ruler, a skilful diplomat, and a man of honorable intentions. but he had been too little in norway to comprehend the spirit of the norwegian people; and he was forced, in order to maintain his position among his brother monarchs, to sympathize with the reactionary tendencies which asserted themselves throughout europe after the overthrow of napoleon. in he proposed ten amendments to the constitution, which were unanimously rejected by the _storthing_ of . among these amendments was one giving the king an absolute instead of, as formerly, a suspensive veto; another, conferring upon him the right to appoint the presiding officer of the _storthing_, and a third, authorizing him to dissolve the _storthing_ at pleasure. the former minister of state, christian krogh, gained great popularity by recommending the rejection of these propositions, and the king's persistence in bringing them up before several successive _storthings_ did not secure them a more favorable reception. [illustration: skee-running; after a cartoon by h. n. gausta.] an eminent figure in the political struggles of those days was the poet henrik wergeland, who, as the leader of the students, persisted in celebrating the anniversary of the constitution (may th) contrary to the king's command, instead of the anniversary of the union with sweden (november th). the king exaggerated the importance of this demonstration and in called out troops, which dispersed, by force of arms, the multitude celebrating the national holiday. wergeland, though he personally professed reverence for the king, did not evince the same reverence for his policy, and by his indefatigable activity in prose and verse nourished the defiant and aggressive patriotism of his countrymen. in an intoxication of patriotic pride he sang the praise of liberty and celebrated the beauties of forest, mountain, and fjord; and a chorus of minor poets declaimed about norway's lion, and the rocks of norway which "defied the tooth of time." there was a good deal that was boyish and irrational in this enthusiasm; but it was wholesome and genuine and politically useful. that charles john did not only hold up the powers as a scarecrow, with which to frighten the norsemen, but was himself restrained in his policy by a regard for their opinion, is obvious enough. the political ferment which, after the july revolution ( ) in france, spread throughout europe and also reached norway, caused him much apprehension, and in order to intimidate the steadily progressing democracy, he suddenly dissolved the _storthing_ of . the _storthing_, regarding this dissolution as contrary to law, indicted the minister of state, löwenskjold, before the high court of the realm (_rigsret_), and sentenced him to pay a fine for not having dissuaded the king from violating the constitution. this boldness, instead of impelling the king to further measures of repression, induced him to make a concession. he conciliated the norsemen by appointing their countryman, count wedel-jarlsberg, as viceroy. this was a great step toward real independence and made the king justly popular. during the last years of his life, after he had given up the hope of stemming the tide of democracy, charles john won the hearts of the norsemen and he was sincerely mourned at his death ( ). the remnants of subordination in norway's relation to sweden were one by one removed during the reign of charles john's son, oscar i. ( - ). he gave to norway a flag of her own, carrying, as a symbol of the union, the blended colors of both countries in the upper corner; and what was more, he practically abolished the viceroyalty, though permanently it was not abolished until . peace and prosperity reigned in the land; the population increased rapidly, and all industries were in a flourishing condition. it had, hitherto, been chiefly the official and the mercantile class which had participated in the public life, but now the peasants, too, began to assert themselves and to send representatives from their own midst to the _storthing_. the political awakening penetrated to all strata of society; and many sturdy figures appeared in the halls of the legislative assembly, fresh from the plough and the harrow. eminent among these were ole gabriel ueland and sören jaaboek. a prudent moderation, coupled with a tough tenacity of purpose, is characteristic of these modern peasant chieftains. good common-sense, incorruptibility, and a stern regard for the useful have enabled them to render valuable service to the nation. eloquent they are not; nor are they, in the conventional sense, cultivated. but they have usually, by experience, accumulated a considerable store of facts, which in its application to the legislative business is more valuable than loosely acquired book-learning. their struggles with a rough climate and a poor soil have made them economical; and they naturally apply their parsimonious habits to the business of state. being the principal tax-payers of the country they have the right to influence its fiscal policy; and norway has profited by their careful husbanding of her resources. they know, however, when to spend as well as when to save; and the many costly railroads, highways, schools, and other improvements, which have come into existence since the peasant party commanded a majority in the _storthing_, give evidence of a prudent liberality and a well-balanced regard for the public weal, which one might scarcely have expected in people, whose chief experience is derived from the tilling of the soil. the majority of them, however, bring with them some practice in public life from home, as since the establishment of parish and municipal councils (_formandskaber_), ( ), the management of local affairs is almost entirely in the hands of local tax-payers. [illustration: bride and groom.] the first sleswick-holstein war, between germany and denmark, occurred during king oscar's reign ( ), and induced him to make a military demonstration in skaane; and during the following year, when the war, after an armistice, broke out anew, to occupy north sleswick with swedish and norwegian troops, pending the negotiations for peace. in the crimean war, king oscar sided with england and france, which, by a treaty of , guaranteed their aid, in case of hostilities with russia. king oscar died at the age of sixty ( ), and was succeeded by his oldest son, charles xv. ( - ). he was a chivalrous character, and endowed with literary and artistic talents. the same good-will toward norway which animated his father had been inherited by him, and all efforts, on the part of the _storthing_, to further the welfare of the land, were readily seconded. the norwegian merchant marine, which is one of the largest in the world, carried the flag of norway to the remotest ports; the lumber trade increased, and the wealth obtainable in manufactures and commerce stimulated the energy of norse merchants, and quickened everywhere the pulses of life. religious liberty was increased by the law concerning dissenters ( ), although there is, in this respect, yet much to be accomplished. in , the paragraph of the constitution excluding jews from the country was repealed, owing largely to the agitation commenced, some years before, by the poet wergeland. the telegraph was introduced, and soon extended from the north cape to lindesness. in , a law was passed, making the _storthings_ annual, instead of, as hitherto, triennial. charles xv. died in the prime of life, and, having no sons, was succeeded ( ) by his brother, oscar ii., who is still reigning. the progress toward a more complete and consistent democracy, which had been going on, since the adoption of the constitution, has recently reached a crisis, which might have had disastrous consequences, if the king had not wisely made concessions to the parliamentary majority. there were really two points at issue, viz., the absolute veto in constitutional questions and the control of the government. as regards the former, the king held that the norwegian constitution was a contract between him and the norwegian people, prescribing the terms of the union. accordingly, it could not be altered without the consent of both parties. he had, therefore, the right to insist upon the terms of the contract, and to forbid any alteration of it, that did not meet with his approval. there can be no doubt but that legally this point was well taken; and the faculty of law in the university sustained the king's position. another question is, whether such a contract, if eternally enforced, would not cripple the nation's progress, and in time become as great a curse, as once it had been a blessing. if the framers of the constitution, when they submitted it to charles john, failed to provide for its amendment, they committed a serious error, which may, perhaps, be binding upon their descendants, in point of law, but scarcely in point of equity. no constitution, however excellent, is fitting for all times; and the constitution of eidsvold is no exception to the rule. this struggle over the absolute veto was occasioned by the king's refusal to sanction a law, passed by three successive _storthings_, admitting the cabinet ministers to participation in the debates of the house, so as to establish a closer _rapport_ between the people and the government. this seemed especially desirable, as long as the king and a division of the cabinet were resident in stockholm, and, accordingly, were in danger of losing sight of the needs of the people whom they were governing. the king declared himself ready to sign this law, if the ministers were given the right to vote, and the right was granted him to dissolve the _storthing_ at will. it seemed to him a disturbance of the balance of power to introduce one feature of english parliamentarism, giving an advantage to the legislature, without also granting the other, which enabled the executive to exert a restraining influence. the _storthing_ was, however, unwilling to grant this right, being of opinion that there was no need of governmental restraint, where elections were triennial. the ministry, selmer, which maintained the attitude here ascribed to the king, was impeached by the _storthing_ before the high court of the realm, for having refused to promulgate the law concerning the participation of the ministers in the deliberations of the house, and for failing, in other points, to carry out the will of the _storthing_. [illustration: oscar ii.] the other phase of the question was scarcely less important. a certain antagonism had early developed itself between the official class, which had been accustomed to take the lead in public affairs, and the peasantry, which became every year more conscious of its power. the king, who is naturally conservative, chose his advisers from those, whose political views accorded with his own, irrespective of parliamentary majorities. the constitution did not limit his liberty of choice, and the _storthing_ could scarcely do it, without passing an amendment, which he would be sure to veto. the conservative ministry, stang, conducted the government for many years with a hostile majority in the _storthing_, and the ministry, selmer, which succeeded it ( ), had even less popular support. the result was a deadlock; legislative business threatened to come to a standstill. the impeachment and conviction of mr. selmer and his colleagues brought a fresh ministry of officials into power, which, after a few months, resigned. the king then sent for mr. sverdrup, the leader of the "left," or liberal party, and effected a compromise, in accordance with which he agreed to sanction the law in question, and to summon a ministry, representing the party of the majority, without, however, surrendering, in principle, his right to an absolute veto in constitutional questions. since then the executive and the legislative power have worked together in harmony, and the former good relation between the king and the people has been in a measure re-established. it will be seen from the above, that norway has, through the conflicts of seventy years, gradually attained to perfect independence and equality with the brother kingdom. all attempts to amalgamate the two nations have failed, and have, long since, been abandoned. politically, the person of the king expresses the union. he is king of norway and he is king of sweden, but he governs each country in accordance with its own laws and through distinct and separate ministries. each country has its own parliament; no swede holds office in norway, and no norseman in sweden. the only offices which are open to citizens of both countries are those of the diplomatic and consular service. the general sentiment in norway is opposed to a closer union. a stubborn insistence upon every feature of national distinctness has characterized the people, since the separation from denmark. thus an effort has been made to get rid of the "union mark" in the norwegian flag; because it seemed vaguely to hint at a provincial relation. a separate literature has sprung up in the norse dialects (_maalsträv_), because the danish, which is yet spoken, with some modifications, by the cultivated classes, is a reminder of the period of degradation, and is not the language of the people. popular high schools, aiming to build the intellectual life of the people upon a strictly national basis, have been started by devoted and patriotic men, in nearly all the provincial parishes, and have produced excellent results. the national literature, under the lead of men like björnstjerne björnson, and henrik ibsen, is moving in the same direction, its language being continually enriched from the dialects, and its themes largely drawn from the ancient sagas and the life of the people. the aggressive and declamatory patriotism of wergeland, and the æsthetic and more cosmopolitan patriotism of his opponent, welhaven, seem equally alien to the norsemen of to-day. the frank national self-assertion of the present poets is that of a people, proud of its past, and secure in its national existence. the norseman, having obtained what is his due, has cause for jealousy neither of sweden nor of denmark. in an age when strength, bravery, and an adventurous spirit made a nation eminent, norway played a great rôle upon the arena of the world, founding and destroying kingdoms, mingling her vigorous blood with that of other nations, and infusing her love of liberty, restrained by law, into their souls. since powder and modern strategy have subordinated heroism to discipline and numbers, norway must resign herself to the fate which her numerical weakness imposes upon her. a people of scarcely two millions can cut no very great figure in the world, as it is now constituted. it must either rest upon its laurels or win new ones in other fields. as the militant organization of society, with its needless bloodshed and oppression, slowly yields to the industrial, history will find another gauge of merit than that of krupp guns and heavy battalions. then, perhaps, there will again be a chance for small nations to assert themselves. [illustration: bjÖrnstjerne bjÖrnson.] norway has made a beginning in this direction by her contributions, during recent years, to science and literature. the astronomer hansteen (d. ), the mathematicians abel and sophus lie, the zoölogist sars, the historians munch, keyser, sars, and storm, and the philologist ivar aason, have gained recognition, beyond the boundaries of their own country. the painters tidemand (d. ) and gude have interpreted in colors the poetry of norse popular life and scenery. the musicians ole bull (d. ), nordraak, and grieg have made the melancholy strains of their native mountains resound through the concert-halls of paris and london, and the poets björnson, ibsen, jonas lie, and alexander kielland have made norway known to the world and the world known to norway. they have broken down the wall which so long hedged in their country, and excluded it from the intellectual life of europe. [illustration] [illustration] index a aabo, aachen, , aake, the yeoman, aal, jacob, aale hallvardsson, aaluf, aamunde gyrdsson, aaros, aasa, aasa, haakon grjotgardsson's daughter, aasbjörn sigurdsson, , aasbjörn of medalhus, aasen, ivar, aasgerd, wife of egil baldgrim's son, , aasta, mother of olaf the saint, , , , , , , aastrid, queen of olaf the saint, aastrid, olaf tryggvesson's mother, , , , aastrid, olaf tryggvesson's sister, aastrid, daughter of thirik, aastrid, wife of earl sigvalde, , aasulf of austraat, abel, mathematician, absalon, bishop, , , adalbert of bremen, adeler, kort, aeger, aelgifa, see alfifa aesir, , africa, , agdeness, , agder, , , , , agmund skoftesson, agnes, queen of denmark, agnes, daughter of haakon longlegs, agvaldsness, , aker, , akershus, , , , akron, albrecht of mecklenburg, , , , , alexander newsky, alexander iv., pope, alexander i., emperor of russia, , alexander iii., king of scotland, , , alexius i., comnenus, alexius iii., angelus, alf askman, alf erlingsson, - alf guldbrandsson, alfheim, alfhild, mother of magnus the good, alfifa, - alfonso the wise, alfvine, , allogia, see olga almannagjaa, alsted, _althing_, , amboise, america, , amsterdam, amund sigurdsson bolt, andres skjaldarband, , andvake, anglesey, anglo-saxon, , , anker, peder, anna kolbjörnsdatter, ansgarius, st., anund, anund jacob, king of sweden, , , , , apostles, church of the, arctic circle, arinbjörn thoresson, , , armfelt, general, , arnbjörn jonsson, , arnmodlings, aryans, , , , asaheim, asgard, , , , , asgeir, asia, , , ask, askatin, aslak erlingsson, aslak rock-skull, astrid, sverre's first wife, audhumbla, audun hugleiksson, , aun the old, aura-paul, austrian, b baard, steward of erik blood-axe, , bagler, - , , balder, , bald grim, , , , , , baldwin, baltic, the, , , , , bank of norway, beauvois, belts, the, bene skindkniv, bengt algotsson, beorthric, berg-anund, , bergen, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , bergljot, , , , bergthor's knoll, bernadotte, jean baptiste, , , - , bernsdorff, andreas, bertrand of tripolis, bevje-aa, biadmuin, bifrost, birchlegs, - , , , , birger, earl of götland, , , birger magnusson, king of sweden, , , , bjarkemaal, bjarkö, , , , bjarne erlingsson, , bjarne herjulfsson, bjelke, general, björgvin, see bergen björn, king of sweden, björn egilsson, björn ironside, björn, a peasant, björn the merchant, , björn stallare, , , , björnson, björnstjerne, , , björn, the yeoman, , , black death, the, , blanca of namur, , blekinge, , bör, bogesund, bohemia, borg, see sarpsborg borgar-_thing_, , , borghild, daughter of olaf of dal, bornhöved, bornholm, brage, , , bratsberg, , breidablik, bremangerland, bremen, , brenn islands, brigida, harold gille's daughter, brising, bristein, brömsebro, brunkeberg, brynjulf, bue the big, - bugge, prof. sophus, bull, ole, bure, buris henriksson, burislav, , , , buste, bute, byzantine, c candor, lay of, canterbury, cantire, cape cod, , capercailzie, the, carolingians, carrara, catholic, , cecilia, second queen of sigurd the crusader, cecilia, daughter of sigurd mouth, , , celestin iv., pope, charlemagne, , , , charles the bald, charles the simple, , charles knutsson peasant, , , , charles sunesson, charles v., emperor of germany, charles ix., king of sweden, charles x. gustavus, charles xii., king of sweden, , , charles xiii., , , charles xiv. john, see bernadotte charles xv., king of norway and sweden, , christ-church, , christian i., - christian ii., - christian iii., - christian iv., - christian v., , christian vi., christian vii., christian viii., see christian frederick christian august, of augustenborg, , christian frederick, - christiania, , , , , christiania fjord, christiansand, christina, wife of erling skakke, , , christina, sverre's daughter, , , , , christina, wife of haakon galen, , , , , , , christina, daughter of haakon the old, christopher i., king of denmark, , christopher of bavaria, , , christopher, count of oldenborg, churl's head, the, , clement, st., , clyde, firth of, constantinople, , , , , conqueror, see william the copenhagen, , , , , , , , , , count's feud, the, , cowlmen, see kuvlungs crane, the, , , crimean war, the, crookmen, see baglers curia, the roman, , cuthbert, st., d dagfinn peasant, , , dalarne, dale-guldbrand, , , dalsland, dannebrog, the, dannevirke, dav, delling, dingeness, ditmarsken, djursaa, , domesday book, donald bane, donmouth, dorchester, dorestad, dovre mountain, , , , drontheim, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , drontheim fjord, , , , , dublin, , , , dumbarton, durham, see simeon of dutch, , , , , dynekilen, , e eadburg, eadgar the etheling, eadwine, earl, ecgfridh, edda, the younger, edward the confessor, edward i., egil aaslaksson, egil, bald grim's son, , - egil woolsark, , eidsivia law, the, , , eidskog, eidsvold, , , , , , , , , einar thambarskelver, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - einar the priest, eindride einarsson, , , eindride the young, , elgeseter, elivagar, ellisif, queen of harold hard-ruler, , , , , elsinore, embla, engelbrekt engelbrektsson, , england, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , enköping, erik, archbishop, , , erik blood-axe, , - , , , , , , , erik eiegod, erik eimundsson, , , erik emune, erik eriksson lisp, king of sweden, erik glipping, , erik gudrödsson, erik haakonsson, earl, , - , - , , , erik, king of hördaland, erik kingsson, earl, erik magnusson, duke, , , erik magnusson, son of magnus smek, , erik menved, erik of ofrestad, erik plowpenny, erik of pomerania, - erik priest-hater, - , erik the red, archbishop, , erik the saint, erik the victorious, king of sweden, , erik the younger, king of south jutland, erlend of husaby, erlend haakonsson, , erling eriksson, erling haakonsson, , , erling skakke, earl, , , - , , , , erling skjalgsson of sole, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , erling stonewall, , , , erling vidkunsson, erne, loch, ernst, herzog, eskil lawman, essex, esthonia, , estrid, daughter of sweyn forkbeard, ethelred ii., , , ethelstan, , , , , , eugene iii., pope, euphemia of arnstein, , europe, , , , , , eystein, earl of hedemark and vestfold, eystein erlendsson, , , , , eystein haroldsson, - eystein magnusson, - , , eystein meyla, , , eystein orre, , eyvind kinriva, , , eyvind lambe, , eyvind scald-spoiler, , , , , eyvind skreyja, , f faeroe isles, , , , , , , , , falköping, fall river, falsen, judge, falsterbro, fenris-wolf, , fensal, finland, , , finmark, , , , finn arnesson, , , , finn eyvindsson, finns, , , , , , , fitje, fjölne, flanders, flensborg, florsvaag, folden, , , , , folkvang, folkvid the lawman, , , fontenelle, formentera, fors, forsete, fraedöe, france, , , , , , , , , , fredensborg, frederick, count palatine, , frederick i., , frederick ii., emperor of germany, , frederick ii., king of denmark and norway, frederick iii., - frederick iv., , , frederick v., frederick vi., - frederickshald, , frederickshamn, frederickstad, fredericksteen, , , freke, frey, , , , , freya, , freydis, fridkulla, frigg, frisian, frosta-_thing_, , , , , , frosten, , fulford, funen, , , fuxerne, fyrileiv, g gahn, colonel, gall, st., gallia narbonensis, gamle eriksson, , gardarike, see russia gauldale, , gaule, gaul river, see gula elv _gauter_, see goths gautland, , geira, , georgios maniakes, , gerd, gere, german, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , germany, , , , , , , ginnungagap, giske, , , gisla, wife of duke rollo, gissur the white, gissur the white, gissur thorvaldsson, earl, , gjallar bridge, gjallar horn, , gjeble pedersson, bishop, glommen, godfrey the hunter, see gudröd gold-harold, , goldlegs, gorm the old, , , götha elv., , , , götland, gottland, , , goths, gran, great northern war, the, greece, , greeks, , , , greenland, , , , , , gregorius dagsson, , - gregory ix., pope, , grib, peter, grieg, j., griffenfeld, grim, see bald grim grim keikan, grimkel, bishop, , grjotgard haakonsson, gude, j., gudleik gerdske, gudny bödvar's daughter, gudolf of blakkestad, gudrid, wife of thorfinn karlsevne, gudröd björnsson, , , , gudröd eriksson, , , , gudröd haroldsson, gudröd the hunter, , , gudröd, king of hadeland, gudröd, king of the hebrides, gudröd ljome, , gudröd meranagh, gudrun, daughter of ironbeard, gudrun lundarsol, gula elv, , gula-_thing_, , , , guldberg, ove, guldbrandsdale, , , , , , gungner, gunhild, queen of erik blood-axe, - , , , , , , , - , , gunhild, mother of sverre, gunnar of gimse, gunnar grjonbak, gunvor, gustavus adolphus, , gustavus iv., gustavus trolle, gustavus wasa, , guttorm, archbishop, , , guttorm eriksson, , guttorm haroldsson, guttorm ingesson, guttorm, son of sigurd hjort, , , , , guttorm sigurdsson, , guttorm sigurdsson, , guttorm sindre, gyda, wife of harold the fairhaired, , , , gyda, wife of olaf tryggvesson, , , gyldenstjerne, knut, h _haakonarmaal_, haakon eriksson, earl, , , - , - haakon galen, , - , , , , haakon grjotgardsson, , haakon, gunhild's emissary, haakon haakonsson the old, - , - haakon ivarsson, , - haakon jonsson, lord high steward, haakon longlegs, , , - haakon magnusson, son of king magnus haroldsson, , , haakon magnusson, son of king magnus smek, - haakon paulsson, haakon sigurdsson, earl, , , - , , , , , , haakon sverresson, king of norway, , , - , , haakon the broad-shouldered, , , , - haakon the good, , , , - , , , , , , haakon the old, a swedish peasant, , haalogaland, , , , , , , , haarek gand, haarek haroldsson, haarek of thjotta, , - , , haavard the hewer, , hadeland, , , , , hadrian iv., pope, see nicholas breakspeare hadulaik, hafrs-fjord, , , hagustald, hake, a berserk, , haldor brynjulfsson, halfdan haalegg (longlegs) , halfdan sigurdsson, , halfdan the swarthy, gudrödsson, , - , , halfdan the swarthy, haroldsson, , , , halfdan the white, halfdan whiteleg, halland, , , , , , , , , , , , hallkel agmundsson, , , hallkel jonsson, , hall of the side, hallvard vebjörnsson, st., , hals, hamar, , , , hamburg, hampshire, hannibal's feud, hans, king of norway, sweden, and denmark, , hans, son of frederick i., hans kolbjörnsson, hansa, see hanseatic league hanseatic league, , , , , , , , , , hansteen, astronomer, hardeland, harold, earl of the orkneys, harold, grandson of sigurd the crusader, harold bluetooth, , , , - , , , harold gille, - , , , , , , , , , harold godwineson, , , harold greyfell, , , - harold grönske, , harold hard-ruler, , , , , - , , , , harold ingesson, harold the fairhaired, , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , harthaknut, , , , hasting, , , hastings, haug, hauk, haukby, hebrides, , , , , , , , hedemark, , , , , heidaby, heimdal, heimskringla, , , , hekla, heklungs, - hel, , helge hvasse, , helge-aa, helgeness, helgeö, , helheim, hellenes, helluland, heming haakonsson, henrik of schwerin, henry i., king of england, hercules, pillars of, heredhaland, herjedale, herlaug, king in naumdale, herluf hyttefad, hettesveiner, see hood-swains himinbjarg, hindoos, , hinsgavl, _hirdskraa_, hitterdale church, hjalte skeggesson, hjörungavaag, , hlade, , , , , , hnos, höder, höfudlausn, högne langbjörnsson, , höland, hönefoss, höner, hörda-kaare, hördaland, , , , , hörgadal, holberg, ludvig, holland, , holmengraa, holstein, , , , , holy land, , , , , , hood-swains, hornboresund, hornelen, hrimfaxe, hugditrich, hugin, humber, hvergelmer, hvitingsöe, , hyrning, , i ibsen, henrik, , iceland, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , icolmkill, ida, plain of, idun, ilevolds, , india, inga of varteig, , , inge baardsson, , - , inge crookback, - , , , , inge, chief of the baglers, , , , inge, king of sweden, ingeborg, queen of magnus law-mender, , , , ingeborg, daughter of erik priest-hater, , ingeborg, daughter of haakon longlegs, , , ingegerd, daughter of harold hard-ruler, , ingegerd, daughter of olaf the swede, , , , inger of oestraat, ingerid, queen of harold gille, , , ingjald ill-ruler, ingrid, queen of olaf the quiet, innocent iii., pope, , innocent iv., pope, iona, iranians, ireland, , , , , , , , , , , , , , irishman, , , iron ram, ironbeard, , , irp, valkyria, isabella bruce, queen of erik priest-hater, isabella, queen of christian ii., italic tribes, , italy, ivar, king in limerick, ivar assersson, , ivar darre, ivar of fljod, ivar steig, j jaaboek, sören, jacob, count of halland, jaederen, james iii., king of scotland, jaroslav, , , , jaxartes, jemteland, , , , , , , jerusalem, , , jews, , , jösse eriksson, johannes, see hans jomsborg, , jomsvikings, - , jon birgersson, archbishop, jon, chief of the kuvlungs, jon kutiza, jon loftsson, jon the red, archbishop, , jonvolds, juliana maria, queen of frederick v., jumièges, jutland, , , , , , , , , , , , , , k kalf arnesson, , , , , , , , , , , kalfsund, kalmar, , , , , , , kalvskindet, , , karelen, kark, , , karlsevne, karlshoved, kelts, kent, ketil calf, , keyser, rudolf, kiel, , , , kielland, alexander, king's mirror, kirkevaag, kjögebugt, kjölen, klerkon, , klypp thorsson, knaeröd, knut alfsson, knut eriksson, king of sweden, , knut haakonsson (squire k.), , , , , knut the mighty, , , - , , , , , , , , , knut porse, knut vi., king of denmark, kolbjörn stallare, kolbjörn the strong, konghelle, , , , , , kongsberg, , krebs, colonel, kringen, krogh, christian, krokaskogen, krummedike, hartvig, krummedike, henrik, , krupp, kruse, colonel, kurland, kuvlungs, , kveld-ulf, - , l laaka, , labrador, laerdal, landnama book, laps , largs, "lars," latin, leif eriksson, , , leipsic, lesö, lie, jonas, lie, sophus, lier, limerick, lim fjord, lindesness, , , , lindholm, lindisfarena, lodin, , lodur, löwen, colonel, löwenskjold, lofoten, , loire, loke, london, , long-serpent, the, , - lothair, louis the german, , louis the pious, louis ix., louis xiv., lübeck, , , , , luna, lunge, vincentz, , , , luther, , lutheran, , , , lutter and barenberge, lützow, general, lykke, nils, lyrskogs heath, m maelsechnail, king of meath, , magne, bishop, , magnus barefoot, - , , , magnus birgerson barnlock, king of sweden, , , , magnus birgerson, the younger, , magnus eriksson smek, king of norway and sweden, - magnus erlingsson, king of norway, - , , , , , , , , magnus haroldsson, , magnus law-mender, - , , , magnus the blind, , - magnus the good, , - , , , , maid of norway, the, , malcolm, malmfrid, , man, island of, , , , , maniakes, see georgios marcus of skog, , margaret, see maid of norway margaret, queen of magnus barefoot, margaret, queen of sverre, , , , , margaret, queen of haakon the old, , margaret, queen of erik priest-hater, margaret, reigning queen of norway, sweden, and denmark, , , , - margaret, daughter of christian i., maria, relative of the empress zoë, maria, daughter of harold hard-ruler, , maria, daughter of harold gille, markere, earl, markland, massachusetts, , mathias, bishop, , matrand, mecklenburg, , , , medalhus, mediterranean, michael, church of st., military academy, mimer, minne, mjölner, mjösen, , , , , , molière, mönnikhofen, colonel, möre, , , , , , moors, , mora, moss, moster, , , , mosterö, motzfeldt, captain, muirkertach, , munch, p. a., prof., , munin, munk, erik, munk, ludvig, munkeliv, , muspelheim, , n nanna, balder's wife, napoleon i., , , , , , naumdale, nessje, new england, nicholas arnesson, bishop, - , , , , , , , , , , , , nicholas breakspeare, cardinal, , nicholas, church of st., nicholas simonsson, , nid river, nidarholm, nidaros, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , nidhögger, , niflheim, , nils henriksson, nimwegen, nis-aa, - njaal, njord, , , noatun, nordfjord, nordhördland, nordland, nordmöre, , , , nordness, nordraak, richard, norefjord, , normandy, normans, norns, northampton, north cape, , , north sea, , , northumberland, , , , , , nortmannia, norway's lion, norway's welfare, society for, nyborg, nyköping, o odd, oder, odin, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , oelve nuva, , oelve of egge, oerebro, oere-_thing_, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , offa, ofrestad, , oieren, lake, olaf, son of harold the fairhaired, olaf, chief of the oyeskeggs, olaf of dal, olaf engelbrektsson, archbishop, olaf kvaran, olaf magnusson, , , olaf nilsson, sir, , olaf the quiet, , - , , olaf the saint, , , - , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , olaf the swede, , , , , , , , , olaf tryggvesson, , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , olaf the unlucky, , olaf the white, olaf the woodcutter, , olaf the young, , oldenborg, , , , , ole the russian, olga, , , oplands, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ordinance, the, , orient, the, orkdale, , orkhaugen, orkneys, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , orm jonsson, orm king's-brother, , orm lyrgja, oscar i., - oscar ii., - oslo, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ottar birting, , , , otto i., emperor of germany, otto ii., emperor of germany, oxus, the, oyeskeggs, , , , p paderborn, paris, , , , paul, bishop of hamar, , paul, earl of the orkneys, persia, peter iii., emperor of russia, peter kolbjörnsson, peter of husastad, peter skulesson, peter, st., peter steyper, , , , philip, don, philip simonsson, , , , , piraeus, poland, , pomerania, , , pontecorvo, prestebakke, protestantism, , prussia, , pultawa, r rafnista race, raft sund, ragnar, a viking, ragnar lodbrok, , , , , ragnfred eriksson, ragnhild, queen of harold the fairhaired, ragnhild, queen of halfdan the swarthy, , ragnhild, daughter of magnus the good, , , ragnvald, earl of möre, , , , ragnvald, son of erik blood-axe, ragnvald rettilbeine, , ragnvald, earl of vestergötland, ran, ranafylke, randsfjord, , ranrike, , , ratibor, raud the strong, , , raumarike, , , , , raumsdale, reas, ree, , , , reformation, the, reidar grjotgardsson, reidar messenger, , , , , reidulf, a birchleg, rein, reinald, bishop, revolution, the french, , revolution, the july, reykjaholt, , rhine, the, ribbungs, , , - richard the fearless, duke of normandy, richard the good, duke of normandy, rimul, , ring, king, ringeness, , ringerike, , , , , , , robert bruce, robert guiscard, robert the magnificent, duke of normandy, robin hood, roe, bishop, , rörek, king, , , , , rörek, viking, rogaland, , roger, duke, rolf the walker, see rollo rollaug, king in naumdale, rollo, duke of normandy, , , rome, , , , , , , , , , , roskilde, rostock, rother, king, rouen, rousseau, rügen, russia, , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , rydjökel, ryfylke, s saemund jonsson, , saemund the learned, saltö sound, , sandness, saracens, , sarpen, sarpsborg, , , , , sars, prof., sars, j. e. prof., saudung sound, saurbygd, saxons, , , , scandinavia, schiller, friedrich, sciences, academy of, scotland, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , seeland, , , sehested, hannibal, , seine, the, sekken, selmer, chr. august, prime minister, , selven, serpent, the, shetland islands, , , , , , short-serpent, the, , sicily, , side-hall, sidon, , sif, sigar of brabant, sigfrid, king of nortmannia, sigfrid haroldsson, , sighvat scald, , , , , sighvat sturlasson, , sigmund brestesson, sigrid the haughty, , , , , , sigrid, daughter of earl sweyn, sigrid, sister of thore hund, sigrid, wife of ivar of fljod, sigrid, wife of haldor brynjulfsson, sigtrygg, king in waterford, sigurd, bishop, , , , , sigurd of haalogaland, sigurd borgarklett, , sigurd the crusader, , - , , , , , , , , sigurd, earl of hlade, , , , , , , , sigurd eriksson, , sigurd haakonsson, sigurd hjort, , sigurd jarlsson, - , , , , sigurd jonsson, , sigurd lavard, , , sigurd marcusfostre, sigurd mouth, - , , , , , , , , , , sigurd, alleged son of magnus erlingsson, sigurd ranesson, , , sigurd ribbung, , , , , sigurd of reyr, , , , sigurd rise, sigurd sigurdsson, sigurd slembedegn, , , - sigurd sleva, , sigurd syr, , , - , , , , sigurd tavse, archbishop, , sigurd wool-string, sigvalde, earl, , , , , silgjord, simeon of durham, simon kaaresson, simon skaalp, , sinclair, colonel, , siric, archbishop of canterbury, skaane, , , , , , , , , , skade, skage skoftesson, skagen, skara stift, skegge aasbjörnsson, see ironbeard skinfaxe, skiringssal, , skraellings, skuld, skule baardsson, duke, , - , , , , skule tostigsson, slavs, , sleipner, sleswick, , , , , , slittungs, , , , smaaland, smaalenene, snarfare, snefrid, wife of harold the fairhaired, , , , snorre sturlasson, , , , , , , , , , , , , - , snorrelaug, söndmöre, , , , , , sogn, , sognefjord, , , , , sognesund, sognings, solveig, sonartorek, sotoness, sound, the, , , stamford bridge, , , , , stang, f., prime-minister, stanger, stavanger, , , , steen sture the elder, , , steen sture the younger, , , steinker, steinkil, king of sweden, stenbock, magnus, stig, marshal, stiklestad, , , , , , , stockholm, , , , , , storm, prof. gustav, _storthing_, - strand, , strindsö, struensee, , stub, rev. kjeld, stuf katsson, sturla sighvatsson, , , sturla thordsson, father of snorre sturlasson, sturla thordsson, nephew of snorre sturlasson, , , sturlungs, the, - , styrbjörn, styrkaar stallare, , supreme court, surtur, sussex, suttung, svang, svanhild, daughter of earl eystein, svante nilsson sture, sverdrup, prof, , sverdrup, john, prime-minister, sverke, king of sweden, sverre sigurdsson, , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , svolder, , , , , sweyn, a pretender, sweyn alfifasson, - , , , sweyn estridsson, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , sweyn forkbeard, , , , , , , - , , , , sweyn haakonsson, earl, , , , - , , , , - sweyn, rörek's servant, t tacitus, taylor, bayard, tegelsmora, telemark, , thamb, thames, the, thangbrand the priest, , , , thirty years' war, thjostulf aalesson, , thor, , , , , , , , , , thora, wife of earl haakon, thora, wife of harold hard-ruler, thora guttorm's daughter, thora moster-pole, thora of rimul, thora saxe's daughter, thoralf lousy-beard, , , thorbjörn hornklove, thord sturlasson, thore, archbishop, , thore herse, , thore hjort, , , thore hund, , , , thore klakka, , thore sel, thore of steig, , , , , thorfinn karlsevne, thorgeir, brother-in-law of olaf tryggvesson, , thorgerd, valkyria, thorghaettan, thorgils thoralfsson, thorgils, , thorgisl, , , thorgny the lawman, , thorkell dyrdill, , thorkell leira, , , thorleif, bishop, thormod kolbruna-scald, , thorolf, bald grim's son, , , thorolf, kveld-ulf's son, - thorsberg, thorstein, a peasant, thorstein kugad, , thorstein, son of side-hall, , thorvald eriksson, thrond the priest, thrudvang, thyra, queen of olaf tryggvesson, , , , , tiber, tidemand, adolf, tiding-skofte, tilly, general, tilsit, treaty of, , toke, a peasant, tordenskjold, , torstenson, general, tostig godwineson, earl, , , tours, toverud, trangen, travendal, tröndelag, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , trönders, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , trollhaettan, tromsö, tryggve olafsson, son of olaf haroldsson, , , , , , , , , tryggve olafsson, son of olaf tryggvesson, tunsberg, , , , , , , , , , , , , tunsberghus, turf-einar, turges, turks, , tyr, tyrker, u ueland, ole gabriel, ugerup, erik, ulf thorgilsson, earl, , , ulf uspaksson, uller, ulster, unas, , university of norway, upland, upsala, , urd, urökja snorresson, utgard, v vaagen, , vaerdalen, , , , vagn aakesson, - valdalen, valdemar atterdag, , valdemar birgersson, king of sweden, valdemar, the great, , - , valdemar magnusson, duke, , , valdemar the victorious, , , , , valders, , valfather, valhalla, , , , valkendorf, christopher, valkyries , , , vandals, vanir, , varangians, , varbelgs, , , , ve, , vebjörn, venice, venetian, venus, verdande, vermeland, , , , , , , versailles, vesteraalen, vestergötland, , , , , , vestfjord, vestfold, , , , , , vestgoths, viborg, viborg-_thing_, , , vidar, vidrar, vige, vikar, chief of the varbelgs, , viken, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , vile, , vingulmark, , vinland, , vinold, archbishop, virgin mary, the, , , visby, vitalie brethren, , vladimir, , , , voltaire, _vornedskab_, vors, w wallenstein, waterford, wedel-jarlsberg, count, , welhaven, j. s., wendland, , , , , , , , wends, , , , wener, lake, wergeland, henrik, , , wergeland, rev. nicolai, wessex, widukind, william the conqueror, , , , , , william longsword, william of sabina, cardinal, wismar, wollin, y ygdrasil, ymer, , ynglings, , , , , yngve, york, , yotun, , , , yotunheim, , , z zoë, empress, [illustration] the story of the nations. messrs. g. p. putnam's sons take pleasure in announcing that they have in course of publication a series of historical studies, intended to present in a graphic manner the stories of the different nations that have attained prominence in history. in the story form the current of each national life will be distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes will be presented for the reader in their philosophical relation to each other as well as to universal history. it is the plan of the writers of the different volumes to enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and struggled--as they studied and wrote, and as they amused themselves. in carrying out this plan, the myths, with which the history of all lands begins, will not be overlooked, though these will be carefully distinguished from the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions. the subjects of the different volumes will be planned to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in the great story of the nations; but it will, of course, not always prove practicable to issue the several volumes in their chronological order. the "stories" are printed in good readable type, and in handsome mo form. they are adequately illustrated and furnished with maps and indexes. they are sold separately at a price of $ . each. the following is a partial list of the subjects thus far determined upon: the story of *ancient egypt. prof. george rawlinson. " " " *chaldea. z. a. ragozin. " " " *greece. prof. james a. harrison, washington and lee university. " " " *rome. arthur gilman. " " " *the jews. prof. james k. hosmer, washington university of st. louis. " " " *carthage. prof. alfred j. church, university college, london. " " " byzantium. " " " the goths. henry bradley. " " " *the normans. sarah o. jewett. " " " *persia. s. g. w. benjamin. " " " *spain. rev. e. e. and susan hale. " " " *germany. s. baring-gould. " " " the italian republics. " " " holland. prof. c. e. thorold rogers. " " " *norway. hjalmar h. boyesen. " " " *the moors in spain. stanley lane-poole. " " " *hungary. prof. a. vÁmbÉry. " " " the italian kingdom. w. l. alden. " " " early france. prof. gustave masson. " " " *alexander's empire. prof. j. p. mahaffy. " " " the hanse towns. helen zimmern. " " " *assyria. z. a. ragozin. " " " *the saracens. arthur gilman. " " " turkey. stanley lane-poole. " " " portugal. h. morse stephens. " " " mexico. susan hale. " " " ireland. hon. emily lawless. " " " ph[oe]nicia. " " " switzerland. " " " russia. " " " wales. " " " scotland. * (the volumes starred are now ready, april, .) g. p. putnam's sons new york london and west twenty-third street king william street, strand _the first volume, comprising the hebrew story from the creation to the exile, is now ready. large mo, cloth extra, red edges, $ . ._ _g. p. putnam's son's, new york and london._ the scriptures hebrew and christian. an introduction to the study of the bible. edited by professors e. t. bartlett and john p. peters, of the p. e. divinity school, philadelphia. (for description of the work see prospectus, page .) some of the comments received: _extracts from letters_: from the rt. rev. henry c. potter, d.d., ll.d., new york. "i congratulate you on the issue of a work which, i am sure, will find a wide welcome, and the excellent features of which make it of permanent value." from the rev. howard crosby, d.d., new york. "the 'scriptures for young readers' is admirably conceived and admirably executed. it is the bible story in bible words.... it is the work of devout and scholarly men, and will prove a help to bible study. i have examined it with great satisfaction, and have found on almost every page the marks of original investigation and wise judgment." from prest. julius h. seelye, d.d., ll.d., amherst, mass. "its excellence for its purpose has surprised me, and i give it my hearty commendation." from prof. henry thayer, d.d., cambridge, mass. "it more than meets my expectations; in fact, is so attractive that i have set myself to its perusal from end to end." from prest. m. b. anderson, d.d., ll.d., rochester, n. y. "the work seems to me adapted to be useful in the education of the young in biblical history and the great moral truths embodied in it." from prest. geo. williamson smith, d.d., trinity college, hartford, conn. "i have carefully examined the first volume of the 'scriptures for young readers,' and am deeply impressed by the learning and skill shown by the authors. they undertook a very difficult work, and have accomplished it in a scholarly manner. if interest in the book is an evidence of youth, many will find from reading this 'introduction to the study of the bible' that they are not as old as they supposed they were." * * * * * ** transcribers notes ** - minor punctuation errors corrected - minor spelling / printer typos corrected - spelling of fiord/fjord left intact -illustrations relocated to between paragraphs - list of illustrations may not point to exact page of relocated illustration -footnotes have, where possible, been placed immediately following the paragraph that refers to them at http://www.freeliterature.org (from images generously made available by the internet archive.) canute the great (_circa_)- and the rise of danish imperialism during the viking age by laurence marcellus larson, ph.d. associate professor of history in the university of illinois g.p. putnam's sons new york and london the knickerbocker press heroes of the nations edited by dr. w.c. davis facta ducis vivent, operosaque gloria rerum-ovid, in liviam, . the hero's deeds and hard-won fame shall live [illustration: canute and emma--(the king and queen are presenting a golden cross to winchester abbey, new minster.) from a miniature reproduced in _liber vitæ_ (birch).] to my wife lillian may larson foreword toward the close of the eighth century, there appeared in the waters of western europe the strange dragon fleets of the northmen, the "heathen," or the vikings, as they called themselves, and for more than two hundred years the shores of the west and the southwest lived in constant dread of pillage and piracy. the viking invasions have always been of interest to the student of the middle ages; but only recently have historians begun to fathom the full significance of the movement. the british isles were pre-eminently the field of viking activities. english historians, however, have usually found nothing in the invasions but two successive waves of destruction. as an eminent writer has tersely stated it,--the dane contributed nothing to english civilisation, for he had nothing to contribute. on the other hand, scandinavian students, who naturally took great pride in the valorous deeds of their ancestors, once viewed the western lands chiefly as a field that offered unusual opportunities for the development of the dormant energies of the northern race. that christian civilisation could not fail to react on the heathen mind was clearly seen; but this phase of the problem was not emphasised; the importance of western influences was minimised. serious study of the viking age in its broader aspects began about fifty years ago with the researches of gudbrand vigfusson, a young icelandic scholar, much of whose work was carried on in england. vigfusson's work was parallelled by the far more thorough researches of the eminent norwegian philologist, sophus bugge. these investigators both came to the same general conclusion: that old norse culture, especially on the literary side, shows permeating traces of celtic and anglo-saxon elements; that the eddic literature was not an entirely native product, but was largely built up in the viking colonies in britain from borrowed materials. some years earlier, the danish antiquarian, j.j.a. worsaae, had begun to study the "memorials" of norse and danish occupation in britain, and had found that the islands in places were overlaid with traces of scandinavian conquest in the form of place names. later worsaae's countryman, dr. j.c.h.r. steenstrup, carried the research into the institutional field, and showed in his masterly work, _normannerne_ ( - ), that the institutional development among the anglo-saxons in the tenth and eleventh centuries was largely a matter of adapting and assimilating scandinavian elements. studies that embodied such differing viewpoints could not fail to call forth much discussion, some of which went to the point of bitterness. recently there has been a reaction from the extreme position assumed by professor bugge and his followers; but quite generally norse scholars are coming to take the position that both sophus bugge and johannes steenstrup have been correct in their main contentions; the most prominent representative of this view is professor alexander bugge. where two vigorous peoples representing differing types or different stages of civilisation come into more than temporary contact, the reciprocal influences will of necessity be continued and profound. the viking movement had, therefore, its aspects of growth and development as well as of destruction. the best representative of the age and the movement, when considered from both these viewpoints, is canute the great, king of england, denmark, and norway. canute began as a pirate and developed into a statesman. he was carried to victory by the very forces that had so long subsisted on devastation; when the victory was achieved, they discovered, perhaps to their amazement, that their favourite occupation was gone. canute had inherited the imperialistic ambitions of his dynasty, and piracy and empire are mutually exclusive terms. it is scarcely necessary to say anything further in justification of a biographical study of such an eminent leader, one of the few men whom the world has called "the great." but to write a true biography of any great secular character of mediæval times is a difficult, often impossible, task. the great men of modern times have revealed their inner selves in their confidential letters; their kinsmen, friends, and intimate associates have left their appreciations in the form of addresses or memoirs. materials of such a character are not abundant in the mediæval sources. but this fact need not deter us from the attempt. it is at least possible to trace the public career of the subject chosen, to measure his influence on the events of his day, and to determine the importance of his work for future ages. and occasionally the sources may permit a glimpse into the private life of the subject which will help us to understand him as a man. the present study has presented many difficulties. canute lived in an age when there was but little writing done in the north, though the granite of the runic monument possesses the virtue of durability. there is an occasional mention of canute in the continental chronicles of the time; but the chief contemporary sources are the _anglo-saxon chronicle_, the _encomium emmæ_, and the praise lays of the norse and icelandic scalds. the _chronicle_ was written by a patriotic englishman who naturally regarded the danes with a strong aversion. the _encomium_, on the other hand, seems to be the product of an alien clerk, whose chief purpose was to glorify his patroness, queen emma, and her family. the lays of the scalds are largely made up of nattering phrases, though among them are woven in allusions to historic facts that are of great value. the anglo-norman historians and the later monastic annalists in england have not very much to add to our information about canute; but in their accounts they are likely to go to the other extreme from the _chronicle_. too often the monkish writers measured excellence by the value of gifts to churches and monasteries, and canute had learned the value of donations properly timed and placed. adam of bremen wrote a generation later than canute's day, but, as he got his information from canute's kinsmen at the danish court, his notices of northern affairs are generally reliable. there is no danish history before the close of the twelfth century, when saxo wrote the _acts of the danes_. it is evident that saxo had access to a mass of sources both written and of the saga type. the world is grateful to the danish clerk for preserving so much of this material; but sound, critical treatment (of which saxo was probably incapable) would have enhanced the value of his work. the twelfth century is also the age of the sagas. these are of uneven merit and most of them are of slight value for present purposes. however, the sources on which these are in a measure based, the fragments of contemporary verse that are extant and much that has not survived, have been woven into a history, the equal of which for artistic treatment, critical standards, and true historical spirit will be difficult to find in any other mediæval literature. wherever possible, therefore, reference has been made in this study to snorre's _kings' sagas_, commonly known as "heimskringla," in preference to other saga sources. in the materials afforded by archæology, the northern countries are peculiarly rich, though, for the purposes of this study, these have their only value on the side of culture. an exception must be made of the runic monuments (which need not necessarily be classed with archæological materials), as these often assist in building up the narrative. more important, perhaps, is the fact that these inscriptions frequently help us to settle disputed points and to determine the accuracy of accounts that are not contemporary. one of the chief problems has been where to begin the narrative. to begin in the conventional way with childhood, education, and the rest is not practicable when the place and the year of birth are unknown and the forms and influences of early training are matters of inference and conjecture. at the same time it was found impossible to separate the man from his time, from the great activities that were going on in the lands about the north sea, and from the purposes of the dynasty that he belonged to. before it is possible to give an intelligent account of how canute led the viking movement to successful conquest, some account must be given of the movement itself. the first chapter and a part of the second consequently have to deal with matters introductory to and preparatory for canute's personal career, which began in . in the writing of proper names the author has planned to use modern forms whenever such exist; he has therefore written canute, though his preference is for the original form cnut. king ethelred's by-name, "redeless," has been translated "ill-counselled," which is slightly nearer the original meaning than "unready"; "uncounselled" would scarcely come nearer, as the original seems rather to imply inability to distinguish good from bad counsel. in the preparation of the study assistance has been received from many sources; especially is the author under obligation to the libraries of the universities of illinois, chicago, wisconsin, and iowa, and of harvard university; he is also indebted to his colleagues dean e.b. greene, professor g.s. ford, and professor g.t. flom, of the university of illinois, for assistance in the form of critical reading of the manuscript. l.m.l. champaign, ill., . contents chapter i the heritage of canute the great chapter ii the conquest of england-- - chapter iii the english reaction and the norse revolt-- - chapter iv the struggle with edmund ironside-- chapter v the rule of the danes in england-- - chapter vi the beginnings of empire-- - chapter vii canute and the english church-- - chapter viii the twilight of the gods chapter ix canute and the norwegian conspiracy-- - chapter x the battle of holy river and the pilgrimage to rome-- - chapter xi the conquest of norway-- - chapter xii the empire of the north chapter xiii northern culture in the days of canute chapter xiv the last years-- - chapter xv the collapse of the empire-- - appendices bibliography index illustrations canute and emma _frontispiece_ (the king and queen are presenting a golden cross to winchester abbey, new minster.) from a miniature reproduced in _liber vitæ_ (birch.) the older jelling stone (a) the older jelling stone (b) the larger sonder vissing stone the later jelling stone (a) the later jelling stone (b) the later jelling stone (c) scandinavian settlements, britain and normandy the larger aarhus stone the sjÆlle stone (runic monument raised to gyrth, earl sigvaldi's brother.) the tulstorp stone (runic monument showing viking ship ornamented with beasts' heads.) the hÄllestad stone anglo-saxon warriors (harl. ms. .) anglo-saxon horsemen (harl. ms. .) anglo-saxon warriors (from a manuscript in the british museum, reproduced in _norges historie_, i., ii.) the raven banner (from the bayeux tapestry.) viking raids in england - the south baltic coast in the eleventh century the valleberga stone the stenkyrka stone (monument from the island of gotland showing viking ships.) an english bishop of the eleventh century (from the bayeux tapestry.) poppo's ordeal (altar decoration from about . danish national museum.) hammers of thor (from the closing years of heathendom.) the tjÄngvide stone (monument from the island of gotland. the stone shows various mythological figures; see below.) the church at urnes (norway) (from about .) runic monument shows hammer of thor the odderness stone ornaments (chiefly buckles) from the viking age ornaments (chiefly buckles) from the viking age lines from the oldest fragment of snorre's history (written about ). the fragment tells the story of the battle of holy river and the murder of ulf a longship (model of the gokstad ship on the waves.) scandinavia and the conquest of norway stiklestead (from a photograph.) the hyby stone (monument from the first half of the eleventh century; raised to a christian as appears from the cross.) runic monument from upland, sweden (showing blending of celtic and northern art.) scandinavian (icelandic) hall in the viking age the vik stone (illustrates the transition from heathendom to christianity; shows a mixture of elements, the serpent and the cross.) the ramsund rock (representations of scenes from the sigfried saga.) painted gable from urnes church (norse-irish ornamentation.) carved pillar from urnes church (norse-irish ornamentation.) the hunnestad stone the alstad stone anglo-saxon table scene (from a manuscript in the british museum, reproduced in _norges historie_, i., ii.) model of the gokstad ship (longitudinal sections.) the lundagÅrd stone (shows types of ornamentation in canute's day.) the jurby cross, isle of man the gosforth cross, cumberland the pall of saint olaf (initial in the flat-isle book.) canute the great chapter i the heritage of canute the great among the many gigantic though somewhat shadowy personalities of the viking age, two stand forth with undisputed pre-eminence: rolf the founder of normandy and canute the emperor of the north. both were sea-kings; each represents the culmination and the close of a great migratory movement,--rolf of the earlier viking period, canute of its later and more restricted phase. the early history of each is uncertain and obscure; both come suddenly forth upon the stage of action, eager and trained for conquest. rolf is said to have been the outlawed son of a norse earl; canute was the younger son of a danish king: neither had the promise of sovereignty or of landed inheritance. still, in the end, both became rulers of important states--the pirate became a constructive statesman. the work of rolf as founder of normandy was perhaps the more enduring; but far more brilliant was the career of canute. few great conquerors have had a less promising future. in the early years of the eleventh century, he seems to have been serving a military apprenticeship in a viking fraternity on the pomeranian coast, preparatory, no doubt, to the profession of a sea-king, the usual career of northern princes who were not seniors in birth. his only tangible inheritance seems to have been the prestige of royal blood which meant so much when the chief called for recruits. but it was not the will of the norns that canute should live and die a common pirate, like his grand-uncle canute, for instance, who fought and fell in ireland[ ]: his heritage was to be greater than what had fallen to any of his dynasty, more than the throne of his ancestors, which was also to be his. in a vague way he inherited the widening ambitions of the northern peoples who were once more engaged in a fierce attack on the west. to him fell also the ancient claim of the danish kingdom to the hegemony of the north. but more specifically canute inherited the extensive plans, the restless dreams, the imperialistic policy, and the ancient feuds of the knytling dynasty.[ ] canute's career is the history of danish imperialism carried to a swift realisation. what had proved a task too great for his forbears canute in a great measure achieved. in england and in norway, in sleswick and in wendland, he carried the plans of his dynasty to a successful issue. it will, therefore, be necessary to sketch with some care the background of canute's career and to trace to their origins the threads of policy that canute took up and wove into the web of empire. some of these can be followed back at least three generations to the reign of gorm in the beginning of the tenth century. in that century denmark was easily the greatest power in the north. from the scanian frontiers to the confines of modern sleswick it extended over "belts" and islands, closing completely the entrance to the baltic. there were danish outposts on the slavic shores of modern prussia; the larger part of norway came for some years to be a vassal state under the great earl, hakon the bad; the wick, which comprised the shores of the great inlet that is now known as the christiania firth, was regarded as a component part of the danish monarchy, though in fact the obedience rendered anywhere in norway was very slight. in the legendary age a famous dynasty known as the shieldings appears to have ruled over danes and jutes. the family took its name from a mythical ancestor, king shield, whose coming to the daneland is told in the opening lines of the old english epic _beowulf_. the shieldings were worthy descendants of their splendid progenitor: they possessed in full measure the royal virtues of valour, courage, and munificent hospitality. how far their exploits are to be regarded as historic is a problem that does not concern us at present; though it seems likely that the danish foreworld is not without its historic realities. whether the kings of denmark in the tenth century were of shielding ancestry is a matter of doubt; the probabilities are that they sprang from a different stem. the century opened with gorm the aged, the great-grandfather of canute, on the throne of shield, ruling all the traditional regions of denmark,--scania, the isles, and jutland--but apparently residing at jelling near the south-east corner of the peninsula, not far from the saxon frontier. tradition remembers him as a tall and stately man, but a dull and indolent king, wanting in all the elements of greatness.[ ] in this case, however, tradition is not to be trusted. though we have little real knowledge of danish history in gorm's day, it is evident that his reign was a notable one. at the close of the ninth century, the monarchy seems to have faced dissolution; the sources tell of rebellious vassals, of a rival kingdom in south jutland, of german interference in other parts of the jutish peninsula.[ ] gorm's great task and achievement were to reunite the realm and to secure the old frontiers. though legend has not dealt kindly with the king himself, it has honoured the memory of his masterful queen. thyra was clearly a superior woman. her nationality is unknown, but it seems likely that she was of danish blood, the daughter of an earl in the holstein country.[ ] to this day she is known as thyra daneboot (danes' defence)--a term that first appears on the memorial stone that her husband raised at jelling soon after her death. in those days henry the fowler ruled in germany and showed hostile designs on jutland. in , he attacked the viking chiefs in south jutland and reduced their state to the position of a vassal realm. apparently he also encouraged them to seek compensation in gorm's kingdom. to protect the peninsula from these dangers a wall was built across its neck between the schley inlet and the treene river. this was the celebrated danework, fragments of which can still be seen. in this undertaking the queen was evidently the moving force and spirit. three years, it is said, were required to complete thyra's great fortification. the material character of the queen's achievement doubtless did much to preserve a fame that was highly deserved; at the same time, it may have suggested comparisons that were not to the advantage of her less fortunate consort. the danework, however, proved only a temporary frontier; a century later thyra's great descendant canute pushed the boundary to the eider river and the border problem found a fairly permanent solution. in the shielding age, the favourite seat of royalty was at lethra (leire) in zealand, at the head of roeskild firth. here, no doubt, was located the famous hall heorot, of which we read in _beowulf_. there were also king's garths elsewhere; the one at jelling has already been mentioned as the residence of gorm and thyra. after the queen's death her husband raised at jelling, after heathen fashion, a high mound in her honour, on the top of which a rock was placed with a brief runic inscription: gorm the king raised this stone in memory of thyra his wife, denmark's defence.[ ] the runologist ludvig wimmer believes that the inscription on the older jelling stone dates from the period - ; a later date is scarcely probable. the queen evidently did not long survive the famous "defence." a generation later, perhaps about the year , harold bluetooth, gorm's son and successor, raised another mound at jelling, this one, apparently, in honour of his father. the two mounds stand about two hundred feet apart; at present each is about sixty feet high, though the original height must have been considerably greater. midway between them the king placed a large rock as a monument to both his parents, which in addition to its runic dedication bears a peculiar blending of christian symbols and heathen ornamentation. the inscription is also more elaborate than that on the lesser stone: harold the king ordered this memorial to be raised in honour of gorm his father and thyra his mother, the harold who won all denmark and norway and made the danes christians.[ ] [illustration: the older jelling stone, a] [illustration: the older jelling stone, b] in one sense the larger stone is king harold's own memorial. it is to be observed that the inscription credits the king with three notable achievements: the unification of denmark, the conquest of norway, and the introduction of christianity. the allusion to the winning of denmark doubtless refers to the suppression of revolts, perhaps more specifically to the annihilation of the viking realm and dynasty south of the danework (about ).[ ] in his attitude toward his southern neighbours harold continued the policy of gorm and thyra: wars for defence rather than for territorial conquest. it is said that king harold became a christian (about ) as the result of a successful appeal to the judgment of god by a zealous clerk named poppo. the heated iron (or iron gauntlet, as saxo has it) was carried the required distance, but poppo's hand sustained no injury. whatever be the truth about poppo's ordeal, it seems evident that some such test was actually made, as the earliest account of it, that of widukind of corvey, was written not more than a decade after the event.[ ] the importance of the ordeal is manifest: up to this time the faith had made but small headway in the northern countries. with the conversion of a king, however, a new situation was created: christianity still had to continue its warfare against the old gods, but signs of victory were multiplying. one of the first fruits of harold bluetooth's conversion was the church of the holy trinity, built at roeskild by royal command,[ ]--a church that long held an honoured place in the danish establishment. in various ways the history of this church closely touches that of the dynasty itself: here the bones of the founder were laid; here, too, his ungrateful son sweyn found quiet for his restless spirit; and it was in this church where harold's grandson, canute the great, stained and violated sanctuary by ordering the murder of ulf, his sister's husband. in the wider activities of the tenth century, harold bluetooth played a large and important part. about the time he accepted christianity, he visited the slavic regions on the south baltic coasts and established his authority over the lands about the mouth of the oder river. here he founded the stronghold of jomburg, the earls and garrisons of which played an important part in northern history for more than two generations. the object of this expansion into wendland was no doubt principally to secure the slavic trade which was of considerable importance and which had interested the danes for more than two centuries.[ ] as the wendish tribes had practically no cities or recognised markets, the new establishment on the banks of the oder soon grew to be of great commercial as well as of military importance. [illustration: the later jelling stone, a.] [illustration: the larger sonder vissing stone] during the same period harold's attention was turned to norway where a difficult situation had arisen. harold fairhair, the founder of the norse monarchy, left the sovereignty to his son eric (later named bloodax); but the jealousies of eric's many brothers combined with his own cruel régime soon called forth a reaction in favour of a younger brother, hakon the good, whose youth had been spent under christian influences at the english court. king hakon was an excellent ruler, but the raids of his nephews, the sons of eric, caused a great deal of confusion. the young exiles finally found a friend in harold bluetooth who even adopted one of them, harold grayfell, as his own son.[ ] the fostering of harold grayfell had important consequences continuing for two generations till the invasion of norway by canute the great. with a force largely recruited in denmark, the sons of eric attacked norway and came upon king hakon on the island of stord where a battle was fought in which the king fell ( ). but the men who had slain their royal kinsman found it difficult to secure recognition as kings: the result of the battle was that norway was broken up into a number of petty kingdoms and earldoms, each aiming at practical independence. a few years later there appeared at the danish court a young, handsome, talented chief, the famous earl hakon whose father, sigurd, earl in the throndelaw, the sons of eric had treacherously slain. the king of denmark had finally discovered that his foster-son was anything but an obedient vassal, and doubtless rejoiced in an opportunity to interfere in norwegian affairs. harold grayfell was lured down into jutland and slain. with a large fleet the danish king then proceeded to norway. the whole country submitted: the southern shores from the naze eastward were added to the danish crown; the throndelaw and the regions to the north were apparently granted to earl hakon in full sovereignty; the rest was created into an earldom which he was to govern as vassal of the king of denmark.[ ] a decade passed without serious difficulties between vassal and overlord, when events on the german border brought demands on the earl's fidelity to which the proud norseman would not submit. it seems probable that king harold in a vague way had recognised the overlordship of the emperor; at any rate, in , when the great otto was celebrating his last easter at quedlingburg, the danish king sent embassies and gifts.[ ] a few weeks later the emperor died and almost immediately war broke out between danes and saxons. [illustration: the later jelling stone, c] [illustration: the later jelling stone, b] hostilities soon ceased, but the terms of peace are said to have included a promise on harold's part to introduce the christian faith among his norwegian subjects. earl hakon had come to assist his overlord; he was known to be a zealous heathen; but king harold seized him and forced him to receive baptism. the earl felt the humiliation keenly and as soon as he had left denmark he repudiated the danish connection and for a number of years ruled in norway as an independent sovereign.[ ] king harold made an attempt to restore his power but with small success. however, the claim to norway was not surrendered; it was successfully revived by harold's son sweyn and later still by his grandson canute. earl hakon's revolt probably dates from or ; king harold's raid along the norse coasts must have followed within the next few years. the succeeding decade is memorable for two notable expeditions, the one directed against king eric of sweden, the second against hakon of norway. in neither of these ventures was harold directly interested; both were undertaken by the vikings of jom, though probably with the danish king's approval and support. the jomvikings were in the service of denmark and the defeat that they suffered in both instances had important results for future history. the exact dates cannot be determined; but the battles must have been fought during the period - . in those days the command at jomburg was held by styrbjörn, a nephew of the swedish king. harold bluetooth is said to have given him the earl's title and his daughter thyra to wife; but this did not satisfy the ambitious prince, whose desire was to succeed his uncle in sweden. having induced his father-in-law to permit an expedition, he sailed to uppland with a strong force. the battle was joined on the banks of the fyris river where king eric won a complete victory. from that day he was known as eric the victorious.[ ] styrbjörn fell in the battle and sigvaldi, the son of a scanian earl, succeeded to the command at jomburg. in some way he was induced to attack the norwegian earl. late in the year the fleet from the oder stole northwards along the norse coast hoping to catch the earl unawares. but hakon's son eric had learned what the vikings were planning and a strong fleet carefully hid in hjörunga bay lay ready to welcome the invader. the encounter at hjörunga bay is one of the most famous battles in old norse history. during the fight, says the saga, earl hakon landed and sacrificed his young son erling to the gods. the divine powers promptly responded: a terrific hailstorm that struck the danes in their faces helped to turn the tide of battle, and soon sigvaldi was in swift flight southwards.[ ] as to the date of the battle we have no certain knowledge; but munch places it, for apparently good reasons, in . saxo is probably correct in surmising that the expedition was inspired by king harold.[ ] as to the significance of the two defeats of the jomvikings, there can be but one opinion: northward expansion of danish power had received a decisive check; danish ambition must find other fields. the closing years of harold's life were embittered by rebellious movements in which his son sweyn took a leading part. it is not possible from the conflicting accounts that have come down to us to determine just why the danes showed such restlessness at this time. it has been thought that the revolts represented a heathen reaction against the new faith, or a nationalistic protest against german influences; these factors may have entered in, but it is more likely that a general dissatisfaction with harold's rule caused by the ill success of his operations against germans, swedes, and norwegians was at the bottom of the hostilities. the virile personality of the young prince was doubtless also a factor. to later writers his conduct recalled the career of absalom; but in this instance disobedience and rebellion had the victory. forces were collected on both sides; battles were fought both on land and on sea. finally during a truce, the aged king was wounded by an arrow, shot, according to saga, from the bow of toki, the foster-father of sweyn. faithful henchmen carried the dying king across the sea to jomburg where he expired on all saints' day (november ), probably in , the year of the defeat at hjörunga bay. his remains were carried to roeskild and interred in the church of the holy trinity.[ ] of harold's family not much is known. according to adam of bremen his queen was named gunhild, a name that points to scandinavian ancestry.[ ] saxo speaks of a queen gyrith, the sister of styrbjörn.[ ] on a runic monument at sönder vissing, not far from the garth at jelling, we read that tova raised this memorial, mistiwi's daughter, in memory of her mother, harold the good gorm's son's wife.[ ] tova might be a danish name, but mistiwi seems clearly slavic. it may be that harold was thrice married; it is also possible that tova in baptism received the name gunhild. gyrith was most likely the wife of his old age. the question is important as it concerns the ancestry of canute the great. if tova was canute's grandmother (as she probably was) three of his grandparents were of slavic blood. of harold's children four are known to history. his daughter thyra has already been mentioned as the wife of the ill-fated styrbjörn. another daughter, gunhild, was the wife of an anglo-danish chief, the ealdorman pallig. two sons are also mentioned, sweyn and hakon. of these sweyn, as the successor to the kingship, is the more important. the accession of sweyn forkbeard to the danish throne marks an era in the history of denmark. harold bluetooth had not been a weak king: he had enlarged his territories; he had promoted the cause of the christian faith; he had striven for order and organised life. but his efforts in this direction had brought him into collision with a set of forces that believed in the old order of things. in harold's old age the danish viking spirit had awakened to new life; soon the dragons were sailing the seas as of old. with a king of the shielding type now in the high-seat at roeskild, these lawless though energetic elements found not only further freedom but royal favour and leadership. it would seem that the time had come to wipe away the stain that had come upon the danish arms at hjörunga bay; but no immediate move was made in that direction. earl hakon was still too strong, and for a decade longer he enjoyed undisputed possession of the norwegian sovereignty. sweyn did not forget the claims of his dynasty, but he bided his time. furthermore, this same decade saw larger plans developing at the danish court. norway was indeed desirable, but as a field of wider activities it gave no great promise. such a field, however, seemed to be in sight: the british isles with their numerous kingdoms, their large scandinavian colonies, and their consequent lack of unifying interests seemed to offer opportunities that the restless dane could not afford to neglect. the three scandinavian kingdoms did not comprise the entire north: in many respects, greater scandinavia was fully as important as the home lands. it is not necessary for present purposes to follow the eastward stream of colonisation that transformed the slavic east and laid the foundations of the russian monarchy. the southward movement of the danes into the regions about the mouth of the oder will be discussed more in detail later. the story of sweyn and canute is far more concerned with colonising movements and colonial foundations in the west. without the preparatory work of two centuries, canute's conquest of the anglo-saxon kingdom would have been impossible. the same generation that saw the consolidation of the norse tribes into the norwegian kingdom also saw the colonisation of the faroe islands and iceland. a century later norsemen were building homes on the bleak shores of greenland. less than a generation later, in the year , vineland was reached by leif the lucky.[ ] earlier still, perhaps a century or more before the icelandic migration, the northmen had begun to occupy parts of the british isles. the ships that first sought and reached north britain probably sailed from two folklands (or shires) in southwestern norway, hordaland and rogaland, the territories about the modern ports of bergen and stavanger. due west from the former city lie the shetland islands; in the same direction from stavanger are the orkneys. it has been conjectured that the earliest scandinavian settlements in these parts were made on the shores of pentland firth, on the orkneys and on the coast of caithness. thence the journey went along the north-western coast of scotland to the hebrides group, across the narrow straits to ireland, and down to the isle of man.[ ] the emerald isle attracted the sea-kings and the period of pillage was soon followed by an age of settlement. the earliest norse colony in ireland seems to have been founded about , on the banks of the liffey, where the city of dublin grew up a little later, and for centuries remained the centre of norse power and influence on the island. other settlements were established at various points on the east coast, notably at wicklow, wexford, and waterford, which names show clearly their norse origin. about a stronghold was built at cork.[ ] toward the close of the eighth century the vikings appeared in large numbers on the coasts of northern england. two generations later they had destroyed three of the four english kingdoms and were organising the danelaw on their ruins. still later rolf appeared with his host of northmen in the seine valley and founded the norman duchy. it must not be assumed that in these colonies the population was exclusively scandinavian. the native elements persisted and seem, as a rule, to have lived on fairly good terms with the invaders. it is likely that wherever these energetic northerners settled they became the dominant social force; but no feeling of contempt or aloofness appears to have been felt on either side after the races had learned to know each other. intermarriage was frequent, not only between dane and angle, but between celt and norseman as well. in time the alien was wholly absorbed into the native population; but in the process the victorious element underwent a profound transformation which extended to social conventions as well as to race.[ ] the largest of these colonies was the danelaw, a series of danish and norse settlements extending from the thames to the north of england. according to an english writer of the twelfth century, it comprised york and fourteen shires to the south.[ ] the area controlled was evidently considerably larger than the region actually settled; and in some of the shires the scandinavian population was probably not numerous. five cities in the danelaw enjoyed a peculiar pre-eminence. these were lincoln, nottingham, derby, leicester, and stamford. it has been conjectured that these were garrison towns held and organised with a view to securing the obedience of the surrounding country.[ ] if this be correct, we should infer that the population beyond the walls was largely anglian. the five boroughs seem to have had a common organisation of a republican type: they formed "the first federation of boroughs known in this island, and in fact the earliest federation of towns known outside of italy."[ ] part of the danelaw must have contained a large scandinavian element, especially the shires of lincoln and york.[ ] there were also danish and norwegian settlements in england outside the danelaw in its narrower sense: in the north-western shires and in the severn valley, perhaps as high up as worcestershire.[ ] danish power in england seems to have centered about the ancient city of york. it would be more nearly correct to speak of northumbria in the ninth and tenth centuries as a norse than as a danish colony; but the angles made no such distinction. the population must also have contained a large english element. a native ecclesiastic who wrote toward the close of the tenth century speaks with enthusiasm of the wealth and grandeur of york. the city rejoices in a multitude of inhabitants; not fewer than , men and women (children and youths not counted) are numbered in this city. it is also filled with the riches of merchants who come from everywhere, especially from the danish nation.[ ] in some respects the danelaw is the most important fact in the history of the anglo-saxon monarchy: it was the rock on which old english nationality foundered. by the middle of the tenth century, saxon england was practically confined to the country south of the thames river and the western half of the midlands, a comparatively small area surrounded by scandinavian and celtic settlements. if this fact is fully appreciated, there should be little difficulty in understanding the loss of english national freedom in the days of sweyn and canute. the english kings did, indeed, exercise some sort of suzerain authority over most of the neighbouring colonies, but this authority was probably never so complete as historians would have us believe. it is worth noting that the scribe whom we have quoted above speaks of the danes, not as pirates but as merchants. the tenth century was, on the whole, so far as piratical expeditions are concerned, an age of peace in the north. the word viking is old in the mediæval dialects, and scandinavian pirates doubtless visited the shores of christian europe at a very early date. but the great viking age was the ninth century, when the field of piratical operations covered nearly half of europe and extended from iceland to byzantium. the movement culminated in the last quarter of the century and was followed by a constructive period of nearly one hundred years, when society was being reorganised or built anew in the conquered lands. the icelandic republic was taking form. the norman duchy was being organised. the northmen in the danelaw were being forced into political relations with the saxon kings. trade began to follow new routes and find new harbours. the older scandinavian cities acquired an added fame and importance, while new towns were being founded both in the home lands and in the western islands. [illustration: scandinavian settlements, britain and normandy] this lull in the activities of the sea-kings gave the western rulers an opportunity to regain much that had been lost. in england the expansion of wessex which had begun in the days of alfred was continued under his successors, until in edgar's day one lord was recognised from the channel to the forth. but with edgar died both majesty and peace. about the viking spirit was reawakened in the north. the raven banner reappeared in the western seas, and soon the annals of the west began to recount their direful tales. among all the chiefs of this new age, one stands forth pre-eminent, sweyn with the forked beard, whose remarkable achievement it was to enlist all this lawless energy for a definite purpose, the conquest of wessex. in ethelred the ill-counselled was crowned king of england and began his long disastrous reign. if we may trust the abingdon chronicler, who, as a monk, should be truthful, england was duly warned of the sorrows to come. for "in that same year blood-red clouds resembling fire were frequently seen; usually they appeared at midnight hanging like moving pillars painted upon the sky." the king was a mere boy of ten summers; later writers could tell us that signs of degeneracy were discovered in the prince as early as the day of his baptism. on some of his contemporaries, however, he seems to have made a favourable impression. we cannot depend much on the praises of a norse scald who sang in the king's presence; but perhaps we can trust the english writer who describes him as a youth of "elegant manners, handsome features, and comely appearance."[ ] that ethelred proved an incompetent king is beyond dispute. still, it is doubtful whether any ruler with capabilities less than those of an alfred could have saved england in the early years of the eleventh century. for ethelred had succeeded to a perilous inheritance. in the new territorial additions to wessex there were two chief elements, neither of which was distinctly pro-saxon: the dane or the half-danish colonist was naturally hostile to the saxon régime; his anglian neighbour recalled the former independence of his region as mercia, east anglia, or northumbria, and was weak in his loyalty to the southern dynasty. the spirit of particularism asserted itself repeatedly, for it seems unlikely that the many revolts in the tenth century were danish uprisings merely. it seems possible that ethelred's government might have been able to maintain itself after a fashion and perhaps would have satisfied the demands of the age, had it not been that vast hostile forces were just then released in the north. these attacked wessex from two directions: fleets from the irish sea ravaged the southwest; vikings from the east entered the channel and plundered the southern shores. it is likely that in the advance-guard of the renewed piracy, sweyn forkbeard was a prominent leader. we have seen that during the last years of harold's reign, there were trouble and ill-feeling between father and son. these years, it seems, the undutiful prince spent in exile and piratical raids. as the baltic would scarcely be a safe refuge under the circumstances, we may assume that those seven years were spent in the west.[ ] in the second year of ethelred's reign the incursions began: "the great chief behemoth rose against him with all his companions and engines of war."[ ] in that year chester was plundered by the norsemen; thanet and southampton were devastated by the danes. the troubles at chester are of slight significance; they were doubtless merely the continuation of desultory warfare in the upper irish sea. but the attack on southampton, the port of the capital city of winchester, was ominous: though clearly a private undertaking it was significant in revealing the weakness of english resistance. the vikings probably wintered among their countrymen on the shores of the irish sea, for south-western england was again visited and harried during the two succeeding years. for a few years ( - ) there was a lull in the operations against england. the energies of the north were employed elsewhere: this was evidently the period of styrbjörn's invasion of sweden and sigvaldi's attack on norway with the desperate battles of fyris river and hjörunga bay. but, in , viking ships in great numbers appeared in the irish sea.[ ] two years later a fleet visited devon and entered bristol channel. it is probable that norman ships took part in this raid; at any rate the danes sold english plunder in normandy. in , the attack entered upon a new phase. earlier the country had suffered from raids in which no great number of vikings had taken part in any instance; now they came in armies and the attack became almost an invasion. that year a fierce battle was fought near maldon[ ] in essex where one of the chief leaders of the vikings was an exiled norwegian prince, olaf trygvesson, who four years later restored the norwegian throne. it is likely, therefore, that the host was not exclusively danish but gathered from the entire north. the fight at maldon was a crushing defeat for the english and consternation ruled in the councils of the irresolute king. siric, the archbishop of canterbury, and two ealdormen were sent as an embassy to the viking camp to sue for peace. a treaty was agreed to which seems to imply that the host was to be permitted to remain in east anglia for an undefined time. the vikings promised to defend england against any other piratical bands, thus virtually becoming mercenaries for the time being. in return ethelred agreed to pay a heavy tribute and to furnish provisions "the while that they remain among us."[ ] thus began the danegeld which seems to have developed into a permanent tax in the reign of canute. the next year king ethelred collected a fleet in the thames in the hope of entrapping his new allies; but treason was abroad in england and the plan failed.[ ] the following year the pirates appeared in the humber country; here, too, the english defence melted away. after relating the flight of the anglian leaders, florence of worcester adds significantly, "because they were danes on the paternal side."[ ] the next year ( ) king sweyn of denmark joined the fleet of olaf and his associates and new purposes began to appear. instead of seeking promiscuous plunder, the invaders attempted to reduce cities and strongholds. once more the english sued for peace on the basis of tribute.[ ] sweyn evidently returned to denmark where his presence seems to have been sorely needed. for two years england enjoyed comparative peace. the energies of the north found other employment: we read of raids on the welsh coast and of piratical expeditions into saxony; interesting events also occurred in the home lands. to these years belong the revolt of the norsemen against earl hakon, and perhaps also the invasion of denmark by eric the victorious. thirty years of power had developed tyrannical passions in the norwegian earl. according to the sagas he was cruel, treacherous, and licentious. every year he became more overbearing and despotic; every year added to the total of discontent. here was sweyn forkbeard's opportunity; but he had other irons in the fire, and the opportunity fell to another. about a pretender to the norse throne arrived from the west,--olaf trygvesson, the great-grandson of harold fairhair. our earliest reliable information as to olaf's career comes from english sources; they tell of his operations in britain in and and the circumstances indicate that the intervening years were also spent on these islands. while in england he was attracted to the christian faith, a fact that evidently came to be known to the english, for, in the negotiations of , particular attention was paid to the princely chieftain. an embassy was sent to him with bishop alphege as leading member, and the outcome was that olaf came to visit king ethelred at andover, where he was formally admitted to the christian communion, ethelred acting as godfather.[ ] at andover, olaf promised never to come again to england "with unpeace"; the chronicler adds that he kept his word. with the coming of spring he set out for norway and never again saw england as friend or foe. we do not know what induced him at this time to take up the fight with hakon the bad; but doubtless it was in large measure due to urging on the part of the church. for olaf the viking had become a zealous believer; when he landed in norway he came provided with priests and all the other necessaries of christian worship. it is not necessary to tell the story of the earl's downfall,--how he was hounded into a pig-sty where he died at the hands of a thrall. olaf was soon universally recognised as king and proceeded at once to carry out his great and difficult purpose: to christianise a strong and stubborn people ( ).[ ] as to the second event, the invasion of sweyn's dominions by the king of sweden, we cannot be so sure, as most of the accounts that have come down to us are late and difficult to harmonise. historians agree that, some time toward the close of his reign, king eric sought revenge for the assistance that the danish king had given his nephew styrbjörn in his attempt to seize the swedish throne. the invasion must have come after sweyn's accession ( ?) and before eric's death, the date of which is variously given as , , .[ ] if eric was still ruling in when sweyn was absent in england, it is extremely probable that he made use of a splendid opportunity to seize the lands of his enemy. this would explain sweyn's readiness to accept ethelred's terms in the winter of - .[ ] after the death of king eric, new interests and new plans began to germinate in the fertile mind of sweyn the viking. late in life the swedish king seems to have married a young swedish woman who is known to history as sigrid the haughty. sigrid belonged to a family of great wealth and prominence; her father tosti was a famous viking who had harvested his treasures on an alien shore. eric had not long been dead before wooers in plenty came to seek the hand of the rich dowager. so importunate did they become that the queen to get rid of them is said to have set fire to the house where two of them slept. olaf trygvesson was acceptable, but he imposed an impossible condition: sigrid must become a christian. when she finally refused to surrender her faith, the king is said to have stricken her in the face with his gauntlet. the proud queen never forgave him. soon afterwards sigrid married sweyn forkbeard who had dismissed his earlier consort, queen gunhild, probably to make room for the swedish dowager. we do not know what motives prompted this act, but it was no doubt urged by state-craft. in this way the wily dane cemented an alliance with a neighbouring state which had but recently been hostile.[ ] the divorced queen was a polish princess of an eminent slavic family; she was the sister of boleslav chrobri, the mighty polish duke who later assumed the royal title. when gunhild retired to her native poland, she may have taken with her a small boy who can at that time scarcely have been more than two or three years old, perhaps even younger. the boy was canute, the king's younger son, though the one who finally succeeded to all his father's power and policies. the only information that we have of canute's childhood comes from late and not very reliable sources: it is merely this, that he was not brought up at the danish court, but was fostered by thurkil the tall, one of the chiefs at jomburg and brother of earl sigvaldi.[ ] the probabilities favour the accuracy of this report. it was customary in those days to place boys with foster-fathers; prominent nobles or even plain franklins received princes into their households and regarded the charge as an honoured trust. perhaps, too, a royal child would be safer among the warriors of jomburg than at the court of a stepmother who had employed such drastic means to get rid of undesirable wooers. the character of his early impressions and instruction can readily be imagined: canute was trained for warfare. when the young prince became king of england thurkil was exalted to a position next to that of the ruler himself. after the old chief's death, canute seems to have heaped high honours on thurkil's son harold in denmark. we cannot be sure, but it seems likely that this favour is to be ascribed, in part, at least, to canute's affection for his foster-father and his foster-brother. in those same years another important marriage was formed in sweyn's household: the fugitive eric, the son of earl hakon whose power was now wielded by the viking olaf, had come to denmark, where sweyn forkbeard received him kindly and gave him his daughter gytha in marriage. thus there was formed a hostile alliance against king olaf with its directing centre at the danish court. in addition to his own resources and those of his stepson in sweden, sweyn could now count on the assistance of the dissatisfied elements in norway who looked to eric as their natural leader. it was not long before a pretext was found for an attack. thyra, sweyn's sister, the widow of styrbjörn, had been married to mieczislav, the duke of poland. in , she was widowed the second time. after a few years, perhaps in , olaf trygvesson made her queen of norway. later events would indicate that this marriage, which olaf seems to have contracted without consulting the bride's brother, was part of a plan to unite against sweyn all the forces that were presumably hostile,--poles, jomvikings, and norsemen.[ ] the saga writers, keenly alive to the influence of human passion on the affairs of men, emphasise sigrid's hatred for olaf and thyra's anxiety to secure certain possessions of hers in wendland as important causes of the war that followed. each is said to have egged her husband to the venture, though little urging can have been needed in either case. in the summer of , a large and splendid norwegian fleet appeared in the baltic. in his negotiations with poles and jomvikings, olaf was apparently successful: sigvaldi joined the expedition and slavic ships were added to the norse armament. halldor the unchristian tells us that these took part in the battle that followed: "the wendish ships spread over the bay, and the thin beaks gaped with iron mouths upon the warriors."[ ] sweyn's opportunity had come and it was not permitted to pass. he mustered the danish forces and sent messages to his stepson in sweden and to his son-in-law eric. sigvaldi was also in the alliance. plans were made to ambush the norse king on his way northward. the confederates gathered their forces in the harbour of swald, a river mouth on the pomeranian coast a little to the west of the isle of rügen. sigvaldi's part was to feign friendship for olaf and to lead him into the prepared trap. the plan was successfully carried out. a small part of king olaf's fleet was lured into the harbour and attacked from all sides. the fight was severe but numbers prevailed. olaf's own ship, the famous _long serpent_, was boarded by eric hakonsson's men, and the king in the face of sure capture leaped into the baltic.[ ] [illustration: the larger aarhus stone] [illustration: the sjÆlle stone (runic monument raised to gyrth, earl sigvaldi's brother.)] the victors had agreed to divide up norway and the agreement was carried out. most of the coast lands from the naze northwards were given to earl eric. the southern shores, the land from the naze eastwards, fell to king sweyn. seven shires in the throndhjem country and a single shire in the extreme southeast were assigned to the swedish king; but only the last-mentioned shire was joined directly to sweden; the northern regions were given as a fief to eric's younger brother sweyn who had married the swede-king's daughter. similarly sweyn forkbeard enfeoffed his son-in-law eric, but the larger part he kept as his own direct possession.[ ] the battle of swald was of great importance to the policies of the knytlings. the rival norse kingdom was destroyed. once more the danish king had almost complete control of both shores of the waterways leading into the baltic. danish hegemony in the north was a recognised fact. but all of norway was not yet a danish possession--that ambition was not realised before the reign of canute. and england was still unconquered. [illustration: danish coins from the reign of canute, minted at odense, viborg, heathby.] footnotes: [ ] saxo grammaticus, _gesta danorum_, . [ ] the saga writers call the members of the danish dynasty the knytlings, from its foremost representative canute (knut). [ ] saxo, _gesta danorum_, . [ ] wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii., - . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., . [ ] wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii., . [ ] wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii., - . [ ] _ibid._, . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., - . saxo, _gesta danorum_, . saxo places the ordeal in the reign of harold's successor. [ ] adamus, _gesta hammenburgensis ecclesicæ pontificum_, ii., c. . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., - . [ ] snorre, _saga of hakon the good_, cc. , , , . [ ] snorre, _olaf trygvesson's saga_, c. . see also munch, _del norske folks historie_, i., ii., . [ ] thietmar, _chronicon_, ii., c. . [ ] snorre, _olaf trygvesson's saga_, cc. , - . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., - . [ ] snorre, _olaf trygvesson's saga_, cc. - . [ ] _gesta danorum_, . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . saxo, _gesta_, . [ ] _gesta_, ii., cc. , . [ ] _gesta_, . [ ] wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii., ff. [ ] the american shores were evidently too far distant for successful colonisation; but the visits to the far west clearly did not cease with the journeys of leif and his associates. vineland is mentioned in a runic monument from the eleventh century which records an expedition to the west that seems to have ended disastrously: "they came out [upon the ocean] and over wide stretches [of land] and in need of dry clothes for changes and of food toward vineland and over icy wastes in the wilderness. evil may deprive one of good fortune so that death comes early." this inscription, which is the earliest document that mentions the new world, was found at hönen in south-eastern norway. the original has been lost, but copies are extant. the translation is from bugge's rendering into modern norse. (_norges historie_, i., ii., .) [ ] bugge, _vihingerne_, i., ff. [ ] "all along the irish coast from belfast to dublin and limerick there still remains an unbroken series of norse place names, principally the names of firths, islands, reefs, and headlands, which show that at such points the fairway has been named by northmen." _norges historie_, i., ii., ; see also pp. - . (bugge.) [ ] of this process and its results normandy furnishes the best illustration. the population of rollo's duchy soon came to be a mixture of races with french as the chief element, though in some sections, as the cotentin and the bessin, the inhabitants clung to their scandinavian speech and customs for a long time. steenstrup, _normannerne_, i., - . [ ] simeon of durham, _opera omnia_, ii., . the area varied at different periods; but the earlier danelaw seems to have comprised fifteen shires. see steenstrup, _normannerne_, iv., - . [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, iv., - . [ ] _saga book of the viking club_, vi., i., (bugge). see also collingwood, _scandinavian britain_, . the federation was later enlarged till it included seven boroughs. _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] the danish antiquarian worsaae found more than four hundred norse place names in yorkshire alone. while his list cannot be regarded as final, it will probably be found to be fairly correct. the subject of english place names has not yet been fully investigated. recent studies are those by f.m. stenton, _the place names of berkshire_ (reading, ), h.c. wyld and t.o. hirst, _the place names of lancashire_ (london, ), and f.w. moorman, _the place names of the west riding of yorkshire_ (leeds, ). [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, iii., . [ ] _historians of the church of york_, i., . [ ] _historians of the church of york_, i., . for a fragment of a lay in praise of ethelred see _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., iii. [ ] saxo gives the period as seven years (_gesta_, ). but his account is confused and unreliable; seven must be taken as a round number. still, the period between the renewal of the raids in england and sweyn's accession covers nearly seven years. [ ] _historians of the church of york_, i., . [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, iii., . [ ] the english were led by the east anglian ealdorman byrhtnoth, whose valour and death are told in what is perhaps the finest poem in old english literature. see grein-wülker, _bibliothek der angelsächsischen poesie_, i., - . [ ] for the treaty see liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., - . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, , . as the betrayer, alfric, had a part in the treaty-making of the year before, he may have looked on the new plans as dishonourable. [ ] _chronicon_, i., - . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] taranger, _den angelsaksiske kirkes indflydelse paa den norske_, . [ ] snorre, _olaf trygvesson's saga_, cc. - . [ ] steenstrup favours the earlier date (_danmarks riges historie_, i., ); munch sees reasons for a later year (_det norske folks historie_, i., ii., ). [ ] that serious business was awaiting sweyn in his own country is evident from two runic inscriptions that have been found in the jutish borderland: the heathby (or vedelspang) stone and the danework stone. the former was raised by "thorolf, sweyn's housecarle" in memory of a companion "who died when brave men were besieging heathby." the second was raised by sweyn himself in memory of skartha, his housecarle, "who had fared west to england but now died at heathby." the expedition to the west may have been the one that sweyn undertook in . one stone mentions the siege of heathby, but heathby was destroyed shortly before . the siege therefore probably dates from or one of the following years; but whether the enemy was a part of eric's forces cannot be determined. for the inscriptions see wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii., , . [ ] snorre, _olaf trygvesson's saga_, cc. , - , . [ ] _flateyarbók_, i., . [ ] snorre tells us (_olaf trygvesson's saga_, c. ) that thyra had fled from her husband, who is mistakenly called boleslav, and had come as a fugitive to olaf's court. so attractive did she prove to the sympathetic king that he promptly married her. the account is evidently largely fiction; there seems to have been a good understanding between olaf and boleslav when the norse beet came south in . in the account given above i have followed bugge (_norges historie_, i., ii., ). [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., (vigfusson's translation). [ ] the chief authorities on the battle of swald are snorre and adam of bremen. there seems also to be an allusion to the fight in an inscription on a runic monument, the aarhus stone, which was raised by four men, presumably warriors, in memory of a comrade "who died on the sea to the eastward when the kings were fighting." wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii., [ ] _norges historie_, i., ii., - . chapter ii the conquest of england - during the five years of rivalry between olaf and sweyn ( - ), england had enjoyed comparative peace. incursions, indeed, began again in ; but these were clearly of the earlier type, not invasions like the movements led by olaf and sweyn. who the leaders were at this time we do not know; but the northern kings were in those years giving and taking in marriage and busily plotting each other's destruction, so we conclude that the undertakings continued to be of the private sort, led, perhaps, by norse chiefs who had found life in norway uncongenial after king olaf had begun to persecute the heathen worshippers. the english had now come to realise the importance of the upper irish sea as a rendezvous for all forms of piratical bands; and the need of aggressive warfare at this point was clearly seen. accordingly, in the year , ethelred collected a fleet and an army and harried the norse settlements in cumberland and on the isle of man. the time was opportune for a movement of this sort, as no reinforcements from the north could be expected that year. the expedition, however, accomplished nothing of importance; for the fleet that ethelred had hoped to intercept did not return to the western waters but sailed to normandy.[ ] ethelred was angry with duke richard of normandy for sheltering his enemies, and proceeded to attack his duchy with his usual ill success.[ ] nevertheless, the hostilities terminated favourably for ethelred, as the norman duke offered his beaten enemy not only peace, but alliance. recent events in the north may have caused richard to reflect. the diplomacy of sweyn, culminating in the partition of norway, had made denmark a state of great importance. sweyn's designs on england were probably suspected; at any rate, normandy for the moment seemed willing to support england. in early spring, , the bond was further strengthened by a marriage between ethelred and duke richard's sister emma, who later married her husband's enemy, the danish canute. that same year england was once more rid of the enemy through the payment of danegeld.[ ] the prospects for continued peace in england were probably better in than in any other year since the accession of ethelred. but toward the end of the year, all that gold and diplomacy had built up was ruined by a royal order, the stupidity of which was equalled only by its criminality. on saint brice's day (november ), the english rose, not to battle but to murder. it had been planned on that date to rid the country of all its danish inhabitants. how extensive the territory was that was thus stained with blood, we are not informed; but such an order could not have been carried out in the danelaw. in justification of his act, ethelred pleaded that he had heard of a danish conspiracy, directed not only against his own life, but against the lives of the english nobility as well. it is likely that, when england bought peace earlier in the year, a number of the vikings remained in the land, intending, perhaps, to settle permanently; such arrangements were by no means unusual. the massacre of saint brice's may, therefore, have had for its object the extermination of the raiders that came in . but these were not the only ones slain: among the victims were gunhild, king sweyn's sister, and her husband, the ealdorman pallig.[ ] it is probable that pallig, though a saxon official, was a dane living among the danes in some scandinavian settlement in south-western england.[ ] we are told that ethelred had treated him well, had given him lands and honours; but he did not remain faithful to his lord; only the year before, when the vikings were in devon, he joined them with a number of ships. pallig no doubt deserved the punishment of a traitor, but it would have been politic in his case to show mercy. if he was, as has been conjectured from the form of his name, connected with the family of palna toki, the famous danish archer and legendary organiser of the jomburg fraternity, he was bound to sweyn by double ties, for palna toki was sweyn's reputed foster-father.[ ] sweyn forkbeard at once prepared to take revenge for the death of his kinsfolk. the next year ( ), his sails were seen from the cliffs of the channel shore. but before proceeding to the attack, he seems to have visited his norman friend, duke richard the good. for some reason, displeasure, perhaps, at the shedding of noble scandinavian blood on saint brice's day, the duke was ready to repudiate his alliance with his english brother-in-law. the two worthies reached the agreement that normandy should be an open market for english plunder and a refuge for the sick and wounded in the danish host.[ ] evidently sweyn was planning an extended campaign. having thus secured himself against attacks from the rear, sweyn proceeded to exeter, which was delivered into his hands by its faithless norman commander hugo.[ ] in the surrender of exeter, we should probably see the first fruit of the new danish-norman understanding. from this city the danes carried destruction into the southern shires. the following year ( ), east anglia was made to suffer. ulfketel, the earl of the region, was not prepared to fight and made peace with sweyn; but the danes did not long observe the truce. after they had treacherously attacked thetford, the earl gathered his forces and tried to intercept sweyn's marauding bands on their way back to the ships; but though the east anglians fought furiously, the danes escaped. the opposition that sweyn met in the half-danish east anglia seems to have checked his operations. the next year he left the land.[ ] the forces of evil seemed finally to have spent their strength, for the years and were on the whole comparatively peaceful. those same years show considerable energy on the part of the english: in the pentecostal season, may, , the king met his "wise men" at eanham, and a long legislative enactment saw the light.[ ] it was hoped that by extensive and thorough-going reforms the national vigour might be restored. among other things provisions were made for an extensive naval establishment, based on a contribution that grew into the ship money of later fame. a large number of ships were actually assembled; but the treacherous spirit and the jealous conduct of some of the english nobles soon ruined the efficiency of the fleet; the new navy went to pieces at a moment when its service was most sorely needed. for in that year, , a most formidable enemy appeared in the channel: the vikings of jom had left their stronghold on the oder and were soon to re-establish themselves on the thames.[ ] for about two decades sigvaldi ruled at jomburg; but after the battle of swald he disappears from the sagas: all that we learn is that he was slain on some expedition to england. perhaps he was one of the victims of saint brice's ( ); or he may have perished in one of the later raids. his death must, however, be dated earlier than ; for in that year his brother thurkil came to england, we are told, to take revenge for a slain brother.[ ] thurkil's fleet appeared at sandwich in july. associated with the tall dane was a short, thick-set norwegian, olaf the stout, a young viking of royal blood who later won renown as the missionary king of norway and fell in war against canute the great. in august came a second fleet, under the leadership of eglaf and heming, thurkil's brother. the fleets joined at thanet; this time nearly all the southern counties had to suffer. the host wintered on the lower thames and during the winter months plundered the valley up as far as oxford. ethelred tried to cut off its retreat but failed.[ ] during the lenten weeks the vikings refitted their ships, and on april , , they set sail for east anglia. ulfketel was still in control of that region and had made preparations to meet the invader. on may , the danes met the native levies at ringmere in the southern part of norfolk. the fight was sharp, with final victory for the sea-kings. the english sources attribute the outcome to the treasonable behaviour of thurkil mareshead, who was evidently a dane in ulfketel's service. the norse scalds ascribe the result to the valour of olaf the stout, who here won the "sword-moot" for the seventh time.[ ] during the remaining months of the year and all through the following summer, the vikings rode almost unresisted through southern england, plundering everywhere. finally the king and the "wise men" began to negotiate for peace on the usual basis. but so often had danegelds been levied that it was becoming difficult to collect the money and the payment was not so prompt as the vikings desired. in their anger they laid siege to canterbury, and, after a close investment of twenty days, by the assistance of an english priest were enabled to seize the city. many important citizens were held for ransom, among them the archbishop alphege, who remained a prisoner for nearly six months. his confinement cannot have been severe; the prelate was interested in the spiritual welfare of the scandinavian pirates, and seems to have begun a mission among his keepers. but he forbade the payment of a ransom, and after a drunken orgy the exasperated danes proceeded to pelt him to death with the bones of their feast. thrym, a dane whom he had confirmed the day before, gave him the mercy stroke.[ ] during the closing days of the archbishop's life, an assembly of the magnates in london had succeeded in raising the tribute agreed upon, , pounds. not merely were the invaders bought off,--they were induced to enter ethelred's service as mercenaries; there must have been reasons why it would be inadvisable to return to jomburg. the english king now had an army of some four thousand or perhaps five thousand men, a splendid force of professional warriors led by the renowned viking thurkil the tall. according to william of malmesbury, they were quartered in east anglia,[ ] which seems plausible, as wessex must have been thoroughly pillaged by . when the year opened, there were reasons to hope that the miseries of england were past. for a whole generation the sea-kings had infested the channel and the irish sea, scourging the shores of southern britain almost every year. large sums of money had been paid out in the form of danegeld, , pounds silver, but to little purpose: the enemy returned each year as voracious as ever. now, however, the pirate had undertaken to defend the land. the presence of danish mercenaries was doubtless an inconvenience, but this would be temporary only. it was to be expected that, as in the days of alfred, the enemy would settle down as an occupant of the soil, and in time become a subject instead of a mercenary soldier. but just at this moment, an invasion of a far more serious nature was being prepared in denmark. in the councils of roeskild sweyn forkbeard was asking his henchmen what they thought of renewing the attack on england. the question suggested the answer: to the king's delight favourable replies came from all. it is said that sweyn consulted his son canute with the rest; and the eager youth strongly urged the undertaking.[ ] this is the earliest act on canute's part that any historian has recorded. in , he was perhaps seventeen years old; he had reached the age when a scandinavian prince should have entered upon an active career. his great rival of years to come, olaf the stout, who can have been only two years older than canute, had already sailed the dragon for six or seven years. it is likely that the young dane had also experienced the thrills of viking life, but on this matter the sagas are silent. but it is easy to see why canute should favour the proposed venture: as a younger son he could not hope for the danish crown. the conquest of england might mean not only fame and plundered wealth, but perhaps a realm to govern as well. the considerations that moved the king to renew the attempts at conquest were no doubt various; but the deciding factor was evidently the defection of thurkil and the jomvikings. an ecclesiastic who later wrote a eulogy on queen emma and her family discusses the situation in this wise: thurkil, they said, the chief of your forces, o king, departed with your permission that he might take revenge for a brother who had been slain there, and led with him a large part of your host. now that he rejoices in victory and in the possession of the southern part of the country, he prefers to remain there as an exile and a friend of the english whom he has conquered by your hand, to returning with the host in submission to you and ascribing the victory to yourself. and now we are defrauded of our companions and of forty ships which he sailed to england laden with the best warriors of denmark.[ ] so the advice was to seize, the english kingdom as well as the danish deserter. no great difficulty was anticipated, as thurkil's men would probably soon desert to the old standards. the customs of the northmen demanded that an undertaking of this order should first be approved by the public assembly, and the encomiast tells us that sweyn at once proceeded to summon the freemen. couriers were sent in every direction, and at the proper time the men appeared, each with his weapons as the law required. when the heralds announced the nature of the proposed undertaking--not a mere raid with plunder in view but the conquest of an important nation--the host gave immediate approval. in many respects the time was exceedingly favourable for the contemplated venture. a large part of england was disposed to be friendly; the remainder was weak from continued pillage. denmark was strong and aggressive, eager to follow the leadership of her warlike king. sweyn's older son, harold, had now reached manhood, and could with comparative safety be left in control of the kingdom. denmark's neighbours in the north were friendly: sweyn's vassal and son-in-law controlled the larger part of norway; his stepson, olaf, ruled in sweden. nor was anything to be feared from the old enemies to the south. the restless vikings of jom were in england. the lord of poland was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the empire. the saxon dynasty, which had naturally had northern interests, no longer dominated germany; a bavarian, henry ii., now sat on the throne of the ottos. in the very year of sweyn's invasion of england, the german king journeyed to italy to settle one of the numberless disputes that the roman see was involved in during the tenth and eleventh centuries. he remained in italy till the next year ( ), when the victorious pope rewarded him with the imperial crown. something in the form of a regency was provided for the danish realm during sweyn's absence. harold seems to have received royal authority without the royal title. associated with him were a few trusted magnates who were to give "sage advice," but also, it seems, to watch over the interests of the absent monarch.[ ] a part of the host was left in denmark; but the greater part of the available forces evidently accompanied the king to england. about midsummer ( ), the fleet was ready to sail. the encomiast, who had evidently seen danish ships, gives a glowing description of the armament, which apart from rhetorical exaggeration probably gives a fairly accurate picture of an eleventh-century viking fleet of the more pretentious type. he notes particularly the ornamentation along the sides of the ships, bright and varied in colours; the vanes at the tops of the masts in the forms of birds or of dragons with fiery nostrils; and the figureheads at the prows: carved figures of men, red with gold or white with silver, or of bulls with necks erect, or of dolphins, centaurs, or other beasts. the royal ship was, of course, splendid above all the rest.[ ] the customary route of the danish vikings followed the frisian coast to the south-eastern part of england, the shires of kent and sussex. ordinarily, the fleets would continue the journey down the channel, plundering the shore lands and sending out larger parties to harry the interior. sweyn had developed a different plan: wessex was to be attacked from the old danelaw. following the ancient route, his ships appeared at sandwich on the kentish coast early in august. sandwich was at this time a place of considerable importance, being the chief port in southern england.[ ] here sweyn and canute remained for a few days, but soon the fleet turned swiftly northwards up the eastern coast to the humber. sweyn entered and sailed up this river till he came to the mouth of the trent, which stream he ascended as far as gainsborough. here his men disembarked and preparations were made for the war. sweyn had evidently counted on a friendly reception in the scandinavian settlements of the danelaw, and he was not disappointed. recruits appeared and his forces increased materially. uhtred, the earl of northumbria, who was probably of norse ancestry, soon found it to his advantage to do homage to the invader. sweyn's lordship was also accepted by "the folk of lindsey, and afterwards by the folk in the five boroughs, and very soon by all the host north of watling street, and hostages were given by every shire."[ ] in addition to hostages, sweyn demanded horses and provisions for the host. the summer was probably past before sweyn was ready to proceed against ethelred. but finally, some time in september or a little later, having concluded all the necessary preliminaries, he gave the ships and the hostages into the keeping of his son canute, and led his mounted army southward across the midlands with winchester, the residence city of the english kings, as the objective point. so long as he was still within the danelaw, sweyn permitted no pillaging; but "as soon as he had crossed watling street, he worked as great evil as a hostile force was able." the thames was crossed at oxford, which city promptly submitted and gave hostages. winchester, too, seems to have yielded without a struggle. from the capital sweyn proceeded eastward to london, where he met the first effective resistance. [illustration: the tulstorp stone. (runic monument showing viking ship ornamented with beasts' heads.)] in london was king ethelred supported by thurkil the tall and his viking bands. it seems that olaf the stout had entered the english service with thurkil the year before, and did valiant service in defence of the city; the story given by snorre of the destruction of london bridge apparently belongs to the siege of rather than to that of . sweyn approached the city from the south, seized southwark, and tried to enter london by way of the bridge, which the danes had taken and fortified. it is said that olaf the stout undertook to destroy the bridge. he covered his ships with wattle-work of various sorts, willow roots, supple trees, and other things that might be twisted or woven; and thus protected from missiles that might be hurled down from above, the ships passed up the stream to the bridge, the supports of which olaf and his men proceeded to pull down. the whole structure crashed into the river and with it went a large number of sweyn's men,[ ] who drowned, says the chronicler, "because they neglected the bridge." sweyn soon realised that a continued siege would be useless: the season was advancing; the resistance of the citizens was too stubborn and strong. for the fourth time the heroic men of london had the satisfaction of seeing a danish force break camp and depart with a defeated purpose: the first time in ; then again in when sweyn and olaf trygvesson laid siege to it; the third time in , when thurkil the tall and olaf the stout were the besiegers; now once more in . the feeling that the city was impregnable was doubtless a factor in the stubborn determination with which the townsmen repelled the repeated attacks of the danish invaders, though at this time the skill and valour of the viking mercenaries were an important part of the resistance. leaving london unconquered, sweyn marched up the thames valley to wallingford, where he crossed to the south bank, and continued his progress westward to bath. nowhere, it seems, did he meet any mentionable opposition. to bath came the magnates of the south-western shires led by ethelmer who was apparently ealdorman of devon; they took the oaths that the conqueror prescribed and gave the required hostages. from bath, sweyn returned to his camp at gainsborough; it was time to prepare for winter. tribute and provisions were demanded and doubtless collected, and the host went into winter quarters on the banks of the trent. "and all the nation had him [sweyn] for full king; and later the borough-men of london submitted to him and gave hostages; for they feared that he would destroy them."[ ] the submission of london probably did not come before ethelred's cowardly behaviour had ruined the hopes of the patriots: he had fled the land. earlier in the year (in august, according to one authority)[ ] queen emma, accompanied by the abbot of peterborough, had crossed the channel, and sought the court of her brother, the norman duke. whether she went to seek military aid or merely a refuge cannot be determined; but the early departure and the fact that she was not accompanied by her children would indicate that her purpose was to enlist her brother's interest in ethelred's cause. assistance, however, was not forthcoming; but emma remained in richard's duchy and a little later was joined by her two sons, edward and alfred, who came accompanied by two english ecclesiastics. ethelred, meanwhile, continued some weeks longer with thurkil's fleet; but toward the close of december we find him on the isle of wight, where he celebrated christmas. in january, he joined his family in normandy. duke richard gave him an honourable reception; but as he was having serious trouble with another brother-in-law, count odo of chartres, he was probably unable to give much material assistance to the fugitive from england. ethelred's flight must have left thurkil and the jomvikings in a somewhat embarrassing position. they had undertaken to serve the king and defend his country; but now ethelred had deserted the kingdom, and his subjects had accepted the rule of the invader. in january, however, the sea is an unpleasant highway, so there was nothing for the tall chief to do but to remain faithful and insist on the terms of the contract. while sweyn was calling for silver and supplies to be brought to gainsborough, thurkil seems to have been issuing similar demands from greenwich. no doubt his men were also able to eke out their winter supplies by occasional plundering: "they harried the land as often as they wished."[ ] then suddenly an event occurred that created an entirely new situation. on february , , scarcely a month after ethelred's departure from wight, the danish conqueror died. as to his manner of death, the chronicle has nothing to say; but later historians appear to be better informed. the encomiast, who was indeed sweyn's contemporary, gives an account of a very edifying death: when sweyn felt that the end of all things was approaching, he called canute to his side and impressed upon him the necessity of following and supporting the christian faith.[ ] the anglo-norman historians have an even more wonderful story to relate: in the midst of a throng of his henchmen and courtiers, the mighty viking fell, pierced by the dart of saint edmund. sweyn alone saw the saint; he screamed for help; at the close of the day he expired. it seems that a dispute was on at the time over a contribution that king sweyn had levied on the monks who guarded saint edmund's shrine.[ ] the suddenness of the king's death was therefore easily explained: the offended saint slew him. if it is difficult to credit the legend that traces the king's death to an act of impiety, it is also hard to believe that he died in the odour of sanctity. sweyn was a christian, but his religion was of the passive type. he is said to have built a few churches, and he also appears to have promoted missionary efforts to some extent[ ]; but the church evidently regarded him as rather lukewarm in his religious professions. the see of hamburg-bremen, which was charged with the conversion of the northern peoples, did not find him an active friend; though in this case his hostility may have been due to his dislike for all things that were called german. sweyn's virtues were of the viking type: he was a lover of action, of conquest, and of the sea. at times he was fierce, cruel, and vindictive; but these passions were tempered by cunning, shrewdness, and a love for diplomatic methods that were not common among the sea-kings. he seems to have formed alliances readily, and appears even to have attracted his opponents. his career, too, was that of a viking. twice he was taken by the jomvikings, but his faithful subjects promptly ransomed him. once the king of sweden, eric the victorious, conquered his kingdom and sent him into temporary exile. twice as a king he led incursions into england in which he gained only the sea-king's reward of plunder and tribute. but in time fortune veered about; his third expedition to britain was eminently successful, and when sweyn died, he was king not only of denmark but also of england, and overlord of the larger part of norway besides. as to his personality, we have only the slight information implied in his nickname. forkbeard means the divided beard. but the evident popularity that he enjoyed both in the host and in the nation would indicate that he possessed an attractive personality. that sweyn appreciated the loyalty of his men is evident from the runic monument that he raised to his housecarle skartha who had shared in the english warfare.[ ] by his first-wife, the polish princess who was renamed gunhild, sweyn had several children, of whom history makes prominent mention of three: harold, canute, and gytha, who was married to earl eric of norway. in the hyde _register_ there is mention of another daughter, santslaue, "sister of king canute,"[ ] who may have been born of the same marriage, as her name is evidently slavic. his second wife, sigrid the haughty, seems to have had daughters only. of these only one appears prominently in the annals of the time--estrid, the wife of ulf the earl, the mother of a long line of danish kings. at the time of his death sweyn is thought to have been about fifty-four years old and had ruled denmark nearly thirty years. his body was taken to york for interment, but it did not remain there long. the english did not cherish sweyn's memory, and seemed determined to find and dishonour his remains. certain women--english women, it appears--rescued the corpse and brought it to roeskild some time during the following summer ( )[ ], where it was interred in the church of the holy trinity, which also sheltered the bones of sweyn's father whom he had wronged so bitterly thirty years before. footnotes: [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] william of jumièges, _historia normannorum_, v., c. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] richard of cirencester, _speculum historiale_, ii., - . [ ] as there seems to have been a danish settlement in the severn valley, it seems probable that pallig's home was in that region. [ ] the story of palna toki is told in various sagas, particularly _jómsvikingasaga_. of his exploits in archery saxo has an account in his tenth book. having once boasted that no apple was too small for his arrow to find, he was surprised by an order from the king that he should shoot an arrow from his son's head. the archer was reluctant to display his skill in this fashion, but the shot was successful. it is also told that palna toki had provided himself with additional arrows which he had intended for the king in case the first had stricken the child. saxo wrote a century before the time of the supposed tell episode. [ ] william of jumièges, _historia normannorum_, v., c. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _ibid._, - . [ ] liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., - . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, i., c. . it is barely possible that the brother was gyrth, whose name appears on a runic monument (wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii., ff.). but in the absence of information to the contrary we shall have to assume that gyrth was buried where his monument was placed and was therefore not the brother who fell in england. [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., - . [ ] _ibid._, - . snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . storm in his translation of snorre (christiania, ) locates ringmere in east wretham, norfolk, (p. ). [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., - . [ ] _gesta regum_, i., . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, i., c. . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, i., c. . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, i., c. . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, i., c. . [ ] _ibid._, i., c. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. - . the story in the saga has the appearance of genuineness and is based on the contemporary verses of ottar the swart. snorre's chronology, however, is much confused. [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] william of malmesbury, _gesta regum_, i., . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, i., c. ; see also saxo, _gesta_, . [ ] _memorials of saint edmund's abbey_, i., ff. [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii., . [ ] _liber vitæ_, . steenstrup suggests that the name may be slavic and calls attention to the slavic form svantoslava (_venderne og de danske_, - ). [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . the rescue and removal of sweyn's remains by english women is asserted by the contemporary german chronicler thietmar (_chronicon_, vii., c. ). chapter iii the english reaction and the norse revolt - the death of sweyn was the signal for important movements throughout the entire north. forces that had been held in rein by his mighty personality were once more free to act. in denmark, his older son harold succeeded at once to the full kingship. three years later a national ruler re-established the norwegian throne. but in england the results were most immediate and most evident: the national spirit rose with a bound and for three years more the struggle with the invader continued. the host at gainsborough promptly recognised the leadership of canute and proclaimed him king. this, however, gave him no valid claim to the saxon crown; england was, in theory at least, an elective monarchy, and not till the assembly of the magnates had accepted him could he rightfully claim the royal title. the danish pretender was young and untried--he was probably not yet twenty years old. he must, however, have had some training in matters of government as well as in warfare: that his great father trusted him is evident from the fact that he left him in charge of the camp and fleet at gainsborough, when sweyn set out on his march into wessex. doubtless the danes surmised that the youthful chief possessed abilities of a rare sort; but the english evidently regarded him as a mere boy whose pretensions did not deserve serious attention. during the winter months of , the most prominent leader among the english was evidently thurkil, the master of the mercenary forces. it seems safe to infer that he had much to do with the events of those months, though we have nothing recorded. in some way the english lords were called into session; at this meeting preparations were made to recall the fugitive ethelred. no lord could be dearer to them than their native ruler, the magnates are reported to have said; but they added significantly, "if he would deal more justly with them than formerly."[ ] the lords who attended this gemot were probably the local leaders south of the thames; that the chiefs of the danelaw were in attendance is very unlikely. ethelred, however, was not willing to leave normandy immediately. he first sent an embassy to england under the nominal leadership of his son edward; these men were to negotiate further, and probably study the sentiment of the nation. edward was a mere boy, ten or eleven years old at the highest; but his presence was important as evidence of the king's intentions. the prince brought friendly greetings and fair promises: ethelred would be a kind and devoted king; all the requests of the magnates should be granted; the past should be forgiven and forgotten. the english on their part pledged absolute loyalty; and, to emphasise the covenant, the assembly outlawed all danish claimants. sweyn had died in the early part of february; the negotiations were probably carried on in march; ethelred returned to england some time during lent, most likely in april, as the lenten season closed on the th of that month. the moment to strike had surely come. canute was in england with a good army, but his forces doubtless had decreased in numbers since the landing in the previous august, and further shrinkage was inevitable. on the other hand, recruiting would be found difficult. the inevitable break-up of sweyn's empire in the north would mean that the invader would be deprived of resources that were necessary to the success of the venture. nor could assistance be expected from the scandinavian colonies on the western shores of britain or about the irish sea. in the very days when the reaction was being planned in england, celts and norsemen were mustering their forces for a great trial of strength on irish soil. on good friday (april ), the battle of clontarf was fought on the shores of dublin bay.[ ] the norsemen suffered an overwhelming defeat, the significance of which, for english history, lies in the fact that the viking forces of the west had now been put on the defensive. raids like those of the early years of ethelred's reign were now a thing of the past. meanwhile, canute had not been idle. for aggressive movements the winter season was, of course, not favourable; but preparations seem to have been made looking toward offensive operations immediately after easter. the men of lindsey, danish colonists no doubt, had promised horses and were apparently to share in a joint expedition. but before canute's arrangements had all been made, ethelred appeared in the north country with a formidable host, and canute was compelled to retire to his ships. the men of lincoln were made to suffer for their readiness to join in canute's plans: ethelred marched his men into the lindsey region, and pillage began. it was hardly an english army that ethelred brought up to the trent in may, . englishmen no doubt served in it; but its chief strength was probably the mercenary contingent under thurkil's command, which, as we have seen, had wintered at greenwich. it was fortunate for ethelred that an organised force was at hand on his return and ready for warfare. its service, however, was expensive: that year another danegeld of , pounds was levied to pay thurkil and his vikings for their assistance in driving canute out of the land.[ ] but thurkil was not the only great chief of the viking type that assisted in expelling the danes: olaf the stout once more appears in ethelred's service. it will be recalled that, in the siege of london the autumn before, he assisted vigorously in its defence. he seems to have left the english service shortly afterwards to assist in warfare on french soil. duke richard of normandy was engaged in a controversy with his brother-in-law, count odo of chartres, on the matter of his sister's dowry. in the warfare that ensued, olaf, serving on the norman side, ravaged the northern coast of brittany and took the castle of dol. this must have occurred late in the year or during the winter of - . when, on the mediation of king robert, peace was made between the warring brethren, olaf returned to rouen, where he was received with signal honours. it was probably on this occasion that the mighty sea-king, on the urgent request of archbishop robert, accepted the christian faith and received baptism. it is stated that many of his men were baptised at the same time.[ ] in rouen, olaf evidently met the fugitive ethelred; for when the king returned to england, olaf accompanied him. instead of coming as a returning exile, ethelred appeared in his kingdom with ships and men. the norse poets, who later sang in king olaf's hall, magnified his viking exploits far beyond their real importance. in their view, olaf was ethelred's chief support. snorre quotes the following lines from ottar the swart: thou broughtst to land and landedst, king ethelred, o landward, strengthened by might! that folk-friend such wise of thee availèd. hard was the meeting soothly, when edmund's son thou broughtest back to his land made peaceful, which erst that kin-stem rulèd.[ ] the emergency was too great for canute. with the generalship of experienced warriors like thurkil and olaf, supported by the resources of a roused people, he could not be expected to cope. presently, he determined to flee the country. his men embarked, and the hostages given to his father (some of them at least) were also brought on board. the fleet sailed down the east coast to sandwich, where an act of barbarity was committed for which there can be little justification. the hostages were mutilated--their hands, ears, and noses were cut off--and landed. the men were personal pledges given to sweyn, but not to his son. canute, however, probably looked at the matter in a different light; to him they may have seemed a pledge given to the dynasty; terror must be stricken into the hearts of the oath-breakers. after disposing of the hostages, the young king continued his journey to denmark. what canute's plans were when he arrived in his native land we do not know. according to the encomiast, he assured his surprised brother that he had returned, not because of fear, but for love of his brother, whose advice and assistance he bespoke. but he requested more than this: harold, he thought, ought to share denmark with him; the two kings should then proceed with the conquest of england; when that was accomplished, there might be a new division of territory on the basis of a kingdom for each. he proposed to spend the succeeding winter in preparation for the joint attack.[ ] the proposal to share the rule of denmark evidently did not appeal to king harold; he is represented as stoutly rejecting it. denmark was his, given to him by his father before he left for england. he would assist canute to win a kingdom in britain, but not a foot should he have of denmark. realising the futility of insisting, canute promised to maintain silence as to his supposed hereditary rights to danish soil. he put his trust in god, the good monk adds; and the encomiast was perhaps not the only one who regarded harold's early death as a providential event. the problem of norway was one that the brothers must have discussed, though we do not know what disposition they made of the danish rights there. in addition to the overlordship over at least a part of eric's earldom, sweyn had had direct royal authority over the southern shores, though it is not believed that he exercised this authority very rigidly. there is a single circumstance that suggests that norway was assigned to canute: when the young prince called on his brother-in-law, earl eric, to assist him in england, the norse ruler seems to have obeyed the summons without question.[ ] during the course of the year, the two brothers united in certain acts of a filial nature, one of which is worthy of particular notice. together they proceeded to the slavic coast, poland most likely, where their mother, queen gunhild, was still in exile. after twenty years, she was restored to her honours at the danish court. sigrid the haughty had evidently taken leave of earthly things; for peace and good-will continued between the swedish and danish courts, an impossible condition with sigrid in retirement and her old rival in the high-seat. that same year the brothers gave christian burial to the remains of their father sweyn.[ ] we are told that canute continued his preparations for a descent upon england; still, it may be doubted whether he actually had serious hope of conquering the country at that time. then suddenly there occurred in england a series of events that placed the fate of ethelred in canute's hands. the saga that relates the exploits of the jomvikings tells somewhat explicitly of an english attack on two corps of "thingmen," as the danish mercenaries were called in northern speech, the corps in london and slesswick.[ ] the latter locality has not been identified, but it seems hardly necessary to seek it far north of the thames--the saga locates it north of london. it is asserted that the massacre was planned by ulfketel, and that in slesswick it was thoroughly carried out: from this we may infer that the place was in east anglia, or ulfkellsland, as the scalds called it. the garrisons, we are told, were located by sweyn; this is doubtless an error,--the corps were probably divisions of the viking forces in ethelred's service. no doubt there were other similar corps, for thurkil was apparently connected with neither of the two. canute was out of the country and no hostile force was in sight. there could then be small need of retaining the thingmen who were furthermore a source of expense, perhaps of danger. as in , it was determined to fall upon them and slay them. if it is true that thurkil's men were originally quartered in east anglia,[ ] we can readily understand why ulfketel might take the lead in such an undertaking. in london, where resistance had been so persistent and successful, the mercenaries must have been regarded with strong aversion. it was planned to strike during the yule festivities when the vikings would probably not be in the best possible state of vigour and sobriety. in london armed men were smuggled into the stronghold in waggons that were ostensibly laden with merchandise for the midwinter market. but the corps was warned in time by a woman who wished to save her lover thord. eilif, who was in command here, escaped to denmark. in slesswick, the plan succeeded, none escaping; among the fallen was the chief, heming, the brother of thurkil the tall. the attack is thought to have been made some time during the early part of january, .[ ] it is evident that something of a serious nature occurred in england in those days, and while some of the details in the saga tale are probably fictitious, in substance the account is perhaps correct. heming disappears from the english sources, while eilif is prominent in english politics for another decade. most significant of all, a few weeks later thurkil appears in denmark to urge upon canute the desirability of an immediate attack on england. he now had another brother to avenge. thurkil's desertion of the english cause must have done much to stimulate danish ambition. help was secured from olaf of sweden. eric, the norse earl, was also summoned to the host. great preparations must have gone forward in denmark, for all writers agree that canute's fleet, when it finally sailed, was immense in the number of ships. thurkil's position in denmark appears to have been a trifle uncertain at first. canute could hardly be expected to give cordial greeting to a man who had recently sent him out of england in full flight; but after some discussion the two were reconciled, and thurkil joined the expedition.[ ] in all the north there was none more famous for successful leadership in warfare than earl eric of norway. he had fought in the battles of hjörunga bay and swald; in both these encounters the highest honours were his. it is, therefore, not strange that canute was anxious to have his assistance. eric was no longer young and had no direct interest in the proposed venture; still, when the mandate came, he showed no reluctance, so far as we know. he called together the magnates of the realm and arranged for a division of his earldom between his brother sweyn and his young son hakon.[ ] it need not be assumed that eric at this time made a final surrender of his own rights; most likely it was the administration during the period of his absence only that was provided for in this way. as hakon was yet but a youth, eric gave him a guardian in his kinsman, the famous thronder chief, einar thongshaker. in his day, einar was the best archer in norway; hence his nickname, the one who makes the bow-thong tremble. he, too, had fought at swald, but on king olaf's ship; twice did his arrow seek eric's life; the third time he drew the bow it was struck by a hostile shaft, and broke. "what broke?" asked the king. "norway from your hands," replied the confident archer.[ ] after eric and his brother had become rulers in norway, they made peace with einar, married him to their sister, the generous bergljot, and endowed him greatly with lands and influence. of the three men to whom norway was now committed, he was clearly the ablest, if not of the greatest consequence. turning again to england, we find a situation developing that was anything but promising. some time during the first half of the year, a gemot was summoned to meet at oxford, near the border of the danelaw. evidently an attempt was to be made in the direction of a closer union between the north and the south. among others who attended were two scandinavian nobles from the seven boroughs, sigeferth and morcar. so far as names show the nationality of the bearers, they might be either angles or northmen; but the name of their father, arngrim, is unmistakably norse. during the sessions of the gemot, the brothers were accused of treason and slain in the house of eadric, the mercian earl.[ ] the result was a riot; the followers of the murdered men called for revenge, but were repulsed and driven into the tower of saint frideswide's church, which the english promptly burned. such a violation of the right of sanctuary could not be overlooked even in those impassioned times; and only through penance on the part of the luckless king was the stain removed.[ ] the sources are at one in laying the blame for this trouble on earl eadric. william of malmesbury says that he desired the wealth of the two danes, and we find that ethelred actually did exact forfeiture. but it may also be that eadric was endeavouring to extend and consolidate his mercian earldom; to do this he would have to devise some method to deprive the seven boroughs of their peculiarly independent position in the danelaw or danish mercia. whatever his purpose, he seems to have had the approval of the ill-counselled king. sigeferth's widow, aldgyth, was taken as a prisoner to malmesbury, where edmund, ethelred's virile son, saw her and was attracted by her. but ethelred objected to his son's matrimonial plans; the reasons are not recorded, but one of them, at least, can be readily inferred: callous of heart as the old king doubtless was, he probably did not enjoy the thought of having in his household as daughter-in-law a woman who could not help but be a constant reminder of a deed that was treacherous, stupid, and criminal. passion, however, was strong in edmund ironside; he married the widow in spite of his father's veto; more than that, he demanded her slain husband's forfeited official position. ethelred again refused, whereupon the prince proceeded to the danish strongholds and took possession.[ ] edmund's act was that of a rebel; but in the danelaw it was probably regarded in large part as proper vengeance. thus fuel was added to the old fire that burned in the hearts of dane and saxon. the spirit of rebellion, so general in the kingdom, had now appeared in the royal family itself. most significant of all, the prince had probably thwarted a great ambition: how much of mercia was under eadric's control at this time we do not know; but a man of the ealdorman's type could scarcely be satisfied with anything less than the whole. and here was the king's son actually governing the strongholds of the earldom. would he not in time supplant the low-born eadric? we have in these transactions the most plausible explanation of eadric's treachery a little later, when canute was again in the land. it was late in the summer,--some time between august th and september th, according to florence of worcester,--when edmund appeared as claimant in the danelaw. those very same weeks must have seen the departure of canute's fleet from denmark. the expedition that now arrived in england was a most formidable one; statements vary as to the number of ships[ ] and we know nothing as to the strength of the host; but it seems likely that twenty thousand men is not an extreme estimate. the entire north assisted in its make-up, though it may be that the norse contingent under earl eric did not arrive till later in the year.[ ] the distance to the earl's garth in the thronder country was long; the norwegian chiefs lived scattered and apart; a large force could, therefore, not be collected in haste. again the encomiast seizes the opportunity to describe a northern fleet. he mentions particularly the gleaming weapons of the warriors on board; the flaming shields that hung along the gunwales; the figureheads bright with silver and gold--figures of lions, of men with threatening faces, of fiery dragons, and of bulls with gilded horns. and he asks who could look upon such an armament and not fear the king at whose bidding it came. the warriors, too, were carefully selected: moreover, in the whole force there could be found no serf, no freedman, none of ignoble birth, none weak with old age. all were nobles, all vigorous with the strength of complete manhood, fit for all manner of battle, and so swift on foot that they despised the fleetness of cavalry.[ ] there is evidently some exaggeration here; the numerous "nobles" were probably plain freemen; still, it is clear that canute led a valiant, well-equipped host. but canute was not the only adventurer who sailed in quest of kingship in . while the youthful prince was mustering his fleet in the straits of denmark, olaf the stout was in britain preparing to sail for norway on a similar errand--to win a crown. but here all similarity ceases; two merchant ships and fewer than two hundred men made up the force that began the norse revolt. still, olaf haroldsson, too, was successful and bore the crown of norway till he fell in war with canute in . after the expulsion of the danes from england the year before, olaf seems to have returned to piracy; there is some evidence that he took part in an expedition of this sort along the coasts of gaul as far as aquitaine. on his return he seems to have visited normandy, where he may have learned of canute's intentions and preparations. the probability is strong that he was also informed of the part that eric was to have in the venture, for he seems carefully to have timed his departure so as to reach norway just after the earl had left the country to join canute. he first sailed to england, stayed for a time in northumberland, where he made the necessary preparations, and thence proceeded to the west coast of norway.[ ] fortune smiled on the bold adventurer. soon after he had landed he learned that hakon was in the neighbourhood and set out to capture him. in this he was successful: olaf's ships were merchant ships, and the young unsuspecting earl rowed into a sound where the enemy was waiting for him and passed in between the supposed merchant vessels. olaf had stretched a rope from ship to ship, and when the earl's boat was directly between them, olaf's men pulled the rope till hakon's boat capsized. the young chief and a few of his followers were saved. olaf gave him quarter on condition that he should leave norway, surrender his rights to sovereignty, and swear never more to fight against his stout opponent. hakon took the required oaths and was permitted to depart. he hastened to england and reported the matter to his uncle canute. but the english campaign had only fairly begun, so canute was in no position to interfere. hakon remained long with canute, and in time was invested with an english earldom.[ ] meanwhile, the danish fleet had arrived at sandwich; but from kent, canute did not sail north to his former friends in the humber lands; he reverted to the old viking practices of harrying the southwest, dorset, wilts and somerset.[ ] whether this was his original plan cannot be known: it may be that the news of edmund's activity in the danelaw was to some extent responsible for this move. it was now autumn of the year ; but if england hoped that the host would soon follow viking customs and retire into winter quarters, the country was doomed to bitter disappointment; for the enemy now had a leader who saw no need of rest, who struck in winter as well as in summer. canute also differed from earlier chiefs in his ideas of conduct on the battle-field. the viking band, as a development of the teutonic comitatus, was naturally inspired with its ideas of honour and valour. when the challenge to combat had been accepted, it was the duty of the warrior to conquer or perish with his leader; and it was the chief's duty to set an honourable example for his men. it was this spirit that animated king olaf trygvesson at swald when his men urged the feasibility of flight before the battle had really begun. "strike the sails," he commanded. "my men shall not think of flight; never have i fled from combat."[ ] the young dane brought no such ideas to the campaign that he was now on the point of beginning. being by race more a slav than a dane, it may be that he did not readily acquire germanic ideas. his training with the jomvikings, perhaps in his early youth, at least now in his british camp, where veterans from jom were numerous and thurkil the tall was the chief warrior, ran counter to such notions. the jomvikings would retreat, sometimes they would even take to flight, as we infer from a runic inscription that reads like a rebuke for cowardly retreat.[ ] [illustration: the hÄllestad stone.] to add to the difficulties of england, ethelred was stricken with an illness that ended his life a few months later. the hope of england now lay in the rebellious edmund, who was still in the north country. he and eadric were both gathering forces in mercia; but when they joined disagreements seem to have arisen; for soon the earl again played the traitor, deserted the etheling, and with "forty ships" repaired to canute and joined his host. in the language of the day, the term "ship" did not necessarily refer to an actual sea-going craft; it was often used as a rude form of reckoning military forces, somewhat less than one hundred men, perhaps. it has been thought that eadric's deserters were the remnant of ethelred's danish mercenary force[ ]; but it is unlikely that so many vikings still remained in the english service. the chances are that they were mercians, possibly danish mercians. wessex now gave up the fight, accepted canute as king, and provided horses for the invading army. it must have been about christmas time when eadric marched his men down into the south to join the danes. a few days later the restless prince, with eadric in his train, started northward, crossed the thames at cricklade in wiltshire, and proceeded toward the warwick country. edmund had apparently come south to meet him, but the militia were an unwilling band. they suddenly became sticklers for legal form and regularity, and refused to go on without the presence of the king and the aid of london. as neither was forthcoming, the english dispersed. once more the summons went abroad, and once more the men insisted that the king must be in personal command: let him come with what forces he could muster. ethelred came, but the hand of death was upon him. evidently the old king had neither courage nor strength. whispers of treason came to him: "that they who should be a help to him intended to betray him"[ ]; and he suddenly deserted the army and returned to the fastness of london. the second attempt at resistance having failed, edmund left the south to its fate, and rode into northumbria to seek earl uhtred. no better evidence can be found of the chaos that existed in england at the time. the saxon south accepts the invader, while a prince of the house of alfred is looking for aid in the half-scandinavian regions beyond the humber that had once so readily submitted to sweyn forkbeard. what agreements and promises were made are not known; but soon we have the strange spectacle of edmund and his new ally harrying english lands, the mercian counties of stafford, salop, and chester. doubtless the plan was to punish eadric, but it was a plan that did not lead to a united england. the punishment of the deserters was probably incidental; evidently the allies were on the march southward to check canute. here was an opportunity for the young dane to show some generalship, and the opportunity was improved. turning eastward into bucks, he marched his army in a northeasterly direction toward the fenlands, and thence northward through lincoln and nottingham toward york. when earl uhtred learned of this attack on his territories, he hastened back to northumbria. but he was not in position to fight, and, therefore, driven by necessity, he submitted, and all northumbria with him, and gave hostages. nevertheless, on the advice of eadric, he was slain, and with him thurkil, the son of nafna. and after that the king made eric earl of northumbria with all the rights that uhtred had.[ ] the chronicler seems to believe that uhtred was slain soon after his submission, and it could not have been very much later. simeon of durham tells us that the earl was slain by an enemy named thurbrand[ ]; but it seems clear that canute approved the act and perhaps desired it. it is extremely probable that uhtred was removed to make room for eric. when young hakon arrived as a fugitive, eric doubtless realised that his norwegian earldom was slipping away. all through the fall and winter olaf had been travelling along the shores and up through the dales; wherever it was practicable he had summoned the peasantry to public assemblies and presented his case. his appeal was to national norse pride and to the people's sense of loyalty to harold fairhair's dynasty. almost everywhere the appeal was successful. but the men who loved the old order were not willing to yield without a struggle. while canute was making his winter campaign from the channel to york, both parties were active in norway, sweyn and einar in the throndelaw, olaf in the south. all through lent the fleets were gathering. finally on palm sunday, march , , the dragons encountered each other at the nesses, near the mouth of the christiania firth. neither force was great, though that of sweyn and einar was considerably larger than the pretender's host. it has been estimated that olaf had fewer than men, his opponents nearly twice as many. at the nesses for the first time the cross figured prominently in norwegian warfare: golden, red, or blue crosses adorned the shining shields of the kingsmen. after mass had been sung and the men had breakfasted, olaf sailed out and made the attack. the outcome was long uncertain, but finally victory was with the king.[ ] from the nesses einar and sweyn fled to sweden. here they were offered assistance and were planning an expedition against king olaf for the following year, when earl sweyn suddenly died. as there was no one in norway around whom the dissatisfied elements could rally, all attempts to dislodge the new king were given up for the time. some of the defeated chiefs may have sought refuge with canute; at any rate the news of the nesses could not have been long in reaching the york country. as eric had come to england at canute's request, the prince doubtless felt that he owed his brother-in-law some compensation. furthermore, with the norse earl in control at york, canute could feel more secure as to northumbrian loyalty. there thus existed in the spring of a double reason for removing uhtred. another northumbrian magnate, thurkil the son of nafna, is mentioned as sharing the strong earl's fate. who thurkil was is not known; but it is clear that he must have been a noble of considerable prominence, as he would otherwise hardly be known to a chronicler in southern england. his name gives evidence of northern blood; but thus far his identity has been a mystery, and the following attempt at identification can claim plausibility only. king olaf trygvesson had a younger half-brother who was known to the scalds as thurkil nefja or "nosy." in the expedition to wendland in , he commanded the _short serpent_. at swald he fought on king olaf's own ship, and was the last to leap overboard when eric and his men boarded and seized it. of him sang hallfred troublous-scald: strong-souled thurkil saw the crane and the dragons two float empty (gladly had he grappled), ere the arm-ring wearer, mighty in warfare, leaped into the sea, seeking life by swimming.[ ] the inference is that he actually escaped, and it seems possible that we find him again in england after sixteen years. as all the rulers of the north had conspired against olaf, he would be compelled to seek refuge in other lands, preferably in one of the scandinavian colonies in the west. but for thurkil now to serve loyally and peaceably under the man who drove his brother to death and seized his kingdom might be difficult; and he may therefore have been sacrificed to eric's security. the statement that his father's name was nafna presents a difficulty; but the chronicler may not have been thoroughly informed on the subject of norse nicknames and may have mistaken the by-name for the name of his father. after the submission of northumbria, canute returned to the south. this time he carefully avoided the danelaw; evidently he wished that his friends in danish mercia should suffer no provocation to rise against him; the route, therefore, lay through the west. the campaign was swiftly carried through, for by easter (april ), canute was again with his ships. wessex and northumbria were now both pacified. in the midlands there can have been but little active hostility. london alone showed the old determination to resist; here were ethelred and edmund with a number of the english magnates. canute immediately began preparations for a last descent upon the stubborn city; but before his dragons had actually left harbour, england had lost her king. april , , ethelred died. to say anything in real praise of the unfortunate king is impossible. the patriotic monk who chronicled the sad events of this doleful period can only say that "he kept his realm with great trouble and suffering the while that he lived."[ ] any striking abilities ethelred cannot have possessed. he was easily influenced for evil--perhaps he was faithless. but to lay all the blame for the downfall of england tipon the incapable king would be missing the point. the old english monarchy was, after all, a frail kingdom. the success of edgar in reducing the scandinavian colonies to unquestioned obedience was probably due in large part to his sterling qualities as king; but in still greater measure, perhaps, to the fact that, during his reign, the viking spirit was at its lowest ebb: consequently the stream of reinforcements having ceased to flow across the north sea, the anglo-danes were forced to yield. but now the situation was totally different. in the early years of the eleventh century only statesmanship of the highest order could have saved the dynasty; but england had neither statesmen nor statesmanship in ethelred's day. footnotes: [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] for a brief account of the norse colonies in ireland and the events that culminated in the battle of clontarf, see _norges historie_, i., ii., - . (bugge.) [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] william of jumièges, _historia normannorum_, v., cc. - . [ ] _saga of saint olaf_, c. . (translation by william morris.) [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] the conjecture of norse historians that he left norway because of disagreements with his brother sweyn has little in its favour. eric believed in peace, but scarcely to the point of expatriation. [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., cc. - . the banishment of gunhild is also mentioned in thietmar's _chronicle_ (vii., c. ). [ ] _jómsvikingasaga_, cc. - . [ ] william of malmesbury, _gesta regum_, i., . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _ibid._, _olaf trygvesson's saga_, c. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, ; florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., - . the five boroughs had by this time become the seven boroughs. [ ] william of malmesbury, _gesta regum_, i., . [ ] william of malmesbury, _gesta regum_, i., . [ ] the encomiast counts two hundred ships (_encomium emmæ_, ii., c. ). the _jómsvikingasaga_ reports (c. ). adam of bremen puts the number at (_gesta_, ii., c. ). the encomiast is doubtless nearest the truth. [ ] the _knytlingasaga_ seems to indicate that eric came late (c ). [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. - . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. - . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] snorre, _olaf trygvesson's saga_, c. . [ ] the hällestad stone, raised in memory of toki, canute's gran-uncle, who fell in the battle of fyris river: askell raised this monument in memory of toki, gorm's son his beloved lord. he did not flee at upsala. henchmen have raised to their brother's memory on the firm-built hill this rock with runes. to gorm's son toki they walked nearest. wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, i., ii. , ff. [ ] thus steenstrup (_normannerne_, iii., - ) and oman (_england before the norman conquest_, ) on the authority of florence of worcester (_chronicon_, i., ) who speaks of these men as danish warriors. but the contemporary writer of the _chronicle_ speaks of eadric's forces as the "fyrd," a term which is always used for the native levy, "here" being the term used for alien troops. on the theory of serious disagreements with edmund, whose accession to the throne seemed imminent, eadric's treason becomes perfectly intelligible. for a selfish, ambitious man like the earl, there was scarcely any other course to take. [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _opera_, ii., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. - . [ ] snorre, _olaf trygvesson's saga_, c. iii., _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . chapter iv the struggle with edmund ironside the old english kingship was elective: on the death of a ruler, the great lords and the high officials of the church, the "witan" or wise, would meet in formal assembly to select a successor. usually the nearest male heir of the house of alfred would be chosen; but circumstances might dictate a different selection, and in such cases the "wise men" seem to have possessed plenary powers. in the spring of , however, a free choice was impossible; nearly the whole kingdom was pledged to the invader. in his camp were the saxon hostages; and the great dane had shown on an earlier occasion that he could be cruel when he thought a pledge was broken. during the winter months the danish fleet had apparently been moored at the old viking rendezvous, the isle of wight, or in some neighbouring harbour. in april, canute was back from his march to york and was getting his ships in readiness for further operations, when the death of ethelred checked his movements. with remarkable promptness the notables (perhaps those of southern england only) came together at some point unknown, awarded the kingship to canute, and proscribed all the descendants of ethelred. this done, they adjourned to southampton to give their pledges of loyalty. it was a body of great respectability that thus gathered to pay homage, containing, as it did, both laymen and churchmen, lords, bishops, and abbots. the election must have been held some time about the close of the month, for by the seventh of may, canute was at greenwich with his fleet.[ ] in london, too, an assembly had met and a king had been chosen. edmund was in the city when his father died. the chiefs present, "all the witan who were in london and the citizens of london," as the chronicler carefully puts it, at once proclaimed edmund king. thus both the peace party and the war party had acted. it is clear, however, that neither of these elections could lay any claim to legality; neither assembly could pretend to represent the entire kingdom; between the death of ethelred in april and the accession of canute at the following christmas, england had no lawful ruler. canute at once proceeded to the siege of london. his plan was to isolate the city completely, to block the thames both above and below the town, and to prevent all intercourse with the country to the north. to accomplish this investment, a canal was dug around london bridge wide enough to permit the long but narrow viking ships to pass into the stream west of the city. on the north side a ditch was dug enclosing the entire town, "so that no man could come either in or out."[ ] vigorous efforts were made from time to time to storm the fortifications, "every morning the lady on the thames bank sees the sword dyed in blood"[ ]; but the townsmen held their own. the siege continued through the month of may and perhaps till late in june, when it seems to have been interrupted by disquieting news from the west. on the approach of the fleet, or at least before the investment had become complete, edmund left london. we are told that his departure was secret, which is probable, as it was surely to his interest to keep canute in the dark as to his whereabouts. we do not know who directed the defence of london during his absence; a year or two later, thietmar, the bishop of merseburg, introduced into his _chronicle_ a confused account of these events, in which queen emma is made to play an important part in the resistance of .[ ] it may be that the queen had returned with ethelred, but it is doubtful. when canute heard that his enemies were mustering in the southwest, he seems to have detached a part of his force and sent it westward to look for edmund. at penselwood, near gillingham in dorset, the danes came upon the saxon forces. edmund's success in raising the west had not been great; but, "trusting in the help of god," he gave battle and won a victory.[ ] it is likely that the affair at penselwood was little more than a skirmish, for it seems to have made small difference in the relative positions of the contending forces. but it gave edmund what he sorely needed--the prestige of success. a month later, battle was again joined at sherstone, a little farther to the north near malmesbury in the upper part of wiltshire. the encounter at sherstone was a genuine battle fiercely fought, one that lived long in the memories of englishmen. it occurred after the feast of saint john, probably in the early days of july. the earlier sources do not mention canute in connection with this fight; with eric he was apparently continuing the siege of london. the western campaign was evidently in thurkil's hands; the sources also mention three prominent englishmen, eadric, almar darling, and algar, as fighting on the danish side.[ ] the encomiast, who speaks of a danish victory at sherstone, gives the entire credit to thurkil, whom he naively describes as a fervent believer "continuously sending up silent prayers to god for victory."[ ] [illustration: anglo-saxon warriors (harl. ms. .)] [illustration: anglo-saxon horsemen (harl. ms. .)] sherstone was at best a drawn battle, neither side claiming a victory. the anglo-norman historians, true to their habit of looking for some traitor on whom to blame the outcome, could not overlook eadric; he is said to have picked up the head of a soldier who bore some resemblance to edmund and thus to have deceived the saxons into believing that their leader was dead.[ ] the tale is obviously mythical; if henry of huntingdon is to be trusted, the trick was played again later in the year at ashington. after the encounter at sherstone, thurkil seems to have joined canute before london; but his whole force did not return with him. eadric once more had shifted his allegiance; he had made peace with edmund and had joined him against the invader. whatever his motives may have been, there can be no dispute as to the importance of his new move. edmund's army was strengthened, as was doubtless his prestige in the midlands. for the third time he had an army at his command, gathered, it seems, from the region north of the thames. with this host he marched to the relief of london. on the appearance of this force, canute found himself in a difficult situation: to maintain a siege and fight a vigorous foeman at the same time, required forces greater than those at the dane's command. prudence was canute's greatest virtue, and he promptly raised the siege and withdrew to his ships. edmund seems to have come up with his forces to brentford, just as the danes were busy crossing to the south bank. the enemy fled; but many of the english were drowned "because of their own heedlessness, as they rushed ahead of the main force to get at the booty."[ ] evidently the whole danish force had not left london, as the fight at brentford was two days after the city had been relieved. with the relief of london, the english seem to have considered their duty done, and soon edmund found himself once more without an army.[ ] it may, of course, be that the apparent lack of patriotism was due to the necessities of the harvest season, which must have arrived by this time. the tireless edmund next made a visit to wessex to raise the militia there. while he was seeking recruits, the danes returned to london, resumed the siege, and attacked the city furiously by land and sea, but as usual failed to take it. the supply of provisions was probably running low in the danish camp, for we next hear of a pillaging expedition into mercia. ordinarily that region was spared; but eadric's defection had made it hostile territory and, furthermore, it was probably the only neighbouring section that had not been drained to the limit. whether the entire army took part in the foray is uncertain; but the probabilities are that it was the raid mentioned by the encomiast as undertaken by eric with canute's permission. part of the host may have remained on the isle of sheppey in the mouth of the medway, where a camp appears to have been established. the fleet sailed north to the orwell in suffolk, and thence the host proceeded westward into mercia, "slaying and burning whatever they came across, as is their wont."[ ] as the crops had just been garnered, the raiders did not return empty-handed. laden with plunder they began the return to the medway, the footmen in the ships, the horsemen by land, driving the plundered flocks before them.[ ] with the forces of the enemy thus divided, edmund's opportunity had come. with his fourth army, collected from "all parts of england," he crossed the thames at brentford and dashed after the danes, who, encumbered with booty, were hurrying eastward through kent. at otford, in the western part of kent, edmund came up with the raiders and slew a number of them; but much fighting there could not have been, as the danes were apparently unwilling to make a stand and hurried on to sheppey. if edmund had been free to make use of the advantage that was his, it seems that he might have destroyed a considerable part of the danish host; but at aylesford he was evidently detained by a quarrel with eadric and the raiders escaped.[ ] canute's position in the autumn of must have been exceedingly difficult and serious, even critical. after a year of continuous warfare--marches, battles, sieges--he seemed as far as ever from successful conquest. edmund had, indeed, won no great victories; still, he had been able to relieve london, to stay the current of danish successes, to infuse hope and patriotic fervour into the hearts of the discouraged english. but too much must not be inferred from the fact that canute, too, had been only moderately successful on the battle-field; he was one of those commanders, who are not attracted by great battles. in two respects he possessed a decided advantage: he had a splendid army that did not desert; he had a great fleet to which he could retire when too hotly pursued. in the autumn of , edmund had come with a strong force to the lower thames; the enemy, however, was out of reach on the isle of sheppey. it was not to be expected that canute would long lie idle; but operations in the direction of london were impossible in the presence of edmund's army. canute accordingly embarked his men, crossed the estuary once more, and proceeded to devastate east anglia. edmund started in pursuit, and on the th (or th) of october he came upon the danes at ashington in essex, as they were on their way back to their ships. there seem to have been divided counsels among the english as to the advisability of making an attack, eadric in particular advising against it.[ ] but edmund was determined to strike, and about the middle of the afternoon the battle began. the english had the advantage of numbers; but there was a traitor in camp: eadric sulked and refused to order his forces of men from hereford into battle. the fight continued till nightfall, and did not cease entirely even then. darkness finally put an end to the carnage, and the angles fled from the field. it is said that canute was not eager to fight; but the feeling in his army must have been different. the banner of the invaders was the ancient raven banner, the raven being woden's own bird. it is said of this banner that it was made of plain white silk and bore no image of any sort; but, when battle began, woden's bird appeared upon its folds, its behaviour indicating the outcome. in the presence of victory it showed great activity in bill and wings and feet; when defeat was imminent, it hung its head and did not move. we are told that it was reported in canute's army that the raven had appeared and showed unusual excitement.[ ] perhaps of even greater importance was military skill and experienced generalship. the tactics employed seem to have been such as the northmen frequently used: at the critical moment, the danes pretended to retreat; but when the lines of the pursuing english were broken, they closed up the ranks and cut the saxon advance in pieces. during the night, the danes encamped on the battle-field; the next day they buried their fallen comrades and removed all articles of value from the bodies of their saxon adversaries, the corpses being left to the wolf and the raven. [illustration: the raven banner (from the bayeux tapestry.)] [illustration: anglo-saxon warriors. (from a manuscript in the british museum, reproduced in _norges historie_, i., ii.)] the english aristocracy suffered heavily at ashington. the sources mention six magnates among the slain: godwin the ealdorman of lindsey; an ealdorman alfric whose locality is unknown; ulfketel, ealdorman of east anglia; ethelwerd, son of an earlier east anglian ealdorman; also the bishop of dorchester and the abbot of ramsey.[ ] it is a noteworthy fact that nearly all these are from eastern england; so far as we know not one of them came from below the thames. it may be true that all england was represented in edmund's host at ashington; but we are tempted to conclude that perhaps the army was chiefly composed of east anglians summoned by the doughty earl ulfketel. by far the most prominent of all the slain was this same earl, the ruler of saint edmund's kingdom. ulfketel is said to have been edmund's brother-in-law. as his name is unmistakably norse, it is more than likely that his ancestry was scandinavian. in his earldom he appears to have been practically sovereign. so impressed were the norse scalds with the power and importance of the earl that they spoke of east anglia as ulfkelsland.[ ] the sagas accuse him of having instigated the slaughter of the thingmen, especially of having destroyed heming's corps at slesswick. thurkil is naturally mentioned as his banesman.[ ] eadric's behaviour at ashington furnishes an interesting but difficult problem. to the saxon and norman historians it was the basest treachery, premeditated flight at the critical moment. still, after the battle he appears in the councils of the english in apparently good standing, even as a leader. from the guarded statements of the encomiast, we should infer that eadric had advised against the battle, that his counsel had been rejected, that he therefore had remained neutral and that he had withdrawn his forces before the battle was joined.[ ] from ashington edmund fled westward to the severn valley; canute returned to the siege of london. once more edmund tried to gather an army, this time, however, with small success; england was exhausted; her leaders lay on the field of ashington. soon the danes, too, appeared in gloucestershire. some sort of a council must have been called to deliberate on the state of the country, and the decision was reached to seek peace on the basis of a divided kingdom. eadric seems particularly to have urged this solution. edmund reluctantly consented, and ambassadors were sent to canute's camp to offer terms of peace. it seems at first sight rather surprising that canute should at this time be willing even to negotiate; apparently he had edmund in his power, and england showed no disposition to continue the war. still, the situation in his own host was doubtless an argument for peace. after more than a year of continued warfare, his forces must have decreased appreciably in numbers. recruiting was difficult, especially must it have been so on the eve of winter. without a strong force he could do little in a hostile country. the campaign had been strenuous even for the vikings, and the danes are represented as thoroughly tired of the war.[ ] canute therefore accepted the offer of the english, with the added condition that danegeld should be levied for the support of his army in edmund's kingdom as well as in his own. on some little island near deerhurst in gloucestershire,[ ] the two chiefs met and reached an agreement which put an end to the devastating war and pillage that had cursed england for more than a generation. it was agreed that edmund should have wessex and canute mercia and northumbria; or, in a general way, that the thames should be the dividing line between the two kingdoms. as to the disposition of east anglia and essex there is some doubt: florence holds that these territories with the city of london were assigned to edmund. so far as london is concerned, this seems to be erroneous: canute took immediate possession of the city and made preparations to spend the winter there, which seems a strange proceeding if the place was not to be his. the kingdom of england was thus dissolved. there is no good evidence that canute understood his position to be that of a vassal king; he had without doubt complete sovereignty in his own domains. on the other hand, the fact that edmund agreed to levy danegeld in his own kingdom of wessex looks suspiciously like the recognition of canute as overlord of the southern kingdom. the compact of olney, says florence of worcester, was one of "peace, friendship, and brotherhood." other writers state that the two kings agreed to become sworn brothers and that the survivor should inherit the realm of the other brother.[ ] we cannot affirm that such a covenant was actually made, as the authority is not of the best. there is, however, nothing improbable in the statement; the custom was not unusual in the north. twenty years later, canute's son, harthacanute, entered into a similar relationship with his rival, king magnus of norway, who had been making war on denmark. in snorre's language, it was agreed that the kings should take the oath of brotherhood and should maintain peace as long as both were on earth; and that if one of them died sonless, the survivor should inherit his realm and subjects. twelve men, the most eminent of each kingdom, took the oath with the kings that this agreement should be kept as long as any of them lived.[ ] it is possible that some such qualification in favour of male heirs was also inserted in the severn covenant; still, the whole matter would have been of slight importance had the magnates on edmund's death been in position to insist on the ancient principle and practice of election. witnesses similar to those mentioned in the later instance there seem to have been at deerhurst; for, after the death of edmund, canute summoned those to testify before the assembly, "who had been witnesses between him and edmund" when the agreement was made, as to the details of the treaty.[ ] the reign of edmund as king of wessex was destined to be brief. the covenant of deerhurst was probably made in the early days of november (it could scarcely have been earlier, as the battle of ashington was fought on october ) and by the close of the month (november ) he was dead. florence of worcester tells us that he died in london, which is improbable, as it seems strange that he should have ventured into the stronghold of his late enemy. other writers give oxford as the place, which also seems unlikely, if eadric, who apparently resided at oxford,[ ] had played the traitor's part at ashington. it seems clear that these writers have placed edmund's death at oxford because they believed that eadric was in some way the author of it.[ ] for so opportunely did the end come, that the suggestion of foul play was inevitable, and coarse tales were invented to account for the manner of death. there is, however, not the least hint in any contemporary source that canute was in any way guilty of his rival's untimely decease. the simple-minded encomiast again sees an illustration of providential mercy: but god, remembering his teaching of olden time, that a kingdom divided against itself cannot long endure, very soon afterwards led edmund's spirit forth from the body, having compassion on the realm of the english, lest if, perchance, both should continue among the living, neither should reign securely, and the kingdom be daily annihilated by renewed contention.[ ] it is difficult to form a just estimate of edmund ironside, as our information is neither extensive nor varied. it is possible that he was born of a connection that the church had not blessed; at least such seems to have been the belief when william of malmesbury wrote.[ ] a late writer tells us that his mother was the daughter of earl thoretus[ ]; an earl by such a name actually did flourish in the closing decade of the tenth century; he was one of the chiefs to whom ethelred entrusted his fleet in . from his name we should judge that he was of norse ancestry. there can be no doubt as to edmund's bravery on the battle-field; perhaps he was also in possession of some talent in the way of generalship. but on the whole, his military exploits have been exaggerated: we know them chiefly from an ecclesiastic who was doubtless honest, but warmly patriotic and strongly partisan; it was natural for him to magnify skirmishes into battles. edmund was the victor in several important engagements, but in no great battle. there was no heavy fighting at penselwood; sherstone was at best a drawn battle; brentford and otford seem to have been partly successful attacks on the rear of a retreating foe; ashington was a decisive defeat. we cannot tell what sort of a king he might have become but the glimpses that we get of his character are not reassuring. we get sight of him first about when he sought to come into possession of an estate in somerset: "and the monastic household dared not refuse him."[ ] his rebellious behaviour in the danelaw, his raid into english mercia, give little promise of future statesmanship. edmund ironside was an english viking, passionate, brave, impulsive, but unruly and uncontrollable. when the year closed there was no question who should be the future ruler of england. fate had been kind to canute; still, the outcome must be ascribed chiefly to the persistent activity of the invader. but while the name of the young king is necessarily made prominent in the narrative, we should not forget that he was surrounded and assisted by a group of captains who probably had no superiors in europe at the time. there was the tall and stately thurkil with the experience of more than thirty years as a viking chief; the resourceful eric with a brilliant record as a successful general; the impetuous and volcanic ulf; doubtless also ulf's brother, eglaf the jomviking. these were the men who helped most to win the land for the danish dynasty; they also formed canute's chief reliance in the critical years following the conquest. the gain in britain was, however, in a measure counterbalanced by the loss of norway in the same year, though in this canute was not directly interested at the time. after the battle of the nesses, king olaf sailed north to nidaros (throndhjem) where he now received unquestioned allegiance. he rebuilt the city and made it the capital of his kingdom. the ruined church of saint clemens, the patron saint of all seafaring men, was raised again and became in a sense the mother church of norse christianity. without delay he began his great work as legislator, organiser, and missionary, a work of enduring qualities. but canute did not forget that in this way his dynasty was robbed of one of its earliest possessions outside the dane-lands. a clash between the great rivals was inevitable. for the present, however, olaf's throne was safe; there was much to do before canute could seriously think of proceeding against his virile opponent, and more than a decade passed before the young king of england could summon his chiefs and magnates into solemn imperial councils in the new capital of nidaros. [illustration: viking raids in england - ] footnotes: [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., : the lithsmen's song. [ ] book vii., c. . [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] _ibid._, i., . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . see also thietmar, _chronicon_, vii., c. . [ ] the story is first told by florence of worcester (_chronicon_, i., ) [ ] if the skirmishers who were seeking booty were in advance of the rest and by a rally of the danes were driven into the thames, the main force must still have been on the north bank. the "battle" must therefore have been fought on the north bank while a fragment of canute's army was on the retreat, perhaps on the point of fording the stream. at any rate, we seem hardly justified in calling the engagement at brentford a "pitched battle." see oman, _england before the norman conquest_, . [ ] oman (_ibid._) seems to believe that edmund retained his forces but went into wessex to get reinforcements. but unless edmund's victorious army had to a large extent melted away, it is difficult to account for canute's prompt return to the siege of london. [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . on this raid eric seems to have met and defeated ulfketel, who "gat ugly blows from the thingmen's weapons," as we are told by thorrod in the _eric's praise_. _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . the raid seems also to be alluded to in the lithsmen's song (_ibid._, ). [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] the account in the _chronicle_ of what occurred at aylesford is ambiguous and has been variously interpreted: "and the king slew as many as he could come upon; and eadric ealdorman turned against [or toward?] the king at aylesford. nor was there ever worse counsel adopted than that was." some writers have interpreted this to mean that eadric joined edmund at aylesford and not after sherstone, as stated by florence. but the saxon _gewende ongean_ has a hostile rather than a favourable colour. the probabilities are that eadric opposed edmund's plans at aylesford and thus rendered further pursuit impossible. such is florence of worcester's version (_chronicon_, i., ). for a different view see hodgkin (_pol. hist. of eng._, i., ) and oman (_england before the norman conquest_, ). [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] the encomiast admits that the tale is hard to believe, but avers that it is true (ii., c. ). the story of the raven is old and occurs earlier in the english sources. [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _jómsvikingasaga_, c. . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] probably not the isle of olney, but some other islet that has since disappeared. see oman, _england before the norman conquest_, . [ ] henry of huntingdon, _historia anglorum_, ; _knytlingasaga_, c. . the saga says distinctly that there was to be inheritance only if either died without children. [ ] _saga of magnus the good_, c. . [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] sigeferth and morcar were slain in eadric's house at the oxford gemot. (_anglo-saxon chronicle_, .) [ ] see freeman (_norman conquest_, i., note xx) whose argument seems conclusive. [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] _gesta regum_, i., - . the author merely tells us that edmund's mother was of ignoble birth; but a woman of low degree would scarcely be made queen of england. [ ] ethelred of rievaux. see freeman, _norman conquest_, i., note ss. [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . chapter v the rule of the danes in england - for eight months after the death of ethelred there was no king of england. neither edmund nor canute had an incontestable claim to the royal title, as neither had been chosen by a properly constituted national assembly. there is some evidence that edmund was crowned, perhaps in may, [ ]; but even consecration could hardly remove the defect in the elective title. and after the agreement of olney, there was, for a few weeks, no english kingdom. but, in december, it was possible once more to reunite the distracted land. in the north of england there was no vacant kingship; only wessex and east anglia needed a ruler. as the latter region possessed a strong scandinavian element that might be depended upon to declare for canute, the only doubtful factor in the situation was the attitude of the nobility south of the thames. wessex, however, had more than once showed a desire to give up the struggle: the old spirit of independence was apparently crushed. london, the great rallying point of the national party, was in canute's hands. beyond the thames were the camps of the dreaded host that had come from the north the year before. the danish fleet still sailed the british seas. no trusted leader appeared to take up the fight for the house of alfred; ethelred's many sons seem nearly all to have perished, and only children or princes of doubtful ability remained as possible candidates for the kingship. in addition there was no doubt a feeling that england should be one realm. the accession of canute was therefore inevitable. the dane evidently realised the strength of his position. there was consequently little need of hasty action; it was clearly best to observe constitutional forms and to give the representatives of the nation ample time to act. it was a northern as well as a saxon custom to celebrate the yule-tide with elaborate and extended festivities; and there was every reason why canute and his warriors in london should plan to make this year's celebration a memorable event. to these festivities, canute evidently invited the magnates of england; for we learn that a midwinter gemot was held in london, at which the danish pretender received universal recognition as king of all england.[ ] * * * * * to say that this assembly elected a king would be incorrect; canute gave the lords no opportunity co make an election. in a shrewd fashion he brought out the real or pretended fact that in the agreement of deerhurst it was stipulated that the survivor should possess both crowns. those who had witnessed the treaty were called on to state what had been said in the conference concerning edmund's sons and brothers; whether any of them might be permitted to rule in england if edmund should die first. they testified that they had sure knowledge that no authority was left to edmund's brothers, and that canute was to have the guardianship of edmund's young sons until they were of sufficient age to claim the kingship. florence of worcester believes that the witnesses were bribed by canute and perjured themselves grossly; but the probabilities are, that their statement was accurate. canute's object in submitting the problem of the succession in the south to the witan seems to have been, not exactly to secure his own election, but rather to obtain the highest possible sanction for the agreement with edmund. to the northern mind the expedient adopted was both legal and proper. we know very little about the constitutional framework and principles of the scandinavian monarchies at this period; but, so far as we can discern, the elective principle played an incidental part only; the succession was in fact hereditary. to the anglo-saxons the whole must have resolved itself into finding some legal form for surrender and submission. oaths were taken and loyalty was pledged. once more the saxon began to enjoy real peace and security. at the same time, all the rejoicing can scarcely have been genuine; for english pride had received a wound that for some years refused to heal. it must also be said that the opening years of the new reign were not of such a character as to win the affections of unwilling subjects. the task that the young monarch undertook in the early months of was one of peculiar difficulty. it must be remembered that his only right was that of the sword. important, too, is the fact that at the time england was his only kingdom. as a landless prince, he had crossed the sea, landless except for possible rights in norway; had led with him a host of adventurers most of whom were probably heathen; had wrested large areas from the native line of english kings; and now he was in possession of the entire kingdom. something of a like nature occurred in , when william of normandy conquered england; but there are also notable differences. william was the lord of a vigorous duchy across the narrow channel, in which he had a storehouse of energy that was always at his disposal. young canute had no such advantages. before he was definitely recognised as king in the danelaw, he had no territorial possessions from which to recruit and provision his armies. not till did he unite the crowns of england and denmark. historians generally have appeared to believe that in governing his english kingdom, canute pursued a conscious and well-defined course of action, a line of political purposes originating early in his reign. he is credited with the purpose of making england the central kingdom of an anglo-scandinavian empire, of governing this kingdom with the aid of englishmen in preference to that of his own countrymen, of aiming to rule england as a king of the saxon type. it is true chat before the close of his reign canute made large use of native chiefs in the administration of the monarchy; but such was not the case in the earlier years. there were no prospects of empire in and : his brother harold still ruled in denmark; the norsemen were still loyal to the vigorous olaf. and at no time did the kingdoms that he added later consider themselves as standing in a vassal relation to the english state. in canute's initial years, we find no striving after good government, no dreams of imperial power. during these years his chief purpose was to secure the permanence and the stability of his new title and throne. nor should we expect any clear and definite policy in the rule of a king who was still inexperienced in dealing with the english constitution. at the time of his accession, canute is thought to have been twenty-one or twenty-two years old.[ ] younger he could scarcely have been, nor is it likely that he was very much older. ottar the swart in the _canute's praise_ is emphatic on the point that canute was unusually young for a successful conqueror: "thou wast of no great age when thou didst put forth in thy ship; never younger king set out from home."[ ] as ottar's other patron, olaf the stout, was only twelve when he began his career as a viking, we should hardly expect the poet to call attention to canute's youth if he had already reached manhood when he accompanied his father to england. the probabilities favour as the year of his birth; if the date be correct he would be about seventeen in , when the invasion was being planned, nineteen at the death of his father in ; and twenty-one (or twenty-two, as it was late in the year) when he became king of all england. but whatever his age, he was young in training for government. so far as we know, he could have had but little experience as a ruler before the autumn of , when the battle of ashington secured his position in england. his training had been for the career of a viking, a training that promised little for the future. it seems, therefore, a safe assumption that in shaping his policy the king's decision would be influenced to a large degree by the advice of trusted counsellors. in the first year of canute's reign, there stood about the throne three prominent leaders, three military chiefs, to whom in great measure the king owed his crown. there was the sly and jealous eadric the mercian, a man with varied experience in many fields, but for obvious reasons he did not enjoy the royal confidence. closer to the king stood eric, for fifteen years earl and viceroy in norway, now the ruler of northumbria. eric was a man of a nobler character than was common among men of the viking type; but he can have known very little of english affairs, and for this reason, perhaps, canute passed his kinsman by and gave his confidence to the lordly viking, thurkil the tall. for a stay of nearly ten years in england as viking invader, as chief of ethelred's mercenaries, and as canute's chief assistant in his campaign against the english, had surely given thurkil a wide acquaintance among the magnates of the land and considerable insight into english affairs. whatever the reason for the king's choice, we seem to have evidence sufficient to allow the conclusion that for some years thurkil held a position in the kingdom second only to that of the king himself. wherever his name appears in canute's charters among the earls who witness royal grants, it holds first place. in a royal proclamation that was issued in , he seems to act on the king's behalf in the general administration of justice, whenever royal interference should become necessary: should any one prove so rash, clerk or layman, dane or angle, as to violate the laws of the church or the rights of my kingship or any secular statute, and refuse to do penance according to the instruction of my bishops, or to desist from his evil, then i request thurkil the earl, yea, even command him, to bend the offender to right, if he is able to do so.[ ] in case the earl is unable to manage the business alone, canute promises to assist. there is something in this procedure that reminds one of the later norman official, the justiciar, who was chief of the administrative forces when the king was in england and governed as the king's lieutenant when the ruler was abroad. that thurkil's dignity was not a new creation at the time of the proclamation is evident from the preamble, in which canute sends "greetings to his archbishops and bishops and thurkil earl and all his earls and all his subjects." the language of the preamble also suggests that thurkil may have acted as the king's deputy during canute's absence in denmark. it is further to be noted that of all the magnates he alone is mentioned by name. in the account of the dedication of the church at ashington later in the same year, thurkil is again given prominent mention. in this instance general reference is made to a number of important officials, but earl thurkil and archbishop wulfstan are the only ones that the chronicler mentions by name.[ ] it is evident that the english, too, were impressed by the eminence of the tall earl. the first and the most difficult problem that canute and thurkil had to solve was how to establish the throne among an unfriendly people; for the conquered saxons cannot have regarded the danish usurper with much affection. it is generally believed that canute took up his residence in the old capital city of winchester, though we do not know at what time this came to be the recognised residential town. it may be true, as is so often asserted, that canute continued, even after other lands had been added to his dominions, to make england his home from personal choice; but it may also be true that he believed his presence necessary to hold wessex in subjection. the revolutionary movements that came to the surface during the first few years of his reign had probably much to do with determining canute's policies in these directions. it is a fact of great significance that during the first decade of his rule in england he was absent from the island twice only, so far as we know, and then during the winter months, when the chances of a successful uprising were most remote.[ ] like the later william, canute had his chiefs and followers to reward, and the process of payment could not be long delayed. the rewards took the form of actual wages, paid from new levies of danegeld; confiscated lands, of which we do not hear very much, though seizure of land was doubtless not unknown, as it was not a scandinavian custom to respect the property of an enemy; also official positions, especially the earl's office and dignity, which was reserved for the chiefs who had given the most effective aid. the payment of danegeld was an old story in english history and the end was not yet. when we consider the really vast tribute that was levied from time to time and the great value of the precious metals in the middle ages, it becomes clear that many of the vikings who operated in england must have become relatively wealthy men. a large number evidently served in successive hosts and expeditions. a swedish runic monument found in uppland (the region north of stockholm) relates that one ulf shared three times in the distribution of danegeld: but ulf has in england thrice taken "geld," the first time tosti paid him, then thurkil, and then canute paid.[ ] ulf was evidently one of the vikings who composed thurkil's invading force and finally passed with their chief into canute's service. the earl's office was ancient in scandinavia and counted very desirable. it did not quite correspond to that of the english ealdorman, as it usually implied a larger administrative area, a greater independence, and a higher social rank for the official thus honoured. the office was not new in england; for more than a century it had flourished in the danelaw. in ethelred's time such magnates as uhtred in northumbria and ulfketel in east anglia were earls rather than ealdormen. the first recorded act of the new sovereign was the division of the kingdom into four great earldoms. much has been made of this act in the past; the importance of the measure has been over-rated; the purpose of the king has been misunderstood. the act has been characterised as the culmination of a certain tendency in english constitutional development; as the expression of self-distrust on the part of the monarch; and much more. it seems, however, that canute at this time did little more than to recognise the _status quo_. england was during the later years of ethelred's reign virtually divided into four great jurisdictions, three of which, northumbria, mercia, and east anglia, were governed by the king's sons-in-law, uhtred, eadric, and ulfketel. how much authority was assigned to each cannot be determined; but practically the earls must have enjoyed a large measure of independence. in the fight against the danes, uhtred seems to have taken but small part; ulfketel comes into prominence only when east anglia is directly attacked. this arrangement, which was not accidental but historic, canute had accepted before the reputed provincial division of . eadric had long been a power in parts of mercia; any attempt to dislodge him at so early a moment would have been exceedingly impolitic. eric was already earl of northumbria, having succeeded the unfortunate uhtred, perhaps in the spring of . it is only natural that canute should reserve the rule of wessex to himself, at least for a time. provision naturally had to be made for thurkil; and as the earl of east anglia had fallen at ashington, it was convenient to fill the vacancy and honour the old viking at the same time.[ ] it seems never to have been canute's policy to keep england permanently divided into four great provinces; what evidence we have points to a wholly different purpose. during the first decade of the new reign, fifteen earls appear in the charters as witnesses or otherwise. three of these may, however, have been visiting magnates from elsewhere in the king's dominions, and in one instance we may have a scribal error. there remain, then, the names of eleven lords who seem to have enjoyed the earl's dignity during this period. of these eleven names, seven are scandinavian and four anglo-saxon; but of the latter group only one appears with any decided permanence.[ ] thurkil, while he was still in england, headed the list. thurkil was a dane of noble birth, the son of harold who was earl in scania. he was a typical viking, tall, strong, and valorous, and must have been a masterly man, one in whom warriors readily recognised the qualities of chieftainship. he had part in the ill-fated expedition that ended in the crushing defeat of hjörunga bay. he also fought at swald, where he is said to have served on the ship of his former enemy, eric the earl.[ ] in he transferred his activities to england and from that year he remained almost continuously on the island till his death about fifteen years later. the old viking had several claims on the king's gratitude. had he not deserted ethelred at such an opportune moment, canute might never have won the english crown. the statement of the sagas that thurkil was canute's foster-father has been referred to elsewhere. the foster-relationship, if the sagas are correct, would not only help to explain how thurkil came to hold such eminent positions in canute's english and danish kingdoms, but may also account for the confidence that canute reposed in thurkil's son harold, who may have been the king's foster-brother. the battles of sherstone and ashington no doubt also had a share in securing pre-eminence for the tall pirate. sherstone, says the encomiast, gained for thurkil a large share of the fatherland.[ ] he is prominently mentioned as one of those most eager to fight at ashington, especially after it was reported that the raven had appeared with proper gestures on the danish banner.[ ] in his old age thurkil married an englishwoman, edith, probably one of ethelred's daughters, the widow of earl eadric.[ ] he ruled as english earl from to . after canute's return from denmark in , some misunderstanding seems to have arisen between him and the old war-chief; for toward the close of the next year thurkil was exiled. the cause for this is not known; perhaps canute feared his growing influence, especially after his marriage to the former king's daughter. a reconciliation was brought about a year later; but for some reason the king preferred to leave him as his lieutenant in denmark, and he was never restored to his english dignities. eric, earl of northumbria, governed this region from to . he seems to have been earl hakon's oldest son, and is said to have been of bastard birth, the son of a low-born woman, who had attracted the earl in his younger years. he grew up to be extremely handsome and clever, but never enjoyed his father's good-will.[ ] the circumstances of eric's promotion to the northern earldom have been discussed in an earlier chapter. as the scandinavian colonies north of the humber were norwegian rather than danish, the appointment of a norse ruler was doubtless a popular act. eadric was allowed to continue as governor of mercia. whether all the old mercian region made one earldom is uncertain; most likely it did not extend to the western limits, as several smaller earldoms appear to have been located along the welsh border. for one year only was eadric the grasper permitted to enjoy his dignities; at the first opportunity canute deprived him not only of honours but of life. eglaf, thurkil's old companion in arms, seems to have been given territories to rule in the lower severn valley.[ ] eglaf was one of the leaders in the great expedition of . he was evidently one of those who entered ethelred's service when peace was made; but during the closing years of the conflict, he was doubtless fighting for canute. he was consequently one of the chiefs who might claim a particular reward. he was also of high lineage, the son of a powerful danish chief, thorgils sprakaleg, and the brother of ulf, who was married to canute's sister estrid. in the worcester country an earl hakon was placed in control. he was evidently eric's son and canute's nephew, the young hakon whom king olaf drove out of norway in the autumn of . the youthful earl (he was probably not more than twenty years old in , perhaps even younger) is described as an exceedingly handsome man with "hair that was long and fair like silk"[ ]; but warfare was evidently not to his taste. for a decade or more he remained in canute's service in england. in , hostilities broke out between norway and denmark; the result was the final expulsion of king olaf and the restoration of hakon to his norse vice-royalty. soon afterwards he perished in shipwreck. godwin is the first english earl of importance to appear among canute's magnates. from to the close of the reign his name appears in almost every charter, and invariably as earl or with some corresponding title. the fact that godwin found it possible to be present so frequently when grants were to be witnessed would indicate that he could not have been located far away from the local court; perhaps he was closely attached to it. though his ancestry is a matter of doubt, he was probably not connected with the old english aristocracy. this defect canute remedied by giving him a noble danish woman of his own household for wife.[ ] godwin was consequently closely associated with the new dynasty. of the remaining magnates, ethelwerd, leofwine, godric, ulf, and ranig, little is really known. ethelwerd seems to have had some authority in the extreme southwest. ranig's earldom was the modern shire of hereford. there is nothing to indicate what territories were controlled by godric and ulf. leofwine probably succeeded to eadric's position as chief ruler in mercia. in the list we should probably include eadulf cudel who seems to have succeeded to some power north of the tees after the murder of his brother uhtred[ ]; but whether he was under the lordship of eric or held directly from canute cannot be known. these were the men with whom canute shared his authority during the first ten years of his reign. it will be seen that the more important places in the local government were given to danes and northmen. so far as we know, only two of ethelred's ealdormen were retained in their offices[ ]; of these the one soon suffered exile, while the other appears to have played but a small part in the councils of canute. two appointments were made from the native population, those of godwin and leofwine. in the case of godwin it is to be observed that he was bound to the new dynasty by the noble ties of marriage. as to leofwine's ancestry we are not informed; but there are indications that some of his forefathers may have been northmen.[ ] the more prominent of canute's earls were drawn from three illustrious families in the north, one norwegian and two danish. thurkil's descent from the scanian earls has already been noted. eric and his son hakon represented the lordly race of earl hakon the bad. a great danish chief, thorgils sprakaleg, had two sons who bore the earl's title in england, ulf and eglaf, a son-in-law, godwin, and a few years later a nephew, siward the strong, the lord of northumbria. two of these earls were married to sisters of canute: eric to gytha, and ulf to estrid. godwin was married to canute's kinswoman. hakon was the king's nephew. thurkil was his reputed foster-father. it seems that canute at first had in mind to establish in england a new aristocracy of scandinavian origin, bound to the throne by the noble ties of kinship and marriage. to this aristocracy the north contributed noble and vigorous blood. in the king's household, so far as we can learn anything about it, we find the same preference for men of northern ancestry. ordinarily, the thegns who witnessed royal grants may be taken to have been warriors or officials connected with the royal court. the signatures of more than half of these show names that are unmistakably scandinavian. usually, the northmen sign before their saxon fellows. the old norse language was probably used to a large extent at court; at least we know that the scalds who sang in praise of the "greatest king under heaven" composed their lays in canute's native language.[ ] the year , which witnessed the exaltation of the foreigners into english officialdom, also beheld a series of executions that still further weakened the english by removing their natural leaders. most of these are associated with a christmas gemot, when canute was celebrating the first anniversary of his rule as king of england. of the victims the most famous was eadric, the earl of mercia. for ten years he had been a power in his region, though at no time does it appear that his word of honour or his pledge of loyalty could have had any value. in all the english sources he is represented as endowed with the instincts of treason, though the encomiast, is careful to apply no term stronger than turncoat. at the same time, it is clear that eadric the grasper was a man of real abilities; in spite of the fact that he held allegiance lightly, he seems to have retained his influence to the last. he was, says one writer, a man of low origin, one whom the tongue had brought riches and rank, clever in wit, pleasant in speech, but surpassing all men of the time in envy, perfidy, crime, and cruelty.[ ] the murder of eadric was directly in line with canute's policy of building up a new scandinavian aristocracy, devoted to himself, and endowed with large local authority. the new order could not be built on such men as eadric; by his marriage to ethelred's daughter he was too closely connected with the old order of things. furthermore, a man who found it so easy to be disloyal could not safely be entrusted with such great territorial authority as the earlship of mercia. there had been in this same year extensive plotting among the survivors of the anglian nobility, and it is likely that eadric was involved in this. it is also related that the earl was not satisfied with the king's reward,[ ] which may mean that he objected to having independent earldoms carved out of western mercia. at any rate, canute was not reluctant to remove him. eric appears to have acted as executioner; and the career of the grasper came to a sudden end. the murder, so far as we can see, was popular; among the men of power eadric can have had few friends or perhaps none at all. three other lords are mentioned as having suffered death on the same occasion: northman, the son of leofwine, and two lords from the southwest.[ ] there can be little doubt that these men were convicted of treacherous plotting and that the punishment was regarded as merited. it is a remarkable fact that northman's death did not alienate his family from the new dynasty: his father leofwine succeeded to eadric's dignities and his brother leofric to northman's own place of influence; "and the king afterwards held him very dear."[ ] some of these executions should probably be placed in connection with certain measures taken against the former dynasty. here again we have anxious care to secure the new throne. six sons appear to have been born to ethelred before his marriage to the norman emma; but of these only two or at most three seem to have survived their father. after edmund ironside's death, edwy alone remained[ ]; he is said to have been edmund's full brother and a youth of promise. evidently canute intended to spare his life, but ordered him to go into exile. but the etheling secretly returned to england and hid for a time in tavistock monastery. he was evidently discovered, and canute procured his death.[ ] as tavistock is in devonshire, the execution of the two magnates from the southwest may readily be explained on the supposition that they were plotting in edwy's favour. the london assembly seems to have assumed that certain rights were reserved to the infant sons of edmund, but that the guardianship of the children had been given to canute. they were scarcely a problem in ; still, it was necessary to make them permanently harmless. it will be remembered that edmund married sigeferth's widow some time in the year , perhaps in early summer. it is, therefore, extremely doubtful whether the two boys, edward and edmund, were both the sons of the unfortunate aldgyth; if they were they must have been twins, or the younger must have been born a posthumous child, some time in , the year of their banishment. but if florence's account is trustworthy, the status of the two was discussed at the christmas gemot following edmund's death in . to slay the children of a "brother" who had committed them to his care and protection must have seemed to canute a rude and perhaps risky procedure; it was therefore thought best to send them out of the land. accordingly the ethelings were sent to the "king of the slavs,"[ ] who was instructed to remove them from the land of the living. this particular king was evidently canute's maternal uncle, the mighty boleslav, duke and later king of poland. boleslav took pity on the poor children and failed to dispose of them as requested. in , he was succeeded by his son mieczislav, who entered into close relations with king stephen of hungary.[ ] it was probably some time after , therefore, that the ethelings were transferred to the hungarian court, where they grew to manhood. after forty years of exile, one of them returned to england, but died soon after he had landed. it seems to have been canute's purpose finally to destroy the house of alfred to the last male descendant. the two most dangerous heirs were, however, beyond his reach: the sons of ethelred and emma were safe with their mother in normandy. there was close friendship between the lords of rouen and the rulers of the north; still, duke richard could not be expected to ignore the claims of his own kinsmen. so long as the ethelings remained in normandy, there would always be danger of a norman invasion combined with a saxon revolt in the interest of the fugitive princes, alfred and edward. canute was a resourceful king: these princes, too, could be rendered comparatively harmless. if their mother emma should be restored to her old position as reigning queen of england, her norman relatives might find it inconvenient to support an english uprising. this seems to be the true motive for canute's seemingly unnatural marriage. historians have seen in it a hope and an attempt to conciliate the english people, as in this way the new king would become identified with the former dynasty. but such a theory does scant justice to the moral sense of the anglo-saxons. furthermore, neither ethelred nor emma had ever enjoyed real popularity. there is no doubt that a princess of the blood royal could have been found for a consort, if the prime consideration had been to contract a popular marriage. it seems rather that in this matter canute acted in defiance of english public sentiment and for the express purpose of averting a real danger from beyond the channel. apparently, emma took kindly to canute's plans, for she is said to have stipulated that if sons were born to them, they should be preferred to canute's older children[ ]; thus by inference the rights of her sons in normandy were abandoned. earlier in his career, canute had formed an irregular connection with an english or anglo-danish woman of noble birth, elgiva, the daughter of elfhelm, who at one time ruled in deira as ealdorman. her mother's name is given as ulfrun, a name that is scandinavian in both its component parts.[ ]the family was evidently not strictly loyal to the saxon line, for in , just after sweyn's return to denmark, elfhelm was slain and his two sons blinded by royal orders.[ ] elgiva must have had relatives at northampton, for the chronicler knows her as the woman from northampton. she was a woman of great force of character, ambitious and aggressive, though not always tactful, as appears from her later career in norway. she was never canute's wife; but, in the eleventh century, vague ideas ruled concerning the marriage relation, even among christians. her acquaintance with canute doubtless began in , when he was left in charge of the camp and fleet at gainsborough. two sons she bore to him, harold harefoot and sweyn. on emma's return to england, elgiva seems to have been sent with her children to denmark. we find her later taking an active part in the politics of wendland, norway, and probably of england. the queen, who now came back from normandy to marry her husband's old enemy, was also a masterful woman. if heredity can be stated in arithmetical terms, she was more than half danish, as her mother gunnor was clearly a danish, woman while her father had a non-danish mother and also inherited some non-danish blood on the paternal side. she was evidently beautiful, gifted, and attractive: her flattering encomiast describes her as of great beauty and wisdom.[ ] but the finer instincts that we commonly associate with womanhood cannot have been highly developed in her case; what we seem to find is love of life, a delight in power, and an overpowering ambition to rule. at the time of her second marriage she was a mature woman; it is not likely that she was less than thirty years old, perhaps she was nearer forty. at all events, she must have been several years older than canute. two children were born to this marriage: harthacanute, who ruled briefly in denmark and england after the death of his father and of his half-brother harold; and gunhild, who was married to the emperor henry iii. emma lived to a ripe old age and died in , fifty years after her first marriage. the wedding was celebrated in july, , the bride presumably coming from normandy. the object sought was attained: for more than ten years there seems to have been unbroken peace between england and normandy. when trouble finally arose after the accession of robert the devil, canute was strong enough to dispense with further alliances. one of the chief necessities was some form of a standing army, a force that the king could depend upon in case of invasion or revolt. much reliance could obviously not be placed on the old military system; nor could the army of conquest be retained indefinitely. in , or perhaps late in the preceding year, steps were taken to dismiss the scandinavian host.[ ] it has been conjectured that this was done out of consideration for the saxon race; the presence of the conquerors was an insult to the english people. it had clearly become necessary to disband the viking forces, but for other reasons. a viking host was in its nature an army of conquest, not of occupation, except when the warriors were permitted to seize the land, which was evidently not canute's intention. in a land of peace, as canute intended england to be, such a host could not nourish. it should also be remembered that a large part was composed of borrowed troops furnished by the rulers of denmark, norway, and sweden; these could not be kept indefinitely. another danegeld was levied, , pounds in all, to pay off the host; and most of the northmen departed, to the evident satisfaction of all concerned. the dismissal of one host was followed by the immediate reorganisation of another. far more important than the departure of the fleet is the fact that the crews of forty ships remained in the royal service: this would mean a force of between three thousand and four thousand men. but the north knew no continuous body of warriors except the military households of chiefs and kings; such a household was now to be organised, but one that was far greater and more splendid than any organisation of the sort known in scandinavia. according to sveno's history, canute had it proclaimed that only those would be admitted to his new guard who were provided with two-edged swords having hilts inlaid with gold.[ ] sveno also tells us that the wealthy warriors made such haste to procure properly ornamented weapons that the sound of the swordsmith's hammer was heard all through the land. in this way, the king succeeded in giving his personal guard an aristocratic stamp. the guard of housecarles or "thingmen," as they were called in the north, was organised as a guild or military fraternity, of which the king ranked as a member, though naturally a most important one. in many respects its rules remind us of the regulations enforced in the jomburg brotherhood, though its organisation was probably merely typical of the viking fraternities of the age. the purpose of the guild laws, as reported by sveno and saxo, was to promote a spirit of fellowship among the members, to secure order in the guard, and to inculcate proper behaviour in the royal garth. when the housecarles were invited to the king's tables, they were seated according to their eminence in warfare, priority of service, or nobility of birth. to be removed to a lower place was counted a disgrace. in addition to daily fare and entertainment, the warriors received wages which were paid monthly, we are told. the bond of service was not permanent, but could be dissolved on new year's day only. all quarrels were decided in an assembly of the housecarles in the presence of the king. members guilty of minor offences, such as failing to care properly for the horse of a fellow guardsman, were assigned lower places at the royal tables. if any one was thrice convicted of such misdeeds, he was given the last and lowest place, where no one was to communicate with him in any way, except that the feasters might throw bones at him if they were so disposed. whoever should slay a comrade should lose his head or go into exile. treason was punished by death and the confiscation of the criminal's property.[ ] these laws were put into writing several generations after the guard was formed, and it is not likely that all existed from the very beginning. there is, however, nothing in the rules that might not have applied in canute's own day. it is said that the king himself was the first who seriously violated the guard-laws, in that he slew a housecarle in a moment of anger. repentance came swiftly; the guard was assembled; kneeling the king confessed his guilt and requested punishment. but the laws gave the king the power of judgment in such cases, and so it must be in this instance as in others. forty marks was the customary fine, but in this case the king levied nine times that amount and added nine marks as a gift of honour. this fine of marks was divided into three parts: one to go to the heirs of the deceased; one to the guard; and one to the king. but canute gave his share to the church and the poor.[ ] though the housecarles are presumed to have possessed horses, the guard was in no sense a cavalry force. horses were for use on the march, for swift passage from place to place, not for charging on the field. the housecarles were heavily armed, as we know from the description of a ship that earl godwin presented to harthacanute as a peace offering a few years after canute's death. eighty warriors, housecarles no doubt, seeing that it was a royal ship, manned the dragon, of whom each one had on each arm a golden arm-ring weighing sixteen ounces, a triple corselet, on the head a helmet in part overlaid with gold; each was girded with a sword that was golden-hilted and bore a danish ax inlaid with silver and gold hanging from the left shoulder; the left hand held the shield with gilded boss and rivets; in the right hand lay the spear that the angles call the _oetgar_.[ ] it is not to be supposed that the whole guard was always at the court--it was distributed in the strong places throughout the kingdom,[ ] especially no doubt in the south. it seems likely that individual housecarles might have homes of their own; at any rate, many of them in time came into possession of english lands as we know from domesday.[ ] no doubt anglo-saxon warriors were enrolled in the guard, but in its earlier years, at least, the greater number must have been of scandinavian ancestry. in the province of uppland, sweden, a runic monument has been found that was raised by two sons in memory of their father, who "sat out west in thinglith."[ ] as thinglith was the old norse name for canute's corps of housecarles, we have here contemporary mention of a swede who served in the guard. another stone from the same province records the fact that ali who raised it "collected tribute for canute in england."[ ] housecarles were sometimes employed as tax collectors, and it seems probable that ali, too, was a member of the great corps. it is likely that housecarles are also alluded to in the following scanian inscription: sweyn and thurgot raised this monument in memory of manna and sweyn. god help their souls well. but they lie buried in london.[ ] the sagas are evidently correct in stating that the force of housecarles "had been chosen from many lands, though chiefly from those of the danish [old norse] tongue." so long had the wealth of england been regarded as legitimate plunder, that the scandinavian pirates found it difficult to realise that raids in south britain were things of the past. they now had to reckon, not merely with a sluggish and disorganised militia, but with a strong force of professional warriors in the service and pay of a capable and determined king. in the year , says the german chronicler thietmar of merseburg, the crews of thirty viking ships have been slain in england, thanks be to god, by the son of sweyn, the king of the english; and he, who earlier with his father brought invasion and long-continued destruction upon the land, is now its sole defender.[ ] * * * * * this seems to have been the first and last attempt at piracy in england during the reign of canute. so far as his dominions extended, viking practices were outlawed. the check that the movement received in was the beginning of a rapid decline in its strength, and before the close of canute's reign, the profession of the sea-king was practically destroyed. the welsh, too, seem to have found it hard to repress their old habits of raiding the english frontier. it was probably this fact that induced canute to establish so many earldoms in the southwest, particularly in the severn valley. a few years after the signal defeat of the viking fleet, apparently in , eglaf, one of the earls on the welsh border, harried the lands of southwestern wales.[ ] as the sources nowhere intimate that canute ever planned to conquer wales, and as this was evidently the year of canute's absence in the baltic lands, the conclusion must be that this expedition was of a punitive character. the angles and saxons were soon to learn that the new régime meant a security for the property as well as the persons of loyal and peaceful citizens, such as they had not enjoyed for more than a generation. footnotes: [ ] the evidence is late and not of the best; the earliest authority to mention it is ralph de diceto who lived a century and a half later. but see freeman, _norman conquest_, i., note tt. [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] steenstrup places his age at twenty-two (_danmarks riges historie_, i., ). munch thinks that he was several years older. (_det norske folks historie_, i., ii., - ). [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . (vigfusson's translation.) [ ] liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] the first recorded absence was in the winter of and ; canute returned in time for the easter festivities. the chronicler tells of another return from denmark in ; as this return was earlier than the translation of saint alphege in june, the absence must have been during the winter months. see the _chronicle_ for these years. [ ] von friesen, _historiska runinskrifter_ (fornvännen, ), . von friesen suggests that the chief tosti who paid the first geld may have been skogul-tosti, the father of sigrid the haughty (pp. - ). for other monuments alluding to the danegeld, see _ibid._, , - ; montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, : the Össeby stone. [ ] the statement of the _chronicle_ ( ) that he divided england into four parts may imply that some sort of sanction was sought from the witan; but such an act would merely recognise accomplished facts. [ ] for the evidence see the author's paper in _american historical review_, xv., . [ ] munch, _det norske folks historie_, i., ii., . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] _ibid._, ii., c. . [ ] florence tells us that thurkil's wife bore the name edith (_chronicon_, i., ). the _jómsvikingasaga_ (c. ) has thurkil marry ethelred's daughter ulfhild, ulfketel's widow. however, ethelred had a daughter edith who was married to eadric. (florence, _chronicon_, i., .) for a discussion of the subject see freeman, _norman conquest_, i., notes nn and ss. [ ] snorre, _saga of earl hakon_, c. . [ ] _american historical review_, xv., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] she was sister of the earls ulf and eglaf. her danish name was gytha, which the saxons changed to edith. [ ] simeon of durham, _opera omnia_, ii., . [ ] ethelwerd and godric. ethelwerd was exiled in . [ ] leofwine had a son named northman, and it is possible that his father also bore that name. see freeman, _norman conquest_, i., note ccc. the occurrence of the name "northman" in a family living in or near the danelaw may indicate norse ancestry. [ ] for the court poetry of the scalds see vigfusson and powell, _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii. their verses have in part come down to us. see below, pp. ff. [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] excepting the two sons of emma who were now in normandy, there seems to be no record of any other surviving son. florence of worcester speaks of edmund's "brothers" in narrating the discussions at the gemot of christmas, ; but he may have thought of queen emma's children. (_chronicon_, i., .) [ ] william of malmesbury, _gesta regum_, i., . [ ] florence's writing _ad regent suanorum_ was probably due to an error of information or of copying; _ad regent sclavorum_, or some such form, is probably the correct reading (i., ). [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, iii., - . mieczislav's father was married to stephen's sister. [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . on the subject of proper names ending in _run_, see björkman, _nordische personennamen in england_, . [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _historiola legum castrensum regis canuti magni_, c. . the _historiola_ is found in langebek, _scriptores rerum danicarum_, iii. [ ] sveno, _historiola_, cc. - . saxo, _gesta danorum_, ff. [ ] langebek, _scriptores_, iii., (note). the story is probably mythical; but i give it as a fitting companion to the english stories of canute and the tide, and of his improvised verses inspired by the chants of the monks of ely. [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] saxo, _gesta danorum_, . [ ] larson, _the king's household in england_, - . [ ] the kolstad stone. montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, . [ ] the Össeby stone. montelius, _ibid._. [ ] the valleberga stone. wimmer, _de danske runemindesmærker_, iii., . [ ] _chronicon_, viii., c. . thietmar's account is strictly contemporary. [ ] _annales cambriæ_, . chapter vi the beginnings of empire - the first three or four years of canute's government in england can have given but little promise of the beneficent rule that was to follow. to the conquered saxon they must have been a season of great sorrow. on the throne of alfred sat an alien king who had done nothing as yet to merit the affectionate regard of his subjects. in the shire courts ruled the chiefs of the dreaded danish host, chiefs who had probably harried those same shires at an earlier date. a heavy tax had been collected to pay the forces of the enemy, but a large part of those forces still remained. the land was at peace; but the calm was the calm of exhaustion. the young king had shown vigour and decision; thus far, however, his efforts had been directed toward dynastic security rather than the welfare of his english subjects. but with canute's return from denmark in begins the second period in the history of the reign. after that date, it seems that more intelligent efforts were made to reconcile the saxons to foreign rule. for one thing, canute must have come to appreciate the wonderful power of the church; for an attempt was made to enlist its forces on the side of the new monarchy. perhaps he had also come to understand that repression could not continue indefinitely. this change in policy seems to be the outgrowth principally of the new situation created by canute's accession to the danish throne. harold, his older brother, king of denmark, appears to have died in .[ ] little is known of harold; he died young and evidently left no heirs. for a year there seems to have been no recognised king in denmark, as canute did not leave england before . in that year he sailed to the baltic to claim the throne in person, taking with him nine ships, fewer than one thousand men; the rest of the new force of housecarles was doubtless left in britain as a matter of security. thurkil, earl of east anglia, seems to have been left behind as english viceroy. various reasons may be assigned for this delay in securing the ancestral crown. harold died in the year when canute was reorganising the military forces of the realm; before his great corps of housecarles was complete, it would not have been safe to leave the country. perhaps the king also felt that he must take some steps to reconcile the two racial elements of his kingdom. he may have concluded that with two kingdoms to govern it would be impossible to give undivided attention to english affairs and movements. to prevent rebellion in his absence, it might be well to remove, so far as possible, all forms of hostility; we read, therefore, of a great meeting of the magnates, both danes and angles, at oxford in , where the matter of legislation was evidently the principal subject. at this assembly, it was agreed to accept edgar's laws as the laws for the whole land.[ ] it is significant that the comparatively large body of law that was enacted in ethelred's day was ignored or rejected. the chief reason for this may have been that canute was not yet willing to enforce the rigid enactments against heathen practices that were such a distinctive feature of ethelred's legislation. there can be small doubt that in the scandinavian settlements and particularly in the alien host heathendom still lingered to some extent. the delay was also due, perhaps, in large part to a serious trouble with scotland. the term northumbria is variously used; but in its widest application it embraced territories extending from the humber to the forth. the northern part of this kingdom, the section between the tweed and the forth, was known as lothian; on this region the kings of scotland had long cast covetous eyes. in , while the vikings were distressing england, king malcolm invaded lothian, crossed the tweed, and laid siege to durham. the aged earl waltheof made practically no attempt at resistance; but his young son uhtred placed himself at the head of the northumbrian levies and drove the invader back into scotland.[ ] uhtred succeeded to his father's earldom and was apparently recognised as lord throughout the entire ancient realm. while uhtred lived and ruled, the neighbours to the north seem to have kept the peace; but in , as we have seen, the great warrior was slain, probably at canute's instigation and his earldom was assigned to eric. whatever canute's intentions may have been, it seems likely that the new earl did not come into immediate and undisputed control of the entire earldom; for we find that in the regions north of yorkshire, the old kingdom of bernicia, uhtred's brother, eadulf cudel, "a very sluggish and timid man," sought to maintain the hereditary rights of the family. two years after uhtred's death, malcolm the son of kenneth reappeared in lothian at the head of a large force gathered from the western kingdom of strathclyde as well as from his own scotia. the northumbrians had had ample warning of troubles to come: for thirty nights a comet had blazed in the sky; and after the passage of another period of thirty days, the enemy appeared. an army gathered mainly from the durham country met the scotch forces at carham on the tweed, near coldstream, but was almost completely destroyed.[ ] there is no record of any further resistance; and when malcolm returned to the highlands he was lord of lothian, eadulf having surrendered his rights to all of northumbria beyond the tweed. canute apparently acquiesced in this settlement. so far as we know, he made no effort to assist his subjects in the north, or to redeem the lost territory. we cannot be sure of the reason for this inactivity; but the general situation on the island appears to offer a satisfactory explanation. it will be remembered that was the year when canute disbanded his scandinavian army. as we are told that the bishop of durham, who died in , took leave of earth a few days after he had heard the news of the great defeat,[ ] it seems likely that the battle of carham was fought late in the year , and after the host had departed for denmark. canute, therefore, probably had no available army that he could trust; to call out his new subjects would have been a hazardous experiment. there is also the additional fact that the sluggish eadulf was in all probability regarded as a rebel, whom canute was not anxious to assist. as to the terms of the surrender of lothian, nothing definite is known. our only authority in the matter puts the entire blame on eadulf, and apparently would have us believe that malcolm merely stepped into the earl's position as vassal of eric or canute. if such were the case, canute could hardly have been left in ignorance about the cession, and he may have cherished certain pretensions to overlordship, which malcolm evidently did not regard very seriously. in one way the cession of lothian was a great loss to england; on the other hand, it added an anglian element to the caledonian kingdom, which in time became the controlling factor, and prepared the northern state for the union of the kingdoms that came centuries afterwards. the following year, canute was finally in position to make the deferred journey to denmark. the danish situation must have had its difficulties. in a proclamation issued on his return, the king alludes to these, though in somewhat ambiguous terms: then i was informed that there threatened us a danger that was greater than was well pleasing to us; and then i myself with the men who went with me departed for denmark, whence came to you the greatest danger; and that i have with god's help forestalled, so that henceforth no unpeace shall come to you from that country, so long as you stand by me as the law commands, and my life lasts.[ ] most probably, the difficulty alluded to was some trouble about the succession. there may have been a party in denmark to whom the thought of calling a king from england was not pleasant; or it may be that a conservative faction was hoping for a ruler of the old faith. any form of invasion from denmark at this time, when the nation was even kingless, is almost beyond the possible. but no doubt there had been a likelihood that canute would have to call on his english subjects for military and financial support in the effort to secure his hereditary rights in the north. canute chose to spend the winter in denmark, as during the winter season there was least likelihood of successful plots and uprisings. as early as possible in the spring of , he returned to england. evidently certain rebellious movements had made some headway during his absence, for canute immediately summoned the lords to meet in formal assembly at the easter festival. the plotting was apparently localised in the south-western shires, as we infer from the fact that the gemot sat in an unusual place, cirencester in the severn country. its chief act seems to have been the banishment of ethelwerd, earl in the devon country, and of a mysterious pretender whom the chronicler calls edwy, king of churls.[ ] it seems natural to associate the destinies of these two men and to conclude that some sort of conspiracy in the pretender's favour had been hatching, but we have no definite information. it was probably at this gathering that canute issued his proclamation to the english nation; at least there seems to be no doubt that it was given in . it is a remarkable document, a message to a restless people, an apology for the absence in denmark, and a promise of future good government. it hints darkly at what may have been the disturbances in the southwest and the measures taken at cirencester in the following terms: now i did not spare my treasures while unpeace was threatening to come upon you; with the help of god i have warded this off by the use of my treasures.[ ] in a measure the proclamation of contains the announcement of a new governmental policy in england, one that recognises the english subjects as citizens who may be trusted with some share in the administration of the realm, and not merely as conquered provincials whose rebellious instincts can be kept down by a continuous policy of coercion only. there was, it is true, little need of coercion after ; the natural leaders of the native population were gone. but the importance of the union with denmark with respect to politics in england must not be overlooked: it removed what fear had remained as to the stability of canute's conquered throne. at the first indication of an uprising, it would be possible to throw a danish force on the british coast, which, combined with the king's loyal partisans in england, could probably stifle the rebellion in a brief campaign. the purpose to make larger use of the native energies is indirectly shown in the command to the local functionaries that they heed and follow the advice of the bishops in the administration of justice: and i make known to you that i will be a kind lord and loyal to the rights of the church and to right secular law. and also my ealdormen i command that they help the bishops to the rights of the church and to the rights of my kingship and to the behoof of all the people. and i also command my reeves, by my friendship and by all that they own, and by their own lives, that they everywhere govern my people justly and give right judgments by the witness of the shire bishop, and do such mercy therein as the shire bishop thinks right and the community can allow.[ ] the significance of this appears when we remember that the local prelates were probably english to a man. there is, however, no evidence for the belief so frequently expressed, that canute by this time, or even earlier, had concluded to dispense with his scandinavian officials, and to rule england with the help of englishmen only. in the proclamation the king speaks of danes and angles, not of angles and danes. among the thegns who witnessed his charters, danes and saxons continue to appear in but slightly changed ratio till the close of the reign. the alien guard was not dismissed. local government continued in the hands of norse and danish earls. time came when these disappeared from their respective earldoms, but for reasons that show no conscious purpose of removal because of nationality or race. as the field of his operations widened, as the vision of empire began to take on the forms of reality, canute found it necessary to use his trusted chiefs in other places and in other capacities. consequently the employment of native englishmen in official positions became more common as the years passed. the following year about martinsmas (november , ), came the first real break in canute's political system: thurkil the tall, who stood second to the king only in all england, was outlawed. florence of worcester adds that his wife was exiled with him.[ ] the reason for this act is not clear; but we may perhaps associate it with a lingering dislike for the old dynasty. if edith was actually ethelred's daughter, thurkil's marriage may have been a source of irritation or even supposed danger to canute and possibly also to the lady's stepmother, the callous queen emma. it is also possible that the king in this case simply yielded to pressure from the native element, particularly from the church. thurkil's prominence in the kingdom can hardly have been a source of pleasure to the men who recalled the part that he had played in the kingdom at various times. in the proclamation he is entrusted with the task of enforcing the laws against heathen and heretical practices. but to assign such a duty to the man who was in such a great measure responsible for the martyrdom of saint alphege must have seemed a travesty upon justice to the good churchmen of the time. the conjecture that the banishment of the earl was not wholly the result of royal disfavour receives some support from the fact that, a few months later, canute and thurkil were reconciled, and the old earl was given a position in denmark analogous to the one that he had held in england.[ ] canute still found him useful, but not in the western kingdom. at the same time, the shrewd king seems not to have felt absolutely sure of the earl's loyalty, for we read that he brought thurkil's son with him to england, evidently as a hostage. in another great name disappears from the documents: earl eric is mentioned no more. later stories that he, too, suffered exile are not to be believed. eric seems to have died in possession of all his northumbrian dignities and of the king's favour at a comparatively advanced age; for the warrior who showed such signal bravery at hjörunga bay nearly forty years before could not have been young. in all probability he had passed the sixtieth milestone of life, which was almost unusual among the viking chiefs of the period. we are told that in his last year he contemplated a visit to rome which was probably never made. most reliable is the story that he died from the effects of primitive surgery. just as he was about to set out on the roman journey, it was found necessary for him to have his uvula treated. the surgeon cut too deep and a hemorrhage resulted from which the earl died.[ ] that the story is old is clear, for some of the accounts have the additional information that the leech acted on the suggestion of one who can be none other than canute. this part of the story is probably mythical. the spirit of chivalry was not strong in the viking; but, so far as it existed, it found its best representative in eric, the son of hakon the bad. he was great as a warrior, great as a leader in the onslaught. he possessed in full measure the courage that made the viking such a marvellous fighter; the joy of the conflict he seems to have shared with the rest. but when the fight was over and the foeman was vanquished, nobler qualities ruled the man; he could then be merciful and large of soul. as a statesman, on the other hand, he seems to have been less successful; in norway he permitted the aristocracy to exercise local authority to a greater extent than the welfare of norse society could allow. as to his rule in northumbria we know nothing. the next year we have the closing record of still another scandinavian earl in england: eglaf signs a grant for the last time in .[ ] doubtless some trouble had arisen between him and the king, for two years later he appears to be acting the part of a rebel. still later, he is said to have joined the varangian guard of scandinavian warriors at byzantium, where he closed his restless career in the service of the greek emperor.[ ] there still remained norse and danish earls in england, such as ranig and hakon; but the men who were most intimately associated in the english mind with conquest and cruel subjection were apparently out of the land before the third decade of the century had finished half its course. it is probable that hakon succeeded his father in the northumbrian earldom, as leofwine of mercia seems to be in possession of hakon's earldom in worcestershire in ,[ ] the year when hakon's father presumably died. after the banishment of thurkil, we should expect to find eric, while he still lived, as the ranking earl in the kingdom and the chief adviser to the king. but eric's earldom was in the extreme north; his subjects were largely norwegian immigrants and their descendants, as yet, perhaps, but imperfectly anglicised; he was himself an alien and his circle of ideas scarcely touched the field of saxon politics. he could, therefore, be of small assistance in governing the kingdom as a whole. furthermore, it is doubtful whether canute really felt the need of a grand vizier at this time. an excellent assistant, however, he seems to have found in the saxon godwin. it has been thought that godwin's exalted position of first subject in the realm belongs to a date as early as [ ] but this is mere conjecture. it is evident that his influence with canute grew with the passage of time; still, it is likely that historians have projected his greatness too far back into his career. a position analogous to that of the tall earl he could not have held before the closing years of the reign. if canute left any one in charge of the kingdom during his absences after , it could not have been godwin. when the fleet sailed against the slavs on the south baltic shores in , godwin appears to have accompanied the host. tradition tells us that he fought valiantly in the swedish campaign of . a norse runic monument records his presence in some expedition to norway, presumably that of .[ ] canute did not employ english forces to a large extent in any of his foreign wars, possibly because he was distrustful of them: only fifty english ships made part of that vast armada that overawed the norwegians in . canute's probable reluctance about arming the saxons after the battle of carham and the consequent loss of lothian has already been referred to. the presence of godwin as a chief in canute's host may, therefore, be taken as a mark of peculiar confidence on the king's part. godwin was never without his rival. in the midlands leofwine and after him his son leofric were developing a power that was some day to prove a dangerous barrier to the ambitions of the southern earl and his many sons. the family of leofwine had certain advantages in the race for power that made for stability and assured possession of power once gained: it was older as a member of the aristocracy; it seems to have had anglo-danish connections, presumably danish ancestry; it was apparently controlled by a spirit of prudence that urged the acceptance of de-facto rule. but in the matter of aggressive abilities and statesmanlike ideas the mercians were far inferior to their saxon rivals; the son and grandsons of leofwine never attained the height of influence and power that was reached by godwin and his son harold. while these changes were going on in england, an important advance had been made in the direction of empire. in his message from rome to the english people ( ) canute claims the kingship of england, denmark, norway, and parts of sweden. the copies of the document that have come down to us are, however, not contemporary, and it is not likely that the sweeping claim of the salutation was found in the original. for at no time was canute lord of any swedish territory as the term was understood and the frontier drawn in the eleventh century. it has been pointed out that in this case we probably have a scribal error of swedes for slavs.[ ] as king of denmark, canute inherited pretensions to considerable stretches of the south baltic shore lands, and consequently could claim to rule a part of the slavic lands. early in his reign he made an expedition to these regions, of which we have faint echoes in both english and scandinavian sources. [illustration: the south baltic coast in the eleventh century.] from the elbe eastward along the baltic shores, at least as far as the vistula, where the lithuanian settlements appear to have begun,[ ] slavic tribes were evidently in full possession all through the viking age. there was, however, no consolidated slavic power, no organised slavic state. the dominions of bohemia and poland were developing but neither had full control of the coast lands. the non-slavic peoples who were interested in this region were the danes and the germans. the eastward expansion of germany across and beyond the elbe had begun; but in canute's day teutonic control of wendish territories was very slight. we find the danes in wendland as early as the age of charlemagne, when they were in possession of a strong and important city called reric, the exact location of which is not known.[ ] the danish interest appears to have been wholly a commercial one: horses, cattle, game, fish, mead, timber products, spices, and hemp are mentioned as important articles of the southern trade.[ ] there was also, we may infer, something of a market for danish products. at all times, the intercourse seems to have been peaceful; danes and wends appear to have lived side by side on the best of terms. the germans, on the other hand, were not regarded with much favour by their slavic neighbours. the feeling of hostility and hatred that the wend cherished was reciprocated on the german side; the german mind scarcely thought of the slav as within the pale of humanity. the most famous of all danish settlements in these regions was jom, a stronghold near the mouth of the oder, sometimes called jumne, jumneta, or julin. in the eleventh century jom was a great city as cities went in those days, though it was probably not equal to its reputation. the good master adam, who has helped us to so much information regarding northern lands and conditions in his century, speaks of the city in the following terms: it is verily the greatest city in europe. it is inhabited by slavs and other peoples, greeks and barbarians. for even the saxons who have settled there are permitted to live with the rest in the enjoyment of the same rights; though, indeed, only so long as they refrain from public profession of their christian faith. for all the inhabitants are still chained to the errors of heathen idolatry. in other respects, especially as to manners and hospitality, a more obliging and honourable people cannot be found.[ ] the city was located on the east side of the island of wollin, where the village of wollin has since been built. for its time it enjoyed a very favourable location. built on an island, it was fairly safe from land attacks, while its position some distance from the sea secured it from the common forms of piracy.[ ] back into the land ran the great river highway, the oder, while a few miles to the north lay the baltic with its long coast line to the east, the west, and the north. to secure danish influence in the city, harold bluetooth built the famous fortress of jomburg and garrisoned it with a carefully chosen band of warriors, later known as the jomvikings. according to saga, palna toki, the viking who is reputed to have slain king harold, was the founder and chief of the brotherhood; but the castle probably existed before toki became prominent in the garrison, if he ever was a member. the fortress was located north of jom near the modern village of wollin, where abundant archæological evidence has definitely identified the site.[ ] the harbour or bay that served as such has since filled with the rubbish of time; but in the tenth century it is reported to have had a capacity of three hundred dragons. the existence of a military guild at jomburg seems well attested. only men of undoubted bravery between the ages of eighteen and fifty years were admitted to membership; and, in the admission, neither kinship nor friendship nor considerations of exalted birth should be taken into account. as members of the brotherhood, all the jomvikings assumed the duties of mutual support and the revenge of a fallen comrade. strict discipline was enjoined in the fortress; absence for more than three days at a time was forbidden; no women were to be admitted to the castle. there was to be no toleration of quarrelsome behaviour; plunder, the fruitful source of contention, was to be distributed by lot. in all disputes the chief was the judge.[ ] it seems evident that the chief of these vikings was something more than the captain of a garrison; he bore the earl's title and as such must have had territorial authority in and about the city. supported by the jomvikings he soon began to assert an independence far beyond what the danish kings had intended that he should possess. however, till the death of harold bluetooth, the brotherhood appears to have been fairly loyal to their suzerain; it was to jomburg that the aged king fled when his son rebelled against him; it was there that he died after the traitor's arrow had given him the fatal wound. the rebel sweyn was not immediately recognised by the earl at jom; the vikings are said to have defied him, to have captured him and carried him off. only on the promises of marriage to gunhild, the sister of earl sigvaldi's wife, and of the payment of a huge ransom, was he permitted to return to his throne. the saga story has probably a great measure of truth in it. sweyn seems to have been determined on the destruction of the fraternity, and most likely had some success; for toward the close of his reign, we find the jomvikings no longer terrorising the baltic shores, but plundering the western isles. [illustration: the stenkyrka stone (monument from the island of gotland showing viking ships.)] [illustration: the valleberga stone.] in , toward the close of the year, we read of the exile of thurkil the tall, who will be remembered as an old jomviking, the brother of earl sigvaldi, and the leader in the descent of these vikings upon england in . we do not know where the exile sought a new home, but one is tempted to conjecture that he probably returned to the old haunts at the mouth of the oder. it is an interesting fact that a few months later canute found it advisable to make a journey to that same region. in the entry for , the chronicler writes that "in this year king canute fared out with his ships to wiht," or, as one manuscript has it, to "wihtland." apparently, the movement, whatever it was, did not interest the scribe; far more important in his eyes was the news that archbishop ethelnoth, when in rome to receive the pallium, was invited to say mass in the papal presence, and was afterwards permitted to converse with the holy father. historians have thought with the monk that the journey with the fleet can have had but little importance, that it was merely a mobilisation of the navy at the isle of wight, perhaps for the purpose of display. it was the danish historian steenstrup who first suggested that wiht or wihtland probably did not mean wight in this case, but the old witland that we read of in the writings of alfred: wulfstan the wide-farer informed the royal student that "the vistula is a mighty stream and separates witland from wendland and witland belongs to the esthonians."[ ] evidently the angles understood witland to be the regions of modern prussia east of the vistula. that canute's expedition actually went eastward seems extremely probable for we read that the next year he returned from denmark and had become reconciled with earl thurkil.[ ] there were danish colonies at the mouths of the oder, the vistula, and the düna[ ]; all these, no doubt, submitted to the conqueror from england. the expedition probably first went to jom in wendland; thence eastward to the prussian regions of witland and the still more distant semland, a region near the kurisches haff that is reported to have been conquered by one of harold bluetooth's sons.[ ] canute's possessions thus extended along the baltic shores from jutland almost to the eastern limits of modern germany; he may also have had possessions farther up the eastern coast of the sea. it is not likely that these possessions were anything more than a series of stations and settlements; but these would serve as centres of influence from which danish power would penetrate into the interior to the protection of danish trade and commerce. later english writers have a story to tell of this expedition, especially of the valorous part that was played by the earl godwin. in the expedition against the vandals, godwin, without first informing the king, made a night attack on the enemy and put them to rout. when canute prepared to make an attack early in the morning, he missed the english and feared that they had fled or deserted. but when he came upon the enemy's camp and found nothing there but bloody corpses and plunder, light dawned on the king, and he ever afterward held the english in high esteem.[ ] jomburg apparently retained its old pre-eminence as the centre of danish control on the southern shore. the king's brother-in-law, ulf, seems to have been left in control, probably with the title of earl. but after the death of thurkil, who had been left as viceroy of denmark, ulf was apparently transferred to that country and canute's son sweyn, under the guidance of his mother elgiva, was appointed the king's lieutenant in wendland.[ ] the extension of danish influence among the wends brought denmark into closer contact and relations with the empire. two years after canute's expedition to the slavic lands, henry the saint passed to his reward, and conrad the salic succeeded to the imperial dignities. on the death of henry ii. the great polish duke boleslav hastened to assume the regal title, and evidently planned to renounce the imperial suzerainty. this policy of hostility to the empire was continued by his son and successor, mieczislav, who also may have hoped to interest his cousin king canute in the welfare of the new kingdom. conrad also felt the need of a close alliance with the danish conqueror, and called upon archbishop unwan of hamburg-bremen for assistance as a mediator. unwan was canute's friend and succeeded in bringing about the desired understanding. possibly the price of the alliance may have appealed to canute as much as the archbishop's arguments; for conrad bought the friendship of his northern neighbour with the mark of sleswick to the eider river.[ ] the exact date of this alliance is a matter of doubt, but the probabilities appear to favour , when the emperor conrad was in saxony. some historians believe that the mark was not ceded at this time but ten years later, when canute's daughter gunhild was betrothed to conrad's son henry, as adam of bremen seems to associate these two events.[ ] but adam's chronology is confused on these matters. canute's friendship was surely more difficult to purchase in when his star was rapidly ascending than in when his empire had begun to collapse. while we cannot be sure, it seems extremely likely that the boundary of denmark was extended to the eider in . [illustration: danish coins from the reign of canute, minted at lund, roeskilde, ringsted] footnotes: [ ] langebek, _scriptores_, i., (note). [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] simeon of durham, _opera omnia_, i., . the account of the siege of durham is not by simeon but by some writer whose identity is unknown. [ ] simeon of durham, _opera omnia_, i., . [ ] _ibid._ [ ] liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., (sec. ). [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] sec. . [ ] sees. , , and . for a translation of the entire document see appendix i. [ ] _chronicon_, i., . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . the story given by later writers that thurkil was slain by a danish mob soon after his exile cannot be credited. it doubtless originated in a desire that the persecutor of saint alphege should suffer retribution. see especially the life of this saint in langebek, _scriptores_, ii., . [ ] one of the sagas (_fagrskinna_, c. ) tells us that eric actually made the pilgrimage and died soon after the return. that such a journey was at least planned seems probable; eric's brother-in-law, einar, is said to have made a pilgrimage during the earlier years of the decade; they may have planned to make the journey together. the earliest english writers who account for eric's disappearance on the theory of exile are william of malmesbury (_gesta regum_, i., ), and henry of huntingdon (_historia anglorum_, ). [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . [ ] _jómsvikingasaga_, c. . [ ] in an agreement of that year involving lands in worcester and gloucester, leofwine ealdorman signs as a witness. kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . [ ] freeman, _norman conquest_, i., . [ ] _afhandlinger viede sophus bugge's minde_, . [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, iii., - . [ ] steenstrup, _venderne og de danske_, . [ ] _ibid._, - . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., - . [ ] _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] steenstrup, _venderne og de danske_, - . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., - . steenstrup, _venderne og de danske_, . [ ] _jómsvikingasaga_, c. . [ ] _normannerne_, iii., - . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, i., - ; iii., - . [ ] saxo, _gesta danorum_, . the sembrians are described by adamus in his history (iv., c. ) as a very barbarous but humane race. [ ] henry of huntingdon, _historia anglorum_, . the author dates this expedition in , which is probably incorrect. an expedition to wendland earlier than is quite unlikely. [ ] steenstrup, _venderne og de danske_, . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. [ ] see manitius, _deutsche geschichte unter den sächsischen und salischen kaisern_, . chapter vii canute and the english church - the english church enjoyed canute's favour from the very beginning: the king was a christian; furthermore, he no doubt saw in the church a mighty force that should not be antagonised. at the same time, there is no evidence of any close union between church and monarchy before ; and even then it was more like an _entente cordiale_ than an open aggressive alliance, as it later came to be. canute was a christian, but he was also a shrewd statesman and a consummate politician. the religious situation among his danish supporters in england as well as the general religious and political conditions in the north probably made it inexpedient, perhaps impossible, to accede to the full demands of the church without danger to his ambitions and probable ruin to his imperialistic plans. when the eleventh century opened, the north was still largely heathen. missionaries had been at work for nearly two centuries--ever since saint ansgar entered the scandinavian mission field in the days of louis the pious--and the faith had found considerable foothold in denmark, especially on the jutish peninsula. canute's father sweyn had been baptised; but other indications of his christian faith are difficult to find. his queen, sigrid the haughty, was almost violent in her devotion to the old gods. sweden remained overwhelmingly heathen for some years yet, while the progress of the church in norway depended on royal mandates supported by the sword and the firebrand. only five years before the death of canute, norse heathendom won its last notable victory, when saint olaf fell before the onslaught of the yeomanry at stiklestead ( ). [illustration: poppo's ordeal (altar decoration from about . danish national museum).] [illustration: an english bishop of the eleventh century (from the bayeux tapestry.)] the army that conquered england for canute was no doubt also largely heathen. it seems, therefore, safe to assume that during the early years of the new reign, the worship of the anse-gods was carried on in various places on english soil; surely in the danish camps, perhaps also in some of the danish settlements. this situation compelled the christian king to be at least tolerant. soon there began to appear at the english court prominent exiles from norway, hot-headed chiefs, whose sense of independence had been outraged by the zealous missionary activities of olaf the stout.[ ] canute had not been lord of england more than six or seven years before the norwegian problem began to take on unusual interest. before long the missionary king found his throne completely undermined by streams of british gold. the exiles who sought refuge at winchester and the men who bore the bribe-money back to norway were scarcely enthusiastic for the faith that frowned on piracy; consequently it continued to be necessary for canute to play the rôle of the tolerant, broad-minded monarch, who, while holding firmly to his own faith, was unwilling to interfere with the religious rites of others. in his later ecclesiastical legislation, canute gave the church all the enactments that it might wish for; but it is a significant fact that these laws did not come before the northern question had been settled according to canute's desires and his viceroy was ruling in norway. edgar's laws, which were re-enacted in , at the oxford assembly, deal with the matter of christianity in general terms only. the more explicit and extensive church legislation of ethelred's day was set aside and apparently remained a dead letter until it was in large measure re-enacted as a part of canute's great church law late in the reign. the early surroundings of the king had not been such as to develop in him the uncompromising zeal that characterised the typical christian monarch in mediæval times. we do not know when he was baptised; it may have been in childhood, and it must have been before the conquest of england, as the christian name lambert, which was added in baptism to the heathen name by which we know him, would suggest that the rite was administered by a german ecclesiastic.[ ] it is believed that he was confirmed by ethelnoth the good, the english churchman who later became archbishop of canterbury.[ ] we do not know when the rite of confirmation was administered, but the probabilities point to the winter months of - ; for during these months canute was several times in south-western england where ethelnoth lived at the time. the subjection of england to an alien, half-heathen aristocracy must have caused many difficulties to the english church. how the problems were met we do not know. the mediæval church, however, was usually to be found on the side of power: the church loved order and believed in supporting good and efficient government whenever circumstances would permit it. soon after the meeting at oxford, apparently in , archbishop lifing made a journey to rome; we may conjecture that he went to seek counsel and to obtain instructions as to what attitude the english clergy should assume toward the new powers, but we do not know. it is clear, however, that the subject was seriously discussed at the papal court, for the archbishop brought back a letter to canute exhorting him to practise the virtues of christian kingship. it must have nattered the young dane to receive this, for he refers to it in his proclamation: i have taken to heart the written words and verbal messages that archbishop lifing brought me from the pope from rome, that i should everywhere extol the praise of god, put away injustice, and promote full security and peace, so far as god should give me strength.[ ] that same year the venerable primate died, and ethelnoth the good was appointed to succeed him as archbishop of canterbury.[ ] the choice was evidently the king's own and the two men seem to have laboured together in singular harmony. but though ethelnoth was primate, the dominant influence at court seems to have been that of an abbot in devonshire. when abbot lifing was yet only a monk at winchester, he seems to have attracted the king's attention; at any rate, we are told by the historian of malmesbury that he became an intimate friend of canute and exerted great influence with him.[ ] it may have been this friendship that secured to lifing the abbacy of tavistock, perhaps in , in which year he witnessed charters for the first time as abbot. lifing's advance to power was rapid. two years after his first appearance in the documents as abbot, we find that he had been elevated to the episcopal office, having probably been advanced to the see of crediton.[ ] the devonshire country had been the centre of a persistent anti-danish movement, it appears, and it was surely a prudent move to place a strong partisan of the new order in control of the church in the southwestern shires. in the same year, the king further honoured him with landed estates in hampshire. this must have been just prior to the holy river campaign in sweden, on which expedition the bishop probably accompanied his royal master (william of malmesbury tells us that he frequently went to denmark with canute); at all events, when canute without first returning to england made his journey to rome, in the early months of , the bishop of crediton was an important member of the king's retinue. it was bishop lifing who was sent back to england with canute's famous message to the english church and people, the king himself going on to denmark. william of malmesbury describes him as a violent, wilful, and ambitious prelate; when he died (in ) the earth took proper notice and trembled throughout all england.[ ] the year was one of great significance for english history in the reign of canute. in that year he returned to england as danish king; in that same year he issued his proclamation to his anglian subjects and announced his new governmental policy; the same year saw the appointment of a new and friendly primate of the anglican church; in that year, too, began a series of benefactions and other semi-religious acts that made canute's name dear to the english churchmen and secured him the favour of monastic chroniclers. these took various forms: new foundations were established and many of the older ones received increased endowments; monasteries that had been defiled or destroyed in the danish raids were repaired or rebuilt; the fields where the lord of hosts had given the victory to canute's armies were adorned with churches where masses were said for the souls of the slain; saints were honoured; pilgrimages were made; heathen practices were outlawed. the series properly begins with the consecration of the church on ashington field in . the church itself was apparently a modest structure, but the dedication ceremonies were elaborate. as the primacy was evidently vacant at the time, archbishop lifing having died about mid-year (june ),[ ] the venerable wulfstan of the northern province was called on to officiate. with him were numerous ecclesiastics, bishops, abbots, and monks. king canute and earl thurkil also graced the occasion with their presence.[ ] it is interesting to note that the office of chapel priest at ashington was given to a clerk of danish blood, the later prelate stigand, one of the few danes who have held ecclesiastical offices in england. stigand for a time sat on the episcopal throne in the cathedrals of winchester and canterbury. doubtless a dane could perform the offices on this particular field with a blither spirit than a native englishman. if the intention was to impress the english church, canute clearly succeeded. though details are wanting, it is understood that similar foundations soon graced the other fields where canute had fought and won. in that same year, apparently, monks were substituted for secular clerks as guardians of saint edmund's shrine. grievously had the danes sinned against the holy east anglian king. five generations earlier he had suffered ignominious martyrdom at the hands of the vikings. the saint had again suffered outrage in the closing months of king sweyn's life by what seemed to be petty persecution of the priests who served at his sacred shrine. as we have already seen, the king's sudden death while the matter of tribute was still unsettled gave rise to the legend that saint edmund struck down the dane "in like manner as the holy mercurius slew the nithing julian." it was charged that the priests of the holy place led disorderly lives, and on the advice of the neighbouring bishop, elfwine of elmham, it was determined to eject them. earl thurkil's consent was asked and received. monks to the number of twenty were brought from saint benet hulme and ely.[ ] the same year a new church was begun, that the relics of the martyr might have a more suitable home. the monks naturally organised themselves into a monastic community, which seems to have enjoyed full immunity from the very beginning: a trench was run around saint edmund's chapel on the edge of which all tax-gathering was to stop. in addition it is said that the lady emma pledged an annual gift of tour thousand eels from lakenheath, though this was probably a later contribution. the brethren of the monastery also claimed that canute granted them extensive jurisdiction over the manors that belonged to the new foundation.[ ] it is evident that large endowments were given and canute in this way became in a sense the founder of one of the most important sanctuaries of mediæval england. william of malmesbury tells us that canute disliked the english saints, but the evidence indicates the contrary. the only instance of ill-will recorded is in the case of saint edith, king edgar's holy daughter. saint edith rested at wilton, where there was a religious house for women that had enjoyed her patronage. canute expressed a doubt as to the sanctity of a daughter of the immoral edgar and ordered the shrine to be opened. the offended princess arose, we are told, and struck the impious king in the face.[ ] canute acknowledged his error and did penance. there may be some truth in the story so far as it relates to the king's hostility or incredulity, for saint edith was the sister of canute's old enemy, king ethelred. it may have been the vigorous argument of saint edith, or genuine piety, or political considerations that wrought the change, but it is clear that canute soon developed a profound respect for the saints that rested in england. he caused the relics of saint wistan to be translated from repingdon to a more suitable home in the honoured abbey of evesham.[ ] the remains of saint felix were brought back to ramsey in the face of strong opposition from the jealous monks of ely.[ ] on one of his northern journeys the king turned aside to durham to adore the bones of the mighty saint cuthbert. five miles did the king walk with bare feet to the durham sepulchre, and after showing proper respect and veneration, he concluded his visit with a royal gift of lands, two manors, we are told, with all their belongings.[ ] toward the close of his reign, by legislative act, he gave the strenuous dunstan a place on the calendar of english saints.[ ] by far the most famous act of homage of this sort was the translation of saint alphege from london to canterbury in , famous not because of its peculiar importance, but because certain literary monks saw fit to write long accounts of it. this, too, was an act of expiation: so far as the sins of canute's people were concerned the case of bishop alphege was much like that of the martyred king edmund. alphege was from western england and became a monk at deerhurst in gloucestershire. he was for a time abbot of bath and later bishop of winchester. it was he who confirmed olaf trygvesson and thus indirectly began the work that resulted in the conversion of norway. as archbishop of canterbury he seems to have taken a pastoral interest in the danish besiegers, for which he was rewarded with indignities and death. his bones had been laid at rest at saint paul's in london; but canterbury was naturally anxious to have her first martyred bishop in her own house, while london, on the other hand, is said to have watched over the sacred remains with a jealous care that bore the marks of avarice rather than of veneration. we are told that canute earlier had formed the purpose of translating the relics and that certain calamities had recalled the intention to his mind. he suggested the project to archbishop ethelnoth, who doubted the feasibility of the venture. according to the highly-coloured report of the monk osbern who claims to have his information from an eye-witness, the king and the archbishop secretly removed the body from its resting-place and gave it to a monk who bore it to the thames where the king's ship lay ready to receive it. the attention of the londoners was diverted to other parts of the city by feigned excitement at the farther gates, for which the king's housecarles were responsible. meanwhile, the royal ship, with canute himself at the rudder, was conveying the remains to southwark, where they were given into the keeping of the archbishop and his companions, who bore them joyfully on to rochester. here the party was joined by queen emma and the five-year-old princeling harthacanute accompanied by a strong force of housecarles. the translation was effected in june and occupied seven days.[ ] the dane's interest in the church also expressed itself in frequent and important endowments. while it is not always possible to verify these grants, there can be little doubt that the monastic records are usually correct on the points of possession and donors, though the extant charters are frequently forgeries produced at a time when titles were called into question. in some of these gifts, too, we see clearly a desire to atone for past wrongs. canterbury, which had suffered heavy losses at the hands of thurkil and his wild comrades, was assured of its liberties and immunities early in the reign.[ ] another act of expiation was the visit and gift to glastonbury, the famous monastery that had received the bones of edmund ironside. a century after canute's time edmund's grave was covered with a "pall of rich materials, embroidered with figures of peacocks." legend ascribes the gift to canute, and may in this case be trustworthy. with the king at edmund's grave stood archbishop ethelnoth, who was at one time a monk at glastonbury.[ ] the visit seems to have been made in , perhaps on the eve of canute's expedition against the norwegians and swedes. perhaps canute's most famous gift was the golden cross at winchester. some time in the early years of his reign, apparently in , probably just before his visit to denmark, he gave to the new minster a "magnificent golden cross, richly ornamented with precious stones"; in addition to this, "two large images of gold and silver, and sundry relics of the saints."[ ] it seems to have been a gorgeous present, one that was keenly appreciated by the recipients, and the history of which was long recounted. the gift was apparently accompanied by a donation of valuable lands.[ ] canute also showed an interest in the monastery of saint benet hulme, to which three manors were given.[ ] it is claimed that he granted certain immunities to the church of saint mary devon in exeter, but the evidence is not trustworthy.[ ] the great abbey of evesham was not forgotten: the blessed wistan was given a black chasuble and other ornaments, probably at the time of his translation.[ ] it may be that in making this gift the king wished to show his appreciation of the abbot as well as to honour the saint: abbot elf ward is said to have been canute's cousin; if such was the case he must have been the son of the ill-starred pallig. gifts there also were of a more personal character, gifts to various ecclesiastics, monks, and priests whom the king wished to honour; especially may we mention the grants to bishop burhwold and to bishop lifing.[ ] but such donations were not numerous; canute seems to have preferred to honour foundations, probably because in mediæval times the institution was of greater consequence than the individual. the gifts enumerated were made during the first half of the reign. grants were made in the second period as well: abingdon claims to have enjoyed his favour[ ]; the old minster at winchester was endowed with lands and adorned with specimens of the goldsmith's art[ ]; a considerable gift of lands was made to york cathedral[ ]; but these seem to reveal a different spirit and purpose in the giver. before his career closed the great dane became an ardent christian; but in his earlier years, the politician left little room to the churchman: the church was a factor merely, though a great factor, in the political situation. other kings have gloried in new foundations as monuments to religious zeal; canute selected the long-established, the widely-influential shrines and houses and gave his favour chiefly to them. in return he doubtless expected the favour of saints cuthbert, alphege, edmund, felix, and dunstan, and the support of canterbury, evesham, winchester, and the other great institutions that he endowed. it is to be noted that nearly all the institutions that shared the royal bounty were located in the anglo-saxon south where canute especially needed to build up a personal following. the exceptions were york, durham, and coventry where the faithful rejoiced in an arm of saint augustine, a relic of peculiar value that canute is said to have bestowed on the city.[ ] whatever his motives were, it is clear that canute showed an interest in matters ecclesiastical far beyond what the church might reasonably expect from a king whose training had scarcely been positively christian, and who still kept in close touch with the non-christian influences that dominated so much of the north. still, one desire remained unsatisfied: thus far the king had done nothing to make the christian faith compulsory in england. the proclamation of looks in that direction; but it contains no decree of the desired sort. it is a peculiar document, remarkable more for what it omits than for what it actually contains. god's laws, by which the rules of the church are doubtless meant, are not to be violated; but the important task of bringing the violators to justice is committed to the old pirate, thurkil the tall, whose appreciation of christian virtues and divine commandments cannot have been of the keenest.[ ] certain characteristically heathen sins are to be avoided: among the things forbidden is to consort with witches and sorceresses.[ ] but the only crime of this nature for which the document prescribes a specific penalty is that of marrying a nun or any other woman who has taken sacred vows: and if any one has done so, let him be an outlaw before god and excommunicated from all christendom, and let him forfeit all his possessions to the king, unless he quickly desist from sin and do deep penance before god.[ ] it is evident, however, that canute believed that the process of education in the church from sunday to sunday would eventually solve the problem of heathenism in england; for he closes his proclamation with an exhortation to all his subjects to attend faithfully the divine services: and further still we admonish all men to keep the sunday festival with all their might and observe it from saturday's noon to monday's dawning; and let no man be so bold as to buy or sell or to seek any court on that holy day. and let all men, poor and rich, seek their church and ask forgiveness for their sins and earnestly keep every ordained fast and gladly honour the saints, as the mass priest shall bid us, that we may all be able and permitted, through the mercy of the everlasting god and the intercession of his saints, to share the joys of the heavenly kingdom and dwell with him who liveth and reigneth forever without end. amen.[ ] footnotes: [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. , , . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. : schol. . it seems to have been customary to add a christian name in baptism. there is an allusion to canute's conversion in the chronicle of adémar de chabannes (ii., c. ), who seems to believe that canute became a christian after the conquest of england. but the authority of the aquitanian chronicler, though contemporary, cannot be so weighty as that of the records of the church of bremen which the scholiast seems to have used in the entry cited above. for adémar's statement see waitz, _scriptores (m.g.h.)_, iv., . [ ] langebek, _scriptores_, ii., : osbern's tract concerning the translation of saint alphege. osbern tells us that ethelnoth was dear to canute because he had anointed him with the sacred chrism. this cannot refer to his coronation, nor is it likely to have reference to his baptism, as ethelnoth, would scarcely have given canute a german name. it seems, therefore, that it must allude to his confirmation. [ ] liebermann, _geschichte der angelsachsen_, i., . [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] _gesta pontificum_, . [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . to this he afterwards added the see of worcester, to which he was appointed by harold in . _ibid._, . [ ] _gesta pontificum_, - . [ ] stubbs, _registrum sacrum anglicanum_, . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _memorials of saint edmund's abbey_, i., xxvii, , . [ ] _ibid._, i., . [ ] william of malmesbury, _gesta pontificum_, . [ ] _chronicon abbatiæ de evesham_, - . [ ] _historia rameseiensis_, - . [ ] simeon of durham, _opera omnia_, i., . [ ] liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., . [ ] most of these details are from osbern's tract on the life and translation of saint alphege. see langebek, _scriptores_, ii., or wharton's _anglia sacra_, ii. the account in the _chronicle_ is briefer but more reliable. [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, nos. and ; of these the former is scarcely genuine. [ ] william of malmesbury, _gesta regum_, i., . [ ] _liber de hyda_, xxxvi. [ ] _ibid._, . [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . [ ] _ibid._, no. . [ ] _chronicon abbatiæ de evesham_, . [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, nos. , . [ ] _chronicon monasterii de abingdon_, i., ff. [ ] _annales monastici_, ii., . [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . [ ] gervase of canterbury, _historical works_, ii., . the arm was brought to england from rome by archbishop ethelnoth. william of malmesbury, _gesta regum_, i., . [ ] sec. . [ ] sec. . as the term used for sorceress seems to be norse, this prohibition was evidently aimed at practices in the danelaw. [ ] sec. . [ ] secs. - . chapter viii the twilight of the gods the question what attitude to assume toward the organised english church may have caused canute some embarrassment; but the english problem was simple compared with the religious complications that the young king had to face in the north. england was christian, at least officially, while scandinavia was still largely heathen; though every day saw the camps of christendom pitched a little farther toward the arctic. in all the northern kingdoms missionaries were at work planting the seeds of the new faith. by the close of the millennium christianity had made great progress in the danish kingdom; it was firmly rooted in jutland and had found a foothold on the islands and in scania. among the norwegians the new worship had also made some progress; but in sweden the darkness of heathendom still hung heavy and low. norse christianity doubtless filtered in with the viking raids: with the plunder of the catholic south and west, the sea-kings also appropriated many of the forms and ideas of western civilisation, and it is not to be supposed that the fields of religious thought were neglected or overlooked. king hakon the good became a christian at the court of his foster-father, ethelstan, the grandson of alfred.[ ] the sons of eric bloodax were also baptised in england, where their father had found an exile's refuge.[ ] olaf trygvesson found his faith and his mission while fighting as viking in england. olaf the saint received baptism in rouen on his return from a raid as viking mercenary. thus norway had been in close touch with the new faith for nearly a century; and yet, christianity had made but little actual progress. during the reign of canute the danish church reached the stage of effective organisation, while in norway the religious activities were still of the missionary type. [illustration: hammers of thor (from the closing years of heathendom).] the forces of the anse-gods were in retreat all along the religious frontier; but it is not to be supposed that they were panic-stricken. to their zeal for the ancestral worship was added a love for the conflict which inspired the faithful to contest every inch of the christian advance. the challenge of thor has a sort of historic reality in it: in a sense the issue of religion was settled in the north by wager of battle. in his admiration for strength and force, many a northman seemed willing to follow the lead of the stronger cult. the anse-faith of the viking age seems to have been a development of an ancient form of heaven worship or possibly of sun worship, traces of which have been found in the north from the days of the stone age.[ ] in time the deity came to be viewed from various angles, and each particular aspect was individualised and made the object of separate worship. thus, apparently, arose the three great divinities, thor, woden, and frey. thor is the god of strength, the mighty defender of gods and men. his name (o. eng. _thunor_), his flaming beard, the crash of his hammer-stroke show that the thor-conception was closely associated with early notions of thunder and lightning. similarly, the name of woden[ ] associates his divinity with the untamed forces of nature, the fury of the tempest, the wrath of the storm. he is, therefore, the god of the battle rush, the divine force that inspires the athletic frenzy of the berserk. thor is armed with a hammer, woden with a spear. thor rides in a cart drawn by rams; woden's mount is a swift eight-footed horse. but woden is more than a mere god of conflict; he is wise and cunning and knows the mysteries of the world. frey is the god of fruitfulness, the sun-god as giver of life and growth. he should be worshipped by tillers of the soil. in the course of time, new deities were admitted to the scandinavian pantheon; some of these were no doubt developed from older conceptions; others were evidently introduced from neighbouring cults. gradually the old, rude beliefs came to be overlaid with myths, a series of strange tales, bold, strong, and weird. recent scholars have held that many of these were borrowed from the bulging storehouse of christian faith and legend--the result of intellectual contact between the old races and the norse immigrant on the western islands.[ ] but even where this borrowing can be clearly traced, the modifying touches of the norse imagination are clearly in evidence. the northern peoples also developed a system of ethics of which we have a remarkable statement in the eddic poem, the "song of the high one." while of a lower character than that associated with christianity, it was, when we consider the soil from which it sprang, a remarkable growth. candour, honesty, courage, strength, fidelity, and hospitality were enjoined and emphasised. the northman was impressed with the fact that all things seem perishable; but he hoped that the fame of a good life would continue after death. cattle die, kinsmen die, finally dies one-self; but never shall perish the fame of him who has won a good renown. cattle die, kinsmen die, finally dies one-self; but one thing i know that always remains, judgment passed on the dead.[ ] but the duties toward the hostile and the weak, that christianity strove to inculcate, the northman did not appreciate: slavery was common; weak and unwelcome children were often exposed at birth; revenge was a sacred duty. it is not the intention to enter upon a full discussion of old northern faith and morals: in the conversion of a people that had reached the particular stage of culture that the norsemen occupied in the eleventh century, neither is of prime importance. it is doubtful whether the vikings were much interested in the intricacies of dogma, be it heathen or christian. it also seems unlikely that christian morals as practised at the time could have proved very attractive. in the life of saint olaf, for instance, there was little that we should regard as saintly, but much that was cruel, sinful, and coarse. the celtic church, with which the norwegians first came into close contact, seems to have put a somewhat liberal construction on the ten commandments. the forms of worship, however, were of the first importance: in the gorgeous ritual of the mediæval church the heathen could not fail to see a tangible excellence that his own rude worship did not possess. the anse-faith knew no priesthood: the various local officials were charged with the duty of performing the ancient rites, though some evidently had peculiar responsibilities in this matter. in the family the father had certain sacerdotal duties. the gods were worshipped in temples, though not exclusively so; sacred groves and fountains were also used for such purposes. frequently, also, the great hall of a chief was dedicated to the gods and used for sacrificial feasts.[ ] most famous of all the old scandinavian sanctuaries was that at upsala in eastern sweden, built, we are told, by the god frey himself. it was a large wooden structure, highly ornamented with gold. within were rude images of the three major divinities, thor, woden, and frey, with thor's image in the chief place. near the temple there grew, according to the account in adam's chronicle, an exceedingly large tree that always kept its verdure, in winter as well as in summer. there was also a fountain where the victims were sometimes drowned; if the corpse did not reappear, the favour of the gods was assured. in the sacred grove about the sanctuary, the sacrificial victims were hung--horses, dogs, and other beasts, frequently also human beings. the corpses were not removed but permitted to hang from the trees. adam reports that an eye-witness once counted seventy-two such sacrificial victims.[ ] every ninth year the entire swedish nation was summoned to sacrifice at upsala. the feast was celebrated shortly before the vernal equinox and continued nine days. at least one human being was sacrificed each day. great multitudes were in attendance--king and people all sent their offerings to upsala. it seems, however, that christians were released from the duty of attendance on the payment of money.[ ] it is clear that the gathering had a national as well as a religious significance. elaborate festivities were combined with the sacrifices. three times in the year did the northmen gather in this manner to feast and to invoke the gods: at yule-tide in january, at the vernal equinox, and late in the autumn. of these gatherings the sagas speak somewhat explicitly and seem to give reliable information. it was the old way, when a sacrifice was to be, that all the franklins should come to the place where the temple was, and carry thither the victuals that they wished to have as long as the feast lasted. all were to have a drinking together, and there were also slaughtered all kinds of cattle and also horses. and all the blood that came thereof was then called sortilege-blood, and sortilege-bowls those wherein the blood stood, and sortilege-twigs that were made like a sprinkler. with this blood were all the altars to be sprinkled withal, and also the walls of the temple without and within, and also sprinkled on the people, but the meat was seethed for the entertainment of the people. there had to be fires in the midst of the floor of the temple, and kettles over them, and the toasts were carried across the fire. and he that made the feast or was chief had to make a sign over the toast and the sanctified meat. first must come woden's toast: that was drunk to victory and power of the king; and then niard's toast; and frey's toast for good seasons and peace. it was many men's wont to drink brage's toast after that. men also would drink a toast to their kinsmen that had been laid in their barrows, and that was called the memory toast.[ ] this description applies more especially to the great yule-festivities, but its more prominent features, the gathering, the sacrificial slaughter, the blood-sprinkling, the toasts, and the feasting, were evidently common usages, though places and occasions probably developed varieties of customary worship. on the same occasions, the will of the gods was ascertained by the casting of lot or other processes of sortilege. vows were pledged and oaths were registered. a ring of two-ounce weight or more must lie on the altar in every head temple. this ring every _godë_ (temple-official) must carry in his hand to any law-moot that he himself was to preside over, and he must first redden it in the blood of the sacrificial beast which he sacrificed there himself.[ ] in the myth ragnarok the sibyl has told of the end of all things, even of the divinities; how the twilight shall settle down upon the life of the anses; how their strength shall wither and age steal upon them; and how at last swart, the lord of the fire-world, shall come to the attack wrapped in flames. swart from the south comes with flaming sword; bright from his blade the sun is blazing. stagger the stony peaks, stumble the giants; heroes fare helward and heaven yawns.[ ] it is an awful picture that the prophetess unrolls for us of all the personified forces of destruction mustering to do battle against the gods. the forces of evil win, for weakness has stolen upon the world in the "twilight" preceding the final conflict: "an age of lust, of ax and sword, and of crashing shields, of wind and wolf ere the world crumbles."[ ] then comes the end of all things: swart is the sun, earth sinks in the ocean, the shining stars are quenched in the sky. smoke and steam encircle the ash-tree, flame-tongues lick the lofty heaven.[ ] [illustration: the tjÄngvide stone (monument from the island of gotland. the stone shows various mythological figures; see below, page .)] the prophecy of destruction as well as an expressed hope of future regeneration shows quite clearly the result of christian influence on thought and imagery. the poem must consequently have been produced after the north had come under the spell of western culture, some time, perhaps, in the tenth century. less than a century later the "twilight of the gods" had set in. the union of the anglo-saxon to the danish crown could not fail to affect missionary operations in the north. it would seem at first sight as if the work would be strengthened and hastened, for now the christianising energies of britain would be added to those of germany. as a matter of fact the situation became more complex and difficult: the union brought out the question whether the primacy of the new church should belong to hamburg-bremen or to canterbury. it seems that canute at one time held out hopes to archbishop ethelnoth of rising to metropolitan authority of the danish as well as of the english nation. such an arrangement would seem natural and highly desirable: the empire that canute ruled from winchester could be more readily held together if its ecclesiastical concerns were all directed from the cathedral at canterbury. these new plans with respect to the young danish church apparently date from the years immediately following canute's return to england as danish king ( ). his new interest in english ecclesiastical matters has been discussed elsewhere. in , ethelnoth consecrated three bishops for danish sees: gerbrand for zealand (roeskild); reginbert for funen (odense); and bernhard for the scanian lands.[ ] the sources also state that many other english bishops were sent to denmark from england, but no names are given. it is to be noted that the names given above are not anglo-saxon but german. it has therefore been thought that these bishops were from flanders or lorraine, in which regions there was an ecclesiastical movement of some importance in the days of canute.[ ] of these three the most important was doubtless gerbrand, whose cathedral was located at roeskild, the royal residential city. at this time unwan was archbishop of hamburg-bremen. unwan was an aggressive and ambitious prelate; it was not with pleasure that he learned of the new bishops from the west; without the north as its mission-field, bremen would be a sorry province. bishop gerbrand on his journey to his new parish,--he was probably sailing along the german coast according to custom,--was captured and brought before archbishop unwan who forced him to do proper homage. apparently the german prelate made a favourable impression on bishop gerbrand for through his influence the archbishop induced canute to agree that future bishops should be consecrated at bremen.[ ] tradition is doubtless correct in ascribing to canute considerable activity in the endowment of churches. the statement that he established monasteries in denmark is probably an error; if he attempted to do so, his efforts failed[ ]; some time still had to pass before the viking could find contentment in the cloister. danish monasticism dates from the closing years of the century, when twelve monks from evesham on the avon came on request of king eric to found a monastery at odense. it seems likely that the payment of peter's pence dates from this reign. as to the amount of this tax nothing is known; but it is probable that the sum was a very modest one, as the danes in england seem to have been specially favoured in this matter, the tax in the danelaw being half as large as in the rest of england.[ ] across the sound in scania, the introduction of christianity was a slower process. we learn that in sweyn's time an englishman, godebald, was appointed bishop there, and that he occasionally preached in the neighbouring sections of sweden and norway.[ ] the results were evidently meagre, but it is significant that the preacher came from england. the norwegian church is in a peculiar sense a daughter of the english church. the first serious attempt at mission work in norway was made about the middle of the tenth century, when king hakon built a few churches and sent for english priests to officiate in them. one of these apparently bore the episcopal title, sigfrid, a monk of glastonbury.[ ] the yeomanry gathered and slew the missionaries and the work came to nought. when olaf trygvesson seized the kingship ( ), he came accompanied by english priests. among these was bishop sigurd, who was probably a northumbrian of norse ancestry, and evidently a man of strength and discretion. after the battle of swald he seems to have continued his labours in sweden. english missionaries also came with olaf the stout. he was accompanied by a number of priests and bishops from england through whose doctrine and instruction he prepared his heart for god, and to whose guidance he entrusted the people who were subject to him. among these were men who were famous for learning and virtue, namely sigfrid, grimkell, rudolf, and bernhard.[ ] [illustration: the church at urnes (norway) (from about .)] it is to be observed once more that none of these bears an anglo-saxon name: sigfrid and grimkell were doubtless natives of the danelaw, of norse blood, but english in culture and faith; bernhard may have been a german from the country of the lower rhine; rudolf is said to have been a kinsman of edward the confessor; as his name is norman, we shall have to conclude that he was a relative of queen emma, edward's mother. late in life he received from the confessor an important appointment as abbot of abingdon ( ).[ ] so long as king olaf lived grimkell seems to have held the office of chief bishop. these were the men who laid the foundation of the norwegian church; later missionaries from britain continued the work along the earlier lines. the result was that the new church came largely to be organised according to english models. its ceremonial came to reflect old english practices. its terminology was formed according to anglo-saxon analogies.[ ] characteristic of both the english and the norse church was an extensive use of the vernacular. and many remarkable parallels have been found in the church legislation of king ethelred and the ecclesiastical laws attributed to saint olaf.[ ] it would seem most fitting that a church so intimately connected with english christianity should pass under the metropolitan jurisdiction of the see at canterbury, and such may have been saint olaf's original intention. but the establishment of danish power at winchester, the appointment of canute's friend ethelnoth to the primacy, and canute's designs on the norwegian throne made such an arrangement impractical. there was consequently nothing to do but to enter into relations with the see of bremen. adam tells us that olaf sent an embassy[ ] headed by bishop grimkell with gifts to our archbishop and bearing the request that he receive these [english] bishops favourably and send others of his own consecration that the rude norwegian people might be strengthened in the christian faith. [illustration: runic monument shows hammer of thor the odderness stone] it is difficult to appreciate the tremendous social changes that the introduction of christianity worked among the northmen of the eleventh century. there was so much that was new in christian practice that the adjustment was a difficult matter. the rigid observance of the seventh day; the numerous holidays; the frequent fasts and the long abstentions of lent; the duties of confession and penance; the support of a new social class, the priests; all these things the unwilling convert found exceedingly irksome. in addition to this, there were certain prohibitions that also worked hardships: marriage within certain degrees of kinship; the exposure of children (except such as were born with deformities, who might be exposed after baptism); the eating of horseflesh, and other honoured northern customs. much that was heathen could not be rooted out. the churches were frequently built near the old sanctuaries and the new worship unavoidably came to be associated in many minds with much that was heathen.[ ] while canute was organising the church in denmark, olaf was striving to reshape norwegian society and uproot the old faith. with force and fair words he won many for the new order, but many more refused to receive baptism. ten years passed with growing discontent; so long as the nation was still heathen in morals and view of life, resistance was inevitable. finally the partisans of the old rites and practices turned to canute, the great christian king. and he who should have been a defender of the faith heard their complaints with unfeigned joy. footnotes: [ ] snorre, _saga of harold fairhair_, c. . hakon's dates according to saga are - . the earlier date should probably be corrected to or a later year, perhaps . see _norges historie_, i., ii., . [ ] snorre, _saga of hakon the good_, c. . eric bloodax was hakon's half-brother. for a time he ruled northumbria as vassal of the english king. _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . the vassal relationship is asserted in the sagas. [ ] montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, . two symbols of sun worship, the wheel and the axe (the symbol of lightning which later developed into thor's hammer), can be traced back to the close of the stone age. _ibid._, . the worship of the bright sky may have preceded that of the sun. [ ] german _wotan_. cf. mod. ger. _wuth_. [ ] particularly the late sophus bugge in _the home of the eddic poems_ and elsewhere. [ ] _hávamál_, - . (_corpus poeticum boreale_, i, .) [ ] montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, . [ ] _gesta_, iv., c. and schol. , . [ ] _ibid._ [ ] vigfusson and powell, _origines islandicæ_:, i., - . from the _hakonar saga_. [ ] vigfusson and powell, _origines islandicæ_, i., . from the _landnáma-bóc_. [ ] voluspá, ii. - . (_corpus poeticum boreale_, i., .) [ ] voluspá, ii. - . [ ] _ibid._, ii. - . [ ] stubbs, _registrant sacrum anglicanum_, . [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, iii., . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., , - . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] taranger, _den angelsaksiske kirkes indflydelse paa den norske_, . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . _anglia sacra_, i., . [ ] an illustration of this appears on a runic monument at odderness in southern norway raised in memory of a godson of saint olaf: "oivind, saint olaf's godson [_kosunr_ or _gosunr]_ raised this church on his allodial land." [ ] for the account of the anglo-saxon missionaries i am indebted to taranger's work on the influence of the anglo-saxon on the norwegian church: _den angelsaksiske kirkes indflydelse paa den norske_. [ ] _gesta_, ii., c. ; iv., c. . the embassy was probably sent some time during the years - , and perhaps shortly before canute accepted the supremacy of hamburg-bremen in denmark. [ ] this paragraph is summarised from professor bugge's discussion in _norges historie_, i., ii., - . chapter ix canute and the norwegian conspiracy - the sons of earl hakon, eric and sweyn, who ruled norway for fifteen years after the fall of olaf trygvesson, were not aggressive rulers. they were not of the blood royal, they were vassals of alien kings, both seem by nature to have been of an easy-going disposition; hence they were not able to command obedience to the extent that a strong monarchy demanded. as a result, the norwegian aristocracy arrogated to itself a great measure of independence. the peasantry resumed their old habits and practices; in many places the old worship was wholly restored, including the sacrificial festivals. the earls were christians, but did not interfere. of a different type was king olaf haroldsson. he was determined and forceful, equipped with a vigorous intellect and a will that could brook no opposition. though his policies extended far beyond the religious field, his chief anxiety was to make norway a christian kingdom. his zeal was that of the convert, the passion of the devotee; but it was more than that: it was the purpose of the far-seeing statesman. in his viking adventures he had become acquainted with the advantages of the european political system. he wished to introduce this into his own kingdom, to europeanise norway. this was the great king-thought for which saint olaf lived and fell. but at the basis of the european system lay christianity. in his proselyting endeavours, he met opposition from the very beginning; but for a time he was able to overcome all resistance. however, the spirit of rebellion was silenced only; after five years of missionary effort, king olaf found that christian progress was apparent rather than real. he also found that the devotees of the old worship were still determined and that a group of chiefs were organising an opposition that might overturn his throne. the opposition was of two sorts: on the one hand the christian was opposed by the partisan of the old gods; on the other hand olaf's strong kingship was disliked by the chiefs who recalled the freedom that they had enjoyed in the days of the two earls. distances were great in norway; travel was difficult; the ocean was the best highway. but with sail and oar it took time to reach the settlements on the long coast line, and the king soon learned that promises to renounce the anses were easily forgotten or broken. then followed crop failures in the far north: it was clear that frey was angry and wished to punish the apostacy of his people.[ ] in the aristocratic opposition five chieftains bear special prominence. at soli on the wide plains of jæderen in south-western norway, not far from the modern city of stavanger, lived erling, the son of skjalg. erling had sailed with king olaf to wendland, but had had no part in the fight at swald. later the earls found it advisable to make peace with the soli family and gave erling skjalgsson a magnificent fief in the south-west. from the naze to the sogn firth his was the ruling influence. of all the norwegian magnates erling was unquestionably the most powerful; and though both earl eric and king olaf had looked askance at his power, he maintained his position for a quarter of a century. five active sons and a spirited daughter grew up in erling's house. the lord of soli never was an ideal subject; but after his nephew asbjörn slew one of king olaf's servants in the royal presence during the easter festivities, a quarrel broke out that had fatal consequences.[ ] the island of giski some distance north of cape stadt was the ancestral seat of the famous arnung family, which for several generations held a prominent place in the councils of norway. according to tradition the family was founded by one finnvid who was found in an eagle's nest, and hence was known as finnvid found. the family took its name from arne, a prominent chief in saint olaf's day and a good friend of the king. seven sons and a daughter were born to arne and his good wife thora. the oldest of the sons married the only daughter of the mighty erling. arne's daughter became the wife of another prominent lord and enemy of olaf, harek of tjotta. for a time all the sons of arne supported the king and kalf alone finally joined his enemies. olvi of egg, a wealthy thronder, was found to have continued the old sacrificial practices in secret, and on the king's orders was slain. kalf arnesson married his widow, and from that day his loyalty was shaken.[ ] far to the north lived two chiefs who were also counted among the king's opponents: harek of tjotta and thor the dog. thor was the ill-fated asbjörn's uncle and the brother-in-law of the slain olvi. he lived on the bark-isle beyond the arctic circle and was easily the most powerful man in those regions.[ ] harek lived on the isle of tjotta, a little to the south of the polar circle. he seems to have had something of a monopoly of the finnish trade and from this and other sources amassed great wealth. in the norse nobility few stood higher than harek: he counted among his kinsmen the reigning king as well as his predecessors the earls.[ ] in the rebellion that finally cost king olaf his life, thor and harek were prominent leaders. in the throndelaw, some distance south of nidaros, dwelt einar thongshaker. einar, the strongest and most athletic norseman of his day, the archer who could pierce a damp ox-hide with a blunt shaft, was also a man of great personal influence. married to earl eric's sister, he was naturally in sympathy with the dynastic claims of the earl's family. for some years after the defeat at the nesses, he had lived in exile in sweden; but finally he was reconciled to king olaf and was permitted to return.[ ] it does not appear that any of these leaders had any enthusiasm for the old faith; erling skjalgsson and einar thongshaker seem to have been zealous christians. but among their kinsmen were many who clung to the worship of woden and thor. wherever the king found heathen rites celebrated in open or secret, harsh measures were employed--loss of property, of limb, and even of life. thus the chiefs saw many a kinsman dishonoured or dead, and to their disinclination to obey the royal mandate was joined the motive of private revenge. soon dissatisfaction was rife everywhere, and over the north sea fled yearly a band of exiles who had resisted the royal will. among those who went west was einar thongshaker, though he went ostensibly as a pilgrim, not as a plotter. soon after his return from sweden he found it advisable to seek expiation at rome for earlier sins, and in or he left for the eternal city. it seems probable that his brother-in-law eric joined him in this expedition or planned to do so, for the sagas persist in connecting eric's death, which must have occurred about , with a pilgrimage to rome, at least projected and perhaps carried out. in england einar is said to have visited young earl hakon, possibly in his earldom in the severn valley; he also had an interview with canute "and was given great gifts."[ ] einar's visit was probably just after canute's return from his expedition to the slavic lands. whether the pilgrimage was more than a mere pretext we do not know, though it probably was made in good faith. after his return to norway he was not active in king olaf's service, though he showed no open hostility. many magnates or sons of prominent franklins had fared to canute on various errands; but all who came to king canute were given their hands full of wealth. there one could see greater splendour than elsewhere, both as to the multitude of people in daily attendance and in the other arrangements on the manors that he possessed and occupied. canute the mighty gathered tribute from the lands that were the richest in the north; but in the same measure as he had more to receive than other kings, he also gave much more than any other king.... but many of those who came from norway lamented the loss of their liberties and hinted to earl hakon and some to the king himself, that the men of norway were now surely ready to renew their allegiance to king canute and the earl, and to receive their old liberties from them. these speeches suited the earl's mind, and he suggested to canute that olaf be called on to surrender the kingdom to them, or to agree to divide it.[ ] snorre attributes canute's delay in claiming the norse kingship to a difference between himself and his cousin, earl hakon, as to who should possess and rule the country. it is evident, however, that before canute was hardly in a position to press a claim of such a doubtful character. but in that year the situation was more favourable: he was in uncontested possession of the english and danish crowns; he had successfully fought and subdued the slavs to the south of denmark; his prestige was consequently greater than ever before. that year, the subject of norse conquest must have been discussed quite seriously at winchester, for as soon as the winter was past, an embassy was on its way to king olaf's court to demand the kingdom of norway for canute. among the various regions that composed the norwegian realm, two enjoyed a peculiar prominence: the wick and the throndelaw. the throndelaw was a group of "folks" or shires about the throndhjem firth, a region that had developed considerable solidarity and in one sense was reckoned as the heart of the kingdom. here was for some time the capital of the nation, as it has remained in ecclesiastical matters to this day, at least nominally. the wick was the country that bordered on the great "bay" in the extreme south. it was this region that first came into contact with european civilisation and where culture and christianity had perhaps taken firmest root. in a sense the wick was disputed territory: it had earlier been under danish overlordship, and a part of it had also for a brief period been subject to sweden; national feeling was therefore not strong on these shores. for this reason, perhaps, king olaf had established a royal residence at tunsberg near the mouth of the firth on the western shore. here the king held his court in the winter of - ; it was here that he received the english embassy. it was a splendid company that canute sent to norway, but olaf was not pleased with their errand. for several days he kept them waiting before he was willing to grant them an audience. but when they were permitted to speak with him they brought into his presence canute's writ and recited their message, that canute claims all of norway as his possession and asserts that his ancestors have possessed the realm before him; but whereas king canute offers peace to all lands, he will not fare to norway with war shields if another choice is possible. but if king olaf haroldsson wishes to rule norway, let him fare to king canute and receive the land from him as a fief and become his man and pay such tribute as the earls had earlier paid.[ ] such a proposal was an insult to the norse nation, and it is not likely that canute expected a favourable reply. but in its apparent moderation, in its appeal to historic rights, the demand served well the intended purpose: to extort a challenge that would make hostilities unavoidable and make olaf appear as the aggressor. king olaf's anger did not permit a diplomatic reply: "i have heard tell in olden story that gorm the dane-king was an excellent ruler, but he ruled denmark only; but the dane-kings who have come since his day do not seem to have been satisfied with that. it has come to this now that canute rules denmark and england and in addition has subjected a large part of scotland. now he challenges my inheritance. he should, however, learn to be moderate in his avarice,--or does he plan to govern all the northlands alone? or does he intend to eat alone all the cabbage in england? he will be able to accomplish that before i shall pay him tribute or do him any sort of homage. now you shall tell him these my words, that i will defend norway with point and edge as long as life days are granted me; but never shall i pay tribute for my kingdom to any man."[ ] such is snorre's account. the speeches are doubtless the historian's own; but they reveal a keen insight into the shrewd diplomacy of canute and the impetuous methods of olaf. the ambassadors soon prepared to retire, little pleased with the outcome. it is reported that in conversation with sighvat the scald they expressed their surprise at the norse king's rashness. the lord of england was gentle and forgiving. only recently two kings came from north in scotland, from fife, and he laid aside his wrath and let them keep all the lands that they had earlier possessed and gave them great gifts of friendship in addition. the poet later put his reply into verse: able kings have carried their heads to canute, coming from fife in the far north (fair was the purchase of peace). olaf has never sold (oft has the stout one conquered) here in the whole world his head to any man.[ ] there could be no question about unpeace after olaf's defiance had been repeated to canute. it is said that norsemen looked on cabbage eaters as naturally stupid; hence the taunt, if given, had a sharp point. the great king is said to have remarked that olaf should find something besides cabbage within his ribs. that summer two of erling's sons, aslak and skjalg, appeared at the english court. "and king canute gave the brothers large revenues."[ ] during the succeeding summer ( ) king olaf remained in the south. rumour had it that canute was coming from england with a powerful host, and the norwegian king made preparations to meet him. the chiefs were summoned to the wick and seem to have appeared with their retainers in large numbers. olaf's spies were everywhere on the lookout for the english fleet. merchant ships were eagerly sought for news. but canute was not yet ready to fight and did not appear before autumn. he spent the winter in denmark but mainly for precautionary purposes; hostile activities were evidently to be postponed to a more favourable time.[ ] that same autumn olaf approached the king of sweden on the subject of an alliance against the ambitious king of denmark. the young anund jacob, king olaf's brother-in-law and admirer, was now on the swedish throne. it was easy to convince the youthful king that his realm would not long be left in peace should canute succeed in adding norway to his dominions. an alliance was accordingly concluded: the king who should first need assistance should have the other's help. a conference was also arranged for, as more definite plans would have to be agreed upon. that year king olaf prepared to winter at sarpsborg, just across the firth from tunsberg. king anund made a winter journey into gautland toward the norse frontier, and tarried there for some months. during his stay there, envoys appeared from canute with gifts and fair words. anund was assured of peace and security if he would renounce his alliance with the norsemen. but this embassy also had to return with unsatisfactory reports: anund intended to be faithful to his pledge; no friendship for denmark was to be looked for in sweden.[ ] spring came ( ) and developments were looked for; but the unexpected happened: canute returned to england, leaving his young son harthacanute, a boy of eight or nine years, as regent in denmark under the guardianship of ulf, canute's brother-in-law, who seems to have succeeded thurkil the tall as viceroy in denmark. the allied kings now proceeded to hold their projected conference at kingscrag, near the south-east corner of olaf's kingdom. in this conference a new agreement seems to have been reached; the defensive alliance was apparently changed to an offensive one and an attack on canute's danish possessions was planned.[ ] [illustration: ornaments (chiefly buckles) from the viking age.] why canute failed to attack norway in the autumn of , or in the following spring, is not known. it seems, however, a fairly safe conjecture that he felt unprepared to meet the allied forces. he evidently preferred to wait until the spirit of disaffection and rebellion had spread more widely in norway; for thus far only the great house of soli had openly espoused the pretender's cause; most of the dissatisfied lords were in king olaf's host. doubtless he also hoped that by diplomatic means or otherwise dissension might be sown between the confederated kings, and their alliance dissolved. gold was the power that canute depended upon to prepare rebellion in norway. that the danish king employed bribery in these years to a large extent is a well-attested fact. florence of worcester who wrote three generations later recounts how gold was distributed among the norwegian chiefs in the hope that they would permit canute to rule over them, though florence is clearly misinformed when he tells us that the norsemen had renounced their allegiance to king olaf because of his simplicity and gentleness.[ ] olaf was a saint when the scribe at worcester wrote his history; but he was not a saint of the ideal sort, and hence florence is led into error. richard of cirencester, too, has heard of these proceedings and the "great supply of gold and silver that was sent to the magnates of that country."[ ] both writers represent the norsemen as eager for the bribes. the sagas, of course, give fuller details. the result was that king olaf's forces to some extent were made up of men whose loyalty had been undermined, who were in the pay of the enemy. the following year ( ), the year when the most christian monarch made his pilgrimage to the tomb of peter, seems to have seen the greatest activity in this direction; out the probabilities are that large sums of danegeld had found their way to norway also in the earlier two or three years. footnotes: [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _ibid._, cc. , , ff. [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. - . [ ] _ibid._, c. . [ ] _ibid._, c. . [ ] on the subject of the norse chiefs in king olaf's day, see munch, _det norske folks historie_, i., ii., - ; _norges historie,_ i., ii., - . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . according to snorre's reckoning, he left in the summer of and returned the following summer. [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., - . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _ibid._ [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . the legendary _olafs-saga_ tells us that the gifts were two golden candlesticks, a golden dish highly jewelled for the table service, and two gold rings. anund is said to have remarked that he did not wish to sell olaf for a dish. [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] _speculum historiale_, ii., . chapter x the battle of holy river and the pilgrimage to rome - one of the notable results of the expedition to the south baltic in was that a reconciliation was effected with thurkil the tall. "and he gave denmark into the keeping of thurkil and his son; and the king brought thurkil's son with him to england."[ ] the son who was thus made regent was probably sweyn; it was scarcely harthacanute, as this prince was present at the translation of saint alphege from london to canterbury that same year ( ); of canute's other son, harold harefoot, we hear nothing until after the king's death. the hostage that canute took with him to england may have been harold who played an important part in northern history two decades later. thurkil cannot have lived long after his promotion to the vice-royalty, for three years later ( ), we find harthacanute representing royal authority in denmark with earl ulf as guardian and actual wielder of power. this change in the regency we may, perhaps, ascribe to the activities of queen emma, one of whose chief purposes in life was to disinherit her husband's illegitimate offspring. the next few months seem to have witnessed a revolution in denmark: earl ulf appears to have summoned a national assembly at viborg, an old sanctuary in the north central part of jutland, where he announced that it was canute's desire to have his young eight-year-old son chosen and proclaimed king of denmark. with evident success he argued that the ancient kingdom, which always had had a ruler within its borders, was poorly served by the present arrangement of subjection to an absentee-king. he also called attention to the threatened invasion from the allied kingdoms of norway and sweden. the sagas assert that queen emma had plotted with earl ulf to secure the royal name for her son and that she had even forged a document to support the move. the assembly assented and harthacanute was proclaimed king.[ ] there are suggestions that ulf at this time was in communication with the allied monarchs and that he had even encouraged them to invade the danish territories. evidence is wanting, but it is clear that ulf's activities in were not of the proper sort.[ ] the earl was an ambitious and turbulent man, closely connected with both the danish and the swedish dynasties. he was a man of the type that finds service difficult; it is clear that canute suspected him of treason. after canute's departure for england the northern kings had their conference at kingscrag where a closer alliance was formed and offensive operations were probably determined upon. soon afterwards king olaf was on his way to his northern capital to raise the host for a grand effort. it seems that the chiefs quite generally obeyed the summons; of the leaders in the northern shires einar thongshaker alone remained at home on his estates. a considerable fleet gathered at the rendezvous at the mouth of throndhjem firth; as it sailed southward there were constant additions, till it finally counted ships. the royal flagship was the _bison_, a longship that had been built the winter before, the prow of which bore the head of a bison adorned with gold. on the journey southward, king olaf learned that canute was still in england, but that he was making preparations for a grand attack. he also learned that erling skjalgsson was now with his sons in the enemy's service. but no one knew when the english host might be expected; time passed and the norsemen began to tire of inaction. accordingly king olaf dismissed the least effective part of his forces and with the remainder, sixty large and well-manned ships, sailed for the coast of zealand, expecting later to join the swedish armament that had gathered on the scanian coast.[ ] meanwhile, canute had hastened his preparations. one of his scanian subjects, hakon of stangeby, had, when the plans of the enemy had become evident, hastened to england to warn his king. it is said that canute rewarded him with an estate in scania for his loyalty and promptness.[ ] it was a mighty fleet that sailed from southern england that summer; canute led the expedition in person with earl hakon apparently as second in command. snorre reports that canute's ship had one hundred and twenty oars, while that of the earl had eighty. both ships were provided with golden figureheads; but their sails were counted particularly splendid with their stripes of blue and red and green. earl ulf had by this time come to realise that denmark could not afford to ignore the lord of england. there was evidently much dissatisfaction with the earl's régime, for we find that the danes in large numbers accepted the invaders. ulf and harthacanute soon retreated to jutland, and left the islands and scania to the enemy. the situation that canute found when he sailed into the lime firth was perhaps not wholly a surprise; he must have known something about what his deputy had been plotting and doing. that he was angry is evident; that his wrath was feared is also clear. harthacanute was advised to submit; he knelt before his father and obtained forgiveness, as the king realised that no responsibility could lodge with a witless boy. ulf also tried to make terms with the offended monarch, but was merely told to collect his forces and join in the defence of the kingdom; later he might propose terms. such is snorre's account[ ]; it may be inaccurate in details, but the main fact that earl ulf was faithless to his trust seems to be correctly stated. elsewhere, too, ulf is accused of opposition to his king: saxo charges him with treason[ ]; and an entry in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ tells us that canute went east to fight ulf and eglaf.[ ] there has been some dispute as to the identity of these chiefs, but unless evidence to the contrary is forthcoming, we shall have to conclude that they were the two brothers who were earls in england in the early days of canute as english king. shortly before this ( ), eglaf's name disappears from the english sources. the chronicler was evidently not informed as to the situation in the north; but he knew that the two brothers were among the opponents of the king and recorded what he knew. meanwhile, olaf was on the shores of zealand with his longships. saxo relates that one day while he was addressing the danes at a public assembly with a view to winning them to his own allegiance, spies rushed up and reported that they had seen several ships approaching. an aged dane assured the king that the ships were merchantmen only; but when sails in growing numbers began to cross the horizon, he added that they were merchantmen who had come to buy denmark with iron.[ ] from the lime firth, canute must have sailed his fleet southeastward to the upper entrance of the sound; at any rate, king olaf soon discovered that the homeward route had been effectually blocked. there was now nothing to do but to continue the journey eastward and to form a junction with king anund's fleet which was harrying the scanian coast. canute must have followed in hot pursuit, for before the enemies could form a junction he seems to have found and defeated a part of the swedish fleet at stangeberg.[ ] a little later, he came up with the combined strength of the allied kings near the mouth of holy river. holy river is a short stream in the eastern part of scania that serves as the outlet of a group of lakes not far inland. between these lakes and the sea the forest was heavy enough to conceal any activities inland. when the kings learned that the danish fleet was approaching, they took counsel and decided to draw up their ships in battle order east of the river mouth, but to act on the defensive. king anund was to remain in charge of the fleet while king olaf, who is reputed to have been something of a military engineer, went inland to prepare a trap for the enemy. where the river left the lakes he is said to have built a temporary dam of trees and turf, and he also improved the outlets of some of the smaller lakes, so as to increase the water masses behind the dam. many days the work continued under olaf's direction. then came the message that canute had arrived and the norsemen hastened to their ships. it was late in the afternoon when anund's spies finally caught sight of the great armament approaching from the west. swift-footed couriers at once left for the lakes to inform olaf, who immediately prepared to break the dam, at the same time filling the course with large trees. canute saw the enemy drawn up in line and ready for the fight; but it was then too late to proceed to the attack; moreover, the enemy had the advantage of a carefully chosen position. the dane therefore refused battle that day. finding the harbour at the river mouth empty, he sailed into it with as many ships as could be accommodated; the remainder were left just outside. at dawn the next morning, a large part of canute's forces was found to have landed; some were conversing, others seeking amusement. then without the least warning the waters came down in torrents, dashing the floating trees against the ships. the ships were injured and the waters overflowed the river banks, drowning the men who had gone on land and also many who were still on the ships. those who were able to do so cut the ropes and allowed their ships to drift, each in its own direction. the great dragon that canute himself commanded was among these; it was not easily managed by the oars alone and drifted out toward the hostile fleet. but when the allies recognised the ship, they immediately surrounded it; but it was not easily attacked, for the ship was high like a castle and had a number of men on board, who were carefully chosen, thoroughly armed, and very reliable. it was not long before earl ulf came up alongside with his ships and men and the battle was now joined in earnest. canute's forces now came up from all sides. then the kings olaf and anund realised that they had now won as much as fate had allowed them for this time; so they ordered a retreat, withdrew from canute's fleet, and separated from the fight.[ ] in its disorganised condition canute's host could make no effective pursuit. the danes and english had suffered heavy losses, while those of the swedes and norsemen were slight; still their combined forces were yet inferior to those of canute. it was, therefore, agreed to avoid further battle. eastward the course continued, the intention being to stop for the night in the harbour of barwick on the coast of bleking. however, a large part of the swedish fleet did not enter the harbour, but continued the journey eastward and northward; nor were the sails lowered before the chiefs had reached their respective homes. early the following morning, king anund ordered the signal to be sounded for a council of the remaining chiefs. the entire army landed and the assembly proceeded to discuss the situation. king anund announced that of ships that had joined him in the preceding summer only were now in the harbour. these with the sixty norwegian ships did not make a force sufficient for successful operations against canute. the swedish king therefore proposed to olaf that he should spend the winter in sweden, and in the spring, perhaps, they might be able to renew hostilities. olaf demurred: the former viking could not surrender his purposes so readily; it would still be possible, he argued, to defeat canute as his large fleet would soon be compelled to scatter in search of provisions, his eastern coasts having been too recently harried to afford much in the way of supplies. but the outcome was that olaf left his ships in sweden and returned to norway overland. canute kept informed as to the situation in the enemies' fleet and army but did not attempt pursuit. it would seem that a great opportunity was thus permitted to slip past; but the king probably did not so regard it. to fight the swedes was not a part of his present plan; his hope was to detach king anund from his more vigorous ally. when he learned that the hostile fleet was about to dissolve, he returned to zealand and blocked the sound, hoping, no doubt, to intercept the norwegian king on his return northward. as we have seen, however, olaf appreciated the danger and refused to risk an ambush. that same season saw him on the march through south-western sweden to his manors on the shores of the great firth. on his arrival in his own land, he dismissed the larger part of his host; only a small body of trusted men including several prominent magnates remained with him at sarpsborg, where he prepared to spend the winter.[ ] of this campaign we have, broadly speaking, but one detailed account,--the one given in the sagas. as these are far from contemporary, doubts have been cast upon the story, but in the main it seems reliable. that there was a battle at holy river we know from the _anglo-saxon chronicle_, which states that canute was defeated at that place by ulf and eglaf supported by a large force of swedes. as to the strategic device of king olaf, we cannot be so sure; but the account in the sagas reveals a topographical knowledge so specific as to argue strongly for the belief that the authors must have had access to reliable sources. there is also a question as to the date of the battle: snorre seems to place it in ; the _old english chronicle_ has it in . the battle seems to have been fought some time in september, . it evidently occurred before canute made his pilgrimage to rome, where we find him at easter, . though canute suffered a defeat at holy river, the outcome gave no advantage to his enemies. the swedes were discouraged and tired of a conflict which, after all, did not seem to concern them. king olaf was discredited: a king who had abandoned his ships was not in position to claim a victory. from that day he found disloyalty everywhere. the pretender had only to appear on the norwegian coasts with ships and men to secure the enthusiastic allegiance of the rebellious norsemen. canute was not prepared, however, to move against olaf at this time. autumn was coming on, a season that was far too short for naval operations. and soon a tragedy was enacted at the danish court, the consequences of which probably caused a complete rearrangement of canute's immediate plans. the day before michaelmas the king proceeded to roeskild, where earl ulf had prepared an elaborate entertainment for him and his train. according to the sagas ulf was aggressive, vigorous, and brave; but he was also tactless and careless in speech, and possessed a temper that was not easily controlled. the festivities did not seem to please the king--he was moody and silent. in the evening ulf suggested a game of chess, hoping, no doubt, that the play would help to restore the royal good humour. but as they were playing at chess, king canute and earl ulf, the king made a wrong move and the earl took one of his knights. the king moved his opponent's chessman back and told him to make another play; this angered the earl; he overturned the chessboard, rose, and left the table. then said the king, "are you running away now, timid wolf!" the earl turned in the doorway and replied, "farther you would have run at holy river, if you had been able. you did not then call ulf timid, when i rushed up to help you, when the swedes were threshing you and your men like dogs." with that the earl left the room and went to sleep.[ ] it is not likely, however, that the earl's rest was wholly undisturbed that night, for in the morning he was found to have sought sanctuary in holy trinity church. nor did sleep appease the king's anger; while he was dressing the next morning, he ordered his shoe-swain to go at once and slay ulf. but the servant dared not strike him within the sacred precincts. then the king called ivar white, one of his guardsmen, a norseman who is said to have been earl eric's nephew,[ ] and sent him with similar orders. ivar soon returned to the king with a bloody sword as evidence that his sister's husband was no more. [illustration: lines from the oldest fragment of snorre's history (written about ). the fragment tells the story of the battle of holy river and the murder of ulf.] [illustration: a longship--model of the gokstad ship on the waves.] tales of chess games that have resulted seriously for at least one of the players appear elsewhere in mediæval literature; hence it would not be safe to accept this account without question. still, there is nothing improbable about the tale; the insult that ulf offered was evidently seized upon by the king as a pretext for ridding himself of a man whom he believed to be a traitor. an independent english tradition credits canute with a passion for the game: the historian of ramsey tells us that bishop ethelric once found him "relieving the wearisomeness of the long night with games of dice and chess."[ ] nor is there any reason to doubt that ulf was actually assassinated at the time; his name disappears from the sources. a life had been taken in god's own house; blood had been shed before the very altar; even though the king had ordered it, the church could not overlook the crime. the priests immediately closed the church; but on the king's command, it was again opened and mass was said as before. it is recorded that large possessions were added to the church when services were resumed. to his sister the widowed estrid, the king also owed satisfaction; we are told that she, too, received large landed estates. but her young son sweyn, who was at this time scarcely more than eight years old, she prudently seems to have removed from her brother's kingdom; for twelve years the future king of denmark was a guest at the swedish court.[ ] it seems that the scene of his recent guilt had small attraction for canute after that fateful michaelmas season. he is said to have left the city and to have taken up his abode on his longship. but not many months later we find him on a pilgrimage to the capital of christendom. the journey must have been planned during the autumn of ; it was actually undertaken during the early months of the following year; apparently the pilgrims arrived in rome toward the end of march. we cannot be sure what induced king canute to make this journey at this particular time. in his message to the english people he says that he went to seek forgiveness for his sins; but this pious phrase is almost a rhetorical necessity in mediæval documents and must not be regarded too seriously. nor can we trust the statement that the king had earlier vowed to make such a pilgrimage, but had hitherto been prevented by business of state; for the year had surely but little to offer in the way of leisure and peace. the motive must be sought in the political situation that had developed in the north in the year of the holy river campaign, and in the strained relations that must have arisen between the king and the church. no doubt the eyes of the christian world looked approvingly on the persistent efforts that olaf of norway, who was canonised four years later, was making to extirpate heathendom in the north. especially must the english priesthood have looked with pride and pleasure on the vigorous growth of the norse daughter church. but here comes the christian king of england with hostile forces to interfere in behalf of king olaf's enemies. canute probably protested that he would carry on the work; but it is clear that an absent monarch with wide imperial interests could scarcely hope to carry out successfully a policy that implied revolution both socially and religiously. his hand had also been raised against the christian ruler of sweden, which was yet a heathen land, against a prince in whom the church doubtless reposed confidence and hope. perhaps worst of all, canute's hand was red with the blood of his sister's husband, his support at holy river, whose life had been taken in violation of the right of sanctuary and sacred peace. the mediæval church was a sensitive organism and offences of this sort were not easily atoned for. it was time to pray at saint peter's tomb. it is also likely that canute hoped to gain certain political advantages from the journey: in a strife with the northern powers it would be well to have the emperor a passive if not an active ally; and this was the year of the imperial coronation. norse tradition remembers canute's pilgrimage as that of a penitent: "he took staff and scrip, as did all the men who travelled with him, and journeyed southward to rome; and the emperor himself came out to meet him and he accompanied him all the way to the roman city."[ ] sighvat the scald, who was both canute's and olaf's friend, also mentions the pilgrim's staff in his reference to the royal pilgrimage.[ ] still, it is not to be thought that gold was overlooked in preparing for the journey: the saga adds that "king canute had many horses with him laden with gold and silver," and that alms were distributed with a free hand. the encomiast, who saw the king in the monastery of saint bertin in the flemish city of saint-omer, also gives us a picture, though one that is clearly exaggerated, of a penitent who is seeking forgiveness and reconciliation. with humble mien the royal pilgrim entered the holy precincts; his eyes cast down and streaming with tears, he implored the suffrages of the saints; beating his breast and heaving sighs, he passed from altar to altar, kissed the sacred stones, and left large gifts upon each, even upon the smallest. in addition alms were distributed among the needy.[ ] the route followed was the old one from denmark south-westward along the german coast to flanders, whence the journey went southward through lorraine and the rhone country. it seems to have been canute's intention to visit king rudolf of burgundy on the way; but he was found to have departed on a similar journey to the eternal city. the progress was one that was doubtless long remembered in the monasteries along the route. important institutions at some distance from the chosen route seem also to have been remembered in a substantial way; it may have been on this occasion that a gift was sent to the monastic foundation at chartres, of which we have grateful acknowledgment in the epistles of bishop fulbert[ ]; and another to the church at cologne, a costly psalter and sacramentary which some time later found their way back to england.[ ] on easter day (march ), king canute assisted at the imperial coronation ceremony; on that day king conrad and queen gisela received the imperial crowns in the church of the holy apostles.[ ] the assembly was large and splendid and the visiting sovereigns held places of conspicuous honour. when the emperor at the close of the ceremony left the church, canute and rudolf walked beside him. it was a day of great rejoicing among conrad's german followers, ending, as was customary, with a fight between them and their roman hosts. on the th of april, a great synod met at the lateran to consider various weighty matters and to settle certain important controversies. it may have been at this meeting, though preliminary negotiations must have prepared the matter to some extent, that king canute or his spokesman stated the complaints of the english church. for one thing he urged that the price extorted from the english archbishops for the pallium was too high. the pope promised to reduce the charges on condition that peter's pence be regularly paid. apparently the curia urged reform in church dues generally, for a little later canute sent his english subjects a sharp reminder on this point. the pope also agreed to exempt the english school at rome from the customary tribute. on the whole it seems, however, that the more substantial results of the negotiations remained with the roman curia. the english king had another set of grievances which seem to have been discussed in the same synod, but which particularly interested the ruler of burgundy. english and danish pilgrims, he asserted, were not given fair and considerate treatment on their journeys to rome: they were afflicted with unjust tolls and with overcharges at the inns; evidently canute also felt that the highways should be made safer and justice more accessible to those who travelled on holy errands. in the matter of undue charges, the burgundians appear to have been especially guilty. the reasonableness of canute's request was apparent to the synod, and it was decreed that the treatment of pilgrims should be liberal and just: and all the princes have engaged by their edict, that my men, whether merchants or other travellers for objects of devotion, should go and return in security and peace, without any constraint of barriers or tolls.[ ] from rome, canute hurried back to denmark, following the same route, it seems, as on the journey south. soon after his return he sent a message to the english clergy and people, advising them as to his absence and doings in italy.[ ] from the use of the phrase, "here in the east" in speaking of the scandinavian difficulties, it seems likely that the message was composed in denmark or somewhere on the route not far from that kingdom. it was carried to england by bishop lifing of crediton. in this document canute also recounts the honours bestowed upon him in italy; especially does he recall the presents of emperor conrad: "divers costly gifts, as well in golden and silver vessels as in mantles and vestments exceedingly precious." the document also asks that the lawful church-dues be regularly paid,--peter's pence, plough alms, church scot, and tithes of the increase of animals and of farm products. this admonition was later enacted into law. at the same time he forbids his sheriffs and other officials to do injustice to any one, rich or poor, either in the hope of winning the royal favour or to gain wealth for the king. he has no need of wealth that has been unjustly acquired. but this lofty assertion of principle looks somewhat strange in the light of the fact that the king was in those very days engaged in bribing a nation. there can be no doubt that the visit to the eternal city was of considerable importance for the future career of the anglo-danish king. doubtless rome began to realise what a power was this young monarch who up to this time had probably been regarded as little better than a barbarian, one of those dreaded pirates who had so long and so often terrorised the italian shores. here he was next to the emperor the most redoubtable christian ruler in europe. probably canute returned to the north with the pope's approval of his plans for empire in scandinavia,--tacit if not expressed. john xix. was a pope whose ideal of a church was one that was efficiently administered and he may have seen in canute a ruler of his own spirit. footnotes: [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, iii., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] saxo, _gesta danorum_, - . there seems to be no reason to doubt that saxo here reports a reliable tradition. [ ] _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _gesta danorum_, ff. [ ] entry for the year ; this should be corrected to . [ ] _gesta danorum_, . [ ] _ibid._ [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. - . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] munch, _det norske folks historie_, i., ii., . [ ] _historia rameseiensis_, . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] _fagrskinna_, c. . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . the statement in _fagrskinna_ is probably based on sighvat's verses. [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] migne, _patrologia latina_, cxli, col. . as to its date the letter furnishes no clue. bishop fulbert died, according to migne's calculations, in april, , two years after canute's journey. [ ] wharton, _anglia sacra_, ii., ; william of malmesbury's _vita wulstani_. the manuscripts were illuminated by erven, scholasticus of peterborough. [ ] giesebrecht, _geschichte der deutschen kaiserzeit_, ii., - . for a collection of the relevant texts, see bresslau's _jahrbücher des deutschen reichs unter konrad ii._, i., . [ ] see appendix ii.: canute's charter of . [ ] the anglo-saxon original of canute's charter has been lost. our oldest version is a latin translation inserted into the chronicle of florence of worcester (see liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., , ). most of our information as to canute's pilgrimage comes from this document. chapter xi the conquest of norway - canute was still in the eternal city on the th of april, but it is not likely that he remained in the south much later than that date. with the opening of spring, hostilities might be renewed in scandinavia at any moment. that canute expected a renewal of the war is clear from the language of his message to britain: i therefore wish it to be made known to you that, returning by the same way that i departed, i am going to denmark, for the purpose of settling, with the counsel of all the danes, firm and lasting peace with those nations, which, had it been in their power, would have deprived us of our life and kingdom.... after affairs had been thus composed, he expected to return to england. his plans, however, must have suffered a change. so far as we know, warlike operations were not resumed that year; and yet, if any overtures for peace were made, they can scarcely have been successful. some time later in the year canute set sail for england; but with his great purpose unfulfilled: for he had promised in his "charter" to return to britain when he had "made peace with the nations around us, and regulated and tranquillised all our kingdom here in the east." not till next year did he return to the attack on king olaf haroldsson. hostile movements across the scottish border seem to have been responsible for the postponement of the projected conquest. it is told in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ that as soon as canute had returned from rome he departed for scotland; "and the king of scots submitted to him and also two other kings, mælbeathe and jehmarc." malcolm, the son of kenneth, was at this time ruler of scotia, a kingdom composed chiefly of the region between the forth and the river spey, with various outlying dependencies. we do not know what called forth hostilities between malcolm and canute at this time; but it is possible that the inciting force may have been the norwegian king, as difficulties in britain might lead canute to abandon his norse pretensions. as overlord of the orkneys and probably also of the neighbouring scotch coast lands, king olaf naturally would be drawn into diplomatic relations with the kings of scone. the _chronicle_ gives the year of the expedition to scotland as ; but it also places it in the year of canute's pilgrimage, which we know to have been made in . malcolm rendered some sort of homage in , but for what territories we do not know. that he became canute's vassal for all his possessions is unlikely; he had already for a decade been the man of the english king for lothian; and the probabilities are that the homage of was merely the renewal of the agreements entered into after the battle of carham in . with the northern war still unfinished, canute cannot have been in position to exact severe terms. furthermore, the acquisition of the norwegian crown would bring to canute important possessions to the north and north-west of malcolm's kingdom and place him in a more favourable position for conquest at some future time. whether malcolm realised it or not, further victories for canute in scandinavia would mean serious dangers for the scottish realms. the identity of the other two kings, mælbeathe and jehmarc, is a matter of conjecture. mælbeathe was probably macbeth, who as earl ruled the country about moray firth, the macbeth whom we know from shakespeare's tragedy. skene believes that jehmarc, too, must have ruled in the extreme north or north-west, the region that was under norse influence. but the language of the _chronicle_ need not mean that these kings were both from scotland; munch's conjecture that jehmarc was eagmargach, the celtic king of dublin after the irish victory at clontarf,[ ] is at least plausible. that canute counted irishmen among his subjects appears from a stanza by ottar the swart: let us so greet the king of the danes, of irish, english, and island-dwellers, that his praise as far as the pillared heaven may travel widely through all the earth.[ ] if munch's identification is correct, it reveals a purpose of combining all the scandinavian west with the older kingdoms, a policy that must have seemed both rational and practical. the homage of malcolm and macbeth seems to be mentioned by sighvat though here again the chronology is defective, the submission of the kings "from far north in fife" being dated before . in the meantime norway was not forgotten. during the year , while canute was absent in rome or busied with north british affairs, his emissaries were at work in norway still further undermining the tottering loyalty of the norwegian chiefs. no attempt was made at secrecy--it was bribery open and unblushing. says sighvat the scald: jealous foes of king olaf tempt us with open purses; gold for the life of the lordly ruler is loudly offered. the poet was a christian and seems to have taken grim satisfaction in the teachings of the new faith regarding future punishment: men who sell for molten metal the gentle ruler in swart hell (they deserve it) shall suffer the keenest torture.[ ] the activities of the danish envoys appear to have extended to all parts of the country, though it seems likely that their success was greatest in the west and south-west where they enjoyed the protection and assistance of the mighty nobleman erling skjalgsson, who thus added dishonour to stubborn and unpatriotic wilfulness. after holy river canute apparently dismissed his fleet for the winter, in part at least, and erling returned to his estates at soli. with erling canute's envoys came north and brought much wealth with them. they fared widely during the winter, paying out the money that canute had promised for support in the autumn before; but they also gave money to others and thus bought their friendship for canute; and erling supported them in all this.[ ] evidence of this activity appears in a remarkable find of english coins to the number of near eikunda-sound, not far from soli. the treasure was brought to light in ; most of the coins bear the effigies of ethelred and canute; all are from canute's reign or earlier.[ ] the next year ( ) canute sailed his fleet into eikunda-sound and remained there for some time; but there seems no reason why english money should be secreted on that occasion. more probably the treasure was part of the bribe money; the fact that it was hidden would indicate that canute's agents found the business somewhat dangerous after all. gold alone does not account for saint olaf's downfall. there were other reasons for the defection of the aristocracy, but these have been discussed in an earlier chapter: there was dissatisfaction with the new faith; there was dissatisfaction with a régime that enjoined a firm peace everywhere, that aimed at equal justice for all without respect to birth or station, and that enforced severe and unusual punishments; there was also the memory of the days of the earls, when the hand of government was light and the old ways were respected. in , canute was ready to strike. soon the news spread that a vast armament was approaching norway. "with fifty ships of english thegns,"[ ] the king sailed along the low german shores to the western mouth of the lime firth. among the chiefs who accompanied him from england were the two earls, hakon and godwin. one of godwin's men found his death in norway, as we learn from a runic monument raised by one arnstein over the grave of his son bjor, "who found his death in godwin's host in the days when canute sailed [back] to england."[ ] the ships that the king brought from england were doubtless large and well-manned: canute's housecarles may have made up a considerable part of the crews. at the lime firth an immense danish fleet was waiting: according to the sagas ships made up the fleet that sailed up to the norwegian capital nidaros. twelve great hundreds is evidently merely a round number used to indicate unusual size; but that the armament was immense is evident from the ease with which it accomplished its work. so far as we know, the awe-stricken norsemen made no resistance. in addition to the english and danish ships, there were evidently not a few that were manned by the housecarles of disaffected norwegian chiefs. olaf was informed of canute's intentions and did what he could to meet the invasion. men were dispatched to sweden to bring home the ships that had been abandoned there nearly two years before. this was a difficult undertaking, for the danes kept close guard over the passages leading out of the baltic. part of the fleet the norsemen burned; with the rest they were able to steal through the sound after canute had begun his advance toward norway. king olaf also summoned the host, but there came few folk and little dragons. what a disgrace that landsmen leave our lord royal unsupported. (for money men desert their duties.) what forces the norwegians were able to collect sailed up into oslo firth, where king olaf prudently remained till canute had again departed from the land.[ ] the northward progress of canute's armament is told in a poem by thorarin praise-tongue, who had composed an earlier lay to the king's honour.[ ] "the lord of the ocean" sailed from the lime firth with a vast fleet. canute seems to have cut across the strait to the southwestern part of norway, where the "war-trained men of agdir saw in terror the advance of the hero," for canute's dragon gleamed with steel and gold. "the swart ships glide past lister" and soon fill eikunda-sound. and so the journey goes on past the hornel-mount and the promontory of stadt, till the "sea-falcons glide into the nid river." at important points canute landed and summoned the franklins to formal assemblies. the summons were generally obeyed: the franklins swore allegiance to the new king and gave the required hostages. wherever there was occasion to do so, the king appointed new local officials from the elements whose loyalty he believed he could trust. he spent some time in eikunda-sound where erling skjalgsson joined him with a large force. the old alliance was renewed and erling received promise of all the region between the great headlands of stadt and the naze, with a little additional territory to the east of the latter point. this was more than the lord of soli had ever controlled before. the terms have not been recorded, but canute was always liberal in his promises.[ ] when nidaros was reached, the eight shires of the throndelaw were summoned to meet in a grand assembly, the ere-thing, which met on the river sands at the mouth of the nid. as throndhjem was counted the most important region of the kingdom, the ere-thing throughout the middle ages enjoyed a prominence of its own as the assembly that accepted and proclaimed the norwegian kings. here then, canute was formally proclaimed the true king of norway, and the customary homage was rendered.[ ] there was no need of going beyond nidaros. thor the dog, harek of tjotta, and other great lords from the farther north were present at the ere-thing and took the oaths of allegiance. thor came in canute's fleet; harek joined the king at nidaros. on these two chiefs the king depended for support in the arctic regions. in return for their allegiance they received enlarged franchises and privileges, among other things the monopoly of the trade with the finnish tribes.[ ] the conclusions of the ere-thing concerned norway alone. a little later a larger assembly was called, a joint meeting of the chiefs of norway and of the invading army--magnates from england, denmark, and norway; possibly the warriors, too, had some voice in this assembly. here then, in the far north on the sands of nidaros, was held the first and only imperial assembly, so far as our information goes, that canute ever summoned. it was called to discuss and decide matters of interest common to all the three realms--especially was it to hear the imperial will, the new imperial policy. canute was yet a young man--he had not advanced far into the thirties--but prudence, perhaps also wisdom, had developed with the years. he realised that his own person was really the only bond that held his realms together; but he also understood that direct rule was impracticable. the norse movement was essentially a revolt from olaf, not a popular demand for union with denmark. among the danes, too, there was opposition to what smacked of alien rule, as is shown by the readiness with which the magnates had received the revolutionary plans of earl ulf. no doubt it was with reluctance that canute announced a system of vassal earls and kings; however, no other solution can have seemed possible. to his nephew hakon he gave the vice-royalty of norway with the earl's title and dignity. whether the entire kingdom was to be included in hakon's realm may be doubted; southern norway, the wick, which was as yet unconquered, was an old possession of the dynasty of gorm and may have been excepted. "next he led his son harthacanute to his own high-seat and gave him the kings-name with the government of the danish realms."[ ] as harthacanute was still but a child a guardian must be found, and for this position canute seems to have chosen harold, the son of thurkil the tall,[ ] his own foster-brother, if tradition can be trusted. harold at this time was apparently in charge at jomburg, where he had probably stood in a similar relation to canute's older son sweyn who was located there. it is significant that the only one who is awarded the royal title is harthacanute, the youngest of the king's three sons; but he was also the only one who was of legitimate birth. there can be little doubt that canute intended to make harthacanute the heir to all his realms. of these arrangements thorarin praise-tongue sings in his lay: then gave the wise wielder of jutland norway to hakon his sister's son. and to his own son (i say it) the old dark halls of the ocean, hoary denmark.[ ] among the norwegian chiefs who thus far had remained neutral was einar thongshaker, the archer of swald. but now that the ere-thing had acted and had renounced its allegiance to olaf, einar promptly appeared and took the required oaths. king canute felt the need of binding the proud magnate closely to the new order of things, and along with gifts and increased feudal income went the flattering phrases that next to those who bore princely titles einar should be the chiefest in the kingdom, and that he or his son eindrid seemed, after all, most suited to bear the rule in norway, "were it not for earl hakon."[ ] there remained the formality of taking hostages, sons, brothers, or near kinsmen of the chiefs, "or the men who seemed dearest to them and best fitted." the fleet then returned to the south. it was a leisurely sail, we are told, with frequent landings and conferences with the yeomanry, especially, no doubt, in the shires where no assemblies had been summoned on the northward journey. when king olaf heard of canute's return, he moved farther up the oslo firth and into one of its arms, the drammen firth. here he apparently left his ships while he and his men withdrew some distance into the interior. king canute did not pursue him. he sailed along the south shores to the oslo firth and up to sarpsborg, where an assembly of the freemen accepted him as king. from sarpsborg he returned to denmark, where he seems to have spent the winter. not till the following year did he care to risk a return to england; but at that time his norse rival was treading the path of exile across the baltic ( ). [illustration: scandinavia and the conquest of norway] while canute was being hailed as king at sarpsborg, olaf was in hiding two or three days' march distant, probably in the ring-realm. when he learned of the enemy's departure, he promptly returned to tunsberg and tried to resume his sway. the situation was desperate, but he wished to make a last appeal to the norsemen's feeling of loyalty to harold's dynasty. and now another fleet sailed up the western shores, this time the king's own. only thirteen ships steered out of tunsberg harbour and few joined later. the season was the beginning of winter, a most unfavourable time for aggressive operations. when king olaf had rounded the naze, he learned that his old enemy, erling skjalgsson, had been levying forces in considerable numbers. olaf managed, however, to intercept erling's ship and overpowered the old chief after a furious struggle. "face to face shall eagles fight; will you give quarter?" erling is reported to have said when olaf remarked on his bravery. the king was disposed to reconciliation; but during the parley one of his men stepped up and clove the rebel's head. "unhappy man," cried the king, "there you struck norway out of my hand!" but the overzealous housecarle was forgiven.[ ] the news of erling's death fired the whole coast. the magnates realised at once that retreat was now impossible: they must maintain the cause of canute. nowhere could king olaf land, everywhere the yeomanry called for revenge. from the south came the sons of the murdered man in vigorous pursuit; in the north earl hakon was mustering the thronder-folk. finally king olaf was forced into one of the long inlets that cut into the western coast. here he was trapped; flight alone was possible; but before him lay wild mountain regions, one of the wildest routes in norway. it was midwinter, but the crossing was successful, though the sufferings and difficulties must have been great. exile was now the only choice; the journey continued to the swedish border and thence across that kingdom and the baltic sea to russia.[ ] when canute returned to england, norway was apparently loyal, peaceful, and obedient. so far as we know, he never again visited the north. the rule of earl hakon was brief: a year and a half at most. of the character of his government we have no information; but the good-natured, easy-going son of earl eric was not a man to antagonise the norwegian aristocracy. his lack of aggressive energies was thoroughly appreciated at winchester: it is difficult to determine whether canute's attitude toward his nephew is to be ascribed to bad faith or lack of faith; at all events, the king seems anxiously to have sought a pretext to remove him. among the noble families of thronde-land, perhaps none ranked higher than the house of the arnungs. arne armodsson was a mighty chief and, while he lived, a good friend of king olaf. of his five surviving sons four were faithful to the king till he fell at stiklestead. as we have noted elsewhere, the family also had connections with olaf's enemies: arne's daughter was the wife of harek; his son kalf was married to the widow of olvi who had been executed at the king's orders for practising heathen rites; somewhat later olvi's son thorir was slain for treason ( ?). when olaf left norway, kalf deserted him and not long afterwards made peace with earl hakon and became his man. the sagas attribute this step to the influence of his wife sigrid and her brother, thor the dog. sigrid is represented as a woman of the legendary type, possessed of a demon of revenge. she had lost much: a husband for his fidelity to the old gods; a son for suspected treason; another in an effort to take vengeance for his brother. to this motive was added that of ambition, which was, perhaps, that which chiefly determined kalf's actions. canute seems to have been anxious to secure the active support of this influential noble and probably had expressed a desire for an interview; for in the spring following the conquest ( ), kalf prepared his ship and sailed to england.[ ] it must have been clear to canute that continued peace in the north was not to be hoped for. that king olaf haroldsson, who had begun his career as a viking while he was yet a mere boy and who was still young, strong, and virile, would be content with permanent exile was unthinkable. canute must further have realised that his power in norway had no secure foundation: bribery could not be employed forever; heathendom was a broken reed. his representative was weak, or, as canute is said to have put it, too "conscientious"; in a crisis he was not to be trusted. einar thongshaker was of doubtful loyalty and furthermore had nearly passed the limits of active life. but here was kalf, young and influential, wealthy and strong. canute therefore proposed to kalf that if olaf should reappear in norway he was to raise the militia and lead the host against him. he thus became, in a way, canute's personal, though unofficial, representative in the kingdom, with a higher title in prospect: i will then give you the earl's dignity and let you govern norway; but my kinsman hakon shall fare back to me; and for that he is best suited, as he is so conscientious that i scarcely believe he would do as much as hurl a single shaft against king olaf, if they were to meet.[ ] kalf listened joyfully; canute's speech appealed to him; "and now he began to yearn for the earlship." an agreement was made, and soon kalf's ship, laden with gifts, was again sailing eastward over the north sea. bjarne the poet recalls these gifts and promises in a praise-lay of which we have fragments: the lord of london made promise of lands ere you left the westlands (since there has come postponement): slight was not your distinction.[ ] a few months later the vice-royalty was vacant. soon after kalf's return to norway, hakon sailed to england; canute had apparently sent for him. the sources are neither clear nor wholly agreed on this matter; but practically all place the journey in some relation to hakon's betrothal to gunhild, canute's niece, the daughter of his sister gunhild and a slavic prince, witigern. it was late in the year before hakon was ready to return--sometime after martinsmas (november th); says florence of worcester.[ ] his ship never reached norway; it went down in a tempest in the pentland firth, probably in january, . the english sources have it that canute in fact exiled hakon, though formally he sent him on a personal mission; but the chroniclers are evidently in error in this matter. when these writers speak of outlawry, they mean exile from england; and hakon was no longer an english resident. still, it is extremely probable that hakon had been deprived of his ancestral dignities, that he had been transferred to a new field. two possibilities appear to fit into the situation: the earl may have been transferred to the north-western islands or to jomburg. the norwegian dependencies along the scottish shores, the orkneys and other possessions, passed to canute when he assumed the norwegian crown. the fact that hakon's ship went under on the shores of the orkneys may indicate that he had an errand in those waters, that canute had created a new jurisdiction for his easy-going nephew. still more is to be said for the alternative possibility. canute had clearly decided to supersede hakon in norway. he had already, it seems, selected his illegitimate son sweyn for the norse governorship. the promotion of sweyn would create a vacancy in jomburg; perhaps hakon was intended as sweyn's successor at that post. at any rate, the king was planning a marriage between the earl and a kinswoman of his own who was of the slavic aristocracy, a marriage that would secure for the earl a certain support among the wendish nobility. the prospective bride was probably in wendland with her kinsmen at the time; at any rate she was not on the ship that went down in the swelchie of pentland firth; for a few years later we find gunhild the widow of one whose history is closely associated with jomburg, harold, the son of thurkil the tall, the harold who in was administering danish affairs in the name of harthacanute. florence tells us that in , gunhild was exiled from england with her two sons, thurkil and heming.[ ] two fierce brothers, it will be recalled, led the jomvikings into england in ,--thurkil and heming. no doubt the exiled boys were harold's sons, named in honour of their stately grandfather and his valiant brother. once more norway was without a ruler. the news of hakon's death was not long in reaching the throndelaw, and the leaders of the various factions seem to have taken prompt measures to provide a satisfactory régime. einar thongshaker, mindful of canute's earlier promises, got out his ship and repaired to england. as usual the diplomatic king was prodigal with promises and professions of friendship: einar should have the highest place in the norse aristocracy, a larger income, and whatever honours the king could give except the earl's authority,--that had been assigned to sweyn, and messengers had already been dispatched to jomburg with instructions to the young prince to assume control at nidaros.[ ] the old warrior cannot have been pleased. it is likely that his loyalty received a violent shock. knowing that an attempt would be made to restore olaf to the throne, he apparently decided to assume his customary neutral attitude; at any rate, he would not fight under kalf arnesson's banner. so he lingered in england till the trouble was over and sweyn was in charge of the kingdom. kalf did not go to england; he was busy carrying out his promises to canute. for hardly had the merchant ships brought rumours of earl hakon's death, before olaf's partisans took measures to restore their legitimate king. some of the chiefs set out for russia; and when midsummer came, king olaf's banner was advancing toward the norwegian capital. kalf was prepared to meet him. as it was not known what route olaf might choose to take or in what region he would set up his standard, the forces of the yeomanry were divided, the southern magnates under the leadership of the sons of erling undertaking to meet the king if he should appear in the south-east, while the northern host under kalf, harek, and thor the dog was preparing to hold the throndelaw. [illustration: stiklestead (from a photograph.)] the host that gathered to oppose the returned exile was wholly norse: no dane or englishman seems to have fought for canute at stiklestead, the only alien who is prominently mentioned in this connection is bishop sigurd, a danish ecclesiastic who had served as hakon's court bishop and was a violent partisan of canute. all the western coast as far as to the arctic seems to have been represented in the army of the franklins, which is said to have numbered , , four times the number that fought for the returned king. still, the disparity of forces was not so great after all. most of the kingsmen were superb warriors, and all were animated with enthusiasm for olaf's cause. it was otherwise in the host of the yeomanry; many had small desire to fight for king canute, and among the chiefs there was an evident reluctance to lead. kalf had, therefore, no difficulty in securing authority to command--it was almost thrust upon him. the battle was joined at stiklestead farm, about forty miles north-east of the modern throndhjem. the summer night is short in the northlands and the long morning gave opportunity for careful preparation. at noon the armies met and the battle began. for more than two hours it raged, king olaf fighting heroically among his men. leading an attack on the hostile standard, he came into a hand-to-hand conflict with the chiefs of the yeomanry and fell wounded in three places.[ ] saint olaf's day is celebrated on july th, and it is generally held that the battle was fought on that date. some historians have thought that it was really fought a month later on the last day of august. sighvat was that year on a pilgrimage to rome, and was consequently not an eye-witness; but his lines composed after his return are, nevertheless, one of the chief sources used by the saga-men. the poet alludes to an eclipse of the sun on the day of the battle: they call it a great wonder that the sun would not, though the sky was cloudless, shine warm upon the men.[ ] such an eclipse, total in that very region at the hour assigned to the climax of the fight, actually occurred on august st. it is generally held, however, that the eclipse came to be associated with the battle later when the search for miracles had begun. the reaction was successfully met, but without any assistance from canute. sweyn had prepared a large force of danes, commanded it seems by earl harold, and had hastened northward; but had only reached the wick when the battle of stiklestead was fought. it seems strange at first thought that no english fleet was sent to assist kalf and his associates. it is not likely that canute depended much on the fidelity of the northmen--he understood human nature better than most rulers of his time; nor had he any means of knowing how widely the revolt would spread when the former king should issue his appeal. the key to his seeming inactivity must be sought in the international situation of the time: england was just then threatened with an invasion from the south, a danger that demanded a concentration of military resources on the shores of the channel. the accounts that have come down to us of the relations of england and normandy during the latter half of canute's reign are confused and contradictory; but a few facts are tolerably clear. some time after the murder of ulf ( ), canute gave the widowed estrid in marriage to robert the duke of normandy ( - ).[ ] it may be that on his return from rome in the spring of canute had a conference with robert, who had succeeded to the ducal throne in the previous february. but whether such a meeting occurred or not, robert had serious trouble before him in normandy and no doubt was eager for an alliance with the great king of the north. the marriage must have taken place in or ; a later date seems improbable. the father of william bastard is not famous for conjugal fidelity and may not have been strongly attracted by the danish widow; at any rate, he soon repudiated her, perhaps to estrid's great relief, as duke robert the devil seems not to have borne his nickname in vain. the characteristics of the duke that most impressed his contemporaries were a ferocious disposition and rude, untamed strength. it is likely, however, that the break with canute is to be ascribed not so much to domestic infelicity as to new political ambitions; at the court of rouen were the two sons of king ethelred, edward and alfred, who had grown to manhood in normandy. it apparently became robert's ambition to place these princes on english thrones, which he could not hope to accomplish without war. an embassy was sent to canute (perhaps in ), somewhat similar to the one that canute had sent to norway a few years before, bearing a similar errand and equipped with similar arguments. evidently the norman ambassadors did not receive kind treatment at the english court. their report stirred the duke to great wrath; he ordered a fleet to be prepared for an invasion of england.[ ] most likely that was the time, too, of the duchess estrid's disgrace. the expedition sailed, but a storm sent, as william of jumièges believes, by an overruling providence, "who had determined that edward should some day gain the crown without the shedding of blood," drove the fleet in a westerly direction past the peninsula of cotentin to the shores of jersey. robert was disappointed, but the fleet was not prepared in vain: instead of attacking england, the duke proceeded against brittany and forced his enemy duke alain to seek peace through the mediation of the church at rouen.[ ] these events must have occurred after canute's return from the north,--in the years and . no other period seems possible; it is not likely that the threatened hostilities could have been later than , for in a new king, henry i., ascended the french throne and robert the devil became involved in the resulting civil war.[ ] if our chronology is correct, the summer of saw the northern empire threatened from two directions; in norway it took the form of revolt; in normandy that of threatened invasion. in both instances legitimate claimants aimed to dislodge a usurper. the danger from the south was by far the greater; olaf's harsh rule had not yet been forgotten by the norsemen, nor had they yet experienced the rigours of alien rule. england was quiet and apparently contented; but what effect the pretensions of the ethelings would have on the populace no one could know. we may be sure that canute was ready for the invader; but so long as the norwegian troubles were still unsettled, he wisely limited himself to defensive operations. it is also related, though not by any contemporary writer, that canute was dangerously ill at the time of the norman trouble, and that he at one time expressed a willingness to divide the english kingdom with the ethelings.[ ] whether he was ill or not, such an offer does not necessitate the inference either of despair or of fear for the outcome. the offer if made was doubtless a diplomatic one, on par with the promises to the norwegian rebels, made for the purpose of gaining time, perhaps, until norway was once more pacified. but fortune had not deserted the great dane. when autumn came in , the war clouds had passed and the northern skies were clear and cheerful. canute's norwegian rival had gone to his reward; his norman rival was absorbed in other interests. without question canute was now emperor of the north. footnotes: [ ] _det norske folks historie_, i., ii., . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., (vigfusson's translation with slight changes). [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] munch, _det norske folks historie_, i., ii., . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _afhandlinger viede sophus bugges minde_, . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _ibid._, c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _ibid._ [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _ibid._, c. . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. - . [ ] _ibid._, cc. ff. [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . [ ] _chronicon_, i., - . [ ] _chronicon_, i., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] for details of the battle see snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, cc. - . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . [ ] the evidence for this marriage is discussed by freeman in _norman conquest_, i., note ppp. [ ] william of jumièges, _historia normannorum_, vi., c. . [ ] william of jumièges, _historia normannorum_, vi., cc. , . [ ] this was followed by a famine in the duchy ( ) which probably induced the duke to make his pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre on the return from which he died ( ). [ ] william of jumièges, _historia normannorum_, vi., c. . chapter xii the empire of the north when the eleventh century began its fourth decade, canute was, with the single exception of the emperor, the most imposing ruler in latin christendom. less than twenty years earlier he had been a landless pirate striving to dislodge an ancient and honoured dynasty; now he was the lord of four important realms and the overlord of other kingdoms. though technically canute was counted among the kings, his position among his fellow-monarchs was truly imperial. apparently he held in his hands the destinies of two great regions; the british isles and the scandinavian peninsulas. his fleet all but controlled two important seas, the north and the baltic. he had built an empire. it was a weak structure, founded too largely on the military and diplomatic achievements of a single man; but the king was young--in the ordinary course of nature he should have lived to rule at least thirty years longer--and with careful diplomatic effort, of which he was a master, he might be expected to accomplish great things in the way of consolidating his dominions. but instead of thirty years, the fates had counted out less than half a dozen. in this period he was able to do almost nothing to strengthen the bonds of empire. canute's power did not long remain at its zenith--the decline began almost immediately. in this there is nothing strange; the marvel is in the fact that such an empire was actually built. of canute's many dominions, the kingdoms of denmark, england, and norway had fairly distinct boundaries. lothian might be in question between england and scotland; the norwegian kings had claimed certain territories across the scandinavian watershed, jemteland, a norse colony in swedish possession; but otherwise the limits were tolerably definite. the fourth division, the slavic lands on the southern rim of the baltic, was a more indefinite area. its limits are unknown; perhaps it should be called a sphere of influence rather than a province. there were, however, certain evident nuclei; the regions about the lower course of the oder with jomburg as the chief city were doubtless the more important part; in addition there was semland in the extreme east of modern prussia, witland a trifle farther west where the vistula empties into the sea; and doubtless some of the intervening territories. there are indications that danish settlements had also been planted in the region of the modern city of riga[ ]; but as to their probable relation to canute's empire the sources are silent. in addition to england, canute possessed important territories elsewhere in the british archipelago. the king of scotland was his vassal, at least for a part of his dominions; and we have seen that at least one other scottish king, probably from the extreme north of the island, had done homage to canute. it has also been shown that the norse-irish kingdom of dublin should, perhaps, be counted among his vassal states. as king of norway, canute was lord of the shetlands and the orkneys, perhaps also the hebrides, and other norse colonies on the west shores of scotland. the faroes were not wholly subject and the icelandic republic still maintained its independence; but the straggling settlements in far-off greenland seem to have acknowledged their dependence on the norwegian crown.[ ] any definite imperial policy canute seems never to have developed. in his own day the various units were nominally ruled by earls or sub-kings, usually chosen from the king's own immediate family; but the real power was often in the hands of some trusted chief whom the king associated with the lord who bore the title. if time had been granted, some form of feudalism might have developed out of this arrangement; but it had few feudal characteristics in canute's own day. it was evidently canute's intention to continue the scheme of one king for the entire group of dominions, for at the imperial assembly at nidaros, he placed harthacanute in the high-seat and gave him the administration of denmark, which was, after all, the central kingdom. the encomiast bears further testimony as to canute's intention when he tells us that all england had taken an oath to accept harthacanute as king.[ ] it seems that canute, to secure the succession to his legitimate son, had adopted the capetian expedient of associating the heir with himself in the kingship while he was still living. so long as obedience, especially in matters of military assistance, was duly rendered, few difficulties were likely to arise between the supreme lord of winchester and his subordinates in nidaros, roeskild, or jomburg. as the union was personal, each kingdom retained its own laws and its own system of assemblies, though this must have been true to a less extent in the slavic possessions, as these seem to have been regarded almost as a danish dependency. when the reign closed, harthacanute was governing denmark; sweyn assisted by his mother elgiva had charge of norway, though at that moment the norwegian rebels were in actual control. canute ruled england himself, not because it was regarded as the chief or central kingdom, but more likely because it could not with safety be entrusted to any one else. so far as the empire had any capital, that distinction appears to have belonged to the ancient city of winchester. here in the heart of wessex was the seat of english government, the royal and imperial residence. we naturally think of canute's household as an english court; but it is difficult to determine what racial influences were in actual control. nor do we know what was the official language in canute's royal garth; but the probabilities are that both old english and old norse were in constant use. the housecarles who guarded the royal person and interests were in large part of scandinavian birth or blood. the norse poets who sang praise-lays in the royal hall at winchester sang in their native dialects. of the king's thegns who witnessed canute's land grants, as a rule about one half bear scandinavian names; there can be little doubt that most of these were resident at court, at all events those whose names appear in more than one document. other nationalities, too, were represented at winchester. in the enrolment of housecarles, the king asked for strength, valour, wealth, and aristocratic birth; not, it seems, for danish or english ancestry. the bishops that canute sent from england to denmark appear to have been flemings or lotharingians. william who in a later reign became bishop of roeskild is said to have come to denmark as canute's private secretary or chancellor; but william is neither a northern nor a saxon but a norman name. and thus with dane and angle, norman and norseman, swede and saxon, celt and german thronging the royal garth the court at winchester must have borne an appearance that was distinctly non-english. as at other courts, men came and went; and the stories of the splendours at winchester were given wide currency. the dissatisfied norsemen who sought refuge in england found at canute's court greater magnificence than in any other place, both as to the number in daily attendance and as to the furnishings and equipments of the palaces that he owned and occupied.[ ] sighvat the scald, who had seen rouen and visited rome, was so deeply impressed with the glories of canute's capital that in his praise-lay he introduced the refrain: canute was under heaven the most glorious king.[ ] there seems also to have been a notable slavic element in canute's retinue. attention has been called to the king's slavic ancestry: the slavic strain was evidently both broader and deeper than the danish. one of the king's sisters bore a slavic name, santslave[ ]; another sister, gunhild, married a slavic "king," wyrtgeorn or witigern,[ ] who may have been the wrytsleof who witnessed an english land grant in [ ]; possibly he was visiting his english kinsfolk at the time. among the chiefs of the imperial guard was one godescalc, the son of a slavic prince, though danish on the maternal side; he, too, married into the danish royal family.[ ] the affairs of each separate kingdom were evidently directed from the national capitals and administered largely by native functionaries. at the same time, it seems to have been canute's policy to locate danish officials in all his principal dominions, at least in the higher offices. the appointment of danes to places of importance in england has been noted in an earlier chapter. with the subjection of norway, a number of danes received official appointments in that kingdom. a leading cause of the norwegian revolt in - was the prominence given to aliens in the councils of the regent sweyn: "danish men had in those days much authority in norway, but that was liked ill by the men of the land."[ ] on the other hand, no englishman seems to have received official responsibilities in the north except in the church; and it may be doubted whether canute sent many anglian prelates to his realms in the east: the bishops that we have record of seem to have been normans, flemings, or clerks from the danelaw. when a court bishop was to be found for the household of earl hakon, the choice fell upon sigurd, a dane and a violent friend of danish rule. of canute's diplomacy the sources afford us only an occasional glimpse; but the information that we have indicates that he entered into diplomatic relations with almost every ruler of importance in northern and western europe. the king of scotland became his vassal. the sagas tell of an embassy to sweden in the years preceding the attack on norway. during the same period canute's cousin, the king of poland, apparently sought his alliance against the germans. with the emperor he maintained the closest relations. the norman dukes were bound to the danish dynasty by the noble ties of marriage. on his visit to rome the english king came into personal contact with the king of burgundy and his holiness the pope. even to distant aquitaine did the mighty monarch send his ambassadors with messages of good-will in the form of substantial presents. in a panegyric on william the great, the duke of aquitaine, adémar of chabannes writes that every year embassies came to the duke's court with precious gifts from the kings of spain, france, and navarre, "and also from canute, king of the danes and the angles"; and the chronicler adds that the messengers brought even more costly presents away.[ ] on one occasion "the king of that country [england] sent a manuscript written with letters of gold along with other gifts."[ ] as this statement seems to have been written in , and as the author emphasises the fact that this beautiful codex had arrived "recently," it seems probable that this embassy should be associated with canute's pilgrimage to rome the year before. it is not strange that canute should wish to honour a prince like william; and it is only natural that he should wish to placate a people who had suffered so much, as the aquitanians had, from the raids and inroads of his former associates and his allies, the vikings and the normans. with respect to his immediate neighbours, canute's policy was usually absorption or close friendship. what he felt he could add to his dominions, he added; where this was not possible, he sought peace and alliance. his diplomacy must have concerned itself especially with three states: normandy, sweden, and the empire. as to his relations with sweden after the encounter at holy river, history is silent; but war was evidently avoided. canute probably regarded any effort to extend his territories eastward as an unwise move, so long as the disappointed norwegian chiefs continued to show signs of unrest and rebellion. with normandy he lived in continuous peace for more than a decade, until robert the devil took up the cause of the exiled princes. that canute feared a move in this direction seems evident; and as queen emma's influence at rouen was probably weakened by the death of richard the good ( ), it was no doubt in the hope of strengthening his position at the ducal court that canute sought the title of duchess for his widowed sister. as we have seen, his success was only temporary, and for a time war seemed imminent. but the confused situation in the french kingdom at this time proved canute's salvation. in the civil war that followed the accession of henry i. to the french throne in , robert of normandy took a leading part on the king's side; and it was largely due to his efforts that henry finally overcame his enemies.[ ] meanwhile, the sons of ethelred and emma had to wait several years before another opportunity appeared with sufficient promise to tempt the exiles back across the channel. for soon after the french king was safely enthroned, famine came upon normandy, an affliction that led robert the devil to think of a visit to the grave of christ. the journey was undertaken but on the return the duke died in asia minor ( ). his successor was william who finally conquered england; but william was a child and canute had no longer any fears from that direction. a few months after robert's death the king of england also closed his earthly career. had robert survived canute, it is likely that some of the results of hastings might have come thirty years earlier than they did. after , when canute ascended the danish throne, the attitude and plans of the emperor became an important factor in northern diplomacy. the empire was a dangerous neighbour; the ottos had apparently been ambitious to extend their authority throughout the entire jutish peninsula. but during canute's reign neither power could afford to offend the other; and the danes were therefore able to keep continued peace along the southern borders of the kingdom. at one time, when the emperor found himself in serious difficulties, canute was able to drive a hard bargain and exchange his friendship for a strip of imperial territory. it is not likely that the german kings looked with much favour on danish expansion at the mouths of the vistula and the oder, but they were not in position to prevent it. in , when canute made his expedition to wendland, the emperor henry ii. was absent in italy, striving, as usual, to reduce disorder.[ ] two years later he died, and conrad of franconia was chosen king of the germans. his election was the signal for uprisings and plots almost along the whole length of the border, in poland, in lorraine, and in lombardy.[ ] boleslav, king of the poles, died in the following year ( ), but his successor continued the policy of hostility to the germans and seems to have sought the alliance of his cousin canute against the teutonic foes.[ ] conrad, too, sought canute's friendship and was able to outbid his polish rival. it was agreed that there should be perpetual peace between conrad and canute, and to cement the good understanding and secure its continuance in years to come, canute's little daughter gunhild, who could not yet have been more than five or six years old, was betrothed to conrad's son henry, who was, perhaps, three years older.[ ] the covenant was kept, and henry received his bride about ten years later ( ), after the death of canute. the bridegroom was the mighty emperor henry iii., though he did not attain to the imperial dignity before the death of conrad in . gunhild was crowned queen of germany and as a part of the ceremony received the more honoured german name kunigund; but she never became empress, as she died in .[ ] in return for his friendship, canute received the mark of sleswick, a strip of land between the schley and the eider, that henry the fowler had taken from the danes a century before. thus the eider once more became the boundary of the danish kingdom. but apart from territorial acquisitions, canute was doubtless glad to conclude the treaty, as he was just then planning the conquest of norway. the negotiations with conrad were probably concluded in the year or , though more likely in the former year.[ ] perhaps at the same time the german king invited his ally to participate in his coronation as emperor; for in canute journeyed to rome to witness the great event. there can be little doubt that on this occasion the pledges were renewed. but even in the absence of formal treaties there was small occasion for conrad to make trouble for his neighbour to the north. the years following his coronation in rome saw four serious revolts in germany; not till was real order restored in conrad's kingdom. there was another power that canute could not afford to antagonise or even ignore: no mediæval monarch could long flourish if he overlooked the needs of the church. during the first years of his english kingship, canute does not seem to have sought to conciliate the clergy; but after a few years he apparently adopted a new policy and strove to ally himself with the priesthood. it was as king of england that he first succeeded in forming such an alliance; in his other kingdoms, the ecclesiastical problem assumed a somewhat different form. with the head of christendom, canute's relations seem to have been cordial throughout his entire reign. it was the papacy that made the first move to establish such relations: in archbishop lifing brought a message back from rome replete with good advice which seems to have nattered the young dane. the pilgrimage to rome doubtless strengthened the bond; especially must the king's later efforts to see that the proper church dues were collected have pleased the popes of that period. for the papacy had fallen low in that age: the pope whom canute visited was only a layman up to the day of his election to the sacred office; his successor benedict is said to have been a mere boy when he was elevated to the papal dignity, though authorities differ as to his age. there was, therefore, little likelihood of any conflict so long as the peter's pence were regularly transported to rome. a new papacy was to come; but hildebrand had not quite reached manhood when canute went to his rest. canute's ecclesiastical policy in england, at least during the closing years of his reign, seems to have aimed at greater control than had been the case earlier. the friendship and active good-will of the church could best be secured by carefully choosing the rulers of the church. as a christian court, the royal household at winchester had in its employment a regular staff of priests, nine of whom are mentioned in the documents. canute honoured his priests; he seems to have invited them to seats in the national assembly; he called them in to witness grants of land. finally, he honoured several of them still further by appointing them to episcopal office: at least three of canute's clerks received such appointments before the reign closed.[ ] his successor inherited his policy and several more of canute's chapel clerks were honoured in edward's time. the policy was not new: even in carolingian times the royal chapel had been used as a training school for future prelates, and there are traces of a similar practice in england long before canute's time. but so far as the dane was concerned, the plan was probably original: we cannot suppose him to have been very well informed as to precedents more than two centuries old. in norway the problem was how to christianise and organise the land, and canute had no great part in either. the danish church, however, was growing in strength and developing under conditions that might produce great difficulties: it was the daughter of the german church; it was governed by an alien prelate. the primacy of the northern churches belonged to the see of bremen, the church from which the earliest missionaries had gone forth into denmark and sweden. while this primacy was in a way recognised, in practice, the northern kings in the early years of the eleventh century paid small regard to the claims of the archbishop. the two olafs depended mainly on england and the neighbouring parts of the continent for priests and prelates; and canute, as king of england, seems to have planned to make the danish church, too, dependent on the see of canterbury. at this time unwan was archbishop of bremen; for sixteen years he ruled his province with a resolute hand and for the most part with strength and wisdom. unwan was displeased when he learned that canute was sending bishops from england to denmark; we have already seen how he managed to make a prisoner and even a partisan of gerbrand, who, like unwan himself, was doubtless a german. this must have been in or , more likely in the former year. aided by gerbrand, who acted as mediator, unwan was able to make canute recognise his primacy. adam of bremen mentions great gifts that unwan sent to canute,[ ] but these were probably not the determining consideration. in , canute was fighting the slavs and adding territory that would naturally belong to the mission fields of bremen, and it would hardly be wise to make an enemy of one whose historic rights had been admitted by earlier danish kings. till unwan's death in , the king and the archbishop were fast friends. unwan served as mediator between canute and the emperor when the alliance was formed in (?)[ ] and otherwise served the danish king. it seems probable that a personal acquaintance was formed, for adam tells us that unwan rebuilt hamburg and spent considerable time there, "whither he also invited the very glorious king canute ... to confer with him."[ ] [illustration: the hyby stone (monument from the first half of the eleventh century; raised to a christian as appears from the cross.)] the _entente_ that was thus formed seems also to have affected mission operations in norway. it is likely that unwan demanded that king olaf should no longer be allowed to recruit his ecclesiastical forces in england; for soon after the date that we have assumed as that of the new treaty, bishop grimkell appeared as king olaf's ambassador at unwan's court. the bishop, who was evidently a northman from the danelaw, brought the customary gifts and the prayer that unwan would accept the anglian clerks and prelates then in norway as of his province and that he would further increase the clerical forces of the kingdom.[ ] thus in the years - , the rights of hamburg-bremen were recognised everywhere. unwan was succeeded in the province by libentius, the nephew of an earlier libentius who had held the metropolitan office in bremen before unwan's day. he was of italian blood and therefore not likely to be burdened with german sympathies. before everything else, says the good master adam, he entered into friendly relations with the king of the danes.[ ] but during libentius' as well as unwan's primacy canute seems to have selected the bishops for his danish as well as for his english sees. during the closing years of his life, canute's policy was completely identified with that of the mediæval church as regards his attitude toward heathen and un-christian practices. so long as the norwegian problem was unsettled, the king dared not take a decided stand against the old faith, as he was too much dependent on heathen or semi-heathen assistance against king olaf. but after the conquest there was no reason for further delay, and the english church got its desired legislation. in two comparatively long enactments, one ecclesiastical and one secular, all the old and important church laws were re-enacted and various new provisions added.[ ] archbishop dunstan was canonised and given may th as his mass day.[ ] added protection was given to churches and to the ministers of the altar: outlawry was to be the punishment for slaying a priest.[ ] it was carefully explained that the privileges of the priesthood were due to the exalted character of the divine office; for great is the exorcism and glorious the consecration that cast out devils and put them to flight whenever baptism is celebrated or the host is consecrated; and holy angels are present to watch over the sacred act and through the power of god to assist the priests so long as they worthily serve christ.[ ] sundays and other church holidays were to be properly kept; and no commercial transactions were to be tolerated on sundays, nor were the public courts to hold sessions on those days except in cases of extreme necessity.[ ] due attention was to be given to the seasons when the church prescribed fasting; but it was explicitly stated that except in the case of penitents, no fasting was to be required between easter and pentecost, or from christmas to the close of the week following epiphany,[ ] the joyous period of the northern yule-tide. it seems clear that enactments of this sort would be necessary only in regions where there might still be a considerable number of recent converts with whom the observance of christian rites and customs had not yet become a habit. it may be, therefore, that these laws were particularly intended for certain parts of the danelaw. perhaps it was the need of improving the religious conditions in the danish settlements that inspired the royal demand for general instruction in the fundamentals of the christian faith. and we order every christian to learn at least so much that he can understand clearly the teachings of the true faith, and to learn thoroughly the pater noster and the credo.[ ] some attention is also paid to ecclesiastical finance. fines were provided for neglect in the payment of church dues; part of these were to be paid to the bishop. the anglo-saxons were in the habit of making contributions for church lights at the feast of the purification (candlemas, february d), at easter eve, and on all saints' day (november st). a fortnight after easter plough alms were to be paid. a tithe of young beasts was due at pentecost. peter's pence were contributed on saint peter's day (august st). a tithe of the harvested crops was due at all saints' day. the last tax of the year was the church scot which was paid at martinsmas (november th). all these contributions are specifically mentioned and urged in canute's laws for the english church.[ ] the second part of canute's legislation, the secular laws, is a document of considerable length, of which only a comparatively small part is copied from the earlier "dooms." it deals with a variety of subjects, several of which may be classed as religious rather than secular. a very important act was the definition and prohibition of heathendom and heathen practices. heathendom is the worship of idols, namely the worship of heathen gods, and the sun or moon, fire or flood, fountains or rocks or forest trees of any sort; also to practise witchcraft or to commit murders in any manner, whether in sacrifices or in auguries, or to busy oneself with any such delusion.[ ] as it is not customary to forbid what is never performed, we have in this enactment evidence for a persisting heathendom on english soil. in the scandinavian colonies pagan practices were probably hard to uproot; at the same time, it is not likely that the old faith was a force that needed to be considered any longer. the matter of christian marriage is dealt with in both the secular and the ecclesiastical laws. it was difficult to enforce the regulations of the church on this subject and particularly among the vikings, whose ideas as to the binding force of marriage were exceedingly vague.[ ] canute forbade clandestine marriages; to the old law that a man should have but one wife he added the important provision that "she should be his legally espoused wife."[ ] he also gave the protection of the state to widows and virgins who preferred to remain unmarried.[ ] other important enactments deal with matters of finance, especially with the king's share in the fines assessed in the courts, his income from his estates, and coinage and counterfeiting; there are also important laws that look toward the security of persons and of property. the principle of equality before the law is distinctly stated: the magnates were to have no unusual privileges in the courts of justice. many a powerful man will, if he can and may, defend his man in whatever way it seems to him the more easy to defend him, whether as freeman or as _theow_ (serf). but we will not suffer that injustice.[ ] with the legislation of canute, the development of old english law comes to a close. various tracts or customals of considerable importance were composed in the eleventh century, some of which may have been put into form after the close of canute's reign; but of these we know neither the authors nor the date. the "laws of edward" that the norman kings swore to maintain were in reality the laws of canute; for when the anglo-norman lawyers of the early twelfth century began to investigate the subject of old english law, they found its most satisfactory statement in the legislation of the mighty dane. in the _quadripartitus_ these laws occupy the most prominent place; while the compilations that liebermann has called the _instituta cnuti_ and the _consiliatio cnuti_ are scarcely more than translations of canute's legislation for church and state.[ ] so great was the danish king's reputation as a lawmaker in the twelfth century that he was even credited with enactments and institutional experiments with which he never had any connection. toward the close of that century an official of the royal forest, as it seems, drew up an elaborate law for the king's hunting preserves which he tried to give currency and authority by ascribing it to canute.[ ] the dane was not indifferent to the chase, but he did not find it necessary to make it the subject of extensive legislation. in his secular laws the subject is disposed of in a single sentence: "and let every man forego my hunting, wherever i wish to have it free from trespass, under penalty of the full fine."[ ] in the so-called "laws of edward the confessor" it is stated that the _murdrum_ fine originated in the reign of canute. it is well-known that william the conqueror found it necessary to take special measures for the protection of his normans from assassination at the hands of englishmen who were seeking vengeance; he decreed, therefore, that the hundred where the murder of a norman was committed should see that the criminal was given proper punishment or pay a heavy fine in case of default. the twelfth-century lawyer who drew up the "laws of edward" evidently believed that in this matter william was following a precedent from danish times.[ ] but though it seems that canute was obliged to legislate for the protection of his danish officials and subjects in norway, there is no good evidence for any corresponding decree in england. a similar conclusion has been reached as to canute's responsibility for the institution known as frankpledge. tithing and surety, two old english institutions which were the roots of the later frankpledge, are mentioned in the laws of canute; but they were still distinct. the tithing, normally a group of ten, was charged chiefly with the duty of assisting in the pursuit of criminals; not until its members had been pledged to a duty of mutual suretyship, each being held responsible in certain respects for the behaviour of all his associates in the group, did the tithing develop into the pledge.[ ] in canute's empire there were at least two institutional systems, those of england and of the north. in some respects both had attained a high development. the question how far these systems influenced each other as the result of the union is a difficult one: the union of the crowns was of short duration and the institutional changes that seem to indicate borrowing may be due in large part to earlier contact through the danelaw. with the northmen came a new conception of personal honour and a new term for criminality of the most dishonourable type, the _nithing_ name. norse rules were introduced into court procedure. administrative areas came to bear norse appellations, as the wapentake in the danelaw generally and the riding in yorkshire.[ ] these facts, however, belong in large measure to the earlier development, though it doubtless continued through the reign of canute and longer. but though scandinavian ideas of law had long flourished on english soil, it was not till canute's day that they were formally accepted as a part of the anglo-saxon legal system. in penal legislation a new spirit appeared: there was less mercy and punishments became more severe--exile, mutilation, and forfeiture of life more common. if the ordeal should convict a man of a second offence, the penalty might be the loss of the hands or the feet, or of both. still further mutilation was decreed if the criminal should continue to commit grave offences; "but let the soul be spared."[ ] the same penalties were not always provided for both sexes: a faithless husband might have to pay the ancient money fine for man-slaughter; a sinning wife was to suffer the loss of all her property and her ears and nose.[ ] certain institutions of scandinavian origin took on a peculiar form during canute's reign: for instance, the guard of housecarles in its english and later danish form, and the office of staller or the king's spokesman at the popular assemblies, which office seems to have been introduced into england in canute's day.[ ] it is still more difficult to determine what results the union had for the institutional development of denmark. on only one point have we clear evidence: canute was the first danish king to begin a systematic coinage of money. coins were stricken in denmark before his day, but there was no organised system of mints. canute supplied this need, using the english pattern. he brought moneyers from his western kingdom and located them in the chief cities of denmark; coins have come down to us that were stricken by these moneyers in the cities of roeskild, ringsted, odense, heathby (sleswick), and lund.[ ] on the other hand, canute's norwegian legislation shows clear traces of anglo-saxon influence. of his three kingdoms, norway, doubtless, had the least efficient constitution. in norway there was much liberty, but also much disorder; emphasis was placed on personal rights, especially on those of the aristocracy; but such emphasis is too frequently subversive of good government. the dane was a believer in strong, orderly administration: it was his purpose to introduce european principles into the norse constitution. had he been personally in control he might have succeeded but his deputies at nidaros were unequal to the task; discontent and rebellion were the result. for the laws that the new regents proclaimed in norway, the norsemen were inclined to lay all blame on sweyn's mother, elgiva (alfiva, the northmen called her), canute's mistress of olden time. but there can be little doubt that in this matter she and her son merely carried out the king's instructions. the laws fall into three classes: revenue legislation, police and military ordinances, and a new definition of penalties.[ ] a new tax that apparently affected the entire population was the demand that at christmas time every hearth should contribute certain "gifts": a measure of malt, the leg of a full-grown ox, and as much unspun flax as could be held between the thumb and the middle finger. this reminds one somewhat of the english ferm, a contribution that was due from the various counties. it was also enacted that the franklins should assist in erecting buildings on the royal estates, and that merchants and fishermen and all who sailed to iceland should pay certain dues to the king. a law that was clearly aimed at the ancient practice of blood feud provided that murder should entail the loss of lands as well as of personal property; also that the king alone should take inheritance after an outlaw. in those same years canute decreed in england that whoever committed a deed of outlawry should forfeit his lands to the king. the new norse laws also forbade any subject to leave the land without permission, on pain of outlawry. parallel to this is the english law that ordered forfeiture for leaving one's lord, with the difference that in norway the king himself was the lord. it was also decreed that the testimony of a dane should outweigh that of ten norsemen, the purpose of which was clearly to secure the lives of danish officials and soldiers. it was further provided that every male above the age of five years should be counted one of seven to equip a soldier. it may be that this provision was suggested by the old english custom of grouping five hides of land (originally the lands of five households) for similar purposes. snorre believes that these laws were danish in origin; but it is more likely that they grew out of canute's experience with anglo-saxon custom and the principles of continental feudalism, though it is possible that some of them had been introduced into denmark earlier in the reign and came to norway from the southern kingdom. [illustration: runic monument from upland, sweden (shows blending of celtic and northern art.)] footnotes: [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, i., - . [ ] munch, _det norske folks historie_, i., ii., , . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . the encomiast is intensely partisan and much given to exaggeration; but we cannot reject the statement as to the english oath without convicting him of a worse fault for which there was scarcely a sufficient motive at the time when the _encomium_ was composed. [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., - . [ ] steenstrup, _venderne og de danske_, - . the name occurs in the _liber vibæ_ of winchester in a list of benefactors. see above p. . [ ] steenstrup, _venderne og de danske_, . florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., . [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . [ ] after canute's death, godescalc returned to his native country and took up the cause of christian mission effort among the heathen wends. adamus, _gesta_, ii., cc. , . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _mon. ger. hist., scriptores_, iv., ; adémar's _chronicle_, ii., c. . [ ] migne, _patrologia latina_, cxli., col. : sermon by adémar. migne considers the sermon of doubtful genuineness, possibly because he thought its delivery should go back to , when in reality seems to be the correct date. [ ] lavisse, _histoire de france_, ii., ii., . [ ] manitius, _deutsche geschichte_, - . [ ] manitius, _deutsche geschichte_, - , , ff. [ ] _ibid._, - . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . manitius (_deutsche geschichte_, ) believes the cession was not made before . [ ] larson, _the king's household, in england_, - . [ ] _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] _ibid._, c. . [ ] _ibid._, c. ; iv., c. . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . [ ] liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., ff. [ ] _canute_, c. , i. [ ] _ibid._, cc. , ; _ii. canute_, c. . [ ] _i. canute_, c. , . [ ] _ibid._, c. . [ ] _ibid._, c. . [ ] _i. canute_, c. . [ ] _ibid._, cc. - . [ ] _ii. canute_, c. , . [ ] on this point the norse sources furnish evidence everywhere. for the condition among the scandinavians in britain, see the account of the "siege of durham" published among the writings of simeon of durham (_opera omnia_, - ). [ ] _i. canute_, c. , . [ ] _ii. canute_, cc. , , i, . [ ] _ii. canute_, c. , i. [ ] for the text of these compilations (including the forged forest law) see liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., - , - . the documents have been made the subject of a series of studies by f. liebermann, the results of which are summed up in pollock and maitland, _history of english law_, i., - . [ ] liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., . [ ] _ii. canute_, c. , i. [ ] liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., ; _leges edwardi confessoris_, c. . [ ] on this subject see morris, _the frankpledge system_, c. i. [ ] on this subject the most important work is steenstrup's _danelag_ (_normannerne_, iv.); see especially pp. - , - , ff.; also _normannerne_, iii., - . [ ] _ii. canute_, c. , . [ ] _ibid._, c. ff. [ ] larson, _the king's household in england_, c. . [ ] _danmarks riges historie_, i., - . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . chapter xiii northern culture in the days of canute to present an adequate discussion of the state of culture among canute's subjects in the space of a single chapter would be impossible. so far as the western realm is concerned it would also be unnecessary, as the subject of anglo-saxon culture is an old study and discussions in english are readily accessible. this chapter will therefore be chiefly concerned with the civilisation of the northern lands, and especially with the great transformations that came with the viking age and were becoming most evident toward its close. the two controlling types of civilisation in the anglo-scandinavian empire, the english and the norse, were both fundamentally germanic; but english culture had for centuries been permeated with christian thought, while in the north the ideals of heathendom were still a force to be taken into account. it is difficult to characterise northern society in the earlier decades of the eleventh century: all the various regions were not in the same stage of development; all were not subject to the same modifying influences. but it was a growing organism, showing change in almost every fibre. scandinavian civilisation was gradually approaching the european type. there is danger that we may place the northman on a too high plane of culture; but the error is more frequently on the other side.[ ] measured by the standards of his own age, the northman was not a barbarian. he had great energy of mind and much intellectual curiosity. he sailed everywhere and frequently included european ideas in his plunder or merchandise. the population throughout scandinavia was overwhelmingly rural; cities were few and insignificant, when we consider the number of houses and inhabitants, though it appears that the urban element was rapidly developing in the eleventh century. as early as the ninth century we find mention of birca, an island city in lake maelar in eastern sweden; of heathby near the modern city of sleswick on the southern border of denmark; and of skiringshall in southern norway.[ ] these and other cities evidently originated in the need of definite market places. roads were poor in the middle ages and the sea was often a dangerous highway; commerce was therefore largely limited to the more favourable seasons of the year, and hence the importance of periodic markets. these were often held in connection with the great sacrificial festivals and it is therefore not strange that the earlier cities grew up on or near the sites of the ancient sanctuaries.[ ] in such localities grew up odense on the island of funen, wisby on the island of gotland, and skiringshall on the great bay.[ ] nidaros (throndhjem) is said to have been founded by the first king olaf, but its great importance dates from the canonisation of saint olaf whose bones were buried there. kingscrag (konungahelle) at the mouth of the gaut river, and tunsberg on the western shore of folden bay seem to have had their origin as landing places for merchants and vikings. on the other hand, sarpsborg across the inlet from tunsberg evidently grew up around a stronghold established in the days of saint olaf. urban developments can also be traced in the western colonies: old cities in england, especially in the danelaw, passed into the control of the northmen; new cities rose on the shores of the irish sea. this commercial movement began to gather strength during the quiet decades of the tenth century but it must have progressed rapidly during the peaceful reign of canute. from novgorod in russia to bristol and limerick in the british isles the ships of the north sailed every summer laden with the products of all northern europe: furs from norway and russia; the teeth of the walrus from the arctic waters; cured fish from the scandinavian seas; honey from the baltic shores; norwegian hawks for the english sportsmen; and numerous other products. in return for these the northmen received the luxuries of the south, especially wine, wheat, and silk; but numerous thralls were also imported, particularly from the celtic lands.[ ] these foreign products were chiefly consumed in the homes of the scandinavian aristocracy. in material comforts the northmen were probably not far behind the corresponding classes elsewhere in europe. when the god righ came to the chieftain's house, then the housewife thought of her arms, smoothened her linen, pleated her sleeves. broad was her headgear, a brooch on her breast; she wore trailing sashes and a blue-dyed sark. when her son was born, "she swaddled him in silk"; and when her daughter-in-law came to the hall as a bride, "she walked under the veil of fine linen."[ ] the sudden consciousness of rare finery was not limited to the women; rich and highly coloured clothing also delighted the men. the influence of alien culture was also shown in the entertainment provided for the visiting god: then took mother a markèd[ ] cover of bleached linen and laid upon the board. next she laid out the thinnest loaves of wheaten flour on the white cover. she set the table with silver-mounted dishes heaped with roasted birds and ham. the wine brightened the mounted beakers. they drank and talked till the day was done.[ ] "the lay of righ" was composed, it is believed, in the days of canute's grandfather; but the civilisation that it describes was not new; even a century earlier the ruling classes in the north had reached a high stage of culture, as we know from the large number of articles indicating a refined and cultivated taste that were found when the oseberg ship was discovered and excavated a few years ago.[ ] as in early saxon times before the clergy had monopolised learning, the higher forms of cultured life saw their finest fruitage in the halls of kings and chiefs. the old scandinavian house was a wooden structure of rectangular shape, its length being considerably greater than the width. in its general lines it doubtless bore close resemblance to the anglo-saxon dwelling of the same period. in the number and arrangement of the rooms the individual houses showed some, though not great, variety; but a large living-room seems to have been characteristic of all. in the middle of this room a long trough lined with stones was sunk into the floor; this served as fireplace, the smoke finding its way out through an opening in the roof. on either side of this long fireplace ran a row of pillars that served to support the roof; these also gave opportunities for the carver's art. between the pillars and the wall stood the benches where the feasters sat with portable tables before them. the walls were ornamented with shields and weapons and with the trophies of the chase. at the middle of the long north wall, facing the entrance door on the opposite side, stood the high-seat of the lord of the hall. the size and splendour of the room would depend on the wealth and importance of the owner: some of the larger halls were planned for the entertainment of several hundred guests and henchmen.[ ] there were many other buildings besides the hall, the number depending on the needs of the estate. the king's garth probably differed very little from those of the wealthier chiefs. in england, too, even as late as the year , the palace architecture must have been of the same modest type. in his homily on saint thomas, alfric (who wrote his sermons in the decade of canute's birth) tells the story of how the apostle went to india to build a palace for a king, and, by the way, used the money for building churches: then he examined the grounds where it was to be builded. and thomas went about measuring the place with a yardstick, and said that he would build the hall first of all at the east end of the grounds, and the other buildings behind the hall: bath house and kitchen and winterhouse and summerhouse and winsome bowers,-- twelve houses altogether with good arches-- but such it is not customary to build in england and therefore we do not mention them particularly.[ ] [illustration: scandinavian (icelandic) hall in the viking age] during the reign of canute, however, there must have been material advancement in the direction of greater magnificence in the royal garth. the sagas testify to a splendour at winchester that was greater than what was to be seen anywhere else.[ ] the men of the viking age usually associated the royal hall with the thought of elaborate festivities. the greatest moment in such an occasion was when the scald rose to sing the praises and recite the exploits of his host. it has been thought that the activities of the court poet show celtic influence,[ ] and it may be that the scald had learned freely from the bard; but the institution itself is most probably of native origin. like the irish singer his chief theme was praise; but we need not suppose that the scald confined himself wholly to contemporary themes: the gleeman in beowulf sang of the great hero that sat beside the king; but he also told the tales of the volsungs and the still older story of creation; before the onslaught at stiklestead one of saint olaf's scalds recited the ancient bjarkamál, the old norse version of beowulf's last fight. the holy king seems to have enjoyed the inspiriting strains of heathen heroism; he thanked the poet, as did all the host. old norse poetry had its beginnings in the ninth century; but its greater bulk belongs to the tenth and eleventh. it begins with a wonderful series of mythical poems, most of them belonging to the period of lull in the viking activities ( - ). the series culminates in the sibyl's prophecy (voluspá), one of the grandest monuments of mediæval literary art and thought. it tells the story of the creation, the destruction, the regeneration of the world in heathen terms with heathen gods, giants, and demons as the actors. but it contains unmistakable christian elements and the poet must have had some acquaintance with the faith that ruled in the western islands. the poem seems to have been composed a generation or two before the days of canute; but it was doubtless widely current during the years of his kingship. that the later scalds knew and appreciated the poem is evident from the fact that it was quoted by christian poets in the following century.[ ] no doubt it was an important number in their repertoire of song and story, and perhaps we may believe that it was gladly heard by canute and his henchmen in the royal hall at winchester. [illustration: the vik stone (illustrates the transition from heathendom to christianity; shows a mixture of elements, the serpent and the cross.)] [illustration: the ramsund rock (representations of scenes from the sigfried saga.)] the four decades that the norns allotted to canute ( ?- ) are a notable period in the history of northern literature: it was the grand age of old norse poetry. the advance of christianity had made the myths impossible as poetic materials, but new themes were found in the deeds and virtues of the old teutonic heroes and of the mighty war lords of the viking age. the saga materials of the heroic age, the stories of helgi and sigrun, of sigurd and brunhild, of gudrun's grief and attila's fury, had long been treasured by the northern peoples. just when each individual tale was cast into the form that has come down to us is impossible to say; the probabilities are, however, that a considerable number of the heroic lays were composed in the age of canute. when we come to the court poetry we are on firmer ground: unlike the other poems, the dirges and praise-lays are not anonymous and their dates can be determined with some definiteness. the scald found the age great with possibilities. those were the days of hakon and erik, of sweyn and canute, of erling and thurkil,--men who typified in their warlike activities the deified valour of the old faith. it was also a period of famous battles: swald, ringmere, clontarf, ashington, and stiklestead, to mention only the more prominent. about twenty scalds are known to have sung at the courts of the viking princes, but the compositions of some of them have been wholly lost or exist in mere fragments only. in the reign of canute three poets stood especially high in the royal favour: thorarin praise-tongue, ottar the swart, and sighvat the scald. the three were all icelanders and were of a roving disposition as the scalds usually were. they all visited canute's court, presumably at winchester. sighvat came to england on the return from a trading journey to rouen in , it seems, just after the king's return from his roman pilgrimage, which the poet alludes to in his stretch song. ottar seems to have visited winchester the same year: his poem, the canute's praise, closes with a reference to the holy river campaign in . thorarin praise-tongue had his opportunity to flatter the king a year or two later, most likely in : his stretch song deals with the conquest of norway in . canute appears to have attached considerable importance to the literary activities of these icelanders. when he learned that thorarin had composed a short poem on himself, he became very angry and ordered him to have a complete lay ready for the following day; otherwise he should hang for his presumption in composing a short poem on king canute. thorarin added a refrain and eked the poem out with a few additional stanzas. the refrain, "canute guards the land as the lord of greekland [god] the kingdom of heaven," evidently pleased the king. the poet was forgiven and the poem rewarded with fifty marks of silver. thorarin's poem came to be known as the head ransom.[ ] it is said that when ottar came to the king's hall he asked permission to recite a poem, which the king granted. and the poem was delivered to a great gathering at the next day's moot, and the king praised it, and took a russian cap off his head, broidered with gold and with gold knobs to it, and bade the chamberlain fill it with silver and give it to the poet. he did so and reached it over men's shoulders, for there was a crowd, and the heaped-up silver tumbled out of the hood on the moot-stage. he was going to pick it up, but the king told him to let it be. "the poor shall have it, thou shaft not lose by it."[ ] of the court poets of the time sighvat was easily the chief. canute recognised his importance and was anxious to enroll him among his henchmen. but sighvat, who had already sworn fidelity to king olaf, excused himself with the remark that one lord at a time was sufficient. canute did not press the matter but permitted the poet to depart with a golden arm-ring as the reward for his poem, the stretch song, whose ringing refrain, "canute is the mightiest king under heaven," is high praise from one who had travelled so widely and had probably visited all the more important courts in northern and western europe. did canute also patronise anglo-saxon literature? we do not know, but the chances are that he did not, as during his reign very little was produced in the old english idiom that could possibly appeal to him. the anglo-saxon spirit was crushed; and out of the consciousness of failure and humiliation can come no inspiration for literary effort. even that fierce patriot, archbishop wulfstan, accepted the conquest and came down from york to assist at the dedication of the church at ashington where saxon rule had perished. after the appearance of the splendid poem that tells the story of byrhtnoth's death at maldon in , the voice of anglo-saxon poetry is almost silent for nearly two centuries. early in the eleventh century saxon prose, too, entered upon its decline. alfric's best work was done before the close of the tenth century; he seems to have written his last important work, a pastoral letter, just before the accession of canute to the english throne.[ ] in the english cloisters the monks were still at work and valuable manuscripts were produced; but canute can hardly have taken much interest in grammars, glossaries, biblical paraphrases, and pastoral letters. it seems evident that he did nothing to encourage the monastic annalist: the entries for canute's reign in the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ are extremely meagre and disappointing; it seems probable that they were not written till after the king's death. the disappearance of old english literature, both prose and poetic, dates from a time more than half a century earlier than the norman conquest,--from the time when the danish hosts filled the homes of wessex with gloom and horror. the coming of the normans did not put an end to literary production in the speech of the conquered english: it prevented its revival. it is not to be inferred, however, from this lack of literary originality and productiveness, that the age had lost all appreciation of the poet's art. two of the greatest monuments of old english culture, the so-called vercelli book and the exeter codex, were apparently produced during the earlier decades of the eleventh century, possibly as late as the accession of canute. in these manuscripts the anglo-saxon scribes have preserved to us some of the earliest literary productions of the english race. the vercelli book takes us back in the writings of cynewulf to the eighth century; the exeter manuscript looks back even farther and introduces us to the singers of heathen or semi-heathen times. canute may not have shared the enthusiasm of the scribes for the old english past; but he seems to have appreciated the work of a skilled copyist. in those days the exchange of presents was an essential part of diplomatic negotiations; and good manuscripts made very acceptable presents. mention has already been made of the beautiful codex, written with golden letters, that made a part of the gift that canute is said to have sent to duke william of aquitaine. as the duke was renowned as a patron of the literary art, there can be no doubt that the present was properly appreciated. it will be remembered that canute's gift to the church at cologne was also in the form of manuscripts. one of the most important contributions of the west to northern civilisation was the written book. writing was not a new art in the scandinavian lands; but neither the symbols nor the materials in use were such as did service in the christian lands. the men of the north wrote on wood and stone; they used characters that had to be chiseled into the tablet to be inscribed. these symbols were called runes; and graven into granite the runic inscriptions have defied the gnawing tooth of time. the large number of runic monuments that have come down to us would indicate that the art of writing was widely known, though it also seems likely that it was the peculiar possession of the "rune-masters," men of some education who knew the runes and were skilled in the art of inscribing. the runes were of divine origin and were taught mankind by woden himself. the term "run," which probably means "secret," reveals the attitude of the germanic mind toward this ancient alphabet: thoughts were hidden in the graven lines, but that was not all: the characters were invested with magical properties. graven on the sword hilt they were runes of victory; on the back of the hand, runes of love; on the palm, runes of help; the sailor cut sea runes into the rudder blade; the leech traced runes on "the bark and on the stock of a tree whose branches lean eastward."[ ] there were also ale runes, speech runes, and mind runes, which "thou shalt know if thou wilt be wiser than all other men."[ ] the runic alphabet was originally a common germanic possession; but among the scandinavian peoples alone did its use become extensive and long-continued. some of the northern inscriptions are of a very early date, the earliest going back, perhaps, to the fourth century or possibly to the third.[ ] they are of necessity terse and brief; but to the student of culture and civilisation they give some valuable information. these runes reveal a time when all the northern tribes spoke the same language and were one people, though clearly not organised into a single state.[ ] the inscriptions also show the rise of dialects and the development of these into idioms, though this is a growth of the later centuries. doubtless the changes in language bear some relation to a parallel political development, a grouping of tribes into states, until in the tenth century three dynasties claimed kingship in the north. in that century the monuments begin to have great value for narrative history. members of the knytling dynasty are mentioned on several important stones, as earlier pages of this volume have shown. the runes that were in use in the tenth and eleventh centuries are the younger series, an alphabet of sixteen characters selected and developed from the older series of twenty-four. as the number of elementary sounds in the language was greater than the number of letters, several of the runes were used to represent more than one sound, a fact that has made reading and interpretation somewhat difficult. the runes were used especially for monumental purposes: a large number of the many hundred extant mediæval inscriptions (sweden alone has more than fifteen hundred)[ ] are epitaphs recording the death of some friend or kinsman. but the runes were also found useful for other purposes. they were used in making calendars; articles of value very often bore the owner's name in runic characters; in early christian times we find runic characters traced on church bells and baptismal fonts; in later centuries attempts were even made to write books in the runic alphabet. wherever northmen settled in the middle ages, inscriptions of this type are still to be found; some of the most interesting scandinavian monuments were raised on the british isles; even classic piræus once had its runic inscription. [illustration: painted gable from urnes church (norse-irish ornamentation)--carved pillar from urnes church (norse-irish ornamentation)] sometimes the scribe did more than chisel the letters. like the christian monk who illumined his manuscript with elaborate initials and more or less successful miniatures, the rune-master would also try his hand at ornamentation. in the earlier middle ages, northern art, if the term may be used, was usually a barbaric representation of animal forms, real and imaginary, the serpent and the dragon being favourite subjects. but in the western colonies the vikings were introduced to a new form of ornamentation, the celtic style, which was based on the curving line or a combination of curved interlocking lines that seemed not to have been drawn in accordance with any law of regularity or symmetry, but traced sinuously in and out as the fancy of the artist might direct.[ ] this form was adopted by the norse colonists and soon found its way to the mother lands. in the north it suffered an important modification: the norse artists added an element of their own; the old motives were not entirely abandoned for the winding body of the serpent or the dragon readily fitted into the new combinations. it was this modified form of irish ornamentation that ruled among the northmen in the days of canute and later. it appears wherever decoration was desired: on runic monuments, on articles of personal adornment, and even on the painted walls of the early scandinavian churches. while these early efforts at pictorial representation are frequently associated with runic inscriptions and incidental to them, such is not always the case. the northern countries possess a number of "pictured rocks," on which the picture is the chief and often the only matter of importance. as many of these belong to the heathen period, the themes are often mythological or suggestive of warfare: the coming of the fallen warrior to walhalla on the tjängvide stone[ ]; viking ships on the stenkyrka stone. the comparatively new sport of hawking is represented on a stone at alstad in southern norway.[ ] themes from the heroic age seem to have attained an early popularity: especially do we find frequent pictorial allusions to the story of wayland smith and the adventures of the wonderful sigfried. with christianity came a wealth of new subjects that could be used in artistic efforts. one of canute's contemporaries, the norwegian woman gunvor, raised (about ) a memorial rock bearing a series of pictures from the story of christ's nativity.[ ] the work rarely shows much originality on the part of the artist, though frequently a surprising skill is displayed--surprising when the time and materials are taken into consideration. many of the pictures are clearly copied from western, perhaps anglo-saxon originals; in some instances the workman was evidently reproducing the embroidered figures on imported tapestries. the sigfried pictures on the ramsund rock in southern sweden seem to be of this type.[ ] but even though the art of the viking age does not testify to much creative imagination, it serves to prove that the men whom we think of as mere pirates were not wholly wanting æsthetic sense. [illustration: the hunnestad stone--the alstad stone] evidence of a cultivated taste is also seen in the large number of rich and elegant articles of personal adornment in the form of rings, necklaces, brooches, and the like that have come to light from time to time. it was long thought that these all represented plunder or purchase from other lands; but recent opinion seems inclined to regard the larger part of them as articles of native manufacture.[ ] if this be correct, they reveal considerable skill in the finer industrial arts and also suggest that certain forms of industry must have formed an important factor in the economic life of the people. the archæologist has unearthed many varieties of jewelry, but the written sources tell chiefly of rings, doubtless because of their ancient use for monetary purposes. even in the days of canute, the ring, especially the large arm-ring, was commonly used in rewarding the kingsmen. saint olaf once stroked the arm of a henchman above the elbow to determine whether canute had bribed him.[ ] canute's officials procured the allegiance of björn, saint olaf's spokesman, for english silver and two heavy gold rings.[ ] canute's ring gift to sighvat has been noted elsewhere; bersi, the poet's companion, received "a mark or more and a keen sword."[ ] northern industrial art of the later heathen age found its best and highest expression in the shipbuilder's trade. merchant ships as well as ships for warfare were built, but the builder's pride was the ship that the king sailed when he sought the enemy. the ships that bore canute's warriors to england were no doubt mainly of the so-called long ship type, a form that was developed during the second half of the tenth century. the long ship was built on the same general plan as the dragon ship of the century before, of which type we have a remarkably well-preserved example in the ship that was found in a burial-mound at gokstad near sandefjord in southern norway. the gokstad ship is nearly eighty feet long from stem to stern, and a little less than one fourth as wide. the builders of the long ship increased the length of the dragon, but did not increase the width proportionally. oak timbers and iron rivets were the materials used. it is likely that by the close of the viking age the shipbuilder's art was as highly developed in the north as anywhere else in christian europe. the long ship was built with pointed prow and stern. the gunwales generally ran parallel to the water line, but in the prow the timbers curved sharply upward to join the stern, which projected above the body of the ship and frequently terminated in some carved image like those described by the encomiast.[ ] the stern was built in much the same fashion. the ribs were supported and held in place by strong cross-beams, which also served as supports for the deck. in the fore-end the deck was high; here stood the stem-men, the best warriors on board. from a similarly raised deck in the stern, the chief directed the movements of the ship and the men when battle was joined. but in the middle portion of the ship the deck was low; here the oarsmen sat, each on a chest containing his clothes and other belongings. the number of pairs of oars would usually indicate the size of the ship; fifteen or twenty pairs were the rule; but larger ships were sometimes built: the _long serpent_ had thirty-four pairs. a rudder or "steering board" was fastened to the after-part of the vessel, on the side that has since been known as starboard. the long ship was also equipped with a mast and a sail. the mast was planted amidships, but in such a way that it could be lowered when not in use. the sails were generally made of coarse woollen stuff; they often bore stripes, blue, red, or green, and such striped sails were counted highly ornamental. the ship was painted and the gunwales frequently hung with shields, alternately yellow and red. an awning was provided to protect the vessel from rain and sunshine.[ ] the average long ship had, perhaps, eighty or ninety men on board, the oarsmen included. the number varied, of course, with the size of the ship: the _long serpent_ is said to have had a crew of three hundred men.[ ] [illustration: anglo-saxon table scene (from a manuscript in the british museum reproduced in _norges historie_, i., ii.)--model of the gokstad ship] in culture the later viking age was emphatically one of transition. the movement that transformed northern into european civilisation culminated in the reign of canute and was no doubt given great impetus by the fact of his imperial authority in the christian west. the seeds of the new culture had been gathered long before and in many lands: the german, the frank, the celt, and the saxon had all contributed to the new fruit-age. but in the north as elsewhere in the middle ages, the mightiest of all the transforming forces was the mediæval church. in one sense the poetic activities of the tenth century had made the transition to christian worship easier than in other lands: the author of the sibyl's prophecy had, unintentionally, no doubt, bridged the gap between the contending faiths. the intelligent northmen found in the teachings of christianity conceptions very similar to those in the great poem, only in a different historical setting. in the outward symbolism, too, the northman found similarities that made the step easier: he had already learned to pour water over the new-born infant; in the cross of christ he may have seen a modification of thor's hammer; the christian tree of life reminded him of the ash yggdrasil that symbolised the unity of the worlds; the yule festival of midwinter tide was readily identified with the christian celebration of the nativity on december th. too much importance must not be assigned to these considerations, but they doubtless had their effect. but even the church was not able to make its conquest of the north complete. the scandinavian peoples never entirely severed their connection with the historic past. the bridge that was built by the sibyl's prophecy was never demolished. the poet purged the old mythology of much that was revolting and absurd and thus made the old divinities and the old cosmic ideas attractive and more easily acceptable. even when the new cult became compulsory and even fashionable, it was hard for the northman to desert his gods. hallfred troublousscald, who flourished in the years of canute's childhood, gives expression to this feeling in one of his poems: 'tis heavy to cherish hatred for frigg's divine husband now that christ has our worship, for the scald delighted in woden. but olaf trygvesson has commanded that the old faith be renounced and men have obeyed, though unwillingly: cast to the winds all men have the kindred of mighty woden; forced to renounce njord's children i kneel to christ in worship. after several verses of regretful and half-hearted renunciation the scald continues: i will call upon christ with love words (i can bear the son's wrath no longer; he rules the earth in glory) and god the father in prayer.[ ] [illustration: the lundagÅrd stone (shows types of ornamentation in canute's day.)] the gods continued to live in the popular imagination as great heroic figures that had flourished in the earlier ages of the race. much that belonged to the worship of the anses was carried over into the christian life. the scandinavian christians on the isle of man evidently found nothing incongruous in placing heathen ornamentations on the cross of christ. sometimes the attributes of the ancestral divinities were transferred to the christian saints. the red beard with which christian artists soon provided the strong and virile saint olaf was probably suggested by the flaming beard of the hammering thor. [runic alphabet: f u th o r k h n i a s t b l m -r] footnotes: [ ] see montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, - . [ ] birca is mentioned in an early life of saint ansgar (_ca._ ); langebek, _script. rer. danic._, i., . heathby and skiringshall are alluded to in king alfred's _orosius_ (journeys of ottar and wulfstan). [ ] bugge, _studier over de norske byers selvstyre og handel_, - . [ ] _ibid._ the great bay (folden bay) is the modern christiania firth. [ ] on the commerce of the viking age see montelius. _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, ff.; olrik, _nordisk aandsliv_, - ; _norges historie_, i., ii., ff. (bugge). [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, i., - : "the lay of righ." [ ] embroidered with colours. [ ] "the lay of righ," ii., - . [ ] _norges historie_, i., ii., - . [ ] for brief descriptions of the northern halls in the viking age see bugge, _vikingerne_, ii., - ; montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, - ; olrik, _nordisk aandsliv_, - . [ ] alfric's _lives_, ii., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] bugge, _vesterlandenes indflydelse paa nordboernes kultur_, . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, i., . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . [ ] _cambridge history of english literature_, i., . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, i., - . [ ] _ibid._, . [ ] von friesen, _om runskriftens härkomst_, - . [ ] bugge, _vikingerne_, i., . [ ] montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, . [ ] olrik, _nordisk aandsliv_, . [ ] the tjängvide stone probably dates from about the year . the warrior represented may be woden on his eight-footed horse. bugge, _vesterlandenes indflydelse_, . [ ] bugge, _vikingerne_, ii., . [ ] _norges historie_, i., ii., , . [ ] schück, _studier i nordisk litteratur- och religions-historia_, i., ff. [ ] montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . [ ] _ibid._, c. . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . [ ] _encomium emmæ_, i., c. . [ ] for brief descriptions of northern ships of the viking age, see _danmarks riges historie_, i., - , - ; montelius, _kulturgeschichte schwedens_, - . [ ] english writers seem inclined to estimate a ship's crew at not more than or on the authority of heremannus, who wrote the "miracles of saint edmund" toward the close of the eleventh century (_memorials of saint edmund's abbey_, i., , ). but on the question of viking ships and crews his statements cannot be used as evidence: his ships are merchant ships, not viking ships, and they are not scandinavian. it should also be noted that one of the ships (c. ) in addition to "nearly " passengers carried beasts (heads of cattle?) and horses heavily laden with merchandise. [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., - . chapter xiv the last years - after the passing of the norman war-cloud and the failure of the norse reaction in , canute almost disappears from the stage of english history. the _anglo-saxon chronicle_ which gives us so much information on his earlier career in england has but little to tell of his activities as king; for the closing years of the reign the summaries are particularly meagre. evidently the entries for this reign were written from memory some years after the death of the great king; and the scribe recalled but little. it is also likely that the closing years in britain were peaceful and quiet, such as do not give the annalist much to record. of the larger european movements, of the norse secession, of movements on the danish border, and of the renewed compact with the emperor, the cloister was probably not well informed. [illustration: the jurby cross, isle of man--the gosforth cross, cumberland] as the chronicler thinks back upon the passing of a king who was still in his best and strongest years, there comes to him the memory of certain strange natural phenomena which suddenly take on meaning. in , two years before the king's death, "appeared the wild fire," such as none could remember the like of. there could be no doubt as to the interpretation: it was an omen giving warnings of great changes to come, the end of alien rule, even as a fiery heaven announced its imminence in the days of the boy ethelred. later writers report that during the last years of his life canute was afflicted with a long and severe illness, and it has been inferred that this may account for the uneventful character of this period. there may be an element of truth in this, but he was not too ill to take an active interest in political affairs. his legislation evidently belongs to one of these years. in one of the manuscripts of canute's code he is spoken of as king of angles, danes and norwegians, a title that he could not claim before . as he did not return from his expedition to norway before the following year, the earliest possible date for the enactment of canute's laws is christmas, .[ ] for they were drawn up at a meeting of the national assembly "at the holy midwinter tide in winchester." there are reasons for believing, however, that the laws are of a still later date. little need there was, it would seem, for extensive ecclesiastical legislation in those years when paganism was in full retreat and christianity had become fashionable even among the vikings. some condition must have arisen that made it necessary for the king to take a positive stand on the side of the english church. such a condition may have grown out of the canonisation of saint olaf in . he was the first native saint of the north and the young scandinavian church hailed him with a joy that was ominous for those who had pursued him to the grave. it may have been in the hope of checking the spread of the new cult in england that the witenagemot, the same that ratified canute's legislation, canonised the imperious archbishop who had governed the english church two generations earlier. the method of canonisation was probably new; but the nobles and prelates of england were surely as competent to act in such a matter as the youthful church at nidaros. canute showed an interest in the welfare of the church to the last months of his life. it was apparently in this period that he initiated the policy of advancing his own chapel priests to episcopal appointments: in elfwine became bishop of winchester; the following year duduc, another chapel priest, was promoted in the same manner.[ ] the church of york was remembered with a large gift of lands to archbishop alfric.[ ] gifts to some of the larger monasteries are also recorded for these same years: to sherburne, winchester, abingdon, and croyland.[ ] these usually took the form of land, though ornaments and articles intended for use in the church service were also given. abingdon received lands and bells and a case of gold and silver for the relics of "the most glorious martyr vincent of spain" whose resting place was in this church.[ ] it is worth noting that abbot siward who ruled at abingdon during the last few years of the reign bore a danish name. canute's last recorded gift was to the old minster at winchester in , the year of his death. this comprised a landed estate, a bier for the relics of saint brice, a large image, two bells, and a silver candlestick with six branches.[ ] it may be that he had premonitions of coming death, for in this abbey he chose to be buried. we do not know what efforts canute may have made to improve the material conditions in his anglo-saxon kingdom, but it appears that such undertakings were not wholly wanting. the king showed great favour to the religious establishments in the fenlands and was evidently impressed with the difficulty of travel from abbey to abbey. an attempt was made to remedy this: and that same road through the marshes between ramsey and the borough that is called king's delf he caused to be improved that the danger of passing through the great swamps might be avoided.[ ] matthew paris, our authority for this statement, wrote nearly two centuries after canute's day, but it is likely that he is reporting a correct tradition; if the work had been done at the instance of one of the later kings, it is not probable that it would have been associated with the name of the danish ruler. the norwegian sources have little to say of canute after the battle of stiklestead; but they follow the troubles of the norse regency in some detail. it was thought best, when sweyn was sent to norway, to give him the royal title; but as he was a mere youth, the actual power was in the hands of his mother, elgiva, who was probably associated with earl harold of jomburg, harthacanute's minister and guardian in denmark, who seems to have acted as canute's personal representative in his eastern kingdoms.[ ] mention has already been made of the opposition that soon arose to the danish régime. it was not long before the dissatisfied elements formed an alliance with the partisans of the old dynasty who were assiduously disseminating the belief that the fallen olaf was a saint. all through the winter that followed the king's martyrdom stories were current of miracles performed by the holy relics: wounds had been healed and blindness removed by accidental contact with the royal blood. at the same time much ill-feeling developed against bishop sigurd who had shown such a partisan spirit on the eve of the tragedy at stiklestead. sigurd was a dane who had served as chaplain at the english court[ ] and had therefore a double reason for preferring canute. under the regency he had continued as chief of the norwegian church, but soon the murmur became so loud that the zealous prelate had to withdraw to england. einar thongshaker now came forward to lead the opposition to the regents. he was the first of the chiefs to express his belief in olaf's sanctity and many were ready to follow his lead. bishop grimkell, who since olaf's flight in had remained in comparative quiet in the uplands, was asked to come and investigate the current rumours of miraculous phenomena. the bishop responded very promptly. on the way he visited einar, by whom he was gladly welcomed. later the prelate appeared at nidaros and began extended investigations into the matter of the reported wonders. einar was next summoned to conduct the negotiations with the regency. the plans of the national faction seem to have been carefully laid; it was probably not accidental that the city suddenly was thronged by incoming norsemen. having secured permission from king sweyn to act in the matter, einar and grimkell, followed by the multitude, proceeded to the spot where olaf's remains were said to have been buried. according to the legend that snorre in part follows, the coffin was found to have risen toward the surface and looked new as if recently planed. no change was observed in the remains except that the hair and nails showed considerable growth; the cheeks were red as those of one who had just fallen asleep. but the queen-mother was not easily convinced: "very slowly do bodies decay in sand; it would have been otherwise if he had lain in mould." then the bishop took a pair of shears and clipped off a part of the king's hair and beard,--he wore a long moustache, as custom was in those days. then said the bishop to the king and alfiva: "now is the king's hair and beard as long as when he died; but it has grown as much as you see i have cut off." then replied alfiva: "i believe hair to be sacred if it is not consumed in fire; often have we seen whole and uninjured the hair of men who have lain in the earth longer than this man." so the bishop placed fire in a censer, blessed it, and added the incense. then he laid olaf's hair in the fire. but when the incense was consumed, the bishop took the hair from the fire, and it was wholly unburnt. the bishop showed it to the king and the other chiefs. then alfiva requested them to place the hair in unblessed fire; but einar tremblethong spoke up, bade her keep silence, and used many hard words. then by the bishop's decision, the king's consent, and the judgment of the entire assembly, it was decreed that king olaf was in truth a holy man.[ ] [illustration: the fall of saint olaf (initial in the flat-isle book.)] whatever the procedure employed, there can be no doubt that king olaf was canonised in the summer of (august d is the date given) by popular act; nor can it be doubted that elgiva resisted the act--she must have seen that the canonisation meant her own and her son's undoing. for she must surely have realised that political considerations were an important element in the devotion of the norsemen to their new patron. there was later a tradition among the monks of nidaros that canute at one time planned to establish a monastery in the northern capital.[ ] if such an attempt was made, it evidently failed; but it would not be strange if the king should try to establish an institution where loyalty to the empire might be nursed and which might assist in uprooting nationalistic tendencies. if the attempt was made, it was probably soon after the canonisation, when it became important to divert attention from the new cult. for the worship of saint olaf spread with astonishing rapidity not only through norway but through the entire north and even farther. the church had saints in great number; but here was one from the very midst of the scandinavian people. moreover, saint olaf was a saint whom the men of the day could appreciate: he was of their own type, with the strength of thor and the wisdom of woden; they had seen him and felt the edge of his ax. so all along the shores that olaf the stout had plundered in his earlier heathen days churches arose dedicated to the virile saint of the north.[ ] there were other difficulties, too, that the regents had to contend with. hunger stalked over the land. the norwegian people had always been accustomed to hold their kings responsible for the state of the harvest; they were to secure the favour of the gods; a failure of crops meant that this duty had been shirked. the feeling lingered for some time after the disappearance of heathendom. sweyn was only a youth and was not held responsible; the blame fell upon the hated queen-mother and the hard years of her rule were known as the "alfiva-time." the general discontent is expressed in a contemporary fragment attributed to sighvat: alfiva's time our sons will long remember; then ate we food more fit for oxen, shavings the fare of he-goats. it was not thus when the noble olaf governed the norsemen; then could we all boast of corn-filled barns and houses.[ ] and thorarin praise-tongue in the shrine-song addressed to sweyn the son of canute urges the young regent to seek the favour of the new saint, "the mighty pillar of the book-language": pray thou to olaf that he grant thee (he is a man of god) all his land rights; for he can win from god himself peace to men and good harvests.[ ] in , a revolt broke out in norway in the interest of one trygve, a pretended son of olaf trygvesson and an english mother. the attempt failed; the norse chiefs had other plans. in russia was magnus, the illegitimate son of the holy king, now about nine or ten years old; him had the chiefs determined upon as their future leader. early the next year an embassy was sent to russia led by the two magnates einar and kalf. here oaths were sworn and plans were laid, and in the following spring ( ) magnus olafsson appeared in norway as the foster son of kalf who had led his father's banesmen at stiklestead. from the moment when magnus set foot on his native soil norway was lost to the empire. sweyn was farther south in his kingdom when news came of revolt in the throndelaw. he promptly summoned the yeomanry, but feeling that their devotion to him was a matter of grave doubt, he gave up his plans of resistance and fled to his brother harthacanute in denmark, where he died less than a year later.[ ] his mother elgiva evidently withdrew to england, where the death of canute the following november doubtless gave her another opportunity to play the politician. so far as we know, canute made no effort to dislodge magnus. it may be true that he was ill; or perhaps the power of the church restrained him: magnus was the son of a saint; would not the martyred king enlist the powers of heaven on the side of his son? but it was probably want of time and not lack of interest and purpose that prevented reconquest. there is an indication that canute was preparing for important movements: at whitsuntide, , while the imperial court was at bamberg, he was renewing his friendship with the emperor and arranging for the marriage of his daughter gunhild to the future henry iii.[ ] perhaps we should see in this a purpose to secure the southern frontier in anticipation of renewed hostilities in the north. but whatever may have been canute's plans, they were never carried out--the hand of death came in between. on wednesday, november , , the great dane saw the last of earth at shaftesbury, an old town on the dorset border, a day's journey from the capital. the remains were brought to winchester and interred in the old minster,[ ] an ancient abbey dedicated to the chief of the apostles, which canute had remembered so liberally earlier in the year. we have already noted the tradition reported by both norse and english writers that his death was preceded by a long and serious illness; one of the sagas states that the fatal disease was jaundice.[ ] there would be nothing incredible in this, but the evidence is not of the best. the fact that death came to him not in the residential city but in the neighbouring town of shaftesbury seems to indicate that he was at the time making one of his regular progresses through the country, as seems to have been his custom.[ ] in that case the illness could hardly have been a protracted one. it is likely, however, that canute was not physically robust; he died in the prime of manhood, having scarcely passed the fortieth year; and he seems not to have transmitted much virility to his children. three sons and a daughter were born to him, but within seven years of his own death they had all joined him in the grave. sweyn, who seems to have been the oldest, died a few months after his father, perhaps in the early part of . gunhild followed in ; harold in ; and harthacanute in . with harthacanute passed away the last male representative of the knytling family; after a few years the crown of denmark passed to the descendants of canute's sister estrid, to the son of the murdered ulf. none of canute's children seems to have attained a real maturity: harold and harthacanute probably reached their twenty-fourth year; sweyn died at the age of perhaps twenty-two; gunhild could not have been more than eighteen when she laid down the earthly crown. there is no reason for thinking that any of them was degenerate with the exception of harold harefoot, and in his case we have hostile testimony only; at the same time, they were all surely lacking in bodily strength and vigour. nor is there any reason for thinking that these weaknesses were maternal inheritances, for the women that canute consorted with were evidently strong and vigorous and both of them survived him. we know little of the concubine elgiva except that she was proud and imperious, on fire with ambition for herself and her sons. emma was a woman of a similar type. canute apparently found it inconvenient to have the two in the same kingdom, and when the mistress returned to england after the norse revolt, we seem to see her hand in the consequent intrigues. queen emma survived her husband more than sixteen years; "on march [ ], died the old lady, the mother of king edward and harthacanute, named imme, and her body lies in the old minster with king canute."[ ] at the time of her death she must have been in the neighbourhood of seventy years of age. of canute's personality we know nothing. the portraits on his coins, if such rude drawings can be called portraits, give us no idea of his personal appearance. nor is the picture in the _liber vitæ_ likely to be more than an idealistic representation. idealistic, too, no doubt, is the description of canute in the _knytlingasaga_, composed two centuries or more after his time: canute the king was large of build and very strong, a most handsome man in every respect except that his nose was thin and slightly aquiline with a high ridge. he was fair in complexion, had an abundance of fair hair, and eyes that surpassed those of most men both as to beauty and keenness of vision.[ ] the writer adds that he was liberal in dealing with men, brave in fight, favoured of fortune, but not wise. except for the details as to the nose, which give the reader the feeling that the writer may, after all, have had some authentic source of information at his disposal, this picture would describe almost any one of the heroic figures of the time. on his own contemporaries canute made a profound impression which succeeding generations have shared. in britain he was called the great; in scandinavia the rich, the mighty or the powerful. the extent of his possessions, the splendour of his court, the size of his navy, his intimate relations with pope and emperor--all these things gave him a position and a prestige that was unheard of in the northlands. and it was indeed a marvellous achievement for a pirate chief from a nation just emerging from heathendom to gather into his power the realms and territories that made up the knytling empire. to analyse a character such as that of canute is a difficult task, as character analysis always must be. there was so much that was derived from a heathen time and ancestry, and also so much that had been acquired by contact with christian culture and influences, that the result could be only a strange composite out of which traits and characteristics, often contradictory and hostile, would come to the surface as occasion would suggest. canute was a christian, probably baptised in his youth by some german ecclesiastic, as the christian name lambert, which in harmony with custom was added to the one that he already possessed, seems distinctly german. but the new name was evidently not much employed, except, perhaps, on occasions when the king wished to emphasise his christian character. he seems to have entered into some sort of fraternal relations with the monks of bremen: in the book of our brotherhood, says adam the monk, he is named lambert, king of the danes.[ ] the historians of old english times, both saxon and norman, were ecclesiastics and saw the reign of canute from their peculiar view-point. to them the mighty dane was the great christian king, the founder of monasteries, the giver of costly gifts and valuable endowments to the houses of god. to the undisputed traits of christian liberality, they added those of piety and humility, and told stories of the visit to the monks of ely and of canute's vain attempt to stem the tides and compel their obedience. the former is probably a true story; there is no reason why the king, who seems to have taken great interest in the abbeys of the fenlands, should not have visited the cloisters of ely, and he may have been attracted by the chants of the monks, which is more doubtful. but the tale of how canute had to demonstrate his powerlessness before his admiring courtiers is a myth too patent to need discussion.[ ] there was nothing of the oriental spirit in the northern courts. that canute was religious cannot be denied. nor should we doubt that he was truly and honestly so, as religion passed among the rulers of the age. the time demanded defence and support of the priesthood, and this canute granted, at least toward the close of his life. perhaps in real piety, too, he was the equal of his contemporaries whom the church has declared holy: saint stephen of hungary, saint henry of germany, and saint olaf of norway. still, it becomes evident as we follow his career that at no period of his life, unless it be in the closing years of which we know so little, did canute permit consideration for the church or the christian faith to control his actions or determine his policies. the moving passion of canute's life was not a fiery zeal for the exaltation of the church, but a yearning for personal power and imperial honours. in the northern sources written by laymen, especially in the verses of the wandering scalds, we get a somewhat different picture of canute from that which has been painted in the english cloisters. little emphasis is here placed on canute's fidelity to the new faith; here we have the conqueror, the diplomat, the politician whose goal is success, be the means what they may. the wholesale bribery that he employed to the ruin of saint olaf, the making and breaking of promises to the norwegian chiefs, and the treatment of his sister's family suggest a sense of honour that was not delicate, a passion for truth that was not keen. in his preference for devious ways, in the deliberate use that he made of the lower passions of men, he shows a characteristic that is not northern. all was not honest frankness in the scandinavian lands; but the pirates and their successors, as a rule, did not prefer bribery and falsehood to open battle and honest fight. slavic ancestry, christian culture, anglo-saxon ideas, and the responsibilities of a great monarchy did much to develop and modify a character which was fundamentally as much slavic as scandinavian. still, deep in his strong soul lay unconquered the fierce passions that ruled the viking age--pitiless cruelty, craving for revenge, consuming hatred, and lust for power. as a rule he seems to have been humane and merciful; he believed in orderly government, in security for his subjects; but when an obstacle appeared in the path of his ambitions, he had little scruple as to the means to be employed in removing it. the mutilation of the hostages at sandwich, the slaughter and outlawry of earls and ethelings in the early years of his rule in england, the assassination of ulf in roeskild church suggest a spirit that could be terrible when roused. something can be said for canute in all these instances: ulf was probably a traitor; the hostages represented broken pledges; the ethelings were a menace to his rule. but why was the traitor permitted to live until he had helped the king in his sorest straits; and what was to be gained by the mutilation of innocent englishmen; and was there no other way to make infants harmless than to decree their secret death in a foreign land? canute possessed in full measure the scandinavian power of adaptation, the quality that made the northmen such a force in normandy and naples. he grasped the ideals of mediæval christianity, he appreciated the value of the new order of things, and undertook to introduce it among the northern peoples. but he did not permit the new circumstances and ideals to control him; only so long as they served his purpose or did not hinder him in the pursuit of that purpose did he bow to them. when other means promised to be more effective, he chose accordingly. the empire that he founded did not survive him; it had begun to crumble in his own day; the english crown was soon lost to the danish dynasty. it would appear, therefore, as if the conqueror accomplished nothing that was permanent. but the achievements of genius cannot be measured in such terms only: the great movement that culminated in the subjection of britain was of vast importance for the north; it opened up new fields for western influences; it brought the north into touch with christian culture; it rebuilt scandinavian civilisation. these are the more enduring results of the reign and the preceding expeditions to the west. at the same time, canute's reign minimised the influence that was working northward from the german outposts. the connection with england was soon interrupted; but while it endured the leavening process made rapid spread and the northern countries were enabled to absorb into their culture much that has remained a native possession. to england canute brought the blessings of good government. for nearly twenty years england had peace. troubles there were on the scotch and welsh borders; but these were of slight importance compared with the earlier ravages of the vikings. it is true, indeed, that the danish conquest paved the way for the later invasion by the normans; but this was a result that canute had not intended. it was not a part of his plan to have the sons of his consort educated in normandy; at the same time, he was not in position to take such steps in their case as he may have wished, for they were the sons of his own queen. in his early years canute was a viking; when he died the viking age had practically come to its close. various influences contributed to this result: the new creed with its new conceptions of human duty; new interests and wider fields of ambition in the home lands; and the imperial position of canute. we do not know that canute at any time issued any decree against the practice of piracy; but he gained the same end by indirect means. the viking chiefs evidently entered his service in large numbers either in the english guard or in the government of the eastern domains. furthermore, as the dominant ruler of the northern shores, as the ally of the emperor and the friend of the norman duke, he was able to close fairly effectually the baltic, the north, and the irish seas together with the english channel to viking fleets; and the raven was thus forced to fly for its prey to the distant shores beyond brittany. piracy continued in a desultory way throughout the eleventh century; but it showed little vigour after canute's accession to the danish kingship. footnotes: [ ] the author has discussed this subject further in the _american historical review_, xv., - . [ ] larson, _the king's household in england_, . [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, nos. , , , . the croyland charter is clearly a forgery, but canute may have made the grant none the less as the forged charters frequently represent an attempt to replace a genuine document that has been lost or destroyed. [ ] _chronicon monasterii de abingdon_, i., . [ ] _annales monastici_, ii., . [ ] matthew paris, _chronica majora_, i., . [ ] munch, _det norske folks historie_, i., ii., . [ ] taranger, _den angelsaksiske kirkes indflydelse paa den norske_, . [ ] snorre, _saga of saint olaf_, c. . for the preliminary steps see cc. - . [ ] matthew paris, _chronica majora_, v., . [ ] daae, _norges helgener_, - . [ ] _corpus poeticum boreale_, ii., . [ ] _ibid._, . [ ] snorre, _saga of magnus the good_, cc. , . [ ] manitius, _deutsche geschichte_, - . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, ; _encomium emmæ_, iii., c. i. [ ] _knytlingasaga_, c. . [ ] _historia rameseiensis_, . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] c. . [ ] _gesta_, schol. . [ ] the story must have arisen soon after the danish period; it is first told by henry of huntingdon who wrote two generations later. _historia anglorum_, . chapter xv the collapse of the empire - king canute was dead, but the great king-thought that he lived for, the policy of his dynasty, their ambition to unite the northern peoples in the old and new homes under one sceptre persisted after his death. historians have generally believed that canute had realised the impossibility of keeping long united the three crowns that he wore in his declining years, and had made preparation for a division of the empire among his three sons. in the year of his death one son is found in england, one in denmark, and one in norway; hence it is believed that like charlemagne before him he had executed some sort of a partition, so as to secure something for each of the three. such a conclusion, however, lacks the support of documentary authority and is based on a mistaken view of the situation in the empire in . we should remember in the first place that when harthacanute and sweyn received the royal title (in and ), canute cannot have been more than thirty-five years old, and at that age rulers are not in the habit of transferring their dominions to mere boys. in the second place, these two sons were sent to the north, not to exercise an independent sovereignty, but to represent the royal authority that resided at winchester. finally, there is no evidence that canute at any time intended to leave england or any other kingdom to his son harold. the probabilities are that he hoped to make the empire a permanent creation; perhaps he expected it to become in time wholly scandinavian, as it already was to a large extent, except in the comparatively small area of wessex. canute's policy is revealed in the act at nidaros, discussed in an earlier chapter, when in the presence of lords from all his realms, he led harthacanute to the high seat and thus proclaimed him a king of his own rank. that denmark was intended for the young king is undisputed. england was to be added later. the encomiast tells as that when harthacanute had grown up (evidently toward the close of canute's reign) all england was bound by oath to the sovereignty of harthacanute.[ ] the early promise that canute made to queen emma was apparently to be kept. most likely, the loyalty that godwin and other west saxon magnates showed to the king's legitimate heir is to be explained, not by assuming a pro-danish sentiment, but by this oath, surely taken in england, perhaps earlier at nidaros. the situation in norway, however, made it difficult to carry out canute's wishes. on the high seat in the throndelaw sat magnus the son of saint olaf. to be the son of a saint was a great asset in the middle ages; in addition magnus had certain native qualities of the kingly type and soon developed into a great warrior. knowing that war was inevitable, magnus began hostilities and carried the warfare into danish waters.[ ] it was this difficulty that prevented harthacanute from appearing promptly in england in the winter of - , when harold harefoot was planning to seize the throne. after the flight of her son sweyn in the summer of , elgiva is almost lost to history. apparently she retired to england, where she played the part of queen-mother during the reign of her son harold: in a will of bishop alfric we find the testator giving two marks of gold to king harold and one mark to my lady.[ ] as we do not find that the king had either wife or children the presumption is that the lady was his mother, the woman from northampton. we may then conjecture that the struggle for the english crown in the winter following canute's death was at bottom a fight between the two women who bore canute's children, each with a son to place in the high seat, each with a party devoted to her cause, each with a section of the country ready to follow her lead. elgiva had her strength in the danelaw; there were her kinsmen, and there her family had once been prominent. queen emma was strongest in the south; on her side were earl godwin and the housecarles.[ ] the sources that relate the events of these months are anything but satisfactory and their statements are sometimes vague or ambiguous. but it is clear that soon after the throne became vacant (thirteen days, if the chronicler is accurate)[ ] a meeting of the "wise men" was held at oxford, the border city where danes and saxons had so frequently met in common assembly. at this meeting, as the _chronicle_ has it, the northern magnates led by leofric, earl of mercia, and supported by the danes in london, "chose harold to hold all england, him and his brother harthacanute who was in denmark." to this arrangement godwin opposed all his influence and eloquence; but though he was supported by the lords of wessex, "he was able to accomplish nothing." it was finally agreed that queen emma and the royal guard should continue to hold wessex for harthacanute.[ ] the north was evidently turned over to harold. the decision reached at oxford has been variously interpreted. at first glance it looks as if the kingdom was again divided along the line of the thames valley. the statement of the chronicler that harold "was full king over all england" seems not to have been strictly contemporary but written after the king had seized the whole. what was done at oxford was probably to establish an under-kingship of the sort that canute had provided for norway and denmark. the overlordship of harthacanute may have been recognised, but the administration was divided. this did not necessarily mean to the scandinavian mind that the realm was divided; in the history of the north various forms of joint kingship are quite common. for one year this arrangement was permitted to stand; but in , harold was taken to king over all england--the nation forsook harthacanute because he tarried too long in denmark.[ ] emma was driven from the land, perhaps to satisfy the jealousy of her rival elgiva. the cause for the revolution of is unknown; but we may conjecture that intrigue was at work on both sides. possibly the appearance of emma's son alfred in england the year before may have roused a sense of fear in the english mind and may have hastened the movement. sorrows now began to fall heavily upon england. in , the welsh made inroads and slew several of the mercian lords. a "great wind" scattered destruction over the land. a remarkable mortality appeared among the bishops, four dying in and one more in . the following year died harold, whose unkingly and un-christian behaviour was no doubt regarded as the cause of these calamities. he died at oxford and was buried at westminster. the same year harthacanute joined his mother at bruges, whither she had fled when exiled from england.[ ] it was neither listless choice nor lack of kinglike interest that had detained harthacanute in denmark; it was the danger that threatened from norway. hostilities seem to have begun in the spring of and to have continued for about two years. the war was finally closed with an agreement at the brenn-isles near the mouth of the gaut river in south-western sweden. according to this the two young kings became sworn brothers, and it was stipulated that if the one should die leaving no heirs, the other should succeed him.[ ] it was not so much of a treaty on the part of the kings as of the chief men of the kingdoms, as both peoples were evidently tiring of the warfare. perhaps that which most of all determined the danes to seek peace was the news that harold had seized the government of all england the previous year. this must have happened late in the year, as the chronicler tells us that queen emma was driven out of england "without pity toward the stormy winter." in norway there was no party that still favoured the knytlings; the situation in england looked more favourable. evidently harthacanute's counsellors had concluded that his inherited rights in britain should be claimed and defended. harthacanute came to bruges with a small force only; but it was probably the plan to use flanders as a base from which to descend upon england. nothing seems to have been done in , however, except, perhaps, to prepare for a campaign in the coming spring. but for this there was no need: before the winter was past, harold lay dead at oxford. history knows little about the fleet-footed prince; but from what has been recorded we get the impression of a violent, ambitious youth, one to whom power was sweet and revenge sweeter. so far as we know, government in his day was poor both in state and church. oxford, it seems, was his residential city. after harold's death messengers came from england to bruges to summon harthacanute. the succession was evidently not settled without some negotiations, for harthacanute must have waited two months or more before he left flanders. no doubt the chiefs who had placed his half-brother on the throne were unwilling to submit without guarantees; their behaviour had not been such as to render their future secure. just before midsummer harthacanute finally arrived in england with sixty ships; he was crowned probably on june th.[ ] for two years he ruled the country but "he did nothing kinglike."[ ] partly as a punishment, perhaps, he made england pay for the expedition that he had just fitted out, and consequently forfeited what favour he had at the very beginning. harthacanute is described as a sickly youth, and a norman historian assures us that on account of his ill-health he kept god before his mind and reflected much on the brevity of human life.[ ] he seems to have been of a kindly disposition, as appears from his dealings with his half-brother edward. his sudden death at a henchman's wedding is not to be attributed to excesses but to the ailment from which he suffered. but the drunken laugh of the bystanders[ ] indicates that the world did not fully appreciate that with harthacanute perished the dynasty of gorm. three men now stood forth as possible candidates for the throne of alfred: magnus the good, now king of denmark and norway, harthacanute's heir by oath and adoption; sweyn, the son of canute's sister estrid, his nearest male relative and the ranking member of the danish house, a prince who was probably an englishman by birth, and whose aunt was the wife of earl godwin; and edward, later known as the confessor, who strangely enough represented what national feeling there might be in england, though of such feeling he himself was probably guiltless. it may be remarked in passing that all these candidates were sons of men whom canute had deeply wronged, men whom he had deprived of life or hounded to death. there is no good evidence that edward was ever formally elected king of england. harthacanute died at lambeth, only a few miles from london. "and before the king was buried all the folk chose edward to be king in london," says one manuscript of the _chronicle_. if this be true, there could have been no regular meeting of the magnates. the circumstances seem to have been somewhat in the nature of a revolution headed no doubt by the anti-danish faction in london. that edward was enabled to retain the crown was due largely, we are told, to the efforts of canute's two old friends, earl godwin and bishop lifing.[ ] the situation was anything but simple. the election of magnus would restore canute's empire, but it might also mean english and danish revolts. to elect sweyn would mean war with magnus, sweyn claiming denmark and magnus england. at the time the danish claimant was making most trouble, for sweyn seems to have arrived in england soon after edward was proclaimed. all that he secured, however, was the promise that he should be regarded as edward's successor.[ ] it was doubtless well known among the english lords that the new king was inclined to, and probably pledged to a celibate life. we do not know whether englishmen were at this time informed of the ethelings in hungary. to most men it must have seemed likely that alfred's line would expire with edward; under the circumstances sweyn was the likeliest heir. with the accession of edward, the empire of the north was definitely dissolved. fundamentally it was based on the union of england and denmark, a union that was now repudiated. still, the hope of restoring it lingered for nearly half a century. three times the kings of the north made plans to reconquer england, but in each instance circumstances made successful operations impossible. after the death of magnus in , the three old dynasties once more controlled their respective kingdoms, though in the case of both denmark and norway the direct lines had perished. the danish high seat alone remained to the knytlings, now represented by sweyn, the son of estrid and the violent ulf for whose tragic death the nation had now atoned. footnotes: [ ] _encomium emmæ_, ii., c. . [ ] snorre, _saga of magnus the good_, c. . [ ] kemble, _codex diplomaticus_, no. . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] the _chronicle_ (ann. [ ]) states that harold died march , , and that he ruled four years and sixteen weeks. this would date his accession as november , . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, [ ]. [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, [ ]. [ ] snorre, _saga of magnus the good_, c. . [ ] steenstrup, _normannerne_, iii., . [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] duchesne, _scriptores_, (william of poitiers). [ ] _anglo-saxon chronicle_, . [ ] florence of worcester, _chronicon_, i., - . [ ] adamus, _gesta_, ii., c. . appendices i.--canute's proclamation of [ ] . canute the king sends friendly greetings to his archbishops and suffragan bishops and to thurkil the earl and all his earls and to all his subjects in england, nobles and freemen, clerks and laymen. . and i make known to you that i will be a kind lord and loyal to the rights of the church and to right secular law. . i have taken to heart the word and the writing that archbishop lifing brought from rome from the pope, that i should everywhere extol the praise of god, put away injustice, and promote full security and peace by the strength that god should give me. . now i did not spare my treasures while unpeace was threatening to come upon you; with the help of god i have warded this off by the use of my treasures. . then i was informed that there threatened us a danger that was greater than was well pleasing to us; and then i myself with the men who went with me departed for denmark, whence came to you the greatest danger; and that i have with god's help forestalled, so that henceforth no unpeace shall come to you from that country, so long as you stand by me as the law commands, and my life lasts. . now i give thanks to god almighty for his aid and his mercy in that i have averted the great evil that threatened us; so that from thence we need fear no evil, but may hope for full aid and deliverance if need be. . now i will that we all humbly thank almighty god for the mercy that he has done to our help. . now i command my archbishops and all my suffragan bishops that they take due care as to the rights of the church, each one in the district that is committed to him; and also my ealdormen i command, that they help the bishops to the rights of the church and to the rights of my kingship and to the behoof of all the people. . should any one prove so rash, clerk or layman, dane or angle, as to violate the laws of the church or the rights of my kingship, or any secular statute, and refuse to do penance according to the instruction of my bishops, or to desist from his evil, then i request thurkil the earl, yea, even command him, to bend the offender to right, if he is able to do so. . if he is not able, then will i that he with the strength of us both destroy him in the land or drive him out of the land, be he of high rank or low. . and i also command my reeves, by my friendship and by all that they own and by their own lives, that they everywhere govern my people justly and give right judgments by the witness of the shire bishop and do such mercy therein as the shire bishop thinks right and the community can allow. . and if any one harbour a thief or hinder the pursuit, he shall be liable to punishment equal to that of the thief, unless he shall clear himself before me with full purgation. . and i will that all the people, clerks and laymen, hold fast the laws of edgar which all men have chosen and sworn to at oxford; . for all the bishopssay that the church demands a deep atonement for the breaking of oaths and pledges. . and they further teach us that we should with all our might and strength fervently seek, love, and worship the eternal merciful god and shun all unrighteousness, that is, slaying of kinsmen and murder, perjury, familiarity with witches and sorceresses, and adultery and incest. . and further, we command in the name of almighty god and of all his saints, that no man be so bold as to marry a nun or a consecrated woman; . and if any one has done so, let him be an outlaw before god and excommunicated from all christendom, and let him forfeit all his possessions to the king, unless he quickly desist from sin and do deep penance before god. . and further still we admonish all men to keep the sunday festival with all their might and observe it from saturday's noon to monday's dawning; and let no man be so bold as to buy or sell or to seek any court on that holy day. . and let all men, poor and rich, seek their church and ask forgiveness for their sins and earnestly keep every ordained fast and gladly honour the saints, as the mass priest shall bid us, . that we may all be able and permitted, through the mercy of the everlasting god and the intercession of his saints, to share the joys of the heavenly kingdom and dwell with him who liveth and reigneth for ever without end. amen. footnotes: [ ] liebermann, _gesetze der angelsachsen_, i., - . for an earlier translation see stubbs, _select charters_, - . ii.--canute's charter of [ ] canute, king of all england and denmark and of the norwegians and of part of the slavic peoples,[ ] to ethelnoth the metropolitan and alfric of york, and to all bishops and primates, and to the whole nation of the english, both nobles and freemen, wishes health. i make known to you that i have lately been to rome, to pray for the redemption of my sins, and for the prosperity of the kingdoms and peoples subject to my rule. this journey i had long ago vowed to god, though, through affairs of state and other impediments, i had hitherto been unable to perform it; but now i humbly return thanks to god almighty for having in my life granted to me to yearn after the blessed apostles, peter and paul, and every sacred place within and without the city of rome, which i could learn of, and according to my desire, personally to venerate and adore. and this i have executed chiefly because i had learned from wise men that the holy apostle peter had received from the lord the great power of binding and loosing, and was key-bearer of the celestial kingdom; and i, therefore, deemed it extremely useful to desire his patronage before god. be it now known to you, that there was a great assembly of nobles at the easter celebration, with the lord pope john, and the emperor conrad, to wit, all the princes of the nations from mount gargano to the nearest sea, who all received me honourably, and honoured me with magnificent presents. but i have been chiefly honoured by the emperor with divers costly gifts, as well in golden and silver vessels as in mantles and vestments exceedingly precious. i have therefore spoken with the emperor and the lord pope, and the princes who were there, concerning the wants of all my people, both angles and danes, that a more equitable law and greater security might be granted to them in their journeys to rome, and that they might not be hindered by so many barriers, nor harassed by unjust tolls; and the emperor and king rudolf, who has the greater number of those barriers in his dominions, have agreed to my demands; and all the princes have engaged by their edict, that my men, whether merchants or other travellers for objects of devotion, should go and return in security and peace, without any constraint of barriers or tolls. i then complained to the lord pope, and said that it greatly displeased me, that from my archbishops such immense sums of money were exacted, when, according to usage, they visited the apostolic see to receive the pall; and it was agreed that such exactions should not thenceforth be made. and all that i have demanded for the benefit of my people from the lord pope, from the emperor, from king rudolf, and from the other princes, through whose territories our way lies to rome, they have freely granted, and also confirmed their cessions by oath, with the witness of four archbishops and twenty bishops, and an innumerable multitude of dukes and nobles, who were present. i therefore render great thanks to god almighty that i have successfully accomplished all that i desired, as i had proposed in my mind, and satisfied to the utmost the wishes of my people. now then, be it known to you, that i have vowed, as a suppliant, from henceforth to justify in all things my whole life to god, and to rule the kingdoms and peoples subjected to me justly and piously, to maintain equal justice among all; and if, through the intemperance of my youth, or through negligence, i have done aught hitherto contrary to what is just, i intend with the aid of god to amend all. i therefore conjure and enjoin my counsellors, to whom i have intrusted the counsels of the kingdom, that from henceforth they in no wise, neither through fear of me nor favour to any powerful person, consent to, or suffer to increase any injustice in my whole kingdom; i enjoin also all sheriffs and reeves of my entire kingdom, as they would enjoy my friendship or their own security, that they use no unjust violence to any man, either rich or poor, but that every one, both noble and freeman, enjoy just law, from which let them in no way swerve, neither for equal favour, nor for any powerful person, nor for the sake of collecting money for me, for i have no need that money should be collected for me by iniquitous exactions. i, therefore, wish it to be made known to you, that, returning by the same way that i departed, i am going to denmark, for the purpose of settling, with the counsel of all the danes, firm and lasting peace with those nations, which, had it been in their power, would have deprived us of our life and kingdoms; but were unable, god having deprived them of strength, who in his loving-kindness preserves us in our kingdoms and honour, and renders naught the power of our enemies. having made peace with the nations round us, and regulated and tranquillised all our kingdom here in the east, so that on no side we may have to fear war or enmities, i propose this summer, as soon as i can have a number of ships ready, to proceed to england; but i have sent this letter beforehand, that all the people of my kingdom may rejoice at my prosperity; for, as you yourselves know, i have never shrunk from labouring, nor will i shrink therefrom, for the necessary benefit of all my people. i therefore conjure all my bishops and ealdormen, by the fealty which they owe to me and to god, so to order that, before i come to england, the debts of all, which we owe according to the old law, be paid; to wit, plough-alms, and a tithe of animals brought forth during the year, and the pence which ye owe to saint peter at rome, both from the cities and villages; and in the middle of august, a tithe of fruits, and at the feast of saint martin, the first-fruits of things sown, to the church of the parish, in which each one dwells, which is in english called church-scot. if, when i come, these and others are not paid, he who is in fault shall be punished by the royal power severely and without any remission. farewell. footnotes: [ ] this translation (with slight changes) is that of benjamin thorpe: lappenberg, _history of england_, ii., - . [ ] the original has swedes; but see above p. . the statement that canute was king of the norwegians is doubtless an addition by the chronicler; norway was not conquered before . bibliography _aarböger for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie_, udg. af det kongelige nordiske oldskriftsselskab. - . . række, -. copenhagen. continuation of _annaler_. _Ælfric's lives of saints_, ed. w.w. skeat. vols. london, - . (early english text society.) _anglo-saxon chronicle_, ed. benjamin thorpe. vols. london, . rolls series, no. . _annaler for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie_, udg. af det kongelige nordiske oldskriftsselskab. - . copenhagen, - . these volumes and the _aarböger_ are of great value for the study of scandinavian culture in the middle ages; for the career of canute, however, they are of slight importance. _annales cambriæ_, ed. j.w. ab ithel. london, . rolls series, no. . _annales monastici_, ed. h.r. luard. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . _baltische studien_, herausgegeben von der gesellschaft für pommersche geschichte und alterthumskunde. - . stettin. especially important are nos. , , and : articles on the early relations of the danes and the wends. _bibliothek der angelsächsischen poesie_, ed. c.w.m. grein (revised edition by r.p. wülker). vols. cassel, - . bjÖrkman, erik, _nordische personennamen in england in alt- und frühmittel-englischer zeit_. halle, . (morsbach's _studien zur englischen philologie_, xxxvii.) bremen, adam of, _gesta hammenburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum_, ed. j.m. lappenberg. hanover, . (mon. ger. hist., scriptores, vii.) bresslau, h., _jahrbücher des deutschen reichs unter konrad ii._ leipsic, - . bugge, alexander, et al., _norges historie fremstillet for det norske folk_. to be published in volumes. vol. i., part ii. (christiania, ) deals with norwegian history to . ----_studier over de norske byers selvstyre og handel_. christiania, . ----_vesterlandenes indflydelse paa nordboernes og särlig nordmændenes ydre kultur, levesæt, og samfundsforhold i vikingetiden_. christiania, . ----_vikingerne_. vols. copenhagen, - . a series of brilliant essays on scandinavian colonisation and culture in the western islands (britain). _cambridge history of english literature_. edited by a.w. ward and a.r. waller. (in process of publication.) i. cambridge, . canterbury, gervase of, _the historical works of gervase of canterbury_, ed. william stubbs. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . chabannes, adÉmar de, _historiarum libri iii_, ed. g. waitz. hanover, . (mon. ger. hist., scriptores, iv.) _chronicon abbatiæ de evesham ad annum_ , ed. w.d. macray. london, . rolls series, no. . _chronicon abbatiæ rameseiensis_, ed. w.d. macray. london, . rolls series, no. . _chronicon monasterii de abingdon_, ed. joseph stevenson. vols. london, . rolls series, no. . cirencester, richard of, _speculum historiale de gestis regum angliæ_., ed. j.e.b. mayor. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . _cnutonis regis gesta sive encomium emmæ_, ed. g.h. pertz. hanover, . (mon. ger. hist., scriptores, xix.) collingwood, w.g., _scandinavian britain_. london, . _corpus poeticum boreale_. edited by gudbrand vigfusson and f. york powell. vols. oxford, . daae, ludvig, _norges helgener_. christiania, . diceto, ralph of, _opera historica_, ed. william stubbs. vols. london, . rolls series, no. . duchesne, andré (editor), _historiæ normannorum scriptores antiqui_. paris, . durham, simeon of, _opera omnia_, ed. thomas arnold. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . _encomium emmæ_. see _cnutonis regis gesta_. _eulogium historiarum_, ed. f.s. haydon. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . _fagrskinna_, ed. finnur jónsson. copenhagen, - . brief saga of the norwegian kings. earlier edition by p.a. munch and c.r. unger (christiania, ). _flateyarbók_. edited by gudbrand vigfusson and c.r. unger. christiania, . the flat-isle book is a late and not very reliable collection of sagas, but it cannot be wholly ignored. flom, george t., _scandinavian influence on southern lowland scotch_. new york, . (columbia university germanic studies, i., no. .) freeman, e.a., _history of the norman conquest of england_, vols. new york, . friesen, otto von, _historiska runskrifter_. (fornvännen, .) ----_om runskriftens härkomst_. (sprokvetenskapliga sällskapets förhandlinger, - .) giesebrecht, w. von, _geschichte der deutschen kaiserzeit_. vols. brunswick and leipsic, - . hildebrand, b.e., _anglosachsiska mynt i svenska kongliga myntkabinettet funna i sveriges jord_. stockholm, . hildebrand, hans o.h., _svenska folket under hednatiden_. stockholm, . _historians of the church of york and its archbishops_, ed. james raine. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . hodgkin, thomas, _the history of england from the earliest times to the norman conquest_. london, . (hunt-poole, _political history of england_, i.) hunt, william, _the english church, a.d. - _. london, . (stephens-hunt, _a history of the english church_, i.) huntingdon, henry of, _historia anglorum_, ed. thomas arnold. london, . rolls series, no. . _jómsvíkingasaga ok knytlinga_, ed. c.c. rafn. copenhagen, . jumièges, william of, _historiæ nomannorum libri viii_, ed. andré duchesne. paris, . (hist. norm. scriptores.) kemble, j.m., _codex diplomaticus Ævi saxonici_. vols. london, - . (eng. hist. soc.) _knytlingasaga_. see _jómsvíkingasaga_. kÖbke, p., _om runerne i norden_. copenhagen, . a brief popular account of the runes; valuable for its translation of important inscriptions. lang, andrew, _a history of scotland_. vols. edinburgh, - . langebek, jacob (editor), _scriptores rerum danicarum medii Ævi_. vols. copenhagen, - . lappenberg, j.m., _history of england under the anglo-saxon kings_. translated by benjamin thorpe. vols. london, . larson, laurence m., _the king's household in england before the norman conquest_. madison, . (bulletin of the university of wisconsin.) ----_the political policies of cnut as king of england. american historical review_, xv., no. (july, ). lavisse, ernest, _histoire de france depuis les origines jusqu'à la révolution_. vols. paris, - . liebermann, f., _die gesetze der angelsachsen_. vols. halle, - . ----_ungedrückte anglo-normannische geschichtsquellen_. strasburg, . _liber monasterii de hyda_, ed. edward edwards. london, . rolls series, no. . _liber vitæ: register and martyrology of new minster and hyde abbey_, ed. w. de gray birch. london, . (hampshire record society.) _lives of edward the confessor_, ed. h.r. luard. london, . rolls series, no. . malmesbury, william of, _de gestis pontificum anglorum libri quinque_, ed. n.e.s.a. hamilton. london, . rolls series, no. . ----_de gestis regum anglorum libri quinque_, ed. william stubbs. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . manitius, m., _deutsche geschichte unter den sächsischen und salischen kaisern_. stuttgart, . (bibliothek deutscher geschichte.) _memorials of saint edmund's abbey_, ed. thomas arnold. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . merseburg, thietmar of, _chronicon_, ed. j.m. lappenberg. hanover, . (mon. ger. hist., scriptores, iii.) migne, j.p., _patrologiæ cursus completus_. series latina. vols. paris, - . vol. cxli. contains the sermons of adémar and the letters of fulbert. montelius, oscar, _kulturgeschichte schwedens von den ältesten zeiten bis zum elften jahrhundert nach christus_. leipsic, . an excellent account of northern antiquity based largely on archæological evidence. morris, william a., _the frankpledge system_. new york, . (harvard historical series, xiv.) munch, p.a., _det norske folks historie_. vols. christiania, - . napier, a.s., and stevenson, w.h. (editors), _the crawford collection of early charters and documents_. oxford, . _olafs saga hins helga_. edited by r. keyser and c.r. unger. christiania, . a saga of saint olaf; largely legendary. olrik, axel, _nardisk aandsliv i vikingetid og tidlig middelalder_. copenhagen, . an excellent popular discussion of mediæval culture in scandinavia. oman, c.w.c., _england before the norman conquest_. new york, . (oman, _history of england in seven volumes_, i.) _origines islandicæ_. edited by gudbrand vigfusson and f. york powell. vols. oxford, . palgrave, francis, _history of normandy and england_. vols. london, - . paris, matthew, _chronica majora_, ed. h.r. luard. vols. london, - . rolls series, no. . pertz, g.h., et al. (editors), _monumenta germaniæ historica, scriptores_. vols. hanover, - . poitiers, william of, _gesta willelmi ducis normannorum et regis angliæ_, ed. andré duchesne. paris, . (hist. norm. scriptores.) pollock, f., and maitland, f.w., _the history of the english law before the time of edward i_. vols. cambridge, . ramsay, j.h., _the foundations of england_. vols. london, . raoul glaber, _les cinq livres de ses histoires_, ed. m. prou. paris, . (collection de textes, no. i.) _saga book of the viking club_, vi., part i. london. january, . _saga olafs konungs ens helga_. edited by p.a. munch and c.r. unger. christiania, . the so-called "historical saga" of saint olaf. st. john, james a., _history of the four conquests of england_. vols. london, . extremely uncritical. saxo grammaticus, _gesta danorum_, ed. a. holder. strasburg, . schÜck, henrik, _studier i nordisk litteratur- och religions-historia._ vols. stockholm, . snorre. see sturlason. _sproglige og historiske afhandlinger viede sophus bugges minde._ christiania, . historical and philological essays by various authors. cited as afhandlinger, etc. steenstrup, johannes c.h.r., et al., _danmarks riges historie_. vols. copenhagen, - . the great co-operative history of denmark. vol. i. is by steenstrup. ----_normannerne_. vols. copenhagen, - . (see foreword.) ----_venderne og de danske för valdemar den stores tid_. copenhagen, . a study of danish expansion on the south baltic shores. stephens, george, _the old-northern runic monuments of scandinavia and england_. vols. london and copenhagen, - . of great value for the inscriptions that the author has collected and reproduced; the interpretations, however, are not always reliable. vol. iv. is by s.o.m. söderberg and j.s.f. stephens. stubbs, william, _registrum sacrum anglicanum_. oxford, . sturlason, snorre, _heimskringla: nóregs konunga sogur_, ed. finnur jónsson. vols. copenhagen, - . samfundet til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur. cited as snorre. this is the chief source of information as to canute's ambitions for empire in the north. sveno aggonis, _historia legum castrensium regis canuti magni_, ed. jacob langebek. copenhagen, . (script. rer. danic., iii.) taranger, a., _den angelsaksiske kirkes indflydelse paa den norske_. christiania, . (norske historiske forening.) turner, sharon, _history of the anglo-saxons_. vols. london, . vitalis, ordericus, _historia ecclesiastica_, ed. auguste le prévost. vols. paris, - . (société de l'histoire de france.) wharton, henry (editor), _anglia sacra_. vols. london, . wimmer, ludvig f.a., _de danske runemindesmærker_. vols. copenhagen, - . ----_die runenschrift_. Übersetzt von dr. f. holthausen. berlin, . wipo, _vita chuonradi regis_. hanover, . (mon. ger. hist., scriptores, xi.) worcester, florence of, _chronicon ex chronicis_, ed. benjamin thorpe. vols. london, - . (eng. hist. soc.) worsaae, j.j.a., _minder out de danske og nordmændene i england, skotland, og irland_. copenhagen, . translation: _an account of the danes and norwegians in england, scotland, and ireland_. london, . index a abingdon, monastery of; adam of bremen cited; adémar de chabannes cited; agdir, district in southern norway; alain, duke of brittany; aldgyth, wife of edmund ironside; alfiva; _see_ elgiva alfred, king of england; alfred, son of ethelred; alfric, archbishop of york; alfric, bishop; alfric, english ealdorman; alfric, ealdorman, and naval commander; alfric, old english author; algar, english magnate; ali, housecarle; almar darling, english magnate; alphabet, runic; alphege, archbishop; alstad stone, the; america, discovery of; andover; _anglo-saxon chronicle_ cited; anglo-saxon kingdom; anglo-saxon legal system, the; anglo-saxon literature; anses, the, old northern divinities; anund jacob, king of sweden; aquitaine; arne, norwegian magnate; arngrim, magnate in the danelaw; arnungs, norwegian noble family; art, celtic and northern; asbjörn, norwegian warrior; ashington, battle of; dedication at; asia minor; aslak erlingsson, norwegian chieftain; attila; avon river; aylesford; b bamberg; bark-isle; barwick, swedish harbour; benedict, pope; _beowulf_; bergen; bergljot, sister of earl erik; bernhard, bishop in norway; bernhard, bishop in scania; bernicia, old english kingdom; bersi, norse traveller; bessin, the, district in normandy; birca, old swedish town; _bison_, the, st. olaf's longship; bjarkamál, old norse poem; bjarne, scald; bjor, warrior; björn, king olaf's spokesman; bleking, district in modern sweden; bohemia; boleslav, duke and king of poland; books, old english; brage, old norse divinity; bremen; brenn-isles, the, agreement of; brentford, skirmish at; bristol; british isles, the, scandinavians in; commerce of; inscriptions in; brittany; bruges; brunhild, saga heroine; buckinghamshire; bugge, alexander, norse historian, cited; bugge, sophus, norse philologist, cited; burgundy; burhwold, bishop; byrhtnoth, ealdorman of essex; byzantium; c caithness; canonisation, of st. dunstan; canterbury, city and see of; siege of; canute the great, king of england, denmark, and norway: inheritance of; ancestry of; fostered by thurkil the tall; joins in king sweyn's attack on england; in charge of the camp at garrisborough; succeeds to the english pretensions of sweyn; is driven out of england; renews the attack; methods of warfare of; marches into northern england; is recognised as king in the south; lays siege to london; pillages mercia and east anglia; wins the victory at ashington; treats with edmund ironside; is recognised as king of all england; difficulties of, in and ; early english policy of; chief counsellors of; royal residence of; rewards his scandinavian followers; re-organises the english earldoms; attempts to establish a new aristocracy in england; shows his preference for northmen and distrust of the saxons; executes rebellious nobles; sends edmund's sons to poland; marries queen emma; organises his guard of housecarles; suppresses piracy on the english shores; develops new policy of reconciliation; becomes king of denmark; issues proclamation of ; has difficulties with scotland; agrees to the cession of lothian; journeys to denmark of; exiles thurkil the tall; extent of empire of; makes an expedition to wendland; slavic possessions of; enters into alliance with the emperor; acquires the mark of sleswick; ecclesiastical policy of; legislation of; baptism of; benefactions of; consecrates church at ashington; rebuilds the shrine of st. edmund's; honours the english saints; translates the relics of st. alphege; provides bishops for the danish church; enters into relations with the see of hamburg-bremen; plans to seize norway; conspires with the norwegian rebels; sends an embassy to king olaf; scotch possessions of; diplomacy of; sends an embassy to sweden; bribes the norse leaders; makes war on norway and sweden; trapped at holy river; orders the murder of ulf; loves dice and chess; atones for the murder; makes a pilgrimage to rome; assists at the imperial coronation; presents complaints at the lateran synod; charter of; honoured by pope and emperor; conquers norway; receives the submission of the scotch king; submission of the norsemen to; chosen king at the ere-thing; holds an imperial assembly at nidaros; announces his imperial policy; secures the allegiance of the norse chiefs; returns to denmark and england; gives the leadership in norway to kalf arnesson; plans to depose earl hakon; relations with normandy; is emperor of the north; position in europe of; vassal states of, ; appoints harthacanute his successor; court and household of; official appointments of; continental relations of; sends embassies to aquitaine; forms an alliance with the church; relations of, with papacy; episcopal appointments of; is friendly to the archbishops of hamburg-bremen; is hostile toward heathen practices; provides for christian education; secular laws of; reputation of, as a lawgiver; financial legislation of; norse legislation of; provides coinage for denmark; patronises scalds and copyists; is interested in material improvements; loses norway to magnus olafsson; probable plans of ( ); last illness and death of; children of; personality of; character of; legends about; english (ecclesiastical) view of; norse (scaldic) view of; as ruler and statesman; plans of, for the future of his empire; _canute's praise_; carham, battle of; celts, influence of, in old northern culture; chabannes, adémar de, _see_ adémar charlemagne; charter, canute's; chartres; chess games; chester; christiania firth; christianity, introduced into denmark; introduced into norway; progress of, in the north; celtic; influence of, on old northern poetry and art; church, english, relations of, with canute; canute's message to; legislation for; church dues; cirencester; cities, scandinavian; clontarf, battle of; coinage; coins, english and danish; coldstream; cologne; commerce, scandinavian; conrad ii, emperor; _consiliatio cnuti_; cork; coronation, imperial; corvey, widukind of, _see_ widukind cotentin, district in normandy; court at winchester; court poetry, old norse; coventry; crediton; cricklade; cross, the, of winchester; croyland, abbey of; culture, old northern; cynewulf, old english poet; d danegeld; danelaw, established by the vikings; extent of; importance of, in english history; scandinavian elements in; spared by sweyn and canute; heathendom in; administrative areas in; cities in; supports elgiva; other mention of; danes, become christians; interested in wendland; as colonisers; as merchants; as vikings; kill st. alphege; attack london; proclaim canute king; in england; rule of, in england; preferred by canute for important offices; show opposition to canute; in norway; other mention of; danework; deerhurst, agreement of; monastery of; deira, old english kingdom; denmark, extent of; imperial ambitions of; hegemony of; invasion of england from; harold king of; return of canute and the viking chiefs to; canute king of; return of the host to; canute's journeys to; importance of union of, with england; extended to the eider; progress of christianity in; viceroys of; rebellion in; harthacanute king of; expansion of, into slavic lands; institutional development of; cities in; magnus king of; claimed by sweyn ulfsson; union of, with england dissolved; other mention of; _see_ danes, canute, and scandinavia derby; devon; dol, castle of; domesday book; dorchester; dorset; dragon ship, _see_ ships drammen firth; dublin; duduc, bishop; düna river; durham; e eadric, mercian earl, slays sigeferth and morcar; earl of mercia; jealous disposition of; deserts to canute; in the battle of sherstone; makes peace with edmund; quarrels with edmund; plays the traitor at ashington; suspected of causing edmund's death; position of, in canute's councils; ethelred's son-in-law; executed; eadulf cudel, northumbrian earl; eagmargach, _see_ jehmarc eanham, assembly of; earl, office of; earldoms in england; east anglia; eddic poems; edgar, king of england; edith, wife of thurkil; edmund ironside, english king, marries aldgyth; assumes leadership in the danelaw; harries the western shires; with the army in london; is chosen king; raises the south-west; fights at penselwood, sherstone, and brentford; raises wessex; attacks the danes at otford; quarrels with eadric; defeated at ashington; retires to the severn valley; makes terms and enters into fraternal relations with canute; death of; career and character of; sons of; buried at glastonbury; edmund, son of edmund ironside; edward, son of ethelred; edwy, son of ethelred; eglaf, _see_ eilif eider river; eikunda-sound; eilif, viking chief and earl in england; einar thongshaker, norse magnate, guardian of earl hakon; defeated at the nesses; in opposition to king olaf; accepts the rule of canute; disappointed in his ambitions; leads in the revolt of the norsemen; eindrid, son of einar; elbe river; elfhelm, ealdorman; elfward, abbot, canute's cousin; elfwine, bishop; elfwine, king's priest and bishop; elgiva, canute's mistress; at jomburg; in norway; opposes the canonisation of st. olaf; unpopular in norway: withdraws to england: later activities of: elmham: ely, monastery of: emma, queen of england, marries ethelred: retires to normandy: marries canute: character of: makes a gift to st. edmund's: assists at the translation of st. alphege: intrigues of: difficulties of, after canute's death: death of: other mention of; empire, the; empire of the north; extent of; decline of; capital of; institutional systems in; civilisation of; canute's plans for the future of; collapse of; encomiast, canute's biographer, cited; england, scandinavian settlements in; vikings in; danish conquest of; part of, friendly to danes; revolts against canute; is attacked by canute; civil strife in; exhaustion of; divided at deerhurst; canute king of; danish rule in; reorganised by canute; church of, in canute's day; debt of northern churches to; norwegian conspirators in; threatened with norman invasion; heathendom in; institutional influence of scandinavians in; northern scalds in; harold harefoot king of; harthacanute king of; other mention of; ere-thing, the; eric, king of denmark; eric bloodax, king of norway; sons of; eric hakonsson, earl in norway and england, fights at hjörunga bay; marries canute's sister; fights at swald; earl in norway; summoned to assist canute in england; earl of northumbria; raids mercia; character of; death of; other mention of; eric the victorious, king of sweden; _eric's praise_, the; erling, son of earl hakon; erling skjalgsson, power and influence of; in canute's service; death of; sons of; essex; esthonians; estrid, canute's sister; ethelmer, ealdorman; ethelnoth the good, archbishop of canterbury; ethelred the ill-counselled, king of england, accession and inheritance of; character of; treats with the vikings; attacks the northmen in cumberland and man; marries emma of normandy; orders massacre of st. brice's day; prepares a fleet; resists sweyn; flees to normandy; is recalled and expels canute; objects to edmund's marriage; illness and death of; sons and daughters of; legislation of; ethelric, bishop; ethelstan, king of england; ethelward, english noble; ethelwerd, earl; ethics of norse heathendom; evesham, monastery of; exeter; exeter codex; f faroe islands; fenlands, the; ferm, english; festivals; fife; finnvid found; "five boroughs," the; "five hide system," the; flanders; fleet (described); _see_ ship florence of worcester, cited; forest laws; forth, firth of; france; frankpledge; franks; frey, old northern divinity; friesen, otto von, swedish runologist, cited; frigg, old northern goddess; fulbert, bishop; funen, danish island; "fyrd," the; fyris river, battle of; g gainsborough, danish camp at; garth, the royal; gaul; gaut river; gaulland; gemot, at eanham; at london; recalls ethelred; at oxford; elects edmund; other, elects canute; at cirencester; at winchester; gerbrand, bishop; germans in south jutland; in slavic lands; influence of, on northern culture; germany; gillingham; gisela, empress; giski, isle of; glastonbury; gleeman; gloucestershire; godebald, bishop of scania; godescalc, slavic prince; godric, english earl; godwin, ealdorman; godwin, earl of wessex, early history of; important position of; accompanies canute on his expeditions to the east; supports harthacanute against harold; secures the crown for edward; gokstad, ship found at; gorm, king of denmark; gotland; greenland; greenwich; grimkell, norse bishop; gudrun, saga heroine; gunhild, canute's daughter; gunhild, canute's niece; gunhild, canute's sister; gunhild, harold bluetooth's queen; gunhild, harold bluetooth's daughter; gunhild, sweyn's queen, canute's mother; gunnor, emma's mother; gunvor, norwegian woman; gyrith, harold bluetooth's queen; _see_ gunhild gytha, canute's sister; h hakon the bad, earl of norway; hakon ericsson, earl in norway; driven out by olaf the stout; earl in england; viceroy in norway; recalled by canute; death of; hakon the good, king of norway; hakon of stangeby; hakon, viking prince; hall, old northern; halldor the unchristian, scald, cited; hällestad stone, the; hallfred troublousscald cited; hamburg-bremen, see of; hampshire; harek of tjotta, norwegian magnate; harold, earl, son of godwin; harold, earl, son of thurkil the tall; harold bluetooth, king of denmark; harold fairhair, king of norway; harold grayfell, norwegian king; harold harefoot, canute's son; king of england; death of; character of; harold sweynsson, king of denmark, canute's brother; harthacanute, canute's son, present at the translation of st. alphege; regent and king of denmark; king of england; compact of, with magnus; probably chosen to succeed canute; death of; character of; hastings, battle of; hawking; "head ransom," the, old norse poem; heathby, danish city; heathendom in england; among the slavs; in the north; canute's legislation against; hebrides islands; helgi, saga hero; heming, thurkil the tall's brother; heming, thurkil's grandson; henry i, king of france; henry ii, emperor; henry iii, emperor; henry the fowler, king of germany; henry of huntingdon cited; heorot; "here," the, viking host; hereford; heroic poetry, old northern; hildebrand; hjörunga bay, battle of; holy river, battle of, ; holy trinity, church of the; home, scandinavian; hönen, runic monument at; honour, northern ideas of; hordaland, district in norway; hornel-mount, the; hostages; house, old northern; housecarles, canute's; hugo, norman commander at exeter; humber river; hungary; _hude register_; i iceland; india; industrial arts, northern; inscriptions, _see_ runic inscriptions _instituta cnuti_; ireland, scandinavians in; irish sea, viking rendezvous; cities near; italy; ivar white, canute's housecarle; j jæderen, district in norway; jehmarc, vassal of canute; jelling, royal residence in jutland; jelling stones, runic monuments; jemteland, district in sweden; jersey, island of; jewelry, old northern; john xix, pope; jom, _see_ jomburg jomburg, city and stronghold in wendland; jomvikings, attack sweden and norway; take part in the battle of swald; attack england; enter english service; hostle to the danish kings; saga of; tactics of; organisation of; julin, _see_ jomburg jumièges, william of, _see_ william jumneta, _see_ jomburg justiciar, norman official; jutland (and jutes); k kalf arnesson, norwegian magnate; kent; kingscrag, city in modern sweden; king's delf; kingship, joint; knytlingasaga; knytlings, dynasty of canute; kurisches haff. l lakenheath; lambert, canute's christian name; lambeth; lateran synod ( ); law, scandinavian ideas of; "laws of edward," the; "lay of righ," the, old northern poem; legislation, english; leicester; leif the lucky, icelandic explorer; leofric, earl of mercia; leofwine, earl of mercia; lethra (leire); libentius, archbishop of hamburg-bremen; _liber vitæ_; see _hyde register_ liebermann, f., german historian, cited; liffey river; lifing, archbishop; lifing, bishop of crediton; lime firth; limerick; lincoln; lindsey; lister, district in norway; "lithsmen's song," the, old norse poem; lithuanians; lombardy; london, resists the danes; thingmen in; sieges of; held by canute; opposes translation of st. alphege; supports harold harefoot; accepts edward; london bridge broken by olaf the stout; _long serpent_, the, olaf trygvesson's longship; longships, _see_ ships lorraine; lothian, ceded to the scotch; louis the pious, emperor; lund, scanian see; m macbeth; maelar, lake; mælbeathe, canute's vassal; magnus olafsson, king of norway and denmark; malcolm, king of scotland; maldon, battle of; malmesbury; malmesbury, william of, _see_ william man, isle of; manna, sweyn's housecarle; marriage in canute's day; laws relating to; matthew paris, english chronicler, cited; medway river; mercia, old english kingdom; merseburg, thietmar of, _see_ thietmar midlands, the; mieczislav, duke of poland; mieczislav, king of poland; mints; miracles attributed to st. olaf; mistiwi; monasticism, in denmark; in norway; moneyers in denmark; moray firth; morcar, magnate in the danelaw; munch, p.a., norse historian, cited; "murdrum fine". n naples, northmen in; navarre; navy, english; naze, the; nesses, the; new minster, winchester; niard; _see_ njord nid river; nidaros, capital of norway; "nithing name,"; njord; _see_ niard norfolk; norman conquest, effect of, on old english literature; hastened by canute's conquest; norman officials in the northern churches; normandy, foundation of; as a viking rendezvous; ethelred's relations with; canute's relations with; ethelings in; famine in; north, the; northampton; northman, mercian noble; northmen, norsemen, norwegians, the, at war with the danes; in the scandinavian colonies; in rebellion against earl hakon; defeated in ireland; as earls and officials in england; religion of; oppose king olaf; accept the rule of canute; at canute's court; oppose elgiva and sweyn; civilisation of; commerce of; canonise st. olaf; repudiate canute's kingship; _see_ norway northumbria; norway, controlled by the danes; attacked by the jomvikings; olaf trygvesson king of; eric and sweyn, earls in; olaf the stout king of; missionary operations in; at war with denmark; dissatisfaction in; bribery in; canute king of; hakon viceroy of; elgiva and sweyn regents of; rebellious movements in; canute's legislation for; cities and commerce of; magnus olafsson king of; other mention of; _see also_ northmen nottingham; novgorod. o odderness stone, runic monument; odense; oder river; odo, count of chartres; olaf, king of sweden; olaf haroldsson (the stout), king of norway, viking activities of; in english and norman service; baptism of; returns to norway and seizes earl hakon; wins a victory at the nesses; king of norway; missionary activities of; opposition to; character of; purposes of; defies canute; forms an alliance with the swedish king; raises the host of norway and harries the danish coast; traps canute at holy river; retreat to norway; loses his kingdom to canute; deserted by his chiefs; tries to resume his rule; flees to russia; is recalled to norway; falls at stiklestead; miracles attributed to; canonisation and worship of; and his scalds; other mention of; olaf trygvesson, king of norway, early life of; viking activities of; becomes a christian; king of norway; wooes sigrid the haughty; marries thyra; falls at swald; missionary work of; founder of nidaros; old minster, winchester; olney, compact of; olvi of egg, norwegian magnate; omens; ordeal; orkney islands; ornamentation, styles of; orwell river; osbern, biographer of st. alphege, cited; oslo firth; otford, skirmish at; ottar the swart, scald, cited; otto the great, emperor; ottos, dynasty of the; oxford. p palace, royal; pallig, ealdorman; pallium, cost of the; palna toki, archer and viking; papacy, state of; paris, matthew, _see_ matthew penal laws in england; penselwood, battle of; pentland firth; peterborough; peter's pence; "pictured rocks"; pilgrims, complaints of the; piræus; poetry, old northern; poland; pomerania; pope; poppo, danish clerk; "praise lays"; proclamation of , canute's; prussia; q _quadripartitus_; quedlingburg; r ragnarok myth; ramsey, abbey of; ramsund rock, pictures on the; ranig, scandinavian earl in england; raven banner, the; reginbert, bishop of funen; religion, old northern; origin of; divinities of; ethics o; ritual and sacrifices of; festivals of; repingdon; reric, danish city in wendland; rhine river; rhone river; richard of cirencester, chronicler, cited; richard, duke of normandy; ridings in yorkshire; riga; righ, old northern divinity; ringmere, battle of; ring-realm, district in norway; rings, scandinavian; ringsted, danish city; robert, archbishop of rouen; robert, king of france; robert the devil, duke of normandy; roeskild, capital of denmark; roeskild firth; rogaland, district in norway; rolf, founder of normandy; rome; rouen; route of the danes to the west; rudolf, bishop in norway; rudolf, king of burgundy; rügen, island of; "rune-masters"; runes; runic art, _see_ art runic inscriptions; russia; s sacrifices, old northern; saga materials in old northern poetry; st. alphege, _see_ alphege st. ansgar, missionary to the north; st. benet hulme, monastery of; st. bertin, monastery of; st. brice; st. brice's day, massacre of; st. clemens, church of; st. cuthbert; st. dunstan; st. edith; st. edmund; st. felix; st. frideswide, church of; st. henry, _see_ henry ii st. mary devon, church of, st. olaf, _see_ olaf haroldsson st. omer; st. paul; st. paul's, church of; st. peter; st. stephen, _see_ stephen st. thomas; st. vincent; st. wistan; saints; salop; sandefjord, town in norway; sandwich; santslaue (santslave), canute's sister; _see_ svantoslava sarpsborg, city in norway; saxo, danish chronicler, cited; saxony; scalds; scandinavia; scandinavian colonies; scania; schlei, inlet in sleswick; scone; scotland; secular laws of canute; seine river; semland; "seven boroughs," the, _see_ "five boroughs" severn valley; shaftesbury; shakespeare; sheppey, danish camp at; sherburne; sherstone, battle of; shetland islands; shield, legendary danish king; shieldings, legendary danish dynasty; ship as numerical term; ships, scandinavian _short serpent_, the, longship; "shrine song," the, old norse poem; sibyl, the, of the eddas; "sibyl's prophecy," the, old northern poem; _see_ voluspá sigeferth, magnate in the danelaw; sigfrid, bishop in norway; sigfried; sighvat the scald cited; sigrid, wife of kalf arnesson; sigrid the haughty, canute's stepmother; sigrun, saga heroine, sigurd, bishop, _see_ sigfrid sigurd, earl hakon's court bishop; sigurd, norwegian earl; sigurd, saga hero, _see_ sigfried sigvaldi, earl at jomburg; simeon of durham, english chronicler, cited,; siric, archbishop of canterbury; siward, abbot of abingdon; siward the strong, earl of northumbria; skartha, danish housecarle; skene, w.f., scotch historian, cited; skiringshall, city in norway; skjalg erlingsson, norwegian chief; skogul tosti, _see_ tosti slavic lands and peoples; sleswick; slesswick, massacre at; snorre, icelandic historian, cited; sogn firth; soli, erling's garth; sönder vissing, runic monument at; "song of the high one," the, old northern poem; sortilege in the old northern religion; sound, the; southampton; south jutland; southwark; spain; spey river; stadt, cape; staffordshire; staller, scandinavian official; stamford; stangeberg, battle of; stavanger; steenstrup, j.c.h.r., danish historian, cited; stenkyrka stone, pictured rock; stephen, king of hungary; stigand, anglo-danish priest; stiklestead, battle of; stockholm; stord, battle of; storm, gustav, norwegian historian, cited; strathclyde; "stretch song," the, old northern poem; styrbjörn, earl at jomburg; suffolk; surety, old english; sussex; svantoslava; _see_ santslaue sveno, danish chronicler, cited; swald, battle of; swart, lord of the fire-world; sweden; swelchie, the, of pentland firth; sweyn, son of canute and elgiva; earl in wendland; regent in denmark; regent in norway; flees to denmark; death of; sweyn, danish housecarle; sweyn forkbeard, king of denmark, in rebellion against his father; king of denmark; plans of; viking activities of; family of; attacks king olaf and acquires part of norway; has designs on england; conquers england; death of; character and personality of; sweyn hakonsson, norwegian earl; sweyn ulfsson, king of denmark, canute's nephew; t tavistock, abbey of; tees river; thames river and valley; thanet, isle of; thegns, king's; thetford; thietmar of merseburg, german chronicler, cited; thingmen, danish mercenaries in england; thor, old northern divinity; thor the dog, norwegian magnate; thora, arne's wife; thorarin praise-tongue, scald; thord, thingman; thoretus, earl in england; thorgils sprakaleg, swedish magnate; thorir, norwegian chief; throndelaw, district in norway; throndhjem; _see_ nidaros thrym, viking; thurbrand, uhtred's banesman; thurgot, danish warrior; thurkil, son of nafena, chief in the danelaw; thurkil mareshead; thurkil nefja; _see_ thurkil, son of nafena thurkil the tall, viking chief, canute's foster father; leads jomvikings in england; chief of the viking mercenaries in england; deserts to canute; fights at penselwood and sherstone; fights at ashington; canute's chief counsellor and viceroy in england; earl of east anglia; marries ethelred's daughter; exiled from england; reconciled to canute; viceroy in denmark; thurkil, grandson of thurkil the tall; thyra, queen of denmark; thyra, queen of norway, canute's aunt; tithing; tjängvide stone, pictured rock; tjotta, isle of; toki, _see_ palna toki tosti, swedish viking; tova, queen of denmark; treene river; trent river; trygve, norwegian pretender; tunsberg, city in norway; tweed river. u uhtred, earl of northumbria; ulf, canute's brother-in-law, one of canute's generals; earl in england; earl in jomburg; viceroy in denmark; treason of; rescues canute at holy river; murder of; character of; ulf, swedish viking; ulfkellsland; ulfketel, earl of east anglia; ulfrun, elgiva's mother; unwan, archbishop of hamburg-bremen; uplands, the, district in norway; uppland, region in sweden; upsala, swedish sanctuary at; v vandals; varangians, scandinavian guard at byzantium; vercelli book, the; viborg, danish sanctuary at; vikings, the; vineland; vistula river; volsungs, the, saga heroes; voluspá; _see_ sibyl's prophecy w wales; walhalla; wallingford; waltheof, earl of northumbria; wapentake; warwick; waterford; watling street; wayland smith, saga hero; wendland; _see_ slavic lands wessex, expansion of; attacked and plundered by the danes; submits to canute; given to edmund at deerhurst; danegeld levied in; under canute's rule; retains saxon character; supports claims of harthacanute; westminster; wexford; wick, the, district in norway; wicklow; widukind, of corvey, chronicler, cited; wight, isle of; wiht, wihtland, _see_ witland william, bishop of roeskild; william the conqueror, duke of normandy; william the great, duke of aquitaine; william of jumièges, norman chronicler; william of malmesbury, norman-english historian, cited; wiltshire; wimmer, ludvig, danish runologist, cited; winchester, capital of england; canute's residential city; see of; canute's gifts to monasteries of; scalds at the court of; canute buried in; other mention of; wisby; _witenagemot_; _see_ gemot witigern, slavic prince; witland; woden, old northern divinity; wollin, island and village near the mouth of the oder; worcester, florence of, _see_ florence worcestershire; worsaae, j.j.a., danish antiquarian, cited; writing, runic; wrytsleof, slavic prince; _see_ witigern; wulfstan, archbishop of york; wulfstan, english traveller; wyrtgeorn, _see_ witigern. y yggdrasil, mythical ash tree; york; yule festival, old northern. z zealand, , , , , . early kings of norway. by thomas carlyle transcriber's note: the text has been taken from volume of the "sterling edition" of carlyle's complete works. all footnotes have been collected as endnotes. the pound (currency) symbol has been replaced by the word "pounds". the icelanders, in their long winter, had a great habit of writing; and were, and still are, excellent in penmanship, says dahlmann. it is to this fact, that any little history there is of the norse kings and their old tragedies, crimes and heroisms, is almost all due. the icelanders, it seems, not only made beautiful letters on their paper or parchment, but were laudably observant and desirous of accuracy; and have left us such a collection of narratives (_sagas_, literally "says") as, for quantity and quality, is unexampled among rude nations. snorro sturleson's history of the norse kings is built out of these old sagas; and has in it a great deal of poetic fire, not a little faithful sagacity applied in sifting and adjusting these old sagas; and, in a word, deserves, were it once well edited, furnished with accurate maps, chronological summaries, &c., to be reckoned among the great history-books of the world. it is from these sources, greatly aided by accurate, learned and unwearied dahlmann, [ ] the german professor, that the following rough notes of the early norway kings are hastily thrown together. in histories of england (rapin's excepted) next to nothing has been shown of the many and strong threads of connection between english affairs and norse. chapter i. harald haarfagr. till about the year of grace there were no kings in norway, nothing but numerous jarls,--essentially kinglets, each presiding over a kind of republican or parliamentary little territory; generally striving each to be on some terms of human neighborhood with those about him, but,--in spite of "_fylke things_" (folk things, little parish parliaments), and small combinations of these, which had gradually formed themselves,--often reduced to the unhappy state of quarrel with them. harald haarfagr was the first to put an end to this state of things, and become memorable and profitable to his country by uniting it under one head and making a kingdom of it; which it has continued to be ever since. his father, halfdan the black, had already begun this rough but salutary process,--inspired by the cupidities and instincts, by the faculties and opportunities, which the good genius of this world, beneficent often enough under savage forms, and diligent at all times to diminish anarchy as the world's worst savagery, usually appoints in such cases,--conquest, hard fighting, followed by wise guidance of the conquered;--but it was harald the fairhaired, his son, who conspicuously carried it on and completed it. harald's birth-year, death-year, and chronology in general, are known only by inference and computation; but, by the latest reckoning, he died about the year of our era, a man of eighty-three. the business of conquest lasted harald about twelve years (a.d. - ?), in which he subdued also the vikings of the out-islands, orkneys, shetlands, hebrides, and man. sixty more years were given him to consolidate and regulate what he had conquered, which he did with great judgment, industry and success. his reign altogether is counted to have been of over seventy years. the beginning of his great adventure was of a romantic character.--youthful love for the beautiful gyda, a then glorious and famous young lady of those regions, whom the young harald aspired to marry. gyda answered his embassy and prayer in a distant, lofty manner: "her it would not beseem to wed any jarl or poor creature of that kind; let him do as gorm of denmark, eric of sweden, egbert of england, and others had done,--subdue into peace and regulation the confused, contentious bits of jarls round him, and become a king; then, perhaps, she might think of his proposal: till then, not." harald was struck with this proud answer, which rendered gyda tenfold more desirable to him. he vowed to let his hair grow, never to cut or even to comb it till this feat were done, and the peerless gyda his own. he proceeded accordingly to conquer, in fierce battle, a jarl or two every year, and, at the end of twelve years, had his unkempt (and almost unimaginable) head of hair clipt off,--jarl rognwald (_reginald_) of more, the most valued and valuable of all his subject-jarls, being promoted to this sublime barber function;--after which king harald, with head thoroughly cleaned, and hair grown, or growing again to the luxuriant beauty that had no equal in his day, brought home his gyda, and made her the brightest queen in all the north. he had after her, in succession, or perhaps even simultaneously in some cases, at least six other wives; and by gyda herself one daughter and four sons. harald was not to be considered a strict-living man, and he had a great deal of trouble, as we shall see, with the tumultuous ambition of his sons; but he managed his government, aided by jarl rognwald and others, in a large, quietly potent, and successful manner; and it lasted in this royal form till his death, after sixty years of it. these were the times of norse colonization; proud norsemen flying into other lands, to freer scenes,--to iceland, to the faroe islands, which were hitherto quite vacant (tenanted only by some mournful hermit, irish christian _fakir_, or so); still more copiously to the orkney and shetland isles, the hebrides and other countries where norse squatters and settlers already were. settlement of iceland, we say; settlement of the faroe islands, and, by far the notablest of all, settlement of normandy by rolf the ganger (a.d. ?). [ ] rolf, son of rognwald, [ ] was lord of three little islets far north, near the fjord of folden, called the three vigten islands; but his chief means of living was that of sea robbery; which, or at least rolf's conduct in which, harald did not approve of. in the court of harald, sea-robbery was strictly forbidden as between harald's own countries, but as against foreign countries it continued to be the one profession for a gentleman; thus, i read, harald's own chief son, king eric that afterwards was, had been at sea in such employments ever since his twelfth year. rolf's crime, however, was that in coming home from one of these expeditions, his crew having fallen short of victual, rolf landed with them on the shore of norway, and in his strait, drove in some cattle there (a crime by law) and proceeded to kill and eat; which, in a little while, he heard that king harald was on foot to inquire into and punish; whereupon rolf the ganger speedily got into his ships again, got to the coast of france with his sea-robbers, got infestment by the poor king of france in the fruitful, shaggy desert which is since called normandy, land of the northmen; and there, gradually felling the forests, banking the rivers, tilling the fields, became, during the next two centuries, wilhelmus conquaestor, the man famous to england, and momentous at this day, not to england alone, but to all speakers of the english tongue, now spread from side to side of the world in a wonderful degree. tancred of hauteville and his italian normans, though important too, in italy, are not worth naming in comparison. this is a feracious earth, and the grain of mustard-seed will grow to miraculous extent in some cases. harald's chief helper, counsellor, and lieutenant was the above-mentioned jarl rognwald of more, who had the honor to cut harald's dreadful head of hair. this rognwald was father of turf-einar, who first invented peat in the orkneys, finding the wood all gone there; and is remembered to this day. einar, being come to these islands by king harald's permission, to see what he could do in them,--islands inhabited by what miscellany of picts, scots, norse squatters we do not know,--found the indispensable fuel all wasted. turf-einar too may be regarded as a benefactor to his kind. he was, it appears, a bastard; and got no coddling from his father, who disliked him, partly perhaps, because "he was ugly and blind of an eye,"--got no flattering even on his conquest of the orkneys and invention of peat. here is the parting speech his father made to him on fitting him out with a "long-ship" (ship of war, "dragon-ship," ancient seventy-four), and sending him forth to make a living for himself in the world: "it were best if thou never camest back, for i have small hope that thy people will have honor by thee; thy mother's kin throughout is slavish." harald haarfagr had a good many sons and daughters; the daughters he married mostly to jarls of due merit who were loyal to him; with the sons, as remarked above, he had a great deal of trouble. they were ambitious, stirring fellows, and grudged at their finding so little promotion from a father so kind to his jarls; sea-robbery by no means an adequate career for the sons of a great king, two of them, halfdan haaleg (long-leg), and gudrod ljome (gleam), jealous of the favors won by the great jarl rognwald, surrounded him in his house one night, and burnt him and sixty men to death there. that was the end of rognwald, the invaluable jarl, always true to haarfagr; and distinguished in world history by producing rolf the ganger, author of the norman conquest of england, and turf-einar, who invented peat in the orkneys. whether rolf had left norway at this time there is no chronology to tell me. as to rolf's surname, "ganger," there are various hypotheses; the likeliest, perhaps, that rolf was so weighty a man no horse (small norwegian horses, big ponies rather) could carry him, and that he usually walked, having a mighty stride withal, and great velocity on foot. one of these murderers of jarl rognwald quietly set himself in rognwald's place, the other making for orkney to serve turf-einar in like fashion. turf-einar, taken by surprise, fled to the mainland; but returned, days or perhaps weeks after, ready for battle, fought with halfdan, put his party to flight, and at next morning's light searched the island and slew all the men he found. as to halfdan long-leg himself, in fierce memory of his own murdered father, turf-einar "cut an eagle on his back," that is to say, hewed the ribs from each side of the spine and turned them out like the wings of a spread-eagle: a mode of norse vengeance fashionable at that time in extremely aggravated cases! harald haarfagr, in the mean time, had descended upon the rognwald scene, not in mild mood towards the new jarl there; indignantly dismissed said jarl, and appointed a brother of rognwald (brother, notes dahlmann), though rognwald had left other sons. which done, haarfagr sailed with all speed to the orkneys, there to avenge that cutting of an eagle on the human back on turf-einar's part. turf-einar did not resist; submissively met the angry haarfagr, said he left it all, what had been done, what provocation there had been, to haarfagr's own equity and greatness of mind. magnanimous haarfagr inflicted a fine of sixty marks in gold, which was paid in ready money by turf-einar, and so the matter ended. chapter ii. eric blood-axe and brothers. in such violent courses haarfagr's sons, i know not how many of them, had come to an untimely end; only eric, the accomplished sea-rover, and three others remained to him. among these four sons, rather impatient for property and authority of their own, king harald, in his old days, tried to part his kingdom in some eligible and equitable way, and retire from the constant press of business, now becoming burdensome to him. to each of them he gave a kind of kingdom; eric, his eldest son, to be head king, and the others to be feudatory under him, and pay a certain yearly contribution; an arrangement which did not answer well at all. head-king eric insisted on his tribute; quarrels arose as to the payment, considerable fighting and disturbance, bringing fierce destruction from king eric upon many valiant but too stubborn norse spirits, and among the rest upon all his three brothers, which got him from the norse populations the surname of _blod-axe_, "eric blood-axe," his title in history. one of his brothers he had killed in battle before his old father's life ended; this brother was bjorn, a peaceable, improving, trading economic under-king, whom the others mockingly called "bjorn the chapman." the great-grandson of this bjorn became extremely distinguished by and by as _saint_ olaf. head-king eric seems to have had a violent wife, too. she was thought to have poisoned one of her other brothers-in-law. eric blood-axe had by no means a gentle life of it in this world, trained to sea-robbery on the coasts of england, scotland, ireland and france, since his twelfth year. old king fairhair, at the age of seventy, had another son, to whom was given the name of hakon. his mother was a slave in fairhair's house; slave by ill-luck of war, though nobly enough born. a strange adventure connects this hakon with england and king athelstan, who was then entering upon his great career there. short while after this hakon came into the world, there entered fairhair's palace, one evening as fairhair sat feasting, an english ambassador or messenger, bearing in his hand, as gift from king athelstan, a magnificent sword, with gold hilt and other fine trimmings, to the great harald, king of norway. harald took the sword, drew it, or was half drawing it, admiringly from the scabbard, when the english excellency broke into a scornful laugh, "ha, ha; thou art now the feudatory of my english king; thou hast accepted the sword from him, and art now his man!" (acceptance of a sword in that manner being the symbol of investiture in those days.) harald looked a trifle flurried, it is probable; but held in his wrath, and did no damage to the tricksy englishman. he kept the matter in his mind, however, and next summer little hakon, having got his weaning done,--one of the prettiest, healthiest little creatures,--harald sent him off, under charge of "hauk" (hawk so called), one of his principal, warriors, with order, "take him to england," and instructions what to do with him there. and accordingly, one evening, hauk, with thirty men escorting, strode into athelstan's high dwelling (where situated, how built, whether with logs like harald's, i cannot specifically say), into athelstan's high presence, and silently set the wild little cherub upon athelstan's knee. "what is this?" asked athelstan, looking at the little cherub. "this is king harald's son, whom a serving-maid bore to him, and whom he now gives thee as foster-child!" indignant athelstan drew his sword, as if to do the gift a mischief; but hauk said, "thou hast taken him on thy knee [common symbol of adoption]; thou canst kill him if thou wilt; but thou dost not thereby kill all the sons of harald." athelstan straightway took milder thoughts; brought up, and carefully educated hakon; from whom, and this singular adventure, came, before very long, the first tidings of christianity into norway. harald haarfagr, latterly withdrawn from all kinds of business, died at the age of eighty-three--about a.d. , as is computed; nearly contemporary in death with the first danish king, gorm the old, who had done a corresponding feat in reducing denmark under one head. remarkable old men, these two first kings; and possessed of gifts for bringing chaos a little nearer to the form of cosmos; possessed, in fact, of loyalties to cosmos, that is to say, of authentic virtues in the savage state, such as have been needed in all societies at their incipience in this world; a kind of "virtues" hugely in discredit at present, but not unlikely to be needed again, to the astonishment of careless persons, before all is done! chapter iii. hakon the good. eric blood-axe, whose practical reign is counted to have begun about a.d. , had by this time, or within a year or so of this time, pretty much extinguished all his brother kings, and crushed down recalcitrant spirits, in his violent way; but had naturally become entirely unpopular in norway, and filled it with silent discontent and even rage against him. hakon fairhair's last son, the little foster-child of athelstan in england, who had been baptized and carefully educated, was come to his fourteenth or fifteenth year at his father's death; a very shining youth, as athelstan saw with just pleasure. so soon as the few preliminary preparations had been settled, hakon, furnished with a ship or two by athelstan, suddenly appeared in norway got acknowledged by the peasant thing in trondhjem "the news of which flew over norway, like fire through dried grass," says an old chronicler. so that eric, with his queen gunhild, and seven small children, had to run; no other shift for eric. they went to the orkneys first of all, then to england, and he "got northumberland as earldom," i vaguely hear, from athelstan. but eric soon died, and his queen, with her children, went back to the orkneys in search of refuge or help; to little purpose there or elsewhere. from orkney she went to denmark, where harald blue-tooth took her poor eldest boy as foster-child; but i fear did not very faithfully keep that promise. the danes had been robbing extensively during the late tumults in norway; this the christian hakon, now established there, paid in kind, and the two countries were at war; so that gunhild's little boy was a welcome card in the hand of blue-tooth. hakon proved a brilliant and successful king; regulated many things, public law among others (_gule-thing_ law, _frost-thing_ law: these are little codes of his accepted by their respective things, and had a salutary effect in their time); with prompt dexterity he drove back the blue-tooth foster-son invasions every time they came; and on the whole gained for himself the name of hakon the good. these danish invasions were a frequent source of trouble to him, but his greatest and continual trouble was that of extirpating heathen idolatry from norway, and introducing the christian evangel in its stead. his transcendent anxiety to achieve this salutary enterprise was all along his grand difficulty and stumbling-block; the heathen opposition to it being also rooted and great. bishops and priests from england hakon had, preaching and baptizing what they could, but making only slow progress; much too slow for hakon's zeal. on the other hand, every yule-tide, when the chief heathen were assembled in his own palace on their grand sacrificial festival, there was great pressure put upon hakon, as to sprinkling with horse-blood, drinking yule-beer, eating horse-flesh, and the other distressing rites; the whole of which hakon abhorred, and with all his steadfastness strove to reject utterly. sigurd, jarl of lade (trondhjem), a liberal heathen, not openly a christian, was ever a wise counsellor and conciliator in such affairs; and proved of great help to hakon. once, for example, there having risen at a yule-feast, loud, almost stormful demand that hakon, like a true man and brother, should drink yule-beer with them in their sacred hightide, sigurd persuaded him to comply, for peace's sake, at least, in form. hakon took the cup in his left hand (excellent hot _beer_), and with his right cut the sign of the cross above it, then drank a draught. "yes; but what is this with the king's right hand?" cried the company. "don't you see?" answered shifty sigurd; "he makes the sign of thor's hammer before drinking!" which quenched the matter for the time. horse-flesh, horse-broth, and the horse ingredient generally, hakon all but inexorably declined. by sigurd's pressing exhortation and entreaty, he did once take a kettle of horsebroth by the handle, with a good deal of linen-quilt or towel interposed, and did open his lips for what of steam could insinuate itself. at another time he consented to a particle of horse-liver, intending privately, i guess, to keep it outside the gullet, and smuggle it away without swallowing; but farther than this not even sigurd could persuade him to go. at the things held in regard to this matter hakon's success was always incomplete; now and then it was plain failure, and hakon had to draw back till a better time. here is one specimen of the response he got on such an occasion; curious specimen, withal, of antique parliamentary eloquence from an anti-christian thing. at a thing of all the fylkes of trondhjem, thing held at froste in that region, king hakon, with all the eloquence he had, signified that it was imperatively necessary that all bonders and sub-bonders should become christians, and believe in one god, christ the son of mary; renouncing entirely blood sacrifices and heathen idols; should keep every seventh day holy, abstain from labor that day, and even from food, devoting the day to fasting and sacred meditation. whereupon, by way of universal answer, arose a confused universal murmur of entire dissent. "take away from us our old belief, and also our time for labor!" murmured they in angry astonishment; "how can even the land be got tilled in that way?" "we cannot work if we don't get food," said the hand laborers and slaves. "it lies in king hakon's blood," remarked others; "his father and all his kindred were apt to be stingy about food, though liberal enough with money." at length, one osbjorn (or bear of the asen or gods, what we now call osborne), one osbjorn of medalhusin gulathal, stept forward, and said, in a distinct manner, "we bonders (peasant proprietors) thought, king hakon, when thou heldest thy first thing-day here in trondhjem, and we took thee for our king, and received our hereditary lands from thee again that we had got heaven itself. but now we know not how it is, whether we have won freedom, or whether thou intendest anew to make us slaves, with this wonderful proposal that we should renounce our faith, which our fathers before us have held, and all our ancestors as well, first in the age of burial by burning, and now in that of earth burial; and yet these departed ones were much our superiors, and their faith, too, has brought prosperity to us. thee, at the same time, we have loved so much that we raised thee to manage all the laws of the land, and speak as their voice to us all. and even now it is our will and the vote of all bonders to keep that paction which thou gavest us here on the thing at froste, and to maintain thee as king so long as any of us bonders who are here upon the thing has life left, provided thou, king, wilt go fairly to work, and demand of us only such things as are not impossible. but if thou wilt fix upon this thing with so great obstinacy, and employ force and power, in that case, we bonders have taken the resolution, all of us, to fall away from thee, and to take for ourselves another head, who will so behave that we may enjoy in freedom the belief which is agreeable to us. now shalt thou, king, choose one of these two courses before the thing disperse." "whereupon," adds the chronicle, "all the bonders raised a mighty shout, 'yes, we will have it so, as has been said.'" so that jarl sigurd had to intervene, and king hakon to choose for the moment the milder branch of the alternative. [ ] at other things hakon was more or less successful. all his days, by such methods as there were, he kept pressing forward with this great enterprise; and on the whole did thoroughly shake asunder the old edifice of heathendom, and fairly introduce some foundation for the new and better rule of faith and life among his people. sigurd, jarl of lade, his wise counsellor in all these matters, is also a man worthy of notice. hakon's arrangements against the continual invasions of eric's sons, with danish blue-tooth backing them, were manifold, and for a long time successful. he appointed, after consultation and consent in the various things, so many war-ships, fully manned and ready, to be furnished instantly on the king's demand by each province or fjord; watch-fires, on fit places, from hill to hill all along the coast, were to be carefully set up, carefully maintained in readiness, and kindled on any alarm of war. by such methods blue-tooth and co.'s invasions were for a long while triumphantly, and even rapidly, one and all of them, beaten back, till at length they seemed as if intending to cease altogether, and leave hakon alone of them. but such was not their issue after all. the sons of eric had only abated under constant discouragement, had not finally left off from what seemed their one great feasibility in life. gunhild, their mother, was still with them: a most contriving, fierce-minded, irreconcilable woman, diligent and urgent on them, in season and out of season; and as for king blue-tooth, he was at all times ready to help, with his good-will at least. that of the alarm-fires on hakon's part was found troublesome by his people; sometimes it was even hurtful and provoking (lighting your alarm-fires and rousing the whole coast and population, when it was nothing but some paltry viking with a couple of ships); in short, the alarm-signal system fell into disuse, and good king hakon himself, in the first place, paid the penalty. it is counted, by the latest commentators, to have been about a.d. , sixteenth or seventeenth year of hakon's pious, valiant, and worthy reign. being at a feast one day, with many guests, on the island of stord, sudden announcement came to him that ships from the south were approaching in quantity, and evidently ships of war. this was the biggest of all the blue-tooth foster-son invasions; and it was fatal to hakon the good that night. eyvind the skaldaspillir (annihilator of all other skalds), in his famed _hakon's song_, gives account, and, still more pertinently, the always practical snorro. danes in great multitude, six to one, as people afterwards computed, springing swiftly to land, and ranking themselves; hakon, nevertheless, at once deciding not to take to his ships and run, but to fight there, one to six; fighting, accordingly, in his most splendid manner, and at last gloriously prevailing; routing and scattering back to their ships and flight homeward these six-to-one danes. "during the struggle of the fight," says snorro, "he was very conspicuous among other men; and while the sun shone, his bright gilded helmet glanced, and thereby many weapons were directed at him. one of his henchmen, eyvind finnson (_i.e._ skaldaspillir, the poet), took a hat, and put it over the king's helmet. now, among the hostile first leaders were two uncles of the ericsons, brothers of gunhild, great champions both; skreya, the elder of them, on the disappearance of the glittering helmet, shouted boastfully, 'does the king of the norsemen hide himself, then, or has he fled? where now is the golden helmet?' and so saying, skreya, and his brother alf with him, pushed on like fools or madmen. the king said, 'come on in that way, and you shall find the king of the norsemen.'" and in a short space of time braggart skreya did come up, swinging his sword, and made a cut at the king; but thoralf the strong, an icelander, who fought at the king's side, dashed his shield so hard against skreya, that he tottered with the shock. on the same instant the king takes his sword "quernbiter" (able to cut _querns_ or millstones) with both hands, and hews skreya through helm and head, cleaving him down to the shoulders. thoralf also slew alf. that was what they got by such over-hasty search for the king of the norsemen. [ ] snorro considers the fall of these two champion uncles as the crisis of the fight; the danish force being much disheartened by such a sight, and king hakon now pressing on so hard that all men gave way before him, the battle on the ericson part became a whirl of recoil; and in a few minutes more a torrent of mere flight and haste to get on board their ships, and put to sea again; in which operation many of them were drowned, says snorro; survivors making instant sail for denmark in that sad condition. this seems to have been king hakon's finest battle, and the most conspicuous of his victories, due not a little to his own grand qualities shown on the occasion. but, alas! it was his last also. he was still zealously directing the chase of that mad danish flight, or whirl of recoil towards their ships, when an arrow, shot most likely at a venture, hit him under the left armpit; and this proved his death. he was helped into his ship, and made sail for alrekstad, where his chief residence in those parts was; but had to stop at a smaller place of his (which had been his mother's, and where he himself was born)--a place called hella (the flat rock), still known as "hakon's hella," faint from loss of blood, and crushed down as he had never before felt. having no son and only one daughter, he appointed these invasive sons of eric to be sent for, and if he died to become king; but to "spare his friends and kindred." "if a longer life be granted me," he said, "i will go out of this land to christian men, and do penance for what i have committed against god. but if i die in the country of the heathen, let me have such burial as you yourselves think fittest." these are his last recorded words. and in heathen fashion he was buried, and besung by eyvind and the skalds, though himself a zealously christian king. hakon the _good_; so one still finds him worthy of being called. the sorrow on hakon's death, snorro tells us, was so great and universal, "that he was lamented both by friends and enemies; and they said that never again would norway see such a king." chapter iv. harald greyfell and brothers. eric's sons, four or five of them, with a harald at the top, now at once got norway in hand, all of it but trondhjem, as king and under-kings; and made a severe time of it for those who had been, or seemed to be, their enemies. excellent jarl sigurd, always so useful to hakon and his country, was killed by them; and they came to repent that before very long. the slain sigurd left a son, hakon, as jarl, who became famous in the northern world by and by. this hakon, and him only, would the trondhjemers accept as sovereign. "death to him, then," said the sons of eric, but only in secret, till they had got their hands free and were ready; which was not yet for some years. nay, hakon, when actually attacked, made good resistance, and threatened to cause trouble. nor did he by any means get his death from these sons of eric at this time, or till long afterwards at all, from one of their kin, as it chanced. on the contrary, he fled to denmark now, and by and by managed to come back, to their cost. among their other chief victims were two cousins of their own, tryggve and gudrod, who had been honest under-kings to the late head-king, hakon the good; but were now become suspect, and had to fight for their lives, and lose them in a tragic manner. tryggve had a son, whom we shall hear of. gudrod, son of worthy bjorn the chapman, was grandfather of saint olaf, whom all men have heard of,--who has a church in southwark even, and another in old jewry, to this hour. in all these violences, gunhild, widow of the late king eric, was understood to have a principal hand. she had come back to norway with her sons; and naturally passed for the secret adviser and maternal president in whatever of violence went on; always reckoned a fell, vehement, relentless personage where her own interests were concerned. probably as things settled, her influence on affairs grew less. at least one hopes so; and, in the sagas, hears less and less of her, and before long nothing. harald, the head-king in this eric fraternity, does not seem to have been a bad man,--the contrary indeed; but his position was untowardly, full of difficulty and contradictions. whatever harald could accomplish for behoof of christianity, or real benefit to norway, in these cross circumstances, he seems to have done in a modest and honest manner. he got the name of _greyfell_ from his people on a very trivial account, but seemingly with perfect good humor on their part. some iceland trader had brought a cargo of furs to trondhjem (lade) for sale; sale being slacker than the icelander wished, he presented a chosen specimen, cloak, doublet, or whatever it was, to harald; who wore it with acceptance in public, and rapidly brought disposal of the icelander's stock, and the surname of _greyfell_ to himself. his under-kings and he were certainly not popular, though i almost think greyfell himself, in absence of his mother and the under-kings, might have been so. but here they all were, and had wrought great trouble in norway. "too many of them," said everybody; "too many of these courts and court people, eating up any substance that there is." for the seasons withal, two or three of them in succession, were bad for grass, much more for grain; no _herring_ came either; very cleanness of teeth was like to come in eyvind skaldaspillir's opinion. this scarcity became at last their share of the great famine of a.d. , which desolated western europe (see the poem in the saxon chronicle). and all this by eyvind skaldaspillir, and the heathen norse in general, was ascribed to anger of the heathen gods. discontent in norway, and especially in eyvind skaldaspillir, seems to have been very great. whereupon exile hakon, jarl sigurd's son, bestirs himself in denmark, backed by old king blue-tooth, and begins invading and encroaching in a miscellaneous way; especially intriguing and contriving plots all round him. an unfathomably cunning kind of fellow, as well as an audacious and strong-handed! intriguing in trondhjem, where he gets the under-king, greyfell's brother, fallen upon and murdered; intriguing with gold harald, a distinguished cousin or nephew of king blue-tooth's, who had done fine viking work, and gained, such wealth that he got the epithet of "gold," and who now was infinitely desirous of a share in blue-tooth's kingdom as the proper finish to these sea-rovings. he even ventured one day to make publicly a distinct proposal that way to king harald blue-tooth himself; who flew into thunder and lightning at the mere mention of it; so that none durst speak to him for several days afterwards. of both these haralds hakon was confidential friend; and needed all his skill to walk without immediate annihilation between such a pair of dragons, and work out norway for himself withal. in the end he found he must take solidly to blue-tooth's side of the question; and that they two must provide a recipe for gold harald and norway both at once. "it is as much as your life is worth to speak again of sharing this danish kingdom," said hakon very privately to gold harald; "but could not you, my golden friend, be content with norway for a kingdom, if one helped you to it?" "that could i well," answered harald. "then keep me those nine war-ships you have just been rigging for a new viking cruise; have these in readiness when i lift my finger!" that was the recipe contrived for gold harald; recipe for king greyfell goes into the same vial, and is also ready. hitherto the hakon-blue-tooth disturbances in norway had amounted to but little. king greyfell, a very active and valiant man, has constantly, without much difficulty, repelled these sporadic bits of troubles; but greyfell, all the same, would willingly have peace with dangerous old blue-tooth (ever anxious to get his clutches over norway on any terms) if peace with him could be had. blue-tooth, too, professes every willingness; inveigles greyfell, he and hakon do; to have a friendly meeting on the danish borders, and not only settle all these quarrels, but generously settle greyfell in certain fiefs which he claimed in denmark itself; and so swear everlasting friendship. greyfell joyfully complies, punctually appears at the appointed day in lymfjord sound, the appointed place. whereupon hakon gives signal to gold harald, "to lymfjord with these nine ships of yours, swift!" gold harald flies to lymfjord with his ships, challenges king harald greyfell to land and fight; which the undaunted greyfell, though so far outnumbered, does; and, fighting his very best, perishes there, he and almost all his people. which done, jarl hakon, who is in readiness, attacks gold harald, the victorious but the wearied; easily beats gold harald, takes him prisoner, and instantly hangs and ends him, to the huge joy of king blue-tooth and hakon; who now make instant voyage to norway; drive all the brother under-kings into rapid flight to the orkneys, to any readiest shelter; and so, under the patronage of blue-tooth, hakon, with the title of jarl, becomes ruler of norway. this foul treachery done on the brave and honest harald greyfell is by some dated about a.d. , by munch, , by others, computing out of snorro only, a.d. . for there is always an uncertainty in these icelandic dates (say rather, rare and rude attempts at dating, without even an "a.d." or other fixed "year one" to go upon in iceland), though seldom, i think, so large a discrepancy as here. chapter v. hakon jarl. hakon jarl, such the style he took, had engaged to pay some kind of tribute to king blue-tooth, "if he could;" but he never did pay any, pleading always the necessity of his own affairs; with which excuse, joined to hakon's readiness in things less important, king blue-tooth managed to content himself, hakon being always his good neighbor, at least, and the two mutually dependent. in norway, hakon, without the title of king, did in a strong-handed, steadfast, and at length, successful way, the office of one; governed norway (some count) for above twenty years; and, both at home and abroad, had much consideration through most of that time; specially amongst the heathen orthodox, for hakon jarl himself was a zealous heathen, fixed in his mind against these chimerical christian innovations and unsalutary changes of creed, and would have gladly trampled out all traces of what the last two kings (for greyfell, also, was an english christian after his sort) had done in this respect. but he wisely discerned that it was not possible, and that, for peace's sake, he must not even attempt it, but must strike preferably into "perfect toleration," and that of "every one getting to heaven or even to the other goal in his own way." he himself, it is well known, repaired many heathen temples (a great "church builder" in his way!), manufactured many splendid idols, with much gilding and such artistic ornament as there was,--in particular, one huge image of thor, not forgetting the hammer and appendages, and such a collar (supposed of solid gold, which it was not quite, as we shall hear in time) round the neck of him as was never seen in all the north. how he did his own yule festivals, with what magnificent solemnity, the horse-eatings, blood-sprinklings, and other sacred rites, need not be told. something of a "ritualist," one may perceive; perhaps had scandinavian puseyisms in him, and other desperate heathen notions. he was universally believed to have gone into magic, for one thing, and to have dangerous potencies derived from the devil himself. the dark heathen mind of him struggling vehemently in that strange element, not altogether so unlike our own in some points. for the rest, he was evidently, in practical matters, a man of sharp, clear insight, of steadfast resolution, diligence, promptitude; and managed his secular matters uncommonly well. had sixteen jarls under him, though himself only hakon jarl by title; and got obedience from them stricter than any king since haarfagr had done. add to which that the country had years excellent for grass and crop, and that the herrings came in exuberance; tokens, to the thinking mind, that hakon jarl was a favorite of heaven. his fight with the far-famed jomsvikings was his grandest exploit in public rumor. jomsburg, a locality not now known, except that it was near the mouth of the river oder, denoted in those ages the impregnable castle of a certain hotly corporate, or "sea robbery association (limited)," which, for some generations, held the baltic in terror, and plundered far beyond the belt,--in the ocean itself, in flanders and the opulent trading havens there,--above all, in opulent anarchic england, which, for forty years from about this time, was the pirates' goshen; and yielded, regularly every summer, slaves, danegelt, and miscellaneous plunder, like no other country jomsburg or the viking-world had ever known. palnatoke, bue, and the other quasi-heroic heads of this establishment are still remembered in the northern parts. _palnatoke_ is the title of a tragedy by oehlenschlager, which had its run of immortality in copenhagen some sixty or seventy years ago. i judge the institution to have been in its floweriest state, probably now in hakon jarl's time. hakon jarl and these pirates, robbing hakon's subjects and merchants that frequented him, were naturally in quarrel; and frequent fightings had fallen out, not generally to the profit of the jomsburgers, who at last determined on revenge, and the rooting out of this obstructive hakon jarl. they assembled in force at the cape of stad,--in the firda fylke; and the fight was dreadful in the extreme, noise of it filling all the north for long afterwards. hakon, fighting like a lion, could scarcely hold his own,--death or victory, the word on both sides; when suddenly, the heavens grew black, and there broke out a terrific storm of thunder and hail, appalling to the human mind,--universe swallowed wholly in black night; only the momentary forked-blazes, the thunder-pealing as of ragnarok, and the battering hail-torrents, hailstones about the size of an egg. thor with his hammer evidently acting; but in behalf of whom? the jomsburgers in the hideous darkness, broken only by flashing thunder-bolts, had a dismal apprehension that it was probably not on their behalf (thor having a sense of justice in him); and before the storm ended, thirty-five of their seventy ships sheered away, leaving gallant bue, with the other thirty-five, to follow as they liked, who reproachfully hailed these fugitives, and continued the now hopeless battle. bue's nose and lips were smashed or cut away; bue managed, half-articulately, to exclaim, "ha! the maids ('mays') of funen will never kiss me more. overboard, all ye bue's men!" and taking his two sea-chests, with all the gold he had gained in such life-struggle from of old, sprang overboard accordingly, and finished the affair. hakon jarl's renown rose naturally to the transcendent pitch after this exploit. his people, i suppose chiefly the christian part of them, whispered one to another, with a shudder, "that in the blackest of the thunder-storm, he had taken his youngest little boy, and made away with him; sacrificed him to thor or some devil, and gained his victory by art-magic, or something worse." jarl eric, hakon's eldest son, without suspicion of art-magic, but already a distinguished viking, became thrice distinguished by his style of sea-fighting in this battle; and awakened great expectations in the viking public; of him we shall hear again. the jomsburgers, one might fancy, after this sad clap went visibly down in the world; but the fact is not altogether so. old king blue-tooth was now dead, died of a wound got in battle with his unnatural (so-called "natural") son and successor, otto svein of the forked beard, afterwards king and conqueror of england for a little while; and seldom, perhaps never, had vikingism been in such flower as now. this man's name is sven in swedish, svend in german, and means boy or lad,--the english "swain." it was at old "father bluetooth's funeral-ale" (drunken burial-feast), that svein, carousing with his jomsburg chiefs and other choice spirits, generally of the robber class, all risen into height of highest robber enthusiasm, pledged the vow to one another; svein that he would conquer england (which, in a sense, he, after long struggling, did); and the jomsburgers that they would ruin and root out hakon jarl (which, as we have just seen, they could by no means do), and other guests other foolish things which proved equally unfeasible. sea-robber volunteers so especially abounding in that time, one perceives how easily the jomsburgers could recruit themselves, build or refit new robber fleets, man them with the pick of crews, and steer for opulent, fruitful england; where, under ethelred the unready, was such a field for profitable enterprise as the viking public never had before or since. an idle question sometimes rises on me,--idle enough, for it never can be answered in the affirmative or the negative, whether it was not these same refitted jomsburgers who appeared some while after this at red head point, on the shore of angus, and sustained a new severe beating, in what the scotch still faintly remember as their "battle of loncarty"? beyond doubt a powerful norse-pirate armament dropt anchor at the red head, to the alarm of peaceable mortals, about that time. it was thought and hoped to be on its way for england, but it visibly hung on for several days, deliberating (as was thought) whether they would do this poorer coast the honor to land on it before going farther. did land, and vigorously plunder and burn south-westward as far as perth; laid siege to perth; but brought out king kenneth on them, and produced that "battle of loncarty" which still dwells in vague memory among the scots. perhaps it might be the jomsburgers; perhaps also not; for there were many pirate associations, lasting not from century to century like the jomsburgers, but only for very limited periods, or from year to year; indeed, it was mainly by such that the splendid thief-harvest of england was reaped in this disastrous time. no scottish chronicler gives the least of exact date to their famed victory of loncarty, only that it was achieved by kenneth iii., which will mean some time between a.d. and ; and, by the order they put it in, probably soon after a.d. , or the beginning of this kenneth's reign. buchanan's narrative, carefully distilled from all the ancient scottish sources, is of admirable quality for style and otherwise quiet, brief, with perfect clearness, perfect credibility even, except that semi-miraculous appendage of the ploughmen, hay and sons, always hanging to the tail of it; the grain of possible truth in which can now never be extracted by man's art! [ ] in brief, what we know is, fragments of ancient human bones and armor have occasionally been ploughed up in this locality, proof positive of ancient fighting here; and the fight fell out not long after hakon's beating of the jomsburgers at the cape of stad. and in such dim glimmer of wavering twilight, the question whether these of loncarty were refitted jomsburgers or not, must be left hanging. loncarty is now the biggest bleach-field in queen victoria's dominions; no village or hamlet there, only the huge bleaching-house and a beautiful field, some six or seven miles northwest of perth, bordered by the beautiful tay river on the one side, and by its beautiful tributary almond on the other; a loncarty fitted either for bleaching linen, or for a bit of fair duel between nations, in those simple times. whether our refitted jomsburgers had the least thing to do with it is only matter of fancy, but if it were they who here again got a good beating, fancy would be glad to find herself fact. the old piratical kings of denmark had been at the founding of jomsburg, and to svein of the forked beard it was still vitally important, but not so to the great knut, or any king that followed; all of whom had better business than mere thieving; and it was magnus the good, of norway, a man of still higher anti-anarchic qualities, that annihilated it, about a century later. hakon jarl, his chief labors in the world being over, is said to have become very dissolute in his elder days, especially in the matter of women; the wretched old fool, led away by idleness and fulness of bread, which to all of us are well said to be the parents of mischief. having absolute power, he got into the habit of openly plundering men's pretty daughters and wives from them, and, after a few weeks, sending them back; greatly to the rage of the fierce norse heart, had there been any means of resisting or revenging. it did, after a little while, prove the ruin and destruction of hakon the rich, as he was then called. it opened the door, namely, for entry of olaf tryggveson upon the scene,--a very much grander man; in regard to whom the wiles and traps of hakon proved to be a recipe, not on tryggveson, but on the wily hakon himself, as shall now be seen straightway. chapter vi. olaf tryggveson. hakon, in late times, had heard of a famous stirring person, victorious in various lands and seas, latterly united in sea-robbery with svein, prince royal of denmark, afterwards king svein of the double-beard ("_zvae skiaeg_", _twa shag_) or fork-beard, both of whom had already done transcendent feats in the viking way during this copartnery. the fame of svein, and this stirring personage, whose name was "ole," and, recently, their stupendous feats in plunder of england, siege of london, and other wonders and splendors of viking glory and success, had gone over all the north, awakening the attention of hakon and everybody there. the name of "ole" was enigmatic, mysterious, and even dangerous-looking to hakon jarl; who at length sent out a confidential spy to investigate this "ole;" a feat which the confidential spy did completely accomplish,--by no means to hakon's profit! the mysterious "ole" proved to be no other than olaf, son of tryggve, destined to blow hakon jarl suddenly into destruction, and become famous among the heroes of the norse world. of olaf tryggveson one always hopes there might, one day, some real outline of a biography be written; fished from the abysses where (as usual) it welters deep in foul neighborhood for the present. farther on we intend a few words more upon the matter. but in this place all that concerns us in it limits itself to the two following facts first, that hakon's confidential spy "found ole in dublin;" picked acquaintance with him, got him to confess that he was actually olaf, son of tryggve (the tryggve, whom blood-axe's fierce widow and her sons had murdered); got him gradually to own that perhaps an expedition into norway might have its chances; and finally that, under such a wise and loyal guidance as his (the confidential spy's, whose friendship for tryggveson was so indubitable), he (tryggveson) would actually try it upon hakon jarl, the dissolute old scoundrel. fact second is, that about the time they two set sail from dublin on their norway expedition, hakon jarl removed to trondhjem, then called lade; intending to pass some months there. now just about the time when tryggveson, spy, and party had landed in norway, and were advancing upon lade, with what support from the public could be got, dissolute old hakon jarl had heard of one gudrun, a bonder's wife, unparalleled in beauty, who was called in those parts, "sunbeam of the grove" (so inexpressibly lovely); and sent off a couple of thralls to bring her to him. "never," answered gudrun; "never," her indignant husband; in a tone dangerous and displeasing to these court thralls; who had to leave rapidly, but threatened to return in better strength before long. whereupon, instantly, the indignant bonder and his sunbeam of the grove sent out their war-arrow, rousing all the country into angry promptitude, and more than one perhaps into greedy hope of revenge for their own injuries. the rest of hakon's history now rushes on with extreme rapidity. sunbeam of the grove, when next demanded of her bonder, has the whole neighborhood assembled in arms round her; rumor of tryggveson is fast making it the whole country. hakon's insolent messengers are cut in pieces; hakon finds he cannot fly under cover too soon. with a single slave he flies that same night;--but whitherward? can think of no safe place, except to some old mistress of his, who lives retired in that neighborhood, and has some pity or regard for the wicked old hakon. old mistress does receive him, pities him, will do all she can to protect and hide him. but how, by what uttermost stretch of female artifice hide him here; every one will search here first of all! old mistress, by the slave's help, extemporizes a cellar under the floor of her pig-house; sticks hakon and slave into that, as the one safe seclusion she can contrive. hakon and slave, begrunted by the pigs above them, tortured by the devils within and about them, passed two days in circumstances more and more horrible. for they heard, through their light-slit and breathing-slit, the triumph of tryggveson proclaiming itself by tryggveson's own lips, who had mounted a big boulder near by and was victoriously speaking to the people, winding up with a promise of honors and rewards to whoever should bring him wicked old hakon's head. wretched hakon, justly suspecting his slave, tried to at least keep himself awake. slave did keep himself awake till hakon dozed or slept, then swiftly cut off hakon's head, and plunged out with it to the presence of tryggveson. tryggveson, detesting the traitor, useful as the treachery was, cut off the slave's head too, had it hung up along with hakon's on the pinnacle of the lade gallows, where the populace pelted both heads with stones and many curses, especially the more important of the two. "hakon the bad" ever henceforth, instead of hakon the rich. this was the end of hakon jarl, the last support of heathenry in norway, among other characteristics he had: a stronghanded, hard-headed, very relentless, greedy and wicked being. he is reckoned to have ruled in norway, or mainly ruled, either in the struggling or triumphant state, for about thirty years ( - ?). he and his seemed to have formed, by chance rather than design, the chief opposition which the haarfagr posterity throughout its whole course experienced in norway. such the cost to them of killing good jarl sigurd, in greyfell's time! for "curses, like chickens," do sometimes visibly "come home to feed," as they always, either visibly or else invisibly, are punctually sure to do. hakon jarl is considerably connected with the _faroer saga_ often mentioned there, and comes out perfectly in character; an altogether worldly-wise man of the roughest type, not without a turn for practicality of kindness to those who would really be of use to him. his tendencies to magic also are not forgotten. hakon left two sons, eric and svein, often also mentioned in this saga. on their father's death they fled to sweden, to denmark, and were busy stirring up troubles in those countries against olaf tryggveson; till at length, by a favorable combination, under their auspices chiefly, they got his brief and noble reign put an end to. nay, furthermore, jarl eric left sons, especially an elder son, named also eric, who proved a sore affliction, and a continual stone of stumbling to a new generation of haarfagrs, and so continued the curse of sigurd's murder upon them. towards the end of this hakon's reign it was that the discovery of america took place ( ). actual discovery, it appears, by eric the red, an icelander; concerning which there has been abundant investigation and discussion in our time. _ginnungagap_ (roaring abyss) is thought to be the mouth of behring's straits in baffin's bay; _big helloland_, the coast from cape walsingham to near newfoundland; _little helloland_, newfoundland itself. _markland_ was lower canada, new brunswick, and nova scotia. southward thence to chesapeake bay was called _wine land_ (wild grapes still grow in rhode island, and more luxuriantly further south). _white man's land_, called also _great ireland_, is supposed to mean the two carolinas, down to the southern cape of florida. in dahlmann's opinion, the irish themselves might even pretend to have probably been the first discoverers of america; they had evidently got to iceland itself before the norse exiles found it out. it appears to be certain that, from the end of the tenth century to the early part of the fourteenth, there was a dim knowledge of those distant shores extant in the norse mind, and even some straggling series of visits thither by roving norsemen; though, as only danger, difficulty, and no profit resulted, the visits ceased, and the whole matter sank into oblivion, and, but for the icelandic talent of writing in the long winter nights, would never have been heard of by posterity at all. chapter vii. reign of olaf tryggveson. olaf tryggveson (a.d. - ) also makes a great figure in the _faroer saga_, and recounts there his early troubles, which were strange and many. he is still reckoned a grand hero of the north, though his _vates_ now is only snorro sturleson of iceland. tryggveson had indeed many adventures in the world. his poor mother, astrid, was obliged to fly, on murder of her husband by gunhild,--to fly for life, three months before he, her little olaf, was born. she lay concealed in reedy islands, fled through trackless forests; reached her father's with the little baby in her arms, and lay deep-hidden there, tended only by her father himself; gunhild's pursuit being so incessant, and keen as with sleuth-hounds. poor astrid had to fly again, deviously to sweden, to esthland (esthonia), to russia. in esthland she was sold as a slave, quite parted from her boy,--who also was sold, and again sold; but did at last fall in with a kinsman high in the russian service; did from him find redemption and help, and so rose, in a distinguished manner, to manhood, victorious self-help, and recovery of his kingdom at last. he even met his mother again, he as king of norway, she as one wonderfully lifted out of darkness into new life and happiness still in store. grown to manhood, tryggveson,--now become acquainted with his birth, and with his, alas, hopeless claims,--left russia for the one profession open to him, that of sea-robbery; and did feats without number in that questionable line in many seas and scenes,--in england latterly, and most conspicuously of all. in one of his courses thither, after long labors in the hebrides, man, wales, and down the western shores to the very land's end and farther, he paused at the scilly islands for a little while. he was told of a wonderful christian hermit living strangely in these sea-solitudes; had the curiosity to seek him out, examine, question, and discourse with him; and, after some reflection, accepted christian baptism from the venerable man. in snorro the story is involved in miracle, rumor, and fable; but the fact itself seems certain, and is very interesting; the great, wild, noble soul of fierce olaf opening to this wonderful gospel of tidings from beyond the world, tidings which infinitely transcended all else he had ever heard or dreamt of! it seems certain he was baptized here; date not fixable; shortly before poor heart-broken dunstan's death, or shortly after; most english churches, monasteries especially, lying burnt, under continual visitation of the danes. olaf such baptism notwithstanding, did not quit his viking profession; indeed, what other was there for him in the world as yet? we mentioned his occasional copartneries with svein of the double-beard, now become king of denmark, but the greatest of these, and the alone interesting at this time, is their joint invasion of england, and tryggveson's exploits and fortunes there some years after that adventure of baptism in the scilly isles. svein and he "were above a year in england together," this time: they steered up the thames with three hundred ships and many fighters; siege, or at least furious assault, of london was their first or main enterprise, but it did not succeed. the saxon chronicle gives date to it, a.d. , and names expressly, as svein's co-partner, "olaus, king of norway,"--which he was as yet far from being; but in regard to the year of grace the saxon chronicle is to be held indisputable, and, indeed, has the field to itself in this matter. famed olaf tryggveson, seen visibly at the siege of london, year , it throws a kind of momentary light to us over that disastrous whirlpool of miseries and confusions, all dark and painful to the fancy otherwise! this big voyage and furious siege of london is svein double-beard's first real attempt to fulfil that vow of his at father blue-tooth's "funeral ale," and conquer england,--which it is a pity he could not yet do. had london now fallen to him, it is pretty evident all england must have followed, and poor england, with svein as king over it, been delivered from immeasurable woes, which had to last some two-and-twenty years farther, before this result could be arrived at. but finding london impregnable for the moment (no ship able to get athwart the bridge, and many danes perishing in the attempt to do it by swimming), svein and olaf turned to other enterprises; all england in a manner lying open to them, turn which way they liked. they burnt and plundered over kent, over hampshire, sussex; they stormed far and wide; world lying all before them where to choose. wretched ethelred, as the one invention he could fall upon, offered them danegelt ( , pounds of silver this year, but it rose in other years as high as , pounds); the desperate ethelred, a clear method of quenching fire by pouring oil on it! svein and olaf accepted; withdrew to southampton,--olaf at least did,--till the money was got ready. strange to think of, fierce svein of the double-beard, and conquest of england by him; this had at last become the one salutary result which remained for that distracted, down-trodden, now utterly chaotic and anarchic country. a conquering svein, followed by an ably and earnestly administrative, as well as conquering, knut (whom dahlmann compares to charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious destinies appointed the effective saviors of england. tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at southampton; and roamed extensively about, easily victorious over everything, if resistance were attempted, but finding little or none; and acting now in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. in the southampton country he came in contact with the then bishop of winchester, afterwards archbishop of canterbury, excellent elphegus, still dimly decipherable to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn veracity; a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with olaf's own. he even made court visits to king ethelred; one visit to him at andover of a very serious nature. by elphegus, as we can discover, he was introduced into the real depths of the christian faith. elphegus, with due solemnity of apparatus, in presence of the king, at andover, baptized olaf anew, and to him olaf engaged that he would never plunder in england any more; which promise, too, he kept. in fact, not long after, svein's conquest of england being in an evidently forward state, tryggveson (having made, withal, a great english or irish marriage,--a dowager princess, who had voluntarily fallen in love with him,--see snorro for this fine romantic fact!) mainly resided in our island for two or three years, or else in dublin, in the precincts of the danish court there in the sister isle. accordingly it was in dublin, as above noted, that hakon's spy found him; and from the liffey that his squadron sailed, through the hebrides, through the orkneys, plundering and baptizing in their strange way, towards such success as we have seen. tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, victorious and glorious struggle for himself as king. daily and hourly vigilant to do so, often enough by soft and even merry methods, for he was a witty, jocund man, and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear pregnant words ever ready,--or if soft methods would not serve, then by hard and even hardest he put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in norway; was especially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its rites): this, indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all his royal endeavor in norway, and of all the troubles he now had with his people there. for this was a serious, vital, all-comprehending matter; devil-worship, a thing not to be tolerated one moment longer than you could by any method help! olaf's success was intermittent, of varying complexion; but his effort, swift or slow, was strong and continual; and on the whole he did succeed. take a sample or two of that wonderful conversion process:-- at one of his first things he found the bonders all assembled in arms; resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him. tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "what your reasons are, good men?" one zealous bonder started up in passionate parliamentary eloquence; but after a sentence or two, broke down; one, and then another, and still another, and remained all three staring in open-mouthed silence there! the peasant-proprietors accepted the phenomenon as ludicrous, perhaps partly as miraculous withal, and consented to baptism this time. on another occasion of a thing, which had assembled near some heathen temple to meet him,--temple where hakon jarl had done much repairing, and set up many idol figures and sumptuous ornaments, regardless of expense, especially a very big and splendid thor, with massive gold collar round the neck of him, not the like of it in norway,--king olaf tryggveson was clamorously invited by the bonders to step in there, enlighten his eyes, and partake of the sacred rites. instead of which he rushed into the temple with his armed men; smashed down, with his own battle-axe, the god thor, prostrate on the ground at one stroke, to set an example; and, in a few minutes, had the whole hakon pantheon wrecked; packing up meanwhile all the gold and preciosities accumulated there (not forgetting thor's illustrious gold collar, of which we shall hear again), and victoriously took the plunder home with him for his own royal uses and behoof of the state. in other cases, though a friend to strong measures, he had to hold in, and await the favorable moment. thus once, in beginning a parliamentary address, so soon as he came to touch upon christianity, the bonders rose in murmurs, in vociferations and jingling of arms, which quite drowned the royal voice; declared, they had taken arms against king hakon the good to compel him to desist from his christian proposals; and they did not think king olaf a higher man than him (hakon the good). the king then said, "he purposed coming to them next yule to their great sacrificial feast, to see for himself what their customs were," which pacified the bonders for this time. the appointed place of meeting was again a hakon-jarl temple, not yet done to ruin; chief shrine in those trondhjem parts, i believe: there should tryggveson appear at yule. well, but before yule came, tryggveson made a great banquet in his palace at trondhjem, and invited far and wide, all manner of important persons out of the district as guests there. banquet hardly done, tryggveson gave some slight signal, upon which armed men strode in, seized eleven of these principal persons, and the king said: "since he himself was to become a heathen again, and do sacrifice, it was his purpose to do it in the highest form, namely, that of human sacrifice; and this time not of slaves and malefactors, but of the best men in the country!" in which stringent circumstances the eleven seized persons, and company at large, gave unanimous consent to baptism; straightway received the same, and abjured their idols; but were not permitted to go home till they had left, in sons, brothers, and other precious relatives, sufficient hostages in the king's hands. by unwearied industry of this and better kinds, tryggveson had trampled down idolatry, so far as form went,--how far in substance may be greatly doubted. but it is to be remembered withal, that always on the back of these compulsory adventures there followed english bishops, priests and preachers; whereby to the open-minded, conviction, to all degrees of it, was attainable, while silence and passivity became the duty or necessity of the unconvinced party. in about two years norway was all gone over with a rough harrow of conversion. heathenism at least constrained to be silent and outwardly conformable. tryggveson, next turned his attention to iceland, sent one thangbrand, priest from saxony, of wonderful qualities, military as well as theological, to try and convert iceland. thangbrand made a few converts; for olaf had already many estimable iceland friends, whom he liked much, and was much liked by; and conversion was the ready road to his favor. thangbrand, i find, lodged with hall of sida (familiar acquaintance of "burnt njal," whose saga has its admirers among us even now). thangbrand converted hall and one or two other leading men; but in general he was reckoned quarrelsome and blusterous rather than eloquent and piously convincing. two skalds of repute made biting lampoons upon thangbrand, whom thangbrand, by two opportunities that offered, cut down and did to death because of their skaldic quality. another he killed with his own hand, i know not for what reason. in brief, after about a year, thangbrand returned to norway and king olaf; declaring the icelanders to be a perverse, satirical, and inconvertible people, having himself, the record says, "been the death of three men there." king olaf was in high rage at this result; but was persuaded by the icelanders about him to try farther, and by a wilder instrument. he accordingly chose one thormod, a pious, patient, and kindly man, who, within the next year or so, did actually accomplish the matter; namely, get christianity, by open vote, declared at thingvalla by the general thing of iceland there; the roar of a big thunder-clap at the right moment rather helping the conclusion, if i recollect. whereupon olaf's joy was no doubt great. one general result of these successful operations was the discontent, to all manner of degrees, on the part of many norse individuals, against this glorious and victorious, but peremptory and terrible king of theirs. tryggveson, i fancy, did not much regard all that; a man of joyful, cheery temper, habitually contemptuous of danger. another trivial misfortune that befell in these conversion operations, and became important to him, he did not even know of, and would have much despised if he had. it was this: sigrid, queen dowager of sweden, thought to be amongst the most shining women of the world, was also known for one of the most imperious, revengeful, and relentless, and had got for herself the name of sigrid the proud. in her high widowhood she had naturally many wooers; but treated them in a manner unexampled. two of her suitors, a simultaneous two, were, king harald graenske (a cousin of king tryggveson's, and kind of king in some district, by sufferance of the late hakon's),--this luckless graenske and the then russian sovereign as well, name not worth mentioning, were zealous suitors of queen dowager sigrid, and were perversely slow to accept the negative, which in her heart was inexorable for both, though the expression of it could not be quite so emphatic. by ill-luck for them they came once,--from the far west, graenske; from the far east, the russian;--and arrived both together at sigrid's court, to prosecute their importunate, and to her odious and tiresome suit; much, how very much, to her impatience and disdain. she lodged them both in some old mansion, which she had contiguous, and got compendiously furnished for them; and there, i know not whether on the first or on the second, or on what following night, this unparalleled queen sigrid had the house surrounded, set on fire, and the two suitors and their people burnt to ashes! no more of bother from these two at least! this appears to be a fact; and it could not be unknown to tryggveson. in spite of which, however, there went from tryggveson, who was now a widower, some incipient marriage proposals to this proud widow; by whom they were favorably received; as from the brightest man in all the world, they might seem worth being. now, in one of these anti-heathen onslaughts of king olaf's on the idol temples of hakon--(i think it was that case where olaf's own battle-axe struck down the monstrous refulgent thor, and conquered an immense gold ring from the neck of him, or from the door of his temple),--a huge gold ring, at any rate, had come into olaf's hands; and this he bethought him might be a pretty present to queen sigrid, the now favorable, though the proud. sigrid received the ring with joy; fancied what a collar it would make for her own fair neck; but noticed that her two goldsmiths, weighing it on their fingers, exchanged a glance. "what is that?" exclaimed queen sigrid. "nothing," answered they, or endeavored to answer, dreading mischief. but sigrid compelled them to break open the ring; and there was found, all along the inside of it, an occult ring of copper, not a heart of gold at all! "ha," said the proud queen, flinging it away, "he that could deceive in this matter can deceive in many others!" and was in hot wrath with olaf; though, by degrees, again she took milder thoughts. milder thoughts, we say; and consented to a meeting next autumn, at some half-way station, where their great business might be brought to a happy settlement and betrothment. both olaf tryggveson and the high dowager appear to have been tolerably of willing mind at this meeting; but olaf interposed, what was always one condition with him, "thou must consent to baptism, and give up thy idol-gods." "they are the gods of all my forefathers," answered the lady, "choose thou what gods thou pleasest, but leave me mine." whereupon an altercation; and tryggveson, as was his wont, towered up into shining wrath, and exclaimed at last, "why should i care about thee then, old faded heathen creature?" and impatiently wagging his glove, hit her, or slightly switched her, on the face with it, and contemptuously turning away, walked out of the adventure. "this is a feat that may cost thee dear one day," said sigrid. and in the end it came to do so, little as the magnificent olaf deigned to think of it at the moment. one of the last scuffles i remember of olaf's having with his refractory heathens, was at a thing in hordaland or rogaland, far in the north, where the chief opposition hero was one jaernskaegg ("ironbeard") scottice ("airn-shag," as it were!). here again was a grand heathen temple, hakon jarl's building, with a splendid thor in it and much idol furniture. the king stated what was his constant wish here as elsewhere, but had no sooner entered upon the subject of christianity than universal murmur, rising into clangor and violent dissent, interrupted him, and ironbeard took up the discourse in reply. ironbeard did not break down; on the contrary, he, with great brevity, emphasis, and clearness, signified "that the proposal to reject their old gods was in the highest degree unacceptable to this thing; that it was contrary to bargain, withal; so that if it were insisted on, they would have to fight with the king about it; and in fact were now ready to do so." in reply to this, olaf, without word uttered, but merely with some signal to the trusty armed men he had with him, rushed off to the temple close at hand; burst into it, shutting the door behind him; smashed thor and co. to destruction; then reappearing victorious, found much confusion outside, and, in particular, what was a most important item, the rugged ironbeard done to death by olaf's men in the interim. which entirely disheartened the thing from fighting at that moment; having now no leader who dared to head them in so dangerous an enterprise. so that every one departed to digest his rage in silence as he could. matters having cooled for a week or two, there was another thing held; in which king olaf testified regret for the quarrel that had fallen out, readiness to pay what _mulct_ was due by law for that unlucky homicide of ironbeard by his people; and, withal, to take the fair daughter of ironbeard to wife, if all would comply and be friends with him in other matters; which was the course resolved on as most convenient: accept baptism, we; marry jaernskaegg's daughter, you. this bargain held on both sides. the wedding, too, was celebrated, but that took rather a strange turn. on the morning of the bride-night, olaf, who had not been sleeping, though his fair partner thought he had, opened his eyes, and saw, with astonishment, the fair partner aiming a long knife ready to strike home upon him! which at once ended their wedded life; poor demoiselle ironbeard immediately bundling off with her attendants home again; king olaf into the apartment of his servants, mentioning there what had happened, and forbidding any of them to follow her. olaf tryggveson, though his kingdom was the smallest of the norse three, had risen to a renown over all the norse world, which neither he of denmark nor he of sweden could pretend to rival. a magnificent, far-shining man; more expert in all "bodily exercises" as the norse call them, than any man had ever been before him, or after was. could keep five daggers in the air, always catching the proper fifth by its handle, and sending it aloft again; could shoot supremely, throw a javelin with either hand; and, in fact, in battle usually throw two together. these, with swimming, climbing, leaping, were the then admirable fine arts of the north; in all which tryggveson appears to have been the raphael and the michael angelo at once. essentially definable, too, if we look well into him, as a wild bit of real heroism, in such rude guise and environment; a high, true, and great human soul. a jovial burst of laughter in him, withal; a bright, airy, wise way of speech; dressed beautifully and with care; a man admired and loved exceedingly by those he liked; dreaded as death by those he did not like. "hardly any king," says snorro, "was ever so well obeyed; by one class out of zeal and love, by the rest out of dread." his glorious course, however, was not to last long. king svein of the double-beard had not yet completed his conquest of england,--by no means yet, some thirteen horrid years of that still before him!--when, over in denmark, he found that complaints against him and intricacies had arisen, on the part principally of one burislav, king of the wends (far up the baltic), and in a less degree with the king of sweden and other minor individuals. svein earnestly applied himself to settle these, and have his hands free. burislav, an aged heathen gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory; so, too, the king of sweden, and dowager queen sigrid, his managing mother. bargain in both these cases got sealed and crowned by marriage. svein, who had become a widower lately, now wedded sigrid; and might think, possibly enough, he had got a proud bargain, though a heathen one. burislav also insisted on marriage with princess thyri, the double-beard's sister. thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wed an aged heathen of that stamp, pleaded hard with her brother; but the double-bearded was inexorable; thyri's wailings and entreaties went for nothing. with some guardian foster-brother, and a serving-maid or two, she had to go on this hated journey. old burislav, at sight of her, blazed out into marriage-feast of supreme magnificence, and was charmed to see her; but thyri would not join the marriage party; refused to eat with it or sit with it at all. day after day, for six days, flatly refused; and after nightfall of the sixth, glided out with her foster-brother into the woods, into by-paths and inconceivable wanderings; and, in effect, got home to denmark. brother svein was not for the moment there; probably enough gone to england again. but thyri knew too well he would not allow her to stay here, or anywhere that he could help, except with the old heathen she had just fled from. thyri, looking round the world, saw no likely road for her, but to olaf tryggveson in norway; to beg protection from the most heroic man she knew of in the world. olaf, except by renown, was not known to her; but by renown he well was. olaf, at sight of her, promised protection and asylum against all mortals. nay, in discoursing with thyri olaf perceived more and more clearly what a fine handsome being, soul and body, thyri was; and in a short space of time winded up by proposing marriage to thyri; who, humbly, and we may fancy with what secret joy, consented to say yes, and become queen of norway. in the due months they had a little son, harald; who, it is credibly recorded, was the joy of both his parents; but who, to their inexpressible sorrow, in about a year died, and vanished from them. this, and one other fact now to be mentioned, is all the wedded history we have of thyri. the other fact is, that thyri had, by inheritance or covenant, not depending on her marriage with old burislav, considerable properties in wendland; which, she often reflected, might be not a little behooveful to her here in norway, where her civil-list was probably but straitened. she spoke of this to her husband; but her husband would take no hold, merely made her gifts, and said, "pooh, pooh, can't we live without old burislav and his wendland properties?" so that the lady sank into ever deeper anxiety and eagerness about this wendland object; took to weeping; sat weeping whole days; and when olaf asked, "what ails thee, then?" would answer, or did answer once, "what a different man my father harald gormson was [vulgarly called blue-tooth], compared with some that are now kings! for no king svein in the world would harald gormson have given up his own or his wife's just rights!" whereupon tryggveson started up, exclaiming in some heat, "of thy brother svein i never was afraid; if svein and i meet in contest, it will not be svein, i believe, that conquers;" and went off in a towering fume. consented, however, at last, had to consent, to get his fine fleet equipped and armed, and decide to sail with it to wendland to have speech and settlement with king burislav. tryggveson had already ships and navies that were the wonder of the north. especially in building war ships, the crane, the serpent, last of all the long serpent, [ ]--he had, for size, for outward beauty, and inward perfection of equipment, transcended all example. this new sea expedition became an object of attention to all neighbors; especially queen sigrid the proud and svein double-beard, her now king, were attentive to it. "this insolent tryggveson," queen sigrid would often say, and had long been saying, to her svein, "to marry thy sister without leave had or asked of thee; and now flaunting forth his war navies, as if he, king only of paltry norway, were the big hero of the north! why do you suffer it, you kings really great?" by such persuasions and reiterations, king svein of denmark, king olaf of sweden, and jarl eric, now a great man there, grown rich by prosperous sea robbery and other good management, were brought to take the matter up, and combine strenuously for destruction of king olaf tryggveson on this grand wendland expedition of his. fleets and forces were with best diligence got ready; and, withal, a certain jarl sigwald, of jomsburg, chieftain of the jomsvikings, a powerful, plausible, and cunning man, was appointed to find means of joining himself to tryggveson's grand voyage, of getting into tryggveson's confidence, and keeping svein double-beard, eric, and the swedish king aware of all his movements. king olaf tryggveson, unacquainted with all this, sailed away in summer, with his splendid fleet; went through the belts with prosperous winds, under bright skies, to the admiration of both shores. such a fleet, with its shining serpents, long and short, and perfection of equipment and appearance, the baltic never saw before. jarl sigwald joined with new ships by the way: "had," he too, "a visit to king burislav to pay; how could he ever do it in better company?" and studiously and skilfully ingratiated himself with king olaf. old burislav, when they arrived, proved altogether courteous, handsome, and amenable; agreed at once to olaf's claims for his now queen, did the rites of hospitality with a generous plenitude to olaf; who cheerily renewed acquaintance with that country, known to him in early days (the cradle of his fortunes in the viking line), and found old friends there still surviving, joyful to meet him again. jarl sigwald encouraged these delays, king svein and co. not being yet quite ready. "get ready!" sigwald directed them, and they diligently did. olaf's men, their business now done, were impatient to be home; and grudged every day of loitering there; but, till sigwald pleased, such his power of flattering and cajoling tryggveson, they could not get away. at length, sigwald's secret messengers reporting all ready on the part of svein and co., olaf took farewell of burislav and wendland, and all gladly sailed away. svein, eric, and the swedish king, with their combined fleets, lay in wait behind some cape in a safe little bay of some island, then called svolde, but not in our time to be found; the baltic tumults in the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as some think, and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the neighborhood of rugen island or in the sound of elsinore. there lay svein, eric, and co. waiting till tryggveson and his fleet came up, sigwald's spy messengers daily reporting what progress he and it had made. at length, one bright summer morning, the fleet made appearance, sailing in loose order, sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places, steering ahead, and showing them the way. snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits, seized with enthusiasm at the thought of such a fleet, and reports to us largely in what order tryggveson's winged coursers of the deep, in long series, for perhaps an hour or more, came on, and what the three potentates, from their knoll of vantage, said of each as it hove in sight, svein thrice over guessed this and the other noble vessel to be the long serpent; eric, always correcting him, "no, that is not the long serpent yet" (and aside always), "nor shall you be lord of it, king, when it does come." the long serpent itself did make appearance. eric, svein, and the swedish king hurried on board, and pushed out of their hiding-place into the open sea. treacherous sigwald, at the beginning of all this, had suddenly doubled that cape of theirs, and struck into the bay out of sight, leaving the foremost tryggveson ships astonished, and uncertain what to do, if it were not simply to strike sail and wait till olaf himself with the long serpent arrived. olaf's chief captains, seeing the enemy's huge fleet come out, and how the matter lay, strongly advised king olaf to elude this stroke of treachery, and, with all sail, hold on his course, fight being now on so unequal terms. snorro says, the king, high on the quarter-deck where he stood, replied, "strike the sails; never shall men of mine think of flight. i never fled from battle. let god dispose of my life; but flight i will never take." and so the battle arrangements immediately began, and the battle with all fury went loose; and lasted hour after hour, till almost sunset, if i well recollect. "olaf stood on the serpent's quarter-deck," says snorro, "high over the others. he had a gilt shield and a helmet inlaid with gold; over his armor he had a short red coat, and was easily distinguished from other men." snorro's account of the battle is altogether animated, graphic, and so minute that antiquaries gather from it, if so disposed (which we but little are), what the methods of norse sea-fighting were; their shooting of arrows, casting of javelins, pitching of big stones, ultimately boarding, and mutual clashing and smashing, which it would not avail us to speak of here. olaf stood conspicuous all day, throwing javelins, of deadly aim, with both hands at once; encouraging, fighting and commanding like a highest sea-king. the danish fleet, the swedish fleet, were, both of them, quickly dealt with, and successively withdrew out of shot-range. and then jarl eric came up, and fiercely grappled with the long serpent, or, rather, with her surrounding comrades; and gradually, as they were beaten empty of men, with the long serpent herself. the fight grew ever fiercer, more furious. eric was supplied with new men from the swedes and danes; olaf had no such resource, except from the crews of his own beaten ships, and at length this also failed him; all his ships, except the long serpent, being beaten and emptied. olaf fought on unyielding. eric twice boarded him, was twice repulsed. olaf kept his quarterdeck; unconquerable, though left now more and more hopeless, fatally short of help. a tall young man, called einar tamberskelver, very celebrated and important afterwards in norway, and already the best archer known, kept busy with his bow. twice he nearly shot jarl eric in his ship. "shoot me that man," said jarl eric to a bowman near him; and, just as tamberskelver was drawing his bow the third time, an arrow hit it in the middle and broke it in two. "what is this that has broken?" asked king olaf. "norway from thy hand, king," answered tamberskelver. tryggveson's men, he observed with surprise, were striking violently on eric's; but to no purpose: nobody fell. "how is this?" asked tryggveson. "our swords are notched and blunted, king; they do not cut." olaf stept down to his arm-chest; delivered out new swords; and it was observed as he did it, blood ran trickling from his wrist; but none knew where the wound was. eric boarded a third time. olaf, left with hardly more than one man, sprang overboard (one sees that red coat of his still glancing in the evening sun), and sank in the deep waters to his long rest. rumor ran among his people that he still was not dead; grounding on some movement by the ships of that traitorous sigwald, they fancied olaf had dived beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with sigwald, as sigwald himself evidently did. "much was hoped, supposed, spoken," says one old mourning skald; "but the truth was, olaf tryggveson was never seen in norseland more." strangely he remains still a shining figure to us; the wildly beautifulest man, in body and in soul, that one has ever heard of in the north. chapter viii. jarls eric and svein. jarl eric, splendent with this victory, not to speak of that over the jomsburgers with his father long ago, was now made governor of norway: governor or quasi-sovereign, with his brother, jarl. svein, as partner, who, however, took but little hand in governing;--and, under the patronage of svein double-beard and the then swedish king (olaf his name, sigrid the proud, his mother's), administered it, they say, with skill and prudence for above fourteen years. tryggveson's death is understood and laboriously computed to have happened in the year ; but there is no exact chronology in these things, but a continual uncertain guessing after such; so that one eye in history as regards them is as if put out;--neither indeed have i yet had the luck to find any decipherable and intelligible map of norway: so that the other eye of history is much blinded withal, and her path through those wild regions and epochs is an extremely dim and chaotic one. an evil that much demands remedying, and especially wants some first attempt at remedying, by inquirers into english history; the whole period from egbert, the first saxon king of england, on to edward the confessor, the last, being everywhere completely interwoven with that of their mysterious, continually invasive "danes," as they call them, and inextricably unintelligible till these also get to be a little understood, and cease to be utterly dark, hideous, and mythical to us as they now are. king olaf tryggveson is the first norseman who is expressly mentioned to have been in england by our english history books, new or old; and of him it is merely said that he had an interview with king ethelred ii. at andover, of a pacific and friendly nature,--though it is absurdly added that the noble olaf was converted to christianity by that extremely stupid royal person. greater contrast in an interview than in this at andover, between heroic olaf tryggveson and ethelred the forever unready, was not perhaps seen in the terrestrial planet that day. olaf or "olaus," or "anlaf," as they name him, did "engage on oath to ethelred not to invade england any more," and kept his promise, they farther say. essentially a truth, as we already know, though the circumstances were all different; and the promise was to a devout high priest, not to a crowned blockhead and cowardly do-nothing. one other "olaus" i find mentioned in our books, two or three centuries before, at a time when there existed no such individual; not to speak of several anlafs, who sometimes seem to mean olaf and still oftener to mean nobody possible. which occasions not a little obscurity in our early history, says the learned selden. a thing remediable, too, in which, if any englishman of due genius (or even capacity for standing labor), who understood the icelandic and anglo-saxon languages, would engage in it, he might do a great deal of good, and bring the matter into a comparatively lucid state. vain aspirations,--or perhaps not altogether vain. at the time of olaf tryggveson's death, and indeed long before, king svein double-beard had always for chief enterprise the conquest of england, and followed it by fits with extreme violence and impetus; often advancing largely towards a successful conclusion; but never, for thirteen years yet, getting it concluded. he possessed long since all england north of watling street. that is to say, northumberland, east anglia (naturally full of danish settlers by this time), were fixedly his; mercia, his oftener than not; wessex itself, with all the coasts, he was free to visit, and to burn and rob in at discretion. there or elsewhere, ethelred the unready had no battle in him whatever; and, for a forty years after the beginning of his reign, england excelled in anarchic stupidity, murderous devastation, utter misery, platitude, and sluggish contemptibility, all the countries one has read of. apparently a very opulent country, too; a ready skill in such arts and fine arts as there were; svein's very ships, they say, had their gold dragons, top-mast pennons, and other metallic splendors generally wrought for them in england. "unexampled prosperity" in the manufacture way not unknown there, it would seem! but co-existing with such spiritual bankruptcy as was also unexampled, one would hope. read lupus (wulfstan), archbishop of york's amazing _sermon_ on the subject, [ ] addressed to contemporary audiences; setting forth such a state of things,--sons selling their fathers, mothers, and sisters as slaves to the danish robber; themselves living in debauchery, blusterous gluttony, and depravity; the details of which are well-nigh incredible, though clearly stated as things generally known,--the humor of these poor wretches sunk to a state of what we may call greasy desperation, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." the manner in which they treated their own english nuns, if young, good-looking, and captive to the danes; buying them on a kind of brutish or subter-brutish "greatest happiness principle" (for the moment), and by a joint-stock arrangement, far transcends all human speech or imagination, and awakens in one the momentary red-hot thought, the danes have served you right, ye accursed! the so-called soldiers, one finds, made not the least fight anywhere; could make none, led and guided as they were, and the "generals" often enough traitors, always ignorant, and blockheads, were in the habit, when expressly commanded to fight, of taking physic, and declaring that nature was incapable of castor-oil and battle both at once. this ought to be explained a little to the modern english and their war-secretaries, who undertake the conduct of armies. the undeniable fact is, defeat on defeat was the constant fate of the english; during these forty years not one battle in which they were not beaten. no gleam of victory or real resistance till the noble edmund ironside (whom it is always strange to me how such an ethelred could produce for son) made his appearance and ran his brief course, like a great and far-seen meteor, soon extinguished without result. no remedy for england in that base time, but yearly asking the victorious, plundering, burning and murdering danes, "how much money will you take to go away?" thirty thousand pounds in silver, which the annual _danegelt_ soon rose to, continued to be about the average yearly sum, though generally on the increasing hand; in the last year i think it had risen to seventy-two thousand pounds in silver, raised yearly by a tax (income-tax of its kind, rudely levied), the worst of all remedies, good for the day only. nay, there was one remedy still worse, which the miserable ethelred once tried: that of massacring "all the danes settled in england" (practically, of a few thousands or hundreds of them), by treachery and a kind of sicilian vespers. which issued, as such things usually do, in terrible monition to you not to try the like again! issued, namely, in redoubled fury on the danish part; new fiercer invasion by svein's jarl thorkel; then by svein himself; which latter drove the miserable ethelred, with wife and family, into normandy, to wife's brother, the then duke there; and ended that miserable struggle by svein's becoming king of england himself. of this disgraceful massacre, which it would appear has been immensely exaggerated in the english books, we can happily give the exact date (a.d. ); and also of svein's victorious accession (a.d. ), [ ]--pretty much the only benefit one gets out of contemplating such a set of objects. king svein's first act was to levy a terribly increased income-tax for the payment of his army. svein was levying it with a stronghanded diligence, but had not yet done levying it, when, at gainsborough one night, he suddenly died; smitten dead, once used to be said, by st. edmund, whilom murdered king of the east angles; who could not bear to see his shrine and monastery of st. edmundsbury plundered by the tyrant's tax-collectors, as they were on the point of being. in all ways impossible, however,--edmund's own death did not occur till two years after svein's. svein's death, by whatever cause, befell ; his fleet, then lying in the humber; and only knut, [ ] his eldest son (hardly yet eighteen, count some), in charge of it; who, on short counsel, and arrangement about this questionable kingdom of his, lifted anchor; made for sandwich, a safer station at the moment; "cut off the feet and noses" (one shudders, and hopes not, there being some discrepancy about it!) of his numerous hostages that had been delivered to king svein; set them ashore;--and made for denmark, his natural storehouse and stronghold, as the hopefulest first thing he could do. knut soon returned from denmark, with increase of force sufficient for the english problem; which latter he now ended in a victorious, and essentially, for himself and chaotic england, beneficent manner. became widely known by and by, there and elsewhere, as knut the great; and is thought by judges of our day to have really merited that title. a most nimble, sharp-striking, clear-thinking, prudent and effective man, who regulated this dismembered and distracted england in its church matters, in its state matters, like a real king. had a standing army (_house carles_), who were well paid, well drilled and disciplined, capable of instantly quenching insurrection or breakage of the peace; and piously endeavored (with a signal earnestness, and even devoutness, if we look well) to do justice to all men, and to make all men rest satisfied with justice. in a word, he successfully strapped up, by every true method and regulation, this miserable, dislocated, and dissevered mass of bleeding anarchy into something worthy to be called an england again;--only that he died too soon, and a second "conqueror" of us, still weightier of structure, and under improved auspices, became possible, and was needed here! to appearance, knut himself was capable of being a charlemagne of england and the north (as has been already said or quoted), had he only lived twice as long as he did. but his whole sum of years seems not to have exceeded forty. his father svein of the forkbeard is reckoned to have been fifty to sixty when st. edmund finished him at gainsborough. we now return to norway, ashamed of this long circuit which has been a truancy more or less. chapter ix. king olaf the thick-set's viking days king harald graenske, who, with another from russia accidentally lodging beside him, got burned to death in sweden, courting that unspeakable sigrid the proud,--was third cousin or so to tryggve, father of our heroic olaf. accurately counted, he is great-grandson of bjorn the chapman, first of haarfagr's sons whom eric bloodaxe made away with. his little "kingdom," as he called it, was a district named the greenland (_graeneland_); he himself was one of those little haarfagr kinglets whom hakon jarl, much more olaf tryggveson, was content to leave reigning, since they would keep the peace with him. harald had a loving wife of his own, aasta the name of her, soon expecting the birth of her and his pretty babe, named olaf,--at the time he went on that deplorable swedish adventure, the foolish, fated creature, and ended self and kingdom altogether. aasta was greatly shocked; composed herself however; married a new husband, sigurd syr, a kinglet, and a great-grandson of harald fairhair, a man of great wealth, prudence, and influence in those countries; in whose house, as favorite and well-beloved stepson, little olaf was wholesomely and skilfully brought up. in sigurd's house he had, withal, a special tutor entertained for him, one rane, known as rane the far-travelled, by whom he could be trained, from the earliest basis, in norse accomplishments and arts. new children came, one or two; but olaf, from his mother, seems always to have known that he was the distinguished and royal article there. one day his foster-father, hurrying to leave home on business, hastily bade olaf, no other being by, saddle his horse for him. olaf went out with the saddle, chose the biggest he-goat about, saddled that, and brought it to the door by way of horse. old sigurd, a most grave man, grinned sardonically at the sight. "hah, i see thou hast no mind to take commands from me; thou art of too high a humor to take commands." to which, says snorro, boy olaf answered little except by laughing, till sigurd saddled for himself, and rode away. his mother aasta appears to have been a thoughtful, prudent woman, though always with a fierce royalism at the bottom of her memory, and a secret implacability on that head. at the age of twelve olaf went to sea; furnished with a little fleet, and skilful sea-counsellor, expert old rane, by his foster-father, and set out to push his fortune in the world. rane was a steersman and counsellor in these incipient times; but the crew always called olaf "king," though at first, as snorro thinks, except it were in the hour of battle, he merely pulled an oar. he cruised and fought in this capacity on many seas and shores; passed several years, perhaps till the age of nineteen or twenty, in this wild element and way of life; fighting always in a glorious and distinguished manner. in the hour of battle, diligent enough "to amass property," as the vikings termed it; and in the long days and nights of sailing, given over, it is likely, to his own thoughts and the unfathomable dialogue with the ever-moaning sea; not the worst high school a man could have, and indeed infinitely preferable to the most that are going even now, for a high and deep young soul. his first distinguished expedition was to sweden: natural to go thither first, to avenge his poor father's death, were it nothing more. which he did, the skalds say, in a distinguished manner; making victorious and handsome battle for himself, in entering maelare lake; and in getting out of it again, after being frozen there all winter, showing still more surprising, almost miraculous contrivance and dexterity. this was the first of his glorious victories, of which the skalds reckon up some fourteen or thirteen very glorious indeed, mostly in the western and southern countries, most of all in england; till the name of olaf haraldson became quite famous in the viking and strategic world. he seems really to have learned the secrets of his trade, and to have been, then and afterwards, for vigilance, contrivance, valor, and promptitude of execution, a superior fighter. several exploits recorded of him betoken, in simple forms, what may be called a military genius. the principal, and to us the alone interesting, of his exploits seem to have lain in england, and, what is further notable, always on the anti-svein side. english books do not mention him at all that i can find; but it is fairly credible that, as the norse records report, in the end of ethelred's reign, he was the ally or hired general of ethelred, and did a great deal of sea-fighting, watching, sailing, and sieging for this miserable king and edmund ironside, his son. snorro says expressly, london, the impregnable city, had to be besieged again for ethelred's behoof (in the interval between svein's death and young knut's getting back from denmark), and that our olaf haraldson was the great engineer and victorious captor of london on that singular occasion,--london captured for the first time. the bridge, as usual, snorro says, offered almost insuperable obstacles. but the engineering genius of olaf contrived huge "platforms of wainscoting [old walls of wooden houses, in fact], bound together by withes;" these, carried steadily aloft above the ships, will (thinks olaf) considerably secure them and us from the destructive missiles, big boulder stones, and other, mischief profusely showered down on us, till we get under the bridge with axes and cables, and do some good upon it. olaf's plan was tried; most of the other ships, in spite of their wainscoting and withes, recoiled on reaching the bridge, so destructive were the boulder and other missile showers. but olaf's ships and self got actually under the bridge; fixed all manner of cables there; and then, with the river current in their favor, and the frightened ships rallying to help in this safer part of the enterprise, tore out the important piles and props, and fairly broke the poor bridge, wholly or partly, down into the river, and its danish defenders into immediate surrender. that is snorro's account. on a previous occasion, olaf had been deep in a hopeful combination with ethelred's two younger sons, alfred and edward, afterwards king edward the confessor: that they two should sally out from normandy in strong force, unite with olaf in ditto, and, landing on the thames, do something effectual for themselves. but impediments, bad weather or the like, disheartened the poor princes, and it came to nothing. olaf was much in normandy, what they then called walland; a man held in honor by those norman dukes. what amount of "property" he had amassed i do not know, but could prove, were it necessary, that he had acquired some tactical or even strategic faculty and real talent for war. at lymfjord, in jutland, but some years after this (a.d. ), he had a sea-battle with the great knut himself,--ships combined with flood-gates, with roaring, artificial deluges; right well managed by king olaf; which were within a hair's-breadth of destroying knut, now become a king and great; and did in effect send him instantly running. but of this more particularly by and by. what still more surprises me is the mystery, where olaf, in this wandering, fighting, sea-roving life, acquired his deeply religious feeling, his intense adherence to the christian faith. i suppose it had been in england, where many pious persons, priestly and other, were still to be met with, that olaf had gathered these doctrines; and that in those his unfathomable dialogues with the ever-moaning ocean, they had struck root downwards in the soul of him, and borne fruit upwards to the degree so conspicuous afterwards. it is certain he became a deeply pious man during these long viking cruises; and directed all his strength, when strength and authority were lent him, to establishing the christian religion in his country, and suppressing and abolishing vikingism there; both of which objects, and their respective worth and unworth, he, must himself have long known so well. it was well on in a.d. that knut gained his last victory, at ashdon, in essex, where the earth pyramids and antique church near by still testify the thankful piety of knut,--or, at lowest his joy at having _won_ instead of lost and perished, as he was near doing there. and it was still this same year when the noble edmund ironside, after forced partition-treaty "in the isle of alney," got scandalously murdered, and knut became indisputable sole king of england, and decisively settled himself to his work of governing there. in the year before either of which events, while all still hung uncertain for knut, and even eric jarl of norway had to be summoned in aid of him, in that year , as one might naturally guess and as all icelandic hints and indications lead us to date the thing, olaf had decided to give up vikingism in all its forms; to return to norway, and try whether he could not assert the place and career that belonged to him there. jarl eric had vanished with all his war forces towards england, leaving only a boy, hakon, as successor, and svein, his own brother,--a quiet man, who had always avoided war. olaf landed in norway without obstacle; but decided to be quiet till he had himself examined and consulted friends. his reception by his mother aasta was of the kindest and proudest, and is lovingly described by snorro. a pretty idyllic, or epic piece, of _norse_ homeric type: how aasta, hearing of her son's advent, set all her maids and menials to work at the top of their speed; despatched a runner to the harvest-field, where her husband sigurd was, to warn him to come home and dress. how sigurd was standing among his harvest folk, reapers and binders; and what he had on,--broad slouch hat, with veil (against the midges), blue kirtle, hose of i forget what color, with laced boots; and in his hand a stick with silver head and ditto ring upon it;--a personable old gentleman, of the eleventh century, in those parts. sigurd was cautious, prudentially cunctatory, though heartily friendly in his counsel to olaf as to the king question. aasta had a spartan tone in her wild maternal heart; and assures olaf that she, with a half-reproachful glance at sigurd, will stand by him to the death in this his just and noble enterprise. sigurd promises to consult farther in his neighborhood, and to correspond by messages; the result is, olaf resolutely pushing forward himself, resolves to call a thing, and openly claim his kingship there. the thing itself was willing enough: opposition parties do here and there bestir themselves; but olaf is always swifter than they. five kinglets somewhere in the uplands, [ ]--all descendants of haarfagr; but averse to break the peace, which jarl eric and hakon jarl both have always willingly allowed to peaceable people,--seem to be the main opposition party. these five take the field against olaf with what force they have; olaf, one night, by beautiful celerity and strategic practice which a friedrich or a turenne might have approved, surrounds these five; and when morning breaks, there is nothing for them but either death, or else instant surrender, and swearing of fealty to king olaf. which latter branch of the alternative they gladly accept, the whole five of them, and go home again. this was a beautiful bit of war-practice by king olaf on land. by another stroke still more compendious at sea, he had already settled poor young hakon, and made him peaceable for a long while. olaf by diligent quest and spy-messaging, had ascertained that hakon, just returning from denmark and farewell to papa and knut, both now under way for england, was coasting north towards trondhjem; and intended on or about such a day to land in such and such a fjord towards the end of this trondhjem voyage. olaf at once mans two big ships, steers through the narrow mouth of the said fjord, moors one ship on the north shore, another on the south; fixes a strong cable, well sunk under water, to the capstans of these two; and in all quietness waits for hakon. before many hours, hakon's royal or quasi-royal barge steers gaily into this fjord; is a little surprised, perhaps, to see within the jaws of it two big ships at anchor, but steers gallantly along, nothing doubting. olaf with a signal of "all hands," works his two capstans; has the cable up high enough at the right moment, catches with it the keel of poor hakon's barge, upsets it, empties it wholly into the sea. wholly into the sea; saves hakon, however, and his people from drowning, and brings them on board. his dialogue with poor young hakon, especially poor young hakon's responses, is very pretty. shall i give it, out of snorro, and let the reader take it for as authentic as he can? it is at least the true image of it in authentic snorro's head, little more than two centuries later. "jarl hakon was led up to the king's ship. he was the handsomest man that could be seen. he had long hair as fine as silk, bound about his head with a gold ornament. when he sat down in the forehold the king said to him: _king._ "'it is not false, what is said of your family, that ye are handsome people to look at; but now your luck has deserted you.' _hakon._ "'it has always been the case that success is changeable; and there is no luck in the matter. it has gone with your family as with mine to have by turns the better lot. i am little beyond childhood in years; and at any rate we could not have defended ourselves, as we did not expect any attack on the way. it may turn out better with us another time.' _king._ "'dost thou not apprehend that thou art in such a condition that, hereafter, there can be neither victory nor defeat for thee?' _hakon._ "'that is what only thou canst determine, king, according to thy pleasure.' _king._ "'what wilt thou give me, jarl, if, for this time, i let thee go, whole and unhurt?' _hakon._ "'what wilt thou take, king?' _king._ "'nothing, except that thou shalt leave the country; give up thy kingdom; and take an oath that thou wilt never go into battle against me.'" [ ] jarl hakon accepted the generous terms; went to england and king knut, and kept his bargain for a good few years; though he was at last driven, by pressure of king knut, to violate it,--little to his profit, as we shall see. one victorious naval battle with jarl svein, hakon's uncle, and his adherents, who fled to sweden, after his beating,--battle not difficult to a skilful, hard-hitting king,--was pretty much all the actual fighting olaf had to do in this enterprise. he various times met angry bonders and refractory things with arms in their hand; but by skilful, firm management,--perfectly patient, but also perfectly ready to be active,--he mostly managed without coming to strokes; and was universally recognized by norway as its real king. a promising young man, and fit to be a king, thinks snorro. only of middle stature, almost rather shortish; but firm-standing, and stout-built; so that they got to call him olaf the thick (meaning olaf the thick-set, or stout-built), though his final epithet among them was infinitely higher. for the rest, "a comely, earnest, prepossessing look; beautiful yellow hair in quantity; broad, honest face, of a complexion pure as snow and rose;" and finally (or firstly) "the brightest eyes in the world; such that, in his anger, no man could stand them." he had a heavy task ahead, and needed all his qualities and fine gifts to get it done. chapter x. reign of king olaf the saint. the late two jarls, now gone about their business, had both been baptized, and called themselves christians. but during their government they did nothing in the conversion way; left every man to choose his own god or gods; so that some had actually two, the christian god by land, and at sea thor, whom they considered safer in that element. and in effect the mass of the people had fallen back into a sluggish heathenism or half-heathenism, the life-labor of olaf tryggveson lying ruinous or almost quite overset. the new olaf, son of harald, set himself with all his strength to mend such a state of matters; and stood by his enterprise to the end, as the one highest interest, including all others, for his people and him. his method was by no means soft; on the contrary, it was hard, rapid, severe,--somewhat on the model of tryggveson's, though with more of _bishoping_ and preaching superadded. yet still there was a great deal of mauling, vigorous punishing, and an entire intolerance of these two things: heathenism and sea-robbery, at least of sea-robbery in the old style; whether in the style we moderns still practise, and call privateering, i do not quite know. but vikingism proper had to cease in norway; still more, heathenism, under penalties too severe to be borne; death, mutilation of limb, not to mention forfeiture and less rigorous coercion. olaf was inexorable against violation of the law. "too severe," cried many; to whom one answers, "perhaps in part _yes_, perhaps also in great part _no_; depends altogether on the previous question, how far the law was the eternal one of god almighty in the universe, how far the law merely of olaf (destitute of right inspiration) left to his own passions and whims?" many were the jangles olaf had with the refractory heathen things and ironbeards of a new generation: very curious to see. scarcely ever did it come to fighting between king and thing, though often enough near it; but the thing discerning, as it usually did in time, that the king was stronger in men, seemed to say unanimously to itself, "we have lost, then; baptize us, we must burn our old gods and conform." one new feature we do slightly discern: here and there a touch of theological argument on the heathen side. at one wild thing, far up in the dovrefjeld, of a very heathen temper, there was much of that; not to be quenched by king olaf at the moment; so that it had to be adjourned till the morrow, and again till the next day. here are some traits of it, much abridged from snorro (who gives a highly punctual account), which vividly represent olaf's posture and manner of proceeding in such intricacies. the chief ironbeard on this occasion was one gudbrand, a very rugged peasant; who, says snorro, was like a king in that district. some days before, king olaf, intending a religious thing in those deeply heathen parts, with alternative of christianity or conflagration, is reported, on looking down into the valley and the beautiful village of loar standing there, to have said wistfully, "what a pity it is that so beautiful a village should be burnt!" olaf sent out his message-token all the same however, and met gudbrand and an immense assemblage, whose humor towards him was uncompliant to a high degree indeed. judge by this preliminary speech of gudbrand to his thing-people, while olaf was not yet arrived, but only advancing, hardly got to breeden on the other side of the hill: "a man has come to loar who is called olaf," said gudbrand, "and will force upon us another faith than we had before, and will break in pieces all our gods. he says he has a much greater and more powerful god; and it is wonderful that the earth does not burst asunder under him, or that our god lets him go about unpunished when he dares to talk such things. i know this for certain, that if we carry thor, who has always stood by us, out of our temple that is standing upon this farm, olaf's god will melt away, and he and his men be made nothing as soon as thor looks upon them." whereupon the bonders all shouted as one man, "yea!" which tremendous message they even forwarded to olaf, by gudbrand's younger son at the head of armed men; but did not terrify olaf with it, who, on the contrary, drew up his troops, rode himself at the head of them, and began a speech to the bonders, in which he invited them to adopt christianity, as the one true faith for mortals. far from consenting to this, the bonders raised a general shout, smiting at the same time their shields with their weapons; but olaf's men advancing on them swiftly, and flinging spears, they turned and ran, leaving gudbrand's son behind, a prisoner, to whom olaf gave his life: "go home now to thy father, and tell him i mean to be with him soon." the son goes accordingly, and advises his father not to face olaf; but gudbrand angrily replies: "ha, coward! i see thou, too, art taken by the folly that man is going about with;" and is resolved to fight. that night, however, gudbrand has a most remarkable dream, or vision: a man surrounded by light, bringing great terror with him, who warns gudbrand against doing battle with olaf. "if thou dost, thou and all thy people will fall; wolves will drag away thee and thine; ravens will tear thee in stripes!" and lo, in telling this to thord potbelly, a sturdy neighbor of his and henchman in the thing, it is found that to thord also has come the self same terrible apparition! better propose truce to olaf (who seems to have these dreadful ghostly powers on his side), and the holding of a thing, to discuss matters between us. thing assembles, on a day of heavy rain. being all seated, uprises king olaf, and informs them: "the people of lesso, loar, and vaage, have accepted christianity, and broken down their idol-houses: they believe now in the true god, who has made heaven and earth, and knows all things;" and sits down again without more words. "gudbrand replies, 'we know nothing about him of whom thou speakest. dost thou call him god, whom neither thou nor any one else can see? but we have a god who can be seen every day, although he is not out to-day because the weather is wet; and he will appear to thee terrible and very grand; and i expect that fear will mix with thy very blood when he comes into the thing. but since thou sayest thy god is so great, let him make it so that to-morrow we have a cloudy day, but without rain, and then let us meet again.' "the king accordingly returned home to his lodging, taking gudbrand's son as a hostage; but he gave them a man as hostage in exchange. in the evening the king asked gudbrand's son what their god was like? he replied that he bore the likeness of thor; had a hammer in his hand; was of great size, but hollow within; and had a high stand, upon which he stood when he was out. 'neither gold nor silver are wanting about him, and every day he receives four cakes of bread, besides meat.' they then went to bed; but the king watched all night in prayer. when day dawned the king went to mass; then to table, and from thence to the thing. the weather was such as gudbrand desired. now the bishop stood up in his choir-robes, with bishop's coif on his head, and bishop's crosier in his hand. he spoke to the bonders of the true faith, told the many wonderful acts of god, and concluded his speech well. "thord potbelly replies, 'many things we are told of by this learned man with the staff in his hand, crooked at the top like a ram's horn. but since you say, comrades, that your god is so powerful, and can do so many wonders, tell him to make it clear sunshine to-morrow forenoon, and then we shall meet here again, and do one of two things,--either agree with you about this business, or fight you.' and they separated for the day." overnight the king instructed kolbein the strong, an immense fellow, the same who killed gunhild's two brothers, that he, kolbein, must stand next him to-morrow; people must go down to where the ships of the bonders lay, and punctually bore holes in every one of them; _item_, to the farms where their horses wore, and punctually unhalter the whole of them, and let them loose: all which was done. snorro continues:-- "now the king was in prayer all night, beseeching god of his goodness and mercy to release him from evil. when mass was ended, and morning was gray, the king went to the thing. when he came thither, some bonders had already arrived, and they saw a great crowd coming along, and bearing among them a huge man's image, glancing with gold and silver. when the bonders who were at the thing saw it, they started up, and bowed themselves down before the ugly idol. thereupon it was set down upon the thing field; and on the one side of it sat the bonders, and on the other the king and his people. "then dale gudbrand stood up and said, 'where now, king, is thy god? i think he will now carry his head lower; and neither thou, nor the man with the horn, sitting beside thee there, whom thou callest bishop, are so bold to-day as on the former days. for now our god, who rules over all, is come, and looks on you with an angry eye; and now i see well enough that you are terrified, and scarcely dare raise your eyes. throw away now all your opposition, and believe in the god who has your fate wholly in his hands.' "the king now whispers to kolbein the strong, without the bonders perceiving it, 'if it come so in the course of my speech that the bonders look another way than towards their idol, strike him as hard as thou canst with thy club.' "the king then stood up and spoke. 'much hast thou talked to us this morning, and greatly hast thou wondered that thou canst not see our god; but we expect that he will soon come to us. thou wouldst frighten us with thy god, who is both blind and deaf, and cannot even move about without being carried; but now i expect it will be but a short time before he meets his fate: for turn your eyes towards the east,--behold our god advancing in great light.' "the sun was rising, and all turned to look. at that moment kolbein gave their god a stroke, so that he quite burst asunder; and there ran out of him mice as big almost as cats, and reptiles and adders. the bonders were so terrified that some fled to their ships; but when they sprang out upon them the ships filled with water, and could not get away. others ran to their horses, but could not find them. the king then ordered the bonders to be called together, saying he wanted to speak with them; on which the bonders came back, and the thing was again seated. "the king rose up and said, 'i do not understand what your noise and running mean. you yourselves see what your god can do,--the idol you adorned with gold and silver, and brought meat and provisions to. you see now that the protecting powers, who used and got good of all that, were the mice and adders, the reptiles and lizards; and surely they do ill who trust to such, and will not abandon this folly. take now your gold and ornaments that are lying strewed on the grass, and give them to your wives and daughters, but never hang them hereafter upon stocks and stones. here are two conditions between us to choose upon: either accept christianity, or fight this very day, and the victory be to them to whom the god we worship gives it.' "then dale gudbrand stood up and said, 'we have sustained great damage upon our god; but since he will not help us, we will believe in the god whom thou believest in.' "then all received christianity. the bishop baptized gudbrand and his son. king olaf and bishop sigurd left behind them teachers; and they who met as enemies parted as friends. and afterwards gudbrand built a church in the valley." [ ] olaf was by no means an unmerciful man,--much the reverse where he saw good cause. there was a wicked old king raerik, for example, one of those five kinglets whom, with their bits of armaments, olaf by stratagem had surrounded one night, and at once bagged and subjected when morning rose, all of them consenting; all of them except this raerik, whom olaf, as the readiest sure course, took home with him; blinded, and kept in his own house; finding there was no alternative but that or death to the obstinate old dog, who was a kind of distant cousin withal, and could not conscientiously be killed. stone-blind old raerik was not always in murderous humor. indeed, for most part he wore a placid, conciliatory aspect, and said shrewd amusing things; but had thrice over tried, with amazing cunning of contrivance, though stone-blind, to thrust a dagger into olaf and the last time had all but succeeded. so that, as olaf still refused to have him killed, it had become a problem what was to be done with him. olaf's good humor, as well as _his_ quiet, ready sense and practicality, are manifested in his final settlement of this raerik problem. olaf's laugh, i can perceive, was not so loud as tryggveson's but equally hearty, coming from the bright mind of him! besides blind raerik, olaf had in his household one thorarin, an icelander; a remarkably ugly man, says snorro, but a far-travelled, shrewdly observant, loyal-minded, and good-humored person, whom olaf liked to talk with. "remarkably ugly," says snorro, "especially in his hands and feet, which were large and ill-shaped to a degree." one morning thorarin, who, with other trusted ones, slept in olaf's apartment, was lazily dozing and yawning, and had stretched one of his feet out of the bed before the king awoke. the foot was still there when olaf did open his bright eyes, which instantly lighted on this foot. "well, here is a foot," says olaf, gayly, "which one seldom sees the match of; i durst venture there is not another so ugly in this city of nidaros." "hah, king!" said thorarin, "there are few things one cannot match if one seek long and take pains. i would bet, with thy permission, king, to find an uglier." "done!" cried olaf. upon which thorarin stretched out the other foot. "a still uglier," cried he; "for it has lost the little toe." "ho, ho!" said olaf; "but it is i who have gained the bet. the _less_ of an ugly thing the less ugly, not the more!" loyal thorarin respectfully submitted. "what is to be my penalty, then? the king it is that must decide." "to take me that wicked old raerik to leif ericson in greenland." which the icelander did; leaving two vacant seats henceforth at olaf's table. leif ericson, son of eric discoverer of america, quietly managed raerik henceforth; sent him to iceland,--i think to father eric himself; certainly to some safe hand there, in whose house, or in some still quieter neighboring lodging, at his own choice, old raerik spent the last three years of his life in a perfectly quiescent manner. olaf's struggles in the matter of religion had actually settled that question in norway. by these rough methods of his, whatever we may think of them, heathenism had got itself smashed dead; and was no more heard of in that country. olaf himself was evidently a highly devout and pious man;--whosoever is born with olaf's temper now will still find, as olaf did, new and infinite field for it! christianity in norway had the like fertility as in other countries; or even rose to a higher, and what dahlmann thinks, exuberant pitch, in the course of the two centuries which followed that of olaf. him all testimony represents to us as a most righteous no less than most religious king. continually vigilant, just, and rigorous was olaf's administration of the laws; repression of robbery, punishment of injustice, stern repayment of evil-doers, wherever he could lay hold of them. among the bonder or opulent class, and indeed everywhere, for the poor too can be sinners and need punishment, olaf had, by this course of conduct, naturally made enemies. his severity so visible to all, and the justice and infinite beneficence of it so invisible except to a very few. but, at any rate, his reign for the first ten years was victorious; and might have been so to the end, had it not been intersected, and interfered with, by king knut in his far bigger orbit and current of affairs and interests. knut's english affairs and danish being all settled to his mind, he seems, especially after that year of pilgrimage to rome, and association with the pontiffs and kaisers of the world on that occasion, to have turned his more particular attention upon norway, and the claims he himself had there. jarl hakon, too, sister's son of knut, and always well seen by him, had long been busy in this direction, much forgetful of that oath to olaf when his barge got canted over by the cable of two capstans, and his life was given him, not without conditions altogether! about the year there arrived two splendid persons out of england, bearing king knut the great's letter and seal, with a message, likely enough to be far from welcome to olaf. for some days olaf refused to see them or their letter, shrewdly guessing what the purport would be. which indeed was couched in mild language, but of sharp meaning enough: a notice to king olaf namely, that norway was properly, by just heritage, knut the great's; and that olaf must become the great knut's liegeman, and pay tribute to him, or worse would follow. king olaf listening to these two splendid persons and their letter, in indignant silence till they quite ended, made answer: "i have heard say, by old accounts there are, that king gorm of denmark [blue-tooth's father, knut's great-grandfather] was considered but a small king; having denmark only and few people to rule over. but the kings who succeeded him thought that insufficient for them; and it has since come so far that king knut rules over both denmark and england, and has conquered for himself a part of scotland. and now he claims also my paternal bit of heritage; cannot be contented without that too. does he wish to rule over all the countries of the north? can he eat up all the kale in england itself, this knut the great? he shall do that, and reduce his england to a desert, before i lay my head in his hands, or show him any other kind of vassalage. and so i bid you tell him these my words: i will defend norway with battle-axe and sword as long as life is given me, and will pay tax to no man for my kingdom." words which naturally irritated knut to a high degree. next year accordingly (year ), tenth or eleventh year of olaf's reign, there came bad rumors out of england: that knut was equipping an immense army,--land-army, and such a fleet as had never sailed before; knut's own ship in it,--a gold dragon with no fewer than sixty benches of oars. olaf and onund king of sweden, whose sister he had married, well guessed whither this armament was bound. they were friends withal, they recognized their common peril in this imminence; and had, in repeated consultations, taken measures the best that their united skill (which i find was mainly olaf's but loyally accepted by the other) could suggest. it was in this year that olaf (with his swedish king assisting) did his grand feat upon knut in lymfjord of jutland, which was already spoken of. the special circumstances of which were these: knut's big armament arriving on the jutish coasts too late in the season, and the coast country lying all plundered into temporary wreck by the two norse kings, who shrank away on sight of knut, there was nothing could be done upon them by knut this year,--or, if anything, what? knut's ships ran into lymfjord, the safe-sheltered frith, or intricate long straggle of friths and straits, which almost cuts jutland in two in that region; and lay safe, idly rocking on the waters there, uncertain what to do farther. at last he steered in his big ship and some others, deeper into the interior of lymfjord, deeper and deeper onwards to the mouth of a big river called the helge (_helge-aa_, the holy river, not discoverable in my poor maps, but certainly enough still existing and still flowing somewhere among those intricate straits and friths), towards the bottom of which helge river lay, in some safe nook, the small combined swedish and norse fleet, under the charge of onund, the swedish king, while at the top or source, which is a biggish mountain lake, king olaf had been doing considerable engineering works, well suited to such an occasion, and was now ready at a moment's notice. knut's fleet having idly taken station here, notice from the swedish king was instantly sent; instantly olaf's well-engineered flood-gates were thrown open; from the swollen lake a huge deluge of water was let loose; olaf himself with all his people hastening down to join his swedish friend, and get on board in time; helge river all the while alongside of him, with ever-increasing roar, and wider-spreading deluge, hastening down the steeps in the night-watches. so that, along with olaf or some way ahead of him, came immeasurable roaring waste of waters upon knut's negligent fleet; shattered, broke, and stranded many of his ships, and was within a trifle of destroying the golden dragon herself, with knut on board. olaf and onund, we need not say, were promptly there in person, doing their very best; the railings of the golden dragon, however, were too high for their little ships; and jarl ulf, husband of knut's sister, at the top of his speed, courageously intervening, spoiled their stratagem, and saved knut from this very dangerous pass. knut did nothing more this winter. the two norse kings, quite unequal to attack such an armament, except by ambush and engineering, sailed away; again plundering at discretion on the danish coast; carrying into sweden great booties and many prisoners; but obliged to lie fixed all winter; and indeed to leave their fleets there for a series of winters,--knut's fleet, posted at elsinore on both sides of the sound, rendering all egress from the baltic impossible, except at his pleasure. ulf's opportune deliverance of his royal brother-in-law did not much bestead poor ulf himself. he had been in disfavor before, pardoned with difficulty, by queen emma's intercession; an ambitious, officious, pushing, stirring, and, both in england and denmark, almost dangerous man; and this conspicuous accidental merit only awoke new jealousy in knut. knut, finding nothing pass the sound worth much blockading, went ashore; "and the day before michaelmas," says snorro, "rode with a great retinue to roeskilde." snorro continues his tragic narrative of what befell there: "there knut's brother-in-law, jarl ulf, had prepared a great feast for him. the jarl was the most agreeable of hosts; but the king was silent and sullen. the jarl talked to him in every way to make him cheerful, and brought forward everything he could think of to amuse him; but the king remained stern, and speaking little. at last the jarl proposed a game of chess, which he agreed to. a chess-board was produced, and they played together. jarl ulf was hasty in temper, stiff, and in nothing yielding; but everything he managed went on well in his hands: and he was a great warrior, about whom there are many stories. he was the most powerful man in denmark next to the king. jarl ulf's sister, gyda, was married to jarl gudin (godwin) ulfnadson; and their sons were, harald king of england, and jarl tosti, jarl walthiof, jarl mauro-kaare, and jarl svein. gyda was the name of their daughter, who was married to the english king edward, the good (whom we call the confessor). "when they had played a while, the king made a false move; on which the jarl took a knight from him; but the king set the piece on the board again, and told the jarl to make another move. but the jarl flew angry, tumbled the chess-board over, rose, and went away. the king said, 'run thy ways, ulf the fearful.' the jarl turned round at the door and said, 'thou wouldst have run farther at helge river hadst thou been left to battle there. thou didst not call me ulf the fearful when i hastened to thy help while the swedes were beating thee like a dog.' the jarl then went out, and went to bed. "the following morning, while the king was putting on his clothes, he said to his footboy, 'go thou to jarl ulf and kill him.' the lad went, was away a while, and then came back. the king said, 'hast thou killed the jarl?' 'i did not kill him, for he was gone to st. lucius's church.' there was a man called ivar the white, a norwegian by birth, who was the king's courtman and chamberlain. the king said to him, 'go thou and kill the jarl.' ivar went to the church, and in at the choir, and thrust his sword through the jarl, who died on the spot. then ivar went to the king, with the bloody sword in his hand. "the king said, 'hast thou killed the jarl?' 'i have killed him,' said he. 'thou hast done well,' answered the king." i from a man who built so many churches (one on each battlefield where he had fought, to say nothing of the others), and who had in him such depths of real devotion and other fine cosmic quality, this does seem rather strong! but it is characteristic, withal,--of the man, and perhaps of the times still more. [ ] in any case, it is an event worth noting, the slain jarl ulf and his connections being of importance in the history of denmark and of england also. ulf's wife was astrid, sister of knut, and their only child was svein, styled afterwards "svein estrithson" ("astrid-son") when he became noted in the world,--at this time a beardless youth, who, on the back of this tragedy, fled hastily to sweden, where were friends of ulf. after some ten years' eclipse there, knut and both his sons being now dead, svein reappeared in denmark under a new and eminent figure, "jarl of denmark," highest liegeman to the then sovereign there. broke his oath to said sovereign, declared himself, svein estrithson, to be real king of denmark; and, after much preliminary trouble, and many beatings and disastrous flights to and fro, became in effect such,--to the wonder of mankind; for he had not had one victory to cheer him on, or any good luck or merit that one sees, except that of surviving longer than some others. nevertheless he came to be the restorer, so called, of danish independence; sole remaining representative of knut (or knut's sister), of fork-beard, blue-tooth, and old gorm; and ancestor of all the subsequent kings of denmark for some years; himself coming, as we see, only by the distaff side, all of the sword or male side having died so soon. early death, it has been observed, was the great knut's allotment, and all his posterity's as well;--fatal limit (had there been no others, which we see there were) to his becoming "charlemagne of the north" in any considerable degree! jarl ulf, as we have seen, had a sister, gyda by name, wife to earl godwin ("gudin ulfnadsson," as snorro calls him) a very memorable englishman, whose son and hers, king harald, _harold_ in english books, is the memorablest of all. these things ought to be better known to english antiquaries, and will perhaps be alluded to again. this pretty little victory or affront, gained over knut in _lymfjord_, was among the last successes of olaf against that mighty man. olaf, the skilful captain he was, need not have despaired to defend his norway against knut and all the world. but he learned henceforth, month by month ever more tragically, that his own people, seeing softer prospects under knut, and in particular the chiefs of them, industriously bribed by knut for years past, had fallen away from him; and that his means of defence were gone. next summer, knut's grand fleet sailed, unopposed, along the coast of norway; knut summoning a thing every here and there, and in all of them meeting nothing but sky-high acclamation and acceptance. olaf, with some twelve little ships, all he now had, lay quiet in some safe fjord, near lindenaes, what we now call the naze, behind some little solitary isles on the southeast of norway there; till triumphant knut had streamed home again. home to england again "sovereign of norway" now, with nephew hakon appointed jarl and vice-regent under him! this was the news olaf met on venturing out; and that his worst anticipations were not beyond the sad truth all, or almost all, the chief bonders and men of weight in norway had declared against him, and stood with triumphant knut. olaf, with his twelve poor ships, steered vigorously along the coast to collect money and force,--if such could now anywhere be had. he himself was resolute to hold out, and try. "sailing swiftly with a fair wind, morning cloudy with some showers," he passed the coast of jedderen, which was erling skjalgson's country, when he got sure notice of an endless multitude of ships, war-ships, armed merchant ships, all kinds of shipping-craft, down to fishermen's boats, just getting under way against him, under the command of erling skjalgson,--the powerfulest of his subjects, once much a friend of olaf's but now gone against him to this length, thanks to olaf's severity of justice, and knut's abundance in gold and promises for years back. to that complexion had it come with erling; sailing with this immense assemblage of the naval people and populace of norway to seize king olaf, and bring him to the great knut dead or alive. erling had a grand new ship of his own, which far outsailed the general miscellany of rebel ships, and was visibly fast gaining distance on olaf himself,--who well understood what erling's puzzle was, between the tail of his game (the miscellany of rebel ships, namely) that could not come up, and the head or general prize of the game which was crowding all sail to get away; and olaf took advantage of the same. "lower your sails!" said olaf to his men (though we must go slower). "ho you, we have lost sight of them!" said erling to his, and put on all his speed; olaf going, soon after this, altogether invisible,--behind a little island that he knew of, whence into a certain fjord or bay (bay of fungen on the maps), which he thought would suit him. "halt here, and get out your arms," said olaf, and had not to wait long till erling came bounding in, past the rocky promontory, and with astonishment beheld olaf's fleet of twelve with their battle-axes and their grappling-irons all in perfect readiness. these fell on him, the unready erling, simultaneous, like a cluster of angry bees; and in a few minutes cleared his ship of men altogether, except erling himself. nobody asked his life, nor probably would have got it if he had. only erling still stood erect on a high place on the poop, fiercely defensive, and very difficult to get at. "could not be reached at all," says snorro, "except by spears or arrows, and these he warded off with untiring dexterity; no man in norway, it was said, had ever defended himself so long alone against many,"--an almost invincible erling, had his cause been good. olaf himself noticed erling's behavior, and said to him, from the foredeck below, "thou hast turned against me to-day, erling." "the eagles fight breast to breast," answers he. this was a speech of the king's to erling once long ago, while they stood fighting, not as now, but side by side. the king, with some transient thought of possibility going through his head, rejoins, "wilt thou surrender, erling?" "that will i," answered he; took the helmet off his head; laid down sword and shield; and went forward to the forecastle deck. the king pricked, i think not very harshly, into erling's chin or beard with the point of his battle-axe, saying, "i must mark thee as traitor to thy sovereign, though." whereupon one of the bystanders, aslak fitiaskalle, stupidly and fiercely burst up; smote erling on the head with his axe; so that it struck fast in his brain and was instantly the death of erling. "ill-luck attend thee for that stroke; thou hast struck norway out of my hand by it!" cried the king to aslak; but forgave the poor fellow, who had done it meaning well. the insurrectionary bonder fleet arriving soon after, as if for certain victory, was struck with astonishment at this erling catastrophe; and being now without any leader of authority, made not the least attempt at battle; but, full of discouragement and consternation, thankfully allowed olaf to sail away on his northward voyage, at discretion; and themselves went off lamenting, with erling's dead body. this small victory was the last that olaf had over his many enemies at present. he sailed along, still northward, day after day; several important people joined him; but the news from landward grew daily more ominous: bonders busily arming to rear of him; and ahead, hakon still more busily at trondhjem, now near by, "--and he will end thy days, king, if he have strength enough!" olaf paused; sent scouts to a hill-top: "hakon's armament visible enough, and under way hitherward, about the isle of bjarno, yonder!" soon after, olaf himself saw the bonder armament of twenty-five ships, from the southward, sail past in the distance to join that of hakon; and, worse still, his own ships, one and another (seven in all), were slipping off on a like errand! he made for the fjord of fodrar, mouth of the rugged strath called valdal,--which i think still knows olaf and has now an "olaf's highway," where, nine centuries ago, it scarcely had a path. olaf entered this fjord, had his land-tent set up, and a cross beside it, on the small level green behind the promontory there. finding that his twelve poor ships were now reduced to five, against a world all risen upon him, he could not but see and admit to himself that there was no chance left; and that he must withdraw across the mountains and wait for a better time. his journey through that wild country, in these forlorn and straitened circumstances, has a mournful dignity and homely pathos, as described by snorro: how he drew up his five poor ships upon the beach, packed all their furniture away, and with his hundred or so of attendants and their journey-baggage, under guidance of some friendly bonder, rode up into the desert and foot of the mountains; scaled, after three days' effort (as if by miracle, thought his attendants and thought snorro), the well-nigh precipitous slope that led across, never without miraculous aid from heaven and olaf could baggage-wagons have ascended that path! in short, how he fared along, beset by difficulties and the mournfulest thoughts; but patiently persisted, steadfastly trusted in god; and was fixed to return, and by god's help try again. an evidently very pious and devout man; a good man struggling with adversity, such as the gods, we may still imagine with the ancients, do look down upon as their noblest sight. he got to sweden, to the court of his brother-in-law; kindly and nobly enough received there, though gradually, perhaps, ill-seen by the now authorities of norway. so that, before long, he quitted sweden; left his queen there with her only daughter, his and hers, the only child they had; he himself had an only son, "by a bondwoman," magnus by name, who came to great things afterwards; of whom, and of which, by and by. with this bright little boy, and a selected escort of attendants, he moved away to russia, to king jarroslav; where he might wait secure against all risk of hurting kind friends by his presence. he seems to have been an exile altogether some two years,--such is one's vague notion; for there is no chronology in snorro or his sagas, and one is reduced to guessing and inferring. he had reigned over norway, reckoning from the first days of his landing there to those last of his leaving it across the dovrefjeld, about fifteen years, ten of them shiningly victorious. the news from norway were naturally agitating to king olaf and, in the fluctuation of events there, his purposes and prospects varied much. he sometimes thought of pilgriming to jerusalem, and a henceforth exclusively religious life; but for most part his pious thoughts themselves gravitated towards norway, and a stroke for his old place and task there, which he steadily considered to have been committed to him by god. norway, by the rumors, was evidently not at rest. jarl hakon, under the high patronage of his uncle, had lasted there but a little while. i know not that his government was especially unpopular, nor whether he himself much remembered his broken oath. it appears, however, he had left in england a beautiful bride; and considering farther that in england only could bridal ornaments and other wedding outfit of a sufficiently royal kind be found, he set sail thither, to fetch her and them himself. one evening of wildish-looking weather he was seen about the northeast corner of the pentland frith; the night rose to be tempestuous; hakon or any timber of his fleet was never seen more. had all gone down,--broken oaths, bridal hopes, and all else; mouse and man,--into the roaring waters. there was no farther opposition-line; the like of which had lasted ever since old heathen hakon jarl, down to this his grandson hakon's _finis_ in the pentland frith. with this hakon's disappearance it now disappeared. indeed knut himself, though of an empire suddenly so great, was but a temporary phenomenon. fate had decided that the grand and wise knut was to be short-lived; and to leave nothing as successors but an ineffectual young harald harefoot, who soon perished, and a still stupider fiercely-drinking harda-knut, who rushed down of apoplexy (here in london city, as i guess), with the goblet at his mouth, drinking health and happiness at a wedding-feast, also before long. hakon having vanished in this dark way, there ensued a pause, both on knut's part and on norway's. pause or interregnum of some months, till it became certain, first, whether hakon were actually dead, secondly, till norway, and especially till king knut himself, could decide what to do. knut, to the deep disappointment, which had to keep itself silent, of three or four chief norway men, named none of these three or four jarl of norway; but bethought him of a certain svein, a bastard son of his own,--who, and almost still more his english mother, much desired a career in the world fitter for him, thought they indignantly, than that of captain over jomsburg, where alone the father had been able to provide for him hitherto. svein was sent to norway as king or vice-king for father knut; and along with him his fond and vehement mother. neither of whom gained any favor from the norse people by the kind of management they ultimately came to show. olaf on news of this change, and such uncertainty prevailing everywhere in norway as to the future course of things, whether svein would come, as was rumored of at last, and be able to maintain himself if he did,--thought there might be something in it of a chance for himself and his rights. and, after lengthened hesitation, much prayer, pious invocation, and consideration, decided to go and try it. the final grain that had turned the balance, it appears, was a half-waking morning dream, or almost ocular vision he had of his glorious cousin olaf tryggveson, who severely admonished, exhorted, and encouraged him; and disappeared grandly, just in the instant of olaf's awakening; so that olaf almost fancied he had seen the very figure of him, as it melted into air. "let us on, let us on!" thought olaf always after that. he left his son, not in russia, but in sweden with the queen, who proved very good and carefully helpful in wise ways to him:--in russia olaf had now nothing more to do but give his grateful adieus, and get ready. his march towards sweden, and from that towards norway and the passes of the mountains, down vaerdal, towards stickelstad, and the crisis that awaited, is beautifully depicted by snorro. it has, all of it, the description (and we see clearly, the fact itself had), a kind of pathetic grandeur, simplicity, and rude nobleness; something epic or homeric, without the metre or the singing of homer, but with all the sincerity, rugged truth to nature, and much more of piety, devoutness, reverence for what is forever high in this universe, than meets us in those old greek ballad-mongers. singularly visual all of it, too, brought home in every particular to one's imagination, so that it stands out almost as a thing one actually saw. olaf had about three thousand men with him; gathered mostly as he fared along through norway. four hundred, raised by one dag, a kinsman whom he had found in sweden and persuaded to come with him, marched usually in a separate body; and were, or might have been, rather an important element. learning that the bonders were all arming, especially in trondhjem country, olaf streamed down towards them in the closest order he could. by no means very close, subsistence even for three thousand being difficult in such a country. his speech was almost always free and cheerful, though his thoughts always naturally were of a high and earnest, almost sacred tone; devout above all. stickelstad, a small poor hamlet still standing where the valley ends, was seen by olaf, and tacitly by the bonders as well, to be the natural place for offering battle. there olaf issued out from the hills one morning: drew himself up according to the best rules of norse tactics, rules of little complexity, but perspicuously true to the facts. i think he had a clear open ground still rather raised above the plain in front; he could see how the bonder army had not yet quite arrived, but was pouring forward, in spontaneous rows or groups, copiously by every path. this was thought to be the biggest army that ever met in norway; "certainly not much fewer than a hundred times a hundred men," according to snorro; great bonders several of them, small bonders very many,--all of willing mind, animated with a hot sense of intolerable injuries. "king olaf had punished great and small with equal rigor," says snorro; "which appeared to the chief people of the country too severe; and animosity rose to the highest when they lost relatives by the king's just sentence, although they were in reality guilty. he again would rather renounce his dignity than omit righteous judgment. the accusation against him, of being stingy with his money, was not just, for he was a most generous man towards his friends. but that alone was the cause of the discontent raised against him, that he appeared hard and severe in his retributions. besides, king knut offered large sums of money, and the great chiefs were corrupted by this, and by his offering them greater dignities than they had possessed before." on these grounds, against the intolerable man, great and small were now pouring along by every path. olaf perceived it would still be some time before the bonder army was in rank. his own dag of sweden, too, was not yet come up; he was to have the right banner; king olaf's own being the middle or grand one; some other person the third or left banner. all which being perfectly ranked and settled, according to the best rules, and waiting only the arrival of dag, olaf bade his men sit down, and freshen themselves with a little rest. there were religious services gone through: a matins-worship such as there have been few; sternly earnest to the heart of it, and deep as death and eternity, at least on olaf's own part. for the rest thormod sang a stave of the fiercest skaldic poetry that was in him; all the army straightway sang it in chorus with fiery mind. the bonder of the nearest farm came up, to tell olaf that he also wished to fight for him "thanks to thee; but don't," said olaf; "stay at home rather, that the wounded may have some shelter." to this bonder, olaf delivered all the money he had, with solemn order to lay out the whole of it in masses and prayers for the souls of such of his enemies as fell. "such of thy enemies, king?" "yes, surely," said olaf, "my friends will all either conquer, or go whither i also am going." at last the bonder army too was got ranked; three commanders, one of them with a kind of loose chief command, having settled to take charge of it; and began to shake itself towards actual advance. olaf, in the mean while, had laid his head on the knees of finn arneson, his trustiest man, and fallen fast asleep. finn's brother, kalf arneson, once a warm friend of olaf, was chief of the three commanders on the opposite side. finn and he addressed angry speech to one another from the opposite ranks, when they came near enough. finn, seeing the enemy fairly approach, stirred olaf from his sleep. "oh, why hast thou wakened me from such a dream?" said olaf, in a deeply solemn tone. "what dream was it, then?" asked finn. "i dreamt that there rose a ladder here reaching up to very heaven," said olaf; "i had climbed and climbed, and got to the very last step, and should have entered there hadst thou given me another moment." "king, i doubt thou art _fey_; i do not quite like that dream." the actual fight began about one of the clock in a most bright last day of july, and was very fierce and hot, especially on the part of olaf's men, who shook the others back a little, though fierce enough they too; and had dag been on the ground, which he wasn't yet, it was thought victory might have been won. soon after battle joined, the sky grew of a ghastly brass or copper color, darker and darker, till thick night involved all things; and did not clear away again till battle was near ending. dag, with his four hundred, arrived in the darkness, and made a furious charge, what was afterwards, in the speech of the people, called "dag's storm." which had nearly prevailed, but could not quite; victory again inclining to the so vastly larger party. it is uncertain still how the matter would have gone; for olaf himself was now fighting with his own hand, and doing deadly execution on his busiest enemies to right and to left. but one of these chief rebels, thorer hund (thought to have learnt magic from the laplanders, whom he long traded with, and made money by), mysteriously would not fall for olaf's best strokes. best strokes brought only dust from the (enchanted) deer-skin coat of the fellow, to olaf's surprise,--when another of the rebel chiefs rushed forward, struck olaf with his battle-axe, a wild slashing wound, and miserably broke his thigh, so that he staggered or was supported back to the nearest stone; and there sat down, lamentably calling on god to help him in this bad hour. another rebel of note (the name of him long memorable in norway) slashed or stabbed olaf a second time, as did then a third. upon which the noble olaf sank dead; and forever quitted this doghole of a world,--little worthy of such men as olaf one sometimes thinks. but that too is a mistake, and even an important one, should we persist in it. with olaf's death the sky cleared again. battle, now near done, ended with complete victory to the rebels, and next to no pursuit or result, except the death of olaf everybody hastening home, as soon as the big duel had decided itself. olaf's body was secretly carried, after dark, to some out-house on the farm near the spot; whither a poor blind beggar, creeping in for shelter that very evening, was miraculously restored to sight. and, truly with a notable, almost miraculous, speed, the feelings of all norway for king olaf changed themselves, and were turned upside down, "within a year," or almost within a day. superlative example of _extinctus amabitur idem._ not "olaf the thick-set" any longer, but "olaf the blessed" or saint, now clearly in heaven; such the name and character of him from that time to this. two churches dedicated to him (out of four that once stood) stand in london at this moment. and the miracles that have been done there, not to speak of norway and christendom elsewhere, in his name, were numerous and great for long centuries afterwards. visibly a saint olaf ever since; and, indeed, in _bollandus_ or elsewhere, i have seldom met with better stuff to make a saint of, or a true world-hero in all good senses. speaking of the london olaf churches, i should have added that from one of these the thrice-famous tooley street gets its name,--where those three tailors, addressing parliament and the universe, sublimely styled themselves, "we, the people of england." saint olave street, saint oley street, stooley street, tooley street; such are the metamorphoses of human fame in the world! the battle-day of stickelstad, king olaf's death-day, is generally believed to have been wednesday, july , . but on investigation, it turns out that there was no total eclipse of the sun visible in norway that year; though three years before, there was one; but on the th instead of the st. so that the exact date still remains uncertain; dahlmann, the latest critic, inclining for , and its indisputable eclipse. [ ] chapter xi. magnus the good and others. st. olaf is the highest of these norway kings, and is the last that much attracts us. for this reason, if a reason were not superfluous, we might here end our poor reminiscences of those dim sovereigns. but we will, nevertheless, for the sake of their connection with bits of english history, still hastily mention the dames of one or two who follow, and who throw a momentary gleam of life and illumination on events and epochs that have fallen so extinct among ourselves at present, though once they were so momentous and memorable. the new king svein from jomsburg, knut's natural son, had no success in norway, nor seems to have deserved any. his english mother and he were found to be grasping, oppressive persons; and awoke, almost from the instant that olaf was suppressed and crushed away from norway into heaven, universal odium more and more in that country. well-deservedly, as still appears; for their taxings and extortions of malt, of herring, of meal, smithwork and every article taxable in norway, were extreme; and their service to the country otherwise nearly imperceptible. in brief their one basis there was the power of knut the great; and that, like all earthly things, was liable to sudden collapse,--and it suffered such in a notable degree. king knut, hardly yet of middle age, and the greatest king in the then world, died at shaftesbury, in , as dahlmann thinks [ ],--leaving two legitimate sons and a busy, intriguing widow (norman emma, widow of ethelred the unready), mother of the younger of these two; neither of whom proved to have any talent or any continuance. in spite of emma's utmost efforts, harald, the elder son of knut, not hers, got england for his kingdom; emma and her harda-knut had to be content with denmark, and go thither, much against their will. harald in england,--light-going little figure like his father before him,--got the name of harefoot here; and might have done good work among his now orderly and settled people; but he died almost within year and day; and has left no trace among us, except that of "harefoot," from his swift mode of walking. emma and her harda-knut now returned joyful to england. but the violent, idle, and drunken harda-knut did no good there; and, happily for england and him, soon suddenly ended, by stroke of apoplexy at a marriage festival, as mentioned above. in denmark he had done still less good. and indeed,--under him, in a year or two, the grand imperial edifice, laboriously built by knut's valor and wisdom, had already tumbled all to the ground, in a most unexpected and remarkable way. as we are now to indicate with all brevity. svein's tyrannies in norway had wrought such fruit that, within the four years after olaf's death, the chief men in norway, the very slayers of king olaf, kalf arneson at the head of them, met secretly once or twice; and unanimously agreed that kalf arneson must go to sweden, or to russia itself; seek young magnus, son of olaf home: excellent magnus, to be king over all norway and them, instead of this intolerable svein. which was at once done,--magnus brought home in a kind of triumph, all norway waiting for him. intolerable svein had already been rebelled against: some years before this, a certain young tryggve out of ireland, authentic son of olaf tryggveson, and of that fine irish princess who chose him in his low habiliments and low estate, and took him over to her own green island,--this royal young tryggve olafson had invaded the usurper svein, in a fierce, valiant, and determined manner; and though with too small a party, showed excellent fight for some time; till svein, zealously bestirring himself, managed to get him beaten and killed. but that was a couple of years ago; the party still too small, not including one and all as now! svein, without stroke of sword this time, moved off towards denmark; never showing face in norway again. his drunken brother, harda-knut, received him brother-like; even gave him some territory to rule over and subsist upon. but he lived only a short while; was gone before harda-knut himself; and we will mention him no more. magnus was a fine bright young fellow, and proved a valiant, wise, and successful king, known among his people as magnus the good. he was only natural son of king olaf but that made little difference in those times and there. his strange-looking, unexpected latin name he got in this way: alfhild, his mother, a slave through ill-luck of war, though nobly born, was seen to be in a hopeful way; and it was known in the king's house how intimately olaf was connected with that occurrence, and how much he loved this "king's serving-maid," as she was commonly designated. alfhild was brought to bed late at night; and all the world, especially king olaf was asleep; olaf's strict rule, then and always, being, don't awaken me:--seemingly a man sensitive about his sleep. the child was a boy, of rather weakly aspect; no important person present, except sigvat, the king's icelandic skald, who happened to be still awake; and the bishop of norway, who, i suppose, had been sent for in hurry. "what is to be done?" said the bishop: "here is an infant in pressing need of baptism; and we know not what the name is: go, sigvat, awaken the king, and ask." "i dare not for my life," answered sigvat; "king's orders are rigorous on that point." "but if the child die unbaptized," said the bishop, shuddering; too certain, he and everybody, where the child would go in that case! "i will myself give him a name," said sigvat, with a desperate concentration of all his faculties; "he shall be namesake of the greatest of mankind,--imperial carolus magnus; let us call the infant magnus!" king olaf, on the morrow, asked rather sharply how sigvat had dared take such a liberty; but excused sigvat, seeing what the perilous alternative was. and magnus, by such accident, this boy was called; and he, not another, is the prime origin and introducer of that name magnus, which occurs rather frequently, not among the norman kings only, but by and by among the danish and swedish; and, among the scandinavian populations, appears to be rather frequent to this day. magnus, a youth of great spirit, whose own, and standing at his beck, all norway now was, immediately smote home on denmark; desirous naturally of vengeance for what it had done to norway, and the sacred kindred of magnus. denmark, its great knut gone, and nothing but a drunken harda-knut, fugitive svein and co., there in his stead, was become a weak dislocated country. and magnus plundered in it, burnt it, beat it, as often as he pleased; harda-knut struggling what he could to make resistance or reprisals, but never once getting any victory over magnus. magnus, i perceive, was, like his father, a skilful as well as valiant fighter by sea and land; magnus, with good battalions, and probably backed by immediate alliance with heaven and st. olaf, as was then the general belief or surmise about him, could not easily be beaten. and the truth is, he never was, by harda-knut or any other. harda-knut's last transaction with him was, to make a firm peace and even family-treaty sanctioned by all the grandees of both countries, who did indeed mainly themselves make it; their two kings assenting: that there should be perpetual peace, and no thought of war more, between denmark and norway; and that, if either of the kings died childless while the other was reigning, the other should succeed him in both kingdoms. a magnificent arrangement, such as has several times been made in the world's history; but which in this instance, what is very singular, took actual effect; drunken harda-knut dying so speedily, and magnus being the man he was. one would like to give the date of this remarkable treaty; but cannot with precision. guess somewhere about : [ ] actual fruition of it came to magnus, beyond question, in , when harda-knut drank that wassail bowl at the wedding in lambeth, and fell down dead; which in the saxon chronicle is dated d june of that year. magnus at once went to denmark on hearing this event; was joyfully received by the headmen there, who indeed, with their fellows in norway, had been main contrivers of the treaty; both countries longing for mutual peace, and the end of such incessant broils. magnus was triumphantly received as king in denmark. the only unfortunate thing was, that svein estrithson, the exile son of ulf, knut's brother-in-law, whom knut, as we saw, had summarily killed twelve years before, emerged from his exile in sweden in a flattering form; and proposed that magnus should make him jarl of denmark, and general administrator there, in his own stead. to which the sanguine magnus, in spite of advice to the contrary, insisted on acceding. "too powerful a jarl," said einar tamberskelver--the same einar whose bow was heard to break in olaf tryggveson's last battle ("norway breaking from thy hand, king!"), who had now become magnus's chief man, and had long been among the highest chiefs in norway; "too powerful a jarl," said einar earnestly. but magnus disregarded it; and a troublesome experience had to teach him that it was true. in about a year, crafty svein, bringing ends to meet, got himself declared king of denmark for his own behoof, instead of jarl for another's: and had to be beaten and driven out by magnus. beaten every year; but almost always returned next year, for a new beating,--almost, though not altogether; having at length got one dreadful smashing-down and half-killing, which held him quiet for a while,--so long as magnus lived. nay in the end, he made good his point, as if by mere patience in being beaten; and did become king himself, and progenitor of all the kings that followed. king svein estrithson; so called from astrid or estrith, his mother, the great knut's sister, daughter of svein forkbeard by that amazing sigrid the proud, who _burnt_ those two ineligible suitors of hers both at once, and got a switch on the face from olaf tryggveson, which proved the death of that high man. but all this fine fortune of the often beaten estrithson was posterior to magnus's death; who never would have suffered it, had he been alive. magnus was a mighty fighter; a fiery man; very proud and positive, among other qualities, and had such luck as was never seen before. luck invariably good, said everybody; never once was beaten,--which proves, continued everybody, that his father olaf and the miraculous power of heaven were with him always. magnus, i believe, did put down a great deal of anarchy in those countries. one of his earliest enterprises was to abolish jomsburg, and trample out that nest of pirates. which he managed so completely that jomsburg remained a mere reminiscence thenceforth; and its place is not now known to any mortal. one perverse thing did at last turn up in the course of magnus: a new claimant for the crown of norway, and he a formidable person withal. this was harald, half-brother of the late saint olaf; uncle or half-uncle, therefore, of magnus himself. indisputable son of the saint's mother by st. olaf's stepfather, who was, himself descended straight from harald haarfagr. this new harald was already much heard of in the world. as an ardent boy of fifteen he had fought at king olaf's side at stickelstad; would not be admonished by the saint to go away. got smitten down there, not killed; was smuggled away that night from the field by friendly help; got cured of his wounds, forwarded to russia, where he grew to man's estate, under bright auspices and successes. fell in love with the russian princess, but could not get her to wife; went off thereupon to constantinople as _vaeringer_ (life-guardsman of the greek kaiser); became chief captain of the vaeringers, invincible champion of the poor kaisers that then were, and filled all the east with the shine and noise of his exploits. an authentic _waring_ or _baring_, such the surname we now have derived from these people; who were an important institution in those greek countries for several ages: vaeringer life-guard, consisting of norsemen, with sometimes a few english among them. harald had innumerable adventures, nearly always successful, sing the skalds; gained a great deal of wealth, gold ornaments, and gold coin; had even queen zoe (so they sing, though falsely) enamored of him at one time; and was himself a skald of eminence; some of whose verses, by no means the worst of their kind, remain to this day. this character of waring much distinguishes harald to me; the only vaeringer of whom i could ever get the least biography, true or half-true. it seems the greek history-books but indifferently correspond with these saga records; and scholars say there could have been no considerable romance between zoe and him, zoe at that date being years of age! harald's own lays say nothing of any zoe, but are still full of longing for his russian princess far away. at last, what with zoes, what with greek perversities and perfidies, and troubles that could not fail, he determined on quitting greece; packed up his immensities of wealth in succinct shape, and actually returned to russia, where new honors and favors awaited him from old friends, and especially, if i mistake not, the hand of that adorable princess, crown of all his wishes for the time being. before long, however, he decided farther to look after his norway royal heritages; and, for that purpose, sailed in force to the jarl or quasi-king of denmark, the often-beaten svein, who was now in sweden on his usual winter exile after beating. svein and he had evidently interests in common. svein was charmed to see him, so warlike, glorious and renowned a man, with masses of money about him, too. svein did by and by become treacherous; and even attempted, one night, to assassinate harald in his bed on board ship: but harald, vigilant of svein, and a man of quick and sure insight, had providently gone to sleep elsewhere, leaving a log instead of himself among the blankets. in which log, next morning, treacherous svein's battle-axe was found deeply sticking: and could not be removed without difficulty! but this was after harald and king magnus himself bad begun treating; with the fairest prospects,--which this of the $vein battle-axe naturally tended to forward, as it altogether ended the other copartnery. magnus, on first hearing of vaeringer harald and his intentions, made instant equipment, and determination to fight his uttermost against the same. but wise persons of influence round him, as did the like sort round vaeringer harald, earnestly advised compromise and peaceable agreement. which, soon after that of svein's nocturnal battle-axe, was the course adopted; and, to the joy of all parties, did prove a successful solution. magnus agreed to part his kingdom with uncle harald; uncle parting his treasures, or uniting them with magnus's poverty. each was to be an independent king, but they were to govern in common; magnus rather presiding. he, to sit, for example, in the high seat alone; king harald opposite him in a seat not quite so high, though if a stranger king came on a visit, both the norse kings were to sit in the high seat. with various other punctilious regulations; which the fiery magnus was extremely strict with; rendering the mutual relation a very dangerous one, had not both the kings been honest men, and harald a much more prudent and tolerant one than magnus. they, on the whole, never had any weighty quarrel, thanks now and then rather to harald than to magnus. magnus too was very noble; and harald, with his wide experience and greater length of years, carefully held his heat of temper well covered in. prior to uncle harald's coming, magnus had distinguished himself as a lawgiver. his code of laws for the trondhjem province was considered a pretty piece of legislation; and in subsequent times got the name of _gray-goose_ (gragas); one of the wonderfulest names ever given to a wise book. some say it came from the gray color of the parchment, some give other incredible origins; the last guess i have heard is, that the name merely denotes antiquity; the witty name in norway for a man growing old having been, in those times, that he was now "becoming a gray-goose." very fantastic indeed; certain, however, that gray-goose is the name of that venerable law book; nay, there is another, still more famous, belonging to iceland, and not far from a century younger, the iceland _gray-goose._ the norway one is perhaps of date about , the other of about ; peace be with them both! or, if anybody is inclined to such matters let him go to dahlmann, for the amplest information and such minuteness of detail as might almost enable him to be an advocate, with silk gown, in any court depending on these gray-geese. magnus did not live long. he had a dream one night of his father olaf's coming to him in shining presence, and announcing, that a magnificent fortune and world-great renown was now possible for him; but that perhaps it was his duty to refuse it; in which case his earthly life would be short. "which way wilt thou do, then?" said the shining presence. "thou shalt decide for me, father, thou, not i!" and told his uncle harald on the morrow, adding that he thought he should now soon die; which proved to be the fact. the magnificent fortune, so questionable otherwise, has reference, no doubt, to the conquest of england; to which country magnus, as rightful and actual king of _denmark_, as well as undisputed heir to drunken harda-knut, by treaty long ago, had now some evident claim. the enterprise itself was reserved to the patient, gay, and prudent uncle harald; and to him it did prove fatal,--and merely paved the way for another, luckier, not likelier! svein estrithson, always beaten during magnus's life, by and by got an agreement from the prudent harald to _be_ king of denmark, then; and end these wearisome and ineffectual brabbles; harald having other work to do. but in the autumn of , tosti, a younger son of our english earl godwin, came to svein's court with a most important announcement; namely, that king edward the confessor, so called, was dead, and that harold, as the english write it, his eldest brother would give him, tosti, no sufficient share in the kingship. which state of matters, if svein would go ahead with him to rectify it, would be greatly to the advantage of svein. svein, taught by many beatings, was too wise for this proposal; refused tosti, who indignantly stepped over into norway, and proposed it to king harald there. svein really had acquired considerable teaching, i should guess, from his much beating and hard experience in the world; one finds him afterwards the esteemed friend of the famous historian adam of bremen, who reports various wise humanities, and pleasant discoursings with svein estrithson. as for harald hardrade, "harald the hard or severe," as he was now called, tosti's proposal awakened in him all his old vaeringer ambitious and cupidities into blazing vehemence. he zealously consented; and at once, with his whole strength, embarked in the adventure. fitted out two hundred ships, and the biggest army he could carry in them; and sailed with tosti towards the dangerous promised land. got into the tyne and took booty; got into the humber, thence into the ouse; easily subdued any opposition the official people or their populations could make; victoriously scattered these, victoriously took the city of york in a day; and even got himself homaged there, "king of northumberland," as per covenant,--tosti proving honorable,--tosti and he going with faithful strict copartnery, and all things looking prosperous and glorious. except only (an important exception!) that they learnt for certain, english harold was advancing with all his strength; and, in a measurable space of hours, unless care were taken, would be in york himself. harald and tosti hastened off to seize the post of stamford bridge on derwent river, six or seven miles east of york city, and there bar this dangerous advent. their own ships lay not far off in ouse river, in case of the worst. the battle that ensued the next day, september , , is forever memorable in english history. snorro gives vividly enough his view of it from the icelandic side: a ring of stalwart norsemen, close ranked, with their steel tools in hand; english harold's army, mostly cavalry, prancing and pricking all around; trying to find or make some opening in that ring. for a long time trying in vain, till at length, getting them enticed to burst out somewhere in pursuit, they quickly turned round, and quickly made an end, of that matter. snorro represents english harold, with a first party of these horse coming up, and, with preliminary salutations, asking if tosti were there, and if harald were; making generous proposals to tosti; but, in regard to harald and what share of england was to be his, answering tosti with the words, "seven feet of english earth, or more if he require it, for a grave." upon which tosti, like an honorable man and copartner, said, "no, never; let us fight you rather till we all die." "who is this that spoke to you?" inquired harald, when the cavaliers had withdrawn. "my brother harold," answers tosti; which looks rather like a saga, but may be historical after all. snorro's history of the battle is intelligible only after you have premised to it, what he never hints at, that the scene was on the east side of the bridge and of the derwent; the great struggle for the bridge, one at last finds, was after the fall of harald; and to the english chroniclers, said struggle, which was abundantly severe, is all they know of the battle. enraged at that breaking loose of his steel ring of infantry, norse harald blazed up into true norse fury, all the old vaeringer and berserkir rage awakening in him; sprang forth into the front of the fight, and mauled and cut and smashed down, on both hands of him, everything he met, irresistible by any horse or man, till an arrow cut him through the windpipe, and laid him low forever. that was the end of king harald and of his workings in this world. the circumstance that he was a waring or baring and had smitten to pieces so many oriental cohorts or crowds, and had made love-verses (kind of iron madrigals) to his russian princess, and caught the fancy of questionable greek queens, and had amassed such heaps of money, while poor nephew magnus had only one gold ring (which had been his father's, and even his father's _mother's_, as uncle harald noticed), and nothing more whatever of that precious metal to combine with harald's treasures:--all this is new to me, naturally no hint of it in any english book; and lends some gleam of romantic splendor to that dim business of stamford bridge, now fallen so dull and torpid to most english minds, transcendently important as it once was to all englishmen. adam of bremen says, the english got as much gold plunder from harald's people as was a heavy burden for twelve men; [ ] a thing evidently impossible, which nobody need try to believe. young olaf, harald's son, age about sixteen, steering down the ouse at the top of his speed, escaped home to norway with all his ships, and subsequently reigned there with magnus, his brother. harald's body did lie in english earth for about a year; but was then brought to norway for burial. he needed more than seven feet of grave, say some; laing, interpreting snorro's measurements, makes harald eight feet in stature,--i do hope, with some error in excess! chapter xii. olaf the tranquil, magnus barefoot, and sigurd the crusader. the new king olaf, his brother magnus having soon died, bore rule in norway for some five-and-twenty years. rule soft and gentle, not like his father's, and inclining rather to improvement in the arts and elegancies than to anything severe or dangerously laborious. a slim-built, witty-talking, popular and pretty man, with uncommonly bright eyes, and hair like floss silk: they called him olaf _kyrre_ (the tranquil or easygoing). the ceremonials of the palace were much improved by him. palace still continued to be built of huge logs pyramidally sloping upwards, with fireplace in the middle of the floor, and no egress for smoke or ingress for light except right overhead, which, in bad weather, you could shut, or all but shut, with a lid. lid originally made of mere opaque board, but changed latterly into a light frame, covered (_glazed_, so to speak) with entrails of animals, clarified into something of pellucidity. all this olaf, i hope, further perfected, as he did the placing of the court ladies, court officials, and the like; but i doubt if the luxury of a glass window were ever known to him, or a cup to drink from that was not made of metal or horn. in fact it is chiefly for his son's sake i mention him here; and with the son, too, i have little real concern, but only a kind of fantastic. this son bears the name of magnus _barfod_ (barefoot, or bareleg); and if you ask why so, the answer is: he was used to appear in the streets of nidaros (trondhjem) now and then in complete scotch highland dress. authentic tartan plaid and philibeg, at that epoch,--to the wonder of trondhjem and us! the truth is, he had a mighty fancy for those hebrides and other scotch possessions of his; and seeing england now quite impossible, eagerly speculated on some conquest in ireland as next best. he did, in fact, go diligently voyaging and inspecting among those orkney and hebridian isles; putting everything straight there, appointing stringent authorities, jarls,--nay, a king, "kingdom of the suderoer" (southern isles, now called _sodor_),--and, as first king, sigurd, his pretty little boy of nine years. all which done, and some quarrel with sweden fought out, he seriously applied himself to visiting in a still more emphatic manner; namely, to invading, with his best skill and strength, the considerable virtual or actual kingdom he had in ireland, intending fully to enlarge it to the utmost limits of the island if possible. he got prosperously into dublin (guess a.d. ). considerable authority he already had, even among those poor irish kings, or kinglets, in their glibs and yellow-saffron gowns; still more, i suppose, among the numerous norse principalities there. "king murdog, king of ireland," says the chronicle of man, "had obliged himself, every yule-day, to take a pair of shoes, hang them over his shoulder, as your servant does on a journey, and walk across his court, at bidding and in presence of magnus barefoot's messenger, by way of homage to the said king." murdog on this greater occasion did whatever homage could be required of him; but that, though comfortable, was far from satisfying the great king's ambitious mind. the great king left murdog; left his own dublin; marched off westward on a general conquest of ireland. marched easily victorious for a time; and got, some say, into the wilds of connaught, but there saw himself beset by ambuscades and wild irish countenances intent on mischief; and had, on the sudden, to draw up for battle;--place, i regret to say, altogether undiscoverable to me; known only that it was boggy in the extreme. certain enough, too certain and evident, magnus barefoot, searching eagerly, could find no firm footing there; nor, fighting furiously up to the knees or deeper, any result but honorable death! date is confidently marked " august, ,"--as if people knew the very day of the month. the natives did humanely give king magnus christian burial. the remnants of his force, without further molestation, found their ships on the coast of ulster; and sailed home,--without conquest of ireland; nay perhaps, leaving royal murdog disposed to be relieved of his procession with the pair of shoes. magnus barefoot left three sons, all kings at once, reigning peaceably together. but to us, at present, the only noteworthy one of them was sigurd; who, finding nothing special to do at home, left his brothers to manage for him, and went off on a far voyage, which has rendered him distinguishable in the crowd. voyage through the straits of gibraltar, on to jerusalem, thence to constantinople; and so home through russia, shining with such renown as filled all norway for the time being. a king called sigurd jorsalafarer (jerusalemer) or sigurd the crusader henceforth. his voyage had been only partially of the viking type; in general it was of the royal-progress kind rather; vikingism only intervening in cases of incivility or the like. his reception in the courts of portugal, spain, sicily, italy, had been honorable and sumptuous. the king of jerusalem broke out into utmost splendor and effusion at sight of such a pilgrim; and constantinople did its highest honors to such a prince of vaeringers. and the truth is, sigurd intrinsically was a wise, able, and prudent man; who, surviving both his brothers, reigned a good while alone in a solid and successful way. he shows features of an original, independent-thinking man; something of ruggedly strong, sincere, and honest, with peculiarities that are amiable and even pathetic in the character and temperament of him; as certainly, the course of life he took was of his own choosing, and peculiar enough. he happens furthermore to be, what he least of all could have chosen or expected, the last of the haarfagr genealogy that had any success, or much deserved any, in this world. the last of the haarfagrs, or as good as the last! so that, singular to say, it is in reality, for one thing only that sigurd, after all his crusadings and wonderful adventures, is memorable to us here: the advent of an irish gentleman called "gylle krist" (gil-christ, servant of christ), who,--not over welcome, i should think, but (unconsciously) big with the above result,--appeared in norway, while king sigurd was supreme. let us explain a little. this gylle krist, the unconsciously fatal individual, who "spoke norse imperfectly," declared himself to be the natural son of whilom magnus barefoot; born to him there while engaged in that unfortunate "conquest of ireland." "here is my mother come with me," said gilchrist, "who declares my real baptismal name to have been harald, given me by that great king; and who will carry the red-hot ploughshares or do any reasonable ordeal in testimony of these facts. i am king sigurd's veritable half-brother: what will king sigurd think it fair to do with me?" sigurd clearly seems to have believed the man to be speaking truth; and indeed nobody to have doubted but he was. sigurd said, "honorable sustenance shalt thou have from me here. but, under pain of extirpation, swear that, neither in my time, nor in that of my young son magnus, wilt thou ever claim any share in this government." gylle swore; and punctually kept his promise during sigurd's reign. but during magnus's, he conspicuously broke it; and, in result, through many reigns, and during three or four generations afterwards, produced unspeakable contentions, massacrings, confusions in the country he had adopted. there are reckoned, from the time of sigurd's death (a.d. ), about a hundred years of civil war: no king allowed to distinguish himself by a solid reign of well-doing, or by any continuing reign at all,--sometimes as many as four kings simultaneously fighting;--and in norway, from sire to son, nothing but sanguinary anarchy, disaster and bewilderment; a country sinking steadily as if towards absolute ruin. of all which frightful misery and discord irish gylle, styled afterwards king harald gylle, was, by ill destiny and otherwise, the visible origin: an illegitimate irish haarfagr who proved to be his own destruction, and that of the haarfagr kindred altogether! sigurd himself seems always to have rather favored gylle, who was a cheerful, shrewd, patient, witty, and effective fellow; and had at first much quizzing to endure, from the younger kind, on account of his irish way of speaking norse, and for other reasons. one evening, for example, while the drink was going round, gylle mentioned that the irish had a wonderful talent of swift running and that there were among them people who could keep up with the swiftest horse. at which, especially from young magnus, there were peals of laughter; and a declaration from the latter that gylle and he would have it tried to-morrow morning! gylle in vain urged that he had not himself professed to be so swift a runner as to keep up with the prince's horses; but only that there were men in ireland who could. magnus was positive; and, early next morning, gylle had to be on the ground; and the race, naturally under heavy bet, actually went off. gylle started parallel to magnus's stirrup; ran like a very roe, and was clearly ahead at the goal. "unfair," said magnus; "thou must have had hold of my stirrup-leather, and helped thyself along; we must try it again." gylle ran behind the horse this second time; then at the end, sprang forward; and again was fairly in ahead. "thou must have held by the tail," said magnus; "not by fair running was this possible; we must try a third time!" gylle started ahead of magnus and his horse, this third time; kept ahead with increasing distance, magnus galloping his very best; and reached the goal more palpably foremost than ever. so that magnus had to pay his bet, and other damage and humiliation. and got from his father, who heard of it soon afterwards, scoffing rebuke as a silly fellow, who did not know the worth of men, but only the clothes and rank of them, and well deserved what he had got from gylle. all the time king sigurd lived, gylle seems to have had good recognition and protection from that famous man; and, indeed, to have gained favor all round, by his quiet social demeanor and the qualities he showed. chapter xiii. magnus the blind, harald gylle, and mutual extinction of the haarfagrs. on sigurd the crusader's death, magnus naturally came to the throne; gylle keeping silence and a cheerful face for the time. but it was not long till claim arose on gylle's part, till war and fight arose between magnus and him, till the skilful, popular, ever-active and shifty gylle had entirely beaten magnus; put out his eyes, mutilated the poor body of him in a horrid and unnamable manner, and shut him up in a convent as out of the game henceforth. there in his dark misery magnus lived now as a monk; called "magnus the blind" by those norse populations; king harald gylle reigning victoriously in his stead. but this also was only for a time. there arose avenging kinsfolk of magnus, who had no irish accent in their norse, and were themselves eager enough to bear rule in their native country. by one of these,--a terribly stronghanded, fighting, violent, and regardless fellow, who also was a bastard of magnus barefoot's, and had been made a priest, but liked it unbearably ill, and had broken loose from it into the wildest courses at home and abroad; so that his current name got to be "slembi-diakn," slim or ill deacon, under which he is much noised of in snorro and the sagas: by this slim-deacon, gylle was put an end to (murdered by night, drunk in his sleep); and poor blind magnus was brought out, and again set to act as king, or king's cloak, in hopes gylle's posterity would never rise to victory more. but gylle's posterity did, to victory and also to defeat, and were the death of magnus and of slim-deacon too, in a frightful way; and all got their own death by and by in a ditto. in brief, these two kindreds (reckoned to be authentic enough haarfagr people, both kinds of them) proved now to have become a veritable crop of dragon's teeth; who mutually fought, plotted, struggled, as if it had been their life's business; never ended fighting and seldom long intermitted it, till they had exterminated one another, and did at last all rest in death. one of these later gylle temporary kings i remember by the name of harald herdebred, harald of the broad shoulders. the very last of them i think was harald mund (harald of the _wry-mouth_), who gave rise to two impostors, pretending to be sons of his, a good while after the poor wry-mouth itself and all its troublesome belongings were quietly underground. what norway suffered during that sad century may be imagined. chapter xiv. sverrir and descendants, to hakon the old. the end of it was, or rather the first abatement, and _beginnings_ of the end, that, when all this had gone on ever worsening for some forty years or so, one sverrir (a.d. ), at the head of an armed mob of poor people called _birkebeins_, came upon the scene. a strange enough figure in history, this sverrir and his birkebeins! at first a mere mockery and dismal laughing-stock to the enlightened norway public. nevertheless by unheard-of fighting, hungering, exertion, and endurance, sverrir, after ten years of such a death-wrestle against men and things, got himself accepted as king; and by wonderful expenditure of ingenuity, common cunning, unctuous parliamentary eloquence or almost popular preaching, and (it must be owned) general human faculty and valor (or value) in the over-clouded and distorted state, did victoriously continue such. and founded a new dynasty in norway, which ended only with norway's separate existence, after near three hundred years. this sverrir called himself a son of harald wry-mouth; but was in reality the son of a poor comb-maker in some little town of norway; nothing heard of sonship to wry-mouth till after good success otherwise. his birkebeins (that is to say, _birchlegs;_ the poor rebellious wretches having taken to the woods; and been obliged, besides their intolerable scarcity of food, to thatch their bodies from the cold with whatever covering could be got, and their legs especially with birch bark; sad species of fleecy hosiery; whence their nickname),--his birkebeins i guess always to have been a kind of norse _jacquerie_: desperate rising of thralls and indigent people, driven mad by their unendurable sufferings and famishings,--theirs the _deepest_ stratum of misery, and the densest and heaviest, in this the general misery of norway, which had lasted towards the third generation and looked as if it would last forever:--whereupon they had risen proclaiming, in this furious dumb manner, unintelligible except to heaven, that the same could not, nor would not, be endured any longer! and, by their sverrir, strange to say, they did attain a kind of permanent success; and, from being a dismal laughing-stock in norway, came to be important, and for a time all-important there. their opposition nicknames, "_baglers_ (from bagall, _baculus_, bishop's staff; bishop nicholas being chief leader)," "_gold-legs_," and the like obscure terms (for there was still a considerable course of counter-fighting ahead, and especially of counter-nicknaming), i take to have meant in norse prefigurement seven centuries ago, "bloated aristocracy," "tyrannous-_bourgeoisie_,"--till, in the next century, these rents were closed again! king sverrir, not himself bred to comb-making, had, in his fifth year, gone to an uncle, bishop in the faroe islands; and got some considerable education from him, with a view to priesthood on the part of sverrir. but, not liking that career, sverrir had fled and smuggled himself over to the birkebeins; who, noticing the learned tongue, and other miraculous qualities of the man, proposed to make him captain of them; and even threatened to kill him if he would not accept,--which thus at the sword's point, as sverrir says, he was obliged to do. it was after this that he thought of becoming son of wry-mouth and other higher things. his birkebeins and he had certainly a talent of campaigning which has hardly ever been equalled. they fought like devils against any odds of number; and before battle they have been known to march six days together without food, except, perhaps, the inner barks of trees, and in such clothing and shoeing as mere birch bark:--at one time, somewhere in the dovrefjeld, there was serious counsel held among them whether they should not all, as one man, leap down into the frozen gulfs and precipices, or at once massacre one another wholly, and so finish. of their conduct in battle, fiercer than that of _baresarks_, where was there ever seen the parallel? in truth they are a dim strange object to one, in that black time; wondrously bringing light into it withal; and proved to be, under such unexpected circumstances, the beginning of better days! of sverrir's public speeches there still exist authentic specimens; wonderful indeed, and much characteristic of such a sverrir. a comb-maker king, evidently meaning several good and solid things; and effecting them too, athwart such an element of norwegian chaos-come-again. his descendants and successors were a comparatively respectable kin. the last and greatest of them i shall mention is hakon vii., or hakon the old; whose fame is still lively among us, from the battle of largs at least. chapter xv. hakon the old at largs. in the norse annals our famous battle of largs makes small figure, or almost none at all among hakon's battles and feats. they do say indeed, these norse annalists, that the king of scotland, alexander iii. (who had such a fate among the crags about kinghorn in time coming), was very anxious to purchase from king hakon his sovereignty of the western isles, but that hakon pointedly refused; and at length, being again importuned and bothered on the business, decided on giving a refusal that could not be mistaken. decided, namely, to go with a big expedition, and look thoroughly into that wing of his dominions; where no doubt much has fallen awry since magnus barefoot's grand visit thither, and seems to be inviting the cupidity of bad neighbors! "all this we will put right again," thinks hakon, "and gird it up into a safe and defensive posture." hakon sailed accordingly, with a strong fleet; adjusting and rectifying among his hebrides as he went long, and landing withal on the scotch coast to plunder and punish as he thought fit. the scots say he had claimed of them arran, bute, and the two cumbraes ("given my ancestors by donald bain," said hakon, to the amazement of the scots) "as part of the sudoer" (southern isles):--so far from selling that fine kingdom!--and that it was after taking both arran and bute that he made his descent at largs. of largs there is no mention whatever in norse books. but beyond any doubt, such is the other evidence, hakon did land there; land and fight, not conquering, probably rather beaten; and very certainly "retiring to his ships," as in either case he behooved to do! it is further certain he was dreadfully maltreated by the weather on those wild coasts; and altogether credible, as the scotch records bear, that he was so at largs very specially. the norse records or sagas say merely, he lost many of his ships by the tempests, and many of his men by land fighting in various parts,--tacitly including largs, no doubt, which was the last of these misfortunes to him. "in the battle here he lost , men, say the scots, we , "! divide these numbers by ten, and the excellently brief and lucid scottish summary by buchanan may be taken as the approximately true and exact. [ ] date of the battle is a.d. . to this day, on a little plain to the south of the village, now town, of largs, in ayrshire, there are seen stone cairns and monumental heaps, and, until within a century ago, one huge, solitary, upright stone; still mutely testifying to a battle there,--altogether clearly, to this battle of king hakon's; who by the norse records, too, was in these neighborhoods at that same date, and evidently in an aggressive, high kind of humor. for "while his ships and army were doubling the mull of cantire, he had his own boat set on wheels, and therein, splendidly enough, had himself drawn across the promontory at a flatter part," no doubt with horns sounding, banners waving. "all to the left of me is mine and norway's," exclaimed hakon in his triumphant boat progress, which such disasters soon followed. hakon gathered his wrecks together, and sorrowfully made for orkney. it is possible enough, as our guide books now say, he may have gone by iona, mull, and the narrow seas inside of skye; and that the _kyle-akin_, favorably known to sea-bathers in that region, may actually mean the kyle (narrow strait) of hakon, where hakon may have dropped anchor, and rested for a little while in smooth water and beautiful environment, safe from equinoctial storms. but poor hakon's heart was now broken. he went to orkney; died there in the winter; never beholding norway more. he it was who got iceland, which had been a republic for four centuries, united to his kingdom of norway: a long and intricate operation,--much presided over by our snorro sturleson, so often quoted here, who indeed lost his life (by assassination from his sons-in-law) and out of great wealth sank at once into poverty of zero,--one midnight in his own cellar, in the course of that bad business. hakon was a great politician in his time; and succeeded in many things before he lost largs. snorro's death by murder had happened about twenty years before hakon's by broken heart. he is called hakon the old, though one finds his age was but fifty-nine, probably a longish life for a norway king. snorro's narrative ceases when snorro himself was born; that is to say, at the threshold of king sverrir; of whose exploits and doubtful birth it is guessed by some that snorro willingly forbore to speak in the hearing of such a hakon. chapter xvi. epilogue. haarfagr's kindred lasted some three centuries in norway; sverrir's lasted into its third century there; how long after this, among the neighboring kinships, i did not inquire. for, by regal affinities, consanguinities, and unexpected chances and changes, the three scandinavian kingdoms fell all peaceably together under queen margaret, of the calmar union (a.d. ); and norway, incorporated now with denmark, needed no more kings. the history of these haarfagrs has awakened in me many thoughts: of despotism and democracy, arbitrary government by one and self-government (which means no government, or anarchy) by all; of dictatorship with many faults, and universal suffrage with little possibility of any virtue. for the contrast between olaf tryggveson, and a universal-suffrage parliament or an "imperial" copper captain has, in these nine centuries, grown to be very great. and the eternal providence that guides all this, and produces alike these entities with their epochs, is not its course still through the great deep? does not it still speak to us, if we have ears? here, clothed in stormy enough passions and instincts, unconscious of any aim but their own satisfaction, is the blessed beginning of human order, regulation, and real government; there, clothed in a highly different, but again suitable garniture of passions, instincts, and equally unconscious as to real aim, is the accursed-looking ending (temporary ending) of order, regulation, and government;--very dismal to the sane onlooker for the time being; not dismal to him otherwise, his hope, too, being steadfast! but here, at any rate, in this poor norse theatre, one looks with interest on the first transformation, so mysterious and abstruse, of human chaos into something of articulate cosmos; witnesses the wild and strange birth-pangs of human society, and reflects that without something similar (little as men expect such now), no cosmos of human society ever was got into existence, nor can ever again be. the violences, fightings, crimes--ah yes, these seldom fail, and they are very lamentable. but always, too, among those old populations, there was one saving element; the now want of which, especially the unlamented want, transcends all lamentation. here is one of those strange, piercing, winged-words of ruskin, which has in it a terrible truth for us in these epochs now come:-- "my friends, the follies of modern liberalism, many and great though they be, are practically summed in this denial or neglect of the quality and intrinsic value of things. its rectangular beatitudes, and spherical benevolences,--theology of universal indulgence, and jurisprudence which will hang no rogues, mean, one and all of them, in the root, incapacity of discerning, or refusal to discern, worth and unworth in anything, and least of all in man; whereas nature and heaven command you, at your peril, to discern worth from unworth in everything, and most of all in man. your main problem is that ancient and trite one, 'who is best man?' and the fates forgive much,--forgive the wildest, fiercest, cruelest experiments,--if fairly made for the determination of that. "theft and blood-guiltiness are not pleasing in their sight; yet the favoring powers of the spiritual and material world will confirm to you your stolen goods, and their noblest voices applaud the lifting of your spear, and rehearse the sculpture of your shield, if only your robbing and slaying have been in fair arbitrament of that question, 'who is best man?' but if you refuse such inquiry, and maintain every man for his neighbor's match,--if you give vote to the simple and liberty to the vile, the powers of those spiritual and material worlds in due time present you inevitably with the same problem, soluble now only wrong side upwards; and your robbing and slaying must be done then to find out, 'who is worst man?' which, in so wide an order of merit, is, indeed, not easy; but a complete tammany ring, and lowest circle in the inferno of worst, you are sure to find, and to be governed by." [ ] all readers will admit that there was something naturally royal in these haarfagr kings. a wildly great kind of kindred; counts in it two heroes of a high, or almost highest, type: the first two olafs, tryggveson and the saint. and the view of them, withal, as we chance to have it, i have often thought, how essentially homeric it was:--indeed what is "homer" himself but the _rhapsody_ of five centuries of greek skalds and wandering ballad-singers, done (i.e. "stitched together") by somebody more musical than snorro was? olaf tryggveson and olaf saint please me quite as well in their prosaic form; offering me the truth of them as if seen in their real lineaments by some marvellous opening (through the art of snorro) across the black strata of the ages. two high, almost among the highest sons of nature, seen as they veritably were; fairly comparable or superior to god-like achilleus, goddess-wounding diomedes, much more to the two atreidai, regulators of the peoples. i have also thought often what a book might be made of snorro, did there but arise a man furnished with due literary insight, and indefatigable diligence; who, faithfully acquainting himself with the topography, the monumental relies and illustrative actualities of norway, carefully scanning the best testimonies as to place and time which that country can still give him, carefully the best collateral records and chronologies of other countries, and who, himself possessing the highest faculty of a poet, could, abridging, arranging, elucidating, reduce snorro to a polished cosmic state, unweariedly purging away his much chaotic matter! a modern "highest kind of poet," capable of unlimited slavish labor withal;--who, i fear, is not soon to be expected in this world, or likely to find his task in the _heimskringla_ if he did appear here. footnotes: [footnote : j. g. dahlmann, _geschichte von dannemark_, vols. vo. hamburg, - .] [footnote : "settlement," dated , by munch, henault, &c. the saxon chronicle says (anno ): "in this year rolf overran normandy with his army, and he reigned fifty winters."] [footnote : dahlmann, ii. .] [footnote : dahlmann, ii. .] [footnote : _laing's snorro_, i. .] [footnote : g. buchanani _opera omnia_, i. , (curante ruddimano, edinburgi, ).] [footnote : his long serpent, judged by some to be of the size of a frigate of forty-five guns (laing).] [footnote : this sermon was printed by hearne; and is given also by langebek in his excellent collection, _rerum danicarum scriptores medii aeri._ hafniae. - .] [footnote : kennet, i. ; rapin, i. , (from the _saxon chronicle_ both).] [footnote : knut born a.d. according to munch's calculation (ii. ).] [footnote : snorro, laing's translation, ii. p. et seq., will minutely specify.] [footnote : snorro, ii. pp. , .] [footnote : snorro, ii. pp. - .] [footnote : snorro, ii. pp. , .] [footnote : _saxon chronicle_ says expressly, under a.d. : "in this year king olaf was slain in norway by his own people, and was afterwards sainted."] [footnote : _saxon chronicle_ says: " . in this year died king cnut.... he departed at shaftesbury, november , and they conveyed him thence to winchester, and there buried him."] [footnote : munch gives the date (ii. ), adam of bremen .] [footnote : camden, rapin, &c. quote.] [footnote : _buchanani hist._ i. .] [footnote : _fors clavigera_, letter xiv. pp. - .] generously made available by the google books library project (http://books.google.com/) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) images of the original pages are available through the the google books library project. see http://books.google.com/books?vid=maybaaaaqaaj&id transcriber's note: obvious typographical errors have been corrected, but otherwise the original spelling has generally been retained, even where several different spellings have been used to refer to the same person. the printed book contained footnotes and endnotes. the endnotes have been treated as footnotes, and marked with anchors prefixed by e, as in [e ]. when one endnote is referenced twice, the second occurence is marked by adding a b, as in [e b], and the text of the endnote is repeated in the appropriate place. the printed book contained a few features, such as greek text and illustrations, that could not be reproduced in this format. these have been marked in the text using {curly braces}. a list of corrections is at the end of this e-book. memoirs of leonora christina daughter of christian iv. of denmark written during her imprisonment in the blue tower at copenhagen - translated by f. e. bunnètt london henry s. king & co., cornhill london: printed by spottiswoode and co., new-street square and parliament street all rights reserved preface. in placing the present translation of leonora christina ulfeldt's memoirs before the english reading public, a few words are due from the publishers, in order to explain the relation between this edition and those which have been brought out in denmark and in germany. the original autograph manuscript of leonora christina's record of her sufferings in her prison, written between the years and , belongs to her descendant the austrian count joh. waldstein, and it was discovered only a few years ago. it was then, at the desire of count waldstein, brought to copenhagen by the danish minister at vienna, m. falbe, in order that its authenticity might be thoroughly verified by comparison with documents preserved in the danish archives and libraries, and known to be in the hand-writing of the illustrious authoress. when the existence of this interesting historic and literary relic had become known in denmark, a desire to see it published was naturally expressed on all sides, and to this the noble owner most readily acceded. thus the first danish edition came to light in , promoted in every way by count waldstein. the editor was mr. sophus birket-smith, assistant librarian of the university library at copenhagen, who enriched the edition with a historical introduction and copious notes. a second danish edition appeared a few months later; and in a german translation of the memoir was edited by m. ziegler, with a new introduction and notes, founded partly on the first danish edition, partly on other printed sources, to which were added extracts from some papers found in the family archives of count waldstein, and which were supposed to possess the interest of novelty. the applause with which this edition was received in germany suggested the idea of an english version, and it was at first intended merely to translate m. ziegler's book into english. during the progress of the work, however, it was found preferable to adopt the second danish edition as the basis of the english edition. the translation which had been made from m. ziegler's german, has been carefully compared with the danish original, so as to remove any defects arising from the use of the german translation, and give it the same value as a translation made direct from the danish; a new introduction and notes have been added, for which the danish editor, mr. birket-smith has supplied the materials; and instead of the fragments of ulfeldt's apology and of an extract from leonora christina's autobiography found in the german edition, a complete translation of the autobiography to the point where leonora's memoir of her sufferings in prison takes up the thread of the narrative, has been inserted, made from the original french text, recently published by mr. s. birket-smith. as a matter of course the preface of count waldstein, which appears in this edition, is the one prefixed to the danish edition. the manuscript itself of the record of leonora christina's sufferings in prison was commenced in , and was at first intended to commemorate only what had happened during the preceding ten years of her captivity; it was afterwards extended to embrace the whole period down to , and subjected to a revision which resulted in numerous additions and alterations. as, however, these do not seem to have been properly worked in by the authoress herself, the memoir is here rendered, as in the danish edition, in its original, more perfect shape, and the subsequent alterations made the subject of foot notes. preface to the danish edition. when, in the summer of , i visited the graves of my danish ancestors of the family of ulfeldt, in the little village church at quærndrup, near the castle of egeskov, on the island of fyn, i resolved to honour the memory of my pious ancestress leonora christina, and thus fulfil the duty of a descendant by publishing this autograph manuscript which had come to me amongst the heirlooms left by my father. it is well known that the last male representative of the family of ulfeldt, the chancellor of the court and realm of her majesty the empress maria theresia, had only two daughters. one of them, elizabeth, married georg christian, count waldstein, while the younger married count thun. out of special affection for her younger son emanuel (my late father), my grandmother bequeathed all that referred to the ulfeldts to him, and the manuscript which i now--in consequence of requests from various quarters, also from high places--give to publicity by the learned assistance of mr. sophus birket-smith, thus came to me through direct descent from her father: 'corfitz, count of ulfeldt of the holy roman empire, lord of the lordships költz-jenikau, hof-kazof, brödlich, odaslowitz, and the fief zinltsch, knight of the golden vliess, first treasurer of the hereditary lands in bohemia, ambassador at the ottoman porte, afterwards chancellor of the court and the empire, sworn privy councillor and first lord steward of his imperial and royal majesty carolus vi., as well as of his imperial roman and royal majesty of hungary, bohemia,' &c. we add: the highly honoured paternal guide of her majesty the queen empress maria theresia, of glorious memory, during the first year of her government, until the time when the gifted prince kaunitz, whose genius sometimes even was too much for this, morally noble lady, became her successor. i possess more than eleven imposing, closely written folio volumes, which contain the manuscripts of the chancellor of the empire, his negociations with the sublime porte, afterwards with the states-general of the netherlands, as well as the ministerial protocols from the whole time that he held the office of imperial chancellor; all of which prove his great industry and love of order, while the original letters and annotations of his exalted mistress, which are inserted in these same volumes, testify to the sincere, almost childlike confidence with which she honoured him. but this steady and circumspect statesman was the direct grandson of the restless and proud corfitz, first count of ulfeldt of the roman empire, high steward of the realm in denmark, &c., and of his devoted and gifted wife leonora christina, through their son leo, imperial count ulfeldt, privy councillor, field-marshal, and viceroy in catalonia of the emperor carl vi., and his wife, a born countess of zinzendorf. i preserved, therefore with great care this manuscript, as well as all other relics and little objects which had belonged to my danish ancestress, whose exalted character and sufferings are so highly calculated to inspire sympathy, interest, and reverence. amongst these objects are several writings, such as fragments of poems, prayers, needlework executed in prison (some embroidered with hair of a fair colour); a christening robe with cap worked in gold, probably used at the christening of her children; a very fine amulet of christian iv. in blue enamel, and many portraits; amongst others the original picture in oil of which a copy precedes the title page, &c. &c. considering that the manuscript has been handed down directly from my ancestors from generation to generation in direct line, i could not personally have any doubt as to its genuineness. nevertheless i yielded to the suggestions of others, in order to have the authenticity of the manuscript thoroughly tested. in what way this was done will be seen from the introduction of the editor. though the final verdict of history may not yet have been given on corfitz ulfeldt, yet--tempus omnia sanat--yon ominous pillar, which was to perpetuate the memory of his crime into eternity, has been put aside as rubbish and left to oblivion. noble in forgetting and pardoning, the great nation of the north has given a bright example to those who still refuse to grant to albert, duke of friedland--the great general who saved the empire from the danger that threatened it from the north--the place which this hero ought to occupy in the walhalla at vienna. but as to the fiery temper of corfitz and the mysterious springs which govern the deeds and thoughts of mankind, it may be permitted to me, his descendant, to cherish the belief, which is almost strengthened into a conviction, that a woman so highly gifted, of so noble sentiments, as leonora appears to us, would never have been able to cling with a love so true, and so enduring through all the changes of life, to a man who was unworthy of it. joh. count waldstein. cairo: december , . contents. page introduction autobiography a record of the sufferings of the imprisoned countess:-- preface (to my children) a reminiscence of all that occurred to me, leonora christina, in the blue tower, from august of the year , to june of the year memoirs of leonora christina. introduction. amongst the women celebrated in history, leonora christina, the heroine as well as the authoress of the memoirs which form the subject of this volume, occupies a conspicuous place, as one of the noblest examples of every womanly virtue and accomplishment, displayed under the most trying vicissitudes of fortune. born the daughter of a king, married to one of the ablest statesmen of his time, destined, as it seemed, to shine in the undisturbed lustre of position and great qualities, she had to spend nearly twenty-two years in a prison, in the forced company--more cruel to her than solitary confinement--of male and female gaolers of the lowest order, and for a long time deprived of every means of rendering herself independent of these surroundings by intellectual occupation. she had to suffer alone, and innocently, for her husband's crimes; whatever these were, she had no part in them, and she endured persecution because she would not forsake him in his misfortune. leonora christina was the victim of despotism guided by personal animosity, and she submitted with a christian meekness and forbearance which would be admirable in any, but which her exalted station and her great mental qualities bring out in doubly strong relief. it is to these circumstances, which render the fate of leonora so truly tragic, as well as to the fact that we have her own authentic and trustworthy account before us, that the principal charm of this record is due. besides this, it affords many incidental glimpses of the customs and habits of the time, nor is it without its purely historical interest. leonora and her husband, corfits ulfeldt, were intimately connected with the principal political events in the north of europe at their time; even the more minute circumstances of their life have, therefore, a certain interest. no wonder that the history of this illustrious couple has formed, and still forms, the theme both of laborious scientific researches and of poetical compositions. amongst the latter we may here mention in passing a well-known novel by rousseau de la valette,[ ] because it has had the undeserved honour of being treated by a modern writer as an historical source, to the great detriment of his composition. documents which have originated from these two personages are of course of great value. besides letters and public documents, there exist several accounts written by both corfits ulfeldt and leonora referring to their own life and actions. ulfeldt published in a defence of his political conduct, and composed, shortly before his death, another, commonly called the 'apology of ulfeldt,' which has not yet been printed entirely, but of which an extract was published in in the supplement of the english edition of rousseau de la valette's book. some extracts from an incomplete copy discovered by count waldstein in , in the family archives at the castle of palota, were published with the german edition of leonora's memoir; complete copies exist in copenhagen and elsewhere. leonora christina, who was an accomplished writer, has composed at least four partial accounts of her own life. one of them, referring to a journey in , to be mentioned hereafter, has been printed long ago; of another, which treated of her and ulfeldt's imprisonment at bornholm, no copy has yet been discovered. the third is her autobiography, carried down to , of which an english version follows this introduction; it was written in the blue tower, in the form of a letter to the danish antiquarian, otto sperling, jun., who wished to make use of it for his work, 'de feminis doctis.'[ ] [ ] _le comte d'ulfeld, grand maistre de danemarc._ _nouvelle historique_, i.-ii. paris, . vo. an english translation, with a supplement, appeared : _the life of count ulfeldt, great master of denmark, and of the countess eleonora his wife._ done out of french. with a supplement. london. . vo. another novel by the same author, called _casimir king of poland_, is perhaps better known in this country, through a translation by f. spence in vol. ii. of _modern novels_, . [ ] it is by a slip of memory that mr. birket smith, in his first danish edition of leonora christina's memoir of her life in prison, describes this work under the name of _de feminis eruditis_. about a century ago a so-called autobiography of leonora was published in copenhagen, but it was easily proved to be a forgery; in fact, the original of her own work existed in the danish archives, and had been described by the historian andreas höier. it has now been lost, it is supposed, in the fire which destroyed the castle of christiansborg in , but a complete copy exists in copenhagen, as well as several extracts in latin; another short extract in french belongs to count waldstein. finally, leonora christina wrote the memoir of her sufferings in the prison of the blue tower from - , of which the existence was unknown until discovered by count waldstein, and given to the public in the manner indicated in the preface. in introducing these memoirs to the english public, a short sketch of the historical events and the persons to whom they refer may not be unwelcome, particularly as leonora herself touches only very lightly on them, and principally describes her own personal life. _leonora christina_ was a daughter of _king christian iv._ of denmark and _kirstine munk_. his queen, anna catherine, born a princess of brandenburg, died in , leaving three princes (four other children died early), and in the king contracted a morganatic marriage with kirstine munk, a lady of an ancient and illustrious noble family. leonora was born july (new style), , at the castle of fredriksborg, so well known to all who have visited denmark, which the king had built twenty miles north of copenhagen, in a beautiful part of the country, surrounded by smiling lakes and extensive forests. but little is known of her childhood beyond what she tells herself in her autobiography. already in her eighth year she was promised to her future husband, corfits ulfeldt, and in the wedding was celebrated with great splendour, leonora being then fifteen years old. the family of ulfeldt has been known since the close of the fourteenth century. corfits' father had been chancellor of the realm, and somewhat increased the family possessions, though he sold the ancient seat of the family, ulfeldtsholm, in fyen, to lady ellen marsvin, kirstine munk's mother. he had seventeen children, of whom corfits was the seventh; and so far leonora made only a poor marriage. but her husband's great talents and greater ambition made up for this defect. of his youth nothing is known with any certainty, except that he travelled abroad, as other young noblemen of his time, studied at padua, and acquired considerable proficiency in foreign languages.[ ] he became a favourite of christian iv., at whose court he had every opportunity for displaying his social talents. at the marriage of the elected successor to the throne, the king's eldest son, christian, with the princess magdalene sibylle of saxony, in , corfits ulfeldt acted as maréchal to the special ambassador count d'avaux, whom louis xiii. had sent to copenhagen on that occasion, in which situation ulfeldt won golden opinions,[ ] and he was one of the twelve noblemen whom the king on the wedding-day made knights of the elephant. after a visit to paris in , in order to be cured of a wound in the leg which the danish physicians could not heal, he obtained the sanction of the king for his own marriage with leonora, which was solemnised at the castle of copenhagen, on october , , with as much splendour as those of the princes and princesses. leonora was the favourite daughter of christian iv., and as far as royal favour could ensure happiness, it might be said to be in store for the newly-married pair. [ ] la valette's account of his participation in the thirty years' war is entirely fictitious, as almost all that he tells of ulfeldt's travels, &c. [ ] see _caroli ogerii ephemerides sive, iter danicum, svecicum, polonicum, &c._ paris, . vo. p. , , , by d'avaux's secretary, ogier. as we have stated, ulfeldt was a poor nobleman; and it is characteristic of them both that one of her first acts was to ask him about his debts, which he could not but have incurred living as he had done, and to pay them by selling her jewels and ornaments, to the amount of , dollars, or more than , _l._ in english money--then a very large sum. but the king's favour soon procured him what he wanted; he was made a member of the great council, governor of copenhagen, and chancellor of the exchequer. he executed several diplomatic missions satisfactorily; and when, in , he was sent to vienna as special ambassador, the emperor of germany, ferdinand iii., made him a count of the german empire. finally, in , he was made lord high steward of denmark, the highest dignity and most responsible office in the kingdom. he was now at the summit of power and influence, and if he had used his talents and opportunities in the interests of his country, he might have earned the everlasting gratitude of his king and his people. but he was not a great man, though he was a clever and ambitious man. he accumulated enormous wealth, bought extensive landed estates, spent considerable sums in purchasing jewels and costly furniture, and lived in a splendid style; but it was all at the cost of the country. in order to enrich himself, he struck base coin (which afterwards was officially reduced to its proper value, per cent. below the nominal value), and used probably other unlawful means for this purpose, while the crown was in the greatest need of money. at the same time he neglected the defences of the country in a shameful manner, and when the swedish government, in december , suddenly ordered its army, which then stood in germany, engaged in the thirty years' war, to attack denmark without any warning, there were no means of stopping its victorious progress. in vain the veteran king collected a few vessels and compelled the far more numerous swedish fleet to fly, after a furious battle near femern, where he himself received twenty-three wounds, and where two of ulfeldt's brothers fell fighting at his side; there was no army in the land, because corfits, at the head of the nobility, had refused the king the necessary supplies. and, although the peace which ulfeldt concluded with sweden and holland at brömsebro, in , might have been still more disastrous than it was, if the negotiation had been entrusted to less skilful hands, yet there was but too much truth in the reproachful words of the king, when, after ratifying the treaties, he tossed them to corfits saying, 'there you have them, such as you have made them!' from this time the king began to lose his confidence in ulfeldt, though the latter still retained his important offices. in the following year he went to holland and to france on a diplomatic mission, on which occasion he was accompanied by leonora. everywhere their personal qualities, their relationship to the sovereign, and the splendour of their appearance, procured them the greatest attention and the most flattering reception. while at the hague leonora gave birth to a son, whom the states-general offered to grant a pension for life of a thousand florins, which, however, ulfeldt wisely refused. in paris they were loaded with presents; and in the memoirs of madame langloise de motteville on the history of anna of austria (ed. of amsterdam, , ii. - ) there is a striking _récit_ of the appearance and reception of ulfeldt and leonora at the french court. on their way home leonora took an opportunity of making a short trip to london, which capital she wished to see, while her husband waited for her in the netherlands. if, however, this journey brought ulfeldt and his wife honours and presents on the part of foreigners, it did not give satisfaction at home. the diplomatic results of the mission were not what the king had hoped, and he even refused to receive ulfeldt on his return. soon the turning-point in his career arrived. in king christian iv. died, under circumstances which for a short time concentrated extraordinary power in ulfeldt's hands, but of which he did not make a wise use. denmark was then still an elective monarchy, and the nobles had availed themselves of this and other circumstances to free themselves from all burdens, and at the same time to deprive both the crown and the other estates of their constitutional rights to a very great extent. all political power was virtually vested in the council of the realm, which consisted exclusively of nobles, and there remained for the king next to nothing, except a general supervision of the administration, and the nomination of the ministers. every successive king had been obliged to purchase his election by fresh concessions to the nobles, and the sovereign was little more than the president of an aristocratic republic. christian iv. had caused his eldest son christian to be elected successor in his own lifetime; but this prince died in , and when the king himself died in , the throne was vacant. as lord high steward, ulfeldt became president of the regency, and could exercise great influence on the election. he did not exert himself to bring this about very quickly, but there is no ground for believing that he meditated the election either of himself or of his brother-in-law, count valdemar, as some have suggested. the children of kirstine munk being the offspring of a morganatic marriage, had not of course equal rank with princes and princesses; but in christian iv.'s lifetime they received the same honours, and ulfeldt made use of the interregnum to obtain the passage of a decree by the council, according them rank and honours equal with the princes of the royal house. but as the nobles were in nowise bound to choose a prince of the same family, or even a prince at all, this decree cannot be interpreted as evidence of a design to promote the election of count valdemar. the overtures of the duke of gottorp, who attempted to bribe ulfeldt to support his candidature, were refused by him, at least according to his own statement. but ulfeldt did make use of his position to extort a more complete surrender of the royal power into the hands of the nobility than any king had yet submitted to, and the new king, fredrik iii., was compelled to promise, amongst other things, to fill up any vacancy amongst the ministers with one out of three candidates proposed by the council of the realm. the new king, fredrik iii., christian iv.'s second son, had never been friendly to ulfeldt. this last action of the high steward did not improve the feelings with which he regarded him, and when the coronation had taken place (for which ulfeldt advanced the money), he expressed his thoughts at the banquet in these words: 'corfitz, you have to-day bound my hands; who knows, who can bind yours in return?' the new queen, a saxon princess, hated ulfeldt and the children of kirstine munk on account of their pretensions, but particularly leonora christina, whose beauty and talents she heartily envied. nevertheless ulfeldt retained his high offices for some time, and in he went again to holland on a diplomatic mission, accompanied by his wife. it is remarkable that the question which formed the principal subject of the negotiation on that occasion was one which has found its proper solution only in our days--namely, that of a redemption of the sound dues. this impost, levied by the danish crown on all vessels passing the sound, weighed heavily on the shipping interest, and frequently caused disagreement between denmark and the governments mostly interested in the baltic trade, particularly sweden and the dutch republic. it was with especial regard to the sound dues that the dutch government was constantly interfering in the politics of the north, with a view of preventing denmark becoming too powerful; for which purpose it always fomented discord between denmark and sweden, siding now with the one, now with the other, but rather favouring the design of sweden to conquer the ancient danish provinces, skaane, &c., which were east of the sound, and which now actually belong to sweden. corfits ulfeldt calculated that, if the dutch could be satisfied on the point of the sound dues, their unfavourable interference might be got rid of; and for this purpose he proposed to substitute an annual payment by the dutch government for the payment of the dues by the individual ships. christian iv. had never assented to this idea, and of course the better course would have been the one adopted in --namely, the redemption of the dues by all states at once for a proportionate consideration paid once for all. still the leading thought was true, and worthy of a great statesman. ulfeldt concluded a treaty with holland according to his views, but it met with no favour at copenhagen, and on his return he found that in his absence measures had been taken to restrict his great power; his conduct of affairs was freely criticised, and his enemies had even caused the nomination of a committee to investigate his past administration, more particularly his financial measures. at the same time the new court refused leonora christina and the other children of kirstine munk the princely honours which they had hitherto enjoyed. amongst other marks of distinction, christian iv. had granted his wife and her children the title of counts and countesses of slesvig and holstein, but fredrik iii. declined to acknowledge it, although it could have no political importance, being nothing but an empty title, as neither kirstine munk nor her children had anything whatever to do with either of these principalities. ulfeldt would not suffer himself to be as it were driven from his high position by these indications of disfavour on the part of the king and the queen (the latter was really the moving spring in all this), but he resolved to show his annoyance by not going to court, where his wife did not now receive the usual honours. this conduct only served to embolden those who desired to oust him from his lucrative offices, not because they were better patriots, but because they hoped to succeed him. for this purpose a false accusation was brought against ulfeldt and leonora christina, to the effect that they had the intention of poisoning the king and the queen. information on this plot was given to the queen personally, by a certain dina vinhowers, a widow of questionable reputation, who declared that she had an illicit connection with ulfeldt, and that she had heard a conversation on the subject between corfits ulfeldt and leonora, when on a clandestine visit in the high steward's house. she was prompted by a certain walter, originally a son of a wheelwright, who by bravery in the war had risen from the ranks to the position of a colonel, and who in his turn was evidently a tool in the hands of other parties. the information was graciously received at court; but dina, who, as it seems, was a person of weak or unsound mind, secretly, without the knowledge of her employers, warned ulfeldt and leonora christina of some impending danger, thus creating a seemingly inextricable confusion. at length ulfeldt demanded a judicial investigation, which was at once set on foot, but in which, of course, he occupied the position of a defendant on account of dina's information. in the end dina was condemned to death and walter was exiled. but the statements of the different persons implicated, and particularly of dina herself at different times, were so conflicting, that the matter was really never entirely cleared up, and though ulfeldt was absolved of all guilt, his enemies did their best in order that some suspicion might remain. if ulfeldt had been wise, he might probably have turned this whole affair to his own advantage; but he missed the opportunity. utterly absurd as the accusation was, he seems to have felt very keenly the change of his position, and on the advice of leonora, who did not doubt that some other expedient would be tried by his enemies, perhaps with more success, he resolved to leave denmark altogether. after having sent away the most valuable part of his furniture and movable property, and placed abroad his amassed capital, he left copenhagen secretly and at night, on july , , three days after the execution of dina. the gates of the fortress were closed at a certain hour every evening, but he had a key made for the eastern gate, and ere sunrise he and leonora, who was disguised as a valet, were on board a vessel on their way to holland. the consequences of this impolitic flight were most disastrous. he had not laid down his high offices, much less rendered an account of his administration; nothing was more natural than to suppose that he wished to avoid an investigation. a few weeks later a royal summons was issued, calling upon him to appear at the next meeting of the diet, and answer for his conduct; his offices, and the fiefs with which he had been beneficed, were given to others, and an embargo was laid on his landed estates. leonora christina describes in her autobiography how ulfeldt meanwhile first went to holland, and thence to sweden, where queen christina, who certainly was not favourably disposed to denmark, received ulfeldt with marked distinction, and promised him her protection. but she does not tell how ulfeldt here used every opportunity for stirring up enmity against denmark, both in sweden itself and in other countries, whose ambassadors he tried to bring over to his ideas. on this painful subject there can be no doubt after the publication of so many authentic state papers of that time, amongst which we may mention the reports of whitelock, the envoy of cromwell, to whom ulfeldt represented that denmark was too weak to resist an attack, and that the british government might easily obtain the abolition of the sound dues by war. it seems, however, as if ulfeldt did all this merely to terrify the danish king into a reconciliation with him on terms honourable and advantageous to the voluntarily exiled magnate. representations were several times made with such a view by the swedish government, and in leonora christina herself undertook a journey to copenhagen, in order to arrange the matter. but the danish government was inaccessible to all such attempts. this attitude was intelligible enough, for not only had ulfeldt left denmark in the most unceremonious manner, but in he published in stralsund a defence against the accusations of which he had been the subject, full of gross insults against the king; and in the following year he had issued an insolent protest against the royal summons to appear and defend himself before the diet, declaring himself a swedish subject. but, above all, the influence of the queen was too great to allow of any arrangement with ulfeldt. the king was entirely led by her; she, from her german home, was filled with the most extravagant ideas of absolute despotism, and hated the free speech and the independent spirit prevailing among the danish nobility, of which ulfeldt in that respect was a true type. leonora christina was compelled to return in , without even seeing the king, and as a fugitive. it is of this journey that she has given a danish account, besides the description in the autobiography. it may be questioned whether it would not have been wise, if possible, to conciliate this dangerous man; but at any rate it was not done, and ulfeldt was, no doubt, still more exasperated. queen christina had then resigned, and her successor, carl gustav, shortly after engaged in a war in poland. the danish government, foolishly overrating its strength, took the opportunity for declaring war against sweden, in the hope of regaining some of the territory lost in . but carl gustav, well knowing that the poles could not carry the war into sweden, immediately turned his whole force against denmark, where he met with next to no resistance. ulfeldt was then living at barth, in pommerania, an estate which he held in mortgage for large sums of money advanced to the swedish government. carl gustav summoned ulfeldt to follow him, and ulfeldt obeyed the summons against the advice of leonora christina, who certainly did not desire her native country to be punished for the wrongs, if such they were, inflicted upon her by the court. the war had been declared on june , ; in august ulfeldt issued a proclamation to the nobility in jutland, calling on them to transfer their allegiance to the swedish king. in the subsequent winter a most unusually severe frost enabled the swedish army to cross the sounds and belts on the ice, ulfeldt assisting its progress by persuading the commander of the fortress of nakskov to surrender without resistance; and in february the danish government had to accept such conditions of peace as could be obtained from the swedish king, who had halted a couple of days' march from copenhagen. by this peace denmark surrendered all her provinces to the east of the sound (skaane, &c.), which constituted one-third of the ancient danish territory, and which have ever since belonged to sweden, besides her fleet, &c. but the greatest humiliation was that the negotiation on the swedish side was entrusted to ulfeldt, who did not fail to extort from the danish crown the utmost that the neutral powers would allow. for himself he obtained restitution of his estates, freedom to live in denmark unmolested, and a large indemnity for loss of income of his estates since his flight in . the king of sweden also rewarded him with the title of a count of sölvitsborg and with considerable estates in the provinces recently wrested from denmark. ulfeldt himself went to reside at malmö, the principal town in skaane, situated on the sound, just opposite copenhagen, and here he was joined by leonora christina. in her autobiography leonora does not touch on the incidents of the war, but she describes how her anxiety for her husband's safety did not allow her to remain quietly at barth, and how she was afterwards called to her mother's sick-bed, which she had to leave in order to nurse her husband, who fell ill at malmö. we may here state that kirstine munk had fallen into disgrace, when leonora was still a child, on account of her flagrant infidelity to the king, her paramour being a german count of solms. kirstine munk left the court voluntarily in ,[ ] shortly after the birth of a child, whom the king would not acknowledge as his own; and after having stayed with her mother for a short time, she took up her residence at the old manor of boller, in north jutland, where she remained until her death in . [ ] la valette's account of a lawsuit instituted by the king against kirstine munk, in which she was defended by ulfeldt--of ulfeldt's duel with hannibal sehested, afterwards his brother-in-law, &c.--is entirely fictitious. no such things took place. various attempts were made to reconcile christian iv. to her, but he steadily refused, and with very good reason: he was doubtless well aware that kirstine munk, as recently published diplomatic documents prove, had betrayed his political secrets to gustav adolf, the king of sweden, and he considered her presence at court very dangerous. her son-in-law was now openly in the service of another swedish king, but the friendship between them was not of long duration. ulfeldt first incurred the displeasure of carl gustav by heading the opposition of the nobility in the newly acquired provinces against certain imposts laid on them by the swedish king, to which they had not been liable under danish rule. then other causes of disagreement arose. carl gustav, regretting that he had concluded a peace, when in all probability he might have conquered the whole of denmark, recommenced the war, and laid siege to copenhagen. but the danish people now rose as one man; foreign assistance was obtained; the swedes were everywhere beaten; and if the dutch, who were bound by treaty to assist denmark, had not refused their co-operation in transferring the danish troops across the sound, all the lost provinces might easily have been regained. the inhabitants in some of these provinces also rose against their new rulers. amongst others, the citizens of malmö, where ulfeldt at the time resided, entered into a conspiracy to throw off the swedish dominion; but it was betrayed, and ulfeldt was indicated as one of the principal instigators, although he himself had accepted their forced homage to the swedish king, as his deputy. very probably he had thought that, if he took a part in the rising, he might, if this were successful, return to denmark, having as it were thus wiped out his former crimes, but having also shown his countrymen what a terrible foe he could be. as it was, denmark was prevented by her own allies from regaining her losses, and ulfeldt was placed in custody in malmö, by order of carl gustav, in order that his conduct might be subjected to a rigorous examination. ulfeldt was then apparently seized with a remarkable malady, a kind of apoplexy, depriving him of speech, and leonora christina conducted his defence. she wrote three lengthy, vigorous, and skilful replies to the charges, which still exist in the originals. he was acquitted, or rather escaped by a verdict of not proven; but as conscience makes cowards, he contrived to escape before the verdict was given. leonora christina describes all this in her autobiography, according to which ulfeldt was to go to lubeck, while she would go to copenhagen, and try to put matters straight there. ulfeldt, however, changed his plan without her knowledge, and also repaired to copenhagen, where they were both arrested and sent to the castle of hammershuus, on the island of bornholm in the baltic, an ancient fortress, now a most picturesque ruin, perched at the edge of perpendicular rocks, overhanging the sea, and almost surrounded by it. the autobiography relates circumstantially, and no doubt truthfully, the cruel treatment to which they were here subjected by the governor, a major-general fuchs. after a desperate attempt at escape, they were still more rigorously guarded, and at length they had to purchase their liberty by surrendering the whole of their property, excepting one estate in fyen. ulfeldt had to make the most humble apologies, and to promise not to leave the island of fyen, where this estate was situated, without special permission. he was also compelled to renounce on the part of his wife the title of a countess of slesvig-holstein, which fredrik iii. had never acknowledged. she never made use of that title afterwards, nor is she generally known by it in history. corfits ulfeldt being a count of the german empire, of course leonora and her children were, and remained, counts and countesses of ulfeldt. this compromise was effected in . having been conveyed to copenhagen, ulfeldt could not obtain an audience of the king, and he was obliged, kneeling, to tender renewed oath of allegiance before the king's deputies, count rantzow, general hans schack, the chancellor redtz, and the chancellor of the exchequer, christofer gabel, all of whom are mentioned in leonora's account of her subsequent prison life. a few days after, corfits ulfeldt and leonora christina left copenhagen, which he was never to see again, she only as a prisoner. they retired to the estate of ellensborg, in fyen, which they had still retained. this was the ancient seat of the ulfeldts, which corfits' father had sold to ellen marsvin, leonora christina's grandmother, and which had come to leonora through her mother. in the meanwhile it had been renamed and rebuilt such as it stands to this day, a picturesque pile of buildings in the elizabethan style. here ulfeldt might have ended his stormy life in quiet, but his thirst for revenge left him no peace. besides this, a great change had taken place in denmark. the national revival which followed the renewal of the war by carl gustav in led to a total change in the form of government. it was indisputable that the selfishness of the nobles, who refused to undertake any burden for the defence of the country, was the main cause of the great disasters that had befallen denmark. the abolition of their power was loudly called for, and the queen so cleverly turned this feeling to account, that the remedy adopted was not the restoration of the other classes of the population to their legitimate constitutional influence, but the entire abolition of the constitution itself, and the introduction of hereditary, unlimited despotism. the title 'hereditary king,' which so often occurs in danish documents and writings from that time, also in leonora's memoir, has reference to this change. undoubtedly this was very little to ulfeldt's taste. already, in the next year after his release, , he obtained leave to go abroad for his health. but, instead of going to spaa, as he had pretended, he went to amsterdam, bruges, and paris, where he sought interviews with louis xiv. and the french ministers; he also placed himself in communication with the elector of brandenburg, with a view of raising up enemies against his native country. the elector gave information to the danish government, whilst apparently lending an ear to ulfeldt's propositions. when a sufficient body of evidence had been collected, it was laid before the high court of appeal in copenhagen, and judgment given in his absence, whereby he was condemned to an ignominious death as a traitor, his property confiscated, his descendants for ever exiled from denmark, and a large reward offered for his apprehension. the sentence is dated july , . meanwhile ulfeldt had been staying with his family at bruges. one day one of his sons, christian, saw general fuchs, who had treated his parents so badly at hammershuus, driving through the city in a carriage; immediately he leaped on to the carriage and killed fuchs on the spot. christian ulfeldt had to fly, but the parents remained in bruges, where they had many friends. it was in the following spring, on may , , that leonora christina, much against her own inclination, left her husband--as it proved, not to see him again alive. ulfeldt had on many occasions used his wealth in order to gain friends, by lending them money--probably the very worst method of all. it is proved that at his death he still held bonds for more than , dollars, or , _l._, which he had lent to various princes and noblemen, and which were never paid. amongst others he had lent the pretender, afterwards charles ii., a large sum, about , patacoons, which at the time he had raised with some difficulty. he doubted not that the king of england, now that he was able to do it, would recognise the debt and repay it; and he desired leonora, who, through her father, was cousin of charles ii., once removed, to go to england and claim it. she describes this journey in her autobiography. the danish government, hearing of her presence in england, thought that ulfeldt was there too, or hoped at any rate to obtain possession of important documents by arresting her, and demanded her extradition. the british government ostensibly refused, but underhand it gave the danish minister, petcum, every assistance. leonora was arrested in dover, where she had arrived on her way back, disappointed in the object of her journey. she had obtained enough and to spare of fair promises, but no money; and by secretly giving her up to the danish government, charles ii. in an easy way quitted himself of the debt, at the same time that he pleased the king of denmark, without publicly violating political propriety. leonora's account of the whole affair is confirmed in every way by the light which other documents throw upon the matter, particularly by the extracts contained in the calendar of state papers, domestic series, of the reign of charles ii., - . leonora was now conducted to copenhagen, where she was confined in the blue tower--a square tower surmounted by a blue spire, which stood in the court of the royal castle, and was used as a prison for grave offenders (see the engraving). at this point the memoir of her sufferings in the prison takes up the thread of her history, and we need not here dwell upon its contents. as soon as ulfeldt heard that the brandenburg government had betrayed him, and that sentence had been passed on him in copenhagen, he left bruges. no doubt the arrest of leonora in england was a still greater blow to him. the spanish government would probably have surrendered him to the danish authorities, and he had to flee from place to place, pursued by danish agents demanding his extradition, and men anxious to earn the reward offered for his apprehension, dead or alive. his last abode was basle, where he passed under a feigned name, until a quarrel between one of his sons and a stranger caused the discovery of their secret. not feeling himself safe, ulfeldt left basle, alone, at night, in a boat descending the rhine; but he never reached his destination. he was labouring under a violent attack on the chest, and the night air killed him. he breathed his last in the boat, on february , . the boatmen, concluding from the gold and jewels which they found on him that he was a person of consequence, brought the body on shore, and made the matter known in basle, from whence his sons came and buried him under a tree in a field--no one knows the spot. meanwhile the punishment of beheading and quartering had been executed on a wooden effigy in copenhagen. his palace was demolished, and the site laid out in a public square, on which a pillar of sandstone was erected as an everlasting monument of his crimes. this pillar was taken away in , and the name was changed from ulfeldt square to greyfriars square, as an indication of the forgetting and forgiving spirit of the time, or perhaps rather because the treason of ulfeldt was closely connected with the ancient jealousy between danes and swedes, of which the present generation is so anxious to efface the traces. his children had to seek new homes elsewhere. christian, who killed fuchs, became a roman catholic and died as an abbé; and none of them continued the name, except the youngest son leo, who went into the service of the german emperor, and rose to the highest dignities. his son corfits likewise filled important offices under charles vi. and maria theresa, but left no sons. his two daughters married respectively a count waldstein and a count thun, whose descendants therefore now represent the family of ulfeldt. leonora christina remained in prison for twenty-two years--that is, until the death of sophia amalia, the queen of fredrik iii. this king, as well as his son christian v., would willingly have set her at liberty; but the influence of the queen over her husband and son was so strong that only her death, which occurred in , released leonora. the memoir of her life in prison terminates with this event, and her after-life does not offer any very remarkable incidents. nevertheless, a few details, chiefly drawn from a ms. in the royal library at copenhagen, recently published by mr. birket smith, may serve to complete the historical image of this illustrious lady. the ms. in question is from the hand of a miss urne, of an ancient danish family, who managed the household of leonora from to her death in . a royal manor, formerly a convent, at maribo, on the island of laaland, was granted to leonora shortly after her release from the blue tower, together with a sufficient pension for a moderate establishment. 'the first occupation of the countess,' says miss urne, 'was devotion; for which purpose her household was assembled in a room outside her bed-chamber. in her daily morning prayer there was this passage: "may the lord help all prisoners, console the guilty, and save the innocent!" after that she remained the whole forenoon in her bedchamber, occupied in reading and writing. she composed a book entitled the "ornament of heroines," which countess a. c. ulfeldt and count leon took away with them, together with many other rare writings. her handiwork is almost indescribable, and without an equal; such as embroidering in silk, gold embroidery, and turning in amber and ivory.' it will be seen from leonora's own memoir that needlework was one of her principal occupations in her prison. count waldstein still possesses some of her work; in the church of maribo an altar-cloth embroidered by her existed still some time ago; and at the castle of rosenborg, in copenhagen, there is a portrait of christian v. worked by leonora in silk, in return for which present the king increased her annual pension. miss urne says that she sent all her work to elizabeth bek, a granddaughter of leonora, who lived with her for some years. but she refused to send her leonora's postille, or manual of daily devotion, which had been given leonora on new year's day, in the last year of her captivity, by the castellan, torslev, who is mentioned in leonora's memoir, and who had taught her to turn ivory, &c. this book has disappeared; but amongst the relics of leonora christina, the royal library at copenhagen preserves some leaves which had been bound up with it, and contain verses, &c., by leonora, and other interesting matter. her ms. works were taken to vienna after her death. it is not known what has become of some of them. a copy of the first part of the book on heroines exists in copenhagen. miss urne says that she possessed fragments of a play composed by her and acted at maribo kloster; also the younger sperling speaks of such a composition in danish verse; but the ms. seems to be lost now. several of leonora's relations stayed with her from time to time at maribo; amongst them the above-mentioned elizabeth bek, whose mother, leonora sophie, famous for her beauty, had married lave bek, the head of an ancient danish family in skaane. after ulfeldt's death lave bek demanded of the swedish government the estates which carl gustav had given to ulfeldt in , but which the swedish government had afterwards confiscated, without any legal ground. leonora christina herself memorialised the swedish king on the subject, and at least one of her memorials on the subject, dated may , , still exists; but it was not till that these estates were given up to lave bek's sons. leonora's eldest daughter, anne catherina, lived with her mother at maribo for several years, and was present at her death. she had married casetta, a spanish nobleman, mentioned by leonora christina in her memoir, who was with her in england when she was arrested. after the death of casetta and their children, anne catherina ulfeldt came to live with her mother. she followed her brother to vienna, where she died. it was she who transmitted the ms. of leonora's memoir of her life in the blue tower to the brother, with the following letter, which is still preserved with the ms.:-- 'this book treats of what has happened to our late lady mother in her prison. i have not been able to persuade myself to burn it, although the reading of it has given me little pleasure, inasmuch as all those events concern her miserable state. after all, it is not without its use to know how she has been treated; but it is not needful that it should come into the hands of strangers, for it might happen to give pleasure to those of our enemies who still remain.' the letter is addressed 'a monsieur, monsieur le comte d'ulfeldt,' &c., but without date or signature. the handwriting is, however, that of anne catherina ulfeldt, and she had probably sent it off to vienna for safety immediately after her mother's death, before she knew that her brother would come to maribo himself. miss urne says, in the ms. referred to, that the king had ordered that he was to be informed immediately of leonora's demise, in order that she might be buried according to her rank and descent; but she had beforehand requested that her funeral might be quite plain. her coffin, as well as those of three children who had died young, and whose coffins had been provisionally placed in a church at copenhagen, was immured in a vault in the church of maribo; but when this was opened some forty years ago, no trace of leonora's mortal remains could be found, though those of the children were there: from which it is concluded that a popular report, to the effect that the body had been secretly carried abroad, contains more truth than was formerly supposed. count waldstein states that in the family vault at leitsmischl, there is one metal coffin without any inscription, and which may be hers. if so, leonora has, as it were, after her death followed her husband into exile. at any rate, the final resting-place of neither of them is known with certainty. autobiography of leonora christina . autobiography. sir,[ ]--to satisfy your curiosity, i will give you a short account of the life of her about whom you desire to be informed. she was born at fredericksborg, in the year , on june .[ ] when she was six weeks old her grandmother took her with her to dalum, where she remained until the age of four years; her first master there being mr. envolt, afterward a priest at roeskild. about six months after her return to the court, her father sent her to holland to his cousin, a duchess of brunswick, who had married count ernest of nassau, and lived at lewarden. [ ] this autobiographical sketch is written in the form of a letter to dr. otto sperling the younger, the son of corfits ulfeldt's old friend, who was for some years leonora's fellow-prisoner in the blue tower. [ ] it is curious that leonora seems for a long time to have been under a mistake as to the date of her birthday. the right date is july , new style. her sister sophia, who was two years and a half older than herself, and her brother, who was a year younger, had gone to the aforesaid duchess nearly a year before. i must not forget to mention the first mischances that befell her at her setting out. she went by sea in one of the royal ships of war; having been two days and a night at sea, at midnight such a furious tempest arose that they all had given up any hope of escaping. her tutor, wichmann hassebart (afterwards bishop of fyn), who attended her, woke her and took her in his arms, saying, with tears, that they should both die together, for he loved her tenderly. he told her of the danger, that god was angry, and that they would all be drowned. she caressed him, treating him like a father (after her usual wont), and begged him not to grieve; she was assured that god was not angry, that he would see they would not be drowned, beseeching him again and again to believe her. wichmann shed tears at her simplicity, and prayed to god to save the rest for her sake, and for the sake of the hope that she, an innocent girl, reposed in him. god heard him, and after having lost the two mainmasts, they entered at dawn of day the harbour of fleckeröe,[ ] where they remained for six weeks. [ ] on the south coast of norway. having received orders to proceed by sea, they pursued their route and arrived safely. her sister being informed of her arrival, and being told that she had come with a different retinue to herself--with a suite of gentlemen, lady preceptor, servants and attendants, &c.--she burst into tears, and said that she was not surprised that this sister always insinuated herself and made herself a favourite, and that she would be treated there too as such. m. sophia was not mistaken in this; for her sister was in greater favour with the duchess, with her governess, and with many others, than she was herself. count ernest alone took the side of m. sophia, and this rather for the sake of provoking his wife, who liked dispute; for m. sophia exhibited her obstinacy even towards himself. she did all the mischief she could to her sister, and persuaded her brother to do the same. to amuse you i will tell you of her first innocent predilections. count ernest had a son of about eleven or twelve years of age; he conceived an affection for her, and having persuaded her that he loved her, and that she would one day be his wife, but that this must be kept secret, she fancied herself already secretly his wife. he knew a little drawing, and by stealth he instructed her; he even taught her some latin words. they never missed an opportunity of retiring from company and conversing with each other. this enjoyment was of short duration for her; for a little more than a year afterwards she fell ill of small-pox, and as his elder brother, william, who had always ridiculed these affections, urged him to see his well-beloved in the condition in which she was, in order to disgust him with the sight, he came one day to the door to see her, and was so startled that he immediately became ill, and died on the ninth day following. his death was kept concealed from her. when she was better she asked after him, and she was made to believe that he was gone away with his mother (who was at this time at brunswick), attending the funeral of her mother. his body had been embalmed, and had been placed in a glass case. one day her preceptor made her go into the hall where his body lay, to see if she recognised it; he raised her in his arms to enable her to see it better. she knew her dear moritz at once, and was seized with such a shock that she fell fainting to the ground. wichmann in consequence carried her hastily out of the hall to recover her, and as the dead boy wore a garland of rosemary, she never saw these flowers without crying, and had an aversion to their smell, which she still retains. as the wars between germany and the king of denmark had been the cause of the removal of his aforesaid children, they were recalled to denmark when peace was concluded. at the age of seven years and two months she was affianced to a gentleman of the king's chamber. she began very early to suffer for his sake. her governess was at this time mistress anne lycke, qvitzow's mother. her daughter, who was maid of honour, had imagined that this gentleman made his frequent visits for love of her. seeing herself deceived, she did not know in what manner to produce estrangement between the lovers; she spoke, and made m. sophia speak, of the gentleman's poverty, and amused herself with ridiculing the number of children in the family. she regarded all this with indifference, only declaring once that she loved him, poor as he was, better than she loved her rich gallant.[ ] [ ] count christian pentz, to whom sophia was married in . at last they grew weary of this, and found another opportunity for troubling her--namely, the illness of her betrothed, resulting from a complaint in his leg; they presented her with plaisters, ointments, and such like things, and talked together of the pleasure of being married to a man who had his feet diseased, &c. she did not answer a word either for good or bad, so they grew weary of this also. a year and a half after they had another governess, catharina sehestedt, sister of hannibal.[ ] m. sophia thus lost her second, and her sister had a little repose in this quarter. [ ] hannibal sehestedt afterwards married leonora's younger sister christiana; he became a powerful antagonist of ulfeldt, and is mentioned often in the following memoir. when our lady was about twelve years old, francis albert, duke of saxony,[ ] came to kolding to demand her in marriage. the king replied that she was no longer free, that she was already betrothed; but the duke was not satisfied with this, and spoke to herself, and said a hundred fine things to her: that a duke was far different to a gentleman. she told him she always obeyed the king, and since it had pleased the king to promise her to a gentleman, she was well satisfied. the duke employed the governess to persuade her, and the governess introduced him to her brother hannibal, then at the court, and hannibal went with post-horses to möen, where her betrothed was, who did not linger long on the road in coming to her. this was the beginning of the friendship between monsieur and hannibal, which afterwards caused so much injury to monsieur. but he had not needed to trouble himself, for the duke never could draw from her the declaration that she would be ready to give up her betrothed if the king ordered her to do so. she told him she hoped the king would not retract from his first promise. the duke departed ill satisfied, on the very day the evening of which the betrothed arrived. (four years afterwards they quarrelled on this subject in the presence of the king, who appeased them with his authority.) [ ] frantz albrecht, duke of saxe-lauenburg, the same who in the thirty years' war alternately served the protestants and the imperialists. in the battle of lützen he was near gustav adolf when he fell, and he was regarded by many as the one who treacherously fired the fatal shot. it happened the following winter at skanderborg that the governess had a quarrel with the language-master, alexandre de cuqvelson, who taught our lady and her sisters the french language, writing, arithmetic, and dancing. m. sophia was not studious; moreover, she had very little memory; for her heart was too much devoted to her dolls, and as she perceived that the governess did not punish her when alexandre complained of her, she neglected everything, and took no trouble about her studies. our lady imagined she knew enough when she knew as much as her sister. as this had lasted some time, the governess thought she could entrap alexandre; she accused him to the king, said that he treated the children badly, rapped their fingers, struck them on the hand, called them bad names, &c., and with all this they could not even read, much less speak, the french language. besides this, she wrote the same accusations to the betrothed of our lady. the betrothed sent his servant wolff to skanderborg, with menaces to alexandre. at the same time alexandre was warned that the king had sent for the prince,[ ] to examine his children, since the father-confessor was not acquainted with the language. [ ] that is, the king's eldest son christian, who was elected his successor, but died before him. the tutor was in some dismay; he flattered our lady, implored her to save him, which she could easily do, since she had a good memory, so that he could prove by her that it was not his fault that m. sophia was not more advanced. our lady did not yield readily, but called to his remembrance how one day, about half a year ago, she had begged him not to accuse her to the governess, but that he had paid no attention to her tears, though he knew that the governess treated them shamefully. he begged her for the love of jesus, wept like a child, said that he should be ruined for ever, that it was an act of mercy, that he would never accuse her, and that from henceforth she should do nothing but what she wished. at length she consented, said she would be diligent, and since she had yet three weeks before her, she learnt a good deal by heart.[ ] alexandre told her one day, towards the time of the examination, that there was still a great favour she could render him: if she would not repeat the little things which had passed at school-time; for he could not always pay attention to every word that he said when m. sophia irritated him, and if he had once taken the rod to hit her fingers when she had not struck her sister strongly enough, he begged her for the love of god to pardon it. (it should be mentioned that he wished the one to strike the other when they committed faults, and the one who corrected the other had to beat her, and if she did not do so strongly enough, he took the office upon himself; thus he had often beaten our lady.) [ ] in the margin the following addition is inserted: 'she had at that time an unusual memory. she could at one and the same time recite one psalm by heart, write another, and attend to the conversation. she had tried this more than once, but i think that she has thereby spoilt her memory, which is not now so good.' she made excuses, said that she did not dare to tell a lie if they asked her, but that she would not accuse him of herself. this promise did not wholly satisfy him; he continued his entreaties, and assured her that a falsehood employed to extricate a friend from danger was not a sin, but was agreeable to god; moreover, it was not necessary for her to say anything, only not to confess what she had seen and heard. she said that the governess would treat her ill; so he replied that she should have no occasion to do so, for that he would never complain to her. our lady replied that the governess would find pretext enough, since she was inclined to ill-treat the children; and anyhow, the other master who taught them german was a rude man, and an old man who taught them the spinette was a torment, therefore she had sufficient reason for fear. he did not give way, but so persisted in his persuasion that she promised everything. when the prince arrived the governess did not forget to besiege him with her complaints, and to beg him to use his influence that the tutor might be dismissed. at length the day of the examination having come, the governess told her young ladies an hour before that they were to say how villanously he had treated them, beaten them, &c. the prince came into the apartments of the ladies accompanied by the king's father-confessor (at that time dr. ch(r)estien sar); the governess was present the whole time. they were first examined in german. m. sophia acquitted herself very indifferently, not being able to read fluently. the master christoffre excused her, saying that she was timid. when it came to alexandre's turn to show what his pupils could do, m. sophia could read little or nothing. when she stammered in reading, the governess looked at the prince and laughed aloud. there was no difference in the gospel, psalms, proverbs, or suchlike things. the governess was very glad, and would have liked that the other should not have been examined. but when it came to her turn to read in the bible, and she did not hesitate, the governess could no longer restrain herself, and said, 'perhaps it is a passage she knows by heart that you have made her read.' alexandre begged the governess herself to give the lady another passage to read. the governess was angry at this also, and said, 'he is ridiculing me because i do not know french.' the prince then opened the bible and made her read other passages, which she did as fluently as before. in things by heart she showed such proficiency that the prince was too impatient to listen to all. it was then alexandre's turn to speak, and to say that he hoped his highness would graciously consider that it was not his fault that m. sophia was not more advanced. the governess interrupted him saying, 'you are truly the cause of it, for you treat her ill!' and she began a torrent of accusations, asking m. sophia if they were not true. she answered in the affirmative, and that she could not conscientiously deny them. then she asked our lady if they were not true. she replied that she had never heard nor seen anything of the kind. the governess, in a rage, said to the prince, 'your highness must make her speak the truth; she dares not do so, for alexandre's sake.' the prince asked her if alexandre had never called her bad names--if he had never beaten her. she replied, 'never.' he asked again if she had not seen nor heard that he had ill-treated her sister. she replied, 'no, she had never either heard or seen it.' at this the governess became furious; she spoke to the prince in a low voice; the prince replied aloud, 'what do you wish me to do? i have no order from the king to constrain her to anything.' well, alexandre gained his cause; the governess could not dislodge him, and our lady gained more than she had imagined in possessing the affection of the king, the goodwill of the prince, of the priest, and of all those who knew her. but the governess from that moment took every opportunity of revenging herself on our lady. at length she found one, which was rather absurd. the old jean meinicken, who taught our lady the spinette, one day, in a passion, seized the fingers of our lady and struck them against the instrument; without remembering the presence of her governess, she took his hand and retaliated so strongly that the strings broke. the governess heard with delight the complaints of the old man. she prepared two rods; she used them both, and, not satisfied with that, she turned the thick end of one, and struck our lady on the thigh, the mark of which she bears to the present day. more than two months elapsed before she recovered from the blow; she could not dance, nor could she walk comfortably for weeks after. this governess did her so much injury that at last our lady was obliged to complain to her betrothed, who had a quarrel with the governess at the wedding of m. sophia, and went straight to the king to accuse her; she was at once dismissed, and the four children, the eldest of which was our lady, went with the princess[ ] to niköping, to pass the winter there, until the king could get another governess. the king, who had a good opinion of the conduct of our lady, who at this time was thirteen years and four months old, wrote to her and ordered her to take care of her sisters. our lady considered herself half a governess, so she took care not to set them a bad example. as to study, she gave no thought to it at this time; she occupied herself in drawing and arithmetic, of which she was very fond, and the princess, who was seventeen years of age, delighted in her company. thus this winter passed very agreeably for her. [ ] namely, magdalena sybilla of saxony, then newly married (october , ) to prince christian, the eldest son and elected successor of christian iv. m. sophia's wedding to chr. pentz was celebrated on the th of the same month. at the approach of the diet, which sat eight days after pentecost, the children came to copenhagen, with the prince and princess, and had as governess a lady of mecklenburg of the blixen family, the mother of philip barstorp who is still alive. after the diet, the king made a journey to glückstad in two days and a half, and our lady accompanied him; it pleased the king that she was not weary, and that she could bear up against inconveniences and fatigues. she afterwards made several little journeys with the king, and she had the good fortune occasionally to obtain the pardon of some poor criminals, and to be in favour with the king. our lady having attained the age of fifteen years and about four months, her betrothed obtained permission for their marriage, which was celebrated (with more pomp than the subsequent weddings of her sisters), on october , . the winter after her marriage she was with her husband at möen, and as she knew that her husband's father had not left him any wealth, she asked him concerning his debts, and conjured him to conceal nothing from her. he said to her, 'if i tell you the truth it will perhaps frighten you.' she declared it would not, and that she would supply what was needful from her ornaments, provided he would assure her that he had told her everything. he did so, and found that she was not afraid to deprive herself of her gold, silver, and jewels, in order to pay a sum of thirty-six thousand rix-dollars. on april , , she went with her husband to copenhagen in obedience to the order of the king, who gave him the post of v.r.[ ] he was again obliged to incur debt in purchasing a house and in setting up a larger establishment. [ ] v.r. probably stands for viceroy, by which term leonora no doubt indicates the post of governor of copenhagen. there would be no end were i to tell you all the mischances that befell her during the happy period of her marriage, and of all the small contrarieties which she endured; but since i am assured that this history will not be seen by anyone, and that you will not keep it after having read it, i will tell you a few points which are worthy of attention. those who were envious of the good fortune of our lady could not bear that she should lead a tranquil life, nor that she should be held in esteem by her father and king; i may call him thus, for the king conferred on her more honours than were due to her from him. her husband loved and honoured her, enacting the lover more than the husband. she spent her time in shooting, riding, tennis, in learning drawing in good earnest from charles v. mandern, in playing the viol, the flute, the guitar, and she enjoyed a happy life. she knew well that jealousy is a plague, and that it injures the mind which harbours it. her relations tried to infuse into her head that her husband loved elsewhere, especially m. elizabet, and subsequently anna, sister of her husband, who was then in her house. m. elizabet began by mentioning it as a secret, premising that no one could tell her and warn her, except her who was her sister. as our lady at first said nothing and only smiled, m. elis... said: 'the world says that you know it well, but that you will not appear to do so.' she replied with a question: 'why did she tell her a thing as a secret, which she herself did not believe to be a secret to her? but she would tell her a secret that perhaps she did not know, which was, that she had given her husband permission to spend his time with others, and when she was satisfied the remainder would be for others; that she believed there were no such jealous women as those who were insatiable, but that a wisdom was imputed to her, which she did not possess; she begged her, however, to be wise enough not to interfere with matters which did not concern her, and if she heard others mentioning it (as our lady had reason to believe that this was her own invention) that she would give them a reprimand. m. elis... was indignant and went away angry, but anna, monsieur's sister, who was in the house, adopted another course. she drew round her the handsomest women in the town, and then played the procuress, spoke to her brother of one particularly, who was a flirt, and who was the handsomest, and offered him opportunities, &c. as she saw that he was proof against it, she told him (to excite him) that his wife was jealous, that she had had him watched where he went when he had been drinking with the king, to know whether he visited this woman; she said that his wife was angry, because the other woman was so beautiful, said that she painted, &c. the love borne to our lady by her husband made him tell her all, and, moreover, he went but rarely afterwards to his sister's apartments, from which she could easily understand that the conversation had not been agreeable to him; but our lady betrayed nothing of the matter, visited her more than before, caressed this lady more than any other, and even made her considerable presents. (anna remained in her house as long as she lived.) all this is of small consideration compared with the conduct of her own brother. it is well known to you that the biel... were very intimate in our lady's house. it happened that her brother made a journey to muscovy, and that the youngest of the biel... was in his suite. as this was a very lawless youth, and, to say the truth, badly brought up, he not only at times failed in respect to our lady's brother, but freely expressed his sentiments to him upon matters which did not concern him; among other things, he spoke ill of the holstein noblemen, naming especially one, who was then in waiting on the king, who he said had deceived our lady's brother. the matter rested there for more than a year after their return from this journey. the brother of our lady and biel... played cards together, and disputed over them; upon this the brother of our lady told the holstein nobleman what biel... had said of him more than a year before, which b. did not remember, and swore that he had never said. the holstein nobleman said insulting things against biel.... our lady conversed with her brother upon the affair, and begged him to quiet the storm he had raised, and to consider how it would cause an ill-feeling with regard to him among the nobility, and that it would seem that he could not keep to himself what had been told him in secret; it would be very easy for him to mend the matter. her brother replied that he could never retract what he had said, and that he should consider the holstein nobleman as a villain if he did not treat b. as a rogue. at length the holstein nobleman behaved in such a manner as to constrain b. to send him a challenge. b. was killed by his adversary with the sword of our lady's brother, which she did not know till afterwards. at noon of the day on which b. had been killed in the morning, our lady went to the castle to visit her little twin sisters; her brother was there, and came forward, laughing loudly and saying, 'do you know that ran... has killed b...?' she replied, 'no, that i did not know, but i knew that you had killed him. ran... could do nothing less than defend himself, but you placed the sword in his hand.' her brother, without answering a word, mounted his horse and went to seek his brother-in-law, who was speaking with our old friend,[ ] told him he was the cause of b.'s death, and that he had done so because he had understood that his sister loved him, and that he did not believe that his brother-in-law was so blind as not to have perceived it. the husband of our lady did not receive this speech in the way the other had imagined, and said, 'if you were not her brother, i would stab you with this poniard,' showing it to him. 'what reason have you for speaking thus?' the good-for-nothing fellow was rather taken aback at this, and knew not what to say, except that b... was too free and had no respect in his demeanour; and that this was a true sign of love. at length, after some discussion on both sides, the brother of our lady requested that not a word might be said to his sister. [ ] the old friend is dr. otto sperling, sen., a physician in extensive practice at copenhagen, and intimate friend of ulfeldt. mr. biel... signifies most probably a certain christian bielke, whose portrait still exists at rosenborg castle, in copenhagen, with an inscription that he was killed in a duel by bartram rantzau on easter eve . if this date is true, bielke cannot have accompanied leonora's brother count valdemar on his journey to russia, as this journey only took place in . count valdemar was to marry a russian princess, but it was broken off on his refusing to join the greek church. as soon as she returned home, her husband told her everything in the presence of our old friend, but ordered her to feign ignorance. this was all the more easy for her, as her husband gave no credence to it, but trusted in her innocence. she let nothing appear, but lived with her brother as before. but some years after, her brother ill-treated his own mother, and her side being taken by our lady, they were in consequence not good friends. in speaking to you of the occupations of our lady, after having reached the age of twenty-one or thereabouts, i must tell you she had a great desire to learn latin. she had a very excellent master,[ ] whom you know, and who taught her for friendship as well as with good will. but she had so many irons in the fire, and sometimes it was necessary to take a journey, and a yearly accouchement (to the number of ten) prevented her making much progress; she understood a little easy latin, but attempted nothing difficult; she then learnt a little italian, which she continued studying whenever an opportunity presented itself. [ ] dr. otto sperling, senior. i will not speak of her short journeys to holstein, jutland, &c.; but in the year she made a voyage with her husband by sea, in the first place to holland, where she gave birth to a son six weeks after her arrival at the hague. from thence she went with her husband to france, first to paris and afterwards to amiens; there they took leave of the king and of the queen mother, regent, and as they were returning by dunkirk she had the curiosity to see england, and begged her husband to permit her to cross over with a small suite, to which he consented, since one of the royal vessels lay in the roads. she took a nobleman with her who knew the language, our old friend, a servant, and the valet of the aforesaid nobleman, and this was the whole of her retinue. she embarked, and her husband planned to pass through flanders and brabant, and to await her at rotterdam. as she was on the vessel a day and night, and the wind did not favour them, she resolved to land and to follow her husband, fancying she could reach him in time to see flanders and brabant; she had not visited these countries before, having passed from holland by sea to calais. she found her husband at ostend, and travelled with him to rotterdam; from thence she pursued her former plan, embarked at helvoot-sluys, and arrived at duns, went to london, and returned by dover, making the whole voyage in ten days, and she was again enceinte. she was an object of suspicion in london. the prince palatine, then elector of heidelberg,[ ] belonged to the party opposed to the beheaded king, who was then a prisoner; and they watched her and surrounded her with spies, so she did not make a long sojourn in london. nothing else was imagined, when it was known she had been there, but that she had letters from the king of dan... for the king of engl.... she returned with her husband to dan.... [ ] prince ruprecht, duke of cumberland, nephew of charles i. in the year fortune abandoned our lady, for on february the king was taken from her by death. she had the happiness, however, of attending upon him until his last breath. good god, when i think of what this good king said to her the first day, when she found him ill in bed at rosenborg, and wept abundantly, my heart is touched. he begged her not to weep, caressed her, and said: 'i have placed you so securely that no one can move you.' only too much has she felt the contrary of the promise of the king who succeeded him, for when he was duke and visited her at her house, a few days after the death of the king, finding her in tears, he embraced her, saying: 'i will be a father to you, do not weep.' she kissed his hand without being able to speak. i find that some fathers have been unnatural towards their children. in the year she made another voyage with her husband to holland, and at the hague gave birth to a daughter. when her husband returned from this journey, he for the first time perceived the designs of hannibal, of gerstorp, and wibe, but too late. he absented himself from business, and would not listen to what his wife told him. our old friend shared the opinion of our lady, adducing very strong reason for it, but all in vain; he said, that he would not be a perpetual slave for the convenience of his friends. his wife spoke as a prophet to him, told him that he would be treated as a slave when he had ceased to have authority, that they would suspect him, and envy his wealth; all of which took place, though i shall make no recital of it, since these events are sufficiently known to you. we will now speak a little of the events which occurred afterwards. when they had gained their cause,[ ] our lady feared that the strong party which they had then overcome would not rest without ruining them utterly at any cost; so she advised her husband to leave the country, since he had the king's permission to do so,[ ] and to save his life, otherwise his enemies would contrive some other invention which would succeed better. he consented to this at length, and they took their two eldest children with them, and went by sea to amsterdam. at utrecht they left the children with the servants and a female attendant, and our lady disguised herself in male attire and followed her husband, who took the route to lubeck, and from thence by sea to sweden, to ask the protection of queen christina, which he received; and as the queen knew that his wife was with him in disguise, she requested to see her, which she did. [ ] namely, the process against dina. _see_ introduction. [ ] ulfeldt had not really the permission of the king to leave the country in the way he did. these words must therefore be understood to mean that the favourable termination of the trial concerning dina's accusations had liberated ulfeldt from the special obligation to remain in copenhagen, which his position in reference to that case imposed upon him. the husband of our lady purposed to remain some time in pomerania, and the queen lent him a vessel to convey him thither. having been three days at sea, the wind carried them towards dantzig, and not being able to enter the town, for it was too late, they remained outside the gates at a low inn. an adventure fit for a novel here happened to our lady. a girl of sixteen, or a little more, believing that our lady was a young man, threw herself on her neck with caresses, to which our lady responded, and played with the girl, but, as our lady perceived what the girl meant, and that she could not satisfy her, she turned her over to charles, a man of their suite, thinking he would answer her purpose; he offered the girl his attentions, but she repelled him rudely, saying, she was not for him, and went again to our lady, accosting her in the same way. our lady got rid of her, but with difficulty however, for she was somewhat impudent, and our lady did not dare to leave her apartment. for the sake of amusing you, i must tell you, what now occurs to me, that in the fort before stade, the name of which has escaped me, our lady played with two soldiers for drink, and her husband, who passed for her uncle, paid the expenses; the soldiers, willing to lose for the sake of gaining the beer, and astonished that she never lost, were, however, civil enough to present her with drink. we must return to dantzig. the husband of our lady, finding himself near thoren, desired to make an excursion there, but his design was interrupted by two men, one who had formerly served in norway as lieutenant-colonel, and a charlatan who called himself dr. saar, and who had been expelled from copenhagen. they asked the mayor of the town to arrest these two persons, believing that our lady was ebbe wl....[ ] they were warned by their host that these persons said they were so-and-so, and that these gentlemen were at the door to prevent their going out. towards evening they grew tired of keeping guard, and went away. before dawn the husband of our lady went out of the house first, and waited at the gate, and our lady with the two servants went in a coach to wait at the other gate until it was opened; thus they escaped this time. [ ] that is, ebbe ulfeldt,--a relative of corfitz who left denmark in and afterwards lived in sweden. they went by land to stralsund, where our lady resumed her own attire, after having been in disguise twelve weeks and four days, and having endured many inconveniences, not having gone to bed all the time, except at stockholm, dantzig, and stettin. she even washed the clothes, which inconvenienced her much. the winter that they passed at stralsund, her husband taught her, or rather began to teach her, spanish. in the spring they again made a voyage to stockholm, at the desire of queen chr.... this good queen, who liked intrigue, tried to excite jealousy and to make people jealous, but she did not succeed. they were in sweden until after the abdication of the queen, and the wedding and coronation of king charles and queen hedevig, which was in the year . they returned to pomerania for a visit to barth, which they possessed as a mortgage. there, our lady passed her time in study, sometimes occupied with a latin book, sometimes with a spanish one. she translated a small spanish work, entitled _matthias de los reyos_; but this book since fell into the hands of others, as well as the first part of _cleopatre_, which she had translated from the french, with matters of greater value. in the year ,[ ] her husband persuaded her to make a voyage to dannem... to try and gain an audience with the king, and see if she could not obtain some payment from persons who owed them money. our lady found various pleas for not undertaking this voyage, seeing a hundred difficulties against its successful issue; but her husband besought her to attempt it, and our old friend shared her husband's opinion that nothing could be done to her, that she was under the protection of the king of sweden, and not banished from dan... with similar arguments. at length she yielded, and made the journey in the winter, travelling in a coach with six horses, a secretary, a man on horseback, a female attendant, a page and a lacquey--that was all. she went first to see her mother in jutland, and remained there three days; this was immediately known at the court. [ ] this date is erroneous; the journey took place in november and december . when she had passed the belt, and was within cannon-shot of corsör, she was met by uldrich chr. guldenl...,[ ] who was on the point of going to jutland to fetch her. he returned with his galley and landed; she remained in her vessel, waiting for her carriage to be put on shore. guld... impatient, could not wait so long, and sent the burgomaster brant to tell her to come ashore, as he had something to say to her. she replied that if he had anything to say to her, he ought to show her the attention of coming to her. brant went with this answer; awaiting its issue, our lady looked at her attendants and perceived a change in them all. her female attendant was seized with an attack from which she suffers still, a trembling of the head, while her eyes remained fixed. the secretary trembled so that his teeth chattered. charles was quite pale, as were all the others. our lady spoke to them, and asked them why they were afraid; for her they had nothing to fear, and less for themselves. the secretary answered, 'they will soon let us know that.' brant returned with the same message, with the addition that gul... was bearer of the king's order, and that our lady ought to come to him at the castle to hear the king's order. she replied that she respected the king's order there as well as at the castle; that she wished that gul... would please to let her know there the order of his majesty; and when brant tried to persuade her, saying continually, 'oh! do give in, do give in!' she used the same expression, and said also, 'beg gul... to give in,' &c. at length she said, 'give me sufficient time to have two horses harnessed, for i cannot imagine he would wish me to go on foot.' [ ] u.c. gyldenlöve, illegitimate son of christian iv. and half-brother of leonora. when she reached the castle she had the coach pulled up. brant came forward to beg her to enter the castle; she refused, and said she would not enter; that if he wished to speak to her he must come to her, that she had come more than half-way. brant went, and returned once again, but she said the same, adding that he might do all that seemed good to him, she should not stir from the spot. at length the good-for-nothing fellow came down, and when he was ready to speak to her, she opened the coach and got out. he said a few polite words to her, and then presented her with an order from the king, written in the chancery, the contents of which were, that she must hasten to depart from the king's territory, or she would have to thank herself for any ill that might befall her. having read the order she bowed, and returned him the order, which was intended to warn her, saying, 'that she hoped to have been permitted to kiss the king's hand, but as her enemies had hindered this happiness by such an order, there was nothing left for her but to obey in all humility, and thanking his majesty most humbly for the warning, she would hasten as quickly as possible to obey his majesty's commands. she asked if she were permitted to take a little refreshment, for that they had had contrary winds and had been at sea all day. gul... answered in the negative, that he did not dare to give her the permission; and since she had obeyed with such great submission, he would not show her the other order that he had, asking her at the same moment if she wished to see this other order? she said, no; that she would abide by the order that she had seen, and that she would immediately embark on board her ferry-boat to return. gul... gave her his hand, and begged her to make use of his galley. she did so. they went half the way without speaking; at length gul... broke the silence, and they entered into conversation. he told her that the king had been made to believe that she had assembled a number of noblemen at her mother's house, and that he had orders to disperse this cabal. they had a long conversation together, and spoke of dina's affair; he said the king did not yet know the real truth of it. she complained that the king had not tried to know it. at length they arrived by night at nyborg. gul... accompanied her to her hostelry, and went to his own, and an hour afterwards sent scherning[ ] to tell her that at dawn of day she must be ready, in order that they might arrive at assens the next evening, which it was impossible to do with her own horses, as they did not arrive till morning. she assented, saying she would act in obedience to his orders, began talking with scherning, and conversed with him about other matters. i do not know how, but she gained his good graces, and he prevailed so far with gul... that gul... did not hasten her unduly. towards nine o'clock the next morning he came to tell her that he did not think it necessary to accompany her further, but he hoped she would follow the king's order, and begged her to speak with kay v. ahlefeld at haderslef, when she was passing through; he had received orders as to what he had to do. she promised this, and gul... returned to copenhagen, placing a man with our lady to watch her. [ ] probably povl tscherning, a well-known man of the time, who held the office of auditor-general. our lady did not think it necessary to speak to kay v. ahlefeld, for she had nothing to say to him, and she did not want to see more orders; she passed by haderslef, and went to apenrade, and awaited there for ten days[ ] a letter from gul... which he had promised to write to her; when she saw that he was not going to keep his word she started on her way to slesvig, halting half way with the intention of dining. holst, the clerk of the bailiwick of flensborg, here arrived in a coach with two arquebuses larger and longer than halberds. he gave orders to close the bar of boy..., sent to the village, which is quite close, that the peasants should hold themselves ready with their spears and arms, and made four persons who were in the tavern take the same arms, that is, large poles. afterwards he entered and made a long speech, with no end of compliments to our lady, to while away the time. the matter was, that the governor[ ] desired her to go to flensborg, as he had something to say to her, and he hoped she would do him the pleasure to rest a night at flensborg. [ ] in order to understand how she could wait for ten days at apenrade, it must be borne in mind that the duchy of slesvig was at that time divided into several parts, of which some belonged to the king, others to the duke of gottorp. haderslev and flensborg belonged to the king, but apenrade to the duke; in this town, therefore, she was safe from the pursuit of the danish authorities. [ ] the governor of flensborg at that time was detlef v. ahlefeld, the same who in was sent to königsberg to receive information from the court of brandenburg on the last intrigues of ulfeldt. our lady replied that she had not the pleasure of his acquaintance, and therefore she thought he took her for someone else; if she could oblige him in anything she would remain at slesvig the following day, in order to know in what she could serve him. no, it was not that; he repeated his request. she ordered charles to have the horses put to. holst understood this, which was said in french, and begged her for the love of god not to set out; he had orders not to let her depart. 'you,' said she, in a somewhat haughty tone, 'who are you? with what authority do you speak thus?' he said he had no written order, but by word of mouth, and that his governor would soon arrive; he begged her for the love of god to pardon him. he was a servant, he was willing to be trodden under her feet. she said: 'it is not for you to pay me compliments, still less to detain me, since you cannot show me the king's order, but it is for me to think what i ought to do.' she went out and ordered her lacquey, who was the only determined one of her suite, to make himself master of holst's chariot and arquebuses. holst followed her, begging her a hundred times, saying, 'i do not dare to let you pass, i do not dare to open the bar.' she said, 'i do not ask you to open;' she got into the coach. holst put his hand upon the coach-door and sang the old song. our lady, who had always pistols in her carriage when she travelled, drew out one and presented it to him saying, 'draw back, or i will give you the contents of this.' he was not slow in letting go his hold; then she threw a patacoon to those who were to restrain her, saying, 'here is something for drink; help in letting the carriage pass the fosse!' which they immediately did. not a quarter of an hour after she had gone, the governor arrived with another chariot. there were two men and four guns in each chariot. our lady was warned of the pursuit; she begged her two coachmen, whom she had for herself and her baggage, to dispute them the road as much as they could; she ordered charles always to remain at the side of her carriage, in order that she might throw herself upon the horse if she saw that they gained ground. she took off her furred robe. they disputed the road up to the bridge, which separated the territory of the king from that of the duke. when she had passed the bridge she stopped, put on her robe, and alighted. the others paused on the other side of the bridge to look at her, and thus she escaped again for this time.[ ] but it was amusing to see how the secretary perspired, what fright he was in; he did not afterwards pretend to bravery, but freely confessed that he was half dead with fear. she returned to barth, and found her husband very very ill. our old friend had almost given up all hope of his recovery, but her presence acted as a miracle; he was sufficiently strong in the morning to be taken out of bed, to the great surprise of our old friend. [ ] the clerk holst was shortly after, when the swedes occupied flensborg, put to a heavy ransom by ulfeldt, in punishment of his conduct to leonora. documents which still exist show that he applied to the danish government for compensation, but apparently in vain. just as our lady was thinking of passing some days in tranquillity, occupied in light study, in trifling work, distillations, confectionery, and such like things, her husband mixed himself in the wars. the king of sweden sent after him to stettin; he told his wife that he would have nothing to do with them. he did not keep his word, however; he did not return to barth, but went straight off with the king. she knew he was not provided with anything; she saw the danger to which he was exposed, she wished to share it; she equipped herself in haste, and, without his sending for her, went to join him at ottensen. he wished to persuade her to return to hamburgh, and spoke to her of the great danger; she said the danger was the reason why she wished to bear him company, and to share it with him; so she went with him, and passed few days without uneasiness, especially when friderichsodde was taken; she feared for both husband and son. there she had the happiness of reconciling the c. wrangel and the c. jaques,[ ] which her husband had believed impossible, not having been able to succeed. she had also the good fortune to cure her eldest son and eight of her servants of a malignant fever named sprinckeln; there was no doctor at that time with the army, our old friend having left. [ ] count jakob casimir de la gardie, a swedish nobleman. count wrangel was the swedish general. when her husband passed with the king to seeland, she remained at fyen. the day that she had resolved to set out on the following to return to schone, a post arrived with news that her mother was at the point of death and wished to speak to her; she posted to jutland, found madame very ill and with no hope of life. she had only been there one night, when her husband sent a messenger to say that if she wished to see him alive she must lose no time. our lady was herself ill; she had to leave her mother, who was already half dead; she had to take her last farewell in great sorrow, and to go with all speed to seek her husband, who was very ill at malmöe. two days afterwards she received the tidings of her mother's death, and as soon as the health of her husband permitted it, she went to jutland to give the necessary orders for her mother's funeral. she returned once more to schone before the burial; after the funeral[ ] she went to copenhagen and revisited malmöe one day before the king of sweden began the war for the second time and appeared before kopenh.... [ ] the funeral took place with great pomp in the church of st. knud, at odense, on june , , together with that of sophia elizabeth, leonora's sister, who is mentioned in the beginning of the autobiography. in the year the king of sweden ordered her husband to be arrested at malmöe. she went immediately to helsingör to speak to the king, but had not the happiness of speaking to him; on the contrary, the king sent two of his counsellors to tell her that she was free to choose whether she would return to her estates and superintend them, or go back to malmöe and be arrested with her husband. she thanked his majesty very humbly for the favour of the choice; she chose to suffer with her husband, and was glad to have the happiness of serving him in his affliction, and bearing the burden with him which would lighten it to him. she returned to malmöe with these news; her husband exhibited too much grief that she was not permitted to solicit on his behalf, and she consoled him as well as she was able. a few days after, an officer came to their house and irritated her husband so much by his impertinent manner that he had a fit of apoplexy. our lady was overwhelmed with sorrow; she sent for the priest the next morning, made her husband receive the holy communion, and received it herself. she knew not at what hour she might be a widow; no one came to see her, no one in consequence consoled her, and she had to console herself. she had a husband who was neither living nor dead; he ate and drank; he spoke, but no one could understand him. about eight months after, the king began to take proceedings against her husband, and in order to make her answer for her husband they mixed her up in certain points as having asked for news: whence the young lady was taken whom her husband brought to copenhagen? who was trolle? and that she had kept the property of a danish nobleman in her house.[ ] since her husband was ill, the king graciously permitted her to answer for him; thus they proceeded with her for nine weeks in succession; she had no other assistance in copying her defence than her eldest daughter, then very young. she was permitted to make use of wolff, for receiving the accusations and taking back the replies, but he wrote nothing for her. if you are interested in knowing the proceedings, kield[ ] can give you information respecting them. [ ] the young lady was birgitte rantzau, who was engaged to korfits trolle, a danish nobleman, who had been very active in preparing the intended rising of the citizens of malmöe against the swedes. ulfeldt was accused of having favoured and assisted this design (_see_ the introduction), and he had brought trolle's bride over to copenhagen, or accompanied them thither. [ ] wolf and kield were servants of ulfeldt. when the proceedings had lasted so many weeks, and she had answered with regard to the conversations which it was said her husband had had with one and another, they fancied that her husband feigned illness. four doctors were sent with the commandant to visit the sick man, and they found that he was really ill; not content with this, they established the court in his house, for they were ashamed to make her come to them. they caused the city magistrate to come, placing him on one side of the hall, and on the other the danish noblemen who were under arrest, all as witnesses; eight commissioners sat at a round table, the lawyer in front of the table and two clerks at another table; having made these arrangements, our lady was desired to enter. we must mention, in the first place, that two of the delinquents who were executed afterwards, and another, together with one of the servants of her husband, were brought there. the principal delinquents were summoned first, and afterwards the others, to take an oath that they would speak the truth. we must mention that these gentlemen were already condemned, and were executed a few days afterwards. when the lawyer had said that they had now taken their oaths according to the law, our lady said, 'post festum! after having proceeded against my husband so many weeks, having based everything on the tattle of these delinquents, you come, after they are condemned to suffer for their trespasses, and make them take an oath. i do not know if this is conformable to law!' the lawyer made no reply to this, and, thinking to confuse our lady, said that he found things contrary the one to the other, cited passages, leaves, lines, and asked her if she could make these things agree. she, having at that time a good memory, remembered well what her own judgment had dictated to her, and said that they would not find her replies what the lawyer said, but so-and-so, and asked that they should be read openly, which was done. the lawyer made three attempts of the same kind; when they saw there was nothing to be gained by this, the commissioners attacked her three at a time, one putting one question and another, another. she said to them quietly, 'messieurs, with your permission, let one speak at a time, for i am but one, and i cannot answer three at once!' at which they were all a little ashamed. the principal point to which they adhered was, that her husband was a vassal by oath, and a servant of the king, with which assertion they parried every objection. she proved that it was not so, that her husband was neither vassal nor a servant; he had his lands under the king just as many swedes had elsewhere, without on that account being vassals; that he had never taken an oath of fidelity to the king of sweden, but that he had shown him much fidelity; that he owed him no obligation--this she showed by a letter from the king, in which he thanked him for his services, and hoped so to act that he would render him still more. she shut the mouth of the delinquent,[ ] and begged the commissioners to reflect on what she had said. [ ] the person alluded to is a bartholomæus mikkelsen, who was executed as ringleader of the conspiracy. when all was over, after the space of three hours, she requested that the protocol might be read before her. the president said that she need have no doubt the protocol was correct, that she should have a copy of it, that they now understood the matter, and would make a faithful report of it to the king. no sentence was passed, and they remained under arrest. the king of sweden died, and peace was concluded, but they remained under arrest. a friend came to inform them, one day, that there was a vessel of war in the roads, which was to take them to finland. when she saw her husband a little recovered, that he could use his judgment, she advised him to escape and go to lubeck. she would go to copenhagen and try to arrange the matter. he consented to it, and she contrived to let him out in spite of all the guards round the house (thirty-six in number). when she received the news that he had passed and could reckon that he was on his way to lubeck, she escaped also, and went straight to copenh.... having arrived there, she found her husband arrived before her; she was much surprised and vexed, fearing what happened afterwards, but he had flattered himself so with the comfortable hope that he would enter into the good graces of the king. the next day they were both arrested and brought to borringh...[ ]; her husband was ill; on arriving at borr... they placed him on a litter and brought him from the town to the castle, a distance of about two leagues. [ ] bornholm. (_see_ the introduction.) it would weary you to tell you of all that passed at borr... if you take pleasure in knowing it, there is a man in hamburgh who can tell it you.[ ] i will tell you, however, a part and the chief of what i remember concerning it. at rönne, the town where they disembarked at borringh----, our lady wrote to the king and to the queen in the name of her husband, who was ill, as i have already said, and gave the memorials to colonel rantzou, who promised to deliver them, and who gave hopes of success.[ ] there fos arrived and conveyed them to the castle of hammershuus. the governor fos saw that our lady had a small box with her, and was seized with the desire to know what was in it and to possess himself of it. he sent one dina, the wife of the warder to our lady, to offer to procure a boat for their escape. there is no doubt she accepted the offer, and promised in return five hundred crowns. this was enough for fos; he went one night with the major to their apartment, thundered like a madman, said that they wished to betray him, &c.; the end of the farce was, that he took the box, but, for the sake of a little ceremony, he sealed it with her husband's seal, promising to keep it for its safety. [ ] she refers no doubt to a servant who accompanied them of the name of pflügge. [ ] the original of this letter to the king exists still. about three weeks after, he took the two prisoners to walk a little in the fields; the husband would not go, but the wife went out to take the air. the traitor gave her a long history of his past adventures, how many times he had been in prison, some instances of how great lords had been saved by the assistance of those they had gained over, and made their fortune. he thought they would do the same. she said she had not much to dispose of, but besides that, they would find other means for rewarding such a service. he said he would think of it, that he had nothing to lose in dan.... after various discussions from day to day, her husband wished her to offer him , rix-dollars; this sum seemed to him too little, and he asked , dollars. she said that she could easily promise it, but could not keep her word, but provided it was twenty she would pay it. he asked for a security; her husband had a note which would give security, but our lady did not think it good that he should see this note, and told fos that in her box there was a letter that could secure it; she did not know that he had already opened the box. some days after, she asked him if he had made up his mind? he said, 'i will not do it for less than , , and there is no letter in your box which would secure it to me. i have opened it; to-morrow i will send it to copenh....' she asked him quietly if he had done right in breaking her husband's seal; he answered rudely that he would take the responsibility. towards autumn, hannibal and the other heirs of our lady's mother sent to her husband to notify to him that they could not longer delay dividing the inheritance, and since they knew that he had in his possession papers of importance, they requested to be informed of them. her husband stated in his reply that fos had taken his letters, and that in a rude manner. this answer having been read in the presence of fos, he flew in a thundering rage, used abusive language first to the husband and then to the wife, her husband having firmly promised our lady not to dispute with this villain, for she feared some evil might result, but to leave her to answer, for fos would be answered. she was not angry; she ridiculed him and his invectives. at length he told her that she had offered him , dollars to induce him to become a traitor; she replied with calmness, 'if it had been , , what then?' fos leapt into the air like an enraged animal, and said that she lied like a ----, &c. she was not moved, but said 'you speak like an ass!' upon this he loaded her with abuse, and then retracted all that he had just said. she said quite quietly, 'i am not going to appeal to these gentlemen who are present (there were four) to be witnesses, for this is an affair that will never be judicially settled, and nothing can efface this insult but blood.' 'oh!' said he, seizing his sword, and drawing it a little out of the scabbard, 'this is what i wear for you, madam.' she, smiling, drew the bodkin from her hair, saying, 'here are all the arms at present which i have for you.' he manifested a little shame, and said that it was not for her but her sons, if she still had four.[ ] she, moreover, ridiculed him, and said that it was no use his acting the brave there. in short, books could be filled with all the quarrels between these two persons from time to time. he shouted at times with all his might, he spoke like a torrent, and foamed at the mouth, and the next moment he would speak low like another man. when he shouted so loudly, our lady said, 'the fever is attacking him again!' he was enraged at this. [ ] it will be remembered from the introduction that fuchs was killed two years after by one of leonora's sons at bruges. some weeks afterwards he came to visit them, and assumed a humble manner. our lady took no notice of it, and spoke with him on indifferent subjects; but her husband would not speak to him, and never afterwards was he able to draw from him more than a few words. towards christmas, fos treated the prisoners very ill, more so than formerly, so that monsieur sent the servant to beg him to treat him as a gentleman and not as a peasant. fos went to them immediately, after having abused monsieur's servant; and as he entered, monsieur left the apartment and went into another, and refused to give him his hand. fos was enraged at this, and would not remain, nor would he speak a word to our lady, who begged him to hear her. a moment after, he caused the door to be bolted, so that they could not go out to take the air, for they before had free access to a loft. at every festival he devised means of annoying them; he closed all the windows, putting to some bars of iron, and to others wooden framework and boxes; and as to their food, it was worse than ever. they had to endure that winter in patience; but as they perceived that fos's design was that they should die of hunger, they resolved to hazard an escape, and made preparation through the winter, in order to escape as soon as the thaw would set in. our lady, who had three pairs of sheets that her children had sent her, undid some articles of clothing and made cordage and a sail; she sewed them with silk, for she had no thread. her husband and the servant worked at the oars. when the moon was favourable to them in the month of april, they wished to carry out the plan they had been projecting for so long a time. our lady was the first to make the descent: the height was seventy-two feet; she went on to the ravelin to await the others. some time elapsed before her husband came, so she returned, and at last she heard a great noise among the ropes, her husband having lost a shoe in his descent. they had still to wait for the valet; he had forgotten the cord, and said that he could not carry it with him. it was necessary to descend the rampart into the moats, which were dry; the height is about forty feet. our lady was the first to descend; she helped her husband, for his strength was already failing. when they were all three in the fosse, the moon was obscured and a little rain fell. this was unfortunate, as they could not see which road to take. her husband said it would be better to remain where they were till daylight, for they might break their necks in descending the rocks. the servant said he knew the way, as he had observed it when the window was free; that he would go in front. he went in advance, gliding in a sitting position, after him our lady, and then her husband; they could not see an inch before them; the man fell from an incredible height, and did not speak; our lady stopped, shouted to him, and asked him to answer if he was alive. he was some time before he answered, so she and her husband considered him dead; at length he answered, and said he should never get out of this ravine; our lady asked him if he judged the depth to be greater than one of the cords could reach? she would tie two together, and throw the end to him to draw him up. he said that one cord would be sufficient, but that she could not draw him up, that she would not be strong enough; she said she could, she would hold firm, and he should help himself with his knees. he took courage, and she drew him up; the greatest marvel was, that on each side of her there was a precipice deeper than that over which he fell, and that she had nothing by which to support herself, except a small projection, which they believed to be of earth, against which she placed her left foot, finding no resting-place for the right one. we can truly say that god had granted her his protection, for to escape from such a danger, and draw another out of it, could not have been done by unaided man. our fool fos explained it otherwise, and used it for his own purposes, saying that without the assistance of the devil it would have been impossible to stand firm in such a place, still less to assist another; he impressed this so well on the queen, that she is still of the opinion that our lady exercises sorcery. fos would take the glory from god to give it to the devil, and this calumny has to be endured with many others. but let us return to our miserable fugitives, whom we left in the fosse. our lady, who had shouted to her husband not to advance, as soon as she heard the valet fall, called to him to keep back, turn quietly, and to climb upwards, for that there was no passage there; this was done, and they remounted the fosse and kept themselves quiet. her husband wished that they should remain there, since they did not know which road to take. while they were deliberating, the moon shone forth a little, and our lady saw where she was, and she remembered a good passage which she had seen on the day when she walked out with the governor; she persuaded her husband to follow her; he complained of his want of strength; she told him that god would assist him, and that he did not require great strength to let himself glide down, that the passage was not difficult, and that in ascending on the opposite side, which was not high, the valet and herself could assist him. he resolved, but he found it difficult enough; at length, however, they succeeded; they had then to go half a quarter of a league to reach the place where the boats were. her husband, wearied out, could not walk, and begged her, for the love of god, to leave him where he was; he was ready to die; she consoled him, and gave him restoratives, and told him that he had but a little step to make; he begged her to leave him there, and to save herself with the servant: she would find means afterwards to rescue him from prison. she said no, she would not abandon him; that he knew well the opportunities she had had to escape before, if she had wished to forsake him; that she would never quit him nor leave him in the hands of this tyrant; that if fos ventured to touch him, she was resolved on avenging herself upon him. after having taken a little breath, he began again to proceed. our lady, who was loaded with so many ropes and clothes, could scarcely walk, but necessity gave her strength. she begged her husband to lean on her and on the valet, so he supported himself between them, and in this way arrived where the boats were; but too late, for it was already day. as our lady saw the patrol coming in the distance, she begged her husband to stop there with the valet, saying that she would go forward in advance, which she did. she was scarcely a musket-shot distant from a little town where the major lodged, when she spoke with the guard, and asked them after the major. one of them went for the major, whose name was kratz. the major saw our lady with great consternation; he asked after her husband. she told him where he was, and in a few words she requested that he would go to the castle and tell major-general fos that his ill-treatment had been the cause of the desperate resolution they had taken, and to beg him not to ill-treat them; they were at present sick at heart; they could not endure anything; she begged him to consider that those who had resolved to face more than one form of death, would not fear it in any shape. kratz conducted the prisoners to his house, mounted his horse, and went in search of the governor, who was still in bed, and told him the affair. the governor got out of bed like a furious creature, swore, menaced; after having recovered a little, the major told him what our lady had begged him to say. then he was for some time thoughtful, and said, 'i confess it; they had reason to seek their liberty, for otherwise they would never have had it.' he did not immediately come for the prisoners, for he had another apartment prepared for them. as he entered, he assumed a pleasant manner, and asked if they ought to be there; he did not say an unkind word, but, on the contrary, said he should have done the same. they were conducted to the royal hall to warm themselves, for they were all wet with the rain; our lady had then an opportunity of speaking to the valet, and of taking from him the papers that he had, which contained all that had passed during the time of their imprisonment,[ ] and she counselled the valet to lay aside the arms that he had upon him, and that if he had anything which he wished to secure that he would deliver it up to her keeping. the valet gave her what she asked, followed her orders, threw away his arms, but as regarded his own papers he would not give them up, for he did not share her fears; but he knew afterwards, for fos caused him to be entirely stripped, and took away everything from him, and made him pay well for having noted down the dishes that they had on the first day of the festivals, and on the rest. [ ] this account of what happened during their imprisonment at hammershuus, written by leonora herself, is also mentioned in her record of her prison-life in the blue tower. but no copy of it has yet come to light. uhlfeldt's so-called apology contains much information on this subject. at length towards evening our lady and her husband were conveyed into another apartment, and the valet into the body-guard loaded with irons. they were there together thirteen weeks, until fos received orders from the court to separate them; meanwhile, he encased the prisons in iron. i may well use such a term, for he caused plates of iron to be placed on the walls, double bars and irons round the windows.[ ] when he had permission to separate them, he entered one day to begin a quarrel, and spoke of the past; our lady begged him not to say more, but he would go on; he was determined to quarrel. he said to her, 'madame, you are so haughty, i will humble you; i will make you so--so small,' and he made a measurement with his hand from the floor. 'you have been lifted up and i will bring you down.' she laughed, and said, 'you may do with me whatever you will, but you can never humble me so that i shall cease to remember that you were a servant of a servant of the king my father;' at last, he so forgot himself as to hold his fist in her face. she said to him, keeping her hand on her knife which she had in her pocket, 'make use of your foul mouth and accursed tongue, but keep your hands quiet.' he drew back, and made a profound bow in ridicule, calling her 'your grace,' asked her pardon, and what he had to fear. she said, 'you have nothing to fear; if you take liberties, you will meet with resistance--feeble enough, but such as i have strength to give you.' [ ] fuchs' own report on this subject still exists, and in it he estimates the iron employed at three tons. after some further invectives, he said farewell, and begged they might be good friends; he came once more and conducted himself in the same manner, but less violently. he said to a captain who was present, of the name of bolt, that he did it expressly in order to have a quarrel with her husband, that he might revenge himself for her conduct upon him, but that her husband would not speak to him. at length the unhappy day of their separation came, and fos entered to tell them that they must be prepared to bid each other a final farewell, for that he had orders to separate them, and in this life they would never see each other again; he gave them an hour to converse together for the last time. you can easily imagine what passed in this hour; but as they had been prepared for this separation weeks before, having been warned of it by their guard with whom they could talk, it did not surprise them. our lady had gained over four of the guards, who were ready to let them escape easily enough, but her husband would not undertake it, always saying that he had no strength, but that she might do it. well, they had to abide by it; after this sad day[ ] they were separated, he in one prison below and she in another above, one above another, bars before the windows, he without a servant, and she without a waiting woman. [ ] the precise date was june , , but the order for their separation is dated already on the th of april. about three weeks after, our lady fell ill; she requested a woman or girl to wait upon her, and a priest. fos sent answer, with regard to a woman or girl to wait upon her, he did not know anyone who would do it, but that there was a wench who had killed her child, and who would soon be beheaded, and if she wished for her, she could have her. as to a priest, he had no orders, and she would have no priest even if death were on her lips. our lady said nothing but 'patience; i commend it to god.' our lady had the happiness of being able to give her husband signs daily, and to receive such, and when the wind was not too strong they could speak to one another. they spoke italian together, and took their opportunity before the reveille. towards the close of the governorship of this villain, he was informed of this. he then had a kind of machine made which is used to frighten the cattle from the corn in the summer, and which makes a great noise, and he desired the sentinel to move this machine in order to hinder them hearing each other. fifteen days before count rantzow came to borringholm to treat with them, fos had news of it from copenhagen from his intimate friend jaques p...; he visited our lady, told her on entering that her children had been expelled from skaane by the swedes; our lady said, 'well, the world is wide, they will find a place elsewhere.' he then told her that bolt had come from copenhagen with the tidings that they would never be let at liberty; she replied, 'never is a long time; this imprisonment will not last a hundred years, much less an eternity--in the twinkling of an eye much may change; the hand of god, in whom are the hearts of kings, can change everything.' he said, 'you have plenty of hope; you think perhaps if the king died, you would be free?' she replied, 'god preserve the king. i believe that he will give me liberty, and no one else.' he chatted about a great many things, and played the flatterer. at length count rantzow came and made a stay at borringh... of eleven weeks. he visited the prisoners, and did them the favour of having the husband to dine with him, and in the evening our lady supped with him, and he conferred with them separately. our lady asked him of what she was accused; he replied, 'will you ask that? that is not the way to get out of borringholm; do you know that you have said the king is your brother? and kings do not recognise either sisters or brothers.' she replied, 'to whom had i need to say that the king is my brother? who is so ignorant in denmark as not to know that? i have always known, and know still, the respect that is due to the king; i have never given him any other title than my king and lord; i have never called him my brother, in speaking of him; kings are gracious enough to recognise their sisters and brothers as such; for example, the king of england gives the title of sister to his brother's wife, although she is of very mediocre extraction.[ ] rantzow replied, 'our king does not wish it, and he does not know yet the truth about dina's affair.' she said, 'i think the king does not wish to know.' he replied, 'indeed, by god he desires with all his heart to be informed of it.' she answered, 'if the king will desire walter to tell him, and this with some earnestness, he will be informed of it.' rantzow made no reply. [ ] leonora alludes to the wife of the then duke of york, afterwards james ii., who was the daughter of lord edward clarendon. when he had concluded everything with her husband, whom he had obliged to yield up all his possessions, rantzow acquainted our lady with the fact; she said that her husband had power to give up what was his, but that the half belonged to her, and that this she would not give up, not being able to answer for it before god nor before her children; she had committed no crime; liberty should be given to her husband for the half of their lands, and that if the king thought he could retain her with a good conscience she would endure it. rantzow with a serious air replied, 'do not think that your husband will ever be set at liberty, if you do not sign with him.' she said that the conditions were too severe; that they should do better for their children to die as prisoners, god and all the world knowing their innocence, than to leave so many children beggars. rantzow said, 'if you die in prison, all your lands and property are forfeited, and your children will have nothing; but at this moment you can have your liberty, live with your husband; who knows, the king may still leave you an estate, and may always show you favour, when he sees that you yield to his will.' our lady said that since there was no other prospect for her husband's liberty, she would consent. rantzow ordered her husband and herself separately to place in writing the complaints they had to bring forward against fos, and all that had happened with regard to their attempt at escape; which was done. our lady was gracious in her demeanour to fos, but her husband could not make up his mind even to speak to him. rantzow returned to copenh... and eighteen days afterwards the galley of gabel came with orders to the new governor (lieutenant-colonel lytkens, a very well-bred man and brave soldier, his wife a noble lady of the manteuffel family, very polite and pretty), that he should make the prisoners sign the papers sent, and when the signature was done, should send them on together. the governor sent first to the husband, as was befitting, who made difficulties about signing because they had added points here and there, and among other things principally this, that they were never to plead against fos. the husband said he would rather die. the good governor went in search of the wife and told her everything, begging her to speak to her husband from the window; when he knew that she had spoken to him, he would return. she thanked the governor, and when he had gone out she spoke to her husband, and persuaded him to sign. then the governor made her sign also; and after that, towards nine o'clock in the evening, her husband came to her, having been separated just twenty-six weeks.[ ] they were separated on a saturday, and they met again on a saturday. fos was still at the castle; it is easy to believe that he was in great rage. time does not permit to dwell on it. two days afterwards they embarked and came to copenhagen, and were received on the custom-house pier by c. rantzow and gabel. the queen knew nothing of it. when she was told of it she was so angry that she would not go to table. in a few words the king held his ground, and as she would not accept the thanks of monsieur and his wife, the king ordered her to receive them in writing. they spent the christmas of in the house of c. rantzow. afterwards they went to fyen, to the estate of ellensborg, which was graciously left to them.[ ] [ ] the apology of uhlfeldt contains an account of this whole transaction. he states that when he asked his wife through the window whether they ought to sign and live rather than die in prison, which would otherwise be their lot, leonora answered with the following latin verse: rebus in adversis facile est contemnere mortem, fortius ille facit, qui miser esse potest. accidit in puncto, quod non speratur in anno. [ ] ellensborg was the ancient seat of the ulfeldt family, which had been sold to ellen marsvin, leonora's grandmother, and leonora inherited it from her mother. it is now called holckenhavn, and the seat of count holck. her husband having permission to go to france to take the waters for eighteen months, left ell... with his family in the month of june , and landed at amsterdam. our lady went from thence to bruges to hire a house, and returned to amsterdam. her daughter helena fell ill of the small-pox; she remained with her, and her husband and the other children went to bruges. when her daughter had recovered, she went to rejoin her husband and children. she accompanied her husband, who went to france. having arrived at paris, the doctors did not find it advisable that he should take the waters, and he returned to bruges. her husband begged our lady to make a journey to england, and to take her eldest son with her. she raised obstacles, and showed him plainly that she should obtain nothing; that she should only be at great expense. she had examples before her which showed her that the king of england would never pay her husband. he would not have been turned from his purpose at this time but for their son's rencontre with fos, which prevented the journey that winter, and postponed the misfortunes of our lady, though it did not ultimately prevent them. but towards the spring the same design was again brought forward; our lady was assisted by the nobleman who followed her afterwards[ ] in dissuading her husband; but no reasoning could avail; he believed the king could not forget the benefits received, and refuse to pay his cousin. our lady prepared for her departure, since her husband wished it. the day that she bade him her last farewell--a fatal day, indeed--her husband's heart did not tell him that these would be the last embraces he would give her, for he was so satisfied and so full of joy that she and all were astonished. she, on the contrary, was sad. the last day of their intercourse was may , . she had many contretemps at first, and some time elapsed before she had the honour of speaking to the king. [ ] namely casetta, a spanish nobleman, who afterwards married their daughter anna katherine, but both he and their children died soon. (_see_ the introduction.) the king greeted her after the fashion of the country, treated her as his cousin,[ ] and promised her all sorts of satisfaction; that he would send his secretary[ ] to her to see her papers, which he did. the secretary made her fine promises, but the time was always postponed. the minister resident, petkum, minister of the king of danem..., came to visit her (he had placed some obstacles in the way of her demands, from what was told her). she showed him her papers, informed him of the affair, told him that the king of denmark had had all the papers in his hands, and had graciously returned them. the traitor made a semblance of understanding the affair, and promised that he would himself help in securing the payment of her demands. but this judas always intended to betray her, asking her if she did not like to make excursions, speaking to her of beautiful houses, gardens and parks, and offering her his coach. but our lady was not inclined to make excursions. [ ] charles the second's grandmother, anna, the queen of james i. was sister of leonora christina's father, christian iv. [ ] sir henry bennet, afterwards lord arlington. when he saw that he could not catch her in this way, he obtained an order to arrest her. our poor lady knew nothing of all this; she had letter upon letter from her husband requesting her return. she took leave of the king by letter, gave her papers to a lawyer[ ] upon a receipt, and set out from london. having arrived at dover, and intending to embark the same evening for flanders, a lieutenant of the name of braten[ ] appeared, who came to show her an order from the king of anglet... which she read herself, the purport of which was that the governor was to arrest such a lady, and to place her in the castle till further orders. she asked the reason why. he said that she had left without permission from the king. she told him that she had taken leave of the king by letter, and had spoken the day before her departure with the prime minister and vice-admiral aschew,[ ] who had bade her farewell.[ ] [ ] a certain mr. mowbray. [ ] elsewhere she writes the name broughton. [ ] sir george askew. [ ] compare with this account the following extracts in the _calendar of state papers_, domestic series, , , pp. , , :-- --_july ._--warrant to captain strode, governor of dover castle, to detain elionora christiana, countess of uhlfeldt, with her husband, if he be found with her, and their servants; to keep her close prisoner, and secure all her papers, according to instructions to be given by thos. parnell. _july ._--warrant to thos. parnell to observe the movements of the said countess of uhlfeldt; to seize her should she attempt to embark at gravesend with her papers, and to detain her close prisoner. (_july_).--instructions (by sec. bennet) to thos. parnell, to go to dover castle to deliver instructions, and assist in their execution, relative to a certain lady (the countess of uhlfeldt), who is not to be permitted to depart, whether she have a pass or not; but to be invited, or if needful compelled, to lodge at the castle, where the best accommodation is to be provided for her. it is suspected that her husband lies concealed in the kingdom, and will also try to pass with his lady, but he also is to be detained, and her servants also. _july ._--thos. parnell to williamson. 'found the countess (of uhlfeldt) at dover, and by the aid of the lieut.-governor sent the searcher to her inn, to demand her pass. she said she had none, not knowing it would be wanted. she submitted patiently to be taken to the castle, and lodged there till a message was sent to town. the regent's gentleman, the bearer will give an account of all things.' when she came to the castle, the emissary of petkum presented himself, by name peter dreyer. then the lieutenant said, 'it is the king of danemarc who has ordered you to be arrested.' she asked the cause. he replied, 'you undoubtedly set out incognito from danemarck.' she replied to this that the king of danem... had given her husband leave of absence for a term of eighteen months, which had not yet expired. they ordered her boxes and those of the nobleman who accompanied her to be opened, and they took all the papers. afterwards dreyer spoke to her, and she asked him why she was treated thus? he said he did not know the real cause, but that he believed it was for the death of fos, and that she was believed to have been the cause of his death. they always mentioned this to her, and no other cause. this double traitor braten enacted the gallant, entertained her, made her speak english (as she was bolder in speaking this language than any other), for she had just begun to learn it well, having had a language-master in london. one day he told that they intended conducting her to danemarck. she told him there was no need to send her to danem...; she could go there very well by herself. he said, 'you know yourself what suits you; if you will not go there willingly, i will manage so that you may go to flanders.' she did not see that this was feasible, even if he was willing; she spoke with him as to the means, saw that he did not satisfy her, and did not trust his conversation; as he was cunning, he made her believe that the king wished her to go secretly, and that he would take it all upon himself; that the king had his reasons why he did not wish to deliver her into the hands of the king of danem.... this deception had such good colouring, for she had written several times to the king during her arrest, and had begged him not to reward her husband's services by a long arrest, only speaking of what she had done at the hague for him: she had taken her jewels and rings and given them to him, when his host would not any longer supply him with food.[ ] her claim was not small; it exceeded , patacoons.[ ] [ ] several letters written by leonora during her imprisonment at dover to charles ii., sir henry bennet, &c., are printed in a danish periodical, _danske samlinger_, vol. vi. [ ] reckoning the patacoon to s. d., this claim would be nearly , _l._ our lady allowed herself to be persuaded that the king of england wished her to leave secretly. the traitor braten told her that he thought it best that she should disguise herself as a man. she said that there was no necessity she should disguise herself; that no one would pursue her; and even if it were so, that she would not go in disguise with any man who was not her husband. after having been detained seventeen days at dover, she allowed herself to be conducted by braten, at night, towards the ramparts, descended by a high ladder which broke during her descent, passed the fosse, which was not difficult; on the other side there was a horse waiting for her, but the nobleman, her attendant, and the nobleman's valet, went on foot; they would not allow her valet to go with them; braten made an excuse of not being able to find him, and that time pressed; it was because they were afraid that there would be an effort at defence. when she arrived where the traitors were, her guide gave a signal by knocking two stones one against another. at this, four armed men advanced; petkum and dreyer were a little way off; one held a pistol to her breast, the other a sword, and said, 'i take you prisoner.' the other two traitors said, 'we will conduct you to ostend.' she had always suspected treachery, and had spoken with her companion, in case it happened, what it would be best to do, to give herself up or to defend herself? she decided on allowing herself to be betrayed without a struggle, since she had no reason to fear that her life would be attempted because her son had avenged the wrong done to his parents. thus she made no resistance, begged them not to take so much trouble, that she would go of herself; for two men held her with so much force that they hurt her arm. they came with a bottle of dry wine to quench her thirst, but she would not drink; she had a good way to go on foot, for she would not again mount the horse. she showed some anger towards her guide, begged him in english to give her respects to the governor,[ ] but to convey to the traitor braten all the abuse that she could hurriedly call to mind in this language, which was not quite familiar to her. she advanced towards the boat; the vessel which was to convey her was in the roads, near the downs. she bade farewell to the nobleman. she had two bracelets with diamonds which she wished to give him to convey to her children; but as he feared they would be taken from him, she replaced them without troubling him with them. she gave a pistol to her servant, and a mariner then carried her to the boat; she was placed in an english frigate that petkum had hired, and dreyer went with her.[ ] she was thirteen days on the road, and arrived near the custom-house pier on august , , at nine o'clock in the morning. [ ] leonora did not know that the governor of the castle was in the plot. [ ] additional light is thrown on the arrest of leonora christina at dover by the following extracts in the _calendar of state papers_, p. , :-- _august _, _whitehall_.--(sec. bennet) to capt. strode. the king is satisfied with his account of the lady's escape and his own behaviour; continue the same mask, of publishing his majesty's displeasure against all who contributed to it, especially his lieutenant, and this more particularly in presence of m. cassett, lest he may suspect connivance. cassett is to continue prisoner some time. the danish resident is satisfied with the discretion used, but says his point would not have been secured had the lady gone to sea without interruption. _august _?--account (proposed to be sent to the gazette?) relative to count uhlfeldt--recording his submission in , the present sentence against him, his further relapse into crime after a solemn recantation, also signed by his wife who was his accomplice, though her blood saved her from sharing his sentence, but who has now betrayed herself into the hands of the king of denmark. she was in england when the conspiracy against the king of denmark's life was detected. the king of england had her movements watched, when she suddenly went off without a pass, for want of which she was stayed by the governor of dover castle, who accommodated her in the castle. the resident of denmark posted to dover, and secured the master of a ship then in the road, with whom he expected her to tamper, which she did, escaped through the castle window, and entering a shallop to go on board, was seized and conveyed to denmark. with note (by lord chancellor clarendon) that he is not satisfied with this account, but will prepare a better for another week. [the remaining part of the autobiography treats of the commencement of her imprisonment in the blue tower, which forms the subject of the following memoir.] a record of the sufferings of the imprisoned countess leonora christina. preface. _to my children._ beloved children, i may indeed say with job, 'oh, that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! for now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea.' my sufferings are indeed great and many; they are heavy and innumerable. my mind has long been uncertain with regard to this history of my sufferings, as i could not decide whether i ought not rather to endeavour to forget them than to bear them in memory. at length, however, certain reasons have induced me, not only to preserve my sorrow in my own memory, but to compose a record of it, and to direct it to you, my dear children.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'as i now hope that what i write may come into your hands, my captivity during the last three years also having been much lightened.' the first of these reasons is the remembrance of the omnipotence of god; for i cannot recall to mind my sorrow and grief, my fears and distresses, without at the same time remembering the almighty power of god, who in all my sufferings, my misery, my affliction, and anxiety, has been my strength and help, my consolation and assistance; for never has god laid a burden upon me, without at the same time giving me strength in proportion, so that the burden, though it has weighed me down and heavily oppressed me, has not overwhelmed me and crushed me; for which i praise and extol through eternity the almighty power of the incomprehensible god. i wish, therefore, not alone to record my troubles and to thank god for his gracious support in all the misfortunes that have befallen me, but also to declare to you, my dear children, god's goodness to me, that you may not only admire with me the inconceivable help of the almighty, but that you may be able to join with me in rendering him thanks. for you may say with reason that god has dealt wonderfully with me; that he was mighty in my weakness and has shown his power in me, the frailest of his instruments. for how would it have been possible for me to resist such great, sudden, and unexpected misfortunes, had not his spirit imparted to me strength? it was god who himself entered with me into the tower-gate; it was he who extended to me his hand, and wrestled for me in that prison cell for malefactors, which is called 'the dark church.' since then, now for almost eleven years, he has always been within the gate of my prison as well as of my heart; he has strengthened me, comforted me, refreshed me, and often even cheered me. god has done wonderful things in me, for it is more than inconceivable that i should have been able to survive the great misfortunes that have befallen me, and at the same time should have retained my reason, sense, and understanding. it is a matter of the greatest wonder that my limbs are not distorted and contracted from lying and sitting, that my eyes are not dim and even wholly blind from weeping, and from smoke and soot; that i am not short-breathed from candle smoke and exhalation, from stench and close air. to god alone be the honour! the other cause that impels me is the consolation it will be to you, my dear children, to be assured through this account of my sufferings that i suffer innocently; that nothing whatever has been imputed to me, nor have i been accused of anything for which you, my dear children, should blush or cast down your eyes in shame. i suffer for having loved a virtuous lord and husband, and for not having abandoned him in misfortune. i was suspected of being privy to an act of treason for which he has never been prosecuted according to law, much less convicted of it, and the cause of the accusation was never explained to me, humbly and sorrowfully as i desired that it should be. let it be your consolation, my dear children, that i have a gracious god, a good conscience, and can boldly maintain that i have never committed a dishonourable act. 'this is thankworthy,' says the apostle st. peter, 'if a man for conscience toward god endure grief, suffering wrongfully.' i suffer, thank god, not for my misdeeds, for that were no glory to me; yet i can boast that from my youth up i have been a bearer of the cross of christ, and had incredibly secret sufferings, which were very heavy to endure at such an early age. although this record of my sufferings contains and reveals nothing more than what has occurred to me in this prison, where i have now been for eleven years, i must not neglect in this preface briefly to recall to your minds, my dear children, my earlier misfortunes, thanking god at the same time that i have overcome them. not only you, my dear children, know, but it is known throughout the whole country, what great sorrow and misfortune dina and walter, with their powerful adherents, inflicted on our house in the year . although i will not mention the many fatiguing and difficult journeys, the perils by sea, and various dangers which i have endured in foreign countries, i will only remind you of that journey which my lord requested me to undertake to denmark, contrary to my wish, in the year .[e ] it was winter time, and therefore difficult and dangerous. i endured scorn and persecution; and had not god given me courage and taken it from him who was to have arrested me, i should not at that time have escaped the misery of captivity. [e ] this journey really took place in november and december, . you will remember, my dear children, what i suffered and endured during fourteen months in custody at malmöe; how the greatest favour which his majesty, king charles x. of sweden, at that time showed me, was that he left it to my free will, either to remain at liberty, taking care of our property, or to be in prison with my lord. i acknowledged the favour, and chose the latter as my duty, esteeming it a happiness to be allowed to console and to serve my anxious husband, afflicted as he subsequently was by illness. i accepted it also as a favour that i was allowed (when my lord could not do it himself on account of illness) to appear before the tribunal in his stead. what anxiety and sorrow i had for my sick lord, what trouble, annoyance and distress, the trial caused me (it was carried on daily for more than nine weeks), is known to the most high god, who was my consolation, assistance, and strength, and who inspired me with heart and courage to defend the honour of my lord in the presence of his judges. you will probably not have forgotten how quickly one misfortune followed another, how one sorrow was scarcely past when a greater one followed in its track; we fared, according to the words of the poet: incidit in scyllam, qui vult vitare charibdin. we escaped custody and then fell into strict captivity, without doubt by the dispensation of god, who inspired my lord with the idea of repairing, contrary to our agreement, to copenhagen instead of lübeck. no pen can describe how sorrowful i was when, contrary to all expectation, i met my lord in copenhagen, when i had imagined him escaped from the power and violence of all his enemies. i expected just that which my lord did not believe would happen, but which followed immediately--namely, our arrest. the second day after my arrival (which they had waited for) we were apprehended and conveyed to bornholm, where we were in close imprisonment for seventeen months. i have given a full description of what i suffered, and this i imagine is in your keeping, my dear children; and from it you see what i and my sick lord endured; how often i warded off greater misery, because my lord could not always brook patiently the bad treatment of the governor, adolf foss, who called himself fux. it was hard and bitter indeed to be scorned and scoffed at by a peasant's son; to have to suffer hunger at his will, and to be threatened and harassed by him; but still harder and more bitter was it to be sick beneath his power, and to hear from him the words that even if death were on my lips no minister of god's word should come to me. oh monstrous tyranny! his malice was so thoroughly beyond all bounds, that he could not endure that we should lighten each other's cross; and for this reason he contrived, after the lapse of eleven months, to have us separated from each other, and to place us each in the hardest confinement. my husband (at that time already advancing in years) without a servant, and i without an attendant, was only allowed a light so long as the evening meal lasted. i cannot forbear bitterly recalling to mind the six months of long and hard separation, and the sad farewell which we took of each other; for to all human sight there was no other prospect than that which the governor announced to us--namely, that we were seeing and speaking with each other for the last time in this world. god knows best how hard our sufferings were, for it was he who consoled us, who gave us hope contrary to all expectation, and who inspired me with courage when the governor visited me and endeavoured to fill me with despair. god confirmed my hope. money and property loosened the bonds of our captivity, and we were allowed to see and speak with each other once more. sad as my lord had been when we were separated at borringholm, he was joyous when two years afterwards he persuaded me to undertake the english journey, not imagining that this was to part us for ever. my lord, who entertained too good an opinion of the king of england, thought that now that he had come to the throne he would remember not only his great written and spoken promises, but that he would also bear in mind how, at the time of his need and exile, i had drawn the rings from my fingers and had pawned them for meals for him and his servants. but how unwillingly i undertook this journey is well known to some of you, my dear children, as i was well aware that from an ungrateful person there is nothing else to be expected but ingratitude. i had the example of others by whom to take warning; but it was thus destined to be. bitter bread was in store for me, and bitter gall was to fill my cup in the blue tower of copenhagen castle; thither was i to go to eat it and drink it out. it is not unknown to you how falsely the king of england acted towards me; how well he received me on my arrival; how he welcomed me with a judas kiss and addressed me as his cousin; and how both he himself and all his high ministers assured me of the royal favour, and promised me payment of the money advanced. you know how cunningly (at the desire of his majesty the king of denmark) he had me arrested at dover, and subsequently sent me word through the traitor lieutenant braten that he would let me escape secretly, at the same time delivering me into the hand of the danish minister simon petcon, who had me arrested by eight armed men; keeping aloof, however, himself, and never venturing to come near me. they held sword and pistol to my breast, and two of them took me between them and placed me in a boat, which conveyed me to a vessel held in readiness by the said minister; a man of the name of peter dreyer having received orders to conduct me to copenhagen. from this period this record of my suffering begins. it contains all that happened to me within the gates of the blue tower. reflect, my dear children, on these hard sufferings; but remember also god's great goodness towards me. verily, he has freed me from six calamities; rest assured that he will not leave me to perish in the seventh. no! for the honour of his name, he will mightily deliver me. the narrative of my sufferings is sad to hear, and must move the hardest heart to pity; yet in reading it, do not be more saddened than can be counterbalanced by joy. consider my innocence, courage, and patience; rejoice over these. i have passed over various petty vexations and many daily annoyances for the sake of brevity, although the smallest of them rankled sore in the wounds of my bitter sorrow. i acknowledge my weaknesses, and do not shrink from confessing them to you. i am a human being, and am full of human imperfections. our first emotions are not under our own power; we are often overhasty before we are able to reflect. god knows that i have often made myself deaf and blind, in order not to be carried away by passion. i am ashamed to mention and to enumerate the unchaste language, bad words and coarse invectives, of the prison governor johan jaeger, of kresten maansen, the tower warder, of karen the daughter of ole, and of catharina wolff; they would offend courtly ears. yet i can assure you they surpass everything that can be imagined as indecent, ugly, churlish and unbecoming; for coarse words and foul language were the tokens of their friendliness and clemency, and disgusting oaths were the ornament and embellishment of their untruthfulness; so that their intercourse was most disagreeable to me. i was never more glad than when the gates were closed between me and those who were to guard me. then i had only the woman alone, whom i brought to silence, sometimes amicably, and at others angrily and with threats. i have also had, and have still, pleasant intercourse with persons whose services and courtesies i shall remember as long as i live. you, my dear children, will also repay them to every one as far as you are able. you will find also in this record of my sufferings two of the chief foes of our house, namely jörgen walter and jörgen skröder,[e ] with regard to whom god has revenged me, and decreed that they should have need of me, and that i should comfort them. walter gives me cause to state more respecting him than was my intention. [e ] this man was a german by birth, but settled in denmark, where he was nobilitated under the name of lövenklau. his bad conduct obliged him to leave the country, and he went to sweden, where he had lived before he came to denmark, and where ulfeldt, then in sweden, procured him an appointment as a colonel in the army. this kindness he repaid by informing the danish government against ulfeldt in , in consequence of which he was not only allowed to return to denmark, but even obtained a lucrative office in norway. here he quarrelled with the viceroy, niels trolle, and tried to serve him as he had served ulfeldt; but he failed to establish his accusations against trolle, and was condemned into the forfeiture of his office and of his patent of nobility. he then left denmark at least for a season, and how he came to apply to leonora christina for assistance is not known, as she has omitted to mention it in the memoir itself, though she evidently intended to do so. of the psalms and hymns which i have composed and translated, i only insert a few, in order that you, my dear children, may see and know how i have ever clung steadfastly to god, who has been and still is my wall of defence against every attack, and my refuge in every kind of misfortune and adversity. do not regard the rhymes; they are not according to the rules which poets make; but regard the matter, the sense, and the purport. nor have i left my other small pastime unmentioned, for you may perceive the repose of my mind from the fact that i have had no unemployed hours; even a rat, a creature so abominable to others, affording me amusement. i have recorded two observations, which though they treat of small and contemptible animals, yet are remarkable, and i doubt whether any naturalist hitherto has observed them. for i do not think it has been recorded hitherto that there exists a kind of caterpillar which brings forth small living grubs like itself, nor either that a flea gives birth to a fully-formed flea, and not that a nit comes from a nit.[ ] [ ] a pen has afterwards been drawn through this paragraph, but the observations occur in the manuscript. in conclusion, i beg you, my dear children, not to let it astonish you that i would not avail myself of the opportunity by which i might have gained my freedom. if you rightly consider it, it would not have been expedient either for you or me. i confess that if my deceased lord had been alive, i should not only have accepted the proposal, but i should have done my utmost to have escaped from my captivity, in order to go in quest of him, and to wait on him and serve him till his last breath; my duty would have required this. but since he was at that time in rest and peace with god, and needed no longer any human service, i have with reason felt that self-obtained liberty would have been in every respect more prejudicial than useful to us, and that this would not be the way to gain the possessions taken from us, for which reason i refused it and endeavoured instead to seek repose of mind and to bear patiently the cross laid upon me. if god so ordains it, and it is his divine will that through royal mercy i should obtain my freedom, i will joyfully exert myself for you, my beloved children, to the utmost of my ability, and prove in deed that i have never deviated from my duty, and that i am no less a good and right-minded mother than i have been a faithful wife. meanwhile let god's will be your will. he will turn and govern all things so that they may benefit you and me in soul and body, to whose safe keeping i confidently recommend you all, praying that he will be your father and mother, your counsellor and guide. pray in return for me, that god may direct me by his good spirit, and grant me patience in the future as heretofore. this is all that is requested from you by, my dearly beloved children, your affectionate mother, leonora christina, v.e.g. written in the blue tower, anno , the th of july, the eleventh year of imprisonment, my birthday, and fifty-third year of my age.[ ] [ ] the conclusion of the preface, from the words 'meanwhile let the will of god,' etc. has afterwards been erased, when the manuscript was continued beyond the date assigned in the preface; and the following paragraphs, 'i bear also in mind,' etc. were intended to form a new conclusion, but do not seem to have been properly worked in. * * * * * i bear also in mind, with the greatest humility and gratitude, our gracious hereditary king's favour towards me, immediately after his majesty came to the throne. i remember also the sympathy of our most gracious queen regent, and of her highness the electoral princess of saxony in my unfortunate fate; also the special favour of her majesty the queen. i have also not forgotten to bear duly in mind the favour shown towards me by her majesty the queen mother, the virtuous landgravine of hesse. i have also recorded various things which occurred in my imprisonment during the period from the year to the year , intending with these to conclude the record of my sufferings; as i experienced a pleasure, and often consoled myself, in feeling that it is better to remain innocently in captivity than to be free and to have deserved imprisonment. i remember having read that captivity has served many as a protection from greater dangers, and has guarded them from falling into the hands of their enemies. there have been some who have escaped from their prison and immediately after have been murdered. there have also been some who have had a competence in prison and afterwards have suffered want in freedom. innocent imprisonment does not diminish honour, but rather increases it. many a one has acquired great learning in captivity, and has gained a knowledge of things which he could not master before. yes, imprisonment leads to heaven. i have often said to myself: 'comfort thyself, thou captive one, thou art happy.' since the year constituted only half the period of my captivity, i have added in this record of my sufferings some facts that occurred since that time within my prison-gates. i am on the eve of my liberty, may , . to god alone be the honour, who has moved his royal majesty to justice! i will here mention those of whose death i have been informed during my captivity. . the prime minister of his majesty, count christian of rantzow[e ], died in the month of september, . he did not live to drink the health of our princess and of the electoral prince of saxony at the feast of their betrothal. still less did he live long enough to see a wooden effigy quartered in mockery of my lord, according to his suggestion. death was very bitter to him. [e ] this count rantzow was the same who had negotiated the compromise with ulfeldt and leonora at bornholm in , and in fact brought it about. it was currently reported in copenhagen at the time that he had received a large sum of money from ulfeldt on that occasion, and he afterwards showed his friendly disposition towards him by promising him to intercede with the king for christian ulfeldt when the latter had killed fuchs. leonora, however, speaks of him as an enemy probably because he presided in the high court of appeal which condemned ulfeldt as a traitor. but the facts of the case left him scarcely any other alternative than that of judging as he did, nor would it have been surprising if ulfeldt's last conduct had altered rantzow's feelings towards him. rantzow also presided in the commission which examined leonora in the blue tower. . the mistress of the robes of the queen dowager, who was so severe on me in my greatest sorrow, had a long and painful illness; she said with impatience that the pain of hell was not greater than her pain. her screams could often be heard in the tower. she was carried on a bed into the town, and died there. . the death of able catherine was very painful. as she had formerly sought for letters on the private parts of my person, so she was afterwards herself handled by the surgeons, as she had boils all over her. she was cut and burnt. she endured all this pain, hoping to live, but neither the art of the surgeons nor the visits of the queen could save her from death.[e ] [e ] abel catharina is mentioned in the memoir itself as the person who searched leonora when she first entered her prison, and did so in a very unbecoming manner; she acted, however, under the orders of the mistress of the robes, m. v. haxthausen. abel catharina is otherwise chiefly known as the founder of a charity for old women in copenhagen, which still bears her name. . secretary erich krag, who had displayed the malice of his heart in my imprisonment in the 'dark church,' was snatched away by death in a place of impurity. he was lively and well, had invited guests to dinner, sat and wrote at his table, went out to obey the necessities of nature, and was found dead by his attendants when they had waited some time for him. . major-general fridrich von anfeldte,[e ] who had more than once manifested his delight at my misfortunes, died as he had lived. he was a godless man and a blasphemer. he fell a victim to jealousy, and went mad, because another obtained an honorary title which he had coveted; this was indeed little enough to deprive him of sense and reason. he would hear nothing of god, nor would he be reconciled with god. both queens, the queen dowager and the queen regent, persuaded him at length to be so. when he had received the sacrament, he said, 'now your majesties have had your desire; but what is the good of it?' he continued to curse and to swear, and so died. [e ] this name is mis-spelt for ahlefeldt. this officer received leonora on her arrival at copenhagen, as she relates herself. he had distinguished himself in the siege of copenhagen in , and died as a lieutenant-general. . general schak died after a long illness. . chancellor peter retz likewise. . his royal majesty king friedrich iii.'s death accelerated the death of the stadtholder cristoffer gabel. he felt that the hate of the queen dowager could injure him greatly, and he desired death. god heard him.[e ] [e ] christoffer gabel is mentioned several times in the autobiography. he was an influential man at the time, in great favour at court, and he had a great part in effecting the release of ulfeldt from the prison at bornholm, for which he, according to leonora's statement, received , dollars from ulfeldt. both he and reedtz were members of the court which condemned ulfeldt. . it has pleased god that i should be myself a witness of walter's miserable death; indeed, that i should compassionate him. when i heard him scream, former times came to my mind, and i often thought how a man can allow himself to be led to do evil to those from whom he had only received kindness and honour. . magister buch, my father-confessor, who acted so ill to me, suffered much pain on his bed of languishing. he was three days speechless before he died. . when the rogue and blasphemer, christian, who caused me so much annoyance in my captivity, had regained his liberty and returned to his landlord, maans armfeld in jutland, he came into dispute with the parish priest, who wanted him to do public penance for having seduced a woman. the rogue set fire to the parsonage; the minister's wife was burnt to death in trying to save some of her property, and all the minister's possessions were left in ashes. the minister would not bring the rogue to justice. he commended him to the true judge, and left vengeance to him. the incendiary's conscience began to be awakened; for a long time he lived in dread, and was frightened if he saw anyone coming at all quickly, and he would call out and say tremblingly, 'now they are going to take me!' and would run hither and thither, not knowing where to go. at length he was found dead on the field, having shot himself; for a long rifle was found lying between his legs, the barrel towards his breast, and a long ramrod in his hand, with which he had touched the trigger. he did not, therefore, die in as christian a manner as if he had perished under the hand of the executioner, of which he had so lightly said that he should not care for it at all, so long as he could bring someone else into trouble. a record of suffering; _or, a reminiscence of all that occurred to me, leonora christina, in the blue tower, from august of the year , to june [ ] of the year ._ [ ] afterwards altered to anno , the th of may. the past is rarely remembered without sorrow, for it has been either better or worse than the present. if it was more joyous, more happy, and full of honour, its remembrance justly saddens us, and in proportion as the present is full of care, unhappiness, and dishonour. if past times were sadder, more miserable, and more deplorable than the present, the remembrance of them is equally sorrowful, for we recover and feel once more all the past misfortunes and adversities which have been endured in the course of time. but all things have, as it were, two handles by which they may be raised, as epictetus says. the one handle, he says, is bearable; the other is not bearable; and it rests with our will which handle we grasp, the bearable or the unbearable one. if we grasp the bearable one, we can recall all that is transitory, however sad and painful it may have been, rather with joy than with sorrow.[e ] so i will seize the bearable handle, and in the name of jesus i will pass rapidly through my memory, and recount all the wretchedness and misery, all the grief, scorn and suffering, contempt and adversity, which have befallen me in this place, and which i have overcome with god's help. i will, moreover, in no wise grieve over it; but, on the contrary, i will remind myself at every step of the goodness of god, and will thank the most high who has been constantly near me with his mighty help and consolation; who has ruled my heart, that it should not depart from god; who has preserved my mind and my reason, that it has not become obscured; who has maintained my limbs in their power and natural strength, and even has given, and still gives me, repose of mind and joyfulness. to thee, incomprehensible god, be honour and praise for ever! [e ] the passage alluded to occurs in epictet's encheiridion, chap. (in some editions chap. ), where he says: 'every matter has two handles, one by which it may be carried (or endured), the other by which it cannot be carried (or endured). if thy brother has done thee injury, do not lay hold of this matter from the fact that he has done thee an injury, for this is the handle by which it cannot be carried (or endured); but rather from this side: that he is thy brother, educated with thee; and thou wilt lay hold of the matter from that side from which it may be managed.' it is easily seen how leonora makes use of the double meaning of the greek word {phorêtos}, which is equally well used of an object which can be carried in the literal physical sense, and of a matter which can be endured or borne with. {illustration: das alte schloss in copenhagen mit dem blauen thurm. the old castle of copenhagen. showing the blue tower in the middle of the back-ground.} and now to proceed with my design. i consider it necessary to begin the record of my sufferings with the commencement of the day which concluded with the fatal evening of my captivity, and to mention somewhat of that which befell me on the vessel. after the captain had cast anchor a little outside the pier of st. anna, on august , , at nine o'clock in the forenoon, he was sent on shore with letters by peter dreyer, who was commissioned by petcon, at that time the minister resident in england, of his majesty the king of denmark, to take charge of me. i dressed myself and sat down in one of the cabins of the sailors on the deck, with a firm resolution to meet courageously all that lay before me;[ ] yet i in no wise expected what happened; for although i had a good conscience, and had nothing evil with which to reproach myself, i had at various times asked the before-mentioned peter dreyer the reason why i had been thus brought away. to this question he always gave me the reply which the traitor braten had given me at dover (when i asked of him the cause of my arrest); namely, that i was, perhaps, charged with the death of major-general fux, and, that it was thought i had persuaded my son to slay him; saying, that he knew of no other cause. at twelve o'clock nils rosenkrantz, at that time lieutenant-colonel, and major steen anderson bilde, came on board with some musketeers. lieutenant-colonel rosenkrantz did not salute me. the major walked up and down and presently passed near me. i asked him, en passant, what was the matter? he gave me no other answer than, 'bonne mine, mauvais jeu;' which left me just as wise as before. about one o'clock captain bendix alfeldt came on board with several more musketeers, and after he had talked some time with peter dreyer, dreyer came to me and said, 'it is ordered that you should go into the cabin.' i said, 'willingly;' and immediately went. soon after, captain alfeldt came in to me, and said he had orders to take from me my letters, my gold, silver, money, and my knife. i replied, 'willingly.' i took off my bracelets and rings, gathered in a heap all my gold, silver, and money, and gave it to him. i had nothing written with me, except copies of the letters which i had addressed to the king of england, notes respecting one thing or another relating to my journey, and some english vocabularies; these i also gave up to him. all these alfeldt placed in a silver utensil which i had with me, sealed it in my presence, and left the vessel with it. an hour, or somewhat more, afterwards, major-general friderich von anfeldt,[ ] commandant in copenhagen, arrived, and desired that i should come to him outside the cabin. i obeyed immediately. he greeted me, gave me his hand, and paid me many compliments, always speaking french. he was pleased to see me in health, he feared the sea might have inconvenienced me; i must not allow the time to seem long to me; i should soon be accommodated otherwise. i caught at the last word and said, smiling, 'monsieur says otherwise, but not better.' 'yes, indeed,' he replied, 'you shall be well accommodated; the noblest in the kingdom will visit you.' i understood well what he meant by this, but i answered: 'i am accustomed to the society of great people, therefore that will not appear strange to me.' upon this, he called a servant and asked for the before-mentioned silver utensil (which captain alfeldt had taken away with him). the paper which captain alfeldt had sealed over it was torn off. the major-general turned to me, and said: 'here you have your jewels, your gold, silver, and money back; captain alfeldt made a mistake--they were only letters which he had orders to demand, and these only have been taken out, and have been left at the castle; you may dispose of the rest as you wish yourself.' 'in god's name,' i answered, 'am i, therefore, at liberty to put on again my bracelets and rings?' 'o jesus,' he said, 'they are yours; you may dispose of them as you choose.' i put on the bracelets and rings, and gave the rest to my attendant. the major-general's delight not only appeared in his countenance, but he was full of laughter, and was overflowing with merriment. among other things he said that he had had the honour of making the acquaintance of two of my sons; that he had been in their society in holland; and he praised them warmly. i complimented him in return, as was proper, and i behaved as if i believed that he was speaking in good faith. he indulged in various jokes, especially with my attendant; said that she was pretty, and that he wondered i could venture to keep such a pretty maiden; when holstein ladies kept pretty maids it was only to put their husbands in good humour; he held a long discourse on how they managed, with other unmannerly jests which he carried on with my attendant. i answered nothing else than that he probably spoke from experience. he said all kinds of foolish jokes to my servant, but she did not answer a word. afterwards the prison governor told me that he (von anfeldt) had made the king believe, at first, that my attendant was my daughter, and that the king had been long of that opinion. at length, after a long conversation, the major-general took his leave, saying that i must not allow the time to seem long to me; that he should soon come again; and he asked what he should say to his majesty the king. i begged him to recommend me in the best manner to their majesties' favour, adding that i knew not well what to say or for what to make request, as i was ignorant of what intentions they had with regard to me. towards three o'clock major-general von anfeldt returned; he was full of laughter and merriment, and begged me to excuse him for being so long away. he hoped the time had not appeared long to me; i should soon get to rest; he knew well that the people (with this he pointed to the musketeers, who stood all along both sides of the vessel) were noisy, and inconvenienced me, and that rest would be best for me. i answered that the people did not inconvenience me at all; still i should be glad of rest, since i had been at sea for thirteen days, with rather bad weather. he went on with his compliments, and said that when i came into the town his wife would do herself the honour of waiting on me, and, 'as it seems to me,' he continued, 'that you have not much luggage with you, and perhaps, not the clothes necessary, she will procure for you whatever you require.' i thanked him, and said that the honour was on my side if his wife visited me, but that my luggage was as much as i required at the time; that if i needed anything in the future, i hoped she might be spared this trouble; that i had not the honour of knowing her, but i begged him, nevertheless, to offer her my respects. he found various subjects of discourse upon birgitte speckhans[e ] and other trifles, to pass away the time; but it is not worth the trouble to recall them to mind, and still less to write them down. at last a message came that he was to conduct me from the vessel, when he said to me with politeness: 'will it please you, madame, to get into this boat, which is lying off the side of the ship?' i answered, 'i am pleased to do anything that i must do, and that is commanded by his majesty the king.' the major-general went first into the boat, and held out his hand to me; the lieutenant-colonel rosenkrantz, captain alfeldt, peter dreyer, and my attendant, went with me in the boat. and as a great crowd of people had assembled to look at the spectacle, and many had even gone in boats in order to see me as they wished, he never took his eyes off me; and when he saw that i turned sometimes to one side and sometimes to another, in order to give them this pleasure, he said, 'the people are delighted.' i saw no one truly who gave any signs of joy, except himself, so i answered, 'he who rejoices to-day, cannot know that he may not weep to-morrow; yet i see, that, whether for joy or sorrow, the people are assembling in crowds, and many are gazing with amazement at one human being.' when we were advanced a little further, i saw the well-known wicked birgitte ulfeldt,[e ] who exhibited great delight. she was seated in an open carriage; behind her was a young man, looking like a student. she was driving along the shore. when i turned to that side, she was in the carriage and laughed with all her might, so that it sounded loudly. i looked at her for some time, and felt ashamed of her impudence, and at the disgrace which she was bringing on herself; but for the rest, this conduct did not trouble me more than the barking of the dogs, for i esteemed both equally.[ ] the major-general went on talking incessantly, and never turned his eyes from me; for he feared (as he afterwards said) that i should throw myself into the water. (he judged me by himself; he could not endure the change of fortune, as his end testified, for it was only on account of an honorary title which another received in his stead that he lost his mind. he did not know that i was governed by another spirit than he, which gave me strength and courage, whilst the spirit he served led him into despair.[ ]) when the boat arrived at the small pier near the office of the exchequer, captain alfeldt landed and gave me his hand, and conducted me up towards the castle bridge. regiments of horse and foot were drawn up in the open place outside the castle; musketeers were standing on both sides as i walked forwards. on the castle bridge stood jockum walburger, the prison governor, who went before me; and as the people had placed themselves in a row on either side up to the king's stairs, the prison governor made as if he were going thither; but he turned round abruptly, and said to alfeldt, 'this way,' and went to the gate of the blue tower; stood there for some time and fumbled with the key; acted as if he could not unlock it, in order that i might remain as long as possible a spectacle to the people. and as my heart was turned to god, and i had placed all my confidence in the most high, i raised my eyes to heaven, sought strength, power, and safety from thence, and it was graciously vouchsafed me. (one circumstance i will not leave unnoticed--namely, that as i raised my eyes to heaven, a screaming raven flew over the tower, followed by a flock of doves, which were flying in the same direction.) at length, after a long delay, the prison governor opened the tower gate, and i was conducted into the tower by the before-mentioned captain alfeldt. my attendant, who was preparing to follow me, was called back by major-general von anfeldt, and told to remain behind. the prison governor went up the stairs, and showed alfeldt the way to a prison for malefactors, to which the name of the 'dark church' has been given. there alfeldt quitted me with a sigh and a slight reverence. i can truly say of him that his face expressed pity, and that he obeyed the order unwillingly. the clock was striking half-past five when jockum closed the door of my prison. i found before me a small low table, on which stood a brass candlestick with a lighted candle, a high chair, two small chairs, a fir-wood bedstead without hangings and with old and hard bedding, a night-stool and chamber utensil. at every side to which i turned i was met with stench; and no wonder, for three peasants who had been imprisoned here, and had been removed on that very day, and placed elsewhere, had used the walls for their requirements. soon after the door had been closed, it was opened again, and there entered count christian rantzow, prime minister, peter zetz, chancellor, christoffer von gabel, at that time chancellor of the exchequer, and erich krag, at that time secretary, all of whom gave me their hands with civility. the chancellor spoke and said: 'his royal majesty, my gracious master and hereditary king, sends you word, madame, that his majesty has great cause for what he is doing against you, as you will learn.' i replied: 'it is much to be regretted by me, if cause should be found against me; i will, however, hope that it may not be of such a kind that his majesty's displeasure may be lasting. when i know the cause i can defend myself.' count rantzow answered: 'you will obtain permission to defend yourself.' he whispered something to the chancellor, upon which the chancellor put a few questions: first, whether on my last journey i had been in france with my husband? to which i answered in the affirmative. then, what my husband was doing there? to which i replied, that he was consulting physicians about his health, whether it would be serviceable to him to use the warm baths in the country, which no one would advise him to do; he had even been dissuaded from trying them by a doctor in holland of the name of borro,[e ] when he had asked his opinion. thirdly, what i had purposed doing in england? to this i replied that my intention had been to demand payment of a sum of money which the king of england owed us, and which we had lent him in the time of his misfortune. fourthly, who had been in england with me? i mentioned those who were with me in england--namely, a nobleman named cassetta, my attendant who had come hither with me, a lacquey named frantz, who had remained in england, and the nobleman's servant. fifthly, who visited my husband in bruges? i could not exactly answer this, as my lord received his visits in a private chamber, where i was not admitted. count rantzow said, 'you know, i suppose, who came to him oftenest?' i answered, that the most frequent visitors among those i knew were two brothers named aranda,[e ] the before-mentioned cassetta, and a nobleman named ognati. sixthly the chancellor asked, with whom i had corresponded here in the country? to which i answered, that i had written to h. hendrick bielcke, to olluff brockenhuuss, lady elsse passberg, and lady marie ulfeldt;[e ] i did not remember any more. count rantzow enquired if i had more letters than those which i had given up? to which i answered in the negative, that i had no more. he asked further, whether i had more jewels with me than those he had seen? i answered that i had two strings of small round pearls on my hat, and a ring with a diamond, which i had given a lieutenant named braten in dover (it was he who afterwards betrayed me). count rantzow asked, how much the pearls might have been worth? this i could not exactly say. he said, that he supposed i knew their approximate value. i said they might be worth rix-dollars, or somewhat more. upon this they were all silent for a little. i complained of the severity of my imprisonment, and that i was so badly treated. count rantzow answered, 'yes madame, his royal majesty has good cause for it; if you will confess the truth, and that quickly, you may perhaps look for mercy. had maréchal de birron[e ] confessed the matter respecting which he was interrogated by order of the king, when the royal mercy was offered to him if he would speak the truth, it would not have fared with him as it did. i have heard as a truth that the king of france would have pardoned him his crime, had he confessed at once; therefore, bethink yourself, madame!' i answered, 'whatever i am asked by order of his majesty, and whatever i am cognizant of, i will gladly say in all submission.' upon this count rantzow offered me his hand, and i reminded him in a few words of the severity of my imprisonment. count rantzow promised to mention this to the king. then the others shook hands with me and went away. my prison was closed for a little. i therefore profited by the opportunity, and concealed here and there in holes, and among the rubbish, a gold watch, a silver pen which gave forth ink and was filled with ink, and a scissor-sheath worked with silver and tortoiseshell. this was scarcely done when the door was again opened, and there entered the queen's mistress of the robes, her woman of the bed-chamber, and the wife of the commissariat clerk, abel catharina. i knew the last. she and the queen's woman of the bed-chamber carried clothes over their arm; these consisted of a long dressing-gown stitched with silk, made of flesh-coloured taffeta and lined with white silk, a linen under-petticoat, printed over with a black lace pattern, a pair of silk stockings, a pair of slippers, a shift, an apron, a night-dress, and two combs. they made me no greeting. abel cath. spoke for them, and said: 'it is the command of her majesty the queen that we should take away your clothes, and that you should have these in their place.' i answered, 'in god's name!' then they removed the pad from my head, in which i had sown up rings and many loose diamonds. abel cath. felt all over my head to see if anything was concealed in my hair; then she said to the others, 'there is nothing there; we do not require the combs.' abel cath. demanded the bracelets and rings, which were a second time taken from me. i took them off and gave them to them, except one small ring which i wore on the last joint of my little finger, and which could not be worth more than a rix-dollar, this i begged to be allowed to keep. 'no,' said the mistress of the robes, 'you are to retain nothing.' abel cath. said, 'we are strictly forbidden to leave you the smallest thing; i have been obliged to swear upon my soul to the queen that i would search you thoroughly, and not leave you the smallest thing; but you shall not lose it; they will all be sealed up and kept for you, for this i swear the queen has said.' 'good, good, in god's name!' i answered. she drew off all my clothes. in my under-petticoat i had concealed some ducats under the broad gold lace; there was a small diamond ornament in my silk camisole, in the foot of my stockings there were some jacobuses', and there were sapphires in my shoes. when she attempted to remove my chemise, i begged to be allowed to retain it. no; she swore upon her soul that she dared not. she stripped me entirely, and the mistress of the robes gave abel cath. a nod, which she did not at once understand; so the mistress of the robes said: 'do you not remember your orders?' upon this, abel cath. searched my person still more closely, and said to the lady in waiting: 'no, by god! there is nothing there.' i said: 'you act towards me in an unchristian and unbecoming manner.' abel cath. answered: 'we are only servants; we must do as we are ordered; we are to search for letters and for nothing else; all the rest will be given back to you; it will be well taken care of.' after they had thus despoiled me, and had put on me the clothes they had brought, the servant of the mistress of the robes came in and searched everywhere with abel cath., and found every thing that i had concealed. god blinded their eyes so that they did not observe my diamond earrings, nor some ducats which had been sown into leather round one of my knees; i also saved a diamond worth rix-dollars; while on board the ship i had bitten it out of the gold, and thrown the gold in the sea; the stone i had then in my mouth.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'i had a ring on with a table-diamond worth rix-dollars. i bit this out, threw the gold in the sea, and kept the stone in my mouth. it could not be observed by my speech that there was anything in my mouth.' [ ] that is the aulefeldt mentioned in the preface under the name of anfeldt. [e ] birgitte speckhans was the wife of frants v. speckhans, master of ceremonies, afterwards privy councillor, &c. she had formerly been in the service of leonora christina, who was then at the height of her position, and ever afterwards proved herself a friend of her and ulfeldt. it was in her house that they stayed after escaping from malmöe, and she kept some of their movable goods for them during their imprisonment at hammershuus. [e ] birgitte ulfeldt was a younger sister of corfitz, who, in a letter to sperling, declares her to be his and leonora's bitterest enemy. what is known of her life is certainly not to her advantage. [ ] in the margin is added: 'the sorrow manifested by many would far rather have depressed me; for several people, both men and women, shed tears, even those whom i did not know.' [ ] this paragraph was afterwards struck out, the contents being transferred to the preface. [e ] this is the famous jos. borro or burrhus, physician and alchymist. he is often mentioned in books of the seventeenth century, on account of his wonderful cures and alleged knowledge of the art of making gold. in he came to denmark, where king fredrik iii. spent considerable sums on the establishment of large laboratories for him, in a building which is still known as 'the gold-house.' [e ] d'aranda was one of the most influential families in bruges. one of them, by name bernard, was some time in the danish army, afterwards secretary to corfitz ulfeldt, and employed by him in diplomatic missions. he died in , but when ulfeldt came to bruges in he lived for some time with one of bernard's brothers. [e ] h. bielke was admiral of the realm; his wife was an ulfeldt, and it was he who procured corfitz ulfeldt his leave of absence in , of which he made such regretable use. he, too, was one of the judges that convicted him. oluf brokkenhuus was corfitz ulfeldt's brother-in-law; elizabeth parsbjerg was the widow of his elder brother lauridts ulfeldt. marie ulfeldt was sister of corfitz. [e ] charles de goutant, duc de biron, a celebrated french general, some time favourite of henry iv. king of france, was found guilty of conspiring against his master with the courts of spain and savoy. henry iv. forgave him, but he recommenced his intrigues. it is supposed that the king would have forgiven him a second time if he had confessed his crime; but he refused to do so, and was beheaded in . [ ] this passage was afterwards altered thus: 'god blinded their eyes so that they did not perceive my earrings, in each of which there is a large rose diamond, and from which i have now removed the stones. the gold, which is in form of a serpent, is still in my ears. they also did not perceive that something was fastened round my knee.' the mistress of the robes was very severe; they could not search thoroughly enough for her. she laughed at me several times, and could not endure that i sat down, asking whether i could not stand, and whether anything was the matter with me. i answered, 'there is only too much the matter with me, yet i can stand when it is necessary.' (it was no wonder that the mistress of the robes could so well execute the order to plunder, for she had frequently accompanied her deceased husband. colonel schaffshaussen[e ], in war.) when she had searched every part thoroughly, they took all my clothes, except a taffeta cap for the head, and went away. then the prison governor came in with his hat on, and said, 'leonora, why have you concealed your things?' i answered him not a word; for i had made the resolution not to answer him, whatever he might say; his qualities were known to me; i was aware that he was skilful in improving a report, and could twist words in the manner he thought would be acceptable, to the damage of those who were in trouble. he asked again with the same words, adding 'do you not hear?' i looked at him over my shoulder, and would not allow his disrespect to excite me. the table was then spread, and four dishes were brought in, but i had no appetite, although i had eaten little or nothing the whole day. [e ] this lady is known under the name of haxthausen; and schaffshausen is probably a mistake on leonora's part, although of course she may have been married to an officer of this name before she married n. v. haxthausen. she was a german by birth. an hour afterwards, when the dishes had been carried away, a girl came in named maren blocks, and said that she had orders from the queen to remain the night with me. the prison governor joked a good deal with the before-mentioned maren, and was very merry, indulging in a good deal of loose talk. at last, when it was nearly ten o'clock, he said good night and closed the two doors of my prison, one of which is cased with copper. when maren found herself alone with me, she pitied my condition, and informed me that many, whom she mentioned by name (some of whom were known to me) had witnessed my courage with grief and tears, especially the wife of h. hendrick bielcke[e b], who had fainted with weeping. i said, 'the good people have seen me in prosperity; it is no wonder that they deplore the instability of fortune;' and i wished that god might preserve every one of those from misfortune, who had taken my misfortune to heart. i consoled myself with god and a good conscience; i was conscious of nothing wrong, and i asked who she was, and whom she served? she said she was in the queen's private kitchen, and had the silver in her keeping (from which i concluded that she had probably to clean the silver, which was the case). she said that the queen could get no one who would be alone with me, for that i was considered evil; it was said also that i was very wise, and knew future events. i answered, 'if i possessed this wisdom, i scarcely think that i should have come in here, for i should then have been able to guard myself against it.' maren said we might know things and still not be able to guard against them. [e b] h. bielke was admiral of the realm; his wife was an ulfeldt, and it was he who procured corfitz ulfeldt his leave of absence in , of which he made such regretable use. he, too, was one of the judges that convicted him. oluf brokkenhuus was corfitz ulfeldt's brother-in-law; elizabeth parsbjerg was the widow of his elder brother lauridts ulfeldt. marie ulfeldt was sister of corfitz. she told me also that the queen had herself spoken with her, and had said to her, 'you are to be this night with leonora; you need not be afraid, she can now do no evil. with all her witchcraft she is now in prison and has nothing with her; and if she strikes you, i give you leave to strike her back again till the blood comes.' maren said also, 'the queen knows well that my mind has been affected by acute illness, and therefore she wished that i should be with you.' so saying she threw her arms round my neck as i was sitting, and caressed me in her manner, saying, 'strike me, dear heart, strike me!' 'i will not,' she swore, 'strike again.' i was rather alarmed, fearing that the frenzy might come on. she said further that when she saw me coming over the bridge, she felt as if her heart would burst. she informed me with many words how much she loved me, and how the maid of honour, carisius, who was standing with her in the window, had praised me, and wished to be able to do something for my deliverance, with many such words and speeches. i accepted the unusual caress, as under the circumstances i could not help it, and said that it would be contrary to all justice to offer blows to one who manifested such great affection as she had done, especially to one of her sex; adding, that i could not think how the queen had imagined that i struck people, as i had never even given a box on the ears to a waiting-woman. i thanked her for her good opinion of me, and told her that i hoped all would go well, dark as things looked; that i would hold fast to god, who knew my innocence, and that i had done nothing unjustifiable; that i would commend my cause to him, and i did not doubt that he would rescue me: if not immediately he would do so some day, i was well assured. maren began to speak of different things; among others of my sister elizabeth augusta[e ], how she had sat in her porch as i had been conveyed past as a prisoner, and had said that if i were guilty there was nothing to say against it, but that if i were innocent they were going too far. i said nothing to this, nor did i answer anything to much other tittle-tattle. she began to speak of her own persecution, which she did with great diffuseness, interspersing it with other stories, so that the conversation (in the present circumstances) was very wearisome to me; i was besides very tired, and worn out with care, so i said i would try to sleep and bid her good-night. my thoughts prevented me from sleeping. i reflected on my present condition, and could in no wise reconcile myself to it, or discover the cause of such a great misfortune. it was easy to perceive that somewhat besides fux's death was imputed to me, since i was treated with such disrespect. [e ] elizabeth augusta, a younger sister of leonora, married hans lindenow, a danish nobleman, who died in the siege of copenhagen, . when i had long lain with my face to the wall, i turned round and perceived that maren was silently weeping, so i asked her the reason of her tears. she denied at first that she was crying, but afterwards confessed that she had fallen into thinking over this whole affair. it had occurred to her that she had heard so much of lady leonora and her splendour, &c., of how the king loved her, and how every one praised her, &c., and now she was immured in this execrable thieves' prison, into which neither sun nor moon shone, and where there was a stench enough to poison a person only coming in and out, far more one who had to remain in it. i thought the cause of her weeping was that she should be shut up with me in the terrible prison; so i consoled her, and said that she would only remain with me until another had been fixed upon, since she was in other service; but that i for my part did not now think of past times, as the present gave me sufficient to attend to; if i were to call to mind the past, i would remember also the misfortunes of great men, emperors, kings, princes, and other high personages, whose magnificence and prosperity had far exceeded mine, and whose misfortunes had been far greater than mine; for they had fallen into the hands of tyrants, who had treated them inhumanly, but this king was a christian king, and a conscientious man, and better thoughts would occur to him when he had time to reflect, for my adversaries now left him no leisure to do so. when i said this, she wept even more than before, but said nothing, thinking in herself (as she declared to me some days afterwards) that i did not know what an infamous sentence had been pronounced upon my late lord,[e ] and weeping all the more because i trusted the king so firmly. thus we went on talking through the night. [e ] that leonora here speaks of her husband as her 'late lord,' is due only to the fact that the memoir was not written till after his death; at the time of these events he was still alive. on the morning of august , at six o'clock, the prison governor came in, bade me good morning, and enquired whether we would have some brandy. i answered nothing. he asked maren whether i was asleep; she replied that she did not know, came up to my bed, and put the same question to me. i thanked her, adding that it was a kind of drink which i had never tasted. the prison governor chattered with maren, was very merry considering the early hour, told her his dreams, which he undoubtedly invented merely for the sake of talking. he told her, secretly, that she was to come to the queen, and ordered her to say aloud that she wished to go out a little. he said that he would remain with me in the meanwhile, until she returned, which he did, speaking occasionally to me, and asking me whether i wished for anything? whether i had slept? whether maren had watched well? but he got no answer, so that the time seemed very long to him. he went out towards the stairs and came back again, sang a morning psalm, screamed out sometimes to one, and sometimes to another, though he knew they were not there. there was a man named jon who helped to bring up the meals with rasmus the tower warder, and to him he called more than forty times and that in a singing tone, changing his key from high to low, and screaming occasionally as loud as he could, and answering himself 'father, he is not here! by god, he is not here!' then laughing at himself; and then he began calling again either for jon or for rasmus, so that it seemed to me that he had been tasting the brandy. about eight o'clock maren came back, and said that at noon two women would come to relieve her. after some conversation between the prison governor and maren, he went out and shut the doors. maren told me how the queen had sent for her, and asked her what i was doing, and that she answered that i was lying down quietly, and not saying anything. the queen had asked whether i wept much. maren replied, 'yes indeed, she weeps silently.' 'for,' continued maren, 'if i had said that you did not weep, the queen would have thought that you had not yet enough to weep for.' maren warned me that one of the two women who were to watch me was the wife of the king's shoemaker, a german, who was very much liked by the queen. her majesty had employed her to attend uldrich christian gyldenlöwe in the severe and raving illness of which he died, and this woman had much influence with the queen. with regard to the other woman, maren had no idea who she might be, but the last-mentioned had spoken with the queen in maren's presence, and had said that she did not trust herself to be alone with me. the women did not come before four o'clock in the afternoon. the prison governor accompanied them, and unlocked the door for them. the first was the wife of the shoemaker, a woman named anna, who generally would not suffer anybody else to speak. the other was the wife of the king's groom, a woman named catharina, also a german. after greeting me, anna said that her majesty the queen had ordered them to pass a day or two with me and wait upon me. 'in god's name,' i answered. anna, who was very officious, asked me, 'does my lady wish for anything? she will please only say so, and i will solicit it from the queen.' i thanked her, and said that i should like to have some of my clothes, such as two night-jackets, one lined with silk and another braided with white, my stomacher, something for my head, and above all my bone box of perfume, which i much needed. she said she would at once arrange this, which she did, for she went immediately and proffered my request. the things were all delivered to me by the prison governor at six o'clock, except my box of perfume, which had been lost, and in its place they sent me a tin box with a very bad kind of perfume. when the time arrived for the evening meal, catharina spread a stool by the side of my bed, but i had no desire to eat. i asked for a lemon with sugar, and they gave it me. the prison governor sat down at the table with the two women, and did the part of jester, so much so that no one could have said that they were in a house of mourning, but rather in one of festivity. i inwardly prayed to god for strength and patience, that i might not forget myself. god heard my prayer, praised be his name. when the prison governor was tired of the idle talking and laughing, he bade good night after ten o'clock, and told the women to knock if they wanted anything, as the tower warder was just underneath. after he had locked both the doors, i got up, and catharina made my bed. anna had brought a prayer-book with her, from which i read the evening prayer, and other prayers for them; then i laid down and bid them good night. they laid on a settle-bed which had been brought in for them. i slumbered from time to time, but only for short intervals. about six o'clock on the morning of august the prison governor opened the door, to the great delight of the women, who were sincerely longing for him, especially catharina, who was very stout; she could not endure the oppressive atmosphere, and was ill almost the whole night. when the prison governor, after greeting them, had inquired how it fared with them, and whether they were still alive, he offered them brandy, which they readily accepted. when it was seven o'clock, they requested to go home, which they did, but they first reported to the queen all that had happened during the half-day and the night. the prison governor remained with me. when it was near nine o'clock, he brought in a chair without saying anything. i perceived from this that visitors were coming, and i was not wrong; for immediately afterwards there entered count rantzow, prime minister, chancellor h. peter retz, christoffer gabel, the chancellor of the exchequer, and secretary erick krag, who all shook hands with me and seated themselves by my bed. krag, who had paper, pen and ink with him, seated himself at the table. count rantzow whispered something to the chancellor. the chancellor upon this began to address me as on the previous occasion, saying that his majesty the king had great cause for his treatment of me. 'his majesty,' he went on to say, 'entertains suspicion with regard to you, and that not without reason.' i inquired in what the suspicion consisted. the chancellor said, 'your husband has offered the kingdom of denmark to a foreign lord.' i inquired if the kingdom of denmark belonged to my husband, that he could thus offer it, and as no one answered, i continued and said, 'good gentlemen, you all know my lord; you know that he has been esteemed as a man of understanding, and i can assure you that when i took leave of him he was in perfect possession of his senses. now it is easy to perceive that no sensible man would offer that which was not in his own power, and which he had no right to dispose of. he is holding no post, he has neither power nor authority; how should he, therefore, be so foolish as to make such an offer, and what lord would accept it?' count rantzow said: 'nevertheless it is so, madame; he has offered denmark to a foreign potentate; you know it well.' i answered, 'god is my witness that i know of no such thing.' 'yes,' said count rantzow, 'your husband concealed nothing from you, and therefore you must know it.' i replied, 'my husband certainly never concealed from me anything that concerned us both. i never troubled myself in former days with that which related to his office; but that which affected us both he never concealed from me, so that i am sure, had he entertained any such design, he would not have held it a secret from me. and i can say, with truth, that i am not the least aware of it.' count rantzow said: 'madame, confess it while the king still asks you to do so.' i answered, 'if i knew it i would gladly say so; but as truly as god lives i do not know it, and as truly am i unable to believe that my husband would have acted so foolishly, for he is a sick man. he urged me to go to england in order to demand the money that had been lent; i undertook the journey, unwillingly, chiefly because he was so very weak. he could not go up a few steps of the stairs without resting to get his breath; how should he, then, undertake a work of such labour? i can say with truth that he is not eight days without an attack, sometimes of one kind sometimes of another.' count rantzow again whispered with the chancellor, and the chancellor continued: 'madame, say without compulsion how the matter stands, and who is privy to it; say it now, while you are asked freely to do so. his majesty is an absolute sovereign; he is not fettered by law; he can do as he will; say it.' i answered: 'i know well that his majesty is an absolute sovereign, and i know also, that he is a christian and a conscientious man; therefore, his majesty will do nothing but what he can justify before god in heaven. see, here i am! you can do with me what you will; that which i do not know i cannot say.' count rantzow began again to bring forward the maréchal de birron, and made a long speech about it. to this i at length replied, that the maréchal de birron in nowise concerned me; that i had no answer to make on the matter, and that it seemed to me that it was not a case in point. count rantzow asked me why, when i was demanded with whom i had corresponded in the kingdom, i had not said that i had written to him and to the treasurer gabel. to this i replied that i thought those who asked me knew it well, so that it was not necessary for me to mention it; i had only said that of which they probably did not know. count rantzow again whispered to the chancellor, and the chancellor said: 'in a letter to lady elsse passberg you have written respecting another state of things in denmark,' (as he said this, he looked at count rantzow and asked if it was not so, or how it was); 'what did you mean by that, madame?' i replied that i could not recollect what cause her letter had given me to answer it in this way; what came before or what followed, would, without a doubt, explain my meaning; if i might see the letter, it would prove at once that i had written nothing which i could not justify. nothing more was said with regard to it. count rantzow asked me what foreign ministers had been with my lord in bruges. 'none,' i answered, 'that i am aware of.' he asked further whether any holstein noblemen had been with him. i answered, 'i do not know.' then he enumerated every prince in germany, from the emperor to the prince of holstein, and enquired respecting each separately whether any of their ministers had been with my husband. i gave the same answer as before to each question, that i was not aware that any one of them had been with him. then he said, 'now, madame, confess! i beg you; remember maréchal de birron! you will not be asked again.' i was somewhat tired of hearing birron mentioned so often, and i answered rather hastily: 'i do not care about the maréchal de birron; i cannot tell what i do not know anything about.' secretary krag had written somewhat hurriedly it seemed, for when at my desire he read aloud what he had written, the answers did not accord with the questions; this probably partly arose from hurry, and partly from malice, for he was not amicably inclined towards my late lord. i protested against this when he read the minutes. the chancellor agreed with me in every item, so that krag was obliged to re-write it. after this they got up and took their leave. i requested to beg his majesty the king to be gracious to me, and not to believe what he had been informed with regard to my husband. i could not imagine they would find that he had ever deviated from his duty. 'yes,' answered count rantzow, 'if you will confess, madame, and tell us who is concerned in this business and the details of it, you might perhaps find him a gracious lord and king.' i protested by the living god that i knew nothing of it; i knew of nothing of the kind, much less of accomplices. with this they went away, after having spent nearly three hours with me, and then the prison governor and the women entered. they spread the table and brought up the meal, but i took nothing but a draught of beer. the prison governor sat down to table with the women. if he had been merry before, he was still more so now, and he told one indecent story after another. when they had had enough of feasting and talking he went away and locked the door; he came as usual again about four o'clock in the afternoon, and let the women go out, staying with me until they returned, which generally was not for two hours. when the women were alone with me, anna told catharina of her grief for her first husband, and nothing else was talked of. i behaved as if i were asleep, and i did the same when the prison governor was alone with me, and he then passed the time in singing and humming. the evening meal was also very merry for the women, for the prison governor amused them by telling them of his second marriage; how he had wooed without knowing whom, and that he did not know it until the betrothal. the story was as ludicrous as it was diffuse. i noticed that it lasted an hour and a quarter. when he had said good night, anna sat down on my bed and began to talk to catharina, and said, 'was it not a horrible story of that treacherous design to murder the king and queen and the whole royal family?' catharina answered, 'thank god the king and queen and the whole family are still alive!' 'yes,' said anna, 'it was no merit of the traitors, though, that they are so; it was too quickly discovered; the king knew it three months before he would reveal it to the queen. he went about sorrowfully, pondering over it, unable quite to believe it; afterwards, when he was quite certain of it, he told the queen; then the body-guard were doubled, as you know.' catherina enquired how they had learnt it. anna answered, 'that god knows; it is kept so secret that no one is allowed as much as to ask from whom it came.' i could not help putting in a word; it seemed to me a pity that they could not find out the informer, and it was remarkable that no one ventured to confess having given the information. catherina said, 'i wonder whether it is really true?' 'what do you mean?' answered anna; 'would the king do as he is doing without knowing for certain that it is true? how can you talk so?' i regarded this conversation as designed to draw some words from me, so i answered but little, only saying that until now i had seen nothing which gave credibility to the report, and that therefore i felt myself at liberty not to believe it until i saw certain proof of it. anna adhered to her statement, wondered that there could be such evil people as could wish to murder the good king, and was very diffuse on the matter.[e ] she could be at no loss for material, for she always began again from the beginning; but at last she had to stop, since she spoke alone and was not interrupted either by catharina or by me. [e ] when the sentence on ulfeldt had become publicly known, the most absurd rumours circulated in copenhagen, and found their way to foreign newspapers. for instance _the kingdom's_ intelligencer, no. , aug. - , , says, in a correspondence from hamburg: 'they say the traitors intended to set copenhagen on fire in divers places, and also the fleet, to destroy the king and family, to blow up the king's palace, and deliver the crown over to another.' the government itself, on hearing of ulfeldt's plots, made great military preparations. i got up and requested to have my bed made, which catharina always did. anna attended to the light during the night, for she was more watchful than catharina. i read aloud to them from anna's book, commended myself to god, and laid down to sleep. but my sleep was light, the promenades of the rats woke me, and there were great numbers of them. hunger made them bold; they ate the candle as it stood burning. catharina, moreover, was very uncomfortable all night, so that this also prevented my sleeping. early on the morning of august the prison governor came as usual with his brandy attentions, although they had a whole bottle with them. catharina complained a good deal, and said she could not endure the oppressive air; that when she came in at the door it seemed as if it would stifle her; if she were to remain there a week she was certain that she would be carried out dead. the prison governor laughed at this. the women went away, and he remained with me. he presented me major-general von anfeldt's compliments, and a message from him, that i 'should be of good courage; all would now soon be well.' i made no reply. he enquired how i was, and whether i had slept a little; and answered himself, 'i fancy not much.' he asked whether i would have anything, again answering himself, 'no, i do not think you wish for anything.' upon this he walked up and down, humming to himself; then he came to my bedside and said: 'oh, the dear king! he is indeed a kind master! be at peace; he is a gracious sovereign, and has always held you in esteem. you are a woman, a weak instrument. poor women are soon led away. no one likes to harm them, when they confess the truth. the dear queen, she is indeed a dear queen! she is not angry with you. i am sure if she knew the truth from you, she would herself pray for you. listen! if you will write to the queen and tell her all about the matter, and keep nothing back, i will bring you pen, ink, and paper. i have no wish, on my soul! to read it. no, god take me if i will look at it; and that you may be sure of this, i will give you wax that you may seal it. but i imagine you have probably no seal?' as i answered him not a word, he seized my hand and shook it rather strongly, saying, 'do you not hear? are you asleep?' i raised my head threateningly; i should like to have given him a box on the ears, and i turned round to the wall. he was angry that his design had failed, and he went on grumbling to himself for more than an hour. i could not understand a word beyond, 'yes, yes! you will not speak.' then he muttered somewhat between his teeth: 'you will not answer; well, well, they will teach you. yes, by god! hum, hum, hum.' he continued thus until the tower warder, rasmus, came and whispered something to him; then he went out. it seemed to me that there was someone speaking with him, and so far as i could perceive it must have been someone who asked him if the ink and paper should be brought up, for he answered, 'no, it is not necessary; she will not.' the other said, 'softly, softly!' the prison governor, however, could not well speak softly, and i heard him say, 'she cannot hear that; she is in bed.' when he came in again he went on muttering to himself, and stamped because i would not answer; he meant it kindly; the queen was not so angry as i imagined. he went on speaking half aloud; he wished the women would come; he did nothing else but beg rasmus to look for them. soon after rasmus came and said that they were now going up the king's stairs. still almost an hour passed before they came in and released him. when they had their dinner (my own meal consisted of some slices of lemon with sugar) the prison governor was not nearly so merry as he was wont to be, though he chattered of various things that had occurred in former times, while he was a quarter-master. he also retired sooner than was his custom. the women, who remained, talked of indifferent matters. i also now and then put in a word, and asked them after their husbands and children. anna read some prayers and hymns from her book, and thus the day passed till four o'clock, when the prison governor let them out. he had brought a book with him, which he read in a tolerably low tone, while he kept watch by me. i was well pleased at this, as it gave me rest. at the evening meal the prison governor began amongst other conversation to tell the women that a prisoner had been brought here who was a frenchman; he could not remember his name; he sat cogitating upon the name just as if he could not rightly hit upon it. carl or char, he did not know what he was called, but he had been formerly several years in denmark. anna enquired what sort of a man he was. he replied that he was a man who was to be made to sing,[ ] but he did not know for a certainty whether he was here or not. (there was nothing in all this.) he only said this in order to get an opportunity of asking me, or to perceive whether it troubled me. [ ] that is, give information. he had undoubtedly been ordered to do this; for when he was gone anna began a conversation with catharina upon this same carl, and at last asked me whether we had had a frenchman in our employ. i replied that we had had more than one. she enquired further whether there was one among them named carl, who had long been in our service. 'we had a servant,' i answered, 'a frenchman named charle; he had been with us a long time.' 'yes, yes,' she said, 'it is he. but i do not think he has arrived here yet; they are looking for him.' i said, 'then he is easy to find, he was at bruges when i left that town.' anna said she fancied he had been in england with me, and she added, 'that fellow knows a good deal if they get him.' i answered, 'then it were to be wished that they had him for the sake of his information.' when she perceived that i troubled myself no further about him she let the conversation drop, and spoke of my sister elizabeth augusta, saying that she passed her every day. she was standing in her gateway or sitting in the porch, and that she greeted her, but never uttered a word of enquiry after her sister, though she knew well that she was waiting on me in the tower. i said i thought my sister did not know what would be the best for her to do. 'i cannot see,' said anna, 'that she is depressed.' i expressed my opinion that the less we grieved over things the better. other trifles were afterwards talked of, and i concluded the day with reading, commended myself to the care of jesus, and slept tolerably well through the night. august passed without anything in particular occurring, only that anna tried to trouble me by saying that a chamber next to us was being put in order, for whom she did not know; they were of course expecting someone in it. i could myself hear the masons at work. on the same day catharina said that she had known me in prosperity, and blessed me a thousand times for the kindness i had shown her. i did not remember having ever seen her. she said she had been employed in the storeroom in the service of the princess magdalena sybille, and that when i had visited the princess, and had slept in the castle, i had sent a good round present for those in the storeroom, and that she had had a share in it, and that this she now remembered with gratitude. anna was not pleased with the conversation, and she interrupted it three times; catharina, however, did not answer her, but adhered to the subject till she had finished. the prison governor was not in good humour on this day also, so that neither at dinner nor at supper were any indecent stories related. on august , after the women had been into the town and had returned, the prison governor opened the door at about nine o'clock, and whispered something to them. he then brought in another small seat; from this i perceived that i was to be visited by one more than on the previous occasion. at about ten o'clock count rantzow, general skack, chancellor retz, treasurer gabel, and secretary krag entered. they all saluted me with politeness; the four first seated themselves on low seats by my bedside, and krag placed himself with his writing materials at the table. the chancellor was spokesman, and said, 'his royal majesty, my gracious sovereign and hereditary king, sends you word, madame, that his majesty has great cause for all that he is doing, and that he entertains suspicions with regard to you that you are an accomplice in the treason designed by your husband; and his royal majesty had hoped that you would confess without compulsion who have participated in it, and the real truth about it.' when the chancellor ceased speaking, i replied that i was not aware that i had done anything which could render me suspected; and i called god to witness that i knew of no treason, and therefore i could mention no names. count rantzow said, 'your husband has not concealed it from you, hence you know it well.' i replied, 'had my husband entertained so evil a design, i believe surely he would have told me; but i can swear with a good conscience, before god in heaven, that i never heard him speak of anything of the kind. yes, i can truly say he never wished evil to the king in my hearing, and therefore i fully believe that this has been falsely invented by his enemies.' count rantzow and the chancellor bent their heads together across to the general, and whispered with each other for some time. at length the chancellor asked me whether, if my husband were found guilty, i would take part in his condemnation. this was a remarkable question, so i reflected a little, and said, 'if i may know on what grounds he is accused, i will answer to it so far as i know, and so much as i can.' the chancellor said, 'consider well whether you will.' i replied as before, that i would answer for him as to all that i knew, if i were informed of what he was accused. count rantzow whispered with krag, and krag went out, but returned immediately. soon afterward some one (whom i do not know) came from the chancellor's office, bringing with him some large papers. count rantzow and the chancellor whispered again. then the chancellor said, 'there is nothing further to do now than to let you know what sort of a husband you have, and to let you hear his sentence.' count rantzow ordered the man who had brought in the papers to read them aloud. the first paper read was to the effect that corfitz, formerly count of ulfeldt, had offered the kingdom of denmark to a foreign sovereign, and had told the same sovereign that he had ecclesiastical and lay magnates on his side, so that it was easy for him to procure the crown of denmark for the before-mentioned sovereign. a paper was then read which was the defence of the clergy, in which they protested that corfitz, count of ulfeldt, had never had any communication with any of them; that he had at no time shown himself a friend of the clergy, and had far less offered them participation in his evil design. they assured his royal majesty of their fidelity and subjection, &c. next, a paper was read, written by the burgomaster and council in copenhagen, nearly similar in purport, that they had had no correspondence with count corfitz ulfeldt, and equally assuring his royal majesty of their humble fidelity. next followed the reading of the unprecedented and illegal sentence which, without a hearing, had been passed on my lord. this was as unexpected and grievous as it was disgraceful, and unjustifiable before god and all right-loving men. no documents were brought forward upon which the sentence had been given. there was nothing said about prosecution or defence; there was no other foundation but mere words; that he had been found guilty of having offered the crown of denmark to a foreign sovereign, and had told him that he had on his side ecclesiastical and lay magnates, who had shown by their signed protestations that this was not the case, for which reason he had been condemned as a criminal. when the sentence with all the names subjoined to it had been read, the reader brought it to me, and placed it before me on the bed. everyone can easily imagine how i felt; but few or none can conceive how it was that i was not stifled by the unexpected misery, and did not lose my sense and reason. i could not utter a word for weeping. then a prayer was read aloud which had been pronounced from the pulpit, in which corfitz was anathematised, and god was prayed not to allow his gray hair to go to the grave in peace. but god, who is just, did not listen to the impious prayer of the unrighteous, praised be his name for ever. when all had been read, i bemoaned with sighs and sorrowful tears that i had ever lived to see this sad day, and i begged them, for jesus' sake, that they would allow me to see on what the hard judgment was based. count rantzow answered, 'you can well imagine, madame, that there are documents upon which we have acted: some of your friends are in the council.' 'may god better it!' i said. 'i beg you, for god's sake, to let me see the documents. les apparences sont bien souvent trompeuses. what had not my husband to suffer from that swede in skaane, during that long imprisonment, because he was suspected of having corresponded with his majesty, the king of denmark, and with his majesty's ministers? now, no one knows better than his majesty, and you my good lords, how innocently he suffered at that time, and so this also may be apparently credible, and yet may not be so in truth. might i not see the documents?' to this no answer was given. i continued and said, 'how is it possible that a man who must himself perceive that death is at hand should undertake such a work, and be so led away from the path of duty, when he did not do so at a time when he acknowledged no master, and when such great promises were made him by the prince of holstein, as the prince's letters show, which are now in his majesty's hands.' count rantzow interrupted me and said, 'we did not find those letters.' 'god knows,' i replied, 'they were there; of that i am certain.' i said also, 'at that time he might have done something to gratify a foreign sovereign; at that time he had power and physical vigour, and almost the entire government was in his hands; but he never looked to his own advantage, but pawned his own property to hasten the king's coronation, so that no impediment might come between.[ ] this is his reward! good gentlemen, take an example of me, you who have seen me in prosperity, and have compassion on me. pray his royal majesty to be mild, and not to proceed to such severity.' [ ] in the margin the following explanatory note is added: 'when his majesty (christian iv.) was dead, there was no prince elected, so that the states were free to choose the king whom they desired, wherefore the duke of holstein, duke frederick, promised my deceased lord that if he would contrive that he should be elected king, the land of fyen should belong to him and a double alliance between his children and ours should be concluded. but my lord rejected this proposal and would not assist in dispossessing the son of christian iv. of the kingdom. the prince had obtained several votes, but my lord contested them.' the chancellor and treasurer were moved by this, so that the tears came into their eyes. count rantzow said to the general and the chancellor, 'i think it is a fortnight ago since the sentence was published?' the chancellor answered, 'it is seventeen days ago.'[e ] i said, 'at that time i was still in england, and now i am asked for information on the matter! oh, consider this, for god's sake! and that there was no one present to speak on my husband's behalf.' count rantzow enquired whether i wished to appeal against it? i replied, 'how am i to appeal against a judicial decree? i only beg for jesus' sake that what i say may be considered, and that i may have the satisfaction of seeing the documents upon which the sentence is based.' [e ] the sentence on ulfeldt was given on july , but probably not published till a few days later. count rantzow answered as before, that there were documents, and that some of my friends had sat in the council, and added that all had been agreed, and that not one had had anything to say against it. i dared not say what i thought. i knew well how matters are done in such absolute governments: there is no such thing as opposition, they merely say, 'sign, the king wishes it; and ask not wherefore, or the same condemnation awaits thee.'[ ] i was silent, and bewailed my unhappiness, which was irremediable. when krag read aloud the minutes he had written, namely, that when i was asked whether i would participate in my husband's sentence, i had answered that i would consider of it. i asked, 'how was that?' the chancellor immediately replied, 'no, she did not say so, but she requested to know the accusation brought against her husband.' i repeated my words again,[ ] i know not whether krag wrote them or not; for a great part of that which i said was not written. krag yielded too much to his feelings in the matter, and would gladly have made bad worse. he is now gone where no false writings avail; god took him away suddenly in an unclean place, and called him to judgment without warning. and count rantzow, who was the principal mover and inventor of that illegal sentence, the like of which was never known in denmark, did not live to see his desire fulfilled in the execution of a wooden image.[e ] when this was done, they rose and shook hands with me. this painful visit lasted more than four hours. [ ] it had happened as i thought. there were some in the council who refused to sign, some because they had not been present at the time of the procedure, and others because they had not seen on what the sentence was founded; but they were nevertheless compelled to sign with the others, on the peril of the king's displeasure. [marginal note.] [ ] in the margin is added, 'and asked whether i was permitted to appeal against this sentence. all were silent.' [e ] a line has been drawn in the ms. through the two last paragraphs, and their contents transferred to the continuation of the preface. they went away, leaving me full of anxiety, sighing and weeping--a sad and miserable captive woman, forsaken by all; without help, exposed to power and violence, fearing every moment that her husband might fall into their hands, and that they might vent their malice on him. god performed on that day a great miracle, by manifesting his power in my weakness, preserving my brain from bewilderment, and my tongue from overflowing with impatience. praised be god a thousand times! i will sing thy praise, so long as my tongue can move, for thou wast at this time and at all times my defence, my rock, and my shield! when the gentlemen were gone away, the prison governor came and the women, and a stool was spread by the side of my bed. the prison governor said to me, 'eat, leonora; will you not eat?' as he said this, he threw a knife to me on the bed. i took up the knife with angry mind, and threw it on the ground. he picked up the knife, saying, 'you are probably not hungry? no, no! you have had a breakfast to-day which has satisfied you, have you not? is it not so?' well, well, come dear little women (addressing the two women), let us eat something! you must be hungry, judging from my own stomach.' when they had sat down to table, he began immediately to cram himself, letting it fall as if inadvertently from his mouth, and making so many jokes that it was sad to see how the old man could not conceal his joy at my unhappiness. when the meal was finished, and the prison governor had gone away, anna sat down by my bed and began to speak of the sorrow and affliction which we endure in this world, and of the joy and delights of heaven; how the pain that we suffer here is but small compared with eternal blessedness and joy, wherefore we should not regard suffering, but should rather think of dying with a good conscience, keeping it unsullied by confessing everything that troubles us, for there is no other way. 'god grant,' she added, 'that no one may torment himself for another's sake.' after having repeated this remark several times, she said to me, 'is it not true, my lady?' 'yes, certainly it is true,' i replied; 'you speak in a christian manner, and according to the scriptures.' 'why will you, then,' she went on to say, 'let yourself be tormented for others, and not say what you know of them?' i asked whom she meant. she answered, 'i do not know them.' i replied, 'nor do i.' she continued in the same strain, however, saying that she would not suffer and be tormented for the sake of others, whoever they might be; if they were guilty they must suffer; she would not suffer for them; a woman was easily led away, but happiness was more than all kindred and friends. as she seemed unable to cease chattering, i wished to divert her a little, so i asked whether she were a clergyman's daughter; and since she had before told me of her parentage, she resented this question all the more, and was thoroughly angry; saying, 'if i am not a clergyman's daughter, i am the daughter of a good honest citizen, and not one of the least. in my time, when i was still unmarried, i never thought that i should marry a shoemaker.' i said, 'but your first husband, too, was also a shoemaker.' 'that is true,' she replied, 'but this marriage came about in a very foolish manner,' and she began to narrate a whole history of the matter, so that i was left in peace. catharina paced up and down, and when anna was silent for a little, she said, with folded hands, 'o god, thou who art almighty, and canst do everything, preserve this man for whom they are seeking, and never let him fall into the hands of his enemies. oh god, hear me!' anna said angrily to her, 'catharina, do you know what you are saying? how can you speak so?' catharina answered, 'yes, i know well what i am saying. god preserve him, and let him never fall into the hands of his enemies. jesus, be thou his guide!' she uttered these words with abundant tears. anna said, 'i think that woman is not in her senses.' catharina's kind wish increased my tears, and i said, 'catharina shows that she is a true christian, and sympathises with me; god reward her, and hear her and me!' upon this anna was silent, and has not been so talkative ever since. o god, thou who art a recompenser of all that is good, remember this in favour of catharina, and as thou heardest her at that time, hear her prayer in future, whatever may be her request! and you, my dear children, know that if ever fortune so ordains it that you can be of any service either to her or her only son, you are bound to render it for my sake; for she was a comfort to me in my greatest need, and often took an opportunity to say a word which she thought would alleviate my sorrow. the prison governor came as usual, about four o'clock, and let the women out, seating himself on the bench and placing the high stool with the candle in front of him. he had brought a book with him, and read aloud prayers for a happy end, prayers for the hour of death, and prayers for one suffering temporal punishment for his misdeeds. he did not forget a prayer for one who is to be burnt; in reading this he sighed, so religious had he grown in the short time. when he had read all the prayers, he got up and walked up and down, singing funeral hymns; when he knew no more, he began again with the first, till the women released him. catharina complained that her son had been ill, and was greatly grieved about it. i entered into her sorrow, and said that she ought to mention her son's illness to the queen, and then another would probably be appointed in her place; and i begged her to compose herself, as the child would probably be better again. during the evening meal the prison governor was very merry, and related all sorts of coarse stories. when he was gone, anna read the evening prayer. i felt very ill during this night, and often turned about in bed; there was a needle in the bed, with which i scratched myself; i got it out, and still have it.[ ] [ ] in the margin: 'the feather-bed had an old cover, and was fresh filled when i was lying in the roads; the needle, in the hurry, had therefore been left in.' on august , when the prison governor opened the door early, the women told him that i had been very ill in the night. 'well, well,' he answered, 'it will soon be better.' and when the women were ready to go to the queen (which they were always obliged to do), anna said to catharina, outside the door, 'what shall we say to the queen?' catharina answered: 'what shall we say, but that she is silent and will say nothing!' 'you know very well that the queen is displeased at it.' 'nevertheless, we cannot tell a lie;' answered catharina; 'she says nothing at all, so it would be a sin.'[ ] catharina came back to the mid-day meal, and said that the queen had promised to appoint another in her stead; in the afternoon, she managed secretly to say a word to me about the next chamber, which she imagined was being put in readiness for me and for no one else; she bid me good night, and promised to remember me constantly in her prayers. i thanked her for her good services, and for her kind feeling towards me. [ ] in the margin: 'i myself heard this conversation.' about four o'clock the prison governor let her and anna out. he sang one hymn after another, went to the stairs, and the time appeared long to him, till six o'clock, when anna returned with maren blocks. at the evening meal the prison governor again told stories of his marriage, undoubtedly for the sake of amusing maren. anna left me alone, and i lay quiet in silence. maren could not find an opportunity of speaking with me the whole evening, on account of anna. nothing particular happened on august and . when the prison governor let out anna in the morning and afternoon, maren blocks remained with me, and the prison governor went his own way and locked the door, so that maren had opportunity of talking with me alone. she told me different things; among others, that the queen had given my clothes to the three women who had undressed me, that they might distribute them amongst themselves. she asked me whether i wished to send a message to my sister elizabeth. i thanked her, but said that i had nothing good to tell her. i asked maren for needles and thread, in order to test her. she replied she would gladly procure them for me if she dared, but that it would risk her whole well-being if the queen should know it; for she had so strictly forbidden that anyone should give me either pins or needles. i inquired 'for what reason?' 'for this reason,' she replied, 'that you may not kill yourself.' i assured her that god had enlightened me better than that i should be my own murderer. i felt that my cross came from the hand of the lord, that he was chastising me as his child; he would also help me to bear it; i trusted in him to do so. 'then i hope, dear heart,' said maren, 'that you will not kill yourself; then you shall have needles and thread; but what will you sew?' i alleged that i wished to sew some buttons on my white night-dress, and i tore off a pair, in order to show her afterwards that i had sewn them on. now it happened that i had sewn up some ducats in a piece of linen round my knee; these i had kept, as i pulled off the stockings myself when they undressed me, and anna had at my desire given me a rag, as i pretended that i had hurt my leg. i sewed this rag over the leather. they all imagined that i had some secret malady, for i lay in the linen petticoat they had given me, and went to bed in my stockings. maren imagined that i had an issue on one leg, and she confided to me that a girl at the court, whom she mentioned by name, and who was her very good friend, had an issue of which no one knew but herself, not even the woman who made her bed. i thought to myself, you keep your friend's secret well; i did not, however, make her any wiser, but let her believe in this case whatever she would. i was very weak on those two days, and as i took nothing more than lemon and beer, my stomach became thoroughly debilitated and refused to retain food. when maren told the prison governor of this, he answered, 'all right, her heart is thus getting rid of its evil.' anna was no longer so officious, but the prison governor was as merry as ever. on august the prison governor did not open the door before eight o'clock, and anna asked him how it was that he had slept so long. he joked a little; presently he drew her to the door and whispered with her. he went out and in, and anna said so loudly to maren, that i could hear it (although she spoke as if she were whispering), 'i am so frightened that my whole body trembles, although it does not concern me. jesus keep me! i wish i were down below!' maren looked sad, but she neither answered nor spoke a word. maren came softly up to my bed and said, 'i am sure some one is coming to you.' i answered, 'let him come, in god's name.' presently i heard a running up and down stairs, and also overhead, for the commissioners came always through the apartments, in order not to cross the square. my doors were closed again. each time that some one ran by on the stairs, anna shuddered and said, 'i quite tremble.' this traffic lasted till about eleven. when the prison governor opened the door, he said to me, 'leonora, you are to get up and go to the gentlemen.' god knows that i could hardly walk, and anna frightened me by saying to maren, 'oh! the poor creature!' maren's hands trembled when she put on my slippers. i could not imagine anything else than that i was to be tortured, and i consoled myself with thinking that my pain could not last long, for my body was so weary that it seemed as if god might at any moment take me away. when maren fastened the apron over my long dress, i said: 'they are indeed sinning heavily against me; may god give me strength.' the prison governor hurried me, and when i was ready, he took me by the arm and led me. i would gladly have been free of his help, but i could not walk alone. he conducted me up to the next story, and there sat count rantzow, skack, retz, gabel, and krag, round the table. they all rose when i entered, and i made them a reverence as well as i was able. a small low seat had been placed for me in the middle, in front of the table. the chancellor asked me whether i had not had more letters than those taken from me in england. i answered that i had not had more; that all my letters had been then taken from me. he asked further, whether i had at that time destroyed any letters. 'yes,' i answered, 'one i tore in two, and threw it in a closet.' 'why did you do so?' enquired count rantzow. 'because' i replied, 'there were cyphers in it; and although they were of no importance, i feared, notwithstanding, that they might excite suspicion.' count rantzow said: 'supposing the pieces were still forthcoming?' 'that were to be wished,' i replied, 'for then it could be seen that there was nothing suspicious in it, and it vexed me afterwards that i had torn it in two.' upon this the chancellor drew forth a sheet of paper upon which, here and there, pieces of this very letter were pasted, and handed it to krag, who gave it to me. count rantzow asked me if it were not my husband's handwriting. i answered that it was. he said: 'a part of the pieces which you tore in two have been found, and a part are lost. all that has been found has been collected and copied.' he then asked the chancellor for the copy, who gave it to count rantzow, and he handed it to me, saying, 'see there what is wanting, and tell us what it is that is missing.' i took it, and looked over it and said: 'in some places, where there are not too many words missing, i think i can guess what is lost, but where a whole sentence is wanting, i cannot know.' most of the letter had been collected without loss of intervening pieces, and it all consisted of mirth and jest. he was telling me that he had heard from denmark that the electoral prince of saxony was to be betrothed with the princess of denmark;[e ] and he joked, saying that they would grease their throats and puff out their cheeks in order that with good grace and voice they might duly trumpet forth each their own titles, and more of the same kind, all in high colouring. he described the way in which count rantzow contrived to let people know his titles; when he had a dinner-party, there was a man employed to read aloud his titles to the guests, asking first each separately, whether he knew his titles; if there was anyone who did not know them, the secretary must forthwith come and read them aloud. [e ] leonora refers to the betrothal of prince johan george of saxony and anna sophia, the eldest daughter of fredrik iii., of which an account occurs in the sequel. it seemed that count rantzow referred all this to himself, for he asked me what my husband meant by it. i replied that i did not know that he meant anything but what he had written; he meant undoubtedly those who did such things. the chancellor averted his face from count rantzow, and his lips smiled a little; gabel also did the same. among other things there were some remarks about the electoral prince, that he probably cherished the hope of inheriting the crown of denmark; 'mais j'espère ... cela ne se fera point.' count rantzow enquired as to the words which were wanting. i said, if i remembered rightly, the words had been, 'qu'en ans.' he enquired further as to the expressions lacking here and there, some of which i could not remember exactly, though they were of no importance. i expressed my opinion that they could easily gather what was wanting from the preceding and following words; it was sufficiently evident that all was jest, and this was apparent also to gabel, who said, 'ce n'est que raillerie.' but count rantzow and the general would not allow it to pass as jest. skack said: 'one often means something else under the cloak of jest, and names are used when others are intended.' for in the letter there was something said about drinking out; there was also an allusion made to the manners of the swiss at table, and all the titles of the canton nobles were enumerated, from which skack thought that the names of the cities might have another signification. i did not answer skack; but as count rantzow continued to urge me to say what my husband had meant by it, i replied that i could not know whether he had had another meaning than that which was written. skack shook his head and thought he had, so i said: 'i know no country where the same customs are in vogue at meals as in switzerland; if there are other places where the same customs prevail, he may perhaps have meant these also, for he is only speaking of drinking.' gabel said again, 'it is only jest.' the cyphers, for the sake of which i had torn the letter in two, were fortunately complete, and nothing was missing. count rantzow gave me a sheet of paper, to which pieces of my lord's letter were pasted, and asked me what the cyphers meant. i replied, 'i have not the key, and cannot solve them out of my head.' he expressed his opinion that i could do it. i said i could not. 'well, they have been read,' he said, 'and we know what they signify.' 'all the better,' i answered. upon this, he gave me the interpretation to read, and the purport of it was that our son had written from rome, asking for money, which was growing short, for the young nobleman was not at home. i gave the paper back to count rantzow without saying anything. count rantzow requested the treasurer that he should read the letter, and rantzow began again with his questions wherever anything was wanting, requesting that i should say what it was. i gave him the same answer as before; but when in one passage, where some words were missing, he pressed me hard to say them, and it was evident from the context that they were ironical (since an ironical word was left written), i said: 'you can add as much of the same kind as pleases you, if one is not enough; i do not know them.' gabel again said, 'ce n'est que raillerie.'[e ] [e ] a copy of the fragments which had been recovered of this letter is still in existence. no further questions were then made respecting the letters; but count rantzow enquired as to my jewels, and asked where the large diamond was which my husband had received in france.[e ] i replied that it had long been sold. he further asked where my large drop pearls where, which i had worn as a feather on my hat, and where my large pearl head-ornament was. 'all these,' i replied, 'have long been sold.' he asked further whether i had then no more jewels. i answered, 'i have none now.' 'i mean,' he said, 'elsewhere.' i replied, 'i left some behind.' 'where, then?' he asked. 'at bruges,' i replied. then he said: 'i have now somewhat to ask you, madame, that concerns myself. did you visit my sister in paris the last time you were there?' i replied, 'yes.' he asked whether i had been with her in the convent, and what was the name of the convent. i informed him that i had been in the convent, and that it was the convent des filles bleues. at this he nodded, as if to confirm it. he also wished to know whether i had seen her. i said that no one in the convent might be seen by anyone but parents; even brothers and sisters were not allowed to see them.[e ] 'that is true,' he said, and then rose and gave me his hand. i begged him to induce his gracious majesty to have pity on me, but he made no answer. when the treasurer gabel gave me his hand, i begged the same favour of him. he replied, 'yes, if you will confess,' and went out without waiting for a reply. [e ] ulfeldt received this present probably in , when in france as ambassador, on which occasion queen anna is known to have presented to leonora a gold watch set with diamonds of great value. [e ] the lady alluded to is helvig margaretha elizabeth rantzow, widow of the famous general josias rantzow, who died as a maréchal of france. she had become a romanist, and took the veil after her husband's death. subsequently she founded the new order of the annunciata. in the first convent of this order, of which she was abbess, removed to hildesheim, where she died in . for more than three hours they had kept up the interrogation. then the prison governor came in and said to me: 'now you are to remain in here; it is a beautiful chamber, and has been freshly whitewashed; you may now be contented.' anna and maren also came in. god knows, i was full of care, tired and weary, and had insufferable headache; yet, before i could go to rest, i had to sit waiting until the bedstead had been taken out of the 'dark church' and brought hither. anna occupied herself meanwhile in the dark church, in scraping out every hole; she imagined she might find something there, but in vain. the woman who was to remain with me alone then came in. her pay was two rix-dollars a week; her name is karen, the daughter of ole. after the prison governor had supped with the woman and maren, anna and maren blocks bade me good night; the latter exhibited great affection. the prison governor bolted two doors before my innermost prison. in the innermost door there is a square hole, which is secured with iron cross-bars. the prison governor was going to attach a lock to this hole, but he forebore at karen's request, for she said she could not breathe if this hole were closed. he then affixed locks to the door of the outer chamber, and to the door leading to the stairs; he had, therefore, four locks and doors twice a day to lock and unlock. i will here describe my prison. it is a chamber, seven of my paces long and six wide; there are in it two beds, a table, and two stools. it was freshly whitewashed, which caused a terrible smell; the floor, moreover was so thick with dirt, that i imagined it was of loam, though it was really laid with bricks. it is eighteen feet high, with a vaulted ceiling, and very high up is a window which is two feet square. in front of it are double thick iron bars, besides a wire-work, which is so close that one could not put one's little finger into the holes. this wire-work had been thus ordered with great care by count rantzow (so the prison governor afterwards told me), so that no pigeons might bring in a letter--a fact which he had probably read in a novel as having happened. i was weak and deeply grieved in my heart; i looked for a merciful deliverance, and an end to my sorrow, and i sat silent and uncomplaining, answering little when the woman spoke to me. sometimes in my reverie i scratched at the wall, which made the woman imagine that i was confused in my head; she told this to the prison governor, who reported it to the queen, and during every meal-time, when the door was open, she never failed to send messengers to enquire how it fared with me, what i said, and what i was doing. the woman had, however, not much to tell in obedience to the oath she, according to her own statement, had taken in the presence of the prison governor. but afterwards she found some means to ingratiate herself. and as my strength daily decreased, i rejoiced at the prospect of my end, and on august i sent for the prison governor, and requested him to apply for a clergyman who could give me the sacrament. this was immediately granted, and his majesty's court preacher, magister mathias foss, received orders to perform for me the duties of his office, and exhorted me, both on behalf of his office and in consequence of the command he had received, not to burden my conscience; i might rest assured, he said, that in this world i should never see my husband again, and he begged me to say what i knew of the treason. i could scarcely utter a word for weeping; but i said that i could attest before god in heaven, from whom nothing is hidden, that i knew nothing of this treason. i knew well i should never see my husband again in this life; i commended him to the almighty, who knew my innocence; i prayed god only for a blessed end and departure from this evil world; i desired nothing from the clergyman but that he should remember me in his prayers, that god might by death put an end to my affliction. the clergyman promised faithfully to grant my request. it has not pleased god to hear me in this: he has willed to prove my faith still further, by sending to me since this time much care, affliction, and adversity. he has helped me also to bear the cross, and has himself supported its heaviest end; his name be praised for ever. when i had received the lord's supper, m. foss comforted me and bid me farewell. i lay silently for three days after this, taking little or nothing. the prison governor often enquired whether i wished for anything to eat or drink, or whether he should say anything to the king. i thanked him, but said i required nothing. on august the prison governor importuned me at once with his conversation, expressing his belief that i entertained an evil opinion of the queen. he inferred it from this: the day before he had said to me that his majesty had ordered that whatever i desired from the kitchen and cellar should be at once brought to me, to which i had answered, 'god preserve his majesty; he is a good sovereign; may he show clemency to evil men!' he had then said, 'the queen is also good,' to which i had made no answer. he had then tried to turn the conversation to the queen, and to hear if he could not draw out a word from me; he had said: 'the queen is sorry for you that you have been so led away. it grieves her that you have willed your own unhappiness; she is not angry; she pities you.' and when i made no answer, he repeated it again, saying from time to time, 'yes, yes, my dear lady, it is as i say.' i was annoyed at the talk, and said, 'dieu vous punisse!' 'ho, ho!' he said, misinterpreting my words, and calling karen, he went out and closed the doors. thus unexpectedly i got rid of him. it was ridiculous that the woman now wanted to oblige me to attend to what the prison governor had said. i begged her to remember that she was now not attending on a child (she had before been nurse to children). she could not so easily depart from her habit, and for a long time treated me as a child, until at length i made her comprehend that this was not required. when i perceived that my stomach desired food and could retain it, i became impatient that i could not die, but must go on living in such misery. i began to dispute with god, and wanted to justify myself with him. it seemed to me that i had not deserved such misfortune. i imagined myself far purer than david was from great sins, and yet he could say, 'verily i have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. for all the day long have i been plagued, and chastened every morning.' i thought i had not deserved so exceedingly great a chastisement as that which i was receiving. i said with job, 'show me wherefore thou contendest with me. is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands?' i repeated all job's expressions when he tried to justify himself, and it seemed to me that i could justly apply them to myself. i cursed with him and jeremiah the day of my birth, and was very impatient; keeping it, however, to myself, and not expressing it aloud. if at times a word escaped me, it was in german (since i had generally read the bible in german), and therefore the woman did not understand what i was saying. i was very restless from coughing, and turned from side to side on the bed. the woman often asked me how i was. i begged her to leave me quiet and not to speak to me. i was never more comfortable than in the night when i observed that she was sleeping; then, unhindered, i could let my tears flow and give free vent to my thoughts. then i called god to account. i enumerated everything that i had innocently suffered and endured during my life, and i enquired of god whether i had deviated from my duty? whether i ought to have done less for my husband than i had done? whether the present was my recompense for not having left him in his adversity? whether i was to be now tortured, tormented, and scorned for this? whether all the indescribable misfortunes which i had endured with him were not enough, that i had been reserved for this irremediable and great trouble? i do not wish to conceal my unreasonableness. i will confess my sins. i asked if still worse misfortunes were in store for me for which i was to live? whether there was any affliction on earth to be compared to mine? i prayed god to put an end to my sufferings, for it redounded in no wise to his honour to let me live and be so tormented. i was after all not made of steel and iron, but of flesh and blood. i prayed that he would suggest to me, or inform me in a dream, what i was to do to shorten my misery. when i had long thus disputed and racked my brains, and had also wept so bitterly that it seemed as if no more tears remained, i fell asleep, but awoke with terror, for i had horrible fancies in my dreams, so that i feared to sleep, and began again to bewail my misery. at length god looked down upon me with his eye of mercy, so that on august i had a night of quiet sleep, and just as day was dawning i awoke with the following words on my lips: 'my son, faint not when thou art rebuked of the lord; for whom the lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.' i uttered the last words aloud, thinking that the woman was sleeping; possibly she awoke at the moment, and she asked me whether i wished for anything. i answered 'no.' 'you were speaking,' she said, 'and you mentioned your stockings; i could not understand the rest.' i replied, 'it must have been then in my sleep. i wish for nothing.' i then lay quietly thinking. i perceived and confessed my folly, that i, who am only dust and ashes, and decay, and am only fit for the dunghill, should call god to account, should dispute with my creator and his decrees, and should wish to censure and question them. i began to weep violently, and i prayed fervently and from my heart for mercy and forgiveness. while i had before boasted with david, and been proud of my innocence, now i confessed with him that before god there is none that doeth good; no, not one. while before i had spoken foolishly with job, i now said with him that i had 'uttered that i understood not; things too wonderful for me which i knew not.' i besought god to have mercy on me, relying on his great compassion. i cited moses, joshua, david, jeremiah, job, jonah, and others, all highly endowed men, and yet so weak that in the time of calamity they grumbled and murmured against god. i prayed that he would in his mercy forgive me, the frailest of earthen vessels, as i could not after all be otherwise than as he had created me. all things were in his power; it was easy to him to give me patience, as he had before imparted to me power and courage to endure hard blows and shocks. and i prayed god (after asking forgiveness of my sins) for nothing else than good patience to await the period of my deliverance. god graciously heard me. he pardoned not only my foolish sins, but he gave me that also for which i had not prayed, for day by day my patience increased. while i had often said with david, 'will the lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? hath god forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?' i now continued with him, 'this is my infirmity, but i will remember the years of the right hand of the most high.' i said also with psalm cxix.: 'it is good for me that i have been afflicted; that i might learn thy statutes.' the power of god was working within me. many consolatory sentences from the holy scriptures came into my mind; especially these:--'if so be that we suffer with christ, that we may be also glorified together.' also: 'we know that all things work together for good to them that love god.' also: 'my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.' i thought especially often of christ's words in st. luke, 'shall not god avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? i tell you that he will avenge them speedily.' i felt in my trouble how useful it is to have learned psalms and passages from the bible in youth. believe me, my children, that it has been a great consolation to me in my misery. therefore, cultivate now in your youth what your parents taught you in childhood; now, while trouble visits you less severely, so that when it comes, you may be ready to receive it and to comfort yourselves with the word of god. i began by degrees to feel more at peace, and to speak with the woman, and to answer the prison governor when he addressed me. the woman told me sundry things, and said that the prison governor had ordered her to tell him everything that i spoke or did, but that she was too wise to do such a thing; that she understood now better than she had done at first how to behave. he went out, but she remained shut up with me, and she would be true to me. and as it appeared that i did not at once believe what she said, she swore it solemnly, and prayed god to punish her if ever she acted falsely towards me. she stroked and patted my hand, and laid it against her cheek, and begged that i would believe her, using the words, 'my dearest lady, you can believe me; as truly as i am a child of god, i will never deceive you! now, is not that enough?' i answered, 'i will believe you;' thinking at the same time that i would do and say nothing but what she might divulge. she was very glad that she had induced me to speak, and said, 'when you lay so long silent, and i had no one with whom i could speak, i was sad, and determined that i would not long lead this life, even if they gave me double as much, for i should have become crazed. i was afraid for you, but still more for myself, that my head would give way.' she went on talking in this way, introducing also various merry stories. when she was young she had been in the service of a clergyman, who encouraged his domestics in the fear of god, and there she had learned prayers and sentences from the bible by heart; she knew also the children's primer, with the explanatory remarks, and sang tolerably well. she knew in some measure how she should walk before god and behave towards her neighbour; but she acted contrary to her knowledge--for she had a malicious temper. she was an elderly woman, but she liked to reckon herself as middle-aged. it appeared that in her youth she had been pretty and rather dissolute, since even now she could not lay aside her levity, but joked with the tower-warder, and the prison governor's coachman, a man of the name of peder, and with a prisoner named christian (more will presently be said with regard to this prisoner; he was free to go about the tower).[ ] [ ] when i took my meals, the woman had opportunity of talking with the three men. the coachman helped the tower-warder rasmus to bring up the food. [marginal note.] maren blocks often sent me a message through this coachman, besides various kinds of candied sugar and citron, letting me know from time to time whether anything new was occurring. all this had to be done through the woman. one day she came in when the doors were closed, and brought me a message from maren blocks, saying, 'my lady, if you will now write to your children in skaane, there is a safe opportunity for you to do so.' i answered, 'my children are not in skaane, yet if i can send a message to skaane, i have a friend there who will probably let me know how it fares with my children.' she gave me a piece of crumpled paper and a pencil. i wrote a few words to f. margrete rantzow,[e ] saying that she probably knew of my miserable condition, but supposing that her friendship was not lessened by it, and begging her to let me know how my children were, and from what cause they had come to skaane, as i had been informed was the case, though i did not believe it. this was what i wrote and gave to the woman. i heard nothing further of it, and i imagine that she had been ordered to find out to whom i wrote, &c. (they have been busy with the idea that some of you, my dear children, might come to skaane.) i sewed up the letter or slip of paper in such a manner that it could not be opened without making it apparent. i asked the woman several times if she knew whether the letter had been sent away. she always answered that she did not know, and that with a morose expression, and at last she said (when i once more asked her to enquire of peder), 'i suppose that the person who ought to have it has got it.' this answer made me reflect, and since then i asked no further. [e ] margrete rantzow was the sister of that birgitte rantzow to whom there is an allusion in the autobiography of leonora, where she relates the examination to which she was subjected at malmöe. margrete's husband was ove thott, a nobleman in skaane, who had taken an important part in the preparations for a rising against the swedes, in which corfitz ulfeldt was implicated. i remained all this time in bed, partly because i had nothing with which to beguile the time, and partly because of the cold, for no stove was placed in my prison till after the new year. occasionally i requested the woman to manage, through peder, that i should have a little silk or thread, that i might beguile the time by embroidering a piece of cloth that i had; but the answer i received was that he dared not. a long time afterwards it came to my knowledge that she had never asked peder for it. there was trouble enough, however, to occupy my thoughts without my needing to employ the time in handiwork. it was on september that i heard some one moving early overhead, so i asked the woman if she knew whether there was a chamber there (for the woman went up every saturday with the night-stool). she answered that there was a prison there like this, and outside was the rack (which is also the case). she observed that i showed signs of fear, and she said, 'god help! whoever it is that is up there is most assuredly to be tortured.' i said, 'ask peder, when the doors are unlocked, whether there is a prisoner there.' she said she would do so, and meanwhile she kept asking herself and me who it might be. i could not guess; still less did i venture to confess my fear to her, which she nevertheless perceived, and therefore increased; for after she had spoken with peder, about noon,[ ] and the doors were locked, she said, 'god knows who it is that is imprisoned there! peder would tell me nothing.' she said the same at the evening meal, but added that she had asked him, and that he would give no answer. i calmed myself, as i heard no more footsteps above, and i said, 'there is no prisoner up there.'[ ] 'how do you know that?' she asked. 'i gather it from the fact,' i said, 'that since this morning i have heard no one above; i think if there were anyone there, they would probably give him something to eat.' she was not pleased that my mind was quieted, and therefore she and peder together endeavoured to trouble me. [ ] i could not see when she spoke with any one, for she did so on the stairs. [marginal note.] [ ] in the margin is added: 'there was none.' on the following day, when the doors were being locked after the mid-day dinner (which was generally peder's task), and he was pulling to my innermost door, which opens inside, he put in his head and said, 'casset!' she was standing beside the door, and appeared as if she had not rightly understood him, saying, 'peder spoke of some one who is in prison, but i could not understand who it is.' i understood him at once, but also behaved as if i had not. no one knows but god what a day and night i had. i turned it over in my mind. it often seemed to me that it might be that they had seized him, although cassetta was a subject of the king of spain; for if treason is suspected, there is no thought given as to whose subject the man suspected may be. i lay in the night secretly weeping and lamenting that the brave man should have come into trouble for my sake, because he had executed my lord's will, and had followed me to england, where we parted, i should say, when petcon and his company separated us and carried me away. i lay without sleep till towards day, then i fell into a dream which frightened me. i suppose my thoughts caused it. it came before me that cassetta was being tortured in the manner he had once described to me that a spaniard had been tortured: four cords were fastened round his hands and feet, and each cord was made secure in a corner of the room, and a man sometimes pulled one cord and sometimes another; and since it seemed to me that cassetta never screamed, i supposed that he was dead, and i shrieked aloud and awoke. the woman, who had long been awake, said: 'o god! dear lady, what ails you? are you ill? you have been groaning a long time, and now you screamed loudly.' i replied, 'it was in my dream; nothing ails me.' she said further, 'then you have had a bad dream?' 'that may well be,' i answered. 'oh, tell me what you have dreamt; i can interpret dreams.' i replied, 'when i screamed i forgot my dream, otherwise no one can interpret dreams better than i.' i thank god i do not regard dreams; and this dream had no other cause than what i have said. when the door was locked after the mid-day meal, the woman said of herself (for i asked no further respecting the prisoners), 'there is no one imprisoned there; shame on peder for his nonsense!' i asked him who was imprisoned there, and he laughed at me heartily. 'there is no one there, so let your mind be at peace.' i said, 'if my misfortunes were to involve others, it would be very painful to me.' thus matters went on till the middle of september, and then two of our servants were brought as prisoners and placed in arrest; one nils kaiberg, who had acted as butler, and the other frans, who had been in our service as a lacquey. after having been kept in prison for a few weeks and examined they were set at liberty. at the same time two frenchmen were brought as prisoners: an old man named la rosche, and a young man whose name i do not know. la rosche was brought to the tower and was placed in the witch-cell; a feather-bed had been thrown down, and on this he lay; for some months he was never out of his clothes. his food consisted of bread and wine; he refused everything else. he was accused of having corresponded with corfitz, and of having promised the king of france that he would deliver crooneborg into his hands.[ ] this information had been given by hannibal sehested, who was at that time in france, and he had it from a courtesan who was then intimate with hannibal, but had formerly been in connection with la rosche, and probably afterwards had quarrelled with him. there was no other proof in favour of the accusation. probably suspicion had been raised by the fact that this la rosche, with the other young man, had desired to see me when i was in arrest in dover, which had been permitted, and they had paid me their respects. it is possible that he had wished to speak with me and to tell me what he had heard in london, and which, it seemed to him, excited no fears in me. but as i was playing at cards with some ladies who had come to look at me, he could not speak with me; so he asked me whether i had the book of plays which the countess of pembroke had published.[e ] i replied, 'no'. he promised to send it me, and as i did not receive it, i think he had written in it some warning to me, which braten afterwards turned to his advantage. [ ] did not this accord well with the statement that my lord had offered the kingdom of denmark to two potentates? [marginal note.] [e ] the book in question is probably philip sidney's work, 'the countess of pembroke's arcadia,' a famous book of its time, which leonora, who does not seem to have known it, has understood to be a book by the countess of pembroke. it is true, however, that philip's sister, mary sidney, countess of pembroke, had translated a french play, antonius ( , and again ). however all this may be, la rosche suffered innocently, and could prove upon oath that he had never spoken with my lord in his life, and still less had corresponded with him.[ ] in short, after some months of innocent suffering, he was set at liberty and sent back to france. the other young man was confined in an apartment near the servants' hall. he had only been apprehended as a companion to the other, but no further accusation was brought against him.[e ] at first, when these men were imprisoned, there was a whispering and talking between the prison governor and the woman, and also between peder and her; the prison governor moreover himself locked my door. i plainly perceived that there was something in the wind, but i made no enquiries. peder at length informed the woman that they were two frenchmen, and he said something about the affair, but not as it really was. shortly before they were set at liberty the prison governor said, 'i have two parle mi franço in prison; what they have done i know not.' i made no further enquiries, but he jested and said, 'now i can learn french.' 'that will take time,' said i. [ ] in the margin is noted: 'i had never seen la rosche nor his companion till i did so at dover.' [e ] la roche tudesquin had some time been in the danish army, but had returned to france when hannibal sehested, while in paris as ambassador from the king of denmark, received information from a certain demoiselle langlois that la roche was implicated in a conspiracy for surrendering the principal danish fortresses to a foreign prince. he and a friend of his, jaques beranger, were arrested in brussels in september , but not, as leonora says, immediately brought to copenhagen. the spanish government did not consent to their extradition till the following year, and they were not placed in the blue tower till june . la roche seems to have been guilty of peculation while in the danish service, but the accusation of treason seems to have been unfounded. in the same month of september died count rantzow. he did not live to see the execution of an effigy, which he so confidently had hoped for, being himself the one who first had introduced this kind of mockery in these countries.[e ] [e ] in the ms. a pen is drawn through this paragraph, of which the contents were to form part of the preface. the date of count rantzow is moreover not correctly given; he died on november , five days before the execution of ulfeldt's effigy. on october our princess anna sophia was betrothed to the electoral prince of saxony. on the morning of the day on which the festivities were to take place i said to the woman, 'to-day we shall fast till evening.' for i thought they would not think of me, and that i should not receive any of the remains until the others had been treated, at any rate, to dinner. she wished to know the reason why we were to fast. i answered, 'you shall know it this evening.' i lay and thought of the change of fortune: that i, who twenty-eight years ago had enjoyed as great state as the princess, should now be lying a captive, close by the very wall where my bridal chamber had been; thank god, that it afflicted me but little. towards noonday, when the trumpets and kettledrums were sounding, i said, 'now they are conducting the bride across the square to the great hall.' 'how do you know that?' said the woman. 'i know it,' i said; 'my spirit tells me so.' 'what sort of spirit is that?' she asked. 'that i cannot tell you,' i replied. and as the trumpets blew every time that a new course of dishes and sweets were produced, i mentioned it; and before they were served the kettledrums were sounded. and as they were served on the square in front of the kitchen, i said each time, 'we shall have no dinner yet.' when it was nearly three o'clock, the woman said, 'my stomach is quite shrunk up; when shall we have dinner?' i answered, 'not for a long time yet; the second course is only now on the table; we shall have something at about seven o'clock, and not before.' it was as i said. about half-past seven the prison governor came and excused himself, saying that he had asked for the dinner, but that all hands in the kitchen were occupied. the woman, who had always entertained the idea that i was a witch, was now confirmed in her opinion.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'the prison governor told the woman about the magnificence of the festivity and peder also told her of it, so that it seemed to her that i could know somewhat from customs of former times.' on the following day knights were dubbed, and each time when the trumpets blew i did not only say, 'now they have made a knight' (for i could hear the herald calling from the window, though i could not understand what he said), but even who had been made a knight; for this i guessed, knowing who were in the council who were not knights before; and because it was as i said, the woman believed for certain that i was an enchantress. i perceived this, as she put questions to me concerning things which i could not know, and to which i often gave equivocal answers. i thought perhaps that the fear she had that i could know what would happen might hinder her from entangling me with lies. since then she whispered much less with the prison governor. she told of a person whom she regarded as a witch, whose power, however, consisted in nothing else than in the science of curing french pox, and causing the miscarriage of bad women, and other improprieties. she had had much intercourse with this woman. some time after the departure of the electoral prince it was determined that a wooden effigy should be subjected to capital punishment, and on the forenoon my chamber was opened, swept, cleaned, and strewed with sand.[ ] when it was opened, towards noon, and the woman had been on the stairs, talking with the coachman, she came in, and walking up to my bed, stood as if startled, and said hurriedly, 'oh, jesus! lady, they are bringing your husband!' the news terrified me, which she observed; for as she uttered it, i raised myself in the bed and stretched out my right arm, and was not able to draw it back again at once. perhaps this vexed her, for i remained sitting in this way and not speaking a word; so she said, 'my dearest lady, it is your husband's effigy.' to this i said, 'may god punish you!' she then gave full vent to her evil tongue, and expressed her opinion that i deserved punishment, and not she, and used many unprofitable words. i was quite silent, for i was very weak, and scarcely knew where i was. in the afternoon i heard a great murmuring of people in the inner palace square, and i saw the effigy brought across the street by the executioner on a wheelbarrow, and placed in the tower below my prison. [ ] the queen wished that this wooden statue should be brought into my outer chamber, and so placed in front of the door that it would tumble into me when my inner door was opened; but the king would not permit it. [addition in the margin.] the next morning, at about nine o'clock, the effigy was wofully treated by the executioner, but no sound came from it. at the mid-day meal the prison governor told the woman how the executioner had cut off its head, and had divided the body into four quarters, which were then placed on four wheels, and attached to the gallows, while the head was exhibited on the town hall. the prison governor stood in the outer chamber, but he narrated all this in a loud tone, so that i might hear it, and repeated it three times.[e ] i lay and thought what i should do; i could not show that i made but little of it, for then something else perhaps would be devised to trouble me, and in the hurry i could think of nothing else than saying to the woman with sadness, 'oh, what a shame! speak to the prison governor and tell him to beg the king to allow the effigy to be taken down and not to remain as it is!' the woman went out, and spoke softly with the prison governor; but he answered aloud and said, 'yes, indeed, taken down! there will be more put up; yes, more up;' and kept on repeating these words a good while. [e ] the execution took place on november . the king's order concerning it to the prison governor, jochum waltpurger, exists still. it is to this effect: 'v. g. t., know that you have to command the executioner in our name, that to-day, november , he is to take the effigy of corfitz, formerly called count of ulfeldt, from the blue tower where it is now, and bring it on a car to the ordinary place in the square in front of the castle; and when he has come to the place of justice, strike off the right hand and the head, whereafter he is to divide the body into four parts on the spot, and carry them away with him, whilst the head is to be placed on a spike on the blue tower for remembrance and execration.' the order was afterwards altered in this particular, that the head was to be placed on the town hall, and the four parts of the body one at each of the gates of the city. the executioner was subsequently ordered to efface the arms of corfitz and his wife wherever they occurred in the town; for instance, on their pews in the churches. leonora states in her autobiography that the prison governor some time after told her that the queen had desired that the effigy should be placed in the antechamber of leonora's prison, and that she should be ordered to see it there; but that the king refused his consent. i lay silently thinking; i said nothing, but indulged in my own reflections. sometimes i consoled myself, and hoped that this treatment of the effigy was a token that they could not get the man; then again fear asserted its sway. i did not care for the dishonour, for there are too many instances of great men in france whose effigies have been burnt by the executioner, and who subsequently arrived again at great honour. when the door was unlocked again for the evening meal, there was a whispering between the prison governor and the woman. a lacquey was also sent, who stood outside the outer door and called the prison governor to him (my bed stands just opposite the doors, and thus when all three doors are opened i can see the staircase door, which is the fourth). i do not know what the woman can have told the prison governor, for i had not spoken all day, except to ask her to give me what i required; i said, moreover, nothing more than this for several days, so that the prison governor grew weary of enquiring longer of the woman; for she had nothing to communicate to him respecting me, and she tormented him always with her desire to get away; she could not longer spend her life in this way. but as she received no other consolation from him than that he swore to her that she would never get away as long as she lived, for some days she did nothing else than weep; and since i would not ask her why she wept, she came one day up to my bedside crying, and said, 'i am a miserable being!' i asked her why? what ailed her? 'i ail enough,' she answered; 'i have been so stupid, and have allowed myself to be shut up here for the sake of money, and now you are cross with me and will not speak with me.' i said, 'what am i to say? you wish perhaps to have something to communicate to the prison governor?' upon this she began to call down curses on herself if she had ever repeated to the prison governor a word that i had said or done; she wished i could believe her and speak with her; why should she be untrue to me? we must at any rate remain together as long as we lived. she added many implorations as to my not being angry; i had indeed cause to be so; she would in future give me no cause for anger, for she would be true to me. i thought, 'you shall know no more than is necessary.' i let her go on talking and relating the whole history of her life--such events as occur among peasants. she had twice married cottagers, and after her last widowhood she had been employed as nurse to the wife of holger wind, so that she had no lack of stories. by her first husband she had had a child, who had never reached maturity, and her own words led me to have a suspicion that she had herself helped to shorten the child's days; for once when she was speaking of widows marrying again, she said among other things, 'those who wish to marry a second time ought not to have children, for in that case the husband is never one with the wife.' i had much to say against this, and i asked her what a woman was to do who had a child by her first husband. she answered quickly, 'put a pillow on its head.' this i could only regard as a great sin, and i explained it to her. 'what sin could there be,' she said, 'when the child was always sickly, and the husband angry in consequence?' i answered as i ought, and she seemed ill at ease. such conversation as this gave me no good reason to believe in the fidelity which she had promised me. the woman then took a different tack, and brought me word from the coachman of all that was occurring. maren blocks sent me a prayer-book through her, and that secretly, for i was allowed no book of any kind, nor any needles and pins; respecting these the woman had by the queen's order taken an oath to the prison governor. thus the year passed away. on new year's day, , the woman wished me a happy year. i thanked her, and said, 'that is in god's hands.' 'yes,' she said, 'if he wills it.' 'and if he does not will it,' i answered, 'it will not be, and then he will give me patience to bear my heavy cross.' 'it is heavy,' she said, 'even to me; what must it not be to you? may it only remain as it is, and not be worse with you!' it seemed to me as if it could not be worse, but better; for death, in whatever form, would put an end to my misery. 'yes,' she said, 'is it not all one how one dies?' 'that is true,' i answered; 'one dies in despair, another with free courage.' the prison governor did not say a word to me that day. the woman had a long talk with the coachman; she no doubt related to him our conversation. in the month of march the prison governor came in and assumed a particularly gentle manner, and said, among other things, 'now you are a widow; now you can tell the state of all affairs.' i answered him with a question, 'can widows tell the state of all affairs?' he laughed and said, 'i do not mean that; i mean this treason!' i answered, 'you can ask others about it who know of it; i know of no treason.' and as it seemed to him that i did not believe that my husband was dead,[e ] he took out a newspaper and let me read it, perhaps chiefly because my husband was badly treated in it. i did not say much about it--nothing more than, 'writers of newspapers do not always speak the truth.' this he might take as he liked. [e ] the date of ulfeldt's death is variously given as the th or the th of february, . the latter date is given in a letter from his son christian to sperling, and elsewhere, (for instance, in a short latin biography of ulfeldt called 'machinationes cornificii ulefeldii,' published soon after); but the better evidence points to the earlier date. christian ulfeldt was not, it seems, at basle at the time, and may have made a mistake as to the date, though he indicates the right day of the week (a saturday), or he may have had reason for purposely making a misleading statement. in copenhagen the report of his death was long suspected to be a mere trick. i lay there silently hoping that it might be so, that my husband had by death escaped his enemies; and i thought with the greatest astonishment that i should have lived to see the day when i should wish my lord dead; then sorrowful thoughts took possession of me, and i did not care to talk. the woman imagined that i was sad because my lord was dead, and she comforted me, and that in a reasonable manner; but the remembrance of past times was only strengthened by her consolatory remarks, and for a long time my mind could not again regain repose. your condition, my dearest children, troubled me. you had lost your father, and with him property and counsel. i am captive and miserable, and cannot help you, either with counsel or deed; you are fugitives and in a foreign land. for my three eldest sons i am less anxious than for my daughters and my youngest son.[e ] i sat up whole nights in my bed, for i could not sleep, and when i have headache i cannot lay my head on the pillow. from my heart i prayed to god for a gracious deliverance. it has not pleased god to grant this, but he gave me patience to bear my heavy cross. [e ] ulfeldt and leonora had twelve children in all, of which seven were alive when corfitz died; and it so happened as, explained before, that the youngest, leo, was the only one who continued the name. it is from him that count waldstein, the owner of the ms., is descended. my cross was so much heavier to me at first, as it was strictly forbidden to give me either knife, scissors, thread, or anything that might have beguiled the time to me. afterwards, when my mind became a little calmer, i began to think of something wherewith to occupy myself; and as i had a needle, as i have before mentioned, i took off the ribands of my night-dress, which were broad flesh-coloured taffeta. with the silk i embroidered the piece of cloth that i had with different flowers worked in small stitches. when this was finished, i drew threads out of my sheet, twisted them, and sewed with them. when this was nearly done, the woman said one day, 'what will you do now when this is finished?' i answered, 'oh, i shall get something to do; if it is brought to me by the ravens, i shall have it.' then she asked me if i could do anything with a broken wooden spoon. i answered, 'perhaps you know of one?' after having laughed a while, she drew one forth, the bowl of which was half broken off. 'i could indeed make something with that,' i said, 'if i had only a tool for the purpose. could you persuade the prison governor or peder the coachman to lend me a knife?' 'i will beg for one,' she answered, 'but i know well that they will not.' that she said something about it to the prison governor i could perceive from his answer, for he replied aloud, 'she wants no knife; i will cut her food for her. she might easily injure herself with one.'[ ] [ ] in the margin is this note: 'once when i asked the prison governor for some scissors to cut my nails, he answered, and that loudly, "what! what! her nails shall grow like eagles' claws, and her hair like eagles' feathers!" i know well what i thought--if i had only claws and wings!' what she said to the coachman i know not (this i know, that she did not desire me to obtain a knife, for she was afraid of me, as i afterwards discovered). the woman brought the answer from the coachman that he dared not for his life. i said, 'if i can but have a piece of glass, i will see what i can make that is useful with the piece of spoon.' i begged her to look in a corner in the outermost room, where all rubbish was thrown; this she did, and found not only glass, but even a piece of a pewter cover which had belonged to a jug. by means of the glass i formed the spoon handle into a pin with two prongs, on which i made riband, which i still have in use (the silk for this riband i took from the border of my night-dress). i bent the piece of pewter in such a manner that it afterwards served me as an inkstand. it also is still in my keeping. as a mark of fidelity, the woman brought me at the same time a large pin, which was a good tool for beginning the division between the prongs, which i afterwards scraped with glass. she asked me whether i could think of anything to play with, as the time was so long to her. i said, 'coax peder, and he will bring you a little flax for money and a distaff.' 'what!' she answered, 'shall i spin? the devil may spin! for whom should i spin?' i said, 'to beguile the time, i would spin, if i only had what is necessary for it.' 'that you may not have, dear lady,' said she; 'i have done the very utmost for you in giving you what i have done.' 'if you wish something to play with,' said i, 'get some nuts, and we will play with them.' she did so, and we played with them like little children. i took three of the nuts, and made them into dice, placing two kinds of numbers on each, and we played with these also. and that we might know the {circled dot} which i made with the large pin,[ ] i begged her to procure for me a piece of chalk, which she did, and i rubbed chalk into it. these dice were lost, i know not how; my opinion is that the coachman got possession of them, perhaps at the time that he cheated the woman out of the candles and sugar left. for he came to her one day at noon quite out of breath, and said she was to give him the candles and the sugar which he had brought her from maren blocks, and whatever there was that was not to be seen, as our quarters were to be searched. she ran out with the things under her apron, and never said anything to me about it until the door was locked. i concealed on myself, as well as i was able, my pin, my silk, and the pieces of sewing with the needle and pin. nothing came of the search, and it was only a _ruse_ of the coachman, in order to get the candles that were left, for which she often afterwards abused him, and also for the sugar. [ ] i removed my nails with the needle, scratching them till they came away. i let the nail of the little finger of my right hand grow, in order to see how long it would become; but i knocked it off unawares, and i still have it. [marginal note.] i was always at work, so long as i had silk from my night-dress and stockings, and i netted on the large pin, so that it might last a long time. i have still some of the work in my possession, as well as the bobbins, which i made out of wooden pegs. by means of bags filled with sand i made cords which i formed into a bandage (which is worn out), for i was not allowed a corset, often as i begged for one; the reason why is unknown to me. i often beguiled the time with the piece of chalk, painting with it on a piece of board and on the table, wiping it away again, and making rhymes and composing hymns. the first of these, however, i composed before i had the chalk. i never sang it, but repeated it to myself. a morning hymn, to the tune, 'ieg wil din priiss ud synge'[e ]:-- [e ] this hymn-tune is still in use in the danish church. i god's praise i will be singing in every waking hour. my grateful tribute bringing to magnify his power; and his almighty love, his angel watchers sending, my couch with mercy tending, and watching from above. ii in salt drops streaming ever the tears flowed from my eyes; i often thought i never should see the morning rise. yet has the lord instilled sleep in his own good pleasure; and sleep in gracious measure has his command fulfilled. iii oh christ! lord of the living, thine armour place on me, which manly vigour giving, right valiant shall i be, 'gainst satan, death, and sin. and every carnal feeling, that nought may come concealing thy sway my heart within. iv help me! thy arms extending; my cross is hard and sore: support its heaviest ending, or i can bear no more. too much am i oppressed! my trust is almost waning with pain and vain complaining! thine arrows pierce my breast. v in mercy soothe the sorrow that weighs the fatherless; vouchsafe a happier morrow, and all my children bless! strength to their father yield, in their hard fate respect them, from enemies protect them; my strength, be thou their shield. vi i am but dust and ashes, yet one request i crave: let me not go at unawares into the silent grave. with a clear mind and breast my course in this world closing, let me, on thee reposing, pass to thy land of rest. i composed the following hymn in german and often sang it, as they did not understand german; a hymn, somewhat to the air of 'was ist doch auff dieser welt, das nicht fehlt?' &c.:-- i reason speaketh to my soul: fret not soul, thou hast a better goal! it is not for thee restricted that with thee past should be all the wrongs inflicted. ii why then shouldst thou thus fret thee, anxiously, ever sighing, mournfully? thou canst not another sorrow change with this, for that is which shall be on the morrow. iii loss of every earthly gain bringeth pain; fresh courage seek to obtain! much was still superfluous ceded, nature's call after all makes but little needed. iv is the body captive here? do not fear: thou must not hold all too dear; thou art free--a captive solely; can no tower have the power thee to fetter wholly? v all the same is it at last when thou hast the long path of striving past, and thou must thy life surrender; death comes round, whether found on couch hard or tender. vi courage then, my soul, arise! heave no sighs that nought yet thy rest supplies! god will not leave thee in sorrow: well he knows when he chose help for thee to borrow. thus i peacefully beguiled the time, until doctor otto sperling[e ] was brought to the tower; his prison is below the 'dark church.' his fate is pitiable. when he was brought to the tower his feet and hands were chained in irons. the prison governor, who had formerly not been friendly with him, rejoiced heartily at the doctor's misfortune, and that he had fallen into his hands, so that the whole evening he did nothing but sing and hum. he said to the woman, 'my karen, will you dance? i will sing.' he left the doctor to pass the night in his irons. we could hear that a prisoner had been brought in from the murmuring, and the concourse of people, as well as from the locking of the prison, which was below mine (where iron bolts were placed against the door).[ ] the joy exhibited by the prison governor excited my fear, also that he not only himself opened and shut my door, but that he prevented the woman from going out on the stairs, by leaning against the outermost door of my prison. the coachman stood behind the prison governor making signs; but as the prison governor turned from side to side, i could not rightly see him. [e ] dr. otto sperling, the elder, is often alluded to in the autobiography of leonora as 'notre vieillard;' he was a faithful friend of ulfeldt, and in he settled in hamburg, where he educated corfitz's youngest son leo. he was implicated in ulfeldt's intrigues, and a compromising correspondence between them fell into the hands of the spanish government, which placed it at the disposal of hannibal sehested when he passed through the netherlands on his way home from his mission to france in . in order to obtain possession of sperling's person, the danish authorities used the ruse of sending a danish officer to his house in hamburg, and request him to visit professionally a sick person just across the danish frontier, paying in advance a considerable fee. sperling, who did not suspect the transaction, was arrested immediately on crossing the boundary, and brought to copenhagen. he was condemned to death july , ; but the sentence was commuted, and he died in the blue tower december , . otto sperling, jun., to whom leonora sent the ms. of her autobiography, and who often visited her at maribo, was his son. [ ] the prison cell is outside that in which the doctor is immured. it is quite dark where he is. [note in the margin.] on the following day, at about eight o'clock, i heard the iron bolts drawn and the door below opened; i could also hear that the inner prison was opened (the doctor was then taken out for examination). the woman said, 'there is certainly a prisoner there; who can it be?' i said: 'it seems indeed that a prisoner has been brought in, for the prison governor is so merry. you will find it out from peder; if not to-day, another time. i pity the poor man, whoever he may be.' (god knows my heart was not as courageous as i appeared.) when my door was opened at noon (which was after twelve o'clock, for they did not open my door till the doctor had been conveyed to his cell again), the prison governor was still merrier than usual, and danced about and sang, 'cheer up! courage! it will come to pass!' when he had cut up the dinner, he leaned against the outer door of my prison and prevented the woman from going out, saying to me, 'i am to salute you from the major-general von alfeldt; he says all will now soon be well, and you may console yourself. yes, yes, all will now soon be well!' i behaved as if i received his words in their apparent meaning, and i begged him to thank the major-general for his consolation; and then he repeated the same words, and added, 'yes, indeed! he said so.' i replied with a question: 'what may it arise from that the major-general endeavours to cheer me? may god cheer him in return! i never knew him before.' to this the prison governor made no answer at all. while the prison governor was talking with me, the coachman was standing behind him, and showed by gestures how the prisoner had been bound hand and foot, that he had a beard and a calotte on his head, and a handkerchief round his neck. this could not make me wiser than i was, but it could indeed grieve me still more. at the evening meal the woman was again prevented speaking with the coachman, and the coachman again made the same signs, for the prison governor was standing in his usual place; but he said nothing, nor did i.[ ] on the following morning the doctor was again brought up for examination, and the prison governor behaved as before. as he stood there ruminating, i asked him who the prisoner below was. he answered that there was no one below. i let the matter rest for the time, and as we proceeded to speak of other things, the woman slipped out to peder, who told her quickly who it was. some days went by in the same manner. when sentence had been pronounced on the doctor, and his execution was being postponed,[ ] and i said nothing to the prison governor but when he accosted me, he came in and said: 'i see that you can judge that there is a prisoner below. it is true, but i am forbidden to tell you who it is!' i answered: 'then i do not desire to know.' he began to feel some compassion, and said: 'don't fret, my dear lady; it is not your husband, nor your son, nor daughter, nor brother-in-law, nor any relative; it is a bird which ought to sing,[ ] and will not, but he must, he must!' i said: 'i ought to be able to guess from your words who it is. if the bird can sing what can ring in their ears, he will probably do so; but he cannot sing a melody which he does not know!' upon this he was silent, and turned away and went out. [ ] in the margin is added: 'when the prison governor was singing to himself on those first days, he said, "you must sing, my bird; where is your velvet robe?" laughing at the same time most heartily. i inferred from that song who it was.' [ ] in the margin is added: 'in order to grieve the doctor and to frighten him, the prison governor unlocked his cell early on the morning after sentence had been passed, and behaved as if the priest were coming to him.' [ ] that is, give information. by degrees all became quiet with regard to the doctor, and no more was said about the matter, and the prison governor came in from time to time when the door was opened, and often made himself merry with the woman, desiring her to make a curtsey to him, and showing her how she should place her feet and carry her body, after the fashion of a dancing-master. he related also different things that had occurred in former times, some of them evidently intended to sadden me with the recollection of my former prosperity: all that had happened at my wedding, how the deceased king had loved me. he gave long accounts of this, not forgetting how i was dressed, and all this he said for the benefit of no one else but myself, for the woman meanwhile stood on the stairs talking with the tower warder, the coachman, and the prisoner christian. maren blocks, who constantly from time to time sent me messages and kept me informed of what was going on, also intimated to me that she was of opinion that i could practise magic, for she wrote me a slip of paper[ ] with the request that i should sow dissension between the lady carisse and an alfelt, explaining at length that alfelt was not worthy of her, but that skinckel was a brave fellow (carisse afterwards married skinckel). as the letter was open, the coachman knew its contents, and the woman also. i was angry at it, but i said nothing. the woman could easily perceive that i was displeased at it, and she said, 'lady, i know well what maren wishes.' i replied, 'can you help her in it?' 'no,' she declared, and laughed heartily. i asked what there was to laugh at. 'i am laughing,' said she, 'because i am thinking of the clever cathrine, of whom i have spoken before, who once gave advice to some one desiring to sow discord between good friends.' i enquired what advice she had given. she said that they must collect some hairs in a place where two cats had been fighting, and throw these between the two men whom it was desired to set at variance. i enquired whether the trick succeeded. she replied, 'it was not properly tried.' 'perhaps,' i said, 'the cats were not both black?' 'ho, ho!' said she, 'i see that you know how it should be done.' 'i have heard more than that,' i replied; 'show her the trick, and you will get some more sugar-candy, but do not let yourself be again cheated of it by peder as you were lately. seriously, however, peder must beg maren blocks to spare me such requests!' that she as well as maren believed that i could practise magic was evident in many ways. my own remarks often gave cause for this. i remembered how my deceased lord used to say (when in his younger days he wished to make anyone imagine that he understood the black art), that people feared those of whom they had this opinion, and never ventured to do them harm. it happened one day at the mid-day meal, when the prison governor was sitting talking with me, that the woman carried on a long conversation on the stairs with the others respecting the witches who had been seized in jutland, and that the supreme judge in jutland at that time sided with the witches and said they were not witches.[e ] when the door was locked we had much talk about witches, and she said, 'this judge is of your opinion, that it is a science and not magic.' i said, as i had before said, that some had more knowledge than others, and that some used their knowledge to do evil; although it might happen naturally and not with the devil's art, still it was not permitted in god's word to use nature for evil purposes; it was also not fair to give the devil the honour which did not belong to him. we talked on till she grew angry, laid down and slept a little, and thus the anger passed away. [ ] in the margin is added: 'peder had some time before thrown into me eight ducats in a paper, saying, as he closed the door, "your maid!" and as the woman knew it, i gave her one of them and peder one. i know not whether my maid had given him more; she had many more concealed on her person.' [e ] the name of this judge was villum lange, and it is a curious coincidence that a letter from him of a somewhat later time ( ), has been found in one of the archives, in which he speaks of this very affair, and in which he expresses himself very much in the sense here indicated. some days after she said: 'your maid is sitting below in the prison governor's room, and asks with much solicitude after you and what you are doing. i have told peder of what you have sewed, and of the ribbons you have made, but he has promised solemnly not to mention it to anyone except to maren, lars' daughter; she would like so much to be here with you.' i replied: 'it would be no good for her to sit with me in prison; it would only destroy her own happiness; for who knows how long i may live?' i related of this same waiting-maid that she had been in my employ since she was eight years old, all that i had had her taught, and how virtuous she was. to this she replied, 'the girl will like to see what you have sewed; you shall have it again directly.' i handed it to her, and the first time the doors were unlocked she gave it to the prison governor, who carried it to the queen. (two years afterwards the prison governor told me this himself, and that when the king had said, 'she might have something given her to do,' the queen had answered, 'that is not necessary. it is good enough for her! she has not wished for anything better.') i often enquired for the piece of sewing, but was answered that peder was not able to get it back from the girl. late in the autumn the prison governor began to sicken: he was ill and could not do much, so he let the coachman frequently come alone to lock and unlock both the doctor's door below and mine. the iron bars were no longer placed before the outermost prison below, but four doors were locked upon me. one day, when peder was locking up, he threw me a skein of silk,[ ] saying, 'make me some braces for my breeches out of it.' i appeared not to have heard, and asked the woman what it was that he had said. she repeated the same words. i behaved as if i did not believe it, and laughed, saying, 'if i make the braces for him, he will next wish that you should fasten them to his breeches.' a good deal of absurd chatter followed. as meal-time was approaching, i said to the woman, 'give peder back his silk, and say that i have never before made a pair of braces; i do not know how they are made.' (such things i had to endure with smiles.) [ ] in the margin is added: 'as my linen was washed in the servants' hall, it once happened that a maid there must unawares have forgotten a whole skein of thread in a clean chemise, at which i said to the woman: "you see how the ravens bring me thread!" she was angry and abused me; i laughed, and answered her jestingly.' at the time that our former palace here in the city (which we had ceded by a deed when we were imprisoned at borringholm) was pulled down, and a pillar (or whatever it is) was raised to my lord's shame, the prison governor came in when he unlocked at noon, and seated himself on my bed (i was somewhat indisposed at the time), and began to talk of former times (i knew already that they were pulling down the palace), enumerating everything the loss of which he thought might sadden me, even to my coach and the horses. 'but,' he said, 'all this is nothing compared with the beautiful palace!' (and he praised it to the utmost); 'it is now down, and not one stone is left on another. is not that a pity, my dear lady?' i replied: 'the king can do what he will with his own; the palace has not been ours for some time.' he continued bewailing the beautiful house and the garden buildings which belonged to it. i asked him what had become of solomon's temple? not a stone of that beautiful building was now to be found; not even could the place be pointed out where the temple and costly royal palace had once stood. he made no answer, hung his head, and pondered a little, and went out. i do not doubt he has reported what i said. since that day he began to behave himself more and more courteously, saying even that his majesty had ordered him to ask me whether i wished for anything from the kitchen, the cellar, or the confectioner, as it should be given me; that he had also been ordered to bring me twice a week confectionery and powdered sugar, which was done.[ ] i begged the prison governor to thank the king's majesty for the favour shown me, and praised, as was proper, the king's goodness most humbly. the prison governor would have liked to praise the queen had he only been able to find cause for so doing; he said, 'the queen is also a dear queen!' i made no answer to this. he came also some time afterwards with an order from the king that i should ask for any clothes and linen i required: this was written down, and i received it later, except a corset, and that the queen would not allow me. i never could learn the cause of this. the queen also was not well pleased that i obtained a bottle-case with six small bottles, in which was sprinkling-water, headwater, and a cordial. all this, she said, i could well do without; but when she saw that in the lid there was an engraving representing the daughter of herod with the head of st. john on a charger, she laughed and said, 'that will be a cordial to her!' this engraving set me thinking that herodias had still sisters on earth. [ ] in the margin is added: 'i wrote different things from the bible on the paper in which the sugar was given me. my ink-bottle was made of the piece of pewter lid which the woman had found, the ink was made from the smoke of the candle collected on a spoon, and the pen from a fowl's feather cut by the piece of glass. i have this still in my possession.' the prison governor continued his politeness, and lent me at my desire a german bible, saying at the same time, 'this i do out of kindness, i have no order to do so; the queen does not know it.' 'i believe that,' i replied, and thanked him; but i am of opinion that the king knew it well. some days afterwards maren blocks sent for her prayer-book back again. i had taught the woman a morning and evening prayer by heart, and all the morning and evening hymns, which she repeated to me night and morning. i offered to teach her to read if she would procure an a b c. she laughed at this jeeringly, and said, 'people would think me crazed if i were to learn to read now.' i tried to persuade her by argument, in order that i might thus get something to beguile the time with; but far from it; she knew as much as she needed. i sought everywhere for something to divert my thoughts, and as i perceived that the potter, when he had placed the stove, had left a piece of clay lying outside in the other room, i begged the woman to give it to me. the prison governor saw that she had taken it, but did not ask the reason. i mixed the clay with beer, and made various things, which i frequently altered again into something else; among other things i made the portraits of the prison governor and the woman, and small jugs and vases. and as it occurred to me to try whether i were able to make anything on which i could place a few words to the king, so that the prison governor should not observe it (for i knew well that the woman did not always keep silence; she would probably some time say what i did), i moulded a goblet over the half of the glass in which wine was brought to me, made it round underneath, placed it on three knobs, and wrote the king's name on the side--underneath the bottom these words ... il y a un ... un auguste.[e ] [e ] the words 'under the bottom ... to ... auguste,' inclusive, have been struck out in the ms., and it has been impossible to read more than what here is rendered. in the autobiography, where the same occurrence is related, leonora says that she put on it the names both of the king and of the queen; that on the bottom she wrote to the queen, and that it was the queen who discovered the inscription; from which it would appear that the queen at all events was included in her ingeniously contrived supplique. i kept it for a long time, not knowing in what way i could manage to get it reported what i was doing, since the woman had solemnly sworn to me not to mention it: so i said one day: 'does the prison governor ask you what i am doing?' 'yes, indeed he does,' she replied, 'but i say that you are doing nothing but reading the bible.' i said: 'you may ingratiate yourself in his favour and say that i am making portraits in clay; there is no reason that he should not know that.' she did so, and three days after he came to me, and was quite gentle, and asked how i passed my time. i answered, 'in reading the bible.' he expressed his opinion that i must weary of this. i said i liked at intervals to have something else to do, but that this was not allowed me. he enquired what i had wanted the clay for, which the woman had brought in to me; he had seen it when she had brought it in. i said, 'i have made some small trifles.' he requested to see them. so i showed him first the woman's portrait; that pleased him much, as it resembled her; then a small jug, and last of all the goblet. he said at once: 'i will take all this with me and let the king see it; you will perhaps thus obtain permission to have somewhat provided you for pastime,'[ ] i was well satisfied. this took place at the mid-day meal. at supper he did not come in. the next day he said to me: 'well, my dear lady, you have nearly brought me into trouble!' 'how so?' i asked. 'i took the king a petition from you! the queen did not catch sight of it, but the king saw it directly and said, "so you are now bringing me petitions from leonora?" i shrank back with terror, and said, "gracious king! i have brought nothing in writing!" "see here!" exclaimed the king, and he pointed out to me some french writing at the bottom of the goblet. the queen asked why i had brought anything written that i did not understand. i asserted that i had paid no attention to it, and begged for pardon. the good king defended me, and the _invention_ did not please him ill. yes, yes, my dear lady! be assured that the king is a gracious sovereign to you, and if he were certain that your husband were dead, you would not remain here!' i was of opinion that my enemies well knew that my husband was dead. i felt that i must therefore peacefully resign myself to the will of god and the king. [ ] in the margin is added: 'the prison governor told me afterwards that the clay things were placed in the king's art-cabinet, besides a rib of mutton, which i used as a knife, which he also gave to the king; hoping (he said) in this way to obtain a knife for me.' i received nothing which might have beguiled the time to me, except that which i procured secretly, and the prison governor has since then never enquired what i was doing, though he came in every evening and sat for some time talking with me; he was weak, and it was a labour to him to mount so many steps. thus we got through the year together. the prison governor gradually began to feel pity for me, and gave me a book which is very pretty, entitled 'wunderwerck.'[e ] it is a folio, rather old, and here and there torn; but i was well pleased with the gift. and as he sat long of an evening with me, frequently till nine o'clock, talking with me, the malicious woman was irritated.[ ] she said to peder, 'if i were in the prison governor's place, i would not trust her in the way he does. he is weak; what if she were now to run out and take the knife which is lying on the table outside, and were to stab him? she could easily take my life, so i sit in there with my life hanging on a thread.' [e ] this book was doubtless the german translation of conr. lycosthenes' work, 'prodigiorum ac ostentorum chronicon.' it is an amusing illustrated volume, much read in its time. the translation in question appeared in basle, . [ ] in the margin is added: 'the day that the prison governor had taken away the clay things the woman was very angry with me, because i gave him a small jug which i had made; she said it was made in ridicule of her, the old slut with the jug! i ought to have given him the cat which i had also made. i said, "i can still do so."' absurd as the idea was, the knife was not only in consequence hidden under the table, but the prison governor for a long time did not venture to come to me, but sat outside by my outermost door and talked there just as long as before, so that i was no gainer.[ ] (i did not know what the woman had said till three years afterwards, when it was mentioned by the prisoner christian, who had heard the woman's chatter.) [ ] in the margin is added: 'at first when the prison governor's fear was so great, he did not venture to be alone in the outer room. peder and the tower warder were not allowed both to leave him at the same time. i did not know the reason for this.' one day when the prison governor intended to go to the holy communion, he stood outside my outermost door and took off his hat, and begged for my forgiveness; he knew, he said, that he had done much to annoy me, but that he was a servant. i answered, 'i forgive you gladly!' then he went away, and peder closed the door. the woman said something to peder about the prison governor, but i could not understand what. probably she was blaming the prison governor, for she was so angry that she puffed; she could not restrain her anger, but said: 'fye upon the old fool! the devil take him! i ought to beg pardon too? no' (she added with an oath), 'i would not do it for god's bitter death! no! no!' and she spat on the ground. i said afterwards: 'what does it matter to you that the prison governor asks me for my friendship? do you lose anything by it? if you will not live like a christian and according to the ordinances of the church, do not at any rate be angry with one who does. believe assuredly that god will punish you, if you do not repent of what evil you have done and will not be reconciled with your adversaries before you seek to be reconciled with god!' she thought that he had done nothing else than what he was ordered to do. i said, 'you good people know best yourselves what has been ordered you.' she asked, 'do i do anything to you?' i answered, 'i know not what you do. you can tell any amount of untruths about me without my knowing it.' upon this she began a long story, swearing by and asserting her fidelity; she had never lied to anyone nor done anyone a wrong. i said: 'i hear; you are justifying yourself with the pharisee.' she started furiously from her seat and said, 'what! do you abuse me as a pharisee?' 'softly, softly!' i said; 'while only one of us is angry, it is of no consequence; but if i get angry also, something may come of it!' she sat down with an insolent air, and said, 'i should well imagine that you are not good when you are angry! it is said of you that in former days you could bear but little, and that you struck at once. but now'----(with this she was silent). 'what more?' i said. 'do you think i could not do anything to anyone if i chose, just as well as then, if anyone behaved to me in a manner that i could not endure? now much more than then! you need not refuse me a knife because i may perhaps kill you; i could do so with my bare hands. i can strangle the strongest fellow with my bare hands, if i can seize him unawares, and what more could happen to me than is happening? therefore only keep quiet!' she was silent, and assumed no more airs; she was cast down, and did not venture to complain to the prison governor. what she said to the others on the stairs i know not, but when she came in, when the room was locked at night, she had been weeping.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'some time after this dispute i had a quarrel with her about some beer, which she was in the habit of emptying on the floor, saying, "this shall go to the subterraneous folk." i had forbidden her to do so, but she did it again, so i took her by the head and pushed it back with my hand. she was frightened, for this feels just as if one's head was falling off. i said, "that is a foretaste."' on sunday at noon i congratulated[e ] the prison governor and said: 'you are happy! you can reconcile yourself with god, and partake of his body and blood; this is denied to me (i had twice during two years requested spiritual consolation, but had received in answer that i could not sin as i was now in prison; that i did not require religious services). and as i talked upon this somewhat fully with the prison governor, i said that those who withheld from me the lord's supper must take my sins upon themselves; that one sinned as much in thought as in word and deed; so the prison governor promised that he would never desist from desiring that a clergyman should come to me; and asked whom i wished for. i said: 'the king's court preacher, whom i had in the beginning of my troubles.' he said: 'that could scarcely be.' i was satisfied whoever it was. [e ] this custom of congratulating persons who intend to communicate, or just have done so, is still retained by many of the older generation in denmark. a month afterwards i received the holy communion from the german clergyman, m. hieronimus buk, who behaved very properly the first time, but spoke more about the law than the gospel. the prison governor congratulated me, and i thanked him, for he had brought it about. . in this year, on whitsun-eve, the prison governor ordered may-trees to be placed in my inner prison, and also in the anteroom. i broke small twigs from the branches, rubbed off the bark with glass, softened them in water, laid them to press under a board, which was used for carrying away the dirt from the floor, and thus made them flat, then fastened them together and formed them into a weaver's reed. peder the coachman was then persuaded to give me a little coarse thread, which i used for a warp. i took the silk from the new silk stockings which they had given me, and made some broad ribbons of it (the implements and a part of the ribbons are still in my possession.) one of the trees (which was made of the thick end of a branch which peder had cut off) was tied to the stove, and the other i fastened to my own person. the woman held the warp: she was satisfied, and i have no reason to think that she spoke about it, for the prison governor often lamented that i had nothing with which to beguile the time, and he knew well that this had been my delight in former times, &c.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'i made the snuffers serve as scissors. when balcke came to me and brought me at my desire material for drawers, and requested to know the size, i said i could make them myself. he laughed, and said, "who will cut them out?" i replied i could do it myself with the snuffers. he begged to see me do it, and looked on with no little astonishment.' he remained now again a long time with me after meals, for his fear had passed away, or he had, perhaps, forgotten, as his memory began to fail him. he said then many things which he ought not. he declined perceptibly, and was very weak; he would remain afterwards sitting outside, reading aloud, and praying god to spare his life. 'yes,' he would say, 'only a few years!' when he had some alleviation, he talked unceasingly. creeping along the wall to the door, he said, 'i should like to know two things: one is, who will be prison governor after me? the other is, who is to to have my tyrelyre?' (that was tyre, his wife.) i replied: 'that is a knowledge which you cannot obtain now, especially who will woo your wife. you might, perhaps, have already seen both, but at your age you may yet have long to live.' 'oh!' said he, 'god grant it!' and looked up to the window. 'do you think so, my dear lady?' 'yes, i do,' i replied. a few days afterwards, he begged me again to forgive him, if he had done me any wrong since the last time, for he wished to make reconciliation with god before he became weaker, and he wept and protested, saying, 'it indeed grieves me still that i should have often annoyed you, and you comfort me.' on sunday at noon i congratulated him on his spiritual feast. thus he dragged on with great difficulty for about fourteen days, and as i heard that two men were obliged almost to carry him up the stairs, i sent him word that he might remain below on the ground floor of the tower, and that he might rest assured i would go nowhere. he thanked me, crawled up for the last time to my door, and said, 'if i did that and the queen heard of it, my head would answer for it.' i said: 'then confess your weakness and remain in bed. it may be better again; another could meanwhile attend for you.' he took off his cap in recognition of my advice, and bade me farewell. i have never seen him again since then. one day afterwards he crawled up in the tower-chamber, but came no farther. a man of the name of hans balcke was appointed in his place to keep watch over the prisoners. he was very courteous. he was a cabinet-maker by trade; his father, who had also been a cabinet-maker, had worked a good deal for me in the days of my prosperity. this man had travelled for his trade both in italy and germany, and knew a little italian. i found intercourse with him agreeable, and as he dined in the anteroom outside, in the tower, i begged him to dine with me, which he did for fourteen days. one day, when he carved the joint outside, i sent him word requesting him to come in. he excused himself, which appeared strange to me. after he had dined, he said that peder the coachman had jeered at him, and that he had been forbidden to dine with me. when he afterwards remained rather long with me talking, i begged him myself to go, so that this also might not be forbidden. he had on one occasion a large pin stuck in his sleeve, and i begged him for it. he said, 'i may not give it you, but if you take it yourself, i can't help it.' so i took it, and it has often been of use to me. he gave me several books to read, and was in every way courteous and polite. his courtesy was probably the reason why the prisons were not long entrusted to him, for he was also very good to doctor sperling, giving him slices of the meat which came up to me, and other good food. in his childhood he had been a playfellow of the doctor's children. he talked also occasionally a long time with the doctor, both on unlocking and locking his door, which did not please the servants.[ ] the prison governor lay constantly in bed; he endeavoured as often as he could to come up again, but there was little prospect of it. so long as the keys were not taken from him, he was satisfied. [ ] in the margin is added: 'while balcke filled the place of prison governor, he drank my wine at every meal, which had formerly fallen to the tower warder, the coachman, or the prisoner christian, when the old prison governor had not wished for it, so that this also contributed to balcke's dismissal.' my maid maren, lars' daughter, had risen so high in favour at court, that she often sat in the women's apartment, and did various things. one day the woman said to me, 'that is a very faithful maiden whom you have! she speaks before them up there in a manner you would never believe.' i replied: 'i have permitted her to say all she knows. i have no fear of her calumniating me.' 'have you not?' she said ironically. 'why does she throw herself, then, on her bare knees, and curse herself if she should think of returning to you?' i said: 'she wished to remain with me (according to your own statement), but she was not allowed; so she need not curse herself.' 'why then do you think,' said she, 'that she is so much in favour at court?' 'do you mean,' i replied, 'that if anyone is in favour at court, it is because their lips are full of lies? i am assured my maid has calumniated no one, least of all me; i am not afraid.' the woman was angry, and pouted in consequence for some time. some weeks afterwards maren, lars' daughter, was set at liberty, and became waiting-maid to the countess friis: and balcke brought me some linen which she still had belonging to me. the woman was not a little angry at this, especially as i said: 'so faithful i perceive is my maid to me, that she will not keep the linen, which she might easily have done, for i could not know whether it had not been taken from her with the rest.' all my guards were very ill satisfied with balcke, especially the woman, who was angry for several reasons. he slighted her, she said, for he had supplied a basin for the night-stool which was heavier than the former one (which leaked); but she was chiefly angry because he told her that she lived like a heathen, since she never went to the sacrament. for when i once received the holy communion, while balcke was attending to me, he asked her if she would not wish to communicate also, to which she answered, 'i do not know german.' balcke said, 'i will arrange that the clergyman shall come to you whose office it is to administer the lord's supper to the prisoners.' she replied that in this place she could not go with the proper devotion: if she came out, she would go gladly. balcke admonished her severely, as a clergyman might have done. when the door was closed, she gave vent to puffing and blowing, and she always unfastened her jacket when she was angry. i said nothing, but i thought the evil humour must have vent, or she will be choked; and this was the case, for she abused balcke with the strongest language that occurred to her. she used unheard-of curses, which were terrible to listen to: among others, 'god damn him for ever, and then i need not curse him every day.' also, 'may god make him evaporate like the dew before the sun!' i could not endure this cursing, and i said, 'are you cursing this man because he held before you the word of god, and desires that you should be reconciled with god and repent your sins?' 'i do not curse him for that,' she said, 'but on account of the heavy basin which the accursed fellow has given me, and which i have to carry up the steep stairs;[ ] the devil must have moved him to choose it! does he want to make a priest of himself? well, he is probably faultless, the saucy fellow!' and she began again with her curses. [ ] in the margin: 'it is indeed a bad flight of stairs to the place where the basin was emptied.' i reproved her and said: 'if he now knew that you were cursing him in this way, do you not think he would bring it about that you must do penitence? it is now almost two years since you were at the lord's table, and you can have the clergyman and you will not.' this softened her a little, and she said, 'how should he know it, unless you tell him?' i said, 'what passes here and is said here concerns no one but us two; it is not necessary that others should know.' with this all was well; she lay down to sleep, and her anger passed away; but the hate remained. the prison governor continued to lie in great pain, and could neither live nor die. one day at noon, when balcke unlocked (it was just twenty weeks since he had come to me), a man came in with him, very badly dressed, in a grey, torn, greasy coat, with few buttons that could be fastened, with an old hat to which was attached a drooping feather that had once been white but was now not recognisable from dirt. he wore linen stockings and a pair of worn-out shoes fastened with packthread.[ ] balcke went to the table outside and carved the joint; he then went to the door of the outer apartment, stood with his hat in his hand, made a low reverence, and said, 'herewith i take my departure; this man is to be prison governor.' i enquired whether he would not come again to me. he replied, 'no, not after this time.' upon this i thanked him for his courteous attendance, and wished him prosperity.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'gabel had said (i was afterwards informed) that i was frightened at the appearance of the man, and thought it was the executioner. i did not regard him as such, but as a poor cavalier, and i imagined he was to undertake the duties which peder the coachman performed.' [ ] in the margin: 'balcke has waited upon me for twenty weeks, and he was accused of having told me what happened outside. in proof of this it was alleged that he had told me that gabel had been made statholder, to whom i afterwards gave this title in m. buck's hearing. balcke one day could not restrain himself from laughing, for while he was standing and talking with me, the woman and the man were standing on the stairs outside, chuckling and laughing; and he said, "outside there is the chatter market. why does not peder so arrange it that it is forbidden? you can get to know all that goes on in the world without me."' peder the coachman locked the door, and the new prison governor, whose name was johan jäger,[e ] never appeared before me the whole day, nor during the evening. i said to the woman in the morning, 'ask peder who the man is;' which she did, and returned to me with the answer that it was the man who had taken the doctor prisoner; and that now he was to be prison governor, but that he had not yet received the keys. not many days passed before he came with the lord steward to the old prison governor, and the keys were taken from the old man and given to him. the old man lived only to the day after this occurred. in both respects his curiosity was satisfied; he saw the man who was to be prison governor after him (to his grief), and the doctor who attended him obtained his tyrelyre before the year was ended. [e ] it was a colonel hagedorn that entrapped and arrested dr. sperling, and jäger played only a subordinate part in that transaction. he is stated to have been a cousin of gabel, and to have been formerly a commander in the navy. he was appointed prison governor on june , , and balcke therefore doubtless only held the appointment provisionally. the new prison governor jäger[e b] did not salute me for several weeks, and never spoke to me. he rarely locked my doors, but he generally opened them himself. at length one day, when he had got new shoes on, he took his hat off when he had opened the door, and said 'good morning.' i answered him, 'many thanks.' the woman was very pleased while this lasted. she had her free talk with peder the coachman (who still for a couple of months came to the tower as before) and with the prisoner christian, who had great freedom, and obtained more and more freedom in this prison governor's time, especially as rasmus the tower-warder was made gatekeeper, and a man of the name of chresten was appointed in his place. among other idle talk which she repeated to me, she said that this prison governor was forbidden to speak with me. i said, 'i am very glad, as he then can tell no lies about me.' i am of opinion that he did not venture to speak with me so long as peder brought up the food to the tower, and was in waiting there; for when he had procured peder's dismissal on account of stealing, he came in afterwards from time to time. the very first time he was intoxicated. he knew what peder had said of balcke, and he informed me of it.[ ] [e b] it was a colonel hagedorn that entrapped and arrested dr. sperling, and jäger played only a subordinate part in that transaction. he is stated to have been a cousin of gabel, and to have been formerly a commander in the navy. he was appointed prison governor on june , , and balcke therefore doubtless only held the appointment provisionally. [ ] in the margin is added: 'while balcke waited on me, a folding table was brought in for the bread and glasses, and also for the woman's food, which she did not take till the doors had been locked. there was nothing there before but the night-stool to place the dishes on: that was the woman's table.' before i mention anything of the prisoner christian's designs against me, i will in a few words state the crime for which he was in prison. he had been a lacquey in the employ of maans armfelt. with some other lacqueys he had got into a quarrel with a man who had been a father to christian, and who had brought him up from his youth and had taken the utmost care of him. the man was fatally wounded, and called out in the agonies of death: 'god punish thee, christian! what a son you have been! it was your hand that struck me!' the other lacqueys ran away, but christian was seized. his dagger was found bloody. he denied, and said it was not he who had stabbed the man. he was sentenced to death; but as the dead man's widow would not pay for the execution, christian remained for the time in prison, and his master paid for his maintenance. he had been there three years already when i came to the prison, and three times he was removed; first from the witch cell to the dark church; and then here where i am imprisoned.[ ] when i was brought here, he was placed where the doctor is, and when the doctor was brought in, christian was allowed to go freely about the tower. he wound the clock for the tower-warder, locked and unlocked the cells below, and had often even the keys of the tower. [ ] in the margin is added: 'at that time there was a large double window with iron grating, which was walled up when i was brought here; and christian told me afterwards how the maids in the store-room had supplied him with many a can of beer, which he had drawn up by a cord.' i remember once, when rasmus the tower-warder was sitting at dinner with the prison governor in my outermost cell, and the prison governor wished to send peder on a message, he said to rasmus: 'go and open! i want peder to order something. 'father,' said rasmus, 'christian has the key.' 'indeed!' said the prison governor; 'that is pretty work!' and there it rested, for rasmus said, 'i am perfectly sure that christian will not go away.' thus by degrees christian's freedom and power increased after peder the coachman left, and he waited on the prison governor at meals in my outermost room. one day, when the woman had come down from above, where she had been emptying the utensils in my room, and the doors were locked, she said to me: 'this christian who is here has been just speaking with me upstairs. he says he cannot describe the doctor's miserable condition, how severe is his imprisonment, and what bad food he gets, since balcke left. he has no longer any candle except during meal-time, and no light reaches him but through the hole in his door leading into the outer room. he begged me to tell you of it; his eyes were full of tears, such great pity had he for him.' i said: 'that is all that one can do, and it is the duty of a christian to sympathise with the misfortune of one's neighbour. the poor man must have patience as well as i, and we must console ourselves with a good conscience. the harder he suffers the sooner comes the end; he is an old man.' two days afterwards she came again with some talk from christian. the doctor sent me his compliments, and he asked constantly if i was well; she said also, that christian would give him anything i liked to send him. i regarded this as a snare, but i said that christian could take a piece of roast meat when the prison governor was with me, and that he should look about for something into which wine could be poured, and then she could secretly give some from my glass, and beg christian to give my compliments to the doctor. this was accepted, and i had rest for a few days. christian conformed entirely to the woman, caused a dispute between her and the tower-warder, and made it immediately right again; so that there was no lack of chatter. at last she said one day: 'that is an honest fellow, this christian! he has told me how innocently he got into prison and was sentenced. he is afraid that you may think he eats and drinks all that you send to the doctor. he swore with a solemn oath that he would be true to you, if you would write a word to the doctor.[ ] i hope you do not doubt my fidelity!' and she began to swear and to curse herself if she would deceive me. she said, he had taken a no less solemn oath, before she believed him. i said: 'i have nothing to write to him. i do not know what i have to write.' 'oh!' said she, 'write only two words, so that the old man may see that he can trust him! if you wish for ink, christian can give you some.' i replied: 'i have something to write with, if i choose to do so, and i can write without ink and paper.' [ ] in the margin is this note: 'christian had at that time given me some pieces of flint which are so sharp that i can cut fine linen with them by the thread. the pieces are still in my possession, and with this implement i executed various things.' this she could not understand; so i took some pieces of sugared almonds, and made some letters on them with the large pin, placing on four almonds the words: _non ti fidar_! i divided the word _fidar_, and placed half on each almond. i had in this way rest for a day, and somewhat to beguile the time. whether the doctor could not see what was written on the almonds, or whether he wished to test christian's fidelity, i know not, but christian brought the woman a slip of paper from the doctor to me, full of lamentations at our condition, and stating that my daughter anna cathrina, or else cassetta, were the cause of his misfortune. i wished to know more of this, so i wrote to him desiring information (we wrote to each other in italian). he replied that one or the other had left his letter lying somewhere on the table, where it was found and despatched; for that a letter of his was the cause of his misfortune. i wrote back to him that it was not credible, but that he was suspected of having corresponded with my lord, and hence his letters had been seized. the more i tried to impress this upon him the more opinionated he became,[ ] and he wrote afterwards saying that it was a scheme of cassetta's to get him into the net, in order to bring me out of it. when he began to write in this way, i acquired a strange opinion of him, and fancied he was trying to draw something out of me which he could bring forward; and i reflected for some days whether i should answer. at last i answered him in this strain, that no one knew better than he that i was not aware of any treason; that the knowledge as to how his correspondence with my lord had become known was of no use to him; that i had no idea why he was sentenced, and that no sentence had been passed on me. some weeks elapsed before the doctor wrote. at last he communicated to me in a few words the sentence passed upon him, and we corresponded from time to time with each other. [ ] in the margin is added: 'such is his character.' the prison governor became gradually more accessible, came in at every meal-time, and related all sorts of jokes and buffooneries, which he had carried on in his youth: how he had been a drummer, and had made a merry andrew of himself for my brother-in-law count pentz, and how he had enacted a dog for the sake of favour and money, and had crawled under the table, frightening the guests and biting a dog for a ducat's reward. when he had been drinking (which was often the case) he juggled and played punch, sometimes a fortune-teller, and the like. when chresten the tower-warder, and christian the prisoner, heard the prison governor carrying on his jokes, they did the same, and made such a noise with the woman in the antechamber that we could not hear ourselves speak. she sat on christian's lap, and behaved herself in a wanton manner. one day she was not very well, and made herself some warm beer and bread, placing it outside on the stove. the prison governor was sitting with me and talking, chresten and christian were joking with her outside, and christian was to stir the warm beer and bread, and taste if it was hot enough. chresten said to christian, 'drink it up if you are thirsty.' the words were no sooner said than the deed was done, and almost at the same moment the prison governor got up and went away. when the door was locked, the woman seemed to be almost fainting. i thought she was ill, and i was fearful that she might die suddenly, and that the guilt of her death might be laid on me, and i asked quickly, 'are you ill?' she answered, 'i am bad enough,' confirming it with a terrible oath and beginning to unbutton her jacket. then i saw that she was angry, and i knew well that she would give vent to a burst of execrations, which was the case. she cursed and scolded those who had so treated her; a poor sick thing as she was, and she had not had anything to eat or drink all day. i said, 'be quiet, and you shall have some warm beer.' she swore with a solemn oath, asking how it was to be got here? it was summer and there was no fire in the stove, and it was no use calling, as no one could hear. i said, 'if you will be silent, i will cause the pot to boil.' 'yes,' and she swore with another fearful oath, 'i can indeed be silent, and will never speak of it.' so i made her take three pieces of brick, which were lying behind the night-stool, and place on these her pot of beer and bread (everything that she was to do was to be done in silence; she might not answer me with words but only with signs, when i asked her anything). she sat down besides the pot, stirring it with a spoon. i sat always on my bed during the day, and then the table was placed before me. i had a piece of chalk, and i wrote various things on the table, asking from time to time whether the pot boiled. she kept peeping in and shaking her head. when i had asked three times and she turned to me and saw that i was laughing, she behaved herself like a mad woman, throwing the spoon from her hand, turning over the stool, tearing open her jacket, and exclaiming, 'the devil may be jeered at like this!' i said, 'you are not worthy of anything better, as you believe that i can practise magic.' 'oh (and she repeated a solemn oath) had i not believed that you could practise magic, i should never have consented to be locked up with you; do you know that?' i reflected for a moment what answer to give, but i said nothing, smiled, and let her rave on. afterwards she wept and bemoaned her condition. 'now, now,' i said, 'be quiet! i will make the pot boil without witchcraft.' and as we had a tinder-box, i ordered her to strike a light, and to kindle three ends of candles, which she was to place under the pot. this made the pot boil, and she kissed her hand to me and was very merry. once or twice afterwards i gave her leave to warm beer in this way: it could not always be done, for if the wind blew against the window (which was opened with a long pike) the smoke could not pass away. i said, 'remember your oath and do not talk of what takes place here, or the lights will be taken from us; at any rate we shall lose some of them.' she asserted that she would not. i heard nothing of it at the time, but some years afterwards i found that she had said that i had taken up two half-loose stones from the floor (this was afterwards related in another manner by a clergyman, as will be mentioned afterwards). she had also said that i had climbed up and looked at the rope-dancers in the castle square, which was true. for as chresten one day told the woman that rope-dancers would be exhibiting in the inner castle yard, and she informed me of it and enquired what they were, and i explained to her, she lamented that she could not get a sight of them. i said it could easily be done, if she would not talk about it afterwards. she swore, as usual, with an oath that she would not. so i took the bedclothes from the bed and placed the boards on the floor and set the bed upright in front of the window, and the night-stool on the top of it. in order to get upon the bedstead, the table was placed at the side, and a stool by the table in order to get upon the table, and a stool upon the table, in order to get upon the night-stool, and a stool on the night-stool, so that we could stand and look comfortably, though not both at once. i let her climb up first, and i stood and took care that the bed did not begin to give way; she was to keep watch when i was on the top. i knew, moreover, well that the dancers did not put forth their utmost skill at first.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'these rope-dancers did things that i had never seen before. one had a basket attached to each leg, and in each basket was a boy of five years of age, and a woman fell upon the rope and jumped up again. but during the time of the other woman, i saw a man suspended by his chin and springing back upon the rope.' i could see the faces of the king and queen: they were standing in the long hall, and i wondered afterwards that they never turned their eyes to the place where i stood. i did not let the woman perceive that i saw them. during this woman's time i once had a desire to see the people go to the castle-church and return from it. the bed was again placed upright, and i sat for a long time on the top, until everyone had come out of church. the woman did not venture to climb up; she said that she had been afraid enough the last time, and was glad when she had come down. the first time i received the holy communion during this prison governor's time, two brass candlesticks which did not match were brought in, with tallow candles. this displeased the woman, though she said nothing to me. but when at length she was compelled to take the sacrament, after more than three years had elapsed since she had been at the lord's table, she begged chresten, the tower-warder, to go to her daughter (who was in the service of a carpenter in the town), and to get the loan of a pair of beautiful brass candlesticks and a couple of wax candles. if she could also procure for her a fine linen cloth, she was to do her best; she would pay for it. whether the woman had before thought of the candlesticks and candles which had been placed for me, or whether chresten himself thought that it would not be proper to provide better for her, i know not, but shortly before the priest came, chresten unlocked the outer door of my prison and said, 'karen, hand me out the candlestick you have, and two candles.' her behaviour is not to be described: she asked if he had not spoken with her daughter, and much of the same kind (i did not at the time know what she had desired of chresten). he made no reply to her question, but asked for the candlestick and candles. for a long time she would not give them, but cursed and scolded. i was still lying down, and i asked her if i should be her maid, and should do it for her? whether she could withhold from him what he requested? so she handed them to him through the hole of the inner door, with so many execrations against him that it was terrible to listen to. he laughed aloud, and went away. this made her still more angry. i did my best to appease her, telling her that such conduct was a most improper preparation, and holding before her the sinfulness of her behaviour. she said she thought that the sin belonged to him who had given cause for it. i asked her, at last, in what the lord's supper consisted? whether it consisted in candlesticks and candles? i rebuked her for looking to externals and not to the essential; and i begged her to fall on her knees and pray heartily to god for forgiveness of her sins, that he might not impute her folly to her. she answered that she would do so, but she did not do it at once. i imagine that the clergyman[ ] was well informed by chresten of all that concerned her, as he put to her so many questions: where she was born? whom she had served? and more of the same kind, and finally, whether she had her certificate of confession, and how long it was since she had received the lord's supper? after this he confessed her in a strange manner; at first as one who had deserved to do public penance for great sins, then as a criminal under sentence of death who was preparing for her end; at last consoling her, and performing his office. when all was over and she came in to me, i wished her joy. 'joy, indeed' (she answered); 'there is not much good in it! this does me more harm than good! if i could only get out, i would indeed go straight to the sacrament; i reckon this as nothing!' i interrupted her quickly, and said: 'reflect upon what you are saying! blaspheme not god--i will not hear that! you know well what god's word says of those who receive christ's body and blood unworthily and have trodden under foot his body?' 'under foot?' said she. 'yes, under foot!' i said, and i made a whole sermon upon it. she listened decently; but when i was silent, she said: 'he looked upon me as a malefactor, and as one under sentence of death. i have never murdered anyone (i thought, we know not what);[ ] why should i die? god almighty grant'----and with this she was silent. i preached to her again, and said that she had deserved eternal death on account of her sins, and especially because she had so long kept aloof from the lord's table. 'this confession,' she said, 'i have to thank chresten for; balcke was also probably concerned in it.' and she began to curse them both. i threatened her with a second confession, if she did not restrain such words. i told her i could not justify myself before god to keep silence to it, and i said, 'if you speak in this way to chresten, you may be sure he will inform against you.' this kept her somewhat in check, and she did not go out upon the stairs that noon.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'this was the priest who attended to the prisoners, and as he confessed her in the anteroom, i heard every word said by him, but not her replies.' [ ] in the margin is added: 'her child.' [ ] in the margin is added: 'she was in every respect a malicious woman, and grudged a little meat to any prisoner. a poor sacristan was my neighbour in the dark church, and i gave her a piece of meat for him. she would not take it to him, which she could easily have done without anyone seeing. when i saw the meat afterwards, i found fault with her. then she said, "why should i give it to him? he has never given me anything. i get nothing for it." i said, "you give nothing of your own away." this sacristan was imprisoned because he had taken back his own horse, the man to whom he had sold it not having paid him. he sang all day long, and on sunday he went through the service like a clergyman, with the responses, &c.' after that time she was not so merry by far with the man. she often complained to me that she was weak, and had strained herself lifting the new basin which balcke had given her; she could not long hold out, she said, and she had asked the prison governor to let her go away, but that he had answered that she was to die in the tower. i said, 'the prison governor cannot yet rightly understand you; ask chresten to speak for you.' this she did, but came back with the same answer. one day she said: 'i see well, dear lady, that you would be as gladly free of me as i should be to go. what have i for all my money? i cannot enjoy it, and i cannot be of service to you.' i said: 'money can do much. give some money to the prison-governor, and then he will speak for you. request one of the charwomen to carry the basin instead of you, and this you could pay with very little.' she did the latter for some weeks; at length one day she said to me, 'i have had a silver cup made for the prison governor. (her daughter came to her on the stairs as often as she desired, and she had permission to remain downstairs the whole afternoon, under pretext of speaking with her daughter. whether she gave him presents for this, i know not, but i was well contented to be alone. she was, however, once afraid that i should tell the priest of it.) the fact was, the prison-governor did not dare to speak for her with the king. she asked my advice on the matter. i said, 'remain in bed when the dinner is going on, and i will go out and speak with the prison-governor.' this was done. at first he raised some difficulties, and said, 'the queen will say that there is some trick at the bottom of it.' i said they could visit and examine the woman when she came out; that we had not been such intimate friends; that i knew the woman had been sent to wait on me; when she could do so no longer, but lay in bed, i had no attendance from her, and still less was i inclined to wait on her; she did her work for money, and there were women enough who would accept the employment. three days afterwards, when the king came from fridrichsborg, the prison-governor came in and said that the woman could go down in the evening; that he had another whom chresten had recommended, and who was said to be a well-behaved woman (which she is). karen the daughter of ole therefore went down, and karen the daughter of nels came up in her place. and i can truly say that it was one of the happiest days during my severe imprisonment; for i was freed of a faithless, godless, lying[ ] and ill-behaved woman, and i received in her stead a christian, true, and thoroughly good (perhaps too good) woman. when the first took her departure, she said, 'farewell, lady! we are now both pleased.' i answered, 'that is perhaps one of the truest words you have ever spoken in your life.' she made no reply, but ran as fast as she could, so that no weakness nor illness were perceptible in her. she lived scarcely a year afterwards, suffering severe pain for six weeks in her bed, before she died; the nature of her malady i know not. [ ] in the margin is added: 'she had begged chresten, for more than half a year before she left, to tell the prison-governor that her life hung on a thread; that i had a ball of clay in my handkerchief, and that i had threatened to break her head to pieces with it (i had said one day that a person with a ball of that kind could kill another). she invented several similar lies, as i subsequently heard.' on the day after this karen's arrival, she sat thoroughly depressed all the afternoon. i asked her what was the matter. she said, 'oh! i have nothing to do, and i might not bring work with me! i weary to death.' i enquired what work she could do. 'spinning,' she answered, 'is my work principally; i can also do plain needlework and can knit a little.' i had nothing to help her in this way; but i drew out some ends of silk, which i had kept from what i cut off, and which are too short to work with, and other tufts of silk from night-jackets and stockings; i had made a flax-comb of small pins,[ ] fastened to a piece of wood; with this i combed the silk and made it available for darning caps; and i said to her, 'there is something for you to do; comb that for me!' she was so heartily pleased that it was quite a delight to me. i found from her account of this and that which had occurred in her life, that she had a good heart, and that she had often been deceived owing to her credulity. she had also known me in my prosperity; she had been in the service of a counsellor's lady who had been present at my wedding, and she could well remember the display of fireworks and other festivities; she wept as she spoke of it, and showed great sympathy with me. she was a peasant's daughter from jutland, but had married the quarter-master of a regiment. by degrees i felt an affection for her, and begged her to speak to christian and to enquire how the doctor was; i told her that christian could occasionally perform small services for us, and could buy one thing or another for us; for he had a lad, in fact sometimes two, who executed commissions for him, but that i had never trusted the other woman, so that he had never bought anything for me; besides, the other woman had not cared to spin; but that christian should now procure us what we wanted in return for our candles. and as she did not care to drink wine (for at each meal the woman received at that time half-a-pint of french wine), i said: 'give chresten your wine as i give wine to christian, then chresten can let it stay with the cellar-clerk and can take it weekly, which will give him a profit on it, and then he will see nothing even if he remarks anything.' [ ] in the margin is added: 'the pins i had obtained some time ago from the first woman. she had procured them with some needles, and, thinking to hide them from me, she carried them in her bosom in a paper and forgot them. in the evening when she dropped her petticoat to go to bed, the paper fell on the floor. i knew from the sound what it was. one saturday, when she went upstairs with the night-stool, i took the pins out of her box, and she never ventured to ask for them; she saw me using them afterwards, and said nothing about them.' this was done, and christian got us two hand-distaffs. mine was but small, but hers was a proper size. i spun a little and twisted it into thread, which is still in my possession. christian procured her as much flax as she desired, and brought her up a whole wreath in his trousers. she spun a good deal on the hand-distaff, and i arranged my loom on a stool, which i placed on the table, fastening one beam with ribbon and cord which i had made myself, so that when the key was put into the staircase-door, i could in one pull loosen my loom and unfasten the other beam which was fastened to myself, and put all away before the inner door was opened. i made myself also a wooden skewer (i had before used a warp), so that i could weave alone; i had also obtained a real weaver's comb; so we were very industrious, each at her own work. the prison governor was full of foolish jokes, and played tricks such as boys enjoy; he tried to jest with the woman, but she would not join him. almost every day he was drunk at dinner-time when he came up. afterwards he came rarely of an evening, but sent a servant instead, who would lie and sleep on the wall in the window. he wanted to jest with me also, and opened his mouth, telling me to throw something in and see if i could hit his mouth. i laughed and said, 'how foolish you are!' and begged him to come nearer, and i would see if i could hit him. 'no, no,' said he; 'i am not such a fool; i daresay you would box my ears.' one day he came up with a peculiar kind of squirt, round in form like a ball, and he placed a small tube in it, so small as scarcely to be seen; it was quite pretty. when pressed in any part, the water squirted out quite high and to a distance. he was saucy, and squirted me. when he saw that i was angry, he came to me with the squirt, ran away and sat down with his mouth as wide open as possible and begged me to squirt into it if i could. i would not begin playing with him, for i knew his coarseness well from his stories, and i gave him back the squirt. when karen was bringing in the meat, the prison governor had the squirt between his legs, and was seated on a low stool, from which he could squirt into the woman's face; he was some distance from her, and the ball was not larger than a large plum. she knew nothing of the squirt (she is somewhat hasty in her words), and she exclaimed, 'may god send you a misfortune, mr. governor! are you insulting me?' the prison governor laughed like an insane man, so pleased was he at this. by degrees he became less wild; he rarely came up sober, and he would lie on the woman's bed and sleep while i dined, so that chresten and the woman had to help him off the bed when they had woke him. the keys of the prisons lay by his side, and the principal key close by (did he not take good care of his prisoners?).[ ] he was not afraid that i should murder him. one evening he was intoxicated, and behaved as such; and began, after his fashion, to try and caress me, endeavouring to feel my knee and seized the edge of my petticoat. i thrust him away with my foot, and said nothing more than: 'when you are intoxicated, remain away from me, and do not come in, i tell you.' he said nothing, got up and went away; but he did not come in afterwards when he was tipsy, but remained outside in the anteroom, lying down in the window, where there was a broad stone bench against the wall; there he lay and slept for some time after my doors were locked, then the coachman and chresten came and dragged him down. occasionally he came in when he was not drunk, and he gave me at my request some old cards, which i sewed together and made into a box. christian covered it with thin sticks of fir, which i afterwards stitched over, and i even secretly contrived to paint it. i have it in my possession. the prison governor saw it afterwards, but he never asked where the covering had come from.[ ] in this box (if i may call it so) i keep all my work and implements, and it stands by day on my bed. [ ] in the margin is noted: 'i said one day to the woman, "were it not for the queen, who would make the king angry with me, i would retaliate upon the prison governor for having decoyed doctor sperling. i would take the keys when he was sleeping, and wait for chresten to come with the cups, and then i would go up the king's stairs and take the keys to the king, just as the lacquey did with the old prison-governor. but i should gain nothing from this king, and perhaps should be still more strictly confined."' [ ] in the margin is noted: 'at first, when this karen did not know the prison governor, she did not venture so boldly to the prisoners in the dark church to give them anything, for she said, "the prison governor stares at me so." i said, "it is with him as with little children; they look staring at a thing, and do not know what it is." it is the case with him, he does not trouble himself about anything.' christian's power increased. he waited not only outside at dinner, but he even locked my door in the face of the tower-warder. he came with the perfuming-pan into my room when the woman took away the night-stool; in fact, he subsequently became so audacious that he did everything he chose, and had full command over the prisoners below. chresten availed himself also of the slack surveillance of the prison governor, and stayed sometimes the whole night out in the town, often coming in tipsy to supper. one evening chresten was intoxicated, and had broken some panes of glass below with his hand, so that his fingers were bloody; he dashed my wine-cup on the ground, so that it cracked and was bent; and as the cup was quite bloody outside when he came in to me, and some blood seemed to have got into the wine, i spoke somewhat seriously with the prison governor about it. he said nothing but 'the man is mad,' took the cup and went himself down into the cellar, and had the cup washed and other wine put in it. how they afterwards made it up i know not. the indentations on the cup have been beaten out, but the crack on the edge is still there; this suits the cellar-clerk well, for now scarcely half a pint goes into the cup. christian held his own manfully against the prison governor, when he had a quarrel with some of the prisoners below; and chresten complained of this to the prison governor, who came in and wanted to place christian in the witch cell; but he thrust the prison governor away, and said that he had nothing to do with him, and that he had not put him into the prison; and then harangued him in such a style that the governor thanked god when he went away. christian then called after him from the window, and said, 'i know secret tricks of yours, but you know none of mine.' (one i knew of, of which he was aware, and that not a small one. there was a corporal who had stabbed a soldier, and was sought for with the beating of drums: the prison governor concealed him for several weeks in the tower.) on the following morning christian repented, and he feared that he might be locked up, and came to my door before it had been opened[ ] (it often happened that the anteroom was unlocked before the food was brought up, and always in the winter mornings, when a fire was made in the stove outside), and he begged me to speak for him with the prison governor, which i did; so that things remained as they were, and christian was as bold as before. [ ] in the margin is added: 'the hinges of my outer door are so far from the wall that they are open more than a hand's breadth, so that i have got in large things between them; and above they are still more open, and when i put my arm through the peep-hole of the inner door and stretch it out, i can reach to the top of the outer one, though the woman cannot.' the woman and i lived in good harmony together. occasionally there were small disputes between christian and her, but at that time they were of no importance. i quieted his anger with wine and candles. this woman had a son, who died just after she had come to me, and a daughter who is still alive; at that time she was in the service of a tailor, but she is now married to a merchant. the daughter received permission occasionally to come and speak with her mother on the stairs. this annoyed christian, as he thought that through her all sorts of things were obtained; and he threatened often that he would say what he thought, though he did not know it, and this frequently troubled the woman (she easily weeps and easily laughs). i could soon comfort her. we spent our time very well. i taught her to read, beginning with a b c, for she did not know a single letter. i kept to fixed hours for teaching her. she was at the time sixty years of age. and when she could spell a little,[ ] she turned the book one day over and over, and began to rub her eyes and exclaimed, 'oh god, how strange it is! i do not know (and she swore by god) a single letter.' i was standing behind her, and could scarcely keep from laughing. she rubbed her eyes again, and (as she is rather hasty with her words) she pointed quickly to an o, and said, 'is not that an o?' 'yes,' i said, and i laughed when she turned to me. she then for the first time perceived that she was holding the book upside down; she threw herself on the bed and laughed till i thought she would burst. [ ] in the margin: 'she has a curious manner of spelling. she cannot spell a word of three syllables; for when she has to add the two syllables to the third, she has forgotten the first. if i urge her, however, she can read the word correctly when she has spelt the first syllable. she spells words of two syllables and reads those of four.' one day when she was to read, and did not like to lay aside her distaff, it did not go smoothly, and she gave it up, and said, 'am i not foolish to wish to learn to read in my old age? what good does it do me? i have spent much money on my son to have him taught to read, and see, is he not dead?' i knew how much she was able to do, and i let her go on speaking. she threw the book on her bed, sat down to her work, and said, 'what do i need to learn to read in a book? i can, thank god, read my morning and evening prayer.' (i thought to myself, 'badly enough.' she knew very little of her catechism.) i said (gently): 'that is true, karen. it is not necessary for you to learn to read a book, as you can read very nicely by heart.' i had scarcely said this than she jumped up, took her book again, and began to spell. i neither advised her nor dissuaded her, but treated her like a good simple child.[ ] [ ] in the margin: 'once she asked me whether she could not get a book in which there was neither _q_ nor _x_, for she could not remember these letters. i answered, "yes, if you will yourself have such a book printed."' i fell ill during this year,[ ] and as the prison governor no longer came in to me and sent the servant up of an evening, i begged the woman to tell him that i was ill, and that i wished a doctor to come to me. the woman told him this (for by this time he understood danish, and the woman understood a little german), and when she said, 'i am afraid she will die,' he answered, 'why the d---- let her die!' i had daily fevers, heat, but no shivering; and as an obstruction was the chief cause of my illness, i desired a remedy. the prison governor ridiculed the idea. when i heard this, i requested he would come to me, which he did. i spoke to him rather seriously; told him that it was not the king's will that he should take no more care of me than he did, that he had more care for his dog than for me (which was the case). upon this his manner improved, and he enquired what i wished for, and i said what i desired, and obtained it. i had become rather excited at the conversation, so that i felt weak. the woman cried and said: 'i am afraid you will die, dear lady! and then the bad maids from the wash-house will wash your feet and hands.' (one of the maids below had sent very uncivil messages to me.) i replied that i should not say a word against that. 'what?' said she angrily, 'will you suffer that? no,' she added with an asseveration, 'i would not! i would not suffer it if i were in your place.' so i said, like that philosopher, 'place the stick with the candlestick at my side, and with that i can keep them away from me when i am dead.'[ ] this brought her to reason again, and she talked of the grave and of burial. i assured her that this did not trouble me at all; that when i was dead, it was all one to me; even if they threw my body in the sea, it would, together with my soul, appear before the throne of god at the last day, and might come off better perhaps than many who were lying in coffins mounted with silver and in splendid vaults. but that i would not say, as the prison governor did in his levity, that i should like to be buried on the hill of valdby, in order to be able to look around me. i desired nothing else than a happy end. we spoke of the prison governor's coarseness; of various things which he did, on account of which it would go badly with him if the queen knew it; of his godlessness, how that when he had been to the lord's supper, he said he had passed muster; and other things. there was no fear of god in him. [ ] in the margin of the ms. is added: 'when this karen came to me she left me no peace till i allowed her to clean the floor; for i feared that which happened, namely that the smell would cause sickness. in one place there was an accumulation of dirt a couple of feet thick. when she had loosened it, it had to remain till the door was opened. i went to bed, threw the bed-clothes over my head, and held my nose.'[e ] [e ] 'anno , soon after karen, nil's daughter, came to me, we first discovered that there was a stone floor to my prison chamber, as she broke loose a piece of rubbish cemented together, and the stones were apparent. i had before thought it a loam floor. the former karen, ole's daughter, was one of those who spread the dirt but do not take it away. this karen tormented me unceasingly, almost daily, that we must remove it everywhere, and that at once--it would soon be done. i was of opinion that it would make us ill if it was done all at once, as we required water to soften it, and the stench in this oppressive hole would cause sickness, but that it would be easier and less uncomfortable to remove one piece after another. she adhered to her opinion and to her desire, and thought that she could persuade the prison governor and the tower-warder to let the door remain open till all had been made clean. but when the tower-warder had brought in a tub of water, he locked the door. i went to bed and covered my face closely, while she scraped and swept up the dirt. the quantity of filth was incredible. it had been collecting for years, for this had been a malefactors' prison, and the floor had never been cleaned. she laid all the dirt in a heap in the corner, and there was as much as a cartload. it was left there until evening at supper-time, when the doors were opened. it was as i feared: we were both ill. the woman recovered first, for she could get out into the air, but i remained in the oppressive hole, where there was scarcely light. we gained this from it, that we were tormented day and night with numbers of fleas, and they came to her more than to me, so much so that she was often on the point of weeping. i laughed and made fun of it, saying that she would now have always something to do, and would have enough to beguile the time. we could not, however, work. the fleas were thick on our stockings, so that the colour of the stockings was not to be perceived, and we wiped them off into the water-basin. i then discovered that one flea produces another. for when i examined them, and how they could swim, i perceived that some small feet appeared behind the flea, and i thought it was a peculiar kind. at last i saw what it was, and i took the flea from which the small one was emerging on my finger, and it left behind evidences of birth: it hopped immediately, but the mother remained a little, until she recovered herself, and the first time she could not hop so far. this amusement i had more than once, till the fleas came to an end. whether all fleas are born in this manner i cannot tell, but that they are produced from dirt and loam i have seen in my prison, and i have observed how they become gradually perfect and of the peculiar colour of the material from which they have been generated. i have seen them pair.' it is scarcely necessary to say that, as far as natural history is concerned, leonora has committed a mistake. [ ] in the margin is added: 'on the stick there was a tin candlestick, which was occasionally placed at the side of my bed. i used it for fixing my knitting.'[e ] [e ] leonora alludes to an anecdote told by 'cicero in tuscul. quæst. lib. i. c. .' he recounts that the cynic diogenes had ordered that his body should not be buried after his death but left uninterred. his friends asked, 'as a prey to birds and wild beasts?' 'not at all,' answered diogenes; place a stick by me, wherewith i may drive them away.' 'but how can you?' rejoined these; 'you won't know!' 'but what then,' was his reply, 'concern the attacks of the wild beasts me, when i don't feel them?' i requested to have the sacrament, and asked m. buck to come to me at seven o'clock in the morning, for at about half-past eight o'clock the fever began. the priest did not come till half-past nine, when the fever heat had set in (for it began now somewhat later). when i had made my confession, he began to preach about murder and homicide; about david, who was guilty of uriah's death, although he had not killed him with his own hand. he spoke of sin as behoved him, and of the punishment it brings with it. 'you,' he said, 'have killed general fux, for you have bribed a servant to kill him.' i replied, 'that is not true! i have not done so!' 'yes, truly,' he said; 'the servant is in hamburg, and he says it himself.' i replied: 'if he has so said, he has lied, for my son gave fux his death-blow with a stiletto. i did not know that fux was in bruges until i heard of his death. how could the servant, then, say that i had done it? it was not done by my order, but that i should not have rejoiced that god should have punished the villain i am free to confess.' to this he answered, 'i should have done so myself.' i said: 'god knows how fux treated us in our imprisonment at borringholm. that is now past, and i think of it no more.' 'there you are right,' he said, as he proceeded in his office. when all was over, he spoke with the prison governor outside the door of my anteroom, just in front of the door of the dark church, and said that i made myself ill; that i was not ill; that my face was red from pure anger; that he had spoken the truth to me, and that i had been angry in consequence. christian was standing inside the door of the dark church, for at this time there were no prisoners there, and he heard the conversation, and related it to me when i began to get up again and spoke with him at the door. some time afterwards christian said to me, quite secretly, 'if you like, i will convey a message from you to your children in skaane.' i enquired how this could be done. he said: 'through my girl; she is thoroughly true; she shall go on purpose.' he knew that i had some ducats left, for peder the coachman had confided it to him, as he himself told me. i accepted his offer and wrote to my children, and gave him a ducat for the girl's journey.[ ] she executed the commission well, and came back with a letter from them and from my sister.[e ] the woman knew nothing of all this. [ ] in the margin: 'the girl was a prostitute to whom he had promised marriage, and the tower-warder--both the former one and chresten--let her in to christian, went out himself, and left them alone.' [e ] this sister was hedvig, who married ebbe ulfeldt, a relative of corfitz ulfeldt. he was obliged to leave denmark in , on account of irregularities in the conduct of his office, and went to sweden, where he became a major-general in the army. he is the person alluded to in the autobiography. several of leonora's children lived in sweden with their relatives after the death of corfitz ulfeldt; but in the danish government obtained that they were forbidden the country. by degrees christian began to be insolent in various ways. when he came with his boy's pouch, in which the woman was to give him food, he would throw it at her, and he was angry if meat was not kept for himself for the evening; and when he could not at once get the pouch back again, he would curse the day when he had come to my door and had spoken with me or had communicated anything to me. she was sad, but she said nothing to me. this lasted only for a day, and then he knocked again at the door and spoke as usual of what news he had heard. the woman was sitting on the bed, crossing herself fifteen times (he could not see her, nor could he see me). when he was gone, she related how fearfully he had been swearing, &c. i said: 'you must not regard this; in the time of the other karen he has done as much.' his courage daily increased. the dishes were often brought up half-an-hour before the prison-governor came. in the meanwhile christian cut the meat, and took himself the piece he preferred (formerly at every meal i had sent him out a piece of fish, or anything else he desired). the stupid prison governor allowed it to go on; he was glad, i imagine, that he was spared the trouble, and paid no attention to the fact that there was anything missing in the dish. i let it go on for a time, for it did not happen regularly every day. but when he wanted food for his boy, he would say nothing but 'some food in my boy's pouch!' we often laughed over this afterwards, when he was away, but not at the time, for it grew worse from day to day. he could not endure that we should laugh and be merry; if he heard anything of the kind outside, he was angry. but if one spoke despondingly, he would procure what was in his power.[ ] one day he listened, and heard that we were laughing; for the woman was just relating an amusing story of the mother of a schoolboy in frederichsborg (she had lived there); how the mother of the boy did not know how to address the schoolmaster, and called him herr willas.[e ] he said, 'i am no herr.' 'then master,' said the woman. 'i am no master either,' he said; 'i am plain willas.' then the woman said: 'my good plain willas! my son always licks the cream from my milk-pans when he comes home. will you lick him in return, and that with a switch on his back?' while we were laughing at this, he came to the door and heard the words i was saying: 'i don't suppose that it really so happened; one must always add something to make a good story of it.' he imagined we were speaking of him, and that we were laughing at him. at meal-time he said to the woman, 'you were very merry to-day.' she said, 'did you not know why? it is because i belong to the "lætter"'[e ] (that was her family name). 'it would be a good thing,' he said, 'to put a stop to your laughter altogether; you have been laughing at me.' she protested that we had not, that his name had not been mentioned (which was the case); but he would not regard it. they fell into an altercation. she told me of the conversation, and for some days he did not come to the door, and i sent him nothing; for just at that time a poor old man was my neighbour, and i sent him a drink of wine. christian came again to the door and knocked. he complained very softly of the woman; begged that i would reprove her for what she had said to him, as he had heard his name mentioned. i protested to him that at the time we were not even thinking of him, and that i could not scold her for the words we had spoken together. i wished to have repose within our closed door. 'yes,' he answered; 'household peace is good, as the old woman said.' with this he went away. [ ] in the margin: 'in the time of his good humour he had procured me, for money and candles, all that i desired, so that i had both knife and scissors, besides silk, thread, and various things to beguile the time. this vexed him afterwards.' [e ] the title 'herr' was then only given to noblemen and clergy. master means 'magister,' and was an academical title. [e ] the original has here an untranslatable play upon words. _leth_ is a family name; and the woman says 'i am one of the letter (the leths),' but laughter is in danish 'latter.' afterwards he caused us all sorts of annoyance, and was again pacified. then he wished again that i should write to skaane.[ ] i said i was satisfied to know that some of my children were with my sister; where my sons were, and how it fared with them, i did not know: i left them in god's care. this did not satisfy him, and he spoke as if he thought i had no more money; but he did not at that time exactly say so. but one day, when he had one of his mad fits, he came to the door and had a can with wine (which i gave him at almost every meal) in his hand, and he said: 'can you see me?' (for there was a cleft in the outermost door, but at such a distance one could not clearly see through). 'here i am with my cup of wine, and i am going to drink your health for the last time.' i asked: 'why for the last time?' 'yes,' he swore, coming nearer to the door and saying: 'i will do no more service for you; so i know well that i shall get no more wine.' i said, 'i thank you for the services you have rendered me; i desire no more from you, but nevertheless you may still get your wine.' 'no!' he said; 'no more service! there is nothing more to be fetched.' 'that is true,' i answered. 'you do not know me,' said he; 'i am not what you think; it is easy to start with me, but it is not easy to get rid of me.' i laughed a little, and said: 'you are far better than you make yourself out to be. to-morrow you will be of another mind.' [ ] in the margin: 'immediately after the girl had been in skaane, he gave her a box full of pieces of wax, on which were the impressions of all the tower keys; and amongst them was written, "my girl will have these made in skaane." i had this from the woman, who was just then carrying up the night-stool, and on the following saturday i gave the box back with many thanks, saying i did not care to escape from the tower in this way. this did not please him, as i well saw.' he continued to describe himself as very wicked (it was, however, far from as bad as he really is). i could do nothing else but laugh at him. he drank from the can, and sat himself down on the stool outside. i called him and begged him to come to the door, as i wanted to speak with him. there he sat like a fool, saying to himself: 'should i go to the door? no,' and he swore with a terrible oath, 'that i will not do! oh yes, to the door! no, christian, no!' laughing from time to time immoderately, and shouting out that the devil might take him and tear him in pieces the day on which he should go to my door or render me a service. i went away from the door and sat down horrified at the man's madness and audacity. some days passed in silence, and he would accept no wine. no food was offered to him, for he continued, in the same way as before, to cut the meat before the prison governor came up. as the prison governor at this time occasionally again came in to me and talked with me, i requested him that christian, as a prisoner, should not have the liberty of messing my food. this was, therefore, forbidden him in future. some days afterwards he threw the pouch to the woman on the stairs, and said: 'give me some food for to-night in my lad's pouch.'[ ] this was complied with with the utmost obedience, and a piece of meat was placed in the pouch. this somewhat appeased him, so that at noon he spoke with the woman, and even asked for a drink of wine; but he threatened the woman that he would put an end to the laughing. i did not fear the evil he could do to me, but this vexatious life was wearisome. i allowed no wine to be offered to him, unless he asked for some. he was in the habit every week of procuring me the newspapers[e ] for candles, and as he did not bring me the newspapers for the candles of the first week, i sent him no more. he continued to come every saturday with the perfuming-pan, and to lock my door. when he came in with the fumigating stuff, he fixed his eyes upon the wall, and would not look at me. i spoke to him once and asked after the doctor, and he made no reply. [ ] in the margin is added: 'at this time there was a peasant imprisoned in the dark church for having answered the bailiff of the manor with bad language. i sent him food. he was a great rogue. i know not whether he were incited by others, but he told karen that if i would write to my children, he would take care of the letter. i sent him word that i thanked him; i had nothing to say to them and nothing to write with. the rogue answered, "ah so! ah so!"' [e ] the newspapers in question were probably german papers which were published in copenhagen at that time weekly, or even twice a week; the danish _mercurius_ (a common title for newspapers) was a monthly publication. thus it went on for some weeks; then he became appeased, and brought the woman the papers from the time that he had withheld them, all rolled up together and fastened with a thread. when the prison governor came in during the evening and sat and talked (he was slightly intoxicated), and chresten had gone to the cellar, the woman gave him back the papers, thanking him in my name, and saying that the papers were of no interest to me; i had done without them for so many weeks, and could continue to do so. he was so angry that he tore the papers in two with his teeth, tore open his coat so that the buttons fell on the floor, threw some of the papers into the fire, howled, screamed, and gnashed with his teeth. i tried to find something over which i could laugh with the prison governor, and i spoke as loud as i could, in order to drown christian's voice.[ ] the woman came in as pale as a corpse, and looked at me. i signed to her that she should go out again. then christian came close to my door and howled, throwing his slippers up into the air, and then against my door, repeating this frequently. when he heard chresten coming up with the cups, he threw himself on the seat on which the prison governor was accustomed to lie, and again struck his slippers against the wall. chresten gazed at him with astonishment, as he stood with the cups in his hand. he saw well that there was something amiss between the woman and christian, and that the woman was afraid; he could not, however, guess the cause, nor could he find it out; he thought, moreover, that it had nothing to do with me, since i was laughing and talking with the prison governor. when the doors were closed, the lamentations found free vent. the woman said that he had threatened her; he would forbid her daughter coming on the stairs and carrying on her talk, and doing other things that she ought not. i begged her to be calm; told her he was now in one of his mad fits, but that it would pass away; that he would hesitate before he said anything of it, for that he would be afraid that what he had brought up to her would also come to light, and then he would himself get into misfortune for his trouble; that the prison governor had given her daughter leave to come to her, and to whom therefore should he complain? (i thought indeed in my own mind that if he adhered to his threat, he would probably find some one else to whom he could complain, as he had so much liberty; he could bring in and out what he chose, and could speak with whom he desired in the watchman's gallery.) she wept, was very much affected, and talked with but little sense, and said: 'if i have no peace for him, i will--yes, i will--.' she got no further, and could not get out what she would do. i smiled, and said at last: 'christian is mad. i will put a stop to it to-morrow: let me deal with him! sleep now quietly!' [ ] in the margin: 'it was wonderful that the governor did not hear the noise which christian made. he was telling me, i remember, at the time, how he had frightened one of the court servants with a mouse in a box.' she fell asleep afterwards, but i did not do so very quickly, thinking what might follow such wild fits. next day towards noon i told her what she was to say to christian; she was to behave as if she were dissatisfied, and begin to upbraid him and to say, 'the devil take you for all you have taught her! she has pulled off her slippers just as you do, and strikes me on the head with them. she is angry and no joke, and she took all the pretty stuff she had finished and threw it into the night-stool. "there," said she, "no one shall have any advantage of that."' at this he laughed like a fool, for it pleased him. 'is she thoroughly angry?' he asked. 'yes,' she replied; 'she is indeed.' at this he laughed aloud on the stairs, so that i heard it. for a fortnight he behaved tolerably well, now and then demanding wine and food; and he came moreover to the door and related, among other things, how he had heard that the prince (now our king) was going to be married. i had also heard it, though i did not say so, for the prison governor had told me of it, and besides i received the papers without him. and as i asked him no questions, he went away immediately, saying afterwards to the woman, 'she is angry and so am i. we will see who first will want the other.' he threatened the woman very much. she wished that i would give him fair words. i told her that he was not of that character that one could get on with him by always showing the friendly side.[ ] as he by degrees became more insolent than could be tolerated, i said one day to the prison governor that i was surprised that he could allow a prisoner to unlock and lock my doors, and to do that which was really the office of the tower-warder; and i asked him whether it did not occur to him that under such circumstances i might manage to get out, if i chose to do so without the king's will? christian was a prisoner, under sentence of death; he had already offered to get me out of the tower. the prison governor sat and stared like one who does not rightly understand, and he made no reply but 'yes, yes!' but he acted in conformity with my warning, so that either he himself locked and unlocked, or chresten did so. (i have seen christian snatching the keys out of chresten's hand and locking my door, and this at the time when he began to make himself so angry.) [ ] in the margin is added: 'he enticed the prison governor to throw a kitten that i had down from the top of the tower, and he laughed at me ironically as he told the woman of his manly act, and said, "the cat was mangy! the cat was mangy!" i would not let him see that it annoyed me.' if christian had not been furious before, he became so now, especially at the time that chresten came in with the perfuming-pan when the woman was above. he would then stand straight before me in the anteroom, looking at me like a ghost and gnashing his teeth; and when he saw that i took the rest of the fumigating stuff from chresten's hand (which he had always himself given me in paper), he burst into a defiant laugh. when the doors were unlocked in the evening, and christian began talking with the woman, he said: 'karen, tell her ladyship that i will make out a devilish story with you both. i have with my own eyes seen chresten giving her a letter. ay, that was why she did not let me go in with the perfuming-pan, because i would not undertake her message to skaane. ay, does she get the newspapers also from him? yes, tell her, great as are the services i have rendered her, i will now prepare a great misfortune for her.' god knows what a night i had! not because i feared his threat, for i did not in the least regard his words; he himself would have suffered the most by far. but the woman was so sad that she did nothing but lament and moan, chiefly about her daughter, on account of the disgrace it would be to her if they put her mother into the dark church, nay even took her life. then she remembered that her daughter had spoken with her on the stairs, and she cried out again: 'oh my daughter! my daughter! she will get into the house of correction!' for some time i said nothing more than 'calm yourself; it will not be as bad as you think,' as i perceived that she was not capable of listening to reason, for she at once exclaimed 'ach! ach!' as often as i tried to speak, sitting up in bed and holding her head between her two hands and crying till she was almost deluged. i thought, 'when there are no more tears to come, she will probably stop.' i said at length, when she was a little appeased: 'the misfortune with which the man threatens us cannot be averted by tears. calm yourself and lie down to sleep. i will do the same, and i will pray god to impart to me his wise counsel for the morrow.' this quieted her a little; but when i thought she was sleeping, she burst forth again with all the things that she feared; she had brought in to me slips of paper, knife and scissors, and other things furnished by him contrary to order. i answered only from time to time: 'go to sleep, go to sleep! i will talk with you to-morrow!' it was of no avail. the clock struck two, when she was still wanting to talk, and saying, 'it will go badly with the poor old man down below!'[ ] i made as if i were asleep, but the whole night, till five o'clock and longer, no sleep came to my eyes. [ ] in the margin is added: ' . while karen, nil's daughter, waited on me, a nuremberger was my neighbour in the dark church; he was accused of having coined base money. she carried food to him every day. he sang and read day and night, and sang very well. he sang the psalm 'incline thine ear unto me, o lord,' slowly at my desire. i copied it, and afterwards translated it into danish. and as he often prayed aloud at night and confessed his sins, praying god for forgiveness and exclaiming again and again, 'thou must help me, god! yes, god, thou must help me, or thou art no god. thou must be gracious;' thus hindering me from sleep, i sent him word through karen to pray more softly, which he did. he was taken to the holm for some weeks, and was then set at liberty. when the door was unlocked at noon, i had already intimated to her what she was to say to christian, and had given her to understand that he thought to receive money from her and candles from me by his threats, and that he wanted to force us to obey his pleasure; but that he had others to deal with than he imagined. she was only to behave as if she did not care for his talk, and was to say nothing but 'good day,' unless he spoke to her; and if he enquired what i had said, she was to act as if she did not remember that she was to tell me anything. if he repeated his message, she was to say: 'i am not going to say anything to her about that. are you still as foolish as you were last night? do what you choose!' and then go away. this conversation took place, and he threatened her worse than before. the woman remained steadfast, but she was thoroughly cast down when our doors were locked; still, as she has a light heart, she often laughed with the tears in her eyes. i knew well that christian would try to recover favour again by communicating me all kind of news in writing, but i had forbidden the woman to take his slips of paper, so that he got very angry. i begged her to tell him that he had better restrain himself if he could; that if he indulged his anger, it would be worse for him. at this he laughed ironically, and said, 'tell her, it will be worse for her. whatever i have done for her, she has enticed me to by giving me wine: tell her so. i will myself confess everything; and if i come to the rack and wheel, chresten shall get into trouble. he brought her letters from her children.' (the rogue well knew that i had not allowed the woman to be cognisant neither of the fact that he had conveyed for me a message to skaane to my children, nor of the wax in which the tower keys were impressed; this was why he spoke so freely to her.) when our doors were locked, this formed the subject of our conversation. i laughed at it, and asked the woman what disgrace could be so great as to be put on the wheel; i regarded it as thoughtless talk, for such it was, and i begged her to tell him that he need not trouble himself to give himself up, as i would relieve him of the trouble, and (if he chose) tell the prison governor everything on the following day that he had done for me; he had perhaps forgotten something, but that i could well remember it all. when the woman told him this, he made no answer, but ran down, kept quiet for some days, and scarcely spoke to the woman. one saturday, when the woman had gone upstairs with the night-stool, he went up to her and tried to persuade her to accept a slip of paper for me, but she protested that she dare not. 'then tell her,' he said, 'that she is to give me back the scissors and the knife which i have given her. i will have them, and she shall see what i can do. you shall both together get into trouble!' she came down as white as a corpse, so that i thought she had strained herself. she related the conversation and his request, and begged me much to give him back the things, and that then he would be quiet. i said: 'what is the matter with you? are you in your senses? does he not say that we shall get into trouble if he gets the scissors and knife back again? now is not the time to give them to him. do you not understand that he is afraid i shall let the things be seen? my work, he thinks, is gone, and the papers are no longer here, so that there is nothing with which he can be threatened except these things. you must not speak with him this evening. if he says anything, do not answer him.' in the evening he crept in, and said in the anteroom to her, 'bring me the scissors and the knife!' she made no answer. on the following morning, towards noon, i begged her to tell him that i had nothing of his; that i had paid for both the scissors and knife, and that more than double their value. he was angry at the message, and gnashed with his teeth. she went away from him, and avoided as much as possible speaking with him alone. when he saw that the woman would not take a slip of paper from him, he availed himself of a moment when the prison governor was not there, and threw in a slip of paper to me on the floor. a strange circumstance was near occurring this time: for just as he was throwing in the paper, the prison governor's large shaggy dog passed in, and the paper fell on the dog's back, but it fell off again in the corner, where the dog was snuffling. upon the paper stood the words: 'give me the knife and scissors back, or i will bring upon you as much misfortune as i have before rendered you good service, and i will pay for the knife and scissors if i have to sell my trousers for it. give them to me at once!' for some days he went about like a lunatic, since i did not answer him, nor did i send him a message through the woman; so that chresten asked the woman what she had done to christian, as he went about below gnashing his teeth and howling like a madman. she replied that those below must best know what was the matter with him; that he must see he was spoken with in a very friendly manner here. at noon on good friday, ,[ ] he was very angry, swore and cursed himself if he did not give himself up, repeating all that he had said before, and adding that i had enticed him with wine and meat, and had deceived him with candles and good words. that he cared but little what happened to him; he would gladly die by the hand of the executioner; but that i, and she, and chresten, should not escape without hurt. [ ] in the ms. this date ' ' is in the _margin_, not in the text. the afternoon was not very cheerful to us. the woman was depressed. i begged her to be calm, told her there was no danger in such madness, though it was very annoying, and harder to bear than my captivity; but that still i would be a match for the rogue. she took her book and read, and i sat down and wrote a hymn upon christ's sufferings, to the tune 'as the hart panteth after the water-springs.'[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'this very hymn was afterwards the cause of christian's being again well-behaved, as he subsequently himself told me, for he heard me one day singing it, and he said that his heart was touched, and that tears filled his eyes. i had at that time no other writing-materials than i have before mentioned.' christian had before been in the habit of bringing me coloured eggs on easter-eve; at this time he was not so disposed. when the door was locked, i said to chresten, 'do not forget the soft-boiled eggs to-morrow.' when the dinner was brought up on easter-day, and the eggs did not come at once (they were a side dish), christian looked at me, and made a long nose at me three or four times. (i was accustomed to go up and down in front of the door of my room when it was unlocked.) i remained standing, and looked at him, and shrugged my shoulders a little. soon after these grimaces, chresten came with a dish full of soft-boiled eggs. christian cast down his eyes at first, then he raised them to me, expecting, perhaps, that i should make a long nose at him in return; but i intended nothing less. when the woman went to the stairs, he said, 'there were no coloured eggs there.' she repeated this to me at once, so that i begged her to say that i ate the soft-boiled eggs and kept the coloured ones, as he might see (and i sent him one of the last year's, on which i had drawn some flowers; he had given it to me himself for some candles). he accepted it, but wrote me a note in return, which was very extraordinary. it was intended to be a highflown composition about the egg and the hen. he tried to be witty, but it had no point. i cannot now quite remember it, except that he wrote that i had sent him a rotten egg; that his egg would be fresh, while mine would be rotten.[ ] he threw the slip of paper into my room. i made no answer to it. some days passed again, and he said nothing angry; then he recommenced. i think he was vexed to see chresten often receive my wine back again in the cup. at times i presented it to the prison governor. moreover, he received no food, either for himself or his boy. one day he said to the woman, 'what do you think the prison governor would say if he knew that you give the prisoners some of his food to eat?' (the food which came from my table was taken down to the prison governor.) 'tell her that!' the woman asked whether she was to say so to me, as a message from him. 'as whose message otherwise?' he answered. i sent him word that i could take as much as i pleased of the food brought me: that it was not measured out and weighed for me, and that those who had a right to it could do what they liked with what i did not require, as it belonged to no one. on this point he could not excite our fear. then he came back again one day to the old subject, that he would have the scissors and the knife, and threatening to give himself up; and as it was almost approaching the time when i received the lord's supper, i said to the woman: 'tell him once for all, if he cannot restrain himself i will inform against him as soon as the priest comes, and the first karen shall be made to give evidence; she shall, indeed, be brought forward, for she had no rest on his account until i entered into his proposals. whether voluntarily or under compulsion, she shall say the truth, and then we shall see who gets into trouble.' he might do, i sent word, whatever he liked, but i would be let alone; he might spare me his notes, or i would produce them. when the woman told him this, he thought a little, and then asked, 'does she say so?' 'yes,' said the woman, 'she did. she said still further: "what does he imagine? does he think that i, as a prisoner who can go nowhere, will suffer for having accepted the services of a prisoner who enjoys a liberty which does not belong to him?"' he stood and let his head hang down, and made no answer at all. this settled the fellow, and from that time i have not heard one unsuitable word from him. he spoke kindly and pleasantly with the woman on the stairs, related what news he had heard, and was very officious; and when she once asked him for his cup to give him some wine, he said sadly, 'i have not deserved any wine.' the woman said he could nevertheless have some wine, and that i desired no more service from him. so he received wine from time to time, but nothing to eat.[ ] on the day that i received the lord's supper, he came to the door and knocked softly. i went to the door. he saluted me and wished me joy in a very nice manner, and said that he knew i had forgiven those who had done aught against me. i answered in the affirmative, and gave no further matter for questions; nor did he, but spoke of other trivialities, and then went away. afterwards he came daily to the door, and told me what news he had heard; he also received wine and meat again. he told me, among other things, that many were of opinion that all the prisoners would be set at liberty at the wedding of the prince (our present king) which was then talked of; that the bride was to arrive within a month (it was the end of april when this conversation took place), and that the wedding was to be at the palace. [ ] what he meant by it i know not; perhaps he meant that i should die in misery, and that he should live in freedom. that anticipation has been just reversed, for his godless life in his liberty threw him subsequently into despair, so that he shot himself. whether god will give me freedom in this world is known to him alone. [ ] in the margin is added: 'he could not prevent his boy paaske from having a piece of meat placed for him in front of the door.' the arrival of the bride was delayed till the beginning of june, and then the wedding was celebrated in the palace at nykjöbing in falster. many were of opinion that it took place there in order that the bride might not intercede for me and the doctor.[ ] when the bride was to be brought to copenhagen, i said to christian: 'now is the time for you to gain your liberty. let your girl wait and fall on one knee before the carriage of the bride and hold out a supplication, and then i am sure you will gain your liberty.' he asked how the girl should come to be supplicating for him. i said, 'as your bride--' 'no (and he swore with a terrible oath), she is not that! she imagines it, perhaps, but (he swore again) i will not have her.' 'then leave her in the idea,' i said, 'and let her make her supplication as for her bridegroom.' 'yes,' he said, in a crestfallen tone, 'she may do that.' it was done, as i had advised, and christian was set at liberty on june , . he did not bid me good-bye, and did not even send me a message through the tower-warder or the boy. his gratitude to the girl was that he smashed her window that very evening, and made such a drunken noise in the street, that he was locked up in the town-hall cellar.[ ] he came out, however, on the following day. his lad paaske took leave of his master. when he asked him whether he should say anything from him to us, he answered, 'tell them that i send them to the devil.' paaske, who brought this message, said he had answered christian, 'half of that is intended for me' (for christian had already suspected that paaske had rendered services to the woman). we had a hearty laugh over this message; for i said that if paaske was to have half of it, i should get nothing. we were not a little glad that we were quit of this godless man. [ ] in the margin is added: 'the bride had supplicated for me at nykjöbing, but had not gained her object. this was thought to be dangerous both for the land and people.' [ ] in the margin is added: 'it was a sunday; this was the honour he showed to god. he went into the wine-house instead of into god's house. he came out about twelve o'clock.' we lived on in repose throughout the year . i wrote and was furnished with various handiwork, so that chresten bought nothing for me but a couple of books, and these i paid doubly and more than doubly with candles. karen remained with me the first time more than three years; and as her daughter was then going to be married, and she wished to be at the wedding, she spoke to me as to how it could be arranged, for she would gladly have a promise of returning to me when the woman whom i was to have in her stead went away. i did not know whether this could be arranged; but i felt confident that i could effect her exit without her feigning herself ill. the prison governor had already then as clerk peder jensen tötzlöff,[e ] who now and then performed his duties. to this man i made the proposal, mentioning at the same time with compassion the ill health of the woman. i talked afterwards with the prison governor himself about it, and he was quite satisfied; for he not only liked this karen very much, but he had moreover a woman in the house whom he wished to place with me instead. [e ] his name was torslev; see the introduction and the autobiography. karen, nils' daughter, left me one evening in , and a german named cathrina ----[e ] came in her place. karen took her departure with many tears. she had wept almost the whole day, and i promised to do my utmost that she should come to me when the other went away. cathrina had been among soldiers from her youth up; she had married a lieutenant at the time the prison governor was a drummer, and had stood godmother to one of his sons. she had fallen into poverty after her husband's death, and had sat and spun with the wife of the prison governor for her food. she was greatly given to drinking, and her hands trembled so that she could not hold the cup, but was obliged to support it against her person, and the soup-plate also. the prison governor told me before she came up that her hands occasionally trembled a little, but not always--that she had been ill a short time before, and that it would probably pass off. when i asked herself how it came on, she said she had had it for many years. i said, 'you are not a woman fit to wait upon me; for if i should be ill, as i was a year or somewhat less ago, you could not properly attend to me.' she fell at once down on her knees, wept bitterly, and prayed for god's sake that she might remain; that she was a poor widow, and that she had promised the prison governor half the money she was to earn; she would pray heartily to god that i might not be ill, and that she would be true to me, aye, even die for me. [e ] the name is in blanco; she was probably the catharina wolf which is mentioned in the preface. it seemed to me that this last was too much of an exaggeration for me to believe it (she kept her word, however, and did what i ordered her, and i was not ill during her time). she did not care to work. she generally laid down when she had eaten, and drew the coverlid over her eyes, saying 'now i can see nothing.' when she perceived that i liked her to talk, she related whole comedies in her way, often acting them, and representing various personages. if she began to tell a story, and i said in the middle of her narrative, 'this will have a sorrowful ending,' she would say, 'no, it ends pleasantly,' and she would give her story a good ending. she would do the reverse, if i said the contrary. she would dance also before me, and that for four persons, speaking as she did so for each whom she was representing, and pinching together her mouth and fingers. she called comedians 'medicoants.' various things occurred during her time, which prevented me from looking at her and listening to her as much as she liked.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'a few months after she had come to me, she had an attack of ague. she wept, and was afraid. i was well satisfied with her, and thought i would see what faith could do, so i wrote something on a slip of paper and hung it round her neck. the fever left her, and she protested that all her bodily pains passed all at once into her legs when i hung the paper round her neck. her legs immediately became much swollen.' it happened that walter,[e ] who in consequence of dina's affair had been exiled from denmark, came over from sweden and remained incognito at copenhagen. he was arrested and placed in the tower here, below on the ground floor. he was suspected of being engaged in some plot. at the same time a french cook and a swedish baker were imprisoned with him, who were accused of having intended to poison the king and queen. the swede was placed in the witch cell, immediately after walter's arrest. some days elapsed before i was allowed to know of walter's arrival, but i knew of it nevertheless. one day at noon, when walter and the frenchman were talking aloud (for they were always disputing with each other), i asked the prison governor who were his guests down below, who were talking french. he answered that he had some of various nations, and related who they were, but why they were imprisoned he knew not, especially in walter's case. [e ] walter's participation in the plot of dina is mentioned in the introduction. he was then ordered to leave the country, but afterwards obtained a pardon and permission to return. he does not seem to have availed himself of this till the year ; but his conduct was very suspicious, and he was at once arrested and placed in the blue tower, where he died towards the end of april . the two before-mentioned quarrelled together, so that walter was placed in the witch cell with the swede, and the frenchman was conveyed to the dark church, where he was ill, and never even came to the peep-hole in the door, but lay just within. i dared not send him anything, on account of the accusation against him. walter was imprisoned for a long time, and the frenchman was liberated. when m. bock came to me, to give me christ's body and blood, i told him before receiving the lord's supper of walter's affair, which had been proved, but i mentioned to him that at the time i had been requested to leave denmark through uldrich christian gyldenlöve. gyldenlöve had sworn to me that the king was at the time not thoroughly convinced of the matter, and i had complained that his majesty had not taken pains to convince himself; and i requested the priest to ask the stadtholder to manage that walter should now be examined in dina's affair, and that he and i should be confronted together in the presence of some ministers; that this could be done without any great noise, for the gentlemen could come through the secret passage into the tower. the priest promised to arrange this;[ ] he did so, and on the third day after walter was placed in the dark church, so that i expected for a long time every day that we should be examined, but it was prevented by the person whose interest it was to prevent it.[e ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'when the priest left me, he spoke with walter in front of the grated hole, told him of my desire, and its probable result. walter laughed ironically, and said, "my hair will not stand on end for fear of that matter being mooted again. the queen knows that full well. say that too!" while walter was in the witch cell hole, he had written to the queen, but the king received the paper.' [e ] leonora alludes, no doubt, to the queen sophia amalia. walter remained imprisoned,[ ] and quarrelled almost daily with chresten, calling him a thief and a robber. (chresten had found some ducats which walter had concealed under a stool; the foolish walter allowed the swede to see that he hid ducats and an ink-bottle between the girths under the stool, and he afterwards struck the swede, who betrayed him.) chresten slyly allowed walter to take a little exercise in the hall of the tower, and in the meanwhile he searched the stool. it may well be imagined that at the everlasting scolding chresten was annoyed, and he did not procure walter particularly good food from the kitchen; so that sometimes he could not eat either of the two dishes ordered for him; and when walter said one day, 'if you would give me only one dish of which i could eat, it would be quite enough,' chresten arranged it so that walter only received one dish, and often could not eat of that. (this was to chresten's own damage, for he was entitled to the food that was left; but he was ready to forego this, so long as he could annoy the others.) [ ] in the margin is noted: 'i looked through a hole in my outermost door at the time that walter was brought up in the dark church. he wept aloud. i afterwards saw him once in front of the hole of the door of his cell. he was very dirty, and had a large beard full of dirt, very clotted.' once chresten came to him with a dish of rice-porridge, and began at once to quarrel with him, so that the other became angry (just as children do), and would eat nothing. chresten carried the porridge away again directly, and laughed heartily. i said to chresten, in the prison governor's presence, 'though god has long delayed to punish walter, his punishment is all the heavier now, for he could scarcely have fallen into more unmerciful hands than yours.' he laughed heartily at this, and the prison governor did the same. and as there is a hole passing from the dark church into the outer room, those who are inside there can call upstairs, so that one can plainly hear what is said. so walter one day called to the prison governor, and begged him to give him a piece of roast meat; the prison governor called to him, 'yes, we will roast a rat for you!' i sent him a piece of roast meat through chresten; when he took it, and heard that i had sent it to him, he wept. thus the time passed, i had always work to do, and i wrote also a good deal.[ ] the priest was tired of administering the lord's supper to me, and he let me wait thirteen and fourteen days; when he did come, he performed his office _par manière d'acquit_. i said nothing about it, but the woman, who is a german, also received the lord's supper from him; she made much of it, especially once (the last time he confessed her); for then i waited four days for him before it suited him to come, and at last he came. it was wednesday, about nine o'clock. he never greeted us, nor did he wish me joy to the act i intended to perform. this time he said, as he shook hands, 'i have not much time to wait, i have a child to baptise.' i knew well that this could not be true, but i answered 'in god's name!' when he was to receive the woman's confession, he would not sit down, but said 'now go on, i have no time,' and scarcely gave her time to confess, absolved her quickly, and read the consecrating service at posthaste speed. when he was gone, the woman was very impatient, and said that she had received the holy communion in the field from a military chaplain, with the whole company (since they were ready to attack the enemy on the following day), but that the priest had not raced through god's word as this one had done; she had gained nothing from it. [ ] in the margin is added: 'from books which had been secretly lent me, and i did so with the pen and ink i have before mentioned, on any pieces of paper which i happened to procure.' i comforted her as well as i could, read and sang to her, told her she should repent and be sorry for her sins, and labour to amend her ways, and not be distracted by the want of devotion in the priest; she could appropriate to herself christ's sufferings and merits for the forgiveness of her sins, for the priest had given her his body and blood in the bread and wine. 'yes,' she answered, 'i shall, with god's will, be a better christian.' i said 'will you keep what you have promised me?' her vow was, not to drink herself tipsy, as she had once done. i will not omit to mention this. she received, as i have before said, half a pint of french wine at each meal, and i half a measure of rhine wine. she could drink both portions without being quite intoxicated, for at her meal she drank the french wine and lay down; and when she got up in the afternoon she drank my wine.[ ] in the evening she kept my wine for breakfast, but once she had in her cup both my wine and her own, so that at noon she had two half-pints of wine; she sat there and drank it so quietly, and i paid no attention to her, being at the moment engaged in a speculation about a pattern which i wanted to knit; at length i looked at her because it was so long before she laid down; then she turned over all the vessels, one after another, and there was nothing in them. i accosted her and said, 'how is it? have you drank all the wine?' she could scarcely answer. she tried to stand up, and could not. 'to bed, you drunken sow,' said i. she tried to move, but could not; she was sick, and crept along by the wall to fetch a broom. when she had the broom, she could do nothing with it. i told her to crawl into bed and lie down; she crawled along and fell with her face on the bed, while her feet were on the ground. there she was sick again, and remained so lying, and slept. it is easy to imagine how i felt. [ ] in the margin is noted: 'chresten was not well satisfied with the woman, for in her time he never received a draught of wine, so that he once stole the wine from her can and substituted something impure in its place; at this she made a great noise, begged me for god's sake to give her leave to strike chresten with the can. she did not gain permission to do so; she told chresten afterwards that she had not dared to do it, for my sake. she had a great scar on one cheek, which a soldier had once given her for a similar act.' she slept in this way for a couple of hours, but still did not quite sleep off her intoxication; for when she wanted afterwards to clean herself and the room, she remained for a long time sitting on a low stool, the broom between her knees and her hair about her ears. she took off her bodice to wash it, and so she sat with her bosom uncovered, an ugly sight; she kept bemoaning herself, praying to god to help her, as she was nigh unto death. i was angry, but i could scarcely help laughing at this sad picture. when the moaning and lamenting were over, i said angrily, 'yes, may god help you, you drunkard; to the guards' station you ought to go; i will not have such a drunkard about me; go and sleep it out, and don't let me hear you talk of god when you are not sober, for then god is far from you and the d----l is near!' (i laughed afterwards at myself.) she laid down again, and about four o'clock she was quite sober, made herself perfectly clean, and sat quietly weeping. then she threw herself with great excitement at my feet, clung to them, howled and clamoured, and begged for god's sake that i would forgive her this once, and that it should never happen again; said how she had kept the wine &c.; that if i would only keep her half a year, she would have enough to purchase her admission into the hospital at lübeck. i thought i would take good care that she did not get so much again at once, and also that perhaps if i had another in her place she might be worse in other things. karen could not have come at this time, for her daughter was expecting her confinement, and i knew that she would then not be quiet. so i promised her to keep her for the time she mentioned. she kept her word moreover, and i so arranged it six weeks later that she received no more wine, and from this time the woman received no wine; my wine alone could not hurt her. she was quite intimate with walter. she had known him formerly, and chresten was of opinion that he had given her all his money before he was ill; for he said that walter had no money any longer. what there was in it i know not. honest she was not, for she stole from me first a brass knitting-pin, which i used at that time; it was formed like a bodkin, and the woman never imagined but that it was gold. as my room is not large, it could soon be searched, but i looked for three days and could not find the pin. i was well aware that she had it, for it is not so small as not to be seen, so i said afterwards, 'this brass pin is of no great importance; i can get another for two pence.' the next day she showed me the pin, in a large crevice on the floor between the stones. but when she afterwards, shortly before she left, found one of my gold earrings which i had lost, and which undoubtedly had been left on the pillow, for it was a snake ring, this was never returned, say what i would about it. she made a show of looking for it in the dirt outside; she knew i dared not say that i had missed it. the prison governor at this time came up but rarely; peder jensen waited on me.[ ] his majesty was ill for a short time, and died suddenly on february , . and as on the same day at twelve o'clock the palace bell tolled, i was well aware what this indicated, though the woman was not. we conversed on the subject, who it might be. she could perceive that i was sad, and she said: 'that might be for the king, for the last time i saw him on the stairs, getting out of the carriage, he could only move with difficulty, and i said to myself that it would soon be over with him. if he is dead, you will have your liberty, that is certain.' i was silent, and thought otherwise, which was the case. about half-past four o'clock the fire was generally lighted in the outside stove, and this was done by a lad whom chresten at that time employed. i called him to the door and asked him why the bell had tolled for a whole hour at noon. he answered, 'i may not say; i am forbidden.' i said that i would not betray him. he then told me that the king had died in the morning. i gave free vent to my tears, which i had restrained, at which the woman was astonished, and talked for a long time. [ ] in the margin is added: 'at this time i had six prisoners for my neighbours. three were peasants from femeren, who were accused of having exported some sheep; the other three were danish. they were divided in two parties, and as the danes were next the door, i gave them some food; they had moreover been imprisoned some time before the others. when the danes, according to their custom, sang the morning and evening psalms, the germans growled forth with all their might another song in order to drown their voices; they generally sang the song of dorothea.' [e ] [e ] the song of st. dorothea exists in many german and danish versions. i received all that she said in silence, for i never trusted her. i begged her to ask chresten, when he unlocked the door, what the tolling intimated. she did so, but chresten answered that he did not know. the prison governor came up the same evening, but he did not speak with me. he came up also the next day at noon. i requested to speak with him, and enquired why the bell had sounded. he answered ironically, 'what is that to you? does it not ring every day?' i replied somewhat angrily: 'what it is to me god knows! this i know, that the castle bell is not tolled for your equals!' he took off his hat and made me a bow, and said, 'your ladyship desires nothing else?' i answered, 'st. martin comes for you too.'[e ] 'st. martin?' he said, and laughed, and went away and went out to walter, standing for a long time whispering with him in front of the hole; i could see him, as he well knew.[ ] he was undoubtedly telling him of the king's death, and giving him hope that he would be liberated from prison. god designed it otherwise. walter was ill, and lay for a long time in great misery. he behaved very badly to chresten; took the dirt from the floor and threw it into the food; spat into the beer, and allowed chresten to see him do so when he carried the can away. every day chresten received the titles of thief and rogue, so that it may easily be imagined how chresten tormented him. when i sent him some meat, either stewed or roasted, chresten came back with it and said he would not have it. i begged chresten to leave it with him, and he would probably eat it later. this he did once, and then chresten showed me how full it was of dirt and filth.[ ] [e ] the feast of st. martin is supposed the proper time for killing pigs in denmark. it is reported that when corfitz uldfeldt, in , had published a defence of his conduct previously to his leaving denmark the year before, he sent a copy to peder vibe, one of his principal adversaries, with this inscription:-- chaque pourceau a son st. martin; tu n'échapperas pas, mais auras le tien. [ ] in the margin is added: 'as i was to receive clothes, i asked for mourning clothes. then the prison governor asked me for whom i wished to mourn, and this in a most ironical manner. i answered: "it is not for your aunt; it is not for me to mourn for her, although your aunt has been dead long. i think you have as good reason for wearing mourning as i." he said he would report it. i did not receive them at once.' [ ] in the margin is added: 'chresten showed me once some bread, from which walter had taken the crumb, and had filled it full of straw and dirt, in fact, of the very worst kind.' when chresten had to turn walter in bed, the latter screamed so pitifully that i felt sympathy with him, and begged chresten not to be so unmerciful to him. he laughed and said, 'he is a rogue.' i said, 'then he is in his master's hands.' this pleased chresten well. walter suffered much pain; at length god released him. his body was left in the prison until his brother came, who ordered it to be buried in the german church. when i heard that karen could come to me again, and the time was over which i had promised the other to keep her, cathrina went down and karen returned to me. this was easily effected, for the prison governor was not well pleased with cathrina; she gave him none of her money, as she had promised, but only empty words in its place, such as that he was not in earnest, and that he surely did not wish to have anything from her, &c.[ ] the prison governor began immediately to pay me less respect, when he perceived that my liberation was not expected. [ ] in the margin is added; 'the prison governor also severely reprimanded the woman because she had told me that the king was dead; that it would not go as well with me as i thought. she gave him word for word.' when the time came at which i was accustomed to receive the holy communion, i begged the prison governor that he should manage that i should have the court preacher, d. hans læt, as the former court preacher, d. mathias foss, had come to me on the first occasion in my prison. the prison governor stated my desire, and his majesty assented. d. hans læt was already in the tower, down below, but he was called back because the queen dowager (who was still in the palace) would not allow it; and the prison governor sent me word, through peder jensen, that the king had said i was to be content with the clergyman to whom i was accustomed, so that the necessary preparation for the lord's supper was postponed till the following day, when mag. buck came to me and greeted me in an unusual manner, congratulating me in a long oration on my intention, saluting me 'your grace.' when he was seated, he said, 'i should have been glad if d. hans læt had come in my place.' i replied, 'i had wished it also.' 'yes,' he said, 'i know well why you wished it so. you wish to know things, and that is forbidden me. you have already caused one man to lose his employ.' i asked him whether i had ever desired to know anything from him? 'no,' he replied, 'you know well that you would learn nothing from me; for that reason you have asked me nothing.' 'does the herr mag, then,' i said, 'mean that i desired d. hans læt in order to hear news of him?' he hesitated a little, and then said, 'you wanted to have d. hans læt in order that he might speak for you with the king.' i said, 'there may perhaps be something in that.' upon this he began to swear all kinds of oaths (such as i have never heard before),[ ] that he had spoken for me. (i thought: 'i have no doubt you have spoken of me, but not in my favour.') he had given me a book which i still have; it is 'st. augustini manuali;' the statholder gabel had bought it, as he said more than once, protesting by god that it had cost the herr statholder a rix-dollar. (i thought of the , rix-dollars which gabel received, that we might be liberated from our confinement at borringholm, but i said nothing; perhaps for this reason he repeated the statement so often.) i asked him whom i had caused to lose his employ. he answered, 'hans balcke.[ ] he told you that treasurer gabel was statholder, and he ought not to have done so.' i said, 'i do not believe that balcke knew that he ought not to say it, for he did not tell it to me as a secret. one might say just as well that h. magister had caused balcke to lose his place.' he was very angry at this, and various disputes arose on the subject. he began again just as before, that i wanted to have d. læt, he knew why. i said, 'i did not insist specially on having d. læt; but if not him, the chaplain of the castle, or another.' he asked, 'why another?' i replied, 'because it is not always convenient to the herr magister. i have been obliged to wait for him ten, twelve, and even fourteen days, and the last time he administered his office in great haste, so that it is not convenient for him to come when i require him.' he sat turning over my words, not knowing what to answer, and at last he said; 'you think it will go better with you now because king frederick is dead. no, you deceive yourself! it will go worse with you, it will go worse with you!' and as he was growing angry, i became more composed and i asked gently why so, and from what could he infer it? he answered, 'i infer it from the fact that you have not been able to get your will in desiring another clergyman and confessor; so i assure you things will not be better with you. if king frederick is dead, king christian is alive.' i said: 'that is a bad foundation; your words of threatening have no basis. if i have not this time been able to obtain another confessor, it does not follow that i shall not have another at another time. and what have i done, that things should go worse with me?' he was more and more angry, and exclaimed aloud several times, 'worse, yes, it will be worse!' then i also answered angrily, 'well, then let it come.' [ ] in the margin is added: 'among his terrible curses was one that his tongue might be paralysed if he had not spoken for me. the following year god struck him with paralysis of the tongue; he had a stroke from anger, and lived eight days afterwards; he was in his senses, but he was not able to speak, and he died; but he lived to see the day when another clergyman administered the holy communion to me.' [ ] in the margin is added: 'i saw now that this was the cause of balcke's dismissal.' upon this he was quite silent, and i said: 'you have given me a good preparation; now, in god's name!' then i made my confession, and he administered his office and went away without any other farewell than giving me his hand. i learned afterwards that before m. buck came to me he went to the prison governor, who was in bed, and begged him to tell knud, who was at that time page of the chamber,[e ] what a sacramental woman i was; how i had dug a hole in the floor in order to speak with the doctor (which was an impossibility), and how i had practised climbing up and looking out on the square. he begged him several times to tell this to the page of the chamber: 'that is a sacramental woman!'[ ] [e ] this knud was the favourite of king christian v., adam levin knuth, one of the many germans who then exercised a most unfavourable influence on the affairs of denmark. [ ] in the margin is added: 'chresten, who was ill satisfied both with karen and with me, gave us a different title one day, when he was saying something to one of the house-servants, upon which the latter asked him who had said it? chresten answered, 'she who is kept up there for her.' when i was told of this, i laughed and said, 'that is quite right, we are two "shes."' in the end of april in the same year my door was opened one afternoon, and the prison governor came in with some ladies, who kept somewhat aside until he had said, 'here are some of the maids of honour, who are permitted to speak to you.' there came in first a young lady whom i did not know. next appeared the lady augusta of glücksburg, whom i recognised at once, as she was but little altered. next followed the electoral princess of saxony, whom i at once recognised from her likeness to her royal father, and last of all our gracious queen, whom i chiefly looked at, and found the lineaments of her countenance just as peder jensen had described them. i saw also a large diamond on her bracelet, and one on her finger, where her glove was cut. her majesty supported herself against the folding table as soon as she had greeted me. lady augusta ran up and down into every corner, and the electoral princess remained at the door. lady augusta said: 'fye, what a disgusting room this is! i could not live a day in it. i wonder that you have been able to endure it so long.' i answered, 'the room is such as pleases god and his majesty, and so long as god will i shall be able to endure it.' she began a conversation with the prison governor, who was half tipsy, and spoke with him about balcke's marriage, whose wedding with his third wife was taking place on that very day; she spoke against marrying so often, and the prison governor replied with various silly speeches. she asked me if i was plagued with fleas. i replied that i could furnish her with a regiment of fleas, if she would have them. she replied hastily with an oath, and swore that she did not want them. her question made me somewhat ironical, and i was annoyed at the delight she exhibited at my miserable condition; so when she asked me whether i had body or wall lice, i answered her with a question, and enquired whether my brother-in-law hanibal sehested was still alive? this question made her somewhat draw in, for she perceived that i knew her. she made no answer. the electoral princess, who probably had heard of my brother-in-law's intrigues with lady augusta,[e ] went quickly up to the table (the book lay on it, in which karen used to read, and which she had brought in with her), took the book, opened it and asked whether it was mine. i replied that it belonged to the woman whom i had taught to read, and as i gave the electoral princess her fitting title of serene highness, lady augusta said: 'you err! you are mistaken; she is not the person whom you think.' i answered, 'i am not mistaken.' after this she said no more, but gave me her hand without a word. the gracious queen looked sadly on, but said nothing. when her majesty gave me her hand, i kissed it and held it fast, and begged her majesty to intercede for me, at any rate for some alleviation of my captivity. her majesty replied not with words, but with a flood of tears. the virtuous electoral princess cried also; she wept very sorrowfully. and when they had reached the anteroom and my door was closed, both the queen and the electoral princess said, 'it is a sin to treat her thus!' they shuddered; and each said, 'would to god that it rested with me! she should not stay there.' lady augusta urged them to go away, and mentioned it afterwards to the queen dowager, who said that i had myself to thank for it; i had deserved to be worse treated than this. [e ] hannibal sehested was dead already in , as leonora was no doubt well aware. the whole passage seems to indicate that he is supposed to have had some love-intrigue with the duchess. nothing has transpired on this subject from other sources, but it is certain that her husband, duke ernst gynther, for some time at least, was very unfriendly disposed to hannibal sehested. when the king's funeral was over, and the queen dowager had left the castle, i requested the prison governor that he should execute my message and solicit another clergyman for me, either the chaplain of the castle or the arsenal chaplain, or the one who usually attended to the prisoners; for if i could get no other than m. buck, they must take the sin on their own heads, for that i would not again confess to him. a short time elapsed, but at length the chaplain of the castle, at that time m. rodolff moth, was assigned me. god, who has ever stood by me in all my adversity, and who in my sorrow and distress has sent me unexpected consolation, gave me peculiar comfort in this man. he consoled me with the word of god; he was a learned and conversable man, and he interceded for me with his majesty. the first favour which he obtained for me was, that i was granted another apartment on july , , and bishop d. jesper's postil. he afterwards by degrees obtained still greater favours for me. i received rix-dollars as a gift, to purchase such clothes for myself as i desired, and anything i might wish for to beguile the time.[ ] [ ] in the margin is noted: 'some of my money i expended on books, and it is remarkable that i obtained from m. buck's books (which were sold by auction) among others the great martilegium, in folio, which he would not lend me. i excerpted and translated various matters from spanish, italian, french, and german authors. i especially wrote out and translated into danish the female personages of different rank and origin, who were mentioned with praise by the authors as valiant, true, chaste and sensible, patient, steadfast and scholarly.' [e ] [e ] the martilegium was probably a german history of martyrs, entitled 'martilogium (for martyrologium) der heiligen' (strasburg , fol.). the extracts to which she refers were no doubt her earliest collections for her work on heroines. in this year her majesty the queen became pregnant, and her majesty's mother, the landgravine of hesse, came to be with her in her confinement. on september her serene highness visited me in my prison, at first wishing to remain incognito. she had with her a princess of curland, who was betrothed to the son of the landgravine; her lady in waiting, a wallenstein by birth; and the wife of her master of the household. the landgravine greeted me with a kiss, and the others followed her example. i did not at that time recognise the wife of the master of the household, but she had known me formerly in my prosperity at the hague, when she had been in the service of the countess leuenstein, and the tears stood in her eyes. the landgravine lamented my hard fate and my unhappy circumstances. i thanked her serene highness for the gracious sympathy she felt with me, and said that she might help much in alleviating my fetters, if not in liberating me from them entirely. the landgravine smiled and said, 'i see well you take me for another than i am.' i said, 'your serene highness's deportment and appearance will not allow you to conceal your rank, were you even in peasant's attire.' this pleased her; she laughed and jested, and said she had not thought of that. the lady in waiting agreed with me, and said that i had spoken very justly in saying that i had recognised her by her royal appearance. upon this the landgravine said, 'you do not know her?' pointing to the princess of curland. she then said who she was, and afterwards who her lady in waiting was, and also the wife of the master of the household, who was as i have before mentioned. she spoke of the pity which this lady felt for me, and added 'et moy pas moins.' i thanked her 'altesse très-humblement et la prioit en cette occasion de faire voir sa généreuse conduite.' her serene highness looked at the prison governor as though she would say that we might speak french too long; she took off her glove and gave me her hand, pressing mine and saying, 'croyez-moy, je fairez mon possible.' i kissed her serene highness's hand, and she then took leave of me with a kiss. the virtuous landgravine kept her word, but could effect nothing. when her majesty the queen was in the perils of childbirth, she went to the king and obtained from him a solemn promise that if the queen gave birth to a son i should receive my liberty. on october , in the night between one and two o'clock, god delivered her majesty in safety of our crown prince. when all present were duly rejoicing at the prince's birth, the landgravine said, 'oh! will not the captive rejoice!' the queen dowager enquired 'why?' the landgravine related the king's promise. the queen dowager was so angry that she was ill. she loosened her jacket, and said she would return home; that she would not wait till the child was baptised. her coach appeared in the palace square. the king at length persuaded her to remain till the baptism was over, but he was obliged to promise with an oath that i should not be liberated. this vexed the virtuous landgravine not a little, that the queen should have induced her son to break his promise; and she persisted in saying that a king ought to keep his vow. the queen dowager answered, 'my son has before made a vow, and this he has broken by his promise to your serene highness.' the landgravine said at last: 'if i cannot bring about the freedom of the prisoner, at least let her, at my request, be removed to a better place, with somewhat more liberty. it is not to the king's reputation that she is imprisoned there. she is, after all, a king's daughter, and i know that much injustice is done to her.' the queen dowager was annoyed at these words, and said, 'now, she shall not come out; she shall remain where she is!' the landgravine answered, 'if god will, she will assuredly come out, even though your majesty may will it not;' so saying, she rose and went out. on october the lady in waiting, wallenstein, sent for peder jensen tötzlöff, and delivered to him by command a book entitled, d. heinrich müller's 'geistliche erquickstunden,'[e ] which he gave me with a gracious message from the landgravine. on the same day i sent her serene highness, through tötzlöff, my dutiful thanks, and tötzlöff took the book back to the lady in waiting, with the request that she would endeavour to prevail on her highness to show me the great favour of placing her name and motto in the book, in remembrance of her highness's generosity and kindness. i lamented my condition in this also, that from such a place i could not spread abroad her serene highness's praise and estimable benefits, and make the world acquainted with them; but that i would do what i could, and i would include her serene highness and all her family in my prayers for their welfare both of soul and body. (this i have done, and will do, so long as god spares my life.) [e ] 'hours of spiritual refreshment.' this very popular book of devotion was first published in , and had an extraordinary run both in germany and, through translations, in denmark. the last danish extract of it was published in , and reached the third edition in . on october i received the book back through tötzlöff, and i found within it the following lines, written by the landgravine's own hand: . ce qui n'est pas en ta puissance ne doit point troubler ton repos; tu balances mal à propos entre la crainte et l'espérance. laisse faire ton dieu et ton roy, et suporte avec passience ce qu'il résoud pour toy. je prie dieu de vous faire cette grâce, et que je vous puisse tesmoigner combien je suis, madame, vostre très-affectionée à vous servir, {monogram} the book is still in my possession, and i sent word through tötzlöff to the lady in waiting to request her to convey my most humble thanks to her highness; and afterwards, when the landgravine was about to start on her journey, to commend me to her serene highness's favour. in the same year, , karen, nils' daughter, left me on account of ill health. for one night a woman was with me named margrete, who was a serf from holstein. she had run away from her master. she was a very awkward peasant woman, so towards evening on the following day she was sent away, and in her place there came a woman named inger, a person of loose character. this woman gave herself out as the widow of a non-commissioned officer, and that she had long been in service at hamburg, and nursed lying-in women. it happened with her, as is often the case, that one seeks to obtain a thing, and that to one's own vexation. chresten had spoken for this woman with the prison governor, and had praised her before me, but the prison governor took upon another recommendation the before-mentioned margrete. so long as there was hope that the landgravine might obtain my freedom, this woman was very amenable, but afterwards she began by degrees to show what was in her, and that it was not for nothing that she resembled dina. she caused me annoyance of various kinds, which i received with patience, thinking within myself that it was another trial imposed by god upon me, and dina's intrigues often came into my mind, and i thought, 'suppose she should devise some dina plot?' (she is capable of it, if she had only an instigator, as dina had.) among other annoyances, which may not be reckoned among the least, was this: i was one day not very well, having slept but little or not at all during the night, and i had lain down to sleep on the bed in the day; and she would give me no rest, but came softly past me in her socks, and in order to wake me teased a dog which i had,[ ] so that he growled. i asked her why she grudged my sleeping? she answered, 'i did not know that you were asleep.' 'why, then,' i said, 'did you go by in your stockings?' she replied, 'if you saw that, then you were not asleep,' and she laughed heartily by herself. (she sat always in front of my table with her back turned to me; whether it was because she had lost one eye that she sat in that position to the light, i know not.) [ ] in the margin is added: 'this dog was of an icelandic breed, not pretty, but very faithful and sagacious. he slept every afternoon on the stool, and when she had fallen asleep, she let her hands hang down. then the dog would get up and run softly and bite her finger till the blood came. if she threw down her slippers, he would take one and sit upon it. she never got it back again without a bloody finger.' i did not care for any conversation with her, so i lay still; and when she thought i was asleep, she got up again and teased the dog. i said, 'you tax my patience sorely; but if once my passion rises, you will certainly get something which will astonish you, you base accursed thing!' 'base accursed thing,' she repeated to herself with a slight laugh. i prayed to god that he would restrain me, so that i might not lay violent hands on this base creature. and as i had the other apartment (as i have before mentioned),[ ] i went out and walked up and down between four and five o'clock. she washed and splashed outside, and spilled the water exactly where i was walking. i told her several times to leave her splashing, as she spilled the water in all directions on the floor, so that i made my clothes dirty, and often there was not a drop of water for my dog to drink, and the tower-warder had to fetch her water from the kitchen spring. this was of no avail. one day it occurred to her, just as the bell had sounded four, to go out and pour all the water on the floor, and then come back again. when i went to the door, i perceived what she had done. without saying a word, i struck her first on one cheek and then on the other, so that the blood ran from her nose and mouth, and she fell against her bench, and knocked the skin from her shin-bone. she began to be abusive, and said she had never in her life had such a box on her ears. i said immediately, 'hold your tongue, or you will have another like it! i am now only a little angry, but if you make me really angry i shall strike you harder.' she was silent for the time, but she caused me all the small annoyance she could. [ ] in the margin is this note: 'in the year , on the th may, one of the house-servants was arrested for stealing. adam knudt, at that time gentleman of the chamber, himself saw him take several ducats early one morning from the king's trousers, which were hanging against the walls. he was at first for some hours my neighbour in the dark church. he was then placed in the witch cell, and as he was to be tortured, he received secret warning of it (which was forbidden), so that when the executioner came he was found to have hung himself. that is to say, he was said to have hung himself, though to all appearance this was not possible; he was found with a cloth round his neck, which was a swaddling-cloth belonging to one of chresten, the tower-warder's, children. chresten became my neighbour, and was ostensibly brought to justice, but he was acquitted and reinstated in his office. i received it all with gentleness, fearing that i might lay violent hands on her. she scarcely knew what to devise to cause me vexation; she had a silver thimble on which a strange name was engraved; she had found it, she said, in a dust-heap in the street. i once asked her where she had found some handkerchiefs which she had of fine dutch linen, with lace on them, which likewise were marked with another name; they were embroidered with blue silk, and there was a different name on each. she had bought them, she said, at an auction at hamburg.[ ] i thought that the damage she had received on one of her eyes might very likely have arisen from her having 'found' something of that kind,[e ] and as i soon after asked her by what accident she had injured her eye, she undoubtedly understood my question well, for she was angry and rather quiet, and said, 'what injury? there is nothing the matter with my eye; i can, thank god, see with both.' i let the matter rest there. soon after this conversation she came down one day from upstairs, feeling in her pocket, though she said nothing until the afternoon, when the doors were locked, and then she looked through all her rubbish, saying 'if i only knew where it could be?' i asked what she was looking for. 'my thimble,' she said. 'you will find it,' i said; 'only look thoroughly!' and as she had begun to look for it in her pockets before she had required it, i thought she might have drawn it out of her pocket with some paper which she used, and which she had bought. i said this, but it could not be so. [ ] in the margin is added: 'she was so proud of her knowledge of german that when she sang a morning hymn (which, however rarely happened) she interspersed it with german words. i once asked her if she knew what her mother's cat was called in danish, and i said something at which she was angry. [e ] it was a common superstition that persons who understood the art of showing by magic the whereabouts of stolen goods, had the power, by use of their formulas alone, to deprive the thief of an eye. on the following day, towards noon, she again behaved as if she were looking for it upstairs; and when the door was closed she began to give loose to her tongue, and to make a long story about the thimble, where it could possibly be. 'there was no one here, and no one came in except us two;' and she gave me to understand that i had taken it; she took her large box which she had, and rummaged out everything that was in it, and said, 'now you can see that i have not got it.' i said that i did not care about it, whether she had it or no, but that i saw that she accused me of stealing. she adhered to it, and said, 'who else could have taken it? there is no one else here, and i have let you see all that is mine, and it is not there.' then for the first time i saw that she wished that i should let her see in the same manner what i had in my cardbox, for she had never seen anything of the work which i had done before her time. i said, 'i do not care at all what you do with your thimble, and i respect myself too much to quarrel with you or to mind your coarse and shameless accusation. i have, thank god, enough in my imprisonment to buy what i require, &c. but as you perhaps have stolen it, you now imagine that it has been stolen again from you, if it be true that you have lost it.' to this she made no answer, so that i believe she had it herself, and only wanted by this invention to gain a sight of my things. as it was the christmas month and very cold, and chresten was lighting a fire in the stove before the evening meal, i said to him in her presence, 'chresten, you are fortunate if you are not, like me, accused of stealing, for you might have found her thimble upstairs without having had it proclaimed from the pulpit; it was before found by inger, and not announced publicly.' this was like a spark to tinder, and she went to work like a frantic being, using her shameless language. she had not stolen it, but it had been stolen from her; and she cursed and swore. chresten ordered her to be silent. he desired her to remember who i was, and that she was in my service. she answered, 'i will not be silent, not if i were standing before the king's bailiff!' the more gently i spoke, the more angry was she; at length i said, 'will you agree with me in one wish?--that the person who last had the thimble in her possession may see no better with her left eye than she sees with her right.' she answered with an oath that she could see with both eyes. i said, 'well, then, pray god with me that she may be blind in both eyes who last had it.' she growled a little to herself and ran into the inner room, and said no more of her thimble, nor did i. god knows that i was heartily weary of this intercourse. i prayed god for patience, and thought 'this is only a trial of patience. god spares me from other sorrow which i might have in its stead.' i could not avail myself of the occasion of her accusing me of theft to get rid of her, but i saw another opportunity not far off. the prison governor came one day to me with some thread which was offered for sale, rather coarse, but fit for making stockings and night-waistcoats. i bought two pounds of it, and he retained a pound, saying, 'i suppose the woman can make me a pair of stockings with it?' i answered in the affirmative (for she could do nothing else but knit). when he was gone, she said, 'there will be a pair of stockings for me here also, for i shall get no other pay.' i said, 'that is surely enough.' the stockings for the prison governor were finished. she sat one day half asleep, and made a false row round the stocking below the foot. i wanted her to undo it. 'no,' said she, 'it can remain as it is; he won't know but that it is the fashion in hamburg.'[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'there was no similar row on the other stocking. the prison governor never mentioned it.' when his stockings were finished, she began a pair for herself of the same thread, and sat and exulted that it was the prison governor's thread. this, it seemed to me, furnished me with an opportunity of getting rid of her. and as the prison governor rarely came up, and she sent him down the stockings by tötzlöff, i begged tötzlöff to contrive that the prison governor should come up to me, and that he should seat himself on the woman's bed and arrange her pillow as if he wanted to lean against it (underneath it lay her wool). this was done. the prison governor came up, took the knitting in his hand, and said to inger, 'is this another pair of stockings for me?' 'no, mr. prison governor,' she answered, 'they are for me. you have got yours. i have already sent you them.' 'but,' said he, 'this is of my thread; it looks like my thread.' she protested that it was not his thread. as he went down to fetch his stockings and the scales, she said to me, 'that is not his thread; it is mine now,' and laughed heartily. i thought, 'something more may come of this.' the prison governor came with the scales and his stockings, compared one thread with the other, and the stockings weighed scarcely half a pound. he asked her whether she had acted rightly? she continued to assert that it was her thread; that she had bought it in hamburg, and had brought it here. the prison governor grew angry, and said that she lied, and called her a bitch. she swore on the other hand that it was not his thread; that she would swear it by the sacrament. the prison governor went away; such an oath horrified him. i was perfectly silent during this quarrel. when the prison governor had gone, i said to the woman, 'god forbid! how could you say such words? do you venture to swear a falsehood by the sacrament, and to say it in my presence, when i know that it is the prison governor's thread? what a godless creature you are!' she answered, with a half ridiculous expression of face, 'i said i would take the sacrament upon it, but i am not going to do so.' 'oh dina!' i thought, 'you are not like her for nothing; god guard me from you!' and i said, 'do you think that such light words are not a sin, and that god will not punish you for them?' she assumed an air of authority, and said, 'is the thread of any consequence? i can pay for it; i have not stolen it from him; he gave it to me himself. i have only done what the tailors do; they do not steal; it is given to them. he did not weigh out the thread for me.' i answered her no more than 'you have taken it from him; i shall trouble myself no more about it;' but i begged tötzlöff to do all he could that i should be rid of her, and have another in her place of a good character. tötzlöff heard that karen had a desire to return to me; he told me so. the prison governor was satisfied with the arrangement. it was kept concealed from inger till all was so settled that karen could come up one evening at supper-time. when the prison governor had unlocked the door, and had established himself in the inner room, and the woman had come out, he said: 'now, inger, pack your bundle! you are to go.' 'yes, mr. prison governor,' she answered, and laughed, and brought the food to me, and told me what the prison governor had said, saying at the same time, 'that is his joke.' 'i heard well,' i answered, 'what he said; it is not his joke, it is his real earnestness.' she did not believe it; at any rate she acted as if she did not, and smiled, saying, 'he cannot be in earnest;' and she went out and asked the prison governor whether he was in earnest. he said, 'go! go! there is no time for gossip!' she came into me again, and asked if i wished to be rid of her. i answered, 'yes.' 'why so?' she asked. i answered: 'it would take me too long to explain; the other woman who is to remain here is below.' 'at any rate,' said she, 'let me stay here over the night.' ('ah, dina!' i thought.) 'not a quarter of an hour!' i answered; 'go and pack your things! that is soon done!' she did so, said no word of farewell, and went out of the door. thus karen came to me for the third time, but she did not remain an entire year, on account of illness.[ ] [ ] in the margin is noted: 'i must remember one thing about karen, nil's daughter. when anything gave her satisfaction, she would take up her book directly and read. i asked her whether she understood what she read. "yes, of course," she answered, "as truly as god will bless you! when a word comes that i don't understand, i pass it over." i smiled a little in my own mind, but said nothing.' in the year m. moth became vice-bishop in fyn. i lost much in him, and in his place came h. emmeke norbye, who became court preacher, and who had formerly been a comrade of griffenfeldt; but griffenfeldt did not acknowledge him subsequently, so that he could achieve nothing for me with griffenfeldt.[e ] he one day brought me as answer (when i sent him word among other things that his majesty would be gracious if only some one would speak for me), 'it would be as if a pistol had been placed at the king's heart, and he were to forgive it.' [e ] griffenfeldt, who was then at the height of his power, was the son of a wine-merchant, by name schumacher, but had risen by his talents alone to the highest dignities. he was ennobled under the name of griffenfeldt, and was undoubtedly the ablest statesman denmark ever possessed. eventually he was thrust from his high position by an intrigue set on foot by german courtiers and backed by foreign influence. he was accused of treason and kept in prison from to , the year before he died, to the great, perhaps irreparable damage, of his native country. the principal witness against him was a german doctor, mauritius, a professional spy, who had served the danish government in this capacity. the year after the fall of griffenfeld, he was himself arrested on a charge of perjury, forgery, and high treason, and placed in the blue tower; he was convicted and conducted to bornholm, where he died. but griffenfeldt, who had been convicted on his false testimony, was not liberated. griffenfeldt's ability and patriotism cannot be doubted, but his personal character was not without blemish; and it is a fact that in his prosperity he disclaimed all connection with his earlier friends, and even his near relations. in the same year my sister elisabeth augusta sent me a message through tötzlöff and enquired whether i had a fancy for any fruit, as she would send me some. i was surprised at the message, which came to me from my sister in the tenth year of my captivity, and i said, 'better late than never!' i sent her no answer. one funny thing i will yet mention, which occurred in the time of karen, nil's daughter. chresten, who had to make a fire in the stove an hour before supper (since it had no flue), so that the smoke could pass out at the staircase door before i supped, did not come one evening before six o'clock, and was then quite tipsy. and as i was sitting at the time near the stove in the outer apartment on a log of wood, which had been hewed as a seat, i said it was late to make the fire, as he must now go into the kitchen. he paid no attention to my gentle remark, until i threatened him with hard words, and ordered him to take the wood out. he was angry, and would not use the tongs to take the wood out, nor would he permit karen to take them out with the tongs; but he tore them out with his hands, and said, 'nothing can burn me.' and as some little time elapsed before the wood was extinguished, he began to fear that it would give little satisfaction if he so long delayed fetching the meal. he seated himself flat on the ground and was rather dejected; presently he burst out and said, 'oh god, you who have had house and lands, where are you now sitting?' i said, 'on a log of wood!' he answered, 'i do not mean your ladyship!' i asked, 'whom does your worship mean, then?' he replied, 'i mean karen.' i laughed, and said no more. to enumerate all the contemptuous conduct i endured would be too lengthy, and not worth the trouble. one thing i will yet mention of the tower-warder chresten, who caused me great annoyance at the end of this tenth year of my imprisonment. among other annoyances he once struck my dog, so that it cried. i did not see it, but i heard it, and the woman told me it was he who had struck the dog. i was greatly displeased at it. he laughed at this, and said, 'it is only a dog.' i gave him to understand that he struck the dog because he did not venture to strike me. he laughed heartily at the idea, and i said, 'i do not care for your anger so long as the prison governor is my friend' (this conversation took place while i was at a meal, and the prison governor was sitting with me, and chresten was standing at the door of my apartment, stretching out his arms.) i said, 'the prison governor and you will both get into heavy trouble, if i choose. do you hear that, good people?' (i knew of too many things, which they wished to hide, in more than one respect.) the prison governor sat like one deaf and dumb, and remained seated, but chresten turned away somewhat ashamed, without saying another word. he had afterwards some fear of me, when he was not too intoxicated; for at such times he cared not what he said, as regards high or low. he was afterwards insolent to the woman, and said he would strike the dog, and that i should see him do so. this, however, he did not do. chresten's fool-hardiness increased, so that peder tötzlöff informed the prison governor of his bad behaviour, and of my complaints of the wild doings of the prisoners, who made such a noise by night that i could not sleep for it, for chresten spent the night at his home, and allowed the prisoners to do as they chose. upon this information, the prison governor placed a padlock upon the tower door at night, so that chresten could not get out until the door was unlocked in the morning. this annoyed him, and he demanded his discharge, which he received on april , ; and in his place there came a man named gert, who had been in the service of the prison governor as a coachman. in this year, the ---- may, i wrote a spiritual 'song in remembrance of god's goodness,' after the melody 'nun ruhen alle wälder.' i. my heart! true courage find! god's goodness bear in mind, and how he, ever nigh, helps me my load to bear, nor utterly despair tho' in such heavy bonds i lie. ii. ne'er from my thoughts shall stray how once i lingering lay in the dark dungeon cell; my cares and bitter fears, and ridicule and tears, and god the lord upheld me well. iii. think on my misery and sad captivity thro' many a dreary year! yet nought my heart distresses; the lord he proves and blesses, and he protects me even here! iv. come heart and soul elate! and let me now relate the wonders of god's skill! he was my preservation in danger and temptation, and kept me from impending ill. v. the end seemed drawing near, i wrung my hands with fear, yet has he helped me e'er; my refuge and my guide, on him i have relied, and he has ever known my care. vi. thanks to thee, fount of good! thou canst no evil brood, thy blows are fatherly; when cruel power oppressed me, thy hand has ever blessed me, and thou has sheltered me! vii. before thee, lord, i lie; give me my liberty before my course is run; thy gracious hands extend and let my suffering end! yet not my will, but thine, be done. in this year, on july , his royal majesty was gracious enough to have a large window made again in my inner apartment; it had been walled up when i had been brought into this chamber. a stove was also placed there, the flue of which passed out into the square. the prison governor was not well satisfied at this, especially as he was obliged to be present during the work; this did not suit his laziness. my doors were open during the time; it was twelve days before the work was finished. he grumbled, and did not wish that the window should be made as low as it had been before i was imprisoned here; i persuaded the mason's journeyman to cut down the wall as low as it had before been, which the prison governor perceived from the palace square, and he came running up and scolded, and was thoroughly angry. but it was not to be changed, for the window-frame was already made. i asked him what it mattered to him if the window was a stone lower; it did not go lower than the iron grating, and it had formerly been so. he would have his will, so that the mason walled it up a stone higher while the prison governor was there, and removed it again afterwards, for the window-frame, which was ready, would not otherwise have fitted. in the same year karen, nil's daughter, left me for the third and last time, and in her stead came a woman named barbra, the widow of a bookbinder. she is a woman of a melancholy turn. her conscience is aroused sometimes, so that she often enumerates her own misdeeds (but not so great as they have been, and as i have found out by enquiry). she had two children, and it seems from her own account that she was to some extent guilty of their death, for she says: 'who can have any care for a child when one does not love its father?' she left her husband two years before he died, and repaired to hamburg, supporting herself by spinning; she had before been in the service of a princess as a spinning-maid. her father is alive, and was bookbinder to the king's majesty; he has just now had a stroke of paralysis, and is lying very ill. she has no sympathy with her father, and wishes him dead (which would perhaps be the best thing for him); but it vexes me that she behaves so badly to her sister, who is the wife of a tailor, and i often tell her that in this she is committing a double sin; for the needy sister comes from time to time for something to eat. if she does not come exactly on the evening which she has agreed upon, she gets nothing, and the food is thrown away upstairs. when at some length i place her sin before her, she says, 'that meat is bad.' i ask her why she let it get bad, and did not give it in time to her sister. to this she answers that her sister is not worthy of it. i predict evil things which will happen to her in future, as they have done to others whom i enumerate to her. at this she throws back her head and is silent. at this time her majesty the queen sent me some silkworms to beguile the time. when they had finished spinning, i sent them back to her majesty in a box which i had covered with carnation-coloured satin, upon which i had embroidered a pattern with gold thread. inside, the box was lined with white taffeta. in the lid i embroidered with black silk a humble request that her majesty would loose my bonds, and would fetter me anew with the hand of favour. her majesty the virtuous queen would have granted my request had it rested with her. the prison governor became gradually more sensible and accommodating, drank less wine, and made no jokes. i had peace within my doors. the woman sat during the day outside in the other apartment, and lay there also in the night, so that i began not to fret so much over my hard fate. i passed the year with reading, writing, and composing. for some time past, immediately after i had received the yearly pension, i had bought for myself not only historical works in various languages, but i had gathered and translated from them all the famous female personages, who were celebrated as true, chaste, sensible, valorous, virtuous, god-fearing, learned, and steadfast; and in anno , on january , i amused myself with making some rhymes to m. thomas kingo, under the title, 'to the much-famed poet m. thomas kingo, a request from a danish woman in the name of all danish women.' the request was this, that he would exhibit in befitting honour the virtuous and praiseworthy danish women. there are, indeed, virtuous women belonging to other nations, but i requested only his praise of the danish. this never reached kingo; but if my good friend to whom i entrust these papers still lives, it will fall probably into your hands, my beloved children. in the same year, on may , i wrote in rhyme a controversial conversation between sense and reason; entitled, 'controversial thoughts by the captive widow, or the dispute between sense and reason.' nothing else occurred this year within the doors of my prison which is worth recording, except one event--namely, when the outermost door of the anteroom was unlocked in the morning for the sake of sweeping away the dirt and bringing in fresh water, and the tower-warder occasionally let it stand open till meal-time and then closed it again, it happened that a fire broke out in the town and the bells were tolled. i and the woman ran up to the top of the tower to see where it was burning. when i was on the stairs which led up to the clock-work, the prison governor came, and with him was a servant from the silver-chamber. he first perceived my dog, then he saw somewhat of the woman, and thought probably that i was there also; he was so wise as not to come up the stairs, but remained below at the lowest holes, from whence one can look out over the town, and left me time enough to get down again and shut my door. gert was sorry, and came afterwards to the door and told me of his distress. i consoled him, and said there was nothing to fear. before the prison governor opened the door at noon, he struck gert with his stick, so that he cried, and the prison governor said with an oath, 'thou shalt leave.' when the prison governor came in, i was the first to speak, and i said: 'it is not right in you to beat the poor devil; he could not help it. the executioner came up as he was going to lock my door, and that made him forget to do so.' he threatened gert severely, and said, 'i should not have minded it so much had not that other servant been with me.' the words at once occurred to me which he had said to me a long time before, namely that no woman could be silent, but that all men could be silent (when he had asserted this, i had thought, if this be so, then my adversaries might believe that i, had i known of anything which they had in view, should not have been able to keep silence). so i now answered him thus: 'well, and what does that signify? it was a man; they can all keep silence; there is no harm done.' he could not help laughing, and said, 'well, you are good enough.' i then talked to him, and assured him that i had no desire to leave the tower without the king's will, even though day and night all the tower doors were left open, and i also said that i could have got out long ago, if that had been my design. gert continued in his service, and the prison governor never told gert to shut me in in the morning.[ ] [ ] in the margin is noted: 'at my desire the prison governor gave me a rat whose tail he had cut off; this i placed in a parrot's cage, and gave it food, so that it grew very tame. the woman grudged me this amusement; and as the cage hung in the outer apartment, and had a wire grating underneath, so that the dirt might fall out, she burned the rat with a candle from below. it was easy to perceive it, but she denied it.' at this time i had bought myself a clavicordium, and as barbra could sing well, i played psalms and she sang, so that the time was not long to us. she taught me to bind books, so far as i needed.[e ] [e ] the ms. itself is bound in a very primitive manner, which renders it probable that leonora has done it herself. my father confessor, h. emmeke, became a preacher at kiöge anno . in the same year my pension was increased, and i received yearly rix-dollars. it stands in the order that the rix-dollars were to be used for the purchase of clothes and the remaining fifty to buy anything which might beguile the time.[e ] god bless and keep his gracious majesty, and grant that he may live to enjoy many happy years. [e ] it appears from the state accounts that ever since the year a sum of dollars a year had been placed at her disposal. it would seem, therefore, that somehow or other a part of them had been unlawfully abstracted by someone during the first years. brant was at this time treasurer. on december in this same year barbra left me, and married a bookbinder's apprentice; but she repented it afterwards. and as her husband died a year and a half after her marriage, and that suddenly, suspicion fell upon barbra. she afterwards went to her brother's house and fell ill. her conscience was awakened, and she sent for tötzlöff and told almost in plain terms that she had poisoned her husband, and begged him to tell me so. i was not much astonished at it, for according to her own account she had before killed her own children; but i told peder tötzlöff that he was not to speak of it; if god willed that it should be made known, it would be so notwithstanding; the brother and the maid in the house knew it; he was not to go there again, even if she sent a message to him. she became quite insane, and lay in a miserable condition. the brother subsequently had her removed to the plague-house. in barbra's place there came to me a woman named sitzel, daughter of a certain klemming; maren blocks had brought about her employment, as sitzel owed her money. she is a dissolute woman, and maren gave her out as a spinster; she had a white cap on her head when she came up. sitzel's debt to maren had arisen in this way: that maren--since sitzel could make buttons, and the button-makers had quarrelled with her--obtained for her a royal licence in order to free her from the opposition of the button-makers, under the pretext that she was sickly. when the door was locked in the evening, i requested to see the royal licence which maren had obtained for her. and when i saw that she was styled in it the sickly woman, i asked her what her infirmity was. she replied that she had no infirmity. 'why, then,' i asked, 'have you given yourself out as sickly?' she answered, 'that was maren block's doing, in order to get for me the royal licence.' 'in the licence,' i said, 'you are spoken of as a married woman, and not as a spinster; have you, then, been seduced?' she hung her head and said softly, 'yes.' i was not satisfied. i said, 'maren block has obtained the royal licence for you by lies, and has brought you to me by lies; what, then, can i expect from your service?' she begged my pardon, promised to serve me well, and never to act contrary to my wishes. she is a dangerous person; there is nothing good in her; bold and shameless, she is not even afraid of fighting a man. she struck two button-makers one day, who wanted to take away her work, till they were obliged to run away. with me she had no opportunity of thus displaying her evil passions, but still they were perceptible in various ways. one day i warded off a scuffle between her and maren blocks; for when maren blocks had got back the money which she had expended on the royal licence for sitzel, she wanted to remove her from me, and to bring another into her place; but i sent word to maren blocks that she must not imagine she could send me another whom i must take. it was enough that she had done this time.[ ] [ ] in the margin stood originally the following note, which has afterwards been struck out: 'in this year, , the prison governor married for the third time; he married a woman who herself had had two husbands. anno , aug. , died my sister elisabeth augusta.' in the place of h. emmeke norbye, h. johan adolf borneman became palace-preacher; a very learned and sensible man, who now became my father confessor, and performed the duties of his office for the first time on april , . on october , in the same year, my father confessor was magister hendrich borneman, dean of the church of our lady (a learned and excellent man), his brother h. johan adolf borneman having accompanied the king's majesty on a journey. i have, thank god, spent this year in repose: reading, writing, and composing various things. anno it was brought about for me that my father-confessor, h. johan adolf borneman, should come to me every six weeks and preach a short sermon. in this year, on easter-day, agneta sophia budde was brought to the tower. her prison was above my innermost apartment. she was accused of having designed to poison the countess skeel; and as she was a young person, and had a waiting-woman in her attendance who was also young, they clamoured to such an extent all day that i had no peace for them. i said nothing, however, about it, thinking she would probably be quiet when she knew that her life was at stake. but no! she was merry to the day on which she was executed![ ] [ ] on a piece of paper which is fastened to the ms. by a pin is the following note referring to the same matter: 'on march , in the same year , a woman named lucia, who had been in the service of lady rigitze grubbe, became my neighbour. she was accused by agneta sophia budde, as the person who at the instigation of her mistress had persuaded her to poison countess f. birrete skeel, and that lucia had brought her the poison. there was evidence as to the person from whom lucia had bought the poison. this woman was a steady faithful servant. she received everything that was imposed upon her with the greatest patience, and held out courageously in the dark cell. she had two men as companions, both of whom cried, moaned and wept. from the countess skeel (who had to supply her with food) meat was sent her which was full of maggots and mouldy bread. i took pity on her (not for the sake of her mistress, for she had rendered me little good service, and had rewarded me evil for the benefits of former times, but out of sympathy). and i sent her meat and drink and money that she might soften gert, who was too hard to her. she was tortured, but would not confess any thing of what she was accused, and always defended her mistress. she remained a long time in prison.[e ] [e ] the acts of this famous trial are still in existence. originally the quarrel arose out of the fact that the countess parsberg (born skeel) had obtained a higher rank than lady grubbe, and was further envenomed by some dispute about a window in the house of the latter which looked down on the courtyard of the countess's house. regitze grubbe (widow of hans ulrik gyldenlöve, natural son of christian iv. and half-brother of ulrik christian gyldenlöve, as well as of leonora christina), persuaded another noble lady, agnete budde, through a servant, to poison countess parsberg. miss budde was beheaded, the girl lucie was exiled, and lady grubbe relegated for life to the island of bornholm. in the same year, on the morning of july , the tower-warder gert was killed by a thief who was under sentence of death, and to whom he had allowed too great liberty. i will mention this incident somewhat more in detail, as i had advised gert not to give this prisoner so much liberty; but to his own misfortune he paid no attention to my advice. this thief had broken by night into the house of a clergyman, and had stolen a boiling-copper, which he had carried on his head to copenhagen; he was seized with it at the gate in the morning, and was placed here in the tower. he was condemned to be hanged (he had committed various other thefts). the priest allowed the execution to be delayed; he did not wish to have him hanged. then it was said he was to go to the holm; but he remained long in prison. at first, and until the time that his going to the holm was talked of, he was my neighbour in the dark church; he behaved quite as a god-fearing man, read (apparently) with devotion, and prayed to god for forgiveness of his sins with most profound sighs. the rogue knew that i could hear him, and i sent him occasionally something to eat. gert took pity on him, and allowed him to go by day about the basement story of the tower, and shut him up at night again. afterwards he allowed him also at night to remain below. and as i had seen the thief once or twice when my door stood open, and he went past, it seemed to me that he had a murderous countenance; and for this reason, when i heard that the thief was not placed of an evening in the dark church, i said to gert that he ventured too far, in letting him remain below at night; that there was roguery lurking in him; that he would certainly some day escape, and then, on his account, gert would get into trouble. gert was not of opinion that the thief wished to run away; he had no longer any fear of being hanged; he had been so delighted that he was to go to the holm, there was no danger in it. i thought 'that is a delight which does not reach further than the lips,' and i begged him that he would lock him up at night. no; gert feared nothing; he even went farther, and allowed the thief to go up the tower instead of himself, and attend to the clock-work. three days before the murder took place, i spoke with gert, when he unlocked my door in the morning, of the danger to which he exposed himself by the liberty he allowed the thief, but gert did not fear it. meanwhile my dog placed himself exactly in front of gert, and howled in his face. when we were at dinner, the dog ran down and howled three times at the tower-warder's door. never before had i heard the dog howl. on july (as i have said), when gert's unfortunate morning had arrived, the thief came down from the clock-work, and said that he could not manage it alone, as the cords were entangled. the rogue had an iron rod ready above, in order to effect his project. gert went upstairs, but was carried down. the thief ran down after gert was dead, opened his box, took out the money, and went out of the tower. it was a friday, and the bells were to be rung for service. those whose duty it was to ring them knocked at the tower door, but no one opened. tötzlöff came with the principal key and opened, and spoke to me and wondered that gert was not there at that time of the day. i said: 'all is not right; this morning between four and five i was rather unwell, and i heard three people going upstairs and after a time two coming down again.' tötzlöff locked my door and went down. just then one of the ringers came down, and informed them that gert was lying upstairs dead. when the dead man was examined, he had more than one wound, but all at the back of the head. he was a very bold man, courageous, and strong; one man could not be supposed to have done this to him. the thief was seized the same evening, and confessed how it had happened: that, namely, a prisoner who was confined in the witch cell, a licentiate of the name of moritius, had persuaded him to it. this same moritius had great enmity against gert. it is true that gert took too much from him weekly for his food. but it is also true that this moritius was a very godless fellow; the priest who confesses him gives him no good character. i believe, indeed, that moritius was an accessory, but i believe also that another prisoner, who was confined in the basement of the tower, had a hand in the game. for who should have locked the tower-door again after the imprisoned thief, had not one of these done so? for when the key was looked for, it was found hidden above in the tower; this could not have been done by the thief after he was out of the tower. the thief, moreover, could not have unlocked gert's box and taken his money without the knowledge of moritius. the other prisoner must also have been aware of it. it seems to me that it was hushed up, in order that no more should die for this murder; for the matter was not only not investigated as was befitting, but the thief was confined down below in the tower. he was bound with iron fetters, but moritius could speak with him everyday: and for this reason the thief departed from his earlier statement, and said that he alone had committed the murder. he was executed on august , and moritius was taken to borringholm, and kept as a prisoner there.[e b] [e b] griffenfeldt, who was then at the height of his power, was the son of a wine-merchant, by name schumacher, but had risen by his talents alone to the highest dignities. he was ennobled under the name of griffenfeldt, and was undoubtedly the ablest statesman denmark ever possessed. eventually he was thrust from his high position by an intrigue set on foot by german courtiers and backed by foreign influence. he was accused of treason and kept in prison from to , the year before he died, to the great, perhaps irreparable damage, of his native country. the principal witness against him was a german doctor, mauritius, a professional spy, who had served the danish government in this capacity. the year after the fall of griffenfeld, he was himself arrested on a charge of perjury, forgery, and high treason, and placed in the blue tower; he was convicted and conducted to bornholm, where he died. but griffenfeldt, who had been convicted on his false testimony, was not liberated. griffenfeldt's ability and patriotism cannot be doubted, but his personal character was not without blemish; and it is a fact that in his prosperity he disclaimed all connection with his earlier friends, and even his near relations. in gert's place a tower-warder of the name of johan, a norwegian, was appointed--a very simple man. the servants about court often made a fool of him. the imprisoned young woman and her attendant did so the first time after his arrival that the attendant had to perform some menial offices upstairs. the place to which she had to go was not far from the door of their prison. the tower-warder went down in the meanwhile, and left the door open. they ran about and played. when they heard him coming up the stairs, they hid themselves. he found the prison empty, and was grieved and lamented. the young woman giggled like a child, and thus he found her behind a door. johan was glad, and told me the story afterwards. i asked why he had not remained with them. 'what,' he answered, 'was i to remain at their dirty work?' there was nothing to say in reply to such foolish talk. i had repose within my doors, and amused myself with reading, writing and various handiwork, and began to make and embroider my shroud, for which i had bought calico, white taffeta, and thread. on april a young lad escaped from the tower, who had been confined on the lower story with iron fetters round his legs. this prisoner found opportunity to loosen his fetters, and knew, moreover, that the booby johan was wont to keep the tower key under his pillow. he kept an iron pin in readiness to unlock the door of the room when the tower-warder was asleep; he opened it gently, took the key, locked in the booby again, and quitted the tower. the simple man was placed in confinement, but after the expiration of six weeks he was set at liberty. in his place there came a man named olle mathison, who was from skaane; he had his wife with him in the tower. towards the end of this year, on december , i became ill of a fever, and d. mynchen received orders to visit me and to take me under his care--an order which he executed with great attention. he is a very sensible man, mild and judicious in his treatment. ten days after i recovered my usual health. in the beginning of the year sitzel, klemming's daughter, was persuaded by maren blocks to betroth herself to one of the king's body-guard. she left me on november . in her place i had a woman named margrete. when i first saw her, she appeared to me somewhat suspicious, and it seemed to me that she was with child; however, i made no remark till the last day of the month of january. then i put a question to her from which she could perceive my opinion. she answered me with lies, but i interrupted her at once; and she made use of a special trick, which it is not fit to mention here, in order to prove her false assertion; but her trick could not stand with me, and she was subsequently obliged to confess it. i asked her as to the father of the child (i imagined that it was the king's groom of the chamber, who had been placed in arrest in the prison governor's room, but i did not say so). she did not answer my question at the time, but said she was not so far advanced; that her size was owing rather to stoutness than to the child, as it was at a very early stage. this woman, before she came to me, had been in the service of the prison governor's wife, and the prison governor had told me she was married. so it happened that i one day asked her of her life and doings; upon which she told me of her past history, where she had served, and that she had had two bastards, each by a different father; and pointing to herself, she added: 'a father shall also acknowledge this one, and that a brave father! you know him well!' i said, 'i have seen the king's groom of the chamber in the square, but i do not know him.' she laughed and answered (in her mother-tongue), 'no, by god, that is not he; it is the good prison governor.' i truly did not believe it. she protested it, and related some minute details to me. i thought i had better get rid of her betimes, and i requested to speak with the prison governor's wife, who at once came to me. i told her my suspicion with regard to the woman, and on what i based my suspicion; but i made no remark as to what the woman had confessed and said to me. i begged the prison governor's wife to remove the woman from me as civilly as she could. she was surprised at my words, and doubted if there was truth in them. i said, 'whether it be so or not, remove her; the sooner the better.' she promised that it should be done, but it was not. margrete seemed not to care that it was known that she was with child; she told the tower-warder of it, and asked him one day, 'ole, how was it with your wife when she had twins?' ole answered: 'i know nothing about it. ask anne!' margrete said that from certain symptoms she fancied she might have twins. one day, when she was going to sew a cloth on the arms of my arm-chair, she said, 'that angel of god is now moving!' and as the wife of the prison governor did not adhere to her word, and margrete's sister often came to the tower, i feared that the sister might secretly convey her something to remove the child (which was no doubt subsequently the case), so i said one day to margrete: 'you say that the prison governor is your child's father, but you do not venture to say so to himself.' 'yes!' she said with an oath, 'as if i would not venture! do you imagine that i will not have something from him for the support of my child?' 'then i will send for him,' i said, 'on purpose to hear what he will say.' (it was at that time a rare occurrence for the prison governor to come to me.) she begged me to do so; he could not deny, she said, that he was the father of her child. the prison governor came at my request. i began my speech in the woman's presence, and said that margrete, according to her own statement, was with child; who the father was, he could enquire if he chose. he asked her whether she was with child? she answered, 'yes, and you are the father of it.' 'o!' he said, and laughed, 'what nonsense!' she adhered to what she had said, protested that no other was the child's father, and related the circumstances of how it had occurred. the prison governor said, 'the woman is mad!' she gave free vent to her tongue, so that i ordered her to go out; then i spoke with the prison governor alone, and begged him speedily to look about for another woman for me, before it came to extremities with her. i supposed he would find means to stop her tongue. i told him the truth in a few words--that he had brought his paramour to wait on me. he answered, 'she lies, the malicious woman! i have ordered tötzlöff already to look about for another. my wife has told me what you said to her the other day.' after this conversation the prison governor went away. peder tötzlöff told me that an english woman had desired to be with me, but could not come before easter. four days afterwards margrete began to complain that she felt ill, and said to me in the forenoon, 'i think it will probably go badly with me; i feel so ill.' i thought at once of what i had feared, namely of what the constant visits of her sister indicated, and i sent immediately to peder tötzlöff, and when he came to me i told him of my suspicion respecting margrete, and begged him to do his utmost to procure me the english woman that very day. meanwhile margrete went up stairs, and remained there about an hour and a quarter, and came down looking like a corpse, and said, 'now it will be all right with me.' what i thought i would not say (for i knew that if i had enquired the cause of her bad appearance she would have at once acknowledged it all, and i did not want to know it), so i said, 'if you keep yourself quiet, all will be well. another woman is coming this evening.' this did not please her; she thought she could now well remain. i paid no regard to this nor to anything else she said, but adhered to it--that another woman was coming. this was arranged, and in the evening of march margrete left, and in her place came an english woman, named jonatha, who had been married to a dane named jens pedersen holme. when margrete was gone, i was blamed by the wife of the prison governor, who said that i had persuaded margrete to affirm that her husband was the father of margrete's child. although it did not concern me, i will nevertheless mention the deceitful manner in which the good people subsequently brought about this margrete's marriage. they informed a bookbinder's apprentice that she had been married, and they showed both him and the priest, who was to give them the nuptial benediction, her sister's marriage certificate.[ ] [ ] in the margin is added: 'ole the tower-warder was cudgelled on his back by the prison governor when margrete was gone, and he was charged with having said what margrete had informed him respecting her size.' in the same year, on the morning of christmas day, god loosened d. otto sperling's heavy bonds, after he had been imprisoned in the blue tower seventeen years, eight months, twenty-four days, at the age of eighty years minus six days. he had long been ill, but never confined to his bed. doctor münchen twice visited him with his medicaments. he would not allow the tower-warder at any time to make his bed, and was quite angry if ole offered to do so, and implied that the doctor was weak. he allowed no one either to be present when he laid down. how he came on the floor on christmas night is not known; he lay there, knocking on the ground. the tower-warder could not hear his knocking, for he slept far from the doctor's room; but a prisoner who slept on the ground floor heard it, and knocked at the tower-warder's door and told him that the doctor had been knocking for some time. when ole came in, he found the doctor lying on the floor, half dressed, with a clean shirt on. he was still alive, groaned a good deal, but did not speak. ole called a prisoner to help him, and they lifted him on the bed and locked the door again. in the morning he was found dead, as i have said. a.d. , in the month of april, i was sick and confined to my bed from a peculiar malady which had long troubled me--a stony matter had coagulated and had settled low down in my intestines. doctor münchen used all available means to counteract this weakness; but he could not believe that it was of the nature i thought and informed him; for i was perfectly aware it was a stone which had settled in the duct of the intestines. he was of opinion, if it were so, that the medicaments which he used would remove it.[ ] at this time the doctor was obliged to travel with his majesty to holstein. i used the remedies according to doctor münchen's directions, but things remained just as before. it was not till the following morning that the remedies produced their effect; and then, besides other matter, a large stone was evacuated, and i struck a piece out of it with a hammer in order to see what it was inside; i found it to be composed of a substance like rays, having the appearance of being gilded in some places and in others silvered. it is almost half a finger in length and full three fingers thick, and it is still in my possession. when doctor münchen returned, i sent him word how it was with me. he was at the time with the governess of the royal children, f. sitzele grubbe. doctor münchen desired tötzlöff to request me to let him see the stone. i sent him word that if he would come to me, he should see it. i would not send it to him, for i well knew that i should never get it again. [ ] in the margin is added: 'other natural matter was evacuated, but the stone stuck fast in the duct, and seemed to be round, for i could not gain hold of it with an instrument i had procured for the purpose.' a.d. , june , i wrote the following spiritual song. it can be sung to the melody, 'siunge wii af hiærtens-grund.'[e ] [e ] this tune is still in use in denmark; it is known in the latin church as 'in natali domini.' i. what is this our mortal life otherwise than daily strife? what is all our labour here, the servitude and yoke we bear? are they aught but vanity? art and learning what are ye? like a vapour all we see. ii. why, then, is thy anxious breast filled with trouble? be at rest! why, then, dost thou boldly fight the phantoms vain that mock thy sight? is there any, small or grand, who can payment duly hand at the creditor's demand? iii. naked to the world i came, and i leave it just the same; the lord has given and he takes; it is well whate'er he makes. to the lord all praises be; i will trust him heartily! and my near deliverance see. iv. one thing would i ask of thee. that thy house i once may see, and once more with song and praise may my pious offering raise, and magnify thy grace received, and all that jesus has achieved for us who have in him believed. v. if thou sayest unto me, 'i have no desire in thee, there is no place for thee above;' oh jesus! look thou down in love! can i not justly to thee say 'let me but see thy wounds, i pray:' god's mercy cannot pass away. on june , the queen sent me some silk and silver, with the request that i would embroider her a flower, which was traced on parchment; she sent also another flower which was embroidered, that i might see how the work should be done, which is called the golden work. i had never before embroidered such work, for it affects the eyes quickly; but i undertook it, and said i would do it as well as i could. on july , i sent the flower which i had embroidered to the governess of the royal children, f. sitzele grubbe, with the request that she would present it most humbly to her majesty the queen. the queen was much pleased with the flower, and told her that it excelled the others which certain countesses had embroidered for her. i afterwards embroidered nine flowers in silver and silk in this golden work, and sent them to the queen's mistress of the robes, with the request that she would present them most humbly to her majesty the queen. the mistress of the robes assured me of the queen's favour, and told me that her majesty was going to give me two silver flagons, but i have not heard of them yet. in the same year i embroidered a table-cover with floss silk, in a new design devised by myself, and i trimmed it with taffeta and silver fringe; this also i begged lady grubbe, the governess of the king's children, to present most humbly to her majesty, and it was graciously received. on november , i completed the work which i had made for my death-gear. it was embroidered with thread. on one end of the pillow i worked the following lines: full of anxiety and care, in many a silent night, this shroud have i been weaving with sorrowful delight! on the other end i embroidered the following: (n.b. the pillow was stuffed with my hair). when some day on this hair my weary head will lie, my body will be free and my soul to god will fly. on the cloth for the head i embroidered: i know full well, my jesus, thou dost live, and my frail body from the dust wilt give, and it with marvellous beauty will array to stand before thy throne on the great day. fulfilled with heavenly joy i then shall be, and thee, great god, in all thy splendour see. nor unknown wilt thou to mine eyes appear! help jesus, bridegroom, be thou ever near! her majesty the queen was always gracious to me, and sent me again a number of silkworms that i might amuse myself with feeding them for her, and i was to return what they spun. the virtuous queen also sent me sometimes oranges, lemons, and some of the large almanacs, and this she did through a dwarf, who is a thoroughly quick lad. his mother and father had been in the service of my deceased sister sophia elizabeth and my brother-in-law count pentz. the governess of the royal children, f. sitzel grubbe, was very courteous and good to me, and sent me several times lemons, oranges, mulberries, and other fruits, according to the season of the year. a young lady, by birth a donep, also twice sent me fruit. the maids of honour once sent me some entangled silk from silkworms, which they wanted to spin, and did not rightly know how to manage it; they requested me to arrange it for them. i had other occupation on hand which i was unwilling to lay aside (for i was busy collecting my heroines), but nevertheless i acceded to their wish.[e ] my captivity of nearly twenty years could not touch the heart of the queen dowager (though with a good conscience i can testify before god that i never gave her cause for such inclemency). my most gracious hereditary king was gracious enough several times in former years to intercede for me with his royal mother, through the high ministers of the state. her answer at that time was very hard; she would entitle them 'traitors,' and, 'as good as i was,' and would point them to the door. all the favours which the king's majesty showed me--the outer apartment, the large window, the money to dispose of for myself--annoyed the queen dowager extremely; and she made the king's majesty feel her displeasure in the most painful manner. and as she had also learned (she had plenty of informers) that i possessed a clavicordium, this annoyed her especially, and she spoke very angrily with the king about it; on which account the prison governor came to me one day and said that the king had asked him how he had happened to procure me a clavicordium. 'i stood abashed,' said the prison governor, 'and knew not what to say.' i thought to myself, 'you know but little of what is happening in the tower.' i did not see him more than three times a year. i asked who had told the king of the clavicordium. he answered: 'the old queen; she has her spies everywhere, and she has spoken so hardly to the king that it is a shame because he gives you so much liberty;' so saying, he seized the clavicordium just as if he were going to take it away, and said, 'you must not have it!' i said, 'let it alone! i have permission from his majesty, my gracious sovereign, to buy what i desire for my pastime with the money he graciously assigns me. the clavicordium is in no one's way, and cannot harm the queen dowager.' he pulled at it nevertheless, and wanted to take it down; it stood on a closet which i had bought. i said, with rather a loud voice, 'you must let it remain until you return me the money i gave you for it; then you may do with it what you like.' he said, 'i will tell the king that.' i begged him to do so. there was nothing afterwards said about it,[ ] and i still have the clavicordium, though i play on it rarely. i write, and hasten to finish my heroines, so that i may have them ready, and that no sickness nor death may prevent my completing them, nor the friend to whom i confide them may leave me, and so they would never fall into your hands, my dearest children. [e ] 'i have in my imprisonment also gained some experience with regard to caterpillars. it amused me at one time to watch their changes. the worms were apparently all of one sort, striped alike, and of similar colour. but butterflies did not come from all. it was quite pretty to see how a part when they were about to change, pressed against something, whatever it might be, and made themselves steady with a thread (like silkworm's silk) on each side, passing it over the back about fifty times, always at the same place, and often bending the back to see if the threads were strong enough; if not, they passed still more threads round them. when this was done, they rapidly changed their form and became stout, with a snout in front pointed at the end, not unlike the fish called knorr by the dutch; they have also similar fins on the back, and a similar head. in this form they remain for sixteen days, and then a white butterfly comes out. but of some caterpillars small worms like maggots come out on both sides, whitish, broad at one end and pointed at the other. these surround themselves with a web with great rapidity, each by itself. then the worm spins over them tolerably thickly, turning them round till they are almost like a round ball. in this it lies till it is quite dried up; it eats nothing, and becomes as tiny as a fly before it dies. twelve days afterwards small flies come out of the ball, and then the ball looks like a small bee-hive. i have seen a small living worm come out of the neck of the caterpillar (this i consider the rarest), but it did not live long, and ate nothing. the mother died immediately after the little one had come out.' it is perhaps not unnecessary to add that this observation, which is correct as to facts, refers to the habits of certain larvæ of wasps which live as parasites in caterpillars. [ ] in the margin is added: 'the prison governor told me afterwards that the king laughed when he had told his majesty my answer about the clavicordium, and had said, "yes, yes."' on september , m. johan adolf, my father confessor, was promoted; he became dean of the church of our lady. he bade me a very touching farewell, having administered the duties of his office to me for nearly six years, and been my consolation. god knows how unwillingly i parted with him. at the beginning of this year h. peder collerus was my father confessor; he was at the time palace-preacher. he also visited me with his consolatory discourse every six weeks. he is a learned man, but not like hornemann. on april , an old sickly dog was sent to me in the queen's name. i fancy the ladies of the court sent it, to be quit of the trouble. a marten had bit its jaw in two, so that the tongue hung out on one side. all the teeth were gone, and a thin film covered one eye. it heard but little, and limped on one side. the worst, however, was, that one could easily see that it tried to exhibit its affection beyond its power. they told me that her majesty the queen had been very fond of the dog. it was a small 'king charles;' its name was 'cavaillier.' the queen expressed her opinion that it would not long trouble me. i hoped so also.[e b] [e b] this poem still exists, and is printed in the second volume of hofman's work on danish noblemen. it is intended to convey an account of her own and her husband's fate. on august of this year i finished the work i had undertaken, and since my prefatory remarks treated of celebrated women of every kind, both of valiant rulers and sensible sovereigns, of true, chaste, god-fearing, virtuous, unhappy, learned, and steadfast women, it seemed to me that all of these could not be reckoned as heroines; so i took some of them out and divided them into three parts, under the title, 'the heroines' praise.' the first part is to the honour of valiant heroines. the second part speaks of true and chaste heroines. the third part of steadfast heroines. each part has its appendix. i hope to god that this my prison work may come into your hands, my dearest children. hereafter i intend, so god will, to collect the others: namely, the sensible, learned, god-fearing, and virtuous women; exhibiting each to view in the circumstances of her life.[e ] [e ] it has been stated already that a copy of the first part of this work is still preserved. amongst the heroines here treated of are modern historical personages, as queen margaret of denmark, thyre danobod who built the dannevirke, elizabeth of england, and isabella of castilia, besides mythical and classic characters, as penthesilea, queen of the amazons, marpesia, tomyris, zenobia, artemisia, victorina, etc. there existed not a few works of this kind--we need only mention boccacio's 'donne illustri,' in which many of these last personages also occur. i will mention from her own statement somewhat of jonatha, who now attended on me. i will pass over the long story of how she left her mother; the fact is, that against her mother's will she married a danish merchant, named jens pedersen holme. but her life and doings (according to her own statement) are so strange, that it may be worth while to record somewhat of them. after they were married, she says, it vexed her, and was always in her mind that she had made her mother angry, and had done very wrong. her mother had sent her also a hard letter, which distressed her much; and she behaved refractorily towards her husband, and in many ways like a spoilt unreasonable child, sometimes even like one who had lost her reason and was desperate. it seems also that her husband treated her as if her mind was affected, for he had her looked after like a child, and treated her as such. she told him once that she was intending to drown herself in the peblingesö,[e ] and at another time that she would strike him dead. the husband feared neither of these threats; still he had her watched when she went out, to see which way she took. once she had firmly resolved to drown herself in the peblingesö, for this place pleased her; she was even on her way there, but was brought back. she struck her husband, too, once after her fashion. he had come home one day half intoxicated, and had laid down on a bed, so that his legs rested on the floor. she says she intended at the time to strike him dead; she took a stick and tried to see if he were asleep, talking loudly to herself and scolding, and touching him softly on the shinbone with the stick. he behaved as if he were asleep. then she struck him a little harder. upon this he seized the stick and took it away from her, and asked what she had in her mind. she answered, 'to kill you.' 'he was grieved at my madness,' she said, 'and threw himself on his knees, praying god to govern me with his good spirit and give me reason.' the worst is that it once came into her mind not to sleep with her husband, and she laid down on a bench in the room. for a long time he gave her fair words, but these availed nothing. at last he said, 'undress yourself and come and lie down, or i shall come to you.' she paid no attention to this; so he got up, undressed her completely, slapped her with his hand, and threw her into bed. she protested that for some days she was too bruised to sit; this proved availing, and she behaved in future more reasonably. [e ] the peblingesö is one of three lakes which surround copenhagen on the land-side, in a semicircle. little at peace as she was with her husband when she had him with her, she was greatly grieved when he left her to go to the west indies. he sent by return vessels all sorts of goods to sell, and she thus maintained herself comfortably. it happened at last that the man died in the west indies, and a person who brought her the news stated that he had been poisoned by the governor of the place named ----, at an entertainment, and this because he was on the point of returning home, and the governor was afraid that holme might mention his evil conduct. these tidings unsettled her mind so, that she ran at night, in her mere night-dress, along the street, and squabbled with the watchmen. she went to the admiral at the holm, and demanded justice upon the absent culprit, and accused him, though she could prove nothing. thus matters went on for a time, until at last she gained repose, and god ordained it that she came to me. my intercourse with her is as with a frail glass vessel, for she is weak in many respects. she often doubts of her salvation, and enumerates all her sins. she laments especially having so deeply offended her mother, and thus having drawn down a curse upon her. when this fear comes upon her, i console her with god's word, and enter fully into the matter, showing her, from holy scripture, on what a repentant sinner must rely for the mercy of god. occasionally she is troubled as to the interpretation of holy scripture, as all passages do not seem to her to agree, but to contradict each other. in this i help her so far as my understanding goes, so that sometimes she heartily thanks god that she is come to me, where she finds rest and consolation. after she had been with me for a year or two, she learned that the governor, whom she suspected, had come to copenhagen. she said to me, 'i hear the rogue is come here; i request my dismissal.' i asked her why. 'because,' she replied, 'i will kill him.' i could scarcely keep from laughing; but i said, 'jesus forbid! if you have any such design, i shall not let you go.' and as she is a person whose like i have never known before--for she could chide with hard words, and yet at the same time she was modest and well-behaved--i tried to make her tell me and show me how she designed to take the governor's life. (she is a small woman, delicately formed.) then she acted as if her enemy were seated on a stool, and she had a large knife under her apron. when he said to her, 'woman, what do you want?' she would plunge the knife into him, and exclaim, 'rogue, thou hast deserved this.' she would not move from the place, she would gladly die, if she could only take his life. i said, 'still it is such a disgrace to die by the hand of the executioner.' 'oh, no!' she replied, 'it is not a disgrace to die for an honourable deed;' and she had an idea that any one thus dying by the hand of the executioner passed away in a more christian manner than such as died on a bed of sickness; and that it was no sin to kill a man who, like a rogue, had murdered another. i asked her if she did not think that he sinned who killed another. 'no,' she replied, 'not when he has brought it upon himself.' i said, 'no one may be his own judge, either by the law of god or man; and what does the fifth commandment teach us?'[e ] she answered as before, that she would gladly die if she could only take the rogue's life. (i must add that she said she could not do it on my account, for i would not let her out.) she made a sin of that which is no sin, and that which is sin she will not regard as such. she says it is a sin to kill a dog, a cat, or a bird; the innocent animals do no harm; in fact, it is a still greater sin to let the poor beasts hunger. i asked her once whether it was a sin to eat meat. 'no,' she answered; 'it is only a sin to him who has killed the animal.' she protested that if she were obliged to marry, and had to choose between a butcher and an executioner, she would prefer the latter. she told me of various quarrels she had had with those who had either killed animals or allowed them to hunger. [e ] the lutheran church has retained the division of the commandments used in the roman church; and the commandment against murder is therefore here described as the fifth, whilst in the english catechism it is the sixth. one story i will not leave unmentioned, as it is very pretty. she sold, she said, one day some pigs to a butcher. when the butcher's boy was about to bind the pigs' feet and carry them off hanging from a pole, she was sorry for the poor pigs, and said, 'what, will you take their life? no, i will not suffer that!' and she threw him back his money. i asked her if she did not know that pigs were killed, and for what reason she thought the butcher had bought them. 'yes,' she replied, 'i knew that well. had he let them go on their own legs, i should have cared nothing about it; but to bind the poor beasts in this way, and to hear them cry, i could not endure that.' it would take too long to enumerate all the extravagant whims which she related of herself. but with all this she is not foolish, and i well believe she is true to any one she loves. she served me very well, and with great care. the above-mentioned governor[e ] was killed by some prisoners on board the vessel, when he was returning to the west indies. by a strange chance the vessel with the murderers came to copenhagen. (they were sentenced to death for their crime.) jonatha declared that the governor had had only too good a death, and that it was a sin that any one should lose his life on account of it. i practise speaking the english language with jonatha. she has forgotten somewhat of her mother tongue, since she has not spoken it for many years; and as she always reads the english bible, and does not at once understand all the words, i help her; for i not only can perceive the sense from the preceding and following words, but also because some words resemble the french, though with another accent. and we often talk together about the interpretation of holy scripture. she calls herself a calvinist, but she does not hold the opinions of calvinists. i never dispute with her over her opinions. she goes to the lord's supper in the queen's church[e ]. once, when she came back to me from there, she said she had had a conversation upon religion with a woman, who had told her to her face that she was no calvinist. i asked her of what religion the woman imagined that she was. she replied: 'god knows that. i begged her to mind her own business, and said, that i was a christian; i thought of your grace's words (but i did not say them), that all those who believe on christ and live a christian life, are christians, whatever name they may give to their faith.' [e ] the name of this governor, which is not mentioned by leonora, was jörgen iversen, the first danish governor of st. thomas. in he returned to the colony from copenhagen on board a vessel which was to bring some prisoners over to st. thomas. very soon after their departure, some of the prisoners and of the crew raised a mutiny, killed the captain and some of the passengers, amongst them the ex-governor iversen. but one of the prisoners who had not been in the plot afterwards got the mastery of the vessel, and returned to copenhagen. the vessel struck on a rock, near the swedish coast, but the crew were saved and sent home to copenhagen by the swedish government, and the murderers were then executed. [e ] the queen's church was a room in the castle where service was held according to the calvinist rite. in this year i saw the queen dowager fall from the chair in which she was drawn up to the royal apartment. the chair ran down the pulleys too quickly, so that she fell on her face and knocked her knee. during this year her weakness daily increased, but she thought herself stronger than she was. she appeared at table always much dressed, and between the meals she remained in her apartments. i kept myself patient, and wrote the following:-- _contemplation on memory and courage, recorded to the honour of god by the suffering christian woman in the sixty-third year of her life, and the almost completed twenty-first year of her captivity._ the vanished hours can ne'er come back again, still may the old their youthful joys retain; the past may yet within our memory live, and courage vigour to the old may give. yet why should i thus sport with memory's truth, and harrow up the fairer soil of youth? no fruit it brings, fallow and bare it lies, and the dry furrow only pain supplies! in my first youth, in honourable days upon such things small question did i raise. then years advanced with trouble in their train, and spite of show my life was fraught with pain. the holy marriage bond--my rank and fame, increased my foes and made my ill their aim. go! honour, riches, vanish from my mind! ye all forsook me and left nought behind. 'twas ye have brought me here thro' years to lie; thus can man's envy human joy deny! my god alone, he ne'er forsook me here, my cross he lightened, and was ever near; and when my heart was yielding to despair, he spoke of peace and whispered he was there. he gave me power and ever near me stood, and all could see how truly god was good. what courage can achieve i next will heed; he who is blessed with it, is blest indeed. to the tired frame fresh power can courage give, raising the weary mind anew to live; i mean that courage reason may instil not the foolhardiness that leads to ill. far oftener is it that the youth will lie helpless, when fortune's favours from him fly, than that the old man should inactive stay, who knows full well how fortune loves to play. fresh courage seizes him; from such a shield rebound the arms malicious foes may wield. courage imparts repose, and trifles here, beneath its influence, as nought appear; but a vain loan, which we can only hold until the lender comes, and life is told. courage pervades the frame and vigour gives, and a fresh energy each part receives; with appetite and health and cheerful mind, and calm repose in hours of sleep we find, so that no visions in ill dreams appear, and spectre forms filling the heart with fear. courage gives honied sweetness to our food and prison fare, and makes e'en death seem good. 'tis well! my mind is fresh, my limbs are sound, and no misfortune weighs me to the ground. reason and judgment come from god alone, and the five senses unimpaired i own. the mighty god in me his power displays, therefore join with me in a voice of praise and laud his name: for thou it is, oh god, who in my fear and anguish nigh me stood. almighty one, my thanks be ever thine! let me ne'er waver nor my trust resign. take not the courage which my hope supplies, till my soul enters into paradise. written on february , , that is the thirty-sixth anniversary since the illustrious king christian the fourth bade good-night to this world, and i to the prosperity of my life. i have now reached the sixty-third year of my age, and the twentieth year, sixth month, and fifteenth day of my imprisonment. i have therefore spent the third part of my life in captivity. god be praised that so much time is past. i hope the remaining days may not be many. anno , january , i amused myself with making some verses in which truth was veiled under the cloak of jest, entitled: 'a dog, named cavaillier, relates his fate.' the rhymes, i suppose, will come into your hands, my dearest children.[e ] [e ] this poem still exists, and is printed in the second volume of hofman's work on danish noblemen. it is intended to convey an account of her own and her husband's fate. on february , the queen dowager sophia amalia died. she did not think that death would overtake her so quickly; but when the doctor warned her that her death would not be long delayed, she requested to speak with her son. but death would not wait for the arrival of his majesty, so that the queen dowager might say a word to him. she was still alive; she was sitting on a chair, but she was speechless, and soon afterwards, in the same position, she gave up her spirit. after the death of this queen i was much on the lips of the people. some thought that i should obtain my liberty; others believed that i should probably be brought from the tower to some other place, but should not be set free. jonatha, who had learned from ole the tower-warder, some days before the death of the queen, that prayers were being offered up in the church for the queen (it had, however, been going on for six weeks, that this prayer had been read from the pulpit), was, equally with ole the tower-warder, quite depressed. ole, who had consoled himself and her hitherto with the tidings from the queen's lacqueys, that the queen went to table and was otherwise well, though she occasionally suffered from a cough, now thought that there was danger, that death might result, and that i, if the queen died, might perhaps leave the prison. they did their best to conceal their sorrow, but without success. they occasionally shed secretly a few tears. i behaved as if i did not remark it, and as no one said anything to me about it, i gave no opportunity for speaking on the subject. a long time previously i had said to jonatha (as i had done before to the other women) that i did not think i should die in the tower. she remembered this and mentioned it. i said: 'all is in god's hand. he knows best what is needful for me, both as regards soul and body; to him i commend myself.' thus jonatha and ole lived on between hope and fear. on march , the reigning queen kept her easter. jonatha came quite delighted from her majesty's church, saying that a noble personage had told her that i need not think of getting out of the prison, although the queen was dead; she knew better and she insisted upon it. however often i asked as to who the personage was, she would not tell me her name. i laughed at her, and said, 'whoever the personage may be, she knows just as much about it as you and i do.' jonatha adhered to her opinion that the person knew it well. 'what do you mean?' i said; 'the king himself does not know. how should others know?' 'not the king! not the king!' she said quite softly. 'no, not the king!' i answered. 'he does not know till god puts it into his heart, and as good as says to him, "now thou shalt let the prisoner free!"' she came somewhat more to herself, but said nothing. and as she and ole heard no more rumours concerning me, they were quite comforted. on march , the funeral of the queen dowager took place, and her body was conveyed to roskild. on april , i supplicated the king's majesty in the following manner. i possessed a portrait engraving of the illustrious king christian the fourth, rather small and oval in form. this i illuminated with colours, and had a carved frame made for it, which i gilded myself. on the piece at the back i wrote the following words:-- my grandson, and great namesake, equal to me in power and state; vouchsafe my child a hearing, and be like me in mercy great! besides this, i wrote to his excellency gyldenlöve, requesting him humbly to present the supplique to the king's majesty, and to interest himself on my behalf, and assist me to gain my liberty. his excellency was somewhat inconvenienced at the time by his old weakness, so that he could not himself speak for me; but he begged a good friend to present the engraving with all due respect, and this was done on april .[e ] [e ] this picture is still preserved at the castle of rosenbourg, in copenhagen. of all this jonatha knew nothing. peder jensen tötzlöff was my messenger. he has been a comfort to me in my imprisonment, and has rendered me various services, so that i am greatly bound to him. and i beg you, my dearest children, to requite him in all possible ways for the services he has rendered me. on may , it became generally talked of that i should assuredly be set at liberty, and some asked the tower-warder whether i had come out the evening before, and at what time; so that ole began to fear, and could not bear himself as bravely as he tried to do. he said to me in a sad tone: 'my good lady! you will certainly be set at liberty. there are some who think you are already free.' i said, 'god will bring it to pass.' 'yes,' said he, 'but how will it fare with me then?' i answered, 'you will remain tower-warder, as you now are.' 'yes,' said he, 'but with what pleasure?' and he turned, unable to restrain his tears, and went away. jonatha concluded that my deliverance was drawing near, and endeavoured to conceal her sorrow. she said, 'ole is greatly cast down, but i am not.' (and the tears were standing in her eyes.) 'it is said for certain that the king is going away the day after to-morrow. if you are set at liberty, it will be this very day.' i said, 'god knows.' jonatha expressed her opinion that i was nevertheless full of hope. i said i had been hopeful ever since the first day of my imprisonment; that god would at last have mercy on me, and regard my innocence. i had prayed to god always for patience to await the time of his succour; and god had graciously bestowed it on me. if the moment of succour had now arrived, i should pray to god for grace to acknowledge rightly his great benefits. jonatha asked if i were not sure to be set free before the king started for norway; that it was said for certain that the king would set out early on the following morning. i said: 'there is no certainty as to future things. circumstances may occur to impede the king's journey, and it may also happen that my liberty may be prevented, even though at this hour it may perhaps be resolved upon. still i know that my hope will not be confounded. but you do not conceal your regret, and i cannot blame you for it. you have cause for regret, for with my freedom you lose your yearly income and your maintenance.[ ] remember how often i have told you not to throw away your money so carelessly on your son. you cannot know what may happen to you in your old age. if i die, you will be plunged into poverty; for as soon as you receive your money, you expend it on the apprenticeship of your son, who returns you no thanks for it.[ ] you have yourself told me of his bad disposition, and how wrongly he has answered you when you have tried to give him good advice. latterly he has not ventured to do so, since i read him a lecture, and threatened that i would help to send him to the house of correction. i fear he will be a bad son to you.' upon this she gave free vent to her tears, and begged that if i obtained my liberty i would not abandon her. this i promised, so far as lay in my power; for i could not know what my circumstances might be. [ ] in the margin is added: 'the woman who attended on me received eight rix-dollars monthly.' [ ] in the margin: 'she had him learn wood-carving.' in this way some days elapsed, and jonatha and ole knew not what the issue might be. on may , at six o'clock in the morning, ole knocked softly at my outer door. jonatha went to it. ole said softly, 'the king is already gone; he left at about four o'clock.' i know not if his hope was great; at any rate it did not last long. jonatha told me ole's news. i wished the king's majesty a prosperous journey (i knew already what order he had given), and it seemed to me from her countenance she was to some extent contented. at about eight o'clock tötzlöff came up to me and informed me that the lord chancellor count allefeldt had sent the prison governor a royal order that i was to be released from my imprisonment, and that i could leave when i pleased. (this order was signed by the king's majesty the day before his majesty started.) his excellency had accompanied the king. tötzlöff asked whether i wished him to lock the doors, as i was now free. i replied, 'so long as i remain within the doors of my prison, i am not free. i will moreover leave properly. lock the door and enquire what my sister's daughter, lady anna catharina lindenow, says, whether his excellency[e ] sent any message to her (as he promised) before he left. when tötzlöff was gone, i said to jonatha, 'now, in jesus' name, this very evening i shall leave. gather your things together, and pack them up, and i will do the same with mine; they shall remain here till i can have them fetched.' she was somewhat startled, but not cast down. she thanked god with me, and when the doors were unlocked at noon and i dined, she laughed at ole, who was greatly depressed. i told her that ole might well sigh, for that he would now have to eat his cabbage without bacon. [e ] the excellency alluded to is ulrik frederik gyldenlöve, a natural son of frederik iii. anna catharina lindenow was daughter of leonora's sister, elizabeth augusta, who married hans lindenow. tötzlöff brought me word from my sister's daughter that his excellency had sent to her to say that she was free to accompany me from the tower, if she chose. it was therefore settled that she was to come for me late the same evening. the prison governor was in a great hurry to get rid of me, and sent the tower-warder to me towards evening, to enquire whether i would not go. i sent word that it was still too light (there would probably be some curious people who had a desire to see me). through a good friend i made enquiry of her majesty the queen, whether i might be allowed the favour of offering my humble submission to her majesty (i could go into the queen's apartment through the secret passage, so that no one could see me). her majesty sent me word in reply that she might not speak with me. at about ten o'clock in the evening, the prison governor opened the door for my sister's daughter. (i had not seen him for two years.) he said, 'well, shall we part now?' i answered, 'yes, the time is now come.' then he gave me his hand, and said 'ade!' (adieu). i answered in the same manner, and my niece laughed heartily. soon after the prison governor had gone, i and my sister's daughter left the tower. her majesty the queen thought to see me as i came out, and was standing on her balcony, but it was rather dark; moreover i had a black veil over my face. the palace-square, as far as the bridge and further, was full of people, so that we could scarcely press through to the coach. the time of my imprisonment was twenty-one years, nine months, and eleven days. king frederick iii. ordered my imprisonment on august , a.d. ; king christian v. gave me my liberty on may , . god bless my most gracious king with all royal blessing, and give his majesty health and add many years to his life. this is finished in my prison. on may , at ten o'clock in the evening, i left my prison. to god be honour and praise. he graciously vouchsafed that i should recognise his divine benefits, and never forget to record them with gratitude. dear children! this is the greatest part of the events worth mentioning which occurred to me within the doors of my prison. i live now in the hope that it may please god and the king's majesty that i may myself show you this record. god in his mercy grant it. . written at husum[e ] june , where i am awaiting the return of the king's majesty from norway: [e ] this husum is a village just outside copenhagen, where leonora remained for some months before she went to maribo, as is proved by a letter from her dated husum, september , . of course the last paragraphs must have been added after she left her prison, and the passage 'this is finished in my prison' refers, at any rate, only to what precedes. a.d. . new year's day. to myself. men say that fortune is a rare and precious thing, and they would fain that power should homage to her bring. yet power herself is blind and ofttimes falleth low, rarely to rise again, wherefore may heaven know. to-day with humorous wiles she holds her sovereign sway, and could one only trust her, there might be goodly prey. yet is she like to fortune, changeful the course she flies, and both, oh earthly pilgrim, are but vain fraud and lies. the former is but frail, the other strives with care, and both alas! are subject to many a plot and snare. thou hast laid hold on fortune with an exultant mind, affixed perhaps to-morrow the fatal _mis_ we find; then does thy courage fail, this prefix saddens thee, wert thou thyself goliath or twice as brave as he. and thou who art so small--already grey with care-- thou know'st not whether evil this year thy lot may share. for fortune frolics ever, now under, now above, emerging here and there her varied powers to prove. all that is earthly comes and vanishes again, therefore i cling to that which will for aye remain. on march , , i wrote the following:-- true is the sentence we are sometimes told: a friend is worth far more than bags of gold. yet would i gladly ask, where do we find a friend so virtuous that he is well inclined to help another in his need and gloom without a thought of recompense to come? naught is there new in this, for selfish care to every child of eve has proved a snare. each generation hears the last complain, and each repeats the same sad tale again;-- that the oppressed by the wayside may lie, when naught is gained but god's approving eye. see, at bethesda's pool, how once there came the halting impotent, some help to claim among those thousands. each of pity free, had no hand for him in his misery to bring him to the angel-troubled stream. near his last breath did the poor sufferer seem, weary and penniless; when one alone who without money works his wise own will, turned where the helpless suppliant lay, and gently bade him rise and go his way. children of grief, rejoice, do not despair; this helper still is here and still will care what he in mercy wills. he soothes our pain, and he will help, asking for naught again. and in due time he will with gracious hand unloose thy prison bars and iron band. a.d. . the first day. to peder jensen tötzlöff. welcome, thou new year's day, altho' thou dost belong to those by brahe reckoned the evil days among, declaring that whatever may on this day begin can never prosper rightly, nor true success can win. now i will only ask if from to-day i strive the evil to avoid and henceforth good to live, will this not bring success? why should a purpose fail, altho' on this day made? why should it not prevail? oh brahe, i believe, when we aright begin, to-day or when it be, and god's good favour win, the issue must be well, and all that matters here is to commend our ways to our redeemer dear. begin with jesus christ this as all other days. pray that thy plans may meet with the almighty's praise, so may'st thou happy be, and naught that man can do can hinder thy designs, unless god wills it so! may a rich meed of blessing be on thy head bestow'd, and the lord jesus christ protect thee on thy road with arms of grace. such is my wish for thee, based on the love of god; sure, that he answers me. london: printed by spottiswoode and co., new-street square and parliament street * * * * * transcriber's note: the following corrections were made: p. : length the good-for-nothing[good-for nothing] fellow came down, and p. : there for ten days[ ] a letter from gul...[gl...] which he p. : patacoon[patacon] to those who were to restrain her, saying, p. : came to see her, no one in consequence[consequenec] consoled her, p. : when the lawyer had said that they[t hey] had now taken p. : lose in dan...[den...]. p. : it was necessary[neccessary] to descend the rampart into the p. : he persuaded[pursuaded] me to undertake the english journey, p. : with my attendant. i answered nothing else than[then] that p. : silk camisole[camisolle], in the foot of my stockings there were p. : castle[cstale], i had sent a good round present for those in p. : sad day, and i begged them, for jesus'[jesu's] sake, that p. : decree? i only beg for jesus'[jesu's] sake that what i say p. : might easily injure herself with one.'[[ ]] p. : synge'[[e ]]:-- p. : of listening to reason, for she at once exclaimed �ach[!] p. : karen, nils'[nil's] daughter, left me one evening in , p. : and the frenchman[frenchmen] was conveyed to the dark church, p. : through uldrich[udrich] christian gyldenlöve. gyldenlöve p. : her word moreover, and i so arranged it[at] six weeks p. : in the same year, , karen, nils'[nil's] daughter, left p. : silent, not if i were standing before the king's bailiff![?]['] p. : in the time of karen, nils'[nil's] daughter. chresten, who p. : in the same year karen, nils'[nil's] daughter, left me for p. : and a half after her marriage, and that suddenly, suspicion[suspipicion] p. : supper in the queen's church[[e ]]. once, when she came p. : [ ] in[in] the margin is added: �the sorrow manifested by many would far p. : [ ] in the margin is added: � . while karen, nils'[nil's] daughter, waited p. : nils'[nil's] daughter. when anything gave her satisfaction, she would take p. : to set copenhagen[copenagen] on fire in divers places, and also the p. : autobiography[autobiograpy] of leonora as �notre vieillard;' he was a faithful p. : which placed it at the disposal of hannibal sehested[schested] when he p. : [e ] �anno , soon after karen, nils'[nil's] daughter, came to me, p. : [e ] hannibal sehested[schested] was dead already in , as leonora p. : disposed to hannibal sehested[schested]. p. : entitled �martilogium (for martyrologium[matyrologium]) der heiligen' (strasburg transcriber's note: inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved. inconsistent spelling in the original (e.g. "holmencollen" and "holmenkollen") has been preserved. the following spelling corrections were made: - "bjornstjerne bjornsen" changed to "bjornstjerne bjornson" - "armed with his mighty hammer mjolmer" changed to "armed with his mighty hammer mjolnir" - "moldoen" changed to "moldöen" italic text is denoted by _underscores_. norway by the same artist and author holland containing full-page illustrations in colour price c. net agents in america the macmillan company and fifth avenue, new york [illustration: country girl from dalen] norway by nico jungman · text by beatrix jungman published by a. & c. black london w published april contents page chapter i precarious travel chapter ii brottem, aune, sliper, gjora, sundalsoren, etc. chapter iii on the fjords chapter iv minor romantic episodes chapter v mainly about saints chapter vi arts and crafts chapter vii farm-houses: wedding festivities chapter viii forestry: reindeer: land tenures chapter ix fisheries: the lapps: religion and morals: music chapter x legends and literature list of illustrations . country girl from dalen _frontispiece_ facing page . trondhjem--old boats . costume worn in the bergen district . the road to hell, near trondhjem . white cap worn in the bergen district . trondhjem . little girl of telemarken . making the dinner--a cottage interior at sælbo . bergen . on the fjord, sundalsoren . country-women selling berries on the road to storen . norwegian captain . farm-house and mill at gjora . mountains and river at gjora . a little farm on the riverside at gjora . ostre kanalhavn, trondhjem . the town of molde . woman spinning, sundalsoren . snow-capped mountain at sundalsoren . old warehouse and boats, molde . mountains and fjord facing molde . moldöen . bergen . a fair maiden of north bergen . bergen boats and warehouses . væfos, hildal, hardanger . a hardanger country girl . skjæggedalsfos, hardanger . hardanger headdress . river at haukeli . a peasant of sætersdalen . espelandsfos, hardanger . a boy of sætersdalen . sundalsfjord . sætersdalen girl in national costume . sætersdalen peasant girl . moldöen . a cottage interior, telemarken . a norwegian girl . kjendalsbræ . a typical norwegian maiden . a baby of telemarken . romsdals horn . old age, telemarken . romsdals waterfall . the houses of parliament (storthing), christiania . ski sports--the great holmencollen day outside christiania . room by munthe at holmencollen . skiers drinking goosewine . girls on overturned sledge, holmencollen . old canal, christiania . sledging by torchlight . making native tapestry . bird's-eye view of christiania . a vosse bride . farm-houses built of poles . country girl, bergen district . sætersdalen bride . a hardanger bride . making "flad-brod"--a cottage interior . snow plough drawn by eight or ten horses . fishing through the ice on christiania fjord . fishing-nets at sundalsoren . the midnight sun . mundal, fjærland, sognefjord . fishing-boats at lofoten . a little sætersdalen peasant girl . buerbræ, odde hardanger . a lapp mother and child . snow-capped mountains at aune . river at gjora . grieg . henrik ibsen . bjornstjerne bjornson . fridtjof nansen precarious travel norway chapter i precarious travel of the sea voyage to norway the less said the better. it is my habit to be ill when i am at sea. that is unfortunate; but habit in itself engenders a mode of philosophy that makes many of the evils of life more easily bearable than they might otherwise be. i expect to be ill, and literally lay myself out for it; but nico takes up an attitude of aggrieved surprise that the ocean should thus overcome him, and consequently is a far greater sufferer than i am. however, it is easy to assume a more or less frivolous tone when all is over, and the fact must be admitted that the voyage to norway is almost invariably unpleasant to the majority. from the continent, one can go overland; but such a country as norway should be approached by sea. still, many a valiant sportsman prefers the land for his return when the autumn winds begin to blow, and so it is not surprising that less hardy natures are inclined to do the same. it was summer when i visited norway for the first time; and, although one has frequent chances of viewing the coast as one steams along it from stavanger to trondhjem, i did not really begin to take any interest in the country until i had rested and eaten for some days in the latter town. certainly i had one experience in bergen during the two or three hours that we stopped there on our way north. with my usual insatiable thirst for dissipation, i insisted on visiting a circus i had discovered upon the outskirts of the town. the performance was not very thrilling; but we are neither of us difficult to please, and we stayed rather late. thus, when we returned to the quay the gangway of our vessel was being pulled up. nico made a rush for it, and was saved; but could not prevent the sailors from completing their task, and thus i was left lamenting. however, the sailors finally threw me a rope, and i managed to scramble on to the deck. it was most undignified, and, i am afraid, from the safety of the deck a most laughable spectacle; and i fled to hide my embarrassment in my cabin, ultimately going supperless to bed. [illustration: trondhjem--old boats the form of the ancient viking ships is still preserved in these boats] in trondhjem it rained all day and all night, and the inhabitants cheerfully told us that it was always so. nico, however, painted in the rain, enveloped in mackintoshes and encompassed by umbrellas, and was much disgusted to find that he attracted no attention at all. accustomed as i am to be an object of inquisitive interest to the inhabitants of small dutch towns, i was rather relieved to be taken so absolutely for granted in norway, in spots unfrequented even by ardent fishermen. at trondhjem we were delighted with the delicious salmon and sea-trout; but after some weeks of salmon for breakfast, salmon for dinner, and salmon for supper, i found myself wondering whether it was all that it had seemed to me at first. i am rather ashamed to have to confess that, in spite of the fact that wherever english was spoken the chances were that the conversation turned upon salmon or trout fishing, neither nico nor i know anything of those earlier and more exciting passages in the salmon's career which culminate in his presence at the table. it may be said that, with the exception of the germans, who visit the coast-line in ship-loads, there are practically no _tourists_ in norway. fish seem to be the main object of the stranger within her gates; and, as i have long despaired of grafting a sporting taste upon the artistic temperament, i decided then and there to leave the subject severely alone. besides the anglers, many men go over for shooting. there are still wild animals to be found; licences are very cheap; and the government even offers a reward for the slaughter of certain beasts. in the case of the rarer animals, such as the elk and the wild reindeer, certain restrictions are placed upon the foreign hunter. on the payment of a sum between ten and twelve pounds he is allowed to kill three reindeer and one elk. the native hunter suffers from the same restrictions; but his licence costs him very much less. [illustration: costume worn in the bergen district] all this has little to do with trondhjem. we were rather unlucky there, and were not, perhaps, so much impressed as we ought to have been. calculations based upon careful study of the guide-book proved to be incorrect, and we found the doors of the cathedral constantly closed against us. as it is _the_ object of interest in the place, we were somewhat impatient, and, when we did contrive to obtain entrance, were not in any way mollified to find the building pervaded by spectacled and reverential germans, who bestowed superciliously indignant glances upon us, as on persons who were unjustly sharing a view arranged for their party specially. it is certainly a most beautiful building, and is being restored in a worthy manner. i remarked as much to nico at the moment, but was immediately suppressed by the ancient guardian acting as our guide, who begged me in very stately broken english not to interrupt his discourse. later we went to a music-hall and sat through a most extraordinary programme twice repeated. nico ordered beer, and was served with an immense plate of variegated sandwiches in addition. this, i believe, was in accordance with the law that forbids the sale of intoxicating liquors unless food is served with them. all over norway the most complicated laws are in force with respect to drink, and these laws seem to be different in every town and village. i have not gone into the subject deeply; but it is certainly a rare thing to meet with a drunken norwegian in the country parts. trondhjem always has been, and still is, the crowning place of the norwegian kings. it seems to me that it is a long way to go for such a purpose; but i concluded that it was an affair in which the kings alone were concerned. we walked out to a beautiful waterfall near the town, called the lerfos, and came back by rail. some idea of the speed attained by the trains may be gathered from the fact that, although the train had started when we reached the station, we were able to board it quite easily after it had gone some distance. then, one very wet morning we decided that we had had enough of the place, and, shaking the mud from our boots, we took train to hell. i refrain from the obvious little jokes that may be made upon such a journey, and merely record the fact that we arrived very cold, and soon became very wet during our stay there. the station buildings were all locked up; and we wandered about disconsolately, waiting for the cart which was to meet us and drive us to sælbo, where we had decided to spend a few days. the vehicle which we had chosen was a _stolkjærre_, and i must here explain some of the difficulties of locomotion peculiar to norway. the mileage of railway is small in proportion to the size of the country: the natural formation of the land presents immense difficulties to the engineer. to these obstacles must be added the very hard winters, the heavy rainfall, and the exceeding scantiness of the population in many parts of the country. consequently, almost all travelling is carried out by means of an admirably arranged posting system. on all the roads, at distances varying from seven to eleven miles, may be found posting stations where horses may be changed; where, also, the traveller may eat and sleep. these wayside inns are generally farmhouses, varying widely in their capacity for the entertainment of man and beast. they are obliged to keep a certain number of carts and horses for the use of travellers at a specified rate per kilometre, fixed by the government, such rates being subject to slight increase where particularly mountainous roads are concerned. there are three classes of vehicles in general use. the _carriole_, which is the typical norwegian conveyance, is exceedingly comfortable and well adapted to its purpose; it is built for one person, and runs easily on good springs, and may be likened to an armchair on wheels, but so arranged that one can either sit in it with knees bent, as in an ordinary vehicle, or stretched out at full length in a kind of trough. this obviates the stiffness engendered by endless hours of driving in one position. [illustration: the road to hell, near trondhjem this is one of the rare railway stations of norway] the stolkjærre, on the other hand, is a terrible invention, as much like one of our plumber's handcarts with a rough wooden seat in it as anything i can think of. it holds two people and a certain amount of luggage. on the main roads one finds the carts fitted with something in the way of springs; but upon roads such as it was our fortune to be driven on, often badly in need of repairs, they were usually much behind the times, and it was a wonderful and awful sensation to drive for untold hours under such conditions. the carriole and the stolkjærre have a small seat at the back for the boy who is sent by the proprietor, to be changed, along with the horse and cart, at each station; but in the case of the third method of locomotion--that is to say, with much style and excessive slowness--one takes over the responsibility of the whole affair--namely, coachman, horses, and carriage, which in this case is called _kaleschevogn_,--only to be laid aside when one arrives at one's final destination, and using the stations only for the purpose of resting and eating. to return to the carriole and the stolkjærre. it must be noted that one is expected to drive oneself, though, if anything goes wrong with the horse and cart, the driver is responsible. the mountain ponies are very surefooted and need no guidance; but it was our fate to be made acquainted with cattle that shied, with others that tripped, and with one pony (i recall the occurrence with horror) that stumbled on a narrow road, cut out of the almost perpendicular side of a mountain, three thousand feet above a roaring torrent. one wheel of our vehicle was actually in mid-air; but, fortunately, the horse fell on the shaft that was on the mountain side of the pass. had this not been so, one of the stones that mark the site of such accidents on the norwegian roads would have been erected to our memory. [illustration: white cap worn in the bergen district] it was at hell that we had our first experience of the stolkjærre. this was after waiting some three hours, which nico improved by making a sketch, while i looked for visionary wild strawberries in the soaking grass. then appeared a cosy little carriole, upholstered in red velvet, and carefully covered with tarpaulins. this was immediately taken over by a prosperous station official, who drove off in comparative comfort. in a few minutes appeared the plumber's handcart which i have already attempted to describe, and in it a very diminutive boy, who manfully tackled the luggage, which he endeavoured to make fast with a heap of very thin string, supplemented by straps from nico's sketching equipment. now we were really off, and i had time to study our pony. he had a long and heavy tail, which he would toss over the reins; the pressure he thus brought to bear he promptly obeyed, and we pursued a somewhat erratic course, varied by descents upon the part of the diminutive boy to replace the pony's tail. at length we reached a lonely farmhouse, at which, he implied, we were to alight; and we paid him his little bill, with the addition of a small _pourboire_. he shook hands very gravely with nico, and, looking again at his money, inwardly decided that we deserved a little more attention, and shook hands with me too. we did not know anything about posting, and, somewhat overwhelmed with this ceremonious leave-taking, stood for some time in doubt as to what to do next. soon an old woman appeared at the door of the house, and beckoned us in. i explained as well as i could, with the help of a phrase-book, that we wanted a horse and stolkjærre as quickly as possible. this seemed to amuse the old lady immensely. she laughed until the tears came into her eyes, and, taking the book from my hands, examined it intently upside down. as it was getting late and we had still a long way to go, nico tried what could be done by a pantomimic display. sitting astride a chair, he tied his handkerchief to represent the reins, and supplemented the performance with encouraging noises addressed to an imaginary steed. this tickled the people of the house; but i realised that we were no nearer our object, and decided to forage for myself. i boldly ascended the steep incline of logs upheld by beams that led from the yard to a very dark stable. i found no horse; but there was a stolkjærre without the ghost of a spring. i appealed again to the old lady, who had followed me, for a horse. she merely patted me, and, i think, urged me to be calm. just at this moment another boy appeared upon the scene, and inquired whether it was really a horse that we wanted. knowing the norwegian for _horse_, i nodded vigorously. he smiled indulgently, but took no other step. after another half hour's alternate shouting and periods of calm, the boy roused himself to action and went off, while the old lady, who, i believe, was really kind and interested in us, took me into the kitchen and made up the fire, as she discovered that my hands were cold. i suppose she knew what we wanted all the time, and that we ought to have taken things more easily; but at that time i knew nothing of the unwritten laws with regard to posting in norway. [illustration: trondhjem] we had a terribly long drive, through magnificent scenery, going uphill for miles; and very desolate and wild it seemed in the half light of that damp and dreary evening. not a human being did we meet, and scarcely a dwelling was to be seen along the route. it was midnight when we reached our destination, one of the typical boarding-houses scattered all over norway, in which inhabitants of the towns not possessing villas of their own pass a few weeks in the summer. they are called "sanatoriums," generally provide fishing, and are always amid glorious scenery. the ones that i visited were splendidly managed, and exceedingly reasonable in their charges. marienborg, the name of the small sanatorium in which we stayed at sælbo, is exquisitely situated above a very charming lake, and new beauties discovered themselves in whatever direction one wandered. the air is perfect, and the weather almost dependable, in the few short weeks of summer. it was now the middle of august. the hostess was carefully tending her strawberry-beds, and pointed out to us a fine specimen that was still green. the meals at this establishment may be taken, i think, as typical of those of the whole of northern norway. breakfast (when you wish) consists of coffee and cream, eggs, and various odorous kinds of cheese, of which i can only remember the names of two, the reindeer cheese and the goat cheese. dinner is at two o'clock. salmon is a staple dish; the meat, generally mutton, is not much to boast of. the game, when one can get it, is excellent. the people seem to care little for any vegetable except potatoes. a great "feature" of the meal is the dishes of fresh berries served with an abundance of delicious cream. the milk, which is a general drink, is always skimmed. the bread is an acquired taste, cinnamon and caraway seeds being often used as a flavouring. a strange bread, which at its best form was rather pleasant, consisted of sheets of wafer-like thinness and considerable size, broken up to the requirements of the eaters. this is served with every meal. one seemed to be eating tissue paper without pulp. though it is difficult to believe in its nourishing qualities, a norwegian meal would be incomplete without it. amid more gorgeous circumstances it is rejected for a delicately flavoured smooth wafer which is really pleasing with butter. in places near the sea we were delighted with the abundance of prawns and lobsters; prawns of such perfection i had never tasted before. it is very difficult to get fresh butter. as a rule it is made in the saeters in the mountains, where the cattle are kept in summer, and on account of the heat is very much oversalted before being sent down. [illustration: little girl of telemarken] we stayed some time at sælbo, as the only way to leave it was by riding along a narrow bridle-path for over a hundred kilometres, and this was not likely to be very pleasant. the only way to avoid it was by partially retracing our footsteps, and this we liked still less. nico had become devoted to the picturesque log buildings with their delightful grass roofs studded with flowers, and even in some cases actually bearing small trees; and i had discovered a dear old woman who passed her time in knitting curious triangular gloves. she had been nurse in an english family many years before, and could speak a sort of english. she loved to tell me tales of her former charges; she did not seem to mind how much i understood, and no more did i. her two sons were in america, whence they sent her a sufficient allowance to keep her in comparative comfort, and in addition to this she sold the gloves she passed her time in knitting. she lived all alone in a log house consisting of one large room, which served her for all purposes except sleeping (a tiny cabin built in the main wall served for that), and containing very little furniture, the peasantry in norway having the good sense to appreciate the advantages of space. large tables with folding legs are fixed with hinges to the wall, and when not in use are hooked up out of the way. in one corner of the room was the round whitewashed open fireplace and chimney which are characteristic of these log houses--infinitely to be preferred, from a comforting as well as a picturesque point of view, to the tall iron stoves generally in use. the stoves have their qualities, however, being narrow and made in four or five divisions above that intended for fuel, which is invariably wood. each of these compartments has its own temperature, and is to be used with discretion for drying and heating purposes. one word of warning: do not put your boots in the partition nearest the fire. [illustration: making the dinner--a cottage interior at sÆlbo] at our sanatorium all the visitors ate at one table, and we were charmed at our first acquaintance with a custom which holds good all through norway. when the meal is over all the guests wait for the hostess to rise; then they follow her example and gravely bow, thus thanking one another for the honour conferred during the repast. this practice is observed wherever two or more people are seated at the same table, even though they may be absolute strangers. we had now discovered that by crossing the lake on a very old steamer we should reach a place called brottem and thence proceed northwards to a spot from which we could pursue our journey. we parted from the lovely smiling place with many regrets, and, boarding the steamer, found we had it to ourselves. at a bend in the lake sælbo was lost to our sight, while on either side of the narrow water the banks rose precipitously, thickly wooded with pines. the sun had disappeared, and the air was growing cold, when suddenly the steamer stopped, the captain proclaiming in a matter-of-fact tone that the engine refused to work. we ascertained that we were in no actual danger; but out of sight and sound of humanity, on a tiny and very ancient vessel, we were in a position of unpleasant possibilities. we remained stationary for two hours. then one of our three navigators had a brilliant inspiration. that was to examine the engines, which had not, apparently, occurred to any of them before! after a little coaxing the vessel began to move again; and we eventually landed on the farther shore of the lake, very cold, very hungry, and much belated. [illustration: bergen] here we found a large farmhouse surrounded by many outbuildings, and evidently prosperous. we were received with enthusiasm by the burly proprietor, his servants, and a norwegian family engaged in fishing who were staying at the place. a splendid meal was prepared, and, to my joy, a wood fire was roaring in the tall iron stove of a large bedroom set apart for me. the fishing family knew a few words of english, which they were as much pleased to speak as we to hear. next day was a sunday, and at dinner nico in his ignorance expressed a desire for something to drink, which was refused, as nothing could be sold on that day. the kind fishermen came to the rescue. they plied us with rare wines, and under that friendly influence we thawed gratefully. i found them enthusiastic whist-players, and eagerly desirous of mastering the intricacies of bridge. i did what i could in one short afternoon to enlighten them, and soon after sent them two scoring boards. probably they will evolve a game for themselves which in the next generation will utterly eclipse bridge, as bridge has eclipsed whist and solo. [illustration: on the fjord, sundalsoren] brottem, aune, sliper, gjora, sundalsoren, etc. chapter ii brottem, aune, sliper, gjora, sundalsoren, etc. we had a splendid pony and quite a comfortable stolkjærre from brottem to the next station, where we took the train to our resting-place for the night, a well-known fishing hotel at storen. one of the excellent incidents of travelling in norway is the service, which is exceedingly well done by women. they are so quick and clean and agreeable that they contribute to the enjoyment of one's wayfaring. the deft maids at the storen hotel were no exception to the rule; but the place was not very sympathetic to us. we stayed only long enough for nico to make one or two pictures of spots which pleased him. then we began a long drive right across the country, half the distance off the main road, having as our destination the town of molde. we lingered for weeks over our drive, staying for days at the various little stations which appealed to us specially by reason of that mystic attraction some spots have and others lack, which can neither be analysed nor explained. at a place called aune we left the main route, and here the road began to be exceedingly bad--far and away the worst we came across in norway. before this we were struck with the splendid way the roads are constructed and kept. our hearts were in our mouths one dusky evening as we galloped down the narrow road cut out of the precipitous side of a mountain: seven hundred feet below foamed and roared a torrent. we reached the valley in safety; but i had terrible dreams about frightened or unsteady ponies for nights afterwards. at aune we met two very handsome norwegians, who were crossing the country on foot. they were taking a holiday in this way; but many poor students are obliged to make use of shanks' ponies for the strongest of reasons. this slow driving during long distances becomes very expensive, and i presume that the continual stoppages at hotels must be an important item. i mention these good-looking people, not because we found them very interesting, but because i was surprised all through norway to find so few men with any of the external qualities of the viking. i had imagined that the type was strongly implanted in the norsemen. even in build the majority are unsatisfactory. a careful study of statistics on the subject informed me that the norwegians are the tallest european race; but i can only suppose that the average is brought up by a certain number of excessively tall men. also, the norseman is inclined to become fat early in middle life. on the whole, the middle class is not to be distinguished from the usual type of dutchmen and germans with which we are familiar. the women have been treated in a much kindlier fashion by nature. even those whose features do not actually admit of their being called handsome have such smiling frank faces that they are most pleasant to look upon. in using womenkind so extensively in the place of man-servants the norwegians show wisdom and good taste. [illustration: country-women selling berries on the road to storen] from aune we had a terrible drive over a road in the making. the old path was too bad to use at all; and the new road jerked us here up a foot, there down a foot, as the various processes gone through in levelling had been completed or not. at last we left the roadmakers behind us, and drove for some kilometres along the old road to a small station called sliper, a terrible drive which by this time will, fortunately, have ceased to be possible. we were delighted with sliper. at the station were two houses, the station's and another. we stayed at the other. we had actually ordered the horse, meaning to go on, when a beautiful norwegian woman beckoned to us from her doorway in the other house. she invited us to warm ourselves while we were waiting, and gladly we climbed up the twenty-five steps leading to her large room. the flap table was painted bright red, as were the benches, and the few pieces of furniture were carved and painted wood. the brilliant colours were mellowed by time and perhaps by smoke from the wood fire, which burnt in a round open grate in a corner. an immense cauldron was suspended from a chain in the chimney. in it was stewing a savoury mess of mutton and potatoes. in front sat a pale little girl, the only living child of the beautiful hostess. the latter had the most perfect teeth i have ever seen, and waving masses of golden hair. at either end of the big room was a small bedchamber. one the family used, and the other was kept for the possible guest. i believe that, as the station house had room for us, we were quite wrong in staying with the neighbour; but i think the station people were not very energetic--they did not object so much as they had the right to do. in any case, there we stayed for three days, living and eating in the big room with mother and child. with the exception of our supper on the first night, we had no meat. we lived contentedly on potatoes and eggs, fruit and cream, and abominable butter. it is strange how far the atmosphere of a place can defeat prejudices. [illustration: norwegian captain] however, soon nico became hungry, and i finished my small stock of literature. we took our horse and stolkjærre, and without a boy we followed the post on the road to gjora. when we had driven a few kilometres, keeping the post carriole with its bag and its horn well in sight, we discovered that we had left the purse containing most of our wealth behind us at sliper. nico drove back at the pony's best pace. this best pace could not have been very wonderful. an eternity seemed to be passing as i sat on a big rock, waiting for the return of the companion and the purse. a few cows walked by me in inquisitive procession. i effaced myself as much as possible. i am ridiculously afraid of cows. even the norwegian cow, which i know theoretically to be the gentlest of creatures, can subdue me with a look and drive me to seek for any available hiding-place. at last i heard wheels; but they were coming the wrong way. the two men in the cart looked at me curiously, and drew up in front of me. one addressed me in very good english. it appeared that the post-driver had warned the people at gjora station of our near arrival, and had presumably mentioned that we had no boy. after they had allowed an hour and a half to elapse, they were good enough to become anxious, and had come to look for us. i explained our delay, and we all waited for nico's appearance. at the end of another half-hour he turned up. the horse had lain down quite calmly and refused to go on. he had tried kindness, which was of little use; he had waited for a passer-by who could speak the horse's language; in course of time the beast, having enjoyed a siesta, got up and continued his journey. hence the delay. [illustration: farm-house and mill at gjora] all's well that ends well. when we arrived at gjora we met with a warm reception from our host and his family. the stove was lit in an immense bedroom which was _en plus_ furnished with two box-like beds of questionable shape, a small chair which was masquerading as a wash-hand stand bearing a small jug and basin and two minute towels, a writing-table, and many photographs of the royal family. also, there was a tame bluebottle which worried me very much. all our blandishments were of no avail with the heartless insect. the open windows could not persuade him to leave us, and, in the flickering light of one candle in the large room, it was impossible to get rid of him by foul means. every night as we went to bed he started his low buzzing and spoilt my temper and my sleep. nico didn't mind it a bit. the dining-room at gjora was palatial. i sat in a carved armchair upholstered in crimson velvet, and we ate from beautiful silver, serving ourselves with sugar from the very choicest old bowl i have ever seen. the cupboard, the sideboard, and the clock were beautifully carved and coloured. we lived on a princely tin of corned beef. for three days it provided us with two meals a day, and very good they were. next door to the station--indeed, i believe, the house in other times is the station--an english family were spending the summer, fishing and walking. the english-speaking man we met on the road was the gentleman's gillie. they regaled us physically with various edibles from the stores and spiritually with salmon stories, and when we left they sped us on our way with a new stock of reading matter. the country all round is exceedingly beautiful. the river which provided the fishing for our compatriots winds along by the road; or rather i should say that the road follows the course of the river for many miles through narrow passes in the mountains which press round--many of them snow-capped, as one may see when the veil of cloud which envelops them lifts to allow a sight of their summits. the station is in a cosy little hollow among these white-headed giants; and the weather is noticeably finer, the atmosphere softer, than at the preceding and succeeding stations. between gjora and our next resting-place, sundalsoren, we drove through magnificent scenery. i think it will be admitted that the sundal is at least as beautiful as that famous valley which lies almost parallel to it--the romsdal. from the road one may see glaciers and snow mountains. here and there are notices warning the traveller to drive fast. this is more especially for winter, when huge snow avalanches are frequent. the road crosses from left to right of the river. we drove over bridge after bridge, backwards and forwards, as the river pursued its erratic course without regarding the convenience of roadmaking mankind. we arrived at sundalsoren at sunset, and were enraptured with the beauty of the snow mountains. whether it was thus arriving in such glory, or that the place has really a most individual charm, i cannot say; but for me sundalsoren is a memory entirely _couleur de rose_. [illustration: mountains and river at gjora] it is a small fishing village at the head of a fjord. the fishermen's little low houses are built round the concave land, which is washed by the waters of the fjord. on the stony beach before the cottages are spread fishing-nets and tackle, including the bright silvered balls which, i suppose, attract the fish. two wooden quays stretch their long arms into the water, and from the farthest point of them one may get a delightful view of the village. the character of the place is dutch. it is almost as if a little street from volendam had been dumped down amid the mountains and the snows. we were sorry to part from this charming spot when the little fjord steamer called for us and another passenger. slowly we steamed through the fjord, now calling at a tiny hamlet on the left bank, now dropping a passenger in his waiting boat on the right side; here picking up three english fishermen, boat and all; there leaving them near their destination rested and refreshed. the steamers that ply the innumerable fjords are accommodating craft--none of your haughty vessels making hard-and-fast rules as to times and places. although they are often punctual in their departures and arrivals, they will slow down and pick you up in whatever part of the fjord you choose to meet them, and put you down too if you have your boat along with you. also it is to be noted that the food on the smaller boats is quite as good as one gets on the large steamers that make the journeys on what may be called the outer coast of norway. indeed, the bigger vessels are so often loaded with various strongly-smelling dried fish that the whole atmosphere is impregnated; which must rob some passengers of any appetite the occasional few miles of rough open sea has left or given them. after quitting sundalsoren we drove through two or three good stations, and arrived late on saturday night at a small place which, as it is on no map and many consultations with bennett's have resulted in the conclusion that we were quite off the beaten track, must be nameless. at the time i knew the name--we had it on the bill;--but no one seemed to be able to place it, and now i have forgotten. i have a theory which may account for our presence there. at one of the previous stations we had telephoned in advance for a horse and cart to be ready, as it was very rainy and very wet and getting late. the horse we had was very fast; the driver was a cheerful person with a slight knowledge of english. within a kilometre of the station, where, i presume, an equipage was in waiting, he offered to drive us straight on to our destination, because we had expressed great satisfaction with the trotting of his pony. we agreed, and tore through the tiny village built round the station in great haste, egged on, perhaps, by a guilty conscience. then we drove for miles and miles until at last, at half-past ten at night, we reached the unknown little spot which i must perforce call x. [illustration: a little farm on the riverside at gjora] it is possible that, knowing that the expectant farmer at the avoided station would telephone to the station on either side of him, the driver preferred not to face them until their anger should have calmed and he should have had time to invent some excuse. i do not know to what extent he expected to be blamed; but i am afraid the man we telephoned to must have been rather mad, and so i imagine that we were driven to this quaint spot because there our sin would not find us out. inadvertently i left a large silver scent-bottle there, and acknowledged the loss to be a judgment on me when i found it impossible to find the place again. when we arrived we went to bed. in the morning we had coffee and bread and jam; and nico painted. at three o'clock we were hungry, and when at length preparations for a meal were made our appetites were ravenous. a dear little girl waited on us--a very pretty child, with beautiful hair. she brought on the table a few slices of thick and very fat raw bacon and some caraway-seed bread. hungry as we were, we could not eat that. we tried to ask her what more there was. she left the room, and soon came back carrying the _pièce de resistance_ of our meal--two soup plates filled with a paste made of flour and water, such as we used to employ in the days of scrap-books. on the top of this floated a little melted butter. with this she brought a basin of powdered cinnamon. that was our sunday dinner. they were such sweet people that we feared to hurt their feelings, and nico ate all his plateful and half of mine. the half that was left we divided between our plates, which then looked quite empty enough. we ate caraway-seed bread for supper and caraway-seed bread for breakfast. with the help of our phrase book, we gathered that they never ate meat and very rarely had fresh fish. [illustration: ostre kanalhavn, trondhjem] the place is situated on water which, i suppose, is a fjord, and there are three or four houses besides the one at which we stayed. they made us understand that they were not in any way prepared for guests, and had some difficulty in providing us with a horse and cart. i should be very much interested to know the name of this little place. it is within two hours' drive of molde, and as far as i could make out it had scarcely ever been visited by the foreign traveller. we were astonished to find ourselves so near to this big town, for we had calculated that we had at least another half-day's journey to make; which proves again that somewhere we had overstepped our mark. molde is the most beautifully situated town in norway. it has a population of souls. it is a very important port of call for all the steamers which coast between bergen, trondhjem, and the north. the town is built along the mouth of the romsdal fjord, and from almost any point a view of the grand romsdal mountains is to be obtained. the panorama on a clear day is gorgeous. to see the sun setting over the fjord and its background of snow-tipped peaks is to have a vision of fairy-like colour and beauty that takes one's breath away. all over norway as one passes through the valleys and the winding fjords picture after picture are witnessed in rich succession, each seeming more beautiful than the last; but now, as at a certain distance of time i endeavour to recall their individual charms, i think that these glorious evenings in molde occupy the most pleasant place in the memory of one of norway's ardent admirers. how rash thus to limit one's enthusiasm! from molde we went by steamer to næs, and, after resting awhile at an hotel and eating an excellent supper, took a miraculously comfortable stolkjærre and had a long drive to horgheim in the brilliant moonlight. i wonder how many visitors to the romsdal have done the same? imagine the charm of it. the delicate jagged edges of the mountains on the right of the road stand sharp and clear against the blueness of the sky; as the road winds in and out the romsdal horn reveals or conceals herself bathed in moonlight; innumerable waterfalls foam down from the heights with plashing music, looking like silver streamers hung out to decorate the beautiful way of some mystic procession. our driver was for the time an affinity: no longer a guide in our pay, or in that of the hotel, taking tourists through a world-renowned stretch of scenery, but a romantic norseman slowly opening out to us a valley of delight, his possession by inheritance and love. [illustration: the town of molde] he told us with a smile that was not quite incredulous of the little goblins with blue beards that, according to the peasants, haunt the fields and fjords of these parts. there are good and bad pixies, and much blame is laid at the door of the bad ones for any mischances that come about. what wonder that the people are superstitious folk? perhaps it would be better to call them mystics. what sounds and sights may be heard and seen in such a land! our norseman pointed out a certain group among the jagged pinnacles of the rock, and told us a legend describing how a bridal party, instead of being the happiest of the happy, quarrelled and fought and were by magic turned in an instant into stone. here they stand as a warning to future bridals. the groom and bride turn away from each other; the best man stands for ever with a foaming tankard in his hand; near by is the well-fed priest; apart and solitary is the figure of a disconsolate lover. look at them in the moonlight: you will see them all quite distinctly: soon they will step down from their heights and mix with mortal men again. the air is full of movement and strange sounds. during the long way back, the wonderful person who had been appointed to drive us entertained us with legends of the gods and vikings. these brave admirals of old times met with burial befitting their state and courage. the ship which they had sailed so well through wild storms and wilder battles was dragged ashore, and this and nothing less was the coffin for their richly-dressed mortal remains. the souls of the vikings killed by the sword went straightway to walhalla, where their ideal of bliss was meted out to them in guerdon for their bravery. at cockcrow all the heroes marched out and fought furiously one with another; but at midday all the wounds were healed, and the rest of the day was spent in banqueting with the great god odin. walhalla was said to be a hall of such size that the roof could not be seen. in it was a forest of golden trees. the walls were decorated with shields and warlike weapons, and through each of its five hundred and forty doors eight hundred warriors could walk abreast. [illustration: woman spinning, sundalsoren] i was sleepy, and i was awed with the majesty of all we had seen; but i wondered what sort of heaven was arranged for the wives and daughters of the vikings! some days after this moonlight drive i came across a book containing details relating to norwegian mythology, which may be of some interest. everyone knows that most of the week-days derived their names from these northern gods. from ostara, the goddess of spring, we get the name of our spring feast, easter. decoration with flowers and the custom of easter eggs are as old as paganism; and our christian forefathers, to facilitate the change to the new religion, adopted many pagan rites and dedicated them to the service of the true god. odin was the father of the gods and the greatest among them. thor was the red-bearded god of storm. armed with his mighty hammer mjolnir, he slew the powerful giants of winter--not without much difficulty, however; for at first, overcome by sleep, thor relaxed his vigilance, and the wintry giants stole his hammer and buried it in the hard earth. awakened and conscious of his loss, thor appealed to freya, the beautiful and benevolent goddess of love and spring. her gentle influence subdued the giants of snow and ice, and thor, seizing his opportunity, regained his mighty weapon, which he wielded to such effect that the giants were killed and their fortifications broken down. though the gods are usually triumphant in these old northern sagas, the demons on occasion gained their bad ends. it was thus in the story of baldur, the god of light and most beloved of all the gods. in the full beauty of his youth he was killed by the power of loki, the embodiment of envy, hatred, and revenge, and incidentally the god of fire. in the beginning loki lived happily with the other gods; but odin cursed him for ever for his wickedness. it was foretold that the loved baldur was to be the victim of some treachery, and the gods made efforts to prevent such a catastrophe. frigga, who was the wife of odin, placed a spell upon everything, so that there might be nothing in nature that could hurt baldur. on account of its insignificance, the mistletoe was forgotten by the goddess, and of this loki made an instrument of destruction. having fashioned a dart out of a branch of the innocent shrub, loki persuaded hodur, the blind brother of baldur, to hurl the weapon at his brother in sport, the innocent child believing that this wood, as all other, was charmed. the arrow pierced baldur to the heart, killing him, and causing universal mourning among the gods. among the demons were skretti, who has left his name to many a haunted rock in norway, and niki, who is a terrible water demon, still dreaded by the ignorant folk in the mountains. each year he demands victims and carries off the children who stray within his power. our familiar nursery friends jack and jill are descendants of hjuki and bil, the ebbing and flowing tides, the tumbling crests of which, breaking one over another as the waves wash the shore, are rather aptly described in the nursery rhyme. [illustration: snow-capped mountain at sundalsoren] on the fjords chapter iii on the fjords we were awakened rather roughly next morning. at an early hour two steamers landed at næs, and a stream of tourists emerged. for two hours vehicles of all sorts filed past our hotel. they took the drive we had taken in solitude and moonlight the previous evening, and by the time the last carriage of the goers passed out of sight the first carriole of the comers-back was visible. our dream was ended. we fled the romsdal, thanking a merciful chance which, at least for a time and for our first impression, had given us the romsdal in its most ideal beauty. moonlight also was it when we left on an almost passengerless steamer, which took us up the glorious fjord back to molde. here we passed another week to our profit and satisfaction. some interesting old wooden buildings on the water, about to be pulled down, provided subjects for nico's brush, and i wandered about and admired, peaceful in the consciousness that when nature for a time should cease to suffice me i had in reserve a resource--the hotel library consisted of a sixteen-volume history of england and a few odd volumes of an encyclopædia! in an old book on norway which i came across, the author mentions a visit he made to a little village near a river which he calls osterthal. it was rather an involuntary visit: they had lost their way.--"we came to a minister's house, whose son's wedding was being celebrated. it was full of people of all descriptions, forming a droll caricature scene. [at the date this was written all the country-folk would be in national costume.] our effects were brought in by the multitude without our paying any attention to them; the parson's silver plate was lying about in every direction, his watches hung in every room. [the author mentions this apparent plenitude of watches on several occasions, as giving a sign of prosperity.] a hundred persons at least were present of the poorest sort, eating and drinking in every room of the house, yet such is the honesty of the population that everything was safe. our host received us most generously, and would accept of no reward; he was even seriously displeased that we presented his daughter with a couple of ducats, because she would load us with bread and other provisions. we spent the night in the utmost conviviality, and proceeded the next day over waste mountains and marshes on foot, till we crossed the frontier and arrived at lerma." [illustration: old warehouse and boats, molde] later we read that in one place they were indeed most hospitable and caught fish enough to feed the family for eight days. what joy! in another place he tells us that the bread, "generally made of the rind of trees, was miserable." again: "bonaparte is the common theme of the norwegians. in no country is such praise lavished on him as in this, where his power is only felt in undesigningly promoting the country's advantage--from this standpoint the norwegians admire him and calmly survey the convulsions around them." it is interesting to observe that at this date the writer gives the population of norway as being under a million; now it is considerably over two millions. he remarks that the women, though strong, robust, and generally over six feet in height, are sadly wanting in feminine charms. in our days they have changed. we may suppose from practical experience that what the norwegian women have lost in stature they have gained in beauty. the number of pretty women is well above the average. in the fulness of time we left molde by steamer, and so southwards along the coast, stopping for a few hours at the ruins of aalesund, the thriving little town that was entirely burnt down in january . of the twelve thousand inhabitants who were almost all bereft of house and home, only one lost her life, and that through rashness. she was an old woman who, finding she had forgotten some cherished possession, insisted on entering the burning house to recover it. at least, this is what was told me by an inhabitant of the place; and i take it to be correct, for the norwegians of to-day are as honest and trustworthy as were their ancestors at the beginning of last century. we landed on this island of ruins and climbed the pretty hill which overlooks the town. thence we obtained a magnificent view over the sea, and were able to realise the complete and terrible desolation wrought by the fire. at the time of this disaster nico was in norway, and the whole country rang with the praises of the emperor william of germany, whose immediate and practical generosity was a theme for the warmest recognition. to judge from all we heard in different parts of the country, it would appear that he has won the heart of norway, and has made himself immensely popular with the people. [illustration: mountains and fjord facing molde] the ancestor of our king william the conqueror gives his name to a castle not far south of aalesund. he was called rollo the walker, because he was so tall and heavy that no horse could be found strong enough to carry him. he conquered parts of france, and founded the duchy of normandy. as far as i remember, from aalesund south the steamer behaved in such a way that we thought it would be as well to leave it for a while, and we landed as soon as was possible at a charmingly situated island called moldöen. for various reasons, the place was without a quay. in torrents of rain and buffeted by the gale, we scrambled off the steamer on to a flat-bottomed boat, and were rowed to the island. what a dreary little place it seemed! even though we had strawberries and cream at tea, and even though the best room was furnished with two beautiful bouquets of wax flowers under glass, the rain beat down such spirits as we might have had, and we went to bed disconsolate and cold. the beds were extraordinarily uncomfortable. i tried three of the four in my small room, and stayed in the third in despair. i awoke to find the sun pouring into the room, and the strains of "rule, britannia" filling the house with gramophonic sound. we got up and dressed to the tunes of the "marseillaise" and "willie, we have missed you"; ate our breakfast to a popular cake-walk; and proceeded to investigate. it turned out that the hospitality of the house, which we had deemed ours alone, was shared by a commercial traveller. steamer-bound there for two days, he carried about with him for use on such occasions five phones of different kinds. as far as we could discover, he made moldöen a centre from which he radiated to various islands, bearing with him on his outgoings and incomings one or two of the instruments. he entertained us all day long with disquisitions on the advantages of this one and the disadvantages of that, with practical examples. this was a labour of love, for he "travelled" in machinery. he had lived for many years in america. he had a wife and family in christiania, whom he was in the habit of seeing for not more than a week in the year. when we left the island he left too, and endeavoured to get me a berth on a southward-bound steamer which had about a dozen berths and fifty or sixty passengers. he was not successful, and we all sat up on deck; but i have a kindly memory of him for his excellent intentions and his music. [illustration: moldÖen] while we were on the island i saw several reindeer on the mountains opposite. we had intended to travel from moldöen along the sogne fjord; but, finding it impossible to control the steamers coming from the north, we were obliged to postpone our visit to these celebrated parts. a friend who was staying at balholm in the 'eighties related to me how one fine day, when they were boating on the fjord, they saw a whale. all the craft on the water scuttled for their lives, and the whale, after creating much excitement, quietly made its way back to the open and was seen no more. we arrived at bergen in pouring rain. surrounded as this town is by high mountains, which, while protecting her from the extreme violence of the storms, attract and imprison the clouds, it has rarely a rainless day. we stayed for three weeks. bergen, which is still one of the most important ports of scandinavia, has had an interesting commercial history. it began its growth in the eleventh century, and its importance may be judged by the fact that in a decree fixed the number of its dock labourers at two hundred. in these centuries several commercial treaties were concluded between norway and various powers. among others is still extant an agreement between england and norway. a german body known as the hanseatic league, recognising the great commercial importance of such a town as bergen, began in the thirteenth century to obtain a footing there. until their arrival the norwegian trade was almost confined to the summer months. the first step taken by the hansards was to struggle to establish themselves during the winter. the norwegians strove for a long time to prevent this, and as late as , it appears, the number of germans wintering at bergen was inconsiderable. later in that century the hansards instituted a factory in the town; and, aided by three visitations of the plague, which reduced the population of norway, and by extensive privileges granted to them by magnus kagaboter, which rendered it almost impossible for the norwegians to carry on an independent trade, they arrived at practically controlling all the commerce of the country, and in other respects held the trump cards in their own hands. as they increased in power, these foreigners became domineering, in bergen especially, where they committed acts of aggression and violence against the norwegian population. the native merchants in the various ports made a stubborn and vindictive resistance; but the germans were there in such numbers that when at last the norse efforts were crowned with success and the foreigners to some extent driven out, these towns found themselves much reduced in strength. bergen, however, aided by her enormous fishing trade, continued to be the most important commercial town, and the hanseatic population struggled hard to keep the supremacy which they had enjoyed. during the seventeenth century the thirty years' war weakened them in their own country, and the growing supremacy of the dutch fleet was another influence against them. it was not until the middle of the eighteenth century, however, that the german factory entirely ceased. even now the houses of the hanseatic quarter are only beginning to be pulled down. when we were in bergen we watched the process of destruction, and admired the immense strength of the foundations of enormous piles on which the old germans built their dwelling-places and storehouses. in the quarter there is an interesting museum, containing many hanseatic relics, including much domestic furniture. [illustration: bergen] to-day, with its trade and its immense influx of visitors to the country, bergen presents an animated sight. one of my favourite haunts during solitary wanderings was the fish-market. on two days of the week--wednesday and saturday, i believe--if one gets there early enough, the little quay is crowded with amusing folk, the solemn fishermen from the islands, who bring their spoil to be disposed of to the best advantage, and the shrewd becapped fishwives, determined on not giving an ore beyond the lowest possible price. it is delightful to listen to their rapid speech with its quaint inflections. some of the women wear charming starched white caps like those of sisters of charity, and others tightly-fitting black or blue bonnets with little frills relieving their austerity. here and there, under a flight of stone steps or built like a niche in a blank wall, one catches a glimpse of a tiny stall where twisted cakes containing much spice are sold, or of the wooden boxes of varying sizes and prices which the norwegians use where we use baskets and bags. some are plain, some ornamented with poker work, and others more or less elaborately painted in the brilliant colours and the conventional flower-designs beloved of the norsemen and the tourist. the norsemen employ the boxes in every size, and for every purpose, from the big receptacle which contains the whole outfit of a young man or maid starting in life to the tiny five-ore box which holds little ragna's ball of cotton and her jointed crotchet-hook. [illustration: a fair maiden of north bergen] the place is surrounded by seven hills, which we did not climb, and has _en plus_ a theatre which we did not visit. we did, however, take ourselves to a music-hall, which, if it satisfied the bergenites' idea of comfort and entertainment, proves them to be a people of contented mind. that, i am afraid, is one of the blessings of which i am deprived. in spite of the seven hills, the hanseatic remains, and the rain, i believe i was bored in bergen. i was not to interrupt nico, because he was working very hard; i could not roam about much while all my clothes were in a continual state of being dried; i could scarcely afford to read a book an hour at one and two kroner apiece; i was quite destitute; even satan found no mischief for my idle hands to do; and i was glad when the money we were waiting for arrived and we were able to make our way inland. i am just beginning to grow rather fond of bergen, and by the time i see this grumbling in print i daresay i shall wish to take back all i have written in any way derogatory to the place. we left in the middle of the night, going by steamer the whole way to odde in preference to taking train to a place called voss--a remarkable railway journey through grand and varied scenery, the track being almost entirely hewn out of solid rock. there are no fewer than fifty-five tunnels between voss and bergen. however, we contented ourselves with that old-established means of transit, the fjord steamer--in this case a biggish vessel, though without sleeping accommodation beyond the smoking-room and a ladies' small room on deck. fortunately, there were only two feminine passengers. i was one. the other was an american girl who, making a european tour with the necessary aunts, had left them in luxury and comfort in berlin while she made a carriole journey over norway. at the time we met on the steamer she was beginning to regret her persistence, and we were both glad of each other's company until she left the country to join her relations. [illustration: bergen boats and warehouses] in the morning, drawing the curtains of our cabin, we beheld the glorious scenery of the far-famed hardanger fjord. we breakfasted with good appetite on biscuits, delicious prawns, and excellent chocolate. i do not know if the menu sounds tempting; but the coffee left much to be desired, and by that time we had grown accustomed to stranger mixtures than shell-fish and chocolate. the weather was magnificent, and thus, though it was rather late in the year, we enjoyed all the pleasure offered by nature to visitors of this delightful arm of the sea without the disadvantages of mosquitoes and crowds experienced by those tourists who pay their homage of admiration in the usual season. we sat on deck the whole morning, enjoying the wonderful panorama that unfolded itself before us at every turn of the fjord. as the steamer twisted in and out we noticed that the fjord was generally edged with a narrow band of fertile, smiling country; immediately above, the wooded heights rose precipitously, parted here and there by silver torrents that poured foaming over the rocks into the fjord. occasionally, as we passed close by these cascades, the spray they threw off caught the sun's rays and showed for a moment a wonder of all the imaginable beauty of the commingling of the diamond with the rainbow. high above were the snow-crowned mountains and the blue whiteness of glaciers. what a wonderful country! it seems sometimes that nature is too prodigal. where an hour of such beauty leaves one overwhelmed with marvel and delight, days and weeks of a panorama ever increasing in splendour dull the senses and--dare i say it?--almost satiate. late in the afternoon we stopped at a small station to pick up a few passengers who had chosen to go so far by rail and carriole, and my american friend was much pleased to recognise two young scions of french nobility, whose titles she had read on her journey from molde to bergen, when most of the passengers were invisible through illness. she was convinced that dr. conan doyle had been her neighbour at table, and she begged me to find out if he had been in norway during the summer. she had a wonderful gift of enthusiasm, and did our rather jaded spirits a great deal of good by that intense keenness which is characteristic of her race. [illustration: vÆfos, hildal, hardanger] after dinner we came again on deck, to find the moon pouring her soft light over all and imparting to the earth a romantic illusiveness. however, it was also exceedingly cold, and we retired early, nico to smoke and doze, and i with our american to discuss the war between north and south and other important matters; of course, we discovered friends in common. all through the nights one passes on these fjord steamers one is constantly aroused by weird bumpings and stampings, and we had learnt from previous experience that this was due to the stoppage of the steamer at different stations to pick up and deliver cargoes. about eleven o'clock on this particular night, the noises were of such an extraordinary character, and seemed to last so long, that we put on our big coats and went out on the deck to explore. by the light of two small lamps a herd of fifty cows was being embarked. some of them protested vigorously against stepping on to the thin plank bridging the water between them and the boat. the whole business was tiresome and lengthy. at last a band was improvised to pass round the animals' bodies; one by one they were hauled up, willy-nilly, by the crane and pulley, and dropped into their allotted quarters. an hour or two later we were startled from our sleep. the scene was reversed, and the cattle were landed at their destination. about four o'clock we were again disturbed by the running backwards and forwards of many feet. when the steamer settled into silence, we dropped off to sleep, too quickly to discover that all motion had ceased and that we were at a standstill. we were not shipwrecked; nor had we met with any untoward accident. we had arrived, and, though most of the passengers had left the boat and finished their night in more comfortable quarters, we slept on in blissful ignorance until after eight o'clock, when nico came to inform us that all our baggage was at the hotel and breakfast ordered. we dressed with alacrity, and made our way to the enormous hotel of odde, which is about the most popular resort of the tourist in norway, though when we were there late in august it was without guests. we breakfasted in a lofty room, and noticed that the waitresses, who are famed for their allegiance to norwegian costume, had relinquished it with their hopes of other foreign guests, and were soberly dressed in black. the day after our departure the proprietor and his family left the place, and caught us up when we finally rested at dalen. i wonder if norway is glad or sorry when the enthusiastic but destroying tourist ceases for nine months to take up his abode within her gates? minor romantic episodes chapter iv minor romantic episodes from odde we returned to our old friend the stolkjærre, and the american girl took a carriole. in this manner we had a little variety, for we changed places now and then. both vehicles belonged to one man, who drove with us all the way, putting up when we did. this prevented the nuisance of continual change of horses and conveyance. the driver assured us that the carriole had been used by the german emperor. i believe that in the season a great point is made of providing every stranger with _the_ carriole: hundreds are so honoured. well, the kaiser wilhelm is a wonderful man, and he would be rash who should say, "this even the emperor cannot do." to explain his frequent presence here, a story must be told. a few years ago, a young german lieutenant, riding down the steep road not far from the laatefos on his bicycle, swerved from the straight course, and was hurled into the raging waters beside which runs the road. the incident is supposed to have been witnessed by a child and an old man, and a few weeks afterwards the poor victim's body, torn by the rocks beyond all recognition, was found at some distance from the spot where the disaster happened. the emperor, with two hundred men, arrived to search for the body, and a stone to the soldier's memory has been erected by his imperial majesty. there is another story on the subject, which is only whispered; but our romantic friend seized upon it with eagerness, and wove a yarn of possibilities and improbabilities, of which she persists in believing the hero to be alive. on our right hand as we drove in procession from odde, preceded by the carriage and pair of the french nobility, lay the buar glacier. it was of a wonderful green which we had not before seen, inasmuch as many of the glaciers we had passed were almost covered with snow and débris, which concealed their colour. the road took us for some way beside a charming lake; after this we passed several beautiful waterfalls, the spray from one of which was so considerable that the road beside it was converted into a pond, and in the moment we took to pass through it our clothes were made quite wet. [illustration: a hardanger country girl] at seljestad we rested, and then drove zig-zag uphill, or, rather, our horses walked zig-zag, and we, on foot, cut across the winding road, and reached the top of the hill without much effort long before our horses were in sight. we were three thousand four hundred feet above the level of the sea, and the air was chilly. matters were not mended when we drove down the hill: the sun had gone in, and the late afternoon at that time of the year is often too cold for enjoyment. therefore we stayed awhile at a big hotel at horre, and made acquaintance with a very warming drink, arac punch. after this we had recourse to it pretty frequently on our cold drives. our driver tried to persuade us to stop at horre; but it was still daylight, and we all wanted to get on. the landlady seemed rather chagrined at this obstinacy and bad taste; but on we drove for another half hour or so, when we arrived at roldal. here we found most of the hotels closed, and the owners almost on the point of departure. also we found the young frenchmen, who informed us that _they_ had ordered supper for . --to consist of trout and chicken. this, of course, was the supper provided for the possible traveller, and of necessity was our supper too; but one of these boys apologised for its scantiness, and said he had only ordered for their party. this was rather a joke, as, acting on the advice of our driver, we had from our luncheon-place ordered supper to be ready at . . however, the meal, as far as it went, was very good. afterwards we all assembled in the one small sitting-room still available, and endeavoured to drink the white spirit which is drunk all over the country and called "aqua vita." to my taste it is abominable; but it is exceedingly strong, and perhaps this is a virtue which carries it far. we found two old packs of cards; the five of us played a good many rather ridiculous games, which amused us vastly, and brought the servants of the hotel to the door to discover the reason of our laughter. at breakfast we were all delighted with the delicious jam made from wild strawberries. then we started on a day's drive in good spirits, the carriage and pair leading. up, up, and always up, getting colder and colder by the way; a short rest at a wayside sæter; a drink of delicious creamy milk, not possessing, however, the warming qualities of our arac punch. the tiny masses of drifted snow which lie among the rocks, neglected by the sun, increased in size and volume. here, on one of the rocks by the wayside, a big snowball had been placed, probably by the youths who led us on. colder and colder grew the air, until at last we turned a corner, and saw before us a huge mass of dirty snow. it was impossible to plough this, or otherwise to get rid of it: so we drove through a tunnel hollowed out in the snow. this was the coldest place we reached. gradually we descended and got into a less icy atmosphere. all the same, we were exceedingly glad to get out and warm ourselves at a little farm, where we drank port, and i used what powers of persuasion i possess in the endeavour to render myself the owner of a particularly attractive ironing-board, wielded by a blob of wood that was the most delightful attempt at reproduction of a horse that i have ever seen. neither offers of money nor blandishments had the desired effect, and i was obliged to leave the longed-for object behind me. [illustration: skjÆggedalsfos, hardanger] cheered and fortified by our wine, we drove on to the spot appointed for our luncheon. haukelidsæter is an enormous hotel under government control. prices are reasonable; they are regulated by the norwegian tourist club. the immense dining-room is pleasing, being simple in design and embellishment. opposite the hotel is a building in the style of the much-admired old storehouses. it was closed while we were there; but in the season it provides excellent sleeping accommodation. here we fell in again with our fellow-travellers and their servant, and we ate very gaily together of tough stewed goat and excellent cream pudding. we drove on, and arrived rather early at a very pleasant little station, of which, however, i have forgotten the name. it was only about five o'clock, and in norway there is nothing satisfactory to eat between dinner at two and supper at eight or nine: so i bought half a kilogramme of chocolate, and asked for milk and cream. i had some difficulty in getting a saucepan; but eventually i discovered the kitchen and helped myself, to the amusement of the scarlet-coated maid, who was already making preparations for our supper. i made the chocolate; and we all drank it, after our fish supper, with the remainder of a bottle of a very sweet and cloying liqueur called augustine, which we had bought at haukelidsæter by general subscription, in place of the arac punch, which was not attainable. the american girl and i left augustine severely alone. [illustration: hardanger headdress] next morning i bought with much joy an old and beautifully carved wooden box. i was very glad to give fifteen kroner for it; but, deeply attached to it as i was, we went off without it. i remembered it before we had gone very far, and raced back alone in the carriole. then i caught the others up. our driver expressing great curiosity as to my parcel, i showed it to him. he wanted to know the price, and i told him, rather proud of myself at having made a good bargain, as i thought; but he laughed discreetly, and informed us that in the depth of winter, when money is scarce among the peasants, their treasures are bought up by men, going round for the purpose, for next to nothing. thus the summer tourist always pays heavily. if he gets things from the peasants themselves, they have to "get even" with the forced sales of the winter. as for the town antiquaries, the price they ask for their treasures would make a dutch peasant blush, and anyone who has endeavoured to obtain the object of his fancy from such an one will realise that this is no light task. that day we drove through mysterious pine-woods, which kept from us all the warming rays of the sun. before we reached the forest the road followed the course of a river, and then, leaving that, ran beside a lake. most of the way we walked, to warm ourselves. it was late in the year for this route, and we were alone on the road--at any rate, for this portion of it. later we met strings of peasants coming from a fair. we had luncheon at a little place which was quite off its head with business. there had been a cattle fair some distance off, and all those interested were on the road, making their way home. during our drive that afternoon we met some of the prize-winners, horses and cattle decorated with ribbon rosettes of many colours, and carrying their certificates suspended from their horns or from their necks. the placing of the rosettes was amusing. in most cases the animals were attended by a handmaiden in a dark skirt, a black velvet bodice elaborately embroidered in coloured silk, and a fringed kerchief tied gracefully round the head, and falling down the back with the long thick hair. most of the peasant women in telemarken, of whatever age, wear their hair loose, as indeed do the poorer country women all over norway. however, the prize cows were making their way but slowly, grazing unchidden on invisible food among the fallen leaves by the wayside; doubtless the women were the wives and daughters of the burly farmers whom we had left enjoying their dinner at our last halting-place. [illustration: river at haukeli] somewhere that day we passed a turning in the road that, had we taken it, would have led us to the wonderful rjukan fos, of which romantic stories have been told. many of the most beautiful spots in norway are rendered more interesting by various legends connected with them. one cannot guarantee their accuracy; but they are very welcome. i quote this tragic romance as a dark gem set in the rjukan fos. "near the rjukan fos there is a path over the mountain called the 'marie stige,' on the brink of the precipice of the famous fall, which even at this day the traveller treads with fear, and which was discovered by a young maiden in the courage of love. it was by this path that the beautiful marie of westfjorddalen went with light and fearless step to meet the friend of her childhood, ejestein halfoordsen. but the avarice of her father separated them, and marie's tears and prayers prevailed upon her lover to fly, to escape the plot formed by a treacherous rival against his life. years passed, and marie was firm in her constancy. her father died; ejestein had by his valour and nobleness made his former enemy his friend, and after their long separation the lovers were to meet again. ejestein hastened by the shortest way, the marie stige, to meet his beloved. long had she watched for him; she saw him coming, and his name burst from her with a joyful cry. he saw and rushed to meet her, but fell, and the rjukan whirled him into its foaming depths. for many years after this a pale form, in whose beautiful eyes a quiet madness lay, wandered daily on the marie stige, and seemed to talk with someone in the abyss below. here she walked until a merciful voice summoned her to go and rest in the arms of her beloved." all the way to dalen our drive was brightened by the rosetted cows, making their way up the hill which we descended. the mountain rose sheer on our right, two thousand feet above the road; on our left, awe-inspiring precipices made us hold our breath, as every now and then we were obliged to pass a vehicle coming the opposite way. the young frenchmen in the carriage and pair were driving immediately before us. suddenly there was a crash, and down fell one of their horses. the outer wheels of the vehicle were over the edge of the precipice. for one terrible second it was as if an awful tragedy could not be averted. the splendid little pony on the mountain-side held good his ground, and my driver, by sheer bodily force, half lifted, half pushed, the carriage from its dangerous position. the three occupants had jumped out; but the driver, almost paralysed with terror, was still sitting on his box. the pony had broken the shaft on which it had fallen, but, fortunately, had done itself no harm. between them the men patched it up as well as they could, and we proceeded. we were not very far from dalen, however, and the young men elected to walk the rest of the journey. we kept behind the carriage, in fear of further accidents, and went along so slowly that the walkers arrived some time before we did. [illustration: a peasant of sÆtersdalen] the big hotel at dalen was closed, and we all took rooms in a smaller place almost opposite, which proved one of the most comfortable resting-places we had come across in norway. indeed, that very evening nico and i made up our minds to stay there for some time, and so turned our supper into a farewell meal. in celebration, we drank one another's health in exceedingly sweet champagne, and then again in small glasses of arac punch, in which we invited our host and his wife to join us, thus establishing a friendly feeling of which nico and i reaped the benefit during our stay. [illustration: espelandsfos, hardanger.] the american girl and the french youths with their valet were travelling together as far as christiania: so we bade them good-bye before we retired for the night. nico, in the fulness of his heart, announced his intention of getting up next morning at five, to see them off. he went to the length of asking the maid to call him when she should awake the travellers; and in the dark hours of the morning, when, following her directions, she awoke only me, i finished her work, and pointed out to nico the necessity of fulfilling rash promises. my arguments were strong, and nico got up and saw the party off. he was exceedingly pleased with himself when he came back. we stayed for some time at dalen. we were well fed, well lodged, and smiled upon by charming waitresses in their red sleeveless bodices and white frilled blouses; besides, we were favoured with most glorious weather. nico worked hard, and found delightful models in the farmer's two daughters--one a lovely madonna-like girl of fifteen, and the other a curly-haired little pickle of three. i passed most of the day hours basking in the sun and reading anything i could find, which resolved itself into a few numbers of _cook's tourist gazette_ and three numbers of dowie's paper from zion city, u.s.a. the american journals contained many violent remarks about the prophet's reception in england; but in one number i read he appeared to pity us for our denseness. this literature, advertisements and all, did not entertain me long, and i went to the shop which was part of the premises to see if there was anything i could buy. i found only a very ordinary assortment of german hand-made goods, together with a strongly smelling selection of various food-stuffs, and one or two drawers full of mixed sweets for the entertainment of the youth of the village. so i unpicked a blouse of my own, and sewed it together again by hand, and that very neatly. then i looked through the papers again, and found that i had missed a few words in the course of several of the sheets, stating who was the printer of these effusions. one night a party of english folk arrived, travelling from christiania to odde, at forbidden speed: that is to say, by rising early and travelling until late they were making in two days a journey which is fixed by law as taking three. i persuaded nico to go to them after supper and to ask them if they had anything to read which they would exchange for the books i had carried with me and read three or four times. with great joy he brought back two magazines and a book. another day i hired a carriole and the farmer's son to drive me to the ravngju (the raven's abyss), which is a rock hanging over a precipice at a height of fourteen hundred feet, above a dashing river. i learnt from my guide-book that the draught of air is so strong that if one throws a hat over the precipice it will be refused by the abyss and blown back. i tried the experiment with my own head-gear, for which, fortunately, i had no respect and but little affection. contrariwise, the raven's abyss changed its reputed tactics and stuck to it; at any rate, i never saw it again, and i drove home bareheaded. [illustration: a boy of sÆtersdalen.] during our stay here i discovered with great difficulty a few more facts about the norwegian peasants' poetic and very interesting superstitions. the little gnomes, in whom all believe, often attach themselves to special farms. if any of the horses or cattle appear to thrive much better than their fellows, the folk will explain it, entirely to their own satisfaction, by saying that such beasts are the favourites of the pixies, who steal fodder from the other mangers to feed the animals in which they have chosen to interest themselves. sometimes the gnomes devote themselves, by petty vexations, to worrying the life out of the people to whom they bear malice. the milk turns sour, the butter is rancid, the cattle pine away; and all from no apparent cause. it is told that one such haunted family at last made up their minds to move very secretly, and thought to leave the fairy cause of all their trouble behind them. as the last cartload of belongings left the farm and the people were congratulating themselves that they would get away without being discovered by the malicious familiar, he popped his head out of an empty barrel, and piping, "oho! we are moving to-day!" jumped on the cart and followed them to their new home. the trolls are big giants who live in the mountains and are very rarely seen. these spirits always dwell in the seventh mountain visible in the blue distance. thus, of course, they can never be approached by those who set out in search of them; but in their fastness they keep beautiful maidens stolen from earthly homes. the huldra also is an inhabitant of the heights. she is a witch who takes the form of a lovely woman, and meeting humans in the woods she lures them to follow her. her dwelling is in the mountains, which she opens with a magic word. inside is a gorgeous palace, filled with immense riches, and having dining-rooms containing splendidly decorated tables laden with all the food a norwegian enjoys most, served on golden dishes. he who eats of these things is thenceforth in the power of the huldra. occasionally he wins free; but never afterwards is he as he was. in the country the folks speak of idiots and madmen as being "mountain-taken," believing that these are victims of the huldra's wiles. if, however, the involuntary guest refuses to partake of the magic dishes in the mountain passes, he sees before his eyes the dishes of exquisite food turning to pine cones and slabs of earth, while the huldra loses her fascination, and can no longer hide from him the cow's tail by which she is to be known, nor can she keep him prisoner any longer. without knowing how, he finds himself back in the woods on the mountain-side; and he cannot discover the entrance to the fairy palace. [illustration: sundalsfjord] at christmas, and indeed during all festivities, these various unseen powers are propitiated by offerings of food and drink, which are placed outside the farm, and invariably disappear. i should not like to swear that no agency but magic is responsible. at several of the trees on the land of the farm hotel at dalen were fixed little shelters, each having a small entrance and a gabled roof. these, we surmised correctly, were for the birds. the norwegians are very fond of the small songsters, and in many districts it is forbidden to destroy them. this delighted us, the more, perhaps, that we had spent the previous spring in italy, where heartless massacre of birds is carried on, one of the italian's favourite dishes being half a dozen or a dozen tiny ones served on polenta. the sportsmen who indulge in the hunt sell the birds strung together--a thread through their heads--by the dozen. in norway the birds are encouraged and petted, and in the winter fed. at christmas time every one buys sheaves of oats or other cereals still in the ear, and hangs them outside the windows, or, fastening the bundles on poles, erects them in gardens and in the open spaces of the cities. he would be poor indeed who had not a few _ore_ to devote to the entertainment of the little feathered friends at this season of universal joy. poverty as we know it in england is scarcely to be found in norway, and, on the other hand, riches as understood by a norwegian living in his own country would by no means satisfy an aspirant for wealth on this side of the north sea. statistical information concerning income and property shows but a small difference between the principal classes. the income of the employer often does not exceed the wages of the average workman. a very slight change in the balance would bring many employers into the ranks of the employed. this happy country, though under the government of a limited monarchy, seems to fulfil the dreams of at least the reasonable socialist. it has no nobility with political or economic principles, no great capitalists, no immense estates. the difficulty of earning a livelihood in the inclement climate and on the stormy coast calls for energy and endurance, and accustoms the worker to self-restraint. more than half the population own deposits in the savings banks. the spirit of equality is noticeable to the most casual observer. the proprietor of the station where you pass your nights is absolutely the equal of the guest, who avails himself of the house's hospitality for his own convenience, and apparently not for the profit of the owner. the servants who wait on one are pleasant and willing, working for their living, it is true, but showing none of the servility largely dependent on tips which is the characteristic of their class in other countries. if a _pourboire_ is given, small or large, it is accepted invariably with a frank handshake; in some cases it is difficult to induce its acceptance. a norwegian, whatever his standing may be, is the equal of everyone. politeness on the part of the traveller is such a necessity that the guide-books mention it. the domineering tourist will meet with difficulties and rebuffs. [illustration: sÆtersdalen girl in national costume] mainly about saints chapter v mainly about saints nico did a great deal of work in dalen, finishing half-completed sketches, and making many figure-drawings. one of the servants was from sætersdalen; and, to pose for nico, she dressed herself in her extraordinary costume. in the course of our wanderings we met with travelling natives of sætersdalen--once, under a lucky star, with a woman taking her little child, a girl of three or four years old, to a hospital in christiania. between us we persuaded the child to act as model for an hour or two, so as to give nico occasion to transfer her decorative charm to his paper. the dress for women and girl children alike is a straight garment of very thick cloth, sustained by embroidered shoulder-straps. it reaches only a little below the knee, and is edged by two or three bands of very thick coloured cloth, which hold out stiffly the rather solid material of which the garment is made. under this they wear a petticoat made on the same model. a white shirt covers the arms and neck, and a brightly coloured knitted belt girdles the middle--i can scarcely call it the waist--of the wearer. on their hands are black mittens, embroidered in a traditional pattern with brightly coloured wools. the head is covered by a folded handkerchief, and the hair hangs loose or plaited down the back. the legs are encased in thick knitted stockings and sensible low shoes. the men and boys wear trousers that come up to their shoulders, and odd little round hats. the district in which they live we were not able to visit, to my regret. we had left it to the last, intending to take it on our way home, as the country can only be approached from christianssand, a port touched by the steamers bound from christiania to hull; and at the last moment unforeseen circumstances compelled us to make our passage home as speedy as possible. there is a railway which will take the traveller up the valley as far as byglandsfjord; but to appreciate its many charms it is advisable, and well worth while, to make the journey by road and water. beyond this station the valley has no connection with other routes, except by rough and sometimes dangerous mountain paths. accommodation for the tourist is exceedingly rough, and food narrowly limited in quality and variety. on account of these drawbacks, the sætersdalen district must certainly be, from many points of view, the most interesting part of norway. there the traveller will find the dresses, the customs, and the dwelling-places in much the same stage as they have been for the last three hundred years, and--what is always a great attraction to me and surely not less so to others--there is the joy of travelling in parts which are as yet almost unknown, and consequently unspoilt by the tourist, who must perforce bring in his wake so many doubtful blessings. for me the people of a country is that country's greatest charm--not the townsfolk or the owners and staffs of the big hotels with their far-spreading influence, but the unspoilt people of the untravelled parts. in the summer months parties of people migrate from the valley and take up their abode in the mountains. thus the courageous but too confident traveller may find himself unable to obtain even such simple food as bread and milk. it is highly advisable for the explorer to take with him biscuits, canned food, and brandy, and to travel with as small a quantity of baggage as is convenient. [illustration: sÆtersdalen peasant girl] at the head of the valley it is possible to cross the mountains which separate sætersdalen from telemarken and to arrive at dalen, on lake bandak. the peasant inhabitants of sætersdalen are of rather a charming primitiveness, and some of their houses can show wonderful specimens of quaint and grotesque carving. included in this simplicity, however, is an unpleasant and complete disregard for cleanliness. the moment came when, much against our inclinations, and especially against nico's wishes, we were obliged to leave our comfortable quarters at dalen. for the last time i basked in the warm sunshine which had favoured us during our entire stay; for the last time i retired from the too warm welcome to the shadowy balcony studio belonging to my room, which complaisantly looked north as nico required. only this once more should i drop sticks of chocolate on to the golden curls of the little andrea as she came within range during her eternal roamings over the big farmyard in search of mischief. no fewer than ten cats of variegated colours prowled over this area; they delicately fished and fought for the more toothsome morsels from the barrel outside the kitchen window containing all the refuse of food stuffs, the eventual emptying of which was to the advantage of the pigstye. in the middle of this interesting land was a well. over it hung, high in the air, an empty bucket suspended by a chain from the lighter end of an immense pole. the pretty cowherd would fill the pail with water to plenish the tubs from which her charges drank. most evenings, in a spirit of wickedness, the worthy brother of the golden-haired baby would fill the bucket and leave it standing by the well, the weight of the water in it keeping it on the ground. up would come an unsuspecting cow, which thirstily would drink the contents. slowly she would lift her head from the now empty pail, which, flying as by magic into the air, would almost invariably give the bewildered creature a smart blow on the head. of course, it did not hurt the animal; but her expression of startled and grieved surprise was most amusing. it was one of the excitements of my days at dalen to have mild bets with nico whether the day's intended victim would be free of the bucket in time. [illustration: moldÖen] the sun went in; the air grew cold; soon darkness was upon us. this was the proudest moment of the day. i lit my fire, invariably with success, with peelings of birch bark that i had sedulously collected during my walks. this last time all my savings went together--how they blazed! then in came the farmer, our host, with his exceedingly easy bill, including entries for various delightful painted butter-boxes and three immense wooden drinking bowls which i had bought from him. then followed his worthy wife and his pretty daughter, bearing a tray on which was a bottle of arac punch and four glasses--he wished to drink to us before we went, and so we clinked the small glasses, and in various words of various languages expressed that we were pleased with one another, and almost arranged that the pretty daughter should come with us to learn english and to help my nurse to look after my babies. i have not got little andrea with me yet; but i expect that by the time this book is published she will be in my house, wearing her pretty national costume, and rejoicing us with her charming little face, which is reproduced on the frontispiece of the book. next morning we were obliged to be up by six. an hour beforehand one of the delightful serving-maids lit my fire, and our breakfast, including more arac punch, was brought upstairs. by and by, in the cold grey morning, we boarded the little steamer which was to take us through the series of lakes and canals to skien, whence it is possible to go by train to christiania. [illustration: a cottage interior, telemarken] it was a wonderful day, albeit very long. these days that one begins at six o'clock seem always of unnatural length--what should be luncheon time in the ordinary way is only breakfast time on these occasions; and, when all the hours are unoccupied, how delightedly one would welcome bedtime in the afternoon! however, before we had time to become very discontented, the sun came out to cheer us up, and then breakfast was announced, and after that we began to shake off our drowsy ill-humours and look about. our captain was a good-looking man, quite young, and an excellent english scholar. he was a great traveller, and from his talk we gathered that he was not too well pleased to be passing his days on this little lake steamer, going backwards and forwards alternately with another boat; he was rather discontented at this time, quite the close of the season, when the english passengers that his soul loved were few and far between, and his most usual freight a few peasants, changing at every station, and an occasional herd of cattle. he pointed out to us on our right a group of rocks known as "the monk and lady." i could fancy i did see a resemblance to two human beings, one kneeling before the other's uplifted hand, apparently asking for a blessing. had i not known the name given to the group, i might have thought i saw the image of a guilty being receiving corporal chastisement. at the first station we stopped at, the little boat rolled a good deal, and it was only by clinging to steadfast objects that the passengers preserved their balance. several young men boarded the boat. also there joined us two very beautiful women wearing long coats to cover their best costumes, their charming head-dress concealing hair hanging loose down their backs. they were both married women. two of the young men had pockets full of beautiful yellow apples; they ate them steadily, by the dozen i should say, until the pockets were empty. i coveted the fruit. when i am an early riser, it is astonishing how my most extreme longing is for unattainable apples. at the next station several children came on board with baskets of the fruit for sale. already my appetite had become fainter; but nico bought the stock-in-trade of a person of some three or four years, and so much occupied was i in watching the exhibition of the boy's triumph over his less fortunate fellows, that i did not notice the piling up of interest which was going on around me. [illustration: a norwegian girl] really it was too much for one stoppage! first, the apple-sellers, who left us, however, before we started; next, a man with a foal two or three weeks old; also a herd of about thirty cattle, tied up variously on deck, in close proximity to the passengers; last, but not least, a sætersdalen woman, in the full glory of her elaborate and brightly coloured costume. walking in the fields in their own district, the women take off the dark cloth upper frock which this woman wore, and work in a grey underfrock made in exactly the same way. here was material for heaps of excitement in our simple lives. when we had sampled our apples in the little deck-house which was all the covered accommodation, i left nico half asleep and went out to look for adventures. the foal, with terrified eyes fixed on the water, was neighing piteously; every now and then a horse would trot to the edge of the water, apparently to neigh comfort to the poor little fellow making his first water journey. frequently the boat would give an alarming lurch, and the cattle would slip helplessly from one side to the other, stamping and kicking in their efforts to regain a steady footing on the slippery deck. later, at nico's suggestion, a board was put up between the pony and the water, and this seemed to quiet the poor beast. at the next station the boat gave a fearful roll, and tipped over to such an extent that the perfectly smooth water of the lake washed one side of the deck. we were all rather frightened for a few seconds. the cattle were in a sprawling, kicking, terrified mass on the side which leaned to the water. the passengers struggled to the opposite side, and held on as best they could. by some means the steamer righted herself, and off we started. the captain was attentive to us on this trip. i think he was glad to air his english. he pointed out, on our right, another curious formation in the mountains, which he called "st. olaf's ship." i daresay in the time of st. olaf ships were like that: so i will not emphasise my ignorance by criticism. st. olaf's name is found all over the country. it is well known that he is norway's greatest saint: but i daresay his history is not such common property. therefore i tell it as our captain on the steamer told it to me. here i may say that there is surely no country in the world where the average inhabitant has such an exceedingly great knowledge of histories, national or general. [illustration: kjendalsbrÆ] olaf haraldssen was a descendant of harald haarfajer, or "the fair," who was the first king to rule the whole of norway. harald haarfajer flourished in the ninth century, and was one of the first of the heroic vikings sung of in sagas. after harald the fair, the most splendid king was olaf trygvasen, who with his many followers harried us to such an extent that the english sovereign was obliged to sue for peace. he endeavoured to implant christianity among his subjects by sword and fire, and, after making a heroic defence and losing nearly all his men, fell mortally wounded during a battle against the swedish and danish kings. norway was now in the hands of the two conquering kings; but they gave up their shares to a powerful norwegian earl, who had given them his aid against king olaf trygvasen. the earl agreed to hold these lands as their vassal. in this capacity he was obliged to leave his country when the danish king called upon him to join in an invasion of england. he never returned from this expedition. in olaf haraldssen, another worthy descendant of harald the fair, returning from a pirating raid, seized the opportunity of assuming the leadership of the country, determined to carry out the intention of his noble ancestor, olaf trygvasen. with the help of various petty kings from the north, he overthrew the dominion of the earls and their overlords, the danish and swedish kings. he made trondhjem his capital, and there he received homage from the lesser chieftains as king of norway. in his turn he enforced christianity; but on account of the extreme severity of his policy he alienated many of his people, who sought the aid of the danish king against him. defeated, olaf fled to russia. after gathering his forces together he endeavoured to win back his kingdom, but was again beaten. he was killed at the battle of stiklestad in . his body was taken to a place called nidaros, and buried on the banks of a river. a year later his corpse was exhumed, and it was found that there was no trace of corruption--the face was just as in life, and the hair and nails had grown. this, and certain miracles wrought through his intercession, caused him to be proclaimed a saint. his body was encased in silver and placed in trondhjem cathedral, where it received great veneration until the time of the reformation. [illustration: a typical norwegian maiden] the history of norway, with its continual relations and dissensions with sweden and denmark, is intensely interesting; but there are such splendid books on the subject that it would be ridiculous for me to attempt to introduce more than these few words into a book which professes to give merely the superficial impressions of a traveller--exceedingly interested, it is true, but--having almost everything to learn about her subject. rather regretfully, we came back from the eleventh century, for the captain was obliged to superintend the disembarkation of the cows. we were rather glad to get rid of them; and they, poor things, were, i am sure, heartily pleased that their startling journey was over, and that they found themselves safely on dry land, with plenty of space to roam in. the pony we kept with us for a while, attempting to persuade it to drink milk, which, however, it refused to consider. the luncheon was pork and stewed rhubarb, served in a very small and stuffy dining cabin. nico and i refused it, and regaled ourselves on a tin of brand. soon we entered the wonderful canal that joins the bandak lake to the nordsjo lake, which is connected by another canal with the head of the skien fjord, thus opening up an inland waterway from the sea at skien right into the heart of the mountains at dalen, the extreme end of lake bandak. lake bandak is a hundred and eighty-seven feet higher than lake nordsjo, with which it is connected: this immense difference is overcome by no fewer than fourteen locks, the average rise in each lock being something over thirteen feet. all the locks are blasted out of solid rock and faced with grey granite. when we reached the end of this stupendous triumph of engineering, the effect as we looked back was overwhelming. the chief difficulty in construction was a fall of eighty feet, called the vrangfos. no bottom could be found to the gorge, and a massive bridge of granite was constructed between the two rocky sides, on which foundation a dam was built. five of the fourteen locks are at the vrangfos, which rages alongside in impotent fury. this immense work cost the country three million kroner. [illustration: a baby of telemarken] at the end of this canal is a rather pleasant little station, ulefos, on the nordsjo lake; but we were in a hurry to get to christiania and civilisation. we did not get off the boat, but continued on our way to skien. we were still chatting with the captain. on our left in the rocks, he pointed out to us a yawning gap, ten or twelve feet high. that cavern, he told us, was used as a chapel, and dedicated to saint michael. he also told us that it was the tomb of the last catholic priest in norway just after the reformation. the king of denmark, who at that time was also king of norway, had decreed that the catholic religion should cease to be in both norway and denmark. in norway the people were all the more against the fulfilment of this decree as they recognised that the danish king wished to enrich himself at the expense of the catholic church. cunning as well as force, therefore, was necessary to establish the lutheran religion in the country of st. olaf. the catholic priests were banished, and their places were taken by foreign preachers, who, to deceive the people, kept up for a long time the external appearances of catholicism. several years after these primary steps had been taken, a danish soldier named porl, cruel and fanatical, was appointed preacher to the church of solum; the little rock chapel of st. michael having been destroyed, the parish of which it was the centre had been united to that of solum. soon porl discovered that his parishioners still went in great numbers to pray in the grotto, and sometimes at night a mysterious light was seen among the rocks. one autumn evening, returning from holden in a boat rowed by three young watermen, porl beheld them suddenly cease their rowing, and, throwing themselves on their knees in the boat, cross themselves. this act of devotion was performed exactly opposite st. michael's chapel, from which the mysterious light reflected itself in the lake. [illustration: romsdals horn] furious, porl ordered them to row him to the foot of the hilly path which led to the chapel; but here he met with determined opposition. they would rather die than obey his wish. he was therefore obliged to return to solum, promising himself a speedy solution of the mystery. in such a matter he could not trust his parishioners, devoted as they were to the old religion: so he took into his service two men from skien, and ordered them to keep watch from afar on the grotto of st. michael. one night, the eve of st. michael's feast, they rushed to him, breathlessly, to announce that they had seen the mysterious light issuing from the cave. there was no doubt about it. he could see it with his own eyes. he took a sword from the wall to arm himself against the unknown enemy, and his two spies rowed him to the grotto. as they got nearer the light became of more importance. his men took him to the foot of the steep narrow path; but neither threats nor hope of reward could persuade them, fearing the supernatural, to accompany him. filled with anger, he made his way alone; but at the moment when he had all but reached the opening to the chapel the light went out, and there he was between heaven and earth in the pitch darkness, afraid to take either one step back or one step forward. gathering all his courage, he went forward, and managed to feel his way into the cave. god alone knew what awaited him there, and on his name he called. at the sound, at the far end of the cave a big stone was moved, and the darkness was flooded with light. porl could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw before him an altar, and on the altar a crucifix surrounded by innumerable candles. from this sanctuary a venerable old man, wearing sacerdotal vestments, as if about to say mass, advanced towards him. "you come in the name of god?" said he. "come, then, in peace." but the preacher, brandishing his sword, fell on the old priest, crying in anger, "i was right, then! i guessed that there was still an accursed papist in my parish!" "you were indeed right," said the old man. "it is he you are now assaulting." "it is not you that i quarrel with," said the lutheran, "but the error of your ways, and the black artifices you employ to turn the heads of my parishioners." "your parishioners?" repeated the old priest with dignity. "do you know who i am? i am sylvester, the legitimate pastor of those poor souls whom you call your parishioners, and the last catholic priest left in this unhappy country. with cunning and force you have made war on the religion which has made norway what it is. you have robbed her people of their faith; you have sacked our churches and banished our priests. far from my flock, i have eaten my bread in tears and exile for long years; i have wept and prayed; almost have i died of grief at leaving my poor children deserted. but i could not die away from them. in spite of a thousand dangers, i returned and buried myself here in the ruins of my dear church. only the inhabitants of one farm know of my return, and from them i receive the bread on which i live and the straw which is my couch. as for my 'artifices'--alas! i am old and incapable of doing anything for my children, who still love and reverence the church of their fathers. all i can do for them is to pray and to celebrate mass for them on the great feasts under cover of the charitable darkness. these are my ruses, these my terrible mysteries. now that i have told you them, raise your sword against the last of god's anointed priests living in my unhappy land. strike--for i wish to die here." [illustration: old age, telemarken] the _ci-devant_ danish soldier was touched. "no," he said. "god forbid that i should raise my hand against an old man. live, and die when god shall call you, in this spot. adieu, and may god enlighten you at your last hour." "amen," said the old man. "both you and i have great need of the light." porl left. from that day he ceased to persecute his flock, who held still to their catholic practices. a few more times the mysterious light shone from st. michael's grotto, and the belated wayfarer who saw it piously crossed himself. but when christmas came the cave remained in darkness. the last catholic priest had died. the initiated farm people had made a tomb for their beloved pastor in the depths of his chapel; and there his body lies to this day, waiting for the resurrection. the simple facts of the above narrative were given me by our captain; but for the complete and detailed history i am indebted to no less a person than the present catholic bishop of norway--monseigneur fallize. arts and crafts chapter vi arts and crafts we landed at skien, and wandered about the town before taking train to christiania. in the first place we went to a hotel and supplemented our day's diet of brand by steaks that were really the best i had ever eaten, and by little rolls of delicious white bread, which was a luxury we had not had the chance of appreciating since we had left the britannia hotel at trondhjem. the town is very prettily situated, and has charming environments--of which the nordsjo lake, if it can be spoken of in such a way, is much the most delightful. from the town one sees it against the background formed by the liffeld mountains. it was on these heights that during the franco-german war two french officers landed in a balloon. they had not the slightest idea of their whereabouts, and would probably have perished in the snow had not the presence of an empty wooden match-box given them sure proof that they were in a civilised country, and probably within reach of human habitation. they sought hopefully for shelter, and were found by two woodcutters, who showed them such hospitality as was in their power. across certain bridges are "the islands," where may be seen many large wood-pulp and paper mills. the manufacture of pulp for making paper is an important and ever-increasing source of revenue to norway. the pine timber is ground by powerful machinery into pulp. when the trees are first taken from the water which carries them hither from their various native forests, they are sawed into blocks about eighteen inches long; these are quickly passed on to workmen, who with drills extract the knots; the surface is then cleared of bark and dirt, and they are ready for the stones. in the machine the sides of the blocks are forced against rapidly-revolving stones, and are thus ground into fine powder, which in the volume of water conveying it to the draining machine is scarcely distinguishable, so fine is it, and so small in proportion to the bulk of water. after the draining process, which is accomplished by passing the liquid over fine wires, the sheets are taken up by girls and put under powerful hydraulic presses; afterwards they are made into bales and are ready for market. these mills, and the many hundreds of others, are all worked by the immense water power which is one of norway's greatest assets, though these resources are by no means fully utilised. [illustration: romsdals waterfall] this knowledge, i may confess, is all at second hand. we did not devote any considerable time to skien, but took the train on the day of our arrival. while we were waiting in the station for the ticket office to open, which it does one minute before the time of departure, we were amused by the antics of two barefooted, very ragged, dirty little boys. they examined us pretty thoroughly in a rather furtive way: i have no doubt they had no business where they were and fully expected to be turned out. i held out a silver ten-ore piece in each hand, and with a good deal of embarrassed giggling they approached and took the tiny pieces of silver. very gravely they each shook hands with me, and, walking right over to the other side of the station, performed the same ceremony for nico's benefit. then, full of importance, they walked up to the refreshment counter, and each parted with five ore--about a halfpenny--for chocolates, and the other five ore for cigarettes. at last the authorities allowed us to buy our tickets, and we got into the train, which, like most norwegian trains, consisted of second-class and third-class carriages. in spite of the threats of the booking office, we were evidently in no hurry to be off; but in the fulness of time we moved, and presently slept. when we awoke--at least, when i awoke, for nico insisted that he had not closed his eyes--we had arrived at christiania. allowing ourselves and our many paper parcels to be cared for by a hotel porter, we drove with him whither he would. it happened to be to the grand hotel, which is comfortable, and furnished with heaps of sheffield plated candlesticks--to say nothing of a lift and other luxuries to which we had for long been unaccustomed. we were gently borne upwards to the floor where was the room which the hotel porter had decided we should occupy. we ordered an immense jug of thick chocolate, and after disposing of as much of this as we possibly could, we sought our couches, and slept amid electric lights and other modern luxuries. [illustration: the houses of parliament (storthing), christiania the storthing is convened every year, and is divided into an upper house (lagthing) and a lower house (odelsthing)] christiania is built on a magnificent site at the foot of pine-clothed hills which extend their protection over the land-bound borders of the town. as one stands on these hills and looks over the town a delightful panorama spreads itself before one's eyes. beyond the crowded houses stretches the beautiful christiania fjord, which, as it nears the town, breaks itself up into a thousand tiny fjords, and thus creates innumerable islands, which are chosen spots for the summer villas of the richer inhabitants of the town. we stayed for some time in christiania, a delightful town, full of life and movement. during certain hours of the day the whole population seems to turn out and walk up and down the fine road in which our hotel is situated, and i noticed that everyone seemed to be acquainted with every other. we had here two good friends, one of whom was away during almost the whole of our visit; the other, a captain of artillery, did the honours of holmenkollen for us during a delightful day we spent together. he called quite early in the day, and drove us up the hill which leads to the scene of the great _ski_ competition every winter. all the way, on either side of the road, are villas, which, however, are farther and farther apart as the hill is ascended. just before the big hotel on the left of the road is a small lake; beyond this is the steep hill down which the ski-jumpers seem to fly as they take their leaps through the air. the record leap is a hundred and thirty feet. of course, this sport is in the winter, when the ground is covered with snow and the lake is frozen over and capable of bearing on its surface thousands of spectators; on either side of the hill also the spectators are massed. nico was present on one of these occasions, and declares that he had never witnessed such an inspiriting scene. everyone was excited and happy; many of the crowd had come up from the town on their skis, or had dragged their little sleighs behind them, to skim down the long slope to christiania after the festivities were over. the girls and the younger women wear short skirts and their hair flowing, and it is not resented as a liberty if one addresses fellow-sportsmen or women without the formality of an introduction. [illustration: ski sports the great holmencollen day outside christiana] the big hotel at holmenkollen is a wonderful wooden structure, built by a norwegian architect named sverre, who is responsible for many buildings of the same character throughout norway, but especially in christiania and its neighbourhood. it is as far as possible in accordance with the old norwegian style of architecture. it contains many beautiful rooms, including two bedrooms furnished in norwegian style with genuine old pieces of furniture. then, there are various rooms reserved for the committee or royalty; the delightful smoking-room, with its splendid log-filled fireplace and its alcoves and corners; the magnificent dining-hall, characteristically decorated, its walls clothed with norwegian tapestry of a singularly happy design. architect sverre collaborates with the great decorative artist munthe, who is responsible for many of the adornments. leading out of the dining-room is a singular little chamber, which is entirely decorated and furnished after designs by munthe. in this strange room nico ensconced himself to make a drawing which should give some idea of its quaintness. the wooden walls are primitively carved to represent various scenes from norwegian fairy tales. the door is guarded by two grotesque monsters, and the chairs and small tables are of equally original shape and colouring. on the night of the ski competition the enormous dining-room is crammed with excited, happy parties, most of the tables having been engaged weeks beforehand, for it is a favourite resort for supper-parties on this night. after luncheon on the autumn day which witnessed my one and only visit to holmenkollen, we drove farther up the hill, and examined with much interest the exteriors and furnished interiors of various old norwegian buildings which have been transplanted from other parts to this centre, in order that the norwegian people may keep safely some relics of their olden days, of which they have lost many by fire or neglect. there are further excellent examples of their various periods of architecture to be seen at bygdo, a small beautifully wooded peninsula on the west of the town. it is possible, and very pleasant, either to drive or to walk to that place; but we went one cold sunday morning by a ferry steamer, which landed us within a few minutes of our destination. there was a tennis tournament going on the same day and in the same direction; it is evident that norwegians are great enthusiasts over this game, as indeed they are over athletic sports generally. a committee have bought a large piece of land on this peninsula. they wish to gather a representative collection of old houses from various parts of the country. the chief building is "the people's museum." though not an old building, it contains a most interesting collection of furniture, clothes, religious objects, and domestic utensils from all parts of norway and of various dates. surrounding it are such old buildings as the committee have already acquired. most of the residents of christiania are subscribers to this institution and have the right of free entrance. near by is a small royal villa called oscar's hall. it looks a delightful place, standing in its brilliant whiteness among dark pine trees. on the king's estate is situated an old _stavekirke_, one of the few which remain intact. it is built of logs, and has a species of balcony running almost round it. the interior is very dark; but when one's eyes get used to the semi-obscurity it is to be seen that the church is most elaborately and beautifully carved. all these pole churches date from pre-reformation times, and were consecrated catholic places of worship. catholics are still few in norway; but the old religion is spreading, and in christiania itself there are three or four parishes that have each a church and a priest. [illustration: room by munthe at holmencollen] i should love to return to this interesting little peninsula some warm summer's day; but all my enjoyment was spoilt and the edge of my interest dulled by the extreme cold, for which i was ill prepared. the christiania fjord being less influenced by the gulf stream than the fjords on the western and northern coasts, the winter is longer in christiania than in many places farther north. generally this piece of water is entirely frozen over, and the country is tightly locked in the arms of winter from december until march; the snowfalls, untampered with by thaws, accumulate and cause gigantic obstructions. the cold, though much more intense than in the english climate, is more easily bearable than our milder winters. the atmosphere is dry and pleasant, and often the sun shines brilliantly during the short days, and the delightful sports of this season are innumerable. skiing, of course, must take the first place. the skis are really snow skates. they consist of a pair of very long, but very narrow, strips of wood, very thin and elastic. in front they are slightly turned up and pointed. the correct length should measure a third more than the height of the wearer. the skis are attached to shoes, or merely to straps, set a little back from the middle of the strip of wood. the norwegians are great adepts at getting about on skis. they make extraordinarily rapid progress over the snow, especially when it is neither too hard nor too sticky. they help themselves along and partly steer themselves by the aid of long poles. sometimes a traveller on skis, becoming thirsty, will stop at a little unfrozen spring, and, lowering himself with wonderful cleverness until he lies at full length with his skis disposed just as they should be, he puts his mouth to the edge of the water and drinks. this is what is called "drinking goose wine," and i assure you there is a good deal of knack necessary both to get down and to get up. [illustration: skiers drinking goosewine] skating is another favourite sport, for which there are plenty of opportunities. sledging takes the place of driving through the winter months. another gloriously exhilarating sport is tobogganing, either alone or in parties. the leader steers his rapid progress with a stick. one may meet with an unforeseen obstacle, and the occupants may be thrown out head-first with a jerk; but the fall in the soft snow is not often serious. the shops in christiania are very good, and generally, to the stranger at least, very dear; but at the big fur store there i bought for a ridiculously small sum two of the prettiest little reindeer-skin coats, made by the lapps, and as worn by the lapps. i brought them home with great glee to my babies, but was nonplussed by my boy, who absolutely refused to have anything to do with his after he had elicited by hundreds of questions that the stuff the coat was made of was fur, that fur was the skin of the reindeer, that reindeer were young and had mothers and fathers, and that his coat couldn't run about in the snow because it was dead, and at last, that it was dead because loye had to have a winter coat. when after some weeks i persuaded him that the reindeer would be much more sad if the coat was not worn, he consented to have it on, but only on condition that it should be slipped on over his feet. both the little garments were a great success; but i am afraid that the children's nurse never quite approved them. i think she found it hard to get used to coats that had no hooks or buttons but were fastened with plaited leather strings, and she thought her charges looked rather _outré_. christiania has but one picture-dealer of any importance. from what we saw of the pictures there we concluded that norwegian art on the whole is so intensely affected as to say absolutely nothing to the beholder. we met two art enthusiasts at luncheon at the house of an exceedingly clever friend of ours, who was and is one of the editors of christiania's chief newspaper. these two were man and wife, and obviously it was the wife's opinion, on art at least, that dominated. their greatest artist in europe's eyes they scoffed at; scarcely would they admit that he was clever, beauty and success being two attributes which do not belong to art as they understand it. they belonged to the ever-increasing number of folk who, to appear original and extra-cultivated, refuse to see beauty unless it is expressed grotesquely or incomprehensibly. so insistent was this particular devotee that she carried us along on the wave of her heated argument out of our friend's dining-room through the cold streets to her flat, where she planted us in front of a picture by her favourite artist. it was dark-green and white in patches laid quite rawly on the canvas. "isn't it wonderful?" she cried. "now you must own yourselves vanquished!" [illustration: girls on overturned sledge, holmencollen] "what is it?" i asked, with tactless ignorance, after examining it long and patiently from as many different points as i could discover in the small room. "what is it?" said nico, with artistic licence, not moving from the spot where he had taken up his stand. "what does it matter what it is?" the owner answered, turning on us with flashing eyes. "don't you recognise the wonder of it? i myself had it for three weeks, loving it and admiring it, and asking myself how to hang it. the artist himself told me it must hang as you see it, and explained to me that it was a picture of a woman standing in the moonlight." "but where does she stand?" said nico. "and where is the moon?" "at her feet," said the worshipper. "my friend is such a great artist that he reverses the natural order of things, subjugating everything to his art." surely all this is rather extravagant, and surely it is not _this_ art that will live when the painter is no longer at hand to explain and to decide "which way up." it is a great pity that all these clever people--for the painter has immense talent, as is shown in his earlier work, and our two interested friends were evidently people of intellect--should be so extraordinarily perverted in their tastes. norwegian art is comparatively young; but it has made great strides. it has produced fritz thaulow, who, though not recognised by the enthusiasts of the class i have described, can boast the admiration of all europe; among many clever designers, the decorative munthe; that rather morbid youth, edward munch, whose lithographs give evidence of the great things of which he is capable; and many other artists whose names, known and praised in their own country, are not of such widespread celebrity in this. [illustration: old canal, christiania.] during the middle of the nineteenth century flourished the great painter of peasant life, tidemand. a series of his work is to be seen in the king's summer villa near christiania, and his paintings, while not, perhaps, among the masterpieces of art, are very useful and interesting as showing the peasant life of norway, under almost every condition, at a period when the people still wore their interesting costumes and had not lost any of their old ways and customs. these pictures are reproduced in every form, and are to be met with in many books on norway, and in very many norwegian houses. there are also in norway painters who devote themselves to the beauties of nature, with which their fatherland is so generously endowed. this school has produced many fine pictures; but it seems to be rather falling out of favour in these days of exaggeration. arts in which the norwegians have excelled since early times, and continue to excel, are those of weaving and embroidery. in these their nation shows an originality and charm, both of colour and of design, which are truly admirable. from as early as the twelfth century relics of cloths with figures interwoven are extant. one at present preserved in a church represents some of the months in allegorical pictures, and is evidently a fragment of a much larger piece which would include symbols of all the months of the year. examples of the history of picture-weaving become plentiful and important with the beginning of the seventeenth century. as with all arts of the period, this branch was principally dedicated to the representation of sacred subjects. besides these there are many samples of purely decorative weaving, beautiful for their colour and quaint conventional designs, often geometrical, or a continued repetition of one or two very simple expressions of the form of a doubtful animal. the cultured norwegians treasure these pieces of woven cloth, and hang them on their walls, or even have them framed. in the various museums are excellent examples of every branch of this art. to-day it is a very thriving industry. the weavers sit at an upright loom, and work in fast-dyed wools with an immense range of colours. the design is exactly the same on both sides, and the article when finished will wear almost indefinitely. large quantities of it are used for wall-covering, and i can imagine nothing more delightful for this purpose. any design can be produced, and their great artist, munthe, has made many drawings, especially for this manner of reproduction. embroidery in norway i find all the more charming because it is _not_ very varied. in other countries embroidery does many things; but here the workers cling to their very beautiful old-fashioned lines, and fill them in with strongly contrasted colours, mixing silk and wool. mittens, gloves, bonnets, cloth, and all conceivable articles are gorgeously embroidered for personal wear or for sale, and the norwegians themselves are by no means the least enthusiastic buyers. [illustration: sledging by torchlight] work in silver is another of the nation's handicrafts. in all the towns through which the tourist travels he will find large and small shops devoted to the sale of silver or silver-gilt filigree work and enamel. when he has seen one such shop, he has seen all; for over the country the same enamelled salt-cellars and butterflies and spoons, the same fairylike brooches and other ornaments, are repeated. indeed, i became as heartily sick of these rather pretentious ornaments as i was enthusiastically charmed with the peasants' jewellery of an earlier age, frequently made by themselves, and showing an attractive absence of the machine-accomplished finish of the modern jewellery. by expressing the presence of the something which lifts hand work above machine work, i do not mean that there is not among the original silver work evidence of the greatest talent in this direction. the embossed filigree work is truly admirable. precious stones do not take any important place. a coloured stone here and there, more often than not false, justifies its presence by increasing the beauty of the ornament, and not only by adding immensely to the expense of the object. one of the most striking pieces of jewellery is an enormous round brooch or buckle, often as large as a small plate. dozens of these saucer-like pieces of metal, highly polished, are suspended by links to the body of the brooch, shaking and glittering with every movement. [illustration: making native tapestry working a design by gerard munthe, the well-known decorative artist] as for norwegian wood-carving, words fail me to express my admiration for the bold and strong effects produced with wonderful skill and by very primitive methods. during the long winters the peasants labour, often with no other tool than penknives. their broadly carved furniture, with the invariable circular design which is so prominent in their embroidery also, has a charm that i miss in the wonderful and delicate carving of the east. i tried hard to possess myself of a few such pieces of furniture--a very tall grandfather clock, a carved and coloured cradle, a sideboard, and a cupboard--but in vain. the peasant owners refused to sell--wisely indeed, for surely these things are more appropriate in their big yellow-painted log-built rooms than anywhere else. other objects which i sought to obtain from various antiquaries were absolutely beyond the reach of my purse: charming as they were, the prices asked were ridiculously high. i suppose that the sums asked are special during the tourist season, and that norwegians get what they want at much reduced figures during the winter months. the explanation of this is obviously the absence of any competition. two or three big shops have a corner in such things. in all our travels we did not come across any little shop of the type one meets so frequently in most towns in england and on the continent. it must be admitted that in such a country as norway to buy such things as the peasants may be willing to dispose of necessitates a considerable outlay. for the joy of buying give me italy, or spain, or belgium, of which countries swarm with small antiquaries to whom the chance of a sale is too precious to be allowed to slide for such a slight reason as a difference between the price asked and the price the would-be purchaser feels inclined to pay. [illustration: birds-eye view of christiania] farm-houses: wedding festivities chapter vii farm-houses: wedding festivities the climatic conditions of norway necessitate much expenditure in the building of a farm. on account of the intense cold of the winter, warm houses must be provided for the live-stock, and dry storage also is necessary. as a rule, nowadays the buildings on a farm are four, though in former times there were often many small buildings--notably the charmingly carved storehouses one still sees here and there on the farms, standing on round stones and piles some three or four feet from the ground, for fear of rats as well as for dryness. of the four buildings usual on an ordinary farm, the main house is, of course, the dwelling-place, the size of which varies. a cellar the size of the whole area of the house is generally built under this for storage of potatoes and other necessaries. the buildings are almost invariably of logs dovetailed together at the corners, painted inside and out. near this living place is another erection which contains the rooms for the farm hands, the laundry, and the winter supply of wood and peat. the third building is chiefly for the animals, and is divided into different compartments, of which some are devoted to the storage of farming implements, grains, etc. these outhouses are often built with two stories connected by an inclined plane of logs, up which the various vehicles of the farm are pulled to be housed during the winter months. the fourth building is the storehouse, built from the ground, in which are kept the household provisions and sometimes bedding and clothes not in actual use. many of the most elaborate and ancient of these _stabur_ have been bought by the state or by private persons for presentation to the various museums which devote themselves to the collection of relics of old norway and try to reproduce both houses and churches of old times with as many of their original belongings and fittings as possible. [illustration: a vosse bride] the farms surrounded by these necessary buildings are often many miles apart, and consequently social reunions are comparatively rare. in winter the snow-covered ground is traversed with great rapidity by sledges or on ski-shod feet, and, the farm work being not so heavy or so pressing as at other seasons, the country people give dancing parties on the slightest excuse. the music is primitive; but the hearts and feet are light, and food and drink go round in abundance. in summer all the residents on the farm are busily engaged in planting and gathering their small crops, cutting every available blade of the grass which is so precious and means so much to their supplies of milk and butter and cheese when the ground is frozen and deep in snow. their method of drying the grass is rather strange. tall stakes are planted in the ground at short intervals, and on these small bunches of grass are impaled. to facilitate the operation, the stake is capped with a sharp steel point. in this manner scarcely a blade of grass escapes the gatherers, and the drying process is much more rapid than it could otherwise be on these slopes. in summer the cattle, the goats, and the sheep are sent out to graze on the mountain slopes. in charge of each flock are two or three persons, generally girls. they spend their summer in tiny rough huts called saeters. hearing of these saeters, i inquired by what means, if not by long and difficult daily journeys, the dwellers in them were provided with food, and how did the farm people obtain from the heights their daily supply of cheese, milk, and butter? simply enough: one end of a thick wire rope is fixed up on the heights; the other is attached to a post below. the rope traverses precipices, ravines, and raging torrents. with the aid of a pulley and a second length of wire of less thickness, one may thus transport buckets of milk, bundles of hay, and packages of all sorts. the operators at either end are warned by a whistle that their attention is required. we were told, by the people of a farm where we stayed, that a young man sending down a bundle of hay slipped, and, clinging to the wire, slid with fearful rapidity to the opposite side. midway over the fjord which this wire traversed his fingers were cut right through, and he dropped. fortunately, there had been spectators of the adventure, and he was rescued without further injury. in spite of the dangers, i believe the peasants often avail themselves of this mode of descent from the saeters to their homes. they are courageous. on our long drives through different districts of norway, we frequently met with these aerial wireways; and always on the steepest slopes one could gain on foot one saw cattle calmly grazing on the scanty grass at angles which make a poor human being dizzy. how the great beasts can keep their foothold on the loose soil, almost as steep as the side of a house, puzzled me often; and how they can look fat and well-fed on the miserable supply of green stuff which is all they find in many districts is indeed a problem. [illustration: farm-houses built of poles] the devout norwegians have a theory to explain the poorness of their soil. at the creation of the world the angels whose duty it was to scatter the soil forgot norway. seeing this, the guardian angel of the land made complaints to the creator. what was to be done? impossible to restart the whole of the creation for the sake of norway. "come, my little angels," said he: "look carefully, and perhaps you may still find a little earth." the conscience-stricken angels swept the floor of heaven, and the little dust they found they gathered in their draperies and scattered over the norwegian rocks. that is why, while norway is rich in stones, she is poorly provided with soil. even in many of the valleys the earth is plentifully bestrewn with big stones and boulders fallen from the mountains, and where there are small tracts without stones one frequently finds that the ground is so marshy as to be useless. that there is as much cultivated ground only shows what can be dragged from nature by men endowed with patience and industry. round the fjords the fisherman chooses for his log hut a spot where his wife may feed a cow and cultivate a small plot of potatoes, while he devotes his life to gathering the hard and difficult harvest of the sea. at the country fairs or other rare meetings of folks for one reason or another, the young norwegians meet and court. the girl must be a good housewife and should be able to make bread, to spin, and, in short, be capable of almost everything, for in this country of isolated homes it is impossible or difficult to provide a substitute for the invalid or incompetent member of a family. sometimes among the humbler classes the betrothed couple wait years for the completion of their tie, as it is sometimes necessary to await the demise of an older couple to obtain a dwelling-place. during this time the bride-elect spins and makes up the linen that will last her for life. the betrothed couple are allowed all liberty to see each other and even to journey together. i have taken from a norwegian paper an accurate account of wedding customs in the middle of the last century, and i am assured that, with a few exceptions, everything remains much the same to this day. the usages vary slightly in different districts. the norwegian writer has chosen hardanger for his description. when a young man of the people wishes to offer his heart and hand to the maiden of his choice, he does not accomplish the deed himself, but appoints as his spokesman _opordsmannen_, a man of consequence in the district, a relation if possible. together they go to the house of the desired one's parents. first they interview the father, all standing. if the father agrees to consult his wife a good sign has been given, and the _opordsmann_ seats himself. settlements and dowry are discussed, and finally the girl herself is consulted. if she consents to shake hands with her lover the engagement is a settled thing. all seat themselves for refreshments, and the party drink healths out of the best silver mug. without waiting for the ceremony, the young couple take possession of the best room; and they are looked upon as man and wife. the morning after the contract the bridal pair are served with coffee and food in their room by the bride's parents. this interview is always on a saturday. in telemarken the mode of procedure differs slightly. the spokesman, after consulting the girl's parents, goes to her room, and drags her out of bed and into the barn, where the suitor waits to receive her. the mother of a friend once nearly had a very disagreeable experience. her child's nurse was a norwegian; the family were spending the summer in a hotel at telemarken. in the night the lady's door was burst open, and in spite of protestations she was dragged out of bed by her wrists. only the opportune arrival of her husband brought to light the fact that this violent attack was really intended for the courting of her nurse. to return to the hardanger bridal. soon after this the nearest friends and relations are invited to the betrothal party, which is occasion for much eating and drinking, in about a fortnight. during the interval the young lover presents to his mistress a wooden box carved or painted by himself, and containing all the jewellery he can afford to present to her; and the damsel prepares for her gift to him embroidered braces and a belt. though maidenly modesty refuses to acknowledge it, these articles of attire have been in preparation for many months. the saying goes that he who weds a girl who is "getting on" will have the best supply of braces and belts. the wedding proper is usually in the summer. invitations must be given in person at least a fortnight in advance, and as far as possible on the same day, so that on comparing notes the guests may have no cause for complaint. these invitations are on a large scale. everyone for miles round of the same social position as the bride's family is invited; so, of course, are all the relations of the happy couple. i am given to understand that caste prejudices are very strong in the country districts. if the child of a _jaardemann_ (rich farmer) should insist on marrying into the family of a _husmann_ (small tenant-farmer), the family of the rich farmer will refuse to have anything to do with the young people, or even to see their child again. preparations for feasting on an enormous scale are begun. barrels of the native corn-brandy and a smaller quantity of cognac, together with kegs of mead and wine and abundance of beer, are provided to encourage the gaiety of the guests. three or four days before the wedding the _klejvekjaeringer_ arrive. these are eight or ten of the women friends of the family, who are invited to assist in the preparations and to attend to the guests during the feast. it is looked upon as a great honour to be invited in this capacity. cooking begins in hot earnest. piles of cakes are made of rye and milk. stalks of _fladbrod_--pancakes of a kind--are representative standbys. mountains of bread and raw smoked meat are cut up. the ox and pig, which have been killed in anticipation, are made ready. cylinders of butter, weighing from twelve to fourteen pounds, are placed at intervals on the board; the guests will help themselves, smearing their bread and cakes with it and then sprinkling sugar over. two days beforehand arrives the _kjogemester_. each district possesses an official of that kind, who is paid for his services. he is chief steward and master of ceremonies. on him falls the responsibility of placing all the guests in the order of precedence. as if this were not enough for one man, he has also control over the drinks, and during the festivities is liable to be called upon at any moment to make various speeches in extemporised verse. the day before the wedding the servants of the guests arrive. they are laden with presents, mostly of food and drink. they are shown into the _stabur_ (storehouse), where the presents and wedding clothes are on view, given food and drink, and allowed to go their ways home. [illustration: country girl, bergen district] in the evening of the same day the party begins. at the time this account was written, all came in their national costume and wore elaborate jewellery; but now few besides the bride have preserved this costume, though in hardanger it is certainly much more common than in other districts. the cap mostly seen is a small tight-fitting bonnet--black for married women and blue for girls. in parts where costume is worn this rule as to colour holds good for men also. it is now the business of the master of ceremonies to direct each guest to the correct place at the table. the bride and the bridegroom sit at either end of the table, both in unmarried costumes. when they seat themselves two shots are fired. the kjogemester, in verse, thanks the guests for their presence at the feast, and gives out the names of the various voluntary helpers, of the four best men, of the four bridesmaids, and of the fiddler and the drummer. the musicians give a sample of their skill and seat themselves at the festive board. early in the night the bridal pair retire. then, after more eating and drinking, the guests dance until the small hours. sleeping accommodation is found for all--bedrooms for the older and more respected persons, the barns for younger ones--and often a near neighbour's house shelters many. in the morning at eight or nine o'clock the waitresses carry round food and drink to the sleepers, who then get up and eat and drink still more. the best men brush the bridegroom's clothes and boots and help him to dress, and in the storehouse the bridesmaids render the same service to the bride. the young couple are then on view, but only to the parents and those of the immediate circle, to the fiddler, and to the drummer. the bride stands like a queen in her picturesque dress, decked in a silver or gilt crown, often set with many stones and with red, white, and blue ribbons in her flowing hair. her breast is covered with brooches and ornaments linked together by silver chains; and one may notice that from the centre jewel hang danglements like small saucers, the especial perquisite of the matron. her fingers are covered with rings, and she wears a gorgeous silver belt and silver buckles on her shoes. the bridegroom wears knee-breeches and a silver cord round his hat, and the rest of his clothes are in keeping with this grandeur. [illustration: sÆtersdalen bride] then the drummer beats his drum and the fiddler fiddles, and all the party crowd to the door of the stabur and receive drink from the hands of the bride. a squad of the men helpers lead the way to church. in former times the journey, if by land, was made on foot; but now the party drives. occasionally the fjord too has to be crossed. one can imagine how romantic such a sight would be. the boats are long and broad. in the first one go the music, the bride and bridegroom, the attendant men and maids, and the parents of the couple. before starting the master of ceremonies provides all the guests with brandy. arrived at the church and while waiting for the pastor, who often comes from afar, the party adjourn to the nearest house, and drink. naturally a crowd has collected to see the wedding. all who ask are provided with drink by the kjogemester, who has also to bid the bride's parents good-bye in her name and in verse. the celebrant arrived, this ubiquitous official leads the way to the church. he is followed immediately by the drummer and the fiddler, who, however, drop out of line at the church door. the bride is accompanied by the four best men; the groom is attending the bridesmaids. at the church door the maids give the groom to his bride, who is treated in the same manner by the best men. then the marriage ceremony proceeds. the interesting pair stand throughout; the rest of the party are seated. at the conclusion of the ceremony all the guests make offerings to the parson and to the parson's clerk. when this important duty has been fulfilled the parson is offered wedding food and drink in a neighbouring house. in many cases he is presented with a bottle of spirits and more food. these he is to take home, that his wife and family may share in the feast. the journey back is made in much rejoicing. arrived, after more food and drink, the party dance; the bride performing first with her husband, and then with the best men, and so on through the party; dancing last with the drummer, who, as a final compliment, must kick the highest beam in the ceiling. for the privilege of dancing with the bride her partner tips the fiddler, and at the conclusion presents her with a small sum, known as cradle money, to be spent on the layette of the hoped-for children. sometime during the wedding day the party is regaled with bridegroom's porridge, which is a paste made with flour and cream, stirred so quickly that the cream partly turns to butter. this indigestible mass is followed by more drains of spirits to the accompaniment of music, and the master of ceremonies recites a toast to the honour of marriage in verse which would not bear translation. [illustration: a hardanger bride] while the youths and maidens dance the matrons work and gossip, and the older men have drinking competitions, won by him who manages to keep his senses longest. the bride and the bridegroom retire early. the others dance, eat, and drink, as before, into the next day. in the morning the servants of the guests arrive with buckets full of sweet milk, which they offer to the keeping up of the banquet. in return they are given beer, and their empty buckets are filled with wedding food. after this--at least, so it happened when this account was written--the pair seat themselves, and every guest in turn deposits a money present on a large pewter plate placed for the purpose. on each donation the giver drinks with the couple out of a large silver mug, which is kept brimming by one of the best men. then is eaten the bride's porridge, which is a paste made of flour and milk, and not so great a luxury as the bridegroom's porridge, eaten the previous day. the fun and feasting go on all day. if one may believe certain norwegian paintings and engravings, fights are not infrequent. next day all sleep, and badly they must need to do so; during the day adieux are said, and the guests, after much pressing to the contrary, at last take their departure. a week later the couple leave the farm and take up their abode in the bridegroom's house, whence the bride immediately pays a round of visits to her neighbours, who assemble the following day for more feasting at the new home. this is the end of the romance. henceforward hard work and the bearing of many children are the lot of the norwegian woman, varied but seldom by dissipation in any form. [illustration: making "flad-brod"--a cottage interior] i have not been able to discover how far this account of the marriage customs of norway may be applied to the present day; but i am assured by the norwegian friend who kindly helped me with the translation that in the isolated country districts such affairs still follow the course i have described. at funerals there are celebrations of much the same kind. although there is no actual dancing until after the return from the burial, drink passes freely. i am told by an acquaintance, who assisted at the funeral of one of his tenants, that the whole party were overcome by drink to such an extent that at the churchyard it was discovered that the corpse had been forgotten. the pastor was naturally indignant. he and the mourners had to wait in the snow-covered cemetery until the coffin containing the remains could be fetched. in districts far removed from a town the food and drink for a funeral party are generally ordered while the funeral subject is still alive. a friend, calling to offer condolences, was served with cakes, which she was begged to partake of on the plea that "the corpse herself made them." many of the rich farmers order their own coffins and keep them in the stabur. in winter the ground is frozen so hard that it has to be blasted. forestry: reindeer: land tenures chapter viii forestry: reindeer: land tenures during my long walks while nico was painting, i was refreshed and delighted by the abundance of wild fruit which i found everywhere, delicious little strawberries and large raspberries. once, while i was greedily stripping a bush of raspberries, sitting at my ease on a rock beside the shrub, a large snake glided from under my skirt, and hid itself beneath the stone on which my feet were resting. i had a terrible fright for a moment. i have never discovered whether there are poisonous snakes in norway. every four or five years certain districts are infested by animals about the size and form of a guinea-pig. they swarm all over the country, and do a good deal of damage. immense numbers are killed, and the race seems to die out, until, when a period of four or five years has elapsed, they appear again. i was told this by an english inhabitant, who could give me no reason for this intermittent character of their presence. the norwegian horses take their pleasures sadly. when they are not working, and are set at liberty to feed along the strip of herbage, they are either attached by a short chain round one leg to a staple fixed in the ground, or, what is worse, their forefeet are linked closely together by an arrangement like handcuffs. to see the poor things trying to be frisky amid these circumstances is quite painful. nico describes the movement which results as "hirpling." it is a cross word, i suppose, between hopping and limping, and is extremely expressive of what it is intended to represent. in the towns the horse's forefoot is tied to the wheel of the cart when the driver is obliged to leave it. what would happen if wandering musicians were to strike up an equine cake-walk, i tremble to think! [illustration: snow plough drawn by eight or ten horses] in a country of such scattered population, the keeping of the miles of road in good order is naturally a question of moment. on most of his drives the traveller will notice hundreds of little poles painted red, and bearing some kind of inscription, planted at short intervals. these signposts give the name of the farmer or landowner appointed by the _lensmand_ to look after and repair a certain area of road, which is also indicated on the post. i do not know whether the farmer or the careless lensmand is to be blamed for the terrible condition of some few of the roads over which we passed. on the other hand, the difficulties to be contended with considered, the condition of the chief ways is wonderfully good. many of the roads are cut up inconveniently by gates, placed at quite short intervals. every second minute one has to scramble off one's cart to open these obstacles; but i believe they are less for the purpose of causing trouble than for keeping some sort of control over the straying of the farm animals. all along the route one meets with curious wedge-shaped constructions of wood. these are the snow ploughs. when they are needed, as many as six or eight horses are harnessed to them, and slowly they force a passage through the deep snow. i think they can be used only at the beginning or at the end of winter, though i am not quite certain; but why should people use ploughs when winter transit is entirely and most conveniently accomplished on sledges and skis? the deep valleys which are generally a feature on one side of a norwegian roadway are levelled with drifts of snow, and it is only when spring comes that the road may be tracked by the heads of the ten-foot poles planted along the path, which begin to show themselves only as the thaw sets in. what a lonely, mysterious journey for the solitary postman! somewhere in the neighbourhood of odde lives to this day a postman who had a terrible adventure in the snow. the history of it was told me by a man who drove us for days along the road across norway between odde and christiania. in the winter in the farming districts letters are delivered only once a week--perforce by the postmen on skis. i gathered that the day of delivery is not absolutely certain, and the man is sometimes days on his trip. the postman in question set out, as usual, alone; half way to his destination he sank into a snow-drift on the side of the mountain. in a day or two, when his continued absence was remarked, search-parties of thirty or forty men set out to find him. of these searchers my driver was one. with them they took his coffin, expecting indeed to find him, but resigned to the certitude of finding his dead body only. before the third day was over they sorrowfully gave up the search, and returned to their homes to wait until spring should force the secret from the snow. at the end of the third day, a feeble, white-haired man staggered into the station, and fell fainting to the ground. for three days the postman had been buried alive, and at last, by dint of digging with his post-horn, he had got free. the rescue party had passed over his very head, and he had heard them speaking of him and finally deciding to give up the search; but of course it was impossible for him to discover himself to them. imagine the joy of the community at his return! you may be sure he was well nursed back to health; and still, summer and winter alike, he carries the mail-bag over his allotted route. [illustration: fishing through the ice on christiania fjord] it is obvious that the winter is in norway a time of enforced cessation from farm work. with the exception of a certain amount of labour connected with the cattle, there is little to be done for several months. the men pass most of this quiet time in carving wood and making various articles out of birch bark. the women spin for their household needs, and knit and embroider what may be called fancy goods in expectation of the tourist season. the large shops buy up enormous quantities of the peasants' winter work, and each of the posting inns is a small centre where the peasants of the neighbourhood endeavour to get large prices for the products of their winter industry--prices which dwindle through the summer as the days become shorter and the tourists fewer. it must be admitted that they are extraordinarily clever carvers; and they have a rather primitive method of painting their wares which is very decorative and, when it is not too well done, quite attractive. their nicest carving they keep to themselves: witness the delightful fairy-tale animals which form the handle of the family mangling-board, and the equally charming monsters which seem to perch on the arms and backs of chairs. a word on their primitive method of mangling may not be amiss. two utensils are necessary--the first a kind of rolling-pin, round which the sprinkled linen is tightly swathed. the other, a mangling-board, a narrow flat piece of wood wielded by the picturesque handle i have described, is then pressed tightly on the linen and rolled with as much force as possible. i do not really believe that this operation can, even with great strength, make very much difference to the condition of the linen; but the process is much more interesting to watch than the working of a civilised mangling-machine. it is in the winter that the work of a forester is at its height. the felling of trees begins late in september, and is continued under many difficulties and hardships all through the winter. as the large forests are often at some distance from populated areas, the woodsmen build themselves log huts. they fill up the crannies between the logs with moss and turf, but on the roof they lay first a covering of birch bark to keep things close and dry. these huts are warmed day and night by a wood fire, which is always kept burning; on this they make their tea and coffee and do what little cooking they may need. i could not discover what happens to the poor horses that help the woodsmen in their labours. do they share the hut with their masters, or do they sleep as best they may outside in the cold and snow? the trees are felled, the branches lopped off, and the trunks stripped of their bark, which is kept and applied to many useful purposes. they are then gathered together where it is most convenient, and when the snow becomes deep enough they are dragged or slid to the nearest practicable waterway. i believe that it is at this stage that the owner, or his representative, marks the timber for recognition. in many cases the owner of the forest sells his felled trees to a merchant, and it is here in such a case that the wood changes hands. in spring, when the ice-bound rivers begin to thaw, and the melting snow swells them in force and volume, the logs are carried by these torrents to the main river. during their journey hundreds of logs get stuck here and there, sometimes lying crossways between the banks and damming the river. the river drivers have their work cut out to obviate this happening, and, if possible, to be rid of it after its event, for to such a stoppage may be due most dangerous floods, and many accidents, when the immense mass of logs, stopped in their eager passage, at last are free. sometimes the logs are chained together and sent down in rafts; but more often each one pursues a separate course. if they are jammed, the river driver, with the help of his long pole, must balance himself as best he can on the logs, as he springs from one to another, poking and prodding till at last he loosens the mass; and how to save himself is the question of the moment, for a risky calling is that of the man who endeavours to direct the logs in the way they should go. sometimes, when the danger appears great even to these hardy norwegians, accustomed though they are to risking their lives daily, the man whose duty it is to discover and cut the log which is probably causing the whole stoppage is put into a kind of harness and attached by ropes to both banks of the river, so that when the whole mass rends itself free he may be lifted directly above their violence and so drawn into safety. as it is bad for the wood to lie through the summer, it is important that all this work should be done completely and with regularity. if it is a dry season, the logs will be left high and dry, and be liable to crack; on the other hand, one may often see logs lying at the bottom of deep water so saturated that they cannot float. all this timber is a great source of wealth to the country. it is used enormously for fuel, for fencing, and in building. immense quantities are exported in the raw; others are prepared for use in the form of doors or window frames; there is even a certain market for complete log houses of various sizes. naturally, in such a country, one meets frequently with sawmills, and here the countless cataracts are found useful in supplying motive power. it is surely strange, all these things considered, that so little discretion is exercised in the felling and planting of trees. although of late years, i believe, the government has bestowed a good deal of attention on this question, so much of the forest land is in private hands and beyond surveillance that on the whole sadly little care can be taken to prevent the ill-treatment of the forests. it is acknowledged that there are many tracts of bare land which within the memory of living man were thick forests. in several districts wood is too scarce to be used for fuel, and consequently the inhabitants are dependent upon peat. bogs are to be found all over the country--on the lonely tablelands as in the inhabited valleys. these bogs are generally moss lands, and, in the north particularly, they contain thick strata of decayed matter from the luxuriant forests of former days. the digging and cutting of splendid peat is one of the smaller industries of the country. it is thought that it will become of much greater importance as peat more and more takes the place of wood as fuel. [illustration: fishing-nets at sundalsoren] in other times there were thousands of acres of common land in norway. the difficulties which this places in the way of a complete utilisation of the soil have led to attempts by the local governments to partition the common land among responsible owners; but there are obstacles, and in many cases the ground is shared by several farmers. [illustration: the midnight sun] on the private property of many large farmers a feudal system of a kind is very much in vogue. almost the same method is found on the italian _podere_. dwelling-places are built on the estate, and together with a greater or lesser plot of land, and under certain conditions which differ in various districts, are leased to a class of farm-labourers called _husmaend_. these men have certain rights of grazing on the farmer's land, and in addition to the rent, which is exceedingly small, the farmer has a right to their services during a certain time of the year. superior to these husmaend are the _placemaend_, who own their houses but lease a certain amount of the farmer's land. in the south-east of norway the cultivation of fruit is carried on to a large extent. in favourable years peaches, apricots, tomatoes, and even grapes, are grown in the open air; in the north, on the mountains, the summer warmth is insufficient for even hardy plants. rye and oats are the most important cereals. they flourish and ripen amid harsher conditions than other grains can endure. rye is the chief bread cereal of the country. a large area of ground is devoted to the cultivation of a mixture of barley and oats which is known as _mangcorn_. experience has shown that the two grains planted together produce a larger crop than they do when planted singly. besides being used as a human food, it is also a fodder for cattle, and a peculiarly excellent means of fattening swine. berries are found growing wild in abundance in most of the inhabited regions; but vegetables play a very unimportant part in the feeding of the peasant. the norwegian horse, while not remarkable for beauty or carriage, is an exceedingly useful beast. it is hardy, gentle, and very active. on the norwegian roads, which are in some parts very bad and in other parts merely rough bridle-paths, it cannot be surpassed. in lapland, as everyone knows, the horse is almost entirely superseded by the reindeer. these are indeed a source of profit to their masters. from them the lapps obtain their milk, cheese, peat, and the skin from which a good deal of their clothing is made. the small sledges which the reindeer draw are usually for one person. they are made of skin and are without shafts. the reins are tied to the horns of the beast, and this is all the control the driver has over the animal. occasionally the reindeer is vexed and turns on his master, who saves himself by rolling out of the sledge and covering himself with it. it is a wonderful fact that a well-trained reindeer can run down the steepest hill without once coming in contact with the vehicle behind it, though there is nothing in the world but its own cleverness in covering the ground in a sort of zig-zag movement to prevent constant bumping and collisions. while young reindeer are being trained in the way they should go, a big buck animal is fastened to the back, to do nothing but pull against the other continually. this animal lives almost entirely on the moss, its natural food, which in the winter it scrapes out from under the snow with its strong hoof. many lapps keep a thousand or more head of these deer. they herd them together with the help of their clever dogs. sometimes during the winter a family of these tent-dwellers descend upon districts more favoured than their own, and i believe the immense flocks of reindeer do untold damage in the forests. besides clothing themselves in the skin of the reindeer, the lapps make from it many objects for sale in the towns. shoes and coats in the lapp style, and all sorts of small articles, such as boxes, bags, knife-handles, in the fur, are produced by this people. i came across a very old book which--in an account of a visit to norway--gives a short description of a meeting with some lapps. i imagine that much of it may stand as if it had been written to-day. "we accordingly provided a supply of drink and eatables; and, with a guide and an interpreter, set out on horseback. after travelling about forty hours, without seeing either any people or the road, we pitched our tents, at night, near a wood, with a part of which we made our fire. at length we met a family of about twenty persons, with their wives and children, who cordially saluted us, and we all shook hands. we shared out tobacco and brandy among them. they conducted us to their huts, and gave us dried reindeer flesh and milk. "their countenances are a miniature resemblance of the calmuck faces; they are diminutive in size, and to appearance wretched; sufficiently generous, but full of uneasiness. they suffered us to go about everywhere, and do as we chose; and they readily showed us whatever they had. we were soon as intimate as if we had been born among them. their language is very harmonious. a herd of about thirty reindeer strayed around. our interpreter, who, by the bye, knew but little of their language, contrived to let them know that we wished to proceed onwards, to visit a few families of their people, by means of a carriage with reindeer. immediately they harnessed a sledge for us; but it went very slowly, as no track in the snow had been previously beaten down. we arrived at a tribe who were all brothers and sisters of those we had quitted. their huts were formed of large poles of wood, and set circularly, covered with branches, moss, earth, and reindeers' hides; they have holes for the smoke to escape and another hole made in the ground. we stayed three days with these people. in the middle of their huts a stove is placed, on which they make their fire, all sitting round it. their clothing is made of deerskin, similar to a shirt, and tied about the loins with a cord. we saw some, however, dressed in linen, for which they had made an exchange of skins. these people, whose manners and habits are well worth observation, seem to enjoy the freedom of their way of life. they have no words in their language which express the ideas we attach to king, prince, governor, laws, rights, etc. we presented them with a few trifles, with which they were highly delighted, and took leave of them, to continue our route to tuffendalen, where, after eight days' dragging, we at last found good boor-cottages. whether the laplanders indirectly belong to any regular constitution, or contribute anything to it, i cannot tell; but i remarked that, generally speaking, like the poor indian of pope, they have no artificial wants; and thus far, at least, they appear contented. the whole of this tract of land is solitary and desert. the superficial and level extent of it may comprehend a thousand and eight hundred square miles. _laplander_ is with them considered as a term of reproach, or a mere nickname; they call themselves _samalatzes_." [illustration: mundal, fjÆrland, sognefjord] since i wrote about the restrictions on the shooting of wild animals, i have learned that, whilst only one elk may be shot during one year on any estate, the owner of the estate may mark his ground for the purpose into certain divisions, and by paying a slight increase on his licence has thereby the right to kill as many elk as he has these partitions of his land. while wandering in the forest, a norwegian friend was attacked by a bull elk. having no weapons and considering prudence the better part of valour, he climbed an adjacent tree. not to be baulked of his victim, the elk had recourse to the extraordinarily brilliant idea (for an elk) of gnawing away the roots of the tree. for eight mortal hours the object of his endeavours sat on the top of the tree momentarily expecting its fall and his destruction. at last the elk turned his attention for a time to food, and on this quest he absentmindedly wandered away, leaving my friend to scramble down and be free. i should imagine there was an elk hunt next day on that estate. inhabiting the innumerable small islands on the south-west coast of norway are a race different from the land dwellers, with whom they have no communication. they are miserably poor, and live in abominably dirty huts on the barren land which is their heritage. among these islanders consumption and leprosy claim many victims. the spread of leprosy is due mainly to the uncleanly habits of the people. they eat very little meat with the exception of pigs' flesh. the pigs feed on anything they can pick up, which resolves itself chiefly into the rotting remains of fish. the name given to them speaks for itself--"fish pig." once a year, in the families that can afford it, such a pig is killed, and on its flesh they depend for their meat for months. it is not to be wondered at that such food, combined with their unsavoury habits, produces such terrible results. statistics seem to show that leprosy has been growing less prevalent since the middle of the last century; but it is still necessary to keep several hospitals for the lepers. another remarkable fact gives rather an interesting example of the evolution which must follow on any abnormal conditions. for hundreds of years these people have had no opportunity of duly exercising their lower limbs, which are in consequence short and undeveloped; while the extraordinary muscular development of their arms and shoulders is not astonishing when one considers that all their transit exercise must be done by rowing. in consequence of this, and perhaps also on account of the consanguineous marriages, many of the inhabitants of these islands present extraordinary appearances. fisheries: the lapps: religion and morals: music chapter ix fisheries: the lapps: religion and morals: music although most englishmen with any knowledge of norway have been originally attracted to the country by the hope of sport, especially of salmon fishing, and though the rents which they are willing and eager to pay for rivers or sections of rivers are a substantial sum brought into the country, the sea fisheries are, of course, of immeasurably greater importance. the old sagas tell that over a thousand years ago "splendid painted ships, with sails of several colours," sailed laden with fish to england, and the abundant and varied supply of fish which distinguishes the coast of norway has always been one of the chief sources of the country's income. in it was estimated that the total receipts of the trade amounted to about sixty million kroner. the coastline of norway is exceedingly long; in many places it slopes down to great ocean depths. these various depths and the different conditions of the submerged surface determine the nature of the submarine fauna, and consequently of the fish. perhaps the most important of these are cod, herring, and salmon. cod are principally fished for in march and april, with lines and nets. the lofoten cod fishery is carried on from several stations, spread over various islands. here are the warehouses and the very primitive dwelling-places of the fishermen. the cod are caught with lines and with nets, which are baited with herrings or little metal fish whose gleam serves equally well to deceive the cod in search of food. at the favourable spots in the right season, the fish are so abundant that the fisherman has only to throw the line and pull it out again to find that a fish has bitten and thus closed its career. the spoil is taken ashore, split open, attached two and two together by the tail, and thus hung over long lines to dry. the liver is used for the fabrication of cod-liver oil, a medicine whose unpleasantness is more than equalled by its excellence as a remedy. the heads of this profitable fish are used for manure. in these cold regions, where grass is scarce, the cod heads and herrings are used as fodder for cattle. [illustration: fishing-boats at lofoten.] during the season fishermen from all northern norway flock to the stations. sometimes as many as five or six thousand fishing boats, with a total crew of thirty-two thousand men, are gathered together. the catch averages thirty-five millions; and the fish are usually sold by the hundred, generally prepared either as "klip fish"--salted and dried--or as the evil-smelling _torfisk_ (stock fish), which haunted our wanderings through holland, which imports large quantities. in old fishing laws of the islands it is insisted that no torfisk should be hung up after april , or taken down before june . i presume that after this treatment they will last and be odorous for ever. in the off-seasons small cargoes of this fish are carried by many of the passenger steamers, to the profit, perhaps, of the captain, but to the intense displeasure of the passengers. indeed, all down the coast of norway we noticed that the air was impregnated with the smell of stock fish; our towels and napkins, and indeed everything we had washed, had the same repulsive odour. though the financial side of it is very satisfactory, this industry costs the country much in lives of men. the great enemy of the fisher-folk are the violent tempests which spring up suddenly in the vestfjord. often the boat is overturned, and the occupants cling as best they may to the various iron rings and chains. often they drive their knives deep into the wood of the boat and hang on thus as long as they are able. though there are lifeboats permanently attached to the stations, the greater number of fishermen lose their lives in pursuit of their calling; and after the tempest dies down, and the wrecks are washed ashore, often the clues to the number and identity of the poor drowned owners are the knives still planted in their boats. nowhere are widows and orphans so many as on these coasts of norway. during the fishing season the sale of intoxicating liquor is prohibited by the government. the herring come next in importance to the cod. they are variable in quantity, and in some years are almost altogether absent. the fishermen insist that there are "herring periods," with years good and bad. such periods are said to last for about thirty years. during recent times such a period seems to have set in. the herring season is very short. suddenly, as if by magic, the sea swarms with fish, which after a time disappear as rapidly as they came. to a certain extent they may be relied on twice a year--for the spring fishing off the south coast between stavanger and bergen, and early in winter off the northern coast between the romsdal and tromso. this is called the "large herring fishery," from the greater size of the fish in these parts. besides this, fishing goes on in a measure at all times of the year. the herring are caught either by going out to sea in search of shoals; or by lying in wait for them in the small bays and fjords, preventing their escape by arrangements of nets, and baling them out at leisure. in the open sea they are also caught with nets, and are more to be relied on as to quantity. [illustration: a little sÆtersdalen peasant girl] when a shoal of herring arrives, always announced by whales and flights of birds who feed on the small fish, telephones and telegraphs are set in motion to summon the fishermen to the spot, and to order barrels and salt for the packing of the fish. these are sent as speedily as possible by special steamers. when the shoal approaches the coast, an immense net encloses it as completely as possible. the fish are massed so compactly that a boat crossing the shoal is raised by them. the brilliancy of their scales as they dash about, almost on the surface of the water, is dazzling. landed, they are immediately split open, cleaned, salted, and packed for transportation. whale fishing is carried on to some extent off the north of norway. on the little island of skaaro there is a building where whale oil is prepared for use. from afar off the sickening smell announces the industry of the island: repulsive morsels of greasy _débris_ float on the surface of the water. at the landing place the rocky beach is so covered with grease that it is difficult to walk without falling. a friend arrived just as a whaler appeared on the horizon, dragging after her the carcase of an enormous whale, weighing seventy-five thousand kilogrammes. such an animal will give about fifty thousand pounds' weight of oil, and will bring the captors between £ and £ . such a giant requires for his daily meal twenty or thirty tons of fish. to take them he opens his jaws, and closes them on water and fish alike; he swallows the fish, allows the water to filter through the curious formation of his mouth, and then squirts it up like a fountain through an opening in the skull. it is this jet of water which often causes his ruin, by indicating his position to the watchful whalers. on the boat which is chasing him is a cannon, loaded with an enormous harpoon, which is attached to the ship by a long rope wound round a pulley. the extremity of the harpoon is armed with an explosive bomb. when the whale appears the harpoon is shot at it. following its instinct of self-preservation, it dives deep. the rope gives out rapidly. when it is entirely unwound it naturally pulls against the harpoon, the forked ends of which, in the resistance, tear the flesh of the animal. as a final result the bomb bursts in the body of the whale, and generally wounds it mortally. the corpse floats on the surface; it is attached to the boat and towed to the station, where it is cut up. the fat produces a large amount of oil; the whalebone is a productive article of commerce; and most of the remainder of the animal is converted into manure. [illustration: buerbrÆ, odde hardanger] it is on account of the great importance and interest which we in england attach to the salmon fishing that i do not dare to deal with it, except to make an apology that any book on norway should be without at least a chapter on this splendid sport. though the accomplished angler is allowed to relate fish stories without interruption from an absolutely incredulous audience, the remarks of an inexperienced outsider would, i fear, not be received with equal docility. i am sure that an angler is born, not made: for, though i am ignorant on the subject, all my life i have listened to enthusiastic fisherman's talk, and was brought up in a nursery in which were "skied" various victims of my father's prowess as an angler. [illustration: a lapp mother and child] since the beginning of my book i have learnt so much about the lapps that i must enlarge on my borrowed history of them in chapter viii. the lapps are nomadic on account of their reindeer, and it is following these animals where they choose to roam in search of food that takes them wandering all over the northern half of norway. there are only two lapp villages--karasjok, in finmarken, and kontokeimo, near the russian frontier. the permanent residences consist of cabins built of turf, stones, or small tree-trunks. these huts are round and have one opening in the top, where the light penetrates and the smoke comes out. in the middle of the hut a fire is kept continually burning, with a big cauldron hanging over it, suspended by a chain. the members of the family and their servants, if they have any, sleep on either side of the fire. the lapps are small, in great contrast to the norwegians of this region, who average over six feet in height. the children are often exceedingly pretty; but they soon lose their charm and become ugly, and are not rendered more attractive by their dirty habits. all their garments are made of reindeer skin, and the women add to these various silk shawls and handkerchiefs brightly coloured; by the quantity and the quality of these one may judge of their rank and richness. the lapps are supposed to share a common origin with the magyars of hungary, though these, if they recognise the relationship, cannot feel flattered. it is certain that the lapps were the first inhabitants of norway. in appearance they are unprepossessing. they have small eyes, very low foreheads, flat noses, and thick-lipped mouths. like the hungarians, they are incredibly proud. they despise everything that is not lapp, and refuse to allow their daughters in marriage to norwegians. (i should have thought that the norwegians would not have worried much about this restriction.) they are all baptized in the lutheran church; but that is as far as their religion goes in most cases. they are unmoral and superstitious. one might gather from the books of some of norway's great writers that the nation is on the whole rather casual about morality. it would appear that their religion, while condemning as worthy of hell quite honest pleasures, looks with indulgence on a certain moral laxity, which is indeed so habitual that it passes uncriticised. among the very strictly religious population in the south-west, a pastor would be quickly got rid of if he forgot himself so far as to play the piano or drink intoxicants; but this same people some ten years ago venerated as a martyr one of their clergy who, forced to confess in public crimes against the morality of his own parishioners, was consequently deposed by the government. his flock, of their own initiative, built him a magnificent church, and, providing him with a liberal sufficiency, retained him as the director of their spiritual welfare. two oratorians, visiting norway some years ago in a yacht, decided to spend a few days fishing at a hamlet somewhere in the sogne fjord. they had all the preparations for mass with them, and wished to take a small unused chalet as a chapel. the farmer who owned the building was willing, and negotiations were concluded on payment of a nominal rent, when the farmer realised that my friends were of the old religion. there was no question of proselytism, as the idea concerned only the two priests and their catholic english friends on the yacht; but all the countryside was up in arms, and a few days later prominent personages from christiania had arrived on the scene to put a stop to the possibility of such happenings. in the meantime, however, my friends, little dreaming of the importance attached to their doings, had pursued their way along the coast, and were innocently fishing elsewhere. at present the ecclesiastical prejudice of the norwegians is less marked, though jews are sedulously discouraged, and jesuits are forbidden the country. [illustration: snow-capped mountains at aune] various hospitals are attended by catholic nursing sisters, who are in great favour with the medical profession and with the patients who are lucky enough to fall under their care. all this time i am trying hard, by roundabout means, to get back to bergen, because i wish to fit in, in proper context, a remark which i heard about the town. it seems that i cannot get back there legitimately, though i had hoped that the sisters of charity would help me through with their hospitals. i was listening to the woes of the american consul in bergen. he was descanting on the want of entertainment and the absence of all things which make an american's life possible in any country on the globe outside his perfect native land. i sympathised with him, and threw in a little grumble of my own, having relation to the weather. "o, the weather!" said my red-headed friend, very hopelessly and crossly. "why, sure, if a bergen horse sees a person without an umbrella, he shies." this seems pretty feeble as i set it down; but at the time the consul was disconsolate and far from wishing to amuse me, bored and discontented. thus his remark just happened to tickle me: we both laughed until we cried, and felt very much the better for the diversion. frequently, at times of _ennui_, we found diversion in music, or in information about that art. the lure, though perhaps it can hardly be called a musical instrument, is a primitive means of conveying sound. the herds on the mountains used it to call their cattle together. it is said that no two lures have tones exactly alike, and that the cattle are able to distinguish and place the particular sound of their guardian's lure. it is a wooden trumpet, nearly five feet long, made of two hollow pieces of birchwood, bound together throughout the whole length with strips of willow. besides being used to call the cattle together, it is often carried by travelling parties to avert the risk of anyone being lost in the wilds. its notes may be heard at a great distance, and are rather harsh and discordant, possessing none of the musical qualities of the alp horn used by the swiss for the same purpose. grieg composed charming music for a song called "the princess." the words led me to suppose that the lure is rather a fascinating instrument; and the above description rather disillusioned me, until i decided to allow a good deal for poetic licence. the norwegians are exceedingly musical. their national music gives wonderful expression to their moods. almost invariably in the gayest pieces one catches here and there a pathetic little droop which gives a very particular character to norwegian music. in the country the post of fiddler is handed down from generation to generation, together with certain airs which are looked upon as family property; but official fiddlers are by no means the only musicians in the district. these are found in every family, dividing their favours between the violin and the guitar. the organist l. lindeman did great service to his country by collecting and preserving hundreds of national ballads, dances, and hymns, which had lived only in the ear and the soul of the people, and thus were lost entirely to the outer world. the oldest of these songs are the sagas, sung traditions that have been handed down from immemorial ages. they recount the heroic exploits of the vikings and warriors of heathen times. many ballads tell of the beautiful _huldre_, of the fay who presages the destruction of fishermen, of the water sprite, and of the brownies who, living underground, are covetous of cattle. to gratify their taste, the brownies help themselves to such as graze on the mountains, but only if their guardian's eyes are turned off his charges; they make dwarfs of the beasts to enable them to enter crevices in the ground, in order that they may descend to subterranean passages. many songs about these malicious fairies do the maidens sing as they keep their eyes carefully fixed on the herds, to prevent their being stolen in like manner. some of the songs consist of hundreds of four-line verses, which must surely be a hard test to the memory of the singers. sometimes two singers will have a duet in such a song, singing verse after verse alternately. he whose memory, or, in default of memory, invention, fails him first is loser. [illustration: river at gjora] the norwegian national dances have in their melodies and rhythms a bold and natural character which gives them considerable worth. the principal are the _halling_, a hardanger solo dance consisting of wild gyrations and vigorous kicks at rafters of the room. he who kicks highest is the champion. the other dance is the _springar_, which is a dance for two, with no less call for the display of muscular powers. the two favourite instruments of the people, on which all this music has been played for centuries, are the langelik, which somewhat resembles a zither, and the hardanger violin. the langelik has a long, flat body, with round holes, and at least seven strings, which are struck with a plectrum. the tone is rather weak, and the sound is somewhat monotonous, as the possibility of producing modulated sounds is almost entirely excluded. the hardanger fiddle is higher and more arched in its build than the violin we know. the instrument is decorated as much as possible, the scroll being a dragon's head, or something equally fantastic: and the body of the fiddle is richly carved and ornamented with incrustations of ivory and mother-of-pearl. beneath the four upper strings, which are tuned to suit the individual tastes of the musician, and under the finger-board, there are four, sometimes more, sympathetic strings of fine steel wire. by the aid of this instrument the people make wonderful sketches in music descriptive of the beauty of dawn and the close of a summer's day, with the birds' trills, or the huldre's song, or the ringing of marriage bells. i have all this from a norwegian book, and from instruments i have both seen and heard. the best known of the modern music-makers of the north is the great norwegian edward grieg, whose genius is familiar to all musicians the world over. he was born in bergen, and lives there still, though he has travelled much in germany, holland, and italy. another name which we know well in this country is that of sinding, who is of the younger generation. norway has no regular opera; but the concerts which are given in the beautiful national theatre are eagerly attended, and the programmes are representative of the musical talent of europe. [illustration: grieg] legends and literature chapter x legends and literature in norwegian folk-lore the devil is a person with many relations, who are called _jutuls_. in favour of the legends about them there is often some circumstantial evidence. does a mountain or a rock bear similitude to the figures of human beings or of animals? be sure that the norwegians will have some tradition to account for the formation by proving to you that such rocks or mountains are the various creatures they resemble, bewitched. in the voyage along the northern coast of norway from trondhjem to the north cape, the traveller will pass seven extraordinary mountains called "the seven sisters." a little farther he will see a rocky island which from certain points of view resembles a cloaked man on horseback riding into the sea. the head and ears of the horse are particularly natural. the history of these islands is entertaining. one of the devil's younger brothers, who lived in this district, went on a visit to his seven sisters, who, like himself, were of giant growth. the sisters had with them a female cousin. with this jutula their brother fell in love, and, as is customary in such cases, they swore eternal fidelity to each other. business called the jutul home; his beloved cousin was sent for to nurse a sick brother. she fulfilled this duty to admiration, and in the weakness of his convalescence her brother listened to the story of her love and promised her that she should wed her jutul cousin. on his complete recovery he became less amenable, and, ignoring his promise, insisted that his sister should wed one of his dissolute companions. it is said that the jutula's chief objection to this man was that he smelt strongly of tobacco; but i think that this must be embroidery, as my story is older than the use of tobacco. in any case, her refusal was absolute, and the brother was obliged to employ malignant magic. all the messengers from the jutul, loving and beloved by his sister, were turned into rocks before they could reach her ear. the amorous jutul was not aware that his beloved had a brother, or any other relation, and, concluding that she was the last of her race, believed also that it was she who had petrified his messengers. wrathful, and having as his birthright an unerring aim, he mounted his steed and shot from his cross-bow a bolt at the dwelling of the jutula. the perfidious brother was bathing at the time, and, presumably for the purposes of the story, he wore a sou'wester. the bolt, shot from seventy miles' distance, passed through the hat, and carried away a portion of the victim's skull; then, skimming the water, it pierced the heart of the fair one. she knew that only her lover had this unerring aim, and, thinking him faithless and cruel, used her dying moments in the exercise of her hereditary power, and petrified herself, her lover, his horse, and the floating sou'wester. there they remain to this day. overlooking the scene of sorrow stand the seven sisters of the misguided lover, petrified with horror at the fate of their relations. the distance between the various islands is considerable; but it must be remembered that we tell of giants. [illustration: henrik ibsen] norwegian geography abounds in spots such as these, to which are attached legends; and in no country is the folk-lore more rich and varied. the charming story-teller, asbjornsen, and his friend bishop moe, collected many delightful fairy-tales, mostly traditional, but eked out by their own imaginations. these stories are entrancing, and at the time when they were first given to the public they awoke a romantic tendency in norwegian literature. they had a great influence on the work of joseph welhaven, contemporary with the great weigeland, who died at this time. welhaven had been rather overshadowed by his rival, who, for the part he had played in political struggles, was idolised as the people's hero. also, his work had been too much influenced by the great germans who were his contemporaries. the charming figures in the fairy-tales of his country gave him inspiration for wonderful romances with the genuine norwegian ring and subjects taken from national life. asbjornsen, however, is more than a retailer of folk-lore. he frames his tales in description of the country in which he has found them on the lips of the people, and thus produces vivid pictures of peasant life. the sister of henrik weigeland, camille collett, during her widowhood burst forth as a literary genius. apart from her talents as a writer, she was one of the pioneers of the women's movement in norway, which country has been more influenced by this agitation than any other european state. immense importance is attached to it; the great geniuses ibsen and bjornson show much interest in the moral side of the question; and all norwegians are very eager to discuss the subject, which is far too large and complicated for myself. [illustration: bjornstjerne bjornson] ibsen is best known as a playwright. indeed, from the time he succeeded in drama all other interests were put aside. the norwegian government provided him, at the age of thirty-six, with pecuniary aid to enable him to travel. it was in rome that he wrote two of his greatest plays, _peer gynt_ and _brand_. to-day his literary activity has ceased, and all who will may see the great man seated at a window of his flat in christiania almost any time during the livelong day. bjornstjerne bjornson is still producing. he has written delightful romances; but for the last few years he, like ibsen, has devoted himself to the stage. it is interesting to note that the splendid national theatre in christiania is managed by the writer's eldest son. his plays and those of ibsen are magnificently acted, and always received with enthusiastic appreciation by the norwegian public, which gives all its great men a splendid meed of appreciative recognition--how well deserved it is, the whole world will acknowledge. the translated commentary on the norwegian literature of the last fifty years makes me feel that i would give everything for a knowledge of the language sufficient to let me enter into the treasure-house of untranslated genius. many of our modern authors are translated into norwegian. i noticed that every book-shop window contained caricatures of mark twain and translations of his works. surely there was some particular reason for this celebrity of an american humourist in norway over and above the excellence of his work, which one would have thought difficult to do justice by in translation? german books form a large part of the stock-in-trade of the norwegian bookseller. the german language is very generally known--much more so than either french or english. in this and many other things it is plainly to be seen that there is much good feeling between germany and norway. [illustration: fridtjof nansen] public baths are to be found all over norway--in some places are still found the _badstuer_. these are primitive turkish baths, timber rooms heated with red-hot stones. water is poured on the stones, and scalding steam is produced. i read in an old book on norway an account by an american traveller of a visit to such a bath. he appears to have been rather a popular person among the norwegian peasants, and was invited one saturday in the depth of winter to assist at the general ablution. he relates with much amusing comment how all the bathers ran from their dwelling-places to the "bath chamber" in what he calls "the costume of paradise." this in the depth of winter! determined to do the whole thing properly, he followed their chilly example. at the bath, the whole company sat round the room on a sort of shelf. when they were thoroughly well steamed they wended their way back to their respective houses in the same lack of costume. there was no discrimination of sexes. the writer speaks in high praise of the simplicity, innocence, and cleanliness of the people. there is in all writings on norway a unanimity as to their good qualities. for my own part, the points about them that impressed me most were their absolute honesty and the complete absence of servility. while any norwegian is delighted to show politeness to the stranger, and even to take a good deal of trouble in helping him on his way, all these attentions arise from a supreme feeling of courtesy and rarely from hope of reward. anyone wishing to have particular information as to a subject concerning the country will be met on all sides with practical offers of assistance. he will find books relating to his subject showered upon him, and kind offers to accompany him and show him practical illustrations. this generous spirit, which has its source in love of the native land, is nowhere more marked than in such an establishment as bennet's, the thomas cook and sons of norway. this, one would say, is a strictly commercial affair; yet there is no end to the trouble bennet or his staff will take to encourage visitors to see as much as possible of their lovely country in a pleasant way, and this without remuneration of any kind. writing from norway in , a visitor says--"there is no country which accords better with my taste than norway, nor is there any cast of inhabitants or people that i have visited for whom i have more esteem. here at least are the true haunts of simple natures, and it has been one of the pleasantest passages of my life to dwell among the mountains. the norwegians are a virtuous race; patriarchal simplicity, uprightness and hospitality, kindness and piety, are their characteristics. they entertain great reverence for their laws. in many other countries the laws are not obeyed on one uniform principle; here, on the contrary, the people respect them from principle." index aalesund; anglers; antiquaries; , "aqua vita"; arac punch; art, norwegian; asbjornsen; aune; avalanches; _badstuer_; bandak lake; baths, public; bennet's; bergen; , bjornson; boarding-houses; bonaparte; bread; brottem; buar glacier; butter; bygdo; canal; _carriole_; catholic nursing sisters; catholicism; cereals; christiania; christiania fjord; christmas; cod; collett, camille; common land; courtesy; cows; , dalen , dutch character; elk; embroidery; fiddlers, official; filigree work; "fish pig"; fishing; fjord steamers; folk-lore; forester; fruit, wild; funerals; german emperor; , gjora; goblins; good-looking people; goose wine; grieg, edward; guinea-pig; gulf stream; haukelidsÆter; hanseatic league; hardanger bridal; hardanger fjord; hardanger violin; hell; herring; history; holmenkollen; honesty; horghheim; horre; horses, norwegian; , huldra; ibsen; intoxicating liquors; jesuits; jewellery, peasant; jews; _kaleschevogn_; karasjok; kontokeimo; _langelik_; lapps; , leprosy; lerfos; liffeld mountains; lindeman; lofoten; lure, the; mangling; "marie stige"; marienborg; moe, bishop; molde; , moldöen; "monk and lady"; morality; munch, edward; music; mythology, norwegian; nÆs; national dances; odde; osterthal; pixies; , population; posting system; prawns; railway; rain; ravngju; reindeer; rjukan fos; roldal; romsdal mountains; , roofs of grass; saeters; sætersdalen; , saint michael; st. michael's chapel; st. olaf; st. olaf's ship; salmon; salmon fishing; "sanatoriums; sea fisheries; sælbo; seljestad; service in hotels; "seven sisters"; shops; signposts; skating; ski competition; skien fjord; skiing; skis; sliper; snake; snow ploughs; snow tunnel; sogne fjord; _stavekirke_; _stolkjærre_; , storehouses; storen; sundal; sundalsoren; tidemand; thaulow, fritz; tobogganing; _torfisk_; trains; trolls; trondhjem; , ulefos; vikings; voss; vrangfos; weaving; wedding customs; weigeland; welhaven, joseph; whale; whale fishing; wireways, aerial; women's movement; wood-carving; wood-pulp; wooden boxes; woodsmen; wrecks; x; printed by neill and company, limited edinburgh a queen of tears _by the same author._ the love of an uncrowned queen: sophie dorothea, consort of george i., and her correspondence with philip christopher, count konigsmarck. new and revised edition. _with portraits and illustrations._ _ vo., s. d. net._ longmans, green, and co., london, new york and bombay. [illustration: _queen matilda in the uniform of colonel of the holstein regiment of guards._ _after the painting by als, ._] a queen of tears caroline matilda, queen of denmark and norway and princess of great britain and ireland by w. h. wilkins _m.a._, _f.s.a._ _author of "the love of an uncrowned queen," and "caroline the illustrious, queen consort of george ii."_ with illustrations in two volumes vol. ii. longmans, green, and co. paternoster row, london new york and bombay contents page contents v list of illustrations vii chapter i. the turn of the tide chapter ii. the gathering storm chapter iii. the masked ball chapter iv. the palace revolution chapter v. the triumph of the queen-dowager chapter vi. "a daughter of england" chapter vii. the imprisoned queen chapter viii. the divorce of the queen chapter ix. the trials of struensee and brandt chapter x. the executions chapter xi. the release of the queen chapter xii. refuge at celle chapter xiii. the restoration plot chapter xiv. the death of the queen chapter xv. retribution appendix. list of authorities index catalog transcriber's note list of illustrations queen matilda in the uniform of colonel of the holstein regiment of guards. (_photogravure._) _from a painting by als, _ _frontispiece_ the rosenborg castle, copenhagen _facing page_ struensee. _from the painting by jens juel, , now in the possession of count bille-brahe_ " " enevold brandt. _from a miniature at frederiksborg_ " " queen juliana maria, step-mother of christian vii. _from the painting by clemens_ " " king christian vii.'s note to queen matilda informing her of her arrest " " the room in which queen matilda was imprisoned at kronborg _page_ count bernstorff _facing page_ frederick, hereditary prince of denmark, step-brother of christian vii. " " the courtyard of the castle at kronborg. _from an engraving_ " " rÖskilde cathedral, where the kings and queens of denmark are buried " " the great court of frederiksborg palace. _from a painting by heinrich hansen_ " " the docks, copenhagen, _temp. _ " " the market place and town hall, copenhagen, _temp. _ " " struensee in his dungeon. _from a contemporary print_ " " sir robert murray keith, k.c.b " " a view of elsinore, showing the castle of kronborg. _from the drawing by c. f. christensen_ " " the castle of celle: the apartments of queen matilda were in the tower " " queen matilda. _from the painting formerly at celle_ " " augusta, princess of great britain and duchess of brunswick, sister of queen matilda. _from the painting by sir joshua reynolds_ " " louise augusta, princess of denmark and duchess of augustenburg, daughter of queen matilda " " the church at celle, where queen matilda is buried. _from a photograph_ " " the memorial erected to queen matilda in the french garden of celle " " frederick, crown prince of denmark (afterwards king frederick vi.), son of queen matilda " " chapter i. the turn of the tide. . struensee had now reached the highest pinnacle of power, but no sooner did he gain it than the whole edifice, which he had reared with consummate care, began to tremble and to rock; it threatened to collapse into ruins and involve in destruction not only the man who built it, but those who had aided him in the task. the winter of - had been a very severe one in denmark, and the harvest of the summer that followed was very bad. in the country there was great distress, and in copenhagen trade languished, largely in consequence of the new order of things at court, which had caused so many of the nobles to shut up their town houses and retire to their estates. the clergy did not hesitate to say that the bad harvest and the stagnation of trade were judgments of heaven upon the wickedness in high places. the nobles declared that until the kingdom were rid of struensee and his minions, things would inevitably go from bad to worse. in every class there was discontent; the people were sullen and ripe for revolt; the navy was disaffected, and the army was on the verge of mutiny. all around were heard mutterings of a coming storm. but struensee, intoxicated by success, would not heed, and so long as he was sure of himself no one dared to dispossess him. the rats were already leaving the sinking ship. rantzau was the first to break away; he had never forgiven either struensee or the queen for having so inadequately (as he considered) rewarded his services. he had expected a more prominent post in the government, and failing this had demanded that his debts, which were very heavy, should be paid. but to his amazement and anger, struensee had refused. rantzau was jealous of the privy cabinet minister for having arrogated to himself all power and all authority. he could not forget that this upstart favourite, this ex-doctor, had been a creature of his own making, employed by him not so long ago for base purposes, and he hated and despised him with a bitterness proverbial when thieves fall out. rantzau had often traversed the dark and slippery paths of intrigue, and, finding that nothing more was to be got from the party in power, he resolved to traverse them once again. not being burdened with consistency, this time they led him in the direction of the exiled bernstorff, whom he had been instrumental in overthrowing. it seemed to him that if bernstorff would but return to copenhagen, supported as he was by the powerful influence of russia and england, and the whole body of the danish nobility, struensee would surely be overthrown. but bernstorff, though he lamented the evil days that had fallen upon denmark, refused to have anything to do with a scheme in which rantzau was concerned. "he knows," said bernstorff, "that i cannot trust him, and i would rather remain here in exile than return to office through his means." rantzau then determined on another plan; he shook the dust of the struensee administration off his feet; he took formal leave of the king and queen while they were at hirschholm, and ostentatiously went to live in retirement. this was only a preparatory move, for he now determined to gain the confidence of the queen-dowager and her party, to which he felt he naturally belonged. after all he was the inheritor of a great and an ancient name, and his family was one of the most considerable in the kingdom. his place was rather with the nobles, who were his equals, than in filling a subordinate position in the councils of a mountebank minister. the queen-dowager, like bernstorff, listened to all that rantzau had to say, but, unlike bernstorff, she did not repulse him. on the other hand, she refused to commit herself to any definite plan, for she knew well the character of rantzau as a liar and traitor. he was the very man to carry out some desperate attempt, but juliana maria had not yet made up her mind whether her cause would be better won by waiting or by a _coup d'état_. at present she was inclined to agree with catherine of russia, who repeatedly said that if struensee had rope enough he would hang himself before long, and so save others the trouble. osten also had differences with struensee, which at one time he carried to the point of sending in his resignation.[ ] but he was "told that his services in the post he now filled could not be dispensed with, that he was not only useful but necessary, and that he might be assured his remonstrances would always have their weight".[ ] so osten, though he hated and despised struensee quite as much as rantzau did, consented to remain, and, wily diplomatist that he was, performed the difficult task of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. for he saw more clearly than any one that the present administration could not last long, and he therefore determined, while taking all he could get from struensee, to put himself in the right with the other side, so that when struensee's ship went down in the tempest, he would ride on the crest of the wave. to this end he paid assiduous court to the english and russian envoys, though careful to keep on good terms with those of france and sweden. he also managed to convey to the queen-dowager and her party the idea that he wished them well, and that he only remained in his present post under protest, for the good of the country. [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, june , . [ ] _ibid._ general gahler, the minister for war, was also disaffected, and had frequent quarrels with struensee on matters connected with the army. but gahler was too deeply committed to struensee's policy to make any course possible to him except that of resignation. and gahler was reluctant to resign, not only because he was a poor man and loved the emoluments of office, but also because his wife was a great friend of the queen, and one of the ladies of her household. both osten and gahler from time to time remonstrated with the arbitrary minister on the wanton way in which he stirred up public feeling against his administration, and counselled more conciliatory policy; but struensee would not hear. even brandt, whom struensee trusted absolutely, and whom he had loaded with benefits, was jealous and discontented, and ready at any moment to betray his friend if thereby he could benefit himself. brandt was greatly dissatisfied with his position, though reverdil had relieved him of his most onerous duties, and said with regard to some reproaches he had received from the queen, "that alone is hell". he made so many complaints to struensee that the minister requested him to formulate them in writing. brandt then addressed him a lengthy letter in which he complained bitterly of struensee's interference in his department at the court, which, he declared, rendered him contemptible in the eyes of all. he told struensee that his was a reign of terror. "no despot ever arrogated such power as yourself, or exercised it in such a way. the king's pages and domestics tremble at the slightest occurrence: all are seized with terror; they talk, they eat, they drink, but tremble as they do so. fear has seized on all who surround the minister, even on the queen, who no longer has a will of her own, not even in the choice of her dresses and their colour." he also complained that struensee compelled him to play cards with the king and queen, with the result that he lost heavily, and his salary was thereby quite insufficient. he therefore requested permission to leave the danish court, and resign all his offices in consideration of the yearly pension of five thousand dollars a year. with this handsome annuity he proposed to live in paris and enjoy himself. he also asked for estates in denmark to sustain his dignity as count. his letter ended with a covert threat that if his requests were not granted it was possible that he might be drawn into a plot against struensee, or put an end to an intolerable position by "poison or steel".[ ] [ ] this letter is still preserved in the archives of copenhagen. it is not worth while quoting it in full. [illustration: the rosenborg castle, copenhagen.] this letter was not only very insolent, but also incoherent, and showed every sign of an unbalanced mind. yet struensee, who apparently cherished a peculiar tenderness for brandt, treated the epistle quite seriously, and instead of dismissing him from court, as he might well have done, he replied in a lengthy document which almost assumed the importance of a state paper. he traced the whole of brandt's discontent to his amour with countess holstein, whom he disliked and distrusted. he justified his interference in court matters on the ground that countess holstein and brandt together had introduced changes which were displeasing to the queen, and with respect to the queen's dresses he wrote: "the queen, though a lady, is not angry with me when i recommend retrenchment in respect to her wardrobe." with regard to brandt's losses at cards, he replied that loo was the only game the king and queen liked, and therefore it was impossible to change it, and if brandt and countess holstein did not understand the game and consequently lost, he recommended them either to learn it better or put on more moderate stakes. he took no notice of brandt's demand for a pension, but he declared that neither for him, nor for himself, would he ask the king to grant estates to maintain their new dignities. brandt received struensee's letter with secret anger and disgust. the minister's evident wish to conciliate him he regarded as a sign of weakness, and he immediately began to plot against his friend. thus it will be seen that struensee's colleagues were all false to him, and were only waiting an opportunity to betray him. the queen still clung to him with blind infatuation, and lived in a fool's paradise, though her court was honeycombed with intrigues and she was surrounded with spies and enemies. even her waiting women were leagued against her. they sanded the floor of the passage from struensee's chamber to the queen's at night, that they might see the traces of his footsteps in the morning; they put wax in the lock, and listened at the keyhole; they laid traps at every turn, and the unconscious queen fell readily into them. all these evidences of her indiscretion were carefully noted, and communicated to the queen-dowager at fredensborg. in copenhagen and in the country the discontent daily grew greater, and the boldness of struensee's enemies more and more manifest. in giving freedom to the press he had forged a terrible weapon for his own undoing, and papers and pamphlets continually teemed with attacks on the hated minister. threatening and abusive letters reached him daily, coarse and scurrilous attacks were placarded on the walls of the royal palaces, and even thrown into the gardens at hirschholm, that the queen and struensee might see them on their daily walks. when such efforts were made to fan the embers of popular discontent, it is no wonder that they soon burst into a flame. the first outbreak came in this wise. an inglorious and expensive naval war against the dey of algiers, inherited from the bernstorff administration, was still being prosecuted, and struensee had ordered new ships to be constructed, and sent to norway for sailors to man them. such was the maladministration of the navy department that the work proceeded very slowly, and the norwegian sailors who had been brought to copenhagen wandered about in idleness, waiting for the vessels to be finished. the government, with manifest injustice, would neither give these sailors their pay nor allow them to return to their homes. the only effect of their remonstrances was that the dockyard men were ordered to work on sundays so that the vessels might be finished sooner. the dockyard men asked for double pay if they worked on sundays, and this being refused, they struck off work altogether, and joined the ranks of the unemployed sailors, who had been waiting eight weeks for their pay, and were almost starving. the norwegians had always taken kindly to the theory of the absolute power of the king. their political creed was very simple: first, that the king could do no wrong, and secondly, that he must be blindly obeyed. it therefore followed naturally that, if an act of injustice like the present one were committed, it must be committed by the king's subordinates, and not by himself, and he had only to know to set matters right. having petitioned the government repeatedly without receiving any redress, they determined to take matters in their own hands. early in september a body of norwegian sailors, to the number of two hundred, set out from copenhagen for hirschholm with the resolution of laying their grievance before the king in person, in the confident hope that they would thus obtain redress. when the sailors drew near to hirschholm the wildest rumours spread through the court, and the greatest panic prevailed. it was thought to be an insurrection, and the mutineers were reported to be swarming out from copenhagen to seize the king and queen, loot the palace, and murder the minister. the guard was called out and the gates were barred, and a courier despatched to copenhagen for a troop of dragoons. at the first sound of alarm the king and queen, struensee, brandt, and the whole court, fled by a back door across the gardens to sophienburg, about two miles distant. here they halted for a space, while the queen and struensee seriously debated whether they should continue their flight to elsinore, and seek refuge behind the stout walls of the ancient fortress of kronborg. eventually they resolved first to despatch an aide-de-camp back to hirschholm to reconnoitre, and to parley with the supposed insurgents. the aide-de-camp, who was a naval officer, met the malcontents outside the palace gates, and was surprised to see no mutineers, but only a body of norwegian sailors, whose sufferings and deprivations were clearly marked upon their countenances. he asked them what they wanted. "we wish to speak with our little father, the king," was the reply; "he will hear us and help us." the aide-de-camp galloped back with this message to sophienburg, but struensee thought it was a trap, and made the officer return and say that the king was out hunting. the sailors replied that they did not believe it, and prepared to force their way into the palace that they might see the king face to face; the guard, which had now been reinforced by a troop of dragoons, tried to drive them back. the sailors, whose intentions had been quite peaceful, now laid hands on their knives, and declared that they would defend themselves if the soldiers attacked them. fortunately the aide-de-camp was a man of resource, and resolved to act on his own initiative and avoid bloodshed; he saw that the men were not insurgents. he made a feint to go back and presently came out of the palace again and announced that he had a message to them from the king. his majesty commanded him to say that if his loyal sailors would return quietly, he would see justice done to them. with this the sailors professed themselves to be content, and they walked back to copenhagen as peacefully as they had come. the promise was kept, and more than kept, for the sailors, on their return to copenhagen, were treated with spirits, temporarily appeased by a payment on account, and all their arrears were settled a few days later. the aide-de-camp had gone again to sophienburg and told struensee that this was the only way to pacify them, and a courier had been sent in haste from hirschholm to the admiralty at copenhagen to order these things to be done, for struensee was by this time frightened into promising anything and everything. when the sailors had gone and quiet was restored, struensee was persuaded to return to hirschholm, but only after great difficulty; the guard round the palace was doubled, and the dragoons patrolled all night, for struensee greatly feared that the sailors would shortly return more furious and better armed. the queen, who was determined, whatever happened, not to abandon her favourite, ordered that her horses should be kept saddled and in readiness, so that at the first sign of tumult she might fly with him and the king to kronborg. she went to bed in disorder, had her riding-habit laid in readiness by the side of the bed, and in the middle of the night rose to have her jewellery packed up. struensee was in abject terror all night, and would not go to bed at all. with the morning light came reflection and renewed courage, and then the court was ashamed of the panic it had shown, and did the best to conceal it; but the news travelled to copenhagen. the way in which struensee had capitulated to the demand of the norwegian sailors on the first hint of tumult led other bodies of men, whose claims were less just, to have their demands redressed in a similar way. therefore, a fortnight later a body of some hundred and twenty silk-weavers proceeded on foot from copenhagen to hirschholm to complain that they were starving because the royal silk factories had been closed. again the alarmed minister yielded, and orders were given that work in the factories should be continued, at least until the silk-weavers could obtain other employment. these demonstrations roused the fear that others would follow, and the guard at hirschholm was increased, and soldiers were now posted round the palace and the gardens day and night. for the first time in the history of the nation the king of denmark lived in a state of siege for fear of his own people. keith wrote home on the subject of the recent disturbances: "the general discontent here seems to gain strength daily, and the impunity which attended the tumultuous appearances of the norwegian sailors at hirschholm has encouraged the popular clamours (which are no more restrained by the nature of this government) to break out in such indecent representations and publications as even threaten rebellion.... "i pray heaven that all lawless attempts may meet with the punishment they deserve, and i sincerely trust they will. but if, unfortunately, it should happen that the populace is ever stirred up to signalise their resentment against its principal objects, the counts struensee and brandt, your lordship will not be surprised if the vengeance of a danish mob should become cruel and sanguinary."[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, september , . the "indecent representations and publications" became so bad that struensee was provoked into revoking his former edict and issuing a rescript to the effect that, as the press had so grossly abused the liberty granted to it by foul and unjustifiable attacks on the government, it would again be placed under strict censorship. this edict had the effect of stopping the direct attacks upon struensee in the papers; but the scribblers soon found a way of evading the censorship by attacking their foe indirectly, and bitter pasquinades were issued, of which, though no names were mentioned, every one understood the drift. for instance, one of the leading publications, _the magazine of periodical literature_, propounded the following questions for solution: "is it possible that a woman's lover can be her husband's sincere friend and faithful adviser?" and again: "if the husband accepts him as his confidant, what consequences will result for all three, and for the children?" the answers to these questions contained the fiercest and most scurrilous attacks on the queen and struensee, under the cover of general and abstract statements. the alarm which the norwegian sailors had caused struensee was followed by the discovery of a plot against his life which increased his terror. there were about five thousand men employed in the government dockyards at copenhagen as ship-builders and labourers of every description. these men were also dissatisfied at the changes which had lately been introduced into the naval department, and their attitude for some time had been sullen and mutinous. to punish them for their discontent struensee had excluded them from the festivities on the king's last birthday, but now, fearing another outbreak, more formidable than that of the norwegian sailors, he swung round to the other extreme, and determined to give these dockyard men a feast of conciliation in the grounds of frederiksberg to compensate them for the loss of their perquisites on the king's birthday. september was the day chosen for the _fête_, and it was announced that the king and queen, the privy cabinet minister and all the court would drive over from hirschholm to honour the gathering with their presence. the _corps diplomatique_ were invited to meet their majesties, and a detachment of the new flying body guard was told off to form the royal escort. the _fête_ was favoured with fine weather, and the day was observed as a day of gala; the dockyard men, with their wives and children, and drums beating and banners flying, went in procession to the gardens of frederiksberg, where they were lavishly regaled. oxen were roasted whole, and sheep, pigs, geese, ducks and fowls were also roasted and distributed. thirty tuns of beer were broached, a quart of rum was given to each man, a pipe of tobacco and a day's wages. after dinner there were games, dancing and music. all day long the revellers waited for the coming of the king and queen, but they waited in vain. in the morning, at hirschholm, the king and queen made themselves ready and were about to start, when a rumour reached the palace that a plot had been formed to assassinate struensee at the festival. immediately all was confusion. the king and queen retired to their apartments, and struensee summoned brandt and falckenskjold to a hurried conference. falckenskjold urged struensee to treat the rumour as baseless, go to the festival and present an unmoved front to the people. this display of personal courage would do more than anything else to give the lie to the rumours of his cowardice at hirschholm, and now that he was forewarned he could be safely guarded. nothing would induce struensee to go; he shuddered at the slightest hint of assassination. falckenskjold then advised him cynically, as he was so much afraid, to be more careful in the future how he stirred up his enemies, or he might find himself not only dismissed from office and disgraced, but dragged to the scaffold on a charge of high treason. struensee said such a charge was impossible, as he had done nothing without the consent of the king. "well, at any rate see that your papers are in order," said falckenskjold significantly. "my papers are arranged," struensee replied; "on that account i have nothing to fear, if my enemies will only behave fairly in other respects." brandt also joined in urging struensee to modify some of his more objectionable measures, and attempt to conciliate his enemies. but struensee, though he trembled at the mere hint of personal violence, was obstinate as to this. "no," he said emphatically; "i will withdraw nothing which in my belief promotes the welfare of the state." "the time will come," said brandt emphatically, "when you will _have_ to yield." struensee went to see the queen, and shortly after a message came countermanding all orders, as neither the king nor the queen would attend the festival. the dockyard men were much disappointed at the non-appearance of their majesties, and their disappointment was changed to indignation when they learned that it was fear which kept them at hirschholm. it seemed incredible that the king of denmark should distrust his own people. the king, in point of fact, did not distrust them; he showed himself quite indifferent whether he went to frederiksberg or stayed at home; it was struensee who feared for himself, and the queen who feared for her favourite. the proceedings at frederiksberg passed off without any disturbance, though the dockyard men jestingly remarked that the ox sacrificed for them was not the ox they had been promised--an allusion to struensee's corpulence. struensee probably showed discretion in keeping away from the festival, for there was a deep-laid plot to capture him, alive or dead, when he mingled with the crowd.[ ] [ ] in baron bülow gave mr. wraxall a detailed account of the plot to murder struensee and his partisans on this occasion.--wraxall's _posthumous memoirs_. the terror and irresolution displayed by struensee were quite foreign to the character before conceived of him both by friends and foes. "i have begun to see his character in a different light from that in which it appeared formerly,"[ ] writes keith; and again: "it has been whispered about that, upon the late disturbances, he betrayed some unexpected signs of personal fear, and the natural result of this suspicion is to loosen the attachment of the persons whom he has trusted, and to diminish that awe which is necessary for the maintenance of his unbounded authority."[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, september, . [ ] _ibid._ struensee's cowardice, now twice proved, dealt a fatal blow to his prestige: the man of iron had feet of clay; the despotic minister, "the man mountain," whose reign, according to brandt, was based on the terror he inspired, was himself stricken with craven fears. it seemed inconceivable that a man who had dared everything, and braved every risk to gain power, should, the moment he reached the goal of his ambition, reveal himself a poltroon. for two years struensee had shown an unmoved front to the threats of his enemies; for two years he had carried his life in his hand; but now the mere hint of insurrection, or assassination, made him tremble and cower behind the skirts of the queen. this inconsistency has never been satisfactorily explained in any of the books written on struensee and his administration. his admirers pass it over as lightly as possible. his enemies say that it reveals the man in his true colours as a sorry rogue; but this theory will not hold, for the courage and resource which struensee showed all through his career until the last few months give it the lie. the key to the mystery is probably to be found in physical causes. struensee was still a young man as statesmen go; he was only thirty-four years of age--an age when most men are entering upon the prime and full vigour of their manhood--and he came of a healthy stock; but the herculean labours of the last two years had told upon him. no man could overthrow ministers, reform public offices, formulate a new code of laws, and change the whole policy of a kingdom without feeling the strain. for two years struensee had been working at high pressure, toiling early and late. he left little or nothing to subordinates; his eagle eye was everywhere, and not a detail escaped him, either in the government or in the court. he was a glutton for work, and gathered to himself every department of the administration. no step could be taken without his approval; no change, however slight, effected until it had first been submitted to him. we have seen how osten complained that struensee meddled in his department; we have seen how brandt complained that even the comedies and dances, the colour and shape of the queen's dresses, had to receive the dictator's approval. it was not humanly possible that any man, even though he were a "beyond-man," could work at this pitch for any length of time. he could not do justice to matters of high policy and government, and supervise every petty detail of a court; either one or the other must suffer, and with struensee the more important, in the long run, went to the wall. he lost his sense of the proportion of things, and became burdened with a mass of detail. it was not only the work which suffered, but the man himself; overstrained, he lost his balance, overwrought, he lost his nerve. to this must be ascribed the fatal errors which characterised the last few months of his administration. to this and his self-indulgence. it was almost impossible that a man could work at so high a pressure without injury; it could only be possible if he took the greatest heed of himself, carefully guarded his bodily health, and led a regular and abstemious life. two of struensee's greatest contemporaries, who achieved most in the world, frederick the great and catherine the great, were careful to lead simple, abstemious lives;[ ] but struensee was by nature a voluptuary, and he lived the life of the senses as well as the life of the intellect. in early years he had to check this tendency to some extent, for he lacked the means to purchase his pleasures; but when, by an extraordinary turn of fortune's wheel, he found himself raised from obscurity to power, from poverty to affluence, with the exchequer of a kingdom at his disposal, and unlimited means whereby to gratify every wish, he gave full rein to his appetites. he was a gourmand; the dishes which came to the royal table were made to tickle his palate, and what he did not like was not served, for this mighty minister even superintended the cuisine, and took a pleasure therein. rich food called for rare vintages, and the choicest wines in the royal cellar were at struensee's disposal. he did not stint himself either with food or drink; he was a wine-bibber as well as a glutton, and habitually ate and drank more than was good for him. all his life he had been a scoffer at morality, and now he deliberately made use of his opportunities to practise what he preached. in fine, when he was not at work, his time was spent in the gratification of carnal pleasures. he never took any real rest; a few hours' sleep, generally not begun until long after midnight, were all he allowed himself, and the moment his eyes opened he was at work again. the result of this excess, both in work and pleasure, was a nervous breakdown; he became corpulent and flabby, his physical and mental health was shattered, and he was no longer able to keep that firm grasp upon affairs which the position he had arrogated to himself demanded from the man at the helm. he relaxed his hold, and the ship of state, which he had built with so much care, began to drift rapidly and surely towards destruction. in the royal archives at copenhagen may be seen many specimens of struensee's signature which he inscribed upon documents during his brief rule, and in the last months of his administration this signature is no longer bold and firm, but wavering and disjointed, as though written with a trembling hand. this was accounted for at the time by the statement that struensee had hurt his wrist in a heavy fall from his horse, while riding with the queen at hirschholm towards the end of september. but the cause probably lay deeper than that, and the trembling signature was an evidence of the rapidly failing powers of the man, who, until he showed fear at the arrival of the handful of sailors at hirschholm, had been considered almost superhuman. [ ] catherine the great, of course, broke her rule in one respect, but then she was an exception of all rules. [illustration: struensee. _from the painting by jens juel, , now in the possession of count bille-brahe._] this theory of physical collapse also explains much that is otherwise inexplicable in the closing days of struensee's career. when, by royal decree, he had arrogated to himself the kingly authority, and wielded without let or hindrance absolute power, it was thought that he would use this power to complete the work he had begun, and to revolutionise the whole political government of the kingdoms. but, to the astonishment of all, struensee did nothing; the power lay idle in hands that seemed half-paralysed, or only showed intermittent signs that it existed by some feeble revocation of previous acts, as, for instance, the re-imposition of the censorship of the press. as keith wrote: "it would seem as if the genius of the prime minister had wasted itself by the hasty strides he made to gain the summit of power. daily experience shows us that he has formed no steady plan either with regard to the interior affairs of denmark or her foreign connections. from such a man it was natural to expect that the most decisive and even headlong acts would distinguish an administration of which he had the sole direction; instead of which, the business accumulates in every department of the state, and only a few desultory steps have been taken, which lead to no important or permanent consequences."[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, september , . to the same cause must be attributed the apathy with which struensee regarded the treachery of his followers, and the increased activity of his enemies. though beset by dangers on every side, he disregarded alike warnings and entreaties, and drifted on to his doom. it is true that this indifference was broken by spasms of unreasoning panic; but the moment the threatened peril had passed he fell back into apathy again. chapter ii. the gathering storm. . the queen's love for struensee was not lessened by the discovery that her idol had feet of clay, but she lost some of her blind faith in his power to mould all things to his will. she once told her ladies that "if a woman truly loved a man, she ought to follow him, even though it were to hell"; it seemed likely that her words would before long be put to the test. during those autumn days at hirschholm, when the popular discontent seethed to the very doors of the palace, the queen came out of her fool's paradise and realised that she and her favourite were living on a volcano that might at any moment erupt and overwhelm them. she frequently discussed with her court, half in jest and half in earnest, what they should do when the catastrophe came. once at the royal table the queen laughingly suggested to her friends the advisability of all taking flight together, and each began to consider what he, or she, would do to gain a livelihood in exile. the queen, who had a very sweet voice, and played on the harpsichord, said she would turn singer, for she was sure by that means she would never starve. struensee said he would take a lonely farm, and devote himself to agriculture and the consolations of philosophy. brandt said he should turn his dramatic talents to use, and become the acting manager of a theatre. "and as for you, my fair lady," he said to one of the queen's ladies, probably madame gahler, "with your peerless form, you need do nothing, but simply sit as a model for artists." the lady winced, and the rest of the company laughed, for it was known, though she was very beautiful, that she had a defect in her figure, which she was at great pains to conceal. despite this levity in public, they were all secretly uneasy, and brooded much over the situation in private. except the queen, who thought only of struensee, each one sought how he might save himself--if necessary at the expense of his fellows. struensee was thrown into a fresh panic by the appearance of a placard setting a price upon his head, which was posted up by night in the principal street of copenhagen, and ran:-- "as the traitor struensee continues to ill-treat our beloved king, to mock his faithful subjects, and to seize with force and injustice more and more of the royal authority, which the danish people have entrusted to their king alone, this struensee and his adherents are hereby declared outlawed. the man who puts an end to this traitor's life shall receive five hundred dollars reward, his name kept secret, and a royal pardon granted him."[ ] [ ] translated from the original document now preserved in the royal archives at copenhagen. according to keith this placard was probably a hoax, but it had a dire effect upon struensee. "a paper," keith writes, "was fixed up in the public squares of this city, setting a price upon his head, and this stratagem--for i can only look upon it as such--had like to have produced a very strange effect, as i am assured for some days he was preparing to leave denmark, and that the appearance of fifty men in a threatening manner would have decided his flight."[ ] but keith was far more prejudiced against struensee than gunning was, and he may have exaggerated. [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, november , . struensee at this time certainly considered the possibility of flight; he spoke to reverdil on the subject, and declared that he was only prevented by his devotion to the queen, who, if he deserted her, would again become the victim of intrigue. but probably brandt's reasoning weighed more with him. "whither would you go," said brandt, "where you would be prime minister and favourite of a queen?" whither indeed? struensee's enemies sought to frighten him into resignation. but they little knew their man. he would cling to office and power until they were wrenched from his grasp. thinking himself secure behind the shelter of the queen he did not heed the plots of the queen-dowager and the nobles against his authority. what he dreaded was assassination, or an insurrection of the people. keith, a foreigner, took something of the same view: "the persons who are most incensed against this ministry," he wrote, "seem both by their principles and their timidity inclined to pursue their ends by dark and secret methods, and if they are to succeed at all, it must be by seizing a moment of popular frenzy and striking their blow all at once."[ ] brandt, though he counselled struensee to stay, was really very uneasy at the aspect of affairs: "i wish all this would come to an end," he said one day to falckenskjold, "for i have a foreboding that this regime will soon be overthrown." "you will fare badly if it is," replied falckenskjold. "oh," said brandt, "i have studied law, and shall be able to take care of myself." [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, september, . it was a pity that brandt's knowledge of law did not prevent him from committing an act which the law of denmark punished with death, and which, in any case, was cowardly and brutal. allusion has been made to the fact that the king and brandt frequently quarrelled, and, though, since the arrival of reverdil, brandt was relieved of some of his more onerous duties, he was still on bad terms with the king. one morning at the queen's _déjeuner_, the king, who rarely joined in the conversation, suddenly, without provocation, shouted across the table to brandt: "you deserve a good thrashing, and i will give you one. i am speaking to you, count. do you hear?" the incident created an unpleasant sensation among the company, but brandt, with his usual presence of mind, ignored the affront, and turned the conversation to other channels. after breakfast struensee and the queen took the king aside, and rebuked him sharply, but the king only said: "brandt is a coward if he refuses to fight with me." he also told brandt he was a cur, and afraid to accept his challenge. it had always been one of the king's manias, even in his comparatively sane years, to try his strength with his attendants. he had frequently fought with holck and warnstedt, and also with moranti, the negro boy, and they had consented to act on the defensive at his request, with the result that he was always permitted to come off conqueror. the game was a perilous one for the other combatant, for the king sometimes hit hard; on the other hand, the law of denmark made it an offence punishable with death for any man to strike the king's sacred person. brandt had never yet fought with the king, for he had a love of a whole skin, and shirked this disagreeable pastime; but now, goaded by the king's insults, he determined to give him a lesson in manners. apart from his dislike of the king, his self-esteem was wounded by having been insulted before the queen, countess holstein and the other ladies, and he resolved to be avenged. that he acted on a set plan is shown by the fact that he hid a whip in a piano in the ante-chamber of the king's room the day before he carried his design into execution. in the evening of the following day, when reverdil was absent, brandt took the whip from the piano, hid it under his coat, and went into the king's apartment, where he found the semi-imbecile monarch playing with the two boys who were his constant companions. having turned moranti and the other boy out, brandt locked the door, and then told the king, who by this time was somewhat frightened, that he had come to fight with him according to his wish, and asked him to take his choice of pistols or swords. the king, who had not contemplated a duel, but a scramble, said he would fight with his fists. brandt agreed, and the struggle began; but the king soon found that this particular adversary had not come to act on the defensive, but the offensive. brandt, who was much the stronger of the two, for the king was weak and ailing, made use of his strength without stint, and, rage urging him on, he first beat his royal master unmercifully with his fists, and then thrashed him with the whip until christian cried for quarter. brandt, when he had beaten him until he could beat no longer, granted the request, and then left the room, leaving the king much bruised and frightened. after he had put his dress in order, brandt proceeded to the queen's apartments, and joined the company at the card tables as if nothing had happened. when the game was over, he told struensee what he had done. the minister said he was glad to hear it; it would give them peace from the king in future; but he cautioned brandt to say nothing about it. but the next day rumours of what had taken place were all over the palace. the king's valet had found his master bruised and weeping, and moranti and the other boy had heard sounds of the scuffle. reports of the affray travelled to copenhagen, and aroused general indignation. apart from the cowardly brutality of the attack, it was deemed a monstrous thing that a man should raise his hand against the lord's anointed. juliana maria affected to find in it a confirmation of her worst fears, and colour was given to the reports that the king was systematically ill-treated, and his life was in danger. it was said that the queen and struensee not only approved, but encouraged this attack upon the king, and brandt's appointment shortly after as master of the wardrobe to the king, conferring on him the title of "excellency," was regarded as a proof of this. without doubt, brandt's promotion was ill-timed, but the queen had nothing to do with it. struensee granted these favours to brandt in order to bind him more closely to the court which he desired to leave. struensee, under panic from recent disturbances, had shown himself more conciliatory, and promised to consider the possibility of re-appointing the council of state. he had also been induced, by falckenskjold's advice, to make the court pay more civility to the queen-dowager and prince frederick, and occasionally the king and queen invited them to hirschholm. but when the threatened danger seemed to pass away, and nothing more happened, he regained his confidence, and became as unyielding and overbearing as before. the queen-dowager and prince frederick received fresh affronts; the idea of reviving the council was dropped, and the dictator already considered the advisability of new and more aggressive measures. several more officials of high rank were dismissed, and struensee's favourites put in their places. he learned nothing from the past; although he was told that the queen-dowager and prince frederick would put themselves at the head of a party with a view of overthrowing him, he took no heed, and merely replied: "the purity of my views is my protection."[ ] the man was drunk with self-conceit. [ ] _mémoires de falckenskjold._ meanwhile alarming rumours reached the court of st. james's of the state of affairs in denmark, and grave fears were entertained for the safety of the king's sister, who seemed blindly rushing to her ruin. keith's despatches with reference to the late disturbances were laid before the king, who took serious counsel with his mother as to what could be done to save matilda from the peril that threatened her, and to preserve the honour of his house. george iii. had remonstrated with his sister in vain; of late he had heard nothing from her, and the last communication he received from her was to the effect that, if he wrote again, his letters must be sent through struensee, which, under the circumstances, was little short of an insult. the king, at least, so regarded it, and for some time could not bring himself to write to his sister, if his letters were delivered through such a medium. in the meantime lord suffolk was commanded to send keith the following despatch:-- "your own delicacy and sentiment must have suggested the wish that the critical state of things at the court where you reside may affect the queen of denmark as little as possible. your desire, therefore, to mark your regard for her majesty will be gratified by the instructions i now give you, to endeavour most assiduously to prevent the disagreeable incidents, which, if i am rightly informed, her majesty is exposed to in the present moment. you are already directed upon large public considerations to promote upon all proper occasions of interference the return of mr. bernstorff to lead in the administration, and i am happy to understand that, at the same time, no minister is more inclined to support the united interests of great britain and russia, and there is none more likely than mr. bernstorff to preserve that respect for the king's sister, which, amidst the revenge and violence of party rage, might, on a change of ministers, be too little attended to, or perhaps even violated. if, therefore, mr. bernstorff should meet with success, and owe it, as probably would be the case, in great measure to your good offices and interposition, he cannot but be gratefully disposed to acknowledge so important a service, and he cannot acknowledge it more essentially than by giving full scope to his well-known attachment to the king's (george iii.'s) person and family, and by providing for the honour and security of his royal mistress, in case they are liable to danger from the unhappy condition of the country."[ ] [ ] lord suffolk's despatch to keith, london, november , . but the return of bernstorff was of all things the most difficult to effect at that juncture. he was living in exile, he was not in the secret councils of the queen-dowager, who alone could head, with any hope of success, a revolution against struensee, and he had already refused rantzau's overtures. all this, of course, was unknown to the court of st. james's, though most of it was known to keith. the king of england had not realised that his envoy had absolutely no influence in the affairs of denmark. all this, and much more, keith strove to explain in a despatch which he wrote in reply to lord suffolk's. he reviewed the situation in much the same way as gunning had done before him:-- "i found, upon my arrival in this country," he wrote, "that the whole weight of government had, with the king's consent, devolved upon his royal consort. mr. struensee was already (i must add, unhappily) in possession of that unlimited confidence on the part of her danish majesty which has given him a dictatorial sway in every department of government.... the genius of count struensee, though active, enterprising and extensive, appears to be deficient in point of judgment and resolution. his temper is fiery, suspicious and unfeeling; his cunning and address have been conspicuous in the attainment of power; his discernment and fairness in the exercise of it have fallen short of the expectation of those who were least partial to him. his morals are founded upon this single principle--that a man's duties begin and end with himself, and in this life. the wickedness of avowing openly a tenet so profligate and dangerous can only be equalled by the ingratitude with which he has acted up to it, in his haughty and imperious behaviour to the person (the queen) who, with unwearied perseverance, continues to heap upon him all possible obligations. it is almost unnecessary to add that he is arrogant in prosperity and timid in danger." keith described again in detail the disturbances of the autumn, and went on to say:-- "during that period, my most anxious attention was continually turned to the painful situation of the queen of denmark, whose partiality for count struensee seemed to gather strength from opposition. the circumstances were truly alarming; yet, after weighing them maturely, i had the heartfelt comfort to think that the removal of the minister, by whatever means effected, would soon restore her majesty to the affection of the nation, and re-establish her legal authority. if any dangerous crisis had taken place, i was firmly determined to offer my services to her majesty in the best manner they could be employed for the security of her person and dignity, and i trusted to my conscience and to the humanity of my gracious sovereign (george iii.) for the justification of the steps which my dutiful attachment to the royal family might in such a moment have suggested. but, my lord, it was indispensably necessary that i should wait for the approach of such a crisis before i declared to her majesty my earnest intentions, as the prime minister had from the first day excluded me (together with all my colleagues) from the possibility of access to her majesty.... it may appear extraordinary that in the five months i have passed in denmark i have not had the honour of exchanging ten sentences with the queen." keith then referred again to the terrors of struensee, and the precautions which had been taken to guard the palace of hirschholm. he related how for a short time struensee appeared to be more amenable to advice, but, on the passing of danger, he had again resumed his overbearing manner; and added: "i am now fully persuaded that he must again be driven to extremity before he yields any share of power to those ministers who were formerly accustomed to treat him as a mean inferior, and whose late expulsion had been a result of all his efforts." with reference to the return of bernstorff, he pointed out that the queen had a prejudice against the ex-minister on account of his supposed wish to exclude her from the regency; but he did not consider this objection insuperable, and wrote: "if mr. struensee can ever be brought to recall count bernstorff, the queen will not oppose it. if mr. struensee quits the helm, or is forced from it, there is but one set of men to whom her majesty can have recourse (the nobility), and, amongst them, almost every voice is in favour of count bernstorff.... i shall endeavour most assiduously to prevent every disagreeable incident, to which her danish majesty may be exposed by the violence of party rage. this seems at present (november ) much abated, and i have had the satisfaction to observe that its greatest fury has at all times been principally levelled at the person of the prime minister.... how sorry am i, my lord, that i dare not look for a nearer and more pleasing hope for his dismission than the prospect of his wearing out the patience and generosity of his powerful protectress!"[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, november , . so matters stood up to the end of november. a truce seemed to be declared. the court remained at hirschholm (it was said because struensee dared not enter the capital), and, his fears being now to a great extent allayed, the days passed as before in a round of amusement. hirschholm in the late autumn was damp and unhealthy, but still the court lingered, and it was not until the end of november that a move was made. even then the king and queen did not proceed to the christiansborg palace, but went to frederiksberg. at frederiksberg there was a court every monday, but these courts were very sparsely attended; the king, it was noticed, spoke to no one, and moved like an automaton; the queen looked anxious and ill. sometimes struensee and the queen went a-hawking; sometimes the king and queen drove into copenhagen to attend the french plays or the opera; but the citizens saw with astonishment that their majesties now never drove into their capital city without their coach being guarded by forty dragoons with drawn sabres. at frederiksberg, too, most elaborate military arrangements were made for the security of the court. a squadron of dragoons was quartered in an out-building, and there was not only a mounted guard day and night round the palace, but the surrounding country was patrolled by soldiers. the dread of assassination was ever present with struensee, and though he would not alter his methods of government, he took the most elaborate precautions for his personal safety, and all these precautions were on his behalf. in addition to the guarding of frederiksberg, he gave orders to the commandant of the troops in copenhagen, an officer whom he had himself appointed, to have everything in readiness to maintain order by force in the event of a rising or tumult. copenhagen looked like a city in a state of siege. the heaviest guns in the arsenal were planted on the walls in front of the guard-house, and at the town gates. the guns on the walls were turned round, and pointed at the city every evening after sunset; the soldiers had their cartridges served out to them, and patrolled the streets at all hours; even loaded cannon were placed in front of the palace, and any one who wished to enter to transact business was escorted in and out by two soldiers. all these extraordinary precautions were carried out with the knowledge and consent of the queen; but the king was not consulted; he was surprised to find himself living in a state of siege, and asked struensee, in alarm, what was the meaning of it all. struensee, who knew well how to trade on the fears of the king, replied that it was done for the better protection of the king's royal person, for his subjects were rebellious and disaffected, and it was feared that, if not checked, there would be a revolution, like that which took place in russia a few years before. he even hinted that the king might meet with the same fate as the unhappy emperor peter iii., who was assassinated. christian was greatly frightened on hearing this. "my god!" he exclaimed, "what harm have i done, that my dear and faithful subjects should hate me so?" this display of armed force still more enraged the populace against the favourite. the pointing of loaded cannon was regarded as an attempt to over-awe the people by force, and a report was spread abroad that struensee intended to disarm the corps of burghers, or citizen soldiers, who were charged with the keeping of the city. the colonel commanding the burghers declared that if his men were deprived of their muskets, they would defend their king, if need be, with paving stones. without doubt, these military preparations hastened the impending crisis, for the queen-dowager and her adherents imagined they were really directed against them. the whole kingdom was seething with rebellion, and tumults sooner or later were inevitable. yet, even now, at the eleventh hour, the worst might have been averted, had it not been for the incredible foolhardiness of struensee. he had offended every class and every interest; he could only hope to maintain his rule by force. for this the army was absolutely necessary; but, by a wanton act of provocation, struensee aroused the army against him. the ill-feeling which had been stirred up by the disbandment of the horse guards in the summer had to some extent subsided. the officers of the household cavalry, who were most of them wealthy and of noble birth, had been extremely arrogant, and the other officers, both of the army and navy, were not ill-pleased to see their pride humbled by their privileges being taken away. but struensee, who cherished a hatred against all the guards, now resolved to disband even the battalion of foot guards, and merge the officers and men into other regiments, on the pretext that the existence of any favoured regiment was injurious to the discipline of the rest of the army. falckenskjold first opposed this design, but, as struensee was determined, he reluctantly yielded the point, and the privy cabinet minister sent an order, signed with his own hand, to the war department for the regiment to be disbanded forthwith. but general gahler, who was the head of this department, called his colleagues together, and they declared they could not act without an order signed by the king in person, as they considered struensee's decree extremely dangerous, and likely to lead to mutiny. struensee was at first very indignant at this demur, but, finding gahler resolute, he had to give way, and he obtained an order signed by the king. this he forwarded to the war department, who, in duty bound, immediately yielded. [illustration: enevold brandt. _from a miniature at frederiksborg._] the next day, december , christmas eve, when the guards were drawn up in line, the king's order for their disbandment and incorporation was read to them, and they were commanded to hand their colours over to the officers who were present from other regiments. the men refused, and when they saw their colours being taken away, they rushed forward in a body, and dragged them back by force, shouting: "they are our colours; we will part from them only with our lives." the men were now in a state of mutiny. their officers had withdrawn, unwilling to risk a contest with the authorities; so a non-commissioned officer assumed the command, and led the insurgents. they marched to the christiansborg palace, broke the gate open, drove away the guard stationed there, and took their places. some of them were hindered from entering the palace by the other troops, who attempted to take them prisoners. the result was a free fight, and in the course of it one of the guardsmen was killed, and several soldiers were wounded. copenhagen was in a state of riot. meanwhile falckenskjold hurried to frederiksberg with the news of the mutiny. once more struensee was thrown into unreasoning panic, and quite unable to act. brandt and bülow, the queen's master of the horse, hurried to the christiansborg, and endeavoured to appease the rebellious guards, but without success. the categorical reply was: "we must remain guards, or have our discharge. we will not be merged into other regiments." it should be mentioned that they were picked men, and drawn from a superior class; they ranked with non-commissioned officers in other regiments, and such punishments as flogging could not be inflicted on them. the envoys returned to frederiksberg with the news of their ill-success, and the terror of struensee increased. the guards now had a council of war, and it was resolved that a party of them should march to frederiksberg, and request an interview with the king in person, as the norwegian sailors had done. when the party set out, they found the western gate of the city closed and held against them; but at the northern gate the officer of the guard allowed them to pass. on the road to frederiksberg they met the king driving, a postilion and an equerry formed his only escort, and reverdil was alone with him in the carriage. the soldiers, who had no grievance against the king, formed into line and saluted him, and christian, from whom the knowledge of the mutiny had been carefully kept, returned the salute. when the guards reached frederiksberg, struensee's fears deepened into panic. as at hirschholm, hurried preparations were made for flight, and orders were given to reinforce the palace guard. the whole of the army sympathised with the guards, and it may be doubted whether the soldiers would have resisted their comrades by force of arms. fortunately, one of the officers of the guards had hurried before them to frederiksberg to protest against extremities; he was now sent out by struensee to parley with them in the king's name. the men repeated their demand: they must remain guards, or receive their discharge. the officer went back to the palace, and pretended to see the king, in reality, he saw only struensee. presently he returned to inform the mutineers that the king did not wish to keep any men in his service against their will, and they were therefore discharged, and were at liberty to go where they pleased. the detachment thereupon returned to christiansborg to report to their comrades, but these refused to trust a verbal statement, and requested that a written discharge should be handed to each man before they surrendered the palace. general gahler, who had disapproved of struensee's action throughout, and now feared there would be bloodshed, on hearing this went to frederiksberg, and insisted that a written discharge for the whole body must be made out, duly signed and sealed by struensee himself. this he brought back to the guards; but the men, imagining there was some deception, took exception to the form of the order, and the fact that the king had not signed it. when this was reported to him, struensee lost patience, and threatened to storm the christiansborg if the mutineers were not removed before midnight--a most imprudent threat, and one practically impossible to carry out, for the queen-dowager and prince frederick were occupying their apartments in the christiansborg at the time, and no doubt secretly abetting the mutineers. moreover, the whole of copenhagen sided with the guards. citizens sent in provisions, wines and spirits, in order that they might keep their christmas in a festive manner; the sailors sent word that they would help the mutineers if the matter came to a crisis, and the gunners secretly conveyed to them the news that they would receive them into the arsenal and join them. midnight struck, and still the mutineers held the palace. struensee, finding his threat had no weight, then veered round to the other extreme, and was soon hastily filling up the required number of printed discharges, which were taken to the king to be signed one by one. in the morning--christmas morning--glad news came to the mutinous guards. all their demands were complied with, and more than complied with; a separate discharge, signed by the king, was presented to every guardsman, and a promise that three dollars would be paid him, and any advance he owed would be wiped off. so on christmas morning the disbanded guards marched out of the christiansborg, which they had occupied for twenty-four hours, and the danger was averted. the city continued in a great state of excitement all day, and some street fights took place, but nothing of importance. the king and queen drove into copenhagen to attend divine service at the royal chapel, as this was christmas day, and the fact was considered significant, for now they rarely went to church. another concession was made to public opinion, for the following sunday evening they were not present at the french play, as was usually the case. unfortunately, these attempts at conciliation, trifling though they were, came too late. the people had now made up their minds about struensee; he was a coward and a bully, who would yield everything to violence, and nothing to reason. they had found him out; he was a lath painted to look like iron. his wanton attack upon the guards and subsequent capitulation filled the cup of his transgressions to the brim. it was said that at this time keith thought fit to intervene. hoping to shield his sovereign's sister from the danger which threatened her, he saw struensee privately, and offered him a sum of money to quit the country. if this be true (and no hint of it appears in keith's despatches), it had no result, for struensee still clung to his post. rantzau, also, who had not quite settled his terms with the queen-dowager, and, true to his character, was ready to sell either side for the higher price, also saw struensee, through the medium of the swedish minister, and urged him to resign, or at least to reverse his whole system of policy; but struensee would not listen, probably because rantzau wanted money, and he did not wish to give it him. still rantzau did not desist; he went to falckenskjold, and told him as much as he dared of a conspiracy against struensee, and offered to help to detect it for a pecuniary consideration. falckenskjold heard him coldly, and merely said: "in that case, you should address your remarks to struensee himself." "he will not listen to me," said rantzau, and turned away. from that moment struensee's luck turned away from him too. chapter iii. the masked ball. . on january , , the king and queen returned to the christiansborg after an absence from their capital of seven months. it required some courage to enter a city on the verge of insurrection, but the court could not remain away from copenhagen for ever, and struensee at last came to the conclusion that it would be better to put on a bold front, and meet his enemies on their own ground. extraordinary precautions were taken to ensure his personal safety, and that of the king and queen. they entered copenhagen as though it were a hostile city. keith thus describes the entry: "the court returned to copenhagen on wednesday, and the apprehensions of the prime minister are still very visible by the warlike parade with which the court is surrounded. dragoons are posted on the market places, and patrols in the streets, and twelve pieces of cannon are kept constantly loaded in the arsenal. the entrance into the french play-house is lined with soldiers, and their majesties in going from the palace to the opera-house, though the distance is not above three hundred yards, are escorted by an officer and thirty-six dragoons. notwithstanding all these precautions, i see no reason to apprehend the smallest danger to the persons of their majesties, and am willing to hope that the popular discontent may soon subside, if the minister does not blow up the flame by some new act of violence."[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, january , . there was certainly no danger to the king. the people regarded him as a prisoner in the hands of the unscrupulous minister, and their desire was to deliver him from that bondage. the queen was only in danger because of her blind attachment to struensee. if he could be removed, or induced to resign quietly, all would be forgiven her, for her youth, her inexperience and her infatuation aroused pity rather than anger in the breast of the multitude. but, as struensee's accomplice, she shared in his unpopularity, and the wrath of the queen-dowager and the clergy was especially directed against her. matilda had no fear for herself; all her fears were for the man whom she still loved with unreasoning adoration; she trembled lest he might be forced to leave her, or fall a victim to the vengeance of his enemies. during the dangers and alarms of the last six months, she alone remained true to him; the hatred of his enemies, the treachery of his friends, the warnings and remonstrances of those who wished her well, made no difference. his craven fears, the revelation that her hero was but a coward after all, even the ingratitude and brutal rudeness with which he sometimes treated her, forgetting the respect due to her as queen and woman, forgetting the sacrifices she had made for him, and the benefits she had rained upon him--all this did not make any change in her devotion; she still loved him without wavering or shadow of turning. even now, when the popular execration was at its height, she bravely stood by his side, willing to share the odium excited by his misdeeds. though all should fail him, she would remain. the day of the return to copenhagen there was a ball at the christiansborg palace; on the following saturday there was the performance of a french play at the royal theatre; on the following monday there was a court. on all these occasions the queen, heedless of murmurings and averted looks, appeared with struensee by her side, as though to support him by her presence. indeed, she sought by many a sign and token to show to all the world that, however hated and shunned he might be, her trust and confidence in him were unbroken; and he, craven and selfish voluptuary that he was, set his trembling lips, and sought to shelter himself from the popular vengeance behind the refuge of her robe. it was at this time--the eleventh hour--that george iii. made one more effort to save his sister. mastering his pride, he wrote to her yet another letter, urging her for the good of her adopted country, for her own personal safety, and for the honour of the royal house from which she sprang, to send away the hated favourite, and recall bernstorff. so anxious was the king of england that this letter should reach his sister that he overcame his repugnance to struensee sufficiently to command keith to deliver it to the queen through struensee's hands, according to her wishes.[ ] the letter was duly delivered, but before an answer could be returned it was too late. [ ] "i have the honour to enclose a letter from his majesty to the queen of denmark, which i am commanded to direct you to deliver to count struensee for him to convey to her danish majesty, and you will observe the same mode of conveyance for all the king's private letters to the queen of denmark. you are to take the earliest opportunity to acquaint mr. osten privately that this mode is adopted at the express desire of the queen of denmark."--suffolk to keith, january , . the contents of the king's letter of course are not known, but that the gist of it was probably that given above may be gathered from lord suffolk's previous communication to the english envoy at copenhagen. the continued favour shown by the queen to struensee, the close guarding of the royal palaces, the display of military force in the city, and the disbanding of the guards, who were regarded in a special sense the bodyguard of the monarch, all lent confirmation to the rumour that a _coup d'état_ was imminent--that struensee meant to seize the person of the king, depose him, or otherwise make away with him, marry the queen, and proclaim himself regent, or protector of the king. moreover, it was whispered that he had become acquainted with the queen-dowager's intrigues against his authority, and was contemplating the arrest of juliana maria and her son. this rumour, to which the military preparations gave colour, was told the queen-dowager by interested persons, with a view to forcing her at last to act. juliana maria was an imperious, hard, intriguing woman. from the first she had disliked matilda, and wished her ill, but there is no evidence to show that she would have headed a revolution against her had she not been driven into it by force of circumstances. that the queen-dowager desired and plotted the overthrow of struensee was natural and excusable. he had treated herself and her son with marked disrespect; he had privately insulted and publicly affronted them. his reforms both in church and state were entirely opposed to her views; his intrigue with queen matilda she considered dishonouring to the royal house, and his influence over the king harmful to the monarch and the nation. juliana maria and her son represented the old regime and were naturally looked up to at a crisis; in any event, she would have been forced into opposition to the existing state of affairs. but juliana maria was above all things cautious. she was fully alive to the peril of provoking the powerful minister and the reigning queen, who, holding, as they did, the king's authority, were omnipotent. the queen-dowager had been anxious to bring about the dismissal of struensee by peaceful and constitutional means; but these had failed; neither warnings nor threats would make him quit his post. moreover, she distrusted rantzau, who headed the conspiracy against him. she was averse from violent measures, which, if unsuccessful, would assuredly involve both her and her son in ruin. therefore, though she had been cognisant of the growth of the conspiracy against struensee for many months--though she had conferred with the conspirators, and secretly encouraged them--yet up to the present she had hesitated to take action. even the mutiny of the guards, when the mutineers were shut up in the palace with her, had not moved her to make the decisive step. it was not until information was brought her of a threatened _coup d'état_, and the probable imprisonment of herself and her son, that she determined to hold back no longer. rantzau, who knew well the queen-dowager's reluctance to commit herself, finally secured her adhesion to the conspiracy by means of a forged paper, which contained a full account of struensee's supposed _coup d'état_. a copy of this plan, which never existed in the original, was given by rantzau to peter suhm, the danish historiographer royal, who stood high in the opinion of the queen-dowager. according to it january was the day fixed for the king's abdication, the appointment of the queen as regent and struensee as protector. suhm at once took the document to juliana maria, and urged her to immediate action. there was no time to be lost, he told her, for the man who meditated usurping the regal power would not long hesitate before committing a further crime. the assassination of the king would assure him of the couch of the queen, and the crown prince, either imprisoned, or succumbing to the rigours of his treatment, would make way for the fruit of this intercourse. for this motive and no other had struensee revoked the law which prohibited a repudiated wife from marrying the accomplice of her infidelity. the man who had abolished the council of state would repeal, if need be, the salic law, which had hitherto prevailed in denmark. the queen-dowager was fully persuaded by this document; she resolved to call a meeting of the conspirators, and nip struensee's alleged plot in the bud. the situation, she agreed, was desperate, and admitted of no delay. these conspirators included rantzau, who has already been spoken of at length. prince frederick, the king's brother, who, being weak in body and not very strong in mind, was entirely under the control of his mother. ove guldberg, prince frederick's private secretary, who had acted as a means of communication between the other conspirators and the queen-dowager, and finally won her over to the plot. he was a man of great ability, a born intriguer, and exceedingly cautious; juliana maria placed implicit confidence in him, and was confident that he would not embark on a desperate enterprise of this kind unless it was sure of success. two prominent officers also joined. one was colonel köller, who commanded a regiment of infantry, a bold, rough soldier, brave as a lion, and strong as hercules--a desperado, of whom struensee said: "he looks as if he had no mother, but was brought into the world by a man." the other was general hans henrik eickstedt, who commanded the regiment of zealand dragoons, which had now taken the place of the discharged guards, and did duty at the palace of christiansborg. eickstedt was not a man of any special ability, but he was honourable and trustworthy, which is more than could be said of most of the other conspirators. he honestly believed that struensee's overthrow, by whatever means, was necessary for the salvation of denmark, and, when he learned that the queen-dowager had thrown her ægis over the conspiracy, he joined it without asking any questions; otherwise the character of some of the conspirators might have made him pause. the last of these active conspirators was beringskjold, who had much experience in intrigue. he had played the part of danish spy at st. petersburg, where he made the acquaintance of rantzau, and, like him, took part in the conspiracy which resulted in the deposition and murder of peter iii. beringskjold later came back to denmark and got into pecuniary difficulties. it was at this time that he renewed his acquaintance with rantzau, who, seeing in him the tool for his purpose, made him acquainted with the plot against struensee, which beringskjold eagerly joined. he was especially useful in maturing the conspiracy, for his spying proclivities and russian experiences were invaluable in such an undertaking. it was he who insisted that the queen-dowager must take an active part in the conspiracy, for he well knew that without her it would stand no chance of success. beringskjold also knew that no revolution could be carried through without the aid of the army, and it was he who won over eickstedt and köller. a subordinate conspirator was jessen, an ex-valet of frederick v. he was now a prosperous wine merchant in copenhagen, and was much esteemed by the queen-dowager, who knew him as a tried and faithful servant. jessen was employed as a medium between juliana maria and guldberg at fredensborg and the other conspirators in copenhagen. he informed her of the state of feeling in the capital, and circulated rumours detrimental to struensee and queen matilda. he sent reports of the progress of the plot to fredensborg, addressing his letters, for greater security, under cover to the queen-dowager's waiting woman. when juliana maria returned to copenhagen and took up her residence at the christiansborg, it was jessen who arranged the secret meetings of her party. they were held at the house of a well-known clergyman named abildgaard, rector of the holmenskirke. the house was close to the palace, and had entrances from two different streets. here, when the queen-dowager at last determined to act, a meeting of the conspirators was summoned and the details of the plot were arranged. it was decided to seize queen matilda, struensee, brandt and their adherents, obtain possession of the king and force him to proclaim a new government. once get possession of the king and the rest would be easy, for christian vii. could be made to sign any papers the conspirators might require, and as absolute monarch his orders would be implicitly obeyed. to this end jessen produced a plan of the christiansborg palace, showing the king's apartments, the queen's, and the private staircases that led from her rooms to those of the king and struensee; the situation of brandt's apartments, and of others whom it was resolved to arrest. the conspirators decided to strike their blow on the night of january - ( ). on that evening a masked ball was to be given at the palace, and in the consequent bustle and confusion it would be easy for the conspirators to come and go, and communicate with each other, without being noticed. moreover, on that night köller and his holstein regiment had the guard at the palace, together with a troop of zealand dragoons under the command of eickstedt. therefore the whole military charge of the palace would be under the control of two of the conspirators, and the inmates would be at their mercy. [illustration: queen juliana maria, step-mother of christian vii. _from the painting by clemens._] the night of january came at last. in accordance with their recent policy of showing a bold front to their enemies, the queen and struensee had arranged the masked ball, the first given since the return of the court to copenhagen, on a scale of unusual magnificence. the royal hospitality on this occasion was almost unlimited, for all the nine ranks of society, who by any pretext could attend court, were invited. this in itself was a proof of struensee's false sense of security, for, at a time when the city was seething with sedition, to give a masked ball to which practically every one was admitted was to lay himself open to the danger of assassination. the ball was held in the royal theatre of the christiansborg palace, which had lately, under brandt's supervision, been elaborately redecorated. crystal chandeliers sparkled with thousands of lights, and the boxes round the theatre were gorgeous with new gilding and purple silken hangings. the auditorium was on this occasion raised level with the stage, so that the whole formed one large hall for the dancers. the band was placed at the back of the stage, and the wings were converted into bowers of plants and flowers, lit with coloured lamps. the king and queen, with struensee, brandt, and all their court, entered the theatre at ten o'clock, and dancing immediately began. the king, who no longer danced, retired to the royal box where card-tables were arranged, and played quadrille with general and madame gahler, and justice struensee, brother of the prime minister. the queen, who was magnificently dressed[ ] and wore splendid jewels, danced continually, and seemed in high spirits. every one remarked on her beauty and vivacity. the queen-dowager never attended masked balls, so that her absence called forth no comment; but prince frederick, contrary to his usual custom (for he was generally waiting on these occasions to receive their majesties), was more than an hour late, and when he at last arrived, his flushed face and nervous air revealed his agitation. but the queen, who thought that his unpunctuality accounted for his nervousness, rallied him playfully and said: "you are very late, brother. what have you been doing?" "i have had some business to attend to, madam," he replied in confusion, as he bowed over her extended hand. "it seems to me," said the queen gaily, "that you would do better to think of your pleasure than your business on the evening of a ball." the prince stammered some reply, which the queen did not heed; she dismissed him good-humouredly, and resumed her dancing. [ ] the dress the queen is said to have worn at this ball--of rich white silk, brocaded with pink roses--is still preserved in the guelph family museum at herrenhausen. it was sent to hanover after her death. several of the conspirators were present to disarm suspicion, including köller and guldberg, who strolled about as though nothing was impending. presently köller sat down to cards in one of the boxes, and played in the most unconcerned manner possible. when struensee went up to him and said: "are you not going to dance?" köller replied with covert insolence: "not yet. my hour to dance will arrive presently." as usual at the court entertainments, struensee, after the queen, was the most prominent figure. richly clad in silk and velvet, and with the order of matilda on his breast, he played the part of host in all but name. whatever might be the feeling outside the palace walls, within there appeared no hint of his waning power; he was still the all-powerful minister, flattered, courted and caressed. the queen hung on his lightest word, and a servile crowd of courtiers and place-hunters courted his smile or trembled at his frown. he was the centre of the glittering scene, and, though there were few present who did not secretly hate or fear him, all rendered him outward honour, and many envied him his good fortune. though the ball was brilliant and largely attended, the company was hardly what one might expect to find at the court of a reigning monarch. the bearers of some of the oldest and proudest names in denmark were absent; and their places were taken by well-to-do citizens of copenhagen and their wives. a few of the foreign ambassadors were present, including the english envoy, general keith. he probably attended in pursuance of his determination to be at hand to help and defend his king's sister, in case of need. keith feared some outbreak of violence, which would place the queen in personal danger. he does not seem to have had the slightest inkling of the organised plot against her honour and her life. he was not ignorant, of course, of the dislike with which the queen-dowager and her son, representing the nobility, the clergy and the upper classes generally, viewed the struensee regime, for which matilda was largely responsible; but he thought they would act, if they acted at all, in a constitutional manner, by promoting the recall of bernstorff, and the overthrow of the favourite. the evening was not to pass without another display of struensee's insolence, and a further affront to prince frederick. the favourite supped in the royal box with the king and queen, but the king's brother was not admitted, and had to get his supper at a buffet, like the meanest of the guests. the insult was premeditated, for reverdil tells us that he heard of it the day before, and interceded for the prince in vain. the prince probably did not mind, for he knew that the favourite's hour had struck. but for struensee, as he feasted at the king's table, there was no writing on the wall to forewarn him of his doom. the king left the ballroom soon after midnight, and retired to his apartments; the queen remained dancing for some time longer. the company unmasked after supper, and the fun became fast and furious; the ceremony usual at court entertainments was absent here, and all etiquette and restraint were banished. the queen mingled freely with her guests, and enjoyed herself so much that it was nearly three o'clock before she retired. her withdrawal was the signal for the company to depart, and soon the ballroom was deserted and in darkness. the countess holstein had invited a few of her intimate friends, including struensee, brandt and two ladies, to come to her apartments after the ball. but one of the ladies, baroness schimmelmann, excused herself on the plea of a severe headache, and the other lady, baroness bülow, was unwilling to go alone, and therefore the party fell through. had the countess holstein's party taken place, as by the merest chance it did not, it would probably have upset the plans of the conspirators, or at least rendered them more difficult to carry out, for the principal men marked down for prey would have been gathered together in one room, and would have resisted or tried to escape. the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting for the queen-dowager, for this evening also the conspiracy had been on the brink of failure owing to the vacillation of rantzau. this traitor, whose only wish was to get his debts paid, had no more faith in the promises of the queen-dowager than in those of struensee (though the event proved that he was wrong), and at the eleventh hour considered that the enterprise was too hazardous. he therefore resolved to be on the safe side, and reveal the whole conspiracy. to this end, about eight o'clock in the evening, before the ball, he drove secretly to the house of struensee's brother. but the justice had gone out to dinner, and rantzau therefore left a message with the servant, bidding him be sure to tell his master, directly he came home, that count rantzau desired a visit from him immediately on a matter of great importance. justice struensee returned soon after, and the servant gave him the message, but he knew the excitable character of rantzau, and said: "the visit will keep until to-morrow morning. the count is always in a fuss about trifles." he therefore went on to the ball, where he played cards with the king. rantzau, meanwhile, wondered why the justice did not come, and worked himself up to a state of great alarm. he would not go to the ball, but wrapped his feet in flannel, went to bed and sent köller word that a violent attack of gout prevented him from keeping his appointment in the queen-dowager's apartments as agreed. the other conspirators were much disturbed by the message, for they feared treachery. beringskjold was sent to persuade the count to come, and when rantzau pointed to his feet, he suggested a sedan chair. still rantzau made excuses. then köller, who knew the manner of man with whom he had to deal, sent word to say that if he did not come forthwith he would have him fetched thither by grenadiers. the threat was effectual, and rantzau, finding that struensee's brother did not appear, yielded, and was carried to the christiansborg in a sedan chair. when there, he regained his feet, and became in a short space of time miraculously better. köller early quitted the masquerade, where he only showed himself for a short time to disarm suspicion, and had a hurried conference with eickstedt in another part of the palace. the two officers, each possessed of an order signed by the queen-dowager and prince frederick, then separated--köller to look after the garrison, and eickstedt the palace guard. eickstedt went to the guard-room and summoned the officers of the guard. the proceedings were conducted with the greatest secrecy, and, when the officers had all arrived, eickstedt lit a candle, which he placed under the table, so that no one might see the assembly from without. by this dim light he read an order, signed by the queen-dowager and prince frederick, to the effect that, the king being surrounded by bad people, and his royal person in danger, his loving brother and stepmother hereby commanded colonels köller and eickstedt to seize that same night counts struensee and brandt, and several other persons named, and to place them under arrest. the queen-dowager and prince frederick had not the slightest right to command the troops; the document was, in fact, a usurpation of the royal authority; but that was a matter which concerned eickstedt and köller. the subordinate officers, who, in common with the whole army, hated struensee, were only too glad to carry the order into effect, the responsibility resting not with them, but with the queen-dowager and their commanders. after they had all sworn obedience, eickstedt gave them their orders. when all was ready, they were to advance at half-past three o'clock, or as soon as the ball was quite over, occupy all the doors of the palace, and allow none to go in or go out. they were at first to try to stop them politely, and if that failed, to use force. a picket of dragoons, with their horses bitted and saddled, were also to be in readiness. at the same time köller went the round of the garrison, collected all the officers on duty, and read to them a similar order. the aid of the garrison was requested in case of need. the officers of the city guard promised obedience, and returned to their several posts. everything was at last in readiness. except in the queen-dowager's apartments, the whole palace was perfectly quiet. the lights were put out; the last of the revellers had gone home; the king and queen, struensee and brandt, and the rest of the court had retired to their apartments, and were, most of them, asleep. within and without the palace was held by armed men; the net was so closely drawn that there was no possibility of the prey escaping. chapter iv. the palace revolution. . at four o'clock in the morning the little group of conspirators assembled in the apartments of the queen-dowager. they were eight in all--juliana maria, prince frederick, guldberg, rantzau, eickstedt, köller, beringskjold and jessen--not, at first sight, a powerful list to effect a revolution; but they had the army at their command, and the whole nation at their back. moreover, some, at least, of them were sustained by the high consciousness that they were doing a righteous work, and the others were desperate men, who had all to gain and nothing to lose. guldberg rehearsed to each one of the conspirators his separate duty, that nothing might be forgotten. then, at the request of the queen-dowager, all knelt down, and a prayer was offered, invoking the divine blessing on the undertaking.[ ] [ ] the following account of the palace revolution is based on several authorities: some are favourable to the queen, others against her. they more or less agree on the main facts, which are those set forth in this chapter, though they conflict as to details. among them may be mentioned the _memoirs_ of falckenskjold, köller-banner and reverdil, all of whom played a part in the affair; _mémoires de mon temps_, by prince charles of hesse (privately printed), the private journal of n. w. wraxall, who claims to have based his narrative on the statements of bülow and le texier, the _memoirs and correspondence of sir r. murray keith_, and sundry depositions made at the queen's trial. there are a great many other accounts in printed books, but they are nearly all based on these sources. when they rose from their knees, all the conspirators, guided by jessen and headed by the queen-dowager, went silently along the dark passages to the apartments of the king. in the ante-chamber they found the king's valet fast asleep. they roused him, and told him they wished to see his majesty immediately. seeing the queen-dowager and prince frederick, the valet was willing to obey without demur; but the main door of the king's bed-chamber was locked from within, and they were therefore obliged to go round by the secret staircase. the valet went in front to guide them, and immediately behind him came guldberg, carrying a candle. the others followed in single line, and soon found themselves in christian's bedroom. the king awoke with a start, and, seeing in the dim light the room full of men, cried out in terror. the queen-dowager approached the bed, and said in reassuring accents: "your majesty, my dear son, be not afraid. we are not come hither as enemies, but as your true friends. we have come----" here juliana maria broke down, and her voice was stifled by her sobs. rantzau, who had agreed to explain the plan to the king, hung back. but köller thrust him forward, and then he told the king that his majesty's brother and stepmother had come to deliver him and the country from the hated yoke of struensee. by this time the queen-dowager had recovered her nerve, and, embracing her stepson, she repeated what rantzau had said with ample detail. the king, who was almost fainting with excitement and terror, demanded a glass of water, and, when he had drunk it, asked if the commandant of the palace guard were present. eickstedt stepped forward, and confirmed what the queen-dowager and rantzau had said, and added that the people were in a state of revolt, for a plot was being carried out to depose the king, in which struensee and the queen were concerned. when the king heard the queen's name, he refused to believe that she had anything to do with it, and said the story must be a mistake. but the queen-dowager assured him that matilda was privy to it, and told him the whole of the supposed plot against his royal authority and person. guldberg confirmed the queen-dowager's statement in every particular, and declared there was no time to be lost. the bewildered king, at last half-convinced, asked what was to be done. rantzau then pulled out of his pocket two written orders, and asked him to sign them. by the first, eickstedt was made commander-in-chief, and by the second, eickstedt and köller were vested with full powers to take all measures necessary for the safety of the king and the country. thus the obedience of the army would be assured. when christian read these orders, he feared a conflict between the people and the military, for he exclaimed: "my god! this will mean rivers of blood." but rantzau, who by this time had regained his assurance, replied: "be of good cheer, your majesty. with god's help, i take everything upon myself, and will as far as possible prevent bloodshed." the king sat up in bed and signed the two orders; prince frederick counter-signed them. eickstedt took the first and immediately left the room; he placed himself at the head of the picket of dragoons waiting below, and rode to the garrison to inform the officers on duty of his new appointment as commander-in-chief. he promptly strengthened the palace guard, had all the gates of the city closed, and bade the garrison hold itself in readiness for any event. köller also took his order, and with the others retired to an ante-chamber, as the king had expressed a wish to get up. by the time christian was dressed, he was quite convinced that struensee had plotted against his life, and he was as eager to sign orders as he had at first been reluctant. first of all juliana maria impressed upon him that it was necessary to convey the queen to some place where she could not work any further mischief, and the king, after some hesitation, wrote and signed an almost incoherent message to his consort:-- _j'ai trouvé à propos de vous envoïer à cronbourg, comme vôtre conduite m'y oblige. j'en suis très faché, je n'en suis pas la cause, et je vous souhaite un repentir sincére._[ ] [ ] in his agitation the king dated it th jan., . the king then signed orders, drawn up by guldberg, for the arrest of struensee, brandt and fifteen other persons. he did this with alacrity, and seemed delighted at asserting his authority, and the prospect of being freed from the dominion of struensee and brandt. the orders which concerned queen matilda he copied out himself in full from guldberg's drafts; the others he merely signed. the orders concerning the queen included the order to rantzau to arrest her, the order to the head of the royal stables to make ready the coaches to convey her to kronborg, and an order to the commandant of kronborg to keep her in close confinement. these important matters settled, juliana maria persuaded christian to remove to prince frederick's apartments in another part of the palace. she had much more for him to do, and she was fearful of interruption. for hours the king remained in his brother's apartments, signing orders, which were to give him, as he thought, freedom and authority, but which were really only forging the links of new chains, and transferring him from the comparatively mild rule of struensee and matilda to the strict keeping of the queen-dowager. meanwhile, in different parts of the palace the king's orders were being carried out without delay. on quitting the king's apartments, köller went to perform his task of arresting struensee, accompanied by two or three officers of the palace guard and several soldiers. that köller feared resistance may be gathered from the fact that he made the senior officer promise him, in the event of his being killed, to shoot struensee dead. köller had a bitter hatred of struensee, dating, it was said, a long while back, when the doctor had seduced the object of köller's affections. he had solicited the task of arresting struensee, and now went to fulfil it with an eagerness born of revenge. the door of the outer room of struensee's apartments was firmly locked, and his favourite valet slept within. the youth was aroused (as he afterwards said from dreams of ill-omen) by the noise of men trying to force the door. on asking who was there, he was commanded to open in the king's name, under pain of instant death. taken by surprise, the valet had no time to give his master warning to escape by the private staircase, which led to the apartments of the queen, but he hurriedly secreted certain jewels and papers, and threw open the door. there he saw köller, holding a wax taper and dressed in full uniform, and his companions. two soldiers pointed pistols at the valet's head, and a third directed one to his breast. "have you woke the count?" köller whispered, and, on the trembling youth replying in the negative, köller made him give up the key of struensee's bedroom, which was also locked. the door was opened as silently as possible, and köller, with a drawn sword in his hand, entered the room, followed by three officers. the voluptuary had furnished his chamber with great luxury. the walls were hung with rich figured damask, the mirrors were of the purest glass, and the washing service was of wrought silver. the bed was canopied with purple velvet and gold, and the canopy was shaped in the form of a royal crown. the carpet was of velvet pile, and the room was scented with costly perfumes. struensee was sleeping heavily--so heavily that neither the light of the taper nor the entrance of köller roused him. he was sleeping with his head on his arm, and the book with which he had read himself to sleep had fallen to the floor. for a moment köller stood and looked down on his victim; then he shook him roughly by the shoulder, and struensee awoke to the horror of the situation. he sprang up in the bed, and shouted: "in god's name, what is this?" köller answered roughly: "i have orders to arrest you. get up at once and come with me." "do you know who i am," said the omnipotent minister of an hour ago haughtily, "that you dare to command me thus?" "yes," said köller with a laugh; "i know who you are well enough. you are the king's prisoner." struensee then demanded to see the warrant for his arrest, but as köller did not yet possess this, he replied shortly that the warrant was with the king, but he would be answerable with his head that he was carrying out the king's orders. struensee still refused to move; but köller thrust his sword point against his breast, and said: "i have orders to take you either dead or alive. which shall it be?" struensee, shivering with terror, sank back on the bed, and asked for time to think; but köller told him he must come at once. struensee then asked that his valet might bring him a cup of chocolate, but köller refused this also. "you will at least allow me to dress myself?" said struensee. köller said he would give him two minutes to do so; but he would not suffer either struensee or the valet to go into the next room for clothes. struensee was therefore obliged to hurry into the clothes he had worn at the ball, and which lay, where he had thrown them off, on a chair by the bed--breeches of pink silk and a coat and waistcoat of light blue velvet--gay attire especially ill-suited for his melancholy journey. struensee's hands were bound, and he was hurried down to the guard-room, where his legs were bound as well. here he waited a few minutes, guarded by soldiers with drawn swords and loaded pistols, until the coach was brought round to the door. he was thrust into it, followed by köller, and driven under a strong escort to the citadel. on the way he groaned: "my god, what crime have i committed?"--to which his companion vouchsafed no answer. when he got out of the coach he asked that something might be given to the driver, who was one of the royal coachmen. köller handed the man a dollar, for which he thanked him, but said in danish, with a vindictive look at struensee: "i would gladly have done it for nothing." there was hardly a menial in the king's household who would not rejoice over the favourite's fall. struensee was led into the presence of the commandant of the citadel, and formally delivered over to him by köller. by this time he had regained something of his self-possession, and said to the commandant, whom he knew well: "i suppose this visit is totally unexpected by you?" "not at all," replied the discourteous officer; "i have been expecting to see you here for a long time." the prisoner was then marched to a small cell, which had previously been occupied by a notorious pirate. on entering this gloomy chamber, struensee, who had expected to be treated as a state prisoner, with every comfort, if not luxury, started back and said: "where is my valet?" "i have not seen any valet," said the jailor shortly. "but where are my things?" "i have not seen them either." "bring me my furs. it is cold here. i have no wish to be frozen to death." but the man did not move. as there was nothing but a wooden stool and pallet bed, struensee asked for a sofa. "there are no sofas here," said the man, and backed up his words by a coarse insult. struensee then lost his self-command, burst out into raving and cursing, and tried to dash out his brains against the wall, but the jailor held him back. when the commandant was informed of the prisoner's refractory conduct, he ordered him to be fettered hand and foot, which was promptly done. this hurt struensee's pride more than all the other treatment, and he broke down and wept, exclaiming: "i am treated _en canaille_!" certainly it was a change from the bed of down and the purple velvet hangings of an hour ago. brandt was arrested at the same time as struensee. colonel sames, formerly commandant of copenhagen, who had been deprived of his post by struensee, accompanied by a guard, went to his apartments, but they found the door locked. for some time brandt refused to answer, but on sames threatening to break the door down unless it were opened, he at last turned the key and met his opponents, ready dressed and with a drawn sword. when the soldiers advanced to disarm him, he made no resistance, but said: "this must be a mistake. i have committed no offence for which i can be arrested." sames told him it was no mistake, but that he was acting on the king's order, and it would be better for him to yield. brandt, who was perfectly self-controlled, said: "very well, i will follow you quietly." he was taken down to the guard-room, put into a coach, and conveyed to the citadel, immediately following struensee. when he entered the presence of the commandant, he said gaily: "i must apologise, sir, for paying you a visit at so early an hour." "not at all," replied the commandant, with elaborate politeness; "my only grief is that you have not come before." while some formalities were being gone through, brandt hummed a tune with an air of unconcern, and looking round him, said: "upon my word, these are mighty fine quarters you have in this castle!" to which the commandant replied: "yes, and in a minute you will have an opportunity of seeing even finer ones." brandt was presently conducted to his cell, which was even worse than struensee's, and on entering it he said good-humouredly to the jailor: "on my word, the commandant spoke truth!" brandt bore his privations with firmness, and presently pulled a flute from his pocket and amused himself by playing it. he altogether showed much greater courage and self-control than the miserable struensee, who did nothing but weep and bemoan his fate. the arrest of struensee's principal confederates quickly followed. falckenskjold was placed under arrest at the barracks. justice struensee and professor berger were conveyed to the citadel: general gahler and his wife were arrested in bed; the lady jumped out of bed in her nightdress, and tried to escape by the back-stairs, but she was captured and removed with her husband to the citadel. several others, including bülow and reverdil, were placed under "house arrest," that is to say, they were confined to their houses, and had sentries posted over them. the servants of struensee and brandt were imprisoned in the blue tower. the morning dawned before all these imprisonments were carried out. the new rulers had reason to congratulate themselves that everything had been effected without bloodshed. meanwhile the most dramatic scene of the palace revolution was enacted in the queen's apartments of the christiansborg. upon retiring from the ball queen matilda went to see her infant daughter, and it was nearly four o'clock before she retired to rest. even then she did not sleep, for the noise made by köller in arresting struensee, whose apartments were beneath, was indistinctly heard by the queen. but she imagined it was due to the party which she understood was to be held in countess holstein's rooms; she thought it had now been transferred to struensee's. she therefore sent one of her servants down to request them to be less noisy in their revels. the woman went, but did not return; and, as the noise ceased, the queen thought no more about it, and presently fell asleep. about half an hour later matilda was aroused by the entrance of one of her women, white and trembling, who said that a number of men were without demanding to see her immediately in the king's name. in a moment the queen suspected danger, and her first thought was to warn her lover. she sprang out of bed, and, with nothing on but her nightrobe, rushed barefooted into the next room, with the idea of gaining the secret staircase which led to struensee's apartments. in the ante-chamber the first object that greeted her eyes was rantzau, seated in a chair and twirling his moustachios: he was dressed in full uniform, and had thrown over his shoulders a scarlet cloak lined with fur. at the queen's entrance he rose and bowed with great ceremony, evidently delighting in his part, of which any honest man would have been ashamed. in the ante-chamber beyond were several soldiers and frightened women. when the queen saw rantzau, she remembered her undress, and cried: "_eloignez-vous, monsieur le comte, pour l'amour de dieu, car je ne suis pas présentable!_" but, as rantzau did not move, she ran back to her chamber, and threw on some more clothes; the delay was fatal to her. [illustration: king christian vii.'s note to queen matilda informing her of her arrest.] when she came forth again she found the room full of armed men, and the officer in command opposed her passage. she haughtily ordered him to let her pass, saying that his head would answer for it if he did not. rantzau retorted that his head would answer for it if he did. the officer, in evident distress, said: "madame, i only do my duty, and obey the orders of my king." the queen then turned to the door, behind which was a staircase leading down to struensee's apartments. but the door was closed and a soldier posted before it. "where is count struensee?" she demanded; "i wish to see him." "madame," said rantzau with elaborate irony, "there is no count struensee any more, nor can your majesty see him." the queen advanced boldly towards him, and demanded his authority for these insults. rantzau handed her the king's message. she read it through without displaying any alarm, and then threw it contemptuously on the ground.[ ] "ha!" she cried, "in this i recognise treachery, but not the king." amazed at the queen's fearless air, rantzau for the moment changed his tone, and implored her to submit quietly to the king's orders. "orders!" she exclaimed, "orders about which he knows nothing--which have been extorted from him by terror! no, the queen does not obey such orders." rantzau then said that nothing remained for him but to do his duty, which admitted of no delay. "i am the queen; i will obey no orders except from the king's own lips," she replied. "let me go to him! i must, and will, see him!" she knew that if she could only gain access to the king she was safe, for she could make him rescind the order and so confound her enemies. full of this thought she advanced to the door of the ante-chamber, where two soldiers stood with crossed muskets to bar her progress. the queen imperiously commanded them to let her pass, whereupon both men fell on their knees, and one said in danish: "our heads are answerable if we allow your majesty to pass." but, despite rantzau's exhortations, neither man cared to lay hands on the queen, and she stepped over their muskets and ran along the corridor to the king's apartments. they were closed, and, though she beat her hands upon the door, no answer was returned, for, fearing some such scene, the queen-dowager had, only a few minutes before, conveyed the king to the apartments of prince frederick. the corridor led nowhere else, and failing to gain entrance, the queen, hardly knowing what she did, went back to her ante-room. [ ] rantzau picked the paper up and put it in his pocket. it was found a year or two after his death among his papers at oppendorft (the estate that came to him through his wife), and has since been preserved. rantzau now addressed her in the language of menace. perhaps some memory of the homage he had paid her at ascheberg, when she was at the zenith of her power, flashed across the queen. "villain!" she cried, "is this the language that you dare to address to me? go, basest of men! leave my presence!" these words only infuriated rantzau the more, but he was crippled with gout, and could not grapple with the infuriated young queen himself, so he turned to the soldiers, and gave them orders to use force. still the soldiers hesitated. then an officer stepped forward and touched the queen on the arm with the intention of leading her back to her chamber. but half beside herself she rushed to the window, threw it open and seemed about to throw herself out. the officer seized her round the waist, and held her back; though no man dared to lay hands on the queen, it was necessary to defend her against herself. the queen shrieked for help and struggled wildly; she was strong and rendered desperate by fear and indignation. a lieutenant had to be called forward, but the queen resisted him as well, though her clothes were partly torn off her in the struggle. at last her strength failed her, and she was dragged away from the window in a half-fainting condition. the officers, who had showed great repugnance to their task, and had used no more force than was absolutely necessary, now carried the queen back to her chamber, and laid her on the bed, where her women, frightened and weeping, crowded around her, and plied her with restoratives. rantzau, who had watched this unseemly spectacle without emotion, nay, with positive zest, now sent a messenger to osten, and asked him to come and induce the queen to yield quietly. although he had threatened to remove her by force, it was not easy to carry out his threat, for the soldiers would not offer violence to the person of the queen, nor would public opinion, if it came to be known, tolerate it. rantzau, who was alternately a bully and a coward, had no wish to put himself in an awkward position. he therefore did the wisest thing in sending for the foreign minister. osten, who at the first tidings of struensee's arrest, had hastened to the christiansborg, was in the queen-dowager's apartments, making his terms with her. this astute diplomatist, though he plotted for the overthrow of struensee, and was aware of all the facts of the conspiracy, had refrained from taking active part in it until its success was assured. now that the king had thrown himself into the arms of the queen-dowager, and struensee and brandt were in prison, he no longer hesitated, but hastened to pay his court to the winning side. he came at once, on receipt of rantzau's message. he realised quite as much as juliana maria that the revolution could only be carried out thoroughly by matilda's removal. she had gained great ascendency over the king, and, if she saw him, that ascendency would be renewed; if she were separated from him, he would speedily forget her. therefore, it was above all things necessary that the king and queen should be kept apart. in a short time queen matilda became more composed, and even recovered sufficiently to dress herself with the aid of her women. when osten entered her chamber, he found her sitting at the side of the bed, weeping. all defiance had faded away; she only felt herself a betrayed and cruelly injured woman. osten came to her in the guise of a friend. he had been a colleague of struensee's, and had never outwardly broken with him, and the queen had confidence in his skill and judgment. she therefore listened to him, when he persuaded her that more would be gained by complying with the king's orders, at this time, than by resisting them. he hinted that her sojourn at kronborg would only be for a time, and by-and-by the king's humour would change. moreover, the people were in a state of revolt against the queen's authority, and it was necessary for matilda's safety that she should be removed from copenhagen to the shelter of kronborg. "what have i done to the people?" the queen asked. "i know that a good many changes have taken place, but i have done my utmost to further the welfare of the king and country according to my conscience." osten merely replied with quiet insistence that she had herself contemplated flight to kronborg at the time of the tumult of the norwegian sailors at hirschholm. believing the man to be her friend, the queen yielded to his advice. "i have done nothing; the king will be just," she said. she signified her willingness to go, provided that her children accompanied her. here again difficulties were raised, but the queen was firm, and said she would not budge a step unless her children went with her. finally, a compromise was arrived at; osten made her understand that the crown prince must not be removed, but she might take the little princess, whom she was herself nursing. this being settled, the queen's preparations for departure were hurriedly made, and fräulein mösting, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, was ordered to go with her, and one of her bed-chamber women. the bleak january morning was still dark when matilda, dressed for the journey, carrying her child in her arms and followed by two of her women, came out of her bedroom, and signified her readiness to start. rantzau, who was still sitting in the ante-chamber, waiting, rose, and pointing to his gouty foot, said with covert insolence: "you see, madam, that my feet fail me; but my arms are free, and i offer one to your majesty to conduct you to your coach." but she repulsed him with scorn, and exclaimed: "away with you, traitor! i loathe you!" she walked alone down the stairs to the coaches, which were waiting in the back-yard of the palace. she entered one, but refused to part with the little princess, whom she placed upon her knees. fräulein mösting sat by the queen's side, and the opposite seat was occupied by an officer with his sword drawn. in the second coach followed the bed-chamber woman, the nurse of the princess louise augusta, and some absolutely necessary luggage. the coaches were guarded by an escort of thirty dragoons, and the cavalcade clattered at a sharp trot through the streets of the still sleeping city, and was soon outside the gates of copenhagen. the first part of the journey was in darkness, but, as the day broke, the queen looked out on the frost-bound roads and the dreary country over which she was hurrying. she had ample time for reflection, and bitter her reflections must have been. a few hours before she had been queen, vested, it seemed, with unlimited power, and the centre of a brilliant court; now she was a prisoner, stripped of all her power, and nearly all the semblance of her rank--a fugitive, she believed herself to be, fleeing from the vengeance of her people. yet even now, in this supreme moment of her desolation, her thoughts were not of herself, but of the man who had brought her to such a pass. the road passed by the grounds of hirschholm, the scene of many happy days, and the memory of them must have deepened the queen's dejection; but she said nothing, and throughout the long and tedious journey uttered no word, but sat motionless, the image of despair. kronborg, whither the royal prisoner was being hurried, was a gloomy fortress erected by frederick ii. in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and restored, after a fire, by christian iv., nearly eighty years later. it had changed little with the flight of centuries, and remains much the same to-day. built strongly of rough-hewn stone, which has taken on itself the colour of the rocks around, the massive and imposing castle springs directly from the sea, on the extreme point of land between the cattegat and the narrowest part of the sound, which separates denmark from sweden. its massive walls, turrets and gables frown down upon the little town of helsingor at its base.[ ] tradition says that deep down in its casemates slumbers holgar danske ("the dane"), who will rise and come forth when his country is in peril.[ ] he might have come forth in , for denmark was never in greater peril than on the eve of the palace revolution. [ ] helsingor, or elsinore, now a busy town, is the scene of shakespeare's play, "hamlet, prince of denmark," and, on "the platform before the castle of elsinore"--in other words, the flagged battlements of kronborg--the ghost of "hamlet" appeared. local tradition also points out "the grave of hamlet" and "the spring of ophelia," both, of course, legendary. hamlet, in fact, never visited elsinore, but was born and lived in jutland. but shakespeare shows a curious knowledge of elsinore and kronborg, and some light has been thrown on this subject by the discovery among the archives of elsinore of a manuscript, which shows that in a wooden theatre, in which a troop of english comedians had been acting, was burned down. the names of the actors are given. nearly all of them have been proved to belong to shakespeare's company, though the name of the poet is not among them. a monument is now being erected to shakespeare at kronborg, to which queen alexandra has contributed. [ ] a well-known character in hans andersen's fairy-tales. two fragments of stone in the dungeons beneath kronborg are still shown; one is said to serve as holgar danske's pillow, and the other as his table. kronborg was distant some twenty-four miles from copenhagen, and the journey was covered in less than three hours. the day had broken when the melancholy cavalcade clattered through the street of helsingor, and pulled up under the storm-beaten walls of kronborg. at the outermost gate the officer in command of the queen's escort produced the king's letter to the commandant, which gave his consort into his charge, and ordered her to be kept a strict prisoner. the commandant of kronborg must have been much surprised at this communication, but he was a stern soldier, not given to questioning, and he obeyed his instructions to the letter. the outer gate was thrown open, and the little procession passed over the drawbridge, which spanned the green water of the moat, to the guard-house, where the escort from copenhagen remained. the soldiers of the fortress then took charge of the two coaches, and they wound their way up the incline under the castle walls. they crossed another drawbridge, spanning a deep, dry ditch, and passed through the rough-hewn, tunnel-like entrance of stone, and out into the gloomy courtyard of the castle--a place where it would seem the sun never shines. here the queen, still carrying her child in her arms, alighted, and was hurried to a doorway on the left of the courtyard, up the winding stone stairs, and through a large room into the chamber set apart for her. this was a low, circular apartment in a tower, not more than ten feet high, and very small, with four windows, iron-barred, looking out upon the sea. the grey waves broke directly beneath the windows, and were separated from the walls only by a strip of rampart, on which cannon were placed.[ ] [ ] the traveller de flaux, who visited kronborg about , thus wrote of the room: "in a tower is a small oval room, the windows of which are still lined with iron bars. it was here that the queen was confined. i was shown the _prie-dieu_ used by this unfortunate princess. it was on the faded velvet that covered it that she rested her beautiful head. who knows whether the spots on it were not produced by the tears of despair she shed?" [du danemark.] i was at kronborg in . the queen's room is now destitute of any furniture, but the iron bars guarding the windows are still there. i looked through them at the sea beneath. it was a grey, windy day; the waves were lead-coloured and flecked with white, and overhead were drifting masses of cloud. on such a scene queen matilda must have often gazed during the five months of her captivity. the unhappy queen looked round the narrow walls of this room, which was almost a cell, with astonishment not unmixed with indignation. she had hardly realised until now that she was a prisoner, for the crafty osten had conveyed to her the idea that she was going to kronborg more for her own safety than as a captive. but the iron-barred windows, and the guard outside her door, brought home to her her unfortunate condition. at least she, the daughter of kings, the wife of a king, and the mother of a king to be, had the right to be treated with the respect due to her rank and dignity. whatever offences were charged against her nothing was yet proved. even if she were a prisoner, she was at least a state prisoner, and though her liberty might be curtailed, every effort should have been made to study as far as possible her comfort and convenience. but locked into this little room, barely furnished and without a fire, she found herself treated more like a common criminal than the reigning queen, and when she protested against these indignities, the commandant told her that he was only obeying his strict orders. the queen, whose spirit was for the moment broken by fatigue and excitement, and who was nearly frozen from the cold of the long journey, sank down upon the pallet bed, and burst into bitter weeping. her women endeavoured in vain to comfort her, and it was only at last, when they reminded her of her child, that she was roused from the abandonment of her grief. "you are here too, dear innocent!" she exclaimed. "in that case, your poor mother is not utterly desolate." [illustration: the room in which queen matilda was imprisoned at kronborg.] for two days the queen remained inconsolable, and did little but sit in a state of stupor, looking out upon the waves; nor could she be prevailed upon to take any rest, or food, or even to lie down upon the bed. it was true that the food offered her was such that she could not eat it, unless compelled by the pangs of hunger, for she was given at first the same food as that served out to the common prisoners. in these first days it was a wonder that she did not die of hunger and cold. it was a bitter winter, violent gales blew across the sea, and the wind shrieked and raged around the castle walls; but there was no way of warming the little room in which the queen was confined. in her hurried departure from copenhagen she had brought with her very few clothes. no others were sent her, and she had hardly the things necessary to clothe herself with propriety, or protect herself against the severity of the weather. she was not allowed to pass the threshold of her room, not even to the large room beyond, where there was a fire. this room was occupied by soldiers, who acted as her jailors, and the women who passed in and out of the queen's room were liable to be searched. this treatment of the queen, for which there was no excuse, must be traced directly to juliana maria; it was she who caused instructions to be sent to the commandant as to how he was to treat his royal prisoner. the king was too indifferent to trouble one way or another, and the commandant would not have dared to inflict such indignities on the king's consort unless he had received strict orders to do so from those in authority--nor would he have wished to do so. later the queen acquitted him from all responsibility in this respect. after the first few days, when she had recovered from the shock of recent events, queen matilda accepted her imprisonment more patiently, and bore her hardships with a dignity and fortitude which enforced respect even from her jailors, and proved that she was no unworthy daughter of the illustrious house from which she sprang. chapter v. the triumph of the queen-dowager. . when day dawned on january , the citizens of copenhagen awoke to the fact that the hated rule of struensee was gone for ever. the constant driving through the streets during the night had attracted little attention, for the noise was thought to arise from the guests returning from the ball at the palace; but when morning came, and the streets were seen to be full of soldiers, the people realised that something unusual had happened. first there came a rumour of a fresh outrage on the part of struensee, and of an attempt to assassinate the king. but swift on the heels of this came the truth: the king, with the aid of the queen-dowager and his brother, had asserted himself; the favourite and his colleagues were in prison, and queen matilda had been conveyed to kronborg. during the silent hours of the night a revolution had been effected, and the mob, like all mobs, shouted on the winning side. the news ran like wildfire round copenhagen, and soon every one was in the streets. on all sides were heard shouts of "long live king christian vii.!" and many cheers were raised for the queen-dowager and prince frederick. the people converged towards the christiansborg palace, and completely filled the space in front of it, shouting and cheering. at ten o'clock in the morning the king, who, until now, had been busy signing orders of arrest, and sanctioning appointments of others to fill the place of those arrested, appeared upon the balcony, with his brother by his side, while the queen-dowager, more modest, showed herself at the window in an undress. their appearance was greeted with deafening shouts by the crowd, to which the king and the prince responded by bows, and juliana maria by waving her handkerchief. the enthusiasm grew more and more, until at last the king joined in the cheers of his people. the queen-dowager had not miscalculated her forces: without doubt the people were on her side. the citizens now began to deck their houses with flags and bunting, and everywhere kept high holiday. even the heavens seemed to rejoice at the downfall of the hated administration, for the sun came out, and shone with a brilliance that had not been known in january in copenhagen for years. about noon the gates of the christiansborg palace were thrown open, and the king, splendidly dressed, with his brother seated by his side, drove forth in a state coach drawn by eight white horses to show himself to his people. for the first time for months the king dispensed with all escort, and, except for the running footmen and postilions, the royal coach was unattended. the king drove through all the principal streets. the crowd was so great that it was with difficulty the coach could make way, and the people pressed and surged around it, and in their enthusiasm wanted to take out the horses and drag the coach themselves. the women especially were wild with delight, and waved their handkerchiefs frantically; some even pulled off their headgear, and waved it in the air, the better to testify their joy at seeing their beloved sovereign safe and sound, and freed from his hated guardians. the king, however, when the novelty of the situation was over, relapsed into his usual apathy, and did not respond to the greeting of his loving subjects, but kept his window up, and stared through it indifferently at the crowd; but prince frederick, who was usually undemonstrative, had let the window down on his side of the coach, and bowed and smiled incessantly. the king held a court in the afternoon at the palace, and was supported on one side by the queen-dowager and on the other by his brother. the court was crowded, and by a very different class of people to those who had appeared during the brief reign of struensee. many of the nobility, who had heard the glad news, hurried into copenhagen to personally offer their congratulations to the three royal personages on the overthrow of the detested german junto. all the queen-dowager's party, all the principal clergy, and all who had taken part in the conspiracy, directly or indirectly, were present; and many more who knew of it, but held aloof until it was an accomplished fact, were now eager to pay their court. the king remained only a short time, and left the queen-dowager and prince frederick to receive the rest of the company, and they did with right good will, rejoicing in their new-found dignity and importance. it was their hour of triumph, and the inauguration of the clique which governed denmark for the next twelve years. in the evening the three royal personages drove to the opera through cheering crowds, and when they entered their box the whole house rose in enthusiasm. their return to the palace was a triumphal procession, the people forming their guard as before. at night the city was illuminated; every house displayed lights in its windows, and bonfires were kindled in the streets. salvoes of artillery were fired from the ramparts, and rockets were sent up. the whole population seemed mad with joy. so great was the illumination that the sky was lit up for miles around. at far-off kronborg queen matilda, peering through her iron bars, saw the light in the sky over towards the capital, and asked what it meant. she was told that it was copenhagen rejoicing over her downfall.[ ] [ ] _mémoires de reverdil._ the popular rejoicings were marred by gross excesses, though considering the excited state of public opinion it is a wonder that more were not committed. some of the lowest characters had turned into the streets, and the sailors and dockyard men, who especially hated struensee, were drunk with wine and excitement. the mob, not content with bonfires, soon showed signs of rioting. they broke into the house of one of struensee's supporters and wrecked it, carried off the furniture, and smashed the windows. in the cellar there was a large stock of spirits. the rioters broke the casks open, drank what they would, and upset the rest, with the result that they waded up to their ankles in liquor. inflamed by drink they next attacked other houses. the police, unable to check the riot, which had grown to dangerous proportions, applied to eickstedt for soldiers to aid them. but the queen-dowager was unwilling to call out the military, as she thought a conflict might bring about bloodshed and so damp the popular enthusiasm. therefore, instead of soldiers, prince frederick's chamberlain was sent to the scene of disturbance, with instructions to thank the people for the rejoicings they had manifested on the king's deliverance from his enemies, and a promise that the king would especially remember the sailors (who were among the most tumultuous of the rioters), if they would now go quietly home. but the mob had by this time got out of hand, and either did not, or would not, listen. they rushed towards the royal stables, with the intention of smashing struensee's coach, but were prevented by the palace guard. they then endeavoured to wreck the house of the chief of the police, but being foiled in this attempt also, they began to plunder the _mont-de-pieté_. at this point the soldiers had to be called out, and they succeeded in dispersing the rioters without bloodshed. next day the streets were patrolled by the burgher guard, and in the afternoon heralds rode round the city, and at certain points read a message from the king, in which he thanked his loyal people for their enthusiasm, but regretted that their zeal had got the better of their discretion. he forbade any further plundering or excesses under heavy penalties. after this the people gradually quieted down, but it was a week before the patrol could be removed. meanwhile the queen-dowager was occupied in distributing honours among her adherents. the arch-conspirator, rantzau, at last received the reward of his intrigues. he was made general-in-chief of the infantry, and a knight of the elephant, and his debts were paid in full from the royal treasury. it may be that the part he had played in the arrest of matilda, and the callousness and insolence he had shown to the unfortunate queen, quickened the sense of juliana maria's gratitude; for she rewarded him promptly and handsomely. eickstedt and köller were promoted to be full generals, and decorated with the order of the dannebrog. köller, who was a pomeranian by birth, was offered naturalisation, with the name of banner, an extinct danish noble family. köller accepted, saying that he intended henceforth to devote his life to denmark, and was known from this time as köller-banner. he was also given a court appointment as aide-de-camp to the king, with apartments in the royal palace. beringskjold was appointed grand chamberlain, and received a pension of two thousand dollars, and a further present of forty thousand dollars paid down. his elder son was appointed a court page, and the younger was promised a captaincy. all the officers of the palace guard who had done duty on the eventful night were promoted a step. major carstenskjold, who had conducted matilda to kronborg with his drawn sabre and forty dragoons, was made a lieutenant-colonel. colonel sames, who had arrested brandt, received a present of ten thousand dollars. jessen was created a councillor of justice, and received a gift of two thousand dollars. rewards were also given to minor personages. the only one of the conspirators who received no reward, though he was in reality the chief among them, was guldberg, who declared that the success of the enterprise was sufficient reward for him, and he required neither money nor titles.[ ] guldberg was sure of his influence with the queen-dowager; he knew, too, that his apparent disinterestedness would carry weight with the people, and so strengthen his position. he had reserved for himself the power behind the throne, and he filled in the new government something of the place that struensee had filled in the old. that is to say, he had great influence over the queen-dowager; he was the indispensable man, he directed the policy, and no appointments were made of which he did not approve. but unlike struensee he conducted himself with infinite tact and discretion. [ ] he later took the name of hoegh-guldberg, and became a minister of state. as the struensee administration had been destroyed root and branch, it was necessary to make several new appointments to carry on the government of the country. the first care of the queen-dowager was to appoint some one to act as the king's keeper--some one who would guard him well--for christian vii.'s formal consent was absolutely necessary for every step she took. the king was now in so weak-minded a condition, and so easily influenced, that any one who had possession of him could make him sign any order he would. all the same juliana maria had some difficulty in getting the king to consent to a new guardian, or "personal attendant," as he was called, to take brandt's place. a long list of names was submitted to him, but he refused them one by one until at last, when the queen-dowager mentioned osten's name, the king said: "yes, i will have him." but osten did not care to exchange his influential post as minister of foreign affairs for that of the king's companion, and declined the honour. so köller-banner, who was a great favourite of the queen-dowager, was appointed to the office. the queen-dowager was anxious to win the support of the old danish nobility to the new government. therefore, count otto thott and councillor schack-rathlou, who had been dismissed by struensee, were invited to take part again in the business of state. bernstorff's recall was urged by a powerful section, but osten and rantzau both opposed it violently, for they feared the return of this upright and conscientious man.[ ] guldberg, too, was afraid that a statesman of bernstorff's eminence would prove a rival to his ambition. the queen-dowager also did not wish to recall bernstorff, because of his well-known devotion to the royal house of england. she feared that he would interfere on behalf of matilda, of whom she was very jealous. she determined to make her feel the full weight of her vengeance. [ ] in spite of this opposition in time bernstorff might have come back, but his health was failing, and he died in the autumn of , at the age of sixty years, at grabow. [illustration: count bernstorff.] the bitter feeling against struensee seemed to increase as the days went by, and on every side were heard cries for vengeance. on january , the first sunday after the revolution, _te deums_ were sung in all the churches of copenhagen; and throughout the kingdom, wherever the news had penetrated, there was a thanksgiving to almighty god for the overthrow of the godless government. the clergy, who had been especially hostile to struensee, and done much to bring about his fall, did not hesitate to improve the occasion from their pulpits, and spoke of "the fearful vengeance of the lord" which had fallen upon wickedness in high places. nor did they spare in their condemnation the unfortunate matilda, but likened her to rahab and to jezebel, and urged their congregations to hate and execrate her name. the celebrated dr. münter, who had often come into conflict with the queen and struensee in the days of their power, preached in the royal chapel of the christiansborg palace before the king, the queen-dowager, prince frederick and the court, and took for his text st. matthew, chapter viii., verses - . his sermon was nothing but a violent diatribe against the fallen minister, more especially for his policy in granting toleration in matters of religion. "godless men ruled over us," cried the preacher, "and openly defied god. they, to whom nothing was sacred either in heaven or earth, despised and mocked the national faith. yet, while they were meditating violent measures to secure their power for ever, the vengeance of the lord fell upon them." so on for many pages, concluding with: "our king is once more ours; we are again his people." the eloquence of the preacher so moved the queen-dowager that she shed tears. the fanaticism of the clergy was only equalled by the fury of the press. that the journals of copenhagen, which were more or less subsidised, should indulge in violent language was only to be expected, but the most eminent writers of the time joined in the cry, including the historian suhm, a man who was a dane of danes, and who had already urged the queen-dowager to action. this learned man published an open letter to the king, which was sold in pamphlet form throughout the kingdom. like many other professors, suhm was only admirable when he confined himself to the subjects which he professed, and the moment he quitted the realm of history for contemporary politics he became unfortunate and of no account. his open letter out-müntered münter in the violence of its abuse and the fulsomeness of its adulation. "long enough," runs the pamphlet, "had religion and virtue been trampled under foot; long enough had honesty and integrity been thrust aside. a disgraceful mob of _canaille_ had seized the person of the king, and rendered access to him impossible for every honourable man. the country swam in tears; the danish land became a name of shame; the rich were plundered; the sun of the royal house was dimmed, and every department of the government was given up to unscrupulous robbers, blasphemers and enemies of humanity." after recounting at great length the danger to which the nation had been brought by the "monster struensee," the pamphlet burst forth into an eloquent exhortation to danes to arise and defend their heritage. it called on all to rally to the standard of the queen-dowager and her son, who had delivered the king and the country from imminent peril. "who would not praise and esteem that dangerous but honourable night?" wrote suhm. "future homers and virgils will sing its praises, and so long as there are any danish and norwegian heroes left in the world the glory of juliana maria and frederick will endure. heaven and earth shall pass away, but their glory shall not pass away." this precious pamphlet was greeted with praise from the highest to the lowest in the land. suhm soon issued a second exhortation addressed: "to my countrymen--danes, norwegians and holsteiners," in which he demanded vengeance upon struensee. such vengeance, he declared, was imperatively demanded for the honour of denmark, for "all the nations of europe would regard a people that suffered itself to be governed by a struensee as a vile, cowardly people". suhm's example was followed by a number of anonymous scribblers, who flooded town and country with pamphlets calling aloud for the blood of the fallen minister. so unanimous were these pamphlets, and with such regularity did they appear, that it provoked the suspicion that the new government had some hand in thus inflaming public opinion against its enemies. not only were struensee, brandt and their colleagues denounced by every conceivable epithet, but the name of the queen, who, though imprisoned, was still the reigning queen, was dragged into these effusions, and covered with dishonour. everything was done to foment the public rage against her, and "justice against matilda" was shouted by hirelings in the streets. before matters had reached this pitch, keith had intervened on behalf of the imprisoned queen. it was unfortunate that matilda, at the time of her arrest, had not demanded to see the english minister, and thrown herself on his protection as a princess of great britain. but the thought did not cross her mind, for though keith was anxious and willing to help her, the queen, in her madness for struensee, had rejected both the assistance and advice that had been offered by her brother of england, and had treated his representative with reserve. but keith, we see by his despatches, realised the situation, and cherished no feeling of resentment. he felt for the queen nothing but chivalrous pity, and determined, if possible, to shield her from the consequences of her rashness and indiscretion. to this end he had attended the masked ball, where he saw the queen radiant and happy, with no thought of the mine about to explode beneath her feet. in the morning of january keith heard with astonishment and alarm of the queen-dowager's conspiracy, and that the queen, abandoned by the king, had been conveyed a prisoner to the castle of kronborg. rumours were current that she was in imminent peril, and that it was proposed to execute her before the sun went down. with characteristic determination keith lost not a moment in acting on behalf of the queen. he hastened through the crowded streets to the christiansborg palace, and demanded instant audience of the king. this was denied him, and so was his request that he might be admitted to the presence of the queen-dowager or her son. nothing daunted, keith demanded an immediate interview with osten, who still acted as minister of foreign affairs. osten, who well knew the nature of keith's errand, tried at first to put him off with excuses, but the envoy would not be denied, and at last almost forced his way into osten's cabinet, where he found him in council with some of the other conspirators. in answer to the envoy's inquiry, "where is the queen?" osten replied that his majesty had found it necessary to remove his royal consort to the fortress of kronborg, where she would be detained until the king further signified his pleasure, and the grave charges against her of conspiracy against the king's authority and infidelity to his bed had been disproved. keith, under these circumstances, could do nothing but lodge a protest, and demand that the queen, as a princess of great britain, should be treated with all the respect and consideration which her birth demanded, and that, as queen of denmark, any proceedings against her should follow the regular and constitutional rule of that country. he referred to the rumours that were current of foul play, and said that he held the danish government responsible for her safety, and warned them that the king, his master, would undoubtedly declare war against denmark if a hair of her head were touched. after delivering this ultimatum, keith left the christiansborg palace, returned to his own house, and wrote a long despatch to england, detailing all that had occurred, and what he had said and done. he asked for instructions as to how he was to proceed with regard to the new government and the imprisoned queen. this done, he shut himself up in his house until the answer should arrive.[ ] [ ] _memoirs of sir r. murray keith_, vol. i. it is impossible to quote this despatch of keith's, as it has been destroyed. the last available despatch of keith's is previous to the catastrophe, and thenceforward, until after the queen's divorce, all the despatches relating to the queen are abstracted from those preserved in the state paper office in london. these despatches were destroyed by order of king george iii. there is no trace either of the despatches sent by keith to england at this period, or of those from england to keith, beyond an order, later, that keith was to bring them to england. the popular rejoicings came to an end within a week of the palace revolution, but the court festivities were continued some time longer. the king frequently drove about the city in company with his brother, and, as the ground was covered with snow, he often appeared in a sleigh. the queen-dowager also showed herself in public on every possible occasion, in marked contrast to her previous habits of rigid seclusion. she now occupied at frederiksberg the apartments of the imprisoned queen, but at the christiansborg she retained her former suite. within a week of matilda's disgrace a state banquet and ball were held at the christiansborg, at which the queen-dowager took the place of the reigning queen. the king's twenty-third birthday, january , was celebrated all over the kingdom with great rejoicing, and copenhagen was decorated and illuminated in honour of the event. in the evening the king, attended by a very large suite, witnessed the performance at the palace theatre of two new french vaudevilles. with a singular lack of good taste, the titles of these pieces were "_l'ambitieux_," and "_l'indiscret_," and, as might be judged, they abounded in allusions to struensee and scarcely veiled insults of the imprisoned queen, who only a few days before had been the centre of the court festivities. after the play there was a grand supper in the knights' hall, to which the foreign envoys, ministers, and the most distinguished of the nobility were invited. the english envoy was absent. the object of all these court festivities was to persuade the public that the king shared in the universal joy. there is reason, however, to believe that after the first few days of excitement were past, the king began to realise that he had bettered his condition very little by the change. he was glad to be rid of brandt and struensee, especially of brandt, but he missed the queen, who was always kind and lively, and no doubt if he could have seen her he would have forgiven her on the spot. the queen-dowager was fully aware of this danger, and determined at all hazards to prevent it. already she was beginning to feel some of the anxieties of power. popularity is a very fleeting thing, and there were signs that the popularity of the new government would be ephemeral; the recent riots of the mob, which were comparatively unchecked, had given them a taste for similar excesses. the court lived in continual dread of further disturbance. a ludicrous instance of this occurred at the theatre some few days after the revolution, when the court was at the french play. owing to the house being inconveniently crowded, some slight disturbance took place in the cheaper seats. immediately a rumour flew round the theatre that a riot had broken out in the city, struensee and brandt had escaped from prison, and the mob were setting fire to houses and plundering everywhere. the news ran like wildfire through the audience, and in an incredibly short space of time a scene of panic prevailed. every one began to make for the doors, with the result that the confusion became worse confounded. the king was the first to take fright, and rushed from his box, with wild looks, followed by the hereditary prince. the queen-dowager tried in vain to detain them, and when they were gone she was so much overcome that she fainted. a curious crowd had collected outside the theatre, and it was not until some time that order was restored, and the whole affair discovered to be a hoax. but the queen-dowager was not reassured, and the result of this panic was seen in a series of police regulations for the better preservation of the public peace. the city gates, which had been left open, were again locked at night; masters were ordered to keep their apprentices at home after dark, and public houses were ordered to be closed at ten o'clock. the first step taken by the queen-dowager was to re-establish the council of state, which had been abolished by struensee. it consisted of prince frederick and the following members: count thott, count rantzau, councillor schack-rathlou, admiral rommeling, general eickstedt and count osten. all resolutions were discussed by the council of state before they received the royal assent, and the net result of the new regulations was to take the power out of the king's hands, and vest it in the council, for the king's signature was deprived of all force and validity except in council. the members of the council of state received in their patents the titles of ministers of state and excellencies. count thott acted as president of the council in the absence of the king, and received a salary of six thousand dollars--the other members five thousand dollars. guldberg, who really drew up the plan of the council with the queen-dowager, and afterwards the instructions, was not at first a member, but for all that he was the most influential man in the government. he and the queen-dowager worked in concert, and they ruled the situation. it was said that juliana maria at first entertained the idea of deposing the king, and placing her son upon the throne, but guldberg opposed it, and pointed out that such a step would surely be followed by a protest from the nation and from the foreign powers, with england at their head. the queen-dowager therefore continued to play the rôle of one who had only come forward with the greatest reluctance because her action was urgently needed for the salvation of the king and country. this was the line she took in a conversation with reverdil, who was set at liberty a few days after his arrest by her orders, and summoned to her presence. when reverdil entered the room, she apologised for his arrest, and said it was a mistake, and contrary to her orders. she continued: "i only wish i could have spared the others, but the queen had forgotten everything she owed to her sex, her birth and her rank. even so, my son and i would have refrained from interference had not her irregularities affected the government. the whole kingdom was upset, and going fast to ruin. god supported me through it all; i felt neither alarm nor terror."[ ] [ ] _mémoires de reverdil._ the queen-dowager felt well disposed towards reverdil, who had more than once remonstrated with struensee on the disrespect shown by him and his minions to her and prince frederick. she would probably have reinstated him in his post, but osten and rantzau disliked him. they feared he might gain an influence over the king, or enter a plea of mercy for the prisoners, or suggest to the queen-dowager the recall of bernstorff, or induce her to summon prince charles of hesse to court--both of whom disliked them. so osten saw reverdil and worked upon his fears. he advised him for his own sake to leave the court, and the honest swiss needed no second warning, but within a week shook the dust of copenhagen off his feet, and so disappears from this history.[ ] [ ] after leaving copenhagen, reverdil lived for some time at nyon, and afterwards at lausanne. he maintained a correspondence with prince charles of hesse, and lived on friendly terms with a number of distinguished personages, including necker, garnier, mesdames necker and de stael, and voltaire, who said of him: "on peut avoir autant d'esprit que reverdil, mais pas davantage." reverdil lived to an advanced age, and died in at geneva. the next step of the queen-dowager's government was the appointment of a commission of inquiry to conduct the investigation of struensee, brandt, and the ten other prisoners, and send them for trial. this commission consisted of eight high officials, to whom a ninth was eventually added. they were all known to be enemies of struensee and his system of government. the commission was appointed in january, and made it its first duty to search the houses of the prisoners, and examine all their papers. for the purpose of taking evidence the commission sat daily at the christiansborg palace, but either because the commissioners were uncertain how to proceed, or because of conflicting counsels, five weeks passed before the examination of the principal prisoners began. every one knew that the trial was a foregone conclusion. keith wrote to his father before it took place: "count struensee is loaded with irons, and, which is worse, with guilt, in a common prison in the citadel. without knowing either the particulars of the accusations against him, or the proofs, i believe i may venture to say that he will soon finish his wild career by the hands of the executioner. the treatment of count brandt in the prison, and the race he has run, bear so near an affinity to those of struensee that it may be presumed his doom will be similar."[ ] [ ] sir r. m. keith to mr. keith, february , .--_memoirs and correspondence of sir robert murray keith._ struensee and brandt were kept confined closely to their cells, and treated with hardship and ignominy, which would have broken the spirits of far stronger men than they, who had been rendered soft by luxury and self-indulgence. the day after their arrival at the citadel iron chains were specially forged for them. these chains weighed eighteen pounds each, and were fastened on the right hand and on the left leg, and thence, with the length of three yards, to the wall. they wore them day and night and never took them off. struensee felt this indignity bitterly, and made pitiful efforts to conceal his fetters. curiously enough, the smith who forged them and fastened them upon him was a prisoner who only a year before had been in chains himself, and then had begged struensee for alms and his liberty. the minister had contemptuously tossed him some pence, but refused to set him free, saying: "you do not wear your chains on account of your virtues." when the man, therefore, fettered struensee to the wall, he reminded him of the incident by saying: "your excellency, i do not put this chain on you on account of your virtues."[ ] [ ] _gespräch im reiche der todten_ (a pamphlet). most of the severities inflicted on the prisoners, and especially those on struensee, seem rather to have been dictated from a fear that they would attempt to commit suicide, and not in any vindictive spirit. neither of the prisoners was entrusted with knives and forks, but the jailors cut up their food and carried it to their mouths. struensee at first tried to starve himself, but after three days the commandant sent him word that he was to eat and drink, otherwise he would be thrashed until his appetite returned. his buttons were cut off his clothes, because he had swallowed two of them; his shoe-buckles were removed, and when he tried to dash his head against the wall he was made to wear an iron cap. brandt escaped both the strait-waistcoat and the iron cap, for he showed no disposition to take his life; on the contrary, he was always cheerful, and bore his fate with a fortitude which shamed the wretched struensee. [illustration: frederick, hereditary prince of denmark, step-brother of christian vii.] chapter vi. "a daughter of england." . the ill-news from denmark travelled to england in an incredibly short space of time, considering how slow and difficult was the transmission of news in the eighteenth century. though nothing definite was known, the air was full of rumours, and the gossips of the clubs and coffee-houses were much exercised over the fate of the queen of denmark. the greatest care had been taken to prevent any whisper of the current scandal at the court of denmark reaching the ears of the english people. the less reputable members of the opposition, it was thought, would be sure to use the intrigue between the queen and struensee as another weapon against the king and the government. so long back as december , , we find keith writing to lord suffolk a private letter detailing the case of one ball, an english naval surgeon, who had offered his services in aid of the danish expedition against algiers. struensee, who hated every one english, had dismissed his application with scant courtesy, and in revenge ball had written an angry letter to struensee, threatening to expose his conduct. keith continues: "i can hardly suppose that count struensee will deign to send an answer to this letter, but, as mr. ball has picked up here a number of scandalous stories which might make a figure in a catch-penny pamphlet, i think it my duty to let your lordship know what may be the possible consequence of his revenging his disappointment by appearing in print. if the minister was the only person whose name might be mixed up in this altercation, i should be less anxious. perhaps the danish envoy in london may obtain for mr. ball some additional gratuity which will put an end to the dispute."[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, december , . whether ball was muzzled or not there is no record to tell, but the events at the danish court having culminated in the catastrophe of january , it was only a question of time for the scandal to be bruited abroad in every court in europe, and in england too. as early as january a london newspaper created great excitement by the following paragraph: "it is affirmed by letters from the continent that a royal princess is certainly detained in a tower, inaccessible to every creature, except such as are appointed to attend her, but that an absolute silence is imposed throughout the kingdom on this subject."[ ] [ ] _general evening post_, january , . a few days later keith's despatch arrived from copenhagen, containing a full account of the revolution there, and the arrest and imprisonment of the queen. lord suffolk, the foreign secretary, immediately hastened with it to the king, who was about to hold a levee. george iii., who had already heard evil rumours, was so much overcome by this confirmation of them that he immediately put off the levee, and the royal family were thrown into grief and humiliation. queen charlotte was highly indignant with her sister-in-law, and went into closest retirement, declaring that she was ashamed to appear in public. the princess of brunswick, matilda's sister, who was staying in london at the time, wept bitterly. the princess-dowager of wales was seriously ill, and the princess of brunswick thought that it was better that her mother should not be told; but the king said: "my mother _will_ know everything"; and therefore he went to her directly, and acquainted her with the contents of keith's despatch. the princess-dowager was overwhelmed with affliction at the news of this last family disgrace. she had seen it coming for some time, and made every effort to recall her daughter from the error of her ways; but her remonstrances were unheeded, and her advice neglected, and now the ruin which she had foretold had fallen upon the queen of denmark. only a few months before the princess-dowager had been annoyed beyond measure by the marriage of her youngest son, henry duke of cumberland, with mrs. horton, a beautiful and designing widow,[ ] and she had broken off all communication with him in consequence. her other son, the duke of gloucester, who had contracted a similar marriage, soon to be publicly avowed, had added to her anxieties by a dangerous illness. her eldest daughter, the princess of brunswick, was unhappy in her matrimonial relations. therefore it is no wonder that the proud princess's patience gave way under this last disgrace. in the first moments of her grief and anger she turned her face to the wall and prayed for death, and forbade her children and her servants evermore to mention to her the name of matilda, who, she declared, had ceased to be her daughter. well might walpole write: "such an accumulated succession of mortifications has rarely fallen on a royal family in so short a space. they seem to have inherited the unpropitious star of the stuarts, from whom they are descended, as well as their crown."[ ] [ ] the duchess of cumberland was the widow of andrew horton of catton, and the daughter of simon lord irnham, afterwards earl of carhampton. the marriage took place privately on october , , at the hon. mrs. horton's house in hertford street, mayfair. the king, when apprised of the fact, immediately manifested his displeasure by publishing a notice in the _london gazette_ to the effect that such persons as might choose to wait upon the duke and the new duchess would no longer be received at st. james's. this marriage was the immediate cause of the passing of the royal marriage act, which made such marriages (if contracted without the consent of the reigning sovereign) in future illegal. [ ] walpole's _reign of george iii._, vol. iv. the dishonour of her youngest daughter, coming on the top of all her other mortifications, proved too much even for the indomitable spirit of the princess-dowager, and without doubt hastened her death. in any case the end could not have been long delayed, for she was dying of cancer, and her sufferings the last year of her life had been agonising. yet to the end she would not admit that she was ill, and bore her pains, like her sorrows, in stern silence. george iii., whose pride was deeply wounded by these family scandals, which brought discredit on the throne and the dynasty, greatly sympathised with his mother. doubtless he took counsel with her as to how he was to act to save his sister matilda from the worst consequences of her indiscretion, but at first he seems to have done nothing. perhaps this inaction was due to his great anxiety concerning his mother's health. he had always been devoted to her, and was now unremitting in his attentions. he visited her every evening at eight o'clock, and remained some hours; but though the princess was gradually sinking before his eyes, even he did not dare to hint to her that the end was near. the night before she died the king was so anxious that he anticipated his visit by an hour, pretending that he had mistaken the time, and he brought with him queen charlotte. even then, with the hand of death upon her, the princess-dowager rose up and dressed as usual to receive her son and daughter-in-law. she made not the slightest allusion to her state of health, though she kept them in conversation for four hours on other topics. on their rising to take their leave, she said that she should pass a quiet night. the king, who feared she might die at any moment, did not return home, but, unknown to his mother, remained at carlton house. the princess-dowager fought hard for life the first part of the night, but towards morning it became evident even to herself that the end was imminent. she asked her physician how long she had to live. he hesitated. "no matter," she said, "for i have nothing to say, nothing to do, nothing to leave."[ ] an hour later she was dead. she died so suddenly that the king, although he was resting in an adjoining room, was not in time to be with his mother when she breathed her last. he gained her bedside immediately after, took her hand, kissed it, and burst into tears. [ ] mrs. carter's _letters_, vol. iv. the princess-dowager of wales died in the fifty-third year of her age, at six o'clock in the morning, on february , , not long after the terrible news had arrived from denmark. she therefore died without hearing again of her daughter matilda. "the calmness and composure of her death," wrote bishop newton, her domestic chaplain, "were further proofs and attestations of the goodness of her life; and she died, as she lived, beloved and lamented most by those who knew her best."[ ] no sooner was this princess, who was cruelly abused all her life, dead, than the papers were filled with praise of her virtues. "never was a more amiable, a more innocent, or a more benevolent princess," wrote one, and this was the theme, with variations, of the rest. without endorsing all this eulogy, it must be admitted that the princess-dowager of wales was in many ways a princess high above the average. few women have been more harshly judged, and none on so little evidence. insult and calumny followed her to the grave. a few days before she died a scandalous libel appeared, and the disgrace of the daughter was seized on as a weapon to attack once more the mother. an indecent scribbler, who signed himself "atticus," wrote in the _public advertiser_ of the revolution at copenhagen as follows:-- "the day was fixed: _a favourite fell_. methinks i hear the earl of bute whisper to his poor affrighted soul, and every corner of his hiding places murmur these expressions: 'god bless us! a known and established favourite ruined in a single night by a near neighbour--the frenzy may reach this country, and i am undone. englishmen too are haters of favourites and scotchmen. those old rascally whig families, whose power and virtues seem almost lost, may reunite. in the meantime, i must do something--a lucky thought occurs to me. i'll fill the minds of the people with prejudices against those haughty danes. bradshaw dyson shall bribe the printers to suppress any contradictory reports. englishmen are always ready to vindicate injured virtue at any expense; therefore nothing shall be heard but the _honour of the king's sister_!'" [ ] _bishop newton's life of himself_, vol. i. thus, even when the poor woman lay dying, the old prejudice was revived. then, as for a quarter of a century before, the pivot on which all this slander turned was the precise nature of the friendship between the princess and lord bute--a matter which surely concerned no one except themselves. her arch-maligner, horace walpole, put the worst construction on this intimacy, and her political enemies endorsed his verdict. but walpole hated the princess-dowager, because she refused to recognise in any way the marriage of his favourite niece to the duke of gloucester. the evil construction placed upon the friendship, as lord chesterfield said, "was founded on mere conjectures". the whole life of the princess-dowager--the decorum of her conduct, the order and regularity of her household, her strict principles, the reticence of her character, and the coldness of her temperament--give it the lie. the eighteenth century, with its gross pleasures and low ideals, could not understand a disinterested friendship between a man and a woman, and, not understanding, condemned it. yet there is much to show that this friendship was of that high order of affection which eliminates all thought of self or sex. it lasted for long years; it was marked by complete trust and confidence on the woman's side, by loyalty and chivalry on the man's. it never wavered through good report or ill; opposition and insult served to strengthen it, and it was broken only by death. there must have been something very noble in the woman who won such allegiance, and in the man who rendered it. the news from copenhagen created an extraordinary sensation in london. the ladies were whispering all sorts of naughtiness behind their fans concerning queen matilda and struensee; the gossips in the coffee-houses were retailing fresh bits of scandal every day, and the politicians were betting on the possibilities of a war with denmark. public opinion at first seemed to be on the side of the young queen. some of the papers already demanded that a fleet should be sent to denmark to vindicate the honour of the british princess, who was generally spoken of as the "royal innocent". the following may be quoted as a specimen of these effusions:-- "recollect the manner in which that lady [queen matilda] was educated, and that, when delivered into the hands of her husband she was in the full possession of every virtue. all the graces were in her; she knew nothing but what was good. can it then, with any degree of reason, be concluded that in so short a time the lady could forget every virtuous precept, and abandon herself to infamy? my dear countrymen, it cannot be, and until we have a certainty of guilt, believe it not, though an angel from copenhagen should affirm it."[ ] [ ] _general evening post_, february , . the popular curiosity was heightened by the profound secrecy observed by the court and government. so far, nothing definite was known; the king and his ministers were naturally silent. the illness and death of his mother had hindered the king from taking action on keith's despatch, and while he was hesitating, another communication arrived from copenhagen. this was a letter addressed by that wily diplomatist, osten, to the danish envoy in london, baron dieden, with instructions that he was to communicate its contents to lord suffolk at once. this letter threw a different complexion on the affair to that of keith's despatch. it assumed the guilt of the queen, and urged that the king of denmark was only within his rights in removing his consort from the contaminating presence of her favourite. the matter, osten urged, was of so delicate and personal a nature that it could not be treated properly by ministers or envoys. the king of denmark, when he had recovered from the affliction into which the knowledge of his consort's infidelity had plunged him, would write to his brother of england with his own hand, and he trusted that his britannic majesty would suspend judgment until then. a few days later dieden received another despatch from osten, enclosing a sealed letter from christian vii. to george iii., and the danish envoy delivered this letter into the king's hands at once. this letter, which no doubt christian had been induced to copy by the dictation of the queen-dowager and her advisers, took the same line as osten's despatch, though of course it was written in a more intimate and confidential tone, not only as between brother monarchs, but near relatives. george iii., who was already prejudiced against his sister by the way in which she had slighted his advice, and ignored his remonstrances, was not averse from dealing with the difficulty in this way. though he greatly disliked his cousin, the king of denmark, and knew the insults and cruelties which had been heaped upon his unhappy sister, yet, as he was of a most moral and domestic nature, he could not find in them any justification for her conduct, and he regarded her offence, if proved, with horror. osten's representations were so plausible that the king, when he received christian vii.'s letter, replied to it in no unyielding spirit; he reserved his judgment, but demanded that his sister should be treated fairly, and every possible respect and indulgence be shown to her. he would not go behind his envoy's back, in the manner suggested by osten, for he rightly judged that keith, being on the spot, would be thoroughly informed of the situation. he therefore gave his letter to suffolk to transmit to keith, with instructions that he was to have a personal audience of the king forthwith, and to deliver it into his hands. at the same time lord suffolk wrote a despatch to keith asking for fuller information, and conveying to him in a special manner his sovereign's approbation of his conduct. keith all this time had remained shut up in his house, in copenhagen, awaiting instructions from england, and unable, until he received them, to do anything on behalf of the unhappy queen. the answer to his despatch did not arrive for nearly a month. when at last it came, "in the shape of a sealed square packet, it was placed in colonel keith's hands, and they trembled, and he shook all over as he cut the strings. the parcel flew open, and the order of the bath fell at his feet. the insignia had been enclosed by the king's own hands, with a despatch commanding him to invest himself forthwith, and appear at the danish court."[ ] what instructions the despatch contained will never be known; but that george iii. entirely approved of the way in which his representative had acted is shown by a letter which lord suffolk wrote at the same time to keith's father:-- "i cannot deny myself the satisfaction of acquainting you with the eminent merit of your son, his majesty's minister at copenhagen, and the honourable testimony his majesty has been pleased to give of his approbation by conferring on him the order of the bath. the ability, spirit and dignity with which sir robert keith has conducted himself in a very delicate and difficult position has induced his majesty to accompany the honour he bestows with very particular marks of distinction."[ ] [ ] _memoirs of sir robert murray keith._ [ ] lord suffolk, secretary of state for foreign affairs, to r. keith, esq., february , . fortified with these marks of his sovereign's approval, and armed with the king's letter, keith, for the first time for many weeks, emerged from his house, and proceeded to the christiansborg palace, where he demanded a private audience of the king of denmark. the audience was promised on the morrow, but when keith again repaired to the palace, and was conducted to the ante-chamber of the king's apartments, he was astonished at seeing, instead of the king, osten and some of the newly appointed ministers, who informed him that, his majesty not being well, they had been charged to receive the envoy's communication, and convey it to the king. keith replied with some indignation that his orders were to deliver his letter into the king's own hands, and he did not understand why his danish majesty, after he had consented to give him audience, should refer him to his ministers. but the ministers only politely expressed their regret, and said they were acting under the king's orders. the whole scene of course was planned by the queen-dowager, who had her own reasons for keeping the english envoy away from the king, as she was determined at all hazards that matilda should be deposed and disgraced. keith, who realised that there was something behind, and saw the futility of further remonstrance, reluctantly surrendered the letter; but he added that he should not fail to inform his sovereign of the way in which he had been treated. he moreover said that his royal master's letter was a private one to the king, but that he himself had authority to state to the ministers that, if the queen of denmark were not treated with all the respect due to her birth and rank, her royal brother of england would not fail to resent it in a manner that would make denmark tremble. he then withdrew. keith must have written a very strongly worded despatch to lord suffolk, exposing the trickery of the danish court, and probably hinting at the queen's danger, for though the despatches which passed between him and suffolk at this time are missing, we know that they became graver and more serious in tone. the relations between the two countries seemed likely to be broken off, for the danish envoy in england, dieden, followed keith's example, and shut himself up in his house until he should receive instructions. when these instructions came, they could not have been satisfactory, for when the danish envoy next appeared at court, george iii. pointedly ignored him, which the minister resented by standing out of the circle, and laughing and talking with the prussian minister, whose master also had a dispute with england at this time. moreover, the prussian minister had given offence to the king by talking too freely about the scandal at the danish court. on one occasion he asked a court official with a sneer: "what has become of your queen of denmark?"--to which the englishman made quick reply: "apparently she is at spandau with your princess of prussia"--a princess who had been divorced for adultery. the secrecy which still reigned over everything concerning the king's sister, and the dilatory nature of the negotiations, led to much unfavourable comment in england. the mystery of the queen of denmark continued to be the only topic of discussion, both in public and private. notwithstanding all precautions, well-informed people formed a very shrewd idea of what had taken place at copenhagen. for instance, on february , , mrs. carter wrote to mrs. vesey: "i have very little intelligence to send you from denmark, as there is a profound silence at st. james's on this subject. you know that the unhappy young queen is imprisoned in a castle dashed by the waves, where she is kept in very strict confinement. i am persuaded you would think it an alleviation of her misfortunes if i could tell you it is the very castle once haunted by hamlet's ghost, but of this i have no positive assurance, though, as it is at elsinur, i think such an imagination as yours and mine may fairly enough make out the rest. in the letter that the king of denmark wrote to ours, he only mentioned in general terms that the queen had behaved in a manner which obliged him to imprison her, but that from regard to his majesty her life should be safe."[ ] [ ] mrs. carter's _letters_, vol. iv. the thought that the young and beautiful queen--a british princess--was ill-treated and imprisoned, and possibly even in danger of her life, and her brother would not interpose on her behalf, created an extraordinary sensation, and the opposition, thinking any stick good enough wherewith to belabour the king and his ministers, did not fail to turn the situation to account. it formed the subject of one of the most powerful letters of junius, who made a terrific onslaught on both the king and the prime minister, lord north, from which we take the following extracts:-- "my lord, "i have waited with a degree of impatience natural to a man who wishes well to his country for your lordship's ministerial interposition on behalf of an injured princess of england, the queen-consort of denmark.... an insignificant northern potentate is honoured by a matrimonial alliance with the king of england's sister. a confused rumour prevails, that she has been false to his bed; the tale spreads; a particular man is pointed out as the object of her licentious affections. our hopeful ministry are, however, quite silent: despatches, indeed, are sent off to copenhagen, but the contents of those despatches are so profound a secret, that with me it almost amounts to a question whether you [lord north] yourself know anything of the matter.... in private life the honour of a sister is deemed an affair of infinite consequence to a brother. a man of sentiment is anxious to convince his friends and neighbours that the breath of slander hath traduced her virtue; and he seizes, with avidity, every extenuating circumstance that can contribute to extenuate her offence, or demonstrate her innocence beyond the possibility of cavil. is our pious monarch cast in a different mould from that of his people? or is he taught to believe that the opinion of his subjects has no manner of relation to his own felicity? are _you_, my lord, [north] quite devoid of feeling? have you no warm blood that flows round your heart, that gives your frame a thrilling soft sensation, and makes your bosom glow with affections ornamental to man as a social creature? for shame, my lord! however wrong you act, you must know better; you must be conscious that the people have a right to be informed of every transaction which concerns the welfare of the state. they are part of a mighty empire, which flourishes only as their happiness is promoted; they have a kind of claim in every person belonging to the royal lineage. how then can they possibly remain neuter, and see their princess imprisoned by banditti and northern vandals?... there is a barbarous ferocity which still clings to the inhabitants of the north, and renders their government subject to perpetual convulsions; but the danes, i fancy, will be found the only people in our times who have dared to proceed to extremities that alarmed europe, nay, dared to imprison an english princess without giving even the shadow of a public reason for their conduct.... the present machiavelian dowager julia may send the young queen's soul to heaven in a night, and through the shameless remissness of you, lord north, as prime minister of this unhappy country, the public may remain ignorant of every circumstance relative to the murder. be not, however, deceived: the blood of our sovereign's sister shall not be suffered to cry in vain for vengeance: it _shall_ be heard, it _shall_ be revenged, and, what is still more, it shall besprinkle lord north, and thus affix a stigma on his forehead, which shall make him wander, like another cain, accursed through the world."[ ] [ ] this letter, signed "junius," appeared in the _gentleman's magazine_, march , . this attack naturally called forth a counter-attack, and before long the guilt, or innocence, of the king's sister was as hotly debated in the public press as in the clubs and coffee-houses. but neither the thunders of junius, nor the shrill cries of those who took the opposite view, made any difference to lord north, and the nature of the negotiations which were going on between england and denmark remained as much a mystery as ever. when pressed in parliament on the subject, the prime minister contented himself with answering, with his usual air of frankness, that, unless expressly ordered to do so by the house, he would not reveal so delicate a matter, and in this he was supported by the good sense of the house, which had no wish to see the disgrace of the king's sister form a subject of debate within the walls of parliament. moreover, at this stage it was not a question which concerned ministers, but the king, and the blame for what followed must be laid not on their shoulders, but on his. george iii. believed his sister guilty, and did not weigh sufficiently the extenuating circumstances, which, whether guilty or innocent, could be urged in her favour. he did not act at first with that firmness which the situation undoubtedly demanded. the queen-dowager of denmark and her advisers believed the king of england to be luke-warm, and consequently proceeded against his unhappy sister with every circumstance of cruelty and malevolence. if even her brother would not defend her, matilda was indeed abandoned to the vengeance of her enemies. chapter vii. the imprisoned queen. . all this time the unfortunate matilda remained at kronborg, with no consolation except that she was permitted to retain the infant princess. she was still very closely guarded, but after keith's spirited protest, the rigours of her imprisonment were slightly abated. some clothes and other necessaries were sent her from copenhagen, and by way of keeping up the fiction that she was treated with the respect due to her birth and rank, her suite was increased, and two gentlemen of the bed-chamber and two maids-of-honour were sent to kronborg. their duties must have been light, for, confined as the queen was to one small chamber, they could rarely have seen their mistress during the first months of her sojourn in the fortress. but their presence at kronborg was a device of the queen-dowager to throw dust in the eyes of the english and other courts, for the misfortunes of matilda were now the subject of conversation in every court in europe. moreover, the persons sent to kronborg were all, as juliana maria well knew, personally disliked by the young queen, and they went rather in the capacity of spies than servants of her household. as it afterwards appeared at her trial, even the women who waited on the queen were really spies, and her most casual expressions and trifling actions were distorted by these menials into evidence against her. matilda was allowed no communication with the outer world, and she asked her maid, a woman named arnsberg, what had become of struensee. the woman told her he was imprisoned in the citadel. the queen wept, and asked: "is he in chains? has he food to eat? does he know that i am imprisoned here?" these questions, natural enough under the circumstances, were duly noted by the treacherous woman, and afterwards put in as evidence against the queen at her trial. when the first shock was over matilda bore her imprisonment with fortitude. her youth and strong constitution were in her favour, and she kept well, notwithstanding her deprivations. we find keith writing a month after the queen's imprisonment: "the queen of denmark enjoys perfect health in hamlet's castle. i wish the punishment of her cruellest _enemies_, the late minister, struensee, and his associates, were over, that the heat of party might subside, and her majesty's situation be altered for the better."[ ] [ ] keith's letter to his father, february , . [illustration: the courtyard of the castle of kronborg. _from an engraving._] in her lonely prison matilda had ample time for reflection. she reviewed the events of the past few months and her present situation, and she saw, now that it was too late, that the advice and remonstrances of her mother and brother had been given in all good faith. she saw, too, that any hope of deliverance must come from england, and that she could expect nothing from her imbecile husband and the relentless queen-dowager and her adherents. for weeks she was kept uncertain of the fate that awaited her; her attendants either would not, or could not, give her any information on this head, and she lived in constant dread of assassination. in her anxiety and alarm she is said to have written impassioned appeals from kronborg to keith in copenhagen, and to her brother george iii., throwing herself on the protection of great britain.[ ] without accepting the genuineness of any particular letter, it is certain that the queen managed to enter into communication with keith, though he was not permitted to see her. keith had great difficulty with osten, who spoke fair to his face but granted nothing. [ ] these letters were first published in the english papers early in april, , and the fact that they so appeared is sufficient to cast grave doubts upon their genuineness. it is most unlikely that such letters would have been allowed to pass out of safe keeping. on the contrary, the greatest care was taken that every letter and despatch to england bearing on the queen's case should be kept secret, and they were afterwards destroyed by order of george iii. in the middle of february the news of the death of the princess-dowager of wales reached copenhagen, and keith made some attempt to break the distressing intelligence to the imprisoned queen by word of mouth. but here, too, he was foiled by osten, who would only suffer the intelligence to be communicated to the queen in a formal letter. matilda was greatly distressed at her mother's death, for she knew that she had lost not only her mother, but also a protectress, whose influence with the king of england was all-powerful. to her grief must also have been added a sense of remorse, for she had parted with her mother in anger; she knew, too, how the princess's proud spirit must have been abased by the news of her misfortunes, and this probably hastened her death. yet, even so, matilda could not forget the man who had brought her to this miserable pass; she hardly thought of herself; all her anxiety was for him and his safety. that he had brought her to shame and ruin made no difference to her love; all her prayers and all her thoughts were of him. her love was now but a memory, but it was one she cherished dearer than life itself. probably it was the knowledge of this impenitent condition (for everything matilda said or did was reported through spies) that made juliana maria provide spiritual consolation for the hapless captive. the queen-dowager was a fanatical woman, who had no charity but much bigotry; it is possible, therefore, that she may have been sincere in her wish to "convert" matilda. at least, that is the only excuse that can be offered for the insults which were heaped upon the unfortunate young queen in the name of religion. acting on the instructions of the queen-dowager, the commandant of kronborg every sunday morning compelled his royal prisoner to come out of her small room, where at least she had the refuge of seclusion, and marched her over the rough stones of the courtyard to the chapel of the fortress.[ ] there, seated in a pew with a guard on either side, and the ladies and gentlemen of her household (who put in an appearance on these occasions) behind her, the poor queen was thundered at ferociously by the garrison preacher, one chemnitz, who, also acting under instructions, preached at her for an hour together, and hurled at her head the fiercest insults from the safe shelter of his pulpit. for instance, on one sunday he chose as his text: "and the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of israel shall possess them in the land of the lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors" (isa. xiv. ). on alternate sundays another preacher, named hansen, took up the parable, and was even more violent than his colleague. on one occasion he hurled at the queen the following text: "wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?" (isa. lxiii. ), and then proceeded to draw a parallel between the hapless prisoner and the scarlet woman. what added to the indignity of these cruel insults was the fact that they were addressed to the queen in the presence of the other prisoners, many of them common criminals, and in the face of the rough soldiers of the fortress. but the exhortations of these boanerges fell on deaf ears, so far as the queen was concerned. it was noticed that she went very white, but she otherwise showed no sign of emotion. she left the chapel as she had entered it, with her head held haughtily erect, and a dignified air. though naturally the most kind-hearted and unassuming of women, this royal daughter of england could summon all her dignity to her aid when she chose, and look every inch a queen. it was impossible to humiliate matilda; nor were these the methods to win her from the error of her ways. when the preachers sought to gain admittance to her cell, she absolutely refused to see them, and showed so much determination that they dared not force their way into her presence. she might be dragged to the chapel and publicly pilloried, that she suffered under protest; but the men who had so insulted her she positively declined to receive, and all exhortations and threats were unavailing. but though the insults of the preachers failed to shake matilda's composure, her enemies, of whom juliana maria was the chief, had at last obtained a document by which they hoped to humble her proud head to the dust. [ ] the chapel is a handsome building, with a vaulted stone roof, and a gallery running round it. the walls are elaborately painted, and pulpit and stalls adorned with wood-carving by german masters. the chapel was restored in , but, except for the pews, it presents much the same appearance as it did in matilda's day. it is now used as a garrison chapel, for kronborg is no longer a prison. by the third week of february the commissioners appointed to collect evidence against the state prisoners at copenhagen had concluded their investigations, and were ready to examine the two principal offenders, preliminary to sending them to trial. struensee was taken first. he had now been in close confinement five weeks; the heavy irons, the rough treatment and the mental anxiety had told upon his health, already failing before he went to prison. it was a feeble, broken man, very different to the arrogant minister of former days, who was dragged forth from his dungeon to be interrogated before the commission on february . extraordinary precautions were taken to guard the prisoner. the examination took place within the walls of the citadel, though in another part of the fortress--the house of the commandant. the two gates of the citadel were closed the whole day, and in the city the garrison and burgher guard were patrolled in readiness for any outbreak. at ten o'clock struensee was taken across the yard of the citadel in the commandant's coach, under the guard of an officer and six men, to the hall of examination. as the morning was very cold he was permitted to wear his fur coat, and before he was brought into the room where the commission was sitting, his fetters were taken off. he trembled violently while his chains were being removed, but this may have been due to physical causes, for he had worn them day and night for five weeks, and they were very heavy. he could scarcely stand, so he was allowed to sit in an armchair when he confronted his enemies. notwithstanding his weak condition, struensee astonished the commissioners by his calmness, and the collected way in which he answered their questions. he declared that all the orders he had given to the military during the last weeks of his administration were precautions to ensure the public safety, and he scouted the idea of his alleged plot against the person and authority of the king, of which, indeed, no vestige of proof existed. the first day his examination lasted nearly eight hours, from ten o'clock in the morning until two, and again from half-past four in the afternoon until seven o'clock in the evening. at the close struensee was again put in irons, and conducted back to his dungeon. the next morning he was brought forth again, and examined from ten o'clock until two. at none of these sittings did the prisoner inculpate himself in the slightest degree. at the third examination he was closely questioned with regard to his intimacy with the queen, but he made no confession, and, on the contrary, declared that his relations with her were innocent. it is said that one of the commission, councillor braem, having spoken roughly to the prisoner because he would not admit his guilt, struensee calmly told him to imitate his tranquillity, and added that the affair surely concerned him more than anybody else. incensed by this calmness braem threatened him with torture, and said that instruments were ready in the next room which would tear the truth from the most obstinate criminal. struensee replied that he had already spoken the truth, and he did not fear torture.[ ] the third examination closed at half-past two on the second day without any admissions having been extorted from the prisoner. in the interval the commissioners conferred together, and determined to change their tactics. [ ] according to reverdil, it is doubtful whether struensee was threatened with torture, or, if he were, braem exceeded his functions. in any case, the threat was an idle one, for the instruments were not prepared. so far they had told struensee nothing of what had happened to queen matilda, but thought to entrap him by leaving him in complete ignorance of the details of the palace revolution. at a loss to explain struensee's calmness, they now shrewdly guessed that he was counting on the protection of the young queen. it was remembered that he had often boasted, in the hour of his prosperity, that no harm could come to him, for the queen was absolutely identified with all his measures, and to attack him would be to attack her too; she was his shield against his enemies. he never dreamed that they would dare to attack her, for she had absolute ascendency over the king, and moreover was the sister of a powerful reigning monarch, who would assuredly defend her from peril, or at least would use all his influence to prevent a scandal for the honour of his house. when, therefore, the prisoner was again summoned before his examiners, they told him without more ado that, if he were trusting to the protection of the queen, he was trusting to a broken reed: the queen herself was arrested and imprisoned, and would shortly be put upon her trial, with the consent of the king of england, who, equally with his danish majesty, viewed with abhorrence the guilty connection between her and struensee. he might therefore as well make a clean breast of it, for everything would assuredly become known. the effect produced on the prisoner's shattered nerves by this revelation was all that his enemies hoped; struensee was completely overcome, and broke down at once. so confidently had he counted on the queen's protection that, now he learned she was in the same plight as himself, all his firmness forsook him; he burst into tears and lamentations, and begged to be allowed to retire to regain his composure. but the commissioners were careful not to allow this opportunity to pass; they pressed home their advantage with renewed questions and threats, even holding out hopes of mercy if he would tell the truth. before long struensee, instead of "lying like a gentleman," confessed without reserve that his familiarity with the queen had been carried to the furthest limit. the commissioners did not conceal their exultation; this base confession did more than anything else to brand the man before them as a profligate adventurer. some extenuation might be urged for struensee if in a moment of terror and confusion he had been taken off his guard and blurted out the truth, or if on consideration he had recalled his words; but his subsequent conduct leaves no room for this extenuation. there is no doubt that he thought, by dragging the queen (now that she could no longer protect him) into the mud with himself, he would save his shameful life. he probably argued that a public trial would be avoided for the honour of the royal houses of denmark and england, the affair would be hushed up, and he would be allowed to escape with banishment. it is more than probable that his crafty examiners held out this inducement for the wretched man to confess everything. struensee needed little encouragement, for, having once embarked upon his story, he seemed to take a positive pleasure in telling the most unnecessary details. he evidently thought that the more deeply he incriminated the queen, the better chance he would have of saving his life. not content with this, the pitiful coward threw all the blame upon her--an inexperienced woman fourteen years younger than himself, who loved him to her destruction, who had showered benefits upon him, and to whom he owed everything. it was the old story, "_the woman tempted me_." there is no need to quote in full here the confession of this wretched man. he not only made it once but repeated it with ample details four days later; these details were marked by a total absence of reticence, and even decency. according to this confession--and it must be remembered that the man who made it was a liar as well as a coward--the intimate relations between the queen and himself began in the spring of , not long before the tour in holstein. the queen first gave him marks of her affection at a masquerade; he strove to check the intimacy, and afterwards to break it off, but without success. he even quoted the rudeness and lack of respect with which it was notorious he had frequently treated the queen to prove the truth of his statement. he declared that he had been obliged to continue the intimacy lest he should lose his mistress's confidence--that he was thus "placed in the alternative of ruining his fortunes, or succumbing to the will of the queen". this shameful confession struensee signed. having now got all they wanted, the commissioners dismissed struensee to his dungeon until they should have further need of him. the traitor retired well pleased with himself. hope sprang once more within his breast, and this was fostered by several indulgences now shown to him. he was allowed to be shaved, his diet was made fuller, and he was given wine. his valet was permitted to attend him under strict order of silence. the man, who was devoted to his master, brought with him the silver toilet bowls and perfume bottles--they were suffered to remain in the cell, mute testimony of the change from effeminate luxury to sordid misery. armed with struensee's confession, the government at last felt equal to dealing with the imprisoned queen. hitherto they had been in difficulty how to proceed. from the beginning of her incarceration the queen, on being told whereof she was accused, had passionately demanded a fair trial. she was now informed that she would receive it. on march , , a fortnight after struensee's confession, a special commission, acting in the king's name (though he was probably ignorant of the proceedings, or at any rate indifferent to them), arrived at kronborg--nominally for the purpose of examining the queen, in reality to extort from her by fair means or foul a confirmation of the confession made by struensee. it was imperative that her enemies should obtain it, for it would justify the queen's treatment to the english government, which, owing to the exertions of keith, was becoming unpleasantly troublesome in its demands. it is said that keith had contrived by some means to secretly warn the imprisoned queen of the impending arrival of the commissioners, so that she should not be taken by surprise. he advised her that she should receive them with calmness, and treat them as subjects who had come to pay court to their queen; when they began to interrogate her, she would do well to say that she had no answer to give them; she could not recognise their right to question her, as she recognised no superior, or judge, but her lord the king, to whom alone she would account for her actions. but unfortunately keith knew nothing of struensee's confession. the commission consisted of two members of the council of state--count otto thott and councillor schack-rathlou[ ]--who were well known to the queen in the days of her prosperity, and two members of the committee of investigation who had examined struensee, baron juell-wind, a judge of the supreme court, and stampe, the attorney-general. these four men, it is scarcely necessary to say, had been opponents of the struensee administration. as the queen's room was too small to admit all these men, some of whom could hardly have stood upright in it, the commission sat in the large hall adjoining, generally used for the guard--a room with a painted ceiling and pictures of danish worthies around the walls. there, when they had arranged themselves at a table, with pens, ink and paper, her majesty was informed that they awaited her pleasure. [ ] joachim otto schack-rathlou, minister of state ( - ). the queen did not respond immediately to the summons, but first robed herself with care. presently she entered the room, followed by her women. she acknowledged with a bow the salutations of the commissioners, who rose at her entrance, and then, passing to a chair, waved to them to be seated. she was very pale, but otherwise her bearing showed majestic dignity and composure. the commissioners, who had expected to find her broken down by weeks of solitary suffering and suspense, were astonished at this reception, and for a moment knew not how to proceed. schack-rathlou, who owed the queen a grudge for the part which he unjustly believed she had played against him, undertook to begin the examination. for some time this proved fruitless. the commissioners found the queen armed at all points: she admitted nothing, denied their right to question her, and, when she answered under protest, her replies were of the briefest. though she was examined and cross-examined by the four men, two of whom were eminent lawyers, she showed neither confusion nor hesitation. it was evident that the queen could not be made to incriminate herself by fair means; therefore the commissioners resolved to resort to foul ones. they could not threaten her with torture, so they determined to surprise her in the same way as struensee had been surprised, and throw her off her guard. schack-rathlou, who acted as president of the commission, therefore told the queen that, as she would admit nothing of her own free will, it was their duty to inform her that they held damning evidence of her guilt. thereupon he produced struensee's confession, and read it aloud. for the first time during the examination the queen showed signs of emotion; she flushed either with shame or anger at the scandalous accusations, but she listened without interruption to the end. then, when schack-rathlou put the formal question to her, she denied everything with passionate indignation, and declared that it was impossible that struensee could have made such shameful statements, the document must be a forgery. for answer, schack-rathlou held the paper up before the queen, that she might read with her own eyes struensee's signature. the queen took a hasty glance, and recognising the well-known characters, she uttered an exclamation of horror, fell back in her chair, and covered her face with her hands. the commissioners had trapped their victim at last. presently schack-rathlou leaned across the table, and said significantly: "if struensee's confession be not true, madam, then there is no death cruel enough for this monster, who has dared to compromise you to such an extent." at these words matilda let her hands fall from her face, and gazed with startled eyes at her merciless accusers. all her self-possession had fled, and for the moment she was utterly unnerved. she understood the covert menace only too well: by thus maligning the reigning queen he was liable to death by the law of denmark, and death the most barbarous and degrading. she still loved this man; even his shameful betrayal of her had not weakened her love. it had probably been extorted from him by trickery and torture; in any case, she refused to judge him. he had brought all the happiness she had known into her life; if he now brought shame and ruin, she would forgive him for the sake of the happiness that was gone. she had sworn never to abandon him, and should she now, because of one false step, throw him to the wolves? no! she would save him, even though it cost her her honour and her crown. these thoughts flashed through the queen's brain as she confronted her judges. then she gripped with her hands the arms of her chair, and, leaning forward, said: "but if i were to avow these words of struensee to be true, could i save his life by doing so?" the lie was ready: "surely, madam," said schack-rathlou, "that would be adduced in his favour, and would quite alter the situation. you have only to sign this." so saying, he spread out a document already prepared, which the commissioners had brought with them. in it the queen was made to confirm struensee's confession. the unhappy queen glanced at it hurriedly. "ah, well! i will sign," she said. she seized the pen which schack-rathlou thrust into her hand, and wrote her signature to a document that would ruin her for ever. she had hardly done so when she fell back fainting.[ ] [ ] according to _falckenskjold's memoirs_ and the _authentische aufklärungen_, the queen nearly fainted after writing the first two syllables--"caro--," but schack-rathlou seized her hand, and, guiding it, added the remainder, "--line matilda". this story bears a remarkable resemblance to one related of matilda's ancestress, mary queen of scots, when forced to sign her abdication in the castle of lochleven. unfortunately for the truth of it, the document which the queen signed is still preserved in the royal archives of copenhagen, and the signature shows no sign of a break. when the queen recovered, the commissioners had gone, and with them the fatal document; only the women who spied upon her remained, and the guards who had come to conduct her back to her chamber. when matilda reached it, she threw herself on her pallet, and, clasping the little princess in her arms, gave way to unavailing lamentation. it is stated by some authorities that the threat of taking her child away from her was also used by the commissioners to extort her signature, and the promise was made that, if she avowed her guilt, the child would remain. this promise, if given, like all others, was subsequently falsified; but at the time it must have carried with it every appearance of probability, for the queen, by admitting her guilt, also cast a slur upon the legitimacy of her child. now that it was too late, she regretted the precipitation with which she had signed the paper. her enemies' eagerness to induce her to sign showed her clearly how she had erred: she ought to have demanded time for reflection, or insisted on adequate guarantees. she had signed away her crown, her honour, her children, perhaps her life, and it might be all in vain. the commissioners, who had succeeded almost beyond their hopes, hastened back to copenhagen to lay before the queen-dowager the crowning evidence of matilda's guilt. juliana maria was overjoyed: her enemy was delivered into her hands; nay, she had delivered herself. in this paper she found a full justification for all that she had done, and a complete answer to the remonstrances of the english envoy and his master. keith, it is said, at first refused to believe the evidence of his eyes, and then fell back on the argument that the queen's signature had been wrung from her either by force or fraud. he realised that she had committed an irretrievable mistake. for the queen-consort to be unfaithful to her husband's bed was, by the law of denmark, high treason, and as such punishable with death. questions of high treason were, as a rule, solved by the king alone; the _lex regia_ expressly prohibited the judges from trying such matters. but in this case the king could not be trusted; he probably had no wish to divorce his queen, whether she were guilty or not guilty--much less to punish her with imprisonment or death; he regarded offences against morality with a lenient eye, and he had positively forced his unhappy consort into temptation. so he was not consulted. the queen-dowager took counsel with her legal advisers, with the result that an old statute was raked up (section of the code of christian v.), and a special commission, consisting of no less than thirty-five members, who formed a supreme court, was appointed to try the case of the king against the queen. the court was composed of representatives of every class: five clergy, the bishop of zealand and four clerical assessors; four members of the council of state, counts thott, osten, councillor schack-rathlou and admiral rommeling; the members of the commission who had examined struensee; the judges of the supreme court not members of the commission; two officers of the army; two of the navy; several councillors of state; and one representative of the civic authority. the court was thus composed of some of the most eminent men in denmark, and representative of both the church and state. some of them were creatures of the queen-dowager, and pledged to carry out her wishes, many were upright and honourable men, but all were hostile to the struensee administration, which had been carried on in the name of the queen. the english envoy offered no protest to this trial, though he must have known that the judges were men prejudiced against the queen, and the sentence of divorce was already virtually determined upon. but the blame for this inaction does not rest with keith; he had received no instructions from the king of england, to whom matilda's confession had been communicated with the least possible delay by the danish government. george iii. held that, primarily, the question was one between husband and wife, and if his sister had forgotten her duty as a wife and a queen, her husband was justified in putting her away. hence he offered no objection to the divorce proceedings which followed, though they were conducted from first to last with the utmost unfairness. true, he entered a plea for a fair trial, but he must have known that, surrounded as his sister was with enemies, a fair trial was impossible. if george iii. had entered a vigorous protest at this juncture, the trial would never have been allowed to go forward, and a painful scandal, discreditable alike to the royal houses of england and denmark, might have been hushed up. moreover, decided action at the outset would have rendered unnecessary the crisis which brought england and denmark to the verge of war a few months later. chapter viii. the divorce of the queen. . the trial of the queen began on march , in the great hall of the court of exchequer at copenhagen. the whole of the commissioners were present, and the proceedings were vested with every possible solemnity. the court was opened by prayer, offered by the aged bishop of zealand, who had officiated at the queen's marriage five and a half years before. the judges who formed part of the commission were formally released from their oath of allegiance to the king during the trial, that they might judge of the matter between christian and his consort in the same way as they would that between any ordinary man and wife. bang, a lawyer of the court of exchequer, undertook the king's cause, and uhldahl, an eloquent advocate of the supreme court, was appointed to defend the queen. he was not chosen by matilda, but by her enemies, with the object of throwing dust in the eyes of the world. a demand had been made that the queen should receive a fair trial, and as a proof of its fairness juliana maria was able to point to the fact that the most eloquent advocate in denmark had been retained for the queen's defence. the device was clever, but transparent. though the trial was that of the king against the queen, neither of these exalted personages put in an appearance: the king was probably ignorant of what was going on; the queen, who might reasonably have expected to be present at her own trial, was not given the option of attending. nothing would have induced the queen-dowager to permit matilda to return to copenhagen, even as a prisoner. her youth, her beauty, her misfortunes, might have hastened a reaction in her favour, and, moreover, it was even possible that she might by some means have effected a meeting with the king, and such a meeting would have been fatal to all the plans. the king would probably have forgiven her straight away, and taken her back as his reigning queen. therefore, the queen-dowager determined to keep matilda safely shut up at kronborg until she could remove her to a more distant fortress--that of aalborg in jutland, a most desolate spot. the fact that, so early as february , or more than a month before the trial opened, commissioners had been sent to aalborg to inspect the castle with a view to its occupation by the young queen, is sufficient to prove that the whole trial was a farce, since her sentence and punishment had been determined before it began. [illustration: rÖskilde cathedral, where the kings and queens of denmark are buried.] the first week of the trial was occupied in preliminaries, such as taking the depositions of witnesses. these witnesses were many in number. the most prominent of them was fräulein von eyben, who had been maid of honour to the queen. this woman, whose virtue was by no means above suspicion, had been thrust upon the queen by holck after the dismissal of madame plessen. the queen had never liked von eyben, and when she became mistress of her own household, she dismissed her. that she was wise in doing so was shown by the fact that this woman now came forward with detailed accounts of the traps she had set to convict the queen of a guilty intimacy with struensee. her evidence was categorical, but it was given with so much animus that it would have been regarded as prejudiced by any unbiassed judges. the other witnesses were all of the kind common in divorce courts--servants, maids, footmen, and the like--all of whom a few dollars would buy to swear anything. such evidence is tainted at the source, and no judge ought to be influenced by it. matilda was always the most generous and indulgent of mistresses; yet these menials, who had been treated with every kindness, now turned and gave evidence against her--the usual kind of evidence, such as listening at doors, peeping through keyholes, strewing sand on the floor, turning out lamps or lighting them, and other details of a more particular nature, unfit to be related here. suffice it to say that the dear secrets of the queen's unhappy love were profaned by the coarse lips of these hirelings. the depositions of these witnesses are still preserved in a small iron box in the secret archives of copenhagen. for many years they were missing, but about twenty years ago the box was found, and opened in the presence of the chief of the archives, the prussian minister then at copenhagen, and prince hans of glucksburg, a brother of the present king of denmark, christian ix. the papers were examined and sorted, put back in the box again, and passed into the safe keeping of the secret archives, where they have since remained. the papers include not only the depositions of witnesses, but also some letters of the queen. yet, curiously enough, a few of these depositions were published in a pamphlet by jenssen-tusch[ ] some years before the existence of the box was known to the authorities. wittich afterwards repeated these quotations with great force against the queen.[ ] the great bulk of these papers have never been published, and it may be hoped never will be, for their publication would only gratify prurient curiosity. if such evidence be admitted, then all possibility of the queen's innocence is at an end; but the question will always remain how far these witnesses, mostly drawn from the lowest class, were suborned to testify against their mistress. [ ] g. f. von jenssen-tusch, _die verschwörung gegen die königin caroline mathilde und die grafen struensee und brandt_ (leipzig, ). [ ] k. wittich, _struensee_ (leipzig, ). on march , before the whole assembly of the commissioners, bang, the king's advocate, submitted his indictment of queen matilda. it was a lengthy document, prepared with great care. the beginning sounds the keynote of the whole:-- "only the command of my king could induce me to speak against the queen, and it is with a sense of the deepest humility, and with horror and grief, that i proceed to investigate the conduct of queen caroline matilda, and submit the proofs that she has broken her marriage vow. i am compelled to indict her majesty on these counts, because above all others the king's marriage bed must be kept pure and undefiled. as a husband the king can demand this right, and he is bound to assert it for the honour of his royal house, and the welfare of his nation. as a husband the king can demand this right given him by the marriage vow; as the head of his royal house he is bound to guard the supremacy, antiquity, honour and purity of the danish royal family. the virtues of this exalted family are known to the whole world; but if a foreign stock were grafted on the royal stem, and the offspring of lackeys came to bear the name of the king, the antiquity of this exalted family would cease, its supremacy weaken, its respect be lost, its honour abased, and its purity sullied.... hence his majesty, as husband of his wife, as first of his race, and as king of his people, has appointed this commission. his personal right, the honour of his house, and the security of the nation simultaneously demand that the justice and loyalty which animate this commission should, in accordance with the law of god, the law of nature, and the law of this country, dissolve the marriage tie which binds christian vii. to her majesty, caroline matilda." bang then proceeded to submit his evidence. it may be divided into five heads. first and foremost, there was the confession of struensee on february , a confession which he repeated subsequently on february with the fullest details, and signed with his own hand. secondly, there was the queen's confirmation of this document, which she signed at kronborg on march . by doing so she admitted that she had broken her marriage vow, and so forfeited her rights as wife and queen. but since it might be argued that these confessions were extorted by threat, torture or other unfair means, the evidence of other persons was submitted. moreover, according to the law of denmark, it was not alone sufficient that the accused persons should confess their guilt, as for divers reasons, known to themselves, they might not be speaking the truth. the advocate, therefore, proceeded to quote the evidence of a great number of witnesses, who had been previously examined by the commission. this evidence went to show that so long ago as the winter of and the beginning of the queen's bed-chamber women and sundry lackeys formed suspicions that there was something wrong between struensee and the queen. they therefore spied on the queen's movements, and set a trap for struensee, with the result that their suspicions were confirmed. after taking counsel together, these women, "with quaking hearts and tear-laden eyes," approached the queen, who, seeing them thus disturbed, asked them kindly what was the matter. they then, instead of telling her they had spied, said there were evil rumours about the court concerning herself and struensee, that the queen-dowager was aware of them, and threatened to bring the matter before the council of state. they affected to believe that the rumours were unfounded, but wished the queen to be more careful. the queen apparently neither admitted nor denied anything; at that time she was ill, and struensee was the medical attendant sent her by the king, but she said that she would consult him about it, and perhaps if she did not see him so often the rumours would die out. but after the queen had consulted struensee, she changed her tone, and said to her women: "do you know that any woman who speaks in such a way about the queen can be punished by the loss of her tongue?" at this point the evidence of the lady-in-waiting, von eyben, was taken, who said that what the queen had denied to her women she had confessed to her. she found her mistress one day weeping and in great distress, and on asking what was the matter, the queen told her of the whole affair, confessed that she was guilty, and said that struensee had advised her to bribe the women, which she refused to do. then came the deposition of professor berger, now under arrest, who said that, though he had no positive evidence, the intimacy between the queen and struensee had appeared to him most suspicious. struensee behaved towards the queen with a familiarity that was improper, considering their relative positions. the evidence of brandt was also taken. brandt declared that struensee had confided to him the intrigue, but his confidence was unnecessary, as every word and look which passed between the queen and struensee showed that they were deeply attached to one another. sometimes they quarrelled, and the queen was very jealous of struensee, but they always became reconciled again, and were better friends than before. struensee's apartments at christiansborg, frederiksberg and hirschholm were so arranged that he could go from them to the queen's rooms unnoticed. there remained a great deal of servants' gossip, such as the queen's conversations with her women. thus, for instance, the queen's words, that if a woman loved a man, she should follow the object of her devotion to the gallows or the wheel, if need be, or even down to hell itself, were repeated here with additions. one of the maids objected, and said that there were few men worthy of such sacrifices; what was a woman to do if her lover proved unfaithful? the queen replied that in her case she would either go mad or kill herself. she envied her waiting-women their good fortune in being able to marry whom they would, and said she had been married once against her will, but if she ever had the good fortune to become a widow, she would marry the next time whom she pleased, even if he were a private person, and she had to leave the country and abandon her crown in consequence. the fact that she asked for struensee, and tried to rush to his room at the time of her arrest, was noted against her; also her tears and lamentations at kronborg, and the inquiries she had made after him. it was also put in as evidence that she always wore a miniature of struensee, that she took it with her to kronborg, and kept it at night under her pillow for fear any one should take it from her. finally, several presents that the queen had given struensee were put in as evidence against her, though they were of no particular value. a great deal was made out of a blue enamelled heart which the queen had brought with her from england, and afterwards gave to struensee as the pledge of their friendship. having duly noted all this and a great deal more, bang wound up his indictment by demanding a verdict in the name of the king to this effect:-- "that in accordance with the law of denmark set forth in the sixth section of the third book of the code of christian v., her majesty caroline matilda shall now be declared guilty of having broken her marriage vow, and that it be forthwith dissolved, so as not to prevent his majesty the king, if he will, from contracting a new alliance." the indictment of bang was neither very able nor very convincing, and, except for the queen's admission of struensee's confession, the evidence which he adduced was hardly worthy of credence. it was all of the nature of circumstantial evidence, and there was no direct proof of the queen's guilt; on the contrary, it was in her favour that notwithstanding every effort of cajolery, bribery and threat had been employed to procure evidence against the queen, no better result could be obtained than this hotch-potch of servants' gossip and vague suppositions. it may be doubted whether any ordinary court of law would pass sentence on such evidence; but the judges of the unfortunate matilda had been appointed not to execute justice, but to carry out the behests of her enemies. their minds were already made up as to the verdict before they entered the court. still, to maintain an appearance of fairness before the world, they announced their willingness to hear the queen's defence, and offered no objection when the queen's advocate, uhldahl, requested an adjournment of the court for a week, so that he might have time to submit bang's indictment to the queen, and consult with her concerning the defence to be offered. the court was then adjourned until april . in the interval uhldahl went to kronborg, and took with him bang's indictment. he had several audiences of the queen, who was now more mistress of her emotions, and they went through the charges against her point by point. the queen was moved to indignation at the revelations of the treachery of those whom she had trusted, and she was aghast at the unfairness with which some of her most innocent actions were distorted into proofs of her guilt. blinded as she had been by her love for struensee, the queen now realised for the first time what her conduct must have looked like to the eyes of other people. still, even admitting her lack of discretion to the fullest extent, a great deal of the evidence submitted against her was both unfair and untrue. unfortunately, the damning testimony of her own confession remained, and not all her tears could wash out the signature which she had so incautiously written. it was therefore resolved to fall back on the strict letter of the danish law, which did not permit the confession of an accused person to be put in as evidence, and treated it as null and void. the queen, it is true, admitted that appearances were against her, but she pleaded that she was not guilty of the worst offence. the intimacy between herself and struensee had been carried beyond the bounds of discretion and propriety, considering their relative positions, but it was not wicked. for the rest, she threw herself upon the mercy of the king, who in any case would have to confirm the sentence of her judges. the queen's forlorn condition, her youth, her tears, her prayers, her evident goodness of heart, moved even her advocate to pity, prejudiced though he was against her, and hired for the purpose of conniving at her destruction. he drew up his defence with her, and threw into the work so much heart that when he left his client it became a very different document to that which he had contemplated at first. on uhldahl's return to copenhagen the second session was held on april , and the advocate then submitted his defence.[ ] [ ] the original draft of uhldahl's defence of queen matilda is still among the heirlooms of the uhldahl family. a copy of this celebrated document, in danish, is preserved in the royal archives in copenhagen. the above is a translation of that copy. "it is with unfeigned emotion that i rise to fulfil the duty which the well-being of the queen as well as the command of the king have imposed upon me. "the rank of these exalted personages, the importance and far-reaching consequences of this trial, the intense desire i have to do my duty, and the fear that i may not be able to do it as i wish, add to my anxiety, and justify my regret at seeing the queen compelled to lay aside her purple, come down from her throne, and, like the meanest of women, seek the protection of the law. could any more affecting illustration of the insecurity of human happiness possibly be imagined? she in whose veins flows the blood of so many kings is suspected of having dishonoured her illustrious ancestry. she, who gave her lord the king her hand and heart, stands accused by the man who at that time swore to be her protector. she who, when she came among us, by the unanimous verdict of the nation, was regarded as the mother of her people, is now tried by the men who in that day would have shed their blood in her defence. thus unhappy is queen caroline matilda, and she alone among all the queens of denmark. in the bloom of her youth, and dowered with every gift to ensure happiness, she finds herself to-day standing on the brink of an abyss, down which her honour, her dignity, her peace of mind, may be cast. in one day she may lose her husband, her children and her throne, and yet be compelled to survive the loss. suspected, accused, in danger of living a life of wretchedness for long years to come--can anything be more heart-rending than her position? thus the queen regards her situation, and thus she depicted it to me when i had the honour of waiting upon her, in the following words:-- "'i should utterly despair had not my intentions been always for the welfare of the king and the country. if i have possibly acted incautiously, my youth, my sex and my rank must plead in my favour. i never believed myself exposed to suspicion, and, even though my confession appears to confirm my guilt, i know myself to be perfectly innocent. i understand that the law requires me to be tried: my consort has granted me this much; i hope he will also, through the mouth of his judges, acknowledge that i have not made myself unworthy of him.' "i repeat her majesty's words exactly as she uttered them. how i wish that i could reproduce the emotion with which they were spoken--the frankness that carried conviction, the trembling voice which pleaded for pity! this last, indeed, no one can refuse her without outraging every sentiment of humanity. "chief among the charges brought against the queen is that she has been false to the vows and duties imposed upon her by her marriage with the king her husband. it has been well urged that the king's bed must remain unsullied in the interests of his own honour, and the honour and prosperity of his country. these truths all will admit, but they are so far from affecting the queen that she demands the strictest investigation; she believes that she has not acted contrary to them. the more exalted her duties, the more exacting her obligations, the more terrible are the consequences of any infraction of them. the more familiar the two parties were, the clearer must be the evidence that the queen has really committed a sin. how will the honour of the king and his royal family be better promoted--by proving the queen guilty, or by showing her innocence? has the queen never known and fulfilled what she owed to herself, her husband and his people? is it not admitted that, up to the time, at all events, when the accusations begin, she had proved herself a tender mother, an affectionate wife, and a worthy queen? can it be credited that her majesty could so easily have forgotten herself? can it be that she, who up to that day sought delight in modesty, virtue, respect of the king, and affection of the country, banished all these noble feelings from her heart in a single moment? "advocate bang in the king's name submitted three varieties of proofs against the queen--count struensee's confession, her majesty's statement, and (as he knew that neither of these was sufficient) the evidence of witnesses. "undoubtedly count struensee on february and , as the documents show, made statements of the most insulting nature against her majesty. he forgot the reverence due to his queen, and through unfounded alarm, or confusion of mind, or the hope of saving himself by implicating the queen in his affair, or for other reasons, he made these absurd allegations, which can only injure himself. for what belief can be given to the statement that he, if the queen thought him worthy of her confidence, should have been so daring as to abuse it in so scandalous a manner, or that the queen would have tolerated it? the honour of a private person, much more that of a queen, could not be affected by such a statement. and how improbable it is that such a state of affairs should have gone on at court for two whole years under the nose of the king, and under the eyes of so many spies. the accusation is made by a prisoner not on his oath, and is utterly destitute of probability. "advocate bang admits that count struensee's declaration is in itself no evidence against the queen. hence he tries to confirm it, partly by the acknowledgment which the queen made on march as to the correctness of struensee's declaration, partly through her admission that she had broken her marriage vows, and hence lost her marriage rights. this he wishes to be regarded as proof. certainly, in all civil causes confession is the most complete form of proof, but in criminal actions, and those such as we are now trying, the law of denmark utterly rejects this evidence when it says: 'it is not sufficient that the accused person should herself confess it, but the accuser must legally bring the accused before the court, and properly prove the offence'. "other proofs therefore are necessary, and since it is the king's wish that the law should be strictly followed in this action, and judgment be founded on the evidence submitted, it follows that the queen must have a claim to this benefit as much as the meanest of her subjects....[ ] [ ] here follows an argument to show that the queen could not be convicted on her own confession, or on the confession of struensee, as the danish code demanded that the evidence must be given by two persons, who agreed as to the facts as well as the motives. "i now pass to the third class of proofs, which consist of the evidence of persons summoned by the prosecution as witnesses. her majesty has commanded me to declare that she does not desire them to be recalled and examined by me, but i have her commands to investigate the nature of this evidence, and what it goes to prove. "it is worthy of note that not one of the witnesses examined alleges any other foundation for his, or her, first suspicion against the queen than common gossip ['town-scandal'] which they had heard. it was not until this gossip became universal that it was mentioned to the queen. as most of the witnesses were constantly about the queen's person, and yet found no reason for believing anything wrong in her intercourse with struensee, it is clear that the conduct of the queen must have been irreproachable up to this time. every one knows that rumour is a lying jade; scandal is often founded on nothing, and through its propagation alone acquires credibility. but however false the slander may be, it leaves behind it, after once being uttered, a suspicion, which places the conduct of the person slandered in a new and different light. words and actions before regarded as innocent are henceforth seriously weighed, and if anything equivocal is detected, the slander is regarded as confirmed. thus it is with the witnesses in this case, for though, prior to hearing the rumour, they did not suspect the queen, no sooner had they heard it than they imagined evidence against her at every point." uhldahl then proceeded to subject the evidence of the witnesses to analysis, with a view of showing how contradictory and worthless most of it was. summing up all this testimony, uhldahl said: "if we now ask if there are any _facts_ in the evidence of the witnesses to prove that an extreme and improper intimacy existed between the queen and struensee, the answer must be: 'there are none.' that the queen showed the count marks of favour and confidence cannot be denied, but no one ever saw or heard that these went beyond the limits of honour. no witness is able to say positively that the queen has broken the vows she made to her consort, nor can any adduce a single fact which would prove the certainty of her guilt. indeed, one of the witnesses on whom the prosecution most relies, the maid bruhn, is constrained to admit 'that she never witnessed any impropriety on the part of the queen'. regarded generally, all the witnesses appeal to their own suppositions. they say they _thought_ that struensee was a long time with the queen, because they were not summoned: they _imagined_ that the queen and struensee were guilty because they were on familiar terms. but these conjectures had their origin in rumour, and in the power which rumour possesses to stimulate the imagination. it is chiefly the favour shown by her majesty to count struensee that roused the suspicions of witnesses, and caused them to draw such conclusions. it is said that he was constantly about the queen, and in her company. but was he not also about the king? and must not the queen's confidence in him necessarily result from the confidence with which the king honoured him? as her justification of this, the queen appeals to her consort's action, and points to the striking proofs of the king's favour to struensee--the offices with which the king entrusted him, and the rank to which the king raised him. there can be no doubt that he sought to acquire the queen's confidence in the same way as he had gained the king's. the loyalty which he always showed to the king, the attention he paid to the queen when she was ill, the devotion which he seemed to entertain for them both, maintained an uninterrupted harmony between their majesties. above all else, the king's will was law to the queen, and this above all else made her believe that she could freely give struensee her confidence without danger. his offices as secretary to the queen, and privy cabinet minister to the king, required his constant presence. hence it is not surprising that he acquired a greater share of the queen's favour than any other man.... "i pass over all the rest of the evidence as things which are partly unimportant, partly irrelevant, or too improper to be answered. it is sufficient to say that no proof that her majesty has broken her marriage vow can be derived from any of these witnesses, if we examine their evidence singly. the law requires the truthful evidence of witnesses, not all kinds of self-invented conclusions. if it were otherwise, her majesty's rank and dignity, which ought to shield her from such danger, would be the very things to cause her ruin. "i hope that i have now proved the innocence of the queen. her majesty assumes that her consort only desires her justification, and she feels assured of the discretion and impartiality of her judges. therefore she awaits confidently the decision demanded by her honour, the king's dignity, and the welfare of the land. i venture in her majesty's name to submit-- "that her majesty queen caroline matilda be acquitted from his majesty the king's accusation in this matter." uhldahl's defence was clever and ingenious, but it lacked the stamp of sincerity which carries conviction. his omission to cross-examine the witnesses, though he ascribes this to the wish of the queen (who could have had no voice in the matter, and was entirely in the hands of her counsel), was the course probably dictated by her enemies. if these witnesses had been taken singly, and subjected to a searching cross-examination, they would probably have contradicted each other, and broken down one by one. moreover, uhldahl was fighting for the queen with one arm tied behind his back. in any divorce court, if a husband petitions against his wife, his conduct, as well as hers, is liable to investigation, and if it can be shown that he is as guilty, or guiltier, than she, or that he has connived at her indiscretion, his petition falls to the ground. but this line of defence was forbidden to uhldahl: he dared not say a word against the king, though he could have shown that the king had from the first been guilty of the grossest infidelity and cruelty towards his queen--that he had outraged her every sentiment of religion and virtue, that he had often told her to do as she pleased, that he had repeatedly thrust temptation in her way, and when at last she yielded, or seemed to yield, to it, he had not only acquiesced in this condition of things, but at first, at any rate, actively encouraged and abetted it. these facts--and they were all of them notorious, and perfectly well known to the queen's judges and accusers--were not allowed to be pleaded in her favour. reverdil, who had an intimate knowledge of the facts, who had been with the king when matilda first came to denmark, who had been dismissed from court because he protested against the insults heaped upon her, who had been recalled three years later, when the intimacy between the queen and struensee was at its height, and who, much though he pitied her, believed her to be guilty, has supplied the arguments in her favour which were omitted by uhldahl. he thus arraigns the king:-- "is it not true, sir, that from the very day of your marriage up to the moment when the faction, now dominant, seized on you and your ministers some weeks ago, you had not the slightest regard for the marriage tie, and all this time you had declared to the queen that you dispensed with her fidelity? have you not invited all your successive favourites to tempt her? [_a lui faire la cour_]. have you not said and proved in a thousand ways that her affection was wearisome to you, and that your greatest misery was to perform your duties to her? your commissioners have had the effrontery to ask the queen and struensee who were their accomplices. in prison and in irons the accused have had the generosity to be silent for your sake; but what they have not done your conscience itself must do, and proclaim to you that you have been her real seducer. "do you remember, sir, the moment when this princess, whom they wish to make you condemn to-day, was confided to your love and generosity? the english sent her without any adviser, without a single companion to your shores. little more than a child, she had all the grace, the innocence and the _naïveté_ of childhood, while her mind was more enlightened and mature than you could have expected; you were astonished at it. all hearts went out to meet her; her affability and kindness captivated all classes of the nation. when you were wicked enough to give yourself up to a frivolous and reckless favourite [holck], and to vile companions who led you into libertinism, she found herself neglected, and you showed yourself more than indifferent to her. she loved you; she was silent, and maintained her serenity in public; she only wept in private with her chief lady [madame de plessen], whom you, yourself, had appointed as her _confidante_. before long you grudged her even this poor consolation, and the lady, whose only crime was that her conduct and principles were too correct for your taste, was dismissed with the most signal marks of disgrace. madame von der lühe, who took her place, was the sister of your favourite. no doubt you supposed that this lady would show as much levity, and have as few principles, as her brother; but she disappointed your expectations. therefore, without actually disgracing her, you replaced her by ladies whose reputation was the most equivocal in the kingdom. what more could the most consummate corrupter have done? this very man, with whom the queen is accused for having shown weakness, you, yourself, forced upon her after she had first repulsed him. it was in the hope of avoiding the _tracasseries_ with which your favourites annoyed her that she was at last induced to _lier_ herself with the man who offered his services to bring you nearer her. it was you who broke down all the barriers which separated her from him, who diminished the distance between them, who desired to bring about what to-day is called your 'dishonour,' who excused, nay, tolerated, this _liaison_, and who, up to january last, even talked of it as a good joke. "your cause is inseparable from that of your wife, and even though the whole world should condemn her, you ought, if not from natural equity, at least from self-respect, to revoke that condemnation."[ ] [ ] _mémoires de reverdil_, pp. - . * * * * * uhldahl made his defence on april . the court then adjourned, and after taking four days to consider the verdict, delivered judgment. the verdict was to the effect that queen matilda had been found guilty of having broken her marriage vow, and the marriage between her and king christian vii. was therefore dissolved, and the king was free to make another alliance, if it should seem good to him. the queen's sentence would depend upon the king's pleasure. the court at the same time declared that the princess louise augusta was legitimate, and was entitled to all the honours due to the daughter of the king. thus the verdict was contradictory, for if the queen were guilty with struensee, it followed almost surely (though not necessarily for certain) that the princess was not legitimate, for the intimacy between the queen and struensee was declared by the evidence, upon which the judges pretended to found their verdict, to have begun more than a year before the birth of the princess, and to have gone on continuously ever since. the exact reasons which led to this extraordinary verdict being promulgated will probably never be known, but during the four days that elapsed between uhldahl's defence and the judgment, violent disputes and intrigues were being waged at the christiansborg palace. according to some, the queen-dowager not only fiercely insisted upon the divorce, but also the bastardising of both the queen's children (though why the crown prince it is difficult to say), and so making way for the succession of her son to the throne, but was prevented from having her way by the remonstrances of guldberg. according to others, it was rantzau and osten who wished these drastic measures, and juliana maria who interposed on behalf of the queen's children. be this as it may, it is certain that matilda's enemies were divided in their opinions; and even at this early hour there seems to have been a slight reaction in favour of the young queen. the situation was also complicated by the interference of keith, who, though he had received no instructions to prevent the divorce of the queen, yet, now that the trial was over, and had shown itself to be manifestly unfair, entered vigorous protests on behalf of the king of england's sister--protests which he backed by menaces. several of the queen-dowager's advisers took fright; perhaps, too, they had some secret pity for the young queen, for they urged that it was not wise to enrage the king of england too far. the result was a compromise: the queen was declared to be guilty, but her daughter was declared to be legitimate. [illustration: the great court of frederiksborg palace. _from a painting by heinrich hansen._] doubtless in consequence of the remonstrances of the english envoy, the proceedings of the court were kept secret, and the sentence of divorce was not published--at least, not through the medium of the press. but a royal rescript was sent to the governors of the provinces and the viceroy of the duchies, in which the king stated that he had repudiated his queen after a solemn inquiry, in order to vindicate the honour of his house, and from motives of public welfare. the verdict was also communicated to the foreign envoys for transmission to their various courts. this was done in a theatrical manner. the court assumed mourning, and the _corps diplomatique_ were summoned to the christiansborg palace and proceeded thither, also in mourning. but the king did not appear. the grand chamberlain of the court announced to them the verdict, and said that the king had no longer a consort, and there was no longer a queen. at the same time an order was issued to omit the queen's name from the public prayers. henceforth she was to be considered as dead in law. uhldahl saw the queen the day after the decision of the court, and told her of the judgment. according to him she merely answered: "i thought as much. but what will become of struensee?" and when he replied that struensee would certainly be sentenced to death, "she cried and shook all over". she bewailed the fact that it was she who was the cause of his misfortunes. "the queen would have sacrificed everything to save him; she thought nothing of herself." despite his base confession, which she was forced at last to believe he had made, she forgave him everything. several times she bade uhldahl to tell struensee that she forgave him. "when you see him," she said, "tell him that i am not angry with him for the wrong he has done me."[ ] her love was boundless. [ ] _christian vii. og caroline mathilde_, by chr. blangstrup, copenhagen. the unfortunate matilda was formally acquainted with the sentence of divorce on april , when baron juell-wind, one of her judges, went to kronborg by order of the council of state, and read to the queen the verdict of the court in the presence of the commandant of kronborg. the queen, who had been prepared by uhldahl, heard the sentence without emotion, but was greatly distressed at the thought that it might involve separation from her child. she did not ask, and did not seem to care, what her fate would be, but she was informed that it would depend upon the king's pleasure. her punishment indeed was still under debate, and was being discussed as hotly at the christiansborg palace as the verdict of divorce had been. the queen had been unfaithful to the king's bed; therefore she had been found guilty of high treason; therefore, urged some, she was worthy of death. the other alternative was perpetual imprisonment, and this seems to have been seriously considered, for the preparations at the fortress of aalborg--a storm-beaten town at the extreme edge of jutland--were pushed on with all speed. in theory, the last three months matilda had been residing at one of her husband's country palaces, for kronborg was a royal palace as well as a fortress; she was now to be stripped of every appurtenance of her rank, and sent to aalborg. once there she would probably have died mysteriously. but keith, who had interfered to prevent the queen from being publicly disgraced, now interfered again, with even more determination, to mitigate her punishment. he could not prevent the divorce, but he could prevent the punishment. the king, the grand chamberlain had informed the foreign ministers, had no longer a consort; denmark had no longer a queen; matilda was dead in law. this declaration gave keith his opportunity. though, he argued, it might please the king of denmark to declare that matilda was no longer his wife or his queen, it must be remembered that she was still a princess of great britain, and the sister of the king of england. since the king, her consort, had repudiated her, it followed that the king, her brother, became her guardian, and her interests and future welfare were his care. by the sentence of divorce she had passed entirely out of the jurisdiction of denmark to that of her native country; she became an english subject, and as an english subject was free as air. osten shuffled and changed his ground from day to day, but keith became more and more insistent, and his tone grew more and more menacing. he sent home the most urgent despatches, describing the unfairness of the queen's trial, and the danger she was in through the malice of her enemies. in default of particular instructions, he could do nothing but threaten in general terms; but his intervention secured a respite. the queen remained at kronborg; her punishment was still undecided, and her fate uncertain. chapter ix. the trials of struensee and brandt. . the queen's case being ended, it was resolved to proceed without delay against the other prisoners, and chief among these were struensee and brandt. struensee was tried first. the day of his trial was originally fixed for april , the day after the sentence of her divorce had been communicated to the queen at kronborg, but, as the advocate appointed to prosecute struensee was not quite ready with his brief, the trial was deferred for eleven days. struensee had now been in prison more than three months, and had ample time for reflection. seven weeks had passed since his shameful confession compromising the queen, but he made no sign of recanting it; on the contrary, he imagined that it would tell in his favour. struensee was now a broken man; the signs of premature decay, which first made themselves manifest in the days of his prosperity, had, since his imprisonment, developed with great rapidity. he had shown himself unable to bear prosperity; he was even less able to cope with adversity. every now and then a flash of the old struensee would assert itself, but for the most part he was a feeble creature who brooded day after day in his dungeon, and bore but little resemblance to the once imperious minister. all struensee's thoughts were now concentrated on a craven desire for life--life at any cost--and to this end he offered up in sacrifice not only the woman who had done everything for him, but all the principles and ideals which had guided him throughout his career. the queen-dowager, who had affected so much concern for the welfare of queen matilda's soul, was equally interested in the soul of struensee. perhaps she thought that spiritual terrors might induce him to amplify his already too detailed confession. from the first days of his imprisonment struensee had been urged to see a clergyman, but had always refused. after his confession of adultery with matilda, which was taken as a sign of grace, the queen-dowager insisted that he should receive a ghostly counsellor, even against his will. to that end she appointed dr. münter as the fittest instrument to effect struensee's conversion. the choice of dr. münter was of course designed. he was the most fanatical and violent of all the preachers in copenhagen, and had shown himself a bitter opponent of struensee and the queen. he had denounced them from the pulpit in the days of their prosperity, and from the same sanctuary he had savagely gloated over them in the days of their ruin. it was a refinement of cruelty, therefore, to send him, of all others, to the miserable prisoner now. münter entered upon his task with alacrity. he took a professional pride in his work, and apparently felt much as a doctor would feel who had before him a difficult case; if he could effect a cure, it would be a great triumph for him. but, apart from this, there is no doubt that münter was perfectly sincere. by nature a bigot, and by education narrow-minded, he had all the thoroughness born of that same narrowness. to him it was all-important that he should save struensee's soul: the greater the sinner, the greater would be his salvation. therefore, münter set to work to make struensee confess everything, heedless, or oblivious, of the fact that, while he was labouring to effect the miserable man's conversion, he was (by repeating his confessions) helping his enemies to complete his ruin.[ ] [ ] münter wrote a full and particular account of his efforts, entitled, _narrative of the conversion and death of count struensee_, by dr. münter. this book was translated into the english by the rev. thomas rennell: rivingtons, . it contains long and (to me) not very edifying conversations on religion which are alleged to have taken place between struensee and the divine. but since these are matters on which people take different views, it is only fair to say that sir james mackintosh awards the _narrative_ high praise as a "perfect model of the manner in which a person circumstanced like struensee ought to be treated by a kind and considerate minister of religion" (_misc. works_, vol. ii.). to support this view he suggests that "as dr. münter's _narrative_ was published under the eye of the queen's oppressors, they might have caused the confessions of struensee to be inserted in it by their own agents without the consent, perhaps without the knowledge, of münter". but even he is fain to admit that the "internal evidence" does not favour this preposterous hypothesis. the confessions extorted by münter from struensee were used not only against the wretched man, but to the prejudice of the queen. münter paid his first visit to struensee on march . the prisoner, who had been told that he must see the man, whom he had always regarded as his enemy, did so under protest, and received the preacher in gloomy silence, and with a look that showed his contempt. but münter--we are quoting his own version of the interview--so far from overwhelming the prisoner with reproaches or exhortations, greeted him in a cordial and sympathetic manner, and told him that he wished to make his visits both pleasant and useful. struensee, who had not seen a friendly face for months, was disarmed by münter's manner, and offered him his hand. the latter then opened the conversation by saying that he hoped if he said anything displeasing to struensee by mistake the latter would overlook it. "oh, you may say what you please," answered the prisoner indifferently. münter then began his exhortations with the warning: "if you desire to receive comfort from me, your only friend on earth, do not hug that mistaken idea of dying like a philosophic hero." struensee answered, not very truthfully: "in all my adversities i have shown firmness of mind, and therefore i hope i shall not die like a hypocrite." then followed a long and animated conversation, in which münter bore the leading part. struensee now and then ventured to advance arguments which were knocked down like ninepins by the nimble divine. struensee, though the son of a clergyman, had in his youth become a freethinker, and had always remained so. he was saturated with german rationalism, and by every act and utterance had shown himself to be a confirmed unbeliever in christianity. it is therefore very unlikely that a man of struensee's calibre would be convinced by such arguments as münter adduced--at least, by those which he states he adduced in his book.[ ] but struensee clung to life; he knew that münter was a power in the land, and he thought that, if he allowed him to effect his conversion, he would make a friend who would probably save him from death. in this first conversation he admitted that he was afraid of death: "he wished to live, even though it were with less happiness than he now enjoyed in his prison." but he would not seem to yield all at once. "my views, which are opposed to yours, are so strongly woven into my mind; i have so many arguments in favour of them; i have made so many observations from physic and anatomy that confirm them, that i think it will be impossible for me to renounce my principles. this, however, i promise: i will not wilfully oppose your efforts to enlighten me, but rather wish, as far as lies in my power, to agree with you." [ ] i should be the last to say that such changes are not possible. i only wish to suggest that in struensee's case the motives which led him to yield to münter's arguments were not sincere. on the second visit struensee showed himself to be a little more yielding, though he said his mind was neither composed nor serene enough to examine into the nature of münter's arguments. struensee wept when he thought of the trouble he had brought upon his friends; he had no tears for the woman whom he had betrayed. münter exhorted him to acknowledge his errors and crimes, and search his former life, in order to qualify himself for god's mercy. "god," said münter, "has given you an uncommon understanding, and, i believe, a good natural disposition of heart, but through voluptuousness, ambition and levity you have corrupted yourself." struensee was flattered by this view of his character, and admitted unctuously that voluptuousness had been his chief passion, and had contributed most to his moral depravity. after seven conferences münter gave struensee a letter from his father, which he had for some time carried in his pocket, awaiting a favourable opportunity to deliver. the letter was a long and affecting one. it assumed struensee's guilt as a matter of no doubt, and worthy of the worst punishment; it lamented that he had not remained a doctor--that his ambition had led him into all these crimes: now nothing would bring his afflicted parents comfort but the knowledge of his conversion. this letter affected struensee much, and so did another one from his mother, written in the same strain. there is no need to trace this process step by step. suffice it to say that after twenty-one days of exhortation, when his trial was drawing near, struensee was so far converted as to declare to münter: "i should be guilty of the greatest folly if i did not embrace christianity with joy, when its arguments are so convincing, and when it breathes such a spirit of general benevolence. its effects on my heart are too strong"--and so forth. in the days that followed struensee often expatiated on the advantages of the christian religion, and even advised münter as to the best way of spreading the truths of christianity among the people. he suggested the distribution of tracts, which does not seem very novel. so zealous was he that he even drew up, in consultation with münter, a long description of his conversion. the document shows undoubted signs that the man's brain had weakened; it is in parts so confused as to be almost unintelligible. but such as it was, it sufficed for münter, who was overjoyed at the thought that he had snatched this brand from the burning. yet struensee, though he expressed repentance for his sins, showed neither repentance nor remorse for his most grievous one--his betrayal of the woman to whom he owed everything. recantation of this base treachery would have done more to rehabilitate struensee in the eyes of the world than any number of maudlin confessions detailing his conversion, and it would have been quite as effective for the object which, it is to be feared, the newly-made convert had in view. struensee's conversion availed nothing with his merciless enemies; on the contrary, his confessions of weakness and guilt made their task easier. münter's good-will also availed him nothing; the fanatical divine was only interested in saving his soul; he cared nothing what became of his body. thus the wretched criminal sacrificed both his queen and his convictions, and in either case the sacrifice was vain. struensee's trial began on april , and wivet, who had received the king's orders to prosecute him, opened his indictment in a speech of almost incredible coarseness and ferocity. in his attack, wivet exceeded the bounds of common decency, though there is no doubt that he voiced the malevolent hatred which was felt against struensee, not only in the breasts of his judges, but among all classes in the kingdom. apart from his undoubted offences, which surely were heavy enough, wivet twitted struensee with his low birth, his complaisance as a doctor, his ignorance of the danish language, his errors in etiquette, his fondness for eating and drinking, his corpulence, his unbelieving views, and other peculiarities, forgetting that invective of this kind proved nothing. [illustration: the docks, copenhagen, _temp._ .] [illustration: the market place and town hall, copenhagen, _temp._ .] the substance of the accusation against struensee was catalogued under nine heads. first: his adultery with the queen. this was based almost wholly on struensee's own confession and its confirmation by the queen, and thus the very deed which struensee signed in the hope of saving his life was brought forward as the head and front of the evidence against him. fräulein von eyben's deposition, and brandt's and berger's depositions were also read, but the evidence of the other witnesses in the queen's divorce was not put forward at all. with reference to the testimony of fräulein von eyben, the advocate said he produced it "not in order to prove what is already sufficiently proved, but only to point out how struensee strove always to be present at places when there was an opportunity for him to obtain what he desired, and how the indifference with which he was at first regarded by the person [the queen] whose confidence he afterwards gained, proves that it was not he who was tempted, but that his superhuman impudence, his bold, crafty and villainous conduct were so powerful that he at last obtained that which virtue and education would never otherwise have granted, and therefore he is the more criminal because he effected the ruin of another in order to gain honour himself". this shows what even the queen's enemies thought of struensee's baseness in trying to shield himself behind the pitiful plea that the queen tempted him. his prosecutors did quite right in scouting such a plea, which, so far from extenuating him, only added to his infamy. secondly: struensee's complicity in brandt's ill-treatment of the king. thirdly: the harshness with which he had treated the crown prince, "so that it seems as if it had been his sole intention to remove the crown prince from the world, or at least to bring him up so that he would be incapable of reigning." fourthly: his usurpation of the royal authority by issuing decrees instead of the king, and attaching his own signature to these decrees. fifthly: his suppression and dismissal of the guards, which was declared to be without the consent of the king. sixthly: his peculations from the treasury. it was stated that struensee had not only taken large sums of money for himself, but for his brother, for falckenskjold, for the countess holstein, for the queen, and for brandt. the queen's grant from the treasury was , dollars, not a very large sum, and one to which she was surely entitled, as the grant was signed by the king. but the same paper contained grants of money to brandt, struensee and falckenskjold--a grant of , to brandt, , to struensee and , to falckenskjold, a total of , dollars. it was said that the document which the king signed contained only a grant of , dollars to the queen, and , each to brandt and struensee; but struensee added a nought to the donations to himself and brandt, and wrote in , dollars for falckenskjold, so that he tampered with the document to the extent of forgery. the king now protested that he had never made such a grant. seventhly: struensee had sold, with the queen's consent, a "bouquet" of precious stones, although this was one of the crown jewels and an heirloom. eighthly: he had given orders that all letters addressed to the king should be brought to him, and he opened them, and thus kept the king in ignorance of what was going on. ninthly: he had so arranged the military in copenhagen in the month of december that everything pointed to hostile intentions on his part, probably directed against the king and the people. these were the principal charges brought against struensee by wivet; but, the advocate said: "to reckon up all the crimes committed by him would be a useless task, the more so when we reflect that the accused has only one head, and that, when that is lost by one of these crimes, to enumerate the other offences would be superfluous." he therefore demanded that struensee should be found guilty of high treason, and suffer death with ignominy. the next day uhldahl, who had defended the queen, also undertook the defence of struensee. the defence was lukewarm--so lukewarm that it could hardly be called a defence at all. the only time when uhldahl waxed eloquent was when he reproved wivet for his brutal attacks on the accused, and here it is probable that professional jealousy had to do with his warmth, rather than interest in his client. the chief count in the indictment against struensee--his alleged adultery with the queen--uhldahl kept to the last, and here he offered no defence, for the prisoner had recanted in nowise his confession, but on the contrary made it the ground of a craven cry for mercy. to quote uhldahl:-- "he throws himself at his majesty's feet, and implores his mercy for the crime against his majesty's person [adultery with the queen] first maintained by the fiscal-general wivet, but till now unalluded to by him. it is the only thing in which he knows he has consciously sinned against his king, but he confesses with contrition that this crime is too great for him to expect forgiveness of it. if, however, regard for human weakness, a truly penitent feeling of his error, the deepest grief at it, the tears with which he laments it, and the prayers which he devotes to the welfare of the king and his royal family, deserve any compassion, he will not be found unworthy of it. in all the other charges made against him, he believes that the law and his innocence will defend him, and for this reason he can expect an acquittal, but for the first point (which he admits) he seeks refuge in the king's mercy alone." thus it will be seen, even in his advocate's defence, struensee, though denying all the other charges against him, reaffirmed his adultery with the queen, and on the strength of that admission threw himself on the king's mercy. the only satisfactory thing about this sordid business is that mercy was not granted to him. wivet replied, but uhldahl waived his right of answering him again, and thus saying the last word in favour of the prisoner. the two advocates had in fact played into each other's hands; the first inflamed the prejudices of the judges, already sufficiently prejudiced, by malevolent details, the second by scandalously neglecting his duty, and putting in a defence hardly worthy of the name. struensee became aware of how the advocate appointed to defend him had given him away, and so he resolved to make a defence of his own, which was certainly abler and more to the point. he wrote a long document, containing an elaborate review of, and apology for, his administration, answering his indictment at every point except one--his intimacy with the queen; on that alone he kept silence. this document offers a remarkable contrast to the rambling and incoherent effusion in which he gave an account of his conversion. one can only suppose that his heart was in the one and not in the other. in both cases he might have spared himself the trouble, for neither his conversion nor his apology availed him anything. brandt's trial followed immediately on that of struensee. his treatment in prison had been the same as that of his fellow-malefactor. after his examination he, too, was granted certain indulgences, and an eminent divine was appointed to look after his soul. brandt's spiritual adviser was hee, dean of the navy church. hee was more of a scholar than münter, and less of a bigot; moreover, he had the instincts of a gentleman, which münter had not, as was shown by the insults he heaped upon the unfortunate young queen. these considerations perhaps hindered him in his work, for hee's "conversion" of brandt was not so successful as münter's conversion of struensee. brandt received hee courteously, conversed with him freely, and appeared to be much affected by his arguments; but it may be doubted whether they made any real impression on him, for brandt, like struensee, was a convinced freethinker, and, moreover, suffered from an incurable levity of temperament. but, like struensee, he was anxious to save his life, and to this end he was quite ready to be converted by hee or any one else. even so, brandt's conversion did not seem to extend much beyond deism; but that may have been due to his converter, for hee was not nearly so orthodox a christian as münter. brandt was very emotional, and frequently burst into tears when hee reproved him for the wickedness of his former life, but as soon as the preacher's back was turned he relapsed into his old levity. this being reported to hee, he reprimanded the prisoner, and gave him several religious books to read, such as hervey's _meditations_. brandt then became very quiet, and his conduct was reported as being most edifying. in fact, he seems rather to have overdone his part, for he would sometimes take up his chains and kiss them, and exclaim: "when i thought myself free i was really a slave to my passions; and now that i am a prisoner, truth and grace have set me at liberty." he also denounced voltaire, whom he had met on his travels, and his teaching with great vehemence, and, as for struensee, he said that he was "a man without any religion, who, from his infancy, according to his own admission, never had the slightest idea or sentiment of piety about him". shortly after this denunciation struensee sent to inform brandt that he had "found salvation" and he was praying that he too might repent him of his sins. whereupon brandt, not to be outdone in hypocrisy, replied that "he greatly rejoiced to hear of struensee's conversion. for his own part, he found comfort only in religion, and from his heart forgave struensee for all he had done to draw him into his misfortunes." but brandt's pious sentiments and edifying behaviour availed him nothing at his trial. wivet, who had prosecuted struensee, also prosecuted brandt; and bang, who had prosecuted the queen, was now appointed to conduct brandt's defence. brandt was indicted on three counts. first: that he had deliberately committed a gross attack on the person of the king--an awful deed, declared his prosecutor. "in the words of david: 'how wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the lord's anointed?... thy blood be upon thy head.'"[ ] [ ] sam. i. , . secondly: that he was an accomplice to the improper intimacy which struensee had with the queen. thirdly: that he joined struensee in robbing the treasury, and was an accomplice to the forged document, whereby he received sixty thousand dollars. he was also, in a greater or lesser degree, an accomplice in all the offences committed by struensee. on these grounds wivet asked for sentence of death. wivet handed in this indictment to the judges the same day as the indictment of struensee. two days later bang delivered a half-hearted defence, which may be summarised thus:-- first: though brandt fought with the king, he did so at the king's own command--that he only fought in self-defence, and left off directly the king wished him to do so. he had voluntarily inflicted no injury on his majesty, and the account given by the prosecution of the affray was very much exaggerated. secondly: he was in no sense an accomplice of the intrigue between struensee and the queen. though he felt morally convinced that improper intercourse took place, he had no absolute proof of it, and he could not take any steps in the matter without such proof. moreover, it would have been as much as his life was worth to have said anything.[ ] [ ] this does not tally with his assertion that struensee had confided in him. thirdly: if struensee had committed a forgery, that did not affect brandt, as he was ignorant of the matter. the grants which had been given him were given with the approval of the king, and, though he received large sums, yet he had to play cards daily with the king and queen, at which he lost heavily. thus it will be seen that brandt's defence, though it actually denied none of the charges, gave a plausible explanation of them all. brandt does not seem to have realised his danger, nor to have imagined that anything he had done, or left undone, could be considered worthy of death. in addition to his defence, he sent a memorial to his judges, and a letter to the king, in which he begged to be allowed to go away, and end his days quietly in holstein. the letter to the king is lost; but the memorial to the judges remains, and is written in such a spirit of levity that it suggests doubt as to the writer's sanity. of course it was unavailing. the legal farce was now drawing swiftly to a close. on april the judges assembled at the christiansborg palace to deliver judgment on both cases. the judgments were very long and argumentative. there is no need to give them at length; to do so would be merely to recapitulate in other words the arguments brought forward by the prosecution. in struensee's sentence the chief count against him--his alleged adultery with the queen--was summed up in a few words: "he has already been convicted of it" (presumably by the queen's sentence), "and has himself confessed it: he has thereby committed a terrible crime, which involves in an eminent degree an assault on the king's supremacy, or high treason, and according to the law deserves the penalty of death". the rest of the judgment, which occupied some thirty pages, dealt in detail with the other offences alleged against him, and condemned him on every count. "therefore," the judgment concluded, "as it is clear that count struensee in more than one way, and in more than one respect, has not only himself committed the crime of high treason in an extreme degree, but has participated in similar crimes with others; and that, further, his whole administration was a chain of violence and selfishness, which he ever sought to attain in a disgraceful and criminal manner; and as he also displayed contempt of religion, morality and good manners, not only by word and deed, but also through public regulations,--the following sentence is passed on him, according to the words of article i. of chapter of book of the danish law:-- "count john frederick struensee shall, as a well-deserved punishment for himself, and as an example and warning for others of like mind, have forfeited honour, life and property, and be degraded from his dignity of count and all other honours which have been conferred on him; his coat of arms shall be broken by the executioner; his right hand shall be cut off while he is alive, and then his head; his body quartered and broken on the wheel, but his head and hand shall be stuck on a pole. "given by the commission at the christiansborg palace, this th day of april, ." here follow the signatures of the nine judges, headed by that of baron juell-wind, and ending with that of guldberg. brandt's sentence was delivered at the same time. it contained no direct allusion to the queen, and was a long, rambling and confused document. finally, it declared that, by his treacherous and audacious assault on the person of the king, he had committed an act of high treason, which deserved the punishment of death, according to the same article of the danish law as that quoted in the case of struensee. therefore:-- "count enevold brandt shall have forfeited honour, life and property, and be degraded from his dignity of count and all other honours conferred on him; his coat of arms shall be broken by the executioner on the scaffold, his right hand cut off while he is still alive, then his head; his body quartered and exposed on the wheel, but his head and hand stuck on a pole. "given by the commission at the christiansborg palace, this th day of april, ." the judgments were immediately published in the danish journals. thence they found their way into foreign newspapers, and were by them adversely criticised, not so much on account of the punishment, as for the extraordinary and diffuse way in which the judgments were written. in denmark they were received with enthusiasm by the great majority of the people, but there was a minority growing up which regarded them more dubiously, and was disposed to criticise. the government, however, determined to allow little time for criticism or reaction, and resolved to carry the sentences into effect at the earliest possible moment, before any change took place in public opinion. chapter x. the executions. . the prisoners were told of their fate on friday, april , immediately after the sentences were pronounced. uhldahl and bang went to the citadel to inform their respective clients of the judgment against them, and to hand them a copy of their sentences. uhldahl, who had undertaken the defence of struensee with a very ill-grace, entered the condemned man's cell and curtly said: "good count, i bring you bad news," and then, without a word of sympathy, he handed struensee a copy of his sentence. struensee, who had shown craven fear at intervals during his imprisonment, now read the document which condemned him to a barbarous and ignominious death with an unmoved air, and when he had perused it to the end, he handed it without a word to dr. münter, who was with him at the time. apparently only the sentence, and not the judgment, was handed to the condemned man, for struensee asked his advocate if he were condemned on all the counts in his indictment, to which uhldahl answered in the affirmative. "even on that concerning the education of the crown prince?" asked struensee. "even on that," replied uhldahl briefly. struensee said that, if he had had any children of his own, he should have reared them in exactly the same way--to which uhldahl made no reply. "and what is brandt's fate?" asked struensee. "his sentence is exactly the same as yours." "but could his counsel do nothing to save him?" demanded struensee. "he said everything that could be urged in his favour; but count brandt had too much laid to his charge." the thought of brandt's fate moved struensee far more than his own; but he soon regained his composure, and resolved to petition the king, who had not yet signed the sentences, for mercy. when struensee and münter were left alone, the latter lamented the barbarities of the sentence, but struensee assured him they mattered little. he still held the same ground--that is to say, he admitted his guilt so far as the queen was concerned, but maintained his innocence of all the other charges against him, even the one of having forged the document that gave him money from the treasury, which must have been true. but he admitted that his intrigue with the queen made him liable to the extremest punishment of the law. "my judges," he said, "had the law before them, and therefore they could not decide otherwise. i confess my crime is great; i have violated the majesty of the king." even now, when the sentence had robbed him of almost his last hope, and he was face to face with a hideous death, this wretched man had no word of remorse or grief for the ruin, misery and suffering he had brought upon the queen. uhldahl had given him matilda's pathetic message--that she forgave him everything he had said and done against her, even the shameful confession by which he had striven to shield himself at her expense. struensee received the message without emotion, and even with sullen indifference; he was so much engrossed with his own fate that he had no thought to spare for the queen. perhaps he thought it was a device of the evil one to lure him away from the contemplation of his soul. however much we may suspect the motives which first led struensee to his conversion, there is no doubt that he was sincerely zealous for his spiritual well-being at the last. the long months of solitary confinement, the ceaseless exhortations and prayers of the fervent münter, the near approach of death, perhaps, too, some echo from the pious home in which he had been reared, combined to detach struensee's thoughts from the world and to concentrate them on his soul. he had reached that point which counts earth's sufferings as little in comparison with the problems of eternity. the worldling, who had once thought of nothing but his material advancement, was now equally ambitious for his spiritual welfare. in his pursuit of the one he was as selfish and as absorbed as he had been in pursuit of the other. the motive had changed, but the man was the same. [illustration: struensee in his dungeon. _from a contemporary print._] brandt had also received a copy of his sentence from bang, and, like struensee, immediately petitioned the king for mercy. it was generally expected that the royal clemency would be exercised in his case. the judges who tried the case had no option but to pass sentence, but some of them had hoped that the extreme penalty of the law would be mitigated. it was the king's business to sign the sentences, but the question of whether he should, or should not, confirm them was first discussed by the council of state before the documents were sent to the king to sign. in the council itself there were voices on the side of mercy, especially for brandt, but rantzau and osten, the two members of the council who had been familiar friends of the condemned men, absolutely opposed the idea of any mercy being shown to either of them. yet there is no doubt that, if strict justice had been meted out, rantzau, at least, would have been lying under the same sentence. perhaps it was this thought which made him of all the council the most implacable and unyielding: dead men could tell no tales, and until both struensee and brandt were dead, rantzau would not feel safe. so the council, at any rate by a majority, reported that the king should confirm the sentences. all effort was not at an end, for guldberg, the most influential of the judges who had condemned struensee and brandt, had an audience of juliana maria, and implored a mitigation of the punishment, or at least that brandt's life should be spared. but juliana maria showed herself inflexible, and the vindictive side of her nature asserted itself without disguise. brandt as well as struensee had inflicted many slights upon her and her son; therefore he, too, should die. guldberg, who had supposed his influence over the queen-dowager was all-powerful, as indeed it was on most points, was unable to move her in this, and might as well have pleaded to a rock. after a long and violent altercation he withdrew worsted, and until the executions were over he remained in strict retirement. whatever may be said of the others, guldberg, at any rate, washed his hands of the blood of the condemned men. it may be doubted, however, if juliana maria, even if she had been otherwise minded, could have saved brandt's life, for the king, though easily led in many respects, showed remarkable obstinacy in this. some of his ministers suggested to him that it would be generous of him to pardon brandt, as the chief offence was one against his royal person; but the king at once showed the greatest repugnance to pardon. he hated brandt much more than he hated struensee; he had never forgiven him the assault, and the mere mention of his name was sufficient to fill him with rage. he positively declared that he would not sign either of the sentences unless he signed both, and, as no one wished struensee to escape, the ministers gave way. the king signed both sentences, and displayed a savage joy when he heard that they were to be carried out without delay. in the evening he dined in public and went in state to the italian opera. on friday, april , the prisoners were told of their sentences, and on saturday they were informed that the king had signed them, and all hope was over. their execution would take place on the monday following. both prisoners received the news with composure, though struensee was much affected when he heard that every effort to save brandt's life had failed, and commented indignantly on the injustice of his sentence. münter, who brought him the fatal news, greatly lamented that the barbarous and needless cruelties of the sentence had not been abolished. struensee exhorted his friend and confessor to maintain his firmness, and said he would dispense with his services at the last if the sight would be too much for him. but to this münter would not listen. "i shall suffer much more," said struensee, "if i see that you suffer too. therefore, speak to me on the scaffold as little as you can. i will summon all my strength; i will turn my thoughts to jesus, my deliverer; i will not take formal leave of you, for that would unman me." as to the brutal indignities of his death, he said: "i am far above all this, and i hope my friend brandt feels the same. here in this world, since i am on the point of leaving it, neither honour nor infamy can affect me any more. it is equally the same to me, after death, whether my body rots under the ground or in the open air--whether it serves to feed the worms or the birds. god will know how to preserve those particles which on the resurrection day will constitute my glorified body. it is not my all which is to be exposed upon the wheel. thank god, i am now well assured that this flesh is not my whole being." struensee wrote three letters--one to brandt's brother, in which he bewailed having been the innocent cause of bringing "our dear enevold to this pass"; another to rantzau, saying he forgave him as he hoped to be forgiven, and exhorting him to turn to religion; and the third to madam von berkentin of pinneberg, the lady who had first recommended struensee to influential personages, and thus unwittingly had laid the foundation of his future greatness and of his future ruin. to his brother, justice struensee, who was also a prisoner, the condemned man sent a message of farewell through münter. but to the queen he sent neither word of remembrance nor prayer for forgiveness for the wrong he had done her. in this respect, at least, it would seem struensee's conversion was not complete. when hee brought brandt the news that his execution was determined upon, he displayed a firmness and dignity hardly to be expected from one of his volatile temperament. he indulged in no pious aspirations after the manner of struensee, but said quietly that he submitted to the will of god. for the next two days copenhagen was filled with subdued excitement. on sunday, the day before the execution, the places of public resort were closed, but the citizens gathered together in little groups at the corners of the streets, and spoke in hushed accents of the tragedy of to-morrow. meanwhile, the government was taking every step to hurry forward the executions and preserve public order. soldiers were already guarding a large field outside the eastern gate of copenhagen, where a scaffold, eight yards long, eight yards broad and twenty-seven feet high, was being erected. other soldiers were posted on the gallows-hill a little distance to the west, where two poles were planted, and four wheels tied to posts. the government had some difficulty in finding carpenters to build the scaffold, as the men had a superstition about it; many of them refused, and were at last coerced by threats. no wheelwright would supply the wheels on which the remains of the wretched men were to be exposed, so at last they were taken from old carriages in the royal stables. though the work was pressed forward with all speed, the scaffold was only completed a few hours before the execution, which was arranged to take place early in the morning of monday, april . all the night before crowds of people were moving towards the eastern gate, and at the first break of dawn large bodies of troops marched to the place of execution, and were drawn up in a large square around the scaffold. others formed a guard along the route from the citadel, and everywhere the posts were doubled. when all preparations were complete, the eastern gate of the city was thrown open, and huge crowds surged towards the fatal field, or pressed against the soldiers who guarded the route along which the condemned men were to journey from the citadel to the scaffold. everywhere was a sea of countless heads. upwards of thirty thousand persons, including women and little children, were gathered around the scaffold alone--some animated by a lust for blood and vengeance, but most of them by that morbid curiosity and love of the horrible common to all mobs in all ages of the world. at a very early hour the two clergymen went to the condemned men to comfort and attend them in their last moments. when münter entered struensee's cell, he found him reading schegel's _sermons on the passion of christ_. the unhappy man was already dressed. his jailors had given him, as if in mockery, the clothes he had worn at the masquerade ball the night of his arrest, and in which he had been hurried to prison--a blue cut-velvet coat and pink silk breeches. for the first time for many months his chains were taken off. struensee greeted münter calmly, and together they conversed on religious matters until the cell door opened and the dread summons came. dean hee found brandt brave and even cheerful. he, too, had been unchained from the wall, and was enjoying his brief spell of comparative freedom by walking up and down the room. brandt, also, was vested in the clothes he had brought with him to the citadel--a green court dress richly embroidered with gold. he told hee that he was not afraid to die, and seemed only anxious that the ordeal should be over. he asked him if he had seen any one executed before, and how far he ought to bare his neck and arm to the headsman's axe. presently the summons came for him too. both the condemned men were marched out to the large hall of the citadel, where they were again fettered by a chain attached to their left hand and right foot. as the morning was cold, they were allowed to wear their fur pelisses. in this attire they entered the coaches drawn up in the courtyard of the citadel. brandt occupied the first coach, struensee the second. on one side of each of the prisoners sat an officer with a drawn sword, on the other the clergyman; opposite them were placed two sergeants. the two coaches were guarded by two hundred infantry soldiers with fixed bayonets, and an equal number of dragoons with drawn sabres. in a third coach were seated the fiscal-general, wivet, and the king's bailiff, and facing them was the deputy-bailiff, holding the two tin shields on which the arms of the counts were painted, which were to be broken in the sight of the people. at half-past eight the bell began to toll from the tower of the citadel. the gates were thrown open, and the melancholy procession emerged, and began its slow progress to the place of execution. though the streets were thronged, and every window, balcony and housetop was filled with spectators, the condemned men passed along their last journey in silence--a silence only broken by the tramp of the soldiers' and horses' feet. the morning was dull and cold, and a slight mist hung over the sound. when the procession reached its destination, the fiscal-general and the king's bailiff and his deputy-bailiff mounted the scaffold, where the executioner, masked, and two stalwart assistants, also masked, awaited their victims, surrounded by the dread emblems of their hideous office. the large scaffold, which was twenty-seven feet in height, rose far above the heads of the soldiers who guarded it and the vast crowd beyond. all could see what took place there, even from a far distance, for this platform and the figures upon it were clearly silhouetted against the morning sky. brandt was the first of the condemned men to mount the flight of wooden stairs to the scaffold--a task made more difficult from the fact that he was chained hand and foot. he was closely followed by dean hee, who exhorted him to firmness the whole time. arrived on the scaffold, brandt turned to the clergyman, and assured him that he had no fear, and his mind was quite composed. the worthy divine, however, continued to encourage him with these words: "son, be of good cheer, for thy sins are forgiven thee." brandt throughout behaved with heroism. when his fetters were struck off the king's bailiff stepped forward to read his sentence; he listened quietly to the end, and then protested his innocence. the deputy-bailiff held up to brandt the tin shield, and formally asked him if it were his coat of arms painted thereon. brandt merely nodded in answer, and the bailiff swung the shield into the air and broke it, with the words: "this is not done in vain, but as a just punishment." hee then began to recite in a loud voice the prayer for the dying, and when it was over he put to the condemned man the usual questions, to which brandt answered again that he was sorry for what he had done wrong, but he left all to god, and was not afraid to die. hee then gave him his blessing, and, taking him by the hand, delivered him over to the executioner. when the headsman approached to assist the prisoner in undressing, brandt exclaimed firmly: "stand back, and do not dare to touch me!" he undressed alone; he let his fur pelisse fall, took off his hat, removed his coat and waistcoat, bared his neck, and rolled up the shirt sleeve of his right arm. in this he suffered the executioner to help him, for he was afraid he might not roll it up sufficiently. brandt then knelt down, laid his head on one block, and stretched out his right hand on another, and smaller one, hard by. while he was in this position, hee whispered some last words of comfort, and then stood back. as the clergyman was reciting: "o christ, in thee i live, in thee i die! o lamb of god that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy!" the executioner stepped forward, and with two well-directed blows completed his dread task. immediately the execution was over the assistants advanced to perform the most horrible part of the sentence, and wreak the last indignities. they stripped the body, laid it on a block, disembowelled it, and split it into four quarters with an axe. each part was then let down by a rope into a cart standing below, with the other remains; the head was held up on a pole, and shown to the multitude; then that, too, was let down into the cart, and lastly the right hand. after this the scaffold was strewn with fresh sand, the axes were roughly cleaned, and everything made ready for the next victim. brandt's execution had taken nearly half an hour. during the whole of this horrible scene struensee sat in his coach, which was drawn up near the scaffold, with pastor münter by his side. münter, who showed much more emotion than his penitent, had ordered the coach to be turned round in such a way that they should not see brandt's execution. but struensee's eyes had wandered to the block, and he said to münter: "i have already seen it," and then added: "we will look up again to heaven." in this position he and his comforter remained while the last indignities were being wrought upon brandt's poor body, and together they prayed until struensee was informed that his turn had come. struensee became deadly pale, but otherwise retained his composure, and, getting out of the coach, he saluted the guard on either side. some favoured personages had been allowed inside the square made by the soldiers. many of these struensee had known in the days of his triumph, and as he passed, led by münter, he bowed to them also. but, as he approached the scaffold, his fortitude began to give way, and it was with difficulty that he mounted the fifteen steps which led to the top. when he reached the summit, münter repeated in a low voice the comforting words: "he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." then came the same formalities as in the case of brandt: struensee's fetters were knocked off, the king's confirmation of the sentence was read, and his coat of arms was broken. then münter, having prayed according to the melancholy ritual, solemnly asked struensee if he repented of his sins and died in the true faith of a christian. struensee having answered these questions in the affirmative, münter laid his hand upon his head, and said with deep emotion: "go in peace whither god calls you. his grace be with you." he then handed him over to the executioner. struensee took off his fur pelisse and his hat. he would fain have undressed himself alone, but his trembling hands refused to do the work, and he was obliged to let the executioner help him. when his coat and waistcoat had been taken off, he produced a handkerchief to bind his eyes; but the executioner assured him that it would not be necessary, and took it away. he further removed his shirt, so that nothing might hinder the fall of the axe. struensee then, with half his body bare, went with faltering steps to the block, which still reeked with the blood of brandt. here he reeled and would have fallen, but the headsman assisted him to kneel, and, with some difficulty, placed his head and hand in the right position. as the executioner raised his axe in the air to cut off the right hand, münter recited: "remember christ crucified, who died, but is risen again." the blow fell before the words were finished, and the right hand lay severed on the scaffold. but the victim was seized with violent convulsions, with the result that the executioner's second blow, which was intended to behead him, failed. the wretched man sprang up spasmodically, but the assistants seized him by the hair, and held him down to the block by force. the executioner struck again, and this time with deadly effect; but even then it was not a clean blow, and a part of the neck had to be severed. the same revolting indignities were committed on struensee's corpse as on that of brandt; it is unnecessary to repeat them. when all was over, the mangled remains of both men were thrown into a cart and were conveyed through the city to the gallows-hill outside the western gate. the heads were stuck on poles, the quarters were exposed on the wheels, and the hands nailed on a piece of board. thus was left all that was mortal of struensee and brandt--an awful warning that all might see.[ ] [ ] archdeacon coxe, who visited copenhagen in , states in his _travels_ that he saw struensee's and brandt's skulls still exposed on the gallows-hill. there they remained for some years. wraxall says that struensee's skull was eventually stolen by four english sailors belonging to a russian man-of-war. from her watch-tower afar off, the queen-dowager witnessed the execution of the men whom she deemed her greatest enemies. early in the morning juliana maria mounted to a tower on the eastern side of the christiansborg palace, and there through a strong telescope gloated over this judicial murder. the keen interest she took in every revolting detail revealed the depth of her vindictiveness. when brandt's execution was over, and struensee mounted the steps to the scaffold, she clapped her hands triumphantly and exclaimed: "now comes the fat one!" so great was her satisfaction that, it is said, she momentarily forgot her caution, and declared the only thing that marred her joy was the thought that matilda's corpse was not thrown into the cart with those of her accomplices. when the cart moved away, the queen-dowager, fearful lest she should lose any detail of the tragedy, ran down from the tower to the apartments which she occupied on the upper floor of the palace, and from the windows, which commanded a view of the gallows-hill to the west, she saw the last ignominy wrought on the remains of her victims. in after years the queen-dowager always lived in these unpretending rooms of the christiansborg, though at frederiksberg and the other palaces she took possession of matilda's apartments. suhm, the historian, says that he once expressed surprise that she should still live in little rooms up many stairs, when all the palace was at her disposal, and juliana maria replied: "these rooms are dearer to me than my most splendid apartments elsewhere, for from the windows i saw the remains of my bitterest foes exposed on the wheel." from her windows, too, for many years after, she could see the skulls of struensee and brandt withering on the poles.[ ] [ ] the statement that the queen-dowager witnessed the execution from a tower of the christiansborg palace is controverted by some on the ground that it would not be possible for her to see it from this point. certainly it would not be possible to-day, owing to the growth of copenhagen, and the many houses and other buildings which have been erected, but in there were comparatively few buildings between the christiansborg palace and the scene of the execution, so it was quite possible for the queen-dowager to view the gallows through a telescope. against this statement of suhm's is to be set one of münter's. it does not necessarily conflict, but it shows how capable the queen-dowager was of acting a part. if she forgot herself for a moment on the tower of the christiansborg, she quickly recovered her self-command, and behaved with her usual decorum. she sent for münter, ostensibly to thank him for having effected struensee's conversion, in reality to extract from him all the mental agonies of her victims' last moments, and thus further gratify her lust for vengeance. münter expatiated on struensee's conversion, and gave her full particulars of his terror and sufferings at the last. the queen-dowager affected to be moved to tears, and said: "i feel sorry for the unhappy man. i have examined myself whether in all i have done against him i have been animated by any feeling of personal enmity, and my conscience acquits me." she gave münter a valuable snuff-box of rock-crystal, as a small token of her appreciation of his labours on behalf of struensee's soul. to hee she also sent a snuff-box, but it was only of porcelain. whether this was to mark her sense of the greater thoroughness of struensee's conversion, or whether it showed that she was not so much interested in brandt as struensee, it is impossible to say. nor did her rewards end here. that both she and the ministers looked upon these clergymen as accomplices in bringing struensee and brandt to their death is shown from the fact that, when a commission of inquiry was appointed to consider "in what manner the persons employed in convicting the prisoners of state should be rewarded," this commission allotted to münter and hee three hundred dollars each. but juliana maria was of a different opinion, and judged it more proper to make them presents.[ ] [ ] münter afterwards was appointed bishop of zealand. the executions of struensee and brandt brought about a revulsion in public feeling. it was felt that the national honour was satisfied, and the time had come to temper justice with mercy. the queen-dowager's party were quick to note the change. fearful of the least breath of popular displeasure, they now swung round from barbarity to leniency. those placed under "house arrest" were set free, and the ten prisoners of state imprisoned in the citadel, were treated, for the most part, with leniency. madame gahler, colonel hesselberg, admiral hansel, councillor stürtz, lieutenant aböe, and councillor willebrandt, since no evidence could be produced against them, were released after an imprisonment of four and a half months, and were all banished from the capital. professor berger, the physician, who had been accused of poisoning, or drugging, the king, was also set free, and banished to aalborg, in northern jutland. it was found, after a searching examination, that the medicines he had given the king were quite innocuous. three state prisoners still remained--general gahler, colonel falckenskjold and justice struensee. gahler was dismissed from the king's service, and all his appointments, and was banished from copenhagen. but on the understanding that the ruined soldier would neither speak nor write of public affairs, the king, by an act of special clemency, granted him a pension of five hundred dollars, and the same to his wife. justice struensee was also released, but ordered to quit the country immediately. this clemency, so different from what had been shown to his brother, was due to the interposition of the king of prussia, who had kept struensee's position as professor of medicine at liegnitz open for him, and with whom he was a favourite. justice struensee eventually became a minister of state in prussia. falckenskjold, who was considered the worst of all the offenders after struensee and brandt, was stripped of all his employments and honours, and condemned to be imprisoned for life in the fortress of munkholm. falckenskjold remained at munkholm for four years, where he suffered many hardships; but in , through the intercession of prince frederick, he was set at liberty, on the condition that he would never return to danish territory. after the revolution of , when queen matilda's son assumed the regency, the penalties against him were repealed; he was allowed to return to copenhagen for a time to look after his affairs, and later was promoted to the rank of major-general. he never again took active part in danish politics, but retired to lausanne, where he found such friends as gibbon and reverdil. there he wrote his _memoirs_, which were largely directed to proving the innocence of queen matilda, and there he died in at the age of eighty-two years. chapter xi. the release of the queen. . during the weeks occupied by the trials of struensee and brandt, keith had been untiring in his efforts on behalf of queen matilda, and wrung from her enemies one concession after another. as the result of his insistence, the queen was no longer confined in one small room, but was permitted to use the large dining-hall outside it and the other apartments adjoining. she was also allowed to go out and take the air on the ramparts and the leads of the castle. her food was better served, and she was waited on with some ceremony by her household. the preachers in the fortress chapel were no longer instructed to hurl insults at the queen, and when she attended divine service there was nothing to remind her of her misfortunes, beyond the omission of her name from the liturgy. the little princess was still allowed to remain with her. this indulgence was probably due to the fact that the child was ill of the measles, and it might have cost the infant her life to take her away at this time from the queen, who most devotedly nursed her day and night, and found in the child her only consolation. keith wrote of this incident: "a more tender mother than this queen never was born in the world." queen matilda had now been imprisoned at kronborg several months, and by the gentleness and dignity with which she bore her sorrows she won the respect and devotion of her jailors. her natural kindness of heart showed itself even under these distressing circumstances; she made inquiries concerning the other prisoners who were detained in the fortress, and, as soon as greater freedom was allowed her, did what she could to alleviate their lot. from the little money she possessed, she gave sums from time to time to buy them comforts, and, when her dinner was served to her properly, she put aside two dishes from her table every day, with orders that they should be given to certain prisoners whom she had singled out for compassion. one of these was a danish officer, who had been confined for many years in a small cell on suspicion of having entered into a treasonable correspondence with sweden. the commandant of kronborg remonstrated with the queen, and asked her to bestow her little bounty on some other, lest her kindness should be construed into a condonation of the prisoner's heinous offence. the queen declined, and quoted the following line of voltaire's: "_il suffit qu'il soit homme, et qu'il soit malheureux_." the queen in her prison heard of the tragic death of struensee and brandt. according to one account she swooned with grief and horror, and when she rallied spoke no word. according to another she received the news with emotion, and exclaimed to fräulein mösting, her maid-of-honour: "unhappy men; they have paid dearly for their devotion to the king and their zeal in my service." these words, it must be admitted, do not show overwhelming grief for the death of the man who but a short time before had been dearer to her than all the world. perhaps his shameful confession, and the way he had received her message of forgiveness, influenced her in spite of herself. she forgave him the wrong he had done her; she uttered no word of reproach; she showed the deepest pity for his sufferings and horror at his fate; but it was impossible that she could feel quite the same towards him as she had done. perhaps, too, long months of solitary confinement had brought reflection, and the death of her mother, and the thought of her children, whom she dearly loved, had aroused her to a higher sense of her duties; and her eyes, no longer blinded by passion, saw clearly in what she had failed. certain it is that matilda's character was purified and ennobled by suffering. after the sentence of divorce was pronounced, keith had insisted upon seeing the queen. for some time this request was refused, or rather he was always put off on one pretext or another. but keith clamoured in season and out of season at the doors of the christiansborg, and became so threatening that at last the crafty osten and the vindictive juliana maria had to give way, and most unwillingly gave leave to the english envoy to visit his sovereign's sister. but this permission does not seem to have been granted until after the execution of struensee and brandt. [illustration: sir robert murray keith, k.c.b.] unfortunately, there exists no account of the first interview at kronborg between queen matilda and keith; the despatches which the english envoy wrote home at this time have all been destroyed. but we can imagine what it must have been. in the days when struensee was in the ascendant, the young queen was hardly permitted to see her brother's representative--much less to have any conversation with him. she was taught to look on him rather as an enemy than a friend, and an enemy he undoubtedly was to struensee and his administration. but, freed from that baneful influence, she realised that the englishman was her only friend, and, if help came at all, it must come from england, her native land, which, in the days of her brief madness, she had forgotten. now she clung to keith as her friend and champion; she placed herself unreservedly in his hands; she spoke to him quite freely, and besought him to save her from the malice of her enemies. but it needed neither her tears nor her prayers to urge this brave soldier to fight for his king's sister; indeed, in her defence he was more zealous than the king himself. he sent home a copy of the sentence against the queen, and a full account of her trial, pointing out its obvious unfairness, the suborned and perjured nature of the evidence, and the way the queen's so-called confession had been extorted from her under false pretences. it is said that george iii. had these papers submitted to some of the first law officers of the crown, and they reported that the evidence was insufficient to prove the queen guilty, and, even where it might be believed, it was only of a presumptive and inconclusive nature. on the strength of this report george iii. determined to give his sister the benefit of the doubt. moved by the despatches in which keith eloquently portrayed the young queen's privations and sufferings and the danger to which she was exposed from the fury and malice of her enemies, george iii. sent instructions to his envoy to peremptorily demand that matilda should be set at liberty forthwith, and handed over to his keeping. on receipt of this despatch keith lost no time in acquainting the danish government with its contents; but the queen-dowager and her adherents demurred. every preparation had been made to remove the unfortunate young queen to aalborg--a lonely fortress on the extreme edge of jutland, and to keep her there in perpetual imprisonment. and to aalborg, they informed keith, she would shortly be conducted. matilda had a presentiment that if she once went to aalborg she would never leave it alive. the only link that bound her to denmark was her children; apart from them, she had nothing there, and her one wish was to leave it for ever, and return to the country which gave her birth. but, though keith stormed and protested, the danish government showed no signs of yielding. perhaps they trusted to the alleged lukewarmness of the king of england, and believed that he would not force matters to extremities. keith wrote home a strongly worded despatch, saying that it was absolutely necessary for the english government to take prompt and vigorous measures if this daughter of england were to be set free. he also pointed out the bad effect it would have upon british influence in europe if, at such a moment, england did not show herself as good as her word. on receipt of this despatch, george iii. no longer hesitated and took the vigorous measures he ought to have taken long before; his own honour and the honour of england alike demanded that the queen should not be abandoned to her fate. he commanded keith to inform the danish government that, unless they at once agreed to deliver the queen to his keeping, the english minister would present his letters of recall, a state of war would be declared between england and denmark, and a fleet would be despatched to bombard copenhagen. and, in order to follow up his words with action, orders were sent to the admiralty for the fitting out of a strong fleet, and though no directions were given as to where it was to sail, it was universally thought to be destined for denmark. the danish envoy in london thought so too, for he wrote to copenhagen in great alarm. he said that the king of england was really roused at last, he referred to his well-known obstinacy, and urged the danish government to yield to his demands. in england the fate of the queen of denmark, which for so many months had hung in the balance, was followed with close attention, and when rumours came of the fitting out of the fleet, the public excitement was wrought to the highest pitch. the opposition, which had first championed the cause of matilda with more zeal than discretion, now turned against her, and denounced the government in the strongest terms for bringing about a war between two friendly nations for a worthless woman. the vilest pamphlets suddenly flooded the streets. to quote a journal of the day: "yesterday, in some parts of the city, men were crying about printed papers, containing the most scandalous rumours, and impudent reflections on the queen of denmark. the worst prostitute that ever covent garden produced could not have had more gross abuse bestowed on her."[ ] [ ] _general evening post_, april , . fortunately, for all concerned, the crisis was averted. when keith, on receipt of the king of england's orders, presented himself at the christiansborg palace and delivered his ultimatum, panic struck the hearts of the queen-dowager and her adherents, and this panic was heightened by the news, conveyed to them by the danish envoy in london, that a fleet was fitted out and ready to sail. the queen-dowager did not yield her victim without a struggle, she hated matilda more than struensee and all his accomplices put together, but she was overborne by the remonstrances of the rest, who knew that to precipitate a conflict with england at this juncture would assuredly prove their ruin. whatever the issue of the struggle (and there was not much doubt about that), the danish people would never forgive the government for involving them in a ruinous war on such a pretext. moreover, there was a revulsion of feeling in favour of the young queen, and, since the death of struensee, sympathy with her had been gaining ground daily. it really would be safer, urged some, to get her out of the country than to keep her shut up at aalborg, for her adherents would always be plotting to obtain her release. these considerations weighed even with juliana maria, and made her see virtue in necessity. keith, who had noted these signs of weakness and divided counsels, pushed his advantage, and with such success that he gained every point, and more than every point, that george iii. demanded. not only did the danish government agree to deliver matilda to the king of england's keeping, but they further promised that the sentence of divorce should not be officially published, that they would do all they could to hush up the scandal, that she should be permitted to retain her title of queen, and that they would pay a yearly allowance towards her maintenance in another country. the queen was not only to be set free, but to be set free with honour. on only one point they would not yield: they would not allow her to say good-bye to her son, or to take her daughter with her. by the finding of the judges the princess was the king of denmark's child, and therefore he was her proper guardian. as keith had no instructions on this point, he was powerless to insist upon it; but it was with a glad heart that he sat down to write his despatch, which informed his king that every point had been gained--that his demands had been complied with, and war would be averted. the english government received keith's despatch with a great sense of relief. the king, now his blood was up, would undoubtedly have insisted upon the fleet sailing, and many complications would have ensued. the government were by no means sure that they would have the nation at their back in declaring war on such a pretext. the whole story of the queen of denmark's errors would have become common property; the king of prussia, who was in close alliance with denmark, and whose queen was the sister of juliana maria, would probably have marched an army into hanover if copenhagen had been bombarded, and a new war would have been kindled in the north of europe. therefore, both the king and the government had every reason to congratulate themselves that these difficulties had been avoided, and it was resolved to promote keith as a reward for the successful way in which he had conducted the negotiations. lord suffolk wrote to keith the following despatches:-- "st. james's, _may , _. "sir, "your despatches by king the messenger have already been acknowledged; those by pearson were received on wednesday afternoon, and i now answer both together. "his majesty's entire approbation of your conduct continues to the last moment of your success, and his satisfaction has in no part of it been more complete than in the manner in which you have stated, urged and obtained the liberty of his sister, and the care you have taken to distinguish between a claim of right and the subjects of negotiation, and to prevent the mixture of stipulations with a demand is perfectly agreeable with your instructions. "the national object of procuring the liberty of a daughter of england confined in denmark after her connection with denmark was dissolved is now obtained. for this alone an armament was prepared, and therefore, as soon as the acquiescence of the court of copenhagen was known, the preparations were suspended, that the mercantile and marine interests of this kingdom might be affected no longer than was necessary by the expectation of a war. "instead of a hostile armament, two frigates and a sloop of war are now ordered to elsinore. one of them is already in the downs--the others will repair thither immediately: and, as soon as wind permits, they will proceed to their destination. i enclose to you an account of them, which you may transfer to monsieur ostein [count osten] ministerially, referring at the same time to the assurance of these pacific proceedings. "the compliance of the danish court with his majesty's demand, however forced, is still a compliance. their continuing, unasked, the style of queen and other concessions, and the attainment of the national object, accompanying each other, his majesty would think it improper to interrupt the national intercourse from any personal or domestic consideration. you will therefore inform monsieur ostein that his majesty intends to have a minister at the court of copenhagen, the explanation you may give of this suspension of former directions and his determinations being left to your own discretion. "you will not be that minister. his majesty will have occasion for your services in a more eligible situation, and, as soon as you have discharged your duty to the queen of denmark by attending her to stade, you will return home, either on board his majesty's ship which conveyed you thither, or, if the passage by sea is disagreeable to you, by land, with the least possible delay. "i am, with great truth and regard, sir, "your most obedient and humble servant, "suffolk."[ ] [ ] _memoirs and correspondence of sir r. murray keith_, vol. i. "st. james's, _may , _. "for your own information, i enclose a list of the ships which were intended to enforce the demand for the queen of denmark's liberty, if it had been refused. those from plymouth would have been sailed if the countermand had been a few hours later than it was. the others were just ready to proceed to the downs, and the whole fleet would probably have by this time been on their way to copenhagen, under the command of sir charles hardy. "i am, etc., "suffolk."[ ] [ ] _memoirs and correspondence of sir r. murray keith_, vol. i. the public curiosity in london, which had been keenly aroused by the news that a fleet was being hastily fitted out for the baltic, was no less excited when the preparations were suddenly stopped by a counter-order, sent to portsmouth on april . though no official information was vouchsafed, people shrewdly guessed the truth. horace walpole gives a fair idea of the gossip which was floating about london:-- "the king, as lord hertford told me, had certainly ordered the fleet to sail; and a near relation of lord north told me that the latter had not been acquainted with that intention. lord mansfield, therefore, who had now got the king's ear, or lord sandwich, first lord of the admiralty, must have been consulted. the latter, though i should think he would not approve of it, was capable of flattering the king's wishes; lord mansfield assuredly would. the destination was changed on the arrival of a courier from denmark, who brought word that the queen was repudiated, and, i suppose, a promise that her life would be spared, for though the danes had thirty ships and the best seamen next to ours, and though we were sending but ten ships against them, the governing party were alarmed, probably from not being sure that their nation was with them."[ ] [ ] walpole, _journals of the reign of george iii._ again: "they gave her [the queen of denmark] the title of countess of aalborg, and condemned her to be shut up in the castle of that name. the king of england had certainly known her story two years before; a clerk in the secretary's office, having opened a letter that came with the account,[ ] told me he had seen it before the secretary gave it to the king. it was now believed that this intelligence had occasioned the princess of wales to make an extraordinary journey to germany, where she saw her daughter, though to no purpose. princess amelia told lord hertford on the th [april] ... that queen matilda had a very high spirit, and that she believed the danes would consent to let her go to hanover. 'but she will not be let go thither,' added the princess, meaning that the queen's brother, prince charles of mecklenburg, commanded there, 'or to zell, but she will not go thither' [another of the queen's brothers was there]; 'perhaps she _may_ go to lüneburg.'"[ ] [ ] the account of the queen's alleged intrigue with struensee. [ ] walpole, _journals of the reign of george iii._, vol. i. queen matilda's destination had been determined by her brother before her release was assured. matilda had herself petitioned that she might be allowed to return to england, and live the rest of her life among her own people; but this natural request was refused. the king at first was inclined to grant it, and, if the princess-dowager of wales had been alive, no doubt it would have been granted. but queen charlotte, who had always shown the greatest jealousy of the king's sisters, and had quarrelled fiercely with the princess of brunswick, displayed the bitterest animus against the unfortunate matilda, who surely could have given her no cause of offence, for she had left england when a child of fifteen. it is probable that the king's harsh judgment of his sister, and his slowness to intervene on her behalf, were instigated by queen charlotte, who now shrilly opposed the idea of matilda returning to england. her rigid virtue rose in arms at the bare suggestion of such a thing; she declared that she would not receive her sister-in-law; that her presence at court would be an insult; that she would contaminate the young princesses, her daughters, and be to them a bad example. queen charlotte had her way, for the king did not venture to stand up against the tempest of her virtuous indignation. he then thought of sending his sister to hanover; there were three empty palaces there, and his hanoverian subjects would be sure to receive her kindly. but queen charlotte opposed that too: hanover was too gay a place, she said, for one who ought to hide her head from all the world; and at her instigation her brother, prince charles of mecklenburg, who commanded there, raised objections also. the idea of sending matilda to lüneburg was out of the question, for there was no house there, and it was too near the frontier of denmark. so at last the king decided upon celle as the most suitable place for his sister to find a refuge. true, prince ernest of mecklenburg-strelitz commanded the garrison, another of the queen's brothers (queen charlotte provided for all her needy relatives at the expense of her adopted country), but he was young and unmarried, and offered no objection. on the contrary, he looked forward to the advent of the queen as a break in the monotony of celle. to celle, therefore, it was determined she should go. celle was an old town in the king's hanoverian dominions, about twenty miles north of hanover. it was formerly the capital of the dukes of brunswick-lüneburg, and the town was dominated by the magnificent castle where they formerly held their court.[ ] the last duke of celle was george william, brother of ernest augustus, first elector of hanover and the father of george i. of england. george i., then the hereditary prince of hanover, married his cousin, the only daughter of the duke of celle, the unfortunate sophie dorothea. at duke george william's death he became, through his marriage, possessed of the dukedom of celle, which was merged into the electorate of hanover. since the death of duke george william in , there had no longer been a court at celle, and the importance of the town had waned, while that of its rival, hanover, had increased, though celle still remained a seat of justice, and a garrison was quartered there. the castle as a place of residence needed many things to make it habitable. george iii. now gave orders that it was to be thoroughly repaired, and a suite of apartments re-decorated and furnished for his sister, and rooms prepared for the accommodation of her household. [ ] the ancestors of the royal families of england, germany (prussia) and hanover all lived at celle. keith carried to the imprisoned queen the tidings of her deliverance early in may. it was with feelings of triumph and gladness that he hastened to kronborg to inform her of his success, and the king of england's plans for her future welfare. as he wrote to his sister: "to demand the liberty of a captive queen, and to escort her to a land of freedom is truly such a commencement of my chivalry as savours strongly of the romantic. you will easily judge of the warmth of your brother's zeal in the execution of a commission so well adapted to his genius. can you figure to yourself what he must have felt in passing through the vaulted entrance of hamlet's castle to carry to an afflicted and injured princess these welcome proofs of fraternal affection and liberty restored?"[ ] his emotion was reciprocated, for, when keith came into the queen's chamber and told her the glad news, she burst into grateful tears, embraced him, and called him her deliverer. the gallant soldier could have had no better reward. [ ] _memoirs and correspondence of sir r. murray keith_, vol. i. it was keith's duty and pleasure now to inform the queen that she was no longer to consider herself a prisoner, but was merely residing in the king of denmark's palace of kronborg until such time as the english squadron should arrive to escort her to her brother's hanoverian dominions with every mark of honour and respect. he also told her of the other concessions he had obtained for her; he had wrung almost everything from her enemies except a proclamation of her innocence. on this delicate subject the queen is stated to have said that she found some consolation in the thought that time would clear her character. "i am young; i may, therefore, perhaps live," said she, "to see denmark disabused with respect to my conduct; whereas my poor mother, one of the best women that ever lived, died while the load of obloquy was heavy upon her, and went to her grave without the pleasure of a vindicated character."[ ] throughout her imprisonment at kronborg matilda had worn black--"in mourning," she said, "for her murdered reputation". [ ] _general evening post_, may , . though keith brought to matilda the news of her deliverance early in may, it was not until the end of that month that the queen left kronborg. during that time she saw the english envoy almost every day, though he, too, like herself, was making preparations for departure. she was no longer treated as a prisoner, but rendered all the honour due to her rank, and she was free to wander within the outer walls of the fortress as she pleased--a very large space. the queen's favourite walk was on the ramparts in front of the castle, where she would often pace for hours together, straining her eyes across the grey waters of the sea to catch the first glimpse of the british squadron which was to take her away from denmark. she declared that until she beheld the british flag she would not feel herself safe. the queen-dowager was now quite as anxious to get matilda out of denmark as she was to go, and to this end agreed to almost everything suggested by keith, and in some respects even went beyond his suggestions. matilda had a great many jewels, which were not the property of the danish crown, but her own. some of them she had brought with her from england; others had been given her by the king, her husband; some she had purchased with her own money. all of these had been seized by juliana maria, together with the queen's clothes and her personal possessions. when matilda was first sent to kronborg she had little or nothing beyond the clothes she wore, but little by little, grudgingly, things had been sent her. now the queen-dowager volunteered to send matilda the jewels which king christian had given her; but the wronged wife rejected the offer with disdain. she would take no favour she said; she wished to have nothing to remind her of the husband who had repudiated her, or the country which had treated her so cruelly; as a british princess she would retain none of the trappings of her danish slavery. the question formed a subject of despatches, and lord suffolk wrote to keith as follows: "his majesty does not see any objection to his sister receiving the jewels you mention, which were formerly given, and are now intended to be delivered to her. her danish majesty will thereby only retain a property, not accept a present. there seems no occasion for rejecting the attention voluntarily offered; but, if the queen of denmark is very averse from the proposition, his majesty does not wish to control her inclination." the queen _was_ very averse, and so the offer was rejected. but matilda requested that her personal trinkets which she had brought from england, and her books, clothing and other things, left scattered about in the king of denmark's palaces, should be packed up and sent to her new home at celle. we shall see how that order was carried out later. on may the queen's longing eyes were gladdened by the sight of the english squadron rounding the point off elsinore. the queen was at dinner when the guns at kronborg saluted and the english ships answered back. she immediately ran out on the ramparts, and wept with joy at the sight of the british flag. yet it was with mingled feelings that she beheld it, for the vessels which were to carry her away to liberty were also to carry her away from the child whom she dearly loved. the squadron consisted of the _southampton_ (captain macbride), the _seaford_ (captain davis), and the _cruiser_ (captain cummings). keith, who had now said good-bye to copenhagen to his great satisfaction, and had handed over the affairs of the legation to his secretary, was at kronborg when the ships anchored off elsinore. he at once went down to the harbour to meet captain macbride, and conduct him to the castle to have audience of the queen. [illustration: a view of elsinore, showing the castle of kronborg. _from the drawing by c. f. christensen._] the queen received captain macbride very graciously, and conversed with him a few minutes. when he asked her when it would please her to sail, she exclaimed: "ah, my dear children!" and, putting her hands to her face, abruptly quitted the room. later she sent captain macbride a message, asking him to forgive her emotion, and appointing two days later, may , as the date of her departure. when it was known that the british squadron was anchored off elsinore, great excitement prevailed at the danish court. by way of speeding the parting guest, perhaps also to spy upon her, a deputation of noblemen was sent from copenhagen by the queen-dowager to formally wait upon matilda and wish her a pleasant voyage. queen matilda received the deputation with quiet dignity, and said the day would come when the king would know that he had been betrayed and deceived, but, for herself, she henceforth lived only for her children. on the day appointed by the queen for her departure, a lady from the danish court arrived at kronborg in one of the royal coaches, with an escort, to take charge of the princess louise augusta. the queen was agonised at parting from the infant, who had been her sole consolation in the dreary months of her captivity, and whom she had nursed at the breast. she even thought her liberty purchased at too dear a price. the hope that this child would be allowed to remain with her had been one of the inducements which led her to sign the damning paper called her confession. it must have been a bitter thought to her that she had signed away her honour in vain, and the babe for whom she made this supreme sacrifice was to be torn from her arms. for a long time the queen held her child to her breast, and wept over it, showering on it caresses and endearing words. the lady who had come to take charge of the infant, and all who witnessed the parting, were hardly less affected; but the scene could not be prolonged for ever. pleadings and remonstrances were unavailing, and the women had almost to use force to take the little princess from her mother's arms. at last the heart-broken queen yielded her infant, and cried wildly, "let me away, for i now possess nothing here!" by this time it was six o'clock in the evening. everything was ready for the queen's departure, and captain macbride and sir robert keith had been waiting at the castle all the afternoon to escort the queen on board. at last she was ready to leave. it was arranged that the queen should be attended as far as stade by count and countess holstein, fräulein mösting and a page. of her other danish attendants the queen now took farewell, and many of them were moved to tears. she also bade adieu to the commandant of kronborg and his wife, and exonerated them from all blame for the deprivations she had suffered. she thanked the commandant for what he had done directly he was allowed to ameliorate the rigours of her captivity; to his wife she gave a gold snuff-box as a souvenir. nor did she forget the poor prisoners, for whom she left a sum of money. though she came to kronborg a prisoner she left it as a queen, and a queen to whom full honours were paid. the guard presented arms and an escort was drawn up in the courtyard; the queen descended the stone stairs up which she had been hurried five months before, and entered her coach. the commandant accompanied her to the outermost gate of the fortress, where he took his leave. thence it was only a few yards to the harbour, where a danish royal barge was waiting to row the queen out to the english squadron. immediately the queen and her suite stepped on board h.m.s. _southampton_ the royal standard of england was unfurled, and the cannon of kronborg and of the danish guardship in the sound fired a salute of twenty-one guns. the anchors were weighed immediately, and the little english squadron set sail up the cattegat, for it was decided to go round jutland, and so avoid copenhagen. it was a fine summer's night, and the queen remained on deck, her eyes fixed on the vanishing fortress (her child was to remain there until the morrow, when she was to be taken to copenhagen); nor could she be persuaded to go below until darkness intercepted her view. as there was little wind during the night the vessels made small headway. at the first break of dawn the queen was on deck again, and to her satisfaction found that she could still catch a glimpse of the towers of kronborg, which she watched until they faded from her view. owing to contrary winds the voyage to stade took several days. the queen is said to have beguiled her voyage by writing a long poem beginning:-- at length from sceptred care and deadly state, from galling censure and ill-omened hate, from the vain grandeur where i lately shone, from kronborg's prison and from denmark's throne i go.[ ] [ ] this poem was found among sir r. m. keith's papers after his death, headed: "written at sea by the queen of denmark on her passage to stade, ." but the writing was not that of the queen, and, as matilda had no gift for literary composition, it is doubtful whether it is genuine. i therefore only quote the first five lines. chapter xii. refuge at celle. - . the english squadron arrived at stade, a seaport town on the mouth of the elbe, then in the electorate of hanover, on june . matilda was received with all the honour due to her rank as queen of denmark and princess of great britain. two highly placed hanoverian officials rowed out to the flagship, and formally welcomed her to her brother's dominions. the queen landed shortly afterwards from a royal barge. here the hanoverian ladies and gentlemen who were to form her new household awaited her, and here her small danish suite took their leave, preparatory to returning to copenhagen by land. the queen gave count holstein a diamond solitaire and similar souvenirs to the others. she also recommended captain macbride and the other officers for promotion through the envoy.[ ] a large crowd had assembled to witness the queen disembark, by whom she was greeted with great enthusiasm. there was a very general idea that she had been hardly used, and her brother's hanoverians were enthusiastic in her defence. the queen was treated with honour: she was lodged in the principal house at stade, and attended by her suite, which was composed of the dowager baroness d'ompteda, chief lady of her court, two other ladies-in-waiting, two chamberlains, three pages and a number of servants. sir robert keith acted as minister in attendance. [ ] lord sandwich's despatch, june , . the queen remained at stade two days, and then travelled by way of harburg to göhrde, a distance of thirty miles, where she was to remain until the castle of celle was ready for her reception. göhrde had formerly been a hunting-box of the dukes of celle. it was a long, low, unpretending house of brick and timber, and the accommodation was so limited that most of the suite had to be lodged in cottages hard by. göhrde was situated in the midst of a forest, far removed from any town, and the queen was more separated from the outer world there than she had been at kronborg.[ ] at göhrde sir robert keith took leave of the queen, who parted from him with many expressions of gratitude and good-will. he went, in accordance with his instructions, to england, to give the king a full and particular account of the late revolution in denmark, and to say all that he could in the queen's favour. [ ] the house at göhrde is still standing, and is sometimes used as a hunting-box by the german emperor, who as king of prussia has appropriated it, together with all the other palaces of the king of hanover--except herrenhausen--which remains the private property of the duke of cumberland. matilda remained at göhrde throughout the summer, and the quiet did much to refresh her weary mind after the exciting scenes she had gone through. in her loneliness the queen turned to the consolations of religion; the pastor of lüneburg often visited her, and once a week conducted divine service for her and the household. in august matilda received a visit from her sister augusta, hereditary princess of brunswick-wolfenbüttel, who came with her husband, and stayed four days. matilda was overjoyed to see her sister again. they had not met since the days of their youth in england, but they had corresponded regularly. through good report and evil the princess of brunswick had stood by her young sister, and she now determined to see as much as possible of her in the future, which would be comparatively easy, as brunswick was only a few hours' journey from celle. she had nothing but sympathy for matilda, and indignation at her wrongs. together, no doubt, they went over the whole miserable story of the unhappy marriage in denmark; here, too, they probably recalled the memories of their childhood in england. the princess of brunswick, who had lately come from london, also gave her sister much information concerning george iii. and queen charlotte, which enabled her to understand better the state of affairs at the english court. the prince of brunswick, gallant soldier that he was, also championed the cause of his young sister-in-law, and his visit to her at this time was a proof to all the world that he believed her to be an injured woman. his visit was the more significant from the fact that he was a nephew of matilda's greatest enemy, juliana maria, who was by birth a princess of brunswick-wolfenbüttel. the princess of brunswick and her husband did not always get on very happily together, for the princess resented her husband's many amours. their visit to göhrde, therefore, was regarded not only as evidence of their friendship for the unfortunate queen, but as proof that harmony was restored between them. though the preparations at celle were pushed forward with all speed, it was late in october before everything was ready in the castle for the queen's reception. the honest townsfolk of celle were prepared to give their king's sister the heartiest of welcomes. there had been no court at the castle for nearly seventy years, and they were proud that its ancient glories were to be in part revived; moreover, they sympathised with the sorrows of the young queen, were indignant at her wrongs, and firmly believed her to be the innocent victim of a court plot. when, therefore, after four months' residence at göhrde, matilda fixed october for her entry to celle, the magistrates and burgesses determined to give her a right royal reception. a public holiday was proclaimed; the streets of the quaint little town, which contain some fine specimens of north german architecture, were gaily decorated, and odes of welcome, both in prose and verse, were prepared. prince ernest of mecklenburg-strelitz, queen charlotte's brother, and commandant of the garrison, heartily supported the efforts of the townspeople, and for weeks nothing was talked of but the entry of queen matilda.[ ] [ ] the following particulars of the queen's entry are taken from contemporary newspapers and the town registers of celle. the day of october dawned beautifully fine. the town was bright with the sunshine of late autumn; the royal standard floated proudly on the castle tower, and soldiers paraded the streets. there was such an influx of visitors to celle from the surrounding villages that every house was filled to overflowing, and there was no more accommodation to be had at the inns. at an early hour the townsfolk assembled under arms at the headquarters of the local militia. each citizen wore red and white ribbons in his hat, and a rosette of the same in his buttonhole. a procession was formed, and headed by the chief officials, the "four men," the townsfolk, with banners flying and music playing, marched to the market-place. here, after refreshing themselves and generally making merry, they proceeded to line the route to the castle. at the west gate of the town twenty-eight of the most notable burgesses, "clad in blue velveteen and mounted on horses magnificently caparisoned," awaited the arrival of the queen, and then, since her coming was delayed, they marched out about a quarter of a mile from the town to meet her. after they had waited a long time, a courier dashed up and informed them that her majesty was approaching. a few minutes later the queen's coach came in sight, followed by the other coaches containing her suite. one of the chief merchants, deputed by the rest, then rode towards the royal carriage, and when the queen commanded a halt, he offered her on bended knee the following greeting:-- to us returns the sun of golden days. "god save the queen!" shall be our song. thou comest laden with a blessing for which our hearts have hungered long. --and so on for many verses. the queen received the address most graciously. then the escort of burgesses formed up, and the procession moved towards the western gate. the queen's coach was drawn by six horses from the royal stables at celle, ridden by postilions in liveries of scarlet and gold. an escort of cavalry formed the rear of the procession. at the west gate the queen again halted, and würning, the senior of the "four men," read to the queen an ode written on white satin, beginning:-- through us, o queen, celle utters her rejoicing, by us doth seek her joy to celebrate, that thou, o majesty, hast come among us, and hast not scorned our lowly gate. the queen again signified her liveliest satisfaction, and when the reading of the ode was over, she passed through the gates, and a flourish of trumpets announced her majesty's entry into the town. from this point the procession could only make its way slowly, for although the route was lined with burgesses, and the queen's coach was escorted by cavalry, the people pressed through and surrounded the carriage, all anxious to get a view of the queen. "nor would she have any turned away, but bowed and smiled from side to side without intermission, and showed in the most unmistakable manner her lively satisfaction and pleasure." indeed, the queen is said to have exclaimed with joyful gratitude: "thank god! my brother's subjects do not believe me guilty." slowly matilda made her way past the town hall, where the members of the corporation were drawn up and the commandant of the town had stationed his regiment, towards the castle. she passed over the drawbridge, and a second later entered her new home. she was received at the main entrance by prince ernest of mecklenburg-strelitz, who conducted her up the grand staircase to her apartments. the queen rested a while, and took some refreshment; but after supper, seeing that the town was illuminated in her honour, she announced her intention of going out to view the illuminations, and accompanied by her suite, she made a tour of the streets on foot, commenting with unaffected delight at the devices on the houses. it was ten o'clock before the queen returned to the castle, tired out with the pleasant excitements of the day. she declared that it did her heart good to come among so kind and devoted a people, who had striven to outvie one another in rendering her honour. of a truth, after the harshness and averted looks she had encountered everywhere in denmark the last two years, the warm-hearted greeting must have come as a balm to the youthful queen. from that hour she took the townsfolk of celle to her heart, and they took her to theirs. even to this day the traditions of her goodness and amiability linger in the little town. george iii. handsomely supplemented his sister's allowance from denmark, and though her means did not allow of magnificence or display, she had amply sufficient for her needs, in the quiet and secluded life which her brother wished her to lead. matilda was royally lodged in the castle of celle, and had no reason to complain of her quarters. the castle was at that time strongly fortified and surrounded by a moat, which perhaps gave rise to the absurd report, circulated in england, that she was a prisoner in a few small rooms of a gloomy fortress. nothing could be further from the truth. [illustration: the castle of celle: the apartments of queen matilda were in the tower.] * * * * * i was last at celle in , and visited the castle especially to see the apartments occupied by the queen of denmark. the following notes written at the time may be of interest:-- the castle of celle is a huge building, partly in late gothic and partly in the renaissance style. it is built round a quadrangle, and the apartments used by queen matilda occupy the whole of the south side. the largest room is a long gallery, where her household and guests were wont to assemble. this gallery is a long, low, handsome room, hung with pictures on one wall, and pierced by many windows on another. at one end of the gallery is the dining-room, at the other the queen's favourite sitting-room or boudoir. this is an octagon-shaped room in the south-west tower of the castle, and lighted by four large windows overlooking the beautiful schloss garden, and giving a glimpse through the trees of the silvery aller. the walls of this room are lined with a sort of canvas, on which are painted bright birds of paradise and flowers. the castellan declared that the wall-covering and hangings were unchanged since the queen's day, and were put up by order of george iii. for his sister. before matilda's apartments were used by the queen of hanover; they are now occupied by the regent of brunswick on his rare visits to celle. the octagon room leads to the queen's bedroom, a large apartment with walls lined with the same material, on which are painted bright flowers. the windows look over some noble beech-trees. from this a few wooden steps lead down to the garde-robe (dressing-room), and following the winding staircase down, we are confronted by a stout door. opening this, we emerge directly on the western, or royal, gallery of the beautiful little chapel. in this gallery is the closed pew wherein matilda used to sit during divine service--a pew not unlike an opera-box, cushioned and carpeted, and with diamond-paned glass windows. at the back is a fresco representing the denial of christ by peter. the pew directly faced the altar, and from it matilda must often have gazed at the beautiful triptych painted by martin vos of antwerp. the centre panel represents the crucifixion, and george william, the last duke of celle, and his wife, eléonore d'olbreuse (not very saintly personages by the way), are painted in the wings of the triptych, kneeling on either side of the central panel in attitudes of adoration. sometimes, to hear the preacher better, matilda moved round to the south gallery, immediately facing the pulpit, where she also occupied a lattice-windowed pew. here, on one of the panes, local tradition has it that she wrote with a diamond the following words in german: "the fear of god is over all things, and will guide me both in the present and in the future." the writing may still be seen, scratched on the pane, but, unfortunately for the legend, it bears no resemblance to the well-known writing of the queen, though it is always shown as hers.[ ] [ ] this chapel (and indeed the whole castle) is full of memories of the great house of guelph. it is a gem of its kind, exquisitely proportioned and richly decorated, and was restored by the late king of hanover, george v., "the blind king," shortly before he was robbed of his kingdom by prussia. a fresco, representing the king kneeling, in the armour of a christian warrior, his hands clasped in prayer, and his beautiful face turned towards the altar, occupies the north wall of the chancel. * * * * * a few days after queen matilda arrived at celle she received a visit from keith, who had spent the summer in england. after reaching london and reporting himself at the foreign office, keith was commanded to the palace, where the sovereign gave him audience. he was about to kneel when george iii. took him by both his hands, and said: "no, no, keith; it is not thus we receive our friends," and then expressed to him in the warmest terms his satisfaction at the way in which he had exerted himself on queen matilda's behalf. he soon received well-deserved promotion from the king, who appointed him ambassador at vienna, a post formerly filled by his father. keith was now on his way to take up his duties at vienna. in conformance with instructions, he travelled round by way of celle to see the queen in her new home, and report concerning her to the king. before keith left england lord suffolk wrote him a private letter in which he said: "_you cannot be too minute and ample on all points of your mission to zell_. a thousand little circumstances which would of course be passed over on other occasions will be interesting upon this, and i think i may venture to assure you that the more conformable your accounts are to this hint the better they will please."[ ] [ ] letter of lord suffolk to sir r. m. keith, october , .--_memoirs and correspondence of sir r. murray keith_, vol. i. the italics are suffolk's. this goes to show that george iii., who had been reproached with indifference to his sister, now took a particular interest in her welfare, and was anxious to do everything to make her situation as comfortable and happy as circumstances admitted. this is further borne out in the letter which keith wrote to lord suffolk, which gives so authentic and particular account of the queen at celle that it is worth quoting in full:-- "celle, _november , _. "my lord, "i arrived here on october , late in the evening, and next day had the honour of delivering the king's letter to her danish majesty, whom i found in perfect health, and without any remains of pain from her late accident. in two very long audiences, which her majesty was pleased to grant me, i endeavoured to execute with the utmost punctuality his majesty's command, and shall now lay before your lordship all the lights those audiences afforded me, relative to the queen's wishes and intentions. i cannot enter upon that subject without previously assuring your lordship that the queen received those repeated proofs of his majesty's _fraternal affection and friendship_, which my order contained, with the warmest expressions of gratitude and sensibility, and that nothing could be more frank and explicit than her answers to a great number of questions, which she permitted me to ask upon any subject that arose. "in regard to denmark, the queen declares that, in the present situation of that court, she has not a wish for any correspondence or connection there, beyond what immediately concerns the welfare and education of her children. that she never has written a single letter to denmark since she left it, or received one from thence. that the only person belonging to that kingdom from whom she hears lives in holstein, and is not connected with the court.[ ] [ ] a letter of queen matilda's which she wrote from celle to a member of the struensee family in holstein has recently come to light. unfortunately, i cannot quote it, but it is only of interest as showing that she maintained friendly relations with the family of struensee after his death. "the queen having expressed great anxiety with respect to the false impressions which may be instilled into the minds of her children, particularly regarding herself, i thought it my duty to say that such impressions, however cruelly intended, could not, at the tender age of her majesty's children, nor for some years to come, take so deep a root as not to be entirely effaced by more candid instructors, and the dictates of filial duty, when reason and reflection shall break in upon their minds. the queen seemed willing to lay hold of that hope, yet could not help bursting into tears when she mentioned the danger of losing the affections of her children. "her majesty appears very desirous to communicate directly to her royal brother all her views and wishes in the most confidential manner; hoping to obtain in return his majesty's advice and directions, which she intends implicitly to follow. she said that in matters of so private and domestic a nature, it would give her much greater pleasure to learn his majesty's intentions upon every point _from his own pen_, than through the channel of any of his electoral servants. "it gave me great satisfaction to find her majesty in very good spirits, and so much pleased with the palace at zell, the apartments of which are very spacious and handsomely furnished. she _wishes to have an apartment fitted up in the palace for her sister, the princess of brunswick_, as she thinks that the etiquette of this country does not permit that princess, in her visits to zell, to be lodged _out of the palace_, without great impropriety. her majesty said that she intended to write herself to the king on this head. "the queen told me that the very enterprising and dangerous part which queen juliana has acted in denmark had created greater astonishment in brunswick (where the abilities and character of that princess are known) than, perhaps, in any other city of europe. "her majesty talked to me of several late incidents at the court of denmark, but without appearing to take much concern in them. she mentioned, with a smile, some of the paltry things which had been sent as a part of her baggage from denmark, adding, that this new instance of their meanness had not surprised her. but the princess of brunswick, who happened to be present when the baggage was opened, expressed her indignation at that treatment in such strong terms, that she (the queen) could not help taking notice of it in her letters to the king. "she made me understand that a small collection of english books would be very agreeable to her; leaving the choice of them entirely to the king. "her majesty more than once expressed how much she considered herself obliged to the king's ministers for the zeal they had shown in the whole of the late unhappy transactions relating to denmark and to herself. she is particularly sensible of the great share your lordship had in all those affairs; and has commanded me to convey to your lordship her acknowledgments for that constant attention to her honour and interests, which she is persuaded the king will look upon as an additional mark of your lordship's dutiful attachment to his royal person and family. "it only remains that i should beg your forgiveness for the great length to which i have swelled this letter. the only excuse i can offer arises from my ardent desire to execute the king's orders with the utmost possible precision. "i am, etc., etc., "r. m. keith."[ ] [ ] _memoirs and correspondence of sir r. murray keith_, vol. i. keith remained at celle only a few days. then he took leave of the queen whose cause he had championed so doughtily, and proceeded to vienna. he never saw her again.[ ] [ ] keith remained at vienna for many years, and retired from the diplomatic service in . he became a privy councillor and member of parliament. he died at hammersmith in , aged sixty-four. george iii. tried in every way to shield his sister's reputation, and to prevent any details of the scandal reaching england. "the king of england," wrote suffolk some months after the queen's arrival at celle, "has repeatedly received assurances that no part of those proceedings which affected the queen of denmark should ever be made public."[ ] woodford, who had succeeded keith at copenhagen as minister-resident, received strict orders to do all in his power to prevent the dissemination of scandalous publications. there were a great many. the year of the queen's arrival at celle, woodford writes to england of "a most injurious libel," in manuscript, being circulated against the queen, and suspects it is a piece of malice on the part of count rantzau.[ ] again, he writes of the circulation of a paper containing the "most detestable part of struensee's deposition".[ ] a whole case of these papers was seized at the custom house, and owing to the protests of the english minister, count osten ordered all copies to be suppressed and the sale forbidden under heavy penalties. woodford later had a conversation with count andreas bernstorff[ ] (who had succeeded osten at the foreign office) on the subject, and reported: "the danish minister said it could never be forgotten that the queen of denmark was mother of the prince royal, the king's sister, and a daughter of england, which were too important considerations not to engage him to be vigilant and active against everything that could in the most distant manner reflect upon the late melancholy and unfortunate transaction."[ ] [ ] suffolk's despatch to woodford at copenhagen, december , . [ ] woodford's despatch, copenhagen, december , . [ ] _ibid._, december and , . [ ] andreas peter bernstorff, nephew and successor of the famous minister, who became foreign minister on the disgrace of osten in and resigned in . he was recalled by the crown prince when regent, afterwards frederick vi. [ ] woodford's despatch, may , . queen matilda was exceedingly touched by the way in which she was received by the townsfolk of celle, and as the days went by she more than confirmed the first impressions they had formed of her, and won the affection of all the inhabitants from the highest to the lowest. celle now, as then, is a quiet little town, with quaint old houses and irregular streets, and no description could convey a complete idea of its homelike charm. the houses are not built with the magnificence of those of lübeck or brunswick, whose style they resemble, but on a more modest scale. most of the old houses date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with high-pitched, red-tiled roofs, and with huge wooden beams built into the walls, and the intervening spaces filled up with brickwork or clay. here a window, there a doorway or gable-end, calls up the glamour of the past. the outside walls of the old houses are often painted with figures, vines, grapes, oak-leaves, and so forth, while the beams, sills, ties and other woodwork are enriched with carvings showing quaint devices, or texts or mottoes--sometimes humorous and sometimes pious.[ ] [ ] the town of celle has altered very little since matilda's day. it has grown towards the south, and is now the seat of the higher provincial tribunal of the province of hanover. the town has nearly twenty thousand inhabitants. the queen walked almost daily about the town, generally attended by only one lady. she went freely in and out among the people, making purchases in the shops, visiting the poor and sick, comforting them with kind words and deeds, and taking a sympathetic interest in everything that concerned them. in her intercourse with the townsfolk of celle she showed herself opposed to all pride and etiquette, and did her best to bridge over the gulf which separated the classes even more in the eighteenth century than to-day. it was known that she had her sorrows, but she never complained, and conducted herself with a gentle kindness which won all with whom she came into contact. she found great consolation in the society of her former friend, madame de plessen, who, soon after she had been banished from copenhagen, took a house at celle, and who now renewed her friendship with her young mistress. matilda never rode, fond though she was of that exercise, and though horses in the royal stables were at her disposal. but she drove occasionally in the country around celle, which was not very interesting, being for the most part a flat plain varied by clumps of birches, firs and patches of heather. her farthest excursion was to hanover, whither she went at long intervals on visits of some ceremony.[ ] [ ] malortie ii., _beiträge zur geschichte des braunschweig-lüneburgischen hauses und hoses_. [illustration: queen matilda. _from the painting formerly at celle._] the queen's favourite walk was in the french garden outside the town--so-called because it was planned out after the fashion le nôtre had set at versailles. the paths ran in straight lines between avenues of lime-trees and clipped hedges, something after the manner of herrenhausen, but smaller. the french garden was public to the town, and in her walks there matilda made many friends. she often conversed with the townsfolk, walking there, with such affability that they were speedily put at their ease, and became convinced that the queen's friendliness was not feigned, but true and natural. she was especially fond of children, and rarely passed them without a kind word; almost every day the school children were able to tell their parents that the "good queen," as she was everywhere called, had talked to them. she often invited children to a little party at the castle, where all sorts of things were done to give them pleasure; sometimes she would go to the parents of quite poor children in the town and ask them to spare her their little ones for a few hours. the queen was never so happy as in the society of children, and her great grief was her forced separation from her own; she was never heard to regret the loss of her throne or the brilliant life of courts, but she frequently bewailed the loss of her children. juliana maria was determined to prevent every means of communication between the exiled queen and her children, and for good reason. the secretary at the british legation writes of her "apprehension" that the crown prince "might one day revenge the injurious treatment his royal mother had undergone".[ ] it was with much difficulty that matilda at last obtained from copenhagen a picture of her little son. she hung it in her bedroom, immediately facing her bed, and often gazed at it longingly. once when she was repeating some verses to the picture, she was surprised by the baroness d'ompteda. the queen repeated the lines, which she said she had altered to suit her sad case:-- eh! qui donc, comme moi, gouterait la douceur de t'appeller mon fils, d'être chère à ton coeur! toi, qu'on arrache aux bras d'une mère sensible, qui ne pleure que toi, dans ce destin terrible.[ ] [ ] j. j. haber's despatch, november , . [ ] ah! who, like me, could taste the joy divine, my lovely babe! to mix thy soul with mine! torn from my breast, i weep alone for thee amidst the griefs which heaven dispensed to me. the queen often wept when she thought of her children, and this, indeed, was the only point on which she refused to be comforted. maternal love was very strong in matilda's heart. she took into the castle a motherless little girl of four years old, named sophie von benningsen, so that she might give her a mother's care and training. to provide the queen with some diversion the theatre in the castle was fitted up, and a company of players came from hanover at regular intervals, and gave representations there. to these entertainments the queen would invite the principal people in celle, and she always attended, and occupied the ducal box--the same box from which her great-grandmother, sophie dorothea, had smiled across the courtiers to königsmarck a hundred years before. great care was taken that there should be nothing in the plays which could even remotely resemble the queen's sad history; to this end comedies were always acted, and tragedies were forbidden. nevertheless, once, when some children appeared on the stage, the queen was overcome by emotion, and hurriedly left her box. it was a long time before she could recover her self-control, and she walked about the gardens, notwithstanding that the night was rough and windy, until she regained it. after this incident no more children figured in the plays at celle. one day of the queen's life at celle very much resembled another, and in that it had no history it might be regarded as happy, though the shadow of sadness brooded over all. she rose early--between seven and eight--and, if the weather permitted, took a little walk in the gardens of the castle, or by the side of the aller. some mornings she would breakfast in the gardens, at others return to the castle. after breakfast she would dress herself for the day, and appear in her little circle for an hour. then often she would go out again, either for a drive, or for a walk in the french garden, and come back to dinner at the castle about two o'clock. she dined with all her household, seated at the head of the table, and conversation was generally brisk and lively. after dinner she would retire to her own apartments, and read, or do some needlework, or play on the harpsichord, and sing to it, for she was an accomplished musician. later, she would again go for a walk in the garden, if the weather was fine. then she dressed for the evening, and joined the circle of her court at eight, when supper was served. to this meal guests were frequently invited from the town, such as prince ernest of mecklenburg-strelitz or madame de plessen, the colonel of the regiment, or some of the neighbouring nobility and gentry. after supper there would be music, or cards, or conversation in the long gallery; sometimes there was a performance in the theatre. at eleven the queen would retire to her apartments, and the company broke up. she did not always retire to bed at once, for she was fond of astronomy, and on fine nights would repair to the tower of the castle, where there was a telescope, and gaze for a long time at the starry heavens; sometimes she would recite some poetry. her favourite poem was a hymn of gellert's, which began:-- _nie will ich dem zu schaden suchen,_ _der mir zu schaden sucht._ _nie will ich meinem feinde fluchen,_ _wenn er aus hass mir flucht._[ ] [ ] never will i try to harm him who does me wrong, etc. she was regular in her attendance at public worship; every sunday found her in the chapel, attended by her household. the service, which was after the lutheran ritual, was conducted by her chaplain, pastor lehzen. on rare occasions she attended the church in the town. every now and then she gave little parties at the castle--on the occasion of her own birthday, or that of members of her suite. in a letter (july , ) to her chief lady, baroness d'ompteda, who was then absent for a few weeks, taking the waters of prymont, the queen wrote: "madame de plessen, having wished to celebrate my birthday, gave an illumination in the garden; but the wind was so strong that the bonfire would not burn, so she gave it yesterday evening, when the weather was more favourable. i was there, and went to see the illuminations, which were everywhere good. the whole of the town was illuminated."[ ] one or two more letters, of no particular importance, addressed by the queen to the baroness d'ompteda, have been found. some slight signs of weariness are evident. she laments that she is unable to send any news; "but you know celle," she writes, "and therefore will understand".[ ] her life was undoubtedly monotonous, but it seems to have been fairly happy, and she enjoyed the visits of her sister, the princess of brunswick, who frequently posted over to celle for a few days. these visits were the pleasantest distractions of matilda's life. [ ] n. falck, _neues staatsbürgerliche's magazin_, band i., schleswig, , s. . [ ] _ibid._, s. . one john moore, who was a travelling companion of the duke of hamilton, came with the duke to celle in the summer of on the way from hanover, and afterwards published a volume of his travels, in which appears the following account:--[ ] [ ] _a view of society and manners in france, switzerland and germany_, by john moore, london, . "before dinner i went with the duke to the castle, where we remained till late in the evening. there was a concert of music between dinner and supper, and the queen seemed in better spirits than could have been expected.... "the apartments are spacious and convenient, and now handsomely furnished. the _entourage_ of the court--the queen's maids-of-honour and other attendants--have a very genteel appearance, and retain the most respectful attachment to their ill-fated mistress. "the few days we remained at zell were spent entirely at court, where everything seemed to be arranged in the style of the other small german courts, and nothing wanting to render the queen's situation as comfortable as circumstances would admit. but by far her greatest consolation is the company and conversation of her sister; some degree of satisfaction appears in her countenance while the princess remains at zell, but the moment she goes away, the queen, as we are informed, becomes a prey to dejection and despondency. the princess exerts herself to prevent this, and devotes to her sister all the time she can spare from the duties she owes to her own family. unlike those who take the first pretext of breaking connections which can no longer be of advantage, this humane princess has displayed even more attachment to her sister since her misfortunes than she ever did while the queen was in the meridian of her prosperity. "the youth, the agreeable countenance and obliging manners of the queen have conciliated the minds of every one in this country. though she was in perfect health and appeared cheerful, yet, convinced that her gaiety was assumed and the effect of a strong effort, i felt an impression of melancholy which it was not in my power to overcome all the time we remained at zell." so matters remained at celle for nearly two years, and then there came excitement into matilda's quiet life. in september, , a young englishman, named wraxall, of good somersetshire family, arrived at celle. wraxall was an active, ambitious and enterprising youth, and the fact that he was not rich warned him that he must do something. he therefore resolved to win fame and money by authorship, and to this end set out to make a tour in northern europe, then comparatively little known. he travelled through denmark, sweden and a little of russia, and came back by way of north germany to hamburg. the recent events in copenhagen (for they were then recent) had excited an extraordinary amount of interest in england, and wraxall resolved to be the first to give a really full and particular account of what had happened there two years before. so he went to copenhagen on a voyage of inquiry, and when he was there kept his eyes and ears well open, with the result that he gleaned a great many details of the palace revolution. on his return to hamburg, as he was so near, he thought he would go to celle, and pay his respects to the unfortunate heroine of the danish revolution of , and thus make his contemplated book more complete. to this end he travelled to celle, and presented himself to baron seckendorf, the queen's chamberlain, and stated his wishes. seckendorf submitted his name to the queen, who, always accessible, said that it would give her pleasure to receive mr. wraxall, whom she understood to be a young englishman of birth and education. the princess of brunswick, who was staying with her sister at the time, and who was above all things anxious to amuse her, also thought that the company of a travelled and agreeable englishman would be a welcome diversion. therefore baron seckendorf informed wraxall that the queen would receive him. he described the audience in his private journal:-- "_monday, september _:-- "i went at half-past one to the castle of zell. mr. seckendorf introduced me to the _grande maîtresse_ of her highness the princess of brunswick. the princess herself entered in about a quarter of an hour; she gave me her hand to kiss, and began conversation with me directly. it was interrupted by the queen's entrance, to whom i was presented with the same ceremony. her majesty and the princess kept me in constant talk before and after dinner. we talked of denmark, of prince frederick, his intended marriage, etc. 'he was a youth,' said she [the queen], 'unknown while i was there.' hirschholm, she said, was her favourite palace. 'but tell me,' said the princess, 'about the queen-mother; she is my aunt, but no matter. say what you will; you may be free. and for the king, how is he?' i very frankly expressed my sentiments. the queen asked me a thousand questions about the court of russia, sweden, my travels, etc. the queen asked me also about her children, the prince in particular; i told her how they dressed him now. i assured her i had been taken for a spy in copenhagen.... her majesty was very gay, and seemed in no way a prey to melancholy; she was very fat for so young a woman. she asked me my age; i told her. 'you are then,' said she, 'exactly as old as i am; we were born in the same year.' her features are pretty, and her teeth very small, even and white. she resembles his majesty [george iii.] infinitely in face, but the princess said not so strongly as she. i don't think so, and told her royal highness so; her majesty appealed to one of her maids-of-honour, who agreed in opinion with me. the queen was dressed in a barré-coloured gown, or at least an orange-red so very nearly resembling it that i could not distinguish the difference. i asked her how many languages she spoke. 'five,' she said--'danish, english, french, german and italian.' "the princess [of brunswick] is much thinner in face, but not a great deal less in her person; she wants the queen of denmark's teeth, but has a very good complexion. she talked to me about the duchess of glo'ster--if i had seen her, if i knew her. 'she is a very fine woman,' she added, 'even now.' mrs. c ... was mentioned. 'she was a prodigious favourite,' i remarked, 'of the duke of york.' she replied with a smile: 'for the moment!' she did me the honour to ask me to take brunswick in my way next summer, or whenever i visited germany again. she said she might and should have mistaken me for a frenchman. 'you don't take that for a compliment, do you?' the queen observed. indeed, no; i was too proud of my country. macaronis formed a part of our conversation. 'it is all over now,' i said; 'the word is quite extinct in england.' 'but tell me,' said her majesty, 'tell me ingenuously, were you not a bit of a one while it lasted?' i assured her not. i took my leave soon after dinner. "_tuesday, september _:-- "about ten o'clock i went to the hôtel de ville, where at this time the shops of the merchants who come to the fair of zell are held. her majesty the queen and her sister the princess were there. i had the honour to talk with them nearly an hour; we conversed in english most familiarly on fifty subjects--the grand duke of russia, the empress, the peace between russia and turkey, my travels, dantzig, formed the chief articles. i showed her majesty my medals of the empress of russia and some other things. she was dressed quite _à l'anglaise_--a white bonnet, a pale-pink night-gown a gauze handkerchief, with a little locket on her bosom. her face is very handsome; they are his majesty's features, but all softened and harmonised. pity she is so large in her person. the princess was quite english all over--a black hat over her eyes and a common night-gown with a black apron." the next day wraxall took his leave of celle, well pleased with his visit, and proceeded to hamburg, where he intended to take ship for england. but at hamburg something happened which upset all his plans, and for a short time linked his fortunes closely with those of queen matilda. [illustration: augusta, princess of great britain and duchess of brunswick, sister of queen matilda. _from the painting by sir joshua reynolds._] chapter xiii.[ ] the restoration plot. - . [ ] this chapter is based upon sir n. wraxall's _posthumous memoirs_, vol. i., where a more detailed narrative will be found. altona, then a town in danish territory, was only half a mile from the free city of hamburg, and at the time of wraxall's visit was thronged with partisans of the deposed queen. many of them had been exiled from copenhagen after the palace revolution of ; several belonged to the danish nobility, and chief among these was baron bülow, who had formerly held the post of master of the horse to queen matilda. owing to the unpopularity of the queen-dowager's rule at copenhagen, their numbers were increasing daily, and already a plan was under consideration to effect another palace revolution, abolish juliana maria and her adherents, and restore matilda. but so far the plan existed on paper only; no steps had been taken to carry it into effect. things had not gone well with the danish government at copenhagen since matilda had sailed from kronborg more than two years before. the queen-dowager quickly found that it was one thing to seize power and another to maintain it; her spell of popularity was brief, and before long she became the most hated woman in denmark, not always very justly, for according to her lights she seems honestly to have tried to do her duty. before long the conspirators who, under her, had effected the palace revolution fell out among themselves, and the government was split into two factions, with rantzau and köller-banner on one side, eickstedt and guldberg on the other, and osten trimming between the two. it was not long before the guldberg faction triumphed. rantzau was compelled to resign all his offices, and dismissed with a pension to his estates in holstein, but, as he showed a desire to return to copenhagen, he was eventually exiled.[ ] osten was banished to jutland, where he was living in retirement.[ ] köller-banner was in disgrace, and dismissed from his posts on a suspicion of treasonable correspondence with the french and swedish envoys. the queen-dowager tried to recall him, for he was a favourite with her, and succeeded for a time; but he was eventually overthrown.[ ] thus retribution had fallen on some of matilda's chief enemies, and though others, like eickstedt and beringskjold, remained, their authority was shaken, and the whole power had insensibly passed into the hands of guldberg, who acquired the unbounded confidence of the queen-dowager. guldberg was very clever, and a far more cautious man than struensee, though he did not possess either his genius or his aspirations. the first step of the new government had been to establish the old _régime_, and to abolish all the reforms brought in by struensee,[ ] and place the power once more in the hands of the privileged classes. but the people, having once tasted the sweets of liberty, did not take kindly to the re-imposition of their former yoke, and the government grew daily more unpopular. much though they had disliked struensee, they had approved of many of his reforms: it was not so much what he did, as the way he did it, to which they objected. [ ] rantzau went to the south of france. he died in , in his seventy-second year. [ ] a few years later osten was recalled, and appointed president of the supreme court in copenhagen, but he fell again with juliana maria's government, and died in at the age of eighty years. [ ] köller-banner died at altona in . [ ] the only one that remains of struensee's institutions to this day is the foundling hospital, which was so bitterly attacked at the time of its foundation. the king, who was theoretically the source of all power, was tightly held in the grasp of the queen-dowager, whom he had now come to hate quite as much as he used to hate struensee and brandt. but he was powerless to free himself from this thraldom, though at times he showed flashes of insubordination. for instance, in one of his comparatively lucid intervals he signed a state paper as follows: "christian vii. by the grace of god king of denmark, etc., in company with juliana maria by the grace of the devil." he often lamented the loss of matilda, whom he said he had been forced to divorce against his will, and wished her back again. he had probably discovered that this annoyed the queen-dowager more than anything else, and so he spoke of his wife in the most affectionate terms. of his divorce he said it was the only one on record effected when neither of the parties wished it. in the popular mind, too, a strong reaction had set in in favour of the exiled queen. she had always been kind and affable to the people, and she was credited with whatever was beneficial to them in struensee's legislation. the picture of her torn from her children and forced to live in exile powerfully appealed to the public imagination, and now that struensee was out of the way her popularity returned with threefold force. her sufferings and sorrows were attributed to the vindictiveness of the queen-dowager; all matilda's shortcomings were forgiven on the score of her youth and inexperience; it was declared that she was the innocent victim of a cruel plot, and she gradually became vested in the eyes of the people with the attributes of a saint and a martyr. the queen-dowager was aware of this and sought to win over the malcontents. "the suspected partisans and friends of the unfortunate [queen] have many of them been caressed this winter," writes woodford, "and some have received places."[ ] but her efforts did not meet with great success. those of the danish nobility who favoured matilda's cause were aware of the popular feeling, and did their utmost to encourage it, for they counted on the young queen's personality as their most powerful weapon to overthrow the guldberg ministry and the domination of juliana maria. [ ] woodford's despatch, copenhagen, july , . such, then, was the state of affairs in denmark when wraxall arrived at hamburg after his visit to matilda at celle. the opera, the theatre and all public amusements were at hamburg; it consequently offered great attractions to the danish families at altona, and many of them were constantly to be found in the places of amusement at hamburg, and in the houses of its wealthy citizens. wraxall dined with hanbury, the english consul, on september , and among the company present were several danes, including baroness bülow, baron and baroness schimmelmann and m. le texier, who had been treasurer to christian vii. during his tour in england. he also saw at the opera the next night the beautiful countess holstein, who had taken refuge in altona. he says: "i examined her through my glass. she is doubtless pretty, though not in my opinion so divinely fair as fame says. her history at hirschholm is well known. there was no gallantry, i thought, marked in her features, though it is said she certainly has that quality in her constitution. i thought of the unhappy brandt as i looked at her." wraxall was well received by several of the first families at hamburg, and one night, when he was supping at the house of a brother-in-law of le texier, where several of the danish nobility were present, he spoke of his recent visit to celle, and expressed himself strongly in favour of queen matilda, and spoke of his eagerness to avenge her wrongs. he was a young man of mercurial temperament, and had probably supped too freely, but his words made an impression on the danes who were present. a few days later le texier called upon wraxall, and with an air of secrecy asked him if he really meant what he said the other evening, and whether he would be willing to serve the queen of denmark, because, in that case, he could put him in the way of doing so. wraxall was momentarily overcome with astonishment at being taken at his word, but he soon recovered himself, and declared with all the enthusiasm of youth that he was willing to risk his life, if need be, for the sake of the young queen. le texier within the next few days introduced him to the eldest son of baron schimmelmann, and then to baron bülow. these two were the leaders of a project to restore the queen. so far they had not been able to communicate with matilda, for though celle was only eighty miles distant from hamburg and altona, they were surrounded by spies from the court of copenhagen, who reported every movement they made. at celle, too, there were spies, who would assuredly have reported the arrival of any dane there. wraxall, therefore, a young englishman travelling apparently for his pleasure, was the very agent they wanted to open up communications with the queen. baron bülow having sworn wraxall to secrecy, unfolded at some length the plan which had been formed, and bade him acquaint the queen with it verbally, since they were afraid to put anything on paper. he gave wraxall his seal as his credentials to prove to the queen that he came from bülow. wraxall was instructed to go to celle and tell the queen that a numerous and powerful party were anxious to restore her to the throne, and were willing to incur the dangers of such an enterprise if she on her part would agree to the following conditions:-- first: she must assure them of her willingness to return to denmark and take up the reins of government, which the king was incapacitated from holding in his own hands. secondly: she must co-operate with, and assist, her adherents in every way in her power. thirdly: she must endeavour to induce her brother, the king of england, to extend his powerful protection and assistance to the enterprise. this last condition was adjudged the most important, for according to woodford, who followed keith at copenhagen, the idea which discouraged the partisans and well-wishers of the unfortunate queen was that: "his majesty is too offended ever to permit his royal sister to return again to this country."[ ] [ ] woodford's despatch to suffolk, copenhagen, october , . thus authorised and instructed, wraxall set out from hamburg on the evening of october , and by travelling all night reached celle the evening of the following day. he learned to his regret that the princess of brunswick was still at the castle, for bülow and his friends had warned him that she was not to be trusted in this matter, as she was the niece by marriage of juliana maria; also they feared that matilda might confide in her sister too freely. wraxall, therefore, determined to say that he had come back from hamburg to celle as the bearer of a letter from mr. matthews, the british minister there, to the queen. the letter, it need scarcely be said, was not from matthews, but from wraxall, in which he informed the queen, without mentioning names, of the proposed plan for her restoration. on the first page of the letter he wrote a warning, in which he entreated the queen to consider what followed as secret, and to be especially careful not to arouse the suspicions of the princess of brunswick. the following morning wraxall waited upon the queen's chamberlain, baron seckendorf, and told him he had a letter for her majesty from the english minister at hamburg, relative to a company of travelling comedians whom he understood the queen wished to act at celle, and he would like to deliver it into her own hands. seckendorf shortly returned with a message from the queen, saying that she would be pleased to see mr. wraxall at dinner at two o'clock the same day. at that hour he presented himself at the castle, and awaited the queen with her household in the long gallery. presently the queen and the princess of brunswick came together out of the queen's apartments, and the queen, advancing towards wraxall, said: "i am glad to see you here again. i understand that you have a letter for me from mr. matthews." wraxall presented it, and the queen withdrew to the window to break the seals. the princess of brunswick also welcomed wraxall cordially, and he tried to keep her in conversation while the queen was glancing over her letter. he noticed the queen start when she read the first lines, and she hastily put the paper into her pocket, her face showing considerable agitation, but as dinner was announced at that moment her confusion did not attract attention. what followed had better be told in wraxall's own words:-- "at table caroline matilda recovered herself, and conversed with her usual freedom and gaiety. the queen and princess were seated in two state chairs, separated nearly five feet from each other. when the dessert was brought the queen, unable any longer to restrain her curiosity and impatience, took the letter from her pocket, and, placing it in her lap, perused it from the beginning to the end; from time to time she raised her eyes, and took part in the conversation. the distance at which she was from the princess of brunswick rendered it impossible for the letter to be overlooked." after taking coffee the queen and the princess withdrew, and wraxall returned to the little inn where he lodged. a few hours later wraxall received a visit from seckendorf, who told him that the queen had informed him of the whole business, and had sent him as her confidential agent. she was fully alive to the necessity of caution, and she therefore feared she would not be able to receive wraxall in private audience while her sister was there, as the princess scarcely quitted her for a moment, but if he would send his credentials through seckendorf she would communicate with him further. wraxall then gave to seckendorf bülow's signet-ring, and acquainted him with the names of those from whom he came. the following day seckendorf came back with the queen's answer, which he delivered verbally. it was to the following effect: that the queen, as she was living under the protection of her brother, the king of england, could not commit herself to any plan without first obtaining his consent and approbation. that, if she consulted only her own happiness and peace of mind, she would never return to copenhagen, but her duties as a mother and a queen compelled her to overlook the wrongs she had suffered, and resume her station in denmark if a proper opportunity offered. that, as far as she herself was concerned, she agreed to the propositions made by the danish nobility if it could be proved to her that they were sufficiently numerous and powerful to carry out their plans with any hope of success; on this point she desired they would give her more information. she would then write as strongly as possible to the king of england, and ask him to lend his assistance towards her restoration. she returned bülow's seal, which she had enclosed in an envelope addressed in her own handwriting to baron bülow, and sealed with one of her own seals; she had also written her initials "c. m." on the envelope, but beyond this she wrote nothing. armed with this wraxall left celle the following day, and returned to hamburg where he reported his progress to baron bülow (who met him at a retired spot on the ramparts) and gave him back his seal. bülow immediately recognised the queen's handwriting on the envelope, which was wraxall's credential, and, when he had learned all that had passed, he said he would communicate with his associates, and inform wraxall again. wraxall remained at hamburg a week, and then received instructions to return to celle. his message to queen matilda, as before, was only verbal, though he was authorised to put it on paper when he reached celle. it was to the following effect: the danish nobility thanked the queen for her gracious reply to their communication, and were quite satisfied with it. with regard to her request for further information, baron bülow, in addition to himself and baron schimmelmann the younger, was empowered to answer for the viceroy of norway, who would secure that kingdom and its capital, christiania, for the queen; for baron schimmelmann the elder, who, though he refused to take any active part in the enterprise, or to risk by any overt act his safety and vast fortune, was sincerely attached to the cause; for the governor of glückstadt, one of the most important fortresses in holstein, who was disposed to aid the queen; for certain officers in rendsburg, the key of schleswig, which would open its gates (as the party had secret adherents in the garrison, who would declare themselves on the queen's side) when the moment arrived; and for numerous friends who, he declared, were powerful in the army, the navy, the guards, in the metropolis, and even about the person of the king himself. for the rest, the queen's friends entreated her to be content with the assurances of the baron bülow, their spokesman, and not ask for a list of all the names, which would be dangerous. they also urged her to write to the king of england as soon as possible, and ask him not only whether he would approve of the plan to restore his sister, but if he would grant some pecuniary assistance towards it. during the forthcoming winter they would prepare everything to carry out their plans, and strike the blow in the spring, as soon as the two belts should be free of ice. fortified with this message, wraxall again went to celle, entering the town this time _incognito_, and lodging under an assumed name in a little inn in the suburbs. he communicated immediately with seckendorf, who came to him the following morning, informed him the princess of brunswick was no longer at celle, and took his letters and messages to deliver to the queen. a few hours later seckendorf came back, and told wraxall to go immediately to the french garden outside the town, where the queen would meet him. wraxall repaired thither without delay, and a few minutes later the queen drove up in a coach. she sent away her carriage and all her attendants except one lady, who discreetly retired to a pavilion. the queen gave wraxall an hour's interview. during the greater part of the time they paced up and down between the avenue of limes in a secluded part of the garden. the queen spoke quite unreservedly. she said that she was satisfied with the names mentioned, and, for the rest, she would trust the good faith of baron bülow. that she would write to the king of england with great earnestness, and ask him to send a minister to copenhagen, friendly to her restoration, and also to help the cause with money; for herself, she regretted that she could not contribute, owing to her limited income, which only sufficed for her needs, and she had no jewels, as everything had been robbed from her when she left denmark. that she was quite willing for her part to visit her friends in disguise, but she was convinced that the king her brother would never permit her to do so. "still," she added, "could i come, or did i come disguised, nobody would know me, as i am much altered since i was in denmark." this was true, as the queen since her residence at celle had become very stout. she determined that wraxall should go to london to endeavour to obtain an audience of the king, and the queen gave him very minute instructions as to how he was to behave. "you must," she said, "go very quietly to work with my brother. if you manage with address, he will favour the attempt, but it will be tacitly, not openly." when the conversation was ended the queen took wraxall to the summer-house, where her lady was waiting, and a dessert of fruit was laid; here he took his leave. the queen mentioned during the audience that no less than three emissaries from copenhagen had reached her since she came to celle, but as they were all either suspicious or worthless she refused to have anything to say to them. acting on the queen's commands and the instructions of bülow, wraxall started the following day for england, _via_ osnabrück; he arrived in london on november . the queen had told him to go first either to lord suffolk or to the baron von lichtenstein, grand marshal of the court of hanover, then in london, who was highly esteemed by the king, and who had shown her much kindness: she had written to them both. wraxall first called on lord suffolk in downing street, but that nobleman either would not, or could not, see him, urging in excuse that he was ill with the gout. so wraxall repaired to lichtenstein's lodgings in pall mall, where he was more fortunate. he gave lichtenstein the queen's letter, and the hanoverian promised that he would try to find an opportunity to put the matter before the king; but he advised wraxall not to call again on lord suffolk until he had seen the king. he then asked wraxall several questions, which the latter answered to the best of his ability, and gave him the fullest account possible of the project, and of everybody connected with it. three days later lichtenstein saw wraxall again, and told him that he had talked to the king at "queen's house" on the subject, and that the king had given him positive injunctions that wraxall was not to see lord suffolk, but to consider lichtenstein the sole medium through which all communications were to pass to the king. the king was at present considering the queen's letter, and until he had considered it he did not think fit to grant wraxall an audience; but he commanded him to put on paper a full and complete account of the project, including the names of every one connected with it directly or indirectly. wraxall thereupon drew up another long document, which was duly transmitted to the king through lichtenstein, and on december he received the king's answer through the same medium. george iii. was very cautious: he gave a general approval of the plan to effect the queen's restoration, but he refused to lend any direct assistance; he therefore declined to advance any money at present, and finally he would not be induced by any entreaties of the queen, or by any supplications of the danish nobility, to affix his signature to any paper promising aid, or expressing general approbation. this unsatisfactory reply wraxall transmitted to bülow by cipher at hamburg, and he also wrote to the queen through baron seckendorf. from seckendorf he received an answer on january , , expressing the queen's satisfaction with the king's approval, though regretting the qualifications which accompanied it. on january he received an answer from bülow, in which he adjured wraxall to return to hamburg as soon as possible, with the king's approbation authenticated in whatever way might be practicable. he added that his friends were busily preparing everything to strike the decisive blow, and they were sanguine of success. these letters wraxall at once communicated to lichtenstein, who submitted them to the king. on february wraxall received through lichtenstein a letter from the king to his sister, and a paper containing four articles, which the baron drew up in wraxall's presence, and affixed his seal and signature to them--so empowered by the king. these articles ran as follows:-- "first: his britannic majesty gives his consent and approval to the plan concerted by the adherents of his sister, the queen of denmark, for restoring her to the throne. "secondly: his majesty insists that in the execution of it no blood be spilled, nor any measures of severity exercised towards the personal administration in denmark, except such as are indispensable to maintain the counter-revolution. "thirdly: his britannic majesty guarantees the repayment of all the money advanced or expended in a necessary prosecution of the queen of denmark's revolution. "fourthly: his britannic majesty will authorise and empower his resident at the court of copenhagen to declare in the most public manner, as soon as the revolution in favour of the queen is accomplished, that the king of great britain approves of it, and will maintain it against all opposition." [illustration: louise augusta, princess of denmark and duchess of augustenburg, daughter of queen matilda.] lichtenstein told wraxall that it was the king's pleasure that he should first go to celle to deliver the letter to the queen, and show her the articles signed by lichtenstein; then, after he had seen the queen, he was to proceed to her danish adherents at hamburg. accordingly, wraxall left london on february , , and after a long and troublesome journey arrived at celle a fortnight later, on february .[ ] he entered the town as before under an assumed name, and went to an obscure inn. the next morning he received a visit from seckendorf, who received him with pleasure, and told him that the queen was most impatient to see him, and would give him an audience that afternoon. "when you hear the palace clock strike four," seckendorf said, "set out from the inn on foot for the castle. mantel, the queen's valet, will wait to receive you, and conduct you to her." accordingly, wraxall gave seckendorf his despatches, and went to the castle at the hour named. mantel was waiting for him, and admitted him through a side door, probably in the western wing. he was led through a great number of rooms to a small apartment, and there left alone; at the end of it were stairs leading to the queen's chamber.[ ] a minute later the queen came into the room, and welcomed wraxall most graciously. their interview is best told in his own words:-- "we conversed till about ten minutes past six entirely alone, and in the most unreservedly undisguised manner. her majesty made me the recital of her reign--of the revolution--of her own conduct on that fatal night when she lost her crown. i listened in silence and astonishment. what a recapitulation did she not make me! her words are for ever engraven on my heart; i could repeat her story almost verbatim. i know what scarce any other man on earth can know. i must own her unreserve, her goodness, her minute detail of circumstances the most concealed in their nature, my situation quite alone with her, superadded to some consciousness still more affecting, made me more than once forget i was talking to a queen. she was dressed in a brown silk polonaise, trimmed with green silk, her hair powdered, a locket on her bosom. her under-lip is too large, but her teeth are fine, and that family violence in speaking becomes her; her nose is finely shaped, and her eyes are eloquent; she is thinner in the face than she was last october. she showed me his majesty's letters to her, and permitted me to carry an extract from one away with me. she was obliged to leave me soon after six, which otherwise she seemed in no way inclined to do. her talents are very good, and in mimicry she excels; her specimen of prince frederick of denmark was excellent." [ ] in his private journal wraxall gives a long account of the hardships of this journey, but, as they concern himself rather than the queen of denmark, i omit them here. [ ] i have seen this room--a small, dark apartment. it was the garde-robe (or dressing-room), and is on the way from the queen's bedroom and the chapel. after another interview with seckendorf wraxall was conducted out of the castle as secretly as he came. the next day he went to hamburg, where, after an inclement journey, he arrived on february . at hamburg he remained three weeks, and saw a good deal of baron bülow, to whom he communicated the result of his visit to england and many messages from queen matilda. the articles drawn up and signed by lichtenstein on behalf of george iii., which wraxall had first submitted to matilda, he now handed to bülow, who received them with mingled feelings. the first two articles he wholly approved, but he regretted that george iii. would not advance any pecuniary assistance and still more he lamented the fourth article, which promised that the english envoy at copenhagen would only support and avow the revolution _after_ it had been effected, instead of avowing it while it was actually in progress. bülow forwarded the articles to his confederates in copenhagen, and also had many consultations with his friends at altona. it was not until march that he received an answer from copenhagen, which was much as bülow had anticipated: all the conspirators objected to the fourth article, and all agreed that it would be well to get the king of england to reconsider his decision on that point. what they asked was that the british envoy should come forward at the time they were effecting the counter-revolution, and publicly avow it on behalf of the king, his master. bülow therefore resolved that a letter to the king of england should be drawn up to this effect, and wraxall should convey it to london. on march bülow gave wraxall the letter to the king. his instructions were that he should take this document first to celle, submit it to the queen, and ask her to enclose it in a letter written by herself to the king of england, in which she would urge their plea by every means in her power. wraxall was also to acquaint the queen with the plan of the revolution, which was now settled, and was as follows: on the day fixed certain of the conspirators would repair to the palace, obtain access to the king (christian vii.), and induce, or compel, him to affix his name to documents already drawn up. these documents would include an order to the queen-dowager to retire to her own apartment until the king's further pleasure were known, and to prince frederick to remove to one of the country palaces--probably that of frederiksborg. at the same time, by virtue of a similar order, the ministers would be dismissed, or arrested, and a messenger sent off to celle to invite the queen to return to denmark to resume her proper rank and authority. that their measures would be so well concerted and so rapidly executed as to produce the counter-revolution in a space of a few hours. that they trusted, therefore, queen matilda on her part would repair with all possible expedition to copenhagen. a proper escort, becoming her dignity, would be formed to accompany her from altona through the danish territories, and her adherents calculated that she might, with despatch, reach copenhagen in four days from the time of her quitting celle, if no extraordinary impediment arose in her crossing the two belts. her presence in the capital of denmark would animate the courage of her friends, cover her enemies with consternation, and complete the counter-revolution. wraxall arrived at celle on march with the same secrecy as on former occasions. as the princess of brunswick was at the castle he was unable to see the queen for two days, and then he was taken to the queen secretly on the night of friday, march , and had an audience with her after the princess of brunswick had retired to rest. it was a dark and stormy night when wraxall set out from his lodgings, and he waited for some little time at the entrance of the drawbridge over the moat, sheltering himself as well as he could from the wind and rain. at last mantel came, and led him in silence over the drawbridge, under the portico, and into the courtyard of the castle, and thence by a side door up a private staircase and along a corridor into the queen's library or boudoir. "two candles were burning," says wraxall, "and the book-cases were thrown open, as it was uncertain at what hour the queen would come to me." he waited some time alone, and then mantel brought him a note from seckendorf, saying that the queen was in the princess of brunswick's apartments, and would come directly she had retired. as this was his last interview, it had better be told in his own words:-- "i had scarcely perused the note when i heard the queen's footstep on the staircase; a moment afterwards she entered the room. she was charmingly dressed, though without diamonds; she had on a crimson satin sacque and her hair dressed. i drew a chair, and entreated her to allow me to stand and receive her commands while she was seated, but she declined it, and we both stood the whole time. our interview lasted about two hours. it was a quarter past eleven when i asked her majesty if i should retire, and she signified her pleasure that i should. she approved of the letter drawn up by the danish nobility to the king of great britain, as well as the request contained in it, which she confessed to be natural and just, though she doubted his britannic majesty's consent to it. 'i will, however,' she added, 'write to my brother the letter requested before i go to bed to-night, enforcing as far as i am able the petition of the nobility. you shall receive it from baron seckendorf to-morrow morning, and at the same time that of the danish nobility shall be returned to you.' "her majesty ordered me to assure baron von bülow by letter that she was satisfied with all i communicated to her on his part, and that she should be ready on the shortest notice to mount on horseback in men's clothes, in order more expeditiously to reach copenhagen, there to encounter every difficulty with her friends." the queen thanked wraxall very warmly for his zeal in her service, and said she would commend him to the king her brother, who, she doubted not, would recompense him properly. she told him to write to her freely from england, and then bade him adieu. "when the queen was about to withdraw," says wraxall, "she opened the door, but held it a few minutes in her hand as if she had something to say; she then retired." he was conducted from the castle as secretly as he had entered it, and the next morning left celle on his way to england. wraxall arrived in london on april , and at once went to lichtenstein's lodgings, but to his dismay found that the baron had gone to hanover ten days previously. he had, however, left him a letter, directing him to wait upon herr von hinuber, the hanoverian _chargé d'affaires_. accordingly wraxall went to hinuber, who told him he had "the king's directions to take from mr. wraxall any letters he might have, and send them immediately to the king at the 'queen's house'". wraxall therefore gave him two packets addressed to the king, one from queen matilda, and the other from her danish adherents. he also added a letter from himself, in which he again prayed the king to give him a private audience. to these letters george iii. returned no reply, and wraxall, after waiting a fortnight in london, wrote to baron bülow telling him how matters stood, and asking for instructions; he also wrote to the queen at celle. then followed another interval of silence. it was not until may that wraxall received a letter from bülow, in which he informed him that the state of affairs at copenhagen was extremely critical, and he could not give him further directions until the return of baron schimmelmann the younger, who had gone to copenhagen. in the meantime he besought him not to leave london, either for celle or hamburg, unless he received instructions from george iii. but no word came from the king, and, while wraxall was waiting, the london journals announced the death of the queen of denmark, which had taken place on may at celle. this was the first intimation wraxall received of the melancholy event, and he was quite overcome, for it meant not only the loss of the queen, for whom he felt a chivalrous devotion, but the death-blow to all his hopes of reward and promotion. on may wraxall received a letter from seckendorf, in which he lamented the loss of a kind and gracious mistress at a moment when they had hoped her troubles were nearing an end. the letter also informed him of an important fact, namely, that george iii. had written to queen matilda an answer to the letter in which she urged the request of the danish nobility that the english envoy at copenhagen should avow the revolution while it was in progress. whether the king refused her prayer, or granted it, will never be known, for the letter arrived at celle when matilda was either dying or dead, and it was returned to the king unopened. the probability is that he refused, and preferred to send his refusal to her direct rather than through the agency of wraxall. the fact that he declined to see wraxall, or recognise him in any way, goes to show that he regarded the plot with very dubious approval. of the existence of the plot there is no doubt, but wraxall's version of it, and especially of the part he played, needs some corroborative evidence. this is afforded by a confidential letter which george iii. wrote some years later to lord north, in answer to wraxall's repeated demands that some reward should be given him for the services he had rendered to the king's sister. the letter (dated february , ) ran as follows:-- "you may settle with mr. wraxall, member for hinton, in any just demands he may have. undoubtedly he was sent over by the discontented nobility of denmark previous to the death of the late queen, my sister, with a plan for getting her back to copenhagen, which was introduced to me with a letter from her. her death and my delicate situation, having consented to her retiring to my german dominions, prevented me from entering eagerly into this proposal."[ ] [ ] stanhope's _history of england_, rd edition, , vol. vii., appendix xxxii. further corroborative evidence has been furnished by the publication of some letters of bülow, in which he mentions that he employed wraxall as his agent in the plot to restore the queen. wraxall considered himself very shabbily treated by george iii., who turned a deaf ear to his demands for years. it was not until , when wraxall had won a seat in the house of commons, and with it a useful vote to the government, that the prime minister, lord north, gave him, on behalf of the king, a thousand guineas for his services to the queen of denmark, together with the promise of a seat at the board of green cloth. wraxall's support was purchased for a time, but two years later, when he gave a vote against the government, he forfeited all chance of further favours from the king, and the promised appointment vanished for ever. but a thousand guineas was surely a sufficient reward for a young and unknown man, admittedly in quest of adventure, who did little but carry a few letters between hamburg, celle and london, and it was rather for baron bülow and the queen's adherents, whose agent he was, to reward him than for george iii. shortly after the queen's death wraxall states that he received a letter from bülow, who said that the revolution was on the point of fruition when the ill news from celle came to scatter consternation among matilda's adherents. it would seem, therefore, that bülow and his friends would have proceeded with their plan whether george iii. had granted their request or not. it is idle to speculate whether they would have succeeded in their undertaking. all things were possible in denmark at that time to those who could seize the person of the king. but it must be remembered that christian vii. was closely guarded. moreover, there is no evidence to show that the conspirators had the army on their side, and, without the help of the army, though they might have effected a revolution, they would have been unable to maintain it. chapter xiv. the death of the queen. . we last saw the queen with her hand on the door, as she bade farewell to wraxall and wished him god-speed on his journey. "she never perhaps looked more engaging," he wrote later, "than on that night, in that attitude and in that dress. her countenance, animated with the prospect of her approaching emancipation from zell--which was in fact only a refuge and an exile--and anticipating her restoration to the throne of denmark, was lighted up with smiles, and she appeared to be in the highest health. yet, if futurity could have been unveiled to us, we should have seen behind the door, which she held in her hands, the 'fell anatomy,'[ ] as 'constance' calls him, already raising his dart to strike her. within seven weeks of that day she yielded her last breath."[ ] [ ] then with a passion would i shake the world and rouse from sleep that fell anatomy. _king john_, act iii., scene iv. [ ] wraxall's _posthumous memoirs_, vol. i. queen matilda's end was tragically sudden--so sudden as to call forth the wildest rumours of foul play. a report was current in celle that the queen was poisoned at the instigation of her deadly enemy, juliana maria, acting through the agency of a negro, named mephisto, who was cook at the castle. it was said that he first gave a poisoned cup of chocolate to a young page in the queen's household, and seeing that it worked with fatal effect, he poisoned the queen in the same way. the death of the queen at the moment when their plans were nearing fruition doubtless seemed suspicious to her danish adherents who spread this report, which was firmly believed by the common people in copenhagen and celle. but the evidence of her physicians,[ ] who sent a detailed account of the queen's last illness and death to george iii., leaves no doubt that she died from natural causes. [ ] leyser, a physician of celle, and zimmermann, a physician of hanover. like all the children of frederick prince of wales (except augusta of brunswick and possibly george iii.), matilda was not of a strong constitution. the climate of denmark never agreed with her, and the awful experiences she had gone through at copenhagen shattered her health. she was naturally of a plethoric habit of body, and though in denmark she had kept this tendency in check by continual exercise, such as riding, walking and dancing--harmless amusements which her enemies urged as offences against her--in her five months' imprisonment at kronborg she could take no exercise at all, and afterwards at celle she voluntarily gave up riding and dancing lest she should call forth unkindly comment. the result was she became exceedingly stout--in so young a woman much too stout for health. she had always lived an active life, and the forced inaction to which she was condemned at celle was very bad for her, and the dulness and monotony weighed on her spirits. moreover, during the last few months, she had been leading a life of suppressed excitement; the thought of her possible restoration continually agitated her, and one day she would be greatly elated, and another day correspondingly depressed. all this told upon her strength, and rendered her the more susceptible to illness, should any come her way. in the spring of (in fact, while wraxall was there) an epidemic called indifferently "military fever" or "the purples" had spread to a great extent in celle, and there were many deaths. queen matilda was accustomed to walk freely about the town, and she therefore may have exposed herself to infection; but she does not seem to have taken any harm from the epidemic until after the death of her page. this boy, who died on may , was a great favourite with the queen; she felt his death very much, and insisted on going to see him when he was lying dead in one of the rooms of the castle. her ladies tried to dissuade her, but she would go, and either then, or at some other time, she caught the infection. on coming back from the page's room she learned that the little girl, sophie von benningsen, whom she had adopted, was also down with the fever. the queen, very much depressed, went for a walk in the french garden, and when she came back she was so tired that she could scarcely mount the steps of the castle. she dined as usual with her court, but ate scarcely anything, and after dinner felt too unwell to play cards and withdrew to her chamber. the next morning, after a bad night, she complained of a sore throat and chill. her physician, dr. leyser, was called in, and compelled her to remain in bed. towards evening her condition showed a slight improvement, but the next day symptoms so alarming appeared that leyser sent for dr. zimmermann, a celebrated physician at hanover. the queen seemed to have a presentiment of death, for she said to leyser: "you have twice helped me through a dangerous illness since october, but this time i shall die." the doctors affected a cheerfulness which they were far from feeling, for the queen's condition grew worse every hour, and the fever became very violent. prayers were offered for her in the churches; she was deeply touched when her women told her that the whole of celle was praying for her, and even the jewish community had offered up supplications on her behalf. the dying queen was eager to avail herself of the consolations of religion; pastor lehzen, her chaplain, prayed by her bedside, and read, at her request, her favourite hymns and some verses from the bible. she went towards death without fear, indeed she seemed to welcome it. her sufferings were agonising, but through them all she manifested a marvellous patience and fortitude. the queen kept her senses to the last, and almost with her dying breath expressed her forgiveness of her enemies. her last thought was of others; she inquired after the little girl, sophie, and when the doctor told her that the child was out of danger, she whispered: "then i die soothed," and fell quietly asleep. in this sleep she died. the good pastor, who was praying by the queen's bedside when her spirit fled, thus described the end: "i never witnessed so easy a passing; death seemed to lose all its terrors. the words of holy writ: 'o death, where is thy sting?' were literally true in her case. she fell asleep like a tired wayfarer." queen matilda died on the evening of may , , at ten minutes past eleven, at the age of twenty-three years and nine months. * * * * * this "queen of tears" was married at fifteen; she died at twenty-three. what unhappiness, what tragedy, what pathos were crowded in those brief eight years! if she erred, she suffered greatly--imprisonment, exile, the loss of her children, her crown, her honour--surely it was enough! to those who are inclined to judge her harshly, the thought of her youth and her sorrows will surely stay their judgment. we would fain leave them to plead for her, without entering again on the oft-debated question of how far she erred in her great love for the man who showed himself altogether unworthy of the sacrifices she made for him. but her indiscreet champions have unwittingly done her memory more harm than good by claiming for her, throughout her troubled life at the danish court, what she never claimed--absolute innocence in thought, word and deed. they rest their contention on evidence which we would gladly accept if we could. but alas! it does not bear the test of critical investigation. nearly a hundred years after matilda's death (in ) one of her many apologists, sir lascelles wraxall, grandson of the nathaniel wraxall who had acted as agent in the plot for her restoration, published a letter which he said had been given him by her daughter the duchess of augustenburg, who had been allowed to take a copy of it by the king of hanover from the original document preserved in the hanoverian archives.[ ] this letter purported to be written by the queen when she was on her deathbed to her brother george iii., and proclaimed her innocence. the duchess of augustenburg was the princess louise augusta of denmark, the infant daughter taken from matilda's arms at kronborg, the princess whose birth occasioned so much scandalous rumour. she, therefore (though formally recognised as the daughter of christian vii.), was interested in the question of her mother's innocence, and, coming from such hands, the genuineness of the letter at first sight would seem to be, as wraxall says, "incontestable". the letter ran as follows:-- [ ] wraxall was apparently unaware that this letter had already appeared in print--in the _times_ of january , . "sire, "in the most solemn hour of my life i turn to you, my royal brother, to express my heart's thanks for all the kindness you have shown me during my whole life, and especially in my misfortune. "i die willingly, for nothing holds me back--neither my youth, nor the pleasures which might await me, near or remote. how could life possess any charms for me, who am separated from all those i love--my husband, my children and my relatives? i, who am myself a queen and of royal blood, have lived the most wretched life, and stand before the world an example that neither crown nor sceptre affords any protection against misfortune! "but i die innocent--i write this with a trembling hand and feeling death imminent--i am innocent. oh, that it might please the almighty to convince the world after my death that i did not deserve any of the frightful accusations by which the calumnies of my enemies stained my character, wounded my heart, traduced my honour and trampled on my dignity. "sire, believe your dying sister, a queen and even more, a christian, who would gaze with terror on the other world if her last confession were a falsehood. i die willingly, for the unhappy bless the tomb. but more than all else, and even than death, it pains me that not one of all those i loved in life is standing by my dying bed to grant me a last consolation by a pressure of the hand, or a glance of compassion, to close my eyes in death. "still, i am not alone. god, the sole witness of my innocence, is looking down on my bed of agony; my guardian angel is hovering over me, and will soon guide me to the spot where i shall be able to pray for my friends, and also for my persecutors. "farewell, then, my royal brother! may heaven bless you--my husband--my children--england--denmark--and the whole world. permit my corpse to rest in the vault of my parents, and now the last, unspeakably sad farewell from your unfortunate "caroline matilda." [illustration: the church at celle, where queen matilda is buried. _from a photograph._] if this document were genuine, it would go far to prove the innocence of the queen, for it must be remembered that the evidence against her, even at its worst, was presumptive only, and it is unlikely, from all we know of the genuine piety of her later years that she would have faced death with a lie on her lips. but after patient inquiry nothing can be found to prove its genuineness. the most convincing proof, of course, would be the existence of the original letter in the queen's well-known handwriting; but no such letter exists in the hanoverian archives; nor does it exist among the guelph domestic papers, which the king of hanover took with him into exile after the war of . while there was still a king in hanover the late mr. heneage jesse[ ] applied to the hanoverian officials for information concerning this letter, and received the following reply from baron von malortie, minister and chamberlain to the king: "in the royal hanoverian archives there is not the letter alluded to of the late queen caroline matilda of denmark. solely the royal museum contains a _printed_ copy of a letter pretending to be written by the said late queen on her deathbed to her royal brother, george iii. of great britain, and it is presumed that the duchess of augustenburg was permitted by the late king, ernest augustus' majesty, to take a copy of this printed copy, now in the family museum." he then went on to say that all the officials of the hanoverian archives were strongly of the opinion that the queen "never did write, nor could write, on her deathbed such a letter, and that the pretended letter of her majesty is nothing but the work of one of her friends in england, written after her death and then translated. the history of her majesty's last illness and of her death is here well known, and excludes almost the possibility of her writing and forwarding such a letter to her royal brother."[ ] [ ] author of the _memoirs of the life and reign of king george iii_. [ ] jesse's _memoirs and life of george iii_., , vol. ii. there still remains the theory put forward by some--that the queen, in writing this letter, protested her innocence only in general terms, and she may have been referring to the charges made against her of plotting with struensee to poison or depose her husband, of which she certainly was innocent. but this theory is untenable from another plea put forward by the queen's defenders, and which perhaps deserves more respectful consideration than the letter. some years after the queen's death falckenskjold published his _memoirs_, and in them we find the following statement:-- "in i had an opportunity at hanover of forming the acquaintance of m. roques, pastor of the french protestant church at celle. one day i spoke to him about queen caroline matilda. "'i was summoned almost daily by that princess,' he said to me, 'either to read or converse with her, and most frequently to obtain information relative to the poor of my parish. i visited her more constantly during the last days of her life, and i was with her a little before she drew her last breath. although very weak, she retained her presence of mind. after i had recited the prayers for the dying, she said to me in a voice that seemed to become more animated: "_monsieur roques, i am about to appear before god. i protest that i am innocent of the crimes imputed against me, and that i was never faithless to my husband_.'" "m. roques added that the queen had never before spoken to him, even indirectly, of the accusations brought against her. "i wrote down on the same day (march , ) what m. roques said to me, as coming from a man distinguished by his integrity of character."[ ] [ ] _mémoires de m. falckenskjold_, officier général dans le service de s. m. danoise. if falckenskjold is to be believed, this, it must be admitted, is remarkable evidence; but in his _memoirs_ he can be more than once convicted of misstatements, and, at best, this one rests on second-hand information obtained five years after the queen's death. it was pastor lehzen, and not pastor roques, who attended the queen in her illness, and he published afterwards an edifying account of her last moments, which contained no statement of this nature.[ ] as lehzen was the queen's chaplain throughout her residence at celle, and rector of the principal church there, it seems more likely that she would have confided in him than in the minister of the french protestant chapel, whom she only saw from time to time in connection with little deeds of beneficence to the poor among his congregation. [ ] lehzen's _die letzten stunden der königin von danemark_. it is not necessary to invest matilda with the halo of a saint to feel sympathy for her sorrows and pity for her fate. she loved greatly and suffered greatly for her love. let it rest there. * * * * * "our good queen is no more," announced pastor lehzen, as he came from her deathbed to the long gallery, where the whole of the late queen's household, some fifty in number, were assembled. there was not one of them who did not hear the words without a sense of personal loss, for there was not one, even the meanest, to whom the queen had not endeared herself by some kind word or deed. the castle was filled with weeping and lamentation. the ill news was quickly communicated to the town, and every house became a house of mourning, for during her residence at celle matilda had endeared herself alike to the highest and the lowest, and was spoken of by all as their "_lieben und guten königin_" (their beloved and good queen). owing to the danger of infection the queen's funeral took place within fifty hours of her death. it was found impossible to delay her obsequies until the king's instructions could be received from england, and therefore at midnight on may the queen was interred in the burial vault of the dukes of celle in the old church. the grand marshal of the court of hanover, baron von lichtenstein, took charge of the funeral arrangements. the queen's coffin was carried on a hearse, drawn by six horses, from the castle to the church under an escort of soldiers, and the route was guarded by soldiers bearing torches, and lined with rows of weeping people, all clad in black. the queen's household, headed by baron seckendorf, her chamberlain, and the baroness dowager d'ompteda, her chief lady-in-waiting, followed on foot. the church was crowded with the chief people of celle, including prince ernest of mecklenburg-strelitz and madame de plessen. the simple service was conducted by pastor lehzen, and the coffin was lowered to the ducal vaults.[ ] [ ] though the funeral was quite private, the expenses were very heavy, amounting to some £ , . they were defrayed, by order of george iii., by the privy purse. the sunday after the queen's death mourning services were held in the churches of celle. at the town church, where she was buried, pastor lehzen concluded his sermon with the following words:-- "she endeavoured to win the love of every one, even of the humblest, and the many tears shed for her prove that she succeeded in her endeavour. those who were nearest her person testify how she strove in a higher strength to exercise the most difficult of christian virtues [forgiveness of her enemies], and that not from a lofty, worldly pride, but from reasons set forth for us by the pattern of all virtues. the last steps of her life were taken with submissive surrender to the will of god, with trust and hope. o god! we thank thee for thy grace, and for its blessed working; we honour, we extol, we praise the same, and offer to thee our most hearty thanks for all the goodness wrought in this immortalised soul. may she now enjoy the rest, the reward, the bliss of the perfected just! may a blessing rest on her royal children, such as this loving mother sought for them so often from thee, o god, with many tears! lighten the sorrow which the news of this unexpected and grievous event will cause to the hearts of our gracious king and queen [george iii. and charlotte], and for the blessing of the world, and of this country in particular, bring their majesties to their full term of happy years, and permit them to see their royal house flourish and prosper. look upon those who are nearest to the deceased princess, and mourn a queen who was always full of graciousness and gentleness. console them in thy mercy and loving providence, and teach them that thy counsel is very wonderful, and wise and tender. and thou, celle, overcome by the death which leaves thee forlorn, look up through thy tears to god! honour him with childlike trust, and pray him to compensate your loss by manifestations of his mercy in other ways, and by granting a long and happy life to our gracious king." it was thought that the ducal vault of celle would prove only a temporary resting-place for the queen, and, in accordance with her expressed wish, her remains would be removed to england to rest in westminster abbey beside those of her father and mother. but george iii. did not see his way to grant this last request, and all that is mortal of matilda remains at celle to this day. on one side of her george william, the last duke of celle, and his consort, eléonore d'olbreuse, sleep their last sleep; on the other is the plain leaden coffin of their unfortunate daughter, sophie dorothea, whose troubled life in many ways closely resembled that of her great-granddaughter matilda. i visited this vault a few years ago. queen matilda's coffin is easily found, as it is the only wooden (mahogany) one there. it is of extraordinary breadth--almost as broad as long--and at the head is the following inscription in latin: _here are deposited the mortal remains of caroline matilda, princess of great britain and brunswick-lüneburg, queen of denmark and norway. born july , , died may , ._ a few faded wreaths were lying near the coffin; many of these were deposited many years after her death by pilgrims to her last resting-place; but i was assured that some of them had been there since the funeral. the vault is now closed. when the news of queen matilda's death reached england general mourning for three weeks was commanded for the king's sister, and court mourning for six weeks. among the few english friends who knew her profound sorrow was felt at the early death of this unfortunate daughter of england. on may a deputation of the house of lords and a deputation of the house of commons waited on the king at st. james's, and presented addresses of condolence on the queen of denmark's death. to each george iii. replied: "the king returns his thanks to the house for the concern they have expressed for the great loss which has happened to his family by the death of his sister, the queen of denmark." the few thousand pounds the queen left behind her, and her personal effects, george iii. committed to the charge of the regency of hanover, with orders to guard the property for her children until they came of age, and baron seckendorf was entrusted with the administration of the queen's estate. the news of the queen's death travelled to copenhagen as quickly as to london, and completed the revulsion of feeling in her favour. she was henceforth regarded by the people as a saint and martyr, who had been sacrificed to the intrigues of the queen-dowager, and the unpopularity of juliana maria and her government was greatly increased. the queen-dowager could not conceal her satisfaction at matilda's death. the english envoy relates how the danish court received the news. writing on may he says:-- "an estafette from madame schimmelmann brought the melancholy news from hamburg to count bernstorff very early yesterday morning, and i had the grief to receive the confirmation of it soon after by the post.... orders were given yesterday, as i am positively assured, to put the prince and princess royal into the deepest mourning worn here for a mother, and i am likewise further assured that count bernstorff was the adviser of that measure. but as consistency is not to be expected here, he could not prevent the royal family's appearing at the play on wednesday and yesterday evenings, and what was worse, their assisting on thursday night at a ball in dominoes at the theatre, where they made the king of denmark dance, though they had ordered young schack to acquaint him on wednesday with the circumstance he was in, with which he was most [deeply] affected. and yesterday at court (where i was not) his countenance and manner were such as startled the foreign ministers who approached him. the prince royal did not see company. and to-day they all went to dine out of town, the king assisting at the launching of two frigates, which resolution was taken suddenly at twelve o'clock. they say they will wait till i, or m. reiche, notify the queen of denmark's death, in his majesty's name."[ ] [ ] de laval's despatch, copenhagen, may , . in accordance with this resolution no notice was taken of the event by the danish court, nor was any mourning donned, until george iii. sent a letter to the king notifying the death of queen matilda. this notification was formally delivered by the english envoy at the christiansborg palace the day when a court ball was appointed. the queen-dowager so far forgot her discretion, or was so blind to decency, that she did not order the ball to be postponed, and the court danced merrily the evening of the day that the queen's death was notified at copenhagen. but the next morning the danish court went into mourning--not as for the queen of denmark (for the queen was considered politically to have died three years before), but as for a foreign princess who was connected with the danish royal house--as a princess of great britain caroline matilda was first cousin to christian vii. this court mourning lasted for four weeks--the usual time--and the only concession seems to have been that the late queen's children, the crown prince frederick and his sister, princess louise augusta, remained in mourning for a longer period. it is said that george iii., to whom the news of the court ball was communicated, deeply resented the affront offered by the danish court not only to his dead sister but to him. no trace of this appears in the official despatches. on the contrary, we find, soon after this wanton insult to the queen's memory, a despatch from england, saying that "the king hoped the queen's death would make no difference to the good relations existing between the two courts".[ ] george iii. was not a man to allow personal considerations to stand in the way of what he considered to be public good, and he had recently obtained a pledge from the danish government to the effect that they would not offer any help, direct or indirect, to the american colonists, recently goaded into revolt. a sister's memory was nothing to the king in comparison with the prosecution of an unrighteous war which he believed to be righteous. [ ] lord suffolk's despatch to de laval, st. james's, june , . * * * * * [illustration: the memorial erected to queen matilda in the french garden of celle.] it was only in little celle, among the people who had known and loved her the last years of her brief life, that the memory of matilda was treasured and held sacred. soon after the funeral a public meeting was held at celle and attended by the principal burgesses of the town and the leading noblemen of the principality of lüneburg, and after resolutions had been passed lamenting her death, it was resolved to petition george iii. for permission to erect a monument to her memory. in this petition it was stated: "our only object is to raise a lasting proof of the general affection and respect with which we regarded the great and noble qualities of her majesty queen matilda, and, by a permanent memorial of the grief for her death felt by all true subjects of your majesty, to give an opportunity to our remotest descendants to cherish with silent respect the memory of the best and most amiable of queens." the petition was graciously received by george iii., and he willingly granted his permission. a monument of grey marble was sculptured by professor oeser of leipzig, and erected in the french garden of celle--the garden of which she had been so fond--and stands to this day. a medallion of the queen, as she appeared in the last year of her life, is carved upon an urn, which is upborne by allegorical figures of truth, maternal love, charity and mercy--the virtues by which the queen was pre-eminently known; and an inscription runs round the pedestal setting forth her name and titles and the dates of her birth and death. this handsome monument stands out in bold relief against a background of sycamores, and looks across the trim gardens to an avenue of ancient limes--the very trees, maybe, under which queen matilda paced with wraxall a few months before her death. i saw it first on a june evening five years ago. at the base of the monument blue forget-me-nots were planted, and red and white roses clambered up the low railing around it--a touching testimony to the fact that the queen is not yet forgotten in celle, and the memory of her good deeds is still living in the hearts of the people. chapter xv. retribution. . nine years passed, after the death of queen matilda, before retribution overcame juliana maria for the part she had played in compassing her ruin. by that time all the conspirators who had taken part in the palace revolution of had been banished or disgraced, except two, eickstedt and guldberg, and of these the latter was by far the more powerful. the sex of the queen-dowager did not permit her to preside in person over the council of state; her son, the hereditary prince frederick, who was a puppet in the hands of his mother, nominally presided, but he was there only as a matter of form. guldberg in reality presided, and behind guldberg was juliana maria, for she ruled entirely through him. the mental condition of christian vii. made it impossible for him to take any part in the government, though he still reigned in theory. the whole of the regal power was transferred from his hands to those of juliana maria and her other self, guldberg, who eventually filled the post of privy cabinet secretary to the king, and acted in many ways as struensee had done. their rule was not successful. the one measure to be placed to their credit was a law passed in , which decreed that only natives of the kingdom could hold office, though the king had the power of naturalising deserving foreigners. in home affairs the government became more and more unpopular. the democratic reforms instituted by struensee were nearly all repealed: the orthodox clergy were gratified by the reintroduction of public penance for sexual sins, the nobility and landowners by the restoration of serfdom. the result of this legislation was that the peasants were more oppressed than before, the taxes grew heavier, and the old abuses flourished again vigorously. the foreign policy of denmark was to lean more and more towards prussia. the king of prussia had, by means of his relative juliana maria, acquired great influence over the foreign policy of denmark, and under his direction it grew hostile to england. the danish government was weak and vacillating in foreign affairs, and its administration of home affairs was feeble and corrupt. as the years went by, it became greatly discredited, and the queen-dowager, who was regarded, rightly or wrongly, as the cause of this loss of national _prestige_, became more and more hated. indeed, so unpopular was the government of queen juliana maria that the wonder was it lasted so long; it only endured because no strong man arose to overthrow it. the hopes of the danish nation were centred in the crown prince frederick, the son of queen matilda. at one time there was a design to set both him and his sister aside,[ ] but the queen-dowager and her friends were afraid the nation would not suffer it. the crown prince grew up under the care of eickstedt, and his education was entrusted to a learned professor named sporon. taking their cue, no doubt, from the queen-dowager, the ministers treated the heir to the throne with scant deference or respect: he was tyrannised over by eickstedt, neglected by sporon and insulted by guldberg. by the _lex regia_ he came of age at fourteen, but the policy of the queen-dowager was to keep him in the background as much as possible, and he was not confirmed until he had reached his seventeenth year. reports were spread abroad that he was afflicted with the same mental imbecility as his father. nothing could be more untrue, for the crown prince was endowed not only with sound sense and a firm will, but a strong constitution. he was about his father's height, his complexion was fair, and his hair so flaxen as to be almost white. in face he much resembled his mother, and it was said that he cherished her memory. [ ] woodford's despatch, copenhagen, december , . the crown prince showed his character soon after he attained his legal majority, for though only a lad of fourteen, he expressed strong dissatisfaction concerning the cabinet orders reintroduced by guldberg--the same kind of cabinet orders as had cost struensee his head--and protested. guldberg sent an insulting message in reply to the crown prince's protest, and eickstedt forced the young prince to make an apology. frederick's remonstrance was ill-timed, and it was probably the cause of his confirmation being delayed for three years. but guldberg's insult had the effect of determining him to overthrow his domination and that of the queen-dowager at the earliest opportunity. to this end he carried on a secret correspondence with bernstorff (who had resigned office in because of the french and prussian policy of the queen-dowager) and other opponents of the guldberg ministry, including schack-rathlou and reventlow. at last, on april , , the crown prince was confirmed in the royal chapel of the christiansborg palace, and before the confirmation his public examination took place in the presence of the foreign ministers and the court. this examination effectually dispelled the rumours which had been industriously spread concerning the young prince's mental abilities, for he answered clearly and directly the questions put to him, and spoke with a firmness which carried dismay to the hearts of the queen-dowager and her supporters. the confirmation of the crown prince was followed, as a matter of course, by his admission to the council of state, and this took place on april , . as it was an occasion of some ceremony, the king himself occupied the presidential chair; the crown prince was seated on his right, and prince frederick, the king's brother, on his left. the queen-dowager had taken the precaution of appointing two new members of the council of state, her creatures, who were sworn to carry out her wishes, and outvote any proposals of the crown prince. the first business of the meeting, therefore, was the swearing in of these two new members, and of count rosencrone, another nominee. when the three men advanced to sign the oath and formally take their seats, the crown prince rose and begged the king to command them to wait until he made a proposition. the king bowed assent--he was in the habit of assenting to every proposal--and before any one could interpose, the crown prince produced a memorandum which he read from beginning to end. it proved to be a most revolutionary document: he requested his father to dissolve the present cabinet, to recall two of his own supporters--rosenkrantz and bernstorff--to the council of state, and to appoint two others, also his supporters--huth and stampe--thus giving him a majority in the council. the crown prince then laid the memorandum before the king for signature, and, dipping a pen in the ink, placed it in the king's hand. at that moment prince frederick, who, with the other members of the council, had been taken by surprise, recovered his self-possession, and attempted to snatch the paper away from the king, who was about to sign it, but the crown prince intervened and held it fast. one of the newly appointed members of the council, rosencrone, entered a protest, and said: "your royal highness, you must know that his majesty cannot sign such a paper without due consideration." the crown prince turned to rosencrone with an air of great dignity. "it is not your place, sir," said he, "to advise the king, but mine--i am heir to the throne, and, as such, responsible only to the nation." to the astonishment of all, guldberg remained silent, and, taking advantage of the momentary hesitation, the crown prince obtained his father's signature to the document, and further got him to write "approved" across the corner. he put the paper into his pocket. the imbecile king, who was greatly frightened at this scene, took advantage of the pause to run out of the council chamber to his apartments. prince frederick, foiled in obtaining the paper, resolved at least to secure the king, and ran after him with all speed, bolting the door from the outside when he left the room. the crown prince at once assumed the presidency of the council, and, turning to four privy councillors--moltke, guldberg, stemen and rosencrone--declared that the king no longer required their services. at the same time he announced the dismissal of three other members of the government. he then broke up the meeting, and endeavoured to follow his father, but finding the door locked which led to the king's apartments, he went round another way. here, too, he found the door barred against him. he declared that he would have it broken down by force, and had given orders for this to be done when the door opened and prince frederick appeared, leading the king by the arm, with the intention of conducting him to the queen-dowager's apartments. the crown prince sprang forward, and, seizing the king by the other arm, endeavoured to draw him back, assuring him that nothing would be done without his sanction, and that he only wished to secure the king's honour and the welfare of the country. the feeble monarch seemed inclined to stay with his son rather than go with his brother, and this so incensed the prince frederick that he seized the crown prince by the collar, and endeavoured to drag him away from the king by force. but the younger man was the stronger, and clutching his father with his left hand, he used his right so energetically against his uncle that prince frederick was obliged to let go. at that moment the crown prince was reinforced by his page, and between them they drove prince frederick down the corridor, and shut the door on him. the king, who had been almost pulled asunder by the excited combatants, ran back to his apartments, whither he was followed a few minutes later by his son, who now had his father in his safe keeping. thus was effected the palace revolution of april , --a revolution which overthrew not only the government, but the queen-dowager and her son. its success or its failure turned on the result of this undignified struggle for the possession of the king's person, for if prince frederick had succeeded in carrying the king to the queen-dowager's apartments, the recently signed ordinance would have been revoked, and steps would have been taken to prevent a repetition of the crown prince's efforts to assert himself. the queen-dowager's rage when her son told her what had occurred in the council of state, and that the king was now in the keeping of the crown prince, may be better imagined than described. she vowed and protested that she would never submit to the power being thus snatched from her hands; she wished to go to the king at once, but was told that the crown prince and his friends would surely not admit her. she threatened to summon the palace guard to take the king away by force, but she was told that the crown prince had taken the precaution to secure the good-will not only of the palace guard, but, through commander-in-chief, of the whole army, and she was, in fact, already a prisoner. then at last juliana maria realised that she was outwitted, and her reign was over for ever. the bitterness of her defeat was intensified by the thought that it had been effected by the son of the woman whom she had imprisoned and driven into exile. the crown prince was proclaimed regent the same day amid scenes of the greatest enthusiasm. in the afternoon he walked alone through the principal streets of copenhagen; there was no guard, and the crowds which filled the streets everywhere made room for him to pass, and welcomed him with shouts and acclamations. as he said, the danish people were his guard, and when he returned three hours later to the christiansborg palace, he had firmly riveted his hold on the affections of his future subjects. the crown prince behaved, as his mother would have done if she had been restored to the throne, with magnanimity: there was no bloodshed, and he treated even his bitterest enemies with great clemency. the rule of juliana maria was at an end, and henceforth neither she nor her son had the slightest influence in affairs of state. but the crown prince treated them both with every respect and courtesy: they were permitted to retain their apartments at the christiansborg palace,[ ] and the palace of fredensborg was made over for the use of juliana maria. she lived in retirement until her death, which took place in , at the age of sixty-seven years. until the last she was pursued by popular execration, and even after her death, until comparatively recent time, it was the habit of many of the danish peasants to spit on her tomb at röskilde as a mark of their undying hatred. [ ] in they were driven out by the great fire which destroyed the christiansborg, but apartments were found for them in the amalienborg. her son, prince frederick, who had neither his mother's abilities nor her evil traits of character, had not the energy to meddle in affairs of state, and spent the rest of his days in promoting the arts and sciences. he died in . he had married in sophia frederika, a princess of mecklenburg-schwerin, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.[ ] his elder son succeeded to the throne of denmark in as king christian viii.[ ] [ ] the younger of these daughters was the grandmother of queen alexandra. [ ] he died in , and was succeeded by his son frederick vii., who, dying in without issue, was succeeded by the present king of denmark, christian ix. of queen matilda's two children little remains to be said. her daughter, louise augusta, grew up a very beautiful and accomplished princess, who in wit and affability strongly recalled her mother, and between her and her brother there existed the fondest ties of attachment. she married the duke of augustenburg, and died in , at the age of seventy-two. the daughter of this princess, caroline amalie, married, as her second husband, prince christian frederick, son of the hereditary prince frederick (who, on the death of his cousin, frederick vi., without male issue, became christian viii.), and thus the rival races of juliana maria and matilda were united. queen caroline amalie survived her husband for many years, and died in , aged eighty-five years. [illustration: frederick, crown prince of denmark (afterwards king frederick vi.), son of queen matilda.] queen matilda's son, who, after a long regency, became, in (on the death of his father, christian vii., at the age of fifty-nine), frederick vi., was a liberal and enlightened prince; yet neither his regency nor his reign was very successful. when regent he made repeated efforts to obtain the hand of an english princess in marriage, one of the many daughters of george iii.; but the king of england, who had taken a violent dislike to denmark after its cruel treatment of his unfortunate sister, would not listen to the proposal. the heir to the danish monarchy, thus repulsed, married marie sophie frederika, a princess of hesse-cassel, who bore him two daughters, caroline, who married the hereditary prince ferdinand, and vilhelmine marie, who married prince frederick carl christian. his self-love was deeply wounded by the way in which his overtures had been spurned by his uncle, george iii., and henceforth his foreign policy became anti-english, and he threw in his lot with france. to this may be traced directly, or indirectly, many of the disasters that overcame denmark during the reign of frederick vi.--the naval engagement of , wherein the english attacked copenhagen and forced the danes to abandon it, the second attack by the british on copenhagen, and its bombardment in , which resulted in the surrender of the whole of the danish and norwegian fleets, and, in , through the alliance of denmark and france against great britain and sweden, the loss of norway to denmark. these disasters naturally engendered a feeling of bitterness on the part of the brave danes towards the english for a time, but this feeling has long since passed away, and the two nations, whose history is intimately connected, and who are akin in race and sympathy, are now united in the bond of friendship--a bond which has been immeasurably strengthened by the auspicious union which has given to us the most beautiful queen and the most beloved queen-consort that england has ever known. the end. appendix. list of authorities. unpublished documents. the despatches of walter titley [ - ], british envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at copenhagen. state paper office, london. the despatches of g. cosby [ - ], assistant envoy at copenhagen. state paper office, london. the despatches of sir robert gunning [ - ], minister resident and afterwards envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at copenhagen. state paper office, london. the despatches of sir r. murray keith [ - ], envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at copenhagen. state paper office, london. the despatches of w. woodford [ - ], minister resident at hamburg, afterwards envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at copenhagen. sundry despatches written from the foreign office in london by the earl of sandwich and the earl of suffolk to the british ministers at copenhagen during the years - , specified elsewhere. state paper office, london. sundry documents from the royal archives, copenhagen, and the town archives of celle, specified elsewhere. printed books, pamphlets, etc. _mémoires de reverdil: struensee et la cour de copenhague_ ( - ). paris, . _mémoires de mon temps_: par s. h. le landgrave charles, prince de hesse. [printed by order of frederick vii., king of denmark, for private circulation.] _mémoires de m. falckenskjold_, officier général dans le service de s. m. danoise. _memoiren von köller-banner._ _christian vii. og caroline mathilde_, by chr. blangstrup. copenhagen. _die verschwörung gegen die königin caroline mathilde und die grafen struensee und brandt_, by g. f. von jenssen-tusch. leipsig, . _struensee_, by k. wittich. leipsig, . _authentische aufklärungen über die geschichte der grafen struensee und brandt_, . [this book purports to be written by a dutch officer, and was translated into english . the author has evidently had access to first-rate authorities, but a good deal of the book must be received with caution.] _charlotte dorothea biehl's breve von christian vii._ edited by l. bobé. copenhagen, . höst's _grev struensee og hans ministerium_. copenhagen, . _beiträge zur geschichte de braunschweig-lüneburgischen hauses und hoses_, by c. e. von malortie. hanover, . _die struensee und brandtische kriminalsache_ [pamphlet]. amsterdam, . _leben, begebenheiten und unglückliches ende der beiden grafen struensee und brandt_, [pamphlet]. _gespräch im reiche der todten._ copenhagen, [pamphlet]. _die letzten stunden der königin von danemark_ [pamphlet]. hanover, . n. falck, _neues staatsbürgerliche's magazin_. schleswig, . _narrative of the conversion and death of count struensee_, by the rev. dr. münter [translated by the rev. t. rennell, ]. _memoirs and correspondence of sir r. murray keith_, vol. i., . _life of caroline matilda, queen of denmark_, by sir c. f. lascelles wraxall, . [this book is valuable for its extracts from n. w. wraxall's private journal with reference to the queen's restoration.] n. w. wraxall's _posthumous memoirs of his own times_, vol. i. n. w. wraxall's _memoirs of the courts of berlin_, etc., vol. i. _northern courts_, by john brown, . [this book contains curious information, but a great deal of it is unauthenticated.] _memoirs of an unfortunate queen, interspersed with letters written by herself to several of her illustrious relatives and friends._ . [most of these letters are evidently spurious and the memoirs are untrustworthy.] _histoire de danemark_, trad. by e. beauvois. copenhagen, . _danemark_, by de flaux. _history of denmark_, etc., dunham. bubb dodington's _diary_, edition . mrs. carter's _letters_. lady hervey's _letters_. northcote's _memoirs of sir j. reynolds_, vol. i. walpole's _reign of george iii._ walpole's _letters_, edition . archdeacon coxe's _travels in poland, russia and denmark_, vol. v. cunningham's _handbook of london_. stanhope's _history of england_, vol. vii., . wright's _england under the house of hanover_, vol. i. _the georgian era_, . jesse's _memoirs of george iii._, . _la reine caroline mathilde_, by g. b. de lagrèze. paris, . adolphus's _history of england from the accession of george iii._, . _george iii., his court and family_, . gibbon's _letters to lord sheffield_, misc. works, edition . _a view of society and manners in germany_, etc., by john moore, . also the following papers from the years - :-- _the london gazette_, _the annual register_, _the gentleman's magazine_, _general evening post_, _the leyden gazette_, _the gazetteer_, _the public advertiser_, etc. index. aalborg, ii., , . aböe, lieutenant, liberated, ii., . alexandra, queen, descent from queen louise, i., _n._ amelia, princess, presides over the court of george ii., i., ; her unamiable character, ; entertains christian vii., . "art of passau," i., . ascheberg, i., . ball, mr., naval surgeon, ii., . bang, councillor, ii., ; his indictment of the queen, ; defends count brandt, . benthaken, anna catherine, i., . benzon dismissed, i., . berger, professor, arrested, ii., ; liberated, . beringskjold, ii., ; made grand chamberlain, . berkentin, count, i., . berkentin, madame, i., , . bernstorff, count, his career, i., _n._; slighted, ; dismissed, ; his character, . bolingbroke, lord, i., . boothby, lady mary, i., . bothmar, the danish envoy at the court of st. james's, i., . bothmar, baron, brother of the danish envoy, i., . brandt, count enevold, i., ; banished, ; recalled to court, ; master of the revels, ; made a count, ; and struensee, ii., ; thrashes the king, ; arrested, ; loaded with chains, ; his trial, ; condemned to death, ; his execution, . brunswick, augusta duchess of, her birth, i., ; character, ; hatred of lord bute, ; her marriage, ; her sympathy for her sister queen matilda, ii., . brunswick, prince charles william ferdinand, his marriage to princess augusta, i., ; champions the cause of queen matilda, ii., . bülow, baron von, ii., ; conferences with wraxall, . bülow, baroness von, i., . bute, john, earl of, i., ; and the princess of wales, ; character, ; prime minister, ; in exile, . carlton house, i., . caroline, princess, ii., . caroline, queen, her death, i., . caroline amalie, princess, ii., . caroline matilda, queen of denmark and norway, her birth and parentage, i., - ; baptised at leicester house, ; childhood at kew, ; her accomplishments, ; reared in strict seclusion by her mother, ; first public appearance, ; betrothed to prince christian of denmark, ; her reluctance to the danish match, ; her marriage portion, ; married by proxy, ; leaves for denmark, ; reaches rotterdam, ; received by her husband at röskilde, ; public entry into copenhagen, ; her marriage, ; festivities at copenhagen, ; disappointed in her husband, ; crowned and anointed, ; embittered against the king, ; swayed by madame de plessen, ; treated cruelly by the king, ; birth of her son frederick vi., ; loss to her of madame de plessen, ; resides at frederiksborg, ; reconciliation to the king, ; illness, ; attended by struensee, ; takes him into favour, ; her ascendency over the king, ; struensee her evil genius, ; their intrigue, ; friendly relations with the king, ; rides in male attire, ; tour through schleswig and holstein, ; visits count rantzau at ascheberg, ; meets her mother at lüneburg, ; returns to copenhagen, ; at hirschholm, ; her sympathy with the poor, ; disregard of public opinion, ; treatment of her son, ; order of matilda established, ; bitter feeling towards her, ; delivered of a daughter, ; child named louise augusta, ; gives a masked ball, ii., ; the palace revolution, ; a prisoner in the hands of the conspirators, ; conveyed to kronborg, ; her treatment there, , ; bitter feeling against her, ; examined by the commissioners, ; confession of guilt, ; her trial, ; defence of uhldahl, ; marriage dissolved, ; visited by keith, ; freedom demanded by george iii., ; english squadron arrives at kronborg, ; parts with princess louise augusta, ; goes on board h.m.s. _southampton_, ; resides at göhrde, ; entry into celle, ; visited by keith, ; life at celle, ; wraxall introduced to her, ; popular reaction in her favour, ; important conversations with wraxall, ; her sudden death, ; details of her illness and death, ; evidences of her innocence, ; letter to her brother george iii., ; and pastor roques, ; her funeral at celle, ; looked upon as a saint and martyr in denmark, ; how the news of her death was received there, ; monument erected at celle, . carstenskjold, major, ii., . "catherine of the gaiters," i., ; great influence over the king, ; her shamelessness, ; sent out of the country, . catherine the great, and matilda, i., ; her favourites, ; resents the appointment of rantzau, ; becomes empress, . celle, entry of matilda into, ii., ; described, . celle castle, ii., ; description of, . charlotte, princess of mecklenburg, her marriage to george iii., i., ; great animus against matilda, ii., . charlotte amelia, princess, i., . chemnitz, a preacher, ii., . chesterfield, lord, i., . christian v., i., . christian vi., i., . christian vii., i., ; training, ; keeps bad company, ; character, ; betrothal to matilda, ; confirmed, ; proclaimed king, ; his first council, ; dismisses moltke, ; his distaste for work, ; fond of practical jokes, ; named "the northern scamp," ; receives matilda at röskilde, ; their marriage, ; passion for display, ; introduces masquerades, ; crowned and anointed, ; his dissipation and folly, ; nocturnal expeditions, ; tours through holstein, ; cruelty to the queen, ; birth of his son frederick vi., ; his _liaison_ with "catherine of the gaiters," ; visits england and france, ; lands in england, ; popularity in london, ; tours in the provinces, ; entertained by the city of london, ; low dissipation in london, ; gives a masked ball, ; goes to paris, ; returns to copenhagen, ; improvement in his conduct, ; infatuation for holck, ; mental and physical deterioration, ; royal tour through schleswig and holstein, ; visits count rantzau at ascheberg, ; returns to copenhagen, ; at hirschholm, ; court manners there, ; and the council of state, ; abolishes certain religious festivals, ; mental state, ; virtual abdication in favour of struensee, ; his vagaries, ; at frederiksberg, ii., ; in the hands of the conspirators, ; appears in public, ; arraigned by reverdil, ; queen divorced, ; hates the queen-dowager, ; his death, . christian viii., ii., . christian frederick, prince, ii., . christiansborg palace, i., ; masked ball at, . chudleigh, miss, i., . cliveden, i., . coke, lady mary, i., . copenhagen, civic government of, i., ; foundling hospital established, ; rejoicings at fall of struensee, ii., ; riotous scenes, . cosby, i., . council of conferences, i., . council of state, i., ; decree abolishing, ; its origin, ; re-established, ii., . cricket introduced into england, i., . cromartie, lady, i., . cumberland, henry frederick duke of, i., ; a dissipated youth, ; marries mrs. horton, ii., . cumberland, william augustus duke of, i., . "danish fly," headdress, i., . danneskjold-samsöe, count frederick, i., . denmark, court of, i., ; state of foreign affairs, ; and russia, ; strained relations between, ; reform in administration of justice, ; serfdom in, ; illegitimacy in, ; marriage laws in, ; discontent in, ii., . devonshire, duke of, i., . dodington, bubb, at kew, i., ; character, ; the confidant of the princess of wales, . eickstedt, hans henrik von, ii., ; made a general, . elizabeth, princess, i., ; her death, . elsinore. _see_ helsingor. essex, charlotte, countess of, i., . eyben, fräulein von, queen's lady-in-waiting, i., , ; dismissed, ; evidence at the trial of the queen, . falckenskjold, colonel, i., ; mission to russian court, ; arrested, ii., ; sent to the fortress of munkholm, ; dies at lausanne, . filosofow, i., , ; insults struensee, ; recalled, . "flying bodyguard," the, i., . foot guards disbanded by struensee, ii., ; their mutinous conduct, . fredensborg castle, i., . frederick iii., i., . frederick v., i., ; marriage with juliana maria of brunswick, ; becomes a drunkard, ; his death, ; and the council of state, . frederick, crown prince of denmark, his birth, i., ; his course of education, ; treated with little respect, ii., ; his confirmation, ; in the council of state, ; effects the overthrow of the ministry, ; proclaimed regent, ; becomes king, ; his marriage and children, ; disasters to denmark during his reign, . frederick, prince, son of the queen-dowager juliana maria, ii., ; his death and family, . frederiksberg palace, i., _n._ frederiksborg, i., . frederiks-kirke in copenhagen, i., . gabel, madame, i., . gahler, general, i., ; appointed to the war department, ; and struensee, ii., ; arrested, ; banished, . gahler, madame von, i., ; arrested, ii., ; liberated, . george ii. and his son frederick, i., ; his court, ; death and burial, , . george iii., his birth, i., ; created prince of wales, ; becomes king, ; his marriage, ; dislike to christian vii., ; writes to matilda about bernstorff, ; his attitude to the divorce trial, ii., ; demands the queen to be set at liberty, ; assents to the articles in favour of the revolution to restore the queen, ; and wraxall's claims for reward, . gloucester, william henry duke of, i., ; visits copenhagen, ; his character, ; marries lady waldegrave, ; festivities in copenhagen in honour of his visit, ; the danish king's opinion of him, . goblet, wedding, i., _n._ göhrde, ii., . goodrich, sir john, i., _n._ gottorp castle, i., . guldberg, ove, ii., ; his great influence, ; all-powerful, . gunning, sir robert, i., ; on madame de plessen, ; his opinion of count osten, ; on struensee, . hamburg and the partisans of the queen, ii., . hansel, admiral, liberated, ii., . hansen, a preacher, ii., . hayter, dr., bishop of norwich, i., . hee, dean, and brandt, ii., . helsingor, ii., _n._ hesse, prince charles of, i., , ; in exile, ; on struensee, . hesse, frederick landgrave of, i., . hesse, mary princess of, i., . hesselberg, colonel, liberated, ii., . hinuber, ii., . hirschholm palace, i., ; description of, ; razed to the ground, _n._ holck, conrad count, account of, i., ; treats the queen with scant respect, ; influence over the king, ; offer of marriage refused by lady bel stanhope, ; disgraceful evening amusements in london, ; marriage to count laurvig's daughter, ; his influence undermined by struensee, ; dismissed, . holck, gustavus, a page, i., . holstein, count, dismissed from office, i., ; attends the queen to stade, ii., . holstein, countess, i., ; ii., . household cavalry abolished, i., . illegitimacy in denmark, i., . jessen, ii., , . juell-wind, baron, ii., . juliana maria, queen-dowager, i., , ; her character, ; at fredensborg, ; rarely invited to court, ; an imperious, intriguing woman, ii., ; joins conspiracy against struensee, ; treatment of the queen, ; distributes honours, ; her appointments to office, ; takes the place of the queen, ; re-establishes the council of state, ; witnesses the execution of struensee and brandt, ; the most hated woman in denmark, ; state of affairs in denmark, ; her rage at the overthrow of the guldberg ministry, ; her rule at an end, . junius on queen matilda, ii., . justice, reform in administration of, i., . keith, sir robert murray, i., ; reception at the court of denmark, ; his opinion of struensee, ii., ; intervenes on behalf of the queen, ; receives the order of the bath, ; protests in favour of the queen, ; visits the queen, ; tells her she was no longer a prisoner, ; takes leave of the queen, ; appointed ambassador to vienna, ; letter regarding queen matilda, ; his death, . kew house, i., . kirchoff, john, and sperling, i., ; pensioned, . köller-banner, joins in a conspiracy against struensee, ii., ; arrests struensee, ; made a general and known henceforth as köller-banner, ; his death, _n._ kronborg, a gloomy fortress, ii., ; chapel at, _n._ lehzen, pastor, ii., , ; attends the queen in her last illness, ; funeral sermon, . leicester house, i., ; high play at, . lennox, lady sarah, i., . _lex regia_, i., . leyser, dr., ii., . lichtenstein, baron von, interviews with wraxall concerning the queen, ii., . lottery, royal danish, i., . louisa anne, princess, i., ; her death, . louise, queen of denmark, i., ; death and character, . louise augusta, princess, i., ; declared legitimate, ii., ; separated from her mother, ; marries the duke of augustenburg, . lühe, madame von der, the queen's lady-in-waiting, i., , ; dismissed, . lüneburg, i., . luttichau, chamberlain, dismissed, i., . malzahn, i., . marie sophie frederika, princess, marries frederick vi., ii., . marriage laws in denmark, i., . mecklenburg-strelitz, prince ernest, ii., . moltke, count, i., ; dismissed, . moltke, count, son of the prime minister, dismissed, i., . _monthly journal for instruction and amusement_, i., . moore, john, at celle, ii., . münter, dr., sermon against the royal amusements, i., ; his sermon against struensee, ii., ; and struensee's conversion, ; attends struensee to the scaffold, ; rewarded by the queen-dowager, . newcastle, duke of, i., . nielsen, a lutheran clergyman, i., . norfolk house, st. james's square, i., . oeder, professor, i., . oeser, professor, sculptor, ii., . ompteda, baroness d', ii., , , . order of matilda, i., . osten, count von, i., ; appointed to the foreign office, ; his hatred of struensee, ii., ; banished to jutland, . park place, i., . plessen, madame de, lady-in-waiting, i., ; her political intrigues, ; guides the queen in all things, ; suddenly dismissed, ; settles at celle, ; her character, ; at celle, ii., ; celebrates the queen's birthday, . press censorship abolished, i., . rantzau-ascheberg, count schack karl, i., ; his career, ; receives the king and queen at ascheberg, ; retires from office, ii., ; remonstrates with struensee, ; heads the conspiracy against struensee, ; his intention to betray the conspiracy, ; pretends a fit of the gout, ; surprises the king in bed, ; attempts to arrest the queen, ; the resistance he meets with, ; honours conferred on him, ; exiled, . reventlow, count, tutor of prince christian, i., ; his severity, ; dismissed, ; his bitter feeling against the queen, . reverdil, his career, i., ; dismissed, ; recalled, ; describes the court at hirschholm, ; arrested, ii., ; set at liberty, ; dies at geneva, _n._; his arraignment of the king, . reynolds, sir joshua, paints matilda's portrait, i., . rich, sir robert, i., . richmond, duchess of, i., . roques, m., pastor, ii., . rosenborg palace, i., _n._ röskilde, i., _n._ russia, interference in danish affairs, i., . st. petersburg, foundling hospital in, i., _n._ saldern, a semi-barbarian, i., ; dismisses madame de plessen, . salt tax abolished, i., . sames, colonel, ii., . schack-rathlou, councillor, ii., , . schimmelmann, baron, i., _n._; his revolutionary project, ii., . seckendorf, baron, acts as confidential agent between the queen and wraxall, ii., . serfdom in denmark, i., . söhlenthal, baron, i., . sophia frederika, princess, ii., . sophia magdalena, queen-dowager, i., ; fond of the king, ; her death, . sperling, page of the chamber, his vicious character, i., ; encourages the king in vice, ; superseded in the king's favour, ; dismissed, . stade, seaport, ii., . stampe, h., ii., . struensee, adam, i., ; appointed a preacher at altona, ; receives preferment in the duchy of holstein, . struensee, charles augustus, appointed to office, i., ; arrested, ii., ; banished, . struensee, john frederick, i., ; his parentage, ; goes to altona, ; as a writer, ; travelling physician to christian vii., ; appointed his surgeon-in-ordinary, ; attends matilda in her illness, ; his appearance and manner, ; inoculates the crown prince, ; given the title of conferenzath, ; the queen's evil genius, ; with the king and queen in schleswig and holstein, ; recalls brandt to court, ; his foreign policy, ; all-powerful favourite, ; at the head of affairs, ; keynote of his foreign policy, ; his ignorance of forms of etiquette, ; as master of requests, ; abolishes the council of state, ; and the danish nobility, ; and the clergy, ; a great reformer, ; his principal reforms, ; abolishes the household cavalry, ; appointed privy cabinet minister, ; made a count, ; his coat of arms, ; his colleagues all false to him, ii., ; and the norwegian sailors, ; plot against his life, ; his cowardice, ; dread of assassination, ; disbands the foot guards, ; their mutinous conduct, ; rantzau heads conspiracy against him, ; the palace revolution, ; taken prisoner by the conspirators, ; conveyed to the citadel, ; bitter feeling against him, ; loaded with chains, ; examined by commissioners, ; confession of guilt, ; conversion by dr. münter, ; his trial, ; condemned to death, ; his execution and horrible death, ; head stuck on a pole, . stürtz, councillor, liberated, ii., . suhm the historian urges the queen-dowager into a conspiracy, ii., ; his hatred of struensee, . syon house, entertainment at, i., . texier, m. le, proposes to wraxall a project for restoring the queen, ii., . thott, count otto, takes office, ii., ; president of the council, ; commissioned to examine the queen, . titley, walter, his career, i., _n._ traventhal castle, i., . uhldahl, commissioner, ii., ; defends the queen, ; defends struensee, . vilhelmine marie, princess, ii., . waldegrave, dowager-countess, i., ; marries the duke of gloucester, . wales, augusta princess of, her marriage, i., ; life at kew, ; left a widow, ; treated kindly by the king, ; her children, , ; dislike to the duke of cumberland, ; leads a retired life, ; and lord bute, ; and bubb dodington, ; her character, , ; influence over her son george iii., ; dislike to christian vii., ; visits brunswick, ; her unpopularity, ; meets matilda at lüneburg, ; they part in anger, ; her troubles and death, ii., . wales, frederick prince of, an account of, i., ; arrives in england, ; his marriage, ; in open opposition to the king, ; life at kew, ; his friendship with bolingbroke, ; as an author, ; his patriotism, ; death and character, ; buried in westminster abbey, ; his children, , . walmoden, madame de, countess of yarmouth, i., . walpole, horace, on christian vii., i., . walpole, sir robert, i., . warnstedt, chamberlain, dismissed, i., . whitefield, george, sermon on matilda's marriage, i., . willebrandt, councillor, liberated, ii., . wivet, fiscal-general, receives the king's orders to prosecute struensee, ii., ; his charges against count brandt, . wraxall, sir n. w., notice of, ii., ; visits celle, ; introduced to queen matilda, ; proceeds to hamburg, ; becomes an agent in the conspiracy to restore the queen, ; his communications with the queen, ; leaves for england, ; communicates with george iii., ; articles in favour of the revolution assented to by george iii., ; returns to celle, ; interviews with the queen, ; returns to london and delivers his letters to hinuber, ; learns the news of the queen's death, ; receives , guineas for his services, . wyndham, sir william, i., . yarmouth, countess of. _see_ walmoden. york, edward duke of, i., ; his career and death, . zell. _see_ celle. the aberdeen university press limited _new and cheaper edition. vo., s. d. net with frontispiece and other illustrations_ caroline the illustrious queen-consort of george ii. and sometime queen-regent _a study of her life and time_ by w. h. wilkins, m.a., f.s.a. author of "the love of an uncrowned queen" _in the preface of this book the author remarks that it is characteristic of the way in which historians have neglected the house of hanover that no life with any claim to completeness has yet been written of caroline of ansbach, queen-consort of george the second, and four times queen-regent. yet, in his opinion, she was by far the greatest of our queens-consort, and wielded more authority over political affairs than any of our queens-regnant, with the exception of elizabeth and, in quite another sense, victoria. the ten years of george the second's reign until her death would, mr. wilkins thinks, be more properly called "the reign of queen caroline," since for that period she governed england with walpole. and during those years the great principles of civil and religious liberty, which were then bound up with the maintenance of the hanoverian dynasty upon the throne, were firmly established in england._ _literature._--"the book will sustain mr. wilkins's reputation as a student and exponent of history." _pall mall gazette._--"a book brimful of highly interesting and entertaining matter." _scotsman._--"as a vivacious chronicle of those events which constitute the trimmings and the embroideries of serious history, mr. wilkins's work will rank as one of the most entertaining books on an interesting period." _nottingham daily guardian._--"the author's descriptions of life at court during both reigns, and of such episodes as the rising of and the quarrel between george i. and his son, are full of vivid reading, and his sketches of walpole, bolingbroke, and other leading politicians are both adequate and fair." _daily news._--"the sketches of court life and manners in the days of the first two georges furnish the reader with abundant entertainment.... mr. w. h. wilkins may be congratulated upon the discovery of one illustrious princess who, though she filled for a considerable period a very conspicuous and on the whole a worthy position in the annals of this country, has somehow escaped due biographical honours." the "baron de book worms" in _punch_.--"brilliantly written, with every incident dramatically given, and with every important character duly weighed and valued, there is not a dull page in the entire work. it is, indeed, one of the most interesting, as it is one of the most delightful, of books, sparkling with the romance of real life that has engrossed the baron's attentions this many a day. those who have a lively recollection of _the love of an uncrowned queen_ will be in no way disappointed with this new work by the same author." longmans, green, and co. paternoster row, london new york and bombay _classified catalogue_ of works in general literature published by longmans, green, & co. paternoster row, london, e.c. and fifth avenue, new york, and hornby road, bombay contents. page _badminton library (the)_ biography, personal memoirs, &c. children's books classical literature, translations, etc. cookery, domestic management, &c. evolution, anthropology, &c. fiction, humour, &c. fine arts (the) and music _fur, feather and fin series_ history, politics, polity, political memoirs, &c. language, history and science of logic, rhetoric, psychology, &c. mental, moral, and political philosophy miscellaneous and critical works poetry and the drama political economy and economics 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( vols.) vols. i. and ii. from the first invasion of the northmen to the year . vo., _s._ vol. iii. - . vo., _s._ =baillie.=--_the oriental club, and hanover square._ by alexander f. baillie. with photogravure portraits and full-page illustrations. crown to., _s._ net. =besant.=--_the history of london._ by sir walter besant. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ or bound as a school prize book, gilt edges, _s._ _d._ =bright.=--_a history of england._ by the rev. j. franck bright, d.d. period i. _mediÆval monarchy. a.d. - ._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ period ii. _personal monarchy. - ._ crown vo., _s._ period iii. _constitutional monarchy. - ._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ period iv. _the growth of democracy. - ._ crown vo., _s._ =bruce.=--_the forward policy and its results_; or, thirty-five years' work amongst the tribes on our north-western frontier of india. by richard isaac bruce, c.i.e. with illustrations and a map. vo., _s._ net. =buckle.=--_history of civilisation in england._ by henry thomas buckle. _cabinet edition._ vols. crown vo., _s._ _'silver library' edition._ vols. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =burke.=--_a history of spain, from the earliest times to the death of ferdinand the catholic._ by ulick ralph burke, m.a. edited by martin a. s. hume. with maps. vols. crown vo., _s._ net. =caroline, queen.=--_caroline the illustrious, queen-consort of george ii. and sometime queen regent_: a study of her life and time. by w. h. wilkins, m.a., f.s.a., author of 'the love of an uncrowned queen'. vols., vo., _s._ =casserly.=--_the land of the boxers_; or, china under the allies. by captain gordon casserly. with illustrations and a plan. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =chesney.=--_indian polity_: a view of the system of administration in india. by general sir george chesney, k.c.b. with map showing all the administrative divisions of british india. vo., _s._ =churchill= (winston spencer, m.p.). _the river war_: an historical account of the reconquest of the soudan. edited by colonel f. rhodes, d.s.o. with photogravure portrait of viscount kitchener of khartoum, and maps and plans. vo., _s._ _d._ net. _the story of the malakand field force, ._ with maps and plans. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _london to ladysmith via pretoria._ crown vo., _s._ _ian hamilton's march._ with portrait of major-general sir ian hamilton, and maps and plans. crown vo., _s._ =corbett= (julian s.). _drake and the tudor navy_, with a history of the rise of england as a maritime power. with portraits, illustrations and maps. vols. crown vo., _s._ _the successors of drake._ with portraits ( photogravures) and maps and plans. vo., _s._ =creighton= (m., d.d., late lord bishop of london). _a history of the papacy from the great schism to the sack of rome, - ._ vols. cr. vo., _s._ net each. _queen elizabeth._ with portrait. crown vo., _s._ net. _historical essays and reviews._ edited by louise creighton. crown vo., _s._ net. =dale.=--_the principles of english constitutional history._ by lucy dale, late scholar of somerville college, oxford. crown vo., _s._ =de tocqueville.=--_democracy in america._ by alexis de tocqueville. translated by henry reeve, c.b., d.c.l. vols. crown vo., _s._ =falkiner.=--_studies in irish history and biography_, mainly of the eighteenth century. by c. litton falkiner. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =fitzmaurice.=--_charles william ferdinand, duke of brunswick_: an historical study. by lord edmund fitzmaurice. with map and portraits. vo., _s._ net. =froude= (james a.). _the history of england_, from the fall of wolsey to the defeat of the spanish armada. vols. crown vo., _s._ _d._ each. _the divorce of catherine of aragon._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the spanish story of the armada_, and other essays. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the english in ireland in the eighteenth century._ vols. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _english seamen in the sixteenth century._ _cabinet edition._ crown vo., _s._ _illustrated edition._ with photogravure plates and other illustrations. large cr. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. _'silver library' edition._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the council of trent._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _short studies on great subjects._ _cabinet edition._ vols. _s._ _'silver library' edition._ vols. crown vo., _s._ _d._ each. _cÆsar_: a sketch. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _selections from the writings of james anthony froude._ edited by p. s. allen, m.a. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =fuller.=--_egypt and the hinterland._ by frederic w. fuller. with frontispiece and map of egypt and the sudan. crown vo., _s._ net. =gardiner= (samuel rawson, d.c.l., ll.d.). _history of england_, from the accession of james i. to the outbreak of the civil war, - . with maps. vols. crown vo., _s._ net each. _a history of the great civil war, - ._ with maps and plans. vols. cr. vo., _s._ net each. _a history of the commonwealth and the protectorate. - ._ vols. crown vo., _s._ net each. _the student's history of england._ with illustrations. crown vo., gilt top, _s._ _also in three volumes_, price _s._ each. _what gunpowder plot was._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _cromwell's place in history._ founded on six lectures delivered in the university of oxford. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _oliver cromwell._ with frontispiece. crown vo., _s._ net. =german empire (the) of to-day=: outlines of its formation and development. by 'veritas'. crown vo., _s._ net. =graham.=--_roman africa_: an outline of the history of the roman occupation of north africa, based chiefly upon inscriptions and monumental remains in that country. by alexander graham, f.s.a., f.r.i.b.a. with reproductions of original drawings by the author, and maps. vo., _s._ net. =greville.=--_a journal of the reigns of king george iv., king william iv., and queen victoria._ by charles c. f. greville, formerly clerk of the council. vols. crown vo., _s._ _d._ each. =gross.=--_the sources and literature of english history, from the earliest times to about ._ by charles gross, ph.d. vo., _s._ net. =hamilton.=--_historical record of the th (king's) hussars_, from a.d. to a.d. . by colonel henry blackburne hamilton, m.a., christ church, oxford; 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or, the loss of the french settlements. by s. c. hill, b.a., b.sc., officer in charge of the records of the government of india. with maps. vo. =historic towns.=--edited by e. a. freeman, d.c.l., and rev. william hunt, m.a. with maps and plans. crown vo., _s._ _d._ each. bristol. by rev. w. hunt. carlisle. by mandell creighton, d.d. cinque ports. by montagu burrows. colchester. by rev. e. l. cutts. exeter. by e. a. freeman. london. by rev. w. j. loftie. oxford. by rev. c. w. boase. winchester. by g. w. kitchin, d.d. york. by rev. james raine. new york. by theodore roosevelt. boston (u.s.) by henry cabot lodge. =hunter= (sir william wilson). _a history of british india._ vol. i.--introductory to the overthrow of the english in the spice archipelago, . with maps. vo., _s._ vol. ii.--to the union of the old and new companies under the earl of godolphin's award, . vo., _s._ _the india of the queen_, and other essays. edited by lady hunter. with an introduction by francis henry skrine, indian civil service (retired). vo., _s._ net. =ingram.=--_a critical examination of irish history._ from the elizabethan conquest to the legislative union of . by t. dunbar ingram, ll.d. vols. vo., _s._ =joyce.=--_a short history of ireland_, from the earliest times to . by p. w. joyce, ll.d. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =kaye and malleson.=--_history of the indian mutiny_, - . by sir john w. kaye and colonel g. b. malleson. with analytical index and maps and plans. vols. crown vo., _s._ _d._ each. =lang= (andrew). _the mystery of mary stuart._ with photogravure plates ( portraits) and other illustrations. vo., _s._ net. _james the sixth and the gowrie mystery._ with gowrie's coat of arms in colour, photogravure portraits and other illustrations. vo., _s._ _d._ net. _prince charles edward stuart, the young chevalier._ with photogravure frontispiece. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =laurie.=--_historical survey of pre-christian education._ by s. s. laurie, a.m., ll.d. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =lecky= (the rt. hon. william e. h.) _history of england in the eighteenth century._ _library edition._ vols. vo. vols. i. and ii., - , _s._; 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=hamilton.=--_life of sir william hamilton._ by r. p. graves. vo. vols. _s._ each. addendum. vo., _d._ sewed. =harrow school register (the)=, - . second edition, . edited by m. g. dauglish, barrister-at-law. vo., _s._ net. =havelock.=--_memoirs of sir henry havelock, k.c.b._ by john clark marshman. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =haweis.=--_my musical life._ by the rev. h. r. haweis. with portrait of richard wagner and illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ net. =higgins.=--_the bernards of abington and nether winchendon_: a family history. by mrs. napier higgins. vols. vo., _s._ net. =hunter.=--_the life of sir william wilson hunter, k.c.s.i., m.a., ll.d._ author of 'a history of british india,' etc. by francis henry skrine, f.s.s. with portraits ( photogravures) and other illustrations. vo., _s._ net. =jackson.=--_stonewall jackson and the american civil war._ by lieut.-col. g. f. r. henderson. with portraits and maps and plans. vols. cr. vo., _s._ net. =kielmansegge.=--_diary of a journey to england in the years - ._ by count frederick kielmansegge. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ net. =luther.=--_life of luther._ by julius kÖstlin. with illustrations and facsimiles of mss. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =macaulay.=--_the life and letters of lord macaulay._ by the right hon. sir g. o. trevelyan, bart. _popular edition._ vol. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _student's edition._ vol. cr. vo., _s._ _cabinet edition._ vols. post vo., _s._ _'edinburgh' edition._ vols. vo., _s._ each. _library edition._ vols. vo., _s._ =marbot.=--_the memoirs of the baron de marbot._ vols. cr. vo., _s._ =max müller= (f.) _the life and letters of the right hon. friedrich max mÜller._ edited by his wife. with photogravure portraits and other illustrations. vols., vo., _s._ net. _my autobiography_: a fragment. with portraits. vo., _s._ _d._ _auld lang syne._ second series. vo., _s._ _d._ _chips from a german workshop._ vol. ii. biographical essays. cr. vo., _s._ =meade.=--_general sir richard meade and the feudatory states of 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=rochester, and other literary rakes of the court of charles ii., with some account of their surroundings.= by the author of 'the life of sir kenelm digby,' 'the life of a prig,' etc. with portraits. vo., _s._ =romanes.=--_the life and letters of george john romanes, m.a., ll.d., f.r.s._ written and edited by his wife. with portrait and illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ net. =russell.=--_swallowfield and its owners._ by constance lady russell, of swallowfield park. with photogravure portraits and other illustrations. to., gilt edges, _s._ net. =seebohm.=--_the oxford reformers--john colet, erasmus, and thomas more_: a history of their fellow-work. by frederic seebohm. vo., _s._ =shakespeare.=--_outlines of the life of shakespeare._ by j. o. halliwell-phillipps. with illustrations and facsimiles. vols. royal vo., _s._ =tales of my father.=--by a. m. f. crown vo., _s._ =tallentyre.=--_the women of the salons_, and other french portraits. by s. g. tallentyre. with photogravure portraits. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =victoria, queen=, - . by richard r. holmes, m.v.o., f.s.a. with photogravure portrait. crown vo., gilt top, _s._ net. =walpole.=--_some unpublished letters of horace walpole._ edited by sir spencer walpole, k.c.b. with portraits. crown vo., _s._ _d._ net. =wellington.=--_life of the duke of wellington._ by the rev. g. r. gleig, m.a. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =wilkins= (w. h.). _caroline the illustrious, queen-consort of george ii. and sometime queen-regent_: a study of her life and time. vols. vo., _s._ _the love of an uncrowned queen_: sophie dorothea, consort of george i., and her correspondence with philip christopher, count königsmarck. with portraits and illustrations. vo., _s._ _d._ net. travel and adventure, the colonies, &c. =arnold.=--_seas and lands._ by sir edwin arnold. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =baker= (sir s. w.). _eight years in ceylon._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the rifle and the hound in ceylon._ with illusts. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =ball= (john). _the alpine guide._ reconstructed and revised on behalf of the alpine club, by w. a. b. coolidge. vol. i., _the western alps_: the alpine region, south of the rhone valley, from the col de tenda to the simplon pass. with new and revised maps. crown vo., _s._ net. _hints and notes, practical and scientific, for travellers in the alps_: being a revision of the general introduction to the 'alpine guide'. crown vo., _s._ net. =bent.=--_the ruined cities of mashonaland_: being a record of excavation and exploration in . by j. theodore bent. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =brassey= (the late lady). _a voyage in the 'sunbeam'; our home on the ocean for eleven months._ _cabinet edition._ with map and illustrations. cr. vo., gilt edges, _s._ _d._ _'silver library' edition._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _popular edition._ with illustrations. to., _d._ sewed, _s._ cloth. _school edition._ with illustrations. fcp., _s._ cloth, or _s._ white parchment. _sunshine and storm in the east._ _popular edition._ with illustrations. to., _d._ sewed, _s._ cloth. _in the trades, the tropics, and the 'roaring forties'._ _cabinet edition._ with map and illustrations. cr. vo., gilt edges, _s._ _d._ =cockerell.=--_travels in southern europe and the levant, - ._ by c. r. cockerell, architect, r.a. edited by his son, samuel pepys cockerell. with portrait, vo., _s._ _d._ net. =fountain= (paul). _the great deserts and forests of north america._ with a preface by w. h. hudson, author of 'the naturalist in la plata,' etc. vo., _s._ _d._ net. _the great mountains and forests of south america._ with portrait and illustrations. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =froude= (james a.). _oceana_: or england and her colonies. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the english in the west indies_: or, the bow of ulysses. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ boards, _s._ _d._ cloth. =grove.=--_seventy-one days' camping in morocco._ by lady grove. with photogravure portrait and illustrations from photographs. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =haggard.=--_a winter pilgrimage_: being an account of travels through palestine, italy and the island of cyprus, undertaken in the year . by h. rider haggard. with illustrations from photographs. cr. vo., gilt top, _s._ _d._ net. =hardwick.=--_an ivory trader in north kenia_: the record of an expedition to the country north of mount kenia in east equatorial africa, with an account of the nomads of galla-land. by a. arkell-hardwick, f.r.g.s. with illustrations from photographs, and a map. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =heathcote.=--_st. kilda._ by norman heathcote. with illustrations from sketches and photographs of the people, scenery and birds by the author. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =howitt.=--_visits to remarkable places._ old halls, battle-fields, scenes, illustrative of striking passages in english history and poetry. by william howitt. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =knight= (e. f.). _with the royal tour_: a narrative of the recent 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sketches by the author, maps and plans, a bibliography, and a map of armenia and adjacent countries. vols. medium vo., gilt top, _s._ net. =nansen.=--_the first crossing of greenland._ by fridtjof nansen. with illustrations and a map. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =rice.=--_occasional essays on native south indian life._ by stanley p. rice, indian civil service. vo., _s._ _d._ =smith.=--_climbing in the british isles._ by w. p. haskett smith. with illustrations and numerous plans. part i. _england._ mo., _s._ net. part ii. _wales and ireland._ mo., _s._ net. =spender.=--_two winters in norway_: being an account of two holidays spent on snow-shoes and in sleigh driving, and including an expedition to the lapps. by a. edmund spender. with illustrations from photographs. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =stephen.=--_the play-ground of europe_ (the alps). by sir leslie stephen, k.c.b. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =three in norway.= by two of them. with a map and illustrations. crown vo., _s._ boards, _s._ _d._ cloth. =tyndall.= (john). _the glaciers of the alps._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ net. _hours of exercise in the alps._ with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ net. sport and pastime. the badminton library. edited by his grace the (eighth) duke of beaufort, k.g., and a. e. t. watson. _archery._ by c. j. longman and col. h. walrond. with contributions by miss legh, viscount dillon, etc. with maps, plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _athletics._ by montague shearman. with chapters on athletics at school by w. beacher thomas; athletic sports in america by c. h. sherrill; a contribution on paper-chasing by w. rye, and an introduction by sir richard webster (lord alverstone). with plates and illustrations in the text. cr. vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _big game shooting._ by clive phillipps-wolley. vol. i. africa and america. with contributions by sir samuel w. baker, w. c. oswell, f. c. selous, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. vol. ii. europe, asia, and the arctic regions. with contributions by lieut.-colonel r. heber percy, major algernon c. heber percy, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _billiards._ by major w. broadfoot, r.e. with contributions by a. h. boyd, sydenham dixon, w. j. ford, etc. with plates, illustrations in the text, and numerous diagrams. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _coursing and falconry._ by harding cox, charles richardson, and the hon. gerald lascelles. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _cricket._ by a. g. steel and the hon. r. h. lyttelton. with contributions by andrew lang, w. g. grace, f. gale, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _cycling._ by the earl of albemarle and g. lacy hillier. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth. _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _dancing._ by mrs. lilly grove. with contributions by miss middleton, the hon. mrs. armytage, etc. with musical examples, and full-page plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _driving._ by his grace the (eighth) duke of beaufort, k.g. with contributions by a. e. t. watson the earl of onslow, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _fencing, boxing, and wrestling._ by _walter h. pollock_, _f. c. grove_, c. prevost, e. b. mitchell, and walter armstrong. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _fishing._ by h. cholmondeley-pennell. vol. i. salmon and trout. with contributions by h. r. francis, major john p. traherne, etc. with plates and numerous illustrations of tackle, etc. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. vol. ii. pike and other coarse fish. with contributions by the marquis of exeter, william senior, g. christopher davis, etc. with plates and numerous illustrations of tackle, etc. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _football._ _history_, by montague shearman; _the association game_, by w. j. oakley and g. o. smith; _the rugby union game_, by frank mitchell. with other contributions by r. e. macnaghten, m. c. kemp, j. e. vincent, walter camp and a. sutherland. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _golf._ by horace g. hutchinson. with contributions by the rt. hon. a. j. balfour, m.p., sir walter simpson, bart., andrew lang, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _hunting._ by his grace the (eighth) duke of beaufort, k.g., and mowbray morris. with contributions by the earl of suffolk and berkshire, rev. e. w. l. davies, g. h. longman, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _motors and motor-driving._ by alfred c. harmsworth, the marquis de chasseloup-laubat, the hon. john scott-montagu, r. j. mecredy, the hon. c. s. rolls, sir david salomons, bart., etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, _s._ net. a cloth box for use when motoring, _s._ net. _mountaineering._ by c. t. dent. with contributions by the right hon. j. bryce, m.p., sir martin conway, d. w. freshfield, c. e. matthews, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _poetry of sport (the)._--selected by hedley peek. with a chapter on classical allusions to sport by andrew lang, and a special preface to the badminton library by a. e. t. watson. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _racing and steeple-chasing._ by the earl of suffolk and berkshire, w. g. craven, the hon. f. lawley, arthur coventry, and a. e. t. watson. with frontispiece and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _riding and polo._ by captain robert weir, j. moray brown, t. f. dale, the late duke of beaufort, the earl of suffolk and berkshire, etc. with plates and illusts. in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _rowing._ by r. p. p. rowe and c. m. pitman. with chapters on steering by c. p. serocold and f. c. begg; metropolitan rowing by s. le blanc smith; and on punting by p. w. squire. with illustrations. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _shooting._ vol. i. field and covert. by lord walsingham and sir ralph payne-gallwey, bart. with contributions by the hon. gerald lascelles and a. j. stuart-wortley. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. vol. ii. moor and marsh. by lord walsingham and sir ralph payne-gallwey, bart. with contributions by lord lovat and lord charles lennox kerr. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _sea fishing._ by john bickerdyke, sir h. w. gore-booth, alfred c. harmsworth, and w. senior. with full-page plates and illusts. in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _skating, curling, tobogganing._ by j. m. heathcote, c. g. tebbutt, t. maxwell witham, rev. john kerr, ormond hake, henry a. buck, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _swimming._ by archibald sinclair and william henry, hon. secs. of the life-saving society. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _tennis, lawn tennis, rackets and fives._ by j. m. and c. g. heathcote, e. o. pleydell-bouverie, and a. c. ainger. with contributions by the hon. a. lyttelton, w. c. marshall, miss l. dod, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. _yachting._ vol. i. cruising, construction of yachts, yacht racing rules, fitting-out, etc. by sir edward sullivan, bart., the earl of pembroke, lord brassey, k.c.b., c. e. seth-smith, c.b., g. l. watson, r. t. pritchett, e. f. knight, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. vol. ii. yacht clubs, yachting in america and the colonies, yacht racing, etc. by r. t. pritchett, the marquis of dufferin and ava, k.p., the earl of onslow, james mcferran, etc. with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., cloth, _s._ net; half-bound, with gilt top, _s._ net. fur, feather, and fin series. edited by a. e. t. watson. crown vo., price _s._ each volume, cloth. **_the volumes are also issued half-bound in leather, with gilt top. price s. d. net each._ _the partridge._ natural history, by the rev. h. a. macpherson; shooting, by a. j. stuart-wortley; cookery, by george saintsbury. with illustrations and various diagrams. crown vo., _s._ _the grouse._ natural history, by the rev. h. a. macpherson; shooting, by a. j. stuart-wortley; cookery, by george saintsbury. with illustrations and various diagrams. crown vo., _s._ _the pheasant._ natural history, by the rev. h. a. macpherson; shooting, by a. j. stuart-wortley; cookery, by alexander innes shand. with illustrations and various diagrams. crown vo., _s._ _the hare._ natural history, by the rev. h. a. macpherson; shooting, by the hon. gerald lascelles; coursing, by charles richardson; hunting, by j. s. gibbons and g. h. longman; cookery, by col. kenney herbert. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _red deer._ natural history, by the rev. h. a. macpherson; deer stalking, by cameron of lochiel; stag hunting, by viscount ebrington; cookery, by alexander innes shand. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _the salmon._ by the hon. a. e. gathorne-hardy. with chapters on the law of salmon fishing by claud douglas pennant; cookery, by alexander innes shand. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _the trout._ by the marquess of granby. with chapters on the breeding of trout by col. h. custance; and cookery, by alexander innes shand. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _the rabbit._ by james edmund harting. cookery, by alexander innes shand. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _pike and perch._ by william senior ('redspinner,' editor of the 'field'). with chapters by john bickerdyke and w. h. pope; cookery, by alexander innes shand. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ * * * * * =alverstone and alcock.=--_surrey cricket_: its history and associations. edited by the right hon. lord alverstone, l.c.j., president, and c. w. alcock, secretary, of the surrey county cricket club. with illustrations. vo., _s._ net. =bickerdyke.=--_days of my life on water, fresh and salt_; and other papers. by john bickerdyke. with photo-etching frontispiece and full-page illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =blackburne.=--_mr. blackburne's games at chess._ selected, annotated and arranged by himself. edited, with a biographical sketch and a brief history of blindfold chess, by p. anderson graham. with portrait of mr. blackburne. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =dead shot (the)=: or, sportsman's complete guide. being a treatise on the use of the gun, with rudimentary and finishing lessons in the art of shooting game of all kinds. also game-driving, wildfowl and pigeon-shooting, dog-breaking, etc. by marksman. with numerous illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =ellis.=--_chess sparks_; or, short and bright games of chess. collected and arranged by j. h. ellis, m.a. vo., _s._ _d._ =folkard.=--_the wild-fowler_: a treatise on fowling, ancient and modern, descriptive also of decoys and flight-ponds, wild-fowl shooting, gunning-punts, shooting-yachts, etc. also fowling in the fens and in foreign countries, rock-fowling, etc., etc., by h. c. folkard. with engravings on steel, and several woodcuts. vo., _s._ _d._ =ford.=--_the theory and practice of archery._ by horace ford. new edition, thoroughly revised and re-written by w. butt, m.a. with a preface by c. j. longman, m.a. vo., _s._ =francis.=--_a book on angling_: or, treatise on the art of fishing in every branch; including full illustrated list of salmon flies. by francis francis. with portrait and coloured plates. crown vo., _s._ =fremantle.=--_the book of the rifle._ by the hon. t. f. fremantle, v.d., major, st bucks v.r.c. with plates and diagrams in the text. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =gathorne-hardy.=--_autumns in argyleshire with rod and gun._ by the hon. a. e. gathorne-hardy. with illustrations by archibald thorburn. vo., _s._ net. =graham.=--_country pastimes for boys._ by p. anderson graham. with illustrations from drawings and photographs. cr. vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. =hutchinson.=--_the book of golf and golfers._ by horace g. hutchinson. with contributions by miss amy pascoe, h. h. hilton, j. h. taylor, h. j. whigham, and messrs. sutton & sons. with portraits from photographs. large crown vo., gilt top, _s._ _d._ net. =lang.=--_angling sketches._ by andrew lang. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =lillie.=--_croquet up to date._ containing the ideas and teachings of the leading players and champions. by arthur lillie. with contributions by lieut.-col. the hon. h. needham, c. d. locock, etc. with illustrations ( portraits), and numerous diagrams. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =locock.=--_side and screw_: being notes on the theory and practice of the game of billiards. by c. d. locock. with diagrams. crown vo., _s._ net. =longman.=--_chess openings._ by frederick w. longman. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ =mackenzie.=--_notes for hunting men._ by captain cortlandt gordon mackenzie. crown vo., _s._ _d._ net. =madden.=--_the diary of master william silence_: a study of shakespeare and of elizabethan sport. by the right hon. d. h. madden, vice-chancellor of the university of dublin. vo., gilt top, _s._ =maskelyne.=--_sharps and flats_: a complete revelation of the secrets of cheating at games of chance and skill. by john nevil maskelyne, of the egyptian hall. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ =millais= (john guille). _the wild-fowler in scotland._ with a frontispiece in photogravure by sir j. e. millais, bart., p.r.a., photogravure plates, coloured plates and illustrations from the author's drawings and from photographs. royal to., gilt top, _s._ net. _the natural history of the british surface-feeding ducks._ with photogravures and plates ( in colours) from drawings by the author, archibald thorburn, and from photographs. royal to., cloth, gilt top, £ _s._ net. =modern bridge.=--by 'slam'. with a reprint of the laws of bridge, as adopted by the portland and turf clubs. mo., gilt edges, _s._ _d._ net. =park.=--_the game of golf._ by william park, jun., champion golfer, - . with plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =payne-gallwey= (sir ralph, bart.). _the cross-bow_: mediæval and modern; military and sporting; its construction, history and management, with a treatise on the balista and catapult of the ancients. with illustrations. royal to., £ _s._ net. _letters to young shooters_ (first series). on the choice and use of a gun. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _letters to young shooters_ (second series). on the production, preservation, and killing of game. with directions in shooting wood-pigeons and breaking-in retrievers. with portrait and illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _letters to young shooters_ (third series). comprising a short natural history of the wildfowl that are rare or common to 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xii., ; xiii., . vo., _s._ _d._ net each. =hime.=--_lucian, the syrian satirist._ by lieut.-col. henry w. l. hime, (late) royal artillery. vo., _s._ net. =homer.=--_the odyssey of homer._ done into english verse. by william morris. crown vo., _s._ net. =horace.=--_the works of horace, rendered into english prose._ with life, introduction and notes. by william coutts, m.a. crown vo., _s._ net. =lang.=--_homer and the epic._ by andrew lang. crown vo., _s._ net. =lucian.=--_translations from lucian._ by augusta m. campbell davidson, m.a. edin. crown vo., _s._ net. =ogilvie.=--_horae latinae_: studies in synonyms and syntax. by the late robert ogilvie, m.a., ll.d., h.m. chief inspector of schools for scotland. edited by alexander souter, m.a. with a memoir by joseph ogilvie, m.a., ll.d. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =rich.=--_a dictionary of roman and greek antiquities._ by a. rich, b.a. with woodcuts. crown vo., _s._ net. =sophocles.=--translated into english verse. by robert whitelaw, m.a., assistant master in rugby school. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =theophrastus.=--_the characters of theophrastus_: a translation, with introduction. by charles e. bennett and william a. hammond, professors in cornell university. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =tyrrell.=--_dublin translations into greek and latin verse._ edited by r. y. tyrrell. vo., _s._ =virgil.= _the poems of virgil._ translated into english prose by john conington. crown vo., _s._ _the Æneid of virgil._ translated into english verse by john conington. crown vo., _s._ _the Æneids of virgil._ done into english verse. by william morris. crown vo., _s._ net. _the Æneid of virgil_, freely translated into english blank verse. by w. j. thornhill. crown vo., _s._ net. _the Æneid of virgil_. translated into english verse by james rhoades. books i.-vi. crown vo., _s._ books vii.-xii. crown vo., _s._ _the eclogues and georgics of virgil._ translated into english prose by j. w. mackail, fellow of balliol college, oxford. mo., _s._ =wilkins.=--_the growth of the homeric poems._ by g. wilkins. vo., _s._ poetry and the drama. =arnold.=--_the light of the world_: or, the great consummation. by sir edwin arnold. with illustrations after holman hunt. crown vo., _s._ net. =bell= (mrs. hugh). _chamber comedies_: a collection of plays and monologues for the drawing room. crown vo., _s._ net. _fairy tale plays, and how to act them._ with diagrams and illustrations. crown vo., _s._ net. _rumpelstiltzkin_: a fairy play in five scenes (characters, male; 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or _s._ each, sold separately. the same in ten parts, _s._; or _s._ _d._ each, sold separately. cheap edition, in vol. crown vo., _s._ net. _poems by the way._ square crown vo., _s._ _the defence of guenevere_, and other poems. cheaper impression. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ net. ** for mr. william morris's other works, see pp. , , and . =mors et victoria.= cr. vo., _s._ net. ** this is a drama in three acts, the scene of which is laid in france shortly after the massacre of st. bartholomew. =morte arthur=: an alliterative poem of the fourteenth century. edited from the thornton ms., with introduction, notes and glossary. by mary macleod banks. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ =nesbit.=--_lays and legends._ by e. nesbit (mrs. hubert bland). first series. crown vo., _s._ _d._ second series. with portrait. crown vo., _s._ =ramal.=--_songs of childhood._ by walter ramal. with a frontispiece from a drawing by richard doyle. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =riley.=--_old fashioned roses_: poems. by james whitcomb riley. mo., gilt top, _s._ =romanes.=--_a selection from the poems of george john romanes, m.a., ll.d., f.r.s._ with an introduction by t. herbert warren, president of magdalen college, oxford. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =savage-armstrong.=--_ballads of down._ by g. f. savage-armstrong, m.a., d.litt. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =shakespeare.= _bowdler's family shakespeare._ with woodcuts. vol. vo., _s._ or in vols. fcp. vo., _s._ _the shakespeare birthday book._ by mary f. dunbar. mo., _s._ _d._ =stevenson.=--_a child's garden of verses._ by robert louis stevenson. fcp. vo., gilt top, _s._ =trevelyan.=--_cecilia gonzaga_: a drama. by r. c. trevelyan. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =wagner.=--_the nibelungen ring._ done into english verse by reginald rankin, b.a., of the inner temple, barrister-at-law. vol. i. rhine gold, the valkyrie. fcp. vo., gilt top, _s._ _d._ vol. ii. siegfried, the twilight of the gods. fcp. vo., gilt top, _s._ _d._ fiction, humour, &c. =anstey= (f.). _voces populi._ (reprinted from 'punch'.) first series. with illustrations by j. bernard partridge. cr. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. second series. with illustrations by j. bernard partridge. cr. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. _the man from blankley's_, and other sketches. (reprinted from 'punch'.) with illustrations by j. bernard partridge. cr. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. =bailey= (h. c.). _my lady of orange_: a romance of the netherlands in the days of alva. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _karl of erbach_: a tale of the thirty years' war. crown vo., _s._ =beaconsfield= (the earl of). _novels and tales._ complete in vols. crown vo., _s._ _d._ each, or in sets, vols., gilt top, _s._ net. vivian grey. the young duke; count alarcos: a tragedy. alroy; ixion in heaven; the infernal marriage; popanilla. tancred. contarini fleming; the rise of iskander. sybil. henrietta temple. venetia. coningsby. lothair. endymion. _novels and tales. the hughenden edition._ with portraits and vignettes. vols. crown vo., _s._ =bottome.=--_life, the interpreter._ by phyllis bottome. crown vo., _s._ =churchill.=--_savrola_: a tale of the revolution in laurania. by winston spencer churchill, m.p. cr. vo., _s._ =crawford.=--_the autobiography of a tramp._ by j. h. crawford. with a photogravure frontispiece 'the vagrants,' by fred. walker, and other illustrations. crown vo., _s._ net. =creed.=--_the vicar of st. luke's._ by sibyl creed. crown vo., _s._ =davenport.=--_by the ramparts of jezreel_: a romance of jehu, king of israel. by arnold davenport. with frontispiece by lancelot speed. crown vo., _s._ =dougall.=--_beggars all._ by l. dougall. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =doyle= (sir a. conan). _micah clarke_: a tale of monmouth's rebellion. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the refugees_: a tale of the huguenots. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the stark munro letters._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the captain of the polestar_, and other tales. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =dyson.=--_the gold-stealers_: a story of waddy. by edward dyson, author of 'rhymes from the mines,' etc. crown vo., _s._ =farrar= (f. w., late dean of canterbury). _darkness and dawn_: or, scenes in the days of nero. an historic tale. cr. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. _gathering clouds_: a tale of the days 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quaritch, v.c._ with frontispiece and vignette. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _dawn._ with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _dr. therne._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _eric brighteyes._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _heart of the world._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _joan haste._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _lysbeth._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _maiwa's revenge._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _montezuma's daughter._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _mr. meeson's will._ with illustrations. crown vo.; _s._ _d._ _nada the lily._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _pearl-maiden_: a tale of the fall of jerusalem. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _she._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _swallow_: a tale of the great trek. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the people of the mist._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the witch's head._ with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =haggard and lang.=--_the world's desire._ by h. rider haggard and andrew lang. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =harte.=--_in the carquinez woods._ by bret harte. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =hope.=--_the heart of princess osra._ by anthony hope. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =howard.=--_the failure of success._ by lady mabel howard. crown vo., _s._ =hutchinson.=--_a friend of nelson._ by horace g. hutchinson. cr. vo., _s._ =jerome.=--_sketches in lavender: blue and green._ by jerome k. jerome, author of 'three men in a boat,' etc. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =joyce.=--_old celtic romances._ twelve of the most beautiful of the ancient irish romantic tales. translated from the gaelic. by p. w. joyce, ll.d. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =lang= (andrew). _a monk of fife_; a story of the days of joan of arc. with illustrations by selwyn image. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the disentanglers._ with full-page illustrations by h. j. ford. crown vo., _s._ =lyall= (edna). _the hinderers._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the autobiography of a slander._ fcp. vo., _s._ sewed. presentation edition. with illustrations by lancelot speed. crown vo., _s._ _d._ net. _doreen._ the story of a singer. crown vo., _s._ _wayfaring men._ crown vo., _s._ _hope the hermit_: a romance of borrowdale. crown vo., _s._ =marchmont.=--_in the name of a woman_: a romance. by arthur w. marchmont. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ =mason and lang.=--_parson kelly._ by a. e. w. mason and andrew lang. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =max müller.=--_deutsche liebe_ (_german love_): fragments from the papers of an alien. collected by f. max mÜller. translated from the german by g. a. m. crown vo., gilt top, _s._ =melville= (g. j. whyte). the gladiators. the interpreter. good for nothing. the queen's maries. holmby house. kate coventry. digby grand. general bounce. crown vo., _s._ _d._ each. =merriman.=--_flotsam_: a story of the indian mutiny. by henry seton merriman. with frontispiece and vignette by h. g. massey. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =morris= (william). _the sundering flood._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the water of the wondrous isles_. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the well at the world's end._ vols. vo., _s._ _the wood beyond the world._ crown vo., _s._ net. _the story of the glittering plain_, which has been also called the land of the living men, or the acre of the undying. square post vo., _s._ net. _the roots of the mountains_, wherein is told somewhat of the lives of the men of burgdale, their friends, their neighbours, their foemen, and their fellows-in-arms. written in prose and verse. square crown vo., _s._ _a tale of the house of the wolfings_, and all the kindreds of the mark. written in prose and verse. square crown vo., _s._ _a dream of john ball, and a king's lesson._ mo., _s._ net. _news from nowhere_; or, an epoch of rest. being some chapters from an utopian romance. post vo., _s._ _d._ _the story of grettir the strong._ translated from the icelandic by eirÍkr magnÚsson and william morris. cr. vo., _s._ net. _three northern love stories, and other tales._ translated from the icelandic by eirÍkr magnÚsson and william morris. crown vo., _s._ net. ** for mr. william morris's other works, see pp. , and . =newman= (cardinal). _loss and gain_: the story of a convert. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _callista_: a tale of the third century. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =phillipps-wolley.=--_snap_: a legend of the lone mountain. by c. phillipps-wolley. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =portman.=--_station studies_: being the jottings of an african official. by lionel portman. crown vo., _s._ net. =sewell= (elizabeth m.). a glimpse of the world. laneton parsonage. margaret percival. katharine ashton. the earl's daughter. the experience of life. amy herbert. cleve hall. gertrude. home life. after life. ursula. ivors. cr. vo., cloth plain, _s._ _d._ each. cloth extra, gilt edges, _s._ _d._ each. =sheehan.=--_luke delmege._ by the rev. p. a. sheehan, p.p., author of 'my new curate', crown vo., _s._ =somerville= (e. oe.) =and ross= (martin). _some experiences of an irish r.m._ with illustrations by e. oe. somerville. crown vo., _s._ _all on the irish shore_: irish sketches. with illustrations by e. oe. somerville. crown vo., _s._ _the real charlotte._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the silver fox._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _an irish cousin._ crown vo., _s._ =stebbing.=--_rachel wulfstan_, and other stories. by w. stebbing, author of 'probable tales'. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =stevenson= (robert louis). _the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde._ fcp. vo., _s._ sewed. _s._ _d._ cloth. _the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde; with other fables._ crown vo., bound in buckram, with gilt top, _s._ net. _'silver library' edition._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _more new arabian nights--the dynamiter._ by robert louis stevenson and fanny van de grift stevenson. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the wrong box._ by robert louis stevenson and lloyd osbourne. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =suttner.=--_lay down your arms_ (_die waffen nieder_): the autobiography of martha von tilling. by bertha von suttner. translated by t. holmes. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =trollope= (anthony). _the warden._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _barchester towers._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =walford= (l. b.). _stay-at-homes._ crown vo., _s._ _charlotte._ crown vo., _s._ _one of ourselves._ cr. vo., _s._ _the intruders._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _leddy marget._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _iva kildare_: a matrimonial problem. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _mr. smith_: a part of his life. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the baby's grandmother._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _cousins._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _troublesome daughters._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _pauline._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _dick netherby._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the history of a week._ cr. vo. _s._ _d._ _a stiff-necked generation._ cr. vo. _s._ _d._ _nan_, and other stories. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the mischief of monica._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _the one good guest._ cr. vo. _s._ _d._ '_ploughed_,' and other stories. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the matchmaker._ cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =ward.=--_one poor scruple._ by mrs. wilfrid ward. crown vo., _s._ =weyman= (stanley). _the house of the wolf._ with frontispiece and vignette. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _a gentleman of france._ with frontispiece and vignette. cr. vo., _s._ _the red cockade._ with frontispiece and vignette. crown vo., _s._ _shrewsbury._ with illustrations by claude a. shepperson. cr. vo., _s._ _sophia._ with frontispiece. crown vo., _s._ =yeats= (s. levett). _the chevalier d'auriac._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _the traitor's way._ cr. vo., _s._ =yoxall.=--_the rommany stone._ by j. h. yoxall, m.p. crown vo., _s._ popular science (natural history, &c.). =furneaux= (w.). _the outdoor world_; or the young collector's handbook. with plates ( of which are coloured), and illustrations in the text. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. _butterflies and moths_ (british). with coloured plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. _life in ponds and streams._ with coloured plates and illustrations in the text. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. =hartwig= (george). _the sea and its living wonders._ with plates and woodcuts. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. _the tropical world._ with plates and woodcuts. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. _the polar world._ with maps, plates and woodcuts. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. _the subterranean world._ with maps and woodcuts. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. =helmholtz.=--_popular lectures on scientific subjects._ by hermann von helmholtz. with woodcuts. vols. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ each. =hoffmann.=--_alpine flora_: for tourists and amateur botanists. with text descriptive of the most widely distributed and attractive alpine plants. by julius hoffmann. translated by e. s. barton (mrs. a. gepp). with plates containing coloured figures from water-colour sketches by hermann friese. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =hudson= (w. h.). _hampshire days._ with plates and illustrations in the text from drawings by bryan hook, etc. vo., _s._ _d._ net. _birds and man._ large crown vo., _s._ net. _nature in downland._ with plates and illustrations in the text by a. d. mccormick. vo., _s._ _d._ net. _british birds._ with a chapter on structure and classification by frank e. beddard, f.r.s. with plates ( of which are coloured), and over illustrations in the text. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. =millais.=--_the natural history of the british surface feeding-ducks._ by john guille millais, f.z.s., etc. with photogravures and plates ( in colours) from drawings by the author, archibald thorburn, and from photographs. royal to., £ _s._ =proctor= (richard a.). _light science for leisure hours._ familiar essays on scientific subjects. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _rough ways made smooth._ familiar essays on scientific subjects. crown vo., _s._ _d._ _pleasant ways in science._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ _nature studies._ by r. a. proctor, grant allen, a. wilson, t. foster and e. clodd. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ leisure readings. by r. a. proctor, e. clodd, a. wilson, t. foster and a. c. ranyard. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ ** _for mr. proctor's other books see pp. and , and messrs. longmans & co.'s catalogue of scientific works._ =stanley.=--_a familiar history of birds._ by e. stanley, d.d., formerly bishop of norwich. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ =wood= (rev. j. g.). _homes without hands_: a description of the habitations of animals, classed according to their principle of construction. with illustrations. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. _insects at home_: a popular account of british insects, their structure, habits and transformations. with illustrations. vo., gilt top, _s._ net. _insects abroad_: a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits and transformations. with illustrations. vo., _s._ net. _out of doors_; a selection of original articles on practical natural history. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _petland revisited._ with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _strange dwellings_: a description of the habitations of animals, abridged from 'homes without hands'. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ _d._ works of reference. =gwilt.=--_an encyclopÆdia of architecture._ by joseph gwilt, f.s.a. with engravings. revised ( ), with alterations and considerable additions by wyatt papworth. vo., _s._ net. =longmans'= _gazetteer of the world._ edited by george g. chisholm, m.a., b.sc. imperial vo., _s._ net cloth; _s._ half-morocco. =maunder= (samuel). _biographical treasury._ with supplement brought down to . by rev. james wood. fcp. vo., _s._ _the treasury of bible knowledge._ by the rev. j. ayre, m.a. with maps, plates, and woodcuts. fcp. vo., _s._ _treasury of knowledge and library of reference._ fcp. vo., _s._ _the treasury of botany._ edited by j. lindley, f.r.s., and t. moore, f.l.s. with woodcuts and steel plates. vols. fcp. vo., _s._ =roget.=--_thesaurus of english words and phrases._ classified and arranged so as to facilitate the expression of ideas and assist in literary composition. by peter mark roget, m.d., f.r.s. recomposed throughout, enlarged and improved, partly from the author's notes, and with a full index, by the author's son, john lewis roget. crown vo., _s._ net. =willich.=--_popular tables_ for giving information for ascertaining the value of lifehold, leasehold, and church property, the public funds, etc. by charles m. willich. edited by h. bence jones. crown vo., _s._ _d._ children's books. =adelborg.=--_clean peter and the children of grubbylea._ by ottilia adelborg. translated from the swedish by mrs. graham wallas. with coloured plates. oblong to., boards, _s._ _d._ net. =alick's adventures.=--by g. r. with illustrations by john hassall. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =brown.=--_the book of saints and friendly beasts._ by abbie farwell brown. with illustrations by fanny y. cory. crown vo., _s._ _d._ net. =buckland.=--_two little runaways._ adapted from the french of louis desnoyers. by james buckland. with illustrations by _cecil aldin_. cr. vo., _s._ =crake= (rev. a. d.). _edwy the fair_; or, the first chronicle of Æscendune. cr. vo., silver top, _s._ net. _alfgar the dane_; or, the second chronicle of Æscendune. cr. vo., silver top, _s._ net. _the rival heirs_: being the third and last chronicle of Æscendune. cr. vo., silver top, _s._ net. _the house of walderne._ a tale of the cloister and the forest in the days of the barons' wars. crown vo., silver top, _s._ net. _brian fitz-count._ a story of wallingford castle and dorchester abbey. cr. vo., silver top, _s._ net. =henty= (g. a.).--edited by. _yule logs_: a story-book for boys. by various authors. with illustrations. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. _yule tide yarns_: a story-book for boys. by various authors. with illustrations. cr. vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. =lang= (andrew).--edited by. _the blue fairy book._ with illustrations. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ _the red fairy book._ with illustrations. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ _the green fairy book._ with illustrations. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ _the grey fairy book._ with illustrations. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ _the yellow 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with illustrations. crown vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. _deb and the duchess._ with illustrations. cr. vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. _the beresford prize._ with illustrations. cr. vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. _the house of surprises._ with illustrations. cr. vo., gilt edges, _s._ net. =murray.=--_flower legends for children._ by hilda murray (the hon. mrs. murray of elibank). pictured by j. s. eland. with numerous coloured and other illustrations. oblong to., _s._ =penrose.=--_chubby: a nuisance._ by mrs. penrose. with illustrations by g. g. manton. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =praeger= (rosamond). _the adventures of the three bold babes: hector, honoria and alisander._ a story in pictures. with coloured plates and outline pictures. oblong to., _s._ _d._ _the further doings of the three bold babes._ with coloured pictures and outline pictures. oblong to., _s._ _d._ =roberts.=--_the adventures of captain john smith_: captain of two hundred and fifty horse, and sometime president of virginia. by e. p. roberts. with illustrations and maps. crown vo., _s._ net. =stevenson.=--_a child's garden of verses._ by robert louis stevenson. fcp. vo., gilt top, _s._ =tappan.=--_old ballads in prose._ by eva march tappan. with illustrations by fanny y. cory. crown vo., gilt top, _s._ _d._ net. =upton= (florence k. and bertha). _the adventures of two dutch dolls and a 'golliwogg'._ with coloured plates and numerous illustrations in the text. oblong to., _s._ _the golliwogg's bicycle club._ with coloured plates and numerous illustrations in the text. oblong to., _s._ _the golliwogg at the seaside._ with coloured plates and numerous illustrations in the text. oblong to., _s._ _the golliwogg in war._ with coloured plates. oblong to., _s._ _the golliwogg's polar adventures._ with coloured plates. oblong to., _s._ _the golliwogg's auto-go-cart._ with coloured plates and numerous illustrations in the text. oblong to., _s._ _the golliwogg's air-ship._ with coloured pictures and numerous illustrations in the text. oblong to., _s._ _the vege-men's revenge._ with coloured plates and numerous illustrations in the text. oblong to., _s._ =wemyss.=--'_things we thought of_': told from a child's point of view. by mary c. e. wemyss, author of 'all about all of us'. with illustrations in colour by s. r. praeger. crown vo., _s._ _d._ the silver library. crown vo. _s._ _d._ each volume. =arnold's (sir edwin) seas and lands.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =bagehot's (w.) biographical studies.= _s._ _d._ =bagehot's (w.) economic studies.= _s._ _d._ =bagehot's (w.) literary studies.= with portrait. vols., _s._ _d._ each. =baker's (sir s. w.) eight years in ceylon.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =baker's (sir s. w.) rifle and hound in ceylon.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =baring-gould's (rev. s.) curious myths of the middle ages.= _s._ _d._ =baring-gould's (rev. s.) origin and development of religious belief.= vols. _s._ _d._ each. =becker's (w. a.) gallus=: or, roman scenes in the time of augustus. with illus. _s._ _d._ =becker's (w. a.) charicles=: or, illustrations of the private life of the ancient greeks. with illustrations, _s._ _d._ =bent's (j. t.) the ruined cities of mashonaland.= with illustrations, _s._ _d._ =brassey's (lady) a voyage in the 'sunbeam'.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =buckle's (h. t.) history of civilisation in england.= vols. _s._ _d._ =churchill's (winston s.) the story of the malakand field force, .= with maps and plans. _s._ _d._ =clodd's (e.) story of creation=: a plain account of evolution. with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =conybeare (rev. w. j.) and howson's (very rev. j. s.) life and epistles of st. paul.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =dougall's (l.) beggars all=: a novel. _s._ _d._ =doyle's (sir a. conan) micah clarke.= a tale of monmouth's rebellion. with illusts. _s._ _d._ =doyle's (sir a. conan) the captain of the polestar=, and other tales. _s._ _d._ =doyle's (sir a. conan) the refugees=: a tale of the huguenots. with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =doyle's (sir a. conan) the stark munro letters.= _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) the history of england=, from the fall of wolsey to the defeat of the spanish armada. vols. _s._ _d._ each. =froude's (j. a.) the english in ireland.= vols. _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) the divorce of catherine of aragon.= _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) the spanish story of the armada=, and other essays. _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) english seamen in the sixteenth century.= _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) short studies on great subjects.= vols. _s._ _d._ each. =froude's (j. a.) oceana, or england and her colonies.= with illustrations, _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) the council of trent.= _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) the life and letters of erasmus.= _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) thomas carlyle=: a history of his life. - . vols. _s._ - . vols. _s._ =froude's (j. a.) cæsar=: a sketch. _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) the two chiefs of dunboy=: an irish romance of the last century. _s._ _d._ =froude's (j. a.) writings, selections from.= _s._ _d._ =gleig's (rev. g. r.) life of the duke of wellington.= with portrait. _s._ _d._ =greville's (c. c. f.) journal of the reigns of king george iv., king william iv., and queen victoria.= vols., _s._ _d._ each. =haggard's (h. r.) she=: a history of adventure. with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) allan quatermain.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) colonel quaritch=, v.c.: a tale of country life. with frontispiece and vignette. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) cleopatra.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) eric brighteyes.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) beatrice.= with frontispiece and vignette. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) black heart and white heart.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) allan's wife.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard (h. r.) heart of the world.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) montezuma's daughter.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) swallow: a tale of the great trek.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) the witch's head.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) mr. meeson's will.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) nada the lily.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) dawn.= with illusts. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) the people of the mist.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard's (h. r.) joan haste.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =haggard (h. r.) and lang's (a.) the world's desire.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =harte's (bret) in the carquinez woods and other stories.= _s._ _d._ =helmholtz's (hermann von) popular lectures on scientific subjects.= with illustrations. vols. _s._ _d._ each. =hope's (anthony) the heart of princess osra.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =howitt's (w.) visits to remarkable places.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =jefferies' (r.) the story of my heart=: my autobiography. with portrait. _s._ _d._ =jefferies' (r.) field and hedgerow.= with portrait. _s._ _d._ =jefferies' (r.) red deer.= with illusts. _s._ _d._ =jefferies' (r.) wood magic=: a fable. with frontispiece and vignette by e. v. b. _s._ _d._ =jefferies' (r.) the toilers of the field.= with portrait from the bust in salisbury cathedral. _s._ _d._ =kaye (sir j.) and malleson's (colonel) history of the indian mutiny of - .= vols. _s._ _d._ each. =knight's (e. f.) the cruise of the 'alerte'=: the narrative of a search for treasure on the desert island of trinidad. with maps and illustrations. _s._ _d._ =knight's (e. f.) where three empires meet=: a narrative of recent travel in kashmir, western tibet, baltistan, gilgit. with a map and illustrations. _s._ _d._ =knight's (e. f.) the 'falcon' on the baltic=: a coasting voyage from hammersmith to copenhagen in a three-ton yacht. with map and illustrations. _s._ _d._ =köstlin's (j.) life of luther.= with illustrations and facsimiles of mss. _s._ _d._ =lang's (a.) angling sketches.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =lang's (a.) custom and myth=: studies of early usage and belief. _s._ _d._ =lang's (a.) cock lane and common-sense.= _s._ _d._ =lang's (a.) the book of dreams and ghosts.= _s._ _d._ =lang's (a.) a monk of fife=: a story of the days of joan of arc. with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =lang's (a.) myth, ritual, and religion.= vols. _s._ =lees (j. a.) and clutterbuck's (w. j.) b.c. , a ramble in british columbia.= with maps and illustrations. _s._ _d._ =levett-yeats' (s.) the chevalier d'auriac.= _s._ _d._ =macaulay's (lord) complete works.= 'albany' edition. with portraits. vols. _s._ _d._ each. =macaulay's (lord) essays and lays of ancient rome=, etc. with portrait and illustrations to the 'lays'. _s._ _d._ =macleod's (h. d.) elements of banking.= _s._ _d._ =marshman's (j. c.) memoirs of sir henry havelock.= _s._ _d._ =mason (a. e. w.) and lang's (a.) parson kelly.= _s._ _d._ =merivale's (dean) history of the romans under the empire.= vols. _s._ _d._ each. =merriman's (h. s.) flotsam=: a tale of the indian mutiny. _s._ _d._ =mill's (j. s.) political economy.= _s._ _d._ =mill's (j. s.) system of logic.= _s._ _d._ =milner's (geo.) country pleasures=: the chronicle of a year chiefly in a garden. _s._ _d._ =nansen's (f.) the first crossing of greenland.= with illustrations and a map. _s._ _d._ =phillipps-wolley's (c.) snap=: a legend of the lone mountain with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) the orbs around us.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) the expanse of heaven.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) light science for leisure hours.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) the moon.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) other worlds than ours.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) our place among infinities=: a series of essays contrasting our little abode in space and time with the infinities around us. _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) other suns than ours.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) rough ways made smooth.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r.a.) pleasant ways in science.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) myths and marvels of astronomy.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) nature studies.= _s._ _d._ =proctor's (r. a.) leisure readings.= by r. a. proctor, edward clodd, andrew wilson, thomas foster, and a. c. ranyard. with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =rossetti's (maria f.) a shadow of dante.= _s._ _d._ =smith's (r. bosworth) carthage and the carthaginians.= with maps, plans, etc. _s._ _d._ =stanley's (bishop) familiar history of birds.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =stephen's (sir leslie) the playground of europe (the alps).= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =stevenson's (r. l.) the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde=; with other fables. _s._ _d._ =stevenson (r. l.) and osbourne's (ll.) the wrong box.= _s._ _d._ =stevenson (robert louis) and stevenson's (fanny van de grift) more new arabian nights.=--the dynamiter. _s._ _d._ =trevelyan's (sir g. o.) the early history of charles james fox.= _s._ _d._ =weyman's (stanley j.) the house of the wolf=: a romance. _s._ _d._ =wood's (rev. j. g.) petland revisited.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =wood's (rev. j. g.) strange dwellings.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ =wood's (rev. j. g.) out of doors.= with illustrations. _s._ _d._ cookery, domestic management, &c. =acton.=--_modern cookery._ by eliza acton. with woodcuts. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ =angwin.=--_simple hints on choice of food_, with tested and economical recipes. for schools, homes, and classes for technical instruction. by m. c. angwin, diplomate (first class) of the national union for the technical training of women, etc. crown vo., _s._ =ashby.=--_health in the nursery._ by henry ashby, m.d., f.r.c.p., physician to the manchester children's hospital. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ net. =bull= (thomas, m.d.). _hints to mothers on the management of their health during the period of pregnancy._ fcp. vo., sewed, _s._ _d._; cloth, gilt edges, _s._ net. _the maternal management of children in health and disease._ fcp. vo., sewed, _s._ _d._; cloth, gilt edges, _s._ net. =de salis= (mrs.). _À la mode cookery_: up-to-date recipes. with plates ( in colour). crown vo., _s._ net. _cakes and confections À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _dogs_: a manual for amateurs. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _dressed game and poultry À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _dressed vegetables À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _drinks À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _entrÉes À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _floral decorations._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _gardening À la mode._ fcp. vo. part i., vegetables, _s._ _d._ part ii., fruits, _s._ _d._ _national viands À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _new-laid eggs._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _oysters À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _puddings and pastry À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _savouries À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _soups and dressed fish À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _sweets and supper dishes À la mode._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _tempting dishes for small incomes._ fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ _wrinkles and notions for every household._ crown vo., _s._ _d._ =lear.=--_maigre cookery._ by h. l. sidney lear. mo., _s._ =poole.=--_cookery for the diabetic._ by w. h. and mrs. poole. with preface by dr. pavy. fcp. vo., _s._ _d._ =rotheram.=--_household cookery recipes._ by m. a. rotheram, first class diplomée, national training school of cookery, london; instructress to the bedfordshire county council. crown vo., _s._ the fine arts and music. =burne-jones.=--_the beginning of the world_: twenty-five pictures by sir edward burne-jones, bart. medium to., boards, _s._ _d._ net. =burns and colenso.=--_living anatomy._ by cecil l. burns, r.b.a., and robert j. colenso, m.a., m.d. plates, - / by - / ins., each plate containing two figures--(_a_) a natural male or female figure; (_b_) the same figure anatomatised. in a portfolio, _s._ _d._ net. =hamlin.=--_a text-book of the history of architecture._ by a. d. f. hamlin, a.m. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =haweis= (rev. h. r.). _music and morals._ with portrait of the author. crown vo., _s._ net. _my musical life._ with portrait of richard wagner and illustrations. crown vo., _s._ net. =huish, head, and longman.=--_samplers and tapestry embroideries._ by marcus b. huish, ll.b.; also 'the stitchery of the same,' by mrs. head; and 'foreign samplers,' by mrs. c. j. longman. with reproductions in colour, and illustrations in monochrome. to., £ _s._ net. =hullah.=--_the history of modern music._ by john hullah. vo., _s._ _d._ =jameson= (mrs. anna). _sacred and legendary art_, containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the apostles, the doctors of the church, st. mary magdalene, the patron saints, the martyrs, the early bishops, the hermits, and the warrior-saints of christendom, as represented in the fine arts. with etchings and woodcuts. vols. vo., _s._ net. _legends of the monastic orders_, as represented in the fine arts, comprising the benedictines and augustines, and orders derived from their rules, the mendicant orders, the jesuits, and the order of the visitation of st. mary. with etchings and woodcuts. vol. vo., _s._ net. _legends of the madonna, or blessed virgin mary._ devotional with and without the infant jesus, historical from the annunciation to the assumption, as represented in sacred and legendary christian art. with etchings and woodcuts. vol. vo., _s._ net. _the history of our lord_, as exemplified in works of art, with that of his types, st. john the baptist, and other persons of the old and new testament. commenced by the late mrs. jameson; continued and completed by lady eastlake. with etchings and woodcuts. vols. vo., _s._ net. =kristeller.=--_andrea mantegna._ by paul kristeller. english edition by s. arthur strong, m.a., librarian to the house of lords, and at chatsworth. with photogravure plates and illustrations in the text. to., gilt top, £ _s._ net. =macfarren.=--_lectures on harmony._ by sir george a. macfarren. vo., _s._ =morris= (william). _architecture, industry and wealth._ collected papers. crown vo., _s._ net. _hopes and fears for art._ five lectures delivered in birmingham, london, etc., in - . cr. vo., _s._ _d._ _an address delivered at the distribution of prizes to students of the birmingham municipal school of art on st february, ._ vo., _s._ _d._ net. (_printed in 'golden' type._) _some hints on pattern-designing_: a lecture delivered at the working men's college, london, on th december, . vo., _s._ _d._ net. (_printed in 'golden' type._) _arts and its producers_ ( ) _and the arts and crafts of to-day_ ( ). vo., _s._ _d._ net. (_printed in 'golden' type._) _arts and crafts essays._ by members of the arts and crafts exhibition society. with a preface by william morris. crown vo., _s._ _d._ net. ** for mr. william morris's other works, see pp. , , and . =robertson.=--_old english songs and dances._ decorated in colour by w. graham robertson. royal to., _s._ net. =scott.=--_portraitures of julius cÆsar_: a monograph. by frank jesup scott. with plates and figures in the text. imperial vo., _s._ net. =vanderpoel.=--_colour problems_: a practical manual for the lay student of colour. by emily noyes vanderpoel. with plates in colour. sq. vo., _s._ net. =van dyke.=--_a text-book on the history of painting._ by john c. van dyke. with illustrations. cr. vo., _s._ =wellington.=--_a descriptive and historical catalogue of the collections of pictures and sculpture at apsley house, london._ by evelyn, duchess of wellington. illustrated by photo-engravings, specially executed by braun, clÉment, & co., of paris. vols., royal to., £ _s._ net. =willard.=--_history of modern italian art._ by ashton rollins willard. part i. sculpture. part ii. painting. part iii. architecture. with photogravure frontispiece and numerous full-page illustrations. vo., _s._ net. =wotton.=--_the elements of architecture._ collected by henry wotton, kt., from the best authors and examples. royal mo., boards, _s._ _d._ net. miscellaneous and critical works. =auto da fé and other essays=: some being essays in fiction. by the author of 'essays in paradox' and 'exploded ideas'. crown vo., _s._ =bagehot.=--_literary studies._ by walter bagehot. with portrait. vols. crown vo., _s._ _d._ each. =baker.=--_education and life_: papers and addresses. by james h. baker, m.a., ll.d. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =baring-gould.=--_curious myths of the middle ages._ by rev. s. baring-gould. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =baynes.=--_shakespeare studies_, and other essays. by the late thomas spencer baynes, ll.b., ll.d. with a biographical preface by professor lewis campbell. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =bonnell.=--_charlotte brontË, george eliot, jane austen_: studies in their works. by henry h. bonnell. crown vo., _s._ _d._ net. =booth.=--_the discovery and decipherment of the trilingual cuneiform inscriptions._ by arthur john booth, m.a. with a plan of persepolis. vo., _s._ net. =charities register, the annual=, _and digest_: being a classified register of charities in or available in the metropolis. vo., _s._ net. =christie.=--_selected essays._ by richard copley christie, m.a., oxon. hon. ll.d., vict. with portraits and other illustrations. vo., _s._ net. =dickinson.=--_king arthur in cornwall._ by _w. howship dickinson_, m.d. with illustrations. crown vo., _s._ _d._ =essays in paradox.= by the author of 'exploded ideas' and 'times and days'. crown vo., _s._ =evans.=--_the ancient stone implements, weapons and ornaments of great britain._ by sir john evans, k.c.b. with illustrations. vo., _s._ _d._ net. =exploded ideas=, _and other essays_. by 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[illustration: ringing a bear track _p. _] through arctic lapland by cutcliffe hyne london adam and charles black to mrs. alfred harmsworth our friend c. h. c. j. c. h. preface it seems customary in a book of travel to make frequent allusions to other voyagers who have journeyed over the same ground, or at least the same district, and to make constant references to them, and give copious quotations from their works. of course we ought to have gone to the british museum before starting on our travel, and there read up all books which in the least bore upon the country which we were going to visit. we omitted to do this, firstly, because we preferred to observe things for ourselves, from our own individual standpoint, unprejudiced by the way in which other people had observed them; and, secondly, from the far more potent reason that we made our actual start in a great hurry, and had little enough time for any preparations whatever. however, on our return to england we thought well to check the information we had garnered. so we duly provided ourselves with readers' tickets for that institution, and went to the british museum library, and got down every book which seemed in any way to bear upon the country we had wandered over, regardless of the tongue in which it was written. it was a surprise to us to learn (and may we add that the surprise was not without its pleasant savour?) that of all the volumes in that collection not one covered the route which we took during summer through arctic lapland. many had gone near it, from a gentleman of bygone date who wrote in latin, to mr. paul du chaillu, who chats about the larger part of the scandinavian peninsula. but we seemed to have stumbled across the one bit of europe which has not been pilloried on paper at one time or another, and so we here venture to take up a couple of note-books which were originally made for personal gratification, and amplify them into a volume of letterpress and sketches which may haply interest others. contents chapter i page london to vardÖ, with a few examples of how plans may be changed chapter ii across the varanger to elvenaes, with some observations on the fishing of the finner whale, and a narrative of travels with a jew chapter iii by canoe to the neiden, with an account of the russian lapps' daubsfest at boris gleb chapter iv from the neiden elv to enare see, with pungent comment on the habits of finnish carriers chapter v enare see to enare town in a square-sail viking ship chapter vi into the land of horrible flies: a narrative of personally-conducted travel chapter vii into the land of horrible flies--_continued_ chapter viii in touch with the genuine nomad, with some remarks upon his domestic deer, his treasure-hoards, and the decay of his practice in sorcery chapter ix a _prÉcis_ of lappish history, and a narrative of transit by raft and swamp to ivalomati chapter x on to pokka, with an introduction to prince johann of lapland chapter xi the worst marches of all chapter xii down the rapids to kittila town chapter xiii through to the sea: a progress in post-carts, with interludes of river-ferries [illustration: log track across swamp] _note._--river in norsk is elv; in qfensk, joki. lake in qfensk is järvi. j is pronounced as y. list of illustrations facing page ringing a bear track _frontispiece_ midnight among the lofötens vardö harbour towing home finner whales the gates of russian lapland daubsfest at boris gleb finn carriers crossing russian frontier a lakeside camp on enare see bear hunt--smoking him out the signal fire a prosperous lapp settlement herder lapps' encampment raft wrecked on the repojoki johann's acrobatic failure on the way to kittila arctic lapland types _pen and ink vignettes at end of chapters_ page log track across swamp xi the _windward_ deep-sea fishing feodor and morris--two skolte lapps viking boats on enare see sketches at menesjärvi smoking out mosquitoes the sorcerer and the portrait marie, the sorcerer's daughter drinking cups reindeer horns map showing route _facing page_ through arctic lapland chapter i london to vardÖ, with a few examples of how plans may be changed the wharves of katherine dock were black with many thousands of people, and all their eyes converged on a little auxiliary barque which was working out of the basin under her own gentle steam. the barque carried a white tub at her mainmast-head, was rigged with single topsails, bore many white double-ended boats upturned on skids amidships, and was decorated with sundry other matters which even to the shore eye would seem strange in london river. stacked in her waist were bags of coal, crates, packing cases, a couple of ice-anchors, a tangle of trellis-work sledges, and other quaint trifles which had not yet been struck below. any craft more unlike the ordinary conventional type of yacht it would have been hard to conceive, and yet the burgee of the royal thames yacht club fluttered out from above the white crow's nest (or fouled the telescope rail, as the case might be) and an english blue ensign hung clean and unfrayed from the mizzen truck, as the mizzen gaff, its more orthodox station, had not yet been set up. the barque was already a vessel well known. as a sealer and whale-fisher she had earned fat dividends for dundee owners; as the _s.y. windward_ she had made history, and helped to found the british colony of elmwood in franz josef's land, and had been iced up for an arctic winter in a bay at the back of cape flora; and on this trip she was destined (although no one even guessed at it then) to acquire a far more international fame. she was setting out then from katherine dock under the command of that old ice-sailor, captain james brown, to carry recruits and supplies to the jackson-harmsworth exploring expedition after their second winter amongst the polar ice; and she landed these on the sterile rocks of franz josef's land after a bitter struggle with the floes, and brought back with her to the land of champagne and telegraph wires, frithjof nansen, the norskman, as by this time all the world most thoroughly knows. slowly that single-topsail barque was warped across the dock basin, a strange small creature amongst the huge steam shipping; slowly she passed through the outer lock; and then the ebb of the muddy river took her, and she moved out into the stream, and the black crowds on the dock-head sent up thunderous cheers. the little auxiliary propeller fluttered astern, and she dropped down river at no ostentatious speed. but the white barrel perched up there under the main truck betrayed her always, and every vessel of every nationality in those cosmopolitan reaches knew her as the yacht of the english arctic expedition. the blue ensign was kept on a constant dance up and down from her mizzen truck, as it answered other bunting, which was dipped in salute from countless peaks and poop-staffs. some crews cheered her as she passed at her puny gait through the crowded shipping; the band of the _worcester_ played her down the river out of earshot; everybody she passed warmed to her enterprise and wished her success and a snug return. ladies, and owner, and shore folk, had come down the river to give her a final "send off," but these left at greenhythe with the mud pilot, and from that began an easy voyage to the rim of the polar sea. the _windward_ was to go north as much as possible under her own canvas; but as some steam would certainly be required for head winds and other emergencies, she was to call in at vardö at the entrance to the white sea to rebunker, so as to have the largest possible supply of good welsh steam coal for her final battle with the northern ice. to this port, in the north-easternmost angle of arctic norway, the _windward_ carried as passengers mr. cecil hayter, who drew pictures for this book, and another man, who wrote it. now, to say that we two had a vague notion of what was ahead of us was putting the matter mildly. we knew many of those concerned in the jackson-harmsworth expedition, and had always had an interest in the achievements of the _windward_; and one night in somebody's billiard-room we had talked vaguely over "going north and doing something up there" ourselves. we imagined this something might be to explore the petchora or one of the lesser-known northern siberian rivers, to make the acquaintance of the samoyede in his native _choom_, and incidentally to do some big game shooting. we knew remarkably little about the country, and so were quite unfettered in making some very appetising plans. this was six months before the _windward_ sailed, and though we met two or three times in the interval, the matter was only mentioned casually, and with merely a dilettante interest. finally, when mr. alfred harmsworth wired "are you going north with _windward_?" and got a simultaneous reply of "delighted" from each of us, the yacht was booked to sail in fifty hours' time, and any preparations we wished to make were naturally hustled. [illustration: midnight among the lofÖtens.] when we actually did get under weigh, our outfit consisted of one inferior double-barrelled -bore shot-gun by an anonymous maker, one good marlin ' repeating rifle carrying a long bullet, a small assortment of tinned foods and loaded cartridges, an imaginative map, the clothes we stood up in, and a brown canvas, seaman's bag apiece containing sleeping sack, tooth-brush, spare shirt, and foreign office passport with a hieroglyphical russian _visé_. but if our equipment was slender, the plan of our expedition was at least definite and concise. the petchora and north siberia were to be left undisturbed in their accustomed darkness. even the virgin delights of novaya zemblya (to which island a steamer was alleged to be on the point of starting from archangel) were to be left for another time. we were going to see the lapp in that unmeddled-with country, arctic lapland. it had been my luck to live _en famille_ with some herder lapps once before in north-western norway. i had some elk shooting and some fishing up there, and i came across the tribe one day poaching red char from one of my own hired lakes. i kept silence about my temporary proprietorship, and assisted to steal my own fish, after which i encamped with them for seven days, sleeping _à la belle étoile_, and providing my own nutriment. the tribe possessed some three hundred head of tame reindeer, and as my available luggage at the time was a kodak camera, i managed to get some rather good photographs of the deer at close quarters. it was these photographs which suggested going to see the lapp in his own domains. the map showed the position of lapland in large letters, and for the sake of definiteness we made up our minds to cross it from north to south, and take to the seas again at the head of the gulf of bothnia. that should be our expedition. it was delightfully simple in its scope and comprehensiveness. drawing from our own ignorance, and from the united ignorance of others (most freely and generously bestowed), we mapped out the details of the campaign with glibness and ease. at vardö we were to purchase furs to wear and horses to ride. russian horses, or rather ponies, they were to be: our friends told us all about them. and then we had merely to procure a guide and interpreter, and set off. there was a road along the north shore of the varanger fjord to vadsö, and from there a bridle path of sorts led to næsseby and puolnak, and down through the country by lake enare to kittila, where it met a broad road which continued down by the side of the torneo river as far as the coast. we knew all this because the large scale map which we bought at the best map shop in london said it was so. and there were plenty of villages--the map marked them with clearness and precision. at nights we would either sleep out in our furs and blanket sacks, or sleep in the villages. as regards the commissariat, that we decided would be simple also. reindeer meat, salmon, rye bread, milk, cheese, and butter would be always procurable from the natives. and besides, we should shoot far more game than we could possibly use for the pot. men who "knew the country round there" assured us clearly on this point. game swarmed. the country was alive with bear, ptarmigan, willow grouse, and capercailzie. i wonder now that no one suggested we might pick up a belated mammoth. and though i personally had been shooting in north norway before, and so discounted part of the yarns, i did think we should find enough to keep going upon. the few tins of provisions we did take were mainly to serve as luxuries. for instance, we had quite a large supply of _foie gras_ and larks in aspic. i had a vivid recollection of how the last tin of that _pâté de foie gras_ went. we had put in a forty-mile tramp by way of sharpening the appetite, and we sat down in the middle of a gray cloud of mosquitoes to share it between us. it was a tin about four inches in diameter by two deep, and it contained a generous casing of tallow, which had partly melted through being carried next to a perspiring laplander's back. there was no scrap of any other food available, and so we divided the _pâté_ (and the tallow) with mathematical accuracy. hayter eyed the polished tin when we had finished, and said thoughtfully that he always had liked _foie gras_. i mentioned that sometimes i preferred beef or even venison; that i could do with about six pounds of beef just then; and that as a meal for a hungry man, _foie gras_ was all very well, but did not seem to go quite far enough. with these hints, then, at our initial ignorance of what lay beyond, let me pass on to vardö, which was the real starting-point of both our plans and our journey. the _windward_ made an easy voyage of it on the whole up to there, and although she carried away her main-topsail yard, and smashed the reefing spar below it in two places, that was looked upon as rather a slice of luck, as it might well have been disastrous if such an accident had happened later, when every ounce of steam and every inch of canvas might be wanted in the fierce wrestle with the polar ice. in vardö it might be repaired. [illustration: vardÖ harbour.] inside vardö harbour walls, then, to a mooring we came, and the smells of the place closed round us and took possession. bobbling about on the harbour swell around us were some two hundred vessels of strange northern rig, and almost all connected with the trade in fish. there is no agriculture in this town perched on the northern outskirts of the continent; there are no trees to make a timber business; there are no metals or fuels to dig from the earth; there are no inducements to weave or carry on any of the manufactures of a more gentle clime. the sea is the only field which yields the vardö man a harvest, and from the sea he reaps it with unremitting industry. finns, russians, norwegians, samoyedes, lapps, all join in the work and bring their catch, in clumsy yots, and square-sailed viking boats, and the other weird unhandy craft of the north, in past the concrete wall of vardö harbour, and run alongside the smelling warehouses which are built on piles at the water-side, and send it ashore all slimy and glistening, and then go off to dangle bait in the chill inhospitable seas for more. the men of the town, and the women, gut the fish, and leave the entrails to rot in the streets, or under the wharfs, or in the harbour water; and then the carcasses are carried to the outskirts of the town, and hung on endless racks of wood to shrivel, and dry, and scent the air as thoroughly as the rains of the climate will permit. at the corner posts hang posies of cods' heads to serve as fodder for the cows and goats during the winter, and these too help to amplify the stink. and from the mainland, beyond the fort, when the breezes blow vardö-wards, there drift across more forceful stinks from the factory where they flense the finner whales, and try down the blubber into oil, and cut up the pink beef for canned meats and fodder for the arctic cow. in the harbour, steamers from france, and hamburg, and lower norway, load bales of the dried cod, which will carry the aroma of vardö as far as bremen, brest, and st. petersburg. as wooden places go, the town itself is not uncomely. it is built on an island, which is nearly cut in two by the fjords that form the harbour, and it has two principal streets running at right angles to one another, and others again branching off these. the houses are of all colours from ochre to gray, and all sizes, and all architectures. there are roses and stocks and geraniums showing from behind the windows. the older roofs are green with grass, and dotted with the flowers of buttercup and clover. some are roofed with turf alone. goats feed on the roofs, and ladders lead up to them, so that the owners can pull off burning rafters in case of a fire. there are goats in the streets too, snuffling amongst the disused fish. once the town was a strong place, but the star-shaped fort, which was built in , is to-day obsolete, though field-guns and some breech-loaders on slides still grin through the embrasures, and the garrison of fifteen men take it in orderly turns to hoist the norwegian flag. the racks of drying fish carcasses run along the side of its ramp, and bristling nosegays of cods' heads dangle on either side of its main entrance. there are other towns of norway given up to the cult of the cod, but nowhere is it so entirely the one staple of commerce as in this ancient settlement so far within the arctic circle. the tail of the gulf stream keeps its climate equable. it is never very hot and never very cold, and in this it differs vastly from the interior of the continent to the southward, where both extremes prevail; and if it has to put up with a six months' night in the winter of the year, with only a slight lightening of the gloom at midday to tell that the sun is still somewhere in the universe to keep the world a-move, at the same time it has another six months when all lamps can be dismantled and put away, and day burns high all round the clock and round again. but the summer is the time when commerce bristles. it is then that the larger merchants toil to make their wealth; and when the lamps begin to kindle in the windows, they take the mail steamers and go away to follow the retiring sun. some merely retreat to tromsö, some to bergen, some to petersburg; but there are others who go to italy and southern europe; and there is one who washes the cod-stink from him, and dons the garb of fashion, and winter after winter hies him to a tiny principality on the riviera, where they keep a roulette bank, which it is his mood to try and break. the gambling rooms down there are cosmopolitan, certainly, but i wonder how many people have guessed that they usually contain a stock-fish prince who gets his wealth from the chilly polar sea? now vardö was not what we had come so far to see, or smell. we wanted to get started on our travel in arctic lapland as quickly as might be; and as soon as the whale-boat had set us ashore amongst the fish litter on one of the wharves, we set about pushing inquiries as far as they would go. the success we met with in this pursuit was not brilliant. in fact the results might be catalogued as almost entirely negative. in the first instance the horse-bubble was pricked once and for all. lapland, it appeared, was largely made up of swamps and lakes and rivers, and we were gravely informed that the horse was not a navigable animal. if we wanted to get through, we must walk and wade where that was possible, and canoe or raft the rest; and it was suggested that if we wished to ensure success, we had better in addition borrow two pairs of good reliable wings to help us. anything we wished to take with us must be borne about our own persons or carried on the backs of hired men. and this was about all the definite information we could arrive at. the cause of the deficit was simple: during the summer months, communication across the interior was entirely interrupted, and vardö could not be expected to know much about a journey which was never done. in winter, when the snow crust hardened, and the rivers and the lakes were roofed with massive ice, then movement about the country was a comparatively easy thing. there were recognised routes, and the traveller could pack himself into one of the boat-like, reindeer sledges, and move along over the frozen surface at from six to ten miles per hour, and be sure of relays of deer at certain appointed stations. but in summer the deer were away deep in the fjelds, fattening on the ivory-yellow moss; they were useless to travel with through swamps and across deep open water, and the mosquitoes would have maddened them if they had been tried; and, in consequence, the natives of the interior bowed to the inevitable. they just stayed in their farms, or their fishing-camps, or their herd-stations, and worked during the brief summer months to store up food against the long grim frozen night of winter. at first, then, it was pointed out to us that we were proposing to do an impossibility, and it was suggested that we should either wait in vardö till the snows came and sledges could be used, or abandon the lapland expedition and go off to explore the petchora, or visit that fascinatingly unknown island, novaya zemblya. we quite saw the charm of these two last alternatives, and made arrangements for riving the secrets from novaya zemblya some other season, and thinning its flocks of deer and polar bears, and charting the matoskin skyar; but for the present lapland was what our souls hankered after, and we had got to get there somehow. it is not to be denied, though, that the novaya zemblya scheme had its seductions. there was in vardö harbour a weird, clumsy craft of the type locally known as "yot," which had visited that island a-many times with a crew of hunters. she had two masts with a square sail (not lug) hoisting on each, and her best point of sailing was more or less before the wind. with the wind anywhere ahead, she just had to run into shelter, or drift, till the breeze chose to veer again. she had no notion whatever of ratching to windward, and was not addicted to making certain or rapid passages. that summer she was laid up. during the previous summer (having sailed in the spring) she had gone out to the kara strait, and then pushed up along the western novaya zemblyan coast, following the line of drift-ice as it retreated north. she had an ample crew on board, and these made short expeditions inshore, taking with them powder and shot, and bringing back deer skins and deer meat. they seldom went far inland from the coast, for fear lest the clumsy "yot" should be blown off in some sudden gale, and they would be left without means of retreat; and they went for the commercial business of meat-hunting alone, just as their fellows hunted the seas for fish; and when their holds were full of venison and peltries, it was a case of 'bout-ship with them, and back to vardö again as fast as they could drive her. we could not find that any of these hunters had so much as shut the eye of sleep upon the island. samoyedes were alleged to reside there permanently, shifting their _chooms_ from point to point as the struggle for a lean subsistence prompted; and in the south there certainly was a russian colony in the leading strings of the government of archangel, and visited once a year by an erratic steamer. but, as i say, the great bulk of the island was _terra incognita_; there was no reason why it should be exceptionally impassable; and there was every cause to expect that it would be plentifully rambled over by fowl of all sorts--and possibly the great auk, who knew?--and graciously blessed in the matter of four-footed big game. the charm of the arctic (which must be felt to be understood) had got us well in tow, and we licked our lips over the thought of this unknown isle, and drunk up all available yarns concerning it, and made exhaustive plans to explore it in the not very distant future. but we did not allow this mere flirtation to seduce us away from the more immediate business of the present. lapland was what we wanted, and it was on schemes for crossing lapland at which we hammered with unremitting industry. at last, after much pressing, it was admitted that we might possibly find carriers for our transport at the other side of the varanger fjord, but at the same time it was pointed out that we probably should not. at any rate the route from puolnak was utterly impracticable. our only chance was to start from the neiden elv, cross from there to enare see, boat that, and then trust to luck. provisions, we were told plainly, it was most unlikely we should find, but (so absolutely ignorant were these vardö people of the interior of lapland) the prospects of sport were said to be extremely rosy. there were few bear or other big game, to be sure, but the gun would provide us with fowl in all abundance for the pot. and, anyway, it was entirely useless to further recruit our slender stock of tins. it was vastly improbable that we should be able to get carriers for the few we had got. it was more than likely that we should have to desert them, and press on alone with merely cartridges as personal luggage, if we were fools enough to try and travel through country at that season where it was not intended by nature that man should go. now this information was none of it very encouraging, and none of it very definite. it was most of it frankly given as depending on mere hearsay. and although we advertised our want largely, and tramped up and down the fish-strewn streets to see countless likely people, nowhere could we find a man who knew lapland personally, much less one who would (for a fee) act as guide, much less one who could serve as guide and interpreter both. for here was another difficulty: the lapps spoke quivnsk (or finnish), and we did not. we possessed a slender vocabulary of russian and norsk between us, and this, it appeared, would be of as much value in lapland as spanish or fijian. french, german, and english were equally useless, and, as it turned out, our remaining rags of schoolboy dog-latin, made the only language which we brought into that country which we were able to turn to any practical use within its marches. finally, came the question of money. finland is a grand duchy of russia, conquered by that power from sweden in ; but the russian rouble has never become acclimatised there. the standard coin is the "mark," which equals a franc, and which contains ten "pennis." the mark has overflowed into lapland; and so that country, peopled though it may be by the oldest tribe in europe, and far behindhand in other matters, is still ahead of england in having the one civilised requisite of a decimal coinage. but of finnish marks in vardö there was not so much as a single specimen even on a watch-chain. norwegian kroner, dirty russian notes, and greasy kopecks were current in all abundance, and so were comely english sovereigns. but of money to help us into this fenced-in lapland we could not get one doit. and so, as an intermediate step, we procured roubles and kopecks, and a rare bother we had with them later on before we could get them exchanged further. but of that small distraction we were blissfully ignorant just then. we did not miss it either. we had quite enough other preliminary difficulties to keep us occupied. in the meanwhile the _windward_ was getting a new main-topsail yard and reefing spar made by a local ship's carpenter with a tendency to dipsomania, and in spite of her desperate hurry to depart polewards, she was kept lingering. and the good fellows we had chummed with during that pleasant voyage from the thames, pervaded the town, and competed with one another in abusing its all-embracing stink. but as the days went on, the stink was an atmospheric effect which one got used to, and i could imagine in time one would feel almost lonely without it. to use a professional term, it was the necessary "local colour." it never faltered in its vehemence, never varied in its ample quality. come gale, come rain, it was always there, always ready to touch the nostril with its firm caress. it tinctured the wind with its full-flavoured strength, it came off to the yacht and got into the onion salad on the cabin table, it even climbed down into the engine-room and odorised that with the essence of departed cod. one likened the smell of the place to the lamp of the persian fire-worshippers elsewhere. neither is ever allowed to go out. day by day one is replenished with oil, the other with new fishy débris, each with sacred care. for those northmen know that if once the stink of fish died out, vardö would cease to exist. the barren rocks of the island barely show so much as a blade of grass. nothing but fish stands between their town and obliteration. [illustration: the _windward_] chapter ii across the varanger fjord to elvenaes, with some observations on the fishing of finner whale, and a narrative of travels with a jew. one of the most looked-forward-to items of our original programme had been to see the _windward_ pull her anchors out of european mud for the last time before she went to wrestle with the arctic floe. but the ship's carpenter ashore who had in charge that new main-topsail yard was slow even in his sober moments; and although every one in authority raged at the delay, not even statements in anglo-saxon (or scottish) as to his personal worthiness could bustle him out of his dawdling gait. so in the end the _windwards_ saw us off, instead of our doing the like by them. we took passage across the broad varanger fjord to jarfjord in a little coaster, and as she steamed out between the harbour walls and met the roll outside, all hands on the _windward_, both forward and aft, yelled themselves hoarse, and we sent back our voices in reply. then up and down from their peak went the blue ensign, as the big expedition wished the little one luck, and we found a norwegian flag stopped on the rail, and hoisted that up to the head of the poop-staff (which was as high as my chin), and dipped it with all goodwill in reply. there were norwegians, and finns, and russians, and lapps on the coaster, come from the villages on the varanger to do their marketing at the big town, and at first i fancy they thought us englishmen mad, but after half an hour or so they most of them retired to the 'tween decks very sea-sick, and after that they ceased to give us any thought at all. we lolled down the northern coast of the varanger in the trough of a lusty swell, and periodically we called in at some small, bleak, dreary harbour, where drying nets formed a festoon before the houses, and drying cod on their wooden racks, and masses of gray inhospitable stone blocked in the background. then when we had negotiated all our ports of call the helm was starboarded, and we stood out across the broad waters of the fjord towards the gleaming snow mountains which hedged in the country of the lapps thirty miles away on the other side. fishers we passed on the way, russians with long hair and tartar faces, clumsy high-booted finns, and queer-garbed lapps, swinging over the swells in their viking boats, toiling at their miles of long-lines. and then a rain squall drove down, blotting out the view, and we cowered under the green canvas dodger in front of the wheel on the little coaster's spar deck, and shivered at the chill. but presently, out of the grayness of the rain squall there came an old familiar scent, and the mate at the wheel pulled lustily at the syren string to advertise our whereabouts. an answering hoot came back, and then through the mist a small green-painted steamer of some thirty tons burden loomed out, slowly bearing down upon us. her pace was almost imperceptible, but a cumbersome harpoon-shell gun on her stem-head gave us the necessary hint as to her occupation, and presently we could make out two towing hawsers astern of her, and a bloated finner whale made fast, tail foremost, to each. the fish were blown up like balloons with decomposition, and like balloons they were striped with longitudinal gores. their jaws were just awash, and oil oozed from them in a slimy fan. the smell of them was almost past endurance. the little green whaler had killed, perhaps, three hundred miles away, and was towing her catch back to the home factory for realisation. and a valuable catch it was too. the big black bull was worth all of £ ; and although the cow whale, which showed her ivory-white belly, was smaller, she would probably fetch her £ with bone at its then enormous price. this fishery of the blue-finned whale, or, as he is more technically named, the finner, is an industry of comparatively modern birth, and has its centre in these bleak northern seas. the right whale and the sperm whale have been hunted for how many centuries i do not know; the mist of ages has closed over the first capture, and not many more years will pass before the last score is nicked in the tally. the right whales have been chased almost entirely from the face of known waters; they are searched for from davis straits to the kara sea; ships have looked for them amongst the tabular bergs of the antarctic, but the fishery is on its last legs. even with bone at £ a ton, the nantucket and the peterhead owners are dropping out of what they consider a dying business. this newer fishery has, however, increased by such leaps and bounds that in the kill amounted to head. and all the credit is due to a norwegian skipper, one svend foyn. [illustration: towing home finner whales.] the finner is no stranger in the north. whalers of all countries have seen him spout and gambol for three hundred years, and have cursed him with maritime point and fluency. occasionally some harpooner, disbelieving tradition, made fast to a finner, and experienced that sensation which the _vaquero_ found when he lassoed the mexican state express. and as fishing implements developed, they shot at him with harpoon guns and riddled him with explosive lances. but the end was always the same, it was either "cut" or "swamp," and there was another white-painted whale boat losing way over the swells, with a white-faced crew, no harpoon, and an empty tub of line. until the finner whale defied the fishermen of the world, but in that year captain svend foyn went north with new ideas for conquering the brute's prodigious vitality; and though he did not succeed at first, though, indeed he was constantly at shoulder-touch with sudden death, he figured out the right scheme at last, and then reaped a harvest well earned. he died, only a year or two back, the richest man in norway. captain svend foyn went into this matter in middle life and already rich. he had two objects in view. in the first instance he wished to be successful where all the world had failed, and conquer the only animal remaining which man had not subdued. and in the second place he was desirous of making money. he was a man scientifically ignorant; he was quite uneducated beyond the narrow lines of his own craft; but he was full of wooden-headed pluck, and possessed of a mule's determination. he started in the right way. he discarded the slow, clumsy, single-topsail, wooden barque, with auxiliary steam, and her fleet of carvel-built rowing-boats, and set off in a steamer of fifty tons, which would tow in the wake of a harpooned finner without breaking the line. he believed that this would not only tire out the whale with quickness, but would also prevent the carcase from sinking to the bottom when life had gone, after its usual fashion. captain svend foyn's first experiences must have been exciting. he was frequently towed by some maddened fish at a twenty-knot rate through a heavy sea, with his fore-deck smothered with water up to the bridge. on these occasions the engines would be rung to "full astern," and the little steamer would hang on in tow for twelve hours at a stretch, and to the jaded sportsman, in search of a new sensation, this method of hunting may be recommended with confidence. but the conclusion was always the same; either captain foyn was forced to cut, or the harpoon drew; or the finner died and sunk: at any rate, he never gathered his game. time after time his harpoons made fast, and ninety tons of agonised living flesh plucked the little steamer, like a dragging child, across those desolate plains of ocean. years came and the years went, each dull with disappointment. but yet he did not give in. he mounted artillery, and bombarded the finner with heavy shot, and still without effect; he tried plot after plan, and plan after plot; he expended £ , and human limbs in his experiments, and finally, out of all the failures he evolved success. he mounted on the stem-head of his steamer a stunted heavy-breeched gun, which carried an explosive bomb with a huge harpoon, weighing together over eighty english pounds. the idea of playing the finner like a trout was abandoned once and for all. the explosion of the bomb shot it dead; its huge vitality was snapped in a second, and a three-inch warp made fast to the harpoon kept it from sinking, where a thinner whale line would have been snapped. the strongest fish that swam in all the seas was beaten, and captain svend foyn patented his tactics and took off his oilskins. then the business part of him came in, and, until his monopoly ceased, his launches were catching a hundred finners a year, which may be valued at £ apiece. the fishery has spread since that monopoly granted by law has run out, and other people are permitted now to profit by the schemes evolved from captain svend foyn's brain. anywhere where the rice-like animacula on which the whale feeds are to be found, there the little whaling steamers may be seen also, with a look-out man peering from the crow's nest at their foremast head. in the fjords and bays which lie round that grim coast to eastwards of the north cape, in iceland, and even up some of the snug inlets of the varanger fjord, are numberless stations where the little steamers can bring their catch for caldrons and axes to resolve into its commercial elements. the finner soon swells after he is dead, and lies on the water like a half-submerged balloon, striped, too, balloon fashion, with gore-like seams. the tail flukes are cut adrift, and he is towed ignominiously stern first, with a wake of oil fanning out from his jaws, and a smell which grows with the days, and beats down the crisp sea air. but when the finner is beached, and the axes and spades strip off the blubber from the pink beef below, and cut away the whalebone from the head, then there arises a stink which poisons heaven. still, custom is everything. the workers toil at the trying-out the oil, at resolving the carcase into manure, and tinned meats, and cow-fodder, and at packing the precious bone, and it never strikes them that a smell is abroad which is almost palpable in its solidness. but use is everything in tackling these sort of scents. we were beginning to find that out for ourselves. meanwhile the cold was making us blue. we had amplified our wardrobes by the purchase of a leather coat apiece in vardö, and we had on these, and slop-chest oilskins, but the frosty gale beat through them all as though they had been gossamer silk. to go below was impossible. the coaster's 'tween decks was an aceldama of unfettered sea-sickness. the only warm spot on the spar deck was the engine-room skylight, and that was occupied by a festive jew carousing with the skipper and a couple of farmers from the russian side. we did not feel inclined to rejoice with them just then, for, to tell the truth, we were deadly tired. it was ten o'clock at night, and staring daylight, of course. but then it had been staring daylight with us continuously since we crossed the arctic circle a fortnight before, and as it is hard to put in regular sleep with the sun burning high in the heavens, we had missed many a regular watch below. and the reaction was on us then. so we turned in on the deck planks below the green canvas dodgers in front of the coaster's wheel, and slept solidly and refreshingly for two whole hours. the hoot of the syren roused us. we had crossed the broad waters of the fjord, and were close in to the other side. high bare mountains covered with snow that was dappled with hummocky rock rose sheer up from the surf. the sky above was gray and cold. the place was indescribably sterile and savage. at one point, cowering at the foot of the mountains, a little white building stood out like some roosting sea-fowl against a background of dark craggy rock. we were heading towards it, and gradually as we closed with the coast it shaped itself into a church. it was oscarkirche, which marks the sea end of the frontier line which delimits russia and norway. we shut off steam here, and a boat came out to us from the beach. there is a russian fishing village in a masked bay to the eastward, to which we sent a pedlar ashore with a travelling box of buttons and german knives. poor man, he did not seem to anticipate a large rush of business, if one could judge from his face as he lowered himself and his pack into the dancing boat. and yet probably his coming was the event of the summer. it is hard to conceive a more desolate place than that russian fishing village. but it was a summer settlement only. in winter it was deserted. and the russian government do their best to foster its puny trade. it is a free port; there is no customs duty on either imports or exports: canny russia does not wish to thrust available trade into the hands of its norwegian neighbour next door. away we steamed again just outside the spouting reefs, towards the jacob's elv. the wind was blowing straight down on us from polar ice, and the cold was bitter. a whale swam parallel to us, some half mile to seaward, sending up at intervals spouts of feathery gray-blue fog. we put into many dreary little coves, where a handful of fisher-folk, with their backs against the snow and the grim walls of stone, dragged a small living from the cold waters which lapped against their thresholds. we lay off the beaches whilst these came off and did their traffic, and then on again through the reefs to the next stop. wretched as these villages were, their populace had always spirit on hand to wrangle over politics, and no irish nationalist could hate his "dacent protestant" neighbour as thoroughly and efficiently as one of these semi-savages who held "left" opinions could loathe another who belonged to the "right." and they carried this distaste beyond their social relations. they had the "boycott" in full working order; "right" would not trade with "left" under any pretence whatever; and if left could push "right" a little farther towards starvation than his normal half-fed average, he considered he was doing the state a personal service. at another time we could have moralised over this self-hindrance principle with weight and dignity, but just then we were too wrapped up in our own discomforts and the prospects of worse to follow to worry very much over the foolishness of other fools. the chill was making us shudder. the grim, savage hills of stone seemed to speak of an infinity of hardships and wretchedness before we sighted the waters of the bothnia. and each of us told the other so often that he "liked it," that the very repetition of the statement gave it the lie. alone of all the ship's company the jew did not mind. he sat down below, and nipped brandy all the live-long night, and roared songs in all the tongues of pentecost. he was a most cheery fellow. we were off the entrance to jarfjord a little after midnight. the sun was high above the poop-staff. the air was clear and icy, and spray leaped in jets from reefs on every side of us. the entrance to the fjord lay amongst a huddle of glacier-worn rocks, with a great table mountain set up in the middle of them, all snow-clad, all entirely sterile. the little coaster wound in and out amongst the reefs with easy confidence. two small whitened islets, alive with sea-fowl, masked the entrance; and spouts of mist like the blowing of whales rose up from reefs awash on either beam. it was a giddy piece of pilotage. in the crevices, snow lay down to the water's edge, all browned with dust. it was hard to imagine any spot more savage, and grim, and desolate. but a change came swiftly. once we had passed the mouth of this sea-river, and green tints grew on the rock walls, which deepened as we steamed on. it was only slime at first, but then came patches of moss, then bosky lawns of grass, and dwarf shrubs in the more sheltered corries. the snow line on the hillsides rose towards the summits. the snow patches in the crevices below grew smaller and more few. then in a tiny bay we saw a cabin of logs set in a glow of green. here was young rye sprouting. and yet that horrible coast line of the varanger which we had just left was only two miles distant, and by straining the eye we could see the horizon whiten where the seas creamed over the guardian reefs. [illustration: the gates of russian lapland.] the walls of the fjord were still high and some quarter of a mile apart. the lane of water ran between them, straight as a canal. but always as we went on mountains grew lower. presently at the mouth of a contributory valley we opened out on a small settlement of felt-roofed wooden houses, with what looked like colossal pink sausages drawn up on the beach before them. as we drew nearer a waft of odour came to us down a slant of the wind, and we laughed in pleasure because we were going to meet again old friends that we thought we had left behind for good. the pink sausages were flensed finner whales. in the wooden buildings they were trying out the blubber, sorting and packing the precious bone, and working up the beef into its many useful shapes. and the smell of it all filled the air till one could almost dredge it out in handfuls. once more we steamed on, beyond sight of the sea now, with the mountains drooping to mere uplands on the fjord sides, with the scrub trees replaced by forests of graceful twenty-foot birches, which covered the gentle slopes. the air was warm--warm as an english summer. and, note well the occasion, the first mosquito came to us. we hailed him as a friend then. hayter had seen him last in florida, i had heard his music a year before on the gold coast, and we both mentioned that the mosquitoes had no power over us, that our skins were invulnerable. little did we know the biting power of this northern monster; bitterly were we to learn it. the fjord narrowed, the little steamer anchored, and we put ashore with some score of others. our slender baggage was to go round to elvenaes, on the syd varanger, but we had elected to walk across the intervening neck of land. and now with the memory big in us of that grim savage coast not a dozen miles away, we stepped out down a veritable country lane between slender birches, with linnets singing behind the foliage on either hand. there were oak ferns and bracken under the trees, and in the open meads, buttercups, pansies, cow-parsley, forget-me-nots, wild pelargonium, dandelions, ranunculi, bright pink campions, and cranberries, with everlasting moss, and other mosses, and grotesque lichens in all abundance. the comely woods were musical with birds, and portioned off by rustic fences. here and there were gates, slung on hinges, and then would come a fine trim house of logs covered with painted weather boarding. we might have been walking in the tyrol. and when we remembered that the arctic circle was over two hundred miles farther to the southward, and the desolation we had come through still close at hand to the north, we had to grant that nature could perform more white magic than we ever credited her with before. the narrowing fjord ended in a rolling bay, and against a boat-house built there was a great cemetery of reindeer horns, heaped up as things of no beauty or value. a stream went on beside the road, babbling into idyllic trout-pools. cow-bells tinkled from within the woods. the passengers from the coaster had branched off singly and in groups till only seven of us were left: the roystering jew, a gloomy young farmer in high boots, with his sick wife, a nondescript girl, and our two selves. at intervals we talked, and the jew gathered flowers for the women, and then we came to a large house of wood. it was exactly three o'clock in the morning, but in this sunlit land no one troubles much with bed, and the owner was standing in his doorway to take the air. the jew made discourse--all tongues seemed equally facile to him,--and the householder came out and shook us all by the hand, and insisted that we should come inside. the women went off in charge of his women-kind, but us men he took into the parlour, where we gazed upon a picture of martin luther, some sloyd work, and an elaborate stove, and watched the farmer grow drowsy over yarns of bear-hunting in the winter months. but presently our host set before us beer--delicious bayersk öl--which we all drank standing, with a heartfelt cry of "skaal"! we wanted that beer badly, and it came to us as a pleasant surprise. we fancied we had left such luxuries behind us for many a long week; for lapland is what they call in america "a prohibition state." the jew by this time had quite assumed our chaperonage, and though inclined to linger over his beer and to hint at another bottle, said he would come with us when we decided to start. our fellow-travellers came to the door to see us off. the sick woman had grown quite a pretty colour from her walk and from the mild excitement of drinking milk. and we took leave of them all with handshakes as though they were ancient friends. finally, the jew tore himself away, and we set out again towards elvenaes under his convoy. he was a truly joyous creature, this strayed hebrew, full of carnal appetites, but revelling in the beauties of this arctic oasis which we were passing through. he discoursed poetry, time-tables, natural history, and the price of furs all in the same breath. he was full of surprising moods (and i fear a trifle drunk), and he swung his brandy-bottle in one hand, and carried a black umbrella tucked under the other arm. he knew all about our expedition and bubbled with advice: there were no horses procurable even if horses would have been any good; there was a russian boundary commission at work in the neighbourhood, which had mopped up all the horses, and all the boats, and all the available men; the neiden route to enare was quite impracticable: our way was to push up the pasvik elv, and if we would leave it to him he would see that we got both boats and men, even if he had to impress russian soldiers for our carriers. he was a most liberal jew--with promises, and other people's beer. pines were growing by the wayside now, and heath, and delicate shrubs. the road was a real road, metalled and embanked, with wooden bridges over the streams, and stone culverts to carry away the water. low wooded hills rose on either side, and the notes of cuckoos floated down to us faintly over their tree-tops. the scenery was delicately beautiful. we might have been walking through a park, suitable (as the advertisements say) for a nobleman or country gentleman. the one drawback to our perfect pleasure were the thickening swarms of mosquitoes. the jew suffered from them terribly. but even they did not damp his spirits. he slapped the insect pests from his crimson face with a whisk of green leaves, whistled a stirring march, waved the brandy-bottle as a drum major waves his cane, and stepped out finely. as we went on, higher mountains came into view ahead, violet-tipped on their wooded summits. the road wound stolidly on over bridges, and embankments, and hollows. lakes appeared round which we had to skirt, and then other lakes with wooded islands, and cascades tinkling down into them from the hills. the jew struck up the soldier's march out of gounod's _faust_ to words of his own to put spirit into the pace, and grew more hot, and slapped at the mosquitoes more busily than ever. he gave us names for all the lakes we passed, and all the rivers, and all the hills, and even went so far in his courtesy as to invent titles for streams that did not negotiate a dozen gallons of water to the hour. the guide mania was strong in him, and he was touching us on a tender place. gradually, by failing to notice his remarks, and by skirmishing off the road to hunt for the nests of birds, we contrived to let the festive one draw ahead, and for the next two miles we marched on together in peaceful enjoyment. we had crossed the divide; we were heading down into the beautiful valley of the pasvik elv where it joins the syd varanger; and we were almost within touch of this mysterious lapland, which the wise of vardö had done so much to keep us away from. but we had not done with the jew yet. a dip of the road and a sudden turn brought us in view of a gorgeous vista up the wooded pasvik valley. the silver river sat between two sloping walls of greenery, from which the cuckoos called; and where it forked, a white turreted chapel reared up from beneath an umber cliff. in the distance beyond, the whole river leaped down rocks in a cascade of foaming cream. and there on a bench by the roadside sat our hebrew incubus waiting for us. he raised the brandy bottle, swigged out the dregs, and quoted heine. then "boris gleb" said he, and waved the empty flagon towards the pure white tracery of the chapel. and "russia" quoth he, and flung the bottle towards the rearing wall of trees beyond the river. he slid off on to the turf, and settled himself luxuriously for a doze, and we annexed the bench. we stayed there an hour absorbing the beauties of that scene, and i think speculating not a little on the unknown lapland which lay beyond. and then the tinkle of a bell roused us. a horse came past, trotting up the road; and after him came a lapp, with a bridle in his hand, trying to catch the horse. we got up and moved away. the jew was still sleeping on the turf under the sunlight. it was the last we ever saw of him, and although we are in his debt for beer and fiction, i do not think we ever want to see him more. a little farther on we came across a big shingle-roofed house with outbuildings, set on a neck of land above the narrows, which commands a prospect up and down the river; and there we found entertainment. it was half-past seven in the morning, so we had supper and went to bed. we made the most of those two unexpected beds. we did not come across beds again for many a weary mile. [illustration: deep-sea fishing] chapter iii by canoe to the neiden, with an account of the russian lapp's daubsfest at boris gleb the lapp in lapland has his moments of personal cleanliness, as will be remarked in their place. the russian lapp, who resides outside lapland proper, especially if he be of the fisher variety, scorns the outward application of soap and water. in summer a good cake of dirt, especially if it be well smeared in with tar, goes far to ward off the incessant gnawings of the mosquito; and in winter, when the mercury of a thermometer moves always sluggishly far below zero, what poor man would willingly strip off an extra coat of clothing? the russian lapp indeed has few true and lappish attributes. he resembles far more nearly the ordinary russian _moujik_. he would even wear the orthodox knee-boot if he could afford it, but he is usually in a state of abject poverty, and attires himself in whatever rags may come to hand. he is not in the least picturesque. cover up his face and hair, and put him in a bradford street, and he would pass for a british tramp, without work, or any inclination to find work. but his gipsyish face, with its black, beady eyes, and high cheek-bones, might betray him somewhat, and anyway the cut of his hair, which is worn along the eyebrows in front and fringing the coat collar (_à la moujik_) behind, would cause the more curious of bradford wayfarers to turn round and stare. the lapp is not much in the reindeer business here on the russian side. to begin with, the country is ill-adapted to the raising of deer, as it is mostly made up of lake and swamp; and as a further reason, the demand for venison here would be small, since the russian orthodox church prohibits meat for quite half the year. so fishing becomes the lapp's chief industry, and by fishing he manages to wriggle along just beyond the grip of starvation. he permeates the lower reaches of the pasvik elv and the shores of the syd varanger fjord in considerable quantities, and there is a settlement of him at boris gleb, just below the falls of the pasvik, round the white turreted church which we had seen from the jarfjord road. at boris gleb he is at his best. he is under the direct eyebrow of holy russia at boris gleb, and has his place in statistics as an orthodox member of the greek church. his houses are of wood, raised above the damp of floods on curious three-foot piles, and the elements of sanitation are taught to him by official pressure. he is not obtrusively sanitary, even in boris gleb, which is by way of being a model village, with a rather high-class patron saint, whom the devout from afar honour with pilgrimages; but he wears there a kind of official "company manners," and he is quaintly ready to be stared at by the foreigner. in the elvenaes neighbourhood he is known as a skolte, or bald lapp, because though in the present year of grace he wears an ordinary head of hair, at one time a skin disease ran through the community and made the heads as bare as a boulder of ice-worn rock. now under the brilliant glare of a summer sun, boris gleb is not a good place to visit. gazed at from afar--say from above elvenaes, as we saw it first--it is a fairy chapel set in beauty. looked at close-to, it is merely a flimsy building of wood, freakishly architected, and painted an indifferent white. the inside is tawdry. the priest is a vulgar showman who would bring out his mother's corpse for a fee, and the interesting model skolte lapps are just about as artificial as all the rest of the paraphernalia. one does not exactly blame either parson or flock; they are the possessors of a spectacle, and they exhibit it for a living; only one kicks one's self for going to stare. but boris gleb during one night of the long dark gloom of winter shows a very different scene. on the russian th of january (the th by our reckoning) there takes place the annual daubsfest, and from over the bleak snows of the fjeld come in the reindeer sledges of lapps who hold to the orthodox faith. for a week previous to the th, they are straggling in towards the sacred place, and they crowd into the wooden houses of the skolte lapps settlement, and spend much time in prayer. on the th of january there is a solemn fast. on the day of the daubsfest they all come out of the warm lamp-lit houses into the arctic gloom, men and women both, treading barefoot in the snow, all clad merely in a single linen shirt. they are girt under the arm-pits by a stout woollen scarf, and in that bitter windy cold they march three times round the church, solemnly chanting. the priest in his stiff embroidered robes leads, and he is a showman no longer now, but an earnest russian pope; and with him go the surpliced acolytes bearing candles. three times round the white church they move, the icy wind whipping the bare bodies of the singers, and the snow curls wreathing round their ankles. and then they go off to the middle of the frozen river, and the ceremony proceeds. a hole has been dug with hatchets through the ice, and one by one the lapps come forward from the circle of worshippers, and the attendants take them in charge. they lay hold of the scarf beneath the arms, and the pilgrim is soused once, twice, and a third time deep into the cold black water which scours so swiftly beneath the ice; and each time the pope waves the three-armed crucifix before the pilgrim's eyes before they go under. and when all have been immersed, they go back to the houses, men and women both, and rub themselves with cloths, and put on deerskin cloaks, and drink scalding tea in all abundance; and they begin on the morrow to collect upon their persons another twelve months' dirt. but whilst it is in action, that daubsfest at boris gleb is an impressive spectacle. the crowd of shirt-clad lapps standing there in the cold and dark of the arctic night, the faint light of the candles and torches flaring in the wind, the long-haired pope in his stiff, embroidered vestments bright with barbaric colours, the aurora borealis burning with its unspeakable glories far off on the northern sky, and the great white church looming weirdly through the gloom, make up a sight that few who have seen it will ever be inclined to forget. * * * * * [illustration: daubsfest at boris gleb.] at elvenaes once more a change of plan was forced upon us, and this time it was the czar who interfered. his imperial majesty had sent a boundary commission to fix the frontier line between his possessions and those of his cousin of norway, and almost all the available men of boris gleb and elvenaes had gone to the commissioner's camp either as servants, or advisers, or mere camp followers. consequently the passage to enare see up the pasvik elv, which requires many arms to wield the paddles and make the portages, was debarred. the utmost force we could rake up was two dilapidated russian skolte lapps, who would ferry us in a canoe by the fjords and rivers to the neiden, where we must trust to luck in finding carriers who would take us through overland. we accepted the alternative with philosophy, and told them we would start at once. they said "certainly," and proceeded to waste the next two hours in elaborately doing nothing. we sat down and smoked and watched them: they were most laborious over it; they sweated and perspired; and at last, having completed nothing most satisfactorily, they announced smilingly that they were ready to get under way, and we stepped on board. the little craft was very much like a canadian canoe in her lines, and floated corkily. she was stained a rich saddle-colour with tar, which came off in generous patches where one leaned against it. the younger lapp (whom we called morris, through his resemblance to an acquaintance) sat on the floor-boards forward, with his back in the curve of the bow, and sculled with a pair of paddles which worked in withy beckets on thole pins. feodor, the skipper, squatted aft, with his paddles also in beckets, and laboured on whichever side was required. as no more paddles were available, we two english posed as passengers, and lay in magnificence amidship on a luxurious couch of young green birch shoots, with our worldly goods and chattels bestowed fore and aft of us. the canoe just held her load, and there was nothing much to spare, and the lapps occupied another half hour in getting her trimmed to their satisfaction. then morris pushed out into the swirling rapids of the pasvik, and we left behind us elvenaes, and those who waved us farewell, probably for always. that journey down the syd varanger lingers in the memory. a blazing sun dwelt overhead, in a sky as blue as one could see in tripoli. the fjord sides were sloped in graceful curves and draped with comely greenery. the cuckoo cried to us from the woods. the air above the deep-blue water was dancing with heat, and flights of whirring cormorants and duck gave it life. i think, too, that our sense of comfort was accentuated by the knowledge that not a dozen miles to the northward the cold waves of the varanger chilled the fishers to the bone, and frozen cliffs and snowy ridges glared icily at the sky. comfort and complacency depend so much upon comparisons. the absence of mosquitoes, too, was very grateful. our faces were all mottled in close patterns from the bitings of the day before, and we told ourselves then that we had paid the initiation fee and had earned immunity for the future. we thought that past experience had taught us all about mosquitoes, but we were destined to learn a deal more about the northern variety of the breed before we were through at the other side of arctic lapland. the two lapp canoe men provided us in the meanwhile with plenty of food for observation. feodor was the wily one. work was not a thing feodor loved, and he shirked it like a diplomatist. one or other of his thole pins was constantly carrying away. that naturally had to be replaced. to do this he unshipped his paddles (which had blades shaped like the "warre" oar at eton) and clambered forward over the baggage, and sorted amongst the green boughs which formed our couch, till he found a piece of stick of suitable diameter. he had got a reliable eye, and always chose one that would be certain to break if properly handled; and then he went aft again and whittled it accurately down to size with his sheath-knife. then he would give the withy beckets a thoughtful overhaul, and by the time he had got his paddles shipped again and in the water, he had usually earned a good twenty minutes' shirk. he was a wrinkled little gnome, this skipper of ours, incredibly dirty, and brimming with good humour. he had one available eye that gleamed like a bird's, and over the other he wore a grimy patch made fast with a piece of rope yarn round his lank black hair. later on, when we got into a breeze, this patch kept blowing up and caused him much annoyance. it seemed that the eye itself was missing, and the wind got into the empty socket and gave him cold in the head. for which very sufficient reason he shipped his starboard paddle and held the patch in place with the spare hand, so as to keep out the draught. he was a wonderfully agile "sugarer" was this elderly skolte lapp. morris was different. he plugged away in the bows with never a grunt and never an easy. he rowed about thirty strokes to the minute, just in the water and out again, with a bent arm and without much pretence at a swing. one of us gauged these matters with a professional eye, but we did not feel inclined just then to set to work and reform the rowing style of lapland. he was a whimsical fellow, this same morris, always grinning at something, and always shaking back his wispy black hair from the front of his eyes. we tried to tempt him into travelling up-country with us, but he shuddered at the idea of getting out of touch with his birthplace. * * * * * we turned out of the syd varanger into bogofjord and crept up by the flank of gray walls of naked upright rock against a strong ebb-tide, and amused ourselves by taking occasional compass-bearings, and marvelling at the inaccuracy of the published maps. once we put ashore on a shelving rock covered with mussels, and the crew lunched off kippered salmon, which they ripped from the family joint in pieces with their fingers as they required it; and afterwards they sought recreation by scratching themselves thoroughly for half an hour. then morris put on a pair of fingerless, brown-skin gloves to keep his delicate paws from blistering, and we started again. a brown team of eider duck rustled past us, _ventre à l'eau_, heading for the sea, and then a school of porpoises surged by the canoe in chase of a shoal of flickering silver fish. swarms of mosquitoes accompanied the canoe in a noisy biting cloud, and it was some gloomy satisfaction to note that the lapps suffered equally with ourselves. feodor indeed suffered so much annoyance that he actually knocked off work to tie a grimy kerchief carefully round his head, which it took him twenty minutes to accomplish before he had managed it to his complete satisfaction. broods of duck, some familiar, some strange, began to flight, and we sighed and broke the tenth commandment. but the gun perforce had to stay in its mackintosh housing. the norwegian government (very properly) keeps a fatherly eye on all the game within its marches, and has appointed vigorous close-seasons for all except the outlaw wolf, the bear, the lynx, the fox, and wild cat. and they ram home the edict by a good healthy fine for wrongdoers, and a reward for the informer. once over the russian border it would be different. there are no game laws in arctic lapland. there is very little law of any description. we could bag there whatever came in our way. in fact, feodor assured us with an impish grin that we might shoot a laplander should we feel so disposed, provided always we ate him afterwards so as to conceal the carcass from a possible public view. feodor, the one-eyed, was occasionally rather grisly in his ideas of wit and humour. a heavy, drenching rain-squall came on and blotted out all view, and beat up a small, steep sea, which gave feodor all he could do to keep the little canoe from being swamped; and as it was, we two passengers had to bale industriously to keep the water under. but we did not mind; the mosquitoes were driven away, and it was an ecstasy to be without them; the rain, too, cooled our itching bites. but when we crossed the big fjord for the last time, and turned up between the low alluvial banks of the neiden elv, the wet squall blew over, and the sun blazed out again, making creation steam. the mosquitoes came back promptly and punctually, and got to work. on the mud banks, flocks of woodcock were digging for supper. small black ducks took their fluffy broods for excursions on the broad shallow river, where salmon leaped for sheer sportiveness. wading fowl plodded and cried in the adjacent marshes, and from the graceful birch forests which covered the alluvial flats, cuckoos hooted news of stolen nests. all the arctic world was rejoicing in its summer. and then civilisation began. there was a scrap of fencing here, and a rail to dry grass on there. a tiny hay barn on stilts perched gingerly on a promontory, and farther on was a hut with a man building wood sledges before his door. then came five houses on a bluff, spread over half a mile, then two more single dwellings, and afterwards naked river bank and scrub forest. we had passed the thick of neiden town. the shallow river was narrowing, and it became harder to push the canoe up against the stream. presently some rapids showed in black and white ahead, and feodor put the canoe's nose on a bank, and announced with a heartfelt sigh that the voyage was over. we got ashore, we and our chattels, and within an hour we had found a hospitable roof. we spent some time there in talk, and then we set off along a narrow, muddy, trail up-stream parallel to the rapids. it seemed there was a man with influence who had a farm farther on, and if any one could collect carriers to take our goods across to enare see, he was the man to do it. so we tramped along the trail till we came to the river again above the rapids, and then ferried over and called on the man with influence. he got out of bed to receive us; yes, he could do this thing we desired--for a consideration; and so we bought his influence, and bade him set about his collection there and then. we walked on up the bank of the river to the falls of the neiden, where the best salmon pools lie. there was a russian chapel on the way--a rude, bare cabin of naked logs, with a shuttered window, and a three-armed cross on one of its gables. the lower arm of these crosses is always on the slant, as by russian tradition christ had one leg shorter than the other. the finns and norwegians round here are lutherans to a man, and they look upon everything outside lutheranism as degrading superstition. so naturally they do nothing to keep the chapel in repair. and the stray lapps from the russian side, to whom it belongs, are too miserably poor to notice much the chapel's squalor and wretchedness. there was a graveyard round this lonely fane of an alien faith--a bare, unenclosed patch of mounds, each surmounted by an axe, or shovel, or some implement used by the departed during his earthly life, and it struck me that heathendom and christianity are sometimes very closely akin. not a year before i had seen graves in central african villages similarly decorated. farther on were the falls; and though they were too long to be impressive from a mere jaded sight-seer's point of view, they were most appetising when we considered the pools and rapids with the eye of a fisher for salmon. and here again was another grave, that of a man carried down the river from above, and stranded dank and drowned on a jutting rock of the foss. there was no headstone to speak of his fate and virtues, the mouldering remains of the usual overground coffin showed the manner of his sepulture. we laid the compass on the mound, and found it was orientated accurately magnetic east and west, not allowing for the variation. so the man had been buried with care and christian hands, and not bundled into a box and covered up where he lay. and yet he had not been thought worth taking down to one of the lutheran graveyards on the lower fjords. we wondered much what his story might be, but we could form no very reasonable hypothesis, nor could we find any person round there in the neiden district who would tell us. they all reddened and said they did not know. there was a quaintly cumbersome pipe on this lonely grave, and as it happened we were both collectors of the curious in smoking utensils. it was a temptation to carry it away. let it be recounted then as something of a small virtue that we left the pipe where it lay. [illustration: feodor and morris--two skilte lapps] chapter iv from the neiden elv to enare see, with pungent comment on the habits of finnish carriers the salmon fisheries of the neiden river are jealously guarded assets. some are held by riparian proprietors whose rights go to the imaginary line of mid-stream. these are norwegians and finns for the most part, though they might be hebrews from the carefulness with which they strive not to be defrauded of a single fish. and the balance is state's land, rented out in the usual way. nets are abundant, set out to stakes, with one end on shore; but rod-fishing is growing commoner. the local rod-fisherman, however, is but a crude production. his "pole" is comely enough, though heavy, but he persists in fishing a colossal fly of the "jock scott" order, ten times too big, and he uses it as though the water were a gong and the salmon could be attracted only by noise. once hooked, the fish either breaks him or is jerked skyward like a silver bird. he would not play a whale; he does not know that such a process exists. the neiden fisherman goes out in a canoe, and his wife or a friend poles him in or about the rapids. the fish do not run big--a twenty-pounder is rare--but there are plenty of them, and the local artist annexes just as many as a very green amateur has any right to expect. salmon-fishing to him has much the same interest as mowing swamp-grass for his cows, or cutting cord-wood for the winter: it is part of the daily labour, and it never occurs to him to look upon it as a sport. in fact the item of "sport" has been left out of his education; he looks with suspicion on any one who hankers after it; and, as a consequence, asks prices for using a rod on his bit of a stream which would be dear on the namsen or any other crack salmon rivers of accessible western norway. it is not that he is averse to fingering the kroner note. on the contrary, he has a very great affection for money. but he has an exalted notion of the value of things, and, moreover, he is woodenly conservative. he likes to handle the salmon himself. he splits it open and kippers it, after which he stores the worst specimens away for future personal consumption, and packs off the balance to some place on the vavanger fjord, where a steamer calls which will exchange it either for coin or groceries. his father did this, and his son will do it also, unless by the son's time no fish should be left in the river, as at the present rate of destruction may very well happen. but even had the fishing prospects of the neiden river been ten times more appetising, they would not have induced us to make a stay there. the interior of lapland lay beyond--a place of great lakes and rivers, of vast deer-packs and nomad herders; and we hungered to be amongst it all. over night--under the blaze of a twelve o'clock sun--we had commissioned a man to find us carriers, and in the morning we crossed the river below that lonely russian chapel, we and our goods, and in ten minutes the real troubles of the journey had fairly begun. never were such carriers. they were all able-bodied finns, though one (and he was the strongest) had a hump like a brahmin cow, another had a hare-lip, and the headman possessed a most virulent squint; but they were the most impracticable creatures that ever slouched over the face of the earth. our luggage was not heavy; two negro carriers on the congo or the gold coast would have capered with the whole lot of it; but through a wish for long quick marches, we had made it up into three light loads. there were two sacks, and a canvas-covered box containing a few tins, some cartridges, and four pounds of cake tobacco. now we both knew something about packs and loads in other parts of the world; but the finn carrier was new to us, and his ways were strange; and it is always dangerous to introduce customs from a distance for consumption in a country whose difficulties you do not understand. so although we made suggestions, we did not insist on them, and the carriers muddled on with the preparations in their own way. the neat, rectangular, canvas-covered box was eliminated first. we had looked upon it as an ideal "load"; in africa there would have been a vigorous scramble for it; but the finns said it was impossible to tackle anyhow. they scouted all suggestions of slinging, or carrying it hammock fashion, and fetched out another sack and made a re-stowal. naturally the bundle so contrived was about as impossible to carry on human shoulders as a live porcupine would have been. so a blanket was taken out of one of the sacks and used as a pad. and next the sacks were objected to, and their contents split up, till finally our possessions were made into seven bundles of much fragility. they worked hard over making this muddle; they took two mortal hours over it, and frequently called upon us for assistance; but finally they limbered up with the help of abundance of thongs of reindeer hide and rope, and we put backs to the river and set off on our march. the first halt came at the end of the first three hundred yards; a load had very naturally began to shift, and they all sat down to readjust it. the second halt came at the quarter mile, and then the stoppages became more frequent. we came to a standstill eight several times before we had covered the first mile, and expended exactly two hours and a half of time in doing it. and as during all this time the sun was blazing upon us with scorching force and the mosquitoes were biting like dogs, we were not unspeakably happy. this start up to the fjeld was over sandy river-beds, through streams, swamps, and neck-high scrub. a month earlier the country had been under snow; a week before the tree buds had not burst; and here were dwarf birches and the arctic willows in full leaf, and barely so much as a patch of white left even in the crannies of the distant hills. the arctic summer has a great deal of work to get through in a very short space of time, and rushes its climatic effects. but, worst of all, the mosquito season had opened ten days before, and was in full swing. and such mosquitoes! their cousins of africa and the southern states were nothing to them. they came in their milliards, gaunt gray fellows, without one grain of fear for death. they got their trunks inserted in some unlucky pore, and presently their bodies, from the wing-sockets backwards, would grow into transparent scarlet blobs. we were covered with blood splashes from slaying these vampires, and sore with slapping at them; but it was some selfish consolation to see that the men of the place suffered equally. each of the finns carried a bottle of brown stockholm tar, which dangled from the waist-belt against his knife, and with the contents of this he liberally anointed both face and hands. but this did little more than convert the wearer into an animated fly-trap. we employed tar for the complexion ourselves till we were nearly through to the other side of the country, and then we gave it up and used it for the boots alone, and noted no difference in our discomforts. we had veils each of us, but these were not often available. they got entangled by passing shrubs; the enemy would get inside once every minute or so, however carefully the edges were tucked in, and this entailed a hunt and a blood splash, and, finally, the mesh blurred the view, which was a fatal objection. there was no vestige of path to guide our caravan, and the man with a squint who led was more than once at a loss, and we had to give him hints from the compass. this ground is never travelled over in summer, and but rarely in winter. the enare district is entered and left by the pasvik elv. the going was very rough. occasionally we got out on to dry ground and scrambled over tumbled boulders, or groped our way down slippery rock faces; but for the most part we trod quaking marsh, which either swung under our weight, or let us through into brown tarns of slime. at the outset we were inclined to envy the finns, who, in their national boot, which reaches to mid-thigh, went over a good deal of swamp dry-shod; but when first one and then another got ducked to the middle, we began to see that there were advantages in less defensive foot-gear. that first stretch across the fjeld was a typical piece of primeval ground. no one except nature had tampered with it since the beginning of time. even where the surface was dry there was often a liquid substratum, and little mud volcanoes rose from dessication cracks which were a mile away from the nearest open swamp. but the desolation of the place was cruel. there were no birds, no animals, nothing but the humming insects. only once during that day did i hear a solitary curlew's scream, and that seemed wafted to our ears from an infinite distance. we crossed the russian frontier in the middle of a lake-pitted moor, and thought with some grim amusement of the foreign office passports with their hieroglyphical visés, lying packed with the tobacco in the middle of the humpback's load. the marches of holy russia are not so carefully patrolled as the stay-at-home blood-and-thunder novelist would have one to suppose. and just about there we halted for perhaps the fiftieth time that day and made a temporary camp. [illustration: finn carriers crossing russian frontier.] these halts live in the memory more than any other feature of the country. the sitting down to wait perhaps twenty minutes, perhaps an hour, in a stew of insects, and then repacking the loads and starting off again at a gait which rarely amounted to the pace of two miles an hour, was indescribably wearying. when we had lapps for carriers all this was changed; they were willing, cheery, and active creatures who always did their best--but more of them later. with these high-booted finns, however, it was almost always the same. they were weak, unwieldy, unhandy. they could not keep a footing on rock; they were about as helpless as camels on soft ground; and they always made a point of getting as badly bogged as possible in every swamp. they were sullen boors without an ounce of pluck, and if one attempted to hurry them at all they collapsed at once. up to this point the ground had been slowly rising all the way, and the air was growing cooler. as we went on, the swamp grew more rare. the water collected in little lakes, and under foot we trod for the most part on rock pavements worn smooth by a thousand centuries of water and weather. there were fewer birches, but here and there an abortive pine twisted and squirmed some five or a dozen feet above the naked stone, to hint at the vast forests of his giant fellows which lay only a few hundred miles to the southward. and underfoot, between the outcrops of rock, were here and there patches of ivory-yellow reindeer moss. but when we reached the divide, and looked down over the country on the southern side, the reindeer moss had taken full possession. the pale sulphur tint was everywhere, but still the fjeld was deserted. there was not a deer in sight. all that rich lichenous growth was left to run to waste. only one living animal did we see on the whole day's march, and that was a tiny black-and-tan lemming, which i caught in my hand and (to his surprise) let go again. the country round here is, however, used largely as a camping-ground by lapps during the winter, and the yellow moss, though crumbling and dry as sand, feeds the deer till they are rolling with fat. it is a very deep snowfall or a very hard frost which makes these pastures inaccessible. in winter the deer break the snow-crust with their great splayed fore-hoofs, and then dig down like terriers, till they are often browsing at the foot of a pit which completely hides them from any one on the surface. for cold weather the migrating fjeld-lapp comes to more permanent moorings, and sets up for himself a domicile more suited to the climate than his flimsy conical tent. we came across one of these on this day's march, in the forks of a growing river. it was a hut of peat and sods, shaped like a west greenlander's igloo, and some dozen feet in diameter. birch-stems were used inside to support the roof and prop out the walls, but these were falling in. one well-cleaned rib-bone and some charred embers were all that remained of furniture. the herdsman lapp does not build for futurity; it is a concession to his principles when he builds at all; and when he quits his turf mansion in the spring, he does not look to find it still standing in autumn. he is content to waste a day and build another. we were fortunate enough to come upon the two-roomed log-hut of a finnish farmer to sleep in that night, and thought ourselves in luck's way. we had to wade a river to reach it; rain had commenced to fall in torrents, and we were wet and very weary. the farmer had but one cow, and she was not in milk; the agricultural part of the farm consisted of a small garden of unenergetic potatoes, set in drills three feet apart; and they could give us nothing whatever to eat for love or money. presumably when times were good they lived on fish, for there was the disused head of a four-pound pike near the mouth of the draw-well; and at other times they apparently subsisted upon water. the water was good; it was sheathed in ice for more than half-way up the well; and we drank a bucket apiece with gusto. but our appetites demanded something more; so with much grudging we "killed a tin" out of our very scanty store, and then lit a fire and topped up with cocoa by way of dessert. one of us slept that night with his head upon the stone hearth. we were deadly tired, and though the rain dripped on to us through the roof, we neither knew nor cared. the rain had cleared by morning, and we set out with better hopes. we were getting down towards enare see, and expected to come across some duck; also we had managed to pick up an extra carrier, and so hoped that the pace would improve. the addition to our strength was a boy of sixteen whose leg had been broken and then set locally, and so had acquired a limp for life. but for a finn he had a humorous face, and occasionally he did manage to instil some life into the proceedings. the mosquitoes met us punctually at the door and got to work at once. the man with the hare-lip explained at some length that they would not be so bad now that the rain had passed over; but though we had grown to be connoisseurs, we could not notice any difference in their attentions. and, moreover, as those exasperating halts came with regularity each six hundred yards, we had every opportunity to get thoroughly maddened with their bites. we could watch them settle on us in their millions, waddle along with their ungainly walk one shoulder at a time, and probing with their long clumsy trunks at every chink. and we saw them flying away crimson-bellied with blood which we ourselves had a prior claim to. there was underground drainage in many parts of the fjeld which we passed over here. hollows abounded like those one sees on the limestone hills of yorkshire, where cave-roofs have fallen in. but we found neither pot-holes nor cave-openings. lakes were many. we frequently had to climb round their sides at the foot of steep, smooth cliffs of sandstone, and then again to scramble over hard outcrops of the same rock on the dry ground beyond. the birches were gone. instead a forest began to grow of weedy, straggling, dishevelled pines, bare in stalk, and showing but little greenery. and always where stone was not, the ivory-yellow moss covered the ground with its dry, crisp carpet. occasionally, too, sprouts of mountain-ash appeared, but these were rare, and they never grew thicker than a finger, or taller than a grown man's waist. and still the birds kept off: we saw old spoor of reindeer here and there in the softer ground; but of four-footed creatures in the flesh and fur, nothing but tiny lemmings. meanwhile the lakes were growing larger, and the rivers which linked them more deep and broad. enare see as it appears on the maps--even on the best map, which is that of russian survey--is large; but enare see as it exists in arctic lapland is larger by one half. it is no great sheet of open water like michigan or ontario; there is barely one stretch of unbroken water twelve miles square in all its hundred and twenty miles of length; and it is hard to say where the lake ends and where it begins. there are islands all over its great expanse, and the mainland round is cut up by lakes and water channels. in fact, just as some one once defined a fishing-net as "a lot of holes tied together with string," so enare see might well be described as a collection of land patches made into islands by water. our course swung through half the points of the compass as the water channels swerved to this side and that, or the fords lay to our right or left, and those exasperating carriers grew slower in their pace, and more frequent in their halts, and we had resigned ourselves to another fifteen solid hours of torment, when a great streak of luck befell us. between some bushes at the side of a long narrow lake there lay a canoe. she was pulled on to the bank and lay bottom upwards, and who she belonged to we did not know--or care. we were in the mood then to have cheerfully annexed the czar's own private dinghy even with sure foreknowledge that he wanted it himself during the next half hour. and the carriers seemed to be similarly without scruple. the packs went down to the ground in quick time; the loppy-legged boy said something funny and laughed; even the squint-eyed man smiled. the canoe was rolled on to her keel and shot into the water. the luggage and ourselves went amidships; the finns distributed themselves forward and aft; and away we went with rather less than an inch of free-board. now so long as we were in smooth water, this method of travelling was delightful. the mosquitoes were comparatively absent--we had merely a paltry thousand or two to remind us of the ravening swarms elsewhere. there was a brilliant sun. and the hump-backed man, who was squatting on the floor forward, paddled us on at an excellent pace. but when we got out in broader water, there was a good ripple on, and the lake came over both gunwales merrily. the canoe, moreover, was thoroughly sun-cracked, and leaked like a basket, and nothing but industrious baling kept us afloat at all. there were always two of us at it, watch and watch about; and we worked till our arms ached. the finns, being brought up in a country full of rivers and water-ways, naturally could not swim, and if we two foreigners had only had our two selves to think of, i fancy we should have let that canoe swamp. we had suffered many things at the hands of those carriers, and we should much have liked to have seen them--well, inconvenienced. i know this sounds brutal here from a distance, but we were warmed up to it then, and meant what we said, as other people who have met the northern finn on his native marsh will possibly understand. but we had the baggage to consider, and the baggage turned the scale. we made them hug the weather shores, and kept the balers going without intermission. it was not all plain rowing, even then. twice the lake-chain broke; the rivers which linked the broader water were too shallow to carry a canoe; and we were forced to make a portage. but if the canoe was small on the water, she was small also on land; and many hands made light work; and we had her out, up, over, and launched in almost as quick time as one could have walked over the intervening necks of land. but we were not done with the marching yet. the navigable water ended for good, and once more we were put to footing it through the forest, and suffering from the flies. but the scenery had changed. the birches had gone, and so had the arctic willows, and around us were nothing but tall gaunt pines, for the most part bleached and dead. a parasite had invaded the forest and was killing it by slow inches. the same thing is seen festooning the timber in florida and louisiana and the gulf states generally, where it is called spanish moss. it is gray there, and looks dreary enough as it hangs in melancholy wisps from its dead or dying victim. but here it was far darker, being in texture like a harsh wool, almost black; and as it swung in the breeze from those blighted boughs, it reminded one of funeral plumes. here, too, there was no undergrowth of palmetto and saw-grass to tone down the gloom: at the foot of these doomed trunks was one unvarying carpet of sulphur-coloured moss. as we marched on (with the never-varying series of halts) the outlines of a path appeared, crossed and recrossed by the spoor of deer. the lemmings grew more shy. against some of the tree trunks the yellow moss was stacked in columns six feet high to fodder cows in winter. the marks of axes appeared on the timber, and there were stumps new-scarred. and then the gleam of water showed through the tree aisles. our carriers brisked up; even the humpback straightened himself; and the pace quickened--to something close on three miles an hour. we swung round a bluff of sand, and before us lay a log-house painted dragon's-blood red, with a bay beyond whereon rode a masted boat. that one house made up the town of ischinlisvuoni, the northernmost port of enare see. now our first thought was to get a boat which would take us over the great lake to enare town, which was distant some eighty-five miles in crow flight; and here we were in luck's way. the miniature viking ship riding in the bay had just come up from the very place, and her crew jumped at the chance (and the profit) of taking us back. we had to wait, however, till she was refitted. they had met heavy weather on the way up it appeared, and in one squall their high square-sail had split neatly down the whole of one of its seams, and naturally this had to be mended before she could put to sea again. so we went into the red log-house, and took possession of one of the two rooms, which was furnished principally with a large white-washed rubble stove that reached up to the roof beams. the population, however, though nominally they had cleared out of their bedchamber for our benefit, had no notion of leaving us to ourselves. the whole lot of them came in to stare at first, and when the ruck had gone, there always remained an escort of at least six of both sexes, who loafed in the doorway, and spat, and watched us as though we had been performing animals. occasionally we drove them out and would be alone for perhaps two minutes, but then again the door would open and others would come into the room, spit thoughtfully at the floor, and then get their eyes deliberately focussed. they did not speak either to themselves or to us; and if they enjoyed the performance, they did not show it in their faces. they remained always the same wooden, unemotional boors, and we found by experience the only way to deal satisfactorily with the arctic farmer finns was to take the upper hand, and keep it. any attempt at civility they construed as weakness, and then took advantage of us as a matter of course. it is queer how these people can thus isolate themselves. the norwegian of the north is one of the most civil and obliging fellows on the face of the earth. the lapp, though he is frequently a savage in his personal habits, is none the less a courteous gentleman in his intercourse with others. and even the finn fisher has occasionally some rudiments of civilness and hospitality. but these others are past praying for. they can read and write, they are oppressed by no government stress, they could make an easy livelihood if only they had the gumption and the energy to take it, but they prefer to remain the greatest clods within all the marches of europe. happily for ourselves a ceremony was taking place outside which began to draw off the audience. between the red house and the lake shore was a building of blackened logs, from the doorway of which smoke had been issuing ever since our arrival. it was a finnish vapour-bath, and when it was heated up, our carriers and the entire population of ischinlisvuoni went in in squads to enjoy it. the finn of the north seldom or never anoints his person with water in the ordinary way. but still, on the whole, as back-block tribes go, one could not call him an uncleanly person. almost every farm has its bath-house, and it is very rarely that a fortnight passes without this being heated and used. the bath at ischinlisvuoni was typical of all the lot, for the pattern varies but little. it was a house of logs, twenty feet by fifteen, and some eighteen feet up to the pitch of the roof. along one side, half-way up to the eaves, there ran a broad shelf of smoothed wood. the floor was of beaten earth, and at one corner beside the door was a large bee-hive-shaped mound of rubble stones, with a fireplace in the middle to admit burning logs. this primitive stove is heated, and the smoke either escapes by the doorway, or remains inside and blackens the roof. gradually the air of the place warms, and then water is thrown on to the glowing stones to saturate it with steam. the bathers undress at the dwelling-house, and run across the intervening ground in their birthday attire. both sexes and all ages bathe together. they douche with cold water first, stand about on the earthen floor for a minute or so, and then climb on to the raised shelf and lie down. every one has a green birch of sweet-smelling arctic willow shoots, with which he (or she) switches his neighbour, and so stimulates the circulation. and there they stay for twenty minutes or half an hour. then out they rush, and if there is snow on the ground they roll on it, or if not, they dip into the coldest water attainable; and then they go back into the house again to cool down. all through that evening, and till three o'clock the next morning, the bathers in every stage of undress, from the complete to the partial, were sitting about in the kitchen which was next our room. it never seemed to strike any of them that the sight for alien eyes might be a trifle quaint. at the great white russian stove a woman was cooking circular cakes of rye with a hole in the middle, and threading them on a stick as fast as they were baked. another woman was roasting coffee, and a man beside her was grinding the beans as they were browned. half-clad children were sprawling about the floor, and two or three were asleep in a corner. a naked man was contemplatively browsing on tobacco before the stove, and a woman was treading at a spinning-wheel in the middle of the room. by the window our two boatmen squatted on the ground with palm and needle, mending the split sail, and beside them the humpback was playing jigs on a cheap accordion. these were all finns. the only two lapps in the place were supping in a corner, off curdled milk and flinty rye cakes. ethnographically the lapps and the finns are not very distinct races, except in the matter of height. the nose of the district is usually turned up at the point, the cheek-bones are high, and the skull is well drawn towards the back. but in the item of clothes they are always different. the lapp wears on his back in summer the distinctive _matsoreo_, which is an outer garment of gray, brown, or electric blue, closely woven cloth, that reaches down to the knees. it has a high standing collar more or less profusely embroidered, with other decorations in colour on both back and front. it is belted about the middle by a broad surcingle, from which depends the inevitable knife and tar-bottle, and the more slack there is bunched up forward and aft, the greater dandy is the wearer. the nether limbs are clad in tight _sarre_ of ivory-white flannel; and on the feet are _lappellinin_, which are short roomy boots peaked up at the toe, stuffed with grass, and drawn up over the ankle and made fast over the ends of the _sarre_ by a narrow red figured bandage, after the fashion of the east indian _putty_. the head-gear varies. the orthodox square-topped cap of cloth with its head-band of fur is rare, and usually appears only in winter or on festivals. it is picturesque, hot, and expensive, and for daily use a soft round hat of felt is preferred, or for sea work a sou'-wester. and the outer clothing of the women is very much the same, except that the _matsoreo_ is a trifle longer, and the head-gear is merely a simple handkerchief. the winter garments of skins differ a good deal from these, but they will be spoken of in their place. the finn, on the other hand, is much more ordinary in his attire and much less picturesque. take away his high boots and he might be almost anybody. the boots, however, are certainly a feature. they are peaked at the toe like the lapp's, heelless, and have soles and sides all in a piece. the leg part is of soft leather, and can be drawn up above mid-thigh if wished; but it is generally worn telescoped, with the baggy top well below the knee-cap, after the fashion of mediæval villains in surrey-side melodramas. for the rest, he is clothed in a coat, waistcoat, and trousers, scanty of buttons, and with a cut suggestive of a leeds clothing factory; carries a thin moustache; and more infrequently than not wears some physical deformity. his woman-kind are distinctly his better half, and probably keep him from starvation. they are bustling and active, utterly devoid of any pretence to figure, and as a rule gratuitously ugly. they affect, in the summer, garments of checked cotton, which they weave themselves, and though they also wear the high boots, the tops of these are discreetly hidden by a skirt of decent length. we smoked complacently deep into that sunlit night, and thought with pleasure of the sail which was to come amongst the islands of the great lake. but we were not done with our old carriers yet. they wanted payment, and the squint-eyed man came in to say so. we had the money ready for him, counted out, in rouble notes. it lay trimly in a heap. we pointed it out. he inspected, and at once began to object. he desired payment in kroner or marks; and not having either, we could not well give it to him. we pointed out (using the words of the russian consul at vardö) that in russian territory the rouble was legal tender. he seemed partially to grasp this, and suggested exchange at the rate of one rouble (which is worth some two-and-a-penny, english) for the norwegian krone (which may be valued at thirteen-pence-halfpenny), and became abusive when we declined to fall in with his ideas. he was not a person to whom we owed any gratitude or much consideration, but i think he was surprised at the pace with which he was ejected from the room. the community here at ischinlisvuoni had reindeer, which they pastured in the forest, but they did not meddle with these much during the summer months. indeed they looked upon them much as capital to be drawn upon in time of need during the winter. during the six months of day they lived, to a large extent, on the produce of the cows, the curdled milk, butter, and butter milk, eked out with fish from the lake. but these fish, with some natural perversity, they never ate fresh. the spoils of the nets were always gutted, split open, perfunctorily dried, and then devoured raw in a partly decayed state. there is something in the theory: salmon, boiled or fried, is the most nauseating dish in the world if one has too much of it, as witness the bargain in the old days of the newcastle apprentices, that they were not to dine off salmon more than twice a week. salmon, well kippered, and eaten in thin slices, raw, does not cloy one nearly so much. but when the kippering is imperfect, not to say sketchy; or when the fish is not kippered at all, but merely more or less dried, and, moreover, is not salmon or any of his relatives, but some little soft, white fish like a sloppy trout; then the theory falls to the ground. their fishing-tackle for the summer was simple. it consisted merely of short small-mesh nets with floats of birch-bark rolls coiled along the head rope, and pebble sinkers to the foot; and the catches were small. it was in the dark months that they were more successful. then they were able to spear by torchlight, and secured the heavier fish. we saw the apparatus used lying on foreshore. it consisted of an iron cresset (_parrila_) with four spear-headed prongs and a long curved iron stem, which ended with a fork of wood to make fast to the canoe's bow. long pitch-pine splinters are laid lengthwise between the prongs, and lit at the outer end. the wind, or the canoe's motion through the air, keeps them blazing. the paddler sits in the stern facing forward. the fisher stands in the bows behind the _parrila_, watching for the fish as they are attracted upwards by the glare. his weapon is the _arrina_, which is very like the grains we use here at home for spearing eels. the shaft is of wood, eight feet long, and fitting into a socket at the head. there are six spears to the head, the outer two the heaviest, all barbed inwards, and all converging from the bottom inwards. it is a formidable implement, and once one gets the knack, very deadly. but it is no child's play to acquire that said knack, as many an energetic british poacher can vouch. i fancy, though, that the average fisherman from these sporting islands would prove himself pretty deadly if he could take his own tools to the lakes and rivers of arctic lapland. we did not go to sleep that night very confident of a peaceful start down-lake on the morrow. the squint-eyed man and his friends had been making irruptions into our room at intervals all through the evening, noisily, and flatly refusing to be satisfied with their lawful wage. we, on the other hand, had quite made up our minds not to pay three shillings for one, and so expected that next morning they would try to put in force the local equivalent of a _ne exeat regno_. in which case there would be trouble. because come what might we were firmly determined to get under way. chapter v enare see to enare town, in a square-sail viking ship when it came to the point, our neiden carriers, to use a colloquialism, climbed down abjectly. we roused very early, escorted our baggage (once more made up into three twin sacks) down to the shore, and stowed it in the boat on either side of the mast. the carriers hung about, but we ignored them as though they had been men of glass. at last the squint-eyed headman stated their willingness to accept their just dues, and they were handed the contracted-for number of rouble notes with a few impressive remarks thrown in. the discomforts of the place where thieves eventually frizzle was described to them with a lurid wealth of colour, which, being lutherans, they thoroughly appreciated. and as we had a few minutes on hand whilst the boat was being ballasted, hayter sketched on a smoothed board a few spirited recollections from doré's _dante's inferno_, so as to ram the matter home. they grew awed and limp, just like so many naughty children, and we left them thoroughly repentant; and i fancy that the next stray english who come in contact with that squint-eyed finn and his friends will meet with more tender entreatment. now our two boatmen were finns also, but the business on the waters seemed to have lifted them above the ruck of their race. they were civil and willing, and so far as their lights went, attentive. for instance, they had floored their craft amidships with a springy cushion of birch boughs for our special benefit. and moreover, conjointly, they were incomparable boat sailors. in the course of our voyage occasion came more than once when there was need for handiness and quick decision; and south-coast yachtsmen, bred in racers, could not have beaten these inland sailors of the north. the skipper was a little wrinkled man of sixty, grown old in the traffic of the lake. man and boy he had sailed enare see whenever it was free from ice for all of a lifetime, and what he did not know about the shoals, and the thousand islands, and the millions of unbuoyed reefs, and the places where the wind eddied, and the other quaintnesses of the place, could have been written large on a thumb-nail and still have been unimportant. he looked out upon his small watery world with a pair of bright bird's eyes, and knew every mood of it by heart, and neither knew anything beyond nor wanted to. his mate was a man entirely different--a mere creature of thews, who could shift the tack when ordered, set up a backstay, eat, row, smile, or carry out any of these minor offices of life which do not require the effort of a brain. he had the good humour of a puppy, an ample sufficiency of strength, and the face of a prosperous publican. his name was olaf. we set off down narrow waters with a snoring breeze from out of the n.n.w. the red house and the well-derrick and the farm-buildings of ischinlisvuoni quickly dipped from sight behind a bluff; the axe-marks left the trees on shore; and the black forests grew up untouched out of the carpet of ivory-yellow moss. but we were not in the open lake yet. a run of some dozen miles brought us to shallows where a portage was necessary. we had to unload and unballast and drag the boat painfully across a neck of land on rollers, which for the four of us was a full-weight job, as she was a stout, beamy, -foot craft, built to endure heavy lake seas and powdering squalls. but we got her nicely launched again, brought down to trim with boulders forward and aft, and once more under way. there were square miles of lake and island ahead of us; and the neighbourhood was comparatively unknown to any one except enare natives; and we were anxious to sample as much of it as possible. moreover, although the breeding season was on, we promised ourselves to shoot a sufficiency of duck for the pot. now i am free to confess at once that enare see was somewhat of a disappointment. we bore away to the south and east, dodging amongst countless isles and innumerable shoals, and sometimes we landed, but most times we contented ourselves by exploring with the eye alone. the islands were of all sizes, from the come-and-go boulder, the bigness of a hat-box, which ducks under every other wave, up to land patches three miles in radius, with harbours, and mountains, and rivers, and men, and all the appurtenances of a pocket continent. but there was nothing (in actual view) large enough to be impressive. the very hills themselves which bounded the lake were more in the form of rolling uplands than craggy mountains. of shootable game we came upon barely a trace. a whole day would pass without our seeing a single fowl either in the air, on the land, or upon the face of the waters. and the reindeer, of course, were like our cattle at home here--the domestic possession of the native. we saw these animals, it is true, in quantities. all the islands of enare are laid down in deer according to their size, and solitary hermits peered at us from patches of ground smaller than a cricket-field, and i hope we cheered their loneliness. they were not very beautiful creatures to look upon just about then. they were very much out of condition. the snows had only just departed, and they were thin with the hard exertion of delving with their forefeet to reach the moss beneath, and worn with hard driving in the sledges. their antlers were in velvet, and only partly grown, and their coats were very much in a transition state. in fact, they appeared to be clothed in a badly made patchwork of shades, which varied from dirty white to faded brown. these deer get little or no tending in the summer. they are not wanted for traction; they are put out to graze; and they do it industriously. their owners permeate the neighbourhood in their canoes on fishing intent, and if they manage to cast eyes upon each individual deer once a month, it is a piece of unusual attention. we came across these lake-fisher lapps at intervals, and often sat and chatted round their camp fires. i remember well the first of these savage entertainments. our eyes caught a slim blue drift of wood-smoke rising up from the farther side of an island. we ran down, hauled our wind, and sailed up to it. we were welcomed ashore with easy cordiality. there were three lapp canoes nuzzling the foot of a black rock, and on the crown of the rock were their crews of four men and three round-faced, good-humoured women. they cleared the place of honour for hayter and myself, and we sat down in the smoke drift from the fire, where the mosquitoes could only raid us with difficulty, and we listened to the politics of the lake: fishing was good here and bad there; this man had finished eating that lame deer he killed in the early spring; that man's canoe had been beached in a gale, and smashed like an egg. one lady indeed wanted to know about the outer world. she was a portly young person, whose globular red face beamed with a healthy animal cheerfulness. she had stubby hands, and a figure which resembled a corn sack, well filled, and stamped down. she carried a neat brass wedding-ring slung to her neck-handkerchief, and had a most educated taste in tobacco. she filled her pipe with shavings from my plug of negro-head, lit it with a brand from the fire, and then absorbed the smoke in an ecstasy. it was enjoyment to watch her pleasure: she puffed that pipe to the uttermost ash, and the vapour circled amongst her smiles. then the spirit of inquisitiveness, and perhaps of envy, took her, and she wanted to know if this beautiful, this exquisite tobacco was the common smoke of my country. to weakly avoid an hour's complicated explanation, i admitted that it was. and could english ladies have as much of it as they wished? with distinct truth i answered that no stint was put upon them in the matter. the patriarch of this group was a travelled man. his reindeer sledge had carried him in winter as far south as sodankyla, where he had seen tinned anchovies and a singer's sewing-machine; and more than once he had boated down the pasvik elv to below boris gleb and caught glimpses of steamers out on the broad varanger fjord beyond. as some advertisement of all this experience, his head was capped with a battered yellow sou'-wester; but the rest of him was clothed in orthodox lapp attire, and his tattered blue _matsoreo_ was a miracle of barbaric ornament. his sardonic old face peered out from a calico mosquito cowl, which covered all the rest of the head, and his attention was very firmly fixed upon his meal. in these lake-side camps every one cooks for himself. the lumps of meat (when there are any) are impaled on a piece of stick sharpened at both ends, so that the lower point may be pushed into the ground at an angle, and keep the meat in position whilst it is toasted. but the lapp does not let his meat become over-cooked, and as a general thing he does very little more than take off the chill. it must be remembered, however, that everything is dried, more or less, and that fresh reindeer meat, or fresh fish, are things never used. indeed i have frequently seen lapps, and finns for the matter of that, go home hungry in a boat half full of sweet, fresh fish, and then make their meal off semi-dried relics reeking of decay. the coffee alone is a common brew, always made in a kettle of copper with a lid on the spout, and always drunk sweetened with cone beet-sugar after the rest of the meal is finished. and when it is strong enough, laplander's coffee is the best flavoured in europe. [illustration: a lakeside camp on enare see.] after the meal, the fire is carefully quenched with water, and then comes sleep, and then once more away in the canoes. these lake-fisher lapps think no more of sleeping in the open than do birds or deer, and perhaps the untemptingness of their headquarters has something to do with this. in the course of our cruise down enare see we came upon several of these settlements on the coast and on the islands, but they did not strike us as appetising for a prolonged residence. the _gamme_ (house) itself, which is usually some dozen yards beyond high lake-mark, has walls of stones and mud, or turf, with a roof more or less flat, made of turf laid on birch rafters. a chimney is a rarity, and in summer a nuisance. in a land which swarms with mosquitoes, it is always pleasant to have a wood-fire on the floor which will fill the atmosphere with "smudge," after the fashion adopted by the floridan cracker in his palmetto shack. but the hut is not without luxury. the floor is paved with stone, and round the walls are layers of young birch shoots, which make a springy mattress. in the better _gammer_ the front-door opens on to a sort of lobby, which is used as a store, with a room on either side; but in the generality of these dwellings there is a single chamber, where the family, and the fleas, and the dogs, and a reindeer calf or so, and possibly a sheep, all pig it together, much as noah and his friends did at their famous convocation. but besides the one or more _gammer_, there are buildings at these settlements of almost greater importance, and these are the storehouses where the dried fish are stacked for winter sustenance. in nearly all instances these are made solidly of logs (whatever may be the structure of the _gamme_) roofed with birch-bark shingles, and well raised from the ground on piles, so as to keep the contents as dry as may be. there are racks, too, for drying the fish out of reach of the dogs, and the mortal remains of what were once fishes' internals lie trodden into the grass in every direction. the lake-fisher lapp is not a cleanly person in his disposal of items which he has no particular need for. the pine forests thicken along the shores as one walks south down enare see, and the lines of the tree-changes are very clearly defined. the shores are for the most part low-lying, and in many places the trees stand up gaunt and dead for miles at a stretch. for a stranger the navigation here would be a thing impossible. the islands twist and turn and crop up in every direction. reefs spring up from deep water, and stay just awash. we would frequently run down to a line of creaming surf, open up some passage and slip through it, and then haul our wind and stand along between two lines of reefs with not a dozen inches of water under the keel. in places the great lake was a regular stone-yard. our boat was wonderfully handy. in build she was well rockered, with a good beam, but had very fine entrance and a clean run aft. she was of the regular viking build and rig, and from the english ideas of spars and canvas, it was a matter of wonder how she could sail at all anywhere except dead before the wind. a casual onlooker might have classified her as belonging to the lug-sail type, but that emphatically she was not. her mast was stepped amidships, well set up by forestay, and by a couple of shrouds on either gunwale. when the sail was hoisted, the halliards and the down-haul were brought well aft and made fast to a thwart to serve as backstay. but it was this sail which was the wonderful part of her. it was not a lug at all, but a true square-sail with the halliard bent on to the very centre of the yard, with tack and sheet interchangeable, and with braces to each yard-arm. it was just such a rig as the northman used when he came to ravage the english coasts. it was the sail which drove the roman galley. it was the identical sail which the phoenicians were using when the londoner went out to dinner in a suit of neat blue paint, and brought his own stone axe to crack the bones. going free, and with sheets well-started, this sail had enormous lifting and driving power; and with tack bowsed down to the weather hause-hole, and the sheet flattened aft, our boat would look up to it as close as norfolk una. the tiller worked with a joint so as to clear the stern-post, and pushed fore and aft after the manner of a single yoke-line; and every time we went about, this tiller was shifted over to the weather side. the gear, too, was of necessity cumbersome, and on no sort of day could she be called a one-man boat. but she was splendidly dry, and we were not without giving her one or two stiff tests. we carried a breeze with us all the time we were on the lake, and once or twice, on the large patches of open, we met that short, steep sea, common to this class of waters, which for a small boat is the wettest sea on earth. she went over it like a cork--she had magnificent lifting power--and at the same time she did not lose her way. once, in a heavy rain-squall, we got blown very nearly out of the water; the reefs were blotted out of sight; and the boat showed her one weak point in declining to lie-to. but in enare this fault did not matter. the skipper luffed up under the lee of an island, olof ran down sail, and ten minutes later the kettles were singing over a fire in a sheltered cranny of the rocks. the squall swished and boomed overhead, thunder with it and abundance of rain; the camp-fire sent out darting, twisting snakes of flame, which hissed at the wet; and the two finns squatted beside the blaze like some queer trolls, each working with knife and teeth at a stringy rib-bone. i remember it was at this camp we came upon a piece of chocolate about as big as twelve sixpences (the last of a very slender store), and made a present of it to the skipper. he took it with a twinkle of thanks, and popped it in his mouth. then he set his jaws to work, and spat with solemn regularity. he believed the gift to be some new form of chewing tobacco. the rain had come first, and so the squall did not last. the mists dropped, and the sky showed up blue and white, with the sun hanging in it, round as a coin, and red as a soldier's coat. the gaunt pines of the island and the ivory-yellow moss were lit with the glow. it was after midnight. we stood up and watched in silence. a stray duck, the only fowl we saw on all enare, came flying across--a clean black silhouette against the brightness. once more we quenched a camp-fire and mastheaded the brown sail, and once more we left the open lake and dived in amongst another maze of its islands. we had seen our fill of the northern and eastern reaches of enare see, and were heading now so as to reach enare town in the quickest reasonable time. the wind hardened as the sun climbed higher into the sky; and the boat flew south and west with a swirl of sound. the lake-floor rose and sank beneath her, and the surf leaped up from a thousand reefs. the pines roared at us as we drove past a wooded point. here and there a house of logs showed against a clearing on the shores. the lake was deserted of man and fowl. the canoes of the fisher lapps had run into shelter, and the birds were not. the loneliness of the place chilled one like the hour before the dawn. then we saw houses of red and gray and ochre standing on a low bluff, and we made for them, ran down sail, and put the boat's nose on a beach of sand. we had arrived at enare town, the chief city of the lapps, and it was three o'clock in the morning. we were deadly tired. the rest-house lay at the top of the bluff, and we climbed to it with yawns and drooping eyelids. there are no locks in lapland, and we went inside and announced ourselves. a young lapp and his wife were asleep in the guest-room bed, under a calico mosquito bar. they rose, silent and blinking, and began to clear away their bedding. in a cradle lay a child with its face all blotched with bites, and this also they took away. but what other preparations they made then for our comfort i do not know. we lay down on the floor in our oilskins as we were, and dropped off on the instant into the deadest of sleep. up there in the north, where the day lasts bright all round the clock, they set down no arbitrary hours for work and sleep such as are forced upon us here in england. one may often see children winding up their play at a.m., or their elders starting a day's work at six in the afternoon. in our journey which followed, across this country down towards the arctic circle, we marched quite as frequently by night as by day. on that special occasion at enare we breakfasted at twelve midday, and found most of the town outside to welcome us. we held a levee inside first, because olof had advertised the wonders of hayter's marlin rifle, and the bear-hunting section of enare (which comprised all the males) could not rest till they understood all about the repeating mechanism. and then we went to present a letter to herr praest hinkola. it turned out that he was away, and was not expected home for some days, but fru hinkola and her brother, the postmaster, took us in charge, and strangers in a strange land were never more hospitably entreated. we had all our meals at their table, and if we did not sleep under the parsonage roof, it was only through our own refusal to trespass farther on their kindness. they were not cheering, however, about our chances of getting through across the country to kittila. it was never done in summer; there were no roads; the mosquitoes and the swamps were almost impassable; horses or reindeer were utterly out of the question; lakes and rivers lay in the way, over which it was very doubtful if we should find ferriage even for ourselves; and, finally, it was distinctly improbable that we could get carriers to pack our goods beyond the first stage or two. in winter the route was practicable enough, for then the river and the lakes were frozen, and the swamps were covered in snow, and a sledge with relays of deer could get over the ground with ease. but even in winter that way was little traversed. it was from helsingfors and uleaborg they got the supplies, and the route to those towns lay through sodankyla. that was quite practicable even in summer, though of course not for horses or reindeer. we could travel by canoe nearly all the way. and we should see, what? well, we should have an excellent view of several hundred miles of river-bank. and we could post onwards with horses either to kittila or else directly down to the sea, in comparative luxury and comfort. we had not journeyed that far, however, to exploit future tourist-routes; our business was to visit the lapland farmer and fisher and herder on his native heath; and we were not going to spare ourselves pains to carry this out. so we announced with a sigh that sodankyla would not do, and that we were going to worry through the other way somehow; and forthwith the postmaster shook his head, and sent word round the houses that carriers were wanted for the morrow. in the meantime we looked about us. there are twelve hundred people in enare, but as the town-limits are some seven miles across, a stranger looking at it from the landing-place might reasonably put down what he saw from there as a small straggling village of new log-houses set down near a spired, red church. the houses were closer once and older, but one of the periodical fires broke out during a gale a few years back and swept the whole place away, so that it had to be entirely rebuilt. given a sufficient frost to freeze the water, a good breeze, a house afire on the weather side, and one of these northern wood-built towns will blaze itself to ashes in a dozen hours if it is at all closely built. so the more modern idea is to leave at least a hundred yards between every house, and as the intervening spaces are cultivated, the towns are now going back to the old scheme of being merely clusters of farms. and every building, from the red church down to the smallest fish-barn, has a broad, slanting ladder which leads permanently to its roof, with a great iron hook at the end of a pole, always hung there ready to tear away blazing shingles or smouldering roof-turf. a few of the lapps of enare town keep unostentatious stores, where they sell sewing-cotton, gunpowder, cone-sugar, axes, and coffee-beans, all of which have been brought up by sledges during the winter from helsingfors, uleaborg, and the towns without the arctic circle. but the import traffic is small, and the reindeer, which form the only export, are driven down alive to the markets. the community is self-supporting: it catches and cures its own fish; produces its own milk, curd, rye-meal, and dried meat; weaves its own woollen cloth and checked cotton wear; builds its own houses, boats, sledges, and churns; makes for itself spoons, casks, bowls, balers, all from the native birch-wood; brings forth its own young, and buries its dead with a roofed-in sledge for a coffin. the community hinges on the parsonage, the largest house in the place, the only house which has an upper story, which is weather-boarded without, and which has the nakedness of its logs covered by a ceiling within. here are the brains of the place, the law of the place, the post-office, the only library. at the parsonage they had two hundred books; and english literature was not neglected. there were translations of messrs. stanley weyman, fergus hume, and w. le queux, in sumptuous pictured covers. it was there we got our russian roubles changed to finnish marks. it was outside the parsonage that a flag flew from the head of a tall, white-painted mast to show that holy russia held the land. at the parsonage dwelt the cooper who made the shallow tubs in which milk is set to cream in the dairies, and there also was the herr praest, who married every one of the lutheran church who wished for marriage within a circle of weary miles; who baptized all those who were admitted to the faith; and who buried all those who were brought in the nailed-down sledges in their own private plot of christian ground. and if the time was winter, and mother-earth was fast locked in frost, the herr praest would see the sledge put into the common grave which was always open, there to lie snugly iced till spring brought a thaw, and let the spades delve out its more proper niche. one of our great notions in wandering through so dismal a place as arctic lapland was to revel in sport which was unattainable elsewhere, and for a good many miles we had seen no living thing except mosquitoes and frogs. we had more or less given up the idea of fishing, but we still held on to the theory that there was game to be found, and, in fact, calculated on it for food to see us across the country. and with these theories still strong within us we began to push inquiries about the shooting, in deadly earnest. the account was dismal enough. there was no rigorous close-time here, as in norway, and game was very scarce. probably there never was much, but by vigorous hunting all the year round there has come to be less. now, it is not worth one's while to carry a gun in summer. there are rype, willow grouse, and capercailzie, which are fairly in evidence during the courting season, but as soon as family cares begin, they keep well to cover; and since the capercailzie cock has no taste for chickens, and bolts off _solus_ so soon as ever the honeymoon is done, his haunts are in such far depths of the forests that man seldom gets so much as a glimpse of his wonderful plumage. bird-shooting as an industry is not worth following in lapland till the leaves have gone, and the snow makes everywhere a staring background. and big game? well, of course, the reindeer are all tame, or nominally so; and as for wolves and lynxes, these are mostly legendary. they have been shot--frequently shot--but for the most part round camp-fires, after the fishing yarns have come on. and their skins are rare: these have a way of getting lost, as is explained in the tale. but foxes there are, both white and red, in tolerable numbers, and, of course, the occasional bear. these, again, are for the winter shooting, as it is only their winter coats which have a value. the fox is plentiful. a man who understands the work may put on _ski_ for six consecutive days, and travel miles over the snow, and at the end of the week be owner of three average hides. but a bear-hunt is a far more troublesome affair. when a track is found, the bear is promptly ringed. that is, the track is not followed up, but a man on _ski_ leaves it at right angles, and working in slightly all the time towards the direction in which the bear was travelling, finally hits the spoor again where he had left it. if he has not seen the spoor in the meanwhile, the bear is somewhere within that ring. there is no immediate hurry for the next move. bears only shift their quarters two or three times during the course of the winter, and if undisturbed they will doze for a considerable while when once they have settled down. so if there is no immediate danger of a heavy fall of snow to obliterate the spoor, the finder goes back and organises the hunt at his leisure. the number of hunters depends upon the two items of pluck and skill, but not more than four go as a general thing, as there is a distinctly commercial side to the business, and the fewer the guns the more there is to every share. the government gives head-money; the merchant will pay anything between £ and £ english for the cleaned skins; and the beef, too, is an asset of value. a third share in a good bear is enough for a lapp to marry on and set up a tidy farm, if he happen to be economical. the winter light may be gray and small, but the snow looms white, and the spoor reads like a book. a bear breaks through any crust, and plunges elbow-deep at every stride. his belly trails along the snow and ploughs a great furrow. it takes the drifts of a gale to cover that track. but withal his highness is a scary person, and though he may sleep with shut eyes, he keeps open ears and an active nose. so the callers have to tread with niceness and delicacy if they wish to make sure of an interview; and even supposing that they carry the spoor with them up to the pile of tumbled rocks where it ends, and the absence of back tracks show his bearship is at home, the hunt is by no means over even then. the bear will know quite well that enemies are at hand, but he will not rush them. he is no fool. on the contrary, he is an animal of infinite cunning and resource; and he quite knows that in his stone redoubt there is at least one chance to three of brazening out the situation and wearing his own hide for another season. it takes a man of much more recklessness, or ignorance of the consequences, than the average lapp hunter to go into a cave of the rocks and deliberately invite a rough-and-tumble with a live brown-bear. but the hunters do their best to irritate him from a distance. they fire single shots into the darkness in the hope of riling him sufficiently to make a rush, so that the other guns which remain loaded may drop him when he comes into the open. they do this from every direction on which the cave mouth opens, so as to give him every chance of feeling a shot. and finally, if this method fails, they light a bonfire on his front-door step and stand round on their _ski_ to await results. it is by no means certain that the smoke will reach him, for there may be quite possibly an outward air-current, and the lapps have produced their rembrandtesque effect for no practical return. but if they have luck, and the stinging reek is too strong to be endured, then they have to stand by for quick shooting. the bear bolts like a rabbit, out of the firelight into the gloom, and in a matter of seconds he will be absorbed amongst the tree-stems of the forest. there is something uncanny, something almost devilish in the way a northern bear can adopt invisibility. [illustration: bear hunt--smoking him out.] on the whole, then, when a bear is shot it is a day worth remembering, and all involved congratulate themselves on being incomparable hunters. there are plenty to listen to and envy them. few men can say that they have not been concerned in a hunt. but in all last year head-money was only paid on seven bears in the whole of the enare district, and that covers some , square miles. so, whatever can be said against the lapp as looking on hunting as a business, it must be granted that it comes to him as sport and enjoyment as well, or he would not embark in a trade which brings in such extremely frail dividends for so large a percentage of outlay in risk and exertion. if further proof were needed, it was there plain in enare town. the majority of the lapps lived in snug wooden houses, tilled the ground, tended cattle, lived prosperous lives. the professional hunters were like the hunters of the states, practically outcasts--men of the outer air, it is true, and rare fellows, but in the riches of this life they were un-acquisitive. when one of the rare windfalls came they were generous, and it quickly went; and between whiles they and theirs knew the grip of an empty belly. in enare town they lived in peat _gammer_, eyesores amongst the comely houses. their wives were slatterns, their children ragged, their homes ringed round by squalor and poverty. they lived the free life of the forests, which is the best life of all, but they had to pay its price. [illustration: viking boats on enare see] chapter vi into the land of horrible flies: a narrative of personally-conducted travel it was manifestly absurd to drag the marlin and its cartridges any farther. in the first case there was absolutely no probability of finding big game for it to shoot; in the second it was more than likely that carriers would be unprocurable farther inside the country, and we should have to hump all necessaries on our own backs, and the rifle would have to be jettisoned. in mid-lapland it was unlikely also that we should find a purchaser, and here in enare one offered. who does not know the delights of doing a trade? we sold the marlin for the price it had cost in london town, and threw in the cartridges as ballast to the bargain. it was the postmaster who bought; and in the joy of his purchase he put the marlin to his shoulder, aimed at a hut some fifty yards away, and pulled trigger. the result was surprising. the bullet went in at one side of the hut and out at the other, and as the inhabitants happened to be within at the time, they came out hurriedly, and looking distinctly worried. the postmaster was only acquainted up to then with the penetrative power of the local weapon. so this performance of the marlin made him dance with delight. his thirst was whetted. he had tasted the delights of owning one good weapon, and he wanted another, and he cast his eyes upon it with frank longing. now our -bore shot-gun would not have been classed in england as excellent; indeed it would barely have toed the mark at tolerable. it was an old friend certainly; it had done good service in many climes, and it had seen so many things that its owner was devoutly thankful it could not talk. but it showed the batterings of travel. its stock was scored and scarred; its barrel was browned more by oil and tallow rubbed on bright-red rust than by the more scientific method of the gunsmith's shop. it had been spoken of by a whisky miller in the great smoky mountains of tennessee (who used shot-guns in the defence of his business) as homely; it had been described in more than one stately home of england as "that qualified old blunderbuss"; and its owner always started out across the seas from his native island with the advice, "now, don't bring that rotten old tin spout back this time." still it had its points, that much-abused old gun. held straight, it was deadly enough. it had many a time carried a ball in its right barrel with sound effect; and once, in africa, when in a moment of stress and panic the ball cartridge was slipped into the left barrel, which was alleged to be "full choke," it eased itself of the charge without bursting, although it nearly did dislocate the firer's shoulder in the recoil by way of remonstrance. and at the same time it performed most thoroughly the requisite business with the bullet. it was one of those guns which was probably always second-hand, and it had never been a high-class weapon even in its palmy days. even its builder had sent it out into the cold, suspicious world without the testimonial of his name. yet the man who carried it so many miles through so many scenes, and slept by its side before camp-fires, and nursed it in his lap through many a weary hour when--well, when things were not exactly so smooth as they might have been, and grumbled at its weight under tropical suns, and swore when he missed his supper with it, and got hot when jeerers made sport of its battered ugliness,--that man, i say, would give more than one crisp note to-day if he might have it stored away at home in some dark corner near at hand, from where he could take it out at times and abuse it with rough, friendly words, as one old chum abuses another. he would like to lift it in his fingers again, and put his chin against that piece of spun yarn which was served round the stock where--pah! what nonsense is this? the gun was not fit to carry. it was absurd to go about with such a weapon, when better guns were so handy. and if (as a matter of accurate fact) it was rather more serviceable than any of the other guns in enare, why, of course, the people up there were little better than rank barbarians, and what could be expected of their artillery? * * * * * and so at enare the old gun remained, and forty marks exchanged hands over the transaction. we travelled thereafter the lighter by several pounds of dead weight, and we did not miss the weapon's usefulness. even had we condescended to the murder of nursing mothers, we could barely have filled a decent game-bag with birds from one end of the country to the other. so one wished the postmaster good luck with his purchase; but many a thought went backwards after the old gun's welfare, and many a sighing hope was registered that the new owner would entreat it tenderly. the postmaster was the active spirit of enare town, and we made a good move in securing his vote and influence. he could not give us any information about much of our journey, it is true, because, as he explained before, all his experience of passage in and out of the country had been by the sodankya route; but at least he could put us in the way of negotiating the first stage. he sent round word, and, after a delay, carriers came to our dwelling with thongs of reindeer harness in their hands ready to strap on their packs. but when they heard what was required, they demurred. they had no taste for wandering away into the distant wilderness. the postmaster delivered to them an hour's animated lecture in qfinsk before they would even think of it. then they replied with more objections, and thus for two more solid hours the argument went on. there were three carriers--two lapps and a finn--and they stood in a row with their mouths open, and looked rather limp and dejected whilst the postmaster railed at them and detailed their prospective duties. a decorative background of lapps arranged itself behind the group and watched proceedings with curiosity and attention. they rather regarded us as villagers elsewhere do a travelling circus. we impressed upon the postmaster that what we really would like was one reliable carrier who would go through the country with us as far as kittila, and engage the other carriers and guides as they were needed along the route--you see our demands by this time were getting simpler. we had quite given up the idea of the combined guide-interpreter person; and the postmaster urged this proposition with fluency and noise. he pointed out the easiness with which such a piece of work could be done. he dwelt upon the wealth which would accrue to the happy man who did it. but the three carriers did not warm to the scheme one little bit. they merely looked frightened, and shook their heads, and the finn paid us the compliment of glancing in our direction, and then turning away with a perceptible shudder. the postmaster gave it up. "very well," said he, "then you shall just take them the first stage to lusaniemi, and then they must get other carriers." the faces brightened at once. they were very like children these lapps and northern finns. and they set about making up the packs to their fancy, and getting them strapped to their shoulders with the thongs of reindeer hide. the word went round, and the houses exuded more men, children, and women, all smiling their goodwill, all anxious to wish us god-speed. one wrinkled old crone of a woman, long past walking, was dragged up by her grandchildren in one of the boat-like reindeer sledges that she might not miss the spectacle. we were all ready to start, when one more request was made for--shall we say, a souvenir. would we fire one shot with the marlin at a mark to show how good an aim englishmen can make with a heavy rifle? was there ever a more embarrassing favour asked? we had made a good impression on enare--there was not a doubt of it; and here was an excellent chance of destroying it in a single moment before the assembled community. but there was no evasion possible, and so one of us shouldered the rifle, took a quick sight on the mark they pointed out (and which he could only just see), and pressed delicately on the hair trigger. the bullet sped, and the crowd ran off to see the result. it was a lucky shot; it had blundered in "plum-centre"; and furthermore, it had pierced in through the log wall of the house on which the mark was set, and out again on the opposite side. whatever else had happened, the reputation of the marlin rifle for penetration was established in the lapp capital for good and always. we were so overcome by the warmth of the multitude of the subsequent good-byes, that i regret to say we marched off neglecting to pay a debt of tenpence to the good lady with whom we lodged. our escort left us at the last of the dozen houses which formed the town, and from there on, excepting for one or two turf _gamme_ of pariah hunters, we came across no human dwellings for some time. the way lay through a thick and fairly tall forest, mostly of pines and birches, though in places there was a heavy jungle of shrubs and undergrowth. there were no birds, and no sign of larger game. only insects abounded. for awhile we had a trail to walk on, but this grew more disused, and finally vanished, and more than once we got astray, and had to make sharp turnings to recover the direction. it was not altogether country that would have suited a bicyclist. there were rivers to plod through, and swamps to clog one, cliffs to scramble up and down, and thickets to disarrange one's personal appearance, and most effectually to tear a mosquito veil if one had been worn. as a main direction, we were heading east along the flank of a steep valley, with hills on one side and a deep river on the other, which sometimes broke up into noisy rapids. as a general thing the trees closed us in, but now and again we got out on to rising ground, and found a view which it was worth stopping to look at. the pace of our caravan now, was very different from that detestable slouch we had been forced to put up with at the north of enare see. we logged off a good steady four miles to the hour, and after the first stop (which always comes early on a march, to get the loads finally adjusted) halts were pleasingly infrequent. the two lapps were the willingest fellows on earth, and the solitary, high-booted finn, although he was a poorer creature, was forced to keep up with his better's lead. the elder lapp, who headed the advance, was a melancholy-faced man of some personal beauty. he had lost his wife a few months before, had had his house burnt on the top of that, and so found himself, in middle life, changed from a prosperous family man to a homeless widower; and these things do not tend to cheer a man. he was a dull, capable servant, but we could not bring ourselves to like him. johann, the younger lapp, was a very different animal. we took him to be aged eighteen, though he turned out afterwards to be ten years older than that estimate. he stood about four feet ten inches high in his _lappellinin_, and the full curve of his bandy legs was charmingly exhibited by the skin-tight white-flannel garments which covered them. he had a quaintly ugly face, beardless as a girl's, and thatched above by a fell of coarse, black hair; and with his gaily-piped _matsoreo_ off and packed against his load (as he always carried it on the march), and a tight, striped jersey covering his upper man, he was an exact reproduction of the peripatetic acrobat one comes across at english fairs and seaside summer beaches. indeed one could never quite get over the idea that he was merely playing the part of carrier for a joke, and that some day, quite unexpectedly, he would doff his load, produce a square of threadbare carpet, and go through some entertaining contortions, and afterwards hand round his wooden coffee-bowl for coppers. he was a fellow of infinite thews and a boundless appetite for hilarity. he always had the heaviest load foisted on him, and received it with a joke and a grimace; and after the most wearisome march he could always tell funny tales, and laugh uproariously at his own excessive wit. in his personal habits he was an irresponsible savage; but in a land where everybody was accustomed to do everything for themselves, he was surprisingly thoughtful and attentive. for instance, after he had been drinking at a stream, he frequently offered his wooden cup to one of us that we might drink with niceness also, instead of being forced to lap the water up like a dog; and more than once, when our kettle and the carriers' were heating together on a camp-fire, he has burnt his own fingers that he might take our kettle off and hand it to us. indeed in these little attentions he distinguished himself above all his countrymen we met, and perhaps it was partly for this reason along with the others that we grew so much to like him. * * * * * two deserted villages did we pass through on this march, with their few mouldering remnants of huts and clearings almost blotted into forest by the second growth. in one of them there was an especially picturesque bit, and we came to a halt, and hayter sat himself on the wreck of an old reindeer sledge and tried to sketch it. he was prepared for annoyance from the mosquitoes, and he got it. he battled with them bravely for a long time: he smoked like a chimney; he slapped himself with frantic industry; and at last he gave it up in despair. he had covered three pages of his sketch-book with blood--his own blood--and pencil scratches, and dishevelled insect corpses, and he certainly did get three good impressionist sketches of the atmospheric condition, but he carried away no intelligible note of the ruined huts and the clearing. the carriers shouldered their loads again, and we knocked out our tobacco into the grass; but the caravan did not start till the two lapps had come up and carefully stamped out any smoulder which might remain. all trails which might at one time lead out of that village were long since grown up. the forest is always greedy to take back any territory of which man has robbed it. so we had to make our own path as we progressed, and pressed on through clinging undergrowth. the dim roar of the foss down in the valley rumbled through the air, but no birds lightened the march with their songs. occasionally the straining ear thought it caught the cry of some feathered creature, but it always turned out (on seeking deeper) to be tree-branches grinding together in imitation of bird sounds. ant-hills, built of pine-needles and clay, perched under the trees on the steep hillside, with gallery entrances into them of the bigness of peas, and a marvellous insect busyness pervading all their neighbourhood. they were not so large as those pine-needle ant-hills one meets with in north-western norway, and of course were dwarfed by the huge ant-mounds of africa, but they ran to a goodly size here in the enare district, often reaching to a four-foot height above a seven-foot base. we had passed the noisy falls by this time, and when we could catch sight of it through the trees, we could make out that the farther side of the valley was moving away from us. we were working downwards all the time, and presently we stepped out from the cover and stood on the sand beaches of muddusjärvi. it was necessary to cross this lake before we could get any farther, and the packs were thrown down, and we proceeded to telegraph our need to a tiny farm on the other side. the finn did not help. he was driven half mad with the mosquitoes, and he lay on the sand, with his head wrapped in his coat, writhing with the irritation of his bites. but we others dragged some dead wood to the extreme water's edge, and shredded it with our sheath-knives, and set it alight, and coaxed it into a goodly flame. and then we added more fuel, and still more. there is always plenty of dead wood ready to hand in these austere forests, which no one but nature herself cuts or cares for, and we dragged down whole trees to dedicate them to the flames. the lake was dim with mist, and a clear signal was imperative; and johann, the eccentric, must needs climb trees and dance upon dead branches, crooning music to himself, till he and the branch came crashing down to the ground. he was a weird creature. so we made this beacon of ours no niggling flicker. we had got to make our presence known and our needs understood; so we built us a royal blaze which roared, and writhed, and rose high into heaven; and then we ranged ourselves in the valley of smoke which drifted to leeward (to keep out of the mosquitoes' reach), and one by one stepped out and hailed at the upmost stretch of our voices, that some one, we did not know who, might bring across a boat. it was a good opportunity to experiment for the best travelling note of sound. the echoes from their perches on the frowning hillsides across the lake appointed themselves judges, unasked, and we mortals began the contest. first johann coughed the wood-smoke from his lungs and ran forward as though he were going to throw a cricket ball, and set back his shoulders, and yelled out a sort of dog-yap on two high notes. he scored, but not heavily. the other lapp lifted up his head and emitted a melancholy howl like a wolf's. we listened. yes, that certainly carried farther. the finn lay on the ground, with head shrouded from the insects with his coat, and would not compete. so we foreigners in our turn cooeed, after the australian fashion, and the echoes, fickle ladies that they were, awarded the palm to the newer, stranger, imported sound. they cooeed back that the cooee won by an easy thousand yards. * * * * * [illustration: the signal fire.] water-mists hung in filmy layers above the lake, and thickened as the hours drew on. patience and more fuel to the beacon were the only things that would help us, and we applied them both assiduously. and when we were not working, we sat where the smoke of the fire could drift solidly over us, and those gentlemen of england who sit at home at ease, and have never seen the mosquito at his worst, do not understand the luxury of it. there are not many insects whose proud boast it is that they can make the monarch man find stinging wood-reek fascinating. "_illi robur et aes triplex circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci commisit pelago ratem primus_," wrote horace in the days gone by; but unknown lands, had he known it, can contain far more horrid torments than the unknown sea. * * * * * but at last our vigil and beckoning came to an end. through the gray lake-mists there loomed out a hazy dot of a deeper gray. it grew and blackened, and resolved itself into a canoe, spiritlessly sent along by a single paddler. we watched its approach with warming hearts. and lo! the solitary paddler was a woman, old, bent, and toothless. all her men-kind were away, it seemed, fishing up a farther arm of the lake. it was a year since she had been in a boat, because of her rheumatism. moreover she had been in bed, and so our beacon had been lost on her, and being rather deaf, our shouts had fallen but dimly upon her notice. she hoped, with fluttering courtesy, that we would forgive her dilatoriness. poor old crone! we shook hands with her all round, and soon let her know where the indebtedness was placed. but the canoe was small, perilously small, and leaky, and it obviously would not hold the party of us. so the packs were piled in on to the wet floor-boards, and we foreigners paddled off to an appointed place where there was a larger craft, and we took the old lady, enthroned on a brown canvas sack, as an honoured passenger. the carriers tossed the remaining embers of the fire into the lake, carefully extinguishing with water every remaining spark, and then they went round by the beaches to meet us; and we ran the other canoe down into the lake, and made the trans-shipment, and paddled off in triumph. the old woman watched all passively. she was past the age of doing much for herself, or giving directions. she had a strong face, but the days of initiative had passed from her, and it must have been by a marvellous and unaccustomed exercise of will that she roused from her bed, and brought that first canoe across through the dank lake-mists to succour us. we recognised this, and i think we were duly thankful. we beached the canoe before the little farm, and went up to the hut there and took possession as a matter of course. there is an entire lack of formality about quartering yourself in your neighbour's house in arctic lapland. the old woman, with her latent housewifely instincts aroused, pottered about with a burning green branch to drive away the intruding mosquito. there were two rooms to the hut--a general living-room, and a tiny cupboard-like chamber which held two box-beds. there was a pet reindeer calf in the larger room, a frail, stilt-legged creature of the bigness of a greyhound, with a hoarse, dog's bark. it had an amazing knack of getting into every one's way, and sucked without invitation every finger that dangled within its reach. of food about the place there was no single scrap. milk, fish, bread, were all unprocurable. and so we were reduced to "killing a tin" from our scanty store, and making a sketchy meal off preserved dainties, which seemed to provoke the appetite rather than appease it. ours was the smaller room, and we lit a fire on the stone hearth, and brewed milkless, sugarless cocoa, and finished up with a dessert of that and cigarettes. the warmth grew in the little chamber, and there was a dry floor of boards beneath us. the mosquitoes, too, seemed for the moment to have left us. here seemed an opportunity for taking off our clothes, the first for many days. the scars on the vulnerable parts beneath them were cruel. hayter's legs and knees were so swollen with the bites that he could not rid himself of his breeches until he had slit the bands of them with his knife. our arms were tight in the sleeves of our coats; our hands were the size of boxing-gloves; we were both of us bloodied and blotched all over with the treatment we had undergone. personally i got on to one of the beds and fell asleep there in the act of filling a final pipe. but hayter did not get so far. he was seated on the floor when i saw him last, reeving a new lace in one of his boots; and when i roused in the morning, he was still upon the floor, with the lace in one hand and the boot under his head. i fancy we must have been a trifle worn out when we finally reached the shelter of that little farm on muddusjärvi. * * * * * we were woke by johann at . the next morning (after three hours' sleep), but did not make a start of it much before eight. we were bound up the lake, and as a paddle had been broken in the landing overnight, another had to be hacked out of the solid tree with axe and knife before we could leave. you may use another man's property if you find it lying about in lapland, but you are expected to make all damage good. as johann pointed out, it is sometimes a profitable move to leave an old paddle or a battered pair of _ski_ where the chance, needy stranger can lay hold of them, as by that means he does the breaking, and one gets provided with brand-new implements free of trouble. and there is no fear of being taken in by some one who is incompetent to do the requisite carpentering. axe and knife, and more rarely a saw, are the only tools in the country, and within all its marches one could not find a grown, sound man unable to use all three with deftness. we paid off our finn carrier at this point, and gave the old lady of the house two marks, at which she nearly bowed herself in two. and then we embarked in the canoe again, with the two lapps paddling, one the bows, and one aft, and set off up the lake. muddusjärvi is narrow here, and contracts still more farther on, till one could well set it down as a mere currentless river. it sits quietly between its low banks, and is fed from the low, hummocky hills on the northern side, and by the higher hills beyond them. there is thick cover in beyond these banks, but no sign of game anywhere. reed grasses which scraped against the canoe's tarry side were beginning to grow in the shallows, and then, just as the lake was beginning to widen again, we landed before a cluster of three huts, and tried for carriers. johann and the melancholy lapp went up to do the negotiation, and we foreigners got out of the canoe and stretched our limbs. a flock of ten diminutive sheep, two of them black, sauntered up and nibbled at my legs. the farm was small, but it seemed fertile and cared-for, and by no means poverty-stricken. there was a grass-field, enclosed by split-rail fence, and manured. and good grass it was, too, well cleared from weeds. but there were no carriers available here, which was what we were particularly interested in just then, so we went back to the canoe and once more got her under way. we opened up broad muddusjärvi after this--a fine sheet of water, bordered by wooded hills; but presently we turned due north again, and paddled up a narrower arm of the lake, and landed at another lapp farm. this was certainly the most prosperous place that we had come across since entering the country, and it was marvellous to think that such a spot could exist so far inland and so deep within the arctic circle. there were store sheds and outhouses running right up from the lake beach, in all abundance; and the big, log dwelling-house itself, on the top of the rise, was a place of mark. it had yellow window frames and a shingle roof. its big kitchen living-room measured twenty good feet by five-and-twenty, and it had no less than two separate bedrooms, not to mention the usual combined dairy-bedroom, each with a separate door of its own. but then this estate was no one-man farm. it doubtless had called one man owner sometime during history; but he had begotten sons, who shared the land between them, _more hibernico_, and then in the recent past these amalgamated into a sensible partnership. by dyke and axe they had added a few more acres to the ancestral plot from the forest swamp at the back; but only a very few: mere husbandry is of small account in this far northern clime. what they did was to increase the number of nets, and build more fishing canoes, and more drying sheds in which to cure the catch. it was from the lake they got the more important harvest. the milk and the cheese, and the rye and the meat of sheep and oxen, were good, but they could not be depended on. it was the fish that never failed. no arctic storm, no broken summer, could kill the crop of the lake or deny it leave to ripen. still twenty acres of good mowing-grass had this partnership got growing bravely in their rail-enclosed fields, and a potato garden, and a flock of sheep, and some dozen healthy cows; and as wealth goes in lapland, they were rich men. but the struggle for existence up there in the north does not permit of any idle hands. if a sufficient living is to be got, all must work for it. there was no sitting back to enjoy a life of moneyed ease on the shores of muddusjärvi. the place, as we saw it, hummed so briskly with work that we were almost ashamed of our own unattached condition. a big catch of fish had just been brought in from the lake, and they lay gleaming against the grass, sorted out into tubs according to their kind, awaiting their turn for evisceration. all spare hands were hard at this work. one of the partners, a comparatively big man for a lapp, gave the lead. he took his fish up by the back, cut through three-quarters of the neck down to the backbone, slit up the belly, emptied the guts on to the grass, and twisted the tail-flukes through a slit in the gills, so as to keep the flattened carcass perpetually open. two women and a bent old man toiled at the same work, though with less deftness; and two small girls squatted on the grass, and picked with care the fishes' sounds from amongst the other inconsidered debris, and washed them in water, and stored them in a wooden bowl of birch. in the shed built for that purpose, these finny spoils, strung on sticks, were put up to dry. there were no salmon or trout there; they were all coarse fish; some, of the bigness of sardines, strung through the eyes; some, of the perch tribes, hooped into circles like those above described; and a few stray pike, half decapitated, each on his own especial withe, hung up like shrivelled criminals with their wicked heads a-cock. there was a draw-well in front of the house, with a huge, straddling counterpoise-derrick over it in constant use. we stood by this for some time watching the bustling life of the place. johann came and said that a carrier was available, but he must dine before he set out, and he (johann) had received an invitation to dine also. we accepted the delay, and when one of the ladies asked us, we went up to the house. she produced stools, and wiped them down with a corner of her skirt before offering them to be sat on. verily feminine human nature of a certain class is much the same all the world over. [illustration: a prosperous lapp settlement.] it was the dairy-bedroom we sat in, the room of state and honour, and as it was comparatively free from mosquitoes--there were some paltry dozen or so to remind us of our immunity--we rolled cigarettes in peace, and hayter produced a sketch-book. the old woman who had charge of us was shown what was wanted, and took up her position, nothing loath. she stood like a professional model--a rare thing in this fidgety land--and the sketch progressed with speed. a very happy likeness it was, and the old woman was amazed to see herself for the first time in all a long life on paper. but she was not altogether pleased. on some occasion during her days she had broken a leg, which (according to the primitive method of the country) had been set with a reef in it. when she walked this gave her a prodigious limp. when she stood at rest upon both feet, it naturally skewed her shoulders well out of the horizontal. the sketch faithfully reproduced this trait, and the old lady objected in her top key. she wanted to be drawn straight as she would like to be, and not with rugged face and halting body, as the accident of years and weather had happened to make her. she was very like her sisters in more favoured climes, this middle-aged dame of lapland. but she did not stay arguing long. work could not stop. she left us in the dairy and went away to the kitchen, and the _whirr_ of a spinning-wheel told us what was her employment. hayter's pencil, however, was not permitted to rest. johann had evidently exploited its powers, and presently he came in half-dragging, half-leading, a younger, more comely girl, and whom he explained he was sweet on himself. he backed her up against the wall, arranged her hands and her head-kerchief, and explained that he would like a portrait of her executed in the best style for his own personal use and convenience. her name he said was margrete, and he mentioned that she was famed for her skill in milking cows in the summer and making clothes during the long nights of winter. the gay _matsoreo_ which he was at that moment wearing himself was the outcome of her clever knife and needle. in view of the forty-nine mile tramp ahead, johann had annexed a bundle of the fine, dried grass they use here in the shoes, and whilst the sketch of his sweetheart was progressing--by the way she was only one of his many loves--he dumped himself down acrobat-fashion on the floor and took off his foot-gear, and arranged the packing of grass therein with vast deliberateness and care. a small, solemn child, all bumpy about the head from bites, came in, stark-naked, from the other room, and stayed to stare. a couple of dogs--stout, gray, wire-coated fellows, like the dogs of the eskimo--added themselves unobtrusively to the audience. a lover of trimness in the female ankle should not go to lapland to find his models, as the trouser, strapped on to the boot-top, is fatal to any idea of symmetry. and in fact female personal beauty of any sort is not there brought to any high stage of cultivation. the faces of the women always verge towards plain, and their figures can only be described as dumpy. but if the features of these lappish women are homely and perhaps rugged, at any rate they are invariably pleasant in expression, and such a thing as a peevish face cannot be found from one side of the country to the other. they wriggle along through life on the lean edge of starvation. they have everlastingly to confront the struggle for the next meal, and the meal after that, and this constant strain marks the forehead and wrinkles the cheek; but at least they are free from those more branding worries of larger communities, which whiten the cheek and draw lines from the mouths of the women we know so well at home. a cuckoo clock in the great, busy kitchen hooted half hourly. in this land of the midnight sun and of midday night one cannot tell the time by the heavens as the countryman does in england and lower europe. a timepiece of sorts is a primitive necessity, and many are the varieties which find a use. in the larger coast towns, like vardö, the watchmakers drive a roaring trade, and dozens of watches with curious tooled brass cases dangle from the rods in the windows. up-country almost every hut sports its clock--some investment from a winter's marketing trip in the tiny, boat-like, reindeer sledges at abö or sodankyla, or even far helsingfors. an ordinary solid clock does not take the laplander's eye. he likes something flimsy, and if possible novel. at one place, hung on a peg driven into the logs of the wall, we were condemned to gaze hourly upon the exasperating device of a dentifrice advertisement, wherein a smiling young female drew a tooth-brush briskly across a beautiful set of cardboard teeth between every tick. i was half frantic with bites at that halt i remember, and deadly tired, and much wishful for sleep and forgetfulness. but neither would come. hour after hour i was condemned to remain awake, and stare at the tooth-brush clock, and read the legend (printed in my native tongue) that it was made in germany, and that the dentifrice was put up into neat packets, priced sixpence, or one shilling, which could be obtained from any chemist with the least presumption to call himself respectable. i argued at the time that the clock had evidently drifted far from the land where the ingenious advertiser destined it, seeing that the letterpress was english, and the laplanders do not use tooth-powder even if they could have read about its existence. and i savagely hoped that the man who sent it out had gone bankrupt as a penalty for annoying me. but at this peaceful distance of time and space i am inclined to call back that wish. and besides, i could not injure him (by conspicuously refusing to buy his wares) even if i wished, as the name of the ingenious dentrifice has completely passed away from me. * * * * * fortune took it into her fickle head to smile on us at this halt. we got no less than two new carriers, and rare fellows they proved to be. they agreed after about an hour's palaver to take our packs upon their shoulders, and once more we started down the lake. the whole population were either on the beach, or came there to see us off. the eight ladies who were employed in the dissection of more fish, left off that employment for the moment, and stood up, and took of their head-kerchiefs and waved them diligently. and margrete came down, and stood where the shingle was wet, and kissed her hand. johann saw, and so moved was he that he must needs stand up on the top of the pile of packs to wave back, thereby very nearly upsetting the canoe and all of us. we got hold of his bandy legs and pulled him down, and he lay on the wet floor-boards with his head undermost, bawling with laughter, and thinking it the best joke in all the world. he was hinting to another girl that he would die for her, at our next halt. he was a most fickle swain, this india-rubber lapp. we paddled eleven miles to the end of muddusjärvi--or at least the lapps paddled; we two foreigners lay against the packs, basking in the sun, and smoked, and lazed, and admired the colouring on the hills. and at the end of the lake we disembarked and paid off the melancholy lapp from enare, who took back the canoe. poor fellow, he had had his troubles and we should have pitied him. moreover, he was intelligent, and strong, and willing, and we should have appreciated all these qualities. but as it was, i am afraid our principal sentiment towards him was one of dislike. we had sufficient worries of our own for all practical purposes, and that mournful face hanging between us and the sun did not tend to lighten them. the caravan limbered up and stepped out down an avenue thirty feet wide, cut from the forest to provide for the winter sleigh traffic. the stumps were still _in situ_; rocks and boulders were scattered about everywhere between the grim forest-walls. an unmeddled-with undergrowth lay breast-high all down the clearing. a tiny winding ribband of track gave us just space in which to set our feet as we marched; and even this led into quagmires and morasses, which we were forced to wade through or circumnavigate. but all these obstructions would be blotted out by the winter's snow, and the sleighs could travel briskly over the hard white crust. scarcely a soul moved from place to place during the bright, soft, insect-ridden months of summer. indeed this march was rendered memorable by our meeting another wayfarer. he was a man dressed in the lapp clothes, but with a purely tartar physiognomy, and he and we exchanged but the chilliest of salutations. even the cheery johann forbore to bestow on him his usual grin of greeting. as though the mosquitoes were not sufficient plague (and their numbers, if it were possible, increased) we here passed into a belt that was peopled by still more insect horrors. dragon-flies in millions rustled through the air, though these did not worry us. but they were accompanied by loathly great horse-flies, as thick as a finger, and monstrous blue-bottles, which were maddening in their attentions. the blue-bottle one could hear and avoid; but the attack of the horse-fly was stealthy. the beast would fly up without a sound, and alight like a piece of thistle-down, and one would know nothing of the matter until one was bitten. they could go through a coat as easily as one could push in a pin; even corduroy riding-breeches could not impede them; and on the place of each bite, there arose in the next half hour a great wen, which one wanted to tear out bodily by the finger-nails. that part of lapland would be a lepidopterist's heaven; but for any ordinarily constituted man it came very near to being the other place. it must be remembered, too, that if we two foreigners suffered badly from this plague of flies, our carriers were ten times more tormented. a man with his hands free can thresh about, and to a certain extent beat the insects from him, unless he perishes with the exertion; but to a carrier impeded with a pack, this form of athleticism is necessarily limited. our lapps put calico cowls over their heads, which covered all except their faces, and their faces and hands they smeared with a liberal ointment of tar, and yet they suffered horribly. still for all that they made no complaint. johann would give out his great guffaws of laughter when things were at their worst, and the others would chime in merrily enough. they might be miserable, but they saw no reason to make themselves unhappy about it. they were good fellows these two new carriers of ours. the younger one, pedr, was a regular adonis in his way, and certainly the only really handsome man we saw in lapland. he had rare, fine features, perfect teeth, and a beautiful smile, which he laid on whenever conversation was demanded of him. he did not talk much; he seemed to find the smile much more effective. the other addition of our force of a surety had stepped straight out of county galway. it was true he wore a blue _matsoreo_ piped with red and most dandily worked upon the shoulders. it was true he wore the lapp shoe, and the tight white-flannel lapp trousers (all of them rather shabby), and carried sheath-knife and tar-bottle dangling from his embroidered belt. it is true he talked only barbarous qfinsk, but he spoke it with the softest, most insinuating brogue imaginable. his whimsical, humorous face, with its two days' stubble of hair, was the most truly irish piece of human furniture one ever put eyes upon. he had a blue eye and a captivating grin--grin was the only word for it. he was always willing to do the larger share of the work, and--always did the least. he lied to one, and grinned without shame when he was found out. he tried brazenly and without the least concealment to swindle us over his wages, and grinned delightedly when we objected to paying him more than his just due. he provided us with free amusement the whole time we had him, and did it all deliberately. to have called such a delicious person anything else but pat would have been an insult both to himself and to us. * * * * * we had a desperately hard journey of it on this march, and, moreover, passed nothing sufficiently interesting to note. the broad sleigh-cut continued all the way; the forest hedged it in on either side; the path underfoot was never level and seldom dry; and the insect plagues were a torment too horrible even to think back upon. in the end we came upon the swampy margin of a lake--the menesjärvi we had heard so much about--and there, after some searching, found a canoe pulled up amongst the lake-side rushes. now the canoe was thoroughly sun-dried, and when put in the water she leaked after the manner of a basket. moreover, she was small--unmistakably small. it was quite obvious to the naked eye that she would not hold the whole caravan, and equally obvious (when one looked at each member in turn) that no one wanted any more marching. however, for pedr and pat to walk farther was out of the question. they were both done to a turn, and fit to drop as it was. so they were put in the canoe with the baggage, and it just held the load, and pat (wily man) annexed the baler, whilst pedr took the paddles. they bestowed on us one ample grin, and one of the beautiful smiles, and pushed off. we three others had to tramp wearily round the margin of the lake to menesjärvi town. we started off across grassy swamp, and put up a pair of ptarmigan in the first two dozen yards. the cock was a lovely fellow, splendid in his summer plumage. he flew off at once; but the hen waited and glared. we beat about a little to find the chickens; but we did not trouble very much. we were wearily tired; and so we stumped on without seeing them. we got out of the swamp soon, and walked through a dry, straight-stemmed, pine forest, hung with that melancholy, lichenous growth like the spanish moss of the gulf states which we had seen on the trees near ischinlisvuoni. but here it seemed younger, or else was having less deadly effect, for the pines were few of them dead, and for the most part in sturdy health. crisp ivory-yellow reindeer moss made the carpet on which we walked, and at times, through the tree aisles, we caught sight of deer feeding. * * * * * it was a weary march that, for weary men, under the shade of those gloomy pines, but we were buoyed up with thoughts of the entertainment we should get at menesjärvi, which the map marked as a town, or at least a considerable village. and lo! when we did reach it, the place was nothing more than the squalid huts of one small family. but what they had, they offered with the usual easy courtesy. a couple who were sleeping there turned out of their best room, the dairy, and we were ushered in and invited to take the vacated couch. we did not do this; we had had enough of insects of one kind and another that day; and we thought the floor would be good enough for us. and so on the floor we camped. we dined first, sketchily. the room we were in was the dairy. along shelves on one side were a couple of rows of wooden-hooped bowls, eighteen inches in diameter by four deep, in which milk of various dates and various stages of decomposition was set to cream and curdle. from time to time the good-wife came in from the farther room, and took up a horn spoon which lay handy, and skimmed a part of one of the bowls into a birch-wood piggin which she carried, and then licked the spoon clean so as to be ready for next time. hayter said he quite granted that the lady of the house was very neat and tidy in her habits, but he would not have any milk. i did. i ate a bowlful of the clammy, sour curd. i was far too ravenous to be nice about what i swallowed. and then we divided the contents of one of those unsatisfactory tins between us. there was not a scrap of anything else to be had for love, money, or blows. three times whilst this process was going on had we with torch and fingers cleared the room of mosquitoes; three times had fresh swarms arrived to take possession. the building was full of chinks; it was impossible for us to stop them up; and so with pain (and some profanity) we made up our minds to accept _kismet_, and let the enemy do their worst. we crawled into our sleeping-sacks, and tried to doze. never was there a greater failure. the stinging little pests settled on us in their hundreds, and sleep was out of the question. it was twelve o'clock at night, and the sun outside, high in the heavens, was beating on the shingle roof till the room within was like an oven. the air reeked with sourness from the milk on the shelves, and we were tormented with an unquenchable thirst as a result of our bites. hayter, by the way, was in a tidy fever. we tried pulling the heavy blanket-sacks over our heads and getting off to sleep that way. but the result inside was a choking turkish bath, and as the mosquitoes got in also, we did not get much profit that way. we tried leaving our heads outside the sacks, and protecting them with hats and veils, but that was a more dismal failure still. and finally we were reduced to lying on our backs and keeping our faces in the midst of a halo of pungent, stinging, ship's tobacco-smoke. in the meanwhile we had not been left in our lonesomeness. almost the entire time we had one visitor or another staring as though we had been strange and slightly amusing animals. it is a curious _trait_ of the lapps, that although in many simple ways they are a very polite people, they will enter your room at any time without knocking or asking any trace of permission, and will stare complacently at what is going on without uttering so much as a word of comment. a weird crew they were too, this audience at menesjärvi, and it was hard at times to persuade ourselves that we had not gone to sleep after all, and that these were merely the people of fever and nightmare. they were most of them deformed. one hump-backed girl, with pigeon breast and a livid face, had a wedding ring on her finger and a couple of puny brats at her heels. intermarriage does dreadful work amongst some of these isolated communities. those who have been on fair island, that tiny patch of land between the orkneys and the shetlands, where once an armada ship was wrecked, will have seen a grisly instance of this nearer home. the dogs alone were well-shapen and well-cared for. but then the lapps always are kind to their dogs, just as the northern finns are almost invariably brutal. [illustration: sketches at menesjärvi] chapter vii into the land of horrible flies--(_continued_) we had small appetite for breakfast next morning after that horrible night, and this was a fortunate thing, for there was little enough provender available. we could not buy so much as a crumb of bread or a shred of fish. the wretched people had none to sell. johann showed a pleasant piece of thoughtfulness. he came into the dairy with a blazing bundle of green twigs in his hand, and filled the room with clean, fresh wood-smoke, so that we might have the early morning in peace. even the sour-milk smell fled before that billowing wood-reek. a mark paid our poor night's lodging, and for another mark we chartered a good canoe to take us down the lake and up the menesjoki, with a limp, small boy to bring her back. the hump-backed woman and her brood came down to the lake-shore and stared drearily at us as we paddled off. * * * * * that morning voyage down the lake lingers in the memory as one of the seven pleasures of life. the sun was bright and glorious in a blue sky overhead; a breeze fanned the fever from our hands and faces; and the canoe carried us as though it were the delightful vessel of a dream. the water tinkled and the paddles _cheeped_ against the gunwales. we drank deep of the ease and gentleness of it all. all around the lake were hills, pine-covered and highish, but, as usual, many patches of the forests were dead, and the tree skeletons stood out gray and naked amongst their feathered comrades. only one green patch was visible on all the shores, and that was menesjärvi, where we had come from. the eye should have dwelt on it with pleasure, but the horrors of the night we had spent there were still big in us, and we turned from it with shudders. we got into the menesjoki after three times grounding on the shallows, and paddled pleasantly up between its banks. here indeed was surprising scenery. we might have been rowing by some river-side park on the thames, the cultivated growth of ages, the daily care of a hundred gardeners. there were graceful foliage trees, and trim, well-favoured shrubs, and clumps of flowers, and lawns of the pleasantest green, all repeated faithfully in the still mirror of the water. it was hard to keep in mind that human foot did not tread these banks once in a dozen years. fish rising at flies dappled the water mirror with dainty rings, and now and again the swirl of a foraging pike gashed it with a rippling fan. even the mosquitoes, those insects of the devil, seemed to respect the sanctity of this paradise, and acknowledged that they were too evil to sully its delights. the river wound into countless curves, and the lapps paddled on at a steady gait. a brood of duck appeared in the water ahead of us, black in body, with a white bar across the wings. _leenoot_ was their country name. there was no drake; he was away from family cares. but madame was fully alive to the unpleasantness of our neighbourhood. away the whole crew of them went, splutter and splash, paddling lustily. the old lady led the way and quacked out directions, to which her family were fully obedient. one by one they left her, some diving, some swimming direct to the cover on the banks; and then she herself, with a final quack of defiance, got in the air and flew away through an alley of black pines. the river-side park ended here, as though we had left one estate and come upon another owned by some churl with no eye to neatness or horticultural beauty. a sandy bluff reared up above the stream, and on it was a dead forest of gaunt, gray, barkless pines, standing up as an eyesore to heaven. it had not been killed by fire; it had not been ring-barked or destroyed by any device of man; but the trees, the old, the young, and the sapling, had simply got tired of life, and so died altogether in rank as they stood. the mosquitoes came back here, and set about their iniquitous work. the stream grew swifter and more hard to paddle against; the sun went in; and we were brought from our brief, pleasant dream, back to some of the more crude realities of arctic lapland. i remembered that my ankles were puffed like some old cab-horse's with the bites, and i got out the bottle and rubbed brown tar on them and on my face as a preventive unguent. still more did the river water quicken in speed, till at last we came upon a noisy rapid, and had to put the canoe's nose upon the bank. we disembarked. the limp boy from menesjärvi started to paddle her back; the three lapps shouldered their burdens; and once more we stepped out through the country under the shade of stately pines. we found ourselves amongst a herd of grazing reindeer--if herd can be used for such a scattered flock. now we would see one through the palings of the pines, trotting away from us into the deeper quiet of the woods. now one would stalk out in lordly majesty, and stand, a clear mark against some sky-line, and stare in haughty wonder as to who those intruders could be who dared to bring their taint between the wind and his nobility. and then as we came up, back would go the branching antlers against the straight, strong back, and in a moment the forest would have swallowed him from view. they were all in velvet, these deer, with the young horn hot and feverish beneath its covering, and with their antlers in many cases only half-grown. they were only just recovering from the leanness of spring. they were still casting their coats, and the old hair hung from them in faded, matted tufts, which made them look dishevelled and woebegone. six weeks later they would be in their prime, rolling in fat, sleek-coated, and ready for heavy sledge-work, and short commons, and all another winter's stress. they would be decked, too, with new antlers, clean and unsplintered, and proudly conscious of the two new points which marked the dignity of another year's growth. but at present their one life-duty was to eat, and eat, and eat; and the crisp ivory-yellow moss which lay thick beneath the pines, and the tender shoots of the birches and the arctic willows, provided the wherewithal. it was pat's delight to set off these deer into a stretching gallop. "_porro_," he would whisper when his poacher's blue eye caught sight of one of the brown forms grazing between the tree-stems. and then the lapps would all creep forward on their silent foot-gear till the reindeer espied them, and pat would set back his head and let a regular irish yell out of him till the forest rang again. the deer would start off with the last mouthful of the crisp, yellow moss hanging from its lips, and the perspiring johann would burst into a great guffaw, and pedr would deliver himself of one of those beautiful smiles which served to express his every emotion. and then pat would turn to us with his droll grin, and we would have to laugh too, whether we wanted to or not. he was really a most cheery ruffian, this strayed galwegian. we came across a great stretch of marsh after this, with logs laid down over the worst parts, and at the farther side we made a midday camp with a fire which would cook the kettles and provide us with a smoke-shelter at one and the same time. and at this camp it was that johann told us a very curious tale. he was not diffuse in his telling, because he had no long powers of description, and i do not think he lied over it, because he lacked the requisite power of imaginativeness. if pat, for instance, had told the tale, we should have taken it as a piece of genial fiction, and thought no more about it; but as it was johann's tale, told perspiringly, with many awed shrinkings, and mostly in pantomime, it weighed upon us sufficiently to provide us with conversation for the next several days, and then we received a sort of confirmation of it which--but that will be mentioned in its place. briefly, and without johann's gesticulations, the tale was this:--he was out one day in a canoe on enare see, fishing--following his usual vocation, in fact. suddenly in the sky there appeared to him a fish, a huge fish, a green fish, a fish eight times as long as his canoe. he put up eight fingers, and we counted them. he looked up by chance and saw it, and where it had come from he did not know. it floated quite easily in the air about the height of--of--he pointed out a black pine--about so high above his canoe. it had a tail which could move, and a great ring round its neck which whirred when it went ahead. finally it left him and flew towards the mountains of the southward, and there was lost to view. we attempted to get more out of johann, but that was all he could tell. we gave him pencil and paper and told him to draw the fish; and he tried, certainly, but without any useful result; but then sketching is not a spontaneous art. and in the end we gave up trying to extract any more information on the subject, and talked over what we had got. "is this some sort of a legend?" said one of us. "not it," said the other. "then what do you think of it?" "seems to me to spell air-ship." "looks like it, and a good one at that.' "russian?" "who's else?" "_phe-ew!_" said the other. "this may mean something pretty big, if we can only come in touch with it." and so here we were provided with a topic of talk which involved the fate of navies, the policies of nations, and indeed the government of the whole wide world. it was a god-send to us. in many a camp, on many a weary march when of ourselves we should not have been able to rise above the depression of circumstances, it was enough to begin: "touching that air-ship of johann's, i've been thinking--," and there would start up a whirl of talk which lifted us clean away from the insects and the domestic worries of arctic lapland. * * * * * to the stranger accustomed to bivouacs in other lands, it is wonderful to see the care with which the lapps extinguish every grain of flame before leaving one of their camp-fires. the fire itself is always built close to a stream or pond of water--an ordinary necessity of camping when there is a kettle to be filled--and, if possible, on a flooring of rock. when the camp is struck, all remaining embers are tossed into the water, and then the extinguishing fluid is scooped up and soused over the hearth till not the faintest smoulder remains. to the stranger, i say, coming raw into the country, all this laborious care seemed excessive; but before we had travelled a hundred miles into lapland the reason became very apparent. if a breeze gets up, smouldering embers will rise from the place of fire and travel like birds down the wind. in a million cases they do no harm. but in the million-and-first they will drop upon some patch of reindeer moss, and then the mischief begins. the dry lichenous growth, crisp as cigar-ash, will carry the fire along like a train of gunpowder. dead resinous branches of pine are licked up by the tongues of flame, and in an hour's time the whole forest will be blazing, and a mark has been daubed across the country which will endure a hundred years. in africa or america this would not matter. it would mean so much more ground cleared for the game or cultivation. but in lapland it implies that valuable acreage of reindeer pasture has been taken entirely away from that generation, and human existence will be correspondingly harder; and so the man who sets the forest ablaze not only injures his neighbours, but he inconveniences that much more important personage, himself. even in the ordinary way of nature, the reindeer moss is a crop requiring delicate management. deer cannot be set to graze on it indiscriminately year after year. it demands its regular rotation of rest. in some districts four years, in others five, have to be given to a piece of fjeld to recover after a herd has grazed it for a short three weeks. and here, then, is the secret of the migratory life of the herder-lapp of northern europe, which has endured down so many countless hundred years with scarcely a trace of change. to live, his beasts must live; and to find food for them he has constantly to move about over large desolate areas of the country; and so it is the scheme of his life which has divorced him from the idea of fixed abode, and not the mere relish for vagabondage. we had not seen him in arctic lapland yet, this pastoral wanderer; the fishers and the farmer lapps we had come across were only his refined descendants; and we were keenly anxious to get into his neighbourhood, and watch him herd his deer, and see the life he led in summer under the conical shelter of his _la-wo_. it was this kind of lapp i had lived with once before on a bleak fjeld of north-western norway; it was this nomad aboriginal we had both read of in the improving books of childhood; and because we had come so far and gone through so much to renew his acquaintance, and still not met him face to face, we felt that we had been in some vague degree imposed upon. well, we were to see enough of him very soon; but more about that in its place. we came across traces of the nomads, however, on this very march. johann, from the head of the caravan, halted till we came up to him. he pointed with outstretched arm down an aisle of the tree-stems. "_la-wo_," said he, and showed us a cone of birch-stems set round the ashes of a hearth. this then was some reindeer-herder's temporary rest. the vadmal cloth which made the tent-cover was gone, the fire was cold, the deer were driven away to other pastures, the lapp herders had followed the deer. only the tent-frame was left amongst the scent of the pines and the juniper, and beside it one human utensil. it was a "screw" of birch-bark, like those coils of paper in which the country grocer at home puts up sweetmeats for children--a flimsy vessel such as adam might have used to scoop up his morning drink. it was new, and its edges were unfrayed; a thing made in a minute, and cast away when camp was struck to save the labour of portage. it was typical of the nomads' _ménage_. they are a people who have reduced the list of "things which one can do without" almost to the vanishing point. we were skirting now by the side of another ample lake, about one-quarter the size of menesjärvi, but we did not tramp along its winding beaches. we kept on through the pines, and saw the blue water only now and again through the trim paling of their stems, and the sun sailing high overhead warmed us as though we had been tramping through some wood of the engadine instead of this grim forest so far within the arctic circle. but no birds sang or sent their calls through the trees; the air had been filtered clear of all feathered creatures; the swarming insects peopled it alone, and pestered us with their ravening attentions. but if we suffered abominably from this plague of flies, it was some slender pleasure to know that they in their turn did not carry on a life of unfettered delight. they had their enemies. at one halt, on a small oasis in the middle of a two-mile-wide morass, i saw a loathly horse-fly, which had marked me for his next meal, get checked in mid-career as he flew towards my sleeve. he had blundered into a spider's web, and lay there struggling manfully. the whole net swayed and swung; the juniper twigs on which it hung actually buckled under the strain; but not a mesh gave. and presently the proprietor, a huge, orange-bodied spider, appeared from his private residence, and laid out along a warp, and (so to speak) threw off his coat and got to work. from a seaman's point of view that orange-bodied spider was a marvel of dexterity. he threw bowlines over the buzzing wings of the horse-fly, got a purchase on them, hauled them home against its body, and made them fast there with clever hitches. one by one he disentangled the horse-fly's legs from the mesh, and roped them up too. and then he marled the victim's body up into one helpless bundle, and carried it off to eat alive under a thatch of the juniper leaves. pat, to secure a longer rest at this halt, must needs change the grass in his boots, to do which entailed pulling it out, spreading it abroad to dry, and then packing it back again with one hand whilst he used the other as a last. inserting the naked foot into the nest thus made was a matter for niceness and accuracy, and it was not usually managed at the first attempt. and then the coarse flannel trouser--which was very much like the trunk-hose of our own ancestors--had to be carefully brought round inside the mouth of the boot, and snugly made fast there with five feet of red, embroidered, inch-and-a-half-wide bandage, which sported the two orthodox thongs for tying at its outer end. the other two lapps filled in time by capturing horse-flies and mosquitoes and "taking it out of them," after the manner of the story-book naughty child at home. i suppose we ought to have taught them better; but we did not: we felt that a little cruelty was justifiable. on through more forests of pines we went, and through more swamps, with cloud-berries tantalisingly unripe beside our feet. we had visions of cloud-berries from other days,--plump, yellow, juicy fruit, ice cold, and slightly acid,--and with the fever of the bites constantly upon us, and mouths like dried leather, they were visions which made us sigh. verily in this world--especially in the arctic part of it--man cannot get all he wants, even though he offer in exchange much fine gold. we sheltered under a new kind of roof at the end of that march--a regular arctic casual ward. it was a rude house of logs twenty feet square, furnished with fixed bunks and a table set against the wall, one movable bench, and a fire-hearth in one corner built of rubble stone. the nearest human habitation was the squalid hut with the hump-backed woman we had left behind us at menesjärvi. we were in a place of shelter built for the benefit of the sleigh traveller should he be caught in one of the whirling storms of winter. it was the distant finger of holy russia, showing how even the least-considered of her subjects is not left without some paternal care. we filled the room with wood-smoke and prepared to enjoy ourselves. the lapps undressed to their shirts, and squatted on the floor, and dined off reeking fish and strong rye-bread. we also ate from our poor store. and then we had a solemn palaver over the arrangement for the morrow, and then we lay down where we were, and slept. the wood-smoke died away from the air, and the mosquitoes came back through the chinks; but they browsed upon us undisturbed. we did not wake. [illustration: smoking out mosquitoes] chapter viii in touch with the genuine nomad, with some remarks upon his domestic deer, his treasure-hoards, and the decay of his practice in sorcery we roused after an uneasy sleep and stepped outside the rest-hut, and looked at the hot, round sun which hung behind a hilltop close at hand. hayter guessed the hour as a.m. i considered it to be six in the evening. we had no watch, and did not in the least know which was right, nor did we remarkably care. we were in a land where the daylight endured for each hour of the twenty-four on end, and we were setting off to visit those to whom the very name of hours was an unknown thing. we were going to seek the nomad herders in the deeper recesses of the fjeld. we might be a week before we found them, we might be only a day. their trail grows up after them, and no one but a herder lapp himself should know his own whereabouts. to come across the deer pack, the only way was to quarter the country in great wide beats, and to do this quickly one must travel light. so we arranged to reduce our _entourage_ to the smallest possible limits. the excellent johann was to come with us as personal attendant, and for once in his life that cheerful person pouted and looked sad. we might get lost, he pointed out; we should probably find no herder lapps at all; and even if we did, it was by no means certain that they would entreat us civilly. and finally--well, he did not want to go. he puckered up his face and nearly blubbered over it. he was a bit of a child, this loud-voiced acrobat in disguise. but in the end, when we did start, he had got his usual noisy spirits back again at the end of the first half-mile. by way of baggage we had each of us a couple of tins of food, and though hayter and i carried a tooth-brush each in addition, that was the end of our burdens. we were marching light, in the strictest sense of the word, and everything else that we possessed was left to the tender care of the other two carriers at the rest-hut. if we wished to drink, we must lift up fjeld water in the cup of our hands; when we slept, it must be _à la belle étoile_. no other methods are possible in the heart of arctic lapland. in this irresponsible trim, then, we set off, and travelled for i cannot say exactly how long or how far. we had no watch to mark the time, nothing but the weariness of the legs to check the mileage. we slept when we felt inclined, we ate frugally when the emptiness of our insides refused any longer to be humbugged by draughts of water. i fancy we were two days at this game, though it might have lasted three, and if any one insisted on four, i would not stand out very firmly. when one is on the tramp like this, and tumbles off to rest, bone-weary, it is astonishingly hard to calculate how long sleep has endured. at any rate three out of the six tins had been emptied, and we were looking longingly at the survivors. then we came across an encampment of the deer-herders. it was the distant bark of a dog which first gave us advertisement of their neighbourhood. we were amongst a tangle of small hills, sparsely wooded, and richly carpeted with the ivory-yellow moss. we stopped and listened, holding our breath. the deep-toned bark came to us again, carrying over the hills and through the scattered stems of the pines and the birches. johann stretched out an arm and swept it slowly through a sextant of space. he brought it to a rest, and looked at each of us in turn. we nodded. then we started off again down the direction he had pointed. on the top of each rise we stretched out our necks expecting to see the deer-herd close beneath. there was nothing but the aching emptiness of the fjeld, and the dog's bark was not repeated. had we---- no, there was a reindeer, and another, and four more. and there were fifty grazing on the yellow side of that ravine, with two bulls fighting in the middle of them. and there was the bivouac down amongst that juniper scrub and those gray tumbled rocks beside the stream. a watchful hound woke out of sleep, saw us, and gave tongue diligently. some one out of sight whistled. a stunted woman bobbed up from a sky-line, and then a little bandy-legged man appeared on our flank, and came running up, shouting diligently. johann's face up to this had been doubtful; he was by no means certain that he, a denizen of huts, would get a civil reception from the free nomad of the fjeld. but the sight of the bandy-legged man running, or the words that he shouted, seemed to drive away all unpleasant suspicions. johann capered to meet him, guffawing with delight; and they shook hands limply and interchanged their views on the situation for at least ten minutes. then the little bandy-legged man came up and smiled a welcome, shook hands limply with us also, and invited us to his residence. by this time news had gone round, flying from mouth to mouth across the ridges of the fjeld, and there had arrived at the bivouac two small girls in leather breeches and trim _matsoreos_ of skin, a wrinkled old woman, a half-grown boy, and marie, the squat little person who had seen us first from the sky-line. we settled ourselves about upon the rocks and amongst the scented juniper bushes, and exchanged our news with vigorous pantomime. a fire smouldered on a small hill of ashes in a handy open space. in the background stood the brown cloth-covered _la-wo_, a residence far more like the north american conical _tee-pee_ than its nearer neighbour the samoyede _choom_; and though it yielded up a thin smoke from the bristling sticks at its apex, to tell that the domestic hearth was lit inside, and all was ready for habitation, it was plainly impossible to pack so large a party under shelter of the sloping walls on a floor space which was only seven feet in diameter. and besides, the _la-wo_ is not meant for a parlour; it is merely a shelter. go all over the rest of the world, and the host will ask his guest to "come inside"; the wandering arab will invite you to his black tent; even the congo savage will ask one to enter his hut of reeds; but to the nomad lapp this idea of a "home" has not yet come. he will offer his hospitality to the chance stranger; he may even be lavish so far as his starveling means admit; but he has no house-pride; the lee of a rock or the sunny side of a brae under jove's cold sky is the only snug corner or dining-place which it occurs to him is needed. however, it was evident we were being pressed to "stay and dine." the contents of the larder ran about till they were needed--to wit, small black-and-tan lemmings. there were plenty of them around, and the lapps got up and ranged about to catch the needful supply. we turned to and did our share. they are foolish creatures, these lemmings, in personal appearance something between a guinea-pig and a rat, and with very little notion of self-preservation. after catching your lemming you skin and gut him, and then place him to toast in front of the general fire on the end of a pointed stick, which is jabbed into the ground. we got these preliminaries settled, and squatted in a ring round the fire watching the roasts--all, that is, except the wrinkled old woman. she, good soul, was engaged upon a much more tedious ceremony. out of a skin knapsack she had taken a small skin bag. from this she extracted some twelve green coffee-beans, which she proceeded to roast one by one in a small iron spoon, to the accompaniment of vast care and solicitude. when all were cooked to her taste, she bruised them to coarse fragments--and be it well understood she did not grind them--between two stones, and put the result with water into a kettle of copper, which had one lid in the usual place, and another on the end of the spout to keep out smoke and feathery wood-ash. [illustration: herder lapps' encampment.] in the kettle the whole mixture was boiled up together into a bubbling broth of coffee fragments and coffee extract. she cleared it by an old trick which is known to campers all the world over. she put into the kettle a small splash of cold water, and the coffee-grounds were promptly precipitated to the bottom. then she poured the clear, brown, steaming liquor into a blackened bowl of birch-root, and handed it to the good-man, her husband. we had finished our two lemmings apiece by this time--exquisitely nasty they were, too--and here was after-dinner _café noir_. the host took the bowl in his fingers, and the old woman, hunting in the leather knapsack, produced a block of beet-sugar wrapped in a careful fold of skin. the host bit a chunk off this, and lodged it in his teeth; then he lifted the bowl to his lips and drank. in a more civilised man this would have been rudeness, in a savage it was an act of simple courtesy. it was a plain assurance to all who beheld that the bowl contained no poison. then he handed it on, and we drank in our turn, and i do not know that i have ever tasted more perfect coffee. the two girls and the half-grown boy went off to attend to their business with the herd, and we others sprawled back where we were, and smoked, and dropped off to sleep when we felt so inclined. the summer herding of reindeer by these mountain lapps is more active work than the pastoral life of an english shepherd. a sheep, of course, requires some management, and even a flock of lumbering southdowns can at times stampede and do themselves considerable damage. but a reindeer herd of (say) head, maddened by mosquito bites, and once well on the move, is a force which it requires more than the ordinary bucolic science to deal with. they may easily take a month to recollect after a successful break like this. as a consequence, the patrol round the herd is constant and strict. each sentry has a coil of small rope, and at the least sign of a gathering together of the beasts preparatory to a rush, the sentry scampers at speed across the direction in which they are heading, paying out the rope as he (or she) goes, so that it lies like a lean gray snake upon the uneven ground. it is rather wonderful to watch what happens. the deer charge up with growing speed, sight the rope, and pull up with absurd haste, snuffing it and trembling. and then up comes the sentry, a leather-clad imp of perhaps three foot six in total length, and with voice and foot drives back the great antlered brutes in ignominy to their pasturage. but, at the same time, it is not advisable to let the mosquito-plague torment the beasts too much, and this is why the summer herding is done on the high ground, where these pests are fewer. still even there they sometimes abound; and, when they grow very bad, the mountain lapps will (for a treat) light fires to windward of their herd, and let them revel in the sanctuary of smoke. fancy semi-wild deer, even through the custom of ages, accepting a diet of smoke! the domesticated reindeer of arctic lapland varies much in bigness, according to the age and the breed; but, taking the average, they are smaller than the wild deer of the high fjeld in southern norway, and smaller than the domestic reindeer of siberia. still they are of no puny size, and a fine red stag of the scottish highlands would find many equals in girth and shoulder height amongst the arctic herds. but the scotchman would tower above the rest by reason of his carriage of the head and antlers. there is nothing majestic about a reindeer's deportment. he is usually cow-hocked. his great splay-feet, with their two lateral hoofs, are excellent, it is true, for getting grip on snow surfaces, but architecturally they are far from beautiful. and the carriage of the head is distinctly bad; whether standing still or on the move, they have their ears on a level with the withers, and the hairy nose stuck out in front. amongst all the deer tribes of other lands the females are hornless, but the reindeer, whether she is wild or whether she is domesticated, sports antlers of orthodox shape. they are slightly smaller than her husband's, but, like his, they begin to appear within a few weeks of birth, which, seeing that most deer do not show a trace of horn till they are at least nine months old, is an abnormally early development. the lady's head-gear, too, although it is slimmer and has less points than monsieur's, is worn all through the winter, and is not got rid of till the troubles of maternity begin in the spring. and here she shows her superiority, for the bull reindeer has always cast his antlers by the end of november. this trifling fact is usually overlooked by those artists who at christmas-time draw such pleasing pictures of impossible lapps careering in toy-shop sledges towards a genuinely london-made _aurora borealis_. it seems a pity to cast comparison on so many pretty drawings, but let us be accurate sometimes, even if we have to forego an artistic effect. the sledge-deer is not a natural product, but the outcome of severe training. it takes three winters of hard breaking-in before he could sell with the warranty of "quiet to drive in single harness: has dragged a lady." he is not a picturesque animal when he is on the move, with a sledge behind him jolting along at the end of its long, hide trace. he gets over the ground quickly, it is true, but he leaves all possible grace out of the performance. his gait is a series of long, striding slides, which make one think he is eternally on the point of coming down, and predict for him wrung withers, sprung hocks, and a necessity for embrocation on every muscle of his body. he overreaches at every step, and rattles his great splay hoofs against one another like some one playing castanets. but, if not over-pressed, he can get over enormous distances at an eight- to ten-mile-an-hour speed (according to the ground), in front of a -lb. load, in the worst of arctic weather, and on a miraculously small supply of forage; and he possesses climbing powers which would put even a spanish _contrabandista's_ mule to the blush. but the nomad lapp of this district does not exist merely as a breeder of draught animals, and not two per cent of his flock ever feel the chafe of trace or collar. he is a purveyor of meat: he breeds, rears, and tends his deer for the one sole purpose that in due time they may be driven down to a market, and there be exchanged for the luxuries of life and a balance of current coin. he needs sugar, green coffee-beans, and russian leaf-tobacco, and the fjeld produces none of these things; but in the places where the reindeer can be sold, there they may be bought from traders. and at the same time he uses the herd in a measure to support his own life. the thick syrupy milk--almost as dense as the condensed swiss milk one gets in tins elsewhere--makes part of his daily meal. we came across it not unfrequently. it is carried in grimy bladders, and, after the custom of the country, is usually rather sour. at meal-times it is poured into a large bowl of birch-root, which the host holds between his knees. there is one spoon, a shallow affair of bone, which is handed from one to another, and it is always considered polite to lick the spoon quite clean before passing it on. the milk itself, either by reason of its surroundings, or because it is made that way, has a telling flavour of ancient turpentine, which clings in the memory. but i do not think that reindeer milk eaten _à la laponne_ will ever be introduced as a delicacy by english _gourmets_. farther westward in lapland, the ownership of the deer is different. every finn farmer must have his six to eighteen deer for winter traffic, and as the country is more thickly settled there, a great many deer are required. in the summer these are handed over to some lapp, who will graze them and return them when the snow comes again in good condition for the heavy work. the lapp gets a fee for his trouble, and takes as a perquisite any increase which may occur whilst the beasts are under his charge. he runs all the deer entrusted to him in this way together in one big herd, and separates them (if so be he should forget the individuals) by their respective ear-markings, which are registered property. the niceties of scientific breeding are beyond the crude wit of this meat farmer of arctic lapland, and though he occasionally does a swap, weight for weight, and age for age, to bring new blood from a distant herd into his own, and so prevent continuous in-breeding, this is about the utmost extent of his efforts. he accepts the new-born calves as they appear, and does his best to keep them in fettle and get them fit for market in the smallest possible time. in summer he drives them through the forests of arctic willow and birch, where they may browse on the young shoots or eat the crisp moss underfoot. and for the benefit of those that have not seen the performance, i may say it is a quaint sight to watch a solemn reindeer reared up on his hind legs, with his great splay fore-hoofs against a birch trunk, trying to grab the tender foliage which dangles so temptingly just above his hairy muzzle. his one regret, then, is that nature has not given him wings. but in winter the mountain lapp herds his deer where the snow blanket is thinnest, so that they may most easily delve down to the moss beneath. it is a curious sight, also, to see a reindeer-herd feeding in the gloom of the arctic night, when a six-foot layer of snow intervenes between the glowering sky and its food. each deer digs for itself a pit, hoeing the white mass with its prominent brow-tines, and scratching out the powdery snow with its forefeet, after the manner of a fox terrier delving for rabbits; so that when it is grazing on the succulent moss below it is quite out of sight from the snow surface above. the deer does not enlarge the floor of this pit to any great extent, and it does not understand the art of making a trench. when one patch of the moss is eaten bare, it clambers to the surface again and makes another pit. when the sleigh traveller, driving along through the dark twilight, comes across one of these places where a deer herd has been digging down to food, he generally has plenty of occupation before he has crossed it safely to the farther side. the reindeer, by the way, is identical with the cariboo of northern america, and at one time, though long ago, it certainly existed in these islands of great britain and ireland. it lingered longest in caithness, and certainly was not extinguished there till the middle of the thirteenth century. but although the american red man, and the trapper, and the pre-historic scotchman, have all, at one time or another, made their living out of the deer, none of these ever bred them as a domestic animal--that is an occupation parochial to the lapp alone. here is a very interesting proposition. where has all the money gone to for which, during so many weary centuries, these herds have been exchanged? the lapp does not spend it upon himself, that is evident; and if he hoards it, where is his strong room? legend alone deigns to tell: the lapp himself preserves a massive ignorance. it was a norskman of namsdalen who taught me all i know upon the subject, and what he said was too much like a fairy-tale to be taken very seriously. he was my hunter at the time. we were after elk, and he was moved to speech by the finding of the despoiled carcass of a cow-elk which had been slain by poacher lapps. it seems he had once been enamoured of a lappish woman (fin-ne, he called her) himself, and under pressure she had shown him the hoard of her tribe. it lay in a narrow glacier which trickled its frozen stream down a bleak pass in the mountain. at one place a spur of the rock had canted away the moraine stones into the centre of the stream, and behind the spur was a little bay of rock filled, as it were, with a backwater of clear green ice. at the edge of this they knelt, and stabbed and dug with their sheath-knives, and as the pit deepened round their feet they heard the muffled groans which poured from the heart of the glacier. these were the ghosts in the ice, the fin-ne woman told him--clammy, resistless ghosts, who strangled thieves, as they had done through countless thousands of years. and when at last their knives had slashed a way to the lip of the cave, which lay below, my superstitious norsk hunter almost believed her. the woman herself would not go inside--she dared not. but the norskman, though full of shrinkings, slid down over the glittering ice fragments into the cold, black cave beyond. and there, in the half gloom, lit only by the few rays which struggled in through the hole they had dug, and the cold green light from the ice, what a sight it was that met his eyes! he was in the treasure-house of the lapps, a regular aladdin's cave, crammed with the plunder of centuries. in ordinary sacks of skin were the _kroner_ of recent years, and the national silver coinage which obtained before that. there in heaps were the heterogeneous coins of past ages and every country. and beyond was a curious litter of pewter candlesticks, jewelled sword-hilts, a gold communion chalice, a rusted iron mace, a bone crucifix, bowls, chains, ladles, knives, some of precious metal, some mere valueless relics: and outside, the ghosts of the ice creaked and rustled incessantly. here, then, was the tale of how those old sea rovers, who stormed scarborough, and burned the humber villages, and ravaged the coasts of england and france, obtained meat to victual their galleys. here was the plunder they had brought back from their distant piracies, peddled away to buy deer meat for fresh expeditions. but the man who looked on it all did not stop to make more than a hasty catalogue. the whispering ghosts of the ice scared him, the cold darkness of the place chilled his blood, and without, in the daylight, the fin-ne woman incessantly whimpered and cried out that he should come back to her.... this is the tale as it was told to me beside the relics of that murdered cow-elk in namsdalen, and this is all i know about the matter. a glow for treasure-hunting warmed in me. i wanted to set off at once and see that cave by the glacier for myself, and finger its contents. but the hunter was not to be persuaded; he said he had forgotten its whereabouts. that, of course, was absurd for a man who knew every tree and every rock on the fjeld. but i rather think the lapps had scared him into holding his tongue about the matter. he had a very real terror of their powers of sorcery, as i had learned already, and i was inclined to credit his tale about the hoard--he had not got the necessary power of invention to have made it up. besides, the viking "local colour" which he gave me (and which i have forgotten) was clean beyond him. * * * * * where these herder lapps, who were our hosts just then in arctic lapland, had their strong-room we were not indelicate enough to inquire, but we did push questions, as far as they would go, upon another point--we wanted to witness some practical sorcery. we wished to see the drum brought out, a genuine active curse performed, and then watch it go home to roost. when i had lived with laplanders before, i had seen nothing of these things, and well-informed friends afterwards had blamed me for not furthering questions and watching real _bona fide_ sorcery in full working action. such a thing as witch-, or rather wizard-craft seemed an anachronism, and yet it was undoubtedly done and believed in. many a norwegian valley farmer, who has offended his fin-ne neighbour, has been told that his sheep or his oxen shall in consequence suffer, and has watched the poor brutes pine away and die from no apparent ailment. from a distance one glibly diagnoses poison cunningly administered, but on the spot one seems to grasp that some other influence is at work which is not so easily explained away. we were keen, then, to see this sorcery process in full working order. we wanted to inspect the oval-headed drum with its curious figuring which is the outward and visible sign, and to watch all the ritual of spell-weaving by a recognised practitioner. we were prepared to supply him with a subject. hayter and i both agreed that there was a certain large fat man of our acquaintance whom we would gladly sacrifice to the cause of science. hayter should draw his portrait, we would have him thoroughly cursed, and we would go back to england and note the result for ourselves. if the fat man had dwindled appreciably, then we would credit the powers of lapland sorcerers; otherwise we would withhold judgment, or perhaps go so far as to disbelieve. so we broached the matter openly round the camp-fire. our grimy host grinned and shook his head. hayter drew the fat man's portrait and held it out alluringly. our host sighed; the fat man was certainly a most tempting subject to carry a real good, comprehensive curse. but as he sighed, he shook his head. he said he had thrown up his practice as a sorcerer; he tried to imply he had sold it, and then he denied having ever practised at all. yes, he quite understood what we wanted; he looked at the portrait hungrily, and rubbed his scrubby chin, and was truly sorry he could not undertake the job. but that sort of thing was past and over now--at any rate, on behalf of foreigners. and yet----he looked at the fat man's portrait again, and took an imaginary drum between his knees and tapped music from its head. and then he frowned and shrugged his shoulders, and begged some ship's tobacco, and began ostentatiously to talk about an attack of _laminitis_ in one of his deer's hoofs, which we had been prescribing for. he let us understand very clearly that the subject was a delicate one, and that he did not choose to be drawn on it; and from him--upon sorcery--we heard no more. as it chanced, his daughter marie took a great fancy to one of us, and we thought we might get news of what we wanted from her. but although the favoured one took many walks with the young lady over the quiet folds of the tundra (always keeping carefully on the windward side of her), he never got any definite information on the subject he had at heart. the damsel was clearly as ignorant as himself, and in the end, when he was "cut out" by the gallant johann, he bore the pain of being supplanted like a man. marie was very nice, but--well, one could not always manage to keep to windward of her. and so there ended our dealing with the matter. it had been one of my aspirations to some time have the power of writing a genuine interview with a practical sorcerer, and the thing plainly could not be done. if witchcraft is still practised in lapland, it is done with small ostentation, but i am inclined to think the whole business has died out. the degenerate lapps,--those whose fathers have at one time failed as deer-herders on the fjeld, and who have come down to being vagabond river-fishers, or mere prosperous lake-side farmers,--are moving with the times. many of them can read, and some can write. schoolmasters go amongst them during the idle months of winter. and before that practical person--the schoolmaster--the practising warlock has to hide his drum. holy russia is at the schoolmaster's back, and here is another of the crimes with which that terrible country must be charged: it has elbowed out of europe the final relics of the cult of sorcery. one could almost turn nihilist out of sheer regret. [illustration: the sorcerer and the portrait] chapter ix a prÉcis of lappish history, and a narrative of transit by raft and swamp to ivalomati that grimy little person, marie, guided us back to our other men, and whether she did it out of sheer good-nature, or for the sake of the one of us she was pleased to admire, or for johann's sake, it was hard to discover. it seemed that the untutored child of the fjeld could be as arrant a flirt as any young woman with the advantage of half a dozen milliners and a london season's education. but for all that, if there was a breeze blowing, and one did not come too close to her, she really was in her way a pleasant little companion. one could hardly call her good-looking; she was too weather-beaten for that. and she followed the fashion of the fjeld in being more easy than trim in her apparel. moreover, she was as irresponsible as a cat in her personal habits, which was a _trait_ one did not get used to all at once. but, as i say, she had her attractions, and though one was inclined to smile at her waddling run at the beginning of a march, one regarded it with more respect at the end of the fortieth mile, when it was no more clumsy and no more waddling than it had been at the outset. marie led us through river and swamps, through forest and ravine, through all the naked loneliness of the fjeld, with never a scrap of hesitation, never more than a brief glance round when we headed a rise. she knew the wilderness as a hunting-man may know a country here at home. and she led us to the rest-hut which johann had described, with never a deviation from the bee-line except where the corrugation of the country made curves a necessity. pat, with more stubble and more grin, and pedr, with a smile if possible more beautiful than ever, were at the door to welcome us. inside, our solid goods were laid out in an orderly row; the brown canvas sacks and the chronically sodden blankets were hung up on the drying-beam above the fire; and the room was filled with a delicious mosquito-proof smoke. it felt quite like a home-coming. we inducted marie to a seat on a pile of springy birch-boughs, which the excellent pat had brought in to form his own bed, and we set before her of our best, which did not amount to much. i think it was the first time she had ever tasted larks in aspic, and unless i am much mistaken she will not greatly regret if it was the last. one thing she did appreciate though, and that was the _windward's_ slop-chest tobacco. she saw the black cake pass from hand to hand; she drew her knife from its sheath and held out eager fingers; and when she had shredded up a sufficiency and got her iron-lined wooden pipe in full blast, it was a pleasant sight to see her. the smoke exuded from her lips and nostrils in sleek, gray clouds, and the wrinkles in her grimy, weather-beaten little face wreathed themselves into a smile of ecstatic contentment. the question of sleeping-quarters obtruded itself. we had an acquaintance with the lapp's casual way of regarding such matters, but we still had (from the conventions of our upbringing) some small spasm of hesitation in offering a spinster guest a shake-down on the floor of a hut containing five full-grown men. we discussed the advisability of turning out ourselves and camping elsewhere with the carriers, and leaving marie in the orthodox virgin seclusion. but she took the matter out of our hands very simply. she said she must be getting back to her endless work with the deer-pack. she had sat down for an hour on pat's couch of birch-shoots, and this seemed all the rest she cared for after her gentle forty-mile stroll. she shook hands with us limply all round, and then went into the sunny midnight outside. hayter and i instinctively took off our caps, but i am afraid she did not know it was intended as a piece of courtesy, because she doubled up in a fit of merriment by way of response. and then johann went out and walked by her side till they came to the edge of the scrub willows, and i think she appreciated johann's attentions best, because she understood them more. they stopped there and made their further adieux, and then the squat little figure waved its hand for the last time, and disappeared in the cover, and johann stood stupidly staring at the place where she had vanished. we went back into the hut and sat down on the benches. the aroma of the little woman's presence clung to the place, and we could not help thinking of the endless round which had made up her life and would make up her future. her ancestry dazzled one. her forefathers were old at a date when the romans laid down the first legend as a foundation for their history. they came of a fine, crusted, ural-altaic stock, who were accustomed to look upon the adam-and-eve family as vulgar parvenus. and yet they were people without observable pride or ostentation. they had no monuments, no books, no sculptured or written history. they could look back on neither a nobility nor kings. they had always been hunters and herders, and by reason of this had never acquired the gregarious idea. they were a people of camp-communities, living on their deer, and the camps were always small, because many deer cannot find pasturage in one locality. by reason of this it has never occurred to them to be patriotic, and, as a consequence, when oppression came in their way, they have always been oppressed. in a nation of warriors the small men get weeded out by the chances of battle. in a community which has never fought, the stature of the race deteriorates. the lapps have never been warriors. they have never even been a nation. as the world increased in the easy lands of the south, so have the lapps through the centuries been ever squeezed at its verge towards the bleak, unknown north. it is but rarely they have consented to band together and raise objection. the norwegians made them serfs by proclamation in the ninth century, and serfs they remained, contentedly enough, so long as the ill-usage dealt out to them was not over-brutal. when they could stand it no longer, they took refuge in the savage forest-dingles, and made expeditions for houghing their enemies' cattle and burning down their wooden homesteads. by this means they regained a wandering independence; but in the fourteenth century the norskmen again coveted a subject race, and made systematic raids on the nomads, and again wrote them down as serfs in their census. and in the sixteenth century the swedes followed suit. but only a few of the lapps were caught. the great majority were still free wanderers on the fjeld and the tundras. the only lapps who really suffered were those who were held by the birkarlians--a band of swedish adventurers who flourished from the thirteenth century right away down to the year ; and in the hands of these hard men they endured what was little better than slavery. they had no redress. they had no trades unions amongst themselves; they did not belong to that larger trades union which is known as a nation; and if the birkarlians in the course of progress could have endured to this day, it is probable that they would still be holding stunted laplanders as their unpaid menials. but time sweeps on, and the sentiment of the world alters. the peculiar institution of slavery has for one reason and another dropped through into mere history; and governments which at one time thought the only self-respecting thing to do was to either shoot the aboriginal or shackle him into servitude, now look upon him as an amiable curiosity, and write out laws for his preservation, much in the same spirit as they appoint close seasons for the elk and the ptarmigan and the aurochs. under this fostering care the total lapp population has risen to some , as near as it can be reckoned; of which , wander within the marches of norway, are in sweden, and the balance own as over-lords the archduke of finland, and his master the great white czar; and each government has its own preservation rules. the fundamental note of the russian _régime_ is "no vodki," and it is easy to create a prohibition state where distances are big, transport difficult, and the inducements to smuggle small. norway very wisely does not worry about the liquor question, as in practice there, by reason of the settlement of the country, it would be quite impossible to restrain the aboriginal from purchasing _aquavit_ if he intended to do it. so the norskman lets the fin-ne, as he calls the lapp, diet himself entirely according to taste; and as a consequence, at an occasional wedding, or an annual meat-selling, the little man spends one afternoon in getting blind drunk. he has all the rest of the year to get the aniseed flavour entirely out of his system, so, physically speaking, not much harm is done. sweden, too, follows the same policy, but provides a slightly less noxious brand of drink. the scandinavian farmer, however, who has the lapp reindeer-herder for an occasional neighbour, does not agree with the enthusiastic theorists who in stockholm and christiania make the laws for his preservation. socially he regards the lapp as though he were some noxious kind of ape, the which is quite understandable, because the spirit which fosters aborigines' protection societies can only exist at a considerable distance from the aboriginal. he sees the lapp and his doings personally, and (being somewhat unread) does not regard him from the point of view of an interesting relic of the past. he merely looks upon him in the light of the present, and finds him a thorn in the flesh. in the old viking days the scandinavian would yield to no one in his appetite for thieving; but with advancing civilisation he has grown to be a staunch anti-pilferer. he has had game-laws set up above his head, and he respects them. he is allowed to shoot one elk on his own estate, and only one elk, per annum, and he must shoot it in a certain fixed month; and it is not pleasant for him to see the lapp (who knows no law except the rule of appetite) gaily slaying the great deer whenever they come within range of a rifle-bullet. it annoys him, too, to have his cows milked on the mountains, and his rivers and lakes poached with system and industry. moreover, it is his custom to leave all his worldly goods unlocked and unguarded, and he expects that no one will steal them; so that when the mountain lapp comes out of the forest like a quiet ghost, and annexes any trifle, from a sheep to a parcel of smoked salmon which may strike his fancy, the farmer rages, and makes no allowance for the neglect of education. it is tolerably useless to apply to the government for redress, because governments move slowly, and a lapp moving on the fjeld, if not tackled at once, is hard to catch; and so he takes the law (and a remington rifle) into his own most capable hands. then begins the trouble. the mountain lapp, according to his instincts, has stolen; and although under pressure he might peaceably give up the transferred goods, he has a strong dislike to indiscriminate retaliation--when applied to himself. so when he comes across the rotting carcasses of first one, then another, then a dozen, then a score of his cherished deer, ruthlessly shot down and left in their wallows, he accepts the _vendetta_, and prepares to carry it into bloody effect. he owns a rifle, this nomad herder of to-day, who rears the __rensdyr__ amongst the rugged mountains of the scandinavian peninsula; and though it is an early breech-loader, cast from the army in the early seventies, it is a deadly enough weapon when the butt is cuddled by a vengeful shoulder. and he goes down to the valley-farms and puts lead into beast or man, whichever comes in his way. upon which the farmers, still saying no word to the government, arm and organise a lapp-hunt; and the mountains swallow the tale of what is done; and those who come back to the farms sit down assured that at least some of the aborigines will pester them no more. this then is the state of things which obtains in this year of grace amongst the fjelds and forests of northern norway and sweden, and as a consequence the lapps are slow of increase. over the border, however, in lapland proper, and in russian lapland, their numbers rise appreciably every decade, though it is perhaps hard to decide which are genuine lapps and which belong to a mixed race. in the extreme east of their territory they are apt to intermarry with the samoyedes; and i think it is a significant fact that the outer garments of the two races--the lapp _matsoreo_, and the samoyede _militza_--are both fashioned on the same cut. in russian lapland there is an obvious intermixture with the russian _moujik_, and in lapland proper they naturally marry largely with the all-pervading finn. the inhabitant of lapland is not so light-fingered as his more western brother, perhaps because there is less opportunity of pilfering. and he does not make himself so unpopular, because there are fewer aliens for him to get unpopular with, and no one goes out regularly to shoot him as a domestic nuisance. in fact the lapps we were in contact with (and the finns, too, for that matter) never stole any of our particular properties; though at the same time it should be confessed that we had remarkably little worth stealing, as the whole of our outfit after enare (including the clothes on our backs) was not worth a couple of sovereigns, and we did keep a remarkably sharp eye on even the few trifles we had. the life these aboriginal people lead in arctic lapland is undoubtedly hard, and at times they rub shoulders very closely with starvation. but they have got constitutions, built up through countless centuries to endure the privations and (what to a more delicately nurtured race would be) the hardships of their life; and from the number of very old people we saw everywhere through the country, it was plain that the orthodox threescore years and ten was by no means the average limit for the life of an arctic lapp. children there were, too, in all abundance. it was a notable fact that scarcely a woman did we see of child-bearing age without a babe at breast; and though a large percentage of this progeny did not endure the chills of a second or a third winter, enough pulled through to keep the race on the steady increase in numbers. this weeding-out process also obviously did much to counteract the evils of consanguineous marriages, and so maintain the standard of physique. it was one of nature's balances. without it the arctic lapps would increase for a while abnormally, and then they would dwindle, and in a few centuries they would be gone. * * * * * we should have liked much to stay on in that arctic casual ward, to which marie guided us, for a day or two to recruit. we were both of us getting very hollow-eyed, and not a little fagged. the mosquito-plague had something to do with this state of things, because when a man has got a constant fever about him, he can scarcely be called healthy. and the want of food was telling on us. we had barely had a decent meal since leaving the _windward_, and many of our meals were as much like the barmecide's as a diet of plain water could make them. but it was this very scarcity of food which drove us remorselessly forward. our own store of those miserable tinned dainties was dwindling, and the carriers' provisions had already been dragged out beyond their calculated time. we had no help for it but to press on to ivalomati, which was the nearest human habitation. so we started, and promptly there arrived another difficulty: we lost the way. in a populated country this is a hard thing to do. given the general direction, one can always there hit upon a town or a village if one takes sufficient time about the search. but in a land where the town consists of five houses, and a village can earn a name on the map with one roof and a haystack, it is very easy to wander on day after day and never sight anything but sheer wilderness. in this particular instance it was johann who failed us. the excellent johann had never before journeyed west beyond the squalid hut which figured geographically as menesjärvi; but as at that place we had been unable to get either fresh guides or carriers, we had induced the three who had brought us to come on farther, and johann had guaranteed (for a consideration) to find the way. he had laid under contribution the entire topographical knowledge of menesjärvi (which perhaps did not amount to much), and had imbibed it noisily for three solid hours. he had started off with confidence and brought us to the first rest-house in style. pat and pedr had found their way from there to the second shelter, where we, with marie's help, joined them. but before we had been travelling a mile on the final stage, it was clear that the loud-voiced johann was completely "bushed." he would not own it at first. we were tramping through a burnt-out forest with gaunt gray-and-black skeleton trees hedging us in impenetrably on every side. growth and decay is slower up there, deep inside the arctic circle, than it is in the tropics. in a hot, moist country a fallen tree may be blotted out of sight by vegetation in a week, and crumbled into primitive dust in less than a year. but up in the cold north, nature does not strain herself to work with such fevered speed. a tree dies; and, erect or prone, it may survive for years as a gaunt, dry corpse. there is no jungle to hide it from the air; there are no creepers to bore into its bones and leave openings for the tearing fingers of the weather; there is only the short, crisp moss underfoot, and that rather helps than hinders its preservation. and so for years upon years these dead forests endure, as eyesores to heaven. mile after mile we tramped through the winding aisles of these dead trees, the acrobatic johann waddling stolidly on in the lead. from time to time we looked at the compass, and more than once we had doubts about the direction. but we did not interfere. johann under the stress of advice was apt to get flustered, and johann flustered would be a very useless guide indeed. he was all we had got, and so we agreed to let him have his own way. but at last when he calmly led us back over our own tracks which we had made not half an hour before, and still would have gone complacently on waddling through the wilderness, we called a halt and made him face the situation. he owned up at once to having wandered, which was a confession he could not very well avoid, seeing that our old tracks were by no means microscopic; and after a little more pressure, admitted that he had not the vaguest notion of where he was. this was unsatisfactory. we had come to see arctic lapland, certainly, but it looked as if we were going to inspect a good deal more than we had bargained for. a real solid hunger made us appreciate this very thoroughly. we asked johann if he had any suggestion to make. he scratched himself thoroughly for ten minutes and gave the matter his due consideration. finally he said he thought he could lead us back successfully to the places from which we had come. we did not see the force of this at all. we intended to get through to the other side of the country, and we stated the proposition with brevity and decision. but johann's suggestion found other ready hearers. pat and pedr both woke into animation. it appeared that pat had a sore heel, and possessed a wife (or somebody else's wife) he wanted to return to, and also remembered some important business on mattosjärvi which ought to be attended to at once. and pedr, the beautiful pedr, but without the beautiful smile, stated tersely that he was sick of the whole thing, and intended to go back home there and then. it was mutiny. they leaned back each against his pack, and began making fast the thongs against their breasts and shoulders. they were frightened, and they were tired, and they were going back to the place from which they had come whether we liked it or whether we did not. it was glaring, flagrant mutiny, and there was only one way to deal with it, and we chose that way. it was a primitive style of persuasion, and it involved the use of the heavy british hand and the heavy british boot, but it served its purpose then, as it has done thousands of times before; and after the proceedings were over, we stood still a minute to collect breath, and contemplated three very sulky, subdued carriers, squatted on the ground and waiting for orders. the outlook was not cheerful. the only thing apparently left was to make for ivalomati on a compass course, which sounds simple enough on paper, but was likely to prove a very different matter in practice. we had carefully checked all our travel up to this on the map, and so far we had never detected the map's accuracy in any one single point. it was a map somewhat reminiscent of those made by boys at school, where one filled in any invitingly bare space with an imaginary river, or a fancy lake, or a decorative range of caterpillar mountains. from an artistic point of view this kind of fiction is very pleasant to look upon and to create, and indeed exercises a wonderful fascination over some people. one remembers the joy poor stevenson confessed to over the making of that delicious map in _treasure island_. but when you are depending on a geographer to lead you out of famine, and when a fictitious scratch of his pen may hustle you into actual starvation, why then you come upon very different views, and cordially agree that any one who writes or draws anything but the bare and naked truth should be led out to suffer a lingering death. in addition to all this, we could only guess at our "point of departure," and so getting the true magnetic bearing of this problematical ivalomati was a matter of the airiest uncertainty. however, it was hobson's choice, and so putting on cheerful, confident faces for the benefit of the frightened, sulky carriers, off we set. now this sort of quandary no doubt sounds funny enough from the distance; but viewed at first hand, we failed to catch its humour. we had hunger nipping us in the ribs all the time; we were heavy-footed with weariness; the infernal insect-plague was going on all the time; and there was nothing to tell us whether we were steering right, or wandering completely away into the savage depths of the wilderness. we met swamps, and plunged across them in curves and zigzags. we tramped through forests of graceful birches, and forests of dreary pines; we clambered over rocks, and waded streams. the land was not entirely desolate of life. sometimes we saw tiny lemmings before our feet, and once we heard the cry of a cuckoo from far away amongst the trees. at one halt in the middle of a two-mile-wide tremulous morass, we sat beside a pond of clear water, and tried to divert ourselves by overlooking the business of three black-and-gray frogs who dwelt in its depths. we were thankful to those speckled frogs during that halt: they almost interested us. but the greater part of the way was dreary enough. and so we expended an entire day's journey. finally, after wallowing painfully through another quagmire of still more horrible wetness and filth, we came upon a river, deep, swift-flowing, and two hundred feet from bank to bank. and this, unless the map was crowning its petty perjuries by the most cruel, colossal lie ever scratched upon paper, was the repojoki. ivalomati, if it existed at all, was obviously on the farther side, and it behoved us to cross with as little delay as might be. but here came another difficulty. we proposed to build a raft to carry our goods piecemeal, and swim it across to the other side. but the lapps, with the usual contrariness of those who live in a country of water-ways, could not swim a stroke, and refused flatly to be towed over, floated by a log. so there was nothing for it but to build a raft which would carry passengers, and to this pleasing business we set our hands without further talk. it had been my fortune to make a whole armada of rafts before. i built one in the days of youth to navigate a local duck-pond. i made another in more mature years for the easier fishing of red char in a certain lake of northern norway, and another in north carolina as a lazy way of travelling down the french broad river; and in the course of writing story-books for the young i must have turned out quite a respectable fleet of rafts--paper rafts--under every conceivable circumstance of theoretical difficulty, with glibness and ease. but building that raft to cross the repojoki was very different from all these previous excursions into carpentry. they had been amusement; this was a horrible nightmare. because we wanted wood, no wood was near the river. the handiest tree lay at the farther side of the last swamp we had waded through, and quite half a mile from the bank. we had to wallow painfully back through this slough, haggle down our trees, lop them into portable lengths, and drag them back through the quaking ooze. we were hungry, we were weary, we were bitten half mad by the hateful insects, and our one utensil for cutting was a small american axe, more fitted to split kindling wood than to swing against a tree. two logs we laid upon the bank of the repojoki, seven feet apart; five others we laid upon these; and then, putting two more parallel to the first two, we made withes from the shoots of arctic willow, and bound the whole into place. and all the time that we worked, the sun beat upon us, and the mosquitoes covered us in dense, biting clouds. we were like men toiling in a delirium. we hacked out something that would serve as a paddle, and slid the raft into the swift water. as a vehicle it did not look encouraging. it floated deep, and each log wobbled independently. but we were in no mood for niceness then. the packs were piled on and laboriously paddled over, following a diagonal course in the grip of the racing current. the raft was brought back again, and made the bank some two hundred yards farther down-stream. with a passenger on board besides the paddler, it sank very nearly out of sight, and between each trip it had to be docked for repairs. it was a moist method of making the passage, but it seemed effective. on the last trip, the ninth, pedr was passenger with an englishman for his charon; and in mid-stream the beautiful pedr objected to the water swirling round his waist, and began to get nervous. worse still, he commenced to wriggle, and promptly the raft began to wriggle too. the withes with which it was lashed together untwisted gaily. the paddler paddled for dear life, and pedr, now solidly scared, embraced him from behind. a log detached itself from the raft and bobbed off in a _pas seul_ down-stream, and on the farther bank johann and pat held out branches alluringly over the stream, whilst the other englishman with them laughed. but still the paddler paddled on. then the logs of the raft opened out like the sticks of a fan, and reared up on end, and "rari nantes in gurgite vasto" chuckled the foreigner on the bank, who knew something about his countryman's capabilities in the water. he had not calculated upon the clinging nature of pedr, however, and when the pair of them vanished below the swirling surface of the repojoki--and stayed there--he began to get a little scared himself and to strip off his coat. however, there is a recognised course of treatment to follow under these circumstances, and the swimming englishman took it with vigour, and some hundred yards lower down-stream came to bank with his charge. the beautiful pedr had a big red lump over one eye, which probably explained to him then, and will make him remember in the future, that it is inadvisable to wrestle with a swimmer who is wishing for free use of his limbs in deep, rapid water. i fancy we had, on the whole, a good educational effect upon our lappish carriers. * * * * * [illustration: raft wrecked on the repojoki.] of course we all were as wet as water could make us, and our chattels were sodden, and the exertion of making the raft and navigating her had been great; but the incident of crossing the repojoki had on the whole distinctly cheered us. on every there-and-back crossing, the raft had been swept some two hundred odd yards down-stream; and so by the time the whole train was across, we had perforce gained knowledge of some thousand yards of the farther bank, and at one place came upon indications of a track. there were no footmarks, certainly; but some bushes had been axed away as though to assist a landing, and we set out from these with renewed hopes of finding ivalomati. the country, too, tried to cheer us. it was true there were more swamps, and they were even wetter and wider than those we had crossed before, but their bosky pools were gilded with sunshine, and here and there clumps of pink flowers, and white flowers, and blue flowers, caught the eye and tried to gladden it. on some of the marshes, too, there were curlew; and life, after the dead regions we had passed through, is always pleasant to look upon and hear. at one halt, a pair of these curlew got up, screaming, and went through the same pantomime one had seen them in so many times in the foot-hills at home during breeding season. hayter must needs stroll off to look for their young. but after he had been gone a dozen minutes, i chanced to look down, and saw the chicken he was searching for squatted stolidly on the ground not four inches from my foot. in tint and shape it harmonised wonderfully with its surroundings, and had evidently received instructions to "lie close" whatever befel. indeed it withstood a good two minutes' proguing with a grass blade before it deigned to stir; and when the little stilt-legged oddity did get up and run, in three turns it was absorbed into the landscape again beyond human sight. and in the meanwhile its parents were getting more daring. they were making such determined swoops at our heads that we actually had to drive them off. they were as fierce in their respect as nesting richardson's skuas on the outlying islets of the shetlands. cloud-berries grew on these swamps, but though we looked thirstily for fruit, we could see none even approaching ripeness. most of the berries were green, or half formed; only a few were scarlet; none had got the amber tint which one has learned to love so well on a norwegian shooting. and once, too, on a scrap of stony, rising ground, we saw a woodpecker at work, digging grubs from the trunk of a gaunt, dead pine. we came into another forest, where the air was heavy with mosquitoes, and the weary carriers could hardly drag one foot up to the other, and still on we plodded. and then through the trees we caught a gleam of broad water. no word was said, but instinctively the pace quickened. a breeze was blowing towards us, and down it came the faint scent of wood-smoke. it seemed the most delicious smell that had ever met our nostrils. we came out of the cover and stood on the bank of a broad, sluggish river. on the farther bank was a canoe drawn up, and beyond it stood a rude hut of logs. it was ivalomati, and we did not forget to congratulate ourselves. johann exploded into roar after roar of laughter, and became the genial acrobat again, as though he had never been anything else; pedr turned on the beautiful smile to its most beautiful pitch; and pat forgot his tiredness, and his sore heel, and danced a jig of triumph, and let out of him a regular string of irish yells for some one to bring across the canoe. [illustration: marie, the sorcerer's daughter] chapter x on to pokka, with an introduction to prince johann of lapland here then was ivalomati, the village we had looked for so long, a place made up of one small house of logs, one squalid barn with yawning sides, and an adult population of three souls--a woman and two men. the adult population was away fishing, or rather attempting to fish, for, as it turned out, the toil of twenty-four hours brought forth no catch. a swarm of children of every age, from the crawler upwards, was left in charge. it was the eldest girl, a shy, wild creature, almost pretty, who took the canoe and brought us across the river; and she it was who offered us all the poor house could afford--a small, bare room. there was more evidence of real poverty open to the public view in ivalomati than at any other place we visited in arctic lapland. the children had not got summer clothes--the first we had seen lacking them. they wore the tattered rags of some winter furs, exposing three-quarters of their wretched skins to the intolerable bitings of the mosquitoes. we made a half-hearted attempt to buy food, and learned definitely what we had guessed, that they had no food even for themselves. life there might be hard, but the adults of ivalomati were not the sort to make it most endurable. the two men were finns, slack, doltish, and indolent. the woman was a lapp, worn out with much child-bearing. the large-skulled, hybrid children seemed to have no occupation except to play about on a mud heap and try and stay their bellies by chewing the sappy river-grass. a tattered, ancient net with birch-bark floats fluttered from the rotten drying-posts, a plantation of weeds flourished inside a broken-down fence, and these were the only indications of how a livelihood was made. judging from the fly-blown, grass-covered midden outside the crumbling barn, there once had been a cow in ivalomati, and a cracked iron cauldron, still holding the traces of a stew of reed grass and fish offal, gave indications that the cow had been fed according to the orthodox fashion of the country; but when we saw the place the cow was not, and all that stood between the wretched bipeds and starvation were the few small fish they could manage to dredge out of the ivalojoki. we "killed a tin" that night, and washed it down with a dose of weak cocoa; and after dinner the door opened and our three carriers came in with a peace-offering. each had an armful of mouldy hay, which he deposited on the floor, and johann gleefully waved a foul brown-calico sheet, which he pointed out would make us a most luxurious mosquito-bar. it seemed as though we were really going to get a comfortable night's sleep, and we wanted it. the hay smelt of mustiness, and the sheet smelt of something worse, but we were in no mood for niceties. the room was alive with mosquitoes. once, twice, and three times did we make raids upon them, and burn thousands with flaring torches, and for a moment the place would be clear. but only for a moment. through the innumerable chinks of the walls of the roof there flew in constantly fresh thousands, who would drum their _pas de charge_ and set to work on our suffering bodies with heroic disregard of consequences. desperately weary though we might be, there was no sleep to be got whilst one lay exposed to that horrible, relentless biting. so we ranged the hay diagonally across the room into one long bed, and took the dirty sheet, and with strings to form the ridge, and thorns to pin the ends, and stones to hold down the sides, built us a tent some four feet long, on which we placed high hopes. to be sure it would only hold a head and shoulders of each of us, but the sleeping-sacks would sufficiently protect all parts which projected. it required skill to get inside. we rolled our coats and put them in the middle of the tent to serve as pillows, and then we got into our sodden blanket-sacks, lay down on the hay, and cautiously wriggled our heads in under the opposite ends of the tent. there were three lusty mosquitoes inside when we arrived, and as these objected to being slaughtered without a chase, we had managed completely to disarrange the tent before they had met their due reward. this entailed a reconstruction of the entire edifice, and as hayter said he was the least clumsy of the two of us, he crawled outside, replaced the stones on the sides, and jabbed in fresh thorns where they were needed. inside i had plenty of work killing the mosquitoes which he let in during the process. finally he crawled in again, and after the slaying of two others of the little pests which had managed to secrete themselves up till then, we lay still in the ecstatic hope that we were going to taste again of that almost forgotten luxury, easy sleep. but did we so much as get into a doze? i fancy not. we lay there motionless on the hay, with our lower extremities hidden from the insects by the wet blankets, and our heads roof to roof beneath the odorous tent; and the sweat dripped out of us at every pore. a midnight sun was blazing high above the hut, and the air in the room was like that of an oven. the heat under the tent was stifling. ever and again first one mosquito, and then another, and then a third, would get inside our defences, and we would have to bestir ourselves to slay them. the hay, too, was full of ticks, which added to our torments. when we lay down, our faces were puffed and blotched with the bites till we could scarcely see from our eyes; our hands were puffed out like boxing-gloves; and our arms were swollen till they fitted tight inside a coat-sleeve. and each of the million bites was a centre of irritation. yet every minute this state of torture was being added to. we passed that night in a condition bordering on frenzy, and let not those who merely know the mosquito in africa, in india, and the americas, judge us too hardly when i say that at times we wished most heartily we had never set foot in so detestable a country. cold, we could have endured; privation, we were prepared for; but this horrible stew of flies ground upon the nerves till we were scarcely responsible for our actions. * * * * * in that plan of route we originally laid down at enare, we had expected to find ivalomati to be a village of tolerable size, and hoped to get carriers there who would take us on across the country to pokka, and possibly to scurujarvi. this idea was of course exploded, and so we set to work to try the power of blarney upon pedr, pat, and johann, and persuade them to come farther on. they did not see it one little bit. they said they had come much too far from home as it was, and had not the least wish to go farther. they were quite pleasant over their refusal, and quite determined. johann mimicked the pair of us carrying the loads ourselves, tramping through the country, getting bogged in swamps, and losing the way, and finally dying of hunger and being covered up (like the babes in the wood) with a drift of grass and branches; and he roared with laughter at his own witty pantomime. pedr glanced towards the direction in which pokka lay, turned his back on it with decision, and smiled beautifully. and pat, the unshaven pat, looked so obsequious and so sly, and referred to his imaginary sore heel with such a roguish eye, that one really expected him to throw away disguise, and address us as "yer honours," and beg for john jamieson's whisky there and then on the spot. it was funny, but it was not business. was our tramp across the country going to be broken after we had got so far and gone through so much, so very much? we rubbed our aching bites, and reasoned with the carriers still more earnestly. we besought them almost _in formâ pauperis_ (seeing that we had not got the power to command), and gradually their mood changed. it is humiliating now to remember how our spirits rose as they began to yield. and at last they consented to go with us as far as pokka; but no farther. be it well understood, they pointed out, they would only escort us to pokka--only. well, sufficient for the march (we told ourselves) were the carriers thereof. subsequent marches must be left to provide for themselves. once they had agreed to go, there was no more delay. we borrowed a canoe, a very rotten canoe, got on board, and set off up the ivalojoki. we had trouble at first, because the river, which was almost as wide as a lake, was full of weeds, which clung to the canoe and clogged the paddles. but these cleared as the river narrowed, and we worked up between low banks where scrub birches grew amongst angular blocks of gray, lichened stone. the banks came closer together as we paddled on, and the river increased in pace, and the way of the canoe grew less. johann, with his mouth open and the sweat dripping from his chin, tugged manfully at the sculls in the bows. pedr, who was squatted aft with the steering paddle, had his work cut out to keep clear of rocks round which the water swirled noisily, and occasionally there was a _bump-bump-bump_ as we dragged over some submerged boulder which he had not seen. the little old canoe strained and shivered in the stress of the stream, and leaked so abundantly that hayter, who was labouring mid-ships with the baler, could barely keep the water under; and presently, as she showed a disposition to swamp altogether, we had to run into the bank and lighten her burden. pat, much to his disgust, was ousted from his rest among the baggage, and made to force his way through the tangle of shrub and swamp and grasses which made the river-bank; and we two foreigners went ashore with him. the two lapps unshipped their paddles, and punted cannily up the rapids with eight-foot poles. they had hard work, but we on shore did not exactly find it easy going. back-washes branched off the stream, sown with yellow lilies, and some we jumped across, and some we jumped into; and when the rapids came to an end some half mile higher up, and we were able to get on board again, liquid mud oozed from us into little black pools. half a mile of smooth brought us to another set of rapids, and once more a land party of three had to press its way through scrub and morass. johann and pedr punted the light canoe cleverly. one took the stern, the other perched in the bow. they stood up to put the pole in, and dropped it vertically. then came a violent shove, and a sudden sit down at the end of the thrust. the canoe danced about like a twig in the rapids, and the waves slopped bountifully over her sides, and every now and again she had to be brought to the bank to be baled clear and ship a fresh crew. and finally the rapids got too bad for poling at all, and we made fast thongs of reindeer hide to the canoe at bow and stern and towed her empty up-stream with these, pressing through the scrub on the bank when we could, wading in the river-edge when it was too thick. it was the only way we could get her along. the river-banks were too swampy and overgrown to make a portage possible. as a reward for labour we got some mile of easy water to finish up with, and then we left the flimsy little canoe finally, and set off once more on the solid tramp. again we came across the winter sleigh-track, a broad swathe cut from the forest, and left for the snows to smooth down into a road, and in a couple of miles this led us to a vast, quaking swamp set with a line of white, bleached crosses to make the trail. but till the frosts of winter came to harden it, the swamp here was quite impassable; it was a mere floating quagmire, and we had to skirt it tediously. acres of cloud-berries, still unripe, lay upon its surface. the air was musical with the cries of curlew and other marsh fowl. and from above, the sun beat upon us with brazen power. take away the lapps, take away our sure knowledge that we were still far within the arctic circle, and we might have been tramping across some primæval land at the back of the gold coast or the congo. the ground rose as we toiled on, and for once the mosquitoes were almost entirely absent. it was bliss to be alive. there was a fine country all around, and we lazed off for an hour, and made a temporary camp to enjoy it. beside us was a pool swarming with tadpoles, and we lay over the edge and searched and searched in hopes of finding a juvenile frog in the intermediate stage. but as usual we could not do it. it was a subject which interested me. at an early age i was taught that from frog-spawn grew tadpoles, and from these grew frogs. being of an inquiring, or a sceptical turn of mind, whichever way one likes to look at it, i used to catch the little black tadpoles, incarcerate them in pickle-bottles, and inspect them diligently; but never did the wished-for result arrive. it may be that a watched tadpole never changes; and certainly tadpoles do seem to suffer from nerves, because if one disturbs the surface of a pond where they are occupying themselves, away go the whole crowd like a lot of animated commas. but i am inclined to think that nervousness is not the reason of their coy refusal to do their advertised change-act in public view. it is beginning to grow on me that they cannot do it. of course science says flatly that they do change; but when it wishes, science can lie like photography or a newspaper; and for the future the tadpole metamorphosis is eliminated from my private creed. if i am wronging tadpoles as a nation, i am sorry. * * * * * by this stage our lapp carriers were all very foot-sore, though we ourselves were quite sound, which does not say much for the theory that it is always advisable to adopt the foot-gear of the country you are travelling over. at every halt one or other of them would take off his boots, extract the grass, spread it out to dry, and add more grass from the store each carried in his personal knapsack. it was the same grass which is used for the same purpose in norway--crisp, dry, green, fine stuff, without knots, and without seeding tips. it has to be twisted up and kneaded between the hands to break the fibre; but once so prepared, it is much like a pad of soft horse-hair in texture. however, as i say, it chafed badly, and for summer work the bare foot inside the shoe would probably have been better. that was the way i was going myself; as the lower extremities of my stockings had long before worn away, and my feet had grown as hard as a nigger's. we seemed to be passing away from the birdless region which lay inland from the arctic coast. but still there was no great abundance of feathered creatures. on the swamps one could usually see a pair of curlew, but seldom more; from behind the forest trees one sometimes heard the cuckoo's hoot, though from one side of the country to the other we never saw the bird itself in the actual flesh and feather; and once, a little ringed dotterel came out into an open space before us and went through its pitiful pantomime of being wounded, just as one may see it on the shingle of a shetland tarn. it was the breeding season for all of them of course, and even if we had possessed a gun, and from sheer stress of hunger been willing to slay nursing parents, we should have got little for our pains; certainly not enough to live on. it was during a halt on this march, i remember, that hayter suddenly exploded into a fit of (apparently) causeless merriment. i asked him what was the matter. he chuckled and said, "if only it would not cost so much," and stopped and laughed again. i did not understand, and asked him to explain further. he pointed to johann, who was going through one of his quaint, domestic exercises, and said, "i wish we could get that beauty to london, and dump him down in (say) willis's rooms, and bribe a waiter to put a smart luncheon in front of him, and then watch from a distance to see the result." it was a luscious theme, and we enlarged on it with infinite enjoyment. we pictured the result of taking johann back to our native islands and launching him upon society. it would be a thing quite easily done, and as it happened i knew a parallel case where it was carried out, and many who read this will probably recollect (perhaps with some discomfiture) the hero of it. the matter happened quite recently. now, who remembers it? there arrived at liverpool by a b. and a. steamer not four years ago a jet-black negro from the west coast of africa. he had a little money and more self-confidence than any white man on earth ever possessed. he wanted to have a good time in england, and he had it. he had come up from the coast on the b. and a. boat in the ordinary second-hand clothes of civilisation, because, of course, plenty of people on board knew him for what he was. but once ashore in a london hotel (which is a very long way from a liverpool quay or the west coast of africa), he took off his shoes and socks and started sandals and bare legs, he doffed his trousers and coat and shipped long embroidered robes of green and white, clapped a haûsa hat on his head in place of the brown billy-cock, and announced that he was prince h'umaduya, of some unpronounceable place behind the british gold coast. did any one doubt his statement? not a soul who cared to speak. childish, snobbish london took him at his own valuation, and competed for the honour of fêting him. he went everywhere, did everything, was fawned upon by everybody. white women waited on him--because he was a prince. the lord mayor gave him a dinner--because he was a prince. and he accepted it all with the self-assurance he had learned professionally, and asked for more. but before his vogue was done, he wisely took himself off, and departed for liverpool _en route_ for home and business. i saw him six months later, in the principal town on the gold coast, engaged in his professional avocation. he was selling a consignment of black, second-hand, wearing apparel, with noise and industry. of course he had gone back to the ordinary boots and trousers and shirt of pseudo-civilisation, and was in fact very like any other third-rate auctioneer with a pitch in a back street. his name, as it appeared on his license and on his signboard down there on the coast, was john henry brown, and he was reputed to be making money hand over fist, and saving it. he had tasted the sweets of being an imported prince in london once, and (as a year or two has passed since then) he is about due to turn up again and once more offer himself to the lionising public. now what we have got in mind is to do the same with johann. the only thing necessary will be to teach him a working knowledge of english. we shall leave his personal habits severely alone; there is a surprisingness about them which is bound to be appreciated. and to alter his clothes (for general wear) would be to paint the lily. john henry brown must have been at considerable pains to invent so picturesque a name as h'umaduya, but a name for our man comes glibly to hand. _prince johann of lapland_ could not well be improved on for such a purpose. get him to london, spend a guinea on a _morning post_ announcement of his arrival, and the thing would be done. cards would rain in upon him, and people would scuffle with one another for the honour of getting him to their houses. it is appetising to picture his behaviour. he would not be bashful in the very least: there is no shyness about johann. and he would not be conventional: no, one could safely swear he would be quite the reverse of conventional. he might start a dinner seated on an orthodox chair, but if by any chance a bone came in his way, i am sure he would promptly retire to the hearth-rug and squat there cross-legged and gnaw it at his ease. johann has a peculiar affection for bones. and after that he has fed, he will take a little tar from the bottle at his belt and anoint his face luxuriously, in view of a possible inroad of mosquitoes. later on, if many people are admiring him excessively, and he feels very friendly disposed towards them, he will take off his boots and change the grass in them with care and deliberation. i can imagine the audience clasping their hands and saying, "how charmingly original it is of the dear prince to do such a thing!" i wonder, though, how they will stand it when he begins to scratch himself? afterwards i think we shall ship him across to boston and new york. they love a prince there too, but they will not have him coloured. h'umaduya of the gold coast would not have gone down at any price in the states. the americans have too many niggers at home to tolerate the _bouquet d'afrique_ otherwise than in the appartments specially appointed to contain its assertive flavour; but prince johann of lapland would be a very different matter. every paper in new york would publish a personal interview illustrated with his photographs six hours before he landed. his political relations with "czar nicholas" would be dished up spicily; and the "barbaric splendours of his princely court" would be written of with vivid (and a slightly indecent) realism by gentlemen of the press, who know to a headline what their public want. but unless there is absolutely no other competition on the carpet, i am afraid that he would not have so long a reign in the states as he had in england. in my own, my native land, we like curiosities; in the states they prefer culture. curiosities are a drug in the states, and a slightly impertinent drug at that. culture is rare, and so they imitate and talk about it all day long. * * * * * except for the absence of game, the country we were travelling through was much the same as the thames valley must have appeared to those hairy, naked savages who first looked out upon the levels where london now stands. here was a forest of fire-slain pines, still reared up gaunt and gray, defying heaven. young birches and hazels were growing up round them. and then would come mile after mile, and mile after mile, of spongy morass, seamed by rivulets, and smeared by stagnant ponds. the thames valley became of use to man, so man drained it, and penned all the streamlets into one orderly river, and created dry land out of the swamps. but it is hard to fancy that these great wildernesses so far within the arctic circle will ever be reclaimed by the ditcher for his master, the factory builder. we met, though, with some traces of man's handiwork, and man's toil for his own convenience, as we journeyed on. we came upon a great circular morass, four miles in diameter. it was ringed in by a jagged paling of pines, and in the exact centre was a hummocky oasis of gray, lichened stone. years before logs had been laid down over the worst parts of the swamp; they were crumbling and insecure, but they showed a distinct attempt at road-making; and over these we picked our way in easy peril of sprained ankles. but still there were many places where the logs had melted, and through these we had to wallow in the fashion which we had learned so very thoroughly. i think that this frail path accentuated the general desolation. a few miles farther on we met with some more advanced engineering. we had seen the tokkaharo river on the map, and had wondered much whether we could find a ford, or whether we should be forced once more to go through the operation of rafting. and here before us was a bridge, a veritable bridge. it was primitive, certainly, and it was not above suspicion of being rotten. it had two piers of crossed logs, and the roadway was formed by single trunks, over which one progressed with the dainty step of the rope-dancer. it was on this bridge, i regret to say, that johann belied the reputation we had made for him, and proved to be not so perfect an acrobat in practice as he was in personal appearance. he stopped before the airy structure and looked at it with a puckered face, and it was evident that he stepped out on it with a failing heart. he travelled along the first log all right till it began to sway under him, and then he got demoralised, and landed on the first pier spread-eagle fashion, being grabbed in the nick of time by pat and hayter. the middle span he did not attempt to walk, but sat a-cock-stride of it, and worked himself over with his hands. he suffered severely from splinters _en route_, and the workings of his face were so utterly funny that i regret to say the entire audience of four shouted with laughter during the whole of his passage. however he gained the second pier safely, picked a few of the more obvious splinters out of his person, and contemplated the farther bank. it was temptingly close. he stepped on to the end of the log, where it rested on the pier, and stood there for a full minute. he found the process quite easy; so he set out to walk along it. at the third step he stretched out his arms, balancing with them. the log was beginning to sway and buckle under his weight. at the fourth step he lost his head and his nerve, and made a rush for it. and then he lost his footing altogether, cannoned against the log with his haunch, grabbed at it with eager hands, missed, and went souse into ten feet of icy water in the takkaharo below. a swirl of the stream put him on the bank, and he clambered out, and rolled on the green in an ecstasy of merriment over his own clumsiness. the log bridge had looked neglected enough, but its reason of being soon began to get apparent. we came upon a clearing full of old-cut stumps; wood had been taken from here for building. then we passed some quarter-acre patches of rye growing amongst unkempt weeds, enclosed by rail fences. then came more patches of clearing and more stumps, sprawling over two miles of ground. and then, from the top of a knoll, a high well-derrick rose into view, and directly afterwards we saw beneath us the scattered settlement of houses which made up the village of pokka. three houses were in sight, sprawling over a square mile of ground, and each house had its attendant barns and cowsheds. a streamlet ran between them, broadening out here and there into sedgy lagoons. and beside the lagoons were nets, with birch-bark floats and pebble sinkers, hung out to dry upon weather-bleached rails. we marched up wearily enough to the front of the nearest house, and then arose a difficulty which was new to us. our lapps did not march straight inside. they did not even knock at the door. they dumped their packs on to the ground, and hung about near them, three perfect images of bashfulness. [illustration: johann's acrobatic failure.] presently the mystery was explained: the house belonged to finns, an alien race. we two foreigners, however, were not troubled with any qualms of inferiority. the wandering britisher seldom is worried that way. he is a very complacent animal over questions of nationality, and is rather apt to thank god in his prayers that he is not as other men are, "even as this german, or this chinaman, or this finn," or whoever he may have had brought under his lordly notice last. so we knocked at the door of the house, and presently a man came out. he shook hands limply with us; he even shook hands with the three lapps. he was a long, slack-jointed finn, with one ear missing and a face as unemotional as a slab of board. he gave us one of the two rooms his house contained, the sour-smelling dairy-bedroom; and better still, on pressure, he sold us food. a woman brought it in--rye-cake and a double handful of small pieces of raw fish, semi-dried, and a tub of thick, sour milk. as an after-thought she produced a wooden spoon, which she thoughtfully licked clean, and set beside the repast. with regard to that brown rye-cake of lapland, i brought a piece home to england, which my dog saw and annexed. he is a fox-terrier of lusty appetite, and he tried to eat it. he tried for a whole afternoon, and finally left the cake alone on a lawn, very little the worse for the experience. his master, at pokka, did better. he was sick with hunger, and devoured two great slabs of the cake, and with it a handful of the stinking fish. looked back at from a distance, those rye-cakes of lapland do not carry pleasant memories. the grain from which they are baked grows with little tending. it is sown; and it is suffered to come up as the weather and the weeds permit. when it is as near ripe as it chooses to get, it is reaped, and with the husks, the bran, a larger part of the stalk, and a fair percentage of the companionable weed, it is chopped into meal. it is not ground; it is more hay and bran than anything else. baking days come seldom, and a large supply is made at once. the dough is pawed out into discs a foot in diameter and some five-eighths to three-quarters of an inch thick. each disc has a hole in the middle, and when they are baked, the cakes are strung on a stick and hung up on the rafters for use as required. age neither softens nor hardens their texture; years could not deteriorate them. there are two varieties of these delectable cakes. one sort was like india-rubber, and on this we could make no impression whatever. but with the other kind, which was of the consistency of concrete, we could, as a rule, get on quite well, if we were given time. it was more or less flavourless, unless it had been packed with stale fish, and it was not stuff to hurry over. it was not strengthening either, as the system could assimilate but very little of it. in fact, of all the foods that ever got past my teeth (and in rambling about the back corners of this world i have come across some uncanny morsels) the bread of arctic lapland carries the palm for general unsatisfactoriness. but still there is no denying that the cakes did fill the stomach, and for this purpose we employed them ravenously whenever they came in our way. there is no ache so bitter as that of empty belly. in that sour-smelling dairy-bedroom however at pokka, hayter was in small temper for food. the bites of the preceding night were giving him the most abominable pain. from scalp to heels he had no sound square inch on all of his skin. the whole of his body was puffed and reddened, and each bite was its own centre of irritation. when he scratched himself he bled, and he had to scratch. he faced the poor meal with visible shrinkings; he was tormented with a furious thirst, but he could not eat; and finally, out of sheer weariness, he slid from his stool on to the floor and dropped off into some sort of sleep. for the morrow, trouble loomed. our host, the expressionless man who lacked an ear, came in and said flatly that no carriers were to be had. but for myself i heard the news without much stir. i had eaten; and with food inside him, a man is apt to let the morrow take care of itself. it seemed good to me to go outside for a whiff of sweet air before turning in. i strolled across the short-grassed green in front of the house, and sat me on the well-platform, and stared sleepily at what was around. from the mistal behind my shoulder came the breathing and chewing of a couple of cows; from the little two-roomed house at the other side of the clearing there droned out the snores of the tired lapps. in front of me, the stream widened out into a lagoon, smooth as a sheet of gleaming metal. just outside the weeds a fish was rising accurately in the same spot. the sun lit the forest trees on the opposite shore with a lurid glow. mist, like miasma, was rising in gray billows from some of the farther creeks. i watched it drowsily, and imagined that somehow or another i was looking upon a sunrise in the tropics, and that i had earned a touch of fever. and then i pulled myself together, and remembered that this was arctic lapland, and that it was midnight by the cuckoo clock in the finns house, and that the insects were biting me to pieces. so i got heavily up from the well-cover, and went again to the sour-smelling dairy, and forgot all things in deep, unconscious sleep. chapter xi the worst marches of all one of the ladies of the house, a tall person with a vague squint, aroused us next morning by coming into the sour-smelling dairy to deposit the morning produce of the cows. we woke with evil-tasting mouths and went outside. in the kitchen, across the narrow lobby, the man with one ear was making a bowl out of a knob of birch, and as he seemed the person of most consideration available, we demanded from him that three carriers should be ready for us in a couple of hours' time to convoy us and our chattels to scurujärvi or küstula. we did not request; we demanded. we understood the arctic finn by this time, and were quite aware that he only construes civility as weakness. at first the one-eared man refused to understand what we needed. he went on with his work upon the birch-root. he had a long-handled felling axe, and his sheath-knife, and he used them both, and was rapidly evolving a shapely bowl out of chaos. but we had no special wish just then to watch him carpenter, so we gently but firmly took the utensils away from him, and backed him up against a wall, and spoke to him in a language which he could understand. he admitted that he knew of our needs, but protested his inability to supply them. he said that all available males were far away from pokka on one errand and another, and he alone was left as protection of the women and children. we pointed out that failing other carriers, we should impress him into our service himself, whether he liked it or whether he did not. and upon that he remembered where there was one man, and set out there and then to find him. we accompanied him into the lobby. pat was there with the squinting lady, making a purchase of butter. the butter-store was pressed down into a tub without salt, and emitted a fine rancid scent. the lady with the squint gouged it out with her delicate fingers and packed it in a birch-bark box, which she afterwards weighed on a steelyard. pat in the meanwhile was helping himself from an ancient cask of evil-smelling buttermilk, in which the grimy dipper hung ready for all who chose to thirst. it is curious to note how the lapp and the northern finn contrives to make his food unappetising. of course a constant diet of fresh milk would entail constant biliousness; milk curdled, or slightly acid buttermilk, is much more wholesome. but they go to the far extremes of decomposition. they never eat fresh fish: they split, gut, and partly dry the produce of the river, and then allow it to go half rotten, and then they eat it. they prepare their reindeer meat and their cow meat in the same way. a french peasant, even if he were as slack and lazy as the finn, would out of the finn's provisions live deliciously. but this slouching fisher-farmer of the north prefers to feed on carrion, and any luckless foreigners who come into his country must accept his diet (if indeed they can persuade him to sell them food) or else they must starve. we took a turn outside to sketch an iron cresset for winter fishing, like the one we had seen at the upper end of enare see; and then we went back to the dairy and did a little tailoring at the more important rents in our garments. the children of pokka were brought in to stare; it was an education for them to see strangers; and at intervals an unattached female with soft, cows' eyes came and loafed in the doorway. she had rather pretty feet, and hayter set to work sketching her with one hand whilst he beat off the flies with the other. but as soon as she saw that portraiture was in the wind, she brisked up. she bade him wait a minute, and trotted away. and presently she came clumping back again, in a pair of brand-new, light brown top-boots with turn-up toes all complete, and posed against the log wall with her skirts drawn tightly back so as to show as much leather as possible. she was very proud of those boots. whilst this portrait was progressing, the master of the house came back, bringing with him a tall, gaunt finn with a black chin-beard, a haggard face, and sunken eyes. he wore his trousers stuffed into high boots, and his upper man was decorated with a red striped shirt. a huge sheath-knife dangled from his broad-buckled belt, and at intervals he delivered himself of a most dramatically racking cough. as the imitation of a stage pirate struck with illness and remorse he was very fine, but as a carrier he was obviously useless. we pointed this out, and the man with one ear admitted it. he mentioned that he had told us so already. he said it was a solemn fact that pokka had no men in residence who could come with us as carriers, and suggested that we should take on the three lapps who had brought us so far. the pirate took a keen interest in the proceedings. he went out and fetched the lapps, and they stood against the doorway with expectant smiles. they thought they were going to be paid off. the proposition was put to them that they should take us on farther through the country, and promptly their faces grew gloomy. they pointed out their sore feet and galled shoulders, and explained volubly that they had already come a great deal farther from home than they had originally intended. they were very like children in their changes of facial expression. johann, in particular, who came into the room on the full, broad grin, looked for all the world as though he were on the verge of blubbering. what a weary argument it was! first hayter spoke, then the one-eared finn lifted up his voice, and then i chimed in; and between each separate piece of talk the pirate expostulated and coughed and explained till he was breathless. the three lapps did not reply in words. they merely stood in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot, and looking sulky and frightened and sullen. only one thing kept them from being complete masters of the situation: their earned wages were still in our pockets. the beauty of acquiring a still further store of marks did not appeal to them in the least; what was owing already was a fortune to each; and from time to time they besought us to pay up honestly and let them begone, and we as steadily refused. there were no new arguments to bring forward, no new objections to raise, and we, and the pirate, and the one-eared finn with the expressionless face, talked on for four mortal hours, before the delectable three saw fit to give way. i believe they enjoyed the harangue; i am sure the pirate did; and i am equally sure that we two foreigners did not. * * * * * the three lapps were certainly foot-sore and shoulder-galled, and when at last they did start with us, one could not but be sorry for them, and they were undeniably sorry for themselves. but they soon made the best of the inevitable. we started off in a narrow canoe up a shallow creek between beds of tiny reeds and horsetails, and as soon as the paddles began to get into swing, their sulkiness passed from them like clouds from a summer sun. pat grinned, and began negotiations for securing the lightest load; pedr smiled beautifully over the steering paddle; and johann broke out into a series of yells and roars which i think he intended as a boating song. we landed by the other third of pokka, a new house with two glass windows and a chimney of rubble stone. it seemed silent and deserted. the lapps swung on past it at a limping gait, making the best of their ailments now that we were really on the road; and in three or four miles we found ourselves coming into a new phase of scenery. the trees of a great forest were round us, but they were older and finer trees than those we had come across heretofore. reindeer moss carpeted the ground, and little black and tan lemmings ran about amongst the moss. as usual there were frequent swamps. but even these had changed in character. in the distance--and before we got to them to discover their wetness--they looked like lawns. it was hard to realise we were still deep within the cold, black arctic circle. in fact the whole country had that "park-like" appearance which is the great feature that always strikes every one about certain parts of central africa. if all arctic lapland were like this slip of territory between pokka and scurujärvi, it would be worth the visits of lovers of beauty. the long tree-aisles bedecked with every shade from banana green to black, and peopled with the moving forms of deer, the green and silver of the birches with the living lace-work shadows, the glorious heaven above, and the ivory-yellow moss beneath, made up a marvel of colour and form which we told ourselves it would be hard to equal in a more southern land. but it must be confessed that such oases of comeliness were rare; and perhaps from contrast with the aching wildernesses in which they were set, we were slightly apt to over-estimate their beauty. there was some indication of a trail, too, nearly all the way. we would come upon a swamp, and see a broken path of logs winding across it like some long, gray snake, which disappeared here and there in the grass. very good ankle-traps these log-tracks were too, for they were all shockingly rotten, and would turn sometimes almost before one trod on them. nobody was interested in keeping them up, and one wondered why they had ever been put down. there is no summer traffic between the scattered farms of arctic lapland. at one place we sat down for a halt in a broad savanna of grass, which must have been a dozen miles in circumference. there was not a bird to be seen, and, for once, there were comparatively few mosquitoes. but instead there were millions of dragon-flies, artificial-looking insects, which irresistibly reminded one of tin and clockwork mechanisms from the lowther arcade. it was here, i remember, that the lapps gave us a fine example of their fastidiousness about drink. the prairie was pitted with ponds and seamed with rivulets, and hayter and i quenched our thirst from the stream which was nearest to our bivouac. johann went and sampled it carefully, and then spat the water from his lips. it was not sufficiently cold for his taste. he went on farther and tried again, and farther and tried again, and still farther and farther, sampling and spitting. he was very tired, very foot-sore, and very thirsty; he was absolutely without the most elementary niceness in his food requirements, but in this matter of drink he did not mind how much trouble he spent so that he got his water icily cold. he spent an hour searching for a suitable tap, and when he had got it, consumed just one half-pint. and then pat, who had been to much engaged in scratching himself to take part in the hunt, went off to share in its fruits. hills rose up ahead of us as we marched on, the highest we had seen since enare, and our way lay through an alley fenced in by silvery birch-stems. the lapps waddled wearily with their burdens; the arctic sun beat fiercely on us from overhead; and the mosquitoes came out again to remind us that the flesh indeed was weak. the miles rolled themselves up most tediously. one soon loses count of time under these conditions of tiredness, and insufficient food, and fever from bites; and marching becomes mechanical after the first few miles, and even the joy at seeing new country is staled. only one thing puts spirit into the pace, and that is the sight of axe-work, which heralds the neighbourhood of man. scurujärvi as usual advertised itself in this way. we topped a ridge and found ourselves amongst the stumps of a clearing. unconsciously we all straightened ourselves. there was nothing in sight yet, but the next bridge showed us the town--of one house--and the long, narrow sliver of lake from which it took its name. the carriers' limping waddle quickened into almost a run. we swung down the slopes, threw open the slip-rails of a fence--veritable slip-rails!--and brought up before the front of the house in quite dashing style. a sloping-way of planks led up to the door. a hard-visaged, capable madame beckoned us up, and with business-like promptitude showed us into the inevitable dairy-bedroom. it really looked as though we had stumbled into decent quarters at last. the room was clean, and held a high, white, stone stove garnished with bunches of juniper. the milk-tubs stood orderly on rows of shelves, and their sourness was not obtrusive. and on one of the shelves was actually a book--a large, heavily-bound, religious book, with metal clasps and dull-red edges. the sight of it cheered us; it was the first time for many a weary mile we had come across folk human enough to possess a book. but as we got to know the people of scurujärvi better, doubts assailed us on this point; and we looked inside the book, and found it was printed in the black letter; and we were driven to the conclusion that it was there more as a fetish than a thing of use. the family lived in the big kitchen, and consisted of a long, feckless finn, who was the owner of scurujärvi; his limp, sickly wife, who was a new-made mother; a swarm of tow-headed, bare-legged brats; and two older boys who had grown to the stage of high boots and private tar-bottles. these two boys we were destined to see more of. the elder came into our room first to inspect us. he wore his ragged trousers tucked into the high boots aforesaid, and suspended by one brace over a gratuitously red shirt. his face and his whole get-up was one which we knew--one which a great many thousand other people know also. "by jove!" said hayter, when the boy came into the room first. "look there. 'huckleberry finn!'" "no other," said i. and then the younger brother came in, and we stared in wonder upon "tom sawyer." it seemed as if the pair of them had stepped direct from mr. mark twain's book and merely forgotten the soft, drawling mother-tongue of the mississippi valley in transit. but they were not permitted to enjoy the luxury of staring at the foreigner, and posturing before him for long. the bustling, hard-visaged madame came in and sent them off about some farm business, and then she brought us in a couple of armfuls of hay to make up beds on the floor. but we knew the ways of lapland hay, and with the naked eye we could see the live-stock pervading the hay she brought. so we thanked her profusely, and said we preferred to sleep on the boards of the floor. she did not seem inclined to give way at first. she was a masterful woman, accustomed to having her own wishes carried out to the letter, and she had all the rest of that slack, finnish household (with the possible exception of huckleberry and tom) under her large and most capable thumb. in fact, to be precise, she was a travelling midwife, and she had come to the house professionally, and at a time when her wishes would be obeyed. but sleep on that tick-pervaded hay we would not, and so finally after a lot of loud-voiced expostulations--she always spoke in a shout--she took it out and left us in peace. then the lapp carriers came in to be paid off, and as they took such pains to assure us that the way down to küstula was now easy, and that we should have not the smallest difficulty in finding transport on the morrow, we began to have distinct visions of a further block in the journey. however, carriers or no carriers, it was a certain thing that we could get no more work out of these three lapps, and we were rather ashamed of ourselves for having pressed willing men too hard already. it was a fact that they were terribly foot-sore and knocked up. so we gave them their hard-earned wages, and a trifle beyond, which they did not expect; and presented them with a black cake of _windward's_ tobacco apiece, and our united blessings; all of which luxuries they accepted with delighted noise and laughter. as a fitting climax to all his other pleasing eccentricities, johann tried to sell us the little brass finger-ring which he wore tied in the end of his neck-handkerchief. he said it was his betrothal ring and was made of gold, and he would sacrifice it to us for the absurdly small sum of twenty marks. but as he had become engaged, according to his own account, to every marriageable woman we had met along the road, we thought that others would have a better claim on it than we, and so forbore to present him with a further sovereign. at which he nearly lifted the roof off with his great shouts of laughter: it was all the same to johann whether he swindled us successfully or whether he got caught in the act; he was equally amused with either occurrence. the lapps were to sleep in one of the barns, and as it was the last time we should probably meet on this earth, we escorted them across to their bedchamber. we passed through a tiny field of growing barley, the first we had seen in this northern latitude, and then we came upon the wooden outbuilding of the farm. half was hay-chamber, half mistal, and set between the stalls for the cows was a great square stove of rubble stone to give the beasts heat during the perishing cold of winter. and there we said our last good-byes to the men who had served us so well, and went back towards our own sleeping-place. the lake below the house lay like glass, and the narrow cones of the pines on the opposite shore were mirrored exactly in its surface. pink clouds swam below them. on the lake-shore was a bath-house with its empty doorway blackened by smoke, and in the eaves a couple of martins had built a nest in a coil of birch-bark. from the dwelling-house came the voice of the midwife, scolding. * * * * * now, to give a full account of the exasperations of scurujärvi would be quite impossible in this place, because some of the remarks which we felt compelled to make to that lanky, feckless finn who owned the place were intended for his private ear alone. we had to tell him exactly what we thought of him many many weary times. in the first instance, further progress by carriers was obviously out of the question, because, except for the feckless one himself, there was not a man about the place. but there were sledges. there were no horses or reindeer available, but something in the cow line would serve our purpose, and we demanded therefore a sledge and a cow. upon which there fell an avalanche of talk. the limp woman with the new-born baby stood in the doorway of the dairy-bedroom to listen, and the gaunt midwife came inside and added her clatter to the rest. it seemed that for a thousand reasons a cow and a sledge were unavailable. we ceded the point; we had an alternative plan. our romancing map depicted a lake before this town of scurujärvi, and our eyes showed us that the lake was there. this propped up the map's credit. it also showed a stream running out of this lake and joining the main river at küstula, which drained into the gulf of bothnia. so by way of discovering whether this linking stream did really exist, we boldly demanded a canoe, which should take us down to küstula by water. the feckless finn seemed struck with the idea; it had not occurred to him before. he said we should start immediately, and after the trifling delay of three more hours, and by dint of unremitting exertions on our part, we did start. there were four of us in the canoe: ourselves and our baggage amidships, huckleberry forward with the paddles, and tom sawyer aft, with solemn importance on his face, and the steering paddle under his arm. the two boys had provisioned the canoe with a pyramidal keg of buttermilk, and evidently looked forward to the perils of this expedition through the unknown with keen and gloomy pleasure. huckleberry wore a sheath-knife two feet long dangling from his belt, and tom by way of armament had by his side the most enormous wood-axe i ever put eyes upon. the accuracy of their get-up would have delighted mr. mark twain wonderfully. we started in style, and a mob of tow-headed children came down to the edge of the shallows as we pushed off. huckleberry paddled us across a small bay of the lake, and then tom, with set teeth, steered the canoe into the mouth of the six-foot-wide stream which drained it. the water was too narrow for paddles here, and so they stood up and punted, insisting on our keeping our places; and really the sight of those two boys solemnly playing at being explorers, was one of the funniest things we had seen for many a long day. if it pleased them to do the work, we did not mind. we had gone through enough toil recently to make us glad of the rest, and later, when they got tired, and the stream grew wider and swifter, we could take over the canoe from their charge. in fact we formed a quite appetising dream of what the voyage would be down the scurujoki to küstula, and so it came all the more unpleasantly to us when we found that this river-passage was impracticable. first we arrived at a tree fallen squarely across the stream, and we got out and lifted the canoe across this by main force. then the scurujoki widened into mere trickling shallows, and we waded and lifted till we were tired. and then, lo! the stream vanished altogether, being absorbed into a vast green quagmire which filled all the valley-floor. so we sat down on the baggage and stated exactly to one another what we thought of the feckless finn who owned scurujärvi farm, and then with toil and weariness set about to work the canoe back to the place from which she had come. we were tolerably savage at being let in for this _fiasco_, and should probably have explained to the feckless one with energy how remiss it was of him not to know the country five hundred yards away from his own front-door; but when we set foot again on the lake-shore below the house, these thoughts of war were swept from us by a feeling of wonder and surprise. another caravan had arrived from the direction in which we were going, and the principals of it were walking in even then to take possession of the dairy-bedroom. their carriers sat outside the house-door on the sloping-way of planks. there were three of them: two sturdy down-country finns, and a weird lapp with lank, black hair, and yellow, pock-marked face, and a square lapp's cap of dead-black cloth. these were the first travellers of any sort we had met in all arctic lapland, and we marvelled at what could be their business. presently the two principals came out of the dairy-bedroom and talked with us. the elder was a huge man, deep-bearded and heavy-paunched, with a frown on his face and few words to spare. the younger was aged perhaps thirty, had a cut-away chin, and brimmed with words. we tried one another in a whole continent of languages, and finally pitched upon latin as the only one we had any working knowledge of in common. it was on both sides schoolboy dog-latin of the most canine variety, and because of the difficulties of pronunciation we could not interchange ideas even through this medium by word of mouth. so every syllable of our chat was scrawled with a stub of pencil upon the rough-hewn door of scurujärvi farm. "potesne nobis dicere," we wrote, "si possibile est invenire equum nos portare de kittila ad mare?" and the man with the cut-away chin replied; "currus est in kittila." "estne via bona?" we asked. "est via, sed non bona. sed via est." it was quite a delightful exercise conversing through the rags of this dimly-remembered tongue. but we did not talk for long, and we only learned some vague facts about our future course. theirs was only a temporary halt. they were soon on the march again, and our curiosity concerning them grew high. the two principals started off first, the carriers following them; but when these last were just on the move, one of them, a finn, turned back to us and pointed to his lappish companion. we looked, and for the first time saw strapped outside the lapp's pack a pair of leg-shackles, bright and ferociously heavy. the finn laughed and pointed to the big man with the heavy beard ahead, and then he turned away from us and set off on the march. whether he meant that the bracelets were destined for the big man's ankles, or whether the big man was going to put them on some one else, we never discovered. none of the party wore the least vestige of official garb, and yet heavy leg-shackles are not usually part of the travelling kit of private individuals. was the big man a political offender, doomed to exile in fetters amongst lapland swamps? or was he an officer of justice on the road to capture some sinning lapp? or was he some invalid, suffering from occasional fits of madness, and taking heavy curative exercise under the care of an attendant who had repressive measures handy? we never found out. an american would have solved the problem by bluntly asking; but we somehow lacked that simple directness of questioning which is the birthright of the great nation across the water. besides, the man with the cut-away chin had said that they had come up through küstula and kittila, and we promised ourselves satisfaction for our curiosity at these places. and lo! when we did reach them, and pushed inquiries, it was plain that we had been fubbed off with a lie, for the other caravan had passed through neither spot. and so out of what part of the wilderness they did come, or what was their errand, we do not know to this day, though later on we certainly did make a conjecture. * * * * * now all the while we had been engaged in these other matters we had not been forgetful of our own business. we took the feckless finn in hand, turn and turn about, and (to use the beautiful symbolic language of the sea) we twisted his tail. he did not like being roused from his lethargy; he much would have preferred that we should have taken permanent root at his expense in scurujärvi; but four hours of energetic tail-twisting produced its effect. a reindeer sledge, carvel-built and boat-shape, was dragged out from beneath the flooring of the house; a single-tree was made and lashed to the drawing thong under the sledge's bow; a pair of shafts were cut and made fast to the single-tree; and then huckleberry was despatched to find a suitable animal for traction amongst the grazing grounds of the forest. he was not long away; he came back towing a steer, a little liver-and-white fellow with an inquiring eye, and backed it in between the shafts. a collar with wooden hames was put on the steer's neck, and the ends of the shafts were made fast to these, and then a half-hoop of wood was put over the steer's withers and lashed to the shafts, _à la russe_, to keep them from chafing. the feckless one roused sufficiently to make a grummet of withes to put round the steer's nose, and tom sawyer made a head-stall out of string, and bent on a check-rope to the grummet. we put our bundles into the sledge, and lashed them there, and turned to give a final curse to the feckless finn. but he had dropped into contemplation again, and so he missed our words, and we had to set off without the satisfaction of leaving him stung. the two boys were our escort, and the way at first was rough enough. thick forest was on the outskirts of the farm, and under the forest trees were stones uncovered by moss or lichen. the little steer picked his way over these cannily enough, but the sledge would only follow if assisted, and so one or other of us had constantly to tail on behind to keep it in the paths of rectitude. and then we had to pass across the swampy valley. logs had been laid down here to make some sort of a footway, but it was more than the steer could do to make the passage across these with the sledge bumping and sheering in his wake. so we had to unyoke, and drag the sledge over ourselves; and when we got to the other side, we found that the vehicle showed distinct signs of disintegration. it was pinned together by wooden pegs, and these had got dry and were falling out; and so there was nothing for it but to unload, and sink the sledge in a pool of water till it swelled and tightened, and in the meanwhile rest as philosophically as we could in the worst stew of mosquitoes we had yet met in the arctic lapland. it was one of the heaviest hours of torment i ever lived through. still at last the sledge swelled sufficiently, and we got limbered up again, and this time the procession set off in more real earnest. first came tom sawyer, high-booted, one-braced, preternaturally solemn and important. he marched with knapsack on back, axe over shoulder, and coat slung to knapsack, though of course he might just as well have put these impedimenta on the sledge. he "blazed" unnecessary trees, and peered into every thicket. he was evidently on the look-out for the local story-book equivalent for "injuns." he was inexpressibly funny. then came the little liver-and-white steer, half maddened by the mosquitoes, rushing under every foliage tree on the way to brush off the intolerable insects. at its heels the sledge bumped and swerved, and beside the sledge stalked huckleberry finn, with the check-rope in his hand and words of direction on his lips. and behind the tail-board of the sledge came us two foreigners, ready to lend a hand when the sledge threatened to capsize, which it did some four times every three minutes. the pace was not exhilarating. when everything went well, we covered some four thousand yards to the hour. but every mile or so the steer would get tired and flop down to rest, and on these occasions huckleberry would groom down its back with a sponge of moist pink moss, and anoint its nose and eye-sockets with tar out of his private bottle; whilst tom sawyer, in full panoply, stood afar off on watch and guard; and the mosquitoes bit all of us still more terribly. during one of these halts a figure showed itself amongst the tree aisles which we had left, and presently who should come up but the grim-visaged midwife we had left in scurujärvi. she trudged on sturdily with a pack on her back and her head well up, and she was soon out of sight amongst the zigzags of the trees ahead. she had done her work at scurujärvi, and was going on to take up her next piece of employment fifty miles away. there was nothing new in the country we passed through: forest alternated with swamp, and swamp with forest, and the mosquitoes would have done justice to the worst corner in hell. the journeying was infinitely tedious. in one of the morasses it seemed as though we should get stuck permanently. only the sledge floated on the treacherous surface. the steer was stuck in to the shoulders, and we four were sunk to the breasts in trying to pull it out. there was no piece of sound ground within a mile to get a purchase from, and how we ever did get clear i do not know. that march is bad even to look back at. it seems like the torment of some ghastly dream. * * * * * about half-way (i should think it must have been) we came upon men again. they were builders, and they were making a house. for temporary shelter they had run up a rough lean-to of slabs, and when we came up they were eating, and the midwife, who had joined camp with them, was eating also. huckleberry and tom joined in at the meal, producing their own provision. there was a good deal of difference between these builders of the arctic zone and the sturdy british workman at home. the artificers here get their orders, take provisions, a pair of axes, a grindstone, and a couple of cross-cut saws, and start off to the site of their work. the forest provides materials, which they cut as they want them; and from these materials, and with their simple utensils, they evolve the whole house and all the furniture thereof. how they live in the meanwhile i have shown; and when they were not asleep they were at work. remarkably well they looked, too, under the experience. we got into talk with one of these builders, and he told us a strange thing. he said that a week before he had chanced to look up from his work, and saw something "like an enormous bird without wings" move quickly across the clearing far above his head. it was coloured green, and he guessed it to be some sixty feet in length. round its neck was a big projecting ring, which made a whirring noise. he had never seen anything of the like before, and did not know what to make of it. could we give an explanation? well we had ideas on the subject--distinct ideas--but we did not let them out just then. this seemed very much the same thing that johann had talked about, describing it as a green fish, and which we had discussed together over so many marches afterwards; and now we wanted to know more about it. but that was all the builder could tell. he was a man of fair intelligence, but he had only seen the thing for a very few seconds, and had not gathered anything but a general impression. we asked him if it was an air-ship, but that was a conception he could not understand. he was certain, however, that he had seen no men on the concern, though there was plenty of room for men inside--for twenty men for the matter of that; and he was equally certain the whole thing was not an illusion of the senses. he had seen what he said, neither more nor less, and he stuck to it doggedly. and having said his say, he got up, and took an axe and set it on the grindstone preparatory to work. we got our caravan under way again after that, and perfunctorily tried to talk on what we had heard; but the labours of the journey and the horrible mosquito-plague were too heavy to give mere empty speculation much of a chance. and when later on we discerned that the travellers with the leg-shackles we had met at scurujärvi had not been at either küstula or kittila, as they asserted, then the subject got a new interest. we connected them, somehow or other, with this mysterious air-ship--we had convinced ourselves it was an air-ship by then--and formed a thousand theories as to what might be their business. i wonder if at any time we guessed anywhere near the truth? a drenching dew came down as the night wore on, and the mosquitoes lessened somewhat in their maddening attentions, and we marched a trifle more easily. but we carried the marks of their work written on us in ugly letters. our arms were swollen from wrist to elbow, so that they fitted tight in the gloves; we were bitten, bitten, bitten all over, through corduroy, under boot-laces, under hair. the scraps of paper in my pocket, on which i had been scribbling notes, were splodged with blood till they were unreadable, and in this torment we had been marching for ten consecutive hours before the dew came and brought relief. at last we came to an unmistakable track, which grew with use till it became a real muddy lane running between two walls of forest. it was made by the feet of men and cattle, and never had we been so pleased to see mud before. it led us to a lake, which we skirted; and then we came to another lane, and then another lake with fishing canoes drawn up and nets hung out to dry. and there on the flank of a gently sloping hill we saw a fine settlement of quite a dozen farms, well built and prosperous. it was küstula, and we had got there at last. but the houses lay at the farther side, and to reach them we passed between potato gardens, and a water-cress pond, and rye and barley fields all fenced in and well tilled. the steer was very nearly done, and so were we; but ahead of our caravan there still marched the indomitable tom, with the axe across his shoulder and the knapsack dangling from his back. we drove up to the biggest house and came to a halt in the courtyard, formed by the farm buildings at its back. there was a well in the courtyard, with the column of water sheathed in white transparent ice. we rushed to it, lowered the bucket on the end of the derrick, and hoisted again and again. i think we must have drunk a bucketful apiece of that ice-cold water before the fever of our throats was satisfied. it was six o'clock in the morning, and our clothes hung on us dank with perspiration. the sun had never ceased beating upon us and our hurts all the way from scurujärvi. chapter xii down the rapids to kittila town huckleberry finn announced our coming, and after we had taken toll of the ice-well, we went into the house. inside the door was a huge room strewn with sleeping men and women. at one side was a stove with cooking-places; at the other stood a hand-loom with a piece of chequered blue-cotton fabric in the course of manufacture. beside it there straddled a couple of spinning-wheels. the room we were given for ourselves, after what we were used to, seemed an actual palace. it had two windows, a table, a white stone-stove, and hung on one of the walls was the picture of a gorgeous young lady working a singer's sewing-machine. there were two box-beds in the room, and one of them possessed a mosquito-bar. ye gods! think of the luxury of it! beds and a real mosquito-bar! the man who received us was the squire of küstula, and a great man indeed. he was a finn, and yet he was civil and kindly. he set before us for our entertainment a great bowl of curdled milk, and trotted about bare-footed beside us, and besought us to eat. but we were a bit too knocked up to have much appetite then, and we got on to the beds; whereupon he produced a second mosquito-bar, rigged it, and left us. imagine the unspeakable luxury of it! sleep! on a real bed made of boards and mattressed with hay; and without either fleas or ticks or mosquitoes to bite one into wakefulness. we revelled there in sleep for three solid hours. the noise of the housework roused us, and we got up, very swollen and stiff from the bites. the tub of curdled milk was on the table, and we ate it thirstily. the squire heard us moving, and paddled in on his bare feet, and grinned affably. his name by the way was johann sanmelli myal, but we called him squire from the first, as that name seemed to suit him best. we mentioned that we wanted a canoe and men to take us to kittila, and he said he had guessed it already, and we could set off whenever we chose. here was thoughtfulness and civility! it seemed marvellous to find such qualities and such a house within a day's march of that dreadful, listless savage at scurujärvi. tom sawyer and huckleberry were hanging about waiting to be paid, and we gave them what we had bargained for with the feckless one, and a _douceur_ over for themselves, and then we went out and strolled about in the open air. the settlement was very different from any we had seen before, and i only hope for the sake of the civil people who live there, that it was as prosperous as it looked. viewed from a distance, so that one could not tell whether the green crops were rye and barley, or lanky maize, it might have been a settlement in north carolina or the western states, except for one thing--there was no litter about. there were none of those heaps of disused meat, and yeast, and tomato tins, so inseparable from new american civilisation. all was trim. there were a few lapps about the place it is true, but they were merely in küstula as dependants. not one owned a farm. the people of küstula, however, had dealings with the aboriginal in another way. for all winter traction and transport they used reindeer, but when we visited the village there was not a single one within its boundaries. each farmer had an agreement with a lapp, and sent away his ear-marked deer to be pastured under the lapp's charge on the distant uplands of the fjeld and tundra. we made no long stay in küstula. for the first time since we had set foot in the country, transport was made ready for us without a weary haggle of words; and the unaccustomed easiness of it was too delightful not to be taken advantage of. we limped stiffly down through the slip-rails of the fields, a bevy of men and children and women all accompanying us, and we came upon the river some half mile away from the house where we had slept. the map names it the loukinenjoki, but the finns of küstula, knowing nothing of imaginative maps, and being taught on these matters merely by the tradition of their forefathers, preferred to call it the loosnen. the river here was young, being born of rills in the blue mountains only a few miles away, amongst their swamps and pines and comely birches; and it ran round bends and curves innumerable. sometimes it widened into lagoons, sometimes the banks hemmed it in to narrows, and the waters spouted with waterfalls and rapids. on the short grass of the bank lay a new canoe, bottom upwards. i sat down on her, and discovered also that she was newly tarred. she was eighteen feet long, and built in the usual way, with two stakes aside, coming to highest points forward and aft. the squire himself came with us as skipper; we ourselves and our baggage were stowed amidships on a green cushion of springy birch-shoots; and in the bows was nilas petrie karahoola, a tall, clean-made young finn, who owned a bottle of smuggled cognac and a natty little liqueur-glass. when we were all on board, the canoe showed just seven inches of free-board. we shoved off, and the population of küstula on the high bank above, waved their head-gear and wished us god-speed. but we ourselves could not linger long over the farewell. a dozen strokes brought the canoe into the swirl of rapids, where the brown water raced over and between a tangle of jagged rocks, which the squire, crouching in the stern with the steering paddle, had all his work cut out to negotiate. a dozen times he bumped on some unseen boulder; and once the canoe grounded amidships, was caught by a swirl on her stern, and was within an ace of broaching-to and being swamped. but a lusty effort set us free again, and on we raced; and then after a final dive over a churning three-foot fall, we reached the deep and placid stream again, and were a mile below the last field of küstula. it was quick travelling. the squire wiped the perspiration from his face and sat down; nilas brought out his cognac-bottle and handed a nip all round; and then the pair of them settled themselves to steady paddling. we ourselves were glad enough of the opportunity for _far niente_. we had come through a surfeit of ill-usage, over-exertion, over-biting, and under-feeding, and as regards personal appearance we were a couple of gaunt, blotched, hollow-eyed wrecks. so we lay on the baggage and the springy green boughs, and watched the banks go by in luxurious idleness. comely banks they were too, laid out by nature with grasses, and planted with birches, hazels, and pines. they were like bits of the thames at mortlake, or the dee above chester. it was hard to realise that in winter all this was a place of howling gales and tangled snow-drifts. now and again we passed a fisher's camp by the water-side--just a fire, some drying nets, and a piece of cotton cloth which served more as mosquito-bar than tent; and now and again we met a woman paddling a boat whilst a man in the stern fished. some were lapps, but most were finns. we would pass mile after mile of river-bank which had never been touched by man since the river carved its channel, and mile after mile of forest which had never felt the axe; but still there was not wanting occasional evidences that we were getting into a country less sparsely populated than the aching wilderness we had so wearily tramped through, and the idea made us think back at some of the halts where we had stayed. those at the farther end were already growing faint and hazy: we seemed to have gone through so much since we had left them. "i can dimly recall," said one of us, "that years ago we came up to the polar sea in a canoe called the _windward_. but where was it from? i forget." "a settlement called 'london,' wasn't it?" said the other. "which was that? i'm getting mixed." "the place where we got something to eat." "ah, i remember, sour milk, wasn't it, and that dog-biscuit stuff? and the natives came to see us off."... we were talking half seriously too. all those early stages of our expedition seemed so distant and nebulous. we had lived a good many years in those last few weeks. from all that toil and starvation and strain this river-journey came as a delightful revel. the paddles _cheeped_ against the gunwales, and the water trickled musically. cuckoos called to us from behind the woods. we took our eyes from one beautiful picture on the shore, only to drink in the pleasures of the next. and then the finns would take their paddles out of the water altogether, and we would drift down the stream and bask in the sweet, warm silence. the river would widen out into a still lagoon, walled in by mysterious pines, a dancing-place for dragon-flies, and we would drowse off almost into forgetfulness. and then of a sudden the lagoon would empty over a fall into a narrow gut, and the canoe would leap upon the backs of sleek brown waves, and frisk through spray, and grate over shoals, and shave black-fanged rocks by a hand's-breadth. it was work which required the skilful navigator. once, after we had gone ashore to boil up the kettles for a meal, the finns changed about when we got on board again, and nilas at the steering paddle took us down the next rapids and half filled the canoe with water before she reached their foot. we had to pull ashore again to bale after this, not because our own sodden properties would have hurt in the water, but because of some goods of the squire's which he was taking as cargo. he, canny man, had a bale of hides which he wanted to exchange for money in kittila, and by getting them down in our hired canoe he was saving a journey. other streams joined us as the canoe paddled on, and the river grew in bigness and use. hay barns became quite frequent on the banks, on spots where some distant farmer came to cut the rich grasses, and dry them on wooden racks and rails, norwegian fashion, till they turned into scented hay. this would be sheltered in the rude houses of logs against autumn rains, and in the winter months, when the river was ice, he could come with sledge and reindeer and drag the hay home to his farm across the frozen surface. nilas paddled and the squire steered. there was high ground ahead, and always on our left-hand side was a great wooded bulk of mountain. the river scenery changed like the setting of a play: we shot down noisy rapids with the speed of a running fish; we paddled across leisurely lagoons; we saved journeys round wide bends by forcing the canoe through narrow "cut-offs," like those one meets with on the mississippi; but always close above us the mountain remained, grand and vast and immovable. on the hills ahead there were snow patches. on our mountain there were none. from the waters where its feet were bathed, to the billowy clouds which cooled its head, trees covered it like a rentless garment, and nowhere was its naked side exposed. nilas put leather gloves over his fingers and paddled on, and the squire steered tirelessly. the scenery grew wilder as we drew nearer to kittila, and flights of small duck whirred past us down the stream. the grass was gone from the banks, and the river was hemmed in by arid bluffs, and walls of rock, and lines of tumbled boulders. the trees were sterner in shape and colour, and grew into thicker and more gloomy forests. then abruptly it changed again. the forests disappeared. a natural clearing began, and man had taken advantage of the gap to set up a farm. the squire ran the canoe ashore, and we got out and climbed a steep forty-foot bank. the farm lay before us, trim, orderly, and prosperous, and the usual fishing implements lay spread about on the bank. the finn farmer came out and invited us inside his dwelling. it was probably an accidental resemblance, but in personal appearance he might have passed for twin-brother of the estimable president krüger, of african ill-fame, in clothes, beard, and everything, with the trifling detail of steel-rimmed spectacles added. he accepted us first of all as a joke; but when he heard we had come across from the arctic sea, he looked upon us as a pair of barefaced liars, and regarded us with more respect. he gave us milk, and then brought all available members of his household into the farm kitchen, and preached them an improving sermon with us as text. to the casual observer then we certainly must have looked a pair of "awful warnings." in the kitchen a woman was working a hand-loom, and except when a thread broke in the warp, and demanded repair, the machine clacked away industriously during the whole of the excellent krüger's sermon. she was weaving a checked blue-cotton cloth, and beside her a couple of old crones span yarn industriously from humming-wheels. hayter, callous to the sermon, sat down to sketch the hand-loom weaver. ever and again a small fluffy-headed girl edged across into his line of vision, and was ruthlessly dragged away again by the farmer. she was rather pretty in a scared sort of way, and at last she got her desire, and was faithfully depicted in black and white on a page of the sketch-book. her name was edla dahlgren. we left the farm at eleven o'clock by the timepiece in the kitchen, and put out once more into the river. we were in the broad ounasjoki now, a river as wide as the thames at richmond, but vastly swifter. [illustration: on the way to kittila.] the canoe ran away down past the shores, and once more forests hedged us in above the high banks. the river was all swirls and grinding pools, and oily overfalls, and noisy rapids. at the foot of the banks were camp-fires sending up trails of thin blue smoke from tiny crumbs of flame. filmy mist rose from the tangle of waters, and amongst it here and there were men and women in canoes, fishing. from behind the pines on the western bank the sun sent a glow like new-tapped blood. we passed close to one of the canoes. a woman was in the bow, poling. five rods were trolling from the stern, and a man with a calico mosquito-cowl about his head tended them. the rush of the river drove us past, and the canoe faded into a black dot amongst the mist. it was the likeliest looking fishing-water i ever saw. more fires came up on the banks, winked redly, and disappeared. from bank to bank the rapids shouted, and the yellow waves spurned us on to pools of black, sliding water, and the oily rocks sucked us towards them as we tore past. the dew came down more heavily and the mists closed in; the river slacked in speed again, and the canoe rode with an easier motion; and when we looked back, the fishers and their fires were blotted out against the black background of the pines. * * * * * it was midnight. astern, wrapped in thin blue mist, there loomed up the great wooded mountains we had voyaged round so long. ahead, the river widened out into a still lake, and reflected into it was a cluster of red and ochre houses above a bright green bank, which made up the outskirts of straggling kittila. well-derricks sprawled amongst the houses, and the smell of farms and agriculture hung on the air. the sun was coming up egg-shaped and blood-red from out of the mists and the pines. it was midnight, and all kittila slept. we had been carried three-and-sixty miles from küstula by the tireless fingers of the river. we got out of the canoe and turned our backs on it. beyond us lay fields gleaming with dew-diamonds. beyond again, lay the dwellings of kittila. the squire led us up to a house and woke the inmates. we were given a room with walls actually papered--with newspapers. a sleepy woman shuffled off her bedclothes and put on a second garment; but she brisked up when she saw the strangers were curious people from a far country. and in a while supper was set before us: the dog-biscuit of the country, the shell of a dutch cheese, and thirteen bay-leaf anchovies in a tin. and then we were given beds with sheets. here was refinement: we actually undressed to do justice to it. * * * * * a road fit for wheeled vehicles runs through kittila, and another road, though a bad one, intersects it lower down and leads to sodankyla. the houses of the little town are scattered picturesquely on either side of this road, and are for the most part stained dragon's-blood red, or turmeric yellow, with white window-sashes. they have a fine taste for colour in kittila. all the better houses are enclosed within their own neat fences, and of its sort it would be hard to find a more comely townlet. even the shops are no disfigurement, and they are more than twenty in number--quite one-third of all the houses. they display no sign-boards, and they do not exhibit goods in the windows to give possible buyers cheap views from the public thoroughfares. every house has its well or wells, straddled over by a huge hoisting-derrick, of the same construction one may see in spain, or southern france, or elsewhere. no house is very large. the risk of fire is always in the air, and a man as he grows richer, or as his family increases, does not add an _annexe_ to his original home, but builds a second house a few yards away, and then others, following a rectangular plan, till at length he has made himself a courtyard, walled round with barns and dwellings. a marvellous tidiness pervades everything. all is kept in good repair. not a shingle is displaced from the neat brown roofs, not a scrap of the farm middens is allowed to straggle. there is no litter anywhere. and yet these people are finns of the same race as those squalid, listless savages we had been living amongst only a few days before. the country finn and his long boot are inseparable; even the squire and nilas wore them, although they had telescoped the tops almost down to their ankles; but in kittila the high boot was no longer _de rigeur_. lace boots were the ordinary wear. even shoes were not uncommon. the two largest buildings in kittila were a big, square schoolhouse with a high, red stockade, and a large, high-spired church. the school was having holiday when we were there, and does its business during the bleak, black months of winter. the church, in magpie black and white, was hideous. but it was an elaborate building for all that, with granite foundations, an interior of grim massiveness, and shutters in the belfry of its wooden tower, opening and closing like a swell-box of an organ. at the back of the church was a cemetery, grass-grown and neglected, with wooden and cast-iron crosses and devices at the grave heads, most with all inscription quite obliterated. one, over a new grave had the formal _hic jacet_ scrawled in pencil. another, which was practically a log-built mausoleum, had crumbled in places and fallen in, till the dry bones of the dead shivered at the draught from the crevices. it seemed as though the finn once out of life dropped out of memory also, and all care for his resting-place ceased. it was a utilitarian trait, perhaps, but it was not quite an amiable one. there is a chemist in kittila with whom we foregathered and drank lemonade, and i do not think it is maligning him to say that he had a greater liking for winter sledge-exercise than for the mere compounding of drugs and prescribing for human ailments. he owned six driving-deer, did this arctic chemist, which of course, when we were there, were running out on the fjeld and getting into fettle. he had his private earmark, drawn on parchment, and stored in an envelope. it was a mere outline of two bows--thus [illustration: two bows], divided vertically down the middle to separate the two ears, with the distinctive markings traced in with pen and ink. a copy of this was posted with others in a public place, so that all men might know that deer marked so were the chemist's property. when the snows fall, and the time comes for driving, then the little chemist begins to find life worth living. with pride he showed us his gear: the smartest outfit imaginable. first, there was a pulling collar for the deer with two wooden hames bound with iron. then there was a saddle of leather, most elaborately worked and embroidered with red. for the middle of the deer's long neck was another red collar, decorated with a fine brass bell. the trace was of raw hide, plaited square. there was one single-tree of bent wood, with a looped thong made fast to its middle. this thong was passed through a hole under the forefoot of the sledge, and the loop was slipped over the bit on the stem-head, so that the deer could always be cast adrift from the sledge at a moment's notice. the boat-shaped sledge itself was a miracle of light-blue paint, but a cranky thing for a beginner to sit. it would roll forty-five degrees without capsizing, but it was apt to exceed the forty-five. there is a pole to guide with, and the pole is a thing of use; for riding at speed in these sledges over an uneven snow-field is distinctly a matter of balance. we saw that the little chemist was a man of taste from the trimness of this turn-out; but when he showed us his own personal attire for winter journeys, we saw that he was a man of luxury also. everything was cut after the mode of the lapps, and cost was a neglected detail. he put on his winter rig for our gratification, and we admired him from head to foot. on the top of him came the _lapinlakki_, the heavy, square-topped lappish cap, with the crown made of bright scarlet cloth, and the band round the head, of otter's fur. round his neck was the _sieppura_, a collaret of bear's fur, with the bear's mask hanging over his breast. the _matsoreo_ (or _peski_) which covered his trunk was of soft gray-brown reindeer skin, with the hair exquisitely dressed and finished. the fingerless gloves (_kinteaat_) on his hands were of white reindeer skin, with the hair outside. he had short, hairless, leather breeches underneath, but these were joined in mid-thigh by the _s[)a]p[)a]kkeet_, which were reindeer-skin leggings that reached down to the ankles, where they were made fast to the leather boots, the _kallakkoat_, by narrow, red cloth _paulat_, which may be defined as bandages. the day happened to be blazing hot, and the little chemist almost melted under the weight of his furs, which plimmed him out to nearly double his normal size; but he told us that in winter there were days of bitter frost and driving gale, when it was dangerous to venture out of doors even in that arctic panoply. here in the interior of lapland, out of all distant influence of the gulf stream, far greater extremes of temperature prevail than in more northern spots like, say, vardö. the little chemist was a fisherman at times during the summer months, and being somewhat of a naturalist besides, he had collected on paper the names of his possible catch. he had not succeeded in finding a specimen of each in the ounasjoki so far, but the fish were undoubtedly in the country, and some day he hoped to complete his basket. i give the list here, in case somebody may find them interesting:-- salmo salar salmo eriox salmo alpinus osmerus eperlanus (north of °) thymallus vulgatis coreogonus lavaretus coreogonus albula esox lucius leucuscus grislagine perca fluviatilis he warmed up when the talk got on fish, and took us across to the house of a neighbour who made his living out of fish-catching as an industry. the neighbour gave us spruce beer, a flat decoction, which we found somewhat insipid, and then he started to talk. we warmed as we heard him; it was quite like being at home again. i have only met one man to equal him, and he was a lincolnshire pike-fisherman who never seemed to catch anything less than a yard in length, or the size of a man's thigh in girth. this fisherman of kittila was not quite so artistic in his yarns as the man of lincolnshire. he rushed his statements too much, and did not wait till they were dragged out of him; but he never flinched at anything. he illustrated his conversation by diagrams with a piece of charcoal on the floor as he went on; and when his imagination failed him, one or other of us foreigners would start on a fish story, and he would take the words out of our mouths and go on again at redoubled speed. verily fishermen are quaintly alike all the world over. there must be some sort of bacteria in fish which infect the catcher and impel him to expand facts whether he will or not. i knew an eminent bishop once--but perhaps he does not count. he was an irishman as well as a votary of the fly-rod. [illustration: drinking cups] [illustration: arctic lapland types.] chapter xiii through to the sea: a progress in post-carts, with interludes of river-ferries the river ounasjoki is navigable the larger part of the way from kittila down to its outfall in the gulf of bothnia; but prices run high for the hire of canoes, as they have to be poled back tediously up against the current, not to mention suffering damage from the several spots where bad rapids compel lengthy portages. transport down to the coast is done by wheeled vehicle, and for this purpose a road has been built. the local vehicle for human transport is the _karre_, which spells post-cart in qfinsk. it is a word which covers a multitude of shapes. the best _karre_ is like the norwegian _stolkjarre_, and has two bodies set one behind the other on one pair of shafts, with remarkably little room for the legs in either. the two wheels are small and sturdy, and have long projecting hubs which remind one of the ancient british scythe-chariot. the bodies of the vehicle may be made of wicker, leather and iron, cane and iron, or eke plain deal board, and it is rare to see a _karre_ which is not approaching the last stage of decrepitude. the horse draws from the fore-end of the shafts, to which his collar is made fast by a six-inch trace and a toggle. the passenger usually drives himself--always if he will so consent--and the man, or boy, or top-booted girl in charge, sits on the back seat on the top of the baggage, and smokes and contemplates. we set off posting seawards from kittila on a day which happened to be set apart for some lutheran celebration, and the little town was taking holiday. we took our last look upon the gaudy oleograph of the czar and czarina hung up in the post-house to inculcate loyalty amongst the lukewarm finns, and then the _karre_ was brought out, and we drove away in style. a swarm of bare-footed, tow-headed, mud-complexioned children saw us off, who would have passed very well for the progeny of tar-heelers amongst the alleghany mountains. there were few men in evidence, but the women were all out in the street dressed in their smartest, with white kerchief on head, blue print gown, and white cotton apron. they were clean, all of them, and not unpicturesque; but it would have been hard to find a neat figure or a comely face in the whole of kittila. it might be described as a cluster of farms, this trim arctic town, and gates are swung across the road every few hundred yards. between the houses lay fields of barley, breaking into silky waves beneath the sun, and fields of rye with stems higher than a laplander's head. beside each house was a pile of sledges with the runners new-tarred, ready for the winter. beside the roadway, herds of liver and white cows grazed under the care of bare-legged urchins. the road, after what we had been through, seemed delightful to us, though it was little better than a sandbed in places. at orderly intervals, sturdy red kilometre posts stood sentinel along its flank, with black figures on their squared white heads saying how far it was from the last station, and how far to the next. red bridges of log and trestle crossed the streams. red wooden parapets guarded the awkward corners when the road climbed round a hillside. the great white czar was taking care for the necks of his subjects, and red was the sign of his official hand. it is fashionable to speak of russia and her dependencies as being the worst police-ridden lands amongst all the wide acres of earth; and what they may be in other districts i do not know--i have not been there--but of lapland and northern finland i can speak with authority. we went into the country prejudiced against the government; we left it prejudiced in its favour. we expected to meet a harassing police; we never even saw a uniform. we were prepared for official delays, and were ready to give bribes to get on; there were no officials either to make the one or to take the other. our british foreign office passports with their hieroglyphical visés never emerged from the envelopes in which they were originally packed. we went through the country with as little interference as we might have met with in a trip through yorkshire or vermont. but though the government does not obtrude itself to the passing eye with a bristle of uniforms and weapons, as it does in luckless countries like germany and france, it makes its comforting presence felt through all the populated parts of the country. without some one to look after him, and be competent if necessary to twist his tail, a slack and slovenly person like the northern finn would never have produced a high road for his traffic, he would never have built substantial bridges, and most of all he would never have organised the post-cart system. it is on the usual russian model, this posting system, but it is a triumph of quiet routine for all that. the stations vary in distance from ten to twenty kilometres apart. you drive up, go into the house, and sign a requisition for as many horses and _karres_ as you want. the horses are passable on the whole, for the most part roans, chestnuts, or bright bays, standing about fourteen hands to fourteen-three, and cobby about the neck. the _karres_ i have described. with wonderfully little loss of time, the new vehicle with horse and man appears ready in the courtyard, and you pay off your old one according to the tariff in the post-book, and start off again on the next stage of your journey. the pace as a usual thing is tolerable. the horse walks uphill, trots on level, and gallops on the down-grades as fast as he can put feet to the ground. you may have your own theories about the advisability of these paces, but they are the custom of the country, and you cannot change them. you drive with a loose rein, and when you want increased pace you make a zulu-like noise something like _pop-pop_, and if that does not have the desired effect you cut a stick and use it with vigour. the horse shrugs his shoulders and quickens; it is all in the day's work. when you want him to stop, you say _pr-r-r-mph!_ just as you do in denmark. the horse of the post-road is not accustomed to atmospheric warmth, and sweats on small provocation. under these circumstances he must not be pressed. on our first stage out of kittila--it was one of the longest, by the way, being twenty-two kilometres to the change-house--the sun above us blazed with true arctic heat and fervour, and the pace could not be pushed beyond the steadiest of jogs. when we pulled up in the grassy courtyard of rantatalo at the end of this first stage, the man in attendance drew bucket after bucket of icy water from the well, and sluiced it over the horse's loins. it seemed a crude sort of proceeding, but one supposed they knew their business; and, besides, it was their horse. in this same courtyard at rantatalo the score of people who made the village were collected to amuse themselves with one of their number who had contrived to get drunk. how he had procured the liquor in this prohibition state was a mystery apparently to them as much as it was to us. but drunk he was, and as specimens in that condition were rare, they made the most of him before he was sober again. from out of this jeering crowd round the drunkard there came to us a battered, shaggy, half-naked, wreck of a man, who spoke "leetle anglish." he had been born in rantatalo, and had tired of it; he had tramped to the coast, and had worked across the ocean; he had drifted on to a railroad somewhere in america, though he did not know whether it was in california or the carolinas, and had there worked in a line-gang till home-sickness and body-sickness drove him back to finland again. poor wretch, it did not require much skill to diagnose consumption as his ailment. he said he was "mighty glad to see us." it evidently gave him much pleasure to be thoroughly profane in english again. the ounas river runs in a tolerably straight course north and south from kittila to the sea; but being a river it has some curves, and the road to cut these off has to make crossings at intervals. we came upon our first ferry, a flat and shallow boat, just outside this post-house at rantatalo, and the wreck from america, and an ugly young woman with a pipe rowed us and our new horse and _karre_ across. we were out of the sphere of cultivation again in half a kilometre, and then the road led through a big burn-out of forest, which made a huge, unsightly scar across the country. in the first third, some of the trees were merely charred and left dead and standing; from the next third, the furnace of fire had mopped them up entirely, and the charred ashes had been swept away by wind and rain; and over the balance of ground which the flames had mowed, the stumps of the old trees were left, and young shoots were beginning to show beside them. a house had stood by the roadside in the middle of that ruined forest, but only the rubble foundations were left. the fire had driven the farmers away, and licked up their crops, and destroyed their woodwork, and they had no heart left either to rebuild or to recultivate. they had fled before the draught of the flames, and had returned no more. the forest closed in again after this gap, and the road brought us once more in sight of the river, which ran here as a big, strong stream between high pine-covered rocks. a red-shirted finn was poling himself about the rapids, with rods trolling over the stern of his canoe. there was the post-house of kakkonaara just beyond this point, and whilst the new horse and _karre_ were being got ready, we went and looked at some brick-making in a field beside the house. the work was primitive. the clay was ground up in a barrel-shaped churn by a lethargic horse; a besplattered woman worked it with her hands into wooden moulds; a small tow-headed girl carried the bricks away and laid them higgledy-piggledy to dry; and a man with ear-rings, and a woman with a baby strapped up like an indian papoose, took gentle exercise by standing still and looking on. a small pile of perhaps half a thousand bricks lay near, intermingled with wood ready for burning; and a few specimens, red, soft, twisted and irregular, lay here and there to show the fashion of the finished article. they use these bricks for stoves, and the demand is not large. a thousand would last a family a lifetime. all building and flooring and roofing is, of course, done with wood. they were bringing new ground into cultivation just beyond this, by cutting dykes across it and throwing the subsoil of sand and clay over the vegetation. it was an old river-bed, thickly grown with heather and juniper, and i cannot say that it gave much promise of being speedily fertile. at lahiniva, the little wayside farm which made the headquarters of the next stage, we fell in with bad luck. the only available vehicle was a ramshackle wooden box, horsed by a worn-out chestnut stallion, which was pathetically incapable of dragging us. the road was deep with sand, and whacking the poor old horse (after the custom of the country) was sheer brutality without adequate return. so in the end we had to turn out and walk; and as the mosquitoes came out for the first time that day in full vigour, we had a pretty dreary time of it, and we did not get into murtola till . a.m. we had posted eighty-four kilometres from kittila that day, and, _tout compris_, it had cost us m. . we could have managed very comfortably with a solid meal after this drive, but little enough was forthcoming. all the post-houses have a list put up on the wall, beside the oleographs of the czar and the czarina, on which there is set forth in russian, qfinsk, and svensk, the lists of viands which are officially procurable, with the official price of each. but few of these were ever actually on sale, and at murtola a little curdled milk, some adamantine rye-cake, and some scraps of fish so stinking as to be uneatable were all we could collect. so we fared poorly enough. * * * * * we started off from murtola next morning in an even worse _karre_ than the one we had driven up in. it did possess springs, it is true, but as they were venerable, and tender with age, and had been reinforced by a pine log, the motion of the _karre_ on the road was, to use the chinese phrase, "bumpy, bumpy, all-e-same ridy gee-gee." for the whole of that stage we drove between forests of slim, straight pines, absolutely without undergrowth higher than six-inch grass. all the big trees had been cut from near the roads, and only the second growth was left. heavy timber for exportation has to be sought now on the more distant hills, sent down log by log by a specially dammed stream to the main rivers, and there chained and lashed and spiked together in long, sinuous rafts to float down to the winches of the shipping on the coast. acres of these rafts did we see new-cut in the rivers, huge bristles of logs did we come across stranded in angles of dried-up tributary streams; and yet so small a part did they make of the whole growth of the country that one could look from across a valley at the hillside from which they had come, and never find the spots which the axes had weeded. a fire of a day can do more in the way of forest destruction than the work of a dozen logging camps in a year. water is the one and only means of transport on which the woodcutter has to depend upon for bringing his wares to the rim of those seas which carry them to the markets of the outer world. and at one time he only cut trees which would fall directly into deep rivers, which would carry them without further ado; but as the harvest of the river-banks and the accessible parts got reaped, he had to go with his axe farther back amongst the fastnesses of the mountains, and amplify his methods of transport. the logs have to be floated somehow, and as he has no river ready-made to his hand, he manufactures one. he picks upon some gully in the wilderness of the hills with a streamlet trickling through its mosses, and throws a dam of logs and turf and stones across its lower end, with a broad gate of logs in its middle. axe in hand he goes down the hill-flank beyond, notes the direction which a sudden gush of water would take on its journey to the nearest stream, and clears the way of all the larger obstructions. and in the meanwhile the trickling streamlet above is with infinite slowness beginning to fill his dam. when these preparations have been made, he goes back to his gully in the wilderness, and starts felling in real earnest. the great pines crash before his axe; their heads are lopped of; and they are rolled down the slopes into the tediously-filling dam. for the whole summer this work goes on, till all the trees which can be rolled or dragged there are jostling one another in this artificial lake, and the water of the streamlet no longer collects, but squanders itself over the top of the log sluice-gate. and then comes the moment for the realisation of his labours, and the moment to see whether the engineering of the work has been true. the sluice-gate of logs is knocked away; the water gushes out with a solid flood, carrying with it a prancing, lancing, dancing bristle of trunks, and roaring along with them at galloping speed down the slopes of mountain. it is no little thing which will cause a jam then. obstructions are sheared away with infinite violence; the ends of the logs splinter themselves into paint-brushes; great trees crack off like reeds; and when the torrent, with its convoy of timber, ends its mad gallop in the river for which it has been aiming, there is a swathe ploughed across the green face of the country unsightly as the new cutting of a railroad. but if there has been a jam, tedious pains must be expended before the logs can be sent along their journey again; another and a greater artificial freshet has to be created; and it is very often more remunerative to leave one of these knotted tangles of trunks to rot where they have stuck, and to start work again _ab initio_. so that, on the whole, the tapping of one of these mountain dams, and the subsequent half-hour's voyage of the logs, is a matter of pretty vivid excitement to all those concerned. * * * * * again we had to cross the ounasjoki, this time in a square ferry-boat rowed by a woman and a man, and steered by a solemn, small boy. our progress was not swift. one of the wheel tyres of the _karre_ was loose, and every few hundred yards some one had to get down to hammer it into place again with a stone. a gray-backed crow showed interest in the proceeding, and followed us for a couple of miles to find out what it was all about. but we came upon a hen capercailzie and her family dusting themselves in the road, and the gray-backed crow forebore to follow us farther. still i do not think there was much in his line to be got out of them. eggs of course were his speciality, but the egg season was long past, and the capercailzie chicks were as big as partridges. at juopperi, the next post-house, the only available horse had thrown a shoe, and as we had to wait till it was re-shod, we joined the community in the big farm-kitchen and watched them at work. it was a room twenty feet square with a big white stove that had cooking niches and drying racks and a ladder to reach its top. strings of rye cakes hung from the rafters. two pairs of antlers were nailed on the walls for hooks. a woman worked at a clacking hand-loom; a travelling cobbler was putting the finishing touches to a pair of yellow top-boots with a bone pattern-punch; and a couple of men carpentered at a table in the window. these were the workers: there were a dozen drones, flabby women and slack, corn-stalky men, who did nothing, without intelligence, and wearied themselves in the process. take the average finn farmer of the north, and you will find a man who never works if he can help it, a man with an inferior liver and a chronic grievance. he hates his country, hates himself, hates his unobtrusive government. if he were ruled by a committee of archangels, he would hate them equally. he will never create an insurrection; he could never summon up the energy. he will never make a nihilist: he has not sufficient brain to be a plotter. it is only in the days of youth that his discontent ever simmers over. then it is that he sometimes gets so sick of everything that he scrapes a few marks together, puts them in his high boots, and tramps down to torneo-haparanda, and takes steamer for the states or canada. as a rule, unless he dies, he does not stay there long. in north america they do not appreciate men with a distaste for work, and they are quite willing to let any one starve who does not choose to toil. they are a very practical people over there, and, unlike the english, have no taste for collecting useless human lumber. so unless the finn manages to die there, which he not infrequently does, his great object from the moment he sets foot in the land of the free, is to get away from it again as soon as he can collect a steamer-fare. still, unpleasant as he is in his ways and his personal appearance, he does at times contrive to make his homestead outwardly picturesque. he does it by accident, to be sure, but still the result is there. the architecture of his house is not produced by studying after effect: it is the only species of architecture which occurs to him. the red dye with which he colours it is merely daubed on as a preservative. yet these dark red houses cuddling down in the green landscape make very beautiful pictures, and they seem, moreover, to have an emblematic significance. red is the official colour. even the stones at the roadside are red with some queer lichenous growth as if in deference to the huge, invisible power which steers the country. * * * * * for the last stage of that day's sixteen hours' drive, the _karre_ was horsed by a young black stallion, which systematically ran away with us up hill and down ravine, over bridges and through sand-mires. the pace was exhilarating, but as we were bruised all over with the previous jolting, we could have put up with a somewhat slower gait. on this stage we were due to recross that imaginary boundary, the arctic circle, and come once more into that temperate zone which was our more native atmosphere, and we were on the keen look-out for some official recognition of its whereabouts. i do not quite know what we expected to see--a cairn or a wooden notice would have satisfied us--but the absence of any mark whatever jarred upon us. that a country which could mark off the kilometres on its roads with fine red posts, should ignore a geographical acquisition like the arctic circle, seemed a piece of unappreciative barbarism. it was after midnight when the galloping stallion brought us into the town of rovaniemi. it was the most considerable place in the north, and the post-house was almost an hotel. at any rate, after some dilatoriness, it provided us with a meal, which was an item we were severely in need of. the place was quite awake. in fact all through this land of staring daylight there never seemed to be any hour when some at least of the population were not awake and doing. when we turned into our beds at a.m. i noticed a ploughman still at work in the field across the road. it was a curious instrument he was handling--like an overgrown garden-hoe, with a pair of shafts instead of one. a lean horse was between the shafts, and the ploughman held the angle of the hoe and lifted the whole thing bodily round with one hand when he came to the end of a furrow. for a shallow cut in light soil it was rather effective. * * * * * under a scorching sun next day we went out to look at the town. there is one main street of unobtrusive stores in rovaniemi, with dwelling-houses lying back on one side, and the river swirling along in rapids at the other. at one end of the town was a hospital, each little room with its own white stove; and next it was a curious campanile in the form of a pagoda of brown, white, and yellow, with roofs of dragon-scale shingling, and a lofty, slender vane, whilst the lutheran church, for which this campanile rang its bells, was a hundred yards away. this church was rather a fine old building, in cruciform, with its yellow walls striped with white, and a white cross high above the silver-gray shingling of its roof. on the church door were posted the private earmarks of the reindeer owned in the neighbourhood, which, for the sake of curiosity, we copied. we went back to the post-house again for a meal--it was fine to be at a place where one could get food for the mere buying--and we saw there a woman swinging an infant in a cradle slung from the ceiling. how it did arouse memories! how often we had seen in a lapland farm-kitchen a basket dangling from the rafters at the end of reindeer traces, and a youngster packed in it, and the fond mother crooning the lappish equivalent of "hush thee, my baby," and launching the small unfortunate back through fifteen feet of space every time it swung up to her. a well-dressed cripple hobbled into the room when we were eating, with his knee-cap half cut off by the jamming of a log-raft. he persisted in exhibiting the wound, and then rubbed his sleek, round belly to intimate that he was starving. as he was one of the most prosperous-looking men we had seen in rovaniemi, it did not occur to us for some time that he was soliciting alms, and it was not till he had put the matter still more forcibly, that we exuded coinage to the extent of three halfpence. he put it in his pocket and shook hands cordially with each of us, and intimated in a few simple and carefully-chosen words that we should receive our reward in due course from on high. in fact he was really so business-like about his begging, that we quite expected that he would bring out a book of printed forms and give us a receipt. we did not get much privacy at rovaniemi. the landlord regarded us much in the light of a travelling circus, and brought us in relays of callers whenever we were on the premises. we were not too shy, however, to make use of them. we pumped them on every subject on which they could give information, and amongst other things on how we were to continue our journey down to the coast, and where we should best find shipping for england. we had had a sufficiency of the bumpy-bumpy motion of the finnish post-cart to prefer other means of transport if it was available, and so we asked with interest about the river route. there seemed a good deal of diversity of opinion. finally the best steersman in rovaniemi was brought in, a white-haired old fellow, with a clever, clean-shaven face, and he offered to take us down as far as a series of falls twenty kilometres above kemi, and no farther. he proposed to take us so far for m. , a tremendous sum in northern finland when one remembers that the rates for posting, all inclusive, varied between m. · and m. · per kilometre, the mark being about tenpence english. there were a good many opinions, too, as to where we ought to go to find the requisite steamer. some said kemi, some insisted on torneo-haparanda, whilst some were equally certain that we ought to push on down the finnish coast of the gulf of bothnia to uleaborg. in the meanwhile two or three merchants had been trying to incite us to buy peltries. we were not anxious to burden ourselves with the extra weight, and prices were not very tempting. a good bearskin cost between m. and m. , and though we had one small gray skin offered for m. , it had been shot almost to pieces, and was not well cured. these skins, of course, are much used in the country for winter wear. reindeer pelts were cheaper. a fine skin, thick and gray, could be bought for m. ; but then it must be remembered that a whole deer, fat for killing, was only worth between m. and m. . there was a great store of reindeer antlers in a barn behind one of these stores at rovaniemi, which we inspected to the accompaniment of giggles from the crowd. they could not see what possible interest lay in a heap of stinking old bone; and when hayter started to make diagrams of a few of the more curious shapes, they doubled themselves up with laughter. it was funnier than any circus they had ever seen before. we did not mind; it amused them, and the antlers amused us. there must have been five hundred pairs in that barn, and no two pairs could we find anywhere approaching the same pattern. it was the brow-tines which varied most, but the upper branches were also irregular. some were palmated almost like an elk's; and one which i saw had complete twists in every tine like a narwal's horn. as a final climax to the entertainment, the landlord chose out a few choice spirits and took them with us down to a hollow on the river-bank out of sight of the town. he had a bottle in his pocket, and with considerable mystery (seeing that it was smuggled) he produced it, and we saw by the label that it was caloric punch. it was half full; and as it had been on tap some time with the cork out, there was a good two inches of black sediment at the bottom, consisting of flies. but nobody stuck at this. it was doled out in a liqueur-glass, and we toasted one another with effusiveness. time and again quaint scraps of english had dropped upon our ears from rovaniemi lips, and here on the river-bank the secret came out as to where they had come from. it seemed that a britisher had long been resident in rovaniemi, and we were told his name, and the town in wales where he came from. he was not "merchant," he was "tourist"--that is, he was not engaged in business. and as his "tour" had apparently lasted ten years, during which time he had not moved outside rovaniemi, we wondered what he had done at home to make so long an absence advisable. judging from the few scraps of anglo-saxon which he had left behind him, this welshman must have been a person of pretty wit, or else a fellow of most blasphemous habits. each of the finns who had been his cronies possessed a sentence of english, laboriously taught and remembered; and each, as he tossed off his peg of fly tincture, pridefully repeated his lesson as a toast to our health. need one add that the time-honoured joke had been repeated, and that each finn's _repertoire_ of english consisted of a fantastic soul-curdling oath? still, as the welshman had occupied ten years in manufacturing the joke, one cannot do less than record his complete success. * * * * * we made many friends in rovaniemi, and left the town with real regret, but we had to be moving on. the courtyard was crowded with people come to see us off, and i think they were sorry also. circuses are rare in rovaniemi. we drove out past the church, and the white shutters of its pagoda-shaped bell-tower were open, and the bells were ringing out and carrying their message to the scattered farms up and down the valley. slowly they dimmed into the distance behind us, and for forty kilometres we travelled through forests of slender pines peopled apparently by noisy, quarrelling magpies alone. and then habitations began again, with fields set before and behind them, though most of these were little better than half-drained swamps, which would grow nothing richer than reeds and rushes. we were getting very bad horses on these stages, and the crudest possible vehicles. as i have said, the short trace on the horse-collar is joined to the shaft with a toggle, and the backhand of the saddle is fastened to the trace, and so if this toggle falls out, down go the shafts on to the ground, and nothing short of a miracle can save a bad spill. we saw ten such miracles in one day. we crossed the river by a wire-rope ferry just below a chain of booms set across to intercept log-rafts, and fetched up that night at a farm post-house which was almost luxurious. the sun went below the pines as we sat down to sup, and the after-glow scattered reds and dull yellows and crimsons far and wide over the landscape. the great river below the house looked like a stream of ice, which glittered in its smooth parts, and lay heaped with drifts and whorls of snow where the currents raised their mounds of eddies over the hidden rocks below. and then there dawned our final day for the road. we zigzagged back and forwards across the river as the road came upon the ferries, and we passed log-booms, and log-rafts innumerable. the air was sweet with the scent of hay. wild raspberry trees grew by the wayside with the fruit set but not yet ripe. at one place where the river broke into noisy rapids, we got down to look at some fish-traps. great trestles built of trunks straddled out over the roaring water, their lower ends notched in the rocks, their tops ballasted by heavy stones. they were fenced in below by whole birch trees, with here and there gaps in which were placed the wicker traps. there were trestles on either side built to suit all heights of the river, and the catching was brisk, for the fish were many. silver-bellied salmon jumped by the hundred in the tawny cataracts, and a bevy of pock-marked finns gathered the harvest from the traps to pack in ice and send down to stockholm to be kippered. once and again did we cross the river by ferries, and changed horses and _karres_ at the post-houses, and then left the ounasjoki behind us, and set off across the sandy delta to the other great river on which stand the twin-towns of torneo-haparanda, through masses of harebells which made the ground as blue as a sky. * * * * * the torneo river lay before us, broad, solemn, and deep. a great sailing-ferry lay beside a wooden wharf. the _karre_ was unhorsed, and, with two other vehicles, was run on board. the horses followed. then a mixed company of six nationalities took their places, the sprit-sail was sheeted home, and we drifted off. the twin-towns lay on the opposite bank: swedish haparanda trim and red to seaward, finnish torneo notable for the minarets of its russian church farther up-stream, and at the back, the slim black spire of the lutheran church. and the sunset bathed it all with an impartial glow. slowly the clumsy ferry-boat drifted across the river, amongst firewood, carrying schooners, and rafts, and the boats of fishers, and at last she landed beside a fussy launch which did a passenger traffic with the villages up-stream. we drove off at speed through sandy streets between great blocks of wooden houses, and then we left torneo and turned inland, circling round the head of a lagoon from which mist wreaths were rising like rolls of cotton wool. by the wayside there loomed out a square pillar adorned with a split crow, elaborately gilt. it was the boundary of holy russia, and it stood there grim and cold and deserted. farther on we came upon another pillar bearing the swedish arms, but this also was solitary and unguarded. we drove on and came to haparanda. of our own free-will we pulled up at the house of a custom's officer to report. he was away. his wife heard the tale and shrugged her shoulder. "oh, englanders," said she. "go on." it was the only piece of official formality we met with during all our journeying. there was a hotel in haparanda, and we went to it and dined _à la suède_--that is, mostly off _hors d'oeuvres_, and washed down the meal with some alleged roederer, which was more than half liqueur. we felt that we were indeed getting into civilisation again, and as we were lucky enough to hear of a steamer leaving for stockholm in a couple of days, we were prepared to slack about and enjoy ourselves in the interval. as a first luxury we went and bathed. moored off the shore were half a dozen little schooners with two large gaff-sails, and the foremast stepped right up in the bows, and no bowsprit. their crews live aft in a little house, and employ themselves with bringing in cargoes of split birch-logs for fuel from the nearest forests. we swam off to these, and disported ourselves in the water after the manner of porpoises. and then we got into our clothes again, lit up mild, bad cigars, and strolled around without any cares about meal-getting, carrier-engaging, route-finding, or mosquito-slaying. the town of haparanda is rectangular in plan, and pretty when viewed from a distance. it is well be-telephoned, and possesses two banks and an ugly church. the town of torneo, the only piece of russian territory west of the torneo river, is reached by foot-passengers over an unpainted wooden bridge, which straddles across the mouth of the lagoon like some monstrous gray-legged centipede. the lagoon divides them, as the danube does buda and pesth. torneo, as a town, is less neat. it is liberally planted with gardens containing little creeper-covered arbours, in which it is the height of the finn's ambition to sit and smoke, and gloat over the fact that other people are fools enough to work. there is a pretty lutheran church in black and white outside torneo, with a tall, slender spire, and away from the church is a quaint bell-tower, also in magpie colours. an enclosure of stone hedges them both in, and inside the enclosure is a coppice of mountain ashes shadowing the graves. the russian church in torneo is set at a street corner in the middle of the town. it is an ornate little building in white and two tints of brown, with an elaborate cupola and coloured windows. it was suggestive of a kiosk in an exhibition where one might reasonably expect to buy somebody or other's cocoa from comely young damsels in uniform. there is a hospital in torneo, which held two curious patients. one was a lapp, the only one in the district. he had come down to matarangi, which is fifty miles farther up the torneo river, to sell his deer at the annual fair. he was outside russian territory there and drink was plentiful, and in that commodity he made heavy investments. during his subsequent adventures he broke both thighs, nobody seemed to know how, and his friends brought him down to hospital, and left him there to return to their eternal deer-herding. the other patient was a tartar, and he also was in the accident ward. he was by no means an uncommon person to find so far out of his native latitude. swarthy tartar tramps, in face almost as dark as a mulatto, permeate the country as beggars and horsedealers. they wear european clothes, and are generally accompanied by their women and children. very often they have been born in finland. they are thieves and vagabonds, the horses they sell are poor, and they occupy much the same position as the gipsy did a hundred years ago at home. they are hedge-bottom nomads, and the _wanderlust_ is too strong in them ever to let them settle for long. it is on record that at times they have taken farms and tried to sit down and breed horses; but it is not on record that they have ever succeeded in staying three years in one place. they are quite without shame, morals, or common honesty; their most valued roof is a farmer's outhouse; their one ambition in life is to keep just beyond starvation. even the finns despise them, just as the swedes despise the finns. the northern swede is a cheerful, _bourgeois_ creature, all belly and laugh, who browses on odds and ends of victual, and nips caloric punch all the day long; and for the short time we were with him in haparanda, he amused us. but then we were not with him for long. the educated swede of stockholm is a very different person: he is a gentleman, and one of the most delightful gentlemen in europe. i think we left haparanda without any keen regret. we drove a couple of miles past reedy lagoons to salmis, the port, and there got on board a coaster, which was waiting. she was going to take us down the waters of the bothnia to stockholm, the capital of gustavus adolphus, of bernadotte, of oscar ii., the venice of the north; and afterwards we would get back to england, which of all countries on this terrestrial globe is the most desirable. [illustration: reindeer horns] * * * * * _printed by_ r. & r. clark, limited, _edinburgh_ * * * * * [illustration: lapland _the route taken by m^r. cutcliffe hyne & m^r. cecil hayter indicated in red_ ] transcriber's notes page : fleased _changed to_ flensed inconsistent place naming left as originally printed. hyphenation has been standardised. artwork has been placed between paragraphs. the page numbers within the list of illustrations etc., as a consequence will not always be correct; they appear as originally printed. small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. text surrounded with = indicates bold print. example: price = =s. = =d. net. the carat character (^) indicates that the following letter is superscripted (example: m^r.). a-breve is represented by [)a] in s[)a]p[)a]kkeet. books of travel * * * * * _demy vo, cloth, pages. price s. second edition._ through finland in carts containing map and full-page illustrations [illustration: our island home (section of one of the illustrations in the book)] by mrs. alec tweedie author of 'a winter jaunt to norway,' 'a girl's ride in iceland' (the book of the week.) 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travellers. no such guide to christian rome has previously existed. it is in a portable form, and illustrated with plans and other cuts. "the compilation of this work is an important event for english visitors in rome. information about the christian side of the city, about its churches, ceremonies, and customs, is just what is difficult to procure accurately and fully. no existing guide-book covers half what they (the authors) have done."--_bookman._ "this should be a most valuable book to tourists abroad. the information given is well arranged and clearly put."--_academy._ "_if you want to know anything about anybody, get a copy of 'who's who.'_"--"truth." an annual biographical dictionary price = =s. = =d. net. who's who edited by douglas sladen contains nearly biographies--mostly autobiographies--of the leading men and women of the day excerpt from _the times'_ notice of th march in spite of the number and variety of the works of reference published annually nowadays, there is always room for a new one if it really fills a place hitherto vacant, and brings together useful information in a handy and acceptable form. judged by such a test, the new issue of "who's who," of which the first yearly volume has just appeared under the editorship of mr. douglas sladen, ought certainly to count upon a warm welcome. this work has up to the present, since its birth in , "that year of strife and kingdoms over-set," been content to serve as a hand-book to the titled and official classes only. its aim is now "to include all the most prominent people in the kingdom, whether their prominence is inherited, or depending upon office, or the result of ability which singles them out from their fellows in occupations open to every educated man and woman." the field of its operations is thus very wide, and it is greatly to the credit of mr. sladen that it has been covered so well already. _in crown vo, over pages, bound in cloth gilt, with gilt edges and rounded corners._ price = =s. = =d. net. london: a. & c. black, soho square natrona county library system, casper, wyoming, usa, for donating the source book. the world's best histories norway by sigvart sÖrensen editor "minneapolis tidende" _with frontispiece_ the co-operative publication society new york and london copyright by peter fenelon collier _norway_ illustration: the invasion of great britain by the northmen _norway._ preface in preparing this volume it has been my aim to omit as few important events as possible without making the book a mere enumeration of names and dates. above all, i have tried to be accurate. among the works which i have used as sources, the first one to be mentioned is the great work of snorre sturlason: "the heimskringla, or the sagas of the norse kings," and i have used the english translation of the same by samuel laing, esq., revised edition by rasmus b. anderson (scribner & welford, new york, ). i have also found much assistance in o. a. Överland's "norges historie." among many other works used as sources or consulted, are: j. e. sars's "udsigt over den norske historie"; jacob aall's "erindringer"; f. winkel horn's "history of the literature of the scandinavian north," translated by r. b. anderson (s. c. griggs & co, chicago, ). the constitution of norway, the most liberal constitution of europe, appeared to me to be an appropriate closing chapter in a history of norway. this interesting document has been translated into english by the honorable knute nelson, united states senator from minnesota, to whom i am under obligation for permission to use his translation. s. s. minneapolis, minn., . contents chapter i the northmen page the ancestors of the present norwegians--early social conditions--independence and self-government of the people--the kings of the old northmen chapter ii the religion of the northmen the creation of the world--ask and embla, the first human couple--asgard, the dwelling of the gods--the struggle between good and evil--the end of the world--a new race chapter iii the viking age the three stages of the viking age--cruises to scotland, ireland, england and other countries--norse kingdom in ireland chapter iv the yngling family--halfdan the swarthy beginning of authentic history--olaf the tree-feller--halfdan whiteleg--gudrod the hunter--halfdan the swarthy gives the eidsiva law--queen ragnhild's dream chapter v harald the fairhaired ( - )--norway united king harald's courtship--the battle of hafrsfjord--norway united under one king--emigration of the discontented--settlement in iceland--the cruise of gange-rolf--northmen settle in normandy--king harald's sons--death of king harald chapter vi birth of haakon the good--erik blood-axe ( - ) sigurd ladejarl--erik and queen gunhild--haakon, athelstan's foster-son, proclaimed king--erik blood-axe exiled and killed in a battle in england chapter vii haakon the good ( - ) the laws improved--other reforms--first attempts to introduce christianity--norway attacked by the gunhild-sons--battle of fitje--death of haakon chapter viii harald grayfell and his brothers ( - ) return of the gunhild-sons--earl sigurd of lade killed--the murder of trygve olafson and gudrod biornson--earl haakon--harald grayfell killed in denmark chapter ix earl haakon ( - ) attacks by the danish king, harald bluetooth--the joms-vikings--sigvalde jarl makes war on haakon--the battle in hjorungavaag--revolt against earl haakon--olaf trygvason arrives in norway--earl haakon killed by his slave chapter x the youth of olaf trygvason the birth of olaf--flight to sweden and russia--olaf sold as a slave--freed by his uncle--viking cruises to vendland, england and other countries--return to norway chapter xi olaf trygvason ( - ) christianity introduced in viken--erling skialgson of sole--great opposition to christianity--founding of the town of nidaros--olaf woos queen sigrid the haughty--he marries thyra from denmark-- building of the "long serpent"--einar thambaskelfer--expedition to vendland--battle of svolder--death of olaf trygvason chapter xii the discovery of america erik the red finds greenland--christianity introduced--biarne heriulfson sees strange lands--leif erikson, the discoverer of america--the new country is called vinland--subsequent journeys to vinland--thorfin karlsefne chapter xiii the earls erik and svein, sons of haakon ( - ) norway divided between the victors at svolder--erling skialgson of sole--earl erik leaves for england chapter xiv the youth of olaf haraldson olaf's childhood--olaf on his viking expeditions--battles in england chapter xv olaf the saint ( - ) return to norway--capture of earl haakon--the earl vows never to fight king olaf--olaf's reception by his mother and father-in-law, sigurd syr--meeting of the district kings--olaf driven away from nidaros--battle of nesje--death of earl svein--trouble with the swedish king--thorgny lagman dictates to the king--enforcing christianity--conspiracy against the king--olaf's half-brothers--the peace of konungahella--dale-gudbrand--canute the great claims norway--battle of helge-aa--killing of erling skialgson--olaf's flight to russia chapter xvi the battle of stiklestad ( ) biorn stallare's visit to olaf in russia--king olaf returns to norway--his vision--thormod kolbrunarskald--battle of stiklestad --king olaf's death--olaf sigurdson leaves norway chapter xvii king svein alfifuson ( - ) the rule of alfifa--attempt to introduce feudal laws--the sanctity of king olaf--rumors of miracles--olaf declared the national saint--trygve olafson--magnus olafson returns to norway--alfifa and svein flee to denmark chapter xviii magnus the good ( - ) magnus's birth and baptism--agreement with the danish king, hardeknut--magnus and kalf arneson on the battlefield of stiklestad--warning to the king--the gray goose--magnus claims the danish throne--svein estridson appointed earl--battle at lyrskog heath--battles at aaros and helganes--return of harald sigurdson--death of king magnus chapter xix harald haardraade ( - ) harald's adventures in southern cities--conflicts with svein estridson--quarrels with einar thambaskelfer--murder of einar and his son--agreement with haakon ivarson--treachery to kalf arneson--battle of nis-aa--peace meeting at gaut river--earl toste arrives in norway--the battle at stanford bridge--death of king harald--the founding of oslo chapter xx olaf kyrre ( - ) magnus and olaf divide the power--peace made with svein estridson--death of magnus--the founding of bergen--guild-brethren--skule, toste's son--changes in court customs--death of olaf kyrre chapter xxi magnus barefoot ( - ) haakon proclaimed king in throndhjem--haakon dies on the dovre mountain--rebellion led by thorer of steig--expedition to the western isles--war with sweden--peace meeting at konungahella-- second expedition westward--death of king magnus in ulster chapter xxii sigurd the crusader ( - ) and his brothers, eystein and olaf division of the country between the brothers--sigurd's crusade--visit to jerusalem--return to norway--king eystein's peaceful work at home--annexation of jemteland--king sigurd and borghild of dal--the "man-measuring"--death of eystein--the kalmar levy--sigurd shows signs of insanity--ottar birting--sigurd marries cecilia--death of sigurd chapter xxiii magnus the blind and harald gille ( - ) harald gille comes to norway as a pretender--harald and magnus divide the kingdom--battle between the two kings at fyrileif--harald takes magnus prisoner at bergen--magnus maimed--sigurd slembe arrives in norway--harald gille murdered--konungahella destroyed chapter xxiv sigurd mund, eystein, and inge krokryg, the sons of harald gille ( - ) sigurd and inge proclaimed kings--sigurd slembe supports magnus the blind--battles at minne and krokaskog--battle at holmengraa--magnus and sigurd slembe killed--eystein proclaimed king--ottar birting assassinated--king sigurd slain--death of eystein--haakon, sigurd mund's son, given title of king--fall of king inge at oslo chapter xxv the church visit of cardinal nicholas--an archbishopric established at nidaros--cloisters in norway chapter xxvi haakon herdebred ( - )--erling skakke erling skakke has his son magnus proclaimed king--he seeks aid in denmark--defeats haakon at tunsberg--battle of sekken--haakon killed chapter xxvii magnus erlingson ( - )--the birchlegs sigurd markusfostre--battle of ree--magnus crowned--norway attacked by the danish king--rebellion of the hat-swains--peace with denmark--erling made earl of viken--harald sigurdson beheaded--eystein meyla--the birchlegs--eystein killed--the youth of sverre sigurdson--sverre proclaimed king at the oere-thing--battle at kalveskindet--the fall of erling skakke--battle of the ilevolds--battle at nordnes--erik sigurdson (king's-son)--battle of fimreite--fall of king magnus chapter xxviii sverre sigurdson ( - ) sverre appoints lawmen and prefects--a new pretender--the kuvlung party--the varbelgs--rebellion of the oyskeggs--battle of florevaag--sverre's struggle with the hierarchy--bishop nicholas arneson--sverre excommunicated--sverre crowned in bergen--organization of the bagler party--burning of bergen--papal interdict against norway--the baglers defeated at strindsö--uprising in viken--the siege at tunsberg--sverre's sickness and death chapter xxix haakon sverreson ( - ), guthorm sigurdson ( ), and inge baardson ( - ) reconciliation with the church--inge magnusson killed--death of king haakon--election of guthorm sigurdson--the pretender erling steinvegg--death of guthorm sigurdson--inge baardson proclaimed king--birth of haakon haakonson--his journey across the mountains --the baglers visit nidaros--death of erling steinvegg--philip made king of the baglers--compromise at hvitings island--jealousy of haakon galen--young haakon disinherited--death of king inge chapter xxx haakon haakonson the old ( - ) haakon proclaimed king--earl skule's demands--rebellion of the slitungs--the ribbungs--treachery of earl skule--state meeting in bergen--king haakon married--death of bishop nicholas and sigurd ribbung--skule raised to the rank of duke--duke skule proclaimed king--battles at laaka and oslo--duke skule killed--coronation of haakon--king haakon's fame abroad--expedition to scotland--haakon's death chapter xxxi snorre sturlason the family of snorre sturlason--the snorrelaug--visit to norway--snorre murdered--"the heimskringla"--"the edda" chapter xxxii magnus law-mender ( - ) peace concluded with scotland--magnus as a law-giver--privileges granted to the hanseatic league--the first nobility--death of king magnus chapter xxxiii erik priest-hater ( - ) new struggle with the church--war with denmark--the peace of kalmar--earl alf erlingson executed--the maid from norway--death of king erik chapter xxxiv haakon v. magnusson ( - ) audun hugleikson condemned for treason--the false "maid from norway"--the peace of copenhagen, --new law of succession--death of king haakon chapter xxxv magnus erikson smek ( - )--haakon vi. magnusson ( - ) magnus smek becomes king of norway and sweden--erling vidkunson appointed regent--haakon magnusson acknowledged as king of norway--battle at enköping--death of magnus--flood in the gaula valley--the black death chapter xxxvi olaf haakonson the young ( - ) olaf becomes king of denmark and norway--the first union with denmark--a pretender executed chapter xxxvii margaret ( - )--erik of pomerania ( - )--the kalmar union ( ) margaret acknowledged as ruler of norway--erik of pomerania chosen as king--the three countries united--the kalmar union--death of queen margaret--the victualia brethren--bergen plundered--revolt of amund bolt--erik of pomerania deposed in denmark chapter xxxviii christopher of bavaria ( - ) norway at first loyal to erik--christopher finally accepted--restrictions of the hansa privileges chapter xxxix the union with denmark--christian i. ( - ) christian elected by one party and carl knutsson by another--christian crowned--closer union with denmark--the first of the oldenborgs--war with sweden--war with the hansa--christian pawns the norwegian possessions chapter xl hans ( - ) king hans crowned in throndhjem--the victory of the ditmarshers--revolt of knut alfson--prince christian as regent --war with the hansa towns chapter xli christian ii. ( - ) the lovely dyveke and her mother--the king's marriage--the death of dyveke--torben ox executed--christian crowned as king of sweden--the carnage of stockholm--gustavus wasa--the flight of christian ii chapter xlii frederick i. ( - ) lady inger of oestraat--the king's recess--attempt of christian ii. to recover norway--christian imprisoned chapter xliii interregnum ( - ) the count's feud--king christian recognized--revolt of the archbishop--the flight of olaf engelbrektson chapter xliv christian iii. ( - )--the reformation introduced the catholic faith abolished--the church ordinance--norway declared a danish province--robbing the norwegian churches chapter xlv frederick ii. ( - ) the northern seven years' war--battle of svarteraa--throndhjem taken by the swedes--burning of oslo--sarpsborg burned--peace at stettin--misrule in norway--erik munk deposed and imprisoned--city of fredericksstad founded chapter xlvi christian iv. ( - ) the popular king--frequent visits to norway--the laws improved--war with sweden--the scotch war--colonel sinclair killed--peace at knaeröd--the peace of lubeck--second war with sweden--peace at bromsebro--the hannibal's feud--the city of christiania chapter xlvii frederick iii. ( - )--absolutism introduced ( ) the last royal charter--war with sweden--the krabbe war--peace at roskilde--the peace broken by the swedish king--siege of halden--peace of copenhagen--the king's revolution--absolutism introduced--kort adeler chapter xlviii christian v. ( - ) extravagance at court--german manners introduced--a new nobility--peter (schumacher) griffenfeld--the scania war--the gyldenlöve feud--a new code of laws chapter xlix frederick iv. ( - ) war with the duke of holstein--the great northern war ( - )--naval battle in kjögebugt--charles xii. invades norway--the heroic anna kolbjörnsdatter--king charles at frederickshald--peter and hans kolbjörnson--peter wessel tordenskiold--the battle of dynekilen--king charles xii. killed before frederickssteen--the peace of fredericksborg--the sale of norwegian church property--hans egede, greenland's apostle chapter l christian vi. ( - ) pietism and hypocrisy--confirmation introduced--improvement in popular education--famine in norway--ludvig holberg--erik pontoppidan chapter li frederick v. ( - ) more liberal christianity--luxury at court--an "extra tax"--revolt in bergen--promotion of science and art chapter lii christian vii. ( - ) johan frederick struensee--reforms without preparation--struensee executed--the guldberg period--prosperity in norway--crown prince frederick as regent--the bernstorf ministry--the "armed neutrality"--naval battle at copenhagen, --the peace of tilsit--bombardment of copenhagen, --the norwegian "government commission" chapter liii frederick vi. ( - ) war with sweden--battles at lier, toverud, trangen, and prestebakke--armistice, december, --gustavus iv. deposed--christian august becomes crown prince of sweden--peace of jönköping--the society for norway's welfare--the university of norway--famine and distress in norway chapter liv marshal bernadotte candidates for the swedish succession--baron mörner goes to paris--marshal bernadotte--crown prince charles john--rupture with napoleon--agreement with russia--norway promised to sweden--treaty of kiel--norway ceded to the swedish king chapter lv norway declares her independence norwegians refuse to recognize the treaty of kiel--christian frederick as regent--the constitutional convention at eidsvold--constitution of may , --christian frederick elected king of norway chapter lvi war with sweden--union of november , the powers demand acceptance of the treaty of kiel--war breaks out--surrender of fredericksstad--siege of frederickssteen--the swedes defeated at lier and matrand--convention at moss--the storthing convened--christian frederick abdicates-union with sweden --charles xiii. elected king of norway chapter lvii the union with sweden the rigsakt of --charles xiv. john ascends the throne--nobility abolished--the storthing rejects the king's propositions--independence day--the storthing dissolved in --minister lövenskiold impeached--oscar i. becomes king--norway gets her own flag--the german-danish war--charles xv.--norway prosperous--a union committee--oscar ii. ascends the throne--the office of statholder abolished--conflict between king and storthing--parliamentarism adopted--the absolute veto--the resolution of june , --selmer ministry impeached--the april ministry--johan sverdrup forms a ministry--trial by jury introduced--emil stang--rector steen's ministry--the consular question--stang again--hagerup's ministry--negotiations with sweden--steen's second ministry--universal suffrage--the norwegian flag chapter lviii norwegian literature chapter lix the constitution of norway history of norway chapter i _the northmen_ norway (in the old norse language _noregr_, or _nord-vegr_, i.e._, the north way), according to archæological explorations, appears to have been inhabited long before the historical time. the antiquaries maintain that three populations have inhabited the north: a mongolian race and a celtic race, types of which are to be found in the finns and the laplanders in the far north, and, finally, a caucasian race, which immigrated from the south and drove out the celtic and laplandic races, and from which the present inhabitants are descended. the norwegians, or northmen (norsemen), belong to a north-germanic branch of the indo-european race; their nearest kindred are the swedes, the danes, and the goths. the original home of the race is supposed to have been the mountain region of balkh, in western asia, whence from time to time families and tribes migrated in different directions. it is not known when the ancestors of the scandinavian peoples left the original home in asia; but it is probable that their earliest settlements in norway were made in the second century before the christian era. the first settlers probably knew little of agriculture, but made their living by fishing and hunting. in time, however, they commenced to clear away the timber that covered the land in the valleys and the sides of the mountains and to till the ground. at the earliest times of which the historical tales or _sagas_ tell us anything with regard to the social conditions, the land was divided among the free peasant-proprietors, or _bonde_ class. bonde, in english translation, is usually called peasant; but this is not an equivalent; for with the word peasant we associate the idea of inferior social condition to the landed aristocracy of the country, while these peasants or bondes were themselves the highest class in the country. the land owned by a peasant was called his _udal_. by udal-right the land was kept in the family, and it could not be alienated or forfeited from the kindred who were udal-born to it. the free peasants might own many thralls or slaves, who were unfree men. these were mostly prisoners captured by the vikings on their expeditions to foreign shores; the owners could trade them away, or sell them, or even kill them without paying any fine or _man-bote_ to the king, as in the case of the killing of a free man. as a rule, however, the slaves were not badly treated, and they were sometimes made free and given the right to acquire land. in early days norway consisted of a great number of small states called _fylkis_, each a little kingdom by itself. the free peasants in a fylki held general assemblies called _things_, where laws were made and justice administered. no public acts were undertaken without the deliberation of a thing. the _thing_ was sacred, and a breach of peace at the _thing_-place was considered a great crime. at the thing there was also a hallowed place for the judges, or "lag-men," who expounded and administered the laws made by the thing. almost every crime could be expiated by the payment of fines, even if the accused had killed a person. but if a man killed another secretly, he was declared an assassin and an outlaw, was deprived of all his property, and could be killed by any one who wished to do so. the fine or man-bote was heavier, the higher the rank of the person killed. for a thrall or slave no man-bote was paid. the _thing_ or _fylkis thing_ was not made up of representatives elected by the people, but was rather a primary assembly of the free udal-born peasant-proprietors of the district. there were leading men in the _fylki_, and each _fylki_ had one or more chiefs, but they had to plead at the _thing_ like other free men. when there were several chiefs, they usually had the title of _herse_; but when the free men had agreed upon one chief, he was called _jarl_ (earl), or king. the king was the commander in war, and usually performed judicial functions; but he supported himself from his own estates, and the free peasants paid no tax. the dignity of the king was usually inherited by his son, but if the heir was not to the liking of the peasants or people, they chose another. no man, however clear his right of succession, would think of assuming the title or power of a king except by the vote of a thing. there he was presented to the people by a free peasant, and his right must be confirmed by the thing before he could exert any act of kingly power. the king had a number of free men in his service, who had sworn allegiance to him, and who served him in war and in peace. they were armed men, kept in pay, and were called _hird-men_ or court-men, because they were members of the king's _hird_ or court. if they were brave and faithful, they were often given high positions of trust; some were made _lendermen_ (liegemen), or managers of the king's estates. chapter ii _the religion of the northmen_ the religion of the ancient norwegians was of the same origin as that of all the other germanic nations, and its main features will be given in this chapter. in the beginning of time there were two worlds; in the south was muspelheim, luminous and flaming, with surt as a ruler. in the north was niflheim, cold and dark, with the spring hvergelmer, where the dragon nidhugger dwells. between these worlds was the yawning abyss ginungagap. from the spring hvergelmer ran icy streams into the ginungagap. the hoar-frost from these streams was met by sparks from muspelheim, and by the power of the heat the vapors were given life in the form of the yotun or giant ymer and the cow audhumbla, on whose milk he lives. from ymer descends the evil race of yotuns or frost-giants. as the cow licked the briny hoar-frost, the large, handsome and powerful bure came into being. his son was bur, who married a daughter of a yotun and became the father of _odin_, vile, and ve. odin became the father of the kind and fair _Æsir_, the gods who rule heaven and earth. bur's sons killed ymer, and in his blood the whole race of yotuns drowned except one couple, from whom new races of yotuns or giants descended. bur's sons dragged the body of ymer into the middle of ginungagap. out of the trunk of the body they made the earth and of his blood the sea. his bones became the mountains, and of his hair they made trees. from the skull they made the heavens, which they elevated high above the earth and decorated with sparks from muspelheim. but his brain was scattered in the air and became clouds. around the earth they let the deep waters flow, and on the distant shores the escaped yotuns took up their abode in yotunheim and in utgard. for protection against them the kind gods made from ymer's eyebrows the fortification midgard as a defence for the inner earth. but from heaven to earth they suspended the quivering bridge called bifrost, or the rainbow. the yotun woman night, black and dark as her race, met delling (the dawn) of the Æsir race, and with him became the mother of day, who was bright and fair as his father. odin placed mother and son in the heavens and bid them each in turn ride over the earth. night rides ahead with her horse hrimfaxe, from whose foaming bit the earth is every morning covered with dew. day follows with his horse skinfaxe, whose radiant mane spreads light and air over the earth. a great number of maggots were bred in ymer's body, and they became gnomes or dwarfs, little beings whom the gods gave human sense and appearance. they lived within the mountains and were skilful metal-workers, but they could not endure the light of day. four dwarfs, the east, west, north, and south, were placed by the gods to carry the arch of heaven. as yet there were no human beings on earth. then, one day, the three gods, odin, hoener, and lodur, were walking on the shore of the sea, where they found two trees, and from them they made the first man and the first woman, ask and embla (ash and elm). odin gave them life, hoener reason, lodur blood and fair complexion. the gods gave them midgard for a home, and from them the whole human race is descended. the ever green ash tree ygdrasil is the finest of all trees. it shoots up from three roots. one of them is in the well hvergelmer in niflheim, and on this the dragon nidhugger is gnawing. the other root is in yotunheim, in the wise yotun mimer's fountain. one of odin's eyes, which he pledged for a drink of the fountain, is kept here. whoever drinks of this fountain becomes wise. the third root is in heaven, at the urdar well, where the gods hold their thing or court. to this place they ride daily over the bridge bifrost. here also the three norns abide, the maidens urd, verdande, and skuld (past, present, and future). they pour water from the well over the roots of the tree. the norns distribute life and govern fate, and nothing can change their decision. the dwelling in heaven of the _Æsir_ or gods is called asgard. in its middle was the field of ida, the gathering place of the gods, with odin's throne, lidskialv, from which he views the whole world. odin is the highest and the oldest of the gods, and all the others honor him as their father. odin's hall is valhalla. the ceiling of this hall is made of spears, it is covered with shields, and its benches are ornamented with coats of mail. to this place odin invites all who have fallen in battle, and he is therefore called valfather, _i.e._, the father of the fallen. the invited fallen heroes are called _einherier_; their sport and pastime is to go out every day and fight and kill each other; but toward evening they awake to life again and ride home as friends to valhalla, where they feast on pork of the barrow særimner, and where odin's maidens, the valkyrias, fill their horns with mead. these valkyrias were sent by odin to all battles on earth, where they selected those who were to be slain and afterward become the honored guests at valhalla. at odin's side sit the two wolves, gere and freke, and on his shoulders the ravens hugin and munin. these ravens fly forth every morning and return with tidings from all parts of the world. odin's horse is the swift, gray, eight-footed sleipner. when he rides to battle he wears a golden helmet, a beautiful coat of mail, and carries the spear gungner, which never fails. odin is also the god of wisdom and poesy; in the morning of time he deposited one of his eyes in pledge for a drink of mimer's fountain of wisdom, and he drank suttung's mead in order to gain the gift of poesy. he has also taught men the art of writing runes and all secret arts. thor, the son of odin, is the strongest of all the gods. his dwelling is called thrudvang. he rides across the heavens in a cart drawn by two rams. he is always at war with the yotuns or evil giants, and in battle with them he uses his great hammer, mjolner, which he hurls at the heads of his enemies. the earth trembles under the wheels of his cart, and men call the noise thunder. thor's wife is sif, whose hair is of gold. balder is a son of odin and frigg. he is so fair that his countenance emits beams of brightness. he is wise and gentle, and is therefore loved by all. his dwelling is breidablik, where nothing impure exists. nanna is his wife. njord comes from the race of the wise vanir. he rules the wind, can calm the sea and stop fire, and he distributes wealth among men. his aid is invoked for success in navigation and fishing. his wife is skade, daughter of a yotun, and his dwelling is noatun by the sea. frey, the son of njord, rules rain and sunshine and the productiveness of the soil, and his aid is needed to get good crops, peace, and wealth. his dwelling is alfheim. he sails in the magnificent ship "skibladner," which was built for him by the dwarfs. his wife is the yotun daughter gerd, but in order to get her he had to give away his good sword, so that he will be unarmed in the coming final battle of the gods. tyr, odin's son, is the god of courage and victory, whom brave men call upon in battle. he has only one hand, for the fenris-wolf bit off his right hand. brage, the long-bearded, is the god of eloquence and poetry. his wife is idun, who has in her keeping the apples of which the gods eat to preserve their eternal youth. heimdal, the white god with teeth of gold, was in the beginning of time born by nine yotun maidens, all sisters. he is the watchman of the gods. he is more wakeful than birds. he can see a hundred miles off, and he can hear the grass grow. his dwelling is himinbjorg, which is situated where the bifrost bridge reaches heaven. when he blows his gjallar-horn it is heard throughout the world. among the other gods were haad, son of odin, blind but strong; the silent and strong vidar; vale, the archer; ull, the fast ski-runner, and forsete, the son of balder, who settles disputes between gods and men. among the goddesses (or _asynier_), frigg, odin's wife, is the foremost. she knows the fate of everybody and shields many from danger. her dwelling is fensal. next comes freya, the goddess of love. she is the daughter of njord and sister of frey. she is also called vanadis, or the goddess of the vanir. she was married to odd, and by him had a daughter, noss. but odd left her, and freya weeps in her longing for him, and her tears are red gold. when she travels her wagon is drawn by two cats. the name of her dwelling is folkvang. there were also a number of other goddesses, who were in the service of either frigg or freya. Æger, the ruler of the turbulent and stormy sea, is a yotun, but he is a friend of the gods. when they visit him his hall is lighted with shining gold. his wife is ran, and their daughters are the waves. * * * * * in the beginning there was peace among gods and men. but the arrival of the yotun women in asgard undermined the happiness of the gods, and in heaven and on earth a struggle commenced which must last until both are destroyed. the yotuns continually attack the inhabitants of asgard, and it is only the mighty thor who can hold them at bay. it is the evil loke, who is the worst enemy of gods and men. he belongs to the yotun race, but was early adopted among the gods. he was fair in looks, but wily and evil in spirit. he had three evil children--the fenris-wolf, the midgard-serpent, and hel. the gods knew that this offspring of loke would cause great trouble; therefore they tied the fenris-wolf, threw the serpent into the sea, and hurled hel down into niflheim, where she became the ruler of the dead. all who die from sickness or age are sent to her awful dwelling, helheim. the greatest sorrow which loke caused the whole world was that by his deceit he caused the death of the lovely god, balder. then the gods took an awful revenge. they tied him to three stones, and over his head they fastened a venomous serpent, whose poison always was to drip upon his face. loke's faithful wife, sigyn, placed herself at his side and held a cup under the poisonous drip; but whenever the cup is full and she goes to empty it, the poison drips into loke's face, and then he writhes in agony so that the whole world trembles. this is the cause of earthquakes. * * * * * there will come a time when these gods and the world shall perish in _ragnarokk_, which means the perdition of the gods. they will have many warnings. corruption and wickedness will be common in the world. for three years there will be winter without sun. the sun and the moon will be swallowed up by the wolves of the yotuns, and the bright stars will disappear. the earth will tremble, and the mountains will collapse, and all chains and ties are sundered. the fenris-wolf and loke get loose, and the midgard-serpent leaves the ocean. the ship "naglfar" carries the army of the yotuns across the sea under the leadership of the yotun _rym_, and loke advances at the head of the hosts from the abode of hel. the heavens split, and the sons of muspel come riding ahead, led by their chief surt. as the hosts are rushing across the bifrost, the bridge breaks behind them. all are hastening to the great battle-place, the plains of _vigrid_, which is a hundred miles wide. now heimdal arises and blows his gjallar-horn, all the gods are assembled, the ash ygdrasil trembles, and everything in heaven and on earth is filled with terror. gods and einherier (the fallen heroes) arm themselves for the battle. in the front rides odin with his golden helmet and beaming coat of mail and carrying his spear, gungner. he meets the fenris-wolf, who swallows him, but vidar avenges his father and kills the wolf. thor crushes the head of the midgard-serpent, but is stifled to death by its venom. frey is felled by surt, and loke and heimdal kill each other. finally surt hurls his fire over the world, gods and men die, and the shrivelling earth sinks into the abyss. * * * * * but the world shall arise again and the dead come to life. from above comes the all-powerful one, he who rules everything, and whose name no one dares utter. all those who were virtuous and pure of heart will gather in _gimle_ in everlasting happiness, while the evil ones will go to naastrand at the well hvergelmer to tie tortured by nidhugger. a new earth, green and beautiful, shall rise from the ocean. the gods awake to new life and join _vidar_ and _vale_, and the sons of thor, mode and magne, who have survived the great destruction and who have been given their father's hammer, because there is to be no more war. all the gods assemble on the field of ida, where asgard was located. and from _liv_ and _livthraser_, who hid themselves in ygdrasil during the burning of the world, a new human race shall descend. chapter iii _the viking age_ it is but natural that the ancient norwegians should become warlike and brave men, since their firm religious belief was that those who died of sickness or old age would sink down into the dark abode of hel (helheim), and that only the brave men who fell in battle would be invited to the feasts in odin's hall. sometimes the earls or kings would make war on their neighbors, either for conquest or for revenge. but a time came when the countries of the north with their poorly developed resources became overpopulated, and the warriors had to seek better fields abroad. the viking cruises commenced, and for a long time the norwegians continued to harry the coasts of europe. at first the viking expeditions were nothing but piracy, carried on for a livelihood. the name viking is supposed to be derived from the word _vik_, a cove or inlet on the coast, in which they would harbor with their ships and lie in wait for merchants sailing by. soon these expeditions assumed a wider range and a wilder character, and historians of the time paint the horrors spread by the vikings in dark colors. in the english churches they had a day of prayer each week to invoke the aid of heaven against the harrying northmen. in france the following formula was inserted in the church prayer: "_a furore norman norum libera nos, o domine!_" (free us, o lord, from the fury of the northmen!) gradually the viking life assumed a nobler form. there appear to be three stages or periods in the viking age. in the first one the vikings make casual visits with single ships to the shores of england, ireland, france or flanders, and when they have plundered a town or a convent they return to their ships and sail away. in the second period their cruises assume a more regular character, and indicate some definite plan, as they take possession of certain points, where they winter, and from where they command the surrounding country. during the third period they no longer confine themselves to seeking booty, but act as real conquerors, take possession of the conquered territory and rule it. in the latter part of the eighth century the vikings first found their way across the north sea to the islands north of scotland. in they landed for the first time on the british coast. in that year it is recorded in the english annals that norwegians came in three ships and committed great ravages on the coasts of wessex. six years later they attacked northumberland, where they caused even greater ruin. they especially plundered churches and cloisters. soon they extended their plundering expeditions to the northern coast of france, where the powerful emperor charlemagne was then the ruler. they made only small progress as long as he lived, but during the reigns of his weak successors they made havoc along the coasts of france, and also forced the straits of gibraltar and made unwelcome visits to the countries on the mediterranean. some of the french kings knew no better remedy than to pay the vikings great sums of money to keep them away from the country. thus king charles the baldheaded paid in the year a sum of , pounds of silver, and in a further sum of , pounds, for this purpose. the northmen, by their viking expeditions, early took possession of the orkneys, the shetland islands, the hebrides and the faroe islands. in going westward to these islands they were sometimes driven out of their course, and thus nadodd, who was on his way to the faroe islands, was driven far to the north and northwest and found a large uninhabited country, which was afterward called iceland. the vikings often came to ireland, and about the year they succeeded, under the leadership of the chieftain thorgeisl, in establishing a kingdom at dublin, which they strongly fortified. thorgeisl appears to have ruled in ireland until about , when he was drowned. a more permanent kingdom was established by olaf the white, who took possession of dublin and the surrounding country in . the dominion in dublin of the norwegians is supposed to have lasted for three and a half centuries. as to the influence of the northmen on the development of the countries visited by them during the later viking periods, the eminent english writer samuel laing, the translator of the "heimskringla," or the sagas of the norse kings, says: "all that men hope for of good government and future improvement in their physical and moral condition--all that civilized men enjoy at this day of civil, religious and political liberty--the british constitution, representative legislation, the trial by jury, security of property, freedom of mind and person, the influence of public opinion over the conduct of public affairs, the reformation, the liberty of the press, the spirit of the age--all that is or has been of value to man in modern times as a member of society, either in europe or in the new world, may be traced to the spark left burning upon our shores by these northern barbarians." chapter iv _the yngling family--halfdan the swarthy_ the authentic history begins with halfdan the swarthy, or halfdan the black, who reigned from about the year to about . the icelander snorre sturlason, who, in the twelfth century, wrote the "heimskringla," or the sagas of the norse kings, gives a long line of preceding kings of the yngling race, the royal family to which halfdan the swarthy belonged; but that part of the saga belongs to mythology rather than to history. according to tradition the yngling family were descendants of fiolner, the son of the god frey. one of the surnames of the god was yngve, from which the family derived the name ynglings. their original home is said to have been upsala in sweden, but they were driven away on account of their cruelty. one of them, whose name was olaf, emigrated with his followers to vermeland, which he made habitable by cleaning away a great deal of the timber. hence he was called olaf the tree-feller (tre-telgja). his son, halfdan whiteleg (hvitbein), conquered romerike and other norwegian districts, and halfdan's son also became king of vestfold, or the country west of the folden, the bay now called the christiania fjord. vestfold now became the most important part of the country. in the neighborhood of the present town of laurvik a famous temple was founded in skirings-sal, where the kings often resided, and which soon became a popular trading place. halfdan whiteleg's grandson, gudrod the hunter, made war on harald redbeard, who was king of agder, the southwestern part of norway. he killed harald and his son gyrd, and took a great booty. he afterward married harald's daughter, asa. gudrod's son, halfdan, surnamed the swarthy, was only a year old when his father was killed, and his mother asa then returned with him to agder, where he grew up and became stout and strong. at the age of eighteen he became king in agder, and soon afterward went to vestfold, where he divided that kingdom with his brother olaf. halfdan increased his possessions, both by marriage and by warfare, until he ruled over the whole country around the christiania fjord, thoten, land, hadeland, romerike and sogn. king halfdan was a wise man, a lover of truth and justice. he made good laws, which he observed himself and compelled others to observe. he fixed certain mulcts, or penalties, for all crimes committed. his code of laws, called the eidsiva law, was adopted at a common thing at eidsvold, where about a thousand years later the present constitution of norway was adopted. halfdan became the ancestor of the royal race of norway, his son, harald the fairhaired, being the first king of united norway. according to tradition, when queen ragnhild was with child she dreamed that she was standing in her herb-garden, and she took a thorn out of her chemise, and while she was holding it in her hand it grew into a great tree, one end of which struck roots into the earth, while the other raised itself in the air until she could hardly see the top or the end of its widely spread branches. the lower part of the tree was red with blood, but the stem was beautifully green, and the branches white as snow, and they spread over all norway, and even much more. this dream was years afterward interpreted as having foretold the destiny of ragnhild's son. one day in the spring of , when halfdan the swarthy was driving home from a feast across the randsfjord, he broke through the ice and was drowned. he was so popular that when his body was found the leading men in each _fylki_ demanded to have him buried with them, believing that it would bring prosperity to the district. they at last agreed to divide the body into four parts, which were buried in four different districts. the trunk of the body was buried in a mound at stein, ringerike, where a little hill is still called halfdan's mound. chapter v _harald the fairhaired ( - )--norway united_ harald was only ten years old when he succeeded his father. many of the chiefs thought that it would be an easy matter now to divide the country between them, but guthorm, a brother of harald's mother, who was at the head of the government and commander of the army, soon subdued them. when harald had become old enough to marry, he sent his men to a girl named gyda, a daughter of king erik of hordaland, who was brought up as a foster-child in the house of a rich _bonde_ in valders. harald had heard of her as a very beautiful though proud girl. when the men delivered their message, she answered that she would not marry a king who had no greater kingdom than a few _fylkis_ (districts), and she added that she thought it strange "that no king here in norway will make the whole country subject to him, in the same way as gorm the old did in denmark, or erik at upsala." when the messengers returned to the king, they advised him to punish her for her haughty words, but harald said she had spoken well, and he made the solemn vow not to cut or comb his hair until he had subdued the whole of norway and had become the sole king. harald immediately gathered an army and went northward over the dovre mountain, and after several battles conquered the whole of trondelag, the common name of all the districts about the throndhjem (drontheim) fjord. here he procured ships, sailed southward along the coast and conquered one district after another in the western part of the country. finally, the remaining kings gathered their men and ships and met harald in naval battle in hafrsfjord, a little inlet in jæderen, near the present city of stavanger. the battle was fierce and long, but harald finally gained the day. after this battle, which occurred in , king harald met no opposition, and was acknowledged as king of the whole of norway. shortly after the battle the king attended a feast given by ragnvald, the earl of more (morejarl), and the latter cut the king's hair, which had not been cut or combed for ten years, and gave him the surname, the fairhaired. harald shortly afterward married gyda. king harald deprived the peasant-proprietors of their allodium or udal-right, and compelled them to pay land dues of their possessions. over every _fylki_ or district he placed an earl (_jarl_), who was to administer justice and collect the taxes, of which he retained one-third as salary. in case of war the earl was to serve the king with sixty warriors. each earl had under him four _herses_, each of whom had a royal estate of twenty marks annual income to manage, and was bound to support twenty men-at-arms. many of the proud peasants objected to the rule of harald and to the payment of taxes. they wanted to be independent, as before, and left the country. many of them settled on the faroe islands and the scotch islands, and in the summer they would make viking cruises and harry the coasts of norway to revenge themselves on the king. to stop this harald sailed westward one summer with a fleet, fought the vikings and took possession of shetland and the orkney islands, and placed an earl in charge of them. many of the fleeing northmen then sailed northward with their goods and men and settled in _iceland_, where they established a free state, which existed for nearly years. earl ragnvald (morejarl) was king harald's dearest friend, and the king had great regard for him, but he did not allow that to excuse a crime committed by his son. ragnvald had a son by the name of rolf, who was so stout and strong that no horse could carry him, and therefore he was called gange-rolf, or rolf the walker. he went early on viking cruises to the shores of the baltic sea. one summer, on his return from one of his expeditions, he made _strand-hug_ in viken. (strand-hug was a foray for cattle to provision the viking ships.) harald had declared this a great crime, and when he heard what rolf had done, he called an extra session of the thing, and had rolf declared an outlaw in all norway. gange-rolf, however, did not remain in norway, but sailed westward to the sudreys, the present hebrides, and afterward joined the army of vikings, which, in the year , went to france and plundered the country around paris and the province of bourgogne. the frenchmen made a compromise with the vikings, and for some years they spared the french coasts, but later gange-rolf returned with a great number of vikings, and finally compelled the french king, charles the simple, by the peace of saint-clair-sur-epte to cede to him and his successors a large province, which he peopled with northmen, and which, therefore, was afterward called normandy. the french king also promised to let him marry his daughter gizela if he would adopt christianity. this rolf agreed to, and he was baptized in the year , being christened robert. he ruled his new country well, and died in the year . from him descended the mighty earls of normandy, who in time conquered the kingdoms of england and naples. king harald had many sons, and as they grew up they created a great deal of disturbance in the country. they had come from such different stock on the maternal side, and had been brought up so far from each other by rich peasants in different parts of the country, that brotherly feelings were little known to them. they became jealous of each other, and also jealous of the many mighty earls. they drove some of the earls from their estates, and even killed some of them. thus two of the brothers set out one spring with a great force to attack ragnvald, earl of more, surrounded his house and burned him with sixty of his men. hoping to avoid further domestic disturbances, harald called together a _thing_ at the eidsiva thing-place (the present eidsvold), and summoned to it all the people of the uplands. here he gave to all his sons the title of king, and proclaimed a law that his descendants in the male line should each succeed to the title and dignity of king; but his descendants by the female side were to become only earls. he divided the country among his sons, but his dearest son, erik, who was his son by the danish princess ragnhild, and thus of royal birth on both sides, was to be acknowledged as their overlord. this the other brothers did not like, and the result was bloody conflicts. erik first killed ragnvald rettilbeine, the ruler in hadeland, because he was said to be a sorcerer. next he attacked his brother biorn, who generally lived at the trading-place tunsberg, and who was called biorn farmand, or biorn the merchant, because he cared little for war, but more for trading expeditions. as he refused to pay tribute to erik, the latter attacked and killed him, and plundered his house. king biorn lies buried in the seaman's mound (farmandshaugen) at sæheim (in the present sem's parish) in jarlsberg. halfdan the black, who ruled in throndhjem, resolved to avenge his brother biorn's death, and collected a great force of men and ships. erik sought the aid of his father harald, who also equipped a fleet and took up a position at rein-plain on the north side of the throndhjem fjord; but now friends of both interceded in order to bring about a reconciliation. in halfdan's army there was a clever man called guthorm sindre, who had formerly been in the service of harald, and was a great friend of both. he was a great skald (poet), and had once composed songs about the father and the son, for which they had then offered him a reward. he would take nothing at the time, but was given the promise that, some day or other, they should grant him any request he should make. he now went before king harald with words of peace, and made the request that the kings should become reconciled. and the saga adds: "so highly did the king esteem him that, in consequence of his request, they were reconciled." when harald the fairhaired was eighty years old, he became very weak and unable to bear the burden of the government. then he brought his son erik to his royal high-seat and gave him the power and the command over the whole land ( ). three years later king harald died of old age. he was buried under a mound at hauge, near haugesund in ryfylke. the gravestone is still to be seen. at the grave a large monument in memory of harald was erected in , one thousand years after the battle of hafrsfjord. chapter vi _birth of haakon the good--erik blood-axe ( - )_ when harald the fairhaired was nearly seventy years old, he begat a son by thora moster-stang (moster-pole). she was so called because she was tall, and her family came from the island of moster. she was very handsome, and was descended from good people, but was called the king's servant-girl, for at that time, as the saga says, "many were subject to service to the king who were of good birth, both men and women." sigurd ladejarl, or earl of lade (near throndhjem), was a friend of thora's family, and when she was about to be confined he brought her in his ship from moster northward to sæheim, where king harald was then living. they spent the night at the shore south of the alv-island, and here thora bore her child, on a stone near the ship's gangway. it was a male child, and earl sigurd baptized him in heathen fashion, and called him haakon after his own father. the boy soon grew handsome, large in size, and very like his father king harald. when the king felt that he was not going to live much longer, he sent haakon over to england to be brought up by the english king, athelstan, the grandson of alfred the great. king athelstan had haakon baptized and brought up in the christian faith, and in good habits and all sorts of exercises, and it is said he loved haakon above all his relations. he gave him a sword, of which the hilt and handle were gold; but the blade was still better, for with it haakon cut a millstone to the centre eye. the sword was thereafter called kvernbite (millstone cutter), and haakon carried it to his dying day. as stated, erik was proclaimed king by his father in . erik had early gone out on viking expeditions, and his daring enterprises had given him the surname blood-axe. he was handsome and manly-looking, but morally weak. he was hated during his father's lifetime, because he had killed his brother biorn the merchant; but still more hated was his cruel and treacherous queen, gunhild. she enticed him into killing several of his brothers, and it began to be the common belief that gunhild and erik were going to remove all his brothers, in order to secure the whole of the kingdom for themselves and their children. this plan, however, was frustrated by haakon, the youngest son of harald. when haakon, athelstan's foster-son, heard of his father's death, he immediately prepared to leave england, and was given men and ships by king athelstan. he sailed north to tröndelagen, where he found the mighty sigurd, earl of lade, who had been his mother's friend and his guardian in early childhood. sigurd received him well, and haakon promised him great power if he became king. they assembled a great meeting of the peasants, where earl sigurd made a speech and advised the people to make haakon their king. thereupon haakon arose and made a speech, which greatly pleased the peasants. they said to each other that it looked as if harald the fairhaired had come back and had become young again. haakon promised, in case they would make him their king, to give them back the udal-right (allodium), which harald had taken from them. his speech was so well received that the people cheered wildly, and with great enthusiasm they proclaimed him their king. he immediately started southward, and the other districts followed the example of tröndelagen and swore allegiance to haakon. erik made a desperate attempt to raise an army, but not succeeding, he had to leave the country with his wife gunhild, his children, and a few followers ( ). for some time he harried the coasts of scotland and england as a viking, until finally he accepted a portion of northumberland from king athelstan on the condition that he was to defend the country against norwegian and danish vikings. erik remained in england under shifting conditions, until he was killed in a battle in . after his death queen gunhild had a poem written in his honor, the so-called eriksmál, of which a beautiful fragment still exists. shortly after erik's death queen gunhild went to denmark with her sons, and was well received by the danish king, harald bluetooth (blaatand), the son of gorm the old. the children of erik blood-axe and gunhild were: gamle, guthorm, harald, ragnfred, ragnhild, erling, gudrod, and sigurd sleva. all the boys were handsome and of manly appearance, but in character they resembled their mother. chapter vii _haakon the good ( - )_ haakon did a great deal to improve the internal conditions of the country. he regulated the judicial districts, and gave the gulathings-law for the western district, with common thing-place at gula (in ytre sogn), and the frostathings-law for the northern district, with common thing-place at frosten (peninsula in throndhjems-fjord). much was done for the defence of the country against enemies. the whole coast was divided into _skibredes_, or ship districts, each of which was to build, equip, man, and provision a ship for use in case of war. in order to inform the inhabitants of the approach of an enemy, king haakon built _varder_, or signal fires, on the highest mountains at proper distances from each other. by the successive lighting of these signal fires the news of war could be carried from the southernmost signal-place to the northern end of halogaland in seven days. warning was also to be sent around from house to house by _budstikke_ as a signal for the people to assemble. the _budstikke_ was a stick of wood like a very heavy cane, with a spike at the end of it. if the bearer of the message found nobody at home, he would stick the cane on the side of the door, and the owner of the house would, on his arrival home, immediately despatch it to the next house. king haakon, who had been brought up in the christian faith, resolved to introduce christianity in norway, but when he took the preliminary steps he found no support from his otherwise faithful friend, earl sigurd of lade, who was an ardent adherent of the asa-faith. fearing to offend the earl, haakon postponed his effort for a time, until he thought he had gained sufficient popularity in the country. he then sent to england for a bishop and other teachers, and announced that it was his intention to have the whole people embrace the christian religion. when he made this announcement to the assembled peasants at throndhjem, they declined to commit themselves, and asked to have this very important matter referred to the frosta-thing, where it could be legally settled. at the frosta-thing, where a great number of people were assembled, king haakon made an earnest speech, in which he said that it was his command and his prayer to all, rich and poor, young and all, that they should forsake the old heathen gods, be baptized, and believe in the one living god, jesus christ, the son of the virgin mary, abstain from work every seventh day, sunday, and fast every friday. a great murmur ran through the crowd of peasants, who complained that the king wanted to deprive them of their work and their old faith, and the mighty peasant, asbiorn of medalhus, arose and made a speech to the king, in which he said that they had had great faith in him when they chose him for their king, but now they had made up their minds to part with him and choose another if they were not left free to retain the religion they believed in. and the king was told that he must accept one of these conditions before the meeting was concluded. the king felt that there was no escape but to yield to the peasants, and earl sigurd of lade, who had all the time been near the king, arose and said: "king haakon is willing to acquiesce in your wishes, peasants. never will he give up your friendship." encouraged by this the peasants afterward made the king participate in their heathen sacrifices, and the king was obliged to give up the attempt to introduce christianity in norway. king haakon soon afterward had to meet other demands upon him, when the southern parts of the country were attacked by the sons of his brother erik, who, after their mother, were called the gunhild-sons. several times haakon defeated the invaders, and after one great battle they stayed away for six years. finally, in the twenty-sixth year of haakon's reign, while he and his men were enjoying a feast at fitje on the island stord in hordaland, the enemy appeared again with a great naval force. although greatly outnumbered by the enemy, haakon's men won the battle, and the aggressors were obliged to flee to their ships; but when haakon pursued them without his coat of mail, he was hit in the armpit by a deadly arrow and received a wound from which he died, after being brought, shortly after the battle, to "haakon's rock," where he had been born. before he died he requested his friends to send a ship after the sons of gunhild, with the message asking them to return and assume the government, giving due respect to his adherents. he himself had no sons, and his daughter thora could not, according to the law, succeed to the throne. haakon was deeply mourned by friends and foes, and all said that norway would never again get such a good king. the poet eyvind skaldaspiller composed a poem in his honor, the haakonarmaal, in which he praised his virtues and described his reception in odin's valhalla. chapter viii _harald grayfell and his brothers ( - )_ the gunhild-sons (or eriks-sons) immediately returned to norway when they received the message that haakon the good had named them as heirs to the throne. the oldest one, harald grayfell (graafeld, so named after having once worn a gray fur robe), was considered as chief king, but their mother gunhild was in fact the chief ruler. they were penurious and cruel, and soon became widely hated. there were many chiefs in the country at that time. trygve olafson, a grandson of harald the fairhaired, ruled in viken, or the country around the christiania fjord; his cousin gudrod, son of biorn the merchant, was chief in westfold, and earl sigurd of lade ruled the country around throndhjem. gunhild's sons at first resided mostly in the middle of the country, but soon laid plans to obtain more power. by great promises they bribed griotgard, a brother of earl sigurd, to send them word when there might be a favorable opportunity to attack and kill the earl. this plan succeeded. having been notified by griotgard that earl sigurd was at a feast at oglo in stjoradal and had but few men with him, king harald grayfell and his brother erling surrounded the house at night, set fire to the building, and burned the earl and all his men. when the people heard of earl sigurd's death, there was a great uprising. they gathered a large fleet, and, after having proclaimed sigurd's son, haakon, as their earl and commander-in-chief, they steered out of the throndhjem fjord, intent upon taking vengeance. when gunhild's sons heard of this, they fled southward to raumsdal and south more. some time afterward the gunhild-sons attacked and murdered trygve olafson, king in viken, and gudrod biornson, king in westfold. harald grayfell hastened to trygve olafson's home, hoping to be able to exterminate the whole race; but trygve's widow, astrid, had fled with her foster-father, thorolf lusarskeg. gunhild's sons collected a great army in viken and sailed northward, collecting men and ships on the way from every district for the purpose of fighting earl haakon. when earl haakon heard of this, he also collected men and fitted out ships, but when he ascertained the size of the approaching fleet, he sailed with a few men south to denmark, where he was well received by king harald bluetooth ( ). gunhild's sons brought their army north to throndhjem, and subdued the country and collected taxes, of which they had received none while earl haakon was there. in denmark earl haakon laid some deep plans to obtain power again. a nephew of king harald bluetooth, called gold-harald, had returned home and demanded half of the kingdom. as the king had no desire to yield to his demand, but still feared gold-harald's influence with the people, earl haakon advised him to get norway for his nephew instead. he was to invite the norwegian king, harald grayfell, on a friendly visit to denmark, and then have gold-harald kill him. afterward it would be easy to take norway on account of the very hard times prevailing there, and the great unpopularity of the gunhild-sons. the plan was followed; but when gold-harald had killed harald grayfell, he was in turn attacked and killed by earl haakon. soon after king harald bluetooth sailed for norway with ships. he had with him earl haakon, harald grenske, a son of king gudrod, and many other great men who had fled from their udal estates in norway on account of gunhild's sons. they won the country without resistance, and king harald installed haakon as earl of the northern and western parts of the country. the earl was to pay certain taxes to the king and help him with armed men in case of war. the king retained for himself the country around viken, and left harald grenske there as his representative. the two surviving brothers, gudrod and ragnfred, fled with their mother, gunhild, to the orkneys. chapter ix _earl haakon ( - )_ earl haakon subdued all those parts of the country belonging to his dominion, and remained all winter ( ) in throndhjem. as he proceeded along the coast he ordered that in all his dominions the heathen temples and sacrifices should be restored, and continued as of old. the people thought they soon had proof that the gods were pleased with haakon's action, for, according to the saga, "the first winter that haakon ruled over norway the herrings set in everywhere through the fjords to the land, and the seasons ripened to a good crop all that had been sown," while for several years previously dearth and hard times had prevailed. earl haakon waited for an opportunity to repudiate his obligations to the danish king, and it came in time. in , when otto ii. became emperor of germany, king harald bluetooth prepared himself for war in order to resist the emperor's claim to sovereignty over denmark, and in he ordered earl haakon to come to his aid with all the forces it was possible to raise. haakon complied with the request, and for a time successfully fought the germans. but when he had boarded his ships and prepared to sail homeward, the emperor returned for a second attack, and soon compelled the danish king to make peace. king harald bluetooth agreed to introduce christianity both in denmark and in norway. he sent for earl haakon and made him accept baptism and promise to introduce christianity in norway. priests were sent with him to help him with this work. haakon set sail with the priests on board; but no sooner did he get a favorable wind than he put the priests ashore, and sailed away. from now on he considered himself the sworn enemy of the danes. he steered through the sound, and harried the coasts on both sides. at the coast of east gautland he made a great heathen sacrifice. thereupon he burned his ships and marched through the country with his men. he defeated earl ottar, the ruler in gautland, and continued his march through smaaland and west gautland to norway. he again took up his residence in throndhjem. king harald bluetooth was greatly incensed at earl haakon's action, and decided to take an awful revenge. he collected a great fleet, which he brought to norway. he burned and destroyed the settlements and killed a great number of people wherever he came. in lærdal in sogn, it is said that only five dwellings were left unburned. the inhabitants fled to the woods with such movable goods as they could save. as soon, however, as it was reported that earl haakon was coming southward with a fleet, king harald lost his courage, set sail, and returned to denmark. when harald bluetooth died ( ), his son svein, who afterward was given the surname tjuguskeg (fork-beard), became king of denmark. he instigated the joms-vikings to make war on earl haakon. these vikings were danes, who lived at jomsborg, pomerania, on the island wollin or jom, at the mouth of the river oder. they were very powerful and warlike, and had very strict laws. no one could join their company who was older than fifty or younger than eighteen years, and no woman was permitted to enter their burgh. they considered it a disgrace to show fear or to complain of pain. earl sigvald (sigvalde jarl), a son of king strut-harald of scania (skaane, in the southern part of sweden), was chief of the joms-vikings at this time. king svein of denmark invited these vikings to a great feast in memory of his father, and as earl sigvald's father had fallen about the same time, he suggested that they should also drink his "funeral-ale." the joms-vikings came to the festival with their bravest men, forty ships of them from vendland (pomerania), and twenty ships from scania. all the guests drank a great deal, and there was great gayety in the hall. according to old custom on such occasions they made solemn vows, in emptying the drinking-horns. king svein, in drinking to his father's memory, made the solemn vow, that before three winters were past he would go with his army to england and conquer king ethelred. the guests also drank christ's health, and a bowl to the memory of saint michael. thereafter earl sigvald drank to his father's memory, and made a vow, that before three winters came to an end he would go to norway and either kill earl haakon or chase him out of the country, and the other joms-vikings vowed that they would go with earl sigvald to norway and share in the fight. the next morning, when they had slept off their drink, they thought they had promised rather much, and, in order to find earl haakon unprepared, they sailed away on their expedition at once. when earl erik, the son of haakon, who was then in raumarike, heard of the festival and of the vows of the joms-vikings, he immediately gathered his men, and went to the uplands, and thence over the mountains to throndhjem, and joined his father, earl haakon. they immediately sent warnings around, and sent messages to north more and south more, and to raumsdal, and also north to namdal and halogaland, summoning all the country to furnish men and ships. earl haakon went with an army to south more, and erik was to follow with what army he could collect from the north. meanwhile, the joms-vikings sailed slowly northward, plundering the coasts. christmas night they were at jæderen. at hjorungavaag (on the island hareidland in south more) they met earl haakon and his sons erik, svein, sigurd and erling. the earl had ships and boats, fully manned and equipped, and the joms-vikings had ships. a bloody and fierce battle followed, probably the greatest that had ever taken place in norway. at first the advantage was on the side of the joms-vikings, and earl haakon was hardly pressed. so many spears were thrown against him that his armor was split asunder, and he threw it off. it is said that earl haakon then sacrificed his young son erling to the gods in order to gain victory. a great hailstorm arose, and the joms-vikings were defeated, but only after a most desperate fight. earl sigvald turned and fled with some of his ships; but many of his men preferred to fall in battle. haavard the hewer (huggende) stood on his knees and fought, after both his feet had been cut off. one of the champions, bue the thick (digre), received a terrible cut that took away his under-lip and chin, and, seeing that resistance was in vain, he took a chest full of gold in each hand and shouted: "overboard, all bue's men," and jumped into the sea. after the battle the dead were ransacked by haakon's men, and the booty brought together to be divided; and there were twenty-five ships of the joms-vikings in the booty. while earl haakon ruled over norway there were good crops in the land and peace internally among the peasants. the earl, for a long time, was therefore well liked; but later he became proud and much given to debauchery. according to the saga, he would go so far as to have the daughters of people of high station brought home to him, and after keeping them a week or two send them home in shame. the people therefore began to murmur loudly, and finally they rose against him. early in the year earl haakon was at a feast at medalhus in gauldal. there was a mighty peasant in the neighborhood, by name orm lyrgja, who had a wife called gudrun, a daughter of bergthor of lundar. she was called the lundar-sun, because she was so beautiful. the earl sent his slaves to orm, with the errand that they were to bring gudrun to the earl. orm first invited the slaves to take supper, and while they were eating and drinking he sent word around to all his neighbors, and soon had so many gathered at his house that he could refuse to let his wife be taken away. the slaves departed with many threats; but orm sent out messages to all the neighboring country, and soon a large body of armed men were marching toward medalhus where haakon was. with a single thrall (slave) called kark, who had been with him since boyhood, earl haakon fled across the gaula river, rode his horse into a hole, and left his cloak behind on the ice, in order to make his pursuers believe that he had been drowned. then he went to the estate of rimul, where one of the earl's mistresses, thora, lived, and asked her to hide him for a few days until the army of the peasants had dispersed. they went to a swine-sty, where kark dug a deep hole and covered it with boards. the earl and kark went into the hole, and thora covered it, and threw earth and manure over it, and drove the swine upon the top of it. olaf trygvason had just then arrived in the country, and when the peasants heard he was of the family of harald the fairhaired, they flocked around him and hailed him as their king. then they all set about hunting for earl haakon. at rimul they looked everywhere for him without finding him. then olaf held a house-thing or council out in the yard, and stood upon a great stone which lay beside the swine-sty, and made a speech to the people, in which he promised rewards and honors to the man who should kill the earl. this speech was heard by the earl and the thrall kark. "why art thou so pale," asked the earl, "and now again black as earth? thou hast not the intention to betray me?" "by no means," replied kark. "we were both born on the same night," said the earl, "and the time will be short between our deaths." king olaf went away in the evening. when night came the earl kept himself awake; but kark slept, and was disturbed in his sleep. the earl woke him, and asked him what he had been dreaming. kark answered: "i was at lade, and olaf trygvason was laying a golden ring about my neck." the earl then said: "it will be a bloody ring olaf will lay about thy neck if he catches thee. take care of that! from me thou shalt enjoy all that is good, therefore betray me not." then they both kept awake, evidently mistrusting each other. but toward morning the earl dropped asleep. then kark killed him, and cut off his head, and hastened to olaf trygvason with it, but olaf had the faithless thrall decapitated. earl haakon was fifty-eight years old at his death, in february, . chapter x _the youth of olaf trygvason_ when the gunhild-sons had killed trygve olafson, king in viken (the grandson of harald the fairhaired), in , trygve's widow astrid fled with her foster-father, thorolf lusarskeg. astrid was pregnant with a child of king trygve, and she went to a lake and concealed herself on a small island with a few followers. here she gave birth to a boy, and she called him olaf, after his grandfather. she remained there all summer, but when the nights became dark, and the days began to shorten and the weather to be cold, she travelled further with thorolf and a few others until she reached ofrustad, where her father, erik biodaskalle, lived, and they remained there during the winter. but in the spring spies were sent out by gunhild to find the boy, and astrid had to flee again with her son. she proceeded eastward, and at last came to her father's friend, haakon the old, in sweden, where she and her son remained a long time and were well treated. when gunhild heard that astrid and her son olaf were in sweden, she sent ambassadors to the king of sweden with the request that the king assist them in getting hold of olaf trygvason, to bring him back to norway, where gunhild would bring him up. astrid then determined to go with her son to gardarike, or russia, where she had a brother, sigurd eriksson, who held a high position there. olaf was then three years old. as they sailed out into the baltic, however, they were captured by vikings from esthonia, who made booty both of the people and their goods, killing some, and taking others as slaves. thorolf, whom they considered too old for a slave, was killed. olaf was separated from his mother, and an esthonian took him and a son of thorolf as his share of the booty. the boys were sold for a stout and good ram, and a third man, called reas, afterward bought olaf for a good cloak. olaf remained with reas in esthonia for six years ( - ), was treated well, and was much beloved by the people. sigurd eriksson, the brother of astrid, happened to come to esthonia to collect taxes for king valdemar (or vladimir), king in novgorod, russia. in the market-place he saw a very handsome boy, and as he could see that he was a foreigner, he asked him his name and family. the boy answered that his name was olaf, that he was a son of trygve olafson, and that astrid, a daughter of erik biodaskalle, was his mother. sigurd thus discovered that the boy was his sister's son, and he bought him, and took him with him to novgorod, he at first said nothing to the boy about their relationship, but treated him well. olaf was then nine years old. one day olaf was in the market-place, where a great many people were assembled. there he saw and recognized klerkon, who had killed his foster-father, thorolf lusarskeg, on the journey from sweden. olaf had a little axe in his hand, and with it he clove klerkon's skull, and then he ran home and told his uncle sigurd what he had done. sigurd immediately took olaf to queen allogia, told her what had happened, and begged her to protect the boy. the queen took a liking to the boy, paid the fine for the manslaughter he had committed, and induced king valdemar to admit him to his court, where he was brought up as a king's son. olaf remained with king valdemar nine years ( - ). at the age of eighteen olaf was given ships by king valdemar and set out on viking cruises. after a plundering visit to the island of bornholm he came to vendland (pomerania), where he married queen geira, the daughter of king burislav, and subdued the countries which had formerly belonged to her dominions, but had lately failed to pay her taxes. every summer he made viking cruises, and in the winter he stayed with queen geira. olaf had been three years in vendland when geira was taken sick and died. his grief was so great that he could not afterward stay in vendland. he then provided himself with warships and made viking cruises to denmark, england, northumberland, scotland, the hebrides, the isle of man, and western france. on returning from france he was driven by a storm to the scilly isles, where he and all his men were baptized in the christian faith. afterward olaf came to england, and married princess gyda, a daughter of the irish king olaf kvaran. the english annals contain many references to olaf trygvason, and name him as chief of a fleet of nearly ships which, in the year , harried the east coast of england and won a great battle, after which the englishmen were compelled to pay him , pounds in silver. three years later he again attacked the coast of england, and the english king, ethelred, had to beg for peace and promise to pay him , pounds in silver. olaf and his army went into winter quarters in southampton. soon afterward king ethelred invited him to his home; olaf accepted the invitation, and the two became good friends. during his stay with the king, olaf was confirmed, and king ethelred himself became his sponsor and gave him many precious gifts. olaf, for his part, made a solemn vow that he would never again attack the coasts of england, a promise which he appears to have kept. early in the year olaf proceeded to norway, and arrived at throndhjem just when the peasants had risen against earl haakon. they made him their chief, and when the earl was dead, and his sons had fled, olaf trygvason became king of norway. chapter xi _olaf trygvason_ ( - ) olaf trygvason was twenty-seven years old when he came to norway. at a general thing at throndhjem the people elected him king of all norway, as harald the fairhaired had been, and in return he promised to enforce law and justice. the following spring and summer olaf travelled through the whole country, to the southernmost part of viken, and everywhere he was hailed as king, even by the chiefs in the uplands and in viken, who, during the reign of earl haakon, had at least nominally acknowledged the suzerainty of the danish king. in the uplands the petty kings, who were descendants of harald the fairhaired, were allowed to retain their possessions on the old conditions. olaf had decided, before he left england, to introduce christianity in norway, and he found it advisable to commence this work in viken, where he had many of his relatives and warmest friends. here was the rich and influential lodin, who, some time before, had married olaf's mother astrid. his mother's brothers and two brothers-in-law of olaf were also mighty people in that part of the country. another reason for starting the work here was that a good many had already adopted the christian faith under the influence of missionaries from germany and denmark. during his stay in viken, olaf called his relatives together and informed them of his intention to convert the whole of norway to the christian faith. he would accomplish that, he said, or die in the attempt. but he promised to make his relatives great and mighty men if they would support him with all their power. this they agreed to do, and as the most powerful men among the people had now acceded to king olaf's request, the others followed their example, and all the inhabitants of the east part of viken allowed themselves to be baptized. greater opposition was met in the north part of viken (around "folden"), where christianity had not had so many former adherents. but olaf would tolerate no opposition; those who opposed him he punished severely, killing some, mutilating others, and driving some into banishment. during that summer ( ) and the following winter all viken was made christian. the next spring king olaf christianized agder. he met no opposition until he came to hordaland, where there were many mighty men. they met him fully armed at a public assembly, ready to resist; but after he had made his speech entreating them to accept christianity, but adding that those who would not submit must expect punishment, their courage failed them, and all the people present were baptized before the assembly was dissolved. king olaf then went with his men to the _gula-thing_, where one of the chieftains asked of the king, as a sign of goodwill, that he give his sister astrid in marriage to their relation, erling skialgson of sole, whom they looked upon as one of the most hopeful men in the country. this the king readily acceded to, since erling was a man of good birth and fine appearance. erling skialgson and astrid were married in the summer, and the king, who was present at the wedding, at his departure invested erling with all the land north of the sogne fjord and east to the lidandisnes, on the same terms as harald the fairhaired had given land to his sons. after having christianized the people of sogn, south more, raumsdal and north more, king olaf, after a year's absence, returned to throndhjem. at lade he had the great heathen temple razed to the ground, took all the ornaments, and burned the temple with all the images. when the people heard of this they sent out war-tokens and collected a great force, with which they intended to attack the king. in the meantime olaf sailed with his men out of the fjord along the coast northward, intending to proceed to halogaland and baptize there. but when he came out to bjarnaurar (björnör), he heard from halogaland that a force was assembled there to defend the country against the king. the chiefs of this force were harek of thiotta, thorer hiort from vagar, and eyvind kinrifa. at the same time he learned that the peasants in throndhjem had now dispersed. he therefore turned about and sailed in through the throndhjem fjord again. in the fall king olaf laid the foundation of the future city of nidaros at the mouth of the river nid. he built his royal residence at skipakrok (the ships' creek), built a church further up, and laid out building lots for the people. the work was pushed forward with energy, so that olaf could take up his residence there in the winter, and by christmas the church was also ready. at the beginning of the winter olaf summoned the peasants to a thing at frosta, and they came in great numbers, but also well armed. when the thing was called to order, the king began in a mild manner to preach christianity; but the peasants soon objected, and the mighty jernskegge (ironbeard), who was their spokesman, said that the will of the people was now, as formerly, that the king should not break the laws. they wanted the king to offer sacrifice, as other kings before him had done. if he did not do as they wanted, they would kill him or banish him from the country. seeing that the people were in earnest, and had a superior force present, king olaf talked to them in a more conciliatory manner, promised to be present at their midwinter sacrifices, and said that they could then further discuss the proposed change of faith. this speech was well received, and the assembly dispersed. when yuletide came, olaf invited all the mighty peasants from strinden, gaulardal, and orkadal to a feast at lade. they came, were entertained in the best possible manner the first evening, and toward morning became quite drunk. the next day he called a house-thing, where his men were present in much greater number than the peasants. he made a speech, in which he said that at frosta he had offered them christianity, but instead of accepting it they had demanded that he should offer sacrifice to their gods, as other kings had done. "now," he continued, "if i shall turn again to making sacrifice, then will i make the greatest of sacrifices that are in use, and i will sacrifice men. but i will not select slaves or malefactors for this, but will take the greatest men only to be offered to the gods." thereupon he selected eleven of the principal men, and all these, he said, he would offer in sacrifice to the gods for peace and a fruitful season, and ordered them to be laid hold of immediately. as the peasants saw that resistance was useless, they all submitted to the king's demands. he spared their lives on the condition that they should be baptized, take an oath to support the true faith, and renounce all sacrifices to the heathen gods. they were then baptized, and had to send their sons, brothers or other near relations as hostages. later on, king olaf came with his men to mærin, where the people were assembled. he promised to go into their temple to look at their ceremonies; but while there, he and his men knocked down and demolished the images of the gods, while the chief of the peasants, jernskegge, was killed outside of the temple by one of the king's men. when the king came outside, he demanded that the peasants be baptized, or fight with him on the spot, and as their chief was dead, and there was a superior force against them, they yielded, were baptized, and gave hostages for their perseverance in the faith. in this and similar ways king olaf succeeded in christianizing, in name at least, practically the whole of norway. christianity was also introduced in iceland, the faroe islands, and the orkneys. queen sigrid the haughty (storraade), widow of king erik of sweden, resided on her large estates in gautland and wielded a great influence. her son, olaf the swede, besides being king of sweden, also ruled over denmark, whence svein tjuguskeg had been expelled. many were her wooers, but she had so far rejected all, and she even caused two of them, her foster-brother harald grenske and the russian king vsevolod, to be killed, by being burned in their lodgings, in order, as she said, to make petty kings quit courting her. olaf trygvason evidently thought that it would strengthen him if he could marry sigrid, and sent messengers to her with a request for her hand. they were well received, and it was agreed that olaf and sigrid should meet at konungahella, at the boundary line between norway and sweden, early in the spring. king olaf sent queen sigrid as a gift the great gold ring he had taken from the heathen temple at lade. she was greatly pleased with this ring, and had it passed around in her hall to be admired. when it came to her two goldsmiths they shook their heads, and upon being pressed, pronounced the ring false. the queen ordered the ring to be broken into pieces, and it was found to be copper inside. sigrid became very angry, and said that olaf would probably deceive her in more ways than this one. early in the spring olaf met queen sigrid at the appointed place, and it seemed that they were coming to an agreement. but when olaf insisted that sigrid should become a christian and be baptized, she answered: "i must not part from the faith which i have held, and my forefathers before me; but, on the other hand, i shall make no objection to your believing in the god that pleases you best." then king olaf became angry and struck her in the face with his glove, saying: "why should i care to have thee, an old faded woman, and a heathen jade?" greatly enraged sigrid cried: "this may some day be thy death." thus they parted. the king set off to viken, and the queen returned to gautland. king olaf unexpectedly met a new bride. the danish king, svein tjuguskeg, had compelled his sister thyra to marry king burisleif of vendland;[ ] but thyra had been with this heathen and dissolute husband only a week when she fled back to denmark, and afterward, in order to avoid her brother, went to norway, where she met king olaf. "thyra was a well-spoken woman," says the saga, "and the king had pleasure in her conversation." he also saw that she was a handsome woman, although she can not have been very young at that time, and the result was that they were married, much against the wish of svein tjuguskeg. [ ] vendland, or vindland, the country inhabited by the vends, seems to have included mecklenburg, pomerania, and prussia on the baltic. shortly after this sigrid the haughty married svein tjuguskeg, who, by this relationship with king olaf the swede, recovered back his kingdom, denmark. their family connections also included the two sons of the late earl haakon, erik, who married svein tjuguskeg's daughter gyda, and svein, who married holmfrid, a sister of olaf the swede. thus the chain was formed, which for a long time was to have influence on the destiny of norway. olaf trygvason and his wife, thyra, spent the winter after their marriage at nidaros (throndhjem). queen thyra often complained, and wept bitterly over it, that she, who had great possessions in vendland, had no property here suitable for a queen, and she entreated the king to go to vendland and have her property there restored to her. but all king olaf's friends advised him not to undertake such an expedition. it is told that on palm sunday the king was walking in the street, and met a man with a number of fine angelica roots, remarkably large for that early season. the king bought one, and brought it home to queen thyra, whom he found crying. he said to her: "see here, queen, is a great angelica stalk, which i give thee." but she threw it away and said: "a greater present my father, harald gormson, gave to my mother; and he was not afraid to go out of the country and take what was his; but thou darest not go across the danish dominions for that brother of mine, king svein." then king olaf sprang up, and answered with a loud oath: "never did i fear thy brother, king svein; and if we meet he shall give way before me!" shortly after easter the king convoked a thing in the town, and proclaimed to the people that in the summer he would go upon an expedition abroad, and announced how many ships and men he wanted from each district. the king had then just finished a ship which was larger and more magnificent than any other ship in the country. this ship was called the "long serpent" (ormen lange). the crew was made up of picked men of great strength and courage, none of them more than sixty or less than twenty years of age. the only exception was einar thambaskelfer, who was only eighteen years old. einar was unusually strong, and was considered the most skilful archer. he had a bow called thamb, which he was wont to make quake; hence his name (thambaskelfer, _i.e._, thamb-quaker). the king himself commanded the "long serpent." his half-brother, thorkel nefia, commanded the "short serpent," and his mother's brothers, thorkel dydril and jostein, had the "crane" (tranen), and both these ships were well manned. king olaf had sixty ships when he left norway, and sailed southward through the sound to vendland. with him, on board the "long serpent," were queen thyra, his sister ingibjorg, bishop sigurd, and several priests. many of his friends had joined him on the journey south along the norwegian coast, among them his brother-in-law, erling skialgson of sole, who had a large and well-equipped ship. when king olaf arrived in vendland, he was well received by king burisleif, his claims to queen thyra's estates were peaceably settled, and he remained there a portion of the summer. sigrid the haughty was olaf trygvason's bitterest enemy after their meeting at konungahella, when he struck her in the face with his glove. she urged king svein much to fight king olaf, saying that he had the more reason to do so, as olaf had married his sister thyra without his leave. king svein finally resolved to attack king olaf. he sent messengers to his brother-in-law, king olaf the swede, and to earl erik, inviting them to join him with an army, so that they all together might attack king olaf trygvason. he also sent earl sigvald to vendland to spy out olaf trygvason's movements, and by pretending friendship gain his confidence and lead him into a trap. between the island of rügen and the mainland of the present prussian province of pomerania lies a little island called greifswalder oie, or svolder, as it was called at that time. here lay on the th of september, in the year , a fleet of eighty ships. sixty of them belonged to the danish king svein tjuguskeg, fifteen to the swedish king olaf, and five to earl erik. they lay there waiting for king olaf to pass by on his return home from vendland. with a light but favorable breeze the norwegian fleet sailed out of the harbor, where it had been lying during the stay in vendland. all the small vessels, which sailed faster, got out to sea before the others. earl sigvald with his ships remained near the king for a while, and then sailed ahead telling the king to sail in his keel-tracks, as he knew best where the water was deepest. the earl, who was informed of the presence of the danish fleet, sailed close under the island of svolder, and olaf trygvason with his remaining eleven large ships followed. meanwhile the danish king svein, the swedish king olaf, and earl erik, gathered their forces and made ready for battle. when olaf trygvason sailed in toward the island, the whole fleet of the enemy came out against him. when his chieftains saw this superior force they begged the king to proceed on his way, and not risk a battle against such odds. but the king, standing high on the quarter-deck of the "long serpent," replied: "strike the sails; never shall men of mine think of flight. i never fled from battle. let god dispose of my life, but flight i shall never take." king olaf ordered the ships to close up to each other. the "long serpent" lay in the middle of the line; on one side lay the "little serpent," and on the other the "crane." king olaf stood on the quarter-deck of the "serpent," high over the others. he had a gilt shield, and a golden helmet, and over his armor he had a short red jacket, so that he was easily distinguished from the others. when he saw the enemy's ships drawing up for battle, he asked: "who is the chief of the force right ahead of us?" the answer came that it was king svein with the danish army. the king said; "we are not afraid of these soft danes, for there is no courage in them. but who are those on the right?" he was answered, that it was king olaf with the swedish forces. "better it were," said king olaf, "for these swedes to stay at home licking their sacrificial vessels,[ ] than to come under our weapons. but who owns the large ships on the other side of the danes?" "that is earl erik, the son of haakon," said his men. then the king said: "he, methinks, has good reason for meeting us; and from these men we may expect the sharpest conflict, for they are northmen like ourselves." [ ] the swedes were then still heathens. the battle commenced and became very severe, and many people were slain. king svein made a violent attack on the "long serpent," but was soon compelled to retreat. then olaf the swede came up with his fifteen ships, but he fared no better, and the king himself had a narrow escape from death. when earl erik came up with his ships the fight became most severe, and a great number of people fell. the men from the smaller ships soon began to seek refuge on board the "long serpent," and at last all king olaf trygvason's ships were cleared of men except the "long serpent." then earl erik brought his ship up to the side of the "serpent," and the fight went on with battle-axe and sword. einar thambaskelfer stood at the mast of the "serpent" and sent deadly arrows from his bow. he sent an arrow at earl erik, which hit the tiller-end just above the earl's head so hard that it entered the wood up to the arrow-shaft. the earl had hardly time to ask whose shot it was, when another arrow flew between his arm and his side, and clear through a board behind him. again einar drew his bow, when it was hit by an arrow from the enemy and broke in two. "what was it that broke with such a noise?" cried king olaf. "norway, king, from thy hands," answered einar. "not so," said the king, "take my bow and shoot," and the king threw his own bow to einar. einar took the bow, and drew it over the head of the arrow. "too weak, too weak," said he, "is the bow of the king," and, throwing it aside, he took sword and shield, and fought desperately. finally, after a terrible combat, the earl's men boarded the "serpent," and the few men who were left were killed or leaped overboard. king olaf held his shield over his head when he threw himself in the water, and was drowned. among the last men to leave the ship were einar thambaskelfer, who was captured in the water, and thorkel nefia, who swam ashore. king olaf trygvason was thirty-six years old when he fell at svolder. his widow, queen thyra, died shortly afterward from grief. chapter xii _the discovery of america_ during the reign of earl haakon a man from jæderen, called erik the red, being obliged to leave norway because he had killed a man, proceeded to the western part of iceland. here he committed a similar offence and was condemned at thorsnes thing to banishment. he had heard that a man called gunbiorn, son of ulf krage, had some time ago been driven by the storm far westward and had seen a great country. erik the red fitted out a vessel and told his friends that he intended to find the country gunbiorn had seen. he took with him a man by the name of heriulf bardson. they found the country ( ), and on a visit later to iceland erik the red gave such a fine description of the new country that it was called greenland. a number of colonists returned with him to the new country, and the foundation of several settlements were laid. in the summer of leif erikson, a son of erik the red, made a visit to norway, and as he met king olaf trygvason he adopted christianity, and passed the winter with the king. in the following spring king olaf sent leif erikson, together with a priest and other teachers, to greenland to proclaim christianity there. flourishing colonies, with churches, monasteries, and bishoprics, are known to have been maintained in greenland until the end of the fourteenth century. biarne heriulfson, a son of the above-named heriulf bardson, while sailing westward from iceland in search of his father, met with stormy weather, northerly winds and fogs, and was driven out of his course. as he came to different shores, which, from the description he had received, could not be those of greenland, he turned around, and, sailing in a northeasterly direction, finally arrived at his father's home in greenland. when telling of his discovery he was much ridiculed for not having landed and examined the new countries. leif erikson bought biarne's ship, and with a crew of thirty-five men set out, in the year , to look for these lands. he came first to a land on his right as he sailed southward. it had great icy mountains in the interior and a shore of flat stones. he therefore named the country helluland (from the norse _helle_, a flat stone). he continued his course southward, and came to another country, which was level and covered with woods and had a low coast. he called this country markland (outfield or woodland). the antiquaries consider helluland to have been newfoundland, and markland some part of nova scotia. leif and his party put to sea again with a northeast wind, and after two days' sailing made land, and came to an island lying on the north side of the mainland. they entered the channel between the island and a point projecting northeast from the mainland, and at last landed at a place where a river which came from a lake fell into the sea. they found the country very agreeable, and, resolving to winter there, erected some houses. leif divided his people into two parties, to be employed in turns in exploring the country and working about the houses. one evening it happened that one of the exploring party, a german by birth, named tyrker, was missing. they went out to search for him, and when they met him he told them he had been up the country, and had discovered vines and grapes, a fruit with which he was acquainted from his native country. they now occupied themselves in gathering grapes and cutting vines, and felling timber with which they loaded the vessel. leif called the country vinland. toward spring they made ready and sailed away, and returned to greenland. in the year leif erikson's brother, thorvald, fitted out a ship and sailed southward with thirty men, after consulting with leif. they came to vinland, to the houses put up by leif, where they remained quietly all winter, and lived by fishing. in the spring thorvald sent a party in the long-boat to explore the country to the south. they found the country beautiful and well wooded, but with little space between the woods and the sea, and the strand full of white sand. there were also many islands, and shallow water. they came back in the autumn to leif's houses. the following spring thorvald sailed with his vessel eastward, then northward along the land. outside of a cape they met bad weather and were driven ashore and broke their keel. they remained there a long time to repair their vessel. thorvald said to his men: "we will stick up the keel here upon the ness and call the place keelness."[ ] then they sailed eastward along the country and landed on a headland, which thorvald liked so well that he said he would like to make his home there. on going on board they saw three little hills on the sandy shore. they went up to them and found they were three canoes, made of skin, with three natives--or _skrælings_, as the northmen called them--under each canoe. they killed eight of them, while one made his escape in his canoe. afterward a great number of the natives attacked thorvald's party. they were repulsed, but thorvald was wounded by an arrow and died. he was buried on the headland which he had said he liked so well. his men remained there during the winter, and in the spring returned to greenland. [ ] keelness (old norse _kjalarnes_) is supposed by the antiquaries to be the present cape cod, massachusetts. in the summer of , an icelander by the name of thorfin karlsefne came to greenland, and, in the winter, married gudrid, the widow of thorstein, third brother of leif erikson. by her advice he resolved to undertake an expedition to vinland and establish a colony there. in the spring ( ) they set out with three ships, men, and all kinds of live stock, and sailed to vinland. some time after their arrival there gudrid bore a son, who was named snorre. the colonists occasionally traded with the _skrælings_, giving them pieces of cloth and dairy products for their skins; but when they refused to sell them weapons, the _skrælings_ became hostile to the settlers and attacked them repeatedly. these constant hostilities so disheartened the settlers that they resolved to leave the country, and, after three years' sojourn in vinland, thorfin karlsefne and his party returned to greenland. another expedition to vinland was undertaken, shortly after their return, by freydis, the illegitimate daughter of erik the red, her husband thorvald, and two norwegians named helge and finboge. this party quarrelled among themselves, and freydis, who is described as a very bad woman, caused a great number of them to be murdered. the survivors returned to greenland in the spring of . the next summer, thorfin karlsefne went to norway with his vinland cargo and sold it to great advantage. he returned to iceland and bought land there, and, according to the saga, many men of distinction are descended from him and his son snorre, who was born in vinland.[ ] [ ] accounts of these journeys to vinland are contained in the _flateyar-bok_, or flatey codex, an icelandic manuscript, which takes its name from the island flatey, iceland, where it was preserved. it was written by two priests between the years and . the work is a collection of sagas transcribed from older manuscripts and arranged chronologically. the book is written on parchment, and is one of the most beautiful works of penmanship from that time in europe. it is known that christopher columbus came to iceland in , on purpose to gain nautical information, and it would seem next to impossible that he should not have heard of the written accounts of the discoveries recorded in the flatey codex. chapter xiii _the earls erik and svein, sons of haakon ( - )_ after the battle of svolder, the three allied princes divided the kingdom of norway between them. king olaf the swede got four districts in the throndhjem country, and the districts of north more and south more and raumsdal, and in the eastern part of the country he got ranrike from the gaut river to svinesund. earl erik got four districts in the throndhjem country, and halogaland, naumudal, the fjord districts, sogn, hordaland, rogaland, and north agder, all the way to the naze (lindesnes, the southernmost point in norway). the danish king, svein tjuguskeg, retained viken, which he had held before, and raumarike and hedemarken. after the division, the swedish king gave his norwegian possessions into the hands of his brother-in-law svein, the brother of earl erik, on the same conditions as the sub-kings or earls held such possessions formerly from the chief king. at the same time the danish king gave most of his possessions in norway in fief to earl erik. thus the two brothers together ruled over a larger territory than their father, earl haakon, had held; but they were not able to wield the same power. during his whole time, earl erik received no taxes from rogaland, which erling skialgson ruled over with unlimited authority. the earls erik and svein were baptized, and adopted the christian faith; but as long as they ruled in norway they allowed every one to do as he pleased as to the manner of observing his christianity. on the other hand, they upheld the old laws, and all the old rights and customs of the country. they were popular men and good rulers. of the two brothers earl erik had most to say in all public matters. the earls tried to gain the friendship of olaf trygvason's old friends, and in many cases they succeeded. the brave young einar thambaskelfer was won over by their giving him great fiefs in orkadal, so that he became one of the most powerful and esteemed men in all the throndhjem country. they also gave him their proud sister bergliot in marriage. one mighty man, however, they tried in vain to conciliate. that was erling skialgson, the brother-in-law of olaf trygvason. he could not forgive earl erik for having joined the swedes and danes in an unexpected attack on olaf trygvason and causing his death. he managed to maintain a firm hold on the dominions his brother-in-law had given him. if the earls visited a neighborhood where they knew that erling was staying, they always took with them a large armed force, and they never thought of visiting erling on his estate, sole. he had with him never less than ninety free men. if it was reported that the earls were in the neighborhood, he had two hundred men or more. he never went by water from one place to another except in a fully-manned ship of twenty benches of rowers. in the summer he used to make viking cruises in order to procure means with which to support his many men. erling was a good master. at home, on his estate, he always had thirty slaves besides the many servants engaged in work outside. he gave each of them a certain day's work; when one of them was through with that, he had the balance of the day at his own disposal. each one received a piece of land to cultivate, and what grain he produced he could sell and use the proceeds toward buying himself free. the amount needed for this purpose was fixed by the earl, and it was so low that many bought their freedom at the end of a year, while all who were at all industrious could make themselves free within three years. he also assisted his men after they had become free. some of them were given land to clear and cultivate, while others were shown how to conduct the herring-fisheries. after the death, in england, of the danish king, svein tjuguskeg, his son, canute (knut) the mighty, sent word to earl erik in norway (his brother-in-law) to come over and help him to conquer england. the earl immediately called together the mightiest peasants, and in their presence divided the country between his brother svein and his son haakon. as the latter was only seventeen years old, the earl appointed his brother-in-law, einar thambaskelfer, guardian for him. thereupon earl erik set sail for england. he met king canute there, and was with him when he captured london. he was given northumberland to govern, and remained there until his death. from the short joint reign of earl svein and earl haakon in norway only one event of importance is known. as soon as earl erik had left the country, they effected a reconciliation with the mighty erling skialgson at sole, who had never been able to forgive earl erik for the assault on olaf trygvason, but readily made peace with svein and haakon; and the new friendship was further cemented by aslak, erling's son, marrying earl svein's daughter gunhild (or sigrid, as the name is given in another place). one good reason why the earls sought to strengthen their power by an alliance with the powerful chieftain, erling skialgson, was no doubt the unexpected appearance of a most threatening enemy, the young pretender to the throne, olaf, son of harald grenske. chapter xiv _the youth of olaf haraldson_ olaf haraldson, after his death called olaf the saint, was the son of harald grenske and aasta. harald grenske, who, as we have seen, at one time governed viken under the suzerainty of the danish king, was the grandson of biorn the merchant--who was killed by erik blood-axe--and a great-grandson of harald the fairhaired. olaf was born shortly after the death of his father. his mother aasta was then staying at the home of her father, gudbrand kula, a mighty man in the uplands. soon afterward, aasta was married again to sigurd syr, who was king in ringerike and a descendant of harald the fairhaired, and in his house olaf was brought up. when king olaf trygvason came to ringerike to spread christianity, he induced sigurd syr and his whole family to be baptized, and he acted as godfather at the baptism of little olaf. one day, when olaf was ten years old, king sigurd wanted to ride out, and, as there was nobody else about the house, he told his stepson olaf to go and saddle his horse. olaf did not refuse, but he went to the goats' pen, and put the king's saddle on the largest he-goat, led him up to the door, and went in and told king sigurd that his horse was saddled. when king sigurd came out and saw what olaf had done, he said: "easy it is to see that thou wilt little regard my orders; and thy mother will think it right that i do not order thee to do anything against thy own inclination. i see well enough that thou art far more proud than i am." olaf answered little, but went his way laughing. when olaf grew up he became of medium height, but very stout and strong. he had light brown hair, and a broad face which was white and red. he had particularly fine eyes, which were beautiful, but piercing, so that one was afraid to look him in the face when he was angry. olaf was very expert in all bodily exercises, understood well how to handle his bow, and was especially an expert in throwing his spear. he was well liked by his friends and acquaintances, was ambitious in his sports, and always strove to be the first. olaf was twelve years old when, for the first time, he went on board a ship of war ( ). his mother, aasta, got rane, who was called foster-father of kings, to command the ship and take olaf under his charge. the men on board, however, gave olaf the title of king. with two ships, olaf first steered to denmark and then to sweden, where he harried the coasts and fought with vikings. afterward he made cruises to finland, russia, and gotland. later he turned westward to friesland and england, where he took part in the fights between the danes and the anglo-saxons. from the poems of the skalds it appears that he took part in the battle of hringmara ( ), and in the storming of canterbury ( ). in company with thorkel the tall (a brother of earl sigvald) he entered the english king ethelred's service, took part in his battles against the danish vikings, and accompanied ethelred on his flight to normandy. from here he thought of making a pilgrimage to the holy land; but on the way he had, according to tradition, a remarkable dream. he thought he saw a tall and handsome man, who told him to return to norway and take his udal, adding "for thou shalt be king over thy country forever." chapter xv _olaf the saint ( - )_ leaving his long-ships (battleships) behind him at northumberland, olaf sailed, in the fall of , with two merchant-ships and well-armed men, across the north sea to norway. after a stormy voyage he landed on the west coast of norway, near a small island called sæla. king olaf thought this was a good omen, because that word means luck. he sailed southward to ulfasund, where he heard that earl haakon was south in sogn, and was expected north with a single ship as soon as the wind was favorable. king olaf then sailed further south, and when he came to saudungssund he laid one of his vessels on each side of the sound, with a thick cable between them. soon after earl haakon came rowing into the sound with a manned ship; they saw olaf's ships, but thought they were only two merchant vessels, and rowed in between them. when the ship was over the cable, olaf's men on each side wound it up with the windlass, so that haakon's ship upset, and all his men plunged into the water. most of them, however, were picked up and taken on board olaf's ship; only a few were drowned. among those saved was earl haakon. he was a very handsome boy of eighteen years, with fair, silken hair, bound about his head with a gold ornament. when olaf saw him, he said: "true it is what has been said of your family: you are handsome people; but now your luck has deserted you." haakon replied: "it is always so, that sometimes one is victorious, and sometimes another. i am little beyond childhood in years; besides, we did not expect any attack. it may turn out better with me another time." "but dost thou not fear that thou art now in such a condition that, hereafter, there will be neither victory nor defeat for thee?" asked the king. "that all depends upon thee," said the earl. olaf then asked what he would give if he were allowed to go unhurt. the earl asked what he demanded. "nothing," said the king, "except that thou shalt leave the country and take an oath that thou shalt never go into battle against me." earl haakon agreed to this, took the oath, and rowed away with his men. as soon as possible he sailed over to england, to his mother's brother, king canute, who received him well. his father, earl erik, whom he afterward joined, considered his son's oath binding upon him also, and he therefore made no attempt to win back the lost kingdom, but remained in northumberland until his death ( ). king olaf now went southward along the coast, holding things with the peasants in many places. many went willingly with him, while others, who were earl svein's relations or friends, refused him allegiance. he therefore decided first to apply to his relations, the kings in the uplands, and see what support he could gain from them for his cause. he sailed east to viken, set his ships on land, and proceeded with one hundred and twenty men up the country to ringerike, to meet his stepfather, sigurd syr. the story of his reception at his mother's home, as detailed in snorre sturlason's _heimskringla_, is very interesting, and gives a vivid picture of the life and customs at the home of a rich and mighty norwegian in those days. the main portion of the description is here given. as olaf was approaching sigurd syr's home some of the servants ran ahead to the house. olaf's mother, aasta, was sitting in the room, and around her some of her girls. when the servants told her that king olaf was coming, and that he might soon be expected, aasta immediately got up, and ordered men and girls to put everything in the best order. she ordered four girls to bring out all that belonged to the decoration of the room, and put it in order with hangings and benches. two men brought straw for the floor, two brought forward four-cornered tables and the drinking-jugs, two bore out victuals and placed the meat on the table, two she sent away from the house to procure in the greatest haste all that was needed, and two carried in the ale; and all the other serving men and girls went outside of the house. messengers went to seek king sigurd wherever he might be, and brought to him his dress-clothes, and his horse with gilt saddle, and his bridle which was gilt and set with precious stones. four men she sent off in different directions to invite all the great people to a feast, which she was preparing as a rejoicing for her son's return. she made all who were in the house dress themselves with the best they had, and lent clothes to those who had none suitable. king sigurd syr was in the field superintending the harvest work when the messengers came to him with the news, and told him all that aasta was doing at the house. he had many people with him working in the field. he probably did not like the interruption of the work caused by his wife's message, but he dressed himself in the fine clothes sent him, mounted his horse, and rode home together with thirty well-dressed men whom he had sent for. as they rode up to the house, olaf, under his banner, was seen coming up from the other side with one hundred and twenty men all well equipped. people were also gathered all around. king sigurd saluted his stepson, and invited him and his men to come and drink with him. but aasta went up and kissed her son, and invited him to stay with them, saying that all the land and people she could furnish would be at his service. king olaf thanked her kindly for her invitation. then she took him by the hand, and led him into the room to the high-seat, while king sigurd got men to take care of their clothes, and see that the horses were cared for. then sigurd went in, and a great feast was had. king olaf had not been at the place many days before he called his stepfather, king sigurd, his mother aasta, and his foster-father rane to a conference and consultation. he informed them that it was his intention to win back from the danes and the swedes the land of his forefathers or die in the attempt. he asked sigurd to help him, and give him the best possible advice in the matter. king sigurd thought the plan was very risky, but knew from experience that it would be useless to try to dissuade olaf from it. he would, therefore, help him with goods and money; but he would not bind himself to anything more, before he knew the views and intentions of the other upland kings. in the uplands there lived at that time many descendants from harald the fairhaired. they all bore the title of king, although their possessions were small. after the death of olaf trygvason they had acknowledged the suzerainty of the danish king. one of them ruled over raumarike, hadeland and thoten, another over valders. in gudbrandsdal there was a king named gudrod, and in hedemarken two brothers, rorek and ring, were the rulers. with these district-kings sigurd syr had a meeting in hadeland which king olaf also attended. here sigurd announced his stepson olaf's purpose, and asked their aid to accomplish the plan. he also told of the many brave deeds which olaf had performed on his war expeditions. king rorek then made a speech against the proposed change. the people, he said, had had many experiences. when king haakon, athelstan's foster-son, was king, all were content; but when gunhild's sons ruled over the country, they became so hated for their tyranny that the people would rather have foreign kings, who usually left the people to themselves if only the taxes were paid. when earl haakon had succeeded in establishing himself firmly as a ruler with the help of the people, he became so hard and overbearing toward them that they could no longer tolerate him. they killed him, and raised to the kingly power olaf trygvason, who was udal-born to the kingdom, and in every way well qualified to be a chief. the whole country's wish was to make him supreme king, and raise again the kingdom which harald the fairhaired had established. but when king olaf had become secure in his power, no man could manage his own affairs for him. with the small kings he was very hard, and collected even greater tribute than harald the fairhaired had done. a man was not even allowed to believe in what god he pleased. after olaf trygvason had been taken away, they had kept friendly with the danish king, and had received great help from him in everything; they had been allowed to rule themselves, and had experienced no oppression. rorek was, therefore, inclined to let well enough alone, and declined to take any part in the proposed plan. his brother ring was of a different opinion. he said that even if he only could keep the same power and property that he held now, he would prefer to see one of his own race as supreme king rather than a foreign chief. and if olaf succeeded in making himself supreme king, those of them would fare best who had best deserved his friendship. he believed olaf to be an honorable man, and if they gave him aid now he would certainly show his gratitude afterward. he was in favor of giving olaf all possible friendship and support. the others, one after the other, expressed the same opinion, and the result was that the most of them entered into a league with king olaf. this league was confirmed by oath. thereafter the kings summoned a thing, and here olaf explained in a long speech what claims he had to the throne of harald the fairhaired. he requested the peasants to elect him king, and he promised them to uphold the old laws, and to defend the country. his speech was very well received. then the different kings spoke in support of his request, and the result was that king olaf was proclaimed king over the whole country according to the laws of the uplands. the king thereupon proceeded through the uplands accompanied by three hundred and sixty men, and from all directions the people flocked to him and hailed him as their king. from the uplands king olaf hastened over the dovre mountain to the throndhjem country. it was of importance to come there before the reports of his proceedings reached earl svein, who was about to celebrate christmas at steinker. at medaldal, in orkedal, he summoned the peasants to a thing, where he requested them to accept him as king. they were without a leader and did not have sufficient strength to offer opposition to the king; so the result was that they took the oath of allegiance. at griotar he met an army of about eight hundred men, which had been collected by einar thambaskelfer, but had been left without a leader while einar went to gauldal to get more men. olaf offered the men peace and law, "the same as king olaf trygvason offered before me," and then presented them with two conditions--either to enter his service or fight him. the result was that they hailed him as their king. when earl svein heard of this, he fled from steinker with a long-ship and proceeded to frosta. after having reached steinker, olaf again summoned a thing, and compelled the people to recognize him as their king. he thereupon sailed to nidaros, where he made preparations to celebrate christmas. earl svein and einar thambaskelfer meanwhile gathered an army of , men, with which they suddenly descended upon nidaros. olaf and his men barely escaped, and fled southward to the uplands by the same way they had come. earl svein took the christmas provisions which olaf's party had been obliged to leave and then burned the town of nidaros. olaf spent the winter in the uplands, and in the spring gathered an army with which he intended to meet earl svein. the kings in hedemarken furnished him with many armed men, and his stepfather, sigurd syr, joined him with a great force. during the winter he had built a ship, which was named "karlshoved" (carl's head, possibly intended to represent the head of charlemagne, whose name was held in great veneration). on the bow of the ship was a crowned head, which the king himself had carved. with a fine and well-equipped fleet olaf set out from viken, going first to tunsberg. earl svein in the meanwhile collected a great force in the north. many of the chiefs were his relatives and friends, and were able to give him great assistance. his brother-in-law, einar thambaskelfer, was on his side, and with him many other lendermen (a sort of local governors); and among them were many who had taken oath of allegiance to king olaf the winter before. earl svein sailed south along the coast, drawing men from every district. when they came to rogaland, erling skialgson of sole joined them with a considerable force. svein's fleet is said to have consisted of forty-five ships, with probably upward of , men; olaf hardly had half the number of ships, but his ships were considerably larger, so that the number of men was probably about the same. toward the end of easter he entered viken with his fleet and put in at nesiar (nesje), a headland on the east side of the bay (near fredriksværn). on palm sunday, march , , the two fleets met in battle. before opening the battle olaf had his ships tied together, his own ship, "karlshoved," occupying a place in the centre. on this ship were one hundred and twenty men armed in coats of mail, french helmets, and white shields, on which was a gilt or painted cross. olaf had a white banner on which the figure of a serpent was sewed. the king instructed his men to defend themselves with the shields in the beginning, and take care of their lances and arrows, so that they were not thrown away to no purpose. this advice was followed with good results. when the conflict had become exceedingly sharp, and the missiles began to be scarce on the earl's side, olaf's men were well supplied, and their attack was very severe. men fell in great numbers on both sides, but mostly on the earl's ships. king olaf with the "karlshoved" engaged earl svein's ship, and his men were soon preparing to enter it. the earl, seeing his defeat, ordered his ship cut loose from the others, and at the last moment his brother-in-law, einar thambaskelfer, succeeded in pulling the ship out of the line of battle from behind, using his own vessel as a tow-boat. when the earl's ship was gone, the flight became general. some of the earl's men fled up the country, others surrendered on the king's mercy, but earl svein and his followers escaped out through the bay. svein proceeded to sweden to seek the aid of the swedish king, while erling skialgson and some other chiefs sailed westward and returned to their homes. earl svein was well received by king olaf the swede, and it was agreed that next winter they should proceed with an armed force overland through helsingland and jemteland and down to the throndhjem country, for the earl depended upon the faithful help of the people there. the summer was to be spent in viking expeditions in the baltic. svein made a cruise to russia and plundered the coasts; in the fall he was taken sick there and died ( ). king olaf went north after the battle of nesje, and settled down in nidaros, where he rebuilt the royal residence and the church, and helped the merchants to rebuild the town. after the death of earl svein he was readily recognized by all the people in that part of the country as the rightful king. the swedish king became very angry when he heard that he had lost the possessions in norway which he had won by the battle of svolder, and he threatened to take great revenge upon olaf the big, a nickname which he had given his norwegian opponent on account of his stoutness. he sent tax-collectors into norway, and when these were harshly treated, some of them even being killed, olaf the swede was highly enraged, and war between the two kings was threatened. king olaf made preparations for an emergency, although he much preferred peace, and even wished to marry the swedish king's daughter. he built fortifications on a headland in the river glommen, near the falls of sarpen, and around these fortifications he laid the foundation of the town of borg or sarpsborg. the people on both sides of the boundary were very much displeased with the feud between the kings, and on both sides the kings were urged to make peace. the norwegian king was willing enough, and sent conciliatory messages to olaf the swede, but the latter rejected all overtures. finally the matter was brought to a crisis at a general thing assembled at the swedish city of upsala. here the king at first also refused to hear the propositions for peace, when thorgny lagman (lawman, a kind of judge at the thing) rose, and made the following speech: "the disposition of swedish kings is different now from what i hear it was formerly. my grandfather, thorgny, could well remember the upsala king erik eymundson, and used to tell of him that when he was in his best years he went out every summer on expeditions, and conquered finland and karelen, esthonia and courland and many parts of the eastern country. even at the present day the earth-bulwarks and other great works which he made are to be seen. and yet, he was not so proud that he would not listen to those who had something to say to him. thorgny, my father, was a long time with king biorn, and well knew his ways and manners. at that time the kingdom was in great power and suffered no losses. he, too, was sociable with his men. i also remember erik the victorious, and was with him on many a war expedition. he enlarged the swedish dominion and bravely defended it, and with him also it was easy to talk about public affairs. but the king we now have allows no one to talk with him of anything but what he himself desires to hear. he wants to have norway laid under him, which no swedish king before him ever desired, and thereby causes many men to be alarmed. but now it is the will expressed by us peasants that thou, king olaf, make peace with the king of norway, and give him thy daughter ingegerd in marriage. if thou wilt reconquer the countries on the baltic which thy relations and ancestors had there, we will all go with thee. but if thou wilt not now consent to what we demand, we will no longer suffer law and peace to be disturbed, but will attack thee and kill thee. so our forefathers did when, at the mora thing, they drowned five kings in a morass because they were filled with the same insupportable pride thou hast shown toward us. now tell us, in all haste, which of these two conditions thou wilt choose." the whole public approved, with clash of arms and shouts, the speech of thorgny lagman. then the king rose and said he would do as the people desired. "all swedish kings," he said, "have done so, and have allowed the peasants to rule in all according to their will." the murmur among the people then came to an end, and it was decided that the terms of peace offered by the norwegian king were to be accepted, and that ingegerd, the king's daughter, was to be married to king olaf of norway. in the meanwhile king olaf travelled through the country, and carefully investigated the manner in which christianity was observed. where he found the people lacking in christian knowledge, he taught them and furnished them with christian teachers. if he met with obstinate opposition, he acted with severity and cruelty. "if any there were," says the saga, "who would not renounce heathen ways, he took the matter so zealously that he drove some out of the country, mutilated others on hands or feet, or stung their eyes out; hanged some, slew some with the sword; but let none go unpunished who would not serve god." in this way he proceeded through the country, accompanied by three hundred and sixty armed men. king olaf soon found that christianity was thriving less the further he proceeded into the interior. in the uplands five small kings came together at ringsaker, and under the leadership of king rorek conspired to kill king olaf. "but it happened here," says the saga, "as it usually does, that every one has some friend even among his enemies." ketil kalf of ringenes, who was present at the meeting of the conspirators, went down after supper to the lake (miosen), and boarded a little vessel which king olaf had made him a present of after the battle at nesje. he had forty well-armed men with him, and rowed in all haste down the lake. he arrived early in the morning at eid (eidsvold), where he found the king and told him of the intention of the small kings of upland. king olaf immediately gathered his men, sailed north to ringsaker, surprised the conspirators, and captured them. king olaf now availed himself of the opportunity that chance had given him, to rid himself of royal rivals who, as descendants of harald the fairhaired, claimed under the law to have as much right to their possessions as any supreme king, and who had always been in the way of a national unity. king olaf now, by one decisive act, secured the unity and independence of the country, and prepared the way for the victorious entrance of christianity. king ring and two other kings were banished from norway, under oath never to return. rorek was a treacherous man and could not be depended upon, so the king ordered both his eyes put out, and afterward took him with him in that condition wherever he went. he ordered gudrod valley-king's tongue to be cut out, and of the lendermen and peasants who were implicated in the conspiracy some he banished from the country, some he mutilated, and with others he made peace. king olaf took possession of the land that these kings had possessed. his stepfather, sigurd syr, who had had nothing to do with the conspiracy of the other small kings, died during the winter ( ), and now olaf alone bore the title of king in norway. shortly after his stepfather sigurd syr's death, olaf went to visit his mother, aasta, and on this occasion it is told that she took her boys (half-brothers of olaf) to show them to the king. king olaf took guthorm on one knee and his brother halfdan on the other. he made a wry face at the boys, and pretended to be angry, and they became frightened and ran away. then aasta brought in her youngest son, harald, who was then three years old. the king made a wry face at him also, but the boy only stared back at him. the king then took hold of the boy's hair as if to pull it, but the boy in return pulled the king's whiskers. "thou wilt probably be revengeful some day, my friend," said the king. the following day olaf and aasta were watching the boys at play down by the lake (at the tyrifjord). guthorm and halfdan had built houses and barns and had little figures representing cattle and sheep. little harald was down by the water, where he had little chips of wood floating. the king asked him what they were, and harald answered that they were warships. the king laughed, and said: "the time may come, kinsman, when thou wilt command ships." then the king called guthorm and halfdan up to him, and asked them what they would like to have above all. "fields," answered guthorm. "and how large?" asked the king. "i would have that headland yonder sown with corn every summer," answered the boy. the headland included ten farms. "there would be a great deal of corn there," said the king. turning to halfdan, he asked what he would like best to have. "cows," said halfdan. "and how many?" asked the king. "so many that when they came to the lake to drink they would stand close together around the whole lake," was the answer. "you both take after your father in wanting a great husbandry," said the king. "but what wouldst thou have?" he asked harald. "men," replied the boy. "and how many?" "so many that in a single meal they would eat all of halfdan's cows," was the answer. the king laughed, and said to aasta: "here, mother, thou art bringing up a king." "and more is not related of them on this occasion," says the saga; but the prophecy was fulfilled, for harald, sigurd's son, in time became king of norway. the swedish king broke the promises he had given at the upsala thing, and did not send his daughter ingegerd to the appointed meeting-place on the boundary, when king olaf of norway came to fetch his bride. shortly afterward the swedes revolted, and the swedish king again had to make concessions, and promise to make peace with the king of norway. the latter had, in the meanwhile, against the wishes of her father, married astrid, a younger half-sister of ingegerd. at the peace of konungahella, where the kings finally met, this marriage was approved by the swedish king, the boundary lines between the two countries were finally agreed upon, and friendly relations were established. after the peace of konungahella, king olaf was able to pay more attention to the domestic affairs of the country. he went north, and in the fall came to nidaros, where he prepared to take up his winter residence. he made careful inquiries as to the condition of christianity, and learned to his regret that it was not observed at all up north, in halogaland, and was not observed as it should be in naumdal and the interior of the throndhjem country. in the spring olaf started on an expedition north to naumdal, where he summoned the peasants to meet him, and at every thing he was accepted as king. he had the laws read to the people, and threatened them with loss of life, limbs, and property, if they would not subject themselves to christian law. they all promised to obey, and the rich men made great feasts for the king. thus he proceeded north to halogaland, where harek of thiotta, a mighty man of the family of harald the fairhaired, after having made a feast for the king, was made lenderman, and was given the same privileges he had enjoyed under former rulers. the king remained most of the summer in halogaland, went to all the things, and baptized all the people. thorer hund, who lived on the island biarkey and was one of the most powerful men in that northern country, also became one of olaf's lendermen. toward the end of the summer king olaf sailed back to throndhjem. during his stay at nidaros the king ascertained that the people of the interior of the throndhjem country were still offering sacrifices to the heathen gods for peace and a good season, and that olver of eggja, a mighty man in that neighborhood, presided over these sacrifice-feasts, although he had twice assured the king that the people were loyal christians. learning that they were preparing such a feast at mæren, the king proceeded to that place one night with three hundred and sixty armed men, captured olver of eggja, and had him killed together with many others, and severely punished all the peasants who had taken a leading part in the sacrifices. in this way he brought the people back to the christian faith, gave them teachers, and built and consecrated churches. the widow of olver of eggja, who was young and handsome, of good family, and rich, was given by the king in marriage to kalf arneson, a young favorite among the king's men. the king also gave him an office, and kalf thus became a great chief. in the summer of king olaf proceeded to moere and raumsdal. in the fall he left his ships in raumsdal and proceeded to gudbrandsdal. the mightiest man there was dale-gudbrand, who ruled over the valley districts there with the authority of a king, although he did not bear the title. when he heard that olaf was approaching, he summoned all the men in the valley to a thing, where they decided to resist the attempt to force christianity upon them. a force of eight hundred men, under the leadership of alf, the son of gudbrand, was sent against olaf, but a battle had scarcely begun when the peasants fled, and alf was captured. then the king was invited to hold a thing with the peasants, so they could discuss the proposed change of faith. to the request of the king that the people should believe in the true god and be baptized, dale-gudbrand replied: "we do not understand of whom thou art speaking. dost thou call him god whom neither thou nor any one else can see? but we have a god who can be seen every day, although he is not out to-day, because the weather is wet. i expect that fear will mix with your very blood when he comes into the thing. now, since thy god is so great, let him make it so that to-morrow we have a cloudy day but without rain, and then let us meet again." the next day when the thing had assembled, the weather was such as gudbrand had desired. bishop sigurd stood up in full vestments, with mitre on his head and crosier in his hand, and spoke to the peasants of the true faith, and of the many miracles that god had performed. on the third day the peasants came to the assembly carrying between them a great image of the god thor, which they placed on the green. dale-gudbrand then said: "where now, king, is thy god? i think he will now carry his head lower; and neither thou nor thy bishop are so bold to-day as on former days; for now our god, who rules over all, has come, and looks on you with an angry eye. and now i see well enough that you are terrified." the king instructed one of his men, kolbein sterke (kolbein the strong), to strike the image with his club with all his might, if in the course of the king's speech it should happen that all the people looked in another direction. then the king spoke to the people, saying: "much hast thou talked to us this morning, and greatly hast thou wondered that thou canst not see our god. but i expect that he will soon come to us. thou wouldst frighten us with thy god, who is both blind and deaf, and can neither save himself nor others, and cannot even move without being carried; but now i expect that he will soon come to grief. for turn your eyes toward the east. behold our god advancing in great light!" the sun was just rising, and all turned to look. immediately kolbein struck the idol with his club, so that it burst into many pieces, and out of it ran rats as big as cats, snakes, and lizards, which had fattened on the good things that had daily been given to the god. at this the peasants became greatly terrified and fled. but the king ordered them together again, and urged them to abandon their worthless heathen gods, and finally he gave them the choice between accepting christianity and fighting. dale-gudbrand then arose and said, that since their own god would not help them, they would have to believe in the king's god and serve him. then olaf caused all the people in the valley to be baptized, and gave them teachers. gudbrand himself and his son were baptized by the bishop. gudbrand built a church on his estate, and he and olaf parted as friends. with the same firm hand king olaf established christianity in hedemarken and raumarike. during his stay in raumarike he assembled a great thing at eidsvold and proclaimed the eidsiva law for all the uplands. king olaf succeeded in having christianity established by law throughout the whole of norway. he built many churches and gave property to them, so that there was at least one priest in each fylki. with the assistance of bishop grimkell he had a church law adopted. he also improved the civil laws, and had a fourth _law-thing_ established for viken, the borge-thing, which had its own law, and was held at the city of borg (now sarpsborg). however, by his cruel way of introducing christianity, and his relentless way of enforcing all laws, olaf gradually made many enemies; he severely punished all who broke the laws, whether they were high or low, and one after the other among the chiefs became unfriendly to him. among the most dangerous of these enemies were erling skialgson of sole, thorer hund of biarkey and harek of thiotta. at this time canute (knut) the great, called by some canute the old, a son of the danish king, svein tjuguskeg, was king of england and denmark. canute claimed the hereditary right to all norway, and his sister's son, earl haakon, who had held a part of it, appeared to him to have lost it in disgrace. many of the discontented norwegians went over to england, pretending various errands, and visited canute the great and earl haakon, who was staying with canute. every one who thus came was most hospitably received, and were given costly presents. the young earl listened with pleasure to the complaints of the discontented about king olaf's tyranny, and to their appeals for a return of the former state of affairs. haakon forgot the oath he had given to king olaf, and begged his uncle canute to try if king olaf would not voluntarily surrender the kingdom or at least a part of it. king canute then sent magnificently equipped messengers to norway, bearing his letter and seal. king olaf had come down from the uplands in the spring ( ) and was sojourning in tunsberg, when the messengers of canute the great arrived and made known their errand. "king canute considers all norway as his property," they said, "his forefathers before him having possessed the kingdom; but as he offers peace to all countries, he will not invade norway with an army if it can be avoided. but if king olaf haraldson wishes to remain king of norway, he must come to king canute, and receive the kingdom in fief from him, become his vassal, and pay the tribute which the earls before him have paid." to this king olaf replied: "i have heard that the danish king gorm was considered a good and popular king, although he ruled over denmark alone; but the kings who succeeded him were not satisfied with this. it has now come so far that king canute rules over denmark and england, and has also conquered a great part of scotland. and still he lays claim to the kingdom i have inherited. i think he ought to be satisfied with what he has. does he wish to rule over all the countries of the north? will he eat up all the cabbage in england? he will have to do so before i show him any kind of vassalage. bring him this answer: i will defend norway with battle-axe and sword as long as life is given me, and will pay tribute to no man for my kingdom." later in the summer the discontented norwegians in england were reinforced by aslak and skialg, the sons of erling skialgson of sole, who, no doubt with their father's knowledge and consent, went over to england and were received by king canute with open arms. king olaf understood the danger that was threatening him and took measures to protect himself. he had spies out to keep an eye on the movements of canute, and in the fall he sent messengers eastward to sweden to his brother-in-law, king anund jacob, who had succeeded his father, olaf the swede, as king of sweden, and let him know king canute's demands upon norway, adding that, in his opinion, if canute subdued norway, king anund would not long enjoy the swedish dominions in peace. he therefore thought they ought to unite for their defence. king anund received this message favorably, and promised to arrange a personal meeting with king olaf in the near future. in the autumn king canute the great came from england to denmark, and remained there all winter with a large army. believing that an offensive and defensive alliance between norway and sweden would be fraught with danger to his danish kingdom, he sent messengers to the swedish king, in order to win his friendship or at least secure his neutrality. but, although the messengers brought many costly presents for king anund, they were very coolly received, and returned to king canute with the information that he could not depend much upon the friendship of king anund. king olaf spent the winter at sarpsborg. early in the spring he and king anund met at konungahella, on the gaut river, where their alliance was concluded. king olaf set out with his men and raised a levy over the whole country. all the lendermen in the north followed him except einar thambaskelfer, who remained quietly on his great estate. olaf sailed with his fleet south around stadt, and many people from the districts around joined him. at hordaland he heard that erling skialgson had left the country with a great force and several ships, and had sailed westward to england to canute the great. king olaf proceeded eastward and then south to denmark, where he first ravaged the coast of seeland, and afterward met king anund jacob of sweden, and with him harried the coast of skåne (scania, then a part of denmark, now belonging to sweden). they proclaimed to the people that they intended to conquer denmark, and asked the support of the people for this purpose. many men entered the service of the kings, and agreed to submit to them. when king canute heard in england that king olaf had gone to denmark with a plundering army, he collected a great force and a large fleet with which he proceeded to denmark. earl haakon was second in command. king olaf and king anund now sailed eastward, and put up in helgeaa, a short but wide river forming the outlet of a number of lakes near what was then the boundary between sweden and denmark. when they heard that king canute was coming after them with his great force, they made preparations to receive him. they dammed up the lake at the head of the river, so that the water rose to a considerable height in the lake, while the river was quite low. then the allies made their ships ready for battle. when canute arrived, it was too late in the evening to begin the battle, and seeing the harbor empty, he entered it with as many ships as possible. early in the morning the dam was broken, and the water rushed with great force down upon canute's fleet. a good many people were drowned, and the ships were scattered, some of them in a considerably damaged condition. however, when the fleet had again been collected, the allied kings perceived that it was of too formidable strength to be attacked, and so they withdrew. king canute, after having vainly lain in wait for olaf, and having no special desire for a war between denmark and sweden, sailed away and returned to england. king olaf returned overland through sweden to norway. in the following year ( ) canute the great returned with a large fleet to norway. by a policy of general bribery he had won the friendship of a great many of the discontented chiefs. the saga says "that every man who came to him, and who he thought had the spirit of a man and would like his favor, got his hands full of gifts and money." he first landed in agder, where he summoned a thing and received the oath of allegiance from the peasants. king olaf was then in tunsberg. canute sailed northward along the coast, and everywhere he was hailed as king. in ekersund erling skialgson came to him with many people, and king canute and erling renewed their league of friendship. canute then continued his journey until he came to throndhjem, and landed at nidaros. here a thing was summoned, at which king canute was proclaimed king of all norway. thorer hund and harek of thiotta were present, and the king divided halogaland between them. the king made earl haakon governor-in-chief of all the land he had taken on this expedition. at the same time he appointed his son hardeknut king of denmark. he gave einar thambaskelfer great gifts, and restored to him the fiefs he had formerly held. when king olaf heard that king canute had gone south to denmark he sailed with a few ships, and as many men as would follow him, up along the coast. when he came north to eikundasund (ekersund), he heard that erling skialgson was ready to meet him with a great force. on the st of december the king sailed out of the harbor, and the wind being strong and favorable, he sailed past the place where erling was with his fleet. erling soon pursued him, but was separated from his main force, and when he overtook king olaf he was met by the whole of the latter's force. a severe fight began, and many men fell on both sides; but finally erling was the only man left on his ship. king olaf who, with his men, had entered the ship, called out to him from the fore-deck: "thou hast turned thy face straight against us to-day, erling." "face to face shall eagles fight," said erling. the old man's courage and manly defence had awakened olaf's sympathy, and the king asked him if he would enter his service. "that i will," said erling. he took off his helmet, laid down his sword and shield, and went forward to the fore-deck. king olaf, who half regretted his kindly feelings toward the conquered man, gently scratched his cheek with the edge of his battle-axe, saying: "the traitor to the king must be marked." immediately one of the king's men, aslak fitiarskalle, rushed up, and cleft erling's skull with his axe, saying: "thus we mark the traitor to the king." when the king saw the old chieftain lying dead at his feet he deeply regretted the ill-considered scorn he had uttered, and said to aslak: "ill luck was that stroke; for thou hast struck norway out of my hands." erling skialgson was sixty-two years old at the time of his death, and the saga says that he was the greatest and worthiest man in norway of all those who had no higher title. olaf continued his journey northward, but was soon pursued by erling's sons, who had raised a great army. when he heard that earl haakon was also coming against him with an army from throndhjem, he found himself compelled to flee from the country. he landed at valdal and crossed the mountains to gudbrandsdal and thence to sweden, where he left his wife astrid and his daughter ulfhild. olaf, with his son magnus and a few faithful friends, travelled to russia, where he was well received by his brother-in-law, king jaroslav, who had married ingegerd, the sister of the swedish king, anund jacob. chapter xvi _the battle of stiklestad ( )_ in the summer of earl haakon went to england to fetch his bride, gunhild, a daughter of canute's sister. everything was satisfactorily arranged, but on his return voyage his vessel foundered, and all on board were lost. one of king olaf's best friends, biorn stallare,[ ] believing that olaf would not return to norway, had been induced by great gifts and promises to give allegiance to earl haakon and king canute; but when he heard that the earl had perished, so that the country was again without a chief, he greatly regretted that he had failed to be true to king olaf, and it seemed to him that there was now some hope that olaf might again become king if he came back to norway. he therefore immediately journeyed east to russia to olaf, and told him of earl haakon's death, and brought him other news from norway. when the king asked him how his friends had kept their fidelity toward him, biorn answered that it had been different with different people. then he fell at the king's feet, and said: "all is in your power, sire, and in god's. i have taken money from king canute's men, and sworn them allegiance; but now i will follow thee, and not part from thee so long as we both live." the king answered: "arise, biorn; thou shalt be reconciled with me; but reconcile thy perjury with god. i must know that but few men in norway have adhered to their fealty to me, when such a man as thou art could be false to me." biorn named those who had principally bound themselves to be his enemies; among them were erling's sons, einar thambaskelfer, kalf arneson, thorer hund and harek of thiotta. [ ] a _stallare_ was a very influential officer, a kind of court marshal. olaf now made preparations for his return to norway, and shortly after christmas started with two hundred and forty men. his young son, magnus, was left behind with king jaroslav in russia. in sweden, king anund received his brother-in-law well, and gave him four hundred and eighty picked warriors to go with him. when it was reported in norway that king olaf had come from the east to sweden, his friends gathered aid for him in norway. the most distinguished man in this party was harald sigurdson, olaf's half-brother, who was then quite young, but very stout and manly of growth. many other brave men were there also; and they were in all seven hundred and twenty men, when they proceeded eastward through the eid forest and vermeland, and met olaf in sweden. olaf's kinsman, dag ringson, collected an army of about , men, with which he joined king olaf. when king olaf had crossed the mountain and was descending on the west side, where it declines toward the sea, and he could see the country for many miles, he became sad and rode by himself in silence for quite a while. finally, bishop sigurd rode up to him, and asked him why he was so silent, and what he was thinking of. the king answered: "strange things came into my mind a while ago. as i looked down the valley, it appeared to me that i was looking over all norway. it then came into my mind how many happy days i have had in this country. my vision went further, until i looked over the whole wide world, both land and sea. i recognized places where i have been before; but i also saw places of which i had never heard, both inhabited and uninhabited, as far as the world goes." then the bishop dismounted from his horse, kissed the king's foot, and said: "it is a holy man whom we are now following." when king olaf came down into verdalen, he mustered his force, and he then had over , men. among them were about six hundred who were heathens, and who refused to be baptized. these men were sent back, as olaf would not have any heathens among his warriors. in the evening olaf's whole forces took up their night-quarter in one place, and lay down under their shields; the king lay long awake in prayer to god, and slept but little. toward morning he slumbered for a while, and when he awoke, day was breaking. the king thought it too early to awaken the army, and asked where the bard thormod kolbrunarskald was. thormod was near by, and asked what the king desired. the king said: "sing us a song." thormod arose and sang, so loud that the whole army could hear him, the old biarkemaal.[ ] then the troops awoke, and, when the song was ended, the people thanked him for it, and the king gave him a fine gold ring. [ ] the _biarkemaal_ is so called because it was composed and sung by bodvar biarke, a norwegian, who, with rolf krake and others, was killed in battle. rolf krake was king in seeland (denmark); he had twelve powerful warriors called _berserks_ (_i.e._ dressed in bear skins); among them was bodvar biarke. rolf and his men were attacked during the night, and the biarkemaal was then sung to encourage rolf's men to fight valiantly for their chief. the king now led his army further down the valley until he came to stiklestad, where he placed his army in battle array against the peasants' army. the lendermen and peasants had collected a vast army; it is said to have numbered , men. when the armies were near together, thorer hund went forward in front of the banner with his troop, and called out: "forward, forward, bonde-men!" the peasants repeated this war-cry and shot their arrows and spears. the king's men now raised their battle-cry, and encouraged each other to advance, shouting: "forward, forward, christ-men! cross-men! king's-men!" king olaf's army rushed down the hill upon the peasant army with a fierce assault, and for a moment drove it from its original position; but the chiefs urged their men forward, and forced them to advance again. the peasant army pushed forward from all quarters, and the battle became very severe. those who stood in front hewed down with their swords; those who stood next thrust with their spears, while those in the rear shot arrows, cast spears, or threw stones, hand-axes, or pieces of timber. many fell on both sides. when the ranks in front of the king's banner began to be thinned, he ordered the banner moved forward, and the king himself followed with a party of chosen men, and placed himself in the front rank. king olaf fought most desperately. he hewed at thorer hund, and struck him across the shoulders; but the sword would not cut, and it was as if dust flew from thorer's reindeer-skin coat. then the king said to biorn stallare: "do thou kill the dog on whom steel will not bite." (thorer's surname hund means dog.) biorn turned the axe in his hand, and gave thorer such a blow with the hammer of it on the shoulder that he staggered; but the next moment thorer ran his spear through the body of biorn, and killed him, saying: "thus we hunt bears north in finmark." (biorn means bear.) thorstein knarrarsmid, one of thorer hund's followers, struck at king olaf with his axe, and the blow hit his left leg above the knee. fin arneson immediately felled thorstein; but the king, badly wounded, staggered toward a stone, threw down his sword and shield, and prayed god to help him. then thorer hund struck at him with his spear, and the stroke went in under his mail-coat and into his abdomen. still another wound was given the king on the left side of the neck, and these three wounds caused the death of king olaf. he was then thirty-five years old. the battle had lasted an hour and a half, and was now virtually ended. dag ringson and his men still fought desperately for a while, but they were soon overwhelmed by numbers and fatigue, and were obliged to retire. there was a valley through which many fled, and men lay scattered on both sides; many were severely wounded, and many so fatigued that they were unable to move. the peasants pursued them only a short way; for their leaders soon returned to the battlefield, where they had friends and relatives to care for. it is said that thorer hund went to where king olaf's body lay, laid it out on the ground, and spread a cloak over it. he told afterward that when he wiped the blood from the face it was very beautiful, and the cheeks were red. some of the king's blood came on thorer's wounded hand, and it healed so speedily that he did not need to dress it. this was told by thorer himself when king olaf's holiness came to be generally reported among the people; and thorer hund was among the first of the king's powerful opponents who endeavored to spread abroad the belief in olaf's sanctity. harald sigurdson, king olaf's half-brother, was severely wounded at stiklestad; but one of olaf's men brought him to a peasant's house the night after the battle, and the peasant cared for harald, and healed his wound in secret, and afterward gave him his son to attend him. some time after the battle, two young men were one day riding across the mountain to jemteland in order to reach sweden. one of them was a peasant's son from verdalen, the other a young warrior, the last one of king olaf's men who fled from the country. as they were passing over the ridge, the young man turned to his companion, and sang: "the wounds were bleeding as i rode; and down below the peasants strode, killing the wounded with the sword, the followers of their rightful lord. from wood to wood i crept along, unnoticed by the peasant-throng; who knows, i thought, a day may come my name will yet be great at home." it was olaf's brother, harald, who was setting out to try his luck in foreign countries, whence he was to return one day, rich in honors and goods. chapter xvii _king svein alfifuson ( - )_ when king canute the great heard that earl haakon had been lost in a shipwreck on his way to norway, he concluded to put his natural son svein on the throne of norway. svein's mother was Ælfgifa, a daughter of an english chieftain in northampton, but the norwegians called her alfifa and her son svein alfifuson. svein had, a couple of years before, been appointed by king canute to govern jomsborg in vendland; but after earl haakon's death king canute sent word to him to proceed to denmark and from there to norway, to take that kingdom in charge and assume the title of king of norway. with a number of men from denmark, svein proceeded to norway together with his mother, alfifa, and he was hailed as king at every thing. he had come as far as viken at the time the battle was fought at stiklestad, where king olaf fell. he continued his journey northward until, in the autumn, he came to the throndhjem country; and there, as elsewhere, he was received as king. svein was very young and inexperienced, and it was his mother who had most to say in governmental affairs. together with bishop sigurd and some danes, whom she had brought with her from denmark, she commenced to rule the country in a very arbitrary manner, and the people soon became greatly discontented. for a time the disaffection smouldered beneath the surface; but when the foreign rulers proceeded to introduce a new system of laws, fashioned in accordance with the development of the feudal system in the rest of europe, there was a general uprising throughout the country. among the laws introduced in king svein's name were the following: no man must leave the country without the king's permission; or if he did, his property fell to the king. whoever killed a man should forfeit his land and movable property. at christmas every man had to give the king a certain portion of the products of his farm. the peasants were obliged to build all the houses the king required on his farms. for every seven males over the age of five years one man was to be furnished for the service of war. every ship that went out of the country should have storage reserved for the king in the middle of the ship. several heavy taxes were provided. and to all this was added a provision that the testimony of one dane should invalidate that of ten norwegians. when these laws were announced at the thing in throndhjem, loud murmurs were heard among the people. those who had not taken part in the uprising against king olaf said: "now take your reward and friendship from canute and his race, ye men of the interior of throndhjem who fought against king olaf, and deprived him of his kingdom. ye were promised peace and justice, and now ye have got oppression and slavery for your great treachery." this was true, and the chiefs felt it well enough; but they were afraid of making open rebellion, as many of them had given king canute their sons or other near relatives as hostages. at this time the people began to talk much of king olaf's sanctity. there were many rumors of miracles in connection with the dead king, and it gradually became the general opinion that a great mistake or rather a crime had been committed by the rebellion against king olaf. people began to severely reproach those who had excited opposition to the king, and among those especially accused was bishop sigurd. he got so many enemies that he found it most advisable to leave the country, and proceeded to england to king canute. when bishop sigurd had left, the people of throndhjem sent word to bishop grimkell, desiring him to come to throndhjem. king olaf had sent bishop grimkell back to norway when he went east to russia, and since that time grimkell had been in the uplands. he now came north and visited einar thambaskelfer, who received him with open arms. einar congratulated himself upon not having taken part in the strife against king olaf, and was now one of the mighty men who looked upon the dead king as a saint. einar and the bishop obtained king svein's leave to exhume the body of olaf. it is said that they found that the coffin had raised itself almost entirely to the surface of the earth, and when the coffin was opened they found that the king's face was red as if he had merely fallen asleep, and his hair and nails had grown as if he had lived all the time. grimkell now declared that king olaf was truly a holy man, and with the approbation of the king and the decision of the thing olaf was declared the saint of the nation. his body was transported into clement's church, where a place was made for it near the high altar. the coffin was covered with costly cloth, and stood under a gold embroidered tent. people soon began to make pilgrimages to the shrine of saint olaf, and gradually a great number of churches were built and dedicated to him, not only in norway, but also in other countries. when king svein had been three years in norway, a young man, who called himself trygve, and professed to be a son of olaf trygvason and queen gyda of england, came from the west with an armed force, intending to claim the throne of norway. svein called upon his chiefs to furnish him with men and ships in defence of the country, and an army was soon ready; but einar thambaskelfer, and kalf arneson, and some others refused to give aid. king svein sailed south and met trygve in battle in sognesund. in this battle trygve fell, and many of his men with him; but some fled, and others received quarter. after the battle in sognesund king svein returned to throndhjem; but his stay there was not of long duration. he met the people at a thing, and heard their complaints, but no understanding could be reached. shortly afterward the situation became so strained that king svein and his mother found it necessary to remove to the southern part of the country to spend the winter. during this winter einar thambaskelfer and kalf arneson had many consultations in nidaros with the other chiefs, and the result was that in the spring a deputation of prominent chiefs, including einar thambaskelfer and kalf arneson, proceeded east to king jaroslav in russia to offer the throne of norway to magnus, the son of olaf the saint, who had been raised at king jaroslav's court. they asked and received full forgiveness for having fought against magnus's father at stiklestad. they thereupon swore allegiance to magnus, who, on the other hand, promised them under oath that he would be true and faithful to them all when he got the dominions and kingdom of norway. einar and kalf were to act as his foster-fathers and counsellors. magnus returned with them to norway and was welcomed with great joy. at oere-thing he was proclaimed king over the whole land. when king svein heard this news he tried to raise an army; but nobody would listen to him, and he and his mother were obliged to flee to denmark. here svein died in the year ; his father canute dying a short time before him. chapter xviii _magnus the good ( - )_ magnus was a natural child of olaf the saint, his mother being a girl by the name of alfhild, who was usually called the king's slave-woman, although she was of good descent. she was a very handsome girl and lived in king olaf's court. it is said that when magnus was born she was very sick, and it was some time after the birth before it could be discovered whether the boy was alive. a priest, who was present, requested sigvat the skald (poet) to hasten to the king and tell him of the event; but sigvat refused, as the king had strictly forbidden anybody to awaken him in the middle of the night. as the child was very weak, however, they decided to baptize it, and sigvat the skald named the boy magnus. the next morning the king demanded to know why they had named the boy magnus, since there was no such name in his family. sigvat said: "i called him after king carl magnus (emperor charlemagne), who, i knew, had been the best man in the world." this satisfied the king. magnus was only eleven years old when he was proclaimed king at the oere-thing. in the beginning he allowed kalf arneson and einar thambaskelfer to take care of all government matters in his name; but he soon developed into a clever, intelligent young man with a great deal of independence. hardeknut, who was then king of denmark, was inclined to press his claims to norway, which he had inherited from his father, canute the great, and collected an army. king magnus also armed himself, and they were about to meet in battle at the gaut river. however, the chiefs on both sides, who very much desired to avoid war, made overtures for peace, and the result was a friendly meeting between the kings at the brenn islands at the mouth of the gaut river. they arranged for a brotherly union, under oath, to keep the peace with each other to the end of their lives; and if one of them should die without leaving a son, the survivor should succeed to both countries. twelve of the principal men in each kingdom swore to the kings that this treaty should be observed. after the conciliation at the brenn islands magnus was in undisputed possession of his father's throne. during his stay in the southern part of the country he had come in contact with his father's former friends and faithful adherents, who had a great deal to say about the actions of the throndhjem people toward king olaf. magnus listened with great eagerness to this talk, and, before he really understood it, he had become possessed of a bitter feeling against those men who had been his father's opponents. he especially began to dislike kalf arneson, who, according to common belief, had dealt king olaf the last deadly blow at stiklestad. one day the king was at a feast at the haug estate in verdalen. at the table he said to einar thambaskelfer: "let us ride to-day over to stiklestad. i wish to see the different reminders of the battle." einar replied: "well, i know little about how matters went there; but take kalf with thee: he can give thee information about all that took place." when the tables were removed, the king made himself ready, and said to kalf: "thou must go with me to stiklestad." after repeating this command the king went out. kalf put on his riding clothes in all haste, and said to his foot-boy: "ride immediately to eggja, and order my house-servants to have all my property on board my ship before sunset." the king and kalf now rode over to stiklestad. they alighted from their horses, and went to the place where the battle had been. "where did the king fall?" asked magnus. kalf pointed with his spear, and said: "there he lay when he fell." the king further asked: "and where wast thou then, kalf?" "here, where i am now standing," answered kalf. the king turned red as blood in the face, and said: "then thy axe could well have reached him." kalf replied: "my axe did not come near him." then he immediately went to his horse, and rode away with all his men, while the king returned to haug. when kalf reached home he found his ship ready, and immediately sailed for the orkneys. the king confiscated the eggja estate and other possessions which kalf left behind him. magnus commenced to severely punish many of those who had borne arms against saint olaf. he drove some of them out of the country, took large sums of money from others, and had the cattle of others slaughtered for his use. thorer hund had escaped punishment by making a pilgrimage to jerusalem shortly after olaf's fall, and it is said that he never came back. harek of thiotta was killed with the king's consent by asmund grankelson, whose father had been killed by harek. the people soon began to murmur, and the discontent spread throughout the country. in sogn the people even gathered an armed force, and were determined to fight, if magnus came into their district. when the young impetuous king heard of this, and made up his mind to punish the rebellious sognings, his friends, who knew that the disaffection was widely spread through the country, decided to warn him of his danger. twelve of his friends came together, and determined, by casting lots, which one of them should inform the king of the discontent of the people, and the lot fell upon sigvat the skald. sigvat then composed a poem, which he called "the free-speaking song" (_bersöglisvísur_), in which he reminded the king of the promises he made when he was proclaimed king, and advised him to be guided by that respect for the laws and the rights of the people which his predecessors had shown. he blamed him for his severity, and warned him of the danger threatening him and his country. sigvat's song made a deep impression on the young king, and from now on he was an entirely changed man. he consulted the most prudent men, and revised the laws, repealing such of svein alfifuson's laws as were most obnoxious to the people. he codified the laws in a written book called "the gray goose" (_graagaasen_).[ ] it was only a short time before king magnus became very popular, and was beloved by all the country people, who now called him magnus the good. [ ] "the gray goose," so called probably from the color of the parchment on which it is written, is one of the most curious relics of the middle ages, and gives us an unexpected view of the social condition of the northmen in the eleventh century. law appears to have been so far advanced among them that the forms were not merely established, but the slightest breach of the legal forms of proceeding involved the loss of the case. "the gray goose" embraces subjects not dealt with probably by any other code in europe at that period. the provision for the poor, the equality of weights and measures, police of markets and of sea havens, provision for illegitimate children of the poor, inns for travellers, wages of servants and support of them in sickness, protection of pregnant women and even of domestic animals from injury, roads, bridges, vagrants, beggars, are subjects treated of in this code. (s. laing.) the danish king, hardeknut, who was also king of england, died of apoplexy at a wedding-feast at lambeth, england, in june, . this was the end of danish rule in england. after the death of hardeknut, his half-brother, edward the good, a son of the english king ethelred and queen emma, was chosen king of england. when king magnus heard of hardeknut's death, he immediately sent word to denmark that he intended to claim the danish throne in accordance with the agreement made between himself and hardeknut at their meeting at the gaut river. shortly afterward king magnus proceeded to denmark with a fine fleet of seventy ships. he was well received, and at a thing assembled at viborg, jutland (where the danes always elected their king), he was proclaimed king of all the danish dominions. he remained in denmark during the summer ( ), and wherever he came he was received with enthusiasm. he divided the country into districts and appointed administrative officers, gave fiefs to influential men, and took all steps to secure himself in power. in the autumn he returned to norway. among the danes who swore allegiance to king magnus was svein, commonly called svein estridson, a son of earl ulf. his mother was estrid (astrid), a daughter of king svein tjuguskeg. she was a sister of canute the great by the father's side, and of the swedish king olaf by the mother's side, her mother being queen sigrid the haughty. one day, as king magnus was sitting in his high-seat with a large number of men around him, and with svein estridson sitting on a footstool before him, the king made a speech, in which he said that he had promised the danes a chief who could defend and rule the country in the absence of the king. "and," he continued, "i know no better man fitted, in all respects, for this than svein. i will therefore make him my earl, and give him the government of my danish dominions while i am in norway, just as king canute the great set his father, earl ulf, over denmark while he was in england." einar thambaskelfer, who was with the king, was very ill-pleased with this appointment, as he put no faith in svein, and said to the king: "too great an earl, too great an earl, my foster-son!" king magnus had an early opportunity to regret his choice, for, the same winter in which svein was given the administration of the government of denmark as earl, he successfully courted the friendship of the most influential men, and assumed the title of king of denmark. king magnus heard this news, and at the same time that the people of vendland had a large army with which they plundered in denmark. he then gathered a large force, with which he sailed to denmark. there he summoned the people to come to him, and drew together a great army in jutland. ordulf, the duke of brunswick, who the year before had married ulfhild, the daughter of king olaf the saint, and the half-sister of king magnus,[ ] also came to his aid with a great force. king magnus met the vends in battle at lyrskog heath in schleswig and gained a great victory. it was generally reported in the army that king magnus had a vision the night before the battle, in which olaf the saint had appeared and had given the king advice. "it is the common saying," says the saga, "that there never was so great a slaughter of men in the northern lands, since the time of christianity, as took place among the vendland people on lyrskog heath." this was on the th of september, . king magnus followed up his victory, and sailed to vendland, attacked and captured the fortress of jomsborg. a great many of the people of vendland submitted to king magnus, while others fled the country. [ ] from this union descended, in direct line, the royal house of brunswick and saxony, whose members until lately occupied the thrones of hanover and brunswick and still reign in england. after this king magnus turned his attention to earl svein. a battle was fought, and svein had to flee to his relatives in sweden. but as soon as magnus went to norway, svein would return to denmark and strengthen himself with the danes, and magnus had continual wars with his earl. among the principal battles were those at aaros (now aarhus) and helganes. when king magnus came back to norway in the autumn of , after one of his battles with svein, he heard that his relative, harald sigurdson, had come to sweden on his way to norway, and that harald and svein had come to an understanding, and intended to endeavor to subdue both denmark and norway. king magnus then ordered a general levy over all norway, and he soon collected a great army with which to meet the intruder. the relatives and friends of both harald and magnus, however, said that it would be a great misfortune if there should be war between them, and the result was a friendly meeting, where magnus gave harald half of his kingdom. they were to rule together on equal terms; but whenever they were together in one place king magnus was to be "the first man in seat, service and salutation." king magnus died the following year ( ) on one of his expeditions to denmark. before his death king magnus declared that svein estridson was to have denmark, while harald should rule over norway. chapter xix _harald haardraade ( - )_ harald, the son of sigurd syr and astrid, now became the sole king of norway. as we have seen, harald fled from the country after the battle of stiklestad ( ). he went to russia to the court of king jaroslav, who received him with kindness and made him a commander in the army. harald remained in the service of king jaroslav for three years, and then went with a body of men to constantinople (called by the northmen miklagaard), where he soon became the captain or chief of the varings. (the varings were the bodyguard of the emperors, and the guard was composed mostly of northmen.) with them he went on many expeditions, and always gained victories and a great deal of booty. he conducted expeditions against the saracens in africa (which the varings called serkland), where he gathered great wealth in gold, jewels, and other precious things. he also served in sicily, where he won several battles. after having spent several years in these campaigns he returned to constantinople, and then went to jerusalem, and bathed in the river jordan, according to the custom of other pilgrims. thereafter he returned to russia and was received in the most friendly way by king jaroslav. he married the latter's daughter, elisabeth, or ellisif, as the northmen called her. when king magnus died, harald, as already stated, became sole king of norway. but he also wanted denmark, and called his men-at-arms together, and told them that he intended to go with an army to viborg thing and there proclaim himself king of denmark, to which, he said, he had the hereditary right, as well as to norway. the friends of the late king magnus, however, did not like this, and einar thambaskelfer said that he considered it a greater duty to bring his foster son king magnus's corpse to the grave, and lay it beside his father king olaf's north in throndhjem, than to be fighting abroad, and taking another king's dominions and property. he ended his speech with saying that he would rather follow king magnus dead than any other king alive. the result was that king harald returned to norway with his army. for many years thereafter king harald was at war with svein estridson (or ulfson), but did not succeed in driving him away from denmark. einar thambaskelfer was the most powerful man in the throndhjem country. there was but little friendship between him and king harald, although einar retained all the fiefs he had held under king magnus. einar had many large estates, and was married to bergliot, a daughter of earl haakon. their son eindride was married to sigrid, a daughter of ketil kalf and gunhild, king harald's sister's daughter. einar was well versed in law, and often acted as spokesman for the peasants at the things, when the king demanded more of the people than was his right. this happened more than once, for harald's rule was quite severe. therefore he was called harald _haardraade_, or hard-ruler. einar did not lack the boldness to assert his opinions at the things, even in the presence of the king; and for this reason he was held in high esteem by the people, while the king came to hate him more after every such dispute. einar, therefore, began to keep a number of men around him whenever the king was in the neighborhood. one day he came to the town (nidaros) with eight or nine ships and nearly six hundred men. when harald, who was standing in the doorway of his house, saw einar going ashore, he exclaimed in verse: "here i see einar thambaskelfer land with quite a force. in his haughtiness he probably expects even to fill the royal chair; for often has even an earl a smaller force of men with him. this einar will some day deprive me of my kingdom, unless he himself has to kiss the thin lips of the axe." one day there was a meeting, at which the king himself was present. a thief had been caught and was brought before the thing. the man had been in the service of einar, who had liked him very well. einar well knew that the king would not let the man off, especially as einar took an interest in him. he therefore let his men arm themselves, went to the thing, and took the man away by force. the mutual friends of the king and einar then intervened and tried to bring about a reconciliation, and they succeeded so far that a day was appointed for a meeting between them at the king's house at the river nid. the king had the shutters for the smoke-hole in the roof closed so as to exclude the light. when einar came into the yard with his people, he told his son eindride to remain outside with the men, "for there is no danger here for me." eindride remained standing outside the door. when einar came into the room, he said: "dark it is in the king's thing-room." at this some men fell upon him with spears and swords. "sharp are now the bites of the king's dogs," said einar, and rushed toward the king, but was felled to the floor by the king's men. when eindride heard the noise he drew his sword and rushed into the room; but he was instantly killed along with his father. the king then went with all his men to his ships, and rowed down the river, the peasants not having the courage to pursue him after having lost their leader. einar's wife bergliot, who came up from her home, and in vain urged the peasants to pursue the murderers, said: "now we miss my kinsman, haakon ivarson: einar's slayer would not be rowing out of the river if ivar stood here on the river-bank." bergliot sent word to haakon ivarson (a son of ivar the white, nephew of earl haakon the great), who was a mighty man in the uplands, and requested him to avenge the death of einar and eindride. meanwhile king harald proceeded to his kinsman by marriage, fin arneson, who lived at austraat in yrjar, and persuaded him to first go to nidaros and bring about a reconciliation with the peasants, and thereafter to proceed to the uplands and reach an understanding with haakon ivarson, so that he would not oppose the king. in return for this the king promised to recall to the country fin's brother kalf, and restore to him the estates and dignities of which king magnus had deprived him. to haakon ivarson, fin was to offer any favor he might wish short of the kingdom. fin successfully accomplished both of the missions intrusted to him. haakon ivarson said, as to the conditions of peace: "i will be reconciled with king harald if he will give me in marriage his relation ragnhild, king magnus olafson's daughter, with such dower as is suitable to her and she will be content with," and fin agreed to this on behalf of the king. the next christmas haakon went to king harald to ask the fulfilment of the pledges given him. the king said that he, for his part, would adhere to the whole agreement; but as for ragnhild it would be necessary for haakon to ask her consent himself. when haakon came to ragnhild, and paid his addresses to her, she answered: "i have no fault to find with thee, for thou art a handsome man, expert in all exercises. but thou must remember i am a king's daughter, while thou art only a lenderman. had my father, king magnus, lived he would have found that no man less than a king was suitable for me; so it is not to be expected that i will marry one who has no princely rank." haakon then went to the king and demanded that he be made an earl under the agreement made with fin arneson. this the king refused to do, saying that it had been the custom since the time of saint olaf to have only one earl in the country, and he could not take the title from orm, who now held it. haakon now understood that there was nothing to obtain from the king, and left in disgust. fin arneson became very angry, and told the king that he had broken his word. haakon shortly afterward left the country with a well-manned ship, and went to king svein of denmark, who received him well and made him commander of his coast defence against the vikings from vendland, kurland and other eastern countries. it was not a long time before fin arneson fell out with the king. his brother kalf, who had been on a viking cruise to the "western" (british) countries ever since he had left norway, was recalled by the king and given back his estates according to agreement. but shortly afterward, during an expedition to denmark, the king sent kalf ashore on the island fyen with a small force of men, and commanded him to attack a much stronger danish force, promising that he would soon make a landing with the others and come to their assistance. kalf obeyed, and was attacked by a great force of the enemy, and he and many of his men were killed. a long while afterward, when the danes had withdrawn, harald landed and made a plundering expedition into the country. later he composed some verses, in which he boasted of having caused the death of thirteen men, and fin rightly supposed that his brother was one of them. fin took this matter so much to heart that he left norway and went to king svein of denmark, who gave him a friendly reception. he swore allegiance to king svein, and was made earl of halland (now a province of sweden), where he remained for a long time and defended the country against the northmen. haakon ivarson showed great zeal in his position as commander of the danish coast defence, being out with his warships both winter and summer, and was in high favor with king svein, until he attacked and killed the king's nephew, asmund, an ungovernable young man, who had been killing and plundering everywhere, both abroad and at home, and whom haakon thought the king much desired to get rid of. the king sent haakon a message that he had better leave the country. "tell him," he said, "that i will do him no harm; but i cannot answer for all our relations." haakon then proceeded north to his estates in norway. during his stay in denmark his relative, earl orm, had died. his many friends therefore gave themselves much trouble to bring about a reconciliation between him and king harald, and in this they succeeded. haakon was given the title of earl, with the same power that earl orm had had, and was married to ragnhild, king magnus's daughter. he swore to king harald an oath of fidelity and pledged himself to render all the service he was liable to. in the winter of - , king harald resided at nidaros, where he commenced building a large warship. he sent a message south to denmark to king svein, and challenged him to meet him in the spring at the gaut river and fight, with the understanding that the one who gained the victory should have both kingdoms. king svein accepted the challenge, but did not keep the appointment. king harald, who had arrived at the place agreed upon, heard that svein's forces lay in the south, partly at fyen and partly about seeland. harald then sailed southward along halland with one hundred and eighty of his ships, and brought up his fleet at the nis-aa (nis river). shortly afterward king svein came upon them with a danish fleet consisting of three hundred and sixty ships. king harald held a war council, and many said that it would be better to fly than to fight with a fleet twice the size of their own. the king replied: "sooner shall we all fall and lie dead one upon another than fly." king harald drew up his ships in battle array, laying his great dragon ship in the middle. at his side lay ulf stallara, and on the other wing lay the ships of earl haakon ivarson from the uplands. at the extremity of the other side lay the throndhjem chiefs. it was late in the day when the battle began, and it continued the whole night. the battle was very severe, and toward morning the greater part of the danish fleet broke into flight. while harald pursued some of the danes, king svein made his escape with the aid of earl haakon ivarson, who, during the battle, had contributed more than any one else to the victory of the norwegians. king harald sailed north to viken with all the conquered ships after the battle of nis river, and spent the winter at oslo. earl haakon went to the uplands and remained in his dominions there during the winter. in the spring, however, he gathered all his loose property and fled eastward; for he heard that king harald had again become his enemy, mainly because haakon had allowed king svein to escape after the battle of nis river. haakon proceeded to king steinkel of sweden, who gave him the province of vermeland to govern. when haakon heard that king harald had gone north to throndhjem, he made a hurried expedition back to the uplands and collected the taxes due him. the next summer king harald in vain tried to collect taxes in the same places. then king harald gathered an army, with which he invaded sweden, and defeated haakon. upon his return he severely punished the people of the uplands for having been disloyal. he maimed some, killed others, and robbed many of all their property. year after year king harald had made war on denmark without coming nearer to king svein's throne. it appears that finally the people in both counties became tired of this continual and wasteful warfare, and during the same winter that earl haakon had settled down in vermeland, sweden, there were many negotiations between leading men of both countries who wanted peace and demanded that their kings should come to an agreement. the result was a meeting of the two kings at the gaut river, where peace was agreed upon. harald was to have norway, and svein denmark; the war should cease as it now stood, each retaining what he had got, and this peace should endure as long as they were kings. this peace was confirmed by oath, and the kings parted, having given each other hostages ( ). in the year , earl toste came from england and asked king harald to aid him in an attempt to conquer england from his brother harald godwinson, who had been proclaimed king of england. earl toste had already been on a similar mission to denmark, but king svein estridson had declared that he would be content if he could keep his own kingdom and defend that against the northmen. king harald sigurdson looked upon the plan with more favor, and promised his help. he collected an army and sailed for england with a large fleet. before he left throndhjem he gave the reins of the government to his son magnus, whom he had proclaimed king at the oere-thing. he took with him his younger son olaf, the queen and two daughters. at first king harald was very successful against the englishmen, and after a great victory the citizens of york surrendered the city to him. in the evening he returned to his ships to spend the night. later in the same evening, however, king harald godwinson arrived with a numerous army, and rode into the city with the goodwill and consent of the people of the castle. all the gates and walls were beset so that the northmen could receive no report of their arrival, and the army remained all night in the town. in the morning king harald sigurdson landed with a portion of his army, leaving the remainder behind with the ships. as they came across stanford bridge, they discovered a numerous army approaching. earl toste advised a speedy return to the ships to get more men and arms; but harald sigurdson did not wish to appear cowardly, and elected instead to send three messengers with their fastest horses back to the ships with an order to the men there to immediately come to their assistance. harald then arranged his men in a line of battle, long but not deep. then he turned both wings backward until they met together, so that the army formed a wide ring of the men standing shield to shield. thus he would defend himself against the enemy's horsemen, from whom he expected a violent attack. those in the first rank were ordered to set the spear-shaft on the ground, and the spear-point against the horseman's breast; those in the next rank were to direct the spear-point against the horse's breast. inside the ring, the bowmen were to stand, and here he also selected a place for himself and earl toste, and a body of chosen men. now the english king approached with his army, which was twice as large as that of the northmen. while harald was yet arranging his army, riding around on his black horse, twenty horsemen came riding up from the english army, and asked if earl toste was there. the earl himself answered: "here you can find him." one of the horsemen, speaking for the english king, then offered the earl peace and a third of the kingdom if he would be reconciled with his brother. the earl said: "but if i accept this offer, what will he give king harald sigurdson for his trouble?" the horseman replied: "he will give him seven feet of english ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men." "then," said the earl, "return and tell king harald to get ready for battle. never shall the northmen have a chance to say that earl toste left king harald sigurdson to join his enemy." then the horsemen returned to the english army. king harald sigurdson said to earl toste: "who was the man who spoke so well?" "that was my brother, king harald godwinson," said the earl. "too late i learned that," said the king; "for he had come so near to our army that he never should have been able to report the felling of our men." now the battle began, the english horsemen advancing against the northmen; but as long as the northmen remained standing in a ring, shield to shield, and with the spears pointing out, the enemy could do nothing against them. but when the northmen thought the enemy was retiring, they were imprudent enough to pursue the englishmen, and thus break their own invincible ring. then the englishmen rode up from all sides, and made a terrible attack. many people fell on both sides. king harald sigurdson was hit by an arrow in the throat and fell dead to the ground, and most of his men fell around him. harald was fifty-one years old when he died ( ). the town of oslo (now a suburb of christiania) was founded during the reign of king harald sigurdson. a church was built there and dedicated to the virgin mary. the shrine of the holy halvard, lately discovered and acknowledged as a national saint, was placed in this church. chapter xx _olaf kyrre, the quiet ( - )_ the english king permitted king harald sigurdson's son olaf to leave the country with the men he had left. olaf proceeded to the orkney isles, where he remained during the winter ( - ). the next summer he returned to norway, where he was proclaimed king along with his brother, magnus taking the northern and olaf the eastern part of the country. shortly after the two brothers had assumed the government, the danish king, svein estridson, gave notice that the peace between the northmen and the danes was at an end. the brothers hurriedly collected armies to defend the country, and svein set out from the south with a danish force. he met king olaf on the coast of halland, where an indecisive battle was fought. soon afterward magnus arrived with reinforcements from the north, but then negotiations were opened, and peace was concluded on the old conditions at konungahella. the agreement here made was confirmed by olaf taking king svein's daughter ingerid in marriage. the following year king magnus died at nidaros, april , , after being ill for some time. his son, haakon, who was fostered by thorer of steig in gudbrandsdal, being only an infant child, olaf now became sole king of norway. after the short conflict with denmark, olaf had no wars. a long period of peace was something new in the history of the country, and the people therefore gave king olaf the surname _kyrre_, _i.e._, the quiet. he preserved law and order with firmness, and did a great deal to promote commerce and the prosperity of the towns. before his time there were three towns in viken (tunsberg, oslo, and sarpsborg), and one in throndhjem (nidaros). king olaf founded the merchant town of bergen (then björgvin), where many wealthy people settled down, and the place was soon regularly frequented by merchants from foreign countries. the other towns also made good progress. in king olaf's time there were held a greater number of general entertainments and hand-in-hand feasts than formerly. already, during the heathen time, the northmen used to arrange feasts by clubbing together. after the introduction of christianity they were continued, but naturally changed their character. these feasts, which from the time of olaf kyrre were called guilds, had a partly religious character, and appear to have been regular meetings of fraternities, whose members were pledged to defend and help each other. the members were called guild-brethren and guild-sisters, and each guild was under the protection of a saint. the members were governed by strict laws, and in order to insure good and peaceful behavior, men of dignity, both clergymen and laymen, were present at the meetings. king olaf built several guild-halls in different parts of the country, among them the great guild-hall in nidaros. the guild-brethren built margaret's church in nidaros. there are many stories of king olaf's good works. once when he sat in the great guild-hall in nidaros, one of his men said to him: "it pleases us, king, to see you so happy." he answered: "why should i not be happy when i see my subjects sitting happy and free in a guild consecrated to my uncle, the sainted king olaf. in the days of my father these people were subjected to much terror and fear; the most of them concealed their gold and their precious things, but now i see glittering on his person what each one owns, and your freedom is my gladness." at the things, king olaf did not speak much, preferring to let others speak for him. one who was often intrusted with this duty was his foster-brother skule, who was a son of earl toste, and was usually called the king's foster-son. skule, who had come over with him from england, was made commander of king olaf's court-men and was given the king's cousin gudrun in marriage. he was a dear friend of the king, who gave him fine estates near konungahella, oslo, and nidaros. the principal one of these estates was reine in rissen, which became the seat of this afterward powerful family. skule was the ancestor of king inge baardson and duke skule. king olaf made several changes in the rooms on the king's estates. the king had formerly had his high-seat on the middle of one of two long benches at the long walls of the house; but olaf had the high-seat removed to a cross-bench at the short wall facing the entrance. formerly the fire was in the middle of the floor between the long benches; but olaf had the fireplace removed to one corner of the room, where he had a kind of a chimney-place built. he had the floors, which had formerly been without covering, covered with stone and strewed with juniper-tops. he introduced table-cups instead of the deer-horns out of which they formerly used to drink. much unusual splendor and foreign fashions in the cut of clothes were also introduced. king olaf doubled the number of attendants, so that he had one hundred and twenty courtmen-at-arms (_hird-men_), sixty "guests,"[ ] and sixty house servants. he used the fashion, which was introduced from the courts of foreign kings, of letting his grand butler stand at the end of the table, and fill the cups for himself and the other distinguished guests who sat at the table. he had also torch-bearers, who held as many torches at the table as there were guests of distinction present. [ ] the "guests" were one division of the king's men. they were of a lower rank than the _hird-men_. king olaf kyrre was a devout christian. a better order was introduced in the affairs of the church, and the country was divided into three bishoprics. many churches were built, among the largest of which were the christ church in bergen and the christ church in nidaros. king olaf died on his estate, haukby, in ranrike, september , . his body was brought north to nidaros and buried in christ church. the saga says of king olaf: "he was the most amiable king of his time, and norway was much improved in riches and cultivation during his reign." chapter xxi _magnus barefoot ( - )_ immediately after the death of olaf kyrre, his son magnus was proclaimed at viken king of all norway; but the upland people chose his cousin haakon, the foster-son of thorer of steig, as king. haakon and thorer went north to throndhjem and summoned the oere-thing at nidaros, and the people there proclaimed haakon king of half of norway, as his father had been. in order to win the goodwill of the throndhjem people, haakon relieved them of all harbor duties, did away with the christmas gifts to the king, and gave them many other privileges. thereafter he returned to the uplands, where he gave the people the same privileges. in the meanwhile king magnus proceeded north to nidaros, took possession of the king's house built by harald haardraade, and remained there the first part of the winter. when haakon heard of this he also came up to nidaros, and negotiations were opened for a settlement between the rival kings, haakon offering to accept half the kingdom and let magnus retain the other half. magnus refused to acknowledge any rights of haakon, and a conflict seemed imminent. however, one day, after having made quite a demonstration with his force, magnus sailed southward, and haakon also decided to go south, taking the inland route. while he was crossing the dovre mountain, he pursued a ptarmigan, which flew up beside him; and during this chase he was taken violently ill, and died on the mountain. his body was brought back to nidaros, and all the people went to meet the body, as the saga says, "sorrowing, and the most of them weeping; for all the people loved him with sincere affection." haakon, who was twenty-five years old at his death, was laid at rest in christ church (february, ). magnus olafson was now sole king of norway. a rebellion was started by some of the adherents of the late king haakon, under the leadership of thorer of steig and the late haakon's near friend, svein, who aspired to become king. svein was a dane by birth, said to be of high family and a brave warrior. his father was one harald flette, of whom nothing is known. several chiefs took part in this movement, among them the rich and powerful man, skialg erlingson from jadaren, and egil aslakson of aurland. the force proceeded from gudbrandsdal down to raumsdal, and afterward north to throndhjem. king magnus's liegeman and devoted friend, sigurd ulstreng, collected a force and met thorer and svein in battle, but suffered a bad defeat. he fled to king magnus, who then collected an army, and proceeded north to throndhjem. magnus scattered the rebels, and captured thorer of steig and egil aslakson, and hanged them. svein, harald flette's son, fled out to sea first, and then sailed to denmark and remained there. king magnus punished severely all who had been guilty of treason toward him, killing some and burning the houses of others. king magnus now had undisputed control of norway, and devoted himself to the care of his country and his people. by his vigorous rule he maintained peace and order, and rooted out all vikings and lawless men. with his restless and ambitious disposition, however, he yearned for greater deeds and for fame in war. wishing to retake the western countries, which had been dependencies of norway under his ancestors, he set out with a great fleet, and first came to the orkney islands. there he took the two earls, paul and erlend, prisoners, and sent them to norway, and placed his eight year old son sigurd as chief of the islands, leaving some wise men with him as counsellors. then king magnus proceeded to the southern hebrides, where he harried the coasts and plundered wherever he came. afterward he sailed to wales and won a battle at anglesey sound, and took the anglesey isle. after this battle he returned north with his fleet, and came first to scotland. he made a peace with the scotch king, by which all the islands lying west of scotland should belong to the king of norway. king magnus remained all the winter in the southern isles, and the next summer he returned with his fleet to norway ( ). during their long stay in the western countries king magnus and his men had adopted some of the habits and fashions of clothing of those countries. they wore short jackets and kilts without breeches. on account of this the king was called magnus barefoot or bareleg. a short time after his return to norway, king magnus became involved in war with the swedish king, inge steinkelson. magnus insisted that the gaut river and lake venern should be considered the boundary between the countries, so that the swedish district of dalsland would belong to norway. this war lasted for two years, and was generally unsuccessful for king magnus. in the spring of there was a battle at foxerne (at the gaut river, between kongself and wenersborg), in which the norwegians were overwhelmed by numbers, driven to flight, and many of them killed by the pursuing swedes. king magnus was easily known, for he was a stout man, had a red cloak over him, and bright yellow hair that fell over his shoulders. ogmund skoptason, who was also a tall and handsome man, rode at the side of the king. he saved the king by putting on the king's cloak. he started off in a little different direction, and the swedes, supposing him to be the king, rode after him, while the king proceeded to his ships. ogmund escaped with great difficulty, but succeeded at last in reaching the ships. king magnus then sailed down the river and proceeded north to viken. the next summer a meeting of the kings was agreed upon at konghelle on the gaut river. the danish king, erik eiegod, desired to have an archbishopric established for the northern countries, and it was important to have the other kings with him to execute this plan. by his mediation the meeting of the three kings was arranged, and they soon came to an understanding. each should possess the dominions his forefathers had held before him, and each should make good to his own men the loss and manslaughter suffered by them. king inge agreed to give king magnus his daughter margaret in marriage. this agreement was proclaimed to the people, and thus, within a short hour, the greatest enemies were made the best of friends. shortly afterward margaret, king inge's daughter, came to norway with an honorable retinue, and her wedding with king magnus was celebrated with great festivities. the norwegians liked their new queen, whom they considered as a pledge of the peace with sweden, and they therefore called her _fridkolla_, _i.e._, the peace-girl. when magnus had been nine years king of norway, he again sailed westward with a great force. he first conquered the isle of man, and afterward proceeded to ireland and conquered a great part of that country. he lay at ulster, and was about ready to return to norway, when he was suddenly attacked by an irish army. king magnus had a helmet on his head, a red shield on which there was a golden lion, and was girt with his costly sword, legbit; in his hand he had a short spear, and over his shirt a red silk cloak. king magnus received a wound, being pierced by a spear through both thighs above the knees. the king took hold of the shaft between his legs, broke the spear in two, and said: "this way we break spearshafts, boys; let us go briskly on; nothing ails me." a little later king magnus was hit in the neck with an irish axe, and this was his death-wound. then those who were behind fled. vidkun jonson, from biarkey (a great-grandson of thorer hund), instantly killed the man who had given the king his death-wound, and fled, after having received three wounds; but he brought the king's banner and the sword legbit to the ships. vidkun jonson was the last man who fled. the northmen who escaped sailed away immediately. king magnus was thirty years old when he fell. chapter xxii _sigurd the crusader ( - ), and his brothers, eystein and olaf_ in the autumn the remnants of king magnus's army and fleet left the island of man, and with his thirteen year old son, sigurd, returned to norway. on their arrival in norway, sigurd and his two brothers, eystein and olaf, were proclaimed kings. eystein, who was fourteen years old, was to have the northern, and sigurd the southern, part of the country. olaf was then four or five years old, and his third part of the country remained under the control of his two brothers. when the three sons of magnus barefoot had been chosen kings of norway, several of those who had been away taking part in the crusades returned home. they had made themselves renowned, and had many things to relate. some had been to jerusalem and some to constantinople, and it was said that those who would enter the military service at constantinople had the best of opportunities to earn great money. by these extraordinary tidings many of the northmen were seized by a desire to make similar expeditions, and they asked of the two kings that one of them should place himself at the head of such an expedition. the kings agreed to this, and had the preparations made at their common expense. many of the great men in the country took part in this enterprise, and when all was ready it was decided that sigurd was to go with the crusade, while eystein was to stay at home and govern the country for their joint account. four years after the fall of king magnus ( ), king sigurd sailed from norway with sixty ships. he first visited the king of england, henry i., and remained with him during the winter. in the spring he sailed with his fleet to valland (the west of france), and in the fall came to galicia, spain, where he stayed the second winter. along the coast he had several battles with the heathens. at the straits of gibraltar he defeated a large viking force, and on the island of forminterra, east of spain, he exterminated a band of moorish brigands and took a great booty. after similar victories on the islands of ivica and minorca, he came to sicily, where he was very well received by duke roger. it is stated in the saga that king sigurd, during his stay in sicily, conferred upon duke roger the title of king, though with what right he did so does not appear, nor is it mentioned by contemporary historians. in the summer king sigurd sailed to palestine, and at acre met baldwin, king of palestine, who received him particularly well, accompanied him to jerusalem and showed him the holy sepulchre and other sacred places. they also rode to the river jordan and bathed in it, and then returned to jerusalem. king baldwin and the patriarch of jerusalem presented sigurd with a splinter of the holy cross, with the condition that he, and twelve other men with him, should swear to promote christianity with all their power, and erect an archbishop's seat in norway if possible, and the splinter was to be kept where the holy king olaf reposed. thereupon king sigurd with his fleet assisted king baldwin in capturing the town of sidon, syria, and received his share of a great booty. he then proceeded to constantinople, and was received in the grandest style by emperor alexius. after having stayed here for some time and enjoyed the great festivities given in his honor, king sigurd made preparations for his return home. he gave the emperor all his ships, and the valuable dragon head which had adorned his own ship was set up in the sophia church. the emperor gave him horses and guides to conduct him through his dominions. leaving quite a number of his men, who went into the service of the emperor, king sigurd started homeward on horseback through bulgaria, hungary and germany. when in the midsummer of he came to schleswig in denmark, earl eilif gave him a magnificent reception. here he also met the danish king nils, who had married his stepmother, margaret fridkolla. king nils accompanied him north to jutland, and gave him a ship provided with everything needful. he then returned to norway, where he was joyfully received by his people. he had been absent three years and a half, and all agreed that no one had ever made a more honorable expedition from norway. from this day he was given the surname _jorsalfar_, _i.e._, the crusader. while king sigurd was attaining fame on his journeys far away from his country, king eystein was occupied with peaceful achievements at home. a great deal was done for the real benefit of the country, and under his wise government norway made progress in the same way that it had done in the time of his grandfather olaf kyrre. he improved the laws, built churches and monasteries, made harbors, and established beacon lights. on the mountain of dovre he built cabins, where travellers could find shelter. in bergen he built the monastery at nordnes, michael's church, the church of the apostles, and the great king's hall. in nidaros he built the church of st. nikolas. he also built a church at throndenes in halogaland. king eystein also extended the limits of the country, not by warfare and bloodshed, but by peaceful negotiations. thus he gained the allegiance of the inhabitants of the swedish province jemteland, which was formerly a norwegian province, but was taken by sweden after the fall of olaf trygvason. king olaf was taken sick and died before he reached manhood, and it seems to have been only in name that he had any share in the government. the relation between eystein and sigurd was not always the most cordial, and sigurd was usually to blame for it. the winter of - king eystein spent most of the time at sarpsborg. there lived at that time at mikle-dal in aamord a rich and influential man called olaf of dal. he spent a good part of the winter at sarpsborg with his daughter borghild, a very handsome and accomplished girl. borghild and king eystein often met, and the king found great pleasure in conversing with her. the people began to talk about this friendship, and king sigurd, who was then at konghelle, also heard of the girl that his brother had taken a liking to. when borghild heard it whispered that people talked ill of her intimacy with king eystein, she took it much to heart. when eystein had gone north she went to sarpsborg, and, after suitable fasts, carried red-hot irons to prove her innocence, endured the test, and thus cleared herself from all offence. sigurd then rode over to her home, where he remained all night, made borghild his concubine and took her away with him. they had a son, who was called magnus, and was immediately sent to halogaland to be fostered by vidkun jonson of biarkey. the relation between the brothers remained strained as long as they both were kings, but it never came to a breach of peace. occasionally they even peacefully met as each other's guests. on one of these occasions, when the two kings were feasting together at one of eystein's estates, they had what was called a "man-measuring," or comparison of merits. the saga says that in the evening, when the people began to drink, the ale was not good, so that the guests were very quiet and still. then said king eystein: "why are the people so silent? it is more proper in parties that people are merry, so let us find some jest over our ale that will amuse us; for surely, brother sigurd, all will like to see us happy." sigurd replied, rather bluntly: "do you talk as much as you please, but give me leave to be silent." eystein said: "it is a common custom over the ale-table for one person to compare himself with another, and now let us do so." sigurd did not answer. "i see," said eystein, "that i will have to begin this amusement, and i will take thee, brother, to compare myself with; we are both kings, have equal property, and there is no difference in our birth." sigurd then said: "dost thou remember that i could always throw thee when we wrestled, although thou art a year older?" eystein: "but i remember also that i was better at the games which require limberness." sigurd: "but how was it when we were swimming? i could duck thee whenever i wanted to." eystein: "but i could swim as far as thou, and could dive as well; and i could run on ice-legs[ ] so well that nobody could beat me, while thou couldst no more do it than a cow." [ ] ice-legs were skates made of sheep legs. sigurd: "i consider it a more useful and suitable accomplishment for a chief to be an expert at his bow; but i think thou couldst hardly draw my bow, even with the help of the foot." eystein: "i am not as strong at the bow as thou art, but my aim is as good; and i can run on skis[ ] much better than thou, and that is usually held a great accomplishment." [ ] ski (pronounced she), the long snow-shoe used in the north. sigurd: "it is much better for a chief who is to be the superior of other men that he is conspicuous in a crowd, and strong and powerful in weapons above other men." eystein: "it is just as well to be handsome, so as to be easily known from others on that account; and this behooves a chief, as a fair face and fine clothes go well together. i am also better versed in law than thou, and can speak better." sigurd: "it may be that thou hast learned more law-quirks than i, for i have had something else to do; neither will any one deny thee a smooth tongue. but many say that thy words are not to be trusted; that thy promises are not kept, and that thou talkest according to what those who are about thee say, which is not kingly." eystein: "often i promise what people ask of me, as i like to have all be joyful about me, and it happens that conflicting interests afterward appear, which must be considered. but thou mostly promisest people what is evil, and no one is pleased because thy promises are kept." sigurd: "all say that the expedition i made out of the country was a princely expedition, while thou wert sitting at home like thy father's daughter." eystein: "now thou hast touched the tender spot, and i would not have brought up this conversation if i had not known what to reply on this point. i think i equipped thee from home for this expedition like a sister." sigurd: "thou must have heard that i was in many battles in the saracen's land, and gained victory in all. i brought to this country many valuables, the like of which had never been seen here before. i became acquainted with great men, and was respected by them. i went to the saviour's grave, and saw thee not there. i went to the river jordan, in which the lord was baptized, and i swam across, but i saw thee not there. on the edge of the river there is a bush of willows, and there i twisted a knot of willows, and said that this knot thou shouldst untie, brother, or take the curse thereto attached." then king eystein said: "i have heard that thou hast had some battles abroad, but it was more useful for the country what i was doing here at home. north in vaagen (lofoten) i put up booths, so that the poor fishermen could find shelter; i also had a church built there, appointed a priest, and gave land for the support of the church; before that, they were nearly all heathens there. these people will remember that eystein was king in norway. across the dovre mountain lay the road from throndhjem. formerly many froze to death, and all suffered hardships on the journey; but i built a mountain inn and endowed it with property. those who hereafter travel there will remember that eystein was king in norway. off agdanes there were breakers and shoals and no harbor, so that many ships were wrecked; now there is a good harbor and good anchorage for the ships, and a church has also been built there. i had war-signals erected on the highest mountains, which is of benefit to all who live in the interior. i built the royal hall in bergen and the apostles' church and a covered passage between them. the kings who succeed us will remember my name. i built st. michael's church at nordnes (in bergen) and the monastery munkeliv at the same place. i improved the laws, brother, so that everybody could deal justly with his neighbor, and if the laws are upheld the government will be better. more by gentle words and wise dealings than by violence and breach of peace did i succeed in making the inhabitants of jemteland subjects of this kingdom. all these things may be considered small matters, but they will benefit the people of the country more than the fact that thou hast butchered bluemen in serkland for the devil and hurled them into hell. and if thou didst tie a knot for me, i will not untie it; but i think that if i had been inclined to tie a knot for thee, i could have tied such a knot that thou wouldst not have been king of norway on thy return to this country with but a single ship." this was the end of the "man-measuring." there was silence in the hall, and both kings were very angry. several other incidents are recorded, which show the jealousy that existed between the kings. however, peace was preserved between them as long as they lived. six years after his brother olaf's death, king eystein was taken suddenly sick and died at the age of thirty-three, august , . he was buried in christ church in nidaros, and it is said that so many mourners had never stood over any man's grave in norway since the death of king magnus the good. sigurd was now sole king of norway and free from the restraint which the pacific disposition of the popular eystein had placed upon him. shortly after the death of eystein, king sigurd entered into an agreement with the danish king nils sveinson, who had married his stepmother, margaret fridkolla. they agreed upon a joint invasion of sweden. the real motive was probably to secure this kingdom, which was at the time torn by internal strifes, for margaret's son magnus nilson; but the avowed purpose was to christianize the inhabitants of the swedish province of smaaland, where paganism still lingered. the two kings were to meet with their armies at oeresund. king sigurd collected a fleet of about three hundred and sixty ships and proceeded to the meeting-place; but through some mistake the danish army had already returned home. king sigurd held a council with his men, at which they spoke of king nils' breach of faith and determined to take revenge by plundering his country. they first plundered the town of tumartorp, and then sailed east to the merchant town kalmar, which they attacked. they plundered in the province of smaaland, compelled the people to accept christianity, and imposed on the country a tribute of , cattle. after this king sigurd returned to norway with a great booty. this expedition was called the kalmar levy, and was the only levy sigurd carried out while he was sole king. during the later years of his reign, king sigurd was often violent and showed unmistakable signs of insanity. one whit-sunday he sat in his high-seat with queen malmfrid at his side, and in his hand he held the holy book, written in gilded letters, which he had brought with him from constantinople. on the benches were seated many friends and guests. then the king suddenly got one of his attacks. he rolled his eyes and looked all around him, and then said: "many are the changes which may take place during a man's lifetime. two things were dearer to me than anything else, namely, this book and the queen; and now it is quite different. the queen does not know herself how hideous she is; for a goat's horn is standing out of her head. and this book is good for nothing." thereupon he threw the book on the fire which was burning on the floor, and gave the queen a blow with his fist between the eyes. before the king stood the young taper-bearer, ottar birting, who was on duty that day. he was of small stature, but of agreeable appearance, lively and bold. his surname birting had been given him on account of his black hair and dark complexion. he sprang forward and snatched the book from the fire, held it out, and said: "yes, sire, different were the days when you came with great state and splendor to norway, and all your friends hastened to welcome you. now days of sorrow have come over us; for to this holy festival many of your friends have come, and cannot be cheerful on account of your sad condition. now, good king, follow my advice! make peace first with the queen, whom you have so highly affronted, and then gladden by gentleness all your chiefs, friends, and servants." "what?" cried king sigurd. "dost thou dare to give me advice, thou black churl, thou great lump of a houseman's lad!" and he sprang up, drew his sword, and swung it, as if going to cut him down. but ottar stood quiet and upright, and looked the king straight in his face. the king turned round the sword-blade, and gently touched ottar on the shoulder with it. then he sat down in silence on his high-seat. all were silent, for nobody dared to utter a word. in a little while the king had quieted down. he then rebuked his liegemen for not having stopped his insane acts, and thanked ottar for what he had done. he concluded his speech by making ottar a liegeman, and said: "go thou now and sit among the lendermen, and be a servant no longer." ottar birting became in later years one of the most celebrated men in norway. a few years before his death king sigurd, in spite of the strong protest of bishop magne, discarded queen malmfrid, and married a beautiful and high-born woman, named cecilia. the last winter of his life king sigurd spent in oslo. in the spring he was taken violently sick. his friends saw in this the punishment of heaven for his improper marriage, and urged him to dissolve it; but he loved cecilia too dearly to acquiesce in this. at last, she herself suggested a separation. "i did not know that thou, too, wouldst leave me like the others," said the king sadly. he grew gradually worse after this, and on march , , he died, forty years old. his body was deposited in a vault in st. halvard's church. according to the saga, "the time of his reign was good for the country, for there was peace, and crops were good." chapter xxiii _magnus the blind and harald gille ( - )_ the year before king sigurd's death a young man named harald gille (or gillekrist, _i.e._, dedicated to christ) came to norway from ireland with his mother, and declared that he was a son of king magnus barefoot. it is known that magnus barefoot had had a mistress in ireland, and composed a verse once, in which he said he loved his irish girl above all others. when the young man and his mother came to king sigurd and told their story, the king told harald that he would not deny him the opportunity to prove his birth by submitting to the ordeal by fire, but on condition that, if he should prove his descent, he should not claim the kingdom in the lifetime of king sigurd, or of his son magnus, and to this harald gille bound himself by oath. harald agreed to the ordeal fixed by sigurd, and walked over nine glowing plowshares with bare feet, attended by two bishops. three days after the iron trial his feet were examined, and were found unburned. this ordeal was considered a divine judgment, and king sigurd acknowledged harald as his brother. it became a source of danger to the country that harald was acknowledged as a son of magnus barefoot; for at that time the law of royal inheritance was that every son of a king, the illegitimate as well as the legitimate, had a right to the kingdom. this encouraged many to proclaim themselves rightful heirs to the throne and to prove their rights by the ordeal of fire. the priests had the charge of such ordeals, and they probably had the result in their power. sigurd's son, magnus, conceived a great hatred of harald, and in this he had the sympathy of many of the leading men. immediately after the death of sigurd, his son magnus summoned a thing at oslo, and was there proclaimed king of all norway, according to an oath which the people had formerly sworn to king sigurd. harald gille was in tunsberg when he heard of sigurd's death. he broke his promise to the late king, summoned a thing, and had his followers proclaim him king of half the country. negotiations were opened with king magnus, and, as the latter found he had fewer people, he was obliged to divide the kingdom with harald. for about three years the two kings kept the peace, although there was little friendship between them. they both passed the fourth winter at nidaros, and invited each other as guests, but their people were always ready for a fight. in the spring king magnus sailed southward with his fleet, and collected men from all districts, telling the people that he wanted to take the kingly dignity from harald and give him such a part of the country as might be suitable. harald proceeded from throndhjem overland to the uplands and viken, and, when he heard what magnus was doing, he also collected an army. at fyrileif in viken a battle was fought, and magnus, who had a much superior force, won a decisive battle. harald's army was put to flight, and he himself barely escaped to his ships. he sailed south to denmark, and was well received by the danish king, erik emune, who gave him the province of halland in fief. after the battle of fyrileif (august , ), king magnus proclaimed himself sole king of norway. he showed great lenience toward harald's men, and had the wounded taken care of equally with his own men. his leading men advised him to keep his army together in viken, and remain there, in case harald should return from the south; but he thought this was not necessary, allowed the men to return to their homes, and proceeded with his court-men to bergen. it was not long before king magnus had cause to regret that he had disregarded the advice of his friends. harald had soon gathered a sufficient force to invade norway, and, while he proceeded along the coast, a good many people joined him. he came to bergen, where he met only nominal resistance, and king magnus was taken prisoner. king harald held a meeting with his counsellors, and here it was decided that magnus should be deprived of his dominions and should no longer be called king. he was then delivered to the king's thralls, who put out both his eyes, cut off one foot, and otherwise mutilated him. magnus, who after this was given the surname "the blind," was brought north to nidaros and entered the nidarholm cloister. when harald gille had been six years king of norway, sigurd slembe came to the country, and claimed that he too was a son of magnus barefoot. sigurd was in his childhood kept at his book, became a clergyman, and was consecrated a deacon. he showed early traces of a haughty, ungovernable spirit, and was therefore called slembidjakn (_i.e._, the bad deacon). when he heard that he was the son of magnus barefoot, he laid aside all clerical matters and set out on trading expeditions. in denmark he claimed to have established his parentage by the iron ordeal in the presence of five bishops, and when he arrived in bergen he requested harald gille to acknowledge him as his brother. king harald, however, accused him of being an accomplice in a murder case, and attempted to capture him. sigurd escaped and afterward arranged a conspiracy, in which many of harald's court-men took part. on st. lucia's night, december , , they came to the house where harald was sleeping with his mistress, thora, guthorm's daughter, killed the guardsmen outside, broke into the house, and killed the king in bed. sigurd and his men then took a boat and rowed out in front of the king's house. it was then just beginning to be daylight. standing in his boat sigurd spoke to the men on the king's pier, avowed the killing of harald, and requested them to choose him as chief according to his birth. but all replied with one voice, that they would never give obedience to a man who had murdered his own brother. "and if thou art not his brother, thou hast no claim by descent to be king." thereupon they outlawed sigurd and all his men. sigurd and his men saw it was best for them to get away, and fled northward to north hordaland. king harald gille was thirty-two years old when he was slain. he was buried in the old christ church in bergen. it was a few months before his death that pirates from vendland, under their king, rettibur, pillaged and burned the town of konungahella (konghelle). the town was afterward rebuilt, but never rose to the importance it had had before. chapter xxiv _sigurd mund, eystein, and inge krokryg, the sons of harald gille ( - )_ queen ingerid, the widow of harald gille, immediately after her husband's death held a consultation with the liegemen and court-men, and they decided to send a fast sailing vessel to throndhjem to request the people there to take harald's son (with thora, guthorm's daughter), sigurd, for king. sigurd, who was then in his fourth year, was being fostered by gyrd baardson. the people of throndhjem assembled at a thing and proclaimed sigurd king. queen ingerid herself proceeded to viken, where her son with harald, the one year old inge, was fostered by aamunde gyrdson. a borgar-thing (thing at borg or sarpsborg) was called, at which inge was chosen king. "thus," it is related in the saga, "almost the whole nation submitted to the brothers, and principally because their father was considered holy; and the country took the oath to them, that the kingly power should not go to any other man as long as any of king harald's sons were alive." it was agreed that the chief liegemen should rule in the name of the brothers while they were in their infancy. sigurd slembe proceeded north to nidaros, and took magnus the blind out of the cloister in the hope that, by making common cause with him, he could secure a better following. in this he succeeded to some extent, many of king magnus's old friends joining him. with quite a force they went south to the mouth of raumsdal fjord. here sigurd and magnus divided their forces, sigurd sailing westward to the orkneys to seek aid. magnus proceeded with his force through raumsdal over to the uplands, where he remained during the winter and collected an army. when it was rumored in viken that magnus the blind had come to the uplands, thiostolf aaleson and the other chiefs who were with king inge gathered a great army and proceeded up to lake miosen, and met the forces of magnus at minne ( ). a great battle was fought, and magnus was defeated. it is related that thiostolf aaleson carried the child-king, inge, in his tucked-up cloak during the battle; but thiostolf was hard pressed by fighting, and it was said that king inge suffered an injury there, which he retained as long as he lived. his back was knotted into a hump, and one leg was shorter than the other. hence he was afterward called inge krokryg, _i.e._, inge the hunchback. magnus fled eastward to gautland, where he received aid from the swedes, but being again defeated at krokaskog he fled to denmark. magnus the blind was well received by the danish king, erik emune, who collected a force and sailed north to norway with two hundred and forty ships. attacks were made at different places, and the town of oslo was burned, including st. halvard's church; but king erik soon returned to denmark after having suffered great losses, and the expedition was pronounced a total failure. sigurd slembe about this time returned from the west, and made cruises against the pirates in vendland, and occasionally harried the coasts of norway. in the fall of sigurd slembe and magnus the blind came up to norway from denmark with thirty ships manned by danes and northmen. they met the fleet of kings sigurd and inge at holmengraa (the gray holm), where a battle was fought. after the first assault, the danes fled home to denmark with eighteen ships, and thus sigurd had to fight against a greatly superior force. one after another of his ships was cleared. the blind and crippled magnus lay in his bed and could do nothing to defend himself. when his ship was almost entirely bare of men, his old and faithful court-man, reidar griotgardson, took king magnus in his arms and tried to leap over to another ship with him. but just then he was struck between his shoulders by a spear, which went through him and also killed king magnus. reidar fell backward on the deck and magnus upon him. everybody afterward spoke of how honorably he had followed his master and rightful sovereign. "happy are they who are given such praise after death," adds the writer of the saga. sigurd slembe leaped overboard and would probably have escaped, if he had not been betrayed by one of his own men. he was captured and put to death with the most horrible tortures. the men who took upon themselves to kill him, and who had personal grievances to avenge, broke his shin-bones and arms with an axe-hammer. then they stripped him and flogged him, broke his back, and finally hanged him. he bore the tortures with great fortitude. he never moved and never altered his voice, but spoke in a natural tone until he gave up the ghost, occasionally singing hymns. sigurd's friends afterward came from denmark for his body, took it with them and interred it in mary church in aalborg. when sigurd was dead, it was acknowledged by all, both enemies and friends, that he was the most remarkable and most gifted man that had lived in norway within memory of anybody living; "but in some respects he was an unlucky man," says the saga. magnus the blind was twenty-five years old when he fell. thiostolf aaleson transported his body to oslo and buried it in st. halvard's church, beside king sigurd, his father. norway now had peace for some years. about six years after sigurd and inge had been proclaimed kings, a third son of harald gille, named eystein, came from scotland accompanied by his mother, biadok, and by three men of high standing. they immediately proceeded to throndhjem, and at the oere-thing eystein was chosen king and given a third of the country with his brothers, sigurd and inge. king harald himself had spoken to his men about this son, so that eystein did not have to resort to the ordeal of iron in order to prove his right. a fourth son of harald gille, magnus, who was being fostered by the great chief kyrpinga-orm at studla, was also given the title of king, so that for a short time there were nominally four kings; but magnus was deformed, lived but a short time, and died in his bed. shortly after the death of harald gille, his widow, queen ingerid, had married the liegeman, ottar birting of throndhjem, who thus became king inge's stepfather and guardian, and who strengthened king inge's government much during his childhood. king sigurd was not very friendly to ottar birting, because, as he thought, ottar always took king inge's part. one evening ottar was assassinated in nidaros as he was going to the evening service. his relatives and friends accused king sigurd of having instigated this deed and were much enraged against him. a peasant army under the leadership of king eystein came to nidaros and a conflict seemed inevitable. but king sigurd then offered to clear himself by the ordeal of iron, and peace was made. king sigurd hastened to the southern part of the country, and the ordeal was never heard of again. many other things contributed to make sigurd unpopular. as he grew up he became a very ungovernable and restless man. he was a stout and strong man, of a brisk appearance. he had light brown hair and quite a handsome face except that he had an ugly mouth. for that reason he was called sigurd mund (mouth). his great immorality gave general offense to the people. he was not married, but had several illegitimate children. in king eystein made a cruise to the orkneys. some time after his return there was a quarrel between him and king sigurd, because the latter had killed two of eystein's court-men. a conference to settle this affair was arranged in the winter ( - ) in the uplands. they not only settled their difficulty, but privately arranged for a meeting of the three kings in bergen next summer. it was said that their plan was to depose king inge and give him two or three estates and a certain income, as he had not health to be a king. their plan might possibly have succeeded if it had not been for king inge's faithful man, gregorius dagson, who was then inge's guardian and adviser. he made preparations for the meeting, and when sigurd arrived in bergen, king inge had a superior force. after some hostile acts, king sigurd was attacked in his lodgings by gregorius dagson and slain, june , . two or three days after king eystein arrived from the east with thirty ships. he had along with him his brother's seven year old son haakon, a son of king sigurd. when he heard what had happened in bergen, eystein did not come up to the town, but anchored at florevaag, while a reconciliation between the brothers was attempted. the result was that king eystein returned to viken and king inge to throndhjem, and they were in a way reconciled; but they did not meet each other. about a year later, after several quarrels and provoking incidents, the two brothers met with hostile fleets at fors, ranrike, and made ready for battle. so many of king eystein's ships left him, however, and joined king inge that eystein had no choice but flight. he was captured by his brother-in-law, simon skalp, who murdered him after having allowed him to hear mass (august , ). king eystein was buried in fors church. inge was now sole king, but it was only a short time that he was in undisputed possession of the country. the adherents of the late kings, eystein and sigurd, chose the latter's son as their chief and gave him the title of king. he was then ten years old. he was afterward given the surname herdebred, _i.e._, the broad-shouldered. haakon and his adherents were outlawed by king inge, who took possession of all their estates, after they had sought refuge in sweden. gregorius dagson was then in konungahella, where the danger was greatest, and had with him a strong and fine body of men, with which he defended the country. he defeated haakon's force in a decisive battle at konungahella ( ). later haakon, who had strengthened his forces with a number of robbers and adventurers, harried the frontier districts in viken. one day he came to the estate of haldor brynjolfson, a brother-in-law of gregorius dagson, set fire to the house and burned it. haldor came out, but was instantly cut down together with his house-men; in all about twenty men were killed. haldor's wife, sigrid, gregorius dagson's sister, escaped to the forest in her night-dress; but the five year old aamunde gyrdson, a nephew of gregorius, was carried away by haakon's men. when gregorius dagson heard of this he took it much to heart, and set out to avenge the outrage. on january , , gregorius caught sight of haakon's force. there was a river, called befia, between them, and in trying to cross it on the unsafe ice gregorius fell through, and, while struggling to get ashore, was killed by an arrow shot by one of haakon's men. when king inge, who was then in oslo, heard of gregorius dagson's death, he cried like a child, and, after having recovered himself, swore to attack haakon, and either avenge his friend's death or die in the attempt. on the d of february, , king inge's spies brought him word that haakon was coming toward the town (oslo). the king ordered his men called together, and when they were drawn up in line they numbered nearly , . when the night was well advanced, the spies came and informed the king that haakon and his army were coming over the ice, which lay all the way from the town to the hoved isle. king inge then led his army out on the ice, and drew it up in order of battle. the king and his brother orm took their places under the banner in the centre. on the right wing, toward the nunnery, was gudrod, the exiled king of the south hebrides, and jon sveinson, a grandson of bergthor buk. on the left wing, toward thrælaberg, stood the chiefs simon skalp and gudbrand skafhoggson, who was married to king eystein magnusson's daughter maria. when haakon and his army came near to king inge's array, both sides raised a war shout. but then it appeared that there were traitors in inge's army. gudrod and jon gave the enemy a signal, and when haakon's men in consequence turned that way, gudrod immediately fled with , men; and jon, and a great body of men with him, ran over to haakon's army and assisted them in the fight. when this news was told to king inge, he said: "such is the difference between my friends. never would gregorius have done so in his life." some of inge's men now advised him to mount a horse and ride up to raumarike, where he could get help. but he refused to do so. "i have heard you often say, and i think truly, that it was of little use to my brother eystein that he took to flight; and yet he was in many ways an abler man than i. i was in the second year of my age when i was chosen king of norway, and i am now twenty-six. i have had misfortune and sorrow under my kingly dignity, rather than pleasure and peaceful days. i have had many battles; and it is my greatest luck that i have never fled, even when fighting against a superior force. god will dispose of my life, but i shall never betake myself to flight." as a result of the traitors' work haakon gained a complete victory. when daylight came, king inge was among the fallen. his brother orm tried to continue the battle, but at last had to take flight. on the following day orm was to have married ragna, a daughter of nikolas mase and widow of king eystein; but after the battle orm fled to svithiod, sweden, where his brother magnus was then king. haakon and his men took possession of the town, and feasted on what had been prepared for the wedding. those of inge's friends who survived the battle fled in all directions. only kristina, sigurd the crusader's daughter, remained in town, for she had a promise to the late king to fulfil. she found king inge's body, and had it laid in the stone wall of halvard's church, on the south side below the choir. chapter xxv _the church_ from the time of olaf kyrre (the quiet) there were three bishops in norway; one in nidaros, one in bergen, and one in oslo. during the reign of kings eystein and sigurd the crusader a bishopric was also established in stavanger. the bishops were chosen by the king, and the bishops appointed the priests. for the last half century the norwegian church, as well as the swedish, had been under the danish archbishop at lund. this arrangement appeared very unsatisfactory, as the norwegian church covered extended territory which called for special supervision. since the time of sigurd the crusader there had been a constant desire to obtain an independent norwegian archbishopric. finally, during the reign of harald gille's sons, the pope sent cardinal nicholas breakspear of alba from rome to norway ( ). cardinal nicholas, who was an englishman by birth and a very able and conscientious man, arrived in nidaros, and seems to have immediately understood the situation. the saga says that he had taken offence at the brothers sigurd and eystein. the reason is not stated, but it was perhaps on account of their immoral life. "they were obliged to come to a reconciliation with him; on the other hand, he stood on the most affectionate terms with king inge, whom he called his son." when an understanding had been arranged with the kings, the cardinal had john birgerson consecrated archbishop of throndhjem and gave him the consecrated vestment called pallium. he further settled that the archbishop's seat should be in nidaros, in christ church, where king olaf the saint reposed. at the same time a new bishopric was established at hamar, on lake miosen. under the jurisdiction of the archbishopric at nidaros were included the four other bishoprics of norway, oslo, hamar, stavanger, and bergen, and those of the dependencies, iceland, the orkneys, the faroes, greenland, and the hebrides with the isle of man. the establishment of the archbishopric at nidaros was probably the most important result of the mission of cardinal nicholas, but he also left other traces of his work. he changed the manner of choosing bishops, so that instead of being appointed by the king they were now to be elected by the canonical communities established at the cathedrals. the bishops after this exercised much greater authority than they had done before. the saga says of cardinal nicholas that "he improved many of the customs of the northmen while he was in the country. there never came a foreigner to norway whom all men respected so highly, or who could govern the people so well as he did. after some time he returned to the south with many friendly presents, and declared ever afterward that he was the greatest friend of the people of norway." cardinal nicholas was, shortly after his return to rome, elected pope and consecrated under the name of adrian iv. there were also several cloisters for monks in norway at this time. they were generally quite wealthy, as many people would give all they had to the cloisters. there were at throndhjem two cloisters, the nidarholm and elgeseter; in bergen, munkeliv, and a little further south lyse cloister, and near oslo the hoved isle. at gimsoe near skien there was a convent for nuns. chapter xxvi _haakon herdebred ( - )--erling skakke_ after the fall of king inge in the battle at oslo, haakon herdebred (the broad-shouldered) took possession of the whole country. he distributed all the offices, in the towns and in the country, among his own friends. as he was only about fourteen years old, he could not, of course, be expected to attend personally to the affairs of the government; but his liegemen governed in his name. many of the adherents of the late king inge refused to acknowledge king haakon. among them was the powerful and wily chieftain erling skakke. he was of a distinguished family, which resided on the studla estate in söndhordland. in his youth he had made a crusade to the holy land. on his way back through the mediterranean he had a fight with pirates and was wounded in the neck, which compelled him afterward to carry his head on one side; hence his surname (_skakke_, wry). by the assistance of king inge he obtained in marriage kristina, a daughter of king sigurd the crusader and queen malmfrid. a year after their marriage she bore him a son, who was named magnus. erling skakke called together in bergen all the chiefs who had been attached to king inge, and all his court-men, and the house-men of the late gregorius dagson. when they met they discussed the situation, and resolved to keep up their party and to elect a king in opposition to haakon. erling proposed to make the boy nicholas, a son of simon skalp and harald gille's daughter maria, king; but the others objected to this, and, after some discussion, erling was persuaded to do what had probably been his intention from the beginning, namely, to let his own son, magnus, be proclaimed king, although this was against the law of the country, the boy not being of royal birth on his father's side. a thing was held in the town, and here magnus erlingson, then five years old, was proclaimed king of the whole country. erling did not consider himself strong enough to immediately take up the fight with king haakon. he therefore proceeded to denmark, accompanied by his son and a large party. the danish king, valdemar the great, received them hospitably and promised to furnish the necessary help to win and retain norway, on condition that king valdemar was to get that part of norway which his ancestors, harald gormson and svein tjuguskeg, had possessed. with the help obtained in denmark, erling crossed over from jutland to agder, and thence sailed northward to bergen, where he punished those who had given allegiance to haakon. then he returned along the coast, and attacked and defeated haakon at tunsberg. haakon proceeded to throndhjem, where he had most of his friends, and erling returned to bergen, after having reduced the whole of viken in obedience to king magnus. in the spring king haakon started southward with quite a fleet. by a stratagem erling succeeded in surprising him, when his forces were divided, at sekken, in raumsdal, where a battle was fought. haakon was defeated, and the young king himself was killed ( ). haakon's body was buried in raumsdal; but afterward his brother, king sverre, had the body removed to nidaros and laid in the stone wall in christ church south of the choir. chapter xxvii _magnus erlingson ( - )--the birchlegs_ after the battle of sekken, erling skakke proceeded with king magnus and the whole army up to nidaros, where the thing was convened, and magnus was proclaimed king of all norway. they remained there but a short time, however, for erling did not put great faith in the throndhjem people. erling returned with his son to bergen, and later in the fall went to tunsberg, where he intended to stay during the winter. some of the late king haakon's chiefs, who had not been present at the battle, among them earl sigurd of reyr, refused to acknowledge king magnus. they left their ships in raumsdal and went over to uplands, where they found many adherents. they chose for their king a young son of king sigurd mund, named sigurd markusfostre (_i.e._, foster-son of markus), who had been brought up by markus of skog, a friend and relative of earl sigurd. quite an army was collected, but as the territory they held was small, their foraging became burdensome to the people, and there was considerable dissatisfaction. erling skakke took advantage of this, and when finally a battle was fought at ree, near tunsberg, he easily defeated sigurd's adherents. earl sigurd fell in the battle (february, ). sigurd markusfostre and his foster-father were captured and killed in the fall of the same year. the archbishop in nidaros was at that time eystein, a son of erlend himalde, who descended from a very influential family in the throndhjem district. in the summer of erling skakke had a conference with archbishop eystein in bergen, where all the bishops of the country were then assembled, together with the legate from rome, stephanus. the result of the conference was that magnus was to be anointed and crowned as king by the archbishop, while on the other hand it was agreed that in the future the church--represented by the archbishop and the other bishops, together with twelve leading men from each bishopric selected by the bishop--was to decide at the death of a king which one of his heirs was to succeed him; and if the king left no heirs of whom the magnates approved, they were to elect a successor to the throne. in the presence of the papal legate, the bishops, and a great many other clergymen, king magnus, who was then eight years old, was anointed and crowned by the archbishop. magnus, erling's son, was the first crowned king in norway. by this solemn act erling skakke believed he had secured his son's dynasty on the throne, and he could now with greater safety turn his whole attention to internal and foreign enemies, as he felt convinced that the greater part of the people would rally around the anointed king. when king valdemar of denmark heard that erling skakke had defeated haakon herdebred and sigurd markusfostre, and that his son magnus had been crowned king of the whole country, he sent a message to erling and reminded him of the agreement, by which viken was to be ceded to the danish king, if magnus became king of norway. erling and his advisers showed no inclination to adhere to the agreement, and the messenger returned to denmark without having accomplished anything. in the spring of king valdemar sailed with a fleet north to viken in order to take possession of the province. he tried peaceful proceedings; but he was so coolly received by the people of viken that he returned to denmark, preferring, as he said to his men, to use his army against the heathens of vendland. the hostility between norway and denmark, however, lasted some time. erling made a cruise to jutland and defeated the danes in a battle at dyrsaa, and returned to norway with a great booty. a second expedition of king valdemar to viken in the spring of became as indecisive as the first, so far as establishing any authority there; but he dealt the inhabitants of viken a hurtful blow by forbidding them to trade with denmark, at the same time forbidding the danes to export grain to norway. while erling skakke was absent on an expedition to denmark, a band of rebels was organized under the leadership of a new pretender, olaf, a son of king eystein magnusson's daughter maria, in her marriage with the chief gudbrand skafhoggson, who fell with king inge in the battle at oslo. olaf was brought up by an influential man named sigurd agn-hat. probably from the latter's surname the adherents of olaf were called hat-swains (hættesveiner). the hat-swains proclaimed olaf king, and went through the uplands, and sometimes down to viken, or east to the forest settlements. at rydjokel, near lake oiern, they surprised erling skakke and his men early one morning, and in the fight that followed killed several of erling's men and drove the remainder down to their ships. because olaf did not succeed in capturing erling, although the odds were all in his favor, he was afterward called olaf the unlucky (ugæva). the following spring the hat-swains met erling in battle at stanger, in the eastern part of viken, where erling won a decisive victory. sigurd agn-hat and many others of olaf's men fell here. olaf escaped by flight, went south to denmark, and spent the winter in aalborg, where he died of sickness the following spring ( ). the interruption of the navigation between norway and denmark under the decree of king valdemar worked great hardship to the norwegians, especially the inhabitants of viken, and erling skakke was finally induced to open negotiations for peace. he spent a winter in denmark, and in the following spring peace was finally concluded, the terms being that viken should be under the sovereignty of the danish king, but erling was to hold it in fief as king valdemar's vassal with the title of earl. erling returned to norway, and the peace with denmark was afterward well preserved. erling skakke considered it a policy of necessity to remove any person who by reason of royal birth might become rivals of his son to the throne. king sigurd mund had left a daughter named cecilia. as soon as she became old enough, he sent her to vermeland and made her the mistress of folkvid the lawman, knowing that the children from such a connection could not become dangerous rivals. about the same time one of the king's men discovered and brought to erling a young man named harald, who in all secrecy had been brought up in the uplands. he was the son of erling's own wife kristina, and his father was the late king sigurd mund. an illicit intimacy between such near relatives as kristina and sigurd was, under the church laws of the time, considered one of the greatest sins, and everything had therefore been done to keep the matter secret, and kristina had heretofore succeeded in concealing her guilt. when erling saw the illegitimate son of his wife before him, he said very little, and those present understood that the young man was doomed. king magnus, who had taken a liking to harald, interceded in his favor; but his father answered: "thou wouldst govern this kingdom but a short time in peace and safety, if thou wert to follow the counsels of the heart only." earl erling ordered harald to be taken to nordnes, where he was beheaded. erling skakke, however, did not succeed in removing all pretenders. in the year there appeared on the scene a young man called eystein, who claimed to be a son of king eystein haraldson. he was small of stature, and had a fine, soft face, and he was therefore generally called eystein meyla (little maiden). he first went on a visit to gautland to earl birger brosa, who was married to eystein's aunt, brigida, a daughter of harald gille. they received him well, and furnished him some assistance in men and money. eystein then proceeded to norway, and when he came to viken many people flocked to him. his followers proclaimed him king, and he remained in viken during the winter. his means of subsistence being soon exhausted, they commenced to rob and steal wherever there was an opportunity. they were not strong enough to remain long in any one place, but roamed about in mountains and forests. they suffered great hardships. their clothes being worn out, they wound the bark of the birch-tree about their legs, and therefore the people called them birkebeiner (_i.e._, birchlegs). during the two years which the birchlegs spent in and about viken ( - ), they had three battles in regular array with the peasants, and were victorious in them all; but at krokaskog they came near meeting a disaster in encountering a superior force, and they only saved themselves by a hasty flight. in the third summer ( ), when magnus had been king for thirteen years, the birchlegs started on a more serious expedition. they procured ships and sailed along the coast gathering goods and men. after having passed out of viken they proceeded with great speed northward to nidaros, and no news preceded them until they reached the throndhjem fjord. erling and his son magnus, who were in bergen, did not hear of their having sailed by. the birchlegs easily overcame the opposition in nidaros, and eystein was proclaimed king by the throndhjem people, who had never liked king magnus. the birchlegs afterward proceeded to orkedal, where, upon reviewing the troops, they found that they had about , men. they then went to the uplands, and on to thoten and hadeland, and from there to ringerike, subduing the country wherever they came. earl erling and king magnus had remained in bergen while the birchlegs were in the north. then they agreed that erling should remain with a strong force in bergen, in case the enemy should come down along the coast, while king magnus, who was now twenty years old, was to go to viken and take up his residence in tunsberg, in order to protect that part of the country from possible enemies. king magnus went to tunsberg, where he and orm, "king's-brother," had their christmas festivities. in january, , king magnus with his army met the birchlegs at ree, and won a decisive victory over them. the whole body of the birchlegs was scattered far and wide. eystein fled into a peasant's house, and begged for his life; but the peasant killed him and brought his body to king magnus at the ramnes farm. all the birchlegs took flight, as they had no hope of mercy from erling skakke or king magnus. some went to thelemark, where they had their families, and others proceeded east across the frontier to sweden. king magnus's men pursued the fugitives for a time, and killed as many as they could overtake. king magnus then returned to tunsberg, and gained great renown by this victory. it had heretofore been said by all that erling, his father, was his best shield and support. but after gaining a victory over so strong and numerous a force with fewer men, king magnus had shown that he could stand alone, and it was predicted that he would become a warrior as much greater than his father, earl erling, as he was younger.[ ] [ ] with this battle at ree end the sagas of the norse kings by snorre sturlason. the defeated birchlegs, who fled across the swedish frontier, met in vermeland a man who was especially qualified to take the leadership of this headless band. his name was sverre, and he claimed to be a son of king sigurd mund. he was at present staying with his sister cecilia, who was the mistress of folkvid lawman. during the latter part of the reign of harald gille's sons a combmaker in bergen by the name of unas married a girl by the name of gunhild. unas was probably a faroe islander by birth; his brother roe became bishop of the faroe islands in . gunhild belonged to a distinguished family in western norway. shortly after their marriage gunhild bore a son, who was named sverre, and everybody supposed that unas was his father. sverre remained in bergen until he was five years old, when he was sent over to the faroe islands, to be brought up by unas's brother roe. he was educated for the priesthood and was in time ordained as deacon. when he was twenty-four years old, his mother disclosed to him the fact that unas, who had died a short time ago, was not his father, but that he was the son of king sigurd mund. from that day sverre became very thoughtful. it appeared to him to be too great a task to make war on king magnus and earl erling; but, on the other hand, it did not seem manful to sit quietly as a poor peasant's son when he was the son of a king. he therefore gave up his clerical position and embarked for norway. here he was informed that his kinsman, eystein meyla, had accepted the title of king from the birchlegs; but he did not consider it wise to enter into any dealings with him. without making himself known, he spent some time in different parts of norway, investigating the sentiment of the people. he made the acquaintance of earl erling and king magnus, and often talked with them and their court-men, who found the young clergyman from the faroe islands a pleasant and entertaining companion, and by his cunning he learned from them many things which they would not have talked about if they had known who he was, or what plans he was nourishing. the next winter he went to sweden, first to earl birger and then to his sister cecilia in vermeland, where he met the remnants of the birchleg band. the birchlegs told him of the fall of eystein meyla and urged him to become their chief. sverre for a long time declined, as the whole band consisted of only seventy men, who were all in great poverty, some of them wounded and without clothes, and all almost unarmed. all his objections, however, were of no avail, and they finally compelled him to become their chief. in the spring of sverre set out with his seventy men to fight for the crown of norway. he first went south toward viken, and on the way he was joined by so many that, when he came to saurboe, he had four hundred and twenty men. he held a thing, and against his protest they proclaimed him king. sverre soon discovered that a good many of his followers were but thieves and rascals, who were very much dissatisfied when he forbade them to rob and plunder the peasants. he started back toward vermeland, and when he arrived at eidskog and mustered his force, he found that it had again shrunk to seventy men. as he heard that the peasants of thelemark, some of whom had served in the birchleg bands under eystein meyla, were unfriendly to earl erling and king magnus, he sent messages to them and promised to redress their grievances if they would join him. they were requested to meet him up north, where he was now going. sverre well understood that, with his small force, he could not reach the throndhjem country through the eastern, well-populated district, so he decided to proceed by unknown and almost impassable roads and make an unexpected invasion into the country. he passed through dense forests and wildernesses, through dalarne and jemteland, where he and his men underwent untold hardships. at times they had nothing to eat but sap, bark, and berries, dug up from under the snow. finally, after many struggles, sverre reached his destination early in june, . his band had received some additions on his way through jemteland, and he was now joined by eighty peasants from thelemark, so that he had a force of about two hundred men. outside of nidaros he defeated and dispersed an army that was sent against him, and then marched into the town, where he met practically no opposition. he showed himself as a generous victor, and gave quarter to all who asked for it. after a few successful expeditions in the neighborhood he summoned the oere-thing, where he was proclaimed king of norway ( ). when king magnus and earl erling heard what had been going on in throndhjem, they gathered a large fleet and sailed northward along the coast. sverre's force was so small that he did not dare to await their arrival, but left nidaros with his men and proceeded across the mountains toward the southern part of the country. for two years he and his men now led a life of want and suffering, wandering from district to district, living most of the time in the forests and mountains, and subsisting on what they could obtain on their foraging expeditions into the settlements. they were pursued from time to time by king magnus's men, and had many small battles with them. it was only by sverre's great cunning, wisdom and perseverance that they got through some of the greatest dangers. at last, in june, , sverre considered himself strong enough to meet erling and magnus, and in a battle at kalveskindet, near nidaros, he defeated their forces. earl erling fell in the battle, and king magnus saved himself by flight. in the battle king magnus suffered a considerable loss. several of his prominent liegemen and sixty court-men were slain. sverre captured most of the enemy's ships, among them the "olafssuden," which king magnus himself had commanded. erling skakke was buried outside the christ church, and sverre, who seldom lost an opportunity to make a speech, held a funeral sermon over him. the battle at kalveskindet and the fall of earl erling brought a great change in the fortunes of sverre and the birchlegs. sverre's power and influence grew rapidly, and in a short time the greater part of the people outside of king magnus's immediate surroundings were willing to acknowledge him as king. heretofore the name "birchlegs" had been a contemptuous nickname; but now it became an honorable appellation, which everybody was proud to carry. king magnus and sverre seemed to have exchanged roles. magnus, the anointed and crowned king, was now considered the usurper, while sverre was considered the rightful king. magnus's court-men and men-at-arms were soon looked upon as a band of adventurers, and they were called "heklungs," because it was told of them that they had once robbed a beggar-woman, who had her few coins wrapped up in her cloak (_hekl_). after the battle at kalveskindet, king sverre's men received pay for their services, and he distributed among them the honors and dignities which he had promised them. he appointed district officers throughout the whole of the throndhjem country. many prominent and high-born men of this part of the country soon came to him and offered their allegiance, and he therefore declared that throndhjem should hereafter be considered his real home, and he called the people there his dearest subjects, remembering what loyalty they had always shown his father and his family. king magnus spent the year following his defeat mostly in bergen, where he had many strong friends, among them archbishop eystein and orm king's-brother (a half-brother of harald gille's sons). afterward he went to viken, where he spent the winter and gathered an army for a new expedition against his rival. after a short stay at nidaros, king sverre made a levy throughout throndhjem, and proceeded with a fleet south to bergen; but when he arrived there magnus had already gone to viken. he therefore returned to nidaros, but on his way north he installed officers in all the districts he passed. the winter of - he spent in nidaros. in the spring king magnus appeared outside of nidaros with a force much more numerous than the one sverre had been able to muster, and a bloody battle was fought on the plains of the ilevolds. the battle resulted in a complete victory for sverre. king magnus and some of his chiefs saved themselves by flight and sailed south with a few ships. king magnus went first to bergen, but soon after proceeded south to his kinsman, king valdemar of denmark, by whom he was well received. but orm king's-brother went to viken, and archbishop eystein sailed over to england, where he remained for three years. from here he had sverre declared under the ban of the church; but sverre does not seem to have paid any attention to this step. about a month after the battle at the ilevolds, king sverre appeared with his fleet outside of bergen. resistance was useless, and the inhabitants gave him a good reception. he remained in bergen all winter ( - ), and early in the spring quelled an uprising of peasants under the leadership of jon kutiza. sverre promptly punished the rebels, and the peasants had to pay heavy fines. later in the spring king magnus and orm king's-brother came north with a strong fleet, and a battle was fought at nordnes, near bergen. a good many men fell on both sides; but magnus was again defeated and compelled to save himself by flight. the birchlegs captured eighteen of magnus's ships and brought them into the town. they also took other rich booty, for magnus was at that time well supplied with money and goods. magnus went to stavanger, and it was but a short time before he was again ready to attack sverre at bergen. this time, however, sverre wished to avoid a battle, and sailed with his ships north to nidaros, where he proceeded to improve the fortifications of the town. meanwhile magnus remained in bergen. during sverre's stay in nidaros there came to him a young man named erik, who claimed to be a son of king sigurd mund. he had been in many foreign lands, had been in the service of the emperor at constantinople, and on a pilgrimage to the holy land, where he had bathed in the river jordan. he now asked leave to prove his royal descent by the iron ordeal. after a consultation with his friends and chiefs, sverre permitted him to undergo the ordeal upon the condition that he must not aspire to the crown. sverre prescribed the oath to be taken by the young man in submitting to the ordeal to prove that he was the son of sigurd mund "and the brother of sverre." in this way sverre meant to obtain incidentally a confirmation of his own title. but erik refused to undertake to establish the descent of anybody but himself, and omitted the additional words. he successfully underwent the ordeal, and king sverre acknowledged him as his brother, and gave him a command in his royal guard. the conflict between sverre and magnus continued for three years more. in king sverre opened negotiations for a cessation of hostilities, offering first to share the kingdom with magnus, and afterward proposing that they should reign alternately for three years each. magnus, however, declined all offers, and the war was continued. during the years and , king magnus made three attacks on the birchlegs at nidaros with varying success. in the summer of sverre sailed with a fleet down to bergen, where he surprised and defeated the heklungs, and compelled magnus to flee east to viken. the birchlegs did not pursue the enemy very far, but returned to bergen, and took possession of magnus's whole fleet and a rich booty. magnus's crown, sceptre and whole coronation outfit fell into sverre's hands. many men, who had heretofore been attached to magnus, now joined king sverre and swore him allegiance. archbishop eystein, who had just returned to the country after a three years' sojourn in england, was reconciled to king sverre, and returned to his archbishopric in nidaros. after a short stay in bergen, and having installed district officers in sogn, hordaland, and rogaland, sverre returned with his whole army to nidaros. magnus again proceeded to denmark, where the previous year king knut vi. had succeeded his father, valdemar the great, on the throne. magnus made a final attempt to defeat sverre in the summer of , when he came up from denmark with a large fleet. king sverre had sailed into the norefjord, a narrow arm of the sognefjord, in order to punish the inhabitants of sogn for having killed his prefect, ivar darre, and some other officers. magnus sailed in after him with his greatly superior force, and a fierce battle was fought at fimreite, june , . the birchlegs fought with great heroism, and a large number of men fell. the battle commenced in the afternoon. at sundown the first heklungs turned to flee, and at midnight the battle was finished. the heklungs had been completely routed. two thousand men had fallen, among them king magnus himself and the most prominent chieftains, the flower of the aristocracy of gulathingslag and viken. among the slain were harald, the son of king inge; orm king's-brother and his son, ivar steig; aasbiorn jonson of thiorn; ragnvald, the son of jon hallkelson; eindride torve, jon kutiza's son, and many other prominent men. king magnus was twenty-eight years old at the time of his death, having borne the title of king for twenty-three years. his body was found two days after the battle, and was brought to bergen, where it was buried with great ceremony. chapter xxviii _sverre sigurdson ( - )_ after the fall of magnus erlingson, king sverre brought the whole country under his control, and no one dared to refuse him obedience. the same sagacity that he had shown in his struggles to gain the power, he also used in his efforts to maintain and strengthen it. he knew that he could expect nothing from the magnates of the powerful families, who resided on the largest estates throughout the country, and who looked with contempt upon the poor and lowly people that had constituted his following and helped him into power. he had to try to weaken the influence of this higher class and to look to the common people for his main support. the changes which king sverre introduced in the domestic conditions of the country were in close coherence with the development of the country since the time of harald the fairhaired and olaf the saint. the kingdom of his predecessor had been upheld by the clergy and the aristocracy, the latter endeavoring to strengthen its power and dignity by united action, while the clergy tried to enforce the hierarchical principles of the time in the church of norway. king sverre, on the other hand, depended upon the masses of the people, with their traditions and customs. for their benefit king sverre appointed a new class of officers, who were called lawmen. they were to be learned in the law, and their duty was to see that the law was justly administered at the things, and to aid the peasants in all legal matters. there had been a similar class of officers before, bearing the same title, but they had been elected at the things, while from now on they were appointed by the king, especially for the benefit of the poorer classes, who themselves had little knowledge of the law, and often needed protection against the rich and powerful. another class of officers whose functions were changed in such a manner as to greatly strengthen the king's power were the prefects (_sysselmen_), whom the king appointed throughout the country. these prefects did not have the inherited dignity of the liegemen (_lendermen_), who were royal vassals and exercised independent authority, but were servants of the king and the representatives of his power. they supplanted the liegemen in their executive and judicial functions, and gradually transferred to the crown a great part of the power of the aristocracy. sverre was too shrewd to break entirely or too suddenly with the old influences, and where they had been loyal, he selected men from the high old families for his officers. this was especially the case in the throndhjem country, where his party was strongest. but he found positions enough with which to reward the faithful men who had followed him through his struggles. some were made chiefs in the army, and some were appointed prefects; some were given landed estates, and others were helped to rich marriages. baard guthormson of rein was married to the king's own sister, cecilia, after her marriage with folkvid lawman had been declared void. king sverre himself married margreta, a sister of the swedish king, knut erikson. before this marriage king sverre had four children, namely, two sons, sigurd (called lavard) and haakon, and two daughters, cecilia and ingeborg. with queen margreta he had only a daughter, kristina. the peace was not of long duration. the remnants of the heklung party, which had been broken up by the battle in norefjord, with several leading men, only waited for a favorable opportunity to start a revolt, and the opportunity soon offered itself. a monk, who called himself jon and claimed to be a son of king inge the hunchback, left the cloister on the island near oslo, and soon gathered about him a numerous band. he first went to tunsberg, where, in september, , he attacked and killed one of sverre's prefects together with thirty men, and then summoned a thing and was proclaimed king. the birchlegs called this new party the kuvlungs or cowlmen, because their leader had worn a monk's hood or cowl. the kuvlungs continued the rebellion for three years with varying success. they made several attacks on bergen and nidaros, and at times their strength was quite formidable. finally their band was destroyed in bergen, in december, , and their leader was killed. after his death it appears to have been satisfactorily proven that jon kuvlung was not the son of king inge the hunchback, as he had claimed. the rebellious spirit had become quite general, and king sverre had many of these revolts to suppress. after the kuvlung party had been broken up, a new band, called the varbelgs (wolf skins), was organized by the chief, simon kaareson, who had brought from denmark, as a pretender to the throne, a boy named vikar, said to be a son of king magnus erlingson. this party was badly defeated in a battle near tunsberg, where simon kaareson and the little vikar were both killed. another band, under the leadership of thorleif breidskegg, who claimed to be a son of king eystein haraldson, was next destroyed in viken ( ). the next party that made war on king sverre were the oyskeggs (the islanders), so called because they received considerable aid from the orkney islands, where earl harald favored them. their leaders were hallkel jonson, who was married to king magnus erlingson's sister ragnhild, and olaf, a brother-in-law of earl harald of the orkneys. they chose sigurd, a son of king magnus, as their king. the oyskeggs developed a considerable strength in viken, and from there made piratical expeditions to the danish waters and the baltic, and therefore boastingly called themselves the goldlegs (_gullbeiner_). one of the men, whom king sverre sent against them, sigurd jarlson (earl's son), an illegitimate son of erling skakke, turned traitor, and became one of the leaders of sverre's enemies. in the fall of the oyskeggs captured bergen without much resistance, king sverre being then in throndhjem. in the spring king sverre came south with a fleet, and a bloody battle was fought at florevaag, near bergen (april , ). the oyskeggs were finally defeated, a great number of them, including hallkel jonson, olaf (earl harald's brother-in-law), and sigurd magnusson, the pretender, being slain. king sverre had thus gained a victory, but at great cost, for many of his best men had fallen, or died from the wounds they had received in the battle. among the latter was baard guthormson of rein. while king sverre was almost constantly engaged in quelling rebellion, he was also carrying on a hard struggle with the hierarchy. archbishop eystein had been obliged to make peace with king sverre; but when eystein died ( ), bishop erik of stavanger, a man with strong hierarchical tendencies, became his successor. archbishop erik named as his own successor to the bishopric of stavanger one of sverre's bitter enemies, nicholas arneson, a half-brother of king inge the hunchback. king sverre refused to recognize this selection, because he had not been consulted, and named another in his place. finally, through the mediation of queen margreta, who was a relative of nicholas arneson, the matter was compromised, and sverre consented to nicholas being installed as bishop in oslo. the fight between the king and the hierarchy was, however, continued in other matters. archbishop erik was constantly trying to extend the prerogatives of his office. he claimed the exclusive right to the control of all church property; he wanted the tribute to the church paid according to actual weight in silver instead of in current coin, whereby he would about double the tax, and, finally, he wanted to surround himself with a court and keep ninety men-at-arms in his service, while the law allowed only thirty men altogether, and only twelve of them armed. during his stay in nidaros, in - , king sverre summoned a thing to have these matters settled. the law was read, and the case was decided in favor of the king. archbishop erik now found the surroundings too uncomfortable, and hurried away from the town, taking with him all the goods he could collect. he proceeded to denmark, where he was cordially received by archbishop absalon. shortly after his arrival in denmark he prepared a letter to the pope, in which he complained of king sverre's infringements on the rights of the church. in response to this letter, pope celestinus iii., on the th of june, , declared king sverre in the ban of the church. before the papal bull reached norway, however, king sverre had compelled the bishops to crown him at bergen, june , . for some time king sverre treated the papal bull with contempt, and even intimated that it was an invention of the bishops in denmark; but later he sent ambassadors, under the leadership of bishop thore of hamar, with a message to the pope, in which he put matters in a different light from that given them by archbishop erik. the fate of these ambassadors is enveloped in mystery. they remained in rome till the end of , and then started for home. during their homeward journey they were suddenly taken sick in denmark and died, having probably been poisoned. some time afterward some danes came to king sverre with letters bearing the seal of the pope, and which, they said, had been pawned with them by the ambassadors for a certain amount of money. sverre redeemed the documents, which purported to revoke the ban against the king, and had them publicly read in the churches. whether king sverre knew that these documents were not genuine does not appear. by the united efforts of king sverre's enemies among the clergy and the aristocracy a rebellious band was organized in , which was to become more dangerous than all the enemies he had heretofore had to fight. the principal leader of this movement was bishop nicholas arneson, who was prepared to do anything to overthrow king sverre. a favorable opportunity offered itself. the byzantine emperor, alexios komnenos, had sent a norwegian named reidar the messenger (_sendemand_) to norway to ask king sverre to send him , good mercenaries for the service of the emperor. king sverre replied that he had no troops to spare; but he was persuaded to allow reidar to enlist such sons of peasants and traders as might wish to enter the service of the emperor. after reidar had collected a considerable force, he was induced by bishop nicholas to enter into a league with him against king sverre. at a fair in halland he met bishop nicholas and archbishop erik, who had with them a large body of norwegians, mostly from viken. with them was also a young man named inge, said to be a son of king magnus erlingson. the two armies united and proclaimed inge king, and then made an invasion in viken, where they were soon joined by sigurd jarlson, the former oyskegg chief, and many other prominent men. the new rebel army was called _baglers_, from the word _bagall_, a bishop's crosier, to signify that bishop nicholas was considered the real founder and chief leader of the party. during the last six years of his life king sverre had a continual war with the baglers. his first encounter with them was in saltoe sound, in viken. after an indecisive battle there he returned with his ships to bergen and proceeded to nidaros, where he spent the winter - . the baglers meanwhile summoned the borgar-thing, where inge was proclaimed king. the next year king sverre gathered a strong force and proceeded to viken, and defeated the baglers at oslo, july , . after the battle bishop nicholas sent a messenger to king sverre that he was willing to make peace; but sverre, who knew how little bishop nicholas was to be depended upon, sent word back that he would only treat with him if he would come in person. bishop nicholas did not go to meet the king, but instead hastened with the chiefs and the remaining force of the baglers overland to nidaros, where the wooden citadel (blockhouse) "zion" fell into their hands by the treason of its commander, thorstein kugad. they destroyed some of the fortifications and burned a number of sverre's ships and took possession of the remainder. a part of the bagler force went aboard the captured ships, and sailed southward under the leadership of sigurd jarlson. the others returned to viken the same way they had come. king sverre spent the following winter in bergen, and in the spring ( ) sailed north and met the baglers in battle at thorsberg, near the mouth of the throndhjem fjord. after a hard fight the birchlegs were defeated with great loss. the king then hastened back to bergen, which had in the meantime been occupied by the bagler chief sigurd jarlson. the latter, however, having, by a clever trick of one of the birchlegs, been led to believe that king sverre was approaching with a much superior force, left the town before sverre arrived. during the summer of , which for a long time afterward was called the bergen-summer, there was continual skirmishing in and about bergen. on the night after august th the baglers, led by bishop nicholas, rowed up to the landings with two ships full of wood. at the bishop's command they set fire to the town in three different places, and soon the greater part of it, including six churches, was laid in ashes. the birchlegs had all they could do to save the wooden citadel (_sverre's borg_). the inhabitants of bergen could never afterward forgive bishop nicholas and his party for the loss they suffered by this fire; but as heartily as they had heretofore hated the birchlegs they now hated the baglers. sverre found his position untenable after the town had been burned, and proceeded with his men overland to throndhjem. meanwhile the baglers, who had many ships, were masters on the coasts. many deserted the king and supported the baglers; but there were also some of their men who went over to sverre. among the latter was thorstein kugad, who had surrendered his garrison in nidaros, and who now returned to sverre and begged his pardon. this was given, and thorstein became one of sverre's useful men. king sverre spent the winter - in nidaros. his position was a desperate one. outside of the throndhjem country he had very little power, and the baglers were masters at sea. then, furthermore, a terrible blow was dealt sverre, as pope innocent iii., in october, , issued his bull declaring sverre to be in the ban of the church, and laying the whole country under interdict, closing all churches and forbidding the administration of the sacraments wherever the people acknowledged king sverre. it is easily understood what horror such a papal bull would create at that time. sverre did not lose courage, however, but called the throndhjem people together and asked them to help him. they showed their usual loyalty, and with their help he set to work to build a new, strong fleet and to improve the fortifications of the town. in the spring the baglers appeared in the throndhjem fjord with a strong fleet, and, after some skirmishing, the two fleets met in battle at strindsö, june , . it was a desperate fight, where no quarter was given. the result was a victory for king sverre and the birchlegs, who returned to town with most of the enemy's ships. the prisoners taken on this occasion were nearly all slain. bishop nicholas, who watched the beginning of the battle from a safe distance, fled with his ship when he saw that the baglers were losing, and sigurd jarlson and reidar the messenger followed his example. the baglers who escaped from the battle of strindsö proceeded to denmark. sverre, with his fleet, pursued them a part of the way, but gave up the chase and proceeded to oslo, where he intended to go into winter-quarters. in january, , the baglers came up from denmark with a number of small ships under the leadership of reidar the messenger and inge bagler-king. some of them landed near oslo and killed sverre's kinsman, earl philip. not feeling strong enough, however, to attack king sverre's forces they withdrew during the night and sailed to bergen. afterward they made a sudden but unsuccessful attack on nidaros, which was defended by an army of , peasants. during the winter king sverre attempted to make a levy of troops in viken, intending to send home some of his throndhjem people; but the inhabitants, who had never been greatly attached to king sverre, murmured at this, and the result was a great uprising of the peasants in viken and the uplands. on the day secretly appointed, march st, sverre's prefects at tunsberg and several other places were killed, and a few days later a force many times as large as sverre's marched against him from three different directions. on this occasion sverre displayed a masterly leadership, and his men fought like heroes. during the day there were eight desperate encounters, and, in spite of the seemingly overwhelming force of the rebels, sverre won the day. he afterward punished the peasants by exacting large fines in money and provisions. sverre had a few indecisive battles with the baglers the same year, and spent the following winter in bergen. in the spring of he called a new levy from the north, and, during the summer, sailed to viken. reidar the messenger, with several chiefs and two hundred and forty men, had fortified himself on the _slotsberg_ (castle mountain) at tunsberg, and defied any attack. king sverre organized a regular siege, determined not to abandon it until he had conquered this dangerous enemy. finally, when the baglers were nearly starved to death, reidar and his little band surrendered to sverre, who not only spared their lives, but gave them the best of treatment. he advised them not to eat much in the beginning; but several of them disregarded this advice and died. this remarkable siege had lasted for twenty weeks, or from the first week in september, , to the fourth week in january, . at last king sverre's physical strength succumbed to the hardships and cares which night and day he had had to endure. during his stay in tunsberg he had been ailing, but, at first, his illness did not seem to be serious. when he left tunsberg, however, he was obliged to keep his bed. he had his bed placed on the raised deck in the stern of his ship, and here also stood the bed of the bagler chief, reidar. during the journey the king found much pleasure in talking with the intelligent old chief, who could tell him of his crusades and other journeys in distant countries. they arrived in bergen toward the end of february, and the king was carried to the royal residence, where his bed was placed in the large hall. when he understood that death was near, he called the priests and his trusted friends to him. he first let them read and seal a letter which he had prepared, to his son haakon in throndhjem, about the management of the affairs of the government after his death. then he solemnly declared that he had only one son living, namely haakon (his other son, sigurd lavard, having died the year before), so that if any one else should claim after his death to be his son he would be an impostor. then he desired to be lifted into his high-seat, and seated there he received the last ointment. afterward he said: "i have had more strife, disturbance, and adversity than quiet and peaceful days during my reign, and, so far as i can judge, many have been my maligners only from enmity toward me. god forgive them all, and judge between them and me in my whole cause." soon after, on saturday, march , , king sverre expired. his body was buried in the christ church, and on his tombstone was engraved the following epitaph: "here lies one who was the ornament of kings, the support, picture and paragon of faith, honor and bravery, his country's defence, the vindication of justice, the delight of all his men." after his death even those who had been his enemies said that such a man as sverre had not lived in norway in their time. chapter xxix _haakon sverreson ( - ), guthorm sigurdson ( ), and inge baardson ( - )_ after sverre's death his only son, haakon, who was then twenty-eight or thirty years old, was proclaimed king of norway. in the letter which sverre wrote to his son on his death-bed, he advised him to make peace with the church, and haakon lost no time in calling the archbishop back to the country and in reconciling himself with the bishops. the clergy seemed to be very eager for peace, and each bishop returned to his bishopric, while the archbishop revoked the ban and the interdict without even taking time to obtain the consent of the pope. for this haste in making peace with the king the archbishop was afterward sharply reprimanded by the pope; but in the meanwhile the good relations between king and clergy had strengthened haakon's position, and the people in general readily acknowledged him. the bagler party gradually lost most of its support, and after their so-called king, inge magnusson, had been killed by one of his own men on an island in lake miosen ( ), the party was, for the time being, broken up. some went to king haakon and begged for mercy, the remainder fled either to sweden or denmark, and there was again peace in the country. the peace, however, did not last very long, this time probably on account of strained relations between the king and his stepmother, the queen-dowager margreta. during the festivities in bergen at christmas, , king haakon was taken suddenly ill, and on january , , he died, with all the symptoms of having been poisoned. it was the general opinion that queen margreta was the cause of his death. she was obliged to leave the country, and returned to her old home in sweden. the death of king haakon caused great sorrow, for he had been very popular; besides, it was generally supposed that he left no issue. two days after haakon's death, a council was held by bishop martin and the chiefs of the birchlegs, and it was decided to elect haakon's nearest heir, his nephew, guthorm sigurdson, a son of sigurd lavard, as his successor, although he was only four years old. haakon galen, a son of sverre's sister cecilia and folkvid lawman, was to conduct the government under the title of earl. when this hasty election of a king was reported throughout the country, the bagler party reorganized themselves under the leadership of erling steinvegg (stonewall), who claimed to be a son of king magnus erlingson. this new pretender soon had a large following and also obtained substantial support from the danish king, valdemar ii. bishop nicholas at first opposed him, as he wanted his own nephew, philip, a grandson of harald gille's queen, ingerid, elected king; but they finally came to an agreement, erling promising to make philip earl and to otherwise favor the bishop. with the aid of the bishop, erling then proved his right to the throne by the ordeal of fire, the event taking place with great ceremony in tunsberg in the presence of the danish king and a large assemblage of people. king valdemar made erling a present of thirty-five fully equipped ships. the following day a thing was summoned, and erling was proclaimed king. he immediately appointed philip as his earl. both solemnly acknowledged the danish king as their overlord and gave him hostages. the whole of viken had soon acknowledged erling as king, and the few birchlegs who were there fled to the northern or western part of the country. the child king, guthorm sigurdson, died suddenly in nidaros, august , , and there was a strong suspicion that he had been poisoned by christina, the mistress of haakon galen. the thing was immediately convened, and the people elected inge baardson of rein as king. inge was a younger half-brother of haakon galen, being a son of king sverre's sister, cecilia, and her husband, baard of rein. for some time there was again continual warfare between the baglers and the birchlegs. in the summer of , king inge and earl haakon made a cruise to viken and had some encounters with the baglers, and in the fall king inge returned to nidaros, while earl haakon went into winter-quarters in bergen. shortly after christmas it was reported in nidaros that a body of warriors had come across the mountain from the south, and that they had the son of a king with them. it was feared that a new band of rebels was coming, and king inge called all his men to arms. two of his court-men, who were sent out to ascertain the object of the coming warriors, were met by some messengers, who had been sent ahead to inform king inge of their errand. it was quite true that they had the son of a king with them, but he was as yet only a babe. it was learned that the approaching warriors were a number of good birchlegs, and that the prince who was with them was the infant son of their late beloved master, king haakon sverreson. during his visit in sarpsborg, in , king haakon sverreson had become enamored of a handsome girl of high birth, inga of varteig. she reciprocated his affection, and the intimacy that grew up between them was no secret to the king's friends. soon after the king's death, inga, who was then at the parsonage folkisberg (in the present eidsberg parish), gave birth to a son. the priest, thrond, who well knew who the father was, baptized the boy and named him haakon, after his father. thrond kept the child at his home, but did all he could to keep the matter secret. later he took erlend of huseby, a distant relative of king haakon, into his confidence, and it was decided to get the child away from viken, on account of the constant danger from the baglers. toward christmas, , when the boy was about a year and a half old, his mother, inga of varteig, the priest thrond, and erlend of huseby started out on the dangerous journey. they arrived at hamar christmas eve, but were afraid to stay there long, and therefore continued their journey as soon as possible. they first came to lillehammer, where a number of birchlegs joined them, and then proceeded across the mountain to oesterdalen, and thence north to nidaros. during the journey across the mountain they suffered untold hardships on account of snow and cold, being often obliged to spend the night in the wilderness. once the storm had become so severe that they did not know where they were. the royal child was then given to the two best ski-runners in the party, thorstein skevla and skervald skrukka, who started ahead of the others in order to find shelter if possible. they did not succeed in reaching any settlement that night, but struck a mountain hay-shed, where they made fire and prepared a couch for the child. the remainder of the party reached the place later in the night. in the morning the snow was so deep that it was only with the greatest difficulty that they could proceed. when they reached the settlements, however, they were well received, and many birchlegs joined them on their journey northward. when king inge and his men heard of the journey of the royal child and of the hardships which the party had suffered, they all thanked god for having saved the child. the king and his whole court set out to meet the party at the blockhouse, and, on their arrival, he took the little boy in his arms and kissed him. the boy and his mother were given the best of care in nidaros. the child became very popular with the old birchlegs who had served under his father and his grandfather. they came often to see how he was getting along, and would sometimes playfully take him between them and stretch his arms and legs in order, as they said, to make him grow faster. in the spring of erling steinvegg collected a fleet and proceeded north to throndhjem, in order to attack king inge in his stronghold in nidaros. on saturday, april , there were great festivities in nidaros, for king inge was celebrating the wedding of his sister sigrid, daughter of baard of rein, to the liegeman, thorgrim of ljaanes. all the prominent men in the surrounding country had come to the wedding. there was much drinking during the night, and the king, as well as his chiefs and warriors, went to bed intoxicated. toward morning the baglers suddenly attacked the sleeping town and effected a general massacre. many of the prominent birchlegs, who had been with king sverre in many of his battles, were killed by the baglers on this occasion. king inge, who was not at the royal residence, but was sleeping in the house of his mistress, was with some difficulty awakened by the latter's servants. he escaped to a neighboring roof, where he lay until the baglers had passed the house; then he ran down to the docks and threw himself in the icy river in order to swim across. the strong current made this a very difficult task. out in the stream he caught hold of the anchor cable of a ship, to which he clung for a while, but a man, who was keeping guard on board, pushed him off with a pole, and he was obliged to swim further. he finally reached the other shore, but was then so exhausted from cold and exertion that he would probably have succumbed, if one of his faithful men, reidulf baardsbrother, had not happened to come to his assistance. reidulf took off his cloak and wrapped the king in it, and carried him on his back to skyaas, where they obtained a horse and sled and escaped to klæbu. in the meanwhile the baglers continued their dreadful work in nidaros. they searched all the churches and killed those who had taken refuge there, and committed numerous acts of plunder and depredation. king inge's half-brother, the seventeen year old skule baardson, escaped as by a miracle. he crept along the house walls and reached the river, where the chief, jon usle, and forty birchlegs were just going across in some boats they had secured. they crossed in safety, and later proceeded to klæbu, where skule found the king with a hundred birchlegs and peasants, who had gathered about him. king inge was greatly changed after the experiences of that awful night. the light-hearted and social young man became gloomy and melancholy. he never felt really at ease except on board his ship and in the solitude of his room. he was averse to seeing new faces, and only his nearest and dearest men were admitted to his presence. king inge soon returned to nidaros with a force of birchlegs, while the baglers withdrew to bergen with their large booty. here they were soon afterward overtaken by earl haakon and the birchlegs, who defeated them and took back the greater part of the spoil. thus the two parties, from time to time, continued to surprise and attack each other with no other result than that the country suffered. early in the year the bagler king, erling steinvegg, died, and bishop nicholas at last succeeded in having his nephew, philip, chosen as the third king of the baglers. in the summer of negotiations for peace were commenced. the manner in which the war had lately been conducted indicates that the strength of both parties was practically exhausted. the whole warfare was only a sort of hide-and-seek play, or a continual cruising back and forth between bergen and viken, in which they do not even seem to have tried to meet in decisive battle, but only to forestall each other, attack singly some one of the hostile party, and otherwise do as much damage as possible by plunder and depredation. everybody began to realize that the resources of the country were thus being wasted, and that, whichever party finally won, there would only be an impoverished land and people to rule over. bishop nicholas saw this as well as any one, and consulted the archbishop in nidaros. the result was a meeting of the chiefs of both parties at hvitings island (hvitingsö), near stavanger, where the king of the baglers, philip, swore allegiance to king inge, and was, in return, made earl of viken and the uplands, and was given christina, the daughter of sverre, in marriage. the war between the baglers and the birchlegs was thus ended, and comparative peace was restored. one of the disturbing elements that remained was the jealousy of earl haakon galen and his ambitious wife. as the nephew of king sverre, he thought he had been as much entitled to the throne as his half-brother, inge. an open revolt was avoided; but, probably by the intervention of archbishop thore, a compact was made between the earl and the king ( ), by which it was decided that illegitimate children were to be excluded from the succession to the throne. this agreement was especially aimed against the young haakon haakonson and inge's own illegitimate child, guthorm, and gave the succession to haakon galen's own offspring. this agreement, however, was not approved by the old warriors among the birchlegs, who were greatly attached to king sverre's direct descendant, the young haakon. in the evening, after the agreement had been made, the boy came home from school to the court of earl haakon, by whom he was being raised, and he hurried to the old veteran, helge hvasse, who was especially fond of the boy, and used to give a great deal of attention to him. this time, however, he turned away and would not speak to the child. "why are you angry with me?" asked the boy. "begone!" said helge. "i will have nothing to do with you. you were disinherited to-day." "how did that happen, and who did it?" asked little haakon. "it was done at oere-thing," said helge, "and it was done by the two brothers, king inge and earl haakon." "be not angry with me, my own helge," said the boy, "and do not care anything about this; for this decision cannot possibly be valid. my representatives were not present to answer in my behalf." "and who are your representatives?" asked helge. "my representatives are god, the holy virgin, and saint olaf," answered haakon; "in their hands have i left my case, and they will guard my interests in the best possible way, as you will see, both as to the division of the country and in my other welfare." deeply moved, the old birchleg took the boy in his arms and kissed him, and said: "that was better said than unsaid, my prince, and i thank you for those words." what this boy of eight years had said was soon reported among the birchlegs, who all greatly admired him. the story also soon reached earl haakon and his wife christina. the earl did not say much; but christina got very angry, and from that day treated the boy more harshly than she had done before. earl haakon was taken sick and died in bergen in january, , and his wife, christina, who understood that she had made herself very unpopular, hastened to leave the country with her young son, knut, and returned to sweden. young haakon haakonson was transferred to king inge's court. he and guthorm, king inge's son, were sent to school together, and they were in every way treated alike. in the winter of - king inge was taken sick, and when he could no longer attend to the public affairs he appointed his half-brother, skule baardson, as regent with the title of earl. king inge died april , , and earl skule had him buried with great ceremony in christ church in nidaros. chapter xxx _haakon haakonson the old ( - )_ after the death of king inge, the discord which had been fermenting began to show itself. the ambitious earl skule, while pretending to favor king inge's young son, guthorm, really considered himself the successor to the throne, while a few, who had been special friends of the late earl haakon galen, favored the latter's son knut, who was with his mother in sweden. earl skule had the aid and sympathy of archbishop guthorm and the other dignitaries of the cathedral at nidaros, and advocated a postponement of the election of a king, until the archbishop, who was absent on a journey, should return. in spite of all intriguing, however, the birchlegs summoned the oere-thing and proclaimed haakon haakonson king of norway, and he swore fidelity to the laws of the country, although he could not, according to usage, do so on the shrine of saint olaf, because the canons of the cathedral refused to allow the shrine to be taken out of the church and carried to the thing. the next day all the court-men and the delegates present took the oath of allegiance to haakon as king and to skule as earl. the king and the earl now proceeded to bergen, where the gula-thing was summoned, in order that haakon might also be proclaimed king there. the day before the thing a meeting was held by the king and the earl and their advisers. the king's advisers suggested that earl skule should swear an oath of allegiance to king haakon; but this the earl bluntly refused to do, unless he was given in fief one-third of the kingdom and of its dependencies. as it was learned that the earl had been negotiating with the so-called bagler king, philip, in viken, and the king's party was hardly strong enough to fight a combination of that kind, it was thought that there was nothing to do but to acquiesce in the earl's demands. the next day, at the thing, king haakon made his oath to uphold the laws, but the wily earl had made use of his position as the king's guardian to insert in the oath a pledge to keep the agreement already made between the king and the earl. shortly after this, news was received that the bagler king, philip, was dead. king haakon and earl skule immediately proceeded to viken, where, at the suggestion of bishop nicholas, negotiations were opened with the baglers. it was finally decided that the baglers should retain, during the coming winter, one-half of the fiefs which philip had held as earl, and that both parties should send men north to the archbishop to request him, next summer, to arrange a permanent peace. the other half of viken was given up to king haakon and earl skule, who appointed prefects there. thereupon they summoned the hauga-thing, where haakon was acknowledged as the rightful king. king haakon had several enemies to contend with, and the most dangerous among them were by no means those who were in open rebellion. a new band of rebels was organized under the leadership of a chaplain by the name of benedict, or bene skinkniv (skin knife), as the peasants called him, who claimed to be a son of king magnus erlingson. his followers were originally mostly thieves and bandits, who only sought an opportunity for robbery and plunder. on account of their ragged appearance they were called the "slitungs" (vagabonds or "tramps"). after a short campaign against the slitungs, the king and the earl returned northward. when they arrived in nidaros, the earl was received with the utmost courtesy by the archbishop, but the latter refused to show the proper honor to the king; and the reason being given that there was some doubt as to whether haakon was really the son of haakon sverreson, it was agreed that his mother, inga of varteig, was to submit to the ordeal of fire. this was done in bergen in the presence of the king, the earl, the archbishop, and other bishops and chiefs. the result was in every way satisfactory. the church declared that king haakon had proved his paternity, and earl skule was for the time being apparently reconciled with the king. the strained relations between earl skule and the king soon came to the surface again, however, and there were frequent conflicts between the "earl's-men" and the "king's-men." the friends of both finally came to the conclusion that something ought to be done to bind them together by common interests, and as the best means to this end they proposed a marriage between king haakon and the earl's daughter, margreta. the plan was accepted by both parties, and the betrothal took place in september, . the actual marriage was preliminarily postponed on account of the tender age of both parties, the king being then about fourteen years and the bride scarcely more than nine years old. during the next winter a new band of rebels was organized in viken by gudolf of blakkestad, a former prefect, who had been discharged from office on account of his harsh treatment of the peasants. the slitungs joined the new party, which was commonly called the ribbungs (robbers). they chose as their leader and candidate for the throne a young man by the name of sigurd, who claimed to be the son of the former bagler king, erling steinvegg. they seem to have had the secret support of bishop nicholas, in spite of the fact that the latter had professed friendship for king haakon. after having fought this party for about two years and defeated it several times, earl skule induced bishop nicholas to assist in ending the struggle. in the spring of , sigurd ribbung made overtures for peace, but had the audacity to demand as a condition for laying down his arms one third of the kingdom and the earl's daughter in marriage. the earl answered that he would not give his daughter away to live in the woods, and as for the third of the kingdom he would have to apply to king haakon; but he promised sigurd and his men amnesty and safe conduct, in case sigurd wished to apply personally to the king. although these conditions were more severe than expected, sigurd ribbung surrendered. the earl was greatly praised for having gained this victory without a battle, in having induced such a mighty force to lay down their arms, and thus secured peace throughout the country. this peace, however, was not as complete as it was thought; for the earl was at this time cherishing more far-reaching plans than ever before. it appears that he had made a levy of troops and taxes outside of his own fiefs, and had been reprimanded for this in a letter from king haakon. after having made peace with the ribbungs, he immediately sailed for denmark, it being no doubt his intention to renounce his allegiance to king haakon, and, with the aid of the danish king, take possession of the country and hold it in fief from him. upon arriving in copenhagen he learned that king valdemar (the victorious) had been taken prisoner by count henry of schwerin and brought to mecklenburg. earl skule, therefore, was obliged to return and continue to feign friendship for king haakon. at a state meeting in bergen in the fall of , where the archbishop, the bishops, and other leading men of the country were present, haakon's right to the throne was reaffirmed, and earl skule agreed to take the northern third of the country in fief instead of the southern part, which he had held before. by the agreement at the state meeting in bergen, norway was divided into two domains, of which that of the king included viken, the uplands, and the gulathingslag, except söndmöre, while that of the earl included everything north of the king's domain, and this division remained in force for over fifteen years. the earl made his headquarters in nidaros, while the king took up his residence in oslo. sigurd ribbung remained with the earl, who had promised to watch him, but escaped during the summer of , and again organized a band of rebels who resumed their old guerilla warfare. whenever they were met by a superior force, they would make their escape across the frontier into the swedish province of vermeland, where they had many adherents. at last king haakon found it necessary to invade vermeland with an army of , men, early in , in order to punish the inhabitants. he burned a great number of houses, but did not succeed in meeting the ribbungs in any decisive battle. in april, king haakon proceeded to bergen, in order to celebrate his marriage with earl skule's daughter, margreta. the earl received him apparently with great cordiality, and grand preparations were made for the wedding, which took place may , . this marriage had been dictated by political considerations; but earl skule derived no direct benefits from it, for during all the later struggles margreta stood faithfully by her husband, in spite of the fact that the principal opponent was her own father. the ribbungs continued their guerilla warfare, secretly aided by bishop nicholas. the latter died in oslo, november , , after having asked and obtained the king's forgiveness for all his treachery. he was between seventy and eighty years old at the time of his death. during the winter earl skule and the archbishop at nidaros attempted to negotiate peace between the ribbungs and the king, but without any success. in the spring of sigurd ribbung was taken sick and died, and squire knut, the son of haakon galen and christina, was induced to become the chief of the ribbungs. the ribbungs suffered several reverses, and in the following year squire knut disbanded his army and submitted to king haakon, whose devoted friend he ever remained. earl skule continued his intriguing for the ultimate overthrow of the king, and, while strengthening himself at home, negotiated with the king of denmark for aid from that quarter. meanwhile king haakon did everything to retain the earl's allegiance. in a meeting was held in bergen, where a new compact was made, only to be broken shortly afterward by the earl. when the king discovered that the earl had tried to involve him in a conflict with the church, and had sent damaging reports about him to rome, he again summoned him to a meeting in bergen. this time earl skule did not see fit to come to the meeting, but proceeded with an army across the mountains to the uplands, thus entering the reserved territory of the king. through the mediation of the archbishop peace was patched up for the coming winter, on the condition that the earl was to have one-third of all the prefectures. the following year a new agreement was made, by which skule was to retain the privileges thus obtained in the southern part of the country, besides which he was raised to the rank of duke, a title which no one so far had held in norway. nothing, however, seemed to satisfy skule short of the dignity of king. he prepared himself in every way for an open conflict--built and equipped ships, and steadily increased his force of warriors. his followers were called the "varbelgs," the same name that a rebellious party during the reign of king sverre had carried. in november, , duke skule convened the oere-thing, where he had his friends proclaim him king of norway, whereupon he made the usual oath of fidelity to the laws, with his hand upon saint olaf's shrine, which had been forcibly taken from the cathedral and carried to the thing. there was now open war between duke skule and king haakon. the duke proceeded south to the uplands with an army of six hundred men. at laaka, raumarike, he met and defeated the king's forces under squire knut, who had been appointed earl in skule's place. after this victory he proceeded to oslo, but here he was soon afterward attacked by king haakon and was badly defeated. a great many of the varbelgs fell in the battle, while others surrendered to the king and were pardoned. duke skule with a few men escaped and fled north to nidaros. shortly afterward the town was suddenly attacked by the birchlegs, who, after the battle of oslo, had been sent north by king haakon with a fleet under the command of aasulf of austraat, one of skule's bitter enemies. duke skule, awoke by the alarm, armed himself and sent his messengers around in the town to call the varbelgs together; but they would not obey orders, and his men took refuge in the churches. skule himself crossed the nid river and hid himself with a few men in a forest near by. two days later the monks at elgeseter cloister sent them cloaks, and thus disguised they reached the cloister. the birchlegs, however, discovered the duke's whereabout, and, proceeding to the cloister, demanded that he be delivered up. this being refused they set fire to the building. skule then came out with his men, and they were all slain, may , . after the fall of skule the rebellion of the varbelgs died out completely, the power of king haakon was undisputed, and the country could at last enjoy peace and order. on saint olaf's day, july , , king haakon was crowned with grand ceremonies in christ church in bergen by cardinal william of sabina, whom the pope had sent north for that purpose. at the grand feast that followed there were so many people present that there was not room enough in the king's mansion, and the king therefore had a huge boat-house temporarily fitted out as a festival hall, the walls being covered with colored cloth, and the hall furnished with costly benches with gold-embroidered silk cushions. this feast lasted for three days, and after that the king gave a party, lasting five days, in the royal home for the cardinal and the most prominent men. when the cardinal departed from norway, the king sent with him , marks sterling as a gift to the pope, and also gave the cardinal personally fine presents. the reign of king haakon, after peace had been restored, was very beneficial to the country. he improved the laws, and, among other changes, abolished the ordeal of fire. this was done after consultation with the visiting cardinal, who declared that it was not proper for christians to challenge god to give his verdict in human affairs. it was decided that at the death of a king the oldest legitimate son was to succeed to the throne, and the kingdom was not to be divided between two or more princes. in architecture great progress was made, and a great deal of money was spent for the erection of monasteries, churches and royal mansions. a wall was built around the royal mansion in bergen; this wall was the beginning of the fort afterward called bergenhus. king haakon also built the grand royal hall in bergen and a hospital for lepers. in tunsberg he built a monastery, and the strong wall of the fort is still to be seen. he began to christianize the finns and built churches for them. the church which he built at tromsoe was the northernmost christian church in the world. king haakon gained a high reputation in foreign countries. the russian grand-duke, vasilij, asked for the hand of his daughter christina, and the spanish king, alfonso x. of castile, wooed her for one of his brothers. the latter suit was accepted, and christina was married to the spanish prince, don philip, in . the pope wanted haakon for emperor of germany, and the french king, louis ix., urged him to take the command of a crusade. during the reign of king haakon, in , greenland was made a dependency of norway, and the next year iceland acknowledged the supremacy of norway. the icelanders agreed to pay the king of norway a tribute; but they were to retain their own laws and their own officers. in the summer of king haakon sailed with a strong fleet and a large army westward to make war on alexander iii. of scotland, who had tried to annex the norwegian possessions west and north of scotland. king haakon proceeded to the sudr islands (the hebrides), where he met with terrible storms, during which his fleet suffered considerable loss. in a battle at largs, near the entrance to the firth of clyde, some of haakon's best men fell. scotch and norwegian accounts differ as to which side was really defeated; but even from scotch sources it appears that there was for some time afterward a great dread of the reappearance of "the black fleet of norway." a contemporary scotch poet and soothsayer, thomas of erceldoune, wrote: it will be seen upon a day between the bass and bay, craigin and fidderay, the black fleet of norroway. quhen the black fleet is come and gane, then may they bigg thair burgh of lime and stane quhilk they biggit of straw and hay-- that will stand till doomes day. shortly after the battle at largs, king haakon retired to the orkneys, intending to winter there and to renew the attack in the spring. in the town of kirkevaag (orkneys) he was taken seriously ill; dying december , . during his illness he had his men read aloud to him portions of the bible and several books in latin. afterward he had norwegian books read to him, first the stories of holy men (legends) and afterward the sagas of his ancestors, from halfdan the black down to his grandfather, king sverre. during the reading of sverre's saga he sank rapidly, and toward midnight, when king sverre's saga was finished, he expired. king haakon was fifty-nine years old when he died. he had been king of norway forty-six years. his body was temporarily entombed in kirkevaag, and, in the following spring, was brought back to norway and buried in the christ church in bergen. chapter xxxi _snorre sturlason_ during the reign of haakon haakonson lived the renowned author of sagas, snorre sturlason. he was born in the year at hvam (or kvam), in the western province of iceland. his family traced their lineage from the old norse kings. in his third year snorre was sent to the rich and learned jon loftson to be fostered. jon loftson's grandfather was saemund frode, the contemporary of are, who first committed the historical sagas to writing; jon's mother, thora, was an illegitimate daughter of king magnus barefoot. in such a family, says mr. laing, we may presume the literature of the country would be cultivated, and the sagas of the historical events in norway, and of the transactions of her race of kings, would be studied with great interest. jon loftson died when snorre was nineteen years of age, but he continued to live with his foster-brothers a couple of years after that. he was quite poor, his mother having wasted his patrimony; but marrying herdis, the daughter of a wealthy priest, he obtained with her a considerable fortune, which he afterward greatly increased. we are told that he owned six large farms and had so many men under him that he could appear at the things with an armed body of six hundred or eight hundred men. he fortified his main residence at reykholt, and also constructed there a bathing-house of cut stone, into which the water was led from a neighboring geyser. this bath-house was called snorrelaug (snorre's bath), and ruins of it are still to be seen. snorre sturlason held some important offices in iceland. on a visit to norway he won the friendship of duke skule and king haakon, and the latter even appointed him a king's chamberlain. he is said to have promised the king to induce the people of iceland to submit to the supremacy of the king of norway; but if this promise was given he seems to have forgotten it. when afterward, during the conflict between duke skule and king haakon, snorre was said to be a friend or adherent of duke skule, the king declared him to be a traitor, and, in a letter, requested snorre's son-in-law and bitterest enemy, gissur torvaldson, to bring snorre to norway, dead or alive. on this authority gissur, and other relatives of snorre, who were his enemies on account of differences about the division of property, came on the night of september , , with seventy armed men to snorre's residence at reykholt and murdered him in the sixty-third year of his age. it was the same party which, two years afterward, brought iceland under subjection to the crown of norway. snorre sturlason's famous work, the sagas (chronicles) of the kings of norway, reaches from the earliest times to the fall of eystein meyla, in the battle at ree, in . the book is also called the "heimskringla"--the world's circle--from the first word of the manuscript. it is written in the old norse language. snorre also wrote a book called the "edda,"[ ] which treats of the old norse mythology and contains rules for the writing of poetry. [ ] the word _edda_ means great-grandmother. snorre's nephew (his brother's son), sturla thordson, afterward wrote the saga of king haakon haakonson. during the reign of king haakon, another remarkable book was written, "the king's mirror." in the form of a dialogue between a father and his son, it contains information about the seas and the countries that norway had communication with, especially ireland, iceland and greenland. it also gives the rules of life and conduct for traders and for men at the royal court. chapter xxxii _magnus law-mender ( - )_ haakon's son magnus now became king of norway. he had been crowned six years before his father's death, and there was no one to dispute his right, king haakon having declared on his death-bed that he left no other son. magnus was twenty-five years old when he assumed the government in his own name. he was a wise and peaceable ruler, and soon made up his mind that it was not for the benefit of norway to continue the war with scotland about the islands which were so distant and had been of so little value to the country. he opened negotiations with alexander iii., and on july , , peace was finally concluded. the norwegian king ceded the isle of man and the hebrides to scotland, although retaining the rights belonging to the nidaros archbishopric. on the other hand, the scotch king agreed to pay the norwegian king , marks sterling, besides a permanent annual tribute of one hundred marks. when king magnus had succeeded in ending the conflict with scotland, he turned his whole attention to the improvement of the domestic affairs of the country. he undertook a thorough revision of the laws, and, on account of his efforts in this direction, was given the surname _lagaböter_, _i.e._, law-mender. he had a common code of laws compiled for the whole country, while formerly there had been four different laws administered respectively at the four things; viz., the frosta-thing for the throndhjem country, the gula-thing for the western coast, the eidsiva-thing for the uplands, and the borgar-thing for the country around viken. the new general law, as codified by king magnus, remained in force for nearly four hundred years, and some of it is law even yet. among the new provisions was the one that, in the future, changes in the laws were to be made only by the king and his "good men" at a state meeting or state council. thus the things were deprived of the privilege to make laws. magnus also compiled a law for the cities and towns, and a new court law (_hirdskraa_) for his vassals and courtiers. this court law prescribed rules for the proclamation of kings and described the duties and rights of the courtiers, liegemen, etc. among new offices created were those of ensign (bearer of the colors), the chancellor, who kept the royal seal, and the master of ceremonies. toward the bishops king magnus was very submissive. at a meeting in tunsberg, in , he made a number of humiliating concessions to the ambitious archbishop jon the red. thus the king agreed to abstain from all interference in the selection of bishops, and surrendered to the latter the right of filling all clerical offices. king magnus granted the city of lubeck and other north-german cities--the hanseatic league--a number of commercial privileges in norway, and from that time a great part of the commerce of norway gradually came to be controlled by the hansa towns. in his legislation, king magnus showed a disposition to abandon former democratic characteristics of the institutions. he was fond of pomp and ceremony, and adopted foreign, especially english, court customs. in he ordained that the liegemen were to be called barons, and the court officials, knights and squires. they were given a partial immunity from taxes, but were to render additional services to the king in case of war. the knights and their families soon began to adopt coats-of-arms, and a kind of nobility was gradually formed. king magnus died may , , at the age of forty-two years. chapter xxxiii _erik priest-hater ( - )_ at the death of king magnus only two of his children were alive, erik, who had already been proclaimed king, and haakon, who had been made duke at the same time. erik was twelve, and haakon ten years old. the royal counsellors, among whom were the barons hallkell agmundson, audun hugleikson, and biarne erlingson of biarkoe and giske, thought that king magnus had made too great concessions to the church and attempted to curtail the power of the bishops. on account of their activity against the clergy they were put in the ban of the church; but they did not seem to pay much attention to this; and, as a result of the struggle, archbishop jon the red and two other bishops were outlawed and compelled to leave the country ( ). the epithet "priest-hater," which, after this, was given king erik, does not seem to have been well deserved; for he always sought to mediate in the conflicts with the archbishop, and he himself had no ill-feeling toward the bishops, but rather seemed to be too kindly disposed toward them. king erik was only a very young man when he commenced a war with denmark, which lasted for twenty years, and was not terminated until in the time of his successor. his mother, the queen-dowager ingeborg, was the daughter of the danish king, erik plowpenny, and as her inheritance, consisting of landed estates, had not been turned over to the norwegian king according to agreement, she induced her son to make war on denmark. the war was principally a naval war. one who especially distinguished himself was the norwegian baron, alf erlingson of tornberg (now tanberg, ringerike), a great favorite of the queen-dowager. he captured a number of the enemy's ships, and preyed upon the commerce in danish waters. but the principal sufferers by this warfare were the hanseatic league, whose members, by the concessions of king magnus lawmender, had practically a monopoly of the foreign trade of norway. many ditties were composed about alf erlingson, and one verse reads thus: sailing germans are northward bound carrying malt and meal; but alf is lying in oere sound and robs them of all their weal. the conflict with the hanseatic towns came to an end, through the arbitration of the swedish king, by the peace of kalmar ( ), by which the privileges of the hansa towns were considerably extended. the hostilities with denmark were continued, and the queen-dowager was so well pleased with alf erlingson's piratical conduct of the war that she had him created an earl, and induced the king to send him as special ambassador to england. in a conspiracy was formed in denmark against king erik glipping, and he was murdered during a hunting trip by marshal stig, count jacob of halland and others. the murderers, who were outlawed in denmark, were well received by the norwegian king, and afterward accompanied him on his campaigns against denmark. by the death of queen ingeborg ( ), earl alf erlingson lost his special protector, and when he had committed extraordinary outrages in viken and murdered the commander of oslo castle, baron hallkell agmundson, he was sentenced as an outlaw and compelled to flee to sweden, where, for some time, he took refuge in a cloister. later he attempted piracy on his own account in danish waters, but was captured, and, by the command of queen agnes, executed on the rack ( ). king erik made several successful cruises to denmark, and that country might have fared badly if his attention had not been drawn in other directions. at an early age he had been married to margaret of scotland, a daughter of his grandfather's enemy, king alexander iii. this young queen died a year after the marriage, after having given birth to a daughter, who was christened margaret. when alexander iii. died in , without leaving any sons, the scotch leaders acknowledged king erik's young daughter, margaret, as the rightful heir to the throne. in she was proclaimed queen of scotland, and the young princess--the "maid from norway," as she was called--accompanied by the bishops of bergen and other prominent persons, sailed for scotland. she was taken sick on the voyage, however, and died at the orkneys. king erik afterward claimed the crown of scotland as the heir of his daughter, but was compelled to abandon the claim upon the armed intervention of king edward i. of england. king erik died july , , at the age of thirty-one years. chapter xxxiv _haakon v. magnusson ( - )_ at the death of king erik the throne of norway was inherited by his brother haakon, who had, during his brother's reign, under the title of duke, ruled his part of the country with royal authority. shortly after his succession to the throne, the knight, audun hugleikson hestakorn of hegranes, who during the reign of king erik had been highly esteemed and had conducted negotiations with foreign powers, was imprisoned in bergen and tried for high treason, and, after three years of imprisonment, was executed. the real nature of this man's crime is not known. by some it was thought that he had insulted the king's bride; but the actual crime was probably some frauds in connection with the negotiation of a treaty with france. apparently without any reason, rumor has connected his case with another affair, which transpired about the same time. in a woman arrived from lubeck and created a great deal of excitement by claiming to be the princess margaret--"the maid from norway"--who had died at the orkneys when on her journey to scotland to assume the scotch throne. she was proven to be an impostor, and was condemned and burned at the stake in , and her husband, who accompanied her, was beheaded. during haakon's reign the war with denmark, which had lasted for twenty-eight years, was finally ended by the peace of copenhagen ( ), by which haakon obtained the province of northern halland in settlement of his maternal inheritance. his rule was also in other respects firm and prudent. he curtailed some of the privileges of the hansa towns and reduced the power of the bishops. he abolished the positions of earls and liegemen, and adopted stricter regulations for other officers, holding them to a faithful compliance with the laws. he built the fortress of akershus, near oslo, where he resided much of the time. king haakon had no sons, but only a daughter, ingeborg. in he therefore proclaimed a new law of succession extending the right of inheritance to the female line. by the same law a council of twelve men were to conduct the government during the minority of an heir to the throne. the king's daughter, ingeborg, was afterward married to duke erik of sweden, and, in the year , she bore a son, who was christened magnus. this caused great joy in norway, and the king on this occasion conferred knighthood on twenty-five men. but the joy was of short duration. duke erik and his brother, duke valdemar, had been quarrelling with their brother, king birger of sweden. the latter pretended to desire a reconciliation and invited them to a feast at the castle of nyköping. during the night the sleeping-room of the dukes was entered, and they were thrown into prison, where soon afterward they died. rumor said that they were starved to death. the tidings of this tragedy so affected king haakon that it hastened his death. he died at tunsberg, may , , and with him the male line of the royal house of harald the fairhaired became extinct. chapter xxxv _magnus erikson "smek" ( - )--haakon vi. magnusson ( - )_ magnus, the son of king haakon v.'s daughter ingeborg and duke erik of sweden, was only three years old at the death of his mother's father. while he was in his minority the affairs of the government were managed by a regency, the members of which had been selected by king haakon. in sweden king birger, who had become generally hated on account of his treatment of his brothers, was deposed, and magnus was proclaimed king of sweden. thus, for the first time, norway and sweden were united under one king. both countries retained their own government and laws, and the king was to divide his time equally between the two countries. the norwegians soon became dissatisfied with the government, which was conducted mainly by the king's mother, duchess ingeborg, who caused great scandal by her recklessness and wasted much of the revenue on her lover, knut porse, duke of halland, whom she afterward married. at a general thing, in oslo, february , , the regency was abrogated, and the knight erling vidkunson of biarkoe and giske was appointed regent. when king magnus, who, by the swedes, was surnamed "smek" (the fondling), reached his majority, in , he himself assumed the government in both countries. he was a good and kind man, but too weak to govern two countries. sweden took up most of his time, and he did not come to norway as often as he was expected to, and made no proper arrangement for the government during his absence. this caused general discontent, and a virtual separation of the countries was finally arranged. at a great meeting in varberg, august , , king magnus's oldest son, erik, was declared heir-apparent and co-regent in sweden, and his other son, haakon, in norway. on the same day the norwegian state counsellors acknowledged haakon, who had been educated in norway, as their king, with the understanding that king magnus was to conduct the government until his son became of age. the separation of the countries was further confirmed in in bergen, where king magnus placed haakon in the royal seat and arranged a separate court for him. according to public documents, however, haakon's reign dates only from , when probably he had reached his majority. the swedes were no more satisfied with king magnus than the norwegians were. he succeeded in annexing the provinces of scania, halland and blekinge, which he bought for , marks silver from duke john of holstein, who held them as a pledge; but the taxes he had to levy, in order to raise this sum, caused great dissatisfaction. the king's recklessness and the great influence wielded by his vain and malicious queen, blanca of namur, and his favorite, the young swedish knight, bengt algotson, increased the dissatisfaction to such a degree that prince erik took up arms and declared bengt to be a public enemy. erik died shortly afterward, but quiet was not restored. king magnus's ambiguous and pusillanimous action in allowing the wily king valdemar atterdag of denmark to seize the dearly-bought provinces of scania, halland and blekinge, created great discontent, which was increased when his son, haakon, married king valdemar's eleven year old daughter margaret, although the swedes, who expected haakon to become their future king, had decided upon another bride for him. when, after an uprising, king magnus banished forty of the most turbulent magnates, the latter offered the crown to albrecht of mecklenburg, a nephew of king magnus, and returned with him to sweden, where magnus was deposed and albrecht elected king of sweden ( ). haakon, who shortly before that had been elected king of sweden, did not intend to give up the kingdom without a fight, especially as he had several fortresses and provinces in his possession. both sides armed themselves, and a battle was fought at enköping, march , . magnus was taken prisoner and brought to stockholm, and haakon, severely wounded, had to flee to norway. the war was continued with varying success until the hanseatic league interfered in the struggle, because haakon had attempted to expel the germans from the country. the german merchants had obtained great power in the country and shamefully abused it; they refused to receive the king's coin, monopolized all trade, and defied the laws. haakon finally made peace with them, but only after granting them some new privileges. after that he collected a great army and invaded sweden; even marching against stockholm. an agreement was reached in with king albrecht, by which haakon was to pay , marks and surrender the swedish fortresses for the liberation of his father. the latter had to give up all claim to the swedish throne, but was to have for his support skara stift, west gautland and vermeland. haakon afterward inherited these provinces. magnus was drowned three years later in the hardanger fjord at the age of fifty-eight years. his son survived him only six years. he died at oslo in june, , about forty-two years old, after having had the pleasure to see his only son olaf chosen king of denmark. great calamities befell the country during the reigns of magnus and haakon. on april , , the great cathedral in throndhjem, the christ church, was destroyed by fire. in the gaula river suddenly changed its course, owing to a mountain slide, flooded the gaula valley, and caused great destruction. forty-eight farms and some churches were destroyed, and two hundred and fifty people and a great number of cattle were drowned. iceland suffered from earthquakes, and in the sixth eruption of the volcano hekla spread alarm and desolation. in and the winters were so severe that a great number of people froze to death. but the greatest calamity occurred in , when the black death, a terrible pestilence, after having ravaged southern europe, was brought to bergen by a merchant vessel from england. before the cargo of the vessel had been discharged, the whole crew died, and immediately the pestilence spread with great rapidity over the whole country. in a single day ninety persons were buried from a church in bergen, including fourteen priests and six deacons. in throndhjem, archbishop arne and the whole chapter, with the exception of a single canon, died. only one bishop in norway, salemon in oslo, survived the plague. in many districts the entire population was swept away. the cattle died from hunger. for want of horses and laborers the farmers were unable to cultivate their farms, and famine and distress resulted. many districts which had been fertile and populous were laid waste, and were in time covered by a new growth of forests. industries, trade and commerce stagnated, and norway sank into a state of debility from which it took her centuries to recover. chapter xxxvi _olaf haakonson the young ( - )_ olaf, the only son of king haakon magnusson and the danish margaret, was, at the death of his maternal grandfather, valdemar atterdag ( ), proclaimed king of denmark under the guardianship of his parents, and at the death of his father four years later, when he was ten years old, he inherited the throne of norway. his mother proceeded to oslo, where a meeting of the norwegian chiefs was held early in january, . here it was arranged that queen margaret was to be the guardian of her son and conduct the government in his name, when she was in the country, but in her absence the administration should be conducted by the chieftain ogmund finnson, as leader of the state council. olaf was crowned in nidaros on saint olaf's day, july , . thus commenced the union between norway and denmark, which lasted for over four hundred years and proved so unfortunate for norway. to the great sorrow of the norwegians, king olaf, when scarcely seventeen years old, was taken suddenly sick at falsterbro castle, scania, and died august , . fifteen years after olaf's death an adventurer appeared who claimed to be king olaf, and the rumor soon spread that olaf had escaped from his mother shortly before the time of his alleged death. it was proven, however, that the pretender was a german, and that some merchants, who had noticed the great likeness he bore to olaf, had induced him to make the claim. the impostor was condemned to death and burned. chapter xxxvii _margaret ( - )--erik of pomerania ( - )--the kalmar union ( )_ as young olaf left no offspring, it was quite generally supposed in norway that the kingdom would be given to his nearest relative, haakon jonson, a grandson of king haakon v.'s illegitimate daughter agneta; but the wily queen margaret (who had already been acknowledged as reigning queen of denmark), induced archbishop vinald and the majority of the clergy to take her part, and, at the state council in oslo, february , , she was, as haakon's widow and olaf's mother, declared to be the rightful ruler of norway and its dependencies. according to law, however, the norwegians were to be ruled by a king, and could not long be satisfied with having the government conducted in the name of a woman. she therefore induced the council to choose her grandnephew, erik of pomerania, as king of norway ( ), she to continue the regency during his minority. king albrecht of mecklenburg, who was at this time reigning in sweden, had caused a great deal of discontent among the swedish nobility, because he had surrounded himself with germans, whom he had given places of influence and honor. the ambitious queen margaret, who hated albrecht deeply, because he had laid claim to the danish throne, made overtures to the swedish magnates, with the result that they chose her as "the mistress and rightful ruler of sweden," and transferred several fortified places to her, while she promised to reunite west gautland and vermeland with sweden. albrecht proceeded to germany to collect an army, and swore that he would not put his hood on before he had conquered norway and denmark. he sent margaret several insulting messages, called her "queen breechless," and sent her a whetstone on which to sharpen her scissors and needles, saying that the good woman ought to remain quietly at her spinning wheel. the queen's chiefs, ivar lykke and henrik parow, invaded sweden with an army, and won a battle at falköping in west gautland. albrecht was taken prisoner and was brought before the queen, who reminded him of his insults. she gave him a long fool's-cap to wear instead of the crown of denmark, and sent him to prison in the castle of lindholm in scania, where he remained six years. queen margaret soon won the whole of sweden except stockholm, where the german merchants and the hood-brothers made a determined resistance. they received aid from the north german cities rostock and wismar, whose rulers proclaimed that any one who would harry the coasts of the scandinavian countries could find refuge in their harbors; and the result was a number of pirates, the so-called victualia-brethren, made the northern waters unsafe for several years, and plundered many of the coast towns. thus they twice attacked and plundered bergen. in order to gain his liberty, albrecht, in , made an agreement that within three years he would either pay , marks silver or release stockholm. he could not pay the money, and stockholm's gates were opened to queen margaret. in queen margaret's sixteen-year-old grandnephew, erik of pomerania, was crowned in kalmar as king of sweden, denmark and norway, in the presence of prominent men from the three countries. a document was drafted containing the provisions regarding the triple union, and it was signed on margaret's day, july , . it could scarcely be considered binding upon the three countries, as it was signed by only seventeen of the gentlemen present, and they had not been given power to act for their countrymen. the main stipulations of the agreement were the following: . the three countries were always hereafter to have the same king. . one king was to be elected by authorized delegates from the three countries. . the countries were to help each other against foreign foes. . each country was to be governed by its own laws. queen margaret died at flensborg, october , , aged fifty-nine years, leaving the government in the weak hands of king erik. in the union denmark soon assumed the position of the chief country. in sweden and norway the people complained that the revenues of the countries went to pay the expenses of the war with the counts of holstein about schleswig, although this war, which lasted for twenty-six years, concerned only denmark. the counts received aid from the hansa towns, which hated king erik, because he encouraged the dutch trade with the northern countries. in he defeated the hanseatic fleet in oere sound, and in , when they tried to attack copenhagen, the city was saved by his brave queen, philippa of england. she armed the citizens and the peasants, and the germans were obliged to withdraw. the final outcome of the war was, however, that king erik had to cede schleswig to count adolph of holstein by the peace at vordingborg ( ). norway had occasion to feel the effects of king erik's weakness. the inhabitants of finmark and halogaland were attacked by russians and other enemies from the northeast, who did great damage and abducted men and women, and the town of bergen was left defenceless against the attacks of the daring victualia-brethren. thus in the pirate from wismar, bartholomew vot, came to bergen with six hundred men, just as the english traders were waiting there for the vessels from northern norway to bring herring, stock-fish and other goods. the englishmen, believing that the whole fighting force of the hansa towns was coming, hastened aboard their ships and took flight. the bishop of bergen, who was seized with a similar fear, left everything behind for the enemy and fled with the englishmen. the robbers then went ashore and plundered the town. at the bishopric they forced the iron doors to the book-room and took away all the books, besides many other valuables. as the traders from the north arrived with their full cargoes, the booty of the pirates became so much larger, as they took possession of their fish, furs and other goods. this success encouraged the robbers to renew their attack on bergen next year, when they again plundered the bishopric, and then laid a great part of the town in ashes. in all three countries the people were dissatisfied with king erik; he coined bad money, levied new taxes, and appointed foreigners, especially germans, to the chief offices. in sweden the first uprising started. the peasants in dalarne twice sent the gallant engelbrekt engelbrektsson to denmark to complain of the cruel prefects, but he could obtain no redress. on his return he placed himself at the head of a rebellion, which spread itself to the whole country. engelbrekt was murdered ( ); but in his place carl knutsson bonde became the leader of the rebellion and regent. in norway the people followed the example of the swedes. the peasants in viken revolted under amund sigurdson bolt, captured oslo, and drove some of the danish and other foreign officers out of the country. in a proclamation issued, after this uprising, by the norwegian council of state, calling upon the people to be loyal to king erik ( ), the council promised to request the king in the future not to appoint foreigners to the high offices unless they had married into norwegian families. in denmark also the people complained of the heavy taxes and the many germans who were imported and given high positions. wearied of all these complaints, and taking with him his mistress, cecilia, the money left in the treasury, and a number of important documents, king erik left the country and took up his residence on the island of gotland, where he had a fortified castle ( ). shortly after this he was formally deposed in denmark and in sweden, while in norway they still, for a time, remained loyal to him. as regent in norway, during his absence, the king appointed the influential norwegian, sigurd jonson. the latter descended from a powerful old family; he had inherited biarkoe, giske and other estates, and was the richest man in the country. for ten years king erik lived in his castle in gottland, supporting himself by piracy, but was finally driven away by the swedes. he returned to his native country, pomerania, where he ended his long but inglorious life in . chapter xxxviii _christopher of bavaria ( - )_ according to the provisions of the kalmar union, a new king was to be elected by the authorized delegates of the three countries; but, instead of that, the danish council of state summoned erik's nephew (sister's son), christopher of bavaria, who was first elected regent and shortly afterward ( ) proclaimed king. in sweden, carl knutsson bonde endeavored to prevent a renewal of the union; but, with the aid of the clergy, the rights of christopher were acknowledged, and he was proclaimed king of sweden at morasten, september , . in norway, king erik had many adherents, and his favorite, bishop thorleif, did all in his power to retain erik, or his cousin, bugislav, as king; but when it appeared that neither of them was coming to assert his claim, the norwegians finally also acknowledged christopher, and he was hailed as king of norway, in oslo, in . he had thus succeeded in reuniting the three countries, although he was crowned separately in each of them. christopher was a good-natured and jolly man, who wished everybody well. in sweden, there was naturally objection to the piracy committed by his uncle from the island of gottland; but when the swedes complained of this to the king, he answered merrily: "our uncle is sitting on a rock, and he, too, must have something to live off." in norway, the administration of public affairs was fairly good. there were no complaints against the king, and the country's own people had their share in the government. the king made an effort to restrict the hanseatic league, which, together with the "victualia-brethren," caused so much damage to norway. for this purpose he tried to give them commercial rivals by giving the citizens of amsterdam trading privileges in norway. in he gave the town of bergen new privileges and announced several restrictions of the privileges of the hansa towns. the power and influence of the latter was shown by the fact that this ordinance was repealed the next year, and the king was obliged to confirm their old and "just" privileges. king christopher, however, did not abandon his purpose; but, just as he was about to bring new plans into execution, death overtook him, january , , when he was about thirty-two years old. chapter xxxix _the union with denmark--christian i. ( - )_ after the death of king christopher, the swedes elected carl knutsson bonde king of sweden, while the danes elected count christian of oldenborg, at the age of twenty-two, because he was heir to schleswig and holstein, and it was generally desired to have schleswig reunited with denmark. in the norwegian council of state there was dissension. the regent, sigurd jonson, the commander at bergen, olaf nilsson, and the commander at akershus, hartvig krumedike, who was from the duchy of holstein, wanted to elect the danish king, christian, who was remotely related to the old norse kings, while another more popular party, led by the archbishop, aslak bolt, preferred the swedish king, carl knutsson. the council finally elected christian, at oslo, in the spring of ; but, after his return to nidaros, the archbishop declared the election void, not having been voluntary, and joined the people of the throndhjem country and the uplands in inviting king carl to come to norway. with a mounted force of five hundred men, king carl proceeded through vermeland and solver to hamar, where he was proclaimed king of norway, october , , and a month later he was crowned in throndhjem by the archbishop. early in , however, when king carl attempted to capture oslo, he was defeated, and an armistice was arranged. the archbishop died shortly afterward, and, at a meeting in halmstad, in may, , between swedish and danish magnates, the swedish delegates, in the name of king carl, relinquished all claims to norway. thus, when christian came to norway in the summer, he was acknowledged by everybody, and was crowned in throndhjem on saint olaf's day, july , . he then went to bergen, where, on the th of august, , a closer union between norway and denmark was concluded. the main provisions of the agreement were: . that both countries were hereafter to be united in brotherly love, neither country being the superior of the other; . that each country should be governed by native-born officials, and enjoy their own laws, liberties and privileges; . that both countries should henceforth remain under one lord and king forever; . when the king died the councils of both kingdoms were to meet at halmstad and elect a new king from among the late king's legitimate heirs. thus the house of oldenborg acquired the throne of norway and continued to rule the country for three hundred and sixty-four years. for several years there was war between kings carl and christian, and in this war norway was also involved. in king carl invaded norway with an army and captured throndhjem; but he was afterward driven back across the frontier by the commander in bergen, sir olaf nilsson. the german merchants (hansa, hanseatic league), who, after the war under king erik, had returned to bergen, had become more powerful and insolent than ever before. they drove the citizens of the town away from the wharves and continually increased their own number by importations. the commander, olaf nilsson, was very severe with the germans, and made them pay heavy taxes. they complained to the king, and, as he feared that the hansa might aid his enemy, king carl, he removed olaf. the latter now set out as a pirate against the hansa towns, and captured several of their ships at sea. he also succeeded in capturing the swedish fort, elfsborg, at the mouth of the gaut river, and offered it to the king if he were reinstated as commander at bergen. this offer was accepted, and olaf returned to bergen. enraged at this, the germans armed themselves to the number of over , , intent upon killing the commander. olaf sought refuge in the cloister of munkeliv, where his friend, bishop thorleif, tried in vain to appease the germans. they burned the cloister, killed the bishop--who came out carrying the sacrament--and three other priests, besides olaf nilsson and his brother, with families and children; in all, sixty people. this was the st of september, . the king, who needed the help of the hansa towns, neither would nor could punish this great crime. but the pope placed the murderers in the ban of the church, and compelled them to pay heavy fines for the murder of the bishop and to rebuild the cloister. internal dissensions in sweden, involving a struggle between the king, the bishops and the nobility, resulted in the expulsion of carl and the acceptance of christian as the king of sweden. thus the three countries again became united under one king ( ), and the next year the state councils promised that, after the death of christian, his son hans was to be king of all three countries. but king christian made himself hated by his oppression, and when he caused the imprisonment of the powerful archbishop, jens bengtson oxenstierna, the latter's nephew, ketil carlsson wasa, bishop of linköping, swore that he would not put on his bishop's robes until his country had been rid of its oppressor, and he kept his word. carl was recalled, and died, as king of sweden, in , after several unsuccessful attempts by christian to regain the swedish crown. in christian was defeated in battle at brunkeberg (now a part of stockholm) by king carl's nephew, sten sture, whom the swedes had elected regent. after that king christian made no further attempts to recover sweden. king christian was a reckless spendthrift, and was always financially embarrassed. the annual tribute for the hebrides, which scotland was to pay to the king of norway according to the peace made with king magnus the law-mender, had not been paid for some time, and king christian in vain demanded payment. in order to settle the matter peaceably it was arranged that christian's daughter margaret was to marry the scotch king, james iii., and her dowry was fixed at , gulden. as christian could not raise this amount, he obtained the consent of the norwegian council of state to pawn the orkneys for , gulden, besides remitting the tribute for the hebrides. not being able to pay the balance, he also, without consent, pawned the shetland isles. thus these ancient dependencies were lost to norway, for they were never redeemed, although each new king solemnly promised to do so. king christian died may , , at the age of fifty-five years, and lies buried at the cathedral of roskilde. chapter xl _hans ( - )_ christian's eldest son, hans, or johannes, had already as a child been proclaimed as his father's successor in all three countries, but after the death of christian neither the norwegians nor the swedes showed any great disposition to renew the union. the norwegian council of state entered into a league with the swedish regent, sten sture, at oslo, february , , where it was agreed that hereafter norway and sweden were to act together and mutually support each other for the maintenance of their liberties, rights and welfare. but as sten sture hesitated in openly declaring himself against denmark, the norwegians again turned to that country and agreed to a joint election of a king at halmstad (january , ), where king hans succeeded in inducing archbishop gaute and the other delegates to acknowledge him as king of norway, after having promised to redress all wrongs and otherwise comply with the wishes of the people. he was crowned in throndhjem, july , . the king's chief efforts were now directed toward effecting the submission of sweden. the authorized delegates of the three countries assembled at kalmar, where the union was renewed, and the kalmar recess was published (november, ); but through the influence of sten sture the acknowledgment of king hans was postponed from year to year. finally, in , hans invaded sweden with a strong army, defeated sten sture, and was proclaimed king of sweden. thus hans had become ruler of the three countries, and his son christian was proclaimed his successor. this power, however, was not of long duration. in the western part of holland there lived a people called the ditmarshers, whom the emperor had transferred to king christian, although they had always formerly been a free people. king hans wished to subdue them, and, in the year , he and his younger brother, duke frederick of schleswig-holstein, invaded the country with a large army. they suffered a terrible defeat, however, as the inhabitants opened the dikes and called in the ocean as their ally. the king and his brother escaped with a loss of , slain or drowned, while enormous treasures were lost. no sooner did the news of this disaster reach sweden than the swedes took up arms. sten sture was again made regent, and king hans's own queen was made a prisoner in stockholm. at the same time the norwegians also revolted. the most powerful man in norway at that time was sir knut alfson, owner of giske and many other estates. he had long been commander at akershus; but had had a quarrel with henrik krummedike, the commander at bahus, and the king, suspecting him of being friendly to the swedes, had removed him. now that the swedes had revolted, sir knut joined them and defeated the danes, after which he invaded norway and captured the fortresses akershus and tunsberghus. henrik krummedike proceeded with a strong army to oslo, in order to besiege akershus. negotiations were opened for peace, and henrik invited sir knut to a conference on board his ship under safe conduct, but, on his arrival, foully murdered him and threw his body into the water. the struggle of the discontented norwegians was continued under the leadership of knut alfson's widow, the brave lady mette dyre; but when the danes received reinforcements from denmark the rebellion was soon suppressed, and lady mette was obliged to flee to sweden. knut alfson's large estates were confiscated to the crown. the attempt to subdue the swedes was not so successful, although some strong attacks were made. the able regent, sten sture, died in , but his successor, svante nilsson sture, who married knut alfson's widow, defended his country's independence with courage and ability. he died in , and was succeeded by sten sture the younger. in the year king hans sent his son christian to norway to rule the country in his name. christian tried to rule as an autocratic king, and to place norway entirely under danish rule. he installed danes as commanders of the fortresses, and also had danes elected bishops. his faithful servant and chancellor, erik valkendorf, was made archbishop in throndhjem. he understood that it was detrimental to the country that the hansa towns had a monopoly of the trade, and therefore tried to restrict their privileges and to encourage the competition by the merchants from holland, and took many steps to help the norwegian towns. but in dealing with revolts he was very severe. an uprising by the peasants of hedemarken, under the leadership of herlog hudfat, was promptly crushed, and the leaders were beheaded outside of akershus. some of the captured peasants were tortured until they confessed that bishop carl of hamar was the real instigator of the rebellion. the bishop was captured and held in prison until his death, and christian took possession of his estate. the hansa towns were greatly enraged against christian; but they hated king hans even more, because he interfered with their trade with sweden and encouraged the dutch traders. it finally came to open war, and the traders of lubeck attacked and plundered the danish islands. king hans, however, returned the attack with a strong fleet, defeated the lubeckers, and compelled them to make peace and to pay , gulden in war indemnity. this was the first time that a scandinavian king had dared to go to war with the powerful hansa towns. king hans died at aalborg, february , , fifty-eight years old. chapter xli _christian ii. ( - )_ after the death of king hans, his only son, the cruel christian, mounted the throne; but the council of state and the nobility, well knowing that he would be a less compliant monarch than his father, sought to secure their alleged rights by a new charter, which he was compelled to sign before he was crowned. during his stay in norway as viceroy, christian had become acquainted with a dutch girl in bergen, the beautiful dyveke. they first met at a ball, which he gave for the most prominent citizens in bergen, and where they fell in love with each other. he afterward brought the girl and her wily mother, sigbrit willums, with him to oslo and later to copenhagen, where sigbrit continued to wield a great influence during the whole of christian's reign. two years after his accession to the throne, christian married the wealthiest princess of europe, isabella, a sister of charles v., who afterward became emperor of germany and king of spain. the wedding was celebrated with great pomp at copenhagen. the young queen brought him a dower of , gulden, and she was as good and lovely as she was rich. archbishop erik valkendorf had brought the bride to the country, and had promised charles v. to see that dyveke was kept out of the way. sigbrit willums heard of this, and henceforth was the archbishop's bitter enemy. neither did the king listen to the archbishop's advice. dyveke retained the favor of the king until, a year and a half later, she suddenly died, and the king's passionate love for her now led him to a cruel and unjust act. the governor of the castle in copenhagen, torben ox, had also fallen in love with dyveke, and, as she died shortly after having eaten some cherries, it was rumored that the cherries had been poisoned, and that torben ox had caused her death. the king summoned torben before the council of state, which acquitted him. the king became enraged when he heard the decision, and said: "if we had had as many friends in the council as torben had, the judgment would have been different; but even if this ox has a neck as thick as that of a bull, he shall yet lose it." although, according to law, a nobleman could only be tried by the council of state, the king summoned twelve peasants to retry the case. they found him guilty, and although the counsellors and the nobility, the queen and the court ladies, all begged for mercy, the king was unmoved, and torben ox was executed. the crown of sweden was the great object of king christian's ambition; but it took years before he reached this goal. the swedish regent, sten sture the younger, was very popular and had undisputed power, until he was antagonized by the newly-elected archbishop at upsala, gustaf trolle, who, with many members of the old nobility, became jealous of the power enjoyed by the sture family and preferred to support king christian. sten sture defeated gustaf trolle, who was deprived of his see and compelled to flee from his castle. afterward sten sture was placed in the ban of the church, and the archbishop received aid from denmark. king christian made several expeditions to sweden, and finally his general, otto krumpen, defeated sten sture's army in a battle on the ice at bogesund, where sten sture was mortally wounded (february, ). sture's widow, the courageous christina gyldenstierna, tried to hold the party together, and, for a few months, defended stockholm; but finally had to surrender the city. the swedes now acknowledged christian as hereditary king, and, on the th of november, , he was crowned by gustaf trolle in the grand church in stockholm. after the coronation great festivities were held for three days. on the fourth day a number of the swedish nobles were summoned to meet at the palace. while the king was surrounded by his court, the representatives of gustaf trolle stepped forward and demanded reparation for the wrongs committed against the archbishop. christian, who wished to subdue the swedish nobles, availed himself of the opportunity and followed the bad advice given him. the document by which gustaf trolle had been deposed was produced, and all who had signed it were arrested on the spot. the following day, november , , the accused were brought before a court consisting of eleven swedish priests and one danish bishop. the only question asked was whether men who had raised their hands against the pope and the holy church were heretics. the members of the court answering in the affirmative, the accused were declared to be heretics, and the king fixed the punishment at death. the condemned were at once conveyed to the great market-place, where two bishops, thirteen counsellors of state and knights, and many other prominent men, in all about fifty, were beheaded. this was the notorious carnage of stockholm. after having left the conduct of the fight in sweden in the hands of his able admiral, soefren norby, king christian now returned to denmark, where, during the next two years, he introduced several excellent laws for the improvement of commerce, industry and culture. but he also tried to establish himself as an autocratic king. he abolished several of the privileges of the nobility and the bishops, and planned the gradual extinction of the council of state, by not appointing any successors to members who died. the swedes did not long endure the rule of king christian and the insolence of his officers. the people of the province of dalarne (dalecarlia) rose under the leadership of gustavus eriksson wasa, a young nobleman whose father was among those beheaded in the carnage of stockholm. they successfully fought the danes and captured one town after another, and elected gustavus wasa regent of sweden. king christian prohibited all trade by the hansa towns with sweden, and let his men capture their ships; thus he incensed the people of lubeck, who declared war against him and helped the swedes. king christian then levied a new tax to cover the war expenses and summoned a meeting of nobles. but now the nobles of jutland rose against him and offered to proclaim his uncle, duke frederick, king. frederick accepted the offer, and the nobles sent christian a letter revoking their allegiance to him. an inexplicable faint-heartedness now seized christian, and, instead of summoning his many faithful adherents to his support, he commenced to negotiate with his enemies, and when that proved of no avail, he embarked, april , , with his queen, his children, lady sigbrit and others, and sailed to holland in order to seek the aid of his powerful brother-in-law, emperor charles v. duke frederick was now proclaimed king, but he had to divide the power with the council of state and sign a charter which gave the nobility many improper privileges. shortly afterward the swedes elected gustavus wasa king, and thus ended the union of the three countries. both kings were obliged to restore to the hansa towns all trading privileges, in order to be assured that they would not help king christian to return. chapter xlii _frederick i. ( - )_ norway had taken no part in the expulsion of king christian, and for a time remained loyal to him. the newly-elected archbishop, olaf engelbrektson, proceeded to rome in order to obtain the recognition of the pope. during his absence norway was to be governed by the council of state, which consisted of the bishops and a few noblemen. the mightiest among the latter was nils henrikson of oestraat, whose wife, inger ottesdatter, was related to the old norwegian royal house. this ambitious woman, commonly called lady inger of oestraat, took quite a prominent part in public affairs, three of her daughters being married to prominent danes. king frederick soon gained a number of influential adherents in norway. he sent to bergen the danish nobleman, vincentz lunge, who married one of the daughters of nils henrikson and inger of oestraat. after the death of nils, vincentz became a member of the council of state and commander at the fortress of bergenhus. he used his influence in favor of king frederick; but he wanted the council of state to be as powerful in norway as the danish council was in denmark. he was supported by archbishop olaf, and the council of state finally elected frederick king of norway; but the king had to grant the council, and especially vincentz lunge, great authority. the king issued a "recess," by which he pledged himself: . in the future not to sign himself heir to norway, as the country was a free elective kingdom; . to redeem the orkneys and the shetland isles, which his father had illegally pawned; . that the coronation was hereafter to take place in throndhjem. the king did not care so much about keeping these promises as about filling the most important offices with danish noblemen, who conducted public affairs to suit themselves. among those who were specially favored were: mogens gyldenstierne, who became commandant at akershus; eske bilde, who was placed in command at bergenhus, relinquished by vincentz lunge in consideration of having the nunnery at bergen (afterward called lungegaarden) deeded to him; vincentz's brother-in-law, nils lykke, and henrik krummedike, notorious from the slaying of knut alfson. king frederick was an adherent of the doctrines of luther, which had now been commonly accepted in northern germany, and from thence were introduced into denmark. he compelled the danish bishops to acknowledge him as the head of the church instead of the pope, and took possession of a number of cloisters, which he either kept for himself or gave to the nobles. in norway, too, he gave away some of the cloisters, which, of course, caused great dissatisfaction among the clergy. the discontent in norway took a very definite form, when, contrary to the recess, the king sent his son christian to norway to be proclaimed heir to the throne. archbishop olaf engelbrektson and a majority of the council of state then declared that this could not be done, inasmuch as norway was an elective kingdom; and here the king was obliged to let the matter rest. meanwhile, the exiled king christian, encouraged by messages from norway and sweden, thought he saw a chance to regain his lost throne. with the aid of charles v., and some private parties, he gathered an army and a fleet in holland, and sailed for norway in october, , with twenty-five ships and , men. on the way he suffered by great storms and lost ten of his ships, but landed in norway with the remnants of his fleet. he gained a large number of adherents, and, proceeding to oslo, laid siege to the fortress of akershus. mogens gyldenstierne, however, defended it well, and when, in the spring ( ), reinforcements arrived, in the form of a strong army of danes and lubeckers, christian made an agreement with mogens, by which he was to proceed, under a safe conduct, to copenhagen, in order to personally conduct peace negotiations with his uncle. upon his arrival in denmark, however, the agreement was shamefully broken, and the unfortunate king was thrown into prison at sonderborg. he was placed in a cell having a small barred window high up; the entrance was closed with masonry, and the food was sent in through a hole in the wall. here he remained for eighteen years. in he was transferred, by frederick's successor, to a milder prison in kallundborg castle, where he remained until he died, in the beginning of , seventy-eight years old. the norwegians were severely punished for their alliance with christian. the chieftains of the danish party, bishop olaf in bergen and the danish noblemen, eske bilde, vincentz lunge and nils lykke, held a meeting in bergen shortly after christian's defeat and levied a heavy tax on the whole country. the archbishop was fined , danish marks. the norwegians were compelled to relinquish any right, through the council of state, to elect any other king than the one elected for denmark. shortly after frederick had been again recognized by the norwegians as their king, he died, without being missed, at the age of sixty-two years, april , . during his reign the lutheran faith was preached throughout denmark, but only in a few towns in norway; for instance, in bergen. chapter xliii _interregnum ( - )_ at the death of frederick i. an interregnum occurred, as the danish estates were unable to agree upon the election of a new king. the nobles favored the late king's oldest son, duke christian, but he being devoted to protestantism, the clergy wanted his younger brother, hans, who was only a child, and whom they hoped to win for the catholic faith. the bourgeoisie and the peasants desired to have the imprisoned christian ii. reinstated. under the pretext that a new king could not be elected without the presence of the norwegian council of state, the clergy succeeded in having the election postponed to a joint meeting of the councils of both countries, to be held the following year. in the meantime, the so-called "count's feud" broke out. the lubeckers, who were dissatisfied on account of the trading privileges granted to the dutch, sent an army to denmark, under command of christopher of oldenborg, who desired to recover the danish throne for his cousin, the captive king, christian ii. the count discovered the lower estates to be such bitter enemies of the nobility, and ardent adherents of the captive king, that he found no great difficulty in taking possession of the danish isles and scania. the council of state, or a part of it, now hastened to elect frederick's son, duke christian, king (july , ). an alliance was formed with the swedish king, gustavus wasa, against the lubeckers, and the fortunes of war soon turned in favor of the new king. his brave general, johan rantzau, defeated the enemy at aalborg, crossed over to fyn, and won a complete victory over the count at oexneberg, while gustavus wasa helped the king's party to retake scania. after the capture of copenhagen, july , , king christian iii. was recognized by the whole of denmark. while the count's feud was going on in denmark, there was also strife and disorder in norway. both parties had tried to win the support of the powerful archbishop in throndhjem, olaf engelbrektson, and through him the control of norway; but, while for several reasons he could not recognize christian iii., he was for a time uncertain whom to support. it was decided to hold a meeting in throndhjem at christmas, , for the purpose of electing a king; but the followers of vincentz lunge and eske bilde in the southern and western parts of the country held a meeting at oslo, shortly before whitsuntide, , where they proclaimed christian iii. king of norway. a special embassy from the queen-regent of holland visited archbishop olaf, and, in the name of emperor charles v., promised him powerful support if he would persevere in his old loyalty to the captive king, christian ii.; and when the agents of christian iii. arrived in throndhjem, about christmas time, there was an uprising of the people, said to be instigated by the archbishop, and many of the danish magnates were imprisoned and otherwise maltreated. two of them, the counsellors vincentz lunge and nils lykke--who were not only public opponents, but personal enemies, of the archbishop--were murdered. the archbishop now adopted a vigorous policy, and tried to get possession of the fortresses of bergenhus and akershus, but his armies were defeated. when the adversity of christian ii.'s party in denmark further convinced the archbishop that the cause was hopeless, he released the imprisoned agents and requested them to mediate with the king, offering allegiance to christian iii. on condition that he be allowed to retain his rank and property. the king, however, did not accept the offer, but, in the spring of , sent a fleet of fourteen ships and , men, under the command of truit ulfstand and christopher hvitfeld, to throndhjem. foreseeing the destruction of his party, archbishop olaf engelbrektson gathered the treasures of the cathedral and fled to holland, where this last champion of norwegian independence died the following year. chapter xliv _christian iii. ( - )--the reformation introduced_ at the great diet, held in copenhagen, in , it was decided that the catholic faith should be abolished, the property of the bishops and the cloisters was confiscated to the crown, and the lutheran faith was introduced into denmark. a new ecclesiastical law was adopted, called the ordinance. the king also promised the rapacious nobility of denmark that henceforth norway was to be, and remain, under the crown of denmark as any other part of the country, and not to be called a separate kingdom, but a province of the danish crown. the norwegian council of state was abolished, the catholic bishops were removed, and danish noblemen were installed at the fortresses to rule the country in the king's name. from this time the danish council of state exerted great influence in the government of norway; but, in spite of all this, norway remained a separate state; it retained its old laws, and the chancellor was still to be the supreme judge. after the flight of the archbishop, and the submission of norway, the danish church ordinance was also made to apply to norway; but the new faith was little known there, and the norwegians long clung to the old faith. when the bishops had been removed, danish magnates were sent around in the country to take possession of "the silver, treasures and goods of the old idolatry." in performing this function the danish magnates showed especial reformatory zeal. thus, in bergen, the church robber, eske bilde, spared neither churches nor the graves of the departed kings, while in throndhjem otto stigson burned the library and archives of the cathedral chapter, and thord roed committed havoc in the same manner in stavanger. saint olaf's costly shrine--which stood on the high altar in the cathedral of throndhjem, and was ornamented with precious stones--as well as many other treasures of the church, were sent to copenhagen. lutheran superintendents or bishops were installed in place of the catholic bishops; but the government could not at once remove all the catholic priests, because there were not lutheran ministers enough to put in their places, and, when lutheran ministers were appointed, they were generally treated with ill-will, and sometimes even driven away or killed. the majority of the lutheran ministers were danes, and danish became the language of the church. the ablest of the new lutheran bishops was geble pederson in bergen, who showed great zeal in educating lutheran ministers. theological seminaries were established at each of the episcopal sees of throndhjem, bergen, stavanger and oslo. the bishopric of hamar was consolidated with that of oslo. the hansa towns, in making peace with christian iii. after the count's feud, had succeeded in retaining their trading privileges in norway, and, during the greater part of this reign, acted in their old insolent and oppressive manner. in bergen they made themselves especially obnoxious, so that the people complained bitterly to the king. he finally appointed, as commander in bergen, the able danish nobleman, christopher walkendorf, who commenced to put limits to the arbitrary and violent conduct of the germans, and subdued them in such a way that they never regained their old power. after this the norwegian citizens of bergen gradually asserted themselves, and soon had the control of the whole fishery trade with the northern districts. christian iii. died on the st of january, , at the age of fifty-five years. although he reigned for twenty-three years, he never visited norway as king. chapter xlv _frederick ii. ( - )_ christian iii. was succeeded by his oldest son, frederick ii., who was then twenty-five years old. this vain and worthless monarch commenced his reign with a successful war on the liberty-loving ditmarshers. later he waged war on the swedish king, erik xiv. the causes of this disastrous war, the so-called northern seven years' war ( - ), were apparently trivial. both kings wanted to carry the three crowns in their coats-of-arms, and some swedish messengers, who were on their way to germany, had been arrested in denmark; but the real reasons were the jealousy between the two kings and the desire of the danes to again unite the three countries under a danish king. at sea the danes were unsuccessful, although they had very able admirals in herluf trolle and otto rud. on land they fared no better in the beginning; but, in , the hero, daniel rantzau, won a great victory over a much larger army than his own in the battle of svarteraa in halland. norway, whose defences had been sadly neglected, suffered greatly, during this war, from swedish incursions. a swedish army of , men, under the command of the frenchman, claude collart, conquered jemteland and herjedalen and crossed the mountains to throndhjem. the fortress stenviksholm was forced to surrender, and the people of throndhjem and the surrounding districts submitted without resistance and paid homage to the swedish king. later, however, claude collart was defeated by a fleet sent against him by the governor at bergenhus, the rich and highly-esteemed erik rosenkrands. claude collart took refuge in the fortress stenviksholm; but here he was besieged, and was finally obliged to surrender. he was sent in irons to copenhagen. especially hard for the norwegians was the year , when the swedes harried hedemarken, romerike and soloer, and captured hamar. the cathedral of hamar was burned, and the swedes marched against akershus, which was bravely defended by the commander, kristen munk. the citizens of oslo burned their town in order to prevent the swedes from obtaining a foothold there. on this occasion the swedes lay encamped on the mountain side above the town, on a plain afterward called the "swedish plain." the norwegians were hard pressed; but erik rosenkrands again sent assistance from bergen, and the swedes were obliged to leave the country with considerable loss. the incursions of the swedes were, however, repeated from time to time, and, during one of them, the town of sarpsborg was burned, january, . finally, in december, , peace was concluded at stettin, and the terms were, on the whole, favorable to denmark. in return for relinquishing her claims to sweden, which could never have been established, she secured an acknowledgment of her rights to norway, scania, halland and blekinge, while sweden returned the norwegian provinces of herjedalen and jemteland, and paid , rigsdalers for war expenses. both countries retained the right to carry the "three crowns" in their coats-of-arms. the seven years' war was not the only cause of suffering in norway during the reign of frederick ii. from norway was given its own _statholder_ or viceroy, always a danish nobleman, who was to reside at akershus, the fortress near oslo. but the viceroy did not not have the power, if indeed he desired it, to prevent the prefects and other officers from subjecting the people to cruelties and extortions. they arbitrarily levied taxes, conducted illegal trading, and treated the peasants in a shameful manner. for ten years erik munk continued his violent rule in nedenes. at last, on complaint of the people, he was sentenced to return illegal taxes and indemnify a peasant, whose property he had taken. later he was deprived of his office and placed in a prison, where he committed suicide. ludvig munk, prefect in throndhjem, even became viceroy, although his conduct as prefect had been such as to cause a conspiracy, which cost the instigators their lives. the city of fredericksstad, which was built to replace the ancient sarpsborg, was named after king frederick. during his reign of twenty-nine years, frederick ii. was only once in norway on a short visit, and knew little of the distress of the country. he amused himself at the palace of copenhagen, where he led a dissolute life, shortened by drink. he died, april , , at the age of fifty-four years. chapter xlvi _christian iv. ( - )_ frederick ii. was succeeded by his son, christian iv., a king who became very popular with the norwegians. christian was only eleven years of age at his father's death. according to the desire of the late king, his widow, sophia of mecklenburg, was to act as regent during christian's minority, but the powerful council of state refused to confirm such regency, and appointed four members of their own body, chancellor niels kaas, admiral peder munk, and the counsellors jorgen rosenkrands and christopher walkendorf, as regents and guardians of the prince. christian was given an excellent education by competent teachers. he early showed great love for the sea, and admiral munk caused a little frigate to be built expressly for him, and had it launched in a lake in jutland, where he was taught by expert sailors how to navigate his ship. when he was nineteen years old, christian assumed the government in his own name, and was crowned, with great ceremony, in copenhagen, . none of the other danish kings have been so zealous for the welfare of norway. he frequently visited the country, and once even ( ) sailed along the northernmost coast into the white sea, as he wished to acquaint himself with the circumstances of the northern boundary conflict with sweden. on his return voyage he came to bergen, where he witnessed a trial in court, visited the german wharf and watched the games of the germans. he attended a jolly party at the apothecary's, where the guests smashed the windows; the king's crowned monogram was painted on the new panes. he also visited the peasants and drank toasts with them, according to their custom. king christian listened to the complaints from norway of the extortions of the danish prefects, who, one after another, were deposed from office or compelled to pay heavy fines. he made the norwegian-born nobleman, hans pederson basse (or little), chancellor of norway. the old norwegian laws, which were written in the old norse language, and therefore now hard to understand, were abolished, and, in their stead, the king directed the learned chancellor, hans pederson basse, with the assistance of other experienced men, to elaborate a new code of laws. hans pederson died (november, ) before this work was completed, but his assistant and successor as chancellor of norway, anders green, continued it, and the new laws were published in . a norwegian ecclesiastical law (ordinance) was also given, because the danish one was not suited for norway. christian iv. had three wars during his long reign, two with sweden and one with the catholics in germany. the first swedish war ( - ) was fought principally for norway's sake. the swedish king, charles ix., called himself, at his coronation, king of the lapps, and laid claim to the norwegian province of finmark. there was also a renewal of a conflict about "the three crowns" in the coats-of-arms. christian made a successful attack, destroyed the newly-founded town of gothenburg, and captured elfsborg and the town and fortress of kalmar; hence this war is called the kalmar war. during the war, the old king, charles ix., died, and was succeeded by his son, the great gustavus adolphus. the war was largely conducted with foreign mercenaries, as it was not yet usual to have standing armies. gustavus adolphus had secured two such hired armies, which were to try to proceed across norway in order to reach sweden, as the kattegat was closed with danish ships. colonel munchaven landed with eight hundred men from holland in söndmöre, where he plundered the country, then tried in vain to attack throndhjem, and afterward proceeded through stjördalen, where the people had become so frightened, on account of his depredations, that they did not dare to offer any resistance. ravaging and plundering he made his way across the mountain ridge kjölen into the province of jemteland, which he conquered before joining the army in sweden. the second foreign army was given a different reception. it consisted of nine hundred men, who came from scotland under the command of colonel george sinclair. they landed at veblungsnes in romsdal and proceeded up to gudbrandsdal. under the leadership of bailiff lauritz gram, the brave peasants of the gudbrandsdal armed themselves as best they could. the peasants from the parishes of lesje, vaage, fron, and ringebu, gathered at the narrow mountain pass, kringen, near the river laugen, to await the arrival of the enemy. the advance guard was allowed to pass; but on the arrival of the main body, with colonel sinclair himself, the norwegians suddenly attacked the scotchmen, who were all shot down or driven into the river. the advance guard was then overtaken and killed. of the whole force of nine hundred men, not one man, it is said, escaped. at kvam's church a grave is still pointed out as being that of colonel sinclair, and at kringen there is a plain stone monument bearing this inscription: "here colonel george sinclair was shot, august , ." after the scotchmen the norwegians call this war the "scotch war." peace was finally concluded at knaeröd, january , . gustavus adolphus abandoned his claim to the norwegian finmark, and christian relinquished the captured fortresses upon being paid a million rigsdalers. both countries were again allowed to use the three crowns in their coats-of-arms. in his second war christian iv. was not successful. this was his participation in the thirty years' war as the ally of the german protestants against emperor ferdinand ii. and the catholics ( - ). after his defeat in the battle of lutter am barenberge, the imperial armies, under tilly and wallenstein, overran holstein, schleswig, and jutland, and, at the peace of lubeck, christian was obliged to pledge himself not to take any further part in the war. king christian's third war was with sweden. the swedish king, gustavus adolphus, had been fighting for the cause of the protestants in germany, and, after his fall in , the swedes continued the war under his able generals with much success. king christian viewed with alarm the growing power of the swedes, and secretly allied himself with the enemies of sweden. the swedes, however, anticipated his designs, and, in december, , the swedish general, torstensson, left the scene of war in bohemia and suddenly invaded holstein, while another swedish army attacked the province of scania; a swedish and a dutch fleet were to convey these armies over to the danish isles. the duchies and jutland were in a very short time conquered by the swedes, and it was only by christian's wise and prompt proceedings that funen and the other islands were saved from falling into the hands of the enemy. although king christian was then an old man of sixty-seven years, he took command of his fleet, won a battle at listerdyk, and fought valiantly in the terrible naval battle of kolbergheide, femern, july , , where he himself was badly wounded. on account of a lack of vigilance on the part of the old danish admiral galt, the swedish fleet succeeded in escaping and uniting with the dutch, and this combined fleet, of sixty-four ships, thereupon attacked the danish one of seventeen ships, between lolland and falster. unfortunately, a number of the sailors were ashore, and some of the commanders took to hasty flight. the remainder gathered around their admiral, the norwegian, pros nilson mund, who would neither flee nor surrender, but fought to the last man against the overwhelming force of the enemy. this defeat placed denmark in such a dangerous position that an immediate peace became an absolute necessity. the peace was concluded at bromsebro, august , , and king christian was compelled to cede the norwegian provinces of herjedalen and jemteland, and the island of gottland to sweden. in norway, where the king had lately established a standing army, this war had been conducted with some success. it was named the hannibal's feud, after the viceroy, hannibal sehested, who, with the assistance of the brave warrior, the clergyman in ullensaker, kield stub, not only kept the enemy out of norway, but also collected heavy tributes from the nearest swedish provinces. after peace had been concluded, kield stub returned to his pastorate, which he managed to his death, in . christian iv. did a great deal to promote the industries and commerce of norway. the hanseatic office in bergen was held in check, and norwegian trading enterprises were encouraged. the mining industry, which had heretofore been neglected, became quite active. when silver had been discovered in sandsvaer, in , he founded the mining-town of kongsberg. he also established the copper-works at röros, where copper was accidentally discovered by the peasant, hans aasen, in . oslo having been destroyed by fire, king christian requested the inhabitants to move across the bay, closer to the fortress of akershus, where he laid out the new town, the present capital of christiania ( ). at the mouth of the otter river he founded the town of christianssand ( ), which afterward became the seat of the bishop instead of stavanger. king christian was very often in norway. the last time was during the year following the peace of bromsebro. after a pleasant sojourn of seven weeks he returned to denmark, where, shortly afterward, he died (february , ), in the seventy-first year of his life. christian iv. was first married to anna katherina of brandenburg, who died in . in he entered into a morganatic marriage with kristine munk, a lady of noble family, to whom he gave the title of countess of schleswig-holstein, and with whom he lived happily many years. they had several children, among whom was the highly gifted eleonora kristine, who was married to the danish nobleman, corfitz ulfeld, and who, with her ambitious husband, exerted a great influence over the king during the latter years of his life. chapter xlvii _frederick iii. ( - )--absolutism introduced ( )_ after the death of christian iv. some months elapsed before the council of state would agree to elect his son, frederick iii., to the throne. he was finally elected toward the end of the year , after having given the nobility still greater power, by signing a more humiliating charter than any king had yet granted; but it also became the last one. the conditions were such that he could not exercise any of the powers of a king without the consent of the council. during the first nine years of frederick's reign the country had peace; but the war which then broke out was most fatal in its result. the swedish king, charles x. gustavus, was at war with poland, and rumor had it that he had suffered serious defeats. although the country highly needed peace, the army and navy, as well as the finances, being in a miserable condition, king frederick believed there was an opportunity to recover the lost provinces, and war against sweden was declared, . but king charles hastily left poland and invaded denmark, and, before the year was closed, he had conquered holstein, schleswig and jutland. the winter being unusually severe, he could march across the ice to the islands of langeland, lolland, and falster, and, in february, he stood with his whole army in zealand (sjælland) and threatened copenhagen. king frederick was obliged to sign the peace at roskilde (february , ), by which he ceded to sweden the norwegian provinces of bahus-len and throndhjem stift and the danish provinces of scania, halland, blekinge, and the island of bornholm. thus norway was again deprived of some territory, although the norwegians, under iver krabbe (after whom the war was called the krabbe war), had repulsed the attacks of the swedes, while general jorgen bjelke had conquered jemteland, which, however, had to be evacuated when peace was concluded. having discovered the great weakness of denmark, king charles thought he saw a chance to place the three crowns on his head, and five months later he broke the peace, under some pretext, and again landed with a well-equipped army, with which he besieged copenhagen. he captured the castle of kronborg and other points of defence, and arrogantly declared, to the danish messengers sent to him, that "it could matter little whether the king of the danes was called charles or frederick, and that he would explain the causes of the war after denmark had been taken." at copenhagen, however, king charles met a stronger resistance than he had expected. a dutch fleet, under admiral opdam, succeeded in forcing its way past kronborg and the swedish fleet, and brought provisions and help to the starving citizens. when charles, during the night of february , , tried to take the city by assault, he was repulsed after a desperate conflict, leaving , dead and wounded in the hands of the danes. later in the year king frederick succeeded in securing the assistance of france, england and holland. after a conference held at the hague, a dutch fleet, under admiral de ruyter, was sent to aid the danes, and in november, , the swedish army was defeated at nyborg. king charles, after this defeat, turned his principal attention to norway, where his forces needed reinforcements. the able major-general reichwein had proceeded to throndhjem, shortly after the renewal of the war, with a force of soldiers from the southern part of norway, and, with the aid of the inhabitants, had driven the swedes out of throndhjem stift. in the south, the citizens of halden (now frederickshald) had especially distinguished themselves under the brave colonel tonne hvitfeld, the commandant at the fortress, and the merchant, peter olafson normand. halden was twice visited by the swedes, and both attacks were heroically repelled by the citizens. in the beginning of king charles sent an army of , men, under field-marshal kagg, against halden, and a vigorous siege was commenced. for six weeks one assault after another was repulsed. about half of the able-bodied citizens had fallen, the town was partly destroyed, and the fortifications were badly damaged. but the swedish army had also suffered great losses, and on february d the siege was discontinued and the army returned home, upon learning of the death of charles x. at gothenburg (february ). the swedes now desired peace, and king frederick had no reason to wish to continue the war. he readily concluded a peace with the queen-regent of sweden, which was signed at copenhagen, may , . the swedes relinquished throndhjem stift and the island of gottland; but otherwise the terms of the peace of roskilde were confirmed. denmark was in a miserable condition at the end of the war, without fleet, without money, and hopelessly in debt. in his great need the king summoned the nobles, the clergy, and the burgher class to a diet at copenhagen. the nobles, as usual, asserted their special privilege of exemption from taxation; but the other estates joined in an appeal to the king for the curtailment of the privileges of the nobles, and proposed a disposal of the crown fiefs to the highest bidders without regard to rank. while these propositions were made, the gates of the city were closed by order of the burgomaster, hans nansen, and a strong guard was placed at the doors of the hall where the meeting was held. the nobles, being taken by surprise, were obliged to agree to the payment of the taxes demanded of them. later, by similar means, the nobles were compelled to assent to an important change in the government. the charter signed by the king at the time of his election was declared void, the council of state was abolished, and denmark was declared henceforth to be a hereditary kingdom. thus, by a bloodless and sudden revolution, king frederick had become perfect master of the situation. he was authorized to draft a new constitution, which might be for the benefit of all classes; but this constitution never appeared. he prepared a charter setting forth the absolute power of the king, and this document was signed by all classes throughout denmark. later he published the so-called royal law, which confirmed the absolute power of the king. the only unconditional demands upon him were, that he must belong to the lutheran church, that he must reside within the country, and that he must not divide his countries. the effect of the establishment of absolutism in norway was at first only that the country was placed under one master, the king, instead of the many who had composed the danish council of state. having, since , been ruled principally by danish nobles, the country gained by having absolutism introduced, as it was placed on an equal footing with denmark. the king now ruled with the same absolute power in both countries, and the power of the danish nobles was abolished or greatly reduced. they were obliged to take their share of the burden of taxation, and they suffered a great loss by the abolition of the fiefs. the fiefs were changed into _amts_, or counties, to be administered by officers appointed and paid regular salaries by the king. the revenues of the state were increased almost fivefold. in the new government "colleges," which superseded the council of state, citizens without rank of nobility might become members. thus able citizens, who were not noblemen, obtained a chance to rise to power and dignity. among those who thus rose to high positions were peter schumacher and kort adeler. kort syvertson adeler was born in brevig, norway, december , , learned seamanship in holland under the famous admiral tromp, and distinguished himself as a brave fighter, first in dutch, and afterward in venetian service, against the turks, where he performed great heroic deeds. once he forced his way, with a single ship, through a line of seventy-seven turkish galleys, and another time he boarded the turkish admiral's ship, fought single-handed with admiral ibrahim, and beheaded the admiral with his own sword. several powers desired to get the experienced naval hero in their service; but frederick iii. called him home and made him admiral in the danish navy. for twelve years he labored with great zeal in establishing an efficient navy for denmark and norway, but died in without having had a chance to make use of it. frederick iii., who had not inherited his great father's affection for norway, visited this country only once in great haste. he died february , , about sixty years old. during his last years he busied himself a great deal with alchemy, and an itinerant italian, who claimed to know the mystic art, helped him to squander a couple of millions of danish dollars on this foolishness. the fortress of frederickssteen and the city of frederickshald (formerly halden) were named after frederick iii. frederick iii. was married to the proud and ambitious sophie amalie of hesse-cassel, who, on account of her jealousy and hatred, caused the king's half-sister, eleonore kristine ulfeld, to be tried on some false and absurd charges, and imprisoned in blaataarn (the blue tower) in copenhagen, where she remained for twenty-two years. she was liberated on the death of her enemy in . king frederick's and sophie amalie's children were, besides crown prince christian, george, who was married to queen anna of england; anne sophie, who was married to john george iii. of saxony, and became the mother of augustus ii.; ulrike eleonore, who was married to the swedish king charles xi., and became the mother of the famous charles xii.; frederikke amalie, married to duke christian albrecht of gottorp, and wilhelmina, married to prince charles of the palatinate. chapter xlviii _christian v. ( - )_ christian v., who succeeded his father, frederick iii., in , was the first danish-norwegian king who mounted the throne by hereditary right, and was not obliged to sign a charter, dictated by the nobles, in order to be elected. he was a brave and vigorous young man; but he early disappointed those who had placed great hopes in him, as he wasted his time and strength on hunting and other amusements, and left the government to the care of his favorites, who were often incapable and selfish men. he loved pomp and splendor, and sought to imitate the extravagant louis xiv. of france, spending much more money than the treasury could afford. he especially fancied everything that was german, and surrounded himself with indigent german noblemen, whom he helped to make their fortunes in denmark. at court the language spoken was the german, the ministers preached in german, actors played in german, and the highest officers were germans. as many of the old noble families had withdrawn from the capital, where they no longer exercised their old influence, and had retired to their estates, where they were still powerful on account of their wealth, king christian, determined to secure other support for the throne, created a new and higher nobility, and established the titles and ranks recognized in germany. thus he filled his court with counts and barons, and adopted the strict etiquette and ceremonies of the french court. he also established two orders of knighthood, the order of dannebrog and the order of the elephant. in norway, the earldom (county) of laurvik was established ( ) for the benefit of the king's friend and half-brother, ulrik frederick gyldenlöve, whose descendants, the counts of danneskiold-laurvik, and later ahlefeldt-laurvik, for a long time owned this beautiful county. the old royal estate sem, together with the deanery of tunsberg, was made into another earldom ( ) for the then very powerful minister of state griffenfeld, who called himself count of griffenfeld and tunsberg; after he had fallen from grace, this county was transferred to his rival, gyldenlöve, who, with the permission of the king, sold a part of it--afterward called jarlsberg--to the german-born field-marshal of norway, gustav wilhelm wedel, the progenitor of the family of wedel-jarlsberg. rosendal, the only barony in norway, was founded, in , by ludvig-rosenkrands, a danish nobleman, who, by marriage, had come into possession of large estates in bergen stift. king christian's adviser was, for some years, the eminent danish statesman, peter griffenfeld. his original name was peter schumacher, and he was the son of a wine-seller in copenhagen. his father died in poverty, after which bishop brochmann took him into his home. here king frederick saw him and had him sent abroad for six years at his expense. after his return he became librarian to the king, and occasionally assisted the king in state affairs. on his death-bed the king asked his son to take care of peter schumacher, saying: "make a great man of him, but not too rapidly." christian did not exactly follow this advice: in the following year he made him count of tunsberg, with the name of griffenfeld, and appointed him great chancellor of the realm. griffenfeld became greatly renowned. the emperor made him an imperial count, and louis xiv. called him one of the greatest statesmen in the world. but, on account of this, he soon had many jealous rivals at the court, who aroused the king's suspicions as to his loyalty; he was deposed and accused of several great crimes, although some of the acts construed as crimes were acts of statesmanship for which he had deserved the greatest praise. he was condemned to death and brought to the scaffold; but, at the last moment, a message arrived from the king, that the sentence had been commuted to imprisonment for life. "this mercy is more cruel than death," exclaimed griffenfeld. he was first imprisoned in the castle of copenhagen, and remained there for four years; but as the king missed his able services, and his enemies feared that he might again be put in power, they caused him to be removed to the fortress of munkholmen at throndhjem, where he remained for eighteen years. at first he whiled away the time by reading and writing; but later they cruelly took away pen and ink. he wrote numerous apothegms in the margins of his books with little bits of lead, which he tore from the window-panes, or with coals on the wall. he was given his liberty in , but died the following year (march , ), in throndhjem, at the age of sixty-four years. as the ally of the elector of brandenburg, but principally in the hope of recovering the lost provinces, king christian, against the advice of griffenfeld, commenced war against the swedish king, charles xi. this war, which lasted from to , was called the scania war, because that province was the principal scene of action. the danes captured wismar and some places in scania, but lost the battles of halmstad, lund, and landskrona. at sea, however, the danes were generally successful. admiral kort adeler had put the navy in good condition and had a worthy successor in the naval hero, niels juel, who won victories at oeland and kolbergerheide, and especially in the great naval battle of kjögebugt (october , ). as griffenfeld had foreseen, however, the danes could accomplish little against the allies of france, and christian was obliged to accede to peace proposed by louis xiv. the peace was concluded at lund ( ), and all that christian v. obtained, for his efforts during an expensive four years' war, was permission to take with him ten cannons from each of the conquered fortresses. during this war, which the norwegians called the gyldenlöve feud, after their leader, the brave ulrik frederick gyldenlöve, the norwegians several times defeated the swedes. in february, , gyldenlöve marched into bahus len with , men, conquering udevalla and wenersborg. the following year he took the fortified town of marstrand by storm and compelled the fortress of carlsten to surrender. in order to prevent the norwegians from making further progress, the swedish chancellor, magnus de la gardie, hastened into bahus len with , men, but was defeated by a much smaller norwegian army, under major-general hans lövenhjelm, at udevalla, august , . about , swedes were slain and two hundred were captured, together with fourteen pieces of artillery and all the supplies. the following year the ever-active gyldenlöve attacked bahus castle, which, however, he was unable to capture, as it was defended with great heroism and perseverance. the war ended, on the part of norway, with an incursion by gyldenlöve into sweden in , in order to avenge a similar expedition which the swedish general sparre had made into the region of throndhjem the previous year, on which occasion the copper works at röros had been burned. the norwegian code of laws, which is yet partly in force, was elaborated by direction of christian v., dated april , , and published april , . he abolished latin singing in the churches, introduced a new church ritual and a danish hymn-book. christian v. visited norway only once ( ). on dovre mountain he laid the foundation for a monument, with an inscription in the german language. he died august , , leaving a debt of , , danish dollars, although he had tried to replenish his treasury by hiring out norwegian and danish soldiers as mercenaries to other countries. he was married to the gentle charlotte amalie of hesse-cassel. chapter xlix _frederick iv. ( - )_ at the death of christian v., his oldest son ascended the throne under the title of frederick iv. his education had been sadly neglected; but, by untiring industry and energy after his accession to the throne, he gained considerable practical knowledge of the affairs of the government. he gave especial attention to the finances of the country, and, by a careful reduction of all unnecessary expenses, he succeeded in almost obliterating the great public debt. to his discredit, however, it must be admitted that this result was obtained partly with the blood of his subjects, as he secured large sums for the treasury by hiring out to the emperor , , and to england and holland , , of the soldiers of denmark and norway, for service in the spanish war about the order of succession. these soldiers distinguished themselves and fought with honor in many battles. from his father, king frederick had inherited certain disputes with duke frederick of holstein, which led to a war; but the duke received aid from his brother-in-law, the swedish king, charles xii., who invaded zealand (sjælland) and marched against copenhagen, and king frederick was obliged to accept a hasty peace at traventhal, holstein, august , , on unfavorable terms. after the peace at traventhal charles xii. turned his forces against russia and poland, where he won victory after victory, until finally, on the th of june, , he lost the battle of pultowa. on account of the dangerous position in which this defeat placed the swedish king, king frederick thought the opportunity had come to recover the lost provinces. he renewed his old allegiance with russia and poland, and began the great northern war ( - ). with , men he invaded scania and captured several towns; but the swedish field-marshal, magnus stenbock, hastily gathered an army of undisciplined peasants and defeated the danes at the battle of helsingborg ( ). in this war also the danish-norwegian fleet rendered great service, fighting the swedish fleet with success in the baltic and especially in the north sea. on october , , it was attacked by the swedish fleet in kjögebugt. the norwegian, ivar hvitfeld (a son of tonne hvitfeld, who had distinguished himself at frederickshald), commanded the ship "dannebrog," which took fire early in the fight. he might have saved himself by beaching the ship, but there was danger of thus spreading the fire to the rest of the danish fleet and to the town. he therefore stayed where he was, drew closer to the enemy and fired volley after volley from the forward guns, until the fire reached the powder magazine. the ship was blown up, and he and his five hundred men perished. in the latter part of , charles xii. returned to sweden, after an absence of fifteen years, and succeeded in giving new courage to the swedes, who were exhausted from the hardships of the long war. the winter was very severe, so that the sound was frozen over, and, in january, , charles intended to lead his army of , men across the ice and invade the danish islands; but, just as he was ready for this exploit, a thaw suddenly set in, so that he could not effect the crossing, and, not having sufficient transports, charles decided to direct his attacks against norway. the defences of norway were in a miserable condition. the trained regiments had been sent south to denmark, so that the army consisted almost wholly of the national guards, which were without training, poorly clothed, and without the necessary supplies. the fortresses were short of provisions, arms, and ammunition, and there was no money in the treasury. the commanding general, the old and feeble barthold von lützow, had to confine his operations to garrisoning the silver works at kongsberg and the principal passes. the natural advantages of the country and the patriotism and perseverance of the inhabitants constituted the principal defence. by three different routes the swedes invaded norway. charles himself entered höland in march, . at the riser farm the swedish advance guard was attacked by two hundred norwegian dragoons under the brave colonel ulrich christian kruse, and, during the fight, the colonel himself killed fifteen men and wounded charles's brother-in-law, the prince of hesse. after a desperate fight, and the fall of the brave captain michelet, colonel kruse, who was so severely wounded that he could not hold his sword, surrendered to king charles with twenty men; sixty lay dead or wounded, and the remainder had escaped. the swedes had one hundred and seventy killed and wounded. charles highly praised his brave opponent, had his own surgeon attend to his wounds, gave him a sword, and asked him if his brother, king frederick, had many such officers. kruse answered: "of them he has many, and i am far from being among the ablest." charles thereupon occupied christiania and commenced to besiege the fortress of akershus, but could not accomplish much for lack of heavy artillery. while he lay in camp there he sent out expeditions in different directions. the swedish colonel, axel löwen, was sent out with six hundred dragoons to destroy kongsberg silver works. he was to proceed by way of ringerike, because the road from drammen was blocked by the norwegians; and, on the evening of march , , he arrived with his force at the norderhov parsonage, ringerike. the parson, the learned jonas ramus, was confined to his bed by sickness, but his wife, the intrepid anna kolbjörnsdatter, received the soldiers well in order to avoid plundering. having learned, by paying close attention to her guests, that it was their intention early the next morning to surprise a number of norwegian dragoons, who lay encamped at the steen farm and knew nothing of the arrival of the swedes, she asked and obtained the permission of the colonel to send her servant-girl out to a neighboring farm for something that was needed for the table. thus she was enabled to send warning to the norwegians about the plans of the enemy. under the leadership of captain sehested and sergeant thor hovland the norwegians set out at midnight, and, guided by the fires which anna had started under pretext of warming the chilly soldiers, they surprised and overpowered the swedish force. colonel löwen was captured, together with one hundred and sixty men; thirty were killed, and the remainder escaped. in april a swedish force, under colonel falkenberg, was attacked and defeated at moss by the norwegians, under the command of major-general vincents budde and colonel hvitfeld, who took four hundred prisoners and captured a large quantity of supplies. at the parsonage of skieberg the swedish general, ascheberg, lay with , men and could hear the shooting at moss; but the parson, peter rumohr, who had intercepted the correspondence between the swedes at the parsonage and those at moss, gave such exaggerated accounts of the defeat of the swedes and of large reinforcements to the norwegians, that general ascheberg hastily broke camp and returned to sweden. when king charles, some time afterward, heard of this, he became so enraged at the minister that he caused him to be captured and brought to sweden, where he died in prison. as the roads were becoming very bad, and charles feared that the norwegians contemplated cutting off his retreat, he suddenly withdrew from christiania and shortly afterward attacked the city of frederickshald. here the citizens had armed themselves under the brave brothers peter and hans kolbjörnson, nephews of kield stub, and half-brothers of anna kolbjörnsdatter, and the swedes had to buy every step with blood. charles captured the city on the night between the d and th of july, , and the norwegians had to retire to the fortress, frederickssteen. that the enemy might not find shelter behind the houses against the shots from the fortress, the citizens put fire to the town. peter kolbjörnson commenced with his own house, and soon the whole city was in flames. charles had to withdraw from frederickssteen, with a loss of , men and three generals, to his headquarters at torpum, intending to renew the siege as soon as he could get his heavy artillery from his transport ships at dynekilen, near svinesund. but in this hope he was disappointed, as the norwegian naval hero, peter tordenskiold, by a daring attack shortly afterward, succeeded in capturing or destroying the whole transport fleet at dynekilen. peter wessel, afterward ennobled under the name of tordenskiold, was born november , , in throndhjem, where his father, jan wessel, was a merchant. as he showed no disposition for college studies, he was placed with a tailor as apprentice; but he ran away from his master, came to copenhagen, where he hired out as a sailor, and made journeys to the west indies and to india. afterward he became a naval cadet, made another trip to india, and on his return came to bergen just as the great northern war had broken out. he immediately proceeded overland to christiania, where the commanding general, waldemar lövendahl, took a fancy to him and gave him the command of a ship of four guns, "ormen" (the serpent), with which he made cruises along the swedish coast. he soon became renowned for his courage, and was given a better ship called "lövendahl's galley," a frigate of twenty guns. by his heroic deeds and brilliant bravery he rose, in the comparatively short time of ten years, from cadet to vice-admiral, and was ennobled by king frederick iv. "for your rare courage and loyalty," the king said to him, "we have raised you to our nobility. your name shall hereafter be tordenskiold (thunder-shield)." "well, then," answered the young man, "i will so thunder in the ears of the swedes that they will say you have not given me the name without reason." the entrance to the harbor of dynekilen is at most places only four hundred to four hundred and fifty feet wide. on a little peninsula in the inlet the swedes had erected a battery of six twelve-pounders, and on each side of the narrow inlet , infantry were stationed. on the evening of july th, when tordenskiold lay with two frigates, three galleys and two other vessels outside of stromstad, he learned from some swedish fishermen, who were brought aboard as prisoners, where the swedish fleet lay, and also that a number of the officers had been invited to a wedding, while the admiral was to have a banquet on board for the others. he concluded that the officers, therefore, would be in poor condition for fighting, and at daybreak he weighed anchor, and cried over to the brave lieutenant peter grib, who was commanding the other frigate: "i am informed that the swedish admiral is going to have a carousal on his fleet to-day. would it not be advisable if we went in with our ships and became his unbidden guests? the pilot says we have favorable wind." peter grib was ready, and tordenskiold at once steered into the harbor. without firing a shot he ran his ship in through a heavy fire from all sides. it was not till he came so near that his six-pounders could be of effect, and when he had reached the widest part of the inlet where he could arrange his ships with the broadsides toward the enemy, that he commenced to fire. after three hours of uninterrupted cannonading the swedish fire began to slacken, and at one o'clock (july , ) the swedish flag was lowered. the swedes had then beached as many of their ships as possible, and soldiers and sailors were trying to save themselves by flight. tordenskiold's victory was complete; forty-four ships, carrying sixty guns, were either burned or sunk. not a single ship was saved, and the next day king charles was on his retreat to sweden. in september, , king charles again attacked norway. he sent general armfeldt with , men into throndhjem stift, where the commanding general, w. budde, had to confine himself to the defence of the city of throndhjem. king charles himself moved against frederickssteen with , men and began a vigorous siege. the outer redoubt was stormed and taken after a brave resistance, and the swedish trenches were only two hundred and fifty paces from the fortress when king charles was killed in one of the trenches by a bullet from the fortress, december , . a few days later the swedish army withdrew and returned to sweden. general armfeldt, on receiving this intelligence, retreated from throndhjem and started to return to the frontier across the tydal mountains. on the mountain his army was overtaken by a fearful snowstorm; many hundreds froze to death, and many of those who escaped became cripples for life. frederick iv. now proceeded to norway himself, and invaded sweden with , men and occupied stromstad, while tordenskiold, by daring strategy, took possession of marstrand and captured the fortress carlsten. the war, which had lasted eleven years, was ended by a peace, which charles's sister, ulrika eleonora, concluded at fredericksborg castle, . by this peace sweden was compelled to agree never to help the duke of holstein to recover schleswig, to pay , rigsdalers, and to relinquish its right to exemption from tolls in the oere sound, a right which sweden had had since . peter tordenskiold lived only a few months after peace had been concluded. he was allowed to make a journey abroad, and at hanover he thrashed a gambler, colonel stahl, who had cheated one of his friends. for this he was challenged to a duel with the colonel, and in their encounter he was killed, november , , being then a little over twenty-nine years of age. the interests of norway were often neglected during the reign of frederick iv. in order to raise money the government sold all the norwegian churches, and the lands belonging to them, to private parties, because the people, who from time immemorial had owned the churches, could not produce deeds or other documents showing title. the northern districts of norway were especially neglected. the trade with finmarken had, to the great detriment of that part of the country, for a long time been leased to the citizens of bergen; in it was sold to three citizens of copenhagen, and the result was greatly increased distress among the people. during the reign of frederick iv., two norwegians distinguished themselves by missionary work. one of them was thomas von westen from throndhjem, who worked with great zeal for the cause of christianity in finmarken. the other was hans egede, a clergyman from vaagen in nordland, who proceeded to greenland, where, for years, he indefatigably devoted himself to the work of promoting the spiritual and material welfare of the inhabitants. frederick iv. died in , fifty-nine years old. chapter l _christian vi. ( - )_ christian vi., who succeeded his father, frederick iv., in , commenced his reign by discharging the most of his father's experienced advisers and friends. the very able bartholomew deichmann, bishop at akershus, who was most highly esteemed during the former reign, was deposed and indicted, but died shortly after his degradation, april, . the king allowed himself to be controlled by his german queen, the proud and extravagant sophie magdalena. the language and customs of the country were banished from the court, and a proud and haughty tone introduced. the king rarely spoke with any of his subjects unless they belonged to the higher nobility or were germans. the queen had a mania for building, and large sums were expended on costly palaces in and about copenhagen. the danish-norwegian church had also been affected by the pietistic revivalism brought about in the german protestant church by spener and francke. christian himself was a pious man, but his religion was mournful and morbid. he was, to a great extent, controlled by his pietistic court-chaplain, bluhme. a sabbath ordinance was enacted ( ), by which several preposterous rules about church-going were introduced and some antiquated laws were again put in force. neglect of attendance at church was punished in the cities by money fines, and in the country by being placed in the stocks, which, for that purpose, were erected outside of every church door. public amusements hitherto considered harmless--dancing, games and festivities--were forbidden; weddings and social parties were not to be held on a holiday or the evening before. a general church inspection college was established in , a kind of court of inquisition, whose duty it was to watch over the proper performance of church services. the result of this unwise zeal for religion was a general state of hypocrisy and intolerance. unscrupulous people, who feigned holiness and imitated the pietists at court, were given offices, while those who were sincere and independent were left out. one of the beneficial results of the pietism which ruled during the reign of christian vi. was the introduction of the confirmation in the lutheran faith. this was introduced upon the advice of court chaplain bluhme, by the ordinance of january , ; the same year in which the second centennial of the introduction of the reformation was celebrated. the confirmation led to an improved christian education of the people, and indirectly compelled all classes of the people to read. great zeal was also shown in the printing of bibles and other religious books, and some improvement was made in the norwegian church organization by an ordinance of august , . the latin schools were reorganized in , the teachers being given better salaries, while more suitable text-books were introduced. some efforts were also made to improve the trade, manufactures and navigation of norway, but these efforts were not always well directed. the trade with finmarken, iceland and greenland was leased to companies, whose aim seemed to be the greatest possible extortion. very unwise and harmful to the country was the king's decree forbidding the people of southern norway to buy grain from any other country than denmark. the navy was greatly improved under the supervision of count frederick danneskiold-samsoe, admiral suhm and constructor benstrup; but their work took large sums of money. toward the close of this reign norway suffered a great deal from hard times and famine, in common with the greater part of northern europe. during the years and there died in norway , more persons than were born. many died of starvation, and, in many districts, the people had to make meal from bark, bones and straw. a collection amounting to about , rigsdalers (danish dollars) was made in denmark in order to help some of the most needy. during the reign of christian vi. lived "the father of the danish-norwegian literature," the witty and very productive author, ludvig holberg (born in bergen, , died ); also the active and eloquent peter hersleb (born in throndhjem, ), who from to was bishop at akershus, and from , until his death in , bishop of zealand, and who may be considered the father of the public school system. two danish bishops of this time who are held in respectful memory by the norwegians are erik pontoppidan, who was bishop in bergen from to ,--author of "explanation of luther's catechism," which is still extensively used in the norwegian schools--and hans brorson (bishop in ribe, - ), the author of many church hymns. christian vi., during his reign of sixteen years, only visited norway once, in the summer of . he died august , , in his forty-seventh year. in spite of the long peace, a flourishing trade, and large subsidies from foreign powers for mercenaries, which he had furnished from norway and denmark, he left a debt of over two million rigsdalers. chapter li _frederick v. ( - )_ when christian vi. died, his eldest son, frederick v., ascended the throne. he was a man of limited intelligence, but of a kindly disposition. by his affability and his taste for the language of the country he stood in sharp contrast with his late father, and he and his lovely young queen, louisa, daughter of george ii. of england, soon won the hearts of the people. he abolished all the harsh ordinances against amusements, the national theatre was opened again, and ludvig holberg had the pleasure, in his old age, to again see his comedies played and received with great applause. the change was at first beneficial, especially as long as queen louisa lived; but, after her death, in , when her place had been taken by juliana marie of brunswick, the liberal tone at court often degenerated into giddiness and license, and, in an attempt to imitate the french manners, a luxury was introduced which was too expensive for the ordinary resources of the crown. the reign of frederick v. was, like that of his father, peaceful, although a war with russia seemed very imminent, when one of the holstein-gottorp princes, charles peter ulrik, had ascended the throne of russia, under the title of peter iii., and laid claim to a part of the duchy of schleswig. a russian army was sent into mecklenburg with orders to advance on holstein, where an army of , danish and norwegian soldiers had been drawn together. the armies lay within a few miles of each other, when the conflict was suddenly averted by the news that peter iii. had been deposed, and, shortly afterward, murdered by his wife (july, ). the empress, catherine ii., who succeeded her husband, had always been averse to the war, and a treaty of peace was concluded with her, principally as the result of the able diplomacy of the king's adviser, count johan hartvig bernstorf. the great preparations for this threatened conflict had, however, necessitated an increase of taxation. the so-called "extra-tax" was felt as a great burden; every person above twelve years of age had to pay a tax of one rigsdaler (about fifty-five cents) per year. this was especially felt as a burden by the common people in the districts around bergen, where the fisheries had been a failure, and a revolt was the result. about , peasants armed themselves and made an assault upon the city, maltreated the magistrates, and plundered about , rigsdalers of the public means. quiet was soon restored, and the participants in the revolt were punished. a few years afterward the "extra-tax" was abolished. a great deal was done during this reign for the promotion of science and art, trade, manufactures and agriculture. at kongsberg a mineral school was established and two hundred german experts employed as teachers. the bishop at throndhjem, johan gunnerus, rector gerhard schöning, and the danish scholar, peter suhm (who had married the daughter of a merchant at throndhjem), established the royal academy of sciences in throndhjem. a free school of mathematics, afterward reorganized as the norwegian military academy, was founded in christiania. frederick v., who shortened his life by all kinds of excesses, died in his forty-third year, january , . he left a public debt of about twenty millions. by his first wife he had one son, christian, and three daughters; his second wife became the mother of prince frederick. chapter lii _christian vii. ( - )_ at the death of frederick v., his son christian, who was hardly seventeen years of age, ascended the throne; and, shortly afterward, married the fifteen year old caroline mathilde, a sister of the english king, george iii. christian led a most dissipated life, eventually resulting in insanity. in the king made a journey abroad, during which his body physician, the german free-thinker, johan frederick struensee, became his dearest favorite, and got him completely under his influence. upon their return the king's old counsellors, including the experienced and deserving bernstorf, were discharged and replaced by a privy council, in which the strong and ambitious struensee soon became the real master. by the influence which he had gained over the debilitated, and at times insane, king, and the queen, he succeeded in reaching the highest positions. he was made a count and prime minister and became an almost absolute ruler, the cabinet orders being given the force of royal commands simply by being signed by struensee. his power lasted only sixteen months; but during this time he introduced many reforms, which were in themselves commendable, but, in many cases, came too abruptly and without preparation. on account of the violent changes, and his contempt for the danish language and customs, he soon had many enemies, chief among whom was the queen-dowager, juliana maria, who wished to get her son, the king's half-brother, prince frederick, into power. with the aid of the prince's teacher, the learned ove hoeg guldberg, she formed a conspiracy against struensee and obtained the signature of the insane king to an order for his arrest, together with that of others. on the night of january , , after a ball at the palace, queen caroline mathilde, struensee, count brandt, and others, were arrested. the queen was imprisoned at kronborg, and afterward at celle, hanover, where she died in her twenty-fourth year ( ). the others were accused of high treason and condemned to death. struensee was cruelly executed, april , . during the following twelve years ( - ) prince frederick's teacher, ove guldberg, virtually conducted the government, and this period has therefore been called the guldberg period. a great many of struensee's reforms were revoked, and former rules were re-established. the liberty of the press, which struensee had granted, was curtailed and a censorship again introduced. the plan of establishing a university in norway, which had been promised, was given up. everything was now to be "danish," even norway. guldberg even wished to abolish the very name of norwegian, and wrote: "no norwegian exists; all are citizens of the danish state." many of the strong men, whom struensee had made use of, were removed, and mediocrity was again raised to dignity. in spite of the large revenues which flowed into the treasury during the flourishing commercial period, the public debt, which had been reduced to sixteen millions, rose to twenty-nine millions. still, there are some things to the credit of the guldberg ministry. thus the foreign minister, andreas bernstorf, by his negotiations, succeeded in removing any cause for conflict with the powerful russia, when the russian grand-duke, paul, relinquished his part of holstein to the king of denmark, in return for oldenborg and delmenhorst. on february , , the so-called _native right_ was published, an ordinance providing that hereafter only native citizens could be appointed to office under the government. finally, it was ordained that the danish language should be used both in the army and as a business language. during the long period of peace (since ) norway had made great progress in commerce, shipping and population. the population, which, in , was only , , had reached about , in , and the merchant marine had grown from fifty to , ships, many of them large and engaged in trade with distant countries. the peasant class had advanced considerably, as a consequence of the sale of the estates of the crown in order to raise revenue; the number of freeholders was now nearly double that of the tenant farmers. the officials sent their sons to be educated at the university of copenhagen, so that the country was gradually furnished with a native class of officials, who could replace the danish and advocate the cause of their countrymen. in crown prince frederick was confirmed, and immediately took charge of the government as regent for his insane father. he had the sense to surround himself with able counsellors, and the foremost among them was andreas bernstorf, a nephew of the elder bernstorf. while he was at the head of the government ( - ), the united countries had happy and prosperous days. he succeeded in maintaining an honorable neutrality, while the french revolution, which commenced in , shook europe and involved nearly all the countries of europe in war. much was done for norway during this period. the trade of finmarken was made free, and the cities of tromsoe, hammerfest and vardoe were founded. in order to expedite judicial matters four superior courts were established, and, in order to avoid litigation as much as possible, courts of conciliation were introduced in all parts of the country. during bernstorf's administration, norway was involved in a short war with sweden, the swedish king, gustavus iii., having attacked russia, whereupon the russian empress, catherine ii., demanded, according to agreement, an attack upon sweden by denmark. a norwegian army of , men, under prince charles of hesse, invaded sweden in the fall of , and, after some successful encounters, marched against gothenburg; but an armistice was concluded, which was changed into a convention, november th, the norwegians agreeing to retire from sweden. england continued the war with france with great vigor, and, in order to weaken the enemy as much as possible, raised the point with neutral powers that meat, flour and grain must be considered as contraband of war, and should not, therefore, be shipped to france or any other enemy of england. in order to protect their commerce, denmark-norway then, in , together with russia and sweden, renewed the so-called "armed neutrality," which, through the untiring efforts of andreas bernstorf, had been agreed upon in , based upon the principle that "free ship carries free cargo." after an unsuccessful attempt, through negotiations, to persuade denmark to withdraw from this alliance, england declared war against her, and sent a fleet, under the command of admirals parker and nelson, to oere sound. on april , , a battle was fought in the roadstead of copenhagen. although the danish and norwegian sailors defended themselves with great bravery, they finally had to yield to superior force. an armistice was concluded, which, at the death of the russian emperor, paul, ended with a peace, by which denmark consented to withdraw from the armed neutrality. the country now enjoyed peace until , when a new war with england broke out. at the peace of tilsit, july , , emperor napoleon and alexander i. of russia made certain arrangements of european affairs with a view to helping napoleon in his conflict with england. russia was to be allowed to conquer finland from sweden, and napoleon was to take possession of the danish fleet, by means of which he might dispute the dominion of england at sea. although this agreement was to be kept strictly secret, the english government, in some way, heard of it, and decided to anticipate the action of napoleon. a strong fleet was sent to copenhagen, where the british commanders demanded that denmark should surrender its fleet to england, where it was to remain until peace was concluded between england and france. the demand was answered by the danish minister, who protested that there was no cause for it, since denmark had no idea of letting napoleon have the fleet. the british, however, would not listen to any assurances of denmark's peaceful attitude. an army of about , men was landed and defeated the danish force outside of copenhagen, which, all told, hardly amounted to , men. thereafter preparations were made for bombarding the city. the bombardment commenced on september d and lasted for three days. during this bombardment the cathedral and three hundred and five other buildings were burned, and , buildings were, more or less, damaged. valuable libraries, and collections of art and other valuable property, were destroyed by fire, , soldiers and citizens were killed and eight hundred wounded. the danes had to surrender their whole fleet, which was then brought to england. the english government now gave denmark the choice between three conditions: neutrality, an alliance, or war. in case of war denmark was threatened with destruction of the danish and norwegian merchant marine, the occupation of copenhagen by the swedes, and, possibly, the forcible transfer of norway to england's ally, sweden. crown prince frederick answered that, after what had taken place, peace was impossible, and so the war was continued, denmark entering into a close alliance with france. when it became difficult to maintain communication between norway and denmark, the danish government, in august, , established a "government commission" for norway, consisting of prince christian august of augustenborg as chairman, "stiftamtmand" gerhard moltke, justice enevold falsen, and chamberlain marcus rosenkrantz. prince christian august was commander of the troops in the southern part of norway, having been appointed as such in . he was greatly beloved by the norwegians. after having performed its arduous duties for three months, the commission lost its ablest member, enevold falsen, whose body was found in the bay, november , . his health had been greatly impaired, and he had probably been driven to suicide by his sufferings. while performing his duties on the government commission, he also edited the journal "budstikken," in which he did much to arouse and maintain the courage and perseverance of the people. he was succeeded, in january, , by count herman wedel jarlsberg, who had gained the high respect of his countrymen by the zeal and vigor which he had shown in his efforts to provide the famine-threatened country with the necessary grain by importation from denmark, which numerous british cruisers tried to prevent. chapter liii _frederick vi. ( - )_ when, on the death of his insane father, frederick vi. changed his title of regent to that of king of denmark, his domains were in a sad condition. they were at war with england, but had no fleet. the finances were in great disorder, which became still worse when the danish government tried to improve the situation by issuing a large amount of paper currency. the english men-of-war blocked the navigation, and hundreds of danish and norwegian trading-ships, together with their cargoes, were seized by the enemy. in norway, all industries were paralyzed, there had been failures of crops, and there was a great deal of want and suffering. when the danish government, as the ally of france and russia, also declared war on sweden, the situation was most desperate. the government commission was daily begged, by petition, to open the public grain magazines to relieve the distress of the people, and it taxed their judgment and firmness to the utmost to control the situation and distribute aid where the need was most pressing. in this condition norway was attacked, in april, , by a large swedish army under the command of general armfeldt, and threatened by a british army and fleet, which lay at gothenburg. in the hour of distress and danger, however, the norwegians had awakened to a consciousness of the fact that they had only themselves to rely upon, and, during their struggles, they showed a patriotism which shunned no sacrifice. men like marcus rosenkrantz, peter anker, herman wedel, jacob aall, severin lövenskiold, thygesen, john collett, ludvig maribo, and many other patriots, offered their time, energy, and fortunes to the service of the country, and the popular commander, prince christian august, was strengthened and aided by a strong national spirit among all classes, when he made his preparations to meet the enemy. general armfeldt, on april , , advanced toward the fortress of kongsvinger, and a battle was fought at lier, near that place. the swedes were at first repulsed, but later received reinforcements and compelled the norwegians to retreat across the glommen river. it is said that some of the norwegian troops had to cease firing, during the battle, for want of ammunition. about the same time a swedish force captured the blaker redoubt, about twenty-five miles to the southwest of kongsvinger, but this position they soon afterward abandoned, upon hearing of the approach of a norwegian force which had been hurriedly despatched against them by christian august. the norwegians proceeded beyond blaker, and at toverud (in urskog parish, romerike) surrounded, and, after a sharp fight, captured a swedish force under count axel mörner. on april th a swedish force, under colonel gahn, crossed the frontier and marched along the left bank of the flisen river, a tributary of the glommen. near trangen, in aasnes parish, soloer, they were attacked by the norwegians, and, after a fight of three hours and a half, the swedes surrendered, having suffered a loss of two hundred killed and wounded. about three hundred and thirty men, including colonel gahn, were taken prisoners. the norwegians were also successful in a battle fought on june th at prestebakke in enningdal, in the southern part of smaalenene, near svinesund. the attack was made early in the morning, and, after a desperate fight, the swedes were forced to surrender; four hundred and forty-five men, including twenty-seven officers, being taken prisoners. a large amount of arms and ammunition was also taken. a few days later the swedish force which was commanded by general armfeldt's aide-de-camp, george adlersparre, received large reinforcements and recaptured the lost positions in enningdal; but, shortly afterward, the swedish troops again retreated, the swedish government desiring to give more attention to the war in finland. negotiations were now opened for an armistice. king frederick vi. several times requested christian august to invade sweden with his army; but the prince, as well as his tried advisers, considered an invasion very unwise, the army being destitute of all necessary supplies. an armistice was finally entered into on december , . a definite peace was not concluded till a year later. great changes took place in sweden during the following year. king gustavus iv. adolphus had shown great incompetence in the management of the affairs of sweden, and after the reverses in finland, resulting in the loss of this province, the feeling against the king became very strong. early in rumors began to circulate of the renewal of an old project, by which napoleon and alexander i. had agreed to divide sweden between denmark and russia, and great excitement was created among the leading men in sweden. a conspiracy was formed by a number of influential men, including george adlersparre, who marched with his army toward stockholm. on march , , the king was arrested and brought to the castle of drotningholm, and a few days later to gripsholm castle, where finally he was induced to write and sign an unconditional abdication. he was later transported to pomerania, and from there proceeded to switzerland. when king gustavus had abdicated, his aged uncle, charles, duke of södermanland, was prevailed upon to take charge of the government as regent. the swedish diet, which met in may, , confirmed the deposition of king gustavus and elected charles king under the title of charles xiii. the newly-elected king being old and childless, a successor to the throne also had to be chosen, and the choice fell upon the general-in-chief of the norwegian army, prince christian august, whom the swedes also had learned to respect during the war, and whose election, it was supposed by many, would eventually result in uniting norway with sweden. after peace had been concluded between denmark and sweden, at jönköping, december , , prince christian august accepted the election as crown prince of sweden, his name being changed to charles (or carl) august. no royal or princely person had ever, to such a degree, won the affection of the norwegians. he left norway for sweden january , , accompanied by the blessings and well-wishes of the whole people. only a few months later, may , , he suddenly died during a military review. shortly before the prince's departure from norway, and at the suggestion of count wedel and other patriotic men, a society was founded in christiania under the name of the society for norway's welfare, which did much to encourage the feeling of independence and the national spirit in the country and to advocate the wishes of the people. thus the long-felt want of a national university was strongly set forth by count wedel. the government having pointed to the lack of money, such an amount was collected by voluntary subscriptions from the whole country, especially the cities, that king frederick at last yielded, and, by royal decree, the norwegian university was established september , , and given the name of the king. this event was celebrated with great joy by the norwegian people by a national festival, december , . the condition of the country, however, became very serious during the next year. failure of the crops caused a famine, and the use of bark-bread became quite general throughout the country. the paper currency became more and more depreciated, and the government was finally obliged to partially default payment. the british continued to prevent all importation, and the distress was increased by the breaking out of a new war between denmark and sweden. during the distressing years of war, when a foreign fleet intercepted the communication with denmark, many norwegians had become convinced that the union with denmark was a very unnatural one. many able and patriotic men believed that a union or a strong defensive alliance with sweden would be much more advantageous to the country, and no doubt many considered such a union among the future probabilities, when the beloved prince christian august was elected crown prince of sweden. the sorrow that was felt in norway at the sudden death of christian august was universal. a rumor, probably unfounded, that he had been poisoned by some of his opponents in sweden, was, for a time at least, generally believed in norway, and extinguished, for the time being, any desire that may have existed in norway for a union of the two countries. in sweden, however, the plan grew in strength, especially after the election of the new crown prince. chapter liv _marshal bernadotte_ the election of a new successor to the swedish throne was no easy problem. under the conditions prevailing in europe it was thought necessary to make a choice that would be approved by napoleon, and it had even been suggested that it might be necessary to elect one of napoleon's marshals. among the different candidates considered, the most popular one was the duke of augustenborg, an elder brother of prince christian august. his election was opposed by king frederick vi. of denmark, who hoped to be chosen himself, and held out as inducement a promise to give each of the three countries a constitution. king frederick at first had the support of quite a party in the swedish diet; but his opponents strongly argued that to make the danish king successor to the swedish throne would eventually result in sweden becoming a province of denmark, and the duke of augustenborg, who was supported by king charles xiii., was the choice of a majority in the swedish diet. a messenger, baron mörner, was sent to paris to ascertain whether such an election would have the approval of napoleon; but upon arriving in paris he was told that, according to the latest reports, the election of the danish king was being seriously considered, and believing that this would be a great misfortune, the baron took upon himself to open negotiations with one of napoleon's marshals, jean baptiste bernadotte, prince of pontecorvo, and requested him to become a candidate for the swedish succession. after a conference with napoleon and a consultation with the swedish minister in paris, bernadotte declared himself willing to accept the election, if it were offered to him. when baron mörner returned to sweden and reported the result of his unauthorized step, he caused great surprise, and the king ordered his arrest; but, on second thought, the plan to elect bernadotte was generally favorably considered by leading men in sweden. count platen had a consultation with his norwegian friend, count wedel, and the latter, who had made the personal acquaintance of bernadotte, advised the swedes to elect him in preference to the duke of augustenborg. the result was that in august, , the swedish diet, with practical unanimity, elected bernadotte crown prince of sweden, and king charles xiii. adopted him as his son, under the name of charles john (carl johan). when, in september, , bernadotte was about to leave paris for sweden, and napoleon asked him to promise never to wage war on france, he declined to bind himself by such a promise, but assured the emperor of his sincere friendship. "go, then," said napoleon, "and let us fulfil our several destinies." crown prince charles john, on his arrival in sweden, immediately assumed the chief control of the government, and set about the very difficult task of raising the country from the wretched and defenceless condition into which it had fallen. sweden was at the time practically at the mercy of the great powers. napoleon forced sweden to declare war on england, and when, a year later, he found that this war was not carried on with satisfactory vigor, he sent an army into swedish pomerania, which he occupied, while two swedish regiments were sent as prisoners to france (january, ). this caused charles john to look around for other alliances, which would be of greater benefit to his adopted country. he once more offered napoleon the faithful services of sweden, on condition that sweden was to receive norway in compensation; but napoleon would not listen to any proposition to take anything from his faithful ally, denmark. charles john immediately opened negotiations with russia, and the result was a secret treaty, concluded at st. petersburg, april , , by which russia promised to help sweden, by negotiations or force of arms, to acquire norway, and russia was guaranteed the possession of finland, while charles john was to take an active part in the military operations in germany against napoleon. this agreement was confirmed at a personal meeting between the russian emperor alexander and crown prince charles john at Åbo, finland, august , . the stipulation that norway was to be united with sweden was afterward also agreed to by the other powers at war with france. charles john took an active part in the great campaign against napoleon in germany. after the complete defeat of napoleon's army at leipsic, october - , , charles john marched with an army of , men into holstein in order to compel denmark to cede norway. the danish-norwegian army in holstein and schleswig made a brave defence; but the resistance against the overwhelming force of the enemy could not last long, and frederick vi. was compelled to conclude peace at kiel, january , , where norway was ceded to sweden. the norwegian dependencies, iceland, the faroe islands, and greenland, were not included in the cession. four days later king frederick vi., for himself and his successors, relinquished all his rights to the kingdom of norway to the swedish king, charles xiii., and his successors. in his proclamation to the norwegians, king frederick released them from their oath of allegiance, and requested them to peaceably and quietly transfer their allegiance to the swedish king. thus ended the union between denmark and norway, which had lasted for more than four hundred years. chapter lv _norway declares her independence_ prince christian frederick, a cousin of king frederick vi. and heir presumptive to the danish-norwegian throne, had, in may, , been sent up to norway as viceroy (_statholder_), and had become very popular with the norwegians. when, on january , , he received the message from the king, informing him of the treaty of kiel and commanding him to transfer the forts and the public offices to the swedes and return to denmark, christian frederick became highly indignant and resolved not to obey the commands. in his diary the prince wrote: "that the king could believe that the norwegian people will voluntarily surrender, and that he could believe me base enough to desert them now--indeed, i do not understand it. people would be justified in throwing stones after me, if ever i were able to deceive a nation which loves me and places its trust in me. i should leave it now without so much as trying to defend it--never in the world, while i live!" on a journey, which the prince made north to throndhjem, he found that the people all wished to defend the independence of norway, and on the th and th of february he held a conference with notables at eidsvold in order to discuss the needs of the hour. it was at first the idea of the prince that, since the king had relinquished the throne, he, as the legal heir, might ascend the throne of norway as absolute monarch; but the members of the meeting at eidsvold, especially professor george sverdrup, convinced him that, as king frederick, contrary to law, had relinquished norway, the sovereignty had now reverted to the norwegian people, who thus recovered their natural right to adopt their own constitution and choose their executive. according to his diary the prince said at the meeting: "i have heard with great pleasure a speech made to me at a private audience by professor sverdrup, in which he conjured me not to place the crown on my head in a manner which was contrary to the views of the most enlightened men of the nation. the rights which frederick vi. has relinquished revert to the people, and it is from their hands that you must receive a crown which will be far more glorious when you owe it to the love of the people." the result was that christian frederick took temporary charge of the government as regent, and issued a call for a constitutional convention or diet, consisting of representatives of the people from all parts of the country. in all his efforts, by the aid of the great powers and by force of arms against denmark, to secure norway for the king of sweden, charles john had never taken the will or desire of the norwegians themselves into consideration. while count wedel, who considered a union with sweden desirable or necessary, had emphatically declared that norway would never consent to a union attempted by force, crown prince charles john said that a people which for centuries had tolerated the supremacy of a foreign power without a murmur would not seriously resist a change of masters. the swedish king issued a proclamation to the norwegians, in which he promised to give them a constitution, and he appointed a viceroy for norway; but his offers were rejected. the swedish army being occupied in germany, with the war against napoleon, there was no force available with which to enforce the swedish demands, and this gave the norwegians time to arrange their own affairs; but there was considerable suffering in the country, because the british, upon learning that the norwegians would not accept the treaty of kiel, sent their fleet to prevent the importation of grain to norway. the diet, which met at eidsvold, april , , consisted of one hundred and twelve representatives. there were thirty-three army officers, fourteen clergymen, twenty-six other officials, twenty-three farmers, twelve merchants, and four mine-owners and landed proprietors. there were two parties in the convention. the most numerous one was the so-called "party of independence," whose principal leaders were judge christian magnus falsen, professor george sverdrup, judge christie, and captain motzfeldt. the other party, which numbered about thirty members, favored a union with sweden, and was called the swedish party, although hardly any of them advocated their policy from any love for the swedes, but rather from what they considered a necessity, believing that norway would not, under the circumstances, be able single-handed to maintain her independence. the prominent men of this party were count wedel-jarlsberg, chamberlain peter anker, mine-owner jacob aall, _amtmand_ (prefect) lövenskiold, and the reverend nicolai wergeland. but all members agreed in the demand that norway must henceforth have a liberal constitution. the following were agreed upon as the fundamental principles of the constitution: . norway shall be a limited, hereditary monarchy; it shall be a free, independent and indivisible kingdom, and the ruler shall have the title of king. . the people shall exercise the legislative power through their representatives. . the people shall alone have the right to levy taxes through their representatives. . the right to declare war and to make peace rests with the king. . the king shall have the right of pardon. . the judicial power shall be separate from the legislative and executive power. . there shall be liberty of the press. . the evangelical lutheran religion shall remain the religion of the state and of the king. . personal or mixed hereditary privileges shall not be granted to anybody in the future. . all citizens, irrespective of station, birth, or property, shall be required to render military service for a certain length of time. upon the basis of these principles the constitution was drawn and finally adopted on the th day of may, . on the same day christian frederick was elected king of norway. he accepted the election and solemnly made oath to the constitution, may , whereupon the members of the diet swore allegiance to the constitution and to the new king. they held their last meeting on may , in order to sign the record of the proceedings. that done, they formed a circular chain, each person giving his right hand to his neighbor on the left, and his left hand to his neighbor on the right, and standing thus, hand in hand, they all exclaimed in chorus: "united and true, until dovre (mountain) falls!" chapter lvi _war with sweden--union of november , _ after the final defeat of napoleon, the allied powers, russia, prussia, austria, and england, granted the request of charles john and promised to urge norway to accept the supremacy of sweden. the special envoys of the powers arrived in christiania, june , , bringing with them, besides their instructions from their respective governments, a letter from the danish king to christian frederick, in which the latter was again commanded, under pain of being disinherited and otherwise punished, to abdicate and return to denmark. the day after their arrival the commissioners had an audience with king christian frederick and acquainted him with the intention of the powers to demand the acceptance of the provisions in the treaty of kiel. the king declared himself willing to convene the storthing (parliament) in extra session, in order to open negotiations for a peaceable union, if, in the meantime, the powers would guarantee an armistice and allow the free importation of breadstuffs; but when the commissioners demanded that the norwegians should surrender to the mercy of the swedish king, and allow the forts to be occupied by swedish soldiers, the king declined to accept their propositions, and war commenced. the norwegian army, which stood along the frontier, was poorly equipped and ill-provided with clothing and provisions. the king himself was no great soldier, and the information that all the foreign powers were against norway had considerably lessened his courage. the swedish fleet, under the personal command of charles xiii., took up a position outside of fredericksstad, which was insufficiently defended and was compelled to surrender, august . about the same time, the main swedish army, under charles john, crossed the frontier south of frederickshald. one division of it laid siege to the fortress of frederickssteen, which was bravely defended by general ohme. the norwegian army was eager for a general action; but the king, who thought this would be unwise, ordered a retreat across the glommen river. north in soloer, where lieutenant-colonel krebs had the command, the norwegian forces were much more successful. a swedish force, under general gahn, crossed the frontier and marched in the direction of kongsvinger, but was defeated by the norwegians at lier, august . the norwegians, under col. krebs, afterward attacked the swedes at matrand and drove them back across the frontier, august . the battle at matrand was the most bloody encounter during this war. general gahn's loss, in killed, wounded, or captured, was sixteen officers, seven non-commissioned officers and three hundred and twelve men. the norwegian loss, in killed, wounded or captured, was five officers, four non-commissioned officers and one hundred and thirty men. the number of dead was about equal on both sides, about fifty men; of the wounded there was sixty-four on the norwegian, and one hundred and twenty-six on the swedish side. on august , charles john took steps to communicate with the norwegians with a view to the arrangement of an armistice, offering to recognize the norwegian constitution of may , if norway would agree to a union with sweden. the result at these negotiations was the convention signed at moss, august , by which christian frederick promised to call an extra session at the storthing to negotiate with the swedish king through commissioners appointed by him; he also solemnly agreed to surrender the executive power intrusted to him into the hands of the nation; in the meantime the country east of the river glommen and the fortress of frederickssteen were to be occupied by swedish troops. according to a secret agreement christian frederick was, under some pretext, to immediately transfer the executive power to the ministers, who were to conduct the necessary functions of the government until the storthing had definitely decided upon the future form of government. this ended the war, which had not been a very bloody one. the loss, in killed, wounded, and captured, was about equal on both sides; namely, about four hundred dead and wounded and three hundred prisoners. on the th day of august christian frederick issued a proclamation ordering elections to an extraordinary storthing to be opened at christiania, october , and on august he ordered the cabinet to take charge of the executive power, signing all executive acts "by high command." the storthing met at the time designated, the number of representatives being eighty, of whom about twenty had been members of the diet at eidsvold. the storthing was solemnly opened by the oldest minister in the name of king christian frederick. two days later a committee of the storthing, at the request of the king, had an audience with him at his residence on bygdö, when he surrendered the norwegian crown into the hands of the people, and for himself and his descendants relinquished all rights to the country. on the same day he went on board a ship and sailed from norway.[ ] the storthing now, under the presidency of judge christie, began negotiations with the commissioners of the swedish king, and on the th day of october it was decided, by seventy-two votes in the affirmative to five in the negative, that norway as an independent state, upon certain conditions, was to be united with sweden under the same king. the changes in the constitution made necessary by reason of the union with sweden were then made and finally ratified, november , , and, on the same day, charles xiii. was unanimously elected king of norway. [ ] during the next twenty-five years christian frederick led an unnoticed life in denmark and was soon forgotten by the norwegian people. in he ascended the danish throne as christian viii. he died in . a committee of the storthing, headed by count wedel-jarlsberg, was sent to crown prince charles john at frederickshald, to inform him of the action of the storthing; whereupon charles john and his son, prince oscar, proceeded to christiania and delivered to the storthing the king's written oath to the constitution. as soon as the report of the action of the norwegian storthing had reached stockholm, the swedish minister of foreign affairs, lars von engeström, despatched a circular to each of the swedish representatives at the foreign courts, informing them of the union of norway and sweden. in this circular the minister said: "the norwegian storthing having, of its own accord and by a free election, chosen his swedish majesty as king of norway, it is plain that it is not to the provisions of the treaty of kiel, but to the confidence of the norwegian people, that we owe the union of norway with sweden." chapter lvii _the union with sweden_ the first storthing (parliament), after the union had been accomplished, remained in session a year, and together with the swedish diet adopted the "act of union," or rigsakt ( ), based upon the norwegian constitution and defining the terms of the union. at the same time the supreme court of norway was established in christiania. the bank of norway was established at throndhjem in . at the death of charles xiii., in , charles john ascended the throne of both countries as charles xiv. john. on several occasions there was friction between the king and the norwegian storthing. at the treaty of kiel, charles john had promised that norway would assume a part of the norwegian-danish public debt; but as the norwegians had never acknowledged this treaty, they held that it was not their duty to pay any part of the debt, and declared besides that norway was not able to do so. but as the powers had agreed to help denmark to enforce her claims, a compromise was effected in , by which the storthing agreed to pay three million dollars, the king relinquishing his civil list for a certain number of years. the same storthing adopted the law abolishing the nobility in norway. this step was also strongly opposed by charles john, but as it had been adopted by three successive storthings, the act under the constitution became a law in spite of any veto. it was believed by many that the manoeuvres of norwegian and swedish troops and the swedish fleet, which was collected at christiania at the time that these matters were under consideration, had been called together by the king in order to intimidate the storthing. for a number of years there existed a want of confidence between the king and the norwegian people. the king did not like the democratic spirit of the norwegians, and the reactionary tendencies of his european allies had quite an influence upon his actions. in he proposed ten amendments to the constitution, looking to an increase of the royal power, among which was one giving the king an absolute instead of a suspensive veto; another giving him the right to appoint the presidents of the storthing, and a third authorizing him to dissolve the storthing at any time. but these amendments met the most ardent opposition in the storthing, especially from the former cabinet-minister, christian krogh, and were unanimously rejected by the storthing in . the king renewed these propositions before several successive storthings, but they were each time rejected. when the norwegians commenced to celebrate the anniversary of the adoption of the constitution (may ), the king thought he saw in this a sign of a disloyal spirit, because they did not rather celebrate the union with sweden, and he forbade the public celebration of the day. the result of this was that "independence day" was celebrated with so much greater eagerness. the students at the university especially took an active part under the leadership of that champion of liberty, the poet henrik wergeland (born , died ). the unwise prohibition was the cause of the "market-place battle" in christiania, may , , when the troops were called out, and general wedel dispersed the crowds that had assembled in the market-place. there was also dissatisfaction in norway, because a swedish viceroy (statholder) was placed at the head of the government, and because their ships had to sail under the swedish flag. the french july revolution of , which started the liberal movement throughout europe, also had its influence in norway. liberal newspapers were established at the capital, and the democratic character of the storthing became more pronounced, especially after , when the farmers commenced to take an active part in the elections. prominent among them was ole gabriel ueland. the king was so displeased with the majority in the storthing of that he suddenly dissolved it; but the storthing answered this action by impeaching the minister of state, lövenskiold, for not having dissuaded the king from taking such a step. lövenskiold was sentenced to pay a fine. the king then yielded and reconvened the storthing. he also took a step toward conciliating the norwegians by appointing their countryman, count wedel-jarlsberg, as viceroy. this action was much appreciated in norway. during the last years of this reign there existed the best of understanding between the king and the people. charles john's great benevolence tended to increase the affection of the people, and he was sincerely mourned at his death, march , , charles xiv. john being then eighty years old. charles john was succeeded by his son, oscar i., who very soon won the love of the norwegians. one of his first acts was to give norway her own commercial flag and other outward signs of her equality with sweden. his father had always signed himself "king of sweden and norway"; but king oscar adopted the rule to sign all documents pertaining to the government of norway as "king of norway and sweden." during the war between germany and denmark, king oscar gathered a swedish-norwegian army in scania, and he succeeded in arranging the armistice of malmoe in . the war broke out anew, however, the following year, and he then occupied northern schleswig with norwegian and swedish troops, pending the negotiations for peace between germany and denmark. during the crimean war, king oscar made a treaty with england and france ( ), by which the latter powers promised to help sweden and norway in case of any attack from russia. general contentment prevailed during the happy reign of king oscar, and the prosperity, commerce and population of the country increased steadily. these satisfactory conditions did not, however, result in any weakening of the national feeling, and the storthing, in , declined to promote a plan, prepared by a joint swedish and norwegian commission, looking to a strengthening of the union. after a sickness of two years, during which his eldest son, crown prince charles, had charge of the government as prince-regent, king oscar i. died in july, , at the age of sixty years. he was married to josephine of leuchtenberg, daughter of napoleon's stepson, engene beauharnais. charles xv. was thirty-three years old when he ascended the throne. the progress in the material welfare of the country was continued during his reign, and, like his father, he was very popular. numerous roads and railways were started, all parts of the country were connected by telegraph, and the merchant marine grew to be one of the largest in the world. in a law was passed providing for annual sessions of the storthing instead of triennial as heretofore. the first storthing under charles xv., with only two negative votes, resolved to abolish the right of the king to appoint a viceroy (statholder) for norway. this action of the storthing enraged the ruling party in the swedish diet, who claimed a right to be consulted in this matter, in which they considered that sweden had an interest, and they demanded a revision of the terms of the union. a serious conflict was avoided for the time being, the king vetoing the resolution of the storthing. not till were negotiations opened for a revision. a joint committee was appointed to prepare a plan; but the question was not solved, for the storthing, in , rejected the plan proposed by the committee. charles xv. died september , , and, having no sons, was succeeded by his younger brother, oscar ii. the king and the storthing at first showed themselves mutually accommodating. the storthing appropriated the necessary funds for the expense of the coronation at throndhjem (july , ), while the king sanctioned the bill abolishing the office of statholder. but in the difference between the storthing and the ministry had brought on a sharp conflict. the liberal majority of the storthing, in order to introduce parliamentarism, had three times adopted an amendment to the constitution admitting the cabinet ministers to participation in the debates of the storthing, and each time the measure had been vetoed by the king. the king, supported by the conservative party and by the opinion of the faculty of law of the university, claimed that the constitution was a contract between the people and the royal house, and could not, therefore, be changed without the sanction of the king, who thus had an absolute veto in the matter of amendments to the constitution. the liberal party claimed that in constitutional amendments, as well as in the matter of ordinary laws, the king had only a suspensive veto; and on the th of june, , the storthing adopted a resolution declaring that the amendment providing for the attendance of the cabinet ministers at the meetings of the storthing was law in spite of the veto. the conflict steadily grew sharper, and in the members of the ministry (headed by minister of state selmer) were impeached for failure to promulgate the resolution of june , . the ministers were found guilty and removed from office in the spring of . the king once more tried a ministry which was not in accord with the majority of the storthing, the so-called april ministry, headed by schweigaard; but the latter soon resigned, and in june, , the king finally called upon johan sverdrup, the acknowledged leader of the liberal majority (the left), to form a ministry. the king now signed the constitutional amendment, and sverdrup and his colleagues took their seats in the storthing. for a time the legislative and the executive power worked in harmony, and several liberal reforms were introduced. a reorganization of the army in accordance with the views of the majority was brought about, the suffrage was extended, and trial by jury was introduced. in , however, when the government introduced a bill for a new church-law, a division in the party of the left had taken place, and sverdrup found himself without a majority in the storthing. he retained office until after the elections of , which resulted in three legislative parties, the "left," the "moderate," and the conservative, or "right." neither of them had a majority in the storthing. sverdrup resigned (july, ), and the conservative leader, emil stang, formed a new ministry. at the elections in , the "pure left," having made a separate consular service independent of sweden the main issue of the campaign, again obtained a majority, and their leader, rector steen, became the chief of the new ministry. the principal occasion of this movement was the rapid increase in norwegian commercial interests, which, as was claimed, were imperfectly protected by a joint consular service. the steen ministry resigned in may, , and a ministry from the minority was formed by stang. on june , , the storthing adopted a resolution declaring that, with a ministry possessing the confidence of the storthing, it would be willing to negotiate with sweden for a peaceable settlement of the matters in dispute. a coalition ministry, consisting of members from each of the three political groups and headed by hagerup, was appointed in october, , and a joint swedish and norwegian union committee was chosen to adjust disputed points. this committee, having failed to reach any agreement, was discharged in . at the elections of the left obtained an increased majority in the storthing, and, in february, , the hagerup ministry resigned, and steen was again placed at the head of a ministry. the storthing of - adopted a constitutional amendment extending the suffrage to all male citizens who have attained the age of twenty-five years. a bill was also passed, for the third time, removing from the norwegian merchant flag the "union jack," the symbol of the union with sweden. this bill was twice vetoed by the king; but, after its third passage, was promulgated, having been passed, according to the constitution, over the royal veto. the secession movement was largely in abeyance during the years - , owing to the popular fear of a russian invasion. however, in , the anti-union sentiment again came strongly to the front, reaching an acute stage in march, , when a new cabinet, headed by peter christian michelson, was formed. a bill demanding separate consular service was again passed by the storthing, only to be vetoed by the swedish crown. compromise measures were proposed and rejected. in june the cabinet offered its resignation, which was refused by the king on the ground that a new ministry could not be formed in the existing state of feeling in norway. the cabinet, thereupon, delegated its powers to the storthing, which immediately passed a resolution declaring the dissolution of union between sweden and norway on the ground of the king's inability to conduct the government and his constructive relinquishment of authority. at the same time a letter was addressed to the king of sweden expressing norway's desire for the continuation of peaceful relations, and asking that a prince of the royal house of sweden be designated as king of norway. the latter request was refused, but other matters were adjusted by a joint commission. the crown was finally offered to charles, crown prince of denmark, and son-in-law of king edward of england, who was elected by a popular majority of , against , , and assumed the throne november th under the name haakon vii. chapter lviii _norwegian literature_ the people who emigrated from norway and settled in iceland, after harald the fairhaired had subdued the many independent chiefs and established the monarchy ( ), for the most part belonged to the flower of the nation, and iceland naturally became the home of the old norse literature. among the oldest poetical works of this literature is the so-called "elder edda," also called sæmund's edda, because for a long time it was believed to be the work of the icelander sæmund. "the younger edda," also called snorre's edda, because it is supposed to have been written by snorre sturlason (born , died ), contains a synopsis of the old norse religion and a treatise on the art of poetry. fully as important as the numerous poetical works of that period was the old norse saga-literature.[ ] the most prominent work in this field is snorre sturlason's "heimskringla," which gives the sagas of the kings of norway from the beginning down to . a continuation of the "heimskringla," to which several authors have contributed, among them snorre sturlason's relative, sturla thordson, contains the history of the later kings down to magnus law-mender. [ ] the word saga means a historical tale. the literary development above referred to ceased almost entirely toward the end of the fourteenth century, and later, during the union with denmark, the danish language gradually took the place of the old norse as a book-language, and the literature became essentially danish. copenhagen, with its court and its university, was the literary and educational centre, where the young men of norway went to study, and authors born in norway became, to all intents and purposes, danish writers. but norway furnished some valuable contributors to this common literature. one of the very first names on the records of the danish literature, peder claussön ( - ), is that of a norwegian, and the list further includes such illustrious names as holberg, tullin, wessel, steffens, etc. one of the most original writers whom norway produced and kept at home during the period of the union with denmark was the preacher and poet, peder dass ( - ). the best known among his secular songs is "nordlands trompet," a beautiful and patriotic description of the northern part of norway. ludvig holberg was born in bergen, norway, december , . his father, colonel holberg, had risen from the ranks and distinguished himself, in , at halden. shortly after his death the property of the family was destroyed by fire, and at the age of ten years ludvig lost his mother. it was now decided to have him educated for the military service; but he showed a great dislike for military life, and, at his earnest request, was sent to the bergen latin school. in he entered the university of copenhagen. being destitute of means, he took a position as private tutor. as soon as he had saved a small sum he went abroad. he was first in holland, and afterward studied for a couple of years at oxford, where he supported himself by giving instruction in languages and music. upon his return to copenhagen he again took a position as private tutor and had an opportunity to travel as teacher for a young nobleman. in he received a stipend from the king, which enabled him to go abroad for several years, which he spent principally in france and italy. in he became a regular professor at the copenhagen university. among holberg's many works the following are the most prominent: "peder paars," a great comical heroic poem, containing sharp attacks on many of the follies of his time; about thirty comedies in molière's style, and a large number of historical works. holberg, who was ennobled in , died in january , , and was buried in sorö church. his influence on the literature and on the whole intellectual life of denmark was very great. he is often called the creator of the danish literature. christian baumann tullin ( - ), a genuine poetical genius, who has been called the father of danish lyrical verse, was born in christiania, and his poetry, which was mainly written in his native city, breathes a national spirit. from his day, for about thirty years, denmark obtained the majority of her poets from norway. the manager of the danish national theatre, in , was a norwegian, niels krog-bredal ( - ), who was the first to write lyrical dramas in danish. a norwegian, johan nordal brun ( - ), a gifted poet, wrote tragedy in the conventional french taste of the day. it was a norwegian, johan herman wessel ( - ), who, by his great parody, "kjærlighed uden strömper" (love without stockings), laughed this taste out of fashion. among the writers of this period are also claus frimann ( - ), peter harboe frimann ( - ), claus fasting ( - ), johan wibe ( - ), edward storm ( - ), c. h. pram ( - ), jonas rein ( - ), and jens zetlitz ( - ), all of them norwegians by birth. two notable events led to the foundation of an independent norwegian literature: the one was the establishment of a norwegian university at christiania in , and the other was the separation of norway from denmark in . at first the independent norwegian literature appeared as immature as the conditions surrounding it. the majority of the writers had received their education in copenhagen, and were inclined to follow in the beaten track of the old literature, although trying to introduce a more national spirit. all were greatly influenced by the political feeling of the hour. there was a period when all poetry had for its subject the beauties and strength of norway and its people, and "the rocks of norway," "the lion of norway," etc., sounded everywhere. three poets, called the trefoil, were the prominent writers of this period. of these, conrad nicolai schwach ( - ) was the least remarkable. henrik a. bjerregaard ( - ) was the author of "the crowned national song," and of a lyric drama, "fjeldeventyret" (the adventure in the mountains). the third member of the trefoil, mauritz chr. hansen ( - ), wrote a large number of novels and national stories, which were quite popular in their time. his poems were among the earliest publications of independent norway. the time about the year is reckoned as the beginning of the new norwegian literature, and henrik wergeland is called its creator. henrik arnold wergeland was born in . his father, nicolai wergeland, a clergyman, was a member of the constitutional convention at eidsvold. henrik studied theology, but did not care to become a clergyman. in , and the following years, he wrote a number of satirical farces under the signature "siful sifadda." in appeared his lyric dramatic poem, "skabelsen, mennesket og messias" (the creation, man and messiah), a voluminous piece of work, in which he attempted to explain the historical life of the human race. as a political writer he was editorial assistant on the "folkebladet" ( - ), and edited the opposition paper "statsborgeren" ( - ). he worked with great zeal for the education of the laboring class, and from until his death edited a paper in the interest of the laborer. the prominent features of his earliest efforts in literature are an unbounded enthusiasm and a complete disregard of the laws of poetry. at an early age he had become a power in literature, and a political power as well. from to he was subjected to severe satirical attacks by the author welhaven and others, and later his style became improved in every respect. his popularity however decreased as his poetry improved, and in he had become a great poet but had no political influence. among his works may be named "hasselnödder," "jöden" (the jew), "jödinden" (the jewess), "jan van huysums blomsterstykke" (jan van huysum's flower-piece), "den engelske lods" (the english pilot), and a great number of lyric poems. the poems of his last five years are as popular to-day as ever. wergeland died in . the enthusiastic nationalism of henrik wergeland and his young following brought on a conflict with the conservative element, which was not ready to accept everything as good simply because it was norwegian. this conservative element maintained that art and culture must be developed on the basis of the old association with denmark, which had connected norway with the great movement of civilization throughout europe. as the poetical leader of this "intelligence" party, as it was called, appeared j. s. welhaven. johan sebastian cammermeyer welhaven was born in bergen in , entered the university in , became a "lector" in , and afterward professor of philosophy. "his refined æsthetic nature," says fr. winkel horn, "had been early developed, and when the war broke out between him and wergeland he had reached a high point of intellectual culture, and thus was in every way a match for his opponent. the fight was inaugurated by a preliminary literary skirmish, which was, at the outset, limited to the university students; but it gradually assumed an increasingly bitter character, both parties growing more and more exasperated. welhaven published a pamphlet, 'om henrik wergelands digtekunst og poesie,' in which he mercilessly exposed the weak sides of his adversary's poetry. thereby the minds became still more excited. the 'intelligence' party withdrew from the students' union, founded a paper of their own, and thus the movement began to assume wider dimensions. in appeared welhaven's celebrated poem 'norges dæmring,' a series of sonnets, distinguished for their beauty of style. in them the poet scourges, without mercy, the one-sided, narrow-minded patriotism of his time, and exposes, in striking and unmistakable words, the hollowness and shortcomings of the wergeland party. welhaven points out, with emphasis, that he is not only going to espouse the cause of good taste, which his adversary has outraged, but that he is also about to discuss problems of general interest. he urges that a norwegian culture and literature cannot be created out of nothing; that to promote their development it is absolutely necessary to continue the associations which have hitherto been common to both norway and denmark, and thus to keep in _rapport_ with the general literature of europe. when a solid foundation has in this manner been laid, the necessary materials for a literature would surely not be wanting, for they are found in abundance, both in the antiquities and in the popular life of norway." welhaven continued his effective work as a poet and a critic. through a series of lyrical and romantic poems, rich in contents and highly finished in style, he developed a poetical life, which had an important influence in the young norwegian literary circles. he died in . andreas munch ( - ), an able and industrious poetical writer, took no part in the controversy between wergeland and welhaven, but followed his danish models independently of either. his "poems, old and new," published in , were quite popular. his best work is probably "kongedatterens brudefart" (the bridal tour of the king's daughter), . in the period of about a dozen years following the death of wergeland, the life, manners and characteristics of the norwegian people were given the especial attention of the literary writers. prominent in this period was peter christian asbjörnsen ( - ), who, partly alone and partly in conjunction with bishop jörgen moe ( - ), published some valuable collections of norwegian folk tales and fairy tales. moe also published three little volumes of graceful and attractive poems. among other writers of this period may be named hans h. schultze ("fra lofoten og solör"), n. Östgaard ("en fjeldbygd"), harald meltser ("smaabilleder af folkelivet"), m. b. landstad (hymns), and the linguist sophus bugge. the efforts to bring out the national life and characteristics of the people in the literature also led to an attempt to nationalize the language in which the literature was written. the movement was the so-called "maalstræv," and had in view the introduction of a "pure norwegian" book-language, based upon the peasant dialects. the most prominent supporter of this movement was ivar aasen ( - ), the author of an excellent dictionary of the norwegian language. a prominent poetical representative of this school was aasmund olafson vinje ( - ), while kristofer janson (born ) has also written a number of stories and poems in the _landsmaal_ (country tongue). a new and grand period in the norwegian literature commenced about , and the two most conspicuous names in this period--and in the whole norwegian literature--are those of henrik ibsen and björnstjerne björnson. henrik ibsen was born in skien in . he has written many beautiful poems; but his special field is the drama, where he is a master. his first works were nearly all historical romantic dramas. his first work, "catilina," printed in , was scarcely noticed until years afterward, when he had become famous. in appeared the romantic drama, "gildet paa solhaug" (the feast at solhaug), followed by "fru inger til oestraat," , and "hærmændene paa helgeland" (the warriors on helgeland), . in he wrote the historical tragedy "kongsemnerne" (the pretenders), in which the author showed his great literary power. before this play was published, he had been drawn into a new channel. in he began a series of satirical and philosophical dramas with "kjærlighedens komedie" (love's comedy), which was succeeded by two masterpieces of a similar kind, "brand," in , and "peer gynt," in . these works were written in verse; but in "de unges forbund" (the young men's league), , a political satire, he abandoned verse, and all his subsequent dramas have been written in prose. in came "keiser og galilæer" (emperor and galilean). since then he has published a number of social dramas which have attracted world-wide attention. we mention: "samfundets stötter" (the pillars of society), "et dukkehjem" (a doll's house), "gengangere" (ghosts), "en folkefiende" (an enemy of the people), "rosmerholm," "fruen fra havet" (the lady from the sea), "little eyolf," "bymester solnes" (masterbuilder solnes), "john gabriel borkman." björnstjerne björnson (born in Österdalen in ) is the more popular of the two giants in the norwegian literature of to-day. his works are more national in tone. it has been said that to mention his name is to raise the norwegian flag. his first successes were made in the field of the novel, and the first two, "synnöve solbakken" ( ), and "arne" ( ), made his name famous. these, and his other peasant stories, will always retain their popularity. he soon, however, entered the dramatic field, and has since published a great number of dramas and novels. "halte hulda," ; "mellem slagene," ; "kong sverre," ; "sigurd slembe," ; "maria stuart," ; "de nygifte" (the newly-married couple), ; "kongen," ; "leonarda," ; "det ny system," ; "over Ærne," ; "en fallit," "det flager," etc., and many others. in the field of belles-lettres there is, at the present time, a number of other talented authors. jonas lie (born ) has produced a number of excellent novels. then there are alexander kielland (born ), magdalene thoresen (born ), arne garborg, gunnar heiberg, and a number of young authors. in the field of science, also, modern norway has a rich literature with many prominent names, such as the historians peter andreas munch ( - ), rudolph keyser ( - ), johan ernst sars (born ), and o. a. Överland. chapter lix _the constitution of norway_ the following is the constitution adopted at the convention at eidsvold on the th day of may, , and amended and ratified by the storthing on the th day of november, , with all the subsequent amendments incorporated: a. religion and form of government: article . the kingdom of norway is a free, independent, indivisible and inalienable state, united with sweden under one king. its form of government is a limited, hereditary monarchy. article . the evangelical lutheran religion shall continue the established religion of the state. such inhabitants as profess the same shall educate their children therein. jesuits shall be excluded. b. the executive power, the king, and the royal family: article . the executive power shall be vested in the king. article . the king shall constantly profess, maintain and defend the evangelical lutheran religion. article . the king's person is sacred; he shall neither be censured nor impeached. his ministry shall, however, be accountable. article . the succession shall be lineal and agnatic as prescribed in the ordinance of succession of september , , adopted by the legislative assembly of sweden and accepted by the king, a translation of which is attached to this constitution. a posthumous child shall be deemed in the line of succession, and shall take his appropriate place therein as soon as born. when a prince, who is heir to the united crowns of norway and sweden, is born, his name and time of birth shall be reported to the next storthing in session and entered in its journal. article . if no prince, heir to the crowns, be living, the king may propose a successor to the storthing of norway, at the same time as to the legislative assembly of sweden; and, as soon as the king has made his nomination, the legislative bodies of both nations shall appoint a committee from their midst, with power to choose a successor, in case the nominee of the king is not confirmed by a majority in each legislative body. the number of members of this committee, which must be equal from each kingdom, and the manner in which the choice shall be made, shall be determined by a law, simultaneously proposed by the king to the next storthing and to the legislative assembly of sweden. one member shall withdraw, by lot, from the assembled committee. article . the age of majority of the king shall be prescribed by a law, to be enacted pursuant to an agreement between the storthing of norway and the legislative assembly of sweden, or, in case they cannot agree concerning the same, by a committee appointed by the legislative bodies of both kingdoms, conformable to the provisions of the preceding article . the king shall publicly proclaim himself of age as soon as he has attained his majority. article . as soon as the king, on coming of age, assumes the government, he shall take the following oath before the storthing: "i promise and depose that i will govern the kingdom of norway conformable to its constitution and laws, so help me god and his holy writ." if no storthing is then in session, the oath shall be deposited in writing with the ministry, and shall solemnly be renewed by the king at the next storthing, either orally or in writing through his representative. article . the king shall be crowned and anointed, when he is of age, in throndhjem's cathedral, at such time and with such ceremonies as he himself may prescribe. article . the king shall reside in norway a part of each year, if not prevented by serious obstacles. article . the king shall appoint a ministry of norwegian citizens, who shall not be less than thirty years of age. the ministry shall consist of two ministers of state, and not less than seven secretaries of state. the king shall apportion the public business among the members of the ministry in such manner as he deems best. the king, or, in his absence, the minister of state, in conjunction with the secretaries of state, may, on extraordinary occasions, in addition to the regular members of the ministry, summon other norwegian citizens, not members of the storthing, to a seat in the ministry. father and son, or two brothers, shall not have a seat in the ministry at the same time. article . the king shall commit, during his absence, the administration of the domestic affairs of the realm, in such cases as he may prescribe, to one of the ministers of state, and not less than five of the secretaries of state, who shall carry on the government in the name, and on behalf, of the king. they shall sacredly conform as well to the provisions of this constitution as to the several instructions in harmony therewith, prescribed to them by the king. they shall present to the king a respectful application concerning the affairs they resolve upon. their transactions shall be determined by vote, and in case of an equal division the minister of state, or, in his absence, the senior secretary of state, shall have two votes. article . (repealed.) article . one of the ministers of state, and two of the secretaries of state, the latter to be changed yearly, shall constantly remain with the king while he resides in sweden. they shall be subject to the same obligations and to the same constitutional accountability as the governing ministry, named in article , existing in norway, and only in their presence shall norwegian affairs be disposed of by the king. all applications from norwegian citizens to the king shall first be presented to the governing ministry in norway, and supplemented with their opinion, before passed upon. as a rule, except where serious obstacles prevent, no norwegian affairs shall be disposed of without obtaining the advice of the governing ministry in norway. the minister of state shall move the consideration of public business, and shall be responsible for the due expedition of all resolutions taken. article . the king shall prescribe rules for all public religious and church service, and for all meetings and conventions relating to religious affairs, and he shall take care that the public instructors of religion adhere to the standards prescribed them. article . the king may enact and repeal ordinances relating to commerce, customs, industrial pursuits and public order, not, however, in conflict with the constitution or the laws of the storthing, passed pursuant to the provisions of article , and of this constitution. such acts of the king shall remain provisionally in force until the next storthing. article . the king shall, ordinarily, cause the taxes and imposts, levied by the storthing, to be collected. the norwegian treasury shall remain in norway, and its revenue shall be devoted to the requirements of norway alone. article . the king shall take care that the estates and regalia of the state be used and managed in the manner prescribed by the storthing, and for the greatest advantage of the public. article . the king shall have power, in council, to pardon offenders after conviction. the offender shall, however, have the option to accept the pardon of the king or to suffer the punishment adjudged. no pardon or reprieve, except the remission of the death penalty, shall be granted in cases prosecuted by the odelsthing in the court of impeachment. article . the king, after hearing his ministry in norway, shall appoint and induct all civil, ecclesiastical and military officials, who shall take an oath of obedience and fealty to the constitution and the king, or who, if relieved by law from such an oath, shall solemnly declare their fealty to the same. royal princes shall hold no civil office. article . the king may, after taking the advice of the ministry, without the warrant of judicial decree, remove from office the ministers and secretaries of state, together with officials in the bureaus of the ministry, ambassadors and consuls, the chief civil and ecclesiastical officials, and the chiefs of fortifications and ships of war. whether pensions shall be granted to officials thus removed shall be determined by the next storthing, but, in the meantime, they shall continue to receive two-thirds of their former salary. other officials are only liable to suspension by the king, and, when suspended, shall at once be proceeded against in the courts, and shall not, without judgment, be removed, nor transferred without their consent. article . the king, at his pleasure, may confer orders of merit, in recognition of distinguished services, to be publicly announced, but no other rank or title than that conferred by an office occupied. such orders shall relieve no one from the duties and burdens common to all citizens, nor shall they confer any preference in securing admission to the public service. officials, honorably discharged, shall retain the title and rank of the office they occupied. no personal or mixed hereditary prerogatives shall hereafter be conferred on any one. article . the king may, at pleasure, select and dismiss the employees and officers of his royal household. article . the king shall be commander-in-chief of the land and naval forces of the realm. these forces shall neither be increased nor diminished without the consent of the storthing. they shall not be placed in the service of foreign powers, nor shall the military forces of any foreign powers, except auxiliary troops to repel hostile attack, be brought within the realm without the consent of the storthing. in times of peace, none but norwegian troops shall be stationed in norway, and no norwegian troops shall be stationed in sweden. the king, however, may retain in sweden a norwegian guard of volunteers, and he may, for a short time not exceeding six weeks in any year, assemble for manoeuvres, within the limits of either country, the nearest troops of the armies of both realms; but in no case, in times of peace, shall more than three thousand soldiers, of all arms combined, of the military force of one country, be brought within the limits of the other country. norway's troops and coast flotilla shall not be employed in offensive war without the consent of the storthing. the norwegian fleet shall have its dock yards, and in times of peace its stations or havens in norway. the ships of war of one country shall not be manned with sailors of the other country, except by voluntary enlistment. the home guard and the other norwegian troops, not classed as troops of the line, shall never be employed outside of the boundaries of norway. article . the king shall have power to call out the troops, to commence war and make peace, to enter into treaties, and to abrogate the same, and to send and receive diplomatic representatives. when the king intends to commence war, he shall communicate his purpose to the governing ministry in norway, and obtain their judgment concerning the same, together with a full report upon the condition of the country in respect to its finances, means of defence, and other matters. when these steps have been taken, the king shall convene the norwegian minister of state and the norwegian secretaries of state stationed in sweden, together with the members of the swedish ministry, in an extraordinary cabinet council, and shall present to them the grounds and circumstances which should in such cases be taken into consideration, and shall also place before them the report of the norwegian ministry concerning the condition of that country, and a like report concerning the condition of sweden. the king shall thereupon demand their judgment in the premises, which each of them for himself shall give and have entered in the journal of the proceedings, to be accountable for as provided in the constitution. when this has been done, the king shall have the power to take and execute such resolution as he deems for the best interest of the country. article . all members of the ministry, without valid excuse, shall attend the cabinet councils, and no action shall be taken when not more than half of the members are present. no action shall be taken in those norwegian affairs, disposed of in sweden, pursuant to article , unless the norwegian minister of state and one of the norwegian secretaries of state, or both of the secretaries, be present. article . communications concerning appointments to office and other matters of importance, except diplomatic affairs and military commands, shall be presented for consideration to the ministry by the member thereof in whose department the business belongs, and he shall dispose of the same conformable to the resolve of the ministry. article . in case a member of the ministry is unable, for valid cause, to attend and present for consideration the matters pertaining to his department, the same shall be presented by another member of the ministry, appointed for that purpose by the king, if present, or, in his absence, by the presiding member of the ministry, in conjunction with the other members of the ministry. if, for valid cause, so many are absent that not more than half of the regular members are in attendance, then other officials shall be appointed, in the mode aforesaid, to sit in the ministry, in which case a report thereof shall at once be made to the king, who shall determine whether the officials thus appointed shall continue to serve. article . the ministry shall keep a record of all business transacted. it shall be the duty of every person who has a seat in the ministry to express his opinion fearlessly, to which the king shall listen, but he may resolve according to his own judgment. in case any member of the ministry finds that the resolve of the king is in conflict with the form of government or the laws of the realm, or is manifestly detrimental to the country, then it is his duty to vigorously protest against the same, and to enter his objections in the record. he who does not thus protest, shall be deemed to have concurred with the king, and shall be accountable therefor, as subsequently determined, and may be impeached by the odelsthing in the court of impeachment. article . all decrees issued by the king himself, except military commands, shall be countersigned by one of the ministers of state. article . resolutions taken by the ministry in norway, during the absence of the king, shall be issued in his name, and attested by the ministry. article . all communications relative to norwegian affairs, as well as the expedition of the same, shall be in the norwegian language. article . the heir apparent, if son of the reigning king, shall bear the title of crown prince. the other royal heirs shall be known as princes, and the royal daughters as princesses. article . as soon as the heir apparent has filled his eighteenth year, he shall be entitled to take his seat in the ministry, but without vote or accountability. article . no prince of the blood shall marry without the consent of the king. if he violates this rule he shall forfeit his right to the crown of norway. article . the royal princes and princesses shall personally only be answerable to the king, or to such judge as he may ordain for them. article . the norwegian minister of state, as well as the two norwegian secretaries of state, remaining with the king, shall have a seat and deliberative voice in the swedish ministry when matters affecting both kingdoms are there considered. the views of the ministry in norway shall also be obtained, in such cases, unless the urgency for immediate action is so great that there is no time therefor. article . if the king dies and his successor is still under age, the norwegian and swedish ministries shall immediately assemble, and jointly issue a call convening the storthing in norway and the rigsdag in sweden. article . until the legislative bodies of both realms are convened and have provided for the government during the minority of the king, the administration of the kingdoms, conformable to their respective constitutions, shall be conducted by a ministry composed of an equal number of norwegian and swedish members. the norwegian and swedish ministers of state, having a seat in this ministry, shall determine, by lot, who shall preside. article . the provisions of articles and , aforesaid, shall also be complied with in all those cases in which, under the constitution of sweden, the swedish ministry, as such, is entitled to conduct the government. when, however, the king, by reason of travels abroad or sickness, is unable to conduct the administration, the prince, entitled to the succession, if of age, shall conduct the administration as the temporary representative of the king, with the same power as belongs to an ad interim government. article . the king shall submit to the next storthing in norway and the next rigsdag in sweden a bill, based on the principles of perfect equality between both kingdoms, to carry out the provisions of articles , and , aforesaid. article . the election of a regency, to conduct the administration for the king during his minority, shall take place according to the same rules and in the same manner prescribed in article , aforesaid, for the election of a successor to the crown. article . the norwegian members of the joint ministry, to conduct the administration in the cases provided for in articles and , aforesaid, shall take the following oath before the storthing: "i promise and depose that i will conduct the administration of the government conformable to the constitution and the laws, so help me god and his holy writ," and the swedish members shall take an oath before the legislative assembly of sweden. if the storthing or rigsdag is not at that time in session, the oath shall be deposited, with the ministry, in writing, and shall be renewed before the next storthing or rigsdag. article . as soon as the administration of the joint ministry shall cease, they shall render an account of the same to the king and the storthing. article . if those, on whom it is incumbent, pursuant to articles and , fail to immediately convene the storthing, it shall be the peremptory duty of the supreme court, after a lapse of four weeks, to convene the same. article . the management of the education of the king, under age, shall, if his father has left no written directions concerning the same, be provided for in the manner prescribed in articles and . it shall be the invariable rule to give the king, during his minority, ample instructions in the norwegian language. article . if the royal male line be extinct, and no successor has been selected, a new line of kings shall be chosen in the manner prescribed in article ; and in the meantime provision shall be made for the executive power as prescribed in article ( ). c. citizenship and the law-making power: article . the people shall exercise the legislative power through a storthing, composed of two bodies, a lagthing and an odelsthing. article . all norwegian citizens, dwelling within the realm, who have attained the age of twenty-five years, and have been residents of the country for five years, shall be qualified voters. article . all qualified voters shall be registered, in every city by the magistrate, and in every rural parish by the parson and tax collector. changes that in the course of time may occur shall immediately be noted in the registry. every voter shall, before he is registered, publicly in court, take an oath of fealty to the constitution. article . the right of suffrage shall be suspended by: (_a_) indictment for an offence subject to the punishment described in article ; by (_b_) being placed under guardianship; by (_c_) assignment or bankruptcy, not caused by loss of fire or other evident misfortune, until the debtor, through full liquidation or composition, shall again regain control over his estate; and by (_d_) being supported, or having during the year immediately preceding the election been supported, as a public pauper. article . the right of suffrage shall be forfeited by: (_a_) having been sentenced to hard labor, removal from office, or imprisonment for an offence described in any of the chapters of the criminal code, relating to perjury, larceny, robbery or fraud; by (_b_) entering the service of a foreign power, without the consent of the government; by (_c_) acquiring citizenship in a foreign country; and by (_d_) being convicted of buying votes, or selling one's own vote, or of voting in more than one election precinct. article . elections and electoral meetings shall be held every third year. they shall be concluded before the end of the month of december. article . elections shall be held, at the chief church of the parish, in the rural districts, and at a church, the town hall, or other suitable place, in the towns. the parish priest and his vestrymen shall be the judges of election in the rural districts, the magistrate and selectmen in the towns. the vote shall be taken in the order the names appear on the registry. controversies about the right to vote shall be determined by the judges of election, whose decision may be appealed from to the storthing. article . the constitution shall be audibly read, in the towns by the chief magistrate, and in the rural districts by the priest, before the polls are opened. article . in the towns, one elector shall be chosen for every fifty inhabitants qualified to vote. within eight days after their election, the electors shall assemble at the place designated therefor by the magistracy, and shall elect, either from their own number or from the other qualified voters in their electoral district, thirty-eight representatives, to meet and sit in the storthing. of this number, unless otherwise constitutionally provided, one shall be elected from aalesund and molde combined, one from arendal and grimstad combined, four from bergen, one from brevig, four from christiania, hónefas and kongsvinger combined, two from christianssand, one from christianssund, two from drammen, one from flekkefjord, one from frederickshald, one from fredericksstad, one from hammerfest, vardó and vadsó combined, one from holmestrand, one from kongsberg, one from krageró, one from laurvig and sandefjord combined, one from lillehammer, hamer and gjóvik combined, one from moss and dróbak combined, one from porsgrund, one from sarpsborg, one from skien, two from stavanger and haugesund combined, one from tromsö, four from throndhjem and levanger combined, one from tunsberg, and one from osterrisór. when a town, not herein named, shall have fifty or more inhabitants, who are qualified voters, it shall be attached to the nearest town-electoral district. the same rule shall apply to towns that may hereafter be founded. a town attached to a town-electoral district shall choose one elector, even though the number of inhabitants qualified to vote shall become less than fifty. in no case shall less than three electors be chosen in a town which, by itself alone, constitutes one representative district. article . in every parish in the rural districts, the inhabitants qualified to vote shall choose, in proportion to their numbers, electors as follows: one hundred or less shall choose one; from one hundred to two hundred, two; from two hundred to three hundred, three, and so on in the same proportion. the electors shall, within a month after their election, assemble at a place designated therefor by the high sheriff of the county, and shall then elect, either from their own number or from the other qualified voters in their county, seventy-six representatives, to meet and sit in the storthing, of whom five shall be chosen from the county of agershus, five from the county of nordre bergenhus, five from the county of sóndre bergenhus, five from the county of christians, two from the county of finmarken, five from the county of hedemarken, five from the county of nordland, five from the county of romsdalen, five from the county of stavanger, two from the county of tromsö, and four from each of the other eight counties of the kingdom. ex-ministers or ex-secretaries of state shall be eligible for representatives in any electoral district, if, barring residence, they are qualified voters and have not already been elected in some other district. but no district shall elect more than one non-resident representative. article . (repealed.) article . qualified voters, being within the country, who, by reason of sickness, military service, or other valid excuse, are unable to attend the polls, may, in writing, transmit their votes to the judges of election before the polls are closed. article . no one shall be elected representative unless he is thirty years of age and has resided ten years within the realm. article . members of the ministry, the officials employed in its bureaus, and the officials and pensionaries of the court, are all ineligible for representatives. article . whoever is elected representative, except ex-members of the ministry elected under the last clause in article , shall be required to accept the office, unless prevented by an excuse deemed valid by the electors, whose decision may be reviewed by the storthing. whoever has served as a representative in three regular sessions of the storthing succeeding the same election, shall not be bound to accept election to the next storthing. if a representative is prevented by valid excuse from attending the storthing, the person receiving the next highest vote shall take his place, unless an alternate was elected at the district electoral meeting, in which case he shall take the place of the representative. article . immediately after their election, the representatives shall be furnished with certificates of election, subscribed in the rural districts by the magistracy, in the towns by the chief magistrate, and in both cases by several electors, as evidence that they have been elected in the manner prescribed in the constitution. the validity of these credentials shall be passed upon by the storthing. article . each representative shall be entitled to compensation, from the state treasury, for expenses of travel to and from the storthing, and for subsistence during attendance. article . representatives shall, except when apprehended in public offences, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the storthing, and in going to and returning from the same; and they shall not be answerable, outside of the sessions of the storthing, for the expression of their views therein; but every representative shall conform to the established rules of procedure. article . the representatives, elected in the manner aforesaid, shall constitute the storthing of the kingdom of norway. article . the storthing shall, as a rule, convene on the first week-day in the month of february in each year, at the capital of the kingdom, except when the king, on account of extraordinary circumstances, such as hostile invasion or contagious disease, shall designate another town in the realm therefor. timely notice of such designation shall, in such case, be published. article . the king may, on extraordinary occasions, convene the storthing at other than the usual time. in such case the king shall issue a proclamation, which shall be read in all the churches of the episcopal towns at least fourteen days before the members of the storthing shall assemble at the place prescribed. article . such special storthing may be adjourned by the king at his pleasure. article . the members of the storthing shall serve as such for three successive years, as well at all special, as at all regular, sessions that may in the meantime be held. article . if a special storthing be in session at the time a regular storthing convenes, the former shall adjourn before the latter assembles. article . the storthing shall select from its members one-fourth who shall constitute the lagthing; the other three-fourths shall constitute the odelsthing. the selection shall be made at the first regular storthing which convenes after an election, and thereafter the lagthing shall remain unchanged in all storthings assembled after the same election, except in cases of vacancy, which shall be filled by special election. each thing shall hold its sessions separately, and appoint its own president and secretary. neither thing shall be in session unless two-thirds of its members are present. article . as soon as the storthing has organized, the king, or whoever he may appoint therefor, shall open its proceedings with a speech from the throne, wherein he shall give information touching the condition of the kingdom and the matters to which he especially desires to direct the storthing's attention. no deliberation shall take place in the presence of the king. after the session of the storthing has been opened, the minister of state and the secretaries of state shall be entitled to sit in the storthing and both branches thereof, and to participate in its proceedings, without the right to vote, in open session on a footing of equality with the members, and in secret session only to the extent permitted by the thing. article . the storthing shall have power: (_a_) to enact and repeal laws; to levy taxes, imposts, duties, and other public assessments, but such levy shall not remain in force beyond the first day of july in the year in which the next regular storthing convenes, unless expressly revived by the latter; (_b_) to borrow money on the credit of the kingdom; (_c_) to regulate the currency of the kingdom; (_d_) to appropriate the money necessary for the expenditures of the government; (_e_) to determine the amount which shall yearly be paid the king for the maintenance of his royal household, and to settle the appanage of the royal family, which shall not, however, consist of landed estates; (_f_) to cause to be laid before them the journal of the ministry in norway and all official reports and documents, not pertaining to exclusive military commands, then on file, together with verified copies and extracts of the journals, on file with the king, kept by the norwegian minister of state and the two norwegian secretaries of state remaining in sweden, as well as the public documents on file with them; (_g_) to cause to be communicated to them the alliances and treaties, which the king, on behalf of the state, has entered into with foreign powers, except secret articles, which must not, however, conflict with those that are public; (_h_) to require any person to appear before them, in state affairs, except the king and royal family; but this exception shall not apply to royal princes holding office; (_i_) to revise temporary salary and pension lists, and to make such changes therein as they find necessary; (_k_) to appoint five auditors who shall yearly audit the accounts of the state and publish printed extracts of the same; and for this purpose the accounts shall be submitted to the auditors within six months from the expiration of the year for which the appropriations of the storthing has been made; and (_l_) to naturalize foreigners. article . every bill shall first be introduced in the odelsthing, either by a member thereof or by the ministry, through one of its members. if the bill is there passed, it shall be sent to the lagthing, which may concur in or reject it; in the latter case it shall be returned with objections appended, and the same shall be considered by the odelsthing, which may either indefinitely postpone the bill or return it to the lagthing with or without amendment. when a bill, from the odelsthing, has been twice presented to the lagthing and has been returned a second time rejected, the entire storthing shall assemble in one body, and, by a two-thirds vote, dispose of the bill. at least three days must intervene between every such distinct consideration of the bill. article . when a measure, passed by the odelsthing, has been concurred in by the lagthing or the united storthing, it shall be sent by a committee of both bodies of the storthing to the king, if he is present, or if not present, to the norwegian ministry, with the request for the sanction of the king. article . if the king approve the measure, he shall affix his signature thereto, whereby it becomes a law. if he disapprove the same, he shall return it to the odelsthing with the statement that, for the time being, he does not find it expedient to sanction the same. article . if a measure has been passed without amendment, by three regular storthings, convened after three separate and successive elections, and separated from each other by not less than two intervening regular storthings, and no measure in conflict therewith having, in the meantime, from the first to the last passage, been passed by any storthing, and the measure is then presented to the king with the request that his majesty will not refuse his sanction to a measure which the storthing, after the most mature consideration, deem beneficial, it shall become a law, notwithstanding the king fails to sanction the same before the adjournment of the storthing. article . the storthing may remain in session so long as it deems necessary, not, however, over two months, without the permission of the king. when, after having finished its proceedings, or after having been in session the time limited, it is adjourned by the king, he shall communicate to it his action upon the measures passed, by approving or rejecting the same. all measures not expressly approved by him shall be deemed rejected. article . all laws shall be promulgated in the norwegian language, and, except those passed pursuant to article , in the name of the king, and under the seal of the kingdom of norway, in the following words: "we--n. n.--make known that there has been presented to us an act of the storthing of the following tenor: (here follows the act), which we have accepted and approved and hereby accept and approve, as law, under our hand and the seal of the realm." article . the sanction of the king shall not be required for those resolutions of the storthing whereby: (_a_) it declares itself convened as storthing pursuant to the constitution; (_b_) it determines its own rules of procedure; (_c_) it approves or rejects the credentials of the members present; (_d_) it affirms or reverses decisions in election controversies; (_e_) it naturalizes foreigners; (_f_) and finally, not for the resolution whereby the odelsthing shall impeach members of the ministry, or others. article . the storthing shall have the right to procure the opinion of the supreme court upon judicial subjects. article . the storthing shall sit in open session and its proceedings shall be printed and published, except in cases where otherwise determined by a majority vote. article . whoever shall obey a command, the purpose of which is to interfere with the freedom and safety of the storthing, is guilty of treason against the fatherland. d. the judicial power: article . the members of the lagthing, together with the supreme court, shall constitute the court of impeachment, which shall try, without appeal, cases instituted by the odelsthing, against members of the ministry and members of the supreme court for malfeasance in office, and against members of the storthing for offences committed by them in their official capacity. the president of the lagthing shall preside in the court of impeachment. article . the accused may, without cause, challenge as many as one-third of the members of the court of impeachment, but not so many, however, as to leave the court with less than fifteen members. article . the supreme court shall be the tribunal of last resort. it shall consist of not less than one chief-justice and six associate judges. this article shall not prohibit the final disposal of criminal cases, pursuant to law, without appeal to the supreme court. article . in times of peace, the supreme court, together with two high military officers to be appointed by the king, shall constitute a court of appeal and of final resort in all court-martial cases, involving life, honor, or loss of liberty for a longer period than three months. article . the decisions of the supreme court shall in no case be appealed or reviewed. article . no one shall be appointed a member of the supreme court before he is thirty years of age. e. general provisions: article . public offices shall be filled only by norwegian citizens who speak the language of the country and: (_a_) who are born within the realm of parents who are citizens of the country; or (_b_) who are born in foreign countries of norwegian parents, not citizens of another nation; or (_c_) who shall hereafter reside ten years within the realm; or (_d_) who shall be naturalized by the storthing. but persons without these qualifications may be appointed physicians, instructors in the university and grammar schools, and consuls in foreign places. no one shall be appointed a high magistrate before he is thirty years of age, nor an inferior judge, magistrate, or tax collector before he is twenty-five years of age. no one shall be a member of the ministry unless he professes the established religion of the state; and the same rule shall apply to the other offices of the state, until otherwise provided by law. article . norway shall not be liable for any other than its own national debt. article . measures shall be taken to enact, at the next regular storthing, or, if this is not possible, at the following one, a new general civil and criminal code. in the meantime the existing laws of the state shall remain in force so far as they are not in conflict with this constitution or temporary ordinances meanwhile issued. permanent taxes now existing shall continue as laid until the next storthing. article . no dispensations, writs of protection, or letters of respite or reparation, shall be granted after the new general code takes effect. article . no one shall be tried except pursuant to law, nor punished except pursuant to judgment. examination, by means of torture, is prohibited. article . no law shall be given retroactive effect. article . fees paid to officials of courts of justice shall not be subject to any state tax. article . no one shall be arrested except in the case and manner prescribed by law. whoever causes an unauthorized arrest, or unlawful detention, shall be answerable therefor to the person confined. the government shall have no right to employ military force against the citizens otherwise than pursuant to law, except in the case of an assembly disturbing the public peace and not immediately dispersing after the civil magistrate has thrice audibly read to them the articles in the public code relating to riot. article . the liberty of the press shall remain inviolate. no one shall be punished for any writing, printed or published, irrespective of its context, unless he has intentionally and clearly manifested, or urged others to manifest, disobedience to the laws, contempt for religion, morality, and the constitutional authorities, or resistance to the commands of the same, or has made false and defamatory charges against any person. every person shall be permitted to express freely his opinion upon the administration of public affairs, or on any other subject whatsoever. article . new and permanent special privileges in industrial pursuits shall not be granted to any one hereafter. article . domiciliary visits shall not be permitted except in criminal cases. article . no sanctuary shall be allowed to persons who hereafter become insolvent. article . estates of inheritance, or distributive shares, shall in no case be subject to confiscation. article . if public necessity requires any person to relinquish his real or personal property for public use, he shall receive full compensation therefor from the state treasury. article . the proceeds, as well as the income, of church estates, shall be devoted exclusively to the benefit of the church and the promotion of education. the property of charitable institutions shall be devoted exclusively to their use. article . allodial tenure and statutory entailment shall not be abolished; but the conditions under which--for the good of the state and the advantages of the people--the same shall continue, shall be prescribed by the next or the following storthing. article . no earldoms, baronies, or entailed manorial estates, shall hereafter be established. article . every citizen, without regard to birth or fortune, shall, without exception, render military service to his country for a limited time. the application of this rule, the limitations to be placed on it, and whether it will be for the good of the country that liability to such service shall terminate with the twenty-fifth year, shall be left to the determination of the next regular storthing, after a committee has obtained full information on the subject; and in the meantime all existing provisions in the premises shall remain in force. article . norway shall have its own bank and its own currency and coinage, to be established by law. article . norway shall be entitled to have its own merchant flag. its naval ensign shall be a union flag. article . if experience demonstrates that any part of this constitution of the kingdom of norway requires amendment, the proposition therefor shall be presented at a regular storthing first succeeding an election, and notice thereof shall be given by publication; but no action shall be taken thereon until at one of the regular storthings succeeding the next election. such amendment shall not contravene the principles of this constitution, and shall only relate to such modifications in single provisions as will not change the spirit of this constitution, and shall be concurred in by two-thirds of the storthing. the end transcriber's notes: minor changes have been made to correct printer's errors and to regularize hyphenatation. names of some places and persons, where obvious, have been changed to conform to a single, rather than multiple spellings. the cambridge manuals of science and literature the vikings cambridge university press london: fetter lane, e.c. c. f. clay, manager [illustration: emblem] edinburgh: , princes street berlin: a. asher and co. leipzig: f. a. brockhaus new york: g. p. putnam's sons bombay and calcutta: macmillan and co., ltd. _all rights reserved_ [illustration: the gokstad ship] [illustration: decorative title page, text follows] the vikings by allen mawer, m.a. professor of english language and literature in armstrong college, university of durham: late fellow of gonville and caius college, cambridge cambridge: at the university press cambridge: printed by john clay, m.a. at the university press _with the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known cambridge printer, john siberch, _ contents page introduction chap. i. causes of the viking movement ii. the viking movement down to the middle of the th century iii. the vikings in england to the death of harthacnut iv. the vikings in the frankish empire to the founding of normandy ( ) v. the vikings in ireland to the battle of clontarf ( ) vi. the vikings in the orkneys, scotland, the western islands and man vii. the vikings in baltic lands and russia viii. viking civilisation ix. scandinavian influence in the orkneys, shetlands, the western islands and man x. scandinavian influence in ireland xi. scandinavian influence in england xii. scandinavian influence in the empire and iceland bibliography index list of illustrations the gokstad ship _frontispiece_ plate i. viking ship from the bayeux tapestry _facing page_ ii. ornaments of the viking period " " iii. the jellinge stone " " the frontispiece is reproduced by kind permission of the photographer, mr o. væring, of christiania; plates ii and iii are taken from sophus müller's _nordische altertümskunde_. introduction the term 'viking' is derived from the old norse _vík_, a bay, and means 'one who haunts a bay, creek or fjord[ ].' in the th and th centuries it came to be used more especially of those warriors who left their homes in scandinavia and made raids on the chief european countries. this is the narrow, and technically the only correct use of the term 'viking,' but in such expressions as 'viking civilisation,' 'the viking age,' 'the viking movement,' 'viking influence,' the word has come to have a wider significance and is used as a concise and convenient term for describing the whole of the civilisation, activity and influence of the scandinavian peoples, at a particular period in their history, and to apply the term 'viking' in its narrower sense to these movements would be as misleading as to write an account of the age of elizabeth and label it 'the buccaneers.' it is in the broader sense that the term is employed in the present manual. plundering and harrying form but one aspect of viking activity and it is mainly a matter of accident that this aspect is the one that looms largest in our minds. our knowledge of the viking movement was, until the last half-century, drawn almost entirely from the works of medieval latin chroniclers, writing in monasteries and other kindred schools of learning which had only too often felt the devastating hand of viking raiders. they naturally regarded them as little better than pirates and they never tired of expatiating upon their cruelty and their violence. it is only during the last fifty years or so that we have been able to revise our ideas of viking civilisation and to form a juster conception of the part which it played in the history of europe. the change has come about chiefly in two ways. in the first place the literature of scandinavia is no longer a sealed book to us. for our period there are three chief groups of native authorities: ( ) the prose sagas and the _historia danica_ of saxo grammaticus, ( ) the eddaic poems, ( ) the skaldic poems. the prose sagas and saxo belong to a date considerably later than the viking age, but they include much valuable material referring to that period. the chief poems of the older edda date from the viking period itself and are invaluable for the information they give us as to the religion and mythology of the scandinavian peoples at this time, the heroic stories current amongst them, and their general outlook on life. the skaldic poems are however in some ways the most valuable historical authority for the period. the _skalds_ or court-poets were attached to the courts of kings and jarls, shared their adventures, praised their victories, and made songs of lament on their death, and their work is largely contemporary with the events they describe. secondly, and yet more important in its results perhaps, archaeological science has, within the last half-century, made rapid advance, and the work of archaeologists on the rich finds brought to light during the last hundred years has given us a vast body of concrete fact, with the aid of which we have been able to reconstruct the material civilisation of the viking period far more satisfactorily than we could from the scattered and fragmentary notices found in the sagas and elsewhere. the resultant picture calls for description later, but it is well to remember from the outset that it is a very different one from that commonly associated with the term 'viking.' with this word of explanation and note of warning we may proceed to our main subject. footnote: [ ] the word is older than the actual viking age: it is found in anglo-saxon in the form _wicing_. some writers have said that it means 'people from the district of the _vík_' in south norway, so-called from the long fjord-like opening which is found there, but the early anglo-saxon use of the term forbids this derivation. chapter i causes of the viking movement the period of scandinavian history to which the term viking is applied extends roughly from the middle of the th to the end of the th or the first half of the th century. its commencement was marked by the raids of scandinavian freebooters upon the coasts of england, western scotland and ireland and upon frankish territory. its climax was reached when in the course of the th and th centuries scandinavian rule was established in ireland, man and the western islands, the northern and midland districts of england, normandy, and a great part of russia. its close was marked by the consolidation of the scandinavian kingdoms in the late th and early th centuries under such mighty sovereigns as olaf tryggvason and olaf the holy in norway, olaf skötkonung in sweden, and greatest of all, king knut in denmark, who for a brief time united the whole of scandinavia and a great part of the british isles in one vast confederacy. the extent and importance of the movement is indicated from the first by the almost simultaneous appearance of trouble in england, on the coast of france, and on the eider boundary between denmark and the frankish empire. in the reign of beorhtric, king of wessex ( - ), three ships of the northmen coming from hörðaland (around hardanger fjord) landed near dorchester, in june lindisfarne was sacked, in march charlemagne found himself compelled to equip a fleet and establish a stronger coastguard to defend the frankish coast against the attacks of the northmen, and from onwards, when the saxon patriot widukind took refuge with the danish king sigefridus (o.n. sigröðr), there was almost constant friction along the land-boundary between denmark and the frankish empire. this outburst of hostile activity had been preceded by considerable intercourse of a varied character between scandinavia and the countries of western europe. early in the th century the danes or, according to another authority, the götar from götaland in south sweden, invaded frisia under their king chocilaicus. reference is made to this raid in the story of hygelac, king of the geatas, in _beowulf_. professor zimmer suggested that the attacks of unknown pirates on the island of eigg in the hebrides and on tory island off donegal, described in certain irish annals of the th century, were really the work of scandinavian raiders. the evidence of irish legend and saga goes to prove that in the same century irish anchorites settled in the shetlands but were later compelled by the arrival of scandinavian settlers to move on to the lonely faroes. here they were not to be left in peace, for the irish geographer dicuil, writing in , tells us that the faroes had then been deserted by the monks for some thirty years owing to the raids of northmen pirates. dr jakobsen has shown that the forms of place-names in the shetlands point very definitely to a settlement from scandinavia in pre-viking days--before --while the sculptured stones of gothland show already at the end of the th century clear evidence of celtic art influence. possibly also merchants of scandinavian origin were already settled in the frankish empire and it is certain that there was considerable trade between scandinavia and the west. most of the intercourse thus demonstrated was slow in development, peaceful and civilising in character. how came it that in the later years of the th century this intercourse was suddenly strengthened and intensified, while at the same time it underwent a great change both in methods and character? the traditional explanation is that given by dudo and by william of jumièges in their histories of the settlement of normandy and by saxo in his account of danish settlements in baltic lands in the th century, viz. that the population of scandinavia had outgrown its means of support and that enforced emigration was the result. there may be a certain element of truth in the tradition but when it says that this excess of population was due to polygamy we have every reason to doubt it. polygamy does not lead to an over-rapid growth of population as a whole, and it is fairly certain that it was practised only by the ruling classes in scandinavia. it is quite possible, however, that the large number of sons in the ruling families made it necessary for the younger ones to go forth and gain for themselves fresh territories in new lands. a clearer light is perhaps thrown on the matter if we examine the political condition of the scandinavian countries at this time. in norway we find that the concentration of kingly authority in the hands of harold fairhair after the middle of the th century led many of the more independent spirits to leave norway and adopt a viking life in the west or to settle in new homes in iceland. so strong was the spirit of independence that when harold fairhair received the submission of the vikings of the west after the battle of hafrsfjord, many of them rather than endure even a shadowy overlordship abandoned their viking life and settled down to peaceful independence in iceland. it is quite possible that earlier attempts at consolidation on the part of previous petty norwegian kings may have had similar results. of the condition of sweden we know practically nothing but we have sufficient information about the course of events in denmark at this time to see that it probably tended to hasten the development of the viking movement. throughout the first half of the th century there were repeated dynastic struggles accompanied probably by the exile, voluntary or forced, of many members of the rival factions. external causes also were certainly not without influence. from the th century down to the middle of the th, the frisians were the great naval and trading power of north-west europe. they had probably taken some part in the conquest of england and, during the th and th centuries, the whole of the coast of the netherlands from the scheldt to the weser was in their hands. their trade was extensive, their chief city being duurstede a few miles south-east of utrecht. the northward expansion of the franks brought them into collision with the frisians in the th century. the struggle was long and fierce but in the end the frisians were defeated by charles martel in and finally subjugated by charlemagne in . the crushing of frisian naval power and the crippling of their trade probably played no unimportant part in facilitating the scandinavian advance, and it is curious to note that while there is considerable archaeological evidence for peaceful intercourse between the west coast of norway and frisian lands in the th century, that evidence seems to come to an end about the year , just when frisian power finally declined. there can be no doubt also that the conquest of the saxons by charlemagne at the close of the th century, bringing franks and danes face to face along the eider boundary, made the latter uneasy. there has been much arguing to and fro of the question as to the respective shares taken by danes and norwegians in the viking movement. that of the swedes can fortunately be determined with a good deal more certainty. the swedes were for the most part interested only in eastern europe and there by way of trade rather than of battle: we learn from runic inscriptions and other sources that some swedes did visit england and the west, but these visits were due to individual rather than national activity. the question as between dane and norwegian has been to some extent made more difficult of settlement through the national prejudices of scandinavian scholars; e.g. danes for the most part decide in favour of the danish origin of rollo of normandy, while norwegians decide in favour of his norwegian birth. such differences of opinion are unfortunately only too often possible owing to the scantiness of the material upon which we have to base our conclusions. medieval chroniclers were for the most part unable or unwilling to distinguish between danes and norwegians; they were all alike 'nordmanni' to them and the term 'dani' is practically interchangeable with it. the vagueness of their ethnographical knowledge is manifest when we find the norman dudo at the beginning of the th century tracing back the dani (or daci) to an original home in dacia. the irish annalists did, however, draw a very definite distinction between norwegians and danes--finn-gaill and dubh-gaill as they called them, i.e. white and black foreigners respectively[ ]. they seem never to confuse them, but exactly on what grounds they gave them their distinguishing epithets it is now impossible to determine. they do not correspond to any known ethnographical differences, and the only other reasonable suggestion which has been offered is that the terms are used to describe some difference of armour or equipment as yet unknown to us. the irish annals also distinguish between daunites or danes and lochlanns or men from lochlann, i.e. norway; but again the origin of the term lochlann as applied to norway is obscure. the writers of the anglo-saxon chronicle seem to use the term _norðmenn_ very definitely of norwegians, just as alfred does in his translation of orosius, but the term _dene_ came to be used more vaguely and uncertainly. it is only very rarely that the chroniclers vouchsafe us precise information as to the home of any particular group of viking raiders. we have already mentioned the presence of norwegians from hörðaland in england at the very opening of the movement[ ]: once we hear of 'westfaldingi,' i.e. men from vestfold in south norway, in an account of attacks on aquitaine, and in one passage the vikings are called 'scaldingi,' but it is disputed whether this means vikings who had been quartering themselves in the valley of the scheldt, or is a term applied to the danes from the name of their royal family, viz. the skjöldungar[ ]. speaking roughly we may however assert that ireland, scotland and the western islands were almost entirely in the hands of norwegian settlers (danish attacks on ireland failed for the most part). northumbria was norwegian, but east anglia and the five boroughs were danish. the attacks on france and the netherlands were due both to norwegians and danes, probably with a preponderance of the latter, while danes and swedes alone settled in baltic lands. footnotes: [ ] the name _finn-gaill_ survives in fingall, the name of a district to the north of dublin, while _dubh-gaill_ is the second element in the proper names macdougall and macdowell. [ ] the name _hiruath_ given by celtic writers to norway probably points also to a tradition that many of the viking invaders of ireland were hörðar from norway. [ ] a third explanation has recently been suggested by dr björkman, viz. that it is a low german word meaning 'shipmen' which came to be used specially of the vikings. chapter ii the viking movement down to the middle of the th century england was possibly the scene of the earliest viking raids, but after the dorchester raid, the sack of lindisfarne in (_v. supra_, p. ), and the devastation of the monastery of st paul at jarrow in we hear nothing more of vikings in england until . the fate of ireland was different. attacks began almost at the same time as in england and continued without intermission. vikings sailed round the west coast of scotland. skye and then lambay island off dublin were invaded in , glamorganshire was ravaged in the same year and the isle of man was attacked in . iona was plundered in and again in . in invaders appeared off the coast of sligo and made their way inland as far as roscommon, and in munster was plundered. in the howth peninsula near dublin and two small islands in wexford haven were ravaged. the vikings had completely encircled ireland with their fleets and by the year they had made their way well into the interior of the island so that none were safe from their attacks. they no longer contented themselves with isolated raids: large fleets began to visit ireland and to anchor in the numerous loughs and harbours with which the coast abounds. thence they made lengthy raids on the surrounding country and often strengthened their base by building forts on the shores of the loughs or harbours in which they had established themselves. it was in this way that dublin, waterford and limerick first rose to importance. of the leaders of the vikings at this time there is only one whose figure stands out at all clearly, and that is turges (o.n. Ðorgestr) who first appeared in at the sack of armagh. he had come to ireland with a great and royal fleet and 'assumed the sovereignty over the foreigners in erin.' he had fleets on lough neagh, at louth, and on lough ree, and raided the country as far south as the meath district. turges was not the only invader at this time: indeed so numerous were the invading hosts that the chronicles tell us 'after this there came great sea-cast floods of foreigners into erin, so that there was not a point thereof without a fleet.' the power of turges culminated in , when he drove the abbot of armagh into exile, usurped the abbacy, and exercised the sovereignty of north ireland. at the same time his wife ota (o.n. auðr) profaned the monastery of clonmacnoise and gave audience, probably as a _völva_ or prophetess, upon the high altar. three years later turges was captured by the irish and drowned in lough owel (co. west meath). the early attacks on england and the first invasion of ireland were alike due to norsemen rather than danes. this is evident from their general course, from the explicit statement of the anglo-saxon chronicle, and from the fact that the first arrival of danes in ireland is definitely recorded in the year . the attack on dorchester (c. - ), lying as it does near the centre of the south coast of england, is somewhat strange if it is assigned to the traditional date, viz. , but there is no authority for this, and if it is placed at any date nearer to (before which it must have taken place), it is probable that the attack may be explained as an extension of viking raids down st george's channel and round the s.w. corner of england. in the attacks on england were renewed after an interval of years, but as they now stand in close connexion with contemporary invasions of frankish territory there is every reason to believe that they were of danish rather than of norse origin. the attacks began in the south and west but they soon spread to east anglia and lindsey. in the same army ravaged london, Étaples and rochester. in aethelstan of kent defeated the danes at sea in one of the rare battles fought with them on their own element, and in the same year they remained for the winter in thanet, probably owing to the loss of their ships. the size and importance of these attacks may be gauged from the fact that in this year a fleet of some danish ships sailed up the thames. it was probably that same fleet, with slightly diminished numbers, which in ravaged frisia and then sailed round the british isles, came to ireland, and captured dublin. in the danes wintered for the first time in sheppey and we reach the same point in the development of their attacks on england to which they had already attained in ireland. we pass away from the period of raiding. the danes now came prepared to stay for several years at a time and to carry on their attacks with unceasing persistency. the course of events in the frankish empire ran on much the same lines as in england and ireland during these years except that here trouble arose on the land boundary between denmark and the franks as well as on the sea-coast. alarmed by the conquest of the saxons the danish king guðröðr collected a fleet at slesvík and in he crossed the eider and attacked the abodriti (in mecklenburg-schwerin), a slavonic tribe in alliance with the franks. he also sent a fleet of some vessels to ravage the coast of frisia, laid claim to that district and to saxony, north of the elbe, and threatened to attack charlemagne in his own capital. the emperor was preparing to resist him when news arrived ( ) of the death of guðröðr at the hands of one of his followers and the consequent dispersal of the danish fleet. soon after disputes over the succession arose between the family of guðröðr and that of an earlier king harold. ultimately the contest resolved itself into one between the sons of guðröðr, especially one horic (o.n. hárekr) and a certain harold. it lasted for several years, the sons of guðröðr for the most part maintaining their hold on denmark. at one time during the struggle harold and his brother ragnfröðr went to vestfold in norway, 'the extreme district of their realm, whose chiefs and peoples were refusing to be made subject to them, and gained their submission,' showing clearly that at this time denmark and southern norway were under one rule and rendering probable the identification of guðröðr with guðröðr the yngling who about this time was slain by a retainer in stifla sound on the south coast of norway. this king ruled over vestfold, half vingulmörk and perhaps agðir. both parties were anxious to secure the support of the emperor lewis and in the end harold gained his help by accepting baptism at mainz in . he promised to promote the cause of christianity in denmark, while lewis in return granted him the district of riustringen in frisia as a place of retreat in case of necessity. the danes thereby gained their first foothold within the empire. sufficient has been said of the relation between denmark and the empire on its land boundary: we must now say something of the attacks made by sea. the first were made in on the coast of aquitaine and they were probably due to raiders from ireland who followed a well-known trade route from south ireland to the ports of southern france. in charlemagne inspected the coast from the somme to the seine and gave orders for the equipment of a fleet and the strengthening of the coastguard against northmen pirates. when guðröðr's fleet plundered the islands off the frisian coast in , charlemagne gave orders for his fleet to be strengthened once more, but the results were meagre in the extreme. the passage of the channel was no longer safe, and year after year, from some time before , vikings harried the island of noirmoutier at the mouth of the loire, commanding the port of nantes and the extensive salt-trade of the district. the island of rhé opposite la rochelle, was raided in similar fashion. the frankish empire was free from attack between the years and . during the same time the english coast was also unvisited, and it is probable that the struggles for the succession in denmark had for the time being reduced that kingdom to inactivity. about the year the danish king hárekr seems to have established himself firmly on the throne, while on the other hand the emperor lewis was troubled by the ambition of his sons lewis, pippin and lothair. it is probably no chance coincidence that these events synchronised with the renewal of viking attacks on frisia. throughout their history the vikings showed themselves well informed of the changing political conditions of the countries which they visited and ready to make the utmost use of the opportunities which these might give for successful invasion. frisia was the main point of attack during the next few years. four times was the rich trading town of duurstede ravaged; fleets sailed up the veldt, the maas, and the scheldt; antwerp was burned and the island of walcheren plundered, so that by the year the greater part of frisia south of the vlie, was in danish hands and so it remained till the end of the century. the danish king hárekr repeatedly denied all complicity in these raids and even promised to punish the raiders, but it is impossible to tell how far his denials were genuine. equally difficult is it to say how far harold in his frisian home was responsible for these attacks. the annalists charge him with complicity, but lewis seems to have thought it best to bind him by fresh gifts and (probably about ) granted the district around duurstede itself to him and his brother roric (o.n. hroerekr) on condition that they helped to ward off viking attacks. all the efforts of the emperor to equip a fleet or to defend the coast were to no purpose, and there was even a suspicion that the frisian populace were in sympathy with the vikings. so great was the terror of attack that when in a byzantine mission, including some rhôs or swedes from russia, visited the emperor at ingelheim, the swedes were for a time detained under suspicion, as spies. on the death of lewis the pious in things went from bad to worse. the division of the empire in gave the coast from the eider to the weser to lewis, from the weser to the scheldt to lothair, and the rest to charles, removing all possibility of a united and organised defence, and soon these princes entered on the fatal policy of calling in the vikings to assist them in their quarrels. thus lothair in endeavoured to bind harold to his cause by a grant of the island of walcheren and harold is found in the following year with lothair's army on the moselle. the viking expeditions to england and france stand now in close connexion. in the valley of the seine was ravaged as far as rouen, in Étaples in picardy was destroyed by a fleet from england, while in nantes fell a prey to their attacks. from their permanent quarters at noirmoutier the vikings sailed up the garonne and penetrated inland as far as toulouse. in we hear from arab historians of their vessels swarming on the coasts of spain like 'dark red sea-birds,' but while they effected landings at lisbon and cadiz and at arzilla in morocco, and captured seville, with the exception of its citadel, the mussulman resistance was too stout for them to effect much. as a result of this expedition the emir of cordova, abd-ar-rahman ii sent an embassy to the king of the _madjus_ (i.e. the magi or the heathen, one of the commonest arab names for the vikings). the ambassador found the king living in an island three days' journey from the mainland, but we are told that the heathen occupied many other neighbouring isles and the mainland also. he was courteously received by the king and became an especial favourite with the queen noud (? o.n. auðr). his companions were alarmed at the intimacy and as a result the ambassador paid less frequent visits to court. the queen asked him why, and when he told her the reason she said that, owing to perfect freedom of divorce, there was no jealousy among the madjus. the details of the story are too vague to admit of certainty, but it would seem as if the embassy had visited the court of the great turges and his equally remarkable wife auðr in ireland, or perhaps that of olaf the white and his wife auðr (_v. infra_, p. ). in hárekr of denmark sailed up the elbe and destroyed hamburg, while in the same year the dreaded ragnarr loðbrók, most famous of all vikings, sailed up the seine as far as paris. while on its retreat from paris, after the usual devastation, a strange and deadly disease, possibly some form of dysentery due to scantiness of food resulting from a hard winter, broke out in the danish army. various legends arose in connexion with this event, and it finds a curious echo in the story told by saxo grammaticus of an expedition made by ragnarr among the biarmians (in northern russia) when that people by their prayers called down a plague of dysentery upon the danes in which large numbers perished. in the end the historical plague was stayed when hárekr commanded the vikings on their return to denmark to refrain from flesh and meat for fourteen days. whether as a result of the plague or from some other cause hárekr now showed himself ready to come to terms with lewis, and for the next eighty years there was complete peace along the eider boundary. the whole of the coast was still open to attack however; frisia was hardly ever free from invaders; brittany was obliged to buy off danish attacks in , while noirmoutier continued to form a basis of attack against southern france in the gironde district. the viking invasions in france had attained much the same stage as that to which we have already traced them in england and ireland. chapter iii the vikings in england to the death of harthacnut the great development of viking activity which took place after was certainly not unconnected with the course of events in denmark itself. hárekr was attacked by his two nephews in and compelled to share the kingdom with them. in large bands of vikings returned to their fatherland after twenty years' ravaging in frankish territory. trouble now arose between hárekr and his nephew godurm (o.n. guðormr), one of the returned leaders. civil war broke out and ultimately, after a great fight, the kingship fell to a younger hárekr, a relative of the late king. a severe dynastic struggle of this kind must have been accompanied by much unsettlement and perhaps by an actual proscription. it would certainly seem that there was some definite connexion between these events and the coincident appearance of the sons of ragnarr loðbrók as leaders of a more extended viking movement both in england and in france. three of his sons--halfdanr, ubbi and Ívarr--took part in the first wintering in sheppey in , while in the same year another son björn ironside appeared on the seine. the figure of ragnarr loðbrók himself belongs to an earlier generation, and great as was his after-fame we unfortunately know very little of his actual career. he would seem to have been of norwegian birth, closely connected with the south of norway and the house of guðröðr, but like that prince having extensive interests in denmark. he probably visited ireland in , for we read in saxo of an expedition made by ragnarr to ireland when he slew king melbricus and ravaged dublin, an event which is pretty certainly to be identified with an attack made on the conaille district (co. louth) by foreigners in when the king maelbrighde was taken prisoner. he led the disastrous seine expedition in (_v. supra_, p. ). the next glimpse of him which we have is probably that found in certain irish annals where he is represented as exiled from his norwegian patrimony and living with some of his sons in the orkneys while others were absent on expeditions to the british isles, spain and africa, and a runic inscription has been found at maeshowe in the orkneys confirming the connexion of the sons of loðbrók and possibly of loðbrók himself with those islands. the expeditions would be those mentioned above and the yet more famous one made to spain, africa and italy by björn ironside in the years - (_v. infra_, pp. - ). ragnarr loðbrók's later history is uncertain. according to the irish annals quoted above, his sons while on their expedition dreamed that their father had died in a land not his own and on their return found it to be true. this agrees with scandinavian tradition according to which ragnarr met his death at the hands of aelle, king of northumbria, by whom he was thrown into a snake-pit, while the capture of york by Ívarr the boneless in - (_v. infra_) is represented as part of a great expedition of vengeance undertaken by the sons of ragnarr. this tradition (apart from certain details) is probably historical, but we have no definite confirmatory evidence. with this note on the history of denmark at this time and on the career of the most shadowy, if at the same time the most famous of the viking leaders, we may turn once more to the history of events in england. for ten years after the wintering in sheppey, england was left in a state of comparative peace. the change came in when a large danish force which had been bribed to leave the seine by charles the bald sailed to england and took up its quarters in east anglia. in they crossed the humber and captured york, their task being made easier by the quarrels of aelle and osberht as to the kingship of northumbria. next year the rivals patched up their differences, but failed to recapture york from the danes under Ívarr and ubbi. setting up a puppet king ecgberht in northumbria north of the tyne, the danes next received the submission of mercia and returned to york in . in they marched through mercia into east anglia, as far as thetford, engaged the forces of edmund, king of east anglia, defeated and slew him, whether in actual battle or in later martyrdom, as popular tradition would have it, is uncertain. the death of st edmund, king and martyr, soon became an event of european fame and no viking leader was more widely execrated than the cruel Ívarr, who was deemed responsible. the turn of wessex came next. the fortunes of battle fluctuated but the accounts usually terminate with the ominous words 'the danes held possession of the battle field.' in , alfred commenced his heroic struggle with the danes and in the first year of his reign some nine pitched battles were fought, beside numerous small engagements. so keen was the west saxon resistance that a truce was made in and the danes turned their attention to mercia once more. london was forced to ransom itself at a heavy price and a coin of halfdanr, probably minted in london at the time, has been found. after a hurried visit to northumbria the _here_ settled down for the winter of - at torksey in the lindsey district, whence they moved in to repton in derbyshire. they overthrew burhred of mercia and set up a foolish thegn of his as puppet ruler of that realm. in the winter of - the _here_ divided forces: one part went under halfdanr to the tyne valley, the other under guthrum (o.n. guðormr) to cambridge. in halfdanr divided up the lands of northumbria among his followers who soon ploughed and cultivated them. at the same time they did not forget their old occupations. raids were made against the picts and the strathclyde welsh, while halfdanr soon became involved in the great struggle going on in ireland at that time between norsemen and danes. this ultimately led to his death in (_v. infra_, p. ). in the meantime the struggle continued in wessex. in alfred captured seven danish ships. in the southern division of the _here_ slipped past the west saxon _fyrd_ and reached wareham in dorsetshire, but came to terms with alfred. though the peace was sworn with all solemnity on their sacred altar-ring, the mounted portion of the _here_ slipped off once more and established themselves in exeter. their land forces were supported by a parallel movement of the fleet. at exeter alfred made peace with them and the _here_ returned to mercia. there half the land was divided up among the danes while the southern half was left in the hands of ceolwulf. alfred reached the nadir of his fortunes when the _here_ returned to wessex in the winter of - , drove many of the inhabitants into exile across the sea, and received the submission of the rest with the exception of king alfred and a few followers who took refuge in the island of athelney amid the somersetshire marshes. alfred soon gathered round him a force with which he was able to issue from his stronghold and ultimately to inflict a great defeat on the danes at edington near westbury. they now made terms with alfred by the peace of wedmore, and agreed to leave alfred's kingdom while their king guthrum received christian baptism. they withdrew first to cirencester and then to east anglia. here they settled, portioning out the land as they had done in northumbria and northern mercia. a peace was drawn up between alfred and guthrum of east anglia defining the boundary between their realms. it was to run along the thames estuary to the mouth of the lea (a few miles east of london), then up the lea to its source near leighton buzzard, then due north to bedford, then eastwards up the ouse to watling st. somewhere near fenny or stony stratford. from this point the boundary is left undefined, probably because the kingdoms of alfred and guthrum ceased to be conterminous here. england now had peace for some twelve years. alfred made good use of the interval in reorganising his army and strengthening the kingdom generally, so that when attacks were renewed in he was much better prepared to meet them. in the autumn of that year two fleets coming from france arrived in england: one landed on the limen (between hythe and romney marsh), the other under the leadership of hæsten (o.n. hásteinn) at milton in north kent. alfred's difficulties were increased by the fact that during the next four years the danish settlers in northumbria and east anglia played a more or less actively hostile part, both by land and sea. the danes showed all their old mobility and in a series of raids crossed england more than once--first to buttington on the severn (co. montgomery), then to chester, and on a third occasion to bridgenorth in shropshire. they met with a uniformly stout and well organised resistance under the leadership of alfred, his son edward the elder, and his brother-in-law aethelred of mercia, and in the end they had to retire with no fresh acquisition of territory. for the most part they distributed themselves among the east anglian and northumbrian danes, but those who had no cattle wherewith to stock their land took ship and sailed back to the seine. there were no further attacks from abroad during alfred's reign, but piratical raids made by the east anglian and northumbrian danes caused him a good deal of trouble, and in order to meet them he definitely addressed himself to the long delayed task of equipping a fleet. the vessels were carefully designed according to alfred's own ideas: they were larger, swifter and steadier than the danish vessels and they soon showed their worth when more than vessels with their crews were lost by the danes in one year. it is interesting to note that these vessels were manned in part by frisian sailors, probably because of the low ebb to which english seamanship had sunk. when once edward the elder's claim to the throne was firmly established in the battle fought at 'the holm,' somewhere in south cambridgeshire, he commenced, with the active co-operation of his brother-in-law aethelred, ealdorman of mercia, the great work of strengthening the hold of the english on southern mercia preparatory to an attempt to reconquer the danelagh. chester was rebuilt in . in a fort was built at 'bremesbyrig,' possibly bromesberrow in gloucestershire. aethelred died in the next year, but his wife aethelflæd, the 'lady of the mercians,' continued his work, and forts were built at 'scergeat,' perhaps shrewsbury, at bridgenorth on the severn, at tamworth, and at stafford in . in warwick was fortified, while in forts were built at chirbury in shropshire and runcorn in cheshire. on the death of aethelred, edward took london and oxford and the parts of mercia adhering to them into his own hands. two forts were built on the north and south sides of the lea at hertford in - , and another at witham on the blackwater in essex. edward's work soon bore fruit, for we read that in the same year a large number of those who had been under danish rule now made submission to the king. the danes in the five boroughs became restless under the continued advance of the english, and twice in the year they made raids from leicester and northampton as far as hook norton in oxfordshire and leighton buzzard, while in the next year edward, for the first time in his reign, was troubled by raiders from abroad. coming from brittany they sailed up the severn, ravaged south wales and the archenfield district of herefordshire, but could do nothing against the garrison of gloucester, hereford and other neighbouring towns, which seem already to have been fortified. they were forced to leave the district and so careful a watch did edward keep over the coast of somerset, devon and cornwall that they could make no effective landing, though they tried twice, at porlock and at watchet. ultimately they took up their quarters in the islands of flatholme and steepholme in the bristol channel, but lack of food soon drove them away to ireland in a starving condition. in the same year edward built two forts at buckingham, one on each side of the ouse, and his policy again found speedy justification when earl thurcytel (o.n. Ðorkell) and all the chief men who 'obeyed[ ]' bedford, together with many of those who 'obeyed' northampton submitted to him. everything was now ready for the great advance against the danes. derby fell in , while in the next year leicester yielded without a struggle. their fall was accompanied by the submission of the men of derbyshire and leicestershire. at the same time the inhabitants of york declared themselves ready to enter the service of mercia. edward fortified bedford in , maldon and towcester in south northamptonshire in . again the danes from northampton and leicester tried to break through the steadily narrowing ring of forts and they managed to get as far south as aylesbury, while others from huntingdon and east anglia built a fort at tempsford in bedfordshire near the junction of the ivel and the ouse. they besieged a fort at 'wigingamere' (unidentified) but were forced to withdraw. edward gathered an army from the nearest garrison towns, besieged, captured, and destroyed tempsford ( ). in the autumn he captured colchester and a danish attempt on maldon failed. edward now strengthened towcester and received the submission of earl thurfrith (o.n. Ðorröðr) and all the danes in northamptonshire as far north as the welland. huntingdon was occupied about the same time and the ring of forts around east anglia brought about the submission of the whole of that district, cambridgeshire making a separate compact on its own account. in edward built a fort just south of stamford and soon received the submission of the danes of south lincolnshire, and in the same year occupied nottingham, building a fort and garrisoning it with a mixed english and danish force. he was now ruler of the whole of mercia owing to the death of his sister aethelflæd, and in he fortified thelwall in cheshire, on the mersey, and rebuilt the old roman fort at manchester. in he built a second fort at nottingham and one at bakewell in derbyshire. the reconquest of the danelagh was complete and edward now received the submission of the scots, the strathclyde welsh, of regnold (o.n. rögnvaldr) of northumbria, and of english, danes and norsemen alike. the danish settlers accepted the sovereignty of the west saxon king and henceforward formed part of an expanded wessex which had consolidated its power over all england south of a line drawn roughly from the humber to the dee. the submission of rögnvaldr, king of northumbria and the mention of norsemen need some comment. on the death of halfdanr in an interregnum of seven years ensued and then, in accordance with instructions given by st cuthbert in a vision to abbot eadred of carlisle, the northumbrians chose a certain guthred (o.n. guðröðr) as their king. he was possibly a nephew of the late king, ruled till , and was also known as cnut (o.n. knútr). we have coins bearing the inscription 'elfred rex' on the obverse and 'cnut rex' on the reverse, indicating apparently some overlordship of king alfred. together with these we have some coins with 'cnut rex' on the obverse and 'siefredus' or (sievert) on the reverse, and others, minted at 'ebroice civitas' (i.e. york), with the sole inscription 'siefredus rex.' this latter king would seem to have been first a subordinate partner and then, on guðröðr's death, sole ruler of northumbria. other coins belonging to about the same period and found in the great cuerdale hoard near preston, bear the inscription 'sitric comes,' and there is good reason to believe that siefredus (o.n. sigröðr) and sitric (o.n. sigtryggr) are to be identified with sichfrith and sitriucc who just at this time are mentioned in the irish annals as rival leaders of the norsemen in dublin. the identification is important as it shows us that northumbria was now being brought into definite connexion with the norse kingdom of dublin and that the norse element was asserting itself at the expense of the danish in northern england. the rule of sigröðr and sigtryggr alike had come to an end by and we know nothing more until the year when a fresh invasion from ireland took place under a certain rögnvaldr. he gained a victory at corbridge-on-tyne and captured york in or . he divided the lands of st cuthbert among his followers but died in , the year of his submission to the overlordship of edward. the irish annals speak of him as king of white and black foreigners alike, thus emphasising the composite settlement of northumbria. another leader from ireland, one sigtryggr, succeeded rögnvaldr as king of northumbria. he was on friendly terms with aethelstan and married his sister in . he died in or and then aethelstan took northumbria under his own control. sigtryggr's brother guðröðr submitted to aethelstan but after four days at the court of king aethelstan 'he returned to piracy as a fish to the sea.' both sigtryggr and guðröðr left sons bearing the name anlaf (o.n. Ólafr) and with them aethelstan and his successors had much trouble. anlaf sihtricsson lived in exile in scotland and gradually organised against aethelstan a great confederacy of scots, strathclyde welsh and vikings, both danish and norwegian, anlaf godfreyson brought help from ireland and the great struggle began. the course of the campaign is uncertain but if the site of its main battle, 'brunanburh,' is to be identified with birrenswark hill in s.e. dumfriesshire, it would seem that aethelstan carried the war into the enemy's country. the result of the battle was a complete victory for the forces of aethelstan and his brother edmund. constantine's son, five kings and seven jarls were among the slain. we have in the anglo-saxon chronicle a poem[ ] celebrating the victory, and it describes in vivid language the hurried return home of constantine, lamenting the death of his son, and the headlong flight of anlaf godfreyson to dublin. england had been freed from its greatest danger since the days of king alfred and his struggle with guthrum. aethelstan had no more trouble with the norsemen and we have evidence from other sources that at some time during his reign, probably at an earlier date, he exchanged embassies with harold fairhair, king of norway. the latter sent him a present of a ship with golden prow and purple sails and the usual bulwark of shields along the gunwale, while harold's favourite son hákon was brought up at aethelstan's court. there he was baptised and educated and is known in norse history as hákon aðalsteinsfóstri. after the death of aethelstan, anlaf sihtricsson, nicknamed cuaran (i.e. with the sock or brogue of leather, so called from his irish dress) came to england and captured york. from there he made an attempt to conquer the danish district of the five boroughs. he seems to have got a good part of mercia into his hands but in the end edmund freed the danes from norse oppression and took once more into his hands all mercia south of a line from dore (near sheffield) to whitwell (derbyshire) and thence to the humber. edmund and anlaf came to terms, but anlaf was driven out by the northumbrians in , and in the next year that province fell into the hands of edmund. in eric blood-axe, son of harold fairhair, was accepted as king by the northumbrians. in scandinavian tradition we learn how he was expelled from norway in by the supporters of hákon, went on viking raids in the west, was appointed ruler of northumbria by aethelstan on condition of his defending it against attack, but was not on good terms with edmund, who favoured one Ólaf. probably eric retired after aethelstan's death and only returned to england in . in edmund forced the northumbrians to abandon his cause and about the same time anlaf returned from ireland and ruled till about when he was replaced by eric, whose short rule came to an end in . in that year he was expelled by the northumbrians and killed at stainmoor in westmorland. the attempt to establish a norse kingdom of northumbria had failed and henceforward that district was directly under the rule of the english king. english authority was supreme once more even in those districts which were largely peopled with scandinavian settlers. england had no further trouble with norse or danish invaders until the days of ethelred the unready, but no sooner did that weak and ill-advised king come to the throne than, with that ready and intimate knowledge of local conditions which they always displayed, we find danes making an attack on southampton and norsemen one on chester. the renewed attacks were not however due solely to the weakness of england, they were also the result of changed conditions in scandinavia itself. in denmark the reign of harold bluetooth was drawing to a close, and the younger generation, conscious of a strong and well-organised nation behind them, were ambitious of new and larger conquests, while at the same time many of them were in revolt against the definitely christian policy of harold in his old age. they turned with hope towards his young son svein, and found in him a ready and willing leader. in norway, earl hákon had broken away from the suzerainty of harold bluetooth, but the norwegians could not forget that he owed his throne to a foreign power, and his personal harshness and licentiousness as well as his zealous cult of the old heathen rites were a cause of much discontent. the hopes of the younger generation were fixed on olaf tryggvason, a man filled with the spirit of the old vikings. captured by pirates from esthonia when still a child, he was discovered, ransomed, and taken to novgorod, where he entered the service of the grand duke vladimir. furnished by him with a ship he went 'viking' in the baltic and then ten years later we find him prominent among the norsemen who attacked england in the days of king ethelred. in a norse fleet under olaf visited ipswich and maldon. here they met with a stout resistance headed by the brave byrhtnoth, earl of essex, and in the fragmentary lay of the fight at maldon[ ], which has been preserved to us, we see that there was still much of the spirit of the heroic age left in the english nation even in the days of ethelred ii. it was to buy off this attack that a payment of danegeld to the extent of some ten thousand pounds was made. from maldon olaf went to wales and anglesey and it was somewhere in the west that he received knowledge of the christian faith from an anchorite and was baptised. he did not however renounce his viking-life, but joined forces with his great danish contemporary svein forkbeard. bamborough was sacked in , and both were present at the siege of london in , when they sailed up the thames with ships. the attack was a failure and olaf came to terms with ethelred agreeing to desist from further attack in return for a payment of sixteen thousand pounds of danegeld. olaf was the more ready to make this promise as he was now addressing himself to the task of gaining the sovereignty of norway itself. many of the norsemen returned with olaf but the attacks on the coast continued and the invaders, chiefly danes now, ravaged the country in all directions. treachery was rife in the english forces and again and again the ealdormen failed in the hour of need. danegeld after danegeld was paid in the vain hope of buying off further attacks, and the almost incredible sum of , pounds of silver (i.e. some half million sterling) was paid as danegeld during a period of little more than years. once or twice ethelred showed signs of energy; once in when a fleet was sent to chester, which ravaged the isle of man while an army devastated cumberland, and again in when a great fleet was made ready but ultimately proved of no use. ethelred's worst stroke of policy was the order given in for the massacre on st brice's day of all danes settled in england. his orders were carried out only too faithfully and among the slain was svein's sister gunnhild, the wife of a danish jarl in the king's service. svein's vengeance was relentless, and during the next ten years the land had no peace until in ethelred was driven from the throne, and svein himself became king of england. svein died in and his son cnut succeeded to his claim. ethelred was invited by the _witan_ to return, and ultimately wessex fell to cnut, while the district of the seven boroughs (the old five together with york and chester) and northumbria passed into the hands of ethelred, or rather of his energetic son edmund. this division of the country placing the district once settled by danes and norsemen under an english king while the heart of england itself was in the possession of a scandinavian king shows how completely the settlers in those districts had come to identify themselves with english interests as a whole. mercia was nominally in ethelred's power, but its ealdorman, eadric streona, was the most treacherous of all the english earls. on ethelred's death in the _witan_ chose edmund ironside as king and a series of battles took place culminating in that at ashingdon in essex where the english were completely defeated through the treachery of eadric. a division of the kingdom was now made whereby wessex fell to edmund, mercia and northumbria to cnut--thus easily was the allegiance of the various districts transferred from one sovereign to another. edmund only lived a few months and cnut then became king of all england. for twenty years the land enjoyed peace and prosperity. in the greater part of the danish army and fleet returned to denmark, some forty ships and their crews sufficing cnut for the defence of his kingdom. during the next four years he received the submission of the king of scotland and made a memorable pilgrimage to rome. the most important event of his later years was however his struggle with olaf the stout, the great st olaf of norway. norway was now entirely independent of danish sovereignty and when cnut sent an embassy voicing the old claims of the danish kings he received a proudly independent answer from st olaf. for the time being cnut had to be satisfied, but in he sailed with a fleet to norway, only to suffer defeat at the battle of the helge-aa (i.e. holy river) in skaane, at the hands of the united forces of norway and sweden. three years later the attack was renewed. olaf's strenuous and often cruel advocacy of the cause of christianity had alienated many of his subjects and the swedes had deserted their ally. the result was that olaf fled to russia and cnut was declared king of norway. two years later the exile returned and fell fighting against his own countrymen. cnut was now the mightiest of all scandinavian kings, but on his death in his empire fell apart; norway went to his son svein, denmark to harthacnut and england to harold harefoot. harold was succeeded by harthacnut in , but neither king was of the same stamp as cnut and they were both overshadowed by the great godwine, earl of wessex. when harthacnut died in the male line in descent from cnut was extinct, and though some of the danes were in favour of choosing cnut's sister's son svein, godwine secured the election of edward the confessor. with the accession of edward danish rule in england was at an end and, except for the ambitious expedition of harold hardrada, foiled at stamford bridge in , there was no further serious question of a scandinavian kingship either in or over england. the sufferings of england during the second period of invasion ( - ) were probably quite as severe as in the worst days of alfred--the well-known _sermo lupi ad anglos_, written by archbishop wulfstan of york in , draws a terrible picture of the chaos and anarchy then prevailing--but we must remember that neither these years nor the ensuing five and thirty years of danish kingship left as deep a mark on england as the earlier wars and the settlements resulting from them. there was no further permanent occupation or division of territory and though some of the earldoms and the great estates passed into the hands of the king's danish followers, there was no transformation of the whole social life of the people such as had taken place in the old danelagh districts. footnotes: [ ] this phrase is used repeatedly in the chronicle in connexion with such towns as bedford, cambridge, derby, leicester and northampton, and there can be no question that these groups represent the shires which now take their names from these towns. for purposes of convenience we shall henceforward speak of such groups as 'shires.' [ ] see tennyson's translation. [ ] see freeman's _old english history for children_ for a translation of this poem. chapter iv the vikings in the frankish empire to the founding of normandy ( ) the years from - were perhaps the most unhappy in the whole history of the sufferings of the frankish empire under viking attack. the danes now took up more or less permanent quarters, often strongly fortified, on the scheldt, the somme, the seine, the loire and the garonne, while utrecht, ghent, amiens, paris, chartres, tours, blois, orléans, poitiers, limoges, bordeaux and many other towns and cities were sacked, often more than once. when hroerekr obtained from the young hárekr of denmark a concession of certain districts between the eider and the sea, he gave trouble in that direction and sailed up the elbe and the weser alike. his nephew guðröðr was in occupation of flanders and the lower valley of the scheldt. besides these viking leaders, who were active in the low countries, we have the names of several others who were busy in france itself. the most famous of these were the sons of ragnarr loðbrók. berno, who first appeared on the seine in , was björn ironside, while it is quite possible that the sidroc who accompanied him was sigurd snake-eye, another son of that famous leader. with björn, at least according to norman tradition, came hastingus (o.n. hásteinn), his foster-father. hásteinn was destined to a long and active career. we first hear of him in the annals in when he appeared on the loire, and it was he who was one of the chief leaders in the great danish invasion of england in - . the sudden appearance of these leaders was undoubtedly due, as suggested in the previous chapter, to the turn of events in denmark at this time. during the year of the revolution-- --no attacks were made on france at all and then immediately after came a flood of invaders. the seine was never free from - and the loire district was little better off. the troubled and desolate condition of the country may be judged from the numerous royal decrees commending those who had been driven from their land to the protection of those with whom they had taken refuge and exempting them from payment of the usual taxes. many even deserted their christian faith and became worshippers of the gods of the heathen. the difficulties of charles the bald were greatly increased by succession troubles both in brittany and aquitaine. now one, now another claimant allied himself with the northmen, and charles himself was often an offender in this respect. he initiated the disastrous policy of buying off attack by the payment of large sums of what in england would have been called danegeld. in occurred an incident which throws a curious light on the condition of the country. the peasants between the seine and the loire rose of their own accord and attacked the danes in the seine valley. it is not quite clear what followed, but the rising was a failure, and possibly it was crushed by the frankish nobles themselves who feared anything in the nature of a popular rising made without reference to their own authority. in any case the incident bears witness to a lack of proper leadership by the nobles. after the year the tide of invasion set from france towards england. these were the years of alfred's great struggle, and danish efforts were concentrated on the attempt to reduce that monarch to submission. the franks themselves had begun to realise the necessity of more carefully organised resistance. they began building fortified bridges across the rivers at certain points in order to stop the passage of viking ships, and they also fortified several of their towns and cities, thus giving perhaps a hint for the policy later adopted in england by edward the elder. probably the franks were not above taking lessons from their enemies in the matter of fortification, for the latter had already shown themselves approved masters of the art in such fortified camps as that at jeufosse on the seine. in another way also had the danes showed themselves ready to adapt themselves to new fighting conditions. not only did they build forts, but we hear of them as mounted, and henceforward horses played an important part in their equipment both in france and england. during these years the vikings made one notable expedition far beyond the ordinary range of their activity. starting from the seine in under the leadership of björn and hásteinn, they sailed round the iberian peninsula through the straits of gibraltar. they landed in morocco and carried off prisoners many of the moors or 'blue-men' as they called them. some of these found their way to ireland and are mentioned in certain irish annals of the period. after fresh attacks on spain they sailed to the balearic isles, and roussillon, which they penetrated as far as arles-sur-tech. they wintered in the island of camargue in the rhone delta and then raided the old roman cities of provence and sailed up the rhone itself as far as valence. in the spring of the next year they sailed to italy. they captured pisa and luna (at the mouth of the magra), the latter being taken by a clever stratagem. hásteinn feigned himself sick unto death and was baptised by the bishop of luna during a truce. then news came that hásteinn was dead and the vikings asked christian burial for him. permission was given and a mock funeral procession entered the city. it was in reality a band of armed men in disguise and the city was soon captured. the real aim of the vikings in this campaign was the capture of rome with its mighty treasures, but, for some reason unknown, they made no advance further south. scandinavian tradition said it was because they mistook luna for rome and thought their work already done! sailing back through the straits of gibraltar they returned to brittany in . the vikings had now almost encircled europe with their attacks, for it was in the year that the swedish rhôs (russians) laid siege to constantinople. when alfred secured a definite peace with the danes in , those who were averse to settling permanently returned to their old roving life. they made their way up the somme and the scheldt and their progress was not stopped by a brilliant victory gained by the young lewis iii in june at saucourt, near the somme, a victory which is celebrated in the famous _ludwigslied_. during the same years, another viking host invaded saxony winning a decisive victory over duke bruno on the lüneburg heath. after their defeat at saucourt the main body of the danes made their way to elsloo on the meuse whence they ravaged the meuse, rhine and moselle districts plundering cologne, bonn, coblentz, aachen, trèves and metz. so alarmed was the emperor charles the fat that he entered into negotiations with the danish king guðröðr who was with the forces at elsloo. he secured guðröðr's acceptance of christianity and the promise of security from further attack at the price of a large payment of danegeld and the concession to guðröðr of the province once held by hroerekr, with large additions. the exact extent of the grant is uncertain, but it included the district of kinnem (round alkmaar and haarlem) and probably covered the greater part of modern holland from the vlie to the scheldt. here guðröðr lived in semi-independence and might perhaps have established another normandy within the empire had he not been ruined by too great ambition. he entirely failed to defend his province from attacks, indeed he probably gave them covert support; he intrigued with hugo, the bastard son of lothair ii, against the emperor, married his sister gisla, and then asked for additional territories on the rhine and the moselle, on the plea that his own province included no vine-growing districts. guðröðr had now overstepped all reasonable limits: the emperor entered into negotiations with him but secured his death by treachery when a meeting was arranged near cleves. with the fall of guðröðr danish rule in frisia came to an end, and though we hear of isolated attacks even during the early years of the th century, there was no more serious trouble in that district. in the autumn of , encouraged doubtless by the news of the death of lewis iii, the danes returned from the meuse to flanders and during the next three years ravaged flanders, brabant and picardy, establishing themselves strongly at louvain. in they abandoned these districts and sailed up the seine, after a nine years' absence. in november they reached paris with a fighting force of some , men and a fleet of vessels. the passage up the river was stopped by fortified bridges and the besiegers were fortunate in having as leaders two men of great ability and courage, first gauzlin, abbot of st germain's, and, later, count odo of paris. the position of paris was at times desperate. the danes were exasperated by the stout defence and in their eagerness to plunder further up the river dragged many of their ships some two miles overland past paris, and so reached the upper waters of the seine. later, as the result of peaceful negotiations, they obtained permission to pass the bridges on condition that they only ravaged burgundy, leaving the seine and marne districts untouched; thus had the provinces of the frankish empire lost all sense of corporate union. the danes soon made their way as far west as verdun. here however they were disastrously defeated by odo, now king of the west franks (june ), and in the next year they finally abandoned the siege of paris making their way to brittany. in brittany they found another army already busy. the bretons had won a great victory in the autumn of when only out of some , danes made their way back to their fleet. the great _here_ from the seine now joined forces with the remnants of this army, but proved powerless against duke alan, and some returned to flanders in , while hásteinn with the rest sailed to the somme. the danes in flanders were defeated by arnulf (afterwards emperor) on the dyle, near louvain, in , but it had no great effect for soon after we find them again as far east as bonn. a bad harvest in the summer of brought famine in its train and this was more effective in ridding the land of invaders. in the autumn of the year the whole army, horses and all, crossed in one passage in some ships from boulogne to the mouth of the limen in kent and, shortly after, hásteinn with a fleet of ships left the somme and sailed to milton in north kent. the story of the campaigns there has already been told. for the first time since the frankish empire was free from invaders. grievous as were the losses of the franks, it is well to remember that those of the danes had been great also. their fleet had been reduced from to ships, and as the whole army could still go to england in one crossing, that must also have been reduced from thirty to ten or fifteen thousand men. when the english invasion had failed, those who could not settle in england returned to their french haunts once more. a small force of eight ships and some men sailed up the seine under one 'huncdeus' and gradually their numbers were increased by fresh arrivals from abroad. they made their way north to the meuse, south to the loire, and east to burgundy, but their head quarters were on the lower waters of the seine. in other invaders appeared on the loire under leaders named baret (o.n. bárðr) and heric (o.n. eiríkr). the name of bárðr is mentioned more than once in the contemporary history of the norsemen in ireland, and as the norsemen were driven from dublin in it is probable that these invaders came from there. the expedition was not a success and the vikings soon sailed away again. of the history of the settlers on the seine after we unfortunately know practically nothing. the norman historian dudo attempted in the th century to give a connected account but his narrative is confused and unreliable. odo was dead and charles the simple was more interested in conquering lorraine than defending neustria. the clergy were weary of the ceaseless spoiling of the monasteries and anxious for the conversion of the heathen, while the nobles were, as usual, selfish and careless of the interests of the country at large. the northmen made no great expeditions between and , but maintained a steady hold on the lower seine and the districts of bessin and cotentin. they could not extend their territories and the franks could not drive them from the seine. at length, largely through the intervention of the clergy, a meeting was arranged between charles and the viking leader rollo at st clair-sur-epte, before the end of . here the province later known as normandy (including the counties of rouen, lisieux, evreux and the district between the rivers bresle and epte and the sea) was given to rollo and his followers as a _beneficium_, on condition that he defended the kingdom against attack, and himself accepted christianity. the danes now formed a definite part of the frankish kingdom and occupied a position analogous to that of their countrymen in east anglia, northumbria and mercia in england, except that the latter after a period of freedom had in course of time to pass definitely under english rule. the story of the foundation of normandy is obscure: still more obscure is the origin and history of the leader of the northmen at this time. norse tradition, as given by snorri sturluson, makes rollo to be one hrólfr, son of rögnvaldr earl of möre, who was exiled by harold fairhair and led a viking life in the west. norman tradition, as found in dudo, made him out the son of a great noble in denmark, who was expelled by the king and later went to england, frisia and northern france. dudo's account of the founding of normandy is so full of errors clearly proven that little reliance can be placed on his story of the origin of rollo. the _heimskringla_ tradition was recorded much later, but is probably more trustworthy, and it would be no strange thing to find a man of norse birth leading a danish host. ragnarr loðbrók and his sons were norsemen by family but they appear for the most part as leaders of danes. how rollo came to be the leader of the danes in france and what his previous career had been must remain an unsolved mystery. his name is not mentioned apart from the settlement of normandy. the normans continued to ravage brittany without any interruption and they were soon granted the further districts of bayeux, seez, avranches and coutances, which made brittany and normandy conterminous. chapter v the vikings in ireland to the battle of clontarf ( ) in the history of the vikings in ireland we have seen how the attempt made by turges to bring all ireland under one ruler came to nought by his death in . at first this seems to have thrown the norsemen into confusion and we hear of a series of defeats. then, in , the invasions developed a new phase. hitherto while the irish had been weakened by much internecine warfare, their enemies had worked with one mind and heart. now we read of 'a naval expedition of seven score of the foreigners coming to exercise power over the foreigners who were before them, so that they disturbed all ireland afterwards.' this means that the danes were now taking an active part in the invasions of ireland, and we soon find them disputing the supremacy with the earlier norse settlers. a full and picturesque account of the struggle is preserved for us in the second of the _three fragments of irish annals_ copied by dugald macfirbis. unfortunately the chronology of these annals is in a highly confused state and it is often difficult to trace the exact sequence of events. when the norsemen first saw the approaching fleet they were much alarmed. some said it was reinforcements from norway, but others, with keener insight, said they were danes who were coming to harry and plunder. a swift vessel was dispatched to find out who they were, and when the steersman called out to them inquiring from what land they came and whether as friend or foe, the only answer was a shower of arrows. a fierce battle ensued, in which the danes killed thrice their own number and carried off the women-folk and property of the norsemen. in they plundered the norse settlements at dublin and dundalk, but in the next year the norsemen attacked them in carlingford lough. at first the danes were defeated, but then their leader cunningly exhorted his men to secure by their prayers and alms the patronage of st patrick, who was incensed against the norsemen because of the many evil deeds they had wrought in erin. the battle was renewed and the danes were victorious. after the battle they made rich gifts to st patrick for 'the danes were a people with a kind of piety: they could for a time refrain from meat and from women.' after the fight we learn that the danes cooked their meat in cauldrons supported on the bodies of their dead foes. the danes now helped cerbhal, king of ossory, against the norsemen who were harrying munster, and henceforward we hear again and again how the various irish factions made use of the dissensions among the invaders to further their own ends. matters were further complicated by the fact that many of the irish forsook their christian baptism and joined the norsemen in their plundering. these recreant irish were known as the gaill-gaedhil (i.e. the foreign irish), and played an important part in the wars of the next few years. the gaill-gaedhil were undoubtedly a race of mixed norse and gaelic stock and we must not imagine that they sprung suddenly into existence at this time. long before this the norsemen and the gaels must have had considerable peaceful intercourse with one another in their various settlements, and in accordance with well-established scandinavian custom it would seem that many of the irish were brought up as foster-children in norse households and must soon have learned to accept their religion and customs. there was also extensive intermarriage between norsemen and irish. the annals speak of several such unions, the most famous being the marriage of gormflaith, afterwards wife of brian borumha, to anlaf sihtricsson, while in the genealogies of the norse settlers in iceland at the end of this century, gaelic names are of frequent occurrence. one of the most famous of the leaders of these 'foreign irish' was ketill finn (i.e. the white), a norseman with an irish nickname. these foreign irish fought either by the side of the foreigners or on their own account and we have an interesting story telling how, when vikings from ireland made an invasion of cheshire (c. ), aethelflæd, the lady of the mercians, sent ambassadors to those irish who were fighting on the side of the invaders, calling upon them to forsake the pagans and remember the old kindness shown in england to irish soldiers and clergy. the troubles between norsemen and danes were probably responsible for the arrival in ireland in of amhlaeibh, son of the king of norway, to receive the submission of the foreigners. this amhlaeibh is olaf the white of norse tradition. olaf is represented as ruling together with his brother imhar (o.n. Ívarr). the annals are not very good authority for the relationship of the norse leaders to one another, and it is quite possible that Ívarr is really Ívarr the boneless, son to ragnarr loðbrók. under the strong rule of olaf and Ívarr dublin became the chief centre of scandinavian rule in ireland, and the danes and norsemen were to some extent reconciled to one another. the irish suffered great losses but some brave leaders were found to face the norsemen. cennedigh, king of leix (queen's county), came upon a party of them laden with booty; they abandoned the spoil and rushed upon cennedigh with angry barbarous shouts, blowing their trumpets and many of them crying _nui, nui_ (i.e. probably, in the old norse speech, _knúi, knúi_, 'hasten on, hasten on'). many darts and spears were thrown and at last they took to their heavy powerful swords. all was however of no avail and cennedigh won a great victory. less fortunate was maelciarain, 'champion of the east of ireland and a hero-plunderer of the foreigners.' he was expelled from his kingdom by the leinstermen, who envied him in consequence of his many victories over the norsemen! the activities of olaf and Ívarr were not confined to ireland. in olaf paid a visit to scotland, while in both olaf and Ívarr were present at the siege of dumbarton. if Ívarr is Ívarr the boneless, he must then have gone to england and taken part in the martyrdom of st edmund. in the next year both leaders returned to dublin with a large number of prisoners--english, britons and picts. in Ívarr, 'king of the norsemen of all ireland and britain' died, and about the same time olaf returned to norway, possibly to take part in the great fight against harold fairhair at hafrsfjord. the danes seem to have taken advantage of the removal of olaf to attempt to throw off the norse yoke. fresh fighting took place and the danes under albdann, i.e. halfdanr, king of northumbria, were defeated on strangford lough in with the loss of their leader. after the _war of the gaedhil with the gaill_ notes a period of rest for ireland, lasting some forty years. this is true to the extent that no large fleets of fresh invaders seem to have come to ireland during this time--the vikings were too busy elsewhere, both in england and the frankish empire--but there were occasional raids from dublin, cork, limerick, waterford and other towns into various districts of ireland, and the norsemen were often at variance amongst themselves. dissensions in dublin were particularly violent and so much did they weaken norse rule there that in dublin fell into the hands of the irish. the vikings were driven abroad, some going to scotland and others to england, where they besieged chester (_v. supra_, p. ). in the year all the old troubles were renewed. rögnvaldr, a grandson of Ívarr, fresh from a great victory off the isle of man, captured waterford, and two years later sigtryggr, another grandson of Ívarr regained dublin. the irish attempted resistance under the _ardrí_ niall glundubh, but he fell with twelve other kings in a fight at kilmashogue near dublin in . during the next fifty years ireland was a prey to ceaseless attacks by norwegians and danes alike. towards the close of the th century limerick had become a stronghold of the norsemen in the west, and from there they made their way up the shannon into the heart of the country. cork was settled in the early years of the th century, chiefly by danes, and from there all munster was open to attack. waterford and wexford, which stood as a rule in close connexion with dublin, served as centres of attack against leinster. the irish made a stout resistance under able leaders and dublin was 'destroyed' more than once. first among these leaders stands muirchertach 'of the leather cloaks,' son of niall glundubh, a hero who came forward about the year . his activities were unceasing. he repeatedly attacked dublin, took a fleet to the hebrides where he defeated the vikings, gaining much spoil, and finally in made a circuit of ireland, from which he brought back as hostages many provincial kings, including the norse ruler of dublin. more famous still in irish song and story was cellachan of cashel. he made war against the vikings in munster and for a time had the norse kingdom of waterford under his control. similarly he conquered limerick, and we find him fighting side by side with norsemen from both these towns. during these fifty years the norse kingdom in dublin stood in close relation with the scandinavian kingdom of northumbria. rögnvaldr, who died in , ruled there and so did his brothers sigtryggr (d. ) and guðröðr (or godfrey) (d. ). the brothers left sons known respectively as anlaf sihtricsson and anlaf godfreyson. the latter took part in the great fight at brunanburh and died in . anlaf sihtricsson was destined to a longer career. he would seem to have spent his early years in scotland where he married king constantine's daughter. it is uncertain whether he fought at brunanburh, but he came to northumbria in and captured york. he was expelled from northumbria in or and retired to dublin, and the rest of his life was chiefly spent in fighting in ireland. he was in close alliance with the norsemen in man and the western islands, and was, for some thirty years, the most powerful norse ruler in ireland. then came the first great blow to norse rule in ireland. in maelsechlainn ii, the _ardrí_, won a great victory at tara over the foreigners of dublin and the islands in which anlaf's son was slain. the power of the kingdom of dublin was effectually broken. the norsemen were compelled to liberate all the hostages in their custody, to pay a fine of oxen and to remit the tribute which they had imposed on all ireland from the shannon eastwards to the sea. anlaf abandoned his authority and retired on a pilgrimage to iona, where he died in the same year an inmate of its monastery. in the meantime events, fraught with important consequences for norse rule in that country, were gradually developing in a distant quarter of ireland. in the province of munster the dalcassian line of princes first comes into prominence about the middle of the th century, and the two most famous of these princes were the brothers mathgamhain and brian, commonly known as brian borumha. together the brothers conquered munster in spite of the support given to the irish by the viking settlers, and when their success aroused Ívarr, the ruler of limerick, they attacked him and won a great victory at sulcoit near tipperary ( ). limerick was captured, mathgamhain died in and brian was soon acknowledged king of all munster. he next became master of leinster, but his rapid advance brought him into conflict with the _ardrí_ and by a compact made in , maelsechlainn practically surrendered the southern half of ireland to brian. the ruler of dublin at this time was sigtryggr of the silken beard, son of anlaf and gormflaith, sister of maelmordha, king of leinster. in leinster with the support of the norsemen in dublin revolted, but brian defeated them and captured dublin, giving his daughter in marriage to sigtryggr and himself marrying gormflaith. in maelsechlainn submitted to brian and the latter became _ardrí_. there followed twelve years of peace, but brian's marriage with gormflaith was his undoing. quarrelling with her husband, she stirred up maelmordha of leinster against him. an alliance was formed between maelmordha and sigtryggr, and gormflaith dispatched embassies to all the viking settlements in the west, summoning them to the aid of sigtryggr in a great fight against brian. sigtryggr secured the help of earl sigurd of the orkneys and north scotland by promise of the kingship of dublin. ships came from all parts of the viking world, from northumbria, from man and the western islands, from scotland and the orkneys, and even from iceland. dublin was fixed as the trysting-place and palm sunday was to be the time of meeting. brian mustered all the forces of munster and connaught and was joined in half-hearted fashion by maelsechlainn, who was really waiting to see which way the fortunes of war would turn. brian advanced into the plain of fingall, north of dublin, and the two armies faced one another at clontarf all passion week. the norsemen had learned by magic incantations that if the fight took place before good friday their chiefs would perish and their forces be routed, while if the fight took place on good friday brian himself would perish but the irish would win the day. so they waited until the friday and then made their attack. the fight was long and the slaughter was terrible. brian and sigurd were themselves numbered among the slain. in the end the norsemen were defeated and maelsechlainn completed their discomfiture when he cut down the fugitives as they tried to cross the bridge leading to dublin and so reach their ships. no fight was more famous in irish history and it seems to have appealed with equally strong force to scandinavian imagination. clontarf and brunanburh are the two great viking battles which find record in scandinavian saga, and in the story of burnt njal[ ] we have a vivid account both of the actual battle and of the events leading up to it. yet more interesting perhaps is the old lay preserved to us, the _song of the valkyries_, who that same day were seen in caithness riding twelve together to a bower where they set up a loom of which men's heads were the weights, men's entrails the warp and woof, while a sword was the shuttle and the reels were arrows. they wove the web of war and foretold the fate of king sigtryggr and earl sigurd as well as the sharp sorrow which would befall the irish[ ]. the norse world was full of this and like portents and there can be no question that the vikings were themselves conscious that the battle of clontarf marked a very definite epoch in the history of the vikings in the west and in ireland more particularly. the norsemen remained in possession of their cities, sigtryggr continued as king of dublin, but gradually the fortunes of the norse settlers tended to become merged in the history of the nation as a whole and there was no further question of scandinavian supremacy in ireland. footnotes: [ ] english version by sir g. w. dasent. [ ] this song was probably composed soon after the events with which it is concerned and was first rendered into english by the poet gray under the title _the fatal sisters_. chapter vi the vikings in the orkneys, scotland, the western islands and man when the vikings sailed to england and ireland in the late th and early th centuries their most natural path was by the orkneys and shetlands and round the western islands of scotland. we have seen how early they formed settlements in the shetlands, and they soon reached the orkneys and the hebrides. from the orkneys they crossed to the mainland, to sutherland and caithness--the very names bear witness to scandinavian occupation--while galloway (i.e. the land of the gaill-gaedhil, _v. supra_, p. ) was settled from the isle of man. already in the th century the norse element in the hebrides was so strong that the irish called the islands _innsi-gall_ (i.e. the islands of the foreigners), and their inhabitants were known as gaill-gaedhil. the norsemen called the islands _suðreyjar_ (i.e. southern islands) in contrast to the orkneys and shetlands, which were known as _norðreyjar_, and the name survives in the composite bishopric of 'sodor' and man, which once formed part of the archdiocese of trondhjem in norway. the isle of man was plundered almost as early as any of the islands of the west (_v. supra_, p. ), and it was probably from man that the norse settlements in cumberland and westmorland were established. olaf the white and Ívarr made more than one expedition from ireland to the lowlands of scotland, and the former was married to auðr the daughter of ketill flatnose who had made himself the greatest chieftain in the western islands. after the battle of hafrsfjord, when harold fairhair had finally crushed his rivals in norway itself, so powerful were the norse settlements in the west that he felt his position would be insecure until he had received their submission. accordingly he made a great expedition to the shetlands, orkneys and the west coast of scotland, fulfilled this purpose and entrusted the northern islands to sigurd, brother of rögnvaldr, earl of möre, as his vassal. the history of the norse settlements in the orkneys is well and fully told in the _orkneyingasaga_[ ]. the first orkney-earl was the above-named sigurd. he entered into an alliance with thorstein the red, son to olaf the white, and together they conquered caithness and sutherland, as far south as the river oikel on the borders of ross and cromarty. sigurd's son einar, known as turf-einar because he first taught the islanders to cut peat for fuel, founded a long line of earls of the orkneys. he had a quarrel with harold fairhair and when that king imposed a fine on the islanders for the murder of his son and the farmers could not pay it, einar paid it himself on condition that the peasants surrendered their _óðal_ rights, i.e. their rights of possession in the lands they cultivated. turf-einar's son sigurd the stout was the most famous of all the orkney-earls, renowned both as warrior and poet. he conquered sutherland, caithness, ross, moray, argyle, the hebrides and man, securing the support of the men of orkney by giving them back their _óðal_. he married a daughter of malcolm king of scotland, and met his end, as we have already seen, fighting on the side of the heathen norsemen in the battle of clontarf in . after this the power of the orkney-earls declined. the norse line of earls was replaced by one of scottish descent in , but the islands did not pass definitely to the scottish crown until the th century[ ]. of the norse settlements in the hebrides we have no such definite or continuous record. mention is made in irish annals of the middle of the th century of a king in the hebrides--one guðröðr son of fergus--whose very name shows him to have been one of the gaill-gaedhil. ketill finn (_v. supra_, p. ) was another such. in the latter half of the th century ketill flatnose was the chief norse leader in the hebrides until his power was destroyed by harold fairhair. many of the settlers then betook themselves to iceland, the most famous of them being auðr the deep-thoughted, widow of olaf the white and daughter of ketill. norse rule was all powerful during the th and th centuries. there was a line of kings but we find ruling side by side with them certain officers known as 'lawmen' (_v. infra_, p. ), while in the late th and for the greater part of the th century, the hebrides were under the sovereignty of the orkney-earls. norse rule in the hebrides did not finally come to an end until when magnus hákonsson, king of norway, renounced all claims to the islands. the early history of the settlements in man is equally obscure. at first the island suffered from repeated raids, then about the middle of the th century it passed under the authority of the kings of dublin and remained so until, with the hebrides and western scotland generally, it was conquered by sigurd the orkney-earl. from the orkney-earls it passed to the great conqueror godred crovan--the king gorry or orry of manx tradition--who came from the hebrides, and his successors down to the cession of the islands in were known as kings of man and the isles. of the details of the settlement of the scottish mainland, of caithness, sutherland, and galloway, of the occupation of cumberland and westmorland we know almost nothing, but when we speak later of norse influence in these districts we shall realise how strong was their hold on them. our knowledge of the norse occupation of man and the islands is somewhat scanty in detail, but there can be no question that their settlements in lands often closely resembling in physical features their own home-country were of the highest importance. footnotes: [ ] english translation by sir g. w. dasent. [ ] they were pledged by christian i of denmark and norway for the payment of the dowry of his daughter margaret to james iii in and the pledge was never redeemed. chapter vii the vikings in baltic lands and russia the activities of the northmen during the viking age were not confined to the lands west and south of their original homes: the baltic was as familiar to them as the north sea, to go 'east-viking' was almost as common as to go 'west-viking' and scandinavian settlements were founded on the shores of the baltic and far inland along the great waterways leading into the heart of russia. as was to be expected from their geographical position it was danes and swedes rather than norwegians who were active in baltic lands, the danes settling chiefly on the pomeranian coast among the wends, while the swedes occupied lands further east and founded the scandinavian kingdom of russia. already in the early years of the th century we find the danish king guðröðr now making war against his slavonic neighbours in mecklenburg-schwerin, now intriguing with them against the emperor. mention is made of more than one town on the southern coast of the baltic bearing an essentially scandinavian name, pointing to the existence of extensive settlements. interesting evidence of this eastward movement is also to be found in the _life of st anskar_. there we learn how, soon after , a danish fleet captured a city in the land of the slavs, with great riches, and we hear in how the swedes were endeavouring to reconquer kurland which had been under their rule, but had now thrown off the yoke and fallen a prey to a fleet of danish vikings--possibly the one just mentioned. st anskar himself undertook the education of many wendish youths who had been entrusted to him. this and other evidence prepare us for the establishment, in the tenth century, of the most characteristic of all viking settlements, that of jómsborg on the island of wollin at the mouth of the oder. according to tradition king gorm the old conquered a great kingdom in wendland, but it was to his son harold bluetooth that the definite foundation of jómsborg was ascribed. for many years there had been an important trading centre at julin on the island of wollin, where traders from scandinavia, saxony, russia and many other lands met together to take part in the rich trade between north and south, east and west, which passed through julin, standing as it did on one of the great waterways of central europe. large finds of byzantine and arabic coins bear witness to the extensive trade with greece and the orient which passed through julin, while the silberberg, on which jómsborg once stood, is so called from the number of silver coins from frisia, lorraine, bavaria and england which have been found there. it was no doubt in the hope of securing some fuller share in this trade that harold established the great fortress of jómsborg and entrusted its defence to a warrior-community on whom he imposed the strictest rules of organisation. the story of the founding of jómsborg is told in the late and untrustworthy _jómsvikingasaga_, but, while we must reject many of the details there set forth, it is probable that the rules of the settlement as given there are based on a genuine tradition, and they give us a vivid picture of life in a viking warrior-community. no one under eighteen or over fifty years of age was admitted to their fellowship, and neither birth nor friendship, only personal bravery, could qualify a man for admission. no one was allowed to continue a member who uttered words of fear, or who fled before one who was his equal in arms and strength. every member was bound to avenge a fallen companion as if he were his brother. no women were allowed within the community, and no one was to be absent for more than three days without permission. all news was to be told in the first instance to their leader and all plunder was to be shared at a common stake. the harbour of jómsborg could shelter a fleet of vessels and was protected by a mole with twelve iron gates. the jómsvikings played an important if stormy part in the affairs of the three scandinavian kingdoms in the later years of the th and the early th century. many of them came to england in the train of king svein, while jarl thorkell was for a time in the service of ethelred the unready. the decline of jómsborg as a viking stronghold dates from its devastation by magnus the good in , but the importance of julin as a trading centre continued unimpaired for many years to come. from jómsborg harold bluetooth's son hákon made an attack on samland in the extreme east of prussia, but the real exploitation of the eastern baltic fell as was natural to the swedes rather than to the danes. we have already mentioned their presence in kurland on the gulf of riga, and we learn from swedish runic inscriptions of expeditions to samland, to the semgalli (in kurland) and to the river duna. the important fortified port of seeburg was probably near to riga, while the chief trade route from the island of gothland lay round cape domesnæes (note the scandinavian name) to the mouth of the duna. the chief work of the swedes was however to be done in lands yet further south, in the heart of the modern empire of russia in europe. the story of the founding of the russian kingdom is preserved to us in the late th century chronicle of the monk nestor, who tells us that in the year 'varangians' came over the sea and took tribute from various finnish, tatar and slavonic peoples inhabiting the forest regions round lake ilmen, between lake ladoga and the upper waters of the dnieper. again he tells us that in the varangians were driven over seas and tribute was refused, but soon the tribes quarrelled among themselves and some suggested that they should find a prince who might rule over them and keep the peace. so they sent across the sea to the varangians, to the 'rus,' for such is the name of these varangians, just as others are called swedes, northmen, anglians, goths, saying that their land was great and powerful but there was no order within it and asking them to come and rule over them. three brothers with their followers were chosen: the eldest, rurik (o.n. hroerekr), settled in novgorod, the second in bieloözero, the third in truvor in izborsk. three years later two of the brothers died and rurik took control of the whole of the settlements, dividing the land among his men. in the same year two of rurik's followers, askold (o.n. höskuldr) and dir (o.n. dýri), setting out for constantinople, halted at kiev and there founded a kingdom, which in was conquered by rurik's successor oleg (o.n. helgi) and, as the mother of all russian cities, became the capital of the russian kingdom. there is a certain _naiveté_ about this story which is characteristic of the monkish chronicler generally, and it is clear that, after the usual manner of the annalist who is compiling his record long after the events described, nestor has grouped together under one or two dates events which were spread over several years, but the substantial truth of the narrative cannot be impugned and receives abundant confirmation from various sources. the earliest evidence for the presence of these 'rus' in eastern europe is found in the story of the byzantine embassy to the emperor lewis the pious in (_v. supra_, p. ), when certain people called 'rhôs,' who had been on a visit to constantinople, came in the train of the embassy and asked leave to return home through the empire. enquiries were made and it was found that these 'rhôs' were swedes. this would point to the presence of 'rus' in russia at a date earlier than that given by nestor, and indeed the rapid extension of their influence indicates a period of activity considerably longer than that allowed by him. these 'rus' or 'rhôs' soon came into relations, both of trade and war, with the byzantine empire. we have preserved to us from the years and commercial treaties made between the 'rus' and the greeks showing that they brought all kinds of furs and also slaves to constantinople, receiving in exchange various articles of luxury including gold and silver ornaments, silks and other rich stuffs. the names of the signatories to these treaties are, on the side of the 'rus,' almost entirely of scandinavian origin and may to some extent be shown to be of definitely swedish provenance. about the year , the emperor constantine porphyrogenitus, writing a tractate on the administration of the empire, describes how traders from various parts of russia assemble at kiev and sail down the dnieper on their way to constantinople. their course down the dnieper was impeded by a series of rapids, and constantine gives their names both in 'russian' and in slavonic form, and though the names are extremely corrupt in their greek transcription there is no mistaking that the 'russian' names are really forms belonging to some scandinavian dialect. the rus were also well known as warriors and raiders. in they sailed down the dnieper, across the black sea and made their way into the sea of marmora. their fleet was dispersed by a storm, but they were more successful in when oleg with some ships harried the environs of constantinople and was bought off by a heavy tribute. these attacks were continued at intervals during the next century. we also find a good deal of interesting information about these 'rûs,' as they are called, in various arab historians. we hear how they sailed their vessels down the chief waterways and had such a firm hold on the black sea that by the year it was already known as the russian sea. often they dragged their vessels overland from one stream to another, and thus they made their way from the upper waters of the don down the volga to the caspian sea. but not only do we have a description of their journeyings we also learn a good deal of their customs and habits, and, though at times the information given is open to suspicion, archaeological research tends to confirm the statements of these historians and to show that the civilisation of the 'rûs' closely resembled that of the scandinavian peoples generally in the viking age. the identification of the ancient 'rus' with the swedes was long and hotly contested by slavonic patriots but there is now a general consensus of opinion that the evidence for it is too strong to be overthrown. not only have we the evidence given above but also the very names 'rus' and 'varangian' can be satisfactorily explained only on this theory. the name 'rus' is the slavonic, 'rhôs' the greek, and 'rûs' the arabic form of the finnish name for sweden, viz. ruotsi. this name was originally derived from _roþr_ or _roþin_, the name of certain districts of upland and Östergötland, whose inhabitants were known as _rods-karlar_ or _rods-mæn_. the finns had early come into relation with the swedes and they used the name of those people with whom they were in earliest and most intimate contact for the whole swedish nationality. when these swedes settled in russia the finns applied the same term to the new colonists and the term came to be adopted later into the various slavonic dialects. we are most familiar with the term 'varangian' or 'variag,' to use the slavonic form, as applied to the famous guard of the byzantine emperors, which seems to have been formed in the latter half of the th century and was largely composed of norwegian, icelandic and swedish recruits. in russian and arabic historians on the other hand the term is used rather in an ethnographic or geographic sense. we have seen that it was thus used by nestor, and similarly we find the baltic commonly spoken of as the 'varangian' sea both in russian and in arabic records. all the evidence tends to show that this was the earlier sense of the term and we find it gradually displacing the term 'rhôs' even in byzantine historians. the word itself is of scandinavian origin and means 'those who are bound together by a pledge.' the theory which best explains its various uses is that put forward by dr vilhelm thomsen, viz. that it originated among the northmen who settled in russia, i.e. among the ancient russ, and that under that term they denoted those peoples west of the baltic who were related to them by nationality. from the russ the word passed into the slavonic language as _variag_[ ], into the greek as _barangoi_--where it was often used in the restricted sense of members of the imperial guard largely recruited from this nation,--and into the arabic as _varank_. dr thomsen adduces two happy parallels for the somewhat remarkable history of the terms 'russian' and 'varangian.' the term 'russian' came to be used as their own name by the slavonic peoples, who were once ruled over by the russ, in much the same way that the term 'frankish' or 'french' was adopted by the gaulish population of france from its germanic conquerors. the term 'varangian,' ultimately the name for a nation or group of nations, came to be used of a military force once largely recruited from those nations, much in the same way as the term 'swiss' was applied to the papal guard long after that guard had ceased to be recruited from the swiss nation exclusively. the belief in the scandinavian origin of the russ is amply supported by archaeological evidence. the large number of arabic coins found in sweden (more especially in gothland) and in russia itself points to an extensive trade with the orient whose route lay chiefly to the east of the caspian sea and then along the valley of the volga. the dates of the coins point to the years between and as those of most active intercourse with the east. equally interesting is the large number of western coins, more especially anglo-saxon pennies and sceatts, which have been found in russia. they probably represent portions of our danegeld which had come into the hands of the swedes either in trade or war. viking brooches of the characteristic oval shape with the familiar zoomorphic ornamentation have been found in western russia, and one stone with a runic inscription, belonging to the th century and showing evidence of connexion with gothland, has been found in a burial mound in berezan, an island at the mouth of the dnieper. professor braun says that no others have been found because of the rarity of suitable stone. how long the russ maintained their distinctively scandinavian nationality it is difficult to determine. oleg's grandson svjatoslav bore a distinctively slavonic name, and henceforward the names of the members of the royal house are uniformly slavonic, but the connexion with sweden was by no means forgotten. svjatoslav's son vladimir the great secured himself in the rulership of novgorod in by the aid of _variags_ from over the sea and established a band of variag warriors in his chief city of kiev. but the viking age was drawing to a close. variag auxiliaries are mentioned for the last time in and it is probable that by the middle of the th century the scandinavian settlers had been almost completely slavonicised. of their permanent influence on the russian people and on russian institutions it is, in the present state of our knowledge, almost impossible to speak. attempts have been made to distinguish scandinavian elements in the old russian law and language but with no very definite results, and we must content ourselves with the knowledge that the vikings were all powerful in western and southern russia during the greater part of two centuries, carrying on an extensive trade with the east, establishing novgorod, 'the new town,' on the volga under the name _holmgarðr_ and founding a dynasty which ruled in kiev and became a considerable power in eastern europe negotiating on terms of equality with the byzantine emperors. mention has already been made more than once of the way in which the northmen entered the service of the emperors at constantinople or _miklagarðr_, 'the great city,' as they called it. from here they visited all parts of the mediterranean. when harold hardrada was in the service of the emperor he sailed through the grecian archipelago to sicily and africa. there he stayed several years, conquering some eighty cities for his master and gaining rich treasures for himself. one interesting memorial of these journeys still remains to us. at the entrance to the arsenal in venice stands a marble lion brought from athens in . formerly it stood at the harbour of the piraeus, known thence as the porto leone. on the sides of the lion are carved two long runic inscriptions arranged in snake-like bands. the runes are too much worn to be deciphered but they are unquestionably of scandinavian origin and the snake-bands closely resemble those that may be seen on certain runic stones in sweden. the carving was probably done by swedes from uppland about the middle of the th century. one can hardly imagine a more striking illustration of the extent and importance of the viking movement in europe. footnote: [ ] the word variag in modern russian means a pedlar and bears witness to the strong commercial instincts of the viking. chapter viii viking civilisation the activities of the vikings were all-embracing, and before any attempt can be made to estimate their influence in the various countries which came permanently under their rule, or were brought more or less closely into touch with them, some account, however slight, must be given of scandinavian civilisation at this time, both on its spiritual and on its material sides. for the former aspect we must turn chiefly to the poems and sagas of old norse literature, for the latter to the results of modern archaeological research. so far as the poems and sagas are concerned it is well to remember that they were to a large extent composed in iceland and reflect the somewhat peculiar type of civilisation developed there at a period just subsequent to the viking age itself. this civilisation differs necessarily from that developed in scandinavia or in the other scandinavian settlements, in that it was free from western influence, but this is to some extent compensated for by the fact that we get in iceland a better picture of the inherent possibilities of viking civilisation when developed on independent lines. at the beginning of the viking age the scandinavian peoples were in a transitional stage of development; on the one hand there was still much, both in their theory and in their practice of life, that savoured of primitive barbarism, while on the other, in the development of certain phases of human activity, more especially in those of war, trade, and social organisation, they were considerably ahead of many of their european neighbours. more than one writer has commented upon the strange blending of barbarism and culture which constitutes viking civilisation: it is evident when we study their daily life, and it is emphasised in the story of their slow and halting passage from heathenism to christianity. we need not travel far to find examples of their barbarism. their cruelty in warfare is a commonplace among the historians of the period. when the irish found the danes cooking their food on spits stuck in the bodies of their fallen foes (_v. supra_, p. ) and asked why they did anything so hateful, the answer came 'why not? if the other side had been victorious they would have done the same with us.' the custom of cutting the blood-eagle (i.e. cutting the ribs in the shape of an eagle and pulling the lungs through the opening) was a well-known form of vengeance taken on the slayer of one's father if captured in battle, and is illustrated in the story of the sons of ragnarr loðbrók himself. another survival of primitive life was the famous berserk fury, when men in the heat of battle were seized with sudden madness and, according to the popular belief, received a double portion of strength, and lost all sense of bodily pain, a custom for which dr bugge finds an apt parallel in the 'running amok' of the races of the malay peninsula. children were tossed on the point of the spear and the viking leader who discouraged the custom was nicknamed _barnakarl_, i.e. children's friend. in contrast to these methods of warfare stands their skill in fortification, in which they taught many lessons both to their english and to their frankish adversaries, their readiness in adapting themselves to new conditions of warfare (_v. supra_, p. ), and their clever strategy, whereby they again and again outwitted their opponents. the same contrast meets us when we consider the position of women among them. the chroniclers make many references to their lust after women. we hear in an english chronicler how they combed their hair, indulged in sabbath baths, often changed their clothes and in various ways cultivated bodily beauty 'in order that they might the more readily overcome the chastity of the matrons, and make concubines even of the daughters of the nobility.' wandering from country to country they often had wives in each, and polygamy would seem to have been the rule, at least among the leaders. in ireland we hear of what seem to have been veritable harems, while in russia we are told of the great grandson of rurik, the founder of the russian kingdom, that he had more than concubines, though we may perhaps suspect the influence of oriental custom in this case. yet, side by side with all this, the legitimate wife was esteemed and honoured, and attained a position and took a part in national life which was quite unusual in those days. in the account of an arabic embassy to the vikings of the west (_v. supra_, p. ) we have a vivid picture of the freedom of their married life. auðr, the widow of olaf the white, after the fall of her son thorstein, took charge of the fortunes of her family and is one of the figures that stand out most clearly in the early settlement of iceland. we have only to turn to the icelandic sagas to see before us a whole gallery of portraits, dark and fair alike, of women cast in heroic mould, while the stone at dyrna in hadeland, bearing the runic inscription, 'gunvor, daughter of thirek, built a bridge to commemorate her daughter astrid, she was the most gracious maiden in hadeland,' gives us one of the most attractive pictures of womanhood left to us from the viking age. it must be added however that beside the runic inscription, the stone bears carvings of the christ-child, the star in the east and the three kings, and this may serve to remind us that the age was one in which the peoples of the north passed from heathenism to christianity, though the passage was a slow one and by no means complete even at the close of the period. it is probable that the first real knowledge of 'the white christ' came, as is so often the case, with the extension of trade--frisians trading with scandinavia, and danes and swedes settling in frisia and elsewhere for the same purpose. st willibrord at the beginning of the th century and archbishop ebbo of rheims in , as papal legate among the northern peoples, undertook missions to denmark, but it was in , when king harold was baptised at mainz, that the first real opportunity came for the preaching of christianity in denmark. harold was accompanied on his return by st anskar, a monk from corvey and a man filled with religious zeal. after two years' mission in denmark st anskar sailed to sweden, where he was graciously received at björkö by king björn. he made many converts and on his return home in was made archbishop of hamburg and given, jointly with ebbo, jurisdiction over the whole of the northern realms. hamburg was devastated in and st anskar was then appointed to the bishopric of bremen, afterwards united to a restored archbishopric of hamburg. he laboured in denmark once more and established churches at slesvík and ribe. he conducted a second mission to sweden and his missionary zeal remained unabated until his death in ; his work was carried on by his successor and biographer st rimbert and by many others. their preaching was however confined to jutland and south sweden and there is no evidence of any popular movement towards christianity. gorm the old was a steadfast pagan but gorm's son harold bluetooth was a zealous promoter of christianity. his enthusiasm may have been exaggerated by monastic chroniclers in contrast to the heathenism of his son svein, but with the accession of cnut all fears of a reversion to heathendom were at an end. cnut was a devout son of the church. the first danish settlers in england were entirely heathen in sentiment, but they were soon brought into close contact with christianity, and the terms of the peace of edward and guthrum in the early years of the th century show that already christianity was making its way in the danelagh. in the course of this century both archbishoprics were held by men of danish descent and the excesses of the early th century were due, not to the danish settlers, but to the heathen followers of olaf tryggvason and svein forkbeard. similarly the danish settlers in normandy were within a few years numbered among the church's most enthusiastic supporters, and rollo's own son and successor william was anxious to become a monk. the story of the preaching of christianity in norway is a chequered one. the first attempt to establish the christian faith was made by hákon aðalsteinsfóstri (_v. supra_, p. ). baptised and educated in england, he began warily, inducing those who were best beloved by him to become christians, but he soon came into conflict with the more ardent followers of paganism. at the great autumn festival at lade when the cups of memory were drunk, earl sigurd signed a cup to odin, but the king made the sign of the cross over his cup. earl sigurd pacified popular clamour by saying that the king had made the sign of the hammer and consecrated the cup to thor. the next day the king would not eat the horse-flesh used in their offerings nor drink the blood from it: the people were angry and the king compromised by inhaling the steam from the offering through a linen cloth placed over the sacrificial kettle, but no one was satisfied and at the next winter-feast the king had to eat some bits of horse-liver and to drink crossless all the cups of memory. hákon died a christian but eyvindr skaldaspillir in _hákonarmál_ describes how he was welcomed by odin to valhalla. earl hákon sigurdson, nicknamed _blót-jarl_, i.e. sacrifice-earl, was a zealous heathen, but olaf tryggvason after his succession in promoted the cause of christianity by every means in his power, and it was largely to this that he owed his ultimate overthrow. then, after a brief interval, the crown passed to st olaf, greatest of all christian champions in norway, and during his reign that country became definitely christian, though his rough and ready methods of conversion were hardly likely to secure anything but a purely formal and outward adhesion to the new faith. sweden was the most reluctant of the three northern realms to accept christianity, and the country remained almost entirely heathen until the close of the viking period. the story of the norse settlers in ireland and the western islands in their relation to christianity was very much that of the danes in england. celtic christianity had a firm hold in these countries, and from the earliest period of the settlements many of the vikings adopted the christian faith. among the settlers in iceland who came from the west were many christians, and auðr herself gave orders at her death that she should be buried on the sea-shore below the tide-mark, rather than lie in unhallowed ground. most of the settlers undoubtedly remained heathen--in a ring sacred to thor was taken from a temple in dublin and in king brian destroyed a grove sacred to the same god just north of the city. but side by side with incidents of this kind must be placed others like that of the sparing of the churches, hospitals and almshouses when armagh was sacked in , or the retirement of anlaf cuaran to the monastery at iona in . in ireland as elsewhere there seems to have been a recrudescence of heathenism in the early years of the th century and the great fight at clontarf was regarded as a struggle between pagan and christian. outwardly the scandinavian world had largely declared its adhesion to christianity by the close of the viking period, but we must remember that the medieval church was satisfied if her converts passed through the ceremony of baptism and observed her rites, though their sentiments often remained heathen. except in purely formal fashion it is impossible to draw a definite line of demarcation between christian and heathen, and the acceptance of christianity is of importance not so much from any change of outlook which it produced in individuals, as because it brought the peoples of the north into closer touch with the general life and culture of medieval europe. leaders freely accepted baptism--often more than once--and even confirmation as part of a diplomatic bargain, while their profession of christianity made no difference to their viking way of life. even on formal lines the church had to admit of compromise, as for example in the practice of _prime-signing_, whereby when vikings visited christian lands as traders, or entered the service of christian kings for payment, they often allowed themselves to be signed with the cross, which secured their admission to intercourse with christian communities, but left them free to hold the faith which pleased them best. strange forms and mixtures of belief arose in the passage from one faith to the other. helgi the lean was a christian, but called on thor in the hour of need. the christian saints with their wonder-working powers were readily adopted into the norse pantheon, and vikings by their prayers and offerings secured the help of st patrick in ireland and of st germanus in france in times of defeat and pestilence, while we hear of a family of settlers in iceland who gave up all faith except a belief in the power of st columba. on sculptured stones in the west may be found pictures of ragnarök, of balder and of loki together with the sign of the cross. some of the heathen myths themselves show christian influence; the balder story with its echoes of the lamentations for the suffering christ belongs to the last stage of norse heathendom, while a heathen skald makes christ sit by the fountain of fate as the mighty destroyer of the giants. when the virtue had gone out of their old beliefs many fell a prey to the grossest superstition, worshipping the rocks and groves and rivers once thought to be the dwelling place of the gods. others renounced faith in christian and heathen gods alike, and the nickname 'godless' is by no means rare among the settlers in iceland. of such it is often said that they believed in themselves, or had no faith in aught except their own strength and power, while in the saga of friþjof we hear how the hero paid little heed to the sanctity of the temple of balder and that the love of ingibjorg meant more to him than the wrath of the gods. for a parallel to such audacious scepticism as that of friþjof we must turn to southern lands and later times with aucassin's 'in paradise what have i to win? therein i seek not to enter, but only to have my nicolete, my sweet lady that i love so well.' for some the way of escape came not by superstition or by scepticism, but in mystic speculation, in pure worship of the powers of nature. thus we hear of the icelander thorkell mani, whom all praised for the excellence of his way of life, that in his last illness he was carried out into the sunshine, so that he might commend himself into the hands of the god who made the sun, or of the _goði_ askell who, even in the hour of famine, deemed it was more fitting to honour the creator by caring for the aged and the children, than to relieve distress by putting these helpless ones to death. one other illustration of the declining force of heathenism must be mentioned. it is to the viking age that we owe the poems of the older edda, that storehouse of norse mythology and cosmogony. they are almost purely heathen in sentiment, and yet one feels that it could only be in an age when belief in the old gods was passing away that the authors of these poems could have struck those notes of detachment, irony, and even of burlesque, which characterise so many of them. the condition of faith and belief in the viking age was, then, chaotic, but, fortunately for purposes of clear statement, there was, to the norse mind at least, no necessary connexion between beliefs and morality, between faith and conduct, and the ideas on which they based their philosophy and practice of life are fairly distinct. the central ideas which dominate the norse view of life are an ever-present sense of the passingness of all things and a deep consciousness of the over-ruling power of fate. all earthly things are transitory and the one thing which lasts is good fame. 'wealth dies, kinsmen die, man himself must die, but the fame which a man wins rightly for himself never dies; one thing i know that never dies, the judgment passed on every man that dies,' says the poet of the _hávamál_, the great storehouse of the gnomic wisdom of the norsemen. 'all things are unstable and transitory, let no man therefore be arrogant or over-confident. the wise man will never praise the day before it is evening.' prudence and foresight are ever necessary. all things are determined by a fate which is irrevocable and cannot be avoided. every man must die the death that is appointed for him, and the man whose final day has not yet come may face unmoved the greatest danger. this sense of an inevitable fate must lead to no weakening of character or weariness of life. death must be faced with cheerful stoicism and our judgment of the worth of any man must depend on the way in which he awaits the decree of fate. place no great trust in others whether friend or foe, least of all place trust in women. 'wommennes conseils been ful ofte colde,' says chaucer in the _nun's priest's tale_, using an old scandinavian proverb. 'be friendly to your friends and a foeman to your foes. practice hospitality and hate lying and untruthfulness.' with their enemies the vikings had an evil reputation for cunning and deceit, but when we study the incidents on which this charge was based--as for example the story of the capture of luna (_v. supra_, p. ) or the oft-repeated trick of feigning flight, only to lure the enemy away from safe ground--one must confess that they show an enemy outwitted rather than deceived. this aspect of viking character perhaps finds its best illustration in the figure of odin. his common epithets are 'the wise,' 'the prudent,' 'the sagacious'; he is a god of witchcraft and knows all the secret powers of nature and stands in contrast to the simple-minded thor, endowed with mighty strength, but less polished and refined. the development of the worship of odin in norway belongs specially to the later iron age, and it is worthy of note that his worship seems to have prevailed chiefly in military circles, among princes and their retainers. the vikings were guilty of two besetting sins--immoderate love of wine and of women. of their relations to women enough has been said already. their drunken revelry is best illustrated by the story of the orgie which led up to the death of st alphege in london in , when, after drinking their fill of the wine they had brought from abroad, they pelted the bishop with bones from the feast, and finally pierced his skull with the spike on the back of an axe. of sin in the christian sense the vikings had no conception. an irish chronicler tells us indeed that the danes have a certain piety in that they can refrain from flesh and from women for a time, but a truer description is probably that given by adam of bremen when he says that the danes can weep neither for their sins nor for their dead. the chief occupations of the vikings were trade and war, but we must beware of drawing a too rigid distinction between adventurers and peaceful stay-at-homes. the vikings when they settled in england and elsewhere showed that their previous roving life did not hinder them in the least from settling down as peaceful traders, farmers, or peasant-labourers, while the figure of ohthere or Óttarr, to give him his norse name, who entered the service of king alfred, may serve to remind us that many a landed gentleman was not above carrying on a good trade with the finns or undertaking voyages of exploration in the white sea. trading in those days was a matter of great difficulty and many risks. the line of division between merchant and viking was a very thin one, and more than once we read how, when merchants went on a trading expedition, they arranged a truce until their business was concluded and then treated each other as enemies. trade in scandinavia was carried on either in fixed centres or in periodical markets held in convenient places. the chief trading centres were the twin towns of slesvík-hedeby in denmark, skiringssalr in s.w. norway, and björkö, sigtuna and the island of gothland in sweden, while an important market was held periodically at bohuslän on the götaelv, at a place were the boundaries of the three northern kingdoms met. a characteristic incident which happened at this market illustrates the international character of the trade done there. on a certain occasion a wealthy merchant named gille (the name is celtic), surnamed the russian because of his many journeys to that country, set up his booth in the market and received a visit from the icelander höskuldr who was anxious to buy a female slave. gille drew back a curtain dividing off the inner part of the tent and showed höskuldr twelve female slaves. höskuldr bought one and she proved to be an irish king's daughter who had been made captive by viking raiders. the chief exports were furs, horses, wool, and fish while the imports consisted chiefly in articles of luxury, whether for clothing or ornament. there was an extensive trade with the orient in all such luxuries and the vikings seem eagerly to have accumulated wealth of this kind. when limerick was re-captured by the irish in , they carried off from the vikings 'their jewels and their best property, and their saddles beautiful and foreign (probably of spanish workmanship), their gold and their silver: their beautifully woven cloth of all colours and all kinds: their satins and silken cloths, pleasing and variegated, both scarlet and green, and all sorts of cloth in like manner.' they captured too 'their soft, youthful, bright, matchless girls: their blooming silk-clad young women: and their active, large, and well formed boys.' such captives whether made by irish from norsemen or norsemen from irish would certainly be sold as slaves, for one of the chief branches of trade in those days was the sale as slaves of those made prisoner in war. the expansion of scandinavian trade took place side by side with, rather than as a result of, viking activity in war. there is evidence of the presence of traders in the low country early in the th century, and already in the days of st anskar we hear of a swedish widow of björkö who left money for her daughter to distribute among the poor of duurstede. jómsborg was established to protect and increase scandinavian trade at julin, and there were other similar trading centres on the southern and eastern shores of the baltic. the viking might busy himself either with war or trade, but whatever his occupation, living as he did in insular or peninsular lands, good ships and good seamanship were essential to his livelihood. seamen now often abandoned that timid hugging of the coast, sailing only by day time and in fair weather, which characterised the old phoenician traders, and boldly sailed across the uncharted main with no help save that of the sun and stars by which to steer their course. it was this boldness of spirit alone which enabled them to reach the lonely faroes, the distant shetlands and orkneys, and the yet more remote iceland. irish monks and anchorites had shown similar fearlessness, but their bravery was often that of the fanatic and the mystic rather than the enterprise of the seaman. boldness of seamanship led to boldness in exploration. from iceland the vikings sailed to greenland, and by the year had discovered vinland, the n.e. part of north america. ottarr rounded the north cape and sailed the white sea in the th century, while harold hardrada in the th century made a voyage of polar exploration. of their ships we know a good deal both from the sagas and from the remains of actual ships preserved to us. the custom of ship-burial, i.e. burial in a ship over which a grave chamber, covered with a how or mound, was erected, was common in the viking age, and several such ships have been discovered. the two most famous are those of gokstad and oseberg, both found on the shores of christiania fjord. the gokstad vessel is of oak, clinker-built, with seats for sixteen pairs of rowers, and is ft. long and ft. broad amidships. it dates from about , and in form and workmanship is not surpassed by modern vessels of a similar kind. there is a mast for a single sail, and the rudder, as always in those days, is on the starboard side. the gunwale was decorated with a series of shields painted alternately black and gold. the appearance of the vessel when fully equipped can perhaps best be judged from the pictures of viking ships to be seen in the bayeux tapestry. there we may note the parti-coloured sail with its variegated stripes, and the rich carving of stem and stern. these magnificent sails were a source of much pride to their possessors, and the story is told of sigurd jerusalem-farer that on his way home from jerusalem to constantinople he lay for half-a-month off cape malea, waiting for a side wind, so that his sails might be set lengthwise along the ship and so be better seen by those standing on shore as he sailed up to constantinople. the stem often ended in a dragon's head done over with gold, whilst the stern was frequently shaped like a dragon's tail, so that the vessel itself was often called a dragon. the oseberg ship is of a different type. the gunwale is lower and the whole vessel is flatter and broader. it is used as the grave-chamber of a woman, and the whole appearance of the vessel, including its richly carved stem, indicates that it was used in calm waters for peaceful purposes. the story of the escape of hárek of thjotta through copenhagen sound after the battle of helgeäa in illustrates the difference between a trading-ship and a ship of war. hárek struck sail and mast, took down the vane, stretched a grey tent-cloth over the ship's sides, and left only a few rowers fore and aft. the rest of the crew were bidden lie flat so that they might not be seen, with the result that the danes mistook hárek's war-galley for a trading-vessel laden with herrings or salt and let it pass unchallenged. [illustration: _plate i_ viking ship from the bayeux tapestry] in the last years of the viking period ships increased greatly both in size and number. olaf tryggvason's vessel, the _long serpent_, in which he fought his last fight at svoldr, had thirty benches of oars, while cnut the great had one with sixty pairs of oars. this same king went with a fleet of some fourteen hundred vessels to the conquest of norway. in battle the weapons of defence were helmet, corselet and shield. the shields were of wood with a heavy iron boss in the centre. the corselets were made of iron rings, leather, or thick cloth. the weapons of offence were mainly sword, spear and battle-axe. the sword was of the two-edged type and usually had a shallow depression along the middle of the blade, known as the blood-channel. above, the blade terminated in a narrow tang, bounded at either end by the hilts. round the tang and between the hilts was the handle of wood, horn, or some similar material, often covered with leather, or occasionally with metal. above the upper hilt was a knob, which gave the sword the necessary balance for a good steady blow. generally the knob and the hilts were inlaid with silver, bronze, or copper-work. the battle-axe, the most characteristic of viking weapons, was of the heavy broad-bladed type. next to warfare and trade, the chief occupation of the viking was farming, while his chief amusement was the chase. at home the viking leader lived the life of an active country gentleman. his favourite sport was hawking, and one of the legendary lives of st edmund tells how ragnarr loðbrók himself was driven by stress of storm to land on the east anglian coast, receiving a hospitable welcome from the king, but ultimately meeting death at the hands of the king's huntsman who was jealous of his prowess as a fowler. of the social organisation of the vikings it is impossible to form a very definite or precise picture. we have in the laws of the jómsborg settlement (_v. supra_, p. ) the rule of life of a warrior-community, but it would be a mistake to imagine that these laws prevailed in all settlements alike. the general structure of their society was aristocratic rather than democratic, but within the aristocracy, which was primarily a military one, the principle of equality prevailed. when asked who was their lord, rollo's men answered 'we have no lord, we are all equal.' but while they admitted no lord, the vikings were essentially practical; they realised the importance of organised leadership, and we have a succession of able leaders mentioned in the annals of the time, to some of whom the title king was given. these kings however are too numerous, and too many of them are mentioned together, for it to be possible to give the term king in this connexion anything like its usual connotation. it would seem rather to have been used for any prince of the royal house, and it was only when the vikings had formed fixed settlements and come definitely under western influence that we hear of kings in the ordinary territorial sense--kings of northumbria, dublin, man and the isles, or east anglia. we hear also of _jarls_ or earls, either as viking leaders or as definite territorial rulers, as for example the orkney-earls and more than one earl who is mentioned as ruling in dublin, but these earls usually held their lands under the authority of a king. by the side of kings and earls mention is made both in the danelagh and also in the western islands of _lawmen_. it is difficult exactly to define their position and function. originally these men were simply experts in the law who expounded it in the popular _thing_ or assembly, and were the spokesmen of the people as against the king and the court, but sometimes they assumed judicial functions, acting for example in sweden as assessors to the king, who was supreme judge. in their home life we find the same strange mixture of civilisation and barbarism which marks them elsewhere. their houses were built of timber, covered with clay. there was no proper hearth and the smoke from the fire made its way out as best it could through the turf-covered roof. the chief furniture of the room consisted in beds, benches, long tables and chests, and in the houses of the rich these would at the close of our period often be carved with stories from the old heroic or mythologic legends, while the walls might be covered with tapestry. prominent in the chieftain's hall stood the carved pillars which supported his high-seat and were considered sacred. when some of the settlers first sailed to iceland they threw overboard their high-seat pillars which they had brought with them, and chose as the site of their new abode the place where these pillars were cast ashore. in clothing and adornment there can be no question that our viking forefathers had attained a high standard of luxury. any visitor to the great national museums at copenhagen, stockholm or christiania must be impressed by the wealth of personal ornaments displayed before him: magnificent brooches of silver and bronze, arm-rings and neck-rings of gold and silver, large beads of silver, glass, rock-crystal, amber and cornelian. at one time it was commonly assumed that these ornaments, often displaying the highest artistic skill, were simply plunder taken by the vikings from nations more cultured and artistic than themselves, but patient investigation has shown that the majority of them were wrought in scandinavia itself. [illustration: _plate ii_ ornaments of the viking period] the most characteristic of viking ornaments is undoubtedly the brooch. it was usually oval in shape and the concave surface was covered with a framework of knobs and connecting bands, which divided it into a series of 'fields' (to use a heraldic term), which could themselves be decorated with the characteristic ornamentation of the period. the commonest form of oval brooch was that with nine knobs on a single plate, but in the later examples the plate is often doubled. the brooches themselves were of bronze, the knobs usually of silver with silver wire along the edge of the brooch. these knobs have now often disappeared and the bronze has become dull with verdigris, so that it is difficult to form an idea of their original magnificence. the oval brooches were used to fasten the outer mantle and were usually worn in pairs, either on the breast or on the shoulders, and examples of them have been found from russia in the east to ireland on the west. other types of brooch are also found--straight-armed, trilobed and round. such brooches were often worn in the middle of the bosom a little below the oval ones. other ornaments beside brooches are common--arm-rings, neck-rings, pendants. one of the most interesting of the pendants is a ring with a series of small silver thor's hammers which was probably used as a charm against ill-luck. all these ornaments alike are in silver rather than gold, and it has been said that if the post-roman period of scandinavian archaeology be called the age of gold, the viking period should be named the age of silver. the style of ornamentation used in these articles of personal adornment as well as in objects of more general use, such as horse-trappings, is that commonly known to german archaeologists as _tier-ornamentik_, i.e. animal or zoomorphic ornamentation. this last translation may sound pedantic but it is the most accurate description of the style, for we have no attempt to represent the full form of any animal that ever had actual existence; rather we find the various limbs of animals--heads, legs, tails--woven into one another in fantastic design in order to cover a certain surface-area which requires decoration. 'the animals are ornaments and treated as such. they are stretched and curved, lengthened and shortened, refashioned, and remodelled just as the space which they must fill requires.' this style was once called the 'dragon-style,' but the term is misleading as there is no example belonging to the viking period proper of any attempt to represent a dragon, i.e. some fantastic animal with wings. such creatures belong to a later period. the zoomorphic style did not have its origin during the viking period. it is based on that of a preceding period in the culture of the north german peoples, but it received certain characteristic developments at this time, more especially under the influence of irish and frankish art. irish art had begun to influence that of scandinavia even before the viking period began, and the development of intercourse between north and west greatly strengthened that influence. to frankish influence were due not only certain developments of _tier-ornamentik_ but also the use of figures from the plant-world for decorative purposes. one of the finest brooches preserved to us from this period is of frankish workmanship--a magnificent trilobed brooch of gold with acanthus-leaf ornamentation. this leaf-work was often imitated by scandinavian craftsmen but the imitation is usually rude and unconvincing. traces are also to be found of oriental and more especially of arabic influence in certain forms of silver-ornamentation, but finds of articles of actual eastern manufacture are more common than finds of articles of scandinavian origin showing eastern influences in their workmanship. buried treasure from the viking period is very common. it was a popular belief, sanctioned by the express statement of odin, that a man would enjoy in valhalla whatsoever he had himself buried in the earth. another common motive in the burial of treasure was doubtless the desire to find a place of security against robbery and plunder. treasure thus secreted would often be lost sight of at the owner's death. to the burial-customs of the viking period also we owe much of our knowledge of their weapons, clothing, ornaments and even of their domestic utensils. the dead were as a rule cremated, at least during the earlier part of the viking period. the body burned or unburned was either buried in a mound of earth, forming a 'how,' or was laid under the surface of the ground, and the grave marked by stones arranged in a circle, square, triangle or oval, sometimes even imitating the outlines of a ship. the 'hows' were often of huge size. the largest of the three 'king's hows' at old upsala is ft. high and ft. broad. a large how was very necessary in the well-known ship-burial when the dead man (or woman) was placed in a grave-chamber on board his ship and the ship was drawn on land and buried within a how. men and women alike were buried in full dress, and the men usually have all their weapons with them. in the latter case weapons tend to take the place of articles of domestic use such as are found in the graves of an earlier period, and the change points to a new conception of the future life. it is now a life in which warriors feast with odin in valhalla on benches that are covered with corselets. a careful examination of norwegian graves has proved fairly definitely the existence of the custom of 'suttee' during the viking period, and the evidence of the arab historian ibn fadhlan seems to show that the same custom prevailed among the rûs. horses, dogs, hawks and other animals were often buried with their masters, and the remains of such, burned or unburned, have frequently been found. the varying customs attending burial are happily illustrated in the two accounts preserved to us of the burial of king harold hyldetan, who died c. . the accounts were written down long after the actual event, but they probably give us a good picture of familiar incidents in burial ceremonies of the viking period. one account (in a late saga) tells how, on the morrow of the great fight at bravalla, king ring caused search to be made for the body of his kinsman harold. when the body was found, it was washed and placed in the chariot which harold used in the fight. a large mound was raised and the chariot was drawn into the mound by harold's own horse. the horse was now killed and ring gave his own saddle to harold, telling him that he might ride or drive to valhalla just as it pleased him best. a great memorial feast was held, and ring bade his warriors and nobles throw into the mound large rings of gold and silver and good weapons before it was finally closed. the other account (in saxo) tells how ring harnessed his own horse to harold's chariot and bade him drive quickly to valhalla as the best in battle, and when he came to odin to prepare goodly quarters for friend and foe alike. the pyre was then kindled and by ring's command the danes placed harold's ship upon it. when the fire destroyed the body, the king commanded his followers to walk round the pyre and chant a lament, making rich offerings of weapons, gold and treasure, so that the fire might mount the higher in honour of the great king. so the body was burned, the ashes were collected, laid in an urn and sent to leire, there to be buried with the horse and the weapons in royal fashion. there are many curious coincidences of detail between these accounts and that given by ibn fadhlan of the burial of a rûs warrior, and every detail of them has at one time or another been confirmed by archaeological evidence. [illustration: _plate iii_ the jellinge stone] the dead were commemorated by the how itself, but _bautasteinar_, i.e. memorial stones, were also erected, either on the how or, more commonly, elsewhere. in course of time these monuments came to be inscribed with runes. usually the inscription is of the most formal type, giving the name of the dead person, the name of the man who raised the memorial, and sometimes also that of the man who carved the runes. occasionally there is some more human touch as in the wording of the dyrna runes (_v. supra_, p. ), and in the latter part of the viking period we often find pictures and even scenes inscribed on the stones. this is true of the dyrna stone (_v. supra_, p. ): the jellinge stone has a figure of christ on it, while there is a famous rock-inscription in sweden representing scenes from the sigurd-story (regin's smithy, hammer, tongs and bellows, sigurd piercing fafnir with his sword, the birds whose speech sigurd understood) encircled by a serpent (fafnir) bearing a long runic inscription. the runic alphabet itself was the invention of an earlier age. it is based chiefly on the old roman alphabet with such modifications of form and symbol as were necessitated by the different sounds in the teutonic tongues and by the use of such unyielding materials as wood and stone. straight lines were preferred to curved ones and sloping to horizontal. during the viking period it was simplified, and runic inscriptions are found from the valley of the dnieper on the east to man in the west, and from iceland on the north to the piraeus in the south. chapter ix scandinavian influence in the orkneys, shetlands, the western islands and man of all the countries visited by the vikings it is undoubtedly the british isles which bear most definitely the marks of their presence. the history and civilisation of ireland, the orkneys and shetlands, the western islands and man, scotland and england, were profoundly affected by the viking movement, and its influence is none the less interesting because it varies greatly from place to place, in both character and intensity. these variations are doubtless due in part to differences of political and social organisation as between norsemen and danes, or between men coming from scattered districts of the as yet loosely co-ordinated kingdoms of denmark and norway, but their chief cause lies in the wide divergences in the social and political conditions of the lands in which they settled. the orkneys and the shetlands were settled by the norsemen earlier than any other part of the british isles and they formed part of the norse kingdom till . it is not surprising therefore that the great norse historian munch describes them as _ligesaa norskt som norge selv_, 'as norse as norway itself.' the old norse speech was still spoken there by a few people until the end of the th century, and we have a version of the ballad of _king orfeo_ taken down from recital at the close of that century with the norse refrain still preserved '_scowan ürla grün--whar giorten han grün oarlac_,' i.e. probably _skoven årle grön--hvor hjorten han går årlig_ = 'early green's the wood--where the hart goes yearly.' place-nomenclature is almost entirely norse and the modern dialects are full of norse words. several runic inscriptions have been found, the most famous being that at maeshowe in hrossey, made by norse crusaders when they wintered there in - and amused themselves by breaking open the how, probably to look for treasure, and scoring their runes on the walls of the grave-chamber. in the system of landholding the 'udallers' are an interesting survival of the old norse freeholders. 'the udaller held his land without condition or limitation in any feudal sense,' says mr gilbert goudie, i.e. he held his _udal_ on precisely the same free terms that the native norseman did his _óðal_. from the shetlands and the orkneys the norsemen crossed to the scottish mainland. sutherland (i.e. the land south of the orkneys), caithness, ross and cromarty are full of norse place-names, and norse influence may be traced even further south. the hebrides were also largely influenced by the norsemen. together with man they formed a norse kingdom down to the middle of the th century. many of the islands themselves and their chief physical features bear norse names, many personal names (e.g. macaulay, son of aulay or olaf) are of norse origin, and there are many norse words in the gaelic both of the islands, and the mainland. these words have undergone extensive changes and much corruption in a language very different in form and sounds from that of their original source, and their recognition is a difficult problem. there is at present a danger of exaggerating this norse element, the existence of which was long overlooked. similarly, affinities have been traced between scandinavian and gaelic popular tales and folk-lore, but the evidence is too vague and uncertain to be of much value. it is however in man that we get the most interesting traces of the presence of the norsemen. here as elsewhere we have place-names and personal names bearing witness to their presence, but we have much else besides. some rune-inscribed crosses have been preserved to us. the crosses are celtic in form and to a large extent in ornament also, but we find distinct traces of the scandinavian animal-ornamentation. the inscriptions are short and for the most part give only the name of the memorial-raiser and the memorised. one bears the rune-writer's own proud boast 'gaut made this and all in man.' more interesting than the runes are the sculptured figures. on four of the crosses we have representations of incidents from the sigurd story--sigurd slaying fafnir, sigurd roasting fafnir's heart and cooling his fingers in his mouth after trying too soon if the heart was done, loki slaying the otter. we also have pictures of thor's adventure with the serpent of miðgarðr and of odin's last fight with fenrir's wolf. these sculptured stones are probably among the latest of those found in man and have their chief parallel in stones found in sweden (_v. supra_, p. ). possibly it was to settlers from man also that we owe the famous gosforth cross in cumberland with its picture of thor's fishing for the serpent. in addition to all this we have the manx legal system as a standing witness to norse influence. the chief executive and legislative authority in the island (after the governor) is the tynwald court. that court takes its name from the old norse _Þing-völlr_[ ], the plain where the _Þing_[ ] or popular assembly meets, and the house of keys, which is the oldest division of the court, consisted originally of members, a number perhaps due to scandinavian influence, being a combination of two groups of lawmen (_v. supra_, p. ). these men who have the 'keys of the law' in their bosom closely resemble the 'lawmen' or speakers of the icelandic assembly. all laws to be valid must be promulgated from the tynwald hill which corresponds to the _lögberg_ or law-hill of the icelandic _althing_. when the court is held the coroner 'fences' it against all disturbance or disorder, just as in the old norwegian gulathing we hear of _vé-bönd_ or sanctuary-ropes drawn around the assembly. it was possibly from man that a good number of the norse settlers in cumberland, westmorland and north lancashire came (_v. infra_, pp. - ), and others may have settled in galloway. footnotes: [ ] this word survives in another form in more than one thingwall among place-names. [ ] the word is familiar to us in the form -_ting_ in _hus-ting_, house assembly (originally _hús-Þing_), a council held by a king or earl and attended by his immediate followers, in contrast to the ordinary _Þing_ or general assembly of the people. chapter x scandinavian influence in ireland at the time of the viking invasion of ireland the various provincial kingdoms were held in loose confederation under the authority of the _ardrí_ or high king, but these kingdoms stood in constantly shifting relations of friendship and hostility towards one another, and were themselves often split into factions under rival chieftains. there was no national army like the english _fyrd_. rather it consisted of a number of tribes, each commanded by its own chief, and though the chief owed allegiance to the king, the bond was a frail one. the tribe was further divided into _septs_ and the army was utterly lacking in any cohesive principle. it is no wonder that for many years the irish showed themselves quite unable to cope with the attacks of forces so well organised as those of the norse and danish vikings. in vivid contrast to the chaos in political and military organisation stand the missionary enthusiasm of the irish church and the high level of education and culture which prevailed among her clergy and _literati_. in the orkneys and the shetlands such names as papa westray or papa stronsay bear witness to the presence of irish priests or _papae_ as the norsemen called them. irish anchorites had at one time settled in the faroes (_v. supra_, p. ), and when the norsemen first settled in iceland (c. ) they found irish monks already there. the monastic schools of ireland were centres of learning and religious instruction for the whole of western europe, while irish missionaries had founded monasteries in italy, switzerland, germany and france. unfortunately religion and culture seem to have been almost entirely without influence on the body politic, and as the vikings had at least in the early days no respect for the religion or the learning of the irish nation there was nothing to prevent them from devastating irish monasteries and carrying off the stores of treasured wealth which they contained. no plunder was more easily won, and it was only when they themselves had fallen under christian influences and had come to appreciate irish literary and artistic skill that they showed themselves more kindly disposed towards these homes of learning. one feature must at once strike the observer who compares the viking settlements in ireland with those in england, viz. that viking influence in ireland is definitely concentrated in the great coast towns--dublin, wexford, waterford, cork and limerick--and the districts immediately around them. irish place-nomenclature bears very definite witness to this fact. _ford_ in strangford and carlingford loughs, waterford and wexford is o.n. _fjorðr_, a fjord, -_low_ in arklow and wicklow is o.n. _ló_, 'low-lying, flat-grassland, lying by the water's edge.' the o.n. _ey_, an island, is found in lambey, dalkey, dursey head, ireland's eye (for ireland's ey), howth is o.n. _höfuð_, 'a head,' carnsore and greenore point contain o.n. _eyrr_, 'a sandy point pushing out into the sea.' smerwick contains the familiar o.n. _vík_ a bay or creek, while the copeland islands off belfast lough are the o.n. _kaupmannaeyjar_, 'the merchants' islands.' all these are found on or off the coast, while the number of scandinavian names found inland is extremely limited. the most interesting perhaps is leixlip on the liffey, a name derived from o.n. _laxahlaup_, 'salmon-leap.' donegal, fingall and gaultiere are celtic names, but they mark the presence of the northern _gall_ or foreigners, while the -_ster_ in ulster, leinster and munster is o.n. -_staðir_ (pl. of -_staðr_, place, abode) suffixed to the old gaelic names of these provinces. there was free intermarriage between norse and irish (_v. supra_, p. ), but the strength of the clan-system kept the races distinct and there was no such infiltration of the whole population as took place in the english danelagh. this system prevented any such settlement of norsemen upon their own farms as took place in england, and the invaders lived almost entirely in the coast towns and the districts in their immediate neighbourhood, busying themselves with trade and shipping. though the settlements were limited in their extent, we must not underrate their influence on irish history generally. they gave the impetus there, as elsewhere, to the growth of town life, and from the period of viking rule dates the origin of the chief irish towns. to them also was due the great expansion, if not the birth, of irish trade. mention has been made of the wealth of limerick (_v. supra_, p. ), drawn chiefly from trade with france and spain, and the other towns were not behind limerick. the naval power of dublin stretched from waterford to dundalk, the irish channel swarmed with viking fleets, and many of the shipping terms in use in gaelic are loan-words from the norse. it is probably to the trading activities of vikings from the chiefs ports of ireland that we owe the sprinkling of names of norse origin which we find along the welsh coast from the dee to the severn--great orm's head, anglesey, ramsey i, skokholm island, flat holme and steep holme, and to them may be due the establishment of swansea, earlier _sweinesea_, haverfordwest and possibly bideford, as norse colonies in the bristol channel. we know in later times of several norsemen who were living in cardiff, bristol, swansea and haverfordwest. norse influence in ireland probably reached its climax in the th century. the battle of clontarf offered a serious check and though there was still a succession of norse kings and earls in dublin they had to acknowledge the authority of the _ardrí_. the line of sigtryggr of the silken beard came to an end by the middle of the th century, and the rulership of dublin fell into the hands of various norse families from other irish settlements and from man and the isles. from - it was under the rule of the great conqueror godred crovan from man, and its connexion with that kingdom was only severed finally when magnus barefoot came on his great western expedition in , and brought man into direct allegiance to the kings of norway. celtic influence must have been strong in the norse families themselves. several of the kings bear gaelic names, and it is probably from this period that such familiar names as maclamont or maccalmont, maciver, and macquistan date, where the gaelic patronymic prefix has been added to the norse names lagmaðr, Ívarr and eysteinn. while norse power in dublin was on the decline as a political force it is curious to note that the vigorous town-life and the active commerce instituted by the norse settlers made that city of ever-increasing importance as a centre of irish life and irish interests generally, and there can be no question that it was the norsemen who really made dublin the capital city of ireland. the norse element remained absolutely distinct, not only in dublin but also in the other cities in which they had settled, right down to the time of the english invasion in the th century. frequent mention is made of them in the records of the great towns, and they often both claimed and received privileges quite different from those accorded to the native irish or to the english settlers. they were known to the latter as 'ostmen' or 'easterlings,' a term which in this connexion seems to have ousted the earlier _norvagienses_ or _les norreys_, _les norwicheis_. the term 'ostman' doubtless represents o.n. _austmaðr_, a man dwelling to the east. exactly how or where it first came to be applied to norsemen it is difficult to say. the word has left its mark in oxmanstown, earlier ostmanstown, the district of the city of dublin assigned to the ostmen by the english invaders. learning and religion in ireland suffered grievously from norse attack but not so sorely as in england. there was never a time when so dark a picture could have been drawn of irish learning as alfred gives of the state of english learning when he translated the _pastoral care_, and when once the vikings began to form settlements they were themselves strongly affected by the wealth of literary and artistic skill with which they found themselves brought into contact. the question of irish influence on norse mythology and literature is a much vexed one. at present we are suffering from a reaction against exaggerated claims made on its behalf some thirty years ago, but while refusing to accept the view that norse legends, divine and heroic alike, are based on a wholesale refashioning and recreating of stories from celtic saga-lore, it would be idle to deny that the contact between the two nations must have been fertile of result and that norse literature in form, style and subject-matter alike, bears many marks of gaelic influence. chapter xi scandinavian influence in england of the districts occupied by scandinavian settlers in england the ones which show their presence most strongly are cumberland, westmorland, north lancashire and yorkshire in the old kingdom of northumbria and the district of the five boroughs in the midlands. east anglia was not so deeply affected by the danish occupation. before dealing with one of the chief sources of our knowledge of the presence of norse and danish settlers in various parts of england, viz. the evidence derived from place-nomenclature, a few words must be said as to the chief scandinavian elements which can be recognised in english place-names. of elements other than personal names the commonest are as follows, several of them being used as independent words to this day in english dialects which have been affected by scandinavian influence:-- -beck. o.n. _bekkr_, brook, small stream of water. -biggin(g). o.n. _bygging_, building. -by. o.n. _bør_, dan. swed. _by_, town or village. this word indicates a danish rather than a norse settlement. -car(r), -ker. o.n. _kjarr_, _kjörr_, brushwood, especially on swampy ground. -dale. o.n. _dalr_, valley. etymologically this word might be of native english origin but its distribution points to norse influence. -fell. o.n. _fjall_, mountain. -force. o.n. _fors_, waterfall. -forth. o.n. _fjorðr_, fjord. english -ford and scandinavian -forth often interchange in the old documents. -garth. o.n. _garðr_, enclosure, the scandinavian equivalent of english 'yard.' -gill. o.n. _gil_, deep narrow glen with a stream at the bottom. -holm. o.n. _holmr_, small island especially in a bay, creek, or river. in england its meaning was further developed and it often means 'low-lying level ground on the borders of a river or stream.' now often concealed in the suffix -ham. -keld. o.n. _kelda_, well, spring. -lund, -lound. o.n. _lundr_, grove. now often corrupted to -land in english place-names. -mire. o.n. _myrr_, moor, bog, swamp. -raise. o.n. _hreysi_, cairn. -scale. o.n. _skali_, house. this word is norse rather than danish. -scar, -skear, -skerry. o.n. _sker_, isolated rock in the sea. -scout. o.n. _skúti_, cave formed by jutting rocks. -scough, -scow. o.n. _skógr_, wood. -slack. o.n. _slakki_, slope on a mountain edge. often used in english place-names of a hollow or boggy place[ ]. -tarn. o.n. _tjörn_, small lake. -thorp(e). o.n. _þorp_, hamlet, village. this word is also found in o.e. and in some place-names is undoubtedly of native origin, but its general distribution points fairly conclusively to norse influence. -thwaite. o.n. _þveit_, parcel of land, paddock. -toft. o.n. _topt_, piece of ground, messuage, homestead. -with. o.n. _viðr_, a wood. -wath. o.n. _vað_, a ford. place-names with the prefix _norman_- mark the settlement not of normans but of norsemen (or northmen as the english called them), as in normanton and normanby, while the settlement of danes is marked by the prefix _dena_- or _den_- as in denaby and denby. this latter prefix however has other sources as well. scandinavian personal names are very common in place-names but their presence can as a rule only be detected with any degree of certainty by reference to the forms found in early documents. among the more easily recognised are _grímr_, as in grimsargh (lancs.) and grimsby (lincs.), _gunnarr_, as in gunnerside (yorks.), _ketill_, as in kettlewell (yorks.), _klakkr_, as in claxton (norf.), _ormr_, as in ormskirk (lancs.). others, to be found by reference to earlier forms, are _fráni_, as in franesfeld (=farnsfield, notts.), _gamall_, as in gamelestune (=gamston, notts.), _gunnúlfr_, as in gunnulveston (=gonalston, notts.), _knútr_, as in cnutestone (=knuston, northants.), _leifr_, as in levesbi (=laceby, lincs.), _sumarliði_, as in sumarlidebi (=somerby, lincs.), _skúli_, as in sculetuna (=scoulton, norf.), _tóli_, as in toleslund (=toseland, hunts.), _víkingr_, as in wichingestone (=wigston, leic.), _Úlfr_, as in ulvesbi (=ulceby, lincs.). examining the distribution of scandinavian place-names determined by the above tests and others which can be applied with great accuracy, if we study not the modern but the old forms of the place-names, we find that the place-nomenclature of cumberland and westmorland is almost entirely either scandinavian or celtic. indeed it would seem that the anglian settlement had hardly affected these districts at all, and it was reserved for the scandinavian settlers to teutonise them. the same is true of furness and lancashire, north of the ribble, whose old names stercaland and agmundernesse are of norse origin, but south of that river there is a great diminution of norse place-names except along the coast and a little way inland, where we have several -_bys_ and -_dales_. in cheshire the evidence of scandinavian settlement is confined almost entirely to the wirral, but there the large number of -_bys_ and place-names like thingwall (_v. supra_, p. , note ) point to a strong viking colony, and the distribution of place-names in south lancashire and cheshire bears witness to active intercourse between the settlers in ireland and england. on the other side of the pennine chain, though northumberland was several times ravaged by the norsemen and was probably well populated at least in the fertile river-valleys, there is practically no evidence of their presence to be found in place-names. there are several biggins, carrs, and holms, a few tofts and dales, but these are common dialect words and usually found in uncompounded forms. they are practically never found in names of towns or villages, and may well have been introduced from districts further south. in the extreme west and south-west of the county there are 'fells' and 'dales' but these are on the borders of cumberland, westmorland and durham. the small streams are 'burns' and not 'becks,' the wansbeck being a corruption of an earlier _wanespike_. when we cross into co. durham the tributaries of the wear vary between 'burn' and 'beck,' but by the time we reach the tees these have all become becks. beechburn beck, a tributary of the wear, shows how a scandinavian term could be attached to an english name, when its own meaning was neglected or forgotten. other scandinavian names are common, but as in northumberland they belong to the dialect generally and are seldom found in names of towns or villages. viking settlers must have been few in numbers and widely scattered throughout these two counties. one great exception must be named among the towns, viz. durham itself. the city was named _dún-holmr_, 'the hill-island,' by the vikings, and its present name is only the norman corruption of that form. south of the tees we find ourselves in a district whose place-names are to a very large extent scandinavian, and norse settlements are thickly and evenly distributed from the north sea to the pennine chain. passing from northumbria to the danelagh, lincolnshire is perhaps more purely scandinavian in its place-names than any other english county. in derbyshire viking influence is not so strong but the county was probably very thinly inhabited at least in the north and west and did not offer attractive settling ground. derby itself was rechristened by the northmen, its earlier name being 'norðweorðig.' the rich fields and pastures of leicestershire attracted a great many settlers and nottinghamshire is also strongly scandinavian. rutland and northamptonshire are strongly danish except that there is some shading off towards the s.w. corner of the latter county. in the country bordering the danelagh on the south and west, staffordshire has a few scandinavian place-names on its derbyshire and leicestershire borders, while warwickshire has several on its leicestershire and northamptonshire borders. in east anglia danish settlements must have been numerous in the north and east especially towards the coast, but their presence is less strongly marked in the s.w. portion of the county. in suffolk they are confined still more definitely to the coast-districts and the danes do not seem to have settled in the south of the county at all. three kirbys near the essex coast mark settlements in that county. of the other border-counties huntingdonshire, cambridgeshire and bedfordshire show only the slightest traces of scandinavian influence in their place-nomenclature, though we know from other evidence that there must have been many danish settlers in these counties. closely allied to the evidence of place-names is that of dialect. a very large number of words definitely of scandinavian origin are found in the dialects of n.e. and n.w. england, in the n. midlands and east anglia, but they do not furnish so sensitive a test as do place-names for the extent of the scandinavian settlements and they need not be discussed here. more interesting as evidence of the deep influence of the viking settlers on our language is the large number of scandinavian loan-words which have become part of our standard speech, many of them being words essential to our every-day talk. to scandinavian influence we owe the pronouns _they_, _them_ and _their_, the adjectives _same_ and _both_, the _fro_ in _to_ and _fro_ and possibly the auxiliary _are_ and the preposition _till_. these last are found in the northumbrian dialect of old english but their widespread use is probably due to scandinavian influence. in addition to these we may note the following: verbs: _bait_, _bask_, _batten_, _call_, _cast_, _dawn_, _droop_, _drown_, _gain_, _gabble_, _ransack_, _scare_, _scour_, _scrape_, _skim_, _skip_, _squeal_, _stint_, _take_, nouns: _anger_, _billow_, _boon_, _dusk_, _fellow_, _gait_, _grime_, _haven_, _husband_, _husk_, _husting_, _scull_, _scurf_, _skill_, _skin_, _skirt_, _sky_, _window_, adjectives: _awkward_, _ill_, _odd_, _rotten_, _scant_, _sly_, _ugly_, _weak_, and a good many words in which scandinavian forms have replaced the cognate english ones, e.g. _aloft_, _athwart_, _awe_, _birth_, _egg_, _get_, _gift_, _give_, _guest_, _raid_, _sister_, _swain_, _thursday_. these words are for the most part of the very stuff and substance of our language, giving vivid expression to clear-cut ideas, and though numerically they are outnumbered by the loan-words from french, they are in themselves more essential to our speech than the rich vocabulary derived from that language. for the extent and character of the viking settlements in england we have however a far more delicate and accurate index than that to be found in the evidence of place-names and dialects. when we study the pages of domesday, the great record of english social organisation in the th century, we find that in the counties which came under viking influence there are many details of land-division, tenure, assessment and social organisation generally wherein those counties differ from the rest of england, and some of these differences can still be traced. the 'ridings' of yorkshire and the lindsey division of lincolnshire were originally 'thrithings' (o.n. _þriþjungr_, a third part), the initial _th_ being later absorbed by the final consonant of the preceding 'east,' 'west,' 'north' and 'south' (in lincs.). the chief tests of scandinavian influence, drawn from domesday and allied sources, are however as follows: ( ) the use of the danish 'wapentake' as the chief division of the county in contrast to the english 'hundred.' this is found in lincolnshire, derbyshire (with one exception on its southern border), nottinghamshire, leicestershire, rutland, and one district of northamptonshire, now included in rutland. we have wapentakes in yorkshire, except in certain districts along the sea-coast, while in lancashire the term was applied to the court of the hundred or shire long after the conquest. there is some evidence also for the belief that the use of the hundred (or wapentake) as an administrative unit is in itself due to scandinavian influence. the proportion of names of hundreds (or wapentakes) which are definitely of danish origin is very high and, unless we assume wholesale renaming, this points to their having been first named at a period subsequent to the danish conquest. ( ) the assessment by carucates in multiples and submultiples of is characteristic of the danelagh, as opposed to that by hides, arranged on a decimal system in the strictly english districts. this is found in derbyshire, nottinghamshire, lincolnshire, leicestershire and rutland, with the exception of the above mentioned district. there are traces of a duodecimal assessment in the two n.e. hundreds of northamptonshire, while in lancashire a hidal assessment has been superimposed upon an original carucal one. carucal assessment is found also in yorkshire, norfolk and suffolk. ( ) in lincolnshire, nottinghamshire, derbyshire and yorkshire we have traces of the use of the danish 'long' hundred (= ), e.g. the fine for breaking the king's peace is £ , i.e. ores[ ] of pence. using the various tests we find that the scandinavian kingdom of northumbria was considerably smaller than the earlier realm of that name, northumberland and durham being but sparsely settled, while south lancashire and cheshire were occupied chiefly along the coast. the kingdom would seem to fall into two isolated halves, cumberland and westmorland and north lancashire in the north-west and yorkshire in the south-east. the district of the five boroughs covered derbyshire, nottinghamshire, lincolnshire (lincoln and stamford), leicestershire, and probably the whole of rutland (stamford). the case of northamptonshire is difficult. the carucal assessment fails except in the extreme n.e. of the county, but danish place-nomenclature is strongly evident, though it shades off somewhat towards the s.w. it resembles danish east anglia rather than the district of the five boroughs and it is possible that the boundary of guthrum's east anglian kingdom, which is only carried as far as stony stratford in the peace of alfred and guthrum, really ran along watling street for a few miles, giving two-thirds of that county to the east anglian realm. northumbria was governed by a succession of kings. the five boroughs formed a loose confederation, and there can be no question that the districts which 'obeyed' (_v. supra_, p. ) the boroughs of derby, leicester, nottingham, lincoln (and stamford) and northampton form the modern counties named from these towns. it is also to danish influence direct or indirect that we owe the similar organisation of the counties of huntingdonshire, cambridgeshire, bedfordshire and hertfordshire in the old east anglian kingdom. each of these counties had a _jarl_ or earl, whose headquarters were at the 'borough.' he summoned the _here_, whether for political or military purposes, and when these counties passed once more under english rule he fulfilled the functions of the older _ealdorman_. in east anglia, apart from place-names (_v. supra_, p. ) and carucal assessment in norfolk and suffolk, we are left with the boundaries of guthrum's kingdom and with various miscellaneous evidence for estimating the extent of scandinavian influence. there is a curious 'hundredus dacorum' (cf. _supra_, p. ) in hertfordshire, while the _historia eliensis_ and other documents tend to show the presence of a strong danish element in the population and social organisation of the districts around cambridge. the kingship of east anglia came to an end early in the th century, and it is probable that its organisation was then changed to one resembling that of the five boroughs, viz. a number of districts grouped around central 'boroughs,' which afterwards became counties, except in the older divisions of norfolk and suffolk. a careful study of domesday and other authorities reveals many other features of interest in our social system which were due to viking influence. certain types of manorial structure are specially common in the danelagh. manor and vill are by no means identical, indeed several manors are included under one vill. very frequent is the type which consists in a central manor with sokeland appurtenant. in the danelagh there was a large number of small freeholders and the free peasant class was much more numerous than in anglo-saxon england. these districts stand in clear contrast to the strongly manorialised southern counties and they were not feudalised to any appreciable extent before the norman conquest. when that system was imposed we often find single knight's fees having to be taken over by entire communities of sokemen. the 'holds' of northumbria, who rank next after the earls, and the 'drengs' of cumberland, westmorland, lancashire, northumberland and durham, are also of scandinavian origin. the 'dreng' was 'a free servant of the king endowed with lands' and the name still survives in the yorkshire place-name dringhouses. the legal instinct was strong in the scandinavian mind and english law bears deep marks of its influence. the very word 'law' itself is of scandinavian origin and has replaced the english 'doom.' the chief judicial authority in lincoln, stamford, cambridge, chester and york was in the hands of twelve _lagmen_ or _judices_. these 'lawmen' (_v. supra_, p. ) though they had judicial authority were not chosen by the king or by popular election. their position was hereditary. of special interest are the ' senior thanes' of aethelred's laws for the five boroughs enacted at wantage in . they have to come forward in the court of every wapentake and to swear that they will not accuse wrongly any innocent man or conceal any guilty one. the exact force of this enactment has been a matter of dispute--whether the thanes simply bore witness to the personal status of the accused, thus enabling the court to determine the ordeal through which he should be put, or whether we have an anticipation of the system of presentment by jury. whatever may be the exact truth there can be little doubt, says dr vinogradoff, that such a custom prepared the way for the indictment jury of the th century. the same author attributes to danish influence a new conception of crime. it is no longer merely a breach of the peace or the result of a feud, to be settled by monetary compensation, it is a breach of that conception of honour which binds together military societies. the criminal is now branded as _nithing_, a man unworthy of comradeship with his fellow-warriors. unfortunately it is only within the last few years that the question of danish influence on our social, political and legal systems has been treated at all seriously and much work still remains to be done, but we can already see that the danes affected english life far more deeply than a superficial glance might suggest. doubtless the danish invasions struck a heavy blow at learning and literature, a blow from the effects of which not even the heroic activities of an alfred could save them, but there can be no question that in the development of town life, in the promotion of trade, in the improvement of organisation and administration, in the modification of legal procedure the invaders conferred great benefits on the country as a whole. footnotes: [ ] in scotland it is used of a hollow pass in a ridge. [ ] the _ore_ as a unit of weight for silver is of scandinavian origin. in some districts it was of the value of pence, in others of pence, and eight _ores_ went to the _mark_. chapter xii scandinavian influence in the empire and iceland considering the long and devastating campaign of the vikings within the frankish empire and more especially within its western portion, it is surprising that they only formed permanent settlements in one small area, leaving practically no marks of their presence elsewhere. great portions of the low countries were in almost continuous occupation by them during the th century, but the opportunity was lost, and beyond an important share in the development of the trade of duurstede, the vikings hardly left a sign of their influence behind them. the case of normandy is different. here we have a definite district assigned to the invaders, just as the danelagh was given to them in england, and the whole of that territory is deeply impregnated with their influence. many of the norman towns in -_ville_ contain as the first element in their name a norse personal name, e.g. catteville, cauverville, colleville, fouqueville, hacqueville containing the names _káte_, _kálfr_, _kolr_, _fólki_, _hákon_, while the suffixes -_bec_, -_beuf_, -_dale_, -_ey_, -_gard_, -_londe_, -_torp_, -_tot_, -_tuit_, -_vic_ as in bolbec, elbeuf, saussedalle, jersey, eppegard, mandelonde, torgistorp, abbetot, bracquetuit, barvic go back to o.n. _bekkr_, _búð_ (booth), _dalr_, _ey_ (island), _garðr_, _lundr_, _þorp_, _topt_, _þveit_, _vík_ (_v. supra_, pp. - ). the dialect of normandy to this day contains a good number of scandinavian words, and others have been introduced into the standard language. some of these have also found their way into english through our norman conquerors, e.g. _abet_, _baggage_, _elope_, _equip_, _jolly_, _rubbish_, _scoop_, _strife_ just as the _bulbeck_ in swaffham bulbeck (cambs.) and bulbeck common above blanchland in northumberland is from the great norman barony of bulbeck, so named after bolbec in normandy, of which they once formed part. norman law and customs also show many traces of scandinavian influence and so does norman folk-lore. the normans still looked to denmark as their home-land down to the end of the th century, and at least twice during the reign of harold bluetooth their dukes received help from that country. the nobles soon ceased to speak their old northern language, but it is probable that it remained current on the lips of the people for some considerable time longer. the vikings always showed themselves keenly sensitive to the influence of a civilisation higher or more developed than their own, and this is nowhere more apparent than in normandy. heathenism found a champion as late as when, on the death of william longsword, a rising of heathen normans was crushed with the aid of the frankish king, but for the most part the normans soon showed themselves devout sons of the church and were destined in the th century to be numbered among the most ardent supporters of the crusades. with the adoption of christianity they learned to respect and honour those homes of learning which they had once devastated for their wealth of hoarded treasure, and the famous school at bec, whence came lanfranc and anselm, was only one among many which they richly endowed and supported. their religious and artistic feeling found expression in that development of romanesque architecture which we know as norman and which has given so many famous buildings not only to normandy but to england, to sicily and to southern italy generally. in literature the norman-french _trouvères_ did much towards popularising the romances of war and adventure which play so important a part in medieval literature, and when they settled in england it was largely due to anglo-norman poets that 'the matter of britain' became one of the great subjects of romance for all time. in its social organisation normandy seems speedily to have been feudalised. rollo divided the land among a comparatively small number of large landholders and the system of land tenure was quite different from that in the english danelagh with its large number of small freeholders. on the other hand it was probably due to norse traditions of personal freedom that serfdom disappeared earlier in normandy than in any other of the french provinces. trade and commerce were fostered here as everywhere by the vikings. it was the normans who first taught the french to become a power at sea, many french naval terms are of norman origin and from the norman province have come some of france's greatest sea-captains. the vikings like the franks before them threw off their old speech and submitted to the all-embracing power of latin civilisation, and the result was a race endowed with vigorous personality, untiring activity, and the instinct for ruling men. the normans may have become largely french but they lost none of their old enterprise and spirit of adventure. in the th century they conquered england and founded great kingdoms for themselves in sicily and south italy. no viking stock was more vigorous than that which resulted from the grafting of gallo-latin culture on the ruder civilisation of the teutonic north. their influence on france as a whole is not nearly as great as the influence of their kinsmen in england, probably because english government was centralised (under norman rule) much sooner than french government, and their influence was thus able to make itself felt outside the actual districts in which they settled. the settlement of normandy helped however towards the consolidation of power in the hands of charles the bald and his successors, much as the settlement of the danelagh helped in establishing the final supremacy of wessex. it remains to speak of one great home of viking civilisation to which more than one reference has been made in previous chapters, viz. iceland. the story of its settlement is a very simple one. it commenced about , when many great norwegian noblemen sought there for themselves and their followers a freer life than they could obtain under the growing power of harold fairhair. it was greatly strengthened by settlers both from norway and from ireland and the western islands when that power was firmly established by the battle of hafrsfjord, and by the year the settlement was practically complete. iceland was more purely scandinavian than any other settlement made during the viking age. here we have not the case of one civilisation grafted on another and earlier one as in england, ireland or the frankish empire, but the transference of the best and finest elements in a nation to new and virgin soil where, for good or ill, they were free to develop their civilisation on almost entirely independent lines. settlers from the western islands and from ireland may have brought celtic elements, and christianity was not without influence, when it was introduced from norway at the close of the th century, but on the whole we see in iceland just what viking civilisation was capable of when left to itself. at first the settlers lived in almost complete isolation, political and religious, from one another, but they soon found that some form of organisation was necessary and groups of settlers began by choosing from among their number a _goði_, or chieftain, half-priest, half-leader, who was the speaker at their moot and their representative in negotiation with neighbouring groups. then, continued disputes and the lack of a common law led to the establishment of a central moot or _alþing_, with a speaker to speak one single law for all. but the norsemen were much better at making constitutions and enacting laws than they were at observing them when instituted, and the condition of iceland has been vividly if roughly summarised as one of 'all law and no government.' the local _þings_ or the national _alþing_ might enact perfect laws, but there was no compelling force, except public opinion, to make them be obeyed. even the introduction of christianity made no difference: the icelanders quarrelled as bitterly over questions of ecclesiastical as of civil law and the authorities of the medieval church were scandalised by their anarchic love of freedom. in the words of professor ker 'the settlers made a commonwealth of their own, which was in contradiction to all the prejudices of the middle ages and of all ancient and modern political philosophy; a commonwealth which was not a state, which had no government, no sovereignty.' 'it was anarchy without a police-constable.' the result was that the rich men grew richer, the poor became poorer, the smaller gentry died out and the large estates fell into fewer and fewer hands. the great men quarrelled among themselves, intrigued against one another and played into the hands of the norwegian kings who were only waiting their opportunity. it came in the days of hákon the old. 'land and thanes' were sworn into subjection to that king at the althing in , and in the old icelandic common law was superseded by a new norse code. the failure of the icelandic commonwealth is amply compensated for by the rich intellectual development of icelandic literature, which owed many of its most characteristic features to the fact that it was written in a land almost completely isolated and detached from the main currents of western medieval thought and the general trend of european history, but in itself that failure is full of deepest import for a right understanding of the part played by viking civilisation in europe. powerful and highly developed as that civilisation was in many ways, it only reached its highest and best expression when brought into fruitful contact with other and older civilisations. there it found the corrective for certain inherent weaknesses, more especially for certain tendencies of too strongly individualistic character leading to political and intellectual anarchy, while at the same time by its own energy and vigour it quickened the life of the older civilisations where they were tending to become effete or outworn. the germanic peoples had done much for the development of european civilisation in the time of the wanderings of the nations, but by the end of the th century they had lost much of their pristine vigour through contact with the richer and more luxurious civilisation of the roman world. it was reserved for the north germanic peoples, or the northmen as we can more fitly describe them, in the th and th centuries to give a yet more powerful stimulus to european life, if not to european thought, a stimulus which perhaps found its highest expression in the great creations of the norman race in the world of politics, the world of commerce, the world of architecture and the world of letters. bibliography [the appended bibliography does not attempt to deal with primary authorities, with the large mass of valuable periodical literature which has been published within the last thirty years, or with books only incidentally concerned with the movement. it is much to be regretted that so few of the important scandinavian books on the subject have been translated into english.] bjÖrkman, e. scandinavian loan-words in middle english. halle. . bugge, a. vikingerne. series. christiania. - . (german trans. of st series. leipzig. .) ---- vesterlandenes inflydelse paa nordboernes i vikingetiden. christiania. . ---- norges historie. vol. i, pt. ii. christiania. . collingwood, w. g. scandinavian britain. london. . craigie, w. a. the religion of ancient scandinavia. london. . dietrichson, l. and meyer, s. monumenta orcadica. christiania. . (abridged english edition.) du chaillu, p. b. the viking age. vols. london. . gustafson, g. norges oldtid. christiania. . henderson, g. the norse influence on celtic scotland. glasgow. . keary, c. f. the vikings in western christendom. london. . kermode, p. m. c. manx crosses. london. . maurer, k. die bekehrung des norwegischen stammes. vols. munich. - . montelius, o. sveriges historia. vol. i. stockholm. . (german tr. kulturgeschichte schwedens. leipzig. .) mÜller, s. vor oldtid. copenhagen. . (german tr. nordische altertümskunde. vols. strasburg. - .) olrik, a. nordisk aaandsliv i vikingetid. copenhagen. . (german tr. nordisches geistesleben. heidelberg. .) steenstrup, j. c. h. r. normannerne. vols. copenhagen. - . ---- danmarks riges historie. vol. i. copenhagen. - . thomsen, v. the relations between ancient russia and scandinavia. oxford. . vogel, w. die normannen und das fränkische reich. heidelberg. . vogt, l. j. dublin som norsk by. christiania. . the publications of the viking club (saga-book and year book) include papers on various aspects of the movement and notices of the literature of the subject as well as descriptions of various archaeological discoveries. index aethelflæd of mercia, , , aethelstan, - alfred the great, - altar-ring, , _althing_, anlaf godfreyson, ; sihtricsson (cuaran), , , , - , arabic historians, references in, , , auðr the deep-thoughted, , , , , _bautasteinar_, björkö, , , björn ironside, , , black foreigners, brian borumha, , - brunanburh, , , burial ceremonies, - , - _carucates_, - christianity, , , , , - clontarf, - , , , cnut, - , , _daci_, , danegeld, - , danelagh boundaries, , - ; reconquest, - danes, _passim_ denmark, , , - , , - _drengs_ - _dubh-gaill_, dublin, , , - , , - , , , , - east anglia, , , - , , - eddaic poems, , - edmund ironside, - edward the elder, , england, invasion of, , - ; influence in, - eric blood-axe, - ethelred the unready, - faroes, , _fin-gaill_, five boroughs, , , , - frisia, - , france, invasions of, - , - ; influence in, - frisians, _gaill-gaedhil_, , , galloway, , gokstad ship, greenland, guthrum of east anglia, - hásteinn (hastingus), , , , hafrsfjord, , hákon aðalsteinsfóstri, - , halfdanr, , , , harold bluetooth, , - , harold fairhair, , , , , harold hardrada, , , harold of mainz, , - , heathenism, , - hebrides, , , , - , _hiruath_, _holds_, hörðaland, hörðai, , _hows_, iceland, , , , - ireland, attacks on, - , , - ; danes and norsemen in, - ; influence in, - Ívarr the boneless, , - , - _jarls_, , jellinge stone, jómsborg, jómsvikings, - , , jury, presentation by, ketill finn, ketill flatnose, , _lawmen_, , , limerick, , , , _lochlann_, _ludwigslied_, _madjus_, maeshowe, , maldon, battle of, man, isle of, , , , - , - _nithing_, noirmoutier, , , norsemen, norwegians, _passim_ northumbria, , - , , - , , , , , - normandy, - , - norway, , ; christianity in, - odin, , , ohthere, Óttarr, , olaf tryggvason, , , , , olaf the white, , - , , _ore_, orkneys, , , , - , ornamentation, style of, , - ornaments, - oseberg ship, - _ostmen_, _oðal_, , paris, , - place-names, influence on scottish, ; irish, - ; english, - _prime-signing_, ragnarr loðbrók, - , , , rhôs, , , - _ridings_, rollo, , , runic inscriptions, , , - , - , - rus, - russia, founding of, - st anskar, , st edmund, st olaf, , _scaldingi_, scandinavian loan-words in english, - sculptured stones, , , - seven boroughs, shetlands, , , , - , ship-burials, - ships, , - shires, origin of, _n_., sigurd of the orkneys, , - slesvík, , , sodor and man, stamford bridge, _suðreyjar_, svein forkbeard, , , , sweden, , swedes, , , - _thing_, , - thor, , , trade, character of, - ; oriental, , - ; russian, - ; irish, turf-einar, turges, , tynwald court, _udal_ and _udaller_, varangians, variags, , - vestfold, , viking, the term, viking movement, causes of, - vinland, _wapentake_, weapons, - wedmore, peace of, _westfaldingi_, white foreigners, women, position of, - , york, , , cambridge: printed by john clay, m.a. at the university press. the cambridge manuals of science and literature published by the cambridge university press general editors p. giles, litt.d. master of emmanuel college and a. c. seward, m.a., f.r.s. professor of botany in the university of cambridge sixty volumes now ready _history and archaeology_ ancient assyria. by rev. c. h. w. johns, litt.d. ancient babylonia. by rev. c. h. w. johns, litt.d. a history of civilization in palestine. by prof. r. a. s. macalister, m.a., f.s.a. china and the manchus. by prof. h. a. giles, ll.d. the civilization of ancient mexico. by lewis spence. the vikings. by prof. allen mawer, m.a. new zealand. by the hon. sir robert stout, k.c.m.g., ll.d., and j. logan stout, ll.b. (n.z.). the ground plan of the english parish church. by a. hamilton thompson, m.a., f.s.a. the historical growth of the english parish church. by a. hamilton thompson, m.a., f.s.a. brasses. by j. s. m. ward, b.a., f.r.hist.s. ancient stained and painted glass. by f. s. eden. _literary history_ the early religious poetry of the hebrews. by the rev. e. g. king, d.d. the early religious poetry of persia. by the rev. prof. j. hope moulton, d.d., d.theol. (berlin). the history of the english bible. by the rev. john brown, d.d. english dialects from the eighth century to the present day. by w. w. skeat, litt.d., d.c.l., f.b.a. king arthur in history and legend. by prof. w. lewis jones, m.a. the icelandic sagas. by w. a. craigie, ll.d. greek tragedy. by j. t. sheppard, m.a. the ballad in literature. by t. f. henderson. goethe and the twentieth century. by prof. j. g. robertson, m.a., ph.d. the troubadours. by the rev. h. j. chaytor, m.a. _philosophy and religion_ the idea of god in early religions. by dr f. b. jevons. comparative religion. by dr f. b. jevons. the moral life and moral worth. by prof. sorley, litt.d. the english puritans. by the rev. john brown, d.d. an historical account of the rise and development of presbyterianism in scotland. by the rt hon. the lord balfour of burleigh, k.t., g.c.m.g. methodism. by rev. h. b. workman, d.lit. _education_ life in the medieval university. by r. s. rait, m.a. _economics_ cash and credit. by d. a. barker, i.c.s. _law_ the administration of justice in criminal matters (in england and wales). by g. glover alexander, m.a., ll.m. _biology_ the coming of evolution. by prof. j. w. judd, c.b., f.r.s. heredity in the light of recent research. by l. doncaster, m.a. primitive animals. by geoffrey smith, m.a. the individual in the animal kingdom. by j. s. huxley, b.a. life in the sea. by james johnstone, b.sc. the migration of birds. by t. a. coward. spiders. by c. warburton, m.a. house flies. by c. g. hewitt, d.sc. earthworms and their allies. by f. e. beddard, f.r.s. _anthropology_ the wanderings of peoples. by dr a. c. haddon, f.r.s. prehistoric man. by dr w. l. h. duckworth. _geology_ rocks and their origins. by prof. grenville a. j. cole. the work of rain and rivers. by t. g. bonney, sc.d. the natural history of coal. by dr e. a. newell arber. the natural history of clay. by alfred b. searle. the origin of earthquakes. by c. davison, sc.d., f.g.s. _botany_ plant-animals: a study in symbiosis. by prof. f. w. keeble. plant-life on land. by prof. f. o. bower, sc.d., f.r.s. links with the past in the plant-world. by prof. a. c. seward. _physics_ the earth. by prof. j. h. poynting, f.r.s. the atmosphere. by a. j. berry, m.a. the physical basis of music. by a. wood, m.a. _psychology_ an introduction to experimental psychology. by dr c. s. myers. the psychology of insanity. by bernard hart, m.d. _industrial and mechanical science_ the modern locomotive. by c. edgar allen, a.m.i.mech.e. the modern warship. by e. l. attwood. aerial locomotion. by e. h. harper, m.a., and allan e. ferguson, b.sc. electricity in locomotion. by a. g. whyte, b.sc. the story of a loaf of bread. by prof. t. b. wood, m.a. brewing. by a. chaston chapman, f.i.c. some volumes in preparation _history and archaeology_ the aryans. by prof. m. winternitz. the peoples of india. by j. d. anderson. prehistoric britain. by l. mcl. mann. the balkan peoples. by j. d. bourchier. the evolution of japan. by prof. j. h. longford. the west indies. by sir daniel morris, k.c.m.g. the royal navy. by john leyland. gypsies. by john sampson. english monasteries. by a. h. thompson, m.a. a grammar of heraldry. by w. h. st john hope, litt.d. celtic art. by joseph anderson, ll.d. _literary history_ the book. by h. g. aldis, m.a. pantomime. by d. l. murray. folk song and dance. by miss neal and f. kitson. _philosophy and religion_ the moral and political ideas of plato. by mrs a. m. adam. the beautiful. by vernon lee. _economics_ the theory of money. by d. a. barker. women's work. by miss constance smith. _education_ german school education. by prof. k. h. breul, litt.d. the old grammar schools. by prof. foster watson. _physics_ beyond the atom. by prof. j. cox. the sun. by prof. r. a. sampson. wireless telegraphy. by c. l. fortescue, m.a. röntgen rays. by prof. w. h. bragg, f.r.s. _biology_ bees and wasps. by o. h. latter, m.a. the life-story of insects. by prof. g. h. carpenter. the wanderings of animals. by h. f. gadow, m.a., f.r.s. _geology_ submerged forests. by clement reid, f.r.s. coast erosion. by prof. t. j. jehu. _industrial and mechanical science_ coal mining. by t. c. cantrill. leather. by prof. h. r. procter. cambridge university press c. f. clay, manager london: fetter lane, e.c. edinburgh: , princes street transcriber's notes obvious errors of punctuation and diacritics repaired. inconsistent hyphenation fixed. p. : murray -> moray. p. : nordisk aaandsliv -> nordisk aandsliv. p. : cnut, - -> cnut, - . our little danish cousin the little cousin series (trade mark) each volume illustrated with six or more full page plates in tint. cloth, mo, with decorative cover per volume, cents list of titles by mary hazelton wade, mary f. nixon-roulet, blanche mcmanus, clara v. winlow, florence e. mendel and others =our little african cousin= =our little alaskan cousin= =our little arabian cousin= =our little argentine cousin= =our little armenian cousin= =our little australian cousin= =our little austrian cousin= =our little belgian cousin= =our little bohemian cousin= =our little boer cousin= =our little brazilian cousin= =our little bulgarian cousin= =our little canadian cousin= =our little chinese cousin= =our little cossack cousin= =our little cuban cousin= =our little danish cousin= =our little dutch cousin= =our little egyptian cousin= =our little english cousin= =our little eskimo cousin= =our little french cousin= =our little german cousin= =our little grecian cousin= =our little hawaiian cousin= =our little hindu cousin= =our little hungarian cousin= =our little indian cousin= =our little irish cousin= =our little italian cousin= =our little japanese cousin= =our little jewish cousin= =our little korean cousin= =our little malayan (brown) cousin= =our little mexican cousin= =our little norwegian cousin= =our little panama cousin= =our little persian cousin= =our little philippine cousin= =our little polish cousin= =our little porto rican cousin= =our little portuguese cousin= =our little russian cousin= =our little scotch cousin= =our little servian cousin= =our little siamese cousin= =our little spanish cousin= =our little swedish cousin= =our little swiss cousin= =our little turkish cousin= the page company beacon street, boston, mass. [illustration: "little children were playing about the statued form of their beloved story-teller, hans christian andersen" (_see page _)] our little danish cousin by luna may innes illustrated by elizabeth otis [illustration] boston the page company publishers _copyright, _, by l. c. page & company (incorporated) _all rights reserved_ first impression, june, second impression, january, to my little nephew =graeme lorimer= on his ninth birthday preface denmark means "land of dark woods." although one of the smallest states of europe, the little kingdom of denmark holds a very large place in the world's history, having supplied rulers for many of the countries of europe. the dane loves his beautiful country, the land of thorvaldsen and of hans christian andersen, of blue lakes, and "fairy-tale" castles. since the days of leif and biarne, denmark and the united states have been allied, and therefore i feel sure that the children of america will be interested in the story of their little danish cousin. i wish to express grateful acknowledgment to hr. georg beck, consul for denmark in chicago; also to mr. haakon arntz, and to mr. and mrs. oscar andersen, for generous information given in regard to the manners and customs of the danish people. luna may innes. chicago, _february, _. contents chapter page preface vii i. the distinguished visitor ii. copenhagen iii. "hurrah for king frederik!" iv. up the sound to hamlet's castle v. "fairy-tale" castles and palaces vi. the legend of the sacred "dannebrog" vii. the story of the danish "ahlhede" viii. skagen ix. a danish peasant wedding x. jul-tide at grandmother ingemann's list of illustrations page "little children were playing about the statued form of their beloved story-teller, hans christian andersen" (_see page _) _frontispiece_ "valdemar burst into the room" "where jolly-looking women with quaint headdresses were selling their wares" "they spread them on the grass in the shadow of the great brick tower" "in the centre of the studio stood the unfinished statue of the little crown prince" "'welcome! and _glaedelig jul!_' called out both grandfather and grandmother ingemann" [illustration: map of denmark] our little danish cousin chapter i the distinguished visitor "hurtig! _kaere karen, mit lommetørklæde!_" fru oberstinde ingemann and her little flaxen-haired daughter, karen, were sitting at their embroidery work in the deep window-seat that made one whole side of the cozy ingemann living-room overlooking the botanical gardens. between stitches, karen was watching the rain patter on the little diamond window-panes, now and then pausing to take a quick look at some favorite newly-blossomed flower in the brilliant, long line of window-boxes which bordered the windows "like a long bright ribbon," as karen said. the bell rang. "_hurtig! kaere karen, mit lommetorklaede!_" sounds like something terrible, but fru ingemann was only saying in danish: "quick, dear karen, my handkerchief!" "thank you, karen," said the lady, as the fair child replaced the sheer bit of linen in her mother's hand with a pretty courtesy, for karen was a well-bred little girl. it was a morning of excitement for fru else ingemann. two important letters had come to her from over the seas. one had come from chicago in far-away america, saying that her brother-in-law, the hon. oscar hoffman, was coming once more to pay a visit to dear old denmark. mr. hoffman was an important man in america. he was the president of the "danish-american national park" in north jutland, and it was in his loyal danish brain that the whole idea of the great park had originated. it had been his dream to save to the glory of denmark, for all time to come, a wonderful, wild tract of heather-covered hills where, year by year, thousands of loyal danish-americans might meet in the fatherland, and celebrate america's independence day on danish soil. at last the park was a reality, and he was coming to make necessary arrangements. he was bringing his son, karl, with him, and, while they were to be in copenhagen, they would spend their time with the ingemanns. he hoped that the little cousins would become great friends. they would arrive in copenhagen on saturday. to-day was thursday. the other exciting message came from fru ingemann's favorite brother, hr. thorvald svensen. it was postmarked rome, italy, and informed her that at last he was coming back to live in his dear old home in copenhagen, and that he would arrive on that day. hr. svensen had been living in rome for eight long years, and in those years of persistent, hard work he had finally realized his one great ambition, and become denmark's greatest sculptor--greatest, at least, since the day of denmark's beloved thorvaldsen, whose namesake he was. to fru ingemann there was no more welcome news in all the world. his letter said that he longed to see her and the children once more. little valdemar, who was the sculptor's godson, was wild with joy. "let me stay home from school to-day, mother!" he implored. "no, no, valdemar," firmly answered his mother, as she handed him his school luncheon, a box of delicious _smörrebröd_.[ ] when valdemar's mother said "no, no," he knew that further protests were useless. so he kissed her and was off, calling back: "good-bye, mother dear; keep _gudfar_[ ] thor until i come home from school, _please_!" all that morning fru ingemann flew about in happy expectancy, making more cozy the pretty little apartment. karen could hear her mother, as she worked, singing softly those familiar old lines from baggesen, the well-known danish poet: "ah, nowhere is the rose so red, nowhere so small the thorn, nowhere so soft the downy bed as those where we were born." above the patter of the rain came the sound of approaching carriage wheels. fru ingemann paused. "quick, karen,--the bell! it may be uncle thor!" and so it proved! all the eight, long, lonesome years since she had last seen this dear brother, years in which she had lost her husband, were quickly forgotten in his great hearty embrace. "_min kaere soster!_" "_min kaere broder!_" their hearts were so full they could not find words. karen, tiptoeing, wanted to fling her tiny arms about her big, yellow-bearded, viking-like, uncle thor's neck, so he lifted the little maid high in his strong arms and kissed her. "ah, karen, _min lille skat_![ ] how you have grown!" he said affectionately. soft yellow curls framed her pretty face, and two heavy braids of the same glorious hair hung far down her back. "why, you were just a little, two-year-old baby when i went away to rome, and now, i've no doubt, you are dreaming of a boarding-school off in france or switzerland one of these days!" but karen only shook her little blond head and laughed, while uncle thor's beauty-loving eye beamed on the dainty little damsel in white embroidered frock, half-hose and slippers, as he settled himself comfortably in the big arm-chair near the great, green-tiled stove, whose top almost touched the living-room ceiling. "congratulations, dear brother," said fru ingemann. "why didn't you write us all about the great honor you have brought to the family? i saw in this morning's 'nationaltidende,' that you have just been appointed court painter to his majesty, the king! it is the greatest honor that can come to a danish artist. i am so proud of you!" "it is true," he acknowledged, briefly, "but tell me, sister else, how are the boys, aage and valdemar?" "oh, aage is now a big boy of sixteen, off doing his eight years of compulsory military service in the army. aage will grow up with a straighter back and a better trained body because of his soldiering days. he will be home for christmas with us." "and valdemar?" "valdemar is only thirteen, but he is in his second year at the metropolitan school, one of the best state latin schools in all denmark. he will be back home at three o'clock. i could hardly get him to consent to go to school at all, this morning, after he was told that his gudfar thor was coming." "and karen studies with her private tutors, here, at home?" "yes, thorvald, besides learning to be a good little housekeeper, as well. but you must be both hungry and tired. it is nearly twelve o'clock. come, karen, help me spread the table with something good for _frokost_,[ ] for uncle thor." a cloth of snowy damask was quickly spread with various viands and meats; tongue, salad, salmon, anchovies, plates of butter, with trays containing french (white) bread, and other trays full of thin slices of rye bread, which is such a favorite with all danes. fru ingemann then placed a bottle of beer beside hr. svensen's plate, and brought in the steaming hot tea, which she herself poured into the delicate cups of that wonderful crystalline ware, the famous royal copenhagen porcelain--a set doubly cherished by her as an heirloom in her family for many generations. karen, who could herself make delicious tea, loved to gaze at the fascinatingly delicate decoration of the cups, which looked, as she said, "like frost on the window-pane;" but she never was allowed to touch this precious set of old royal copenhagen, of which not one piece had yet been broken. "and _smörrebröd_, brother?" politely urged fru ingemann, for no good danish housewife would ever think of inviting any one to breakfast without having _smörrebröd_ on the table. "thanks, sister else," replied the hungry artist, who immediately set about thickly spreading butter--famous danish butter--over a slice of rye bread, as did also karen and her mother, after which each proceeded to select the particular kind of fish or meat preferred, and, arranging it upon the slice of buttered bread, ate it much as we would a sandwich. uncle thor made an especially delicious one for karen, who had already become a great favorite with him. _frokost_ over, fru ingemann arose, and, bowing slightly to her brother, said: "_velbekomme!_"[ ] and hr. svensen did the same. "_tak for mad, moder_,"[ ] said karen courtesying first to her mother and then to her uncle thor, and kissing them both--a beautiful old danish custom. uncle thor was a great lover of flowers. to-day there were beautiful flowers on the table, in the windows, everywhere! in fact, the whole ingemann apartment seemed overwhelmed with the loveliness of them. besides the vases, there were little flower-pots galore, all decked in brightly-colored paper, some containing blooming plants, others, little growing trees. "ah, karen, has there been a birthday here?" asked uncle thor, in mock surprise. "run out in the hall and see what came all the way from naples, italy, to frederiksberg-alle, in copenhagen, for a good little girl with long pigtails." karen came running back with a tiny white kid box in her hand. opening it, she beheld the most beautiful set imaginable of pale pink corals. she just couldn't wait to put the necklace on before hugging her dear old uncle thor, who himself had to fasten the pretty chain around her slender little neck for her. "yes, uncle thor, we had a splendid time, and mother gave us chocolate, tea and cakes, and this is what all the boys and girls at my party yesterday sang: "'london bridge is broken down, gold is won and bright renown, shields resounding, war-horns sounding, hild is shouting in the din, arrows singing, mailcoats ringing, odin makes our olaf win.'" karen had hardly finished singing her song describing the days of old, when there had been a mighty encounter on london bridge between the danes and king olaf the saint, ending in the burning of the bridge, when there came a sudden great clatter and uproar on the stairs, with the loud barking of a dog, and the sound of a boy's heavy boots, and valdemar burst into the room. [illustration: "valdemar burst into the room"] "oh, my dear, dear gudfar thor!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms tight round his uncle's neck. "why, valdemar, you are the very image of your father!" exclaimed hr. svensen. "don't you think so, sister else?" he questioned, as he gazed admiringly at the sturdy, big frame, rumpled flaxen hair, and the merry twinkle in the honest blue danish eyes of his godson. "oh, yes, thorvald, valdemar certainly is the image of his father. the king thinks so, too," agreed fru ingemann. "king frederik? why, how is that, sister? has the king never forgotten valdemar?" questioned hr. svensen in surprise. "oh, thorvald, you know the king's wonderful memory. it never fails him. and you must remember the great friendship that always existed between my dear husband and king frederik, from the days when, as boys together, they went through the military college; and later both were recruits in the same regiment, and had to do sentry duty, turn about, outside his grandfather's palace. only the other day, valdemar came bounding into the house, overjoyed, to tell me that he had just passed their majesties, king frederik and queen lowisa, out walking on the _langelinie_,[ ] entirely unattended, and that, when he doffed his cap to the king, his majesty immediately returned his salute, with a friendly smile!" "but, sister else, how do you _know_ that king frederik thinks valdemar the image of his father? i don't understand," persisted hr. svensen, perplexed. "we know!" fru ingemann spoke softly as she. "valdemar was only a little child when his father died," she continued. "his father had always taught valdemar to love the king, and he does so with all his boyish little heart. an accident, a broken arm, soon afterwards put the child in the queen lowisa children's hospital, where, as you know, king frederik makes a monthly visit to cheer the little sufferers. the king loves children. they say that not one little baby-face ever escapes him, and that he even notes each child's improvement from time to time. "valdemar, in his little cot near the door, heard the nurses saying: 'the king comes to-day!' "his little mind was all expectation. finally, the king arrived. valdemar was the first little patient to see him enter, silk hat in his hand as usual. sick as he was, the boy drew himself quickly from out of the covers, stood up in the middle of his bed, and saluted his king with a low bow, so low that his forehead almost touched his pillow. the king paused in surprise at valdemar's cot and spoke: "'my child, why do you do that? why do you salute me?' "'because i like you! you are the king!' "they say that the king looked into the child's face a moment, drew his hand to his eyes, lost in thought, then, turning quickly to prince christian, who accompanied him, exclaimed with a smile: "'_du ligner din fader! oh, vilde jeg onske at din fader levede! gid legligheden maa komme til at hjälpe denne opvagte dreng, for min käre gamle ven ingemann's skyld!_'[ ] "then, placing his hand on the child's golden locks, he spoke tenderly: 'yes, little valdemar ingemann, i am the king. always remember that your father and i were great friends,' and he passed on. "valdemar has never forgotten that moment. he never will. you and the king are the two great heroes of the world in his eyes." "where is he now? come, valdemar! tell me all about what you like most to read," called uncle thor. "oh, uncle thor, i love to read in the old sagas and chronicles all about the mighty sea-fights of the vikings, and about the glorious battles of the valdemars, in the books that aage left me. they make me want to be a soldier. then i love to read everything about linnæus, who loved the trees and the flowers and the whole outdoors just as i do. but, best of all, i'd rather become a famous sculptor like my godfather thor! i'd like that better than anything else in all the world! see, uncle thor, i've modelled some little things already. here is one,--my great dane, frederik,--and here is a stork, and here is a little viking ship. they're not very good, but--" "oh, _min lille billedhugger_!"[ ] interrupted hr. svensen, with feeling, as he took the little toy animals from valdemar to examine them. "this is not half bad work. but _what_ have you done them in, my boy?" "in pie-paste!" laughed his mother. "i have to hide the pie-paste when i'm baking, to keep valdemar from slipping it off to use for modelling!" "valdemar, you shall have some modelling clay. thorvaldsen once made the lion of lucerne in butter. i must tell you that story some day," said hr. svensen, as he patted his little nephew's head affectionately. there was a sharp ring at the bell. karen flew to the door, then back to her mother, excitedly exclaiming: "a box and a letter for you, mother!" fru ingemann tore the note open and read: "will be expelled if it occurs again!" the words swam before her eyes. "oh, valdemar, my son, come explain all this to me at once! it is from your latin teacher. surely there is some mistake. it is not like my boy!" meantime karen had opened the box, and displayed a most laughable clay caricature of valdemar's latin teacher, with the word "teacher" scratched underneath in large letters. she burst out giggling. even uncle thor's look of mock horror soon gave way before the cleverly done effigy, and he laughed. he had been a boy once himself, and it _was_ funny. "well, that's exactly the way teacher looks!" vehemently protested valdemar in self-justification. "indeed he does. ask hendrik or any of the boys. none of us like him one bit, and at recess to-day hendrik drew chalk cartoons of teacher all over the blackboard, and said: 'oh, valdemar, you'd never dare do it in clay!' "'yes, i _would_ dare do it in clay!' i answered him, and then, mother,--i did it. but i didn't mean hr. professor christiansen to see it. i'm glad school's over for all summer on friday!" even valdemar's mother had to laugh, as uncle thor took the offending statuette in his hand to give it a closer examination, for it was as irresistibly funny as it was clever. "brilliant, valdemar!" he exclaimed. "your work has merit. work hard enough, my boy, and you may become a great artist, some day. you have the talent. come over to my studio to-morrow morning. i'll help you a little with your modelling, and then, after luncheon with me, i will take you through the thorvaldsen museum. would you like that? and, by the way, i think there is something nice for you in my trunk. now i am due at the royal palace. i must go and pay my respects to the king. he will be expecting me." "oh, uncle thor, i'll be there!" called out valdemar. "good-bye, uncle thor, good-bye!" footnotes: [footnote : the great danish national dish.] [footnote : godfather.] [footnote : "my little treasure."] [footnote : breakfast] [footnote : "well may it agree with you."] [footnote : "thank you for the food, mother."] [footnote : long line.] [footnote : "the face of his father! oh, that his father were still living! may the opportunity some day be given me to benefit this bright boy, for my dear old friend ingemann's sake!"] [footnote : "my little sculptor."] chapter ii copenhagen summer bursts suddenly in copenhagen. first, winter, with its deep snows, its fogs and frosts and thaws; then a few days of showers and a few of sunshine, _blinkeveir_[ ] the danes call this showery weather; and then, all at once, the bare trees throw out their tender green foliage and the spring flowers burst into life! the long cold winter is over. even then, there sometimes come dense sea-mists which envelop denmark's capital, and only vanish with the sun's warm rays. so copenhageners have a popular weather saying: "'monday's weather till mid-day is the week's weather till friday, friday's weather is sunday's weather, saturday has its own weather." saturday's weather fortunately proved ideal, a rare june day. copenhagen's beautiful public gardens and parks were all aglow with fragrant, blossoming spring flowers. valdemar's school was at last over. "now to the woods!" he cried in joy. "and, mother dear, can't we keep cousin karl all summer with us up at our country place on the _strandvej_,[ ] while uncle oscar has to be away in jutland attending to that park of his? but i should like to be there with him when they have their big american fourth of july celebration, and see them raise their great star spangled banner over our beloved flag! wouldn't you, karl? i've heard about the american 'fourth,' with the stars and stripes waving everywhere, and of the army manoeuvres and big times they have over there in the states on that historic day! but denmark's never had anything like it before, has she, uncle thor?" they were in fru ingemann's pretty dining-room having their twelve o'clock little _frokost_ of tea and _smörrebröd_, this happy little party of six, for the american relatives had arrived. early that morning, valdemar and his uncle thor had hurried to the dock to meet the steamer, "and, but for uncle oscar's waving handkerchief, and his good memory for faces, we might have missed them entirely," explained valdemar, who was delighted with this first acquaintance with his new american cousin. with the first warm spring day, half of copenhagen whitewashes her town house windows against the sun's hot rays, and prepares to migrate farther north, to the famous _strandvej_, where soft breezes from the blue sound play all day over the broad sandy beach, and rustle through the leaves of the beech-trees in the deer park near by. rich and poor alike own their own villas, country houses or little cottages, as the case may be, and these thickly dot the beautiful east sound shore all the way from copenhagen to elsinore, for great is the dane's love of _at ligger på landet_.[ ] like all the rest, through wise and careful planning, fru ingemann had her little country place on the beautiful east shore, where each summer karen and valdemar took long walks through the glorious beech-woods, went swimming, boating and bathing, made their own flower-gardens and dug in the ground to their hearts' content. by the end of each short, happy summer, they were both as tanned and brown as the baskets of beech-nuts they gathered and brought back with them for the winter. "we will have great times, if only cousin karl can come up for the summer with us!" begged little karen. "i'll think about it," was the only promise they could get out of uncle oscar for the moment. "i'm sure karl would like it, but i'm not ready to decide anything just now." "if i'm not mistaken, the first thing karl wants is to see some of the sights of copenhagen," said hr. svensen, as they were leaving the breakfast table. "suppose we all go together and give him a bird's-eye view of copenhagen and the harbor from the top of the round tower! how's that, karl?" "great! can't we start right away?" said the little american, for karl was a typical little chicago boy, eager-minded and anxious to take in everything at once. "and the thorvaldsen museum, uncle thor? can't we go back there again to-day?" urged valdemar, for the wondrous beauty of thorvaldsen's masterpieces still filled all his thoughts. on the way home from the museum, the previous day, he had listened to fascinating stories told him by his godfather, stories about the "lion of lucerne," and about the little peasant boy who loved art, and worked hard, and finally became one of the world's greatest sculptors. valdemar couldn't forget thorvaldsen's lovely "guardian angel," or his wonderful figure of "christ," with its bowed head and arms outstretched in benediction, or the heavenly beauty of his "angel of the baptism kneeling at christ's feet." never, thought valdemar, had he seen anything half so beautiful in all his life! then, there were mighty gods and heroes, and graceful nymphs. "and only think," continued valdemar, "when thorvaldsen was just a little boy eleven years old,--three years less than i am--he so loved his drawing and modelling that his father, who was a poor icelandic ship-builder and carver of figureheads, placed him in school at the academy of arts, where he won prize after prize, not stopping until he had gained even the great gold medal, together with the travelling scholarship which took him to italy to study. there he worked hard day by day, from early dawn till dark without stopping. no wonder the great museum is completely filled with masterpieces from his hand!" "valdemar, my boy, you, too, shall enter as a student at the academy next fall, if your work during the summer continues to show the talent and improvement that will justify my sending you. but that means you must work hard. i leave next week for my summer studio up at skagen, but, until i go, you shall have a lesson each day, if you like, and more lessons up there all summer long, if you will come, for there is no little boy in all the world i would rather help than you, my valdemar." "oh, uncle thor!" cried valdemar, throwing his arms around his godfather's neck, wild with joy. "i will begin to-morrow. and do you really mean that i am to study at the academy?" "yes, my little artist," answered hr. svensen. "and now let us start at once and see some of copenhagen's sights." "and will fru oberstinde not accompany us?" politely inquired mr. hoffman, of his sister-in-law. danish wives and widows are given the same titles their husbands bear, so that fru ingemann, who was the widow of a colonel, or "oberst," in the king's army, was often addressed as "oberstinde," or "coloneless." "not to-day, thank you. karen and i will wait for you at home," said fru ingemann, smiling as she observed the big book in her child's hands. "you see what karen is reading, hans christian andersen's fascinating '_billedbog unden billeder_.'[ ] be sure to be back in time for dinner," she called as the party set off. "_god dag_,"[ ] said the tram conductor politely as they entered. karl smiled. then he began to ask questions, for he had never crossed the ocean before, and never before had he seen any city like copenhagen. chicago certainly had its broad avenues, parks and boulevards, great skyscrapers and fine buildings; but chicago had never dreamed of permitting its one great canal to run right up through the city streets, among the office buildings and houses, with all its shipping, launches and water-craft, as the copenhagen canals all seemed to do in the friendliest possible fashion. "copenhagen must look much more like amsterdam than like athens, father. i can't see why it is called the 'athens of the north.' i don't see any greek-looking buildings here," protested karl. "yes," agreed karl's father, who had once lived in denmark long years ago. "copenhagen may look much more like amsterdam, karl; but, while you will not see greek buildings here, nevertheless the title of 'athens' comes justly, not only because of copenhagen's charming position on the borders of the sound at the entrance to the baltic, giving the city a great advantage commercially, and because of its beautifully wooded environs, but particularly on account of its splendid libraries, art galleries, museums and great university and schools, which rank among the best to be found anywhere in europe. before we reach the round tower we will doubtless get a view of some of these." "_fa' vel_,"[ ] said the tram conductor, bowing pleasantly to them as they got off at their destination. karl laughed outright. "dear me! in chicago car conductors are given prizes for politeness, but i must say, none of them have ever yet reached the point of saying 'farewell' to you as you leave. i'm glad they don't. gee! we'd never get anywhere in chicago if we stopped for all that." "half of copenhagen seems to be out on the streets to-day," remarked mr. hoffman, who had not been back to denmark's beautiful capital for so long that he had forgotten what a large city it was. "look, i believe that must be the new picture gallery, isn't it?" "you are right," replied hr. svensen. "half the charm of copenhagen must be traced to her museums and rich art treasures. shall we give the boys a peep inside?" "oh, yes!" exclaimed both boys at once, for karl had pleasant memories of saturday afternoons he had spent studying all the fine exhibits in the museum of the art institute of chicago. they had soon climbed the broad granite steps, and were walking through the long corridors and halls filled with great paintings, each bearing the artist's name on the frame. "the new picture gallery affords a good opportunity for studying danish pictorial art, just as the new glyptothek does for studying danish sculpture," said hr. svensen, as they were leaving. "what canal is that?" asked karl. "it certainly is a pretty one, with that beautiful promenade and park along one side." "yes, that is holmen's canal, one of the finest in copenhagen," answered hr. svensen. it was full of ships and other water-craft. "and that marble building which looks like an etruscan tomb is the thorvaldsen museum, one of the principal attractions of copenhagen. we shall have to take another day for that. but, just to please valdemar, we will spend a moment inside the church where thorvaldsen's 'christ,' the 'angel of the baptism' and 'the twelve apostles' are all standing in the places for which they were designed." "the danes have accomplished much more in sculpture than in painting, haven't they, uncle thor?" valdemar asked. "yes, you are quite right, valdemar. denmark, as yet, has produced no painter to compare with thorvaldsen." they paused a moment at the _new raadhus-plads_, with its castellated roof, and paved semicircle in front, and again, near by, at the new city hall. "what an attractive part of copenhagen this is," remarked karl, as he observed the many broad, fine, well-kept _pladser_,[ ] with their electric cars gliding noiselessly back and forth with american celerity. "copenhagen seems to me a much cleaner, prettier city than chicago, father. don't you think so? but where are its beggars? we've not yet seen one." hr. svensen was quick to answer that they were not likely to see one. that copenhagen, with a population of nearly five hundred thousand, has a pauper element of less than three per cent. "for the danes are naturally a thrifty, industrious people, more than half of whom are farmers, and many also go to sea in ships," explained hr. svensen. [illustration: "where jolly-looking women with quaint headdresses were selling their wares"] they took a tram down stormgade over a bridge to the island of slotsholmen, with its famous fruit and flower market, where jolly-looking women with quaint headdresses were selling their wares; then over another bridge into _kongens nytorv_, the king's new market. "here we are in a different world from that which we just left," said hr. svensen. they had reached a large square, a great centre of life and bustle, from which thirteen busy streets radiated. through the trees in the centre of this great open space the statue of a king was seen, and red omnibuses crept slowly along on each side of the tram line. here they saw the royal theatre, the famous tivoli gardens, and the beautiful old palace of charlottenburg, close to an inlet of the sea, which reached right into the square with all its shipping, so that masts and sails and shops and buildings took on the same friendly aspect that they have in holland. "but i don't see any 'skyscrapers,' uncle thor, like we have in chicago, sometimes twenty stories high! where are they?" inquired the little american. "in a moment or so, karl, i will show you two 'skyscrapers' that will amuse you!" said hr. svensen. "but, look! here is a lively scene for us first." they were passing the copenhagen fish-market, or _gammelstrand_, as it is called, where the fish are sold alive, after having been kept in large perforated boxes in the canal. "now look, karl! how's that for a skyscraper?" they were looking at the tall tower of the _bors_, or exchange, one hundred and fifty feet high, with its upper part formed by four great dragons whose tails were so intertwined and twisted together, high up in the air, that they gradually tapered to a point, like a spire against the sky. then there was another tower which interested karl. it was on the church of our redeemer. circled by a long spiral stairway of three hundred and ninety-seven steps of gleaming brass, which wound round and round and up and up to the very top of the sharp cone, this tower gave the persevering climber a good panoramic view over copenhagen. "but not so good a view as we can get from the top of the round tower," said hr. svensen. "here we are now." they were glad to quit the jostling crowds on the streets,--throngs of busy shoppers, students in cap and gown, sightseers, and, to-day, bright-coated soldiers at every turn. the soldiers were arriving in copenhagen by hundreds every day now, they were told, in order to be ready, monday morning, to welcome king haakon of norway, who was expected to arrive by ship. "oh, uncle thor, will you or uncle oscar not bring us down to the city, monday, and let us see king haakon drive past?" cried out both boys at once. "yes, boys," said mr. hoffman, "i will be glad to bring you. i leave for jutland in the afternoon, monday, and that will give me my last chance to see a little more of copenhagen." at last they were in the round tower, and felt themselves slowly ascending. up and up, and round and round and round on an inclined plane, they went--past curious niches in the wall, containing ancient monuments covered with runic inscriptions; past a door leading to the university library, with its valuable collection of rare icelandic manuscripts; slowly, on and on, until finally they reached the very top with its observatory, once the home of the great astronomer, tycho brahe. "peter the great once drove a coach and four to the top of this very same tower," volunteered karl. "i've read all about that at school in chicago. what a splendid view of the city we are having. it is all spires, and red roofs and gables built stairway fashion, isn't it?" "and how beautiful and sparkling the waters of the harbor look, all alive with ships, great and small," said valdemar. "it certainly is a splendid seaport!" far away, the baltic, blue as the bay of naples, shimmered in the bright sunlight; and close at hand, at the various wharves, merchantmen, with valuable cargoes from far countries, were loading and unloading. it was a scene of busy life. the boys counted the flags of many different nations. no wonder the city had been named merchant's haven, or _kjöbenhavn_. "what a good view of the coast of sweden we get up here," said valdemar. "and north of us lies elsinore, the scene of hamlet's tragedy. and, karl, i'm sure that, on a clearer day, we could see rugen, the german island, where, one day long ago, the kaiser sat on the top of the cliff four hundred feet high, and watched the famous sea-fight between the swedes and the danes. but i don't like to talk about germany. i'm glad that aage is a soldier. some day he will help us get schleswig back again!" said patriotic little valdemar. "and, only think, some of the geography books have even dared to call the north sea the german ocean! kiel harbor, now bristling with german war-ships, once belonged to denmark, and so did the whole baltic!" "yes, and once the danes were ruling half of england, ireland, and scotland, and they even gained a foothold in normandy," said little cousin karl by way of consolation. "and the germans once stood in terror of our great vikings, who lorded it over the seas in every direction!" added valdemar, with growing enthusiasm. "their graves may be seen on both sides of the north sea to-day. and wasn't it here, uncle thor, when an unusually severe winter had bridged the baltic, that the swedish king, karl gustav, led his army, horse, foot and guns, over the frozen seas where no one had dared to cross before, and finally took copenhagen? but denmark and sweden are at peace now." "i'm glad that they are," replied karl, "and that norway and denmark are, too, or we might not see king haakon next monday!" "come!" said uncle thor. "let us hurry home now, before we are late to dinner. it is a wonderful old tower, having survived both fires and bombardments. once copenhagen was fortified with a wall and a moat, for denmark's capital has passed through many vicissitudes, but in these peaceful days they both have been turned into parks for the people." dinner had been awaiting the hungry sightseers for some time when they reached home. when they had all gathered about the dinner table, it was plain that there was some great secret in the air. fru ingemann's face wore a bright smile, in spite of the late dinner, and little karen held herself with an air of supreme importance, her cheeks bright, and her blue eyes dancing with suppressed excitement. "great news, brother thorvald!" began fru ingemann, handing him a great white envelope bearing the arms of his majesty, king frederik. "when karen and i were quietly studying the recipe book, and thinking of the dinner far more than of kings, the bell rang sharply, and, lo and behold! there stood the king's royal _jaeger_[ ]--in green uniform, three-cornered hat and all--inquiring for you, brother! "'his majesty, the king, sends this message to hr. professor svensen,' he said with a gracious bow, and, again bowing low, departed. karen and i, as you can well imagine, have been guessing everything possible and impossible ever since, and given up in despair, waiting for you to explain it all to us yourself, thorvald." by this time, valdemar's and karen's eyes were bulging wild with curiosity, and even mr. hoffman's face showed extreme interest. what could it be? "i am summoned to the royal palace tuesday at eleven o'clock," explained hr. svensen, "to begin immediate work upon a statue of his royal highness, the crown prince olaf of norway, who has graciously consented to give me a few sittings during his short visit in denmark." when uncle thor had finished reading, he passed the great white envelope, headed "royal palace," with its interesting contents, over to his sister and the children. never before had the king's _jaeger_ come to fru ingemann's little apartment out on frederiksberg-alle! valdemar was the first to speak. "oh, uncle thor! i wonder if dear little prince olaf will pose with his beautiful big dog! he is never without him, you know. and oh, _dear_! uncle thor, can't you take me along with you to mix your clay--keep it damp for you, and just do lots of things you'd like done? i want to go with you so much, uncle thor, to watch you work! i know i could help you ever so much, if _only_ you would just take me!" urged the little embryo sculptor of the now great one. "my dear little valdemar," said uncle thor with much tenderness in his voice, "you are very welcome to go with me to the royal palace 'to watch me work.' but, first, i want to watch _you_ work. watching me will not do you much good, my little artist, until _you_ have done more work, yourself! this summons may delay my leaving for my summer studio, up at skagen, until the end of the week, and i am willing to give half of every day, until i go, to teaching you. now try to have some work ready to show me by to-morrow. i will bring you more modelling clay when you have used up what you have here. in fact, i will bring you some of my own tools, and some casts for you to use as studies. perhaps i can fit up a real little studio right here in your own home for you. i want to see what talent you have, valdemar." "oh, brother, how very good of you!" exclaimed fru ingemann. "valdemar must work very hard. he has talent, i feel sure." they had all finished their soup, a kind of very sweet gruel with vegetables, and a dish of ham was then placed before fru ingemann, who carved it, and passed around the slices, beginning with her nearest guest. fish, preserves, and stewed fruits were served with it. then followed _rod-grod_, a kind of jelly to which the juice of different fruits had been added, tea and coffee, and the little dinner ended with the same ceremony as breakfast. karl tried to suppress a smile as valdemar and little karen courtesied to their mother and uncles, as they said politely: "thank you for the food," and went around and kissed them. "my son," said karl's father, reprovingly, "i like these beautiful old danish customs. i only wish you and all our little american boys and girls had more of this feeling of gratitude." "come, karl," called valdemar, "and see my beautiful della robbia 'singing boys,' that uncle thor brought to me all the way from italy!" as the boys disappeared, the two men withdrew to the smoking-room for a chat over their cigars, while fru ingemann busied herself assembling all the "birthday flowers" into the front window overlooking the avenue, according to an old-time custom in copenhagen. then she tucked little karen snugly in bed with a great pillow propped up against her feet to keep the drafts off, for the early june day had grown suddenly cooler towards night. footnotes: [footnote : blinking weather.] [footnote : sea-side.] [footnote : lingering in the country.] [footnote : "picture book without pictures."] [footnote : good day.] [footnote : farewell.] [footnote : squares.] [footnote : hunter, or messenger.] chapter iii "hurrah for king frederik!" "valdemar, tell me! what is a real king like?" exclaimed karl, as both boys sprang quickly out of bed bright and early monday morning. "is a real king something like a president, only he's all gorgeous with flashing decorations, and a sword and helmet,--like the pictures of napoleon and the german emperor?" "karl, you must have been dreaming about kings! i can't tell you whether a king is like a president or not, for i've never seen a president," said valdemar. "but i am sure of one thing, and that is that our king isn't one bit like the german emperor! king frederik just looks like the very best king denmark ever had, and that is what he really is!" "oh, excuse me, valdemar. i forgot that you don't love the germans. but does king frederik come riding a great prancing charger with an arched neck and--" "you'll soon enough see for yourself how the king looks, karl. oh, there's uncle thor! uncle thor, how long before we can start?" cried valdemar, who was himself almost as excited over the prospect of seeing two great kings at once, as was karl. valdemar had never seen king haakon of norway, son of his own dear king, and, although karl, who was nearly twelve years old, had seen two presidents, and gone once with his father to the white house in washington, he had never seen a real live king in all his short life. "oh, father dear!" he cried, "when _can_ we start? there! i think i heard a bugle! oh, do let's go!" "we will start before very long, karl, but not until you boys have had your tea and bread. and, if i'm not mistaken, i heard valdemar's uncle say that he was to have a good lesson in drawing this morning. king haakon's ship does not arrive in copenhagen harbor before almost noon, so there will be plenty of time." "yes, i do want my lesson!" said valdemar, as they finished their cups of hot tea. "i'm ready, uncle thor," he called out, as he saw his uncle passing. valdemar was in a very happy frame of mind this fine june morning, for his uncle had praised his work of the day before. valdemar had modelled a half life-sized figure of his great dane, frederik, and, to his great surprise, uncle thor had not only said that it was good, but had told his mother that it undeniably showed evidence of real talent. nothing could please valdemar more. saturday's sightseeing had given them all a taste for more. fortunately, karl had brought his bicycle with him from chicago, and so the two boys followed on their wheels, while fru ingemann took her brother, mr. hoffman, and little karen all in a carriage, and drove the length of the beautiful shore road, called the _langelinie_, or long line,--copenhagen's fashionable drive, that stretches for miles along the sea. the place was gay with sunday crowds,--walking, riding, wheeling, driving,--all out enjoying the warm june sunshine, as well as the bracing sea-breeze. when they reached the quaint old citadel, they left the carriage and strolled about the earthworks, viewing the monument made from the guns of the wrecked _dannebrog_, a ship fitly named after the danish flag. promenaders thronged the shore road at this point, gazing at the shipping of all nations which here covered the sound, and off into the dim distance, at the shores of sweden. karl thought that his aunt else must have hosts of little friends, for all the small boys bowed, and the little girls courtesied so prettily, as she passed. but fru ingemann explained to him that it was only a custom of all well-bred danish children to bow and courtesy to their elders, and then she told him how, every spring at _paaske_, or easter, as we call it, this beautiful shore road is thronged all day long with gay crowds all decked out in their _paaske_ finery, as it is again later at _store bededag_, or great praying day, on the fourth friday after easter. from here they drove out to the old castle of rosenborg, with its fine garden where little children were playing about the statued-form of their beloved story-teller, hans christian andersen; and then straight home again, passing, on their way, the royal residential quarter, amalienborg, which forms a great open square, adorned with the beautiful marble church, and, in the centre of the square, with a statue of king frederik v. "now we're off!" said uncle thor, as valdemar finished a very good drawing lesson, for karl and his father, and karen and her mother were already waiting. at first the electric tram simply flew. but, as they approached the down-town section of the city, its way was often blocked by the dense crowds, who, like themselves, were coming to witness the arrival of copenhagen's honored royal guest, his majesty, king haakon of norway. "norroway-over-the-foam, as it was once called," laughed fru ingemann, "is a land of beauty which we must all visit some day. it is so many, many times the size of our little denmark that it makes us feel, by comparison at least, a very small country indeed." "but denmark occupies more space on the map than either belgium or holland," said valdemar. "and denmark is nearly twice the size of massachusetts," added karl. "but, oh! just do look at the terrible crowds!--and right here is where we get off! father says 'come!'" all at once they were thrust into the vast crowd. all copenhagen seemed suddenly to have poured by thousands forth into the streets, and the flags of norway and denmark floated everywhere side by side. "if only we can make the opposite side of the street!" said uncle thor, nervously looking about him in every direction, "we shall be safe, for right up there, on the second floor of that building, is my friend's office, from the window of which we are to view the royal procession. ah! we're safe now!" no sooner had they taken their positions in the large open window, than they heard, in the distance, a cannon's loud report. it was followed by a salute of guns and loud cheering. "there!" said both boys at once. "that means that king haakon has landed, and is now on his way here!" the cheering sounded nearer and nearer, and the cannon continued to boom. "forty guns!" said valdemar, who had been counting. "forty guns is denmark's royal salute. karen dear, can you see?" "yes, thank you, brother," said the child, whose feet were fairly dancing with so much excitement. "but look! they are clearing the street! the people are being made to keep back on the sidewalks. listen! that is our glorious old national hymn that the splendid royal guards are now playing. the king must be near! listen, karl! oh, isn't it all thrilling!" nearer and nearer sounded the familiar strains. "it _is_ splendid, karen," conceded karl, "but i'd like the star spangled banner just as well, and, besides, i guess a king's no bigger'n a president! oh, look!" but it was only an advance guard of mounted police. "i'm glad, mother, that our window has the largest flag in town flying from it," said valdemar. "i just _do_ hope the king will look up here and see it! listen! now the people are beginning to cheer right down here under our very window! and the men are doffing their hats!" "hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" cheered the loyal thousands, as the scarlet-coated king's guard came in view. "oh!" gasped karen, with a long-drawn breath of delight. "oh! isn't it glorious! hear the bugle! and here come the mounted hussars with their little red capes fastened on one shoulder, and swords flashing! how splendidly they ride!" "mother, i'm going to wave my own flag when the king's carriage passes!" cried patriotic little valdemar. "if king frederik will only look up! don't you hope he will, karl? oh! there's his carriage now! yes, he sees my flag waving! he's looking! i'm going to cheer! hurrah for king frederik!" the king heard and raised his head. his eyes fell directly upon valdemar's bright face, as had been the case that long ago day, in the children's hospital. king frederik smiled, bowed, and gave the lad a military salute of recognition. king haakon was seated beside king frederik, but valdemar did not see him. in the following carriage were the two queens, queen maud of norway, and their own beloved danish queen lowisa, with little crown prince olaf, of norway, seated between them; but valdemar saw only king frederik. "mother! he _knew_ me!" cried valdemar, as the brilliant procession passed slowly out of sight, and the music, whose strains came faintly back to them, had changed from denmark's "kong christian" to the norwegian national hymn in honor of king haakon. chapter iv up the sound to hamlet's castle "mother dear, how fine and cool the sea-breeze feels!" exclaimed valdemar, as the little sound steamer puffed along over the bright baltic waves, past the big merchant-ships on the blue sound, making many stops on its way up towards historic old elsinore, the spot made famous by shakespeare. uncle oscar had departed three days before, going directly to the jutland park, to begin preparations for the entertaining of the thousands of loyal danish-american visitors, expected to arrive in time for the fourth celebration, and fru ingemann had given him her promise to meet him there, with the three children, for that great event. for it had not taken fru ingemann long to decide that uncle oscar's plan for the summer was best. summer days are long, but few, in denmark,--the winters cold and stormy,--and karen and valdemar needed the trip as much as did karl, she told herself. so the little party of four were already on their way north, to see for themselves all the wonders and beauties of jutland, of which karl's father had been telling them. once fru ingemann had decided, the days fairly flew. valdemar wanted to start at once. but there was all the packing to be done--of things to be left, and things to be taken--and the flat to be closed for at least several months. karen, who had never before been farther from home than their own little villa up on the _strandvej_, was overjoyed and danced busily about, saving her mother steps in a thousand different ways; while valdemar and karl surprised fru ingemann by getting out ladders, buckets and brushes, and nicely whitewashing all the flat windows, which was really being very useful indeed. "aunt else, why is our steamer so awfully crowded with people? are the sound boats always like this?" asked karl, who could hardly turn his chair around without knocking into some one. "yes, karl, it's like this every year at 'deer-park-time.' the huge crowds are as eager as ourselves to leave copenhagen with the first warm day and flee to _skoven_,[ ] for we danes love our beautiful woods. with the first bursting of the beech-buds, everybody asks everybody else: 'have you been in the woods yet?' and then by thousands--young and old--they flock to our beloved beech-woods. those who cannot find room on the boats take the first train, or carriage, or cycle, or car, or even foot it--any way at all in order to reach the deer park, for that is where most of them go. after we make a stop there, we shall have plenty of room on our boat, karl. look! we are passing charlottenlund, the crown prince's palace. you can see it up among those fine old trees." "then, aunt else," asked karl, "isn't 'deer-park-time' something like our american 'indian summer,' only that it comes in the spring? it's your finest part of spring, and our best part of fall, when every one wants to live out of doors. isn't that it?" "that's just right, karl," laughed fru ingemann. "and a little danish boy would feel almost as badly not to be taken to the beech-woods when 'deer-park-time' comes, as would a little english boy if he got no plum pudding on christmas day, or a little scotch boy without his currant bun on new year's day, or a nice little american boy like you, karl, if he couldn't have any firecrackers for his fourth of july celebration. but here we are stopping at the deer park now. half the people are getting off." valdemar's eyes looked far beyond the disembarking crowds landing at the pier. he saw only the dark pine trees in the distance, straight and tall, suggesting to his imaginative mind giant masts for viking ships. many a fine day had he spent tramping through those tree-shaded walks with his mother, while she told him wonderful stories about denmark's great heroes of old. "in america, we like to go to the woods, too," said karl; "but not just to walk and walk all day. we like to play ball, or climb the trees for nuts, or keep doing something all the time. do you ever do anything but just walk, in your woods?" "sometimes, on a warm summer's evening in the woods, we sing some beautiful old hymn, like grundtwig's: "'for danes have their home where the fair beeches grow, by shores where forget-me-nots cluster, and fairest to us, by cradle and grave, the blossoming field by the swift-flowing wave.' there are no people in all the world, karl, who have the same simple love for their trees, as do the danes," explained his aunt else. "there, karl, we are starting again," said valdemar. the beautiful deer park, with its masses and pyramids of green foliage, followed the sound-shore for five miles before the steamer had left it behind. the boat kept close to the shore, stopping frequently at the little, red-roofed settlements, inviting little villas and sea-bathing resorts, to let off more passengers, for everybody in copenhagen who can, must lie on the _strandvej_ for at least a part of every summer, enjoying the out-of-doors amusements, the bathing, the woods, sea, sky and sunshine. nestling among the trees of the _strandvej_, for miles, were little white, yellow, and green villas, among them fru ingemann's,--at the sight of which karen, who always felt a little sick on the water, brightened, and exclaimed: "there, karl, is ours! you must come back and spend another summer with us up there. we do have the best times, don't we, valdemar?" the afternoon was singularly fine. hundreds of ships were gliding silently past them in one continuous procession. "why," exclaimed karl, "there must be the flags of every nation on the globe. i've counted the russian, german, french, english, swedish, norwegian, italian, greek, spanish and portuguese flags, and, look!--there is a steamer with our dear old united states flag! how narrow the sound is growing, aunt else. the mountains of sweden look nearer and nearer. i believe that, if i yelled loud enough, the people over there could easily hear me." "yes, karl, we must be nearing helsingör, for the sound certainly is narrowing rapidly. it is less than two miles wide at that point. it hardly seems three hours since we left copenhagen," remarked fru ingemann. "oh, mother, look! isn't that old kronborg now?" exclaimed valdemar. "that is surely hamlet's castle, mother! helsingör is where we land!" "yes, it is grim old kronborg castle, valdemar. many a tale its old gray walls could tell of terrible fighting, royal merrymaking, and of sadness. karen and you, boys, shall go all through it when we land. for three hundred years kronborg was the key to the sound, keeping a sentry-like guard over the gate between the baltic and the north sea. for before the kiel canal was cut, as many as twenty thousand ships every year passed through this narrow strait, bound for russian and swedish ports; and denmark grew rich from the sound dues she collected. now, the gates are open to the ships of all countries, and, when foreign sovereigns or men-of-war glide through this narrow silvery streak dividing sweden and denmark, old kronborg's cannon give a friendly salute. but, come, we are landing now." it was but a few minutes' walk up to the frowning old fortress on the promontory, with its many lofty, gray stone towers rising from the castellated roof. karl was seeing for the first time in all his life a real "fairy-tale" castle, surrounded by a broad moat and ramparts. first they were shown the apartments occupied by the royal family when, at rare times, they visit kronborg. passing a little chapel, with its carved choir-stalls and pulpit, they found themselves, after a fatiguing ascent, out upon the flat roof of a great square tower, from which they gazed in admiration in all directions, for the day was remarkably clear and bright. far and near, over land and sea, the view was magnificent. to the east rose the mountainous swedish coast, and, to the north, the gleaming blue waters of the sound expanded into the equally blue kattegat. all was still, like noon. nothing seemed to move but the multitude of white sails silently passing and repassing through the narrow silvery strait below. "mother dear, do you think i shall ever be able to paint anything so beautiful as this? uncle thor could do it justice, mother; but i--" "yes, dear, if you work hard enough," was his mother's only answer, as she drew his coat collar closer about his neck, for a chill wind had risen. "the swedish coast is so near, mother, that i can see the windows of the houses," said karen. "the coast doesn't look dangerous, does it, mother; but valdemar says the guard told him he had seen as many as six shipwrecks here in one night." "yes, child, there are often bad storms on this coast; for the kattegat is very rough and dangerous at times. now we must go." "but aunt else, i want to see the famous platform where the ghost of hamlet's father walked that night," protested karl, as the little party started down. "why, my dear boy, the ghost of hamlet's father is believed to have paraded this very platform, right here where we are standing," laughed his aunt, as she put her arm about little karen, who shuddered at the thought. "don't you know the familiar verse, karl? "'and i knew that where i was standing, in old days long gone by, hamlet had heard at midnight the ominous spectre cry.' "this is, indeed, the far-famed castle of elsinore, of glorious shakespeare's fancy, karl. you must, of course, have read about it in your school in chicago," said fru ingemann, with a twinkle in her eye. "through the magic of shakespeare's great genius this out-of-the-way corner of our beloved little denmark has become forever famous the whole world over. but come quickly, all of you; we have much yet to see this afternoon, before we take our steamer for aarhus." "wasn't it here in this fortress, too, that beautiful queen caroline matilda was imprisoned until her brother, george iii, sent her to germany, where she soon died?" asked valdemar, as they hurried down. "and, oh, aunt else, isn't it right here in this castle that holger danske stays?" demanded karl. "yes, valdemar, queen caroline matilda was a prisoner here; and karl, no one can ever see holger danske, although it is believed that he is alive somewhere down in the underground vaults of this fortress, and that, whenever denmark needs him, he will arise and come to her aid. all little danish boys know him. valdemar, you tell karl the story," said fru ingemann, as the little party hurried on. "well, karl, holger danske is the great national hero of danish tradition, the founder of the danish nation, in fact," began valdemar, who was thoroughly familiar with his country's history and traditions. "holger danske's cradle was a warrior's shield, so the story goes, and he sits down in the deep dark dungeon of this fortress, all alone, clad in iron and steel, his head forever resting on his strong arms, bending over a marble table to which his great long beard has grown fast. there he forever slumbers and dreams that he sees and knows everything that is happening above in his beloved denmark. whenever his country is in peril, or stands in need of his services, he will appear. but, every christmas night, one of god's angels visits him in his dungeon, and assures him that all his dreams are true, and that denmark is threatened with no extraordinary danger, and that he may sleep on again." as they reached the castle grounds, the guide pointed out the old moat, where ophelia drowned herself, and the spring near by that bears her name. then he took them to the grave of the melancholy dane, in a beautiful shaded spot, marked by a moss-grown cairn of stones, and a granite shaft bearing the inscription: +--------------------+ | | | "hamlet's grav." | | | +--------------------+ footnote: [footnote : the woods.] chapter v "fairy-tale" castles and palaces "'fredensborg' means 'castle of peace.' it is an idyllic spot near here, famous the whole world over as the happy holiday gathering-place, every summer, of half the present crowned heads, majesties, and royal highnesses of europe," said fru ingemann. "let us take this waiting carriage now for a quick drive over there and back again in time for our steamer this afternoon to aarhus. all this part of eastern zealand is so rich in romantic, fairy-tale castles and palaces, that i only wish we had time enough to see them all. but fredensborg's hospitable roof has sheltered all the royal children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of good old king christian ix, of denmark, who was affectionately called 'the grandfather of europe.' only think of a family reunion including king frederik viii and queen lowisa, of denmark; their son, king haakon, of norway; former queen alexandra, of england, and her sister, the dowager empress dagmar, of russia, who were both danish princesses; king george and queen mary, of england; king george, of greece; and the czar of all the russias,--all meeting, every summer, in a quiet little family reunion in our obscure little denmark at fredensborg palace!" "but, aunt else, you left out the german emperor!" observed karl, who persisted in always mentioning the germans. "the german emperor never comes to these royal gatherings, karl. he is the only king who is not welcomed on danish soil," explained fru ingemann, gently. "but here we are now at the palace." they approached the palace through an avenue of magnificent old lindens, through whose interlaced branches they caught glimpses of the blue sky and of the still bluer lake esrom, near by. then, entering a very stony courtyard, the carriage stopped before a few steps, guarded by two stone lions. soon they were walking through the apartments of the queen, on the right, and of those of the king, on the left. from the king's plain working room, on the floor above, they looked out over the beautiful marble garden, so called from the elaborate statuary romantically placed among the old beech-trees, under whose deep shadows king edward and queen alexandra, of england, did their courting. nor was theirs the only royal love tale those mighty old trees could tell. in one room still stood the historic old settee of the czar, so called because the present czar's father, who loved children, used to sit there and play for hours with his own royal children, whom he loved so well. nothing interested them all more than the inscriptions--tender and pathetic--which they found on several of the historic old windows. karl could only read a few, which happened to be in english, such as "alexandra, september, ," and another, "willie," which the king of greece had written. but, when it came to a french inscription: "_que dieu veille sur la famille royale et la protège._ alexandra, ," karl had to call upon valdemar to translate it for him, as well, of course, as all the danish ones. "'may god watch over the royal family and protect it,' is the translation of the french one, karl, by queen alexandra; and olga, queen of greece, has written in danish here on this window: '_danmark, danmark, elskede hjem_,' which means: 'denmark, denmark, beloved home,' and here is a touching one by the late czar: '_farvel kjaere gamle fredensborg_,' 'farewell, dear old fredensborg.'" "and, mother," said karen, "here is: 'farewell, my beloved fredensborg. alexandra, september, ;' and 'christian-louise, ,' and 'valdemar-marie, .'" they drove away through the royal grounds, which reached down to the shores of beautiful esrom lake, glimmering like a sapphire in the setting sun's soft light, and were soon back once more at helsingör. "aunt else," said karl, "fredensborg castle looked exactly like the pictures of castles in the books of fairy tales." "if that is what you like, karl, then some day you must surely see frederiksborg palace, in the lovely forest region north of copenhagen. it stands on an island in a lake, and is all spires, turrets and battlements, and certainly looks like a real fairy-tale castle," said fru ingemann. "some of its venerable beeches are five hundred years old. but here is the little inn where we must have something nice and warm to eat before we take our steamer, in just a few minutes, for we will be sailing all night. we have barely time, if we hurry." after finishing their little dinner of hot cinnamon-flavored soup, broiled fish, rye bread, preserves and _röd-gröd_, all of which tasted so good after their drive back through the woods, they boarded the little steamer which was to take them on their all-night trip over the kattegat to aarhus, on the east coast of the peninsula of jutland, or the continent, as the danes call it. "aunt else, on one of those windows at fredensborg, was the inscription: 'valdemar-marie, .' won't you tell me all about the valdemars? they were denmark's greatest kings, weren't they?" urged karl. "yes, but valdemar will be glad to tell you all about them and about all the other kings of denmark, too, karl; but wait--here comes fróken johanne nielsen, with her little nephews, tykke and hans, to talk to us. fróken nielsen is a great traveller. children, don't you remember meeting them one summer up on the strandvej?" karen courtesied prettily, while the boys arose, bowed, and politely gave their seats to the nielsens. then fru ingemann listened while fróken johanne, who only remained a few minutes, told them of the famous sights of stevns klint, or cliff, on zealand's eastern coast, where they had just been; and of the still more wonderful scenery on the romantic little island of möen, in the baltic, where the dazzling white limestone cliffs of lille and the store klint adorn the sea-coast, and where the summer-time sunset comes after nine o'clock, and the clear northern light lasts until morning. "and don't forget about faxö, aunt johanne, or svendborg. faxö was the best of all," put in little tykke, as he delved deep down into his pockets and brought forth some pieces of fine coral. "yes, faxö is an ancient coral crag jutting out into the baltic," explained fróken johanne. "it is full of beautiful and rare fossils, and from svendborg, on fyen island, we had such a beautiful view for miles and miles. from one high place the children could see alternate land and water five times, as well as the coasts of sweden and germany. the islands seemed like stepping-stones in the baltic. but come, children, say good-bye; we must go." while they had been talking the setting sun had thrown a yellow glory over the waters in front of elsinore, which was now fading slowly away. the forests about the old castle on the promontory became dark, blurred masses, and the white sails below were mere moving shadows. the children could no longer see even the many fine specimens of fossils and coral which hans and tykke had generously divided with them. the little steamer advanced upon the rolling _kattegat_, with great flocks of white-winged sea-gulls following in its wake. fru ingemann noticed that karen, who never could stand the churning motion of a boat, was turning perceptibly pale, and that a vague, uncertain feeling seemed to be creeping over even valdemar and karl, so she took her sleepy little brood below and soon had them all tucked snugly into bed for the night. chapter vi the legend of the sacred "dannebrog" "it's a letter from uncle oscar, mother! i just know it is!" cried valdemar, as fru ingemann opened and commenced reading aloud the only letter found awaiting them the next day, upon their arrival in the ancient town of aarhus. "and best of all," concluded the letter, "i have a great surprise in store for you all when you reach the park next week. karl will be especially delighted." "oh, aunt else, what can it be? how i wish i knew what father means!" exclaimed karl, dancing about the room in anticipation of so soon seeing his father again. "let us make plans quickly," said fru ingemann. "i am wondering how we shall ever crowd into one short week all the fine trips and excursions we shall want to take before we leave here, for fru petersen tells me that the surrounding country is far more interesting than aarhus itself." "yes, mother, the riis skov and the marselisborg skov, on the outskirts of aarhus, are at their very best now for picnicking," added valdemar, who always loved the woods. "a farmer passed us on our wheels this morning, and told us so." "and he said we should not fail to visit the beautiful chains of lakes and fir-forests around silkeborg," put in karl. "he told us that silkeborg was once just a manor, the property of the bishops of aarhus; and that it came to be built in such a funny way. he said that one of the bishops was so charmed with the scenery in that part of the country that he took a vow that he would build a house wherever his silk cap, which a gust of wind had blown away, should remain. and so the strange name came about. isn't that a funny story, karen? can't we go over to silkeborg right now, aunt else?" "oh, not to-day, karl, for it's much too late. besides, the sky looks threatening. i thought i heard something like low, distant thunder just a moment ago. but to-morrow we can take an all-day trip over to mt. himmelbjaerg and back, if we're all up bright and early in the morning," said fru ingemann. they were stopping with the petersen family, in a little red-roofed, many-gabled house on a quiet side street in aarhus. karen and her mother had taken a short walk through the residential portion of the old town and back, and the two boys had been out on their wheels most of the day, eagerly exploring every nook and cranny of the healthy little trading city on the kattegat, which was a town of standing in the far-off days when copenhagen was but a mere little fishing village. they had ridden past the public library, the artistic custom-house, pretty little theatre, the interesting art gallery, with its fine collections by danish artists, the grim old red-brick gothic cathedral, with its gables, narrow pointed windows and massive tower, and finally down to the busy harbor of jutland's thriving capital, where large vessels enter, for it is built out on the open shore. "aunt else, the other day, i remember, you called jutland 'the peninsula;' fru petersen always says 'the continent;' and once i heard somebody speak of 'us islanders;' so which is it?" asked karl. "i'm not surprised that you are confused, karl. i will try to explain it all to you," said his aunt. "denmark is literally an island kingdom, for she has about two hundred islands in all, situated at the entrance of the baltic. since the cutting of the kiel canal, even jutland, which originally was, and still is in name, the cimbrian peninsula, has now become in reality an island, some of whose parts, being actually below the sea-level, are protected by dykes and embankments. even the limfjord, which is no longer a fjord but a sound, cuts jutland in two again, adding one more to the list of denmark's many islands. even copenhagen, denmark's capital, is built upon two islands,--the great island of zealand and the little island of slotsholmen, over which it extends. "besides these, and many other smaller islands of the danish archipelago, denmark has colonies, much larger than herself, which, strangely enough, are all islands. one is iceland, with its volcanic fires and geysers spouting through the ice; and the great snow-buried island of greenland is another of denmark's frigid possessions. there is also a group of islands in the west indies.[ ] "yes, aunt else, thank you for telling me all about it. but i do wish i knew what father's 'great surprise' is to be!" sleepily murmured karl, closing his eyes. "valdemar, you were going to tell us all about denmark's kings. won't you do it now?" "yes, do, brother," begged karen, as she yawned and buried her flaxen head in a big, soft pillow. "tell my best stories to such a sleepy audience? i guess not!" said valdemar, himself yawning. "such a sleepy lot of children! off to bed, every one of you, and up early in the morning," said fru ingemann, kissing them good night. hardly had they been in bed an hour, when a terrific thunder-storm broke over aarhus. with the first deafening crash of thunder, the whole petersen family sprang from their beds, dressed and rushed to the sitting-room, where they huddled around the great tile stove, their arms loaded down with their most treasured family possessions, fru petersen herself carrying the family plate and the cherished recipe book, which in danish households is handed down from grandmother to mother and daughter. the storm passed as quickly as it had come. by morning the ground was dry, the sky fair and blue, and fru ingemann and her charges well on their way to famous old himmelbjaerg, which means heaven's mountain, for it is the highest spot in all denmark. "why didn't we all jump out of our beds last night, too, mother," questioned karen, as their train was passing through much low, hilly country, in the midst of beautiful woods and lakes. "oh, that was just _noget snak_,[ ] karen. the petersens were brought up in the country, and they were afraid of fire by lightning. but here we are, karl, in the scattered little town of silkeborg, where the bishop's silk cap blew." they first armed themselves with a large basket of provisions, then took a trim little motor-boat, which carried them past woods and gardens and picturesque little stork-inhabited farmsteads, up a pleasant river which soon widened into a lake, and then from one blue lake into another, on and on, until they finally stopped at the foot of heather-covered old himmelbjaerg, on whose summit they could see a tall, obelisk-like monument. "it's denmark's pike's peak! isn't it, aunt else?" exclaimed karl in delight. "father and i have climbed pike's peak in colorado, and, i can tell you, mountain climbing is just lots of fun! can't we go to the very top to-day, aunt else?" with their long alpenstocks, karen and the boys led the way up the gentle slope, while fru ingemann closely followed with the basket of good things to eat--_smörrebröd_, oranges, tarts, cake and sugar-plums, which disappeared as though by magic when they spread them on the grass in the shadow of the great brick tower. the view from the "kol," or top, was indescribably beautiful, reaching as far as eye could see over far-stretching forests, and valleys and corn fields and chains of lakes, in every direction to the unbroken horizon. "mother, mother! how wonderful!" exclaimed valdemar, after he had looked long and silently at the impressive scene before him. "it's like one of turner's great paintings!" [illustration: "they spread them on the grass in the shadow of the great brick tower"] the grass on the mountain-side waved in the strong summer wind. beetles hummed, insects buzzed in the heather about them, and a little field-lark, perched on a near-by beech-tree, poured forth its song, while karen chased the brilliant-winged butterflies as they dashed through the sunlight. "'erected by frederik vii,'" read valdemar aloud, deciphering the inscription on the base of the brick tower. karen and karl came running up, their arms full of mountain wild-flowers they had found almost hidden among the deep heather. "valdemar, are you going to tell us all about the danish kings now?" urged karl, who was a good student of united states history, and loved hero-tales of any country. "please start at the very beginning. karen wants to hear, too." "and, after the story is finished, perhaps we shall have time for a little row on the lake," added fru ingemann. quickly they ranged themselves comfortably on the grass in the shade of one of himmelbjaerg's giant old beeches, whose long arms swept the ground about them. "denmark means 'land of dark woods,'" began valdemar, who loved his beautiful country, and was familiar with her legends and history from his babyhood up. "the northmen were a fire-worshipping heathen people, according to snorre sturlason, who says that odin, their chief god, was a real personage, who used to appear to men. but all this early history of denmark is so full of legend, petty fights of kings, piratical exploits, and strange, wild stories and romances of the skalds, that it is very hard to tell which is fact or fable, until we come to the last thousand years of danish history. "but in those early mythological days, when denmark was covered with dark forests of mighty firs, dan the famous was one of the earliest kings, reigning in b. c. he became powerful, after uniting many small chieftains to himself, and so, according to some authorities, the country was called 'danmark,' or the border of the 'dans,' or danes. "gorm the old, in the middle of the ninth century, was really the first king to rule over the whole of denmark, and his was called the golden age. his beautiful young wife, queen thyra dannebod (the dane's joy), was full of goodness and wisdom, and after gorm's death, she built the famous dannewirke, a great wall that stretched across denmark from the north sea to the baltic, for her people's protection against the fearful inroads and plunderings of their southern neighbors. one may see the graves near jellinge, to-day, of gorm the old and queen thyra, two heather-covered, flat-topped cairns marked by massive old runic stones. "then gorm's son, king harold blaatand (blue-tooth), ruled over denmark, and was slain one night as he slept by a camp-fire, by the gold-tipped arrow of his heathen enemy, planatoke. after him came his son, svend tveskaeg, who commenced the conquest of england, which was ended by knud den store, or canute the great, thus uniting the crowns of both kingdoms during his reign and that of his son, harthaknud (hardicanute), who was followed by king svend estridsen. "sometime i must tell karl some of the wonderful tales i've read about all these old kings--tales re-told from the ancient sagas and chronicles, with their warrior-songs, giant-songs, hero-tales and ballads. danish literature is full of them. "but now we come to the three great valdemars, and their glorious battles." "and all about our _dannebrog_--the flag that fell from heaven, valdemar," broke in karen, who never could hear that story often enough. "and tell us all about the king who was put into a bag, won't you, valdemar?" urged karl. "yes, i'm coming right now to both those stories, which happened in the reign of valdemar ii. but first i want to say that it was valdemar i who cleared the baltic and north seas of all the terrible wend pirates, and it was also during his reign that denmark's war-like bishop, absalon, founded copenhagen and gave the people a constitution. "with valdemar ii a great and glorious era for denmark set in. the old ballads and folk-songs tell how he courted dagmar, the fair bohemian princess, for his bride, and never was danish queen more beloved by her people. "indeed, the golden age seemed to have returned to denmark under the early reign of this successful young monarch, who was as knightly and handsome as he was courageous. his empire grew until he finally became master of holstein, schwerin, and all the provinces of northern germany, and his people called him valdemar seir (the victorious). when the pope granted him sovereignty over all the peoples he could convert, he set out upon a crusade against the pagans of esthonia, with more than a thousand ships, and many thousands of men. with the pope's blessing he sailed across the baltic, but so vast did the host of the enemy appear, as his fleet neared the shore, that the danes at first feared to land. but their archbishop reassured them, and they landed in safety. towards evening, with king valdemar at their head, the battle raged furiously. the struggle grew fiercer and fiercer, until the danes, who were outnumbered, were beginning to give way, when there arose a great cry: 'the banner! the banner!' pagan and christian paused. all eyes turned towards the sky, where, as though miraculously flung from heaven, was seen falling into the midst of the christian ranks a blood-red banner bearing a great white cross,--our sacred _dannebrog_. 'for god and the king,' cried the crusading christians, as they seized the heaven-sent flag, and again charged their enemy, who now fled in terror. the victory was won, and the _dannebrog_, from that hour, became the sacred national standard of denmark. "now i'm coming to the 'king in a bag' story, karl," said valdemar. "denmark's power was now supreme throughout scandinavia, northern germany and even over to russia. valdemar's reign was at its height. his people adored him. but there were secret foes--the conquered princes of germany--awaiting his downfall. among them was one in particular called black henry, who hated valdemar, and was biding his chance to overthrow, if not to kill him. all in one single night the treacherous deed was done. wearied by a day spent in hunting, the king and his son slept that night in a small, unguarded tent in the woods of the little island on lyö. suddenly their slumber was broken into by an unseen foe. the king could scarcely move, or speak, or see, or breathe. black henry had fallen upon king valdemar and his son, bound, gagged and tied them up into two bags, and fled with his royal captives to a waiting boat in the river, and hurried them to germany, where they were thrown into prison. "some years after, the king was ransomed by his loyal people with gold and lands, and he finally returned to his beloved denmark amid the greatest rejoicing, to find most of his splendor gone. he was no longer king of a great empire, but he had his people's love, and spent his remaining years faithfully improving all the laws of his country." "oh, what glorious stories you do tell!" exclaimed karl, who, with karen, had been listening spell-bound to the end. "i shall never again see the famous old _dannebrog_, without thinking of that wonderful story of how it fell from heaven, and saved the battle for the danes." "if valdemar never makes his mark in the world as a celebrated sculptor, he certainly will as a great historian, with that memory of his," said his mother, indulgently. the afternoon sun was sinking in the west as they made their way down the mountainside, and soon left beautiful old himmelbjaerg far behind. footnotes: [footnote : in the united states negotiated with denmark for the purchase of st. thomas, one of these islands, as a coaling station, or naval base; but the danish rigsdag refused, by a single vote, to authorize the sale. it is believed that the matter will shortly be again considered by the two countries.] [footnote : some nonsense.] chapter vii the story of the danish "ahlhede" soon they were tramping past wind-tossed rye-fields and through sweet-smelling meadows from which, every now and then, a long-legged stork flapped its wings and flew skyward at their approach. their way to the boats of pretty tul lake,--gleaming through the trees in the sunlight,--lay along the banks of the gudenna river, which has its source among the picturesque hills near veile; then meanders northward through ranges of hills and green fields, winding with many a bend and curve on past old himmelbjaerg, past silkeborg and randers, finally emptying through randers fjord into the kattegat. "are you looking for the row-boats?" came a sweet voice just behind them. "they are just around the bend. i will show you the way." turning in the direction of the voice, valdemar saw a pretty, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed little peasant girl, in embroidered bodice and cap, carrying a great arm-load of poppies and forget-me-nots, and, stiltily walking along the middle of the road back of her, was a great white, red-billed stork. "there are the boats now," she said, pointing down a wooded bank just ahead of them, and turning to go. fru ingemann offered her a small coin with her thanks and a smile, but the proud child refused the coin with an indignant: "_nej tak! ingenting! ingenting!_"[ ] and started on her way,--the stork still following in stately tread. "is that your stork?" karl couldn't help calling after her, for he thought it awfully funny to see the big white stork following a little girl in such friendly fashion. "my stork? why, no! i have no stork," laughed the merry-faced little peasant maid. "but there is a stork's nest on the top of the white church tower over there, and another one up on farmer andersen's chimney, where he placed an old wagon wheel last year for them. and over yonder, in the eaves of the village houses, there must be several hundred storks. they are very tame, and often follow the plough in search of food for their nestlings, which they find in the newly-turned earth. this is their nesting time now. then, when fall comes, they will fly with their little ones down to france and egypt for the winter. but the same storks always come back. this same one followed me about last year. i think it knows me." in karl's land there were no friendly, red-legged storks stalking about the country roads, but he had read all about them in his "andersen's fairy tales." "storks bring happiness and good luck," explained valdemar, "and to kill a stork in denmark is a greater crime, if anything, than to kill a fox in england." as the boat moved out into the blue lake, through the silent reeds and water-lilies along the shore, with its drowsy white swans, karl could still see in the distance the little peasant girl with her wild-flowers, the stork in the middle of the road still keeping stately pace with her. then he burst out laughing at the funny sight. valdemar and karl were both good oarsmen, and so they rowed far out across the lake, then drifted lazily along, while fru ingemann entertained them with one of evald's charming fairy-tales, parts of Öhlenschläger's delightful "aladdin," and tales from old danish saga-lore. "mother, won't you sing something?" begged valdemar, who always loved to hear his mother's beautiful voice. "yes, while you are both rowing back to shore, for it is growing late," said fru ingemann, as she began and sang for them one of weyses's old saga-like romances. the cool evening breezes, whispering among the trees, told them that the long, happy day was over, and that they must catch their train back to aarhus at once. then came the day when they went by boat down the coast and sailed up veile fjord, to spend two happy days at the munkebjerg,[ ] with many a ramble through the woods, guided to and from all the loveliest views by following the red or the yellow arrows on the trees, pausing now and then, after a stiff climb, to rest a moment in front of some little wooden chalet, or to sit and enjoy the scene from atilla's bench or baron lovenskjold's bench, if they had followed the red route, or at ryeholm's bench or the bench of the four-leaved clover, when they had followed the yellow marks. and from munkebjerg they had gone to jellinge, a town perched upon the breezy upland, and there they saw the two large, flat-topped, heather-covered "barrows," or graves, of gorm the old and queen thyra, of which valdemar had been telling them, and karl was surprised to hear that there still remained in zealand, alone, some thousands of these viking cairns, or warrior's hills, as they are called. then, as the end of their short week drew near, the children begged fru ingemann to take them by motor-car to randers, where the famous annual horse-fair was being held, and they strolled through the streets of the cheerful old town, with its quaint old houses with their slanting roofs and protruding windows. the danish flag, with its sharp white cross on a blood-red field, fluttered everywhere. hundreds of them decorated the exhibition field, to which the towns-folk and farmers, in their sunday-best, swarmed, from far and near, to hear the speeches and witness the awarding of prizes to the superbly groomed, arch-necked horses of the famous jutland breed. the children had hoped to see the peasants still wearing hessian boots and velvet coats covered with great silver buttons, but fru ingemann told them it was fifty years too late for that. they bought tickets--little bits of blue and white ribbon with "randers" and the date printed on them--to the cake-man's booth, and there they bought all sorts of cakes fantastically made into queer-shaped men and horses and hearts, all covered with sugar and almonds and candies, each with a little motto on it. karen soon grew tired and sleepy, so they did not stay to witness the general fun and frolic and peasant dancing at night. as they left the grounds karl, who was beginning to learn a few danish words, exclaimed at an advertisement he saw on a signboard: _industriforeningsbygningen_![ ] "valdemar, is all that just one word?" he asked. "just one word, karl," replied his cousin. "as we are all to leave monday morning for the park, and randers is half-way there," said fru ingemann, "i have decided not to return to aarhus at all, but to remain here over sunday." no one wanted to go anywhere on sunday, so the day was quietly passed at home. in monday morning's mail came a letter from uncle thor, asking how soon valdemar could start up to skagen, and also a telegram from uncle oscar, saying: "meet me at noon, monday, at ribald. pleasant surprise for karl." "oh, aunt else, what _can_ father's surprise be? i don't see how i can ever wait to find out." but his aunt only advised him to be more patient, for he would soon know. "tell me all about the heath then, aunt else, and this park, where we are going," said karl, as their train sped rapidly northward through the low moorland hills, past clover fields where herds of fat red danish cattle stood separately tethered; past prosperous little farms, some of them with their waving rye-fields, others all aglow with yellowing grain. "long, long ago," began fru ingemann, "in the days when grandmother ingemann was only a little girl, before there was any telegraphs or telephones, the very heart of all jutland--as large a space as the whole island of zealand--was just a dangerous, wild, barren desert, all sand and peat-bogs. the few heath-dwellers who tried to live there led very lonely and dangerous lives. the natmaend, a strange race of gypsy robbers, smugglers and kidnappers, wandered there. history records many dark tragedies enacted on the heath. it was on grathe heath that young king valdemar the great met and overpowered his treacherous enemy, svend; and, a century later, the heath was the scene of a still grimmer tragedy, the murder of king erik by marsk stig. "the ahlhede, or all-heath, as the danes called it, had not always been a desert-land, covered for miles with viking barrows. there had once been beautiful forests of spruce and oak and fir-trees stretching over this four thousand miles of waste land. but what forests the long droughts and merciless west winds and cold blasts from the north sea failed to destroy the ancient vikings and their subjects cut down for their ships, huts and for fuel, leaving only a great silent, desolate, desert land. it remained thus for such ages that no one ever believed that it could be reclaimed,--that is, no one until captain dalgas set to working out his dreams and theories for conquering it. his hope was to win back to denmark, through the conquering of the heath, the territory lost through the schlesvig-holstein war. he formed the heath society and replanted the treeless wastes. "to-day, countless farmsteads, meadows and pastures of the danish peasantry dot the heath from germany to the skaw. trees again flourish; all has been changed as if by magic, and the plough goes over more and more acres of it every year, until a group of patriotic danes, like your uncle oscar, have taken alarm lest all the breezy stretches of heather be reduced to farms, and none of the old-time heath be preserved untouched for its own natural beauty's sake." "uncle persuaded a lot of danes away off in chicago, where he lives, to buy up a lot of the wildest and most beautiful part of it so that denmark might keep it forever as a park. isn't that it, mother?" questioned valdemar. "yes, exactly, valdemar," replied his mother. "and, because of the untiring efforts of a group of patriotic american danes, like your uncle oscar, a beautiful wild spot of three hundred acres up in northern jutland, near ribald, has been purchased, and will be formally presented to the danish government as a reservation, with the one condition that, every year, in that spot, when danish-americans cross the ocean to meet there and celebrate their fourth of july on danish soil, the stars and stripes shall float above denmark's sacred _dannebrog_. now that everything is ready, the park is to be formally presented to the danish government." "presented to-day, mother?" asked karen in surprise. "yes, this very afternoon. there will be a great crowd. every steamer for weeks past has been bringing over hundreds of americans, and, karl, look out, for you may meet some of your chicago friends among them." "from home, aunt else? there's nobody i'd rather see from home than my own mother!" said little karl, rather wistfully. "gee! i do wish i could see my mother! i just wonder what daddy's 'great surprise' can be! oh, just look at the big crowd!" the train had stopped. "ribald!" sang out the conductor. in a twinkling the car was emptied. as fru ingemann and her charges reached the platform, karl saw two waving handkerchiefs making their way through the dense crowd towards him, and in an instant more he felt his mother's arms around him. "mother! mother! i'm so glad you've come!" he cried in joy. "daddy, you did give me a pleasant surprise!" he laughed as fru ingemann and her sister amalia greeted each other. "aunt amalia, won't you stay over here in denmark with us all summer?" urged valdemar, as the happy little party was being driven rapidly on their way to the park. "yes, valdemar,--that is, i'm going to remain until your uncle oscar can get back from the united states again. that is why i have come--so as to stay with karl, and let him see some more of denmark, during his father's absence. and then i'm glad to see this wonderful park, too, of course." "why, daddy! must you go back to america, and leave us?" protested karl, who was having another surprise. "i'm sorry, but business calls me back to chicago at once, my little karl. i leave this afternoon, immediately after the festivities, but i'll come back again soon. here we are at the park now." as mr. hoffman, as president of the danish-american park, took his place upon the speaker's platform, and began his address, welcoming the thousands of american visitors he saw before him, back to the fatherland,--to the park--_their_ park forever,--a great cheer arose, which was redoubled in volume as the stars and stripes were impressively hoisted over the beloved _dannebrog_--and then from a thousand voices the star spangled banner floated forth over the danish hills. there were complimentary speeches by both the american and danish ministers, and by crown prince christian. then every one sang one of those beautiful old national songs the danes love so well to sing in their woods, and karl told valdemar and karen the story of the "birth of old glory,"--as the united states flag is sometimes called. in the evening, the whole forest seemed one vast fairy-land, with its myriad sparkling lights, strains of soft music, gay crowds and waving flags. multitudes of lamps, of all colors and sizes, swung from the trees, throwing a romantic fairy-like light over the rustling beech-trees. torches had been stuck wherever it had been possible to fasten them, and here and there a huge bon-fire flung its lurid glare over the whole scene, sending up great volumes of black smoke into the darkness overhead. three very tired and sleepy children were those whom fru ingemann put to bed that night, even before their usual time. the happiness of the long day--so full of new sights, surprises and excitement for valdemar as well as karl--was only marred by the leave-taking of uncle oscar for his long trip back to his home in far-away chicago. footnotes: [footnote : "no, thank you. nothing! nothing!"] [footnote : monk's mountain.] [footnote : manufacturers and sealers' associations building.] chapter viii skagen to valdemar it seemed like a week, rather than just three days, since he had bidden good-bye to his mother, karen and aunt amalia, and brought karl with him up to the little painter's village of skagen on the kattegat, where they were to spend the months of july and august visiting uncle thor, who had built for himself one of the most charming of all the pretty, long, low, vine-covered homes of the famous artist-colony, of which he, as court painter, was by far the most distinguished member. up here was uncle thor's summer studio, with its row of fifteen great windows between which glorious red hollyhocks towered almost up to the red roof-tiles. on the south, the windows overlooked a gay, flower-massed garden where, on warm summer afternoons, the great sculptor loved to chat with painter-friends, and serve tea under his wind-swept old elms. here, in this bare and lofty studio, with its half-finished paintings and groups in clay, and, if the day be chilly, its crackling wood hearth-fire at the further end, throwing a flickering, rosy light over all,--here valdemar was to spend many hard, long hours every day under his gifted godfather's instruction. [illustration: "in the centre of the studio stood the unfinished statue of the little crown prince"] "in the whole of denmark was there ever any boy half so fortunate?" thought valdemar to himself, as he made a mental resolution to show uncle thor his appreciation by the hardest work of his life. valdemar could work hard, and he meant not only to prove to his uncle what earnest toil and definite purpose could do, but also to win his offer to send him to the academy in the fall. on a low platform, in the centre of the studio, stood the unfinished statue of the little crown prince olaf of norway which uncle thor had commenced in copenhagen at the royal palace. day by day it was nearing completion. "and here," said valdemar's great teacher, uncovering a smaller but similar clay figure of the same charming subject, "is work my ambitious little pupil is to finish before he leaves skagen. it will be hard work, valdemar, and it will put your ability as a young sculptor to a fine test. but you can do it, valdemar, and do it creditably, too!" "oh, uncle thor! do you really think so? i'll try hard enough!" promised the lad as he set to work in good earnest. the long hours, which valdemar spent daily in the studio, karl passed either out of doors or in reading all the fascinating books on danish history in uncle thor's library. there were frequent letters to both boys from fanö, the little island in the north sea, where karen, her mother, and aunt amalia were spending the summer. later they were going to spend a few weeks on a large farm, for a change. and so the weeks passed. finally holme week, with its clear, bright evenings, came; but the midsummer sun was growing uncomfortably warm even as far north as skagen. valdemar's work on his little prince olaf statue was so far advanced that uncle thor readily consented when the two boys begged him to let them take the dog, frederik, along with them, and tramp over the two miles of mountainous sand-ridges which led to denmark's most northern point, grenen, or the gren,--a mere desolate sand-reef, the last little tip of jutland's mainland, which extends between the waters of the north sea and the baltic. the only signs of life the boys passed on the way, as they trudged along together, often ankle-deep in the sand, were a few long-legged birds, and several huge hares which shot across the road in front of them. "we didn't bring along more than half the sand-hills with us, did we, valdemar?" laughed karl, as they threw themselves down on the beach at grenen, emptied the sand from their shoes, and donned their bathing suits. "talking about sand, karl, some day i must show you all that remains of an old gothic church tower near skagen. one day, during a service, a great sand-storm came up and buried the church itself so suddenly that the only escape the people had was from the belfry. that is all that can be seen of that church even to-day." frederik barked loudly and dashed back and forth after the two boys, who were soon bubbling over with the fun and excitement of dipping their feet first into the breakers of the skager-rak, and then into the waters of the kattegat, the warm july salt wind and spray tanning their bare arms and faces. then, frederik following, valdemar swam far out into the sea and back again, with the utmost ease. all danish boys can swim well, and valdemar wanted to give karl a demonstration of his ability as an expert swimmer. "kattegat! skager-rak!" shouted karl, who liked something in the sound of the words. "grenen's great! but, honest, valdemar, never in my life did i expect to bathe in both these raging seas at once! but here i go--look now!" and he plunged out into the breakers. frederik dashed after him to make sure that he was safe, then came bounding back again to valdemar. "ow! ow!" cried karl, limping back on one foot. "crabber?" inquired valdemar. "uncle thor warned us to look out for crabs and shrimps up here on the beach. you sit down here and rest, karl. i'm going to gather some of those fine sea-gull's feathers scattered along the beach for you to take back home with you for your collection of danish souvenirs. it was mighty nice of uncle thor to give you that letter from king frederik!" "and i'm going to put my shoes and stockings right back on again while you're gone!" said karl, surveying his painful foot with a frown. "oh, look, karl!" exclaimed valdemar, as he soon came running back, his arms full of something. "look what i've found for you! sea-gulls' eggs! all greenish, with brown peppery spots on them, and here's a lot of the loveliest white wing-feathers, every one tipped with black! they're all for you, karl." "oh, thank you, valdemar. let's blow the eggs. do you know how?" "yes, of course. i've got a piece of wire in my pocket. you just run this wire straight through both ends--so! then blow and blow!" together the boys had soon blown all the eggs, and tied them up with the feathers in a piece of old fish-net they found on the beach. then karl watched valdemar while he made a hasty sketch of skagen fyr, the great white lighthouse towering above the sand-hummocks near the signal station, where it is said that every year seventy thousand ships are signalled. as they started on their two-mile tramp over the desolate sand-ridges back to skagen, valdemar gave one last lingering look towards the wild, wind-swept stretch of endless beach they were leaving, where the north sea and the baltic have battled against each other for countless ages, with one ceaseless roar. back of them, range after range of low shifting sand-dunes glistened in the sun, as they stretched towards the unbroken horizon in every direction. it was a strange new world to both boys. "what are you thinking so long about, valdemar?" asked karl. "oh, karl, it was off there that our noble tordenskjold's little frigate, _white eagle_, pursued the great swedish man-of-war _Ösel_, and made her fly in terror. there's something about the very desolation of this place that, i like," said valdemar. "something strange, and picturesque, and romantic, i mean, karl. one feels some way--up here at the gren--as though he had actually reached the world's end! i'd like to come back up here often. wouldn't you, karl?" "no! there's something i don't like one bit about it! i liked the massachusetts cape cod beach at home; but that was different. i'd hate to have to live very long anywhere near here! romantic isn't the right word, valdemar. it's a lonely, wild, and forsaken spot, with nothing at all 'romantic' about it in my eyes. to me it feels like the 'jumping off place,' all right. and i've heard, too, valdemar, that when a great storm is blowing, and the waves are rolling mountain high, that there are just terrible shipwrecks up here at this dangerous point! down at the skagen hotel, the figureheads and name-boards, that they have collected from ships of all nations, tell the tale, valdemar." "that's true. there was the wreck of the _daphne_, with the lives of eight of the brave life-saving crew lost. sometimes there are twenty shipwrecks a year. but, karl, this is the sea that made vikings! over these same seas, where our smoky steamers now pass, once danced _long ship_, _serpent_ and _dragon_, with their gilded dragon-beaks gleaming in the sunlight! can't you see them, karl? i can! uncle thor has often told me the wonderful viking tales. and i've read about their marvellous courage and daring. the eddas and sagas of the vikings are rich in lore of those fiery-hearted warriors, who sailed over the stormy seas in their fleets of light ash-wood ships, conquering far and wide, and meeting death light-heartedly! they say some great viking chief is buried near here. their cairns and barrows by thousands cover denmark to-day." "oh, i've read about them at home," answered karl, who loved courage and bravery as much as did any healthy american boy, but who loved also to tease. "they were just a race of bold sea-robbers, and pirates, always 'hatching their felonious little plans,' always ready to burn and kill; and, according to history, some of the deaths they dealt out to their enemies were truly 'vikingish.'" "and yet, karl, the ancient sagas and chronicles tell that it was our brave vikings who first of all discovered your north america, and founded a colony they called vineland, near where your great harvard college is to-day. the sagas say that, five hundred years before columbus lived, viking biarne sailed to america with his ship _eyrar_, and that, later, lief, a son of eric the red, went over to america, too." "yes, i know. i've read longfellow's poem, 'the skeleton in armor,' and i've seen the 'old mill' at newport, which was long believed to be a viking relic," said karl. "but we know differently now. nothing has been really proved." the sun was sinking in the west as the two tired, but happy boys reached the outskirts of the straggling little village of skagen, and trudged down the sandy road which led in and out among the fishermen's huts, with their tarred or heavily thatched roofs, and color-washed walls--some of them even built from wreckage. strings of fish, strung from pole to pole, were hung out to dry. groups of sturdy fish-wives, here and there, with bronzed arms bare to the shoulder, and prettily kerchiefed heads, sat at tubs, dressing flounders for drying; and from the doorway of one hut came a voice so sweet and clear, crooning a quaint old danish lullaby to the sleeping baby in the mother's arms, that the boys paused to listen as she sang: "_den lille ole, med paraplyen han kender alle smaa folk i byen hver lille pige, hver lille dreng, de sover sodt i deres lille seng._" "that was a pretty song. tell me what it was all about," asked karl, as they hurried on at a more rapid gait, for they were getting hungrier every minute. "oh, it was just a little folk-song every dane knows. she was singing to her baby about the 'sandman,' or _den lille ole_, as we danes say. she was telling him that the 'sandman, with his umbrella, knows all about the little folks in town. each little girl--each little boy--they are all sleeping sweetly in their beds.'" they passed an old fisherman, mackintosh-clad, and another one in jersey and high boots, both hurrying towards the beach, where, in the gathering twilight, they could see a dim craft, a small fishing boat, with a few dark figures plying their trade, slowly rounding the promontory, its lights reflecting picturesquely in the water. "some day we must come back earlier, when more of the fishermen are home from their trips, and watch the crews at practice," said valdemar. "these skagen fishermen are true sons of the vikings. it is said that there was one, once, who boasted of having saved two hundred lives." "i hope you didn't worry about our getting home so late, uncle thor," said valdemar, at the supper table that night. "no, but here is a letter for you." "hurrah!" exclaimed valdemar, as he finished reading it. "it's from mother. she says that grandmother ingemann has invited us all to spend christmas with her down in odense, and that aage will be home for his vacation from the military college, and be there with us, and uncle oscar, too, will be back again from america. mother has decided that i am not to return to school until after christmas, for she thinks that karl and i are learning more by seeing our country than we could learn in school. and, best of all, mother says that i can remain up here studying with you, uncle thor, until september!" "hurrah!" said karl. "no school until new year's for me!" "that means five more weeks up here with you, dear uncle thor!" continued valdemar. "now i can entirely finish the task you gave me to do, the prince olaf statue. i'm so glad, uncle thor!" "and i'm glad, too, valdemar, for you are doing me great credit as a pupil. i am going to be very proud of that statue of yours, valdemar, when it is finished." these last five weeks passed for valdemar much as the first five had--in the studio. "study--diligent, earnest and honest," said uncle thor, "will win many honors for you when you are older, valdemar. if you work hard, you should some day gather some of the roses that strew the path of the danish artist, my boy." "but once you said that denmark was almost overcrowded with art students, uncle thor, didn't you?" "that is true. but many of them fail to go on with their work; they lose courage and drop out. others become interested in something else, and so leave their art studies. the few who do keep on usually learn all they can from the art schools in denmark, and then go to italy for further study." "yes, as you did, uncle thor, and as thorvaldsen did, too," said valdemar. "oh, uncle thor! do you think that, when i am older, i may ever be able to study in italy?" "my dear little valdemar, anything is possible for you, if you work hard enough," was the great artist's answer. chapter ix a danish peasant wedding karen's fair skin was tanned so many shades darker than her flaxen locks that valdemar and karl hardly knew her. far down on the delightful _vesterhavet_,[ ] on the sandy little island of fanö, she had spent the happy summer-time with her mother and aunt amalia, first at the seashore, and later on the great farm of peder sörensen, near nordby, where, most of the time, she had played out of doors in the sun and wind. the merry harvest season had passed soon after valdemar and karl had arrived. they remembered how the harvesters had laid aside the last sheaf, decorated it with flowers and ribbons, and carried it in procession. then had followed the great _höst gilde_, or harvest feast, a very festive function when sturdy men and rosy-cheeked maidens danced hand-in-hand. then, later, in the same beautiful month of october, had followed another folk-festival, and mortin's day,[ ] when in the evening everybody ate "mortin's goose," stuffed with boiled apples and black fruit. sometimes, on some of the children's many trips over to play on the beach by the west sea, they had brought back pieces of amber washed up by the water. karl found some pretty big pieces to add to his rapidly growing collection of danish souvenirs, which now included not only the coral specimens, sea-gull's eggs and wing-feathers, but fanö amber, and, best of all, uncle thor's gift of the great white envelope and letter from the royal palace. peder sörensen was not a farmer himself. like most of the men of fanö, he was a sailor. it was the fanö wives who, in their picturesque though rather unbecoming dress, cultivated the land, drove the cattle to pasture and the sheep to graze among the sand-hills, and it was they who milked the fine "red danish" cows at night, and made the far-famed "best danish" butter, with which they welcomed home their seafaring husbands. fru anna sörensen, who had studied farming and dairying at the agricultural college, always presented a neat and attractive appearance in her dark blue dress with its one note of bright color down around the very hem, and her quaint red and blue kerchief head-dress, with its inevitable loose ends, which valdemar graphically described as "rabbit's ears." all the women of fanö dressed just so, except, of course, upon some great occasion like lowisa nielsen's wedding, which was to take place in november. almost before they knew it, the short summer had flown, and november, with its cool, bright days, had come, bringing lowisa nielsen's wedding invitation, which the _bydemand_,[ ] in white trousers, topboots, and a nosegay in his buttonhole, carried over to the sörensens on horseback. for propriety's sake, fru sörensen allowed him to knock a second time before opening the door, then politely asked him within. "greetings from the father and mother, and lowisa, to yourself, your husband and guests," he began, as he took the proffered seat. "your presence is truly desired at the wedding on thursday next at ten o'clock. come early, accompany the bridal party to the church, and hear their marriage service, return with them for dinner, remain for supper, then amuse yourselves with dancing and games the whole night; and then come again the next day, and take your places from the first day, and they will be sure to do the same for you when wanted from choice, on some enjoyable occasion." this unique invitation being delivered, the _bydemand_ arose as if to go, but fru sörensen, with danish hospitality, and according to an old custom, quickly produced a flagon of home-brewed beer, and a raisin-decorated wheaten cake, which she offered him. as he finished the flagon and was about to leave, he turned at the door to add, as though an afterthought: "then you must not forget to send a convenient amount of butter, eggs, a pail of fresh milk and two jars of cream." "i will gladly," replied fru sörensen, as he departed. on the wedding morning, at the appointed time, fru anna sörensen and her guests, fru ingemann, mrs. hoffman, and the children, who had never seen a peasant wedding before, drove over to the great nielsen _bonnegaard_,[ ] passed through the massive stone gateway, and into the open courtyard. they were graciously received by fru nielsen, and seated with the other guests upon wooden benches ranged around the walls of a spacious family apartment, whose polished rafters converged into a sharp-spiked peak at the centre. lowisa, a fair-haired, blue-eyed danish peasant maiden, to-day looked unusually attractive, decked out in bridal array,--a pretty but tight-fitting homespun, escaping the floor all around by several inches. from lowisa's richly gold-embroidered, tall scarlet cap, or "hood," as the danes call it, hung pendent innumerable brilliant ornaments--round balls of metal and other fantastic dangles, all waving and twinkling as she moved. extending from the back were vast bows and streamers of scarlet ribbon, under which she wore a head-dress of very rare and delicate lace. and the filmy white fichu, which crossed over her bosom, disclosed a rounded throat, circled by a bangle necklace of gold and silver coins. as soon as the last guest had arrived, the whole party was driven over to the church,--the bride and her family in the forward "rock-away," the bridegroom in the next, then, in another, a band of rustic musicians, who, as soon as all the guests were seated in the different vehicles, struck up a lively air. at the proper moment, the bridegroom, young nils rasmussen, a fine-looking fellow of true saxon type, took his position beside lowisa at the altar. on returning to the house, the little church party was met by an eager, expectant company of guests, who had been invited to join them for the wedding-dinner. the bridal couple took their places at the middle of the cross-tables, which were arranged to form a square, after the fashion of ancient banquet tables, and, when all the guests were seated, the serving-maids brought in great bowls of steaming rice, and placed four to each table, deftly dividing the contents of each into as many sections, by making deep cross-shaped indentures, into which they sprinkled cinnamon and sugar and poured a cupful of hot butter. then each guest, four to a bowl, lifted his spoon, dipped it into the delicious _gröd_, and began to eat. meats followed, with wheaten cakes, highly decorated, and home-brewed beer of a very peculiar, rich, honeyed taste, and with the singing of a beautiful old danish hymn the repast was brought to a close. then the room was cleared and the dancing began. it was certainly a beautiful sight, with every one decked out in festive attire. "_nie tak_,"[ ] coyly refused each girl upon her first invitation to dance, according to an old law of peasant decorum, which also prevented the bridal couple, who led the dancing, from speaking to, or even noticing each other again during the entire festivities. as the afternoon wore on the dancing continued. between seven and eight, supper without rice was served, followed immediately by more dancing, which continued until four o'clock in the morning. by ten o'clock the next morning the fiddlers had again arrived, and the dancing was renewed, this time with a noticeable increase in the number of rosy-cheeked, snowy-haired, elderly couples, in quaint holiday dress of homespun, with silver-buckled shoes. the bride continued to dance gracefully and bravely on, although paling cheeks told of her weariness. fru nielsen explained that the third and last day would only differ from the first in that there would be fewer guests present, after which all would begin making formal calls upon the bride, which was considered the height of good form. footnotes: [footnote : west sea.] [footnote : so named for martin luther.] [footnote : the "asking man."] [footnote : literally, "peasant's domain."] [footnote : "no, thank you."] chapter x jul-tide at grandmother ingemann's a freshly fallen, deep, feathery snow covered odense on christmas eve, and the merry jingle of sleigh-bells was in the air, as the little ingemann party reached fyen's prosperous capital. grandmother ingemann did not live within the town itself, but a long drive in a big sleigh brought her christmas guests within sight of the great old house with its many gables--all of the oddest stairway design--where most of her long, happy life had been lived. [illustration: "'welcome! and "glaedelig jul!'" called out both grandfather and grandmother ingemann"] although it was only the middle of the wintry afternoon, darkness was fast gathering, and from many a window on their way a candle's soft glow shone out through the fluttering snow to guide the wayfarer to warmth and cheer. "welcome! and _glaedelig jul_!"[ ] called out both grandfather and grandmother ingemann, who, in spite of the cold, had appeared on the door-step as the sleigh drew up. "_glaedelig jul!_" cried valdemar and karen, kissing their dear grandparents, as fru ingemann introduced aunt amalia and cousin karl. "where's uncle thor, and where's aage?" demanded valdemar as they entered the house. "and where's daddy? didn't daddy come?" was cousin karl's first question. "yes, dear children, everybody's here," gently answered grandmother ingemann, smiling as she glanced out of the window. out rushed the children to welcome the sleigh that came jingling up to the door, out of which jumped uncle thor, aage, and uncle oscar, just back from the states. such huggings and greetings as then took place! never had there been such a happy christmas family reunion at grandmother ingemann's for long years and years! since his mother had last seen him, aage had grown into a tall, broad-shouldered young man who carried himself with such fine military bearing--and preceded all his remarks with: "in my regiment"--that valdemar and karl soon idolized him. and as for skating--well, he would show them something in the half hour, or so, that still remained before the time to start for the annual christmas eve service at the little church on the hill. then it was valdemar's turn to receive compliments. uncle thor had great news! he announced that his talented little pupil's work had appeared at the fall exhibit of the academy,--and had won a prize! "a prize at the academy! oh, uncle thor!" exclaimed valdemar, throwing his arms about his distinguished master's neck for joy. "dear uncle thor! you didn't even tell me that my statue was to be entered at the academy exhibit this fall! oh, i am so happy!" compliments showered upon him from grandfather, and grandmother, and from his own dear mother, and everybody, so fast that he was glad to make his escape with aage and karl, who were starting out to the frozen lake, with their skates. aage and valdemar, like all danish boys, were famous skaters. karl was a fair one. soon the two brothers were outdoing each other cutting figure-eights, hearts and arrows on the ice, and aage even cut the face of his sweetheart. then, as the music of a waltz aunt amalia was playing reached them, they called: "come on, karl, it's easy," and proceeded to waltz on the ice as gracefully as if on a ballroom floor. but karl fell flat, and felt he had made a miserable failure. then they all came rushing into the house at the sight of several waiting sleighs at the door, which reminded them that it must be nearly time for the five o'clock christmas eve service. soon every one was bundled into warm furs and crowded into the sleighs, servants and all, and the happy little procession made its way through the falling snow to the church. as they passed through the village streets candle-lights gleamed from hundreds of windows, and here and there the children caught glimpses inside of brightly festooned little christmas trees, and of sheaves of wheat or rye, fastened to the window-shutters out in the snow for the birds; and, strangest of all, karl thought, were bowls of steaming hot oatmeal standing on many door-steps. but his mother explained to him that the bowls of oatmeal were placed there for the good little _jul-nissen_, the little people, or christmas nixies, the knee-high, little red-jacketed old men, with pointed red caps and long gray beards, who are supposed to form a part of every good danish household. when grandmother's sleighing party entered the little whitewashed church, and took the places reserved for them, they found it already full to overflowing, and a crowd gathering outside as well. the smiling priest in his dignified long black gown and deep-gauffered white _pibekrave_[ ] around his neck, joined heartily in the singing of hymns and carols, which were re-echoed by the voices of the greater throng standing out in the snow. then followed the christmas sermon, and the usual touching prayer "for our brethren in south jutland." it was holy eve, the one night in all the year when services are held by candle-light, and the myriad wax candles, burning on the altar, threw a soft and mysterious light over the spruce and laurel boughs decorating the chancel. the light snowfall had become a blinding snow storm before the little procession of sleighs had finally reached home, where the great dinner of the year was awaiting them, with its roast goose, stuffed with prunes and chestnuts, its cinnamon-flavored rice pudding, and a famous danish dessert called _röd gröd_, the repast ending with nuts, christmas cakes, candy and hot tea. low over the table, illumined with a dozen tiny, candle-lighted christmas trees, hung green festoons of laurel and spruce with a secreted sprig of mistletoe; while at every one's place were little mementoes, stuffed nixies, snappers, and a small danish flag,--except at uncle oscar's, aunt amalia's and karl's places, where the stars and stripes were thoughtfully combined with the _dannebrog_. towards the end of the dinner grandfather ingemann arose and proposed a toast to "our danish-american guests,"--whereupon all arose, touched glasses and drank, uttering the word for health, "_skaal!_" again, grandfather ingemann proposed the healths of "our illustrious court painter and his talented little pupil,"--when all again arose with their host, and the process was repeated. the last toast was "for our absent friends," after which grandfather made a complimentary little speech, wishing every one joy in the years to come. then all withdrew to the drawing-room, where the lights suddenly went out, and the folding-doors of an adjoining room were flung wide, where, in dazzling beauty, its topmost boughs brushing the rafters, stood the great jule-tree. then every one formed a circle around the tree, and grandfather distributed a basket of hymn books, from which all joined in singing that beautiful old danish carol, "a child is born in bethlehem." then, to the soft notes of a violin, all joined hands again, and slowly danced around the tree, singing as they danced another beautiful old carol. the servants were then called in, and grandfather ingemann called off the names, and distributed the presents. there were so many gifts for every one, from little karen up to grandfather ingemann himself, that the floor was soon covered deep with the tissue-paper wrappings. when the laughter and merrymaking had reached its height, there came a sharp ring at the door-bell, so sharp that every one paused in strange expectation, and little karen rushed to the door after the maid. in the fast-falling snow stood a tall man in a green uniform and a three-cornered hat, who handed a great white envelope to the servant, with the words: "to valdemar ingemann, from his majesty, king frederik," then quickly departed. karen rushed breathlessly back to her mother ahead of the serving-maid. "oh, mother! it was the king's _jaeger_! valdemar, it's for you! for you!" she cried, as the awe-stricken maid put into the boy's hands the great white envelope inscribed with the words: "to valdemar ingemann, from his majesty, the king." every one looked inquiringly at every one else, but in the court painter's eye there lurked a knowing twinkle. "oh, mother! _mother!_ oh, _uncle thor_!" excitedly exclaimed the little artist, dancing about the room. "it's from my friend the king! he says he has visited the academy and seen with great pleasure my statue of little prince olaf of norway. he congratulates me upon winning a prize, and, mother dear, he wants to see me at the palace, thursday, at one!" * * * * * even before twelfth night had come and gone, the american relatives had said their good-byes to copenhagen and to the ingemanns, and sailed for new york. valdemar, accompanied by his uncle thor, had made the call at the palace, and been entered as a student at the academy, with the king's promise to him of long years of study in rome just as soon as he was ready for it. so we too will bid good-bye to our ambitious little danish cousin, with his rose-colored dreams of the future. the end. footnotes: [footnote : "merry christmas."] [footnote : starched ruffle.] selections from the page company's books for young people the blue bonnet series _each large mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, per volume_ $ . =a texas blue bonnet= by caroline e. jacobs. 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"a mighty attractive volume in which the owner may record the good times she has on decorated pages, and under the directions as it were of annie fellows johnston."--_buffalo express._ * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page , "lommetorklaede" changed to "lommetørklæde" (karen, mit lommetørklæde) page , "raadhaus" changed to "raadhus" (new raadhus-plads) page , "nytory" changed to "nytorv" (kongens nytorv) images of public domain material from the google print project.) transcriber's notes: the author's incorrect spellings of danish and other foreign names and words have been retained. an incorrect reference to the danish king christian iv. has been corrected in "as all the children of king christian iv.[ix.] were". ten years near the german frontier ten years near the german frontier a retrospect and a warning by maurice francis egan former united states minister to denmark hodder and stoughton london · new york · toronto _copyright, , by george h. doran company_ preface the purpose of this book is to show the reflections of prussian policy and activity in a little country which was indispensable to prussia in the founding of the german empire, and which, in spite of its heroic struggle in , was forced to serve as the very foundation of that power; for, if prussia had not unrighteously seized slesvig, the kiel canal and the formation of the great german fleet would have been almost impossible. the rape of slesvig and the acquisition of heligoland--that despised 'trouser button' which kept up the 'indispensables' of the german navy--are facts that ought to illuminate, for those who would be wise, the past as a warning to the future. there is no doubt that the assimilation of slesvig by prussia led to the franco-prussian war, and liberated modern germany from the difficulties that would have hampered her intention to become the dominant power in the world. the further acquisition of denmark would have been only a question of time, had not the march of the despot through belgium aroused the civilised world to the reality of the german imperial aggression--until then, unhappily, not taken seriously. had germany followed the policy which induced her to hold slesvig, in spite of the promise that the slesvigers, passionately danish, might by vote decide their own fate--and seize denmark, the virgin islands, not american, would have been german possessions. the change of policy which sent the german army into belgium and northern france, instead of into denmark, was, in a measure, due to the belief in germany, that the war would be short; and, with france helpless, russia terrorised and england torn by political factions, she could control the danish belts that lead from the north sea to the baltic and treat these waters as german lakes. she reckoned as erroneously on that as she reckoned on controlling the mediterranean and on smashing the monroe doctrine by practically possessing argentine and brazil. she built well, however, when she made kiel the pride of the emperor and the empire. europe watched the process, and hardly gave a thought to the outrage on humanity and liberty it involved. the world is suffering for this indifference. the retention of danish slesvig created the german sea power and the constant threat to denmark concerns us all. it is a world question; and it must be answered in the interest of democracy. denmark is geographically part of germany. in normal times you reached berlin from copenhagen in a night. in a few short hours you may see german sentinels on the slesvig frontier, and hear the field practice of german guns. a zeppelin might have reached copenhagen from berlin in eight hours, and an army corps might land in jutland in about double that time. copenhagen is so near what was that centre of world politics--the german court--its royal family is so closely allied with all the reigning and non-reigning royal families of europe, and its diplomatic life so tense and comprehensive,--that it has been well named the whispering gallery of europe. i have not attempted to keep out of this sketch of my diplomatic experiences and deductions all traces of amusement; but, as to the terrible seriousness of the greater part of this record, i may appropriately quote the answer of bismarck's tailor, when that genius of blood and iron accused him of asking an enormous price for a fur coat, of 'joking.' 'no,' answered the tailor, 'never in business!' and, in spite of the fact that there are lights and even laughs in the diplomatic career, it is a serious business; and the sooner my fellow countrymen recognise this, the fewer international errors they will have to regret. maurice francis egan. contents page chapter i a scrap of paper and the danes chapter ii the menace of 'our neighbour to the south' chapter iii the kaiser and the king of england chapter iv some details the germans knew chapter v glimpses of the german point of view in relation to the united states chapter vi german designs in sweden and norway chapter vii the religious propaganda chapter viii the prussian holy ghost chapter ix , , chapter x a portent in the air chapter xi the preliminaries to the purchase of the danish antilles chapter xii the beginning of and the end chapter i a scrap of paper and the danes let us trace deliberately, with as much calmness as possible, the beginning of that policy, of 'blood and iron' which made the german empire, as we knew it yesterday, possible. it began with the tearing up of 'a scrap of paper' in . it began in perfidy, treachery, and the forcible suppression of the rights of a free people. it began in denmark; and nothing could make a normal american more in love with freedom, as we know it, than to live under the shadow of a tyrannical power, cynically opposed to the legitimate desire of a little nation to develop its own capabilities in its own way. the hanoverian on the throne of england in ' ,--that 'snuffy old drone from a german hive'--never dared to suggest that the colonies should be crushed out of all semblance of freedom; but, suppose our language had been different from that which his environment compelled him to speak, and that he had resolved to force his tongue on our own english-speaking people; suppose that he and his counsellors had resolved that german should be the language spoken in sermons and prayers from washington's old church in alexandria to faneuil hall; suppose that all the colleges and schools of the country, as well as the law courts, were forced to use this alien tongue; that a german-speaking empire existed to the south of us, and the minority in this german domain, arrogant, closely connected with the hanoverian régime, ruled us with the mailed fist, would we submit without constant efforts to obtain justice? and yet denmark, in the province of slesvig, has endured these things since . she alone of all the world resisted the beginning of german tyranny, of german arrogant evolution; and her resistance was useless because the rest of europe saw in the future neither the german empire nor the kiel canal. denmark is, as every schoolboy knows, geographically part of germany; and the pan-germans spoke of it benevolently as 'our northern province.' it might long ago have been their northern province if england and russia had not been powers in the world and if the great queen louise of denmark, a beautiful and fragile little woman, with a heart of gold and a will of steel, had not used all her wits to keep her country free by the only means of diplomacy she knew--the ties of family. queen louise, the wife of christian ix., new king of an old line, was not born in the purple, though her blood was the bluest in europe. the beautiful princesses, her three daughters, later the empress of russia, dagmar, the queen of england, alexandra, and the duchess of cumberland, thyra, made their frocks and were taught all the household arts--for their father, royal by blood as he was, was a poor officer. these princesses hold lovingly in remembrance the time of their poverty; these princesses love the old times. there is a villa on the strandvej (the beach way) called hvidhöre, white as befits the name, with sculptured sea-nymphs and pretty gardens and a path under the strand to the sound. here, until , the empress dowager of russia and the queen of england regularly spent part of the summer and autumn. the russian yacht, _the polar star_, and the english _victoria and albert_ appeared regularly in the sound, the officers added to the gaiety of copenhagen and the royal ladies went to hvidhöre, 'where,' as the widow queen of england said to my wife, smiling, 'we can make our own beds, as we did when we were girls.' the servants might drop a plate or two during luncheon or stumble over a chair; but the empresses of russia and of india made no objections--'the dear old people were a little blind, perhaps, but then they had served our father, king christian.' and anything that relates to their father is sacred to these ladies; and everything concerning denmark very dear. in the small parties at hvidhöre went on as usual, though the great royal gatherings at the palace of fredensborg had ceased. here, in the time of the old queen louise, from sixty to eighty scions of royalty, young and old, had often gathered under the high blue ceiling, from which looked down beautiful white gods and goddesses. in - king frederick viii. gave occasionally a dinner on sunday night at the country house not far from copenhagen, charlottenlund, when it was hard to keep from turning one's back to a royalty,--there were so many crowned heads present. there, if queen alexandra made it plain that she wanted to speak to you, you, approaching her, found yourself with your back to the king of greece or to king haakon of norway, or to the queen of denmark herself! times have changed; the circumstances which made the late mother of king frederick so powerful in keeping 'the family' together can never occur again. of the four daughters of the late king frederick, two married, one in sweden and the other in germany. the danish princess, louise, who became the wife of his serene highness, prince friedrich georg wilhelm bruno of lippe-schaumbourg, is to the danes a lovely and pathetic memory. they say that he treated her badly, that the bride fled from him to the protection of her parents, whom they censured for not taking her home before her death. the criticism--which even found expression in public disapproval--was unreasonable, but the mass of the danes is always more generous than just in the treatment of its children. in - , to mention the name of prince friedrich was to commit a social error; he was taboo; every mother in denmark was furious at the stories told of his injuries to their dead princess louise. princess ingeborg, born in , married the 'blue prince,' charles of sweden, duke of westgothia. king frederick viii., after the failure of the german marriage, kept his two other daughters, thyra and dagmar, in the background. he was a very sympathetic king, and he liked to talk of ordinary affairs; he was truly much interested in the life immediately around him. 'i do not encourage princes in search of wives,' he said; 'i shall keep my daughters with me.' princess thyra--one cannot conceal the age of princesses, while there is an _almanach de gotha_--was born on march th, , and princess dagmar on may rd, . the princess thyra is of the type of her beautiful aunt, the queen mother of england; like her aunt, she looks much younger than her age; the princess dagmar has the quality of this royal family, of always seeming to be ten years, in appearance, younger than they are. they were our near neighbours for ten years, and my wife often threatened to marry them to nice 'americans';--king frederick, considering this impossible, gave his consent at once! he often brought them in to tea, and they met 'nice americans,' and seemed to like them very much. the emperor william--who wanted to be called the emperor of germany rather than the german, or prussian emperor, as we always called him--showed no affection for his danish relatives; but, nevertheless, he did not underrate the value of denmark as the 'whispering gallery' of europe. in the old palace of rosenborg, in copenhagen, there is a room so arranged that, by means of a narrow tunnel in the wall, christian iv., a contemporary of queen elizabeth, could hear what his guards said, in their cabinet, at all hours of the day and night. 'there is a similar room at potsdam,' a dane said to me; 'william always listens when he is not speaking!' william knew what the danes said of the german marriage; his plans did not lie in the way of annexing either of the danish princesses, whose sympathies were not with the despoilers of the country; he had his eyes on the son of their aunt, the duchess of cumberland, who was later to marry his daughter. but royal marriages had ceased to strengthen or weaken denmark; the archduke michael of russia 'hung around' for a time; others came; but king frederick walked out with his daughter, princess thyra, both evidently content. princesses are expected to make marriages of 'convenience,' but princess thyra, like her aunt, princess victoria of england, does not seem inclined to make a marriage of that kind. princess dagmar was too young to be permitted to expect suitors, when her father lived; and the princess margaret, daughter of prince valdemar, brother of king frederick, for whom, it was said, overtures had already been made on behalf of the growing prince of the house of saxony, was younger still. denmark had ceased to be a marriage market of kings; the futility of attempting to cement international relations by royal alliances was becoming only too evident. prince valdemar, brother of king frederick, had refused more than once a balkan kingdom, and, when consulted by very great personages as to a marriage of his oldest son to the grand duchess of luxembourg, had answered, like his brother frederick, that he preferred 'to keep his children at home.' nevertheless, the previous royal marriages and the fact that nearly every diplomat at copenhagen was a favourite with his sovereign, sent by a relative of the court at home to please the court at copenhagen, gave the post unusual prestige, and made 'conversations' possible there which could not have taken place elsewhere. the court circle, when one had the entrance, but not until then, was like that of an agreeable family. nearly every minister at copenhagen was destined for an embassy. when my predecessor, mr. o'brien, was translated to tokyo, our prestige was enhanced; the danes believed that our country but followed the usual precedent, according to which their french m. jusserand had been made ambassador at washington. even the united states had begun to understand the importance of the post; and it was in the line of diplomatic usage when it was rumoured that i had been offered vienna. i met, too, ministers to copenhagen who considered themselves, because of royal patronage, ambassadors by brevet, and who exacted 'excellency,' not as a courtesy but a right! mr. whitelaw reid wrote to me, speaking of my post as a 'delightful, little dresden china court'; the epithet was pretty, and there were times, when the young princesses and their friends thronged the rococo rooms of the amalieborg palace, that it seemed appropriate. when the processions of guests moved up the white stairs between the line of liveried servants, some of them with quaint artificial flowers in their caps, the sight was very like a bit out of watteau. bismarck had not looked on denmark as a negligible country; he knew its importance; there was a legend that one of the few persons he really respected and feared in europe was the old queen louise. besides, he knew the history of denmark so well, that he chose to correct the supposed taint in the blood of the hohenzollerns by choosing an empress for william ii. of 'the blood of struense.' this struense, the german physician who, through the degeneracy of christian vii., had in become the guide, the philosopher, and--it was said--the more than friend of his queen, caroline matilda, tried to be the bismarck of denmark; but he was of too soft a mould,--the disciple of rousseau and voltaire rather than of machiavelli and cæsar borgia. he was drawn and quartered, after having confessed, in the most ungentlemanly way, his relations with the queen, sister of king george iii. of england. it is probable that part of the emperor's dislike to bismarck was due to that '_mot_' of the iron chancellor about the royal marriage he had helped to make. it was the kind of '_mot_' that william would not be likely to forget. it is an axiom of courts that the child of a queen cannot be illegitimate. even the duke de morny, son of queen hortense of holland, bore proudly 'hortensias' in the panels of his carriage during the third empire in france. nevertheless, though queen caroline matilda had died, in her exile at celle, protesting her innocence, it was understood that struense was the father of the supposed daughter of christian vii., the daughter who married into the house of slesvig-holstein-sonderburg-augustenburg. her descendant, the princess augusta victoria frederika-louisa-feodora-jenny married the emperor william ii., on february th, , at berlin. it was a love match--at least on the side of the empress. one of the ladies in waiting at the german court once told my wife that the famous augusta victoria rose--the magnolia rose of our youth--was always cherished by her imperial majesty because of its association with her courtship--'the emperor knew how to make love!' the empress said. the appearance of struense among the ancestors of the empress, to which bismarck is said to have so brutally alluded, was not agreeable to the proudest monarch in europe. queen caroline matilda, sister of the second george of england, was only fifteen years of age when she came to denmark to become the wife of christian vii. in . and, if anything could have excused her later relations with struense (her son, frederick vii., was undoubtedly legitimate)--it was the attitude of her degenerate husband and her mother-in-law, julianna maria. having been dragged one bitter cold morning to the castle of elsinore, she confessed her guilt; but under such circumstances of cruel oppression that the confession goes for little; circumstances, however, were against her, and the courts of europe only remember that she was the daughter of a king, of blood sufficiently royal, to make up for her declension. in copenhagen, in , the echoes of public opinion in london, among the higher classes at least, showed that the momentary insecurity caused by the reverses in the boer war had passed. people had forgotten the emperor's telegram to oom paul. nobody wanted war; therefore, there would be no war. 'if we have no property,' st. francis of assisi, pleading for his order to the pope, said, 'we shall need no soldiers to protect it.' it was forgotten that, reversely, if we have property, we must always have armies and fleets to protect it. it was not war that anybody wanted; but there was property to be had, which could only be had by the use of armies and fleets. in paris (for reasons which secret history will one day disclose, and for other reasons only too plain), the german designs were apparently not understood by high officials who directed the course of france. france made the mistake, as we are always likely to do, of reading its own psychology into the minds of its opponents. paris believed, to use voltaire's opinion of the prophet habakkuk, that germany was capable of everything, except the very thing that germany was preparing without rest, without haste, and without shame to do--to bleed her white! from echoes in copenhagen, we learned, too, that in petrograd, germany was better understood because the russian spies were real spies; they knew what they were about, and, being half oriental, they understood how to use the scimitar of saladin. there were other spies who knew only the use of the battle-axe of coeur-de-lion; but they were often deceived though very well paid; in fact, the ordinary paid spy is a bad investment. in belgium the internationals talked universal peace; indeed, among others than the internationals, the army was disliked. as in holland, german commercial aggression was feared. the most amazing thing is that internationalism did not weaken the _morale_ of the heroic belgians when the test came. in copenhagen, the idea of a permanent peace seemed untenable, and war meant ruin to denmark. this was not a pleasant state of mind; but it did not induce subserviency. in the vaults of hamlet's castle of elsinore on the delectable sound, holger dansker sits, waiting to save denmark from the ruthless invader. there are brave danes to-day who would follow holger, the dane, to the death, who believe that their country never can be enslaved; but, though the conquering germans spared denmark, they did not need the knowledge of the fate of belgium to convince them of what they might expect as soon as it pleased the kaiser to act against them. the fate of belgium had confirmed the fears they had inherited. there is no doubt where their hearts were, but a movement--a slight movement--against germany would have meant for the king of denmark the fate of the king of belgium or the king of serbia. that he is married to a princess half german by blood would not shield him. belgium was not spared because its queen was of german birth. copenhagen, as i have said, was not only a city of rumours, but a city of news. the pulse of europe could be felt there because europeans of distinction were passing and repassing continually, and the danes, like the athenians of st. paul's time, love to hear new things. but there was and is one old query which all denmark never forgets to ask: will danish slesvig come back to its motherland? slesvig-holstein is the alsace-lorraine question in denmark. for slesvig denmark would dare much. she could not court certain destruction but, in her heart, 'slesvig' is written as indelibly as 'calais' was written in the heart of the dying queen, mary tudor. she had forgiven and forgotten the loss of her fleet and the bombardment of copenhagen by the english in and . she then stood for france and new ideas, and tory england made her suffer for it. she lost norway in ; she was reduced almost to bankruptcy; and, until , she could only devote her attention to the revival of her economic life. holstein was german; slesvig, danish. they could not be united unless the language of one was made dominant over the language of the other. the imperial law of germany governed holstein; all slesvig legislation had since been based upon the laws of the danish king valdemar. to force the german law and language on slesvig was to wipe out all danish ideas and ideals in the most danish of the provinces of denmark. the attempt to germanise slesvig took concrete form in . desiring to bring it under german domination, uve lornsen, a frisian lawyer, proposed to make the duchies of slesvig and holstein self-governing states, separated from denmark, and entirely under german influence. as, according to him, only royal persons of the male lineage could govern the united duchies, the king of denmark might have the title of duke until the male line should become extinct. uve lornsen met remonstrances based on the laws and traditions of the danes with the arrogant assertion, uttered in german: 'ancient history is not to be considered; we will have it our own way now.' kristian poulsen, a dane, who knew both the german and the danish views, opposed the beginning of a process which meant the imposition of autocratic methods on a people who were resolved to develop their own national spirit in freedom. in slesvig there are square miles. in the greater part of this territory, consisting of square miles, danish was the vernacular, while square miles were populated by speakers of german. german power had secured german teaching for , people in churches and schools. the injustice of this will be seen when it is understood that only , were given opportunities, religious and educational, of hearing danish. danish could not be used in the courts of law. it was required that the clergy should be educated at the university of kiel, and other officials of the state could have no chance of advancement unless they used german constantly and fluently. the teachers in the communal schools were all trained in germany. the danish speech was not used in a single college. in a word, the german influence, under the eyes of a danish king and government, was driving out all the safeguards of danish national life in slesvig. king christian viii., partly awakened to the wrongs of the slesvigers, issued in a rescript insisting on the introduction of danish into the law courts. the german partisans were outraged by this insult to german kultur; no tongue but the german should be used even in danish slesvig. the king, the danish court, for over two hundred years had been germanised; the king did not dare to announce himself as a nationalist; but, against the german partisans, he decided that the danish kings had always possessed the right of succession in denmark, that the succession was not confined to the male line in slesvig. in holstein the position was different. if the danish line should become extinct, the succession might fall to the russian emperor; but slesvig must be danish. on the death of king christian viii. in , feeling ran high in denmark and in slesvig-holstein. in truth, all europe was in a ferment. the results of the french revolt in were still leavening europe. the assembly of holstein and slesvig was divided in opinion. the desire of the germans in the provinces to control the majority became more and more apparent. danish interests must disappear, the beginning of the german 'kultur,' not yet developed by bismarck, must take its place. five deputies were sent to copenhagen, with, among other demands, a demand that the danish part of the country be incorporated into the german confederation. the citizens of copenhagen had reason to believe that the holstein counts, moltke and reventlow-criminel, potent ministers and men of strong wills, might influence king frederick vii. to give way to the germans. the king determined to dismiss these ministers; the demands of the town council of copenhagen and the people of denmark were answered before they were made. his majesty had 'neither the will nor the power to allow slesvig to be incorporated in the german confederation; holstein could pursue her own course.'[ ] [ ] h. rosendal, _the problem of danish slesvig_. but the german opposition in the provinces had not been idle. berlin had shown itself favourable to the duke of augustenburg, and the prince of noer had headed a band of rebels against denmark and instigated the garrison of rendsborg to mutiny on the plea that the danes had imprisoned their king. a contest of arms took place between the two parties. prussia interfered; but prussia was not then what it is now. at the conclusion of a three years' war, the rebels were defeated and the king of denmark decreed that slesvig should be a separate duchy, governed by its own assembly. the german party so juggled the election--'fatherland over all' governed their point of view, the end justified the means--that the assembly shamefully misrepresented the danes. it was prussianised. the danes did not lose heart--slesvig must be danish; but if they allowed their language to disappear, there could be no hope for their nationality. on the other hand, the germans held, as they hold to-day, that all languages must yield to theirs. the german press would have extirpated the danish language; it was seditious; the danes were rebels. from the danish side to tönder-flensborg, the official speech and that of the people was danish. between the two belts--the space can easily be traced on the map--danish was spoken in the churches every second sunday. in the schools both danish and german was permitted; in the courts of law both languages were used. you made your choice! the world was deceived by an unscrupulous assembly and the german press into the belief that slesvig was german, lovingly german, and that the danes were merely restless malcontents, hating the beneficent prussian rule simply from a perverted sense of their own importance. the crucial moment came in . denmark had no real friends in europe. the united states, if her people had understood the matter, would have been sympathetic; but, at the moment, she was fighting for her own existence as a nation. the european powers, in spite of all their statecraft, allowed themselves to be blinded. austria, apparently proud and noble, allowed herself, as usual, to be made the tool of prussia. the two powers, on the false pretence that the right of christian ix. to the succession to the duchies was involved, forced denmark, which stood alone, to surrender slesvig-holstein and lauenburg. this was the beginning of the mighty german empire; it made the kiel canal possible, and laid the foundation of the german navy. slesvig, too, supplied the best sailors in the world. bismarck, when he cynically treated slesvig as a pawn in his game, had his eye on a future navy--a navy which would one day force the british from the dominion of the sea. he had his way. he became master of the baltic and the north sea. prussia, in forcing the danish king to cede slesvig, admitted his right to the duchies; yet the pretext for war on denmark had been that no such right existed. prussia soon threw off her ally, austria. she did not want a half owner in the holstein canal or in the coming fleet at kiel. it must be remembered that, when christian ix. had ascended the throne of denmark, it had been with the consent of all the great european powers. they had practically guaranteed him the right to rule slesvig-holstein, and yet england and france and russia stood by and allowed the outrage to take place. france made an attempt to satisfy her conscience. in the treaty of peace france had this clause inserted: 'h.m. the emperor of austria hereby transfers to h.m. the king of prussia all the right which according to the treaty of peace of vienna of october , , he had acquired in respect to the duchies of slesvig and holstein, provided that the northern districts of slesvig shall be united to denmark, if the inhabitants by a free vote declare their desire to that effect.' this was a 'scrap of paper'--nothing more! nevertheless a scrap of paper may be inconvenient. austria, never scrupulous when the acquisition of new territory was expedient, was willing to help prussia to tear it up. bosnia and herzogovina raised their heads. austria wanted help from prussia. here was the prussian chance to induce her to abrogate her part in clause fifty of the peace treaty. what matter? denmark, in time, must be german, as slesvig was german, in spite of all right. austria would play the same game with the slavs as prussia had played with the danes. individuals might have consciences, but nations had no system of ethics, and therefore no canons (except those of expediency), to rule such consciences as they had. prussia treated the right of the danes in slesvig, guaranteed by a 'scrap of paper,' to a free vote as to their fate, with contempt. it had amused bismarck to deceive france, the exponent of the new democracy in europe, but that was all. slesvig was to be crushed until it became quiescently prussian. prussia needed it, therefore it must be prussian. fiat! this is a plain, unvarnished tale. few of my fellow-countrymen have known it. some who knew it hazily concluded that slesvig had become german of its own free will that it might belong to a prosperous and great empire. others, who remembered that, even in their struggle for freedom in , the danes paused for a moment to give us their aid at the request of president lincoln, had a vague idea that wrong had been done somehow; but how great the wrong, and how terrible the effect of the wrong was to be on the history of the world, none of them even dreamed; and yet it was plain enough to those who watched the policy of blood and iron of this, the new germany. people who believed that prussia had any respect for an engagement that might seem to work against her own designs ought to have been warned by the experience of denmark. but there were those who believed that the acquisition of heligoland from the british was a mere trifle, in which germany had the worse of the bargain, as there are people who held that the danish west indies were of no manner of importance to us. they classed these acquisitions with that of alaska--'seward's folly!' and, in , the old powers of europe were so satisfied with their own methods, or so engaged with internal questions, that they let the monstrous tyranny of the conquest of slesvig pass almost in silence. prussia alone kept her eyes on one thing--the increase of her military power. in she induced austria to abrogate her part in the treaty of vienna of october , . austria agreed to give up any rights acquired by her in slesvig-holstein under the fifth clause of that treaty. this withdrawal (not to be irreverent, it was like the washing of the hands of pontius pilate) left slesvig naked to her enemy. the prussian autocrats chuckled when they found themselves bound by a 'scrap of paper' to the restoration of the northern districts of slesvig to denmark, 'if the inhabitants by a free vote declare their desire to that effect.' the imperial german statesmen, astute and unscrupulous, have always taken religion into consideration in making their propaganda. the german crown prince's sympathy with the same methods as used by napoleon bonaparte was perhaps inherited from his ancestors, as napoleon, too, knew the political value of religion. the church, an enslaved church in a despotic state,--the reverse of cavour's famous maxim--has always been one of statesmen's tools. they have never hesitated to use religion as the means of accomplishing the ends of the state. in fact, the catholic church in germany was in great danger of being enslaved. the old wars of the popes and the emperors--so little understood in modern times--would be very possible, had the victory of germany been a probability. let us see what happened in slesvig. since ' , prussia has governed slesvig. this rule has been a prolonged and constant attempt to force the danes from their homes. a very distinguished and rather liberal german diplomatist, count brockdorff-rantzau, once asked me, 'as an american, tell me frankly what is wrong with our position in slesvig?' 'everything,' i said. 'you seem even to assume that the religion of the people should be the religion of the state.' 'the state religion in slesvig is as the state religion in denmark, lutheranism.' 'but not germanised lutheranism. i have the testimony of a lutheran pastor himself, the reverend d. troensegaard-hansen, to the effect that the authorities in slesvig prefer german materialistic teaching to danish christianity, and that all kinds of influence is brought to bear on the clergy to make them german in their point of view. if, in the philippines, we attempted to do the things you do in slesvig, there would be no end of trouble.' he laughed. 'but democrats as you are, you will never keep your promise to grant those people self-government.' 'we will.' 'your democracy is not statesmanlike. it would be fatal for us to let the slesvigers defy our power. they must be part of germany; there is no way out.' 'either you want difficulties with them or you are worrying them just as a great mastiff worries a small dog.' 'but suddenly a gymnast raises the danish flag, or somebody utters a seditious speech in danish, or school books are circulated in which ultra-danish views of history are given. if a country is to be ruled by us, it must be a german country. we can tolerate no difference that tends to denationalise our population. it is a dream--the danish idea that we shall give up what we have taken or, rather, what has been ceded to us.' 'without the consent of the people?' 'who are the people? when you answer that i will tell what is truth. come, you are a democrat; by and by, when you americans are older, you will see democracy from a more practical point of view.' * * * * * the practical point of view in slesvig was squeezing out gradually the independence of the slesvigers. the dane loves passionately his home, his language, his literature. he may be sceptical about many things, but it would be difficult to persuade him to deny that the red and white flag, the danish flag, did not come down from heaven borne by angels! his culture is danish, and part of his life. he keeps it up wistfully even when he swears allegiance to another nation. the danes in denmark will never cease to regard slesvig as their own. it is one flesh with them; but prussia has torn this one body asunder. fancy a 'free election' being permitted in a country ruled by prussian autocrats or a 'free election' in alsace-lorraine under german rule! the geographical position of denmark is unfortunate. there are imperialists of all countries who hold that the little countries have no right to live; junkerism is not confined to germany. the geographical position of most of the little countries is unfortunate, but none is so unfortunate as that of denmark. when the war broke out, it seemed to her people that the road to german conquest lay through her borders. the powers that were in germany decided to attack belgium, and for the moment denmark escaped. do you think that it was an easy thing for a proud people to be in the position of old king canute before the advancing ocean? the waves came on, but nobody in his wildest imaginings ever dreamed that the modern danish canute could stem the tide. the danes have their army and their navy; officers and men expected to die defending denmark. what else could they do? death would be preferable to slavery. the dane does his best to forget; but always the echo of the words of the sentinel in _hamlet_ recurs: ''tis bitter cold, and i am sick at heart.' no number of royal alliances counts as against a bad geographical place in the world and the evil disposition of a strong neighbour. a change of heart has come over the world since germany induced austria to be her catspaw in . the example of a country which deliberately asserted that might makes right, and followed this assertion with deeds that make the angels weep, has shocked the world, and forced other nations to examine their consciences. after all, we are a long time after machiavelli. after the great breakdown in russia there was a feeling among some of the conservatives in denmark that the cousin of the tsar of russia, king george of england, might have laid a restraining hand on the russian parties that forced the tsar to abdicate. but the very mention of this seemed utterly futile. the king of spain, though married to an english princess, could expect little help in any difficulty, were the interests of the english ministry not entirely his. the contemplation of these alliances offers much material for the man who thinks in the terms of history. when president fallières visited copenhagen in , there was a gala concert given at the palace of amalieborg in his honour. the president was accompanied by a 'bloc' of black-coated gentlemen, some of them journalists of distinction. there was no display of gold lace, and the representatives of the french republic were really republican in their simplicity. the danish court and the diplomatic corps were splendid, decorations glittered, and the white and gold rococo setting of the concert room was worthy of it all. the queen of denmark--now the dowager queen--was magnificent, as she always is at gala entertainments, possessing, as she does in her own right, some of the finest jewels in europe. fallières represented the new order. his hostess, the queen, is the daughter of charles xv., a descendant of bernadotte. representing the lines of both st. louis and louis philippe was the princess valdemar, now dead, who, as marie of orleans, came of the royal blood of the families of bourbon and orleans. it was interesting to watch this gracious princess, whose father, the duc de chartres, had been with general mclellan during our civil war. she adapted herself to the circumstances, as she always did, and seemed very proud of the honours shown to france. the countess moltke-huitfeldt, louise bonaparte, was not in denmark at the time. it would have added interest to the occasion, had this descendant of the youngest brother of the emperor napoleon bonaparte been there. count moltke-huitfeldt, married to louise eugénie bonaparte, is almost as french in his sentiments as his wife, and, for her, when the united states joined hands with france, it was a very happy day. one of the events that made the fine castle of glorup, the seat of the moltke-huitfeldts, interesting was the visit of the ex-empress eugénie. the empress eugénie, like all the bonapartes, acknowledged the validity of the patterson-bonaparte marriage. she has always shown a special affection and esteem for the countess moltke-huitfeldt. the estate of glorup, with its artificial lake and garden, in which hans christian andersen often walked, was copied by an ancestor of the present count's from a part of versailles. it was at its best during the visit of the empress, who was the most considerate of guests. the american bonapartes were not ranked as royal highnesses for fear, on the part of napoleon iii. and prince napoleon, 'plon-plon,' of raising unpleasant questions as to the succession. jerome himself, for a short time king of westphalia, never pretended that his american marriage was not valid. meeting madame patterson-bonaparte by accident in the pitti palace, he whispered to the princess of würtemburg--she had then ceased to be queen of westphalia--'there is my american wife.' mr. jerome bonaparte was offered the title of 'duke of sartine' by napoleon iii. if he would give up the name of his family, which, of course, he declined to do. under the french laws, as well as the american, he was the legitimate son of jerome bonaparte. the presence of the countess moltke-huitfeldt would have added another interesting touch to the assemblage in amalieborg palace, a touch which would have served for a footnote to history. in spite of the name 'moltke,' count adam and his wife are as french as the french themselves. names in denmark are very deceptive. the question of war was even then, in , in the air. the german diplomatists were polite to fallières, but they considered him heavy and _bourgeois_, and believed that he represented the undying dislike for germany which the french system of education was inculcating. 'if the french schools teach the rising generation to hate germany, what is the attitude of the german educators?' i asked. 'we know that we are hated, and we teach our young to be ready for an attack from wherever it comes; but we love peace, of course.' in , it was generally thought that the kaiser himself was inclined to keep the peace. now and then an isolated englishman would declare that he had his doubts, when a german traveller seemed to know _too_ much about his country, or when amiable german guests asked too many intimate questions. it was the custom for the older colleagues to offer the newer ones a history of the slesvig-holstein dispute, which dated from the fifteenth century. on my arrival, sir alan johnston had presented me with a volume on the subject by herr neergaard, considered the 'last word' on the subject. the pages, i noticed, were uncut, so i felt justified in passing it on to the newest colleagues, taking care, in order to give him perfect freedom, not to autograph it! it was, as a french secretary often said, 'a complication most complicated'; but one fact was clear--the deplorable position of a liberty-loving people, deprived of the essentials that make life worth living! the great barrier to the entire domination of prussian ideals in this area between the baltic and the north sea is the existence of the danish national spirit in slesvig. 'if the other nations of europe had looked ahead, the power of prussia might have been held within reasonable bounds; the war in would have been impossible; this last awful world-conflict would not have occurred. germany would have been taught her place long ago.' how often was this repeated! the relations between the emperor william and the emperor of russia were supposed to be unusually friendly then, after the practical defeat of russia by japan. in older days, queen louise of denmark thought she had laid the foundation for a certain friendliness; but, nevertheless, the tsar, though closely related to the kaiser and dominated largely by his very beautiful german wife, was never free to ignore the slavic genius of his people. kings and emperors--all royal folk--made up a family society of their own until this war. we have changed all that, as the man in molière's comedy said; and yet, as a rule, german royal princesses remained prussian in spite of all temptation, while other women seemed naturally to adopt the nationalities of their husbands. the princesses connected with the prussian royal house seem immutably prussian. the tsar, then, like the kaiser, cousin of the king of england, the son of a mother who remembered slesvig-holstein and never liked the prussians, had second thoughts. (they were nearly always wrong when his wife influenced them.) it was one thing to call the mighty prussian 'willie'--all royalties have little domestic names--another to break with france and to bow the slavic head to german benevolent assimilation. the tsar might call the emperor by any endearing epithet, but that did not imply political friendship; king george of greece and queen alexandra were very fond of each other, but the queen would never have attempted to give her brotherly majesty the island of crete which he badly wanted. with the death of the queen of christian ix., assemblies of royalties ceased in denmark; the old order had changed. there was no neutral ground where the royalties and their scions could meet and soften asperities by the simplicity of family contact. the point of view in europe had become more democratic and more keen. even if there had been a queen louise to try to make her family, even to the remotest grandchild, a unit, it could not have been done. reverence for royalty had passed out with queen victoria; the idols were dissolving, and restless ideals became visible in their places. prussia had drawn her states into a united empire; tributary kings were at the chariot wheel of the prussian emperor, not because the kings so willed, but because the subjects of the kings--the commercial people, the landowners, the military caste, the capitalists, the increasingly prosperous farmers--discovered it to be to their advantage. bismarck's policy of blood and iron meant more money and more worldly success for the germans. although the smaller teutonic states had lost their freedom, bismarck began to pay each of them its price in good gold with the stamp of the empire upon it. to take and to hold was the motto of the empire:--'we take our own wherever we find it!' the old germans disappeared; the germans who were frugal and philosophical, poor and poetical, were emerging from the simplicity of the past to the luxury of the present. as a rule, i found the russian diplomatists very well informed and clever. their foreign office seemed to have no confidants outside the bureaucratic circle. the russian journalist, like most other journalists, was not better or earlier informed of events than the diplomatists. as copenhagen was the place where every diplomat in the world went at some time or other, one was sure to discover interesting rumours or real news without much trouble. while the newspapers or magazines of nearly every other nation gave indications in advance of the public opinion that might govern the cabinets or the foreign offices, the russian periodicals gave no such clues. there was no use in keeping a russian translator; real russian opinion was seldom evident, except when a royalty or a diplomatist might, being bored by his silence, or with a patriotic object, tell the truth. 'what prevents war?' i asked in of one of my colleagues. 'lack of money,' he answered promptly, repeating the words of prince koudacheff. 'germany and russia will fly at each other's throats as soon as the financiers approve of it. you will not report this to your foreign office,' he said, laughing, 'because america looks on war, a general european war, as unthinkable. it would seem absurd! nobody in america and only ten per cent. of the thinking people in england will believe it! as for france, she is wise to make friends with my country, but she would be wiser if she did not believe that germany will wait until she is ready to make her _revanche_. there are those in her government who hold that the _revanche_ is a dream--that france would do well to accept solid gains for the national dream. they are fools!' 'iswolsky is of the same opinion, i hear,' i said, for we had all a great respect for iswolsky. but when the london _national review_ repeated the same sentiments over and over again, it seemed unbelievable that the kaiser's professions of peace were not honest. yet individual pan-germans were extremely frank. 'we must have our place in the east,' they said; 'we must cut the heart out of slavic ambitions, and deal with english arrogance.' in a general way, we were always waiting for war. in , count aehrenthal, then a very great austrian, told a celebrated financial promoter who visited our legation, that war was inevitable. the austrians and the russians feared it and believed it--feared it so much that when i was enabled to contradict the rumour, there was a happy sigh as the news was well documented. austria did not want war; russia did not want war. 'but the emperor of germany?' i asked of one of the most honourable and keenest diplomatists in berlin. 'he is surrounded by a military clique; he desires to preserve the rights and prerogatives of the german empire, above all, the hereditary and absolute principle without a long war. a war will do it for him--if it is short. he himself would prefer to avoid it. yet he must justify the army and the navy; but the war must be short.' 'but does he _want_ war?' 'he is not bloodthirsty; he knows what war means, but he will want what his _clique_ wants.' these two diplomatists are both alive--one in exile--but i shall not mention their names. my colleagues were sometimes very frank. it would not be fair to tell secrets which would embarrass them--for a harmless phrase over a glass of tokai is a different thing read over a glass of cold water! and, in the old days, before , good dinners and good wines were very useful in diplomatic 'conversations.' things began to change somewhat when after-dinner bridge came in. but, dinner or no dinner, bridge or no bridge, the diplomatic view was always serious. in denmark the thoughtful citizen often said, 'we are doomed; germany can absorb us.' count holstein-ledreborg once said, 'but providence may save us yet.' 'by a miracle.' it seemed absurd in that any great power should be allowed to think of conquering a smaller nation, simply because it was small. 'you don't reckon with public opinion--in the united states, for instance,--or the view of the hague conference,' i said. 'public opinion in your country or anywhere else will count little against krupp and his cannon. public opinion will not save denmark, for even russia might have reason to look the other way. that would depend on england.' it seemed impossible, for, like most americans, i was almost an idealist. the world was being made a vestibule of heaven, and the pessimist was anathema! was not science doing wonderful things? it had made life longer; it had put luxuries in the hands of the poor. the bad old days, when madame du barry could blind the eyes of louis xv. to the horrors of the partition of poland, and when the proud maria theresa could, in the same cause, subordinate her private conscience to the temptations of national expediency, were over. no man could be enslaved since lincoln had lived! the hague conference would save poland in due time, the democratic majority in great britain and ireland was undoing the wrongs of centuries by granting home rule for ireland, and, as for the little nations, public opinion would take care of them! 'what beautiful language you use, mr. minister,' said count holstein-ledreborg; 'but you americans live in a world of your own. nobody knows what the military party in germany will do. go to germany yourself. it is no longer the germany of canon schmid, of auerbach, of heyse, of the lorelei and the simple musical concert and the happy family life. why, as many cannons as candles are hung on the christmas trees!' i repeated this speech to one of the most kindly of my colleagues, count henckel-donnersmarck, who was really a sane human creature, too bored with artificiality to wear his honours with comfort. 'oh, for your dress coat,' he would say. 'look at my gold lace; i am loaded down like a camel. the old germany, _cher collègue_, it is gone. i long for it; i am not of blood and iron; the old germany, you will not find it, though you search even bavaria and silesia. and i believe, with the great frederick, that your great country and mine may possess the future, if we are friends; therefore,' he smiled, 'i will not deceive you. the germany of the american imagination, our old germany, is gone.' he hated court ceremonies, whereas i rather like them; they were beautiful and stately symbols, sanctified by tradition. he ought to have danced at the court balls, but he never would. he was lazy. he was grateful to my wife, because she ordered me to dance the cotillions with countess henckel, who must dance with somebody who 'ranked,' or sit for five or six hours on a crimson bench. the danes had no belief that we could or would help them in a conflict for salvation, but they liked us. in , when dr. cook suddenly came, they declared that they would take 'the word of an american gentleman' for his story of the north pole. sweden accepted him at once, england was divided--king edward against cook; queen alexandra for him! when admiral peary made his claim, the queen of england said,--'thank heaven! it is american against american, and not englishman against american.' we were all glad of that; and i was very grateful to the danes for showing respect for the honour of an american, in whom none of us had any reason to disbelieve. there was no warning from the scientists in the united states. the german savants accepted dr. cook at once. in fact, until admiral peary sent his message, there seemed to be no doubt as to cook's claims, except on the part of the royal british geographical society. i joined the danish royal geographical society at his reception; it was not my duty to cast aspersions on the honour of an american, of whom i only knew that he had written _the voyage of the belgic_, had been the associate of admiral peary, and was a member of very good clubs. even if i had been scientific enough to have doubts, i should have been polite to him all the same. as it was, denmark was delighted to welcome cook because he was an american; he had apparently accomplished a great thing, and besides, he directed attention from politics at a tremendous public crisis. the great question for the danish government was as usual: shall we defend ourselves? shall we build ships and keep a large army and erect fortresses, or simply say 'kismet' when germany comes? the conservatives were for defence; the radicals and socialists against it. mr. j. c. christensen, one of the most powerful of danish politicians, of the moderate school, holding the balance of power, was in a tight place. alberti, the clever radical, had been supported by christensen, who had been innocently involved in his fall. alberti languished in jail, and christensen was being horribly assailed when dr. cook came and denmark forgot christensen and went wild with delight! in - , denmark trembled for fear that she would lose her freedom. when would the germans attack? the disorder in slesvig was perennial. a bill for a reasonable defence had been proposed to the danish parliament. king frederick had had great difficulty in forming a ministry. count morgen friis, capable, distinguished, experienced, but with some of the indolence of the old grand seigneur, had refused. richelieu could not see his way clear; nobody wanted the responsibility. the socialists and the radicals, practical, if you like, did not believe in building forts in the hope of saving the national honour. king frederick viii. was at his wit's end for a premier, for, as i have said, even count morgen friis, a man of undoubted ability and great influence, failed him. king frederick, because of his desire to stand well with his people, was never popular. his glove was too velvety, and he treated his political enemies as well as he did his friends. count friis was known to lean towards england, and he was very popular; he would have stood for a strong defence. admiral de richelieu was a man of great influence, a devoted slesviger, and the greatest 'industrial,' with the exception of state-councillor andersen, in denmark; he was not keen for the premiership, and his friends did not care that he should compromise their business interests; for, in denmark, business and politics do not mix well. finally, king frederick called on count holstein-ledreborg, without doubt, with perhaps the exception of--but i must not mention living men--the cleverest man in denmark. count holstein-ledreborg was a recluse; he had been practically exiled by the scornful attitude taken by the aristocracy on account of his radicalism, but had returned to his renascence castle near the old dwelling-place of beowulf. count holstein-ledreborg was the last resource, he had been out of politics for many years. although he was a pessimist, he was a furious patriot. he had a great respect for the abilities of the radicals, like edward brandès, but very little for those--'if they existed,' he said--of his own class in the aristocracy. he was one of the few catholics among the aristocracy, and he had a burning grievance against the existing order of churchly things. the state church in denmark is, like that of sweden and norway, lutheran. until , except in one or two commercial towns where there was a constant influx of merchants, no catholic church was permitted. the chapel of count holstein in his castle of ledreborg, was still lutheran. he was not permitted to have mass said in it, as it was a church of the commune. this made the lord of ledreborg furious. there must be lutheran worship in his own chapel, or no worship; this was the law! there was something else that added to his indignation. one day, very silently, he opened the doors that concealed a panel in the wall. there was a very lutheran picture indeed! it was done in glaring colours, even realistic colours. it represented various devils, horned and tailed and pitch-forked, poking into the fire in the lower regions a pope and several cardinals, who were turning to crimson like lobsters, while some pious lutheran prelates gave great thanks for this agreeable proceeding. 'in my own chapel,' said count holstein, 'almost facing the altar; and the law will not permit me to remove it!' being an american, i smiled; thereby, i almost lost a really valued friendship. 'i shall arrange with the king to give a substitute for the chapel to the commune--a school-house or a library--and have the chapel consecrated,' he said. 'i think i see my way.' '"all things come to him who knows how to wait,"' i quoted. in , at the time of the crisis, he accepted the task of forming a cabinet to get the defence bill through parliament, but he made one condition with the king--that he should have his own chapel to do as he liked with. he carried the defence bill through triumphantly and then, having made his point, and finding parliament unreasonable, from his point of view, on some question or other, he told its members to go where orpheus sought eurydice, and retired! he died too soon; he would have been a great help to us in the troubled days when we were trying to buy the virgin islands. he was my mentor in european politics, and a most distinguished man; and what is better, a good friend. at times he was sardonic. 'i would make,' he said, 'if i had the power, edward brandès (brandès is of the famous brandès family) minister of public worship!' (as brandès is a jew and a greek pagan both at once, it would have been one of those ironies of statecraft like that which made the duke of norfolk patron of some anglican livings.) count holstein disliked state churches. he was a strange mixture of the wit of voltaire with the faith of pascal, and one of the most inflexible of radicals. the party for the defence and for the integrity of the army and navy had its way; but, owing to the attitude of the socialists, a very moderate way. 'if germany comes, she will take us,' the radicals said with the socialists; 'why waste public money on soldiers and military bands and submarines?' but there are enough stalwarts, including the king, christian, to believe that a country worth living in is worth fighting for! chapter ii the menace of 'our neighbour to the south' in , russia seemed to me to be, for americans, the most important country in europe. our department of state was no doubt informed as to what the other countries would do in certain contingencies, for none of our diplomatic representatives, although always working under disadvantages not experienced by their european colleagues, had been idle persons. but all of us who had even cursorily studied european conditions knew that the actions of germany would depend largely on the attitude of russia. it was to the interest of emperor william to keep nicholas ii. and the romanoffs on the throne. he saw no other way of dividing and conquering a country which he at once hated and longed to control. the balkan situation was always burning; it was the etna and vesuvius of the diplomatic world; wise men might predict eruptions, but they were always unexpected. to most people in the united states the balkans seemed very far off; bulgaria with her eyes on macedonia, the tsar ferdinand and his attempt to put his son, boris, under the greater tsar, him of russia; rumania and her ambitions for more freedom and more territory; serbia, with her fears and aspirations, appeared to be of no importance--of less interest, perhaps, than other petty kingdoms. but at one fatal moment austria refused to allow serbia to export her pigs, and we came to pay about two million dollars an hour and to sacrifice most precious lives, much greater things, because of the ferocious growth of this little germ of tyranny and avarice. most of us have fixed ideas; if they are the result of prejudice, they are generally bad; if they are the result of principle, that is another question. when i went to denmark at the request of president roosevelt, i had several fixed ideas, whether of prejudice or principle i could not always distinguish. i had been brought up in a sentiment of gratitude to russia--she had behaved well to us in the civil war--and in a firm belief that her people only needed a fair chance to become our firm friends. we must seek european markets for our capital and our investments, and russia offered us a free way. towards the end of the year , the signs in russia were more ominous than usual. it had always seemed to me--and the impression had come probably from long and intimate association with some very clever diplomatists--that russian problems, industrially and economically, were very similar to our own, and that, in the future, her interests would be our interests. she was in evil hands--that was evident; nicholas ii., after the peace of portsmouth, was not so pleased with the action of president roosevelt as he ought to have been, and the arrogant clique, the bureaucrats who controlled the tsar, regarded us with suspicion and dislike. at the same time, it was plain that a great part of the landed nobility looked with hope to the united states as a nation which ought to understand their problems and assist, with technical advice and capital, in the solving of them. the baltic barons, many with german names and not of the orthodox faith, preferred that the united states, by the investments of her citizens in russia, should hold a balance between the french and the german financial influences, for germany was slowly beginning to control russia financially, and french capital meant a competition with the german interests which might eventually mean a conflict and war. the well instructed among the russian people, including the estate owners whose interests were not bureaucratic, feared war above all things. the japanese war had given them reason for their fears. to my mind there were three questions of great importance for us: how could we, with self-respect, keep on good terms with russia? how could we discover what germany's intentions were? and how could we strengthen the force of the monroe doctrine by acquiring, through legitimate means, certain islands on our coasts, especially the gallapagos, the danish west indies and others which, perhaps, it might not be discreet to mention. while the united states seemed fixed in her policy of keeping out of foreign entanglements, it seemed to me that the rule of conduct of a nation, like that of an individual, cannot always be consistent with its theories, since all intentions put into action by the party of the first part must depend on the action and point of view of the party of the second part. i had been largely influenced in my views of the value of the monroe doctrine by the speeches and writings of ex-president roosevelt and senator lodge. it was a self-evident truth, too, that, for the sake of democracy, for the sake of the future of our country, the autonomy of the small nations must be preserved. this attitude i made plain during my ten years in denmark; perhaps i over-accentuated it, but to this attitude i owe the regard of the majority of the danish people and of some of the folk of the other scandinavian nations. the position taken by germany, under prussian influence, in brazil and argentine, certain indications in our own country, which i shall emphasise later, the intrigues as to the bagdad railway, and the threats as to what germany might do in scandinavia in case russia attempted to interfere with german plans in the east, were alarming. then again was the hint that denmark might be seized if germany found russia in an alliance against england. from my earliest youth, i knew many germans whom i esteemed and admired; but they were generally descendants of the men of , that year which saw the hungarians defeated and the german lovers of liberty exiled. there were others of a later time who believed, with the kaiser, that a german emigrant was simply a german colonist--waiting! these people were so naïve in their prussianism, in their disdain for everything american, that they scarcely seemed real! when a german waiter looked out of the hotel window in trafalgar square and said, waving his napkin at the spectacle of the congested traffic, 'when the day comes, we shall change all this,' we americans laughed. this was in the eighties. yet he meant it; and 'we' have not changed all this even for the day! the alarm was sounded in south america, but few north americans took it seriously, and we knew how the english accepted the german invasions to the very doors of their homes. however, when i went to denmark in august , deeply honoured by president roosevelt's outspoken confidence in me, i became aware that prussianised germany might at any moment seize that little country, and that, in that case, the danish west indies would be german. a pleasant prospect when we knew that germany regarded the monroe doctrine as the silly figment of a democratic brain unversed in the real meaning of world politics. again, i saw exemplified the fact that _in the eyes of the kaiser, a german emigrant was a german colonist_. once a german always a german; the ideas of the fatherland must follow the blood, and these ideas are one and indivisible. consequently, no place could have been more interesting than the capital of denmark. here diplomatists were taught, made, or unmade. until we were forced to join in the european concert by the acquirement of the philippines, the post did not seem to be important. 'you always send your diplomatists here to learn their art,' the clever queen of christian ix. had said to an american. it may not have been intended as a compliment! in the second place, copenhagen was the centre of those new social and political movements that are affecting the world; denmark was rapidly becoming socialistic. she, one of the oldest kingdoms in the world, presented the paradox of being the spot in which all tendencies supposed to be anti-monarchical were working out. she had already solved problems incidental to the evolution of democratic ideals, which in our own country we have only begun timidly to consider. in the third place, copenhagen was near the most potent country in the world--germany under prussian domination. i make the distinction between 'potency' and 'greatness.' and, in the fourth place, it gave anybody who wanted to be 'on his job' a good opportunity of studying the effect of german propinquity on a small nation. unfortunately, in - - - - , no experience in watching german methods seemed of much value to our own people or to the english. the english who watched them critically, like maxse, the editor of the _national review_ of london, were not listened to. perhaps these persons were too radical and intemperate. the english foreign office had, after the vatican, the reputation of having the best system for obtaining information in europe, but both the english foreign office and the vatican secretariat seemed to have suddenly become deaf. we americans were too much taken up with the german _gemütlichkeit_, or scientific efficiency, to treat the prussian movements with anything but tolerance. the germans had won the hearts of some of our best men of science, who believed in them until belief was impossible; and, with most of my countrymen, i held that a breach of the peace in europe seemed improbable. there was always the hague! the only thing left for me was to let the germans be as _gemütlich_ as they liked, and to watch their attitude in denmark, for on this depended the ownership of the west indies. my german colleagues, henckel-donnersmarck, von waldhausen, and brockdorff-rantzau, were able men; and, i think, they looked on me as a madman with a fixed idea. count rantzau, if he lives, will be heard of later; he is one of the well-balanced among diplomatists. i realised early in the game that my work must be limited to watching germany in her relations with denmark. i knew what was expected of me. i had no doubt that the united states was the greatest country in the world in its potentialities, but i had no belief, then, in its power to enforce its high ideals on the politics of the european world. in fact, it never occurred to me that our country would be called upon to enforce them, for, unless the imperial german government should take it into its head to lay hands on a country or two in south america, it seemed to me that we might keep entirely out of such foreign entanglements as concerned western europe and constantinople and the balkans. if, however, there should be such interference by france and england with the interests of germany as would warrant her and her active ally in attacking these countries, denmark and, automatically, her islands would be german. then, we, in self-defence, must have something to say. secret diplomacy was flourishing in europe, and nothing was really clear. after the event it is very easy to take up the rôle of the prophet, but that is not in my line. if a man is not a genius, he cannot have the intuition of a genius, and, while i accepted the opinions of my more experienced colleagues, i imagined that their fears of a probable war were exaggerated. besides, i had been impressed by the constantly emphasised opinion--part of the german propaganda, i now believe--that our great enemy was japan. since the year , when i had been well introduced into diplomatic circles in washington, i had known many representatives of foreign powers. since those days, so well described in madame de hegermann-lindencrone's _sunny side of diplomatic life_, the german point of view had greatly changed. it was a far cry from the days of the easy-going herr von schlözer to speck von sternberg and efficient count bernstorff, a far cry from the amicable point of view of mr. poultney bigelow taken of the young kaiser in the eighties, and his revised point of view in . mr. poultney bigelow's change from a certain attitude of admiration, in his case with no taint of snobbishness, was typical of that of many of my own people. i must confess that no instructions from the state department had prepared me for the german echoes i heard in denmark; but even if treitschke had come to the united states to air his views at the university of chicago, i should probably have considered them merely academic, and have treated them as cavalierly as i had treated the speech of the waiter in the trafalgar square hotel about 'changing all that.' nietzsche's philosophy seemed so atrocious as to be ineffective. but we americans, as a rule, take no system of philosophy as having any real connection with the conduct of life, and, except in very learned circles, his was looked on as no more part of the national life of germany than william james is of ours. in a little while, i discovered that the kaiser had imposed on the prussians, at least, a most practical system of philosophy, which our universities had come to admire. i had not been long in denmark when i realised that germany, in the three scandinavian countries, was looked on either as a powerful enemy or as a potential friend, and that she tried, above all, to control the learned classes. the united states hardly counted; she was too far off and seemed to be hopelessly ignorant of the essential conditions of foreign affairs. her diplomacy, if it existed at all, was determined by existing political conditions at home. i visited holland and belgium; germany loomed larger. she was bent on commercial supremacy everywhere. one could not avoid admitting that fact. as to denmark, it was piteous to see how the danes feared the power that never ceased to threaten them. prussia has made her empire possible by establishing the beginnings, in , of her naval power at the expense of denmark. the longer i lived in denmark the more strongly i felt that germany was getting ready for a short, sharp war in which the united states of america, it seemed to me (as i was no prophet), was not to be a factor, but russia was. the members of the german legation were very sympathetic, especially the minister, count henckel-donnersmarck. he loved weimar; he loved the old germany. it was a delight to hear him talk of the real glories of his country. his family, in the opinion of the germans, was so great that he could afford to do as he pleased; i rather think he looked on the hohenzollerns as rather _parvenus_. he was of the school of frederick the noble rather than of william the conqueror. 'do you mind talking politics?' i asked him one day. 'it bores me,' he said, 'because there is nothing stable. my country feels that it is being isolated. since algeria, in , she stands against europe, with austria.' 'stands against the united states?' 'no, no; we shall always be at peace,' he said. 'our interests are not dissimilar; our military organisation is almost perfect. yes, we learned some lessons even from your civil war, though you are not a military people. your country is full of our citizens.' '_your_ citizens, count!' 'ah, yes,--in brazil and argentine, everywhere, a german citizen is like a roman citizen, proud and unchanging, that is the german citizen who understands the aims of modern germany. _civis romanus sum!_ the older ones are different; it is a question of sentiment and memories with them. your great german population will always keep you out of conflict with us, though even you, who know our literature, are at heart english--i mean politically. you cannot help it. your irish blood may count, but the point of view is made by literature. it gets into the blood. see what homer has done for those old savages of his. our bankers can always manage the finances of new york, as they manage those of london. it would be a sad day for germany if we should break with you; some of us know that frederick the great saw your future, and believed that we always ought to be friends. but do not imagine that your nation, great as it is, can do anything your people wills to do. great power, i understand, is hidden in your country; but, as the actors say, you cannot get it across the footlights. it is not, as gambetta spoke of the catholic religion in france, a matter for export.' 'our education,' count henckel-donnersmarck resumed, 'is practical; goethe and schiller mean little now to us. bismarck has made new men of us. i shall not live long, and i cannot say i regret it,' he said; 'and, as the lust of power becomes the rule of the world, my son must be a new german or suffer.' 'count henckel,' as he preferred to be called, did not remain long in copenhagen; he was recalled because, it was reported, he did not provide the kaiser, who carefully read his ministers' reports, with a sufficient number of details of life in denmark. when i took his hint and went to germany, at christmas--christmas was a divine time in the old germany!--i found that count henckel was right. berlin was hygienic, ugly, and more offensively immoral than paris was once said to be. there was an artificial rule of life. even the lives of the boys and girls seemed to be ordered by some unseen law. you could breathe, but it was necessary not to consume too much oxygen at a time. that was _verboten_; and there were cannons on the christmas trees! chapter iii the kaiser and the king of england it was pleasant to renew old memories among diplomatists and ex-diplomatists in copenhagen. i remembered the old days in washington, when sir edward thornton's house was far up-town, when the rows between the chileans and peruvians--i forget to which party the amiable ibañez belonged--convulsed the coteries that gathered at mrs. dahlgren's, when bodisco and aristarchi bey and baron de santa ana were more than names, and the hegermann-lindencrones[ ] were the handsomest couple in washington. so it was agreeable to find some colleagues with whom one had reminiscences in common. then there were the americans married to members of the corps. lady johnston, wife of sir alan; madame de riaño, married to one of the most well-balanced and efficient diplomatists in europe. these ladies made the way of my wife and my daughters very easy. [ ] madame hegermann-lindencrone is the author of _in the court of memory_ and _the sunny side of diplomacy_. an envoy arriving at a new post has one consolation, not an unmitigatedly agreeable one. he is sure of knowing what his colleagues think of him. and for a while they weigh him very carefully. the american can seldom shirk the direct question: 'is this your first post?' it required great strength of mind not to say: 'i had a special mission to the indian reservations, and i have always been, more or less, you know----' 'ah, i see! calcutta, bombay----!' 'not exactly--red lake, you know--the reservations, wards of our government.' 'oh, red indians! i was not aware that you had diplomatic relations with the old red indian princes. but this is your first post in europe?' you cannot avoid that. however, the longer one is at a post, the more he enjoys it. in the course of nearly eleven years, i never knew one of my colleagues who did not show _esprit de corps_. they become more and more kindly. you know that they know your faults and your virtues. in the diplomatic service you are like wolsey, naked, not to your enemies, but to your colleagues. they can help you greatly if they will. after the peace of portsmouth, which in the opinion of certain russians gave all the advantages to japan, the emperor of germany spoke of president roosevelt with added respect, we were told. the attitude toward americans on the part of germans seemed always the reflection of the point of view of the kaiser. from their point of view, it was only the president who counted; our nation, from the pan-german point of view seemed not to be of importance. it was rather hard to find out exactly what the kaiser's attitude towards us was. some of the court circle--there were always visitors from berlin--announced that the kaiser was greatly pleased by the result of the portsmouth conference. he knew the weakness of russia, and though he believed that german interests required that she should not be strong, he feared, above all things, the preponderance of the yellow races. i discovered one thing early, that the pan-german party propagated the idea that the japanese alliance with england could be used against the united states. it was vain to argue about this. 'japan is your enemy; the philippines will be japanese, unless you strengthen yourselves by a quasi-alliance with us; then england, tied to japan, can not oppose you.' one could discover very little from the kaiser's public utterances; but he indemnified himself for his conventionality in public by his frankness in private. he described the danish as the most 'indiscreet of courts.' he forgot that his own indiscretions had become proverbial in copenhagen. whether this 'indiscretion' was first submitted to the foreign office is a question. his diplomatists were usually miracles of discretion; but the city was full of 'echoes' from berlin which did not come from the diplomatists or the court. the truth was, the kaiser looked on the courts of denmark and stockholm as dependencies, and he was 'hurt' when any of the court circle seemed to forget this. in his eyes, a german princess, no matter whom she married, was to remain a german. the present queen of denmark, the most discreet of princesses, never forgot that she was a danish princess and would be in time a danish queen. every german princess was looked upon as a propagator of the views of the kaiser;--the queen of the belgians was a sore disappointment to him; but, then, she was not a prussian princess. when one of the princesses joined the catholic church, there was an explosion of rage on his part. as far as i could gather, in - - , he was _chambré_, as liberal germany said, surrounded by people who echoed his opinions, or who, while pretending to accept them, coloured them with their own. it was surmised that he despised his uncle, king edward. evidences of this would leak out. he admired our material progress, and he was determined to imitate our methods. the loquacity of some of our compatriots amused him. he understood president roosevelt so little as to imagine that he could influence him. there was one american he especially disliked, and that was archbishop ireland; but the reason for that will form almost a chapter by itself. as i have said, it seemed to me most important that good feeling in the little countries of europe should be founded on respect for us. somebody, a cynic, once said that the only mortal sin among americans is to be poor. that may or may not be so. it was, however, the impression in europe. it was difficult in denmark to make it understood that we were interested in literature and art, or had any desire to do anything but make money. the attempt to buy the danish west indies, made in , was looked on by many of the danes as the manifestation of a desire on the part of an arrogant and imperial-minded people to take advantage of the poverty of a little country. 'you did not dare to propose to buy an island near your coast from england or france, or even holland,' they said. this prejudice was encouraged by the german press whenever an opportunity arose. and against this prejudice it was my business to fight. until after the war with spain--unfortunate as it was in some aspects--we were disdained; after that we were supposed to have crude possibilities. german propagandists took advantage of our seeming 'newness,' forgetting that the new germany was a _parvenu_ among the nations. our people _en tour_ in europe spent money freely and gave opinions with an infallible air almost as freely. they too frequently assumed the air of folk who had 'come abroad' to complete an education never begun at home; or, if they were persons who had 'advantages,' they were too anxious for a court _entrée_, asking their representative for it as a right, and then acting at court as if it were a divine privilege. it was necessary in denmark to accentuate the little things. the danes love elegant simplicity; they are, above all, aesthetic. my predecessor, who did not remain long enough in denmark to please his danish admirers, called the danes 'the most civilised of peoples.' i found that he was right; but they were full of misconceptions concerning us. we used toothpicks constantly! we did not know how to give a dinner! the values of the wine list (before the war, most important) would always remain a mystery to us. in a word, we were 'yankees!' to make propaganda--the first duty of a diplomatist--requires thought, time and money. the germans used all three intelligently. one cannot travel in the provinces without money. one cannot reach the minds of the people without the distribution of literature. unhappily, governments before the war, with the exception of the german government, took little account of this. one of the best examples of an effective propaganda, of the most practicable and far-sighted methods, was that of the french ambassador to the united states, jusserand. he did not wait to be taught anything by the germans. we have two bad habits: we read our psychology as well as our temperament--the result of a unique kind of experience and education--into the minds of other people, and we despise the opinion of nations which are small. the first defect we have suffered from, and the latter we shall suffer from if we are not careful. who cares whether bulgaria respects us or not? and yet a diplomatist soon learns that it counts. it is a grave question whether the little countries look with hope towards democracy, or with helpless respect towards autocracy. we see that bulgaria counted; we shall see that denmark counted, too, when the moment came for our buying the virgin islands. the german propaganda was incessant. denmark was in close business relations with england. denmark furnished the english breakfast table--the inevitable butter, bacon and eggs. but the trade relations between england and denmark were not cultivated as were those between denmark and germany. the german 'drummer' was the rule, the english commercial traveller the exception. as to the american, he seldom appeared, and when he came he spoke no language but his own. in literature the germans did all they could to cultivate the interest of the danish author. he was petted and praised when he went to berlin--that is, after his books had been translated. berlin never allowed herself to praise any scandinavian books in the original. as to music, the best german musicians came to denmark. richard strauss led the _rosenkavalier_ in person; the berlin symphony and rheinhart's plays were announced. every opportunity was taken to show denmark germany's best in music, art and science. 'if you speak the word culture, you must add the word german.' this was a berlin proverb. 'all good american singers must have my stamp before america will hear them,' the kaiser said. danish scientists were always sure of recognition in germany, but they must be read in german or speak in german when they visited berlin. in king edward came to copenhagen. he was regarded principally as the husband of the beloved princess alexandra. he did not conceal the fact that copenhagen bored him, and the copenhageners knew it. however, they received him with an appearance of amiability they had not shown to the kaiser on the occasion of his visit. no dane who remembered bismarck and slesvig and who saw at kiel the growing german fleet could admire the emperor william ii. even the most ferocious propagandists demanded too much when they asked that. they looked on the visits of king frederick viii. to germany with suspicion. when the crown prince, the present christian x., married the daughter of the grand duke of mecklenburg-schwerin, they were not altogether pleased. they were reconciled, however, by the fact that the crown princess was the daughter of a russian mother. besides, the crown princess, now queen alexandrina, was chosen by prince christian because he loved her. 'she is the only woman i will marry,' he had said. and when she married him, she became danish, unlike her sister-in-law, the princess harald, who has always remained german, much to the embarrassment of her husband, and the rumoured annoyance of the present king, who holds that a danish princess must be a dane and nothing else. the danish queen's mother is the clever grand duchess anastasia michaelovna,[ ] who was russian and parisian, who loved the riviera, above all cannes, and who was the most brilliant of widows. when the sister of queen alexandrina married the german crown prince in , the danes were relieved, but not altogether pleased. those of them who believed that royal alliance counted, hoped that a future german empress, so nearly akin to their queen, might ward off the ever-threatening danger of prussian conquest. [ ] on the outbreak of the war, the grand duchess threw off her allegiance to germany, and resumed her russian citizenship. the crown princess cecilia became a favourite in germany; it was rumoured that she was not sufficient of a german housewife to suit the kaiser. 'the crown princess cecilia is adorable, but she will not permit her august father-in-law to choose her hats,' said a visiting lady of the german autocratic circle; 'she might, at least, follow the example of her mother-in-law, for the emperor's taste is unimpeachable!' my wife remembered that this serene, well-born lady wore a hat of mustard yellow, then a favourite colour in berlin! in april , king edward vii. and queen alexandra made a visit to copenhagen. it was the custom in denmark that, when a reigning sovereign came on a gala visit, the court and the diplomatists were expected to go to the station to meet him. the waiting-room of the station was decorated with palms which had not felt the patter of rain for years, and with rugs evidently trodden to shabbiness by many royal feet. amid these splendours a _cercle_ was held. the visiting monarch, fresh from his journey, spoke to each of the diplomatists in turn. he dropped pearls of thought for which one gave equally valuable gems. 'the american minister, your majesty,' said the chamberlain. 'glad to see you; where are you from?' 'washington, the capital.' 'there are more washingtons?' 'many, sir.' 'how do you like copenhagen?' 'greatly--almost as well as london' (insert stockholm, christiania, the hague, to suit the occasion). and then came the voice of the chamberlain--'the austrian minister, your majesty.' 'how do you like copenhagen?' the same formula was used until the _chargés d'affaires_, who always ended the list, were reached: 'how long have you been in copenhagen?' king edward was accompanied by a staff of the handsomest and most soldierly courtiers imaginable; they were the veritable splendid captains of kipling's _recessional_. queen alexandra was attended by the hon. charlotte knollys and miss vivian. it was a great pleasure to see miss knollys again. to those who knew her all the tiresome waiting was worth while; she seemed like an old friend. the police surveillance was not so strict when the king and queen of england were in copenhagen; but when any of the russian royalties arrived, the police had a time of anxiety though they were reinforced by hundreds of detectives. in copenhagen it was always said that the empress dowager, the grand duke michael, the archduchess olga, and others of the romanoff family, were only safe when in the company of some of the english royal people. the empress dowager of russia, formerly the princess dagmar of denmark, never went out without her sister. they were inseparable, devoted to each other, as all the children of king christian ix. were. it was not the beauty and charm of queen alexandra that saved her from attack; it was the fact that england was tolerant of all kinds of political exiles, as a visit to soho, in london, will show. at the station, just as the king and queen of england entered, there was an explosion. 'a bomb,' whispered one of the uninitiated. it happened to be the result of the sudden opening of a _chapeau claque_ in the unaccustomed hands of a radical member of the cabinet who, against his principles, had been obliged to come in evening dress. we, of the legation, always wore evening dress in daylight on gala occasions. one soon became used to it. our american citizens of danish descent always deplored this, and some of our secretaries would have worn the uniform of a captain of militia or the court dress of the danish chamberlains, which, they said, under the regulations we were permitted to wear. not being english, i found evening dress in the morning not more uncomfortable than the regulation frock coat. i permitted a white waistcoat, which the danes never wore in the morning, but refused to allow a velvet collar and golden buttons because this was too much like the _petit uniforme_ of other legations. there was one inconvenience, however--the same as irked james russell lowell in spain--the officers on grand occasions could not recognise a minister without gold lace, and so our country did not get the proper salute. on the occasion of the arrival of the king of england, i remedied this by putting on the coachmen rather large red, white and blue cockades. arthur and hans were really resplendent! later, when my younger daughter appeared in society after the marriage of the elder, there was no difficulty. all the officers who loved parties recognised the father of the most indefatigable dancer in court circles. a cotillion or two at the legation amply made up for the absence of uniforms. our country, in the person of its representative, after that had tremendously resounding salutes. prince hans, the brother of the late king christian ix., who has since died, was especially friendly with us. he was beloved of the whole royal family. his kindliness and politeness were proverbial. when he was regent in greece, he had been warned that the greeks would soon hate him if he continued to be so courteous. his equerry, chamberlain de rothe, told me that he answered: 'i cannot change; i _must_ be courteous.' he is the only man on record who seems to have entirely pleased a people who have the reputation of being the most difficult in europe. prince hans came in to call, at a reasonable time, after the arrival of the king and queen of england; we were always glad to see him; he was so really kind, so full of pleasant reminiscences; he had had a very long and full life; he was the 'uncle' of all the royalties in europe. he especially loved the king of england. having lived through the invasion of slesvig, he was most patriotically danish; he looked on the prussians as an 'uneasy' people. 'the king of england is much interested in the condition of your ex-president, grover cleveland,' he said. 'if you will have him, he will come to tea with you; i will bring him. he is engaged to dine with the count raben-levitzau and, i think, to go to the zoological gardens and to dine with the count friis; but he will make you a visit, to ask personally for ex-president cleveland and to talk of him after, of course, he has lunched at the british legation.' i said that the legation would be deeply honoured. informal as the visit would be, it would be a great compliment to my country. 'the german legation will be surprised; but it can give no offence; i am _sure_ that it can give no offence. king edward is not pleased altogether with his nephew. when the emperor came to copenhagen in he was not so friendly to us as he is now. poor little denmark. it has escaped a great danger through bertie's cleverness,' prince hans murmured. from this i gathered that prince hans felt that the king's coming to the american legation would be noticed by all the legations as unusual, but especially by the german legation. from this i judged that some danger to denmark might have been threatening. 'the kaiser dined in this room,' prince hans said, 'when he was here in --no, no, he took coffee in this room, and not in the dining-room. however, as madame hegermann-lindencrone has told, the german minister, von schoen, who gave so many parties that all the young danish people loved him, and his wife could not decide where coffee was to be taken; the kaiser settled it himself. it is an amusing story; it has made king frederick laugh. if the king of england comes to tea, you will not be expected to have boiled eggs, as we have for the empress dowager of russia and queen alexandra and king george of greece, some champagne, perhaps, and the big cigars, of course.' 'and, as to guests?' 'only the americans of your staff, i think, who have been already presented to the king.' the announcement that the king of england would take tea with us did not cause a ripple in the household; the servants were used to kings. king frederick had a pleasant way of dropping in to tea without ceremony, and the princesses liked our cakes. besides, hans, the indispensable hans, had waited on king edward frequently, so he knew his tastes. but the king did not come; prince hans said that he was tired. he sent an equerry, with a most gracious message for grover cleveland, and another inquiry as to his health. the royal cigars lasted a long time as few guests were brave enough to smoke them. the king at the _cercle_ at court was most gracious. 'i hope to see you in london,' he said. my colleagues seemed to think that his word was law, and that i would be the next ambassador at the court of st. james's. i knew very well that his politeness was only to show that he was in a special mood to manifest his regard for the country i represented. the king of england was failing at the time as far as his bodily health was concerned, but he had what a german observer called 'a good head' in more senses than one. he still took his favourite champagne; his cigars were too big and strong for most men, but not too big and strong for him. he showed symptoms of asthma, but he was alert, and firmly resolved to keep the peace in europe, and, it was evident--he made it very evident--he was determined to keep on the best terms with the united states. during the pause between the parts of the performance at the royal opera house, where we witnessed queen alexandra's favourite ballet, _napoli_, and heard excerpts from _i poliacci_ and _cavalleria_, the king renewed the questions about grover cleveland's health. prince hans suddenly announced that he was dead. as every minister is quite accustomed to having all kinds of news announced before he receives it, i could only conclude that it was true. several ladies of american birth came and asked me; i could only say, 'prince hans says so.' countess raben-levitzau, whose husband was then minister of foreign affairs, seemed to be much amused that i should receive a bit of information of that kind through prince hans. late that night, after the gala was over, a cable came telling me that the ex-president was well. i was glad that i was not obliged to put out the flag at half-mast for the loss of a president whom the whole country honoured, and who had shown great confidence in me at one time. prince hans was full of the sayings and doings of the king of england after his departure. he called him 'bertie' when absent-minded, recovering to the 'king of england' when he remembered that he was speaking to a stranger. once, quoting the german emperor, he said 'uncle albert.' 'denmark will not become part of germany in the kaiser's time--"uncle albert" will see to that. england will not fight germany in his time on any question; therefore russia will not go against us.' 'but the crown prince. what of him?' '"uncle albert" will see to that if the kaiser should die--but life is long. the king of england will cease to smoke so much, and, after that, his health will be good; he has saved us, i will tell you, by defeating at berlin the designs of the pan-germans against denmark.' the late king of england had new issues to face, and he knew it. the cause of sane democracy would have been better served had he lived longer. perhaps he had been, like his brother-in-law, king frederick of denmark, crown prince too long. nevertheless, he had observed, and he was wise. he may have been too tolerant, but he was not weak. in denmark, one might easily get a fair view of the characters of the royal people. the danes are keen judges of persons--perhaps too keen, and the members of their aristocracy had been constantly on intimate terms with european kings and princes. 'as for queen alexandra,' miss knollys once said, 'she will go down in history as the most beautiful of england's queens, but also as the most devoted of wives and mothers. the king makes us all work, but she works most cheerfully and is never bored.' the visit of the king of england caused more conjectures. what did it mean? a pledge on the part of england that denmark would be protected both against germany and russia? notwithstanding the opinion that the foreign office in england did all the work, the diplomatists held that kings, especially king edward and the kaiser, had much to do with it. chapter iv some details the germans knew i gathered that germany, in , , , was growing more and more furiously jealous of england. to make a financial wilderness of london and reconstruct the money centre of the world in berlin was the ambition of some of her great financiers. our time had not come yet; we might grow in peace. it depended on our attitude whether we should be plucked when ripe or not. if we could be led, i gathered, into an attitude inimical to england, all would be well; but that might safely be left 'to the irish and the great german population of the middle west.' it was 'known that english money prevented the development of our merchant marine'; but this, after all, was not to the disadvantage of germany since, if we developed our marine, it might mean state subsidies to american ocean steamer lines. this would not have pleased herr ballin. count henckel-donnersmarck held no such opinions, but the members of the berlin _haute bourgeoisie_, who occasionally came to copenhagen, were firmly convinced that english money was largely distributed in the united states to prejudice our people against the beneficent german kultur, which, as yet, we were too crude to receive. i gathered, too, that many of the important, the rich business representatives of germany in our country reported that we were 'only fit to be bled.' we were unmusical, unliterary, unintellectual. we knew not what a gentleman should eat or drink. our cooking was vile, our taste in amusement only a reflection of the english music halls. we bluffed. we were not virile. the aristocrat did not express these opinions; but the middle class, or higher middle class, sojourners in our land did. 'good heavens!' exclaimed one american at one of our receptions to a german-american guest; 'you eat that grouse from your fists like an animal.' 'i am a male,' answered fritz proudly; 'we must devour our food--we of the virile race!' the pretensions of this kind of german were intolerable. he was the most brutal of snobs. he arrogated to himself a rank, when one met him, that he was not allowed to assume in his own country. it was often amusing to receive a call from a spurious 'von,' representing german interests in milwaukee, chicago, or cincinnati, who patronised us until he discovered that we knew that he would be in the seventh heaven if he could, by any chance, marry his half-american daughter to the most shop-worn little lieutenant in the german army! to see him shrivel when a veritable junker came in, was humiliating. i often wondered whether the well-to-do german burghers of st. louis or cincinnati were really imposed upon by men of this kind. the nobles' club in copenhagen is not a club as we know clubs. there are chairs, newspapers from all parts of the world, and bridge tables, if you wish to use them. you may even play the honoured game of _l'ombre_--after the manner of christian iv., or, perhaps, his lordship, the high chamberlain polonius, of the court of his late majesty, king claudius. people seldom go there. it is the one place in denmark where the members of the club are never found. the country gentlemen have rooms there when they come to town. it is in an annex of the hotel phoenix. a few of the best bridge players in copenhagen meet there occasionally; the rest is silence; therefore it is a safe place for diplomatic conversations. a very distinguished german came to me with a letter of introduction from munich, in --late in the year. his position was settled. he was not in the class of the spurious 'vons.' he was, however, high in the confidence of the kings of saxony and bavaria, both of whom, he confessed, were displeased because the united states had no diplomatic representatives at their courts. he had been _persona non grata_ with bismarck because of his father's liberalism; he had been friendly with windthorst, the centre leader, and he had been in some remote way connected with the german legation at the vatican. we talked of washington in the older days, of speck von sternberg[ ] and of his charming wife, then a widow in berlin; of the cleverness of secretary radowitz, who had been at the german embassy at washington; of the point of view of von schoen, who had been minister to copenhagen. he spoke of the kaiser's having dined in our apartment, which von schoen had then occupied; and then he came to the point. [ ] baron speck von sternberg died on may rd, . 'is the united states serious about the monroe doctrine--really?' he asked. 'it is an integral part of our policy of defence.' 'we, in germany, do not take it seriously. i understand from my friends you have lived in washington a long time. we are familiar with your relations with president cleveland and of your attitude towards president mckinley. we know,' he said, 'that president mckinley offered you a secret mission to rome. we know other things; therefore, we are inclined to take you more seriously than most of the political appointees who are here to-day and gone to-morrow. your position in the affair of the philippines is well known to us. it would be well for you to ask your ambassador at berlin to introduce you to the emperor; he was much pleased with your predecessor, mr. o'brien. there is, no doubt, some information you could give his imperial majesty. you have friends in munich, too, and in dresden there is the count von seebach whom you admire, i know.' 'i admire count von seebach, but i am paid not to talk,' i said; 'but about the secret mission to rome in the philippine matter--you knew of that?' it was more than i knew, though president mckinley, through senator carter, had suggested, when the friars' difficulty had been seething in the philippines, a solution which had seemed to me out of the question. but how did this man know of it? i had not spoken of it to the count von seebach, or to anybody in germany. no word of politics had ever escaped my lips to the count von seebach, who was his excellency the director of the royal opera at dresden. 'yes; we know all the secrets of the philippine affair, even that domingo merry del val came to washington to confer with mr. taft. i want to know two facts,--facts, not guesses. your ministers who come from provincial places, after a few months' instruction in washington, cannot know much except local politics. they are like pomeranian squires or jutland farmers. we know that henckel-donnersmarck and you are on good terms, and we are prepared to treat you from a confidential point of view.' this was interesting; it showed how closely even unimportant persons like myself were observed; it was flattering, too; for one grows tired of the foreign assumption that every american envoy has come abroad because, as de tocqueville says in _democracy in america_ he has failed at home. 'mr. poultney bigelow, whom you doubtless know, once said in conversation with the kaiser, that his father would rather see him dead than a member of your diplomatic corps, and he was unusually well equipped for work of that kind. with few exceptions, as i have remarked, your service is _pour rire_. what can a man from one of your provincial towns know of anything but local politics and business?' i laughed: 'but you are businesslike, too; i hear that, when the kaiser speaks to americans--at least they have told me so--it is generally on commercial subjects. he likes to know even how many vessels pass the locks every year at sault sainte marie, and the amount of grain that can be stored in the chicago elevators.' 'it is useful to us,' my acquaintance said. 'you would scarcely expect him to talk about things that do not exist in your country--music, art, literature, high diplomacy----' my reply shall be buried in oblivion; it might sound too much like _éloquence de l'escalier_. after an interval, not without words, i said: 'it is not necessary for a man to have lived in washington or new york in order to have a grasp on american politics in relation to the foreign problem at the moment occupying the attention of the american people or the department of state. every country boy at home is a potential statesman and a politician. i recall the impression made on two visiting foreigners some years ago by the interest of our very young folk in politics. "good heavens!" said the marquis moustier de merinville, "these children of ten and twelve are monsters! they argue about bryan and free silver! such will make revolutions." "i cannot understand it," said prince adam saphia. "children ask one whether one is a republican or democrat."' 'that may be so,' he said. 'your presidents are not as a rule chosen from men who live in the great cities.' 'you forget that, while paris is france, berlin, germany----' 'no, berlin is prussia,' he said, smiling; 'but london is england; paris, france; and vienna would be austria if it were not for budapest.' 'new york or washington is not, as you seem to think, the united states.' 'that may be,' he said, 'nevertheless it is difficult for a european to understand. it may be,' he added thoughtfully, 'there are some things about your country we shall never come to understand thoroughly.' 'you will have to die first--like the man of your own country who, crossing a crowded street, was injured mortally and cried: "now i shall know it _all_." you will never understand us in this world.' 'that is _blague_,' he said. 'we germans know all countries. besides, you know the german language.' 'who told you that? it's nonsense!' i asked, aghast. 'the other day, i have heard that the austrians were talking in german to the first secretary of the german legation at the foreign office, when you suddenly forgot yourself and asked a question in good german!' he said triumphantly. this was true. count zichy, secretary of the austrian-hungarian legation, had dropped from french into german. now, i had read heine and goethe when i was young, and i had written the german script; but that was long ago. there were great arid spaces in my knowledge of the german language, but something that count zichy had said about an arbitration treaty had vaguely caught my attention, and i had blundered out, 'was ist das, herr graf?' or something equally elegant and scholarly. this was really amusing. my friends had always accused me of turning all german conversation toward _wilhelm meister_ and _der erlkönig_, since i could quote from both! 'you can _finesse_,' continued the great nobleman. 'you are not usual. your government has sent you here for a special mission; it is well to pose as a poet and a man of letters, but you have been reported to our government as having a _mission secrète_. you are allied with the russians; we know that you are not rich.' this very charming person, who always laid himself at 'the feet of the ladies' and clicked his heels like castanets, did not apologise for discussing my private affairs without permission, and for insinuating that i was paid by the russian government. 'do you mean----?' 'nothing,' he said hastily, 'nothing; but the russians use money freely; they would not dare to approach _you_. nevertheless, i warn you that their marked regard for you must have some motive, and yours for them may excite suspicions.' 'surely my friend henckel-donnersmarck has not reported me to the kaiser?' 'our ministers are expected to report everything to the kaiser, especially from copenhagen; but henckel-donnersmarck does not report enough. he is either too haughty or too lazy. my master will send him to weimar, if he is not more alert; but we have others!' 'i like him.' 'it is evident. why?' asked the count, with great interest. 'i sent him a case of lemp's beer. he says it is better than anything of the kind made in germany--polite but unpatriotic.' 'you jest,' said the count. 'you have the reputation of being apparently never in earnest, but----' 'you shall have a case too,' i said, 'and then you can judge whether his truthfulness got the better of his politeness, or his politeness of his truthfulness.' he rose and bowed, he seated himself again. 'remember, we shall always be interested in you,' he said; 'but there is one thing i should like to ask--are you interested in potash?' 'i have no business interests. if you wish to talk business, count, you must go to the consul general.' that was the beginning. henckel and i continued to be friends. he seldom spoke of diplomatic matters. he assured me (over and over again) that, if the ideas of frederick the great were to be followed, germany and the united states must remain friends. i told him that count von x. had said that 'if the united states could arrange to oust england from control of the atlantic and make an alliance with germany, these two countries would rule the world.' 'you will never do that,' he said. 'you are safer with england on the atlantic than you would be with any other nation. i am not sure what our ultra pan-germans mean by "ruling the world." you may be sure that your monroe doctrine would go to splinters if our pan-germans ruled the world. as for me, i am sick of diplomacy. why do you enter it? it either bores or degrades one. i am not curious or unscrupulous enough to be a spy. as to slesvig, i have little concern with it. if germany should find it to her interest, she might return northern slesvig; but there would be danger in that for denmark. she must live in peace with us, or take the consequences.' 'the consequences!' 'dear colleague, you know as well as i do that all the nations of the earth want territory or a new adjustment of territory. in the middle ages, nations had many other questions, and there was a universal christendom; but, since the renascence, the great questions are land and commerce. germany must look, in self-defence, on slesvig and denmark as pawns in her game. she is not alone in this. you know how tired i am of it all. no man is more loyal to his country than i am; but i should like to see germany on entirely sympathetic terms with the kingdoms that compose it and reasonably friendly to the rest of the world; but we could not give up slesvig, even if the danish government would take it, except for a _quid pro quo_.' 'what?' 'well, let us say a place in the pacific, on friendly terms with you. your country can hardly police the philippines against japan. germany is great in what i fear is the new materialism. as to slesvig, in which you seem particularly interested, ask prince koudacheff, the russian minister; write to iswolsky, the russian minister, or talk to michel bibikoff, who is a russian patriot never bored in the pursuit of information. these russians may not exaggerate the consequences as they know what absolute power means. 'there is one thing, germany will not tolerate sedition in any of her provinces, and, since we took slesvig from denmark in , she is one of our provinces. the danes may tolerate a hint of secession on the part of iceland, which is amusing, but the beginning of sedition in slesvig would mean an attitude on our part such as you took towards secession in the south. but it is unthinkable. the demonstrations against us in slesvig have no importance.' * * * * * michel bibikoff, secretary of the russian legation, was most intelligent and most alert. wherever he is now, he deserves well of his country. as a diplomatist he had only one fault--he underrated the experience and the knowledge of his opponents; but this was the error of his youth. i say 'opponents,' because at one time or other bibikoff's opponents were everybody who was not russian. a truer patriot never lived. he was devoted to my predecessor, mr. o'brien, who was, in his opinion, the only american gentleman he had ever met. he compared me very unfavourably with my courteous predecessor, who has filled two embassies with satisfaction to his own country and to those to whom he was accredited. at first bibikoff distrusted me; and i was delighted. if he thought that you were concealing things he would tell you something in order to find out what he wanted to know. for me, i was especially interested in discovering what the tsar's state of mind was concerning the portsmouth peace arrangements. bibikoff had means of knowing. indeed, he found means of knowing much that might have been useful to all of us, his colleagues. a long stay in the united states would have 'made' bibikoff. he was one of the few men in europe who understood what germany was aiming at. he predicted the present war--but of that later. he had been in washington only a few months. i suffered as to prestige in the beginning only, as every american minister and ambassador suffers from our present system of appointing envoys. no representative of the united states is at first taken seriously by a foreign country. he must earn his spurs, and, by the time he earns them, they are, as a rule, ruthlessly hacked off! each ambassador is supposed by the foreign offices to be appointed for the same reason that so many peerages have been conferred by the british government. every minister, it is presumed, has given a _quid pro quo_ for being distinguished from the millions of his countrymen. 'if you have the price, you can choose your embassy,' is a speech often quoted in europe. i cannot imagine who made it--possibly the famous flannigan, of texas. it is notorious that peerages are sold for contributions to the campaign fund in england; but places in the diplomatic service, though governed sometimes by political influence, cannot be said to be sold. i had one advantage; nobody suspected me of paying anything for my place; and, then, i had come from washington, the capital of the country. as i said, my eyes were fixed on russia. i found, however, that the main business of my colleagues seemed to be to watch germany, and that attitude for a time left me cold. denmark had reason to fear germany; but then, at that time, every other european nation was on its guard against possible aggressions on the part of its neighbours. i had hope that a scandinavian confederacy or the swelling rise of the social democracy in germany would put an end to the fears of all the little countries. there seemed to be no hope that the attitude of the german nation towards the world could change unless the social democrats and the moderate liberals should gain power. but why should we watch germany, the powerful, the self-satisfied, the splendid country whose kaiser professed the greatest devotion to our president, and had sent his brother, prince henry, over to show his regard for our nation? i was most anxious to find the reason. in my time, good americans--say in --when they died, went to paris, never to berlin. the emperor of germany had determined to change this. he tried to make his capital a glittering imitation of paris; he received americans with every show of cordiality. berlin was to be made a paradise for americans and for the world; but nearly every american is half french at heart. nevertheless, i do not think that we took the french attitude of revenge against germany seriously; we thought that the french were beginning to forget the _revanche_; their government had apparently become so 'international.' many of us had been brought up with the germans and the sons of germans. we read german literature; we began with grimm and went on to goethe and, to descend somewhat, heyse and auerbach. without asking too many questions, we even accepted frederick the great as a hero. he was easier to swallow than cromwell, and more amusing. in fact, most of us did not think much of foreign complications, the charm of the deutscher club in milwaukee, the warmth of the singing of german _lieder_ by returned students from freiburg or bonn or heidelberg; the lavish hospitality of the opulent german in this country, the german love for family life, and, for me personally, the survival of the robust virtues, seemingly of german origin, among the descendants of the germans in pennsylvania, impressed me. as far as education was concerned, i had hated to see the german methods and ideas _servilely_ applied. i belonged to the alliance française and preferred the french system as more efficient in the training of the mind than the german. besides, the importation of the german basis for the doctorate of philosophy into our universities seemed to me to be dangerous. it led young men to waste time, since there was no governmental stamp on their work and no concrete recognition of the results of their studies as there was in germany; and, this being so, it meant that the dignified degree, from the old-fashioned point of view, would become degraded, or, at its best, merely a degree for the decoration of teachers. it would be sought for only as a means of earning a living, not as a preparation for research. 'of course i know spain,' said a flippant attaché in copenhagen. 'i have seen _carmen_, eaten _olla podrida_, and adored the russian ballet in the _cachuca_!' none of my friends who thought they knew germany was as bad as this. some of the professors of my acquaintance, who had seen only one side of german life, loved the fatherland for its support to civilisation. _nous avons changé--tout cela!_ other gentlemen, who had started out to love germany, hated everything german because they had been compelled to stand up in an exclusive club when anybody of superior rank entered its sacred precincts or when something of the kind happened. the man with whom i had read heine and worked out jokes in _kladdertasch_ was devoted to everything german because he had once lived in a small german town where there was good opera! personally, i had hated bismarck and all his works and pomps for several reasons:--one was because of busch's glorifying book about him; another for the kulturkampf; another for his attitude toward hanover, and because one of my closest german friends was a hanoverian. brought up, as most philadelphians of my generation were, in admiration for karl schurz and the men of ' , i could not tolerate anything that was prussian or bismarckian; but, as windthorst, the creator of the centrum party in the reichstag, was one of my heroes, i counted myself as the admirer of the best in germany. the position of the great power, evident by its attitude to us in the beginning of the spanish-american war, was disquieting; but germany had shown a similar sensitiveness under similar circumstances many times without affecting international relations. and german world dominion? what, in the twentieth century?--the best of all possible centuries? civilised public opinion would not tolerate it! in the balkans, of course, there would always be rows. the german propaganda? it existed everywhere, naturally. one could see signs of that; these signs were not even concealed. it seemed to be reasonable enough that any country should not depend entirely on the press or diplomatic notes to avoid misunderstanding; and a certain attention to propaganda was the duty of all diplomatists. still, my observations in my own country, even before the chicago exposition--when the kaiser had done his best to impress us with the mental and material value of everything german--had made me more than suspicious. i had reason to be suspicious, as you will presently see. but war? never! it was cardinal falconio who, i think, made me feel a little chilly, when he wrote: 'war is not improbable in europe; you are too optimistic. let us pray that it may not come; but, as a diplomatist you must not be misled into believing it impossible.' it seemed to me that such talk was pessimistic. other voices, from the diplomatists of the vatican--even the ex-diplomatists--confirmed this. 'if the kaiser says he wants peace, it is true--but only on his own terms. believe me, if the kaiser can control russia, and draw a straight line to the persian gulf, he will close his fist on england.' the people at the vatican, if you can get them to talk, are more valuable to an inquiring mind than any other class of men; but they are so wretchedly discreet just when their indiscretions might be most useful. some of them are like king james i., who 'never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one.' those who helped me with counsel were both wise in speech and prudent action but, unhappily, hampered by circumstances. among the wise and the prudent i do not include the diplomatic representative of the vatican in paris just before the break with rome! the russians in copenhagen kept their eyes well on germany; and it was evident that, while the position of france gave the germans no uneasiness--they seemed to look on france with a certain contempt--any move of russia was regarded as important. prince koudacheff, late the russian ambassador at madrid, in minister at copenhagen, who seldom talked politics, again returned to the great question. 'my brother, who is in washington, and an admirer of your country, says that you americans believe that war is unthinkable. is this your opinion?' 'it is--almost.' 'well, i will say that as soon as the bankers feel that there is enough money, there will be a war in europe.' 'i wonder if your husband meant that?' i asked the princess koudacheff; it was well to have corroboration occasionally, and she was a sister-in-law of iswolsky's; iswolsky was a synonym for diplomatic knowledge. 'if he did not mean it he would not have said it. when he does not mean to say a thing he remains silent. as soon as there is money enough, there will be war. germany will go into no war that will impoverish her,' she said. her opinion was worth much; she was a woman who knew well the inside of european politics. 'and who will fight, the slavs and teutons?' 'you have said it! it will come.' i knew a russian who, while a nobleman, was not an official. in fact, he hated bureaucrats. he could endure no one in the russian court circle except the empress dowager, marie, because she was sympathetic, and the late grand duke constantine, because he had translated shakespeare. 'if prince valdemar of denmark had been the son instead of the brother of the dowager empress, russia would have a future. as it is, i will quote from father gapon for you. you know his _life_?' 'no,' i said. 'well, he has attempted to give the working-men in russia a chance; he has tried to gain for them one-tenth of the place which working-men in your country have, and, in , he was answered by the massacre of the narva gate. the tsar is a fool, with an imperialistic _hausfrau_ for a wife. if you will read the last words of father gapon's _life_, you will find these words: '"i may say, with certainty, that the struggle is quickly approaching its inevitable climax: that nicholas ii. is preparing for himself the fate which befell a certain english king and a certain french king long ago, and that such members of his dynasty as escape unhurt from the throes of the revolution, will some day, in a not very distant future, find themselves exiles upon some western shore." i may live to see this; but i hope that the empress marie may not. she knows where the policy of her daughter-in-law, who has all the stupidity of marie antoinette, without her charm, would lead; she says of her son,--"he was on the right road before he married that narrow-minded woman!"' this, remember, was in . it was whispered even then in copenhagen that russia was beginning to break up. the dean of the diplomatic corps was count calvi di bergolo, honest, brave, opinionated, who would teach you everything, from how to jump a hurdle to the gaseous compositions in the moon. he was of the _haute école_ at the riding school and of the _vielle école_ of diplomacy. he was very frank. he had a great social vogue because of a charming wife and a most exquisite daughter, now the princess aage. he would never speak english; french was the diplomatic language; it gave a diplomatist too much of an advantage, if one spoke in his native tongue. he believed in the protocol to the letter; he was a martinet of a dean. 'public opinion,' he said scornfully, 'public opinion in the united states is for peace. in europe, if we could all have what we want, we should all keep the peace; but what chance of peace can there be until italy has the trentino or france alsace-lorraine, or until germany gets to her place by controlling the slavs. you are of a new country, where they believe things because they are impossible.' he was a wise gentleman and he, too, watched germany. it was plain that he disliked the triple alliance. suddenly it dawned on me 'like thunder' that we had an interest in watching germany, too. it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that germany would one day absorb denmark. 'and then the danish west indies would automatically become german!' this was my one thought. the 'fixed idea'! it is pleasanter to be dean of the diplomatic corps than a new-comer. it must be extremely difficult for a diplomatic representative to be comfortable at once, coming from american localities where etiquette is a matter of gentlemanly feeling only, and where artificial conventionalities hardly count. in a monarchical country, the outward relations are changed. socially, rank counts for much, and the rules of precedence are as necessary as the use of a napkin. to have lived in washington--not the changed washington of - --was a great help. after long observation of the niceties of official etiquette in the official society of our own capital, copenhagen had no terrors. chapter v glimpses of the german point of view in relation to the united states time passed. there were alarms, and rumours that german money was corrupting france, that the distrust aroused by the morocco incident was growing, that the french patriot believed that his opponent, the french pacifist, was using religious differences to weaken the _morale_ of the french army and navy, to convince germany that the 'revenge' for was forgotten. one day, a very clever english attaché came to luncheon; he always kept his eyes open, and he was allowed by me to take liberties in conversation which his chief would never have permitted; it is a great mistake to bottle up the young, or to try to do it. 'you are determined to be friends with germany,' he said, 'and germany seems to be determined to be friends with you. your foreign office has evidently instructed you to be very sympathetic with the german minister. he seldom sees anybody but you; but, at the same time you have recalled mr. tower, whom the kaiser likes, to give him mr. hill, whom he seems not to want.' 'it is not a question as to whom the kaiser wants exactly; we ostensibly sent an ambassador to the german emperor, but really to the german people. mr. hill is one of the most experienced of our diplomatists.' 'the kaiser does not want that. mr. tower habituated him to splendour, and he likes americans to be splendid. rich people ought to spend their money in berlin. besides, he had been accustomed to mr. tower, who, he thinks, will oil the wheels of diplomatic intercourse. just at this moment, when the kaiser has lost prestige because of his double-dealing with the boers and his apparent deceit on the morocco question, he does not want a man of such devotion to the principles of the hague convention and so constitutional as mr. hill, who may acknowledge the charm of the emperor, but who, even in spite of himself, will not be influenced by it.' 'how do you know this?' 'everybody about the court in berlin knows it, but i hear it from munich. but speck von sternberg would have balanced hill, if he had lived. they think he would have influenced president roosevelt. tell us the secrets of the white house--you ought to know--it was an awful competition between speck and jusserand, i hear.' 'president roosevelt is not easily influenced,' i said. persons whom i knew in berlin wrote to me, informing me how charmed the kaiser was with the new ambassador; but, in copenhagen, we learned that what the kaiser wanted was not a great international lawyer, but a rich american of less intensity. * * * * * it was worth while to get russian opinions. 'the kaiser is having a bad time,' i remarked to a russian of my acquaintance--a most brilliant man, now almost, as he said himself, _homme sans patrie_. 'temporarily,' he answered; 'those indiscreet pronouncements of his on the boers and the reversion of his attitude against england in the affair of morocco have shown him that he cannot clothe inconsistency in the robes of infallibility. he is a personal monarch and he sinks all his personality in his character as a monarch. he is made to the likeness of god, and there is an almost hypostatic union between god and him! our tsar is by no means so absolute, though you americans all persist in thinking so. i have given you some documents on that point; i trust that you have sent them to your president. i am sure, however, that he knew _that_. do not imagine that the emperor will be deposed, because he has made a row in germany. he has only discovered how far he can go by personal methods, that is all; he has learned his lesson--_reculer pour mieux sauter_. he has played a clever game with you. bernstorff, his new ambassador, will offset hill. your investments in russia will now come through german hands, and you will get a bad blow in the matter of potash.' 'what do you mean?' i asked. i had regarded count bernstorff as a liberal. his english experience seemed to have singled him out as one of the diplomatists of the central powers--there were several--inclined to admit that other nations had rights which germany was bound to respect. in private conversations, he had shown himself very favourable to the united states, and had even disapproved of german attacks on the monroe doctrine in brazil. 'count bernstorff is not likely to offend washington, or to reopen the wound that was made at manila.' 'you talk as if diplomatists were not, first of all, instructed to look after the business interests of their countries. do you think bernstorff has been chosen to dance cotillions with your 'cave dwellers' in washington or to compliment senators' wives? first, his appointment is meant to flatter you. second, he will easily flatter you because he really likes america and it is his business to flatter you. third, he will do his best to induce you to assist england in strangling russia in favour of turkey. fourth, he will grip hard, without offending you, the german monopoly of potash. he doesn't want trouble between the united states and germany. he knows that any difficulty of that kind would be disastrous; he is as anxious to avoid that as is ballin. under the glimmer of rank, of which you think so much in america, commercialism is the secret of germany's spirit to-day. in berlin, i heard an american, one of your denaturalised, trying to curry favour with prince von bülow by saying that the national genius of germany demanded that alsace-lorraine should be kept by germany to avenge the insolence of louis xiv. and napoleon. prince von bülow smiled. he knew that your compatriot was working for an invitation to an exclusive something or other for his wife. bernstorff is just the man to neutralise hill. it's iron ore and potash in alsace-lorraine that the emperor cares about.' 'and yet i know, at first hand, that the pan-german hates bernstorff. if anything approaching to a liberal government came in germany, bernstorff will be minister of foreign affairs.' my russian friend smiled sardonically. 'we russians feel that our one salvation is to oust the turk and get to the mediterranean. my party would provoke a war with germany to-morrow, if we could afford it, and germany knows it. count bernstorff, the most sympathetic of all german diplomatists, knows this, too, and you may be sure that he will persuade your government that he loves you, give the russian programme a nasty stroke when he can, and keep the price of potash high. i, desirous as i am of being an excellency, would refuse to go to berlin to-morrow, if i had bernstorff against me on the other side. see what will happen to hill! germany may offend you, but bernstorff will persuade you that it is the simple _gaucherie_ of a rustic youth who assumes the antics of a playful bear[ ]--a hug or two; it may hurt, but the jovial bear means well! if hill should leave berlin, you will need a clever man who has political power with your government. bernstorff will contrive to put any other kind of man in the wrong--i tell you that.' [ ] 'we can say without hesitation that during the last century the united states have nowhere found better understanding or juster recognition than in this country. more than any one else the emperor william ii. manifested this understanding and appreciation of the united states of america.'--von bülow's _imperial germany_, p. . the russian who predicted this is in exile, penniless, a man _sans patrie_, as he says himself. when i took these notes he seemed to be above the blows of fate! if the hand of germany was everywhere, everybody was watching the movements of the fingers. among the english there were two parties: one that could tolerate nothing german, the other that hated everything russian, but both united in one belief, that the alliance with japan would not hold under the influence of german intrigue and that italy could not long remain a member of the triple alliance. the gossip from berlin was always full of pleasant things for an american to hear. the kaiser treated our compatriots with unusual courtesy. in copenhagen we were deluged with letters announcing that count bernstorff's coming meant a new era; he even excelled 'speck' in his charm, sympathy, and everything that ought to endear him to us; in him showed that true desire for peace of which his august master was, of all the world, the best representative. it was even rumoured that the german foreign office had begun to coquette with the danish social democrats. the exchange of professors between the united states and germany was becoming an institution. sometimes the american professors found themselves in awkward positions; they did not 'rank'; they had no fixed position from the german point of view. as mere american commoners, unrecognised by their government, undecorated, they could not expect attentions from the court as a right. however, the germans studied them and rather liked some of them, but, not being _raths_, they were poor creatures without standing. even if they should make reputations approved by the great german universities, they had no future. how green were the lawns and how pleasant the sweet waters in the enclosed gardens of autocracy, of which the emperor, fountain of honours, kept the key! it was amusing to note the german attitude toward democracy, in spite of all the pleasant things said by the high, well-born citizens of the fatherland in favour of the american brand. at the same time, one could not help seeing that the children of the kaiser were wiser than the children of--let us say modestly--light. 'if the president asked me,' said one of the most distinguished of lawyers and the most loyal of philadelphians to me, 'i should be willing to live all my life in germany.' this was the result of the impression the charm of the kaiser made on the best of us. he has changed his opinion now; he swears by the works of his compatriot, mr. beck. even then, in - , my distinguished philadelphia friend could not have endured life in germany. he forgot that even the emperor could not give him rank, and that no matter how cosmopolitan, how learned, how tactful he was, he would at once be a commoner, and very much of a commoner on the day he settled there as a resident. a prussian serene highness, who came with letters from an irish relative in hungary dropped in; he was mostly bavarian in blood; he had cousins in england and italy. he liked a good luncheon, and, as miss knollys always said (i quote this without shame), 'the best food in europe is at the american legation!' he smoked, too, and rafael estrada, of havana, had chosen the cigars. 'france is difficult,' said my acquaintance, his serene highness. 'it is not really democratic; and england will go to pieces before it becomes democratic. 'you americans have freedom with order, and you respect rank and titles, though you do not covet them. that is why the kaiser would not send any ambassador not of a great family to you. all americans who come to berlin desire to be presented at court. it is a sign that you will come to our way of thinking some day. we are not so far apart. you who write must tell your people that we are calumniated, we are not despots. that woman, the author of _elizabeth and her german garden_, married to a friend of mine, does us harm. but most americans see germany in a mellow light. we are akin in our aspirations--frederick the great understood that. 'bismarck, great as he was, became ambitious only for his family. his son, the coming chancellor, would have used our young emperor as a puppet, if our emperor had not put him into his place. this is the truth, and i am telling it to you confidentially. the british government will come to anarchy if it weakens the house of lords. the house of commons is already weak. there is no barrier between honest rule and the demagogues. with your magnificent senate there will always be a wall between the will of the _canaille_ and good government. we germans understand you!' 'but suppose,' it was mr. alexander weddell, then connected with the legation, now consul general at athens, who broke in, 'you should differ from us on the monroe doctrine. i have recently read an article by mr. frederick wile in an english magazine on your management of your people in brazil.' '"our people!" the serene highness seemed startled. 'a german is always a german. it is the call of the blood.' 'and something more,' mr. weddell said, 'a german citizen is always a german citizen; you never admit that a german can become a brazilian. suppose you should want to join your germans in brazil with your germans at home. what would become of our monroe doctrine?' 'there are germans in your country who have ceased to be germans, and your upper classes are anglicised, except when they marry into one of our great families; nevertheless, our own people would still see that you don't go too far with your monroe doctrine. it has not yet been drastically interpreted. the monroe doctrine is a method of defence. to interfere with the call of the german blood from one country to another would be offensive to us, and i cannot conceive of your country so far forgetting itself!' his serene highness was of a mediatised house--a gentleman who had much experience in diplomacy. he had, i think, visited newport, and been almost engaged to an american girl. the legend ran that, when this lady saw him without his uniform, she broke the engagement. he was splendid in his uniform. he thought he knew the united states; he even quoted bryce and de tocqueville; he had the impression that the kaiser's propaganda of education was germanising us for our good. 'the most eminent professors at your most important universities are germans. your newest university, that of chicago, would have no reputation in europe if it were not for the germans. wundt has revolutionised your conception of psychology; your scientific and historical methods are borrowed from us. even your orthodox protestants quote harnack. virchow long ago put out the lights of huxley and spencer. and the catholic german in america, whom bismarck almost alienated from us, revolts against the false americanism of cardinal gibbons and archbishop ireland, whom the kaiser rates as a son of the revolution. your catholic university has begun to be moulded in the german way. mgr. schroeder, highly considered, was one of the most energetic of the professors----' 'was,' i said. 'i happen to know that he was relieved of his professorship because of those very dominating qualities you value so much.' 'that is regrettable; but, you see, in germany we follow the train of events in your country. who has a larger audience than münsterberg? in the things of the mind we germans must lead.' in my opinion, it is best for a diplomatist--at least for a man who is in the avocation of diplomacy--to be satisfied with _l'eloquence de l'éscalier_. if he writes memoirs he can always put in the repartee he intended to make; and, if he does not, he can always think, too, with satisfaction of what he was almost clever enough to say! it was enough to have discovered one thing--that, with a large number of the ruling classes in the fatherland, the monroe doctrine was looked on as an iridescent bubble. many times afterwards this fact was emphasised. the austrians were not always so careful as the germans to save, when it came to democracy, american susceptibilities. they were always easy to get on with, provided one remembered that even to the most discerning among them, the united states, 'america' as they always called it, was an unknown land. as for count dionys szechenyi, the minister of austria-hungary, he was the most genial of colleagues, and he had no sympathy with tyranny of any kind; he had no illusions as to america. his wife is a belgian born, countess madeleine chimay de caraman. he was always careful not to touch on 'prussianism,' as the danes called the principle of german domination. he had many subjects of conversation, from portrait buying to transactions in american steel and, what had its importance in those days, a good dinner. at his house one met occasionally men who liked to be frank, and then these austro-hungarians were a delightful group. 'if we should be involved in a war with england--which is unthinkable, since king edward and our ambassador, count mensdorff would never allow it--i could not buy my clothes in london,' said one very regretfully. this austrian magnate heard with unconcealed amusement the german talk of 'democracy.' 'max harden is sincere, but a puppet; he helps the malcontents to let off steam; the german government will never allow another _émeute_ like that of . bismarck taught the government how to be really imperial. in austria we are frankly autocratic, but not so new as the prussian. we wear feudalism like an old glove. there are holes in it, of course, and hungary is making the holes larger. if the hungarians should have their way, there would be no more _majorats_, no more estates that can be kept in families; and that will be the end of our feudalism. 'as it is, things are uncomfortable enough, but a war would mean a break-up. what do you americans expect for max harden and his _zukunft_--exile and suppression as soon as he reaches the limit. all the influences of the centre could not keep the jesuits from being exiled! why? they would not admit the superiority of the state. harden will never have the real power of the jesuits, for the reason that he founds his appeal on principles that vary with the occasion. but he will go! as for the social democrats, they can be played with as a cat plays with a mouse. democracy! if the kaiser gets into a tight place he can always declare war! 'is the imperial chancellor responsible to the german people? no. he is imperial because he wears the imperial livery. can the reichstag appoint a chancellor? the idea is _pour rire_! my dear mr. minister, you and your countrymen do not understand prussian rule in germany! and the federal council, what chance has it against the will of our emperor? and what have the people to do with the federal council? the members are appointed by the rulers by right divine. there is the duke of mecklenburg-schwerin. he rules his little duchy with a firm hand. there is the duke of brunswick, the prince of lippe-schaumbourg--not to speak of the grand duke of baden and a whole nest of rulers responsible only to the head of the house.' 'but the people _must_ count,' i said. 'prince von bülow has shown himself to be nervous about the growing power of the social democrats.' 'oh, yes, they are very amusing. they may caterwaul in the reichstag; they may wrangle over the credits and the budget; but the emperor can prorogue them at any time. the pan-germans could easily, if the reichstag were too independent, counsel the kaiser to prorogue that debating club altogether. 'who can prevent his forcing despotic military rule on the nation, for the nation's good, of course? everything in germany must come from the top--you know that. again, the power of the rich, as far as suffrage is concerned, is unlimited. the members of the reichstag are elected by open ballot. woe be to the working man who defies his emperor. fortunately the rich german is not socially powerful until he ranks. you may be as rich as krupp, but if the fountain of honour has not dashed a spray of the sacred water on you, you are as nobody. 'the greatest american plutocrat may visit germany and spend money like water, and he remains a mere commoner. the kaiser may invite him on his yacht and say polite things, but, until he _ranks_, he is nobody. his wife may manage to be presented at court under the wing of the american ambassadress, but that is nothing! the poorest and most unimportant of the little provincial baronesses outranks her. she will always be an outsider, no matter how long she may live in germany. 'with us, in austria, an american woman, no matter whom she marries, is never received at court. she is never "born,"' and he laughed. 'americans can have no heraldic quarterings; but, then, we do not pretend to be democratic. if i loved an american girl, i would marry her, of course; but if i went to court, i should go alone. it is the rule, and going to court is not such a rare treat to people who are used to it. it becomes a bore.' to do my german diplomatic colleagues justice, they never attempted masquerades in the guise of democrats. there were other germans, whom one met in society. these people were always loyal to the fatherland. their attitude was that the german world was the best of all possible worlds. if my own countrymen and countrywomen abroad were as solidly american as these people were german, our politeness would not be so frequently stretched to the breaking point. the most loyal of germans were american people of leisure who had lived long in germany with titled relatives. they enjoyed themselves; they lived for a time in the glory of rank. with those who had to earn their own living in germany, it was another story. they did not 'rank'; they were ordinary mortals; they had not the _entrée_ to some little provincial court, and so they saw the prussian point of view as it really was. the american women, strangely enough, who had married ranking germans loved everything german. 'but how do you endure the interference with your daily life?' my wife asked an american girl married to a baron. 'i like it; it makes one so safe, so protected; your servants are under the law, and give you no trouble. order is not an idea, but a method. i know just how my children shall be educated. that is the province of my husband. i have no fault to find.' she laughed. 'i do not have to explain myself; i do not have to say, "i am a daughter of the revolution, my uncle was senator so-and-so"--my place is fixed, and i like it!' it was a distinguished german professor who assumed the task of convincing american university men that the german army was democratic, and the conclusion of his syllogism was: 'no officer is ever admitted to a club of officers who has not been voted for by the members.' would you believe it? it seems incredible that democracy should seem to depend on the votes of an aristocracy and not on principles. but later, just at the beginning of the war, this professor and a half dozen others signed a circular in which the same argument was used. in - - - , the propaganda for convincing americans that germany--that is that the kaiser--loved us was part of the daily life in the best society in the neutral countries. the norwegians openly laughed at it. they knew only too well what the kaiser's opinion of them and their king, haakon, was. amazed by the frequent allusions of the admirers of the kaiser to his love for democracy, especially the american kind, i had a talk one day with one of the most frank and sincere of germans, the late baron von der quettenburg, the father of the present vicar of the church of st. ansgar's in copenhagen. he was a hanoverian. he was at least seventy years of age when i knew him, but he walked miles; he rode; he liked a good dinner; he enjoyed life in a reasonable way; but he was frequently depressed. hanover, his proud, his noble, his beautiful hanover, was a vassal to the arrogant prussian! 'but, if there were a war you would fight for the kaiser?' i asked, after a little dinner of which any man might be proud. 'fight? naturally. (i did not know that you knew so well how to eat in america.) fight! yes! it would be our duty. russia or france or the yellow nations might threaten us;--yes, all my family, except the priest, would fight. but, because one is loyal to the kaiser through duty, it does not mean that we hanoverians are prussians through pleasure. we shall never be content until we are hanoverians again--nor will bavaria.' 'a break up of the empire by force?' 'oh, no!' he said. 'not by force; but if the government does not distract public attention, hanover will demand more freedom; so will bavaria. none of us would embarrass the kaiser by raising the question of--let us say--greater autonomy for our countries, if there were question of a foreign war; but we must raise them soon.' 'do you think the emperor would make war to avoid the raising of these questions, which might mean a tendency toward the disintegration of the german monarchy?' 'the emperor would be incapable of that; he is for peace, but the raising of the question of a certain independence among the states that form the german empire can only be prevented now by a war or some affliction equally great. hanover can never remain the abject vassal of prussia.' 'you would, then, like to see the german emperor more democratic--a president, like ours, only hereditary, governing quasi-independent states?' 'that would not suit us at all,' he laughed. 'we are quite willing that the reichstag should be in the power of the emperor, as it is a mere association for talk; but we want the tributary kings to have more power in their own states. hanover a republic! how absurd! republics may be good on your continent, but, then, you know no better; you began that way. whoever tells us that we are democratic in germany, deceives you. we hanoverians want more power for hanover, all the reasonable rights of our kings restored and less power for prussia; but that we want republicanism, oh, no! a liberal constitution--yes; but no republic!' * * * * * an old friend, a swedish social democrat, brought in to tea a german social democrat; they came to meet an icelandic composer, in whom i was interested. the icelander was a good composer, but filled with curious ideas about icelandic independence. he was not content that iceland should have the power of a state in the federal union. a separate flag meant to him complete independence of denmark. he wanted to know the german social democrat's opinion of government. 'it is,' said the german, 'that hohenzollerns shall go, and people have equality.' 'with us it is,' said the swede, 'that the king of sweden shall go, and the people have equality.' 'but, if germany goes to war?' i asked. 'for a short war, we will be as one people; but after----' and he shook his head gravely. in the meantime, we were told constantly of the kaiser's charm. 'you once said,' remarked a débutante at the german court, who had been presented under the wing of our ambassadress, 'that if one wanted to dislike mr. roosevelt, one must keep away from him! i assure you, it is the same with the kaiser. he is charming. for instance, notice this: he presented a lovely cigarette case, with imperial monogram in diamonds or something of that kind, to madame hegermann-lindencrone, the wife of the danish minister, when her husband was leaving. "but my husband does not smoke," said madame hegermann-lindencrone, later in the day. "that is the reason i gave it to him," said the kaiser; "i knew that you like a cigarette, madame!" _isn't_ he charming?' we were told that the kaiser loved mark twain. to love mark twain was to be american. to be sure he turned his back very pointedly on mark on one occasion because mark had dared to criticise the pension system of the united states. pensions for the army should not be criticised, even if their administration were defective. all soldiers must be taken care of. this was the first duty of a nation, and mark twain forgot himself when he censured any system that put money into the pockets of the old soldiers, even of the wives of the soldiers of ! and this to the war lord, the emperor of more than a prætorian guard! and as for president roosevelt, if the kaiser could only see this first of republicans! this meeting had been the great joy of his brother prince henry of prussia's life. the kaiser had learned much from americans--our great capitalists, for example. no american who was doing things was alien to him. other monarchs might pretend to have an interest in the united states; his was genuine, for germany, youngest among the nations, had so much to learn from the giant republic of the west which possessed everything, except potash, the science of making use of by-products, and german kultur! president roosevelt had just gone out of office, and president taft was in. he wrote to me: 'you shall remain in your post as long as i remain in mine.' i was pleased and grateful. the chance that president roosevelt had given me, president taft continued to give me. i was the slave of a fixed idea, that the validity not the legality, of the monroe doctrine was somewhat dependent on our acquiring by fair bargains all the territory we needed to interpret it! as to denmark in , it was much more french than anything else. and, whatever might be done in the way of propaganda by germany, france always remained beloved; while the english way of living might be imitated, nobody ever thought of imitating germany's ways. besides, the danes are not good at keeping secrets, and the whisperings of german intentions, desires, likes, and dislikes disseminated in that city were generally supposed to be heart-to-heart talks with the world and received by the danes with shrewd annotations. this the kaiser did not approve of. it was curious that neither he nor his uncle, the king of england, liked copenhagen--for different reasons! it was understood that the king of england disliked it because he found it dull--the simplicity of hvidhöre had no charms for him. he could not join in the liking of his queen for everything danish, from the ballets of de bournonville to the red-coloured herring salad. _napoli_, a ballet which queen alexandra especially recommended to my wife and myself, frankly bored him, and the _mise-en-scène_ of the royal theatre was not equal to covent garden. the kaiser disliked copenhagen because he had no regard for his danish relatives, who took no trouble to bring out those charming boyish qualities he could display at times: the influence of the princess valdemar in denmark displeased him; she was too french, too democratic, and too popular, and she had something of the quality for command of her late mother-in-law, queen louise. altogether, the danes were not amenable to german kultur, or subservient to the continual threat of being absorbed in it, as the good buddhist is absorbed in the golden lotus! chapter vi german designs in sweden and norway as far as insinuating, mental propaganda was concerned, germany, as i have said, had the advantage over 'die dumme schweden,' as the prussians always called them. 'the stupid swedes' were the easiest pupils of german world politics, but even the most german of the swedes never realised, until lately, what the prussian dream of world politics meant. before , the swedes had been led to believe that any general european difficulty would throw them into the hands of russia. the constantly recurring difficulty of the aaland islands was before their eyes. look at the map of northern europe and observe what the fortifying of the aaland islands by a foreign power means to sweden. we americans do not realise that the small nations of europe have neither a monroe doctrine nor the power of enforcing one. and, so far as sweden was concerned, her only refuge against the power of russia seemed to be germany. when austria made her ultimatum to serbia, sweden believed that her moment for sacrifice or triumph had come. in august , all scandinavia felt that the fate of the northern nations was at stake. for sweden the defeat of germany meant the conquest of sweden by the russians, for, sad to say, no little nation believed absolutely in the good faith of a great one. the united states, where so many scandinavians had found a home, what of her? too far off, and the swedish leaders of public opinion knew too well what had been the fate of the attempts at the hague conference to abrogate the machiavellian doctrines that have been the basis of diplomacy almost since diplomacy became a recognised science and art. as for diplomacy, what had it to do with the fate of the little nations? scandinavia, among the rest of europe, looked on it as a purely commercial machine dominated essentially by local political issues. our state department had a few fixed principles, but all europe believed that we were too ignorant of european conditions and, more than that, too indifferent to them to be effective. the slightest political whisper in russia or the smallest hint from court circles in germany was enough to upset the equilibrium of scandinavian statesmen. american opinion really never counted, because american opinion was looked on as insular. a diplomacy labelled as 'shirt sleeve' or 'dollar' might delight those members of congress who had come to washington to complete an education not yet begun at home, but, from the european point of view, it was beneath notice. it cannot be said that the united states was not looked on, because of her riches and her size, with respect; but her apparent indifference to the problem on which the peace of the world seemed, to europe, to depend, and her policy of changing her diplomatic ministers or keeping them in such a condition of doubt that they kept their eyes on home political conditions, had combined to deprive her of importance in matters most vital to every european. this is not written in the spirit of censure, but simply as a statement of fact. the swedes, the norwegians, the danes had flocked to our country. in parts of the west, during some of the political campaigns, my old and witty friend, senator carter, chuckling, used to quote: 'the irish and the dutch, they don't amount to much, but give me the scan-di-na-vi-an.' these people are a power in our political life; but they knew in minnesota, in nebraska, wherever they lived in the united states, that our country would not forcibly interfere with the designs either of russia or of germany. and, in sweden, while king gustav and the conservatives saw with alarm the constant depletion of the agricultural element in the nation by emigration to the united states, their feeling towards our country was one of amiable indulgence for the follies of youth. king oscar showed this constantly, and king gustav went out of his way to show attentions to our present minister, mr. ira nelson morris. nevertheless, until lately, american diplomacy was not taken seriously, and, when the war opened, it was taken less seriously than ever. sweden, then, fearing russia, doubtful of england, full of german propagandists, her ruling classes looking on france as an unhappy country governed by _roturiers_ and pedagogues, and, except in a commercial way, where we never made the most of our opportunities, regarding our country as negligible, sweden, divided violently between almost autocratic ideas and exceedingly radical ones, was in a perilous position from to . frankly, there are no people more delightful than the swedes of the upper classes whom one meets at their country houses. kronoval, the seat of the count and countess sparre, is one of the places where the voices of both parties may be heard. and, when one thinks of the swedish aristocrat, one almost says, as talleyrand said of the _talons rouges_, 'when the old order changes, much of the charm of life will disappear.' under a monarchy, life is very delightful--for the upper classes. it is no wonder that they do not want to let go of it. it must be remembered, in dealing with european questions, that the swede and the spaniard are probably the proudest people on the earth. another thing must not be forgotten: the educated classes are imperial-minded. and of this quality german intrigue makes the most. a scandinavian confederacy, like the grecian one, of which king george of greece dreamed, was not looked on with yearning by the pan-germans. it must be remembered to the credit of king gustav, that, overcoming the rancour born of the separation, he made the first move towards the meeting of the three kings at malmö,[ ] in the beginning of the war. [ ] malmö is a town on the swedish side of the sound, an hour and a half by steamboat from copenhagen. lord bothwell was imprisoned there. when finland was annexed by germany, the terror of russia in sweden became less intense. before that sven hedin, suspected of being a tool of germany, did his best to raise the threatening phantom of the russian terror whenever he could. the hatred and fear of russia revived. it was not in vain that sane-minded persons urged that russia would have enough to do to manage the eastern question, to watch japan, to keep her designs fixed on constantinople. the german propaganda constantly raised the question of the fortification of the aaland islands. denmark and norway were intensely interested in it; it gave count raben-levitzau much thought when he was minister of foreign affairs in denmark, especially after the separation of norway from sweden; and since then, it has been a burning question, and the foreign office in christiania was not untroubled. on the question of the aaland islands neither the russian nor the swedish diplomatists would ever speak except in conventional terms; but, when i wanted light, i went to the cleverest man in denmark, count holstein-ledreborg. 'de l'esprit?' he said, laughing, 'mais oui, j'ai de l'esprit. tout le monde le dit; but other things are said, too. fortunately, a bad temper does not drive out l'esprit. you are wrong; the cleverest man in denmark is edward brandès.' but this is a digression. 'the swedes,' count holstein-ledreborg said, 'are at heart individualists. they would no more bear the german rule of living than they would commit national suicide by throwing themselves into the arms of germany. england met with no success in sweden in spite of the tact of her envoys, because her ideas of sweden are insular. she scorns effective propaganda; she has never even attempted to understand the swedes. the bulk of the swedes do not vote ( ). the destinies of sweden are in the hands of the court. a king is still a king in sweden; but that will pass, and the movement of the swedish nation will be further and further away from the political ideas of germany.' in modified liberal suffrage became a swedish institution. still, the state and church remain united. religion is not free; nobody can hold office but a lutheran. the 'young sweden' party is governed very largely by the ideas of the german historian, treitschke. the philosophy of his history is reflected in the pages of harald von hjarne. he is patriotic to the core, but, whether consciously or not, he played into the hands of the prussian propagandist. his history, a chronicle of the lives of kings charles xii. and gustavus adolphus, displayed in apotheosis; and the imperialistic idea, which carries with it militarist tendencies, is illuminated with all the radiance of hjarne's magic pen. sweden must have an adequate army. when norway threatened to secede, its attitude very largely due to the bad management of the very charming and indolent king oscar, the swedish army began to mobilise. the swedes--that is the minority of swedes, the governing body--would not brook the thought that norway might become a real nation. 'we must fight!' young sweden said. the young sweden, intolerant and imperious, did not realise that it had old and young norwegians to contend with. now, if the spaniard and the swede are the proudest folk in europe, the norwegian and the icelandic are the most stiff-necked. the swedish pride and the norwegian firmness, which contains a great proportion of obstinacy, met, and norway became a separate monarchy with such democratic tendencies as make american democracy seem almost despotism. after the success of the liberals in , there was a reaction. the german propaganda fanned the excited patriotism of the swedish people; 'their army was too small, their navy inefficient'; the force of arms must be used against russia. in fact, russia had her eastern problems; the best-informed of the swedish diplomatists admitted this; but the propaganda was successful; the people were tricked; nearly forty thousand farming folk and labourers marched to the palace of king gustav. they had made great contributions in money for the increase of the fleet. 'that cruiser,' said a cynical naval attaché, 'will one day fight for germany--when the yellow peoples attack us,' he added to ward off further questions. nevertheless the german influence made no points against the 'yellow peoples.' it was against russia all their bullets were aimed. the russians understood secret diplomacy well; but, either because they despised the common people too much or because the writers on russia were too self-centred, nothing was done to meet this propaganda effectively. the swede was taught to believe that germany was the best-governed nation on the face of the earth, and russia the worst; that germany would benevolently protect, while russia was ready to pounce malignantly. russian literature gave no glimpse of light. it was grey or black, and the language in which the russian papers were printed was an effectual barrier to the understanding of the swedes, who, as a matter of course, nearly all read german. young sweden believed that the first step on the road to greatness was a declaration of war with russia. nothing could have suited the plans of the pan-germans better than this, for it meant for sweden an alliance with germany. the swedish literary man and university professors voiced, as a rule, the pro-german opinions of young sweden. there were some exceptions; but there were not many. and the worst of all this was that these men were sincere. they were not bribed with money. they were flattered, if you like, by german commendations. every historical work, every scientific treatise, every volume of poetry of any value, found publishers and even kindly critics in germany. russia was the enemy, and, from the point of view of the intellectual swede, illiterate. russia had nothing to offer except commercial opportunities at great risks. swedish capital might easily be invested at home or, if necessary, there was the united states or germany for their surplus. the pictures of russian life given out by the great writers who ought to know it, were not inspiring of hope in the future of russia. there was no special need for the swedish scholar to complain of the german influence in his country since it was all in his favour. the government honoured him--following the german examples--and made him part of the state. even the english intellectuals, who, as every scandinavian knew, ought to have distrusted germany, acknowledged the superiority of german 'kultur' without understanding that it meant, not culture, but the worship of a prussian apotheosis. one of the most agreeable of swedish professors whom i met in christiania at the centennial of the christiania university, went over the situation with me. i had come in contact with him especially as i had been honoured by being asked to represent georgetown university and further honoured by being elected dean of all the american representatives, including the mexican and south american. this was in . 'frankly,' i said, 'are not you swedes putting all your eggs into one basket? what have you to do with the teuton and slavic quarrel? do you believe for a moment that the ultra-bismarckian policy which controls germany will consider you anything but a pawn in the diplomatic game? i think that, as swedes, you ought to help to consolidate scandinavia, and your diplomatists, instead of playing into germany's hands, ought to make it worth her while to support her, as far as you choose. you are selling yourself too cheap.' his eyes flashed. 'you do not talk like an american,' he said. then he remembered himself and became polite, even 'mannered.' 'i mean that you talk too much like diplomatists of the old school of secret diplomacy.' 'i believe that there are secrets in diplomacy which no diplomatist ever tells.' 'but you would have us attempt to disintegrate russia, and, at the same time, play with germany in order to make ourselves stronger.' 'i did not say so. for some reason or other, the germans call you "stupid swedes."' 'not now. that has passed. the germans recognise our qualities,' he added proudly. 'the english do not. the russians look on us only as their prey. you, being an american, are pro-russian. i have heard that you were particularly pro-russian. not,' he added hastily, 'that you are anti-german. the german vote counts greatly in the united states, and you could not afford to be; you might lose your "job," as one of your ministers at stockholm called it; but you, confess it!--have a regard for the russians.' 'they are interesting. we of the north owe them gratitude for their conduct during our civil war. anti-german? i love the old germany; i love weimar and the tyrol; but, speaking personally, i do not love the prussianisation of germany. i have written against the _kulturkampf_. i dislike the "prussian holy ghost" who tried to rule us back in the ' 's, but my german colleagues recognise the fact that i see good in the german people, and love many of their qualities.' 'still,' laughed the professor, who knows one of my best friends in rome, 'they say that you came abroad to live down your attacks in the _freeman's journal_ on the german holy ghost.' i changed the subject; that was not one of the things i had to live down. 'germany is our only friend, our only equal intellectually, our only sympathetic relative by blood. the norwegians hate us, the danes dislike us. we have the same ideas as the germans, namely, that the elect, not the merely elected, must govern. it was martin luther's idea, and his idea has made germany great.' 'but there is nothing contrary to that idea in the northern league, which count carl carlson bonde and other swedes dreamed about, is there? you swedes seem to believe that martin luther was infallible in everything but religion. he would probably like to see most of you burned, although you are all "confirmed."' the professor laughed: 'paris vaut une messe,' he quoted. 'i admit that luther would not approve of the religious point of view of our educated classes; but, at least, we have a semblance of unity, while you, like the english, have a hundred religions and only one sauce. our lutheranism is a great bond with germany, as well as our love of science and our belief in authority. as to the northern league, count bonde was a dreamer.' 'everybody is a dreamer in sweden who is not affected by the pan-german idea. is that it?' 'you are badly informed,' he said. 'your danish environment has affected you. as long as we can control our people, we shall be great. we have only to fear the socialist. the decision in essential matters must always rest with the king and the governing classes. our army and navy will be supported by popular vote, as in germany; they are the guarantees of our greatness.' this was the opinion of most of the autocratic and military--and to be military was to be autocratic--classes in . later i spoke with one of the most distinguished of the norwegians, professor morgenstjern. he seemed to be an exception to the general idolatry of german kultur. it was impossible to get the swede of traditions to see that germany's policy was to keep the three northern nations apart--not only the northern nations but the other small nations. when, just before the war, christian x. and queen alexandrina visited belgium on their accession the german propagandists in scandinavia were shocked; it was _infra dig_. it was 'french.' 'the king and queen of denmark will be visiting alsace-lorraine and wearing the tricolour!' a disappointed hanger-on in the german legation said. it was my business to find out what various foreign offices meant, not what they said they meant. 'of open diplomacy in the full sun, there are few modern examples. secrecy in diplomacy has become gradually greater than it was a quarter of a century ago, not from mere reticence on the part of ministers, but to a large extent from the decline of interest in foreign affairs.' the writer of this sentence in the _contemporary review_ alluded to england. this lack of interest existed even more in the united states. and then as militarism grew in europe, one's business was to discover what the admiralty thought, for in germany and austria, even in france, after the dreyfus scandal, one must be able to know what the military dictators were about. the newspapers had a way of discovering certain facts that foreign offices preferred to hide. but the most astute newspaper owing to the necessity of having a fixed political policy and the difficulty of finding men foolish enough or courageous enough to risk life for money, could rarely predict with certainty what foreign offices really intended to do. besides foreign offices, outside of germany, were generally 'opportunists.' few diplomatists of my acquaintance were deceived by the kaiser's professions of peace. that he wanted war seemed incredible, for he had the reputation of counting the cost. he was indiscreet at times, but his 'indiscretions' never led him to the extent of giving away the intentions of the general staff. that he wanted to turn the baltic into a german sea was evident. the swedish 'activist' would calmly inform you that, if this were true, germany would treat sweden, and perhaps the other scandinavian countries, as great britain treated the united states--the atlantic, as everybody knew, being a 'british lake' and yet free to the united states! there was no missing link in the german propaganda in sweden. prussia used the lutheran church as she had tried to use the german jesuits and failed. the good commonsense of the swedish common people alone saved them from making german kultur an integral part of their religion. when it filtered out that, notwithstanding the close relationship of the tsaritza of russia with the german emperor, the prussian camorra had determined to control russia, to humiliate her, to control her, there were those among the leaders who saw what this meant. they saw finland and the aaland islands germanised, and their resources, the product of their mines and of their factories, as much germany's as krupp's output. the bourgeoisie and the common people saw no future glory or profit in this. the knowledge of it filtered through; the lutheran pastor, with his dislike of democracy, his love for the autocratic monarchy, 'all power comes from god,' i heard him quote, without adding that st. paul did not say that 'all rulers come from god,'--could not convince the hard-thinking, hard-working swede that religion meant subjugation to a foreign power. the lutheran church, which, like all national churches, was hampered by the state, could give no intelligent answer to his doubts, so he turned to the social democrats. the governing class in sweden seemed to take no cognisance of the growth of democracy in the hearts of the people. germany was alive to it and feared it; but, in sweden, rather than admit it and its practical effects, the rulers ignored it, were shocked by the great tide of emigration to the united states, yet careless of its effects on swedish popular opinion. on one occasion in copenhagen, king gustav asked me why so many of his people emigrated to my country. the king of sweden is a very serious man, not easily influenced or distracted from any subject that interests him, and the good of his people interested him very much. it was a difficult question to answer, for comparisons were always odious. 'i can better tell you, sir, why your subjects prefer to remain at home:--when they get good land cheap, and when they see the chance of rising beyond their fathers' position in the social scale.' he began to speak, but etiquette demanded a move. when i met him again he returned to the subject. it was better that he should talk, and he talked well. it became evident to me that there was little good agricultural land in sweden to give away, and the division between the classes was not so impassable as i had believed. he made that clear. the social democrat in sweden wants an equal opportunity, no wars to be declared by the governing classes, and the abolition of the monarchy. he is not concerned greatly with the central powers or the entente. he was glad to see the hohenzollerns displaced, but he is german in the sense that he is affiliated with the german social democrats who, he believes, were forced to deny their principles temporarily or they would have been thrown to the lions; and as, above all things, he prizes a moderate amount of material comfort for himself and his family, he will not go out of his way to be martyred; but even he was the victim of modified german propaganda; he was too patriotic to accept it all. of late, as we know, the liberal party has gained strength, and the designs of a small activist military coterie were frustrated by a series of circumstances, of which the luxburg revelations were not the least; but the main reason was the coquetting of the government with germany, one of the signs of which was that the allied blockade was not treated as a fact, while the mythical blockade by germany was accepted as really existing. personally, i had respect for dr. hammarskjold, the premier of the conservative cabinet that ruled sweden in the beginning of the war. he was formerly a colleague in copenhagen, and, with the exception of francis hagerup, now norwegian minister at stockholm, he is the greatest jurist in northern europe. he is a swede of swedes, with all the traditions of the over-educated swede. neutrality he desired above all things--that is, as long as it could be preserved with honour; but he evidently believed that, for the preservation of this neutrality, it was most necessary to keep on very good terms with germany. hammarskjold's point of view was more complicated, more technical than that of herr branting, and it is to herr branting's raising of the voice of the swedish nation that a serious difficulty with the entente was avoided. nevertheless, it would be wrong to put down hammarskjold as pro-german, for he is, first of all, pro-swedish. edwin bjorkman, an expert in swedish affairs, says, after he has paid the compliments of an honest man to the wretched prussian conspiracies in sweden:-- 'for this german intriguing against supposedly friendly nations there can be no defence. for the more constructive side of germany's effort to win sweden, there is a good deal to be said, not only in defence, but in praise. it was not wholly selfish or hypocritical, and it was directed with an intelligence worthy of emulation. all the best german qualities played a conspicuous and successful part in that effort,--enthusiasm, thoroughness, systematic thinking and acting, intellectual curiosity, adaptability, and a constant linking of national and personal interests.'[ ] [ ] _scribner's magazine._ men, like hammarskjold, were naturally affected by an influence which no other nation condescended to counteract. besides, as a good swede, hammarskjold knew that, in a possible conflict with germany, sweden had nothing to expect, in the way of help, from the allies. the german propaganda had convinced many swedes that it was england that deprived king oscar of norway with the view of isolating sweden and assisting russia's move to the sea. the late minister of foreign affairs, herr wallenberg, was regarded as a friend of the entente, and was less criticised than any other member of the government. many of his financial interests were supposed to be in france, and he has many warm friends in all social circles in that country. he is a man of cosmopolitan experience. he has the reputation of being the best-informed man in europe on european affairs. dr. e. f. dillon, in one of his very valuable articles said: 'as far back as march , he gave it as his opinion that the friction in the near east would in a brief space of time culminate in a european war.' to dr. dillon the english-speaking world owes the knowledge of the points of view of certain activists, entirely under german influence, as expressed in _schwedische stimmen zum weltkrieg--uebersetzt mit einem vorwart verschen von dr. friedrich steve_. the real title is best translated _sweden's foreign policy in the light of the world war_. it was a plea for war in the interests of germany, representing those of germany and sweden as one. they were anonymous--now that some of them have had a change of mind it is well that their names were withheld. they were evidently pro-germans of all swedish political parties. it may not be out of place to say that the papers of dr. dillon, such as those printed in the _contemporary review_, are documents of inestimable diplomatic-social value. it was the leader of the socialists, herr branting, who helped to make evident that a change had been slowly taking place among the swedish people. herr branting is of a very different type from the generally received idea of what a socialist is. he would not do on the stage. in fact, like many of the constructive socialists in scandinavia, he is rather more like a modern disciple of thomas jefferson than of marx or bakounine. he knows europe, and he brings to the cause of democracy in europe great power, well-digested knowledge, and a tolerance not common in sweden, where religious sectarianism among the bulk of the people was as great an enemy to political progress as the prussian propaganda. the most influential man in sweden, herr branting, was obliged to renew his formal adhesion to the lutheran church, which he had renounced, to hold office. the strength of herr branting's position, which has lately immensely increased, may be surmised from the fact that, in , the radicals gave , votes as against , . the government would have been wise to have heeded this warning in time; but the men who had engineered the activist movement, who had worked the swedish folk up to their demand for stronger defences and a greater army and navy, seemed to think that sweden was still to be governed from the top. the swedes are not the kind of people who can be led hither and thither by bread and the circus. they know how to amuse themselves without the assistance of their government and to earn their bread, too; but when the government, through its presumably pro-german policy, seemed to be responsible for the curtailment of the necessities of life, they turned on their leaders and read the riot act to them. sweden boldly defied pan-germanism. a great day in sweden was april st, . it was a turning point in the nation's destiny. the people took matters in their own hands. hjalmar branting had forced the swartz-lindman cabinet into a corner; no more secret understandings, no more disregard of the feelings of the voters who felt that, to help their nation intelligently, they must know what was going on. appeals to charles xii. or the shade of gustavus adolphus no longer counted. what germany liked or disliked was of no moment to branting. on the first of may we were all anxious in denmark. our minister at stockholm, mr. ira nelson morris, understood the situation; he expected no great outbreak as a result of branting's action in the rigstag, revealing the existence of a secret intrigue to raise, on the part of the government, a guard of civilians to protect the 'privileged classes,' as the socialists called them, against disturbances on the part of the proletariat. branting gave a guarantee that no tumult among the people should take place. nevertheless, the german propaganda kept at work; the people were not to be trusted. on may st, the party in power protected the palace with machine guns and packed its environs with troops. it was a rather indiscreet thing to do, since branting had given his word for peace, providing that the pro-german protectorate did not make war. on may st at least fifty thousand of the working classes, 'the unprivileged classes,' made their demonstration in procession quietly and solemnly. in the provinces, on the same day, half a million swedes sympathetically joined in this protest against the pro-german attitude of the government. when we entered the war the ruling classes declared, either privately or publicly, that we had made a 'mistake'; they hinted that germany would make us see this mistake--this out of no malevolence to america as america, but simply from a complete lack of sympathy with our ideals. it must be remembered that an aristocracy, a bureaucracy without privileges is as anomalous as a british duke without estate. the french revolution was a protest, as we all know, against vested privileges. when madame roland, the intellectual representative of a great class, was expected to dine with the servants at a noble woman's house, a long nail was driven into the coffin of privilege. in sweden the fight is on against the privileges which the higher classes in sweden have expected germany to help them conserve. on october th a new cabinet was formed; the people demanded a government which would be neutral. this was the result of the election in september. on this result--the first real step in the swedish nation toward political democracy--they stand to-day. unrestrained or uninfluenced by prussia, the classes of sweden who love their privileges, will accept the situation. the death-blow to the landed aristocracy will doubtless be the suppression of the majorats and the conversion of the entailed estates into cash. this seems to be one of the fundamental intentions of the new order. the classes who look to germany as their model and mentor are now non-existent--naturally! germany allowed to the upper classes in sweden no intellectual contact with the democracies of the world. the world news dripped into sweden carefully expurgated. her suspicions of russia were kept alive as we have seen; the good feeling which existed in denmark towards sweden (due to the help the swedish troops had given when they were quartered at glorup, near odense, in readiness to meet the prussian attack in ) had been gradually undermined. while sweden owed much of her suspicions of the other two countries to german influence as well as her fears of russia, denmark was confronted with a real danger. whatever progress sweden has made towards democracy is not due to intelligent propaganda on the part of america or england. it needed a war to teach the foreign offices that diplomatic representatives have greater duties than to be merely 'correct' and obey technical orders. german propaganda had little influence in norway, but german methods have been used to an almost unbelievable extent in the attempt to lower the morale of this self-respecting and independent people. the german propaganda could get little hold on a nation that cared only to be sufficient for itself in an entirely legitimate way. the norwegian can neither be laughed, argued, nor coerced out of an opinion that he believes to be founded on a principle, and he looks on all questions from the point of view of a free man thinking his own thoughts. german propaganda, during the war, took the form of coercion. the ordinary influences brought to bear on sweden would not be effective in norway. socialism seemed to be less destructive to the existing order of things in norway than it was in sweden, because it had fewer obstacles to overcome. it was against the pan-german idea that the three scandinavian countries should form the northern confederation dreamed of by baron carlson bonde and others. when the late king oscar of sweden came under german influence--through all the traditions of his family he should have been french--he began to give the norwegian causes of offence, and his attitude intensified their growing hatred of all privileges founded on birth, hereditary office, or assumption of superiority founded on extraneous circumstances. as we know, the form of lutheranism accepted in norway has little effect on the political life of the people, who, as a rule, are attached to their special form of protestantism because of traditions (part of this tradition is hatred of rome, as it is supposed to represent imperial principles) and because it leaves them free to choose from the bible what suits them best. it is a mistake to imagine, as some sociologists have, that the lutheran church in norway inclined the norwegians to sympathy with german ideas. i have never, as yet, met a norwegian who seemed to associate his religion with germany or to imagine that he owed any regard to that country because 'the light,' as he sometimes calls it, came to him through that german of germans, martin luther. in his mind, as far as i could see, there seemed to be two kinds of lutheranism--the german kind and the norwegian kind. i am speaking now of the people of average education--who would dare to use the phrase 'lower classes' in speaking of the norwegians as we use it of the swedes or the english? an 'average education' means in norway a high degree of knowledge of what the norwegian considers essential. this shows that racial differences are much more potent than religious beliefs; and yet, in considering the problems of the world to-day, it would be vain to leave religious affairs out of the question, worse than vain--foolish. the crown prince of germany, having studied the life of napoleon bonaparte, knew this; the kaiser, knowing machiavelli, understood it too well. lutheranism in norway is not a political factor owing to the peculiar temperament of the people; therefore, germany could not make use of it. with the intellectual classes, the independent thinkers, it has ceased to be a factor at all. ibsen, who was in soul a mystic, is accused of leaning towards german philosophies even by some of his own countrymen; but there was never a more individualistic man than he. in my conversation with learned and intellectual norwegians, i discovered no leaning whatever to autocratic ideals. they were only aristocrats in the intellectual sense. 'even our upper classes,' said a swede, an ardent admirer of the ideas of the liberal swede, count hamilton, 'are changing. you ought to know our people as you know the danes. a nation as plastic as ours, capable of breaking its traditions by making a king of marshal bernadotte, a person not "born" has great capacities for adaptation; and this is the reason why my country will not be divided between germanised aristocrats and a socialistic proletariat.' this, after all, represents the essential attitude of the best in sweden. that german ideals were propagated and well received by the ruling classes is true, but, to generalise about any country, simply because of the attitude of the persons one meets in society, is a mistake that would lead a diplomatic representative into all manner of difficulties. to assume that sweden could have been governed as germany was governed, because german is the fashionable language among the aristocracy and the intellectuals, or because sweden is lutheran, or because the university and military education is founded on german methods, is too misleading. the swedish folk are not the kind that would tamely submit to the drastic rule of the autocratic hohenzollern. the german attitude toward norway was frankly antagonistic. there was no power there to persuade the citizens of that country that all kultur should come from above. the norwegian is a democrat at heart. he believes, with reason, in the industrial future of his country; he understands what may be done with his inexhaustible supply of 'white coal'; he knows the value of the process for seizing the nitrates from the air. when he heard that supplies of potash had been discovered in spain, a distinguished norwegian said: 'poor spain! the prussians will seize it now; but we should be willing to meet all the prussian fury if we could discover potash in norway!' it is an open secret that norway, at the time of her separation from sweden, would have preferred a republican form of government. the powers, england and russia and germany, would not hear of this, and the norwegians consented to a very limited monarchy. german or russian princes were out of the question, and prince charles of denmark, now king haakon, who had married the princess maud of great britain and ireland, was chosen. king edward vii. was pleased with this arrangement; he had no special objection to the cutting down of monarchical prerogatives, provided the hereditary principle was maintained, and the marriage strengthened the english influence in norway. as king haakon and queen maud have a son--prince olav--the norwegians are content, especially as king haakon knows well how to hold his place with tact, sympathy, and discretion. norway is naturally friendly to the united states and england, and, in spite of the kaiser's regular summer visits, it was never at all friendly to him. the treatment of norway, when the germans found that the norwegians were openly against their methods, was ruthless. the plot of the german military party against the capital of norway, which meant the blowing up of a part of the city, has been hinted at, but not yet fully revealed. the reports of the attempt to introduce bombs in the shape of coals into the holds of norwegian ships bound to america were well founded, and the misery and wretchedness inflicted on the families of norwegian sailors by the u-boat 'horribleness' has made the german name detested in norway. after the crime of the _lusitania_, the german minister was publicly hissed in christiania. remaining neutral, norwegian business men kept up such trade with the belligerents as the u-boat on one side and the embargo on the other permitted. war and business seem to have no scruples, and the norwegian merchant, like most of ours, before we joined the allies, felt it his duty to try to send what he could into germany. the british minister at christiania, the british admiralty, and a patriotic group of norwegians did their utmost in limiting this, and, when the united states entered the war, they were ably seconded by the american minister, mr. schmedeman. the norwegians, in spite of all dangers, kept their boats running, and they were shocked when the united states tightened the embargo, with a strangle grip. the norwegian press openly said that we, the friend of the little nations, had proved faithless, and pointed to their record as friends of democracy. the american minister, in the midst of the storm, did an unusual thing; he published the text of the prepared agreement, which nansen had sent to washington to negotiate. there was a time, before this, when the name of our country, formerly so beloved and revered, was execrated among the norwegians. mr. schmedeman's quick insight calmed a storm which arose from disappointment at the stringent demands of a nation they had hitherto considered as their best friend. this constant friendship for us was shown on all occasions in copenhagen by dr. francis hagerup and dr. john irgens, two of the most respected diplomatists in europe. dr. hagerup's reputation is widely spread in this country. no human being could be imagined as a greater antithesis to the prussians than the norwegians; the norwegian is in love with liberty; he is an idealistic individual; it is difficult, too, to believe that the norwegian, the swede and the dane are of the same race. the norwegian is as obstinate as a lowland scot and as practical; he is a born politician; he calls a spade a spade, and he is not noted for that great exterior polish which distinguishes the swede and the dane of the educated classes. a norwegian gentleman will have good manners, but he is never 'mannered.' for frankness, which sometimes passes for honesty, the norwegian of the lower classes is unequalled. this has given the norwegian a reputation for rudeness which he really does not deserve. he is no more rude than a child who looks you in the eye and gives his opinion of your personal appearance without fear or favour; it does not imply that he is unkind. there is a story of a norwegian shipowner, who, asked to dine with king haakon, found that a business engagement was more attractive, so he telephoned: 'hello, mr. king, i can't come to dinner!' a norwegian told me, with withering scorn, the 'stupid comment' of an 'ignorant swede' on the norwegian character: 'you have no niagara falls in sweden, no great city like chicago, no red indians!' he had said, 'we have finer cataracts than your niagara falls, a magnificent city, stockholm, the paris of scandinavia, and many red indians, but _we_ call them norwegians!' one summer day, two well-mounted german officers, probably attending the kaiser or making arrangements for his usual yachting trip to norway, came along a country road. they were splendid looking creatures, voluminously cloaked--a wind was blowing--helmets glittering. our car had stopped on a side road; something was wrong. a peasant, manipulating two great pine stems on a low, two-wheeled cart, had barred the main road, and, as the noontide had come, sat down to eat his breakfast. one of the officers haughtily commanded him to clear the way, expecting evidently a frightened obedience. the peasant put his hands in his pockets and said,--'mr. man, i will move my logs when i can. first, i must eat my breakfast, you can jump your horses over my logs; why not? jump!' the officer made a movement to draw his revolver; the norwegian only laughed. 'besides,' he said, 'there is a wheel half off my cart; i cannot move it quickly.' the language of the officers was terrifying. finally, they were compelled to jump. neither the sun glittering on the fierce eagles nor the curses of the officers moved this amiable man; he drank peacefully from his bottle of schnapps and munched his black bread and sausage as if their great persons had never crossed his path, or, rather, he theirs. neither art, literature nor music has been germanised in norway. art, of later years, has been touched by the french ultra-impressionists. there is no humble home in the mountains that does not know grieg. and why? when you know grieg and know norway, you know that grieg is norway. norway is the land of the free and the home of the brave. there was no fear that german ideas would control it, and the prussians knew this. what is good in german methods of education the norwegians adopt, but they first make them norwegian. chapter vii the religious propaganda machiavelli, in _the prince_, instructs rulers in the use of religion as a means of obtaining absolute power; and from the point of view of monarchs of the renaissance and after, he would have been a fool, if he had neglected this important bond in uniting the nations he governed. it was not a question as to the internal faith of the ruler; that was a personal matter; but outwardly he must conform to the creed which gave him the greatest political advantages. there is a pretty picture of napoleon's teaching the rudiments of christianity to a little child at saint helena; but who imagines that he would have hesitated to make the sacred pilgrimage to mecca or to prostrate himself before the idols of any powerful pagan nation, if he could have fulfilled his plans in the east? 'paris vaut une messe,' said henry iv. of navarre and france with the cynicism of his tribe. queen catherine di medici and queen elizabeth had their superstitions. they probably believed that all clever people have the same religion, but never tell what it is--the religion to which lord beaconsfield thought he belonged. it is against the subversion of religion, of spirituality, to the state that democracy protests. frankly, it is as much against the despotism of socialism as it is against the machiavellianism of his late imperial majesty, the german emperor. he hoped to become emperor of germany and the world, and to speak from berlin _urbi et ubi_. to be german emperor did not content him. the kaiser's use of religion as an adjunct to the possession of absolute power began very early in his reign. bismarck could teach him nothing, though bismarck was as decided a hegelian as he was a prussian in his idea of the function of the ruler. hegel, the learned author of the _philosophy of right_, was prussian to the core. he was on the side of the rulers, and he hated reforms, or rather, feared reformers, because they might disturb the divinely ordered authority. there must be a dot to the 'i' or it meant nothing in the alphabet. this dot was the king. he was the darling of the prussian government and the spokesman of frederick william iii. he loathed the movement in germany towards democratic reforms, and watched england with distrustful eyes. the teaching of most hegelians in the universities of the united states--and the hegelian idea of the state had made much progress here--was to minimise somewhat the arbitrary and despotic ideas of their favourite prussian philosopher. no man living has yet understood the full meaning of all parts of his philosophical teachings, but one thing was clear to all men who, like myself, watched the application of hegelianism to prussia and to germany. the state must be supreme. the catholics in germany saw the errors of hegelianism as applied to the state, but they were not sufficiently enlightened or clever, and they neglected to oppose its progress efficiently. there are various opinions about the activities of the fathers of the congregation of jesus (founded by saint ignatius loyola as a _corps d'élite_ of the counter-reformation) in germany and in the world in general. bismarck heartily disapproved of them for the same reasons as hegel disapproved of them. they taught that cæsar is not omnipotent, that the human creature has rights which must be respected, and are above the claims of the state. in a word, in germany, they stood for the one thing that the prussian monarchs detested--dissent on the part of any subject to their growing assertion of the divine right of kings. windthorst formed the centrum, and opposed bismarck valiantly, but political considerations prussianised the centre, or catholic party, as they moved 'the enemies of prussianism,' the socialists, when the crucial moment arrived, and burned incense to absolute cæsar. it was not a question of lutheranism against catholicism in germany in , not a question of an enlightened philosophy, founded on modern research against obscurantism, as most of my compatriots have until lately thought, but a clean-cut issue between the doctrine of the entire supremacy of the state and the inherent rights of the citizen to the pursuit of happiness, provided he rendered what he owed to cæsar legitimately. that the victims of the oppression were jesuits blinded many of us to the motive of the attack. the educational system of the jesuits had enemies among the catholics of germany, too, so that they lost sight of the principle underneath the falk laws, so dear to bismarck. frederick the great and catherine of russia protected the jesuits, it is true, but they were too absolute to fear them. besides, as intellectuals, they were bound to approve of a society, which in the eighteenth century had not lost its reputation for being the most scientific of religious bodies. the falk laws were, in the opinion of bismarck and the disciples of the _kulturkampf_, the beginning of the moulding of the catholic church in germany as a subordinate part of the autocratic scheme of government. they had nothing to fear from the lutherans--they were already under control--and nothing to fear from the unbelieving intellectuals, of the universities, for they had already accepted hegel and his corollaries. the main enemies of the ultra-kaiserism were the catholic church and socialism--socialism gradually drawing within its circle those men who, under the name of social democrats, believed that the hohenzollern rule meant obscurantist autocracy. the socialists, pure and simple, are as great an enemy to democracy as the pan-germans. the varying shades of opinion among the social democrats,--there are liberals among them of the school of asquith, and even of the school of lloyd george, constitutional monarchists with jeffersonian leanings, lutherans, catholics, non-believers, men of various shades of religious opinion are all bent on one thing,--the destruction of the ideals of government advocated by hegel and put into practice by the emperor and his coterie. both the socialist and the social democrat came to copenhagen. they talked; they argued. they were on neutral soil. it was impossible to believe, on their own evidence, that the socialism of marx, of bebel, of the real socialists in germany, could remedy any of the evils which existed under imperialistic régime in that country. the socialist or the social democrat was feared in germany, until he applied the razor to his throat, or, rather, attempted hari-kari when he voted for war. the socialists can never explain this away. his prestige, as the apostle of peace and good-will, is gone; he is no longer international; he is out of count as an altruist. the social democrat is in a better position; he never claimed all the attributes of universal benignity; he was still feared in germany, but in that harmless debating society, the reichstag, with the flower of the german manhood made dumb in the trenches, he could only threaten in vain. in our country, pure socialism is misunderstood. it is either cursed with ignorant fury or looked on as merely democracy, a little advanced, and perhaps too individualistic. it ought to be better understood. socialism means the negation of the individual will; the deprivations of the individual of all the rights our countrymen are fighting for. it is a false christianity with christian precepts of good-will, of love of the poor, of equality, fraternity, liberty,--phrases which have, on the lips of the pure socialist, the value of the same phrases uttered by robespierre and marat. 'i find,' said a berlin socialist, whom i had invited to meet ben tillett, the english labour agitator, 'that danish socialism is merely social democracy. given a fair amount of good food and comfort, schools, and cheap admittance to the theatres, the copenhagen socialists seem to be contented. you may call it "constructive socialism," but i call it social degeneracy. we, following the sacred principles of marx and bakounine, different as they were, must destroy before we can construct. in the future, every honest man will drive in his own car, and the best hospitals will not be for those that pay, but for those who cannot pay. cagliostro said we must crush the lily, meaning the bourbons; we must crush all that stands in the way of the perfect rule which will make all men equal. we must destroy all governments as they are conducted at present; we have suffered; all restrictive laws must go!' ben tillett could not come to luncheon that day, so we missed a tilt and much instruction. the european socialist's only excuse for existence is that he has suffered, and he has suffered so much that his sufferings must cry to god for justice. as to his methods, they are not detestable. they are so reasonable, so christian, that some of us lose sight of his principles in admiring them. the kaiser has borrowed some of the best of the socialistic methods in the organisation of his superbly organised empire, and that makes germany strong. but sympathy with the socialists anywhere is misplaced. their principles are as destructive as their methods are admirable. their essential article of faith is that the state, named the socialistic aggregation, shall be supreme and absolute. as to the other enemies of despotism in germany, the jesuits, they were downed simply because bismarck and the hegelian ideal would not tolerate them. they exalted, as hegel said, the virtue of resignation, of continency, of obedience, above the great old pagan virtues, which ought to distinguish a teuton. the jesuits, german citizens, few in number, apparently having no powerful friends in europe or the world, were cast out, as the war lord would have cast out the socialist if he had dared. but the socialists were a growing power; they had shown that they, like the unjust steward in the parable, know how to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. the jesuits went; the catholic party, the centre was placated by the request of germany to have the pope arbitrate the affair of the caroline islands and by the colonial policy of bismarck in in supporting the work of cardinal lavigerie in africa. the catholic population of germany, more than one-third of the whole, accepted the dictum that the state had the right to exile german citizens because they disagreed with the government as to the freedom of the human conscience. however, as the catholic germans were divided in sentiment as to the value of the jesuit system of education, which in this country seems to be very plastic, they were at last fooled by the centrum, their party, into the acceptance of a compromise. to copenhagen, there came, after the opening of the war, an old priest, who had been caught in the net in belgium; 'that christians should forgive such horrors as the germans commit! why do not the christian germans protest? i confessed a german colonel, a catholic, who had lain a day and a night in a field outside a belgian town. he was dying when some of your americans found him, and brought him to me. "i suffered horrors during the night," he said, "horrors almost unbearable. i groaned many times; i heard the voices of men passing; these men heard me." "there is a wounded man," one said, and they came to me. "he's a german," the other said, "qu'il crève" (let him die). and they passed on. "this," i thought, in my agony, "this, in a christian land where the story of the good samaritan is read from the pulpits; yet they leave me to die. but when i remembered, father, the atrocities for which i had been obliged to shoot ten of my own soldiers, i understood why they had passed me by."' the good priest, who had many friends in germany, repeated over and over again: 'whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad; the catholics in germany must be mad!' bismarck had used falk and the liberals to divide and control. he later found it necessary to placate windthorst and the centrum, then a 'confessional,' or religious party. it has changed since that time; it is now, like the social democratic block, made up of persons of various shades of religious opinion, but having similar political ideas. it represents a determination not to allow the state to be absolute, and, no doubt, if the united states had realised its position, it might have been strengthened by intelligent propaganda to be of use in breaking the prussian autocracy. but hitherto even travelled americans have regarded it as a remnant of the middle ages, and hopelessly reactionary. it was part of the kaiser's policy to make the rest of the world think so, for he had adopted and adapted this bismarckian chart while throwing the pilot of many stormy seas overboard. bismarck lived to see the heritage of despotism, which he had destined for his oldest son, seized by a young monarch, whose capabilities he had underrated. then, the danes say, he uttered the sneer, 'i will freshen the hohenzollern blood with that of struense!' the german propaganda for controlling the church in the united states had been well thought out in . the emigrants from germany, just after , were not open to the influence of prussian ideas; they had had more than sufficient of them, but when the great crowd of germans came in later, it was time to inject the proper spirit of prussianism into their veins. it is well known that the emperor william had his eyes on the vatican. he was wise enough to see that if the catholic church lost in one place, she was certain to gain in another; it was not necessary for him to read macaulay's eloquent passage on the papacy, as most statesmen who speak english do. but his indiscretions in speech and writing, whether premeditated or not, for the _zeitgeist_ and the orthodox lutherans must be propitiated--were constantly nullifying his plans. as to the spiritual essence of the catholic church, the emperor did not recognise it. papal rome was dangerous to him as long as it remained independent; he coquetted with harnack and with the most advanced of the higher critics who whittled the bible into a pipestem. how he squared himself with the orthodox lutherans, apparently nearly two-thirds of the population, can only be shown by his constant allusions to the prussian god. as a state church, yielding obedience almost entirely to the governing power of the country, he had little fear of lutheranism in its varying shades of opinion. the jews he evidently always distrusted. he regarded them as internationalists and not to be recognised until they became of the state church; then they might aspire, for certain considerations, to be _rath_ and even to wear the precious _von_. the emperor wanted control of the vatican. he knows history (at least we thought so in copenhagen), and he was sympathetic with his ancestors in all their quarrels with the holy see on the subject of the investitures; the emperor had wisely foreseen that difficulties of the same kind between the vatican and himself might easily break out, were not the vatican modernised or controlled. he knew that the claims of the popes to dethrone rulers could never be revived since they were not inherent in the papacy, but only admitted by the consent of christendom, which had ceased to exist as a political entity; but the question of the right of a lay emperor to control the policy of the holy father in matters of the religious education, marriage, church discipline of catholics might at any time arise. he knew the _non possumus_ of rome too well to believe that in a spiritual crisis she could be moved by the threats of any ruler. if his imperial majesty could have forced the principle of some of his ancestors that the religion of a sovereign must be that of his subjects, the question might be settled. if he could have arranged the religion of his subjects as easily as he settled the question as to the authenticity of the flora of lucas in berlin in favour of director bode, how clear the way would have been! as it was, he knew too well what he might expect from rome in a crisis where he, following the prussian _zeitgeist_, might wish to infringe on the spiritual prerogatives. to understand the world every european diplomatist of experience knows the vatican must not be ignored, and, while the war lord, the future emperor of the world, hated to acknowledge this, he was compelled to do it. the vatican, that had nullified the may laws and defeated falk, their sponsor, might give the emperor trouble at any time. catholics of the higher classes all over europe were ceasing to be royalists. the pope, leo xiii., had even accepted the french republic, and for the part of cardinal rampolla and of archbishop ireland in this the kaiser hid his rancour. he must be absolute as far as the right of his family and those of the hereditary succession went, and quite as absolute in his control over such laws as were for the increase of the kultur of his people. at one time, since the present war opened, it was rumoured at copenhagen that plural marriages were to be allowed, to increase the population of a nation so rapidly being depleted. i was astonished to hear a german lutheran pastor--he was speaking personally, and not for his church--say that there was nothing against this in the teachings of luther or melanchthon. he quoted the affair of a landgraf of hesse in the sixteenth century. 'but the kaiser would not consent to this,' i said. 'why not?' responded the pastor. 'he knows his old testament; he has the right of private interpretation especially when the good of the state is to be considered.' 'over a third of the germans are catholics; the pope would never consent to that.' 'there would be an obstacle,' he admitted; 'but the kaiser, in the interests of the nation, would have his way. our nation must have soldiers. you americans,' he added, bitterly, 'are killing our prospective fathers in the name of bethlehem. we must make up the deficit by turning to the hebraic practice.' 'you cannot bring the catholics to that, and i doubt whether any decent people would consent to it, in spite of your quotation from luther's precedent. no pope could allow it.' 'a pope can do anything--whom you shall forgive,' he laughed, 'is forgiven.' 'a pope cannot do anything; the moment he approved of plural marriages in the interest of any nation, he would cease to be pope. he cannot abrogate a law both divine and natural, and i doubt----' 'do not doubt the power of the head of the german people, the shepherd of his church. the german people are the religious, the spiritual counterparts of the true israelites, were begotten by the spirit, mystical jehovah who made israel the prophet-nation; mystically he has designated the german tribes as their successors. he lives in us. this war is his doing; our kultur, which is saturated with our religion, is inspired by him. he must destroy that the elect may live.' 'again, i repeat, germany can no more accept such debasing of the moral currency than she can encourage the production of illegitimate children at the present moment. i do not believe that there is a hospital in berlin, especially arranged for the caring for the offspring of army nurses and soldiers. it is a calumny.' 'we must have boy children,' said the pastor, 'but that is going too far. still, _deutschland über alles_. we may one day have a german pope with modern ideas.' my friend of st. peter's lutheran german church was out of town. i asked another friend to report the conversation to him. our mutual friend said that pastor lampe smiled and said, 'there are extremists in every country. tell the american minister to read dr. preuss in the _allgemeine evangelische_, _lutherische kirchenzeitung_.' but i am out of due time; dr. preuss's famous _passion of germany_, in full, appeared later, in . it is true that austria's vote at the conclave had defeated cardinal rampolla as a candidate for the papacy. the emperor of austria had permitted himself to be used as a tool of the german emperor, not willingly, perhaps, for rampolla stood for many things political which the absolutists hated. nevertheless, he had done it, to the disgust of the college of cardinals, who thus saw a forgotten weapon of the lay power used against themselves. they abolished the right of veto, which austria as a catholic power had retained. but the conclave elected a pope who did not please the kaiser. he was a kindly man of great religious fervour, impossible to be moved by german cajoling or threats. the knowledge of the crime of germany killed him. nevertheless, the emperor william had curbed the power of rampolla, as he hoped to destroy that of archbishop ireland in the great republic of the west. a powerful church with a tendency to democracy was what he feared, and archbishop ireland, a frankly democratic prelate, the friend of france, the admirer of lafayette, had dared to raise his powerful hand against the religious propaganda of the all highest in the united states of america, where one day german kultur was to have a home. the great napoleon had thought of his sister, the princess pauline, as empress of the western hemisphere. why not one of our imperial sons for the crude republic which had helped mexico in the old, blind days to eject maximilian? napoleon had made his son, later the duke of reichstadt, king of rome. why should not one of the sons of our napoleonic crown prince be even greater, a german pope--at least a german prince of the church expounding harnack with references to strauss's _life of jesus_? why not? the vicegerent of the teutonic god? from many sources it leaked out that the kaiser looked on the most reverend john ireland as an enemy of his projects both in europe and the united states. the archbishop of st. paul was known to be the friend of cardinal rampolla. all who knew the inside of recent history were aware that he had been consulted by leo xiii. on vital matters pertaining to france, in which country the ultra-royalists, who had managed to wrap a large part of the mantle of the church around them, were making every possible mistake and opposing the pope's determination to recognise the republic. archbishop ireland had been educated in france; he had served in the civil war as chaplain; he knew his own country as few ecclesiastics knew it. he, growing up with the west, in the most american part of the west, had brought all the resources of european culture, of an unusual experience in world affairs, to a country at that time not rich in men of his type. in the east, the catholic church had had prelates like cardinal cheverus, archbishop of boston, a number of them, but st. paul was little better than a trading station when john ireland finished the first part of his education in france. the tide of emigration had not yet begun to raise questions on the answers to which the future of the country depended. it required far-sighted men to consider them sanely. from the beginning archbishop ireland reflected on them. he saw the danger of rooting in new soil the bad, old weeds, the seeds of which were poisoning europe. he was familiar with the _coulisses du vatican_, knew that rome ecclesiastically would try to do the right thing. but rome ecclesiastically depends very largely on the information it receives from the countries under consideration. the attitude of the opponents of the catholic church is due, as a rule, to their ignorance of anything worth knowing about the church and their utter disregard of its real history. their narrow attitude is illustrated by the story that president roosevelt, in a cabinet meeting was once considering the form of a document which official etiquette required, should be addressed to the pope. 'your holiness,' said the president. a member of the cabinet objected. this title from a protestant president! 'do you want me to call the pope the son of the scarlet lady?' asked the president. the objection was as valid as that of the puritan who objected to sign a letter 'yours faithfully' because he was not _his_ faithfully! in the celebrated _century_ article of , the handling of which showed that the editors of the _century_ held their honour higher than any other possession, an allusion to archbishop ireland appeared. i have been informed that it showed the animus of the kaiser against the archbishop, who with cardinal gibbons, the bishops keane, spalding, o'gorman, and archbishop riordan seconded by the present bishop of richmond, denis o'connell, had defeated, after a frightful struggle, the attempt of kaiserism to govern the catholic church in this country. its beginnings seemed harmless enough. a merchant named peter paul cahensly of limburg, prussia, suggested at the catholic congress of trier, the establishment of a society for protecting german emigrants to the united states, both at the port of leaving and the port of arriving. another catholic congress met in bamburg, bavaria, three years later. connection was made with the central verein, which at its convention took up the matter zealously. but the zeal waned, and in , herr cahensly came to new york in the steerage so that he could know how the german emigrant lived at sea. he arranged that the german emigrants should be looked after in new york and then left for home. it was reasonable enough that cahensly should interest himself in the welfare of the germans at the point of departure, but entirely out of order that he should attempt any control of the methods for taking care of the emigrants on this side. it was suspected that cahensly had talked over a plan for retaining the catholic germans, especially in the west, where they formed large groups, as still part of their native country. this had already been tried among the lutherans, and had for a time succeeded. the swedish lutherans, segregated under the direction of german-educated pastors, were considered to have been well taken care of. the war has shown that the americans of swedish birth in the west showed independence. the suspicions entertained by the watchful were corroborated when, in , cahensly presented a memorial to the papal secretary of state, cardinal rampolla, making the plea that the 'losses' to the church were so great, owing to the lack of teaching and preaching in german, that a measure ought to be taken to remedy this evil by appointing foreign bishops and priests, imported naturally, so that each nationality would use the language of its own country. the object aimed at was to put the english language in the background, to have the most tender relations, those between god and little children, between the growing youths and christianity, dominated by a mode of thought and expression which would alienate them from their fellows. in business, a man might speak such english as he could; but english was not good enough for him in the higher relations of life. he might earn money in 'this crude america,' but all the finenesses of life must be german. i think i pointed out in the new york _freeman's journal_ at the time, that, if there were a special german holy ghost, as some of these germanophiles seemed to believe, he had failed to observe that there was little in the 'heretical' english language so devoid of all morality as the dogmas proposed to govern the conduct of life in some of the wisconsin papers, printed in german. some clear-sighted americans, cardinal gibbons and archbishop ireland at their head, saw what this meant. kaiserism was concealed in the glow of piety. the proceedings of the priester verein convention, in newark, september , , is on record. the ordinary of the diocese, bishop wigger, had protested against the stand the german priests' society proposed to take; he had announced his disapproval in advance of 'cahenslyism'; he was stolidly against the appointment of 'national,' that is, trans-atlantic bishops selected because they spoke no language but their own. the choice of the 'germanisers' was the reverend dr. p. j. schroeder--monseigneur schroeder, rather; he had been imported by bishop keane, afterwards archbishop, to lecture at the catholic university. bishop keane, like most americans before the war, believed that germany held many persons of genius who honoured us by coming over. when dr. schroeder's name was mentioned, a caustic english prelate had remarked: 'i thought the americans had enough mediocrities in their own country without going abroad for them.' but mgr. schroeder had a very high opinion of himself. american catholics were heretical persons, of no metaphysical knowledge; they could not count accurately the number of angels who could dance on the point of a needle! he arrogantly upheld the german idea. english-speaking priests were neither willing nor capable. the emigrants in the united states would be germans or nothing--_aut kaiser aut nullus_. the german priests in the west claimed the right to exclude from the sacraments all children and their parents who did not attend their schools, no matter how inefficient they were. the controversy became international. in germany, to deny the premises of mgr. schroeder was to be heretical, worthy of excommunication; in this country there was a camp of kaiserites who held the same opinion. it is true that bismarck had opened the _kulturkampf_ in the name of the unity of the fatherland. it is true that the kaiser would gladly have claimed the right his ancestors had struggled for--of investing bishops with the badges of authority--and that he gave his hearty approbation to the exile of the jesuits. nevertheless, he was the kaiser! compared with him, the president of the united states was an upstart, and cardinal gibbons was to the ultra-germans almost an anathema as cardinal mercier is! there was a fierce struggle for several years. bombs, more or less ecclesiastical, were dropped on archbishop ireland's diocese. to hear some of these bigots talk, we would have thought that this brave american was talleyrand, bishop of autun. but the right won. cahenslyism was stamped out, and here was another reason why the kaiser did not love archbishop ireland, and another reason why bavaria and austria, backed up by prussia, protested against every attempt on the part of rome to give him the cardinal's hat. this would have meant the highest approval of a prelate who stood for everything the kaiser and the bavarian and austrian courts detested. the _curia_ is made up of the councillors of the pope; a layman might be created cardinal--it is not a sacerdotal office in itself--and while the pope would reject with scorn the request that a temporal government should nominate a bishop, he might accept graciously a request that a certain prelate be made a cardinal from the ruler of any nation. if president roosevelt had been willing to make such a request to leo xiii.--he was urged to do it by many influential protestants who saw what archbishop ireland had done in the interest of this country--there is no doubt that his request would have been granted. the cardinals are 'created' for distinguished learning. one might quote the comparatively modern example of cardinals newman and gasquet; for traditional reasons, because of the importance of their countries in the life of the church; and they might be created, in older days, for political reasons. but the wide-spread belief that a cardinal was necessarily a priest leads to misconceptions of the quality of the office. if the french republic were to follow the example of england and china, send an envoy to the holy see, and make a 'diplomatic' _rapprochement_, neither rome nor any nation in europe would be shocked if his holiness should consent to a suggestion from the president of the french republic and 'create,' let us say, abbé klein a cardinal. archbishop ireland with his group of americans saved us from the insults of the propaganda of kaiserism. this name was synonymous with all things political and much that is social, loathed by the absolutes in austria, bavaria and, of course, germany. the creation of archbishop ireland as a cardinal would have been looked on by these powers as a deadly insult to them, on the part of the pope. they made this plain. the failure of the cahensly plan caused much disappointment in germany. the kaiser, in spite of his flings at the catholic church--witness a part of the suppressed _century_ article and the letter to an aunt 'who went over to rome'--was quite willing to appear as her benefactor. much has been made of his interest in the restoration of the cathedral of cologne. this, after all, was simply a national duty. a monarch with over one-third of his subjects catholics, taking his revenues from the taxes levied on them, could scarcely do less than assist in the preservation of this most precious historical monument. he seemed to have become regardless of the opinion of his subjects. he had heart-to-heart talks with the world; one of these talks was with mr. william bayard hale; the _century magazine_ bought it for $ , . . it was to appear in december . that its value as a 'sensation' was not its main value may be inferred from the character of the editors, richard watson gilder, robert underwood johnson and clarence clough buel--a group of scrupulously honourable gentlemen. this conversation with mr. hale took place on the kaiser's yacht. it was evidently intended for publication, for the most indiscreet of sovereigns do not talk to professional writers without one eye on the public. speaking of his _impressions of the kaiser_, the hon. david jayne hill says: 'it seemed like a real personal contact, frank, sincere, earnest and honest. one could not question that, and it was the beginning of other contacts more intimate and prolonged; especially at kiel, where the sportsman put aside all forms of court etiquette, lying flat on the deck of the _meteor_ as she scudded under heavy sail with one rail under water; at eckernforde, where the old tars came into the ancient inn in the evening to meet their kaiser and drink to his majesty's health a glass of beer.' 'did you ever see anything more democratic in america?' the kaiser asked, gleefully, one time. 'what would roosevelt think of this?' he inquired at another. 'hating him, as many millions no doubt do,' mr. hill continues, 'it would soften their hearts to hear him laugh like a child at a good story, or tell one himself. can it be? yes, it can be. there is such a wide difference between the gentler impulses of a man and the rude part ambition causes him to play in life! a rôle partly self-chosen, it is true, and not wholly thrust upon him. a soul accursed by one, great, wrong idea, and the purposes, passions, and resolutions generated by it. a mind distorted, led into captivity, and condemned to crime by the obsession that god has but one people, and they are his people; that the people have but one will, and that is his will; that god has but one purpose, and that is his purpose; and being responsible only to the god of his own imagination, a purely tribal divinity, the reflection of his own power-loving nature, that he has no definite responsibility to men.' nevertheless, in copenhagen, we understood from those who knew him well that he was a capital actor, that he never forgot the footlights except in the bosom of his family, and even there, as the young princes grew older, there were times when he had to hide his real feelings and assume a part. in , he was determined that the united states should be with him; he never lost an opportunity of praising president roosevelt or of expressing his pleasure in the conversation of americans. i think i have said that he boasted that he knew russia better than any other man in germany, and it seemed as if he wanted to know the united states to the minutest particular. it is a maxim among diplomatists that kings have no friends, and that the only safe rule in conducting one's self towards them are the rules prescribed by court etiquette. it is likewise a rule that politeness and all social courtesies shall be the more regarded by their representatives as relations are on the point of becoming strained between two countries. how little the kaiser regarded this rule is obvious in the case of judge gerard, who however frank he was at the foreign office--and the outspoken methods he used in treating with the german bureaucrats were the despair of the lovers of protocol--was always most discreet in meetings with the kaiser. i was asked quietly from berlin to interpret some of his american 'parables,' which were supposed to have an occult meaning. there was a tale of a one-armed man, with an inimitable broadway flavour, that 'intrigued' a high german official. i did my best to interpret it diplomatically. but, though our ambassador, the most 'american' of ambassadors, as my german friends called him, gave out stories at the foreign office that seemed irreverent to the great, there was no assertion that he was not most correct in his relations with the german emperor. yet, one had only to hear the rumours current in copenhagen from the berlin court just after the war began, to know that the emperor had dared to show his claws in a manner that revealed his real character. judge gerard's book has corroborated these rumours. the fact that i had served under three administrations gave me an unusual position in the diplomatic corps, irrespective entirely of any personal qualities, and--this is a digression--i was supposed to be able to find in ambassador gerard's parables in slang their real menace. a very severe bavarian count, who deplored the war principally because it prevented him from writing to his relations in france, from paying his tailor's bill in london, and from going for the winter to rome, where he had once been chamberlain at the vatican, said that he had heard a story repeated by an attaché of the foreign office and attributed to ambassador gerard, a story which contained a disparaging allusion to the holy father. as a catholic, i would perhaps protest to ambassador gerard against this irreverence which he understood had given the foreign minister great pain, as, i must know, the german government is most desirous of respecting the feelings of catholics. 'impossible,' i said. 'our ambassador is a special friend of cardinal farley's and he has just sent several thousand prayer-books to the english catholic prisoners in germany.' thus the story was told.[ ] [ ] i regret that i cannot give the story in the rhyme, which was bavarian french. it seemed that among the evil new yorkers with whom the ambassador consorted, there was an american, named michael, whose wife went to the priest and complained that michael had acquired the habits of drinking and paying attention to other ladies. 'very well,' said the priest, 'i will call on thursday night, if he is at home, and i'll take the first chance of remonstrating with him.' the evening came; the priest presented himself, and entered into a learned conversation on the topics of the hour, while michael hid himself behind his paper, giving no opportunity for the pastor to address him. however, he knew that his time would come if he did not make a move into the enemy's country. 'father,' he said, lowering his paper, 'you seem to know the reason for everything that's goin' on to-day; maybe you'll tell me the meanin' of the word "diabetes"?' 'it is the name of a frightful disease that attacks men who beat their wives and spend their money on other women, mike.' 'i'm surprised, father,' said michael, 'because i'm readin' here that the pope has it.' it was necessary for me to explain that this was one of our folklore stories, and could be traced back to _gesta romanorum_--merely one of the merry jests of which the german literature itself of the middle ages was so full, of the character, perhaps, of rheinhard the fox! this is an example of the way our ambassador played on the germans' sense of humour, as rosencrantz and guildenstern tried to play on hamlet's pipe! * * * * * the german propaganda went on in the united states. look at france, look at italy, in comparison with germany's respect for religion! the falk laws were no longer of importance; catholics were to be encouraged to go into the political service, having hitherto been 'rather discouraged' and even under suspicion, as von bülow admitted. the german was obsessed by the one idea--the preponderance of the fatherland.[ ] he was conscientious, he had for years cultivated a false conscience which judged everything by one standard: is this good for the spread of german kultur? [ ] the army bill of 'met with such a willing reception from all parties as has never before been accorded to any requisition for armaments on land or at sea.'--von bülow's _imperial germany_, p. . 'what do you think of all this?' i asked one of the most distinguished diplomatists in europe, now resident in berlin, the representative of a neutral country. 'there will be no peace in europe until germany gets what she wants. she knows what she wants, and since she has used every possible method to attain it.' to return to the indiscretions of the kaiser--indiscretions that were not always uncalculated. mr. clarence clough buel, one of the editors of _the century_, felt obliged, in justice, to give an authoritative explanation of dr. hale's suppressed 'interview.' his account was printed in _the new york world_ for december , : 'the proof of this interview had been passed by the german foreign office, with not more than half a dozen simple verbal changes. they were made in a bold, ready hand, but as there was no letter, we could not be sure that the proofs had been revised by the emperor. the usual hair-splitting of great men and officialdom had been anticipated, so with considerable glee, the trifling plate changes were rushed, and the big "sixty-four" press was started to toss off , copies.' the london _daily telegraph_ 'interview' of october , , was a thunderbolt, and the editors of _the century_, at the urgent request of the german government, suppressed the edition. i had been informed by mr. gilder of the facts. i was very glad of it, as i was enabled to explain this very interesting episode at the danish foreign office. mr. clarence buel writes (it was his duty to read the last galley proofs):--'but in the last cold reading i had grave suspicion that the kaiser's reference to the virgin mary might be construed by devout catholics as a slur on an important tenet of their faith. so the sacred name was deleted, and the kaiser's diction slightly assisted in the kindly spirit for which editors are not so often thanked by the writing fraternity as they should be. this incident is mentioned to show the protective attitude of the magazine, and also to indicate that the original "leak" as to the contents of the interview came from an employee of the printing office. only some one familiar with the galley proofs could have known that the virgin mary had figured in the manuscript, for the name did not appear in the printed pages and consequently could not have reached the public except for the killing of the interview. let it be said, with emphasis, that there was nothing in the kaiser's references to the part taken by the vatican in looking out for the interests of the church in world politics which could have caused serious irritation in any part of europe. as a student at the berlin university, i had attended some of the debates in the landtag during the famous _kulturkampf_ over the clerical laws devised by bold bismarck to loosen the catholic grip on the cultural life of prussian poland. knowing the nature of that controversy, and the usual, familiar attitude of (protestant) europeans toward religious topics, i could believe that everything in the article bearing on church and state, from the over-lord of most lutherans, was offered in a respectful spirit, and would hardly make a ripple across the sea.' mr. buel admits that the kaiser criticised the action of the pope and spoke slurringly of the virgin mary. mr. buel evidently means that the foreign offices of the world would not have been stirred by the censure of the kaiser or by even some frivolous comments on the blessed virgin. mr. buel, who is discretion itself, having been one of those who practically gave his word of honour that the 'interview' should be suppressed, was evidently desirous that public curiosity should not be too greatly excited as to its tenor. he does not excuse the kaiser, but as he is a very liberal protestant himself, speeches coming from a ruler, that would excite indignation even among catholics in europe, naturally do not strike him as insulting. it leaked out long ago that in the 'interview' his imperial majesty alluded to archbishop ireland in rather disrespectful terms. only the staunch americanism of the catholics of this country saved them from this insidious propaganda. if this spirit did not exist among them, they would have been led to believe that the central powers were the only european countries in the world where a catholic was free to practise his religion. we know what the german propaganda working on politicians did in canada among the french-speaking population. we saw, in the beginning of the war, how the protestants of ulster were used. there is a passage in mr. wells's _mr. britling sees it through_ which illuminates this. 'england will grant home rule,' said a prussian closely connected with the berlin foreign office, 'and then sir edward carson and his ulsterites will, with his mutineering british army, keep england too busy to fight us.' they believed this in very high quarters in germany. but when the british government did not put the home rule bill in force, the propagandists turned to certain irish intellectuals. 'you had better be governed by germany than england,' said the followers of sir roger casement, and the sentiment, whether uttered academically or not, found a hundred echoes. but first had been heard the german-inspired cry of the ulsterites, 'we had rather be governed by germany than the irish, by the kaiser rather than the irish roman catholic bishops.' most of us knew that there was no such danger, for home rule would have naturally cut into the political power of the irish bishops by strengthening the secular element forced into the background by the unfortunate conditions in ireland, which had prevented the catholic laymen from acquiring higher education, and obliging the clergy to become political leaders. it made no difference. the fermenters of religious dissension in ireland played into the hands of the prussians; there was laughter in hell. we knew that the slogan, 'better be governed by germany than by ulster,' was not echoed in our own country among men of irish blood. but when germany, through her agents, began to suggest an irish republic, protected by the imperial eagle, a small party formed in the united states, not pro-german, but anti-english. this was before we went into the war. 'every defeat of the english is a gain for ireland,' the german propagandist repeated over and over again. it sank in; the ulsterites thundered, and sinn fein, which had been non-political, became suddenly revolutionary. in our country the effect of all this was marked. every sentiment of religion and patriotism was played upon. only those who received the confidences of some of those deceived revolutionists of the unhappy easter day know how bitter was the feeling against england generated by the conspiracies in the interest of prussian domination. then we gloriously took our stand and went in. the practical answer came. the swedish lutherans and the sinn fein catholics took up their arms without waiting to be drafted; ireland must look after herself until the invaders were driven out of france and belgium! if the secret service is ever permitted to take the american public and the world into its confidence, the strength, the cleverness, and the permeativeness of the propaganda, especially religious, in the united states, will be shown to be astounding. 'what, son of luther, strikes at the german breast of your forefathers!' to use a phrase that would not be understood at the berlin foreign office, the prussian propagandist had us 'coming and going.' one could not help admiring the skill of these people. we, in our honest shirt sleeves were left gaping. shirt sleeves and dollar diplomacy were beautiful things in the opinion of people who believed that the little red schoolhouse and the international hague conference were all that were needed to keep us free and make the world safe for democracy! there are no such beautiful things now. if we are to fight the devil with fire, we ought to know previously what kind of fire the devil uses. that requires the use of chemical experts, and the german experts, before this war, were not employed on the side of the angels. we have won; but do not let us imagine that we have killed the devil. the propaganda still went on, and honest people were influenced by it. 'the pope belongs to us,' the german propagandists said. 'he has not reprimanded cardinal mercier,' replies some logical person, 'and cardinal mercier has done more harm to german claims even in germany than any other living man.' 'the pope sympathises with our claims; he is the friend of law and order, consequently, he is with us.' easily impressed folk among the allies accepted this. they believed the tale that the italian rout in the autumn of was due to catholic officers, who were paraded through every city in europe with 'traitor' placarded on each back! a foolish story to direct attention from the efforts of the paid conspirators who did the mischief. they saw only the surface of things. they seemed to think that the theorem of euclid that a straight line is the shortest distance from one point to another holds in the political underworld. the pope was attacked, which pleased the propagandists. 'o holy father, see how i, head of the german lutheran church, love you, and see! your wicked enemies are my enemies.' and so the german propagandist divided and discouraged! chapter viii the prussian holy ghost the prussic acid had permeated every vein and artery of the lutheran church in germany. whatever religious influence that could be brought to bear on the danes was used; but they look with suspicion on any mixture of religion and politics. besides, their kind of lutheranism is more liberal than the german. with the proper apologies i must admit that they are not, at present, easily accessible to any religious considerations that will interfere with their individual comfort. the union between the lutherans in denmark and the lutherans in germany is not close. the danes will not accept the doctrine, preached in germany, that martin luther was the glorious author of the war, and that victory for germany must be in his name! i had many friends in germany. one, a lutheran pastor, wrote in : 'your country, though pretending to be neutral, is against us, and you, once dear friend, are against us. you are no longer a child of light.' the effect of the religious propaganda has been too greatly underrated for the simple and illogical reason that religion, in the opinion of the people of the outside world, moulded for long years by the german school of philosophy, had concluded that religion had ceased to be an influence in men's lives. the pope, because he had lost his temporal power, was effete, reduced to the position of john bunyan's impotent giant! lutheranism, in fact, all protestant sects, were giving up the ghost, under the blows of hæckel, virchow, rudolf harnack and the rest of the school of higher critics! these men laid the foundation stones for the acceptance of nietzsche--schopenhauer being outworn--and the learned as well as the more ignorant of the cultured seemed to think that, as german scholars had settled the matter, faith in christianity was only the prejudice of the weak. the kaiser knew human nature better than this. while he believed in his prussian holy ghost--napoleon had his star--he was not averse to seeing the spiritual foundations of the world, especially the dogmatic part, which supported christianity, disintegrated. discussing the effect of this, i was forced, in march of , to say publicly, 'the kaiser is the greatest enemy to christianity in europe.' the reception of many protests from apparently sincere persons confirmed me in my belief that the propaganda had been more insidious than most of us believed. let us turn now to the effect of the ruthless propaganda in germany itself. note this letter: 'you, i can almost forgive, because, as i have told you often, you dwell religiously in darkness; but your protestant country, which owes its best to us, i cannot forgive. in the name of bethlehem, you kill our sons, and corrupt our cousins, karl and bernhard, whom you know in america. karl, when he was in my house last week, was insolent; he dared to say that the germans in america were americans, that, if martin luther sympathised with our glorious struggle, he was in hell! this is wild american talk; but i fear that too many of our good people in america have been "yankeefied" and lost their religion. however, our glorious kaiser has not been idle all these years; the good germans in your misled country, not bought by english gold, will arise shortly and demand that no more ammunition shall be sent to be used against their relatives. i saw your relation, lagos, in fiume; he cares nothing for luther or the prussian cause, but he is only a hungarian, with irish blood, and he will only speak of his emperor respectfully, and say nothing against our enemies in america; his son has been killed in russia; it is a judgment upon a man who is so lukewarm. the austrian emperor is forced to help us; he, too, is tainted with the blood of anti-christ. i have heard that, when the war broke out, and they told him, he said: "i suppose we shall fight those damned prussians again!" was this jocose? lagos laughed; it is no time to laugh; karl and bernhard will go back to where they belong, in pennsylvania, accursed for their treachery,--vipers we have cherished, false to the principles of luther.' an honest man, sincere enough, with no sense of humour, and a very good friend until one contradicted his pan-germanism. one might differ from him, with impunity, on any other question! 'our pulpits are thundering for the lord, luther, and a german victory!' there had been a movement in england for a union of the anglican church with the lutheran branch of protestantism in denmark. it may have been extended to norway and sweden as well, but i do not know. there was much opposition on the part of the germanised lutherans: 'it would be giving up the central principle of lutheranism to submit to re-consecration and reordination by the anglican bishops. it would be as bad as going to rome or russia or abyssinia for holy orders. in denmark, especially, luther, through bergenhagen, had cut off the falsely-claimed apostolical succession. how could a national church remain national and become english?' if i remember rightly, pastor storm, a clergyman greatly distinguished for his character, learning, and breadth of view, was in favour of such a union; he did not think it meant the anglicanising of the lutheran church. men like pastor storm were placed in the minority. the germans were against it. bishop rördam, the primate, bishop of zeeland, told me that german influence could have had nothing to do with the decision; he said, 'it is true that, if we wanted the apostolical succession we could go either to rome or russia. we are well enough as we are.' when the attempt at the union failed, those pastors in germany who had watched the progress of the undertaking, rejoiced greatly. my former friend, the lutheran pastor, wrote: 'the anglican church is a great enemy to our german kultur, though german influence among its divines is becoming greater and greater. i am obliged to you for the american books on st. paul. i read them slowly. i observe with joy that all the authorities quoted are from german sources; surely such good men as the authors of these books must see that your country is recreant to the memories of the great liberator, martin luther, in not preaching against the export of arms from your country to the entente and the starving of our children! i thank you for the books, and also for the one by the french priest, which is, of course, worthless, as he sneers at harnack. later, these french will know our kultur with a vengeance! i gather from the volumes of canon sheehan, as you call him, that the influence on clerical education in ireland is german. we have driven the french influence from your universities, too, and the theological schools of harvard and yale, thanks to the great dr. münsterberg, who is opposed by a creature called schofield, are german. the power of our cultural lutheranism is spreading against the errors of calvin in the college of princeton, and the roman catholic colleges in the states are becoming more enlightened by the presence of men like the late magistrate schroeder, who may be tolerated by us as the entering wedge of our kultur. you have been frank; i am frank with you. i have received your translation of goethe's _knowest thou the land_ and _the parish priest's work_. as your ancient preceptor, i will say that both are bad.' he is, after all, an honest man. of course, i do not hear from him. his two sons are dead, in russia; he probably talks less of 'judgments' now, poor soul! he was only part of the machine of which the kaiser was the god! the perverted state of mind of these honest men in whom a false conscience has been carefully cultivated was amazing. on december rd, , a danish bishop wrote a letter of good-will to a colleague of his in germany, saying, among other things, 'even the victor must now bear so many burdens that for a generation he must lament and sigh under them.' the german pastor answered on december th: 'do you remember, at the beginning of the war, you answered, to my well-grounded words, "we must, we will, and we shall win," "how can that ever be?" the question has been answered; from vilna to salonica, from antwerp to the euphrates, in courland and poland, our armies are triumphant; we take our own wherever we find it, and we hold it! i pity you,' the amiable pastor continued; 'i have the deepest commiseration for you neutrals, that you should remain outside of this wonderfully great experience of god's glory, you, above all, who call yourselves scandinavians and are of the stock of the german martin luther. you hold nought of the mighty things that god has now for a year and a half been bestowing on the fatherland. he who has little, from him shall be taken away what he has. this war is not a _kaffeeklarch_, and the work of a soldier is not embroidery. our lord god, who let his son die on the cross is not the chairman of a tea party, and he who came to bring, not peace, but a sword, is not a town messenger. he lives, he reigns, he triumphs! the chant of the bethlehem angels, "peace on earth" is as veritable as when it was for the first time heard. there lay on the manger the infant who as a man was to conquer, that he might give peace to earth. our germans, who in bled, died and conquered, won for their own country and scandinavia and central europe forty-four years of peace. for these nations and for a more permanent peace in this world our country is battling to-day. gloria! victoria! we will throw down our arms only when we have conquered, that this peace may reign.' bishop koch, of ribe--jacob riis's old town in denmark--was the writer of the first letter. it is not necessary to name the writer of the second; his name is legion! it is not for the right, for the defence of the poor, the helpless, the forsaken, for the old woman, pitifully weeping, in the hands of the bloody supermen, to whom, according to this pious pastor, christ sent the sword, that germany may rule, and force her dyes, and her 'by-products,' and her ruthless, selfish brutality on the world. if john the baptist lived to-day, and had asked these good pastors to follow him in the real spirit of christianity, one may be sure that they would have found some excuses for the energetic salome, who gloated over the precursor's head. frequently the german pastors made flying visits to copenhagen--after the war began--not in the old way, when in the summer they came, with hundreds of their countrymen, bearing frugal meals, and wearing long cloaks and cocks' feathers in their hats. the day of the very cheap excursion had passed. now, they came to 'talk over' things, to assure their danish brethren of the stock 'of luther' that it was a crime to be neutral. i had gone to the house of a very distinguished lutheran clergyman, professor valdemar ammundsen, to listen to a 'talk' by pasteur soulnier, of the lutheran church in paris: mr. cyril brown, the keen observer and clever writer, accompanied me. we were struck with the evidences of christian charity and breadth of kindness shown by pasteur soulnier. he had only words of praise for his catholic brethren in france; there was no word of bitterness or hatred in his discourse; but his voice broke a little when he spoke of rheims, and he seemed like old canon luçon, the guardian of that beloved cathedral, who cannot understand that men can be such demons as the destroyers have shown themselves to be. we were late for dinner, and mr. brown and i stepped into a restaurant of a position sufficiently proper for diplomatic patronage, to dine. the day after, as i was taking my walk, accompanied by my private secretary, a man took off his hat and addressed me. he spoke english with an accent. 'pardon me; i do not know your name; but i know your friend, pastor lampe, one of the most learned of our young divines; i have seen you talking to him; i likewise recognised your companion at dinner last night, mr. cyril brown; he is an american well known in berlin. my name is pastor x. i was formerly of bremen. may i have a few words with you?' 'certainly,' i said, interested, 'if you will walk to friedericksberg.' 'part of the way, sir,' he said. my secretary whispered,--'another spy? shall i pump him?' we had been frequently followed. only a short time before, when i had escorted my wife and frau frederika hagerup, lady-in-waiting to queen maud of norway, for a short walk, we had been closely followed, by eavesdroppers. at the corner of the amaliegade and saint anna's place, just opposite the hotel king of denmark, men had crawled up within earshot, and one had accompanied us the whole distance. was this a similar case? 'spy?' i said in french. 'well let him talk!' my young secretary shook his head; his way of dealing with suspected spies was to wring their necks, if possible. from a long experience with spies, it is my conclusion that much money is wasted on them. some are very agreeable, and give the party of the second part much amusement. the german pastor, in his rusty black, looked so respectable, too! he took the right, which showed that he did not understand that i was a minister. a well brought up german, who knew my rank, would have taken my left side even if he were about to strangle me! 'bitte,' i said, 'but speak english!' 'i must beg pardon,' he answered; 'i could not forbear to tell you what i thought of your conversation at the restaurant last night. i should have interrupted you, but i was in the middle of my dinner.' _his_ sacred dinner; ours did not count. 'i heard you say to mr. cyril brown that the german nation at present is the greatest enemy to christianity in the world.' 'no, no, herr pastor,' i interrupted; 'i said that the emperor william is the worst enemy of christianity in the world.' 'ah, it is the same thing. you americans call yourselves christians,' he broke out, 'and yet your bombs from bethlehem have shattered my son's leg and they killed thousands of our children. your nation is protestant. you ought to be with us against impious france and idolatrous italy--i spit on italy--the _cocotte_ of the nations, the handmaid of the papish prostitute of rome! and yet you say that our most christian nation is not christian! how can you say it? we are not at war, yet you treat us as enemies!' 'we shall soon be at war. the ambassador of the united states at berlin is sending americans out of that city. he feels, evidently, that, in spite of his influence with the chancellor, you will begin your u-boat outrages, and then we must be at war! that is plain. but i think you have said enough. herr pastor, good-bye!' 'no, no,' he said. 'answer me one question: why do you say that we germans are un-christian? our christianity is the most beautiful, the most learned, the most cultured!' the young are relentless critics; i knew that my secretary was calling me names for 'picking up' this strange german clergyman in the street. moreover, the secretary was beautifully attired; his morning coat was perfect; his tall hat tilted back at the right degree, and the triple white carnation in his buttonhole was a sight to see. (dear chap! he is in the greasy automobile service in flanders now!) and his cane! (if you walk out without a cane in polite copenhagen, you are looked on as worse than nude.) fancy! to be seen walking with a threadbare german pastor with a bulbous umbrella! he groaned; he knew that i would pause on the brink of an abyss for a little refreshing theological conversation! 'you cannot deny, herr pastor,' i said, 'that you people in germany swear by harnack, that strauss's _life of jesus_ is a book that you look on with great admiration, that much of the foolish "higher criticism" like the attacks on saint luke,[ ] which sir william ramsay has so carefully refuted, and all the sneering at the fundamentals of christianity have come from germany, with the approval of the emperor.' [ ] _the bearing of recent discovery on the trustworthiness of the new testament_, by sir william m. ramsay. hodder and stoughton. 'there are no english scientific theologians. i do not know your ramsay. we are learned; we study; we see many of the christian myths in an allegorical sense, but yet we adore the german god, who is with us, and we believe in christ, though our learned ones may dissipate much that the populace hold. there must be a broad law for the christian divine; a narrow one for the humble believer. we may not accept miracles, we of the learned, but we may not disturb the belief of the people in them. culture must come from the top. the catholics among us still accept the miracles, but they are most retrograde of the germans. we are gaining upon them. it is the _zeitgeist_; when we have conquered, with their help, we shall teach them the real lesson of christianity! the german god will not brook idolatry. our scientists disprove myths, but we work in the line of luther still. he disproved myths!' 'i do not hold a brief for martin luther,' i said, 'but i think that he would have cursed any man who denied the divinity of christ. you talk of a german god. he is not a christian god, and i repeat to you what you heard me say to my friend in the restaurant.' 'it is well, sir,' he said, 'to hear this coming from an american who defends the starving of our children and the supplying of arms to slaughter us. we have god on our side--the german god. we only!' 'good day, sir,' i said; 'you corroborate my impression about your christianity!' i took off my hat, and crossed the street. he stood still; 'these americans are rude!' my secretary heard him say. this would seem impossible to me--if i had not been a part of the episode; if it seems impossible to you--the result probably of some misunderstanding on my part--let me quote a few examples of the result of the prussian propaganda among a people whom we considered, at least, honest and not un-christian. but, first: on the long line for my usual walk with mr. myron hofer, one of the first americans to rush from his post at the legation and join the aviation corps, i saw the pastor again. mr. hofer saw him coming towards us, and said: 'you ought not to stand in the wind, if that man speaks to you; let us go on.' 'go on,' i said, 'but come back to rescue me in a minute or two.' 'excellency,' the pastor said, 'i have heard from pastor lampe who you are. forgive me for addressing you!' and he passed on, hat in hand. what can one make of this bigotry and phariseeism? have these qualities developed only since the war? will they disappear after the war? 'and the devils besought him, saying: if thou cast us out hence, send us unto the herd of swine. and he said to them: go. but they going out went into the swine, and behold the whole herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea: and they perished in the waters.' we all know that london was an unfortified city. read this, from the _evangelische-lutherische kirchenzeitung_, written in . it is an answer to the truthful charge that children, helpless women, old men, civilians going quietly about their business, had been slaughtered by the pitiless rain of death from the skies. the danish lutherans, among whom this pious sheet had been circulated with a view to exciting their sympathies, did not accept this. 'london has ceased to be a city without the defence of fortifications; it is filled with such numbers of aeroplanes and anti-aircraft guns, that, as we are all aware, the zeppelins can attack it at night only. to attack london is to make an offensive on a den of murderers.' 'if you ask me,' says the _protestenblatt_, number , 'how shall i build up the kingdom of god,' my answer is: 'be a good german! stand fast by the fatherland. do your duty and fill your mission. _seek to submerge yourself in german spirit, in german mind._ be german in piety and will, which simply means, be true, faithful, and valiant. help as best you can towards our victory; help to make our fatherland grow and wax mighty.'[ ] [ ] dr. j. p. bang's translation. doctor bang deserves well of all lovers of freedom for his translation into danish of typical sermons from german pastors possessed of the spirit of hatred. dr. bang is a professor of theology in the university of copenhagen. it ought to be remembered that the university of copenhagen, in a neutral country geographically part of germany, made no protest against the audacious volume. it is true that there are protestants in germany who will not accept the 'fatherland' as god and eternal life or as a life continued in the memories of later generations, as a hessian peasant put it in a letter written from the front. his attitude shows how barren all this rhetoric seems to the unhappy soldier who must obey. those who knew the lives of truly religious germans before the war must believe that these arrogant, feverish, diabolical utterances do not represent them. the lutheran households where the fear of god and the love of one's neighbour reigned cannot have entirely disappeared; the old christian spirit must fill some hearts. but here is a man, a lutheran divine, whose pious books have 'circulated in the army in millions of copies.' he is a very great clergyman; if you saw him in the streets of lübeck, or hamburg, or berlin, many hats would be raised; even officers in the army would greet him with respect. he is geheimkonsistorialrath! 'likewise,' he writes, in his book, _strong in the lord_--'the blessings of the reformation are at stake. shall french ungodliness, shall russian superstition, shall english hypocrisy rule the world? never! for the blessing of our faith, for the freedom of our conscience, for our germanism and for our gospel, we shall fight and struggle and make every sacrifice. _ein' feste burg ist unser gott._ and, if the world were full of devils, we shall maintain our empire!' according to dr. conrad, germany is a great surgeon. she must cut; she must even kill, if necessary, the nation that stands in the way of her beneficient kultur! so strenuously has the name of martin luther been made use of by these fanatics, that the fact is lost sight of in germany, that the question is not one of religion. there is scarcely a war even in modern times with which religion had so little to do as this; but to hear these shriekers from the pulpit, one would think that martin luther was the instigator of the war and that the kaiser is his prophet! what the catholic population in germany--in bavaria, in silesia--what the jews in berlin and munich think of all this, we have not yet discovered. a cardinal holding the standard of luther, with two rabbis gracefully toying with its gilded tassels is a sight the preachers offer to us when they appeal to luther as the representative of germany. luther was no democrat; he would scarcely have approved of president wilson's speeches; but yet he would not have worshipped the trinity of the kaiser, the crown prince and the prussian holy ghost as the godhead! think of the tremendous force that must have perverted these 'men of god!' who can help believing in the miracle of the swine driven into the sea after this, or in the old latin adage, 'whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad,' or in shakespeare's 'lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds?' religion is made a mark to cover avarice and arrogant ambition, christianity, to veil a god more material than the golden calf. the learned danes answered the shrieks of the preachers, and the specious reasonings of such scientists as wilhelm von bode, wundt, richard dehmel, wilhelm röntgen, ernest haeckel, sudermann, etc., with dead silence, erudition and art had been corrupted. 'in italy,' christopher nyrop,[ ] the dane, says, 'which, when the manifesto of the german learned appeared, was not among the belligerent states, the amazement and the disappointment were so great that the ninety-three signers, "representatives of german kultur," were named _verräter der deutschen kultur_, traitors to german kultur.' it was only necessary to change 'vertreter' to 'verräter.' and among them were max reinhart, harnack, gerhard hauptmann, siegfried wagner! [ ] devoted to france, the friend of m. jusserand; a great romance philologer. the wonder and amazement were even greater when there was no protest from the catholics or the lutherans of germany against the inexcusable outrage on louvain or rheims. the remonstrances of the pope were unheeded. it was the policy of the german government to suppress them as far as possible. it wanted to give the impression that the holy father was theirs, and too many thoughtless persons fell in with this idea. that the german catholics were misinformed by bethmann-hollweg and the war office makes their position worse. the proofs offered by the dean of the cathedral of rheims proved that this horror, the destruction of the sacred symbol of the french nation, was not 'a military necessity.' chapter ix - - the visits of mr. john r. mott to the scandinavian countries were events; his was a name to conjure with. when an intimation of his coming appeared in the papers, our legation was bombarded with requests for the opportunity of meeting him. 'we must,' my wife often said, 'make it understood that every american of good repute shall be welcome in our house; and it is our mission to give our danish friends an opportunity to meet him.' the danes came to know this and, whenever there was an american in copenhagen worth while--i do not mean merely having what is called 'social position'--we were always glad to arrange that the right persons should meet. we were not socially indiscriminate, but we were certainly eclectic. we wanted mr. mott for three meals a day, but he was always, like martha, so busy about many things, that we could only secure him for a short breakfast or something like that, with one of his warmest admirers, count joachim moltke, who is devoted to the moral improvement of young men, and chamberlain and madame oscar o'neill oxholm. the only rift in the lute of the affection of certain danish ladies for my wife was that she allowed mr. mott to leave copenhagen on various occasions without 'making an occasion' for them to meet him. among these ladies were mademoiselle wedel-hainan, one of the ladies in-waiting to the queen dowager, and others interested in the cultivation of reverence for christianity among their compatriots. the result of mr. mott's masterly work was shown when the war broke out. the 'red-blooded' who formerly looked at the young men's christian association as rather effeminate and effete must, in view of what it has done in europe, forever close their lips. at this time, in , we had expectations of another visitor. cardinal gibbons almost promised to make the northern trip; he would come to copenhagen, it was intimated in a baltimore newspaper. great interest was shown among these agreeable athenians, the cosmopolitan danes. the question of etiquette bothered me; sweden had still remote relations with the holy see, though the catholic religion is still practically proscribed in that country. at least, the king of sweden writes, i think, a letter once a year to his 'cousin,' the pope, or is it to his 'cousins,' the cardinals; but denmark, though very liberal since in its religious attitude, has not such vaguely official relations. i was informed that no cardinal had visited denmark since the reformation. i made inquiries in the proper quarters at once. of course, i might give cardinal gibbons his rank as a prince of the church, and even the most exalted who should go in after him at our dinner would be pleased. he could not come. his one hasty trip to europe, after his friends had raised my hopes of his visiting us, was to be present at the conclave that elected benedict xv. pius x. had died of a broken heart, and the heart of the cardinal was sore and troubled at the horrors thrust upon the world. what he has done to fill our army and navy with courageous men contemporaneous history shows. but the great visit, the epoch, which dulled even the glories of the coming of the atlantic squadron, was that of ex-president roosevelt. to the danes it was almost as if holger dansker, who, as everybody knows, is waiting in the vaults of hamlet's castle at elsinore to protect denmark, had burst into the light. from the european point of view, which took no account of our home politics, ex-president roosevelt was not only the most important figure in america, but in the world, and the most picturesque. even under the new democracy, men will probably count more than nations in the minds of our brethren across the sea. however large collectiveness may loom in the future, there will be some man or other who will show above it, who will be a part greater than the whole. mr. roosevelt had made the panama canal possible; he had succeeded when de lesseps had failed; he had forced, more than any other president before him, the respect of europe; the radicals wanted to greet him because he had curbed the power of the capitalists; kings and prime ministers welcomed him because they--even the kaiser--feared his potentialities. that he would be the next president of the united states nobody in europe doubted. these people were not welcoming, as they thought, a man like general grant, who had merely done a great thing. the american who was coming was not only a man of splendid past, but one with a future that was rising up like thunder. you can imagine the excitement in copenhagen when it was announced that he would pay that city a short visit. from copenhagen he was to go to christiania to make a nobel prize speech. the death of björnson occurred just at this time; it was mourned in both norway and denmark as a national loss; but even this did not affect the reception of the ex-president. 'we would have rejoiced in our sorrow for nobody else,' the norwegian minister said. king frederick viii. had made all his arrangements to go to the riviera; his health was not good. he sent for me; he was doubtful whether the rumours of mr. roosevelt's visit were well founded or not. 'if he comes, this most distinguished citizen of yours, i will see that he is received with the greatest courtesy; i will do as much for him as if he were an emperor. he and his family shall be given the palace of christian vii. during their stay. my son, the crown prince, will go to greet him; i regret, above all things, that i cannot be here.' mr. and mrs. roosevelt came; he saw; he conquered, but mrs. roosevelt won all hearts. the young folks, kermit and ethel, fled from all gaieties and ceremonies and explored the town; if i remember they courted not the smiles of kings and princes; but they searched intensively for specimens of old pewter. mr. roosevelt's trunks did not arrive in time; he and mrs. roosevelt were obliged to wear their travelling clothes. in the long history of court life in denmark this had occurred only once on a gala occasion, and the guest had been her majesty the queen of england, when she was princess of wales. she had accepted the result with the utmost simplicity. mrs. roosevelt, the ladies of the court said, was 'royal' in the charming way in which she accepted this unpleasant accident; she has contradicted practically the stories that american ladies have the plebeian habit of 'fussiness.' the crown princess declared that mrs. roosevelt was 'adorable,' and the crown prince referred to the pleasure of this visit nearly every time, during the last eight years, i met him. 'he is a man,' he said. the marshal of the court arranged the etiquette admirably, and there was not the slightest hitch. some of my colleagues who knew that mr. roosevelt, as an ex-president, had no official rank, wondered how the technical details of the reception of a 'commoner' had been arranged. the court and the foreign office offered all the courtesies usually bestowed on royal highnesses. the legation and the consulate were particularly proud of the decorations of the railway station, and grateful to the minister of commerce who was responsible for them. as usual, admiral de richelieu was both thoughtful and generous. the best part of the programme, the voyage and breakfast on the _queen maud_--we went to elsinore--and a hundred other agreeable details were arranged perfectly by him and commander cold, director of the scandinavian-american line. a great dinner, such as only danes can manage to perfect at short notice, was offered to him by the mayor and the municipality of copenhagen. his speech was eagerly looked for. it charmed the moderates; the extreme socialists, who had claimed him for their own, were disappointed. 'your radicalism is our conservatism,' said chamberlain carl o'neill oxholm. later, we heard that the kaiser was disappointed in mr. roosevelt. this was from one of the berlin court circles. mr. roosevelt (this was said _sub rosa_) had not been too radical, but too frank. after all, there was no reason why a man who had represented the people of one of the greatest nations on earth should be too reverential to the all highest! when mr. roosevelt left denmark, he left an impression of force, of virility, of dignity, of honesty that became part of the history of the country. in loubet, the french ex-president, came with his son paul and a staff of delegates to the international congress of public and private charities. he was very genial and frank--qualities inherited by his son. his conversation was directed to the rapid reconstruction of france after . 'a country that can do that has little to fear,' he said, 'if we can avoid the pitfalls of professional politicians. that may be our difficulty. our enemies are glad that there should be dissensions among us, vital dissensions, not the healthy differences of opinion you have in your country.' 'et "la revanche?"' 'ah, monsieur le ministre,' answered one of his staff, 'how can he speak of that, with the german minister, mr. waldhausen, so near us? he is beckoning to you now. it is not "revanche" we want, but the return of our territory. if that could be done without war! paul, his son, will talk international politics with you, if you like. as to local politics, the royalists do wrong in mixing religion and politics; it forces the hand of the opposition, and makes the attitude of us republicans misunderstood. in spite of all dissensions, france is one at heart; but the voice of the country is not for war. of course, we may have to fight in our colonies.' 'tripoli?' i asked. 'no,' he answered smiling. 'that's the leading question. we must fight as you fought the red indians. we have no fear of war at present--our ways are the ways of peace.' 'naturally,' i answered, 'since the german minister tells me that germany will never fight france unless attacked, and he sees no signs of that.' 'the belgians are growing restless because hamburg is taking all the brazilian coffee trade,' he said, absent-mindedly. 'which means, interpreted,' i answered, 'that we might well look after our interests in brazil.' 'like all frenchmen,' he said, 'i am ignorant of foreign geography, but our ambassador in washington is different; he knows the world, and the united states.' i thanked him; i was always glad to hear frenchmen speak well of mr. jusserand. he deserved all the praise they could give him. 'my friend,' said paul loubet, 'says the world and the united states, which means, i suppose, that europe is one world and the united states another.' 'it almost seems so in europe; but your acquisition of the philippines will probably make you more and more a part of the european world.' 'i am afraid that george washington and lafayette would not have liked this,' said the ex-president. one of the french delegates asked me whether it was true that the germans would try to make terms with us for a cession of some foreign territory for one of the philippine islands. waldhausen was at my elbow; i, smiling, put the question to him. 'it is arcadian,' he said. 'germany never gives up what she holds,' said the frenchman, also smiling. 'otherwise, you might induce her to surrender heligoland to england, for a consideration, with the understanding that england should give it back to denmark.' waldhausen laughed. 'such generosity is too far in advance of our time. i am afraid admiral von tirpitz might object.' von tirpitz, for those behind the scenes in german politics, was much in the public eye. it was well understood that as far as the naval programme was concerned, he was germany. if the seizing of slesvig and the completion of the kiel canal made the german fleet possible, with the acquiring of heligoland, the efforts of admiral von tirpitz had made it a navy. through all the financial difficulties of the german government, difficulties that alone prevented it from attacking france, von tirpitz had held fast to the axiom that germany's future was on the ocean. he was not the kind of marine minister who sticks fast to his desk and 'never goes to sea.' he had become the 'captain of the king's navee' by knowing his business, and, more than that, by studying the caprices of his imperial master's mind, as well as its fixed determination. many times i had been told by candid friends in the diplomatic corps that the german emperor had no respect for our navy, that he knew every ship by heart, that nevertheless, he examined as far as possible any new inventions adopted by our naval experts who were most kind in permitting german naval attachés and experts to examine them. in the coming of the atlantic squadron had excited interest in the naval position of our country. one scarcely ever saw an american flag on the ocean. whatever columbia did or wanted to do, she did not rule the seas; so our flag on the ships of the atlantic squadron was a delight to all americans and somewhat of a surprise to foreigners. at kiel the general impression seemed to be that the atlantic squadron represented our whole navy! the kaiser and von tirpitz knew better, of course. privately the kaiser expressed his amusement at our attempt to build warships--he and von tirpitz had secrets of their own. however, america was important enough to be given a sedative until his designs on france and russia were completed. one might suspect this, then; but who could believe it! my correspondents in germany--people who know are wonderful helps to a man in the diplomatic service--concerned themselves largely with von tirpitz and general von freytag-loringhoven. von tirpitz was the german navy and the very intelligent writings of general the baron von freytag-loringhoven made us almost think that he was the army. 'is he related to freytag?' i had asked. 'what, the novelist?' 'the author of _debit and credit_?' i added. 'certainly not; he is one of the greatest of the baltic baronial families.' if i had asked a bourbon, in the reign of louis xiv., whether he was related to crébillon, he could not have been more shocked. von freytag-loringhoven cut a great figure in berlin. he had russian affiliations, being of a baltic family; his father had been well known in diplomacy. he knew russia as well as he knew germany; he was technical and experienced, and his writings were supposed to give indications of the ideas of the general staff. the russians in copenhagen talked much of von freytag-loringhoven. i must repeat that, in interesting myself in german personalities, i was not considering them in relation to the future of my own country. there were some among my friends, like james brown scott--men of foresight--who seemed to have a wider vision. i was interested because i feared that the autonomy of a little nation was at stake, and because the absorption of that little nation would mean the assumption of the danish antilles. that germany had consulted russia about a question to make war with england a pretext for seizing denmark, we suspected. the end of the japanese war had curbed russia's eastern ambition for a time. how were we to be sure that the baltic and the north sea might not, under german tutelage, attract her? if von freytag-loringhoven's utterances were to be taken seriously, it was evident that war was in the air; and why was von tirpitz building up the german navy? the distributors of rumours in denmark said that all hopes of a scandinavian confederacy were to be ended by a quarrel with england, a move on france, and the division of scandinavia into two parts, one nominally russian, the other, denmark, to be actually german, while norway should gradually be terrorised into submission. this shows how excited public opinion was. the german propaganda spread pleasant reports of the peaceful intentions of the kaiser, the crown prince, and the personages in power in germany. above all, we were told how charming the crown princess cecilia was, and how potent her influence would be in warding off any attempts of the pan-germans on denmark, even if germany and england should fly at each other's throats. people in the court circle, who knew how little royal family alliances count to-day in actual politics, admitted that the crown princess was most charming and sympathetic; she is the sister of the queen of denmark, and she had become as german as it was possible for the daughter of a russian mother to be. her sister, queen alexandrina, had become thoroughly danish, but then her tendencies had always been towards democracy and the simplicities of life. the german news vendors alternately praised the crown prince and depreciated him. if he were violent, it was against the wishes of his father--he was a second prince hal trying on the imperial crown. as a rule, however, he was brought out of the background to show his virtues. on several occasions he had evinced more knowledge of what was going on than his father. this was notable in the eulenberg scandal, when he fearlessly laid bare a horrible ulcer which was beginning to eat into the heart of the army. on this subject he and max harden, of the _zukunft_, were in amazing alliance. whatever may be said of the crown prince's political ambitions--and we believed and do believe that they meant world conquest--he is very much of a man. in , it was understood that he would not condescend to wear the peace-mask that seemed to conceal his father's face. dr. von bethmann-hollweg, the chancellor, was temporising as usual. the moroccan affair led to nothing because germany's financial backers were not ready for war. the chancellor was attacked by von heydebrand; the danish press gave graphic accounts of the scene when the crown prince, from the royal box, applauded every insult that the powerful junker heaped on the chancellor, who was merely the tool of the kaiser. it was the time of the emperor to temporise; the time had not come to strike; germany was not rich enough. russia was still doubtful. france, in the imperial opinion, was not sufficiently corrupted, and the dissensions between ulster and the rest of ireland had not yet reached that poisonous growth which, in that opinion, would force mutiny and sedition to poison the english. the crown prince probably, in his frankness, voiced more than his own inner sentiments. at any rate, to us near the frontier, it seemed so. however, the incident was used to the credit of the crown prince. fair and open dealing for him! england might interfere in morocco and other places to prevent his country from taking a place 'in the sun'; but let us have it out! in the secret councils of the social democrats was the hope that, if a hohenzollern must succeed the kaiser, it would not be the crown prince. in spite of his amiabilities and his apparently youthful point of view of life--though there were fewer indiscretions to his credit than are generally attributed to crown princes--it was known that he was military to the core, and that in his time the soldier of the world would never lack employment. while the kaiser was constantly insisting that more soldiers and more sailors and krupp von bohlen's newest instruments of destruction were pawns in the game of peace, his son made no pretence of agreeing with him. clever or not, he had held that a straight line was the shortest way from one given point to another. and the zabern incident and several others showed that the crown prince meant, when his chance came, to make war after the napoleonic method and to exalt the sword above the pen and the ploughshare. the social democrats in denmark were not flattered when he said that 'one day the social democrats would go to court!' but he was right; they went to court as their old emperor went to carrossa, when they accepted the war! the german writers said, too, that in france his admiration for napoleon endeared him to the french. if he appeared in paris, he would be as popular as king edward of england was when he was prince of wales! 'who knows,' one of their writers said, 'he may make the hopes of the duke de reichstadt his own, and live to see them fulfilled'? i called the attention of an austrian friend to this. this gentleman, high in favour in , but somewhat gloomed in , owing to a _bon mot_, said: 'but the french remember that the heir of napoleon, who might have completed his father's conquests, was the son of an austrian mother.' he was _gemütlich_, like his grandfather, they said, and how sweetly amiable to the american ladies who had married into the superior race! more than one titled american hoped to be saved from the position of morganaticism in the future through the kindness of his imperial highness. but the fixity of will has been underrated. napoleon tried to conquer europe; his eyes were on the kingdoms of solomon and of the jewelled monarchs of the east. why he failed, the crown prince believed he had discovered. there was no reason, therefore, why a prussian napoleon might not succeed, and no necessity to repeat the defeats of moscow and waterloo. the prince would begin by fighting waterloo first and then putting russia out of commission! in mr. frederick wile, then correspondent of the london _daily mail_, wrote: 'he is the idol of the german army almost to a greater degree than his father. his _hunting diary_ is amusing. he writes of his sympathy with his 'sainted' ancestor frederick the great, in the dictum that everybody should be allowed to pursue happiness and salvation in his own sweet way.' holy moses! * * * * * it was not difficult to get near to the characters of the important men in power in germany. a night's run took one to berlin, and at flensberg, a few hours from our legation, one could see the german war vessels. there were constant visits of germans of distinction; prince eitel friedrich often came in his yacht, and the waldhausens--madame waldhausen was a belgian--were constantly entertaining guests of all countries. princess harald, the wife of prince harold, brother of the king of denmark, attracted many germans, with whom she was in sympathy. at court very few germans appeared, unless they were of high official rank. both king christian x. and the queen seemed to prefer to speak english, and nothing irritated the king, who speaks english and french and german well, more than any attempt on the part of a diplomatist to speak to him in danish. it is best, i think, for diplomatists at court to use french. one is always more guarded in speaking a foreign language, but every member of the danish court spoke english and seemed to like it. prince valdemar and the princess marie always spoke english in their family. prince valdemar's french was not so good as his english, and, in the beginning, the princess marie found the learning of danish slow work, and she had, during the exile of her family in england, become entirely at home in the english language. prince axel, their son, who recently visited america as the guest of the american navy, spoke english admirably. like all his family, he is in love with freedom. nevertheless, german was much spoken in denmark, and the intercourse between the two countries close. the point of view of germany, or, rather, the germans, was better understood in denmark than perhaps in any other country, the more so because the danes, naturally satirical and entirely disillusioned as to the altruism of great european nations, looked with clear eyes at the progress, or, rather, the evolution of germany. whatever progress germany had made, many of them, like the learned dr. gudmund schütte, who reluctantly agreed that the reconquest of slesvig would be 'to commit suicide in order to escape death,' never seemed to utter a word of german without remembering the loss of their provinces. the most astonishing things were the intellectual greatness and exact training of the german thinkers and doers, and, at the same time, their lack of independence. with the outside world, as far as one could gather from the press and conversations with the english, french and americans--though my fellow countrymen, as a rule, showed little interest in foreign affairs--it was plain that the german political parties were supposed to be static: the conservatives junkerish, the centrists intensely catholic, following the slightest signal of the pope, the socialists devoted to the ideas of bebel, and the liberal-nationalists fixed in their opinion that a moderate constitutional monarchy was to be, in germany, the solution of all problems. we knew better than that in denmark. through the whole catholic world the german propagandists spread the opinion that the centre party was strictly 'denominational.' nothing could be more untrue. the traditions of windthorst, who had boldly defined to bismarck the difference between what was due to christ and what to cæsar, were rapidly disappearing. the fiction remained that the centre was constantly opposing the policy of the emperor, when at every session of the reichstag, the centre became more and more 'political' and more subservient to the designs of the government. one could see the changing policy in the pages of the _social democrat_, the socialist organ in denmark. the danish socialists were always influenced by their german brethren; but destructive socialism finds, up to the present time, no place in the social democratic scheme, and this is due, not only to the danish temperament, but to the dislike on the part of social democrats to the growing power of syndicalism. the leaders of the socialists and of the centrists are not great men. of the centre, which had rightfully boasted of windthorst and mallinkrot as the opponents of ultra-imperialism, hertling and erzberger were the most important. all germany recognised the intellectual ability of hertling. baron von hertling, professor of the university of munich, represented apparently everything that the fashionable prussian philosophical system did not. 'glory is the only religion of great men' is a doctrine he abhors; philosophically, he is the direct enemy of kant and hegel, above all, of nietzsche and schopenhauer. nobody denies those qualities of mind that had made his name as well known philosophically in learned circles as that of cardinal mercier. he had been prime minister of bavaria, and he, of all men, might have been expected to see the abyss to which imperialism was tending. it was easy, in denmark, to perceive that, in the reichstag, all parties--there were some individual exceptions, like liebknecht--had begun to be slaves of the emperor as represented by his subservient grand-viziers, the chancellors. both the centre, from which much was expected, and the mixed party, called the social democrats, from which stronger resistance to imperialism had been hoped, gradually became the upholders of the doctrine of conquest. erzberger, of the centre, is a later development of the change that took place in the attitude of hertling. with lieber and spahn, veteran politicians, the centre position became one of compromise. the centre had managed to grow stronger and stronger after the _kulturkampf_, against which it had started as a party of defence. matthias erzberger, who had begun as a school teacher, wisely chose the centre party as a road to power. he has gained step by step by his unconquerable audacity. in even the chancellor seemed to fear him. he is a bold speculator, and his rivals, even in his own party, predicted that he would come to grief through his napoleonic idea of finance. from the parties in the reichstag became more and more imperialistic, the prussian tone more and more insolent as regards foreign countries. the _cameraderie_ of the kaiser at times, his fits of arrogant indiscretion--checked suddenly after the 'interviews' of --continued to give us 'lookers-on in vienna' grave concern. in spite of the encomiums made by nearly all my best european friends--many of them english--and all my compatriots who had been received at court, we in denmark distrusted the kaiser. i must say that my danish friends, except the chamberlain and madame de hegermann-lindencrone, seldom praised him. to them he had been most courteous. i remembered that the most chivalrous of men, hegermann-lindencrone, never would speak ill of a sovereign to whose court he had been accredited. count carl moltke, a good dane, never, even in confidence, allowed a word of censure to pass his lips when the kaiser was mentioned by his critics; i often wondered what he thought! as to the emperor francis joseph, i had reason to have a great respect and affection for him--even of gratitude. it is the fashion to tear his reputation to pieces now, a fashion that will pass. at any rate, even his detractors will be glad to hear the story that, when the war broke out and he was ill and very drowsy, one of his chamberlains said, 'our army is in the field, sire!' 'fighting those damned prussians again!' he said, contentedly; and went to sleep again! he liked france, but he disliked the french government. 'your president,' he said to a distinguished french sailor, with a touch of contempt, 'is a bourgeois!' he did not mean a 'commoner'--with him 'bourgeois' implied a man who was not a soldier; and the emperor could not understand that a european country should be well ruled by a man who could not himself take the field; at any time, the emperor would have gladly taken it against these 'prussian parvenus,' i am sure. more and more, the representatives of the stolen provinces, like slesvig and alsace-lorraine, became disheartened by their weakness in the reichstag. the representatives of poland received no political support from the centre; yet these poles were ardent catholics, and their representative, prince radziwell, made eloquent speeches. the delegates from alsace-lorraine, the abbé wetterlé being the most audacious, were as little regarded as 'hans peter,' h. p. hanssen, the one danish representative in the reichstag. if the centre had not posed as catholic, which implied, if not an unusual regard for the liberties of the oppressed, at least a certain christian charity for the persecuted, censure might have been silent. if the socialists had not been the open and apparently unrelenting opponents of political oppression, the good samaritan might have tried to succour their victims, while reflecting that the robbers who had inflicted the wound were at least not hypocrites; but here were von hertling and martin spahn and groeber and the rest of the centre, who knew what the tyranny of bismarck had meant; here were the followers of the later bebel--willing to join the centrists on many political questions, the friends of the imperial autocracy! here were two groups, antagonistic and irreconcilable in principle, but both united when it was expedient to support plans of world conquest! the centre still used religion as a tool to uphold the government. the pope and the kaiser were as antagonistic on many questions as popes and kaisers have ever been since christianity was imperfectly accepted by the teutons. windthorst, a great man of the type of o'connell, but greater, had forced bismarck to revoke some of the infamous may laws in . still, certain german citizens, the members of the congregation of the redemptionists, were exiled. the centre protested--for effect. the jesuits were at last admitted on condition that they were not allowed to speak in the churches, and that under no circumstances should they be permitted to speak in public on religious subjects. prince von bülow publicly admitted that there was a lack of toleration shown to catholics, and there were certain parts of germany in which professors of the catholic faith were still under disabilities. the question of the admission of the jesuits and the other religious congregations ought to have been considered as justly as it would have been in the united states. the centrists' representatives gave the impression of being violently interested in the preservation of the rights of german citizens to preach and teach any doctrines that were not immoral or seditious, and then, at a breath from the government, allowed these priests to be treated as the danish lutheran pastors were treated in slesvig.[ ] [ ] 'my old commander, the late general field-marshal freiheer von loë, a good prussian and a good catholic, once said to me that, in this respect, matters would not improve until the well-known principle of french law "_que la recherche de la paternité était interdite_" is changed to "_la recherche du confessional était interdite_."'--von bülow: _imperial germany_, p. . i am not writing from the point of view of any creed at this moment, but only from that of a democracy which encourages reasonable freedom of speech, the use of equal opportunities, and preserves to everybody alike the free exercise of his religion. the centre has shown as little sympathy with democracy of this kind as the socialists. the latter party deserve no sympathy from any class of americans. their methods are, as worked out in denmark and germany, admirable. religious bodies, interested in actively loving their neighbours as themselves, have much to learn from them, but the german socialists played a worse part during the war than benedict arnold in our revolution. they did not act the part of judas only because they never acknowledged christ. the bane of every civilised country seems to be party politics. after theological hatreds, the ordinary variety of political hatreds and compromises is the worst. the centre has become corrupt and time-serving, the socialists expedient and slavish, all because the imperial head, the chancellor, could scatter the spoils! chapter x a portent in the air 'this is the first page of my diary and the last,' wrote william h. seward. 'one day's record satisfies me that, if i should every day set down my hasty impressions, based on half information, i should do injustice to everybody around me and to none more than my intimate friends.' this is true; and, when suspicion seemed to reign everywhere, after august , and one's private papers were never safe, in spite of the fidelity of our servants--and no strangers were ever blessed with better servants than my wife and i--it became all the more necessary not to put down explicitly the day's talk. and the colleagues were very frank--except when their foreign officers instructed them to say something for export. if we were at the end of the world, i might give daily conversations that would have a certain interest, but probably some persons whom i have the honour to call friends, and even intimate friends, might be misunderstood. a diplomatic corps in a city like copenhagen is one large family, and in copenhagen the court treats its members, who are sympathetic, with unusual courtesy, and, at every fitting opportunity, makes them of the royal circle, which is a very cosy and cheerful one. the years , , and were eventful ones, not because things happened, but because things were about to happen. it was a period of unrest. the diplomatic conversations at this time occupied themselves with the position of germany. henckel-donnersmarck had gone to weimar, much to my regret. he was supposed to have retired to private life because the kaiser did not find his reports minute enough, but, knowing him, it seemed to me that he was glad to be out of a position which bored him thoroughly, and which exacted of him duties that he did not care to fulfil. denmark was becoming more and more socialistic, and even the conservatives were so extremely 'advanced,' that count henckel found himself rather out of place. he made no country-house visits in the summer, and gave dinners in the winter only when he could not help it. beyond certain conversations with me on political subjects already mentioned, he did not go. literature and the simpler aspects of life interested him--children especially. we amused ourselves by mapping out the career of his son, leo, a very young person of marked individualistic qualities. for impressions of germany and austria, one had to go to other sources. the upheaval in germany caused by the kaiser's disregard of public opinion in had caused most of my colleagues some concern. nobody wanted war. the austrians and the russians alike were horrified at the thought of it. in there had been rumours of grave events; count ehrenthal had announced privately to some bankers that 'war was evitable.' count szechenyi, the austrian-hungarian, a lover of peace, if there ever was one, met me one day on the steps of the foreign office, in a state of trepidation. mr. michel bibikoff, of the russian legation, had seen me several times on the subject of the possible conflict, academically and personally, of course, as our government was supposed to have no great interest in war in europe. a speech made by mr. alexander konta, whose son, geoffrey, was one of the best private secretaries i ever had, put me on the track (mr. konta, an american of hungarian birth, had been conducting some financial affairs in his native country). i suspected there would be no war since count ehrenthal had announced to the financiers that there would be war. in my opinion, it was a question of the fall or rise of stocks. count de beaucaire, the french minister, was intensely interested; a flame lit in the balkans might involve france. the english minister, sir alan johnstone, seemed to take matters more calmly; we all expected his foreign office to send him to vienna, and his calmness was a sedative. he, a prospective ambassador, was supposed to know something of conditions, but count szechenyi discovered that he was nervous, too. it struck me that it was rather absurd for me not to know something definite. there was an old friend, deep in the diplomatic secrets of the vatican, who knew the balkans well, who disliked russia as much as he suspected germany. it was easy to get an opinion from him because he knew i would use it with discretion. there was a clever old hanoverian noble, much in the secrets of the court at berlin, and there was frederick wile in berlin, who knew many things. when count szechenyi, rather pale, came up the stairs of the foreign office, and said, 'my god! there will be war!' 'no,' i answered, 'it is settled--there will be no war. i give you my word of honour.' 'you are sure?' 'i have just told bibikoff, and he is delighted.' i have been grateful many times to frederick wile, who was once a student of mine, but that day i was more grateful than ever, for war _is_ hell and i was glad to relieve my friends' minds. that night there was a _cercle_ at court. king frederick viii., the most affable of kings, greatly interested in the danes in america, had been praising count carl moltke, who had shown a great interest in the americans of danish blood; it was an interesting subject. to speak well of count moltke, who had the good taste to marry an american, is always a genuine pleasure, though, i believe, he would have left washington if the sale of the danish west indies had been mooted in his time. then the king said, 'your country is fortunate not to be entangled in european affairs. there is talk of war. as the american minister, you have no interest, except a humanitarian one, in a european war; you do not trouble yourself about the question seriously.' i bowed, being discreet, i hope. suddenly a deep voice, audible everywhere, called out: 'but egan told szechenyi that the propositions had been accepted, and there will be no war.' the king turned to me; i was not especially desirous of admitting that i had been making investigations, and still less desirous of revealing my sources of information. before the king could ask a question, sir alan johnstone cut in, just behind me, 'from whom did you hear it?' 'from a journalist,' i answered, remembering frederick wile. 'it will be in the papers to-morrow, then,' said the king. i was relieved. i should have hesitated to appear to have shown such interest to the king as my mention of the other authorities might have revealed. it was announced later, but not in the next day's papers. however, the apprehension still remained. the kaiser was for peace--yes!--but on his own terms. the one objection to mr. seward's dictum on the exact keeping of journals is that the writer, after the facts--unrelated and distorted as they are each day--are seen in the light of experience, the diarist finds it only too easy to prophesy for the public, because now he _knows_. this is a temptation; but, as i look back, i must confess that in , in spite of the anxiety of my colleagues, germany seemed mainly important as regards her attitude to the sale of the danish east indies to us. lord salisbury's trade of zanzibar for heligoland was always in my mind. the correspondence of mr. john hay and other investigations had led me to believe that the failure of the proposed sale in - had been caused by german opposition. i was, i must confess, glad to see the friendliness between germany and the united states. i knew rather well that it could never grow very deep; the german point of view of the monroe doctrine was too fixed for that. i knew, too, that if the very radical and socialistic parties in denmark continued to grow, the island must be sold, and likewise that, if the united states and germany were unfriendly, the social democrats, who were too near their german brethren not to be in sympathy with their brethren, might turn the scale in favour of retaining the islands. the eyes of my colleagues were on germany; mine were also, but for different reasons. while they feared that germany might want some of their territory--we knew that, in spite of the triple alliance germany and austria were one, italy always being an 'outsider'--i was anxious to save from germany islands that might be hers if she should absorb denmark. i confess, with repentant tears, if you will, i had not the slightest belief in the disinterestedness, when it came to a question of territory, of any nation, except our own--and that might have its limitations! in august , i was very glad to go to visit the raben-levitzaus. one reason was that the count and countess raben-levitzau are among the most cosmopolitan and interesting people in europe; another was, that chamberlain and madame hegermann-lindencrone were to be at the castle of aalholm. raben-levitzau had been minister of foreign affairs. he had married miss moulton, one of the most beautiful ladies in europe and the daughter of madame hegermann-lindencrone by her first marriage. hegermann-lindencrone had been minister to washington when i was at georgetown college doing some philosophical work under father guida and father carroll; but i had been permitted to go into society occasionally and the fame of hegermann-lindencrone was just beginning. mutual acquaintances and memories established a friendship, and i came to know him as one of the cleverest, most farseeing and kind of diplomatists. if he has an enemy in the world, that enemy must be one of the few human beings worthy of eternal damnation! the conversation is always good at aalholm. raben-levitzau was rather depressed; he was out of public life, which he loved. he had gone out in with the j. c. christensen ministry, owing to the fact that alberti, the minister of justice, had been found guilty of some inexcusable manipulation of the public money. alberti, with the rest of the reigning ministry had been invited to the wedding of my daughter patricia, in september . he very courteously declined, giving as a reason that he was 'engaged'; he went to jail on that day. he was a polite man. raben-levitzau resigned through the most delicate sentiment of honour, in spite of the remonstrances of his friends. i found him not against the sale, though he seemed to regards it as very improbable. he felt that the danes had ceased to practise the art--if they ever had it--of ruling colonies, and, i think, that the tremendous expenses of the socialistic régime in denmark, where the poor are practically supported in all difficulties by state funds, would render improvements in distant possessions almost impossible. sentimentally he would hate to see the red and the white of the dannebrog cease to fly amid the flags of holland, of england, of france, on the other side of the atlantic. hegermann-lindencrone was frankly for the sale, though it was not then in question. i asked about germany's design on denmark, rumours of which were in everybody's mouth. he--he was still danish minister in berlin--said that, since the completion of the kiel canal, germany had no reason for assuming denmark. this was reassuring. nevertheless, when one caught the reflections of german opinion in denmark, one became surer than ever that the new empire was not inclined to accept the isolation which european politicians were apparently forcing on her. hegermann-lindencrone and his wife were favourites at the german court; the kaiser made a point of signalising his regard for them. madame hegermann was by birth an american, a greenough of cambridge, massachusetts, and never for a moment does she forget it, though she has borrowed from the best european society all the cultivation it could give her, in addition to her natural talent and charm. the kaiser showed his best side to the hegermann-lindencrones, and they believed that personally he had no evil designs on the peace of the world. as a dane, hegermann-lindencrone's task at berlin had not been easy, with discontent in slesvig always threatening to break out, although for a time he had, as secretary of legation, eric de scavenius, who knew germany as well as denmark, who was as patriotically firm as he was humanly genial. he seemed to think that the sale of the islands in had failed because the sum offered was comparatively small, others because of the governmental scandals, and of the opposition of the princess marie and the east asiatic company. this was interesting; he did not believe that either the german government of that time or the industrials, like herr ballin, were against it--in fact, german interests on the islands, especially those of the hamburg-american line, were deemed as safe in the hands of the americans as those of the danes. the time was, however, not ripe for taking up the question; national opinion was against it, and the great danish industrials, like etatsraad andersen, admiral de richelieu, commander cold, holger petersen and others had not yet had their opportunity of testing the national feeling. as far as i could see in , england and france gave the matter no consideration, though, to his horror, i occasionally informed the count de beaucaire that an attempt on our part might be made to buy martinique and jamaica and curaçoa, unless the danish islands could be linked into our belt. 'if i thought you were serious, i should oppose you with all my might!' he said. the south american representatives showed indifference when i mentioned the gallapagos islands. the buying of islands was a fixed idea with me, and i liked to talk about it. diplomatic opinion was inclined to treat the prospect as chimerical, but it was evident that neither sweden nor norway liked it. however, as i have said, the time had not come. i discovered that, when it came to the matter of patent laws, etc., denmark could not act without the example of germany, and i gathered from this, that, when the time should come, germany might expect to have something to say. in the meantime, there were other questions to study, but somehow or other all of them seemed to hinge on germany's attitude. she was the sphinx of europe. it was in june, , that the atlantic squadron stopped at denmark on its way to germany. admiral badger, suave and sympathetic, was in command. the four war vessels made a great effect, but the officers and sailors a greater. before they left for kiel--it was a visit of courtesy to the german navy--the officers gave various dances on board, and the decorum, the elegance, and, above all, the good manners and good dancing of these gentlemen were praised even by those who had been led to believe that most 'yankees' were crude and unpolished. king frederick expressed to me most cordially the honour done his nation by the visit, and was very much amused by the flattering attentions paid by the american sailors at tivoli to the danish girls. 'i saw them myself!' he said. he was delighted by the 'tenue' of the officers, and complimented by the enthusiasm of the sailors, who had apparently taken a great fancy to him. after one of the receptions given by the american officers, the equerry who had been appointed to look after the admiral and his immediate suite, came to me in great perplexity. he held in his hand a little box. 'i am in difficulty,' he said, 'and i have come to ask you to help me out of it. his majesty has received several letters from the american sailors, and there is one which especially amused him. it seems that he pleased the men by asking for the scandinavians in your navy. a sailor thanks him for this, addressing him as 'dear king,' declaring that the men like copenhagen so much that they beg his majesty to induce the admiral to stay a few days longer. of course, his majesty cannot do that, but he has asked me to give the little medal in this box to the sailor. i am told that is against the rules, which seem to be very strict. i really cannot tell the king that i have not given the medal to the worthy sailor; you know the king's kindness of heart. i am at my wit's end, so i appeal to you. it seems so difficult to arrange without infringing upon the discipline.' 'it is easy enough,' i said. 'when in a quandary of this kind, call in the church.' we found the chaplain, and the amiable frederick viii. received a note of gratitude, addressed 'dear king.' the french and the russians were especially interested in the coming of the squadron, but it was made rather evident that the germans would have preferred that the warships might have gone directly to kiel. to stop at copenhagen and stockholm was looked on as rather tarnishing the compliment to the imperial master. there were several private intimations that i had arranged it with a view to making the danes feel that the united states admired their qualities and desired to stimulate their national ambition. 'it was as if the magi had concluded to visit a lesser monarch on their way to bethlehem,' said a sarcastic dane i met at oxholm's château of rosenfeldt; 'the ultra-imperialists hold you responsible for it.' i replied that it was a great honour to be mistaken for providence! the few pro-german writers on the danish press rejoiced at the compliment the united states was showing germany; the press itself was delighted. there were always some sarcastic paragraphs in the danish papers, the result of a german propaganda which allowed nothing good in any other nation. these took the form of slight sneers at the gaiety of our sailors and their open-handedness. the response was indignantly made that american sailors were the only sailors in the world who had too much to spend--and they spent this largely in racing about in taxi-cabs, the cheapness of which amazed them. there were rumours of depredation made by our men among the beautiful flower beds in the kongens nytor. i investigated them. there was not one valid case. what did the visit of the squadron to kiel mean? germany again! were we afraid of the kaiser? was an alliance to be made between the two great nations? where did england come in? it was an arrangement, offensive and defensive, against japan? the united states would cede the philippines to germany, to save those islands from the yellow peril? 'germany and the united states would drive the english from the atlantic, control the pacific, and rule the world'--this was part of a toast drunk by some enthusiastic german-americans at a dinner in the hotel bristol, which, fortunately, i had refused to attend. from a diplomatic point of view, when in doubt, one always ought to refuse a public dinner. dinners are more dangerous to diplomatists than bombs! my son, gerald, now in france, arranged a glorious game of baseball between two of the crews of the squadron. some of the american colony said it was 'educational.' the danes, although mr. cavling, editor of _politiken_, gave a valuable silver vase to the winner, seemed to look on it that way rather than as an amusement. the visit of the _north carolina_, the _louisiana_, the _kansas_ and the _new hampshire_ made an epoch, to which americans could always allude with justifiable pride. prince hans, the 'uncle of europe,' the elder brother of frederick viii., our neighbour, was very ill at the time of the visit. the dances put on the programme of a cotillion, to be directed by mr. william kay wallace, then secretary of legation, were, of course, cancelled. prince hans, dying as he was, sent an attendant to the legation, to thank my wife for her courtesy. there was great fear that his highness would die, and thus force us to cancel our own gala dinner, and naturally put an end to all festivities on the part of the court and the navy. 'my uncle will not die until everything is over,' said prince gustav; 'he is too polite!' he was. he died just before the dinner given by king frederick and queen louise, but the news of his death was kept back by his own request, until the dinner was over and the 'cercle' had begun; then the sad news began to be whispered. in the english and russian squadrons appeared in the sound. this occasioned uneasiness. some of the danes asked 'did it mean a protest against the presumed alliance between the united states and germany? or was it an intimation to germany that england and russia had their eyes on germany? as to the second question, i had no answer; as to the first, i laughed, and translated into my best danish that such an alliance would come when 'the sea gives up its dead.' it was a curious allusion to make, in the light of horrible events that had not yet occurred; i think i got it out of one of jean ingelow's poems. by comparison with the glitter and gaiety of the americans, both the english and russians seemed sad, and their officers rather bored, too. tea and cakes and conversation were no compensation in the eyes of the danes, who love to dance, for the american naval bands and the claret punch of admiral badger's men--the navy was 'wet' then! i have no doubt, however, that the english chargé d'affaires and the russian minister, were not obliged to see so many lovelorn damsels, asking for the addresses or for news of various sailor men, to whom they were engaged or expected to be. _calypso ne pouvait pas consoler_--for a time; but one or two marriages did actually occur! the dancing of the american officers, and the weather had been so 'marvellous'! how these enterprising sailor men managed to engage themselves to young persons who spoke no english and understood no language but danish it was difficult to understand. they had lost no time, however, but i left the problem to the consulate. the officers had been more discreet. many times before the english and russian ships left the sound, the question, what will the germans do now? was asked. the copenhageners, as i have said, like the old athenians, are much given to the repeating of new things. 'now all the athenians and strangers that were there' (the danes call diplomatists 'strangers') 'employed themselves in nothing else but either in telling or in hearing some new things,' says st. luke. this makes copenhagen a most amusing place, though, unlike the athenians, the danes only talk of new things in their moments of leisure. one day just before the english and russian vessels left, the question as to what germany would do was answered. a zeppelin from berlin sailed over the masts of the english and russian ships. copenhagen was indignant, but amused. we were invited to take the trip back to berlin in the zeppelin--the fare was one hundred kroner, or rather marks. what could be more pacific? but the zeppelin continued to float majestically, by preference over that space in the sound occupied by the english and russians. was it a threat? was it a notice served to these possible enemies that germany had more powerful instruments, more insidious, more deadly, than even the great gun of the _lion_ which we had admired so much? it was a portent in the sky! i reported it to my government. it seemed significant enough. chapter xi the preliminaries to the purchase of the danish antilles the more i studied the relations of germany to denmark, the more important it seemed to me that a great nation like ours, bound by the most solemn oaths to the vindication of the cause of liberty and even to the protection of the little nations, should have a special interest in a country which deserved our respect and sympathy. as i have said, the danes never for a moment forgot the loss of slesvig, and never ceased to fear the mightily growing power of which that loss had been the foundation. if germany, whose future was on the sea, had not acquired slesvig, would kiel and the good danish sailors she acquired with slesvig, have been possible as a means of her aggrandisement? danish diplomatists seemed to think that germany, now that she had created the kiel canal, had no further designs on denmark, whom the pan-germans continued, however, to call, 'our northern province.' this was the opinion of hegermann-lindencrone, of raben-levitzau, and i have heard a similar opinion credited to the present danish minister at berlin, count carl moltke, though he did not express it to me. my old friend, count holstein-ledreborg, was not altogether of that opinion. 'in case of war with england, denmark would be seized by our neighbour, naturally,' he said; 'unless we go carefully we are doomed to absorption.' count holstein-ledreborg knew germany well. he had lived in that country for many years, having shaken the dust of his native land from his soles because many of his friends and relatives--in fact, nearly all the aristocratic class in denmark--had practically turned their backs on him on account of his political liberalism. this he told me. he had returned, with his family, to his beautiful estate at ledreborg, and, for a short time, became prime minister, in order to do what seemed impossible--to unite the factions in parliament in favour of a bill for the defence of the kingdom. against england? england had no designs. against russia? russia was allied to france, and she could hardly join hands with germany. the intentions of the kaiser? but the kaiser seemed to be a peaceful opportunist. even the acute lord morley had more than once, in conversation, put him down as a lover of peace; but--there was always a 'but' and the general staff of the german army! study the personality of the important personages as one might, there were always these things to be considered as obstacles to clear vision:--the growing corruption of principle in the reichstag and among the german people, if hamburg represented them, and the point of view of the military caste. in the increasing riches--the thirst for money had become a veritable passion--of the german people seemed to indicate that one of the principal obstacles to aggression which would involve war was being rapidly removed. the difference between the american desire for money and the german was, as i was often compelled to point out, that, while the german desired great possessions to have and to hold, the american wanted them in order to use them; and, in spite of the industrious 'muck rakers,' it was evident that our enormously rich men were not hoarding their wealth for the sake of greed and selfish power as the german rich were doing. possibly, as our government does nothing for art or for music or for the people in need, there is a greater necessity for private benevolence than in countries where the government subsidises even the opera. nevertheless, the fact remains; the european rich man hoarded more than the american. and germany, in spite of the extravagance of berlin and the great cities, was hoarding. it was a bad sign for the world. of slesvig, prince bismarck said in , 'dat möt wi hebben.' he was terribly in earnest, and he spoke in his own low german. at any moment, the kaiser might say of denmark, 'her must we have.' but how foolish this statement must seem to the pacifists and all the more foolish in the mind of a minister who ought not to be carried away by rumour or guesses or to be determined by anything but the exact truth! it would have been foolish if, in , a serious man behind the scenes could have trusted any country in the european concert to act in any way that was not for its own national ends. a damaging confession this, but the truth is the truth. we all know how amazed some statesmen were when president roosevelt refused the chinese spoil, when cuba was restored, and promises to the filipinos began to be kept. if denmark should be 'assumed,' the danish antilles would be the property of the nation that 'assumed' it. as it was apparently to the interest of the pan-germans to keep the danes in suspense, and, as most of the danes distrusted the intentions of their neighbours, it was not well to assume that there was smoke and no fire. besides, were there not other powers who might find it to their advantage to prevent the danish west indies from falling into our hands? we were not, from to , in such a state of security as we imagined, in spite of our system of peace treaties. _dans les coulisses_ of all countries, there was a certain amount of cynicism as to the effect of these peace treaties, and very little belief, except among the international lawyers, that anything binding or serious had been accomplished by them. after all, my business was to hoe my own row, but i listened with great respect to such men as my colleague, now the norwegian minister at stockholm, mr. francis hagerup, and other legal-minded men. however, i determined to make the task of saving the islands from 'assimilation' as easy as possible for my successor or his successor. i hoped, of course, for the chance of doing something worth while for the country seemed to be mine, and president wilson--i shall always be most grateful to him--gave me the happiness of doing humbly what i could. in i found that the irritation caused by the attitude of our government in the matter of the islands had not worn away. the majority of the danes had really never wanted to sell the islands. 'why should a great country like yours want to force us to sell the danish antilles? you pretend to be democratic, but you are really imperialists. it is not a question of money with us; it is a question of honour. your country has approached us only on the side of money--and when you knew that our poverty consented.' this was the substance of conservative opinion. there was a widespread distrust, especially among the upper classes in denmark, as to our intentions. the title of a brochure written by james parton in was often quoted against us, for the danes have long memories. it was entitled _the danish west indies: are we bound in honour to pay for them?_ 'an arrogant nation, no longer democratic' because we had seized the philippines! it must be said that a minister desiring to make a good impression on the people had little help from the press at home. foreign affairs were treated as of no real importance in the organs of what is called our popular opinion. the american point of view, as so well understood over all the world now, was not explained; but sensational stories describing the exaggerated splendours of our millionaires, frightful tales of lynching in the south, the creation of an american versailles on staten island, which would make the sun king in the shades grow pale with envy, the luxuries of american ladies, were invariably reproduced in the danish papers. president roosevelt was looked upon as the one idealist in a nation mad for money, and even he had a tremendous fall in the estimation of the radicals when he spoke of a conservative democracy in copenhagen. it was necessary to overcome a number of prejudices which were constantly being fostered, partly by our own estimate of ourselves as presented by the scandinavian papers in extracts from our own. then, again, the real wealth of our people, our art and literature--which count greatly in denmark--were practically unknown. everything seemed to be against us. the press was either contemptuous or condescending; we were not understood. it is true that nearly every family in denmark had some representative in the united states, but their representatives were, as a rule, hard-working people, who had no time to give to the study of the things of the mind among us. in spite of all their misconceptions, which i proposed to dissipate to the best of my ability, i found the danes the most interesting people i had ever come in contact with, except the french, and, i think the most civilised. there was one thing certain:--if the danish west india islands were so dear to denmark that it would be a wound to her national pride to suggest the sale of them to us, no such suggestion ought to be made by an american minister. first, national pride is a precious thing to a nation, and the more precious when that nation has been great in power, and remains great in heart in spite of its apparently dwindling importance. it was necessary, then, to discover whether the danes could, in deference to their natural desire to see their flag still floating in the atlantic ocean, retain the islands, and rule them in accordance with their ideals. their ideals were very high. they hoped that they could so govern them that the inhabitants of the islands might be fairly prosperous and happy under their rule. they were not averse to expending large sums annually to make up the deficit occasioned by the possession of them. the colonial lottery was depended upon to assist in making up this budget. the danes have no moral objections to lotteries, and the most important have governmental sanction. under the administrations of presidents roosevelt and taft it was useless to attempt to reopen the question. all negotiations, since the first in , had failed. that of , and the accompanying scandals, the danes preferred to forget. president roosevelt's opinion as to the necessity of our possessing the islands was well known. in the project for the sale had been defeated in the danish upper house by one vote. mr. john hay attributed this to german influence, though the princess marie, wife of prince valdemar, a remarkably clever woman, had much to do with it, and she could not be reasonably accused of being under german domination. the east-asiatic company was against the sale and likewise a great number of danes whose association with the islands had been traditional. herr ballin denied that the german opposition existed; he seemed to think that both france and england looked on the proposition coldly. at any rate, he said that denmark gave no concessions to german maritime trade that the united states would not give, and that the property of the hamburg-american line would be quite as safe in the hands of the united states as in those of denmark. in denmark had declined to sell the islands for $ , , , but offered to accept $ , , for st. john and st. thomas, or $ , , for the three. secretary seward raised the price to $ , , in gold for st. thomas, st. john and santa cruz. denmark was willing to accept $ , , for st. thomas and st. john; santa cruz, in which the french had some rights, might be had for $ , , additional. secretary seward, after some delay, agreed to give $ , , for the two islands, st. thomas and st. john. the people of st. john and st. thomas voted in favour of the cession. in $ , , was offered by the united states. diligent inquiries into the failure of the sale, although the hon. henry white, well and favourably known in denmark, was sent over in its interest, received the answer from those who had been behind the scenes, '$ , , was not enough, unaccompanied by a concession that might have deprived the transaction of a merely mercenary character.' at that time germany might have preferred to see the islands in the hands of the united states rather than in those of any other european power. it was apparently to the interest of the united states to encourage the activities of that great artery of emigration, the hamburg-american line. she did not believe that the united states would fail to raise the spectre of the monroe doctrine against either of the nations who owned bermuda or mauritius, if one of them proposed to place her flag over st. thomas. in the question of spain's buying st. thomas, in order to defend puerto rico, thrown out by an obscure journalist, was a theory to laugh at. germany was practically indifferent to our acquisition of islands on the atlantic coast that might possibly bring us one day in collision with either england or france. as to the pacific, her point of view was different. her politicians even then cherished the sweet hope that the irish in the united states and canada might force the hand of our government against 'perfidious albion' if the slightest provocation was given. besides, in , germany had done her worst to the danes. she had taken slesvig, and had ruined denmark financially; she had made kiel the centre of her naval hopes; she could neither assume denmark nor borrow the $ , , --then a much greater sum than now--for her own purposes. i have never had reason to believe that germany prevented the sale of the danish antilles in . the congressional examination of the scandalous rumours that might have reflected on the honour of certain danish gentlemen and of some of our own congressmen are a matter of record, and show no traces of any such domination. curiously enough, there was a persistent rumour of a secret treaty with denmark which gave the united states an option on the islands. no such treaty existed, and no danish minister of foreign affairs of my acquaintance would have dreamed of proposing such an arrangement. it is hardly necessary to dwell here on the value of these islands to the united states. president roosevelt, president wilson, senator lodge, most persistently, made the necessity of possessing these islands, through legitimate purchase, very plain. the completion of the panama canal increased their already great importance. if such men as seward, foster, olney, root, hay, and our foremost naval experts considered them worth buying before the issues raised by the creation of the panama canal were practical, how much more valuable had they become when that marvellous work was completed! many interests contributed to the desirability of our acquiring islands in the west indies--every additional island being of value to us--but the great public seemed to see this as through a glass--darkly. puerto rico was of little value in a strategic way without the danish antilles. a cursory examination of the map will show that puerto rico, with no harbours for large vessels and its long coast line, would offer no defences against alien forces. naval experts had clearly seen the hopelessness of defending san juan. major glassford, of the signal corps, in a report often quoted and carefully studied by people intelligently interested in the active enforcement of the monroe doctrine rather than its mere statement as a method of defence on paper, said that 'st. thomas might be converted into a second gibraltar.' he was right. the frightful menace of the cession of heligoland to germany was an example of what might happen if we failed to look carefully to the future. besides, even those advocates of peace, right or wrong, who infested our country before the war, who were not sympathetic with the acquisition of territory, ought to have remembered that one of the best guarantees of peace was to leave nothing to fight about as far as these islands of value in our relations 'to the region of the orinoco and the amazon' and the windward passages were concerned. the german occupation of brazil--increasing so greatly that the brazilians were alarmed, the european prejudices, made evident during the spanish-american war as existing in south and central america--were all occasions for thought. 'the harbour of charlotte amalie,' wrote major glassford, writing of st. thomas, 'and the numerous sheltered places about the island offer six and seven fathoms of water. besides, this harbour and the roadsteads are on the southern side of the island, completely protected from the prevailing strong winds. if this place were strongly fortified and provisioned'--the number of inhabitants are small compared with puerto rico--'it would be necessary for an enemy contemplating a descent upon puerto rico to take it into account first. the location on the north-east side of the antilles is in close proximity to many of the passages into the caribbean sea, and affords an excellent point of observation near the european possessions in the archipelago. it is also a centre of the west indian submarine cable systems, being about midway between the windward passage and the trinidad entrance into the caribbean sea.' other interests distracted attention from the essential value of these islands for local reasons, party reasons, which are the curse of all modern systems of government. the failure to purchase the islands in did not discourage senator lodge. on march st, , the committee on foreign affairs reported a bill authorising the president to buy the danish west india islands for a naval and coal station. on this bill, senator lodge made a most interesting and valuable report, in which he said, after stating that the fine harbour of st. thomas possessed all the required naval and military conditions--'it has been pointed out by captain mahan, as one of the great strategic points in the west indies.' 'the danish islands,' he concluded, 'could easily be governed as a territory, could be readily defended from attack, occupy a commanding strategic position, and are of incalculable value to the united states, not only as part of the national defences, but as removing by their possession a very probable cause of foreign complications.' my predecessors in denmark, messrs. risley, carr, svendsen, were of this opinion. the arguments of mr. carr, expressed in his despatches, are invincible. mr. o'brien, who was minister plenipotentiary to denmark until he was sent as ambassador to japan, saw, as i did, in , that the danes and their government were in no mood to accept any suggestions on the subject. however, i discussed the matter academically with each minister of foreign affairs, saying that the united states would make no proposition at any time which might offend the national self-respect of the danes, that in fact, as valuable as the islands would be to us and as expedient as it might be for the danes to sell them to us, their government must give some unequivocal sign that it was willing to part with them before we should seriously take up the question again. neither count raben-levitzau nor count william ahlefeldt-laurvig gave me any official encouragement, though i hardly expected it as i had taken means to sound public opinion on my own account. both count raben-levitzau and count ahlefeldt were liberal ministers of foreign affairs, and i knew that, if there was any hope that a sale might be made, they would give me reasonable encouragement. besides, i was doubtful whether the price--which might probably be asked--reasonable enough in my eyes and in the eyes of those european diplomatists who knew what heligoland and gibraltar meant to germany and to england--would not have raised such an outcry among voters at home, who had not yet learned to weigh any transaction with a foreign government--except commercially, in terms of dollars and cents, that another failure might have followed. it was out of the question to risk that. many of my friends among the more conservative of the danes scorned the idea of the sale on any terms. among these was admiral de richelieu, whose father is buried in st. thomas, and who is the most intense of danish patriots. if objections to the sale on the part of my best friends in denmark had governed me, i should have despaired of it. however, my friends, like de richelieu, felt that our government would be glad to see the danish west india islands improved as far as the danes could improve them. de richelieu, etatsraad andersen--etatsraad meaning councillor of state--holger petersen, director cold, formerly governor of the islands, hegemann, who bore the high title of _geheimekonferensraad_, were among those most interested in the islands. hegemann, since dead, was the only one of the group who thought that the danish government could never either improve the islands socially or make them pay commercially. 'the danes are bad colonisers,' he said. he was a man of great common-sense, of wide experience, and a philanthropist who never let his head run away with his heart. he did a great deal for technical education in denmark. in fact, there was scarcely any movement for the betterment of the country economically in which he was not interested. he had great properties in the island of santa cruz; but he looked on the danish possession of the islands as bad for the reputation of his native country and worse for the progress of the islands and the islanders. 'the present government is too mild in its treatment of the blacks,' he said; 'equality, liberty and fraternity, the motto of the ruling party, is excellent, but it will not work in the islands.' besides, the construction of the panama canal was drawing the best labourers from them. he was interested in sugar and even in sea cotton; he thought that, the tariff restrictions being removed and a market for labour made, something might be done by us towards making the islands a profitable investment. i was entirely indifferent as to that--our great need of the islands was not for commercial uses. the prevailing opinion in court circles was against the sale, based on no antagonism to the united states, but on the desire that denmark should not lose more of its territory. the faroe islands, greenland and iceland were still appendages; but iceland was always restive, and greenland seemed, in the eyes of the danes, to have only the value of remotely useful territory. they had been shorn of territory by england, by sweden, and, last of all, by germany. our government, knowing well how strong the national pride was, and how reasonable, permitted me to show it the greatest consideration. when the east-asiatic company, which had important holdings in st. thomas, proposed that the national sentiment should be tested, and each danish citizen asked to make a pecuniary sacrifice for the retention of the islands, i was permitted to express sympathy with the movement, and to assist it in every way compatible with my position. the attempt failed. it was evident that the majority of the people, whatever were their sentiments, knew that it was impracticable to attempt to govern the islands from such a distance. if it had been possible to retain them with honour, with justice to the inhabitants, who for a long time had been desirous of union with the united states, no amount of money would have induced denmark to part with the last of her colonial possessions. as it was, the prospect was not at all clear. in modern times, a man who aspires to do his duty in diplomacy must be honest and reasonably frank. to pretend to admire the institutions of a nation, to affect a sympathy one does not feel, with a view to obtaining something of advantage to one's own country, was no doubt possible when foxes were preternaturally cunning and crows unbelievingly vain, but not now. the whole question of the islands was a matter which must be settled by the commonsense of the danes at the expense of their sentiment; no pressure on our part could be used, short of such arguments as might point to the forcible possession of the islands temporarily in case of war; but the fact that the united states preferred to give what seemed to be an enormous sum--(though $ , , have to-day scarcely the purchasing power of the $ , , demanded for the three islands from secretary seward in )--rather than run the risk of future unpleasant complications with a small and friendly state, showed that the intentions of our government were on a par with its professions. when the proposed sale of the islands stopped, largely because senator sumner disliked president johnson, and the treaty lapsed in in spite of the support of secretary fish, king christian ix. wrote, in a proclamation to the people of the danish islands--a majority of whom had consented to the proposed sale,--'the american senate has not shown itself willing to maintain the treaty made, although the initiative came from the united states themselves.' the king had only consented to the sale to lighten the terrible financial burdens imposed on his country by the unjust war which germany and austria had forced upon denmark with a view to the theft of slesvig; and his consent would never have been given had not secretary seward, the predecessor of secretary fish, reluctantly agreed that the vote of the inhabitants should be taken. he was more democratic than mr. seward. king christian would not sign the treaty, which gave $ , , to denmark for the two islands of st. thomas and st. john, until mr. seward consented to 'concede the vote.' the danes were frank in admitting that their 'poverty, but not their will,' consented. 'ready as we were to subdue the feelings of our heart, when we thought that duty bade us so to do,' continued the king in his proclamation, 'yet we cannot otherwise than feel a satisfaction that circumstances have relieved us from making a sacrifice which, notwithstanding the advantages held out, would always have been painful to us. we are convinced that you share these sentiments, and that it is with a lightened heart you are relieved from the consent which only at our request you gave for a separation from the danish crown.' the king added that he entertained the firm belief that his government, supported by the islanders, would succeed in making real progress, and end by effacing all remembrances of the disasters that had come upon them, his overseas dominions. affairs in the mother country did look up; the danes developed their country, in spite of the worst climatic conditions, into a land famous for its scientific farming. a wit has said that denmark, after the loss of slesvig, was divided like old gaul, itself, into three parts,--butter, eggs and bacon. the danes, cast into a condition of moral despondency and temporal poverty, with their national pride stricken, and their soil outworn, seized the things of the spirit and made material things subservient. religion and patriotism, developed by bishop grundtvig, saved the mother country; but the islands continued to go through various stages of hope and fear. the united states was too near and denmark too far off. home politics were generally paramount, and each new governor was always obliged to consider the sensitiveness of his government to the amount of expenditure allowed. there were persons in power at home who seemed to see the islands from the point of view of bernardin de saint pierre--sentimentally. the happy black men were to dance under spreading palms, gently guided by danish pauls and virginias! the black men were only too willing to dance under palms, whether spreading or not, and to be guided by any idyllic persons who, leaving them the pleasures of existence, would take the trials. all the governors suffered more or less from the rousseau-like point of view taken by the government. mr. helvig larsen was the last who was expected to be 'idyllic.' one of the fears often expressed to me was that 'the americans would treat the blacks badly--we have all read _uncle tom's cabin_, you know.' even her majesty, the dowager queen louise, one of the best-informed women in europe, had her doubts about our attitude to the negroes. 'you have black nurses,' her majesty said to me; 'why are your people, especially in the south, not more kind to their race?' queen louise, who was sincerely interested in the welfare of her coloured subjects, would listen to reason. i sent her the _soul of the black_, which shows unconsciously why social equality in this case would be undesirable, but not until booker washington's visit did her majesty understand the attitude that sensible americans, who know the south, take on the subject of the social equality of our coloured fellow-citizens. during my stay in europe this matter was frequently discussed. some of my german colleagues politely insinuated that 'democracy' was little practised in a country where a president could be severely censured for inviting a coloured man of distinction to lunch. and nearly all the danes of the modern school took this point of view. the naval officers, who are always better informed as to foreign conditions than most other men, readily understood that social equality assumes a meaning in the united states which would imply the probability of what is known as 'amalgamation.' while the german critic of our conditions might very well understand the impossible barrier of caste in his own country and object to 'permanent marriages' with women of the inferior 'yellow' races, he seemed to think that the laws in some of the united states against the marriages of blacks and whites were un-christian and illogical. 'but you would not encourage such marriages?' i asked of one of the most distinguished danes at the copenhagen university. 'why not?' he asked. from my point of view, the case was hopeless. and every now and then an extract from an american paper, containing the account of a lynching with all the gruesome details described, would be translated into danish. i never believed in censoring the press until i came to occupy a responsible position in denmark. i confess, _mea culpa_!--that i wanted many times to have the right to say what should or should not be reprinted for foreign consumption! the newspapers seemed to have no regard for the plans of the diplomatists, believing news is news! there will always be the irrepressible conflict! one of my wife's friends in denmark, the late countess rantzau, born of the famous theatrical family of the poulsens, who was well-read, and who knew her europe well, produced one day an old embroidered screen for my benefit. there were the palms; there was an ancient african with a turban on his very woolly head; there was a complacent young person in stiff skirts seated at his feet, looking up to him with adoring eyes. 'antique?' i asked, preparing to admire the work of art; the tropical foliage of acanthus leaves was so flourishing in the tapestry, and the luncheon had been so good! 'it is not as a work of art that i show it to the american minister, but to let him know that we danes love the virtues of the blacks. this is uncle tom and little eva!' it was intended to soften a hard heart! in october mr. andrew carnegie telegraphed that mr. booker washington would pay a visit to denmark. i had met mr. booker washington with mr. richard watson gilder in new york, and i admired him very greatly. however, i felt that i should be embarrassed by his visit, as i knew both king frederick and queen louise were interested in him and would not only expect me to present him, but likewise--they were the fine flowers of courtesy--wish my wife and myself to dine at amalieborg palace with him. when admiral bardenfleth, the queen's chamberlain, came to inquire as to when mr. booker washington should arrive, i suggested that her majesty, who had often shown her high appreciation of mr. washington's work, might like to talk with him informally, as i knew that she had many questions to ask, and that he himself would be more at his ease if i were not present. the admiral thanked me. i said the same thing to the master of ceremonies of the court when he came on behalf of the king. for charm of manner, ease, the simplicity that conceals the perfection of social art, and at least apparent sympathy with one's difficulties, let the high officials of the court of denmark be commended! the master of ceremonies was delighted. their majesties would miss me from the introduction and regret that mrs. egan and i would not be present at the dinner, which, however, would be earlier than usual, as i had said that mr. booker washington must catch a train; it would also be very unceremonious. his majesty would ask only his immediate _entourage_. i was pleased with myself (a fatal sign by the way!); mr. washington would have all the honour due him. i arranged to attend his lecture, with all the americans i could collect. i sent the landau with two men on the box, including the magnificent arthur and the largest cockades, to meet mr. washington. in , king frederick used only carriages and the diplomatists followed his example, though some of a more advanced temperament had taken to motor cars. mr. washington was pleased. he loved the landau and the cockades, and arthur, our first man, who had been 'in diplomacy twenty-five years,' treated him with distinction. 'you have honoured my people and my work most delicately,' he said to me. 'i thank you for sending me the king's invitation to dinner to the hôtel d'angleterre. too much public talk of this honour in the united states would do my people and myself much harm. i will make, in print, an acknowledgment of your courtesy, so effective and so agreeable. to have my work recognised in this manner by the most advanced court in europe is indeed worth while, and to have this honour without too much publicity is indeed agreeable.' mr. washington's lecture had been a great success. it had helped, too, to do away with the impression that lynching is to the americans of north america what bull fights are to those of south america. the most awkward question constantly put to me at court and in society was, 'but why do you lynch the black men?' filled with satisfaction at the result of my machinations (a bad state of mind, as i have said), i was bending over my desk one morning when two correspondents of american newspapers were announced. they came from london; i had met them both before. 'cigars?' 'yes. we do not want to give you trouble, mr. minister; you were very decent to us all in the cook affair, but we shall make a good story out of this booker washington visit, and we think it is only fair to say that we are going to 'feature' you. there is nothing much doing now, and we've been asked to work this thing up. we know on the best authority that the king will give a dinner to booker washington; you will respond with a reception; mrs. egan will be taken in to dinner by mr. washington; there will be lots of ladies there--in a word, we'll get as big a sensation out of it as the newspapers did out of the roosevelt-booker washington incident. it will do you good in the north, and, as you're a philadelphian, you need not care what the south thinks.' these gentlemen meant to be kind; they were dropping me into a hole kindly, but they _were_ letting me into a hole! 'it is not a question as to _how_ i feel,' i said; 'it is a question of raising unpleasant discussions, of injuring the coloured people by holding out false hopes, which, hurried into action, excite new prejudices against them. president roosevelt, when he invited booker washington to lunch, acted as i should like to act now, but i would regret the ill-feeling raised by discussions of such an incident as greatly as he regretted it; but,' i added, 'you have your duty to your papers, which must have news, although the heavens fall. if my wife is taken in to dinner by mr. booker washington at court, if i give the reception you speak of----' 'you will,' said the elder newspaper man, joyously; 'it is a matter of rigid etiquette. we have a private tip!' 'very well, when i do these things, i shall not complain if you headline them.' 'sensation in denmark,' he read, from a slip. 'wife of american minister is taken in to dinner by representative coloured man. perfect social equality exemplified by reception to mr. booker washington at american legation! london will like you all the better for that,' he said, laughing. 'as "tout paris" liked president roosevelt,' i answered. i shivered a little. 'come to lunch to-morrow, but do not let us talk on this subject. if i am compelled by etiquette, as you insist i shall, i'll swallow the headlines. i shall ask mr. hartvig of some london papers and the _new york world_ to meet you.' and off they went! if i were a spartan person and really loved to perform my duties in the most idealistic way, i should have treated the situation greatly, nobly, and unselfishly; i should not have been pleased at the prospect of cheating my journalistic friends out of a good story; but, not being spartan and really not loving difficult duties, i felt that i had done enough in giving them a luncheon worthy of the reputation of our legation, with _sole à la bernaise_ and the best sauterne. mr. washington called before he went to the king's dinner; he was all smiles, and his evening suit was perfect. he said 'good-bye,' and i was thankful that the event of his visit was over; he was not only satisfied, but radiant and grateful. consul-general bond and his wife, dr. brochardt, of the library of congress, and several other interesting people were to come in, to dine and to play bridge this evening. i fancied the disappointment of the newspaper men when they should arrive, to find no reception in progress and no booker washington. i think i told my guests of the remarkably clever way--i hope i did not use that phrase--by which they had been outwitted. we were about to go into the drawing-room for coffee when a card was brought in. 'mr. booker washington.' some of the guests, those from the south especially, wanted to see him; but i trembled when i imagined the scene that would meet the reporters, who were, i knew, sure to come about nine o'clock. the drawing-room would be brilliantly lighted, half a dozen charming ladies in evening gowns would be there, surrounding the eminent apostle! enter the writers, and then would follow an elaborate sketch of the social function to be described as a new step in social evolution, the dawn of a new day, a symbol of entire social equality. i knew that the elder newspaper man, a friend of stead's, was quite capable of all this! 'coffee will be served in my study,' i said, not waiting to consult my wife. 'i will see mr. washington, at least for a moment, _alone_.' the group of guests moved off reluctantly. mr. washington waited in the back drawing-room, where both the kaiser and colonel roosevelt had once stood, though at different times. his train would be late; he came in the fulness of his heart, to tell me that king frederick and queen louise had been most sympathetic. he was enthusiastic about the discernment and commonsense of queen louise, who had read his book and followed every step of his work with great interest. 'i was glad to have her majesty know that the best men of my race are with me, that the opposition to me comes, not from the whites, but from that element in my own race which wants to enjoy the luxuries of life and its leisure without working! i thank you again, mr. minister, for arranging this affair in such a way as to preserve my dignity and to prevent me from appearing as if i were vain; yet i am legitimately proud of the great honour i have received. i shall now go to my hotel, and arrange for my departure.' 'i have ordered the carriage,' i said. just then, the footman threw the doors open, and in came the two newspaper men, resplendent as a starry night, one wearing a russian decoration. 'alone?' he said. 'with dr. booker washington.' 'the reception?' 'dr. booker washington has just come to describe his dinner at the court. let me present you two gentlemen. dr. washington has little time; if you will accompany him to the hotel, he will, i am sure, give you an interview. mr. hartvig of the _new york world_ will be present, too.' 'stung!' said the younger newspaper man. 'lunch with me to-morrow,' i said; 'i have some white bordeaux.' dr. washington gave a prudent interview and the incident was closed. may he rest in peace. he was a great man, a modest, intelligent and humble man, and no calumny can lessen his greatness. this is a digression to show that the social question in the united states, much as it might have seemed to people who looked on denmark as entirely out of our orbit, had its importance in the affair of the purchase of the islands, which then interested me more than anything else in the world. pastor bast was the only methodist clergyman in copenhagen. his good works are proverbial and not confined to his own denomination. the methodists were few; indeed, i think that even pastor bast's children were lutherans. having recommended one of his charities, i was asked by a very benevolent dane: 'are the methodists really christians in america?' 'why do you ask that question?' 'i have read that there is a division in their ranks because most of them refuse to admit black people on equal terms. if that is so, i cannot help pastor bast's project, although i can see that it has value.' it was in vain to explain the difference of opinion on the 'afro-american question' which separated the northern and southern methodists; he could not understand it. i hope, however, that pastor bast received his donation. * * * * * in august , the unrest in europe, reflected in denmark, was becoming more and more evident. the diplomatic correspondents during the succeeding years--some of it has been made public--showed this. japan, it was understood, would, with the mexican difficulty, keep the united states out of any entanglements in europe. so sure were some of the distinguished danes of our neutrality in case of war--a contingency in which nobody in the united states seemed to believe--that i was asked to submit to my government, not officially, a proposal to denmark for the surrender of greenland to us, we to give, in return, the most important island in the philippines--mindanao. denmark was to have the right to transfer to germany this island for northern slesvig. the danish government had no knowledge of this plan, which was, however, presented in detail to me. against it was urged the necessity of denmark's remaining on good terms with germany. 'we could never be on good terms with our southern neighbour, if we possessed slesvig; besides, the younger danes in slesvig are so tied up with germany economically that their position would be more complicated. 'in fact,' this slesviger said, 'though i hate the prussian tyranny, i fear that our last state would be worse than our first. germany might accept the philippine island, and retake slesvig afterwards. unless we could be protected by the powers, we should regard the bargain as a bad one. besides, england would never allow you to take greenland.' it was an interesting discussion _in camera_. these discussions were always informal--generally after luncheon--and very enlightening. admiral de richelieu, who will never die content until slesvig is returned to denmark, looked on the arrangement as possible. 'germany wants peace with you; she could help you to police the philippines; greenland would be more valuable to you than to us,--and slesvig would be again danish.' 'but suppose we should propose to take the danish antilles for mindanao?' i asked. 'out of the question,' he said, firmly. 'you will never induce us to part with the west indies. we can make them an honourable appendage to our nation; but greenland, with your resources, might become another alaska.' de richelieu is one of the best friends i have in the world; but, when it came to the sale of the islands, he saw, not only red, but scarlet, vermilion, crimson and all the tints and shades of red! in , it seemed to me that my time had come to make an attempt to do what nearly every american statesman of discernment had, since seward's time, wanted done. it must be remembered that, if i seem egoistical, i am telling the story from the point of view of a minister who had no arbitrary instructions from his government, and very little information as to what was going on in the minds of his countrymen as to the expediency of the purchase. it is seldom possible to explain exactly the daily varying aspect of foreign politics in a european country to the state department; if one keeps one's ear to the ground, one often discovers the beginning of social and political vibrations in the evening which have quite vanished when one makes a report to one's government in the morning. again, mails are slow; we had no pouch; any document, even when closed by the august seal of the united states might be opened 'by mistake.' long cables, filled with minutiæ, were too expensive to be encouraged. besides, they might be deciphered and filed by under-clerks, who probably thought that 'dr. cook had put denmark on the map,'--only that, and nothing more! i knew one thing--that my colleague, constantin brun, was for the sale; another, that erik de scavenius, the youngest minister of foreign affairs in europe, was as clever as he was patriotic and honourable, and as resourceful as audacious. he had an irish grandfather. that explained much. another thing i assumed--that my government trusted me, and had given me, without explicitly stating the fact, _carte blanche_. however, i prepared myself to be disavowed by the state department if i went too far. i knew that, provided i was strictly honourable, such a disavowal would mean a promotion on the part of the president. i had done my best to accentuate the good reasons given by my predecessors, especially carr and risley, for they were beyond denial, for our buying the islands. one despatch i had sent off in may or june , almost in despair, a despatch in which i repeated the fear of german aggression and quoted heligoland, which had become as much a part of my thoughts and talk in private as the appearance of the head of charles i. in that of dickens's eccentric character. in june , no nation had the time or the leisure or the means of interfering with the project, for war means concentration, and i had found means of knowing that germany would not coerce denmark in the matter. i hoped and prayed that our government would take action. i knew, not directly, but through trusted friends like robert underwood johnson, lately editor of _the century magazine_, what point of view nearly every important journal in the united states would take. senator lodge's views were well known; in fact, he had first inflamed my zeal. president wilson had put himself on record in this momentous matter. unless public opinion should balk at the price--$ , , would not have been too much--the purchase would be approved of by the senate and the house. this seemed sure. against these arguments was the insinuation made and widely but insidiously spread, that germany approved the sale because she expected to borrow the amount of money paid! in june , it was plain to all who read the signs of the times, that we could not long keep out of the war. 'i did not raise my boy to be a soldier' was neither really popular in the united states nor convincing, for, sad as it may seem, disheartening as it is to those who believe in that universal peace which christ never promised, the american of the united states is a born fighter! if the islands were to be ours, now was the acceptable time. in denmark, the prospect looked like a landscape set for a forlorn hope. erik de scavenius, democrat, even radical, though of one of the most aristocratic families in denmark, would consider only the good of his own country. he was neither pro-german, pro-english nor pro-american. young as he was, his diplomatic experience had led him to look with a certain cynicism on the altruistic professions of any great european nation. he relied, i think, as little as i did on the academic results of the hague conferences. denmark needed money; the government, pledged to the betterment of the poor, to the advancement of funds to small farmers, to the support of a co-operative banking system in the interest of the agriculturists, to old-age pensions, to the insurance of the working man and his support when involuntarily idle, to all those socialistic plans that aim at the material benefit of the proletariat,[ ] and in addition to this, to the keeping up of a standing army as large as our regular army before the war, now 'quasi-mobilised,'--could ill afford to sink the state's income in making up the deficit caused by the expenses of the islands. [ ] in rome, 'the proletariat' meant the people who had children. the radicals, like edward brandès, despaired of righteously ruling their islands on the broad, humanitarian principles they had established in denmark. the position of the government was so precarious that to raise the question might have serious consequences. this we all knew, and none better than erik de scavenius. it will be seen that the difficulties on the danish side were greater than on ours. the price, which, reasonably enough, would be greater than that offered in previous times, would hardly be a very grave objection from the american point of view, since the war had made us more clear-minded, for our people are most generous in spending money when they see good reasons for it. it would take much time to unravel the intricacies of danish politics. 'happy,' said my friend, mr. thomas p. gill,[ ] visiting denmark in , 'is that land which is ruled by farmers!' i have sometimes doubted this. the conservatives naturally hated the social democrats, and the government was kept in power by the help of the social democrats. the conservatives would have gladly pitched the government to hades, if they had not had a great fear that erik de scavenius and perhaps edward brandès, the minister of justice, were too useful to lose during the war when the position of denmark was so delicate. the recent elections have shown how weak the present government is. [ ] mr. thomas p. gill is the permanent secretary of the irish agricultural and technical board. the danes, as i have said, are probably the most civilised people in europe, but an average american high school boy thinks more logically on political questions. a union of such intellectual clearness with such a paralysis of the logical, political qualities of the mind as one finds in denmark, is almost incredible. they seem to feel in matters of politics but not to think. after a large acquaintance among the best of the young minds in denmark, i could only conclude that this was the result of unhappy circumstances: the pessimism engendered by the nearness to germany, the fact that the dane was not allowed to vote until he became almost middle-aged, and the absence, in the higher schools, of any education that would cultivate self-analysis, and which would force the production of mental initiative. sentiment was against the sale of the islands,--therefore, the cause already seemed lost! the press, as a rule, would be against it, but the press in denmark, though everybody reads, has not a very potent influence. i was sure of _politiken_, a journal which most persons said was 'yellow,' but which appealed to people who liked cleverness. the press, i was sure, would be against the sale largely for reasons of internal politics. the farmers would not oppose the sale as a sale--in itself--the possession of a great sum of money, even while it remained in the united states, meant increased facilities for the import of fodder, etc., but j. c. christensen, their leader, must be reckoned with. there were local questions. politics is everywhere a slippery game, but in denmark it is more slippery than anywhere else in the world, not even excepting in, let us say, kansas. j. c. christensen had stubbed his toe over alberti, who had, until , been a power in denmark, and who, in , was still in the copenhagen jail. he had been prime minister from until alberti's manipulation of funds had been discovered in . under the short administration of holstein-ledreborg, he had been minister of worship, but he smarted over the accident which had driven him undeservedly out of office. socialism, curious as it may seem to americans, is not confined to the cities in denmark. it thrives in the farmlands. in the country, the socialists are more moderate than in the cities. in the country, socialism is a method of securing to the peasant population the privileges which it thinks it ought to have. it is a pale pink compared with the intense red of the extreme urban internationalists. j. c. christensen represented the moderates as against the various shades of left, radical and socialistic opinions. besides j. c. christensen, though his reputation was beyond reproach, needed, perhaps, a certain rehabilitation, and he had a great following. a further complication was the sudden rise of violent opposition to the government because of the decision made by the secular authorities in favour of retaining in his pulpit arboe rasmussen, a clergyman who had gone even further towards modernism in his preaching than harnack. however, as the bishops of the danish lutheran church had accepted this decision, it seemed remarkable that an opposition of this kind should have developed so unexpectedly. in june , my wife and i were at aalholm, the principal castle of count raben-levitzau. i was hoping for a favourable answer to my latest despatch as to the purchase of the islands. a visit to aalholm was an event. the count and countess raben-levitzau know how to make their house thoroughly agreeable. talleyrand said that 'no one knew the real delights of social intercourse who had not lived before the french revolution.' one might easily imitate this, and say, that if one has never paid a visit to aalholm, one knows little of the delights of good conversation. count raben's guests were always chosen for their special qualities. with mr. and mrs. francis hagerup, señor and señora de riaño, count and countess szchenyi,[ ] chamberlain and madame hegermann-lindencrone, mrs. ripka, and the necessary additional element of young folk, one must forget the cares of life. during this visit, there was one care that rode behind me in all the pleasant exclusions about the estate. it constantly asked me: what is your government thinking about? will the president's preoccupations prevent him from considering the question of the purchase? does mr. brun, the danish minister, fear a political crisis in his own country? it is difficult to an american at home to realise how much in the dark a man feels away from the centre of diplomacy, washington, especially when he has once lived there for years and been in touch with all the tremulous movements of the wires. [ ] dr. francis hagerup, norwegian minister to copenhagen, now at stockholm. count szchenyi, austro-hungarian minister, señor de riaño, now spanish minister at washington. one day at aalholm, the telephone rang; it was a message from the clerk of the legation, mr. joseph g. groeninger of baltimore. i put clerk with a capital letter because mr. groeninger deserved diplomatically a much higher title. during all my anxieties on the question of the purchase, he had been my confidant and encourager; the secretaries had other things to do. the message, discreetly voiced in symbols we had agreed upon, told me that the way was clear. our government was willing,--secrecy and discretion were paramount necessities in the transaction. returning to copenhagen, i saw the foreign minister. the most direct way was the best. i said, 'excellency, will you sell your west indian islands?' 'you know i am for the sale, mr. minister,' he said, 'but--' he paused, 'it will require some courage.' 'nobody doubts your courage.' 'the susceptibilities of our neighbour to the south----' 'let us risk offending any susceptibilities. france had rights.' 'france gave up her rights in santa cruz long ago; but i was not thinking of france. besides the price would have to be dazzling. otherwise the project could never be carried.' 'not only dazzling,' i said, 'but you should have more than money--our rights in greenland; his majesty might hesitate if it were made a mere question of money. he is like his grandfather, christian ix. you know how he hated, crippled as denmark was in , to sell the islands.' 'you would never pay the price.' 'excellency,' i said, 'this is not a commercial transaction. if it were a commercial transaction, a matter of material profit, my government would not have entrusted the matter to me, nor would i have accepted the task, without the counsel of men of business. besides, commercially, at present, the islands are of comparatively small value. i know that my country is as rich as it is generous. it is dealing with a small nation of similar principles to its own, and with an equal pride. unless the price is preposterous, as there is no ordinary way of gauging the military value of these islands to us, i shall not object. my government does not wish me to haggle. and i am sure that you will not force me to do so by demanding an absurd price. you would not wish to shock a people prepared to be generous.' he will ask $ , , , i thought; he knows better than anybody that we shall be at war with germany in less than a year. i felt dizzy at the thought of losing the gibraltar of the caribbean! however, i consoled myself, while mr. de scavenius looked thoughtfully, pencil in hand, at a slip of paper. after all, _i_ thought, the president, knowing what the islands mean to us, will not balk at even $ , , . while mr. de scavenius wrote, i tried to feel like a man to whom a billion was of no importance. he pushed the slip towards me, and i read: '$ , , dollars, expressed in danish crowns.' the crown was then equal to about twenty-six cents. i said, 'there will be little difficulty about that; i consider it not unreasonable; but naturally, it may frighten some of my compatriots, who have not felt the necessity of considering international questions. you will give me a day or two?' 'the price is dazzling, i know,' he said. 'my country is more generous even than she is rich. the transaction must be completed before----' mr. de scavenius understood. my country was neutral _then_; it was never necessary to over-explain to him; he knew that i understood the difficulties in the way. it was agreed that there should be no intermediaries; denmark had learned the necessity of dealing without them by the experience in . i was doubtful as to the possibility of complete secrecy. what the newspapers cannot find out does not exist. 'there are very many persons connected with the foreign office,' he said thoughtfully. 'i may say a similar thing of our state department. i wish the necessity for complete secrecy did not exist,' i said. 'the press _will_ have news.' a short time after this i was empowered to offer $ , , with our rights in greenland. as far as the foreign office and our legation were concerned, the utmost secrecy was preserved. there were no formal calls; after dinners, a word or two, an apparently chance meeting on the promenade (the long line) by the sound. rumours, however, leaked out on the bourse. the newspapers became alert. _politiken_, the government organ, was bound to be discreet, even if its editor had his suspicions. there were no evidences from the united states that the secret was out. in fact, the growing war excitement left what in ordinary times would have been an event for the 'spot' light in a secondary place. in denmark, as the whispers of a possible 'deal' increased in number, the opponents of the government were principally occupied in thinking out a way by which it could be used for the extinction of the council--president (prime minister) zahle, the utter crushing of the minister of war, peter munch, who hated war and looked on the army as an unnecessary excrescence, and the driving out of the whole ministry, with the exception of erik de scavenius and, perhaps, edward brandès, the minister of finance, into a sea worthy to engulf the devil-possessed swine of the new testament. there are, by the way, two zahles--one the minister, theodore, a bluff and robust man of the people, and herluf zahle, of the foreign office, chamberlain, and a diplomatist of great tact, polish and experience. mr. edward brandès and mr. erik de scavenius, interviewed, denied that there was any question of the sale. 'had i ever spoken to edward brandès on the subject of the sale?' i was asked point-blank. as i had while in copenhagen, only formal relations with the members of the government, except those connected with the foreign office, i was enabled to say no quite honestly. it was unnecessary for me to deny the possession of a secret not my own, too, because, when asked if i had spoken to the foreign minister on the subject of the sale, i always said that i was always hoping for such an event, i had spoken on the subject to count raben-levitzau, count ahlefeldt-laurvig and erik de scavenius whenever i had a chance. i felt like the boy who avoided sunday school because his father was a presbyterian and his mother a jewess; this left me out. i trembled for the fate of mr. de scavenius and mr. edward brandès when their political opponents (some of them the most imaginative folk in denmark) should learn the facts. a lie, in my opinion, is the denying of the truth to those who have a moral right to know it. the press had no right whatever to know the truth, but even the direct diplomatic denial of a fact to persons who have no right to know it is bound to be--uncomfortable! i was astonished that both mr. brandès and mr. scavenius had been so direct; political opponents are so easily shocked and so loud in their pious appeals to providence! for myself, i was sorry that i could not give mr. albert thorup, of the associated press, a 'tip.' he is such a decent man, and i shall always be grateful to him, but i was forced to connive at his losing a great 'scoop.' the breakers began to roar; anybody but the foreign minister would have lost his nerve. two visiting american journalists, who had an inkling of possibilities of the truth, behaved like gentlemen and patriots, as they are, and agreed to keep silent until the state department should give them permission to release it. these were mr. william c. bullitt, of the philadelphia _ledger_, and mr. montgomery schuyler, of the new york _times_. the newspaper, _copenhagen_, was the first to hint at the secret, which, by this time, had become a _secret de polichinelle_. various persons were blamed; the parliament afterwards appointed a committee of examination. on august st, , i find in my diary,--'thank heaven! the secret is out in the united states, but not through us.' 'secret diplomacy' is difficult in this era of newspapers. if we are to have a secretary of education in the cabinet of the future, why not a secretary of the press? a happy interlude in the summer of was the visit of henry van dyke and his wife and daughter. it was a red letter night when he came to dinner. we forgot politics, and talked of stedman, gilder and the elder days. the first inkling that the _secret de polichinelle_ was out came from a cable in _le temps_ of paris. mr. bapst, the french minister, who had very unjustly been accused of being against the sale, came to tell me he knew that the treaty had been signed by secretary lansing and mr. brun in washington. i was not at liberty to commit myself yet, so i denied that the treaty had been signed in washington. mr. bapst sighed; i knew what he thought of me; but i had told the truth; the treaty had been signed in new york. sir henry lowther, the british minister, was frankly delighted that the question of the islands was about to be opened. irgens, formerly minister of foreign affairs in norway, and a good friend to the united states, shook his head. 'if norway owned islands, we would never give them up,' he said; but he was glad that they were going to us. the other colleagues, including count brockdorff-rantzau, the german minister, were occupied with other things. count rantzau was desirous of keeping peace with the united states. i think that he regarded war with us as so dangerous as to be almost unthinkable. i found count rantzau a very clever man; he played his game fairly. it was a game, and he was a colleague worth any man's respect. he is one of the most cynical, brilliant, forcible diplomatists in europe, with liberal tendencies in politics. if he lives, he ought to go far, as he is plastic and sees the signs of the times. i found him delightful; but he infuriated other people. one day, when he is utterly tired of life, he will consciously exasperate somebody to fury, in order to escape the trouble of committing suicide himself. the plot thickened. the ideas of the foreign office were, as a rule, mine--but here there was sometimes an honest difference. i was willing to work with the foreign office, but not under it. de scavenius never expected this, but i think it was sometimes hard for him to see that i could not, in all details, follow his plans. nothing is so agreeable as to have men of talent to deal with; and i never came from an interview with de scavenius or chamberlain clan, even when, perhaps, de scavenius did not see my difficulties clearly, without an added respect for these gentlemen. the air was full of a rumour that the united states, suspected in europe, in spite of the fair treatment of cuba and the philippines, of imperialism, had made threats against denmark, involving what was called 'pressure.' whether it was due to enemy propaganda or not, the insinuation that the danish west indies would be taken by force, because denmark was helpless, underlay many polite conversations. 'the united states would not dare to oblige france or england or a south american republic to give up an island. she does not attempt to coerce holland; but in spite of the pretensions to altruism, she threatens denmark.' this was an assertion constantly heard. the charges of imperialism made in our newspapers against some of the 'stalwart' politicians who were supposed to have influenced president mckinley in older days, were not forgotten. letters poured in, asking if it were possible that i had used threats to the danish government. the danish politicians were turning their ploughshares into swords. on august th the rigstag went into 'executive session.' chamberlain hegermann-lindencrone still heartily approved of the sale. he had, he said, tried to arrange it, under president mckinley's administration, through a hint from major cortelyon when he was in paris. the attitude of the press became more and more evident. mr. holger angelo, one of the best 'interviewers' in the danish press, and very loyal to his paper, the _national news_ (_national tidende_), came to see me. personally, he was desirous not to wound me or to criticise the conduct of my government; but he was strongly against the sale, yet he could find no valid arguments against it. he was obliged to admit reluctantly that the only ground on which his paper could make an attack was the denial of the cabinet ministers that any negotiations had existed. this was the line all the opposition papers would follow. nobody would say that the purchase had been negotiated on any grounds unfavourable to the national sensibilities of the danes. even admiral de richelieu admitted that neither my government nor myself had failed to give what help could be given to his plans for improving the economic conditions of the islands. on august th the debate in the rigstag showed, as had been expected, that mr. j. c. christensen, who held the balance of power, would demand a new election under the new constitution. a furious attack was made on messrs. brandès and de scavenius for having denied the existence of negotiations. all this was expected. nobody really wanted a new election. it was too risky under war conditions. suddenly the rumour was revived that the british fleet would break the neutrality of denmark by moving through the great belt, and that the united states was secretly preparing to send its fleet through the belt to help the british. the reason of this was apparent: every rumour that corroborated the impression that the united states would become a belligerent injured the chances of the sale. such delay, to my knowledge, was an evil, since the continued u-boat horror made a war imminent. in spite of all optimism, advice from the american embassy at berlin, direct and indirect, pointed that way. the crisis would no doubt be delayed--this was our impression--but it must come. count brockdorff-rantzau hoped to the last that it might be avoided, and prince wittgenstein of his legation, who knew all sides, seemed to believe that a conflict with the united states might yet be avoided. and there was still a dim hope, but it became dimmer every day, so that my desire to expedite matters became an obsession. on august th, j. c. christensen seemed to hold the folkerting (the lower house) in the hollow of his hand. he moved to appeal to the country, and to leave the question of a sale to a new rigstag. this meant more complications, more delay, and perhaps defeat through the threatening of the war clouds. j. c. christensen's motion was defeated by eleven votes. on august th it was concluded that the quickest and least dangerous way of securing assent to the sale was by an appeal to the people, not through a general election, but through a plebiscite, in which every man and woman of twenty-nine would vote, under the provisions of the new constitution. the landsting (the upper house) held a secret meeting. if a coalition ministry should not be arranged and the motion for a plebiscite should fail, there would certainly be a general election. this would, i thought, be fatal, as it would probably mean a postponement of the sale until after the close of the war. in the meantime, we heard the german representatives of the hamburg-american line at st. thomas were carrying on 'some unusual improvements.' these activities, begun without the knowledge of the governor, who was then in denmark, were stopped by the minister of justice, mr. edward brandès, when the knowledge of them was brought to the danish government. on august th i was convinced that one of the most important men in denmark, indeed in europe, etatsraad h. n. andersen, of the east asiatic company, approved of the sale. this i had believed, but i was delighted to hear it from his own lips. political confusion became worse. in some circumstances the danes are as excitable as the french used to be. it looked, towards the end of august, as if the project of the sale was to be a means of making of denmark, then placid and smiling under a summer sun, a veritable seething cauldron. the gentlemen of the press enjoyed themselves. i, who had the reputation of having on all occasions a _bonne presse_, fell from grace. i had not, it is true, concealed the truth by diplomatic means, as had mr. edward brandès and mr. erik de scavenius, but i had talked 'so much and so ingenuously' to the newspaper men, as one of them angrily remarked, that they were sure a man, hitherto so frank, had nothing to conceal; and yet there had been much concealed. the opposition, which would have been pleasantly horrified to discover any evidence of bribery, or, indeed, any evidence of the methods by which our legation had managed its side of the affair (they hoped for the worst), could discover very little; when they called on de scavenius to show all the incriminating documents in the case, they found there was nothing incriminating, and the documents were the slightest scraps of paper. knowing how far away our department of state was, how busy and how undermanned, owing to the attitude which congress has hitherto assumed towards it, i acted as i thought best as each delicate situation arose, always arranging as well as i could not to compromise my government, and to give it a chance to disavow any action of mine should it be necessary. i had found this a wise course in the cook affair. i had resolved to take no notice of dr. cook, until the royal danish geographical society determined to recognise him as a scientist of reputation. when commander hovgaard, who had been captain of the king's yacht, asked me to go with the crown prince, president of the geographical society, to meet the american explorer, i went; but my government was in no way committed. in fact, president taft understood the situation well; receiving no approval of dr. cook from me, he merely answered dr. cook's telegram, congratulating him on 'his statement.' i must say that, when the royal geographical society received cook, no word of disapproval from any american expert had reached our legation or the geographical society itself. the society, with no knowledge of the mount mckinley incident, behaved most courteously to an american citizen who appeared to have accomplished a great thing. the only indication that made me suspect that dr. cook was not scientific was that he spoke most kindly of all his--may i say it?--step-brother scientists! but, as i had accompanied the crown prince, in gratitude for his kind attention to a compatriot, i felt sure that a wise department would only, at the most, reprimand me for exceeding the bounds of courtesy. suddenly a crashing blow struck us; edward brandès, in the midst of a hot debate, in which he and de scavenius were fiercely attacked, announced that the united states was prepared to exert 'friendly pressure.' brandès is too clever a man to be driven into such a statement through inadvertence; he must have had some object in making it. what the object was i did not know--nobody seemed to know. even de scavenius seemed to think he had gone too far, for whatever were the contents of minister brun's despatches, it was quite certain that neither he nor our government would have allowed a threat made to denmark involving the possession of her legitimately held territory to become public. something had to be done to avoid the assumption that we were no more democratic than germany. 'we wanted the territory from a weaker nation; we were prepared to seize it, if we could not buy it! we americans were all talking of the rights of the little nations. germany wanted to bleed france, and she took belgium after having insolently demanded that she should give up her freedom. we, the most democratic of nations, prepared to pay for certain islands; but if it was not convenient for a friendly power to sell her territory, we would take it.' this was the inference drawn from mr. edward brandès' words in parliament. i could not contradict a member of the government, and yet i was called on, especially by danes who had lived in the united states, to explain what this 'pressure' meant. many danish women who approved of the social freedom of american women, but mistrusted our government's refusing them the suffrage, took the question up with me. 'pressure _et tu brute_!' the women were to vote in the plebiscite. some of their leaders balked at the word 'pressure,' but a country which had hitherto refused the suffrage to american women was capable of anything. mr. edward brandès had performed a great service to his country in letting out some of the horrors of our secret diplomacy. mr. constantin brun, whose loyalty to his own country i invoked in these interviews, was, they said, 'corrupted' in the united states; he was more american than the americans! i should have much preferred to be put in the 'ananias society' so suddenly formed of mr. brandès and mr. de scavenius than to have myself set down as an imperialist of a country as arrogant as it was grasping, which not only threatened to seize danish territory, but which, while pretending to hold the banner of democracy in the war of nations, deprived the best educated women in the world (mrs. chapman catt had said so) of their inalienable right to vote! fortunately, i had once lectured at the request of some of the leading suffragists. bread cast upon the waters is often returned, toasted and buttered, by grateful hands. madame de münter--wife of the chamberlain--and madame gad, wife of the admiral, were great lights in the feminist movement. madame gad is a most active, distinguished and benevolent woman of letters. there were others, too, who felt that there must be some redeeming features in a condition of society which produced a minister who was so devoted to woman suffrage as i was (as my wife gave some of the best dinners in denmark, nobody expected _her_ to go beyond that!). to madame de münter i owed much good counsel and a circle of defenders; to madame gad (if we had an order of valiant women, i should ask that she be decorated), i am told i owe the chance that helped to turn the women's vote in our favour, and induced many ladies, who were patriotic traditionalists, to abstain from voting. the general opinion, as far as i could gauge it--and i tried to get expert testimony--was that the women's vote would be against us. the _national news_ (_national tidende_) had never been favourable to the united states, though personally i had no reason to complain of it. it was moderate in politics, not brilliant, but very well written. the virtue of its editor was outraged by the denial of the two ministers that negotiations for the sale of the islands had been in process. this position in defence of the truth edified the community. 'truth, though the heavens fall!' was his motto; he kept up a fusillade against the sale. except that one of my interviews had been unintentionally misquoted, i had hitherto been out of the newspapers--though i was no longer, in the opinion of the whole press, the sweet and promising young poet of sixty-five who had written sonnets--now i was forced in. an interview appeared triumphantly in the _national news_. it was attributed to one of the most discreet officials of the state department. it denied 'pressure,' which would have pleased me, if it had not also contradicted my repeated statement that the senate of the united states would not adjourn without ratifying the treaty. it was a blow. i questioned at once the authenticity of the interview. the senate, i had said, would ratify the treaty before the end of the session. the danish foreign office and the public took my word for it. unless i could get a disavowal of the interview by cable, it would seem that the department of state was not supporting me. the foreign office itself, with the problem of our entering the war before it, was beginning to be disheartened. the authenticity of the interview meant failure, the triumph of the enemies of the sale! after a brief interval, a denial of the interview, which had been fabricated in london, came to our legation. there was joy in nazareth, but it did not last long. with the permission of the foreign office, i prepared to give this very definite denial from our state department to the press. it was a busy evening. the staff of the legation was small, and the necessity of sending men to the rigstag to watch the debate in the landsting, where the treaty was being considered, of gathering information, and of translating and copying important documents relating to the islands for transmission to the united states, strained our energies. moreover, the secretary of legation, mr. alexander richardson magruder, had just been transferred to stockholm. mr. joseph g. groeninger, the clerk, who knew all the details relating to the affair of the islands, was up to his eyes in work. mr. cleveland perkins, the honorary attaché, was struggling heroically with danish reports, and i was at the telephone receiving information, seeing people, and endeavouring to discover just where we stood. a most trustworthy--but inexperienced--young man was in charge of the downstairs office, where mr. groeninger, the omniscient, usually reigned. i telephoned to him a memorandum on the subject of 'pressure' which the bogus interview had denied. it was a quotation from the 'interview,' to be made the subject of comment, and then the denial. both of these were sent up on the same piece of typewritten paper, and o.k.ed by me, as a matter of routine. it was not until late in the night that the young man discovered that a mistake had been made. he was most contrite, though the mistake was my fault and due to thoughtlessly following the usual routine. he telephoned at once to the _national news_ and to the other newspapers explaining that he had made a mistake. the _national news_ preferred to ignore his explanation. the opportunity of accusing the ministry of further duplicity was too tempting. de scavenius had lied again, and i had connived at it. the denial of the washington telegram was 'faked' by the american minister in collusion with the minister of foreign affairs! it must be admitted that _politiken_, edited by the terribly clever cavling, had driven the slower-witted _national tidende_ to desperation. i had a bad morning; then i resolved to draw the full fire of the _national news_ on myself. i owed it to de scavenius, who had become rather tired of being called a liar in all the varieties of rhetoric of which copenhagen slang is capable. from the american point of view, after i had made my plan, it was amusing--all the more amusing, since, after the first regret that i had unwittingly added to the _opera bouffe_ colour of the occasion, i saw that the _national tidende_ would become so abusive against me, that i should soon be an interesting victim of vituperative persecution. i repeated calmly the truth that the 'interview' was a fabrication, adding that i had no intention to attack the honour of the _national tidende_; it had been deceived; i merely wanted it understood that my government was not in the habit of contradicting its responsible representatives (_politiken_ kindly added that the _national tidende_ had received its information from the 'coloured door-keeper at the white house'). more fire and fury signifying nothing! the most elaborate frightfulness in print missed its mark, as nobody at the legation had time to translate the rhetoric of the furies, and besides, the _national tidende_ had no case. as i hoped, the diplomatic sins of the foreign office in keeping the secret were forgotten in the flood of invective directed against me. the result was expressed in my diary:--'the row has proved a help to the treaty; i did not know i had so many friends in denmark. my hour of desolation was when i feared that somebody in the state department had permitted himself to be interviewed. it was a dark hour!' after this tempest in a tea-pot, all talk about 'pressure' ceased; the air was, at least, clear of that--and i thanked heaven. september came in; the debates in the rigstag continued. various papers were accused of having prematurely divulged the secret--especially _copenhagen_. it was amusing--the secret among business men had long before the revelation of _copenhagen_ become an open secret. in fact, one of these gentlemen had come to me and informed me of the various attitudes of people on the bourse; at the legation, we never lacked secret information. the debate, as everybody knew, and the threat of an investigation of the responsibility for letting out the secret was a bit of comedy, probably invented for the provinces, for a copenhagener is about as easily fooled as a parisian. on september th, i had one of the greatest pleasures i have ever experienced. i announced to the foreign office that the treaty had been ratified, without change, by the senate. still the opposition made delays. the foreign minister did all in his power to expedite matters. it was hoped that charges of 'graft' could be developed against the ministers. 'if you had had a _bonne presse_, as usual,' a candid friend said to me, 'you might have been accused of bribing. as it is, the _national tidende_ attitude showed that you never offered that paper any money!' 'as much as i regret the attitude of the _national tidende_,' i said, 'i could as soon imagine myself taking a bribe as of the editor's accepting one. the attack was a great advantage to me.' 'you yankees turn everything to your advantage,' the candid friend said. on september th, ambassador and mrs. gerard arrived. it was a red letter day. mr. gerard showed the strain of his work, but, like all good new yorkers, was disposed 'to take the goods the gods provided' him--one of them was a dinner at the legation of which he approved. praise from brillat-savarin would not have delighted us more than this. the legation, to use the diplomatic phrase, threw themselves at the feet of mrs. gerard. gerard deserved the title, given him by the germans, of 'the most american of american ambassadors.' mrs. gerard was cosmopolitan, with an american charm, but also with a touch of the older world that always adds to the social value of an ambassadress. i had arranged, in advance of judge gerard's coming, a luncheon with my colleague across the street, count brockdorff-rantzau. it was interesting. mr. and mrs. swope were present, their serene highnesses the prince and princess sayn wittgenstein-sayn, count wedel, and, i think, dr. toepffer. judge gerard told me that he spoke little french, but he got on immensely well with count rantzau, who spoke no english. count wedel, with his love for old germany, of the weimar of goethe, of the best in literature, will, i trust, live to see a happier new order of things in his native country. the wittgensteins were charming young people. the prince was connected with almost every great russian, french and italian family. if ambassadors are not put out of fashion by the new order of things, the princess, closely connected with important families of england, would be a fortunate ambassadress to an english-speaking country. peace ought to come to men of good-will, and i am persuaded that there are men of good-will in germany. september, october, even december came in, and the political factions still fought, ostensibly about the sale, but really for control, copenhageners said, of the $ , , ! every chance was taken to delay the matter until after the war. german propaganda and bribing was talked of, but there was no evidence of it. in my opinion, it was largely a question as to who should spend the $ , , . in a monarchy such a horror was to be expected naturally! in a republic like ours, the patriotic republicans would cheerfully see the equally patriotic democrats control the funds, but, then, republics are all utopias, the lands of the hope fulfilled! all this was amusing to many observers--embarrassing and humiliating to danes who respected reasonable public opinion and the dignity of their country. it was terrible to me who saw the war coming, for mr. gerard and my private informants in germany left me in no doubt about that. even count szchenyi, always for peace, and with us in sympathy, declared that 'the u-boat war would go on, not to crush england, but as part of the germanic league to enforce peace.' and the use of the u-boat meant war for us! on all sides, i was told that the women's votes would be against the sale. it was not unreasonable to believe that ladies, just emancipated, would vote against their late lords and masters, at least for the first time. besides, as mrs. chapman catt had made very clear during her fateful visit to denmark, the liveliest, the most reasonable, the most intellectual women in the world were deprived by the unjust laws of the country that wanted the islands of the right to vote. even the fact that mr. edward brandès, a noted ladies' man, was on the side of the angels, might have no effect. he began to be tired of the whole thing. he hoped, i really believe, that the islands would settle the question and sink into the sea! we _must_ have the women's vote. madame gad helped to save the day. 'you will, in your annual _conférence_,' she said to me, 'explain the position of the american women, and your words will be reprinted, not only all over denmark, but throughout sweden and norway. the editor of _politiken_ will give you his famous "_politiken hus_," and your words will make good feeling.' 'i can honestly say,' i answered, 'that i want the women to vote. in fact, in my country, they have only to want the suffrage badly enough to have it! it is the fault of their own sex, not of ours, if they do not get it!' it was agreed that i should speak on 'the american woman and her aspirations,' at _politiken hus_, on the evening of december th. the proceeds were to go to charity. and i never knew, until i began to prepare my lecture, how firmly i believed that woman suffrage was to be the salvation of the world. without exaggeration, i believe it will be, since men have made such an almost irremediable mess of worldly affairs. my friend, the late archbishop spalding, once said that women had, since the deluge, been engaged in spoiling the stomach of man, and now they prepared to spoil his politics! i have some reason to believe that a report of my lecture might have converted him to higher ideals. i was told by some ladies that it had a great effect on their husbands. in the meantime, the tardy delegates, summoned from st. thomas and santa cruz, arrived. they were called simply to delay action. the foreign minister was heartily ashamed of the transaction on the part of his opponents; it was palpably childish. the plebiscite must be delayed as long as possible. the united states had done its part in a most prompt and generous manner. the press could give only sentimental reasons against the sale; denmark found the islands a burden; she wanted our rights in greenland; she needed the $ , , , but her politicians were willing to risk anything rather than give the control of the money to a ministry they were afraid to turn out. a coalition ministry, that is, the addition of new members without portfolios to the present ministry, was agreed to, j. c. christensen representing the moderate left, theodore stauning, a socialist, and two others. nobody really wanted a general election until after the war. on the evening of december th, i drove to _politiken hus_. there was a red light over the door. this meant _alt udsolgt_, 'standing room only.' what balm for long anxieties this! mr. william jennings bryan looking at the crowded seats of a chautauqua meeting could not have felt prouder. i recalled the night on which king christian x. had asked me if i always delivered the same lecture during a season's tour in the provinces. i said, 'yes, sir.' 'but if people come a second time?' 'oh, they never come a second time, sir.' at least, for the first time, the red light was lit,--who cared for a second time? the hall was crowded. sir ralph paget, who seldom went out, had come, and, at some distance--sir ralph was of all men the most anti-prussian--were the prince and princess wittgenstein. 'all copenhagen,' madame gad said, which was equivalent to 'tout paris.' i did my best. at the reception afterwards at admiral urban gad's, the ladies--some of them of great influence in politics--told me i had said the right things. i had the next day a _bonne presse_. the provincial papers all over scandinavia reprinted the most important parts of the discourse with approval, and letters of commendation from all parts of denmark--from ladies--came pouring in. one from a constant correspondent in falster, a 'demoiselle,' which is a much better word than 'old maid,' who was sometimes in very bad humour with 'america,' wrote that, after what i said of the american women's position, she would like to marry an american, and that, though opposed to the sale, she and her club would refrain from voting. her offer to marry an american has not been withdrawn. a few days after this, an american paper containing an account of a lynching in the south, with the most terrible details graphically described, reached copenhagen. the newspaper man who brought it to me consented, after some argument, for old friendship's sake, not to release it at this inauspicious moment. time dragged; but the news from the provinces was consoling. the foreign office seemed still to be discouraged, and i am sure that edward brandès again wished that the danish antilles had suffered extinction. even the enamelled surface of de scavenius began to crack a little. dilatory motions of all kinds were in order. the examination by the parliamentary committees at which the delegates from the west indies were present, had ceased to be even amusing. it was a farce without fun. the plebiscite could be put off no longer; on december th, the vote was taken. for the sale, , ; against the sale, , . a comparatively small vote was cast. many voters abstained. these were mostly conservatives and moderates. at last, it had come, but after what anxiety, doubts, fears, efforts,--but always hopes! the opposition proposed to continue objections to the sale of all the islands. this would mean more appalling delays, and, with the u-boat menace increasing, failure. on december th, i entered the foreign office just as djeved bey, the turkish minister, was taking his leave; he had not been very sympathetic with the turkish-german alliance; he was very french. after a few minutes' talk, i saw the minister of foreign affairs. he looked unhappy and harassed, which was unusual. in the midst of alarms, he had always retained a certain calm, which gave everybody confidence. when the petrels flew about his head and the storms dashed, he was astonishingly courageous. to-day, he sighed. in spite of the plebiscite, he seemed to think that we were beaten. i was astonished. i had always thought that we had one quality, at least, in common--we liked embarrassing situations. i soon discovered the reason for this apparent loss of nerve. 'would our government agree to take less than the three islands?' it was plain that the opposition, not always fair, was tiring him and brandès out; i could understand their position, and sympathise with their discouragement, but not feel it. 'to admit a new proposition on our part would be to interfere in the interior politics of denmark,' i said. 'the plebiscite was arranged on the question of the treaty; it meant the cession of all the danish islands or nothing.' the rigstag should not prepare such a change without making a new appeal to the country. i knew it was in the power of the rigstag to refuse to ratify the vote of the people. it would simply mean a delay of the decision if it did so. i would make no proposition to my government for a change in the treaty; if such a proposition was seriously made, i must step down and out at once. de scavenius approved of what i said. i believed that we would win, in spite of dire prophecies. on wednesday, december th, , the vote in the folkstag was taken; it stood,-- for the sale; against it. on december st, it stood, in the landstag, votes for the sale, and against it. ambassador gerard who had come to copenhagen again, was among the first to offer his congratulations. he was most cordial. the sale was a fact. 'just in time,' de scavenius said. just in time! the war cloud was about to burst, and the legation must prepare for it. the islands had hitherto cut off my view; i now saw a new world. chapter xii the beginning of and the end at the end of , the affair of the islands was practically settled. every now and then a newspaper put forth a rumour that brought up the question again. _copenhagen_, a journal which was very well written, announced as a secret just discovered, that the united states, even after congress had appropriated the $ , , for the sale of the islands, would not agree to accept them at once. this excited much discussion which, however, was soon stopped. it was remarkable how the fury and fire of the controversy disappeared. people seemed to forget all the hard names they had called one another. i forgave the _national news_, and later even attempted to get printing material for the paper from the united states. the need of printing material had become so great, that an attempt was made to print one edition in coal tar! the embargo was drastic. if the _national news_ had had a good case against me and interfered with the sale, perhaps i might not have been so forgiving; one's motives are always mixed. new difficulties were coming upon us, and i think that most of our diplomatic representatives knew that we were unprepared for them. since the opening of the war, we had been adjured to be neutral. that was sometimes hard enough. but, as it seemed inevitable that our country must be drawn into the war (though we were told that the popular air at home was 'i did not raise my boy to be a soldier') it seemed necessary to be prepared. captain totten--now colonel--our military attaché, urged 'preparedness' in season and out of season. the position of a minister who wants to be prepared for a coming conflict, but is obliged to act as if no contest were possible, is not an easy one. besides, through the departure of mr. francis hagerup, the norwegian minister, to stockholm, i had become dean of the diplomatic corps. i represented, when i went to court officially, the central powers as well as their enemies. 'you are atlas,' the king said, when i presented myself as dean for the first time; 'you bear all the powers of the world on your shoulders!' he regretted that the foreign ministers could not meet at a neutral court on occasions of ceremony. i think his majesty believed that the members of the diplomatic corps were in the position of the heralds of the elder time--exempt, at least outwardly, from all the hatreds developed by the war, and ready to look on the enemy of to-day as their friend of to-morrow. this is good diplomacy; i agreed with his majesty, but wondered whether, if his majesty's country was in the position of belgium, he would have instructed his minister to be polite to the representative of the invader. i had my doubts, for if there were ever a king passionately devoted to his country, it is king christian x. after the sinking of the _lusitania_, my position would have been terribly difficult, if my german and austrian colleagues had not acted in a way that made it possible for me to forget that i had said, on hearing of bernstorff's warning, 'the day after an american is killed without warning at sea, we will declare war!' it was undiplomatic; but i had said it to count rantzau, to prince wittgenstein, to count raben-levitzau, to prince waldemar, to the princes, to other persons, and, i think, at the foreign office. a very distinguished german had replied, in the true junker spirit, 'but your great government would not bring a war on itself for the sake of the lives of a few hundred _bourgeoisie_.' and, when i stood, foolish and confounded, recognising that the time had not come for our government to act, he said: 'you see you were wrong. your government is not so altruistic as you thought, nor so ready to bring new disasters on the world.' count rantzau always took a moderate tone. when in difficulty he could switch the conversation to a passage in the _memoirs_ of st. simon, or some other chronicle--a little frivolous--of the past. count szchenyi was hard hit--his brother-in-law, mr. vanderbilt, had perished among the _bourgeoisie_ on the _lusitania_; it was a subject to be avoided. prince von wittgenstein simply said that it was a pity that the _lusitania_ carried munitions of war, though they were not high explosives, but he made no excuses. it was evident that these gentlemen regretted the horrible crime. the few germans one met in society were inclined to blame what they called the stupidity of the captain of the steamship; they had the testimony of the hearing taken from the london _times_, at their finger ends, and they knew 'the name of the firm in lowell, massachusetts, whose ammunition had been exported on the _lusitania_.' their opinions i always heard at second-hand. a great danish lady, whose family the king of prussia and the present emperor had honoured, sent me from the country all the signed portraits of the kaiser, torn to pieces. 'i could not write,' she said afterwards at dinner, 'i could not say what i thought,--i had promised my husband to be silent,--but you know what i meant,' and she added in danish, 'damn little willie!' the only place in which representatives of the warring nations saw one another was in church, that is, in the church of st. ansgar; but count szchenyi and prince von wittgenstein were always so deeply engaged in prayer that they could not see the french minister or the belgian. the english church--one of the most beautiful in copenhagen--was frequented only by the english and a few americans, so the rector, the rev. dr. kennedy, was never troubled about the position of his pews, nor was the russian pope across the street from st. ansgar's. mr. francis hagerup had been a model dean. everybody trusted and respected him; it seemed a pity that he should go away from copenhagen, after such good service, without the usual testimonial from the diplomatic corps; but there were difficulties in the way. would sir henry lowther, the english, and baron de buxhoevenden, the russian minister, permit their names to go on a piece of plate with those of count brockdorff-rantzau and count szchenyi? count szchenyi, always kindness itself, had his eye on two silver vegetable dishes of the true danish-rosenborg type. he consulted me as the dean. i wanted mr. hagerup to have these beautiful things, and szchenyi seemed to think that the matter could be arranged. i agreed to get the signatures to the proposition, expressed in french, that the dishes should be bought from the court jeweller, the famous carl michelsen, who had designed them. i doubt whether any of the tiffanys have more foreign decorations than michelsen; it is worth while being a jeweller and an artist in denmark. the gift was to show the unusual honour to an unusual dean, offered by all the diplomatic corps in time of war. i had the opinion of the ladies sounded; they were all against it, especially one of the most intellectual ladies of the diplomatic corps, madame de buxhoevenden. she warned me that my attempt would be a failure. however, i sent the paper out, done in the most diplomatic french. hans, our messenger, asked for the ladies first. if they were at home, he waited for another day. after i had all the signatures and they were engraved on the dishes, the baroness de buxhoevenden bore down on me, warlike. 'quelle horreur,' she said. 'how did you get my husband's name?' 'when you were out!' i said. 'i think it disgraceful all the same, that my husband's name should appear on the same plate with those of the enemies of my country.' 'on the second plate, madame, the enemies' appear,' i answered,--'there are two!' hagerup was so touched when i took the plates to him that i saw tears in his eyes. the baroness de buxhoevenden remained very friendly to me, 'because,' she said, 'she loved my wife so much.' not long after, she died in russia, heartbroken. she had faced the inclemencies of the weather and the first outbreak of the revolution (she was a sane woman, an imperialist, but one who would have had imperialism reform itself, well-read and deeply religious) to see her daughter, the young baroness sophie, who was one of the maids of honour to the late czarina. this young lady was ill and imprisoned with the imperial family. she was the only child of the buxhoevendens--their son, a brave soldier, having died some years before. you can imagine the anxiety of the buxhoevendens when the unrestrained ferocity of the mob in petrograd broke out. madame de buxhoevenden could not see her daughter, though, thanks to the american ambassador, who never failed to do a kind thing for us in copenhagen, she managed to have a message from her. a lover of russia, like her husband, of order, of reason in government, she died. with all the russians i knew, love of country was a passion. they might differ among themselves. meyendorff might look on bibikoff as a 'clever boy' and smile amicably at his vagaries; bibikoff might declare that 'baron meyendorff had, as st. simon said of the regent d'orleans, all the talents, but the talent of using them'; but they were fervently devoted to russia. they were in a labyrinth, and, as at the time of the french revolution, everybody differed in opinion as to the best way out. it was from the russians i first heard of prince karl lichnowsky. i think it was meyendorff, who once said: 'the austrian ambassador to london and prince lichnowsky are such honest men that the prussians find it easy to deceive them into deceiving the english as to the designs of germany!' one great difficulty would have stood in the way, had i, as dean, been willing to accept the kindly hint of the king and attempt to arrange that all the corps should go as usual together at new years and on birthdays to court. there was the conduct of the german government to the french ambassador at the opening of the war. it was frightfully rude, even savage, and unprecedented. it shocked everybody. it will be difficult to explain it when relations between the belligerents are resumed again. it seems to be a minor matter, but it corroborated the variation of the old proverb,--'scratch a prussian and you find a hun.' the tale of the insults heaped on the french ambassador is a matter of record for all time. judge gerard has told his own story. the russian ladies coming out of berlin were treated no better than a group of cocottes driven from a city might have been. the condition of the russian ladies when they reached copenhagen was deplorable. they all possessed the inevitable string of pearls, which every russian young girl of the higher class receives before her marriage. these and the clothes they wore were all they were allowed to bring out of the super-civilised city of berlin. it did not prevent them from smiling a little at the plight of the old princess de ----, one of the haughtiest and richest of the noble ladies, who loved the baths of germany more than her compatriots approved of. her carefully dressed wig--never touched before except by the tender fingers of her two maids--was lifted off her head, while the german soldiers looked underneath it for secret documents! from all this it will be seen that, notwithstanding the politeness of the representatives of the central powers in copenhagen, it would have been impossible for the diplomatic corps to unite itself in the same room, even for a moment. everybody went to see mr. francis hagerup off; but this was at the railway station, where people were not obliged to seem conscious of one another's presence. this would have been impossible at court. social life in copenhagen has fixed traditions (very fixed, in spite of the democracy of the people); they make it delightful. society is all the better for fixed, artificial rules. they enable everybody to know his place and produce that ease that cannot exist where there is a constant expectancy of the unexpected; but they were not proof against the savagery which germany's action had indicated. when count szchenyi's mother died, his colleagues, disliking the action of his country as they did, sent messages of condolence privately, through me, then a 'neutral.' when madame de buxhoevenden died, deep sympathy was expressed by the diplomatists on the other side, but the utter disregard, on the part of the germans in berlin for the ordinary decencies of social life caused society in copenhagen to become resentful and cold and suspicious whenever a german appeared in a 'neutral' house. it seemed incredible that hatred should have so carried away those around the german emperor, who had formerly seemed only too anxious to observe the smallest social decencies, that the civilised world was willing to retort in kind. even in the convents, the german sisters were 'suspect,' and it took all the tact of the superiors to emphasise the fact that these ladies by their vows were bound to look on all with the eyes of christ. 'yes,' a belgian sister had answered, 'with the eyes he turned to the impenitent thief!' however, religious discipline is strong, and it is the business of those set apart from the world to overcome even their righteous anger. still, when i saw the expression on the face of the abbé de noë, who had been a papal zouave and was still at heart a french soldier, on a great festival, as he gave the kiss of peace to two german priests on the altar steps, i felt that the grace of god is compelled sometimes to run uphill! commercial transactions formed a great part of the work of the legation when great britain began seriously to restrain alien foreign trade and to put a firm hand on such neutrals as adopted the motto of some of the english merchants, before they were awakened, 'business as usual.' i am afraid that i gave little satisfaction; our instructions were not precise. that some of our great business people should have fallen into a panic after august ,--men of the highest ability, of the most scientific imagination, who foresaw contingencies to the verge of the impossible--seemed amazing. in conversation with some of these gentlemen as late as the spring of , when i had come home to deliver some lectures at harvard university, i was convinced that they knew what germany's aims were in the east. they were aware of the negotiations regarding the bagdad railway and the opposition which existed between german and russian claims. how long would germany be satisfied with the english and russian predominance? they discussed this. some of them had travelled much in germany; they were willing to admit that the balkan question could be settled only by war. in , secretary bryan seemed to be sure that no war cloud threatened. when i saw him early in that year, he was entirely absorbed in the mexican question and in extending the knowledge of the minutiæ of the sacred scriptures among american travellers in palestine. i had just opened my lips (having silently listened to the most delectable eloquence i have ever heard) to say that russia had begun to mobilise and that germany would be ready to pounce by september, when mr. john lind came in, and the secretary had attention for no other man. the affairs of europe faded. the germans, as far as i could see, had great hopes of a breakdown of the allies through treachery in the french government itself. from such private information as we could get, it seemed that they relied on treachery among the italians--especially among the 'reds.' there is a french lady who wore the pearls of the deutsche bank, whose husband they had bought, and there were others it was said. our means of getting private information was not great. we had no money for secret service or for organisation. when we went into the war, our legation had neither the offices nor the staff to meet the event. this was not the fault of the state department, but of the system on which it rests. it was necessary to have a decent official place in which to receive people, a place which was elegant and simple at the same time. this we had, but barely room enough for ordinary work. if a distinguished visitor came, he was ushered into the salon or the dining-room. if sir ralph paget, the british minister, came hurriedly on business a moment after count szchenyi arrived, he was shown into the dining-room, as the three offices were always full of people. after the war opened, the legation--a very elegant apartment, which i secured through the foresight of my predecessor, mr. t. i. o'brien--was often like a bit of scenery in a modern french farce, where people disappear behind all kinds of screens and curtains in order to avoid embarrassments. mr. allard, the belgian, to whom we were devoted, came one day by appointment, and almost met prince wittgenstein in the salon, while the turkish minister held the dining-room, confronted by lady paget, who was led off to mrs. egan's rooms on pretence of hearing a victrola which happened to have been lent to somebody a few days before. the state department would have permitted me to rent, on urgent request, a satisfactory place, but the coal bill would have amounted to three thousand dollars a year. as i had not recovered from the expenses of the entertainment of the atlantic squadron (they were small enough considering the pleasure the gentlemen of that squadron gave us) and other outlays, i felt that the coal bill would be too great, and even with the war cloud on the horizon, the state department was not in a position to give us a reasonable amount of money or the necessary rooms for a staff such as the british had been obliged to collect. the british government owned its own house, which answered the demands made on it. the fiery captain totten gave the legation no peace. we were not prepared; we knew it. it would have absorbed twenty thousand dollars to put us on an efficient basis. and our staff for the very delicate work must be specialists; one cannot pick up specialists for the salary paid to a secretary of legation or even to a minister. it is different to-day; the old system has broken down now. money is supplied, even to that most starved of all the branches of the service, the state department, where men, like ten i could name, work for salaries which a third rate bank clerk in new york would refuse--and poor men too! as things were, the legation did the best it could. the greatest difficulty was to get trustworthy information. what were the german military plans? what were the social conditions in germany? as to financial conditions, it was comparatively easy to secure information. the german financiers would never have consented to the war had they not scientifically analysed the situation. industrials, like herr ballin, counted on a short war; they had provided. we knew, too, that the military authorities, which overrode the civil, believed that the foreign office could manage to ameliorate the consequences of their insolence and arrogance. it was strange that these very military authorities thought that the united states would not fight under any circumstances, for they had voluminous reports in their archives on the details of our military position. our government had always been generous in giving information to foreign military attachés. in fact, a german officer once boasted to me that his war office had filed the secrets of every military establishment in the world, except the japanese. that we were despised for our inaction was plain; americans were treated with contempt by certain austrian officials, until some enterprising newspaper announced that a great army of american students had made a hostile demonstration in new york against germany! a change took place at once; even in france, it was believed that the united states would make only a commercial war. i remember that the vicomte de faramond, who deserves the credit of having unveiled prussian schemes before many of his brother diplomatists even guessed at them, asked me anxiously, 'you _must_ fight, but is it true that it will be only a commercial war? i think, if i know america, that you will fight with bayonets.' he has an american wife. ambassador gerard was quietly warning americans to leave berlin; and yet we were 'neutral,' and the german government believed that we would remain neutral at least in appearance. no german seemed to believe that we were neutral at heart, though there were those among the expatriated who held that we ought to be, in spite of the _lusitania_ and our traditions. one of the puzzles of this was (every american in copenhagen tried to solve it) the effect that a long residence in germany had on americans. 'i sometimes read the english papers,' said one of these; 'i try to be fair, but i am shocked by their calumnies. the kaiser loves the united states; he has said it over and over again to americans, and yet you will not believe it.' 'belgium!' 'oh, the germans have made a fruitful and orderly country out of belgium.' this kind of american helped to deceive the germans into the belief that our patience would endure all the insults of cataline. there was very little opportunity to compare notes with my colleagues in sweden and norway. they were busy men. i fancy mr. morris's real martyrdom did not begin in sweden until after easter sunday, . mr. schmedeman doubtless had his when the rigours of the embargo struck norway; but for me, the worst time was when we were 'neutral'! as to the german foreign office, why should it listen to the warnings of our ambassador, in november, who might be recalled by a change of administration in march? six months before election, no american envoy has any real influence at the foreign office with which he deals. the chances are that the policy of the last four years will be reversed by the election in november. up to the last moment, as far as i could see, the foreign office in berlin believed that the growing warlike democratic attitude would be softened by the new administration, which, it was informed, would not dare to make colonel roosevelt secretary of state. 'secretary of state,' an austrian said, 'how could an ex-president condescend to become secretary of state. one might as well expect a deposed pope to become grand electeur!' previous to november th, , the day of the presidential election, our situation was looked on by all the diplomatists and all the foreign offices as fluid. it might run one way or the other. there was a widely diffused opinion in denmark that, as president wilson had been elected on a peace platform for his first term, germany might go as far as she liked without drawing the united states into the conflict. in berlin, in high circles, the election of mr. hughes was considered certain. he was supposed to represent capital, and capital would think twice before burning up values. the kaiser had given colonel roosevelt up; 'sa conduite est une grande illusion pour notre empereur,' count brockdorff-rantzau had said. i learned from berlin that the ex-president had been approached by a representative of the kaiser of sufficient rank, who had reminded colonel roosevelt of the honours the kaiser had showered upon him during his european tour. 'i was also well received by the king of the belgians,' colonel roosevelt answered. 'c'est une grande illusion,' count brockdorff-rantzau repeated, more in sorrow than in anger. 'the emperor did not think that the ex-president would turn against him!' until election day, every american diplomatist in europe merely marked time. he represented a government which was without power for the time being. an expatriated irish-american came in to sound us as to the prospects. 'president wilson will have a second term,' i said; 'the west is with him, and mr. hughes's speeches are not striking at the heart of the people.' 'he is pro-english, god forbid!' he said. 'wilson means war!' 'we may have, on the other hand, colonel roosevelt as secretary of state for war.' 'god forbid!' he said. he had stepped between two stools; he still lives in germany--a man without a country. we were still 'neutral,' and the election was some months off. count rantzau saw the danger which the military party was courting. he was too discreet to make confidential remarks which i would at once repeat to my government; he knew, of course, that i would not repeat them to my colleagues, who never, however, asked me what he said to me. he was equally tactful, but we saw that he was exceedingly nervous about the outcome of the u-boat aggression. it was worth while to know his attitude, for he represented much that was really important in germany. he began to be more nervous, and many things he said, which i cannot repeat, indicated that the military party was running amuck. he was always decent to americans, and he was shocked when he found that his _laissez passer_, which i obtained from him for the hon. d. i. murphy and his wife to pursue their journey to holland, was treated as 'a scrap of paper.' mr. murphy had not received the corroborative military pass, which one of my secretaries had obtained at the proper office, consequently mrs. murphy was treated shamefully at the german frontier. i remonstrated, of course, but it was evident that the military authorities had orders to treat all civil officials as inferiors. miss boyle o'reilly had a much worse experience at the frontier. her papers had been taken from her boxes at a hotel in copenhagen, carefully examined, and put back. miss o'reilly had had many thrilling experiences (people imitated desdemona--and loved her for the dangers she had passed through) but like most of her compatriots she could not be induced to disguise her opinions or to really believe that there were spies everywhere. being a bostonian, she could not say 'damn,' but she never used the name of the kaiser without attaching to it, with an air of perfect neutrality, the back bay equivalent for that dreadful adjective. she made a great success in copenhagen. her magnificent lace, presented to her by an uncle who had been a chamberlain to cardinal rampolla, was extravagantly admired at the dinner mrs. egan gave for her. miss o'reilly, according to some of the experts present, had reason to be proud of it. after the adventure of the note books at the hotel, it was almost hopeless to imagine that miss boyle o'reilly would be allowed to cross the frontier, in spite of her passport and the courtesy of the german legation. she was undaunted as any other daughter of the gods. she tried it, and came back, not very gently propelled, but with the calm contentment of one who had said what she thought to various official persons on the frontier. we were glad to get her back on any terms. people asked for invitations to meet her; we were compelled to adopt her as a daughter of the house to retain her. the experts in lace were horrified to find that the vulgar creatures at the frontier--smelling of sausage and beer--had injured the precious texture. they seemed to have thought that its threads were barbed wire. we protested; miss boyle o'reilly demanded damages. ambassador gerard seemed to be impressed by the fact that the lace had been part of a surplice of the late cardinal rampolla's. we made this very plain, but the german authorities took it very lightly; they were so frivolous, so lacking in tact and justice, that miss boyle o'reilly became more 'neutral' than ever. in spite of count rantzau's courtesy, we were having constant trouble at the frontier. every dane who had relatives in the united states expected us to protest against the rigidity of the search. 'i did not mind when they took all my letters; but when they rubbed me with lemon juice to bring out secret writing, i said it was too much'; said one of these ladies, who had to be escorted to her own foreign office. mrs. william c. bullitt, just married, had to be coached into 'neutrality.' 'good gracious! i always say what i think,' she remarked, declaring that, of course, the german, his serene highness she was to go into dinner with, must see how wrong the belgian business was! mr. and mrs. bullitt had some trouble at the frontier, but her diary, uncensored, came over safe for our delight. the spanish minister, aguera, who had lately been superseded by his brother, had his own troubles, which, however, he wore very lightly. he was as neutral as his temperament, which was rather positive, allowed him to be. when he left to be promoted, the pro-germans enthusiastically announced that the german government had complained of him to madrid. the cause of the war, it was generally conceded, was the question of the way to the near east and the control of the east. now that germany had practically all of the bagdad railway and more than that, a clear way to the persian gulf, would she cut short the war, if she could? count rantzau, without explicitly admitting that his country's chief aim had been accomplished, said yes. the great desire of his nation was for peace. the u-boat war was only a means of forcing peace. 'we do not want to crush england! heaven forbid!' said count szchenyi, 'but we tolerate the u-boat war only as an instrument for obliging england to make peace. peace,' he said, 'we must have peace or all the world will be in anarchy,' i do not think he 'accepted' the u-boat war, except diplomatically. another distinguished representative of one of the central powers, making a flying visit, said, first assuming that the 'north american' and english interests were identical--'peace may bring germany and england close together. we are too powerful to be kept apart. with germany ruler of the land of the world, and england of the sea,--what glory might we not expect!' 'if the allies do not accept the chancellor's peace note, i give them up!' cried szchenyi. 'people talk democracy and the need of it among us! why, hungary is verging on a democracy of which you americans, with your growing social distinctions, have no conception of. what we want is peace, to save the world!' when the new emperor karl ascended the austro-hungarian throne, szchenyi, whose ideas were more liberal than some of the old régime liked, became a prime favourite at court, and was removed to the foreign office. before the fall of russia, it was generally conceded that germany, in holding turkey and bulgaria, had gained her main purpose. both of these countries hated her in their hearts. we had proof of this. what more did she want? only peace on her own terms, perhaps slightly modified, owing to the hardness of the hearts of the english; if she could gain england, she could deal with france and easily with russia. before the czar abdicated, it was understood in diplomatic circles that germany believed it was time to stop. while there was no immediate danger of starvation in germany, there was great inconvenience. moreover, the great commercial position of germany was each day that prolonged the war melting like ice on summer seas; and a short war had been promised to the german nation. parties in germany were divided as to indemnities and the retention of belgium. antwerp was as a cannon levelled at the breast of england (hamburg had good reason for not wanting antwerp retained as a rival city in german territory); but the way to the persian gulf, the submission of bulgaria and turkey, the possession of the key to the balkans, the near east, meant the confusion of the english in india. the germans were ready to oust the english from their place in the sun! it was plain that the diplomatists, at least, looked on the alsace-lorraine question as of small importance in comparison. alsace-lorraine, as bismarck admitted, had nothing to do with national glory. it was a proposition of iron and potash. as to italy, 'we must always live on good terms with such a dangerous neighbour,' said the austrians. 'prussia would throw us over to-morrow for any advantage in the east. if she could hamstring the slavs, we might appeal in vain against her destroying our scraps of paper!' we knew that the austrian distrust of prussia never slept. but austria and germany were absolute monarchies--against the world. it was the general belief that rumania would not be drawn into the war. the swedish legation at rome seemed to be of a different opinion. it was noted for the accuracy of its information, but this time we doubted. as observers, it seemed incredible to us in copenhagen, that she should be allowed to sacrifice herself; but the rumours from rome persisted. one well-known british diplomatist, sir henry lowther, formerly the british minister at copenhagen, had never wavered in his doubts as to the solidarity of russia. at the beginning of the war, he had said, to my astonishment, 'our great weakness is russia; if you do not come in and offset it, i fear greatly.' events proved that he was right. for those of the diplomatic corps who came in contact with people from the near east, or with the turkish diplomatists, the great question was--the designs of germany in the east. one of the advantages of diplomatic life is that one comes in contact with the most interesting people. in spite of a determination to follow all the rules of the protocol as closely as possible terence's announcement, through the lips of chremes, was good enough for me,--'homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto,' and consequently, i made profit out of good talk wherever i found it. i saw too little of dr. morris jastrow, of the university of pennsylvania, in , when he came to copenhagen with a group of distinguished orientalists; but one of his sentences remained in my mind (i quote from memory), 'the crucial question, and a terrible answer it may be when germany gives it to the world, is, who shall control bulgaria and serbia and constantinople. settle the matter of the road to the east, so that germany and austria may not join in monopolising it, and then, we can begin to talk of a tranquil europe.' much later, i had a long talk with rudolph slatin, who had been a close friend of king edward's, and who knew the east. he had had too many favours from england to be willing to take arms against her; he was austrian, but not pro-prussian. his views were not exactly those of dr. jastrow's, as dr. jastrow afterwards expressed them,[ ] but one could read between the lines. the eastern route was the real core of the war. russia knew this when she began to make preparations for mobilisation in the early spring of . all the turks i met, including the two ministers, confirmed this. [ ] in _the war and the bagdad railway_. j. b. lippincott & co. lady paget, the wife of the british minister, who came to copenhagen in , knew more of the inside history of the war in the balkans than the _soi-disant_ experts who talked. she seldom talked; but the serbians, who adored her, did not hesitate to sing the praises of her knowledge and of her efforts to save them. to her very few intimates it was plain that she, as well as her husband, looked on the balkans as the key to the cause of the war. the serbians that i knew, men of all classes, said that, if lady paget had been listened to, serbia would have been saved to herself and the allies. whether this was true or not, the serbians believed it. the missionaries driven out of turkey who came to the legation were full of the eastern situation, and the wrongs of the armenians. the stories of the missionaries, driven out, made one feel that germany was paying--even from the point of view of her longed-for conquest--too high a price for the possession of turkey. the turkish ministers were more french than german in their sympathies, but to them the armenians were deadly parasites. they looked on them as the russian yunker looked on the lower class of jews. miss patrick of roberts college, passed our way. she was ardent, sincere, naturally diplomatic,--discreet is a better word. but one could see that the turks and the balkan peoples, whatever might be their difference of opinion, or their own desire for territory, felt that the german control meant the closing of the steel fist upon them. the young turks believed that they could hold the dardanelles, when they once turned the germans out, and that turkey might be the land of the turks. to attain this, they did not fail to appeal to all the bigotry of the moslem. one could see that serbia despaired of the allies, that the bulgarians believed that their untenable position was due to the intrigues of czar ferdinand and to the blundering of these same allies. america was a land of promise, the hope of freedom; but america seemed too far off. the balkans peoples felt that even america, had, while conserving her democracy at home, cared little for the rights of the people abroad. this feeling existed in all the neutral nations. a graduate of roberts college with whom i had talked of our interest in the small nations, smiled. 'the attitude of your country to the smaller nations reminds me of a famous speech of the author of _utopia_ when one of his household congratulated him on henry viii.'s putting his arms about the chancellor's neck. 'if the king's grace could gain a castle in france by giving up my head, off it would go.' i did not dream, in january , how soon we should begin to 'make the world safe for democracy.' mr. vopika, our minister to rumania, came on the way home from bucharest about this time. he was full of interesting information, and very cheerful, though practically imprisoned in copenhagen, as no boats were running. more and more it became plain that russia was breaking, and that germany would soon be lifted from that doubt which had begun to worry her statesmen. there was talk of the grand rabbi going to washington as ambassador, which seemed to infuriate the young turkish party. aaronshon, the expert for the jewish agricultural society in palestine, came; a wonderful man, capable of great things, and shrewd beyond the power of words to express. he did not deny that the turkish crown prince had been shot, having first fired at enver pasha. harold al raschid is a novice to him in his knowledge of eastern things that western diplomatists ought to know. from all sources came the corroboration of the fact that, once sure of russia, with the slavs in her grasp, germany held, in her own opinion, the keys to the world. opinions differed as to whether she was starving or not. rumania had helped her with oil and perhaps coal. the chinese minister at berlin said that she could hold out longer than china could in similar circumstances, as his citizens would be compelled to reduce themselves to less than two meals, and the germans were coming down from four! we know on the authority of the actor in the episode that he had paid twenty marks in a restaurant in berlin for a portion of roast fowl; it was tough, and he laid down his knife and fork in despair, when two ladies, at a table near him, politely asked if they might take it! rumours, very disturbing, as to the conditions of russia, came to us from all sides. our neighbour, prince valdemar, looked disturbed when one asked as to the health of the empress dowager, who had been most kind to my daughter, carmel. he seemed to think that she would be safe, though i heard him say that a revolution seemed inevitable. the forcible and insolent 'conversations' on the part of germany with norway--shortly before october th, , she had actually threatened war--had ceased for the moment. mr. angel carot, the french journalist, who was correspondent of the petrograd press, had reported on good authority that the germans were preparing a descent on jutland. vicomte de faramond seemed to think that the rumour was well founded. 'we know the point of view that the berlin foreign office has; count rantzau represents it,' said mr. de scavenius, 'but who can not tell from day to day what the general staff will do?' the general staff kept its secrets. poland was in a frightful condition. the germans were not only impoverishing the landed proprietors, but seizing their cattle and forcing their farm people into the army. a pole fighting for german autocracy was in as pitiable position as a slesviger fighting for the enslaving of his own land. the poles were not inclined toward a republic, but there was not one of their noble families from whom they would draw a constitutional king. a son of the austrian grand duke stefan, who was popular in poland, was much spoken of. i felt that i ought to be flattered when a polish prince and princess came, well introduced, to lay the plan before me, as a diplomatist who might assist in making a royal marriage! i concealed my surprise; but it was delightful to hear of my 'relations avec des grandes personnes dans toutes les chancelleries du monde.' and what a pleasure to hear, 'we know that even the quirinal and the vatican, etc. you who are three times minister of the united states.' the 'three times minister of the united states' puzzled me at first; then i remembered that one of the german papers, i think it was _die woche_, had said the same thing, meaning that i had served under three presidents. our polish guests were willing, under the circumstances, to approve of the marriage with archduke stefan's son, provided a catholic princess, of liberal political views, could be found. to have a german princess forced on them would mean new disturbances,--revolts, dissatisfaction. there was perhaps the princess margaret of denmark, who had every quality, they understood, to make an ideal queen of poland. 'every quality,' i agreed, 'to make a man happy--but it must be the right man.' i knew that prince valdemar, who had refused balkan thrones, was not desirous of marrying his daughter to a prince 'simply because he was a prince.' would i sound his royal highness? 'i know,' i answered, 'that prince valdemar believes in happy marriages, not in brilliant ones. in fact, i had heard him say that he did not want denmark to be looked on only as an arsenal for the making of crowns.' the prince and princess went on their way, to consult more influential persons. they would not have welcomed a republic; in february the german grip was strong in poland, and a danish princess, the daughter of a french mother, seemed to offer them hope in the gloom. the fears of the austrians, of the russians, of the poles, of the bulgarians that, if the war continued, anarchy must ensue, were not concealed. the polish prince and princess believed that russia would have a change of government, but this change, they thought, would be brought about by a 'palace revolution,' for petrograd was the centre of intrigues. the british minister was accused of working in the interests of the grand duke nicholas; the german propaganda, as far as we could discover, was for the practical application of 'divide and conquer.' baron de meyendorff, whose cheerfulness was as proverbial as his discretion, was uneasy; but as, unlike his chief, baron de buxhoevenden, he belonged to the more liberal party, this was taken as a sign that he was uncertain whether the new elements in russian political life would develop in an orderly way or not. baron de buxhoevenden, the most calm, the most self-controlled of all my colleagues, was unusually silent; his wife, than whom russia had no more intelligent and patriotic woman in her borders, had said that the war would either break or make russia. 'the russian people,' she said, 'since the beginning of the war, are better fed than they ever were. the suppression of _vodka_ has enabled them to pay their taxes and to begin to get rid of the parasites who prey on thoughtless drunkards. their prosperity will either induce them to rebel against their rulers, or to accept the government because of their improved conditions.' 'but why are they better fed?' i had asked. 'we are exporting nothing. the russian peasant eats the food he raises. butter is no longer a luxury. i have hopes for russia--and fears.' her fears were justified. the murder of rasputin called attention to the dissensions in the russian court. admiring the empress dowager, as everybody in the court circle did, it seemed amazing that her son, of whom we knew little, should have permitted this peasant to acquire such influence over his wife. there were fashionable ladies who knelt to this strange apostle of the occult, who kissed his hands with fervour. but murder was murder, and coming not so long after the killing of the crown prince of turkey, it gave the impression that the oriental point of view as to the value of human life existed in both countries. as time went on, russia occupied our vision more and more. in spite of the revelations that have been made, revelations which show that the only secrets are those buried with men who have found it to their honour or interest to keep them--the details of the reasons which caused russia to mobilise in july are not fully known. how the russians gained their information of the intentions of germany in their regard is very well known. the most clever of russian spies was always in the confidence of the kaiser; he paid for his knowledge with his life. as days passed, it became evident that the royal couple in russia were being gradually isolated. calumnies almost as evil and quite as baseless against the tsarina as those published about marie antoinette were freely circulated. to review here this campaign of malice is not necessary. there were no chivalrous swords ready to leap from the scabbards for her. the age of chivalry seemed indeed dead. the poor lady was not even picturesque, whereas her brilliant mother-in-law, dagmar of denmark, was still beautiful and picturesque; she was imperial, but then she understood what democracy meant. it is said that she believed that, if her son had appeared in his uniform on horseback, surrounded by a staff of men who represented traditions, the revolution would not have begun. neither the tsar not the tsarina understood what tradition meant to the russian mind. the empress was a german at heart,--an overfond and superstitious mother. good women have never made successful rulers, as a rather cynical russian said to me, _à propos_ of the empress catherine. the nobility disliked her because she kept aloof from them. the glitter and the pomp of court life which the russian aristocracy loved, the consideration which monarchs are expected to show for the social predilections of their subjects were disregarded by her. living in perpetual fear, her nerves were shattered. all her interests centred in her family and in the unbending conviction of a german princess that the divine right of kings is a dogma. she was as incapable of understanding that there were powers in the nation which could destroy as was marie antoinette before she met destruction. we understood at copenhagen that she looked on all the acts of the emperor that were not autocratic as weak; members of the duma must be subservient and grateful; otherwise, it was the duty of the tsar to treat them with the severity they deserved. the concessions, which, if granted earlier would have saved the emperor, were very moderate--merely a responsible ministry and a constitution. the tsar, under the influence of the empress, the reactionary protopopoff and the little clique of exclusives, who had forgotten everything valuable and learned nothing new, refused to grasp these ropes of salvation. the strength of the grand duke nicholas-michailovitch amazed and disconcerted this clique. 'if,' said one of the elderly russian gentlemen we knew, 'he is not exiled, he will try to be president of all the russias one day!' the emperess dowager was distrusted by the party around the empress. the empress dowager believed in prosecuting the war, for she knew that russia could only follow her destiny happily freed from german control. from february until march, , russia continued to be the one subject of discussion in diplomatic circles. it was the general opinion that the empress was the great obstacle to the emperor's giving a liberal constitution to his people. the danish court, though the emperor william had accused it of indiscretion, was silent. prince valdemar, who was, like all the sons and daughters of king christian ix., devoted to the dowager empress, was plainly uneasy. we all knew that his sympathies were with the liberal party and against the pro-german and absolutist clique. 'the russian people have endured much,' he said on march th, the day on which the news of the tsar's abdication arrived; and, afterwards,--'thank god--so far it has been almost a bloodless revolution.' 'why,' asked the devout danish conservative, who believed that kings were still all-powerful, 'why does not king george of england help his cousin?' it was only too plain that in spite of all warnings, 'his cousin' had put himself beyond all human help. the russian soldiers calmly doffed their caps and said 'i will go home for my part of the land!' the condition of petrograd was such that chaos had come again. to save the lives of the tsar and tsarina, kerensky insisted that capital punishment should be abolished. count christian holstein-ledreborg, fresh from russia, reported that at the soldiers' meeting in the banquet room of the winter palace, speakers imposed silence by shooting at the ceiling! there was an attempt on the part of the new democrats to have prostitution, hitherto the luxury of the rich, put within the reach of all. russia had gone out of the war; it was surely time for us to go in. on april , , i informed the foreign office that the president at congress had declared us in a state of war with germany. further patience would have been a crime. from that day the legation took on a new aspect. our decks were cleared for observation and action. mr. cleveland perkins, who had courageously assumed the duties of the secretary of legation although relieved by a secretary, had new and difficult duties thrust upon him, to which he was fully equal. mr. seymour beach conger and mr. john covington knapp were invaluable. no words of mine can express my sense of their self-sacrificing patriotism. mr. groeninger did three men's work and captain totten kept us all up to the mark by his fiery and persistent enthusiasm. no great dinners now! even if we had been in the mood, fire and food had become too scarce. mr. conger did a most important service; he looked after the crowds of late comers from germany, and discovered what light they could throw on german conditions. the state department came to the rescue of our staff, which was few but fit; mr. grant-smith was sent from washington, with instructions to spend all the money that was necessary. he made a complete organisation, and i, struck heavily in health, laid down my task regretfully, leaving it in hands more competent under the changed circumstances. there is no use in hiding the fact that, even before russia broke, we who feared the triumph of germany had many dark days; but there was never a time when my colleagues of the allies despaired. how mr. allart, our belgian colleague, lived through it, i do not know! the danes stood by him manfully, and he never lacked the sympathy of his colleagues; but he suffered. 'the moment that england is seriously inconvenienced,' a german professor of psychology had said, 'she will give in.' we know how false this was. the race, pronounced degenerate, whose fibre was supposed to be eaten up with an inordinate love of sport, showed bravery to the backbone when it awakened to the real issues of the war. the upper classes of the english were splendid beyond words. their sacrifices were terrible in the beginning, but their example told; and long before the crash of russia came, there was no question of 'business as usual.' the british nation had realised that it was fighting, not only for its life, but for the principle on which its life is based. yet the victory was by no means sure. 'the empire may go down under the assaults of the huns--let it go rather than that we should make a single compromise,' said sir ralph paget. mr. gurney, colonel wade, and all the staunch men connected with his legation, echoed his words. mr. wells, the novelist preacher, may say what he will of the failure of english education, but it has produced men of a quality which all the men can understand and admire.[ ] as to the french, they, too, had their sober hours, and the saddest was caused, perhaps, by the dread that we had forgotten what the war was for; such soldiers as they were!--captain de courcel and baron taylor, suffering from wounds, and yet counting every hour with pain that kept them from their duty. but we came in none too soon; from my point of view, it is unreasonable to believe that the apparent disintegration of germany and austria was the cause of our victory. the cause of it was the increase of man power on the western front. in copenhagen, our best military experts said, 'if the united states can be ready in time to supply the losses of the french and english; if your aviators can get to work, victory is assured.' these experts feared that we would be too slow, and there were dark, very dark, days in and . [ ] of all the many young men i knew in england and ireland, most of them the sons or grandsons of old friends, there are only three alive; two of them, the sons of mr. thomas p. gill, of the irish technical and agricultural board, have been made invalids in the war. president wilson's ideals were, in the beginning, looked on as doctrinaire--breezes from the groves of the academies. some of the elders and scribes of europe, adept in the methods that nullified the good intentions of the hague conferences, looked on his explanation of the aims of the conflict as the courtiers of louis xiv. might have contemplated the pages of chateaubriand's _genius of christianity_, if chateaubriand had lived at port royal in the time of those cynics; but the people in all the scandinavian countries took to them as the expression of their aspirations. the chancelleries of europe heard a new voice with a new note, but the people did not find it new. president wilson found himself, when he gave the reasons of our country for entering the war, interpreting the meaning of the people. until he spoke the war seemed to mean the saving of the territory of one nation, or the regaining it for another, or the existence of a nation's life. standing out of the european miasma, with nothing to gain except the fulfilment of our ideals, and all to lose if there were to be losses of life and material, we gave a meaning to the war,--a new meaning which had been obscured. nevertheless, let us not forget that germany has not changed her ideals; all the forces of the civilised world have not succeeded in changing them. of democracy, in the american sense of the word, she has no more understanding than russia--nor at present does she really want to have. to a certain extent she conquered us. she obliged us to adopt her methods of warfare; to imitate her system of espionage; to co-ordinate, for the moment at least, all the functions of national life under a system as centralised as her own. if she gave temperance to russia, an army to england, religion to france, she almost succeeded in depriving our western hemisphere of its faith in god. her efficiency was so expensive that it was making her bankrupt; she was paying too much for her perfection of method. to justify it in the eyes of her own people she went to war. france was to pay her debts and russia to be the way of an inexpensive road to the east. her methods in peace cost her too much; a short war would save her credit. to our regret, perhaps remorse, we have been forced by her to fight her devil with his own fire; and now we hope for a process of reconstruction in this great and populous country based on our own ideals; but we cannot change the aspirations or the hearts of the germans. we can only take care that they keep the laws made by nations who have well-directed consciences,--this lesson i have learned near to their border. the end printed by t. and a. constable, printers to his majesty at the edinburgh university press transcriber's notes: --obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. --because of the large tables in this book, it is recommended the use of a monospaced font. --there are two sun symbols (a circle with a dot in the middle) in the caption of illustration at page and page . they are noted as sun symbol]. --bold text is enclosed in equal signs: =bold text=. across iceland [illustration: the camp at hveravellir.] across iceland by w. bisiker, f.r.g.s. with illustrations and maps and an appendix by a. w. hill, m.a., on the plants collected london edward arnold publisher to the india office _all rights reserved_ contents chapter i page the party chapter ii the faroes chapter iii the fjords chapter iv across the northern inhabited fringe chapter v the interior--to hveravellir chapter vi the interior--strytur and its lava chapter vii the interior--kerlingarfjÖll chapter viii the interior--hvitarvatn and gullfoss chapter ix geysir and thingvellir chapter x the capital--reykjavik chapter xi in the west--to reykholt chapter xii barnafoss and the surtshellir caves chapter xiii gilsbakki to statharhraun chapter xiv to eldborg and helgafell chapter xv stykkisholm and berserkjahraun chapter xvi the north-west peninsula chapter xvii the northern fjords chapter xviii across country from akureyri to husavik chapter xix the eastern fjords appendix i.--on the plants collected appendix ii.--list of the plants index of places list of illustrations the camp at hveravellir _frontispiece_ page in thorshavn (faroes) the waterfall, seythisfjord pack-saddle and boxes akureyri at midnight the spit at oddeyri the oxnadalsá cutting through a hard dyke moraine accumulations and cloud-effects at thverá the wrecked plane-table the northrá saddling up crossing the herradsvötn silfrastathr church. asleep at midnight crossing a small snow slope hveravellir--the sinter terraces a volcanic vent of the fissure type a survey photograph (no. ) from gránanes a survey photograph (no. ) looking towards kerlingarfjöll ascending a snow slope kerlingarfjöll--fire and ice immense "erratics" the pack-train crossing the hvitá a fine gorge in the side of bláfell gullfoss--front view with "rainbow" effect gullfoss--side view gullfoss--the upper fall gullfoss--the fall into the ravine gullfoss--the ravine below the falls below gullfoss--castellated dykes the sinter ring of geysir the funnel or crater of geysir almanna-gjá--in the rift near the waterfall glaciated lava surface near thingvellir the business end of reykjavik by the governor's house reykjavik--interior of the cathedral thorlakur and his wife and children at his farm-house the thyrill mountains miss hastie trout-fishing typical icelandic farmers a forest near barnafoss the cascades at barnafoss the northingafljot cutting across the lava the double depression in the lava at the entrance to the surtshellir caves in the surtshellir caves near the entrance, showing the water-worn lines surtshellir--the icicle cave a lava arch ropy lava at barnafoss hannes and the farmer in consultation small vent cones hannes and jón loading up a pony the columnar basalt island, sugandisey the berserkers' road through the lava-field a basalt mountain cone due to erosion a "glorified" shadow on the fog over veithileysa lava pillars near nes uxahver geyser in eruption bathstovukver geyser in eruption the procession at seythisfjord seythisfjord--on the outskirts of the crowd round the monument farewell faroese! list of maps central iceland--plane-table survey by the author _to face page_ author's route near statharhraun _page_ author's route--akureyri to husavik " map of iceland to illustrate the author's route _at end_ chapter i the party these notes, besides describing a journey made during the summer of across central iceland from the north-east to the south-west, give an account of further travels by land in the west, and by sea along the coast and into the fjords of the north-west, north and east coasts. the voyage to iceland was made in one of the vessels owned by the united steamship company, a danish company trading from copenhagen to leith, and thence to the faroes and iceland. we were six in all--a semi-scientific party. there was miss j. a. hastie, a woman who has travelled much in europe, asia, africa, and america, and who is not unacquainted with our colonies at the antipodes, or with the islands of the south seas. she was specially interested in the botany of the country, in its folklore, and in the people. then there was captain w. h. cope; he had been at sea for the greater part of his life, and had in the course of his journeyings seen much of the world; he was our nautical adviser, and we referred to him in matters connected with the sea. w. glen, miss hastie's cousin, was known as the "handy man" of the party. if anybody was in difficulties, glen was always on the spot to lend a helping hand. he produced all sorts of things at the right moment. did any one require a screw-driver, then glen had it; want a corkscrew, glen could supply it; a pair of scissors, he produced them--some string, a strap, it was all the same. if a camera struck work, glen could render the strike ineffective, for he carried two, and could lend one without interfering with his own photographic work. a. w. hill, of king's college, cambridge, was our botanist--who describes what he saw. h. h. thomas, of balliol, paid special attention to the geological formation of the country that we traversed, and he was frequently to be seen, camera in hand, taking shots at interesting formations--a glaciated lava surface, a volcanic vent, or an immense "erratic" boulder or "perched block," for instance; he also sketched industriously, and sometimes paced the ground compass in hand in order that he might record in his note-book the direction of a line of fissure, or the position of hot springs along that line; or something else of interest to geologists in particular. i was the geographer, whose mission it was to make a map of a small portion of the country traversed, to get a general idea of its conformation, and to note valleys and mountains, ice-fields and snow slopes, lava flows and hot springs, mighty rivers and tiny rivulets. i undertook to chronicle the events of the journey and to "take shots"--photographic shots--at men and things. we were all more or less devoted to sport, and frequently the desire to kill took possession of us, especially when we caught sight of duck, grouse, or golden plover--or, when we came to stream or river where trout or salmon were known to abound, we had a desire to cast a fly. but it was maddening to know that our desires could not be gratified, for where were gun and cartridges, rod and line? the man who had undertaken to look after that branch of our preliminary arrangements had failed us at the last moment, and it was not till too late, when we were embarking at leith, that we learned that he was not coming with us. it was not his fault, poor fellow, but his misfortune. he had come a cropper from his bicycle, falling on his head, had remained unconscious for more than twelve hours, and had been forbidden by his medical advisers to travel--all this we knew nothing of until we were embarking at leith, when it was altogether too late to procure another sporting outfit to replace that which we had fondly believed to be already on board ship, but which was really lying many miles away, far beyond our reach. but i will hasten over a subject that awakens the most tantalising of recollections, for many were the opportunities that were missed. one saturday in june we embarked upon the steam-ship _ceres_, and early in the afternoon set sail from leith on our voyage north. all the morning the weather had been fine, and it promised to continue so before we started, but we had scarcely reached the open sea before we entered a fog, which increased in denseness as we progressed. as a consequence the steam-whistle was sounded every few minutes, much to the discomfiture of many of the passengers on board; but miss hastie seemed to rise above such petty annoyances, for she took her seat on deck immediately beneath the whistle, and this spot was her resort during the whole voyage, notwithstanding the fact that the fog continued at intervals for the greater part of the journey, and that the steam-whistle frequently made day hideous with its noise. conversation with her when the fog was densest was difficult, for it was punctuated--very incorrectly as a rule--by the shrill blasts that broke in suddenly and without warning, often causing the thread of a discourse to be lost, or an interrupted remark to fall flat on being completed, or perhaps repeated, when silence once more reigned. as a result of the fog we proceeded at half speed only, and during the night the whistle was most aggressive, causing one's slumbers to be somewhat broken. in my own case the steam-whistle was not the only disturbing influence at night, for my cabin companion had a noisy way of enjoying the repose of the just, and often the intervals between the blasts were filled in with sounds that resembled the rumbling of thunder, and not very distant thunder either. the second day out was a repetition of the first as regards fog, progress made, shrill whistling, etc. the vessel glided on slowly and smoothly, and we employed the time, when not eating and drinking, in the way usual at sea--by reading, chatting with our fellow-passengers, and comparing notes of former travels, varied now and then by a "rubber," or a stroll on deck for exercise. meals were served at the following hours: a.m., coffee and rusks; a.m., breakfast; p.m., dinner--the chief meal of the day; p.m., supper. at breakfast and supper there were many dishes of smoked, uncooked food--fish, meats, sausages, etc.; but the members of our party did not take very kindly to these uncooked delicacies, and they were left for those who relished them--the danes, germans, and passengers of other nationalities, of whom there were many on board. the fog cleared in the evening and the south ronaldshay light was sighted. several members of our party looked with no little interest at the headland, especially our nautical adviser, captain cope, for he had had a very unpleasant and dangerous experience thereabouts only two months before: he had been wrecked not far from it in the shetland steamer, the _st. rognvald_, which broke up and became a total loss. the vessel struck in the middle of the night, and he escaped in a very light and airy costume, consisting of a suit of pyjamas and an overcoat. next morning the weather was remarkably clear and bright until breakfast time, when we entered other fog banks and remained more or less in them until late in the afternoon; but on nearing our first port of call we emerged into clear weather. chapter ii the faroes the first sight of the faroes was impressive. the bold outlines of the islands were well-marked features. the dip (or tilt) of the ancient lava flows could be traced from one island to another. a dome-shaped block, lille dimon, was the most striking island, while the almost perpendicular escarpments of skuo stood as evidence of the power of the stormy atlantic, whose seas continually beat at the base of the cliffs. trangisvaag, in the island of sudero, was the first port of call. in the fjord leading to it the cloud-effects were many and very fine. as the warm, moist air coming in from the sea was carried against the cool faces of precipitous lava mountains, so the moisture condensed and swept along their sides, at times completely hiding the highest points from view; but the effects were ever-changing. fine specimens of jointed basalt are these mountains; flow upon flow can be traced for miles in almost horizontal parallel lines. but little vegetation is to be seen--the total absence of trees, a little grass, and much peat moss are the features that first appeal to one who is not a botanist. ashore one is first struck with the faroese themselves: they are a fine race, and retain their native politeness and independence of character; they are courteous in the extreme to strangers. most of the men are fishermen or sailors, and many, through their consequent contact with english-speaking people, can converse in good understandable english. a small trade is done in wool, and we met two of the islanders, fine types of the race, returning from their day's work; they were quite picturesque figures, for, besides being attired in the national costume, they had wound round them a quantity of wool, which in these islands is generally plucked, not shorn, from the sheep's back. the national costume consists of a sort of brewer's cap, having red and blue stripes as a rule, a cloth tunic, a waistcoat, and knee breeches split at the knees, but very rarely buttoned, rough woollen stockings and skin shoes. the fishermen often dispense with tunic and waistcoat, and wear in their place a woollen jersey with long sleeves, that has a strong sheepy smell, having a particular pattern worked in pale blue and red on a white ground. the women i saw wore dresses of white striped cotton stuff, no ordinary head covering, but shawls across the shoulders, which were often pulled over the head, and wooden clogs on the feet. all the buildings at trangisvaag are built of wood so far as the superstructure is concerned, the substructure often being made of blocks of basalt. the roofs of the oldest buildings are covered with grass; the bark of the silver birch is put on the rafters, which is then turfed over, the grass as a rule growing luxuriantly during summer--thus are the roofs made water-tight. the most modern houses are covered with galvanised iron, but as they are not numerous the town is decidedly picturesque. there are several ancient-looking wooden buildings, the church being one of the oldest, with a record of fifty years. i have stated that most of the male population are fishermen, consequently the chief trade of the islands is in fish--cod-fish. the fish, as soon as brought to land, are cut open by women (who all work at this industry also); they are then washed in water, sometimes sea-water and sometimes fresh, and stacked in heaps with plenty of salt between the layers. they remain so for perhaps three months, covered with tarpaulins held down by heavy lumps of basalt. when properly salted the fish are washed and spread on a floor laid with slabs of basalt. when dry, the fish are stored in sheds, where they are packed in bales ready for export to spain or italy, which are the chief markets for salted cod. the town of trangisvaag is on the northern side of the fjord at the base of high weather-worn basaltic crags, which frown down upon it and form a grand background. there is a quantity of peat moss on the slopes at the foot of these mountains, often scored deeply by the numerous watercourses. at trangisvaag it was quite evident that we were approaching the arctic circle, for at midnight there was light enough for the houses and other objects on shore to be seen from the vessel's deck, half a mile distant, and to enable me to write up notes without the aid of artificial light. we steamed out of trangisvaag fjord in the early morning, but as the weather was dull and cloudy we could not see much of the small islands, lille dimon (little diamond) and store dimon (great diamond), for they were cloud-capped and otherwise much obscured by drifting clouds. a few hours later we anchored opposite to thorshavn in the island of stromo, the capital and chief town of the faroes. [illustration: in thorshavn (faroes).] thorshavn is a very quaint and picturesque place, and many are the peculiar buildings and dwellings in the heart of the town, where the streets are very narrow indeed. no general plan has been followed in the laying out of the town, for the streets run in all directions, up and down hill, and along valleys or depressions in the ground. the styles of architecture are various--a single-storied picturesque shanty of ancient style, with grass-covered roof, having opposite to it a pretentious modern building roofed with galvanised iron, which rises high above, its three stories quite overshadowing the humble neighbour. these turf and grass-grown roofs are a feature in the appearance of the town. the general absence of trees is striking, though one notices with something of surprise the almost tropical luxuriance of foliage in some of the gardens that are more or less sheltered from the strong winds which so frequently sweep over the islands. the only tree i saw there worthy of the name was a sycamore in the front garden of a very picturesque cottage standing on a rather elevated site in the middle of the town. we had not all brought oilskins, so thomas and i visited several stores in the course of a search for some--at one of them they had coats only for sale, at another there were nether garments and sou'-westers in addition, but oh, how oily they were, and sticky! and how smelly! had we purchased, no doubt it would have added to our safety when crossing ice-fields or lava flows, or when ascending snow slopes, for we should undoubtedly have found ourselves stuck fast to saddles on the occasions when the ponies were endeavouring to get rid of us by their frequent stumbles. but we would have none of the oily, sticky, and smelly garments. i strolled about, camera in hand, and found that many of the women and girls were quite anxious to be photographed; at one spot i came upon a group of women squatting on the ground; as i approached, several others hastened to join the group, at the same time inviting me to photograph them, which i did. shortly afterwards my films came to an end, so i made a journey to the _ceres_, which was lying at anchor half a mile from the shore, in order to reload the camera. i engaged two young faroese to row me to the vessel, and on arrival enjoined them to await me that they might put me ashore again; when, however, i had changed the films and was ready to return, they were nowhere to be found--the young beggars had gone off with another fare, and had left me to my own devices and to the off chance of a "lift" in another boat. i felt much inclined to make a murderous attack upon the queen's english, to say nothing of the young faroese had they come my way while pacing the deck in impotent wrath; but i was obliged to restrain myself, for there was no one with whom i could with justice quarrel, so i suppressed the rising ire, and went in search of somebody who could speak my native language. in the end i found a faroese with some knowledge of english, and arranged for a passage in a cargo-boat then about to return to the shore. soon i was being conveyed from the _ceres_ at the rapid rate--for a very heavily laden cargo-boat, that is--of about a knot an hour. however, i reached the shore in due course, just in time to join our party at lunch at the hotel, where they were being entertained by a fellow-passenger. a merry meal we had, and in the course of it our host joined us in criticising the appointments of the table, but, in spite of a few makeshifts, they were not at all bad, and the meal itself was decidedly good. the voyage to klaksvig was of much interest, for our course lay in channels between islands and in fjords. the formation of the basaltic hills was most striking, the many pyramidal shapes impressing us greatly. there were numerous dykes in the mountain side, deep ravines scored perpendicularly in the basaltic formation, where softer intrusive material had been eroded more rapidly than the rock on each side. at the entrance to kalsofjord (the channel between the islands of kalso on the west and bordo and kuno on the east side) there was a very strong current flowing against us in a southerly direction; a course was therefore steered close in-shore to avoid the full strength of the current in mid-stream. klaksvig lies in a bay in the island of bordo, and to reach it a turn has to be made eastward between the islands of kuno and bordo. at the entrance to the bay anchor was dropped, and there we remained all night. we were close to the southern end of the island of kuno, where a very fine specimen of a pyramidal mountain frowned down upon us from the height of nearly feet--it is a pyramid that might well cause the shade of cheops, if ever passing that way, to hide his diminished head and fade into oblivion. we witnessed some very fine cloud-effects in the course of the journey to klaksvig, for the clouds drifting over the high hills often streamed away far to leeward of them. during the voyage i often wrote my notes somewhere about midnight, and this night, while thus employed in my cabin, my "stable companion" took it into his head that i was preventing him from the proper enjoyment of his slumbers, and growled out something to that effect; so, to avoid raising his wrath, i interrupted the course of the notes and turned in; but it was not to sleep, for i had scarcely laid head upon pillow before certain sounds from the bunk below made it evident that unconsciously he was going to turn the tables upon me, and that, by stertorously enjoying his slumbers, he would prevent me from peacefully enjoying mine. after several ineffectual attempts to stop the snoring, i at last fled to the saloon, far out of range of the noise, and there reposed in peace for the rest of the night. at klaksvig miss hastie, hill, thomas, and myself went ashore. we hunted the "lions" in couples: miss hastie going off with hill to seek specimens first of all, while thomas and i were bent on making a trial survey of the bay of klaksvig, just to keep our hands in. we did this before visiting the "lions," which here assume the shape of whales, or rather whales' skulls, a number of which have been built up so as to form a dividing wall between two properties. on one side of this wall there is a cod-liver oil factory, which we inspected; it was not quite so smelly as are some factories where shark or whale oil is produced--but more of that anon! one of the vats was full of a rich brown liquid, which we were informed was unrefined cod-liver oil. the oil is exported in that state after being run into casks, many of which were strewed on the hillside. a pretty picture was seen near the wharf, where several young women were busily engaged washing cod-fish in a bath under cover of an open shed. a portion of the town of klaksvig is built on a narrow strip of land that separates klaksvig bay from borovig bay--a strip that has been formed partly of moraine debris, and partly by the silting up of shingle by the sea. facing borovig bay there is a row of boat-sheds that are peculiar in that they are built of boulders in a small break in the sloping shore, and that the roofs are formed of smaller boulders laid upon a wooden framework. the roofs did not seem capable of keeping out much rain, and doubtless they were not built for that purpose, but for keeping out the snow during winter when the boats are laid up. in the evening we left klaksvig and proceeded into kalsofjord, past the great pyramid; but its lofty head was under a cloud, so we could not admire its full proportions. passing up the fjord the atmosphere cleared, and one could not help being much struck with the grandeur of the scenery. high precipitous mountains rose up on each side of the fjord; at a first glance, one would say that there was very little land at their foot suitable for cultivation, or for grazing purposes, so near to the water's edge did the mountains seem; but we saw many farms there, and several villages, picturesque places with quaint-looking buildings, nestling in hollows at the base of the hills. what soil there is must be very prolific, judging from the population settled on it. on the west side, and near to the north end of the fjord, there are some very fine specimens of common basaltic land forms--two grand corries, a fine dyke, some sheer faces of rock, and as we passed by the end of the land an almost sheer precipice which faced west came into view, while standing out at its foot there was a solitary basaltic column. when coming up the fjord the steam-whistle was frequently sounded in order that we might hear the very fine echoes for which it is noted; the interval is a long one, some three or four seconds. at the corries the sound echoed and re-echoed until it finally died away in the heights above. on emerging from the fjord and putting out to sea, we encountered a slight swell from the west, so the vessel rolled a bit; it was really not much, but being the first time during the voyage, it was much disliked by those who were not proof against _mal de mer_. the clear atmosphere was soon left behind, for we entered another fog bank when only a few miles distant from the land. at once the music (!) of the steam-whistle was resumed, and our ears were again tortured by its shrill blasts. chapter iii the fjords next day rain, fog, and mist prevailed, so there was much whist-playing and smoking below, and much blowing of whistle above. towards evening we were off the coast of iceland; the land was not visible, for we were enveloped in fog, but there was no doubt about it, for we could _hear_ that land was not far distant. it may seem strange, but it was a fact, we were really feeling our way along the coast by the aid of the steam-whistle. the land thereabouts rises abruptly from the sea, and the echoes from the sheer faces of rock enabled the officers of the vessel to judge their distance. we went dangerously near to another vessel in the fog, but soon afterwards it cleared off a bit, and there, just abeam on the starboard side, was the other vessel, sufficiently close to be a dangerous neighbour in thick weather. at midnight we were going full speed ahead, but when i awoke at seven in the morning it was to find that our experiences of fog were not at an end, that we were again in a very dense one, and that we were lying-to. after breakfast it lifted sufficiently to allow of a course being shaped for northfjord, our first port of call in iceland. much of the scenery of this fjord was obscured by the thick atmosphere, but occasional glimpses through rifts proved that we were missing many fine scenes that are on view when the conditions are favourable. the first sight of iceland was obtained at dalatangi point, four or five miles to the north of the entrance to northfjord. in the fog we had gone too far north. other glimpses on the way were of a corrie near dalatangi, and the face of the mountains near mjofifjord. our stay at northfjord was of but short duration, and there was no time to go ashore, so the only view we had of the town was obtained from the vessel's deck. we had a number of faroese passengers on board, bound for various ports in iceland; they were good types of the race, and i obtained permission to photograph some of them. seythisfjord was not far distant, and in a few hours we were steaming up the fjord towards the town at its head. the scenery and geological structure of these fjords were similar to what we had passed through two days before in the faroes. towards the head of the fjord there are many waterfalls on the mountain-sides; in fact, it is a district of waterfalls, for there are some fine ones up the valley, where a fair-sized river and its various tributaries rush down from all sides in a series of great leaps and bounds over ledges of rocks fifty, sixty, a hundred feet high, finally joining and tumbling over the lowest ledge in a grand cascade (which i photographed) to the river below--the "valley of waterfalls" would be a descriptive name to bestow upon it. it was at seythisfjord that we first set foot upon the soil of iceland. we were conveyed to the shore by the steam-launch and boats from a man-of-war, the danish guardship, that was lying in the harbour. we were so honoured because the captain of our vessel was an officer in the danish navy, and it was intended as an attention to him. it seems that some of the vessels belonging to the company are captained by officers of the navy, who are appointed to the command by the danish authorities as a sort of reward for services, for during their term--three years, i think--they draw their pay as officers of the navy in addition to what is due to them from the company. on shore our party split up as usual, miss hastie and hill going off in search of plants, while the "nautical adviser," thomas, and i wandered along the sea-shore and into the town. we were pestered by an icelander having a very crude idea of the english language who had been imbibing the "lemonade" of the country, and if he had not "three sheets in the wind," at least there was one little sheet flapping about, the end of which was flicking at us at inconvenient moments. we tried to shake him off, but it was of no avail. he had a notion that we wanted a guide to conduct us into the interior of iceland, and he claimed to be very competent and to know everything of the country. we did not doubt his competency, or if so we did not inform him, but tried to make him understand that we had made our arrangements for guidance, and that the men we had engaged were teetotallers. for a long while he dogged our footsteps, and it was not until we had got clear of the town and were making tracks up the valley towards the waterfalls that we lost him. on the way we joined miss hastie and hill, who seemed quite satisfied with the result of their grubbing amongst what--to those of us at least who had not been educated botanically--looked like very common weeds. together we slowly, very slowly, made our way up the valley, for there were many stoppages while plants were being dug out and transferred to small tin boxes that looked like tobacco tins--indeed, i think they were originally intended to hold the "weed" of the smoker and not "weeds--various." so much time was occupied by these stoppages, that at last it became a question whether we should be able to reach the lowest and, as we believed, the finest of the waterfalls, for we were expected to be on board at a certain time, in readiness for departure; the question was much debated, and there seemed to be a general desire to discuss the matter rather than to make the attempt to reach the fall. i determined to try, and was informed that i should miss the steamer. i could see the misty spray rising from the fall not a mile distant, so i set out across swamps and peat bogs, caring but little for such trifles, for i had resolved to see that fall. well, i _did_ reach the fall, and after photographing it, crossed the river just below it, and returned on the other side of the valley. it was a rather difficult journey, for i had a severe cross-country course to cover, with a number of fairly long jumps over the mountain streams on the way, but, nevertheless, i reached the _ceres_ half an hour before the other members of the party. then, strange to say, none of them seemed to believe that i had reached the waterfall at all; but the photograph of it is the best evidence that i can offer in support of my contention that i did. [illustration: the waterfall, seythisfjord.] the soil at seythisfjord looked very good, and would doubtless yield good crops were the summer a bit longer and the ripening power of the sun rather stronger. there is much peat and boggy land on the slopes below the steep escarpments on each side of the fjord, and in the river-flats up the valley; many ponies are grazed here, and as some of the boggy land is being drained by deep dykes, the number is likely to increase; the peat that is removed in cutting the dykes is built up at their sides to form dividing fences. the valley at the head of seythisfjord is a fine specimen of the result of sub-aerial erosion, for its form is due to the denuding action of frost and snow, wind and rain, storm and sunshine. there is a vast corrie at the head, which is shelved in a series of steps right down to the flat through which the river meanders. it is at these shelves or ledges of the harder strata that the waterfalls and cascades already mentioned are to be found--there, where the river and its branches rush over the edge of one terrace and plunge down to the next. this being our first experience of the icelanders, our attention was attracted by the peculiar headdress worn by the women, which is common to all classes--a small black knitted cap, about four or five inches in diameter, from which a silver tube hangs suspended at the side of the head; through the tube is strung a number of cords or silken threads that hang down as a tassel. we ought to have sailed late in the evening, but a thick fog settled over the land and prevented a start. wonderful echoes can be produced at seythisfjord; the steam-whistle was sounded several times, and the sound echoed and re-echoed again and again, the reverberation continuing for many seconds before it died away in the distance among the mountain tops. fog and misty rain continued through the night and well into the small hours of the morning; but at about five o'clock it lifted sufficiently to allow the _ceres_ to put to sea. progress was slow, and the frequent blasts of the steam-whistle that disturbed our morning slumbers indicated the state of the atmosphere; however, we entered vopnafjord soon after mid-day, and shortly afterwards came to an anchorage opposite the town. vopnafjord is one of the homes of the eider duck, and it was on the rocky islets opposite to the town that we first saw those birds in their natural surroundings. we borrowed one of the ship's boats and rowed over to the rocks. it was difficult to get near, for the ducks were very shy--more so than usual just then, because many had young; but as they were too young to fly, we did get fairly near by rowing round their rocks. the nesting season was over, and many of the birds had gone away. the production of eider down is an industry that is increasing; the birds are rigorously protected, and a fine of ten kronur (eleven shillings) is the penalty incurred by any one killing an eider duck. in the afternoon we went ashore in a hired boat that leaked very badly; but we reached the shore without anything very exciting happening. the return journey, however, was attended with considerable risk, for in the meantime the wind had risen, and there was a nasty choppy sea beating against us when we attempted to make the _ceres_. water entered the boat through the leaky spots, and more was shipped; we were near being swamped, but we made the gangway, and got on board without anything worse than a wetting. at the various ports of call there was often considerable difficulty in obtaining a boat, and the passenger wishing to get ashore had to take whatever craft was available, for they were very scarce. often they were dirty and very leaky. sometimes a passage was refused, and on one occasion a cargo-boat starting for the shore declined a fare of two kronur, although going direct to the wharf not far distant--the icelander is an independent personage, and unless it suits his convenience he sometimes refuses a job. while at vopnafjord we met with a man, an icelander, who could speak a little english; we soon discovered that he was proud of having acquired a few british swear words. thomas and i were taking shots at a number of fish-cleaners at work on the beach, when this man came along; we had previously been in conversation with him, so he remarked airily as he passed that the result of our snap would be "a hell of a picture." we laughed, but he went on a few paces and then stopped beside a fellow-passenger, a man of strict views and ideas, who was photographing the same subject. the icelander, encouraged, i suppose, because we had laughed, went one better on what he had said to us, and gave his opinion that _this_ result would be "a blank, blanketty blank picture"!--he seemed surprised at the freezingly cold way in which his remark was received. we left vopnafjord in the afternoon and in four hours made langanes, a narrow, flat-topped peninsula several miles long, a perfectly horizontal lava flow, with faces that rise vertically from the sea; the section is exactly the same, whether through the end or side of the peninsula. the whiteness of the points of rock and of the face generally, evidenced the fact that many sea-fowl resort there, and that the rock-face is covered with a deposit of guano. at midnight we were inside the arctic circle, and had the weather been favourable, we should have seen the sun just above the horizon. but his majesty was not on view, for though the fog had lifted in the morning and had enabled us to make vopnafjord, the weather had been dull all day, with the sun quite obscured, and the same conditions prevailed through the night. it was a pity, because it would probably be our only chance of seeing the midnight sun, for next day we should be in akureyri, a town lying at the head of a long fjord, and nearly a degree south of the arctic circle, where the view would, we thought, be obscured by intervening hills and mountains. husavik in skjalfandi was our next port of call, and we arrived there early enough in the morning for us to go ashore before breakfast. thomas and i were interested in a reported "raised beach"--land originally formed on the margin of the sea, and subsequently raised by tectonic (subterranean) disturbances to a height above sea-level. miss hastie was also desirous of seeing the raised beach, and trudged along with us over the hills to the bay where we expected to find it; but on arrival we could see no raised beach: there was some volcanic conglomerate, the rounded and smoothed stones of which had perhaps caused it to be mistaken for a raised beach--unless, indeed, we ourselves were on the wrong track and had mistaken the spot; nevertheless, there was nothing else in view that looked like what we were in search of, so we returned to husavik over the hills again. not long ago these hills were completely covered with fine yellow ferruginous loam--a comparatively recent deposit; but it is now being rapidly eroded, and the older moraine beneath laid bare. at husavik there is a great accumulation of moraine matter that has been brought down from the valley at the back. it is a terminal moraine that comes right down to the sea, which washes at the foot of its almost vertical face, fifty to sixty feet high. the town stands on the edge of the moraine, and the only approach from the pier is by a long flight of wooden steps; goods are conveyed in trucks that run up a steep inclined tramway, and these are raised and lowered by cables and the use of a windlass and friction brakes. behind the town great fields of peat are being excavated and stacked ready for use as fuel. on the voyage from husavik to akureyri, one of our fellow-passengers was the icelandic minister of the church at akureyri, a man who had a very fine tenor voice, the best in iceland according to repute; at our request he sang to an accompaniment played on a small harp by a travelling companion. one thing he sang was the icelandic national hymn, entitled the "hymn of praise," composed by s. sveinbjornsson to celebrate iceland's thousand years of freedom. the thousand years were completed in ( to ), and the fact was celebrated in that year with festivities and general rejoicing, the king of denmark taking part in them. on our arrival at eyjafjord in the afternoon, the weather was clearing up, and as we steamed up the fjord fine views opened out, and we saw many excellent cloud-effects. after about three hours' steaming up the fjord we reached akureyri, the town next in importance to reykjavik, the capital, and came to an anchorage there at about eight o'clock in the evening. chapter iv across the northern inhabited fringe [illustration: pack-saddle and boxes.] the next day was a busy one with us, because akureyri was to be our starting-point for the journey across the interior, and there were numerous preliminary arrangements to be made. the fogs and thick weather had delayed our arrival at akureyri by a day. we ought to have set out from akureyri on the day after our arrival, but the delay at sea had rendered that quite impossible, as may be imagined when i mention the facts that besides personal effects there were provisions, tents, bedding, etc., to be packed; that we were eleven persons in all (our own party of six, a conductor and manager of affairs, and four guides), and that thirty-eight ponies were required for our transport. of course arrangements had been made for all this long before our leaving england; ponies and everything else were there, but all required a lot of "licking into shape." our manager was up to his eyes in it all day. the members of our party, however, had less to do, for when we had bought oilskins and sundries, and had sorted out and packed our personal effects into boxes specially made for the purpose--boxes that were to be carried on the ponies, one on each side of the pack-saddle--we were free to do as we liked for the rest of the day. it happened to be the anniversary of the celebration of the thousand years of freedom, and a festival was being held in akureyri; so, on attaining _our_ freedom, we made our way towards the fête ground, a spot named oddeyri, a sort of suburb about a mile away, on a spit of land running into the fjord. there we found the icelanders assembled in force. people from all the surrounding country were there--men, women, and children; all had come on ponies, which were dotted about in groups, or straying separately over the spit--there were hundreds of them. the icelanders were amusing themselves much as would the villagers at an english country fête. they were eating and drinking, and engaging in contests of various kinds. races were being run, there were gymnastic competitions on "horse" and horizontal bar, and there was some wrestling also. the last was decidedly good and interesting. each competitor grasped his opponent's right shoulder with left hand, and with the right took a firm hold of the other's waistband. then the fun commenced. the opponents danced around each other, watching for opportunities. their movements were very amusing, but some of the throws were very cleverly effected. in the evening, at about p.m. that is, dancing commenced. a platform had been prepared for the purpose; this was railed round, and there were seats, on which the girls sat awaiting partners. the custom in choosing a partner is for the man to approach the lady of his choice and bow to her; she acquiesces by rising from her seat, when the couple waltz off together. just before the dancing commenced, a good-humoured, rubicund man, short of stature, whose well-rounded figure denoted that he was not averse to the good things provided by the gods, ascended a rostrum at one end of the platform, and from there addressed the assemblage. to us who were not acquainted with the icelandic tongue, his remarks were unintelligible; but by those around who were listening to his utterances, they seemed to be much appreciated, and their smiles and laughter showed that the orator, a fluent speaker, was a popular man and a humorist of no mean order; indeed, one had but to look at his expressive face when he was speaking to learn that he was a "funny" man. [illustration: akureyri at midnight.] between the town of akureyri and the basaltic mountains to the westward that rise to a considerable altitude, there is, filling the interval, a series of morainic hills, the material of which has come down the eyjafjorthará valley, or from the mountains beside it. these hills present the appearance of a terrace partly worn down and scored by the action of water and melting snow. no doubt the basaltic mountains once formed the side of the fjord. an hour or so before midnight, miss hastie, thomas, and i climbed the hills to the terrace, in the hope of getting a glimpse of the midnight sun, for the night was almost cloudless. the sun was shining brightly, but it was quickly approaching some mountains near the entrance to eyjafjord, behind which it would soon be hidden. we failed in the object of our climb, for the mountains referred to were of considerable elevation. time would not allow us to attack the mountains in the rear of akureyri and ascend by midnight to an altitude above that of the obscuring hills, so we had to descend unsatisfied. though we did not actually see the _sun_ at midnight, we could see its _light_ shining on the mountain tops two or three miles away, and we knew that it was above the horizon. so good was the light that thomas and i took photographs of the town, one looking north and the other south, just at midnight--with stop _f _, exposures of one minute and one minute and a quarter were required for medium plates. we were to have made a start at eleven o'clock the next morning, but fate was against us. at the appointed hour the members of the party were ready and waiting, but guides, ponies, pack and riding saddles, tents, provisions, etc., were _not_ ready, and we could not well start unless they were. saddles and gear required many repairs--most of them had been hired, and they were not in the best condition. our manager of affairs was to be seen flitting about settling up accounts, giving directions to the men, inspecting saddles, bridles, girths, and gear, and generally trying to reduce confusion to order. for an hour or more we were amused, but then we began to get impatient. three of us got hold of a saddle and bridle, and we tried the paces of a few of the ponies. in that way we put in an hour or two that might have proved irksome, for everything was in such a state of confusion and unreadiness, and the space in which the men were working was so confined, that _we_ could render no effective help. instead of starting at eleven, it was half-past three before we got away--four and a half hours late! [illustration: the spit at oddeyri.] we made a slight stir as we clattered along the main street of the town, for it was the largest expedition of the kind that had ever set out from akureyri, and the progress of our thirty-eight ponies was watched with some interest by those of the townspeople who were on the street. our way lay beside the fjord, and we proceeded for several miles in a northerly direction. our _general_ direction across the island was, as a rule, southerly and westerly, but it was necessary to turn the end of a mountain chain before we could shape a more direct course. on we went, past oddeyri, the scene of the previous day's festivities, until we reached the glerá, where we had our first experience of fording an icelandic river. it was not very deep, and it was but a foretaste of a series of more difficult fordings, not a few of which were serious undertakings, and not to be attempted without proper consideration. to this river, the glerá, the formation of the spit at oddeyri is due. the detritus brought down by its waters and deposited in the fjord has been gradually banked up by the tides and storms coming up eyjafjord. along the shores of the fjord we passed over extensive ancient moraines; then by a detour we worked round the edge of the moraines, which form the end of the mountain range, and entered horgadalr (the valley of the horgá). from a spot where we had lunch, or whatever meal it might be called--it was our first since breakfast--we overlooked the valley of the horgá. on the far side there was a green, fertile-looking spot, and large buildings, which we ascertained to be the akureyri agricultural grounds and college, presided over by professor jón hjaltalin. to the right the river ran into the fjord through the valley, once, no doubt, an indentation of eyjafjord. at the mouth of the river a small delta is in course of formation, which should develop into a spit similar to that at oddeyri. [illustration: the oxnadalsÁ cutting through a hard dyke.] proceeding up the valley of the horgá, many interesting-looking peaks attracted our attention. the valley and its branches having been eroded out of basalt, the mountains and valleys are characteristic formations--pyramidal peaks, steep escarpments, deeply-cut gorges, with roaring torrents rushing down in a series of waterfalls and broken cascades; there are vast quantities of scree on the mountain-sides covering the terraces of the lava flows, and accumulations of similar material at the foot of the mountains, forming a talus. moraine heaps are also numerous. higher up the valley, just above the confluence of the horgá and the oxnadalsá, there is a very striking scene, where the last-named river has carved its way through a very hard dyke, the sides of which extend into the river, and stand there like an immense wall with a gap through it. while proceeding up oxnadalr (the valley of the oxná = oxen), which is very picturesque, we saw some fine cloud-effects as the moist air condensed and drifted just below the mountain tops. the river oxnadalsá takes its name from the valley, oxnadal. this is one of the few exceptions from the general rule, which is for the valley to take its name from the river--_dal_ = valley; so, instead of oxnadalsá, the rule would make it oxná. along this valley all the depressions in the hillsides are filled with quantities of peat. peat, peat bogs, and swamps are very common throughout iceland, and in most of the depressions in the hillsides and along the river valleys a peaty growth is to be found. for several hours in the course of the day we were accompanied by a man travelling the same way and driving a pony laden with pieces of rather ancient shark. when travelling in company, the ponies have a way of crowding together, and unless very careful, one becomes painfully aware of the fact when box or bundle brushes in no gentle way against one's legs. now the strange pony with the ancient shark at its sides was of a very friendly disposition, and evinced a desire to fraternise with our ponies, choosing the riding ponies for his special attentions, the result being that we had some difficulty in avoiding contact with the evil-smelling stuff. with this exception not many incidents worthy of special mention occurred on this our first day in the saddle; there were several breakdowns, however. the saddlery was not in the best possible condition; it was mostly old and weather-worn, and a great deal of it was very rotten. this became more apparent the farther we went: breakages were numerous, straps snapped, and pack-saddles, bundles, and boxes broke away and were deposited by the wayside; while the ponies, glad to have got rid of their loads, careered gaily on. there was much bustle and confusion, rushing of guides (the men, whether acting as guides or not, are all called guides) after the ponies. "helvit!" they would shout, as another strap broke and a bundle trailed on the ground, bumping against lumps of lava, by the pony's side; then they would urge their steeds into a fast run or a canter, whistling a soft, long-drawn-out note to induce the pony in front to stop. to urge on the pony they utter a shout that sounds like a cross between "haw" and "hoch." "hoch! hoch!" they shout, and sometimes bring their whips down with a swish upon the haunches of the nearest pony. when they wish a pony to stop or to slacken speed they whistle gently. we soon found that it was useless to click or to shout "get up!" or "wo!" to a pony. he did not understand it, so we had to make use of the sounds that they could recognise. the first day's journey was not a very long one, seven hours only in the saddle, and we reached our first camping-ground at about half-past ten. thverá was the name of the farm-house beside which we camped. the buildings were of very primitive construction; they were built in the usual icelandic style: turf walls and roof; wooden floors to the best rooms, and earth or lava blocks to the others; glass windows. the kitchen in most of the humbler class of farm-houses is a picture, and this one was typical; it was lighted only from the roof, and the openings served also to ventilate the room and to act as smoke shafts. a peat fire was burning in the corner of the room, and the air was filled with the smoke that rose from it and circulated round the room before escaping through the openings in the roof. it had an earth floor, and at the side of the room there was a well about twenty feet deep, that supplied beautifully clear water for culinary purposes. a large cauldron stood over the fire, containing some savoury mess in course of preparation for the family's next meal. we had four tents, two large ones and two smaller; but on this occasion we only made use of one of them, for four of our number slept at the farm-house. for the rest of the journey across iceland, however, all four were in use. the two large ones were square "bell" tents: one was used for meals, and in it the conductor and his four guides slept at night; in the other, hill, thomas, and i camped. miss hastie used one of the smaller tents; while the "nautical adviser" and the "handy man" occupied the other. we did not make a start the next day till half-past one; it was several hours after that agreed upon, but we very soon learned that unpunctuality, delays in starting, and consequent waste of time would mark the journey; this was chiefly due to the rotten state of the gear, for several hours were spent every morning in patching up and tinkering at the packs, boxes, and saddles that had come to grief during the previous day--each day had its record of breakages and damage, and each morning its hours devoted to making repairs. all this was very annoying, and it made another guide almost a necessity to relieve one of the english-speaking guides, so that he might go on with us while the others were occupied with the repairs. this would have caused things to work better, but unfortunately no other guide was available. we were already on the edge of the fringe of population inhabiting the regions near the seacoast, and we were fast approaching the uninhabited interior; there were no spare hands on the farms that we passed, so we were obliged to go on short-handed--short-handed _only_ because of the continual breakages. the guides that we had could not have been improved upon: they were all first-class men, each was up to his work, and worked with a will; they were all icelanders possessing small farms of their own, and two of them, sigurthur and hannes, spoke excellent english; thorlakur was a beginner at it, but we generally managed to understand one another; the fourth man, josef, was the only one who had no knowledge of our language. we were on excellent terms with all the guides, so things worked smoothly between us. [illustration: moraine accumulations and cloud-effects at thverÁ.] on leaving thverá our way, as we ascended some three or four hundred feet to the head of the valley, lay at first over a vast accumulation of moraine matter, piled high up on all sides. our camping ground had been at the foot of this accumulation, and opposite to it on the other side of the valley there were also great heaps of similar stuff, while on the highest part of the range there was a very fine pinnacle rock, rising several hundred feet higher, and standing out sharp against the clear sky. i had a bad day of it, being quite out of luck. the conductor accidentally backed his pony upon me, and my right foot was crushed and bruised beneath one of its hoofs; but worse was to come. about an hour after we had started, and when we were getting well up into the moraine, i heard a shout. "helvit! helvit!" cried one of the guides. on looking ahead i saw a pony running amuck through the rough broken lava and great boulders; he had got rid of most of his load, but something green was trailing at his heels. in horror i watched the pony's wild career, for the "something green" i recognised as the cover of my plane-table--one of the instruments that i had brought for the purpose of mapping a portion of the interior. this plane-table had been strapped on the top of some packs containing bedding, in order that it might ride on something soft and in safety. i comprehended what had happened. as usual something had given way, the packs and my plane-table had got loose about the pony's heels, and all had been kicked off _except_ the plane-table, which had been made fast by one of its straps to a ring in the pack-saddle, and as the strap was sound it had held on. well, there was no mistaking its willesden canvas cover--there it was, trailing along at the pony's heels, being kicked and banged against boulders great and small, just as they came in the way. bumpity-thump it went along the ground, and with a crash it struck the boulders! the table was ruined, for it trailed a mere crumpled mass without definite shape. there was an end to prospects of mapping. i watched the pony's career for a moment, more in sorrow than in anger, then i urged my own pony into a canter, and came up with the runaway just as one of the guides caught him. the wreck of the plane-table was soon detached from the pack-saddle; a hasty inspection proved that my fears were confirmed: the table itself was represented by a couple of strips, the rest of it was missing; the tripod stand and the alidade ruler were also missing. the guides scoured the neighbourhood of the pony's course, and after a while one of them turned up with one or two strips of wood, pieces of the plane-table, and placed them beside the others. i looked on listlessly until another guide brought in a long green case. this did not seem to be much damaged, so i hastily examined the contents (the tripod stand and the ruler), and found to my joy that they were practically uninjured; a few bruises to the legs did not matter much, for they did not affect the stability of the stand--both alidade and stand could be used! i then turned to the wreck of the table itself and examined the pieces; they were not complete, two or three were missing, but i noticed that although all the screws had been wrenched out, and the apparatus for fixing the board to the stand had also been wrenched off, yet the breaks and splinters were all along the grain of the wood. the guides went over the ground again, and brought back one or two additional strips. i then roughly put the pieces together, and found that except for a few splinters i had got them all, and that _none_ was broken _across_ the grain; the two cross-bars for the back, the last pieces found, were also unbroken. it looked as if it might be roughly mended, _if_ only the necessary tools were available. [illustration: the wrecked plane-table.] the views in the valley of the oxnadalsá were fine, and the river scenery where the water had carved deep down through the lava and tuff was very bold, the red and blue tints of a quantity of scoria on the steep banks adding to the effect. in the evening we crossed the water-parting, or divide, between the oxnadalsá and the northrá rivers, and at night camped beside a farm known as fremrikot near the head of the valley of the northrá river (northradal). it was a picturesque spot, and the northrá is typical of the smaller rivers of the country, the valley filled with alluvium and the river meandering through it, though when in flood not much of the alluvium can be seen. [illustration: the northrÁ.] in the morning i amused myself by taking photographs. i caught the women and children from the farm sitting with their backs against an earth-built fence looking with interest at, and discussing, the preparations then being made for a start; these preparations are shown in the view looking down the valley of the northrá where saddling up is nearly completed. we received a check this day, and made very little progress. we started gaily enough and fairly early, as times went with us--that is, we got away a quarter of an hour after mid-day--and pursued our way along northradal. there were several fine gorges with torrents coming down from the mountains into the northrá; one especially attracted us, where a big snow-water torrent rushes between great buttresses of rock standing on each side. there is a bridge across the gorge, for the torrent is quite unfordable. after about two hours' riding down the valley of the northrá to its confluence with the herradsvötn we soon reached silfrastathr, where, in a picturesque spot, there are a farm-house and a small octagonal church. here we lunched and made a long halt while the guides went on to ascertain whether the herradsvötn, one of the big rivers of the journey, was fordable. it was past five when they returned with a local guide and the news that it could not then be forded, because the water from that day's melted snow was coming down and the river too much swollen. on a warm day the snow in the mountains melts rapidly, and a large increase in the volume of the water results; so that there is much more coming down in the afternoon than in the early morning before the sun's heat causes the snow to melt. [illustration: saddling up.] farther on, when describing one of the quicksand rivers that we crossed, i refer to the dangerous nature of their passage; but i find it necessary to make special mention of the subject here, for while revising these notes, bad news reached me concerning the herradsvötn. in july last year an accident happened at this river which resulted in the death of our "conductor" of the previous year. we did not regard the herradsvötn as a quicksand river, but it seems to be one, for the account of the accident states that our conductor's horse got into a quicksand and threw his rider, who was carried down the river so quickly by the swift current that no assistance could be rendered, and he was drowned, his body not being recovered until two days afterwards. poor fellow, his first crossing with us was accomplished safely, and i little thought that i should have to record his death as the result of the second attempt. i happened to take two photographs of this river, one having maelifellshnukr in the background, and showing the many streams into which the river is split up, the other showing the members of our party about to cross the first stream. fourteen of the ponies can be seen in the latter, but the great majority of the pack-ponies were ahead, out of the picture--it was impossible to get a string of thirty-eight ponies into one quarter-plate view; the conductor leads our party, and is the first following the tail of the pack-train, he with right hand behind back. the danger in these quicksand rivers is due to the fact that the sands are continually shifting; in the summer each day has its flood of snow water which scours the bed of the river, removing the sand from one place and depositing it in another, so that one definite course cannot always be followed when crossing; what is a good ford one day is impassable the next. with a river split up into about twenty streams the difficulties of fording can be imagined, but not appreciated until experienced, and the dread with which all the guides regard the rivers where quicksands are known to exist cannot be wondered at. [illustration: crossing the herradsvÖtn.] as the river was not fordable, there was nothing for us to do but await the falling of the water, and then attempt the passage. the delay enabled me to try my hand at repairing the plane-table. the "handy man" was useful on this occasion, as on many others, for he produced from his capacious pockets a wonderful knife. now this knife had a screw-driver blade that enabled me to countersink a number of holes in the cross pieces, thus permitting the short screws to "bite" in sound places in the broken pieces of the table. in a couple of hours we emerged triumphantly from a room in the farm-house that we had "commandeered" as a workshop, with the patched-up wreck bearing some semblance to a plane-table; it was certainly not in any way perfect, but it looked as if it might with care be used. in the afternoon i was about to take a photograph of the farm-house; there were several girls standing in front of it, who, when they saw me point my camera, at once took to their heels and ran away (much to my surprise), laughing merrily as they disappeared through an open doorway. thereafter when they saw me camera in hand they always bolted for the house; this made me determine to have a photograph of them; so i lay in wait, and when next they were running away, i took a snap as they were making straight for the doorway; the photograph, however, was a failure. maelifellshnukr, a prominent feature in the landscape here, is a mountain between three and four thousand feet high; it is prominent not only from silfrastathr, but it can be seen from many places within a radius of sixty or seventy miles, and i afterwards saw it from several widely separated spots. the pronunciation of some of the icelandic words is rather puzzling to a new-comer; for instance, the first part of the name of this mountain is pronounced as if spelt may-lee-fettle--_tl_ instead of double _l_. the churches in iceland are often put to strange uses (strange to foreigners, that is); many are the property of the farmers on whose land and beside whose houses they are built. a clergyman often has three or four of these farmers' churches in his district, and he holds occasional services in them. it is a custom, when the farm-house has not proper guest-chambers, for travellers to sleep in the church, and _we_ did so in that at silfrastathr, miss hastie using her own tent as usual. our beds were arranged some on the floor and others suspended between the seats. the following photograph of the interior of the church taken at midnight shows some of our party peacefully slumbering in their beds. next day we made an early start, for we got away soon after ten o'clock, in order to ford the river before the melting snow caused the waters to rise. there was a considerable difference in the level, for i found on going down for my tub that a small branch in which i had the previous afternoon tested the temperature of the water was non-existent. this temperature-testing had caused some fun, for in using my sling thermometer for the purpose, i tied it to the end of my riding-whip, and thus held it suspended in the stream. hill, catching me in the act, made a sketch which he entitled: "our lunatic fishing with his thermometer as bait," and handed it round at our evening meal. the report of the local guide as to the state of the river was a favourable one, so we proceeded down to the herradsvötn, and prepared against probable wettings. each had his own fancy for keeping out the water. miss hastie wore india-rubber top-boots--i have omitted to say that she rode astride, by far the best way for the rough work in iceland; the "nautical adviser" used waterproof leggings, the "handy man" top-boots, hill sheep-skin top-boots of native manufacture, thomas did not seem to care whether he got wet or not, while i put on india-rubber shoes and chanced the rest. there were some interesting and picturesque costumes in the group. [illustration: silfrastathr church. asleep at midnight.] when all was ready, the local guide led off with some of the pack, three of our own guides following with other sections of it; the conductor went next, and the members of our party followed; i stayed behind for a few minutes to photograph the crossing of the first branch of the river, and then brought up the rear with the other guide. the river runs over a very broad bed and is divided into something like twenty streams, so a considerable time--about half an hour--was occupied before the last stream had been forded. the water was rather deep in some of the branches, and came up just to our knees. we made a very satisfactory crossing, and reached the other side without incident worth recording; a few hours later it would have been impassable again. the river was no doubt "up" when our conductor lost his life. while crossing the river there was a very distinct mirage effect when looking down it towards the sea. some of us took shots with cameras, but nothing resulted; it was too distant. two days before, and again during this day, there were breakages innumerable; the state of the pack-saddles, packs, straps, girths, bridles, etc., was simply disgraceful--there is no other word for it! several falls had been due to the breaking of reins or girths, and by the end of the day there was scarcely a member of the party who had not come to grief in this way. thomas, who was riding a spirited beast, came two croppers through his reins breaking: the second time his pony rolled upon him and he strained a muscle in his side; this was unfortunate, for he felt the effects more or less to the end of the journey. from the river valley, where thomas had one fall, we ascended to the top of tungusveit, a long narrow ridge that extends for about twenty miles, dividing the herradsvötn and svartá rivers. these long ridges, with rivers flowing in parallel lines on each side, form one of the geographical features of iceland. many of them are to be seen in different parts of the country. from this ridge, on which there were many "erratic" boulders, a fine view of maelifellshnukr was obtained; at the foot of the peak beyond the svartá there is a series of morainic hills. at maeælifell below the mountain there is a parsonage and farm-house, where we halted for a light luncheon. at these farm-houses milk and coffee can always be obtained, and sometimes excellent homemade biscuits and cake also, and these delicacies were forthcoming here. the icelanders are noted for the good quality of their coffee, which may be regarded as the national drink. up to this point we had followed the more or less beaten tracks pursued by farmers and others in travelling from farm to farm; but we were now on the extreme edge of the fringe of population, and were about to plunge into the uninhabited interior. we decided to attack a route that had been used years before by the settlers and farmers--when the present good and frequent service of coasting steamers was not running--to convey fish, other provisions, etc., from and to the coast and across the island, and we found it a very interesting one. we proceeded up the valley of the svartá for a few miles over accumulations of river deposits, till we reached gilhagi farm-house, where we halted for our mid-day meal. this was the last house met with on the north side of the desert and ice-bound interior, and we did not again see signs of habitation till arriving within two days of reykjavik. mention must be made of an amusing misunderstanding that had occurred on the score of matches. it seems that the "nautical adviser" before leaving akureyri had inquired of the conductor whether he had plenty of matches, and the latter had replied that he had plenty--and so he had for the ordinary requirements of the camp, but not for the general use of smokers; the conductor in his reply had thought only of the camp, while the other had asked from a smoker's point of view, hence there was an approach to a famine as regards the smokers, and it was pathetic sometimes to see the "nautical adviser" and the "handy man" carefully husbanding a match, in the hope that the supply would hold out to reykjavik. at gilhagi the women were washing wool; there was a fire in the open beside a small stream of water, and on the fire a cauldron, in which the wool was boiled; it was afterwards washed in the running water. chapter v the interior--to hveravellir we were delayed for about two hours while waiting for the farmer to conduct us over the mountains; it was necessary to take a local guide, for none of our own men had ever been over the ground. when we did move on we tried to make up in pace for the delay; we made good time in ascending steadily from the valley over great accumulations of moraine matter and by ancient tracks through hummocky land. riding through this hummocky ground sometimes requires the exercise of considerable caution. the continuous traffic of generations across the hummocks wore innumerable tracks, which have since been kept open by the weather, and deepened in some cases. many of them are very deep, occasionally reaching almost to the knees. one has to raise first one foot and then the other to prevent their being badly crushed, or to avoid being unhorsed by contact with the sides as the ponies go on at a fast jog-trot. one member of the party caught both feet against the sides of the ruts, with the result that he was thrown forward, when he affectionately clasped his pony round the neck. as we continued to ascend we met with a new experience, for we had to ride up one fairly long snow slope and several smaller ones, following in the tracks of the pack-train over the beaten-down snow. we were then at a considerable altitude, perhaps feet, and we entered what is known as litlisandr, the little sand waste. its name does not quite describe it--waste it is, and desolate enough, but there is not a great deal of sand in the part that we traversed, and we passed through its middle. it is an elevated moraine, comparatively flat, with a number of small lakes whose existence is due to a series of drift dams. it was very cold while we were crossing litlisandr, for the icy wind was blowing strongly in our faces, so the latter part of the day's journey--a long one, for we did not reach camp till just a quarter of an hour before midnight--was made under considerable personal discomfort. [illustration: crossing a small snow slope.] the going was very rough, and some very steep slopes had to be descended after crossing the _sandr_, and nothing but the sure-footed ponies of iceland could have got down them in safety. these ponies are hardy little beasts, averaging about twelve hands; born and bred in the hills, they are accustomed to forage for a living in the roughest country, and their experiences there cause them to become the sure-footed beasts that they are. they seem to run on three legs, for they always have a spare one ready for emergencies. some of them stumble badly, but as a rule they do not, and it is a very rare thing for a pony to come down. it is wonderful how hard they keep on nothing but green feed; they never see a bit of "hard tack," yet, when required, they can jog along for twelve hours or more and be fresh at the end. after descending from the _sandr_, we traversed more moraine matter until we reached our camping-ground at athalmansvötn. here there are two lakes, and it was on the banks of the more northerly athalmansvatn that we camped. at the end of our journeys, especially when arriving late, as we did on this occasion, our hands and feet were icily cold--so cold that, to induce a better circulation, we were wont to seize mallets and drive in tent pegs, or to do something else requiring vigorous muscular exertion. on our way over the _sandr_ we saw the most magnificent sunset effects. indeed, it was often our luck to witness the glories of an icelandic sunset. towards morning a gale of wind struck us, and threatened to blow our tents into the lake. fortunately the tents and their cords were sound, and the pegs driven well into the ground, so we escaped the discomfort of a sudden exposure to wind and weather. next day we reverted to the usual habit of starting late; but on this occasion it was excusable, for our dinner, or supper, or whatever name may be applied to our third meal, was not finished till past a.m., so a start at p.m. was not so late as it appeared. as it was difficult to draw a line between day and night, an hour or two one way or the other did not matter very much. some of our party had hurts which they nursed tenderly: the "nautical adviser" had a knee, thomas a side, and so on; and great was the consumption of "elliman's" and "homocea," advantage being taken of the halts to rub in one or other of these remedies for ills of all kinds; but the "nautical adviser" and thomas did not seem to take much heed of their hurts when they were in the saddle, for they rode hard enough over the rough moraines that we crossed. at first our course lay over soft peaty ground, but afterwards we were obliged to pick our way over expanses of great boulders. we had to ascend for a while, but suddenly, from the ridge at the highest point in our ascent, there was opened to us a fine panoramic view of two of iceland's great ice-fields, hoff jökull and lang jökull. a number of prominent peaks stood out boldly, chief among them being hrutafell, skeljafiall, kjalfell, and those of kerlingarfjöll. our next experience was in crossing a wind-blown sand desert, where the wind blew the sand in clouds across our path and we had ocular demonstration of the work performed in such regions by the wind, where great clouds of sand sweep onward day after day, encroaching upon the land and continually altering the surface features. although this is a genuine _sandr_ it is not so marked on the maps. we covered several miles before we got clear of this sandblown desert and entered a region of ordinary moraine matter. after lunching beside a small brook we continued over the moraine to the river strangákvisl. the pack had gone on ahead while we were at lunch, but one guide was left behind to pilot us across the river, which is noted for the number of quicksands in its bed. there is a considerable spice of danger in crossing these quicksand rivers, for a pony sometimes gets into the soft treacherous bottom, and the rider runs the risk of a ducking, even if nothing more serious happens. the guides have a wholesome dread of the rivers where quicksands are known to exist, and not without due cause. no definite and fixed course can be taken--the quicksands are always changing their positions. the guide went first, as usual, and we were preparing to follow, when suddenly we saw his pony falter and then plunge wildly as he sank into soft sand. the guide was about to jump into the water in order to relieve the pony, and to distribute the weight over a greater area--this is always done as soon as the nature of the bottom is ascertained--when the pony struggled upon a hard bottom and righted himself. another course was then chosen, and we all got over without finding any quicksand. a succession of moraines brought us to the banks of a broad river, the blandá, having several channels and a reputation for quicksands. by this time we had caught up the pack-train, but we waited while it crossed the river, one guide staying behind to pilot us after the pack had safely accomplished the crossing. the guide marked with big stones the point of entrance and then watched intently--as did we all--the passage of the river by the pack. it was forded, however, without misadventure, so we followed carefully in the track pursued by the train. the conductor's pony slipped in the middle of the river and nearly threw his rider into the water, but a quick recovery by the pony prevented a disagreeable wetting and an uncomfortable ride. we had a third river to cross before the day's fording was over. a quantity of moraine and hummocky land intervened, but that was traversed without incident worth recording. the third river is a second blandá, a branch of the other blandá; it is really the main river whose proper name is the beljandi, but the people do not recognise that name, or so speak of it. although not a quicksand river, most members of the party narrowly escaped coming to grief. it was very deep at the start, and there were some deeper holes not far from the bank; it had to be entered at a very sharp angle, and with a bit of a drop close to the steep bank. miss hastie was the first nearly to come to grief: her pony suddenly dived into one of the deep holes, and she herself was taking a header when her pony made a wonderful recovery from its plunge into the hole, and set her straight again; she, however, was unfortunate in straining her side, but she afterwards pluckily kept on the way; all the others following, with one exception, got into one or another of the deep holes; but they all escaped complete submersion, though wetted about legs and feet. i was the exception, for i was riding last--a position that enabled me to profit by the misfortunes of the others and avoid all the holes. i had a way frequently of bringing up the rear, because of stoppages made to take passing shots with camera at things of interest. this camera was always strapped to one of the rings of my saddle, where, on a comfortable pad on the off-side, it rode in safety--except when i happened to bring my whip down heavily upon it instead of upon the pony. the result of these stoppages was, that there was sometimes a delay in the crossing of a river, or a wait at an awkward spot, or at a point of divergence. it often happened that in coming up with the main party, i found my companions shivering from the effects of inaction in a cold wind--the wind _is_ cold when it blows from one of the ice-fields--and in a frame of mind that must have been affected by the wind, judging from the freezingly cold manner in which i was received. after crossing the river, we continued along near to its banks for several miles. in a pool just below some small rapids, the only rapids we had seen, there were several swans. our course lay, as usual, over moraine matter and hummocky land, but there was a big patch of black sand composed of fine lava particles that we had to cross. thus we proceeded until reaching hveravellir, our next camping-ground, where we found a complete change in the appearance of the country. we seemed to have got clear of hummocks and boulders, and to have reached the margin of fairyland, for we found ourselves, with grass around, looking at a series of hot springs, fumaroles, and sinter terraces, down which azure blue water trickled, lodging in a number of basins in the terraces, and adding by its colour to the beauty of the scene. visions of the delights of a natural warm bath rose before me as i looked upon the terraces, recalling the luxury of bathing at the pink terraces in new zealand, before their destruction by the eruption of mount tarawera. there are many pleasures in anticipation, for we did not enjoy warm bathing here; we had none; the water was too hot and the basins too small--though there was one small pothole in which the water was not very hot, where one could, with the aid of a big sponge, imagine better things, for the water did not look clean and sparkling and blue as in other basins. miss hastie might have had an awkward experience at the spring where she elected to perform her ablutions, of whose periodical activity she was at the time unaware. during breakfast, one of the guides informed us that the small geyser miss hastie had been using as her hot-water tap had "gone off." subsequent experience proved such pools untrustworthy for washing of any kind. a number of handkerchiefs left by themselves to soak were found an hour or two later making their way down an escape hole in the basin, and one that had been entirely absorbed by suction was _not_ returned during a subsequent eruption by the dishonest geyser. we erected our tents beside a blue warm-water stream facing the sinter terraces, and as the next day was sunday, we camped there for two nights. we all took a number of photographs of the terraces and the hot springs, and tried to catch the small geysers when they erupted, as with a few exceptions they did at short intervals; it is true that the eruption was not very violent, and the water was not thrown to a great height, three feet, perhaps, being the maximum. [illustration: hveravellir--the sinter terraces.] the next day was devoted to exploring the surrounding neighbourhood, and the different members of the party were struck with different features. thomas and i set off together. we made for the higher ground, and looked round; we at once saw that we were at the edge of a recent (geologically) lava flow. about four miles distant there stuck up two horns, which we afterwards discovered to be the only prominent remains of the cone of the volcano, strytur, whence the lava had been ejected. strytur stands in the middle of the long strip of country lying between, and about equidistant from, the two great ice-fields, lang jökull and hoff jökull, the area of each of which is roughly about five hundred square miles. the strip is about _fourteen_ miles wide at its narrowest part (not eight as shown on the existing maps), and extends north and south about twenty-five miles. strytur is on the divide, or water-parting, between one system of rivers flowing north and another flowing south, and it stands on the highest part of this strip of land. the lava, as it issued from the volcano, flowed north and south down gentle declivities, and spread out east and west almost to the outlying ranges on the margins of the ice-fields. north it extends to just beyond dufufell, and south almost to lake hvitarvatn. i had come to this part of the country intending to make a quick survey of it as we traversed it from end to end; thomas also wished to note its structure, so we both looked with interest over the expanse of broken lava spread out before us. it was the roughest possible country to survey (as was subsequently proved), and we were not altogether taken with the task before us. we made our way to a prominent peak of lava that rose forty or fifty feet above the general level, and thence looked around. i wanted a line on which to base my survey, and i decided that this peak and a similar peak, lying in an easterly direction about a mile away, would be suitable elevated ends for a base line. chapter vi the interior--strytur and its lava i commenced my survey the next morning before breakfast, when i went out to the first position on the lava-peaks and there set up the plane-table, that table which had so badly come to grief at the heels of the runaway pony a few days before. my drawing-paper had been kicked to pieces and was quite useless, and it was only by a chance that i was able to attempt a survey at all. at edinburgh, just before starting, thomas bought two or three small sheets of drawing-paper for his own work, in order to be independent of my supply; it was lucky that he had done so, for i was thus able to borrow from him. the size of the sheets was much smaller than mine, and they did not nearly fill the table; it did not much matter though, for part of the table was quite unfit to work upon, because of the long holes where splinters were missing; of course, the area of country capable of being mapped on a sheet was reduced according to the size, and it meant the use of a greater number of sheets of paper, which was a disadvantage; but the board of the plane-table _could_ with care be worked upon, and there _was_ paper available. having set up the plane-table in position, i erected a flag-post and returned to camp to breakfast. i found that thomas had, in the meantime, made a small survey on his own account of a line of fissure running through the hot springs of hveravellir, and had located the position of the springs on that line. the morning was so beautifully fine, and the sun shining so brightly, that we breakfasted in the open at tables erected in front of the tents. we photographed the camp and the party, with the guides at ease close by. the frontispiece is from a negative, the property of miss hastie, which was taken by the conductor. our meals were not always taken under such favourable conditions--the weather, as a rule, was not good enough. we generally had them under cover of a tent, where we messed in much closer quarters, small accidents being not uncommon in consequence. one morning they were more numerous than usual: the soup took a long time to boil, and when at last it was hot enough, the conductor stumbled and spilled some of the precious liquid over the "handy man," who would have preferred an internal application; then somebody upset the coffee; soon afterwards ominous creaks were heard to proceed from where the "nautical adviser" was seated on his camp-stool, which finally collapsed, and our heavy-weight measured his length on the ground. but such incidents as these, trivial as they were, served to enliven us; they were specially diverting when the weather was adverse. the weather gave promise of great things, so thomas and i started away for our first position full of good intentions. i soon got to work, and made excellent progress with my plane-tabling; but gradually there was a change, the sky clouded over, and before long rain began to fall; now, to work at a plane-table in the rain is impossible, so i had to stop. we decided instead to measure along our base line towards the second position at the other end of it. we started in a drizzling rain, which increased as we proceeded; it was very difficult work, for the line was over the roughest possible lava-field. we made good progress, however, but when we had measured thirteen-sixteenths of a mile, it was raining so heavily that, wet through as we then were, and with boots filled with water, we resolved to abandon work for the day. after we had started in the morning, the rest of the party proceeded to the next camping-ground, a few miles farther on, at thjofadal--a valley at the foot of the big mountain of the region, hrutafell. for this camp we made tracks over a perfect wilderness, where the fantastic shapes assumed by the lava were most wonderful. there were vents innumerable, including a number of the fissure type; arches, too, that had resulted from side pressure; also many other peculiar forms: pillars, circular vents, etc. on nearing thjofadal we emerged from the lava and entered upon the moraines at the foot of the range bordering the great ice-field of lang jökull. passing over one of the spurs running down from this outlying range, we dropped by a steep descent into the valley of the thjofadalsá, a small stream on the south side of the ridge known as kjalhraun (lava ridge) that crosses the lava-field by way of strytur, the highest spot in it. the next morning thomas and i returned to our first position. originally most of us had intended to make an attack upon hrutafell, the giant peak of lang jökull; but the rain had delayed my work by the greater part of a day, so thomas and i had to give up all idea of attempting the ascent. the idea was finally abandoned by the other members of the party, but a preliminary survey of the difficulties was made by the conductor, who thought that he could see a way that might render a successful ascent possible. the "handy man," being released from the hrutafell expedition, offered to lend a hand in measuring the remainder of the base line, so he accompanied us back to position number one; we also took thorlakur, one of the guides, with us. on the way, which was along the foot of the range outlying lang jökull, we had to pass over a small snow-field, close to which we came upon a good specimen of ropy lava. after taking several photographs from my first position, we proceeded along the base line to where a staff had been left to mark the point already reached, and thence continued our measurements to the second position at the other end of the base. we found the two positions to be nearly a mile and a quarter apart. a more difficult piece of measurement could not be imagined, taken as the line was over the extremely rough surface of a broken-up scoriaceous lava-field. we remained at the peak forming the second end of the base line for several hours, during which period i was very busy at the plane-table. we then proceeded towards the volcano, strytur, across the lava, and found it a scene of the wildest and most fantastic desolation--a constant succession of rough lava, ropy surfaces, vents, arches, snow-fields, and small lakes of icy coldness formed by melting snow. occasionally we had an unpleasant variation, for there were many bogs that appeared to be quite solid until the plunging of a pony, as it sank into one of them, told us that the apparently hard-looking surface was a mass of mud with a number of lava blocks and stones set in it. arrived at strytur, another indescribable scene of desolation met our view. the lava was twisted and contorted in the wildest manner, and mixed in the utmost confusion. the volcano has two craters, inner and outer; the former rather more than three-eighths of a mile, and the latter nearly five-eighths in diameter. the two horns are of peculiar shape: the western horn being but an isolated pinnacle rising less than a hundred feet above its surroundings; the eastern horn is another isolated peak, but though one side of it is perpendicular, and goes deep down into the inner crater, the other side falls gradually away in the typical slope of a volcano. these two horns stand up as distinct landmarks, and can be seen from a great distance to the north; in the south, however, they are hidden, by intervening hills and mountains, from many places that are but a short distance away. the inner crater contains much lava debris, some of the blocks being of enormous size, while in several places there is snow of unknown depth. my third position was on the highest point of the eastern horn. the wind was very cold, blowing as it was direct from the ice-field, and my companions who had but little work to do had a trying time of it in such an exposed position. they stood shivering in the cold, but descended after a while to the foot of the horn, whence they whistled away at short intervals in an endeavour to hurry me over the work; but as there was no rain, i had, in spite of cold winds, to stick to it, and take advantage of the opportunity to work at the plane-table. i was hailed with delight when i did descend--delight at the prospect of getting away from such a bleak, inhospitable spot. the view from strytur looking towards hrutafell and the ice and snow field of lang jökull is very fine. once more we crossed the lava-field and made the best of the way to our camp at thjofadal. next day i was obliged to go on with my work without a companion, and had not a smooth time of it altogether; things did not go right. over-night i had determined to fix my fourth position on the mountain rauthkollur, the highest point at the southern end of the outlying range of lang jökull. i set out alone, for thomas was in trouble with his side, and the "handy man" did not look upon the expedition with much interest, for the weather was most unfavourable for any one not having special work to do--rain, hail, snow, and blow were the conditions that held during the whole of the time that i was away from camp. the way lay up a steep gorge between the mountain and a spur running down from near the end of the range; the slopes of the gorge were covered with scree that gave way at every step, and often i slid back several yards before i could stop myself. the climb was a stiff and very uncomfortable one, laden as i was with instruments, glasses, camera, and plane-table; but by sticking to it i gradually ascended yard by yard. i got off the scree whenever possible, and climbed up the course of a small mountain stream; but there were many waterfalls that could not be climbed, which caused me to return to the scree again and again, often sending the loose material flying down in a series of landslips. higher up i skirted several small snow-fields, where better progress was possible, for the scree at the edges of the snow did not slip away so freely. the ascent would have been easy enough had i not been so heavily and awkwardly laden, or had my hands been free. at the summit of rauthkollur a glorious view rewarded me. in front stretched the great ice-field of lang jökull; away to the left was the giant hrutafell: three of its glaciers faced me, while a fourth could just be seen at right angles to the others. the back of this mountain merges in a series of hills that are set in the ice of lang jökull. below hrutafell, and at the foot of the ice-cap of lang jökull, a perfect network of streams came from the snow and ice; it was interesting to trace their meanderings as they ran into stream after stream, until finally all joined in one swift-running torrent and flowed at the foot of the moraines below hrutafell. away to the right i looked along the outlying range, on the end peak of which i was standing, and down into the valley between the range and the ice-field. in spite of the adverse weather, my plane-tabling was very successful from this station; its commanding position enabled me to obtain a good view of the surrounding country, not only over the ice-field, but also over the country from which the ascent had been made. i looked down into thjofadal, right over the mountain thjofafell, across the lava-field to strytur and kjalfell, and to the ice-field of hoff jökull beyond. showers had to be dodged and plane-tabling done when it did not rain or snow; but i filled up the intervals by taking several photographs, and by making a boiling-point observation for altitude, also clinometer observations for calculating the heights of surrounding peaks. the return to camp was made at a quicker rate than the ascent; but i met with a nasty accident, by slipping on a stone in the gorge and diving head first down a small waterfall into a pool of water below. the plane-table turned over, and coming upon me, pinned me down in the water for a few seconds; the camera was underneath in the water, which was flowing through it, for the outside case was not water-tight. i extricated myself in course of time, not much the worse for the fall; a badly bruised knee, the loss of a quantity of skin from hands, and a few minor bruises, being all the damage that i had received--it might have been much worse, laden as i was. on arrival in camp i was patched up, and the "nautical adviser" busied himself in preparing soup and other comforts for the inner man, for which attentions i was grateful. the other members of the party had not done very much in the bad weather, one or two small excursions to spots in the neighbourhood excepted. late in the afternoon we struck camp and moved on a few miles farther, to a spot known as gránanes, right on the other side of the lava-fields. our way lay round by hrutafell by the side of the river falakvisl, which runs in a deep gorge at the foot of the mountain. from this river we struck across rough lava, then moraine matter, and again lava right up to the river svatá. the rivers, as a rule, run along at the edges of the lava flows; there are some exceptions, however, and one instance, in the west of the island, i will refer to in its proper place. one very fine vent we came upon when crossing the lava. gránanes was on the other side of the svatá, just by a spot where the water falls ten or fifteen feet over a hard ledge of rock extending across the river. beyond the river all was moraine matter, great moraine hills, the material of which has come down from hoff jökull and has been piled up for miles along its margins. many very fine erratics are dotted about on the surface near gránanes. [illustration: a volcanic vent of the fissure type.] it was on the moraine side of the river that we made our camp. round about there was lying a number of twigs and dried roots, the remains of dwarf willows that had grown there when the conditions were rather more favourable. miss hastie suggested that we might be energetic and collect some of these in order to make a fire. it was a cold night, and the idea of a camp-fire commended itself to us. we gathered together a number of the twigs and roots, and hill tried to ignite them. he raised a dense smoke, but though he worked hard and fanned industriously he was unable to induce a satisfactory blaze. anyhow, it was cheering to see the smoke rising into the air, and we did not mind being half stifled when occasionally it was blown into our faces. [illustration: a survey photograph (no. ) from grÁnanes ([sun symbol] e) looking towards lang jÖkull.] next morning, after breakfast, i went up to a terrace of the moraine where i made my fifth station, and fixed its position on the map; i also did some plane-tabling while preparations were being made for an expedition to kerlingarfjöll. chapter vii the interior--kerlingarfjÖll [illustration: a survey photograph (no. ) taken from [sun symbol] e looking towards kerlingarfjÖll.] when preparations had been completed, some of us started for the mountains of kerlingarfjöll, where high up, among the snow and ice, there are hot springs, fumaroles, and solfataras. the party was a small one. thomas, hill, and i started with the conductor and two guides. unfortunately thomas's side was giving him "fits," and he had to return after going but a very short distance. we had a big quicksand river, the jokulvisl, to cross--a river that is often highly dangerous, and sometimes, when the water is "up," unfordable. we were accompanied so far by the "nautical adviser" and the "handy man," who afterwards proceeded up the river to view a very fine gorge in it, which we saw from the other side. the journey was most interesting; we crossed vast moraines, where enormous erratics were dotted about on the surface, before we reached the jokulvisl. the guides all had a great dread of this river; but we made a good crossing, for the recent cold weather had retarded the melting of the snow, and there was no flood in the river, though it was running very swiftly. the sensation when crossing these swift-running rivers is very uncanny--one seems to be rushing up-stream against the current, and on looking at the ponies and their riders in front the impression is deepened: they seem to be moving rapidly as the water rushes by and foams round them, but really the pace is very slow, for the ponies plod along steadily through the water. even if those in front could be ignored, the impression of going rapidly up-stream could not be effaced, for the water would rush by and swirl round one's own pony just the same. it might be thought that a glance at the opposite bank of the river ought to dispel the illusion, but even that does not correct the false impression. after crossing the jokulvisl, we proceeded along its banks for nearly a mile to where the river has carved its way deep down through the lava, and left sides that rise vertically for a hundred feet or more. there is a fine hard dyke in one place extending into the river, on the end of which a pinnacle rises that adds much to the grandeur of the scene. after photographing this gorge, we proceeded across more moraine matter until reaching some of the main blocks of the kerlingarfjöll mountains. in these moraines we had very steep slopes to ascend and descend; in one case the descent was so sharp that for safety we all dismounted and led our ponies down the side, at each step sending down a shower of stones and pebbles. at kerlingarfjöll we suddenly came upon a series of inclined snow-fields, one of which we ascended, traversing it from end to end. it was more than a mile long, but the zigzag course that we had to pursue made it seem almost interminable; as it was, we were nearly an hour making the crossing. the photograph shows the members of the party apparently soaring up to heaven on their ponies, who in their wild flight seem to be emulating pegasus. soon after we had started up this snow slope, the clouds descended upon us and we were enveloped in a thick mist; we could see nothing but just a very limited circle of snow around us, and thus we proceeded, zigzagging the whole way. we crossed several other snow-fields, but they were of less extent. [illustration: ascending a snow slope.] [illustration: kerlingarfjÖll--fire and ice.] when approaching the hot springs, we became aware of their nearness by the sulphurous smell that came wafting towards us. suddenly, from a ridge, we beheld a most wonderful and awe-inspiring sight. all around there were snow and ice-fields, and from their midst, but on the far side of a deep valley that intervened, there rose a cloud of steam, the strong sulphurous smell of which suggested the nearness of the lower regions. there was a mass of yellow, brown, green, and blue clayey matter--liparite softened by steam it was--that had been cut and shaped by ice, snow, and water into a series of cones and cone-like surfaces, and from crevices in this clay the sulphurous steam escaped. below was the deep intervening valley, the valley of the Ásquidsá, a river that flows from the upper heights of kerlingarfjöll. to get down to this stream was a work of no slight difficulty; it required patience, much hard work, and much coaxing of ponies. we rode through the snow, and slid down steep slopes of various-coloured clay. these slopes became so precipitous at last that we all had to dismount and plod along their sides, coaxing our unwilling steeds to follow. presently we reached what looked very much like an _impasse_ at the end of a valley, the sides of which had gradually converged until the channel was then scarcely wider than the ponies were broad. the guides were not to be beaten, however, for they proceeded on foot, and literally dragged the ponies one by one down this channel, to where the snow came to an end and there was a drop of two or three feet into a small stream of water. the guides splashed into this, and by dint of much coaxing induced the ponies to follow, leading them along the stream. right at the end there was a small waterfall, with a deep pool below. down the fall they slid, splashing into the pool, where they stood panting beside the main stream that we had seen from above, which ran at right angles to the smaller stream. meantime, hill, the conductor, and i had been walking at a slightly higher level on the top of a gradually descending spur of clayey matter. down the slope of this we scrambled on all fours, carrying with us several pounds' weight of the clay on each boot, to say nothing of what we had on clothes and hands. from the side of the steep slope we mounted our ponies, considerably heavier than when we had been on their backs a few minutes before. we crossed the stream to the hot springs. some of the ponies objected to passing the hot, steaming holes, and absolutely refused for a long time to do so; but eventually all were coaxed or dragged by. to describe the place is impossible, and mere words are inadequate to explain the nature of the scene. photographs that i took do not give much idea of the place, for they are all more or less failures. it differs from anything that i saw in new zealand, because in the hot spring region in the north island there is no ice and snow. i took a boiling-point observation for altitude, and found the elevation of the stream at the foot of the burning hill to be feet above sea-level. i hurried over lunch, and set off with hannes, one of the guides, to try to do some plane-tabling; but the fates, in the shape of dense mist, were against me, and prevented me from seeing anything more distant than a few hundred feet. on the upward journey i had noticed a good position for a new station. on the way down to the spot chosen, which was below the long snow slope, we mistook our way in the mist, and went down the wrong slope, coming to an almost sheer descent before finding out our mistake. we learnt this just in time, however, to prevent a catastrophe. we retraced our steps by the tracks in the snow, until we reached the right slope, and there struck the zigzag track made on the ascent. the intended new station was reached without further incident occurring. from the glimpses of the country that i had obtained on the upward journey, i was convinced that to make a map of these mountains (kerlingarfjöll) would require a week of fine weather and a series of camps on the spot. as nothing of much value could be done in a few hours, i did not lose very much by the mist having descended over the country, except the exceedingly fine views. it was disappointing not to be able to get to work with camera, but under the circumstances nothing could be done except growl at adverse luck. after waiting an hour or so for the rest of the party--hill, the conductor, and sigurthur--who came on more at their leisure, we resumed the descent towards the plains. suddenly we got below the line of drifting clouds, and there we beheld some wonderful sights--remarkable scenes due to a series of rapid atmospheric changes. a small lake in the lava-field suddenly came into view as we reached the line of the reflected sunlight. the lake shone out, gradually increasing in intensity, until it glowed brilliantly with a marvellous light. the effect as the scene opened out beneath the clouds was weirdly wonderful. some of the clouds were of a deep blue, almost purple, tint, producing, as they overhung a line of bright light and vivid colouring, a most impressive picture. away in the distance, on lake hvitarvatn, we could see icebergs floating in their hundreds. these bergs were great blocks of ice that had broken away from the glaciers flowing from lang jökull into the lake. the return journey was accomplished, without the occurrence of any untoward incident, at a rate that showed of what stuff the ponies were made, for they cantered over the roughest of moraines with scarcely a stumble, and we made excellent time to our camp at gránanes. there we found that a real fire had been conjured up in our absence, and a successful attempt made to bake bread in a wash-hand basin--an instance of the shifts that had to be made, which were many and various. when passing over the sloping moraine matter towards kerlingarfjöll we crossed a number of peculiar terrace formations, and we often found similar terraces on the hillsides in other places also. these terraces have edges or banks of vegetation, which seem to grow in irregular lines and to arrest the natural descent of alluvial matter, forming a series of terraces or steps that rise, as a rule, but a few inches one above another. the vegetation also collects some of the wind-blown sand of the deserts, which thus assists in the formation of the terraces. chapter viii the interior--hvitarvatn and gullfoss i was early at work next morning, and did some plane-tabling at gránanes before breakfast. afterwards, when i had finished what i wanted to do at that station, thomas and i, accompanied by thorlakur, the guide, proceeded to efriskutur, a mountain four or five miles distant, on the highest point of which i purposed making my sixth station. we rode down the river and along the ridge of a long stretch of moraine where there were some fine "erratics"; one very large specimen being worthy of a photograph, i got thorlakur on horseback to stand beside it while i took a record with camera. along these moraines we went until reaching the slopes of efriskutur, up which we rode to the summit. i set up the table on the highest point, and got to work; but the sorrows of a plane-tabler were very marked. a strong wind was blowing, and my first trouble was when, in an unguarded moment, i had my hand off the paper; the wind, a very cold and strong one, caught up the map and tore it from the pins by which it was fastened to the table; it was being whisked away, when thomas caught it, and so prevented it from disappearing on the wings of half a gale into the valley several hundred feet below. i next found that my tracing-paper had gone, and that it was impossible to use paper of any kind to work out the position of the new station, for the wind was altogether too strong for it to be held down on the map. i got out some drawing-paper, however, in readiness for an attempt, and in a bit of a lull in the wind i managed, by cutting holes along the lines of sight, to find the position--it had not been fixed from other stations, for there was only one ray to it. we were nearly frozen by the intense coldness of the wind that was blowing straight from the ice of lang jökull, but fortunately it abated slightly after a while and enabled me to get to work. lunch soon afterwards, and the reappearance of the sun, tended to restore better circulation, and thenceforward all went well, except that when i wanted to make a boiling-point observation for altitude, the water-bottle was found to be empty. i had lent it to hill the previous day at the kerlingarfjöll hot springs in order that he might collect algæ; he had returned it empty, and i had forgotten to refill it. as we had brought no water with us for lunch, it looked as if the observation could not be made for want of it; but i remembered in time that there was a small patch of snow on the mountain-side, not very far down. thomas kindly went to get some of the snow, which i melted, and was thus enabled to complete the observation. efriskutur is a tuff mountain; at first we supposed that it was composed entirely of moraine matter, for on the kerlingarfjöll side, by which we ascended, the hill is covered with it. on examining the other side there was no trace of moraine; there was scree in places, but a great deal of the tuff was uncovered. when the atmosphere was quite clear in the afternoon, we saw standing out above the ice of lang jökull a prominent peak, a fine specimen of a volcanic neck. [illustration: immense "erratics."] our work done, we made tracks for hvitarvatn, the lake beside which we were to camp that night. to the river svartá we traversed moraine matter; beyond the river, however, which we crossed, there was no moraine--nothing but the recent lava from strytur, which quite covered the intervening country to the falakvisl, a river that has carved its way along the other edge of the lava; on the far side there are great moraine hills. the falakvisl is a deep, swift river, flowing between banks that are very high in places; it drains the valley between the ice of lang jökull and the outlying range north of the mountain hrutafell, round which it flows, collecting the streams that run down from it and from the other mountains and hills south of the divide of kjalhraun, the lava ridge by strytur. this river discharges its waters into lake hvitarvatn, and we followed its course to within a mile or so of the point of discharge. we found the camp beside the lake, about a mile from the water; there was no convenient camping-ground any nearer to it, for the intervening land was a mere swamp. we were in the midst of wonderful and magnificent surroundings. the lake was covered with innumerable icebergs--great lumps broken off from the edges of two great glaciers that flow from lang jökull to the water's edge on the far side of the lake. it was interesting to note the fact that the farther away the icebergs were from the glaciers the smaller they were, until on the margin of the lake where the water was not so cold they disappeared altogether. facing us was a great basaltic mountain, skrutharfell, set in between the two fine glaciers mentioned. to the left was the great solid mass of bláfell (pronounced blou-fettle, the _á_ like _ou_ in blouse), a mountain that had much snow covering its sides; to the right, hrutafell reared its icy head high into the air; behind, there was the mountain range of kerlingarfjöll. all this was affected by the gorgeousness of the sunset effects; the sun was descending behind the ice-flow, and lighting up ice and snow with the most wonderful colouring; it was a thing to be seen and remembered--to describe it in adequate terms is impossible. the lake was the resort of many swans, which disturbed the slumbers of at least one member of the party, for they called and squawked in the most persistent manner through the small hours--i will not say of the night, for we were having twenty-four hours of daylight just then. i was moving early next morning, for i intended to get to work at the plane-table, but the fates were against me once more, this time in the shape of clouds which overhung the tops of kerlingarfjöll and hrutafell, completely hiding two of the points of those mountains that i required to sight in order to fix my position. i set up the plane-table, however, in the hope that the clouds would clear later on, and then took a boiling-point observation. after breakfast i waited in vain for an hour or two for the clouds to rise and the peaks to clear, for otherwise it was impossible to fix the position. the peaks _were_ gradually clearing, but time was passing; we had a long day's journey before us, and a deep and dangerous river to ford on the way, so a guide could not well be spared to wait an hour or two until proper observations were possible. i had to make the best of it, so took sights on a separate sheet of paper to a number of points, hoping that eventually i should be able to complete. the peaks _did_ clear at the last moment, and i took sights to them; but as there was not time to fix the position on the map itself and to take the other sights again, i did all that was possible under the circumstances, hoping that what had been done would fit in properly. on returning to england, i found the observations agreed very well with my previous work. my work, so far as the map was concerned, was at an end. i cannot say that it was completed, for the time spent there was too short to permit of the whole of the country lying between lang jökull and hoff jökull being mapped. i had hoped to complete a map extending from dufufell and hveravellir in the north to the mountains of kerlingarfjöll and the lake of hvitarvatn to the south; but several things conspired to prevent my doing it full justice, the chief of which were that we were two days late in arriving at hveravellir, and that the weather was not quite so good as it might have been. it was about mid-day, if i remember rightly, when we got under way and proceeded along near the shore of the lake; we crossed the svartá close by where it enters the lake, and at a point just below where the river falls over a ledge of hard rock ten to twelve feet high. we passed over great accumulations of moraine matter towards bláfell, gradually rising until an excellent view of hvitarvatn and the myriads of icebergs floating on its surface was obtained. so we proceeded until we came to the river hvitá. this was one of our big rivers, and its crossing was a dangerous undertaking. the pack, as usual, showed the way and made a successful crossing. we stayed behind, for the purpose of photographing the pack when in mid-stream. the photograph that i took shows the pack-train right in the middle of the river. we followed, and crossed without any untoward incident occurring; the water was rather deep, and when in mid-stream it came up to our knees. at this river we saw a number of sheep swimming across, which is quite a common thing for them to do. [illustration: the pack-train crossing the hvitÁ.] i afforded some entertainment to my companions in the course of the day. the pony i was then riding was a confirmed stumbler, and he blundered along during the whole day, sometimes on four legs, but more often on three; occasionally he shortened his two front legs and tried to make good time on his knees. it was not altogether pleasant riding, for there was great uncertainty as to which mode of progression he would next adopt. after several bad stumbles he came to grief. he stumbled, recovered, went on two paces, and then came right down. he caught me off guard when having a loose seat immediately after his recovery, with the result that i was deposited, very nicely and quietly, however, in a soft sand-patch that was handy. i was much disgusted, for i happened to be just in front of the other members of the party. but this was nothing compared with the next entertainment that i gave soon afterwards. we had not proceeded much farther before some of the rotten saddlery gave way: my crupper broke and a ring at the back of the saddle was dragged out--my oilskins, etc., came adrift and fell; but one of the packages did not get free, it hung by a strong cord at the pony's heels, where it dangled, knocking against them. my pony did what any self-respecting pony would have done in similar circumstances--he promptly bolted! now the ground thereabouts was not remarkable for its evenness; indeed, it was one of the roughest pieces of ground that we passed over in the course of the day. he made excellent time, and the harder he went, the more the package hit against his heels, until he became quite frantic with fright and ran amuck. i was at the rear of the party some distance behind when he started off, but we soon caught up the others, bumping into one, cannoning off a second to a third, and nearly unseating miss hastie, who was not prepared for the charge. my only fear, as he was such a bad stumbler and had already been down, was that he would come a cropper in the course of his wild career and throw me upon a lump of lava; but as he kept his feet, i stuck to him and at last managed to get him under control and pull him up. he stood trembling in affright, for the objectionable package was still at his heels. i dismounted and removed the disturbing cause, afterwards returning in company with the "handy man" to collect the goods and chattels that were lying distributed over the country that had just been crossed in something like record time. in spite of the bumps and knocks that they received, my companions enjoyed the spectacle, and it afforded them an opportunity for some good-natured chaff. [illustration: a fine gorge in the side of blÁfell.] during the latter part of the day's journey, which was along the high banks of the river hvitá, we saw some fair specimens of columnar basalt. there were times, when we were travelling along on the edge of these high banks within a few inches of the edge of a drop of two or three hundred feet, that i did not feel quite comfortable, for my pony continued to stumble along to the end of the journey; but he did not come right down again, though several times he had to be pulled up from his knees. [illustration: gullfoss--front view with "rainbow" effect.] [illustration: gullfoss--side view.] we came round bláfell in the course of the day, and there saw a number of very fine gorges in the mountain sides, deep ravines carved out by the streams and torrents on their way to the river, the hvitá. our way lay over moraine accumulations nearly the whole of the day, and during the latter part of it along the right bank of the hvitá (white river), a swift-rushing glacier stream that drains lake hvitarvatn of the water there collected from lang jökull. there are many deep and picturesque gorges in the basalt through which the river flows. [illustration: gullfoss--the upper fall.] we camped beside the hvitá at a spot known as sandá, which lies just below the confluence of the hvitá and sandá. we were then near the southern end of lang jökull, looking upon the very striking mountains that fringe its edge, the jarlhettur (the earl's hats) as they are called, because of the shapes of their upper portions; several of these peaks are interesting inasmuch as they are, without doubt, the hard cores of ancient volcanoes--volcanic plugs or necks. [illustration: gullfoss--the fall into the ravine.] at sandá we remained over sunday, but as it rained hard we were confined to our tents nearly the whole day--our sundays were, as a rule, very wet, and of six or seven that we had in or about iceland only two were fine; it did not matter much, for sunday with us was always a day of rest, and the rain only kept us to our tents. on these occasions much tobacco was consumed and as many matches were used as economy allowed. on leaving sandá our way lay for several miles over a desolate sandy and stony desert. farther on there were many evidences of ice-action: the rounded forms of boulders attracted our attention, as did numerous ice-scratchings on them; some of the outcropping lumps were beautifully rounded, and in one place (in the same valley as gullfoss) after passing the falls, but just before reaching bratholt, there was undoubted evidence that the ice had swept up a slight rise in the valley before descending the steep slope towards the bratholt farm. [illustration: gullfoss--the ravine below the falls.] [illustration: below gullfoss--castellated dykes.] gullfoss is one of the sights of iceland. it is a magnificent waterfall on the hvitá, where the white water of the river cascades over a series of step-like barriers stretching from side to side, and then plunges finally over a ledge of very hard rock into a yawning abyss more than a hundred feet deep, whence it throws up clouds of spray that are carried hither and thither as the wind sweeps first this way and then that; so thick is the spray, that one's clothing soon becomes saturated on incautiously getting into it. gullfoss is one of the finest waterfalls in europe, and it is only surpassed in grandeur, if at all, by one or two others in iceland. we saw the falls at their best, for when we arrived the sun was shining brightly and a rainbow playing over the spray as it rose from the gorge. it is true that the sky clouded over afterwards, and that rain began to fall before we left gullfoss, but we carried away the impression of the broken waters of the cascade sparkling in the sun, and of the colours of the rainbow playing on the spray over the ravine. the water has carved out a deep gorge in the basalt, and below the falls there are many good specimens of basaltic columns. in the lower part of the gorge there are the picturesque remains of a very fine hard dyke that has a much softer one beside it. these remains are to be seen on both sides of the river, and they have assumed the outline and form of a number of castellated buildings perched high upon prominent peaks. chapter ix geysir and thingvellir we were very near the margin of the desert interior, for within two or three miles we arrived at the farm-house of bratholt, the first human habitation that we had seen for ten or twelve days. we had traversed the uninhabited country and were then entering upon the final stage of the journey across the island, where we expected to see some of the better class of farms and farmers. bratholt farm-house seemed to be one of the superior kind--it was certainly the best that we had seen so far. we lunched there, and while the meal was being prepared were shown over the premises by the farmer's wife and daughters. a fine specimen of an old kitchen attracted my attention, and i determined to try to photograph it. the housewife was most anxious to help with the camera. i had a difficulty in setting it up in a suitable position, so she volunteered to hold it wherever i wanted it to stand. i tried to explain that she could not hold it still enough, and that it would have to be kept in one position for nearly ten minutes; she stood in the way looking on till i fetched a guide to explain matters, when she left me to my own devices. it was quite a picture, this kitchen; one of the curiosities it contained was an old quern with a bone (human?) for a handle. the room was as smoky as most of the icelandic kitchens usually are; in the roof there was a number of skins that had been hung up to dry or placed there for preservation. some three-legged pots stood in a corner on the floor; a fire was burning in a fireplace built of lumps of basalt, and the smoke that arose from the smouldering peat bricks hung in the air till it gradually escaped through a hole in the roof. we invaded the work-room and bed-chamber, which is usually called the _bathstofa_. as its name implies, this chamber was once the bath-room of the house; but bathing has gone much out of fashion with the icelander, and he no longer considers a tub at short intervals to be desirable. the _bathstofa_ is now used as a living-room; it is fitted up with a series of open bunks ranged along the sides, in which the various members of the family repose at night; but the bunks serve not only for sleeping purposes--they are often the receptacle for all sorts of things, and we could hardly help noticing in one a miscellaneous collection consisting of sugar, stockings, skin shoes, tea, etc. there were several spinning-wheels in the room, and at our request the lady of the house set to work at one of them. the family made cloth, various articles of clothing from it, sheep-skin shoes, and bone spoons with "gullfoss" carved on them, for the "trippers" who call when on the way to gullfoss. one of the daughters was an expert in the use of vegetable dyes; she was not at home, but we saw some of her work. we bought a few things: shoes, stockings, gloves, rugs, etc., and the "handy man" cleared out the stock of cloth and called for more, but more was not to be had there. later in the day, however, we passed another farm where cloth could sometimes be bought; the "handy man" heard of this, and we lost sight of him for more than an hour while he was, ostensibly, making further purchases, though he did not seem to be overburdened with their weight when at last he turned up. in the evening he remarked on the beauty of a girl that he had seen at the farm, which raised grave doubts as to whether the charms of this beauty had not been the _real_ cause of his long stay there. we thought it mean of him not to have informed us when in the neighbourhood, and told him so; he smiled serenely, for we were then a safe distance away--half a day's journey. we expected to camp that night at geysir; so when the "handy man" appeared with his bundle of cloth, we pushed on for that interesting spot. we had to cross the river tungufljot on the way; it is a rather deep and swift-flowing river, but we made an excellent crossing at a recently discovered ford where the water did not reach much above the level of our stirrups. at geysir there is a region of hot springs, geysers, and blue, boiling cauldrons, where one can stand on the sinter margins, look deep down into the blue waters, and imagine whence they come. there is also a number of holes where liquid mud bubbles and splutters. there are geysers active, and others quiescent and extinct. among the latter is the celebrated strokur--a few years ago it was very active, but now it is quite dead; it died during an earthquake that occurred in . although the earthquake stopped strokur, it seems to have caused great geysir itself to play with increased energy. strokur had to be coaxed into activity, but it was easily done by feeding it with lumps of turf, which were thrown into its yawning mouth, wide open always and ready for a meal. it never failed to give a display when properly fed. it was when it had had a surfeit, and was likely to be choked with the turf, that it erupted, ejecting the turf violently, and at the same time shooting upward a column of boiling water and steam. but all this is of the past--no quantity of turf will provoke it into activity now; it is dead, and there is no indication that it was once the scene of violent disturbance; nothing remains as a record of former glories but a hole in the ground a few feet in diameter. it was late in the evening when we arrived. the weather was not what we should have liked, for it was dull and rainy; there had been much rain at geysir during the previous few days, and we were informed of the fact by a farmer living in the neighbourhood. it is said that geysir erupts more frequently during and after a period of much rain, and also when the wind blows from a certain quarter--i forget which quarter, but that is immaterial now, for the all-important thing is that it was then blowing in the favourable direction. whether there is any real ground for the reports i do not know, but i record the fact that during a stay of about fourteen hours geysir erupted six times, and that the average is said to be one in twenty-four hours. the first eruption occurred while we were at supper at about . p.m. there was a dull, deep-seated thud somewhere below, a sort of subterranean rumbling that caused us to inquire of our conductor, who was rather deaf, what it was. we had previously been informed that certain premonitory rumblings always preceded an eruption; but we were doubtful whether what we then heard was the warning. the conductor had not heard it, and he was endeavouring to explain to us the nature of the sound when a guide rushed to the door of the tent to inform us that geysir was about to play. we hastily left our meal, made an abrupt exit from the tent, and rushed to the spot. surely enough it was in eruption, for great clouds of steam were rising from the crater and rolling towards us. we got to windward of the steam, and looked towards the crater, and what a sight it was! high into the air, sixty, seventy, eighty feet up, there was shooting stream after stream of boiling water, which fell in showers of spray all around, some descending towards the crater and meeting on its way the outgoing streams. a ring of sinter surrounds the crater; it is raised ten to fifteen feet above the general level of the ground, so the hot water that fell upon it ran off in a ring of little cascades. it was a wonderful sight, this enormous natural fountain; it continued to play for two or three minutes before it gradually subsided and stopped--all was then still, save that the last of the water was streaming over the edges of the sinter ring, whence a little steam was rising. as soon as the eruption came to an end, we climbed upon the ring, which has a diameter of something like a hundred feet; there is a large depression or basin in it that is filled with water before eruption, but it was then empty. in the middle of the basin there is a funnel, said to be about sixty feet deep; at the surface it is about sixteen feet in diameter. we stood on the edge of this funnel or crater, looking down into its depths, the water then standing at a level of something like fifteen feet below that at which we had previously seen it. [illustration: the sinter ring of geysir.] we returned to our interrupted meal, congratulating ourselves that we had arrived just in time to witness the fine display, without at all expecting that we should have another opportunity of seeing such a spectacle. but, as i have stated, we were lucky enough to see in all six eruptions, three of which occurred at short intervals during the night. the first occurred at . p.m.; the others at . , . , . , . , and the last of the series at . a.m. the finest displays were the first, second, and last. the second, that at . a.m., occurred just after we had turned in, but the warning rumblings sounded before we had gone to sleep. each made a dash at some articles of clothing, and hastening into them, made a blind rush through the rain to the side of geysir, where we presented a curious spectacle: we were a very motley assemblage indeed, and the various costumes it would perhaps be better not to describe accurately. i have not a photographic record of the scene--there had been no time to get out cameras, and the light was very bad. [illustration: the funnel or crater of geysir.] there is a smaller geyser, known as little geysir, distant about a quarter of a mile from its more important neighbour. now, this happened to be in good working order, for it erupted while we were finishing our evening meal, sending up spray to a height of from ten to twenty feet, and continued more or less active during the rest of the night. many were the boiling and bubbling springs that we saw along a line of fissure nearly half a mile in extent. the basins of some of them were very beautiful, one especially, where the water was of a bright blue colour and the edges of the sinter basin quite white. the basins and terraces are composed of the silica that was at one time held in solution in the water that flowed over them; it was gradually deposited layer upon layer, slowly lining the vent through which the water was ejected, and building up the terraces and basins. we were loth to leave the neighbourhood of geysir and continue on our way; but we could not linger, because time was of importance to some of the members of the party, who had to reach reykjavik, the capital of the country, in time to catch a certain steamer. another day could not be spared, so on we had to go. we proceeded at first over a quantity of sinter debris, and then through some hummocky land. after a while we came to a wood--an icelandic forest, or one of the nearest approaches to a forest that iceland can boast. it consisted of a quantity of scrubby birch and willow "trees," mere bushes, averaging three to five feet in height, though some, it is true, attained the height of six or even seven feet; interspersed amongst them were some geraniums (_g. silvaticum_). the river bruará flows through the middle of the wood, and we had to cross it on our way. the crossing was a peculiar one. at the spot there is a rapid in the river, with a waterfall just below. hard rock stretches from side to side, forming a barrier that is cleft in the middle of the river; the water flows with very picturesque effect over the ledge and into the cleft, which is bridged by a wooden platform; the crossing is effected by the bridge, and by fording the river on each side of it. while i was photographing the spot with some members of the party on the bridge, my pony ran away, and crossed the river, leaving me on the wrong side of it. however, the runaway did not get very far before its career was checked; it was then brought back, and i followed in the track of the others. farther on in the wood we halted at a wayside farm-house for lunch, and to rest for a while before continuing on what was likely to be a long journey. away we went again, though, through the wood, until we overlooked the bruará at a spot where it had worn down the valley to the level of a plain of denudation, of which it is a fine specimen. there, below, was the river meandering in a winding course over the plain; there also were two small lakes, one of which, laugarvatn, is of historical interest, for it was there that the icelanders on being converted to christianity were baptized; they objected to cold water, but a hot spring in this lake causes the water to be warm, so the objection was overcome, and they were baptized in the warm waters of laugarvatn. we gradually descended to the vicinity of laugarvatnshellirar, a peculiar volcanic district, where a number of castellated-looking rocks on the hillsides are very suggestive of ancient ruins. to the left of them rises the kalfstindar range, the peaks of which are the hard plugs of ancient volcanoes that have become exposed by the erosion of the softer material of the original cones. here we came upon recent lava again, and during the rest of the day's journey we were obliged to travel very slowly, for we had to pick our way over very rough ground. the ponies stumbled along hour after hour, much to the discomfiture of the "nautical adviser," who was in a helpless state, suffering great pain. earlier in the day he had been stung on the eye by an insect. at first he did not feel much inconvenience, but as time passed, his eye became inflamed and very troublesome; so intense was the pain at last, that his eyes had to be bandaged. thus blindfolded he had to ride on, just balancing himself, and allowing his pony to pick its own way through the lava as it followed one or another of us. it was a very dangerous proceeding, because the lava over which he had to pass was of the roughest possible kind; the ponies had to perform all sorts of peculiar antics while dodging from side to side, or in climbing over boulders or outcropping rocks, now going up a steep slope, then descending one at a dangerous-looking angle. when three or four miles from thingvellir, our destination that night, we came to a great rift in the earth known as hrafna-gjá (raven's rift), a crack going deep down into the earth, and extending three or four miles in a line parallel to another even greater rift that will be again referred to. on reaching hrafna-gjá, we had to climb down its steep side, there being a drop of something like a hundred feet to the lava at its foot. the steepness and unevenness of the descent rendered it necessary for us all to dismount and lead our ponies down. the day was dull and the light then becoming bad; but we had to plod on. we were not many miles from our destination, thingvellir. we presently saw right ahead what looked like a line of high precipitous cliffs with a white patch in it. at first we were very doubtful what the patch could be; but on drawing nearer we heard the splash of falling water, and from the sound, judged that the volume was pretty large. we could see nothing distinctly, though, for it was approaching midnight and the light was failing fast, so we pushed on along a line parallel to the cliff, unable to distinguish anything clearly. it was at vallholt, close to the margin of lake thingvallavatn, that we halted. there we reached modern civilisation suddenly, for we came to a large galvanised iron structure which we found to be a hotel, so we pulled up and dismounted. on inquiring for our tents, we were informed that they had not been erected, and that we were to take up our quarters at the hotel. we had not expected this, and as we had all become somewhat attached to our canvas quarters, we grumblingly entered the hotel and went in search of our boxes. the arrangement of the interior was peculiar: a large hall occupied the middle of the building, extending the full width, and reaching from floor to roof; at each end of the hall, a passage led through to the end of the building. on each side of one of these passages there was ranged a number of cabin-like rooms, each of which contained two bunks, one above the other, and in a corner there was a wash-hand basin, the whole being fitted up like the interior of a cabin on board ship--this was accounted for by the fact that the arrangement had been designed by a sailor. thomas and i had piloted the "nautical adviser" and given his pony a lead during the last part of the journey, so we three were rather late in our arrival; but we were met with the cheering intelligence that supper (it was . p.m.) would be ready in a few minutes, and that we were to "hurry up" and make whatever change of costume we deemed necessary to celebrate the return to some of the conventionalities of modern civilisation. we were hungry, very hungry, and did not waste time over an elaborate toilet, but soon put in an appearance in the large central hall. here we were regaled with a most sumptuous and excellent banquet. the soup was all that could be desired, and it was hot--a very comforting thing when one is half frozen. this whetted our appetite for the other good things that were to follow: salmon that was cooked to perfection; then came another excellent dish, and last of all delicious pastry and cream--the icelanders, as i have already stated, are noted for the quality of their pastry. we had growled on finding that we were to take up quarters in a tourists' hotel, but the quality of the dinner quite reconciled us to the return to civilisation. we had been living for more than a fortnight on tinned foods, so we fully appreciated the good things that "mine host" had provided for us. we were disappointed in one way; but when a hungry man has fed well he is not disposed to quarrel with things in general--especially when they take the form of a fairly comfortable bunk and more room in his cabin than he would have had in his tent. thingvellir and the neighbourhood is a most interesting and historic place, for it was there, in the tenth century, that the althing, or parliament, used to assemble. the spot whereon it once met, known as the logberg (law rock), is now a verdure-covered hill, lying between two remarkable rifts in the lava. thingvallavatn is the name of the largest and most picturesque lake in iceland; the view of it which we had obtained the day before from above hrafna-gjá was very fine, but the atmosphere had not been quite clear; we had seen enough, however, in spite of rain and haze, to enable us to form an idea of the beauty of the scene. we were favoured on this occasion, for the air was clearer and the light brighter, so we were better able, from the elevated site of the logberg, to enjoy the fine view. the meeting-place of the althing was removed from the logberg to one of two islands lying in the lake, but to which of them is questionable, though it is supposed that it used to meet on the long flat island near thingvellir, close to the shore of the lake. not only is this neighbourhood interesting historically, but geologically it claims attention. i have already mentioned the remarkable rift, hrafna-gjá; there is another at thingvellir--i am not referring to the two rifts at the logberg, for though noticeable in themselves, they are but minor rifts when compared with that of hrafna-gjá, and still more so when comparison is made with almanna-gjá (all-men's rift) at thingvellir. it is a most extraordinary break in the earth, extending for three or four miles across the country in a line parallel to hrafna-gjá, showing a face of lava with a drop of something like a hundred feet. now what has happened to cause these extraordinary rifts? the whole of the land between hrafna-gjá and almanna-gjá has fallen in, dropped through about a hundred feet, and forms a "rift valley." the lake derives its water chiefly by underground rivers from the ice-field of lang jökull, though one small stream, the oxará, runs into it. this river tumbles over the edge of the cliffs by a fine cascade into the rift of almanna-gjá; but it does not flow very far (less than a mile) before it escapes through a gap in the outer wall of the rift by a second and smaller fall. above the smaller fall there is a pool known as the murderesses' pool, in which it was once the custom to drown women found guilty of infanticide or adultery. [illustration: almanna-gjÁ--in the rift near the waterfall.] there are several legends connected with thingvellir. one of them refers to a remarkable jump supposed to have been performed by one flossi, an outlaw, who, on being closely pursued, escaped by jumping across one of the lava rifts of the logberg hill--an impossible feat with the rift at its present width, but it is supposed to have widened considerably. in these rifts of the logberg there is, deep down, some beautifully clear water standing at about the same level as the lake. over one of the rifts there is a small wooden bridge with a hole in the middle of it; beside the hole we saw a bucket with a long rope attached. as the clear water of one of the pools was immediately below, it was not difficult to infer that this was the source of the water-supply of the hotel which was in the immediate neighbourhood. after we had seen all that was of special interest at thingvellir, we started on the last stage of our journey across the island; but before doing so we took leave of two of the guides, josef and sigurthur, who were returning to our starting-point, akureyri, with about a dozen of the ponies; for we had no further use for the full pack, seeing that we expected to reach reykjavik, the capital, in the course of a few hours. from this place to reykjavik a road has been constructed--a rough one at best, but still a road; the only one of any length in all iceland, for it is thirty-six miles long. it commences just below the lower fall of the oxará; after a short ascent, a bridge crosses the river between the waterfall and the murderesses' pool, whence it rises by a steep ascent to the level of the country above the rift. this part of the road has been cut in the side of the fissure of almanna-gjá. from above we obtained a fine view overlooking lake thingvallavatn, but after losing sight of the lake we saw no more of the picturesque until nearing reykjavik. an exceedingly fine specimen of a glaciated lava surface attracted thomas and myself. my photograph shows it excellently: in it there can be seen the undulating surfaces of lava, the _roches moutonnées_, just as they were smoothed by the passing ice, and there on the surfaces are several "perched blocks" which helped in the smoothing and scratching process. there was evidence all along the road not only of the work of frost and ice, but also of that of fire and heat, for we saw in all directions tuff and lava cones and volcanic necks. [illustration: glaciated lava surface near thingvellir.] on nearing reykjavik we met a number of pack-trains conveying goods of all descriptions to the farms. it was just the end of the season when the farmers make their annual journey to the capital. they take in their wool, dispose of it, and then return with whatever goods they have purchased. some of the farmer's women-folk accompany him as a rule. the women ride their ponies on a saddle peculiar to iceland. they balance themselves on their ponies seated sideways, with feet resting on a little platform that hangs suspended from the saddle by two straps; they ride by balance alone, for there is no horn by which they can grip the saddle. all goods have to be transported on the backs of ponies, for as there are no roads (with the exception of that from reykjavik to thingvellir) so there are no carts or waggons in general use--i did see _three_ carts in iceland, one of them in reykjavik, but they were used only for hauling goods from the wharves into the towns. timber and galvanised iron are carried balanced on the backs of ponies, the galvanised iron having to be doubled up. a pony sometimes looks very peculiar as he plods along with an unwieldy load swinging from side to side. he has an awkward time of it whenever there is a heavy or gusty wind blowing, and that in iceland is very frequently. heavy goods that cannot possibly be carried on the backs of ponies are transported when the winter snows cover the ground; rough sleighs are then used for the purpose. chapter x the capital--reykjavik much to our surprise, when about two miles outside reykjavik, we met our fellow-passenger by the _ceres_, him with whom we had lunched at thorshavn on the outward journey. we had left him behind at that port, and he had intended to stay for several weeks at the faroes and to return thence to england; but having found things rather slow there, he had followed us to iceland by the next steamer; hence the meeting on the road. we created some sort of sensation as we entered the capital of iceland. the clocks were striking ten as we clattered down the long main street; it was a time when the populace were at leisure and on the street, and they evinced no little curiosity as we rode by them. they were congregated in small groups, and it was evident to us that we were being discussed--and no wonder, for we were a motley-looking cavalcade! we must have presented a very grotesque appearance, clad as we were in oilskins, and covered with mud from head to foot: it had been raining at intervals on the way, and we had had a rather disagreeable journey. we caught glimpses of faces at most of the windows peering curiously at us and watching our progress through the town. many of the members of the groups, by the wayside saluted as we passed by--the icelanders are a polite people, as a rule, and they doff their head-gear in salutation to strangers. so we progressed, being saluted, and acknowledging the salutes. it was a sort of triumphal entry, for the news had been carried forward by one of the guides, who was some little distance ahead with some of the pack-ponies, that we had just crossed the country by way of the uninhabited interior. all things come to an end, and so did our journey when we reached the end of the main street in reykjavik, for there, at a great wooden building four stories high, we took up our quarters, and the crossing of iceland was an accomplished fact. if reykjavik is not a town to be admired, it must be said that the surrounding scenery is most beautiful; and one of the finest sights i saw in iceland was one evening when sunset effects were on hill and dale and over the sea. glasgow house--why so named we were unable to discover--was where we were quartered. the accommodation was fairly good, though there was a lack of furniture in some of the rooms. we learned that the proprietor had but lately entered into possession, and that the furniture had come from a much smaller house; it certainly required some additions to make the general accommodation equal to the table kept there. we came in hungry after our thirty-six miles' ride, so we fully appreciated the good things set before us by our hostess, a danish woman, who was a capable head of the kitchen. the dining-room was on the ground floor, but a steep staircase led to a large hall-like room above, from which a number of doors opened into bedrooms. after we had eaten a most excellent meal--dinner or supper--we went for a midnight prowl round the town. our fellow-passenger by the _ceres_, an oxford man, whom thomas and i had known there, was staying at glasgow house, so he accompanied us, and we strolled about the more retired parts away from the main street, discussing the incidents of our travels in the interior. [illustration: the business end of reykjavik by the governor's house.] reykjavik is not a very large town, as its population of about four thousand indicates. it is built on the coast and is a long, straggling place; and although just in the business quarter there are several streets running parallel or at right angles to one another, yet, with this exception, the houses are built along the main thoroughfare. the buildings for the most part are of wooden construction, with galvanised iron roofs, though here and there a turf-roofed shanty stands as a reminder that the habitation of the average icelander has no galvanised iron about it. some of the principal business people are danes, and many of the houses have been built more in conformity with danish ideas than with those of the icelander. the natives are fishermen and farmers, and have no very strong predilections for general business--they are inclined to leave that sort of thing to the danes, who are more adapted to it. the clergymen and doctors are, as a rule, the sons of farmers who exhibit signs of greater brightness than the average. they first go through a course at the latin school, and then proceed to the theological college or the medical school; some afterwards go to copenhagen to the university there. both clergy and medical men are paid by the state, though the latter receive a nominal fee from their patients. the finest building in iceland is said to be the bank in the main street of reykjavik. it is a strongly built, solid-looking square structure. the ground floor is used for banking business, but the upper floor contains a good collection of icelandic curiosities and antiquities--it is known as the antiquarian museum, i think. old weapons, ladies' saddles, women's national dress, snuff and various other kinds of carved boxes, gold and silver ornaments, altar-cloths, altarpieces, and other church furniture, etc., are among the exhibits. this collection is never open to the public in the way that similar collections are open in other parts of the world. a visitor cannot walk in at any stated definite hour--the doors are always locked against admission unless an appointment is made with the caretaker of the collection to open them, and if, as in our case, one happens to be a little after the appointed time, a wait of half an hour while the attendant guide goes in search of the caretaker may be necessary. in the ornithological museum--a large room attached to a small house just away from the business part of the town--there is a fine collection of the birds of iceland. we tried to gain admission here without having made an appointment with the caretaker, but quite failed: the door was locked, and we were unable to make known what we wanted. the only person on the premises, a middle-aged icelandic woman, laughed and giggled and talked, and evinced no little curiosity regarding certain articles of our clothing. we thought, in our ignorance of her tongue, that she was making fun of us and of our dress. when we went away from the museum, this woman followed us down town, and on meeting our guide we learnt that our curious friend was not quite in her right mind--a fact that accounted for her peculiar actions and manner. we saw the collection of birds on another occasion by appointment. facing a grassy square there are two buildings of importance--one of these, a wooden structure, is the cathedral; the other, a massive stone building, is the senate house, where the members of the althing, or parliament, meet. [illustration: reykjavik--interior of the cathedral.] iceland has recently been granted home rule, but at the time of our visit the althing consisted of two houses--the upper and the lower. the upper house was composed of twelve members, all of whom were icelanders--six of these were appointed by the king of denmark, the other six being elected by the people. the lower house consisted of twenty-four members, all icelanders, and all elected by the people. each house had a president, who was elected by the members. the president had no vote, so in the upper house the icelanders always tried to elect a president from the members appointed by the king of denmark in order to give the people's representatives a majority of six votes to five. the governor, an icelander appointed by the king, to whom he was answerable, had the right to sit in each house; he occupied a seat beside the presidential chair. the members of each house were elected for three sessions; but as the houses met in every alternate year only, there was an election but once in six years. a prime minister was appointed by the king of denmark, but he did not sit in either house; in fact, the minister of two years ago had never been in iceland. he was a dane, residing in copenhagen and knowing nothing of iceland or its requirements except from report. the prime minister resembled our colonial secretary in his relations with our colonies, though there was a difference in that he was _nominally_ answerable to the icelandic althing as well as to the king of denmark. bills were presented in either house by the whole house, by a section of the house, or by an individual member. the bills were read three times, and the house might go into committee on a bill at any time. the committee might consist of three, five, or seven members in the upper house--it was more often three and five--and of three, five, seven, or nine in the lower house. either house might reject a bill passed by the other house. the king of denmark, acting on the advice of the icelandic prime minister, used to approve a bill passed by both houses, when it became law. in the althing there are no parties as we know them, for all the members are united on high politics, are republican in their feeling, and most anxious to retain their independence of action. the members often have differences of opinion about a particular bill, of course. the session used to last for eight weeks only, and during that period the houses sat daily (sunday excepted), often having two sittings a day. the members assembled at mid-day, and if the business was not got through by four, they adjourned and met again at five. as the althing met but once in two years, and the session was so short, there was a gap of a year and ten months when legislation was at a standstill. during that period, however, the members were often in communication one with another, and any bills that it was desirable should be presented to the althing at the next session were discussed in that way. the press was also the medium for the discussion of desirable legislation. as some of the members contributed to and wrote for the newspapers, the pros and cons of a particular bill were often pretty well thrashed out before being presented to the althing. local affairs were managed by sysselmen, or sheriffs, who had great powers vested in them. when our party broke up, as it did the next day, i went on board the _bothnia_ to see off those who were leaving iceland. the whole party had pulled so well together, and had been so successful, that we separated with feelings of regret that all could not proceed on further travels in the west of the island. the day after the departure of those leaving iceland, miss hastie and i visited engey island, one of the homes of the eider duck. on landing from a rowing-boat that had been hired to convey us from reykjavik, a distance of two to three miles, we were delayed for a while by a heavy shower of rain. when it had abated we could find no one at the wharf able to speak english, so we made our way to the house of the owner of the island, for we had been informed at reykjavik that we should find some one at engey to point out the resorts of the ducks. we found there a young girl who could speak english very well. on learning our desires she at once offered to conduct us to the ducks, and led the way, accompanied by a sister, over a series of slippery stones and rough hummocks, to the ducks' nesting-ground. the season was almost over, so we did not see many birds in the nests. most of the eggs had been hatched, and the parents had departed with their young, or else were swimming about in the waters around the island. nevertheless a few birds still remained in their nests, and we found them comparatively tame; they were not quite undisturbed by our presence, though, for they moved away a few yards in an agitated state, leaving their young to blunder and stumble about all around. in vain we tried to keep the ducklings from wandering, but they would struggle out of the nest time after time, the mother walking round us the while with a watchful eye upon her brood. it is said that the down which the old birds pluck from their breasts to line the nests may be removed two or three times before they abandon them. some of the nests, which were in the hollows between the hummocks, had bad eggs in them; so that, unless care was taken in moving from one hummock to another, a bad odour might make us aware that we had taken a false step. on returning to the house, the girls who had accompanied us showed the process of cleaning the eider-down. it is taken in handfuls and rubbed over a wire grating: the down clings to the wires, while the dirt falls through; the grating is reversed from time to time, and the down removed from the wires and rubbed repeatedly until properly cleaned and freed from dirt and foreign substances. chapter xi in the west--to reykholt we spent two days at reykjavik before renewing our journeyings. we were a much reduced party, for instead of eleven persons in all, we only mustered five when, on the third day from our arrival at the capital, we set out once more. miss hastie and myself were all that remained of the old party, but we were joined by a young icelandic medical student, jón rosenkranz, while we were accompanied by our old conductor as "guide, philosopher, and friend," and hannes as guide. jón we soon found to be of a sportive nature, and he never seemed happier than when something was not going right. when any of the pack strayed, he seemed to be quite in his element, for he would settle into his saddle with a bump and go helter-skelter over the country after the straying ones. hannes was his especial butt, and though hannes himself was a mine of dry humour, yet he at times took things very seriously, and it was then that jón was in good form; his eyes would sparkle, and he would slyly endeavour to "take a rise" out of hannes, though hannes, as a rule, was quite equal to the occasion. we were bound once more for the interior, and expected to get well up towards the lakes of arnarvatnsheithi, to visit the caves at surtshellir, and to see the western side of lang jökull, where we should again enter the uninhabited desert. the greater portion of our journey, though, would be among the western farms, in country rich in folklore and made famous in the sagas. our way lay for several miles along the thingvellir road, then we turned off to the left and skirted the fjord for a mile or two, soon, however, striking inland away from the coast. we passed at the foot of lagafell, a rather striking mountain having an abrupt escarpment, and proceeded thence through grassy country to mosfell. soon after getting clear of reykjavik we were met by one of our old guides, thorlakur, who accompanied us to mosfell, where he possessed a farm, which lay on the hillside overlooking a green plain well besprinkled with cotton grass. after lunch we went up to thorlakur's farm, and made the acquaintance of his wife and two little girls, who entertained us to coffee. i took two photographs of the family: one showing the dwelling--a typical western farm-house of the better class--and the other with thorlakur on his pony, and showing a tuff-capped and protected hill in the background. the grass on this farm was very thick, and in the plain below the cotton grass was so abundant that it looked as if a number of white sheets had been spread over the green. [illustration: thorlakur and his wife and children at his farm-house.] after taking leave of thorlakur and his family, we proceeded on our way, making a gradual ascent until reaching a spot overlooking a stream, beyond which there were some peculiarly-shaped brownish hills that presented a somewhat castellated appearance--from the distance it was difficult to judge whether they were volcanic necks, or liparite or tuff formations. on the way the weather, which had been quite fine to the time of our arrival at mosfell, gradually changed: we could see the moisture condensing on the mountains away to our left and straight ahead, and were much struck with the peculiar way in which the mists hung over the hills and left a valley quite clear. from the spot overlooking the stream just mentioned, we descended into the valley and crossed the river, the leiruvogsá; then we commenced the ascent of a long, steep track up the hillsides, between skalafell on the east and the great mass of the mountain esja on the west, towards the pass known as svinaskarth. beyond the river, we entered the region where the moisture was rapidly condensing, and made our way up the path in a perfect deluge of rain. we passed hundreds of small streams and rivulets that came down the mountain sides across our path. we did not mind the rain, for we were clad in oilskins, and the weather was not cold--there was a great difference in temperature from that of the interior and between the ice-fields: it seemed milder, as indeed it was, and the rain did not strike so cold. we were experiencing the difference due to the warmer winds from the south and south-west, and to the effect of the north atlantic drift, a continuation of the gulf stream. one peak of esja to the left was a sharp-pointed brown cone of liparite, and it stood out as a prominent feature as we ascended. the pass was very steep in places, and had a number of abrupt turns in it, and there were many views that would have made fine pictures for the camera in clearer weather. descending the pass into the valley of the sviná (svinadal) the gradient was rather severe, so we dismounted and led our ponies down the steepest parts to relieve them from our weight for a while. a very noticeable feature in svinadal was the number of streams that emerged from the mountain sides, from beneath the lava flows, and then ran down in a series of cascades to join the river sviná in the valley. we followed this river to its confluence with the laxá, which flows for a short distance through a quantity of outcropping lava, _roches moutonnées_ again, whose rounded and smoothed surfaces stand as evidence that ice once filled the valley. thence we proceeded along the valley of the laxá (laxadal) beside the river and through a quantity of moraine matter to reynivellir, passing the volcanic cone of sandfell to the right. along the sides of this valley the straight lines of the lava flows can be traced for miles dipping but very slightly inland from the fjord (laxavogr), which we were then in sight of. we arrived at reynivellir on saturday evening and stayed there till monday. the weather was not good, and excepting on sunday evening, when there was a break that caused some very fine cloud-effects, it rained almost incessantly. our first camp was made here, but as through a misunderstanding only one tent had been brought, which miss hastie used, the rest of the party had to make shift in another way. i elected to use the church as my place of residence, and had my bed rigged up in the loft or gallery; this loft was a veritable storehouse, so out of curiosity i made a rough inventory of the articles i found. besides several boxes and sea-chests, there was hanging from a number of hooks a wardrobe that would have clothed about half-a-dozen persons of both sexes; then there were some large lockers, ranged along the side of the loft, that were filled with wool; a number of agricultural implements, a rocking armchair, and two forms completed the list. the icelanders are very hospitable, and travellers are made welcome. every farmer who can afford it has one or two guest-chambers that are placed at the disposal of any one passing through. on arrival at the farm the traveller is invited to partake of coffee. when this is served in the best room of the house, the farmer and his wife join the new arrivals in a light meal, consisting of excellent coffee, and fancy pastry of equally excellent quality. some of the icelandic women are very good pastry-cooks, and the cakes and pastry they produce often equal in quality any that could be procured at a first-class london confectioner's. at reynivellir there are a farm-house and a church. the churches are either athalkirkja (principal church) or annexia (farmers' church), and that at reynivellir is athalkirkja. the clergy are appointed and paid by the government; but they have farms which add to their incomes. the religion of the icelanders is lutheran. service was held in the church at reynivellir on the sunday morning while we were there, and all the members of our party attended it. the minister was attired in black robes, which he wore with a white ruff and flattened hat; he looked exactly as if he had just stepped out of a velasquez picture, for his face and dress were quite typical. it is a peculiarity of the icelandic services that the members of the congregation come and go just as they please; evidently they consider the service of too long duration, for many leave the church and absent themselves for periods varying up to fifteen minutes. i inquired why, and was informed that the icelanders being used to open-air life, could not remain still and cooped up for any length of time, so they left while the service was in progress, in order to stretch their legs and occasionally to have a smoke. they were quite regardless of the time of commencement of the service, and came in at any time during its progress. the sexes did not seem to mix, for the men were seated, most of them, in the chancel around the pulpit, while the body of the church was occupied by the women, though a few men sat in the seats right at the back. the rain continued to the time of our departure from reynivellir, for we set out on monday in a depressing drizzle. we had a very stiff climb by a zigzag path up the side of the reynivallahals mountain, a flat-topped range having the valley of the laxá on one side and the waters of hvalfjord on the other. after crossing the highest part of the ridge, we gradually descended to the water of hvalfjord, passing fossá, where there is a small waterfall in a ravine, close by a wooden bridge that spans it. there was a good view from fossá over hvalfjord and to the head of one branch of it. to this branch we descended by a long slope on the steep mountain side, and then passed round the head of the arm, where the brgnjudalsá runs into it over a ledge of basalt. we could not help being struck with the two bold scarped ends of the mountain ranges that come down to the fjord: muláfjall between the two branches, and thyrill beyond. after crossing the brgnjudalsá, we rounded the first headland, and proceeded for some distance along the second arm of the fjord till we came to a black sandy beach, which was then covered with about six inches of water. this was fully a mile from the head of the fjord, but we crossed at this point, the ponies splashing through the water as if they enjoyed that part of the journey--and doubtless they did. our way then lay at the foot of the great escarpment of the thyrill mountains, a range that has been carved by the weather into wondrous fantastic shapes, the end presenting a magnificent castellated appearance--a fine solid block resting on a sloping base. [illustration: the thyrill mountains.] one of the sagas relates how the thyrill family some nine hundred years ago resided on the small island of greirsholmi, which was probably much bigger than it is at the present time. they had a feud with another family, who invaded the island; but the thyrills had received warning of the approach of the enemy, and they escaped to the peninsula of thyrillsnes, where a sanguinary battle was fought. all the thyrills were slain except one woman who had been left on the island, and she escaped by swimming to the mainland with her baby son; she then ascended the castellated end of the thyrill mountains and escaped through the gap between the two blocks into which it is divided. it is said that when the son grew up, he wreaked vengeance upon the family that had almost exterminated his own. from thyrill we proceeded along the shore of hvalfjord for two or three miles, and on looking back, the end of the thyrill mountains presented a remarkably fine appearance. from a base of lava and tuff, with a talus slope above, there rose the main castellated block composed of upright columns of basalt. looking the other way towards the sea, the block of mountains known as akrafjall, round which the fjord bends, stands as a striking feature in the landscape. on leaving the coast we climbed some liparite and tuff rises, and then passed over a range of hills (ferstikluhals) northward. from the divide we had a very good view over the country ahead; in a valley below there were three lakes having an outlet for their water through svinadal, by the river laxá, into a small fjord named leirárvogar--this must not be confounded with the laxá already mentioned. it should be noted that the same name is often applied to more than one mountain, river, or town, and confusion as to the geographical position may arise unless it is clearly understood which of those bearing the same name is indicated; for instance, mosfell (mossy mountain) is applied to several mountains, hvitá (white river) to several rivers, and stathr (a homestead) to several villages or farm-houses of note. we skirted two of the lakes in the valley and then passed between the last two, where hannes made a deal in trout with a man who was fishing in a stream connecting the two lakes. we made our way through rain, which had just recommenced after a fairly fine interval lasting during most of the day's journey, to the head of the third lake, where we found quarters for the night at the farm-house of draghals. miss hastie occupied her tent as usual; but i, not liking the guest-chamber because it was absolutely devoid of ventilation,--the windows were fixed in their frames and could not be opened,--took up my quarters in a drying-shed, a large and airy enclosure running along two sides of the house, which was a fair-sized galvanised iron structure. beside this modern excrescence there stood the old wooden-fronted, turf-walled, and grass-roofed buildings that were formerly used as the dwelling-house, but were then converted into kitchen and dairy buildings--ancient and modern were side by side. [illustration: miss hastie trout-fishing.] there were some pretty scenes on the river draghalsá, an interesting stream having a number of hard and soft dykes cut through by the water that descends in a series of waterfalls to a pool, the overflow from which runs into the lake close by. both pool and stream afford sport for fishermen, and miss hastie and jón got quite a good basket of trout there. i was less fortunate; but as i did not commence until the others had finished, i concluded that they had caught all the fish in the stream and had left none for me to catch--but i am not a fisherman, so lack of skill may have had something to do with the small success met with. [illustration: typical icelandic farmers.] the people here were typical icelandic farmers, and the photographs i took give a very good idea of them. they are not altogether devoid of humour, and enjoyed my photographing our "guide, philosopher, and friend," whom i caught sharpening a knife at a grindstone. he was quite unconscious that i was immortalising him, but the onlooking icelanders grasped the point of the situation, and their appreciation of it was expressed in their faces, which were turned towards me as i took a snapshot at the group. on leaving draghals late in the afternoon we climbed the hills to the north and came in sight of a fine sheet of water about ten miles long. this is skorradalsvatn; it is not very broad, being less than two miles at its widest part. just after passing the divide we came upon a fine waterfall at a spot where the waters of one of the mountain streams fall a sheer hundred feet into a deep pool below. there are two very fine gorges here, and they join at the confluence of two streams that then flow by a meandering course to the lake. the delta of this river has spread half-way across the lake, where the width is gradually narrowing; in course of time it will extend right across, and cut the water into two portions. we then skirted the lake to its head, rounding it just where it narrows to a river, which flows on as the audakilsá towards borgarfjord. just beyond the river we came to the farm-house of grund, where we took up our quarters. we remained at grund a whole day in order that the fishermen might again try their skill with the rod, and they were successful in catching a number of trout. it rained heavily during the afternoon, which was very annoying, for it prevented me from going to explore the mountains of skarthsheithi and the vicinity--a pity, for the group looks a most interesting one. facing grund they form a sort of semicircle, a vast corrie having a yellowish-brown hill in the middle, a liparite mound; to the left of the semicircle there is another brownish mountain that is evidently a series of alternations of tuff and liparite. on the face of the mountains in the centre there are two small glaciers, while to the right there is a remarkable stepped pyramid that shows most distinctly the lava flows--flow above flow being lined out and stepped in the profile, the parallel lines being distinctly marked not only on the pyramid but also round the semicircle. at grund we lost our "guide, philosopher, and friend," whose engagements required his presence in reykjavik in the course of the next few days. in the early morning he departed, and thenceforth we had to look to hannes for guidance. two or three hours after his departure we set out for reykholt. our way lay over some rough rising lava flows at the back of the farm-house, and these we ascended to the divide, whence we had a fine view of the valley of the hvitá. it was fertile-looking country, but the land is not cultivated; grass is the only thing grown, for the sun has not sufficient strength to ripen grain of any kind. haymaking was in full swing just then, and we saw the haymakers at work on all the farms as we passed by. beyond the hvitá valley a long range of mountains stretches from near the sea far inland, the most prominent in the chain being a conical peak (baula) some fifteen to twenty miles distant. after crossing the river grimsá we entered a stretch of country composed of many alluvial river terraces. terrace above terrace had been formed in succession by the hvitá and several of its branches that we crossed in the course of the day, namely, the grimsá, the flokadalsá, the reykjadalsá, and others. between the two last named rivers we had lunch beside the farm-house of kropprmuli. from the reykjadalsá we proceeded to some hot springs, tunguhver, close beside the river. these springs emerge from the side of a small hillock, where they bubble and boil over, and spurt jets a few feet into the air; the water comes down the hillside in a series of small waterfalls or cascades. great volumes of steam rose from the springs, and unfortunately the wind was blowing it in such a way as to obscure the whole of the springs, except for an occasional glimpse when the steam was swirled aside by a strong gust. at one end of the hill, however, where the springs were very active, the steam was partly blown away from us, and we saw several of them in violent ebullition. on leaving this spot we made our way up the valley of the reykjadalsá, a river that we crossed nine times in less than the same number of miles. at a spot close by one of our crossings there was, in the middle of the river, a small mound that is often the scene of eruptive violence; it was the site of the geyser, arhver, which plays at intervals of several days--weeks sometimes, throwing a small stream of water high into the air, sometimes twenty feet or more. at reykholt, where we put up for the night, there are a church, parsonage, and farm. the minister was at home, and he came out to receive us as we clattered into the space in front of the parsonage. he was a big, broad-shouldered man, as broad in mind as in person, and capable of regarding things in a large way. he welcomed us in courtly fashion, and as he spoke good english we at once got on excellent terms with him. an invitation to coffee was of course accepted, and we were entertained by the minister and his wife, a woman in striking contrast to our host in point of size, for she was quite small and slim. the reykholt parsonage is on the site of the house of snorri sturluson, the historian, who lived nearly seven hundred years ago. just below the house, and less than a hundred yards distant from it, there is a hot spring known as skriflir, which seems to have been in existence in snorri's time, for rather nearer to the house there is a bath that is said to have been constructed by him. it is connected to the spring by an aqueduct, also ascribed to snorri. the water on issuing from the spring is boiling, and when it reaches the bath it has lost but little of its original heat, consequently it is impossible to bathe at once. when any one requires a tub, the water is run into it from the spring over-night, then in the morning the temperature is just delightfully warm. this bath was built in twelve hundred and something; and as snorri died in , it is not much short of seven hundred years old. a large iron cauldron that stood just close to the spring served as the laundry, for the family washing was done there. hot springs are often utilised in this way. at reykjavik, the capital, the whole of the washing of the town is done at a hot spring, the laug, just outside the town, and daily numbers of women are to be seen going and returning with their wooden wash-tubs on their backs. the reykholt church was the largest that we had seen away from the towns. the minister informed me that sometimes he had as many as two hundred persons in his congregation, the number varying between that and one hundred. his parish was a large one, there being thirty-five farms included in it. the parsonage was one of the prettiest imaginable, for its grassy roofs and sides were covered with a profusion of camomile flowers. i took photographs of front and back, but they give only a faint idea of the original, devoid as they are of colour. in the valley of the reykjadalsá just below reykholt there is a very thick growth of peat; down by the river it was laid bare for a thickness of more than twelve feet, the thickest seam i saw in iceland. chapter xii barnafoss and the surtshellir caves the sun had crossed the meridian next day before we left reykholt. we had coffee with the minister and his wife, from whom we parted on the best possible terms; they and their children waved their adieux to us as we proceeded on our way up reykholtsdal. we struck across towards the hvitá, and soon came in sight of that river, a swift-flowing stream whose milky-white colour denoted that its source must be up in the snow-and ice-fields of the jökulls. along the hvitá (white river) valley there were many evidences that the river had at one time been far wider, for up the valley sides several terraces marked levels at which alluvium had formerly been deposited. we lunched at stori Ás, in view of the conical peaked mountain, strutr, and eyriks jökull. we were then not far from the bridge that spans the hvitá and affords communication between opposite sides of the river, so miss hastie and i walked on while hannes and jón were adjusting pack-saddles, etc. i came upon an interesting specimen of wind erosion at the top of a rise, where the sandy soil had been blown away from round a turf-covered mound. we passed through a small birch wood, but the trees were very diminutive, three to five feet being the average, with a few rather more; a photograph i took gives the impression of much greater height. on the opposite side of the river we could see recent lava, and on the hillside beyond, the farm-house of gilsbakki. this lava had come from a considerable distance, for i traced its course from gilsbakki, right away past the liparite mountain, tunga, and beyond strutr, where it divides and flows in two streams. this lava determines the courses of the principal rivers thereabouts, which flow along its edges. [illustration: a forest near barnafoss.] just below the bridge a very remarkable sight is to be seen. for more than half a mile along the right bank of the river a series of cascades and waterfalls flow into it. the water issues from beneath the lava of which the steep bank is composed, and then flows down its side; it is a very striking proof of the great extent of some of the subterranean rivers. just above the bridge there is a very fine fall in the hvitá, known as barnafoss; though fine, it cannot be compared with gullfoss in grandeur, and the glory of this part of the river is the series of cascades on its right bank. the spot is supposed to have been named from the drowning of two children near the fall--barnafoss, the children's waterfall; but the minister at reykholt declared that the tale is not true, and that the name is more likely to have been corrupted from bjarni, which is a man's name. it is worthy of note that the birch woods seem to flourish best in the decaying lava in the scoriaceous lava-fields; it also seems to do well in soil produced from liparite, for it grows high up on the east side of the liparite mountain, tunga. [illustration: the cascades at barnafoss.] at the hvitá bridge the party split into two--miss hastie going on with hannes to gilsbakki, while jón and i went along the left bank of the hvitá past husafell, thence onward across the river kaldá, where we got among lava and birches. the birches were much of the same height as those in the barnafoss wood, though i saw several that stood about seven to eight feet high. i took a photograph of one of them--one in which the wood had attained a thickness of some three or four inches; it was the finest specimen of a birch-tree that i saw in iceland. there are bigger birches in the land, for i have seen a photograph of a clump of about a dozen that are over twenty feet in height, but they are in a particularly favoured spot on the eastern side of the island. i got jón on his pony to stand while i photographed the wood through which we were passing, for it was a typical icelandic forest. on crossing the next river, the geitá, i found the lava much broken up and denuded, and there was spread over it a quantity of the alluvial pebbles that are brought down in times of heavy rains and melting ice by the rivers flowing from lang jökull--it is a sort of flood plain, in fact. this continued until we reached the hvitá, but on the other side of it we once more found ourselves upon the unbroken rough lava. close beside this river we came to a halt for the night at the farm-house of kalmanstunga, which is situated in a very picturesque spot facing lang jökull, the glaciers and ice-fields of which are in full view; it has the liparite mountain, tunga, and a portion of eyriks jökull on the right, and the extinct volcano, strutr, on the left. [illustration: map] in the morning i ascended the rising ground at the back of kalmanstunga, and thence obtained an interesting view over the country. in the foreground beneath lang jökull a long valley filled with lava from beyond strutr stretches away from left to right; two rivers flow down the valley, one on each side of the lava, which determines their course along its edges. the hvitá flowed on the edge of the lava just at the foot of the hills whereon i stood; on the far side of the valley, on the other edge of the lava, the geitá flowed at the foot of the outlying hills of lang jökull. away to the right in the valley between the two rivers, towards their confluence, i could see the denuded alluvium-covered lava noticed on the way. this alluvial matter is deposited during floods, when the waters of the swollen rivers unite and flow over the lava as one. it was nearly mid-day before we got a start, for there had been delay over a very important matter. jón had awakened me several hours earlier to inform me that there were no candles in the house! now, candles would not seem to be a matter of much importance to us, considering that it was then broad daylight and that we had but little use for candles in the ordinary way, because daylight continued practically during the whole twenty-four hours; nor would the lack of them seem to be a thing to cause a delay in starting; but it was really the case, for we were about to proceed to the surtshellir caves, and candles were required to enable us to explore their passages. that being so, a messenger had to be sent to the farm-house at husafell, where a stock was generally kept for anybody wanting to visit the caves. the caves were distant about two hours' ride--one rarely mentions distance in the ordinary way when travelling in iceland, because ten miles, say, might represent a journey of three or four hours, or the same distance might be traversed in little more than an hour in very favourable ground. after crossing the rise at the back of kalmanstunga, we descended into the valley of the northingafljot, a clear-water river having its source in a number of lakes of glacial origin known as fiskivötn, lying beyond eyriks jökull. the valley is filled with lava from the same source as that on the hvitá side of strutr, whence i had just come. here the lava is noted for the number and extent of the caves that underlie it. there is a sharp rise as the river is ascended, the stream in consequence being a swift one--so swift, indeed, that it has been able to carve a way through the lava, which it crosses from one side of the valley to the other, a very unusual thing. the upper portion flows on the western edge of the lava and at the foot of the hills on that side; while the lower, after crossing the lava, flows along by the eastern edge at the foot of the mountains strutr and tunga. [illustration: the northingafljot cutting across the lava.] the caves at surtshellir are remarkable for several things. their origin is probably due to a big bubble formation, helped partly, perhaps, by a crust of lava being forced upward in the form of an arch by pressure acting from the sides; though there is no doubt that they have been much enlarged and deepened by the eroding action of flowing water. an underground river used to flow through the caves, but as it does not do so now, some lower channel has doubtless been found. there was evidence of lower caves beneath those visited, for on stamping on the ground in several places, distinctly hollow sounds were produced. the falls into the hvitá at barnafoss, which are only a few miles away, lie in the surtshellir line of drainage, and are proof that very large quantities of water are still flowing underground in this neighbourhood; in fact, it is highly probable that a great deal of water from the numerous lakes, the fiskivötn, on arnarvatnsheithi, escapes underground. there are two entrances to the caves--one near what is known as the bone cave, the other close by the icicle cave. the caves are in a picturesque spot, and beyond the entrance that we used there lies the great ice-covered eyriks jökull, one of the highest mountains in iceland. there is a depression in the lava at this spot--a double depression, in fact, for inner and outer rims indicate them very distinctly, and it is obvious that the opening in the caves is due to the falling in of part of the roof. access to the caves is obtained by scrambling down the loose broken lava to an opening at the bottom. the photographs do not give much idea of the roughness of the "going"; from end to end, except in the icicle cave, where difficulties of another kind were met with, the floor of the caves was strewn with broken lava. the fragments that have become detached from the roof and now lie upon the floor are angular blocks of extreme raggedness and hardness, piled up in confused heaps that test quality of boots, strength of ankles, and toughness (or tenderness) of skin, to say nothing of the mysterious capability of hanging on "by one's eyelids" that is almost absolutely necessary in places. [illustration: the double depression in the lava at the entrance to the surtshellir caves.] [illustration: in the surtshellir caves near the entrance, showing the water-worn lines.] jón and i were accompanied by the farmer from kalmanstunga, a man acquainted with the caves, who had come with us in the capacity of guide. we scrambled down to the entrance and then lighted our candles. when once inside, there could be no doubt as to one of the causes of their existence or enlargement, for there along the sides of the caves, indicating the different levels of the old river, were numerous water-worn lines. the photograph shows this very clearly; it also shows the lava fragment bestrewn floor, and the roof from which the fragments have fallen. we followed our guide into the main channel, but he soon turned to the left into a branch known as the bone cave, because of the number of animal remains (bones) that bestrew the floor. it is said that some twenty to thirty outlaws at one time occupied the cave, and that the bones are the remains of the sheep and oxen which the outlaws stole from the flocks and herds in the neighbourhood, and which they consumed for food. that may have been so, or it may not, but it would account for the presence of the bones; except for some such tale it would be difficult to do so, for the animals could hardly have strayed so far from daylight, to say nothing of the difference of level between the floor of the main channel and that of the bone cave. this branch cave was soon explored, for in about two hundred yards the roof gradually converged to meet the floor, and we found it necessary to crawl on hands and knees--a painful thing to do over the rough angular lava blocks. retracing our steps we descended to the old river-bed again and scrambled over rough boulders for a considerable distance, to emerge after awhile by a long rising snow slope into the open air. the snow remains in the caves all the year round; it drifts in through the opening during the winter, and the warmth of the whole summer's sun does not suffice to melt it--it was then the end of july. the opening has been caused by the falling in of the roof, but there is no way out--the edges overhang quite beyond reach. on again we went, down another snow slope to the second section of the caves, where the "going" was indescribable. our way lay over the roughest and sharpest-edged blocks of lava that it is possible to imagine, where nothing but the strongest of boots would have withstood the wear and tear; it was one continuous scramble on hands and feet. i found it most difficult, for in addition to the candle in my hands, a camera was slung from my shoulders, and the wretched thing would continually work round in front and get mixed up with arms or legs at critical moments when my body was contorted in scrambling up, down, or over, a particularly awkward series of sharp-edged boulders. at last we reached another long snow slope, at the top of which there was another opening to the caves--the second entrance already mentioned. the snow-drifts are not very deep in places, for i went through twice, though i was able to scramble out again without assistance. the last section of the caves is most remarkable. after descending into it by another snow-drift, we found ourselves in a region of frost and ice. water trickled everywhere from the roof, crystallising into long icicles, and the drops that fell upon the floor were converted into smooth ice, or gradually built up ice stalagmites. for several hundred yards the whole floor was coated with ice; there were myriads of icicles pendent from the roof, and on the floor stood ice stalagmites, pillars and columns innumerable. one of the first features to notice was a fine group of clear ice columns, while we came upon the most beautiful thing in the caves a little farther on, after descending an ice slope that was most difficult to negotiate without alpenstock and ice nails in boots. however, by the exercise of great care we got down without tumbles, and were rewarded by the sight of a very beautiful snow-white cascade of ice; the scene was very pretty and fairy-like, illumined as it was by the light shed upon the surroundings by our candles. it was after passing the cascade that the real difficulty of the journey began. for several hundred yards we had to make our way over countless lava boulders, but no longer were they sharp and angular, and rough to the touch; no, they were far otherwise, for they were coated with ice and were as smooth as glass, and oh, so cold! and as slippery as the proverbial glass, only more so, for no glass could be so slippery. up and down we went at the slowest possible rate of progression, climbing over huge blocks of ice-coated lava, hanging on with hands to some of the ice stalagmites that, fortunately for our safety, were in hundreds--nay, thousands, and feeling cautiously with feet for projecting pieces of ice on which to rest them and get a sort of foothold; but our slips were many in the pitchy darkness that was but faintly relieved by the dull light from the candles we carried, which we clasped convulsively in our hands as we clutched at the icy stalagmites, and slid and slipped and blundered along. at last we emerged from the ice-bound region to find ourselves on scoriaceous lava, coated in places with a thin layer of a loamy deposit. over this we crunched for a few hundred yards till we came to a cairn built in the middle of the cave. in a recess of the cairn there was a tin box, which the guide soon brought to our notice. it contained a number of visiting cards that had been left from time to time by tourists wishing to immortalise themselves, for this is one of the least visited of the "lions" of iceland. on the top of the cairn, which stood nearly shoulder high, there was a wooden board, having on it a number of coins, ancient as well as modern, for one of them, a danish coin, bears the date . it is a time-honoured custom for visitors to leave a coin there; but as water drops from the roof upon the board containing the coins, they speedily decompose; indeed, many of them were already unrecognisable from decay. the end of the cave was but a short distance beyond, perhaps a hundred yards, and there two staves, about three feet long, with hollow ends, rested in an upright position on the floor at a spot where the roof and floor rapidly converged; they were kept in place by the sloping roof, which meets the floor a few yards beyond. in the hollows of the staves there were several old coins, one of them being a danish piece about the size of an english crown. to get out of the caves we had to retrace our steps over the ice-covered boulders and through the icicle cave to the second entrance. the photograph shows the view looking towards the entrance just before ascending the snow slope; we had already passed most of the icicles, but on the floor, which is of ice, a few of the very small stalagmites are shown. [illustration: surtshellir--the icicle cave.] in the icicle cave we met miss hastie and hannes, who had come over from gilsbakki because the day was so fine and summer-like--it was one of the few days that really felt summery. after lunch beside the northingafljot we started for gilsbakki, proceeding down the lava in the northingafljot valley. we crossed the river at a convenient ford not far away, and rode along on the right side of the valley. we passed by the liparite mountain, tunga, this time on the western side of it; the lower slopes were covered with birch, though it did not grow so far up as on the eastern side. the colouring of the bare exposed rock was brown, yellow, purple, etc.--just the same as that at the hot springs at kerlingarfjöll, and it looked as if several places were the sites of hot springs, then extinct. i had no time to examine the mountain, but i should doubtless have found the matter quite hard, whereas that by the hot springs at kerlingarfjöll was of the consistency of soft clay. beyond tunga, the northingafljot lava joins that coming from the other side of the mountain in the hvitá valley, and thence they continue as one flow down the hvitá valley to just beyond gilsbakki. we travelled for several miles beside the river thorvaldsdalsá, and could not help noticing that it decreased in volume as we descended, although several streams flowed into it from the mountain-sides; its waters drain underground, and doubtless contribute to the falls on the right bank of the hvitá, a few miles distant at barnafoss. chapter xiii gilsbakki to statharhraun arrived at gilsbakki i took up my quarters in the church, for the house was then rather full: besides the minister and his wife, and family of five sons and three daughters, the haymakers had to be accommodated, the total number sleeping there being twenty-six. in looking at the outside of the house, it was difficult to believe that so many persons could be stowed away there. haymaking was in full swing on the farm, and the haymakers worked far into the night--i could hear them laughing and talking at intervals through the open door of the church, for they were in the fields all around. as there was bad weather impending, and the next day would be sunday, they probably worked till the whole of the hay had been raked into small stacks in readiness for the rain, which fell, as expected, during most of the following day. it is noteworthy that we escaped much of the discomfort of travelling in bad weather by our sunday rests, for it rained continuously nearly every sunday we were in iceland. [illustration: a lava arch.] though it poured nearly the whole day, there was an interval in the evening when it became a mere drizzle, so miss hastie and i again visited the barnafoss falls. i took several photographs thereabouts, for i saw many interesting features. at the falls the river has several times changed its course in eroding first one soft spot, then another. a hard dyke stretches half-way across the gorge, and there is a series of terraces in the old course of the hvitá, where the river had formerly flowed, foaming and tumbling over great steps in the rock. the gaps in the upper terrace are clearly seen, and a little water still flows through some of them; but the main volume now escapes through a great gap where the water has carved its way down to a lower level through softer rock. there are some interesting formations in the lava on the banks of the hvitá, one being an arch illustrating the origin of some of the caves; it is obvious that this arch is due to pressure acting from the sides, which has forced the crust of lava upwards. this on a large scale might have been the origin of the surtshellir caves, which were subsequently enlarged by the action of flowing water, though their origin was probably due to bubble formation. there were also some exceedingly good specimens of "ropy" lava, so named because of the ropy appearance and rope-like structure of the surface. [illustration: ropy lava at barnafoss.] on leaving gilsbakki we proceeded down the valley of the hvitá for a considerable distance on the right side of the river, where there are indications, which are quite as plain as those we saw on the other side, that the river was at one time very much wider, for there is much alluvial material, forming a series of river terraces one above another, and these are intersected by various streams from the mountains. while lunching at sithumuli we saw great clouds of steam rising from the valley of the reykjadalsá. a mountain range separates the valleys of the reykjadalsá and the hvitá where we were, but we could just see into the former round the end of the spur of the range. the steam arose from the geysers at tunguhver, which were in great agitation and violent eruption; but we could not get across to see them, for the hvitá intervened, and there was but one way--that over the bridge at barnafoss, several hours distant. the track diverged from the hvitá at sithumuli, and our way lay over a ridge of basalt and across a series of scarped rises to the valley of the kjarrá, a river that lower down towards its confluence with the hvitá is known as the thverá. the river is bridged at northtunga by a small iron suspension bridge. a feature in the landscape hereabouts is the conical peak of baula; there is also a smaller peak known as little baula, but the former stands out prominently for many miles around. it has the appearance of a volcanic cone, but i think (i did not visit the place) the shape is entirely due to erosion; and there are many instances of this erosion, one being a peak in arnarfjord, a photograph of which appears in its place. we had to recross the kjarrá, and soon afterwards one of the pack-ponies took it into its head to go for a swim in the river. i laughed until i discovered that _my_ box was on its back, but then my laughter was turned to concern as to the fate of the contents. i expected to find everything saturated, but was agreeably surprised, on opening it, to find that the box had proved to be almost water-tight; the damage done was practically nothing, the contents were uninjured. it was no uncommon thing for the ponies to take a swim on their own account. on another occasion one of the provision boxes was immersed, and damage to sundry articles of food resulted. we crossed the kjarrá again, and close by came upon the tents of an englishman who had hired the salmon-fishing for the season. no salmon-fishing was to be had in that district, as all the good rivers had been hired out. we camped at hjartharholt, where we managed to get eggs for our evening meal; but as egg-cups were unattainable, we had difficulty in holding the eggs in our fingers, for their temperature was near boiling-point. next morning i got a very good picture of the haymakers at hjartharholt just before we set out for statharhraun. we proceeded down the valley of the northrá, passing, on the way to stafholt, a number of scarped ridges of lava--these escarpments were on both sides of the river, which flowed in the depression between two of them; in the background was the conical peak of baula, and just to the left of it a peculiar pyramidal hill formation. there are two ways from hjartharholt to statharhraun--one via a valley known as vestri-skarthsheithi, and the other, less interesting, by way of stafholt and across the low swampy level country lying between the headlands at the end of the mountain ranges and the open sea of faxafloi. through a misunderstanding we started along the wrong route, and before the mistake was discovered we were well on the journey over the swamps. a peculiar feature, common in the stony and sandy regions, must be mentioned. the surface of the ground often appears as if it had been laid out in a sort of rough design, for large stones are to be seen arranged in lines, forming irregular figures with sandy and stony matter between. the sandy waste regions in which this feature is common is known by the name _melr_, a word originally meaning "a kind of wild oat, especially bent grass, _arundo arenaria_, growing in sandy soil"; hence the term became applied to expanses of sand, or any waste place where _melr_ might grow. the explanation of these irregular figures seems to be that the earth becomes dry during the summer, and cracks under the influence of the sun's heat; when rain falls, the particles of sand and small stones are separated from the larger lumps and drain into the cracks, leaving a network of the large stones to mark their site. another peculiar feature was often met with, not only in desert regions, but elsewhere. i refer to the hard-looking surfaces--apparently gravelly areas with a few stones in them--that are really a kind of bog. a pony comes to a halt on the edge of one of them, and sniffs; its rider, a new-comer, unused to the country, urges his beast onward, but as a rule it will not go. if it does consent to move on a few paces it suddenly sinks in, and then makes a wild endeavour at recovery. after one or two experiences of this kind, the new-comer sometimes thinks it better to allow the pony to have its own way, for it seems that it knows more about the country and the nature of the ground than its rider does. our journey across the swamps was not devoid of incident, for the ponies were continually sinking into the boggy ground and performing violent gymnastics in their endeavours to reach something more solid. we had some compensation farther on, for after crossing the river langá we had to round the headland locally named mular, a word that means simply a jutting crag or headland, being equivalent to the scottish _mull_. here there are some very fine bold scarps of basalt having a number of hard and soft weathered dykes running through them, the former sticking out in places like horns; there was a quantity of birch scrub growing on the scree slopes (the talus) at the foot of the scarps. thence we went on over broken lava and through birch scrub, past the entrance to the valley of vestri-skarthsheithi and the headland of svarfholsmuli into the lava-filled valley of the grjotá (grjotardalr), where at statharhraun we came to a halt. for the next day i planned a circular journey which the local people soberly informed me would take twenty-four hours to cover. i wanted to see vestri-skarthsheithi, the valley that we had missed by coming across the swamps to hjartharholt, and having formed the opinion that nothing like that time should be required, i strongly suspected that an endeavour was being made to "choke me off" the journey, and therefore announced my intention of trying whether it could be done in less time. we set out with only a moderate food-supply, which seemed to imply that hannes did not consider the journey would occupy such a long time as that first estimated. we proceeded for some distance along the track that we had traversed the previous day, and rounded svarfholsmuli, where just at the entrance to vestri-skarthsheithi we pulled up at hraundalur to consult with the farmer as to the route. i obtained a very good picture of hannes and the farmer when in consultation. [illustration: author's route near statharhraun] [illustration: hannes and the farmer in consultation.] at this farm i found a woman with a dislike for cameras; she ran away when i happened to be pointing mine in her direction. i took a snapshot, but the shutter did not work properly, so it was a failure. afterwards when pointing the camera in fun at her child, who was standing beside her close to the door of the farm-house, she mistook my intention, and snatching up the boy, ran hurriedly indoors with him, much to my amusement. we arranged with the farmer to come with us in the capacity of guide; so we started off together up vestri-skarthsheithi, along a track in the alluvium at the foot of the mountains of svarfholsmuli, where the "going" was very good. the valley is filled with the lava from two volcanoes quite close to langavatn, a lake just beyond the head of the valley. these are extinct volcanoes covered with brown scoriaceous lava, and the craters are well-marked depressions, though in each case there is a gap in the side through which much of the lava must have flowed. in the lava just below there are several small vent cones, miniature volcanoes that are quite hollow, which spurted up small streams of lava when the locality was a scene of eruptive activity. from this spot we struck up over the mountains in a north-easterly direction, and from the high altitudes attained, got some exceedingly fine views over a wide stretch of country, comprising the ice-fields of eyriks jökull and lang jökull, the mountain group of skarthsheithi, etc. much nearer we looked down upon lake langavatn and towards the conical peak, baula. on the other side we saw into the valley of the grjotá, in which reposed lake grjotarvatn, and across to the range beyond, where very curious four-sided and three-sided pyramids rise high above the mountain ridge. [illustration: small vent cones.] the ponies had some very stiff work in climbing these mountains and in scrambling down to the grjotá valley; but we occasionally dismounted to give them a rest. once in the valley, we were able to make good progress beside the river to the lake, where the shore on one side was composed of small shingle. the opportunity for a gallop was too good to be missed, so we scampered the ponies along as hard as they could go, and they seemed to enjoy it quite as much as their riders did, for it is a rare thing to be able to gallop in iceland. just beyond the end of the lake we came to an extinct volcano, its truncated cone being covered with brown scoria; from this flowed the lava that now fills the valley of the grjotá. there is no trace of lava on the lake side of the volcano, for it all flowed down towards the sea from a rift on the valley side. on we went down the valley, carefully picking our way through the lava, and travelling at a vastly different rate from that at which we had galloped beside the lake. about half a mile from statharhraun we crossed the river grjotá and made our way back to the farm-house, arriving there in something less than twenty-four hours from the start--to wit, within seven! on our return there was an excellent supper ready, the result of a fishing expedition undertaken by miss hastie, the clergyman, and jón. when returning, miss hastie's rod was broken beyond immediate repair by a collision with a pony, and it became the property of jón, who doubtless patched it up at his leisure. chapter xiv to eldborg and helgafell next day, before proceeding on the direct route, miss hastie and i, with a local guide, made a short detour up hitadalr. at first we picked our way through the lava, and then went on by the side of a comparatively small stream, a branch of the grjotá. a few miles up the valley we came upon what was left of several volcanic cones, the tuff remains of which were spread over the valley. at one of these about one-third of the lip of the crater still existed, having on it a quantity of reddish scoria. the cindery tuff of these remains has weathered into very fantastic shapes. farther up the valley the brown scoria-covered cone of a more recent volcano could be seen, but we had not time to go on, for we had to meet jón and hannes two or three miles beyond statharhraun for lunch. returning on the other side of the valley (the west), we rode along the alluvial deposits of the hitá, a river that we crossed and recrossed several times. near to the end of fagraskogarfjall, a range of basalt, there is a peculiar hill, known as gretisbali, standing away from it; this hill is a mass of cindery tuff in course of rapid denudation, the result being a somewhat conical-looking hill very fantastically weather-worn. in a view that i took, the hill is on the left; to the right there is the main mass of the range, the horizontal lines of some of the basalt flows being just distinguishable. in between the basalt range and the tuff hill there is, coming down the valley, what looks (in the photograph) like a fan-shaped glacier, with a vertical face at the end, but it is merely the alluvium resulting from the denudation of the hill; the clean-cut face is due to the river hitá, which flows very rapidly at the foot of the range, and carries away the alluvial matter as it falls over the edge of the fan. the foreground is part of a broken-up lava-field, where the vegetation is typical: birch scrub, dwarf willow, coarse grass that grows all over iceland, mosses, etc.; they grow in the soil formed of the decomposed lava and wind-blown material filling the interstices. opposite the hill and at the end of the range we found jón and hannes awaiting us, and as lunch was ready, we had our mid-day meal before proceeding on our way. after passing the end of the fagraskogarfjall range we crossed the river kaldá, a stream running down to the sea from the valley between the range just mentioned and that of kolbeinstathafjall; thence we crossed a quantity of alluvium brought down from the valley and deposited by the kaldá in a wide belt extending from the mountains to the sea. we were making for eldborg (fire burgh, or fortress), a "recent" volcano often referred to in the sagas. we soon passed from the alluvium to the lava-field around eldborg, and then ascended by a gradual slope to the foot of the volcano, which is a mere ring of green scoria. up the steep slope we scrambled to the top, and there found ourselves on the ridge of a very narrow ring of loose lava surrounding a deep crater--a great yawning hole in the earth below us. the lip is much serrated and weather-worn, and the broken lava of the sides is held together by the moss that grows in the interstices. from eldborg we struck across a cotton-grass swamp, and had a bad time on the way--perhaps, however, the ponies had the worst of it, for we were seated on their backs, sticking on for "all we were worth," while they plunged and scrambled along, performing a series of remarkable feats as first a hind-leg, then a fore-leg, and sometimes two, three, or even all four legs, sank deep down into the soft, spongy matter of which the ground was composed. at last we came to the river kaldá again, and crossed to the firmer alluvial ground, over which we cantered to the farm-house of kolbeinstathir, where we camped for the night. as usual i occupied the church, which was now to be put to a new use. the farm-house was very small, and there being no guest-chamber in which we could take our meals, the church had to be requisitioned to supply the accommodation it lacked. we dined and breakfasted in it, and i took a photograph showing the corner in which the breakfast-table was laid. as a special mark of attention we were here supplied with coffee flavoured with cinnamon; now miss hastie had a firmly-rooted dislike to the flavour of cinnamon, so the attention fell flat in her case, and i dropped in for the good things the local goddess had sent. jugs and basins were rather scarce, and miss hastie had to perform her ablutions in the porridge bowl, while the water for that purpose was brought in the coffee-pot. at this farm haymaking was completed and the hay being brought in by ponies. the bundles were hooked upon a pack-saddle, one on each side of the pony. we had before us an interesting journey across the peninsula of snaefellsnes from near faxafloi, the sea south of it, to the great fjord on the north side, breithifjord. from kolbeinstathir to rauthimelr we made our way chiefly over a series of swamps, where we had the usual experiences, and the ponies the usual bad times. hannes' pony got bogged, and he was obliged to dismount in a particularly soft place. we skirted a plain of lava, or rather a series of lava flows surrounding the old volcanic cones from which they had issued; many of these were so distinct that there could be no difficulty in apportioning the lava to particular volcanoes, for the ends of some of the flows were vertical faces. rauthimelr lies just at the foot of the mountains, and from the farm we struck up into them, for several miles following up a branch of the haffjathurá, a river that we had previously crossed in the plain just by the edge of the lava. after awhile we reached a spring of water--a "carbonic acid" spring it is called. the water bubbles up from the ground under cover of a shed that has been erected over it; it contains soda in solution, and is strongly impregnated with carbonic acid gas. were this spring in a more accessible place and the property of a mineral-water manufacturer, it would no doubt bring him a considerable accession of wealth. the quality of the water is excellent, as i ascertained on taking a whisky and soda from it--that is, the soda-water came from it, the whisky being abstracted from our stock of medical comforts. rauthamisolkaldá is the name of the spring--i did not trouble to commit it to memory, but made a note of it! the mountains over which we were passing were composed of a series of flows of basalt one upon another, and as usual in this formation we found many waterfalls in the course of the branch of the haffjathurá that we continued to follow up. i took a photograph of the confluence of this branch with another (i could not ascertain their names--they did not seem to have any), and also of two of the waterfalls that we saw; there is a conical mountain in the background of one of them, but it is not a volcano--it is merely another instance of the typical weathering of a series of basalt flows. we caught sight of many fine peaks as we ascended, but just beyond the divide they were gradually shut out as we descended into what would have been a rather dull and uninteresting valley, but that after a mile or so the river flowing there (which at first increased in volume) gradually became smaller and smaller as we descended, and this in spite of the fact that a number of mountain streams coming down on each side of the valley added their waters to it; finally, the river disappeared altogether. i further noticed that the mountain streams had gradually been contributing less and less of their waters, and when the river was no more, the streams coming down the valley sides also disappeared before arriving at its bottom. there was an underground river of considerable magnitude flowing down the valley beneath the great accumulations of moraine pebbles with which it was filled; as the pebbles were all of large size they were separated by large vacant spaces, and the thickness of the deposit must have increased very rapidly to allow the much greater volume of water to flow through it below the surface. several miles lower down, where an area of flat land was met with, the river reappeared, flowing on the surface of the land once more, through fine grass country--a striking contrast to the dry valley of pebbles. we then came in view of the sea on the north side of snaefell peninsula at alftafjord, a fjord that is dotted over with hundreds of islands, the majority of which are very small. from here we made a rapid descent to the shores of the fjord, where at narfeyri we camped, later in the evening witnessing a very fine red sunset over the fjord. my pony behaved rather badly this day, stumbling frequently: he fell with me twice, nearly unseating me on the second occasion. it is really wonderful, when the state of the ground is considered, that the ponies do not stumble more often; some of them rarely ever make a mistake, others get a bit careless at times, and then they stumble along in a free and easy sort of way, though they rarely come a real "cropper." next morning miss hastie was amused at the persistent staring of a small boy, who stolidly looked at her, in spells of ten to fifteen minutes without a blink, through the window of the guest-chamber where we were breakfasting. afterwards, when i sallied out camera in hand, the same small boy turned his attention to me, and eyed me just as attentively as he had miss hastie. i thought that a boy who could stare so well deserved to be immortalised, so i brought my camera to bear upon him, with the result that i have him in a characteristic attitude, staring for "all he was worth"; he was _quite_ unconscious of what i was doing, and was not posing for his photograph. i have him in another picture, that below, in which jón and hannes are loading up a pony, and are hooking two of the boxes upon the pack-saddle; but though he was paying some attention to his collar, he still had his weather eye on me. [illustration: hannes and jÓn loading up a pony.] i obtained an excellent view of a field of cotton grass, in which several of our ponies were grazing, looking across the waters of breithifjord. i also caught an old woman busy stacking peat, while smoking her pipe with evident enjoyment. on leaving narfeyri we skirted the foot of the mountains at the back of the farm-house, and passed round them towards the head of alftafjord, a name signifying swan-fjord. this is one of the places where numerous swans resort during the breeding season. we had timed our start so as to catch the tide at the ebb when nearly low water; this enabled us, by crossing the fjord some little distance from its head, to cut off more than a mile. when in the middle of the water some of the bedding broke loose and got wetted. while the packs were being adjusted, the ponies stopped for a drink of salt water, for which they have a taste, and they indulge it whenever opportunity occurs. our destination was stykkisholm, whence we expected to embark in three or four days' time on board the ss. _vesta_. after crossing the fjord we skirted it for awhile, proceeding in a northerly direction just at the foot of the mountains, which there came down close to the water's edge. we passed over a quantity of moraine material, and then entered green fertile-looking fields once more, where a number of farm-houses were dotted over an undulating tract of country. before long we came upon a road, a _made_ road leading over a series of basalt rises to stykkisholm. when near helgafell we made a slight divergence from the road to a farm-house, where we halted for lunch. afterwards we went across to helgafell, a hill of columnar basalt rising two or three hundred feet above the surrounding low-lying land. it was curious to note that wherever the columns were broken, there on the top, where a little soil had gathered, vegetation was growing in comparative luxuriance. from the hilltop we obtained a most excellent view of the surroundings, comprising mountain and hill, sea and lake, a meandering river, islands and islets. there was plenty of light and shade and colour, sunshine and cloud, to make up a picture; but the scene could not be done justice to by camera, which only records physical features, and could not reproduce effects that impressed me. the hill is situated on a peninsula jutting into breithifjord; it is the site of one of the earliest of the christian churches built in the land. in "heathen days the hill was sacred to the god thor," and before any one was permitted to look upon the holy place, he had to perform certain rites. helgafell and the neighbourhood is often referred to in the sagas. at the foot of the hill there are now a farm-house and a church. while passing the farm-house, one of the iceland dogs made demonstrations of friendship--they are all more or less friendly--and he stood very nicely to have his photograph taken. from helgafell to stykkisholm is but a short distance, and we covered it in less than an hour. on the way we saw a very fine reflection of clouds in one of the branches of the fjord where the water was perfectly still, the beauty of the scene being due chiefly to the colours. chapter xv stykkisholm and berserkjahraun stykkisholm is a very picturesque little town built in a valley and on the slopes of the enclosing hills. it is situated at the extreme end of the peninsula, overlooking breithifjord and its branch, hvammsfjord. in front of the town, the island of sugandisey acts as a sort of breakwater, and affords shelter from storms to small craft. this island is composed of columnar basalt; it is a striking feature in the surrounding scenery, where hundreds of smaller islands dot the fjord. we were put up at the house of the rural dean of the district, where we remained for two or three days exploring the neighbourhood until the steamer from reykjavik called on its way to the fjords of the north-west, north and east coasts. here at stykkisholm miss hastie and i changed about as regards sleeping apartments, for she occupied the guest-chamber in our host's house, while i camped in the tent that she had abandoned. the tent was pitched in the grounds of an adjoining house, the owners of which did not seem to mind at all, for they readily granted permission for it to be put up there. the next day, sunday, it rained as usual, so we did not go very far from the house. [illustration: the columnar basalt island, sugandisey.] on monday, accompanied by our host, we set out for a mountain to the south of helgafell, where it was rumoured specimens of coal, lignite, and gold were to be seen, but we had doubts as to what we should find. on the way i had a difference of opinion with my pony. he had lately developed a habit of suddenly jumping aside from all pools of water that lay in his path. i had previously not checked the growing habit, but after the previous day's rain the road was a series of puddles, so i objected to being continually switched off to right or left at the pony's sweet will, and therefore brought him up to all the puddles. at first he would not go through unless brought up to them from ten to twenty times; at last, however, he consented to do it in fewer, and at the end of the day's journey he was completely broken in. we took the road via helgafell to saurar, and thence traversed a swamp, some moraine matter, and alluvium to the foot of the mountain that was our destination, drapuhlitharfjall--a name that miss hastie vainly endeavoured for days to get the correct pronunciation of, and i am not at all sure that i was quite successful myself. the mountain is a mass of liparite, which is there found in all its varieties. i had strongly suspected the so-called coal to be obsidian, the black form of liparite; and on ascending the mountain to the spot where it was supposed to exist, obsidian it was found to be. having camera in hand, i had an awkward scramble up a very steep scree slope, and i often started small avalanches, which scattered in all directions on their descent. our host ascended by a longer and easier route: he was up before me, and crossed the scree at a higher altitude, with the result that he started an avalanche of big jagged boulders that passed perilously near to where i was lying flat upon the slope and endeavouring to wriggle upward--a yell from me caused him to wait until i had reached his level before proceeding farther. we lunched on the mountain-side, and then went down to the supposed gold mine at its foot. on the way up we had called at a farm-house on the lower slopes of the mountain, and had there enlisted the services of the farmer to show us the shortest way up to the coal (!) and to dig out some gold. he had come provided with pick and shovel, so on reaching the mine he set to work and soon handed up a quantity of earth having a number of bright, shining, yellow metallic crystals in it, and these he pointed out as the gold. i smiled, having seen much of the same sort of thing in other parts of the world. it was iron pyrites! the mistake was not to be wondered at, for the metal had deceived many people before. i told the man that he would not get much gold out of it; but he did not seem to believe me, for he stated that a quantity of it had been sent to america, had there been tested, and had been reported on to the effect that of gold there was "a trace." the search for gold having proved abortive, we returned to the farm-house. it was then raining hard. i wanted, before leaving the neighbourhood, to pay a visit to a lava-field some two hours distant, so i let hannes decide whether we should go on through the rain, or make a separate journey there on the morrow. hannes elected to go on then, because he wanted, if possible, to give _all_ the ponies a rest the next day, for he was to start with them on the way back to reykjavik the following day. we set out in torrents of rain--hannes and i, the rest of the party remaining under shelter at the farm-house, where they were regaled with coffee, etc. i fancy they thought me a lunatic, but i was bent on seeing the lava-field of the berserkers, where two members of that race are reported to lie buried. we started with the rain beating in our faces; the going was good, for the ground was alluvial, so hannes led off at a hand gallop, in the evident intention of "getting through with it" as quickly as possible. i followed close at his pony's heels, and away we went through a perfect deluge of rain. it beat violently in our faces, but we did not care, enveloped in oilskins as we were; and save for my face, which was thoroughly well washed, and for a few drops of water that trickled down my neck, i rode through it all with dry skin. the rate at which we travelled brought us to the edge of the lava-field in far less than the two hours stated as necessary for the journey; in fact, we got there in about an hour and a quarter. in the last quarter of an hour the weather, as so often happens in iceland, underwent a very rapid change: the rain ceased, the clouds condensed over the hills and finally rolled away, and by the time that we were ready to return, it was a fine clear evening. the story connected with the berserkers' lava-field (berserkjahraun) is related in the eyrbyggja saga; it is as follows. there were two berserkers, or berserks, brothers named halli and leiknir, one of whom was anxious to obtain in marriage Ásdisa, the daughter of one styr; but styr had no fancy for the marriage, for he regarded him as unworthy of his daughter; yet he had not the courage to decline the match, because the berserks were men of valour, and he did not think it safe to decline; so he was diplomatic and sought a way to circumvent them. he consulted one snorri, a priest, with the result that styr imposed a task upon the berserks, that they should make a road through the lava-field within a time that he considered an impossible one, agreeing that on the successful completion of the work his daughter should be given in marriage to one of them, though which was the suitor is not mentioned in the saga. the berserks willingly undertook the task, for they were strong men and had confidence in their own powers, and they set about the work in earnest. it soon became apparent to styr that he had misjudged the capabilities of the two berserks, and that they would complete their undertaking within the allotted time; so he thought out a scheme and built a bath-house. when the berserks had finished making the road--and a very good road it is, as the photograph shows, certainly the best pathway that i met with in lava--styr invited them to take a warm bath, remarking that they would find it very refreshing after their arduous labours. he had prepared for their reception, and the furnaces had been heated far beyond what was necessary. the berserks accepted the invitation and entered the bath unsuspectingly. they thought it hot, but on finding the water becoming much hotter, they concluded that something must be wrong, and their suspicion was confirmed when they discovered that the door had been barricaded against them. they were strong men, as has been stated, and their strength was equal to the occasion, for they broke down the door. now this contingency had been provided for: a fresh ox-hide had been spread outside the door, so when the berserks emerged with a rush, they fell when crossing the slippery hide; one was slain as he lay sprawling on the ground, while the other was thrust back into the bath and soon became boiled berserk. styr afterwards went around bragging of his prowess! the pith of the story lies in the sequel, for snorri, the priest, married Ásdisa! [illustration: the berserkers' road through the lava-field.] in the lava, just beside the road through it, there is a mound where the berserks are said to lie buried; that may be so or not, but the mound was opened some time ago and human remains there found. the mound is shown in the picture of the lava-field--a small square patch just in front of the two ponies that we left standing on the pathway to indicate the spot. the berserkjahraun farm-house lies in the middle of some hummocky land adjoining the lava-field; it is built on the site of styr's house and named after the berserks. the weather was most unfavourable next day, for it rained during the greater part of it, the result being that we were confined to the house until late in the evening. however, we made an inspection of the library, where there is the nucleus of a good collection of books; it is questionable, though, whether the books will last long, for the dampness of the atmosphere is already playing havoc with them: many that i took down from their shelves were in a badly mildewed state, the leaves and binding being already in an advanced stage of decomposition. the following day we were to have embarked on board the _vesta_, and to have set sail from stykkisholm. the vessel hove in sight at about ten in the morning, but a very strong wind was blowing--straight in shore, too; so she remained all day under shelter of an island a few miles out to sea, and did not come to stykkisholm till about eleven at night. the weather was fine overhead during the day, so we were able to get out a bit. i took a number of photographs, including several of the town; one showing the sea-front was taken from a small headland a few yards away from my tent. our hostess kindly sat for her photograph attired in the national costume, which is donned on high days, holidays, and festivals. the headdress (_faldr_ is the icelandic name) is peculiar; it is in shape somewhat like the french cap of liberty, with a horn curling over to the front, and having a short veil which is thrown back from the head; a gold or silver band is, as a rule, worn round the forehead just below the cap. when wearing the ordinary head-gear a lady's dress is not considered complete unless an apron is worn, and it is not at all the thing to appear in public without one. with the _faldr_ an apron is _not_ necessary. jón and hannes set out early in the afternoon on the return journey to reykjavik. i attempted to photograph them just as they were leaving the grounds at the back of our host's house, and again when the pack-train was ascending the main street, with jón and hannes bringing up the rear--the last i saw of them; but the shutter of the camera jammed, so the pictures were failures. in the afternoon miss hastie went for a ride, using an icelandic lady's saddle, but she did not go far, for she did not take kindly to it. we took leave of our kind host and hostess after coffee next morning, and went on board the _vesta_ for breakfast. as we proceeded to the wharf, we passed some women who were carrying goods on bearers and loading up small cargo-boats for shipment by the _vesta_. chapter xvi the north-west peninsula the _vesta_ set sail at about p.m., shaping a course northward in breithifjord through a sea of small islands, which i thought to be the remains of old lava flows denuded and perhaps sunk below sea-level. i had no opportunity of examining them, but they are said to be "crater islets," most of them. the sea in breithifjord is very shallow, and on the journey to the island of flatey, and afterwards thence towards the open ocean, our course was anything but a straight one; so shallow was the water in one place after leaving flatey, that the wash of our vessel raised breakers on the edge of a long line of submerged bank lying parallel to and not far from our course. flatey is one of the remains of a broken-up lava flow; a small island opposite the town has a peculiar circular harbour whose shape is rather suggestive of a coral atoll, but perhaps this is one of the "crater islets." i did not examine it, because we had no opportunity of going ashore: we arrived just as dinner was announced, and steamed away within ten minutes of the completion of the meal. the waters of breithifjord were alive with thousands of puffins, which flapped along the surface of the water or dived beneath it as our vessel approached. we passed through miles of them while skirting the southern coast of the north-west peninsula. the sea was quite calm as we steamed out of the fjord and rounded the south-western corner of the peninsula, in strong contrast to the heavy winds and stormy seas of the day before. we entered patreksfjord when it was growing dark, and came to an anchorage just at midnight. in the early morning i turned out to look at the scenery in patreksfjord; it was rather forbidding. we were surrounded by high mountains which came steeply down to the water's edge, there being but little land available for cultivation or for grazing purposes in consequence. i found that there would be no time to go ashore, for we were to start in half an hour's time, and there was no boat available to take me; in any case, there was nothing much but the wild surroundings to be seen, and they could be viewed just as well from the vessel's deck. at about breakfast-time we arrived opposite to biludalr in arnarfjord. we were in a decidedly picturesque spot, and no doubt we were more favourably impressed because of the clear bright sky and sunny weather. ashore, the chief interest centred in the cod-fish curing and storing station, where many women, assisted by a few men, were employed in the various branches of the industry. it was the best-equipped station that i saw in iceland; everything seemed to be in order, and to be carried on in a thoroughly business-like way. there was a tram line running between two long rows of well-built galvanised iron sheds that lined the track. [illustration: a basalt mountain cone due to erosion.] it was in this fjord while on the way out that i obtained, on the north side, a photograph showing excellently the typical cone-like form to which a succession of basalt flows are reduced by erosion. there were other features of interest: on the south side of the fjord there were many fine specimens of corries, but the position of the sun prevented a successful attempt being made to photograph them, though, just when turning into dyrafjord, i caught a good specimen in a suitable light. a little farther on, at hraun, there was a view looking up a valley where the face of a moraine is kept straight by the wash of the sea at its base. we proceeded up dyrafjord as far as thingeyri, where we anchored. distant about three miles, at framnes, there was a whale-fishing station, where whales, brought in by the whalers, were being reduced to the commercial forms of oil, bone, and manure. we--a party of four--obtained a boat and sailed across to the station. we were courteously received by the foreman, who kindly showed us over the factory and explained matters as we proceeded; he was a norwegian who had been whale-fishing for seventeen years before he was appointed foreman of these works. the first thing that struck us--so severely, indeed, that we were nearly bowled over--was a very choice assortment of "smells" of the most objectionable kind: they had a distinct flavour of ancient whale, and were all more or less (generally more, and sometimes most) disgusting. we were conducted by the foreman to a platform where the whales were cut up. a dozen or more were floating in the water beyond some wooden staging that jutted out into the fjord. they are kept there until required to be cut up and placed in the boiling-down vats; then one is hauled upon the platform and cut into big slabs. the platform was a horrible sight, covered as it was with slimy offal and refuse; this stuff, being valueless, is disposed of by being shot into the fjord, there to pollute its water. below the platform a similar state of things existed, and the stench that arose from the decomposing matter was too disgusting for words to describe. the slabs of blubber are thrown into a rotary machine, where a number of knives reduce them to pieces of much smaller size; thence the blubber is taken into the boiling-down room and boiled for ten hours in great cylindrical tanks by having steam passed through. at the expiration of that time the oil has been set free and is floating on the top, whence it is drawn off into casks; it is then shipped to glasgow to be refined. the whale-bone, which is taken from the upper jaw of the head, is cut away and piled in heaps in a yard near the cutting-up platform. the bones are sent to another room, and are there boiled; they are then dried and ground to a fine powder; this bone dust is exported in sacks for manure. the refuse of the blubber, after the extraction of the oil, is dried in special revolving machines, which reduce it to the consistency of coarse meal; this also is used as manure, and commercially is called guano. the whale-bone is taken from the heaps to the shed; it is first pulled apart and then washed in vats containing soda and water; it is afterwards dried, when it is ready for exportation. in the blacksmith's shop we were shown the harpoons used on the whaling-vessels in securing the whales. they are shot from a short cannon into the whale; the head is hollow, and is filled with gunpowder; when the whale dashes off, the tension on the line attached to the harpoon causes the arrowheaded blades to expand and the charge of gunpowder to explode; the shell bursts and usually kills the whale. a vessel carries two harpoons, to each of which three hundred fathoms of rope is attached; the second harpoon is discharged if the first does not kill the whale. i took a photograph at thorshavn in the faroes showing a modern whaling-vessel. the bird's-nest where the look-out man is posted is on the foremast, and the harpoon gun is in the bows of the vessel. we returned to the _vesta_ with the distinct impression that we were taking along with us on boots and clothes some remnants of smelly whale, for the odour seemed to stick to us and accompany us wherever we went; it was days before all suspicion of whale wore away. the next port of call, in onundarfjord, was not very interesting as regards scenery. the chief industry is carried on at a large whale-fishing and boiling-down station at flateyri, where we anchored opposite the town. the presence of the station was made evident to me as i lay in my bunk in the small hours of the morning, by the fine full-flavoured aroma that came wafting into the cabin through the open port-hole. we made but a short stay at this port, for we departed before breakfast, and were thus enabled to enjoy that meal free from the disturbing influences of whale. we entered skutilsfjord, a branch of isafjord, at about mid-day, and anchored opposite the town of the same name, isafjord. miss hastie and i went ashore soon afterwards and proceeded up the valley towards flateyri, intending to walk to the ridge overlooking onundarfjord; but the fates, in the form of bad weather, were against us, for it rained so heavily that we abandoned our original intention after we had ascended to a considerable altitude and had become thoroughly wetted. we stood for awhile with our backs against the leeward side of a cairn on the mountain-side, trying to imagine that we had effectual shelter; but as the cairn was of rather less height than we ourselves, and as we could feel the raindrops trickling down the backs of our necks, the reality was rather at variance with our attempts at imagination. shelter or no shelter, we stuck to our posts while devouring biscuits and cheese, and sandwiches made of danish sausage and such like greasy delicacies, and did not abandon our post, or the intention of going to the summit of the divide, until we had finished lunch and had become uncomfortably soaked. then we retraced our steps down the valley, by the side of a small stream that descended in a series of rapids and waterfalls. on the way we met some men road-making, and found them using a cart for conveying material for the purpose from a quarry on the road-side--the first cart that i had seen in use in iceland. almost opposite to our anchorage there was a good example of a small corrie high up above the water of the fjord, but the photograph proved a failure. isafjord is reputed to be the third town in iceland in point of population; its importance is due to the cod and herring fisheries, and to the establishments where curing is carried on. a small cod-liver oil factory emitted an odour that caused us to avoid its immediate vicinity. with regard to this oil, it has been said that some of the so-called cod-liver oil is not derived from the cod at all, but is really produced from the liver of the greenland shark, known locally as _hakarë_ (danish name _haukal_). i was assured, however, by one danish merchant that this is not the case. modern inventions were brought to mind on seeing telephone posts and the wire that connects isafjord with eyri. i ought to mention that one modern invention, the cream separator, is in common use on the best farms throughout iceland. i was often awakened in the morning by hearing the whirring of the rapidly rotating cylinder of the machine. a whale-fishing establishment was said to be somewhere in the main branch of isafjord away round the point, but we could not see it when coming in, and we were quite content not to smell it. it was doubtless several miles distant, though that avails but little when the wind blows from the direction of decaying or boiling whales. we left isafjord in the early morning, and between and a.m. rounded the northernmost point of the north-west peninsula, known as the horn, or north cape. it is said to be a bold, striking headland; but as the upper portion was enveloped in fog, we could not see it properly. fog soon afterwards descended over the sea, and the vessel slowed down to half speed; while the steam-whistle screeched out at short intervals its warning to other vessels. the result was, that we saw nothing whatever of the coast along which we were passing. it was a great pity, for that part of the peninsula, which faces north-east and is known as the hornstrandr, is the wildest, most inhospitable, and one of the least productive regions of iceland. there the inhabitants eke out a precarious livelihood chiefly by wild-fowling--a most dangerous occupation in that region, and it is carried on at the cost of not a few human lives; they have a very hard struggle for existence and are often on the verge of starvation. the habitations are exposed to the rigours of the weather, which are very severe, for the coast is blocked with drift ice during more than half the year, and its effect is felt for a much longer period. in consequence of the fog we did not reach reykjarfjord until the afternoon was well advanced; but at its entrance we experienced a delightful change, for we suddenly emerged from the sea fog into bright sunshine. we anchored opposite the small settlement known as kuvikr, in a picturesque fjord where the mountains on the south side rise to a sharp-looking ridge between reykjarfjord and veithileysa, a fjord lying to the south. after enjoying the sunshine on deck for an hour, miss hastie and i went ashore and ascended the lower part of the ridge just mentioned to a sort of secondary ridge, overlooking much of the surrounding country. we found a continuation of the sea fog lying below us over veithileysa and the valley at its head, the peaks of the mountains on the far side of the fjord standing out clear and bright in the sunshine. [illustration: a "glorified" shadow on the fog over veithileysa.] a few minutes later we had an unusual experience. the fog was being blown up the fjord and over the valley at its head towards us, while the sun, which was shining brightly behind us, was rather low down in the heavens. the time was just p.m. i moved away from miss hastie, who was sitting on a rock, to some higher ground about a hundred yards distant; as i reached the highest point, i was astonished to see, cast upon the fog, an elongated dark shadow of myself, with an oval halo of brilliant colours around the shadow. my head was the centre of the halo, and there around it shone a bright golden yellow light; this gradually changed in the outer rings to green, and so on through blue and indigo to violet; then the colours of the spectrum were continued outward in the reverse order, from violet to indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, while the outside ring was a brilliant red. the effect was rather startling at first, as may be imagined from the sketch i made on the spot, and superstitious persons would have thought it to be a very strong omen of something or other--good or otherwise. i was very unfortunate in having just exposed the last film (isochromatic) in my camera, so i was unable to secure any better record than that sketched in my note-book. it is further unfortunate that, in developing the negative i took only a few seconds before the "glorified" shadow appeared,--a view looking across the fog or clouds to the mountain peaks rising above it,--i completely destroyed the only photographic record i had of the scene; for instead of pouring pyro into the solution to hasten development, i inadvertently took up the hypo bottle and used some of its contents, with the result that the negative was absolutely destroyed before i guessed what i had done--my annoyance can be imagined, but not expressed in words! the appearance in the sketch was that produced while i was drawing with arms bent and book held before me. when i held my arms in different positions, the shadow of course varied, but without affecting the form or position of the oval-shaped halo. when i had finished the sketch, i saw miss hastie coming towards me, and beckoned to her to hurry, but she arrived when the fog was clearing and the halo fading away. i then learned that she had had a similar experience from the spot where i had left her seated, and that she had seen her own shadow surrounded by a halo, which accompanied her for a considerable distance as she came towards me, but faded away as the atmospheric conditions gradually changed. these halos are known as _anthelia_ (greek = "opposite the sun") or _glories_. the rings may be circular if the shadow is thrown in an upright position upon the fog, but when the shadow is elongated through being thrown at an angle upon it, as in my own case, they are elliptical in consequence. in all cases the observer sees the rings round the shadow of his head, and they have a common centre "in the point where a line from the sun through the eye of the observer meets the fog." i saw two brilliant _sets_ of coloured rings, though more are sometimes seen; but those beyond are much fainter. chapter xvii the northern fjords bortheyri in hrutafjord was our next port of call. it was by no means an interesting place: the country was low-lying, and the settlement consisted of a few houses only. we left early in the afternoon, and steamed almost due north out of the fjord. when in hunafloi beyond the promontory that separates hrutafjord and mithfjord, we obtained an excellent view, looking straight up mithfjord, of eyriks jökull. later on, after rounding the promontory of vatnsnes, and when crossing hunafjord towards blonduos, we caught sight of lang jökull, and could trace distinctly the line of the ice-field, although nearly seventy miles distant. we anchored opposite blonduos late in the evening. the settlement consists of a store or two, a few houses, and a church. we did not go ashore, for no boat was available until the sun had set, and it was getting quite dark. it was about a quarter-past nine when the sun descended below the horizon. the sunset effects were very fine--one of those magnificent sights that iceland is famous for. the blandá, one of iceland's largest rivers, discharges its waters into the fjord at blonduos, which lies at its mouth. the river rises at lang and hoff jökulls, and brings down thence considerable quantities of glacier water, proof of which is the whitish colour of the water of hunafjord round about blonduos. seals were said to abound there; one was seen, i believe, but my own eyes did not fall upon it. skagastrond was not much more than an hour's sail. the coast hereabouts is not so precipitous as that all round the north-west peninsula: there is more lowland between the shore and the mountains, which stand back several miles from the coast, and the nature of the country is more undulating. the original level of the lava flows of this peninsula, hegranes, can be well seen, as we saw it, from the western side of hunafloi. the land has been much more worn down than has that of the north-west peninsula, and only comparatively small fragments of the upper flows remain. i went ashore in the afternoon and found the land rather swampy, with peat bogs in places. a very small boy and a dog bigger than the boy both made friendly overtures to me when i was strolling along by the beach; they were both sportively inclined, and engaged in several rough-and-tumble scrambles. there are several small islands in the vicinity whereon the eider duck has its home, and where it brings forth its young during the nesting season in the spring. the eider-duck industry is an increasing one, and year by year the birds are more cared for. we reached sautharkrokr early the next morning, and after breakfast i went ashore. the town is built under the steeply sloping face of an old moraine, the material of which was brought down the valley at the back of the town; a stream runs down the valley by a channel which it has eroded through the old moraine matter. from a prominent situation above the town i obtained a good view up the herradsvötn (the left bifurcation of it, that is), where there is a lake several miles long close to the mouth of the river. the lake was no doubt at one time part of skagafjord, and it is probable that the northerly seas rolling up the fjord met the waters of the river laden with solid particles, and caused the deposition of the detritus and the gradual formation of a bar; the final stages were doubtless the gradual widening of the alluvial dam, and the gradual filling up of one side of the lake itself. looking up the valley i saw our old friend maelifellshnukr standing out prominently to the right at a distance of but twenty-five miles. in sautharkrokr a peculiar dwelling attracted my attention; it was the deck-house of an old wrecked vessel. one of the few wild animals found in iceland is the blue fox; we had two on board the _vesta_. though in a hopeless state of captivity they were quite untamed, and snapped at any one who attempted to be friendly with them. on leaving sautharkrokr and sailing two or three miles north into skagafjord, kolbeinsdalr opened out on the east side. this valley has been fairly well worn down: there is a mass of moraine matter on the sea front, which is cut through by a mountain stream from the unadal and myrkar jökulls. farther north the valleys of deildardalr and unadalr came into view. then we passed between a tuff hill that almost hides lake hofthavatn, and drangey island, where an outlying kerling rock (old woman) stands pillar-like beside it; there was a karl rock (old man) also, but it fell recently. malmey island was next passed. the section of this island is peculiar, for a thick stratum of what looks like iron-stone lava lies on the top, then there are two or three layers of basaltic lava with what is apparently sedimentary strata between them, and beneath all there is some tuff. the situation of lake hofthavatn is also peculiar. the tuff hill in front of it is connected with the mainland by the merest strips on each side; the hill was no doubt an island not long ago, and the strips of land are beaches washed up by the action of the sea on the north side, and on the south by the effect of the current when the herradsvötn river is in flood. the entrance to siglufjord is very fine, and it is remarkable for its bold masses of lava. on the western side the flows are clearly indicated, as also is the peculiar erosion. there are bands of red tuff between some of the lava flows, also several scree slopes and alluvial fans at the foot; on the eastern side there are pyramidal peaks. inside the fjord and at its head the bold scenery is continued. all this was made brilliant by some wonderful sunset effects later in the evening. chapter xviii across country from akureyri to husavik the next port at which we touched was akureyri in eyjafjord, the place from which we had started several weeks before to cross the island. we arrived at about nine in the morning, and the vessel was timed to stay there two days before departing for husavik. i had formed the plan that if we reached akureyri in good time, i would make a two days' trip across country to husavik, and there pick up the steamer again. fortune favoured me, for on going on deck to get a boat to take me ashore, where i intended to hunt up a guide and ponies, i came face to face with sigurthur, one of our guides on the akureyri-reykjavik journey. sigurthur had just come aboard to look for old friends. as he was disengaged as a guide, a few minutes sufficed to arrange with him to act as conductor, and to supply ponies, etc., for the journey, and in a few more he was rowing back to the shore to make arrangements. after breakfast i went ashore to purchase some provisions, etc., and an hour or so after mid-day, all being ready, we started from the hotel akureyri with four ponies: two were for riding, one was for the packs, and there was a spare animal. we proceeded south along the shore of the fjord for about a mile, and then, as the tide was low, we struck off at right angles straight through the water, by that means saving about an hour and a half that would have been required to round the head of the fjord. the distance across was something between a mile and a half and two miles; the water was rather deep in the channels cut by the current from the river, and in one the water reached to the saddle-flaps; but i escaped a wetting by balancing myself on the saddle, with feet tucked up. [illustration] on the eastern side of eyjafjord we ascended the steep side of vathlaheithi by a long gradually-sloping path to the top, whence we looked down upon oddeyri, the suburb of akureyri, whose formation has already been noted. a good view up the valley of the eyjafjorthará was also obtained, showing the deltaic formation of the river where it enters the head of the fjord. from the top of vathlaheithi there is a sharp descent by a zigzag road to the valley of the fjnoská, an excellent specimen of a meandering river, on each side of which there are fine river-terraces. after crossing the river and ascending the terraces, we struck into ljosavatnskarth. on the south side of this valley i came across a good example of various forms due to erosion. below the upper lava flows there were some alluvial fans, and below that, cones and river-terraces. just beyond, we passed along the northern shore of ljosavatn, and proceeded to the farm-house of the same name, about a mile farther on, where we put up for the night. when coming along the valley i learned the cause of what had sometimes struck me as strange. towards evening i had often heard children uttering peculiar cries away up valley slopes, and i had imagined that they were calling to one another, but the real reason had never suggested itself to me: by their cries they were directing the dogs to "round up" and drive the milking-sheep to the farm-houses. towards the end of the summer the sheep recognise the cries, and congregate without much rounding up by the dogs. next day was an interesting one, and we had fifteen hours in the saddle. starting at eight in the morning, we did not get through to husavik till eleven at night. the first point of interest on the day's journey was the gothafoss, a fine waterfall on the river skjalfandafljot, which we reached after proceeding a few miles across some broken lava that was partially covered by a deposit of clayey matter. the fall is split into two main divisions by a hard dyke, and it is probable that the rock on each side of it has different degrees of hardness also, for the water flows over at different levels. the central mass itself has a depression in it, and a narrow stream of water runs through it at much the same level as the higher of the two big divisions. there is another fall a few hundred yards lower down the river, but it is not so impressive, and the height is only about one-fourth that of the other. just below the second fall, the river is spanned by a bridge--a light wood and iron structure supported on strong pillars built up from the lava beneath. a few hundred yards below the bridge there is a remarkably good example of river erosion: the river has split at a hard dyke, which stands in the middle of the stream resisting the rush of the water. from the bridge we made the gradual ascent to fljotsheithi, which we crossed, and then descended into reykjadalr to the farm-house of einarstathir. in a way, this day's journey was one of the most annoying and tantalising of all i spent in iceland. gun i had not, nor ammunition; but i could have counted grouse by the thousand, ducks by hundreds, and golden plover by tens! i could almost have wept had there been time. i did not say very much--if i had, the tears would have been apparent in my voice; but--i thought just about as deeply as the sailor's parrot did. fljotsheithi, over which we had just come, had been alive with grouse! just think of it--thousands of grouse, and--no gun! from einarsthathir we followed down the river reykjadalsá to helgastathir, crossed it just beyond, and continued down stream, past a number of lakes, the chief of which is known as vestmannsvatn. the reykjadalsá flows through these lakes; but from vestmannsvatn to its confluence with the laxá it is known as eyvindarlaekur. just beyond muli, which we left on our right, we got upon lava again, and came to the laxá, which we crossed three times in the course of the day. we made the first crossing at the spot where we first touched it, and it proved to be the widest and deepest fording-place in all the rivers i crossed in iceland. it was nearly half a mile wide, and i entered without thinking it was very deep; but soon i found otherwise, for the water often reached nearly to the level of my knees. i was very anxious to get across with dry feet, for it was comparatively early in the day, and i knew that we had a long journey before us. i had once suffered from the discomfort of getting my boots filled with water and having to ride for a considerable distance without change, so did not wish to repeat the experience. by tucking up my legs upon the saddle, and balancing somehow, i did get over with dry feet, but my legs were fearfully cramped on reaching the other side. my pony, however, did his best to give me a complete cold bath, for he stumbled and went down on his knees in one of the deepest spots; but i did not lose my balance, and i succeeded in pulling him up without getting more than just a few drops of water in one boot. on we went over lava beside the laxá for awhile, but the river had to be recrossed a short distance from nes, a farm-house at which we pulled up for lunch. here we arranged for fresh ponies to take us to a very fine lava-field a few miles to the north, and induced the farmer to act as guide. [illustration: lava pillars near nes.] in the lava-field there were many examples of circular vents, through which lava had spurted in times of volcanic activity. these vents were rounded lava excrescences and circular pillars, all of which were hollow inside. they were of somewhat similar formation to two i saw in vestri-skarthsheithi on the western side of iceland, of which i took a photograph. the vegetation hereabouts is that common in decomposing lava, and is chiefly birch scrub. there was an opening in the side of one of the largest vents, through which i was able to crawl with my camera; unfortunately, i misjudged the light, so the negative was much under-exposed, and the view of the interior a complete failure. the country about nes is dotted over with cones covered with cindery-looking scoria, and having small central depressions; there are hundreds of them, and all around they stick up above the general level of the country. all these cones threw up more or less lava or cindery matter when volcanic activity was in progress. [illustration: uxahver geyser in eruption.] on our return to nes we were met by the farmer's wife, who informed us that during our absence _our_ ponies had got away and were then missing! there was a pretty mess! what were we to do? abandon them, and go on with the farmer's ponies seemed to be our only resource! time was pressing and precious, for the light was failing, and to see the uxahver geysers was one of the objects of my expedition, and--we were still two hours distant from the geysers! while we were discussing the matter, we were overjoyed to see the ponies suddenly come up from between some of the farm outbuildings, followed by the farmer's son, who had been in search of them. we did not waste time then, but saddled up and away; but in less than a quarter of a mile we were brought to a standstill by the river laxá, at a spot where we were to be ferried over. of course the ferry-boat was not _there_; it was some distance up the river, and had to be sent for. on its arrival, however, there was no further delay, for we crossed at once, and the ponies followed by swimming the river. after saddling up again we set off for uxahver, taking with us the farmer's son to show the shortest and quickest way to the geysers. we crossed hvamsheithi and forded the reykjavisl and a smaller branch stream on the way to reykir farm-house. on arrival there we saw a quantity of steam rising from several places up the valley, so we hastened towards the desired goal. a stream of hot water runs down the valley from the geysers, which are continually ejecting large volumes of it: the stream's course is indicated by the light clouds of steam that rise from it. we reached the geysers at last, at about seven o'clock, in a bad and failing light. i proceeded at once to the chief of the geysers, uxahver, and got to work with my camera. uxahver very obligingly made one or two of its best efforts, and i was fortunate to snap once or twice at the right moment. i also took a shot at it when quiescent, with good result. the next geyser of importance, bathstovukver, also gave an excellent display that i took advantage of, and the resultant picture gives a better idea of a small geyser in eruption than any of the others. [illustration: bathstovukver geyser in eruption.] when i had finished my shots at the geysers, sigurthur informed me that we were then only about three hours distant from husavik, where i had to pick up the steamer the next morning. it was not quite eight o'clock, and the ponies seemed to be comparatively fresh after their rest in the middle of the day; so i thought it would be better, and sigurthur agreed, to push on to husavik, instead of staying at reykir till the morning as we had originally intended when uncertain about procuring change ponies for part of the day's work. this arrangement would enable me to get on board without delay, if the weather should prove bad enough in the morning to prevent the _vesta_ from staying to take in cargo. at husavik there is an open roadstead, and in stormy weather vessels do not remain long; sometimes they pass without calling at all. we _did_ push on, and the farther we went the fresher the ponies seemed to get, until during the last hour they raced along at their best pace, evidently knowing their way and where they were going. the night was dark--_i_ could not see the track, so i simply sat tight and let my pony go, without attempting to steer, trusting to him to make the best of the way; this he did at top speed without a single stumble the whole way--a feat that he had not accomplished in broad daylight. we arrived at the hotel at husavik just at eleven o'clock, after fifteen hours in the saddle. in the earlier part of the day, sigurthur had several times hinted that what i wanted to do could not be done in the time at our disposal; but i intended to try. so it happened that, with the aid of extra ponies and guides, and by dint of impressing sigurthur with my determination, he gradually came round to the same view, and at last expressed agreement that it _might_ be done if things went smoothly; from that time he made no further suggestion as to the desirableness of "cutting" some part of the journey, and we got through it all successfully. i found the accommodation at the hotel quite good, and at breakfast an excellent meal was served. one of the dishes was "whale"--a thick gelatine kind of stuff, cut from the fin of the whale. i took a small piece and found it almost tasteless. i have omitted previously to note that _skyr_ is one of the articles of food served at all the farm-houses. it is a kind of clotted cream, eaten with powdered sugar, and milk or ordinary cream poured over it. at the hotel at husavik the _skyr_ was of the best quality, as indeed it was at most of the farms, though sometimes it had a distinctly peaty flavour that was due to the nature of the surrounding country. another article of food in general use, which we obtained from time to time from the farm-houses, is a sort of flat pancake introduced by the danes. it is of a very leathery nature, and we used to tear off pieces as we wanted it, though more often one took a piece of the stuff and offering a corner to another the two would pull it apart. in spite of its leathery qualities, when eaten with butter and jam, and with good appetite as sauce, it is not so bad! chapter xix the eastern fjords the _vesta_ was late in arrival, and as the taking in of cargo occupied several hours, we did not get away from husavik till the afternoon; we then headed straight for the arctic circle, passing the island of lundey on the way out of skjalfandi. when we entered within the arctic circle in the evening, the atmospheric conditions and the temperature were in keeping with our position on the earth's surface, for it was cold and bleak, and the night promised to be a dirty one; but the weather during the night was not so bad after all, and when i awoke in the morning it was to find the sunshine streaming into my cabin through the open port. at vopnafjord we remained from early morning till late at night. we climbed the hills at the back of the town and made our way over towards nypsfjord. from an elevated spot we obtained a view looking into that fjord. it was not a scene of striking beauty, but i was interested to see that the entrance to the inner fjord was narrowed considerably by a spit that extended well into it, perhaps two-thirds across. this had been formed, as usual, by the sea beating in and banking up the detritus brought down by the river, the vestradalsá. up there on the rises i succeeded in stalking some sheep and in photographing them. i had tried several times before, but had always failed. nearly all the sheep in iceland are horned, while most of the cattle are without horns. there were several things of interest in vopnafjord that i photographed--the interior of a cod-fish store being one of them; another was the home of "socrates," a notification to that effect being prominent on the front of the house. there were several stores on a point near the middle of the town, and in front of them there were about a dozen fish-drying grids lying on the slope of the beach. here at vopnafjord we found the people to be most curious regarding us and our movements. it was sunday, and having nothing to do, they displayed to the fullest extent the icelander's worst characteristic, that of staring hard and persistently. in the afternoon while cargo was being taken in, a little mild excitement was caused by the capsizing of nine bales of wool into the water, and by their subsequent rescue from drifting out to sea by a boat that went in pursuit. before departing from vopnafjord we had an invasion of icelanders. they came on board, boatloads at a time; the smoking-room was soon full of them, and there were crowds on deck. i was writing in a recess just above the companion-way to the saloon; small crowds descended by it to the regions below and did not reappear--goodness knows where they managed to stow themselves. a fellow-passenger came up from a visit to his cabin and informed me that he had stumbled over two of the icelanders, who had taken possession of his cabin. helvit!--to use the mild icelandic swear-word--what about mine? i went down to see what was going on in _my_ cabin, and returned on deck breathing more freely (in two ways!), for i found that my cabin companion had early taken possession and had so far kept out all invaders, in spite of repeated attacks upon his stronghold. the atmosphere below was becoming quite oppressive, and one could almost have cut out a chunk of it!--hence, as i have stated, i breathed more freely on deck. but it occurred to me that if i took possession of my own bunk, i could help my companion in resisting future attacks of the enemy; so i went down again. "there's a cry and a shout, and a deuce of a rout" going on generally, for we had arrived at seythisfjord, and the invading horde was preparing to leave the vessel--it had come to take part in the ceremony of unveiling a monument that was to be performed that day, and to enjoy the subsequent festivities and gaieties. the trampling of feet above informed me that the natives were congregating round the companion-ladder. i shoved my head through the port-hole, and there, but a few yards off, were two or three boats. one was just pulling away very fully laden, another was loading up with passengers, and a third awaiting its turn to take on its human cargo. i went to my tub, and so, for a few minutes, escaped from the noise. during breakfast i listened to the tales of woe as related by my fellow-passengers. one had had four of the natives camped in his cabin. in the morning they severally made use of his sponge and soap in performing their ablutions, while his tooth-brush only just escaped service. whatever of his effects were lying loose about his cabin were subjected to inspection and examination: a bottle of "elliman's" was uncorked and smelt, and the icelanders seemed inclined to taste, but in their discretion refrained; had they but tested its virtues, they would no doubt have found it a most excellent pick-me-up. after performing his own toilet he went on deck, but on returning to his cabin a few minutes later, found two women in possession, and busy at his wash-basin. my fellow-passenger was a man who did not object to cleanliness in a general way, but for the native icelander, both sexes, to take possession of his cabin and make use of his toilet things, was too much for his nerves. if he did not take a leaf out of the icelanders' book and make use of their swear-word, helvit! it was only because he was a clergyman; but i have no doubt that he thought that and much more of a similar kind! another passenger reported that he had lost one of his native companions in a very extraordinary way. i must state that some of the icelanders have the disgusting habit of spitting in all sorts of places, and they are not, as a rule, particular where--to them the whole world is a spittoon! this passenger stated that he had found a big icelander in his cabin the night before, who remarked that he was going to sleep there, and immediately afterwards made some noisy throaty sounds, inquiring where he could spit. on being informed that it was not customary for anybody to spit anywhere in a cabin, and that there was no place where _he_ could do so, he looked surprised and expressed himself to that effect. much to this passenger's relief, the icelander then took himself off from the cabin, and was seen there no more. no doubt the native had found some spot where he was able to indulge his habit to his heart's content. i went ashore after breakfast, and landed just in time to see a procession of icelanders and others. the occasion was the unveiling of a memorial stone that had been erected by the inhabitants of seythisfjord and the surrounding country to the memory of a norwegian, one otto andreas wathue, who died in . this man had been instrumental in making seythisfjord a place of considerable importance, and its prosperity was due entirely to him. [illustration: the procession at seythisfjord.] the ceremony had drawn to seythisfjord all the notabilities of the neighbourhood, as well as others from the near fjords, and a few from such distant places as akureyri; it had also drawn thither two danish men-of-war, and there were in port three vessels belonging to the united steamship company: the _ceres_, the _vesta_, and another. some of the chief of the officers from the war-ships attended in their official capacity, while others from the company's three vessels also attended the ceremony; several joined in the procession, which started from the veiled monument at the head of the fjord near the heart of the town. the norwegian, wathue, had lived on the south side of the fjord in a large house about a mile from the monument, and there the widow still lived. the procession made its way along the road by the side of the fjord, and then passed the house, where everybody saluted the widow, who, with her relatives and a few friends, was a spectator from an elevated grass plat. i was standing just beside the house taking snap-shots. my picture shows the head of the procession: some of the leading figures may be seen in the act of saluting the party assembled on the grass in front of the house. the procession halted a short distance beyond, and then returned to the starting-point at the monument, round which the members of it congregated. the ceremony of unveiling was performed after some speechifying had been got through and several poems, composed by icelandic poets for the occasion, had been recited or sung. those assembled then adjourned to the fête ground on the other side of the river, where dancing and running and other athletic sports were carried on during the rest of the day, and where fireworks were displayed in the evening. i took several photographs on the outskirts of the crowd round the monument while the ceremony of unveiling was going on; in them are two young women attired in the national costume. one is dressed in white and the other in a dark dress, but both have on the peculiar national state headdress. [illustration: seythisfjord--on the outskirts of the crowd round the monument.] we called at northfjord in the early morning, and after less than an hour there, set sail for eskefjord, arriving there just before breakfast-time. though we remained for several hours, i did not get ashore, for there was so much uncertainty about the time of departure that we might have started at any moment; there was also the usual difficulty of getting a boat. faskruthsfjord is a very picturesque place; bold and peculiarly shaped mountains are all around. a liparite and tuff mountain on the southern side is noticeable chiefly for the inclined strata that lie upon its southern slopes. behind the town a huge pyramid (a fine example of the result of denudation) towers high above. faskruthsfjord is the chief resort of the french fishermen who carry on their avocation on the coast of iceland, and though there are a few icelanders in the settlement, yet the greater number are french. during the latter part of the voyage we had a passenger, an englishwoman, lying dangerously ill. the doctor from ashore, an icelander, came on board here to see her, as other doctors had at other ports of call; but he did not go away decently as the others had--no, he remained on board drinking and smoking, and talking at the top of his voice, with a number of men from shore, the carousal being carried on just outside the cabin-door of his patient! a specimen of the customs of the country as observed by at least _one_ icelander! our last port of call in iceland was in berufjord, where we arrived at about six in the morning. as it was rainy and misty, i could not well judge of the scenery. it looked an interesting place, and there were several sharp conical peaks showing dimly through the thick atmosphere. we put to sea about an hour later, in weather that promised to be blowy, and the promise was fulfilled, for we were soon in a fairly heavy sea, which increased as the day wore on; it continued bad until we approached the faroes next day, when it cleared up, and we had bright, fine weather while amongst those islands. we obtained excellent views of the various headlands at the north end of the faroes; it was noticeable that all had perpendicular precipices facing the north, where the sea is continually at work eroding their bases. we passed through kalsofjord, the channel between the island of kalso on the west and those of kuno and bordo on the east. the islands have many corries, soft dykes, and mountains of pyramidal shape. there are several villages most picturesquely situated in the valleys and corries, but as we steamed along in mid channel we were not near enough for the camera to be of service. we reached thorshavn in the early afternoon, so i went ashore for an hour to have another look at the picturesque town and at the faroese. in the evening we set sail for leith. [illustration: farewell faroese!] appendix i notes on plants collected in the faroes and iceland by a. w. hill, m.a. the decumbent character of the vegetation and the practical absence of trees form the most striking features of the flora in both the faroes and iceland. in the faroes the steep and rocky hillsides are very exposed and wind swept, and the vegetation is in consequence characteristically dwarfed, and most plants raise themselves but little above the general level of the grass. the dwarfed habit was well shown by some plants, such as _orchis maculata_, which was very common on the slopes, and was only a few inches high. the inflorescences did not, as a rule, bear more than five to ten flowers, which, however, were large and pale in colour. the ovaries in many cases were not twisted, so that the labellum was consequently uppermost. another example of the effect of the conditions on the vegetation was afforded by the dandelion _taraxacum deus leonis_, which exhibited the prostrate habit exceedingly well, for in order to protect the flowers from the wind, the flower scapes were bent over and laid parallel to the surface of the ground and the inflorescence was exposed to the light by a right-angled bend of the scape just below the head of the flowers. the inflorescence was by this means protected from the wind by being kept just below the general level of the vegetation. _cardamine pratensis_ was also influenced in a similar way on the lower slopes, but at higher altitudes plants were found bearing single radical flowers on short stalks instead of the usual raceme. we proceeded to akureyri in the north of iceland by way of the east coast, and it was interesting to notice the difference in the condition of the vegetation on the northern and eastern shores of the island. on the east coast, at seythis-and vopnafjords, the plants were stunted and for the most part only in bud; but in the north, at husavik and akureyri, similar plants were much earlier, and were not only in full flower, but were also much less stunted, and showed a more robust growth than those found on the eastern side. for example, _plantanthera hyperborea_, which was in tight bud on the east coast, and also _thymus_ and other plants, were in full flower at husavik. _thalictrum alpinum_, which grows abundantly all over the hillsides, was found to be attacked by the æcidial stage of one of the rust fungi, _puccinia septentrionalis_;[ ] and at seythisfjord, where it was especially noticed, it was found that only the topmost leaflets were affected, that is to say, only those leaflets which protruded above the general level of the vegetation, and which were in consequence infected by wind-blown spores. at seythisfjord the leaflets were only slightly attacked, the fungus being in a young state; but at husavik it was much more advanced, and the hypertrophied purple tissues were very conspicuous. the effect often extended some way down the petioles. the case of the fungus is a further example of the greater forwardness of the plants in the north. there can be no doubt that the characteristics of the east coast vegetation are due to the prevalence of cold winds and the occurrence of cold currents. whilst crossing the island several interesting features of the vegetation were noticed. between akureyri and our first camp (thverá) several "forests" were passed through, consisting of _betula nana_, _vaccinium uliginosum_, and willows, _salix lanata_ and _s. glauca_ rising to a height of from nine to eighteen inches, with an undergrowth of other small plants. the hillsides all round were covered by _dryas octopetala_, which was by far the commonest plant in the northern half of the island, and it was abundant also on the east coast. travelling along the oxnadal and then turning off towards silfrastathir, _dryas_ at first was the most conspicuous feature of the vegetation covering the rocky moraines and talus slopes; but about three miles from the head of the valley the _dryas_ was replaced by _cerastium alpinum_ and _potentilla maculata_, which then in their turn became the dominant plants for a considerable distance. as we traversed the island we kept passing through well-marked zones of different plants, whose limits seemed largely to be determined by the character of the soil. after crossing the "col" some very rough screes were passed, on which the iceland poppy, _p. nudicaule_, was growing abundantly. the screes were formed of rough angular blocks with very little soil between them, and the poppy was only growing in the most barren spots; where moraines occurred the poppy did not grow. it was also found on the stony ground by the river at silfrastathir. the hillsides were covered in many places by large tracts of _equisetum_ (_e. arvense_ and _e. pratense_). the various species of the equisetaceæ seem to be among some of the commonest plants of the island. the swampy regions by the rivers are covered with _equisetum_ and _scirpus cæspitosus_; and they are very abundant on the mountains. from the river until we reached gilhagi, the flora showed no features of any particular note; but a meadow there with large plants of _saxifraga cernua_ in full flower was a very beautiful sight. on ascending from gilhagi a change in the flora was gradually seen. after about feet _pedicularis flammea_ appeared and became common; on the lower slopes the leaves were green and the plants tall, but at greater elevations the plants became short and stunted, with deep red leaves. the high ground was very much broken up, being of a deep hummocky character and covered by a dwarfed growth of willows, _empetrum_, mosses, etc. passing over ground from which the snow had just melted, the willows were found to be either still quite bare or just coming out into leaf, but everywhere in such barren places cones of _equisetum_ were seen sticking up on pale brown stalks some six inches above the soil; the sterile green shoots do not grow up until some time after the appearance of the cones. all around athalmansvatn the ground was very hummocky, the mounds being from a foot to eighteen inches high, with narrow depressions or ruts between. the elevation of this region was about feet, and as the snow had only recently melted, everything was in consequence backward, _thalictrum_ and willows, etc., not yet being in flower. leaving athalmansvatn a large tract of hummocky ground was crossed, covered chiefly by _cassiope hypnoides_, _empetrum_, willows, _salix lanata_ and _s. herbacea_, grey lichens, such as _cladonia_, and mosses. after this our route lay across a piece of the northern desert land or _sandr_, which is a barren, sandy, and stony expanse. the soil was a light brownish loam, and was easily blown about by the wind, and scattered all over it were large angular or rounded blocks of stone. _arabis petræa_ was the only plant occurring in any quantity over this region, and it formed a very conspicuous feature in the landscape, growing in rosettes closely adpressed to the soil with the racemes of flowers growing out horizontally. as we travelled on in a southerly direction, _silene acaulis_ appeared and then a little thrift, _armeria sibirica_, and the _arabis_ became less frequent. here the soil was more sandy, and the strong wind blew clouds of dust. still farther south, _armeria_ reigned supreme over the desert; but occasional patches containing _silene acaulis_, _potentilla_, _cerastium alpinum_, and _silene maritima_ occurred. where the soil became more loamy, _arabis petræa_ again came in. at the edge of the desert the willows were seen encroaching on the sand, and soon a willow and birch (_betula nana_) scrub was passed through, which in its turn gave place to moister land with _empetrum_, _pedicularis flammea_, etc. near blandá, _salir phyllicifolia_ was noticed for the first time. a good deal of hummocky ground was also passed over, and its characteristic and invariable features were noticed (_v_. later). after passing over very rough morainic ground with snow still lying in patches and quite devoid of vegetation, we reached hveravellir, a perfect oasis in the desert. the hot springs and fumaroles occur along a long line of fissure, and warm up the soil of a considerable tract of country in their neighbourhood. the effect on the vegetation is most striking, for a strip of verdant meadow-land occurs in the middle of bare country, covered in many places with snow at the end of june. all the flowers occurring there were in a very forward state, and a large number of different plants were obtained; some spots were yellow with buttercups, and the ground was carpeted with thyme in full bloom. _botrychium lunaria_ occurred in quantity, and a very small variety of _ophioglossum vulgatum_, _o. vulgatum_, var. _polyphyllum_, was found in a warm place. _selaginella spinosa_ was also abundant. on the edges of this warm tract barren land occurred and in many places snow, so that there was a very sharp contrast between the warm and cold earth; and on the latter the willows were only just coming into leaf. this tract of country occurs at the edge of the great lava flow from strytur. towards strytur the lava was in places covered by "hummocky ground," which showed the usual features noticed elsewhere. the characteristic plants seem invariably to be:-- *_carex vulgaris_ (_rigida_), a creeping variety. *_salix lanata._ *_salix herbacea._ *_cassiope hypnoides._ *_empetrum nigrum_ (very abundant). *_vaccinium uliginosum._ _loiseleuria procumbens._ _armeria sibirica._ _silene acaulis_ (not very frequent). _bartsia alpina._ _pedicularis flammea._ *two or three lichens, species of _cladonia_, and a moss, _rhacomitrium lanuginosum_. those marked with an asterisk appear to be invariably present, the others are not so constant, but some are usually found. shortly after leaving hveravellir the watershed of the island was crossed, and a marked difference in the flora was noticed in the valley, thjofadal, on the southern side of the ridge, owing no doubt to the much greater rainfall which occurs on this, the south-western, side of the island. among plants noticed in this region, which had not been met with before, were:-- _draba alpina._ _cardamine bellidifolia_, and _ranunculus pygmæus_ (which grew upright in the valley, but was prostrate and creeping on the surrounding hillsides). fungoid diseases were very prevalent in the valley, and _saxifraga cæspilosa_, which was extremely dwarfed on the high ridges, was in many places badly attacked by a rust fungus. _saxifraga cernua_ was also affected by the conditions in this region, for in other localities north of the watershed all the plants were found with the usual terminal flower, but here no terminal flower was developed, and the upright stems bore leaves and bulbils only. _epilobium latifolium_ occurred among the stones in the glacier streams, and a very decumbent form of _epilobium alpinum_ was common on the hillsides. the hills all round were formed of loose morainic matter, the slopes consisting of fine sandy earth with pebbles, and the vegetation is distributed on the hillsides in the form of banks and terraces, thus giving the hills a peculiar appearance with very gentle steps. in some cases the vegetation has spread and grown over the edges of the terraces, and by further growth hummocks have been formed. the formation of hummocky ground on a morainic hillside appears to be somewhat as follows:-- if conditions, such as snow-line, wind, etc. (on a bare hillside of sandy and stony ground) permit, isolated plants begin to appear, and collect soil around them by their prostrate habit of growth and with their roots; in consequence of the loose nature of the soil, and owing to the action of snow or water, slipping frequently takes place, and the plants tend to keep up the earth. as the plants spread, terraces get formed and the plants bank up the loose earth, and the mountain-side is then broken up into broad steps. the vegetation continues to grow over the edges of the terraces, and in consequence more soil is collected by the plants, and small mounds result, and later on, if the slope is not too great, true hummocks may be formed. if the slope is steep, the hummocks are usually flat-topped, but this is also often due to snow, wind, etc. the hummocky ground usually seen occurs in fairly level country, and its origin may probably have been somewhat different from that just described; the hummocks are from one to two feet high, and the ruts between are often so narrow that two hummocks have frequently united. the normal breadth of a hummock is from one to two feet across, and it is closely covered by _empetrum_ or _cassiope_, with _carex vulgaris_, the moss _rhacomitrium lanuginosum_, and the other plants already enumerated. hummocky ground was also met with in meadows at gilhagi (near maelifell); here they were covered by grass and other meadow-plants, and _saxifraga cernua_ grew in masses in the depressions. these hummocks were on a hillside, and may have been originally formed in the manner already described; but owing to some change in the snow-line, meadow-land plants may have wandered up the hillside, and ousted the characteristic plants of the hummocks. our journey from thjofadal to gránanes lay for the most part over the lava-flows from strytur, which were covered by a close-growing vegetation, large tussocks of moss, very dwarf _saxifrages, s. cæspitosa_, _empetrum_, _salix herbacea_, and other plants usually found on the hummocks. true hummocks were, however, rare. near our camp and before the svatá was reached we came to the end of the lava and crossed a sandy tract, and the usual change in the flora was at once noticeable; large clumps of willows bound the sand together, around which the soil collected, forming mounds, and patches of _armeria_, _arabia petræa_, _silene_, and _arenaria_ were scattered about. in some places the willows were killed by having been buried in the blown sand. between gránanes and hvitarvatn the country is at first hummocky, and then covered by birch and willow scrub. on the hummocks, especially in the patches of moss, _saxifraga hirculus_ was not uncommon. the large tract of swampy ground at the edge of the lake was covered by masses of cotton grass. leaving hvitarvatn our way lay through willow scrub until the hvitá was reached. after crossing the river the ground was very rough, being composed of morainic matter from the adjacent mountains and covered with large angular blocks of lava. the only flowers growing here were _arenuria_, _armeria_, _thymus_ and _dryas_ in isolated patches. as we travelled farther south, the plants were noticed to be taller and more vigorous than those seen in the interior, and the flora was more home-like in character. _juniperus_, _betula odorata_, _calluna_, and _arctostaphylos uva ursi_ were noticed for the first time. both birches (_b. odorata_, _b. nana_) were very plentiful, and from two to three feet high (in the north _b. nana_ was only six to nine inches high) willows were not common. between sandá and gullfoss another small desert area was traversed where earth-pillars occurred. the plants were hardly able to exist, as the smaller ones were blown away, and the willows and birches were in many places buried by the blown sand. around gullfoss the vegetation was luxuriant, _geum rivale_, _geranium sylvaticum_, and _alchemilla vulgaris_ covered the ground, and above _rubus saxatilis_ and _frugaria vesca_ were abundant, whilst _arctostaphylos uva ursi_ also grew in profusion. at bratholt we reached civilisation again, and were presented with some of the lichen from which the orange dye, still used in the island, is obtained. between geysir and thingvellir we passed through one of the largest forests in the island; the hillsides were covered with birch-bushes, and in places they were quite six feet high; usually they did not rise to a height of more than three or four feet, and the topmost branches became entangled in our legs as we rode among the bushes. all four species of birch were noticed, and the scent of the bruised leaves was very pleasant. by way of undergrowth, the ground was carpeted with _geranium sylvaticum_, _ranunculus repens_, and large patches of _orchis maculata_, etc. it was altogether a beautiful spot, and we spent nearly four hours wending our way through it. the river bruará runs through the middle of this forest. at thingvellir _gentiana nivalis_ was found among other plants. the rarity of blue flowers in the part of the island visited by us, and indeed throughout the island, was very striking, as the only other blue flowers noticed, besides the gentian, were the _veronicas_, and the _myosotis_ and _viola tricolor_ found at akureyri, and _campanula rotundifolia_ and _pleurogyne rotata_, which were found on the east coast on the return journey. _gentiana campestris_ and _g. nivalis_ were also found on the west coast. _white_, _pale pink_, and _yellow_ were the common colours, white being the predominant. the three most common orchids, _habenaria albida_, _habenaria viridis_, and _plantanthera hyperborea_ were green and fairly inconspicuous. perhaps the most striking flowers are the large rose-coloured _epilobium latifolium_, which grows on bare islands of stones and black sand in the glacier streams, the yellow _saxifraga hirculus_, and _dryas octopetala_, which covers vast tracts of country. between thingvellir and keykjavik is an extensive _heithi_, over which we rode rapidly. there appeared to be no features of any special interest, and as the day was very wet it was not possible to study the flora carefully. on the beach at reykjavik _mertensia maritima_ is a fairly common plant. the hot springs at hveravellir and other places contain large quantities of algæ, mostly belonging to the blue-green family or _cyanophyceæ_. specimens were collected from various springs at hveravellir, kerlingarfjöll, and geysir, and the temperature of the water in which they were growing was carefully recorded. as i was unable to examine them in detail, i sent them to professor west of cirencester, who has worked through my material and published a paper on hot-spring algæ in the _journal of botany_,[ ] in which he gives a list of all the algæ we brought back from iceland. the highest temperature at which algæ were found was ° c. ( ° f.). most of the forms found had not been previously recorded from iceland, and there was one new species belonging to the genus _aulosira_, _a. thermalis_. full details of these interesting algæ will be found in the paper to which a reference has been given. appendix ii a list of plants collected in the faroes and iceland in june and july caltha palustris i. f. ranunculus flammula f. hyperboreus i. seythisfjord, kerlingarfjöll. pygmæus i. thjofadal. repens i. f. thalictrum alpinum i. f. papaver nudicaule i. near silfrastathir on screes and among stones in river bed. arabis alpina i. thjofadal. petræa i. the desert between athalmansvatn and hveravellir, near gránanes. cardamine bellidifolia i. thjofadal. pratensis i. f. cochlearia officinalis i. f. groenlandica i. draba alpina i. thjofadal. rupestris i. verna i. f. incana i. silfrastathir, etc. tomentosa i. viola cricetorum i. f. palustris i. f. tricolor i. akureyri. polygala vulgaris f. alsine arctica[ ] i. athalmansvatn, thjofadal. cerastium alpinum i. trigynum i. akureyri. triviale i. halianthus peploides f. klaksvig. lychnis flos cuculi f. silene acaulis i. f. silene maritima i. lychnis alpina i. stellaria uliginosa i. seythisfjord. arenaria norvegica i. rubella i. montia fontana i. f. hypericum pulchrum f. klaksvig. linum catharticum i. geranium sylvaticum i. f. vicia cracca i. narfeyri. alchemilla alpina i. f. vulgaris i. f. comarum palustre i. f. dryas octopetala i. f. geum rivale i. f. fragaria vesca i. potentilla anserina i. reykholt. maculata i. tormentilla i. f. rubus saxatilis i. modruvellir, gullfoss, etc. sibbaldia procumbens i. athalmansvatn, hveravellir. hippuris vulgaris i. epilobium alpinum i. thjofadal. latifolium i. gránanes. palustre i. alsinefolium i. kerlingarfjöll. rhodiola rosea i. thjofadal. sedum villosum i. saxifraga aizoides i. vopnafjord. cernua i. gilhagi and thjofadal. cæspitosa i. f. hirculus i. hypnoides i. nivalis i. oppositifolia i. rivularis i. thjofadal, sandá, etc. stellaris i. f. parnassia palustris i. hveravellir, near springs, etc. angelica sylvestris i. hydrocotyle vulgaris i. galium boreale i. uliginosum i. f. achillea millefolium i. f. bellis perennis i. f. erigeron alpinus i. gnaphalium norvegicum i. isafjord, hveravellir. supinum i. isafjord, hveravellir. taraxacum dens leonis i. f. campanula rotundifolia i. vopnafjord, seythisfjord. pyrola media i. hveravellir, sandá. vaccinium uliginosum i. arctostaphylos uva ursi i. near thingvellir. cassiope hypnoides i. (especially on hummocky ground.) calluna vulgaris i. near thingvellir. loiseleuria procumbens i. seythisfjord, athalmansvatn. pinguicula vulgaris i. hveravellir, near springs. f. gentiana campestris i. helgafell. nivalis i. thingvellir. pleurogyne rotata i. vopnafjord. menyanthes trifoliata i. vopnafjord, etc. mertensia maritima i. reykjavik. myosotis arvensis i. akureyri. versicolor f. bartsia alpina i. (on hummocky ground.) euphrasia officinalis et. varr. i. f. pedicularis flammea i. gilhagi, athalmansvatn. rhinanthus minor i. sandá. veronica alpina i. saxatilis i. serpyllifolia i. f. officinalis i. thymus serpyllum i. f. galeopsis tetrahit i. geysir. prunella vulgaris i. grund. armeria sibirica i. plantago maritima i. konigia islandica i. oxyria digyna i. polygonum viviparum i. rumex acetosa i. acetosella i. empetrum nigrum i. salix glauca i. herbacea i. f. lanata i. phyllicifolia i. s.w. iceland. arctica i. and others, hybrids, etc., which could not be determined. betula nana i. alpestris i. intermedia i. odorata i. triglochin palustre i. corallorhiza innata i. vopnafjord and husavik. habenaria viridis i. f. albida i. orchis maculata i. f. plantanthera hyperborea i. tofieldia borealis i. juncus balticus i. trifidus i. luzula campestris i. multiflora i. spicata i. scirpus cæspitosus i. carex capillaris i. rigida i. vulgaris i. (common on hummocky ground.) elyna spicata i. eriophorum capitatum i. angustifolium i. agrostis stolonifer i. hveravellir. aira alpina i. elymus arenarius i. skagastrond. festuca ovina i. hierochloe borealis i. phleum alpinum i. poa alpina i. anthoxanthum odoratum i. juniperus communis, v. nana i. near thingvellir. selaginella spinosa i. hveravellir, etc. lycopodium alpinum i. hveravellir. f. selago i. blechnum spicant f. cystopteris fragilis i. botrychium lunaria i. ophioglossum vulgatum, var. polyphyllum i. hveravellir. equisetum arvense i. pratense i. [illustration: map of iceland to illustrate the author's route in ] index of places akrafjall, akureyri, - , , , , , , alftafjord, , almanna-gjá, - althing, , , , arctic circle, , , arhver, arnarfjord, , arnarvatnsheithi, , Ásquidsá, athalmansvatn, , athalmansvötn, audakilsá, barnafoss, - , , , - bathstovukver, , baula, , , , baula, little, beljandi, berserkjahraun, , , berufjord, biludalr, bláfell, , , blandá, , , , blonduos, , bone cave, , bordo, , borgarfjord, borovig, bortheyri, bratholt, , , breithifjord, , , , , , brgnjudalsá, bruará, , copenhagen, , dalatangi point, deildardalr, draghals, , draghalsá, drangey island, drapuhlitharfjall, dufufell, , dyrafjord, efriskutur, , einarstathir, , eldborg, - engey island, esja, , eskefjord, eyjafjord, , , , , eyjafjorthará, , eyri, eyriks jökull, , , , , , eyvindarlaekur, fagraskogarfjall, , falakvisl, , faroes, , , , , , , faskruthsfjord, faxafloi (or faxafjord), , ferstikluhals, fiskivötn, , fjnoská, flatey, flateyri, fljotsheithi, flokadalsá, fossá, framnes, fremrikot, geirsholmi, geitá, , geysir, , - , , geysir, little, gilhagi, , , , gilsbakki, , , , , , glerá, , gothafoss, gránanes, - , , , , gretisbali, grimsá, , grjotá, , - grjotardalr, grjotarvatn, grund, , gulf stream, gullfoss, , - , , , haffjathurá, , hegranes, helgafell, , , , , helgastathir, herradsvötn, - , , , , hitá, , hitardalr, hjartharholt, , hoff jökull, , , , , , hofthavatn, horgá, , horgadalr, horn, the, hornstrandr, hrafna-gjá, , , hraun, hraundalur, hrutafell, , , , - , , hrutafjord, hunafjord, , hunafloi, , husafell, , husavik, , , , , - , hvalfjord, , hvammsfjord, hvamsheithi, hveravellir, , , , , , , hvitá, , , , , , , , , , - , , , - , hvitarvatn, , , , , , , , icicle cave, , , , isafjord, - jarlhettur, jokulvisl, , kaldá, , , kalfstindar, kalmanstunga, - , kalso, , kalsofjord, , , karl rock, kerling rock, kerlingarfjöll, , - , , , - , , kjalfell, , kjalhraun, , kjarrá, , klaksvig, - kolbeinsdalr, kolbeinstathafjall, kolbeinstathir, , kropprmuli, kuno, , kuvikr, lagafell, lang jökull, , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , langá, langanes, langavatn, , laug, laugarvatn, laugarvatnshellirar, laxá, , , , , , laxadal, laxavogr, leirárvogar, leiruvogsá, leith, , , lille dimon, , litlisandr, ljosavatn, ljosavatnskarth, logberg, , lundey island, maelifell, , maelifellshnukr, , , , malmey island, mithfjord, mjofifjord, mossfell, , , mount tarawera (n.z.), muláfjall, mular, muli, murderesses' pool, , myrkar jökull, narfeyri, , nes, , north atlantic drift, north cape, north island (n.z.), north-west peninsula, , , northfjord, , , northingafljot, , , , northrá, - , northradal, , northtunga, nypsfjord, oddeyri, , , , onundarfjord, oxará, , oxnadalr, , oxnadalsá, , patreksfjord, pink terraces of n.z., rauthamisolkaldá, rauthimelr, rauthkollur, , reykholt, - , reykholtsdal, reykir, , reykjadalr, reykjadalsá, , , , reykjarfjord, reykjavik, , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , reykjavisl, reynivallahals, reynivellir, - sandá, , sandfell, saurar, sautharkrokr, seythisfjord, , , , , - , siglufjord, silfrastathr, , , , , , sithumuli, skagafjord, skagastrond, skalafell, skarthsheithi, , skeljafiall, skjalfandafljot, skjalfandi, , skorradalsvatn, skriflir, skrutharfell, skuo, skutilsfjord, snaefell peninsula, snaefellsnes, south ronaldshay, stafholt, statharhraun, , , , , , stathr, store dimon, stori Ás, strangákvisl, strokur, , stromo, strutr, , , , strytur, , , - , , , , , stykkisholm, - , sudero, sugandisey, , surtshellir caves, , - , , svarfholsmuli, - svartá, , svatá, , , , sviná, svinadal, , svinaskarth, thingeyri, thingvallavatn, , , thingvellir, , - , , , thjofadal, , , , , thjofadalsá, thjofafell, thorshavn, , , thorvaldsdalsá, thverá (river), thverá (in oxnadal), , , thyrill, - thyrillsnes, trangisvaag, - tunga, , , , tungufljot, tunguhver, , tungusveit, unadal jökull, unadalr, uxhaver geyser, , vallholt, vathlaheithi, , vatnsnes, veithileysa, , vestmannsvatn, vestradalsá, vestri-skarthsheithi, , - , vopnafjord, - , , , the end _printed by_ r. & r. clark, limited, _edinburgh_. telegrams: bedford street, 'scholarly, london.' strand, london. _october, ._ mr. edward arnold's new and popular books. my memoirs. by henri stephan de blowitz. edited by stephan lauzanne de blowitz. _second impression. demy vo. with portrait. s. nett._ contrary to the general belief, the late m. de blowitz, who was for nearly thirty years the paris correspondent of _the times_, had been engaged for some time before his death in putting into shape for publication some of the more remarkable incidents of his career. these characteristic chapters of autobiography, which have been arranged for the press by m. de blowitz's adopted son, the editor of _le matin_, reveal some of the methods by which the best-known of modern correspondents achieved his greatest journalistic triumphs. m. de blowitz describes in his own inimitable manner his early youth; how he became a journalist; his interview with alphonso xii., when the latter 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begins by describing his stay in chile, where he filled the position of minister, and had the handling of the well-known tacna affair; it required all a diplomatist's skill to prevent this curious episode from developing into a serious crisis between great britain and chile. returning home in , sir horace enjoyed a period of leisure that enabled him to meet in society all the most famous men and women of the day; about this time he began to keep a diary, 'of almost pepysian fulness,' to the no small advantage of the readers of his 'recollections.' later on we follow him to appointments in greece and sweden, retaining, wherever he found himself, that cosmopolitan interest in his surroundings that has made his earlier book such charming reading. sir horace has not had time to prepare more than one volume for this autumn, but he hopes in due course to complete his 'recollections,' and bring them down to the date of his retirement from the diplomatic service. odds and ends. by francis 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[ ] "on some algæ from hot springs," g. s. west, _journal of botany_, july , p. . [ ] not in _warming's_ list, but given by _babington_ from akureyri. a queen of tears _by the same author._ the love of an uncrowned queen: sophie dorothea, consort of george i., and her correspondence with philip christopher, count konigsmarck. new and revised edition. _with portraits and illustrations._ _ vo, s. d. net._ longmans, green, and co., london, new york and bombay. [illustration: o keep me innocent, make others great. caroline mathilde. _after the painting by sir joshua reynolds, ._ _walter s. colls, ph. sc._] a queen of tears caroline matilda, queen of denmark and norway and princess of great britain and ireland by w. h. wilkins _m.a., f.s.a._ _author of "the love of an uncrowned queen," and "caroline the illustrious, queen consort of george ii."_ with illustrations in two volumes vol. i. longmans, green, and co. paternoster row, london new york and bombay preface some years ago, when visiting celle in connection with a book i was writing on sophie dorothea, _the love of an uncrowned queen_, i found, in an unfrequented garden outside the town, a grey marble monument of unusual beauty. around the base ran an inscription to the effect that it was erected in loving memory of caroline matilda, queen of denmark and norway, princess of great britain and ireland, who died at celle in , at the age of twenty-three years. to this may be traced the origin of this book, for until i saw the monument i had not heard of this english princess--a sister of george iii. the only excuse to be offered for this ignorance is that it is shared by the great majority of englishmen. for though the romantic story of caroline matilda is known to every dane--she is the mary stuart of danish history--her name is almost forgotten in the land of her birth, and this despite the fact that little more than a century ago her imprisonment nearly led to a war between england and denmark. inquiry soon revealed the full measure of my ignorance. the dramatic tale of queen caroline matilda and her unhappy love for struensee, her prime minister, has been told in danish, german, french and english in a variety of ways. apart from history and biography, it has formed the theme of novels and plays, and even of an opera. the most trustworthy works on the queen and struensee are written in danish, a language not widely read. in english nothing of importance has been written about her for half a century,[ ] and, owing to the fact that many documents, then inaccessible, have since become available, the books are necessarily incomplete, and most of them untrustworthy. moreover, they have been long out of print. [ ] i except dr. a. w. ward's contribution to the _dictionary of national biography_, but this is necessarily brief. a list of the books which have been written about the queen in different languages will be found in the appendix. my object, therefore, in writing this book has been to tell once more the story of this forgotten "daughter of england" in the light of recent historical research. i may claim to have broken fresh ground. the despatches of titley, cosby, gunning, keith and woodford (british ministers at copenhagen, - ) and others, quoted in this book, are here published for the first time in any language. they yield authoritative information concerning the queen's brief reign at the danish court, and the character of the personages who took part, directly or indirectly, in the palace revolution of . even professor e. holm, of copenhagen, in his admirable work, _danmark-norges historie_ (published in ), vol. iv. of which deals with the matilda-struensee period, is ignorant of these important despatches, which i found two years ago in the state paper office, london. to these are added many documents from the royal archives at copenhagen; most of them, it is true, have been published in the danish, but they are unknown to english readers. i have also, in connection with this book, more than once visited denmark, and have had access to the royal archives at copenhagen, and to the palaces in which the queen lived during her unhappy life at the danish court. i have followed her to kronborg, where she was imprisoned, and to celle, in germany, where she died in exile. my researches at this latter place may serve to throw light on the closing (and little-known) years of the queen's brief life. she rests at celle by the side of her ancestress, sophie dorothea, whose life in many ways closely resembled her own. a word of explanation is perhaps necessary for the first few chapters of this book. in all the biographies of caroline matilda written in any language, her life in england before her marriage has received scant consideration, probably on account of her extreme youth. as her parentage and education were largely responsible for the mistakes of her later years, i have sketched, with some detail, the characters of her father and mother, and her early environment. this plan has enabled me to describe briefly the english court from the death of queen caroline to the accession of george iii., and so to form a link with my other books on the house of hanover. my thanks are due to miss hermione ramsden for kindly translating for me sundry documents from the danish; to mr. louis bobé, of copenhagen, for much interesting information; and to the editor of the _nineteenth century and after_ for allowing me to re-publish certain passages from an article i recently contributed to that review on augusta, princess of wales. i must also thank the earl of wharncliffe for permitting me to reproduce the picture of lord bute at wortley hall, and count kielmansegg for similar permission with regard to the portrait of madame de walmoden at gülzow. w. h. wilkins. _november, ._ contents page preface v contents ix list of illustrations xi chapter i. birth and parentage chapter ii. childhood and youth chapter iii. the betrothal chapter iv. the training of a king chapter v. "the northern scamp" chapter vi. matilda's arrival in denmark chapter vii. mariage À la mode chapter viii. at the court of denmark chapter ix. the birth of a prince chapter x. christian vii. in england chapter xi. the prodigal's return chapter xii. struensee chapter xiii. the tempter chapter xiv. the queen's folly chapter xv. the fall of bernstorff chapter xvi. queen and empress chapter xvii. the reformer chapter xviii. the order of matilda chapter xix. the dictator transcriber's note list of illustrations queen matilda (_photogravure_). _from the painting by sir joshua reynolds, _ _frontispiece_ leicester house, where queen matilda was born _facing page_ frederick, prince of wales, father of queen matilda. _from the painting by j. b. vanloo at warwick castle, by permission of the earl of warwick_ " " madame de walmoden, countess of yarmouth. _from the painting at gülzow by permission of count kielmansegg_ " " john, earl of bute. _from the painting by sir joshua reynolds at wortley hall, by permission of the earl of wharncliffe_ " " the elder children of frederick and augusta, prince and princess of wales, playing in kew gardens. _from a painting, temp. _ " " queen louise, consort of frederick v. of denmark and daughter of george ii. of england. _from a painting by pilo in the frederiksborg palace_ " " king christian vii. _from the painting by p. wichman, _ " " kew palace, where queen matilda passed much of her girlhood. _from an engraving, temp. _ " " the marriage ball of christian vii. and queen matilda in the christiansborg palace. _from a contemporary print_ " " the christiansborg palace, copenhagen. _from an old print, temp. _ " " edward, duke of york, brother of queen matilda. _from the painting by g. h. every_ " " queen matilda receiving the congratulations of the court on the birth of the crown prince frederick. _from a contemporary print_ " " carlton house, pall mall, the residence of the princess-dowager of wales. _from a print, temp. _ " " the masked ball given by christian vii. at the opera house, haymarket. _from the "gentleman's magazine," _ " " the palace of frederiksborg, from the garden terrace. _from an engraving, temp. _ " " william henry, duke of gloucester, brother of queen matilda. _from the painting by h. w. hamilton, _ " " struensee. _from an engraving, _ " " queen sophia magdalena, grandmother of christian vii. " " augusta, princess of wales, mother of queen matilda. _after a painting by f. b. vanloo_ " " george iii., brother of queen matilda. _from a painting by allan ramsay ( ) in the national portrait gallery_ " " the frederiksberg palace, near copenhagen. _from a print, temp. _ " " the palace of hirschholm. _temp. _ " " two relics of queen matilda in the rosenborg castle, copenhagen. ( ) the insignia of the order of matilda; ( ) the wedding goblet " " queen matilda and her son, the crown prince of denmark. _from the painting at the rosenborg, copenhagen_ " " chapter i. birth and parentage. . caroline matilda, queen of denmark and norway, princess of great britain and ireland (a sister of george iii.), was born at leicester house, london, on thursday, july , . she was the ninth and youngest child of frederick prince of wales and of his wife augusta of saxe-gotha, and came into the world a little more than four months after her father's death. there is a scandinavian superstition to the effect that children born fatherless are heirs to misfortune. the life of this "queen of tears" would seem to illustrate its truth. caroline matilda inherited many of her father's qualities, notably his warm, emotional temperament, his desire to please and his open-handed liberality. both in appearance and disposition she resembled her father much more than her mother. some account of this prince is therefore necessary for a right understanding of his daughter's character, for, though she was born after his death, the silent forces of heredity influenced her life. frederick prince of wales was the elder son of george ii. and of his consort caroline of ansbach. he was born in hanover during the reign of queen anne, when the prospects of his family to succeed to the crown of england were doubtful, and he did not come to england until he was in his twenty-second year and his father had reigned two years. he came against the will of the king and queen, whose cherished wish was that their younger son william duke of cumberland should succeed to the english throne, and the elder remain in hanover. the unkindness with which frederick was treated by his father had the effect of driving him into opposition to the court and the government. he had inherited from his mother many of the graces that go to captivate the multitude, and he soon became popular. every cast-off minister, every discontented politician, sought the prince of wales, and found in him a ready weapon to harass the government and wound the king. the prince had undoubted grievances, such as his restricted allowance and the postponement of his marriage to a suitable princess. for some years after frederick's arrival in england the king managed to evade the question of the marriage, but at last, owing chiefly to the clamour of the opposition, he reluctantly arranged a match between the prince of wales and augusta, daughter of the reigning duke of saxe-gotha. the bride-elect landed at greenwich in april, , and, two days after her arrival, was married to frederick at the chapel royal, st. james's. the princess was only seventeen years of age and could not speak a word of english. she was tall and slender, with an oval face, regular features, bright, intelligent eyes, and an abundance of light-brown hair. frederick's marriage did not make him on better terms with his parents, and in this family quarrel the princess, who soon showed that she possessed more than usual discretion, sided with her husband. the disputes between the king and the prince of wales culminated in an open act of revolt on the part of the latter, when, with incredible folly, he carried off his wife, on the point of her first lying-in, from hampton court to st. james's. half an hour after her arrival in london the princess was delivered of a girl child, augusta, who later in life became duchess of brunswick. the king was furious at this insubordination, and as soon as the princess was sufficiently recovered to be moved, he sent his son a message ordering him to quit st. james's with all his household. the prince and princess went to kew, where they had a country house; and for a temporary london residence (while carlton house, which the prince had bought, was being repaired) they took norfolk house, st. james's square. a few weeks after this rupture the illustrious queen caroline died, to the great grief of the king and the nation. her death widened the breach in the royal family, for the king considered that his son's undutiful conduct had hastened his mother's death. frederick now ranged himself in open opposition to the king and the government, and gathered around him the malcontent politicians, who saw in walpole's fall, or frederick's accession to the throne, their only chance of rising to power. the following year, , a son and heir (afterwards george iii.) was born to the prince and princess of wales at norfolk house. this event strengthened the position of the prince, especially as the king's health was reported to be failing. frederick removed his household to leicester house in leicester fields. it was here, eleven years later, that his posthumous daughter caroline matilda was born. leicester house was built by the earl of leicester in the reign of james i. there was a field before it in those days, but a square was subsequently built around the field, and leicester house occupied the north-east corner of what was then leicester fields, but is now known as leicester square. it was a large and spacious house, with a courtyard in front, and the state rooms were admirably adapted for receptions and levees, but as a residence it was not so satisfactory. frederick chiefly made use of carlton house and kew for his family life, and kept leicester house for entertaining. his court there offered a curious parallel to the one his father had held within the same walls in the reign of george i., when the heir to the throne was also at variance with the king. again leicester house became the rallying place of the opposition, again its walls echoed with the sound of music and dance, again there flocked to its assemblies ladies of beauty and fashion, elegant beaux, brilliant wits, politicians and pamphleteers. frederick's intelligence has been much abused, but he was intelligent enough to gather around him at this time much of what was best in the social life of the day, and his efforts were ably seconded by his clever and graceful wife. [illustration: leicester house, where queen matilda was born.] after the fall of walpole several of the prince's friends took office, and a formal, though by no means cordial, reconciliation was patched up between the king and the heir apparent, but there was always veiled hostility between them, and from time to time their differences threatened to become acute. for instance, after the jacobite rising the prince of wales disapproved of the severities of his brother, the duke of cumberland, "the butcher of culloden," and showed his displeasure in no unequivocal manner. when the jacobite peers were condemned to death the prince and princess interceded for them, in one case with success. lady cromartie, after petitioning the king in vain for her husband's life, made a personal appeal, as a wife and mother, to the princess of wales, and brought her four children to plead with her as well. the princess said nothing, but, with evident emotion, summoned her own children and placed them beside her. this she followed by praying the king for cromartie's life, and her prayer was granted. after the reconciliation the prince and princess of wales occasionally attended st. james's, but since the death of queen caroline the court of george ii. had lost its brilliancy and become both gross and dull, in this respect contrasting unfavourably with leicester house. grossness and dulness were characteristic of the courts of our first two hanoverian kings, but whatever complaint might be brought against leicester house, the society there was far livelier and more refined than that which assembled at st. james's. the popular grievance against leicester house was that it was too french. france was just then very unpopular in england, and the british public did not like the french tastes of the prince of wales--the masques imitated from versailles, the french plays acted by french players and the _petits soupers_. high play also took place at leicester house, but the princess did her best to discourage this. in the other frivolities which her husband loved she acquiesced, more for the sake of keeping her influence over him than because she liked them. her tastes were simple, and her tendencies puritanical. at kew the prince and princess of wales led a quieter life, and here the influence of the princess was in the ascendant. kew house was an old-fashioned, low, rambling house, which the prince had taken on a long lease from the capel family. the great beauty of kew lay in its extensive garden, which was improved and enlarged by frederick. he built there orangeries and hothouses after the fashion of herrenhausen, and filled them with exotics. both frederick and his wife had a love of gardening, and often worked with their children in the grounds, and dug, weeded and planted to their hearts' content. sometimes they would compel their guests to lend a hand as well. bubb dodington tells how he went down to kew on a visit, accompanied by several lords and ladies, and they were promptly set to work in the garden, probably to their disgust. dodington's diary contains the following entries:-- "_ , february ._--worked in the new walk at kew. "_ , february ._--all of us, men, women and children, worked at the same place. a cold dinner."[ ] [ ] bubb dodington's _diary_, edition . it was like frederick's monkeyish humour to make the portly and pompous dodington work in his garden; no doubt he hugely enjoyed the sight. the prince's amusements were varied, if we may judge from the following account by dodington:-- "_ , june ._--lady middlesex, lord bathurst, mr. breton and i waited on their royal highnesses to spitalfields to see the manufactory of silk, and to mr. carr's shop in the morning. in the afternoon the same company, with lady torrington in waiting, went in private coaches to norwood forest to see a settlement of gypsies. we returned and went to bettesworth the conjurer, in hackney coaches. not finding him we went in search of the little dutchman, but were disappointed; and concluded the particularities of this day by supping with mrs. cannon, the princess's midwife."[ ] [ ] bubb dodington's _diary_, edition . these, it must be admitted, were not very intellectual amusements. on the other hand it stands to frederick's credit that he chose as his personal friends some of the ablest men of the day, and found delight and recreation in their society. between him and bolingbroke there existed the warmest sympathy. when bolingbroke came back to england after walpole's fall, he renewed his friendship with frederick, and often paced with him and the princess through the gardens and shrubberies of their favourite kew, while he waxed eloquent over the tyranny of the whig oligarchy, which kept the king in thrall, and held up before them his ideal of a patriot king. both the prince and princess listened eagerly to bolingbroke's theories, and in after years the princess instilled them into the mind of her eldest son. chesterfield and sir william wyndham also came to kew sometimes, and here frederick and augusta exhibited with just pride their flower-beds to pope, who wrote of his patron-- and if yet higher the proud list should end still, let me add, no follower, but a friend. the prince not only sought the society of men of letters, but made some attempts at authorship himself. his verse was not very remarkable; the best perhaps was the poem addressed to the princess beginning:-- 'tis not the liquid brightness of those eyes, that swim with pleasure and delight; nor those heavenly arches which arise o'er each of them, to shade their light: and so on through five stanzas of praise of augusta's charms, until: no,--'tis that gentleness of mind, that love so kindly answering my desire; that grace with which you look, and speak, and move, that thus has set my soul on fire. perhaps it was of these lines that the prince once asked lord poulett his opinion. "sir," replied that astute courtier, "they are worthy of your royal highness." notwithstanding his admiration of his wife, frederick was not faithful to her. but it may be doubted whether, after his marriage, he indulged in any serious intrigue, and his flirtations were probably only tributes offered to the shrine of gallantry after the fashion of the day. in every other respect he was a good husband. he was also a devoted father, a kind master to his servants, and a true friend. in his public life he always professed a love of liberty. to a deputation of quakers he once delivered the following answer: "as i am a friend to liberty in general, and to toleration in particular, i wish you may meet with all proper favour, but, for myself, i never gave my vote in parliament, and to influence my friends, or direct my servants, in theirs, does not become my station. to leave them entirely to their own consciences and understandings, is a rule i have hitherto prescribed to myself, and purpose through life to observe." "may it please the prince of wales," rejoined the quaker at the head of the deputation, "i am greatly affected with thy excellent notions of liberty, and am more pleased with the answer thou hast given us, than if thou hadst granted our request." frederick avowed a great love for the country over which he one day hoped to reign; and, though french in his tastes rather than english, he did all in his power to encourage the national sentiment. for instance, it is recorded on one of his birthdays: "there was a very splendid appearance of the nobility and gentry and their ladies at leicester house, and his royal highness observing some lords to wear french stuffs, immediately ordered the duke of chandos, his groom of the stole, to acquaint them, and his servants in general, that after that day he should be greatly displeased to see them appear in any french manufacture".[ ] [ ] _the annual register_, january, . moreover, he instilled in the minds of his children the loftiest sentiments of patriotism. in view of the german predilections of his father and grandfather the training which frederick gave his children, especially his eldest son, had much to do in after years with reconciling the tory and jacobite malcontents to the established dynasty. the wounds occasioned by the rising of were still bleeding, but the battle of culloden had extinguished for ever the hopes of the stuarts, and many of their adherents were casting about for a pretext of acquiescing in the inevitable. these frederick met more than half way. he was not born in england (neither was charles edward), but his children were, and he taught them to consider themselves englishmen and not germans, and to love the land of their birth. his english sentiments appear again and again in his letters and speeches. they crop up in some verses which he wrote for his children to recite at their dramatic performances. on one occasion the piece selected for representation was addison's play of _cato_, in which prince george, prince edward, and the princesses augusta and elizabeth took part. frederick wrote a prologue and an epilogue; the prologue was spoken by prince george. after a panegyric on liberty the future king went on to say:-- should this superior to my years be thought, know--'tis the first great lesson i was taught. what! though a boy! it may with pride be said a boy--in england born, in england bred; where freedom well becomes the earliest state, for there the laws of liberty innate--etc., etc. there came an echo of this early teaching years later when george iii. wrote into the text of his first speech to parliament the memorable words: "born and educated in this country, i glory in the name of briton". in the epilogue spoken by prince edward similar sentiments were expressed:-- in england born, my inclination, like yours, is wedded to this nation: and future times, i hope, will see me general in reality.[ ] indeed, i wish to serve this land, it is my father's strict command; and none he ever gave shall be more cheerfully obeyed by me. [ ] prince edward, duke of york, became a vice-admiral of the blue. we get many pleasant glimpses, in contemporary letters and memoirs, of the domestic felicity of the royal household at kew and leicester house; of games of baseball and "push pin," with the children in the winter, of gardening and cricket in the summer, and of little plays, sometimes composed by the prince, staged by the princess and acted by their sons and daughters all the year round. "the prince's family," lady hervey writes, "is an example of innocent and cheerful amusement,"[ ] and her testimony is corroborated on all sides. [ ] lady hervey's _letters_. frederick prince of wales died suddenly on march , , to the great grief of his wife and children, and the consternation of his political adherents. the prince had been suffering from a chill, but no one thought that there was any danger. on the eighth day of his illness, in the evening, he was sitting up in bed, listening to the performance of desnoyers, the violinist, when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing. he put his hand upon his heart and cried, "_je sens la mort!_" the princess, who was in the room, flew to her husband's assistance, but before she could reach his side he was dead. later it was shown that the immediate cause of death was the breaking of an abscess in his side, which had been caused by a blow from a cricket ball a few weeks before. cricket had been recently introduced into england, and frederick was one of the first to encourage the game, which soon became national. he often played in matches at cliveden and kew. no prince has been more maligned than frederick prince of wales, and none on less foundation. he opposed walpole and the whig domination, and therefore the whig pamphleteers of the time, and whig historians since, have poured on him the vials of their wrath, and contemptuously dismissed him as half fool and half rogue. but the utmost that can be proved against him is that he was frivolous, and unduly fond of gambling and gallantry. these failings were common to the age, and in his case they were largely due to his neglected youth. badly educated, disliked by his parents, to whom he grew up almost a stranger, and surrounded from the day of his arrival in england by malcontents, parasites and flatterers, it would have needed a much stronger man than frederick to resist the evil influences around him. his public utterances, and there is no real ground for doubting their sincerity, go to show that he was a prince of liberal and enlightened views, a friend of peace and a lover of england. it is probable that, had he been spared to ascend the throne, he would have made a better king than either his father or grandfather. it is possible that he would have made a better king than his son, for, though he was by no means so good a man, he was more pliant, more tolerant, and far less obstinate. speculation is idle in such matters, but it is unlikely, if frederick had been on the throne instead of george iii., that he would have encouraged the policy which lost us our american colonies. dying when he did, all that can be said of frederick politically is that he never had a fair chance. keeping the mean between two extreme parties in the state he was made the butt of both, but the fact remains that he attracted to his side some of the ablest among the moderate men who cared little for party and much for the state. certainly nothing in his life justified the bitter jacobite epigram circulated shortly after his death:-- here lies fred, who was alive, and is dead, had it been his father, i had much rather; had it been his brother, still better than another; had it been his sister, no one would have missed her; had it been the whole generation, so much better for the nation; but since 'tis only fred, who was alive, and is dead, there's no more to be said. george ii. was playing cards when the news of his son's death was brought to him. he turned very pale and said nothing for a minute; then he rose, whispered to lady yarmouth, "_fritz ist todt_," and quitted the room. but he sent that same night a message of condolence to the bereaved widow. [illustration: frederick, prince of wales, father of queen matilda. _from the painting by j. b. vanloo at warwick castle, by permission of the earl of warwick._] the death of her husband was a great blow to augusta princess of wales. suddenly deprived of the prospect of becoming queen of england, she found herself, at the age of thirty-two, left a widow with eight young children and expecting shortly to give birth to another. her situation excited great commiseration, and among the people the dead prince was generally regretted, for despite his follies he was known to be kindly and humane. elegies were cried about the streets, and very common exclamations were: "oh, that it were his brother!" "oh, that it were the butcher!" still it cannot be pretended that frederick was deeply mourned. a conversation was overheard between two workmen, who were putting up the hatchment over the gate at leicester house, which fairly voiced the popular sentiment: "he has left a great many small children," said one. "aye," replied the other, "and what is worse, they belong to our parish." contrary to expectation the king behaved with great kindness to his daughter-in-law, and a few days after her bereavement paid her a visit in person. he refused the chair of state placed for him, seated himself on the sofa beside the princess, and at the sight of her sorrow was so much moved as to shed tears. when the princess augusta, his eldest granddaughter, came forward to kiss his hand, he took her in his arms and embraced her. to his grandsons the king said: "be brave boys, be obedient to your mother, and endeavour to do credit to the high station in which you are born". he who had never acted the tender father delighted in playing "the tender grandfather".[ ] [ ] _vide_ horace walpole's _reign of george ii._ a month after his father's death prince george was created prince of wales and earl of chester, but the young prince, though always respectful, never entertained any affectionate feelings for his grandfather. this may have been due, in part, to the unforgiving spirit with which the old king followed his son even to the tomb. frederick's funeral was shorn of almost every circumstance of state. no princes of the blood and no important members of the government attended, and he was buried in westminster abbey "without either anthem or organ". of the few faithful friends who attended the last rites, dodington writes: "there was not the attention to order the board of green cloth to provide them a bit of bread; and these gentlemen of the first rank and distinction, in discharge of their last sad duty to a loved, and loving, master, were forced to bespeak a great, cold dinner from a common tavern in the neighbourhood; at three o'clock, indeed, they vouchsafed to think of a dinner and ordered one, but the disgrace was complete--the tavern dinner was paid for and given to the poor".[ ] [ ] dodington's _diary_, april , o.s., , edition . some five months after frederick's death his widow gave birth to a princess, the subject of this book. dodington thus records the event, which, except in the _london gazette_, was barely noticed by the journals of the day:-- "on wednesday, the princess walked in carlton gardens, supped and went to bed very well; she was taken ill about six o'clock on thursday morning, and about eight was delivered of a princess. both well."[ ] [ ] dodington's _diary_, july , o.s., , edition . the advent of this daughter was hardly an occasion for rejoicing. apart from the melancholy circumstances of her birth, her widowed mother had already a young and numerous family,[ ] several of whom were far from strong, and all, with the exception of her eldest son, the heir presumptive to the throne, unprovided for. [ ] table. see next page. eleven days after her birth the princess was baptised at leicester house by dr. hayter, bishop of norwich, and given the names of caroline matilda, the first being after her grandmother, the second harking back to our norman queens. except in official documents she was always known by the latter name, and it is the one therefore that will be used in speaking of her throughout this book. the infant had three sponsors, her aunt the princess caroline (represented by proxy), her eldest sister the princess augusta, and her eldest brother the prince of wales. in the case of the godfather the sponsorship was no mere form, for george iii. stood in the light of guardian to his sister all through her life. table showing the children of frederick and augusta, prince and princess of wales, and also the descent of his majesty king edward vii. from frederick prince of wales. frederick prince of wales = augusta of saxe-gotha (son of george ii. and | (daughter of frederick ii. caroline of ansbach). | duke of saxe-gotha). | +---------------------------------+ | +--augusta, b. , d. , m. charles william duke of brunswick, | and had issue among others | | | caroline, consort of george iv., who had issue | | | princess charlotte, d. in childbirth, . | +--george iii., b. , d. , m. charlotte princess of | mecklenburg-strelitz, and had issue among others | | | edward duke of kent | | | queen victoria | | | king edward vii. | +--edward duke of york, b. , d. , unmarried. | +--elizabeth, b. , d. , unmarried. | +--william henry duke of gloucester, b. , d. , m. maria | countess dowager waldegrave, illegitimate dau. of sir edward | walpole, and had issue among others | | | william frederick duke of gloucester, m. mary, dau. of george | iii., no issue. | +--henry frederick duke of cumberland b. , d. , m. anne, | dau. of lord irnham, afterwards earl of carlhampton, and widow | of andrew horton, no issue. | +--louisa anne, b. , d. , unmarried. | +--frederick william, b. , d. , unmarried. | +--caroline matilda, b. july , , m. , christian vii., king of denmark, d. , and had issue | frederick vi., king of denmark, d. , and louise augusta, duchess of augustenburg, d. . chapter ii. childhood and youth. - . the early years of the princess matilda were passed at carlton house and kew. after her husband's death the princess-dowager of wales, as she was called, resided for the most part in london at carlton house. she used leicester house on state occasions, and kept it chiefly for her two elder sons who lived there with their tutors. carlton house was a stately building fronting st. james's park with an entrance in pall mall. it was built by a lord carlton in the reign of queen anne, and was sold in to frederick prince of wales. the great feature of carlton house was its beautiful garden, which extended along the mall as far as marlborough house, and was laid out on the same plan as pope's famous garden at twickenham. there were smooth lawns, fine trees and winding walks, and bowers, grottoes and statuary abounded. this garden gave carlton house a great advantage over leicester house in the matter of privacy, and was of benefit to the children. cliveden, near maidenhead, and park place, henley-on-thames, two country places, owned, or leased, by frederick were given up, but the princess retained her favourite house at kew, and sent her younger children down there as much as possible. the greater part of matilda's childhood was spent there, and kew and its gardens are more associated with her memory than any other place in england. the princess-dowager encouraged in all her children simplicity of living, love of fresh air and healthy exercise. each of the little princes and princesses was allotted at kew a small plot of ground wherein to dig and plant. gardening was matilda's favourite amusement, and in one of the earliest of her letters she writes to a girl friend:-- "since you left richmond i have much improved my little plot in our garden at kew, and have become quite proficient in my knowledge of exotics. i often miss your company, not only for your lively chat, but for your approbation of my horticultural embellishments.... you know we [the royal children] have but a narrow circle of amusements, which we can sometimes vary but never enlarge."[ ] [ ] the authenticity of this letter is doubtful. it first appeared in a work entitled _memoirs of an unfortunate queen, interspersed with letters written by herself to several of her illustrious relatives and friends_, published , soon after matilda's death. some of the letters may be genuine, others are undoubtedly spurious. the princess was better educated than the majority of english ladies of her time, many of whom could do little more than read and write (but seldom could spell) with the addition of a few superficial accomplishments. matilda was a fair linguist, she could speak and write french well, and had a smattering of italian. like her brothers and sisters she committed to memory long passages from english classics, and recited them with fluency and expression. she had a great love of music, and played on the harpsichord, and sang in a sweet and pleasing voice. she was thoroughly trained in "deportment," and danced to perfection. she was a pretty, graceful girl, not awkward, even at the most awkward age, and early gave promise of beauty. she rejoiced in an affectionate, generous disposition and a bright and happy temperament. she stood in awe of her mother, but she was devoted to her brothers and sisters, especially to her eldest sister, princess augusta. this princess was the one who was suddenly hurried into the world on a july night at st. james's palace. she was fourteen years of age when matilda was born, and was a woman before her youngest sister ceased to be a child, so that she stood to her in the place of friend and counsellor. augusta had not the beauty of matilda, but she was a comely maiden with regular features, well-shaped figure, pleasant smile, and general animation. she was the best educated of the family. this was largely due to her thirst for knowledge. she read widely, and interested herself in the political and social questions of the day to a degree unusual with princesses of her age. she was sharp and quick-witted, and in her childhood precocious beyond her years. "la! sir robert," she pertly exclaimed, when only seven years of age, to sir robert rich, whom she had mistaken for sir robert walpole, "what has become of your blue string and your big belly?" sir "blue-string" was one of the tory nicknames for walpole, and in the caricatures of the time his corpulence was an endless subject of ridicule. her parents, instead of reprimanding her, laughed at her pleasantries, with the result that they often found her inconveniently frank and troublesome. after frederick's death her mother, who had no wish to have a grown-up daughter too soon, kept her in the background as much as possible, a treatment which the lively augusta secretly resented. matilda's other sisters, the princesses elizabeth and louisa anne, were nearer her in age and were much more tractable than augusta. they both suffered from ill-health. her eldest brother george prince of wales was a silent youth, shy and retiring, and not demonstrative in any way. edward, her second brother, afterwards duke of york, was livelier and was always a favourite with his sister. her three youngest brothers, william henry, afterwards duke of gloucester, henry frederick, later duke of cumberland, and frederick william (who died at the age of fifteen), were her chief playmates, for they were nearer her in age. the children of frederick prince of wales and augusta had one characteristic in common; clever or stupid, lively or dull, sickly or strong in health, they were all affectionate and fond of one another. quarrels were rare, and the brothers and sisters united in loving and spoiling the pet of the family, pretty, bright little matilda. for eighteen months after her husband's death the princess-dowager of wales remained in closest retirement. at the end of that time she reappeared in public and attended court, where, by the king's command, she received the same honours as had been paid to the late queen caroline. she was also made guardian of her eldest son, in case of the king's demise during the prince of wales' minority. william duke of cumberland bitterly resented this appointment as a personal affront, and declared to his friends that he now felt his own insignificance, and wished the name of william could be blotted out of the english annals. it increased his jealousy of his sister-in-law, and she, on her part, made no secret of her inveterate dislike of him. her children were taught to regard their uncle as a monster because of his cruelties at culloden, and he complained to the princess-dowager of the "base and villainous insinuations" which had poisoned their minds against him. the princess-dowager of wales rarely attended st. james's except on ceremonial occasions. nominally george ii.'s court, for the last twenty years of his reign, was presided over by the king's eldest unmarried daughter, princess amelia, or emily, a princess who, as years went on, lost her good looks as well as her manners. she became deaf and short-sighted, and was chiefly known for her sharp tongue and her love of scandal and high play. she had no influence with the king, and her unamiable characteristics made her unpopular with the courtiers, who treated her as a person of no importance. in reality the _dame regnante_ at st. james's was madame de walmoden, countess of yarmouth, who had been the king's mistress at hanover. he brought her over to england the year after queen caroline's death, lodged her in the palace, created her a peeress, and gave her a pension. in her youth the walmoden had been a great beauty, but as she advanced in years she became exceedingly stout. ministers, peers, politicians, place-hunters of all kinds, even bishops and church dignitaries, paid their court to her. she accepted all this homage for what it was worth, but though she now and then obtained a place for a favourite, she very wisely abstained from meddling in english politics, which she did not understand, and chiefly occupied herself in amassing wealth. [illustration: madame de walmoden, countess of yarmouth. _from the painting at gülzow, by permission of count kielmansegg._] lady yarmouth was the last instance of a mistress of the king of england who received a peerage. her title did not give her much prestige, and her presence at court did not add to its lustre. during her ten years' reign queen caroline had set an example of virtue and decorum, which was not forgotten, and the presence of a recognised mistress standing in her place was resented by many of the wives of the high nobility. some of these ladies abstained from going to st. james's on principle, others, and these the more numerous, because the assemblies there had become insufferably dull and tedious. if the court had been conducted on the lavish scale which marked the reigns of the stuarts, if beauty, wit and brilliancy had met together, some slight lapses from the strict path of virtue might have been overlooked. but a court, which was at once vicious and dull, was impossible. the princess-dowager of wales, who prided herself on the propriety of her conduct and the ordered regularity of her household, was the most conspicuous absentee, and though she now and then attended st. james's as in duty bound, she never took her daughters to court, but declared that the society there would contaminate them. she rarely, if ever, honoured the mansions of the nobility with a visit, and her appearances in public were few and far between. she lived a life of strict seclusion, which her children shared. during the ten years that elapsed between frederick's death and george iii.'s accession to the throne, the princess-dowager was little more than a name to the outer world; the time had not come when the veil of privacy was to be rudely torn from her domestic life, and the publicity from which she shrank turned on her with its most pitiless glare. the policy of the princess was to keep in the background as much as possible and devote herself wholly to the care and education of her numerous family. she did her duty (or what she conceived to be her duty) to her children to the utmost in her power, and in her stern, undemonstrative way there is no doubt that she loved them. she ruled her household with a rod of iron, her children feared and obeyed, but it could hardly be said that they loved her. despite her high sense of duty, almsgiving and charity, the princess-dowager was not a lovable woman. her temperament was cold and austere, her religion was tinged with puritanism, and her views were strict and narrow. she had many of the virtues associated with the roman matron. there was only one flaw in the armour of the royal widow's reputation, and this her enemies were quick to note. that flaw was her friendship with lord bute. john, third earl of bute, had been a favourite of frederick prince of wales. he owed his introduction to the prince to an accident which, slight though it was, served to lay the foundations of his future political career. he was watching a cricket match at cliveden when a heavy shower of rain came on. the prince, who had been playing, withdrew to a tent and proposed a game of whist until the weather should clear. at first nobody could be found to take a fourth hand, but presently one of the prince's suite espied bute and asked him to complete the party. the prince was so much pleased with his new acquaintance that he invited him to kew, and gave him a post in his household. bute soon improved his opportunities, and the princess also extended to him her confidence and friendship; perhaps she found in his cold, proud temperament and narrow views some affinity with her own character and beliefs. frederick rather encouraged this friendship than otherwise. he was very much attached to his excellent and virtuous wife, but no doubt her serious way of looking at things wearied his more frivolous nature occasionally. according to the scandalous gossip of horace walpole: "her simple husband when he took up the character of the regent's gallantry had forced an air of intrigue even upon his wife. when he affected to retire into gloomy _allées_ of kew with lady middlesex, he used to bid the princess walk with lord bute. as soon as the prince was dead, they walked more and more, in honour of his memory."[ ] [ ] _memoirs of george ii._, vol. ii.; see also wraxall's _hist. memoirs_, vol. ii. at the corrupt court of george ii., where the correct conduct of the princess was resented as a tacit affront, the intimacy between the princess and lord bute was soon whispered into an intrigue. once at a fancy dress ball during the lifetime of frederick when the princess was present, the beautiful miss chudleigh appeared as iphigenia and so lightly clad as to be almost in a state of nudity. the princess threw a shawl over the young lady's bosom, and sharply rebuked her for her bad taste in appearing in so improper a guise. "_altesse_," retorted miss chudleigh, in no wise abashed, "_vous savez, chacun a son but_." the impertinent witticism ran like wildfire round the court, and henceforth the names of the princess and lord bute were associated together in a scandalous suggestion, which had nothing to warrant it at the time beyond the fact that the princess treated lord bute as an intimate friend. after frederick's death the scandal grew, for the princess was very unpopular with the walmoden and her circle, and they delighted to have the chance of painting her as bad as themselves. yet bute was some years older than the princess. he was married to a beautiful wife, the only daughter and heiress of edward wortley montagu, by whom he had a large family, and he was devoted to his wife and children. he was a man of high principle, and lived a clean life in an age of uncleanness. lady hervey writes of him: "he has always been a good husband, an excellent father, a man of truth and sentiments above the common run of men". bute was not a great man, but his abilities were above the average, and he possessed considerable force of character. he acquired complete ascendency in the household of the princess-dowager, and exercised unbounded influence over the young prince of wales. princess augusta and prince edward disliked him, and secretly resented his presence and his interference in family matters. the other children were too young to understand, but lord bute was a factor which made itself felt in the daily life of them all, and not a welcome one. life had become appreciably duller with the royal children since their father's death. gone were the little plays and masquerades, the singers and dancers. gone were the picnics and the children's parties. even the cards were stopped, and the utmost the princess-dowager would allow was a modest game of comet. the children suspected lord bute of aiding and abetting their mother in her spartan treatment of them, and disliked him accordingly. the princess-dowager had need of a friend and counsellor, whether lord bute was the wisest choice she could have made or not. she was quite alone in the world, and had to fight against many intrigues. she was not a woman to make friendships quickly, and she disliked the society of her own sex. thus it came about that in the secluded life she led, except for the members of her household, two persons only were admitted to carlton house and kew. one was lord bute, the other bubb dodington. bubb dodington, whose diary we have quoted before, was a wealthy _parvenu_ whose ambition in life was to become peer. walpole had refused him his coveted desire, and he therefore attached himself to frederick prince of wales, who borrowed money from him, and invented a post in his household for his benefit. as far as it was possible for dodington to be attached to any one, he seems to have been attached to his "master," as he calls him. after frederick's death, when, to use his own phrase, "there was little prospect of his doing any good at leicester house," he again courted the favour of the government. but he retained a sentimental attachment to his master's widow, or (for he was a born intriguer) he wished to keep in touch with the young prince of wales. in either case he was careful not to break off his friendship with the princess-dowager, and often waited upon her at carlton house. the princess, though she did not wholly trust him, clung to him as a friend of her husband's. he was useful as a link with the outer world, he could retail to her all the political gossip of the day, and she, in turn, could make him the medium of her views, for she knew what she told him in apparent confidence would be retailed to all the town before the day was over. dodington was an inveterate gossip, and his vanity was too much flattered by being made the confidant of the princess-dowager for him to conceal the fact. moreover, he was wealthy, and a shrewd man of business. the princess sorely needed advice in money matters, for her dower was only £ , a year, and out of that sum she had to keep up leicester house, carlton house and kew, educate and maintain her numerous family, and to pay off by instalments her husband's debts--a task which she voluntarily took upon herself, though it crippled her financially for years. she did all so well that her economy was a triumph of management. from dodington's diary we get glimpses of the domestic life of the princess-dowager and her children after her husband's death. for instance, he writes: "the princess sent for me to attend her between eight and nine o'clock. i went to leicester house expecting a small company, or little musick, but found nobody but her royal highness. she made me draw a stool and sit by the fireside. soon after came in the prince of wales, and prince edward, and then the lady augusta, all in an undress, and took their stools and sat round the fire with us. we continued talking of familiar occurrences till between ten and eleven, with the ease and unreservedness and unconstraint as if one had dropped into a sister's house that had a family to pass the evening. it is much to be wished that the prince conversed familiarly with more people of a certain knowledge of the world."[ ] [ ] dodington's _diary_, nov. , , edition . this last point dodington ventured to press upon the princess more than once, for it was a matter of general complaint that she kept her children so strictly and so secluded from the world. they had no companions or playmates of their own age besides themselves, for the princess declared that "the young people of quality were so ill-educated and so very vicious that they frightened her.... such was the universal profligacy ... such the character and conduct of the young people of distinction that she was really afraid to have them near her children. she should be even in more pain for her daughters than her sons, for the behaviour of the women was indecent, low, and much against their own interests by making themselves so cheap."[ ] [ ] dodington's _diary_, edition . we have dwelt thus on augusta princess of wales not only because she was the mother of princess matilda, but because so little is known of her. the scandalous tales of whig pamphleteers, and the ill-natured gossip of her arch-maligner horace walpole cannot be accepted without considerable reserve. no adequate memoir has ever been written of this princess. yet she was the mother of a king whose reign was one of the longest and most eventful in english history, and the training she gave her eldest son moulded his character, formed his views and influenced his policy. it influenced also, though in a lesser degree, the life of her youngest daughter. matilda inherited certain qualities from her father, but in her early education and environment she owed everything to her mother. to the strict seclusion in which she was brought up by this stern mother, who won her children's respect but never their confidence, and to her utter ignorance of the world and its temptations (more particularly those likely to assail one destined to occupy an exalted position), may be traced to some extent the mistakes of her later years. there were breaks in the children's circle at carlton house and kew. prince frederick william died in at the age of fifteen, and princess elizabeth in at the age of nineteen. of the first nothing is recorded, of the latter horace walpole quaintly writes: "we have lost another princess, lady elizabeth. she died of an inflammation in her bowels in two days. her figure was so very unfortunate, that it would have been difficult for her to be happy, but her parts and application were extraordinary. i saw her act in _cato_ at eight years old when she could not stand alone, but was forced to lean against the side scene. she had been so unhealthy, that at that age she had not been taught to read, but had learned the part of _lucia_ by hearing the others studying their parts. she went to her father and mother, and begged she might act; they put her off as gently as they could; she desired leave to repeat her part, and, when she did, it was with so much sense that there was no denying her."[ ] [ ] walpole's _letters_, vol. iii., edition . the following year a life of much greater importance in the royal family came to a close. george ii. died at kensington palace on october , , in the seventy-seventh year of his age, under circumstances which have always been surrounded by a certain amount of mystery. the version generally received is as follows: the king rose in the morning at his usual hour, drank his chocolate, and retired to an adjoining apartment. presently his german valet heard a groan and the sound of a heavy fall; he rushed into the room and found the king lying insensible on the floor with the blood trickling from his forehead, where he had struck himself against a bureau in falling. the valet ran to lady yarmouth, but the mistress had some sense of the fitness of things, and desired that the princess amelia should be sent for. she arrived to find her father quite dead. his death was due to heart disease and was instantaneous. george ii. was buried in henry vii.'s chapel, westminster abbey. his last wishes were fulfilled to the letter. he had desired that one of the sides of queen caroline's coffin (who had predeceased him by twenty-three years) should be removed and the corresponding side of his own coffin should be taken away, so that his body might lie side by side with hers, and in death they should not be divided. this touching injunction was piously carried out by command of his grandson, who now succeeded him as king george iii. chapter iii. the betrothal. - . the accession of george iii. to the throne made at first little difference in the lives of his brothers and sisters, especially of the younger ones. it made a difference in their position, for they became brothers and sisters of the reigning king, and the public interest in them was quickened. but they remained under the control of the princess-dowager, and continued to live with her in the seclusion of carlton house and kew. the princess-dowager's dominion was not confined to her younger children, for she continued to exercise unbounded sway over the youthful monarch. he held his accession council at her residence at carlton house, and there he delivered his first speech--not the composition of his ministers, who imagined they saw in it the hand of the princess-dowager and lord bute. "my lord bute," said the king to the duke of newcastle, his prime minister, "is your very good friend, he will tell you all my thoughts." again in his first speech to parliament the king wrote with his own hand the words, to which we have already alluded: "born and educated in this country, i glory in the name of briton". ministers affected to find in all this an unconstitutional exercise of the royal prerogative, and the whig oligarchy trembled lest its domination should be overthrown. hitherto the influence of the princess-dowager with her eldest son, and the intimate friendship that existed between her and lord bute, had been known only to the few, but now the whigs found in these things weapons ready to their hands, and they did not scruple to use them. they instigated their agents in the press and in parliament, and a fierce clamour was raised against the princess as a threatener of popular liberties. her name, linked with lord bute's, was flung to the mob; placards with the words "no petticoat government!" "no scottish favourite!" were affixed to the walls of westminster hall, and thousands of vile pamphlets and indecent ballads were circulated among the populace. even the king was insulted. "like a new sultan," wrote lord chesterfield, "he is dragged out of the seraglio by the princess and lord bute, and placed upon the throne." the mob translated this into the vulgar tongue, and one day, when the king was going in a sedan chair to pay his usual visit to his mother, a voice from the crowd asked him, amid shouts and jeers, whether he was "going to suck". [illustration: john, earl of bute. _from the painting by sir joshua reynolds at wortley hall, by permission of the earl of wharncliffe._] the princess-dowager was unmoved by the popular clamour, and her influence over the young king remained unshaken; indeed it was rather strengthened, for his sense of chivalry was roused by the coarse insults heaped upon his mother. lord bute continued to pay his visits to carlton house as before, the only difference made was that, to avoid the insults of the mob, his visits were paid less openly. the chair of one of the princess's maids of honour was often sent of an evening to bute's house in south audley street, and he was conveyed in it, with the curtains close drawn, to carlton house, and admitted by a side entrance to the princess's presence. these precautions, though natural enough under the circumstances, were unwise, for before long the stealthy visits leaked out, and the worst construction was placed upon them. in the first year of the king's reign the supremacy of the princess-dowager was threatened by an attachment the monarch had formed for the beautiful lady sarah lennox, daughter of the second duke of richmond. but the house of lennox was a great whig house, and its members were ambitious and aspiring, therefore the princess-dowager and bute determined to prevent the marriage. that they succeeded is a matter of history. lady sarah's hopes came to an end with the announcement of the king's betrothal to princess charlotte of mecklenburg-strelitz. the announcement was not popular, for the nation was weary of royal alliances with the petty courts of germany. but the princess-dowager had made confidential inquiries. she was told that charlotte, who was very young, was dutiful and obedient, and no doubt thought that she would prove a cipher in her hands. in this the princess-dowager was sadly mistaken. lady sarah lennox, or an earlier candidate for the honour, a princess of brunswick-wolfenbüttel, would have been pliable in comparison with charlotte of mecklenburg, who, on her arrival, showed herself to be a shrewd, self-possessed young woman, with a tart tongue, and a full sense of the importance of her position. charlotte soon became jealous of her mother-in-law's influence over the king. her relations with her sisters-in-law also were never cordial, and with the princess augusta she was soon at open feud. george iii. and charlotte were married at the chapel royal, st. james's palace, on september , , and a fortnight later were crowned in westminster abbey. the princess matilda, then ten years of age, witnessed her brother's wedding, but unofficially, from a private pew. her first public appearance was made at the coronation, when we find her following the princess-dowager in a procession from the house of lords to westminster abbey. a platform, carpeted with blue baize and covered by an awning, had been erected across palace yard to the south door of the abbey, and over this platform the princess-dowager and all her children passed, except the king, who was to be crowned, and prince edward and princess augusta, who were in their majesties' procession. "the princess-dowager of wales," it is written, "was led by the hand by prince william henry, dressed in white and silver. her train, which was of silk, was cut short, and therefore not borne by any person, and her hair flowed down her shoulders in hanging curls. she had no cap, but only a circlet of diamonds. the rest of the princes and princesses, her highness's children, followed in order of their age: prince henry frederick, also in white and silver, handing his sister princess louisa anne, dressed in a slip with hanging sleeves. prince frederick william, likewise in white and silver, handing his youngest sister, the princess matilda, dressed also in a slip with hanging sleeves. both the young princesses had their hair combed upwards, which was contrived to lie flat at the back of their heads in an elegant taste."[ ] [ ] _the annual register_, september , . for some time after george iii.'s marriage the princess-dowager and bute continued to be all-powerful with the king. the aged prime minister, the duke of newcastle, clung to office as long as he could, but at last was forced to resign, and in lord bute became prime minister. the princess-dowager's hand was very visible throughout bute's brief administration; her enemy the duke of devonshire, "the prince of the whigs," as she styled him, was ignominiously dismissed from office, and his name struck off the list of privy councillors. other great whig lords, who had slighted or opposed her, were treated in a similar manner. peace was made with france on lines the princess-dowager had indicated before her son came to the throne, and a still greater triumph, the peace was approved by a large majority in parliament, despite the opposition of the whig lords. "now," cried the princess exultingly, "now, my son _is_ king of england!" it was her hour of triumph. but though the whigs were defeated in parliament, they took their revenge outside. the ignorant mob was told that the peace was the first step towards despotism, the despotism of the princess-dowager and her led-captain bute, and the torrent of abuse swelled in volume. one evening when the princess was present at the play, at a performance of cibber's comedy, _the careless husband_, the whole house rose when one of the actresses spoke the following lines: "have a care, madam, an undeserving favourite has been the ruin of many a prince's empire". the hoots and insults from the gallery were so great that the princess drew the curtains of her box and quitted the house. nor was this all. in wilkes's periodical, _the north briton_, appeared an essay in which, under the suggestive names of queen isabella and her paramour "the gentle mortimer," the writer attacked the princess-dowager and the prime minister. again, in a caricature entitled "the royal dupe," the young king was depicted as sleeping in his mother's lap, while bute was stealing his sceptre, and fox picking his pocket. in _almon's political register_ there appeared a gross frontispiece, in which the earl of bute figured as secretly entering the bedchamber of the princess-dowager; a widow's lozenge with the royal arms hung over the bed, to enforce the identity. worst of all, one night, when the popular fury had been inflamed to its height, a noisy mob paraded under the windows of carlton house, carrying a gallows from which hung a jack-boot and a petticoat which they afterwards burned (the first a miserable pun on the name of john earl of bute, and the second to signify the king's mother). the princess-dowager heard the uproar from within and learned the cause from her frightened household. she alone remained calm. "poor deluded people, how i pity them," she said, "they will know better some day." what her children thought of all this is not precisely recorded, but it would seem that the king stood alone among them in the sympathy and support he gave to his mother. prince edward, duke of york, and the princess augusta were openly hostile to lord bute. prince edward declared that he suffered "a thousand mortifications" because of him. prince william henry, duke of gloucester, was sullenly resentful, and even prince henry frederick, duke of cumberland, made sarcastic remarks. what matilda thought there is no means of knowing; she was too young to understand, but children are quick-witted, and since her favourite brother, edward, and her favourite sister, augusta, felt so strongly on the subject, she probably shared their prejudices. there is little doubt that the mysterious intimacy between the princess-dowager and lord bute was the cause of much ill-feeling between her and her children, and had the effect of weakening her authority over them and of losing their respect. years after, when she had occasion to remonstrate with matilda, her daughter retorted with a bitter allusion to lord bute. the princess augusta had inherited her mother's love of dabbling in politics, and as her views were strongly opposed to those of the princess-dowager the result did not conduce to the domestic harmony of carlton house. the princess augusta, of all the royal children, had suffered most from the intimacy between her mother and lord bute. horace walpole wrote of her some time before: "lady augusta, now a woman grown, was, to facilitate some privacy for the princess, dismissed from supping with her mother, and sent back to cheese-cakes with her little sister elizabeth, on the pretence that meat at night would fatten her too much".[ ] augusta secretly resented the cheese-cakes, but she was then too young to show open mutiny. now that she had grown older she became bolder. she was the king's eldest sister, and felt that she was entitled to a mind of her own. therefore, with her brother, the duke of york, she openly denounced lord bute and all his works, and lavished admiration on his great rival, pitt. this was a little too much for the princess-dowager, who feared that augusta would contaminate the minds of her younger brothers and sisters. she resolved therefore to marry her to some foreign husband, and thus remove her from the sphere of her present political activities. moreover, it was quite time that augusta was married. she had completed her twenty-sixth year and her youthful beauty was on the wane. "lady augusta," writes horace walpole, "is not handsome, but tall enough and not ill-made, with the german whiteness of hair and complexion so remarkable in the royal family, and with their precipitate yet thick westphalian accent."[ ] [ ] _memoirs of the reign of george iii._, vol. iii. [ ] _ibid._ augusta might have married before, but she was extremely english in her tastes, and had a great objection to leaving the land of her birth. neither her mother nor her brother would entertain the idea of an english alliance, and so at last they arranged a marriage between her and charles william ferdinand, hereditary prince of brunswick-wolfenbüttel, a famous soldier, and the favourite nephew of frederick the great. the prince arrived in england in january, . he had never seen his bride before he came, not even her portrait, but when he saw her he expressed himself charmed, adding that if he had not been pleased with her he should have returned to brunswick without a wife. augusta, equally frank, said that she would certainly have refused to marry him if she had found him unsatisfactory. they were married in the great council chamber of st. james's palace with little ceremony. the bride's presents were few and meagre, and augusta declared that queen charlotte even grudged her the diamonds which formed the king's wedding gift. four days after the marriage a civic deputation waited upon the pair at leicester house, and presented an address of congratulation. princess matilda was present, and stood at the right hand of her mother. the king did not like the popularity of his brother-in-law, and therefore hurried the departure of the newly wed couple. the princess of brunswick shed bitter tears on leaving her native land. the day she left she spent the whole morning at leicester house saying good-bye to her friends, and frequently appeared at the windows that the people outside might see her. more than once the princess threw open the window and kissed her hand to the crowd. it was very tempestuous weather when the prince and princess set out on their long journey to brunswick, and after they had put to sea rumours reached london that their yacht had gone down in the storm; but, though they were for a time in great danger, eventually they landed and reached brunswick safely. the marriage of the princess augusta was soon followed by the betrothal of her youngest sister. the princess matilda was only in her thirteenth year. but though too young to be married, her mother and the king, her brother, did not think it too soon to make arrangements for her betrothal. the reigning king of denmark and norway, frederick v., for some years had wished to bind more closely the ties which already existed between him and the english royal family. the late queen of denmark, queen louise, was the youngest daughter of king george ii. she had married frederick v., and had borne him a son and daughters. after her death the king of denmark cherished an affectionate remembrance of his queen and a liking for the country whence she came. he therefore approached the old king, george ii., with the suggestion of a marriage in the years to come between his son, the crown prince christian, then an infant, and one of the daughters of frederick prince of wales. after george ii.'s death the idea of this alliance was again broached to george iii. through the medium of titley,[ ] the english envoy at copenhagen. [ ] walter titley, whose name occurs frequently in the negotiations of this marriage, was born in of a staffordshire family. he was educated at westminster and trinity college, cambridge, where he took a distinguished degree. he entered the diplomatic service in and became _chargé d'affaires_ at copenhagen in the absence of lord glenorchy. in he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. in richard bentley, the famous master of trinity college, cambridge, offered him the physic fellowship of the college. titley accepted it, resigned his diplomatic appointment, but found that he had become so much attached to his life at copenhagen that he was unable to leave it. the king of denmark, with whom he was a great favourite, urged him to stay, and the government at home were unwilling to lose a valuable public servant who possessed a unique knowledge of the tortuous politics of the northern kingdom. so titley resumed his post and held it for the remainder of his life. he died at copenhagen in february, . the king, after consultation with his mother, put forward his second surviving sister, the princess louisa anne (who was about the same age as the crown prince christian), as a suitable bride. but bothmar, the danish envoy in london, reported to the court of copenhagen that louisa anne, though talented and amiable, was very delicate, and he suggested that the king of denmark should ask for the princess matilda instead. this princess was the beauty of the family, and her lively disposition and love of outdoor exercise seemed to show that she had a strong constitution. george iii. demurred a little at first, on account of his sister's extreme youth, but after some _pour-parlers_ he gave his consent, and the king of denmark sent orders to bothmar to demand formally the hand of the princess matilda in marriage for his son the crown prince. at the same time bernstorff, the danish secretary of state for foreign affairs,[ ] wrote to titley, acquainting him with the proposed alliance, but asking him to keep the matter a profound secret until all preliminaries were arranged.[ ] [ ] count johan hartvig ernst bernstorff was a hanoverian by birth, and a grandson of bernstorff of hanover and celle, minister of george i. he early entered the service of denmark, and represented his adopted country as envoy at the courts of st. james's and versailles. when he left the diplomatic service he became minister of state for foreign affairs at copenhagen, and filled other important posts. finally he became count and prime minister. he must not be confounded with count andreas peter bernstorff, his nephew, who was later prime minister of denmark under frederick vi. [ ] sa majesté, qui se souvient toujours avec plaisir et avec la bienveillance la plus distinguée, de vos sentiments pour sa personne, et pour l'union des deux familles royales, m'a commandé de vous faire cette confidence; mais elle m'ordonne en même temps de vous prier de la tenir entièrement secrète, jusqu'a ce qu'on soit convenu de part et d'autre de l'engagement et de sa publication. (bernstorff to titley, august , .) a few days later titley wrote home to lord sandwich: "i received from baron bernstorff (by the king of denmark's command) a very obliging letter acquainting me with the agreeable and important commission which had been sent that same day to count bothmar in london.... the amiable character of the prince of denmark is universally acknowledged here, so that the union appearing perfectly suitable, and equally desirable on both sides, i hope soon to have an opportunity of congratulating you, my lord, upon its being unalterably fixed and settled."[ ] [ ] titley's despatch to lord sandwich, copenhagen, august , . within the next few months everything was arranged except the question of the princess's dower, which had to be voted by parliament. in the meantime a preliminary treaty between the king of denmark and the king of great britain was drafted and signed in london by lord sandwich on the one part and bothmar on the other. this was in the autumn, when parliament was not sitting, but the danish government stipulated that the announcement of the marriage was not to be delayed beyond the next session of parliament, though the marriage itself, on account of the extreme youth of both parties, would be deferred for a few years. accordingly, at the opening of parliament on january , , george iii. in his speech from the throne said:-- "i have now the satisfaction to inform you that i have agreed with my good brother the king of denmark to cement the union which has long subsisted between the two crowns by the marriage of the prince royal of denmark with my sister the princess caroline matilda, which is to be solemnised as soon as their respective ages will admit". in the address to the throne parliament replied to the effect that the proposed marriage was most pleasing to them, as it would tend to strengthen the ancient alliance between the crowns of great britain and denmark, and "thereby add security to the protestant religion".[ ] [ ] presumably the alliance would strengthen the protestant religion by weakening the influence of roman catholic france at copenhagen. it must be borne in mind that denmark was then a much larger and more important country than it is now. norway had not broken away from the union, and denmark had not been robbed of the duchies of schleswig and holstein by prussia. on january the king gave a grand ball at st. james's palace in honour of the double event of his youngest sister's betrothal and queen charlotte's birthday. on this occasion the princess matilda made her first appearance at court, when she opened the ball by dancing a minuet with her brother, prince edward duke of york. the princess was then only thirteen and a half years old, but she won the admiration of all the court by her beauty and grace. she was very fair, with hair almost flaxen in hue, pale gold with a gleam of silver in it, large tender blue eyes, an arched nose, a well-shaped mouth (the underlip perhaps a little too full), and a complexion like the wild rose. her figure was shapely and developed beyond her years, and she carried herself with ease and dignity. the feelings of the princess matilda, who was thus betrothed to a prince whom she had never seen, were not consulted in the slightest degree. the proposed marriage seemed a suitable one; and it was more brilliant than that of her sister, the princess augusta; moreover, it would strengthen the political alliance between england and denmark, and, it was hoped, give england more influence in the baltic. these considerations were sufficient for her brother, george iii., who must be held directly responsible for this marriage. the question of his sister's happiness, or unhappiness, did not enter. the child princess disliked the idea from the first; her ladies-in-waiting noticed that so far from showing any pleasure at her added dignity she became pensive and melancholy. she was too young to realise all this marriage would mean to her, but she knew that it would involve exile from her native country, and separation from her family, and she grieved much in secret, though afraid to show her unhappiness openly. she gave some hint of her feelings to her aunt, the princess amelia, soon after her betrothal. the princess amelia often went to bath, then a very gay place, where she played cards and talked scandal to her heart's content. she had a great liking for her little niece, and she asked permission to take her to bath on one of these visits for a few weeks. matilda, weary of the dulness and seclusion of carlton house, pleaded hard to go, but the princess-dowager would not hear of it. she disliked her sister-in-law and disapproved of her card-playing proclivities. matilda was greatly disappointed at her mother's refusal, and said that she had been looking forward to the journey, for she loved to travel. the princess amelia tried to cheer her niece, and remarked jocularly: "it will not be long before you will have plenty of travelling". "i know what you mean," said matilda, "but surely it would be happier for me to stay where i am, than go so far for a prince i have never seen." [illustration: the elder children of frederick and augusta, prince and princess of wales, playing in kew gardens. _from a painting, temp. ._] the princess found consolation in the thought that her dreaded marriage would not take place for some time (it was to be deferred for two years, until ), and in a few months after her betrothal she recovered her spirits, and interested herself once more in her gardening and other simple pleasures, and in little acts of beneficence to the poor families whom she took under her especial protection at kew. she pursued her studies diligently, the better to qualify herself for the high position she was intended to fill. at the suggestion of the king of denmark, she began to learn german, the language then most spoken at the danish court.[ ] it is characteristic of the english tendencies of frederick prince of wales, that, though both he and his wife were born in germany, not one of their children was taught german as a necessary part of his, or her, education, and several of them remained ignorant of it. [ ] letter of the duke of grafton to titley, st. james's, march , . we must now give some account of the princess matilda's betrothed husband, the crown prince christian, and of the court of denmark. chapter iv. the training of a king. - . the crown prince christian (afterwards christian vii. of denmark and norway) was born on january , , and was therefore two years and six months older than his first cousin and betrothed bride, princess matilda. when he was in his third year christian lost his mother, louise, daughter of george ii. of england and consort of frederick v. of denmark. queen louise was very beautiful, and had inherited from her mother, queen caroline, her grace and dignity and her virtues and talents. she was possessed of great tact, and won the love and reverence of all classes, and, what was more difficult, of all races of her husband's subjects, whether danes, norwegians or germans. the danes compared her to their sainted dagmar, and her early death was regarded as a national calamity. during louise's illness the streets of copenhagen were thronged from early dawn by people waiting for news, and the churches were filled with praying and weeping men and women. every night, outside the palace gate, crowds waited patiently for hours, their faces, white in the darkness, turned towards the wing of the palace where the queen lay dying. louise died in (the year that caroline matilda was born), and left behind her the legacy of a bright example. the danes owed england a debt of gratitude for sending them this admirable princess, a debt they amply repaid a century later when they gave to the english people a descendant of queen louise, a princess even more beautiful and beloved than her illustrious ancestress--our gracious queen alexandra.[ ] [ ] a short table showing the descent of her majesty queen alexandra from queen louise of denmark:-- louise daughter of george ii. of england and queen of frederick v. of denmark. | charlotte princess of denmark. | caroline princess of denmark. | christian ix. king of denmark. | queen alexandra. king frederick was overwhelmed with grief at his consort's death and refused to be comforted. he could not mention her name without weeping; he commanded the deepest court mourning for a year and prohibited all public amusements for the same period. yet, like many bereaved widowers, before and since, the more deeply this royal widower mourned his wife, the more quickly he sought consolation by giving her a successor. six months of the stipulated mourning had scarcely passed when the king cast off his sables and wedded princess juliana maria of brunswick-wolfenbüttel. this princess was the youngest of six daughters, two of whom had already made great alliances. the eldest was married to frederick the great, and the second to prince augustus william, the heir presumptive to the throne of prussia. one of her nieces came near to be married to george iii., but was rejected by him on the advice of his mother. this slight upon her house did not tend to make juliana maria well disposed towards the english royal family; and the love of the danes for the english princess who was her predecessor contrasted vividly with her own unpopularity. juliana maria was a handsome and determined woman, rigidly correct in her conduct and unblemished in her morals, but she was of a cold and selfish nature, a profound intriguer and dissembler. frederick v. married her from a sense of duty; he wanted a queen to preside over his court, and a wife to give him another son. juliana maria fulfilled both these conditions; she looked every inch a queen, and in due time presented her husband with a prince, who was named frederick. but though she shared her husband's throne she had no place in his affections. frederick v. was popular with his subjects, who named him "frederick the good". the first part of his reign as fully justified this title as the latter part belied it. queen louise was his good angel and led him to higher things, but when her beneficent influence was gone he abandoned himself to evil habits, especially to his besetting one of drunkenness. so much did he give way to this vice that he became a confirmed dipsomaniac, and the reins of government passed out of his hands into those of his prime minister, count moltke, and of his mother, the queen-dowager, sophia magdalena. this princess, the widow of christian vi.,[ ] was a daughter of the margrave of brandenburg-culmbach. she had obtained considerable political influence in her husband's lifetime, and she continued to hold it throughout the reign of her son. she was a woman of narrow and strict views, but had a great love of display. between her and moltke an alliance existed for a time. they played into one another's hands so cleverly that juliana maria, despite her ambitious and intriguing disposition, found herself outwitted by her mother-in-law and the prime minister. sophia magdalena's superior knowledge of danish affairs gave her an advantage over juliana maria, who, though the king's wife, laboured under the disability of not being in the king's confidence. count moltke was not a minister of great ability, and he was suspected of selling his country's interests to other powers. certain it is that during the last years of frederick v.'s reign the foreign envoys of france, russia and england were in turns the real rulers of denmark. with moltke the french influence was generally paramount. [ ] christian vi., the son of frederick iv., was born in , ascended the throne in and died in , after a peaceful and prosperous reign. he was succeeded by his son frederick v. the crown prince christian suffered an irreparable loss in his mother's death, for she was devoted to her son and kept him with her as much as possible, though this was contrary to the traditional etiquette of the danish court. after queen louise died the crown prince and his sisters were handed over to the loveless care of governesses and tutors, and their father never troubled about them. juliana maria was not an affectionate stepmother, and left her husband's children severely alone. even if she had wished to give them personal supervision, the etiquette of the danish court would have prevented her. moreover, any movement she might have made in that direction would have been regarded with suspicion. juliana maria regarded the crown prince christian as an obstacle in the path of her ambition. if he were out of the way her son frederick would succeed to the throne. she probably wished him out of the way, but the stories that she plotted against the life of her stepson rest on no trustworthy evidence, and may be dismissed as unworthy of credence. at the age of six christian was taken out of the nursery and given an establishment of his own. count berkentin, a privy councillor, was appointed his governor, and count reventlow his chamberlain and tutor. berkentin was an old man, indolent and easy-going, who was glad to shift the responsibility of his troublesome charge on other shoulders, and asked for nothing more than to draw his salary and be left in peace. the training of the crown prince therefore devolved wholly on reventlow, who was a danish noble of the most reactionary and barbarous type. reventlow's one idea of education was to harden the lad, to make, as he said, a man of him--he might rather have said to make a brute of him. he took no account of the idiosyncrasies of christian's character, or of his nervous, highly strung temperament. he sought to crush him down to one low level, the level of himself. the boy was brought up in slave-like fear of his brutal master, and sometimes beaten for trifling errors so inhumanly that foam gathered on his lips and he writhed in agony. even in his boyhood, christian's nervous paroxysms sometimes degenerated into fits of an epileptic nature, and so encouraged the growth of a terrible malady. reventlow superintended the crown prince's education, that is to say, his training and his daily life. he did not teach him his lessons. the learned german author, gellert, was first asked to undertake this duty, but he refused. the king then appointed one nielsen, who had been tutor to several of the young danish nobility. nielsen was a very learned man, but unfortunately had not the capacity of imparting his learning in a lucid and attractive manner, and he was too fond of abstruse speculations to teach things which would be useful to the royal pupil. nielsen was a lutheran clergyman, but he was notoriously unorthodox, and he mixed his religious instruction with a good deal of profane philosophy. the poor little prince was not old enough to understand theological, or philosophical, disquisitions; they weighed like a nightmare on his youthful mind, and the result of this teaching in after life was a curious mixture of freethinking and superstition. the crown prince was taken to church twice every sunday, where he sat between his two tormentors, reventlow and nielsen, and listened to dull and interminable sermons. if his attention flagged for a moment reventlow would pinch him, and when he came out of church nielsen would catechise him concerning the sermon, and make him repeat the preacher's arguments at length. christian regarded these religious exercises with intense dislike, and dreaded sunday as his chief day of torment. in the crown prince's hours of recreation he was neglected, and allowed to keep bad company. his chief companions were two youths employed about the court; one was sperling, a page of the chamber and a nephew of reventlow; the other was kirschoff, a servant of the chamber, and a friend of sperling. both these youths were vicious and corrupt. they were older than the crown prince and acquired great influence over him. they set him a bad example by their evil habits, they poisoned his mind by retailing all the scandals of the court, and they corrupted his heart by mocking at everything good and noble. it has been well said that they occupy the same place in the history of denmark as louis xv.'s infamous servants bachelier and le bel do in the history of france. it stands to juliana maria's credit that she objected to these youths as playmates of the prince and to reventlow's system of education, and remonstrated with the king, but frederick v. would not listen to her. later bernstorff made similar representations and with more success, for when christian was eleven years of age a change took place for the better. a swiss named reverdil[ ] was appointed to instruct the crown prince in mathematics and french, and he gradually extended his teaching to other branches of learning. reverdil was an upright man, and did his duty according to his lights. he saw clearly that the boy's physical and mental health was being ruined by reventlow's barbarous methods, and did what he could to improve things. but well meaning though he was he made his pupil's life unhappier by introducing a new torture in the form of public examinations. the crown prince was examined twice yearly in the knight's hall of the christiansborg palace[ ] in the presence of the king, the ministers, and the _corps diplomatique_, and if we may judge from the courtly reports of the foreign envoys he acquitted himself well. yet, this testimony notwithstanding, it is certain that he was not well educated, for he was ignorant of solid acquirements. but he could dance a minuet with much grace and could play the flute, sing, ride and fence well. he was a fair linguist and spoke german and french. more important still he was taught the danish language, which had been neglected at the danish court, and the household of the prince, except his french and german tutors, were forbidden to speak to him in other language but danish. [ ] reverdil was born in in the canton of vaud, and educated at the university of geneva. he became professor of mathematics at the university of copenhagen in , and two years later was appointed assistant tutor to the crown prince christian. he has left a record of his experiences at the danish court in a book entitled _struensee et la cour de copenhague - , mémoires de reverdil_. to this work i am indebted for much valuable information. [ ] the christiansborg palace, situated on an island in the heart of copenhagen, was originally erected by christian vi. in - . it was a magnificent building both externally and internally, and for five reigns was the principal palace of the kings of denmark. it was partially burned down in , but rebuilt. it was again gutted by fire in ; but the walls are still standing. the palace could be restored to its pristine splendour, and it is a reproach that this residence, so rich in historic associations, has not been rebuilt. a bill is occasionally introduced for the danish parliament to grant the necessary funds, but it has hitherto been defeated by the democratic party on the ground that the king is well housed in his palace of the amalienborg, which, in point of fact, is much too small to be the chief royal palace of the capital. the crown prince was precocious in some things and backward in others. he was naturally quick-witted and had a gift of sarcasm and mimicry in which he freely indulged; he made buffoon parodies of the preachers and their sermons, and he mimicked ministers of state, high court officials and even the august royal family. some of his boyish sarcasms show that he felt the cruel way in which he was treated and the subordinate position in which he was kept. for instance, frederick v., in one of his generous moods (probably after a hard spell of drinking), made moltke a present of the palace of hirschholm and all its contents. it was a common ground of complaint that moltke took advantage of his master's weakness to enrich himself. the crown prince, hearing of this princely gift, waylaid moltke coming from the audience chamber of the king, and thrust into his hand a picture of hirschholm.[ ] "content yourself with this, your excellency," said the prince, "for, believe me, unless you get the crown as well, hirschholm will never be yours." the prime minister, taken aback at this display of authority on the part of the heir apparent, wisely forebore to press the matter further, and hirschholm remained the property of the crown. on another occasion, when the king and his favourite minister were drinking together, the crown prince was present. the king commanded christian to fill glasses for himself and moltke. christian hesitated. the king repeated his order, and told him that he could fill his own glass as well. the prince then filled moltke's glass to the brim, the king's glass half full, and into his own he poured only a few drops. "what do you mean by this?" said the king. "i mean, sire," replied his son, "to denote our relative importance in the state. his excellency being all-powerful i have filled his glass to the full. you being only second in authority i half filled yours; as for me, since i am of no consequence, a drop suffices." [ ] it is possible that his grandmother sophia magdalena may have instigated him to do this, as hirschholm was her favourite palace. despite his precocity, christian had some extraordinary crazes and superstitions. one of them he cherished from the nursery. his norwegian nurse had told him many legends of scandinavian vikings whose physical perfections rivalled the gods, mighty warriors who were invulnerable in battle, like the legendary heroes of ancient wars. at this time there was a very widespread belief in northern europe in a foolish superstition called the "art of passau," a secret charm which made men hard and invulnerable in battle. the young crown prince's imagination was fired by it, and he determined to acquire the secret of the charm and so attain his ideal of supreme physical perfection. gradually he came to believe that he had found it, and soon the hallucination extended to his thinking that he was also endowed with superhuman mental attributes, and he saw himself a mightier ruler and warrior than peter the great or frederick the great, and a greater philosopher than leibniz or voltaire. the fulsome despatches of cosby, the assistant english envoy,[ ] would almost seem to warrant this preposterous belief, for he describes the crown prince in the most extravagant terms. [ ] in the envoy, titley, on the ground of age and infirmity, was granted an assistant, and the british government sent cosby to copenhagen, and he virtually took over the whole business of the legation, titley only intervening in domestic matters connected with the royal families of england and denmark. cosby conducted the diplomatic business until his recall in . he suddenly went insane. [illustration: queen louise, consort of frederick v. of denmark and daughter of george ii. of england. _from a painting by pilo in the frederiksborg palace._] "i had yesterday," he writes, "the honour of an audience with the prince royal, and was greatly charmed with the graceful and affectionate manner in which his royal highness received and answered the compliment i had the honour to make him on the part of the king [george iii.].[ ] this young prince already promises everything that the most sanguine hopes of this nation can expect. to an amiable and manly countenance, a graceful and distinguishing figure, he joins an address full of dignity, and at the same time extremely affable. but what struck me most was the great resemblance of his royal highness, both in person and manner, to the king [george iii.] when his majesty was of the age the prince now is [sixteen]. the likeness is in truth so striking that it seems rather that of a royal brother than of a prince more distantly related [a first cousin] to his majesty."[ ] [ ] wherever square brackets occur the matter is interpolated. [ ] cosby's despatch, copenhagen, march , . soon after this exchange of compliments between george iii. and his cousin of denmark the negotiations began which resulted in christian's betrothal to matilda of england. the formal announcement was not made at copenhagen until january , , when it was enthusiastically received by the danish people, who cherished a fond remembrance of their last queen from england--queen louise. cosby writes: "the intended nuptials of the prince royal with the princess matilda were declared at court yesterday. there was a very brilliant ball and supper at the royal table on this occasion, and the evening concluded with illuminations, and every possible demonstration of joy from all ranks of people."[ ] [ ] cosby's despatch, copenhagen, january , . on palm sunday, , christian, who had now reached his seventeenth year, and was already betrothed, was confirmed by the bishop of copenhagen in the chapel of the christiansborg palace in the presence of the king and royal family, the ministers, foreign envoys and all the court. the occasion was one of much state and ceremonial, for confirmation in denmark was, and is, regarded as a very important rite, and signifies the taking upon oneself the serious responsibilities of life. the inevitable examination preceded the crown prince's confirmation. accounts differ as to how he acquitted himself under this ordeal. some said that when the bishop examined the prince he discovered that he was well acquainted with tindal but ignorant of the bible. on the other hand, the courtly cosby writes: "he excited the admiration of all present by his graceful delivery and thorough knowledge of the subject of religion; ... the masterly ease and dignity with which he expressed his sentiments as well as such promising abilities had an effect on the whole audience".[ ] and titley wrote later: "as the religious sentiments of a person brought up for absolute sovereignty may deserve some attention, i have taken the liberty of adding hereunto as close a translation as i could make of what the prince royal declared at the late solemnity of his being confirmed. this young prince, who is of a very amiable genteel figure, discovers the greatest humanity and goodness of disposition, and is also distinguished by a most lively understanding which has been carefully cultivated in a noble, rational way. the declaration is said to be entirely his own, and i am the more apt to believe it, as having been assured that he is particularly well grounded in the study of the law of nature and in general theology."[ ] [ ] cosby's despatch, copenhagen, april , . [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, april , . the declaration was as follows:-- "i do acknowledge in the presence of god, in the presence of the king, in the presence of this congregation, and of all those who have been my instructors, that there is an eternal and unalterable law of nature; from the obligation and force of which no man can be exempted by any station, or dignity, or power upon earth. i am likewise fully convinced that the right and true way to salvation is through faith in jesus christ; and i profess it to be my steadfast purpose to live and die in this belief. "i am also sensible of the general and particular functions to which god has called me; and which i will always endeavour, by the assistance of the divine grace, to fulfil. but as, from human weakness, i must be continually in danger of falling, so i hope that god will strengthen and support me, that i may not be entangled in the snares of satan. and therefore i am persuaded, that, not only the congregation here present, but also the whole people of this country, will join their prayers with mine, that i may be enabled to sustain the combat of faith to the end, and persevere, without spot or blame, in the law prescribed to me, till the coming of our lord jesus christ."[ ] [ ] "a declaration made by the prince royal of denmark when he was confirmed in the king's chapel on palm sunday, march , ." though the betrothal of the crown prince to an english princess was exceedingly popular with the danish people, it was not universally so in other and more exalted quarters. it was especially obnoxious to france, and soon after christian's confirmation an intrigue was set afoot to break it off. the english envoy took fright lest the intrigue should be successful, but his fears were groundless, for the alliance had a firm friend in frederick v., who, though weak on other points, was firm as a rock on this one. titley sought an audience of the king of denmark about this time and writes home:-- "his danish majesty received me in the most gracious manner as usual, and told me he had now a picture of the princess [matilda] and was extremely well pleased with it. that he had always highly approved alliances of blood with the royal family of great britain, which he hoped would in time produce close and perfect national union, and that he heartily wished these family connections might still be repeated and continued between the two courts through all posterity.... (_in cipher_) in speaking of this marriage the king of denmark could not but remember his late queen, whose behaviour he praised, and whose loss he lamented with such an overflowing tenderness as filled his eyes with tears, which he strove in vain to stifle, and often wiped away with his handkerchief."[ ] [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, june , . the picture to which the king of denmark referred was a painting of the princess matilda which had been sent from england to copenhagen at his express wish. the king declared himself delighted with the picture, wherein he found many points of resemblance to his lamented louise. we find titley writing again:-- "the picture of the princess matilda, having been put into a fine frame by his danish majesty's order, was placed some days ago over the toilet of the prince royal at frederiksberg[ ] unknown to his royal highness. the prince, as i am told, was equally surprised and delighted to find it there, and after having surveyed it over and over with great attention and inexpressible pleasure, declared his approbation and satisfaction in terms of rapture. yesterday being the birthday of the princess matilda it was celebrated in a private manner by the royal family at fredensborg,[ ] whither the prince went two or three days before on purpose to assist at the festivity."[ ] [ ] the frederiksberg palace is situated in the western suburb of copenhagen. it must not be confounded with frederiksborg, which is some twenty miles from the capital, near the village of hilleröd. frederiksberg was built by frederick iv., about - , in the italian style. there is a fine view from the terrace. it is surrounded by a well-timbered park, and the gardens contain many shady promenades. the palace is now used as a military academy: the grounds are a favourite resort of the citizens of copenhagen. [ ] fredensborg slot (or castle) was built in - in memory of the recently concluded peace between sweden and denmark, and was known as the "castle of peace". it is a plain unpretentious building, but the gardens and park are beautiful, and reveal lovely views over the blue lake of esrom. the woods are extensive and the trees very fine. fredensborg is now used as the summer residence of the danish royal family. the family gatherings which have assembled within its walls during the reign of christian ix. have made fredensborg famous over europe. [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, july , . some few months after this pleasing incident the english match lost its most powerful friend at the court of copenhagen. on january , , frederick v. died, in the forty-third year of his age and the twenty-first of his reign. his health for some time previously had been going from bad to worse, and his malady, dropsy, was increased by his habits of intemperance. latterly his mind had become affected as well, but before the end his brain cleared, and he called his son to his bedside and said:-- "my dear son, you will soon be the king of a flourishing people, but remember, that to be a great monarch it is absolutely necessary to be a good man. have justice and mercy, therefore, constantly before your eyes, and above all things reflect that you were born for the welfare of your people, and not your country created for your mere emolument. in short, keep to the golden rule of doing as you would be done by, and whenever you give an order as a sovereign examine how far you would be willing to obey such an order were you a subject."[ ] [ ] _gentleman's magazine_, february, . a few hours after frederick v.'s death bernstorff proclaimed the new king to the people from the balcony of the christiansborg palace in these words: "king frederick v. is dead, but king christian vii. lives. the crown prince has become the ruler of the united kingdoms of denmark and norway." whereupon all the people shouted: "may the king live long and reign well like his father!" christian was then pleased to show himself to his people, and was afterwards proclaimed throughout the city by the heralds. chapter v. "the northern scamp." . few monarchs ever began their reign with more ardent prayers of their people, or inspired brighter hopes, than "christian vii., by the grace of god king of denmark, norway, of the goths and wends, duke of schleswig-holstein, stormarn and the dittmarsches, count of oldenburg and delmenhorst"--to quote his full style and titles. the young king was regarded as the probable regenerator of denmark. "the eminent virtues and truly royal disposition of the new sovereign afford a very agreeable prospect of his future reign," writes titley. again: "he is in all respects a very hopeful prince, virtuously disposed, with excellent natural parts, and solidity as well as vivacity of understanding".[ ] the envoy's views were echoed by all who came in contact with the king. [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, january , . christian vii. held his first council a few days after his father's death and acquitted himself with tact and dignity. it was his introduction to affairs of state, for though, according to the _lex regia_ of denmark, the heir apparent came of age when he reached the age of fourteen, christian had been kept quite ignorant of public business. this was the more inexcusable as his father's failing health made it likely that his accession would take place at any moment. christian vii. was seventeen years of age when the call came for him to ascend the throne, and it found him utterly unprepared. to quote a swedish writer: "the young monarch exchanged the schoolroom and the birch-rod for the throne and sceptre". this policy of keeping the heir apparent in ignorance of the constitution and government of the country was part of a set plan. the ministers wished to retain all power in their own hands, and they viewed with alarm the possibility of a new ruler taking the initiative. for the king of denmark and norway in those days was no mere puppet of sovereignty. he was invested with absolute power, and was in theory, at any rate, as much an autocrat as the tsar of all the russias. the late king, from indolence and indifference, had let all the power drift into the hands of his ministers, but there was no reason why christian vii. should do the same. the royal policy of _laissez-faire_ had not been so successful in the last reign that the nation desired its continuance in this. the trend of foreign policy under moltke had been to sell denmark bound hand and foot to france. in home affairs, the army and navy had drifted into a deplorable state of inefficiency, the national debt was abnormally large, and the taxes burdensome. many of the nobility were disaffected and corrupt, the middle classes sullen and discontented, and the peasants ground down to the level of beasts of burden. undoubtedly there was something rotten in the state of denmark. the young king at first made a laudable effort to do what he could. "he begins, they say," wrote titley, "to show a desire of becoming thoroughly master of the state of his affairs, and it is not to be doubted that he will soon make great progress in that knowledge, if he takes right methods and his application is equal to his capacity." again: "sensible people here begin to conceive great hopes of their young sovereign, and cannot enough admire his application to business, and also the quickness and solidity of his understanding".[ ] and again: "with a great share of vivacity and youthful levity he yet thinks very seriously and strives to make himself master of his affairs, so far at least as not to be under the necessity of blindly following the suggestions of anybody; ... he is unwilling to do anything that he cannot understand or rationally approve".[ ] [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, january , . [ ] _ibid._, march , . if this show of authority somewhat alarmed moltke and his placemen, the inexperienced king at first did nothing to displace them. for the first few months of his reign christian vii. ruled through a triumvirate, composed of moltke, bernstorff and reventlow. the triumvirate, though they detested each other, united in an attempt to discourage the king from governing. if christian expressed an opinion on any matter of state, they either raised difficulties, or embarked on wearisome discussions. baffled and discouraged at every turn the young king resolved not to yield without a struggle to his dictators. he knew that the affairs of the nation were in confusion, and he asked a distinguished servant of the state, count frederick danneskjold-samsöe,[ ] to draw up for him an independent report of the condition of the kingdom. danneskjold-samsöe performed his task with alacrity, and painted an appalling picture of the distress of the people, the corruption and mismanagement in the great spending departments of the state, and the misgovernment of ministers. he inveighed against the whole policy of the ministers, and especially against that of bernstorff, whom he regarded as chiefly responsible for the marriage arranged between the king and the english princess matilda. this marriage he boldly declared was displeasing to the nation. but in this respect he met with no success; the king showed no inclination to hurry into matrimony, but the betrothal remained unaltered. so far as could be judged christian inherited his father's liking for england. "i am told," wrote the english envoy, "that he has a predilection towards england. he often talks in private of the british blood in his veins, and often intimates the satisfaction it would give him to lead his army in person in the cause of great britain."[ ] [ ] count frederick danneskjold-samsöe was a grandson of christian v. the first count was christian v.'s son by sophie amalie, daughter of paul mothe, an apothecary. his daughter by his first marriage, frederica louise, married in christian augustus, duke of holstein-sondeburg-augustenburg. this marriage played an important part in the interminable schleswig-holstein question as affecting the legitimacy of the pretender. christian, the late duke of augustenburg, and his brother prince frederick, also married daughters of the house of danneskjold-samsöe. the mother of prince christian of schleswig-holstein was a countess danneskjold-samsöe. [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, may , . christian vii. acted so far on danneskjold-samsöe's report as to dismiss his prime minister, moltke, without a pension, and to strip him of all his offices. he had always disliked moltke, whom he considered chiefly responsible for his having been kept in subjection and in ignorance of public affairs during the late king's lifetime. contrary to expectation he did not treat reventlow with the same severity. he gave him titular honours, but quietly put him on one side. bernstorff triumphantly acquitted himself of the charges brought against him, and rapidly advanced in the king's favour. he soon became the most powerful minister in denmark. a firm friend of bernstorff and of the english alliance was prince charles of hesse.[ ] this prince was christian vii.'s first cousin, and, like him, had an english mother--princess mary, daughter of george ii. this princess married the landgrave frederick of hesse, who after his marriage became a roman catholic. his sons were then taken away from his guardianship, and sent, for the greater security of their protestantism, to copenhagen, where they grew up under the protection of frederick v. prince charles was much loved by king frederick, who betrothed him to his daughter the princess louise. prince charles was good-looking, clever and high principled, but he was almost penniless, and the proposed alliance was considered a poor one for the danish princess. they, however, were very much in love with one another, and christian vii. approved of the betrothal quite as much as the late king. [ ] prince charles of hesse, afterwards landgrave, left behind him a manuscript entitled _mémoires de mon temps_. after nearly a century it was ordered to be printed by king frederick vii. of denmark for private circulation. it is the authority for many passages in this book. prince charles was at this time a great favourite with his royal cousin, who often sought his advice. the young king had need of a disinterested counsellor who was not afraid to speak, for before long the bright hopes entertained concerning him began to fade. the tactics of his ministers in seeking to blunt the edge of the king's interest in state affairs had been only too successful. they wished him not to interfere, or take the initiative in any way, but they wanted him to be diligent in doing what they told him, and punctual in the discharge of routine duties. but christian vii. soon developed a distaste for all work, and showed an inclination to shirk the most formal duty. he rarely attended a council, and would leave the necessary papers unsigned for days.[ ] [ ] "the late ministry," wrote gunning after the fall of bernstorff's government in , "are said to have neglected no means of presenting all business to his majesty's youthful eye through the terrifying medium of labour and drudgery. they used many efforts (and at length they succeeded) to inspire him with a thorough distaste for everything but ease and dissipation, with the sole design of maintaining their own power and consequence. they equally diverted his application from civil or military business, the former with a view of managing it themselves, the latter in order to prevent any great exertion of the natural power of an arbitrary government, which without an army is a mere chimæra." (gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , .) [illustration: king christian vii. _from the painting by p. wichman, ._] in other ways, too, christian showed signs of change, not for the better. for a few months after his accession he spent his evenings in the circle of the royal family, with his sisters and stepbrother, the hereditary prince frederick. he by turns visited the two dowager-queens, juliana maria and sophia magdalena. juliana maria treated him with great friendliness, and his grandmother, sophia magdalena, was genuinely fond of him. but the company of the two dowagers was not lively, and it was made worse by the stiff etiquette that prevailed in their circles. it pleased the king's wayward humour to outrage all these laws of etiquette, and even to descend to the level of practical jokes, sheltering himself against retaliation by his position. on one occasion he blew a cup of scalding tea into a lady's face when she was in the act of drinking it; on another he exposed his august grandmother to derision by powdering her hair with sugar. in addition to the two dowager-queens there was another old princess at the danish court, the king's aunt, charlotte amelia, who lived only for religious practices and charity. even the halo of sanctity which surrounded this royal spinster did not protect her from insult. she was constantly tormented by the king and jeered at before the courtiers. at first charlotte amelia treated this insolence as boyish fun, but at last things became so bad that she withdrew from court. her limit of endurance was reached when one of the king's pages crawled under the dining-table on all fours, disguised as a savage, and nearly frightened her to death. she retired to the amalienborg and could never be persuaded to return to court. the king's practical joke cost him dear, for the princess charlotte amelia revoked her will, and left her large fortune away from her nephew to the poor. when he was weary of tormenting old ladies christian vii. introduced the custom of retiring to his own apartments after dinner, and there, surrounded by a chosen circle of his intimates, he would lay aside his kingly dignity and make merry with his friends. no doubt these evening gatherings were in imitation of those of his exemplar, frederick the great, where ceremonial and etiquette were banished and the prussian king and his friends engaged in intellectual conversation and social enjoyment. unfortunately for the parallel, christian's clique consisted of foolish and dissipated young courtiers, and their conversation mainly turned upon current scandals, or _risqué_ french novels were read and commented on. when in turn the king was wearied of these diversions, he conceived the idea of prowling about his capital at night, disguised like another haroun al raschid, but from a very different motive to that which guided the enlightened caliph, and with very different results. soon strange rumours were heard of these nocturnal expeditions, of wild sallies and adventures, of street fights, breaking of windows and conflicts with the watchmen. in these excursions kirschoff and sperling accompanied the king, and aided and abetted him in his wildest extravagancies. the sober danes began to take fright lest their young monarch should be thoroughly corrupted by his evil companions. he was already earning the title, which the english ladies gave him later, of "the northern scamp". the british minister, who at first had nothing but praise for christian vii., now writes:-- "as this young gentleman [sperling] is not eminently qualified to be of any particular use or amusement to his sovereign, otherwise than by assisting him in the gratification of irregular passions, people are alarmed at such a connection, and the greatest care will be taken to prevent the evil effects which are naturally to be apprehended from it".[ ] [ ] titley's despatch, february , . something had to be done, so the ministers made a scapegoat of kirschoff and sent him away from court with a pension. kirschoff, though quite as vicious, was far less dangerous than sperling, for he had not the same influence with the king. but unfortunately this arch-corrupter was suffered to remain, and by example and precept he continued to encourage his master in vice and dissipation. the young king's only restraint to the indulgence of gross and unbridled passions was the superstition engendered by his gloomy creed. his teachers had instilled into him a lively terror of hell and the devil, and had painted in darkest colours the eternal punishment of the wicked. christian's mind often dwelt upon these things, and eventually the torments of hell became with him a monomania. he used to discuss this, and other religious questions, with prince charles of hesse, who had a liking for theological conversations; but his serious moods did not last long. for instance, on one occasion the two young men argued long and earnestly on the efficacy of the sacrament, and then prayed together. the king was apparently deeply moved, but half an hour later, when they went to see queen sophia magdalena, he made a mockery of the whole thing. "charles and i have been praying together most piously," he said, and burst into boisterous laughter. with such a volatile temperament, never in the same mind two hours together, with the spirit warring against the flesh, and the flesh warring against the spirit, surrounded by temptations and evil example, the king did well to hearken to prince charles when he urged him to marry as soon as possible. things were going from bad to worse, and it seemed that in a happy marriage lay the only hope of the young monarch's salvation. the danish nation eagerly desired to see their king married, for they wished to have the succession to the throne assured in the direct line. the ministers also desired it (even those who were opposed to the english alliance), partly for political reasons, and partly because they thought that the evil tendencies of the king could only be checked in this way. christian, himself, was averse from marriage, but since it was inevitable, it was easier for him to yield now than to postpone the question, only for it to be revived later. and if he must wed, his english cousin would do as well as any other bride. the marriage had been arranged to take place the following year, , but, under the circumstances, it was thought advisable by the government at copenhagen that it should take place sooner, and representations were made to the court of st. james to that effect. the english envoy, who was in constant dread lest the influence of the french party should break off the match, also wrote home urging the speedy fulfilment of the contract. moreover, english interests conspired to make it advisable that the marriage should take place soon. gunning,[ ] who had succeeded cosby at copenhagen, wrote: "there can be scarce any doubt that if the marriage takes place before a renewal of the french treaty, the influence of so amiable a princess, as her royal highness is, on so young a prince (who as yet has given way to no tender attachment) will operate powerfully in favour of the mutual interests of the two kingdoms".[ ] titley was no less zealous, and while gunning spoke of the political advantages of a speedy union, he extolled the virtues of the royal bridegroom. "in his way of living he is regular and sober," he writes, "eats heartily, but drinks little or no wine. his temper is compassionate and good, but equitable and firm. he has a quick apprehension, with a sound and not uncultivated understanding, and his mind is well seasoned with the principles of virtue and religion. he is now impatient for the accomplishment of his marriage, and as he is hitherto under no prepossession, there is the greatest reason to believe he will find his happiness in that union."[ ] what higher praise could be given of any prince! [ ] robert gunning (afterwards sir robert gunning) was born in , and came of a distinguished irish family. on the recall of cosby through ill-health, he was appointed minister resident at the court of denmark in november, , but he did not arrive in copenhagen until april, . his instructions were to assist the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, walter titley, and to keep the british government well informed of passing events. he performed his duties so well, that, on the death of titley in , he was appointed his successor at copenhagen. he remained there until june, , when he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the court of prussia. eventually he was transferred to the russian court, and after a distinguished diplomatic career died a baronet and a knight of the bath in . [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , . [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, may , . the british king and government, who were most anxious to check the designs of france in the baltic, responded with alacrity, and matters advanced so quickly that, at the end of may, bernstorff despatched a messenger to bothmar in london with instructions to conclude the marriage contract, and to propose the completion of it in october. during the summer of the nuptials of the king of denmark's two sisters took place in copenhagen, the elder to the crown prince of sweden, and the younger to prince charles of hesse. these events were solemnised with considerable magnificence, and so was the birthday of the future queen of denmark, now aged fifteen. gunning writes: "to-day was celebrated at the palace of frederiksberg with every possible demonstration of joy and festivity the birthday of the princess matilda. his danish majesty omitted nothing that could tend to show the satisfaction he felt upon that happy occasion. he did mr. titley and me the honour of admitting us to his table, that we might be witnesses of it, a favour conferred on none of the other foreign ministers."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, july , . english influence was decidedly in the ascendant at copenhagen, but the envoy's desired alliance of england, russia and denmark against the designs of france and sweden did not advance rapidly. it was hoped that matilda on her arrival at the danish court would help it forward. she was regarded as a pawn in the diplomatic game, and we find titley writing home before the marriage, to advise the part she was to play. "the partisans of france," he writes, "still keep up their spirits here in spite of very discouraging appearances. i have heard that they place some hopes even in the future queen, expecting to work upon her youth and inexperience so far as to incline her to favour their cause. therefore ... i would beg leave to intimate that it were to be wished that her royal highness before she comes hither might be a little prepared, and put upon her guard against all such impressions, since it is very certain that her authority here will be always precarious, whatever flattering prospects may be held out to her, if any foreign interest should prevail to the prejudice of england. it cannot, however, be doubted that her royal highness will preserve a favourable remembrance of her native country, especially when she finds her royal consort and the generality of the nation giving in to those very sentiments which must be natural to her."[ ] [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, july , . these representations were doubtless communicated to matilda. her brother, george iii., signified his consent to the marriage taking place in october, and commanded his minister at copenhagen to inform the court of denmark that his sister would set out for her new home as soon as the necessary formalities were accomplished. chapter vi. matilda's arrival in denmark. . when matilda was told that her marriage would take place a year earlier than at first arranged she burst into tears, and no longer concealed her extreme reluctance to the danish match. the princess-dowager of wales commanded sir joshua reynolds to paint the portrait of the future queen of denmark before her departure from england, and the great painter complained that he was unable to do justice either to the princess or himself, because she was always weeping.[ ] but neither tears nor lamentations had any effect with the princess-dowager; that stern mother told her daughter to remember that princes and princesses were not as ordinary mortals, free to wed as inclination suggested, and she recalled the fact that she, herself, had been sent from her secluded german home at the age of seventeen to england, to wed a husband whom she had never seen. [ ] northcote's _memoirs of sir j. reynolds_, vol. i. matilda's home had not been altogether a happy one because of this same mother, but she was fondly attached to her brothers and to her invalid sister louisa anne, and she loved the land of her birth. she forced a smile in response to those who came to offer their congratulations, but she took no interest in the preparations for her marriage. she seemed to have a foreboding of evil, and it was evident to all that she was a most unwilling bride, sacrificed upon the altar of political expediency. not much time was allowed the young princess for reflection, for soon after the message was received from the danish court her marriage and departure were pushed on with all speed. on june , , a message from the king was delivered to parliament asking for the marriage portion of the princess matilda. after some debate, more on matters of form than the actual sum, a portion was voted of £ , . this important preliminary over, the king decided that his sister was to be married by proxy in england on october , and leave for denmark the next day. the event excited some public interest, and we glean the following particulars from the journals concerning the preparations for the bride's journey:-- "tuesday the provisions dressed in the royal kitchen at somerset house were sent on board the yachts at gravesend. the princess matilda's baggage was yesterday sent down and the yachts sailed last night for harwich."[ ] [ ] _the gazetteer_, september , . "there are orders for two coaches, two post-chaises and four saddle horses to be ready on thursday next at five o'clock to attend the queen of denmark to harwich."[ ] [ ] _the gazetteer_, september , . "we hear that princess matilda has ordered genteel presents to all her servants, and also some benefactions to be distributed among a number of poor persons after her departure."[ ] [ ] _the public advertiser_, september , . "detachments of the queen's, or second regiment of light dragoons, are stationed on the essex road to escort the queen of denmark to harwich. 'tis imagined the princess will only stop to change horses, as the necessary refreshments are carried in the coach. one of the king's cooks goes over with her royal highness."[ ] [ ] _the public advertiser_, october , . george iii. personally superintended the arrangements for his sister's marriage and journey to denmark. we find from him the following letter to the secretary of state:-- "i return you the proposed ceremonial for the espousals of my sister which i entirely approve of. the full power must undoubtedly _ex officio_ be read by you, and the solemn contract by the archbishop of canterbury. i desire, therefore, that you will have it copied, only inserting the royal apartments of st. james's palace instead of the chapel royal, and my brother's christian name in those places where it has, i think, evidently been, through the negligence of the copier, omitted where he speaks. as in all other solemn declarations, that is always used as well as the title. the archbishop should then have it communicated to him, that he may see whether it is conformable to precedents, besides the dignity of his station calls for that mark of regard from me."[ ] [ ] letter of king george iii. to the right honourable henry seymour conway, secretary of state, queen's house, september , . british museum, egerton ms. , fol. . on wednesday, october , , between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, the princess matilda was married by proxy to the king of denmark in the council chamber of st. james's palace. her brother, the duke of york, stood for christian vii., and the ceremony was performed by the archbishop of canterbury in the presence of the king, the queen, the princess-dowager of wales, and other members of the royal family. a large company of nobility, gentry and foreign ministers were also present. immediately after the ceremony the queen of denmark, as she was called, received the congratulations of the court, but she looked pale and dejected and her eyes were full of unshed tears. the same evening the queen took formal leave of her brother, george iii. matilda slept that night at carlton house, and the next morning at half-past six, in the grey light of a chill october dawn, she said good-bye to her mother, and set out on her long journey. three coaches were waiting to convey the queen to harwich, the road was lined with infantry, and a company of life guards was drawn up to escort her as far as mile end. these preparations caused a small crowd to assemble in pall mall. the parting between matilda and her mother was most affecting. the marriage had been the princess-dowager's pet project, but even she felt a pang when she bade her youngest child farewell and sent her to the keeping of a strange prince in a far-off land. her farewell present to her daughter was a ring on which the words were engraved, "may it bring thee happiness". when the young queen came out of the house to enter her coach it was noticed by the waiting crowd that she was weeping bitterly, and this so affected many of the women and children that they wept in company. the duke of gloucester, baron bothmar,[ ] the queen's vice-chamberlain, who had been sent from denmark to escort her majesty, and lady mary boothby accompanied queen matilda. the life guards conducted her as far as mile end, and were there relieved by a detachment of light dragoons who escorted the queen as far as lord abercorn's house at witham, where it was arranged that she would dine and sleep the night. of this stage of her journey it is written: "her majesty was dressed in bloom-colour with white flowers. wherever she passed the earnest prayers of the people were for her health and praying god to protect her from the perils of the sea. an easy melancholy at times seemed to affect her on account of leaving her family and place of birth, but upon the whole she carried an air of serenity and majesty which exceedingly moved every one who beheld her."[ ] [ ] a brother of the danish envoy at the court of st. james's. [ ] _public advertiser_, october , . the next morning matilda set out again, and escorted by another detachment of light dragoons reached harwich soon after four o'clock in the afternoon, but the wind being in the north-east, and the sea rough, it was not thought advisable for her to embark. she therefore went to the house of the collector of customs where she supped and lay the night, and the next morning at half-past eleven went on board the royal yacht with her retinue. here she took leave of her brother the duke of gloucester who returned to london. the wind was still rough and the yacht lay all the morning in the roads, but towards evening, when the gale had abated, she set sail for the coast of holland. matilda came on deck and watched the shores of her native land until the last lights faded from her view. the evening of her departure, it is interesting to note, the eloquent nonconformist minister, george whitefield, preached a sermon at his tabernacle in london on the marriage of the youthful queen, and concluded with an impassioned prayer for her future happiness.[ ] [ ] _vide public advertiser_, october , . it was known how unwilling she had been to go, and very general pity was felt for her. "the poor queen of denmark," writes mrs. carter to miss talbot on october , , "is gone out alone into the wide world: not a creature she knows to attend her any further than altona. it is worse than dying; for die she must to all she has ever seen or known; but then it is only dying out of one bad world into another just like it, and where she is to have cares and fears and dangers and sorrows that will all yet be new to her. may it please god to protect and instruct and comfort her, poor child as she is! and make her as good, as beloved and as happy as i believe her aunt louisa was! they have just been telling me how bitterly she cried in the coach so far as anybody saw her."[ ] [ ] mrs. carter's _letters_, vol. iii. the queen had a very rough crossing, and did not arrive at rotterdam until six days after she had embarked at harwich. she landed under a discharge of cannon, and she was received with considerable ceremony by the prince stadtholder and other personages. from rotterdam to copenhagen is a distance of some six hundred miles. it had been arranged that the queen should accomplish this by slow stages, and every resting-place on the line of route had already been decided upon. [illustration: kew palace, where queen matilda passed much of her girlhood. _from an engraving, temp. ._] at rotterdam she embarked on the stadtholder's yacht and proceeded by water to utrecht, where she stayed the night at the house of a dutch nobleman. from utrecht she proceeded by coach, and passed in due course into her brother's hanoverian dominions. her retinue was a large and splendid one, and everywhere on the route she attracted great attention, the people coming out to cheer and bless her. she lay for one night at osnabrück, in the castle, and (tradition says) in the same room where her great-grandfather, george i., was born and was driven back to die. she was received there, as elsewhere, with great marks of distinction. at lingen in westphalia a cavalcade of students, arrayed in blue uniforms, came out of the town gate on horseback to meet her. they conducted her to the house where she was to rest, they serenaded her, and kept guard all night under her windows. the next morning they escorted her three leagues on the road to bremen, where they took their leave. her majesty thanked them for their gallant conduct. at harburg on the elbe matilda embarked upon a richly decorated barge, which had been built by the city of hamburg for her use. on this she sailed down the elbe to altona. the river was covered with boats and all kinds of craft, flying the british and danish flags, and as the barge came in sight of hamburg (a city adjacent to altona) the queen was saluted by a discharge of thirty guns. the quays of hamburg were gaily decorated, and thronged with people anxious to catch sight of the youthful queen. a few minutes before matilda's landing at altona the stadtholder of schleswig-holstein went on board to pay his respects to the queen of denmark, and to present to her madame de plessen, her first lady-in-waiting, the maids of honour, and the men of her household, who had there assembled to meet her. at altona the queen first set foot in danish dominions. she landed at six o'clock in the evening, and passed down a bridge covered with scarlet cloth, and between two lines of maidens dressed in white, who strewed flowers before her feet. the streets, through which she drove, were lined with burghers under arms, thronged with people, and decorated with flags, mottoes and triumphal arches. the queen passed under one of these arches, beautifully illuminated, just in front of her house. that same evening the chief ladies of the city were presented to her, and she supped in public. the queen rested at altona over sunday. in the morning she went to church, and on her return held a court. she also received a deputation of the magistrates of altona, and one of them read the following address:-- "your majesty now gives us a mark of goodness, which we cannot sufficiently acknowledge, in graciously permitting us to testify the boundless veneration and joy which are excited in the hearts of the burgesses and the inhabitants on your happy arrival in this city. it is true that in every part of your journey your majesty will receive from your faithful subjects transports of joy and most ardent vows, nevertheless, our fidelity is surpassed by none, and altona at the same time enjoys this happy privilege, that she is the first of all the cities in the kingdom to admire in your majesty's person a princess the most accomplished, and a queen to whose protection we have the honour to recommend ourselves with all possible submission."[ ] [ ] _public advertiser_, letter from hamburg, november , . matilda graciously replied, and charmed every one by her youth and affability. when the court was over, the queen, attended by a detachment of hamburg troops and danish cuirassiers, made a progress through altona and hamburg, and was greeted with enthusiasm by all classes of the people. the next morning, monday, the queen took leave of her english suite, who were now to return to england. the parting moved her to tears, and she presented lady mary boothby, who had been with her for years, with a watch, set with diamonds, and a cheque for a thousand crowns. it had been stipulated by the danish court that matilda should bring no english person in her train to denmark, so that she might more readily adapt herself to the customs of her adopted country. the danish suite were, of course, all strangers to the queen, and the first aspect of her chief lady-in-waiting, madame de plessen, was not reassuring. madame de plessen was the widow of a privy councillor, and was a little over forty years of age. she had been lady-in-waiting to queen sophia magdalena, who held her in high esteem: it was through her influence that she obtained this appointment. madame de plessen was a virtuous and religious woman, with a strict sense of duty and high moral principles, and could be trusted to guide the young queen in the way she should go. but she had been trained in the old school, and her ideas of etiquette were rigid in the extreme. she sought to hedge round the queen with every possible form and ceremony, and at first her chill formalism frightened the timid queen, who had not yet discovered that behind her austere demeanour madame de plessen concealed a kind heart. madame de plessen was a clever and ambitious woman, and like her former mistress, sophia magdalena, she favoured the french party at copenhagen. her appointment, as head of the queen's household, was therefore viewed with no little apprehension by gunning, who, some time before matilda's arrival in denmark, wrote to warn the british government:-- "the person at the head of the list [of the queen's household]," he writes, "is a lady of an excellent understanding, possessing a thorough knowledge of the world, and a most intriguing disposition. these talents have recommended her to the ministers here as a proper person to place about the future queen, but they are not the only ones. her being entirely devoted to the french system and interest, pointed her out as the fittest instrument, to either give the young princess the bias they wish (which they think will not be difficult at her age), or, by circumventing her, prevent that influence they conclude she will have on the king. their having unhappily effected the latter in the late reign, gives them hopes of being equally successful in this; but if her royal highness be prepared against these snares, her good sense and discernment will prevent her falling into them, or being persuaded by all the arguments (however specious) they may use, that it is not the interest of this country [denmark] to engage itself too close with england."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, may , . marked "_secret_". it soon became apparent that the english envoy's fears were not without foundation, and before long madame de plessen gained a great ascendency over her young mistress. but at first she put aside all thought of political intrigue, and her only instinct was maternal sympathy for the lonely little queen. within a few days matilda completely won madame de plessen's heart, and the duenna determined at all hazard to protect her charge against the perils and temptations of the corrupt court whither she was bound. from hamburg matilda proceeded by easy stages through her danish dominions. she was received at the gates of the city of schleswig by the chief burgesses and clergy, who complimented her on her arrival. her journey was a triumphal progress. gunning writes from copenhagen: "we have an account of her majesty's being arrived at schleswig in perfect health. the transports of the common people at the expectation of again seeing an english princess on the throne are scarcely to be described. her majesty's affability and condescension have already gained her the hearts of all those who have had an opportunity of approaching her."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, october , . matilda arrived at the historic town of röskilde,[ ] near copenhagen, on the evening of november , and rested there the night. here titley and gunning were waiting to have audience, and a courier was sent ahead to inform the king, who was at the christiansborg palace, that his queen was at röskilde. the next morning, as early as seven o'clock, christian vii., with his brother the hereditary prince frederick, and his cousin prince charles of hesse, set out in all haste for röskilde. here the king and queen saw one another for the first time. the king greeted his bride with great heartiness, and bade her welcome to his kingdom. so delighted was he with her that, in defiance of etiquette, he embraced and kissed her in the presence of all the company. the little queen seemed much comforted by this warm welcome, and at first sight was favourably impressed with her husband. the young king had charming manners, and was by no means ill to look upon. though considerably under middle height he was perfectly proportioned, and possessed agility and strength. his features were regular, if not handsome, and, like his queen and cousin, he was very fair, with blue eyes and yellow hair. his personal appearance was greatly enhanced by his dress, which was magnificent and in the best of taste. [ ] röskilde, an ancient town on the fjord of that name, once the capital of the kingdom, and afterwards the residence of the bishop of zealand. it has a magnificent cathedral, containing the tombs of the kings and queens of denmark. they are buried there to this day. röskilde is about twenty english miles from copenhagen. after the first greetings were over, a procession was formed to escort matilda to frederiksberg, where she was to stay until her marriage. again christian put etiquette on one side and insisted on entering the same coach as the queen--an ornate state coach drawn by six white horses. the coach was preceded by an escort of guards and followed by a train of other coaches. frederiksberg was reached about noon, and here the queen-mother, sophia magdalena, the queen-dowager, juliana maria, the princess louise, the king's sister, and a great number of the nobility were assembled to welcome the bride. matilda was received by all with the greatest marks of affection and respect. even juliana maria, who saw in her advent a blow to her hopes, forced herself to greet the young queen with some show of cordiality. as for the old queen, sophia magdalena, she frankly was delighted with her granddaughter-in-law, and sent a special message to titley, as to an old friend, to tell him "how extremely satisfied and charmed she was with the person and conversation of the new queen".[ ] matilda gave universal satisfaction, and the envoys wrote enthusiastically:-- "she has everywhere been received in these dominions with all due honours and the greatest demonstrations of joy. she seems to gain universal applause and affection wherever she appears, and her particular attendants are unanimous in giving the highest praises to her disposition and behaviour."[ ] [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, november , . [ ] _ibid._ immediately on her arrival at frederiksberg matilda held a court, at which many personages of distinction were presented to her. the court was followed by a banquet, when the king and his bride, the two dowager-queens and the rest of the royal family dined in public. after the banquet the king and all the other personages present took their leave and returned to copenhagen, leaving matilda to well-earned rest. her long journey had occupied a month; she left england on october , and reached frederiksberg on november . all this time she had been on the road, and perpetually receiving congratulations and deputations. it was no small tribute to the tact and amiability of this princess of fifteen that she everywhere won golden opinions. and it was proof of the strength of her constitution that she bore the long and tedious journey across northern europe, in inclement weather, without illness or undue fatigue. matilda rested at frederiksberg for five days. on saturday, november , she made her public entry into copenhagen--on the occasion of the marriage the same evening. her entry was attended with every circumstance of pomp and enthusiasm. about noon princess louise drove to frederiksberg, where her young sister-in-law was ready to receive her. accompanied by the princess, queen matilda drove to a common outside copenhagen behind the "blaagaard" [blue farm], where she found a long procession awaiting her. the queen here descended from her coach and entered another, beautifully decorated and gilt. the procession then set out for copenhagen in the following order:[ ] a squadron of horse guards; a band of mounted drummers and trumpeters, twelve royal pages in gold and crimson liveries on horseback, and a cavalcade, under the command of the master of the horse, consisting of many officers of the court. then followed the ministers of state and the ambassadors in their coaches; each coach vied with the other in magnificence, and each was drawn by six horses and escorted by six running footmen. then came the knights of the order of the elephant, wearing their robes and insignia; the knights of the order of the dannebrog, also in their robes; the royal head riding-master, mounted on the "dancing horse" (whatever that may mean), and a bevy of beautifully dressed ladies in coaches. the climax of all this magnificence was the lovely young queen in robes of silver tissue and ermine, with a circlet of diamonds on her fair hair, seated in her coach drawn by eight white horses, and surrounded by royal lackeys in gorgeous liveries. immediately behind the queen's coach came the members of her household; and twelve halberdiers, arrayed in scarlet cloaks and equipped with pikes, closed the procession. [ ] the following description of the queen's entry into copenhagen and her marriage is based upon official documents in the archives of the court marshal at copenhagen, and from danish papers of the time. the procession entered copenhagen through the nörreport [north gate] and passed along the nörregade [north street] to the gammeltorv [market place]. cannon thundered as the queen passed under the gate, and all the bells of the churches clashed forth joyous chimes. the route was gaily decorated with flags and draperies; companies of burghers lined the streets, and the balconies, windows, and even the housetops were crowded with people, who cheered with wild enthusiasm. the little queen, looking like a fairy in her robes of silver tissue, was seen, bowing and smiling, through the windows of her great gorgeous coach, and she captured all hearts at once. "the english rose," the danes called her, and they hailed her as another queen louise, who would act as a guide and helpmate to her husband, a purifier of his court, and a true friend of the people. in the market place the procession came to a halt for a few minutes before the town hall, and the queen was met by a bevy of eighteen young girls, dressed in white, and who carried wreaths and baskets of flowers. here was a magnificent arch, seventy feet high, representing a corinthian portcullis, and through the archway was revealed a background in perspective of the temple of hymen. a statue of hymen looked down upon an altar, and above this altar allegorical figures of denmark and england clasped hands. a pretty ceremony took place; the maidens passed up the steps and laid their wreaths upon the altar of hymen singing: god bless king christian the mild and his caroline mathilde. then they cast flowers before the queen's coach, and at "the same moment was heard the most delightful music, which broke forth simultaneously from all sides". thus amid music, song, flowers and shouts of joy and welcome, matilda proceeded on her way through the city, and at last reached the christiansborg palace. as her coach drew up at the main entrance, the guard presented arms, and the heralds blared on their silver trumpets. the heir presumptive, prince frederick, was waiting to receive the queen; he assisted her to alight, and conducted her up the grand staircase into the king's presence. the king received his bride with every mark of affection and honour, and then led her to the knights' hall, where a state banquet was served. the king pledged his queen in a superb wedding goblet of crystal and gold, manufactured for the occasion.[ ] [ ] this goblet is still preserved in the rosenborg. it is a magnificent specimen of danish art. the danish and english arms are ground into the crystal, the crowned initials of the bridal pair are also inscribed, and underneath appears the legend "_felici sidere juncti_, ". the elaborately chased lid is surmounted by a crown. the height of the goblet is eighteen inches. after the banquet the queen retired to her apartments to rest awhile, and then robed for her wedding. at seven o'clock in the evening all the ladies belonging to the two first ranks of the danish nobility (namely, the countesses and baronesses), and the ladies who had taken part in the royal procession into copenhagen, assembled in the ante-chamber of the queen's apartments. at half-past seven the queen appeared, a beautiful vision wearing a robe of white silk brocaded with silver, a veil of priceless lace and a crown of pearls and diamonds. the ladies made a lane for her to pass, and curtsied their obeisance. the queen, who, despite her tender years, bore herself with great dignity, proceeded to the knights' hall, where the wedding procession was marshalled. all the members of the royal family joined in this procession with the exception of the queen-dowager, juliana maria, who pleaded illness as an excuse for not appearing. the king and queen came last of all, and walked under a canopy to the royal chapel of the christiansborg, where the marriage ceremony was performed by bishop harboe of zealand. the chapel was brilliantly illuminated, and thronged with the chief personages in denmark, clad in rich attire, and covered with orders and jewels. during the ceremony the king and queen stood, or knelt, on a _haut pas_ before the altar, which was covered with cloth of gold and decked with silver candlesticks bearing large wax tapers. at the conclusion of the marriage service the procession was re-formed, and the king and queen were conducted from the chapel to the ante-room of their apartments, where the company dispersed. in honour of the marriage day a silver medal was struck, and numerous orders and titles were distributed. at night the city of copenhagen was illuminated, and people paraded the streets all night shouting and singing for joy. the young queen had won all hearts, and the popular enthusiasm evoked by the marriage augured well for the future of the monarchy. copenhagen held high festival for a week after the royal wedding, and the populace as well as the court joined in the festivities. there was a gala performance at the theatre including a "felicitation ballet," in which there were many pretty allusions to the young queen, who was styled venus or "_la plus belle_". two days after the marriage the knights' hall of the christiansborg palace was the scene of a wedding ball. queen matilda opened the ball by dancing a minuet with the king with much grace and spirit. she then honoured the english envoy, gunning, by commanding him to dance with her--a very natural proceeding, for she wished to pay honour to her native country. but it gave offence to some of the other foreign envoys present, especially to the spanish minister, who was the _doyen_ of the _corps diplomatique_ at copenhagen, and he reported the circumstance to the spanish court, who later demanded an explanation.[ ] nor was this the only unpleasantness at the ball. after supper the _kehraus_, a danish country dance, was danced, and one figure was danced in procession. the _kehraus_ was led by prince charles of hesse and his wife, the princess louise--probably because they knew all the figures. the king came next with the queen, and all the rest of the company followed, two and two. the king, who had supped freely, was in boisterous spirits, and called out to prince charles: "lead the _kehraus_ through all the apartments". the prince therefore led the procession through the rooms on the first floor of the palace, the band, presumably, going before. the procession of laughing and dancing men and women followed, until they came to the ante-chamber of the queen's apartments. at the door of the queen's bedchamber prince charles found madame de plessen standing like a dragon in his path. imperiously she waved him back, and declared that his entrance would be an outrage, alike on etiquette and decency. but the king, whom any opposition goaded to anger, shouted: "do not heed an old woman's nonsense! go on! go on!" therefore madame de plessen, still expostulating, was thrust aside, and the procession danced through the queen's bedchamber, and so back to the ballroom. [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, november , . [illustration: the marriage ball of christian vii. and queen matilda in the christiansborg palace. _from a contemporary print._] these incidents, trivial though they were, revealed the rocks ahead in the way of the young queen, and showed that no common care would be necessary to avoid them. as the english secretary of state, conway, wrote to gunning not long after matilda's arrival at copenhagen:-- "her majesty is entering upon the most important era of her life, and at a tender age is launched, as it were alone, into a strange and wide ocean, where it might require the utmost care and prudence to steer with that nice conduct which may at once conciliate the affections of her court and people, and support the dignity of that high station to which providence has called her".[ ] [ ] conway's despatch to gunning, st. james's, november , . chapter vii. mariage À la mode. - . the court of denmark over which matilda was now the reigning queen, though not the ruling spirit, was the last place in the world for a young and innocent girl to be sent alone. it was a hotbed of intrigue, a stye of vile epicurism, where even decency was disregarded. cunning as foxes, and like foxes in their lust and greed, the majority of the courtiers thought only of advancing their personal interests at the expense of each other, or by vain and frivolous amusement to kill the passing hour. all things that made for purity of life, nobility of purpose, or singleness of heart, were mocked at and derided. truth, honour and virtue were by-words. during the later years of frederick v.'s reign the influence of the french court (at its worst) had not been confined in denmark to politics alone, but extended to manners and morals as well. this influence became far more visible at the court of christian vii. than at that of his father. the society which the young king collected around him within the walls of the christiansborg palace did its best to copy versailles, and it succeeded in aping the vices, if not the superficial refinement, of the court of france. at christiansborg might be seen the same type of silly brainless persons as those who flitted about the ante-chambers of versailles, who adopted the same frivolous tone, and the same loose morals. their avowed object was to avoid _ennui_, but in their pursuit of pleasure they often caught boredom. the danish courtiers, both men and women, were artificial to the core. they painted their faces, powdered their hair, and dressed extravagantly. they disguised every real sentiment, and sought always to seem what they were not. they expressed nothing but contempt for the language and customs of their native land. to be danish was _bourgeois_, to be virtuous even more so. the cheap cynicism which mocks at marriage, and all its privileges and duties, was much in vogue among the fashionable or "young party" at the danish court. christian vii. had heard too much of these views from the young rake-hells whom he chose for his companions not to be entirely at one with them, and he looked on marriage as the greatest burden. he had been extremely reluctant to take it upon himself and had only done so at the strongest representations of his ministers. reverdil declares with a groan that to this epicene being "_une personne royale dans son lit lui semblait d'ailleurs plutôt un objet de respect que d'amour_," and adds that the king would have certainly refused to perform his connubial duties had it not been represented to him that the absence of an heir to the throne would give rise to all manner of evil gossip respecting himself. the young king had consented to marry with an ill grace, and after his marriage he lost no time in declaring to his boon companions that he intended to be in every respect a husband _à la mode_. the first sight of his consort's fresh and youthful beauty had seemed to awaken in him some dormant sense of manliness, and he treated her at first with a plausible imitation of lover-like ardour. he was flattered by the warmth of her reception and the praises of her beauty, which he interpreted as tributes to his own good taste. the ceremonies incident on the wedding gratified his love of display, and the festivities that followed delighted his pleasure-loving soul. he was like a child with a new toy, but he wearied of it even more quickly than a child. if his passion ever existed it was short-lived, for on the third day of his marriage he said to one of his intimate friends that he strongly advised him never to marry, as the unmarried state was far preferable. this speech might have been credited to the affectation of a very young husband who wished to pose as a cynic, but there was evidently something more behind it, for neither of the young couple appeared to be happy during the first days of their married life; christian was restless and discontented, matilda pensive and melancholy. the queen's depression was natural. the excitement and novelty of her journey and her enthusiastic welcome had buoyed her up at first, but now these were over she felt the reaction. she was a stranger in a strange land, separated from every one she had ever known, and she suffered from homesickness. a closer acquaintance with her husband obliterated the favourable first impression she had formed of him. he was a disappointment. the flattering despatches which the english envoys had sent to london (some of which we have quoted) credited him with every physical and mental endowment, and portrayed him as a paragon among princes. these encomiums, duly communicated to the princess-dowager, had been dunned into matilda's ears with such persistency that she thought she was marrying a prince who was almost a demi-god, and who gathered up into himself all the attributes of the legendary heroes of scandinavian romance. what then must have been her disappointment when she found that her husband resembled a french _petit maître_, rather than a son of the vikings. to add to her disillusion christian made hardly any show of affection for his wife, and after the first few days treated her with open indifference. a week after their marriage the royal couple gave a banquet at the christiansborg palace, and it was noticed by the company that already the bloom had faded from the young queen's cheeks, and she smiled with evident effort. her sadness increased from day to day, and she often gazed at the ring her mother had given her, with its inscription, "may it bring thee happiness," and sighed heavily. the king, who wished for nothing but to be amused, was piqued by his consort's despondency, and so far from making any attempt to comfort her, relieved his feelings by satirical remarks. one day when one of his favourites called his attention to the queen's sadness, he said: "what does it matter? it is not my fault. i believe she has the spleen." the king's indifference to his queen was quickly noticed by the courtiers, who took their cue accordingly, and treated her as a person of little account. ogier, the french envoy at copenhagen, reported to paris three weeks after the marriage: "the english princess has produced hardly any impression on the king's heart; but had she been even more amiable she would have experienced the same fate, for how could she please a man who seriously believes that it is not good form (_n'est pas du bon air_) for a husband to love his wife?" the french envoy was exultant that the marriage, on which england had built such high hopes, should produce so little effect politically. the queen had no influence with the king, and he would be more likely to oppose her wishes than to yield to them, if only for fear lest it should be thought that he was governed by his wife. the poor little queen had no wish for political power, and was too much downcast by her own personal disappointments to be of any use in a diplomatic intrigue. but george iii., and the english government, who had no knowledge of the real state of affairs, persisted in their project of using the queen for their own advantage; and secretary conway sent minute instructions to gunning as to the best way in which this could be worked. "in regard to your applying to the young queen," he writes, "her affection to his majesty [george iii.], and love for her native country, cannot but incline her to preserve, as much as it can be in her power to do, the mind of the king of denmark, permanently fixed upon the strictest union with his majesty's, who has no one view in his alliance inconsistent with the honour of the king of denmark or the welfare of his kingdom. both mr. titley and you will doubtless omit nothing that can mark your utmost attention and desire of serving her majesty. there might seem an impropriety in endeavouring to engage her majesty to interfere in business, especially in what has the air of court intrigue, but so far as informing her majesty fully of the present state of the court, and apprising her who are the best friends of her native country, and consequently most inclined to promote the true honour and interests of their own, it will be your duty, and may be an essential service to her majesty, whose good sense will make the properest use of the lights you furnish. the etiquette of the court of denmark (i find by your letter of september ) allows an easier access to family ministers than to others, and this privilege you will, i imagine, have no difficulty to preserve.... you may also be assured that the affection of his majesty [george iii.], and his care for the welfare and happiness of his sister, so deservedly the object of his love and esteem, cannot fail of having suggested every proper counsel and information more immediately necessary for her guidance in the delicate and important situation she is placed. upon that foundation you may properly build, and in such further lights as it may be fit for you to give her majesty, i think both the opportunities and the matter of the information itself should rather flow naturally than be too affectedly sought."[ ] [ ] sir h. s. conway's despatch to gunning, st. james's, october , . the english government was soon disappointed of its hope of using the danish queen as a pawn in the political game. gunning, in bitter disappointment, enlightened conway as to the true state of affairs a few weeks after the marriage. "all access to either the king or queen of denmark," he wrote, "is rendered so difficult that without being furnished with some pretext i can never expect to approach either of their majesties but in public. the preference given me there has already occasioned some of the most unheard of and preposterous complaints." [here he refers to the protest of the spanish minister already mentioned.] "monsieur reventlow[ ] has lately made me some overtures to a better understanding; he speaks in raptures of the queen whenever i see him, and i believe will constitute as much as depends upon him to promote her majesty's happiness. this is of itself a sufficient reason for my wishing to cultivate his good opinion, and if possible to bring him over to our interests. [the french minister] encourages the carrying on intrigues against us; they (i need not tell you, sir) increase every day, and particularly since the arrival of her majesty,--the principal people about her being our most inveterate enemies."[ ] [ ] reventlow had been appointed the queen's chief chamberlain. [ ] gunning's despatch to conway, copenhagen, november , . one of the "inveterate enemies" was the austere and haughty madame de plessen, who hedged the queen round with iron etiquette, and permitted none to enter her presence without her permission. especially did she throw difficulties in the way of the english envoy having frequent access of her majesty, on the ground that his visits would be sure to cause jealousy and ill-will. the queen, she urged, must overcome her natural preferences, she must forget that she was a princess of great britain, and remember only that she was queen of denmark and norway. this was perhaps sound advice so far as it went, but madame de plessen's object in giving it was not altogether disinterested. she, like her former mistress, queen sophia magdalena, was a sworn friend of france, and probably in its pay. madame de plessen had a genius for political intrigue, and her apartments in the palace formed a _rendez-vous_ for the friends of france. it is difficult to follow the cross-currents of politics at the danish court during the early years of the reign of christian vii., but so far as foreign affairs were concerned, the position may be briefly summarised thus: the main object of england was to check france; the main object of sweden was to check russia. therefore, whatever was disagreeable to france at copenhagen was agreeable to england. whatever was disagreeable to sweden was agreeable to russia. failing to see her own influence in the ascendant at the danish court, england would prefer to see that of russia. bernstorff, the prime minister, was very friendly to russia, and not ill-disposed to england. therefore, the french envoy and madame de plessen intrigued against him. in domestic politics also the queen's chief lady was in opposition to bernstorff, and to her chambers flocked malcontents, including many of the staider and more conservative among the danish nobility, who shook their heads over the misgovernment of the prime minister, and the follies and extravagancies of the king and his friends. the advent of the young queen was made an excuse for the king to gratify his passion for festivity and display. during the preceding reign the court had led a comparatively quiet life, but the winter following christian vii.'s marriage was an unceasing round of gaiety. balls, banquets, concerts, masques, operas and plays, hunting parties, sledge parties, circuses, and excursions to the different royal castles around copenhagen--there were a good many--succeeded one another in quick succession. the king had a great love for the play, so he built a court theatre at the christiansborg palace and decorated it without regard to expense. a french company acted there, and the king and his suite frequently took part in the performances. the king acted a part in voltaire's _zaire_, and his performance was received with great applause. he was so much impressed with his dramatic talents that he twice repeated his performance in the larger theatre of copenhagen, and there the general public were permitted to attend. acting, however, was but a passing phase with the king, and he soon tired of it, though he undoubtedly showed talent. madame de plessen did all she could to prevent the queen from taking part in the court festivities, but matilda, who was young, and fond of pleasure, could not be prevailed upon to absent herself altogether, more especially as by doing so she would incur the displeasure of the king. but she never appeared unless attended by madame de plessen, and turned to her always for guidance. it was madame de plessen who chose the ladies to dance in the same quadrilles as the queen, and she took care that none, however beautiful or fashionable they might be, should be admitted to this honour if there were the slightest blemish upon their reputation. with men the same care was not necessary, for, as a matter of etiquette, the queen never danced with any but princes of the blood, ambassadors, ministers of state, or others it was deemed advisable to honour in an especial manner. the introduction of masquerades was a still more startling innovation, and gave great offence to the two dowager-queens. sophia magdalena protested, but though her protests were supported by several of the ministers, and the more prominent among the clergy, they were unheeded. the king and his friends anticipated too many gallant adventures to forego the opportunities which a masked ball offered, and they wished to imitate at copenhagen those masquerades held at the opera in paris. the first masked ball ever given in denmark was held in december in the christiansborg palace. all the ladies and gentlemen belonging to the first three classes were admitted, besides all officers belonging to both services. they were allowed to appear in any fancy dress they chose, the only restriction being that they should not come "in the likeness of an animal or any unseemly disguise". the king appeared as a sultan, and his immediate following were also in eastern dress. the point was fiercely debated whether the queen should appear at the masquerades or not; the dowager-queens and madame de plessen being wholly against it, and the king insisting upon it. finally a compromise was arrived at; matilda showed herself to the company for a short time, and then retired to her apartments to play chess with court ladies chosen for her by madame de plessen, and the elderly wives of ministers. it was as well that the queen retired early, for the tone of the masquerade became more and more free as the evening wore on, and degenerated at last into riotous licence. the expense of these entertainments was very heavy, and the people, who were overburdened with taxes, began to murmur. there was great distress in copenhagen during the winter of - , and the contrast between the want and misery in the poorer quarters of the city, and the festivity and extravagance in the palace, was very striking. the people, who loved the pomp and circumstance of royalty, might at another time have overlooked this lavish expenditure, on the ground of the youth and natural gaiety of the king. but sinister rumours were afloat concerning him and his pleasures, and he had already by his puerile amusements and dissipated conduct forfeited to a great extent the public respect. moreover, the puritan party in denmark was very strong, and included the elder members of the royal family, and many of the most influential personages in church and state. these regarded many of the court festivities with disapproval, and the masquerades with horror. the clergy especially were violent in their denunciations, and did not hesitate to fan the flame of popular discontent. for instance, a building, belonging, and adjacent to, the christiansborg palace, in which there was a large wood store and brewery, caught fire about this time, and was burned to the ground; the conflagration was the biggest known in copenhagen for years. pastor münter, a preacher of great power, seized upon the incident to preach a sermon against the sinful amusements of the court. he declared that the fire was a sign from heaven to warn the king and his following to refrain from their wicked ways, and if they did not profit by it they would be utterly consumed with fire, if not here, then most certainly hereafter. the sermon made a great sensation in copenhagen, and the preacher was reprimanded by the court, but he was regarded as an inspired prophet by many austere puritans. the worst of all this controversy was that the innocent young queen was blamed unjustly. rumours were spread abroad that matilda was largely responsible for these extravagancies; and in proof of the assertion it was pointed out that the introduction of masquerades followed upon the arrival of the english princess. it was said that these rumours originated at the court of the queen-dowager. juliana maria had retired to the fredensborg with her son, the hereditary prince frederick, where she was surrounded by a little circle of malcontents. in due time these untruths reached matilda's ears and caused her great annoyance. the young queen's household, including madame de plessen, did everything they could to contradict the reports, but with indifferent success. the mischief was done, and it remained a fixed idea in the minds of many people that the queen was almost as devoted as the king to frivolous amusements. queen matilda communicated her uneasiness to the english envoy, who wrote home:-- "at a time when the crown labours under the pressure of heavy debts, and the revenue, from mismanagement, is so much lessened, people naturally complain of the increase of expenses, and the introduction of a number of entertainments, and amongst these, of masquerades. the queen is under the greatest uneasiness, lest this should be imputed to her having any inclination for a diversion of this kind, from which, on the contrary, the goodness of her heart, and the purity of her sentiments, render her very averse. the sweetness of her disposition, and the uncommon degree of prudence and discretion she is endowed with, must ensure her a large share of happiness; but whatever my wishes may be, i cannot flatter myself this will ever bear any proportion to what her majesty so justly deserves."[ ] to which the secretary of state replied: "your attention to her danish majesty is most justly commendable, and certainly her majesty's cautious conduct is most amiable and respectable".[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, december , . [ ] conway's despatch, st. james's, december , . the festivities of the danish court culminated in the coronation and anointing of the king and queen, which took place on may , .[ ] the day dawned brilliantly fine, though the air was clear and cold. at an early hour the bells of the vor-frue-kirke (the church of our lady, the metropolitan church of denmark) began to ring, and bells chimed merrily from other towers. at eleven o'clock all the gentlemen-in-waiting assembled in the king's ante-chamber, and all the ladies-in-waiting in the queen's. the king donned the anointing robes: "a short jacket and breeches of gold brocade, pearl-coloured silk stockings, white gloves embroidered with gold, and white shoes with red heels; his buckles, garters and coat buttons were set with diamonds, and his cloak of royal ermine was embroidered with golden flowers". the king, thus arrayed, crowned himself with his own hands according to the _lex regia_, which ordained that "since the kings of denmark do not receive the crown from any hands but their own, the ceremony of coronation shall be performed by themselves". [ ] the following description of the coronation is taken from official documents preserved in the royal archives, copenhagen. with the crown on his head the king, accompanied by the grand chamberlain, who carried the queen's crown on a velvet cushion, went to the queen's room and crowned her with his own hands. this ceremony over, the king took the sceptre in his right hand and the orb in his left, and donned the collars of both the great danish orders, the elephant and the dannebrog. then he passed into his audience chamber, his train upborne by the counts reventlow and danneskjold-samsöe. there he held a court, and received the homage of the principal personages in the state. the queen, likewise attired in her anointing robes, to wit: "a robe of cloth of gold, and a royal mantle of red velvet lined with ermine and embroidered with gold crowns," and with the crown upon her head, passed into her audience chamber, her train upborne by madame de plessen and the countess st. germains. here she held a court, and received the homage of the assembled ladies. [illustration: the christiansborg palace, copenhagen. _from an old print, temp. ._] the procession to the chapel of the christiansborg was then marshalled, and as the bells rang out it passed down the marble stairs of the palace and across the quadrangle to the chapel. the king walked under a red velvet canopy, upborne by four privy councillors and four knights of the elephant. the queen walked beneath a similar canopy, upborne by four privy councillors and four knights of the dannebrog. the royal chapel was decorated with great splendour. of this, as of the other arrangements connected with the coronation, it was recorded: "there was nothing lacking to make it beautiful. it was so splendid and superb that even the foreign envoys were forced to admire the beauty and lavish expenditure, to say nothing of the art in which these were turned to account." the thrones of the king and queen were placed upon a dais, under a gorgeous canopy, upborne by two figures of angels with drawn swords. on one side of the canopy was the king's motto, "_gloria ex amore patriae_," and on the other were the initials of the king and queen. the king's throne was of solid ivory, surmounted by a huge amethyst nearly as large as a hen's egg. the queen's throne was of silver, elaborately wrought, and polished until it shone like crystal. at the foot of the thrones lay three life-size lions in cast silver. at the entrance to the royal chapel the king and queen were received by the three bishops, who were to officiate at the ceremony of the anointing, vested in copes of gold brocade. the bishops first conducted the king to his throne while the choir sang an anthem. they then returned and led the queen to her throne in like manner. bishop harboe of zealand preached a sermon, and then the ceremony of anointing took place; the coronation was considered as already performed. first the king was anointed with the holy oil, and then the queen. the service concluded with a _te deum_. as the royal procession returned to the palace, a salute from the ramparts was fired, and the heralds on the gate blew a loud blast on their silver trumpets. the king and queen received the congratulations of their court, and then the coronation banquet took place. during the banquet a chorale was sung by the choir, of which a verse may be roughly translated as follows:-- and long shall it be before the sons of the north weep, for while christian lives, and matilda, there shall be nothing but joy, and every man shall dwell in his tent in peace. the coronation was a people's holiday, and ample provision was made for every class to partake in the festivities. when the banquet was over the king and queen passed on to the balcony of the palace to look down upon the general rejoicings. a free dinner was given to the populace, and wine ran like water from a fountain, "red wine on the right side and on the left white, five hogsheads of each, of which all drank who would". in the courtyard an ox had been roasted whole, and not an ox only, for it was stuffed with "three wethers, five lambs, eight pigs, ten geese, twenty brace of duck, and fifty-eight brace of old (_sic_) hens". the roasted ox reposed upon a carriage painted red, and its horns were gilt. "the moment their majesties appeared on the balcony," continues the chronicle, "the fountain of wine was set running, and the ox was wheeled forward, pulled by eighteen sailors in white breeches and jackets, with sashes of red, and wreaths upon their heads. on either side of the ox-carriage more sailors walked, similarly attired, and carried baskets of bread. the quarter-master-sergeant then ascended the ox-carriage and cried in a loud voice: 'the roast ox will now be given away!' and he threw to the crowd a number of silver pieces. with shouts of delight the people rushed forward and scrambled for money, food and wine. the feasting and revelry that followed occupied a countless number of the poor all that evening and the greater part of the night, so delighted were they. their majesties took great pleasure in watching the tumult from the balcony of the christiansborg." chapter viii. at the court of denmark. - . the relations between the king and queen did not improve as time went on. matilda was frightened by christian's wildness and dissipation, piqued by his indifference, and wounded by his sarcasms. though she was very young she had a high spirit, and did not submit quietly to insult. her position at the court, of which she was nominally the reigning queen, was very unsatisfactory--the king was autocrat and she was nothing--even in trifling questions concerning the royal household she was not consulted, and if she ventured to express an opinion it was ignored. she had no relative to whom she could look for guidance. the queen-mother, sophia magdalena, had retired to hirschholm; she was nearly seventy years old, and since the fall of moltke had abjured politics and given herself up to good works. the queen-dowager, juliana maria, was secretly hostile, and matilda did not trust her, though the three queens at this time, as reverdil says, lived outwardly "_dans une grande intimité et dans un ennui paisible_". the king's sister, the princess louise, was too much absorbed in her husband and child to be of any use to her sister-in-law, and the king's aunt, charlotte amelia, had never appeared at court since matilda arrived in denmark. so the young queen had to seek the advice of her chief lady, madame de plessen, and she was guided by her in all things. it was the wish of this lady to bring back to the lax court of christian vii. the stiff and wearisome etiquette that had prevailed in the reign of the king's grandfather, christian vi. in her eyes matilda was not only a young married woman, but the queen of the land, whom the king himself might only approach according to the rules of etiquette. christian must be made to understand that queen matilda was his honoured consort, and not his mistress. it is possible that, had the young couple been left to themselves, they would in time have understood one another better, and learned to make allowances for each other. they were little more than children when they married, and quarrelled like children; they would probably have been reconciled afterwards like children, and become better friends. but they were not left to themselves. madame de plessen chose to stand between husband and wife in their most intimate relations, and with disastrous results. she was especially to blame in embittering the queen's mind against the king by repeating every thoughtless utterance of his, and magnifying every foolish deed. in madame de plessen's opinion the queen could only acquire an influence over her husband by treating him with coldness, and resisting his advances. the ladies of the court were ready to throw themselves into the king's arms at the least provocation--not that he ever gave them any--and madame de plessen thought that he would value most what it was not easy to obtain. in pursuance of this policy she advised the queen to treat him with coyness and reserve. for instance, the king came unannounced one morning into the queen's room while she was dressing. a kerchief had just been placed around her neck; the king pushed it aside and pressed a kiss upon his wife's shoulder. whereupon madame de plessen held up her hands in disgust, and the queen, taking her cue from the duenna, feigned anger, and reproached her husband for disarranging her kerchief. the king snatched it off her bosom, tore it in pieces, and threw it on the floor. he did not come back for several days. again, madame de plessen was annoyed because the king sent in the evening to know if the queen had retired to bed; she considered it wanting in respect to the queen, and advised matilda to put a stop to it. the next time the king sent to make his inquiry, the answer was returned that her majesty was playing chess and would not retire until her game was finished. the king waited until twelve o'clock, and then he came into the queen's apartments and found her still playing chess with madame de plessen. very much annoyed he began to walk up and down the room without saying a word, and the game was not finished until the clock struck one. the queen then said she wished to have her revenge, and he saw madame de plessen give a triumphant smile. then he understood what was meant. he left the room in a fury, and banged the door after him, and did not come near the queen again for a fortnight. there were many such scenes as these, and each one left the relations between the king and queen more strained than before, until within a year of their marriage they were thoroughly alienated from one another. the immediate result of madame de plessen's interference was to drive the king still further into dissipation and folly. prevented from enjoying his wife's society as he would, he spent his evenings with his friends, who included the wildest spirits of the court. the king's evening parties, which he held in his own rooms, had long ceased to bear even a superficial resemblance to the celebrated gatherings of frederick the great; they assumed by degrees a more and more noisy and riotous character. the young men indulged in sham fights and wrestling to develop the king's "smartness"--this was the word he used to denote his physical strength. these fights, indulged in after plentiful libations of wine, often proved destructive of the furniture, and sometimes ended in high words and bad temper. but the fighting was comparatively harmless. the king's evening gatherings unfortunately did not stop here, but degenerated into excesses which recalled the orgies described in the pages of juvenal and petronius. even sperling seems to have found these dissipations too much for him. at any rate he gradually lost the king's favour, and was replaced by brandt, a page of the chamber. enevold brandt was a few years older than christian vii. he came of an ancient danish family: his father had been a privy councillor and private secretary to queen sophia magdalena, but he died before his son's birth. his mother married again baron söhlenthal, and young brandt was brought up in his stepfather's house. at an early age he went to copenhagen to study law, and passed his examinations with flying colours. in his vacations brandt travelled widely: he was a polished man of the world and possessed brilliant social qualities. christian vii., who was clever enough to appreciate cleverness in others, took a great fancy to him, for a time. honours, both legal and courtly, were showered upon him. he was appointed an assessor of the court of chancery, a page of the chamber, and an assessor of the supreme court. brandt was below the middle height, and though his face could not be described as handsome, he had an air of distinction. after christian's accession he was a good deal about the person of the king, and was of great use in arranging the masquerades. it was thought that he would succeed sperling as the king's first favourite, but christian quickly tired of his friends, and as soon as the masquerades were over brandt found himself eclipsed in the royal favour by holck. conrad, count holck, despite his wildness and extravagancies, was the best of christian vii.'s favourites (and bad was the best). unlike sperling and brandt, he was neither an intriguer nor a self-seeker. he was a dare-devil youth, wealthy, handsome, and brimming over with boisterous good-humour and animal spirits. christian vii. found holck an excellent foil for the dark moods and the morbid humours that occasionally beset him, and the pair soon became fast friends. brandt and holck were always at the king's evening gatherings, and sought to outvie one another in their master's favour by proposing fresh extravagancies. there were many others; among them a young englishman named osborne, who held a commission in the danish service, count danneskjold-laurvig, and some older men, including saldern the russian envoy. by way of variety the king resumed his nocturnal expeditions, which he had abandoned since his marriage. accompanied by his wild companions he roamed the streets of copenhagen in disguise, visiting taverns and houses of ill-repute, molesting peaceable citizens, fighting with the watchmen, and breaking lamps and windows. of course these freaks got abroad and set a fashion, and bands of disorderly youths prowled about the city at night in imitation of the king and his companions, thereby causing great difficulty to the superintendent of the police, for they pretended often to be the king's party, and for fear of mistake he hardly dared to make an arrest. things came to such a pass at last that the watchmen lost patience, and determined not to let the rioters off easily, whether they belonged to the king's party or not. on one occasion, pretending not to know, they caught the king and belaboured him so unmercifully that he had to retire to bed for some days, and pretend that he was ill of the fever.[ ] on another night, however, he achieved a triumph, and brought home a club as a trophy, which he had wrested from one of the watchmen. [ ] the saxon minister at copenhagen in his despatch of april , , states that the king's indisposition was due to a wound he received in one of these combats with the watchmen. details of these extravagancies came to the young queen's ears from time to time, through the medium of sperling, who, now that he was superseded in the king's favour, attached himself to the queen's _entourage_, and, with his uncle, reventlow, who was the queen's chamberlain, was often to be seen in the apartments of madame de plessen. prejudiced by sperling the queen took a violent dislike to holck, whose evil influence over the king she believed to be the cause of all her troubles. holck ascribed the queen's dislike of him to madame de plessen, whom he regarded as his enemy, and he retaliated after the manner of his kind. not only did he treat the queen with scant respect, but he declared that she was piqued because he did not make love to her. he also behaved to madame de plessen with great rudeness, and instigated the coarse and mischievous jokes whereby the king sought to make the chief lady's position intolerable at court and so force her to resign. but these tactics proved unavailing, for the more rudely madame de plessen was treated by the king the more closely did she cling to her post. she determined to protect the queen come what might, and matilda, in return, identified herself with madame de plessen's friends, and regarded her chief lady's enemies as her own. on july , , the queen attained her sixteenth birthday, but to punish her the king would not celebrate it. in august, , christian vii. determined to make a tour through holstein. the queen, who was fond of travel, eagerly desired to accompany the king, and the royal tour was made the subject of many entreaties and negotiations on her part and the part of her household. but to further mark his displeasure the king refused to take her, and a serious quarrel took place between them. the queen was to be pitied, because the indifference she had shown towards her husband had in great part been assumed at the suggestion of madame de plessen. she was now likely to become a mother, and, by a natural instinct, she had grown into an inclination for the father of her child. but she attributed the king's refusal not to madame de plessen but to holck (who, it is very possible, had something to do with it), and insisted that if the king would not take her he should not take holck either. after much difficulty she carried the point, but her victory only enraged the king, and gave her no satisfaction. reverdil, who was the queen's friend, did his best to patch up the quarrel. he accompanied the king on his tour through holstein, and urged him to write affectionate letters to his wife. he pointed out that, considering the state of the queen's health, there was need to indulge her in her whims and fancies. christian, who was still smarting from the interference of madame de plessen, consented with an ill grace, and only on condition that reverdil composed the letters and he merely copied them. these letters pacified matilda; she was ignorant of their real authorship, and replied with affection. the king did not distinguish himself during his tour or increase the loyalty of the duchy. he offended, by his frivolity and recklessness, the old holstein nobility, who, if somewhat barbarous, were very strict in their ideas of what a king should be. [illustration: edward, duke of york, brother of queen matilda. _from the painting by g. h. every._] while christian vii. was absent in holstein matilda heard of the death of her favourite brother, edward duke of york, a gallant, high-spirited youth. the duke chose the navy as a profession, and if his promotion in it was rapid (he was promoted to be a rear-admiral at the age of twenty-three), he showed himself to be a brave sailor, and distinguished himself under howe at the bombardment of cherbourg. after the capture of the town the duke gave the french ladies a ball. "he told them he was too young to know what was good breeding in france, and therefore he should behave as if meaning to please in england, and he kissed them all."[ ] the young prince was a great favourite with the ladies. his first love was the beautiful and witty charlotte, countess of essex. he then transferred his affections to the even more beautiful duchess of richmond, sister-in-law of lady sarah lennox. but the most serious of all his love affairs was his passion for lady mary coke, a young widow, who found herself at an early age "the envy of her sex; in the possession of youth, health, wealth, wit, beauty and liberty". the young and ardent duke seems to have given her a promise of marriage, for during his lifetime she always spoke of him to her friends as her betrothed, and after his death displayed immoderate grief. the duke's numerous love affairs and his constant pursuit of pleasure naturally involved him in money difficulties. the princess-dowager of wales declined to supplement her second son's allowance, and often lamented his extravagance, but george iii. was fond of his volatile brother, and occasionally helped him, though it was against his strict principles to do so. one day the duke went to st. james's in a state of the greatest dejection, and, when he saw the king, sighed heavily. the king asked him why he was so low-spirited. "how can i be otherwise," said the duke, "pressed as i am by creditors and without a penny to pay them?" the king, much affected, pressed a thousand pound note into his brother's hand. the duke gravely read every word of it aloud, then marched out of the room singing, "god save great george our king!" [ ] _the georgian era_, vol. i. the duke of york had kept up a constant correspondence with queen matilda since she had left england; he wrote to her from paris a few weeks before his death telling her that he was making a tour through france, and intended, before he returned to england, to travel northwards and pay her a visit at copenhagen. but on his journey to the south of france the duke caught a chill, and when he arrived at monaco he was taken seriously ill. for fourteen days he lingered in great suffering, alleviated only by the affectionate offices of the gentlemen of his suite and the kindness of the prince of monaco. the duke died on september , , at the age of twenty eight. his body was removed on board the british ship-of-war _montreal_, and conveyed home to be buried in westminster abbey. the news of the duke of york's death reached copenhagen on october , and the english envoy was under some difficulty how best to break the news to the queen, in her delicate state of health. he writes: "my apprehensions of the effect it might have had on her danish majesty in her present situation, whenever she became acquainted with it, made me communicate my first intelligence of it to madame de plessen, of whose caution and discretion in this instance i have no doubt, that she might take such methods of preparing the queen for it as she judged most likely to lessen the shock, which otherwise so unexpected an event might be attended with. i have the pleasure to acquaint you that her majesty has suffered as little as (considering the great tenderness of her disposition) could well be expected."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, october , . queen matilda felt her brother's death keenly, the more so as she had been looking forward to his visit to copenhagen, when she hoped to confide to him her troubles, and ask his help and guidance. when christian heard of his queen's loss, he wrote her (through reverdil) an affectionate letter of condolence. the queen was touched by this consideration; she felt tenderly towards her husband, and was anxious to be friends. when the king returned from holstein, the queen drove out eight leagues from copenhagen to meet him. but christian's greeting was cold and formal, though he got into her coach and drove back with her into copenhagen, so that the citizens might think that he was on good terms with his queen. after her husband's return matilda made several efforts to win his love, and behaved to him with the utmost submission, but he did not respond. her pathetic desire to please him, her extreme youth and loneliness, the fact that she was soon to become the mother of his child--these considerations had no weight with christian vii. he repulsed his wife's advances, and treated her with rudeness and contempt, conduct which, under the circumstances, was peculiarly brutal. he made coarse jokes about her condition; he even tried to force holck, whom she detested, upon her as master of her household. she refused with tears and agitation, so the king made him court marshal, and gave him the management of all the festivities at court, where comedies, balls and masquerades succeeded one another without interruption. in addition to christian's cruelty to his queen, he flaunted his infidelity before her eyes. he had no inclination for the ladies of the court (indeed the company of refined women seemed distasteful to him), but at holck's suggestion he sought the society of women politely termed "actresses," and thereby derived no little amusement and distraction. holck, however, was not responsible for a woman whose acquaintance the king made at this time, who went by the nickname of _stovlep katerine_, or "catherine of the gaiters". this woman, according to reverdil, was brought before the king's notice by count danneskjold-laurvig. her real name appears to have been anna catherine benthaken, and she was the natural daughter of an eminent officer in the danish service. as a child she was brought up in the household of this officer, but after his death her mother married a retired soldier, who was by trade a tailor who made gaiters. as catherine was penniless she accompanied her mother to her stepfather's poor house, where, in return for her board and lodging, she was obliged to sew gaiters--hence her nickname. but she could not brook this life long, and having a vivacious temperament and some natural gifts she sought other means of livelihood. copenhagen in the eighteenth century offered few opportunities of honest work for unmarried women, so catherine first became an opera dancer, and then the mistress of an englishman, sir john goodrich.[ ] she lived with him for some time, and was generally known as "milady". at the time christian made her acquaintance, "milady" was a good-looking young woman, with a fine figure, and an excellent taste in dress. she was amusing and witty, and equal to any wild scheme the king might conceive. it was her ambition to become _maîtresse en titre_, and to this end she lent herself to all kinds of extravagancies in order that she might gain greater influence over the king. before long "milady" achieved her ambition; she received the honour of an invitation to a masquerade at the palace, and the king showed his preference to the court by dancing with her nearly all the evening. queen matilda was spared the sight of this insult, for in consequence of her state of health she was unable to be present, but the incident was duly reported to her, and filled her with grief and resentment. [ ] sir john goodrich was nominated by the british government minister plenipotentiary to sweden, but, through the intrigues of the french government, he never got nearer stockholm than copenhagen. chapter ix. the birth of a prince. . queen matilda gave birth to a son and heir--the future king frederick vi.--on january , . titley thus records the event: "yesterday the queen of denmark fell in labour, and about ten o'clock at night was happily delivered of a prince, to the extreme satisfaction of her royal consort and the whole court. the queen, god be praised, and the new-born prince are this morning both as well as can be expected. this very important and much desired event happened but an hour or two before the anniversary of the king of denmark's own birthday, and we are now celebrating the double festivity. the birth of an heir male to the crown has completely fulfilled the ardent wishes and prayers of the public, and consequently spread a real joy through all ranks of the people here."[ ] [ ] titley's despatch, copenhagen, january , . a few days later the infant prince was christened by the name of frederick. the ceremony took place in the queen's bedchamber, and nobody was admitted except the ministers and council--the english envoy was not invited. queen juliana maria, to whom the birth of this prince was the death-blow of her hopes, and the princess charlotte amelia (represented by proxy), were the godmothers, and prince frederick, the king's brother, was the godfather. the king had wished for a public ceremonial, but the babe was sickly and ailing, and it was deemed necessary to baptise him as soon as possible. during her illness the queen was fenced round by the most rigid etiquette by madame de plessen; she was attended in turn by madame de plessen, a lady-in-waiting, and the wife of a knight of the elephant. the infant was attended by two court ladies, who were changed according to rank, and this absurd formality continued until all the court ladies had shared the privilege. the queen, a short time after her confinement, had also to undergo the ordeal of sitting up in bed (the royal infant in a bassinet by the side of the bed) and receiving the congratulations of the court ladies and gentlemen, who filed through the room in procession. the fatigue of this levee, or perhaps madame de plessen's wearisome formalities, made the queen seriously ill. gunning, who never lost a chance of attacking his arch-enemy, wrote to lord weymouth:-- "her danish majesty has been very much indisposed for some days, but her physicians, who own that they were not without apprehensions, now assure me that all danger is over. it is with the greatest concern that i think myself obliged to acquaint your lordship with my fears that her majesty's indisposition has been occasioned, in some measure, by the imprudent conduct of the lady who is her _grande maîtresse_. i thought it my duty to acquaint general conway with the character of madame de plessen immediately after her nomination to a post that i could wish she had never filled, expressing at the same time my desire that her majesty might be informed of it. and in some despatches subsequent to the queen's arrival here, i applied for instructions with regard to my explaining this matter to her majesty, but not having had any orders to do so, i could not with propriety, and consistent with my duty, venture upon it, though i daily saw the fatal effects of the ascendant this lady acquired. her majesty's sweetness of disposition and her natural vivacity could not but, as indeed it did, attract the esteem and affection of a young prince who had so great a share of the latter. had she been allowed to follow the bent of her own inclinations, it would have been so firmly established that nothing could have shaken it. but this would not have answered the end of those who advised a different conduct. the queen's influence and ascendant would then have been too great, and she herself would not have been subject to that of others.... an attention to the situation her majesty has been in of late has prevented the king's executing the resolution he has long taken of removing her _grande maîtresse_, but as soon as the queen's health is thoroughly established, i understand this is to take place."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, february , . gunning proved right in his conjecture, for a few weeks later madame de plessen was suddenly dismissed. the king would hardly have dared to take this step if others had not come to his assistance. madame de plessen had made many enemies by her tactless conduct, but her political intrigues were the direct cause of her fall. so long as the french party was in the ascendant all went well with her, but during the last year russia had grown in power and influence at the danish court. russia, through her two envoys, saldern, the envoy in holstein, and filosofow, the envoy in copenhagen, had gained the ear of the prime minister, bernstorff, and other persons holding high office, notably of baron schimmelmann,[ ] grand treasurer. moreover, saldern was a personal friend of the king, and joined him in many of his wildest dissipations; and it is probable that he won christian over to russia by giving him money to defray his extravagancies. saldern was a terrible man, a semi-barbarian, with rough brutal strength and domineering will that bore down all opposition. he knew that reventlow, the queen's chamberlain, and madame de plessen were on the side of france; he determined to get rid of them, and to this end used all his influence with the king. reventlow was dismissed with ignominy, and sperling, his nephew, soon followed; but madame de plessen remained, and until she was gone saldern could not feel safe against french intrigues. he regarded the queen's household as the centre of the french party, and he hated matilda because she supported madame de plessen. a letter of saldern's, written about the end of january, , gives an insight into the character of the man. "my great torment," he wrote, "comes from the queen. she has lost her right arm in reventlow, but she still has the left in plessen, a mischievous woman, but i will deprive her of this arm also.... when the king goes to see the queen she tells him he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that the whole city says he lets himself be governed by me. she only says this out of revenge, because i sent away her flea-catcher (_sa preneuse de puces_). the king tells me all this, and i show him _mon égide_, and we laugh together."[ ] [ ] schimmelmann was a german-jew by birth, and a type of the rogue now called a "financier". after a career as a money-lender, during which he amassed a fortune, he arrived in denmark. he possessed great financial ability, and made himself so useful to the danish government that he was given first the title of baron, then the order of the elephant, and lastly appointed grand treasurer. [ ] _mémoires de reverdil_, pp. - . all the same it was some months before saldern could screw up the king's courage to the point of dismissing madame de plessen, but at last he succeeded. as soon as the queen was convalescent the king ran away with saldern to frederiksborg, and from the safe shelter of that retreat he despatched a signed order to madame de plessen commanding her to quit the palace immediately on its receipt, without taking leave of the queen. as the king was all-powerful, there was nothing for madame de plessen to do but obey; indeed she feared for her life if she remained in copenhagen. so she fled with all speed, the same day she received the order, to her estate of kokkedal, on the sound. [illustration: queen matilda receiving the congratulations of the court on the birth of the crown prince frederick. _from a contemporary print._] bernstorff was ordered to acquaint the queen with the king's resolution and declare it to be irrevocable. when the queen was told that her first lady had gone, there was a most painful scene--she burst into tears and refused to be comforted. her anger and resentment against the king knew no bounds, and she declared she would never forgive him. the whole of the queen's household was now changed; all her friends were sent away, and nominees of holck and saldern put in their places. the king wished to appoint as chief lady, madame von berkentin, who had intrigued against madame de plessen, but the queen absolutely refused to admit her to her presence, and so, after much angry recrimination the vacant post was bestowed upon madame von der lühe, who was not any more pleasing to the queen from the fact that she was the sister of count holck. but madame von der lühe proved more satisfactory than the queen expected, and gradually won her confidence; the worst appointment was that of fräulein von eyben as maid-of-honour. this woman, who had by no means an unsullied reputation, was false and untruthful--a spy who sought opportunity to betray her mistress. madame de plessen was pursued with relentless severity, and two days after her dismissal from the danish court she was ordered to quit the kingdom. she withdrew to hanoverian territory, and finally settled at celle. she was forbidden to hold any communication with her former mistress, but it is probable that she managed to evade this order. the separation was a bitter grief both to the queen and her chief lady. despite her domineering disposition and want of tact, madame de plessen dearly loved her young mistress, and would have died, had it been necessary, for her sake. she was by nature hard and undemonstrative, but the helpless little queen had found a tender spot in her heart, and the maternal love she felt for her mistress was all the more fierce because of its concentration; in shielding her from the contamination of the court she was like a tigress guarding her young. perhaps it was the very fierceness of her devotion which led her into errors of judgment, but great though these were, if she had avoided political intrigue, she might have retained her place. to matilda the loss of this good woman, for she was a good woman despite her unamiable qualities, was irreparable. surrounded as she was by spies and enemies, beset by perils and temptations, she knew that she had in her chief lady a disinterested friend, and she clung to her all the more because she had not strength of herself to stand alone. had madame de plessen remained with the queen, the errors and follies of after years would never have been committed. in the dangerous path matilda had to tread, beset by pitfalls on every side, she needed some one who would guide her stumbling feet, and lead her in the way she should go. queen matilda was not allowed much time to indulge in her grief, for within ten days of madame de plessen's dismissal she had to hold a court, at which she received the congratulations of the foreign ministers and danish nobility on the birth of her son. the day was observed as a general holiday, and in the evening there was a banquet and ball at the christiansborg palace. if she wrote to england to complain of the hard treatment she had suffered in thus being deprived of one in whom she placed confidence, she probably received little comfort from her brother. we find lord weymouth writing to gunning before madame de plessen's dismissal: "the king would not be sorry to hear of her removal,"[ ] and after it: "i assure you that the king is thoroughly sensible of the zealous and dutiful motives which engaged you to see with so much concern the dangerous tendency of that lady's influence".[ ] [ ] lord weymouth's despatch to gunning, march , . [ ] _ibid._, may , . in the same despatch (may , ) lord weymouth announced the death of the princess louisa anne, and enclosed a sealed letter from george iii. to the queen, whose sorrows now came upon her thick and fast, for her sister's death was the second bereavement she had sustained within a few months, in addition to the loss of her faithful plessen. louisa anne, who had once been put forward as a possible queen of denmark, had been always an invalid, and was so diminutive in stature that, though she completed her nineteenth year before she died, she looked like a sickly child of thirteen. there is nothing recorded of her beyond that she was a lover of literature, and of an amiable disposition. the death of her sister furnished the queen with an excuse for not appearing at court festivities, which became wilder and more dissolute, and were attended by many persons of ill-fame, both men and women. prominent among them was "catherine of the gaiters," who had now gained great influence over the king, and led him (or he led her) into the wildest excesses. it was one of christian's peculiarities that he liked to see women dressed as men, and to humour him "milady" disguised herself in the uniform of a naval officer and accompanied the king and his friends on their night adventures. during her varied career "milady" had made several enemies among women of her own walk in life: they were jealous of her prosperity and spoke ill of her. to revenge herself she induced the king and his party to enter the houses where these women lived, smash the windows and throw the furniture into the street. the watchmen had secret orders to take no notice of these proceedings, but they often found it difficult to prevent the populace from rising in indignation. reverdil, who viewed the _liaison_ between the king and "milady" with disgust, once saw christian returning to the palace, boasting loudly of his exploits, and he could not refrain from uttering the sarcasm, "_voilà un beau chemin à la gloire_". the king was exceedingly angry, and said, "do not mock at me. scold me if you will, but do not mock at me." reverdil did not heed the warning, and a few evenings later at the palace theatre he saw "milady" sitting in a prominent box and covered with jewels; below her were the maids of honour, and facing her was the queen. reverdil was standing near holck, who was responsible for this arrangement, and he thus gave vent to his indignation. "sir," said he, "though a hundred times you have turned into ridicule what i have said, i say again that a man can be neither a good subject, nor a good servant, who does not weep to see such a creature thus defy the queen, and the king make himself, to the great peril of the state, the _greluchon_ of a foreign minister." holck turned on his heel. the next morning reverdil received a written order from the king commanding him to leave copenhagen within twenty-four hours. the out-spoken swiss lost no time in obeying the order, and left the country. when he returned to copenhagen three years later the situation had changed. reverdil was not the only one who entered a protest against the ascendency of "catherine of the gaiters". she had induced the king to buy her a palace, create her a baroness, and promise her a pension, but in the hour of her triumph she fell as suddenly as she had risen. the shameful scenes in the streets had so moved the honest people of copenhagen to indignation that they threatened to rise in revolt unless the woman was dismissed. so threatening was their attitude and so loud were their murmurs that at last the ministers resolved to act. they sought the assistance of schimmelmann and saldern to convince the king that matters had reached danger-point. the latter then went with bernstorff to the king, and by trading on his fears, persuaded him to sign an order commanding catherine to quit the kingdom at once. the king signed without much difficulty; perhaps he was frightened, perhaps he was already weary of her. catherine was arrested at her house and conducted across the frontier to hamburg, where the obsequious municipality put her into prison.[ ] [ ] there she remained for some years. eventually struensee set her at liberty, but she never returned to copenhagen. dismissal and banishment now formed the order of the day at copenhagen. prince charles of hesse had left the capital under the cloud of the king's displeasure, and though he was later given as a consolation the vice-royalty of the duchies, he was for a time in exile. reventlow, by making friends with the russian party, had managed to crawl back into office, but not to a place in the household of the queen. brandt soon followed sperling into banishment. he became jealous of the reigning favourite holck, and wrote the king a private letter containing severe reflections on holck's conduct. as might have been expected the king showed the letter to holck, with the result that brandt was commanded to quit the capital within twenty-four hours, and danish territory within eight days. holck was more in favour than before, and the queen's position more unhappy. the king, now that he was deprived of the society of "milady," and a check put upon his follies, suffered from _ennui_, and determined to travel. he proposed to visit england and france, and to be absent from denmark six months. his ministers, who at another time would have opposed the idea of the king being away from his dominions for so long, now thought it advisable that he should go. the situation had become intolerable. the king was most unpopular with his people, and if he travelled for a time it would not only give an opportunity for scandal and bitter feeling to die down, but it was possible that he would gain wisdom, and return a saner and better man. the question of expense was a considerable one, but in this matter schimmelmann proved useful--he advanced a loan. when matilda heard of her husband's intended tour, she pleaded hard to accompany him, especially as he was going to england. the desire to see again her family and native country made her put aside her pride, and beg this favour of the king with all the eloquence in her power. but he refused on several grounds, the real reason being that he did not want her with him. she then prayed that madame de plessen might come back to her during the king's absence, and it was said that christian, before he started, promised to grant this, but when he had gone a little way on his journey he withdrew his promise. under the circumstances the queen came to the wise resolution of retiring from the capital altogether during the king's absence. it was necessary for her to be on her guard, for it was rumoured that an intrigue was set on foot to deprive her of the regency in the event of the king's demise.[ ] no doubt juliana maria thought that the post of regent should be filled either by herself, or her son frederick, whose chances of succession to the throne had been greatly lessened by the birth of matilda's son. there had been some idea of appointing a regent during the king's absence from his dominions, but the claims of the rival queens were too delicate to decide, and the difficulty was avoided by appointing a council of regency composed of counts thott and moltke and baron rosenkrantz. [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, may , . christian vii. left copenhagen in may, , on his tour; his suite consisted of no less than fifty-six persons, chief among them being bernstorff, the principal secretary of state. the king travelled south through schleswig, where he remained some little time; the two russian envoys, saldern and filosofow, were there, and weighty diplomatic matters were discussed. the treaty by which russia exchanged her claims on ducal schleswig and holstein for the counties of oldenburg and delmenhorst was arranged there--a treaty of great importance to denmark.[ ] [ ] peter iii. of russia had made a claim upon his hereditary states of holstein-gottorp in , and was preparing to enforce it when he was deposed and assassinated. his consort and successor, catherine the great, agreed to an amicable settlement of the affair by exchange. the king then proceeded through the southern part of his dominions _viâ_ kiel to ahrensburg, near hamburg. here, without knowing it, he took one of the most important steps of his life. he appointed john frederick struensee, a doctor of altona, his travelling physician, and struensee joined the king's suite forthwith. a few days later christian quitted denmark. after paying a visit of reconciliation to his brother-in-law, prince charles of hesse, at hanau, near frankfort, he travelled down the rhine to cologne, and thence to amsterdam and brussels. from brussels he journeyed to calais, where his brother-in-law, george iii., had sent the _mary_ yacht to convey him to england. chapter x. christian vii. in england. . christian vii. landed at dover on august , . he was received with especial marks of distinction, a salute was fired from the cannon of the castle, and the vessels in the harbour were dressed with flags. royal coaches were in waiting, and lord hertford and lord falmouth received him on behalf of the king. the king of denmark's suite consisted of count bernstorff, his principal secretary of state, count moltke the younger, grand marshal, count holck, master of the wardrobe, baron schimmelmann, treasurer, baron bülow, lord-in-waiting, dr. struensee, physician, and several others. christian declined the royal coaches, and preferred to travel in a post-chaise to avoid ceremony. with the principal members of his suite he pushed on ahead, leaving the others to follow with the baggage. lord hertford told his majesty that the clergy and the corporation of canterbury, through which city he was to pass, had made great preparations to receive him. the king was annoyed, for he was travelling _incognito_ as the prince of traventhal, and his object in coming to england was to amuse himself, and not to be wearied by receiving addresses from mayors and church dignitaries--for the clergy in particular he had a dislike. he said to bernstorff: "the last king of denmark who entered canterbury laid it to ashes. i wish the citizens had remembered that, and then perhaps they would have let me pass unnoticed." but bernstorff told christian that he must at least receive the address, which he did with ill grace, but he declined the luncheon prepared in his honour. the king of denmark arrived in london at seven o'clock in the evening, and when his coach pulled up before st. james's palace, holck exclaimed, "by god, this will never do! this is not a fit place to lodge a _christian_ in!" in truth the somewhat dingy exterior of st. james's palace was not, at first sight, likely to impress a foreigner, but when the king entered he pronounced his lodgings tolerable. george iii. had spent £ , in refurnishing a suite of apartments for his brother-in-law. moreover, he defrayed the cost of his royal guest's table during his stay in england, at the cost of £ a day, without wine, and the wine bill, no doubt, was a heavy addition. he also decorated the king of denmark's sideboard with the splendid gold plate of henry vii., which was seldom used, except at coronation banquets, and was brought from the tower especially for the occasion. these marks of respect, it may be supposed, george iii. paid to the office of the king, for it is certain that he disliked the man, and heartily wished him anywhere but at st. james's. christian vii. had invited himself to the english court, and came as a most unwelcome guest. his visit was singularly ill-timed, for the wilkes riots had taken place recently, and the king was unpopular, and much worried and annoyed. moreover, the court was in mourning for the princess louisa anne, and the king wished to give none but the absolutely necessary receptions this year. he disliked festivities as much as the king of denmark revelled in them, and he grudged the outlay which the visit of his self-invited guest entailed. besides, george iii., who was a model of the domestic virtues, had heard of the profligacy of the king of denmark, and the cruelty and disrespect with which he treated his queen. matilda had written home piteous complaints of the sufferings she endured, and though george iii. declined to interfere between man and wife, and advised his sister to make the best of her lot, he felt just resentment against her husband, who ill-treated her so grossly.[ ] [ ] george iii.'s repugnance to the king of denmark's visit is shown in the following note which he wrote to lord weymouth before he came: "as to-morrow is the day you receive foreign ministers, you will acquaint m. de dieden (the danish minister) that i desire he will assure the king, his master, that i am desirous of making his stay in this country as agreeable as possible. that i therefore wish to be thoroughly apprized of the mode in which he chooses to be treated, that i may exactly conform to it. this will throw whatever may displease the king of denmark, during his stay here, on his shoulders, and consequently free me from that _désagrément_; but you know very well that the whole of _it is very disagreeable to me_." [richmond lodge, june , .] in pursuance of these sentiments george iii., though he had every necessary preparation made for the king of denmark, showed no warmth in welcoming him. he was holding a levee in st. james's palace the very hour that christian arrived there, but instead of hastening to greet him, he sent a formal message to the effect that he would receive him at the queen's house (now buckingham palace) at half-past five o'clock. to the queen's house, therefore, at the appointed hour christian repaired. george iii.'s reception of his cousin and brother-in-law was cold and formal, and immediately it was over he left london for richmond lodge, where he remained in seclusion nearly the whole time of the king of denmark's stay in england. christian then went to carlton house to pay his respects to his mother-in-law. his reception there was less frigid, but far from satisfactory. the princess-dowager of wales could not help showing him how anxious she was about her daughter. she overwhelmed her son-in-law with inquiries concerning his wife's health, which wearied him greatly, and he could not refrain from saying in an audible whisper to holck, "_cette chère maman m'embête terriblement_". the princess-dowager reopened the question of madame de plessen's dismissal, acting, no doubt, at the request of queen matilda, and prayed the king to reinstate her, as she was afraid for her daughter to be exposed to the temptations of the court without a strict duenna. christian, who was visibly annoyed, said he would not oppose madame de plessen's return, if the princess-dowager insisted upon it, but if she came back he and the queen must occupy separate palaces, as he was determined never to have madame de plessen under his roof again. as this would involve a virtual separation, the princess-dowager forebore to press the point further. she reported her ill-success to matilda, and begged her to submit to the inevitable, and try to conciliate her husband. now that she saw what manner of man her son-in-law was, the princess-dowager regretted the part she had played in bringing about this unhappy marriage. ill-health and many sorrows had softened this stern princess's heart; life had not gone smoothly with her of late. the one friend in whom she trusted, lord bute, had been driven from england by her implacable enemies. bute had taken office at the request of the princess-dowager, and for her sake he had laid it down. the ostensible ground he gave for his resignation was ill-health, the real one was a chivalrous desire to check the flood of cowardly insult aimed through him at the second lady in the land. the princess-dowager urged him not to make the sacrifice, for she well knew it would be in vain, and she proved to be right. bute was still pursued with a relentless hatred, and his enemies were not satisfied until they had driven him first from london and then out of the country. unable to withstand the storm any longer bute went into exile, and at the time when christian vii. visited england, he was wandering about italy under the _incognito_ of sir john stewart. the princess-dowager was much cast down by the loss of her friend, with whom she could hardly correspond, without fear of her letters being intercepted. moreover, her sorrows were increased by the death of two of her children (the once numerous family of frederick prince of wales was now reduced to five), and by the unsatisfactory conduct of her two younger sons, the dukes of gloucester and cumberland, who showed tendencies (the latter especially) to folly and extravagance. [illustration: carlton house, pall mall, the residence of the princess-dowager of wales. _from a print, temp. ._] the visit of her son-in-law, the king of denmark, so far from comforting her, only increased her anxiety. the more she saw of him the more she disliked him. he was restive under her covert reproaches, and at last entirely lost her good graces by his impertinence. the princess was telling fortunes by cards one evening with one of her ladies, to whom christian had given a diamond star. the king said to her: "_chère maman_, which king am i in your pasteboard court?" "lady----," said the princess-dowager archly, "calls you the king of diamonds." "what do you call holck?" asked christian. "oh, by a more flattering title--the king of hearts." this nettled the king, who retorted: "and pray, _chère maman_, what do you call lord bute--the knave of hearts?" this repartee greatly discomposed the princess-dowager. she flushed crimson, and gathered up the cards without a word. though christian was so unwelcome at court, he was exceedingly well received by all classes of the nation, who made him the hero of the hour. the fact that the king disliked him rather increased his popularity than otherwise. the king and queen, in consequence of the seclusion in which they lived, had little or no influence on society. george iii. preferred a quiet domestic life with his wife and children, routs, balls and assemblies had no attractions for him. therefore london society, which loves the presence of royalty, hailed the king of denmark with delight. all the fine ladies were in love with him, all the fine gentlemen sought the honour of his acquaintance, imitated his dress and deportment, and even copied his eccentricities. the rumour of his vices lent an additional piquancy. he was nicknamed "the northern scamp," and the ladies invented a headdress in his honour, which was known as the "danish fly". "the king of denmark," writes whately to george grenville, "is the only topic of conversation. wilkes himself is forgotten, even by the populace."[ ] the people cheered him wherever he went, and the nobility vied with one another in giving him splendid entertainments. first to have the honour of entertaining "the royal dane" was lady hertford, who gave a brilliant assembly at hertford house. horace walpole, who was present, writes:-- "i came to town to see the danish king. he is as diminutive as if he came out of a kernel in the fairy tales. he is not ill made, nor weakly made, though so small; and, though his face is pale and delicate, it is not at all ugly.... still he has more royalty than folly in his air, and, considering he is not twenty, is as well as any one expects any king in a puppet show to be.... he only takes the title of _altesse_ (an absurd mezzo-termine), but acts king exceedingly; struts in the circle, like a cock-sparrow, and does the honours of himself very civilly."[ ] and again: "he has the sublime strut of his grandfather (george ii.), and the divine white eyes of all his family on the mother's side.... the mob adore and huzza him, and so they did at the first instant. they now begin to know why, for he flings money to them out of the window; and by the end of the week, i do not doubt they will want to choose him for middlesex. his court is extremely well ordered, for they bow as low to him at every word as if his name were sultan amurath. you would take his first minister for only the first of his slaves.... there is indeed a pert young gentleman who a little discomposes this august ceremonial; his name is count holck, his age three-and-twenty; and his post answers to one that we had formerly in england ages ago, called, in our tongue, a royal favourite."[ ] [ ] _grenville papers_, vol. iv. [ ] walpole's _letters_, vol. v., edition . [ ] _ibid._ lady hertford's assembly was followed by a magnificent entertainment at syon house, given by the duke and duchess of northumberland. "an inexpressible variety of emblematical devices was illuminated by more than fifteen thousand lamps, and the temple erected in the inner court was ornamented by transparent paintings, which had a very happy effect."[ ] a gala performance was also given at the opera, which was attended by all the rank and fashion of the town, though the king and queen were absent. after the opera the king went to mrs. cornelys' house in soho square (a sort of assembly rooms at that period). "mrs. cornelys had put the apartments in all the possible order that a few hours' notice would admit of, and the whole was splendidly illuminated with upwards of two thousand wax lights. the moment the king entered the grand room the music (consisting of french horns, clarinets, bassoons, etc.) began playing, and his majesty seemed very much pleased at the agreeable manner of his reception. dancing was proposed; the king opened the ball with the duchess of ancaster, and named the second minuet with the countess of harrington; the minuets were succeeded by english country dances, and those by the french cotillons."[ ] [ ] _the annual register_, . [ ] _ibid._ christian's maternal aunt, the princess amelia, was indignant with george iii. for the way he ignored his royal guest, and she gave a grand entertainment at gunnersbury house in honour of her danish nephew. "the entertainment was extremely magnificent. invitations were given to upwards of of the nobility. the supper consisted of dishes; a grand fire-work was then played off; and the ball, which was very splendid, ended about three o'clock on saturday morning."[ ] the duke of gloucester was present, but the king and queen did not attend. the lovely lady talbot, who was much admired by christian, was the belle of the ball, and wore a diamond coronet worth £ , . the beautiful and lively lady bel stanhope also created a sensation, and holck fell in love with her. it is said that he proposed marriage, but lady bel, or her parents, would not hear of it. the princess amelia declared herself to be very fond of her nephew, who, she said, reminded her of her sister, queen louise, but she was distressed that he did not get on better with his wife, and asked him why. "_pourquoi?_" replied christian, "_pourquoi?--elle est si blonde!_" walpole has something to say on this head too, for he tells us, "at the play of _the provoked wife_, he (the king) clapped whenever there was a sentence against matrimony--a very civil proceeding when his wife was an english princess". [ ] _the annual register_, . george iii.'s neglect of the king of denmark occasioned so much comment that he at last reluctantly gave a ball in christian's honour at the queen's house, at which the princess-dowager of wales, the duke of gloucester, and a great number of the nobility were present. the princess amelia was not asked; the king owed her a grudge for the way in which she had forced his hand in giving an entertainment to her nephew--an example he was bound to follow. the king of denmark opened the ball with queen charlotte, and king george danced a minuet with the duchess of ancaster, who seems to have been the greatest lady of the day outside the royal family. christian vii. showed no hurry to quit a country where he was so well received, and in september, when london was empty, he made several tours in the provinces. it was a very wet summer, and the rains were heavier than had been known in the memory of man. "the serpentine river in hyde park rose so high that it forced down a part of the wall, and poured with such violence upon knightsbridge, that the inhabitants expected the whole town to be overflowed; the canal in st. james's park rose higher than ever was known; in short, no man living remembered so much rain-fall in so short a time."[ ] several parts of the country were flooded, and the high roads rendered impassable; travelling by coach always slow, became slower still, and in some places was attended with difficulty and even danger. but these things did not daunt christian, who rushed about the country, from one end to another, stopping nowhere for any time, and apparently taking no interest in anything he saw. even the polite writer in the _annual register_, who devoted pages to christian's doings, was constrained to say: "his journeyings are so rapid, and his stay at places so short, that, if he is not a youth of more than common talents, he must have a very confused idea of what he sees". [ ] _the annual register_, september , . horace walpole, who now pursued the king of denmark with strange malignity, writes: "you know already about the king of denmark, hurrying from one corner of england to the other, without seeing anything distinctly, fatiguing himself, breaking his chaise, going tired to bed in inns, and getting up to show himself to the mob at the window. i believe that he is a very silly lad, but the mob adore him, though he has neither done nor said anything worth repeating; but he gives them an opportunity of getting together, of staring and of making foolish observations."[ ] bernstorff excused the king's indifference on the ground that he was short-sighted. this also served to explain many apparent discourtesies, for christian often ignored people to whom he had been most gracious a few days before. it is probable that horace walpole was one of the victims of this little peculiarity, and that accounts for the venom with which he writes of the king. christian may also have ignored walpole's niece, lady waldegrave, who had secretly married the duke of gloucester, and who, though the marriage was not declared, already gave herself the airs of a princess of the blood. [ ] walpole's _letters_, vol. v., edition . christian's first excursion was to york. attended by a retinue of a hundred and twenty persons he set out from london, and, in passing, visited cambridge. the vice-chancellor, the heads of houses, the doctors, professors, proctors and other officials of the university, clad in their scarlet robes, received the king at the entrance of the senate house, and conducted him to a chair of state, where an address was presented to him. the king was invited to a public luncheon, but he excused himself, and asked the vice-chancellor to supper with him at his inn. christian shirked all ceremony, and saw the sights of cambridge in his riding coat and boots. at york the corporation made every preparation to entertain him in a splendid manner, but the king declined all formalities, saw the races, visited the minster and other public buildings, and the next day set out on his return journey to london, going round by way of liverpool and manchester, "where he was particularly gratified by viewing the stupendous works of the duke of bridgewater, at which he expressed both astonishment and pleasure". a few days after the danish king's return to london he again set forth on a visit to oxford. he was received in state by the vice-chancellor and officials of the university, and in full convocation had the degree of doctor of civil law conferred upon him. bernstorff, holck and other members of the danish suite also received honorary degrees, and struensee had conferred upon him the degree of doctor of medicine. after oxford the king visited several places, and was perpetually on the road. when he was at newmarket for the races the vice-chancellor of cambridge waited on him, and in the name of the university presented an address, and graces for conferring the same degree upon the king and his nobles as they had received at oxford. the grandest entertainment provided for christian was his state visit to the city of london. the lord mayor with the aldermen and sheriffs, all in their robes, set out in coaches from the guildhall for the three cranes, where they embarked at eleven o'clock in the morning on board the city state barge, "the streamers flying, a select band of water-music playing, and the principal livery companies attending in their respective barges," to westminster, where they awaited the arrival of christian from st. james's palace. the king came punctually, and as he set foot on the city barge a royal salute was fired, and loud cheers rent the air from the vast crowds of people who lined the banks on either side, thronged the bridges, and crowded the river on innumerable craft. the procession glided down the thames to the temple stairs. "during the course of this grand passage on the water his majesty frequently expressed himself highly pleased, and his admiration of the several great and beautiful objects round him; and sometimes condescended to come forward in order to gratify the curiosity of the people, who eagerly fought to get a sight of his royal person, though at the hazard of their lives."[ ] arrived at the temple stairs the king landed, took his seat in the lord mayor's coach, and proceeded to the mansion house. the streets through which he passed were gaily decorated, and crowded "with an innumerable populace, while the windows and tops of houses were equally crowded with spectators of both sexes, whose acclamations, together with the ringing of bells, and the shouts of the multitude, loudly expressed their joy at his majesty's presence; his majesty expressed his surprise at the populousness of this city, and his satisfaction at the kindness of the citizens".[ ] [ ] _the annual register._ [ ] _ibid._ arrived at the mansion house an address was read to the king by the city recorder. curiously no direct mention was made of queen matilda, but we take from it one passage to show the gross and servile flattery which characterised the whole effusion. "the many endearing ties which happily connect you, sir, with our most gracious sovereign, justly entitle you to the respect and veneration of all his majesty's faithful subjects; but your affability and other princely virtues, so eminently displayed during the whole course of your residence among us, have in a particular manner charmed the citizens of london, who reflect with admiration on your early and uncommon thirst for knowledge, and your indefatigable pursuit of it by travel and observation, the happy fruits of which they doubt not will be long employed and acknowledged within the whole extent of your influence and command." christian returned a suitable reply in danish, and, "upon notice that the dinner was served, his majesty was conducted into the egyptian hall, where his majesty condescended to proceed quite round, that the ladies (who made a most brilliant appearance in the galleries) might have a full view of his royal person". the banquet was a gargantuan one, and took four hours to work through. several toasts were drunk to the sound of a trumpet, but, at the king's request, without speeches. in addition to the usual loyal toasts, were added those of the king of denmark and norway and his consort, queen matilda. the king himself proposed two toasts, "prosperity to the british nation," and "prosperity to the city of london".[ ] [ ] _the annual register._ at eight o'clock his majesty took his leave, the city fathers going before him to his coach bearing wax lights. the king returned to st. james's palace through crowded streets, brilliantly illuminated in his honour. the whole visit was a remarkable tribute to his undeserved popularity. truly there must be some strange glamour around the name of king, when a prince like this, who had never said or done anything worth recording, and a great deal which was quite unfit to be recorded, received from the greatest city in the world an ovation which could not be surpassed if he had been one of the world's greatest heroes. moreover, the king of denmark was pursuing in london the same scandalous amusements as those which had revolted his subjects in copenhagen. incredible though it may seem, night after night he and his favourite, holck, disguised as sailors, would pass hours drinking and frolicking in the stews and pot-houses of st. giles'. these adventures generally began after midnight. christian would leave some splendid entertainment given in his honour by the proudest of the english nobility, and hurrying back to st. james's would change his clothes, and start out again to seek distraction in the lowest forms of dissipation. these extraordinary predilections were perfectly well known to many people of rank and fashion, and the knowledge filtered down to the mob, who cheered the danish king whithersoever he went. perhaps they lent, such was the depravity of the age, an additional zest to the cheers. even queen matilda, left behind in far-off denmark, heard from london of her husband's transgressions. it is said that she wrote to her aunt, the princess amelia: "i wish the king's travels had the same laudable object as those of cyrus, but i hear that his majesty's chief companions are musicians, fiddlers, and persons designed for inglorious employments. what a wretched levee! and his evening amusements are said to be still more disgraceful. his delicacy and sentiment cannot be supposed to dignify these fleeting gratifications. if i had not experienced his fickleness and levity at home, i could not have heard, without emotion and disquietude, of his infidelities abroad."[ ] [ ] _memoirs of an unfortunate queen._ having said this much in condemnation of christian vii. in england, it is only fair to turn the other side of the shield, and record one or two anecdotes of him which may have accounted, to some extent, for his undoubted popularity. one day he saw a poor tradesman seized in his shop by two bailiffs, who thrust him into a hackney coach, despite the lamentations of his weeping wife and family, and drove off to the marshalsea. the king commanded count moltke to follow the coach and find out all particulars. moltke reported that the unlucky man had contracted a debt in the course of his business, and had been charged exorbitant interest. the king paid the debt, set the man free from prison, and gave him five hundred dollars to start anew. this was only one instance of several exhibitions of generosity, for he gave away considerable sums to liberate poor debtors from the marshalsea and fleet. christian had also a habit of scattering money among the crowd, which would account for many cheers--though money was scarce in denmark its king had always plenty to throw away on his travels. one day when christian stepped out of his coach to enter st. james's palace, a fine buxom girl, who formed one of the little crowd that always assembled to witness the king's goings out and comings in, burst through the line, caught the king in her arms, and, fairly lifting him off the ground, kissed him heartily. "now," said she, "kill me if you like, i shall die happy, for i have kissed the prettiest fellow in the world." christian, far from being offended, was delighted with this tribute to his charms. he gave the girl a crown and ran laughing up the stairs. but after this incident it was necessary to have a double line of attendants, as other maidens might have been tempted to repeat the experiment, for the king, though so small, was much admired by the ladies of all classes. he was fond of dining in public at st. james's, that is to say, he sat at a table in the middle of the room, and the general public, chiefly women, were admitted to a space at one end, shut off by a rail, whence they could see "the northern scamp" eat his dinner. powdered, painted, patched, perfumed, richly dressed in silk, velvet and lace, and besprinkled with jewels, christian looked like a dresden china figure. the men said he resembled a girl dressed in a man's clothes, but the women adored him. six weeks had passed since the king of denmark's arrival in england, yet he showed no inclination to depart. but the king of england, who had to bear the cost of his maintenance, thought that it was high time for him to return to his queen and country. other hints proving vain, george iii. invited his royal guest to what he pointedly called a "farewell entertainment" at richmond lodge, on september . "a most elegant structure," we read, "was erected, in the centre of which was a large triumphal arch, about forty feet high, of the grecian order, decorated with figures, trophies and other embellishments." the entertainment was equal to the magnificence of the structure, and the fireworks were the finest ever exhibited in england. the road from st. james's palace to richmond lodge, along which christian passed, was illuminated by upwards of fifteen thousand italian lamps. the danish king accepted this "farewell entertainment," but still showed no signs of saying farewell. the princess-dowager of wales, therefore, by way of speeding the parting guest, gave a supper party on october , to bid him good-bye. it consisted of three tables, one for their majesties and the princess-dowager, a second for the king of denmark and fifty of the nobility, and a third for the prince of wales (afterwards george iv., then a boy of six years old) and his attendants. the supper party accomplished the object for which it was given, and christian vii. named the much-wished-for day of his departure, which, however, was not for another fortnight. on october the king of denmark gave a masquerade ball to his english friends, who had entertained him so lavishly. the ball took place at the opera house in the haymarket, and two thousand five hundred guests responded to the "royal dane's" invitation. queen charlotte did not appear, she did not approve of masquerades; her virtuous husband also did not approve of them, but could not resist the temptation of being present, though he compromised with his conscience by peeping at the gay scene from a private box, behind transparent shutters. the princess amelia, who was old and infirm, witnessed the revels from another box, where she sat the whole evening masked. the scene was one of great brilliancy, and the value of the jewels worn on this occasion was estimated at upwards of £ , , . the company must have been rather mixed, and a good many people lost articles of jewellery, which they never recovered. the following account of the ball is taken from the _gentleman's magazine_:-- [illustration: the masked ball given by christian vii. at the opera house, haymarket. _from the "gentleman's magazine," ._] "his danish majesty came in, masked, between ten and eleven o'clock, dressed in a domino of gold and silver stuff, a black hat and white feather, walked about with great good nature and pleasantry until twelve, then withdrew with a select company to supper and appeared no more.... the duke of cumberland was in a crimson domino, trimmed with gold, black hat and white feather. the duke of gloucester in a purple domino, white hat and white feather. her grace the duchess of northumberland appeared in the character of rembrandt's wife, in a close black gown trimmed with gold, a rounded coif, a short apron tucked up, and a painter's brush in her hand. lady bel stanhope and her sister represented pilgrims in brown gowns with blue sashes trimmed with silver, and small hats laced round with diamonds. the countess of harrington and the two young ladies, her daughters, were extremely simple in their appearance, but at the same time extremely elegant.... his grace the duke of northumberland was in a persian habit, with a fine turban richly ornamented with diamonds. lord grosvenor was in a splendid suit of the turkish fashion. the duchess of ancaster, in the character of a sultana, was universally admired; her robe was purple satin bordered with ermine, and fluttered on the ground so much in the style of eastern magnificence that we were transported in fancy to the palaces of constantinople.... many of the most superb, as well as the best fancied dresses in the whole assembly were those of eminent citizens, or those who had acquired their fortunes by trade." another account says: "the principal grotesque characters were the conjurer, the black, and the old woman. there was also a methodist preacher, a chimney sweeper, with his bag, shovel and scraper, and a boar with a bull's head, all of which were supported with great good humour."[ ] [ ] _the annual register._ two days after the masquerade the king of denmark held a levee at st. james's palace, at which a large company attended to take leave of him. the following day he went to queen's house to say farewell to the king and queen, and to carlton house to wish the princess-dowager good-bye. christian made several valuable presents before his departure, but the most notable was a gold box studded with diamonds which he gave to garrick, the great actor, and begged him to receive it as a small token of the regard he had for his genius. the king of denmark posted to dover on october , and on his way thither he broke the journey at chatham and went up the medway on h.m.s. _victory_, and inspected the british fleet. it chanced that the young officer who commanded the _victory_ was gambier, who forty years later, in , was the admiral commanding the english fleet that bombarded copenhagen. the following day the king of denmark left england, after a stay of more than two months, and sailed for france. * * * * * christian vii. went to paris where he remained for some time as the guest of the french king, louis xv. it would not be germane to this history to give a detailed account of the king of denmark's experiences in paris. he was splendidly entertained by the king and the french nobility, and welcomed on all his public appearances with enthusiasm. his private amusements were of the same nature as those he had followed in london. if it had been possible to corrupt christian's morals more than they were corrupted his experiences in paris would have done it. france was then slowly going down the steps that led to the revolution. the heartlessness, extravagance and immorality of the nobility stood in fearful contrast to the brutality, misery and ignorance of the people. already could be heard the mutterings of the coming storm, but the danish king had no eyes to see, nor ears to hear, nor mind to understand anything beyond the amusements of the passing hour. chapter xi. the prodigal's return. . on january christian vii. returned to copenhagen after an absence of nearly eight months. queen matilda drove out to meet him, and husband and wife exchanged affectionate greetings. together they entered copenhagen, amid the firing of cannon, ringing of bells, and the joyful acclamations of the people. the english envoy gives the following account of the entry: "the queen went as far as röskilde to meet his majesty, which strong mark of her affection and regard could not fail of affording him the highest satisfaction. between six and seven o'clock their majesties made a public entry into this capital, under a triple discharge of the cannon on the ramparts. the whole garrison, as well as the burghers, were under arms, and permission having been given a few days before to illuminate the houses, the inhabitants vied with each other in doing this, as well as the short notice would admit of, and in demonstrating their joy in every other manner they could. the foreign ministers, nobility, etc., attended at the palace of christiansborg in order to pay their compliments upon this happy occasion, which the king was pleased to receive, after he had made a short visit to the dowager-queens."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, january , . thus did denmark welcome home her prodigal son. queen matilda had spent the greater part of the time since the king left her at frederiksborg,[ ] some twenty miles from copenhagen. frederiksborg was the most magnificent of the country palaces of the danish king, and has well been called the "versailles of denmark". it stands to this day, and the site is one of the most picturesque in europe; the buildings cover three islands in a lake, connected by bridges, the palace proper occupying the third island. the exterior is rich in florid ornamentation, carried out in a warm sandstone, which admirably harmonises with the time-stained brick of which the palace is built. the windows look across the green water of the lake--a vivid green nowhere seen as at frederiksborg--to the gardens, laid out in the old french style, with straight walks and terraces, and clipped hedges of beech and hornbeam. the most magnificent room in frederiksborg is the knights' hall, and below it is the church, where the kings of the oldenburg line were once wont to be crowned. this church is the most ornate of any in denmark; everywhere is colour--in the traceried windows and frescoed walls, in the inlaid ivory work of the stalls, the pulpit of ebony and embossed silver, and the purple-vested altar with its golden crucifix. in short, frederiksborg is a magnificent specimen of the danish renaissance, and brings vividly before us the life, the colour and richness which characterised the court life of mediæval denmark. [ ] frederiksborg was built early in the seventeenth century by christian iv. on the site of an old building, and was used as a residence by the kings of denmark until (frederick vii. usually resided there), when a large part of the building was destroyed by fire. thanks to the munificence of the king, the government and the public, and especially to herr j. c. jacobsen, a wealthy brewer, who contributed a large sum, the palace has been admirably restored, and the interior is now fitted up as a national historical museum. the contents, which include many works of art, illustrating events in danish history, are not so interesting as one might suppose, but the visitor to frederiksborg is well repaid by the beauty of its exterior, the magnificence of its chapel, where the work of restoration has been admirably done, and by the old-world charm of its gardens. at frederiksborg matilda spent the summer and autumn months of alone. she occupied herself for the most part in works of charity, and strove to forget her own sorrows in relieving those of others. there was no philanthropic institution in the kingdom which she did not support, and in her immediate neighbourhood her name became a household word for many acts of kindness and benevolence. the young queen went in and out among the poor of the adjacent village of hilleröd, visiting the sick and helping the needy. the fame of her good deeds spread abroad, and the poor throughout denmark, even thousands to whom she was only a name, came to look upon her as a protectress and a friend. they believed that the golden days of good queen louise had come back again. "the english," they said, "send us not queens, but angels." for the rest, matilda lived in great retirement. occasionally she received visits of ceremony from the dowager-queens, from sophia magdalena, who lived at hirschholm, or from juliana maria, who lived at fredensborg. the masked hostility of juliana maria continued unabated, but the extreme circumspection of the young queen's conduct gave no occasion for cavil. except the dowager-queens she saw no one beyond her immediate household, and though most of these had been forced upon her against her will, yet after the first restraint wore off she showed to them no resentment. her kindness and consideration won all their hearts, with one exception--that of fräulein von eyben, who, though pretending to be devoted to her mistress, was secretly working against her. matilda took no part in state affairs during the king's absence, not even in ceremonial duties. taking their cue from the king, the ministers who had been left to conduct the business of the state while he was abroad, treated the queen as a person of little importance, and even neglected to pay her the ordinary visits of ceremony. since madame de plessen had left the court matilda had no one to whom she could talk freely, nor, except her sister augusta of brunswick, had she any one to whom she could write without restraint. augusta had her own troubles too, but she kept a warm corner in her heart for her youngest sister, and throughout life remained her truest and staunchest friend. but, at best, letter-writing is a poor substitute for personal converse, and at this time matilda was much alone. the young queen must have often felt friendless and depressed as she paced the terraces of frederiksborg or looked down from the windows of her apartments into the green water which lapped the castle walls, or gazed out on the clear northern night, and watched the moonlight play on the towers and pinnacles of the palace. sometimes of a morning she would wander forth to the beech woods beyond the gardens. these beeches, mighty with age, are now, as they were then, one of the features of frederiksborg. they are always beautiful--beautiful in spring, with their satin-smooth trunks, and branches still leafless, but tipped with brown spikes flushed with purple, and already bursting to disclose the woolly buds of silver within; beautiful in summer, when the pale green leaves form a shimmering canopy overhead; beautiful when the golden hues of autumn mingle with the russet-brown of the cones; beautiful even in winter, when the leafless branches stretch like lacework against the leaden hues of the sky, and the shrill winds from the baltic whistle through them, and the ground beneath is carpeted with husks of their lavish fruit. matilda grew to love these beech woods greatly, and even to-day they are associated with her name. the queen had one consolation in her loneliness which was not hers when she came to denmark-- she had her son, and found much happiness in him, for the maternal instinct was always strong in her. she could no longer feel a stranger and an alien in a country over which her son would, under providence, one day rule; she was not merely the king's wife, but the mother of the future king of denmark. the crown prince was at first sickly and ailing, but when the queen went to frederiksborg, in defiance of court etiquette, she took the infant under her immediate care, and kept him with her as much as possible. during the summer, under his mother's watchful love, the little prince, whose life was so precious to the danish nation, grew much stronger. the english envoy mentions an audience he had with the queen at frederiksborg soon after her arrival there, and adds: "the prince royal, whom her majesty was pleased to allow me to see, is greatly grown since his removal to the country. the resemblance between his highness and the king's (our royal master's) family is striking to all those who have had the honour of seeing him."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, july , . [illustration: the palace of frederiksborg, from the garden terrace. _from an engraving, temp. ._] the only ceremonial the queen attended, in the absence of christian vii., was the inauguration of an equestrian statue of the late king frederick v. at copenhagen in the late autumn. shortly after this function matilda removed from the country to the christiansborg palace, and there awaited the king, who did not return until two months later than he at first intended. matilda had now determined to make the best of her husband, notwithstanding the reports which had reached her of his dissipation in london and paris. he was the father of her child, and her interests were bound up with his. the future happiness of her son, and the prosperity of his kingdom, largely depended on christian vii. it was clearly the queen's duty to put aside her own grievances, however great they might be, and make an effort to guide the king in the right way. therefore she welcomed him home as affectionately as if no cloud had dimmed their parting eight months before. the king was surprised and delighted at the change which had taken place in his queen's appearance and demeanour. the restful and healthy life she had led at frederiksborg had added greatly to her charm, her figure had developed and her spirits improved. christian had left matilda an unformed girl, he came back to find her a beautiful and self-possessed woman. his wayward fancy was pleased, and soon the _mot_ ran round the palace that the king had actually fallen in love with his own wife. he might well have done so, for she was by far the most beautiful woman at his court. there is a portrait of queen matilda in the rosenborg at copenhagen, painted about this time, when she was in her eighteenth year. it represents her in the full bloom of her beauty. the face is a pure oval, the brow lofty and serene, the nose delicately chiselled, the lips full and red, the large eyes of a peculiar shade of light blue, the expression a combination of youthful dignity and sweet archness. her hair is dressed high, and powdered after the fashion of the time; she wears a blue robe, with a narrow edge of ermine to betoken her queenly rank, and round her finely-moulded throat is a close necklace of pearls. even if we make allowance for courtly flattery, the picture remains that of a woman of rare loveliness and indescribable charm. though her heart was untouched, matilda was no doubt flattered by her husband's attentions, and she honestly tried to meet his advances half way. acting on the advice of her mother, her sister, and of all who wished her well, she strove to please him, and in her desire to hold his fickle favour, she even overlooked the fact that the hated holck was still in the ascendant. perhaps she thought, by fair words and guile, to undermine his ascendency. her efforts, if they did not add to her own happiness, at least conduced to the outward harmony of the royal pair, and were coincident with a marked improvement in christian's mode of life. for the first few months after the king's return this improvement was maintained; the nocturnal expeditions, which had so scandalised the citizens of copenhagen, were now entirely given up; there were no masquerades, and the court became quite decorous. formerly the dinner used to be rushed through for the king to hurry off to his apartments and occupy himself in unworthy pursuits. now the king and queen dined in public nearly every day, and with much ceremony. the leading ministers, the foreign envoys, and all who distinguished themselves in the service of church or state, were in turn honoured with invitations, and the conversation at the dinner table became almost intellectual. yet the court did not grow dull; cotillons and minuets were often danced in the palace, and the opening of the theatre for the season afforded much interest and amusement. the centre of all this pleasant society was the young queen, the praises of whose beauty and amiability were on every tongue. moreover, always accompanied by the queen, the king reviewed the fleet, inspected the docks and fortifications of copenhagen, and visited learned and scientific institutions with the object of comparing them with those he had seen abroad. the king also again endeavoured to interest himself in affairs of state, attended councils and criticised many details of administration. this remarkable change delighted alike the king's ministers and his subjects, and they ascribed the improvement quite as much to the influence of the queen as to the result of his travels. the queen, it seemed at this time, was likely to become a power in the state. the english envoy writes home:-- "your lordship (the earl of rochford) has been already acquainted with the change that appeared in his danish majesty. those amusements in which he used to take delight no longer afford him any. the society of the queen seems alone to constitute his happiness. her majesty will now, no doubt, obtain that just and proper degree of influence, which her numberless amiable qualities entitle her to, and which she would have much earlier enjoyed, had not the happy effect of it been too much apprehended by some who did not expect to find their account in it."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, february , . impressed, no doubt, by the warmth of his welcome in england, the king of denmark was now strongly english in his sentiments. he talked much about his english mother, and delighted to honour anything which had to do, even remotely, with england. for instance, he sent the order of the elephant to prince george of mecklenburg-strelitz, the youngest brother of queen charlotte; he despatched a pressing invitation to the duke of gloucester to visit copenhagen, and he resolved to celebrate queen matilda's birthday with all possible ceremony, not only as a mark of her new-found favour in his eyes, but also because he wished to pay a compliment, through her, to the royal house of england. the duke of gloucester duly arrived at copenhagen to take part in the celebration of his sister's birthday. he was the first of her family whom matilda had seen since she left home, and she received him with demonstrations of joy. gunning writes: "their mutual joy and satisfaction on this occasion was greater than can be expressed".[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, july , . william henry, duke of gloucester, was in his twenty-sixth year at the time of his visit to copenhagen. he was the least intelligent of the numerous family of frederick prince of wales, but he had some sterling qualities, which made him resemble, more than the other sons, his eldest brother george iii. if he lacked the wit and brilliancy of the duke of york, he did not possess the vices and follies of the duke of cumberland. as a boy he was dull and heavy-witted, and the princess-dowager cared for him the least of all her children. according to walpole she used to treat him with severity, and then accuse him of sulking. "no," said the duke, on one occasion, "i am not sulking, i am only thinking." "and pray, of what are you thinking?" asked his mother with scorn. "i am thinking that if ever i have a son, i will not make him as unhappy as you make me." the duke of gloucester grew up a silent, reserved man, and shortly after attaining his majority, he became enamoured of maria, dowager-countess waldegrave. his passion was the more violent, because of the way his affections had been stunted in his youth, and the obstacles to the attainment of his desire only served to quicken his ardour. the obstacles were considerable, for the dowager-countess waldegrave, in consequence of a stain upon her birth,[ ] was hardly a meet woman for the king's brother to take to wife, and, on the other hand, as she told him, she was too considerable a person to become his mistress. she was a young, rich and beautiful widow of spotless reputation and boundless ambition. many suitors were at her feet, among them the duke of portland, the best match in england, yet by some strange perversity lady waldegrave rejected them all, and engaged in a dalliance with the unattractive duke of gloucester. the duke's wooing was long and unsatisfactory; the king and the princess-dowager did their utmost to break off the affair, the friends of lady waldegrave remonstrated, and counselled prudence. but threats, advice and warnings were all in vain, and at last the duke of gloucester and lady waldegrave were secretly married in september, , in the drawing-room of lady waldegrave's town house, by her domestic chaplain. the secret was jealously guarded; some declared that the young couple were married, others, less charitable, that they ought to be, but the duke and his duchess let them gossip as they would. the duke was always with lady waldegrave in public, and his manner to her was exactly the manner a man would treat his honoured wife. the livery worn by her servants was a compromise between that of the royal family and her own. but the marriage was not declared, and at the time the duke of gloucester came to copenhagen there seemed no probability that it ever would be.[ ] [ ] the dowager-countess waldegrave was the illegitimate daughter of sir edward walpole (brother of horace walpole), by mary clement, a milliner's apprentice. she was the second and the most beautiful of three beautiful daughters, laura, maria and charlotte. it was said that after the birth of her children, edward walpole intended to marry mary clement, but she died suddenly, and his honourable intentions were too late. he, however, took the children, acknowledged them, and gave them every advantage of wealth and education. when they grew up, though their birth prevented presentation at court, they were successfully launched into the best society. all three made brilliant marriages. laura married the rev. the hon. frederick keppel, brother of the earl of albemarle, who subsequently became bishop of exeter; charlotte, lord huntingtower, afterwards fifth earl of dysart, and maria, earl waldegrave. lord waldegrave died a few years after the marriage, leaving his widow three daughters and a large fortune. [ ] the marriage was not declared until , when, in consequence of a bill having been brought into parliament to regulate royal marriages, the duke publicly acknowledged lady waldegrave as his wife. the king was highly incensed, and queen charlotte even more so. they refused to receive the duchess at court, though the king had to acknowledge the marriage as legal; consequently the duke and duchess went to italy, where they remained for some time. in they returned to england with their two children, prince william henry and the princess sophia. their conduct was so irreproachable that a reconciliation took place between the duke and the king, and the duchess of gloucester and her children were duly acknowledged. prince william henry of gloucester eventually married his cousin, princess mary, daughter of george iii. the duke of gloucester was received with every mark of respect, and his visit to copenhagen was a continual round of festivity. there was a grand review of the troops in his honour, and a gala performance at the court theatre. one day the king and queen and the duke made an excursion to the ancient castle kronborg at elsinore, and were entertained by the commandant of the fortress. the queen-mother, sophia magdalena, gave a _déjeuner_ to the english prince at hirschholm and count otto moltke gave a ball. the queen's birthday festivities are described by the english envoy:-- "saturday, july , was the anniversary of the queen's birthday, which not having been observed since her majesty's arrival in these dominions, by reason of the king of denmark's absence, his majesty was determined to celebrate it now with as much magnificence as possible. the court testified its joy on this occasion by a very numerous and brilliant appearance.... in the evening followed a succession of new entertainments at the court theatre, designed and executed purposely in honour of her majesty, and the day's festivity was closed with a great supper at the king's table. on monday began the second act of this celebration. at six o'clock in the evening his majesty and the noblemen who performed a part in the carousal,[ ] richly habited in turkish dresses, and upon horses finely caparisoned, set out in grand procession through the city, attended by the horse guards and by a large band of martial music; at seven the procession returned to the great area of the palace, and as soon as the noblemen, appointed judges, had taken their seats, the exhibition began. one quadrille was led by the king, the other by count ahlfeld, governor of the city. the whole ceremony was very magnificent, and performed with the utmost address and good order, in the presence of her danish majesty, the queen-mother, sophia magdalena, his royal highness the duke of gloucester, the whole court, and several thousand spectators. the performance concluded soon after nine, and was succeeded by an elegant supper and ball. the court returns this evening to frederiksberg, where there is a grand firework to be played off; the whole gardens are to be illuminated, and, after a magnificent supper in a large building erected for that purpose, a masquerade ball is intended, to which two thousand persons are to be admitted."[ ] [ ] the carousal was a musical ride which the king and the courtiers had been rehearsing in the riding school for weeks beforehand. _vide_ gunning's despatch, april , . [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, july , . the duke of gloucester left copenhagen a few days after the queen's birthday, and returned to england. though christian had prepared all these festivities in his brother-in-law's honour, he did not hesitate to exercise his wit at the expense of his guest. the duke was silent and dull, and his lack of conversation was made a subject of ridicule by the garrulous king. one day christian asked holck what he thought of the duke, and the favourite replied: "he reminds me of an english ox!" the duke was very stout for his age, and had a broad red face and large ruminating eyes. the king laughed at holck's witticism, and maliciously repeated it to the queen, who was incensed at the impertinence. if the truth must be told, the english prince did not appear in the most favourable light at the danish court. he stared and said little, and chiefly distinguished himself by his enormous appetite. when her brother left copenhagen the queen found herself once more alone. his visit had been to a great extent a disappointment to her, for he had little in common with his sister, and not much sympathy for her in her troubles. these, as time went on, grew from bad to worse. despite all her efforts holck continued in the ascendant, and his influence was wholly against the queen. he was known throughout denmark as the man whom the king delighted to honour, and even matilda was forced to show public marks of favour to the man whom she considered her worst enemy. for instance, in september she was compelled by the king to attend holck's wedding to a daughter of count laurvig, "an honour," to quote the english envoy, "never before conferred in this kingdom upon any subject when the ceremony was performed out of the palace; but indeed the whole of this had more the appearance of the nuptials of a prince of the blood than those of a private person, the king having conveyed count holck in his majesty's chariot, at the same time giving him the right hand from frederiksberg to copenhagen, the queen and all the court following".[ ] holck's marriage made no difference to his mode of life, and christian's infatuation for his favourite continued as great as before. mounted couriers tore along the road between the blaagaard, where holck lived, and the king's palace at all hours of the day and night, and on one occasion two horses were killed in the wild haste with which the horseman rode to convey the king's message to his favourite. [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, september , . [illustration: william henry, duke of gloucester, brother of queen matilda. _from the painting by h. w. hamilton, ._] nine months had passed since christian's return from abroad, and it was at last seen by his subjects that the hopes they had formed of their king's reformation were doomed to disappointment. the costly experiment of foreign travel had proved a failure. true, he no longer scandalised his people with riots in the streets, or his court with shameless disregard of morality, for his strength was no longer equal to such exhibitions. the incessant round of dissipation in london and paris had shattered an already enfeebled constitution. the king's tendency to melancholia became more marked every day, and symptoms of the dread malady which before long overtook him began to make themselves apparent. his delusions as to his prowess became more frequent, and he showed strange aberrations of intellect. he was a mental and physical wreck. in october, , queen matilda fell ill. her illness was the crowning indignity and proved the limit of her long-suffering endurance. with it also came to an end the efforts she had bravely made since the king's return to do her duty to her husband, and lead him to higher things. this was the turning-point of matilda's life, and explains, if it does not excuse, much that followed after. she threw down her arms. insulted and degraded, it is no wonder that the young wife of eighteen was filled with a disgust of life. the remonstrances of her physicians were unavailing, she turned her face to the wall and prayed for death. the queen's condition was so serious that the english envoy thought it necessary to write home the following diplomatically worded despatch:-- "i am extremely sorry to acquaint your lordship that the state of the queen of denmark's health has lately presented some very unfavourable symptoms; which have given such apprehensions to her physicians, as to make them think that a perfect re-establishment may be attended with some difficulty, unless her majesty can be persuaded to pay unusual attention to herself. i am so thoroughly sensible how deeply it would affect the king [george iii.] to receive information of a still more alarming nature, and so anxious to prevent it, that i cannot help desiring your lordship to represent to his majesty that, though there appears no immediate danger, yet the situation the queen of denmark is at present in is too critical not to make it highly necessary to obviate worse symptoms, and as this happy effect depends very much upon her majesty's own care, i believe she would be wrought upon by nothing more successfully than by some affectionate expostulations from the king, upon the very great importance of her life."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, november , . it was at this critical moment, when her whole being was in passionate revolt, when she was disgusted with her environment, and weary of life, that matilda's evil genius appeared upon the scene in the guise of a deliverer. this was the king's physician--john frederick struensee. chapter xii. struensee. - . john frederick struensee was born at halle, an old town in northern germany, on august , . his father, adam struensee, was a zealous lutheran minister; his mother was the daughter of a doctor named carl, a clever man, much given to mysticism, who had been physician-in-ordinary to king christian vi. of denmark. the struensee family was of obscure origin. the first struensee of whom anything is known began life under a different name. he was a pilot at lubeck, and during a terrible storm, in which no other man dared venture out to sea, he brought into port a richly laden vessel. in honour of his courageous deed he received from the corporation of lubeck the name of strouvensee, which means a dark, stormy sea--a fit emblem of his descendant's troubled career. john frederick struensee received his early education at the grammar school of his native town. it was not a good education, for the masters were imperfectly educated themselves, but the boy was so extraordinarily precocious, and had such a thirst for knowledge, that he soon absorbed all that his tutors could teach him, and began to educate himself. the wave of mysticism was then passing over northern germany, and struensee's teachers were infected with it, and no doubt communicated their views to their pupil, for struensee was all his life something of a mystic, or, to speak more correctly, a fatalist. despite the orthodox protestantism of his parents, the younger struensee's eager and inquiring mind had always an inclination to scepticism, and before he had attained man's estate he was already a freethinker on most matters of religion. he seems always to have retained a belief in god, or a first cause, but he never had the conviction that man enjoyed a future life: he held that his existence was bounded by this life, and always acted on that assumption. side by side with the mysticism which was permeating northern germany there existed a religious revival. the theory of conversion, whereby a man was suddenly and miraculously converted from his evil ways and made sure of future salvation, was peculiarly acceptable to many, and amongst struensee's companions were youths of notoriously loose morals who declared that they had suddenly "found salvation". as this declaration was not always accompanied by a corresponding change of life, struensee hastily and unjustly came to the conclusion that all religion was little more than an organised hypocrisy. his father's long sermons, to which he was compelled to listen sunday after sunday, left no impression on his heart, and his sire's private exhortations to his son to change his life, and flee from the wrath to come, wearied him. his mother, who had inherited her father's mystical views, and supplemented them with her husband's hard and uncompromising evangelicalism, also lectured her son until the limits of his patience were exhausted, and he resolved as soon as possible to quit a home where he was unhappy. struensee exhibited remarkable abilities at an early age; he matriculated at the university of halle in his fourteenth year, and he had not completed his twentieth when he received the degree of doctor. notwithstanding these academic distinctions, he was unable at first to earn money, and his means were so limited that he was forced to remain, an unwilling dweller, in the house of his parents. even at that early age his enterprising and restless mind and his unbridled ambition began to make themselves manifest; his academic successes he considered merely as steps towards further greatness. his father used to warn him against worldly ambition and intellectual pride, but his exhortations fell on deaf ears. in , when struensee was twenty years old, his father received "a call" to become chief preacher of the principal church of altona, a city situated on the northern bank of the elbe, within the kingdom of denmark. this change in the family fortunes was destined to exercise a material influence on struensee's future. the young doctor accompanied his father to altona, and in a few months was appointed town physician, and country physician of the adjacent lordship of pinneberg and the county of rantzau. the elder struensee did not remain long at altona, for the fervour of his eloquence soon brought him preferment, and he was appointed by the danish government superintendent-general of the clergy of the duchy of holstein, an office equivalent, in influence and importance, to that of bishop. left to himself, the young doctor bought a house in altona, and set up his own establishment. he entertained freely some of the principal people in altona. struensee was a pleasant host and clever conversationalist, and early gave evidence of those social qualities which afterwards proved useful to him. but his polish was superficial, and concealed his natural roughness and lack of refinement. he would do anything to gain notoriety, and to this end affected the bizarre; for instance, he had two skeletons with candles in their hands placed one on either side of his bed, and by the light of these weird candelabra he read himself to sleep. as struensee's establishment was expensive and his means limited, he invited a literary man named penning to live with him and share expenses. in the two started a magazine called _the monthly journal of instruction and amusement_. the magazine was not a financial success, and at the end of six months ceased to exist. it did not contain anything very wonderful; perhaps the most remarkable article was one headed "thoughts of a surgeon about the causes of depopulation in a given country," which was written by struensee, and contained ideas on population which he afterwards put in practice. struensee also published some medico-scientific treatises, but nothing of any great merit. he did not distinguish himself as a writer, but he was without doubt a widely read man; his favourite author was voltaire, and next to him he placed rousseau. he was also much influenced by the writings of helvetius. struensee was a deep, if not always an original, thinker, and his ideas generally were in advance of his time. in altona struensee soon won a reputation as a successful doctor, and his handsome person and agreeable manners made him very popular, especially with women. the good-looking young physician gained through his lady patients (and it was his boast that women were his best friends) access to the best houses in, and around, altona. he made the acquaintance of count schack karl rantzau, the eldest son of count rantzau-ascheberg, one of the most considerable noblemen in holstein, the owner of vast estates, a danish privy councillor, and a count of the holy roman empire. of count schack karl rantzau we shall have occasion to write at length later; suffice it here to say that he was already middle-aged when struensee met him, and had led a wild and disreputable life. struensee was useful to him in no creditable way, and before long the two became very intimate. they made an informal covenant that if either attained power he should help the other. but at present nothing seemed more unlikely, and rantzau gave struensee only promises and flattery, which, however, were enough, for the young doctor was very vain, and moreover exceedingly fond of the society of titled and highly placed personages. struensee also visited the house of the baron söhlenthal, who was the stepfather of enevold brandt, and thus became acquainted with christian vii.'s one-time favourite. struensee had also attended, in a professional capacity, madame von berkentin, who was later appointed chief lady to the crown prince frederick; and it was at her house that he said, half in jest and half in earnest: "if my lady patronesses will only contrive to get me to copenhagen, then i will carry all before me". but for a long time he remained at altona and all these fine acquaintances had no other effect than making his scale of living much higher than his circumstances warranted. he became considerably in debt, and this, added to dislike of his calling, for his ambition soared high above the position of a country doctor, made him restless and discontented. he was on the point of resigning his post, and taking a voyage to malaga and the east indies, partly to escape his difficulties, partly on account of his health, when a very different prospect revealed itself to him. the night is darkest before the dawn, and dark though struensee's fortunes were at this moment, the gloom soon vanished in the dawn of a golden future. christian vii., with a numerous suite, was then passing through holstein, preparatory to starting on his prolonged tour in england and france. the king's health was far from strong, and it was necessary that he should have a physician to accompany him on his travels; for this purpose a young and active man who could adapt himself readily to the king's eccentricities was preferable to the older and staider court physicians, who indeed showed no inclination to undertake the task. struensee strained every nerve to obtain the post, and was strongly recommended by rantzau and madame von berkentin. the king had heard of the young physician of altona through brandt, before the latter had fallen into disgrace. holck also knew something of him, and said that he would serve. as holck's slightest recommendation carried weight with the king, struensee obtained the coveted post, and was appointed travelling physician. on june , , he joined the king's suite near hamburg, and entered at once upon his duties. struensee at first did not occupy a prominent place in the king's suite. his profession of itself did not entitle him to be a member of the first three classes who were received at court. his position was a middle one, between the lackeys and those members of the king's suite who ranked as gentlemen, and it must have been uncomfortable. some little difficulty arose as to with whom he should travel, but he was finally given a seat in the coach of bernstorff's secretary. struensee was not a man to be content to remain long in an anomalous position, and he proceeded, very cautiously at first, to make his situation better. as the king's physician he had unique opportunities, and made the most of them. christian was a hypochondriac, who imagined himself ill when he was not, and often made himself really ill from his excesses; he loved to talk about his ailments, and struensee listened with sympathetic deference. the king, who was always wanting to be amused, found the doctor a pleasant companion. he discovered that he could talk on a great many matters besides his profession, that he was widely read, and had a considerable knowledge of philosophy and french literature, in which christian was genuinely interested. he supplied a void which could not be filled by holck, who cared nothing for literature or abstruse speculations, and whose tastes were purely material. the king's suite soon began to remark the pleasure which the king took in conversing with his doctor, but struensee was so modest, so anxious to please every one, that he did not arouse feelings of jealousy. he was especially careful to avoid political discussions, and never made the slightest allusion to affairs at home. he was also very discreet, and never spoke about his royal master, or his ailments, or made any allusion to the escapades in which the king and his favourites indulged. so far did struensee carry this caution, that during the king's tour he rarely wrote home to his parents and friends, and when he did, he restricted himself to indifferent topics. his father thought this apparent forgetfulness was because his son had lost his head in consequence of his good fortune. "i knew," he said to a friend, "that john would not be able to bear the favour of his monarch." but struensee had intuitively learned the lesson that the word written over the gateway of all kings' palaces is "silence!" his position, though pleasant, was precarious; he was only the travelling physician, and his appointment would come to an end when the king returned home. it was struensee's object to change this temporary appointment into a permanent one, and from the first moment he entered the king's service he kept this end steadily in view. struensee had another characteristic, which in the end proved fatal to him, but which at first helped him with both the king and holck. side by side with his undoubted brain power, there existed a strong vein of sensuality, and he readily lent himself to pandering to the king's weaknesses in this respect. struensee had no sense of morality; he was a law unto himself, and his freethinking views on this and other questions were peculiarly acceptable to his royal master. struensee had a certain measure of success in england, and through the king of denmark's favour, he was invited to many entertainments to which his position would not otherwise have entitled him. his reputation for gallantry was hardly inferior to that of holck. it is stated that struensee fell violently in love with an english lady of beauty and fortune, and his passion was returned. he wore her miniature next his heart, and it was found upon him after his death--but this rests on hearsay. what is certain, during his sojourn in england, is that he received honorary degrees, from the universities of oxford and cambridge; and he took riding lessons at astley's, and became an expert horseman. struensee accompanied the king to paris, and took part in the pleasures of that gay capital. struensee visited the gallery at fontainebleau where queen christina of sweden, after her abdication, had her secretary and favourite monaldeschi murdered, or, as she regarded it, executed. soon after he returned to denmark struensee told his brother that he had been induced to visit the gallery by a dream, in which there appeared before him the vision of an exalted lady whose name he hardly dared to mention. he meant, of course, queen matilda. his brother heard him in ominous silence, and struensee, after waiting some time for an answer, quoted his favourite maxim: "everything is possible". in january, , struensee returned to altona in the king's suite. the place and time had now come for him to take leave of his royal master, and retire once more into the obscurity of a country doctor--a prospect which, after his sojourn at glittering courts, filled him with dismay. but bernstorff and schimmelmann, whose good offices he had assiduously courted during the tour, spoke on his behalf to the king, and christian appointed struensee his surgeon-in-ordinary, with a salary of a thousand dollars a year, and as a mark of his royal esteem gave him a further five hundred dollars. struensee remained at altona for a few weeks after the king had left for copenhagen to sell his house, pay his debts and wind up his affairs. he visited his parents at schleswig to receive their congratulations and take leave of them. his father shook his head doubtfully over his godless son's rapid rise in the world, and his mother warned him against the perils and temptations of the wicked court. but struensee, flushed with his success, was in no mood to listen to their croakings. he believed in himself, and he believed in his destiny. "everything is possible," he said. the desire of his youth was gratified before he had arrived at middle age. he was going to copenhagen, and what was more, to court; the future was in his own hands. struensee arrived at copenhagen in february, , and at first seemed to occupy himself only with his duties as the king's surgeon-in-ordinary. but all the while he was feeling his way, and every week he strengthened his position with the king. it was not long before struensee set himself to undermine the influence of holck. he first frightened the king about the state of his health, and then diplomatically represented to him that the immoderate dissipation, in which he had been in the habit of indulging with holck, was bad for him, and should be avoided. struensee did not take a high moral ground; on the contrary, he pointed out that greater pleasure might be obtained by moderation than by excess. he also counselled the king to occupy himself with public affairs, and so keep his mind from brooding upon his ailments, and to take outdoor exercise. all this advice was good, and the king followed it with manifest benefit to his health. he stayed less indoors, and drove out frequently, accompanied by the queen, to the chase, until one day the horses got restive and the carriage was overturned, and threw both the king and the queen on the ground. fortunately, they both escaped unhurt, but after this incident christian became nervous and would not hunt any more. in may, , the king was pleased to show his appreciation of struensee by making him an actual councillor of state, which admitted the doctor to the third class, or order of rank,[ ] and thus permitted him to attend the court festivities. during the summer christian's health became more feeble, in consequence of his epileptic seizures, and struensee became resident physician. he made use of this privilege to observe more closely the state of affairs in the royal household, seeking always to turn things to his own benefit. he formed the acquaintance of every member of the household, not despising even the valets, and studied their character and peculiarities. [ ] to the first class belonged the privy councillors of state, the generals and lieutenant-generals, admirals and vice-admirals, and the counts of danneskjold-samsöe (by reason of birth); to the second class the councillors of conference, major-generals and rear-admirals; and to the third, actual councillors of state, colonels and commanders. these three classes only had the right to attend court. struensee found that the conflicting elements at the danish court might be roughly divided into two parties. the party in the ascendant was that of holck, or rather of bernstorff, for holck took no part in politics. but he was supported by the ministers in power, with bernstorff at their head, who made use of his influence with the king. behind bernstorff again was the power and favour of russia. the other party was nominally that of the queen-dowager, juliana maria, and prince frederick, the king's brother. this, owing to the unpopularity of the queen-dowager, was small, and included chiefly malcontents, who were opposed, either to the policy of the government, or to the new order of things at court. it was supported, however, by many of the danish nobility, men of considerable weight and influence in their provinces, and the great body of the clergy, who were a power in the state. in short, it represented the forces of reaction, which had gathered around the queen-mother, sophia magdalena, before she retired from public affairs. it was also supported by french influence which, since the rise of bernstorff, had declined in copenhagen. between these two factions stood the reigning queen. she was neglected by both of them, but, during the spring of , after the king's return, she asserted herself in a way which showed to a shrewd observer like struensee that she would not always submit to be treated as a nonentity. the queen had not yet realised the inherent strength of her position as the wife of the reigning king and the mother of the future one. it was a position which would grow stronger as her husband grew weaker. struensee grasped the situation a few months after his arrival in copenhagen, and with sublime audacity resolved to turn it to his advantage. neither of the existing parties in the state would ever be likely to give him what he most desired--political power. the party of bernstorff would help him in little things. if the doctor proved useful to them with the king, he would be rewarded with money, a higher place at court, a decoration, possibly a title. but that would be all. the reactionary party of juliana maria would not do so much; they might employ him in their intrigues, but the haughty danish nobility, who formed its backbone, would never admit a german doctor of obscure birth to terms of equality. but struensee's soaring ambition knew no bounds. he determined to win both place and power, and to do this he realised that it was necessary to form a new party--that of the queen. [illustration: struensee. _from an engraving, ._] the material was ready for the moulding. the queen was opposed to the party in power; she hated holck and disliked bernstorff; nor was she any more well-disposed towards the party of juliana maria. matilda was young, beautiful and beloved by the people, who sympathised with her wrongs, and would gladly see her take a more prominent position in the state. no one knew better than struensee, the confidential doctor, that christian vii. would never again be able to exercise direct power. he was a mental and physical wreck, and it was only a question of a year, perhaps only of a few months, before he drifted into imbecility. but in theory, at least, he would still reign, though the government would have to be carried on by others. on whom, then, would the regal authority so properly devolve as upon the queen, the mother of the future king? the ball was at her feet if she would stoop to pick it up. matilda had only to assert herself to be invested with the king's absolute power--power which, since she was a young and inexperienced woman, she would surely delegate to other hands. and here the ambitious adventurer saw his opportunity. there was at first a drawback to struensee's schemes; the queen would have nothing to do with him. matilda was prejudiced against the doctor; he was the king's favourite, and she imagined he was of the same calibre as holck and the rest of christian's favourites--a mere panderer to his vicious follies. shortly after his arrival at copenhagen, before he grasped the situation at court, struensee had made a false step. he had sought to intrigue the king with one madame gabel, a beautiful and clever woman, who was to play the part of his egeria--for the benefit of the doctor. but madame gabel died suddenly and the plot was foiled. the queen had heard of this episode and disliked struensee accordingly. she ignored him, and for nine months after his arrival at court (from february to october, ), he had not the honour of a word with her. but struensee was by no means daunted by the queen's dislike of him; he regarded it as an obstacle in the path of his ambition, which like other obstacles would have to be overcome. he waited for an opportunity to dispel her prejudice, and it came with the queen's illness. matilda had reached the point of despair. the court physicians could do nothing with her, she rejected their remedies and turned a deaf ear to all remonstrances. matters went from bad to worse until the queen's life was thought to be in danger. as we have seen, the english envoy suggested that george iii. should write a private letter of remonstrance to his sister. whether the suggestion was acted upon or not there is no record to tell, but remonstrance came from another quarter. christian vii., who had grown into a liking for his wife, became very much alarmed, and at last, perhaps at struensee's suggestion, commanded that the queen should see his own private physician, in whom he had great confidence. matilda refused; all that she knew of the doctor filled her with suspicion and dislike. but the king insisted, and at last she yielded to his commands, and admitted struensee to her presence. it was the crisis in her destiny. chapter xiii. the tempter. - . a single interview sufficed to break down the queen's prejudice against struensee. his manner was so tactful and deferential; he seemed to be so grieved at her condition, and so anxious to serve her that before he withdrew she was convinced she had misjudged him. he was as skilful as he was sympathetic; the remedies he prescribed took effect almost immediately, and when the doctor again waited on his royal patient he found her better. struensee's visits were repeated daily, and as matilda improved in health she was naturally grateful to the physician who wrought this change. she also became attracted by his tact and courtesy, so different from the treatment she met with from holck and his party. she began to talk to the doctor on general subjects, and discovered that he was an extremely intelligent and well-read man. struensee flattered himself that he had even more knowledge of the human heart--and especially of the heart of woman--than of medicine. he sought to amuse and distract the queen, until she looked forward to his visits with pleasure, and every day gave him longer audience than before. struensee was one of those doctors who find out what their patients like to do, and then advise them to do it, and after several conversations with the queen, he arrived at most of her likes and dislikes. the queen, having been bred in england, was fond of an outdoor life. in denmark at that time ladies of rank never went outside their gates except in a carriage, and for them to ride or walk about the streets was unknown. struensee advised that the queen should set a precedent, and walk and ride when, and where, she pleased. in pursuance of this advice the queen, a few days later, to the astonishment of many, was seen walking briskly about the streets of copenhagen, attended by her ladies. she also rode a great deal, and, though she did not at first appear in public on horseback, she spent hours riding about the park and woods of frederiksborg. matilda much enjoyed her new-found freedom, which made a great flutter in all grades of society in copenhagen. the danish _mercury_ wrote a poem on the subject of the queen walking in the town ending with the lines:-- thanks, matilda, thanks for the discovery, you've taught healthy women to use their legs. struensee also advised the queen that it was bad for her to remain so much alone. she must have amusement, surround herself with cheerful people and join in the court festivities. he hinted that it was advisable for her to take a more prominent part in these ceremonials, not only because of her health, but because it was incumbent upon her position as the reigning queen, which, he added discreetly, some people about the court did not seem to respect as they should do. matilda, who was not very wise, rose to the bait, and before long confided to her physician the mortification and annoyance she suffered from holck and his following. struensee listened sympathetically, and told the queen that though he had not ventured to mention the matter before, he had noticed with amazement and indignation the scant consideration paid to her at her own court. the desire of his heart, he said, was to serve her, and if she would only listen to him, he would improve this state of affairs as surely as he had improved her health. here the doctor obviously stepped outside his province, but the queen, far from rebuking him, encouraged him to proceed. struensee then said deferentially that, since all power and authority came from the king, the queen would be well advised to court his favour. this advice was not so palatable to matilda as the other he had given her, especially at this juncture. she could not forget in a moment how cruelly she had been wronged, and she hesitated. then struensee changed his note and urged the queen's own interest. he spoke to her plainly of the king's failing mental powers, and declared that henceforth he must always be ruled by some one. it were better, therefore, that the queen should rule him than another, for by doing so she would gather the regal power into her own hands and so confound her enemies. the king was anxious to repair the past; it was for the queen to meet him half-way. the queen suspiciously asked the doctor what was his object in striving to mediate between her and the king. struensee replied, with every appearance of frankness, that he was studying his own interests quite as much as those of the king and queen. the king had been pleased to show him especial marks of his favour, and he wished to remain in his present position. he had noticed that all the preceding favourites of the king had striven to promote disunion between christian and his consort, and they had, one after another, fallen out of favour and been banished from court. their fate was a warning to him, and an instinct of self-preservation prompted him to bring about a union between the king and queen, because by so doing he was convinced that he would inevitably strengthen his own position. after some hesitation matilda proceeded to act on this advice also, and, short of admitting the king to intimacy, she sought in every way to please him. the king, also prompted by struensee, responded with alacrity to his wife's overtures, and came to lean upon the queen more and more. before long matilda's influence over her husband became obvious to all. the young queen delighted in the deference and homage which the time-serving courtiers now rendered to her. holck's star was on the wane; he still filled the post of master of the ceremonies, but it was the queen who commanded the revels, and changed, or countermanded, holck's programme as she pleased. struensee was now surely gaining ground. both the king and the queen placed their confidence in him, with the result, as he predicted, that he stood on a firmer footing than any former favourite. the queen gave him audience every day, and the conversations between them became more intimate and more prolonged. there was nothing, however, at first to show that the queen had anything more than a liking for the clever doctor, whose society amused and interested her, and whose zeal in her service was apparently heart-whole. everything so far had succeeded exactly as struensee foretold, and the vision of future happiness and power, which he portrayed in eloquent terms, dazzled the young queen's imagination, while his homage and devotion flattered her vanity. struensee's appearance and manner were such as to impress any woman. he was thirty-two years of age, tall and broad shouldered, and in the full strength of manhood. though not really handsome, he appeared to be so in a dashing way, and he made the most of all his points and dressed with consummate taste. he had light brown hair, flashing eyes, an aquiline nose and a high forehead. he carried himself well, and there was about him a suggestion of reserved strength, both mental and physical. his manner to the queen was a combination of deference and easy assurance, which pleased her mightily. by the end of january, , the queen no longer needed medical advice, but she required struensee's services in other ways, and the more she saw of him the more she became attracted to him. soon a further mark of the royal favour was shown to the doctor, and a handsome suite of rooms was given him in the christiansborg palace. holck was the first to take alarm at the growing influence of the new favourite, and came to regard him as a rival who would ultimately drive him from court. struensee looked upon holck with contempt, and was indifferent whether he went or stayed. but the queen insisted that he must go at the first opportunity, and struensee promised that her wishes should be obeyed in this, as in all things--in a little time. holck confided his fears to bernstorff, warned him that the doctor was playing for high stakes, and advised him to remove struensee from the king's person before it was too late. to the aristocratic bernstorff, however, it seemed impossible that a man of the doctor's birth and antecedents could be any real danger, and he laughed at holck's warning. this is the more surprising, as both the russian and english envoys spoke to the prime minister about the sudden rise of struensee, and advised him to watch it well. the russian minister, filosofow, went further, and presumed to make some remarks to the king on the subject, which christian ignored at the time, but afterwards repeated to struensee and the queen. this interference on the part of filosofow was no new thing. for some years the russian envoy had practically dictated to the danish king whom he should appoint and whom he should dismiss from his service. he even presumed to meddle in the private affairs of the danish court, no doubt at the instigation of his mistress, catherine the great. the danish king and government submitted to this bondage until the treaty was signed, by which russia exchanged her claims on schleswig-holstein for the counties of oldenburg and delmenhorst. as this exchange was eagerly desired by denmark, the mere threat of stopping it threw the king and his ministers into alarm, and made russia mistress of the situation. curiously enough filosofow, who was a very astute diplomatist, did not realise the changed state of affairs, and continued to dictate to the king as before. the haughty russian did not consider struensee to be of any account from a political point of view, but personally he objected to meeting him on terms of equality. he had also, it was said, a grievance against struensee, because he had outrivalled him in the affections of a beautiful lady of the danish court. for some time he fretted at the royal favour shown to the upstart doctor, and at last he showed his contempt for him by a public act of insolence. it chanced in this wise. wishing to conciliate the danish monarch, filosofow gave a splendid entertainment to the king and queen at the russian embassy. it consisted of an italian opera, composed for the occasion, and performed by persons of fashion about the court,[ ] and was followed by a banquet. struensee, who was now invited to the court entertainments, as a member of the third class, was present, and so marked was the favour shown him by the king and queen that he was admitted to the box where the royal personages were. filosofow, in his capacity of host, was also in the box, and he was so much irritated at the presence of the doctor that he showed his disgust by spitting on his coat. struensee, with great self-control, treated the insult as though it were an accident, wiped his coat, and said nothing. filosofow immediately insulted him again in the same way. this time the action was so unmistakable that struensee withdrew from the royal box, and later demanded satisfaction of filosofow. the russian treated the challenge with contempt. he said that in his country an ambassador did not fight a duel with a common doctor, but he would take his revenge in another way, and give him a sound thrashing with his cane. whether he carried out his threat is uncertain, but it is certain that struensee never forgave the insult. the queen also resented the flouting of her favourite, and, despite the attempted mediation of bernstorff, she ignored filosofow at court, and spoke with dislike of him and his mistress, the empress catherine, who, she thought, was responsible for her envoy's meddlesome policy. a few months before it would have mattered little what the queen thought, or did not think, but now her influence with the king was growing every day. [ ] _vide_ gunning's despatch, copenhagen, march , . _ibid._, april , . eventually filosofow had to retire from copenhagen and give place to another, but that was not yet. at this time he again warned bernstorff that his days of power were numbered, unless he forthwith took steps to get struensee removed from court. in this the envoy proved more far-sighted than the minister, for bernstorff still considered it an incredible thing that his position could be seriously threatened. yet within a month of the russian's warning the extraordinary favour which struensee enjoyed with the king and queen was further demonstrated. the small-pox raged in denmark in the spring of this year, , and in copenhagen alone twelve hundred children died of it. struensee advised that the crown prince should be inoculated as a prevention. inoculation had lately been introduced into denmark, and struensee's suggestion was met with a storm of protest from some of the nobility, all the clergy and many of the doctors. despite this struensee carried his point; he inoculated the crown prince and watched over him in the brief illness that followed. matilda herself nursed her son, and would not leave his bedside day or night. her presence in the sick-room threw the queen and the doctor continually together. struensee was justified of his wisdom, for the crown prince not only escaped the small-pox, but soon rallied from the inoculation which it had been freely prophesied would cause his death. the doctor was rewarded with signal marks of the royal favour; he was given the title of conferenzrath, or councillor of conference, which elevated him to the second class, and was appointed reader to the king, _lecteur du roi_, and private secretary to the queen, with a salary of three thousand dollars. ministers were amazed at the sudden elevation of the favourite, and began to ask themselves whither all this was tending. step by step as struensee rose in honour matilda gained in power. it was now apparent to all about the court that the queen, and not the king, was the real ruler of denmark. the queen's ascendency over her consort was so great that he did nothing without her approval. she in turn was guided by struensee; but, whereas the queen's authority was seen by all, struensee's power at this time was only guessed at. his plans were not matured. the prize was within his grasp, but he was careful not to snatch at it too soon lest he should lose it altogether. struensee now accompanied the king and queen wherever they went, and, since his elevation to the second rank, dined at the royal table. bernstorff seems to have thought that these privileges were all that struensee cared about, and given money, a title and social position the doctor would be content, like holck, with the royal favour, and leave politics alone. he little knew that struensee in his heart despised these things; they were to him merely the means to an end, and that end was power. in his pursuit of power struensee swept every consideration aside. honour, duty and gratitude were nothing to him provided he gained his desire. in his belief in his destiny, his great abilities, his soaring ambition and complete heedlessness of every one save himself, this extraordinary man was a type of the _uebermensch_. struensee's treatment of the queen was an example of his utter unscrupulousness. her condition when he came to court would have moved any man to pity. her youth, her beauty and her friendlessness appealed to every sentiment of chivalry. the conditions under which struensee made her acquaintance were the most intimate and delicate. he quickly gained her confidence; she trusted him from the first, and showed her gratitude by heaping favours upon him. everything that came to struensee in the next few years--honour, place and power--he owed to the queen, and to her alone. common gratitude, apart from any other consideration, should have led him to treat her honourably, but from the beginning he was false to her. he who came in the guise of a deliverer was really her evil genius. the young queen was never anything to him but a means to an end. adventurer and intriguer as he was, struensee had marked matilda down as his prey before he was admitted to her presence, and she fell an easy victim to his wiles. he made use of her as a shield, behind which he could work in safety. she was to be the buffer between him and his enemies; she was to be the ladder by which he would rise in power. to this end he tempted her with consummate art. he was first her confidential physician, then her devoted servant, then her friend and counsellor, and then her lover. this last phase was necessary to the success of his plans, and he deliberately lured his victim to her ruin in order that he might gain absolute mastery over her. struensee gradually acquired over the queen an almost mesmeric power, and she became so completely under his influence that she obeyed his wishes like an automaton. but it did not need hypnotism to cause a woman so tempted, so beset on every side as matilda was, to fall. she had inherited from her father an amorous, pleasure-loving nature; she was of a warm, affectionate disposition, which had been driven back on itself by her husband's cruelty and infidelities. now, it was true, the king was anxious to make amends, but it was too late. christian had greatly changed in appearance during the last year. though little over twenty, he already looked like an old man, very thin, with sharp, drawn features and dead-looking eyes. matilda, on the contrary, was in the full flood of womanhood; her blood flowed warmly in her veins, yet she was tied to a husband who, from his excesses, was ruined mentally and physically, and she was tempted by a lover in the full strength of his manhood, a lover who was both ardent and masterful, and whose strength of will broke down all her defences as though they had been built of cards. moreover, her environment was bad--as bad as it could be. the atmosphere of the court was one of undisguised immorality; the marriage tie was openly mocked at and derided. the king had often told her to go her own way and let him go his, and now so far from showing any signs of jealousy, he seemed to take a delight in watching the growth of the intimacy between his wife and the confidential physician. he was always sending struensee to the queen's chamber on some pretext or another, and the more matilda showed her liking for struensee's society the more the king seemed to be pleased. that clever devil, opportunity, was all on struensee's side. the queen had no safeguards against temptation but those which arose from the promptings of her own conscience. that she did not yield without a struggle, that the inward conflict was sharp and bitter, there is evidence to prove. _o keep me innocent, make others great!_ was the pathetic prayer she wrote on the window of the chapel of frederiksborg[ ] at a time, when in the corridors and ante-chambers of the palace struensee was plotting his tortuous intrigues, all of which started from the central point of his relations with the queen. it was he who wished to be great, she who was to make him great, and to this end he demanded the sacrifice of her innocence. the poor young queen knew her peril, but she was like a bird fascinated by a snake. she fluttered a little, helplessly, and then fell. [ ] this window, with the queen's writing cut with a diamond on a pane of glass, was destroyed by the great fire at frederiksborg in . the struggle was prolonged for some months, but the end was certain from the first. it was probably during the spring of that the flood of passion broke the queen's last barriers down. her enemies afterwards declared that she entered on this fatal dalliance about the time of the crown prince's illness. certain it is that after struensee had been appointed her private secretary, a marked change took place in matilda's manner and bearing. she is no longer a pathetic figure of wronged and youthful innocence, but appears as a beautiful and self-willed woman who is dominated by a great passion. there were no half measures about matilda; her love for struensee was the one supreme love of her life; it was a love so unselfish and all-absorbing, so complete in its abandonment, that it wrung reluctant admiration even from those who blamed it most. once the rubicon crossed, reserve, discretion, even ordinary prudence, were thrown to the winds. struensee's object seems to have been to compromise the queen as much as possible, so that she could not draw back. he was always with her, and she granted him privileges which, as reverdil says, "would have ruined the reputation of any ordinary woman," though it has been pleaded, on the other hand, that her indifference to appearances was a proof of her innocence. the queen and her favourite were inseparable; he was admitted to her apartments at all hours; she took solitary walks with him in the gardens and woods, and she frequently drove and rode out alone with him; at balls and masquerades, at the theatre and the opera, he was always by her side; and in public and at court she followed him with her eyes, and did not attempt to disguise the predilection she had for him. the queen had no one to remonstrate with her, or guard her from the consequences of her imprudence. it was thought by some that the first use matilda would make of her new-found power would be to recall madame de plessen, whose dismissal against her will she had bitterly lamented. it would have been well for her if she had done so, for madame de plessen would have saved her from herself. but if the idea crossed her mind, struensee would not permit it, for he well knew that the presence of this strict duenna would be fatal to his plans. madame von der lühe, madame de plessen's successor, though she shook her head in private, did not venture to remonstrate with her mistress; her position, she felt, was insecure, and she thought to strengthen it by compliance with the queen's whims. the maid of honour, fräulein von eyben, and some of the inferior women of the queen's household, secretly spied on their mistress, set traps for her, and generally sought occasion to harm her. but their opportunity was not yet, for the queen was all-powerful. matilda had always found the stiff etiquette of the danish court wearisome; at struensee's advice she abolished it altogether in private, and dispensed with the attendance of her ladies, except in public. this enabled her to see the doctor for hours alone--not that she made any secret of these interviews. on the contrary, she talked quite freely to her ladies about her friendship with struensee, and accounted for her preference by declaring that she owed him a debt of gratitude for all he had done, and was doing, for her. he always took her part; she said, "he had much sense and a good heart". and it must be admitted he had apparently rendered her service; her health was re-established, and her life was fuller and happier. no longer was she slighted and set aside; she reigned supreme at her court, and all, even her former enemies, sought to win her smiles. the queen's relations with the king were now uniformly friendly, and he seemed quite content to leave authority in her hands. in return she strove to humour him, and even stooped to gratify some of his most absurd whims. it has already been stated that the imbecile christian had a weakness for seeing women in men's attire; "catherine of the gaiters" captivated him most when she donned the uniform of an officer in his service, and the complaisance of the former mistress on this point was at least explicable. but matilda was his wife and not his mistress, his queen and not his fancy of an hour, yet she did not hesitate to array herself in male attire to please her husband, at the suggestion of her lover. it may be, too, that she wished to imitate in this, as in other things, the empress of russia, catherine the great, who frequently wore uniforms and rode _en homme_. however this may be, matilda adopted a riding-habit made like that of a man, and rode astride. the queen often went out hunting with struensee, or rode by his side through the city, in this extraordinary attire. she wore a dove-colour beaver hat with a deep gold band and tassels, a long scarlet coat, faced with gold, a buff, gold-laced waistcoat, a frilled shirt with a lace kerchief, buckskin small-clothes and spurs. she had other riding-habits of different designs, but this was the one in which she most frequently appeared in public. she was always splendidly mounted and rode fearlessly. on horseback she looked a diana, but when she dismounted she did not appear to the same advantage, for the riding-habit made her seem shorter than she really was, and she already showed a tendency to stoutness, which the small-clothes did not minimise. the queen, however, was so enamoured of her male attire that she frequently walked about the palace all day in it, to the offence of many and the derision of others.[ ] [ ] the queen set the fashion to ride in male attire, and it soon became the custom among the ladies of copenhagen. keith wrote a year later: "an abominable riding-habit, with black slouched hat, has been almost universally introduced here, which gives every woman an air of an awkward postilion, and all the time i have been in denmark i have never seen the queen out in any other garb".--_memoirs._ the adoption of this riding-habit greatly tended to lessen the queen's popularity, while her intimacy with struensee before long caused it to disappear altogether. the staider and more respectable portion of the community were ready to believe any evil of a woman who went out riding like a man, and the clergy in particular were horrified; but acting on struensee's advice, the queen never troubled to conciliate the clergy. this was a great mistake in a puritanical country like denmark, where the church had great power, if not in the immediate circle of the court, at least among the upper and middle classes. even the semi-barbarous danish nobility were disgusted. that the young and beautiful queen should have a favourite was perhaps, under the circumstances, only to be expected; if he had been one of their own order, the weakness would have been excused. but that she should stoop to a man of _bourgeois_ origin, a mere doctor, who was regarded by the haughty nobles as little above the level of a menial, was a thing which admitted of no palliation.[ ] but the queen, blinded by her passion, was indifferent to praise or blame, and struensee took a delight in demonstrating his power over her under their very eyes. it was the favourite's mean revenge for the insults he had suffered from these nobles. [ ] even frederick the great (who was very broad-minded) wrote: "l'acces que le médecin eut à la cour lui fit gagner imperceptiblement plus d'ascendant sur l'esprit de la reine qu'il n'etoit convenable à un homme de cette extraction". [illustration: queen sophia magdalena, grandmother of christian vii.] at the end of may, , the old queen sophia magdalena died at the palace of christiansborg. for the last few years of her life she had lived in strict retirement, and had long ceased to exercise any influence over her grandson, the king, in political affairs. the aged widow of christian vi. was much reverenced by the conservative party in denmark, and they complained that the court treated her memory with disrespect. one incident in particular moved them to deep indignation, and, if true, it showed how greatly matilda had deteriorated under the influence of her favourite. the body of sophia magdalena was embalmed, and lay in state for some days in the palace of christiansborg. the public was admitted, and a great number of people of all classes and ages, clad in mourning, availed themselves of this opportunity of paying honour to the dead queen. it was stated in copenhagen by matilda's enemies that she showed her lack of good-feeling by passing through the mourners in the room where the queen-mother lay in state, leaning on the arm of struensee, and clad in the riding-habit which had excited the reprobation of sophia magdalena's adherents. this story was probably a malicious invention,[ ] but it is certain that the court mourning for the venerable queen-mother was limited to the shortest possible period, and the king and queen a few days after her death removed to frederiksborg, where they lived in the same manner as before. neither the king nor the queen attended the public funeral at röskilde, where the kings and queens of denmark were buried, and prince frederick went as chief mourner. rightly or wrongly, the reigning queen was blamed for all this. [ ] it rests on the authority of wittich (_struensee_, by k. wittich, ), who is bitterly hostile to queen matilda. chapter xiv. the queen's folly. . struensee, who was now sure of his position with the king and queen, resolved to carry out his plans, and obtain the object of his ambition--political power. in order to gain this it was necessary that the ministers holding office should one by one be removed, and the back of the russian party in copenhagen be broken. the queen was quite agreeable to every change that struensee suggested; she only stipulated that her detested enemy, holck, should go first, and his friends at court follow. struensee agreed, but in these matters it was necessary to move with great caution, and await a favourable opportunity to strike. quite unwittingly holck played into his enemies' hands; the great thing, as either party knew well, was to gain possession of the king, who would sign any paper laid before him. a page, named warnstedt, who was always about the person of the king, was struensee's friend, and holck therefore resolved to get rid of him and appoint a creature of his own. he thought he could best effect this by taking the king away from his present surroundings, and he therefore proposed to christian that he should make another tour through the duchies of schleswig and holstein. the king agreed, and holck was jubilant, for he knew that if he could only get the king to himself the power of struensee would be shaken. to his dismay, the queen announced that she intended to accompany her husband. she was anxious, she said, to see the duchies, and had no intention of being left behind again. notwithstanding the difficulties which holck raised, the king offered no objection, and even expressed pleasure that his queen would accompany him. the queen's going meant, of course, that her favourite would go too. struensee hailed the prospect of the tour; he had long been wishing to get the king and queen away from the capital in order that he might better effect the changes he had in contemplation. the preparations for the tour were pushed on apace. the king and queen were to be attended by a numerous suite. holck, struensee and warnstedt were to be in attendance, and all the ladies of the queen's household. of ministers only bernstorff, the prime minister, was to accompany them, and the same council of three, thott, moltke and rosenkrantz, who had managed public business at copenhagen during the king's former tour, were to conduct it again, but under limitations. they received express orders from the king not to have any transactions with foreign envoys during his absence, and if any matter of urgency occurred they were to communicate with him in writing before deciding on any plan of action. these instructions were, of course, dictated to the king by struensee. bernstorff was astonished and indignant when he heard of them, for he guessed the quarter whence they came. he began to fear that his position was threatened, and, too late, regretted that he had not taken the repeated advice of his friends and removed struensee while there was time. he knew, though the english influence was on his side, that he had nothing to hope from the queen; he had offended her past forgiveness by insisting on the dismissal of madame de plessen, and by wishing to exclude her from the regency. he started on the tour with great misgivings. but he had been in office so long that even now he could not imagine the government of the kingdom going on without him, forgetting that no man is indispensable. on june , , the royal party arrived at gottorp castle in schleswig, an ancient and unpretending edifice on the edge of a lake, which was then occupied by prince charles of hesse, whom the king had appointed viceroy of the duchies. the viceroy and his wife, princess louise, drove out a league from gottorp to meet the king and queen, and their greetings were most cordial, especially those between matilda and her sister-in-law. the king, too, was very friendly, though prince charles saw a great change in him. he seemed to rally his failing powers a little at gottorp. prince charles noticed with amazement how great a power struensee had acquired; it was the first time he had seen the favourite, and he took a strong dislike to him, which, perhaps, coloured the description he gave of the visit. "after an hour's conversation," writes prince charles [on arriving at gottorp], "in which we recalled past times, the queen took me by the arm and said: 'now, escort me to princess louise's apartments, but do not take me through the ante-chamber'--where the suite were assembled. we almost ran along the corridor to the side door by the staircase, and then we saw some of the suite coming downstairs. the queen espied struensee among them, and said hastily: 'i must go back; do not keep me!' i replied that i could not well leave her majesty alone in the passage. 'no! no!' she cried, 'go to the princess,' and she fled down the corridor." [struensee had probably forbidden the queen to talk to the princess alone.] "i was much astonished, but i obeyed her commands. she was always ill at ease with me when struensee was present; at table he invariably seated himself opposite to her."[ ] [ ] _mémoires de mon temps._ prince charles and his wife noted with great regret the change in the queen; they remembered that she was only eighteen, they made allowance for her good heart and her lively spirits, but even so they grieved to see her forget her self-respect, and indulge in amusements which hurt her reputation. they ascribed this change to the pernicious influence of struensee. she seemed frightened of him, and trembled, when he spoke to her, like a bird, ensnared. frequently he so far forgot himself as to treat her with scant respect. for instance, prince charles writes: "the king's dinner was dull. the queen afterwards played at cards. i was placed on her right, struensee on her left; brandt, a new arrival, and warnstedt, a chamberlain, completed the party. i hardly like to describe struensee's behaviour to the queen, or repeat the remarks he dared address to her openly, while he leant his arm on the table close to her. 'well, why don't you play?' 'can't you hear?' and so forth. i confess my heart was grieved to see this princess, endowed with so much sense and so many good qualities, fallen to such a point and into hands so bad."[ ] [ ] _mémoires de mon temps._ while the king and queen were at gottorp struensee carried out the first of his changes, and recalled brandt to court. brandt, it will be remembered, had been banished from copenhagen, and even from the country, at the suggestion of holck. he had sought to regain the king's favour when he was in paris, but again holck intervened, and he failed. he was formerly a friend of the queen, which was one of the reasons why holck got rid of him, and he was also a friend of struensee, who had often, in his obscure days, visited at the house of brandt's stepfather. struensee had, moreover, helped him in paris. brandt had recently been so far restored to favour as to be given a small appointment in oldenburg, but no one expected that he would be recalled to court, and holck was astonished and dismayed when brandt suddenly appeared at gottorp and was nominated a chamberlain by the king. brandt noticed his enemy's dismay, and said: "_monsieur le comte_, you look as if you had seen a spectre. are you afraid?" to which holck bitterly replied: "oh no, _monsieur le chambellan_, it is not the spectre i fear, but his return". matilda was unwell during her stay at gottorp, and her indisposition caused the court to remain there longer than had been intended. struensee saw prince charles's dislike of him, and was uneasy lest he should gain an influence over the king. the silent condemnation of the viceroy made him impatient to be gone, and directly the queen was sufficiently recovered to travel she and the king set out for traventhal, a small royal castle in holstein. this move furnished the opportunity of getting rid of holck and his following. the excuse put forward was that traventhal was not large enough to accommodate so numerous a suite, and therefore count holck and his wife, his sister, madame von der lühe, and her husband, councillor holstein, chamberlain luttichau, gustavus holck, a page, fräulein von eyben, and two more of the queen's maids of honour, were ordered to go back to copenhagen. all these people were either related to holck, or appointed through his influence, and on their return to the capital they learned that they were dismissed from office. holck, perhaps in consideration of the fact that he had once befriended struensee, was granted a pension of two thousand dollars, the others received nothing. bernstorff, who went with the king and queen to traventhal, as minister in attendance, was not consulted concerning these dismissals, or in anything about the court. woodford, the english minister of lower saxony, then at hamburg, writes: "mr. bernstorff and the ministers appear to be entirely ignorant of these little arrangements, the royal confidence running in quite another direction".[ ] and again: "with regard to the court's movements at traventhal, nothing is known, for everything is kept a secret from those who, by their employments, ought to be informed".[ ] the prime minister, bernstorff, was rarely allowed to see the king, for brandt, who had now stepped into holck's vacant place, was always with his master, and made it his business to guard him against any influence that might be hostile to struensee's plans. holck's sudden dismissal filled bernstorff with apprehension, which was increased by an important move which struensee took soon after the arrival of the court at traventhal--a move destined to exercise great influence on the future of both the favourite and the queen. this was the recall to court of the notorious anti-russian, count rantzau ascheberg. [ ] woodford's despatch to lord rochford, hamburg, july , . [ ] _ibid._, july , . schack karl, count zu rantzau ascheberg, whom for short we shall call count rantzau, had succeeded (on his father's death in ) to vast estates in holstein. gunning, the english envoy, thus wrote of him:-- "count rantzau is a son of the minister of that name who formerly spent some years at our court. he received some part of his education at westminster school. his family is the first in denmark. he is a man of ruined fortunes. it would be difficult to exhibit a character more profligate and abandoned. there are said to be few enormities of which he has not been guilty, and scarcely any place where he has not acted a vicious part. rashness and revenge form very striking features in his character. with these qualities he possesses great imagination, vivacity and wit. he is most abundantly fertile in schemes and projects, which he forms one day and either forgets or ridicules the next. he would be a very dangerous man did not his great indiscretion put it into the power of his enemies to render many of his most mischievous designs abortive."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , . rantzau had led an adventurous and dishonourable career. in his youth he had been a chamberlain at the danish court, and had served in the army, eventually rising to the rank of major-general. in consequence of a court plot, he was banished from copenhagen in . he then entered the french army, but in paris he became enamoured of an opera singer and resigned his commission to follow her about europe. this part of his career, which occupied nearly ten years, was shrouded in mystery, but it was known that during it rantzau had many scandalous adventures. sometimes he travelled with all the luxury befitting his rank and station, at others he was at his wits' end for money. at one time he lived at rome, habited as a monk, and at another he travelled _incognito_ with a troupe of actors. he had absolutely no scruples, and seemed to be a criminal by nature. he was tried in sicily for swindling, and only escaped imprisonment through the influence brought to bear on his judges. at naples there was an ugly scandal of another nature, but the french envoy intervened, and saved him from punishment, in consideration of his birth and rank. in genoa he got into trouble through drawing a bill on his father, whom he falsely described as the "viceroy of norway," but his father repudiated the bill, as he had already repudiated his son, and again rantzau narrowly escaped gaol. with such a record keith was certainly justified in saying of him: "count rantzau would, ... if he had lived within reach of justice fielding, have furnished matter for an old bailey trial any one year of the last twenty of his life".[ ] [ ] _memoirs and correspondence of sir r. murray keith._ in , after the death of the empress elizabeth, when a war seemed imminent between russia and denmark, rantzau, who wished to be on the stronger side, went to st. petersburg and offered his services to peter iii., as a holstein nobleman who owed allegiance to russia rather than to denmark. but even the sottish tsar knew what manner of man the holsteiner was, and rejected his offer with contumely. in revenge, rantzau went over to catherine and the orloffs, and was involved in the conspiracy which resulted in the deposition and assassination of peter iii. when catherine the great was firmly seated upon the russian throne she had no further need of rantzau, and instead of rewarding him, ignored him. rantzau therefore left st. petersburg and returned to holstein, a sworn foe of the empress and eager for revenge on her. it was during this sojourn in holstein that his acquaintance with struensee began, and, as at this time rantzau could get no help from his father, struensee is said to have lent him money to go to copenhagen, whither he went to regain his lost favour at the danish court. in this he was foiled by the influence of the russian envoy filosofow, who was then all-powerful, and rantzau was forced to return again to holstein, where he remained until his father's death in --the year before the king and queen came to holstein on their tour. rantzau should now have been a rich man, for in addition to the property he inherited from his father, he had married an heiress, the daughter of his uncle, count rantzau oppendorft, by which marriage the estates of the two branches of the family were united. but rantzau was crippled with debt, and on succeeding to his inheritance he continued to live a reckless, dissipated life, and indulged in great extravagance. on the other hand, he was a good landlord to his people, and they did whatever he wished. on account of his ancient name, vast estates and the devotion of his peasantry, rantzau had much influence in holstein, which he persistently used against russia. rantzau and struensee had not forgotten their covenant of years ago, that if either attained power he should help the other. even if struensee had been inclined to forget it, rantzau would have reminded him, but filosofow's public insult made struensee determined to break the power of russia in denmark, and in rantzau he found a weapon ready to his hand. he determined to recall rantzau to court, because he knew that he, of all others, was most disliked by the empress of russia. therefore, when the king and queen arrived at traventhal, struensee wrote to rantzau and asked him to come and pay his respects to their majesties. rantzau was admitted to audience of the king and queen, who both received him very graciously. rantzau was the most considerable noble in holstein, and moreover, any favour shown to him would demonstrate that the danish court would no longer brook the dictation of russia in domestic matters. therefore, when rantzau, prompted by struensee, prayed the king and queen to honour him with a visit to his castle at ascheberg, they at once consented. attended by struensee and brandt they drove over from traventhal and spent several days at ascheberg. rantzau entertained his royal guests with lavish magnificence, and, favoured by brilliant weather, the visit was a great success. there was a masque of flowers one day, there were rustic sports another, there was a hunting party on a third, and banquets every evening. the queen took the first place at all the festivities (the king had ceased to be of account), and the splendour of her entertainment at ascheberg recalled elizabeth's famous visit to leicester at kenilworth. though rantzau was fifty-three years of age, he was still a very handsome man, a born courtier, an exquisite beau, and skilled in all the arts of pleasing women. had he been ten years younger he might have tried to eclipse struensee in the queen's favour, but he was a cynical and shrewd observer, and saw that any such attempt was foredoomed to failure, so he contented himself with offering the most flattering homage to the young queen. as a return for his sumptuous hospitality, matilda gave rantzau her husband's gold snuff-box set with diamonds, which christian had bought in london for one thousand guineas, and as a further mark of her favour, the queen presented colours to the regiment at glückstadt, commanded by rantzau, of which she became honorary colonel. the presentation of these colours was made the occasion of a military pageant, and the court painter, als, received commands to paint the queen in her uniform as colonel. this picture was presented to rantzau as a souvenir. the royal favours heaped upon rantzau filled the russian party with dismay. the visit to ascheberg had a political significance, which was emphasised by the queen's known resentment of russian dictation. one of the russian envoys, saldern, had brought about the dismissal of her chief lady-in-waiting; another, filosofow, had publicly affronted her favourite. the queen neither forgot nor forgave. woodford writes at this time: "her danish majesty, formerly piqued at m. de saldern's conduct, and condescending at present to show little management for the russian party, they are using every indirect influence to keep themselves in place".[ ] [ ] woodford's despatch to lord rochford, hamburg, july , . the defeat of the russian party would involve necessarily the fall of bernstorff, who, more than any other danish minister, had identified himself with russia. he was greatly perturbed at the visit to ascheberg, which had been undertaken without consulting him. after the king and queen returned to traventhal the prime minister was treated even more rudely than before; he was no longer honoured with the royal invitation to dinner, but had to eat his meals in his own room, while struensee and his creatures revelled below. the object of these slights was to force bernstorff to resign, but he still clung to office, and strove by all possible means to mitigate the anti-russian policy of the queen and her advisers. to obtain private audience of the king was impossible, though he was living under the same roof. bernstorff therefore drew up a memorandum, addressed to the king, in which he forcibly pointed out the displeasure with which russia would view rantzau's appointment to any office, not only because of his well-known opposition to the territorial exchange, but because he was personally objectionable to the empress, who would resent his promotion as an insult. bernstorff's memorandum was read by struensee and the queen, and though it made no difference to their policy, yet, as struensee did not wish to imperil the exchange, he made rantzau promise not to meddle further in this matter.[ ] rantzau gave the required promise, which was duly communicated to bernstorff, and with this negative assurance he had to be content. [ ] though the treaty was signed in , the actual exchange of territory between russia and denmark was not carried out until some years later. the original understanding was that it should wait until the grand duke paul attained his majority and gave it his sanction. the king and queen remained at traventhal nearly a month in seclusion. the queen was left without any of her ladies, and nearly the whole of the king's suite had gone too. except for bernstorff, who was kept that struensee might have an eye on him, the king and queen were surrounded only by the favourite and his creatures. at traventhal struensee was very busy maturing his plans. in concert with rantzau and general gahler, an officer of some eminence who had been given a post in the royal household, struensee discussed the steps that were to be taken for overthrowing bernstorff and the other ministers, and reforming the administration. there is nothing to show that the queen took a leading part in these discussions, though she was of course consulted as a matter of form. unlike her mother, the princess-dowager of wales, or her grandmother, the illustrious caroline, matilda cared nothing for politics for their own sake, but she liked to have the semblance of power, and was jealous of her privileges as the reigning queen. when she had a personal grievance against a minister, as against bernstorff, she wished him removed, and when she was thwarted by a foreign influence, as in the case of russia, she wished that influence broken; but otherwise it was a matter of indifference to her who filled the chief offices of state, or whether france or russia reigned supreme at copenhagen. her good heart made her keenly solicitous for the welfare of her people, and some of the social reforms carried out by struensee may have had their origin with the queen; but for affairs of state in the larger sense matilda cared nothing, and she lent herself blindly to abetting struensee's policy in all things. in complete abandonment she placed her hands beneath his feet and let him do with her as he would. her birth as princess of great britain, her rank as queen of denmark and norway, her beauty, her talents, her popularity, were valued by her only as means whereby she might advance struensee and his schemes. rumours of the amazing state of affairs at the danish court reached england in the spring of , and before long george iii. and the princess-dowager of wales were acquainted with the sudden rise of struensee, and the extraordinary favour shown to him by the queen. they also heard of the check which russia had received at copenhagen, and the probability of bernstorff (who was regarded as the friend of england) being hurled from power to make room for the ambitious adventurer. too late george iii. may have felt a twinge of remorse for having married his sister against her will to a profligate and foolish prince, and sent her, without a friend in the world, to encounter the perils and temptations of a strange court in a far-off land. moreover, the political object for which matilda had been sacrificed had signally failed. the marriage had in no way advanced english interests in the north. russia and france had benefited by it, but england not at all. now there seemed a probability that, with the fall of the russian influence at copenhagen, france, the enemy of england, would again be in the ascendant there. both personal and political reasons therefore made it desirable that some remonstrance should be addressed to the queen of denmark by her brother of england. the matter was of too delicate and difficult a nature to be dealt with satisfactorily by letter, and there was the fear that struensee might intercept the king's letter to the queen. even if he did not venture thus far, he would be sure to learn its contents and seek to counteract its influence. in this difficulty george iii. took counsel with his mother, with the result that on june , , the dowager-princess of wales set out from carlton house for the continent. it was announced that she was going to pay a visit to her daughter augusta, hereditary princess of brunswick. royal journeys were not very frequent in these days, and as this was the first time the princess-dowager had quitted england since her marriage many years ago, her sudden departure gave rise to the wildest conjectures. it was generally believed that she was going to meet lord bute, who was still wandering in exile about europe; some said that she was going to bring him back to england for the purpose of fresh intrigue; others that she was not returning to england at all, but meant to spend the rest of her life with bute in an italian palace. against these absurd rumours was to be set the fact that the duke of gloucester accompanied his mother, and more charitable persons supposed that she was trying to break off his _liaison_ with lady waldegrave, for their secret marriage had not yet been published. some declared that the princess-dowager and queen charlotte had had a battle royal, in which the mother-in-law had been signally routed, and was leaving the country to cover her confusion. others, and this seemed the most probable conjecture, thought that she was going abroad for a little time to escape the scandal which had been brought upon the royal family by her youngest son, henry frederick, duke of cumberland. [illustration: augusta, princess of wales, mother of queen matilda. _after a painting by j. b. vanloo._] the duke of cumberland was the least amiable of the sons of frederick prince of wales. physically and mentally he was a degenerate. walpole pictures him as a garrulous, dissipated and impudent youth, vulgarly boasting his rank, yet with a marked predilection for low society. unfortunately he did not confine himself to it, but betrayed to her ruin a young and beautiful woman of rank, the countess grosvenor, daughter of henry vernon and wife of richard, first earl grosvenor. lord grosvenor discovered the intrigue, and brought an action of divorce in which the duke of cumberland figured as co-respondent. for the first time in england a prince of the blood appeared in the divorce court, and, what was worse, cut a supremely ridiculous and contemptible figure in it. several of the duke's letters to the lady grosvenor were read in court, and were so grossly ill-spelt and illiterate that they were greeted with shouts of derision, and furnished eloquent comment upon the education of the king's brother.[ ] [ ] lord grosvenor got his divorce, and the jury awarded him £ , damages, which the duke had great difficulty in paying, and george iii., much to his disgust, had to arrange for settlement to avoid a further scandal. so base a creature was this royal lothario that he abandoned to her shame the woman whom he had betrayed, and scarcely had the verdict been pronounced than he began another disreputable intrigue. it was easy to imagine, had there been no other reason, that the princess-dowager of wales would be glad to be out of england while these proceedings were being made public. the king, who lived a virtuous and sober life, and his intensely respectable queen charlotte, were scandalised beyond measure at these revelations, and the possibility of another, and even worse, scandal maturing in denmark filled them with dismay. at present the secret was well kept in england. whatever the english envoy might write in private despatches, or prince charles of hesse retail through his mother, or the princess augusta transmit from brunswick respecting the indiscretions of matilda, no whisper was heard in england at this time, outside the inner circle of the royal family. therefore all the conjectures as to the reason of the princess-dowager's visit to the continent were wide of the mark. the real motive of her journey was not even hinted. the princess-dowager was hooted as she drove through the streets of canterbury on her way to dover, and so great was her unpopularity that it was rumoured that london would be illuminated in honour of her departure. the princess, as announced, travelled first to brunswick, where she was received by her daughter augusta and the rest of the ducal family with honour and affection. it was arranged that the king and queen of denmark, who were then at traventhal, should also journey to brunswick and join the family circle. everything was prepared for their coming, the town was decorated and a programme of festivities drawn up, when suddenly the grand marshal of the king of denmark arrived at brunswick with the news that the queen was ill, and unable to travel so far. that matilda's illness was feigned there can be little doubt, for she was well enough the next day to go out hunting as usual with struensee by her side, and in the evening she played cards until midnight. the incident showed how greatly the queen had changed, for matilda's family affections were strong, and under other circumstances she would have been overjoyed at the prospect of meeting her mother after years of separation, and seeing again her favourite sister augusta. but struensee knew that the journey of the princess-dowager boded no good to his plans, and persuaded the queen to offer this affront to her mother. the princess-dowager, who had a shrewd idea of the nature of her daughter's illness, was not to be outwitted in this way, and she proposed a meeting at lüneburg, a town situated between celle and hamburg, in the electorate of hanover. lüneburg was much nearer traventhal than brunswick, and matilda could not excuse herself on the ground of the length of the journey. if she made that pretext, the princess-dowager proposed to come to traventhal, where she might have seen more than it was desirable for her to see. so struensee made the queen choose what he thought was the lesser evil, and write to her mother that she would meet her at lüneburg; but he was careful to deprive the visit of every mark of ceremony, and to make it as brief as possible. the king and queen of denmark arrived at lüneburg late in the evening, attended only by struensee and warnstedt, who were seated in the coach with them. matilda did not bring with her a lady-in-waiting, and one coach only followed with a couple of servants and some luggage. there was no palace at lüneburg, and the king and queen lodged for the night in one of the fine renaissance houses in the main street of the old town. the interview between the princess-dowager and her daughter took place that same evening, late though it was. struensee was present in the room the whole time, though the princess-dowager pointedly ignored him. she addressed her daughter in english, of which she knew struensee was ignorant, but to her anger and surprise matilda pretended to have forgotten it, and she answered always in german that struensee might understand. under these circumstances the conversation was necessarily constrained and formal; the princess-dowager did not conceal her displeasure, and retired to bed discomfited. the next morning at eleven o'clock she sent for her daughter again, and this time succeeded in having a talk with her alone. what passed between them cannot certainly be known, but its import was generally guessed. the princess-dowager was said to have told her daughter that the dismissal of bernstorff would be much regretted by george iii., as he had always been a friend of england and its royal family, and it would, moreover, be disastrous to denmark. whereupon the queen haughtily rejoined: "pray, madam, allow me to govern my kingdom as i please". the princess, annoyed by this want of respect, unmasked her batteries forthwith, and roundly scolded her daughter for the extraordinary favours she gave to struensee. matilda at first would not listen, but when her mother persisted, and declared that her conduct would end in disgrace and ruin, she retorted with an allusion to the supposed _liaison_ between her mother and lord bute, which wounded the princess past forgiveness. the interview only widened the breach. as a matter of form the king had invited his mother-in-law to copenhagen, but the invitation was now curtly refused. the princess saw that she could do no good, and she did not care to countenance by her presence a state of affairs of which she did not approve. the king and queen of denmark left lüneburg in the afternoon, the princess a few hours later; mother and daughter parted in anger, and they never met again. struensee must have felt a great sense of relief when the king of denmark's coach rolled out of lüneburg on the way back to altona. he had dreaded the meeting between the queen and her mother, and had striven to prevent it by every means in his power. but when that was no longer possible, he had long and anxious consultations with the queen, and prompted her how she was to act and what she was to say. even so he could not be quite sure of the line the princess-dowager might take. if she had spoken to her daughter gently, reasoned with her, pleaded with her in love, and appealed to her with tears, she might have had some effect, for matilda was very warm-hearted and impressionable. but these were not the stern princess's methods; she had been accustomed to command her children, and her haughty, overbearing tone and contemptuous reproaches stung the spirited young queen to the quick, and made her resent what she called her mother's unjust suspicions and unwarrantable interference. so the result was all that struensee wished. woodford, who had been commanded by george iii. to attend the princess-dowager during her stay in lüneburg, writes in a despatch of "the agitation that was visible in mr. struensee upon his arrival first at lüneburg, and the joy that could be seen in his countenance as the moment of departure approached".[ ] [ ] woodford's despatch to lord rochford, marked "private," hamburg, august , . struensee now felt that the time was ripe for him to come forward as the exponent of a new foreign policy for denmark, and as the reformer of internal abuses. he was no longer the doctor, but the councillor and adviser of the crown. he had flouted russia and prevailed against the influence of england. what power was there to withstand him? chapter xv. the fall of bernstorff. . the king and queen of denmark travelled from lüneburg direct to copenhagen. during the short stay of the court in the capital the queen showed herself much in public, and sought in all ways to impress her personality upon the people. she drove every day about the streets in a state coach, attended by an escort of guards; the king was always by her side, and his presence was intended to give the lie to many sinister rumours. apparently the royal couple were living together in the utmost harmony and the king had complete confidence in his queen. together they attended the copenhagen shooting festival, an honour which had not been bestowed on the citizens for a hundred years, and were most gracious in their demeanour, especially the queen, who was all bows and smiles. matilda further gratified the assembly by firing a shot herself, and inducing the king to follow her example. the queen hit the popinjay, but christian missed it badly. matilda gained considerable popularity from the crowd by this exhibition of her skill, but the more sober-minded citizens were scandalised because she rode on to the ground sitting her horse like a man, and clad in her masculine riding-habit. the king rode by her side, but it was jocularly said that the queen was "by far the better man of the two," which was what exactly she wished to convey. certainly the diminutive and feeble christian looked a poor creature beside his dashing and amazonian wife. from copenhagen the king and queen went to hirschholm, the country palace of the late queen sophia magdalena, which, since her death, had been prepared for their use, and henceforth eclipsed frederiksborg in the royal favour. hirschholm was not so far from the capital as frederiksborg, and was situated amid beautiful surroundings. the palace had been built by sophia magdalena on an island in the middle of a lake. it was very ornate externally, and one of the most striking features was a huge gate-tower, which terminated in a pyramid supported by four lions, couchant and surmounted by a crown. this gateway gave entrance to a quadrangular court, round three sides of which the palace was built. the interior was gorgeous, and the decorations were so florid as to be almost grotesque; a profusion of silver, mother-of-pearl and rock crystal embellished the walls, and the ceilings and doors were elaborately painted. the south aspect of the palace looked over the lake to the beautiful gardens beyond, which were freely adorned with marble fountains and statuary. in the gardens was a summer-house, which was used as a temporary theatre for the amusement of the queen and her court. beyond the park were shady avenues and noble forests of beech and pine. in fine weather hirschholm was a paradise.[ ] [ ] hirschholm became the favourite palace of queen matilda, and usurped even frederiksborg in her favour. it was more associated than any other palace in denmark with her love for struensee. perhaps because of this her son, frederick vi., when he came to the throne, razed the palace to the ground. not a trace of it now remains, but the beautiful woods and surroundings of hirschholm still exist, and even to-day is pointed out the "lovers' walk," where the queen and struensee used to pace side by side, and the summer-house where they sat, and spoke of all their hopes and fears. at hirschholm the queen made appointments in her household to fill the places of madame von der lühe, fräulein von eyben and others dismissed at traventhal. the queen's chief ladies were now madame gahler, baroness bülow and countess holstein. they were three young, beautiful and lively women, not too strict in their conduct, and the husbands of all, needless to say, were friends of struensee. madame gahler was the wife of general gahler, who held high place in the councils of traventhal. baron bülow was the master of horse, and count holstein held a post about the king. the queen had always fretted under the stiff etiquette of the danish court; now, at the suggestion of struensee, she dispensed with it altogether, except on public occasions. the result was that the manners of the court at hirschholm became so lax and unceremonious that it hardly seemed to be a court at all. some show of deference was kept up towards the king, but the queen was treated with great familiarity, evidently at her own wish, and in struensee's case this familiarity sometimes degenerated into positive rudeness. the ladies and gentlemen of the royal household laughed and joked and flirted as they pleased, without any restraint, in the presence of the queen, scrambled for places at her table, and quarrelled violently over cards. even rantzau was surprised at the conduct at hirschholm. "when i was a wild young man," he said, "everybody at court was apparently respectable, except myself. now that i am old, and obliged to be more careful, every one about the court has gone mad." the court at hirschholm was conducted on a scale of luxury, and on occasion with ceremonial magnificence. the king and queen dined frequently in public in the grand saloon, and were served on bended knee by pages; the marshal of the palace sat at one end of the table, the queen's chief lady at the other, their majesties in the middle on one side, and the guests honoured with the royal command opposite them. the king was a poor and insignificant figure, and rarely uttered a word; but the queen, who dressed beautifully, made a grand appearance, and delighted everybody with her lively conversation. matilda had wit and vivacity, though during her early years in denmark she had perforce to curb her social qualities; now she gave them full play, and the king gazed at her in silent astonishment and admiration. a table of eighty covers was also laid every day in the adjoining "chamber of the rose" for the foreign envoys and great officers of state (if any happened to be present) and the court officials. at this table struensee, brandt and the other ladies and gentlemen of the household generally dined, though the favourite was frequently commanded to the king's table, and might have dined there every day if he had wished. but he generally preferred to hold a little court of his own in the "chamber of the rose," and most of those present paid him far more homage than they paid the king. struensee accepted it all as a matter of course; his head was already turned by his success, and indeed it was enough to turn any man's head. only two years before he had been in an obscure position, crippled with debt, and seriously thinking of quitting the country to repair his fortunes; now he was the all-powerful favourite of a queen, and could make and unmake ministers as he would. nothing was done without his consent, and the removal of the court from the capital to hirschholm was dictated by him from reasons which the english envoy shrewdly guessed at the time:-- "among other reasons assigned for this retreat," writes gunning, "one is said to be the desire of eluding the scrutiny of the public eye, which affects to penetrate somewhat further than is imagined to be [desirable]. another cause of this retirement is supposed to be their danish majesties' resolution of continuing inaccessible (which they have been for some time) to everybody except mr. rantzau and the favourite. and that, if certain dismissions are resolved upon, they may be effected with greater secrecy. mr. bernstorff tells me that mr. rantzau has frequent conferences with the french minister. he [bernstorff] is more alarmed than he has ever yet appeared to be, but nevertheless seems willing to fortify himself with the favourable conclusions afforded by the levity and dissipation which mark the character of his adversaries, and builds upon the unanimity of the council, which i hope is firmly grounded. he thinks, however, that while the influence prevails, irreparable mischief may be done, and he is at length convinced of a truth i wished him long since to have believed, namely--that which has been transacting is more than a court intrigue, and that [the favourite] was the cause of all its movements."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, september , . bernstorff was not long left in suspense as to his future. struensee had now matured his plans and was ready to strike. bernstorff was the first to go. soon after the court arrived at hirschholm the king was prevailed upon, without much difficulty, to write his prime minister an autograph letter in which he informed him that, as he intended to make changes in his system of government, he no longer required his services. he therefore dismissed him with a pension of , dollars a year, but gave him leave to retain his seat on the council. bernstorff was seated at his desk in the foreign office when this letter was brought to him by a king's messenger from hirschholm; he read its contents in silence, and then turned to one of his secretaries and said: "i am dismissed from office. may the almighty guide this country and its king." bernstorff fell with great dignity. he replied to the king saying "that he accepted his pleasure with all submission, but begged leave to join the resignation of his seat on the council to that of his other employments".[ ] he accepted the pension, but how beggarly a reward it was for his long years of service was shown by comparison with that assigned to count st. germains, a friend of struensee and rantzau, who had been granted , dollars annually after only three years of office. count bernstorff had grown grey in the service of the state, and had sacrificed a large portion of his private fortune in the cause of his adopted country. his great achievement as prime minister was the treaty effecting the territorial exchange with russia; for that alone he deserved the gratitude of denmark. he had his faults, but he was a man of honourable and upright character, virtuous in private life, and in public matters earnestly desirous of the welfare of the state. bernstorff's fall called forth loud expressions of regret, not only from the most considerable people in denmark, but from many foreign courts. especially was this the case with the court of st. james's. [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, september , . on the return of the princess-dowager to england with the news of her fruitless mission, and on receipt of gunning's despatches, specifying the changes likely to take place in the danish government, george iii. resolved to write a private letter to his sister, appealing to her directly, and urging her, whatever she did, not to part with bernstorff, who had shown himself zealous of his country's welfare, and who was, moreover, a friend of england and its royal house. but this letter arrived too late; it reached copenhagen a week after bernstorff's dismissal. it was enclosed in a private despatch from lord rochford to the english envoy, with orders that he was to deliver it into the queen's own hand. gunning thereupon set out at once for hirschholm "to force the entrenchments," to quote his own phrase; but the queen, who probably guessed his errand, would not see him. "on my arrival there," writes gunning, "i had the mortification to find that her majesty was so much indisposed by a fresh attack of cholick as to render my admission to her impracticable. it not being, therefore, in my power to present the king's letter myself, i took care to have it safely conveyed to her danish majesty, who commanded her grand master to tell me that i should be informed when she had any orders for me."[ ] but matilda had no orders for the english envoy, and when she wrote to her brother of england, it was to tell him that bernstorff had already been dismissed, and if he wished to write to her in future about political matters in denmark, she would be obliged if he would send his communications to her through her ministers. how george iii. received this rebuff is not related. [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, september , . bernstorff's dismissal was followed by that of several other ministers. men who had grown old in the service of the state were suddenly deprived of their portfolios, and sweeping changes took place in the _personnel_ of the government. several important political appointments were made while the court was at hirschholm. general gahler, who was avowedly the friend of france, and had spent many years of his life in the french service, was appointed head of the war department. he did not possess any great military knowledge, and owed his promotion largely to his wife, who was a friend of the queen. gunning described him as "a smooth, designing, self-interested man, submissive, cool, deliberate and timid,"[ ] and keith wrote of him later as "dark, intriguing and ungrateful".[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , . [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, november , . bernstorff had united the office of prime minister with that of foreign secretary. the first of these posts, with amplified powers, struensee reserved for himself, but he did not at once formally assume it. rantzau was understood to desire the foreign office, and his ambition placed struensee and the queen in a position of great difficulty. rantzau's violent hostility to russia, and his rash and mercurial temperament, made this appointment impossible. denmark would probably be embroiled in war in a week. on the other hand, he had rendered great services to struensee; he was powerful in holstein, and dangerous to offend. struensee compromised the matter by giving rantzau the second place in the war department. rantzau took it under protest, and never forgave the affront. from that time he was the secret enemy of struensee and the queen, and only waited for an opportunity to wreck them. it would have been a mistake to send him to the foreign office, but it was a greater one to place him in a subordinate post, and showed a strange lack of judgment on the part of the queen and struensee. it did not satisfy him, and it gave him opportunity to betray the secrets of the government. struensee sought to conciliate rantzau by paying the most flattering attention to his opinions, and it was at rantzau's suggestion that colonel falckenskjold was recalled from the russian service and entrusted with the reform of the danish army. falckenskjold was a dane of noble family, and had fought with distinction in the french service during the seven years' war; subsequently he entered the service of russia. he was a man of upright character, but poor and ambitious. it was the prospect of power that induced him, in an evil hour, to accept an appointment at struensee's hands. "his views of aggrandisement are said to be boundless," wrote gunning.[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , . brandt was given several lucrative court appointments, but he neither asked nor received any post in the government. gunning thus summed him up: "mr. brandt, the king of denmark's favourite, seems to be too light and insignificant to deserve mention in a political light; he is considered by the others as a sort of dragon which they have planted within the precincts of the court to stop the avenues to the throne".[ ] keith declared him to be "naturally rash, turbulent and waspish".[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , . [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, november , . these were the principal men struensee chose to help him in governing the internal affairs of the kingdom, in place of the experienced statesmen whom he had evicted to make room for them. they were none of them first-class men, but they were the best available. statesmen of credit and renown held aloof from struensee, and would not have accepted office at his hands. neither did he seek them, for the men he wanted were not colleagues but creatures, who would carry out his bidding. he had now complete control of the situation, and was already in fact invested with autocratic power. although nominally only _lecteur du roi_, he read all letters that came to the king, and answered them in the king's name as he thought best, the king doing whatever the queen advised him, and signing all the documents laid before him by struensee. in order to gather power still more into his hands, struensee caused christian to issue a rescript to the heads of departments of the state requesting them henceforth to send all communications to the king in writing, and the king would answer them in the same way. audiences between the king and his ministers were hereby abolished. struensee followed up this rescript by an attack upon the council of state, still nominally the governing body. soon after bernstorff's dismissal a royal decree was issued, limiting the power of the council and increasing the king's prerogative. the king wished--so the message ran--to have the council of state organised in the best manner. he therefore requested that the councillors, at their meetings in future, should duly weigh and consider all the business laid before them, but leave the final decision to the king. their object was not to govern, but to afford the king assistance in governing. the king, therefore, would have them remember that there must be no encroachment on the sovereign power, which was vested wholly in the king. these changes caused great excitement among the official classes and the nobility. the government of the kingdom had hitherto been in the hands of an oligarchy, which was recruited solely from the nobility and their dependents. by this last decree the king intended to strip the nobility of their privileges and power. but the king was known to be a figurehead, and therefore the resentment aroused by these changes was directed, not against him but against the queen. struensee was still working behind the queen, and therefore, though he was known to have great influence, the malcontents made the queen the first object of their resentment. the hostility felt against matilda for the revolutionary policy now inaugurated was especially bitter amongst the old nobility, many of whom, notably count reventlow, had formerly been her friends. reventlow communicated his anger to gunning, who wrote in haste to lord rochford. he saw in the present confusion an opportunity for english influence to be re-established in copenhagen, and, ignorant of the rebuff the king had received from his sister a few weeks before, he urged his old expedient that george iii. should write a private letter to queen matilda. "both count reventlow and everybody ascribe [these new measures] without scruple to the queen of denmark," he writes, "_whose power is affirmed to be unlimited, and on whose will all depends_. if these assertions are not made without reason, your lordship will judge how much those persons who are honoured with her danish majesty's confidence have misrepresented the state of affairs to her, in order to make her consent to what is so evidently against the system this court has some time adopted. should the preservation of it be thought worthy of the king's (george iii.'s) attention, your lordship will, i am sure, think it necessary that the queen of denmark should be made acquainted with his majesty's sentiments on this important point as soon as possible, and before the prince royal of sweden comes here, which under the present circumstances will be most effectually done (if i may humbly presume to offer my opinion) by a private letter from his majesty to the queen his sister. it is not to be doubted but that this would have great weight; and should it either procure the reinstatement of count bernstorff (whose indubitable attachment to the king's person and family gives him a claim on his majesty's protection), or till such time as this could be more easily effected, prevent any extension of the present influence, it would soon give his majesty (george iii.) as great an ascendency here as the court of petersburg has had, and which, were it conducted in a more moderate and judicious manner, would not be liable to the same reverse. it is not, however, impracticable for the latter [the court of petersburg] still to prevent the defection of this court, but it must be by different and harsher methods than those (it is hoped) his majesty has occasion to take."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, october , . it is unlikely that george iii., who was still smarting under the affront queen matilda offered to his last communication, acted on his envoy's suggestion. neither his brotherly remonstrances nor "the different and harsher methods" of the court of st. petersburg would have had any effect on the queen of denmark. she was entirely under struensee's influence, and did whatever he wished, and in this case their wishes were identical. nothing would have induced her to recall bernstorff, against whom she had a grievance, and she had suffered so much from the meddlesome interference of the russian envoys that she was determined to stop it at all hazards. [illustration: george iii., brother of queen matilda. _from a painting by allan ramsay ( ) in the national portrait gallery._] chapter xvi. queen and empress. - . the keynote of struensee's foreign policy was to free denmark from outside interference, and the greatest offender in this respect was russia. the inauguration of the new regime, therefore, was the occasion of a violent quarrel with the russian court, to which a personal element gave additional bitterness. russia at this time meant catherine the great, for the imperious empress gathered all the reins of government, both foreign and domestic, in her hands. she had come to regard the king of denmark as almost her vassal, and her first instinct was to crush any signs of revolt against her influence. the empress was minutely informed of the changes at the danish court and the causes which had led to them. she knew all about the intrigue between matilda and struensee. but she had no sympathy with the young queen of denmark, whose career, in some respects, offered a curious parallel to her own. like matilda, catherine had been brought from a foreign country, when little more than a child, and married to a weak and vicious prince, in whose character there was a strain of madness; like matilda, she had been left alone in a strange and dissolute court, outraged and neglected by her husband, ignored and set aside, and exposed to every temptation. catherine had found consolation in a lover, and plotted with him and others. the outcome of her intrigues was the deposition and subsequent murder of her husband, and the empress's elevation to the sovereign power. rumour said that she was privy to the assassination, but that must always remain a mystery. of course, before this point had been reached the parallel between the two women ended, for matilda, though she had undoubtedly intrigued with struensee to get the power into her own hands, was not of the same calibre as catherine. she was incapable of either her crimes or her vices; she had neither her soaring ambitions nor her consummate powers of statecraft. though a woman of more than average ability, she had none of the genius of the russian empress; and her heart would always hinder her from playing a great part upon the world's stage. the weakness of matilda's position was her love for struensee. at first she wished him to take no part in politics. "if struensee had taken my advice, and had not become a minister, it would have been much better," she said, two years later in bitter retrospect, but he overruled her in this as in all else. everything he did was right in her eyes, and though she sometimes trembled at the perilous path he was treading, when he talked to her of his future policy and his sweeping reforms she believed that he would be hailed as the saviour of the country. she could not see that he was ignorant of statecraft, and made mistakes which a little forethought would have avoided, for she worshipped his commanding talents, and believed him to be a king among men. the danish queen's all-absorbing passion for one man was regarded with contempt by the empress catherine. it is needless to say she did not condemn it from a moral point of view, for she was a very messalina in her passions, but because she considered it a fatal weakness in a queen who apparently aspired to reign over her husband's kingdom and to inaugurate a new system of policy. so far from the similarity between the trials of catherine's early married life and the queen of denmark's sorrows enlisting her sympathy, the empress regarded matilda with dislike, mingled with contempt. "i have had the opportunity of seeing the empress of russia's sentiments expressed in her own handwriting relative to what is passing in denmark," wrote woodford. "the empress, in a letter to her correspondent, of september , says upon the changes in denmark, 'that allowances are always to be made for the follies of youth, but accompanied with the marks of _a bad heart_ they excite even a public indignation'."[ ] [ ] woodford's despatch, hamburg, october , . there was undoubtedly some jealousy mingled with this dislike of the empress catherine for a woman she had never seen. "the semiramis of the north" regarded herself as one to whom the ordinary rules of life and conduct did not apply, nor even the immutable laws of right and wrong. she was a woman of destiny, a sublime figure, above, beyond and apart from all meaner mortals. yet this foolish matilda with her _bourgeois_ favourite and paltry intrigues had presumed to challenge comparison with one who was incomparable, and even to imitate her idiosyncrasies. like catherine, matilda rode astride in masculine attire; like catherine, she donned the uniform of a colonel, marched at the head of her regiment, and fired a musket with unerring aim. true, matilda had only one favourite where catherine had many, but he was one who gathered up (in her estimation and his own) the charm of a poniatowski, the bravery of an orloff, the genius of a panteomkine, the ardour of a korssakof, and the beauty of a lansköi.[ ] struensee was responsible for this somewhat burlesque imitation of the empress; he held before the queen's dazzled eyes the vision of another woman ruling her people with consummate ability to the admiration of europe, and matilda was weak enough to listen to his flattery. [ ] favourites of catherine the great. catherine regarded the attempts of the queen of denmark to follow in her steps as preposterous, and the anti-russian policy as impertinent. the empress did not at first treat it seriously, but the limit of this presumptuous folly (in her opinion) was reached when the news came to st. petersburg that her former co-conspirator and later her declared enemy, count rantzau, had been taken into favour by the danish court, and given an appointment in the government. then the anger of catherine, as bernstorff predicted, knew no bounds. she regarded the appointment of rantzau as an insult, and sent instructions to filosofow to represent her displeasure in the strongest terms to the court of copenhagen. filosofow, who was already goaded to the point of madness by the humiliations heaped on him by struensee, performed his mistress's behest with such violence and so many expletives that the queen strongly resented his bullying tone, and his further residence at copenhagen became impossible. for this, as the english envoy wrote, "they [the court of st. petersburg] will be in a great measure indebted to their own conduct--disgusting this court by an open attack on monsieur rantzau, whose character, let his intentions be what they will, ought to have been too well known to them to give rise to any great apprehensions".[ ] filosofow demanded his recall, which was granted, and before leaving requested a private audience of the king. but this was refused by struensee, who had made up his mind that henceforth foreign envoys should have no more private audiences with the king behind his back. filosofow was told that he could only see the king at an ordinary court, when he could take leave of his majesty. the haughty russian replied that his health would not allow him to be present, and he left copenhagen without taking leave of any of the royal family. thus was struensee avenged upon his enemy. [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, february , . gunning rightly regarded the russian envoy's withdrawal from the danish court as the result of an intrigue, which had its origin in the insult offered to struensee a year before. "this intrigue," he wrote, "sprang originally from an insuperable disgust her danish majesty conceived against the person of mr. saldern and latterly against that of mr. filosofow.... the latter, though a man of great honour and worth, from a want of sufficient knowledge of the world, and from being perhaps too sensible of the splendour and power of the empress, his mistress, studied not enough that refinement of behaviour which was to be expected in a public character, and through absence and inattention committed a piece of rudeness on a certain occasion to the favourite which his self-love (as indeed the self-love of any other man might have done) induced him to impute to design. the wound rankled in his heart, and i will venture to say the sense of it was not confined to his own feelings. her danish majesty was pleased to think much the worse of mr. filosofow for it. in short the affront was never forgiven, and the second russian minister became equally, nay, more, obnoxious to the queen than the first."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , . struensee, now that he had gratified his personal animosity, had no wish to become embroiled in a war with russia. he thought that the dispute had gone far enough, and it would be better to build for the empress catherine a golden bridge, over which she might retreat with dignity from a position which had become untenable. but unfortunately for his plans he resolved to conduct the negotiations himself, for he had not yet appointed a foreign secretary to take the place of bernstorff. it was only in the department of foreign affairs that struensee found himself at sea, not in regard to his policy, for his mind was clear as to that, but with regard to the forms and phrases usually observed in communications between courts and monarchs. he had no training for this kind of work, and until the last two years had no communication, direct or indirect, with princes and potentates. his ignorance of forms and etiquette was equalled by his contempt for them. but it could not be supposed that the king, his master, was ignorant of these forms, and since communications with foreign sovereigns had to be made nominally through him, errors of this nature revealed either that the king had not been consulted, or he had not written the letters issued with his name. christian vii. perhaps took a malicious pleasure in struensee's ignorance, or he was too indifferent to correct the glaring errors in letters signed by him, for many absurd mistakes occurred. struensee thought that a personal letter from the king of denmark would appease the anger of catherine, and he therefore drew up one of these strange documents which purported to come from christian. but he was so ignorant of the ordinary usage that he began it "madame" instead of "madame my sister," and ended as though it had come from a subject, "i have the honour to be, madame, your imperial majesty's very humble and obedient servant," a preposterous ending to a letter from one sovereign to another. the letter contained a good deal of irrelevant matter, but the gist of it was an apology for the king's refusal of a private audience to the empress's minister, "under the pretext," writes gunning, "that one having been already denied to the swedish minister, it could not have been consistently granted to the russian minister, and further, that the audiences which have been so often given, and were now almost claimed by the russian minister, ought to have been considered more as a matter of courtesy than that of right. but had monsieur filosofow appeared in the court circle, his majesty would probably have called him into the closet." the english envoy adds: "though perhaps this apology will not bear the test of a too strict examination, yet as it shows an earnest desire of acceding on his danish majesty's part, it may be wished the empress may suffer herself to be appeased by it".[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, january , . so far from the empress being appeased by the king of denmark's letter, she received it with derision. the form, the manner, the style, the contents, all showed her that it was not composed by her royal brother of denmark, but, as she coarsely said to her whole court, by the queen's _cicisbeo_. the relations between the courts of copenhagen and st. petersburg were strained to breaking-point and struensee was at a loss what to do next. it was at this juncture that he appointed count osten to the foreign office at copenhagen. osten was a dane of noble family, but poor. he was educated at court as a page in the household of christian vii.'s father. as the youth showed much ability, count moltke, who was then prime minister, sent him to leipsic to study languages, with the view of making use of him in the diplomatic service. during his residence at leipsic, osten made the acquaintance of count stanislaus poniatowski (afterwards king of poland), and the two became great friends. on returning to copenhagen osten became involved in some petty palace intrigue, which was directed against the men who had benefited him, moltke and bernstorff. they overlooked his ingratitude in consideration of his talents, but, thinking it advisable that he should leave copenhagen, they sent him to st. petersburg, as an _attaché_ to malzahn, at that time danish minister in russia. malzahn died suddenly, and the secretary to the legation being ill at the same time, osten seized the opportunity to receive and answer despatches, and to confer with the russian ministers. so well did he acquit himself that bernstorff appointed him danish envoy at st. petersburg, and told him that he must humour the grand-duchess (later the empress) catherine, whose favour, as he was a handsome and a brilliant youth, he had already won. bernstorff already foresaw the elevation of the grand-duchess to a prominent position in councils of state. osten paid his court assiduously to catherine, and during his residence at st. petersburg poniatowski came there. the friendship between the two young men was renewed, and when there sprang up an intrigue between poniatowski and catherine, osten acted as a go-between, and the lovers used to meet at his house. perhaps because of the part he had played in this matter, the danish court found it necessary to remove osten from st. petersburg to dresden, so that he had nothing to do with the plots which led to the assassination of the emperor peter, and the elevation of catherine to the throne. but as soon as the empress found her position assured, she asked the king of denmark to send osten back to st. petersburg as danish envoy, and her request was at once complied with. the handsome young diplomatist returned, and for two years enjoyed the friendship of the empress, who not only admitted him to her confidence, but even allowed him sometimes to be present at the councils which she held with her ministers and her generals. suddenly, without warning, osten fell out of favour. the empress wrote to the king of denmark to request his instant recall, and the russian minister for foreign affairs informed all the foreign envoys at st. petersburg by a circular note that the empress had withdrawn her favour from count osten, and regarded him as "a vile and odious person". the cause of osten's disgrace was not a political one, but referred to some secret infamy. bernstorff did not wish to bring osten back to copenhagen, as his talent for intrigue was so great that he might prove dangerous, nor did he wish to lose his services altogether, for he had proved himself a very able diplomatist; he therefore sent him as danish envoy to naples. osten went there for a time, but he never ceased to agitate for his promotion from a post which he considered to be exile. eventually bernstorff promised osten the post of minister at the hague; but before his promise could be fulfilled, the once-powerful minister was himself dismissed from office by struensee and the queen. the office of minister of foreign affairs rendered vacant by the dismissal of bernstorff, whose knowledge of the tangled threads of european diplomacy was very great, was no easy one to fill--at least, from such material as struensee was able to command. rantzau, who wanted it, was impossible, and struensee at first thought of keeping it in his own hands; but after the ridicule poured upon his letter by catherine, which threatened to make the danish court the laughing-stock of europe, struensee came to the conclusion that there were some things he did not know, and he must find some one who was, at any rate, conversant with forms. no statesman of repute in denmark would accept the post on struensee's terms, so he went through the list of danish envoys at foreign courts, and finding in osten a man whose record was unscrupulous enough for his purpose, he recalled him from naples and placed him at the foreign office in the hope that he would bring the empress catherine to reason. osten's appointment was regarded as a notable accession of strength to struensee's administration. his knowledge of russian affairs was unrivalled--a great advantage at this juncture--and gunning, the english envoy, who had a high opinion of the new foreign minister's abilities, seems to have thought that he would not only restore friendly relations with russia, but would aid him in bringing about an alliance between england and denmark. "i think him well qualified for the post he is in," he wrote, "and the only one here capable of retrieving the affairs of this unhappy country."[ ] osten, who had to take office on struensee's terms, was really desirous of establishing good relations with russia, and one of his first acts was to write a statesmanlike despatch to st. petersburg, "with such representations as he hoped would dispel the empress's scruples regarding the late transactions of this court, would explain all suspicious appearances, and satisfy her imperial majesty".[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , . [ ] _ibid._, january , . though osten's despatch was treated with more respect by the court of st. petersburg than the king of denmark's [so-called] letter, the empress refused to be mollified. her pride had been wounded by the flouting of her representative at copenhagen, but as her interference in the internal affairs of the danish court had been quite unwarranted, she could not well ascribe her resentment to the fact that it was no longer permitted. she therefore seized upon osten's appointment as an excuse for maintaining her irreconcilable attitude, and declared that if the conduct of foreign affairs continued in the hands of that "vile and odious person," she would break the treaty of , and end all negotiations with denmark. osten did not heed the empress's abuse; he knew from experience that her outbursts of passion did not last long, and believed that in time she would take a more reasonable view. but rantzau and gahler urged struensee to anticipate russia by a declaration of war, and struensee was half-persuaded, for he knew that at the moment russia was unprepared. osten used all his eloquence to convince struensee of the folly of such a proceeding, which would give offence to england as well, and probably bring the king of prussia into the quarrel. in this he was ably supported by falckenskjold, who had great knowledge of russian affairs, but for a time it seemed that osten would not succeed. as gunning wrote: "the hopes i for some time entertained of mr. osten gaining a proper ascendency over the favourite are not greatly raised by the manner in which i see the former is obliged to act. it seems to manifest mr. struensee's aim, whom every circumstance deigns to favour, to grasp the whole power of the administration into his own hands, and as his experience in business is of a very short date, so long as count osten's knowledge and abilities shall be found necessary for his information and assistance, so long this gentleman may have some appearance of power."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, february , . in the end osten and falckenskjold won, and rantzau and gahler were defeated. but matters remained in an _impasse_: on the one hand, the empress catherine refused to receive any communications through osten; on the other, the king of denmark refused to remove him, as that would be to submit to an arbitrary interference on the part of russia in the internal affairs of denmark. it was at last resolved that falckenskjold, who was _persona grata_ at the russian court, should be sent to st. petersburg to patch up the quarrel. falckenskjold's mission was not very successful, for the empress declared she would only carry out the treaty of , the territorial exchange, if bernstorff were recalled to the danish foreign office, and osten and rantzau were dismissed from the government. an open breach however with russia was for the moment avoided. falckenskjold returned to copenhagen, and when he told struensee that the empress insisted on the dismissal of the two ministers, struensee, on osten's advice, said, and did, nothing. the empress, on learning that her demands had not been complied with, tried the effect of threats, and alarming rumours reached copenhagen that she had determined to bombard the city, and for this purpose was equipping six ships of the line and four frigates, which would immediately set sail from kronstadt. in this crisis struensee came out well. he knew that, though russia might have the ships, she could not at the time furnish a sufficient number of sailors to equip a fleet. he therefore betrayed no panic and uttered no threats, but without ado fitted out three ships of the line and two frigates, and gave orders to build several others as a counter-demonstration. the ships were manned with great rapidity, and copenhagen was soon defended from every point. catherine, seeing that her threats were of no avail, forebore from provoking denmark to the point of open hostilities. her hands were at that moment full of more important matters, and so she declared "if the present rascally advisers of the king of denmark had rope enough they would hang themselves". in the end her foresight was justified, but at the time the victory was with struensee. by his firmness he freed denmark from the intolerable interference of foreign ministers, which had been going on for the last twenty years, and the fact stands to the credit of his administration. chapter xvii. the reformer. - . a short time after bernstorff's fall and osten's promotion, struensee was appointed (or rather appointed himself) master of requests, a new office which, as the english envoy said, "might mean anything or everything". it was an office invented by struensee, and in practice seemed to combine the authority of prime minister with power to interfere in every department of government. the only obstacle which now stood between the imperious minister and absolute power was the council of state, which had lost enormously in prestige since the dismissal of bernstorff and the royal rescript limiting its powers. this council was a committee of nobles with conservative tendencies, and though it was no longer able to decide anything, it still had the power to delay new measures. struensee, who determined to break the power of the nobility in the same way as he had broken the yoke of the foreign envoys, therefore resolved on a daring step. he would abolish the council of state, and place all authority in the hands of the king. after going through the farce of appointing a committee, who reported exactly as it was ordered to report, struensee swept away the council of state by the following decree which, though drawn up by the minister, was written throughout and signed by the king:-- "we, christian vii., by the grace of god king of denmark, norway, of the goths and wends, duke of schleswig-holstein, stormarn and the dittmarsches, count of oldenburg and delmenhorst, etc., etc., decree and announce herewith: "as the affairs of state in an absolute government are only confused and delayed when many of the nobility take part in them, owing to the power and honour which they acquire from time and custom, and the despatch of business is thereby retarded, "we, who have nothing so much at heart as zealous promotion of the public weal, hereby declare that we will not let ourselves henceforth be checked or hindered in those measures and arrangements that are for the national good. "we therefore think fit to abolish and absolutely suppress our former council of state. in doing this our object is to restore to the constitution its original purity, and maintain the same. thus, then, the form of government will henceforth be, and remain exactly, as it was handed to our ancestors of glorious memory by the nation, and nothing will remain to make it seem that we wish in any way to depart from the sense and intention with which the nation transmitted it to our ancestors. in further confirmation of this we have had the present decree drawn up in duplicate both in danish and german, and command that the copies shall be preserved for ever in the archives of the chanceries. "given under our royal hand and seal at our palace of frederiksberg this december , . (signed) "christian."[ ] [ ] translated from the original document in the royal archives of copenhagen. the constitution which the king in this decree stated that his ancestors received from the nation was the _lex regia_, or royal law of denmark and norway, promulgated in by frederick iii. it had its origin in a revolution against the power of the nobles, who had reduced the king to a mere puppet of sovereignty, and formed an oligarchy which governed the country entirely in their interests. frederick iii. freed himself from this thraldom by a _coup d'état_, and with the consent of the burghers and people, and the enforced sanction of the nobles, he established the _lex regia_. it was therefore a most convenient weapon for struensee to refurbish and use against the nobles again, for with a half-imbecile monarch, the whole of its tremendous powers would pass to the minister. some description of this law may be given to show the power which christian vii., or rather struensee the reformer, proposed to gather into his own hands. [illustration: the frederiksberg palace, near copenhagen. _from a print, temp. ._] the _lex regia_ consisted of forty articles, which declared, _inter alia_, that "the hereditary kings of denmark and norway shall, and must, be regarded by their subjects as the only supreme chiefs on earth. they shall be above all human laws, and whether in matters spiritual or matters temporal shall recognise no other superior than god." that "the king only has the supreme right of making and interpreting laws, of abrogating, amending, or superseding them". that "the king only has the power of conferring office, or removing from office, according to his mere pleasure". that "all dignities and offices of whatsoever kind are derived from the king, and held at his will". that "the king alone has the right of disposing of the fortresses and troops of the realm; he alone can declare war, with whom, and when, he pleases; he alone can make treaties, impose taxes, or raise contributions of any kind". that "the king alone has supreme jurisdiction over all the ecclesiastics of his dominions; he alone can regulate the rites and ceremonies of public worship, convoke councils and synods, terminate their sessions, etc.". that "all the affairs of the kingdom, all letters and public acts, can only be expedited in the royal name--sealed with his seal and signed by his hand". that "the king shall not be required to take any oath or form any engagement, whether verbal or written, since in quality of free and absolute monarch, his subjects can neither impose an oath upon him nor prescribe any conditions to limit his authority". that "the whole realm of denmark and norway, its provinces, dependencies, islands, fortresses, rights, jewels, money of every kind, its army, navy, everything now enjoyed, everything that may be acquired hereafter, are the inalienable property of the sovereign alone, and can never be divided or separated from the crown". these few quotations from the _lex regia_ will serve to show that christian vii. arrogated to himself by this decree a power which no other monarch in europe claimed. not even that most mighty empress, catherine of russia, was so great an autocrat as this. in the _lex regia_ of denmark we find the most boundless, irresponsible, unmitigated despotism, without a single provision in favour of the life, substance, or liberty of any subject, high or low. the re-establishment of this despotism in all its nakedness was the essence of struensee's policy, for, since the reign of the monarch who promulgated it a century before, it had gradually fallen into disuse. frederick iii., the author of the _lex regia_, was an absolute monarch in practice as well as theory; he broke the power of the nobles, and nothing stood between him and his imperious will. his successor, christian v., began his reign on the same principles, but he found it necessary before long to conciliate the nobles, and one of his first acts was to create an order of titled nobility. previously, all of noble birth had been merely styled nobles, but now they were given the titles of counts and barons--as if to console them for the loss of their authority. certain other privileges were granted to them, but they still had no share in the government of the country, which the king kept in his own hands. gradually, however, there was formed a council of state, or privy council, which consisted of the heads of the different departments in the state--such as the minister of foreign affairs, the minister who was responsible for the army, the head of the naval department, and the head of the finance department. these posts at first were filled by the king's creatures, who relieved him of detail business, but were unable to come to any decision apart from him; but as time went on the nobles gradually crept back into office, and were nominated one by one as heads of departments, until the council of state assumed more importance. under the reign of christian vi. the council of state was practically a committee of nobles, through whom the king governed; and during the latter part of the reign of frederick v. (christian vii.'s father) it usurped the sovereign power, and the king became a puppet in the hands of his ministers. once more, despite the _lex regia_, the nobles became the rulers of denmark. had they used their power wisely, they might have remained so; but great abuses grew up. they filled every post with their creatures; they betrayed the interests of denmark to foreign countries; the departments of state were badly administered, the national defences neglected, and the people heavily taxed. this was the state of affairs which struensee was determined to remedy. christian vii., who had fretted under the yoke of the council of state, especially when he first came to the throne (when the ministers who composed it strove by every means to prevent him from governing and to keep the power in their own hands), was quite ready to carry out the daring policy of its abolition, though that policy was dictated to him by struensee. the king did not see that he was exchanging the tyranny of king log for that of king stork. he always wearied of those who dictated to him, whether ministers or favourites. he had wearied of moltke, he wearied of bernstorff, and in the same way he wearied of sperling and holck; and the time was coming when he would weary most of all of struensee and brandt. but at present he was indifferent to everything; he had long since ceased to take the initiative, and only asked to be relieved of the burden of state. sunk into premature dotage--a listless gazer at the drama of life--so long as he was left in peace to enjoy the few things he still cared about, he recked nothing of his government, his kingdom, or the world. by the abolition of the council he had become in theory the most absolute autocrat in europe. he had only to speak the word, or sign a paper, for the word and the writing to immediately become law; but in fact he was an imbecile, who let his whole power and authority drift into the hands of another--nominally, into those of the queen, in reality of struensee, who greedily snatched at every atom of power. in his muddled brain christian vii. still clung to the belief that he was rendering himself equal to his great exemplar, frederick the great. the king of prussia had found a way of diminishing the power of his ministers by becoming his own minister, and by signing the decree abolishing his council of state christian vii. imagined that he was acting on a similar plan. but, needless to say, there was no resemblance between the two monarchs; frederick the great did everything himself, but the danish king did nothing, and the stereotyped answer he made to everyone at this time was: "apply to struensee". struensee had become a sort of grand vizier. the day after the suppression of the council of state a new body was established, called the council of conferences, but it had no real power. the members, who were the heads of the different departments of the state, and all struensee's nominees, met when commanded to do so by the king, and expressed their views on such business as was laid before them, advised on matters of form, and sent in their reports in writing. as these reports all passed through struensee's hands in his new office of master of requests, they were very useful to him; they set him right in matters of detail, and gave him the information he required without his seeming to seek it. as that shrewd observer, gunning, wrote: "this is no ill-timed political scheme for those at the helm, who will, by this method, be able to gain considerable lights without suffering any one to have access to the king, their master, but themselves".[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, january , . the abolition of the council of state, though it was so drastic a measure, was greeted with applause by the people--the burghers and the peasants--who had long groaned under the tyranny of the nobility, and had come to look upon them as the cause of all their ills. the royal decree of course called forth a tremendous uproar from the privileged classes, and if the nobles could have conferred together the situation might have become dangerous. but struensee hit on a very ingenious plan for driving them out of copenhagen. most of them were heavily in debt, and under the old order of things had set their creditors at defiance. struensee, therefore, obtained an order from the king, decreeing that any creditor could arrest his debtor, if unable to pay at the time of demand, and keep him in prison until the debt was discharged. in a very short time nearly all the nobility were hurrying from the capital to their country seats. having scattered them, struensee took a further step to prevent them from returning to copenhagen. he issued a decree, signed by the king, to the effect that it was undesirable to encourage the flocking to court of persons who hoped to make their fortunes there, for it only tended to ruin and impoverish the country districts, and entail great expense on the king. it would be much better for the nobility, who did not desire official employment, to remain on their estates and spend their money there instead of coming so much to the capital; and those nobles who desired employment in the future must first qualify themselves for it in subordinate posts. in giving these appointments the king, henceforth, would be guided entirely by service and merit, and pay no regard to favour or backstairs influence. from the enforced retirement of their country seats the danish nobility cursed struensee with impotent wrath; he gave them more to curse him for before long. having got rid of them he next abolished their placemen and parasites, who might have acted as their agents in the capital. he issued a circular to all the government departments, informing them that in future no lackey who waited on a master would be eligible for a public office; and thus the hateful system of lackeydom was abolished. formerly the nobles at the head of the departments had given minor offices to their coachmen and their footmen in lieu of payment, and with the result that a great number of ignorant and incapable men were foisted upon the state, and the administration of the government departments was hopelessly mismanaged. struensee sought to break down all privileges of caste. formerly only the nobility were allowed to use torches at night when they drove out in their carriages, but now an order was promulgated giving leave to all persons, of whatever rank, whether in hired carriages or their own, to use torches at night. but the permission was not generally availed of--probably because the good burghers of copenhagen found that if they and their wives encroached upon the privileges of the nobility, they did so at the risk of losing their custom. having clipped the claws of the nobility, struensee next aimed a series of blows at his other enemies, the clergy. during the two previous reigns the clergy had gained great influence in denmark, and now encroached in matters outside their sphere. not content with their spiritual sway, they expressed their opinion on political matters with great frankness from their pulpits, and even the court did not escape censure. struensee, though the son of an eminent divine, was a freethinker, and hostile to clerical influence, and both the king and queen disliked being preached at. therefore it was not long before the clergy were made to feel the weight of their displeasure. a great number of religious festivals were still kept in denmark as public holidays, to the hindrance of business, and the encouragement of idleness and extravagance on the part of the people; the clergy cherished these festivals, and hitherto the government had not dared to abolish them, for fear of giving offence to the church. but the new order of things had scant reverence for old abuses, and a royal decree was promulgated, which abolished, henceforth and for ever, the public holidays at christmas, easter and whitsuntide, the epiphany, st. john's day, michaelmas day, all saints, the purification, visitation and annunciation of the blessed virgin, and the annual _te deums_ in celebration of the deliverance of copenhagen from charles x.'s attack on february , , and of the great fire. by another decree liberty of conscience was granted to all, and universal toleration in matters of religion. henceforth every man would be allowed to follow his own belief without let or hindrance, to choose his own form of worship, or not to worship, as he pleased. these decrees gave great offence to the established clergy, who considered the first to be unwarrantable interference with the vested rights of the church, and the second, an encouragement of godlessness and infidelity. struensee was a great believer not only in new measures but new men. some of his appointments were good ones--notably that of professor oeder (an able man who had hitherto been a member of the agricultural commission) as head of the financial department. oeder helped struensee materially in his gigantic labours, and often warned him against precipitate and violent measures. struensee also summoned his brother, charles augustus struensee, to copenhagen, and appointed him one of the deputies in the college of finances. charles augustus was a clever and hard-working man, without his brother's genius, but with a great deal more ballast, and no objection could be taken to his appointment except on the score of nepotism--a charge which could not fairly be brought against struensee, for his brother was the only member of his family whom he appointed to any important office. dismissals were the order of the day in every department of the state; the imperious minister brooked no opposition to his will even in the most trifling details. count moltke, court marshal, son of the former prime minister, was dismissed because he demurred to some change in ceremonial, on which he was a much better authority than struensee; a page of the chamber, who was so imprudent as to speak disrespectfully of struensee, was sent away without warning, and the young chamberlain warnstedt, who was a favourite of both the king and the queen, and had stood in confidential relations with struensee, was banished from court in consequence of having made a single incautious remark about him. the aged and respected viceroy of norway, benzon, was dismissed from office without any explanation; the burgomaster of bergen was discharged in the same way; the bailiff and under-bailiff of copenhagen were displaced at an hour's notice. in fact, no official considered himself safe any longer, but was liable at any moment to be dismissed without warning, explanation or pension. as the disgraced official generally had his discharge handed to him by a groom of the royal stables mounted on a yellow horse, it became a saying in copenhagen: "whom did the yellow horse visit last?" or, "if you are not careful, you will see the yellow horse to-morrow". struensee's idea of government was absolute despotism, combined, oddly enough, with a liberal and enlightened policy. he was a despot, but he was also a _doctrinaire_, and his ideas generally were in advance of his time. he had read widely german philosophy, notably that of leibniz, and was a firm believer in the so-called eudæmonistic utilitarianism--the greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number. he believed also in perfectionism--the inherent right of the individual man to work out his own perfection in every respect. leibniz was an exponent of this school, so was goethe, who called his faust a "beyond-man".[ ] struensee was a pioneer who sought to reduce these views to practice. he grafted on his german philosophy certain pagan ideals, he affected a benevolent despotism, and he believed himself to be an _uebermensch_, a "beyond-man," a man of destiny. so thoroughly did he believe in himself, that he forced the same conviction on others for a time--even his enemies, who saw in him something superhuman and dreaded him accordingly. he bore down all outside opposition by the sheer force of his will, and so long as he was sure of himself his power was assured. [ ] so too in our day has been nietsche, who elaborated these views in _thus spake zarathustra_ and other works. struensee was a great reformer, and the intrepidity with which he carried out his theories compels admiration, but like many other reformers he neglected to temper his zeal with discretion. perhaps he had an instinct that his day would not be long, for he was a reformer in a hurry. within a few months after the abolition of the council of state he revolutionised the government of the kingdom. by a series of royal decrees, nominally issued by the king, he reformed every department of the state. he rearranged the finance department, he overhauled the admiralty and the war office, he cut down the expenses of the danish legations abroad, he abolished the method under which titles, places and pensions had been granted, and revised the collection of taxation. efficiency and economy were his watchwords; and had his system been given time to work, there is every reason to believe that he would have achieved both in the great spending departments of the state. this is not the place to write a detailed account of struensee's administration,[ ] but a brief summary may be given of some of his principal reforms, because they throw a light upon the character and career of this extraordinary man. they were planned on the broad principle of "the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number," and nearly all of them aimed at benefiting the people at the expense of vested interests. to appreciate his reforms we have to remember that the government of denmark was honeycombed with abuses, and the peasants were ground down to the level of beasts of burden. only drastic measures could remedy this state of things, and those which struensee proposed were so sweeping as to amount to a revolution. [ ] professor e. holm of copenhagen has dealt with it most admirably in his recent work, _danmark-norges historie_, - . perhaps the most important reform he effected was in the administration of justice. it was decreed that henceforth all men, whatever their rank, were equal before the law; judges who had shown themselves corrupt or negligent in the performance of their duties were removed from their posts, and the delay in hearing trials was censured. a multiplicity of law courts existed in copenhagen and the provinces, which caused great confusion and hindered the course of justice; these were all abolished, and in their stead a single jurisdiction was instituted. this reform gave great offence to lawyers, who lost many fees thereby, but it proved most effectual for the better administration of justice. the civic government of copenhagen was reformed with a view to bettering the management of the city revenues and the carrying out of improvements. the streets were named and lighted, and the houses were numbered. these changes gave almost as much offence to the burghers as the abolition of festivals had given to the clergy, for they were regarded as encroachments on the rights and liberties which the city had obtained at various times from the kings of denmark. but struensee did not heed, and routed the forces of bumbledom in the same way as he had routed those of bigotry. he even aimed a blow at sabbatarianism, and forbade the police of copenhagen to enter private houses without a warrant, and meddle with what might, or might not, be done by the inhabitants on sundays. heretofore if found working or indulging in "unseemly merriment" in their houses on sundays, citizens were liable to fine or imprisonment--a system which led to gross abuses of the power of the police, but which was tenaciously upheld by the magistrates and clergy. other reforms included the abolition of the censorship of the press, leaving it perfectly free; a regulation aimed at the fraudulence of trustees; and another to check the extravagant expense of funerals, which were often so costly as to entail ruin on the family of the deceased. no abuse seemed too small to escape the eagle eye of the reformer. a royal decree was issued which benefited the serfs. hitherto they had been helpless slaves in the hands of their tyrannical masters--the nobles and landowners; but now they were only required to render compulsory service on certain days and hours of the week, and the remaining time was their own. the peasants were also placed under the protection of the law, and all the privileges that belonged to ordinary citizens were granted to them. the peasant question was a very difficult one in denmark, and it was struensee's intention one day to abolish serfdom altogether. but in this reform even he was compelled to proceed by degrees. another royal decree abolished the salt tax, which had lain very heavily on the poorer classes, and had caused an outbreak among the peasantry. the abolition of this tax was most popular, though the reform was resisted by the nobility. a similar measure was an order forbidding the exportation of corn to foreign countries, while the importation from the duchies of schleswig-holstein and from one inland province to another was encouraged. the large landowners had been in the habit of selling their corn for export abroad at high prices, while their peasantry were starving for bread. this was effectually checked by this edict; many thousand loads of grain of every description were prevented from leaving the kingdom; and, during the severe winter which followed, were brought from the provincial granaries to copenhagen, with the result that flour was sold at half the ordinary price to the inhabitants. it was also decreed that bread should be sold at the same low rate to the poor. queen matilda had probably something to do with the measures for improving the condition of the poor, for she had great sympathy with toiling and suffering humanity. a few weeks after the regulations enforcing the sale of cheap bread, a hospital for six hundred poor children was established in copenhagen. in this institution the queen took a keen interest, and to cover the cost of founding and maintaining it a tax was levied on all carriage and saddle horses in the capital--another device by which the rich were taxed for the benefit of the poor, a complete reversal of the former order of things, whereby the poor were ground down for the benefit of the rich. against these beneficial reforms no objection could reasonably be taken, and whatever the private character and motives of the man responsible for them, they reflected great honour on his public administration. but when he came forward as a moral reformer, his views were more open to cavil. copenhagen in the eighteenth century was a very immoral city despite severe penalties on immorality, and a system of police supervision that interfered with the liberty of the subject--if the subject were poor. struensee would have done well to correct the abuses of the existing system for the suppression of vice, but he chose rather to abolish it altogether. "improved morals," wrote this eminent moralist, in one of his virtuous monarch's royal decrees, "cannot be brought about by police regulations, which are also an encroachment on human liberty; for immoral conduct, if it have no directly injurious influence on the quiet and safety of society, must be left to the conscience to condemn. the secret vices which enforced constraint entail are frequently much greater offences against morality, and constraint only generates hypocrisy." there was no doubt something to be urged from struensee's point of view. he had theories about racial perfectionism, and like many before and since, believed that artificial selection would produce a higher breed of men. with these ideas the conventional views of morality seemed to him superfluous, and his reforms were aimed quite as much against them as against social abuses. for instance, the danish penal laws directed against illegitimacy were barbarous; they called for reform, but struensee swept them away altogether. he decreed that henceforth illegitimate children should not rest under any stigma; they were in future to be christened in precisely the same way as if they were legitimate, and irregular birth should no longer prevent a man from learning a trade, or carrying on a business. mothers of illegitimate children were no more to be punished--the fathers had always got off scot free. for a long time, in consequence of these same cruel laws, secret births, child murder, and the desertion and exposure of new-born infants to the cold had been common in copenhagen. to remedy this evil struensee and the queen imitated catherine of russia, and established a foundling hospital in copenhagen,[ ] but apparently without any safeguards to prevent its abuse. it began in a small way. a drawer containing a mattress was placed outside a window of the lying-in hospital; a notice was affixed that unfortunate mothers who were unable to maintain, from any cause, their children, could leave them there, to be taken care of by the state. this _crêche_ was so eagerly availed of that no less than twenty-four children were found in it during the first four days, and the number increased rapidly. the following sunday, from almost every pulpit in copenhagen, came denunciation of the new institution for foundlings. the clergy denounced it root and branch, as putting a premium on illegitimacy and immorality, and as throwing an unjust burden on the virtuous and industrious classes, by compelling them to rear and maintain the deserted offspring of the immoral and the idle. but struensee did not heed. the old order of things, he maintained, had resulted in infanticide, and wicked waste of human life. and he held that these children, who had no fault but their illegitimacy, which was not their fault, might with proper care be reared into useful citizens. that he might thereby be going against his pet theory of racial perfectionism, and encouraging the multiplication of the unfit, apparently did not occur to him. [ ] catherine the great established a foundling hospital in st. petersburg in , with the aid of the philanthropist demidoff. the empress gave , roubles towards its maintenance, and granted it privileges and favours such as no benevolent institution had ever received before, including exemption from taxation and the monopoly of the state lottery. struensee followed up this by an attack upon the marriage laws. it was decreed that henceforth none but the injured party should bring a charge of adultery. the custom by which persons convicted of adultery were put in the pillory and preached at publicly by the clergyman of the parish was also abolished, and all penalties beyond the dissolution of the marriage tie were forbidden. the table of kindred and affinity was rearranged, and marriages within certain prohibited degrees were allowed. the church disapproved of the marriage of first cousins (though both frederick v. and christian vii. had contracted these alliances); they were not forbidden, but a dispensation was always required. this dispensation was now declared to be unnecessary by royal decree, and the same authority henceforth gave a man permission to marry his deceased wife's niece, or his deceased wife's sister. this aroused furious protests from the clergy, but struensee did not heed, and further aggrieved the church by converting two disused chapels into hospitals for the sick poor. thus it will be seen that, in his zeal for reform, struensee aroused against himself the antagonism of nearly every class. the court officials, the nobles, the clergy, the lawyers, the burghers were attacked in turn, and all saw their ancient privileges torn away from them. under the circumstances, their hostility to the new order of things was natural, but the unpopularity of struensee among the people, whom he sought so greatly to benefit, is not so easy to understand. that he was unpopular there is no doubt. a good deal of this was due to the prejudice among the danes against the german and the foreigner. nearly all the advisers who now surrounded the king were of german extraction, and were dubbed "the german junto". all grace was taken from the royal decrees in the eyes of the danes by the fact that they were issued in german. it is true the court had been for centuries the centre of germanism in denmark; but the people knew that christian vii. spoke and wrote danish very well, and until the advent of struensee all royal decrees and government regulations (except those addressed to the duchies of schleswig-holstein) had been written in the danish language. now, in disregard of the national prejudice, they were issued in german; and the danish people regarded this as an insult offered to them by a german minister. moreover, it gave colour to the rumour that the king was for the most part ignorant of the decrees which appeared in his name, for it was said that otherwise he would most certainly have framed them in his own language when addressing his own people. struensee, who had a contempt for forms and prejudices, and looked at everything from the broad point of view, excused himself on the ground that he had no time to learn the danish language; but even so it would have been easy for him to have had these decrees translated into the danish. as it was he threw away all the popularity he might have gained from his beneficial measures by wantonly affronting the national sentiment. chapter xviii. the order of matilda. - . a curious commentary on the social reforms of the new regime was furnished by the proceedings of the court. extraordinary rumours were circulated concerning the conduct of the queen and her favourite, and though these rumours were grossly exaggerated, still it must be confessed that matilda showed at this time a recklessness of public opinion which was, to say the least of it, unwise. having regard to the difficult and delicate situation in which she found herself placed, a young and beautiful woman, tied to a semi-imbecile husband, and with a handsome and ambitious man as her adviser and intimate friend, it surely behoved the queen to regulate her conduct with the nicest discretion, and to have in her household only those ladies whose character was beyond reproach. this was the more necessary as the sweeping, and on the whole beneficial, reforms which the queen and her adviser were introducing were bound to raise up against her a host of enemies whose interests were more or less attacked--enemies who would be sure to note any false step she might make to arouse public opinion against her. her duty to herself, her duty to her child, and her duty to her high position all combined to make it imperative that in her private life she should give not the slightest occasion for enemies to blaspheme. but acting under the spell of struensee matilda threw discretion to the winds, and even went out of her way in affronting the prejudices of the staider part of the community. the clergy, already enraged against the queen and struensee for their attacks upon the church, were now able to point to the conduct of the queen and her favourite as a proof that their strictures were just. [illustration: the palace of hirschholm, _temp. ._] hitherto the danish court, outwardly at any rate, had respected sunday, and the king and queen had been regular in attendance at public worship. now, though the king and queen went to church sometimes to keep up appearances, sunday was purposely selected as a day of pleasure. for instance, one sunday at hirschholm there was a steeple-chase in the royal park, and the king gave prizes to the winners. the races attracted a large and disreputable crowd. nor was it enough to slight religious convictions; they were openly mocked at and derided. on another sunday brandt was guilty of the folly and bad taste of delivering a mock sermon from the pulpit in the private chapel at hirschholm before the king and an assembled court, who laughed and applauded. at this exhibition it is only fair to say the queen was not present. naturally these things were repeated at copenhagen, and the "revels of hirschholm" formed a favourite subject of conversation and reprobation. the clergy fanned the flame of indignation, and many a covert allusion to jezebel was heard from the pulpits. moreover, by abolishing the censorship of the press struensee had put a sword into the hands of his enemies, and before long many scurrilous pamphlets were sold in the streets, containing the coarsest abuse of the queen and her "minion". caricatures in which the queen and struensee were grossly depicted, and satires after the manner of juvenal, purporting to describe the orgies of the court at hirschholm, were circulated in copenhagen, and not only posted on the walls of houses, but even in the passages of the royal palaces. all this popular discontent played into the hands of the queen-dowager, juliana maria, who, with her son, prince frederick, lived in comparative retirement at fredensborg, and sought, by the decorum of her household and by her regular attendance at public worship, to draw a contrast between her court and that of the reigning queen. juliana maria had always been unpopular, but now, though she was not loved, she was respected, and became generally recognised as the representative of the old regime, which offered in so many ways a favourable contrast to the new. she took the place of the queen-mother, sophia magdalena, and her palace of fredensborg became the rallying-place of those who were discontented with struensee and his methods. it is quite possible that intrigues were set on foot at fredensborg with the object of overthrowing the favourite, and it is probable that struensee, who had spies everywhere, came to hear of them, and in revenge advised the reigning queen to treat her brother-in-law and his mother with discourtesy, which was not only unworthy but unwise. juliana maria and her son were rarely invited to court, and when they attended they were often kept waiting for some time before the king and queen received them, treated with little ceremony, and made to feel that their presence was unwelcome. moreover, on the birthday of the queen-dowager, juliana maria held her usual court at fredensborg, but neither the king nor the queen attended or sent congratulations, an omission which, under the circumstances, was very marked. prince frederick had been in the habit of attending the riding-school at christiansborg, and had had free access to the royal stables. one morning on presenting himself there he was curtly informed that no horses could be placed at his disposal in future, and the riding-school was closed to him, as the queen had reserved it for her own use. a great deal of this juliana maria had brought upon herself by the scant consideration she had shown to the young queen when she seemed a person of no importance, and by the malignant and unjust rumours she had circulated against her when she first came to denmark. but matilda would have done well to be magnanimous, for these slights provoked a reaction in favour of the queen-dowager. juliana maria behaved with great circumspection. she did not publicly resent the affronts put upon herself and her son, though she lamented them in private, and she was careful always to say that she in no way censured the king, but laid all the blame on the queen and her favourite. her hatred of matilda deepened, and the most injurious reports which were circulated concerning the queen had their origin in the salons of fredensborg. the invalid king was represented as living in a state of terror under the dominion of his queen and her imperious favourite. he was treated, it was said, with positive disrespect, if not with cruelty, by the minions with whom he was surrounded, and matilda forgot not only her duty as a queen and wife but also as a mother. this last indictment had reference to the treatment of the crown prince. so far the heir to the throne had come little before the public, but suddenly there spread throughout the kingdom alarming rumours of the treatment which he suffered at the hands of his mother and her adviser, and such was the universal prejudice that these rumours were generally credited. it was said that the crown prince was neglected in a scandalous manner; he was left to run about the gardens of hirschholm in all weathers, insufficiently clothed, with no one to look after him, and no companions but a boy of low rank; and his education had not yet begun. he was frequently beaten by his mother and struensee, and shut up in an iron cage for hours together as a harsh punishment; his food was of the coarsest kind, and served in a wooden bowl, which was placed on the ground. altogether he was treated more like an animal than a human being, especially one who would some day be called upon to fill a high destiny. even the foreign envoys heard of this treatment of the crown prince, and commented upon it in their despatches. gunning, who considered the matter not only from a political but also from a domestic point of view (seeing that the king of england was the uncle of the crown prince), wrote home in bitter sarcasm:-- "as no step taken in the education of a prince is without its importance, his nursery may sometimes present a scene not unworthy of attention. the philosopher of geneva would hail the dawn of more enlightened days could he behold (as he might here) the scene of a monarch left from his cradle to crawl unassisted upon his hands and knees (like the nursling of a norwegian peasant) and condemned to lose his meals, most philosophically concealed, unless he could discover them by the sagacity of his nose. such are the maxims which obtain in the royal nursery of denmark. the latter instance is no doubt calculated to sharpen the talent of investigation, a talent very requisite where the labyrinth of intrigue requires some such guide."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, october , . notwithstanding gunning's authority, these rumours were shamefully exaggerated, and if they may be taken as a sample of the others circulated about the queen, it is very difficult to say of any of them where fact ends and imagination begins. in this case they were not only untrue but cruel, for the maternal instinct was always strong in queen matilda, and she was never so happy as when with her child. moreover, it was in her interest that the crown prince should have his health guarded in every way, for her position would be seriously affected if she were no longer the mother of the heir to the throne. the spartan treatment, therefore, which the crown prince undoubtedly underwent, was sanctioned by his mother from the highest motives, for struensee had persuaded her that it was the training of all others most conducive to the child's well-being. from his birth the young prince had been of a weakly constitution, and had shown a tendency to consumption; he had been pampered and spoiled by his attendants, with the result that he would not take the slightest exercise; he was fractious and peevish, and wanted always to be petted and amused. struensee, who was a believer in the famous treatment of emile, changed all this, and urged the queen to bring up her son as simply as possible, so that he would grow up to be a strong and a self-reliant man. the crown prince's former attendants were sent away, and he was given the simplest fare, consisting of vegetables, rice boiled in water, bread and water, and milk and potatoes; no meat was allowed him. he wore light silk clothes, and went about bare-footed. he was bathed twice a day in cold water, and soon became so fond of it that he would go into the bath of his own accord. he was forced to take exercise, kept as much as possible in the open air, and made to run about the gardens in all weathers. his room at hirschholm was a large one on the ground floor, some forty feet in length, and on the garden side it was closed in by an iron trellis-work, which accounted for the story that the heir to the throne was shut up in a cage. the little prince had only one playmate, a boy who was the natural son of one of the court surgeons, and known as "little karl". these boys were always together, and no difference was made between them. they played, quarrelled and fought as they would, and no one was allowed to interfere with them, nor were any of the servants about the court suffered to speak to, or play with, the crown prince. this rule was kept very strictly. for instance, one day, when the little prince fell in the garden and hurt himself, struensee's valet, who was passing, picked him up and tried to comfort him. for this breach of rule the servant was sent to the blue tower in copenhagen and imprisoned for some time. the boy was not allowed on any pretext to take advantage on the ground of his rank. one day when he and his companion had some quarrel, frederick asked karl how he dared to strike a prince. "i am as much a prince as you," the other boy answered. "yes, but i am a crown prince," frederick retorted. thereupon the two boys fought till frederick won the victory. struensee heard of this battle royal, and told the queen, who, when she knew the cause, insisted on the crown prince begging the other boy's pardon. as frederick refused to do so, the queen gave him a whipping. from this arose the rumour that he was frequently severely beaten. the charge that he was neglected rests on more foundation. one day during the autumn of , at hirschholm, the king and queen and all the court went out hunting, and on their return very late the crown prince could nowhere be found. a search was made for him, and he was at last found lying insensible in the garden half-dead with cold. he was put to bed with a nurse, who took him in her arms and gradually restored him. the negligence in this case was due to the servants who had been left in charge of him, but the blame was laid upon the queen. the incident became known, and so loud and insistent was the popular clamour that the court physician, berger, became frightened, and insisted on some modification of the crown prince's treatment. henceforth the boy was allowed to wear shoes and stockings, given warmer clothing, and his room was slightly heated in the winter. his diet was also made a little fuller; his rice was boiled in mutton-broth, and he was given meat-soup for dinner. his education, however, was still left severely alone, and at the age of four he could not speak any language properly, but only a jargon of danish and german, which he had learnt from his playmate. the excuse put forward for this retarded education was that the boy was far from strong, and it was the queen's object to see his health thoroughly established before she burdened his strength with studies. the queen, as a rule, was indifferent to public criticism, but she was much hurt at the strictures passed on her for her treatment of her son, especially those made by foreign courts. it is possible that some remonstrance may have reached her from england, either from her mother or her brother, for she had drawings made of the crown prince, showing him with his little rake and spade and watering-can, playing in the garden, or leaning against his mother, all designed to show how healthy and happy he was. these were given to the foreign envoys for transmission to their respective courts.[ ] [ ] some rough sketches of these little pictures--in water-colours--are preserved in the royal archives at copenhagen. the best answer to this charge against the queen is to be found in the fact that the crown prince threw off his early weakness, grew up a strong and healthy boy, and developed into a vigorous man, who lived to a sound old age. all through his life the crown prince frederick (who afterwards became frederick vi.) was able to endure much more fatigue than an ordinary man, and he always adhered to the simple and frugal habits to which he had been inured when a child. the king and queen remained at hirschholm until late in the autumn, and then removed to the castle of frederiksberg, near copenhagen. struensee and brandt accompanied them in close attendance. struensee now was a permanent inmate of the royal palaces, and wherever the court went he went too--a special suite of rooms adjacent to, or communicating with, the queen's apartments were set apart for him.[ ] [ ] the castle of frederiksberg is not much changed to this day, and a secret door is still shown which, tradition says, led from struensee's apartments to those of the queen. at frederiksberg the king and queen lived in comparative retirement, but as unpleasant rumours were persistently promulgated about the king's health, struensee thought it well that christian should occasionally show himself in public, and it was announced that the king and queen would drive into copenhagen every week to hold a court at the christiansborg palace. there was a general curiosity to see the king; but when the court was held he only appeared for a few minutes and spoke to nobody; the queen then took his place and received the company alone. she was much mortified to see how the nobility and their wives held aloof from the court. but on reflection she could hardly have been surprised, for not only had recent legislation been directed against them, but the king had published a decree a few months before recommending the nobility to spend less time in the capital and more on their estates. those who attended court now, outside the foreign envoys and the ministers and officials whose duties compelled them to be present, were chiefly the lesser and newer nobility, the professional classes and even the _bourgeoisie_. it was matilda's ambition to have a brilliant court. it was undoubtedly brilliant in the sense of display, and was largely attended, but the company who came could scarcely be said to add to its distinction. the crown prince of sweden (who afterwards ascended the throne as gustavus iii.) and his younger brother, the hereditary prince frederick adolphus, paid a visit to the king and queen of denmark at this time. the crown prince of sweden had married christian vii.'s elder sister, and this was his first visit to copenhagen since his marriage. as struensee's foreign policy was to cultivate good relations with sweden as against russia, every effort was made to receive the princes with honour. a masquerade ball was arranged for their entertainment, plays and operas were performed at the theatre, and banquets, concerts and levees were held every day. despite these efforts the crown prince of sweden did not appear to be pleased with his reception, and he made audible comments on the strange company he met at the court of copenhagen. at the masquerade, in particular, almost any one came who would. he pointedly asked the queen what had become of the danish nobility, several of whom he inquired for by name, and scarcely concealed his annoyance that they were not present to do him honour. one day, at the royal table, when he found that two or three of the wives of the principal merchants of copenhagen were dining there, he sarcastically exclaimed, "and are there no jews and jewesses here too?" on another occasion a beautiful lady of the _bourgeoisie_ rallied the prince politely for not having acknowledged her obeisance, and he answered elaborately (in the hearing of the queen) that he could not understand how the swedish envoy had made such an oversight, for he had strictly ordered him to present every lady of noble rank who attended the danish court, and he could only suppose the minister had forgotten as he had presented so few. these sarcasms were very wounding to the queen, and her pride was much hurt. the crown prince of sweden and his brother treated the king and queen with studied deference, but they declined to regard struensee in any other light than that of a man of almost menial birth, who might be useful to them politically. struensee, who had arrogated to himself a foremost place at the danish court, was incensed at thus being put outside the charmed circle, and vented his ill-humour on the queen, who was sufficiently mortified on her own account. it was a relief to every one when the visit ended, and the swedish princes betook themselves to gottorp to stay with prince charles of hesse, and amaze him and his wife with an account of the extraordinary proceedings of the court of copenhagen. this was the only royal visit paid to the danish court during matilda's regime, and it gave her no taste for others. the state of the king's mind made any repetition of this experience impossible, for christian vii. was no longer able to play the host to royal guests. one of the current rumours was that struensee and the court physician, berger, who was his creature, tampered with the king's health, and gave him drugs which dulled his understanding. certainly, when the king appeared in public his dejected air and extreme indifference to everything that was going on around him gave colour to the report--which was not true. the fact was that the condition of christian by this time had become hopeless; his mind had partly given way, and the greatest care was taken by the queen and struensee lest this should be discovered. for if the king were proved to be incapable of governing, what force had the decrees issued in his name? but the king was declared to be in perfect health, and the fiction of his absolutism was rigidly maintained. on the strength of this, sometimes, impudent demands were made upon him, when brandt was out of the way. for instance, one of the king's pages drove his master into a corner, and said to him, "your majesty, make me a groom of the chamber". nor would he let the king out until he had granted his request, and the royal word once spoken could not be recalled. occasionally the king aired his authority in a way which his keepers did not approve, and now and then a ray of intelligence crossed his brain which found expression in satire, and made struensee fear that perhaps the king was not quite so imbecile as he looked. one day christian, who wished for nothing but to amuse himself, had been worried to sign commissions appointing several new conference councillors, creatures of struensee, who had little or no qualification for their posts. the king that evening at dinner kicked his favourite dog "gourmand," who was lying at his feet, and asked, "can you bark?" and when the dog began yelping, the king said, "as you can bark, you shall be a conference councillor too". he thereupon rose and proposed the health of "councillor gourmand," to which all present had to drink. he also gave the dog a salary, which had to be paid regularly from the treasury. struensee's enemies regarded the incident as a bitter joke on the part of the king, and nicknamed the minister "gourmand". on another occasion when christian had been forced to appoint a man, whom he disliked, a chamberlain, he revenged himself by making one of the palace menials a chamberlain too. the man, whose duty it was to light the stoves, came into the royal apartment just after christian had been worried into signing the paper. "hullo, my good fellow, would you like to be a chamberlain?" cried the king. the man grinned sheepishly, and, to humour his master, answered that he would not mind. "very well," said the king, "you shall be one: come with me." he took the servant by the hand, and led him just as he was, in his yellow blouse, into the great hall, where the queen, struensee and all the court were assembled, walked him to the middle of the room, and shouted in a loud voice: "i appoint this man my chamberlain". as the theory that the king was absolute had to be kept up at all hazards, the man became a chamberlain forthwith. struensee, however, hit on a device next day for getting out of the difficulty, and bought the title back from the man for the price of a small farm some distance from the capital, whither he was despatched as soon as possible. it was difficult to guard against these _contretemps_, for the king's condition varied considerably; some days he was quite sane and lucid in his conversation, so that no one would imagine that there was anything the matter with him; on others he was to all intents and purposes a madman. but his keepers never knew when the mania would break out, and it sometimes showed itself at most inconvenient seasons. one day when the queen was holding a levee (it having been announced that the king did not feel well enough to be present), the door suddenly opened, and the king, who had managed to evade the vigilance of brandt, walked into the room, and waving his hand to the assembled court, peremptorily commanded silence. the conversation was at once hushed, and the queen, pale and trembling, wondered what was coming next. the king, with great earnestness, recited _the warning ode to princes_, by the famous poet, klopstock, a poem peculiarly suitable under the circumstances. when it was finished, he again waved his hand to the company, burst into a laugh, and walked out of the room. it was probably after this incident that gunning wrote:-- "i am very sorry to communicate so disagreeable an article of news as that alarming reports have been circulated on the subject of his danish majesty's health. notwithstanding infinite pains have been taken to conceal or explain away some very unpromising symptoms, i am apprehensive they have but too much foundation."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, february , . the court had by this time returned to copenhagen and taken up residence at the christiansborg palace. struensee now strove in every way to win popularity for his administration. he was a great believer in _panem et circenses_, and in pursuance of this policy seized upon the king's birthday (january , ) as an opportunity for bribing the populace. the celebrations rivalled in magnificence those of the coronation, and were also intended to dispel the idea that the king was ignored in his own court. a fountain was erected in the palace yard whence flowed red and white wine, and all who would were allowed to drink from it the king's health. sheep and oxen were roasted whole, and distributed to the crowd; gold and silver medals were struck, and money thrown to the people. the king and queen looked down upon the scene from a balcony, while the galleries which ran round the quadrangle were crowded with spectators. the king's birthday was also made the occasion of glorifying the reigning queen, and of rewarding her adherents. struensee gave matilda all the semblance of power, and himself grasped the substance. in order to identify the young queen with the revolutionary changes that had recently taken place, and impressing upon the nation the prominent position which she now held in the councils of the state, a new order was established, which was called the order of matilda. the queen was founder of the order, and the statutes were as follows:-- "i. the order shall be called the order of matilda. "ii. it shall be conferred on both women and men. the number shall never exceed twenty-four, the queen, its founder, included. "iii. it shall only be conferred on those persons who deserve particular attention of the queen, independently of merit or services rendered. "iv. it is forbidden to ask for the order, and those who act contrary to this rule will deprive themselves for ever of the hope of obtaining it. "v. those women or men who, on receiving the order of matilda, already possess the 'order of the perfect union' of the late queen-mother, sophia magdalena, shall deliver the insignia of the latter to the queen. "vi. the order shall be worn with a pink ribbon striped with silver. the men shall wear it round the neck, and the ladies fasten it in the shape of a bow on the left breast. "vii. on the death of any person decorated with the order of matilda, the heirs are expected to return the insignia to the queen." the badge of the order was a medallion with the letters "c. m." set in diamonds, with a royal crown over it and a laurel wreath round it. the queen was pleased to confer it on the king, the queen-dowager, and prince frederick. the others to whom it was given on the day of its institution were struensee, rantzau, osten, brandt, general and madame gahler, madame de plessen, who still lived at celle, and baroness schimmelmann, and countess holstein, the queen's ladies-in-waiting. the queen only decorated those who were her avowed supporters, and the establishment of this order gave her the opportunity of honouring them in a special and personal manner. but struensee's enemies declared that he had invented the order for his own special benefit, inasmuch as he despised the order of the dannebrog, and did not yet dare to take for himself the order of the elephant--the highest order in denmark. this, however, was a malicious invention, for struensee could have had any order and title he wished, and if he did not take them all at once, it was because he liked to prolong the pleasure of anticipation. the court remained at christiansborg throughout the winter, and brandt, who was now established as a sort of master of the revels, had the arrangement of all the festivities. his first step was to alter and redecorate the royal theatre in copenhagen at great cost, and arrange a series of operas. for the first time in denmark, since the reformation, performances were given on sunday, and sunday came to be regarded as the gala night at the opera, when the king and queen would attend. this gave fresh offence to the puritan party in copenhagen. the rearranging of the royal theatre was used as an occasion for offering a further slight to the queen-dowager and her son. they had hitherto been accustomed to share the king's box, but now they were allotted one of their own. the queen-dowager rarely attended operas, but prince frederick did, and the excuse put forward was that there was no room for the prince in the royal box; but when, after protest, he yielded the point, struensee and brandt appeared in the box, and seated themselves immediately behind the king and queen. struensee turned his attention to the court, and soon the new brooms were busily sweeping out this augean stable of privilege and corruption. the expenditure of the court was carefully revised, a great many useless offices, chiefly held by the younger sons of the nobility, were abolished, and pensions and salaries greatly reduced. the king of denmark was burdened with a great number of costly palaces, which were always in need of repair. none of these palaces was closed, but the embellishment of them, which was always going on, was commanded to cease. by order of the late king frederick v. the building of a marble church, to be named after him frederiks-kirke, had been begun in copenhagen, after magnificent designs by jardin, the french architect. the building of this church, which had now been going on for twenty years at enormous cost, crippled the treasury. struensee, who considered the building of churches as useless waste, put a stop to the works, and broke the contracts with the builders. the church remained half-finished.[ ] this occasioned much discontent; the contractors declared that they were ruined, the architect was loud in his complaints, artists protested against the vandalism of abandoning so magnificent an undertaking, and the clergy were scandalised that the house of the lord should be left in this condition while large sums were squandered upon masquerades and play-houses. it is true that struensee's changes in the court did not effect much economy, for the perpetual round of entertainments and festivities organised by brandt more than ate up anything that might be saved in another direction. [ ] it so remained until for lack of funds, when tietgen, a wealthy banker of copenhagen, undertook the cost, and it was finally completed in . the handsome copper-sheathed dome is a conspicuous object in copenhagen, especially when the city is approached from the sea. to bring money into the depleted treasury, struensee established a royal danish lottery, and it became a most profitable institution, not only to the court but to the government. its establishment was regarded by many as state encouragement of gambling, which would not fail to bring ruin upon thousands; but protest was unavailing, for a mania for gambling seized the citizens of copenhagen and the people in the provinces, and nothing was talked of but the lottery, to the hindrance of regular and honest occupation. struensee's defence to his critics was that he did not establish gambling, which already existed in denmark; he merely sought to regulate it, and turn the craze to the benefit of the state. in this, as in many other things, he was imitating catherine the great, who raised money in the same way. struensee closed his programme of court reform by what was in effect an indirect attack upon the army, though it was really aimed at the nobility. he abolished by royal decree the two squadrons of household cavalry or king's bodyguard, who, composed of picked handsome men, were the flower of the danish army. struensee considered them to be useless, and justified their abolition on the ground of economy; but it was said that a personal grievance had something to do with it. the officers of the household cavalry were all men of noble birth, and had the right of coming to court when they liked. many of them held ornamental posts which struensee had swept away. naturally the officers did not view these reforms with favour, and they revenged themselves by making slighting remarks about the mixed company which now formed the court circle, and ridiculing the more prominent members of it, including the favourite himself. struensee stopped this annoyance by abolishing the household cavalry by a stroke of his pen, and gave directions that the officers, who could not at once be attached to other cavalry regiments, were to be placed on half-pay; but the non-commissioned officers and privates received no compensation beyond the option of joining the foot guards, whom they looked down upon and despised. a terrific uproar followed the promulgation of this order. the army declared that it was an attack on the king's majesty and prestige, he could not be properly guarded without his cavalry. the protests of the nobles, the clergy, the lawyers, the magistracy had been nothing to this. the officers at whom struensee really aimed belonged of course to a class, but the troopers were from the people, whom he desired to conciliate. they were very popular among the citizens of copenhagen, who were proud of them. even the queen was frightened at the din, and feared that in this measure struensee had gone too far. some of her fear must have communicated itself to him; for when the horse guards were returning to their barracks from the parade, where the king's order had been read to them, struensee, who was driving, met them face to face. the aspect of the soldiers and the populace was so threatening that, believing a mutiny to be imminent, he fled back to the palace and hastily summoned the heads of the war department--gahler, rantzau and falckenskjold. the result was a complete capitulation so far as the rank and file were concerned. a cabinet order was issued declaring that the disbandment of the household cavalry was only a prelude to the establishment of a model corps which was to be called "the flying bodyguard". this corps was to be composed of the non-commissioned officers and men of the two squadrons disbanded, and picked men from other cavalry regiments. struensee declared that his only object was to provide really efficient cavalry, and this he had intended all the time. now that the danger had passed he sought to conceal that it was a concession forced from him by fear. but the rumour of his panic spread about the city, and it was even said that he had been frightened into offering his resignation. the rumour was not generally believed, for it was thought incredible that a man who had shown himself so daring and indomitable should thus show signs of weakness. struensee recognised that, from the popularity point of view, he had made a false move, and sought to retrieve it by popularising the court. everything now was done for the masses and nothing for the classes. when, in , spring came (and it comes with a rush in denmark) the beautiful gardens of the rosenborg[ ] castle in copenhagen, and the park and gardens of frederiksberg, outside the walls of the city, were thrown open to the people, and on sundays and holidays military bands performed for their benefit. the king and queen frequently honoured the concerts with their presence. they would dine in the palace, and then mingle freely with the crowd in the gardens, which was composed of all classes. the grounds of the rosenborg were especially beautiful and varied, with shady groves and shrubberies. often of an evening the gardens were illuminated with coloured lamps, and refreshment buffets were erected. struensee gave permission to the proprietor of the buffets to open a faro-bank which was much frequented, and the rent paid for the tables was given to the foundling hospital. catherine the great had done the same thing at st. petersburg. the clergy again cursed struensee from their pulpits; they declared that he turned the king's gardens into haunts of libertinism, gambling and drunkenness, and the shady groves and dark alleys into scenes of iniquity. these charges were greatly exaggerated and fell wide of the mark. most of the amusement was quite innocent, and despite the anathema of the church, the opening of the royal gardens was the most popular measure of struensee's administration. [ ] rosenborg, a handsome renaissance palace with pediments and towers, was erected by that splendour-loving monarch, christian iv., in . it was his favourite residence, and from his death until the reign of christian vii. was used as an occasional residence of the danish monarchs, who here deposited their jewels, coronation robes and other treasures. christian vii. and matilda never used the rosenborg as a residence. it is now converted into a danish historical museum, and is full of relics and beautiful things. a visit to it is a most instructive lesson in danish history. chapter xix. the dictator. . when the court removed from copenhagen to hirschholm for the summer, it was officially announced that the queen was likely again to become a mother. the fact had long been known to people about the court, but the publication of it was unduly delayed. some months before its announcement gunning wrote to england: "as no declaration has yet been made of her danish majesty's pregnancy, i have long entertained scruples with regard to the propriety of mentioning it; but as nobody seems to make the least doubt of its truth, i am at length convinced i ought no longer to suppress so important a piece of intelligence".[ ] extraordinary mystery was observed. the saxon minister informed his court that at the last drawing-room held before the queen's confinement, no one ventured to inquire after her majesty's health, though it was the usual custom. [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, february , . the news was ill-received by the danish people, who had hitherto not been disposed to judge the young queen too harshly. except by the clergy, and some women, matilda was more pitied than blamed, and spoken of with sorrow rather than with anger. but when her pregnancy was at last declared, and an order issued for prayers to be offered for her in the churches, many people (even those who had tried to believe the best) regarded the announcement as a confirmation of their worst suspicions. the clergy in many instances did not obey the order to pray for the queen, and in some of the principal churches in copenhagen half the congregation rose up and left the church when the prayer was read. the danes, though accustomed to the profligacy of their kings, had hitherto regarded their queens as above suspicion. the old queen-mother, sophia magdalena, had been a model of respectability: queen louise was almost worshipped on account of her domestic virtues: even juliana maria, the queen-dowager, unpopular though she was, on account of her intriguing and vindictive disposition, had never given occasion for the slightest whisper against her fair fame. when, therefore, matilda, who had come to denmark little more than four years before, a child-bride with golden hair and blue eyes, the incarnation of innocence, and who (during the early years of her married life) had won all hearts by the way she had borne her sorrows, suddenly put aside her modesty and dignity, surrounded herself with ladies of easy virtue, and compromised herself with a man of inferior position, she alienated the sympathies of the people. it is true that, even admitting the worst, of which there was no positive proof, the young queen of denmark was only imitating the conduct of the empress catherine of russia and her predecessors, the empresses ann and elizabeth. but russia was a more barbarous country than denmark, and the priests of the eastern church took a more tolerant view of breaches of the seventh commandment than the puritanical clergy of denmark. moreover, catherine conducted her amours with more discretion than matilda; her conduct in public was a model of decorum, however shameless it might be in private; she was careful always to conciliate the clergy, to respect the rights and privileges of the national church, and to be regular in her attendance at public worship. but matilda, urged by struensee, had attacked the rights of the established church, and had needlessly shocked the conventions. and whereas the favourites of the empress of russia were puppets in her hands, the queen of denmark was a puppet in the hands of her favourite. [illustration: two relics of queen matilda in the rosenborg castle, copenhagen. ( ) the insignia of the order of matilda; ( ) the wedding goblet.] it must be repeated that much would have been forgiven the young and beautiful queen had her favourite been other than he was--had he been a dane of good birth, who respected the proprieties sufficiently to keep himself in the background. had the young queen been first, and her favourite second, she might have gathered as much power in her hands as she would, and have aroused little opposition except at the court of the queen-dowager, and those whose interests she attacked. she would certainly have reigned still in the hearts of the people, who were willing to make great allowance because of her wrongs. but when her favourite was a german, an upstart, who flaunted his power over the queen in the face of the public, and made her do a hundred things which were not in keeping with her rank as a queen, or her dignity as a woman, when every one knew that it was he who dictated the new policy of the king, and used the queen as a buffer between him and the popular indignation, when he attacked the national institutions and flouted the national sentiment at every turn--it is no wonder that a cry of indignation went up, not only against the minister, but also against the queen. this indignation deepened when it was announced on july , , that the queen was delivered of a daughter. mounted messengers at once conveyed the tidings from hirschholm, whither the court had gone three weeks before, to copenhagen, and the birth of the princess was proclaimed in the usual manner from the balcony of the christiansborg palace. royal salutes were discharged from the cannon on the ramparts and at the arsenal, and heralds in gorgeous tabards blew a blast of trumpets from the town hall and the principal church towers. but so far from the event arousing any public rejoicing, ominous murmurs were heard among the people, and the free press did not hesitate to abuse its freedom by more scurrilous articles and gross caricatures. though there was no proof, the newborn infant was generally believed to be the child of struensee, "who," said his enemies, "had shamelessly dishonoured the king's bed, and introduced his vile posterity in the place of the pure blood of oldenburg". it must be stated here, however, that even if the queen's indiscretion with struensee were admitted, it was not impossible that the princess should have been the king's child, and this was the view taken later by the queen's most inveterate enemies. unfortunately, colour was given to this damaging report by struensee assisting with berger at the accouchement of the queen; no other physicians were called in, and all the etiquette usual on these occasions was abolished. with incredible recklessness struensee chose this time, when his unpopularity was at its height, and the air full of evil rumours, to put the crown upon his audacity by seizing the kingly power in a way no subject had ever dared to attempt before. struensee's nominal office hitherto had been that of master of requests; in reality he had been dictator, and governed both the state and the court. but this was not enough for his boundless ambition; he was no longer content to work behind the king and queen, and through his creatures rantzau, gahler and osten. he therefore induced the king to appoint him (or rather he appointed himself) "privy cabinet minister," and to invest him with absolute authority. an extraordinary order, signed by the king, and counter-signed by struensee, was published from hirschholm, july , , a week after the birth of the princess, and copies were sent to every department of the government, and the ministers of foreign courts. briefly, this document ordained that henceforth all orders or directions issued by struensee and signed by him would have the same force and validity as if they were given under the royal sign manual; and whether the orders of the privy cabinet minister came addressed to the heads of departments, or to their subordinates in office, they were to be instantly and implicitly obeyed. "the cabinet orders issued in this way," wrote the king, "shall have the same validity as those drawn up by our hand. they shall be immediately obeyed." this decree, which amounted to a virtual abdication on the part of christian vii. in favour of struensee, was received with consternation and indignation from one end of the kingdom to the other. at first it seemed impossible that the king could thus vest any subject with unlimited power, but, since no other meaning could be attached to the document, the people declared that it could only have been wrested from the king by force or undue influence. it was now realised that from the beginning struensee had aimed at absolute power. he first persuaded the king to abolish the council of state and proclaim himself an absolute monarch, and then forced him to delegate the whole power to him as privy cabinet minister. the danish nation were, in fact, no longer ruled by their hereditary monarch but by a foreign adventurer, who had usurped the kingly functions, and, having abolished all ministers and councils, gathered up into himself every branch of power and prerogative. the unscrupulousness of the man was only equalled by his audacity. it was the last straw on the back of the long-suffering danes. hitherto, the agitation against struensee had been confined to certain classes; now it represented the whole nation, and not all the laws he had passed for the benefit of the people, nor all the doles he had meted out to them, could avail to quell the tempest of indignation aroused by the publication of this royal decree. its promulgation at such a time, within a week of the queen's delivery, gave credence to the rumour that the infant princess was not the king's child but struensee's, and it was said that this insolent tyrant, who stopped at nothing, had already formed a plan of getting the king out of the way, of marrying the queen, of assassinating the crown prince, and establishing himself and his posterity upon the throne of denmark. the princess was christened on the queen's birthday, july , , under the names of louise augusta--the first name having been that of the king's mother, the second that of the princess-dowager of wales. the king, himself, stood as principal sponsor to the child, the others being his brother prince frederick, and the queen-dowager, juliana maria. whispers of the current scandal had reached the ears of the queen and struensee, and the choice of these sponsors was a way of contradicting them. the queen-dowager and prince frederick were present at the express command of the king, and dared not disobey. they must have come very unwillingly, for juliana maria had already stated in private what she afterwards proclaimed in public--that the legitimacy of the princess was open to grave suspicion. the child was generally spoken of by the courtiers as "the ma'amselle". the queen's birthday and the royal christening formed the occasion of a further elevation of the all-powerful minister. with reckless effrontery, struensee chose this day of all others for the king to confer upon him and his colleague, brandt, the title of count, the highest title in the kingdom.[ ] no estates were granted to the recipients of these honours; it was announced that the king had offered large domains, but struensee's modesty would now not allow him to accept this further mark of the royal favour. both struensee and brandt had received large sums from the treasury, and since struensee could take practically what he liked, he probably thought it would look better to waive any claim to estates for the present. so he made a parade of his disinterestedness, and contented himself with a brand new coat of arms, and other outward signs of his new dignity. the coat of arms must have cost him much thought, for its composition showed remarkable ingenuity. he symbolised in it every department of the state, which he now governed as absolute minister. [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, july , . "the escutcheon (symbolical of the state) was divided into five fields, the centre one of which represented a sailing vessel (the symbol of commerce) with a crown over it, typical of the monarch and the persons representing him. the first and fourth quarters displayed four rivers (exports and imports idealised) on a field _or_, which was the symbol of denmark, rich in corn, and norway, abounding in metal, wood and fish. in the third and second quarters was a crown surrounded with palm leaves (the symbol of peace and victory) and two crossed keys (the image of authority and might) on a field _azure_, which allegorically typified fidelity and constancy. below the coat of arms was the royal crown with the badge of the matilda order, surrounded by a laurel wreath (the symbol of fortune, joy and honour), from which flowed two rivers running round the chief escutcheon (the state), supported by two beavers (the representatives of architecture and industry) guarded by _bourgeois_ helmets (emblems of national armament), counts' crowns (the symbol of the servant of the state), and an owl holding a key in its mouth (as allegories of thought and wisdom). above the whole was displayed, between two eagle wings (the symbols of power, strength and victory), a man-of-war in full sail (typical of the navy), and above this, again, a suspended crown, surrounded by palm branches (the type of peace)."[ ] [ ] wraxall's _life and times of caroline matilda_. struensee had all his life professed the most radical ideas. he had begun his political career as one who despised rank, titles and display--and yet he crowned it by framing this heraldic absurdity. he had the preposterous coat of arms engraved on the seal which he affixed to cabinet orders; he built himself a magnificent coach, resplendent with crimson and gold, and blazoned it on the panels. he vested his servants and running footmen in gaudy liveries of scarlet and white, and decked them with diamond badges. when struensee's valet appeared for the first time in his new livery he fell down the palace stairs, and in his fall broke his badge and his nose, and the blood spoiled his finery. on struensee being told of this ill-omened mishap, he gave his usual answer to any unpleasant news: "as god wills". this fatalistic answer also gives the measure of his arrogance, for he had come to consider himself an instrument chosen by god. certainly, from his rapid rise to power, and the way in which he moulded everything to his will, struensee may well have believed, with many others, that there was something supernatural about him, though his enemies declared that his power came from the devil. at this time, notwithstanding the universal hatred which he inspired, the privy cabinet minister seemed omnipotent and his tenure of power assured. so much was this the case that gunning, a very keen observer, thought it would be best to accept the peculiar relations which existed between the queen and her favourite, and turn them to the advantage of england. in a long and important despatch, written nominally for the guidance of the english secretary of state, lord halifax, in reality for george iii., he described at length the situation at the danish court, and gave a detailed description of the principal personages then in power. as his general view is the one taken in these pages, it is not necessary to go over the ground again, but the following word-portrait of struensee may be quoted; the more so as it is studiously dispassionate:-- "mr. struensee, the favourite, ... was bred a physician, and till within these ten months continued the practice of his profession. he is supposed not to be destitute of some knowledge, acquired at a german university, but with respect to any political attainments, either as they may concern the state of europe in general, or this country in particular, he has them almost wholly to make. he is said to have carried the freedom of thinking as far as any man, but as his conversation discovers nothing of that vivacity and grace by which other men in a disadvantageous situation have won their way to royal favour, it is universal matter of wonder how he has managed to gain so entire an ascendency over their danish majesties. his manner of treating business is dry and ungraceful. he, however, possesses a clear and ready conception of things. a great share of natural confidence, and indifference with regard to the ideas others may form of his principles or abilities, brings him at once without ambiguity or affectation to the point in question, so that he is always intelligible though he may not be agreeable. he appears to have no vanity, but it is supplied by no small share of insolence. a stronger or juster idea of this gentleman's character cannot be conveyed than by contrasting it (the article only of understanding excepted) with that of count bernstorff. the latter was characteristically timid, cautious and irresolute; the former is bold, enterprising and firm. the minister possessed great extent of political knowledge; the favourite is uncommonly circumscribed in what relates to this kind of acquisition. count bernstorff displayed great refinement of manners with an easy flow of eloquence; mr. struensee's address is simple, and his way of speaking inelegant and embarrassed. the minister's conduct exhibited a conspicuous example of morality and religion; that of the favourite is said to be deficient in both." after drawing character-sketches of rantzau, gahler and others, and reviewing the quarrel with russia, gunning went on to show how struensee might be used to the advantage of england:-- "as the queen of denmark _is now in full possession of the most absolute power_, and free from all imaginable control, it were to be wished that some means dictated by the wisdom of our royal master [george iii.] were made use of to give her danish majesty a true and just idea of the importance of a close and permanent alliance between great britain, denmark and russia, and prevent her any longer from seeing a connection with the latter through the medium of personal resentment, so that the views of this court might be brought back into their natural channel. mr. struensee, in whom her majesty places the most unreserved confidence, and whose vast influence with her is unquestioned, as he is attached to no particular system, might, with proper management, be induced to forget his personal prejudice, and heartily to concur in, and recommend, such measures as the court of great britain would wish her majesty to pursue. this would (if i may presume to offer my opinion) be more advisable than to attempt his removal, which, considering the ascendency he has, could not but be attended with danger. if he was secured, he might easily be made instrumental to the views of the two courts. but as there can be little hopes of gaining the other two [rantzau and gahler], or if there were, of any reliance being placed on them, their dismission ought to be effected. the critical state of the king of denmark's health makes it of the last importance, both to the queen's happiness and the tranquillity of this kingdom, that she should not, in case of the regency devolving on her, be surrounded and advised by men so extremely unpopular and so justly detested as these are universally. i must not conceal from your lordship that there is scarcely a single family or person in these dominions of any considerable rank, property or influence, who has not been disobliged, disgusted and (as they think) injured; and whose disaffection, there is reason to apprehend, only waits for a favourable opportunity of manifesting itself."[ ] [ ] gunning's despatch, copenhagen, april , . gunning's view did not appeal to the king of england. george iii., a model of the domestic virtues, would under no circumstances enter into negotiations with struensee. to do so would be to condone, or recognise, the position the favourite held with his sister. the official answer to gunning's despatch was a note informing him of his promotion as ambassador to berlin. george iii. recognised his minister's diplomatic abilities, but it seemed to him that what was wanted at copenhagen at the present juncture was a man of action rather than a diplomatist. he regarded the state of affairs at the danish court as impossible to last, and therefore replaced gunning by a man personally known to him, who could be trusted to intervene when matters came to a crisis on behalf of the queen. the new envoy was lieutenant-general (afterwards sir robert) murray keith.[ ] [ ] keith's _memoirs_ have been published, but they do not include his despatches, now published in these volumes for the first time. keith was a scotsman. born in ayrshire, in , he was the son of a british ambassador at vienna. he was a man of all-round ability, though he was perhaps more of a soldier than a diplomatist. in early life he wrote some poems of considerable merit, and on arriving at man's estate entered the army. he fought at the battle of minden, and later was appointed major-commandant of three new companies of highlanders, known as "keith's highlanders," who distinguished themselves in many a hard-fought fight. eventually they were disbanded, and then some employment had to be found for their distinguished commander. in he was appointed british minister at the court of saxony, and he remained at dresden until , when george iii., looking round for some one whom he could trust, and whose fidelity to his royal house was undoubted, chose keith to succeed gunning at copenhagen. keith arrived at the danish capital in june, , shortly before the birth of the princess louise augusta. he did not take up his new duties with any zest. "climate, comfort and society are all against me," he wrote to his father shortly after his arrival at copenhagen. but he found the place "by far a finer city than i had figured to myself, or had a right to expect from the other danish towns i had seen upon the road. the streets are broad, the openings and the squares spacious, and the palace, as well as several of the public buildings, magnificent."[ ] [ ] _memoirs of sir robert murray keith_, vol. i. keith found the situation dominated by struensee, and like gunning (who had now gone to berlin) thought that his tenure in power was assured: "while i am in expectation of his majesty's orders on this head," he wrote, "i shall be equally cautious not to court too far or to disgust this gentleman.... from all i have heard of his character, it seems assiduous to the greatest degree, enterprising and active.... it may not be judging too rapidly of mr. struensee to suppose that having laboured so hard to get on the pinnacle of power his chief care may for some time be to secure his situation."[ ] and again: "i shall only add that if the general opinion here is to be trusted--for hitherto i have been able to form few opinions of my own--the new count and minister will show himself at any risk, and by all means whatever, as tenacious of the power he has grasped as he has been daring and active in attaining to it".[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, july , . [ ] _ibid._, july , . keith quickly found that it did not depend on the king of england's orders for him "to court or to disgust" struensee as he pleased. the precise degree of intimacy which was permitted him at court, or with the affairs of the government, was regulated by struensee himself, and a line was laid down beyond which keith could not pass. the minister, who probably guessed the motive which prompted george iii. to send keith to copenhagen, treated the english envoy with marked coldness, and would not permit him to have private audience either with the king or with the queen. keith thus found himself checked on the very threshold of his mission; he sent home a bitter complaint of his reception at the court of denmark. he writes:-- "count struensee, after removing from the court every person of this country who could give him umbrage, has at last been prompted by his jealousy of the foreign ministers to make an entire change in the forms of the audiences granted to them." ... [here follows an account of how the russian envoy had been refused audience.] "when i presented copies of my credentials to count osten, he was so civil as to offer to conduct me himself to the audiences at hirschholm, _as there was no master of the ceremonies_, and i cannot suppose that the count foresaw a repetition of the above innovation in my case, as, on the contrary, he talked with pleasure of the gracious and even distinguished reception i might expect, being the bearer of the strongest assurances of the friendship and affection of the king for both his sovereigns. for my part, i had no suspicion of such intention, not being able to figure to myself that any court could pretend to establish _by surprise_ a regulation subversive of the very nature of private audiences. "when i was ushered into the room, where his danish majesty stood alone, i imagined that the folding doors, which had been opened only at my entrance, were again shut after me; but during the audience i found that one, or both, of the doors _behind me_ had been left ajar, or pushed open, after i had begun to deliver the compliment with which i was charged to the king of denmark. "i was afterwards carried through several rooms of the palace into one where, _unexpectedly_, i found her danish majesty alone, and the doors on each side of that apartment stood wide open. but, as the queen was supposed to be within a few hours of her lying-in, i did not judge it proper to make any difficulty with regard to that circumstance, and therefore delivered the king's letter, accompanied with the expressions contained in my instructions. it had occurred to me from the beginning that to retire in the midst of the audience from the king, or to refuse that of her majesty _in the apparent situation of her health_, might be interpreted as disrespectful to one or other of their danish majesties.... when i spoke upon this matter to mr. osten, he was so far from vindicating the innovation that he assured me in positive terms that none such had been intended, and that the door of the king's room being open must have been owing to accident. i have since had good reason to believe that mr. osten was either misinformed in this affair, or not sincere in what he advanced.... about a fortnight ago baron hamilton was sent by the king of sweden upon his accession with a compliment to this court, and the audiences granted to him upon this occasion were _with open doors_.... the affair now came to a crisis, and, as i was sensible how much my court was averse from a dispute of this nature, i not only said all in my power to count osten, but, in order to prevent any harsh step being taken, i offered to wait upon count struensee at hirschholm, to lay before him in the most dispassionate manner the forms observed by all the great courts of europe upon this head, and the impropriety, not to say impracticability, of excluding all private audiences whatever, which was evidently the object of the intended regulation. count osten was waiting to see the event of a representation in writing he had just made to the same effect, but if that should fail he accepted my offer of visiting the cabinet minister. "this happened on wednesday last, prior to our going to pay our court at hirschholm, and i cannot tell your lordship how much i was surprised at count osten's acquainting me the same evening that his endeavours were unsuccessful, and my intended conference needless, as it had been declared to him _positively_ that the king of denmark would abide by the resolution of granting hereafter no audiences to foreign ministers with shut doors."[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, july , . keith soon found that nothing remained for him but to play the waiting game at the court of denmark. he was subjected to a form of boycott, and both at court and the foreign office he was kept at arm's length. "at the court," he writes, "where everything is carried on with an affection of mystery, where the sovereign and the prime minister are equally inaccessible, a foreign envoy is obliged to watch ... the slightest indications to form a judgment of the system of politics likely to be adopted."[ ] and again he writes to his father privately: "an intercourse of an hour for once a week with the court, a formal supper once a fortnight with the fashionable people--make the whole of my public appearances. and what may form a sure prognostic of the future society, i can safely assure you that in a residence of two months i have not been admitted to any one visit that i have made to man or woman, dane or _diplomatique_."[ ] [ ] keith's despatch, copenhagen, august , . [ ] _memoirs of sir robert murray keith_, vol. i. in october he writes again to his father: "i am sorry to say that the climate, society and politics of this kingdom are equally uncomfortable.... the little of summer i saw was sultry and languid, august and almost all september rotten and rainy, and the few clear days we have had lately too chilly to be abroad with pleasure. five months of a dismal and variable winter are now awaiting us, with as little defence against the cold, both of body and spirit, as can well be imagined. after looking round me with an anxious yet a benevolent eye for anything that may be called 'society,' or even a single friend, male or female, i am forced to own to myself that there is not any hope of succeeding."[ ] [ ] _memoirs of sir robert murray keith_, vol. i. shortly after the arrival of keith at copenhagen another person reappeared upon the scene. reverdil, the swiss, was recalled to the danish court, after an absence of three years. his return was due to the fact that brandt had become tired of his position as sole guardian of the king. christian vii. was a troublesome charge; he was often morose and sometimes quarrelsome, and a good deal of friction arose between him and brandt, until the latter found his post exceedingly wearisome. he often left the king in charge of moranti, a black boy, whom christian dressed in uniform and made an inseparable companion. meanwhile brandt amused himself with the beautiful countess holstein, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, with whom he had an amour. gallantry, music and the dance were much more congenial to him than the society of the semi-imbecile king. he therefore told struensee that he must find some one else to take his place, or at least relieve him in part of his duties. struensee was reluctant that brandt should resign his position as permanent attendant to the king, for it was necessary to keep him closely guarded from outside influence. but as brandt insisted, after some reflection, struensee resolved to recall reverdil, who, if not his friend, was at least free from any intrigue against his authority. [illustration: queen matilda and her son, the crown prince of denmark. _from the painting at the rosenborg, copenhagen._] reverdil was much astonished when he received a letter from struensee saying that the king of denmark desired his return to court, and wished to resume with him the scheme for enfranchising the serfs, and asked him to name his own terms. reverdil demurred a little at first, and pleaded for time to consider the offer. he communicated with a trusted friend in copenhagen, and also asked the advice of count bernstorff, who was living in retirement at grabow, near borstel. reverdil's friend at copenhagen sent him a list of persons who had been appointed and dismissed during struensee's administration, and gave him to understand that if he accepted the office he would hold it on a very precarious tenure. bernstorff, though greatly prejudiced against struensee, urged reverdil to go, for the king had need of him, and it was his duty to succour the unfortunate sovereign. he wrote him a long letter, the gist of which may be summed up in the following quotation:-- "go to copenhagen, appear at court, but do not enter into engagements until you have reconnoitred the ground for yourself. if you can do good, do not refuse to do it for a country that needs it. may heaven grant you merit and glory; but if you see that the means are refused you, do not allow yourself to be drawn into any subordinate, doubtful and odious employment, dictated by harsh, dishonest evil-doers. do not allow your name to be associated with the names of men about whom the nation is already weeping and posterity will weep for a long time."[ ] [ ] letter of bernstorff to reverdil, june , . _mémoires de reverdil._ reverdil determined to follow bernstorff's advice, and wrote to struensee accepting the post on the conditions that he might return home when he thought proper, and the king should pay his travelling expenses both ways. on his journey to copenhagen, especially in the duchies, reverdil was struck with the hatred and odium which the name of struensee inspired among all classes. at schleswig he met the princess-dowager of culmbach, the great-aunt by marriage of the king, and the prince and princess charles of hesse. they all lamented the terrible state of things at the danish court, the insolence of the favourite, and the infatuation of the queen, and agreed that such an intolerable state of affairs could not long be allowed to continue. the thought appears to have crossed reverdil's mind to turn back, but upon reflection he dismissed it, and proceeded on his journey. reverdil reported himself at hirschholm in july ( ). he relates in his _memoirs_ that he was received by brandt, who welcomed him with effusion, and told him of the king's wretched mental condition, of the necessity he had of a constant companion, and his desire that reverdil should fill the place, since both he and the king had grown weary of one another. reverdil listened in silence and without enthusiasm. he was then presented to the king and the queen, who received him with great cordiality. the queen spoke to him kindly, as, indeed, had always been her wont, and the king was very civil, nothing in what he said revealing his malady. reverdil was invited to dine at the royal table, and after dinner was admitted to private audience of the king. christian made some sort of apology for his abrupt dismissal of reverdil three years ago, and threw the blame of it on holck. the king's manner and speech were those of a perfectly sane man, and he appeared to talk quite freely and without constraint. reverdil had been told in the provinces that every word the king said was dictated to him beforehand by the favourites, but no sign of this was visible in his conversation. the next day reverdil took a drive with the king and brandt. brandt treated the king with scant respect; he occupied the whole of the back of the carriage, and lounged out of the window, that all might see him who passed by. the poor king crouched up in a corner of the other seat with a sad and frightened air, and seemed glad when the drive was over. reverdil now entered upon his duties, and remained alone with the king in his apartments. before long christian's mania manifested itself, despite his efforts to conceal it. his mind began to wander, and he broke out into rapid and incoherent speech. occasionally he would recite lines from _zaire_, in which he had acted years before; often he would address reverdil as "brandt," sometimes as "denize" or "latour"--two french actors who had been in his service--sometimes by his right name. now and then he would vaunt himself, and recall the fact that he had been greeted like a god by the english nation, and declare that his glory and magnificence were above those of all other kings on earth. on other occasions he would become depressed and melancholy, and belittle himself, saying that no matter what he did he would never be more than a "little man" of no reputation. he talked much about his infirmities, and sometimes threatened to commit suicide. "shall i drown myself?" he would say. "shall i throw myself out of the window, or dash out my brains against the wall?" but this was only talk, for the king feared death greatly. for instance, one day when they were in a boat on the small lake round the palace of hirschholm, the king said to reverdil with a look of despair: "i should like to throw myself into the lake"; but he added as a quick after-thought: "and be pulled out again directly". he was aware of his mania, and strove hard to overcome it, but in vain. there were three marked degrees which he indicated by three german expressions. the first was: "_ich bin confus_" (i am confused); the second: "_es rappelt bei mir_" (there is a noise in my head); and the third: "_er ist ganz übergeschnappt_" (i am quite beside myself). and often he would declare: "i can bear it no longer". the king now talked to reverdil in german, which, in deference to struensee, had become the court language, though, formerly, christian had made it a rule that danish only should be spoken, except to foreigners, whom he addressed in french. german was never heard at the danish court during his reign until the advent of struensee. though the king said little, he had a shrewd idea of what was going on between the queen and struensee. once reverdil took up one of the king's books, and found it marked at the history of rizzio, the favourite of mary stuart. but the king never showed the slightest symptoms of jealousy or resentment at the relations between struensee and the queen, and, when he alluded to them, it was to treat the affair as a matter of course. sometimes he spoke of struensee as the queen's _cicisbeo_, and on another occasion he asked reverdil whether he thought that the king of prussia had an amour with the queen of denmark. "the king of prussia!" exclaimed reverdil. "i mean struensee, of course," said the king, thereby showing the mastery which struensee had acquired over him; for the king of prussia, frederick the great, had always been christian's ideal of a great ruler. reverdil found that the rumours which had been spread abroad of the revels of hirschholm were much exaggerated. the conversation and conduct of the court were quite decent, and, whatever might be going on beneath, little or no hint of it appeared on the surface. but despite the extravagance and luxury everywhere visible, the tone was _bourgeois_. reverdil says that "the conversation of the company resembled nothing so much as that of the servants of a large house who sat down to table in the absence of their master".[ ] the _corps diplomatique_ noticed this peculiarity also, and had a hundred good stories to tell their several courts of the ridiculous incidents which came under their notice. as keith wrote to his father: "this court has not the most distant resemblance to any other under the sun".[ ] [ ] _mémoires de reverdil._ [ ] _memoirs of sir robert murray keith_, october , . reverdil gives a curious sketch of the daily life of the court at hirschholm. when there was no hunting, the king, the queen, struensee and brandt, and some of the ladies and gentlemen-in-waiting assembled at _déjeuner_ between eleven and twelve o'clock, and, if the weather were fine, the _déjeuner_ was followed by a walk in the gardens and woods. struensee gave his arm to the queen as a matter of course, the king to some lady-in-waiting whom he elected to honour, brandt to the countess holstein, and each of the other gentlemen to the lady allotted him. in procession they paraded the grounds, and frequently would dine in a summer-house some distance from the palace. on these occasions etiquette was wholly banished from the royal table. the king and queen and the company were waited on by pages, who only entered when a bell was rung and left immediately they had changed the courses. the queen placed herself at table between the king and struensee, and if the king's mania asserted itself, as it was apt to do at awkward times, the queen would command brandt to lead him out of the room. sometimes instead of the promenade the king would drive out in the same carriage as the queen and struensee. they generally managed to drop the king at some point where his attendant was waiting for him, and often returned late at night together, quite unattended. reverdil noticed a great change in the queen. formerly her manners were courteous, affable and winning, and she exerted herself to say pleasant things, and place every one at his ease. now she talked only to struensee, and ignored the rest of the company. if by chance she addressed a few remarks to any one else, struensee was always close by, and listened to what was said. the queen was devoted to her children, especially to the infant princess. reverdil had heard rumours of the crown prince's ill-treatment, but he acquitted the queen of any blame or neglect; she spent as much time with her children as her position allowed, and thoroughly enjoyed the happiness of being a mother. on rainy days, when the court was obliged to remain indoors, the queen often appeared in the circle, carrying her daughter and leading her son, who clung affectionately to her dress. she always loved children. they were her joy in the hour of her prosperity and her consolation in the day of her adversity. end of vol. i. the aberdeen university press limited transcriber's note archaic, inconsistent and unusual spellings from the original book have been preserved in this ebook. obvious typos have been fixed. the spelling of many family names in this book varies from the spelling used in historical documents today. in the original book, "ibid." was used in the footnotes only when the same source was cited in adjacent footnotes on the same page. in this ebook, the use of "ibid." has been changed to appearing only when adjacent footnotes on the same paragraph cite the same source. this change is not noted in the details below. details of the changes: table of contents: the preface, contents, list of illustrations and the transcriber's note were added. only chapters i-xix were in the original table of contents. list of illustrations and the caption of the illus. facing page : originally: the palace of hirschholm, temp. in this ebook: the palace of hirschholm. _temp. ._ page : originally: love of out-door exercise seemed to show in this ebook: love of outdoor exercise seemed to show page : originally: in the corridors and antechambers of the palace in this ebook: in the corridors and ante-chambers of the palace page : originally: another person re-appeared upon the scene in this ebook: another person reappeared upon the scene [transcriber's note: bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text is surrounded by _underscores_.] mari our little norwegian cousin the little cousin series (trade mark) each volume illustrated with six or more full-page plates in tint. cloth, mo, with decorative cover, per volume, cents list of titles by mary hazelton wade (unless otherwise indicated) =our little african cousin= =our little alaskan cousin= by mary f. nixon-roulet =our little arabian cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little armenian cousin= =our little australian cousin= by mary f. nixon-roulet =our little brazilian cousin= by mary f. nixon-roulet =our little brown cousin= =our little canadian cousin= by elizabeth r. macdonald =our little chinese cousin= by isaac taylor headland =our little cuban cousin= =our little dutch cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little egyptian cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little english cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little eskimo cousin= =our little french cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little german cousin= =our little greek cousin= by mary f. nixon-roulet =our little hawaiian cousin= =our little hindu cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little hungarian cousin= by mary f. nixon-roulet =our little indian cousin= =our little irish cousin= =our little italian cousin= =our little japanese cousin= =our little jewish cousin= =our little korean cousin= by h. lee m. pike =our little mexican cousin= by edward c. butler =our little norwegian cousin= =our little panama cousin= by h. lee m. pike =our little persian cousin= by e. c. shedd =our little philippine cousin= =our little porto rican cousin= =our little russian cousin= =our little scotch cousin= by blanche mcmanus =our little siamese cousin= =our little spanish cousin= by mary f. nixon-roulet =our little swedish cousin= by claire m. coburn =our little swiss cousin= =our little turkish cousin= l. c. page & company new england building, boston, mass. [illustration: mari.] mari our little norwegian cousin by mary hazelton wade _illustrated by_ l. j. bridgman [illustration] boston l. c. page & company _publishers_ _copyright, _ by l. c. page & company (incorporated) _all rights reserved_ fifth impression, june, sixth impression, march, preface long before columbus discovered america, there were brave men in the north of europe who dared to sail farther out upon the unknown waters of the atlantic than any other people in the world. these daring seamen were called vikings. their home was the peninsula of scandinavia, now ruled over by one king, although divided into two distinct countries, norway and sweden. it was along the shores of norway, with rugged mountains fringing its deep bays, that the vikings learned command of their curious, high-prowed ships, and overcame all fear of wind and storm. their strong nature shows itself to-day in the people of norway, who patiently endure many hardships while trying to get a living on the rough mountain-sides or along the rocky coasts. many of our norwegian cousins have come to america to make a new home for themselves where the sun shines more warmly and the winds blow less keenly. their fair-haired children are growing up amongst us, showing us the qualities their parents most admire. be brave, be honest, be kind to all creatures, be faithful to every little duty,--these are the lessons they have been taught from babyhood, as well as their brothers and sisters who have not as yet ventured far from the land they love so well,--the land of rapid-flowing rivers, deep, dark bays, and narrow valleys. come with me to-day to the home of one of these blue-eyed cousins and join her for a while in her work and play. contents chapter page i. the farm ii. visitors iii. the christening iv. the lost pin v. the birthday vi. the wedding vii. legends viii. the lumber camp ix. the lapps x. holiday frolics list of illustrations page mari _frontispiece_ "it was a sort of gig with very long shafts" the christening carved houses at thelemarken ski-lobing "'it is always in the shape of a mound'" mari our little norwegian cousin chapter i. the farm "come, mari, my little daughter, and you shall help me make the cakes," called her mother. mari stood in the middle of the big farm-yard with a flock of hens around her. she was scattering grain among them from a big bag on her arm; not a sound could be heard except once in a while the scratching of the hens' feet. they were too busy to notice each other or the big dog that sat on the door-step. the little girl laughed quietly as she watched them. "they are so happy; they love this pleasant summer-time as much as i do," she said to herself. but the moment she heard her mother's voice, she turned quickly toward the house without stopping a moment longer to see whether her pet hen, biddy wee, or cross old yellow legs got the most dinner. mari never in her life thought of answering her parents by saying: "why, papa?" or "why, mamma?" or "i'll come in a moment." mari lives in norway, and norwegian parents train their children to obey without delay. the little girl was only too glad to come now, however. her mother had promised she should learn to make flat-bread to-day. she was pleased that she was old enough to be trusted with this important work. why, she could keep house alone when she had mastered this necessary art, and her mother could leave her in charge. mari remembers when she was such a tiny tot that her head barely reached above the table. even then she loved to watch her mother as she sat at the big moulding-board, rolling out the dough until it was nearly as thin as paper. this dough was made of barley-meal which was raised here at the farm. it was rolled out into sheets almost as wide as the table itself, for each cake must be about a half-yard across. then came the cooking. the cake was lifted from the board to a hot flat stone on the fireplace, where it was quickly baked. how fast the pile grew! and how skilful mother always was. she never seemed to burn or break a single cake. wherever you go in mari's country you will find flat-bread. you can eat quantities of it, if you like, yet somehow it will not easily check your hunger, and it gives little strength. "now, dear, be careful not to get a grain of dust on the floor," said her mother, as mari stood at the table ready for directions. the child looked very pretty, with her long, light hair hanging down her back in two braids. the snowy kerchief was tied under her chin just as it was when she came in from the farm-yard. she had no need to put on an apron before beginning her work, for she already wore one. she was never without it, in fact, and hardly thought herself dressed in the morning until her apron had been fastened around her plump little waist. her cheeks looked rosy enough to kiss, but such a thing seldom happened, for mothers in norway believe that is a bad habit. they think that it often leads to the carrying of disease from one person to another. "shake hands with the baby and the children," they would say, "but please don't kiss them." they are wise in this,--don't you think so? before mari had rolled out six cakes, her cheeks grew rosier yet. it was hard work, although it had seemed easy enough when mother was doing it. the first three cakes had to be rolled over and over again because they would stick to the board. then the lifting was not such a simple thing as mari had supposed before she came to do it herself. but she kept trying. her mother was very patient and encouraged her with loving smiles and kind words. at last the little girl made a really _good_ cake and landed it all by herself on the stone, without doubling, or even wrinkling, it. "good, good," said her mother, "you will soon be a real helper, mari. but now you have worked long enough for the first time. i will finish the baking while you take the baby and give him an airing." and where was the baby, bless him? mari knew, for she went at once to the other side of the room where a pole was fastened into the wall. a big basket was hanging down from the end of this pole, and in the basket was a little blue-eyed baby, cooing softly to himself. mari's mother was a very busy woman. there was always something to do, either inside the house or out-of-doors. she had very little time for holding a baby. so when mari and her brothers were away at school, and mother was left alone, that dear little rosy-cheeked fellow sometimes began to cry in a very lively manner. the cooking and the cheese-making and the spinning must go on just the same, and time could not be spent in holding a baby. but he must be amused in some way. so the strong pole was fastened into the wall, and the cradle attached to the end. do you wonder what fun there could be in staying up in that basket, hour after hour? the baby enjoyed it because the pole would spring a little at every movement of his body. as long as he kept awake, he could, and did, bob up and down. that was amusement enough. he was glad to see mari now. she was a perfect little mother, and soon had his hood and cloak fastened on. they were hardly needed, for he was already done up in so many garments, it didn't seem possible he could be cold, wherever he went. the living-room, where mari had been working, was large and high. the beams were dark with age, but the floor was white from the many scrubbings mari's mother had given it. on one side of the room was the big fireplace where all the cooking was done. during the long winter evenings the family and servants sat in front of the blazing logs and told stories of the famous sea-captains of the olden times. or perhaps they talked of the fairies and giants, in whom mari firmly believed. her mother laughed at the idea of these wonderful creatures. yet, after all, it was not more than a hundred years ago that they seemed real to many grown-up people. wonderful creatures who made themselves seen from time to time dwelt in the mountains, the fields, and the rivers. this is what mari's great-grandma had believed, and was she not a sensible woman? it is no wonder, therefore, that our little cousin loved to think that these beings were still real. when she went to sleep at night, she often dreamed of the gnomes who live far down in the earth, or the giants who once dwelt among the mountains. when she was very little she sometimes waked up from such dreams with a shiver. "o, don't let the cruel giant get me," she would cry. then she would jump out of her own little cot into the big bed of her parents. she felt quite safe as soon as her mother's loving arms held her tightly, and she was sound asleep again in a minute. that big bed certainly looked strong enough to be a fortress against the giants or any other of the wonderful creatures of fairy-world. it stood in the corner of the living-room, where mari's mother worked all day, and where the family ate and sat. it was so high that even grown people did not get into it without climbing up the steps at one side. it had a wooden top, which made it seem like a little house. it was not as long as bedsteads in other countries. no grown person could stretch out in it to his full length. he must bend his knees, or curl himself up in some way, for he certainly could not push his feet through the heavy wooden foot-board. mari's people, however, never thought of its being uncomfortable. all norwegian bedsteads are made in this way, so they became used to it as they grew up. but sometimes english travellers had stayed at the farmhouse all night when they had been overtaken by a storm. they would be sure to get up in the morning complaining. they would say: "o yes, this country of norway is very beautiful, but why don't you have beds long enough for people to sleep in with comfort." the farm where mari lives lies in a narrow valley half a mile from the sea. the cold winter winds are kept off by the mountain which stands behind the houses. no one but mari's family and the servants who work on the farm live here. yet i spoke of houses. this is because the little girl's home is made up of several different houses, instead of one large farmhouse, such as one sees in america. mari's father thinks that two, or perhaps three, rooms are quite enough to build under one roof. he settled here when he was a young man. mari's mother came here to live when they were married. at that time there was but one house. it contained the living-room and the storeroom. after a while another house was built close by, for the farm hands to sleep in. still another little building was added after a while for the winter's supplies, for there is no store within many miles of the farm. mari's mother never says, "come, my child, run down the road and buy me five pounds of sugar," or, "hurry, dear, go and get two pounds of steak for dinner." it would be useless for her to think of doing such a thing. all the provisions the family may need must be obtained in large quantities from the distant city, unless they are raised here on the farm. the storehouse was built very carefully. it was raised higher than the other buildings so that rats and other wild creatures should have hard work to reach the supplies. there is not a great deal on hand now, for it is summer-time, but in the autumn the bins will be full of vegetables, and large quantities of fish and meats will hang from the rafters. there will be stores of butter and cheese and a large supply of coffee, for mari's people drink it freely. chapter ii. visitors "mother, mother, i hear the sound of wheels," cried the little girl, as she came hurrying into the house, panting for breath. the baby was such a big load it is a wonder she could hurry at all. "could you see what is coming?" asked her mother. "yes, there are two carriages, i know, for i saw a cariole, and i could hear another gig, although it was still out of sight round the bend of the road. they must be in a hurry, for i could hear the driver of the cariole clucking to his horse to make him go faster." [illustration: "it was a sort of gig with very long shafts."] "run right down to the rye-field, mari, and tell your father to send snorri up with the horses. leave the baby with me." mari hurried away, while her mother went out into the yard to greet her visitors who had now drawn near. the first carriage was a cariole, as mari had said. it was a sort of gig with very long shafts. it had a seat in front just wide enough to hold one person, with a small place behind, where the post-boy sat. a lady rode in this cariole and drove the sturdy little horse. behind her came a second carriage, which could not be very comfortable, as there were no springs and the seat was directly over the axle. two people were in this, also, a gentleman and the driver. "we are in great haste to reach the next station by afternoon," the gentleman tried to explain to the farmer's wife. he spoke brokenly, for he seemed to know but few norwegian words. "he must be an american," mari's mother said to herself. "those people always seem to be in a hurry." she dropped a deep curtsy to the lady, who seemed to be the gentleman's wife. "won't you come into the house while you wait for the carriage?" she asked. the lady smiled, and followed her into the living-room. "what a lovely big fireplace you have!" exclaimed the visitor, as she sat down. "and what good times you probably have here in the long winter evenings. indeed they must seem long when the daylight only lasts two or three hours." mari's mother smiled. "yes, and the summer days seem long now that there are only two or three hours of darkness in the whole twenty-four," she answered. "at least, they must seem long to you who are a stranger," she went on. she spoke in good english, of which she was very proud. she had learned it when she was a girl in school, and was already teaching mari to use it. "is that your spinning-wheel?" asked the visitor, as she looked around the room. "excuse me for asking, but i do wish i could watch you spinning. in america everything we wear is made in the mills and factories, and a spinning-wheel is not a common sight nowadays." "i make all the clothing for my family," answered mari's mother. "it is so strong it lasts nearly a lifetime. look at my dress; i have worn it every working-day for many years, and it is still as good as new." "dear me! what a smart woman you are. if you don't mind, i should like to examine the goods. i suppose that is what people call homespun. and i suppose the wool of which it was made came from your own sheep, did it not?" "yes, indeed, and my husband raised every one of the flock himself," was the answer. "i will gladly spin some of the wool for you now. but see! the carriages are waiting, and your husband looks impatient." "then i must not keep him waiting, for we have a long journey before us. so good-bye. perhaps we may stop here again on our way back from the north. thank you very much for your kindness." the lady went out, and snorri helped her into the cariole and himself jumped up behind, and away they went. the lady's husband followed in another carriage in the same manner they had driven into the yard. the ones that had brought them here had gone away as soon as the travellers stepped out. their drivers would take them back to the station where they belonged. "mother, why is our house a posting-station?" asked mari, when the travellers had gone. "i think it is a great bother. no matter how busy father and the men are, they must stop their work and harness up the horses to carry strangers along the road. they don't get money for it, either, do they?" "that is the way your father pays his taxes," her mother answered. "you know what good roads we have in our country, mari. you know, too, that many other things are done by the government to make this country a fine one. of course every one must share in the cost of these things. as we live on a farm and have horses, your father is allowed to pay his share in work. that is, he agrees to carry the travellers who come this way to the next station. after all, it isn't very much bother," she said, thoughtfully. "but come, dear, set the table; it is near dinner-time, and your father will soon be here." the table did not stand in the middle of the room. it was in the corner nearest the fireplace. a wide bench was built round the two sides of the room nearest it, so that most of those who gathered around the table could sit on these benches. mari's mother soon had a steaming junket ready, besides a dish of smoked salmon, plenty of boiled potatoes, a large, dark-coloured cheese which looked like soap, and last, but not least, a plate was piled high with flat-bread. "may father have the cakes i made?" asked mari. "sure enough, little daughter. he will eat them with pleasure, i know." in a few minutes the farmer and his helpers appeared. all gathered around the table together. "what a fine junket this is to-day," said mari's father, as his wife helped him to another plateful. the junket was made of milk, barley, and potatoes, and was a dish of which he was very fond. "dear me! how good the flat-bread is, too. and only to think that our little mari made it all herself," continued the farmer. "she will soon be a woman at this rate." mari's rosy cheeks grew redder still at her father's praise. "i shall be glad to see gretel back again," said the little girl's mother, after a while. "i miss her very much, though mari is a good little helper. but gretel is having a good time with henrik, i'm sure." gretel and henrik had gone up on the mountain to the summer-house, where the cows were pastured during the two warmest months of the year. henrik was now fourteen years old, and his father felt that he could be trusted to care for the cows as well as he could do it himself; while gretel could make good cheese and butter, although she was only thirteen. this boy and girl were now living together all alone up on the mountain-side, but they were not the least bit lonely. every saturday afternoon henrik brought down the butter and cheese his sister had made during the week. he had so many stories to tell of their good times, that mari would say: "oh, dear! henrik, i wish i could go back with you." "i wish you could, little sister, but mother must not be left alone, you know." and henrik would put his arms around her and kiss her lovingly. "where is ole?" asked the farmer, as the family finished eating their dinner. "he should not be late to meals and give you trouble, good wife." "he went up to the river on a fishing trip. i told him i should not scold if he was late this time," said his mother. "i was glad of the thought of having some fresh salmon." "very well, then. but come, my men, we must get back to the field now. the noon hour has passed." and the farmer led the way out of the house. but before he rose from the table little mari said: "thanks for the food, dear father and mother," while she went first to one, then the other, and gave each of them a loving kiss. then the workmen rose and went in turn to the farmer and his wife and shook hands, to show they, too, were thankful. it was very pleasant and cheerful in this farmer's house, you can plainly see; and it was all quite natural for these simple country people to show how kindly they felt for each other. "there comes ole, now," said the farmer's wife. "i can hear his call. run, mari, and see if he has met with good fortune." "o, mother, mother, see what i have here," cried mari, a few moments afterward. "ole has a fine string of fish, and that will please you, i know. but do look at this young magpie. it was snared in his trap while he was fishing. he says i may have it for my very own. may i keep it, please?" "it seems as though you had enough pets now, mari. you have your own pony and your dog kyle. but i hate to refuse you, my dear. yes, you may have it, but you and ole must keep it out of mischief. magpies are sometimes very troublesome birds, for they notice shining objects and carry them off if they get a chance." mari's mother now turned to the string of trout which she hastened to put away in the storeroom. ole had cleaned them nicely before he brought them home. he now ate his dinner as quickly as possible, after which he and his sister went out into the yard to make a cage for their new pet. "in a little while he will get tame so he will follow us around," said ole, as he cut the wooden bars for the cage. "then we shall need to shut him up only when we wish." "isn't he a beauty," exclaimed mari, as she stroked the magpie. "look, ole, at the green and purple feathers in his wings and tail. they are very handsome and glossy." "be careful, mari, or he may bite you. that hooked bill of his is pretty sharp, if he is a young bird. see him look at you with his bright eyes. they say that magpies will grow fond of one in a very short time." "did you ever see a magpie's nest, ole?" "yes, i passed one this morning as i went through the woods. it was way back in a thick bush. i crept up and looked in. the mother bird was away, and i saw five pretty green eggs dotted with little purple spots." "what did you do, ole? i hope you did not touch them." "at first, i thought i would, mari, because, you know, those pretty eggs will sometime hatch out, and the five magpies will fly away to harm smaller and more helpless birds. besides, they go into the grain-fields and pick the grain. father isn't very fond of magpies, i can tell you. "but after thinking for a moment i said to myself, 'no, mother magpie sha'n't be made unhappy to-day by coming home to find her nest empty.' then i went away, and ended my morning's sport by trapping this young fellow." ole kept on working while he talked. he did his work so cleverly that one could see he was quite a carpenter. he was a tall boy for twelve years, and looked healthy and happy. you might possibly have laughed at his clothes, for he wore a pair of his father's old trousers, and they were gathered in at the waist to keep them in place. they must have been cut off at the knees so that they should not be too long for the boy. that was the only change made. his mother said: "there, those trousers are too much worn for my husband to use any longer. they will do very well for ole as he runs about on the farm. i will not take time to cut them any smaller. on holidays the boy shall wear his fine clothes, of course." it is no wonder the good woman had to be careful of her time, for she not only spun, wove, and made their clothing, but she also spun the yarn and knit their stockings. ole's stockings are often patched with leather to make them last longer. but his feet are not tender, and he does not mind it in the least. "what kind of a nest did the magpie have?" asked mari, as ole finished the cage and they placed the bird inside. "it was lined with wool and hair and had a sort of roof over it. the opening was very narrow; i really don't see how the mother-bird could get in and out." "i suppose the roof is to protect the young birds from enemies, don't you, ole?" "yes, mari; but come, let us go and find some worms for our bird. he must be hungry." chapter iii. the christening "o mother, i have something to tell you. i have just been down to the village, and i heard there that neighbour hans's wife has a new baby. it is a boy. every one says he is a fine little fellow," said mari, one beautiful afternoon. "dear me! dear me! that is fine news, truly," said her mother. "i must make her a dish of my best porridge and take it to her in the morning." "did everybody remember you when i was born, mother?" "yes, dear, the people of the village seemed to vie with each other in preparing a dish of flödegrod. it did taste so good! it was hard to tell whose was the best. you must learn how to make this cream porridge now, mari; you are quite old enough. you will never be thought a good housekeeper if you cannot make smooth flödegrod." "the baby is to be christened next week. everybody will be there, of course, mother." the farm was only half a mile from a little fishing village on the shore of a deep bay. such a long, narrow bay is called a fiord. there are many fiords in norway. there were only about a dozen cottages in the village, but in their midst was a tiny little church and a small building used as the schoolhouse. but school was not kept there all the year round. half of the time the master taught in this place, and the rest of the year he spent in another little village a few miles up the coast. neither of them was large enough to pay for a teacher the whole year round. the children, however, were glad to work hard while he was among them. they loved their teacher and their school, and they learned quickly. every one in the place was busy now, getting ready for the christening. at last came the great day, as bright and sunny a one as could be wished. all the work on the farm was stopped and every one in the family was dressed in his best. mari had a fresh white linen kerchief tied under her chin, and also a finely starched apron. her plump little arms were bare. her stomacher was worked with bright beads on scarlet cloth. she had embroidered it all herself and she could not help being proud of it. but perhaps you do not know what a stomacher is. it is a piece of cloth worn as an ornament on the waist and over the stomach. mari's mother wore one also, but hers was sparkling with silver trimmings that had belonged to her great-grandmother. how fine the father looked in his short coat and knee-breeches. he wore a bright red vest, over which hung his long light beard. but mari's mother was the prettiest sight of all. her muslin apron was trimmed with three rows of lovely open-work. her scarlet waist was finished with bands of black velvet, with the beautiful stomacher in front of that. she had loose white linen sleeves, and such an odd cap. you never saw one like it, i am sure. it was made of crimped white muslin with a wide rim over the forehead, with a narrow band beneath that hid her hair. the corners fell down behind nearly to the waist. her silver ornaments must also be mentioned. they were really beautiful, and were hundreds of years old. [illustration: the christening.] ole looked fine, too, in a suit much like his father's and a little round cap, fitting tightly to his head. you would scarcely have known the family in their holiday dress. they stepped off gaily, and soon reached the village. they arrived at the church just as the christening party reached it. "do look at the dear baby, ole," said mari. "isn't he lovely?" the nurse was carrying him. he was so swaddled in his fine clothes that you would have almost thought he was an indian pappoose. only his face could be seen. the swaddling bands were of many colours,--red, green, and white, and there was a large white satin bow, of course. every norse baby wears such a bow to its christening. and now the flock of people followed the minister into the little church. they passed up to the front and gathered around the altar. "the baby behaves finely, doesn't he?" whispered ole. "i am real proud of him because he is to have the same name as myself. did you hear the minister say _ole_, mari?" "yes, but look now. the baby's father and mother and his godparents are all going up behind the altar. what is that for?" "they are laying presents there for the minister. of course they want to thank him for the christening. i declare, mari, our baby was christened only last year, and you have forgotten what people do at such times." "i was so excited then, ole, i don't believe i noticed it. but come, everybody is going out of the church. now we shall have the best time, for you know we are invited to the party." the building was soon empty, and all the people started gaily for the home of the new baby. the minister went with them, of course. he looked very dignified in his long black gown, with a great white ruff about his neck. he loved his people, and took part in all their merry-makings. ole and mari were very fond of him. they ran to his side as soon as they got outdoors. ole took one hand and mari the other. it was only a few steps to the little home of the fisherman. everything had been made ready for the company. the table was spread with the good things that the norse people love best. in the centre of the table stood the old silver bowl from which every one must drink to the health of the new baby. this bowl was the most precious thing in the simple home. it had not been used before since the parents of the baby came here and held their wedding-feast. there is much eating, and frequent handshaking. it seemed as though the company could only show how loving they felt toward one another by the hearty shakes which they gave so often. when every one had eaten so much that he could hold no more with comfort, the table was quickly cleared, and a young man brought out a fiddle from the corner of the room. "now for some of our norse songs," cried one of the company. "good, good," cried all, and soon the room was filled with lively music. the new baby behaved very well, and went to sleep in the midst of it. but mari's baby brother, who had come to the party with the rest of the family, was having too good a time to shut his eyes for a moment. it was not until the dancing began that his little head commenced to nod and his eyes could keep open no longer. the older folk and children sat against the wall and talked together while the younger people waltzed around the room. "gustav, we want to see you and frigga in the spring dance," said one of the party after a while. "o yes, gustav, you can both do it so well," cried another. "we must see it before we go home." gustav stepped out into the middle of the room and was followed by the young girl whom he was soon to marry. her cheeks grew rosy as every one looked at her. she was a pretty girl, and her long, fair braids reached way below her waist. and now the fiddler started up again with a lively tune. who could keep still now? surely gustav could not. he took hold of one of frigga's hands, and away they spun around the room. but it was not a simple waltz such as you have seen. the young girl held her other hand above her head and showed her grace as she kept moving around gustav; she kept perfect time and step as she did so. other odd dances followed the spring dance. ole's and mari's eyes were wide open with delight as they watched their older friends. whenever one of the dances came to an end, there was a general shaking of hands in which the children joined with a right good will. the time to go home came all too soon. but as it was near the middle of summer, it was not dark even now at ten o'clock in the evening. "gud nag, gud nag," cried every one, after they had drunk again to the health of the baby and his proud parents, and the hands of all had been heartily shaken once more. chapter iv. the lost pin "mari, ole, come here to me at once," called their mother. it was the morning after the christening. the two children were sitting with their pet magpie under a tree near the house. "what can be the matter, mother speaks so quickly?" whispered ole, as he and his sister hurried to obey. "have you seen the silver brooch i wore at my throat yesterday?" said their mother, as soon as they came into the house. the good woman seemed nervous. her words came quickly, which was not a common thing, for she was a slow speaker, like other norse people. "why, no, mother, of course not," said mari. "didn't you put it away in the box where you always keep it?" "certainly, my child, but i did not lock the box as usual. i found it open just now. can it be possible that a thief has been here? it does not seem probable. besides, my other ornaments are there safe. a thief would have taken all." "i shouldn't wonder if i could guess who took the brooch, mother," said ole. "it's the magpie. you know you said magpies like all kinds of shining objects." "you handsome little mischief, have you done it?" said the boy, as he looked at his pet. the magpie had kept his seat on ole's shoulder when the children came into the house. he looked from him to the boy's mother with bright eyes, as much as to say, "i could tell all about it, if i wished." "it seems as though the bird understands what we are talking about, but of course he doesn't. still, i believe he has done something with your brooch, mother," said mari. "it may be so, indeed, children. the box was possibly left open, although i am generally so careful. if that is so, ole and mari, you must find it. unless you are able to do so, you cannot keep your pet any longer." you may be sure the children were anxious to find the brooch now. all that day they searched in every nook and corner of the house and yard. "you know, we let him fly around for a long time this morning," said ole, when night came and still the brooch could not be found. "if it was carried up into some tree, we may never see it again." ole had crawled out upon the limbs of all the trees near the house, and his legs were pretty tired. "you can't do any more to-night, children," said the farmer, when supper was over and the family were gathered on the porch to talk over the trouble. "go to bed, and do not fret. in the morning, let the magpie out of the cage, and allow him to go where he pleases. watch him, and perhaps you will find he has some hiding-place where he stores his treasures." those were wise words. the next morning the children did as their father had directed, and the magpie was set free. five minutes afterward he flew out of the house, and away he went toward the barn. now it happened that a pole stretched out from under the low roof of this building. in winter-time a bundle of grain was fastened to this pole from time to time. it was placed there to give food to the hungry birds that came that way. they might starve during freezing weather, if kind people did not think of them. a bunch of the old straw was still fastened to the pole. the magpie flew to it, and alighted. "the brooch may be stowed away in that straw," said ole. "i'll get a ladder and see, anyway." a moment after, the boy was shouting in delight. "i have it, i have it, mari. how glad mother will be. o, you naughty magpie. we will be careful that you don't get any more brooches of my great-grandmother's." delighted indeed was the mother when they came in with the lost brooch. "you may go down to the shore, and spend the afternoon," she said. "you can have a fine time with your playmates in the village." a half-hour later ole and mari were playing barefooted on the edge of the bay, or fiord, as, you remember, mari calls it. but there was no beach of smooth sand here, for rocks and ledges covered the shore. there was only one little nook where it was easy for boats to land. the village was built at the head of this narrow bay, as it reached far into the land. it was a long sail out to the open ocean. mari had never yet seen it, although she had lived so near the water all her life. it was a wonderful sight that the children looked upon this afternoon. great cliffs rose high up from the water on each side of the bay. they were so straight and tall, they seemed to join it to the sky above. a waterfall came rushing down from the top of one of these cliffs. it made a whirlpool in the spot where it fell into the bay. but everywhere else the water was very quiet. it was so still, that as you looked up to the steep mountains on each side, it would have made you almost fearful, it seemed so lonely and apart from the rest of the world. "i climbed way up that cliff by the waterfall last spring," ole told his sister, as the children sat down upon a rock to rest. "weren't you afraid?" she asked, as she looked at him proudly. then she added, quickly, "of course you weren't. i never knew you to be afraid of anything in your life. but why did you do it?" "i was after down for mother's cloak. the eider-ducks build their nests in the crannies of the rocks. i found three of them that day, i remember. it seemed almost too bad to rob the nests, but still you know there is nothing so soft and warm as the down. and i shall be proud when mother has enough to line her cloak and finish it." "those ducks have a queer habit of plucking the softest feathers from their own breasts to line their nests. don't you think so, ole?" "yes, birds are a great deal nicer than we are apt to think. you know the mother-bird covers the eggs with this down before she flies away for food. she seems to understand that they must be kept warm, and the father-duck doesn't help her by bringing her food or taking her place while she is away. she has all the care on her own shoulders, poor thing. "if her nest is robbed of the down, she will pluck more feathers from her breast and line it again. if it happens the third time, she flies to her mate and takes enough from him to fill their place. but after that her patience is worn out, she goes away and seeks another place in which she can build a new nest undisturbed." "she certainly is a wise little creature, for she wouldn't be warm enough if she robbed herself too much," said mari. "mother has been to the city of bergen, and she says cloaks lined with eider-down are sold in the stores there, and that they are worth a great deal of money." "of course, mari. some men make a business of robbing the nests of eider-ducks. it must be hard work, too. but see, there comes the postman. let's go to meet him." the children looked down the bay, and what do you think they saw? at first it seemed as though a pine-tree standing up on the water were sailing straight toward them. but no! one could see as it came nearer that the tree was fastened into an odd little boat with a high curved bow. the tree must be taking the place of a sail, for the man inside was not rowing, yet the boat came steadily onward. "is it rough outside?" asked ole, as the boat drew near. "yes, the wind was blowing so hard i did not dare to put up the sail. but right in here it is quiet and calm enough to suit any one." when the postman had carried his letters up to the office, in the leading house in the village, he came back to the shore and sat down for a few moments' talk with the children. "this is a wonderful country of ours," he said, as he looked at the shadows of the great mountains in the water. "and we who live here belong to a noble and a mighty race. never forget that, mari, will you, my child?" "o no, olaf, i love to think of the grand old times when the vikings sailed out of these bays and travelled all over the world. they were the ones who discovered america, weren't they? although i have heard it said that the honour is given now to columbus, the italian." "hundreds of years before columbus lived, mari, our great seamen crossed the ocean. many of our people went with them and settled in iceland. but they did not forget their native land and the wonderful stories that had been handed down for centuries from father to son. "at last a wise man said, 'i will gather together these stories of the norse people. i will write them down, and our children shall have them for ever.' in this way the 'eddas' came to be written. they are dearer to us now than any other books except the bible. is it not so, children?" "yes, yes, olaf," cried mari and ole together. and mari added, "we are so happy when father reads to us from the 'eddas.' i hardly know what story i like best." "i have sometimes heard strangers in the land speak about our boats," olaf went on. "they call them old-fashioned and say they remind them of the ships the vikings sailed in a thousand years ago, they have such high curved prows and are so broad. but what do we care if they do call them old-fashioned? we like it, children, for the old ways were good ways." "i wish i had lived in the time of the vikings," said ole. "i should like to have gone with them on their daring voyages. but why were they better sailors than any other people at that time, olaf?" "in the first place, they were strong and brave. they loved the sea and spent their lives upon it. they trained themselves from boyhood to bear cold and hardships. and, besides all these things, these deep bays were good places for sailors to learn their craft. "but i have stayed here longer than i thought; i must go home. this was the last village where i had to deliver letters or i could not have stopped with you so long. i will try sailing back, but if i find the wind still strong when i get outside the fiord, i can easily take the sail down. good-bye." the postman was soon far down the bay. he passed several fishermen in their boats just coming back from their day's catch. ole and mari waited till they came in. "what luck, what luck?" cried the children. "i have had such a good haul," said gustav, who was the first to touch the shore, "that here is a fine large haddock to take home to your mother, ole." "many thanks, gustav, my mother will be much pleased," answered the boy, as he received the gift. then the two children trudged homeward, clasping hands and singing one of the songs they had learned at school. chapter v. the birthday "ten years old, my daughter. do you believe you have grown any taller since last night?" said mari's mother, when she called her that morning. "it seems so, anyway," answered the little girl, as she watched her mother making the birthday cake. "bring the citron and currants from the storeroom, mari. i have sugar enough, i think. this must be a beautiful cake for my daughter. the frosting shall be thick. here comes ole now with the flowers." ole's arms were full. "do you think i have enough to decorate your cake, mari?" he laughed as he spoke. "we can't use half of them, of course. look at the quantity of fruit mother is using. there! see how yellow the dough looks since she put in the saffron. won't it be lovely when it is done?" "come, ole, get to work on that tub you are making for me. and, mari, take your knitting and go out on the porch. i wish to be quiet while i watch the baking of the cake. there will be fun enough for you this afternoon." mari's mother had promised her a coffee party in honour of her birthday. soon after dinner the children began to arrive. they were dressed in their best and looked very happy, although the white kerchiefs tied around the rosy faces of the girls made them appear like little old women. there was plenty of coffee to drink, for the children of the north are as fond of it as the older people. then there was the magnificent birthday cake, rich in the fruits and sugar, and trimmed with the flowers ole had gathered in the morning. of course, there were piles of flat-bread on the table, besides other things of which the children were fond. many games were played outdoors in the sunshine. mulberry-bush was the favourite, and it was played over and over again. "i shall never forget my tenth birthday," said mari, that night, after her little friends had gone home. "i have had a lovely time, mother, and you were so good to let me have the party." [illustration: carved houses at thelemarken.] "you can repay me by being more diligent in all your work the coming year, my child. learn to be more careful in your knitting and spinning. always be ready, with a cheerful face, to help me in the churning, and i shall think you are growing to be a noble woman." our little cousin certainly had many duties. her hands were seldom idle during the long winter afternoons and evenings, for there were stockings to knit for ole and herself, scarfs to crochet, wool to be spun and woven, besides many other things which norse girls need to learn if they are to grow up to be good housekeepers. and ole had much to do, also. in summer there was plenty of work in the garden, besides fishing and shooting the wild ducks. during the winter time he must make many useful things at his carpenter's bench. his father was his teacher in this kind of work. why, he had made every piece of furniture in the house; and although it was not beautiful, it was well made and strong. "i love to carve," ole once said to his sister. "i wish it were the fashion to decorate our buildings as the people of thelemarken do. i have seen pictures of their storehouses. they are just beautiful, mari. the men carve with their knives all sorts of figures on the outside. the side posts of the porches are fairly covered with lovely patterns." "the people there don't dress as we do, either," answered mari. "even the farmers wear the same clothes at work as on the holidays. i should think it would be hard to keep clean their white jackets all trimmed with silver buttons. the women there sometimes make their aprons out of silk handkerchiefs. and they wear their silver belts and brooches every day. i should like to go there and see them. just think, ole, i've never been away from this place in my life!" "never mind, little sister. you and i will travel some day and go all over our country. we will even go to the north cape and see the sun set at midnight and then rise a moment afterward. we can almost do that here on midsummer nights, but not quite. you know people from all over the world travel to the north cape, mari." "what else do they see there besides the midnight sunset and sunrise?" "our friend ernst, over in the village, went there once. he belonged to the crew of a ship that carries people there every summer. he says it is a high mass of rocks, and it is hard to climb. when you reach the top, you can get a good view of the arctic ocean, but there is nothing to see but the dreary water; no land nor ship in sight. that is, of course, as you look toward the north. on one side of the cape there is a small glacier, but those can be seen in many other parts of the country. one doesn't need to go to the north cape to look at a glacier." "our teacher told me, ole, that a long time ago this whole country was covered with ice. of course, there were no people then. but after a while the land became warmer and the ice went away. here and there, the ice-rivers, or glaciers, were left among the mountains, and they have stayed there ever since. i don't see why." "of course, it's terribly cold above us, mari, up among the mountains. the snow falls and changes into ice. it slides slowly down into the valleys and begins to melt, but there is always plenty of ice above. people like to come to our country to see the glaciers as well as the other wonderful sights. i declare, i'm getting sleepy and i am going to bed. good night, little sister." chapter vi. the wedding "there they are. they are just rounding the point," exclaimed mari. she was standing on the shore and looking anxiously down the bay. she was not alone, by any means, for every one of the village was there with her. why were they all dressed so finely? why were they all looking in one direction? and why was the church door standing open? it was not sunday, and it was the time when every one was usually at work. gustav and frigga, who lived farther up the coast, you remember, were to be married. there was no church in frigga's village, so the wedding party must come here. for what would a wedding be if it were not held in a church? half of the beauty would be missing. ah! here come the boats. the first one, of course, contains the fair bride and her lover. they sit on a raised seat, with the bridesmaid and best man near them. the bride looks quite charming with the high silver crown on her fair head. it seems as though a queen and her royal party were drawing near. the boat is trimmed with flowers, and the rowers pull with a will. two other boats follow close behind, containing the dearest friends of the bride and groom. as they draw near, the people on the shore hasten to greet them with a rousing welcome. and now the procession is formed and starts out toward the church. first comes the fiddler with his violin under his arm. he is followed by a man bearing a large silver tankard. the health of the newly married pair will be drunk from this many times before the festival is over. next comes the best man, with gustav and frigga close behind; after whom follow the fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers of the couple. last, come the other relatives and friends. all are laughing and joking, and are bright with the pretty colours of their holiday clothes. now they enter the little church and pass down the aisles strewn with juniper-tips. the air is very sweet with the odour of the freshly cut sprigs. the minister is at the altar to meet them. he is dressed as usual in his long black gown with the great white ruff around his neck. but the bride! how lovely she looks as she stands with bent head, with the silver crown resting on her fair hair. a heavy silver chain is around her neck, and she sparkles with rings, and brooches, and other ornaments without number. her stomacher is covered with silver embroidery. her apron is of the finest muslin, and is also embroidered beautifully. the little church was so full that ole and mari were crowded near the door with the other children. but they could see everything that was going on. "isn't she beautiful?" whispered mari, to a little girl behind her. "i don't believe our queen in her own palace can look grander than she." when the service was over, the wedding party left the church and turned toward the shore. was the good time over now, do you think? by no means, for a whole week's merriment had only begun. the bridal party seated themselves in the boat in which they had arrived. the other boats were quickly filled; the fiddler began to play a lively air; the rowers pulled with long, steady strokes, and as they moved out over the clear, sunlit waters, one of the party began to sing. others joined in the song until the air seemed filled with music. ole and mari stood on the shore together with the others who had not gone with the young couple to their new home. "gustav has made a lovely new house for frigga," ole told his sister. "i sailed over there last week with olaf, and it was just done. the last piece of furniture was also finished. i wish we were going there to-day; what fun everybody will have, feasting and dancing." "never mind, ole, we shall be grown up before many years. and then we shall be invited to the wedding-parties," said mari. "let's go in swimming and have some fun by ourselves this afternoon." several other children followed the example of ole and mari. soon there was such a splashing and diving that the echoes of the noise came sounding back from the mountainsides. norse children are great swimmers. when mari was no more than five years old she had learned to feel as much at home in the water as the mermaids of whom her mother told in stories. she could stay below as long as ole; she could dive, and tread water, and swim backwards. there was nothing to fear, for sharks were never seen near that shore, and the water was so clear one could see to the very bottom, no matter how deep it might be. chapter vii. legends "i am afraid i shall have to go to lumbering this winter," said mari's father, as the family sat around the great open fireplace. henrik had been home from the mountain pasture for two weeks. it was growing cold, and jack frost had paid several visits to the farm already. "what a shame it is that the crops turned out so badly," answered his wife. "in one more week of good weather, you could have saved everything." "yes, that is true, wife, but we cannot help it. we lost nearly everything on account of the frost. if you are to live in comfort, i must earn money now in some other way. two of the farm-hands can go with me to the camp in the woods, so i shall not be very lonely." the farmer looked around the cheerful room, and sighed. mari went to his side, and put her arms around his neck. "dear father, we shall miss you so much," she said. "you will come home at christmas, anyway, won't you?" "o yes, the camp is not so far away but i shall try to be back for one night out of every two weeks. henrik and ole will take good care of you girls and your mother, i know. they will be able to visit me, too. they are both good runners on the skis (skees). although the camp is miles away, it will not seem much to them, eh, ole?" [illustration: ski-lobing.] "it will be grand sport," answered the boy, quickly. "we will run a race to see which one of us can get there first. of course henrik will win. but who cares? i don't." the two boys had been busy all day making new skis for themselves. great sport the children would have all this winter sliding down the hillsides. coasting on sleds! yes, there was plenty of that, too, on the snowy slopes around mari's home. but ski-lobing was better fun, by far. mari had learned to slide on skis long ago. they were made from two strips of wood, six feet long, with pointed ends curved upward. when they were strapped on her stout shoes the little girl could slide over the snow at a wonderful rate, without sinking or falling. no, there was no sport like ski-lobing. mari had the sled henrik made for her two years ago, and her two brothers sometimes dragged her on it down to the village. sometimes all the children went coasting with their sleds. "but it isn't as good as ski-lobing," they would always say when they came home. and it was no wonder; you would agree with them, if you could once see them travel. it was almost like flying. they would stand together at the top of a slope. "ready!" henrik would cry. then away! they would all start downwards. it seemed but a second before all were standing at the foot of the hill, out of breath and rosy as the reddest winter apples. "now for the top," cried the leader, after a moment's rest; and up they would go again. it is easy to understand now why ole and henrik were not afraid of a long trip on skis over the snow-covered fields and hills. they were so skilful they would get to the camp in two hours at most. after an afternoon's sport on the hillside, the children once more gathered in the big living-room. "tell us some of the good old stories we love so much," said mari. "there is no one who tells them so well, dear father." it was the last evening he would be at home. the next morning he must start out for the cold, dreary camp in the woods. every one was feeling sad, but all tried to hide it and seem gay and cheerful. "what shall it be, a fairy-story, or a tale of the gods and goddesses in whom the vikings believed?" he asked when the children had gathered around him, in front of the blazing logs in the fireplace. "first let us hear that wonderful legend of the beginning of the world," answered mari. "it is told in the eddas, you know." "very well, then. shut your eyes and try to think of a time when there was no earth, nor sun, nor stars, and the great father was all." mari opened her eyes after a moment and said, softly, "how lonely it must have been, papa." "a time came, however," her father went on, "when all was changed. for out of the thoughts of the all-father, the land of winter was formed in the far north. it was wrapped in ice and cold and mist. then, far away to the south, arose the land of heat and fire, whose flames never died nor burned low. "now, between the land of darkness and cold, and the land of light and heat, there was a great abyss, into which the icy rivers from the north were ever flowing. mist rose from these waters and rushed to meet the sparks from the fires which were ever burning in the south lands. and as they met, a wondrous giant came into life, the child of heat and cold." "who was there to care for him when he was little?" asked mari. "he needed no one, because he was not like ourselves, my dear; still, he must have food. and so a wonderful cow appeared, to give him milk. as she licked the ice from the stones, a new being gradually took shape and arose. he was like ourselves, mari, only larger, nobler, mightier. he was the father of all the gods, of whom you have read so many stories. i believe you are fondest of the god odin, are you not, ole?" "yes, father, and it is because so many brave and noble things are told of him. but please go on with the story. you haven't yet told us how this world was made." "the gods made it out of the body of the giant, whom they were obliged to kill." "they killed him because he grew wicked and evil, didn't he, papa?" "yes, mari, and that was a good reason, without doubt. the gods now used all their thought and power in making the world beautiful. the mountains that reach up so grandly toward the sky were their work, as well as the beautiful valleys, the rivers winding through the green meadows, the rushing cataracts, and the blue lakes. it is, indeed, a wonderful earth. round it all the gods wrapped the great oceans which send their arms far up into our shores." "but how were the stars made?" asked mari. "the gods first made the blue heaven which stretches above us, and dwarfs were put at each corner to keep it in place. sparks arising from the realm of fire were caught and changed into stars, and they were set on high to give light. "a giantess whose name was night had a son called day. the gods were kind to them and gave them beautiful chariots and swift horses with which to ride through the heavens. look out of the window, children, and see how bright it is. that is because the mane of night's horse is shedding light upon the earth as he travels onward. "when the sun and the moon, day and night, were established, the gods set to work to build a home for themselves. they looked about for the most beautiful spot, and decided upon a high plain on the summit of a lofty mountain. the glorious city was built, and the gods settled in their new home. it was the golden age of the world, for there was no sickness, nor death, nor sorrow, nor pain. "in the very centre of the wondrous city the gods fashioned a golden hall for themselves, and in it there was a shining throne for each one. they had many games and sports, in which they vied with each other in strength and skill. they had a smithy, where they shaped iron and gold and silver into powerful tools and weapons. it was here that the rainbow was made, which you see at times arching over the heavens. "but the gods were not satisfied. they looked over the earth and saw no living creatures. they said among themselves: "'we will make the dwarfs, who shall live in the earth and work the mines.' "but this was not all, for odin, your favourite among the gods, said to his brothers: "'look yonder at those two trees, the ash and the elm, standing side by side. we will make man and woman from them. they shall people the earth and we will care for them as our children.' "so it came to pass that our race began to live among the hills and valleys, and has been here ever since. but the gods have never deserted us, but are ever ready to help and protect us. at least, all this is what the legend teaches." "of course, there are no real gods, are there?" said mari. "the only gods are our beautiful souls, my daughter. they can never die nor do evil, any more than these gods in whom our old vikings really believed. the giants are our earthly natures that are constantly trying to make us forget our godlike souls. but we shall conquer them at last, just as the gods always succeeded in mastering the giants, no matter how strong or clever they were." "didn't it take a long time to do it, papa? the golden age didn't last after quarrelling began, did it?" "no. the gods had their troubles and sorrows as well as men. but, as i said before, the gods always ended by being successful." "are you too tired to tell another story, father? this time i wish we could hear something about the fairies. won't you tell us about ashiepattle?" now ashiepattle is one of the favourites of all norse children, and many tales are told of his wonderful deeds. "which story shall it be?" asked the farmer. "the one about his eating with the troll," cried mari and ole, together. their father laughed. "you are never tired of that, although you are almost a man, ole. listen, then, and you shall hear how this brave boy ate with the giant. "once upon a time there was a man who had three sons. the older boys were idle and lazy and would do no work. their father was too old and feeble to compel them. he had a fine wood-lot, and he wished them to go out and cut down the trees. then he would be able to sell lumber and pay his bills; but for a long time the sons gave no heed to his request. "at length, however, they began to listen and think the plan was a good one. the oldest son shouldered his axe and started for the forest. but he had no sooner begun his work upon a big tree, than a troll suddenly appeared at his side. "'that is my tree,' said the troll. 'if you cut it down, i will kill you at once.' "the boy was terribly frightened. and it is scarcely to be wondered at, for the troll was an immense, fierce-looking creature. dropping his axe, he started for home on the run, and did not stop to look around till he got there. "'you coward,' cried his father when he heard his story. 'when i was a boy no troll was ever able to scare me away from my work.' "'i will go,' said the second son. 'i shall not be afraid, you may believe.' "he started out with a brave heart, and was soon at work in the forest. but his axe had hardly struck the first tree when the troll appeared before him. "'spare the tree, if you wish me to spare your life,' cried the giant. "the boy did exactly as his brother had done before him. all his bravery disappeared the moment he looked upon the giant. without stopping a moment he fled for home, and rushed into the house breathless. "'what a foolish, cowardly fellow,' cried his father. 'you are not much like me when i was young. no troll ever drove me away from my work.' "'let me try, father,' said little ashiepattle. 'i am not afraid.' "his two brothers looked at him in astonishment. '_you_ try, when we have both failed! you, who never go out of the house, what an idea!' and they laughed in scorn. "nevertheless, ashiepattle went to the forest. but first, he asked his mother for a good supply of food. she at once put on the pot and made him a cheese, for she had nothing ready. with this in his bag, he started out merrily and was soon at work. the axe was sent straight into the heart of the tree, and the chips flew right and left. but just then a deep, gruff voice was heard close by. "'stop at once,' cried the troll, 'or you shall die.' "now, do you suppose ashiepattle followed his brothers' example, and that he fled from the troll? he never thought of such a thing. he did run, to be sure, but only for a short distance, to the spot where he had left his cheese. coming back to the place where the troll stood, he squeezed his cheese with all his might. "'keep still, or i will squeeze you just as i am squeezing this cheese,' he shouted. "it would have made you laugh to see that little fellow talking to the big giant in this way; but the troll was a coward, as all big blusterers are, and somehow ashiepattle felt it. his quick mind told him that he was a human being, and wiser than all the trolls. what do you suppose the troll did, children? he cried, 'spare me!' with a voice trembling with fear. 'if you will only spare me, i will help you cut down the trees,' he added, in haste. "that afternoon great work was done in the forest. many great trees were laid low; for the troll had wonderful strength in his big arms, and he showed himself a fine helper. "when night came the troll proposed that ashiepattle should go home with him to supper. "'it is nearer than your house,' he said. "so ashiepattle went with the troll to his home in the forest. "before the supper could be made ready, a fire must be made in the fireplace. the troll said he would do this if ashiepattle would draw some water from the well. "when the boy looked at the iron buckets he should have to fill, he knew that he could not even lift them; but he was too wise to say this. "'i won't bother with those buckets,' he told the troll; 'i will bring the well itself. then you will be sure to have water enough.' "'o, don't do that,' cried the troll, in fear, 'for i will have no well left. let me get the water, while you make the fire.' "this suited ashiepattle, of course, for it was exactly what he wished. the water was brought, and a great kettleful of porridge was soon ready to eat, so the troll and the boy sat down together at the table. "'i can eat more than you, although you are so much larger,' said ashiepattle to his host. "'let us see you try,' said the troll, who felt sure he could beat the boy. "what do you think ashiepattle did? when the troll was not looking, he seized the bag in which he had kept the cheese, and, fastening it in front of him, he slipped most of the porridge he received into that, instead of his mouth. at last it was quite full. ashiepattle then took his knife and cut a hole in it, while the troll watched him in wonder. after awhile the giant exclaimed: "'i really can't eat any more. i shall have to admit you have beaten me.' "'didn't you see what i did?' cried his visitor. 'if you cut a hole in your stomach as you saw me do, you can eat as long as you wish.' "'but didn't it hurt terribly?' asked the troll. "'no, indeed. try it and see for yourself,' replied ashiepattle, laughing inside all the while. "the troll did as he was told, and you may guess what happened. he fell on the floor in agony and died in a few moments. "and what did our brave little ashiepattle do? he searched for the stores of gold and silver belonging to the troll, and soon succeeded in finding them. he started for home in great glee, for now he could pay his father's debt and free the old man from trouble." "listen," cried henrik, as his father finished the story. "there is a noise outside as though something were the matter. do you suppose foxes have dared to come near and are disturbing the hens?" "we will soon find out," cried the farmer, jumping to his feet. "hand me my gun from the wall, good wife, and henrik, take yours and follow me." they crept out of the house with as little noise as possible, while ole and mari flattened their noses against the window-panes. but it was pitch-dark outside, and they could see nothing. bang, bang! went a gun. "they found him, they found him," shouted ole, jumping up and down. "i do hope he was hit." a few minutes after, steps were heard coming back to the house. ole rushed to the door and opened it. there stood his father holding a large red fox by the nape of the neck. the eyes of the animal were glassy, for he was quite dead. "he was creeping away over the snow when we saw him," said the farmer, "and he had one of my finest hens in his mouth. i don't believe this was his first visit, either, for you know, wife, we have lost several fowls lately. henrik, you and ole may skin this sly fellow and make a mat for your mother. but it is getting late, and i must start early in the morning, so to bed, one and all." chapter viii. the lumber camp the whole family were awake bright and early the next morning. mari and greta helped their mother in packing the birch-bark knapsack with the provisions their father needed to carry with him to the forest. there must be a good supply of dried meat and fish, sugar, butter, and flour. last, but not least, the coffee was packed safely inside. what would the good man and his helpers do without this refreshing drink? when they returned to the hut after a day's chilling work, a bowl of hot coffee would fill them with new life. "ole and i will come next week and bring you fresh supplies," said henrik, as his father bade them good-bye and the three men started out on their snow-shoes over the crisp snow. they were soon out of sight and the rest of the family returned to their work. but little mari, who loved her father very tenderly, kept thinking of the hard, cold work before him. what kind of a home would he find when he got into the forest? there would be no shelter of any kind. he and his men must go to work at once and saw some logs, with which they would build a rough hut. they would stuff the chinks with moss to keep out the great cold, or else they would freeze to death. what furniture would they have? a large, flat stone would serve as a fireplace, while the bed would be made of poles placed side by side and covered with moss. that was all. they must sleep as close to the fire as possible, and even then they would suffer greatly during the long, freezing nights. "i am so sorry the crops failed," said mari to her mother when she had thought of all these things. "i almost wish father had gone to work fishing this winter. i don't believe that would have been as hard work." "the sea has its own dangers, my daughter," answered her mother. "think of the fearful storms that rage along our coast and the sad deaths that have come to some of our friends. no, mari, lumbering is hard work, but it is safer, i think, than fishing in the winter season." ole had come into the room while they were talking. "it's cold and uncomfortable for father this winter, i know," he said, "but the greatest danger is in the spring-time, when he has to float the logs down the narrow streams to the sawmills." "why is that so dangerous?" asked mari. "because his work isn't over when he has once launched the logs into the water. he must watch them in their course and see that they get to their journey's end. suppose one log gets across the stream and blocks the way? then father must wade out into the water and pull that log aside with his boat-hook. he has to spend a good deal of his time in the water, and is likely to freeze his feet, or get a terrible cold, at any rate. perhaps he has to jump on the logs as he pulls them apart. suppose he slips and, falling through, is jammed to death between the logs! "there, there, mari, dear, don't cry. i shouldn't have said all this. father will probably get along all right and come home safe in the spring." henrik put his strong arms around his little sister, and she had soon forgotten her fears and was laughing heartily over the fairy-story he was telling her. the next week after their father left home, henrik and ole started out on a visit to the camp, carrying with them a stock of provisions large enough to supply the men for several days longer. "take your gun, henrik," said his mother, "for you can't tell what wild creatures you may meet on the way. it would be a fine surprise for your father if you should present him with a hare or a deer. some fresh meat would make a rare treat for the men." the boys skimmed over mile after mile of snowy ground, and nothing unusual happened. no houses were in sight all this time, and there were no tracks of living creatures. it was lonely, and dreary, and quiet. they were nearing their journey's end, and were climbing the side of a hill, when henrik suddenly stopped. "see, ole," he whispered, "there are the tracks of some four-footed beast ahead of us. they are too heavy and big for hares'. it may be we are near some bear's den. look out, for you know the old ones are sometimes very fierce. let us follow the tracks for a while and see what we come to, anyway." "shouldn't we be proud if we could find him and kill him?" answered ole. "roasted bear's meat makes a pretty good dinner." the boys travelled very carefully now, for they had come into the thick woods. the tracks suddenly came to an end at a pile of logs lying at one side. "perhaps the bear has a snug home under those logs," said henrik, in a low tone, as he seized his gun. at that very moment the boys heard a sound, and at once a huge brown bear appeared. he moved sleepily, as though he had just been wakened, but as soon as he got sight of the boys he roused, and his face became fierce. no time was to be lost, but henrik was as cool as any old hunter. his hand did not tremble as he took careful aim. whizz! flew the bullet just as the bear prepared to come at them. it would have gone straight into his heart if he had not suddenly raised his paw, but it entered that instead. "run for your life, ole," shouted his brother, as the huge and angry brute dashed toward them. even as he spoke, the bear knocked ole down, and would have made short work of him if it had not been for henrik's coolness. a second shot from his gun broke the animal's neck. he rose on his hind legs, and plunged blindly forward only to fall dead at henrik's feet. "it's a good thing we are trained to be soldiers at school," the brave boy said afterward, when he told the story to his father. "i really believe i should have lost my head, if it hadn't been for that training. but i said to myself: 'you never fail at home in hitting the mark, why should you now?' it gave me courage, father." his father smiled and answered, "you have done well, henrik. i am proud of you." this was said as the boys sat around the fire in the log hut that night. as soon as they were sure the bear was really dead, they had hurried on to the camp, which was only a short distance away. then, as soon as they had told of their luck, the men went back with them to skin the bear and cut up and bring in the meat. they brought it to the camp on a rough sledge. "he is a beauty," exclaimed one of the men, as he looked at the bear. "and as big a one as i ever set eyes on," said the other. "i don't see how you ever dared to tackle him, henrik. i should have hesitated for a moment, myself." it was so late in the day when they all got back to the camp that father said: "boys, you had better stay all night, unless you think your mother will worry about you." "we told her we might not come home to-day," said ole. "it is such a long tramp, she said we had better not try, for we would get too tired. so it is all right." how good the bear steak looked when it was set on the rough supper-table. it was smoked a good deal,--that was certain; but no one spoke or even thought of that. and the table was not elegant, for there was no cloth to cover the rough pine boards. but the fresh cheese, the kind mother had sent, the hard brown bread baked by the men, with plenty of bear steak and a bowl of steaming coffee, made a supper "fit for a king," as the boys declared when they could eat no more. chapter ix. the lapps "perhaps this seems a cold place to you, when you think of the warm farmhouse you left yesterday," said one of the workmen to henrik. "you ought to go to the far north, and visit the lapps. ah! you will find plenty of cold weather there. but those queer people don't seem to notice it very much. i suppose that is because they have got used to it, since they never lived anywhere else." "do tell us about them," begged ole. "i didn't know you had ever been to lapland, adolf." [illustration: "'it is always in the shape of a mound.'"] "yes, when i was a young man i was a great hunter, ole. i have travelled all over this country and have seen many strange sights." "i should like to be a hunter, too," said henrik. "it must be great sport getting the wild reindeer. but go on, adolf, and tell us about the homes of the lapps, and their herds of tame reindeer, as well as the queer ways of the people." "they are a strange people, that is a fact," said adolf. "they are queer-looking and queer in their ways. they are very small, few of them over five feet tall, and they are quite stout. their skin is of a dark yellow; the hair is jet-black, coarse and straight; their cheek-bones, high; and their eyes are blue and small. their little noses turn up in a comical way, and their mouths are often open as though they were surprised at something." "i suppose they dress in fur, don't they?" asked ole. "o yes, from head to foot. but they get all they need from the skins of their reindeer. they wear high boots bound tightly around their legs in winter-time, so they are able to keep dry, even if they are out in the worst snow-storm." "what are their houses made of?" asked henrik. "i suppose lumber is scarce where they live." "sometimes the people make a frame-work of timber and cover it first with skins and then with turf. sometimes the hut is built of stones, over which the turf is thickly laid. but it is always in the shape of a mound." "are there any windows in the hut?" "no, ole, and so, of course, the air inside is very close and unpleasant. there isn't even a chimney. a hole is left in the roof large enough to let out the smoke; that is all. when the short summer comes round, the lapps prefer to live in deer-skin tents, and i can't say i blame them." "did you ever visit them in their homes, adolf?" asked henrik. "yes, i stayed with a family of them over night. they seemed very friendly and tried to make my visit pleasant, but i didn't enjoy it very much, it was such a dirty, smoky place. "in the middle of the room was a stone fireplace, over which hung the kettle when our supper was cooked. they all squatted on deer-skins around the fire. when i had been there a few minutes, i heard a noise overhead. i looked up and saw a dear little blue-eyed baby, swinging in a hammock and cooing to me. i reached up and took it down, and it snuggled in my arms as though it knew i was a friend." "what did you have for supper?" asked the farmer. "everything came from the reindeer, of course. there was plenty of rich milk, besides a good-sized cheese and a meat stew. i have eaten worse meals since, many times." "but how did you sleep?" "the beds were easily made by stretching deer-skins on the floor. we covered ourselves with more skins, and lay snug and warm till morning." "did you sleep more warmly than we do here?" the farmer laughed as he said it. "i must say i did," replied adolf, with an answering laugh. "although the lapps' huts are far from beautiful, they are made so that wind and snow cannot blow in, at any rate." adolf pointed to a ridge of snow that had sifted in through the wall, although they had stuffed the cracks as well as they could with dried moss. "but, dear me! the lapps wouldn't mind it very much if it did," he went on. "the men will lie down to sleep in an open field on rocks or snow, if they are not near their home. they are not afraid of the cold, and it seldom seems to hurt them, either. "as i lay on the floor of the hut that night, i could see rows of smoked meat and fish hanging against the sides of the walls. they have neither storehouses nor closets, so they are obliged to keep their provisions in the huts. "the next morning i went out among the reindeer with the chief of the settlement. i believe there were more than a thousand reindeer in sight. it was milking-day and the men were having a lively time of it. they had to catch each animal and hold it still with a lasso while the milking was done." "why did you speak of milking-day, adolf? don't the lapps milk the reindeer as often as we do our cows?" "no, indeed. it is done only once a week, because the creatures are so wild. they are not gentle and tame, as you have probably supposed. they can be managed very well in driving, however. it is great sport to ride behind a team of reindeer, for one flies over the snow like the wind. their masters sometimes drive them a hundred miles in a day." "that is good, for i have heard that the lapps don't stay in one place all their lives. they are a wandering people, aren't they?" "yes, ole, but one reason for that is the need of finding good feeding-grounds for their deer. when one place becomes bare, they must seek another. then, again, in the summer-time they like to go to the rivers and camp beside them for the sake of the salmon fishing. they are as fond as we of a good dish of salmon for dinner." "what do the reindeer feed on?" asked henrik. "in winter they paw away the snow and find the lichen, which is a little gray plant very much like the moss you see growing on the mountainside about here. in summer they eat the young and tender shoots on the bushes and low trees. they are very hardy creatures and among the most useful." "just think!" cried ole. "the reindeer furnish the lapps with everything they need,--their clothing, food, and shelter; and, as if that were not enough, they make good beasts of burden, and carry their masters wherever they wish to go." "i shall tell mari all about them when i get home," ole went on. "i know one question my busy little sister will ask at once. she will say, 'what do the women and children do with themselves all the time?' how shall i answer that question, adolf?" "you may tell mari there is plenty of work for them. they dress the reindeer skins, and make lovely rugs and warm slippers turned up at the toes and bound with red." "why, yes, ole, your mother has a pair of slippers made by the lapp women," interrupted his father. "i bought them for her at bergen, and she wears them on cold winter mornings." "that is so, i remember them; but i never thought about the lapps when i looked at them," answered ole. "is there anything else the women of lapland make, adolf?" "many things. they showed me knives and spoons they had shaped out of the horns of the reindeer. they were very pretty, and a great deal of time must have been spent on the carving. the men and boys do most of this last work. i really think the most wonderful thing i saw was the thread the women make of the reindeer sinews. it is fine and even, yet very strong. i wish i could have seen them making it." adolf yawned. "i am so sleepy i think it must be bedtime. there's a hard day's work before us to-morrow." after fresh wood had been laid on the fire, the party quickly settled themselves for the night's rest. chapter x. holiday frolics "father's coming, father's coming!" cried mari as she stood looking down the snow-covered valley. she rushed into the house and put on her skis, then skimmed across the fields with long strides. "everything is ready," she told her father as soon as she reached him. "and now we shall have a lovely christmas because you have come." yes, everything was ready for the greatest day of the year. even the birds were not forgotten, for a fresh sheaf of wheat had been fastened on the pole where the magpie had hidden the silver brooch. ole had made a new collar for the dog, kyle; henrik had shot enough wild game for the christmas dinner; mari and greta had helped their mother in making some wonderful cakes. there was nothing for the tired father to do except to sit in the chimney-corner and frolic with his children. it was a jolly time, for no one was expected to be quiet now, and all were allowed to do as they pleased. christmas comes but once a year, and the children realized it fully. they played games and told stories; they danced and sang to the music of henrik's violin. there was no spinning, or even crocheting, for the girls, while the boys did only what farm work was needed to keep the horses and cattle comfortable. on christmas day a party of the villagers came to the farm to share in the games and feasting. even the magpie, mischievous little fellow, seemed to enjoy the fun. he flew from one to the others of the party and, lighting on the shoulders of the young girls suddenly, would startle them and make every one else laugh. the baby, bless his heart, had the best time of all. he was not left to hang in his cradle for a single moment. everybody wished to hold him, and he was passed from one to another of the company, where he enjoyed himself fingering the shining silver ornaments of his friends. he had his new toys to amuse him, also, for henrik and ole had carved him a doll and a queer-looking horse out of wood. everybody was jolly and happy, and there was much drinking of coffee and shaking of hands. it was eleven o'clock when the tired but happy children climbed the steps of their beds to dream of the good time just over. after this, it did not seem a very long time to fastilevn, which is the next best holiday to christmas. at least, that is what mari thought, and if you lived with her you would surely think so too. fastilevn comes in the early spring, on the first monday of lent, and on that day the norse children are allowed to do exactly as they wish. their parents may be strict and stern all the rest of the year, but at fastilevn all rules are laid aside and the little ones may run wild if they like. cakes and buns! if you could see mari, greta, and their brothers eat sweet things on this day, you would wonder where they could possibly find room in their stomachs to stow them all away. the feasting was not the best part of the fun, however. you would never guess what strange thing the children were allowed to do on that day. they might whip their mother! of course, it was all in sport. the boys took long birch twigs and fastened many tissue-papers and coloured ribbons and tinsel upon them. the night before the great day, these twigs were set up in a corner of the living-room, all ready for the next day's fun. with the first light of morning those gay switches began to be plied, while the children followed their mother about, laughing gaily all the while. how long did the fun last, do you suppose? until the last shred of paper was gone from each switch. and how do you suppose there ever came to be such an odd custom? the norse parents believe firmly in the old maxim, "spare the rod and spoil the child." their children are likely to be often whipped for wrong-doing; fastilevn is supposed to make up for twelve months of whippings, whether they were deserved or not. mari has seldom needed punishment, for she is a good, helpful little girl; but she enjoys fastilevn very much, nevertheless. the holiday came to an end, as all days must, whether they are good or bad. in the evening, when the bare switches had been thrown away, mari went to her mother and put her arms around her neck, whispering: "mamma, i wouldn't really hurt you for the world, even if you had to give me a thousand whippings. and i am going to try harder than ever to be your little helper." the good woman's eyes filled with tears. "god bless you, little daughter," she said, as she bent down and kissed her. the end. books for young people the little colonel books (trade mark) _by annie fellows johnston_ _each vol., large mo, cloth, illustrated, per vol._ $ . =the little colonel stories= (trade mark) being three "little colonel" stories in the cosy corner series, "the little colonel," "two little knights of kentucky," and "the giant scissors," put into a single volume. =the little colonel's house party= (trade mark) =the little colonel's holidays= (trade mark) =the little colonel's hero= (trade mark) =the little colonel at boarding school= (trade mark) =the little colonel in arizona= (trade mark) =the little colonel's christmas vacation= (trade mark) =the little colonel, maid of honour= (trade mark) =the little colonel's knight comes riding= (trade mark) mary ware: the little colonel's chum (trade mark) _these ten volumes, boxed as a ten-volume set._ $ . =the little colonel= (trade mark) =two little knights of kentucky= =the giant scissors= =big brother= special holiday editions each one volume, cloth decorative, small quarto, $ . new plates, handsomely illustrated with eight full-page drawings in color, and many marginal sketches. =in the desert of waiting=: the legend of camelback mountain. =the three weavers=: a fairy tale for fathers and mothers as well as for their daughters. =keeping tryst= =the legend of the bleeding heart= =the rescue of princess winsome=: a fairy play for old and young. =the jester's sword= each one volume, tall mo, cloth decorative $ . paper boards . there has been a constant demand for publication in separate form of these six stories, which were originally included in six of the "little colonel" books. =joel: a boy of galilee=: by annie fellows johnston. illustrated by l. j. bridgman. new illustrated edition, uniform with the little colonel books, vol., large mo, cloth decorative $ . a story of the time of christ, which is one of the author's best-known books. =the little colonel good times book= uniform in size with the little colonel series $ . bound in white kid (morocco) and gold . cover design and decorations by amy carol rand. the publishers have had many inquiries from readers of the little colonel books as to where they could obtain, a "good times book" such as betty kept. mrs. johnston, who has for years kept such a book herself, has gone enthusiastically into the matter of the material and format for a similar book for her young readers. every girl will want to possess a "good times book." =asa holmes:= or, at the cross-roads. a sketch of country life and country humor. by annie fellows johnston. with a frontispiece by ernest fosbery. large mo, cloth, gilt top $ . 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"singularly enough one of the best books of the year for boys is written by a woman and deals with life at west point. the presentment of life in the famous military academy whence so many heroes have graduated is realistic and enjoyable."--_new york sun._ =from chevrons to shoulder straps= by florence kimball russel. mo, cloth, illustrated, decorative $ . west point again forms the background of a new volume in this popular series, and relates the experience of jack stirling during his junior and senior years. =the sandman: his farm stories= by william j. hopkins. with fifty illustrations by ada clendenin williamson. large mo, decorative cover $ . 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"it is exactly the sort of book to give a boy interested in athletics, for it shows him what it means to always 'play fair.'"--_chicago tribune._ =jack lorimer's holidays:= or, millvale high in camp. by winn standish. illustrated $ . full of just the kind of fun, sports and adventure to excite the healthy minded youngster to emulation. =jack lorimer's substitute:= or, the acting captain of the team. by winn standish. illustrated $ . on the sporting side, this book takes up football, wrestling, tobogganing, but it is more of a _school_ story perhaps than any of its predecessors. =captain jinks:= the autobiography of a shetland pony. by frances hodges white. cloth decorative, illustrated $ . the story of captain jinks and his faithful dog friend billy, their quaint conversations and their exciting adventures, will be eagerly read by thousands of boys and girls. the story is beautifully written and will take its place alongside of "black beauty" and "beautiful joe." =the red feathers.= by theodore roberts. cloth decorative, illustrated $ . "the red feathers" tells of the remarkable adventures of an indian boy who lived in the stone age, many years ago, when the world was young. =flying plover.= by theodore roberts. cloth decorative. illustrated by charles livingston bull $ . squat-by-the-fire is a very old and wise indian who lives alone with her grandson, "flying plover," to whom she tells the stories each evening. =the wreck of the ocean queen.= by james otis, author of "larry hudson's ambition," etc. cloth decorative, illustrated $ . "a stirring story of wreck and mutiny, which boys will find especially absorbing. the many young admirers of james otis will not let this book escape them, for it fully equals its many predecessors in excitement and sustained interest."--_chicago evening post._ =little white indians.= by fannie e. ostrander. cloth decorative, illustrated $ . "a bright, interesting story which will appeal strongly to the 'make-believe' instinct in children, and will give them a healthy, active interest in 'the simple life.'" =marching with morgan.= how donald lovell became a soldier of the revolution. by john l. veasy. cloth decorative, illustrated $ . this is a splendid boy's story of the expedition of montgomery and arnold against quebec. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation punctuation errors repaired. [illustration: the author.] through scandinavia to moscow with many illustrations and maps by william seymour edwards author of "in to the yukon," etc. cincinnati the robert clarke co. copyright , by william seymour edwards dedication to my life-long chum, my father, these pages are affectionately dedicated. foreword these pages are made up of letters written during a little journey through scandinavia and into russia as far as moscow, some four years ago, before the smashing of the russians by the japanese. they were written to my father, and are necessarily intimate letters, in which i have jotted down what i saw and felt as the moment moved me. the truth is, i was on my honey-moon trip, and the world sang merrily to me--even in sombre russia. afterward, some of these letters were published here and there; now they are put together into this little book. i had my kodak with me and have thus been able to add to the text some of the scenes my lens made note of. it was my endeavor at the time, that the kindly circle who read the letters should see as i saw, feel as i felt, and apprehend as i apprehended; that they should share with me the delight of travel through serene and industrious denmark, among the grand and stupendous _fjelds_ and _fjords_ of romantic norway; should visit with me a moment the capital of once militant sweden, and join me in the excitement of a plunge into semi-barbarous russia. the transition from scandinavia to russia was sharp. i went from lands where the modern spirit finds full expression, as seen in the splendid schools and libraries of denmark, in the democratic and americanized atmosphere of norway, in the scientific and mechanical progressiveness of sweden. entering russia, i found myself amidst social and political conditions, mediaeval and malevolent. the wanton luxury of the enormously rich, the pinching poverty of the very poor, the political and social exaltation of the very few, the ruthless suppression of the many, here stared me in the face on every hand. the smoldering embers of discontent, profound discontent, were even then apparent. in the brief interval which has since elapsed, this smoldering discontent has become the blazing conflagration of revolution. driven against his will by inexorable fate, the czar has at first convoked the imperial douma and then, terrified by its growing aggressiveness, has summarily decreed its death. panic-struck by the apparition of popular liberty, which his own act has called forth, he is now in sinister retreat toward despotic reaction; the consternation of the unwilling bureaucracy, day by day increases; terror, abject terror, increasingly haunts the splendid palaces of the autocracy; and the inevitable and irrepressible movement of the russian people toward liberty and modern order is begun. the symptoms of social and political ailment which then discovered themselves to me are now apparent to all the world. and it is this verification of the suggestions of these letters which may now, perhaps, justify their publication. william seymour edwards. charleston-kanawha, west virginia, september , . contents page i. london to denmark across the north sea ii. esbjerg--across jutland, funen and zealand, the little belt and big belt to copenhagen, and friends met along the way iii. copenhagen, a quaint and ancient city iv. elsinore and kronborg--an evening dinner party v. across the sund to sweden and incidents of travel to kristiania vi. a day upon the rand fjord--along the etna elv to frydenlund--ole mon our driver vii. a drive along the baegna elv--the aurdals vand and many more to skogstad viii. over the height of land--a wonderful ride down the laera dal to the sogne fjord ix. a day upon the sogne fjord x. from stalheim to eida--the waterfall of skjerve fos--the mighty hardanger fjord xi. the buarbrae and folgefonden glaciers--cataracts and mountain tarns--odda to horre xii. over the lonely haukeli fjeld--witches and pixies, and maidens milking goats xiii. descending from the fjelde--the telemarken fjords--the arctic twilight xiv. kristiania to stockholm--a wedding party--differing norsk and swede xv. stockholm the venice of the north--life and color of the swedish capital--manners of the people and their king xvi. how we entered russia--the passport system--difficult to get into russia and more difficult to get out xvii. st. petersburg--the great wealth of the few--the bitter poverty of the many--conditions similar to those preceding the french revolution xviii. en route to moscow--under military guard--suspected of designs on life of the czar xix. our arrival at moscow--splendor and squalor--enlightenment and superstition--russia asiatic rather than european xx. the splendid pageant of the russian mass--the separateness of russian religious feeling from modern thought--russia mediaeval and pagan xxi. the first snows--moscow to warsaw--fat farm lands and frightful poverty of the mujiks who own them and till them--i recover my passport xxii. the slav and the jew--the slav's envy and jealousy of the jew xxiii. across germany and holland to england--a hamburg wein stube--the "simple fisher-folk" of maarken--two gulden at den haag xxiv. map of north europe. map of scandinavia and baltic russia, in profile. illustrations opposite page the author frontispiece the naero--sogne fjord the north sea the docks, esbjerg our danish railway carriage my instructor in danish our danish friends the krystal gade and round tower, copenhagen the oestergade the royal theatre, copenhagen the exchange, copenhagen the gammel strand along the quays, copenhagen an ancient moat, now the lovely oersteds park a vista of the sund elsinore the sund from kronborg's ramparts the fishing boats, elsinore a snap-shot for a dime, kronborg kronborg karl johans gade, kristiania vegetable market, kristiania kristiania, a view of the city our norwegian train along the etna elv hailing our steamer, the rand fjord the old salt ole mon feeding the ponies, tomlevolden church of vestre slidre the distant snows the baegna elv the granheims vand a herd of cows, fosheim a hamlet beneath the fjeld the author by the slidre vand ricking the rye the protected road three thousand feet of waterfall our little ship, laerdalsoeren the sogne fjord--along the sogne fjord sudals gate, on the sogne fjord the naerodal greeting our boat, aurland the hardanger fjord the soer fjord--hardanger commingling lote and skars fos the espelands fos glacier of buarbrae the gors vand the descending road to horre a mile stone cattle on the haukeli fjeld the desolate haukeli fjeld norse maiden milking goat ( illustrations) our hostesses, haukeli-saeter a norse cabin a goat herd's saeter haukeli-saeter tending the herds drying out the oats dalen on the bandaks vand norse women raking hay stockholm king's palace, stockholm ancient swedish fortress a swedish church a band of swedish horses the shore of lake maelaren, stockholm cathedral of riddarsholm norrbro, stockholm facing the gale the pier, helsingfors fishing boats along the quay, helsingfors market square, helsingfors the doebln at her pier, helsingfors a wild sea--leaving helsingfors fishing boats at mouth of the neva entering the neva along the neva our droschky, st. petersburg along the nevsky-prospekt cathedral of our lady of kazan our squealing stallions our izvostchik our landau, st. petersburg a noble's troika, st. petersburg the railway porters, st. petersburg our military guard, bargaining for apples the holy savior gate, kremlin along the gostinoi dvor, moscow cathedral of the assumption, kremlin the red square, moscow begging pilgrims, st. basil cathedral of st. basil the blessed, moscow ancient pavements, moscow bread vendors, moscow the kremlin beyond the moskva cathedral of st. savior a tram-car, moscow the out-of-works cemetery, novo dievitchy monastery church, novo dievitchy holy beggar, novo dievitchy the kremlin beneath the snows a station stop, en route to warsaw catching a kopeek--a beggar a cold day along the river moskva, moscow a russian jew jewish types, taken in russia jewish types, taken in america a dainty nurse-maid, berlin hamburg street traffic our bill of fare a gentleman of maarken a kinder of maarken among vrow and kinderen, maarken a load of hay, holland along the zuyder zee the fish market, den haag the gossips, den haag a watery lane, den haag dutch toilers map of north europe. map of scandinavia and baltic russia, in profile. [illustration: the naero--sogne fjord, norway.] through scandinavia to moscow. i. london to denmark across the north sea. esbjerg, denmark, _august , _. we came down from london to harwich toward the end of the day. our train was a "special" running to catch the steamer for denmark. we were delayed a couple of hours in the dingy, dirty london station by reason of a great fog which had crept in over harwich from the north sea, and then, the boat had to wait upon the tide. the instant the train backed in alongside the station platform--only ten minutes before it would pull out--there was the usual scramble and grab to seize a seat in the first-carriage-you-can and pandemonium reigned. h is well trained by this time, however, and i quickly had her comfortably ensconced in a seat by a window with bags and shawls pyramided by her side the better to hold a place for me. meantime, i hurried to a truck where stood awaiting me a well-tipped porter and together we safely stowed two "boxes" into a certain particular "luggage van," the number of which i was careful to note so that i might be sure quickly to find the "luggage" again, when we should arrive at harwich, else a stranger might walk off with it as aptly as with his own. our "carriage" was packed "full-up" with several men and women, who looked dourly at us and at each other as they sat glumly squeezed together, elbows in each other's ribs. so forbidding was the prospect confronting me that i did not presume to attempt a conversation. these comrades, however, soon dropped out at the way-stations, until only one lone man was left, when i took heart and made bold to accost him. i found him very civil and, recognizing me to be a foreign visitor, he spoke with freedom. one englishman never forgives another for sitting beside him, unintroduced, and squeezing him up in a railway carriage; but he harbors no such grudge against his american cousin, equally the victim of british methods. our _vis-à-vis_ had been a volunteer-trooper in south africa, and had just come back to england, after two years' hardship and exposure. he had given up a good position in order to serve his country, and had been promised that the place would be kept open for him against his return. he tells me he now finds a stay-at-home holds his job. he has "a wife and two little lads to keep," and so far he has had "no luck in finding work." there are thousands of others in as bad a fix as he, he says, returned patriots who are starving for lack of work. he denounced the entire boer-smashing business most savagely and declared that as for south africa, he "would not take the whole of it for a gift." we hear this sort of talk everywhere among the people we casually meet. the average englishman takes small pride in his army. "it gives fat jobs to the aristocracy, it is death to us," is what i have heard a dozen times remarked. our new acquaintance seemed to feel the better for having thus spoken out his mind, and when we parted, wished us a "prosperous voyage." [illustration: the north sea.] the ship was in motion within twenty minutes after our train reached the harwich pier. to my landsman's thinking the air was yet murky with the fog. big sirens were booming all about us. the melancholy clang of tidal bells sounded in sombre muffled tones from many anchored buoys. it was a drear, dank night to leave the land. we moved slowly, sounding our own hoarse whistle all the while. i stood upon the upper deck peering into the mists till we had come well out to sea. there were few boats moving, no big ones. multitudes of small schooners and sloops rode at anchor, their danger lights faintly gleaming. i wondered we did not run down and crush them, but the pilot seemed to apprehend the presence of another boat even before the smallest ray of light shone through the fog. one or two great ships we came shockingly close upon. at least, i was jarred more than once when their huge black hulks and reaching masts suddenly grew up before me out of the dead white curtain of the mists. the estuary which leads from harwich to the sea is long and tortuous. only a pilot who has been born upon it, and from boyhood learned its currents and its tides, its shallows and its shoals, may dare to guide a boat along it, even in broad day. how much greater the skill and knowledge required thus to steer a ship through these labyrinthine channels amidst the fogs and blackness of such a night! the captain told me he was always uneasy when coming out, no matter when, and never felt safe until far out upon the sea. even in open water he must keep the sharpest kind of a watch lest some one of the myriad fishing craft which haunt these waters, should lie athwart the way. the sea was quiet, rolling with a long slow swell. the rising wind soughed softly through the rigging when, toward midnight, i at last turned in. all day sunday the north sea lay smooth and glassy as a pond; no hint of the turmoil and tempest which so often rage upon its shallow depths. we did not see many vessels; far to the north i made out the smoke of a steamer which the captain said was bound for kristiansand, in norway; and south of us were a few sail, which i took to be fishing luggers from holland. nor were there many seabirds flying. the sky hung low and in the gray air was the feel of a storm in the offing. toward dark, about eight o'clock, a misty rain settled down upon us, and the rising wind began swashing the dripping waters along the decks. toward half past nine we descried a dim glimmer in the east,--a beacon light flickering through the night,--and then another with different intervals of flash, a mile or two out upon the left, and then our ears caught the deep bellow of a fog horn across the sea. we were nearing the west coast of the province of jutland, in denmark. our port lay dead ahead between the lights. another hour of cautious navigating, for there are many sand bars and shifting shoals along this coast, and we came steaming slowly, very slowly, among trembling lights--fishing smacks at anchor with their night signals burning--and then we crept up to a big black wharf. we were arrived at esbjerg. [illustration: the docks, esbjerg.] the train for copenhagen (kjoebenhavn) would leave at midnight, an eight-hours' ride and no sleeping car attached. we decided to stay aboard the ship, sleep peacefully in our wide-berthed stateroom and take a train at eleven o'clock of the morning, which would give us a daylight ride. we were entering denmark by the back door. the sea-loving traveler generally approaches by one of the ocean liners which sail direct from new york to copenhagen; those who find terror in the sea enter by way of kiel, and an all-rail ride through holland and germany, crossing the channel to ostend, dieppe, or the hook. only the few voyage across the north sea with its frequent storms--the few who, like ourselves, are good sailors and do not fear the stress of tide and tempest. we were now at esbjerg, and must cross the entire peninsula of denmark, its little belt, its big belt and the large islands of funen and zealand to reach our journey's end. i am already beginning to pick up the danish speech, a mixture of english, german, dutch and new strange throat gutturals, the latter difficult for an american larynx to make. and yet so similar is this mother tongue of scandinavia to the modern english, that i can often tell what a dane is saying by the very similarity of the sounds: "go morn"--(good morning), "farvel"--(farewell). our fellow passengers were mostly danes. this is their favorite route for coming home. they are a quiet, rather pensive people. the men, much of the time, were smoking, and drinking beer and a white brandy. the women were often sitting in the smoking room with them, enjoying, i presume, the perfume of tobacco, as every right-minded woman should, and it may be, also finding solace in the scent of the strong brown beer, which they are not themselves indisposed to quaff. the cooking on this danish boat has been good. we have keenly appreciated the improvement upon the diet of roast beef, boiled mutton, boiled ham, boiled potatoes, and boiled peas steeped in mint, which we have been compelled to exist upon during the past few weeks in britain. [illustration: our danish railway carriage.] ii. esbjerg--across jutland, funen and zealand, the little belt and the big belt to copenhagen--friends met along the way. hotel dagmar ("dahmar"), copenhagen, denmark, _august , _. here we are in "kjoebenhavn," which word you will find it quite impossible properly to pronounce, however strenuously your tongue may try. my letter, beginning in esbjerg, was broken short by the necessity of sleep. we wisely remained upon the ship and took full benefit of our comfortable berths. in the morning we were up betimes, obtained a cup of coffee and a roll, and then, sending our bags and baggage to the railway station, set out afoot. the air was misty, full of a fine drizzling rain. it was regular scotch and english weather, but the atmosphere was cooler and not so heavy as in britain. the little stone-and-brick-built town is clean and neat, with its main street well asphalted. it lies on a gentle slope of hillside which lifts from the water. a giant lighthouse, rising from the highest point of land, is the first object to meet the view. back of this, upon the level summit, lies the best of the town. the buildings are generally of one and two stories, with steep, gabled roofs. h, in her scottish "bonnet," and i, in my raincoat, were quite impervious to wetness, and we spent the morning strolling here and there, stopping to see, among other things, the tubs and tanks of fish in the market square, where fishwives in big, white caps, stood quite heedless of the rain. the fish were almost wholly the famous _roed spoette_ (red spots), one of the flounder family, much resembling the english sole. wanting cigars, i was tempted into a little shop, and found it kept by an intelligent young dane, who instantly confessed to me, in good united states, that he had lived in america and there done well. in fact, it was plain to see that his heart still beat for the great republic. his father had died and he had come back to denmark to care for his old mother, and then, he had fallen in love with the blue-eyed daughter of a citizen of esbjerg, an only child. so now, with several little danes added to his charge, he was fixed fast in esbjerg. but he was "always grieving for america," he said. he delighted to see us, and sent for his young wife, who came smiling in to us with her baby in her arms. h says he told his wife in danish, that we were americans just like all others she would see, if she should ever reach new york! so i bought a box of cigars from him, instead of one or two, and found them good smoking and well worth the very moderate cost. crossing the market square to a long, low building, which somehow had about it that indefinable air suggestive of a breakfast comfortably cooked, we came to an inn, in the low-ceilinged dining room of which were little tables set about upon the sanded floor. two or three men of the sea were smoking in one corner, a bar and a red-cheeked barmaid were in another, and two huge, yellow, great-dane dogs occupied most of the remaining space. we chose a table by the window and h ordered _roed spoette_, rolls and coffee. the fish was delicious, possessing a harder, sweeter flesh than the english sole; and rolls with salted butter rejoiced my palate, for i am dreadfully tired of english butter with no salt; and then we were given big brown pancakes with currant jelly, all we could eat. it was a breakfast fit for a viking. the bill was only three _kroner_ and twenty _oere_, which equals about eighty-six cents. at the railway station, a mile from the docks, our tickets, bought in london, gave us the best on the train, better than similar carriages in england, for here they are bigger, with larger windows and the cars are set on trucks. the journey to copenhagen was over and through a sandy, flat and slightly rolling country, more carefully tilled and more generally cultivated than in england, with more grain, wheat and rye; with more vegetables, turnips, carrots, cabbage and potatoes. there were cattle, herds of large red cows, for denmark is now the dairy of all europe. but i saw no steers, nor beef cattle, fattening for the market, and but few sheep; nor any hogs running afield--the last are probably kept up. the houses are set singly upon the farms, are surrounded by outbuildings, and are usually of one story and often big and rambling with ells and gables, and generally have thatched roofs. the barns are big and substantial. more people are here upon the land than in england, and not living in clustered villages, as in france; the fields are divided usually by hedges. there are sluggish waterways and canals, and ponds where fish are bred and raised for market; and almost every hilltop is capped with a dutch-looking windmill. the train moved deliberately. it made from twenty to twenty-five miles an hour, stopping a long time at each station. we hadn't gone far when a bald-pated, round-headed _herr_ climbed in and we speedily fell into talk with him. h speaks danish enough to get on, and i use my pocket dictionary, and pick up what i can. his name was hansen and he "owns" the "hotel kikkenborg," at "brammige," wherever that may be. he told us of the country we were passing through and helped me on the danish gutturals. you must gurgle the sounds down in your gullet as though you were quite filled with water, and the more profound the depth from which the sound comes forth, the more perfect the speech. we lost him at the first change of cars, when we boarded an immense ferryboat to cross the strait of water called the little belt, which separates the main land from the large island of funen, but we found ourselves again in kindly company, this time, with a gray-bearded man and two ladies, his wife and daughter. he was "inspector of edifices" for the government. they had been spending a few weeks on the island of fanoe at nordby, a fashionable seaside resort much patronized by the gentry of copenhagen. he talked with me in fluent german, and the ladies conversed readily in french, while all spoke with h in _dansk_ and so we got on, fell fast friends and were introduced to a beau of the froeken, a young "doctor" who had "just taken his degree." we sat together while crossing the island of funen and on the ferryboat top all through the long sail across the big belt which divides funen from the island of zealand. our friends here pointed out to us where it was that charles x of sweden, and his army of foot and horse and guns made their dare-devil passage on the ice that night in january, , crossing the little and big belts to zealand and copenhagen, forcing the beaten danes by the peace of roskilde to cede the great provinces of skaania, halland and bleking, which made sweden forever henceforth a formidable european state,--"god's work," the swedes declared, for these salty waters were never before frozen solid enough to bear an army's weight,--nor have they been since. we parted only at the journey's end. our friends were pleasant people of the aristocratic office-holding class, content to live simply on the modest stipend the government may grant, who neither speak nor read english, and who listened to the tales of bigness in america with doubting wonder. "a building twenty stories high!" "impossible!" "eighty millions of people!" "incredible!" "america already holds four hundred thousand danes--one-fifth of the danish race." "ja! alas! that is too true!" "our young men are never satisfied to come back to stay when once they have lived in america!" "our young men don't return, it's hard upon our girls." [illustration: my instructor in danish.] our new found friends, when we lunched upon the big ferryboat, introduced us to that very danish dish called _smoer broed_, thickly buttered rye bread overlaid with raw herring or smoked goose breast, a viking dainty--a salty appetizer well calculated to make the norseman quaff from his flagon with more than usual vim, and to drive an american in hurried search of plain water! these salty snacks of cold bread and cold fish are as eagerly devoured and enjoyed by the scandinavian as are the peppery, stinging eatables for which every mexican palate yearns. it was dusk when we arrived in the large and commodious main station at copenhagen. the suburbs of the city were hidden from us by the gathering darkness, and the electric lights were glowing when we left the train. we missed general and mrs. c at the station, so great was the crowd, but found them when we came to our hotel, the dagmar, they having themselves missed us and followed on our track. [illustration: our danish friends.] there are many good hotels in copenhagen and this is among the larger and more popular stopping places of the danes themselves. it is built along the clean vestre boulevard, with umbrageous trees in front of it, and possesses that rare thing, an elevator. in the dining room we sit at little tables, and find the cooking much superior to what one generally meets in england. it is more after the french sort, the danes priding themselves greatly upon their soups and sauces. in our rooms, which look out upon the broad, paved boulevard, the furniture is old style mahogany, very substantial, and in the corner there is one of those immense porcelain stoves reaching to the ceiling, which is the general mode of heating large rooms in these scandinavian lands. copenhagen is a city of four hundred thousand people, one-quarter of the estimated population of denmark, and the city is growing steadily at the expense of the country,--increasing too fast for a land the population of which is as steadily growing less. english is said to be the fashionable foreign tongue in court circles, by reason of the british royal connection; but among the people the german speech is steadily and stealthily taking a foremost place, and this despite the fact that the danes dislike germany and view the germans with well-founded fear. you will talk to a dane but a few moments before he is pouring out his heart to you about the atrocious robbery of the splendid provinces of sleswik and holstein, of which bismarck despoiled the little kingdom nearly forty years ago. almost half of denmark was then lopped off at a single blow,--nor england nor russia interfering to save the danes,--and now they are ever in uneasy spirit lest germany encroach yet more upon them and ultimately devour them, land and sea. they feel she is incessantly creeping on to them with all the cunning of a hungry cat. [illustration: the krystal gade and round tower, copenhagen.] iii. copenhagen, a quaint and ancient city. kjoebenhavn, dannmark, (copenhagen, denmark), _august , _. the copenhagener declares that his beloved "kjoebenhavn" is not really an ancient city, although he admits it has been in active business since the middle of the tenth century, nearly one thousand years. my danish friends assert that it is my "yankee eye," which is so new, and prove the modernity of their town by telling me how many times it has been bombarded, how often sacked and razed, how frequently burned up; and yet, despite their facts, i still make bold to say the city bears the markings of an ancient town. long, long ago, even before the time of king gorm the old, here were markets by the water's side, where the fisherman brought his catch, the peasant fetched his eggs and milk and cheese and what the soil might yield, where the itinerant merchant came to show and trade his wares. these handy markets by the sea were at first moved constantly about; by and by they came to be held, year after year, in the self-same spot; the temporary clustered settlement became a lasting town. as the centuries rolled on these market hamlets expanded into a single commercial rendezvous for all the northern world. thus copenhagen won her name (_kopman-haven_--merchant port) and grew until her commerce made her the heir to the trade and traffic of the hanseatic league, and she was recognized as supreme mistress of the commerce of the north by london and bremen, brussels and bordeaux, as well as by the merchant fleets of venice and the levant. those were the days when her kings and hardy seamen would as lief drink and fight and die as eat and live; their very recklessness made them masters of the north; they even annexed the mighty norseman, and made norway a danish province; they hammered and held in check their doughty cousins, the swedes; they brought beneath their sway the provinces of skaania, of halland and of bleking, the southern portion of what is now known as sweden; they dominated the cities along the shores of the north and baltic seas. copenhagen became, in fact as well as in name, the veritable capital of the north. in politics and in intrigue she played the master hand. she gathered to herself the arts and the sciences, the fashion and the elegance, of the north; and to-day, although warlike pride and power have fallen from her, although trade and commerce have lessened in her midst, yet the arts and the sciences, the culture and the elegance are still her own, and the fine old city claims to be as markedly as of yore the intellectual center of the scandinavian race. [illustration: the oestergade, copenhagen.] copenhagen is a flat-lying city; it has no hills in it, while there are many canals and watery lanes which wind through it and lead to the sea, or as the danes would say the _sund_ (sound),--that narrow strait which links the baltic to the kattegat, where denmark and sweden appear once to have split apart. the buildings are generally of brick, sometimes of stone, never of wood; they are large and substantial, often four and five stories high, with gabled roofs, sharp and steep, covered with tiles. in the older parts of the city, the streets are narrow, and twist and turn and change their names even more often than the rues of paris. in the newer section, toward the north and northwest, there are long straight boulevards and straight cross streets, and the inevitable air of modern monotony. the feeling and impression which stole over me the first morning i strolled about the city became almost one of sadness. the wistful, pensive faces of the people; their unobtrusive politeness; the inconsequential traffic of drays and carts along the quiet streets; canals and quays half empty where there should have been big packs of boats; absence everywhere of bustle and ado,--all these were almost pathetic. it might have been a puritan sabbath, so silent stood the big stone docks and piers among the lapping waters. there was none of the ponderous movement of london, none of the liveliness of paris, nor the busy-ness of hamburg, of bremen, of amsterdam, of rotterdam and antwerp, although once copenhagen was peer of any one. the bales of goods, the tons of merchandise which once filled her lofts and cellars are no longer there. the commerce which once made the city rich and gave her power has ebbed away. she is far fallen into commercial and industrial decay. the causes which have wrought this collapse of the once great city are, perhaps, difficult to analyze. at least, those danes with whom i have talked upon the matter are not at all agreed. nor are they united upon the solution of the problem of restoring the city to the proud place she once held as metropolis of the northern world. some tell me that after the demise of the present king, and the passing of sweden's ruler to the halls of valhalla, then will it be possible for the scandinavian peoples to come together in one permanent federation, or federal pact, where the norwegian-democratic spirit shall instil new energy into the now moribund political body of the sister states, and that then copenhagen will be the natural capital of this free and potent scandinavian state, and then will come to her the splendor and dignity justly her due. others declare, and declare with a flash of terror in their eyes, that the only hope for copenhagen, the only hope for the pitiful remnant of the once proud kingdom of denmark, is to be wholly devoured by the hohenzollern ogre, to be by him chewed fine, gulped down, digested and assimilated as part of the flesh and blood of the waxing german empire. then will copenhagen become the chief seaport of the german hinterlands to the south, then will the importance of bremen and hamburg and kiel be expanded into the new vigor that will have come to copenhagen. they point to the inevitableness of this destiny as evidenced by the subtle, silent, incessant encroachment of the german tongue among the people of the city as well as throughout the land, and by the continuous invasion and settlement of the city and country by men and women of german breed. they say the imperial monster grips them in a clutch whence there is no escape. [illustration: the royal theatre, copenhagen.] whatever the future may have in store for stricken denmark and copenhagen, it is clear enough to the apprehension of the friendly stranger that the noble city is ailing and benumbed. she stagnates, and only revolution and rebirth into a greater scandinavian state, or germanic conquest and absorption, will restore her to her former place. it is natural for an american to hope for denmark and her people a rehabilitation through the uplifting influence of a scandinavian republic. there are fine shops in copenhagen; behind the unpretentious fronts along the oestergade, the amagertorv, the vimmelskaft and nygade and neighboring streets is stored great wealth of fabrics and of merchandise. here we saw the notably handsome pottery and artistic porcelain ware for which copenhagen is already famous beyond the sea; and h and her mother have delightedly bought several charming pieces of the latter and ordered them sent forward to new york. they have also quite lost their hearts, and certainly their _kroners_, over the exquisite gold and silver and enamel work manufactured here, while they declare the laces and drawn work--particularly what is called _hedebo_--excels anything of the kind they have discovered in london. the dane is a poet, a dreamer, an artist; he is also a patient artisan, and what he produces ranks among the world's best work. passing along the narrow sidewalks you would never suspect what is stored behind the plain exteriors, for the dane has not yet learned the art of window display, nor has he acquired the skill of so showing his goods that the buyer is caught at a single glance. if you would purchase, you must have already determined what you want, and then, upon asking for it, will be given liberal choice. the shops are mostly small, each seller dealing in a single ware. only one dane, a wide-awake newcomer from chicago, has dared to introduce the complex methods of "department" trade. he has opened an immense establishment called the magazin du nord, where thus far is done a rushing business. but the conservative merchants of copenhagen have not yet become so well assured of the success of this innovation that they are willing to follow the example set. [illustration: the exchange, copenhagen.] in company with the ladies i have been out all the afternoon along these narrow streets--streets where the narrow sidewalks are altogether insufficient to accommodate the passing crowds, which consequently fill up the middle of the way--and we find the _frus_ and _froekens_ of copenhagen apparently as much devoted to what is called "shopping" as our own fair dames at home. buxom and yellow-haired and rosy-cheeked, they throng the streets each afternoon. they are comely to look upon, and carry themselves with more graceful carriage than do the women of england. they walk deliberately, with none of the nervous scurry of their transatlantic sisters. indeed, it is hinted to me, they have not come out so much to buy as to meet some friend or neighbor, and exchange a bit of news or gossip in one of the numerous and cozy cafes where is sold _conditterie_:--candies and chocolates and coffee and little cakes. next to _conditterie_, the copenhagener is fondest of his books and the town abounds in bookshops, big and little. every dane reads and writes his native tongue, and among the educated, english and french and german are generally understood. in the book stores i visited i was always addressed in english, and found french, german and english and even american books upon the shelves; and more newspapers and magazines are published in copenhagen, a danish friend declares, than in any other city in europe of its size. the danes have, too, a widely established system of free circulating libraries and book clubs, which extend throughout the countryside of zealand and funen and jutland, as well as in the towns, while copenhagen is supplied also from the extensive collections of the university and royal libraries. the public schools and the university we did not see, for the season was the vacation interval, and the teachers, professors and students were all dispersed. but the schools and university of copenhagen are modernly equipped. the dane is intelligent above all else, and he has always paid great heed to the adequate education of his race. indeed, copenhagen was the first city in europe to establish real public schools, opening them in every parish more than three hundred years ago. there are many _torvs_ about the city, market-places where all sorts of things have once been sold, but which are now become wide-open public squares. the old word _torv_ has already lost its ancient meaning, even as has the word _circus_, which in london first sounds so strange to american ears. but while the gammelstorv, the nytorv, the kongen's nytorv and many others are now degenerated into these mere open breathing spaces between the big buildings of the town, there are yet _torvs_ where fish, and flowers, meats and vegetables, and things else are offered for sale. the most attractive of them all to me were those where are sold the flowers and the fish. in the amagertorv were heaps of pale and puny roses, and diminutive asters and chrysanthemums, along with splendid pansies--"stepmother flowers," as the danes call them--and luxuriant piles of mignonette, and big baskets of pinks and phloxes; where rosy-cheeked women, in starched white caps, smilingly urged me to buy, and one _froeken_ with a wealth of yellow hair and cobalt-blue eyes, pinned on my coat a monstrous pansy for _boutonnière_. [illustration: the gammel strand, copenhagen.] among the fishwives of the gammel strand there was always lively stir, for their _fisk_ must early find a buyer, and by midday they themselves must be back to their nets and boats. these danish fishwives, moreover, have a burden of responsibility quite unknown to their english, german, dutch and french sisters. not merely must they sell the fish which the men turn over to their keeping, but they must also preserve it hearty and alive, else the dainty danish housewife will not buy. the fish are kept in large tubs and tanks filled with fresh sea water, where they swim about as keen and lively as they might do in the sea. the buyer scrutinizes the contents of these tubs with a fine and practiced eye; she picks out the fish which swims and splashes to her mind; has it lifted out alive, and carries it home in a bucket of water which she has brought to the market for that purpose. a fish which is dead, a fish which has died of strangulation in the air, is looked upon with horror and rejected as unfit for food by all right-acting danish stomachs. no dead fish, preserved from becoming stale through the use of chemicals, ever enters a danish kitchen. is it any wonder then, that the buxom red-cheeked women and sturdy men of these seafaring lands prefer a square meal of sweet fresh fish to any other! sauntering along the strand i espied the cod and mackerel and herring under names i did not know, and everywhere foremost among them all the now familiar _roed spoette_, the danish epicure's delight. the streets of london are choked with moving vehicles, or those drawn up in line awaiting fares. in copenhagen one is struck at once by the absence of the equipages of the rich, the very limited number of cabs anywhere about, as well as the small number of heavy drays, even upon the wholesale business streets. one might almost say that the streets would seem deserted if it were not for the pigeons and the dogs. there must be many dove-cotes in copenhagen and the birds certainly have hosts of friends. but the dog, the unabashed and capricious dog, is the real king of denmark's capital. after seeing him in holland and in france, where his dogship is a faithful co-worker with man, toiling all the long day and longer year to eke out the income of his master, one almost envies the lot of the dogs of copenhagen. these beasts abound throughout the city; neither tag nor muzzle adorns them, nor do owners seemingly claim them, but from puppyhood to gaunt old age they lead a boisterous and vagabond life, to the terror of small children and their nurses, and the well-gowned women who may chance to cross their trail. whether they survive through performing the office of scavenger, as do the dogs of constantinople, i have never been informed, but whatever the cause, the curs of copenhagen take as full possession of that town as do the tame vultures of vera cruz. we visited, of course, the many objects of interest the tourist is expected to see; we studied the splendid collection of the masterpieces of thorvaldsen, housed in the stately building where also is set his tomb; we looked at the collection of ethnological relics, one of the most notable in the world; we lingered in the old castle of charlottenborg, and the new art galleries where are gathered many of the master paintings of which the danish capital is so proud; we admired the great round tower, up the spiral causeway of which a squadron of dragoons may ride to the very top, and peter the great ascended on horseback; we duly marveled at the much bepraised fredriks kirke, a marble edifice, smothered beneath a ponderous and ornate dome; and h and i spent a delightful hour in the noble vor frue kirke, where her grandmother was wedded some sixty years ago; the banks and the bourse, the imposing new hotel de ville--the finest modern building in denmark--the legislative palace, christiansborg and rosenborg and amalienborg and fredriksberg. we saw what of them the public is allowed to see; we also drove and strolled upon the fine wide lange linie boulevard along the water side, shaded by ancient and umbrageous lindens, whence may be viewed the inner and outer harbors and free port and the spacious, new and half empty docks, and much of the shipping, and where of a pleasant afternoon the fashion and beauty of the city are wont to ride and drive. we joined in with the multitude upon the long, straight fredriksberggade, where the life and movement of the city may be watched and studied, even as upon new orleans' canal street and new york's broadway; and we did all else that well instructed americans are taught to do. but after all, these are the things that baedeker and the guide books tell about. to me it is ever of higher interest to learn from the people themselves by word and touch what my own senses aid me to see and hear, and so it was only when i met some of my wife's danish kin, and a broad and burly berserker clasped me in his arms and implanted a smacking kiss upon either cheek, ere i knew him to be of her relations,--that i felt my acquaintance begun with the most polished and elegant branch of the scandinavian race. other parts of nights and days we spent with friends in the lovely tivoli gardens, where all the copenhagen world, high and low, rich and poor alike, are wont to meet in simple and democratic assemblage, equally bent upon having a good time. "have you seen tivoli?" is ever almost the first question a copenhagener will put. there we watched the famous pantomime in the little open booth beneath the stars, a sort of punch and judy show; there we entered the great music hall where the royal band plays, and the crowded audiences of music-loving danes always applaud; there we drank the danish beer which is admitted to be the best on earth--so a danish neighbor whispered in my ear. tivoli is the copenhagener's elysium. when he is blue he gets himself to tivoli; when he feels gay he travels to tivoli; alone or in company he goes to tivoli, and he goes there as often as time will permit, which is usually every night. [illustration: along the quays, copenhagen.] a most difficult problem for copenhagen has been that of draining and sewering the city. it lies so low, almost at the dead level of the sea, and the tides of these baltic waters are so insignificant--ten to twelve inches only--that for many centuries copenhagen has been a most unhealthy city, infected by cesspools, tainted by blind drains, and defiled by accumulated poisons, until its death rate was higher than that of any other city in europe. but at last the problem is solved. forced water and giant suction pumps wash and drain out the elaborate system of pipes, and spill the death-laden wastage at a distant point into the sea, and with this transformation copenhagen has become a measurably healthy city. perhaps it is this century-long fight with death, plague and epidemic knocking continually at her doors, which has endowed copenhagen with so many fine hospitals and public charities for the care of the sick,--few cities in europe are so elaborately provided. hand in hand with the hospitals are also institutions for caring for the destitute and very poor. denmark has never followed england's pauper-creating system, but the beggar on the street is promptly put in jail, while the deserving poor is given a kindly and helping hand. one of the most charming spectacles of the city is its extensive public gardens, where the ancient defenses are converted into parks, and the moats are transformed into ponds and little lakes where swans and geese are kept, and boys sail toy boats. the landward side of the city is thus almost encircled with these pleasure grounds. one morning we were crossing one of these gardens, the lovely oersteds park, when i caught a pretty picture with my kodak, a little two-years-old tot learning to make her first courtesy to a little boy of four or five. she dropped and ducked and bent her little body with all the grace of a duchess of the court. denmark is about the size of three-fifths of west virginia, comprises fifteen thousand square miles and contains less than two millions of people,--about sixteen hundred thousand. she possesses no deposits of coal or iron, no forests of valuable timber; she has few manufactures. her people are farmers making a pinched living off the land, raising lean crops and selling butter and cheese, or they are crowded--one-fourth of them,--into the city of copenhagen, or they are gaining a hardy livelihood upon the sea. and yet this diminutive kingdom puts up $ , a year for the keeping of the king, and also provides him and his family, tax free, with palaces and castles, and estates whereon to fish and hunt and play. [illustration: an ancient moat, now the lovely oersteds park.] to an american mind it is amazing that a competent people will accept and suffer burdens such as these. in the great state of new york, with its seven millions of people, with wealth of coal and iron, with immense primeval forests, with cities whose commerce expands with a swiftness almost incredible, the governor is paid $ , a year, and allowed a single mansion wherein to dwell. massachusetts, vermont and michigan, and many other commonwealths, pay their governors but $ , per year, without a mansion for their residence. the mighty republic of the united states itself, with a continent for domain, and eighty millions of people, pays its president $ , per year, and gives him the use of the white house for his home. therefore, do you wonder, as i stroll about this fine old city, and look into the unhopeful, wistful faces of its plainly clad, not over-rich nor over-busy people, that i begin to comprehend why copenhagen holds the highest record for suicides of any city in the world, and why so many of her vigorous, and alert and capable, young men continually forsake their native land for the greater opportunities and freer political and industrial atmosphere of the united states? the dane always gets on if you give him half a chance. he is called the "frenchman of the north." graceful and supple in his manners, with a mouthful of courtesies of speech, he is naturally a social diplomat. the blunt norwegian calls him a fop. the martial swede sneers at his want of fight. but the dane has always held his own, and as a financier, a diplomat and man-of-the-world able to make the best out of the situation he may be in, he still gives proof of possessing his full share of the scandinavian brain. [illustration: a vista of the sund.] iv. elsinore and kronborg--an evening dinner party. helsinoere, dannmark, _august , _. we left copenhagen friday evening, about four o'clock, from the nordbane station. we were in plenty of time. nobody hurries in denmark. the train of carriages, with their side doors wide open, stood on the track ready to start. prospective passengers and their friends moved about chatting, or saying good-bye. it was a local train to elsinore, where it would connect with the ferry across the _sund_ to helsingborg and there with the through express to stockholm and kristiania, a night's ride. we would go to elsinore, and there spend the night, and go on by daylight in the morning. a good many acquaintances had come down to see us off, just for the sake of friendliness. i had kissed all the rosy-cheeked _froekens_ and been kissed by the _frus_, having dexterously escaped the embraces of the men, when there loomed large before me an immense dane, near six feet high and proportionate in girth, brown-bearded and blue-eyed, holding an enormous bouquet in either hand, an american flag waving from the midst of each. he made straight for me, folded me up among the flowers and kissed me joyfully on either cheek, and all before i really knew just what had taken place; then he doffed his hat, and bowing profoundly, presented first to me and then to h one of the bouquets with which he was loaded. and these bouquets were tied up with great white ribbons! of course, we were evidently but newly wed. we suddenly became of interest to the entire company. nor was there escape, for general c is well known and popular in copenhagen. others now came up and were introduced, and h and i held a _levée_ right then and there, and of kisses and embraces i made no count. the ride was along the _sund_, that lovely stretch of salt water, only a few miles wide, which joins the baltic sea and the atlantic. it is more like the hudson river below west point than anything i know, except that the shores are low and more generally wooded to the water's edge. or, perhaps i should say that it is another and narrower long island sound, as you see it a few miles out from jamaica bay. the busy waters were alive with a multitudinous traffic from russia and germany and sweden and denmark itself, and the fishing vessels that abound along these coasts. here and there villas and fine country houses peeped out among the trees. the _sund_ is the joy of the dane. he loves it, and the stranger who looks upon it does not forget it. one then understands why the danish poets have sung so loudly of it. [illustration: elsinore.] our way lay through much cultivated land, market gardens sending their produce to copenhagen, dairy farms where is made some of that famous danish butter every londoner prefers to buy, and which is sold all around the world. here and there we passed a little town, always with its sharp-steepled lutheran church and dominie's snug manse along its side. the church, the lutheran church in denmark, is no trifling power. it is as bigoted and well entrenched as is the roman hierarchy in mexico and spain. we should have liked to be wedded in the vor frue kirke, where the dear old grandmother had been married. but it is a lutheran church, and we were dissenters, and without the pale. nor could we present the necessary proof. we had no papers to show we had been duly born. nor had we legal documents to prove that our parents were our very own. nor could we show papers in proof that we had been christened and were legally entitled to our names, nor that we had been regularly confirmed. without these documents, sealed and authenticated by the state, and in our case also by the united states, no lutheran pastor would have dared to try and make us one. so we ran the gauntlet of less stringent english law, in itself quite bad enough, and lost the experience of the quaint danish ceremonial in the noble church. at the fine big government station in helsinoere (elsinore)--for the government owns and runs the railroads in denmark, just as it does in germany and much of france--we were met by an aunt and uncle and cousin of h's. they were a charming old couple, and the son was a young naval engineer (shipbuilder), working in the ship yard at helsinoere. all have lived in america and speak our tongue. we were to dine with them and spend the evening, when general and mrs. c would go home on the last train at p. m. i left the ladies together, while d and i strolled over to the ancient, yet formidable, fortress of kronborg, which for centuries has commanded the gateway to the baltic. built of norwegian granite, when erected it was believed to be impregnable. its casemates, lofty walls, turrets and towers frowned threateningly across the three-mile strait to helsingborg in sweden, and no boat sailed past except it first paid the dues. to-day, these walls of rock, these ramparts in the air, no longer terrify the mariner. _sund_ taxes are no longer levied! the ancient fortress does little else than fire an occasional salute. but the danes still love and honor it, and a few soldiers are stationed in it, a solitary guard. a vista of the _sund_ i tried to kodak from the top of the great tower, and i bribed a soldier for a dime to let me take his manly form, although a camera is forbidden within the precincts of this place of war. but kronborg is famous for other things than mere danish tolls and wars. kronborg it is, where hamlet's shade still nightly wanders along the desolate ramparts. there it is that the danish prince beheld his father's ghost. there he kept watch at night with horatio and marcellus. and close by in the park of marienlyst castle is hamlet's grave. we did not see it, but many pilgrims do. [illustration: the sund from kronborg's ramparts.] then we descended into the deep dungeons, or part of them, and a pretty, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed danish lass told us tales of holger danske, who lives down in the deepest pits, whose long white beard is fast grown to the table before which he sits, and who is to come forth some day and by his might restore to the danish race its former great position on the earth; and she told us also of the human tragedies which have in past ages been enacted in these keeps. she spoke in soft, lisping, musical danish, the only sweet danish i have heard; for the copenhagen speech is jerky, the consonants are chopped short, and the vowels are deep gurgled in the throat, difficult for foreign ears to comprehend. after seeing the fortress, we visited an ancient monastery, suppressed when the roman church was driven from these northern lutheran lands, and now become an old ladies' home--shocking transformation in the contemplation of those monkish shades which may yet roam the forsaken cloisters!--of which institution the old uncle is now superintendent with government pension for life! and then we came to the cozy home where the ladies were already met. we entered a narrow doorway, a sort of interior storm door, and turned to the right into a comfortable sitting room, beyond which was the dining room, with the table set. the aunt is a gentle, round-faced, rosy-cheeked little woman, in a white lace cap and the prettiest of manners. with her was an old spinster friend, _froeken_----, a slim, wizen-faced dame of sixty, in brown stuff dress, with tight sleeves and close fitting waist, and old lace at the throat, fastened by a big mediaeval-looking gold brooch, and with a gold chain about her neck. she possessed very small, bright black eyes, and lips that stuck straight out. she courtesied,--dropped down straight about ten inches and came up quick, a sort of bob--smiled, and said in danish, "she was rejoiced to meet h's '_mand_.'" all were very friendly, and h to have caught a _mand_, sure enough, was treated with distinction. the table was set for eight; there was beer in glass decanters, cold fried fish, cold smoked goose breast, cold smoked salmon (raw), cold sardines, cold calveshead jelly, cold beef loaf, cold bread, black bread, rye bread, cold rolls (hard and shiny with caraway seeds in them), gooseberry jelly, spiced currants, and also tea, this latter piping hot. at each place was set a pile of salted butter (at least a pound) on a little dish. i sat next "_tante_," with _froeken_--across the table from me, her black eyes boring me through with steady gleam. you take your fish up by the tail and eat him as you would a piece of bread. "butter him thick, yes, thick," "_tante_" said to me. i laid on about half an inch, she did, they all did. it was delicious butter and that fish went down wonderfully slick. the goose breast was good, but i discerned it to have been a gander. the raw herring i did not find so attractive as the goose. there were also several sorts of cheese, of which every one ate much. you put a heavy layer of butter on your bread, then a layer of thin cut cheese, then a layer of herring or sardine or salmon, and eat it fast. there was no hot food, there never is. the rule is to stow away cold fish, butter and cheese, and wash it down with the strong brown beer. the sweets are then taken to top off with. pickles and preserves together--just like the germans. (i have not yet run into the sour foods in which the german stomach delights.) having begun with a mild cheese, you gradually ascend to the strongest with the final sweets. h says the meal was only "supper," not dinner, but i confess i am so mixed on these scandinavian meals, that i cannot yet tell the difference. at breakfast, the danes take only a cup of coffee and a roll, the spanish _desayuno_; not even an egg, nor english jam. about one or two o'clock in the day, they dine, having soups, meats (roast or boiled), fish (fresh and salt), vegetables and beer. at night, it is about as i have told you, and they often dare to add a little more cold fish and cheese before they finally retire. the soups at dinner are very good; and the meats are better cooked than at a british table, on which, after a while, all meats begin to taste alike, and you grow tired to death of the eternal boiled potatoes, and boiled peas steeped in mint. i have had very nice cauliflower at danish tables, and the lettuce of their salads is delicate and crisp, while the coffee of the danes, like that of the dutch, is better than you will find in either england, germany or france; it seems to be the real thing, with neither chicory nor hidden beans. the danes are skilful cooks, although their palates seem to be fondest of cold victuals and raw smoked fish. [illustration: fishing boats, elsinore.] we stayed the night in a comfortable inn, close by the water side, an ancient ale house where sailors used to congregate in the halcyon days when all passing ships must lay-to at helsinoere to pay the tolls then levied by the king, hard by where now the fishing boats tie up. there were many of these and one in particular was continually surrounded by an excited crowd. it had just arrived loaded down to the decks with a catch of herring. the fishermen had had the luck to run into one of those rare and extraordinary schools of herring which are sometimes chased into the protecting waters of the sound by a whale or other voracious enemy outside. the nets had been let quickly down and millions of fish as quickly drawn up. the boat had been filled to sinking, and word flagged to brothers of the craft to hasten up and partake of the abounding catch. twenty thousand dollars' worth of herring had been caught within a few hours by the fishermen of helsinoere alone, to say nothing of what were taken by the crews of other fishing boats along the coast. the entire population of the little town is now busy cleaning and salting fish, fish that will feed them well and keep them easy in stomach until the winter shall be past and the spring be come again. women were selling fish along the streets, boys were peddling fish, how many for a cent i do not know, and men were giving fish, gratis, to whosoever would carry them away. these extraordinary catches do not often happen. no such luck had befallen helsinoere for many a day. it may be years before it again occurs. the fisherman of these northern waters sails forth upon his cruise each day inflamed with very much the same spirit of adventurous quest as in america are we who, living upon the land, drill wells for oil or dig for gold. helsinoere is rich to-night, and the herring is her king. [illustration: a snap shot for a dime, kronborg.] v. across the sund to sweden and incidents of travel to kristiania. kristiania, mission hotel, pilestradiet (alfheim), _august , _. _hilsen fra kristiania!_ our ancient tavern, the sleibot, in elsinore, cared for us most comfortably. we were given a large room looking out over the waters of the _sund_, with wide small-paned casemented windows, and a great porcelain stove and giant wooden bedstead. for breakfast we had fresh herring, the fish which will now form the chief diet of helsinoere for many a month, and more of the good danish coffee. the bill for lodging and breakfast was seven _kroner_ (about $ . ) for us two. the dear old couple were on hand to see us off, and waved _farvel_ as we boarded the immense ferryboat which takes on, if needful, an entire train, but usually only the baggage cars, for through travel to swedish and norwegian points. the boats are long and wide and strong, and smash their way through the floes of drifting ice the winter through, for this outlet of the baltic is rarely frozen solid for any length of time. the four-miles passage is made in twenty minutes, and after we got under way, it was not long before even massive kronborg faded upon the view, and we were making fast to the pier at helsingborg, in sweden. [illustration: kronborg.] in england, owing to the smallness of the tunnels and the present cost of enlarging them, the railway management is compelled to keep to the ancient diminutive style of carriage first introduced sixty years ago. but here, in these northern lands, where railway building is of more recent date, although the gauge is the same as in britain, the carriages are half as large again, and are many of them almost as long as our american cars, so that the riding in them is much easier than there. and in norway i have already seen cars which, except for being shorter, were exactly like our own. we traveled first along the sea, then through a flat country. there were scores of sails upon the kattegat, a multitude of ships and barques and brigs, schooners and sloops, and small fishing smacks, and larger fishing luggers going far out upon the north sea. there were also many black hulks in tow of big tugs carrying coal to the baltic cities, and steamers bound for english and german ports and even for america. the waters were alive with the busy traffic. we passed wide meadows and much grass land. cows were feeding upon these fields, red cows mostly, with herders to watch over them. the cows were tethered each to a separate iron pin sunk in the ground, all in a single row; and thus they eat their way across an entire meadow,--an animated mowing machine. now and then we returned to the shore of the sea, passing some fishing village nestled along the rocks, or we rolled through forests of small birches, pines and spruce. in the same compartment with ourselves sat a couple of young germans. they were much interested in each other. i noticed that the lady's rings were most of them shining new, and one, a large plain gold ring, was in look particularly recent and refulgent. h came to the same conclusion also at about the very same moment. the two were surely a bridal pair. and they talked german, and looked out across us through the wide windows as though we were never there. so i spoke to my wife in good united states, and we agreed that these two were newly wed. and then the bride's noble face and fine brown eyes appealed to me, and i declared her to be the loveliest woman i had yet seen this side the sea. the while she and her _mann_ still conversed in low, soft german. but it now seemed to me that they looked out across us with a kindlier feeling in their eyes and, in a surreptitious way, the german beauty was peeping at the fine large diamond on h's left hand (the wedding ring she had already succeeded in making look dull and old). at goteborg (gothenburg) our train drew up for half an hour's wait. here that portion of it going to stockholm would be cut loose from our own, and another engine would take us to the north. along with most of the other passengers the young german and i also got out, leaving the two ladies in the car. at the counter of the big lunch room i watched the ever hungry norsemen stowing away cold fish and cheese, and was in somewhat of a dilemma what to take, when the german husband of the lovely bride came up to me in a most friendly way, and suggested that i would enjoy a certain sort of fish and thin brown cake, which seemed to be one of the popular objects of attack by the voracious multitude. and he spoke to me in perfect english of the educated sort. he had evidently quite understood my flattering comments upon his bride, and was now my fast friend. i did not show surprise, but took his hint, and afterward we strolled up and down the platform, munching our snack, while he told me that he was a "barrister from cologne." "yes, on his wedding trip." he had "learned english in the german schools," he said, and had "never been in england or america." his wife, he admitted, "could not speak english," but "could read it and understand it when others talked!" he told me of the german courts, and of his long years of study before he was admitted to the bar. when they left us a few miles further on, for their way lay up through the lakes and forests of sweden, we parted as old friends, and they promised to visit us if ever they should come across the sea; our unsuspecting admiration had won their hearts! [illustration: karl johans gade, kristiania.] about p. m., we dined at the small station of ed, our first example of swedish railway dinner-serving on an elaborate scale. the train was a long one. there were many passengers. the fish and cheese consumed at gothenburg was long since shaken down. we were genuinely hungry. but when the train came to a stop there was no rush to the restaurant, nor attempt of every man to get ahead of the one in front of him. the passengers took their leisure to get out, and walked deliberately toward the big eating room. the food was set upon a long central table. there were hot soups, hot boiled fowl, hot meats, an abundance of victuals, cold and salt. there were piles of plates, of napkins and of knives and forks. everyone helped himself, and ate standing or carried his food to a little table and sat at ease. this latter plan we followed. rule: eat all you will, drink as much beer as you desire, take your own time, the train will wait, and when you are quite satisfied pay a single _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents). there is no watching to see how much you may consume. you eat your fill, you pay the modest charge, you go your deliberate way. however slow you may be the train will wait! we now traversed a barren country of marshy flats; with skimp timber, chiefly small birch and spruce. toward dusk it was raining hard. the long twilight had fairly begun when we crossed the swedish border and a few miles beyond stopped at fredrikshald, where is a famous fortress against the swedes, besieging which, king charles xii was killed. here a customs' officer walked rapidly through the car, asked a few questions and passed us on. our trunks had been marked "through" from helsinoere, so we had no care for them until we should arrive in kristiania. but that there should be still maintained a customs' line between the sister kingdoms of norway and sweden, which are ruled by a common king, may perhaps surprise the stranger unacquainted with the peculiar and somewhat strained relations ever existing between these kindred peoples. [illustration: vegetable market, kristiania.] for many hundreds of years (since ) norway had been a province of denmark. her language and that of the dane had grown to be almost the same, the same when written and printed, and differing only when pronounced. but in , the selfish powers of the holy alliance handed over norway to the swedish crown as punishment to denmark for being napoleon's friend, and threatened to enforce their arbitrary act by war. so norway yielded to brute force, and accepted the sovereignty of napoleon's treacherous marshal bernadotte, the swedish king, but she yielded nothing more, and to this day has preserved and yet jealously maintains her own independent parliament, her own postal system, her own separate currency and her custom houses along the swedish line. and you never hear a norwegian speak of any other than of the "king of sweden." "he is not our king," they say, "we have none." "we are ruled by the king of sweden, but norway has no king." cunning russia, it is said, cleverly spends many _rubles_ in order that this independent spirit shall be kept awake, and the war force of sweden thereby be so much weakened. russia might even to this day be able to nourish into war this ancient feud between the kindred breeds, if it were not that in her greed of power she has shown the cloven foot. the horror of her monstrous tyranny in finland already finds echo among the norwegian mountains. "we are getting together," a norwegian said to me. "we have got to get together, however jealous we may be of one another. we must, or else the russian bear will hug us to our death, even as now he is cracking the ribs of helpless finland." and when i suggested that little denmark should be taken within the pale, and a common scandinavian republic be revived in more than ancient force to face the world, he declared that already a movement toward this end was set afoot, and only needed a favorable opportunity to become a living fact. at p. m. we arrived at kristiania in a pouring rain, and at general c's recommendation, came to this curious and comfortable hotel. like many other hotels in norway, it is kept by women, and seems to be much patronized by substantial norwegians of the nicer sort. it is on the top floor of a tall building, and you pass up and down in a rapid modern elevator. it is kept as clean as a pin, and the beds we sleep in are the softest, freshest in mattress and linen we have seen this side the sea. we have also passed beyond the latitude of blankets and are come to the zone of eider down. coverlets, light, buoyant, and delightfully warm now keep us from the cold, and in our narrow bedsteads we sleep the slumber of contented innocence. we have a large well-furnished chamber, all for two _kroner_ per day (fifty-four cents). when we entered the long, light breakfast hall this morning, we saw a single table running the length of the room, a white cloth upon it, and ranged up and down, a multitude of cheeses big and little, cow cheese and goat cheese, and many sorts of cold meat, beef and pork and mutton, and cold fish and salt fish. and there were piles of cold sliced bread and english "biscuits" (crackers). the coffee, or milk if you wish it, is brought in, and in our case so are fresh soft-boiled eggs. a group of evidently english folk near us had a special pot of dundee marmalade. the norwegians take simply their coffee or milk, with cheese and cold fish and the cold bread. our breakfast cost us twenty cents apiece. [illustration: kristiania, a view of the city.] to-day the city is washed delightfully clean, the heavy rain of the night having cleared streets and atmosphere of every particle of dust and grime. we have driven all about in an open victoria. it is a splendid town, containing some two hundred thousand inhabitants. it lies chiefly upon a sloping hillside with a deep harbor at its feet. like copenhagen, it is the capital of its country, and the seat of the norwegian government, of the supreme law courts, and of the storthing or national congress or parliament. at the end of the wide karl johans gade stands the "palace of the swedish king," a sombre edifice, now rarely occupied. kristiania is also the literary and art center of the norse people. here ibsen lives, here bjoernstjoerne bjoernsen would live, if swedish intolerance did not drive him into france. the types of men and women we see upon the streets are the finest we have met since coming over sea. tall and well-built, light-haired and blue-eyed, the men carry themselves with great dignity. the women are, many of them, tall, their backs straight, not the curved english spine and stooping shoulders. all have good chins, alert and initiative. the norwegians are the pick of the scandinavian peoples. they are the sons and daughters of the old viking breeds which led the race. they are to-day giving our northwestern states a population able, fearless and progressive, no finer immigration coming to our shores. senators and governors of their stock are already making distinguished mark in american affairs. it was not long before we perceived that in kristiania, as in copenhagen, we were also very close to the great republic; except that, perhaps, here we discovered a keener sympathy with american feeling, a closer touch with the american spirit. those norwegians whom we have met speak good united states, not modern english. you hear none of the english sing-song flutter of the voice, none of its suppression of the full-sounded consonant, but the even, clear, precise accent and intonation of the well-taught american mouth. and our friends tell us that it is much easier for them to learn to speak the american tongue than to master the often extraordinary inflexion of spoken english as pronounced in britain. i am gaining a great respect for these scandinavian and norwegian peoples. they are among the finest of the races of the european world. [illustration: our norwegian train.] we have driven not merely through the beautiful city and its parks, and beheld the wide view to be had from the tower at its highest point, but we have also visited the ancient viking ship, many years ago discovered and dug out of the sands along the sea, a measured model of which was so boldly sailed across the atlantic, and floated on lake michigan, at chicago, in . at this time, however, we are but birds of passage in kristiania. we may not linger to become more intimately acquainted with the noble town; we are arranging for a ten days' journey by boat and carriage through the _fjords_ and mountain valleys, and region of the mighty snow-fields and glaciers of western norway. we must now go on, and postpone any intimate knowledge of the city until another day. h is quite ready for this trip. she wears a corduroy shirt waist of deep purple shade, and has brought with her one of those short, simply-cut walking-skirts, of heavy cloth. a natty toque sets off her head. she is fitly clad. and my eyes are not the only ones that note this fact, as i observed to-day when, to avoid a shower, we sought shelter under the pillared portico of the storthing's fine edifice in the central square. as we stood there, waiting for the rain to cease, i noticed a small, fair-haired, quietly-dressed woman intently staring at the skirt. each hem and tuck and fold and crease and gore she studied with the steadfast eye of the connoisseur. and so absorbed did she become that she grew quite oblivious of our knowledge of her interest. around and around she circled, until at last we left her still taking mental notes. some other woman in kristiania, we are quite sure, will soon be wearing a duplicate of this well made costume from new york. [illustration: along the etna elv.] [illustration: hailing our steamer, the rand fjord.] vi. a day upon the rand fjord and along the etna elv--to frydenlund--ole mon our driver. frydenlund, norge, _september , _. we left kristiania about seven o'clock this morning and drove six kilometers to grefsen, a suburb where the new railway comes in, which will ultimately connect the capital with bergen on the west coast. grefsen is up on the hills back of the city. the cars of the train we traveled in were long like our own and also set on trucks, the compartments being commodious, like the one we rode in from helsingborg. we traversed a country of spruce forests, rapid streams, small lakes and green valleys; with red-roofed farmsteads, cattle, sheep and horses in the meadows, and yellowing fields of oats and rye, just now being reaped; where men were driving the machines and women raking the fallen grain, all a beautiful, fertile, well-populated land with big men, big women, rosy and well set up, usually yellow-haired and blue-eyed. about ten o'clock we arrived at roikenvik, on the rand fjord, a sheet of dark blue water about two miles wide and thirty or forty long, with high, fir-clad mountains on either hand; with green slopes dotted with farm buildings, and occasional hamlets where stopped our tiny steamboat, the oscar ii. this _fjord_ is more beautiful than a scottish _loch_, for here the mountains are heavily timbered with fir to their very summits, while the hills of scotland are bare and bleak. we sat contentedly upon the upper deck inhaling the keen, fresh air, watching the picturesque panorama and noting the passengers crowded upon the forward deck below. they were chiefly farmers getting on and off, intelligent, self-respecting, well-appearing men, and full of good humor. one old gentleman with snowy whiskers, who resembled an ancient mariner, which i verily believe he was, seemed to hold the center of attention and many and loud were the shouts which his quaint jests brought forth. he evidently delivered a lecture upon my big american valise, pointing to it and explaining its excellent make, and his remarks were apparently to the credit of the owner, and of america whence it came. just before the bell summoned us to dinner in the after cabin, i noticed a skiff rowing toward us, one of the three men in it waving his hat eagerly to our captain, who immediately stopped the boat until they drew beside us, when two of them, clean-cut, rosy-faced, young six-footers, came up, hand over hand, on a rope which was lowered to them. they were born sailors, like all norwegians. i snapped my kodak as their skiff drew near us, and the first news the captain gave them was to apprise them of that fact. they appeared to be greatly flattered by the attention. they laughed and bowed and looked at me as much as to say, "how much we should like a copy of the photograph, if we knew enough english to ask for it," but they were too diffident to make the suggestion through their captain friend. [illustration: the old salt.] with the captain himself, i became well acquainted; an alert man of affairs, who had knocked about the world on norwegian ships and visited the greater ports of the united states. he gave me an interesting account of norse feeling at the time of the outbreak of the spanish war, saying to me, "i am from bergen. i am a sailor like the rest of our people, and with about a thousand more of my fellow countrymen i went over at that time to new york. i was boatswain on the warship--and i served through the spanish war. when we heard that there was likely to be trouble and got a hint that you wanted seamen, i gathered the men together and we went over and enlisted and others followed. yes, there were several thousands of us, altogether, on your american warships, ready to give up our lives for the great republic. next to norway, your great, free country, where already live half of the norwegian race, lies closest to our hearts. we were ready to give up our lives for the stars and stripes. when the war was over most of us came back again. in the summer time i am captain of this boat, in the winter seasons i go out upon the sea. if america ever needs us again we are ready to help her. we norwegians will fight for america whenever she calls." then he spoke of norway and the growing irritation of the norwegian people against the assumptions of sweden. "it is true that the swedes are our kin, but we have never liked them. the norwegians are democrats. we have manhood suffrage, and each man is equal before the law. in sweden, there is a nobility who are privileged, and while the swedish people submit to the aristocrats running the government over there, we norwegians will never permit them to run us. if it were not for fear of russia, we would fall apart, but the russian bear is hungry. if he dared he would eat us up. if it were not for england he would devour sweden now, and then there would be no hope for norway. the russian czar wants our harbors, our great _fjords_, as havens for his fleets, and he would like to fill his ships with norwegian seamen. so we fret and growl at sweden, but we can't afford really to have trouble with her any more than she can afford to fall out with us. we must stand together if we are to maintain our national independence, but nevertheless, we are full of fear for the future. i am apprehensive that the bear will some day satisfy his hunger. france will hold down germany, who just now claims to be our friend also. england will be bought off by russian promises in some other quarter of the world, and then, we shall be at the mercy of the czar. god help us when that day comes! those of us who can will fly to america, all except those who die upon these mountains. the russians may finally take norway, but it will then be a devastated and depeopled land. america is our foster mother. our young men go to her. we are always ready to fight for her!" [illustration: ole mon.] as i looked into his strong blue eyes, which gazed straight at me, i felt that the man meant everything he said, and was expressing not alone his personal sentiment, but also the feeling of the sturdy, seafaring people of whom he was so fit a type, and i wondered what the spaniard would have thought if he had known when he sent his fleets across the sea--fleets deserted by the scotch engineers who, in times of peace, had kept their engines clean--that the united states could call at need, not merely upon its own immense population, but might equally rely upon the greatest seafaring folk of all the world to fill her fighting ships. after three and a half hours' sail--about thirty miles--we came to the end of the _fjord_ at odnaes, where was awaiting us a true norwegian carriage, a sort of _landau_ or _trille_ with two bob-maned norwegian ponies, in curious harness with collar and hames thrusting high above the neck. we had dined on the boat; we had only a valise, a hand-bag and our sea-rugs. we were soon in the carriage and began our first day's drive, a journey of fifty-four kilometers (thirty-two miles), before night. our driver was presented to us as "ole mon;" and the english-speaking owner of the carriage informed us that ole ("olie") mon spoke fluently our tongue. he was a sturdily built, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed man some forty years of age with a gray moustache and smooth, weather-beaten face. he drove these tourists' carriages in summer, he said; in the winter he took to the sea. we soon discovered his english to be limited to a few simple phrases, while when he ran to the end of his vocabulary he never hesitated to put in a fit norwegian word. he was proud of his acquaintance with the foreign tongue, and delighted to exercise his knowledge of it. his chief concern in life was to take care of the ponies. he continually talked to them as though they were his boys, and at any excuse for a stop, always had nosebags filled with oat meal ready to slip on and give them a lunch. the ponies are not over eight or ten hands high, but are powerfully muscled, and they are as sleek and tame as kittens. we believe that we have a treasure in ole mon, and i expect to learn much from him about the country we traverse, for he is glib to talk. the road was superb, the scenery magnificent. we followed a deep fertile valley, along a roaring river, the etna elv--recent rains having filled the streams brim full--with high fir-clad mountains rising sheer on either hand. we climbed gradually for quite twenty miles, meeting and passing many curious two-wheeled carts, drawn by a single horse, called _stolkjaerres_, in which the driver sits behind the passenger, and about four o'clock we halted at tomlevolden, a rambling farmstead where ole mon put the nosebags on the ponies and we rested until the bags were emptied. here, we visited a dairy cow barn,--a large airy building finished in planed lumber, with long rows of stalls where the cows face each other, standing on raised floors and with a wide middle aisle where the feeders pass down between. so scrupulously clean was it that each day it must be washed out and scrubbed. in one end stood a big stone furnace, a sort of oven, to keep the cattle warm through the dark cold winter time, and fresh spring water was piped to a little trough set at each stall. some years ago, having spent the night at a west virginia mountain farm, in middle winter, i looked out of the window in the morning and beheld the family cow with about a foot of snow piled on her back and belly-deep in an icy drift. i remarked, "it has snowed some in the night." mine host replied that "he reckoned it had." and then talking of the snow, i told him that i had seen snow eight feet deep way up in canada. he looked at me incredulously and inquired, "say, what mought the cows do in such snow as that." would that i might show him and his like this norwegian cow barn! then we went on till p. m., when we reached the famous sanatorium of tonsaasen, almost at the summit of the long grade, a spacious wooden hotel overlooking a profound _dal_, down which plunges a cascade. the hotel is kept by a big, bustling woman who speaks perfect cockney english, and who tells us she has "lived in lonnon, although a native norwegian." she wears a large white apron and a white lace cap, and she has received h in most motherly fashion. indeed, our coming has greatly piqued her curiosity. she has asked us many questions and has taken h aside and inquired confidentially whether i am not a deserting soldier, and whether she is not eloping with me! she is evidently alert for military scandal, and was sorely disappointed and half incredulous when h declared that she and i were really man and wife. the truth is, norway is become the retreat for so many runaway couples, recreant husbands and truant wives, that the good people of these caravansaries are quite ready to add you to the list of shady episodes. even when i boldly wrote several postal cards to america and handed them to mine hostess to mail, i felt sure that after she had carefully read them she would scarcely yet believe our tale. here we were given a bounteous supper of eggs, coffee, milk, cream, chicken, hare, trout, five sorts of cheese, and big hot rolls, and all for thirty-five cents each. the ponies were also fed again, and at eight o'clock we moved on twelve miles further, crossing the divide and rolling down into the valley of the baegna elv in the long twilight, and then brilliant starlight, coming at last to a typical norwegian inn, at frydenlund, not far from the lovely aurdals vand. this is the main road in winter between bergen and kristiania, and is then more traveled by sleighs and sledges than even now by carriages. all along the way there are frequent inns and post-houses. to-morrow we start at eight o'clock, and go on sixty-one miles more. [illustration: feeding the ponies, tomlevolden.] [illustration: church of vestre slidre.] our inn is a roomy farmhouse where "entertainment is kept," even as it used to be along the stage-traversed turnpikes of old virginia, and adjoining it are extensive barns and stables. there seemed to be many travelers staying the night. we are really at an important point, for here two state highways separate, the one over which we have come leading to odnaes, and the other diverging southward toward lake spirillen and the country known as the valders, continuing on straight through to kristiania. the house is painted white, and has about it an air quite like a farmstead in new england or new york. we were expected when we arrived. word of our coming had been telephoned from tonsaasen, and also from kristiania. a large bedroom on the second story is given us. the floor is painted yellow and strips of rag carpet are laid beside the narrow bedsteads, where we sleep under eider down. i am writing by the light of a home-made candle. it is late, the silence of the night is unbroken save by the ticking of the tall clock on the staircase landing outside my door, and the occasional neighing of a horse or lowing of a cow. it is the silence of the contented country-side. vii. a drive along the baegna elv--the aurdals vand and many more to skogstad. skogstad, norway, _september , _. here we are eighty-four kilometers (sixty-one miles) from frydenlund, where we spent last night. all day we have sat in an easy carriage, inhaled the glorious buoyant air, and driven over a superb macadamized road. we have skirted the shores of five lakes or _vands_--called _fjords_,--amidst towering snow-marked mountains, passing beneath cliffs rising sheer above us for thousands of feet, the highway sometimes a mere gallery cut into the solid rock, and we are now wondering how we were ever such simple things as to waste our time in tame england, or even linger among what now seem so commonplace, scottish _lochs_ and _tarns_. we have traversed the shores of the aurdal, the stranda, the granheim, the slidre and the vangsmjoesen fjords, each and all pools of the foaming river baegna; and have looked across their limpid waters, their clustered islets, their shimmering surfaces reflecting field and forest and _fjeld_, and even portraying as in a mirror the snow-fields of mountain heights so far distant as to be indistinguishable to the naked eye, distant yet two full days' journey to the west. we have been continually excited and astonished as each succeeding vista of vale and lake and mountain has burst upon us. [illustration: the distant snows.] as we advanced further and further along the wide white military road, the valley of the baegna elv grew narrower and deeper, and the contrasts of verdant meadow and dark mountain increased in sharpness. the lower slopes are as green and well watered as those of switzerland, and are dotted with farmsteads where the thrifty norse farmer dwells upon his own land, independent, self-respecting, recognizing no lord but god--for the title of the "swedish king" weighs but little here. everywhere have i remarked a trim neatness, exceeding, if it were possible, even that of holland. upon the meadows were cattle, mostly red. the fields were ripe with rye and oats and barley where men and women were garnering the crops. the lands were cleared far up the mountain sides to where the forests of dark green fir stretched further up, until beyond the timber-line bare black rock masses played hide and seek among the clouds. back and beyond this splendid panorama of vale and lake and cloud-wrapped summit, far beyond it, binding the horizon on the west, there grew upon our vision all the afternoon enormous heights of stern and austere mountains, lifting themselves into the very zenith, their slopes gleaming with white bands of snow, their topmost clefts nursing glittering icepacks and glaciers. ole mon has constantly pointed toward them saying "yotunheim!" "yotunheim!" and we have known them to be the gigantic ice-bound highlands of the celebrated jotunheim alps, the loftiest snow mountains of norway. we left the inn at frydenlund after a breakfast of brook trout, fried to a turn, and all we could eat of them, delicious milk like that from our blue grass counties of greenbrier and monroe, in west virginia, and coffee made as only an americanized norwegian may know how. along the way we have met children evidently going to and returning from their schools, and it has been charming to see how the little boys pull off their caps, and the little girls drop down in a courtesy. the little caps always come off the yellow heads with sweeping bow, and the duck of the little girls is always accompanied by a smile of greeting. i regret that in america we have lost these pretty customs which were once taught as good manners by our forebears. we have passed this morning a frowning stone jail, the prison of this province, and ole mon tells us that it is quite empty and has had no tenant for some two years; surely, convincing testimony of the innate honesty of these sturdy folk. we have also to-day met many young men, tall and stalwart, clad in the dark blue uniform of the norwegian national guard. this is the season when the annual drills are going on, just at the end of the harvest time. norway, like the rest of europe, has adopted universal military training for her men. they are taught the art of war and how to shoot. it is calculated that in eight or ten years more every norwegian of voting age will have had the necessary military training and will have become a part of the effective national defense. "we will never have trouble with sweden," they say, "the swedes and ourselves only show our teeth." "it is russia, hungry russia, that we fear. we will learn to march and shoot and dig entrenchments so that we may defend ourselves against the aggression of the slav. upon the sea, we are the masters. we learn in your navy how to handle modern warships and shoot the giant guns. upon these mountains, we hope, ere another decade has elapsed, also to be safe against the encroachment of that 'great white peril.'" [illustration: the baegna elv.] [illustration: a herd of cows, fosheim.] [illustration: the granheims vand.] we stopped for our first pony-feed at fagernaes, where a road turns off to lake bygdin and its _elv_, where the english go to fish; halted a half hour at fosheim, where is a fine hotel, and then, passing the ancient stone church of vestre slidre, drove on to loeken, where a reindeer-steak-and-salmon-trout-dinner awaited us. the inn, situated on a rocky point overlooking the picturesque slidre vand, was quakerly-clean, as all of these places are. the neatly dressed young woman who waited on us had lived two years in dakota, and in spokane, and spoke perfect united states. she had an uncle and a brother still there, and hoped to go back herself when the old folks had passed away. at oeilo, fifteen kilometers further on, we also drew rein--each time we stop the ponies have the nosebags of oat meal--and then we paused again at grindaheim at the vang hotel, close to the shores of the vangsmjoesen vand. here the mistress of the inn had lived in minnesota, and talked with us like one of our own countrywomen. she had come home on a little visit, she said. a stalwart norseman had lost his heart and won her hand, and saved-up dollars--but yet her spirit longed for free america. her boys would go there as soon as they were big enough to hustle for themselves. in the dining room of the comfortable house was gathered a collection of stuffed and mounted birds of the surrounding countryside. there were several ptarmigan and one fine capercailzie, the cousin to the black cock, and the biggest thing of the pheasant-kind that flies in northern europe. our minnesotan hostess pressed us to stay and tarry a few days, setting before us a big pitcher of milk and little caraway-seed-flavored tea cakes, all for the price of _te oere_, two and a half cents. we would like to have lingered here, for the house is nestled in one of the wildest and loveliest of dales. to the north, a mile across the vand, tower the black precipitous heights of the giant skodshorn ( , feet) upon whose cloud-capped peaks, ole mon tells us, the ghosts of the ancient scalds and vikings meet in berserker combat with thor and odin, and whence, sometimes, when the air is still and there are no storms about, the clangs and clashes of their battle conflicts resound with thunder roars, waking the echoes in all the valleys round. then the black mountain sides breathe forth gigantic jets of steamlike cloud, while it is at such times also that the _trolls_ and gnomes creep forth from the shadows of the rocks to do honor to the warring giants. when questioned closely, he admitted he had never witnessed one of these combats, but declared that when a boy he had heard the roar on the summit of the mountain and had seen the white clouds shoot up, which is always the sign of victory for the gods. our hostess also asserted that she had once heard the mountain roar, but admitted she had not seen the shooting clouds. some scientists try to explain the mountain's action according to natural laws, but so great is my faith in ole mon that i dare not dispute his word. back of the little inn also rise the lofty masses of the grinde fjeld ( , feet) upon whose moorland summits it is, the capercailzie fly and the herds of reindeer range, whence came the juicy steaks we ate to-day at loeken and have had to-night for supper. [illustration: a hamlet beneath the fjeld.] all along the baegna valley, including the fertile basins wherein nestle the many _vands_ or lesser _fjords_, there were men and women in the fields mowing the short grass and ripening grain. but neither the grasses, nor the rye and oats and barley had reached maturity. nor do they ever fully ripen in these cold latitudes. they must be cut green, and then the feeble sunshine must be made the most of. long ricks, made of sticks and saplings, or poles barred with cross-pieces set on at intervals are built extending through the fields, and on these the grass and grain are carefully spread out, hung on a handful at a time, so that each blade and straw may catch the sun, and dry out, a tedious, laborious work on which the women were more generally employed. the men bring up back-loads newly cut by scythe and sickle, and throw them down before the women, who then carefully hang each handful on the ricks. what must a norwegian feel, trained to such painstaking toil as this, when he at first sets foot upon the boundless wheat lands of minnesota and the prairie west. no wonder he returns to his native homestead only to make a hasty visit, never to remain. in switzerland, i also saw the grass cut when scarcely half ripe and but a few inches high, when it is stored in handy little log cribs where in the course of time it slowly dries out, but here every blade must be hung up in the sun and air if it shall turn to hay. when the hay and grain is fully dried, it is taken down and done up into loosely bound sheaves, or carried in bulk to the large, roomy barns. the grain is generally thrashed out with flails, i am told, although a few american machines are now being introduced. the wire fence is not yet come into norway, although timber is remote and costly, and the people are hard put to it for fencing material. i noticed that they generally depend upon slim poles and small saplings loosely strung together, for english hedges cannot be grown in these chilly northlands. [illustration: ricking the rye.] [illustration: the author by the slidre vand.] and now we are at skogstad, above the vangsmjoesen vand and lesser strande vand, with two or more _vands_ to see to-morrow before we cross the height of land and come down to laerdalsoeren, on the sogne fjord which holds the waters of the sea, sixty-five miles further on. the _vands_ to-day have been like giant steps, each emptying into the one below by the roaring river, mounting up, each smaller than the one below and more pent in by towering mountain masses. h is now tucked in between mattress and coverlet of eider down--we are beyond the latitude of blankets--in a narrow bed, and i am about to get into another on the other side of the room, on which i now sit writing to you by the light of a sperm candle, while the murmur of a thousand cascades tinkles in my ears. viii. over the height of land--a wonderful ride down the laera dal to the sogne fjord. laerdalsoeren, norge, _september , _. we left skogstad early and began to climb a long ascent, a dozen miles of grade, still following the valley of the baegna elv foaming and tossing by our side. the two days so far had been clear and cloudless, but now the air was full of a fine mist, and we probably ascended a thousand feet before the curtain lifted and a panorama of snow-capped mountains, profound valleys, and sheer precipices burst upon us. a thousand rills and rivulets and brawling brooks streaked the green slopes with threads and lines of white; mosses and lichens softened the black rock-masses; blooming heather, and a plant with fine red and yellow leaf gave color to the heights between the sombre greenness of the fir forests below and the whiteness of the snow-fields above. i have never before seen such stupendous precipices, such tremendous heights; neither switzerland nor mexico, alps nor cordilleras lift themselves in so precipitous ascent. after a two hours' climb, all the way listening to the roar of the _elv_ choking the gorge a thousand feet below our way, we met its waters issuing quietly from yet another lake, the little utro vand, surrounded by snow-crowned summits, the snow-fields creeping almost to the water's edge, also passing on our right, the road which leads to the tyin vand and the ice-crowned summits of the jotunheim. here was a large and comfortable inn, nystuen by name, and ole mon gave the ponies their first morning's feed, adding an armful of mountain hay to the oatmeal diet. half an hour's rest is the usual limit, and the ponies seem to know their business and eat their fare on time. in mexico, horses are fed grain but once in twenty-four hours, and that at midnight, so that all hearty food will be digested before the early morning start. here a horse is kept full all the time to do his best; difference of climate and latitude, i suppose. [illustration: the protected road.] just beyond the nystuen vand, we crossed the height of land between the waters of east and west norway, and now the streams were running the other way. we were up , feet, and the summits round about us--rising yet two and three thousand feet higher--were deeply snow-marked--great patches and fields of snow. then we came to another succession of four more _vands_, like steps, each bigger than the one above it, and a roaring river that proportionately grew in size. the road became steeper and we fairly scampered down to a fine inn, painted red with curiously-carven norse ornamentation on the gables, called maristuen. here we had fresh salmon, and more good coffee. for breakfast we were given trout and eggs, now salmon and a delicious custard for dessert. at table we met a mr. c and wife, of chicago, going over our trail, and we may meet them again in stockholm. they are anxious to go on to russia after seeing stockholm, and have urged us to go along also. across the table from us sat a dear old white-haired grandmother from bergen with a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired granddaughter--a viking juno. they are driving across to odnaes in their own carriage, a curious, old-fashioned _trille_, low and comfortable with a mighty top. the old lady is stacked up between pillows of eider down, and the blue-eyed granddaughter is full of tender care. we spake not to them nor they to us, but we smiled at one another and that made us friends. they both waved _farvel_ as they drove away. and then, about two o'clock, we went on again for forty miles down to the level of laerdalsoeren and the sea, on the sogne fjord, where now we are. we were to descend some , feet, and here began one of the most exciting experiences of my life. the mountains kept their heights; we alone came lower, all down a single _dal_. most of the road was hewn out of the side of precipices--a gallery; great stones were set endwise about two feet apart on the outer edge, and sometimes bound together by an iron rail; a slope down which we rolled at a flying trot, coasted down--the roaring, foaming river below, far below. close to us were falls and cascades and cataracts, and the stupendous mountains, the snow-capped rock-masses lifting straight up thousands of feet. h grew so excited, exclaiming over the mighty vistas of rock and water and distant valley, that i had fairly to hold her in; and ever we rolled down and down and down, spanking along with never a pause for nearly thirty miles, the spinning wheels never once catching the ponies' flying heels. great driving that of ole mon, great speeding that of the sturdy ponies; marvelous macadamized roadway, smooth as new york's fifth avenue! water bursts, misty cascades, descending hundreds of feet, sprayed us, splashed us, dashed us, as we went on and on and on, only the gigantic precipices growing higher and higher and higher, and the ever-present snowy summits more and more supreme above us. [illustration: three thousand feet of waterfall.] then we swept out into a green valley, hemmed in on either hand by sombre precipices rising straight up for three and four and five thousand feet, and hove to at the farmstead of kvamme for the ponies to be fed once more before their last descent. a mile or two further on the precipices choke together forming a deep gorge, called the vindhelle, where it looks as though the mountains had been cracked apart. the norwegian farmer, like the swiss, not only makes his living from the warm bottom-lands, which he cultivates, but also from the colder uplands to which his goats and cattle are driven in the early summer, and where the surplus grasses are painstakingly gathered with the sickle. we were driving quietly along when my attention was attracted to a couple of women standing with pitchforks in their hands near a cock of hay. the hay was fresh mown, but i could see no hay-fields round about. they were looking intently at the distant summit of the precipice towering above them. my eye followed theirs. i could barely make out a group of men shoving a mass of something over the edge, and then i beheld the curious sight of a haymow flying through the air. nearer it came, and nearer until it landed at the women's feet. i then made out a wire line connecting a windlass set in the ground near where the women stood and reaching up to the precipice's verge, whence came the hay. the hay was wound about this line. in this manner is the hay crop of these distant uplands safely delivered at the little _gaard_ or farmstead in the valley's lap. from these mountain altitudes the milk and cheese and butter which the goats and cows afford are also sometimes lowered by this telegraph. in switzerland, i have seen communications of this sort for shorter distances, but never before beheld a stack of hay flying through the air for half a mile. this laera river with its _dal_ (dale, valley), is famous for its trout and salmon. we passed several men and boys trying their luck, one, an englishman, up to his waist in the ice-cold tide. we have now put up at a snug hotel, quite modern; english is spoken here. and--but i forgot; when we stopped to feed the ponies, right between the two descents, we made solemn friendship with the old norseman who here keeps the roadhouse; his daughter "had been in chicago," she spoke perfect united states, and took us to see, hard by, the most ancient church in norway, the church of borgund, eight hundred to one thousand years old. it is very quaint, with strange norse carving and runic inscriptions. i gave our pretty guide a _kroner_ for her pains. on returning to the house, she handed it to the old man, who took out a big leathern wallet and put the coin away. we had meant it all for her, and by reason of her knowing chicago had made the fee quite double size. to-morrow we sail for six hours out upon the sogne fjord to gutvangen, then drive by carriage to eida, on the hardanger fjord, all yet among these stupendous mountains. i was sitting in the little front room of the inn waiting for supper, when our driver, ole mon, came in to settle our account, for his trip was at an end. after i had paid him and added a few _oeres_ and a _kroner_ for _trinkgeld_, at the liberality of which he seemed to be much gratified, he produced from the inner pocket of his coat a goodly-sized blank book, which he handed to me, and begged that i would set down therein a recommendation of his qualities as a driver and a guide. in the book were already a number of brief statements in french and german and norwegian, by different travelers, declaring him to be a "safe and reliable man," who had "brought them to their journey's end without mishap." i took the book and wrote down some hurried lines. when i had finished, he gazed upon the foreign writing and then disappeared with the book into the kitchen to consult the cook, who had lived in minneapolis. he presently reappeared, his eyes big with wonder and a manner of profound deference. he now advised me that he would deem it a great honor to be permitted to drive us free of charge, next morning, from the hotel to the steamer, a couple of miles distant. he further said, that he had decided to take the sea trip to gutvangen on our ship and would there secure for us the best carriage and driver of the place. he evidently regarded me as some famous bard, to whom it would be difficult to do sufficient honor. the lines were these: aye! ole mon, you are a dandy whip, you are a corker and a daisy guide. you talk our tongue and rarely make a slip, you've taken us a stunner of a ride. and when from norge's _fjelds_ and _fjords_ we sail, and in america tell of what we've seen, our friends will stand astonished at the tale, and next year bid you take them where we've been. [ilustration: our little ship, laerdalsoeren.] ix. a day upon the sogne fjord. stalheim hotel, norway, _september , _. to-day we have spent mostly on the water. we left laerdalsoeren--the mouth of the valley of the river laera--by ship, a tiny ship, deep-hulled and built to brave the fiercest gales, a boat of eighty to one hundred tons. casting off from the little pier at eight o'clock, we were upon the waters of the majestic sogne fjord until after p. m. this great _fjord_ is the first body of water that i have seen which to my mind is really a _fjord_, the others along the shores of which we have journeyed for the past three days, including the last and least, the smidal and the bruce _fjords_, were only mountain tarns, what in norse speech is termed a "_vand_." while i had read much of _fjords_, never till to-day have i comprehended their marvelous grandeur, the overwhelming magnitude of the earth's convulsions which eons ago cracked open their tremendous depths and heights. although their bottoms lie deeper than the bottom of the sea, ( , feet deep in some places), so the captain tells me, yet up out of these profound waters rise the gigantic mountains (_fjeld_) five and six thousand feet into the blue sky, straight up as it were, with hundreds of cascades and foaming waterfalls, sometimes the tempestuous tides of veritable rivers, leaping down the black rocks and splashing into space, and everywhere above them all are the snow-fields, the eternal snow-fields. sometimes when the precipices are sheltered and sun-warmed, their surface is green with mosses and banded with yellow gorse, and with white and pink and purple heather, and barred with scarlet and gray lichens. the waters were so deep, the precipices so sheer that often our ship sailed not more than twenty or thirty feet distant from them; the misty spray of the streams dissolving into impalpable dust hundreds of feet above us, dampening us like rain, or windblown, flying away in clouds of vaporous smoke. here and there along the more open parts of the _fjord_ were bits of green slope with snug farmsteads, a fishing boat swinging to a tiny pier or tied to the very house itself. sometimes, perched on a rocky shelf, grass-grown and high-up a thousand feet, we would discern a clinging cabin, and once we espied a grazing cow that seemed to be hanging in mid air. no patch of land lay anywhere about that was not dwelt upon, tilled or grazed by some man or beast. the climate of western norway is mild and humid, tempered as it is by the gulf stream. these coasts have always been well peopled, sea and soil yielding abundant living to the hardy norsk. the _fjords_ are the public highways and upon their icefree waters vigorous little steamships ply back and forth busied with incessant traffic through all the year. our course led us up many winding arms and watery lanes to cozy hamlets nestled at the mouth of some verdant _dal_, where we would lie-to a few minutes to put off and take on passengers and freight. we also carried the mails. at each stopping-place the ship's mate would hand out the bags to the waiting official, often an old man, more generally a rosy-cheeked young woman, and carefully take a written memorandum of receipt, when bag and maiden and many of the waiting crowd would disappear. once or twice the bags were loaded upon one of the curious two-wheeled carts called _stolkjaerres_ driven by a husky boy, when cart and horse and boy at once set off at lively gallop. in winter time sledges and men on _skjis_ replace the handy _stolkjaerre_, and thus all through the year are the mails efficiently distributed. the captain tells me that a great proportion of the letters received and sent are from and to america, where so many of norway's most energetic and capable young men are growing rich, and that a large proportion of these letters received are registered, and contain cash or money orders remitted to the families at home. what wonder is it that these thousand white-winged missives, which continually cross the sea, have made and are now making the ancient kingdom almost a democratic state! at one of these hamlets, aurland by name, i caught with my camera a pretty norwegian lass in full native costume, such as has been worn from time immemorial by the women of the sogne fjord,--a charming picture. [illustration: the sogne fjord.] [illustration: along the sogne fjord.] toward three o'clock we sailed up a shadowy canyon, the naeroe fjord, under mighty overhanging precipices, arriving at gudvangen, our voyage's end. here carriages awaited us and here ole mon, who has sailed with us throughout the day, after having driven us down to the boat himself and refused all pay, handed us over to the driver of the best _vogn_ (wagon) of the lot, with evidently very particular instructions as to our welfare. in fact, h tells me, ole mon has spent the day with his book of recommendation open in his hand, calling the world's attention to my glowing rhymes, and pointing me out with an air of profound deference as an illustrious, although to him unknown, bard. we bid him _farvel_, with real sorrow, and regretted that he might not have driven us to the very end. we now went on ten kilometers through a narrow clove, between enormous heights, passing the jordalsnut, towering above us, straight up more than three thousand feet, and straining our necks to peer up at the foaming torrent of the kilefos leaping two thousand feet seemingly at a single bound, and almost wetting us with its flying spray. at one place the road is diverted, and the immense mountain is scarred from the very edge of the snows by the marring rifts of a recent avalanche, which, our driver says, was the most tremendous fall of snow and ice these parts have ever known. at last we began a steep zigzag ascent, so sharp that even h relieved the ponies of her weight. we were an hour in climbing the twelve hundred feet; and found ourselves on a wide bench overlooking the wild and lovely naeroedal up which we had come. the sun was behind us, the half shadows of approaching twilight were creeping out from each dell and crevice. upon our left, the gray peak of the jordalsnut yet caught the sunshine, as also did the snow-fields of the kaldafjeld, almost as lofty upon our right. the naeroedal was filling with the mysterious haziness of the northern eventime. behind us, commanding this exquisite vista, we found a monstrous and uncouth edifice, a german enterprise, the stalheim hotel, thrust out upon a rocky platform between two rivers plunging down on either side. here we have been given a modern bedroom, fitted with american-looking oak furniture, have enjoyed a well-cooked german supper, sat by a blazing wood fire, and shall soon turn off the electric lights and turn in, to repose on a wire mattress, and be lulled to sleep by the musical roar of the two great waterfalls. [illustration: sudals gate on the sogne fjord.] x. from stalheim to eida--the waterfall of skjerve fos--the mighty hardanger fjord. odda, norway, _september , _. we left stalheim by _skyd_ (carriage), at nine o'clock. the drive was up a desolate valley, through a scattering woodland of small firs and birches, close by the side of a foaming creek, the naerodals elv, hundreds of becks and brooklets bounding down the mountain sides to right and left. after an hour's climb, we reached a flattened summit where lay a little lake, the opheims vand, two or three miles long and wide, encircled with snow-fields. here and there we passed a scattered farmstead--_gaard_--for every bit of land yielding any grass is here in the possession of an immemorial owner. the _vand_ is a famed trout pool, and as we wound along its shores we passed any number of men and boys trying their luck. it was raining steadily, a cold fine downpour, and all the male population seemed to have taken to the rod. at the lake's far end we passed a small hotel, built in norse style with carved and ornamented gables and painted a light green. here in the season the english come to fish. [illustration: the naero dal.] leaving the _vand_, we began a long descent, and for twelve miles rolled down at a spanking pace, the brook by our side steadily growing until it at last became a huge and violent torrent, a furious river, the tvinde elv. in the fourteen miles we had descended--coasted--two thousand five hundred ( , ) feet, and now were come to the little town of voss or vossvangen, which lies on the banks of the vangs vand, a body of blue water five or six miles long and two miles wide, surrounded by one of the most fertile, well-cultivated valleys of norway. vossvangen is a town of importance, and is the terminus of the railway with which the norwegian government is connecting bergen and kristiania. the easiest parts of this national railway, those between bergen and vossvangen, and between kristiania and roikenvik--over which we came--are already constructed and running trains, but it is estimated that it will be twenty years before the connecting link is finally completed, for it is almost a continuous tunnel--a magnificent piece of railroad-making when it is done. vossvangen is also the birthplace of one of minnesota's most illustrious sons, united states senator knute nelson. it is upon these mountains that he tended the goats and cows when a barefooted urchin, and i do not doubt that he has surreptitiously pulled many a fine trout and salmon out of the lovely lake. the people of vossvangen accept his honors as partly their own, and my norwegian host gazed at me most complacently when i told him that american senators held in their hands more power and were bigger men than any swedish king. norwegians are justly proud of their eminent sons who, in the great republic over the sea, are so splendidly demonstrating the capability of the norse race. we put up at a modern-looking inn, called fleischer's hotel, a favorite rendezvous for the english, despite its german-sounding name. here we rested a couple of hours, and were given a well-served dinner with tender mutton and baked potatoes, big and mealy, which we ate with a little salt and abundance of delicious cream. our hearts were here stirred with sympathy for a most unhappy-looking american girl who had evidently married a foreign husband. he was a surly, ugly-mannered man, with low brows and tangled black hair. she, poor thing, was the picture of despair, her fate being that all too common one of the american woman who, foolishly dazzled with a titled lover, too late finds him to be a titled brute. we were to continue to eida on the hardanger fjord, in the same carriage in which we set out. the ponies were well rested, and we got away a little after two o'clock. ascending the well-tilled valley of the rundals elv by easy grades over a fine hard road, we crossed a marshy divide and then descended to the hardanger fjord. after passing the divide and coming down a few miles, we suddenly found ourselves on the rim of a vast amphitheatre into the center of which plunged a mighty waterfall, the skjervefos, much resembling that of the kaaterskill falls, in the catskill mountains of new york, only ten times as big. a roaring river here jumps sheer a thousand feet, and then again five hundred more. yet we did not know of it until we were right on to it and into it. the falls making two great leaps, the road crosses the wild white waters between them on a wooden bridge. over this we drove through soaking clouds of spray. [illustration: greeting our boat, aurland.] when in london we had no thought of norway. not until we heard from general and mrs. c of the delights of this journey did we make up our minds to take it. we were then in copenhagen, and neither in that town nor in kristiania have we been able to get hold of an english-worded guide book. we are trusting to our driver's knowledge, and to our own eyes and wits. and so it is, that we came right upon one of the most splendid waterfalls in all norway, and never knew aught of it until chasm and flood opened at our feet. perhaps it is better so. we have no expectations, our eyes are perpetually strained for the next turn in the road, our ears are alert for the thundering of cascades, our minds are open for astonishment and delight. while it is a substantial modern bridge that now takes you safely over the stream which spins and spumes between the upper and the nether falls, yet our driver tells us, that in the ancient days when men and beasts must ford or swim to get across, this was dreaded as a most dangerous place. few dared to ford,--most made a long detour. no matter how quiet or how low the waters might appear, there were yet dangers which men could not see, for water-demons hid in the black eddies and skulked in the foam. they lurked in silence until the traveler was midway the stream when they would boldly seize him by the feet, and draw him down, and ride his body exultingly through the plunging cataract below, nor did they fear also to drown what rescuer might venture in to save his friend. when now the moon is low and the night is still, may frequently be heard commingling with the leaping waters' roar, 'tis said, the death wails of the lost souls of those whom the demons thus have drowned and delivered for torment to the cruel master-demon, niki. below the giant skjervefos we rolled alongside its elv until we came out upon the margin of another exquisite tarn, the gravens vand, where, just as along the vangsmjoesen vand, the roadway is, much of it, hewn out in galleries at the base of overhanging cliffs. nor is there room for carriages to pass. there are turnouts, here and there, and you pull a rope and ring a bell which warns ahead that you are coming. in some places the roadway was shored up with timbers above the profound black waters. we passed from the _vand_ through a rocky glen down which the foaming waters hurried to the sea. we followed the stream and suddenly came out into vast breadth and distance. we were at eida on an arm of the mighty hardanger fjord, the biggest earth crack in norway. [illustration: the hardanger fjord.] a fresh, keen wind blew up from the ocean. a wooden pier jutted out into the deep water, where, tied to it, were several fishing smacks. a small, black-hulled steamer was there taking on freight, but it was not our boat. the sky was overcast. the long twilight was coming to an end. it would soon be dark. across the _fjord_, giant black-faced precipices lifted up into the clouds and snows. down the _fjord_ misty headlands loomed against the dusk. the black waters were foam capped. there was a dull moan to the wind in the offing; it was a night for a storm at sea. it now grew dark. a few fitful stars shone here and there. the wind was rising. a bright light suddenly appeared toward the west. our boat had come round the headland, and was soon at the pier. it was much like the little ship in which we sailed upon the sogne fjord. these _fjords_ are alive with multitudes of just such boats, deep-set, sturdy craft, built to brave all weathers and all seas. our course lay down the graven fjord, through the uten fjord, and then up the long, narrow soer fjord--arms of the hardanger--to the hamlet of odda, where we would again take a carriage and cross the snow-fields of the giant haukeli mountains of the western alps. watching the sullen waters, profound and mysterious, as they churned into a white wake behind our little craft, i could scarcely credit it that i was upon the hardanger fjord, the greatest and most intricate of the sheltered harbors which for centuries have made the coasts of norway the fisherman's haven, the pirate's home. upon these waters the ancient viking learned his amphibious trade. hid in the coves which nestle everywhere along the bases of the precipices the viking mothers hatched and reared their broods of sea-urchins, who romped with the seals and chased the mermaids and frolicked with the storms. where i now sailed had met together again and again those fleets of war-boats, the like of which we saw the other day in kristiania, and which went out to plunder and ravage hamlet and town and city along all the ocean coasts, even passing through the gates of hercules, and visiting latin and greek and african province with devastation and death. "sea-wolves," tacitus called them, and such they were. here gathered the hardy war-men who went out and conquered gaul, and founded norse rule in normanwise where now is normandy. hence sailed forth the warships which harried the british isles, and left norse speech strong to this day on scottish tongue and in northumbrian mouth. here, also, fitted out the ships, some of the crews of which it may have been who left their marks upon the new jersey shores in vineland, and who may even have been the sires of that strange blue-eyed, light-haired, unconquered race i saw two years ago in yucatan, who have held the spaniards these four centuries in check. i gazed upon the black waters of mighty hardanger, and saw the fleets returning with their spoil, and heard the shouts of vengeance wreaked and victory won, which have so often echoed among these mountains. i was looking upon the breeding, homing waters of the greatest sea-race the world has known, and every lapping wavelet became instinct with the mystery of the cruel, splendid past. [illustration: the soer fjord, hardanger.] the churning of the propeller blades now ceased. i felt a jarring of the boat. we were come to odda and the voyage's end. it was ten o'clock when we made our port. a black night it had been, pitch dark, with a fierce wind and ill-tempered sea. the profound waters respond with sullen restlessness to the stress of outer tempest. only a norseman born and bred to these tortuous channels could have safely navigated them on such a night, and i noticed that our engines did not once slacken speed throughout the voyage! upon arriving at our hotel we found we were expected. a comfortable room was in readiness, and a carriage engaged for the following day and early breakfast arranged. all this had been done through telephone by our tourists' agency (the bennetts) in kristiania. and so have we found it everywhere along our route. all norway, every post office and nearly every farm, and especially all hotels and inns, are connected by a telephone system owned and run by the government. anybody in norway can call up and talk to anybody else. we have experienced the full benefit of this efficiency. our entire trip has been arranged by telephone from kristiania. we are always expected. a delicious meal, ordered from kristiania, is always ready for us, and every landlord knows to the minute just when we will arrive, for news of us has been 'phoned ahead from the last station we have passed. this hamlet of odda is an important point. here converge the two great trade and tourist routes of western norway. the one, the telemarken route, crossing the haukeli fjeld of the western alps to dalen, and thence by the telemarken lakes and locks to skien, and by rail to kristiania; the other diverging at horre, passing down the valley of the roldals vand to sand and thence to staavanger by the sea, whence ships cross to hamburg and bremen and the north sea ports, and to hull and harwich in britain--favorite routes by which the germans and british enter norway. xi. the buarbrae and folgefonden glaciers--cataracts and mountain tarns--odda to horre. horre, hotel breifond, _september , _. to-day we have driven thirty miles from odda, all of it up hill, except the last six miles. we started about nine o'clock with two horses, an easy carriage, and a driver whom i have had to resign to h's more promising danish, for he is elderly and very weak in the foreign tongue. from the first we began to climb. the driver in norway always walks up the hills, and the male traveler also walks, while the female traveler is expected to walk, if she be able. the norse ponies take their time, although at the end of the day they have traveled many miles and are seemingly little tired. by the side of the smooth road rushed a river, the aabo elv, a mass of foam and spray which sometimes flew over us. a couple of miles farther on we came to a little dark-blue lake, the sandven vand, surrounded by lofty mountains, on the far side of which, almost jutting into it, pressed down the glacier of buarbrae, descending from the snow-fields of the folgefonden, a single expanse of ice and snow some forty miles long and ten to twenty wide, the greatest accumulation of snow and ice in western norway. over the precipices hemming in the _vand_ dashed scores of cataracts and cascades, often leaping two and three thousand feet in sudden plunge. h says nobody can ever show her a waterfall again, nor talk about english _waters_ or scottish _lochs_. passing the lake, we continued to ascend, the road entering a deep and sombre gorge, which suddenly widened out into a sunlit vale, the air being filled with mists and rainbows. we were nearing the lotefos and the skarsfos, two of norway's most celebrated cataracts. two rivers begin falling almost a mile apart, approaching as they fall, until they unite in a final leap of nearly fifteen hundred feet, a splendid spectacle, while right opposite to them tumbles the espelandsfos, falling from similar heights. the spray and mist of the three commingle in a common cloud, and the highway passes through the eternal shower bath. as you look up you can see the entire mass of the waters from their first spring into space throughout their tumultuous, furious descent, until they eddy at your feet. nature is so lavish here with her gigantic earth and water masses that one is perpetually awe-struck. one incident has occurred today, which i presume i may take as a high compliment to my native tongue. one of two young frenchmen, whose carriage has traveled near our own, while walking ahead of his vehicle, found the ponies disposed to walk him down. twice this happened. then he waxed wroth. he suspected the tow-headed norse driver of not being really asleep, but of trying to even up the ancient national grudge against his own dear france. he flew into a gallic passion. he stopped short. he halted the team. he awoke the driver. he shouted in broken english, "you drive me down! you drive me down! you vone scoundrel! i say vone damn to you, i say vone damn, i say vone damn!"--shaking his fist in the astonished face of the sleepy-head. after that the norseman kept awake and the french gentleman walked safely in the middle of the road. he evidently felt that to swear in french would be quite lost upon the son of the vikings. english alone would do the job. [illustration: the espelands fos.] [illustration: commingling lote fos and skars fos.] we climbed for many miles a deep glen called the seljestad juvet; and dined long past the hour of noon at a wayside inn, the seljestad hotel. the hotel was kept by women. "our men," they said, "are gathering hay at the _saeter_ (mountain farm) far up on the mountain highlands. they are gone for a month, and will not return until the crop is all got in." we paid our modest reckoning to a delicate, fair-haired, blue-eyed little woman, with quiet, graceful manners, well bred and courteous in bearing. she is the bookkeeper and business manager of the inn, "so long as the summer season lasts," she said. and then she sails to england in one of her father's ships, and there becomes a governess in an english family until another summer holiday shall come around. she had never been to america. "some day," her skipper sire had "promised to take her to new york," when they would "run over for a day" to minneapolis to see an aunt and cousins who were prospering, as do all norwegians in america's opportunity-affording air. and "americans, she always liked to meet," she said, "for unlike the english, they met you so frankly and did not condescend." she showed h all through the neat and tidy kitchen, while a big black nanny goat stood in the doorway and watched them both. all the afternoon we kept on climbing by the winding roadway, passing a black-watered, snow-fed tarn, the gors vand, and over the gorssvingane pass above the snow line, where snow-fields stretched below us, around us, above us. from the summit of , feet above odda and the sea, we had a superb view of all the vast folgefond ice-field behind us, and before us two others, the breifond and the haukeli fjeld, as vast, while , feet right down beneath us lay a deep blue lake, the roldals vand. the road now wound ten kilometers (six and one-third miles) down into the deep valley by many successive loops, twelve of them, one-half a mile to the loop--a feat of fine engineering, for this is a military road. we came down on a full trot all the way, even as ole mon came down the laera dal, until we reined in at a picturesque inn at the vale of horre, overlooking the valley of roldal and its _vand_. now we are in a cozy hostelry, the hotel breifond, with a room looking out over the exquisite deep-blue lake, encompassed by green mountains and snow-covered summits. [illustration: the gors vand.] [illustration: glacier of buarbrae.] our hotel is kept by two sweet-faced elderly women, serene and rosy-cheeked, dressed in black with immaculate white caps; one is the widow of a daring seaman who years ago went down with his ship in a winter gale. he was the captain and would not leave his post, though many of the crew deserted and were saved. the other is her spinster sister, whose betrothed lover likewise was lost at sea. in the summer time they here harbor many anglers, who come to fish the waters of the roldals vand and adjacent streams, which like most norwegian lakes and rivers are rented out by the local provincial or district governments. the visitors who come here are chiefly english, the ladies tell us, and great is their distress and often violent their objurgation at the absence of any darkness when they may sleep. they cannot adjust themselves to the nightless days. they are inexpressibly shocked when they find themselves playing a game of golf or tennis at midnight, or forgetful of the flight of time in the excitement of a salmon chase, pausing to eat a midday snack at a. m. our beds are the softest we have yet slept in, for both mattress and coverlet are of eider down. the two ladies have been delighted to talk with h in the native tongue, and have told her of their nephews and cousins who are getting rich owning fine wheat farms in the red river of the north. "come back to us in june," they say. "our wild flowers are then in bloom, and the hungry trout and salmon will then rise to any fly!" and h and i resolve that in june we surely will return. i saw one or two small pale butterflies to-day, and one gray moth at the snow edge, where we crossed the divide; the only ones i yet have seen. the birds, in this northland, of course, are all new to me; the crows are gray, with black wings, heads and tails; a magpie with white shoulders and white on head, and long, blue-black tail, is very tame; while a bird i take to be a jay is numerous, with black body, white shoulders and wing tips, and tail feathers edged with white. i have seen some gray swallows which are now gathering in flocks preparatory to going south, and several sparrows much like our field sparrows; and sandpipers and upland plover, very small. the gray crows have a coarse croak like a raven, "krakers" they are called. in england we saw and heard our only lark the day we drove from ventnor to cowes, on the isle of wight, but i heard no other song birds in england, only once, near oxford, when i caught a note like our song sparrow's, while crows and rooks swarmed everywhere from southampton to inverness. in denmark there are many storks, and i there saw the nest of one, a gigantic mass of sticks and mud, built on the ridge of a barn, but i noticed few other birds, except the gulls and terns along the sea. at vang, the other day, i saw, as i wrote you, the ptarmigan, and the capercailzie stuffed and mounted by a norwegian living there; they are found on the mountains thereabouts; and a passenger, day before yesterday, on the sogne-fjord-boat, had in his hand half a dozen ptarmigan, with their plumage already turning toward the winter's white. [illustration: the descending road to horre.] xii. over the lonely haukeli fjeld--witches and pixies, and maidens milking goats. hotel haukelid, _september , _. this morning we left hotel breifond about eight o'clock and although we started alone, three other carriages soon caught up with us, and we set off together, ours being the first in the line. as it is the etiquette of the drivers never to pass each other, we have kept this order all the day. next behind us was a dane with his norwegian wife, from bergen, to whom h talked in their own tongue. next to them were the two young frenchmen with whom i have managed to converse, and behind these rode a german and his _frau_, who were most icy until they learned we were not english but americans, whereupon they grew friendly indeed. we have got well acquainted while walking together up the long mountain slopes. yesterday we crossed the divide at a maximum elevation of , feet, and were above the snow line; to-day we again traversed the snow-fields at a yet higher altitude, passing under one snow mass by a tunnel, where h took a snap-shot of me standing in the snow, and reached the maximum altitude of , feet. [illustration: a mile stone.] [illustration: cattle on the haukeli fjeld.] from the emerald valley of the roldals vand we crept up a long ascent for twenty miles, and i walked the whole of it. we followed the foaming vasdals elv to its source, until all trees were below us, and only short grasses, mosses and lichens grew amid the masses of drear, black rock, and wide fields and patches of snow. this was the most desolate region i have ever yet beheld or set foot upon; no life of any sort; "_aucuns animaux, aucuns oiseaux; seulement les roches, le silence et le froid_," as one of the young frenchmen exclaimed! there was not even a gnat or a butterfly. the primordial adamant rock presented as sharp and unworn edges to the blows of the icy torrents as when god first made it. the sun was warm and all the streams brim full, swollen from the melting snows. high on the height of land we found two silent lakes, the ulivaa vand and the staa vand. no life stirred about them, although our driver asserted they were "alive with fish." on these silent heights with their mosses and lichens, goats and reindeer thrive, and the latter range throughout the year. we dined near the summit at a neat log inn called haukeli-saeter upon a soup, boiled salmon, reindeer steak and vegetables,--all good. here our germans clamored for _sauerkraut_ and _bier_, and were much perturbed at receiving instead schooners of sweet milk and caraway-seeded tea-cakes. the inn is built in typical norse style, with sharp and elaborately carved gables, and is kept open chiefly for the benefit of tourist travel. our driver is a quaint and lackadaisical old norsk, who speaks a drawling, ancient roldal _patois_. the first day we could not do much with him, although h tried her best danish. but to-day he is beginning to thaw out and has at last become really garrulous. he is full of peasant superstition and folk lore which he implicitly believes. these haukeli fjelde will never be inhabited by man, he says, for they are already the home of the giant and dangerous _trolls_, mysterious and mighty spirits who are inimical to man. they dwell on the barest and bleakest and most desolate mountain tops, where they devour young kids and reindeer fawns and, occasionally, even dare to kidnap a child, and are always on the watch to steal a buxom lass. it is useless to chase or follow them, they are never to be caught, and while they may show themselves at times if they shall choose, yet they are invisible to most human eyes. he has never seen a _troll_, he says, but once he knew an old man who had been scared by one which tried to catch him when a boy. there are also witches upon the haukeli mountain tops, the old man says. he is sure he has heard them hurtling through the air, sometimes, when driving alone in the dusk of midsummer nights, crossing the desolate heights of the haukeli fjeld. i asked him if they still rode on broomsticks as they used to do in germany, but he declared that they were more bloodthirsty than that, for they always carried ancient viking broadswords, which they had picked up after some of the big fights which take place before breakfast in valhalla every morning among the vikings. every summer some few witches are sure to be seen or at any rate heard, by some lonely peasant caught by fatigue on a twilight mountain top. there is one more beautiful than all the rest, he says. he calls her "hulda," and says she is a great hand to seduce and beguile young men. she can fix herself up to appear very beautiful, and to look upon her is to fall fast in love with her. then she taps a rock with a long staff she carries and lo! it opens and there within are splendid chambers, a fairy palace, with all the allurements of golden furnishings and sumptuous hangings and a table groaning under the weight of delicious things to eat. if, dazzled by this glimpse of paradise, the youth once enters and is taken in her arms and kissed by her, then it is all up with him. he never escapes, but after she has toyed with him to her heart's content in idle dalliance, and grown tired of him, then are his blackened bones cast forth upon some barren mountain top, perhaps to be found long years afterward by wandering goatherd or venturesome hunter. between these _trolls_ and the witches, h has acquired a most wholesome fear of the haukeli fjeld, and she vows she would never drive over it alone. [illustration: the desolate haukeli fjeld.] also, the old man has at first hinted at and then confided to us that the _trolls_ and witches are not indeed the so serious menace they might seem, for they are really afraid of man and keep generally well out of his way; but that the real vexation of life comes from the little pixies and sprites, who love to live handily about your house, and who are always making trouble, either out of a spirit of pure mischief, or else by reason of jealousy or pique. they are "very touchy," he says, and you never know when or how you may offend them. but if you do, then woe betide you. they will steal the feed out of your horse's trough, or from his very nosebag right before your eyes, and so deft are they at their tricks that you can never catch them. you only discover that your horse gets thinner and thinner until he finally dies, while if they shall be pleased with what you have done or said you will find the horses always sleek and fat and able to do two days' work in one. i asked him how he stood in with the pixies just now, for i thought his team looked rather poor, but he said that was by reason of the hard summer's work, the pixies having done him no ill for several years. they also delight to milk the goats and cows upon the sly, he said, and will steal the cheese set out to dry, and often play such havoc with household supplies as to drive the peasants to despair. for this reason it is, that many good farmers set out little bowls of milk and bits of cheese in some silent meadow or mountain dell, where the pixies may eat quite undisturbed. as if to emphasize the old man's words, we just then passed the hut of a woman goatherd almost upon the summit of the vast lonely haukeli fjeld and there, set upon a little shelf, high up near the moss-grown roof, were a small milk-bowl and a bit of brown cheese, an offering to the elves and pixies of that place. the information i here give you may be wrong in minor detail, for we could not always perfectly interpret the quaint and ancient dialect in which the facts were told, but h says she could make out the most of what the old man said; for after all danish and norse speech are very nearly the same. we were now well over the height of land and were coasting down toward prospective supper. the barren waste of black and gray rocks, across which we had traveled, began to give place to greener slopes; the mosses had returned; the grass was peeping up again. swinging around a well-graded curve, we dropped into a little valley. the evening sun was behind us, the slanting rays tipped peak and snowy crest with reddish gold, but the vale below was wrapped in soft shadow. on the left, stood a moss-roofed cabin, near where ran the road; on the right, across a boisterous brook, we saw a group of norse maidens, clad in blue-and-red peasant costume, surrounded by a herd of goats. the goats were apparently in great excitement. each young woman was following a goat and that particular goat walked with demure and expectant gait. one old gray goat moved with particularly stately step, while the lady by his side held in her hand a small wooden bucket. i presumed that, of course, she proposed to give that goat his evening meal. imagine my astonishment when, before the goat really was aware, she collared it, swung her leg over it and holding it fast between her thighs, facing its rear, began energetically milking, not it, or him, but her! the goat had disappeared, only a tail and a head discovered themselves beyond the lady's skirts, and the evening shadows gathered about that maid and goat,--that goat held tight as though in iron vise. the day was too nearly done for my kodak to avail, so i have tried to sketch the episode, and so also has one of our french companions--and i send you the pictures. if the old poet had only seen the tableau of goat and maid he never could have written the following lines which long ago my memory clipped from the yale _news_: "the milkmaid pensively milked the goat, when, sighing, she paused to mutter, i wish you brute, you'd turn to milk, and the animal turned to butt her!" we have driven some eighty kilometers to-day and have been in the fresh mountain air, open air, for eleven hours. h is growing plump, and her cheeks have caught the norse red. the keen air makes our blood tingle in spite of the cold, for it is cold. on these summits ice forms the moment the sun is hid. we are in full winter clothing, and wrap our heavy sea rugs about us as we sit in the carriage. in a fortnight the snows will cover the passes and tourist travel will cease till another year. [illustration: norse maiden milking goat.] during the last two days we have frequently met men bearing on their backs and dragging on sledges piles of birch branches, the twig ends with the leaves yet on, and we have noticed here and there, entire birch-growing hillsides where the saplings had all been trimmed, the tender twigs sheared off and frequently the lopped-off branches stacked up in bundles stuck in a handy tree-crotch. this is the winter fodder for the goats, and the birch twig is as important for them as is the hay for the cattle. just as in switzerland, large flocks of goats are pastured throughout the summer upon the higher mountain slopes and ridges, and much cheese is manufactured from their milk. of sheep we have seen few, although i understand a good many are raised for the local demand for wool. like scotland, norway is hereabouts too cold and harsh for sheep to do their best. nor have we noticed many fowls, turkeys or geese or ducks about the farmsteads,--only a few chickens here and there. this also is too cold a climate, with too rigorous and lengthy winters for poultry to be profitable. nor have we had chicken set before us but the once when we supped with the inquisitive dame of tonsaasen. trout and reindeer steak as well as eggs we have often had, and once roast ptarmigan. neither in britain, nor in france, nor in germany have i ever seen a wooden house; all buildings there are of stone or brick; but here the buildings throughout the countryside are all of wood; hewn logs most frequently, not uncommonly of sawed lumber, these latter quite often painted white and red, reminding one of tidy new england. the roofs are steep to shed the snows or, otherwise, quite flat and covered with a layer of birch bark and then tight-growing sods and mosses, which covering the snow may melt upon but through which it will never soak. to-day being sunday, we have met many churchgoers upon the road, and have passed two churches where the lutheran service was being held. during our drive we have constantly noted the number of these lutheran churches, as well as the snug-built, substantial schoolhouses. piety and intelligence deeply mark the lives of these norse people. just as in denmark, so here also is the lutheran church recognized and supported by the state, and its pastors constitute a formidable and influential body, guiding the thought of the norwegian people. apparently the schools here are as universal and as well attended as our own. every norwegian child, who is of school age, is compelled by law to go to school. nowhere outside of my own country have i seen so many schoolhouses dotting the countryside. in england there are no common schools and no schoolhouses. in france the schoolhouses are hidden among the buildings of the clustered villages. in switzerland, perhaps, the schoolhouse is as much in evidence as here, but in neither germany nor holland, although their universities lead the world, is there revealed the teaching of the common people as is done by the many schoolhouses of this northern land. now we are housed in a commodious and quite modern inn, and have had a delicious trout supper, all our four carriage-loads of travelers sitting at one long table, where h and i have been the stars--for we only and alone can talk equally to the dane and his norwegian wife, to the young frenchmen, and to the german pair; while through us only can they exchange ideas, for we alone can talk to each in his own native tongue. "ah! these americans!" "you talk all the languages!" "how wide you see!" "while we, we do not see beyond the boundaries of france." "we speak too seldom a foreign tongue." "you are bigger-minded than are we!" so exclaimed one of our french friends. xiii. descending from the fjelde--the telemarken fjords--the arctic twilight. dalen, _september , , p. m._ our series of great rides on land and water is at an end. for eight days we have been inhaling the crisp, buoyant, ozone-laden atmosphere, viewing the majestic scenery, watching the sturdy, strong-faced men and women, the rosy, yellow-haired children; and now it is over. h and i agree that in our lives we will never again experience a more delightful outing--our sure-enough honeymoon. this morning we left the hotel haukelid with only sixty kilometers for the day, and most of it down hill; since noon yesterday we have been coming down. just a little snow was now to be seen far away upon distant summits, while forests of birches, interspersed with aspens, covered the nearer slopes. our road led us along the borders of several exquisite lakes, the little voxli vand and then the greater grungadals vand, about a mile wide and ten or twelve miles long; frowning precipices and cloud-wrapped heights encircled us on every hand, their rocks now largely greened over with mosses, and birches--only a few firs--growing wherever trees might thrust their roots. then we drove through a narrow clove, along a frothing torrent, and came to another _vand_ equally shut in, but not so long nor so wide,--a greener, warmer valley, boertedals vand in the boerte dal. here we dined at hotel boerte, rested till p. m., and then got away for one of the finest thirty kilometers of the trip. if we only had had ole mon to drive us, how perfect would have been the day! i imagined we had already come down enough to be at the bottom, but we were yet to descend a mighty canyon with the road blasted out of the precipice's side, and walled in with rock posts and iron defenders, much like the laera dal, while far beneath us wound a silver thread, the almost imperceptible roar of whose waters floated up a tremulous murmur. we came down at a rattling trot, every moment unfolding new vistas of vale and precipice and mountain. after two hours of this fearful, yet joyous, coasting we crossed a wide-spanning iron bridge and swept out into the charming vale of dalen, at the head of the bandaks vand, where now we are. the mountains are here clothed in heavy forests of birch and much deciduous timber, only a little of the fir; i can scarcely realize that yesterday we were up amongst the mosses, the lichens and the snows. as we descended we kept taking off our wraps; our rugs were folded up; h took off her golf cape, then her jacket; she wanted to ride with bared head, so soft and warm had grown the air. [illustration: a norse cabin.] [illustration: our hostesses, haukeli saeter.] kristiania, norway, _september , _. yesterday, we left dalen at the head of navigation on the bandaks vand, boarded a taut little steamboat about feet long, built for deep water, and traveled sixty-five kilometers through a succession of _vands_ and _fjords_--the telemarken fjords--canals and locks--twenty locks in all--to skien (called "sheen"), where we took the railway for kristiania, arriving at midnight. the lakes were long, narrow and mostly shut in by heavily-timbered mountains, which as always, lifted up to enormous heights, green vales and valleys opening in between, where were picturesque hamlets and neat, thrifty-looking farmsteads. nothing here impresses me more than the great patience and tireless energy of the "norsks," as they call themselves. the magnificent roads, superior to those of england, equal, almost equal to those of france; the canals, blasted for miles through solid granite; the railways, which are as good as our own; the little boats so perfectly appointed. the norwegians impress you as being born seamen; they know how to build and how to sail a boat, and you feel it. standing upon the forward deck, watching the changing panorama of vale and lake and mountain, i became so absorbed in the enchanting pictures that it was some moments before i noticed a slit-eyed, high-cheek-boned, black-straight-haired, short, pudgy youth or man--hard to tell which--a sure-enough lap if ever there was one, who was making vain efforts to hold conversation with me. he spoke slowly and with some hesitation in perfect cockney english. i at once gave him my ear, and asked him where he had learned to speak so well. "hi ave been a cook in lonnon," he said. "hi ave been hassistant cook in a hinglish otel, you know. hi am just now leaving the otel at dalen, where hi ave been hassistant cook this summer, you know." whereupon he told me of his experiences in london. how he landed there from a norwegian ship, friendless and unknown, and made his way by his aptitude in wiping dishes! and some day he "oped" to go to "hamerica" and there own a kitchen all for himself. "ow strange it must be for an hamerican to see real mountains," he exclaimed, and i discovered that the only america he knew about was the prairie land of the flat west. upon my asking whether he was not a laplander, he resented the suggestion with great vehemence, declaring himself to be a viking pure, and he begged me to let him know if i should learn of any good openings for dish-wipers in america, especially if it would lead to the dignity of cook. his manner was frank and simple, wholly free from self-consciousness, except as he took great pride in being able to speak the english tongue. in norway there are no classes and all men stand equal before the law. it is as respectable there to work as it is in america, and similarly men meet you as your natural equals. there is none of that offensive subserviency which so jars upon one in most of the monarchy and aristocracy bestridden lands. the volume of water which flows from these lakes and through these deep canals is immense and we have sometimes swept along the narrower channels at really an exciting pace. we had just passed through the beautiful flaa vand and descended the deep full-flowing river, the eids elv, with its many locks, to the greater nordsjoe vand, when we drew up beside a little pier. there were many people upon it. evidently, there was here gathered an unusual crowd, and down the hillside leading toward us came yet others. the whole community had turned out. two tall, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed, fair-haired young men were the center of the throng; about them the others pressed. they were neatly dressed, fine-looking fellows, and the men and women were kissing them good-bye. they were going to america, perhaps never to return. the mother, a gentle-faced, white-haired old lady, wept on the necks of each of them, and the white-haired father kissed them upon either cheek, and then everybody rushed in to shake their hands. they were going to america where so many of norway's most ambitious and able sons had gone before. the whole countryside would watch their career and wait for news of their success! two iron-bound chests were dragged on to the boat. the young men stepped alertly aboard, their faces flushed with the excitement of the farewells and the anticipations of the land across the sea. as i watched them and their family and friends waving their adieus i could not but ponder upon this instinct of the old-world races, my own among the rest, to go out and seize life's prizes even across the widest waters. the leave-taking i was now beholding must be not unlike that of the men and women who in the days of pilgrim and puritan and cavalier left little england to found a community where freedom and opportunity are still the loadstones which attract the energy and youth of all the world. [illustration: haukeli saeter.] [illustration: a goat herd's saeter, haukeli fjeld.] in traveling through norway, i have been greatly surprised to see so many newly-built farmhouses, barns and farm buildings, new fences and modern gates. everywhere the old and tumbled-down is being replaced by the substantial and modern. i have seen nothing like this anywhere in europe; nowhere so general a replacing of the old with the new. many of the new farmhouses are not merely substantial, but are architecturally attractive. there must be abundant money coming from somewhere to pay the cost of this universal rebuilding. i have asked about it more than once and every time i receive the same reply. "the sons have gone to america, they are in chicago, in minnesota, in dakota. they have grown rich. they are sending back the money. they want the old places made as trim and spick as though they were in america." "put everything in good repair," they say, "never mind the cost." and then, every few years they return with the american grandchildren to see the beloved old folks. more and more of these american-norwegians are coming every year to holiday in the fatherland. many now regularly sojourn throughout the summer. a few, a very few, remain to end their days on the loved home-soil. i also learn that it is to supply the demand of this increasing travel from america to norway that the scandinavian-american line have recently put on the large ocean steamers now sailing direct from new york to kristiansand, with accommodations equal to anything which has hitherto entered the ports of germany and england and france. the other day at loeken, we were waited on at table by a fine-looking young woman who spoke perfect united states. she had an air about her of comfortable independence. the house, the farm buildings, everything about the place was new and neat. while we were talking with her, she told us that she had a brother and an uncle in the far west, one at spokane, who was rich. she was living with him when word came that the old father had passed away. she was needed at home to care for the mother and the younger children, so she returned; and the brother sent back the money to have the old place put in perfect repair. this intimate connection between our thriving west and norwegian home life, largely explains, i think, that independent american spirit which now so prominently marks norway, and the growth and assertion of which is driving her by natural momentum away from the hectoring ties of franchise-constricted, aristocratic sweden, pushing her toward her inevitable destiny--to become a republic. [illustration: drying out the oats.] [illustration: tending the herds.] the immigration from norway to the united states has taken from her nearly one-half the population, a much larger percentage than has yet come forth from sweden. although even there, so great is now the exodus, that the swedish ministry is alarmed; there is also uneasiness in norway. recently, laws have been enacted prohibiting the steamship agents from spreading among the people the glowing accounts of america, by means of which so many steerage tickets are sold, but all the same, the propaganda is persistently carried on. at skogstad, the other day, i fell in with an alert-looking, quiet-mannered man, who, after he learned i was an american, confided to me that he himself was from minnesota. he had been born in norway, but went to america when a boy. he was now back in norway representing large farming interests in the northwest, and his business was to recruit farm hands for the western wheat fields. he said he had penetrated during the past three years into every nook and cranny of norway, everywhere finding out what vigorous and sturdy young men would like to go to america, and then arranging with them to pay their passage, and supply sufficient funds to enable them to pass the immigration inspectors, and providing also their railroad transportation to the west. "they are a splendid and hard working lot of men," he said. "we want all of them we can get. and most of them do well when they reach america; many of them become rich men." he was traveling in the disguise of an itinerant doctor selling herbs and roots. crossing the mountain this side of boerte, where the road wound up through the fir forest to avoid an immense cliff which jutted into the lake, i stopped and dug up a little seedling fir, surely a real norway spruce. i took it up with care and have now brought it to kristiania and to-day am sending it to america by mail wrapped in damp mosses, and trust that it will reach kanawha with life enough to live and thrive in its west virginia home. along the roadside, not far from where i found the seedling, were lying a fine pair of _skjis_, just as the wearer laid them aside, only to be worn when winter shall return. the norwegian does not need to lock his door! upon the mossy, marshy, moorland summits and divides which we have traversed, i have noticed widespread beds of peat. in some places these are extensively worked, large areas being uncovered and the squares of peat piled up to dry. the existence of this fuel has proved a godsend to norway, for the forests are often distant and year by year the woodlands diminish. although there are some inferior coal beds in southern sweden, there are none in norway, and for fuel her peat beds and her forests are her sole domestic supply. and yet, despite this lack of fuel, it seems to me that norway is dowered with enormous stores of power. she possesses water power without stint. king winter surely cannot freeze up all the streams. will not the day yet come when the harnessed water powers of norway may run the turbines which will supply the world? [illustration: dalen on the bandaks vand.] it is yet early september; the belated summer of this far northern land, to our strange eyes, is just begun. the meadows are green; the fields of grain are scarcely yellowed; in the markets of kristiania we see daily exposed for sale fresh-ripened strawberries; in our virginian latitude it would be the season of the month of may. yet we see big stacks of firewood piled near each farmhouse door; we see the cabin newly banked with earth against the frost; at blacksmith's shop we see men hammering on well-used sled; alongside the road, awaiting the winter's need, lies an upturned snowplow newly ironed; everywhere men are making ready for the cold. in a fortnight the highway across the haukeli fjeld will be blocked with new-fallen snow. in a month the jingling bells of sleighs and sledges will sound along the now verdant valley of the baegna elv. a year ago, when traveling in mexico, in southern michoacan, the tropical precipitancy of the night was sure to take me unawares. i was never quite prepared for the sharp transition from day to night. the hot red sun rested a moment above the towering cordillera, then it dipped behind, and the cold white stars instantly shone forth. here in norway my senses are equally surprised. it is already september and yet "early candle light," means near ten o'clock. the day dies slowly. the contours of vale and mountain almost imperceptibly fade upon the eye. a violet blueness softens form and hue. little by little the violet changes into gray, and then the grayness pervades the air as though the shadow of some phantom raven's wing overspread the world. at nine o'clock, at half past nine, at ten o'clock, the goats and cattle are awake--we have made long day-drives by reason of the limits to our time--i wonder if they ever sleep. the sparrows and gray-coated crows fly soberly across our way; a magpie softly flutters to the road. i hear no bird-songs, only faint twitters, no chirping crickets, no piping frogs and newts, none of the evening sounds of my virginian countryside. a hush creeps over _dal_ and _fjeld_ and _fjord_, even as do the mysterious violet and gray shadows. we ourselves are drowsed. i do not speak to h nor she to me. to the ponies ole mon has ceased to talk. the world is stilled. we draw long breaths, inhale the delicious air, lean back against the cushions of our seat, and daydream amidst this hush of man and thing. the old norse driver of the roldal cautions h to watch. "this is the hour," he says, "when the elves and pixies stir abroad. count the fifth meadow from where you stand and there they are always sure to be." thus have we driven through the twilight, the mysterious, lingering twilight of this far and almost arctic north. this is the last letter you will receive from norway and i am sure that you will agree with me, after reading what i have sent you, that nowhere in all the world may one have a more delightful outing. [illustration: norse women raking hay.] as to expenses, i figure it up that the total cost for both of us is a little less than five dollars per day, which includes our carriage, our driver, our eating, our sleeping and the liberal fees which, like good americans, we have everywhere bestowed. here in norway the _oere_ (two and one-half cents) is as big as the quarter, and the _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents) as big as the dollar. how long the _oere_ will loom so large i dare not say, for the american invasion is begun, and i fear the _kroner_ will soon be no bigger than the dime. xiv. kristiania to stockholm--a wedding party--differing norsk and swede. stockholm, sweden, _september , _. we came over here night before last from kristiania, by the night train; by _sovevogn_ (sleep-wagon), the first i have tried in europe. we traveled first-class and had a compartment to ourselves. about p. m. a porter came in at a way-station, put all our bags out in the corridor, pulled out the round cushions at the back of the seats and put them into the overhead racks; he then pulled out a linen cover with which he overlaid the long seat, and unholed small, wee pillows from a cavity at the end of each seat; the beds were made! later, another man informed me that we could have sheets at one _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents) each; but these we declined. fortunately, we had with us our heavy sea rugs. i put h into my long gray overcoat, did her up in the blanket and rug, and tucked her big golf cape over her. then i put on my blanket smoking jacket, my slippers and cap, rolled up in a blanket and rug, and so we slept comfortably on our narrow seat-beds. there was no heat in the car, and only one toilet room for both sexes! the night was cold and it was with difficulty we managed to keep warm. such is the modern european method of running a sleeping car. [illustration: stockholm.] the train we traveled in was crowded. in our car every compartment was filled. there were two groups of travelers who interested us. the first was a party of americans, a petite elderly woman, keen, lively, very much mistress of herself, evidently accustomed to command, and with her two pretty black-eyed american girls, "pert," "sassy," and used to receiving the homage of man! in their company were half a dozen tall, blond-bearded, blue-eyed viking youths, entirely willing to be commanded and to render homage. they were all in uniform, a dark blue cloth with red facings and a very little gold braid. the blue eyes shot tender glances, we thought, the black ones defending against cupid's darts with great vivacity. each young man presented an enormous bouquet to the elderly woman, and one gave her a basket of fruit--the girls got nothing, only the blue-eye-flashes. and how eagerly the young men promised to call on the elderly woman, if ever they should be so fortunate as to visit new york! and all the while the two american belles laughed and smiled and smote yet deeper through the dark blue uniforms. the departing train almost carried away with us one fair-haired giant. all the military caps came off with sweeping bows, while two handkerchiefs fluttered from the windows. the other group took us by storm and also captured the train. before we knew it, there was a surging crowd outside the car and the roar of many viking throats. and then into the compartment next to ours rushed a pack of ladies, one of them all in white, with a sweet face half hid in a pink satin bonnet. a little man with waxed moustache, curly black hair, wearing a stovepipe hat, and clad in evening dress, followed close behind. the women admitted him, as though by right, but no other man was let inside. it was a wedding party. a wedding in high life. he was a professor at upsala. she was one of kristiania's fairest daughters. they had been married in the fru kirke in the afternoon. she had had a big reception at her home. the friends and guests were now come down to the train to see them off. she was large and fair and rosy, yet in her early twenties. he was small and weazen, shriveled and swarthy. they called him "herr doctor," evidently recognizing his eminent standing. flowers and rice and a white satin slipper were thrown into the window. there was tremendous hugging and kissing of the bride by all the women,--i could not see that here the men had any show,--and pandemonium still prevailed upon the station platform when the train pulled out. later in the night i was awakened by shouts and then most glorious singing. i sat up with a start, the melody pulsing through my brain. the student corps from the university of upsala had come down to the junction where the newly-wedded pair would change cars, to welcome their professor and his bride. they were singing a mighty welcome. and it was such full-toned, full-voiced, perfect and practiced singing by the hundreds of young men who seemed to be on hand! i fell asleep as our train went on, the splendid harmony of the well-trained voices filling me with dreams of realms not far away from paradise. next morning i was about dressed, and h was adjusting her skirt, when the doors, which i thought securely locked, flew open and a burly red-faced uniformed official thrust himself in. he came to take away the pillow cases! he did not seem to think he in any way intruded; privacy is not much respected this side the sea. our toilets were scarcely made when the train came to a stop in the station at stockholm. indeed h was not yet quite ready, when another official in uniform again burst open the door and began grabbing our effects. to his astonishment he was forthwith ejected and the door shut in his face. when we were finally dressed i went out and found him waiting for us on the station platform. he was a licensed porter. we were first obliged to fetch all our belongings to the custom house, where important-looking officials, in gray uniforms trimmed with red, asked perfunctory questions and hurriedly passed us through--an exercise of swedish authority which seemed quite unnecessary since we came direct from norway under the same king. this done, our porter then gathered up our bags and rugs, put them into a little two-wheeled push cart and started out across the square. here again i came near meeting the fate of the tenderfoot. we did not know the location of the hotel continental; i stepped up to a cabby and told him we wanted to be taken to that hotel. a man in uniform gave me a brass check with "no. " marked on it, pointing to a cab standing in a long row which also bore a no. . i handed the brass check to no. cabby, and was putting in my bag when our porter pointed to the farther side of the square. there was our hostelry, not three hundred feet away! i took out my bag from the carriage, in spite of protest, and walked to the hotel. the driver claimed a fare of half a _kroner_ and raised a mighty clamor, but i vowed i would not give him an _oere_. thus you must have your eyes about you when you come to a city you do not know. the continental is a fine hotel. the rooms are supplied with electric lights and with telephones (good ones, not the imperfect london system). we have a large front room, facing the vasa gatan, with dressing room and ante-room, handsomely furnished, and as clean as anything can be. we are fain to be content with the fourth story, although we asked for the tenth, and a new modern elevator takes us up and also down; all this costs only six _kroner_ a day ($ . ) for the two of us. our breakfasts are served in our room, two eggs each, a pot of coffee, boiled milk and cream, a basket of rolls, fresh radishes, cold tongue, cold veal, smoked goose breast, anchovies, cold smoked salmon, cheese, each in a neat little dish by itself, and a big round flat slab of slightly salted butter; all for one and a half _kroner_ each, three _kroner_ for us two (eighty-one cents). you receive much for your money here in scandinavia. [illustration: king's palace, stockholm.] the spirit of stockholm, although intensely scandinavian, is yet widely different from that of either copenhagen or kristiania. it is a difference, not so much to the eye, as to the feeling. the city presents the same substantial and solid types of buildings, there are the same high walls of stone and dark red brick, and sharp-gabled roofs covered with heavy tiles, the same square towers, the same spindly leanness to the steepled churches, and in the older sections the narrow streets are paved from wall to wall with the same big squares of granite. the people are mostly blue-eyed and fair-haired like their kindred danes and norsks. but here the likeness ends and you feel it the instant you pass out upon the street. i missed at once that certain self-containment, based upon unostentatious self-respect, which marks the norsk, where no man knows a lord but god, and manhood suffrage everywhere prevails. i missed that composure of manner and self-assurance to the step, which lets men look you calmly in the eye without offense, that spirit, which takes for granted the perfect equality of man and man. i instantly felt myself among men of another temper. the alert, frank, self-respecting manner of the norsk is lacking in the swede. i found myself again among a "lower class," who have no votes, and treat you with sullen servility, and also among men with the swashbuckling manners of military caste. stockholm is full of young officers in natty uniforms, who strut along the streets aping the braggart insolence one meets among the soldier-bestridden germans. the peasant and townsman must also here step aside to let these yunker soldiery pass on. militarism hangs heavy over stockholm, where the scions of an impecunious aristocracy think to find in dashing uniform and truculent german manner a restoration of the noble military traditions of the past. the norwegian looks out upon the twentieth century and finds his inspiration in the example of free america and the universal equality of man. the swede looks ever backward to the glorious days of gustavus vasa, gustavus adolphus and charles xii, and sighs for a return of the good old times when the half of europe trembled before sweden's military might. the lofty mountains and profound valleys, the savage mystery of fathomless _fjords_, the wondrous immensity of the unknown and illimitable sea, which fired the brain and pricked the energy of the norseman, and made him poet, pirate, explorer and conqueror through a dozen successive centuries, were all unknown to the practical-minded swede. his monotonous forests, his sandy levels and shallow gulfs, his pond-like and insignificant baltic sea, stirred no fibre of his imagination; nor when he crossed those narrow waters and set foot upon the flat and barren shores of germanic and slavic europe, was there anything in their sombre forests and limitless plains and desolate marshes to arouse within him the fire of his soul. war with the flaxen-haired savages, who swarmed upon these lands like myriad wolves, was his only exercise. he sailed up the gulf of bothnia till he entered the arctic wastes where dwelt the laps; he followed the shores of the gulf of finland, and explored the river neva and lake ladoga and connecting streams, and even crossed to the waters of the mighty volga, and entered asia by the caspian sea; he ascended the lesser russian rivers, and pitched fortified camps along their banks, founding revel and riga and novogorod, whence the swedish ruriks gave to the muskovites their earliest czars. he ruled finland and esthonia and livonia and courland, and even begat sigismund, the polish king. for centuries he warred with and ruled these slavic tribes until at last, driven back to his narrow peninsula, the mainland knew him only as defeated and expelled. a practical, unimaginative fighting man was the swede. he loved war for war's own sake, and when he had no longer reason to war for conquest or defense, he clung to pike and sword as permanent substitute for plow and seine, and hired himself to bickering slav and german and grew famous as a "mercenary," who spilled his blood for pay and the plunder of his master's foes. thus have the cousin peoples swung wide apart. the one, free and open-minded; the other, still dazed by the faded glories of a long dead past, turns ever a wistful eye toward the military tyrannies of czar and kaiser, and finds in the inequalities of landed noble and landless yokel, in official and military caste and enthralled peasantry, the realization of his fifteenth century ideal. [illustration: a swedish church.] [illustration: ancient swedish fortress.] thus, as i have wended my way along the vasa and freds gatans and neighboring streets, toward the fine gustaf adolf torg, the chief public square, mixing among the jostling crowds, have i felt keenly the variant atmospheres of these norse and swedish lands, differences which finding their roots in the historical development of the kindred peoples make their present union beneath a single flag and king both artificial and constrained. while on the surface and to the feeling there is apparently wide divergence in political sentiment between the norwegian and swedish peoples, yet there is in reality a closer and closer approachment between them. the democratic notions prevailing in norway already stir the pulse of the swedish peasantry and working classes--the classes which in sweden have no votes. already has the demand for universal suffrage been raised in sweden, and sentiment inimical to aristocracy, yunkerdom and privilege, grows continually more aggressive. an intelligent and aristocratic swede with whom i have discussed this question to-day, admits this rising tide of democracy, and admits, also, though ruefully, that not until universal suffrage shall become established in sweden will it be possible to come to that understanding with the norwegian people on which may be founded a lasting and united scandinavian state. thus in sweden itself, i hear uttered sentiments very nearly akin to those which caught my ear when in copenhagen: the possibility, nay, probability, of a common scandinavian union, when the peoples of denmark and norway and sweden shall federate, and the obsolete system of kingship and privilege shall be set aside. [illustration: a band of swedish horses.] xv. stockholm the venice of the north--life and color of the swedish capital--manners of the people and their king. stockholm, _september , _. while wandering about the city i have not taken a guide. a guide or a courier is to me always a very last resort, but i have followed the movement of the crowd, and enjoyed the being lost in it, immersed in it, becoming one with it, while yet so separate. i could not read the signs, nor understand the speech. i could only see. my vision became my one guiding sense. my eyes became abnormally alert. color and form and action,--i caught them all. and what i saw, my mind held fast. thus i wandered on through many quaint and ancient _gatans_ (streets) past _plats_ and _torgs_ (open squares), and over _bros_ (bridges), and yet i felt secure and well assured that, returning, i should find my way safely back. i knew each corner of a street, each square, each unusual sign, each building of strange design, even as at home i have often wandered alone among the wild mountains and forests with nothing for a guide but my eyes, the sun, and my knowledge of moss and tree. thus has my early training always served me well in foreign lands and cities, where speech was strange, and i myself unknowing and unknown. [illustration: the shore of lake maelaren, stockholm.] my first quest was a bookstore, a map, and an english or french or german-worded guide book, which would tell me of what i saw. by great good luck, i happened immediately upon the object of my search. i saw a window holding maps. i entered a small shop, and found it the "bureau" of the "national tourists' union," with german spoken perfectly. this bureau is maintained by the enterprising citizens of stockholm, and for most moderate cost gives information to tourists, and publishes a series of fine maps, showing every road and lake and mountain and town and inn in sweden. i bought a set of the maps and one in particular of the city. thus fortified i was now perfectly equipped. our few days' sojourn in stockholm has taught me to like the swede, although he is quite lacking in the hearty frankness of the norsk. stockholm has always been a spot where men have congregated, and has been a city known as such these last eight centuries, ever since birger jarl made it the seat of his pirate power. it holds the passage between the lakes maelaren, which stretch far inland and now form the eastern section of the great gotta system of canals reaching across sweden to the kattegat and atlantic ocean, and the deeply indented waters of the baltic sea, thus being a natural place of rendezvous and commerce; it was a place easy of access before men had roads and mostly traveled by boats. here the kings of sweden have always set their capital, and the history of stockholm is the history of the swede himself. in past ages, disorders and massacres and open murders have drenched with blood her streets and her great public squares, and stockholm's dungeons have their tales of horror and wickedness to tell. she was cruel and turbulent when sweden herself was harsh and savage, she is now equally serene and contented under the liberal rule of enlightened king oscar ii, and is become one of the best-ordered and most beautiful cities of the world. by reason of the many islands within her limits, she is called the "venice of the north," and by reason of her cleanliness, the substantial character of her modern buildings, and the efficiency of her municipal government she is termed the "edinburgh of the baltic." stockholm is more scientifically advanced, and more modernly wide-awake than are the german and english cities of to-day. she has a fine and bountiful water supply, an elaborate and efficient telephone system, and is probably more thoroughly and effectively illuminated by electricity than any city in europe. the older quarters of the city are well paved and scrupulously clean; in the newer sections are blocks of stately buildings of modern design, and wide boulevards and avenues paved with asphalt and squares of stone. her public buildings, her numerous _plats_ and _torgs_ and lovely parks are all exquisitely kept. we spent one delightful morning crossing the wide stone bridge of norrbro, and viewing the royal palace, the state apartments, and royal library, and the fine old church of riddarsholm, which is the westminster abbey of sweden, her pantheon, where lie entombed the bones of gustavus adolphus and the ashes of charles xii, and members of the house of vasa, along with other illustrious swedes. the old church is of red brick, topped by a curious wrought-iron steeple, and is the shrine to which come all patriotic swedes, there to contemplate the departed glories of their fatherland. [illustration: the cathedral of riddarsholm.] of an afternoon, we visited the famous djurgaard (deer park) and then went on to the park called skansen, where are gathered a most interesting collection illustrative of the ancient swedish way of living, as well as examples of the ancient industries, exemplified by charming lively peasant girls clad in their divers provincial costumes. we then also climbed the tower set upon the hill, whence spread out before us a superb vista of the city and its many islands and surrounding waters, and wide-sweeping woods and forests. we also crossed among the islands upon dapper electric launches which ferry between, and then came back to dine in a fashionable restaurant under the grand hotel near the quay, where were small tables, and where sat men in dress coats and handsome women in evening dress--generally high-necked--and we were given fresh strawberries--this september th--and savory mutton chops and fresh-grown peas, and fruits and ices. the streets at all hours of the day and evening were astir and gay. the many officers in blue and gray uniforms, patterned after the german styles, the dalecarlian girls in their picturesque bright barred aprons and braided hair, carrying packages and bundles--the messenger boys of the north--the blue-eyed and yellow-haired men and women neatly and soberly clad, and the absence of all beggars--we did not come across a single one,--the multitude of boats, great and small, constantly moving rapidly up and down and across the many lanes of water, all these gave animation to the city. the streets of stockholm are filled with women, more like the german towns, while, just as there, scores of sturdy men stand idly around decked out in soldier's uniform. rosy-cheeked young women wait upon you in the restaurants; women armed with big brooms sweep at the crossings; women come in from the country driving carts loaded with produce of the farm; and women also largely "man" the small boats that ply along the waters between the islands. woman is here as greatly in evidence as she is in boston, but of a huskier, heartier type. visiting the markets, i found a great profusion of strawberries, whortleberries, blueberries and others i did not know, and withal, most of the vegetables my kanawha garden would yield in june. these fruits of tree and soil are brought into the city by chunky native horses hitched to little two-wheeled carts, which horses, when they reach their destination, are securely halted by a strap or line passed around their two fore fetlocks, tying the feet tight together, a treatment an american horse would scarcely endure. [illustration: norrbro, stockholm.] another day h and i wandered across the norrbro and beyond the palace and down near the storkyrko brink, and discovered a curious little coffeehouse, tucked away up a flight of creaking stairs, in an ancient building which seemed to be a counting-house below and offices above. here were set against the walls little mahogany tables holding three and four, where plates were laid without a cloth, and ale and beer were served in tall pewter mugs. we called for the foaming brown brew and asked for _roed spoette_, our old danish joy, and lunched delightfully. the room was filled with big, burly, red-cheeked men, merchants and sea captains, h thought, from what bits of conversation she could pick up. a most substantial company they were, who evidently came here to strike weighty bargains as well as to eat and drink and smoke. we were doubtless lunching in a well-known and most ancient rendezvous, much like the historic grill room i discovered in london, called "toms," where dickens' and mr. pickwick's chairs are shown to the visitor, and the waiter will inform you on just what sort of kidney broil and roasted sausage each made his daily meal. stockholm divides with copenhagen the honors of being the metropolis of the scandinavian world, boldly asserting her superiority over kristiania, for she is the larger city. she is easily first in sweden in all save scholarship and learning--in that, upsala, the cornell and harvard of the north, holds unrivaled lead. the fine stores and shops, along such streets as the dronning gatan and regerings gatan and adjacent thoroughfares, h declares quite equal to those of copenhagen; while in an ancient and narrow alleyway she discovered a perfect mint of embroideries and linens, articles of feminine apparel which rejoice her heart. on our last evening we attended the royal opera, occupying a box quite to ourselves, where we heard good singing and well-rendered music by the royal band, beheld a fashionably-dressed and intelligent-looking audience, and were stared at by old king oscar who sat rigid in his box, and glared at us with a mighty black opera-glass until he had studied each feature of the stranger guests, and by his persistence thereby directed upon us the curiosity of every other pair of opera glasses in the house. the example of the king was quite in accordance with continental custom, where the glare of opera-glasses is astonishingly bold. nor does the impudent stare stop at that, but in stockholm, just as in paris and berlin, between the acts very many of the men rise up, put on their hats, turn their backs to the stage, and deliberately focus their glasses upon the faces of every attractive woman in the theater, no matter how near she may be, nor how annoying this treatment may appear; and often two or three young men will then compare notes, and unite in a common stare, bold and insolent. to avoid this unpleasant ordeal, ladies very generally rise from their seats, leave the theater and promenade in the foyers until the curtain rises and the impudent glasses are put down. we have secured tickets and berths for the voyage to st. petersburg across the baltic sea and gulf of finland. we sail to-night, and are to arrive on tuesday morning, a voyage of three nights and two days, a distance of six hundred miles. we have now visited the three capitals of scandinavia, copenhagen, kristiania and stockholm, and have spent a month among these kindred peoples. while i had learned in america to esteem the vigor, the intelligence and the worth of our scandinavian immigration, no finer race contributing to the citizenship of the republic, yet it has been only when i have met the dane and norsk and swede upon their native soil, and beheld their noble cities, so alert and clean and modern, and traversed their hills and valleys, and climbed their mountain heights and floated upon their _fjords_, that i have learned fitly to admire and appreciate the grandeur and greatness of scandinavia. xvi. how we entered russia--the passport system--difficult to get into russia and more difficult to get out. st. petersburg, russia, _september , _. it is not easy to get into russia; it is yet more difficult to get out. before leaving the united states, i had taken due precautions and secured a passport from the state department, signed by secretary hay, with the great seal of the united states upon it. in that passport i was described. i had also provided myself with a special letter from the state department, in which all consuls and officials of the united states in foreign lands had been bidden to pay particular heed to my welfare, for i was vouched for as a worthy and respected citizen of the republic. i presumed that, armed with these credentials, i should find all doors and gateways open to my passage. i assumed that the autocracy of the russian empire would be delighted to welcome a citizen of the great republic, so well accredited. imagine my surprise, when i presented myself at the ticket office of the russian steamship line, by which we would travel to st. petersburg, and was refused a ticket because i did not then have my passport in hand, so that the ticket-seller might duly scrutinize it! an hour later, when i again presented myself with the passport and laid down the coin, i was a second time refused. the passport had not been certified by the american minister in stockholm, our port of departure, nor had it been _viséed_ by the russian consul general of the port. i immediately drove to the american ministry, a mile away, where the swedish clerk endorsed my passport as being genuine, and gave me a note to the russian official. a drive of another mile brought me to a tall stone building, above the door of which reposed the imperial eagle. ascending two flights of stairs, i was shown into a small ante-room, and, after waiting some time, was ushered into a large, well-lighted chamber, where a big, round-headed, bearded man, in russian uniform, sat at a long table. he was writing. he did not deign to look up. after standing some moments before this important personage, i called his attention in my best french, to the fact that i was there. still he made no reply, but kept on writing. i noticed that he was nearly to the bottom of the page; when he had finished it, he looked up and inquired in german what i wanted. i replied in german that i called upon him to have my passport _viséed_, and handed him the document and the note. he read the latter and looked at the former, but the description of my person was in english and he was evidently stumped. he gazed at me and the paper, took up a metal stamp, pressed it on an ink pad, made on the passport the imprint of some russian characters, signed his name to them, and advised me that i was his debtor to the extent of twenty _kroners_ (about five dollars). he then turned again to his writing. i had thus spent three hours in driving about the city, visiting these officials, and now hurried to the steamship office, where on presenting my passport duly _viséed_, i at last obtained the tickets. upon boarding the ship, at a later hour, we were notified to call at the captain's office and surrender our passports, which were then once more verified, along with our tickets, before we cast off from the pier. we left stockholm about eight o'clock in the evening. we were a party of four,--h and myself, and the two delightful friends whom we met that day at maristuen, at the head of the laera dal, in norway. the suggestions then first made had ripened into a definite plan, and we agreed to join forces for our journey through russia. our friends were mr. and mrs. condit, of chicago, and we found their ready western wit and genial fellowship on more than one occasion of most signal aid. we crossed the baltic sea in the night, and touched at the russian port of hangoe, in finland, early sunday morning. here i noticed a messenger in uniform leave the ship bearing a long iron box heavily padlocked, and was informed that this box contained the passports of the passengers, which he was to take to st. petersburg by a special imperial train that would put him there in twenty-three hours, when the passports would be immediately filed with the police department, verified, recorded and given to certain other officials who would meet our ship on its arrival at the mouth of the river neva on tuesday morning, and who would examine and scrutinize us and then return them to us. if in the meantime, we should happen to change our minds and want to remain a few days in finland, say at helsingfors, we would be liable to arrest for not having our passports now gone to st. petersburg. we might not change our minds or alter our itinerary. it was now st. petersburg or jail. the twilight was just fading into night when we cast off from the pier and slowly made our way among the islands. the sail down the narrow channel to the sea was in the light of the full moon. the myriad electric lights of the city were blazing behind us. we passed the black hulls of many vessels anchored in the harbor, and in turn were passed by scores of little boats, with a big light on the foremast, which were scurrying about carrying passengers between the islands. along the wooded shores were villas and country-seats, and ever and anon, there seemed to be open clearings and farms, and then we came into the blackness of wide waters. we were out upon the baltic sea. in the morning we were among more islands; the aaland archipelago; we had had only two hours of the open sea. the sun was behind a mass of scudding clouds, gray and threatening; and great banks of blacker clouds were rolling up from the south. a gale was blowing--a furious gale--which drove the waters and whirling foam wherever open space allowed. the wind was bitterly cold, and grew ever colder, while higher and higher rose the tempest. we were in great danger, although at the time i did not know it. the steering of the swedish pilots was skillful, and the little ship obeyed the helm perfectly, swinging round sharp points, and traversing narrow channels where, even in quiet waters, it is dangerous to navigate. about noon we slipped in between two rocky islets, scarcely a cable-tow's length apart, rising only a few feet above the level of the sea, and turning sharp to port came into the rock-bound harbor of hangoe, a town of finland, whence the railway goes on to helsingfors and st. petersburg. the gale now grew into a tornado with deluges of rain, a storm so fierce that, until it should subside, the captain refused to leave the protection of the port. thus we lay-to at hangoe until the dawn of the following day, when we cast off from the long pier and plunged once more among the islands of the archipelago. hundreds of islands there were, barren and uninhabited, the big ones covered with dwarf birches, a few stunted pines and firs, the lesser islets thick with tangled grasses, or more often bare of all except lichens and gray moss, the vegetation of a desolate, wintry latitude. [illustration: facing the gale.] the wind was now somewhat abated, but not so the sea. it was angry, stirred to its depths. it was a bad day for a landsman,--a bad day even for an old salt. two stalwart seamen stood ever at the wheel in addition to the pilot and our captain, and it took all their combined strength and skill to save us from certain wreck. the conflicting currents churned and swirled with maelstrom violence, while we crept steadily on among the shoals and sunken bars and hidden reefs. it was long past noon when we swung round a bold rocky point, and saw before us finland's capital, helsingfors. the city surrounds the harbor much like a crescent. on either horn, granite promontories jut out into the sea, where are fortifications, one of them the formidable fortress of sveaborg, where we could see brown-coated cossacks gathered in large numbers watching our entrance to the port. a great garrison there seemed to be, and everywhere floated the russian flag,--parallel stripes of white, blue and red. russian troops not merely man all these fortifications, but there are also soldiers within the city itself, and more are quartered in every village of consequence in finland. the ancient senate and house of chevaliers are no longer permitted to enact the laws. a russian governor-general issues his ukases, which the russian bayonets are here savagely to enforce. all this you already know, but it comes vividly upon one when you see the cossack, clad in his long kaftan-like military coat, everywhere about you visible evidence of how harshly finland has been stripped of her rights and liberties. helsingfors astonished us. lying upon a rising slope, it presents an imposing outline from the sea. it is a city of ninety-six thousand people. we were not prepared for so large and substantial a city. it has well-kept parks, well-paved streets, frequently asphalted as in stockholm, and blocks of big granite buildings five and six stories high; the city is clean, and the streets are alive with well-dressed, rosy-cheeked, vigorous people. everywhere there are electric tram-cars and electric lights, and on the broad thoroughfares are large and handsome shops. it is evident that in the finnish hinterlands there is an extensive and well-to-do population. our ship was to lie at her pier for several hours, and the passengers were told that they might safely visit the town; if arrested for not having passports, we might refer to the captain of the ship. so we wandered up along the quays, following a wide boulevard. everywhere on the sidewalks and driving through the streets were russian officials in their long gray coats and flat black caps; there were also many soldiers upon the streets. finland was once a province of sweden, and the teutonic swedish language is yet that of the educated classes, who are chiefly of swedish descent. in the country, however, and among the working classes, there remains the original population of primitive finnish race, "the old finns," cousins to the hungarians, and these have a turanian language of their own. they have accepted for centuries the swedish rule and fraternized with the swedish leaders, but have held to their ancient tongue. now is also the slavonic russian speech, by ukase, commanded to be the language of the schools, of the courts and of the government. thus the finlander must be acquainted with three fundamentally different tongues, and all of the streets of helsingfors are named in the three languages on the same placard. the russian name is in greek text, then in latin text the swedish name, and under that the native finnish name; thus there is much babel of tongues in helsingfors, while all the finlanders bitterly resent the brutal attempt to substitute the russian for their own. [illustration: fishing boats along the quay, helsingfors.] [illustration: the pier, helsingfors.] finland has, also, heretofore been privileged to coin her own money,--but now the russian _ruble_ is supreme. we had boarded a tram-car, as modern and comfortable as those of new york, and were whirling along the boulevard, when we tendered the conductor our fare in russian coin (we had provided ourselves with "_kopeeks_" and _rubles_ before leaving stockholm), but he declined to take the money. he was about to stop the car and put us off, when a courtly-mannered finn, addressing the passengers as well as the conductor, explained that, under the present laws, russian money must be taken when tendered, and that we were entitled to ride,--so h tells me, who understood his speech, so much is it like the danish. but the conductor, patriot that he was, refused to touch the _ruble_ i offered him, preferring to let us ride without making charge. if i had been able to do so, i would have explained to our fellow-passengers that i intended no insult, and would thus probably have restored myself to their confidence. as it was they glowered at me as a friend of hated russia. we visited the splendid parliament buildings, where the finnish senate and house of chevaliers have been wont to meet,--now closed forever by the ukase of the czar. i understand, also, that the finnish judges have recently been deposed from the courts, and russians appointed in their stead; and we were told by a friendly finn that so completely are the people terrorized, that no patriot dare give open evidence of opposition to the russian rule. one may only detect it by the sullen, disquieted faces of the people one meets upon the streets. in the dour glances cast at the russian officials i saw everywhere expression of hatred and revenge.[ ] [footnote : the reverses of the japanese war, the assassination of governor bobrikoff and threat of revolution have at last frightened the russian autocracy into partially restoring to finland her pillaged liberties.] it was middle afternoon when we set sail again. no other vessel dared leave the port, but our captain, being anxious to reach st. petersburg, decided to venture on the voyage. as soon as we emerged from the protecting barriers of the islands at the harbor's mouth, we came into open waters. a furious sea was running and the ship rolled heavily. she plunged and reared and pitched, until most of the passengers were driven to their staterooms,--indeed, so mad was now the sea that we were told there would be no more hot coffee and hot steak, since the cooks in the kitchen could not keep their legs, nor could dishes be set upon the tipping tables. those who were able to eat might get a snack from the steward, who would hand it out--cold fish and cheese at that. the boat rolled until her gunwales were awash, and frequently the roaring waters swept across the decks. although it was a wild and dangerous night, yet the clouds were parting and the stars were out. no grander panorama of the sea have i looked upon than these mighty foam-capped billows--greater even than our ship,--between which we hid, and on the summits of which we climbed,--the angry, pitch-black waters, the star-lit firmament, and the serene moon shining with fullest splendor. [illustration: the doebln at her pier, helsingfors.] [illustration: market square, helsingfors.] at dawn on tuesday morning, we passed the great naval fortification of kronstadt, and three hours later, after threading our way among fishing boats, were entering the canal which leads from the gulf of finland to the river neva and the city of st. petersburg. south and east of us, behind low shores, the land stretched away green and flat as far as the eye could see, an apparently indefinitely extending plain. only the glint of a gilded oriental dome, the bulbous cupola of a russian village church, lightened here and there the green monotony. then far to the east we saw not one but many domes glittering and flashing in the light of the lifting sun--the gilded towers of the cathedrals and churches of the city of st. petersburg--then we saw a tangle of tall chimneys, then ships and barks and schooners and enormous barges from lake ladoga, and immense docks on either side. we were upon the river neva. we were come to the city of "petersborg," the splendid capital of the russian czars. just as we were entering the canal, a steam-tug came up alongside us and a company of government officials in long gray coats climbed on board. they were the customs inspectors and officers of the police department. the two chief officials seated themselves at a long table. an officer of the ship directed the passengers to form in a queue, and one by one we appeared before the official examiner, while the captain called off our names, reading the list from a little book. when my name was announced a clerk handed one of the officials a passport. it was numbered--my name was upon it--it had been received in st. petersburg from the messenger who left hangoe sunday morning;--it had been filed with the police department; it had been _viséed_; it had been translated into russian, and the official now read over the description to his assistants;--i was scrutinized,--the passport was found correct--the officials so endorsed it and handed it to me. the passenger immediately behind me, seemingly, did not correspond with his passport, and was directed to stand to one side. there were a number of these, who were to have a difficult time with the authorities. our baggage was also examined, but not closely. with the russian official the main thing is the passport, not the baggage. [illustration: a wild sea--leaving helsingfors.] [illustration: fishing boats, mouth of river neva.] we were now arrived at the pier and were ready to go ashore. two sailors carried our small steamer trunk upon the wharf, and we were in st. petersburg. instantly we were surrounded by a howling mob of bearded, blond-headed, dressing-gown-coated men, clamoring for our fares. they were _izvostchiks_ in their native _kaftans_. i beckoned to one of them, and pointed to our trunk. he lifted it to his shoulder and led us to his _droschky_,--a diminutive open vehicle, much like a small sledge on wheels. we entered it and in a moment were galloping through the streets of the city, the driver constantly shouting to his horse and yelling to all foot-farers to get out of the way. i gave him the name of our destination, hotel de l'europe. he seemed to comprehend my meaning, and never drew rein until we stopped before the imposing entrance of that hostelry. we were in russia. we had run the gauntlet of the border,--our passports had been sufficient, and we were at last safely within the dominions of the czar. would it be as difficult to get out? xvii. st. petersburg--the great wealth of the few--the bitter poverty of the many--conditions similar to those preceding the french revolution.[ ] [footnote : these letters were written in the early autumn of the year, , and present a glimpse of russia as it then appeared.] grand hotel de l'europe, st. petersburg, russia, _september (n. s.), _. so much has been jammed into the last two days that my pen is like to burst. splendor and squalor, the glitter of twentieth century civilization, the sombre shadow of barbarism, are here entwined in inextricable comminglement. the city is filled with stately buildings of gigantic and imposing dimensions; with wide, straight boulevards and streets. the sidewalks and _droschkies_ are gay with the dashing and gaudy uniforms of innumerable soldiery, and the fine dresses of elegant women. yet many of these great buildings are in ill repair, and what you at first imagine to be magnificent stone, reveals itself to be a stucco of rotting wood and crumbling plaster; the broad thoroughfares are abominably paved, and pitifully cared for by abject wretches wielding dilapidated birch-stick brooms. [illustration: entering the neva.] [illustration: along the neva.] the superb horses--stallions, all of them--whirl past, driven by _izvostchiks_ in dirty, truncated plug-hats and blue dressing-gown-like _kaftans_, whose sodden faces tell of _vodka_ and hopeless haplessness. beggars swarm (frightful creatures), and the faces of the officers, fine big men in striking uniforms, are dissipated, hard and cruel. we are in a huge hotel. big men in uniform open the door; big men in livery fill the halls; the rooms are big, ours is immense, with double windows, it is steam-heated, and also has hearth fires of burning wood. the building is warmed all through, even the halls. there are french waiters in the big dining-rooms; there is delicious food and delightful coffee, whose aroma is very perfume of the orient; the beefsteaks are juicy, thick and tender. we have had no such meals since leaving america. on each story there is an elaborate bar for serving _vodka_ (a fierce white whisky distilled from wheat) and drinks to the guests of that particular floor, and a single bath room, and a single diminutive toilet for both sexes' common use. the moment we set foot within the doorway of the hotel, up stepped an official, in blue and gold, and demanded our passports, and we were requested also to sign a paper like the one enclosed, viz.: notice to the police. family and christian where is your passport? name: signature: profession: please order your passport age: two days before leaving confession: russia. arrived from .......... this to be at once filed with the police department, and the passport not to be given back until we should notify the same big official,--whose duty it was to stay right there and watch all guests of that hotel, and who must be notified twenty-four hours before we leave the city,--when he will return the passport two hours before the said time set, and give it to me only upon my paying him the government fee of ten _rubles_ (five dollars) in good yellow gold.[ ] and right outside the door of our apartments, seated at a little table, are two officials, pen and paper in hand, who set down the hour and the minute of the day we enter and come out. they were there when we went to breakfast; they, or others as fox-jowled and lynx-eyed, were also there when we returned from the theater late at night, and they are there all through the day. our swedish guide, who does the duties of courier and shows us about the great city, is also registered at the police department, and he has to hand in every night a written report of what he has done with us all through the day, where we have gone, what we have seen, and we suspect even what we may have said. on the streets, big sword-begirded policemen stand at the intersections of the ways, pull out a little book from their pockets and make note of our passing that particular spot at that certain hour; at night these reports also are handed in to the central police office to be checked up against the statements of the guide and the spies at the hotel. [footnote : i have subsequently learned that the legal fee is about three _rubles_ ($ . ), the charge of ten _rubles_ being impudent graft.] [illustration: along the nevsky-prospekt.] [illustration: our droschky, st. petersburg.] we are in the capital city of the mighty russian empire; in the capital created by peter the great amidst and upon the marshy delta of the river neva; a city of more than a million inhabitants; a city spread out over vast distances; a city whose disproportionately wide streets and boulevards are paved with wood, wood that is rotting all the while, leaving big holes into which a horse, a team, may plunge and disappear, because only wood will float upon the marshy mire of the mucky islets, and stone and brick will eventually sink from sight; a city whose top-heavy palaces and public edifices are so treacherously set upon the sands that they must constantly undergo costly repairs; a city builded upon foundations so unstable that the springtime floods of the river neva ever threaten permanently to wipe out its very existence; a city where the palaces of the always widening circle of the imperial princes of the blood, and of the upper nobility, and of the great bureaucratic chiefs, are builded with an arrogance of dimension, an elaborateness of design, a lavishness of cost that beats anything an american billionaire has ever tried to do, or dreamed of doing in san francisco or new york; and yet a city abounding in the mean, small, log and wooden cabins of the very poor; a city where penury and poverty and dire pinch protrude their squalid presence in continual tragic protest against the flaunted and wanton riot of unmeasured wealth, possessed by the very few. this morning as i walked upon the nevsky prospekt, the broadway of the imperial capital, and watched the movement of mankind along the way, and beheld the extraordinary contrasts between those who walked and those who rode; as i saw the burly policeman arrest the shabby foot-farer for nearly being run down, while he let the haughty grandee drive freely on; as i beheld poverty and wealth in such flagrant contrast, and realized that a standing army is kept ever armed and girt to protect and uphold the privilege and security of the rich; as i beheld the surly, sour, sombre faces of those who wore no gaudy covering of broadcloth and gold lace, my fancy harked back to the time, somewhat more than a century ago, when the king and nobles of france drove through the rues of paris in all their glittering splendor, trampling down in their pride of power the pedestrian who failed to escape from their sudden approach. how secure they felt in their arrogant enjoyment of prerogative and rank! how contemptuously they disdained the humble claims of the glitter-proletarian, of the peasant on the land! louis xiv had cried "_l'etat c'est moi._" was that not enough! and yet, i had stood in the place de la concorde, almost on the very spot where, inspired by the hatred of the sansculottes, mademoiselle la guillotine had bit off the dull head of louis xvi, and cut through the fair throat of marie antoinette. it may be possible for russia and her governing men, her bureaucratic autocracy, yet a little while to postpone the fateful hour. by means of foreign wars it may be possible to play the old game of diverting the public mind from its own bitter ills; by promises of fair and liberal dealing it may be possible to calm the public mind--cajole it until the promises are duly broken, as is invariably the case. whatever fair-speaking and fat-feeding officialdom may to the contrary assert, the impression i gain amidst all this splendor and pomp and glare of supreme, concentered power of the few is that, beneath this opulent exterior, deep down in the hearts and even below the conscious working of their minds, there to-day abides among the masses of the russian people--who after all hold in their hands the final power--a profound and monstrous discontent: a discontent so deep-rooted and so intense that when the inevitable hour strikes, as strike it must, the world will then behold in russia a saturnalia of blood and tears, a squaring of ten centuries' accounts, more fraught with human anguish and human joy than ever dreamed a marat and a robespierre, more direful and more glad than yet mankind have known. we drove about the city like grandees. our _landau_ was just such as russian nobles like best to use; our splendid pair of sorrel stallions pranced upon their heels and neighed and ran just as all nobles' horses should; and our well-distended driver, of enormous and deftly-padded girth, sat belted with a big embroidered band, and guided the horses he never dreamed to hold, and helloed loudly to those who did not fly out of the way, just as would any driver of the blood! we almost ran over some slow-moving man or woman, foot-weary wretch, at every crossing of a street! many palaces and public buildings we visited--enormous edifices, all of them, with innumerable and extensive halls and immense chambers finished in gold and alabaster and gaudy hues, with countless servants and lackeys in livery and lace, gold lace, to care for them, and watch over them, and fatten upon a government graft or easy-gotten fee. suites of enormous apartments they were, which are never used and never are likely to be used. the paintings of the great masters collected in the galleries of the hermitage and winter palaces, accumulated by the czars, are among the most renowned in europe. the reception halls and audience chambers and ballrooms and dining halls of these palaces are designed and intended to dazzle and impress whosoever are given the chance of beholding them. at the same time, the library and study of the late czar, alexander iii, is a small and plainly furnished room, with the atmosphere and markings of a man of simple tastes, who laboriously worked, worked as no other official of the bureaucracy in russia pretends to work. [illustration: our squealing stallions.] [illustration: cathedral of our lady of kazan.] we traversed the suites of apartments used by the imperial family, when sojourning in st. petersburg during those portions of the winter season when the court there gathers, and we noted the outer guardrooms where night and day stand the faithful watchers with sleepless vigil, and we realized, perhaps for the first time, that this man, so steeped in power, is after all but a prisoner of the system which locks him in and binds him fast and robs him of that independence of action which you and i enjoy. he is become but a creature of the great machine that governs, a slave of the system which peter the great set up for the furtherance of his imperial will, a system of government which has so developed and spread out that to-day the czar of all the russias is merely the puppet of its will, the tool of the greedy, grasping, intriguing, governing bureaucracy. on approaching the city, our straining eyes first caught sight of the gilded, glittering domes and spires of the great cathedrals and churches with which it is so abundantly supplied. the domes of st. isaac, of our lady of kazan, of alexander nevsky, and the spires of st. peter and st. paul, each and all told us that whatever else we might discover, we were yet entering a city and a land where the people counted not the cost of the splendid housing of their faith. and so we have found it. the wealth of gold and of silver, of precious stones and of priceless stuffs with which these churches are adorned and crammed, excels anything of which the western brain has ever dreamed. each great church is famed and honored for its particular beneficence, its peculiar holiness, and to each one comes in procession perpetual an innumerable throng to pray and worship and to receive the blessings flowing from that especial fane. even in the ancient log cabin, said to be the actual house erected by peter himself, is established a shrine, where priests continuously intone the beautiful service of the russian church and where thousands of devoted worshipers swarm in and out all the day long, and the night as well, praying to imperial peter's now sainted ghost. in the noble chamber of the golden-spired cathedral of st. peter and st. paul lie the white marble tombs of the romanoffs, where is also kept up throughout the day and night yet another sumptuous service for the repose of the souls of the illustrious dead. in the great monastery of alexander nevsky is each day maintained a simple and splendid choral service which multitudes attend, and where the melancholy gregorian chanting and intoning of the black-robed long-bearded monks reveal new organ stops in the human voice. naturally, an american has great sympathy for the russian people who have so little, while he has so much. in america we send our girls and boys to school as a matter of course. here in the ornate center of autocracy, i have seen no building that i recognized as a common school, nor in russia is there such a system, as we know it. [illustration: our izvostchik.] to the western mind three things stand out above all else in russia: ( ) the concentrated wealth and privilege of the few--the big grafters who have seized it all. ( ) the opulence and extraordinary power of that ecclesiastical organization, the "holy orthodox church" itself an engine of the autocratic rule,--used to cover atrocious authority with gilded cassock and priestly cope. ( ) the profound poverty and hopeless subserviency of the russian people--those who are robbed and ruined by the grafters and hoodooed by the church. xviii. en route to moscow--under military guard--suspected of designs on life of the czar. moscow, russia, _september , , p. m._ we took the imperial mail train as determined. foreign travelers generally journey by the night express, which arrives at moscow only an hour behind the imperial mail, but it leaves st. petersburg at so late an hour that there is little chance to see the country traversed. we made up our minds to take the more democratic train, which goes in the middle afternoon and stops at all way-stations. this would give us an opportunity to see more of the people as well as a longer season of daylight to watch the passing panorama of the land. we knew no reason why we should not take the train of our choice. it was true that our guide urged us to go by the night express. it was also true, when i presented my passport to the ticket agent at the railway station, the day before, and requested tickets, that he advised us to make the journey by the night express, nor would he at first agree to sell us tickets by the imperial mail, but told us to come back again two hours later, when he would let us know whether there were any berths unsold in the train's through sleeper. it was also true that when we returned, he again advised us to take the night express. but our minds were made up, and we at last secured the tickets we wanted, and became entitled to an entire stateroom upon a designated car. [illustration: our landau, st. petersburg.] when we left the hotel de l'europe, the government official to whom i had returned my passport, after having bought my tickets, emerged from his office, received graciously his ten _rubles_, and again handed me the document; the sundry flunkies in liveries and spies in uniforms obsequiously bowed us out of the establishment, and our very competent guide immediately packed us into several _droschkies_ and galloped us along the nevsky prospekt to the huge government station of the railway running to moscow. the instant our _izvostchiks_ brought their horses to a stop, we were surrounded by a swarm of porters clad in white tunic aprons and flat caps, who seized our bags, and preceded us through the large waiting room to the gates admitting to the train platform. here our tickets were scrutinized, and a group of uniformed officials, who seemed to be awaiting us, informed us that the car in which our stateroom had been sold being already filled, another stateroom in another car was placed at our disposal. they then led the way to the front of the long train, and showed us into a large combined sleeper-and-chair car immediately back of the engine. several soldiers were standing guard near by. we were evidently expected and were especially provided for. we almost had the car to ourselves. the only other passengers were a russian officer and his orderly. we were at the head of a train made up mostly of mail cars locked and sealed, having at the rear several passenger coaches. but we were separated from all these latter, and we seemed to be objects of unusual interest. many strange faces flattened against our windows, peering in at us, and the orderly locked up with us never took his eyes away from us. this did not annoy me, however, for i presumed he was admiring the beauty of our american women. the train was a long one,--and such huge cars. the russian gauge is five feet, the cars are long, and half as big and wide again as are the american cars, and are heated by steam, having double windows prepared against the cold. we had secured a whole compartment in which the two seats, facing each other, pull out and the backs lift up, making four berths, two lower, two upper, placed cross-wise. you pay one _ruble_ (fifty cents) for blankets, sheets and towels. we put h and mrs. c in the lower berths. mr. c and i took the uppers. the car had only two more staterooms, one on each side of our own, and then a large drawing-room with reclining chairs. the stateroom ahead of us was occupied by the officer; his orderly slept on a chair in the salon. in the stateroom behind us were two railway guards. after we entered the car, the door was closed and locked by an official who stood on the outside. the officer and his orderly were locked in with us. our trunk was checked through to moscow by the guide, very much as we would have done it at home. he gave me the check, and i paid him his last _pourboire_ before we entered. this was the only daily local train going southeastward, and whoever would leave st. petersburg for the way stations must travel by it. [illustration: a noble's troika.] [illustration: the railway porters, st. petersburg.] our first impression, after leaving the city, was that of the flatness and the vacantness of the land; the landscape was marked here and there with insignificant timber, birches, firs and wide reaches of tangled grasses, and seemed uninhabited. there were no sheep, no hogs, no goats. occasionally we saw herds of cattle and some horses, but very little tillage anywhere. the few houses, mostly low built, were of small-sized logs, or slabs. towns and villages were few and far apart. in the towns were rambling wooden buildings, all just alike; in the villages were log and wooden cabins, scattered along a single wide street, and these streets were deep mud and mire from door to door. here and there was a wooden church painted green, with onion-shaped steeple gilded or painted white, but there were no schoolhouses anywhere. at all the railroad stations were many soldiers, and dull-looking, shock-headed peasants, men clad in sheepskin overcoats with the wool inside, and women in short skirts wearing men's boots, or with their legs wrapped in dirty cotton cloth tied on with strings, their feet bound up in twisted straw. it was a desolate, monotonous, dreary, sombre land. we saw no smiling faces anywhere, but always were the corners of the mouth drawn down. now and then we passed a large town, with a commodious, well-built station of brick and stone. here and there we saw huge factories and mills, all belonging to the government of the czar. we stopped at lubin for supper. the guard unlocked our car, opened the door and pointed to the station, where we found a monster eatingroom with huge lunch counters on either side and long rows of tables down the middle. everybody was standing up; there were no seats anywhere. hot soft drinks were served at the side counters and smoking coffee and tall glasses of hot, clear tea. the russian swallows only hot drinks and eats only hot foods. on the center tables, set above spirit lamps, were hot dishes with big metal covers. there were glasses of hot drink for a few _kopeeks_, which the russian pours down all at once. taking a plate from a pile standing ready, you help yourself to what victuals you choose. there were hot doughnuts with hashed meat inside, hot apple dumplings, hot juicy steaks, hot stews, hot fish; all _h-o-t_. when you have eaten your fill, you pay your bill at a counter near the entrance, according to your own reckoning. the russian is honest in little things, and nobody doubts your word or questions the correctness of your payment. the eatingroom was full of big, tall, robust, fair-haired, blue-eyed men and a few women. the russian is big himself, he likes big things, he thinks on big lines, he sees with wide vision, too wide almost to be practical. hanging around the station were groups of unkempt, dirty peasants. we see such groups of gaping peasants at every station, always a hopeless look of "don't care" in their eyes. the train ran smoothly and we slept well. all russian cars are set on trucks, american fashion, and there is no jarring and bouncing as in england's truckless carriages. we traveled over an almost straight roadway, traversing the valdai hills, the brooks and rivulets of which, uniting, give rise to the mighty volga, and crossing the river passed through the city of tver during the night. it was just daylight when i awoke. i at once arose, and then waked mr. c and afterward we aroused the ladies. a different military officer and a different orderly were now traveling in our car. the officer seemed to have kept vigil in the compartment ahead of our own. when i came out of the stateroom, he was standing smoking a cigarette in the aisle just outside our door. when i went to the toilet-room he followed me and then returned to the door of our stateroom. he watched us all, even standing guard at the door of the toilet-room when occupied by the ladies. we were evidently in his charge. later, i made acquaintance with him, accosting him in german, to which he readily replied. he was a medium-sized, wiry man with dark hair and eyes, close-cropped beard and long moustaches. he was a "lieutenant-colonel of infantry," he said. the night before, as we rode along, we noticed many soldiers gathered everywhere at the stations. now there were none, but instead there was a soldier pacing up and down each side of the track, a soldier every sixteen seconds! his gun was on his shoulder. he wore a long brown overcoat reaching to his heels, and a vizored brown cap. at all the bridges there were several soldiers, at each culvert two. after a few miles of soldiers, i commented on this, to me, extraordinary spectacle, and asked the colonel what it meant. "do you not know," he said, "the czar is coming in half an hour? he is returning from the autumn manoeuvers in the south!" presently, we drew in on a siding. i wanted to go out with my kodak and take a snapshot. he said, "_es ist verboten_ (it is forbidden). you cannot go out." he then asked to see my kodak, which he examined with the greatest care, taking it quite apart. he then handed it back to me saying, apologetically, "bombs have been carried in kodak cases, you know." soon we heard the roar of an approaching train. the ladies pressed to the windows. the uniformed attendant stepped up and pulled down the shades right in their faces. i demurred to this and appealed to the colonel, who then directed the guard to raise the curtains, seeming to censure him in russian. the ladies might look. a train of dark purple cars richly gilded flashed by. was it the czar? no! only the court. another train just like the first would follow in half an hour and the czar would be on that. but none of the public might know on which train he would ride. the colonel turned to me and said, "you kill presidents in america. we would protect our czars here! we also have anarchists." [illustration: the holy savior gate. kremlin.] [illustration: our military guard bargaining for apples.] i could not forbear remarking upon the excessive number of men in uniforms, soldiers apparently, i met everywhere in russia, as well as the great expanse of vacant land, saying to him, "you have too many soldiers in russia. you should have fewer men in the army and more men out on the land tilling the soil and supporting themselves. it is unfair to those who work to be compelled to feed so many idle mouths." he answered me frankly. he said, "it is necessary to have these soldiers. the peasants are ignorant. we take their young men and make soldiers and good citizens out of them. the army is a school of instruction; it is there the peasant learns to be loyal and to shoot." and then he said with emphasis, "ah! in america you don't need to learn to shoot, you are like the boers, you all know how to shoot," which view of american dexterity, i, of course, readily acceded to. and when i asked him why it was there were no schools or schoolhouses in all this journey, he replied that it was useless to build schools for the peasant, for he did not wish to learn. he had no desire to improve. "you in america," he said, "are every year receiving the energetic young men of all europe. you are constantly recruiting with the vigor and energy of the world. you can afford to have schools. your people want schools, but the russian people want no schools. they will not learn, they will not change, and no young men ever come to russia. we receive no help from the outside. nobody comes here. nobody. nobody (_niemand, niemand_). we have always the peasant, always the peasant (_immer der bauer_)." and then he asked me about president roosevelt, and inquired whether he would succeed himself for a second term, remarking that "mr. roosevelt was greatly admired by the russian army." "the russian army sees in your president roosevelt a great man," he said, then added, "in france the jews and financiers set up a president, but in america you choose a man who is a man." we became very good friends, and he accepted from me an american cigar, one of a few i had brought along and saved for an emergency. at subsequent stations he allowed me to get out in his company, and even let me take his picture along with some of the other officers who stood about. the czar had passed. the weight of responsibility was off his shoulders, he had discovered no evidence of our being conspirators. he now treated us as friends. he even directed the car attendant to clean from the windows their accumulated dust. during all the early hours of the morning we came through the same flat, desolate, uninhabited country. it was a landscape of profound monotony, with the dark green of the firs, the frosted yellow of the birches, the withering browns of the tangled grasses, the black and sodden soil. even the crows were dressed in melancholy gray. [illustration: cathedral of the assumption, kremlin.] [illustration: along the gostinoi dvor, moscow.] xix. our arrival at moscow--splendor and squalor--enlightenment and superstition--russia asiatic rather than european. moscow, russia, _september , _. it was toward ten o'clock when we drew near the suburbs of moscow, a city of more than a million inhabitants. we saw straggling wooden houses, mostly unpainted, rarely ever more than one story high, and unpaved streets filled with country wagons, not the great two-wheeled carts of france, but long, low, four-wheeled wagons with horses pulling singly, or hitched three and four abreast; and i noted that the thills and traces of these wagons were fastened to the projecting axles of the fore wheels, the pull being thus directly on the axle, so as to lift the wheel out of the ever present mud holes. so universal has become this method of hitching up a wagon that i observed it even used on the vehicles in the cities where the streets are paved. men in high boots and sheepskin coats and felt caps were walking beside the wagons, cracking long whips. the roads appeared to be frightful sloughs of bottomless mire. our train drew into a long, low, brick station, the nicholas depot. the door of the car was unlocked, porters came in and seized our bags, and we followed them. our military escort did not even deign to say good-bye. he was writing up his note book and seemingly preoccupied. the instant we emerged from the station portal we were surrounded by a mob of roaring_izvostchiks_; a pandemonium. we picked out two of the cleaner-looking _droschkies_; the porters who had taken our checks came with the trunks on their shoulders, and we started off for our hotel. although a dozen _izvostchiks_ will wrangle and war for your custom, until you fear for your very life, yet the instant you pick your man, the others retire and peace reigns. there is no attempt to make you change your mind. the sky was overcast, drops of rain were falling, and there had been more rain earlier in the day. the cobble-paved streets were thickly overlaid with mud. surely, they had never been cleaned in a century! moscow is a city of low, one and two story buildings, generally of stone or stucco, but there are many of wood. it is a city full of reek and accumulated filth, and is apparently without sewers, or with sewers badly laid and long ago choked up. it is a city of narrow streets with many turns, and narrow sidewalks or none at all. it is an old city, the ways and alleys and streets of which have grown up as they would. the people we met were ill-clad, unwashed, unkempt, wild-eyed, shock-polled, dull-faced. they were a meaner multitude of men and women than i had ever before set eyes upon. "hotel berlin" we said to our _izvostchiks_. the word "berlin" they seemed to comprehend, and they brought us safely to our destination. it is a comfortable inn, on the rojdestvensky way, kept by a jew, and recommended to us by the swiss concierge of the st. petersburg hotel. "it is the hotel where the drummers go," he said. we had learned long ago that "where the drummers go," is where the best table will be found, for the world over, the drummer loves a knowing cook. so we went to the hotel berlin. we were there received by a little weazen-faced, black-eyed, dried-up man, who spoke in voluble german and broken english. "the police had notified him that we would come!" he said. he told us that "he had once lived in london!"--and declared that his rooms were exactly what we wanted, and his table "the best in moscow." he also confided to us that he was "fortunate in having at hand, immediately at hand, and now at our service, the most skilled and intelligent guide in moscow, who would be delighted to serve us, who was altogether at our disposal and whose charge would be 'only ten _rubles_ a day,' and the guide 'talked english.'" we thanked our host, took the rooms and accepted the guide. we have now been in moscow several days, and the guide has been faithful. he vows he has been twice in chicago. he says he is from hungary and he talks excellent german, but mr. c, who himself hails from chicago, is quite unable to comprehend the english of his speech. only my knowledge of german has saved the guide his _rubles_. moreover, his remembrance of chicago is indistinct, as well as of new york. indeed, his knowledge of america we are fain to believe is altogether hearsay. the nighest he has been to chicago, we surmise, was when a few years ago he "bought astrakhan lamb skins at nijni novo gorod for marshall field & company," whose agent we believe he may really then have been. he is now married to a russian, and it is many years since he has been back to hungary, nor does he have much occasion to talk german or english, except when he is acting as guide to americans. mr. c now and then forgets and attempts to use american speech in conversation with him, when there is entanglement. i am appealed to in german, the difficulty is cleared up, and so we get on. to-day, we have taken a _landau_ and have driven all about the city. just how shall i describe this strange commingling of past and present; of sumptuous splendor and squalor profounder than any seen in st. petersburg; of modern intelligence and mediaeval superstition; this city which contains a gostinnoi dvor, a magnificent building of white stone, extending over many blocks, a bazaar of six thousand shops, with a single steel and glass vaulted roof covering the entire immense series of structures as well as all included streets; this city of beautiful stores, displaying the costliest products of london, of paris and new york; which is lit with electric lights equal to berlin, and provided with a telephone service superior to that of london; this city where right alongside this modern bazaar, the handiwork of chicago builders, stand the towers and ramparts of the ancient kremlin; a city where at every corner of every street, swarm bowing multitudes worshiping before the innumerable eikons. [illustration: begging pilgrims, st. basil.] [illustration: the red square, moscow.] a strange and curious sight it is to see a street packed with people all bowing to a little picture stuck up in the wall. the eikon to the russian is even more important than the czar. he wears a miniature eikon hung about his neck as a sort of amulet. he puts an eikon in his house, in his shop, along his streets, and builds cathedrals and lavishes fortunes to house and adorn them. indeed, russia might be fitly termed the land of the eikon, for there, as nowhere else in all the world, has a simple picture been exalted to become an object of worship. the greek church allows no images. one of the serious causes of the great schism with rome in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was the strict interpretation by the eastern church of the injunction of the ii commandment, "thou shalt make no graven images," wherefore they declared the roman practice rank idolatry, but to the sacred pictures they gave their sanction. these eikons are mostly painted in the monasteries by monks of recognized holy lives. they are paintings of the christ, or of a saint, sometimes the virgin mary and the christ child together, and are often so overlaid with gold and jewels--tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewels--that only the eyes and the face may be seen, the draperies of the person being scrupulously imitated and concealed by the overlaid plates of gold. this afternoon we saw a big, black, hearse-like carriage drawn by six black horses, harnessed three abreast, accompanied by priests, to which all the people took off their hats and bowed and crossed themselves as it passed along. it was an eikon being carried to the death-bed of some penitent, who would be permitted to kiss it before death. sometimes these eikons work miracles and the dying sinner begins to recover so soon as it enters the room. all russians keep eikons in their homes, and generally have one in every room, before which a little candle is kept perpetually burning. and when a russian enters a house, he at once goes to the family eikon and bows and crosses himself before he greets his host. to ignore the eikon would be an unpardonable offense. in st. petersburg we procured a copy of the famous eikon which reposes in the little chapel of the house of peter the great, the portrait of st. alexander nevsky, which peter always carried with him into battle, and to the power of which he attributed the victory of pultova. the beautiful cathedral dedicated to "our lady of kazan," upon the nevsky prospekt, in st. petersburg, was erected in honor of victories brought to russian arms by the miraculous influence of her eikon. the russian lives in an atmosphere of eikons, and it takes a quick eye and an agile hand to doff your hat and properly bow, as the russian always does, whenever you pass by one. [illustration: cathedral of st. basil the blessed, moscow.] in this city of contrasts, in sight of the modern gostinnoi dvor, i must take off my hat in going through a "holy gate," and every man, woman and child i here meet are crossing themselves and bowing as they pass along! in mexico you do not feel so surprised at the superstition of the indian! but these are white men with blue eyes and yellow hair! this is a city which contains so splendid an edifice as the monster cathedral of saint savior, a pile of wonderful beauty, built of white granite, and domed with five gigantic onion-shaped, cross-topped cupolas, all sheathed in plates of solid gold; it is a city which contains four hundred and fifty churches, five hundred chapels, and convents and monasteries, how many i dare not say, all of them begolded and bejeweled inside and out with barbaric emblazonry. and yet it is a city, the streets of which are as ill-paved and as stinking as were london's five hundred years ago; a city where trade and enterprise are throttled by arbitrary and excessive taxation, while the common people have no schools, even as they have no votes. we had just left the imperial palace of the kremlin, the most gorgeous edifice my eyes have ever looked upon, where i had beheld such chambers of gold and precious jewels and priceless tapestry, as one only reads about in the tales of the arabian nights; where the vast hall of st. george in the czar's new palace is plated with gold from floor to ceiling, and the ceiling is altogether of gold; where is gold along the walls, panels of alabaster showing in between, ivory finish and gold, gold and lapis lazuli, gold and emerald malachite, gold in leaf, gold in heavy plate--gold everywhere. we were but the moment come out from this stupendous display of riches. we had just passed through the holy savior gate. our senses were still dazzled with this excess of reckless magnificence, when we found ourselves upon the red square--"red" because of the human blood spilled there in the countless massacres of moscow's citizens by past czars,--amidst the swarming throngs of the abjectly poor; men and women, pinched-faced and hollow-eyed; men and women who toil with patient, dull, dumb hopelessness, and who are thankful to eat black bread through all their lives, who are become mere human brutes! we saw many groups of these, gnawing chunks of the black bread for their dinner with all the zest of famished wolves, while they bowed and crossed themselves incessantly, thanking god that they were indeed alive! the wanton luxury of the rich, the pinching poverty of the poor, so widespread, so universal in russia, appal and shock me upon every hand. what are the political and social conditions which let these things be possible is the query which constantly hammers on my brain! until to-day, i have never understood the light and shadow of roman history, nor what manner of men made up the hosts and hordes of alaric and of attila. here, you see the whole story right upon these streets. we have not only visited the kremlin, its cathedrals and its palaces, its museums and its buildings of note, but we have also stood before and gazed upon that wonder of all churches, the cathedral of st. basil, the weird and gorgeous creation of vassili blagenoi, and lasting monument to the artistic sense of that monster-tyrant, ivan the iv, called the "terrible." in the cathedral of the archangel michael, within the sacred precincts of the kremlin, lie now their coffins side by side, costly coverings of gold-bespangled velvet enshrouding each; a strange example of the equality of death. the story runs: so delighted was ivan with the extraordinary and curious beauty of vassili's creation, that he gave a sumptuous banquet in his honor within the imperial palace and there, lavishly bepraising him before the assembled company, declared that it were impossible for human mind to create another building so wonderful in all the world. whereupon turning to vassili, he inquired of the flattered and delighted architect whether this declaration were not the truth. the gratified creator of the wonderful cathedral is said to have replied, "ah, sire, give me the money and i will build you another a thousand times more beautiful than the poor work i have already done." hearing this, the terrible ivan turned to his headsman who stood ever handy at his elbow, and ordered vassili's eyes to be immediately burnt out with red-hot irons, in order, as he declared, that there should never be again created so splendid an edifice; then, vassili dying as a result of the operation, ivan ordered a magnificent funeral and directed that the body be laid within the consecrated chamber of the cathedral, among the princes of the blood, where even to-day it yet remains. our hungarian guide vowed that this tale was the literal truth, pointing to the coffin which lay at our feet, among the relics of the house of rurik, as evidence incontrovertible. nor did we presume to doubt this instance of ivan's cruelty, so thick spotted are the pages of history with a thousand other instances of his devilish acts. ivan loved the sight and smell of blood. as a boy he delighted to torture domestic animals, and to ride down old women when he caught them on the streets. as a man, he had the archbishop of novogorod sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and thrown to savage dogs; frequently he dispatched his enemies with his own sword, and he publicly murdered his eldest son, the czarevitch. no malevolent scheme of the human mind was too cruel for his enjoyment. by him entire cities were devoted to destruction on the most trifling pretext. for one instance, the inhabitants of the commercial towns of novogorod (sixty thousand in novogorod alone) and of tver and of klin were massacred in cold blood under his personal supervision. he was more cruel than nero or caligula, and compared with the appalling atrocities of his reign, louis xi and ferdinand vii were gentle kings. [illustration: ancient pavements, moscow.] [illustration: bread vendors, moscow.] his presumption was equal to his cruelty, and he did not hesitate to send his ambassador to queen elizabeth to offer her the privilege of becoming his eighth bride. history knows no such other monster as ivan the terrible, who was undoubtedly mad; and yet he built beautiful churches and palaces, and did more to encourage art and culture within the confines of the empire than any other of the russian czars. we have also driven about the city and viewed the public buildings, the shops and the markets, and this afternoon have come out across the river moskva, and climbed the hills of vorobievy gory, the "sparrow hills,"--from the heights of which napoleon, on that memorable fourteenth day of september, , fresh from the victory of borodino, first viewed the city. in superb panorama, holy moscow lay stretched before us, its towers, its spires, its red and green and blue and yellow walls and roofs, its golden domes, presenting a most sumptuous harmony of color to the delighted eye. while st. petersburg is the political capital, yet moscow is the real center of russia. here is the focus of russia's industrial, commercial, financial and religious life. her "chinese bank" cashes notes on kashgar and pekin, and sells bills of exchange upon their banks in return. the street-life of this most russian city, the coming and going of its people, the commingling of these divers tribes and races, strikingly illustrates the heterogeneous character of the cumbrous empire. here pass me by the blue-eyed, tow-polled _mujiks_ from the provinces; here i meet, face to face, the swarthy skins which tell of tiflis and of teheran; here i touch elbows with kaftan-gowned traders from merv and samarkand, and silk-clad chinese merchants from the distant east. as i stroll along the nickols-skaia, the iliinka-skaia, or the rojdestvensky boulevard, and catch the glances of these faces which stare upon me with constant grave suspicion, doubtful, perchance, whether i am a foreign spy in bureaucratic employ, or a stranger friendly to the held-down people, i am musing upon the curious interweaving of science and superstition, of modern and mediaeval custom, which i here behold, and i ponder how work the hearts and minds behind these masks which alone i see. profound suspicion and discontent is the impression i receive. nowhere do i note a single instance of that joyous hopefulness which marks men's faces in america. the eye which here looks into mine has about it a gaze not frank and sunny, but furtive and melancholy as that of a chained-up wolf. gradually i am beginning to comprehend that the men i look upon, although clothed in the veneer of twentieth century civilization, are nevertheless in mind and heart barbarians,--barbarians chafing beneath the bitter burden of the hateful auto-bureaucratic rule; they are asiatic rather than european; even in discontent they lack the open-mindedness of the west; they belong to the mysterious and inscrutable peoples of the east. napoleon's saying, "scratch a russian and you will find a tartar," now comes to me with redoubled force. [illustration: the kremlin beyond the moskva.] despite the french telephones and the chicago-built bazaar, despite the splendid churches and the gorgeous kremlin, i perceive that these russians are yet the same as when byzantium sent st. cyril and his monks to christianize their savage ancestors thirteen centuries ago. xx. the splendid pageant of the russian mass--the separateness of russian religious feeling from modern thought--russia mediaeval and pagan. moscow, russia, _september , _. we have just been leaning over a guard rail of burnished brass, peering down into the half twilight gloom, beholding ten thousand russian men and women bending their swaying bodies, as a wheat field bends before the wind, crossing themselves in feverish fervor, even bowing the forehead to the marble floor and kissing it rapturously in the solemn celebration of the mass. we drove in a _landau_,--all four of us and our hungarian guide,--through the narrow, crowded streets. "drove," i say! rather i should say whirled, behind two mighty black arab stallions, which no man might hold, but only guide, and we never slackened our pace until we dashed up to the great white granite stairway of the vast cathedral of saint savior. our russian driver yelled, men and vehicles fled from our path, and yet we ran over no one, we killed no one! our furious horses stopped short on their haunches. two russian soldiers now held them by their heads. we drove like nobles. we must be grandees! [illustration: cathedral of st. savior, moscow.] the cathedral of saint savior has been nearly a century in building. founded in commemoration of the defeat of napoleon in , it has been slowly raised by means of the multitudinous contributions of the russian people. it is a square cross in outline, as lofty as the capitol at washington, and surmounted by five oriental domes, the central one bigger than the other four, all topped with greek crosses, and all covered with plates of solid gold, the burnished glittering splendor of which dazzle the eyes long miles away. within, the interior is tiled with rare marbles of divers colors, while the walls are decorated with priceless paintings by the most illustrious russian artists of the century, done by them at the command of the czar, with pillars of malachite and lapis lazuli, green and blue, standing between the splendid pictures. there are altars of solid silver covered with rare embroideries of gold and emblazoned with precious stones. close by each altar rests an eikon. a soldier in gold lace uniform opened our carriage door. he led us up the long flight of white steps--white in the golden sunlight--and pushed his way and ours through the bowing, crossing, sweating, stinking (the russian really never takes a bath) thousands, who, like ourselves, sought to enter the precincts of the most magnificent cathedral of "holy russia." we jostled against rich merchants and their wives clad in splendid furs and silks and adorned with many jewels; against military officers in long gray coats, high boots and caps of astrakhan wool or fur; and peasants, in sheepskin coats, belted at the waist, their legs wrapped in cotton cloth tied with leathern thongs, their feet bound up in straw. these farmers from the country are too poor to afford the luxury of socks and shoes. through all these the soldier with our _pourboire_ in his hand, forced his way--not always gently--and led us up a winding flight of one hundred steps to the series of galleries which run round the immense interior. here he again forced back the press of people until we might lean over the great brass rail and gaze down below! and what a spectacle! there, were ten thousand, twenty thousand,--i dare not say how many, men and women; all standing; all bowing; all devoutly responding to the intoning of the priests! three hundred men and boys clad in red and purple and golden vestments were chanting the melancholy music of the russian church! no organ is there allowed, no musical instrument, no instrument save that which god has made, the human throat! then, from the holy of holies, the innermost sanctuary, comes out the archbishop of all the russias, the metropolitan of "holy moscow," clad in vestments of gold and of silver, intoning the mystery of the mass! other priests stand close behind him, swinging censers of incense, and also chanting in melancholy mournful harmony with the mighty melody of the choir. never have my senses apprehended such opulent, refulgent splendor, such a pageant of gold and of purple, of jewels and of fine linen, such clouds of incense, such glorious, mighty music from the human throat! such fervor, such frenzy, such exaltation as i now beheld in the swaying, worshiping multitude! i was beholding the fervant, fanatical, hysterical religious feeling of the russian people, a people mediaeval in their blind superstition, mediaeval in their per-fervid ardor for their church! what i am writing of can only be impressions, and yet perhaps the impressions which i receive in my brief sojourn within the russian empire may more vividly portray that subtle, almost indefinable, atmosphere which broods over russia and marks it from all the world, than i might be able to do if i remained so long within her confines that i should lose the power. i have now sojourned in russia barely seven days, yet i feel as though i had spent a lifetime in another world than that of america. i hear no sound which is familiar. i cannot even count in russian. i see no street signs which my eyes have before beheld; even the alphabet, though greek, is yet enigmatically russianized. nor do i find that english or danish, french or german is of much avail. in the largest news emporium or bookstore, in st. petersburg, upon the nevsky prospekt, the other day, where twenty or thirty clerks were serving the public, there was no one of them who spoke or even understood either french, or german, much less english. in the chief bookstore in moscow, where a large trade is carried on, nothing is spoken but russian. after much search i did find one small bookshop where a clerk spoke passable french, and another where the jewish proprietor understood german. and while it is true that the high russian officer who escorted us from st. petersburg spoke fluently in german and in french, and while it may also be true that among the bureaucracy, and perhaps nobility, french is still generally understood, yet it is equally true that the present tendency in russia is to russify language as well as things, and that foreign tongues are less spoken and less known to-day than they were thirty or forty years ago. the russian is absorbed in himself, he knows little of the outside world and he cares less. the news of europe and of america and of all the earth only comes to him in expurgated driblets through the sieve of the censor. the saying that "there are three continents," the "continent of europe," the "continent of russia" and the "continent of asia," is no mere jest. one feels it here to be a verity. one feels that russia, despite her pretensions to the contrary, is mediaeval, that she is mentally and morally aloof from all the progress of the present century, from all the thought of modern peoples, and utterly remote from all touch with the progressive nations of to-day. in scandinavia, the world is abreast of the times, its peoples are advanced and alert, but the instant you cross the dead-line and enter russia, you feel that the world has taken a back-set of five hundred years, that russian life is so far behind all modern movement that it never can catch up. even the bigness of st. petersburg carries with it an impracticability that is itself mediaeval. st. petersburg did not grow up because there was need of a city on that spot. it was created as the deliberate act of a despot. peter the great feared to live longer in moscow. he had murdered and tortured too many of its worthy citizens. he had, for one job, hung eight thousand patriots in the red square; he had thrown ten thousand more into dungeons, there to rot. daring no longer to live in moscow, he founded the new capital, "petersburg," on the banks of the neva, which should become a seaport, be protected from his own subjects by the ships he himself would build, and house his government as safe from domestic as from foreign foes. he laid out the city with streets so wide that it has never been possible to pave them well. he provided public buildings so huge that it has never been possible to secure a foundation upon the neva's miry delta solid enough safely to hold them up. he drove the nobility into this quagmire city, and drew the bureaucracy up to its unstable ground. to-day, st. petersburg is a city of a million and a half of inhabitants, but if the russian czars should choose to reconstitute moscow their permanent capital, st. petersburg would again become a wilderness, a waste of marshy islands, desolate and bare. it is the hot-house plant of autocracy. there is no natural reason for it to exist. everywhere in russia one feels the certain so childish straining after effect which is mediaeval and barbaric. in the palace of the kremlin lies the disabled and gigantic cannon which catherine ii commanded to be cast, and which has never fired a shot for the reason that it was so big they could never find a gunner to serve and handle it. close beside it lies the enormous bell, the "czar kolokol"--king of bells--cast by command of a czar, so huge that it could never be lifted up into a belfry and which, falling to the ground from a temporary scaffold, cracked itself by sheer weight. it lies there a fit commentary on overleaping ambition. the cars and locomotives of the railways are uncouth from their very size. russia is like a big, loose-jointed, over-grown boy, a boy so constituted that he may never become a veritable man. the government arsenals and machine shops in moscow are run by german and english bosses. the russian makes big plans, but he does not possess the power himself to carry them to successful issue. the great empire is so spread out that pieces of it are even now ready to break off. an intelligent swede with whom i voyaged from stockholm, then living in st. petersburg, declared the day not far distant when not only finland, but the german provinces of esthonia and livonia and courland along the baltic, as well as poland, must inevitably crack off. and he declared that from mere internal cumbersomeness the russian empire must soon dissolve. it may be so. and one is here impressed with the fact that russia now chiefly holds together by reason of the military might of her autocracy, whose strength and permanence under serious defeat may vanish in a night. another thing i have become cognizant of is the fact that everywhere the men who do not wear a uniform hate the men who do. the cleavage parting the upper and the lower levels of russian life is immense. apparently there is no sympathy between them. the _mujik_ upon the street scowls at the uniformed official who drives by in his dashing equipage. he looks with surly countenance upon the grandee who nearly runs him down. he hates the men who so mercilessly wield authority and power, and who order the cossack to ride him down and knout and saber him into terrified submission. one morning we passed through a great square in moscow containing nothing but men--wild-eyed, long-haired, long-bearded men; men in rags, most of them, and all of them compelled to come there and wait to be hired to work. to that square must all working men go who seek work. the city feeds them while they wait, a single small piece of black bread each day. some never leave that square, but wait there their lifetime through. they gazed upon our handsome landau with hungry and wolfish eyes. how glad would they have been to tear us into pieces and divide what little spoil they might obtain! i never before beheld so frightful, unkempt a company of hopeless, hapless, hungry human slaves as these russian workingmen who waited for a job. [illustration: a moscow tram car.] [illustration: the out-of-works.] xxi. the first snows--moscow to warsaw--fat farm lands and frightful poverty of the mujiks who own them and till them--i recover my passport. hotel savoy, friedichs strasse, berlin, germany, _september , _. "_hoch der kaiser, hoch der kaiser! gott sei dank! ich bin in deutschland angekommen!_" have my brain and blood and bones been crying out all the last fifty miles, since we safely crossed the russian border. until the moment when the last russian official waked me up, held a light in my face, and, staring at me, compared my visage with what the passport said it ought to be, and handed me back that document to be mine forever, to be framed and hung up in my kanawha home, and preserved for my children and children's children as evidence that i came safe out of russia; not till that midnight hour did i realize that i belonged to the common teutonic brotherhood of men, and that puritan-descended american though i were, i and my german neighbor were yet really kin! but at that moment when we crossed the german boundary, i knew it and felt it in every fibre and tingling nerve. i was a teuton, i was a german, i was come again among my blood kindred. "_hoch der kaiser_," "_selig sei deutschland!_" i had come out of mediaevalism, from the shadows of barbarism, i was emerged into the light of the twentieth century's sun! we left moscow late sunday afternoon, in a blinding snow storm, the first of the year. in the morning, after attending mass in the cathedral of saint savior, we drove about the city enjoying the cloudless blue sky, the pellucid sunshine. we visited the gentile and jewish markets, and watched the pressing concourse of eager traders bartering and chaffering their goods and wares; we passed along the high frowning walls of the debtors' prison, where any man who has incurred a debt of five hundred _rubles_ ($ ) may be incarcerated by the creditor, and kept shut up as long as the said creditor puts up for him the very modest sum of about four cents a day for bread. when the creditor quits paying for his debtor's keep, the debtor comes out, but not till then. the fare at that price is not luxurious, and after a few weeks or months of the meagre diet, the debtor joyfully promises anything to escape and, sometimes, persuades his family or friends to compound with the creditor and get him out. but some there are who spend a lifetime within those walls. and our orthodox driver declared that a jew liked nothing better than to thrust and hold a hapless gentile debtor behind those gates. [illustration: monastery church, novo dievitchy.] [illustration: cemetery novo dievitchy.] [illustration: holy beggar, novo dievitchy.] the day was lovely and the air had almost the balminess of spring. men and women and children were going about in summer garments, no overcoats or wraps, and it might as well have been may or june. at the same time, we noticed that the windows of our rooms in the hotel were double-sashed and tight-corked with cotton, and i also observed that similar double windows were fast set on public buildings and dwelling-houses past which we drove. but otherwise, as we looked into the soft blue sky there was no hint of approaching frosts. it was near noon when we drove out to see the famous convent of novo dievitchy, and we spent a delightful hour in viewing its towered church, its cloisters, its nuns' cells and children's quarters, and the curious cemetery where are entombed many of moscow's most illustrious dead, tombs which are set above the ground amidst choice shrubbery and blooming plants. we had just come out, through the old arched gateway, and had encountered a band of holy beggars who absorbed our attention and our _kopeeks_. i had put the ladies into the _landau_, while the driver with great difficulty held back his restive, squealing stallions. my hand was on the carriage door, when i felt something soft and cold upon it. i looked up and behold! the air was full of big flakes of descending snow. the horizon to the north and east was black, the blue sky had grown a leaden gray. winter had come to moscow and to us as silently and as suddenly as it once came to napoleon and his thinclad army, near a century ago. there was no wind; the noises of the city were suddenly hushed; a great silence now brooded over moscow. the air was thick with big, fluffy, fluttering particles of whiteness which stuck to everything they touched, and never melted when they ceased to fall. we could not see across the road, even the horses were half hid. our driver gave full rein to the impatient team and we flew homeward, but the snow kept coming down just the same. it never melted anywhere. it grew into piles and mounds and soft feathery masses. it wholly concealed the scarred and rutted unevennesses of the road, it clung to twig and tree and fence, to gable, to window-ledge and lintel. king winter had breakfasted in archangel and, speeding across flat and unbarriered russia, now dined in moscow and would there permanently remain. and as suddenly all moscow now bloomed forth into sheepskin overcoats and elaborate furs and winter wraps. the citizens must have had them hanging behind the door upon a handy peg, ready for just such a sudden coming of the snows. by afternoon, sleighs and sledges jingled along the ways and boulevards, and stinking, filthy-streeted moscow was transformed into a city immaculate and pure. and the snow kept ever falling, falling, falling, steadily, softly, persistently, without let or stop. it was toward two o'clock that we took our final excursion out beyond the borders of the city to the summer palace of the czars, the favorite chateau petrovsky, where prior to the coronation every czar goes to repose and meditate and prepare himself with fasting and prayer for the ordeal of the tedious ceremonial in the cathedral of the assumption within the kremlin. [illustration: the kremlin beneath the snows.] the chateau is a large and rambling building of wood and brick, with extensive suites of big, bare rooms. behind it there lies a garden, laid out as though it were in france, with many graveled walks, and beds of flowers and edges of close-clipped box. here the czarina loves to wander, and here she passes many a quiet hour when escaped from the pomp and pressure of life in the kremlin's gaudy palace. here one bed of roses was pointed out to us as her especial joy. the old french gardener looked pathetic as he stood beside it and watched the big white flakes alighting upon each leaf and petal. "the snows are come," he said, "the garden dies, there will be no flowers more till another year!" and then, as if to save his cherished pets, he hastily gathered the finest of the blooms and presented them to h and begged her to accept and keep them, saying, "the snows are come, the czarina, the empress, will not now object; to-morrow these will surely all be dead." in the morning of the day before, we were told that, "to-morrow, or next day, or in a week, or a fortnight, will come the snows, we do not know how soon. but when they come, then we know that winter is begun, the long seven months of winter which will not leave us till may or june. it is then you should come to see us. then are these ill-paved and reeking streets white and hard and clean; the summer's dusts and heats are then forgot, and we quicken with the invigoration of the cold; then does the city gladden with the gay life of those returned from the summer's toil upon the wide estates, or from foreign lands, for winter is the season when all russians best love to be at home." we settled our hotel bills only after much argument with our host. we would not pay for candles we had not burned; our room was lighted with electric lights. we would not pay for steaks we had not eaten, nor chickens yet alive, nor for sweets we never tasted. no! for these and the like of these we flatly refused to pay. "de vaiter's meeshtakes, mein herr, sie shall kom oudt." one hundred _rubles_ for three days! moscow was as costly as london! through the falling snows, thick falling snows, we drove to the smolensk railway station, whence start the trains going west, for moscow has not yet arrived at the convenience of a union depot. although all railroads are owned and run by the government, yet each train starts from that side of the city nearest to the direction it will travel. we entered a long, low brick and wooden building, and passing through a wide dark waiting room, came out upon a wooden platform and were beside our train. we were ready to go. we had our tickets and our passports. three days before, almost as soon as we arrived, we gave the forty-eight hours' notice of our intention to leave russia, and the twenty-four hours' notice that we should also leave moscow. we were permitted to take our passports to the main ticket office up within the city, the kitai gorod, and presenting them, secured the tickets. we then returned the passports to the police department to be given back to us just before we left, by the big uniformed official at our hotel. but he did not return them until we first bestowed upon him another ten _rubles_, as we had done when leaving st. petersburg! now we were once more to surrender our passports to a new uniformed government official, the train conductor, who would also examine them, _visé_ them, and hand them to another when we came to warsaw, to be yet again scrutinized and stamped and only returned to us when we at last crossed the german border. nor even then until we should be finally inspected and compared by yet other officials so as to make dead certain that we were indeed the very self same travelers who now declared they wanted to get out of russia. the train was a long one. it was the through express carrying the imperial mails to vienna, berlin and paris. it would pass smolensk, minsk, "brzesc" (brest) and warsaw. it was one of the important trains of the empire. there were many passengers, and we were able to secure only a single stateroom with two berths in the first-class car for the ladies, while mr. c and i obtained two berths in the second class car adjoining. we might sit together during the day, but for the night we would be in different coaches. the berths in our sleeper were provided each with a mattress, and an extra _ruble_ gave us a pair of blankets, a sheet and a pillow. the cars were warm and double-windowed against the cold. we went about twenty miles an hour over a straight-tracked road, and our sleep was undisturbed. when i awoke in the morning and made my way toward the toilet, though early, i yet found a queue of men and women ahead of me, and had to fall in line and take my turn. a big bearded jew was just coming out of the little toilet room and a slim young woman was just going in, a young woman comely and with hair tangled and fallen down. this was bad enough, but between the tangled hair and myself stood another dame with locks quite as disheveled and unkempt. but i dared not quit my place, since an increasing number of men and women pressed uneasily behind me. my only chance was to stick it out until those coiffures should be restored to immaculate condition for the day. within the toilet there was no soap, nor towel, nor comb, nor brush, nor else but ice-cold water, and a wide open channel down into the bitter stinging air. but i had now journeyed somewhat in russia and had come fitly prepared. all night we had rolled through a dead flat country, passing smolensk, a large city of fifty thousand inhabitants, and all day we continued to traverse the same wide levels. the sky was blue, the air was cold and keen, there was a slight drifting of snow across the illimitable fields. peasants in belted sheepskin overcoats, which came down to the heels, were plowing in the fields, each behind a single horse, and women on their knees were planting, or digging out potatoes and turnips and beets. women were also hoeing everywhere, working like the men--mostly in short skirts, kerchiefs about the head, legs swathed in cotton cloth wrapped around and tied on with strings, feet like the men's, wrapped up in plaited straw. the houses were miserable wooden huts of only one story and with chimneys made of sticks and mud and built on the inside to save heat, and meaner than any cabins of the most "ornery" mountaineers of eastern kentucky and tennessee. there were no windows in the hovels, no openings but one single door. for the men and women who tilled the land, it was poverty, bitter poverty everywhere. yet we were traversing some of the finest, richest, most productive farming lands of russia; lands on which great and abundant crops are raised, or ought to be raised, and where these men and women ought to be living in ease and comfort by their toil, for these lands are largely owned by those who till and cultivate them, the "free and emancipated" peasantry of russia! but the great crops are of little avail to the helpless peasant. his industry brings him no cessation of grinding toil. he barely lives, often he starves, sometimes he dies, dies of starvation right on this rich, fat land he himself owns. the government of the czar knows just what each acre of his land will yield, and knowing this, it takes from the peasant in taxes the product of his sweat and toil, leaving him barely enough to live. there are no schools to teach the peasant. the high russian officer, the lieutenant colonel who guarded us from st. petersburg to moscow, said, "the peasant wants no schools." thus, he never learns his rights, the rights god wills to him. he keeps on toiling year in and year out, and the government of the czar squeezes from him his tears, his blood, his _kopeeks_, his life! and these men i saw were white men and owned the land, fat, fertile land, rejoicing ever in abundant crops! [illustration: a station stop, en route to warsaw.] a century ago, even thus were also the peasants of france ground down and pillaged by the king, the nobility, the government of the state. as i traveled through the fruitful valley of the loire two years ago, crossing central france, and beheld the smiling fields and well-planted meadows and perpetual cultivation of every foot of soil, until the whole land bloomed and bore crops like one mighty garden, i could not help wondering, as i looked upon the smiling countenance of the terrain, and upon the contented faces of the sturdy and thrifty peasantry who owned and tilled it, whether this present fecundity and agricultural wealthiness of rural france, does not, after all, repay the world and even france herself, for the terrors and the tears, the blood and the obliteration of the _l'ancien régime_, whose expungement by the revolution alone made possible to-day a regenerated and rejoicing france. we have passed through minsk, the ancient capital of lithuania, a city of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants of whom more than half are jews, and through brzesc (pronounced "brest"), another city as big as smolensk and renowned as a fortress, taken and retaken, lost and relost, through all the weary centuries of polish-muskovite wars. we have crossed the river bug ("boog") on a fine steel bridge, and entering pillaged poland, are now arrived within the borders of her great capital, warsaw ("barcoba," "varsova"), where we change to a train of german cars, of the narrower german gauge, and go on to berlin. just after leaving minsk, i fell into conversation with a most intelligent young jew from warsaw, who, among other things, spoke of russia and her ways, saying that, strange as it may seem, the people of poland prefer her harsh rule to the fairer dealing of the germans, for the reason that pole and russ both talk a slavic tongue, and race affinity constitutes a bond. yet said he at the same time, all poles dream of the day when a polish king shall again fill a polish throne, and the glories of their fatherland shall be restored. we reached warsaw only two hours late and pulled into the large stone station close alongside the berlin train. the porter grabs our bags. our small steamer trunk is shown to hold no _vodka_, nor contraband effects. "_nach berlin_," i shout, and we are transferred to a clean, comfortable german car. _gott sei dank!_ we feel a thousand times. we are almost free, almost escaped, almost beyond the russian pale. for a fortnight, we have been under constant, conscious, persistent surveillance. our guides have been in the employ of the police; strange men have followed us about upon the streets, have sat beside us in hotels, have scrutinized us with cold eyes upon the trains. we have been under the direct guard of armed soldiers, who have stood outside our stateroom door and slept beside us all the night. we have never, since entering russia, been free from the weasel-wit and ferret-eye of incessant espionage! and the dirt! dirty cars! dirty hotels! dirty carriages! dirty streets! dirty churches! dirty palaces! dirty men! dirty women! such is russia, a land where the world knows not water, except to skate upon when turned to ice. now we are in a german car, immaculately clean! clean, almost, as it would be in norway! we are in the modern world again. i feel great pressure in my heart to "_hoch der kaiser_", and this despite the fact that, like every right-minded american, i am bred to abhor the assumptions of hohenzollern kaisership even as strenuously as romanoff autocracy. yes! i feel great impulse to _hoch der kaiser_ and to cheer for germany and my german kin. xxii. the slav and the jew--the slav's envy and jealousy of the jew. now that i have had a glimpse of russia, you ask me, "why is the slav always so eager to do to death the jew?" wherefore this hatred which so constantly flames out in grievous pillage and wanton murder and blood-thirsty massacre of the children of israel? you say to me that in america for two centuries we have had the jew; that we now have millions of jews, and that they are patriotic and loyal citizens of the republic; that jews sit in our highest courts and render able and fair decisions, enter the senate of the united states and sit in congress, are sent to west point and annapolis and prove themselves devoted and efficient officers of the army and navy, are lawyers and doctors and distinguished members of the learned professions; that they display intelligence, industry and thrift, and are among the foremost citizens of the republic, and that many of these jews, or their fathers and mothers, have come direct from russia. and you ask me "why is it then that within the dominion of the czar the slav makes such constant war upon the jew?" if i were briefly to sum up my impressions of the real cause of the slav's hatred of the jew, i should say, jealousy and envy, and then ask you to remember that the slav is yet at heart a semi-asiatic and a barbarian. when journeying from st. petersburg to moscow the russian lieutenant-colonel said to me: "in america you select real men for presidents of whom roosevelt is the finest type, but in france the jews and financiers set up their tool for president." in a nut shell this high russian officer expressed the feeling of his own race toward the jew. the jew is a jew and the jew is a financier. the russians are jealous of his acquired wealth and of his ability to gather it and they hate him. a few days later, traveling from moscow to warsaw, we found ourselves sitting in a dining car with an elaborate bill of fare before us and yet we were like to starve right then and there. the menu was printed in russian; the attendants and waiters talked nothing but russian. we knew no russian and spoke in english, in german, in french, in danish without avail. the servants just stood there shaking their heads and saying, "_nyett, nyett_." ("no, no.") we were famishing but could order no food. just then a tall woman of courtly manner, elegantly gowned, came toward us from another table and said in perfect english that she had long lived in london, though now she resided in russia, and then, giving our orders to the waiters, she saved us from impending famine. she afterward told me that her passport had lapsed, and that the russian government now refused to let her leave russia because she was a jewess, while at the same time, they forbade her to remain longer in moscow, she having recently become a widow, and under the harsh laws of russia thereby lost her right of domicile within the city. she hoped to escape to america by bribing the officials at the border. at vilna, i fell into acquaintance with a young pole from warsaw, who spoke seven languages and among them german and english fluently, although he had never been outside the dominions of the czar. he was a strict jew, and he expressed great surprise when i assured him that in america a jew is treated just the same as a christian. he said he had heard that to be indeed really the fact, and he expressed the intention of some day coming to america to see for himself. he seemed both perplexed and gratified when he found that i showed him the same consideration i did my gentile acquaintances. in moscow we drove past the imposing front of the great jewish synagogue. the doors were barred. the structure was falling into decay. i learned that it had been closed for nigh twenty years by order of the imperial governor of moscow, prince vladimir, uncle of the czar; nor might any synagogue now be opened in moscow; nor might any jew now worship in any edifice; nor might any outside jew now come and live in moscow; nor might any jew living in moscow come back if he had once left the limits of the city; nor might he own any land in the city, nor practice a profession; nor might he marry a christian, nor might a christian marry him. the jews were also subjected to extra and particular special taxes, arbitrarily levied and collected by the autocratic government. the jew, right here in "holy moscow," soul and heart-center of the vast russian empire, was pillaged under the autocratic rule of the czar, persecuted under the hand of the holy orthodox church, plagued and preyed upon by a perpetually jealous and malevolent populace. the russian army officer sneering at monsieur loubet, president of france, whom he called the "tool of jews and financiers;" the courtly jewish lady; the intelligent jewish merchant of warsaw, who was so much astonished that i should show him the courtesy of an equal, the lowly _izvostchik_ driving me in his _droschky_ and pointing out the closed and moldering synagogue; each and all discovered in their divers ways the attitude of the slav toward the jew; and the officer revealed in his criticism of the ruler of russia's ally, the republic of france, the real underlying secret cause of the russian's animosity and hatred of the jew. that cause of hatred is the jew's ability to prosper without and in spite of the fostering care of the autocracy. the jew was a cultivated citizen-of-the-world when the slavic ancestors of the russian were unlettered nomads roving the illimitable wastes of scythia. in the temples and libraries of ancient egypt the jew acquired the culture and the learning of the pharaohs; amidst the palaces and hanging-gardens of imperial babylon and nineveh the jew learned the arts and the sciences of the assyrian and persian; plato and aristotle and the greek philosophers recognized in the jew a spiritual culture of exalted type, and granted him to possess a learning as encompassing as their own; the roman, practical, and master of the then known world, paid homage to the cultivated intelligence of the jew. [illustration: catching a kopeek--a beggar.] the monotonous plains of russia were yet filled with nomadic hordes of pagan barbarians when cordova was a paved city, its streets illuminated by night, its libraries and its university the center of the most advanced learning of the age; when the gigantic and splendid cathedrals of england and france were everywhere raising their mighty walls and spires for the perpetual glory of god and the inspiration of mankind; when the fleets of lisbon and genoa were discovering the farthest and most distant splendors of the orient and occident; when venice was mistress of byzantium and florence patron of rome; when hebrew savants, under the benign influence of saracen rule, were among the most learned and renowned leaders of moslem science; when the israelites of italy and france were intermarried among the proudest of the nobility and were even counselors of kings; when hebrew learning and hebrew wealth gave added momentum to the impulse of the renaissance. while during the centuries of the world's reawakening, even as during the preceding centuries of the crusades, just as throughout the long duration of the dominion of rome and of the eastern empire, the jew was ever recognized for his learning, culture and wealth. when st. cyril and his byzantine monks, in the seventh century, gave greek christianity to the russian pagan, the russian yet remained content with outward forms and ceremonies. he continued pagan at heart and persevered in worshiping the ancient ghosts and spirits, even as in many parts of russia he does to-day. he put on a christian coat, but he kept his pagan hide; and the russian orthodox christian has always remained a semi-pagan. the great mass of the russian people were serfs sold with the land up to , when alexander ii gave them nominal freedom, but a freedom without lands and without schools; a so-called freedom which has left the individual peasant, the _mujik_, as landless, as bitterly poor, as benightedly ignorant to-day as he was a thousand years ago; nor does the autocratic-bureaucracy of the czar give him hope of a better day. i journeyed through some of the richest farming lands in russia, and the farmers, the _mujiks_, whom i saw tilling the soil, plowing and digging in the fields, were so poor that their feet were wrapped in plaited straw, too impoverished to afford the luxury of a leathern boot! the government absorbs all the profits of the crops in payment for these lands and in taxes, as return for having made the _mujiks_ nominal owners of the soil and emancipating them from serfdom. on the other hand, the nobles are forbidden by caste spirit and tradition to enter into any career except the service of the state. the younger nobles and ruling breeds among the russian people are all sucked into the employ of the state by the maelstrom of bureaucracy. the youths of the nobility and gentry, and the more or less educated classes, must enter the navy, the army, and the service of the state. a government job for life is their only hope. they are not permitted to make money for themselves independently; they can only make money for the government of the czar and for themselves through "graft." the government wishes to do everything in russia. it deliberately invades the spheres of private enterprise; it deliberately seeks all the profit; it deliberately destroys the ambition and the power of the person; it deliberately annihilates and stifles individual initiative. in russia, the government runs all the railroads, most of the mines, many of the iron mills. it raises cotton; it raises wheat; it farms and it manufactures. it buys and sells. it runs all the telegraphs and telephones and express business. it opens all private letters and reads all the printed books and newspapers. it permits no letter to go through the mails, nor book nor newspaper to be read, which it deems to express sentiments inimical to the supremacy of the autocracy. i was threatened with imprisonment in russia for snapping a kodak without government permit. i was under police and military supervision and escort all the time i traveled in russia, even short as it was. nor did i dare to send a letter to america from russia, but wrote my thoughts with locked doors, and mailed my writings only when safe beyond the eye of the russian government spy. thus we find that, on the one hand, the peasantry are crushed, thrust down and pitilessly held in ignorance and superstition and bitter poverty; on the other hand, all the best ability and brains of the governing classes are commandeered into the army, or navy, or life-long government service, and with meager salaries and small pay. the big grafts, the soft snaps, the juicy chances must all belong to the government and flow into the coffers of the czar to keep fat and easy the imperial family and the swarms of parasitic tid-bit hunters who leech them. but even in autocratic russia, the grasping clutch of autocracy cannot hold up all the avenues of commerce, however far-reaching its embrace may be. hence, in those lines of enterprise, not absorbed and appropriated by the government, there is left open a clear path to whosoever may have the acumen to seize the opportunity. here is the chance of the jew. endowed with a keen and subtle intellect, educated by his own masters often to the highest training of the intelligence and disciplined by the hardships of persecution, he is at once an overmatch for the ignorant, brutal, poverty-haunted _mujik_, and fully the equal of the best breeds of governing slavs. those intellects which are the equals of his own are not in competition with him. the ablest of the slavs are earning a small salary in the army, in the navy, or as government officials; making what they can for themselves by more or less open graft, it is true, but without the incentive of other personal gain. so the jew gets on in russia. this progress is in spite of the jealousy and the hatred and the pillaging hand of the envious slav. [illustration: a cold day.] [illustration: along the river moskva, moscow.] there is, here and there, considerable wealth among many of the jews in russia. this is not true of all the jews. most of the jews are poor, frightfully poor, made and kept so by the laws; but there is wealth among some of the jews. the few wealthy jews do not always keep these riches within the dominions of the czar. the russians complain that the rich jews, while making their money in russia, yet lay it up in the banks of berlin, of vienna, of paris and particularly of london. when a russian governor wishes to squeeze a little extra pocket money out of the jews of his district, his city, his province, he cannot always lay hands on their money hoards. sometimes, then, he lets the street urchins plague them a little; the squeezed and squalid peasant is allowed to vent his envy of their wealth, even to knocking a jew down; now and then, these meanly-minded boys, these pinch-bellied peasants get out of hand and, stung by their blood lust, too hastily massacre more jews than the governor intended. this is about the size of the job that governor von raaben found to his credit in kischineff. the poor jews suffered for the prosperity of their rich brethren. the embittered and down-crushed _mujik_, galled and soured by reason of his own hapless and seemingly hopeless condition, vented his spleen at the first handy object, and the jew was handier, though not more hated, than the uniformed official of the governing autocracy. the russian, as an individual, is of a kindly nature. he is good to his wife, good to his children, good to his beasts. he has none of the roman-spanish pitilessness to dumb creatures. but the russian, after all, is an asiatic. the old saying, "scratch a russian and you'll find a tartar," is as true to-day as when the cossacks of catherine ii impaled and crucified men and women and children of the fleeing mongol horde, when these simply sought to migrate beyond the hectoring reach of russian rule. no bloodier chapter mars the annals of history than that of the russian slaughter of nigh the entire tekke turkoman race in her warfare of on the shores of the caspian, at geok tepe, when seven thousand women and children were stricken down in cold blood as they fled from kuropatkin's ruthless cossacks. nor is the world done shuddering yet at the atrocious barbarities under general gribski, governor of blagoveschensk, who commanded the deliberate drowning of the chinese inhabitants of that city but a few years ago, in , and in a season of prevailing peace, drove them before the knouts and bayonets of his cossacks into the hopeless waters of the river amoor by unnumbered thousands, old men and women and little children, so that for many weeks, nay months, the great river was so choked with the swollen bodies of the dead that navigation was at a standstill. [illustration: a russian jew.] no roman sack and pillage of a conquered city, not even the taking and wreck of jerusalem by titus and his legions, equals in horror and cold blood these late russian slaughters; not even the fire and sword of attila and his avenging huns wrought such woe and terror as have been wrought in these recent years by the servants of the czar; nor are the tormented souls of alva and his spanish veterans more deeply marked with blood-soaked scars than is the russian autocracy of to-day; nor mediaeval, nor modern times, nor pagan, nor moslem warfare, have known so monstrous a series of godless massacres of helpless humankind as those now standing to the credit of the russian autocracy during the last twenty-five years. the crime of kischineff is no more heinous than have been the slaughters of geok tepe, blagoveschensk and a thousand lesser human killings, nor more heart-sickening than were those awful visitations of slavic blood-lust upon creatures defenseless, helpless, abjectly terror-struck. it is only that it was committed in a season of profound peace, against a peaceful people, and at a time when all the world had the leisure to hear the dying wails of the hapless women and helpless children raped and ravished and torn asunder in the open day. notwithstanding these crimes which mar the pages of recent russian history, none would be more astonished than the russian himself, if he were made aware of the world-wide condemnation these crimes provoke. he would protest against so harsh an estimate of russian conquest; at most, when confronted with the facts, he would shrug his shoulders and urge that the responsibility lies not upon holy russia, but upon those who oppose her destiny to conquer and absorb. the thoughtful russian will declare that after all it is no more than the inevitable struggle of the survival of the fittest, and demonstrate that there are no feuds of race, other than the universal hatred of the jew, within the dominions of the czar. from the russian viewpoint these arguments are not unreasonable; the vast military establishment upon which rests the autocracy, necessitates foreign wars with weaker peoples, if for no other reason than to keep a busied soldiery from thinking too much upon grievances at home; through commercial expansion in asia, won by bayonet and sword, the autocracy has sought to secure compensation for the suppression of commercial opportunity at home! the problems of russia are, after all, economic rather than racial, and it is up to russia to solve these in accordance with the lessons and example of the enlightened nations of the west; let the nobility and educated classes, who are now sucked into and absorbed by the bureaucracy, take full part in the commercial and industrial life of the empire and receive full reward for the exercise of their energy, intelligence and skill; let them lift from the _mujik_ the crushing weight of the imperial taxes, divide with him the almost illimitable acreage of the imperial domain; and leave to him his fair share of the earnings won by his sweat and toil, and there will be no more geok tepes, blagoveschensks, nor kischineffs, nor will there be longer hatred of the jew. [illustration: taken in russia--taken in america. jewish types.] xxiii. across germany and holland to england--a hamburg wein stube, the "simple fisher-folk" of maarken--two gulden at den haag. london, england, hotel russell, _september , _ crossing the russian border in the night, we arrived at berlin almost before the dawn; the city lies only three hours (by train) beyond the russian line. the station we entered was spacious and clean, in sharp contrast to the dirty stations of russia; we were evidently come into a land blessed with a civilization of higher type. leaving the car, we were instantly beset by a regiment of smartly uniformed porters--old soldiers all of them--and were piloted by one tall veteran to a waiting _fiacre_, which soon carried us to the hotel savoy. it was early, not yet five o'clock, but the streets were already alive with an orderly and animated throng, who appeared to be workmen largely, carpenters, masons and day-laborers, each clad in his distinctive laborer's garb. they were on their way to work, for the working day is long in germany, ten and twelve hours, and the workingman is up betimes. we passed over asphalted streets where men in military-looking uniforms, with hose in hand, were washing down their surfaces, while others with big coarse brooms were sweeping them clean. berlin is a clean city, clean and neat as the proverbial german in america is known to be. alighting from our carriage, i was greeted in my own tongue, by the friendly mannered concierge, who instantly marked me for an american, and gave us comfortable quarters such as american dollars usually secure. [illustration: a dainty nurse maid, berlin.] h and i were now alone, our companions, mr. and mrs. c having left us at warsaw, where they would spend a week or two and learn something of poland. perhaps i might tell you right here, that the next morning, as we were leaving the hotel, i felt a hand upon my shoulder and, turning round, faced the two chicago travelers just then arrived. they had cut short their stay in warsaw, for the only american-speaking guide in that city was away on a vacation, and german and french to them were as impossible as polish. they confessed, also, that they had sorely missed their american fellow-travelers, and had hurried after us, hoping they might induce us to sojourn a little while in their good company. we spent our single day without trying to see museums and picture galleries, but taking a guide and a carriage, drove about the city and viewed its avenues and parks, its markets and busy thoroughfares, and noble public buildings, to catch what glimpse we might of the waxing capital of the german empire. the first impression berlin makes upon the stranger, especially the stranger new-come from russia, is that of its cleanliness and orderliness; and, i think, i here also felt the sympathy of blood-kinship with the well set-up and neatly clad men and women, whose faces might have been those of my fellow countrymen of st. louis, cincinnati or new york. berlin, to-day, fitly typifies modern germany and the modern german spirit. we drove everywhere over smooth streets, kept scrupulously clean. on either hand stretched miles of new and handsome buildings, modern in architecture and modern in construction, while the signs i saw were in latin text, instead of the gothic, a striking evidence of german progression. when we came to the lovely unter den linden, we left the carriage and wandered beneath its umbrageous trees and enjoyed, as every one must, the beauty of its vistas of greensward and carefully tended flowers. the german loves his flowers almost as devotedly as does his english cousin. we strolled also along the famous thier garten, which would be a magnificent boulevard in any city; and which the german kaiser has sought to ornament with innumerable ponderous groups of sculpture, preserving for the astonished world the commonplace memories of paltry ancestors. how much better would it have been to have adorned this stately thoroughfare with statues of illustrious germans, whose great deeds and works have contributed to the world's enlightenment and the fatherland's renown! to a democrat, bred to contemn the empty glitter and pretense of inherited privilege, it almost stirs one's anger to see so splendid a public highway as the thier garten thus arrogantly defaced. in this capital of an empire, whose foundation is set on bayonets and swords and the "biggest guns," where militarism runs riot, there is no surprise in finding the streets filled with soldiers and officers, and to meet frequently a marching company, nor does it astonish one to see here the extreme development of the spirit of military caste. here, the civilian, man as well as woman--no matter how well clad he or she may be--must turn aside for strutting officer and also, as for that, for the common soldier, and all traffic must hold back to let a company of soldiery pass by, even though they are out only on errand of trivial exercise. here in germany, perhaps as nowhere else, have the clever supporters of royal and imperial pretension worked the army racket to the limit, through creating a perpetual scare that greedy neighbors will devour the fatherland. the citizen of berlin is never allowed to forget that little more than a century ago, cossack hordes pastured their ponies in the parks and gardens of the german capital; and can gallop there again from their polish camps in a single day. the army has been built up on the pretense that it is necessary for national defense, and thus the kaiser, who is permitted to occupy the position of army chief, holds at his command these enormous military forces, while he uses them the rather to exalt his own prerogative and subvert the people's inborn rights of individual sovereignty, which is the highest gift of god to man. the splendid building of the reichstag, where the socialist party of germany, to-day, makes its almost vain attempt toward securing to the people a freer exercise of man's natural rights, is thus menaced by the colossal military group which stands before it, as though to teach the lesson that the sword still rules the fatherland. in the evening, our guide, who had privately confessed to me that within the year he would travel to new york there to become manager of a great hotel, led us to one of the more notable bier garten, where we saw a most german vaudeville, the feats of whose performers were greeted with vociferous _hochs_, and where we listened to a splendid band, and where h had her first sight of ponderous germans absorbing beer, with which spectacle she was much impressed. wednesday, we were early astir, driving to the hamburgischer bahnhoff, where we took the fast nine o'clock express for hamburg, and flew along over a well-ballasted road-bed through a dead-flat country, in what the germans proudly call their "fastest" train. the panorama was one of market gardens and intensely cultivated land. it was a monotonous prospect, where the alikeness of the vistas was emphasized by the sentinel stiffness of the ever recurring rows of lombardy-poplars. as in russia, men and women were everywhere working in the fields and gardens, but unlike russia, they were well clad and well fed, and bore an air of thrifty contentment. there was no dilapidation anywhere. we saw no longer the tumbled-down shacks of the _mujik_, but everywhere substantial, neat homesteads of brick and stone. [illustration: hamburg street traffic.] ours was a through train connecting with the hamburg-american line of steamers for new york, and with the through railway express traffic for france and belgium, via cologne. the passengers were chiefly of the well-to-do commercial classes, or those substantial travelers who would hasten quickly between germany and france. none the less, at the few stations where we halted, did the entire company instantly burst forth, hastening to the long counters, where they convulsively swallowed foaming schooners of beer and eagerly devoured sundry dainties, such as rye bread spread with goose grease and over-laid with _kraut_ or _wurst_, and varnished _pretzels_ salted to the limit. even the babies were held at the open windows and foaming mugs of beer poured into them by their fond parents. the passion of the german for his _bier_ equals the russian's thirst for _vodka_. we reached hamburg a little after half past one, when, taking a _fiacre_, we immediately drove to cook's tourists' agency, where i booked to london, via amsterdam, the hague, the hook of holland, and harwich. then, for an hour, we strolled about the city. hamburg possesses fine retail shops and abounds in restaurants, bier-keller and wein-stuben, establishments devoted to the solace of the inner man. stricken with hunger-pangs, and not knowing just where to go, i accosted a tall and prosperous-looking burger, telling him we were americans in search of food. lifting his hat, he "begged to be allowed to guide us to the finest wein stube" in the town, whither his own steps were at that moment bent. he led the way to a quiet side street, where, descending a flight of stone steps, he introduced us to the portly master of the _stube_. we entered a succession of large cellars, paneled and ceiled in oak and floored with patterned tiles, where small round-topped wooden tables were set about. we were conducted to a cozy corner, and rhine wine, cheese, sausage and fresh rye bread were set before us, as well as mustard and sour pickles and pats of sweet unsalted butter, and to this was added a palatable stew. the room was filled with men--big, well-fed, well-clothed men, apparently merchants, ship-masters and men of affairs. they fell-to upon their flagons of _wein_, their _wurst_ and _kraut_, their _braten_ and _fisch_ with serious and deliberate devotion. it was that time of day when, in america, the prospering businessman eats lightly, smokes sparingly and touches liquor not at all, holding his intellect alert and whetted to its keenest edge. we watched with wonder these men of hamburg, while they poured down quart after quart of wine, the air growing thick with the fumes of strong tobacco. this capacity of hans to eat heavily and mightily liquor-up and yet transact affairs, bespeaks a hardness of head and toughness of stomach which ranks him neck and neck alongside his cousin bull as co-champion of the bibulating, gastronomizing world. [illustration: our bill of fare.] although h was the only woman in the _stube_, being recognized as americans, we were treated by the company with greatest courtesy and that invariable friendliness with which, in germany, my countrymen are everywhere received. upon departing, mein host presented me with an attractive little ash-tray to add to my collection of souvenirs and, with much ceremony, bestowed also upon mine _frau_ an illuminated catalogue of his store of wines. later, we entered a comfortable _landau_ and for several hours were driven about the city. hamburg has always been an important city and one where great volume of business has been transacted. in the middle ages it was a member of the hanseatic league; in after days it was a free city and, even at this time, its citizens view its absorption within the german empire not altogether with satisfaction. it bears the marks of great antiquity. quaint and picturesque are the lofty mediaeval buildings which lean over its canals, where men and women push, with long poles, blunt-ended canal boats and clumsy-looking, but storm-proof, sloops and luggers, among perpetual cries and clamors; where sturdy black tug boats incessantly shove their way; and where is a jam and jostle of inland water-life not unlike that seen in holland. many narrow streets cross these canals on high-built bridges, bearing a continuous and deliberately-moving traffic. hamburg also possesses noble boulevards, long and straight and wide, and well-shaded with umbrageous lindens, where, set back behind high walls and strong-barred gates, are miles of sumptuous mansions, in which her merchant princes maintain their households in unostentatious luxury. the wealth of the merchants of hamburg is said to exceed that of the aristocratic office-holding classes of berlin. there are also spacious docks in hamburg, convenient and modernly equipped, where, year by year, gathers an increasing shipping to fetch and carry the rapidly developing foreign commerce of the german empire. the wealth and energy of the german hinterlands pours itself eagerly into hamburg's lap and the ancient mediaeval city now finds itself, unlike somnolent copenhagen, at the very forefront of europe's activity. hamburg is, commercially, more alive and active than berlin, and as a port receives more shipping than london. hamburg is almost as wide awake as is new york. after our drive, we came to the hotel europaer, where we dined and rested, and then departed a little before midnight for amsterdam. although this is the regular passenger service to holland, there was no through sleeper, and we were compelled to change at oestenburg, where we caught the night express from cologne. then in a comfortable "_schlafwagen_," wrapped in our sea-rugs, we slept soundly the balance of the night. [illustration: a kinder of maarken.] [illustration: a gentleman of maarken.] we arrived at amsterdam near eight o'clock and found our way to the hotel victoria, near the station, where i enjoyed such delicious coffee two years ago, and there we breakfasted: coffee,--a great pot of fragrant java,--abundant milk, sweet and delicious,--rolls and big fresh eggs, and a fish which much resembled the danish _roed spoette_ and english sole. it was a delightful breakfast, such as one is always sure to have in holland. two years ago, i devoted my time to viewing the city, so now we resolved to see somewhat of the country beyond the limits of the town. thus it happened that we boarded a taut little boat in the midmorning and all day long steamed through canals, with many locks, passing above picturesque farmsteads and villages, down upon which we looked from the higher level of the diked-up waters, and floated at last upon the zuyder zee. we later visited the island of maarken with its fisher-folk in quaint and ancient costume. once "simple peasants," but now, alas! ruined by the staring, money-shedding tourist. we had scarcely set foot upon the island, when we were stormed by a horde of men and women, boys and girls, each demanding "mooney," and imploring us to snap the kodak at them for the cash; begging us also to visit their particular homes, where we would be allowed to look inside the door, and perhaps inspect the house, for more dutch _cents_ and even _gulden_. so persistent were these "simple fisher-folk" that i almost fell into dire mishap. h suggested she should take my photograph, whereupon i arranged myself before the camera, when, just as the kodak clicked, a _vrow_ and several _kinderen_ rushed up and took position by my side, thus necessarily appearing in the picture, as you will see. the lady backed by her brood thereupon demanded, "mooney, mooney, mooney." naturally, i refused to pay for what had been given without request. the little company immediately raised a loud lament, at sound of which an immense and bow-legged fisherman appeared upon the scene, lifting a great oar and threatening my annihilation, unless money were put up. however, i was firm and fearless, and finally convinced him that i had not requested the family to stand before the lens, while i showed him i had already added half a _gulden_ to his chest for inspection of the home. comprehending this at last, his anger then turned upon his spouse, and he sulkily drove her and the _kinderen_ within their door, using language that sounded much like the english damn. leaving the island, we came home across the zee and passed through the huge new locks of the river amstel, the "_dam_" of which, keeping out the waters of the zuyder zee, gives to the city its name,--_amstel-dam_. [illustration: among vrow and kinderen, maarken.] the little boat we sailed upon was chiefly filled with holland folk, for we were behind the tourist season. they were a quiet, undemonstrative company and, on the deck, sat about in little groups and were served with schiedam _schnapps_ in small glasses by white-aproned waiters and smoked long, light-colored sumatra cigars. the proverbial hollander, fat and chunky with an enormous pipe, is now a mere tradition. the dutchman of to-day, like his english cousin, is long and lean, and might almost be taken for a new england yankee. an hour by rail brought us to "den haag." we passed among broad meadows, marked by wide black ditches from which gigantic pumps incessantly suck out the seeping waters and pour them into the sea. these meadows were once the bottom of the ocean, the soil being composed of the rich alluvial silt which the continental rivers have for centuries discharged. indeed, holland may be said to consist of the submerged deltas of the rivers scheldt and rhine, which the indefatigable industry of man has rescued from the sea. these lands are of inexhaustible fertility and upon them, everywhere, we saw grazing herds of black-and-white holstein cows, whence come the butter and cheese for which holland is famous, and the delicious milk which is so abundantly offered us at every meal. the roadbed ran high above the meadows, down upon which we looked. here and there we espied a cluster of neat farm buildings, reminding me much of the dutch homesteads along the hudson river valley, and stretching from albany along the mohawk, in new york,--with this difference, however, that here, each house and barn and garden lay surrounded with its own diminutive canal, where were little foot-bridges and skiffs fastened near the kitchen door, even a large canal boat being often moored against a barn, the better to float away the loaded hay. the dutchman finds life intolerable unless he has his own canal right at his threshold. farther along, the landscape was marked with innumerable windmills turning their ponderous arms slowly to the breeze which crept in from the sea; we counted i do not know how many, there seemed never to be an end. the people we saw were stout and rosy-cheeked, and moved with less alertness than do the norwegians, nor did they have about them that air of busy-ness which the modern german begins to show. the impression made by the hollander is that of sureness and deliberation. the cocky strut of the frenchman, who moves ever as though on dress-parade, is entirely wanting to the hollander, whose demure exterior gives no hint of the wealth, the talent, the high importance hid within. the journey from amsterdam to the hague takes scarcely an hour, and before we knew it we drew in to the large station of the dutch capital. the soldierly-clad porters are not here as numerous as in germany, nor did those who served us move with so self-conscious and self-important a gait. men in quiet, dark-blue uniforms quickly put our baggage into an open _fiacre_ and we drove to the hotel of the "twe stadten," a comfortable inn facing a large well-shaded "_park_." we were given a commodious chamber looking out upon a pretty garden and dined, at a later hour, in the long, low-ceilinged dining room. the guests were few, only one other party beside ourselves dining thus late. they were two tall and white-haired dames, gowned in black silk with much old lace round about the throat, and with them a petite and pretty señorita, who spoke in spanish and insisted upon puffing cigarettes. she led the way from the dining room smoking jauntily, the two chaperones following respectfully behind. [illustration: along the zuyder zee.] [illustration: a load of hay, holland.] [illustration: dutch toilers.] [illustration: a watery lane, den haag.] in the morning we spent delightful hours in the national picture galleries looking at the priceless collections of the rembrandts and rubens, which the dutch government has here assembled; in the afternoon we strolled about the clean, quiet city, beneath the over-spreading elms; and then we supped at scheveningen, where we saw the sea again and the last of the season's fashionable folk. a moment before leaving our hotel to take the train, which would carry us to the hook, i had my last adventure among the canny dutch. upon the table in our chamber lay an attractive little ash-receiver, which any smoker must needs long to own. quite naturally, it became entangled with our sundry purchases and scattered belongings and with them was inadvertently put away. just as we were quitting the apartment, the head waiter of the inn, in whose charge we seemed to be, burst in upon us with wild anxiety in his eye and explained in broken english, that he instantly observed, upon scrutinizing the chamber, that a most valuable piece of delft ware had mysteriously disappeared. perhaps we had broken it? at any rate, it was gone and he would be held responsible for its loss. two _gulden_ would barely replace it! "what should he do?" naturally, i explained that my wife by mistake had probably packed it up, and begged him to advise the office that, upon settling my bill, it would give me pleasure to deposit two _gulden_ against the loss. at a later time, when exhibiting this relic to wiser eyes, i was forced to recognize that the little ash-receiver was merely common ware, of value perhaps ten dutch _cents_! so much for the knowing dutchman who traps the traveler in search of souvenirs! two hours after leaving the hague we were upon the ship which would carry us to england. by early morning we were again at harwich, and we arrived in london by mid-afternoon. our only fellow passenger upon the train was a tall, dark, silent man, who carried with him an enormous overcoat of fur. we thought him a russian, and wondered if he also had come directly from the empire of the czar. we are now returned to london, whence we departed five weeks ago. we have crossed the north sea, and journeyed through denmark, and norway, and sweden, and visited their capitals. we have voyaged across the baltic sea and the gulf of finland; we have caught a passing glimpse of helsingfors, and looked upon st. petersburg and moscow, and traveled many hundred _versts_ through the empire of the czar. we have sped through germany and felt at home in the noble cities of berlin and hamburg. we have tarried in amsterdam and den haag, where we felt the strangely familiar atmosphere of dutch new york. we have looked upon many peoples of the teutonic races and, when among them, have felt that subtle throb of kinship, which common blood and common origin awake; we have also plunged a moment within the mediaeval and yet semi-barbarous dominions of the slav and found ourselves upon the threshold of mysterious asia. [illustration: the gossips, den haag.] [illustration: the fish market, den haag.] we have everywhere been thankful in our hearts that we were born and bred beneath the stars and stripes in the great republic of the west, where hope and opportunity are not merely our own, but are also the loadstars which beckon thither the youth and vigor of these older peoples of the world. index aabo elv, alexander nevsky monastery, amagertorv, the, american belles and viking beaux, american dollars and norse farms, american emigration from norway, american influence on norway, american navy, norse sailors in, american spirit, amsterdam, arctic twilight, the, ash receiver, incident of, aurdals vand, the, baegna elv, baltic sea, crossing the, baltic sea, a storm on, bandaks vand, belts, big and little, berlin, city of, berlin, hotel at moscow, bier garten, berlin, blagoveschensk, boerte dal, borgund, ancient church of, breifond, hotel, bruce fjord, brute, a titled, brzesc (brest), buarbrae glacier, the, bug river, caste, influence in russia, cathedral of the archangel michael, cathedral st. basil the blessed, cathedral st. savior, churches and schools in norway, churches, st. petersburg, climate of western coast norway, coasting down the laera dal, condit, mr. and mrs., copenhagen, cossack hordes, cruelty of ivan the terrible, cruelty of peter the great, cruelty of past czars, cruelty of modern russia, dalen, danish friends, our, democratic trend in sweden, denmark, a small country, dinner party, an evening, dining service at ed., discontent of russian masses, dogs of copenhagen, dutch, impressions of the, eida, eids elv, eikon, the, elsinore, esbjerg, etna elv, along the, fagernaes, farming in norway, fat farm lands of russia, finland, finland, the gulf of, flaa vand, fleischer's hotel, fog, the, leaving harwich, folgefonden, ice field, fosheim, france and the jews, france, modern france, contrasted with russia, french fellow-travelers, our, - frydenlund, night at, - gammel strand, the, fish-market, geok tepe, german bride, the lovely, german fellow-travelers clamor for bier, our, german car, in a, german ogre hungry for denmark, germany, we enter, germany, journey to hamburg, gors vand, government monopoly in russia, graft, mulcted for passports, - - granheims vand, gravens vand, gribski, general, grungedals vand, gudvangen, gulden at den haag, two, hague, the, hamburg, hamlet's ghost and grave, hangoe, we make port, hardanger fjord, the, harvesting in norway, harwich, departure from, - harwich, return to, haukeli fjeld, the, haukeli fjeld, descending from the, haymow flying through the air, height of land, crossing above nystuen, helsingborg, helsingfors, herring catch at elsinore, hoch der kaiser, holger danske, legend of, holland, passing through, hollander of today, the, hook of holland, the, hotel berlin, moscow, hotel breifond, horre, hotel continental, stockholm, hotel dagmar, copenhagen, hotel de'l europe, st. petersburg, hotel fleischer's, voss, norway, hotel haukelid, norway, hotel kristiania missions, hotel savoy, berlin, hotel sleibot, elsinore, hotel stalheim, norway, hotel twee stadten, the hague, hotel victoria, amsterdam, imperial apartments, st. petersburg, imperial mail train, russia, ivan the terrible, izvostchiks, - - jew, cultivated citizen of the world, jews' opportunity, the, jewess, russian, jewish synagogue, moscow, jotunheim, jutland, to funen and zealand, juno, a viking, kilefos, king oscar ii, an incident, kischineff, massacres of, kremlin, the, kristiania, kristiania to stockholm, kronborg, kronstadt, fortress of, laera river, the, laerdalsoeren, lap dish-wiper, a, life and color of swedish capital, - loeken upon the slidre vand, london, departure, london, return to, lotefos and skarsfos, lubin, the eating room at, maarken, island of, maarken, in a tight place, maidens milking goats, maristuen, militarism, in germany, military guard, - minsk, moscow, en route to, - moscow, arrive at, moscow, moscow, our guide in, moscow, street life, moscow, we leave, mujiks, frightful poverty of the, - mujiks, hatred of bureaucrats, naeroe fjord, nelson, u. s. senator, neva, entering the river, nordsjoe vand, north sea, crossing the, norwegian bride, a, notes and comments on norse life, notice to police, novo dievitchy, monastery, novogorod, odda, the voyage to, odda to horre, odnaes, ole mon, our driver, ole mon, i fall into rhyme, opheims vand, pageant of russian mass, palaces of st. petersburg, passport system of russia, - peat beds in norway, peter the great, petrovsky, chateau, pixies and sprites, poland and the poles, police at st. petersburg, problems of russia economic, raaben, general von, railroads--danish, - english, german, norwegian, - russian, - - swedish, rand fjord, upon the, recruiting farm hands for america, red square, moscow, religious feeling in russia, rembrandt, revolution in russia inevitable, roldals vand, roosevelt, russians admire, rubens, rundals elv, rurik, house of, - russians barbarians, russian dirt, russia, how we entered, russia, mediaeval and pagan, sandven vand, scandinavian state, united, - scheveningen, schools, in norway, schools, lack of, in russia, - seljestad hotel, our hostess, seljestad juvet, serfs, in russia, ships, on north sea, ships, on gulf of finland, skansen park, skien, skjervefos, the roaring, skodshorn, the legend of the, skogstad, the night at, sleeping car, swedish, slidre vand, smidal fjord, smolensk, snow, the first, snows, distant, sogne fjord, on the, south african trooper, incident, sparrow hills, staa vand, staavanger, stalheim to vossvangen, stars, we are the, stockholm, stockholm and the swede, stockholm, the hotel at, stockholm, life and color of, st. peter and st. paul, church of, st. petersburg, stranda vand, the, summary of impressions, sund, the, sund, the, crossing to sweden, swede and norsk, differentiation of, swedish coffee house, a, swedish sleeping car, a, telemarken fjords, the, - teutonic kinship, thier garten, berlin, three continents, tivoli gardens, copenhagen, tomlevolden, tonsaasen, sanitorium of, trolls and pixies, trolls and witches, tver, city of, tvinde elv, twilight, the arctic, ulivaa vand, utro vand, vangs vand, vangsmjoesen vand, valdai hills, volga river, - voss or vossvangen, voxli vand, warships, incident of american, wealth of churches, st. petersburg, - wealth of few, poverty of many, russia, - - wealth of few, russia, wedding party, a, wein stube, hamburg, western alps of norway, winter, preparation for, workingmen's square, zuyder zee, [illustration: map of north europe.] [illustration: map of scandinavia and baltic russia, in profile.]